Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki - Move To Delhi

Move To Delhi

In obedience to the desire of his spiritual master, Moinuddin Chishti, Khwaja Bakhtiyar went and started living in the city of Delhi, during the reign of Iltutmish. Attracted by his spiritual prowess and charitable attitude, a large number of people started visiting him daily. He started initiating disciples on the spiritual path as well.

The name Kaki was attributed to him by virtue of a keramat (miracle) that emanated from him in Delhi. According to it, he asked his wife not to take credit from the local baker despite their extreme poverty. Instead he told her to pick up Kak (a kind of bread) from a corner of their house whenever needed. After this his wife found that Kak miraculously appeared in that corner whenever she required. The baker, in the meantime, had become worried whether the Khwaja had stopped taking credit due to being perchance angry with him. Accordingly, when the baker's wife asked the reason from the Khwaja's wife, she told her about the miracle of Kak. Although the Kak stopped appearing due to the revealing of the secret, from that day the people started referring to him as Kaki.

Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki, like other Chisti saints, did not formulate any formal doctrine. He used to hold a majlis, a gathering, where he gave his discourses. Directed at the common masses, these contained an emphasis on renunciation, having complete trust in God, treating all human beings as equal and helping them as much as possible, etc. Whatever money was donated to him, he usually spent it on charity the same day.

He was a great believer in helping the needy without heeding the result. When an eminent disciple, Fariduddin Ganjshakar, asked him about the legality of amulets (tawiz) which were controversial as they could lead to theological problems of semi-idolatory in Islam, he replied that the fulfilment of desires belonged to no one; the amulets contained God's name and His words and could be given to the people.

He continued and extended the musical tradition of the Chisti order by participating in sema. It is conjectured that this was with the view that, being in consonance with the role of music in some modes of Hindu worship, it could serve as a basis of contact with the local people and would facilitate mutual adjustments between the two communities. On the 14th of Rabi-ul-Awwal 633 A.H. (27 November 1235 CE) he attended a sema where the poet Ahmad-i-Jam sang the following verses:

Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki was so overcome and enraptured by these verses that he fainted away. He died four days later while still in that state of ecstasy. His dargah (shrine) is near Qutub Minar, in Mehrauli, Delhi.

Left of the Ajmeri Gate of the dargah at Mehrauli, lies Moti Masjid, a small mosque for private prayer built by Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah I in 1709, an imitation of the much larger Moti Masjid built by his father, Aurangzeb, inside the Red Fort of Delhi.