Music and Related Practices in Chishti Sufism: Celebrations and Contestations

Khwaja Qutb-ud-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki, a music afficionado and second in a chain of five great Chishti Sufis who flourished in the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, died in 1235, after bouts of ecstasy caused by the above couplet recited by a qawwal in a mahfil-i-sama (music assembly) organised by the Khwaja himself. Chishti memory recounts that the Khwaja was in rapture over three days, and every time he would regain consciousness, he would ask the qawwal to recite the same couplet. Eventu- ally, the Khwaja breathed his last in that state of bliss, ascending to the heaven in anticipation of achieving union with his beloved Allah.