The indigenous rulers tolerated the religious activities of the Madariya Sufi community - the order that originated in north India during the second half of the 14th century - and gave it a free hand in performing its own religious rites. This study of the community throws light on various aspects of Madariya Sufis, viz, their origins, growth and diversification of the order, their contrasting lifestyles, and their religious congregations. It traces the vicissitudes of the evolution of the Madariya order as well as its transition from an embattled group of warriors to a peaceful syncretic sect embedded in the rural population of 19th and 20th century India.
