Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti

Shaykh Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī
An 1893 photograph of the Shrine of Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī in Ajmer, India, from Douglas James' Bombay and Western India: A Series of Stray Papers (London: Sampson Low and Co., 1893), Vol. I, p. 338
Preacher, Mystic, Founder; Reviver of the Faith, The Envoy to India, Supporter of the Religion, Gharīb Navāz
Venerated in	Islam, but particularly in the mystical orders and in the Hanafi school of Sunni law
Major shrine	Shrine of Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India
Patronage	City of Ajmer

Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan Sijzī (1142–1236 CE), known more commonly as Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī or Moinuddin Chishti, or reverently as a Shaykh Muʿīn al-Dīn, was a Sufi, preacher,ascetic, religious scholar, and philosopher from Sistan, who eventually ended up settling in the Indian subcontinent in the early thirteenth-century, where he established the famous Chishti Order of Sufism. This particular tariqa (order) became the dominant Muslim spiritual group in medieval India and many of the most beloved and venerated Indian Islamic saints have been Chishti in their affiliation, including Nizamuddin Awliya (d. 1325) and Amir Khusrow] (d. 1325). As such, Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī's legacy rests primarily on his having been "one of the most outstanding figures in the annals of Islamic mysticism."

Although little is known of Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī's early life, it is probable that he travelled from Sistan to India as a refugee due to the increasing prevalence of Mongol military action in Central Asia at this point in time. Having arrived in Delhi during the reign of the sultan Iltutmish (d. 1236), Muʿīn al-Dīn moved from Delhi to Ajmer shortly thereafter, at which point he became increasingly influenced by the writings of the famous Hanbali scholar and mystic ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī (d. 1088), whose famous work on the lives of the early Islamic saints, the Ṭabāqāt al-ṣūfiyya, may have played a role in shaping Muʿīn al-Dīn's worldview. It was during his time in Ajmer that Muʿīn al-Dīn acquired the reputation of being a great spiritual preacher and teacher; and biographical accounts of his life written after his death report that he received the gifts of many "spiritual marvels (karāmāt), such as miraculous travel, clairvoyance, and visions of angels" in these years of his life.