Cameras are forbidden at the international headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, an offshoot of the Deobandi movement, in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area, where I happened to shoot a few photographs. Caught unawares at first by the curse of a young boy — of dying an unholy death for trying to capture another soul in my ‘black box’ — I spent two hours in vain, trying to persuade them to allow me to photograph the windowless building. A heated exchange eventually put me back on the street, forbidden from entering the premises again. I spent the rest of my time across the road at the Nizami restaurant, seeking comfort in nihari, roti and milk tea.
With 10 million followers in over 200 countries, the Jamaat was founded in India by Muhammad Ilays Al-Kandhlawi in 1926 in this very neighbourhood. A locality that gets its name from the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, whose 13th-century tomb — a short walk from the Jamaat’s markaz or headquarter — draws people of every faith. Thursday evenings, in particular, are immersed in music, with the divine strains of qawwali, a tradition that traces its origins to Auliya’s disciple Amir Khusro, renting the air.
S home Basu is a Delhi-based freelance photographer