History
The principal shrine at Maner, popularly known as Bari Dargah, has the humble open grave of Hazrat Sultan-Ul- Makhdom Shaikh Yahya Maneri (d. 1291), the Propagator of the Suharwardia sect in India, and the father of Makhdum-ul-Mulk, Shaikh Sharfuddin Yahya Maneri, the celebrated author of the Makhtubaat-e-Sadi, whose grave is in Biharsharif. Bari Dargah stands within a walled garden on top of a mound. Bari Dargah also has a small mosque that dates from the late-thirteenth century, a pillared court built in the fourteenth century, and the graves of Hazrat Sultan-Ul- Makhdom Shaikh Yahya Maneri’s disciples and descendants. Some two hundred meters north from this shrine is the imposing and well preserved mausoleum of a later Firdausiya shaikh, Hazrat Makhdom Shah Daulat Maneri built in 1616 by his disciple Ibrahim Khan, the Mughal governor of Bihar under Jahangir. Shah Daulat’s (tomb) mazaar, which is popularly known as Choti Dargah, is built in the high Mughal style using Chunar sandstone, and it is perhaps the finest medieval monument of Bihar with its elegance of conception, size and remarkable stone ornamentation. The two-storied Choti Dargah, with its one central dome and four cupolas on the four corners stands on a raised pediment, within a large walled courtyard and garden after the classical charbagh style.
Maner Sharif is one of two main centers of propagation of the Kubrawiya-Suharwadia -Firdausiya sect in India, the other being Biharsharif.