The amazing number of ‘miracle men’ that have lived in and around Lahore over the ages is absolutely stunning. Few cities, or areas, in the sub-continent can match the mix of faiths and ‘miracles’ that surround our ancient city.

Take the nearby village of Churhkana a few miles from Sheikhupura. To one side is a small forgotten and dilapidated structure which has immense significance for the Sikh faith. This is called Gurudwara Sri Sacha Khand Sahib. This very small, now crumbling, structure is about a mile away from another important Sikh structure called Gurudwara Sachcha Sauda. My way of looking at “our heritage and culture is everything to do with what exists”. That least that is what the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz educated me to follow if culture and heritage are to be explored. The stories that flow from such structures are never ending. We must not forget that over the years Lahore and its environs has had Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and British rulers. Now we again have Muslim rulers.

In this piece let me try to recollect small structures around Lahore that represent incidents of great men, which in reality represent the drift of their times. In a way they are lessons for us in a material shape that their thoughts represent. Take the ‘sacha khand’ incident. Its time period is probably in the late 1490s, almost about 525 years ago. Nanak and his Muslim minstrel companion Bhai Mardana were both resting after a long walk under a tree at Churhkana. A local merchant with some donkeys laden with ‘gur’ passed nearby. Nanak asked Mardana, who had said that he was hungry, to go and ask what he was carrying. The merchant, probably scared that he would be robbed, said: “Just sand”. Nanak said: “Then sand it is”. On seeing a holy man’s verdict, the merchant checked and found it full of sand. A shocked merchant fell at the feet of Nanak and said: “But I was carrying ‘gur’”. Nanak said: “So ‘gur’ it will be”. On checking he found that his goods had been restored. At this place was built Gurudwara Sri Sacha Khand Sahib.

This incident took place about a mile from where earlier Nanak was sent by his father to work at the wheat store. His father had given him Rs25 - then a huge amount - to take care of his annual expenses after joining a job promised by a rich ‘patwari’ and family friend. Here we see Nanak coming across a group of starving ‘sadhus’. On seeing their plight he spent the money on feeding them and gave them the rest to eat for the whole month. Back at his village he allegedly told his father: “To feed the starving is better than enjoying more food than I need”. To commemorate that incident the Gurudwara Sachcha Sauda was built, which much later Maharajah Ranjit Singh improved with a grand gurudwara.

My inspiration to write this piece was triggered by a video I saw of a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Khawaja Jawwad, who has opened an excellent school in a remote village and teaches there along with his wife. His grandchildren have been withdrawn from the posh schools of Lahore and are now schooling with local village children. That is the way forward, and a step in the great Sufi tradition of Punjab and the sub-continent. But let us hop over to the other side of Lahore and see other similar undertaking over the ages.

To the east of the walled city in a small graveyard in Dharampura is a set of structures in which one grave is of a sage by the name of Syed Mahmood Hazuri. Two small structures, now virtually falling apart, have two graves in each of them. In one is a grave of the sage and his son Syed Shah Nuruddin. In the adjourning structure are the graves of Syed Jan Muhammad Hazuri and his son Syed Sarwar. Next to these small structures in a walled enclosures is a mosque. Locals call it the Hazuri mosque. In it Syed Mahmood Hazuri performed his few ‘miracles’. Mind you the family claims direct family lineage from Imam Jaffar Sadiq, with this claim backed being written on plaque on the mosque side.

These alleged miracles took place when people came for assistance or ‘guidance’. Nothing was ever charged. One source tells of an educated family on the verge of starvation. The Shah instructed them to collectively work on producing leather-bound Qurans on floral decorated home-made paper. He dipped his hand in an empty bag and gave them some money. Two years later they returned happy that they had earned enough to build a house. That empty bag, so the story goes, over the years produced a lot of money.

Another miracle is that of a beggar who came begging for alms. The Shah flicked his fingers in the air and the beggar fell down unconscious. To a waiting line of disciples he instructed to remove a lot of stolen money and to divide it among themselves. When the beggar awoke he was instructed to pray for Allah’s forgiveness. The ‘miracles’ about this Hazuri saint are endless.

Let us now move to the south of the walled city to the ancient site of Ichhra. In its middle is a Hindu temple by the name of Bhairav da Sthan, which in simple English means Bheru’s abode. Many think of this as the oldest standing temple in and around Lahore, but that needs to be researched. Who was Bhairav, or Bheru? From research we learn that Bheru, or Bhairava in Sanskrit, is a ‘Tantrik’ deity and represents the power of annihilation. In the context of this temple and the story that goes with it is that the treasurer of Prince Dara Shikoh, a ‘munshi’ by the name of Godara, was imprisoned after he allegedly cheated the prince. The ‘munshi’ denied the charge but Dara would not listen.

When in prison he was visited by a strange man who called himself Bhairav. How he entered the fort and through the walls of the dungeon is not known, but what written records tell us is that Bhairav told him that he was wrongly imprisoned and if he closed his eyes and opened them when instructed, much good will happen. When Godara opened his eyes he was standing near Shahalami Bazaar with Bhairav. He told him to move to Ichhra so as to live in safety. So in Ichhra the ‘munshi’ Godara started living and built a temple in honour of Bheru or Bhairav. Its location is where he last saw the Hindu ‘saint’ – call it deity or miracle man.

Other miracles ascribed to a Bhairav are through a small temple in the Shahalami area. Much later the famous concubine of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, Mai Moran, built a temple after a descendant of Bhairav then living in the temple cured Moran’s mother after all ‘hakeems’ and ‘veds’ of Lahore had given up hope. She and the maharajah donated money for a set of rooms and a beautiful temple.

During the Babri Masjid riots in Lahore, a mob tried to pull down the temple. But then for some unexplained reason they withdrew. Newspapers reported that as Muslims now lived in it, the mob withdrew. Locals say it was the power of ‘Bheru’ as locals call him that repelled them. A few claim the occupants have special powers. Rumours of ‘miracles’ abound.

So we see that around Lahore from Churhkana to Dharampura to Ichhra and then Shahalami we have a long history of holy persons, all performing miracles the scientific mind cannot explain. The walled city of Lahore itself is dotted with such ‘miracle’ persons who continue to fertilise the imagination of the people. The least we can do is to make efforts to repair and/or rebuild the physical structures that represent such people and their ideas. It is part of our heritage that should remain standing in our soil.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2019

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