Umarkot Fort and the tale of Marvi

The fort that held Marvi, and where the emperor Akbar was born

The old fort at Umarkot on the edge of the Thar in Sindh holds two stories. The first is Umar Marvi, a Sindhi folktale from the 14th century, first written down in the 16th by Shah Abdul Karim of Bulri, great-great-grandfather of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, and later sung in the Shah Jo Risalo as one of the seven tragic romances of Sindh. Marvi was a village girl whose beauty caught the eye of Umar, a powerful local ruler. When she refused to marry him and live as a queen in his palace, he shut her up in this fort for several years, and she held out for her own people and her own village. For her courage the Sindhis keep her as a symbol of love for one’s soil and homeland. The second story is history: on 15 October 1542, the Mughal emperor Humayun, in flight after his defeats by Sher Shah Suri, was given refuge here by Rana Prasad Singh Sodha of Umarkot, and his son Akbar, the future emperor, was born inside these walls.