Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI
1325. The poet, who outlived the saint by only half a year, was buried
in close proximity to him, and his tomb today on the territory of the
dargāh, I think, excels the Shaikh’s sepulchre in beauty and richness
of décor. Finding himself after death in the walāyat, i.e. within the
limits of the spiritual authority of Nizamuddin, it is as if Amir
Khusrow himself also partly became a walī: in any case offerings are
made at his mazār, and qawwālī, glorifying the friendship between
the shaikh and the poet, are performed at the threshold of his tomb.
Believers attached special importance to the territorial proximity of
these two burial sites – all the misfortunes which befell Delhi in the
middle and second half of the eighteenth century, and which led
to the complete pillage of the capital, were explained by them by the
fact that in 1748 the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah was buried
between the tombs of the saint and the poet.
Although Amir Khusrow’s relations with his spiritual preceptor
became a favourite subject of research for Indian scholars, the
memory of the saint was truly perpetuated by another disciple, Amir
Hasan Sijzi (1254–1336), who has been referred to repeatedly in this
book. He was a remarkable lyric poet, who was constantly compared
with Sa‘di, the author of several poetical dīwāns and mathnawīs.
Although not possessing the fecundity of Amir Khusrow, he was his
equal in the vitality of his talent.
If Amir Khusrow was connected with the Shaikh from his youth
(thanks to his grandfather), then Amir Hasan, native of the same
Badaun, found himself in his field of influence when he was already
an elderly person. Hagiographic tradition ascribes to Amir Hasan a
dissipated mode of life, which came to an end thanks to a meeting
with the Shaikh. Jamali Kanbuh asserts in Siyar al-‘ārifīn that while
returning from Mehrauli after ziyārat to the tomb of Qutbuddin
Bakhtiyar Kaki, Nizamuddin saw Amir Hasan drinking wine in the
company of revellers on the bank of the tank Hauz-i Shamsi. Amir
Hasan supposedly knew the Shaikh by sight already from Badaun
and, having noticed him, exclaimed with bravado:
Your piety has not diminished my sinfulness;
What is more powerful – your piety or my sinfulness?
(Nizami 1992: 45)
Whatever the truth of this episode, Amir Hasan subsequently
repented of his sins and became a constant visitor to Ghiyathpur.
Here he started taking down the Shaikh’s discourses and accounts,
having explained to him the purpose of his work as follows:
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