Qawwali and the Shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya

Nizamuddin Auliya belonged to the Chishti order, one of the major Sufi lineages in South Asia, and built his reputation less on political closeness to Delhi's rulers than on a deliberate distance from court, a stance that nonetheless made him hugely influential among ordinary people and even among the sultans he kept at arm's length. His closest disciple, the poet and musician Amir Khusrau, is credited with helping shape qawwali into the devotional form still performed at the shrine today, and Khusrau's own tomb stands within a few steps of his teacher's, a closeness the two are said to have asked for in life. The dargah's architecture reflects its long rebuilding history: the current dome and structure date mainly to 1562, well over two centuries after the saint's death, financed by a Mughal era noble rather than surviving unchanged from the fourteenth century. Around the tomb, the surrounding Basti grew into one of Delhi's oldest continuously inhabited neighbourhoods, its narrow lanes lined with shops selling flowers, sweets and cloth offerings for the shrine, its identity shaped as much by the dargah's daily rhythm of prayer and music as by any single ruler's patronage. In recent years a major public restoration effort, led by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in partnership with Indian heritage authorities, has repaired monuments across the Basti and the neighbouring Humayun's Tomb complex, treating the dargah's surroundings as a single historic urban landscape rather than an isolated monument.