Harpreet Singh Kohli at 12:03, 31 January 2026

2026-01-31T12:03:01Z

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{{Short description|Bengali scholar and Sufi saint (1865–1937)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{more citations needed|date=April 2015}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| honorific_prefix = [[Sayyid|Syed]]
| name = Gulamur Rahman
| honorific_suffix = Maizbhandari
| image =
| birth_name = Syed Gulamur Rahman
| birth_date = {{Birth date text|1865}}
| birth_place = [[Fatikchhari Upazila|Maizbhandar]], [[Bengal Presidency]], [[British India]]
| death_date = {{Death year and age|1937|1865}}
| death_place = [[Fatikchhari Upazila|Maizbhandar]], [[Bengal Presidency]], [[British India]]
| body_discovered =
| resting_place = Shrine of Syed Gulamur Rahman Maizbhandari, Maizbhandar, Bangladesh
| known_for = 2nd leader of the Maizbhandari Sufi Order
| religion=Islam|denomination=[[Sunni]]|Sufi_order=[[Maizbhandari]]|jurisprudence=[[Hanafi]]
| children =
| relatives = [[Syed Najibul Bashar Maizbhandari]] (grandson) [[Syed Ahmad Ullah]] (uncle) [[Sayed Ziaul Haq|Ziaul Haq]] (grandson)
| module = {{Infobox Arabic name|embed=yes
| ism = Ghulām ar-Raḥmān غلام الرحمن
| nasab = ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Muṭīʿ Ullāh ibn Ṭayyab Ullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Ḥamīd ad-Dīn بن عبد الكريم بن مطيع الله بن طيب الله بن عبد القادر بن حميد الدين
| laqab = Bābā Bhandārī بابا بهنداري
| nisba = al-Māʾijbhandārī المائجبهنداري as-Sayyid السيد}}
}}
{{Sufism}}

'''Gulamur Rahman Maizbhandari''' ({{langx|bn|গোলামুর রহমান মাইজভাণ্ডারী}}; 1865–1937), also known by his [[sobriquet]] '''Baba Bhandari''' ({{langx|bn|বাবা ভাণ্ডারী}}), was a [[Bengalis|Bengali]] [[Sufis|Sufi]] preacher who succeeded his uncle, [[Syed Ahmad Ullah]], as the head of the [[Maizbhandari|Maizbhandari Sufi Order]], the first such Sufi order in [[Bengal]].<ref name=Harder22>{{Citation | last = Harder | first = Hans | title = Sufism and Saint Veneration in Contemporary Bangladesh: The Maijbhandaris of Chittagong | date = 4 March 2011 | publication-date = 2011 | publisher = Routledge | pages = 25, 26 | isbn = 978-1-136-83189-8}}</ref>

==Background and ancestry==
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2016}}
Gulamur Rahman's father was Abdul Karim Shah, younger brother of [[Syed Ahmad Ullah]], and his mother was Musharaf Jaan. His paternal ancestors were Syeds and originally migrated from [[Madinah]] to [[Gauḍa (city)|Gaur]], the former capital of medieval Bengal, via Baghdad and Delhi. His ancestor, Hamid ad-Din, was the appointed [[Imam]] and [[Qadi]] of [[Gauḍa (city)|Gaur]], but due to a sudden epidemic in the city, Hamid later migrated to [[Patiya Upazila|Patiya]] in [[Chittagong District]].<ref name=Harder>{{Citation | last = Harder | first = Hans | title = Sufism and Saint Veneration in Contemporary Bangladesh: The Maijbhandaris of Chittagong | date = 2011 | publisher = Routledge | pages= 15–22 | isbn = 978-1-136-83189-8}}</ref> Hamid's son, Syed Abdul Qadir, was made the ''imam'' of Azimnagar in modern-day [[Fatikchhari Upazila|Fatikchhari]]. He had two sons; Syed Ataullah and Syed Tayyab Ullah. The latter had three sons; Syed Ahmad, Syed Matiullah and Syed Abdul Karim, and the youngest son was the father of Gulamur Rahman.

== Early life and education ==
Rahman was born into a [[Bengali Muslim]] family in the village of Maizbhandar in [[Fatikchhari Upazila|Fatikchhari, Chittagong]] on 14 October 1865. His uncle, who called him "the rose of my garden", entrusted him with the teaching of students, particularly adepts.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bertocci |first=Peter J. |date=February 2006 |title=A Sufi movement in Bangladesh: The Maijbhandari Tariqa and its Followers |journal=Contributions to Indian Sociology |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=9|doi=10.1177/006996670504000101 |s2cid=144167466 }}</ref> He spent time wandering alone in the woods as part of his spiritual studies.<ref name=Harder22/> Around 1914, he entered a state of meditation and stopped speaking except on rare occasions, thus becoming known as a magdub [[pir (Sufism)|pir]]. In 1928, he moved out of his father's house into his own, where disciples and his four sons took over responsibility for the order's administration.<ref name=Harder22/>

== Succession from Syed Ahmad Ullah ==
According to German scholar Hans Harder, there is disagreement over the type of spiritual mandate Gholam Rahman received from [[Syed Ahmad Ullah]] and his status as a saint. Writers from Rahmaniyya Manzil, the house of the descendants of Gholam Rahman, class him as a ''ġawṯ al-aʿẓam'', the highest category of ''walī Allāh'', alongside Ahmadullah, and sometimes claim that he was installed by Ahmadullah as his spiritual successor (''sağğādanašīn''). The descendants of Syed Ahmad Ullah, however, insist that he was Ahmadullah's main delegate (''pradhān khaliphā''), and object to him receiving the title of ''ġawṯ al-aʿẓam'', though it does appear in one of Delawar Hosain's writings.<ref name=Harder22/>
[[File:Hand Writing of Baba Bhandari.jpg|alt=Hand Writing of Baba Bhandari|thumb|Hand Writing of Baba Bhandari]]

==See also==
* [[List of Sufi Saints of South Asia]]
* [[Abdul-Qadir Gilani]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{cite journal |last=Bertocci |first=Peter J. |date=February 2006 |title=A Sufi movement in Bangladesh: The Maijbhandari Tariqa and its Followers |journal=Contributions to Indian Sociology |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.1177/006996670504000101|s2cid=144167466 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maizbhandari, Gulamur Rahman}}
[[Category:1826 births]]
[[Category:1937 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Maizbhandar]]
[[Category:Indian Sufi religious leaders]]
[[Category:19th-century Muslim scholars of Islam]]
[[Category:Bengali Muslim scholars of Islam]]
[[Category:Hanafis]]
[[Category:20th-century Bengali people]]
[[Category:19th-century Bengali people]]

Gulamur Rahman - Revision history

Harpreet Singh Kohli at 12:03, 31 January 2026