Visit Guide to Nurpur Shahan Village

About 4km northeast of the Diplomatic Enclave, Nurpur Shahan Village village is a shrine to Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi. Also known as Bari Shah Latif or ‘Bari Imam’, he was a 17th-century Sufi teacher and Islamabad’s unofficial patron saint. Thursday evening can be very festive, with pilgrims and trancelike qawwali (Islamic devotional singing). Foreigners are welcome but should always dress conservatively.

Getting There

By Driving Car or having Taxi/Van/Bus.

What to Expect

In the last week of May the carnival-like urs (death-anniversary festival) of Bari Shah Latif is celebrated here. Minibus 3 heads to Nurpur Shahan from Rajah Bazaar in Rawalpindi, via Aabpara. Bus 120 leaves from Karachi Co (east of Islamabad), via Sitara Market and Aabpara.

History

A silver-mirrored shrine of Bari Imam is located in Nurpur Shahan, Islamabad. It was originally built by the Mughal emperor 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.