AMIR KHUSRAU (1253-1325 CE) – Abu’l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau, better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. He was a mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, India.

Amir Khusro was a Sufi musician, poet and scholar regarded as the “father of Qawwali”. An expert in many styles of Persian poetry, he has written in many verse forms including ghazal, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band. He played a significant role in the development of the arts and culture in the Indian subcontinent and is considered an iconic figure in the cultural history of the region. Credited to have introduced the ghazal style of song into India, he was also the one who introduced Persian, Arabic and Turkish elements into Indian classical music. Khusro was introduced to Sufism and music at an early age by his father. Bright and talented, he began composing verses from the time when he was just eight. He was raised in an intellectually stimulating atmosphere and received training in the arts and literature as well as Fiqh, astronomy, grammar, philosophy, logic, religion, mysticism and history. He went on to become an acclaimed poet who was greatly respected by the rulers of the land; he was associated with the royal courts of more than seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. He wrote primarily in Persian and Hindustani, though he had also composed a war ballad in Punjabi. Centuries after his death, his poetry is still sung today at Sufi shrines throughout Pakistan and India. Source.

Nizamudin Auliya assured Amir Khusrau, “If on the day of judgment God asked me, what you brought from the world for me? I would answer, the burning love which this Turk has for you.”
Khusrau responded.
“My heart is a child,
The preceptor of love is its teacher;
The black colour of my face is the lesson.
Humility is the corner where the lesson is given.”
His heart throbbed with love of God, the Holy Prophet, motherland, family, friends, fellow men and nature;
“People think that they are alive because of their soul,
But I am alive because I have love within.”
“I will not call a heart a heart if it has no love.
I will call body having no burning of love, clay of which it is made.”
“He who makes reason a shield against love tries to resist a mountain with a blade of grass.”

“When the heart is blessed with love,
there is no room for wisdom;
in this special royal assembly
there is no room for strangers”

His burning love blazed the Sufi world and sent the durweshes dancing in mad raptures. A heart that dances with the joy of God, does not hear the murmurings of reason or intellect.

All the Mysteries of life spontaneously unfold in that ocean of love. What use is knowledge bereft of Divine love? It is so dry and joyless. The knot of the heart with God allowed the durweshes direct entry into the divine realm. In modern times Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi revealed how to tie the divine knot;
“All living work is done by God, we only do dead work. Therefore if the connection is established with the source of all living work, then its knowledge will spontaneously flow from the source. What is there to gain from knowledge of dead matter? All principles of science are simply manifestations of Divine law. But how can one comprehend Divine law without the connection with Divine. The Divine knot can only be tied with the strings of love that flows from the heart. Such a heart becomes a mirror in which God’s reflection can be seen.”

Says Khusrau,
“Man is the soul of the world;
He is the world himself.”
In the call of love there is no doer. One becomes the instrument of god spontaneously.
“I wish I could go to your lane
And surrender my existence;
For after this I bring hundreds of lives from their lanes”

The ecstasy of his poetry brought not hundreds but thousands ‘of lives from their lanes’. Khusrau’s, music and poetry penetrated such realms which years of penance could not touch. The flames of his burning love did not escape the keen ears of the Delhi court. He became the court favourite. The sultan asked him to arrange a meeting with his master Nizamudin. But Nizamudin declined. However, the sultan would not take no for an answer and plotted to take Nizamudin by surprise. Despite his loyalties to the sultan, Khusrau leaked the plot to Nizamudin. Nizamudin promptly averted the meeting by going on a pilgrimage to Baba Farid’s grave.

The plot foiled, the sultan was most upset and questioned Khusrau’s loyalties. Khusrau replied, “If your majesty gets angry I may lose my life, but if my spiritual mentor is displeased then I would lose my faith.”
The sultan was pleased and had him weighed in gold. But all the gold in the world was not enough to weigh his love for his master Nizamudin.

Once a wandering mendicant visited Nizamudin, but Nizamudin had nothing to give him, and so he
gave him his only pair of slippers. On the way the mendicant met Khusrau who was returning home from the court loaded with the sultan’s gift of gold. Khusrau caught the familiar fragrance of incense from the mendicant and enquired if he had something of his master. The medicant showed him Nizamudin’s slippers.

Khusrau immediately offered him all his gold in exchange for the slippers. With the slippers on his head he reached his master and narrated the anecdote. Nizamudin smiled from the corner of his eyes, “Khusrau, you have purchased them very cheap!”

Khusrau humbly bowed;

“If a young man hankers after money, he is sure to depart from the path of truth. If he runs after wealth, he is simply a beggar. Sovereignty of soul lies in remaining content with a loaf of bread earned with dignified labour.

Even death could not break the bond of love between the master and disciple. On his death-bed Nizamudin issued directions that Khusrau would not be able to survive him and that he should be buried near his grave,
“He is the custodian of all my secrets.
I will not like to go to heaven without him.”

When Khusrau learnt of his master’s death, he tore off his clothes and fell in a swoon. Thereafter he distributed all his possessions to the poor and passed away.
Amir Khusrau wrote extensively on many subject and events. In his immortalized classic Laila-Majnu he expressed the pangs of separation from God as yearning for the beloved.
“My soul has reached my lip,
You should come now for I am still alive,
What will be the use if you come,
When I am no more.”
“O breeze, do not get idle
Go to the beloved and make me delight
By telling her to come to me.
Do not tell her anything,
Except in the garden the wanderer,
The water and the stream are full of joy.”
He envisioned God everywhere – in nature, in flowers,
“The narcissus was sleeping;
The rose cheeked ones came to have a stroll,
Cloud sprinkled water on narcissus to get awakened and see them”
“When the Zephyr in new spring got the garden decorated, every idol came to the garden and walked on the floor of the roses.”