Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti (1143–1236 CE), known by the epithet ‘Gharib Nawaz’ or the comforter of the poor, was a Persian Sufi who was initiated into the Chishtiyya* lineage by Khwaja Usman Harooni, and for twenty years he wandered with his teacher, and also independently, meeting many great mystics of the time.

It is reported that Gharib Nawaz and his Master visited Mecca, and once, while they stood beneath the canopy of the Kaaba, a voice from heaven proclaimed, “O Moinuddin, I am pleased with you and have accepted you. Ask for whatever you desire and I shall give it to you.”

Moinuddin replied, “O Allah, accept those mureeds who will follow me and those who descend from me.”

The order came: “O Moinuddin, you, all your mureeds and all the mureeds who will be descended from you until the Day of Judgment, I accept them all.”

After that, Gharib Nawaz often used to say, “Whoever is my mureed, and whoever is the mureed of my mureeds, and whoever is descended from me until the Day of Judgment, Moinuddin will not step into paradise without them.”

*The Chishtiyya – or Chishti – Order is one of the four main Sufi Orders in India, and Inayat Khan was initiated into this lineage by his teacher, Shaikh Abu Hashim Madani.