The Maizbhandar

The Maizbhandari (Bengali: মাইজভাণ্ডারী), or sometimes Maijbhandari (Arabic: المائجبهندارية, romanized: al-māʾijbahandāryyah), Order or tariqa of Sufism within Sunni Islam was founded in the late 19th century by the Bengali Sufi saint Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari from Chittagong. It is the only Sufi order to have originated from within the Bengal region, and, as an indigenous movement.

The Maizbhandari order bases its tradition and draws its legitimacy from a saying of the tenth-century Sufi scholar Ibn Arabi, who predicted that a great spiritual leader would be "born in China", and that he would speak the language of the country. Maizbhandari Sufis interpret Ibn Arabi's prophecy to mean Chittagong, where the expansion of Islam had ended and where the Indian subcontinent butted up against "China" in the sense of the Chinese, or ancient Mongol, sphere of influence.[2] Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari was born in Chittagong in 1828, which, according to Maizbhandari Sufis, was as foretold six hundred years earlier by Ibn Arabi.[2]

Since its 19th-century origins, the Maizbhandari movement has developed into "a powerful religious institution whose very popularity and influence defy any notions of marginality. It has been able to draw adherents from all sections of society, including the urban middle class", and been able to assert its reformist perspective on Islam, "while keeping in touch with the religious mainstream in Bengal", according to scholar Hans Harder.[3]