The Sacred Heart of Delhi

A Guide to Nizammudin Basti

The Tomb of Khan-i-Khanan

Delhi gets a bad reputation amongst travellers, who tend to see it as a grotty urban jungle. But having lived in the city for over twenty years now, I can safely say that it is so much more.

Instead I'd argue that Delhi is one of those handful of cities, along with Rome, Cairo and Istanbul, that is just infinite in the layers of architecture, history and culture.

Delhi was once one of the great pilgrimage sites in the Islamic world. Its also a centre of pilgrimage for Hindus, who see it as the site of the legendary city Indraprastha, as well as Sikhs, who mourn their gurus here.

For centuries caravans of pilgrims trekked across the deserts of Rajasthan or the scrub of the Doab for just a glimpse of this glittering city.

Many of the cities that tourists flock to, such as Jaipur, were literally built to mirror the opulence of De…