City of Saints: An Account of Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya

I am restless now; my state destroyed — With the burden of sin is my record blackened; I cannot trace the path leading to your door. Salutations to you, look upon me now with eyes of mercy. Oh Nizamudeen! Beloved of the Lord.

– Safina tul Mujummah Al Bahrain

Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya is one of India’s most famous Sufi saints and the founder of the Chisti Nizami order. He lived for almost a hundred years, the majority of which were spent in Delhi, which had emerged as the new capital of the Delhi Sultanate. He played a major role in spreading the message of Sufism throughout the Sultanate, and in establishing Delhi as an important Sufi centre. He lived in the nondescript village of Ghiyaspur, near the city of Kilokhri, where he set up his khanqah, a house of gathering where people from all walks of life, irrespective of religion, class, caste, or gender were fed and offered help. He attracted a large group of people who went on to become his murid or disciples, to whom he imparted the ideals of Islamic morality, religious observances and other aspects of spiritual education. Nizamuddin Auliya is one of the most prominent figures in Delhi’s history who continues to hold importance to many people even today. In this essay, I will be presenting an account of the Saint’s life, his beliefs and influence on Delhi, his role in establishing the Nizami order of the Chisti silsilah, and a portrait of his Dargah, where hundreds of pilgrims still flock to every day.

Nizamuddin Auliya was born in the city of Badayun, in Uttar Pradesh, in 1238 CE, to parents that had migrated from Bukhara, a city in present-day Uzbekistan. After losing his father, Syed Abdullah bin Ahmad Al Hussaini Badayuni, at the age of five, he moved to Delhi with his mother and his sisters. His mother, Bibi Zulekha, a pious, intelligent woman, ensured that he received religious and spiritual education. When he was twenty, Nizamuddin Auliya went to Ajodhan, a city in the Punjab, in present-day Pakistan, and became a disciple of the Sufi saint Hazrat Baba Fariduddin, popularly known as Baba Farid. Even after returning to Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya continued to pay a visit to Baba Farid once every year, and it was on his third visit that Baba Farid made him his successor and prophesied, “You will be a spacious tree under which oppressed humanity will take shelter and find comfort.” He moved back to Shahr-i-Kuhna somewhere in the early 1260s but began looking for a quieter alternative away from the crowd of the Old City when a miraculous voice instructed him to shift to Ghiyaspur, a deserted area, closer to the banks of the Yamuna, away from the heart of the state and its politics. Back then, Ghiyaspur was a small village, unknown to most people. It was only when he set up his khanqah — a hospice — and Sultan Muizuddin Kaiqubad shifted the Sultanate capital to nearby Kilokhri, that Ghiyaspur came to light. Ziauddin Barani, the 14th-century Muslim chronicler, writes that the area around Ghiyaspur had an atmosphere of serenity and spirituality, and this can be attributed to the presence of Nizamuddin Auliya, who drew in disciples and earned a name for himself by virtue of his openness to people from all strata of society.

In the 13th century, Central Asia experienced an onslaught of Mongol invasions under the leadership of Ghenghis Khan. As a consequence, Delhi experienced an exodus of scholars, artists, holy men, and ordinary citizens, seeking refuge in the city which called itself Quwwat-ul-Islam’ — ‘the Might of Islam.’ Delhi also attracted Sufi mystics from all the silsilahs, and the most prominent among them was the Chisti silsilah. The Chisti silsilah was founded in the village of Chist in Afghanistan, by Kwaja Abu Ishaq Shami Chisti, and was brought to Delhi by the Khwaja of Ajmer, Gharib Nawaz and pioneered by Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. However, Nizamuddin Auliya was the most notable Sufi saint, who was significant in establishing Delhi as the centre of Chisti Sufism. He also developed the Nizami branch of the Chisti order based on the ideals of unselfish service to mankind, inexhaustible generosity and forgiveness, living for Allah alone and maintaining complete trust in Him, as listed by the Saint himself. The Chistis also emphasized the ideas, of tazkiya, which entails purifying the heart from all negative qualities, subduing one’s base desires, and the pursuit of beauty and perfection (ihsan). They also stressed the importance of avoiding the company of the rich and powerful, in preference of the poor and oppressed who needed and deserved greater respect and generosity.

Nizamuddin Auliya spent the two decades of the 1280–90s organizing a group of disciples, and with help of the poet Amir Husain Sijzi Dehlavi, who was also his disciple, he circulated his teachings as pamphlets every 2–3 years, and the compilation of these teachings came to be known as Fawaid-ul-Fuad. He also sent twenty-four of his khulafas — which roughly translates to ‘successors’ — to several parts of the Sultanate, including the unexplored south where they set up khanqas and spread the message of Sufism. The primary khanqah back in Ghiyaspur became the eastern Islamic world’s nucleus of moral, religious, spiritual and social education, where Nizamuddin Auliya was aided by two of his closest disciples, Nasiruddin Chirag Dehlavi and Amir Khusrau, the Sultanate’s most famous poet and scholar.

The Fawaid-ul-Fuad acts as the primary source for understanding the doctrines of Sufism, the most important of which is affirming faith in one God, and placing love at the core of one’s religious beliefs. The Sufis considered God as their beloved, and this was met with criticism from the ulemas (Islamic theologists) and other orthodox groups who held God as the creator who was meant to be worshipped. Nizamuddin Auliya, however, was deeply rooted in the Sufi doctrine of love. He also promoted the use of music in worship and other ritualistic practices, which helped to indigenise Islam in the subcontinent, even though the practice was much opposed by scholars and other religious figures of that time. Some of his other beliefs were — having complete trust in God, renunciation of the material world, dismantling distinctions based on social, economic or religious status, helping the poor and the needy while avoiding the company of the Sultans and the ruling elite, among several others. He depended on God for his subsistence and never engaged himself in labour for monetary gains. He received futuh which means ‘undemanded charity’ to meet the expenditures of his khanqah and kept nothing for himself. It also becomes important to note that the principles and practices of Sufism were not sacrilegious even though several facets of it were considered ‘un-Islamic.’ Nizamuddin Auliya and the other Chisti saints never renounced their faith, instead, they simply added a spiritual component to the teachings of the Quran and the laws prescribed by the Sharia.

On the political front, Nizamuddin Auliya stayed away from the politics of the Old City, although he could not entirely isolate himself from the socio-political upheavals of the Sultanate, thus, he was at odds with several of the Sultans, while also being revered by other Sultans and their families. Qutubuddin Mubarak Shah Khalji (1316–1320 CE) was one of the Sultans who was against the Saint and the popularity he had garnered. When Nizamuddin Auliya made Khizr Khan his disciple, Mubarak Shah prohibited his nobles from visiting Ghiyaspur and alongside, constructed a new mosque where the Sufis and ulemas were ordered to pray. He also issued an order forbidding the donation of money to the Saint and his khanqah. However, unthreatened by the Sultan, Nizamuddin Auliya doubled the khanqah’s expenses and received over 16,000 devotees every day, which nullified the Sultan’s orders. Towards the end of his life, Nizamuddin Auliya also shared a strained relationship with Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq (1320–1325 CE), and the former is said to have cursed the city of Tughlaqabad, which ultimately came to fruition.

Nizamuddin Auliya died at the age of 89, on 3rd April 1325, after Rasulullah — the messenger of Allah — himself visited him in a dream and said, “ I am very eager to meet you.” The site of his burial has been enshrined at the dargah in Nizamuddin, a neighbourhood in Southeast Delhi, named after the Saint himself. Apart from the main shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, the dargah also houses the tombs of Amir Khusrau, his chief disciple and of Jahanara Begum, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s favourite daughter. Thousands of people visit the dargah every year from different parts of India and the world, hailing from different backgrounds. There is also a group of devotees that visit the dargah regularly, with some visiting once a week, some once a day, and others visiting every four to five hours. The devotees consider the dargah as the place where the Saint is ‘most certainly present’ because this is where his physical remains are laid.

In his essay The Mystery of the Nizamuddin Dargah: The Account of Pilgrims, Desiderio Pinto writes about his interaction with the pilgrims and the pirs — who are spiritual directors of the dargah and claim to be descendants of Nizamuddin Auliya — which reveals that there is a strong belief among the pilgrims and devotees that the Saint is still alive, and some even claim to have seen him, like a middle-aged woman who said that she had seen him walking around the dargah on several occasions. So strong is the faith of the devotees that they come to the Saint with their supplication and find it being fulfilled. The following examples are cited from Pinto’s account, and they portray the power of the people’s faith. A cancer patient sat at the shrine for 3 months praying and eating only rose petals that had been showered on the Saint’s tomb and was soon cured of cancer. A Hindu woman had been visiting the dargah for over thirty years to ensure that her last surviving child continued to live. Some devotees came to pray for a favourable verdict in a court case, while others came to exorcise family members and friends who had been taken over by djinns and spirits. Nizamuddin Auliya was said to have miraculous powers even before he died, but the Saint clarified that he himself did not possess the power to perform miracles, instead, it was Allah who performed them through him. The Saint’s death anniversary is celebrated on the day of urs, marking the day he met his beloved Allah. Yet, he continues to remain here on earth acting as an intermediary between humanity and divinity.

The dargah led to the origin and development of the Nizamuddin basti that sprung up around the shrine and continues to survive over seven hundred years of Delhi’s turbulent past. The dargah continues to attract the faithful which highlights the Saint’s influence on the city and beyond, during and after his lifetime. In one of Pinto’s interactions with a pilgrim, the latter reflects upon the larger perception of Nizamuddin Auliya, ‘He gave up marriage in order to be more available to serve the poor and the needy…He regularly received large sums of money, but always distributed it to the poor who would crowd his khanqah, keeping nothing for himself…Every afternoon he would feed whoever came to visit him with the best possible food.’ When they are made aware that the Quran forbids an intermediary between God and His people, they say, ‘of course, one can approach the King directly. But when one looks at oneself and sees one’s own unworthiness, one knows that there is a far greater possibility of being rejected and condemned, than accepted. Therefore it is much better to approach the King through the courtier especially this one, for besides being loved by the King, he loves us.’ The city of Delhi was blessed with a Saint who continues to reign over the lives of several thousand people, more so in his spiritual presence, surpassing the need for his physical existence, placing the city at a position where it could dive into modernity while still remaining anchored in its blessed and sacred past.

Bibliography

1. The Mystery of the Nizamuddin Dargah: The Account of Pilgrims by Desiderio Pinto

2. Where Delhi Is Still Quite Far: Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and the Making of the Nizamuddin Basti by Michael Thomas Paschal Snyder

3. Analyzing the Development of the Chishti Silsilah in Delhi: A Case Analysis of the Role Played by Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya by Dr. Chandni Sengupta

4. The Tyranny of Metanarratives by Sunil Kumar

5. Sufism and its Path: Reflections of Shaikh Nizamuddin of Delhi by Tasadduq Husain

6. Hazra Khwaja Nizam Uddin Auliya Mehboob-e-Ilah — Sufi Studies Centre, https://www.chishtiya.org/blog/2016/10/27/hazra-khwaja-nizam-uddin-auliya-mehboob-e-ilah-r-a-3/

7. Chisti Order — Sufi Studies Centre, https://www.chishtiya.org/chishti-order/

8. Nizamuddin Auliya — Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizamuddin_Auliya