Sehwan is known to Englishmen chiefly as a handy station for those who wish to shoot on the Manchar lake. In the summer it enjoys an unenviable reputation for heat. The bare rocks of Lakhi known as the Bagothoro are said to end the last struggles of the monsoon. Indeed the Lakhi pass is known locally as the gate of the infernal regions; and an often quoted Persian couplet about Sehwan runs as follows:

But besides its fame as a sporting and a roasting centre, Sehwan has an immense reputation for sanctity. Within its confines repose in mighty state the earthly remains of the greatest saint of all Sind, worshipped alike by Musulmans and Hindus, the renowned Lal Shahbaz, the Red Peregrine Falcon of the Indus valley.

Lal Shahbaz’s real name was Hazrat Sayad Usman Shah Marwandi. He was born at Marwand in Afghanistan in A.H. 538. His father Makhdum Sayad Ahmed Kabir was a powerful noble and a great friend of the king of Tabriz. From his earliest years, so it is said, the boy shewed a great leaning towards things spiritual. Before his twelfth year he had already made the blind see, the deaf hear and the dumb speak. When Lal Shahbaz reached manhood, he insisted on leaving his father’s house and started on a pilgrimage. He first went to Baghdad [8]where he stayed at the court of the monarch Sayad Ali. When he wished to leave, Sayad Ali implored him to remain at Baghdad for ever. But the religious call was too insistent and with three friends, Sheikh Bahawaldin, Sheikh Farid Ganj Shakar and Makhdum Jalaluddin, Lal Shahbaz set off for the Persian Gulf. In an island in the Gulf lived a fakir named Sheikh Jalal whose austerities had won him supernatural gifts. Lal Shahbaz determined to reduce him to obedience and make him his disciple. No boats were available so Lal Shahbaz threw his “kishta” or begging bowl into the water and it became a boat. Into it the four friends stepped and rowed for Sheikh Jalal’s island. About half way the boat stopped dead and no matter how hard the saints plied the oar, it declined to move. At last Lal Shahbaz realised that the island fakir had cast a spell on them. But he could only have done that, if one among them was not a true anchorite and was still thinking of the joys of this world, while pretending to have given them up for ever. Lal Shahbaz told this to his friends and asked them whether they had one and all given up the world wholly. They protested their complete unworldliness. But as the boat still refused to budge, Lal Shahbaz went through their pockets. In the pocket of Sheikh Bahawaldin he found, as I regret to say, a brick of solid gold, which the saint was keeping against a rainy day. Lal Shahbaz threw it overboard. Once freed from this sordid freight, the boat began again to move. As they drew near the island, Lal Shahbaz saw Sheikh Jalal looking at them through a window of his castle. To punish him for stopping the boat, Lal Shahbaz made the window grow so small that it gripped the fakir’s neck as if in a vice. Sheikh Jalal yelled for mercy, but it was not granted him until he had owned himself beaten and had promised to become an obedient and humble follower of Lal Shahbaz. [9]

The great saint acquired his appellation of Lal Shahbaz, by two remarkable miracles. After the defeat of Sheikh Jalal, Lal Shahbaz and his three companions went to Mecca and Medina. As they were returning from the blessed vision of the prophet’s tomb, they halted one night in a town on the coast of Arabia. Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj went to buy bread for the party. Unhappily the baker’s wife conceived an unholy passion for the young man. Like a true ascetic he rejected her odious advances with the icy disdain of Saint Joseph. The baker’s wife thereupon behaved after the manner of Potiphar’s consort. She began to scream that Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj had tried to outrage her. The unhappy anchorite was seized, dragged before the governor and condemned to instant execution. Lal Shahbaz heard of it and took immediate steps to rescue his innocent friend. He changed one of his two remaining friends into a deer and bade him run towards the gallows. The crowd ran madly after the deer to catch it. Lal Shahbaz turned his second friend into a lion. It charged the executioners roaring terribly. They fled incontinently. Lastly the Saint changed himself into a peregrine falcon and swooping down picked up Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj and bore him to a place of safety. By this miracle the Saint got the name of Shahbaz, the Sindhi word for a peregrine falcon. How did he obtain the title of Lal? It was this way: A certain Murshid once challenged Shahbaz’s friends to bathe in a caldron of boiling oil. They not unnaturally declined the challenge, whereupon the Murshid mocked them as unworthy impostors. They sorrowfully told their master of their discomfiture. On the instant he accepted the challenge and going to the Murshid’s house, leapt into the boiling oil. He stayed so long at the bottom of the cauldron that his rival owned himself beaten. “Come out,” he cried, “you are indeed a Lal among Lals (a ruby among [10]rubies)”. The master rose triumphantly out of the oil. He had suffered no harm from the immersion, but the heat of the oil had turned his robe crimson. That robe he wore to his dying day and was in the end buried in it. So he came to be known as Lal Shahbaz.

After his journey to Mecca and Medina, Lal Shahbaz came to Sind. He wandered until he came to a spot still called ‘Lal jo Bagh’ or the garden of the ruby, two miles from Sehwan. Sehwan was, however, already a holy town and its worldly minded fakirs dreaded that the advent of so famous a mendicant would reduce their earnings. They sent him a cup full to the brim of milk, that he might know that just as the cup could hold no more milk, so Sehwan could hold no more anchorites. Lal Shahbaz sent to those worldly minded ones a fitting answer. He made a flower float on the milk and returned the cup, thereby shewing to the fakirs that there was still room for yet another holy man and that the newcomer meant to be above the others, even as the flower was above the milk. After this event Lal Shahbaz spent most of his time in Sehwan. His friend Sheikh Bahawaldin left him and went to Multan. Before leaving he offered to Lal Shahbaz and the latter accepted the hand of his daughter. Not long afterwards Lal Shahbaz learnt in a trance of the death of his prospective father-in-law. He went to Multan and asked Sheikh Bahawaldin’s son, Sadaruddin for his betrothed. Sadaruddin refused. The Saint thereupon cursed him and vowed that the girl should wed no one else, but would find an instant resting place in paradise. Shortly afterwards the poor girl died and Lal Shahbaz returned to Sehwan. He died on the 21st of the month of Shaban 650 A.H. at the ripe age of 112; and the anniversary of his death is kept as a great festival. From all quarters of Sind come fakirs and musicians and dancing girls to dance before the shrine of the [11]mighty anchorite. The chief feature of the celebration is the marriage of Lal Shahbaz to his lost bride.

Now why do Hindus worship at his shrine? That is perhaps the strangest part of the story. In 56 B.C. lived the great king Vikramaditya of Dharmanagar or Ujjain, the Arthur of Hindu historical legends. At his court lived the nine gems of learning and his valour and his arms reduced all India to subjection. Once upon a time he resolved to disguise himself and see with his own eyes how his viceroys governed his provinces. He appointed to be his regent during his absence his younger brother Brartrahari. One day the Goddess Parvati gave to a devout old couple in Ujjain an apple, that conferred immortality on anyone who ate it. The old couple preferring riches to immortality sold the apple to the regent for a great price. The regent gave it to his youngest and prettiest wife. She unfortunately had a lover and she gave the apple to him. He in turn presented it to a dancing girl, who sold it back to Brartrahari. The regent thereby discovered his wife’s infidelity. In a rage he flung away the apple and abandoning his office, became an anchorite. According to the local legend, he wandered until he came to Sind, where he became a devoted worshipper of Shiva. He called his abiding place Shivisthan or the place of Shiva. From Shivisthan has come the modern name Sehwan. Brartrahari lived at Sehwan until he died and by his life and death made the spot holy. The Musulman invasion swept away the temple of Shiva, but the memory of the pious recluse lingered on; and when Lal Shahbaz came and worked miracles at the spot where Brartrahari had lived, the Hindus declared that Lal Shahbaz was his reincarnation.

The miraculous powers of Lal Shahbaz did not die with him. After his death streams of molasses, sugar and milk are [12]said to have spurted from the wall of his tomb. These articles he meant for the use of the poor of Sehwan only. Nor did he mean that any should take more than one helping in any one day. Sad to relate, his pious wishes were brought to nought by the greed of the townspeople. Poor and rich alike rushed to profit by the dead saint’s bounty and none confined himself to a single helping. In disgust the dead saint bade the streams dry up and all that now remains of them is a group of stones that look exactly like petrified sugar molasses and milk. These the guardians of the shrine shew to wondering pilgrims as proof positive of the legend’s truth.