Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: September 29, 2021 | 
| 中文
Saif-ul-Malook (credit to Mufess Tufail)
Stories of unrequited love between mortals, real or fictional, from different regions of Pakistan, have always found a place in literature, poetry, and music. Love sagas such as Heer-Ranjha, Sohni-Mahinwal and Mirza-Sahiban (Punjab); Hani-Sheh Mureed (Balochistan); Adam Khan-Durkhanai (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa); Sassi-Punnu, Noori-Jam Tamachi, and Mumal-Rano (Sindh) – almost all are well documented in books, dramas, and films. Almost every region also has some very intriguing fables and myths, based on fantasies and supernatural phenomena that exist somewhere between belief and creativity. Passed on from generation to generation, with the progression of time, they get stranger, more erratic and outlandish. These legends, involving demons, djinns, and fairies are almost always oral, providing interesting material for bed-time stories, and fire-side tête-à-tête. These legends related over generations become a collective heritage.
The shrine of the Saint at Chipurson
As if the Chipursan Valley of Hunza, bordering Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan and Xinjiang Region of China, isn’t magical enough for its heavenly natural beauty, it is also known as the valley of the nine headed dragon. As the story goes, near the present-day shrine of a saint, there was a lake in which lived a nine-headed dragon. Whenever the dragon was hungry, people of the village offered a man or woman to the beast as an offering. One day a saint from Afghanistan was passing through when he saw a terrified young man standing by the lake. The man told him of the nine-headed dragon and how it was his turn to lose his life to keep the rest of the village safe. The saint consoled the young man and used his sword to tear the dragon into pieces. The elders of Chipursan to this day swear that the remains of the lake and the skeleton of the nine headed dragon, can be seen from a distance amongst the rocks on a clear day.
Mum of Queeta, (Credits to Mrshpedia)
The story of a beast called Mum that lived in the mountains of Quetta is still narrated by the locals with full conviction. This creature lived in a cave at Koh-e-Murdar (Mountain of Dead). According to legend, Mum had the face of a woman and body of a lion – almost like a sphinx. Mum used to pick random people, especially men, and take them to her cave. She would make them incapable of walking by licking their feet and each day eating a part of their flesh. It is said that a British soldier finally killed the beast, but lost his own life in the fight. Both beast and the soldier are allegedly buried side by side in a colonial cemetery. Even today, many parents scare their children from roaming outside in the cold winters of Quetta by threats of a hairy creature, with head of a woman and body of a lion, searching for ‘naughty children’.
Interpretation of the story of Saif-ul-Malook (Credits to Nimrah Bandukwala)
If you have ever visited Kaghan valley, you are bound to have heard the story of the Prince Saif-ul-Malook, after whom is named the famous lake of the region. As the story goes, Prince Saif-ul-Malook, an Egyptian Prince, had a dream in which he saw a lake and a pari (fairy), whose name was Badi-ud-Jamal. When the prince woke up, he told his father about his dream. The king said, ‘You will find the pari, but it will be a difficult journey’. The prince left his house and was wandering for a year, but to no avail. After a year, he met a saint who told him of a mountain called Malka Parbat (the highest peak in the valley). No one had managed to summit this mountain, because it was the abode of djinns and fairies. Whenever someone tried to climb this mountain, they would drop rocks on them and kill them. The saint then asked two djinns to transport the prince to a lake that he recognized as the one from his dreams. The Prince spent forty days worshipping there, and on the fourteenth night of the full moon, he saw the paris bathing in the lake; most prominent among them was the Queen, Badi-ud-Jamal. The prince was ecstatic. The paris had taken their crowns off and left them on the shore. The djinns took Badi-ud-Jamal’s crown and handed it to the prince. The paris got out of the lake and picked up their own crowns, but the queen’s crown was missing.
The Cave of Saif-ul-Malook
After a futile search, her companions abandoned her and flew back. Prince Saif approached her, and she requested him to return her crown because if they lingered at the lake, a deo (giant) would come and kill them. The prince did not listen to her, and took her towards Naran valley. The deo searched for the queen for several days but could not find her as the prince had taken her to Egypt through a secret tunnel, the locals believe that the tunnel still exists. The deo went to the top of a mountain and jumped from there, committing suicide. Saif -ul-Malook means the place where Saif (the prince) and the fairy met. The classic tale written by Sufi poet Mian Muhammad Baksh (1830-1960) suggests that Saif-ul-Malook and Badi-ud-Jamal still live in the tunnel, and visit the lake on the 14th night of the lunar calendar.
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