The Sheedi Mela or Sheedi Jaat or Pir Mangho Urs (Urdu: شیدی میلا) is an annual spiritual festival in Manghopir neighborhood of Gadap Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
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The Sheedi Mela or Sheedi Jaat or Pir Mangho Urs (Urdu: شیدی میلا) is an annual spiritual festival in Manghopir neighborhood of Gadap Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
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What is Sheedi Mela in plain words?
The Sheedi Mela or Sheedi Jaat or Pir Mangho Urs (Urdu: شیدی میلا) is an annual spiritual festival in Manghopir neighborhood of Gadap Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Where is Sheedi Mela practised or documented?
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□□□□ (Not yet assessed): Documented in open cultural records, but no cited field assessment of its current vitality has been added here yet.
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Cite as: "Sheedi Mela." folkroom, https://folkroom.org/art-forms/sheedi-mela, text CC BY-SA, with attribution.
The Sheedi Mela or Sheedi Jaat or Pir Mangho Urs (Urdu: شیدی میلا) is an annual spiritual festival in Manghopir neighborhood of Gadap Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Pir Mangho Urs is the most important event in the cultural calendar of the Sheedi community—a community of East African-descended Pakistanis. It is held every year at the shrine of Manghopir, usually in the summer, for four days, with the exact dates decided upon by the community leaders. The Sheedi Mela is separate from the Manghopir Urs which marks the death anniversary of Mangho Pir and is held in the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah.
The festival is famous for the role of the sacred crocodiles of the shrine, and the African-influence rituals of the Sheedi community. The festival attracts many people of all ethnic groups. People make their mannats (pledges) at the shrine of Pir Mangho through offering fresh meat (seen as sacrificial) to the crocodiles. Shedis believe that the creatures do not harm the saint's followers and because of this bury crocodiles with equal respect and formalities as they would give a human being. There is place reserved for burying dead crocodiles near the shrine.
The highlight of the Manghopir festival also called ‘Shedi Mela’ and a garlanding ceremony, during which the gaddi nasheen (the holy successor) puts a garland around the neck of the chief of the crocodiles (Mor Sahib).
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Sheedi Mela”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.
Sheedi Mela is annual festival associated with the Sheedi community in Pakistan, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 1
The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. 1