Bari Imam urs begins today

APP/Daily Times - Islamabad, Pakistan
Sunday, May 14, 2006

The five-day annual urs (death anniversary)
of Shah Latif Bari Qadri (Bari Imam) will begin today
(Sunday) in Islamabad, where the National Assembly
speaker will attend as chief guest.

Annually, thousands of people from all over the
country participate in the urs to pay homage to the
great Sufi saint who lies buried at the historical
mirror-studded shrine in Nurpur Shahan, a village at
the foot of the Margalla Hills. This year, the
Islamabad District Administration (IDA) and the
District Auqaf Directorate has made strict security
arrangements for the event.

Bari Imam, whose real name is Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi,
was born in 1617 AD (1026 Hijra). His father, Syed
Mehmood Shah, shifted his family from Jhelum district
to Baghan village (Aabpara), which was barren at the
time. Mehmood Shah began farming in the area, where he
also raised some domestic animals.

In his early years, Shah Latif helped his father in the small
establishment where he would take the animals for
grazing. When he reached the age of twelve, however,
he left his father and went to the village of Nurpur
Shahan, and later to Ghaur Ghashti (now Attock), where
he stayed for two years studying fiqh, hadith, logic,
mathematics, medicine and other disciplines, as Ghaur
Ghashti was an educational centre of its time.

To obtain spiritual knowledge and satiate his love for
Islam, Bari Imam visited many places such as Kashmir,
Badakhshan, Bukhara, Mashhad, Baghdad and Damascus,
where he met great scholars. Later, he went to Saudi
Arabia to perform Haj. Bari Imam’s spiritual mentor
was Hayatul Mir (Zinda Pir), who gave him the title of
‘Bari Imam’, which proved his link to the Syed family.
Through his Islamic lectures at Nurpur Shahan, Bari
Imam inspired thousands of Hindus to convert to Islam.

Legend has it that the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb
Alamgir had visited Nurpur Shahan to pay his respect
to Bari Imam.