Aparita

Toronto Star, [07/03/2004]

 

Burial place of Nizamuddin open to all religions. Village around mausoleum a hub of Sufi culture

APARITA BHANDARI

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

 

New Delhi, India — It’s a difficult drive to the Nizamuddin basti or village that grew up around the mausoleum of renowned Indian Sufi Nizamuddin Aulia.

In A.D. 1274, Nizamuddin moved from his birthplace, Badauin, to Delhi, establishing a khanqah (monastery) in the jungle of Ghiyaspur, away from the main city and the politics of the royal courts. At the khanqah, Nizamuddin meditated and taught his disciples.

Over the years, the basti has become the hub of Sufi culture in the city. The annual Urs commemorating the birth and death anniversaries of Nizamuddin and his favourite disciple, poet and musician Amir Khusro, attracts thousands.

It’s fitting that the path to the dargah (shrine) of Nizamuddin isn’t easy, even if the small obstacles are modern constructs. After all, Sufis believe Sufism is covered with a veil, which you can see only through by discipline and persistence.

While colossal forts built during the same era now lie in ruins, the 700-plus-year-old dargah of Nizamuddin is one of the most popular spiritual destinations in India. Irrespective of religious backgrounds, people visit it, sometimes to have their prayers answered, and sometimes seeking inner tranquility.

On the outside, there’s nothing serene about Nizamuddin, especially the immediate surroundings of the dargah.

Touristy paragraphs describing the dargah usually talk about “going through a time-warp into the medieval period of India.” Beggars seek alms, dressed in ragged clothes, sitting along the narrow pathways leading to the centre. Shopkeepers perch on their haunches on their wooden stalls, cocooned in woollen shawls. They ply flower garlands or chadars (cloth) as you go in, and devotional books and music cassettes as you come out. The heavy scent of roses hangs in the air - the same smell of rose attar popular in bygone times.

En route, there’s a baoli (water tank) known as the Chashma-E-Dilkhusha. It’s said Nizamuddin himself started the construction of the baoli, digging with his own hands and blessing the water. His followers believe the water has mystical properties.

Following the alleys, you suddenly come into an open courtyard, and in the middle stands the dargah.
The structure is simple. Paved with marble, the dargah’s veranda has five arched openings on each side. The roof covering the arches has a parapet, topped by a series of small domes. A larger, onion-shaped dome, with alternating stripes of black and white marble, stands on top. Lattice screens and arches surround the actual tomb, forming an inner sanctum. Inside, a wooden canopy inlaid with mother-of-pearl arabesques is covered with the chadars offered to the Sufi.

The dargah is opposite the Jama’t Khana mosque, built by the son of the ruler Ala-ud-din Khilji. It’s also home to the mausoleums of Khusro, and the Mughal princess Jahanara. The mausoleums of famous Mughal ruler Humayun and celebrated poet Ghalib are also at a short distance away from the basti. It’s said that Nizamuddin Aulia was so loved that people wished to be buried near him.

The Sufis’ popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. A steady stream of people visit the dargah, some to offer prayers, others give the garlands or chadars to the Nizamis, who offer them at the dargah. The Nizamis are descendants of Nizamuddin’s sister since he, himself, never married.

A few men sit in front of the dargah. One plays the harmonium, singing a quwwali or mystic song. Another joins in a falsetto.

“Hazrat Nizamuddin was a great spirit,” says a man, in Urdu, who gives his name simply as Irfan. “People come here with their problems, but they take away peace.”

Like the incense man who sits daily at the dargah, Irfan is something of a permanent fixture at the dargah, a sort of a modern-day dervish (monk).

“Everyone remembers God in distress,” says Irfan, paraphrasing an oft-repeated Sufi couplet. “Remember Him in happiness. There will be no sadness. I like it here because we get close to God, we’re close to Nizamuddin.”

Nizamuddin Aulia (1236-1325) was the fourth saint of the Chistiya order, a lineage of Sufi saints. Sufism is passed on from the Sheikh (elder) to the disciple, and the silsila (chain of authorities) is traced back to the Prophet Muhammad.

Sufism’s history is controversial; it depends on which Muslim you talk to, says Tabith Abdullah, associate professor of history at York University.

“Those more favourable towards Sufism say that it started with the dawn of Islam, that the Prophet was a Sufi,” says Abdullah. “Others tend to view Sufism as heresy, as a foreign element that came to Islam.”

All religions have a mystical side, which is juxtaposed with a more legalistic reading of the religion, explains Abdullah. While the branch emphasizing the law specifies the dos and don’ts, the mystical side emphasizes the heart rather than the mind.

“There’s one medieval Sufi saying from Anatolia,” he says. “It says `If you’re searching for God, you won’t find Him in Mecca, you won’t find Him in Jerusalem, you’ll find Him in your heart.’”

Sufism’s heyday was between the 10th and 16th centuries when it was practised in Africa, Anatolia, Central and South Asia. It was heavily influenced by Indian mysticism, as well as the pre-Islamic religion of Iran and Mesopotamia. Recently Sufism has regained popularity, especially through the works of Sufi poets such as Rumi and Rabia.

The Sufis usually convey their beliefs through poetry and parables. Much of Sufi poetry has to do with love. To the uninitiated, the poetry might seem secular with references to the Beloved, as well as states of intoxication by partaking in wine. However, the idea is to see God as the Beloved, and the intoxication is a result of being close to God or to unite with God.

One of the practices of Sufism is zikr, or remembrance. At Nizamuddin’s shrine, zikr is done accompanied with music in the form of qawwali. Other zikr sessions have become known for the whirling dervishes.

Zikr, or for that matter, Sufism, isn’t to be equated with qawwali or the whirling dervishes, says Abdullah.

“Many Sufi brotherhoods have peculiar zikr sessions,” he explains. “The whirling dervishes, for example, developed in Anatolia. The idea is to imitate the movement of the heavenly bodies to get close to the spiritual. Singing, the use of candles, all of this has really to do with local peculiarities. Some brotherhoods just repeat passages from the Qur’an.”

Although such sessions of music and dance often elicit “polemic” from the Sharia-minded Muslims, the tension between Islam and Sufism is articulated by a much more sophisticated argument.

“The Sufis say that the word of God can have esoteric and literal interpretations,” says Abdullah. “The Sharia-minded say this is dangerous. It opens (the Qur’an) to any kind of interpretation that people like, but the truth is that the word of God is exactly what it is, just the literal meaning.”

It’s practically impossible to summarize the beliefs of Sufism once you go beyond the generalities, says Abdullah. Some Sufi saints place great importance on the Sharia, while other Sufis pay no attention to it, and there’s a whole spectrum of Sufis in between.

“Sufis like Nizamuddin taught the people to follow the Sharia, to go to the congregational prayer on Friday,” says Abdullah. “But they also suggested practising zikr, especially on Thursday evening.”

The popularity of Nizamuddin and, by extension, of Sufism in India, has something to do with the mystical aspect of the faith, but also because the Sufis’ views of religion weren’t rigid, says Abdullah.

“(The Sufis) were able to reach out to other religions because there are so many commonalities between the mystical traditions in India,” says Abdullah. “There were some Sufis who even allowed non-Muslims to join their brotherhood.”

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