Delhi dargahs in no mood to follow suit

The Haji Ali Dargah may now have to let women in as per the Bombay High Court's order, but in New Delhi, the dargahs of Nizamuddin and Bakhtiyar Kaki, two of the city's most famous and oft-visited Sufi shrines, do not have any intention to follow suit.

"Unlike in Haji Ali, which used to allow women into the sanctum sanctorum until a few years ago, at the Nizamuddin dargah, women have never been allowed," said a khadim (the name given to those who take care or manage a dargah). "Even members of my family, my sister or my mother, have never been inside the sanctum sanctorum. So where is the question of outsiders going in?"

At the Nizamuddin dargah complex, women are only allowed to circumambulate the narrow passage that runs around the shrine of the saint; they can't enter the room that houses the grave. Any chadors to be draped or flowers to be offered at the shrine need to be handed over through the passageway to the khadims inside.

Similarly, at the mausoleum of Sufi poet and musician Amir Khusro, which is in the same complex, women must limit their piety to threads tied on the jaali screen at the entrance.

At the dargah of Qutbuddin Bakhtiyaar Kaki, the saint after whom Qutub Minar is named, women are allowed only up to the passageway that leads to the asthana, the main pavilion of the shrine, from where they must gaze at the shrine located at least 20 feet away through the narrow pores of the stonework jaali.

At Bakhtiyar Kaki's dargah too, women have never been allowed inside in its nearly 800-year-long history, said Fauzan Ahmed, who manages the site. "The objective is to protect women. It's the same reason why the Metro has separate seats for women, and there are separate toilets for men and women."

"There are always some men who will make trouble, and we can't have pure places defiled in this manner. This is the reason Islam has always restricted women from entering shrines," said Sher Ali, a member of the shrine's managing committee.

But what about the court order? While, both Ahmed and Ali at the Bakhtiyar Kaki dargah are confident that the Haji Ali Dargah Trust will appeal to the Supreme Court against the order, at the Nizamuddin dargah, the khadims are combative: "The dargah has been around since the time of the Mughal emperors. It is owned and managed by us, the descendents of the saint. No emperor has ever interfered with our functioning, and we don't expect this one to."

At Haji Ali, and most other dargahs, it's women who're kept out and men who go in. But there's one dargah where only women are allowed. This is the mazar of Bibi Hambel, the wife of Bakhtiyar Kaki, whose shrine along with that of her mother-in-law takes up one corner of the saint's dargah in Mehrauli. It's a humble shrine, a small room with the two graves covered neatly with a green chador, but it has its own Urs, said Ahmed — one of five that make up the annual festivities calendar at the dargah. There's even a miracle story around the shrine: Long ago, Ahmed recounted, there used to be a neem tree near the grave, which had a special feature — one of its branches was bitter, and the other sweet. "Couples came from far and near to seek blessings of the grave for a child," he added.