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Mashrabaمشربة

Atlas

Chains of transmission from the Prophet, read as the sources give them.
About this atlas

The atlas holds the chains of transmission from the Prophet as the standard references and the classical sources record them: the Sufi orders, the chains of Qurʾān recitation, the teachers of the schools of law and ḥadīth, and the lines of the Prophet's family, with the places they spread and the living houses and teachers who carry them today. Every link shows its sources; where they differ, both readings are shown, and we do not rule on any community's claims. Ibn ʿArabī's own life, teachers and readers are on their own page.

Change chain set

Chishtiyya (Chishti order) الچشتية

Sufi orders · Abū Isḥāq Shāmī · c. 900s · Chisht (near Herat) · 3 routes to the Prophet recorded

Named for Chisht near Herat, where Abū Isḥāq Shāmī settled, the order reached India with Muʿīn al-Dīn at Ajmer. It spread through the Delhi shaykhs, divided into Niẓāmī and Ṣābirī lines, and saw an 18th-century renewal under Kalīmullāh and Fakhr al-Dīn.

How to read the marks
  • Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
  • One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
  • The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
  • A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
  • The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
  • A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).
Route 1 of 3, the best-sourced: other routes (2)

Routes are ordered by how many steps rest on two sources, then by how few rest on the community's own account or on another chain set's record, then by length. The best-sourced opens first.

Dates are given where the sources give them. Years are CE; the Hijri year is in each name's detail.

  • two sources
  • one source
  • the community's own account
  • names omitted
  • sources differ
  1. 632

  2. two sources · this step is recorded in Qirāʾāt: the ten canonical readings, not in Chishtiyya (Chishti order)

    661

  3. one source

    728

  4. two sources

  5. two sources

    803

  6. two sources

    778

  7. one source

  8. one source

  9. one source

  10. one source

Named for Chisht near Herat, where Abū Isḥāq Shāmī settled, the order reached India with Muʿīn al-Dīn at Ajmer. It spread through the Delhi shaykhs, divided into Niẓāmī and Ṣābirī lines, and saw an 18th-century renewal under Kalīmullāh and Fakhr al-Dīn.

How to read the marks
  • Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
  • One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
  • The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
  • A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
  • The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
  • A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).

Branches (2)

Each opens as a side-chain from the founder, with the same marks.

Niẓāmīالنظامية14th century; revived 18th · Delhi · 5 names
  1. فريد الدين مسعود گنج شكر1265

  2. one source

    نظام الدين أولياء1325

  3. one source · omits: all generations; the exact descent is not given in sources read.

    خواجه حسن ثاني نظامي2015

  4. one source

    خواجه سيد محمد نظامي

  5. one source

    سيد شافعي نظامي
Gīsūdarāz lineسلسلة گيسو درازd. 1422 · Gulbarga · 2 names
  1. نصير الدين چراغ دهلي1356

  2. two sources

    سيد محمد گيسو دراز1422
Fakhrī revivalالفخرية18th century · Delhi · 3 names
  1. شاه كليم الله جهان آبادي1729

  2. the community's own account · omits: intermediaries the data does not name

    شاه فخر الدين دهلوي1784

  3. the community's own account

    شاه نور محمد مهاروي1790
Sulaymānīالسليمانية19th century · Taunsa Sharif · 2 names
  1. شاه نور محمد مهاروي1790

  2. the community's own account

    شاه سليمان تونسوي1850
Inayati Order (founded in the West)1910s · London

No chain is recorded for this branch in the sources read.

Ṣābirīالصابريةfrom the 15th century (TDV) · Kalyar · 3 names
  1. فريد الدين مسعود گنج شكر1265

  2. the community's own account

    علاء الدين علي بن أحمد صابر1291

  3. one source · omits: intermediaries the data does not name

    احمد عبد الحق ردولوي1434

Living today

Public roles only, as the communities and the press report them, dated.

  • Head, Ṣābirī · as of Oct 2026 · one source

    Sajjāda-nishīn of the Sabiri dargāh of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ṣābir at Kaliyar Sharif, as named at the 755th ʿUrs (2023); later holder not confirmed (as of Oct 2026)

    Pakistan High Commission New Delhi, 'Pakistani zaireen lay chaddar…'

A contested succession

The claimants side by side, each with the source for it. We do not rule between them.

What is reported

A contested succession: Niẓāmī

The claimants side by side, each with the source for it. We do not rule between them.

  • Head, Niẓāmī · as of Oct 2026 · one source

    Named by the same Wikipedia report as the other son who succeeded Syed Mohammad Nizami; single tertiary source

    Wikipedia (tertiary), 'Syed Mohammad Nizami'

  • Head, Niẓāmī · as of Oct 2026 · one source

    Named by Wikipedia (citing Times of India, 9 Feb 2026) as one of two sons who succeeded Syed Mohammad Nizami at the Niẓām al-Dīn dargāh; single tertiary source

    Wikipedia (tertiary), 'Syed Mohammad Nizami'

What is reported

  • A Wikiwand page (undated) names Syed Mohammad Faiz Nizami as current sajjāda-nishīn of the Nizamuddin dargāh; uncorroborated.Wikiwand 'Sajjada Nashin'

How to cite

Mashraba Reader, Atlas of transmission, “Chishtiyya (Chishti order)”, https://www.mashraba.org/atlas/chishtiyya (data of 31 October 2026).

Not yet confirmed (6)

These links are told by an order or a secondary source and still have to be read against a primary or reference source.

  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) The order's traditional account of the Ṣābirī branch's origin; TDV names ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ṣābir as founder without naming his master.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) The order's traditional account; TDV does not state the link.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) TDV: Fakhr al-Dīn was Kalīmullāh's son.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) TDV: Nūr Muḥammad was a khalifa of Fakhr al-Dīn.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) TDV: Niyāz Aḥmad was a khalifa of Fakhr al-Dīn.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order)) Sulaymān Taunsawī is placed in Nūr Muḥammad's line in the order's account; not read in an open source.
Where the sources differ (6)
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • TDV Hasan-ı Basrî records the belief (inanılır) that al-Ḥasan received the khirqa from ʿAlī or from Kumayl b. Ziyād.
    • Trimingham (App. A): the oldest silsilas (Ibn al-Nadīm; al-Qushayrī) do not name ʿAlī; he enters Sufi chains only in the 5th/11th century.
    • Böwering (Iranica): the Indian Chishti chain from Ibrahim b. Adham to the Prophet via al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and ʿAlī is 'historically flawed'.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • Böwering (Iranica): Muʿīn al-Dīn's association with the Chishti tradition 'rests on the tenuous link of Ḵᵛāja ʿOṯmān alone'.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • Böwering (Iranica): Shah Fakhr al-Dīn (d. 1199/1784-85) was 'a significant indirect successor' of Shah Kalīm-Allāh Jahānābādī.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • Dewan Zainul Abedin Ali Khan: holds the office as sajjāda-nishīn; the CEO of the government-appointed Dargah Committee said in 2017 that he continues in the office under the Durgah Khawaja Saheb Act, 1955 (reported by Deccan Herald, India TV).
    • His brother Syed Alauddin Alimi (April 2017) announced that he had removed him from the spiritual headship. The Quint reads the episode as a quarrel between brothers.
    • Generation count: Wikipedia gives '22nd generation' and '29th successor' in different places; not reconciled.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • Dewan Zainul Abedin Ali Khan: holds the office as sajjāda-nishīn; the CEO of the government-appointed Dargah Committee said in 2017 that he continues in the office under the Durgah Khawaja Saheb Act, 1955 (reported by Deccan Herald, India TV).
    • His brother Syed Alauddin Alimi (April 2017) announced that he had removed him from the spiritual headship. The Quint reads the episode as a quarrel between brothers.
    • Generation count: Wikipedia gives '22nd generation' and '29th successor' in different places; not reconciled.
  • (Chishtiyya (Chishti order))
    • A Wikiwand page (undated) names Syed Mohammad Faiz Nizami as current sajjāda-nishīn of the Nizamuddin dargāh; uncorroborated.