Tomb of Sadan Shaheed MuzaffarGarh

 

I came to know about this unique historical tomb when Sir Mukaram Tareen (The President of Cross Route Motorcycle Travelers Club of Pakistan) visited this tomb and shared its pictures on facebook on 15-09-2016, since then I was restless to visit this historical monument. So I planned a motorbike ride with my close friend Mr Farooq Ahmad on Sunday 2nd October 2016. The tomb is located on Muzaffargarh-Jhang Road near Head Muhammad Wala about 35 km from Multan. Before describing the features of the tomb I would like to say thanks to Sir Mukaram Tareen for highlighting this tomb and guiding me for its location, to Farooq Ahmad joining me on this tour and in the last to Dr Muhammad Asif Khaira for his kind hospitality at the tomb site. I missed Mr Veer Shuaib Raza on this important exploration and hope his company in some upcoming tour. The tomb of Sheikh Sadan Shaheed, near village Jalarian, on the Muzaffar Garh – Jhang road, A 12th century surviving early Islamic architecture of the Indus Valley, consists primarily of brick structures with cut-brick ornamentation This brick tomb is square in plan and is erected on a high platform about two meters above the surrounding ground levels. The fine cut-brick decoration gives this tomb a unique place among the early funerary buildings in IndoPak Subcontinent and shows the impact and continuation of the Hindu-Buddhist architectural decoration, which is not found on early Muslim buildings in the subcontinent. This tomb combines local with constructional and decorative inventions from Central Asia. Internally the square chamber is converted into an octagon by means of corner squinches, which have a few courses of corbelled bricks. The preceding analysis shows that arch squinches and corbelled brick courses have been used in the construction of the zone of transition. The epigraphical evidence of the Balban period is now available on the tomb of Sheikh Sadan Shaheed (d. 674 A.H.) in district Muzaffargarh. Seven merlons decorated with cut and carved bricks in floriated Kufic inscriptions with slightly cursive on facade can still be seen in this monument. Analysis of gavaksha niche with Arabic epigraphy reveals at least three distinct types of formal and decorative elements that represent related facets of the cultural influences operating in the region at the time of the tomb's construction: 1. Elements derived from the architectural traditions of the Indus Valley. 2. Elements which find their closest parallels not in the surviving Indus Valley monuments, but in the architecture of Afghanistan and Central Asia. 3. Elements which appear to represent a synthesis of these two traditions, or a transposition and transformation of one under the influence of the other.

    

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