Dargah Hazrat Khawaja Kamal Ud Din Alamah - New Delhi

Masha allah

I love the place

Hazrat Khwaja Sayyid Kamal Uddin (r.a) was one of the two major successor of the great Sufi master Hazrat Khwaja Naseer Uddin Chiragh(r.a). During the twilight of Dehli years, he was responsible for firmly rooting the sisilah in the Gujrat, a place of relative calm. The paternal nephew of Khwaja Nasir Uddin, he was also the great grandson of Hazrat Baba Farid Uddin Ganjshakar, and a direct Hussaini descendant of the Holy Prophet (swm). In his youth, he became the murid ofHazrat Nizam Uddin Auliya, and was thus his uncle’s peer-bhai. The hagiographical works Majalis-e-Hasiniyya, Maqam Ganj-e-Shakar and Siyar al Auliya all recorded that Khwaja Kamal Uddin was honoured with the khilafat of Khwaja Nizam Uddin (r.a) before he passed away, as a sign of the latters favor towards him. The responsibility for his spiritual training, however, was transferred to his uncle Khwaja NasirUddin Chiragh, who completed his suluk and after whose name he appears in the Chishtiya Nizamiyya’s Shajarah. Little is known about his birth and early life, but he trained to a high level of specialization in all fields of Islamic sciences. Such was his mastery, that he was acknowledged as the top expert of his time in fiqh, tafsir and ulum al hadith. He eventually became well-known as ”Kamal Uddin Allama” (the great scholar) and some of the great ulama of India traveled to Dehli to study at his feet. Hazrat Makhdom Jalal Uddin Bukhari and Moulana Shams Uddin both saints of the thirteen century Chishti order-read the difficult and advanced text of Sharh al-Mashariq under his guidance. Because of his high degree of learning, and the khilafat he possessed from Hazrat Nizam Uddin Auliyah, he was greatly respected by his own spiritual master Nasir Uddin Chiragh. Hazrat Makhddom Jahaniyah is also recorded as having said, ”the certificate of authorization (Khilafat Nama) awarded to me by Khwaja Nasir Uddin Chiragh was written by the hand of Hazrat Khwaja Kamal Uddin Allama; and he also counter-signed it to verify and witness it.” This simple fact bears ample testimony to the great status of Khwaja Kamal Uddin Allama, and the respect in which he was held. The awarding of so prestigious a khilafat nama as that of Khwaja Nasir Uddin, the greatest Sufi masterof his era—was truly momentous event. To countersign such a document implies a degree of equality, and that Allamah Kamal Uddin was made to scribe and word it denotes an implicit trust upon the part of the murshid for his murid. In his own writings, Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gesu Daraz has also mentioned many of the superlative qualities of Hazrat Kamal Uddin (r.a). These testimonies, along with his own lofty reputation, led the Tughlaq sultan Firuz Shah, as well as his government and ministers, to seek a close bond as possible with him. Khwaja Kamal Uddin, whilst providing advice and admonition to the ruling elite, kept to the principles of the Chishti masters of maintaininga healthy distance from the rich and the powerful, for fear of corruption. Khwaja Kamal Uddin made seven pilgrimages to Makkah in his lifetime, an enormous amount when one considers the great distances and hardships involved. He met some of the great scholars and saint of his time on these travels, and also visited Maasjid al Aqsa in the land of Palestine. For his first hajj, Khwaja Nizam Uddin Auliya himself came to see him off. He blessed him with his own khirqa, which he requested that Kamal Uddin war when making his Hajj. With this, Khwaja Nizam Uddin conferred khilafat upon his young murid. The emotional parting marked the last time that kamal Uddin Allama would see his first murshid in this life. From there he traveled through Khurasan and other kingdoms on his way to Hijaz. His reputation , and that of his masters in Dehli, had already reached such a degree that kings and sultans along the way came to pay their respect to him. They used to meet him at the roadside knowing full well that the Chishtiyyah order did not accept invitations to palaces in order to touch his feet out of respect.