One of the city’s foremost architects and historians, Sohial Lari, suggests that Shah Ghazi was an Arab merchant who had come to Sindh with the first wave of Arab invaders. However, another noted historian, M. Daudpota, suggests that Ghazi arrived in the area from Iraq as a commander in the seventh century. Abdullah Shah Ghazi was said to have been killed by the army of Muhammad bin Qasim in a forest, with devotees returning his body to a site on the coast where he is said to have first stepped foot in Sindh. He was buried atop a hillock in Karachi along with his brother Misry Shah. He settled in Sindh along with his brother, Syed Misri Shah, and became a follower of Sufi strands of Islam. He was, however, ambushed by the army of Muhammad bin Qasim in a forest in the interior of Sindh and killed. The handful of followers that he had gathered carried his body all the way to the shores where he had first set foot in Sindh. They buried him on top of a hill near the area from where he had arrived on an Arab ship. This area now lies in the vicinity of Clifton and Sea View in Karachi.
Shrine
The tomb is built on a high platform, though the body is kept in a subterranean crypt. The shrine is made of a high, square chamber and a green-and-white striped dome, decorated with Sindhi tilework, flags and buntings. Devotees to the shrine caress the silver railing around the burial place and drape it with garlands of flowers. The shrine is highly regarded and respected by people of all ethnicities and religions. Until the early twentieth century, the shrine was a small hut on top of a sandy hill in Clifton. The shrine was built and expanded by Murshid Nadir Ali Shah, a sufi saint and the then custodian of the shrine. The iconic building of the shrine, its stairs, mosque, Langar Khana, Qawwali Hall and pilgrim lodge were built under his supervision. The shrine became a centre of attraction for people belonging to different sects, ethnicities and sections of society. Free meals and the devotional poetry such as Qawwali became the essential features of the shrine The shrine was always devotionally connected to Nadir Ali Shah's dervish lodge, called Pathan Kafi in Sehwan Sharif and for a long time the arrangements of the shrine and langar continued under his supervision. In 1962, the Auqāf department took its administrative control. The twice a day free meal started by Nadir Ali Shah continued under the management of his followers. In 2011, the shrine was handed over to a Pakistani construction giant, Bahria Town, who renovated the exterior of the shrine. This received a mixed response from the residents of Karachi. The Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine was attacked in 2010 by militants who detonated two suicide bombs at the shrine, killing 10 and injuring 50.
