Nizamuddin Aulia Shrine

Nizamuddin Aulia Shrine
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HAZRATH KHWAJA NIZAMUDDIN AULIA RA (d. 725/1323)

He was also known as “Sultan-ul-Mashaikh” (distinguished leader of the Sufi Saints of his time in India) and “Mehboob-e-Elahi” (Beloved of Allah). He succeeded Hazrath Baba Fariduddin RA as the highest spiritual leader in India. In addition to his spiritual attainments and perfection, he was a most distinguished scholar and an administrative genius. His Khanqah in Delhi became the reservoir of Divine Wisdom and Knowledge, religious learning and moral and social training for over 50 years.

He founded Khanqahs all over India, and sent his trained Khulafas who acquitted themselves most brilliantly in their missionary duties especially in imparting lessons in Truth and Love. He saw seven kingdoms of Delhi rising and falling. He never visited the courts of any of the ruling monarchs, neither did he permit them to come near him all his life, thus observing one of the most important principles of Sufism in this respect.

Charity and piety were deeply ingrained in his life because he himself had tasted the bitter pills of poverty and privations in his childhood and youth. He lived and died for the welfare of the poor of India. He is buried in Delhi, India.

Among his mureeds (followers) was one Hazrath Amir Khusro RA - a great Sufi, a wealthy merchant who gave up all, an intellectual giant of many languages, an artist, a prolific author, a genius musician (he invented the Sitar), a versatile composer, and above all a most dutiful and devoted mureed.

www.soofie.saheb.org.za/a_few_great_saints.htm