Khwaja Syed Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki was born in 1187 AH, 582 AH in the town of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. His real name was Syed Bakhtiyar, and was given the title Qutbuddin. His alias was Kaki, which means bread. His lineage goes back to Imam Hussain Ibn Ali.
When he was five years old, his mother Majida asked her elder neighbor to entrust her innocent child to a good teacher so that he could acquire some knowledge of religion The elders had just taken the child away when they met an elder on the way.
When the elder asked him about the child, he said that he was a child of a good family but his father Syed Kamaaluddin had passed away. The widowed mother asked the elder to take care of her son’s education. On hearing this, the elder said, “Leave this task to me. I will hand it over to a teacher whose knowledge and blessings will make him a great master of perfection.
“The elder went to Abu Hafs, a teacher in the town of Osh, and handed over Khwaja Qutub to him. At the same time, the elder instructed Abu Hafs that this boy would be counted among the saints, so have special compassion on him. When these two men left, Abu Hafs asked them who had brought you to this Madrasa. “I don’t know them at all,” Khwaja said.
My mother handed me over to her neighbor. These elders met on the way and brought me to your service. He came to Baghdad at a young age and pledged allegiance to Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. At the age of seventeen, he got the caliphate from the Khwaja. After some time, he accompanied his followers to India and stayed in Delhi.
He was the mentor of Baba Fariduddin Mas’ood Ganj-e-Shakar. Two works are attributed to Bakhtiyar Kaki, one a Divan, other, Fawaed-us-Salikeen, which is a valuable book on the subject of Sufism. Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki was also quite fond of Sam’a’, once, at a Mahfil in Delhi, as he heard Qawwals sing this couplet of Ahmad Jam:
Kushtagaan-e-Khanjar-e-Tasliim raa Har zamaa.n az Ghaib jaan-e-diigar-ast He went into a deep state of trance. He is said to have remained in the same ecstasy for three days. Finally, he passed away on 27th November 1235 where funeral prayers were offered by Sultan Al-Tutmish, too. His shrine is located in Mehroli area of Delhi.
