The Auspicious Rise of the Shaykh: Reimagining the Islamic Conquest of Bengal

Historical sources on the rise of Islam in Bengal tell us that the Sena ruler, Lakṣmaṇasena (r. 1179–1204), was defeated in the thirteenth century by Muḥammad Bakhtiyār Khiljī. The Sena kingdom was thereafter incorporated into the Delhi Sultanate, until the heyday of the Sulṭāns of Bengal. This paper is about the Sekaśubhodayā (“The Auspicious Rise of the Seka”), a Sanskrit text composed no earlier than the sixteenth century that provides an irenic account of the rise of Islam in Bengal. Anachronously ascribed to Halāyudha Miśra, a minister at Lakṣmaṇasena’s court, the text is set at the Sena court with the ruler hesitantly welcoming the first durveśa (Muslim holy man) that has ever entered his kingdom. The paper studies this pīr-kathā in its original shrine context, to ask: What religious and cultural work did this hagiography once perform? What are the textual strategies that it harnessed to perform this cultural work?