This is an interesting article from banglapedia on the bengali
tradition of satya Pir.
Satya Pir one of the popular beliefs and practices that crept into
the fold of popular aspect of islam by long association of the
Muslims with other religionists and probably also due to the
increasing number of converts. The Hindu writers changed the word Pir
for Narayana, though there was hardly any difference between the
Satya-Pir of the Muslims and the Satya-Narayana of the Hindus. The
worship of Satya-Pir could be found even in the early twentieth
century particularly in north and western part of Bengal. A wooden
plank was made the seat of the Satya-Pir and offerings of edibles
like confectioneries, milk, sugar, Betel leaf, betel nuts etc were
made.
the literature, two traditions find prominence. According to the
first, the Hindu god Shri Hari appears in the guise of a faqir before
a poor Brahmin and orders him to make offerings to Satya-Narayana;
the Brahmin obeys the order and becomes rich. According to a second
tradition, a merchant is blessed with a female child with the
blessings of the Satya-Narayana. The female child when grown up was
married, and the merchant takes his son-in-law with him in a certain
trading voyage. There the merchant got into trouble because he did
not worship Satya-Pir. But the merchant's wife was a devotee of Satya-
Pir, so he got out of trouble. When the merchant was returning with
his son-in-law they again were about to be drowned, because the
merchant's daughter being eager to see her husband, neglected the
offerings of the Satya-Pir. She later realised the importance of
worshipping Satya-Pir and thus they all got out of trouble. In this
way, the Satya-Pir (or Satya-Narayana) literature gained popularity
among the people; the main purpose of the literature was to glorify
the Satya-Pir. The first book on Satya-Pir called Satya-Pir Kavya is
attributed to Shaikh Faizullah and the book is supposed to have been
written in between 1545 to 1575 AD. Some scholars think that Sultan
Alauddin husain Shah (1494 to 1519 AD) was the originator of the
Satya-Pir movement, but there is no evidence to support this view.
A close examination of the literature, mode of worship and traditions
show that worship of the Satya-Pir (or Satya- Narayana) was almost
similar to the worship of local deities manasa or chandi; the Satya-
Pir was represented not by any deity but by a simple wooden plank.
The Satya-Pir worshippers generally came from the poor class people
and their offerings were also simple. There were both Muslim and
Hindu elements in the concepts of Satya-Pir and it can be said with
some amount of certainty that the Satya-Pir (Satya-Narayana) concept
originated through a fusion of Muslim idea of the pir and the Hindu
notion of the local deities. It is a local variation of the Muslim
concept of pirism, when the local people were converted to Islam,
they got the conception of pirism mixed up with the old idea of the
supernatural power of their deities. A further evolution of this
process saw its culmination in the personification of Pir in Satya-
Pir (or Satya- Narayana) or pirism itself began to be conceived as a
supernatural power. [Abdul Karim]
Bibliography Sukumar Sen, Bangla Sahityer Itihas (in Bangla),
Calcutta, 1920; Muhammad Enamul Haq, Bange Sufi Prabhava (in Bangla),
Calcutta, 1935; Abdul Karim, Social History of the Muslims in Bengal,
(2nd ed), Chittagong, 1985.
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