Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai [1689-1752] was born in the small village of Bhit [the mound] about 150 miles north of Karachi. His Urs is held every year between the 13th and 15th of Safar, the second Islamic lunar month.
Shah Latif can be said to be the soul of Sindh. He was a great saint, a nationalist, a humanist and a poet whose stature is perhaps on par with the great poets of the world [Byron, Keats , Selley, Neruda, Rilke, Rimbaud, etc ] . Just as the Elizabethan period [ 1500-1700 ] is known more for Shakespeare than for the empire-builders as Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake [ whose plunder of the Spanish gold armadas earned him the knighthood from the Queen] , so the Kalhora period of Sindh history [ which managed to withstand Nadir Shah's invasion of Delhi in 1739 ] will be remembered more for Shah Latifs poetry.
The Kalhoras period during which Shah Latif lived ,was a period of great prosperity and the towns of Thatta and Hyderabad thrived under the good governance [ low taxes, canal irrigation , textiles ] of the Kalhoras who were originally ruling the north of Sindh near Sukkur. The East India Company described Thatta "as large as London" ; International commerce gave Thatta its prominence with textiles exports and 4000 ships & boats and 400 schools. The Kalhoras were to squeeze out the Sammas and the Soomros who ruled the southern parts of Sindh. The great romance of Sasui-Punhu was born in the Sammas period [ 1300- 1500 ] and which Shah Latif later made the subject of his Surs.
"Shah Jo Risalo" the message of Shah Abdul Latif
Much of Shah Bhitais poetry expresses the individual seeking for God in terms of well-known ballads and the negation of the ego. In Islamic tradition the seeker and the sought are both males. Shah following the Indian tradition made his individual a female. Shahs heroines come mainly from the lower strata than the heroes, and yet they outshine the men. The divine is the beloved , with the feminine form associated with earth fertility, nurture, wisdom, and intuition and the masculine with rationality an logic.
"Sufi is not limited by religious bounds,
He discloses not the war he wages in his mind,
Helps and assists those who with him fight."
-Shah Abdul Latif (Transl. by Amena Khamisani)
The last days of Shah.
The history books claim that sometime before his death, Shah threw the manuscripts of his works into the Karar lake near his village of Bhit [ the mound/ rock ]. His reason for doing so was that his people may not understand the main theme of messages. However his disciples had some older copies of his work. and it was the mainly through the efforts of a lady by the name of Mai Miamat, a disciple, who had memorised a lot of his verses. Thus by her singing the verses, his disciples were able to record his messages.
It is said that Shah longed to perform a pilgrimage to Karbala [ the site where Hasan & Hussain were martyred ]. As he went to Kutch to board a ship for the journey, a pious man met him and said : " O saint you have always said that Bhit will be your burial place ". At this remark , Shah went back to Bhit .
It is said that he donned black garments and went into seclusion for 20 days , composing "Sur Kedaro" a serious ballad about resisting tyranny and about the eternity of spirit and the mortalness of the body. After this he sang "Sur Suhini" [ kahirre manjhi hisaaba - on what count am I here ].
Shah Latif asked the jogis and the fakirs to play music and sing . He died after three days on 22 December 1751. The only worldly possessions he left behind were a patched cloak, a quilt and a begging bowl.
(ex. from Sufi Poet-Saints by Salman Saeed)
Shah Latif can be said to be the soul of Sindh. He was a great saint, a nationalist, a humanist and a poet whose stature is perhaps on par with the great poets of the world [Byron, Keats , Selley, Neruda, Rilke, Rimbaud, etc ] . Just as the Elizabethan period [ 1500-1700 ] is known more for Shakespeare than for the empire-builders as Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake [ whose plunder of the Spanish gold armadas earned him the knighthood from the Queen] , so the Kalhora period of Sindh history [ which managed to withstand Nadir Shah's invasion of Delhi in 1739 ] will be remembered more for Shah Latifs poetry.
The Kalhoras period during which Shah Latif lived ,was a period of great prosperity and the towns of Thatta and Hyderabad thrived under the good governance [ low taxes, canal irrigation , textiles ] of the Kalhoras who were originally ruling the north of Sindh near Sukkur. The East India Company described Thatta "as large as London" ; International commerce gave Thatta its prominence with textiles exports and 4000 ships & boats and 400 schools. The Kalhoras were to squeeze out the Sammas and the Soomros who ruled the southern parts of Sindh. The great romance of Sasui-Punhu was born in the Sammas period [ 1300- 1500 ] and which Shah Latif later made the subject of his Surs.
"Shah Jo Risalo" the message of Shah Abdul Latif
Much of Shah Bhitais poetry expresses the individual seeking for God in terms of well-known ballads and the negation of the ego. In Islamic tradition the seeker and the sought are both males. Shah following the Indian tradition made his individual a female. Shahs heroines come mainly from the lower strata than the heroes, and yet they outshine the men. The divine is the beloved , with the feminine form associated with earth fertility, nurture, wisdom, and intuition and the masculine with rationality an logic.
"Sufi is not limited by religious bounds,
He discloses not the war he wages in his mind,
Helps and assists those who with him fight."
-Shah Abdul Latif (Transl. by Amena Khamisani)
The last days of Shah.
The history books claim that sometime before his death, Shah threw the manuscripts of his works into the Karar lake near his village of Bhit [ the mound/ rock ]. His reason for doing so was that his people may not understand the main theme of messages. However his disciples had some older copies of his work. and it was the mainly through the efforts of a lady by the name of Mai Miamat, a disciple, who had memorised a lot of his verses. Thus by her singing the verses, his disciples were able to record his messages.
It is said that Shah longed to perform a pilgrimage to Karbala [ the site where Hasan & Hussain were martyred ]. As he went to Kutch to board a ship for the journey, a pious man met him and said : " O saint you have always said that Bhit will be your burial place ". At this remark , Shah went back to Bhit .
It is said that he donned black garments and went into seclusion for 20 days , composing "Sur Kedaro" a serious ballad about resisting tyranny and about the eternity of spirit and the mortalness of the body. After this he sang "Sur Suhini" [ kahirre manjhi hisaaba - on what count am I here ].
Shah Latif asked the jogis and the fakirs to play music and sing . He died after three days on 22 December 1751. The only worldly possessions he left behind were a patched cloak, a quilt and a begging bowl.
(ex. from Sufi Poet-Saints by Salman Saeed)
