Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki

Khwaja Hazrat Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki
Detail of Khawaja Qutub-ud-din from a Guler painting showing an imaginary meeting of Sufi saints
Title	Khwaja
Personal
Born	1173 Osh, Qara Khitai (present-day Kyrgyzstan)
Died	1 December 1235(1235-12-01) (aged 61–62) Dehli, Delhi Sultanate
Resting place	Mehrauli, Delhi 28°31′09″N 77°10′47″E / 28.519303°N 77.179856°E / 28.519303; 77.179856
Religion	Islam
Denomination	Sunni
School	Sufism
Lineage	Chishti Order
Jurisprudence	Hanafi
Creed	Maturidi
Other names	Malik al-Mashaa'ikh
Organization
Order	Chisti Sufism
Muslim leader
Based in	Delhi
Period in office	Early 13th century
Predecessor	Mu'in al-Din Chishti
Successor	Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Bu Ali Shah Qalandar

Quṭb al-Aqṭāb Khwāja Sayyid Muḥammad Bakhtiyār al-Ḥusaynī, Quṭb al-Dīn Bakhtiyār Kākī (born 1173 – died 1235) was a Sunni Muslim Sufi mystic, saint and scholar of the Chishti Order from Delhi, India. He was the disciple and the spiritual successor of Mu'in al-Din Chishti as head of the Chishti order. Before him the Chishti order in India was confined to Ajmer and Nagaur. He played a major role in establishing the order securely in Delhi.^[1] His dargah located adjacent to Zafar Mahal in Mehrauli, and the oldest dargah in Delhi, is also the venue of his annual Urs festivities. The Urs was held in high regard by many rulers of Delhi like Iltutmish who built a nearby stepwell, Gandhak ki Baoli for him, Sher Shah Suri who built a grand gateway, Bahadur Shah I who built the Moti Masjid mosque nearby and Farrukhsiyar who added a marble screen and a mosque.^[2]

His most famous disciple and spiritual successor was Fariduddin Ganjshakar, who in turn became the spiritual master of Delhi's noted Sufi saint, Nizamuddin Auliya, who himself was the spiritual master of Amir Khusrau and Nasiruddin Chiragh Dehlavi.

Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki had much influence on Sufism in India. As he continued and developed the traditional ideas of universal brotherhood and charity within the Chisti order, a new dimension of Islam started opening up in India which had hitherto not been present. He forms an important part of the Sufi movement which attracted many people to Islam in India in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. People of every religion like Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, etc. visiting his Dargah every week.