Dakanī, Riḍā ʿAlī Shāh - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
van den Bos, Matthijs E. W.
Leiden
Brill
(1,131 words)
Riḍā ʿAlī Shāh Dakanī (b. c.1142-3/1730, d. 1214/1799-1800) was the last of the Deccan-based aqṭāb (lit., poles, that is, heads of the order; Ar. pl. of quṭb ) in the Niʿmatallāhī Ṣūfī order, as recognised in the salāsil ("chains" of spiritual authority, Ar. pl. of silsila ) of its current branches (Gramlich, 1:27-57). The leadership of the Niʿmatallāhī order had been transferred from Persia to the Deccan in the first half of the ninth/fifteenth century (Algar, Niʿmat-Allāhiyya , 46), and would return there