Shri Nathji at Nizammudin Dargah and the legend of Nizammudin Aulia

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan prayed to Shri Nathji to come and grace the tomb of his spiritual master at Nizammudin, and Shri Nathji, in all his simplicity went there. In the little bare room where the tomb was situated there was merely one solitary qawwaal who was singing along with a tabla player. Shri Nathji, Pran Nath and Priya Nath were the only audience that he had. Shri Nathji gave some money to the qawwaal, and the man remembered it gratefully, ever afterwards. As a measure of Shri Nathji's benedictions, he became a famous qawwaal later. The Sufi saint was also able to lead his life in peace in India and return home to France, safe and sound due to the blessings of Shri Nathji.

Shri Nathji also used to tell a legend associated with Nizammudin. Now Nizammudin Aulia was a great saint whose spiritual guru was a very poor Faqueer, Bu-Ali-Qalandar, from whom Nizammudin had acquired all his spiritual powers, and had thereafter become an ‘Aulia’ – a holy person.
One day Nizammudin Aulia’s procession, in which Nizammudin was astride an elephant, was passing on the street where the Faqueer sat, dressed in rags. Nizammudin did not get down from his elephant to salute his guru, and the Faqueer was offended. He said in a voice laden with anger:
“Naheen banaate Aulia!”
“I no longer make you an Aulia!”
Aulia meant a saint endowed with divine powers. Suddenly, all of Nizammudin’s spiritual powers left him, and he became an ordinary person.
Amir Khusroo was a disciple of Nizammudin Aulia, and had gone to see him. Along the way, he met a troupe of singers who had just sung in the court of Nizammudin Aulia. They had been rewarded with shoes. As they came out, they said deridingly to Amri Khusroo:
“All we got from him were shoes! Vahaan jaakar to sirf joote hee mile!”
Amir Khusroo sensed that something had gone wrong and that Nizammudin Aulia was no longer the same person he had been before. Upon meeting Nizammudin Aulia the facts came to light. Amir Khusroo had to find a way to please Bu-Ali-Qalandar.
He decided upon a novel way of getting Bu- Ali-Qalandar to declare Nizammudin to be an Aulia once again. He connived to go to the court of Bu-Ali-Qalandar and to get a boon from him.
Bu-Ali-Qalandar was very fond of a Hindu boy, who used to ride upon his back, as if upon a horse, and frequently hit Bu-Ali- Qalandar with a little horse-whip urging him to move!
Amir Khusroo became very friendly with the boy and asked him to get Bu-Ali-Qalandar to say that Nizammudin be made ‘Aulia’ again: “Kaih do Nizammudin Aulia hai!”
 
The boy rode upon the back of the Faqueer and hit him several times with the horse-whip, saying:
“Kaih do Nizammudin Aulia hai! Say that Nizammudin be made Aulia!”
“I will never say that!” said the Faqueer.
The boy hit him again and again, and, at one point, the Faqueer said:
“Too Aulia hai! You are made an Aulia!”
When the child hit him again, and insisted that he say that Nizammudin be made Aulia, Bu Ali Qalandar said:
“Ye saare Aulia–all who are gathered here are made Aulia!”
The powers of Bu Ali Qalandar were made manifest upon Khusroo. He was one who could give to saints their sainthood, and confer sainthood upon anyone that he chose in a single command. He could make an ‘Aulia’ out of anyone that he chose. He had done a great favour on Nizammudin by making him an Aulia in the past. It was a favour that Nizammudin Aulia had forgotten in a moment of pride.
But the boy insisted that Nizammudin be made Aulia.
At this, the Faqueer gave up his ire against Nizammudin and finally said:
“Achhaa, kaih dete hain ke Nizammudin Aulia hai!
“All Right! Let Nizammudin become Aulia again!”
No sooner had he said this when Nizammudin became ‘Aulia’ again– and all his spiritual powers were restored to him.
Shri Nathji was illustrating the fine spiritual laws that would not brook any indiscipline or pride. He was also illustrating the forgiving nature of real spiritual men.

Nizamuddin Auliya, the founder of the of the Nizami Chishtiyya order was born in Badayun, Uttar Pradesh. At the age of five, after the death of his father, Ahmad Badayuni, he came to Delhi with his mother, Bibi Zulekha. At the age of twenty, Nizāmuddīn went to Ajodhan (the present Pakpattan Sharif in Pakistan) and became a disciple of the Sufi saint Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakkar, commonly known as Baba Farid. He visited Ajodhan each year to spend the month of Ramadan in the presence of Baba Farid. It was on his third visit to Ajodhan that Baba Farid made him his successor.

Nizāmuddīn lived at various places in Delhi, before finally settling down in Ghiyaspur, a neighbourhood in. He built his Khanqah here, a place where people from all walks of life were fed, where he imparted spiritual education to others and he had his own quarters. Many of his disciples achieved spiritual height, including Shaikh Nasiruddin Muhammad Chirag-e-Delhi and Amir Khusro, noted scholar/musician, and the royal poet of the Delhi Sultanate. He died on the morning of 3 April 1325. His shrine, the Nizamuddin Dargah,(Shown in the picture above) the present structure was built in 1562.

Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrow (1253–1325 CE) better known as Amīr Khusrow was an Indian musician, scholar and poet. He is regarded as the "father of qawwali" (the devotional music of the Sufis in the Indian subcontinent). He is also credited with enriching Hindustani classical music by introducing Persian and Arabic elements in it, and was the originator of the khayal and tarana styles of music. The invention of the tabla is also traditionally attributed to Amīr Khusrow

  The Tomb of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan’s father Pir Inayat Khan(Shown in the picture bellow) is also located near to the tomb of Hazarat Nizammudin who was the head of their sect. Thus in all certainty, Pir Vilayat Khan must have taken Shri Nathji to the tomb of his father as well.