A Real Challenge

By Faisal Kamal Pasha, "Lohe Dunddi attracts hikers, devotees alike" - The International News - Pakistan
Monday, June 16, 2008

Islamabad: Among other hiking tracks of the Margalla Hills that modern folks are familiar with, ‘Lohe Dunddi’ is the most ancient track in the region that has been attracting people over the years due to its spiritual importance with regard to Hazrat Barri Imam, the well-known Sufi saint of the area.

The 12 to 13 kilometres vertical outline of this track is a real challenge for an ordinary person to reach the ‘Chilla gah’ [place of retreat] of the Sufi saint that attracts people of all ages even patients and handicapped who feel “relieved out of their miseries after praying there.”

Hazrat Syed Abdul Latif Shah Kazmi commonly known as Hazrat Barri Imam (1617 to 1705), whose shrine is at the foothills of Margalla, used to go there for meditation.

According to the literature available about the Sufi saint, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir was a disciple of Barri Imam who had built the shrine after the death of the saint.

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When one reaches at the ‘Chilla gah’, it is quite a narrow place to enter. Only a single person with much difficulty could enter the place.

Outside the narrow ‘Chilla gah’ there is a stone that is being described as a chair of Hazrat Barri Imam.

People from across the country visit this place for spiritual elevation. They perceive it an “effective remedy for the redressal of their pains.” A blind woman, Gul Taj Bibi, who came here told ‘The News’ that it gave her immense pleasure reaching here, as she thinks her miseries would be addressed.

A group of youngsters that came from Lahore told ‘The News’ that they came here to visit Murree and eventually made a plan to visit the shrine.

The spiritual places like these always attract devotees and such places are embedded into the cultural traditions of this land of Indus valley civilization.