GOD's OWN HOME IN MANAKPUR

            The branch of Chisti Sufis named after Hazrat Ali Ahmed Sabir is known as ‘Sabiri’ and in Punjab its teachings are believed to have spread by Shah Mira Bhik about 300 years ago. One of Mira’s favourite followers was Hazrat Shah Alam. After him, the work of preaching Islam was taken over by his disciple, Hazrat Shah Salam, and by establishing his durgah in the Ropar district of Punjab, he promoted the Sabri cult in the area in a big way.

            Soon, a young man born in Behlolpur (Ludhiana district), immersed in God’s love, came over to Ropar. After he received spiritual advice from Hazrat Shah Salam, he lost interest in worldly matters and started towards the jungles. Returning to his pir after years of sadhana, he was given the order to develop his own Khanqah (House of Muslim mystics or Sufis). This man’s name was Hafiz Mohammed Musa, who has been one of the greatest saints of the ‘Sabri-Chisti Silsila’.

            On the orders of his pir, Hafiz Musa moved from Ropar and came over to a village known as Majri Nasi. The Rajputs of the village, devotees of another saint, did not want him there. Sialwa, the headman of the village, who was deeply devoted to Hazrat Musa, presented him 100 bighas of land in Manakpur (on the Mullahpur-Kurali road) and appealed to him to go and stay there. Musa then moved there and started living in the mosque of the Rawals – next to which the plot was located. Today, an exquisite durgah stands there.

            In a short span, reverence for Hazrat Musa spread from Manakpur to distant places. It is said that a general from the royal family of Hyderabad, Muhammed Shah, became a staunch devotee of Musa. From his life’s savings he established the dargah and became a faqir. A pond, dug about 200 years ago, still remains there.

            When Shehzada Moin-ud-din was born in the royal family of Hyderabad, his mother took him to Ajmer, from where she ws directed to go to Manakpur. There, she handed over the child to Musa, and the little one grew up to be the great Sufi saint Shah Khamosh. A garden was laid out on some land Shah Khamosh’s mother had bought and till date, it is still known as ‘Dakhniyon ka bagh’.

            A mosque was built by Shah Khamosh within the durgah in 1864. The main gate to this mosque is magnificient. This rare monument, which depicts so wide a range of the Mughal art, remains sadly neglected now.