Title: The Sufi Shaikh as a source of authority in mediaeval India
Abstract: This paper attempts a preliminary examination of the processes by which the authority of Sufi Shaikhs, and particularly the authority of a previously rather obscure lineage of Sufi Shaikhs originating from Chisht in (modern) western Afghanistan, was built up and exercised, in a vast new area added by military conquests to the dār al-islām, the lands of the Gangetic plain and the further extensive areas of the subcontinent ruled by the Sultans of Dehlī.