Nizamuddin Auliya: Amir Khusrau’s soul

It was 1253, Saifuddin Shamsi, a Turk, was celebrating the birth of his second son in Patiali. Saifuddin lived next to a man with a gift for prophecy. The man glanced at the baby and said: “You have brought someone who will be two steps ahead of the poet Khaqani.”

Abul Hasan Yameenuddin was born to Saifuddin and Daulat Naz. The Mongols had hounded thousands out of Central Asia. Saifuddin joined the army of the sultans of Delhi. He married, Daulat Naz, the daughter of Rawat Arz, Imad-ul-Mulk, the army minister of the sultan.

Abul Hasan was born into riches and a milieu where brother killed brother and nephew his uncle to sit on the throne. The sultan’s court was a cauldron of intrigue, deceit, and murder. The baby was cradled in this air of evil design, distrust and conspiracy. He would grow up to be known as Amir Khusrau.

Destiny was starting to reveal its hand – for nine years ago, in 1244, in nearby Badaun. Bibi Zulaikha, a pious woman had given birth to a boy, Muhammad. His father Khwaja Ahmad passed away soon after Muhammad was born.

Muhammad’s sister Zainab recounted the incident years later. One night, their mother, Bibi Zulaikha, heard a voice in her dream, saying she must choose between her husband or son as one of them was destined to die. She said Mohammad should live. Khwaja Ahmad fell ill soon after and passed away. The child would grow up to be known as Nizamuddin.

The boy Nizam was special. Like his mother, he was pious. As a child, he would go bounding to his mother asking for food. “We are the guests of God today Nizam,” Bibi Zulaikha would say.

Nizamuddin knew what that meant. There was no food at home. He would come home from school with hunger pangs eating into his stomach and his mother would comfort him with those words. He wanted to hear those words: “We are the guests of God.” They gave him solace.

Nizamuddin was a diligent student, but Badaun did not have the teachers who could quench the boy’s thirst for knowledge. The family moved to Delhi. But they had no money to find a roof to shelter, no money to buy bread. They were the guests of God on most days.

The family found an inn, which only allowed women to stay. Bibi Zulaikha and Nizamuddin’s sister, Zainab, moved there. The sultan’s army minister, Imad-ul-Mulk, gave Nizamuddin refuge in one of his homes close by.

Saifuddin Shamsi, Imad-ul-Mulk’s son-in-law, had been killed in battle. Imad-ul-Mulk was now bringing up his grandson, Amir Khusrau. Nizamuddin and Khusrau lived in the same house.

Opulence rubbed shoulders with poverty and penitence. Nizamuddin saw both worlds. He lived in one and had no craving for the other. Ever since he was a boy, Nizamuddin had one longing — he wanted to place his head at the feet of Baba Farid, a Sufi dervish, who lived in Ajodhan, now Pakpattan in Pakistan.

Many years later, when he was around 20, Nizamuddin journeyed to Ajodhan and met Baba Farid. The master knew he was coming. It was destined.

Amir Khusrau’s father died by the sword and his maternal grandfather lived by it. The court of the sultan was a whirlpool of deceit, ruthless ambition and murder. Everyone eyed the throne — son, father and uncle. The wiliest and the most cut-throat of them won the throne. Conspiracies had started to sprout again in Delhi. Sultan Naseeruddin Mahmood, the man who deposed Alauddin Masood Shah and proclaimed himself king with the help of his nobleman Balban washed his hands of court and politics. He took to religion. That was his escape route from intrigue. Or, so he thought.

The sultan died under strange circumstances. Some say Balban, the nobleman who helped him become sultan, poisoned him but then again who knows. The sultan left no male heirs. Who but Balban, the Turk, could take charge? Balban knew well the politics of Delhi. He had risen from the depths of hunger to the heights of glory.

Amir Khusrau lived in this world — where the power of the sword thrived with the power of money. Unlike Nizamuddin, he never went hungry as a boy. Poverty was alien to him. He was precocious. His tongue was swift; his pen even quicker. The boy’s magic with word play won him the pen name Amir Khusrau. The sword was of no interest and neither was money. Khusrau was lost in the art of words. He lived by them. And he could put music to words too. He was a master of verse and song. That’s where their worlds would meet: Nizamuddin’s and Khusrau’s.

But for now Khusrau had to live in the world of Balban, his brother, Kishlu Khan, and Balban’s sons Bughra Khan and Muhammad. Khusrau had to be content with singing the praises of his patrons: the sultan and his cronies. That’s how poets lived — they needed the patronage of sultans, they had to sing paeans to them.

Khusrau once wrote:

‘Composing panegyric kills the heart,

Even if the poetry is fresh and eloquent.

A lamp is extinguished by a breath,

Even if it is the breath of Jesus.’

The Chishti creed

Nizamuddin returned to Delhi from Ajodhan after spending time with Baba Farid, learning the life and ways of Chishti Sufis.

The creed was simple: Devote your life to God, serve the poor and the needy to realise the Maker. Do not till the land as it will make you beholden to the tax collector. Once you are beholden to the tax collector, your soul will be preoccupied with worry and material want. And once the tax collector has your soul, there is no time for the Almighty. Do not indulge in shughl or government service — the sultan is not your master, the Maker is. Never meet a sultan, stay away from the court. Eat frugally when food comes as Futooh or unasked for gifts. Distribute everything that comes as Futooh among the poor, never keep anything for the next day because God will provide. Storing food proves you have no trust in your Maker. Bring happiness to the human heart — it is more important than ritualistic prayer.

Baba Farid’s teachings and the principles of the Chishti mystics were now ingrained in Nizamuddin. He had surrendered himself to the Will of the Maker. He had no source of food, he wore a simple Sufi tunic and he had no shelter.

He returned to Delhi from Ajodhan and found refuge in Amir Khusrau’s uncle’s house. Adjacent to the palatial buildings of courtiers, Bibi Zulaikha and Baba Farid’s brother, Najeebuddin Mutawakkil, lived in run down houses, in Mehrauli.

Bibi Zulaikha soon passed, entrusting Nizamuddin to the care of his Maker. Nizamuddin, now in his early twenties, had nothing. But he felt secure.

Amir Khurd, the author of Siyar-ul-Auliya, which details Nizamuddin’s life, says Khusrau met Nizamuddin when he was living at his maternal grandfather, Imad-ul-Mulk’s house. The young Khusrau would present each of his poems to Nizamuddin. One day, Nizamuddin told him to compose poems in the style of Ishfanis — love poetry.

Khusrau’s maternal uncles returned from their assignments handed by the sultan’s court and ordered Nizamuddin out. He had nowhere to go. Nizamuddin stayed the night in a mosque. Nizamuddin would find a house and then had to move. There was nothing permanent.

Nizamuddin finally went to Ghayaspur, where the river Jamuna flowed and started building his Khanqah. There was some peace and then sultan Kaiqubad moved to nearby Kilokhiri.

Sultan Kaiqubad was merely 17 when he became king following a palace intrigue. Kaiqubad was a man of wanton passion. The young Kaiqubad suffered from paralysis. One of Kaiqubad’s generals, Jalaluddin Firoz Khilji declared himself sultan. Kaiqubad was put to death. His body was thrown into the river Jamuna.

As Jalaluddin Khilji tried to bring peace to his kingdom, his nephew Alauddin Khilji had ambitions. He ravaged Devagiri without the sultan’s consent, but expressed the desire to present the wealth to him. He was only wary of Jalaluddin’s wrath, not having taken his permission to raid the Deccan. Alauddin Khilji had his uncle killed at the meeting.

Amir Khusrau put matters into perspective. “And while we shed our tears for the old sultan who was so basely struck by one whom he loved so much, it is necessary to remember that he himself had assassinated his master to seize the throne.”

These were the times Nizamuddin and Khusrau lived in: Treacherous, chaotic, schizophrenic. And yet, Nizamuddin found peace, he found his Maker. In fact, Nizamuddin was now the epicentre of faith.

Alauddin Khilji feted Amir Khusrau, Nizamuddin’s favourite disciple. He had to accompany the sultan on his campaigns. He would have watched blood flow. Khusro would go to Nizamuddin to soothe the wounds of trauma. He describes his master: “The person of the Khwaja is not made up of water and clay. The lives of Khizr and Jesus have been mixed to give form to his being. He is an Emperor without throne and without crown. But the rulers stand in need of dust under his foot.”

Malik Kafur, the sultan’s trusted general, poisoned Alauddin Khilji. As the sultan passed away, Khusrau wrote: “Why conquer so many realms and cities when you cannot get more than four yards of land after your death.”

Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah, Alauddin Khilji’s son, outsmarted Malik Kafur and claimed the throne, after having him killed. Mubarak Shah wanted Nizamuddin dead — he announced his head be brought to his court. But the sultan needed the Shaikh’s favourite disciple, Amir Khusro, to praise him and his reign.

Was it too much to bear even for Khusrau? On the one hand, the sultan wanted to kill Nizamuddin, Khusrau’s master and soul, and on the other, he wanted Khusro to sing paeans to him. Was there a clash in Khusrau’s conscience? How did he live? Could Khusrau get out of this unreal situation? How did Nizamuddin feel?

The balancing act

Khusrau was a master at separating his life at the court as the poet of sultans and his time with Nizamuddin at his khanqah, but how was he going to work this one out? Khusrau could not live without his master and his guidance. Mubarak Shah wanted Nizamuddin dead. Yet he also wanted to tap Khusrau’s genius.

Amir Khusro did what he had to do: as court poet, he had to sing the praises of his political master. But he would first emphasise that he cannot walk the path of life without Nizamuddin Auliya, his spiritual master, as precious to him as his own life.

On the first day of the new moon, all the nobles and Ulama had to offer their respects to the sultan. Nizamuddin did not bother paying obeisance to the mighty Alauddin Khilji, he was certainly not going to entertain a lust-obsessed king. Instead, Nizamuddin sent his trusted attendant Iqbal or Lalla to the court. Mubarak Shah was incensed. He sent word that he would punish Nizamuddin if he did not come to pay his respects at the next new moon. But this was Nizamuddin. He would not budge.

Nizamuddin went to his mother Mai Sahiba’s grave and prayed: “If the sultan’s life does not end by the first of the next lunar month, I won’t be able to come to see you again.”

The new moon day arrived. Iqbal, his attendant, and other disciples were on edge. Iqbal asked his master twice if he should ready the palanquin so that they could proceed towards the palace. “Do something else,” Nizamuddin said.

And minutes later, there was word from the palace: Mubarak Shah had been slaughtered. One of his favoured generals, Khusro Shah, masterminded the assassination.

Khusrau Shah, ascended the throne with the name Naseeruddin Khusrau Shah on April 15, 1320. Nizamuddin found peace. The sultan, unlike the others, left the dervish alone and even gave him money, which Nizamuddin immediately distributed among the poor.

Sultan Naseeruddin lasted five months on the throne. Ghazi Malik marched against Naseeruddin Khusrau Shah, who met him in battle, but was killed. The Khilji dynasty came to an end. Ghazi Malik or Ghayasuddin Tughluq took charge and started the same process of wooing the generals to ensure he wasn’t decapitated when one of them felt the need for his head.

A soldier who rose through the ranks, Ghayasuddin didn’t like dervishes who sang and danced, and least of all one particular dervish: Nizamuddin Auliya. The sultan asked Nizamuddin to return the money Naseeruddin Khusrau Shah had given him. But Nizamuddin argued the money belonged to the public treasury and he had distributed it among the needy. He didn’t have any money. The sultan was furious. And the Ulama, who were pathologically jealous of Nizamuddin’s popularity among the people, saw this as an opportunity to create trouble. The Ulama of course didn’t take too kindly to the fact that this dervish would be lost in Sama and was even prone to dancing in a state of ecstasy. So off they went wagging their disapproving tongues to the sultan. Nizamuddin must be cut down to size, they ranted. The dervish had become too big for his boots.

This issue of music had been boiling among the irritable Ulama. They wanted it banned. The stubborn Ulama wouldn’t let go. Ghayasuddin had to listen to their clamour. Nizamuddin must be stopped. The sultan called a meeting of the Ulama. Nizamuddin, who despised the sultan’s court, had no choice but to present himself and his argument.

The assembly wasn’t pleasant as both sides presented their arguments on the subject: Is Sama forbidden? The sultan also consulted more than 50 theologians, but none said it was wrong. There was nothing Ghayasuddin could do to bring Nizamuddin down schweizer-apotheke.de. The fanatical Ulama were muzzled. Nizamuddin could sing and dance to his heart’s content after all. But the dervish was disgusted. He returned home to his Khanqah stunned at the conspiracy that was hatched by the Ulama and the sultan.

And when all this bloodshed and intrigue became too much to bear, Khusrau went to Nizamuddin. His balm.

You would ask what was a court poet, who was witness to all the perversions of sultans on the battlefield and in bed, doing in the Khanqah of a Sufi ascetic who had given up the world to serve the poor and thereby realise his Maker? This was a Sufi who had nothing of kings.

Amir Khusrau had everything. Power. Money. He was a prolific writer, his poetry and writing won him fame and fortune. But he lacked one thing: the sweetness of verse. He once wrote a poem in praise of Nizamuddin and presented it to him. His master was happy. ‘What do you desire?’ Nizamuddin asked Khusrau. Sweetness of verse was the answer. “Bring that bowl of sugar from under the cot and sprinkle it over your head and eat some of it,” Nizamuddin said. There was sweetness in Khusrau’s verse.

Khusrau knew music as much as he did words. He could put words to music. Khusrau created qawwali for his master. Nizamuddin would weep and dance to Khusrau’s verses as he went into Wajd where he found the Divine. Nizamuddin would drown in that love.

When his master would retire for the night, no one would be allowed to enter his chamber, only Khusrau could. “What news Turk?” Nizamuddin would ask. And the poet would tell his master what had transpired in the treacherous court and the kingdom that day. When Khusrau would leave, Nizamuddin would close the door. A candle would be seen burning in his room. Nizamuddin was immersed in prayer.

He remained like that for most of the night. Nizamuddin would emerge in the morning with an ecstatic glow around him. His eyes would be red. Khusrau would ask in whose embrace had Nizamuddin spent the night because his eyes were so red, yet his face was radiant?

Khusrau had access to Nizamuddin like nobody ever had.

The bond of destiny

Nizamuddin suffered from extreme depression when his young nephew, Taqiuddin Nooh, his sister, Zainab’s son, passed away. He became withdrawn; he would not speak. His disciples were worried. They had never seen their master this way. Khusrau did not have the magic up his sleeve to cure the depression until one day he saw a group of women, dressed in yellow, dancing and singing their way to a temple. He stopped them and asked what they were doing. Celebrating Basant, they replied. The courtier dressed up like a woman in yellow and went dancing and singing to his master. Nizamuddin smiled. Every year, Basant is celebrated at Nizamuddin’s shrine to mark the day Khusrau got the master’s smile back from the depths of grief and depression.

If the sultan Jalaluddin Khilji pampered Khusrau, Nizamuddin cradled him like a child, never letting go of his hand. Nizamuddin fondly called Khusrau TurkAllah, the Turk of God. “I am weary of everyone, but I am never weary of you. I get weary of everyone, even weary of myself, but I am never weary of you,” the master would say. The slave, God Almighty willing, would be next to the master even in Paradise.

Amir Khusrau With his Master Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.

Khusrau would pray most of the night himself. Once Nizamuddin asked him: “Turk, what is the state of being occupied?” “There are times at the end of the night when one is overcome by weeping,” he replied. “Praise be to God, bit by bit is being manifest,” Nizamuddin said.

But what was being manifested in Khusrau? Why did Khusrau want to give up the love of gold, the lure of the court and the adulation? Nizamuddin was being manifested in Khusrau – there was a longing; that yearning for divine love. It made Khusrau ache. It deprived his eyes of sleep, it robbed his limbs of rest.

The poet was transforming into a Sufi. Nizamuddin was proud of the new mould; he knew none other like Khusrau. No man so talented, no soul so seared for the Divine that he was now ready to burn. Quite like Nizamuddin’s soul. Only that Nizamuddin was already burning. In fact, his soul was seared with the thirst of Divine love.

Both master and disciple believed in tolerance. Nizamuddin would quote Shaikh Abu Saeed Ibn Abul Khair’s saying often: “There are as many paths as there are grains of sand.”

Amir Khusrau’s couplet sums up what Nizamuddin stood for: tolerance.

“Oh you who sneer at the idolatry of the Hindu,

Learn also from him how worship is done.”

Khusrau was always disciplined. Even in the height of his love affair with the court and its material wonders, the poet made sure he made time every day to polish his craft — words and verses that he put to rhythm and tune. And perhaps, he wrote this verse after being overcome with the sense of the Divine one night.

I do not know what abode it was, that place where I was last night.

On every side I saw the dance of the Bismil (Divine) in that place I was last night.

I saw one with the form of an angel, the height of a cypress, cheeks like tulips.

From head to toe, I quivered, my heart astir, in that place where I was last night.

Rivals, listen to that voice, the voice which calms my raging fright.

The words he spoke left me in awe, in that place where I was last night.

Mohammad was the candle illuminating the assembly,

O Khusrau, in that place which is no place,

And God himself was the head of that gathering,

In that place where I was last night.

The unease of love

The many years of fasting, penitence and poverty had started to tell on Nizamuddin. It was 1325, Nizamuddin now 81 was ailing, but the sultan was still hounding him. If sultan Ghayasuddin thought Nizamuddin was a threat, there were more serious issues in his empire. There was trouble brewing in Bengal and Avadh. The generals were at it again, mismanaging affairs. Off the sultan went, taking Amir Khusrau with him to put things right. The mission over, sultan Ghayasuddin started his journey back home, sending word ahead that Nizamuddin should leave Delhi before he made an entrance. “Hunooz Dilli door ast (Delhi is still far away),” Nizamuddin said.

Ghayasuddin’s son, Ulugh Khan, meanwhile, prepared for his father’s arrival and ordered that Delhi be dressed up for the occasion. Fearing that the arrangements wouldn’t be complete on time, Ulugh Khan got a pavilion erected in Afghanpur a short distance from Tughluqabad.

Father and son met, food was served and the feasting began. Ulugh Khan left the pavilion to bring some elephants he had captured in war to be paraded before his father, the sultan Ghayasuddin. The son had barely left the pavilion, when it collapsed, burying Ghayasuddin and his trusted nobles. By the time the rubble was removed the sultan was dead. Ulugh Khan was crowned sultan and he took the name of Mohammad Bin Tughluq.

Amir Khusrau was still journeying back from Bengal. His master, Nizamuddin’s health was fading away quickly. They say Khusrau was uneasy in Bengal and wanted to return to Delhi. He didn’t want to leave his master’s side in the first place. He felt something was wrong. Khusrau hastened home.

As Amir Khusrau galloped towards Delhi from Bengal, Nizamuddin went to the mosque to offer Friday prayers. He entered into a state of ecstasy. He kept bowing and prostrating repeatedly. Nizamuddin returned home and fell unconscious. He woke and asked whether he had offered his prayers. “Today is Friday. Have I offered my prayers?” He prayed repeatedly as tears flowed down his cheeks. “It is time, it is time,” he whispered.

It was April 3, 1325, Amir Khusrau was still journeying back from Bengal. The master went home.

Khusrau once said of his master: Wherever his breath reached, mountains of grief gave way.

There was no breath to cure this grief. Instead, it seemed the mountains of grief could — and would —take life away.

Amir Khusrau came back to Delhi. He went straight to that garden where his master lay and uttered these words:

“The fair one lies on the couch with her black tresses on her face.

O Khusrau, go home now, for there is only darkness in this world.”

There was nothing left for Khusrau. No reason to live in this world. True, he could see and hear his master, for saints never die. But what was left in this world? Who would give him comfort after he returned from the barbaric court of the sultan? Who would fire his soul worn down by the vulgarities of the nobles? Who would revive the joy after the doldrums of the court, the doldrums brought on by sycophantic verses he would have to churn out day after day until they deadened his mind? Who was there to read the words he wrote, to listen to the song of his heart? This mountain of grief could take life away.

Amir Khusrau withdrew from the world. He mourned silently. Khusrau the courtier, the electric personality who could light up the court when he wanted, the people’s person, the poet, the musician, the Sufi, was now reduced to a man who had nothing left to live for. There was just darkness all round — so blindingly dark.

After six months of grieving, Amir Khusrau surrendered himself to his master. The soul could not survive the darkness of this world on its own.

He lies a few feet from his master. Together in this world, they are together in another.