🧚 Jinda Pir. · page 2

Abdul Latif did not stay long in his father’s house, but began to wander about Sind.98 One day he came to Lakhpat.99 There he saw some Sami fakirs worshipping an idol, probably of Parvati.100 They were pouring milk over it and as they did so, they repeated “O Grandmother, drink this milk.”101 But the idol being of stone, hearkened not at all.102 Latif went into the village, bought a bowl full of milk and stood close to the idol.103 In one hand he held his shoe and then he said to the idol “O Grandmother of the Samis, drink this milk or I shall beat you with this shoe.”104 The idol no longer hearkened not.105 Terrified at the threat, it drank up all the milk in the bowl.106 The Sami fakirs were filled with wonder and envy.107 After Abdul Latif had left the spot, they plotted to kill and eat him, so as to obtain his supernatural powers.108 They invited him to a feast, intending to make their guest the principal dish.109 But Abdul Latif by his inner knowledge guessed their wickedness and departed.110

As he journeyed he met another fakir, whose beautiful face was haggard and worn, as if with care.111 As the fakir walked, he cried always “Jhal fakir, Hal fakir (Take it fakir, go fakir).”112 Abdul Latif asked him why he did it.113 The fakir refused to tell him, unless Abdul Latif promised to help him to win what he sought.114 “If,” said the fakir, “I win my goal through your help, I shall get you a Burat or letter of salvation.”115 The saint gave his promise and the fakir told him what ailed him.116 Some months before he had met a jungle tribe and had daily begged from them.117 Whenever he did so, a lovely maiden of the tribe had given him alms and as she gave them, she repeated these words “Jhal fakir, Hal fakir.”118 The beauty of the girl’s voice and face had burnt into his brain.119 When the tribe left, he could think of nothing but of her and he set out to seek her.120 As he went, he repeated her words in the hope of finding her.121 Abdul Latif by his inner knowledge soon located the jungle tribe.122 With the fakir he went to their camp and began to recite to them his verses.123 They were so charmed with the verses that they asked him to name his reward.124 He told them to send the lovely girl to the hut wherein he had put his humble belongings.125 The girl was sent and in the hut the fakir awaited her.126 Their eyes met, but the storm of passion that swept over both of them was too mighty for their strength to bear.127 They fell back lifeless into Abdul Latif’s arms.128 He called the girl’s parents and told them the tale of the fakir’s wooing and its tragic end.129 At his request the man and the maiden were buried in the same grave.130 That night Abdul Latif watched by the grave, for he had not yet received the Burat or letter of salvation.131 At midnight a woman’s hand rose from the grave and offered him a letter.132 But Abdul Latif doubted the virtue of a Burat that came from a woman.133 “I shall not take the Burat,” he said, “unless he who promised it to me gives it.”134 The girl’s voice answered that that was impossible.135 The fakir for very shame, she said, dared ask nothing from God.136 He had not been able to hide his love but to the whole world had told his sorrows.137 Her love had been as ardent as his, but she had had the strength to hide it.138 It was at her request that God had given the Burat and the saint must take it from her hands.139

Another time Abdul Latif went to Kotri and there exposed the impostures of the Mullas who surrounded the governor Lalla Beg.140 At their instigation the cruel ruler ordered Abdul Latif to be impaled and then cut to pieces.141 When the executioners went to Shah Latif’s house to seize him, they found him already dead and dismembered.142 As they returned to tell Lalla Beg, they saw the saint standing in the roadside alive and well.143 They spoke of these marvels to Lalla Beg, who at once remitted the sentence.144

Abdul Latif, before he started on his wanderings, had, because of his unsatisfied love for the Moghul girl, cursed the whole tribe of the Moghuls, who then lived in Sind.145 All this time his curse had been quietly working.146 One by one they had died off, including the hard-hearted Mirza Beg.147 Of all the Moghul children only one boy Gulla by name survived and the beautiful girl, whom Abdul Latif loved.148 Freed from her father’s cruelty by his death, she no longer hesitated but sought out and found her lover.149 With her she took her kinsman Gulla.150 Abdul Latif overjoyed at her coming recalled his curse and Gulla lived to be the ancestor of many Moghuls thereafter.151

Abdul Latif, or as we should now call him Latif Shah, did not settle down to enjoy his wedded happiness at Varsum, where Shah Habib had lived and where he himself had been born.152 Near it was the tomb of an earlier saint Nuh Halani.153 The jealous spirit of the dead saint envied Latif Shah’s happiness and glory.154 Nuh Halani’s spirit haunted Shah Latif night and day.155 In despair Shah Latif sought the aid of Bahawal Hak, a holy man of Multan.156 He advised him to consult Sayad Mahmad Massum Shah.157 The latter in turn advised him to migrate to Bhitta, then a desolate mound of sand.158 Latif Shah obeyed the Sayad, but even at Bhitta—tantaene animis caelestibus irae—he was not safe from persecution.159 Nuh Halani changed the spirit of a former disciple into a huge snake and bade it bite the unhappy Shah Latif.160 But the latter prayed to Sayad Mahmad Massum Shah and with his aid and his own sanctity, he tamed the snake and kept it in a cage, as a trophy of his victory.161 Nuh Halani’s descendant Makhdum Mahmad Zaman could not bear the sight.162 He redeemed the snake at the cost of a vast stretch of country and turning the snake again into a spirit, sent it back to do service to Nuh Halani in the house of Hades.163

“Happy is the wooing that’s not long in the doing,” is an old English proverb and perhaps it was of the long delay in the union of Shah Latif and his bride, that they were not blessed with children.164 Two legends are told to account for this calamity.165 One is that Shah Latif drew after him the son of one Jani, who in anger cursed the saint that his wife should bear him no sons.166 Latif Shah accepted the curse and consoled himself with the remark that his disciples were his sons.167 The second legend is that Latif Shah’s wife, a year after marriage, was expecting a child.168 After the manner of women in delicate health, she had strange longings.169 One day she sent her maid-servant to a great distance to get a certain kind of fish.170 Latif Shah missed the maid-servant and asked whither she had gone.171 On learning what had happened, he flew into a rage—if I may say such a thing of so holy a man.172 He cursed his unborn child, saying “If the child gives all this trouble now, what terrible trouble it will give when it is grown up!173 May such a blossom be nipped in the bud.”174 The child was still-born and no other came to soothe the poor mother’s grief.175

It was at Bhitta that Shah Latif wrote the Shah jo Rasalo.176 When he had finished it, his two faithful disciples Tamar and Hashim brought it to him.177 As he read over the lines in which he had told the sorrows of Saswi, he exclaimed that the verses did not truly convey a spiritual meaning, but were full of sinful passion.178 As he said this, he flung the great work into the Kirar Dandh, a lake close by.179 His horrified disciples beseeched him to let them write the Shah jo Rasalo from memory.180 Reluctantly he consented and the Shah jo Rasalo was saved.181

Shah Latif died in 1751 at the age of 63, three years after Ahmad Shah Durani’s invasion.182 The saint’s body lies in a splendid tomb designed by a celebrated mason of Sukkur, under the orders of Ghulam Shah Kalhoro.183 The door with silver bars was added by Mir Mahmad and a deep well for the use of pilgrims was sunk in the courtyard by one Laung Fakir.184 The Pir of the tomb is the descendant of Jam the goatherd, who found Shah Latif buried up to the neck in sand.185 Every Friday night pilgrims keep watch by the tomb and sing passages from the saint’s immortal poem.186 This custom had its origin in a dream dreamt by his disciple Hashim.187 After his master’s death, he was ill of fever and could not get well.188 One night Shah Latif appeared to him in a vision and bade him recite on the following Friday some lines from the Shah jo Rasalo.189 He did so and was cured.190