by Raza Rumi
Allaudin Khilji had sent one of his commanders, Khwaja Hasan Sanjri, to Deogarh to secure the allegiance of the southern kingdom to the Delhi Sultanate. Hardev met Sanjri at the latter’s military camp and heard of the famous saint in Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Sanjri narrated how the pir’s teachings inspired the negation of worldly pursuits. Hardev inquired what sort of a healer the master was. Sanjri declared that Hazrat Nizamuddin cured the malaise of the heart. ‘He is a Sayyad2, his name is Sayyad Mohammad and people call him the Sultan of Sheikhs,’ Sanjri added. The description of the pir charmed Hardev immensely, and a few days later, he left Deccan for Delhi to meet Sanjri’s pir.
In the days to come, Hardev lived at the khanqah and entered the inner circle of companions, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Such was the inclusive environment at the khanqah that Hardev converted to Islam. It is through his journal, Chahal Roza, that we get an authentic, first-hand account of Hazrat Nizamuddin’s life and views and also his extraordinary relationship with Amir Khusrau.
Over seven centuries ago, Hardev wrote on the genesis of the Urdu language:
In a special majlis tonight, Hazrat sent for me along with Sanjri, Amir Khusrau, Khwaja Sayyad Mohammad and my relatives, Sumbul Dev, Seetal Dev and Jeetal Dev. When we were all present, Hazrat instructed us saying, ‘You all must get together and prepare a language that the Hindu residents of India and the Muslims who have entered India can both use easily to communicate in dealing with one another.’ Then addressing Amir Khusrau and Khwaja Sayyad Mohammad he said, ‘I mentioned this to you both before also.’ Amir Khusrau informed him that he was already working on a children’s reader for which he had chosen the title lkhlaq-e-Bari; he then recited some verses from Ikhlaq-e-Bari. Hazrat liked the verses very much. He went on to say, ‘This too is a very useful work but write such verses in the Hindi language which people can understand.’3
Centuries later when my children hold an Urdu Qaeda4, I cannot help but remember this conversation that must have taken place in the magical kingdom that was Hazrat Nizamuddin’s khanqah.
Hardev also relates how Hazrat Nizamuddin instructed Muslim and Hindu musicians to prepare songs in Hindavi, which later blossomed into Urdu or Hindustani. He is reported to have said:
Nowadays, many Hindi words have been mixed with our Persian language and Khusrau’s Turkish language and people have begun to use these Hindi words in gatherings and in their homes. But there are others who do not want the mixture of Hindi words in Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages. They must be made to understand that it is advantageous to them… this can only come about when they stop being stubborn and help the spread of Hindi languages.
Musing in the derelict Urdu bookshops in Nizamuddin Basti, I wonder if the RSS, post-Independence Pakistani jingoists for that matter, have ever bothered to read this testament. Regardless of the way politics changed things, Khusrau’s songs are sung across South Asia.
The arrival of spring and harvest season has been celebrated ever since man discovered land tilling as a means of sustenance. The Basant (spring) festival is also celebrated with much fanfare in my hometown, Lahore. Over time, this festival has fallen victim to corporate distastefulness on the one hand, and religious bigotry on the other. Oblivious to both trends, Lahoris have continued to celebrate it.
And in Delhi, nothing is more spectacular than the fusion of colour, music, chaos and serenity during the basant celebrations at Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah.
Rejoice, my love, rejoice,
It’s spring here, rejoice!
Bring out your lotions and toiletries
And decorate your long hair.
Oh, you’re still enjoying your sleep, wake up.
Even your destiny has woken up,
It’s spring here, rejoice!
You snobbish lady with arrogant looks,
The King Amir is here to see you.
Let your eyes meet his,
Oh my love, rejoice!
It’s spring here again!
Hardev’s shadow walks with me on my daily visits to the tombs of Amir Khusrau and Hazrat Nizamuddin. The shadow whispers in my ears. The street is noisy, yet I hear him clearly:
I heard that today is the early spring festival of the fifth of the lunar month, and I see crowds of people, hands full of mustard blossoms, heading for the mandir nearby which was supposed to be a shrine to Kalkaji Devi… I was standing outside with these thoughts when I saw Amir Khusrau coming from the direction of the khanqah of Hazrat and I ran towards him… I was surprised to see that he too was carrying mustard blossoms in his hands and I asked, ‘are you going to the spring festival with the Hindus too?’5
Both Amir Khusrau and Hardev then walk in search of Hazrat Nizamuddin. They find him in a melancholic state as he has lost a close member of the family. Amir Khusrau cheers him by placing the yellow blossoms (mustard flowers) at his feet and, speaking in Hindavi, informs him, ‘My Arab friend, I’m celebrating your Basant.’ That day, the Hindus were going to place the yellow flowers of basant at their deities’ feet. And he was following this by adulating his pir and strewing flowers at his feet:
People say that I am indulging in idol worship
Yes yes, I do it! People have nothing to do with it…
And then Khusrau sings this verse, for the day of Basant:
Shed tears of joy at the coming of spring and clouds
O cupbearer, bring out wine and strew flowers…
Hardev sees it all. The moment Amir Khusrau, sings the verse in his melodious voice, he is joined in the song by Hazrat Nizamuddin’s other companions. Hazrat Nizamuddin himself is in tears and he stands up and begins to whirl. Khusrau and the other two companions present recite Hindavi and Persian verses while singing. Hazrat Nizamuddin continues to whirl in an ecstatic state. When the initial torrent of emotion subsides, Hazrat Nizamuddin picks up the mustard flowers and takes them to the grave of his relative and says, ‘Ashq rayz ameedan abro bahar’ (‘Shed tears of joy at the coming of spring and the clouds’).
On that electric afternoon, Hazrat Nizamuddin asks Khusrau if he was coming back to the khanqah with him. Khusrau answers with more poetry:
Many a night has poor Khusrau not slept in the desire that he may sleep with eyes resting under the blessed feet of Hazrat Nizamuddin.
This was not unrequited devotion, and Hazrat Nizamuddin quickly retorted:
Even if a saw is placed upon my brow to part me from my Turk (Khusrau),
Even then I will not give up my Turk…
This master-disciple relationship went beyond known Sufi associations. Their common understanding of society, politics and cultural nuances also informed this celebrated relationship. Hardev states that Hazrat Nizamuddin also recited the famous ‘Man tu shudam’ (I have become you):
I have become you, you have become me
I am the spirit, you are the body…
At this, Khusrau, overwhelmed, clung to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s feet and sang:
So that no one can say after this that you are another and I am another…
The birds must have dotted the clear, crisp spring sky on that auspicious day, and the fragrance of the season must have mixed with the intoxication of this love. In this spell, the master utters these words about his loving disciple:
Get up Khusrau. On the Day of Judgment, when everyone will come before their Lord with their Book of Deeds and my Lord, after seeing my Book of Deeds, will inquire from me, ‘Nizam what have you brought me from the world, I will answer, I have brought you the gift of the devotion of Khusrau’s heart.’ 6
Many centuries ago, Hardev must have stood where I stand today, in complete awe. These monotheists, of the same faith as the invaders, were singing strange tunes and whirling. Who were they, and what madness had overtaken them? Look at the Turk Khusrau circling around the Master whom he also calls the Beloved. What a beatific state of frenzy this is! Tears are welling up in the corners of his two bright Turkish eyes as he sings the verse:
The pilg
rims at Mecca search for the House
But I search for the Master of the House.
Thus the celebration of Basant became an annual festival at the khanqah, and now, at the tomb of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Other khanqahs of the Chishti order followed suit. The local shrine keepers tell me about the whole process, ‘the qawwals from the dargah collect mustard flowers each basant and then start offering them to the mazars of the various Chishti saints. After that they return to the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah.’ Around the dargah in the basti, there are several signs of the basant day, such as the dyeing of the clothes in the yellow or basanti colour. Basanti caps and scarves are worn, and qawwalis are sung after offering fatiha7 at the tombs and graves in the vicinity. Today, the Basant Festival has become a ritual which lacks the original spirit. But colourful and festive it is.
Maheshwar Dayal, in his book, Alam Mein Intekhab: Dilli, describes one such Basant Festival in Delhi during the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1837-1857) in the following words:
… the chill was on the decline. Spring had arrived. Dilli wallahs were setting up fairs for the spring as usual. Many were offering flowers and ittar on the Qadm Sharif.8 It was a Thursday. There was such a crowd that not a hair’s breadth of space was empty on either the Red Fort maidan or the shores of the Jamuna. The curtains of houses, the chadars of women, the turbans of men, and the clothes of children—everything was dyed basanti—even the candles hanging from the rampart were basanti. It was as if mustard was growing in every nook and corner. Indoors and outdoors, people danced the whole night. Thousands of giant balloons made of mustard-coloured paper with candles lit inside were being flown in the air. By four o’clock in the morning, the whole sky became basanti. It seemed as if the mustard was flowering in the eyes of the sky.
Amir Khusrau’s passionate devotion to Hazrat Nizamuddin is legendary. Khusrau, of Turkish parentage, was taken by his family to Hazrat Nizamuddin when he was a young boy. From that first encounter till the moment of their death, they were close to each other. Khusrau was a friend, a disciple, a khanqah poet and a musician; in short, the life of Hazrat Nizamuddin’s era in Delhi. Khusrau did not live for long after the death of Hazrat Nizamuddin. In fact, the latter had once expressed that had it been allowed by Islamic law, he would have wished to be buried in the same grave as Khusrau.
While Khusrau was a noble at the Delhi court and served under several Sultans, his heart lay elsewhere. He was a poet of outstanding merit, an innovator and pioneer of the Hindustani idiom. In addition, he was a Sufi disciple and learnt of ‘love’ through an experiential process rather than through conventional instruction.
The urs rituals9—the death anniversaries of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Amir Khusrau—are two other events that are celebrated with much fanfare. For the Sufi, death is not an occasion to mourn since the departure from the temporal world is but the ultimate destination for a mystic reunion with the Creator, the cosmic beloved. Satrahvin Sharif (Blessed Seventeenth) after Eid-ul-Fitr is the death anniversary of Hazrat Amir Khusrau.
As luck would have it, I was in Delhi when the annual urs rituals were taking place not far from Sadia’s house. I was in town on business, and managed to visit the dargah only in the evening. The ecstatic qawwalis and music enchanted me. The charaghan or lighting of the lamps had transformed the dargah compound into a magical space. The tradition of Sufi qawwali is attributed to Khusrau as he introduced Arab and Turkish musical instruments and enriched the traditions of Indian classical music. Khusrau’s poems and odes are still sung today.
The feminine voice in Sufi devotion invokes the divine feminine principle and likens their love to a man-woman relationship. Khusrau’s sensuous odes to his murshid10 enshrine the poetry and music of devotion. There is also the incorporation of native Indian traditions and popular beliefs borrowed from the vocabulary of sacrifice, self-abnegation of women for their husband-gods, and their families:
Beholding your appearance, oh Nijaam11
I offer myself in sacrifice.
Amongst all the girls, my scarf is the most soiled,
Look, the girls are laughing at me.
This spring, please dye my scarf for me,
Oh Nijaam, protect my honour.
In the name of Ganj-e Shakar12
Protect my honour, oh beloved Nijaam.
Qutab and Farid have come in the wedding procession
And Khusrau is the loving bride, oh Nijaam.
Some have to fight with the mother-in-law,
While some with sisters-in-law,
But I have you for support, oh Nijaam.
Another popular legend surrounding the festival of Basant at the Chishti khanqahs is that Khusrau had dressed up as a woman in yellow with mustard flowers on basant day.
In the subcontinent, the use of the feminine voice has been a common tradition. Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah, two prominent Punjabi poets, also used the female voice as the ideal form of love-devotion. The poet-disciple presents himself as a woman while the Creator or the murshid is depicted as male:
Hey, I’ve just had an affair with my darling,
Don’t care what the neighbourhood girls say;
Just had an affair with my darling.
Oh, his beautiful face, charming like an idol,
I’ve just made a place in the bottom of his heart.
I, Khusrau, give my life to Nizamuddin in sacrifice,
I’ve just had him call me his most favourite disciple.
Don’t care what the neighbourhood girls say,
Just had an affair with my darling’13
In the north Indian tradition, prevalent in Pakistan, India as well as Bangladesh, the Sufi imagines himself to be a bride, where the babul ka ghar or the father’s home is a metaphor for the temporal world, while the piya or beloved, and his home and in-laws, is the final destination symbolizing the culmination of a journey. Little wonder that what is sung at the dargahs is rendered tearfully:
… dear Khusrau, you have to go to your in-laws’ alone; no friends will accompany you now.
My reverie continues as Arman, Sadia’s son, sings for us. An ustad from Old Delhi comes twice a week to train him. Arman, admittedly a small exception to the general rule of forgetting, continues the tradition of musicality in the Nizamuddin area. For this was the very place where Hindustani music found newer dimensions, adopting many streams from the Islamic world to become what it is today.
The curious mélange of musical fusion in North India started with Arab and Mongol incursions into India. However, it was the arrival of the Sufis and their accompanying musicians that served as a catalyst to the emergence of contemporary Hindustani classical music as we know it today. The engagement began with the Bhakti movement’s yogic ideas, initiating a process of inclusive sociability at the core of which was the ability of Hindavi, and later the Urdu language to express metaphysical thought; and it was this that found an immediate audience.
The famous music composer A.R. Rahman’s devotion to the Chishti saints and the naming of his music conservatory in southern India after Khwaja Moinuddin of Ajmer, is a continuation of this vibrant, ongoing and, very possibly, endless process.
It is widely believed that Amir Khusrau founded the popular Hindustani musical tradition. His training with Nayak Gopal, a Hindu musical guru of the fourteenth century, is symbolic of the inter-faith musical dialogue which took place in medieval Delhi. Khusrau’s two shaagirds—Samat and Nigar—had been given into his tutelage by Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in order to enhance their spirituality and give their devotion a musical expression and purpose.
These two exceptionally gifted disciples are said to have created the line of Qawwal Bachche.14 This eclectic lineage became the musical manifestation of the Chishti khanqahs and dargahs, leading to the evolution of the classical khayal in the nineteenth century. The Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah thus became a site that facilitated musical experimentation through the centuries and also inspired other musicians and singers in the Chishti centres of Ajmer, Multa
n, Ajodhan and Delhi. Music then became a focal point for literary and cultural exchanges.
The Pakistani qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his ancestors also belonged to this network of Chishti-inspired musicians. He is said to have been blessed by the dargahs of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Ajmer prior to his appearance on the world stage.
Qawwali was not the only innovation conjured up by the enigmatic Khusrau. He pioneered musical forms such as the qaul, ghazal, tarana, naqsh-o-gul and khayal, and improvised existing percussion forms into the tables, as the legend goes. Khusrau somehow connected the musical experimentation taking place from Spain to the borders of China as he incorporated musical traditions from Persia, Spain, Turkey and Arabia, and synthesized them in the Indian context.
Little wonder that today, qawwals often communicate effortlessly with global audiences despite singing in an alien language. However, the key to this dynamic is the reliance on a certain musical style and rhythm to create an ambience, reach a trance-like state, and generate ecstasy for listeners and performers alike. The appeal of qawwali outside South Asia is therefore its uncanny universal strength in awakening the consciousness of listeners. Qawwals hold that the experience of the transportation of the soul, or reaching the divine, also known as ‘ma’rifat’, requires little textual aid. Thus, the possibility of a direct mystical experience is inherent in the qawwali form.
Khusrau’s contribution to musical culture as a synthesis of local and foreign devotional traditions established a base for the Mughals to further nourish this sensibility. Dialogue with indigenous and folk traditions continued, and fusion deepened. Even today, while walking around Chandni Chowk, I can hear these fused and merged tunes blaring out of a BJP political camp. Such are the ironies of history.
A few hundred yards away, Sadia’s talented son, Arman Ali, has been playing the tabla since the age of seven, and intends to master the intricacies of his instrument and the musical tradition of the Dilli Gharana. This twenty-year-old boy has entered a centuries-old tradition, which is threatening to die out. Once, Delhi’s musicians played for the Mughal emperors. Today, a minuscule group of classical musicians lives in a neighbourhood of Old Delhi, struggling to keep themselves and the gharana alive. The seventeenth-century neighbourhood of the walled city still houses many descendants of the musical geniuses of the past.