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When fakirs held sway
IT IS a strange fact of history that most of the Muslim rulers of Delhiwere all dependent for the success of their reigns on Sufis like Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Khwaja Qutbudin Bakhtiar Kaki, Baba Farid, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia and Sheikh Nasiruddin Mahmud. It is because of this that Delhi is known as the threshold of 22 khwajas or saints, all of them were venerated by Ahmed Shah.
This fact has been recognised by no less a researcher than Richard M. Eaton, who teaches South Asian History in Arizona, USA. His books include Sufis in Medieval India, Essays on Islam and Indian History, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier and The Sufis of Bijapur.In his chapter of Sufism and State Building, included in Muslim States in Medieval India Eaton quotes Abd dal-Malik Isami, the Bahamani court poet in 1350 as saying:
"In every country there is a man of piety who keeps it going and well. Although there might be a monarch in every country, yet it is actually under the protection of a fakir (sufi saint)."
Fourteen rulers of Bengal were devotees of Sheikh Ala al-Haq, who died in 1398 and whose mentor had been a disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin.It was Moinuddin Chishti who patronised Mohammad Ghori, whose successor Qutbuddin was a mureed of Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, after whom he named the Qutub Minar. Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya was the spiritual guide of Mohammad bin Tughlak. Firoz Tughlak was a devotee of Nasiruddin Mahmud. Even the Moghuls believed they derived their power and authority from the sufis of India. Babar paid homage at the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya after his capture of Delhi and his brother-in-law, repaired the shrine of the saint.
Akbar built his father, Humayun's Tomb in Nizamuddin and made pilgrimages to the dargah in Ajmer on foot. His devotion to Sheikh Salim Chishti is well known. Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and the latter Moghuls like Ahmad Shah (1748-54) carried on this tradition right up to the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1837-58), who built his mahal opposite the shrine of Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. Many emperors are buried near Qutubddin's Dargah and in Humayun's Tomb, in the vicinity of Nizamuddin Auliya's shrine. So also at Fatehpur Sikri, a whole city founded by Akbar in honour of Sheikh Salim Chishti, through whose prayers Jahangir was born.
Eaton quotes Isami as saying, "The decline of Delhi and Tughlak Empire, generally, had resulted in large part from the demise in 1325 of Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya. Conversely he (Isami) considered that the arrival in the Deccan of one of Nizamuddin Auliya's leading spiritual successors, Burhan al-Din Gharib was the cause of that region's flourishing state at mid-14th Century.
Sufi saves
According to Isami, the Delhi Sultanate was saved from a Mongol invasion in the 14th Century because of the respect shown by Mohammad bin Tughlak to the shrine of Moinuddin Chishti. Earlier, Delhi escaped the invasion of Chinghez Khan during the reign of Altamash in 1221 due to the devotion of the Sultan to Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan's daughter, wrote a biography of the Ajmer Khwaja (Moinuddin Chishti).
Eaton quotes Syed Liaqat Hussin Moni to show that the Moghul courtly culture still prevails at the shrines of the Chishtis: "It has been noted recently that the qawwali protocols observed during the annual urs ceremonies at Ajmer, betray the impact of Moghul court etiquette. The Diwan, dressed in Moghul fashion, represents in fact the Moghul king rather than a religious dignitary, and comes escorted by the torchbearers and mace-bearers wearing Moghul costumes. He takes his seat on the cushion (gadela) under a special tent (dalbadal) erected for the occasion. On his arrival in the shrine the Diwan kisses the tomb and offers flowers, and then one of the khadims, who happens to be his wakil, like the other pilgrims, ties a dastar (turban) over his head, spreads the cloth sheet over his bowed head prays for him, and then gives him taburruk, consisting of flowers, sandal and sweets. Then he (the Diwan) sits down and the fatiha khwans, who are permanently and hereditarily employed, recite the fatiha, as well as prayers for the sovereign (badsha-I-Islam), the diwan, the mutawalli and other officials, and for the general public."
The Ajmer urs that concluded recently witnessed these ceremonies, some of which are repeated at the annual pilgrimage to the shrines of Qutuuddin Bakhtiar Kaki and Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi. So the link between medieval rulers and saints continues unbroken, notwithstanding the locked door that greeted Balhan when he went to placate a sufi who had been insulted by his grandson, Kaikobad.
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