SYED ASRAR AHMED Vs. DURGAH COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal concerns a question of great importance to sections of the Muslim community in India and has been anxiously considered by their Lordships.

(2.) In the year 1941 the appellant, Syed Asrar Ahmed, instituted a suit in the Court of the District Judge, Ajmer-Merwara, against the respondents, the Durgah Committee Ajmer, whose status will be explained, claiming a declaration that the office of Mutawalli of the Durgah Khawaja Sahib Ajmer was hereditary in his family and that the respondents were not competent to question his status as a hereditary Mutawalli in succession to the last holder of that office. The District Judge on July 31, 1942, made a decree in his favour, but upon appeal- to the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, Ajmer-Merwara, this decree was on February 23, 1944, reversed. Hence this appeal.

(3.) The background of historical fact can be conveniently taken from the careful judgment of the Judicial Commissioner. From this it appears that the Durgah Khawaja Sahib Ajmer, sometimes called the Durgah Moinuddin Chisti, is universally admitted to be one of the most famous, if not the most famous, Mahommedan shrine in India The foundation is not only very ancient, but the shrine is also of considerable historical interest owing to its close association with several of the famous Moghul Emperors. The saint Moinuddin Chisti died in the year 1233 A.D. He was born in Persia in 1143 and mig rated later with his father to Nisharpur near Meshad where Omar Khayyam is buried. He went to Ajmer about the end of the 12 century and died there at the age of 90. His family remained in Ajmer, with a short interval during which they were driven out, until in 1567 the tomb was rebuilt and re-endowed by the Emperor Akbar the Great who reigned from 1556-1605, The first Farman of Akbar in connection with the shrine is dated 1567 and throughout their history the Moghuls were closely connected with it; the Emperor. Jehangir (1605-1627) once spending three consecutive years at Ajmer.