Things to know on the Tomb of Imam Zamin in New Delhi

• New Delhi, the capital of India, is full of tombs and standalone monuments belonging to various dynasties, especially of the Medieval period, scattered all over the place. This is because many rulers and saints chose to build their own monuments.

• The Qutub complex houses relics that date all the way back to the Gupta Dynasty, cohabiting with monuments of the rulers and saints of the early Delhi Sultanate period as well as the Mughal Empire. Thus, the complex represents different epochs of the bygone era separated in time by no less than 12,000 years!
• Standing alongside the Qutub Minar and the Iron Pillar, the Tomb of Imam Zamin, though a lesser-known monument, hasn’t whittled away with time. The resting place of Imam Zamin, a Muslim saint of repute and a direct descendant of Islamic Prophet Mohammed, it is located on a slightly elevated platform adjoining the Alai Darwaza.
• This small structure, built in the early Mughal period, mostly of sandstone, has an octagonal-shaped base, so typical of the Islamic architectural style, and supports a small dome that is erected over the grave of the pious Islamic cleric.
• The tomb’s interior features an elaborate white plastic finish. Generally, Islamic tombs are enclosed within perforated marble screens or jalis that are intricately carved, forming the walls of the entire structure, through which one can view the inside of it, and so is the tomb of Imam Zamin.
• Imam Zamin, as recorded by many early historians, is said to have arrived in India around 1500 AD, during the reign of Sikandar Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans. He travelled all the way from Turkestan, the regions of Central Asia, to Delhi where he spent his last days as a Sufi saint.
• Zamin was also believed to have lived during the early days of Babur, who became the first Mughal Emperor of India in 1526, and breathed his last during the reign of Emperor Humayun, the successor of Babur.
• Zamin, the Sufi mystic of the Chisti order, himself commissioned the construction of his tomb, and was laid to eternal rest in the small, but aureate shrine.