Shah Jamal’s Urs Starts Tomorrow

By Rana Kashif - Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan

Friday, April 20, 2007

LAHORE: The 379th annual urs (death anniversary/reunion with God) of Sufi Baba Shah Jamal Qadri will start tomorrow (April 21). The urs will continue for three days and is expected to attract about 300,000 devotees including foreigners.

Minister for Religious Affairs and Auqaf Sahibzada Saeedul Hassan Shah will inaugurate the event by laying a Chador at the saint’s shrine.

Besides its religious importance, the shrine is also a favourite haunt of music lovers and people who enjoy dancing to the drumbeat. There are live music performances every Thursday – a tradition that dates hundreds of years back.

The tradition of music at the shrine started because Baba Shah Jamal also used the drum and dance to perpetuate Islam.

Following the age-old tradition, famous drumbeater, Pappu Sain, performs at the shrine every Thursday evening till early morning at 2am. He has also taken his Sufi-style drumming to Germany, Switzerland, Britain, and has performed throughout the Muslim world.

The mesmerising scenes of traditional dances and drumbeats can be observed at the saint’s shrine during the urs when Pappu starts his show at the first day’s evening and when the charaghan ceremony is celebrated. With the start of the drumbeats, devotees start dancing and whirling round in the compound.

Auqaf spokesman Naseem Abbassi said the department had arranged various programmes for the urs. He said these programmes included a Mehfl-e-Sama, seminars on Sufism and Qirat completions. He added that Rs 80,000 had also been allocated for the provision of lungar (food) to the people. He said the zonal administrator had asked the police for security during the urs.

Baba Shah Jamal was born in 966 AH. His father, Maulana Abdul Wahid, was also a renowned religious scholar and belonged to the family of Qazi Jamalud Din Badshahi, a famous Kashmiri family. Shah Jamal belonged to the school of Qadris and Soharwardis and came to Lahore in 995 AH.

He lived in Ichhra at the time of Mughal emperor Jallaluddin Akbar [1542-1605 CE]. The saint passed away in 1049 and was buried near Ichhra. The area has been named Shah Jamal after the saint.