History of the blessed Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah (RA)

History of the blessed Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah (RA)

God has granted spiritual powers to some of his select for the betterment of all humanity. One such is Hazarat Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah (RA).
As per a book written by the administrator of Waqf board of Shahdra Sharief, Ghulam Mohammed Dar, Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah was born in a small village Mosuma Saida Kasranu, which was situated in Rawalpindi (Pakistan). Right from his childhood, he was a disciplined child and had a religious bent of mind. Time passed on and that small child grew into a young man. During his adolescence, he used to graze a big flock of goats. According to the book, once while grazing his goats, he was lost in God’s meditation when in the meanwhile his goats destroyed the crops of a poor farmer. The farmer narrated the whole episode to Baba’s father. Baba apologised and promised to pay him back. But before that, Baba wished that he would like to visit the field. Accordingly, everybody reached there. The poor farmer was surprised to see that crops were quite fine. This created a sort of fear in the farmer’s heart and he apologised for his complaint against Baba.
This incident proved Baba as a miraculous soul blessed by God. After this, Ghulam Shah Badshsh’s Imam (religious preacher) suggested to his father that the time has come to send Baba for the purpose for which God had sent him to earth. The purpose was to establish a shrine up on the hill of Shahdra Sharief and to spread the message of God.
The book further reveals that Baba started his journey from Rawalpindi. He was accompanied by some of his followers. After crossing the area of Poonch, Baba stayed for some time in Lasana area of district Poonch near the river of Dhandok. Records further show that Baba also had religious education from a person of this area named Sain Main Mesri. Within a very short span of time, miraculous stories of Baba spread everywhere and people started paying their visit to the auspicious Baba with the intent of getting his blessings.
It is said that once the area witnessed a very horrible and devastating flood in the river nearby. People were afraid that the flood might have taken Baba’s life. But to everyone’s surprise, they found Baba sitting near his fire place with a pot of boiling milk over it. It seemed that the flood had not even touched Baba’s house. It was the time when Rustam Khan was the Maharaja of Poonch. Rustam Khan conspired to kill his cousin Aya Khan, under the apprehension of losing his kingship to Aya Khan. This killing made Baba very angry at the king. He decided to leave the area of Poonch and restarted his journey towards his goal, i.e., Shahdra Sharief. Before the arrival of Baba at Shahdra Sharief, this place was known as Se Dra in local language (Se means lion and dra means forest). When Baba reached there, he ordered his followers to start cutting the trees so that he may make a place for meditation. It was the time when Karam-ula-Khan was the king of Rajouri. Written records unfold a miraculous story of Baba related to king Karam-ula-Khan. Karam-ula-Khan had two wives, one was the queen of Kashgar and the second was a Rajput of Budhal area. The queen of Kashgar gave birth to four sons but the king’s second wife was childless. With a strong craving of motherhood, she arrived at the shrine of Baba. It was Baba’s miracle that she gave birth to a son even when she was quite old. That child was Agar Khan, who later became the king of Rajouri.
It was Baba Badshah’s prediction that Gulab Singh, an ordinary soldier, would become the king and sole owner of state of Jammu and Kashmir. Baba’s prediction came true when Agar Khan (king of Rajouri) revolted against Raja Ranjit Singh of Punjab. In order to crush the agitation in his kingdom, Ranjit Singh ordered his army to go and arrest Agar Khan. Accordingly a group of 150 brave soldiers set on a mission to arrest Agar Khan. Among 150 soldiers of Ranjit Singh’s army was a soldier whose fate was about to change. His name was Gulab Singh. When only 25 soldiers were left in Ranjit Singh’s army group and they had failed to arrest Agar Khan, a person named Sai Khear-Ula came to the army camp to meet Gulab Singh with a message for him, from Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah. He said the Baba came in his dream the other night and ordered him to deliver the message to Gulab Singh. The message was that Gulab Singh would soon become the king of J&K.
This shocked Gulab Singh and he requested the Khalifa (Sai Khear-Ula) to go back and not disclose this to anyone. After some days when the army reached a hill called Dohra Dana in Surankote area of district Poonch, the Baba again came in the dream of Sai Khear-Ula and directed him to go again to Gulab Singh to inform him about the exact location of Agar Khan. Sai Khear-Ula went to Gulab Singh and disclosed him that Agar Kkhan is hiding in a house of Zabardast Khan in Soi Narh area. Go and arrest him, Sai Khear-Ula said, and then you will become king. This time Gulab Singh promised him that if this statement came true, than he would grant the whole area of Shahdra Sharief to the shrine. Things happened accordingly and Gulab Singh became the king of J&K. Fate further favoured him and he soon bought the whole state from the Britishers, with an amount of 75 lakh rupees. Gulab Singh became the first Hindu king who established a shrine of a Muslim saint and established a big example of communal harmony.
Today we have a well developed infrastructure of Shahdra Sharief shrine. The shrine can provide accommodation to a thousand pilgrims at a time. The shrine also has a continuous langar facility. It is surrounded by private hotels and restaurants. On the very first sight the shrine gives a very beautiful and auspicious look. Hundreds of poor people are employed in the shrine.
The story does not stop here. The BGSBU university can be seen as the greatest achievement of the shrine, imparting education and employment to thousands of students and job seekers. Before I end, it is quite pertinent to mention here that travellers on the Mughal Road can get the blessings of Baba by reaching Shahdra Sharief in a short span of half an hour from Thanna Mandi as it is only 8 km from there.
In the end I would like to like to say that God can select any one of his creatures and make him the source of blessings for generations to come.
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