Ghâzi Miyân.
The whole worship centres round Ghâzi Miyân. His real name was Sayyid Sâlâr Masaud, and he was nephew of Sultân Mahmûd of Ghazni. He was born in 1015 A.D., was leader of one of the early invasions of Oudh, and is claimed as one of the first martyrs of Islâm in India. He was killed in battle with the Hindus of Bahrâich in 1034 A.D. Close to the battle-field was a tank with an image of the sun on its banks, a shrine sacred in the eyes of all Hindus. Masaud, whenever he passed it, was wont to say that he wished to have this spot for a dwelling-place, and would, if it so pleased God, through the power of the spiritual sun, destroy the worship of the material. He was, it is said, buried by some of his followers in the place which he had chosen for his resting-place, and tradition avers that his head rests on the image of the sun, the worship of which he had given his life to destroy.
There is some reason to believe that this cultus of Masaud may have merely succeeded to some local worship, such as that of the sun, and in this connection it is significant that the great rite in honour of the martyr is called the Byâh or marriage of the saint, and this would associate it with other emblematical marriages of the earth and sun or sky which were intended to promote fertility.[57] Masaud, again, is the type of youth and valour in military Islâm, and to the Hindu mind assumes the form of one of those godlike youths, such as Krishna or Dûlha Deo, snatched away by an untimely and tragical fate in the prime of boyish beauty. So, though he was a fanatical devotee of Islâm, his tomb is visited as much by Hindus as by Muhammadans. Besides his regular shrine at Bahrâich, he has cenotaphs at various places, as at Gorakhpur and Bhadohi in the Mirzapur District, where annual fairs are held in his honour. The worship of Masaud, which is now discouraged by Muhammadan purists, embodied, even in early times, so much idolatry and fetishism as to be obnoxious to the puritanic party; it fell under the censure of the authorities, and Sikandar Lodi interdicted the procession of his spear.[58] Nowadays at his festivals a long spear or pole is paraded about, crowned at the top with bushy hair, representing the head of the martyr, which, it is said, kept rolling on the ground long after it was severed from the trunk.[59]