Why Sufism is integral to Delhi’s past, and its present

“Where love is... there is Delhi.”

— Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya

Delhi has never been a city of quiet continuity. It has been built, destroyed, and rebuilt over centuries, by conquerors, migrants, monarchs, poets and politicians. It has rarely belonged to one idea, one faith, or one language. What has allowed this endlessly unsettled city to live with itself is not uniformity, but its very inherent diversity and an acquired instinct to make space for the other.

Sufism lies at the heart of this instinct. Not merely as a spiritual tradition, but as a cultural force that shaped how Delhi learned to coexist.

Sufism entered North India between the 12th and 14th centuries when the Mongols were massacring people in Central Asia. The Sufis were amongst those who escaped and made Delhi their home. This was also the time when Delhi was emerging as the political centre of the Delhi Sultanate. Power was consolidating, hierarchies were forming and authority was becoming increasingly centralised. In that landscape, Sufi saints arrived not as missionaries or conquerors but as listeners, offering access and acceptance without conditions. And in a city repeatedly marked by invasion and upheaval, that distinction mattered.

India, with her multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-lingual society was also prime ground for the Sufis as it has always welcomed men imbued with high moral and spiritual ideas who could, in the words of Tagore, “set at naught all differences of men, by the overflow of their consciousness of God”. The Sufi saints of India belong to this category of “God-conscious men” who stood above narrow divisions of society.

As Delhi served as a refuge to a host of displaced immigrant populations who bought with them varieties of religious and intellectual traditions, the Sufis reacted with empathy as they themselves came from cultures far off. Perhaps this emphatically made them liberal and accommodative, endowing their host city with a unique cosmopolitan character, which in turn was nurtured by the city itself.

Anthropologists have long noted that Sufi shrines in North India function as community kitchens (langar), sites of oral history and emotional sanctuaries. Delhi’s pluralism added another layer to this tapestry. These were spaces where over shared meals (langars) and prayers caste dissolved, and hierarchy was suspended. Whatever the political upheaval in the city, the Sufi khanqah welcomed you irrespective of who you were.

It was this broad and cosmopolitan outlook of the Sufis, marked by their belief in the unity of God and service to humanity (Sulh e Kul), that brought about a social and cultural revolution of far reaching consequences, removing mistrust and facilitating social and ideological reproachments between communities and bridging Hindu and Muslim divides.

There were healthy exchange of ideas between the Sufis and the Hindu Yogis. The Sufis borrowed meditation techniques from the Yogis and learnt from the spiritual experiences of mystics belonging to other communities. Sufi and Bhakti thought and practice also fed off each other. Both of them attracted the attention of the lower classes as they not only preached equality, but also practised it. They both put stress on love as the basis of the relationship with God.

Delhi, in fact, became known as ‘Baees Khwaja ki Chaukhat’ or the threshold of 22 saints, a testament to the deep influence of Sufi saints in the region. The most influential Sufi figures associated with Delhi belonged largely to the Chishti order. Hazrat Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1235) established one of the earliest khanqahs in Mehrauli. Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (1238-1325), Delhi’s most enduring spiritual presence, emphasised love (ishq), service (khidmat), and compassion. The Chishti ethos was significant because of its openness. These saints spoke local languages, encouraged Sama (spiritual listening), fed anyone who came to their doors, and refused alignment with political power. Their dargahs became shared civic spaces rather than exclusive religious institutions.

Sufism was also Delhi’s earliest language of resistance. It did not challenge power head on. It did something more interesting, it made power irrelevant. When Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq demanded Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s presence at court, the saint’s reported response “Hindustan abhi door ast” entered the city’s folklore. Authority, the Sufis suggested, does not automatically command moral legitimacy. This is also why Sufism flourished in Delhi. While this city has known dominance, it also owns its defiance. And Sufism offered defiance without violence, love without conditions.

The Sufis of Delhi had a significant role in the religious and cultural history of South Asia. They were great patrons of art, literature and language. They considered languages as modes of communication to bring people closer. By speaking the language of the people, the Sufi saints endeared themselves in the local culture.

It was at Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s khanqah in Delhi that his disciple and famed poet Hazrat Amir Khusrau excelled. Khusrau took great pride in writing verses in regional languages. The beginnings of the tradition of Sufiana qawwali is attributed to him; he adapted Arab and Turkish musical instruments and enriched the traditions of Indian classical music. His poems and odes are still sung. Delhi’s relationship with Sufism has never been confined to prayers alone. Through poetry, metaphor, and longing, Sufi traditions loosened religion from rigid control. It was thus the language of everyday culture more than religion which attracted people to Sufism.

Later, Mirza Ghalib caught the imagination of Delhi. He lived and wrote through the collapse of Mughal Delhi and expressed a deeply Sufi consciousness, questioning dogma, embracing doubt, and finding the divine in ambiguity. His poetry, like Sufi thought, resisted easy answers and rigid belief, choosing instead longing, irony and introspection.

Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khana, whose verses continue to circulate across languages and classrooms, echoed similar values of humility, devotion and inwardness. Even Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor known more as a Sufi, wrote poetry steeped in loss, surrender and spiritual resignation. These figures, saints, poets, emperors are part of a continuum. Together, they shaped Delhi as a city where faith was expressed through feeling.

I believe what also allowed Sufism to take root so naturally in Delhi is its geography. It is only natural that Sufism, a state of “being” without borders, thrived and flourished in Delhi, a State without borders. This city without hard cultural borders welcomed Sufism, which resisted fixed identities, rigid dogma, and singular truths. Delhi recognised itself in that philosophy. The tradition of Phool Walon Ki Sair captures this ethos with quiet clarity. Originating in the early 19th century, the procession moves seamlessly between the Yogmaya Temple and the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, offering floral tributes at both. It is neither symbolic nor performative — it is simply how Delhi learned to move through difference, without anxiety or assertion. Perhaps that is why Sufism never felt imported in Delhi. It felt familiar, like a language the city already knew how to speak.

Few people come to Delhi without encountering this legacy. A visit to Humayun’s Tomb inevitably leads one to the Nizamuddin dargah. Conversations about Delhi’s past often circle back to Ghalib, Rahim or Zafar. These are not marginal sites or memories; they sit at the very centre of the city’s imagination. Delhi’s identity is inseparable from these spaces of devotion, poetry, and reflection, where history is not merely observed, but felt.

Today, this inheritance continues to matter. Sufi music, particularly qawwali, continues to attract audiences across age, faith and geography. Historically, Sama was integral to Chishti practice; music was understood as a means of dissolving the ego and touching transcendence. From Amir Khusrau to the Nizami brothers, to the qawwals who gather every Thursday night at dargahs across Delhi, this tradition continues, not as performance alone, but as shared experiences.

Working in and around culture in Delhi has shown me repeatedly that culture does not operate in isolation but thrives within communities. Sufism offers this engagement through music, poetry, food, a common longing, and an understanding of loss. It gently teaches that joy is sacred, sorrow is shared, and love is not something to fear. This shared spiritual vocabulary found one of its most vivid expressions at the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, where Basant Panchami has been celebrated for centuries. Draped in yellow, devotees mark the arrival of spring not as a religious boundary, but as a season of renewal. The colour of mustard fields and blossoms fill this Sufi space — quietly reminding us that in Delhi, devotion has never been fenced in by identity

This legacy continues to shape the city’s multicultural identity even today.

I have stood at Nizamuddin dargah on evenings when the crowd spills far beyond the courtyard, people waiting patiently through an entire qawwali, some not understanding a word, yet unwilling to leave. You can feel when a space is holding people together. Delhi has always recognised that feeling… and keeps trying to find it. I have taken friends and colleagues to the dargah where music, culture and food seamlessly bind us together even as we whisper prayers, collect rose petals or tie pieces of thread.

Sufism in Delhi has, therefore, never been static. It keeps evolving with the city. What began in khanqahs and dargahs now finds expression in concert halls, public gardens, festivals, classrooms, and digital spaces. This continuity is not accidental. Delhi has always allowed spiritual traditions to evolve without losing their essence.

The modern Sufi today is not confined to robes or rituals. He/she may be an artist, a listener, a seeker, someone who chooses empathy over certainty, connection over control. When we create contemporary spaces for Sufi music and conversation today, we are not reviving something that faded. We are extending a rhythm Delhi already recognises, one that has always allowed art, faith, and everyday life to sit side by side.

The Sufi Heritage Festival, to be held at Delhi this weekend, emerges from this very understanding. It is not an attempt to preserve Sufism, but to practise it in the present. It’s a reminder of what holds Delhi together, a living tradition that continues to strengthen the community and carry Delhi’s universal language of love far beyond its borders.

In that sense, the festival is not about nostalgia. It is about continuity and community. About allowing a borderless philosophy to keep blossoming in a borderless city, and to carry forward Delhi’s most enduring inheritance: its capacity for love.

— The writer, co-founder of Culture Plus, is presenting the second edition of the Sufi Heritage Festival in the historic gardens of Sunder Nursery, New Delhi, on February 28 and March 1