Jamali Kamali

The name Jamali Kamali refers to the mosque and the low square tomb beyond the prayer courtyard. Beneath its flat roof, painted decoration, colored tiles, and lines of poetry have survived, while a marble grave slab lies in the center of the room. A second slab stands beside it, and it gave the site the second half of its name. Documents do not explain who lies beneath it, although urban tradition has long offered several versions.

In fifteen twenty-eight or the following year, the Sufi master and Persian poet Hamid ibn Fazlullah Kamboh built a mosque and a room for himself here. Together they formed a khanqah—a Sufi complex where the sheikh lived, received disciples, and preached. He chose Mehrauli because of its connection with Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki. According to tradition, the site of the mosque stood where Kaki's former dwelling had been.

Jamali was the literary name of the master of the complex. At first, the poet signed himself as Jalali, but his spiritual mentor persuaded him to change his pen name. Under the new name, he entered history and left poems whose lines were later placed beneath the ceiling of his tomb.

His craft at court was poetry and scholarship. Sikandar Lodi, a sultan and amateur poet, made Jamali his mentor and let him correct his own writings. After Sikandar's death, his son Ibrahim Lodi took the throne. The new sultan removed his father's close associates and executed the old vizier. Jamali wrote an elegy for the dead man, and the new courtiers tried to secure punishment for the poet himself. Jamali survived, but the former court soon ceased to exist anyway: Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat.

Jamali wrote poems in praise of the victor and retained his court position under Babur, and then under Babur's son Humayun. This service explains why the Sufi from Mehrauli ended his life far from his complex. In fifteen thirty-six, Humayun set out on a campaign against Gujarat, and Jamali went with him. The poet died in Ahmedabad. His body was brought back to Delhi and buried in the room he had built for living beside the mosque.

It is now a low square tomb with a flat roof north of the prayer courtyard. Jamali's former dwelling is decorated with painted plaster, colored tiles, and poems; a central marble slab marks his burial.

A second slab lies beside it—this is why Kamali was added to Jamali's name. In the nineteenth century, it was already being shown as the grave of Kamali, the poet's presumed brother, but archaeologists at the time recognized that there was no proof of their kinship. Later research links the second burial to an unknown Zainuddin and allows that the similar-sounding name Kamali appeared only in later tradition. Stories of a brother, disciple, or beloved remain traditions: no source allows this person to be identified with confidence.

Two marble slabs stand side by side beneath the painted ceiling. Poems by Jamali and a record of the return of his body from Ahmedabad lead to the central one. The name Kamali remains on the other; documents do not say who the person buried here was.