The shrine of the holyfootprint in Delhi

Muqarnas

Volumn 14, Issue , 1997, Pages 166-178

  Welch, Anthony ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67049119181     PISSN: 07322992     EISSN: 09210326     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1523243     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. Niccolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India, trans. William Irvine, 4 vols. 1 (1st ed., 1907; rpt. Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, Delhi, 1981), 2:2
2. The name he applies to it, Qadam Rasul (Footprint of the Prophet), is commonly used now for buildings with a similar function throughout the Islamic world. See the informative overview of these sites by Perween Hasan, "The Footprint of the Prophet," in Muqarnas 10 (1993): 335-43
3. In M.M. Kaye, ed., The Golden Calm: An English Lady's Life in Moghul Delhi, presents the memoirs of Emily Metcalfe and selected pages from her father's Reminiscences
4. Paintings and drawings of India's historic architecture done by Indian and British artists during the Raj are a major research source. They have been studied by Sonia Lochner, "Ruins of Power: Picturesque Portraits of Sultanate Architecture," M.A. thesis, University of Victoria, 1990. I am indebted to her incisive discussion of the illustrations in both Metcalfe's and Sayyid Ahmad Khan's books
5. Perween Hasan records the tradition that the footprint was brought to Delhi by Makhdum Jahaniyan Jahangasht of Ucch, Firuz Shah's chief spiritual guide, "Footprint of the Prophet," p. 337
6. Translation from an abridgment of the Āthār alsanādīd by R. Nath, Monuments of Delhi (Delhi, 1979), p. 39; 12 Rabi' al-awwal is the 'urs of the Prophet's death. It was common practice that a deceased person's 'urs celebrated at his or her tomb
7. See T. Yamamoto, M. Ara, and T. Tsukinowa, Delhi: Architectural Remains of the Sultanate Period (in Japanese), Indo Shiseki Chosa Dan hen, 3 vols. (Tokyo, 1968-70), 1: monument O.8
8. Neither of these inscriptions is still in place. H.C. Fanshawe, Delhi: Past and Present (1st ed. 1902; repr. Delhi, 1979), provides a helpful summary of the shrine and the area around it: to the immediate north of the shrine was a caravanserai knowTi as the Idgah Sarai; just to the south of the shrine's south gate was a "fine stone tank" or baoli, as well as the main Muslim burial ground of Delhi
9. Zafar Hasan, List of Hindu and Mohammadan Architecture of Delhi Province (Delhi, 1916-19), 2: 241-46, provides an invaluable description of the Qadam Sharif precinct and its extant structures, along with the original text and a sound translation of the inscriptions
10. Yamamoto, Ara, and Tsukinowa (Delhi) document the shrine, mosque, walls, and baoli of Qadam Sharif. Y. D. Sharma, Delhi and Its Neighbourhood (Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1974), p. 133, provides a brief note on the complex
11. Abha Rani, The Tughluq Architecture of Delhi, (Varanasi, 1991), pp. 42-43, offers comments on Qadam Sharif based entirely on Stephens, Fanshawe, and Zafar Hasan
12. Elsewhere in her book she incorporates without acknowledgment entire paragraphs from Anthony Welch and Howard Crane, "The Tughluqs: Master Builders of the Delhi Sultanate" (Muqarnas [1983]: 123-66), which she neither footnotes nor lists in her bibliography
13. For a map of Delhi under the sultans, see Anthony Welch, "A Medieval Center of Learning in India: The Hauz Khas Madrasa in Delhi," in Muqarnas 13 (1996): 165-90
14. Stephens, Archaeology and Monumental Remains of Delhi, p. 148
15. reports that the Crossroads Mosque was built soon after the shrine and that it resembled "the mosques attributed to Khan Jahan," namely the Kalan Masjid in Old Delhi and the Khirki Masjid in south Delhi (see Welch and Crane, "The Tughluqs," pp. 130-40)
16. and Iqtidar Husain Siddiqui, "A Note on the Dargah of Salar Mascud in Bahraich in the Light of the Standard Historical Sources," in Christian Troll, ed., Muslim Shrines in India: Their Character, History and Significance (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp: 24-43; 44-47
17. That the relationship between the Bahraich and Delhi shrines continued for centuries is indicated by the fact that Asaf alDawla, the nawab of Oudh (1775-97), built a shrine near the tomb of Mascud Ghazi to house a qadam he had also obtained. It attracted so many pilgrims and such a number of unorthodox rituals that Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) tried to suppress the cult (Mohammad Yasin, A Social History of Islamic India, 1605-1748 [Delhi, 1958], p. 90)
18. selectively trans. in H. M. Elliot and J. Dowson, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, 8 vols. (Allahabad, n.d.), 3: 93-268
19. That there were other buildings with diverse functions at Qadam Sharif, including living and teaching facilities for the pious community, is suggested by the far better preserved dargah of Nizam al-Din Awliya, also a fortified and self-contained community. See Zafar Hasan, A Guide to Nizamu-d Din, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, no. 10 (Calcutta, 1922)
20. Translation of this and subsequent inscriptions by Zafar Hasan, Guide to Nizamu-d Din, pp. 242-43, who also supplies the Persian text. These inscriptions are no longer in place, and their present whereabout is not known
21. See Anthony Welch, " Architectural Patronage and the Past: The Tughluq Sultans of India," Muqarnas 10 (1993): 311-22
22. The shrine of Qadam Sharif is only 600 meters from the Ajmer Gate of Shahjahanabad, but there are no Mughal tombs of comparable grandeur in its vicinity. While the tomb of Nizam al-Din Awliya in Delhi was a powerful magnet for Mughal mausolea, Qadam Sharif was not: inside the shrine are only a few unidentified cenotaphs. As the comments by Sayyid Ahmad suggest, the shrine may have functioned on a much more popular level and been regarded somewhat askance by the orthodox. For a study of these three Chishti dargāhs, see Matsuo Ara, Indo shi ni okeru Isuramu seibyō [Dargāhs in Medieval India - A Historical Study of the Shrines of Sufi Saints in Delhi with Reference to the Relationship between Religious Authority and Ruling Power], (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai; University of Tokyo Press, 1977)
23. See Welch, "Medieval Center of Learning in India."
24. For information on Firuz Shah's taste, patronage, and architectural establishment, see Welch, "Architectural Patronage and the Past."