Muslim endowments and lodges · The Ghurid sultanate · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Chishti at Ajmer

Muin al-Din Chishti is the saint of Ajmer and the founder of the Chishti order in India in the later tradition, with a tomb and dargah that draw pilgrims from the sixteenth century.

Wikipedia gives him a birth in Sistan on 1 February 1143 and a death on 15 March 1236, both from tradition, and dates his settlement and marriage in Ajmer to 1209 or 1210; the page does not date his arrival and does not show him in Ajmer in the 1190s. The earliest sources (Kirmani's Siyar al-Awliya and later works) are of the fourteenth century and are hagiographic. On 1 January 1200 his presence at Ajmer is not shown, there is no dargah, and a player should not assume the saint is in the city.

The arrival and death dates are traditional.

Who holds it

Name
not applicable: no dargah exists
Title
Head or custodian
Since
not applicable
Born
not pinned
Confidence
low

Wikipedia, Moinuddin Chishti.

How things stand that morning

Not established for 1200.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1209 or 1210Muin al-Din settles in Ajmer and marries there (Wikipedia, Moinuddin Chishti)Depends on: The tradition being right Stopped by: A different date for the arrival

Where the sources disagree

  • The brief asks whether the saint is at Ajmer in 1200. The Wikipedia page puts his settlement at 1209 or 1210 and no early source shows him there earlier; other hagiographic accounts that place him there in the 1190s, or at Prithviraja's court, are late and we could not check them.

Evidence: Wikipedia's page; the date of his arrival is not given there.

Primary sources for Ghurids

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
  • The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
  • The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
  • The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
  • The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
  • The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
  • The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
  • The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.

3 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia, 'Moinuddin Chishti'
  2. OMNIA board notes for the place (a lead only; checked against the sources above)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.