🧚 The Makli Hill. · page 2

The Moghul emperors thereafter ruled Sind through governors appointed directly from Delhi.90 The Tomb of Diwan Shurfa Khan, the minister of one of these governors, Amirkhan by name, is one of the best preserved on Makli Hill.91 Another less well preserved, but even more imposing tomb, that of Nawab Isa Khan, dates from the same period A.D.92 1628–1644.93 It has an upper storey to which leads a flight of stairs.94 To the east of Isa Khan’s tomb are the graves of the ladies of his ample Zanana.95 To the south of Isakhan’s tomb is quite a small one, that of Mirza Tural Beg.96 It appears that he misused his position by artificially forcing up the price of grain and then selling his stock at a large profit.97 He was so hated in his life-time that he took the precaution to build his own tomb.98 But even so he did not escape infamy.99 He was nicknamed the “Dukario” or “Famine Man” and every one who passed his grave used regularly to heave a stone at it.100 In time the stones were piled up right to the stone canopy above it.101 Fortunately for the “Famine Man” the Public Works Department have taken charge of his tomb and have removed the stones.102 But his memory is still detested and his present address is believed to be somewhere in the very centre of the flaming halls of Iblis.103

LARKANA.104

A few miles from Larkana at a place called Fatehpur is a handsome mosque.105 In its courtyard hang innumerable bells.106 I long tried in vain to learn its history but at last I obtained from Mr. Bherumal, Inspector of Excise, the following legend.107

The town of Larkana derives its name from the tribe of Larak and was probably at one time called Larakanjo got or the village of the Larak tribesmen.108 They were followers of a family known to history as the Kalhoras, whose family name Abbassi lent strength to their claim that they were sprung from the loins of Abbas, the uncle of the holy Prophet.109 After the conquest of Sind by Akbar, it became a province of the Moghul empire; but with the decline of the imperial power, authority relaxed and disorder grew.110 Of this disorder the Kalhoras took advantage.111 The first great Kalhoro was Adam Shah, who “drank the sherbet of martyrdom at Multan” or in simpler language was killed in an obscure fight with the Moghul governor of that city.112 Adam Shah’s grandson Shahlal Mahomed was the famous saint, whose memory still lives in the Fatehpur mosque.113 His first and perhaps greatest—certainly his most useful—miracle was the digging of the Ghar canal that runs past Larkana town.114 He did not dig it with a spade.115 His methods were simpler and more efficient.116 He mounted a Kando or thorn tree.117 Once firmly seated in its upper branches, he made the wretched vegetable drag its roots from Larkana to Kambar, a distance of twelve miles.118 In the deep hollow caused by the progress of the Kando tree, flowed the obedient water.119 The stream so created came to be known as the Shahlal Wah or the canal of Shahlal Mahomed.120 Many years later Mian Nur Mahomed Kalhoro widened the Shahlal Wah and changed its name to Ghar canal, i.e., the canal broken by the tree driven by the Saint’s superhuman powers.121 The Ghar canal bears this name to the present day and the tree which Shahlal Mahomed used as his humble instrument is still pointed out on the bank of the Chilo canal in the Kambar taluka.122

The miracle of the Ghar canal was followed by so many others that the imperial governor became alarmed at the Saint’s growing fame and power.123 He reported the facts to Aurangzeb and obtained that emperor’s leave to shorten Shahlal Mahomed’s stature by a head.124 After a mighty resistance the Saint was taken captive and executed.125 The governor put his head in a wooden box and sealing it sent it in charge of a police guard to the emperor’s camp.126 When the police guard reached Lahore they out of curiosity opened the box, in order to see what the head looked like.127 The lid was no sooner lifted than the head flew out and made its way through the air to Shahlal Mahomed’s favourite village of Fatehpur, wherein the Saint’s body lay buried.128 The police guard were so alarmed at the strange behaviour of the head that they dared neither return to Larkana nor go on to Delhi.129 They buried the empty box in Lahore and building a shrine over it, appointed themselves its guardians.130

The emperor, however, who was eagerly expecting the sealed box, got disturbed at its delay.131 He sent a body of troops to Lahore to find out what had happened to it.132 At first they could find out nothing.133 At last hearing of the new shrine, they went there and extorted from its guardians the whole truth.134 They then dug up the ground and unearthed the box.135 Opening it they found it, not only to their own amazement but to that of the quondam police guard, by no means empty.136 It contained another head of Shahlal Mahomed exactly similar to the one that had flown away.137 The troops carried away box and head and showed them to Aurangzeb.138 Convinced of the miracle, the devout emperor felt sure that he had killed a Saint.139 To show his repentance of his cruel deed, he had a tomb built at Delhi over the box and the head.140 In the meantime, the Larak tribe and the other countless disciples of Shahlal Mahomed had built the mosque at Fatehpur over the holy man’s body and true head, once more in union.141 Thus the great saint is honoured by no less than three tombs, one at Fatehpur, where lie his real head and body, a second at Lahore where the empty box was buried and disinterred, and a third at Delhi where the second head lies.142

The descendants of Shahlal Mahomed were the famous Kalhoro Mirs who ruled Sind until overthrown by the Talpurs.143 Their capital was Haidarabad but they always loved Larkana for the sake of their ancestor; and the fame of its prosperity and wealth under the Kalhoros is still preserved in the well-known couplet144

Hujie Nano Ta gumh Larkano145

If you have money (to spend) then go to Larkana.146