Even though the streets are buzzing with activity as hundreds of people walk briskly towards their destinations and vendors pester you to buy traditional clothes or jewellery, an accompanying sense of calm and innocence makes you wonder: What separates these streets from other parts of the city? They are crowded but they cannot be compared with old Delhi; it’s a market area and yet it cannot be called one.THE LEGACY
Not many people would know, but the entire stretch of Mathura Road — from Humayun’s tomb right up to Faridabad — is like a graveyard with kings, philosophers, poets and men of eminence buried underneath. Be it the famous historian Ziauddin Barani or Mughal prince Mirza Babur and Mirza Jehangir, all were buried here.
However, out of all these people, 13th century Sufi saint of the Chishtiyyah order, Nizamuddin Auliya, “Allah’s favourite one”, has always had a special significance among the masses. So much so that even after centuries, people would want to be buried near his tomb.
Nizamuddin Auliya has been immortalised for his generosity and humanitarianism. His advice — “first greet, then eat, then talk” — is still followed heartily with people often saying “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim” before opening their meals.
“This has never been a residential area; people used to live in areas around Mehrauli and old Delhi. It was only after Partition that people started to reside here. But interestingly, everyone wanted to be buried here,” says Yousuf Saeed, an independent filmmaker and researcher.
The shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya is across the road from Humayun’s tomb, and as we know from historical records, was earlier a village called Ghayaspur when young Mohammed Nizamuddin migrated to Delhi from Badayun (Uttar Pradesh) in the early 13th century along with his mother to become a qazi (Muslim priest). Later, he became a disciple of Baba Farid and was appointed his spiritual emissary for Delhi.
Nizamuddin Auliya settled near the Yamuna, about a km east of the present-day dargah, behind Humayun’s tomb. This is where he prayed, meditated and met hundreds of people. Even today, devotees from across the world come in numbers to get the spiritual feel.
“Nizamuddin Auliya was the most well-known of Sufi saints. Sufism as an ideology or a course of conduct has enchanted many. It says that God is best worshipped through humanity. This is what Nizamuddin Auliya did and in the process became the most celebrated of saints,” says Saeed, adding, “One thing that makes Sufi saints special is the fact that they are and have always been with us. The ritual of burying the deceased, in fact, brings this place alive as you feel all the more connected to the past.”
Towards the west of Nizamuddin Auliya’s tomb is the Jamaat-Khana (prayer hall), supposedly constructed by Feroz Shah Tughlaq a few years after Nizamuddin Auliya’s death. Indeed, the very thought that one is breathing the same air in the ancient locale, makes for an ecstatic experience.
LEGENDARY COMPANIONSHIP
There may be several celebrated friendships in history but none can match the fabled relationship Nizamuddin Auliya had with Amir Khusrau. According to historians, Khusrau was the most favourite disciple of the Sufi saint.
Constructed in 1605, Khusrau’s marbled tomb is just steps away from Nizamuddin Auliya’s and is considered to be highly sacred. Just opposite the opening of Khusrau’s tomb is the Hujra-e-Qadeem (the ancient room), believed to have been built in the 13th-14th century. On the wall at the entrance to the room has an engraved poem in praise of Nizamuddin Auliya by Urdu poet Allama Iqbal.
“Iqbal wished if he could be Nizamuddin Auliya’s servant and he requested that his poem be engraved in his praise,” says Saeed.
Born in 1253 to a Turk-Indian family, Khusrau was a renowned poet of his time who served as many as seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. Even today, his poetry and prose, which are considered the best in Persian, serve as a casket containing invaluable historical information.
Being a court poet, Khusrau enjoyed all sorts of materialistic privileges but he felt at home only in Nizamuddin Auliya’s khaneqah (monastery). As the legend goes, Nizamuddin Auliya could get annoyed and angry with anyone but Khusrau.
Saeed mentions that there is a fable that when he was eight-year-old, Khusrau’s mother pushed him to visit Nizamuddin Auliya’s khaneqah. As he reached there, Khusrau waited at the entrance and composed the following lines impromptu: You are a king at the gate of whose palace/ even a pigeon becomes a hawk./ A poor traveller has come to your gate,/ should he enter, or should he return?
It is said that Nizamuddin Auliya at once asked one of his servants to go out at the gate and narrate the following lines to the boy: Oh you the man of reality, come inside/ so you become for a while my confidant/ but if the one who enters is foolish/ then he should return the way he came.
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
To many, the custom of celebrating someone’s death might sound eccentric, but for a Sufi it is only a transition phase — the penultimate stage for unison with God. So, every year about 16 days after Eid-ul-fitr, people take part in another festive occasion, the urs or death anniversary of Amir Khusrau, called the ‘Satrahvin Sharif’ (holy seventeenth). Hundreds of thousands of people come to offer their nazrana (flowers, sweets, chadars) at the twin tombs of Nizamuddin Auliya and Khusrau.
“Urs has been taken from the Arabic word uroos which literally means ‘wedding’. So, in Sufism, someone’s death is considered to be a wedding with the divine,” says Saeed.
It is believed that Khusrau learnt of Nizamuddin Auliya’s death while he was away in Bengal, but he immediately rushed back to Delhi. When he saw Nizamuddin Auliya’s grave, he immediately uttered the following lines The fair maiden rests/ On a Bed of roses,/ Her face covered/ With a lock of hair;/ Let us oh Khusrau, return home now,/ The dark dusk settles in four corners of the world.
Six months later, Khusrau died.
Today, the entire dargah adopts an ambience that is a mélange of a massive celebration and unmistakable sacredness. Qawwalis are sung in the evening and for centuries they begin by a recitation of the above quoted lines.
People consider Khusrau no less than Nizamuddin Auliya and pray to them for their well-being and request the two to become a mediator between them and God.
In fact, a little ahead of Nizamuddin Auliya’s tomb, a dark passage, with adjacent sieved walls, leads to Nizamuddin Baoli — the only step well in Delhi that is still fed by underwater springs. It is considered to be highly sacred. According to popular belief, water in the step well is a mixture of different types of water and has healing powers.
Till sometime ago, there were houses made on the roof of ancient structures around the well. Although the well, which was built in the form of circular stairs converging at the bottom, has lost much of the originality as a result of renovations and man-made pollution, it still charms people and is sacred not only to the locals but also devotees all around.
Even as you read this piece, there sits a man near the dargah, who is dumb and is yet playing harmonium. He’s been sitting there for years, hoping that his prayers would be heard and he would be able to speak someday.
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