Bhit Shah
Located in Pakistan 200 kilometers from Karachi, the shrine of Bhit Shah is the resting place of Shah Abdul Latif (d. 1752), a noted poet and musician of Sind, a province in modern Pakistan. This Sufi mystic wrote the Risalo, a collection of thirty Sindhi poems arranged according to musical nodes, or rhythmic patterns.
The mausoleum and mosque of Shah Abdul Latif were built by Ghulam Shah Kalhoro (d. 1772), the ruler of Sind, in 1765. The ornate buildings (with adjoining graveyard) are covered in blue and white glazed tiles fired in the kilns of nearby Hala. The domed mausoleum has a square plan; the cenotaph of the saint stands beneath the dome, enclosed behind an ornate wooden screen. The mosque has a portico of carved marble columns that seem to spring from blossoming lotus buds. The two buildings, with their compact scale and composite motifs, are beautiful examples of Islamic and Hindu syncretism in the architecture of the Indian subcontinent.
On Thursday evenings local musicians gather around the courtyard of the shrine and recite the Shah's poetry. The urs (wedding) ceremony of Shah Abdul Latif is celebrated from the fourteenth until the sixteenth of the month of Safar with a yearly poetry and music festival held in Bhit.
Further Reading
Schimmel, Annemarie. (1976) Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of Eighteenth-Century Muslim India. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
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