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Peer Syed Abdul Latif Kazmi Qadri, often referred to as Barī Imām or Barī Sarkār (1617 – 1705), was a 17th-century Punjabi Muslims Sufi ascetic. He is venerated as the patron saint of Islamabad, Pakistan. Born in Karsal, Chakwal District, he is one of the most prominent Sufis of the Qadiriyya order of the Islamic spirituality and within this order is addressed as the Master (Murshid) of the Hazrat Ishaans of the Naqshbandiyya sub branch of the Qadiriyya of whom the patron saint is Sayyid Mir Jan.Tazkar-e-Khanwad-e-Hazrat Ishaan, p. 281 and Chapter on Bari Imam Today, he is widely visited by those Sunni Sufi Muslims (especially in Pakistan and South Asia) who venerate saints.(Associated Press of Pakistan) Security plan chalked out for Bari Imam Urs The Nation (newspaper), Published 20 May 2015, Retrieved 5 January 2021
The life of Bari Imam is known essentially through oral tradition and Hagiography booklets and celebrated in Qawwali songs of Indian and Pakistani Sufism.
According to some sources, he later married and had one daughter, though both his wife and daughter are said to have died prematurely. After their deaths, Bari Imam began wandering the forests of the Hazara District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where he spent twenty-four years as an ascetic.
Shah Abdul Latif also went to the Central Asia states of that period and to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Madinah to learn about Islam and perform hajj.
After his return to the Indian subcontinent, he decided to settle in the Noorpur Shahan area (now Noorpur Shahan in Islamabad). At that time, this area was known to be a dangerous place (locally known as Chorpur (place of thieves) due to its reputation as full of bandits and killers who used to attack and rob trade caravans passing through this area headed towards the Central Asian countries. Over time, he succeeded in teaching these people about love, peace and harmony. Later, Shah Abdul Latif came to be known as "Bari Imam".(Mohammad Yousaf Khokhar) Shah Abdul Latif, Nurpur Shahan and Islamabad Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Published 28 July 2002, Retrieved 5 January 2021
Because Bari Imam Sarkar did not transmit any of his doctrines to writing, it may be rightly presumed that he bequeathed all of his teachings orally.Ghulām Shabbīr Hāshmī, Ṭulba-yi Shāh Laṭīf, Islamabad, 2010
Bari Imam was renowned in his own life for being an ascetic who subjected himself to great self-humiliation in the public sphere, "living among the pariahs and consciously exposing himself to the disdain of the people."Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, Journey to God. Sufis and dervishes in Islam, trans. from the German by Jane Ripken, Karachi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 160-161
A celebrated miracle worker, Bari Imam is also described in regional lore as one through whom God performed many karamat to convince the local people of the truth of Islam; thus, some of the most popular miracles ascribed to him are his having caused water to gush forth from rocks and his having Resurrection the dead Water buffalo of a peasant who had earlier provided the saint with milk during his ten years of spiritual seclusion.
On 27 May 2005, a suicide attack took place at the shrine of Imam Bari in which 20 people died and almost 70 were injured.
Shrine
The silver-mirrored Sufi shrine of Bari Imam is located in Noorpur Shahan in Islamabad. It was originally built by the Mughal Empire Aurangzeb, who revered Bari Sarkar, in the 17th century. It has since been renovated many times, and is now maintained by the Government of Pakistan. Until the 1960s, the shrine was famous for its urs celebration, when the death anniversary of the saint was commemorated and which was attended by hundreds of thousands of people each year (in one particularly populous year, the attendance is said to have been 1.2 million people).
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Categories: 1617 Births, 1705 Deaths, Islamic Philosophers, Muslim Reformers, 17th-century Muslim Scholars Of Islam, Sufi Poets, Mughal Empire Sufis, Qadiri Order, Islam In Islamabad, History Of Islamabad, Sufi Saints, Shrines In Pakistan, Punjabi Sufis, People From Islamabad, 17th-century Mughal Empire People
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