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Chiragh-i-Dihli’s Dargah

Chiragh-i-Dihli’s Dargah
The Dargah of Chiragh-i-Dihli is located in the Chirag Delhi Village and can be reached by either taking the Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg through the Chiragh main road or the Outer Ring Road through the Soami Nagar South Colony. It is the burial place and tomb of Sufi saint Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud. Entitled Raushan Chiragh-i-Dihli, which means the ‘Illuminated lamp of Delhi’, the saint died in the year 1356. He was a disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin, whom he succeeded as the head of the Chisti sect. The village of Chirag Delhi, now an urban settlement gradually grew up around this sacred tomb and was earlier enclosed within rubble-built rectangular walls with gateways on each side, built by Muhammad Bin Tughlaq (1325-51).

The main tomb of the devout saint is a square chamber supported on twelve pillars and surmounted by a dome with turrets on every corner. Like the dome of Mubarak Shah’s tomb, the dome here also rises from an octagonal drum and is a plastered one. Several additions have been made in the shrine complex from time to time. At present there are several structures in the complex like the assembly hall (Majlis-Khana) or the symposium hall (Mahfil-Khana), apart from many graves and tombs of eminent personalities inside the enclosure. There are also several mosques in the Dargah enclosure. King Farrukhsiyar built one among them in the early 18th century to pay homage to the great saint.