Pir Roshan

❧

Wikipedia

Pir Roshan
پیر روښان
Born
Bāyazīd Khān Ansārī

c. 1525
Jalandhar, Punjab, Lodi Sultanate[1]
(present-day Punjab, India)
Diedc. 1585[1] (aged 60)
Topi, Kabul Subah, Mughal Empire
(present-day Swabi District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan)
Resting placeNorth Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Known forPashto literature
Roshani movement
Pashto alphabet
Notable workKhayr al-Bayān
Spouse
  • Shamso
[2]
Children
  • Sheikh Omar
  • Nuruddin
  • Khairuddin
  • Kamaluddin
  • Jalaluddin
  • Allahdad
  • Dawlatullah
[2]
FatherSheikh Abdullah[3]

Bāyazīd Khān Ansārī (Pashto: بایزید خان انصاري; c. 1525 – 1585), commonly known as Pīr Rōshān or Pīr Rōkhān, was an Ormur warrior, Sufi Pir and revolutionary leader.[4] He is best known for founding the Roshani movement, which gained many followers in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, and produced a number of Pashto poets and writers. Pir Roshan wrote Khayr al-Bayān, one of the earliest known books containing Pashto prose, and also created the Pashto alphabet, derived from the Arabic script with 13 new letters. A modified version of this alphabet continues to be used to write Pashto. He wrote mostly in Pashto, but also in Persian, Urdu and Arabic, while his own mother tongue was Ormuri.

Pir Roshan assembled Pashtun tribesmen to fight against the Mughal emperor Akbar in response to Akbar's continuous military agitations. The Mughals referred to Pir Roshan as Pīr-e Tārīk (English: Dark Sufi Master).[5] Due to Pir Roshan's spiritual and religious hold over a large portion of Pashtuns, Akbar sought help of various religious figures into the struggle, most notably Pir Baba and Akhund Darweza.[2] The Mughals persecuted his followers and executed many of them. A Mughal army eventually killed Pir Roshan and most of his sons. Only his youngest son, Pir Jalala, survived and later took up arms against the Mughals as the new leader of the Roshani movement.[6] The Roshani followers in Waziristan, Kurram, Tirah, Loya Paktia, Loy Kandahar (including Kasi tribesmen), and Nangarhar continued their struggle against the Mughals for about a hundred years after Pir Roshan's death.

Background

Bayazid was born in 1525 just outside Jalandhar in Punjab (present-day India), but early in his childhood, he moved with his family to their ancestral homeland of Kaniguram in South Waziristan (present-day Pakistan).[7] He descended from a prominent family of Medina which traced its ancestry from Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion of prophet Muhammad.[5] His family was one of the many families who fled back to their ancestral land after the Turkic ruler Babur overthrew the Afghan Lodi dynasty in India in 1526.[8] His grandfather was from the Lohgar Valley near Kabul in the country of the Barkis, but had immigrated to Waziristan, while his grandson was born in India.[9] His father, Abdullah, was an Islamic Qadi (judge). However, his father and relatives, and later Bayazid himself, also traded between Afghanistan and India.

Roshani movement

Bayazid began teaching at the age of 40. His message was well received by the Mohmand and Shinwari tribesmen. He then went to the Peshawar valley and spread his message to the Khalil and Muhammadzai. He sent missionaries (khalifas) to various parts of South and Central Asia. He sent one of his disciples, Dawlat Khan, along with his book Sirat at-Tawhid to Mughal Emperor Akbar. Khalifa Yusuf was sent along with his book Fakhr at-Talibin to the ruler of Badakhshan, Mirza Sulayman. Mawdud Tareen was sent to propagate his message to Kandahar, Balochistan, and Sindh. Arzani Khweshki was sent to India to convey the message to common people there. Besides, he also sent his deputies to Kabul, Balkh, Bukhara, and Samarkand.[10] However, when he and his followers started spreading their movement amongst the Yousafzais, Bayazid came into direct confrontation with the orthodox followers of Pir Baba in Buner. He established a base in the Tirah valley where he rallied other tribes. In Oxford History of India, Vincent Smith describes this as the first "Pashtun renaissance" against Mughal rule.[11] When Mughal Emperor Akbar proclaimed Din-i Ilahi, Bayazid raised the flag of open rebellion. He led his army in several successful skirmishes and battles against Mughal forces, but they were routed in a major battle in Nangarhar by Mughal General Muhsin Khan.

During the 1580s, Yusufzais rebelled against the Mughals and joined the Roshani movement of Pir Roshan.[12] In late 1585, Mughal Emperor Akbar sent military forces under Zain Khan Koka and Birbal to crush the Roshani rebellion. In February 1586, about 8,000 Mughal soldiers, including Birbal, were killed near the Karakar Pass between Buner and Swat while fighting against the Yusufzai lashkar led by Kalu Khan. This was the greatest disaster faced by the Mughal army during Akbar's reign.[13] However, during the attack, Pir Roshan was himself killed by the Mughal army near Topi. In 1587, Mughal general Man Singh I defeated 20,000 strong Roshani soldiers and 5,000 horsemen.[1] Major Henry George Raverty transpired the account from Akhund Darweza about Pir Roshan's coffin was seized in the midst of a battle between the Roshaniyya and Mughal forces. Some of his bones were burnt, and cast into the Indus river.[14] Pir Roshan's five sons, however, continued fighting against the Mughals until about 1640.[1][15]

Successors

Bayazid's sons were put to death with the exception of his youngest, Jalala, who was pardoned by Akbar as he was only 14 years old when he was captured. He later took up arms as Pir Jalala Khan and successfully engaged the Mughal armies.[2]

As part of a concerted campaign to destroy the Roshanis around 1619 or 1620, Mahabat Khan, under the Emperor Jahangir, massacred 300 Daulatzai Orakzai in the Tirah. Ghairat Khan was sent to the Tirah region to engage the Roshani forces with a large military force via Kohat.[16] The Mughal forces were repulsed, but six years later Muzaffar Khan marched against Ahdad Khan. After several months of intense fighting, Ahdad Khan was killed. The death of Jahangir in 1627 led to a general uprising of the Pashtuns against Mughal forces.[16] Ahdad's son Abdul Qadir returned to Tirah to seek vengeance. Under his command, the Roshani defeated Muzaffar Khan's forces en route from Peshawar to Kabul, killing Muzaffar. Abdul Qadir plundered Peshawar and invested the citadel.[16] It was not until the time of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1628–1658) that a truce was brokered – between Akbar's grandson and Bayazid's great grandson.

Legacy and assessment

The religious view of Pir Roshan was considered heretical by his contemporaries of Pashtun tribes from Khattak and Yusufzai.[17] Roshan extended his dismissiveness to Shiʻism as well, deriding it as an inferior form of Islam invented by Iranian elites during the rise of Three Ottomans, as effort undermine it. Roshan claimed that Persians actually regards the Ottomans embodied the true Islam.[18]

Pir Roshan also originally wrote his Khair al-Bayan in Pashto, which meant that the text was more accessible to the Pashtuns than the Arabic Quran and that those followers took some measure of pride in its composition.[19]

During the 19th century, orientalist scholars translating texts from Pashto and other regional texts termed his movement a "sect" which believed in the transmigration of souls and in the representation of God through individuals.[20] Ideologically, history assessors with left-wing view has regarded him as reformer who fight against conservative value among Pashtuns during his era.[17]

Aminullah Khan Gandapur, in his book Tārīkh-i-Sarzamīn-i-Gōmal (History of the Gomal Land; National Book Foundation-2008, 2nd Ed. ISBN 978-969-23423-2-2; P-57-63), ascribed a chapter to the Roshani movement and to their strife and achievement with the sword and the pen.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Schimmel, Annemarie (1980). Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. BRILL. p. 87. ISBN 9004061177.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bilgrami, Fatima Zehra (1995). "The Roshanis and the Mughals". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 56: 188–203. ISSN 2249-1937.
  3. ↑ E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936, Volume 9. Houtsma, M Th. BRILL. 1987. p. 686. ISBN 9004082654. Retrieved 11 August 2013.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ↑ Lee, Jonathan L. (2022). Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present. p. 58. Pir Roshan, was from the small Ormur or Baraki tribe, whose mother tongue was Ormuri
  5. 1 2 Bilgrami, Fatima Zehra (1999). "The 'Roshani' Family in the Mughal Nobility". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 60. Indian History Congress: 293–305. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44144096.
  6. ↑ Wynbrandt, James (2009). A Brief History of Pakistan. Infobase Publishing. p. 82. ISBN 978-0816061846.
  7. ↑ Kakar, Hasan Kawun (27 August 2014). Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan. Univ of TX + ORM. ISBN 978-0-292-76777-5.
  8. ↑ Angelo Andrea Di Castro; David Templeman (2015). Asian Horizons: Giuseppe Tucci's Buddhist, Indian, Himalayan and Central Asian Studies. Monash University Publishing. pp. 544–584. ISBN 978-1922235336.
  9. ↑ G.P Tate (2001). The Kingdom of Afghanistan: A Historical Sketch. Asian Educational Services. p. 201. ISBN 9788120615861.
  10. ↑ Mahmoud Masaeli; Rico Sneller (2020). Responses of Mysticism to Religious Terrorism: Sufism and Beyond. Gompel&Svacina. p. 91. ISBN 978-9463711906.
  11. ↑ Vincent Smith; Oxford History of India volume Vol: VI; P- 325-40
  12. ↑ "Imperial Gazetteer2 of India, Volume 19– Imperial Gazetteer of India". Digital South Asia Library. p. 152. Archived from the original on 5 December 2021. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  13. ↑ Richards, John F. (1993). The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9780521566032.
  14. ↑ William Sherman (5 December 2023). "4 Vernacular Apocalypse: Poetic and Polemical Emergences of Pashto Literature". Singing with the Mountains; The Language of God in the Afghan Highland. Fordham University Press. p. 27. ISBN 9781531505691.
  15. ↑ "The Power Of Pen And Sword: How Pir Roshan United Pashtuns Against The Mughal Empire". The Friday Times. 16 February 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  16. 1 2 3 Tīrāh–Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. 23. p. 389.
  17. 1 2 Ali Ahmad Jalali (2021). Afghanistan: A Military History from the Ancient Empires to the Great Game. University Press of Kansas. p. 252. ISBN 978-0700632633. Retrieved 23 July 2024.
  18. ↑ Mirsepassi, Ali (2021). The Discovery of Iran: Taghi Arani, a Radical Cosmopolitan. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9781503629806. Retrieved 24 December 2025., quote: "When the Ottoman Empire was undergoing formation, Iran stood against us as an opposing force. The Shia religion, which had just come into existence, took a political form, shedding much blood. The difference between the two religions led to much acrimony. But what is the difference? To love Ali and his sons? But is this not shared by all Muslims? Do we prefer Abubakr (May Allah be pleased with him), Omar or Othman (May Allah be pleased with them)? No! It is just that they were able to fulfill their duties in their right time and place. History has thus given them due respect and sanctity. We are therefore bound to fulfill our religious duty out of respect."
  19. ↑ Nichols, Robert. Settling the frontier: Land, law and society in the Peshawar valley, 1500-1900. University of Pennsylvania, 1997
  20. ↑ Angelo Andrea Di Castro; David Templeman (2015). Asian Horizons: Giuseppe Tucci's Buddhist, Indian, Himalayan and Central Asian Studies. Monash University Publishing. pp. 544–584. ISBN 978-1922235336.