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

THE OLD MAN OF AJMER
the dargāh the emperor gave orders not to prevent ritual performance
of qawwāli in honour of the saint and, according to tradition, was
so deeply moved by the singing that he heaped gold on the musicians
from head to foot. 11 Finally, Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara, deeply
fascinated by Sufism, visited the dargāh more than once.
As the Mughal aristocracy, imitating the members of the emperor’s
family, was literally overloading Ajmer Sharif with new buildings,
at the close of his reign Jahangir banned the construction of new
buildings on the premises of the dargāh without prior sanction,
restricting the pious impulses of the courtiers to the space beyond
its outer fence. That is why the complex came to be surrounded
by numerous mosques, covered courts (dālān), summerhouses
(bārahdarī ) and memorial steles. Notable among these structures
are two of the rarest mosques in the subcontinent, built by women.
One, of red sandstone, was erected on the order of Maya Ba’i, who
was the wet-nurse and nanny 12 of princess Zebunnisa, Aurangzeb’s
daughter. The other one was gifted to the dargāh by the daughter of
the great Indian musician Miyan Tansen, Ba’i Tilokdi by name (who,
judging by her name, professed Hinduism). As a matter of fact, it is
only from the inscription on the frieze of this mosque that historians
came to know that Tansen had a singer daughter who had inherited
her father’s profession (Tirmizi 1968: 52).
The tradition of pilgrimage to the saint’s tomb by emperors did not
wane even in the later Mughals’ time: Bahadur Shah I, Farrukh Siyar
and Muhammad Shah Rangeela also performed ziyārat to Ajmer.
However, in the year 1756, as a result of war between Rajput clans,
the town passed into the hands of the Marathas, who, to give them
their due, continued to provide public services and amenities to the
dargāh. In particular, in 1769, the Maratha vicegerent, Santoji by
name, laid out near the gate of Madar Darwaza a big regular park,
called Chishti Chaman, dedicated to the saint. In the year 1818 Ajmer
was annexed by the English, under whom the dargāh ceased to be an
object of state patronage and the construction of new ritual structures
in it came to an end.
What the dargāh looked like in the middle of the nineteenth century
we know from the notes of the English traveller William Finch:
Before you come to this tomb you pass three faire courts of
which the first contayneth near an acre of ground, paved
all with black and white marble, wherein are interred many
of ‘Mohamet’s Cursed Kindred’; on the left is a faire tank,
inclosed with stone. The Second Court is paved like the
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