Baba Farid's Shrine, Pakpattanਬਾਬਾ ਫ਼ਰੀਦ ਦਾ ਦਰਬਾਰ, ਪਾਕਪੱਟਣ

Pakpattan exists because of a grave. When Baba Farid, the Chishti saint whose verses Punjabis of every faith still sing, settled in the town then called Ajodhan, pilgrims began crossing the Sutlej by ferry to reach his hospice, and the town took a new name from the journey: Pakpattan, the pure ferry. The white marble shrine raised over his grave after his death in 1266 is now among the most visited dargahs in Pakistan, and its story, of emperors, travellers and Guru Nanak himself, is a history of Punjab in miniature. It is one of the great stops in the Sufi heritage of Punjab.

The saint and his hospice

Baba Farid made his Jama Khana, his hospice, one of the great centres of learning in the thirteenth century subcontinent, and its doors stood open to everyone. He died on 5 Muharram in 1266 and was buried beside the hospice; his disciple Ala ad-Din Mauj Darya was named his successor, and the shrine raised over the grave in the years that followed became the head of a wilayat, a whole district of smaller shrines tied to events of Farid's life. The saint's own reputation crossed every boundary of his age: his verses were sung in the countryside, and his name, Ganjshakar, the treasure of sugar, came, tradition says, from a miracle of sweetness remembered by his followers.

The two doors: Nuri and Bahishti Darwaza

The tomb chamber is of carved white marble and holds two graves, Baba Farid's and that of his eldest son, Badruddin Sulaiman. It has two famous doors. The eastern door is the Nuri Darwaza, the Gate of Light. The southern door is the Bahishti Darwaza, the Gate of Paradise, and it is opened only during the urs, when the crowds are led through it; devotees believe that passing through this gate in those days brings absolution. The press of devotion has a cost: a stampede at the gate in 2001 killed thirty six people, and passage is now carefully queued and managed. The shrine serves langar to its visitors and stays open around the clock under the Punjab Auqaf Department.

The urs of Baba Farid

Because Farid died in Muharram, his urs is a Muharram festival: it begins on the fifth of the month and runs for six days, drawing up to two million visitors, among the largest religious gatherings in Pakistan. The Bahishti Darwaza is opened for the passing crowds, qawwali sounds through the nights, and the whole town becomes a fair of pilgrims. In a measure of how completely Farid belongs to both Punjabs, his urs is also commemorated across the border in Amritsar. With Data Darbar in Lahore, Pakpattan forms one of the two poles of Punjab's shrine calendar.

Travellers, emperors and Guru Nanak

The traveller Ibn Battuta visited in 1334 and prayed at the shrine. In 1398 Timur, the conqueror then devastating the region, prayed here too and spared the town. In the early 1500s Guru Nanak came to Pakpattan to collect Baba Farid's compositions from Sheikh Ibrahim, a descendant of the saint who held his seat, and those verses were later enshrined in the Guru Granth Sahib, which is why Farid is revered by Sikhs as well as Muslims. The Mughal emperor Akbar paid his respects in 1571, Shah Jahan issued a decree in 1629 funding the shrine's upkeep, and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, taking the town in 1810, pledged nine thousand rupees a year for its maintenance. After 1947 the shrine became the unrivalled centre of Chishti Sufism in Pakistan.

The shrine today

The complex that greets today's visitor, the white domed mosque in this page's photograph, the courtyards and the tomb chamber, has been rebuilt and extended many times, and the town of Pakpattan has grown around it, its bazaars living from the pilgrim traffic. The shrine stays open around the clock and entry is free; visitors pass through security checks that are now a fixed part of arrival, as at Data Darbar. What has not changed is the pattern of the place: prayer at the tomb, langar for the hungry, qawwali in the season of the urs, and a saint's name on the lips of a whole countryside, in two countries at once.

Can anyone pass through the Bahishti Darwaza?

Yes: during the six days of the urs the gate is opened and the crowds are led through it in managed queues, and people of every faith join the line, as they join every part of the urs. Outside the urs the gate stays closed, and visitors reach the tomb chamber through the courtyard and the Nuri Darwaza, the Gate of Light.