{{short description|17th-century Sufi ascetic from Punjab}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2018}} {{Use Pakistani English|date=March 2018}} {{Infobox Muslim scholar | name = '''Bari Imam''' <br>{{nq|بری امام}} | image = | image_size = 250px | caption = A popular local depiction of Bari Imam | title = Mystic |birth_date = 1617 [[Common Era|CE]] (1026 [[Anno Hegirae|AH]])<ref name=Dawn2/> | birth_place = [[Karsal|Choli Karsal]], [[Punjab]], [[Mughal Empire]]<br/>(now in [[Punjab, Pakistan|Punjab]], Pakistan) |death_date = 1705 [[Common Era|CE]] (1114 [[Anno Hegirae|AH]])<ref name=Dawn2/> | death_place = [[Noorpur Shahan, Islamabad|Noorpur]], Punjab, Mughal Empire<br/>(now in [[Islamabad]], Pakistan) | influences = [[Abdul Qadir Gilani]] | religion = [[Islam]] | denomination = [[Sunni]] | jurisprudence = [[Hanbali]] | Sufi_order = [[Qadiri]] | main_interests = [[Sufism]] }} [[File:bariimam.jpg|thumb|The tomb of Bari Imam in [[Islamabad]]]] '''Peer Syed Abdul Latif Kazmi Qadiri''', often referred to as '''Bari Imam''' or '''Bari Sarkar''' (1617 – 1705), was a 17th-century [[Punjabi Muslims|Punjabi Muslim]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karamustafa |first=Ahmet T. |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-sufism/antinomian-sufis1/B04007691404A18ADE68E7F87601547F |title=The Cambridge Companion to Sufism |date=2014|series=Cambridge Companions to Religion |place=Cambridge|doi=10.1017/cco9781139087599.008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-01830-3 |editor-last=Ridgeon |editor-first=Lloyd |pages=101–124 |language=en |chapter=Antinomian Sufis}}</ref> [[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 [[Sufism|Islamic mysticism]]<ref>Tazkar-e-Khanwad-e-Hazrat Ishaan, p. 281 and Chapter on Bari Imam</ref> Today, his shrine is widely visited by Sunni Muslims who venerate saints, especially those in Pakistan and South Asia.<ref name="EI3">{{EI3|last=Chaudhary|first=M. Azam|title=Barrī Imām|url=https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/db/ei3o}}</ref><ref name="TheNation">(Associated Press of Pakistan) [https://nation.com.pk/20-May-2015/security-plan-chalked-out-for-bari-imam-urs Security plan chalked out for Bari Imam Urs] The Nation (newspaper), Published 20 May 2015, Retrieved 5 January 2021</ref><ref name="Dawn2">{{cite news |author=Muhammad Umar and Suhail Yusuf |date=10 July 2014 |title=Syed Shah Abdul Latif: 'Khushki kay Imam' |newspaper=Dawn (newspaper) |url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1118335 |access-date=5 January 2021}}</ref>
The life of Bari Imam is known essentially through oral tradition and hagiographical booklets and celebrated in [[Qawwali]] songs of Indian and Pakistani Sufism.<ref name="EI3" /> [[File:Landscape6.JPG|thumb|The forests where Bari Imam roamed]]
==Biography== Bari Imam was eight years old when his family migrated from Karsal in Chakwal District to what is now [[Aabpara Market|Aabpara]], Islamabad in Pakistan. Additionally, [[Syed Kasran]] in the Tehsil of [[Gujar Khan Tehsil|Gujjar Khan]] is considered to be his birthplace.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.19431 |title=Punjab District Gazetteers: Rawalpindi District with Maps 1907 |date=1909 |publisher=The “Civil and Military Gazette” Press, Lahore}}</ref> His father, Syed Mehmood Shah, was a farmer whom he helped with farming and with his herd of animals until he was 12 years old. Then Bari Imam was sent to [[Ghorghushti]] in Campbellpur (now known as [[Attock]], Punjab, Pakistan) where he stayed for two years to learn [[fiqh]], [[hadith]], logic, and other disciplines related to Islam, because at that time [[Ghorghushti]] was a renowned seat of Islamic learning.<ref name=TheNation2>{{cite news|url=http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/13/nationalnews3.php |date=10 April 2007|title=Urs of Bari Imam to start from 22nd|archive-date=6 February 2008|newspaper=The Nation (newspaper)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080206104708/http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/13/nationalnews3.php|access-date=6 January 2021}}</ref>
According to some sources, he later married and had one daughter, though both his wife and daughter are said to have died prematurely.<ref name="EI3" /> After their deaths, Bari Imam began wandering the forests of the [[Hazara District|Hazara district]] in [[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa]], where he spent twenty-four years as an [[ascetic]].<ref name="EI3" />
Shah Abdul Latif also went to Central Asian states of that period and to the Islamic holy cities of [[Mecca]] and [[Madinah]] to learn about Islam and perform [[hajj]].<ref name=Dawn2/><ref name=TheNation/>
After his return to the Indian subcontinent, he then decided to settle in the Noorpur Shahan area (now [[Noorpur Shahan, Islamabad|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 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".<ref name=Dawn2/><ref name="kuna">(Mohammad Yousaf Khokhar) [https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticlePrintPage.aspx?id=1271697&language=en Shah Abdul Latif, Nurpur Shahan and Islamabad] Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Published 28 July 2002, Retrieved 5 January 2021</ref>
Because Bari Imam Sarkar did not transmit any of his doctrines to writing; as such, it may be rightly presumed that he bequeathed all of his teachings orally.<ref>Ghulām Shabbīr Hāshmī, ''Ṭulba-yi Shāh Laṭīf'', Islamabad, 2010</ref>
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."<ref name="EI3"/><ref>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</ref>
A celebrated [[miracle worker]], Bari Imam is also described in regional lore as one through whom God performed many [[karamat|marvels]] 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 brought back to life the dead water buffaloes of a [[peasant]] who had earlier provided the saint with milk during his ten years of spiritual seclusion.<ref name="EI3"/>
==Shrine== [[File:'Pakistan'-Bari Imam Tomb-Islamabad-@ibnezhar Sep 2016 (2).jpg|thumb|The shrine of Bari Imam in Islamabad]] A silver-mirrored shrine of Bari Imam is located in Noorpur Shahan in Islamabad. It was originally built by the [[Mughal Empire|Mughal emperor]] [[Aurangzeb]], who revered Bari Sarkar, in the 17th century.<ref name=Dawn2/> 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).<ref name="EI3"/><ref name=TheNation/>
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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/651709/two-involved-in-bari-imam-suicide-attack-arrested|title=Two involved in Bari Imam suicide attack arrested|date=14 August 2011|newspaper=Dawn (newspaper) |access-date=5 January 2021}}</ref><ref name=Dawn2/>
==References== <references />
==External links== {{commons category|Bari Imam}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100324111012/http://www.world66.com/asia/southasia/pakistan/islamabad/sights/shrineofshahabdullatifbariimam "Shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi (Bari Imam)" ] * [http://wikimapia.org/3232281/Mausoleum-Mazar-of-Hazrat-Shah-Abdul-Latif-Bari-Imam-RA "Mausoleum (Mazar) of Shah Abdul Latif (Bari Imam)"] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080206104708/http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/13/nationalnews3.php Urs of Bari Imam] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20191111191601/http://www.cybercity-online.net/Pakistan/html/shrines_tombs___mosques_in_pak.html Tomb of Bari Imam] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110516125758/http://pakistantimes.net/2005/04/12/national1.htm Bari Imam - A Great Sufi] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080206104708/http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/13/nationalnews3.php The Shrine of Bari Imam]
{{Authority control}} {{South Asian Muslim Saints}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bari Imam}} [[Category:1617 births]] [[Category:1705 deaths]] [[Category:Islamic philosophers]] [[Category:Muslim reformers]] [[Category:17th-century Muslim scholars of Islam]] [[Category:Sufi poets]] [[Category:Sufis from the Mughal Empire]] [[Category:Qadiri order]] [[Category:Islam in Islamabad]] [[Category:History of Islamabad]] [[Category:Sufi saints]] [[Category:Shrines in Pakistan]] [[Category:Punjabi Sufis]] [[Category:People from Islamabad]] [[Category:17th-century Mughal Empire people]]