Data Darbar in Lahore is the largest Sufi shrine in South Asia, built around the grave of an eleventh-century mystic whose book remains foundational and whose kitchen still feeds the poor daily.
Ali al-Hujwiri
Ali al-Hujwiri, known by the honorific Data Ganj Bakhsh, "the master who bestows treasure", was a Sufi from Ghazni who settled in Lahore in the eleventh century. His Persian work, the Kashf al-Mahjub, "the unveiling of the veiled", is the earliest systematic treatise on Sufism in that language and is still read as a founding text of the tradition. He is credited in popular memory with establishing Islam firmly in the Punjab, and later Sufis, including Muin al-Din Chishti, are said to have paid their respects at his grave.
The shrine and the langar
The shrine that grew over his tomb has been repeatedly enlarged, most recently into a very large modern complex. A defining part of its life is the langar, a free communal kitchen that feeds tens of thousands of people every day without charge or enquiry, which is a substantial part of why the shrine matters to Lahore's poor. Pilgrims come to petition the saint, offer prayers and hear devotional music; the annual urs draws great crowds.
Devotion beyond dispute
Some historians question whether the grave itself is his, suggesting the site was rather a place where he withdrew to worship, but the devotional practice does not depend on the answer. Data Darbar has also been a target of sectarian violence directed against Sufi shrines, which reformist militants reject as sites of improper intercession; it has been attacked and rebuilt, and it remains a heavily attended, living centre of Punjabi Sufi devotion.