AMU faculty member delivers a lecture on Sufi-saints

ALIGARH : Prof Gulfishan Khan, Chairperson and Coordinator of the Centre of Advanced Study Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University presented a paper “Life of Ṣūfī-Mashāʾikh in Hazrat-i-Dehli/Shahjahanabad: Views from the Indo-Persian and Urdu Texts” at an international seminar on “Sufis, Poets, and Saints”, organised by the Heritage Association of the History Department, in collaboration with the Research Centre, JDMC Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi.

She highlighted the multifaceted socio-cultural contribution of the Indo-Muslim Sufi-saints. She said that during the medieval period, Delhi, which was called Hazrat-i-Dehli (the Exalted Capital), had been a premier centre of spiritual activities of generations of the saints of various orders called tariqas.

“Many tombs, mosques, hospices, dargahs, and colleges called madrasahs, which dotted the landscape of the heritage city were also constructed and patronised by the Sufi-saints who lived, preached and are lying buried there. The two foremost hospices of Chishti Sufis that of Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki, and dargah of Shaykh Nizamuddin Awliya, were source of urbanisation and social change”, she added.