The one who is out of my sight, left a wound in my heart

The soft earth reflects the footprints

— Mirza Bedil

The great Persian poet Abdul Qadir Bedil was born in India in 1644 AD during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan, and died in 1720 AD when the Mughal empire was faltering under Emperor Mohammad Shah. Popularly known as Bedil Dehlvi, he was a highly respected poet. He was born to an Uzbeki family from Turkestan that moved to India in the early seventeenth century.

Daryâ nakashî, agar nahangî nakunî bar kooh natâzî, ar palangî nakunî

yak jur’a-e tust, qulzam-e kown wa makân ai hawsêla-e khîyâl tangî nakunî

You cannot sip the ocean, if you cannot be like a whale

You cannot gallop up the mountain, if you cannot be like a tiger the world’s ocean becomes one gulp for you

O the patience of imagination, if you do not lose capacity

Mughal empire was faltering under Emperor Mohammad Shah. He was born to an Uzbeki family from Turkestan that moved to India in the early seventeenth century.

He was considered a Sufi saint by many, since he believed the world was in eternal, constant motion. His tomb or mazaar is near Pragati Maidan, well-kept and known as Bagh-e-Bedil.

Nayab Muttawalli, whose family has been the caretaker of the place for at least 600 years, told me about the story of the controversy around the name of the place. He says this building was built eighty years ago by a Nizam of Hyderabad, and spruced up in 2006 for the visit of Emomali Rahmanov, the then-president of Tajikistan.

The original tomb is said to have been near a haveli by the river Yamuna, but his body was taken back to Kabul.

Dr Abdul Ghani corroborates this in the book Life and Works of Abdul Qadir Bedil, which draws its history from an admirer of Bedil from his times, a man called Bindaban Das “Khushgo”. He writes:

“[Bedil] was down with typhoid fever towards the end of Muharram 1133 AH (Nov 1720). After four or five days the fever disappeared, and, thinking that he had recovered, Bedil took a bath on the 2nd of Safar 1133 AH (December 3, 1720). On Wednesday the 3rd of Safar there was a relapse of fever, which remained for the whole of the night. Nawab Ghairat Khan Bahadur … was with him for the whole of the night. Sometimes Bedil swooned, and then came to himself. When he regained senses, he would burst into laughter involuntarily. The hopes of recovery waned at last, and at dawn the condition changed horribly. It was Thursday, 4th Safar 1133 AH (December 5, 1720) when six gharis had passed after sunrise, the Bedil’s soul winged its way to Heaven. His sacred remains were buried in the courtyard of his house, on the bank of the river Jamna, at the place specified by himself.”

Khushgo is said to have written the chronogram for the tomb:

Alas! Bedil concealed his face from this world! That pure jewel sleeps under the earth

When Khushgo asked his intellect for the chronogram

It said ‘Mirza Bedil departed from this world

I have no idea where this tombstone is.

(Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins India.)

Published on DailyO.in

Bagh-e-Bedil: The Full Scoop

POSTED BY SUNDEEP DOUGAL ON MAR 31, 2007 AT 23:48 IST  in Outlook

There is more to report on the matter of Bedil’s grave. Just as we are about to go to press, Naim saab in Chicago has been able to hunt out the book he was looking for and this is what he has to report further on the subject that has been causing us a grave concern:

1. Life And Works Of Abdul Qadir Bedily by Dr. Abdul Ghani,

“[Bedil] was down with typhoid fever towards the end of Muharram 1133 AH (Nov. 1720). After four or five days the fever disappeared, and, thinking that he had recovered, Bedil took a bath on the 2nd of Safar 1133 AH (December 3, 1720). On Wednesday the 3rd of Safar there was a relapse of fever which remained for the whole of the night. Nawab Ghairat Khan Bahadur . . . was with him for the whole of the night. Sometimes Bedil swooned, and then came to himself. When he regained senses, he would burst into laughter involuntarily. The hopes of recovery waned at last, and at dawn the condition changed horribly. It was Thursday, 4th Safar 1133 AH (December 5, 1720) when six gharis had passed after sunrise, the Bedil’s soul winged its way to Heaven. His sacred remains were buried in the courtyard of his house, on the bank of the river Jamna, at the place specified by himself.” (pp. 110-11)

The above statement is based on three impeccable contemporary sources, including Bindaban Das ‘Khushgo’, a most ardent admirer of Bedil who was in Delhi then. Khushgo clearly says that he was buried in a grave dug into a chabutra that bedil had got built for that very purpose ten years earlier.
Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu, another contemporary, gives the 4th of Safar as the date of the annual ‘urs. While Dargah Quli Khan, who came to Delhi only in 1738, mentions that the ‘urs was held on the 3rd. It’s quite possible that the ceremonies began the night of the 3d and concluded the next morning, at the approximate time of Bedil’s death. He also implies that the grave was well maintained.
Some other, non-contemporary, later sources have mentioned the 3rd as the date of actual death. Their confusion is obvious.

Hasan Nizami, in 1941, translated Dargah Quli Khan’s book into Urdu. Curious about Bedil and the fact of his grave being unknown to anyone in Delhi, he published a query in his magazine (where the translation also appeared). He received one response. here is what he wrote in re the matter to Dr. Abdul Ghani, as reported by the latter:

“On reading [Nizami’s] note, Maulana Shah Sulaiman Sahib [of] Phulwari wrote to him that the tomb was in front of the Old Fort and in the vicinity of the tomb of Hazrat Malik Nur-ud-Din Yar-e-Parran. The Maulana [i,e, Nizami] went there. No vestige of the tomb was left, but he says he discovered the site. A request was then made to the present Nizam Asif Jah VII, who remitted Rs. 2,000 and the tomb with a marble tomb-stone and low enclosure of bricks was rebuilt. The inscription on it reads . . . ‘The tomb of Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil. Date of death: 3rd Safar, 1133 A.H. (Necessary repairs and constructions made in 1359 A.H. through the royal regards of His Highness Asif Jah VII, the ruler of the Deccan).” (pp114-15)

2. Hayat-i-Bedil Aur Digar Mazamin by Dr. Amanat, Allahabad, 1980.

He has a long essay on the life and death of Bedil, entitled “Hayat-i-Bedil” (Bedil’s Life).

He quotes Khushgo about Bedil’s house that was bought for him by Nawab Shukrallah Khan. It was “outside the Delhi Darwaza and the Shahar-panah (Delhi Gate and the City Wall), in muhalla Khekariyan and beside Guzar Ghat, [and was known as the haveli of] Lutf Ali.”

The annual celebration is described in sufficient detail by several eye-witnesses, including Khushgo and Arzu and Dargah Quli Khan, in that chronological order. Apparently it was a big event in Delhi’s cultural/literary life.

According to Dr. Amanat, the last mention of the grave and the ceremony is dated 1771. (p. 75) By then Delhi had been plundered over and over again, and its elite and poets were leaving it increasing number for safer and more rewarding places. On such person was Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi, who left Delhi and found refuge in Lucknow. In his tazkira (account) of the Persian poets of his age, he includes Bedil ‘for blessing,’ but adds ten years to his date of death (1143 AH). He also writes: “Bedil’s grave was built in his house which is now only a deserted ruin.” Mushafi wrote his book in 1199 AH (1784-85).

Several sources mention the names of two shagirds of Bedil and the son of a cousin of Bedil who organized these ceremonies. The son of the cousin is described as a lout who had little of Bedil’s spark, but earned a good living selling the various pills and pastes that Bedil used to make for himself and his friends.

3. The Wikipedia entry mentions two Afghan scholars. It claims that Saljuqi ‘proved’ that the grave was in Kabul. He does not do so; in fact he bases his assertion entirely and exclusively on the other scholar, Mohammed Da’ud, whose book I have not been able to locate. The two scholars suggest that Bedil was a Barlas Turk; he in fact belonged to another tribe called Arlas, as firmly concluded by Dr Abdul Ghani. Certainly, if the bones had been removed seven months after Bedil’s death, as the Afghan scholar is reported to have established there would have followed a big uproar among Bedil’s disciples and admirers, and the annual ceremony would not have continued for fifty years.

4. I must however express my greatest admiration and gratitude to Afghan scholars and literati for keeping Bedil alive for us and for making excellent editions of his books. We have yet to do that in India and Pakistan.

Khwaja Hazrat Noorudin was a Sufi saint of the Qadri silsila or order.
He came to India from Persia and decided to settle in the area which belonged to Sheikh Abu Bakr Toosi more popularly known as Matka Shah.
The area on which Pragati Maiden stands today was all part of his khanqah during Balban ‘ s reign and till much later.
Sheikh Toosi objected to the entry of someone whom he thought had come without permission into his territory.
Khwaja Noorudin told Matka Shah he had come here with his Peer’s ( spiritual masters blessings.
Not surprisingly Sheikh Toosi asked for proof.
Khwaja Noorudin covered himself with a cloth and within minutes came back with the sanad or letter from his Peer.
The speed impressed Matka Shah so much that he gave him the title of
Malik Yaar Parra’n – My friend won the wing
This story was told to us by Janab Mohammad Misbah whose family has been caretaker of the shrine for 600 years +.
Today the area is famous as Bagh e Bedil regarding which there’s a controversy dealt with below, again recounted by Janab Mohammad Misbah.

Janab Mohammad Misbah sahab led us to Khwaja sahab grave and prayed for us after offering the Fatima for the departed soul.
His advice – be constant in your prayers and faith.
Maangne waale ko sab kuch milta hai lekin Maangne waale ko zabaan chahiye ( Concentration & yaqeen ).

Regarding tomb of Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil (1644-1720), a famous Persian poet, born in Patna.
Janab Mohammad Misbah sahab said that as per history Bedil lived in a haveli on the banks of the river Yamuna bought for him by Nawab Sharfuddin. He died there and was buried in a place chosen by him earlier in the haveli itself. This is proven by Urdu texts from that and later era.( ‘Nikat-e-Bedil’ published by Attaullah)

In 2006, when Emomali Rahmanov, the President of Tajikistan, visited India, he wanted to pay tribute to the poet, who is a major saint for Central Asians.
In consultation with Khwaja Hasan Nizami the present mazar and area spruced up for the Presidential visit.
The present building had been built some 80+years ago by a relative of Nizam of Hyderabad who took 1 lakh rupees from the Nizam to do so.

“But this is not the original mazar. This is actually Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Nooruddin Malak Yar-E-Parran,” said Abdul Misbah, Nayab Muttawalli, whose family has been the caretaker of the place for at least 600 years.
According to him , Bedil had died in his haveli and six months later his Afghan followes took his body and buried it in Kabul.