The story
Urs Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif
More than two million pilgrims converge on Sehwan Sharif each year for the Urs of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, held on the 18th of Sha'aban, for three days of devotion culminating nightly in dhamaal, the trance-like drum and dance ritual performed at the thirteenth-century Sufi saint's shrine on the banks of the Indus.
Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, born Sayyid Usman Marwandi in the thirteenth century, became one of South Asia's most revered Sufi saints, associated with the Qalandariyya tradition, a strand of Sufism known for its unconventional, ecstatic approach to devotion that stood apart from more scholastic Islamic orthodoxy.