We were woken up by a peremptory knock at our door at 8:00 am sharp. Apparently the guest house management had misunderstood Usman last night and had thought he had asked to prepare our breakfast by 8:00 am sharp. Whereas he had told them that we might do it by 8 provided that we are up by then. Nonetheless they woke us which was a good thing anyways as it was again going to be a fully loaded day and an early start was needed. We had planned a number of activities in Multan.
After breakfast and checking out we headed for some sightseeing before the shops opened up. Our first stop were the shrines of Hazrat Bahuddin Zakaria (R.A) and his grandson Hazrat Rukn-e-Alam (R.A).
Hazrat Bahauddin Zakariya was a Sufi of Suhrawardiyya order (tariqa). His Moseleum or shrine is situated in the heart of Multan city. His full name was Al-Sheikh Al-Kabir Sheikh-ul-Islam Baha-ud-Din Abu Muhammad Zakaria Al-Qureshi Al-Asadi Al Hashmi.
Sheikh Baha-ud-Din Zakariya known as Bahawal Haq was born at Kot Kehror, a town of Layyah District near Multan, Punjab, Pakistan, around 1170.
The mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam is also situated on the fort mound very close to the shrine of Hazrat Bahauddin Zakariya. The Shaikh was the son of Pir Sadar-Al-Din Arif born at Multan on the 9th of Friday Ramazan 649/26 November 1251. He was the grandson and successor of Shaikh Baha-Al-Din Zakariya.
Shaikh Rukn-i-Alam (Rukn-al-Din) died on the 7th of Friday (735/3 Jamadial-Awwal, January 1335). He was buried in the mausoleum of his grandfather, according to his own will. After sometime, however, his coffin was transferred to the present mausoleum. It was constructed, according to a popular belief, by Ghiyas-al-Din Tughluq (1340-1350) during the days of his governorship of Depalpur, but was given by Feruz Shah Tughluq to the descendents of Shah Rukn-I-Alam for the latter’s burial. The mausoleum of Rukn-I-Alam has been admired by not only the travelers and chroniclers but also by the art-historians and archaeologist who wrote the architectural history of the subcontinent.
After visiting the shrines we went on a brief tour of the city and then in search of the famous Multani kolapuri ( sandals). These are available for both men and women.
The search turned out to be a bit disappointing as there was not that much variety available as we had anticipated. Maybe it was not the season ; these are typically summer sandals worn in hot and humid weather of Pakistan.
Nonetheless all of us still managed to buy a lot of these chappals (sandals) for family and friends..... :)
After the chappal business was done Samina insisted on getting some of the famous halwa ( sweet) of Multan. It seems that Multan is famous for quite a few things.... :) So we headed towards the famous Rivari shop and bought all kinds of halwa i.e. walnut, almond, classic multani, etc.
After we had exhausted our "to do" list we headed for lunch at a restaurant recommended by Samina's friend Osman who had joined us today for our various shopping sprees. Osman is based in Multan and works for a telecom company there.
It was around 4 pm when we left Multan and headed North for Islamabad finally. All in all it was an extremely fulfilling and rewarding road trip: we had managed to get a lots of sights, shrines, shopping, sea and sand on this memorable trip.
And to cap it off we witnessed the most beautiful full lunar eclipse on our way back. It was the perfect icing on the cake!! The eclipse started when we are in between Multan and Lahore and lasted for about couple of hours. Later we found out that it was the last full lunar eclipse of 2011. The visibility was excellent as there was no cloud in the sky. And throughout it's transition we had the ring side seat as we witnessed it from the beginning till the end. To put it simply it was just awesome.
We did try to capture it's glory but apparently the lens on our camera was not powerful enough. Nonetheless I am still attaching some of our humble efforts.
It was 1 am when we finally entered Islamabad on 11th December after an exhilarating journey of 9 days.
