Everyday Ethics as Authority: Shaikh Hamiduddin Nagauri and Cross-Community Devotion in Thirteenth-Century Rajputana

Abstract

This study examines the moral authority of Shaikh Hamiduddin Nagauri (1192–1274 AD) in the Hindu–Jain environment of thirteenth-century Rajputana. It argues that his authority was shaped less by doctrinal accommodation than by an everyday ethics that made Chishti sanctity intelligible across social and religious boundaries. Subsistence-based livelihood, household austerity, vernacular accessibility, distance from patronage, and a discipline of non-harm together formed a style of conduct that could be publicly recognised as morally credible. The study draws on a genre-sensitive reading of Chishti tazkira and malfūẓāt texts alongside a local manuscript tradition, treating these materials as institutional memory rather than transparent social description. It also considers Nagaur's later devotional life as a possible afterlife of this ethical credibility. Given the archive's predominantly hagiographical and retrospective character, the study does not claim to reconstruct social reality directly or to prove cross-community reception in a complete sense. Instead, it shows how ethical discipline was represented as a basis of saintly authority in a plural regional setting.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Space and Culture India, 2026 · DOI ↗