Sadia Dehlvi is a Delhi-based activist, writer and a columnist with the daily newspaper, the Hindustan Times, and frequently published in Frontline and Urdu, Hindi and English newspapers and magazines. She is a devotee of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz of Ajmer and Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi. She has criticised radical interpretations of Islam and calls for a pluralistic understanding of Islam. She has produced and scripted documentaries and television programs, including Amma and Family, starring Zohra Sehgal, a veteran stage actor.
Biography
Sadia Dehlvi was born in Delhi in 1957. Her grandfather was Yusuf Dehlvi and father is Yunus Dehlvi who lived in Shama Ghar on Sardar Patel Road, in New Delhi where she was born. The one-time cultural hub of Delhi, today it houses Bahujan Samaj Party headquarters,. In April 2009 Dehlvi published a book on Sufism entitled Sufism: The heart of Islam published by HarperCollins Publishers, India. Her second book, The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi, detailing Delhi's Sufi history was also published by HarperCollins, India and released in February 2012. She edited Bano an Urdu women's journal for the Shama Group, which published Shama an Urdu literary and film monthly. It eventually closed in 1987. Dehlvi was a close friend and confidante of the late author Khushwant Singh. Singh's book Not a Nice Man to Know was dedicated to her. He wrote, "To Sadia Dehlvi, who gave me more affection and notoriety than I deserve." Singh's book, Men and Women in my Life includes an entire chapter on her and the cover has her photo. In 1998, Dehlvi produced a television show, Not a Nice man to Know with Khushwant Singh interviewing women from various fields. Dehlvi won acclaim for her television series starring the veteran actress Zohra Sehgal Amma and Family. Dehlvi co-produced and scripted the series, also playing one of the main roles.
Personal life
She married a Pakistani, Reza Pervaiz, in 1990. She then stayed in Karachi, where the couple had a son, Armaan in 1992. This marriage lasted for 12 years but ended in a divorce when Pervaiz emailed her "Talaq" three times on 8 April 2012. She later married 45-year-old Sayyed Karamat Ali, whom she met at Hazrat Shah Farhad, a Sufi shrine in Delhi, which she had been visiting for the last 20 years, and proudly referred to herself as Sadia Sayyed Karamat Ali.
Sufism
Dehlvi wrote Sufism: The Heart of Islam in which she details Islam's Sufi traditions and the importance of the Sufi message of love, tolerance and brotherhood.
"Dilli ka Dastarkhwan" – chapter in City Improbable : An Anthology of Writings on Delhi/edited by Khushwant Singh. New Delhi, Viking, 2001, xv, 286 p., $22..
