At Peer Abbas’s shrine in Pattoki, Punjab, dogs are more than animals: they are part of the saint’s legacy. The shrine’s caretakers and visitors have treated them as the saint’s progeny, bringing sweets, milk and meat. When purity-focused devotees objected to dogs entering the shrine, the caretakers excluded them. Haroon Khalid’s 2016 report presents that change as a small but revealing conflict between locally rooted Sufi practice and a more standardized, puritan interpretation of Islam.
What happened at Peer Abbas’s shrine
Peer Abbas is popularly known as Kutiyan wali sarkar, or “the master of dogs.” His shrine is in Pattoki, Punjab. In a report published by Scroll.in on March 9, 2016, Haroon Khalid describes a tradition in which dogs associated with the saint receive unusual respect.
Iqbal Qaiser, identified as Peer Abbas’s mentor and travel companion, recalled that the saint travelled with a pack of dogs and gave them the food offered to him:
“He used to roam around different cities and villages with a pack of dogs. Whatever food people used to offer to the saint, he would give it to his dogs.”
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— Iqbal Qaiser, quoted by Haroon Khalid
Jaffar Qazmi, the son of the current gadi nasheen (the shrine’s hereditary custodian), said the dogs were regarded as the saint’s descendants. Visitors seeking the saint’s blessing brought offerings for them:
“The dogs at the shrine are treated with particular respect because of their association with the saint.”
— Jaffar Qazmi, quoted by Haroon Khalid
“They have become famous as the dogs of Peer Abbas and whenever devotees visit the shrine to seek the blessings of the saint, they bring along food offerings like sweets, milk and meat for the dogs.”
— Jaffar Qazmi, quoted by Haroon Khalid
Qazmi also said the shrine placed wreaths around the animals’ necks so visitors could distinguish them from ordinary stray dogs. The practice made the dogs visible participants in the shrine’s social and devotional life rather than incidental animals on its grounds.
Why dogs are central to the saint’s Sufi identity
Khalid identifies Peer Abbas with the Malamati current of Sufism. In the account’s explanation, Malamati practitioners conceal spiritual accomplishment and may associate deliberately with people or behaviour that respectable society regards as disreputable. The purpose is to attack pride and prevent public praise from becoming a spiritual temptation.
Within that framework, a saint’s public attachment to dogs can invert familiar boundaries between honourable and dishonourable, pure and polluted, sacred and ordinary. The dogs are not simply pets kept at a tomb; their association with Peer Abbas becomes a lesson in humility and a challenge to assumptions about what belongs in a holy place.
Khalid also places the shrine’s story alongside South Asian Shaiva and tantric imagery, including traditions in which dogs are associated with Bhairava. That comparison points to the layered cultural setting in which South Asian shrine practices developed. It does not prove that Peer Abbas’s devotees borrowed a specific Hindu ritual, nor does it make Sufi and Shaiva traditions interchangeable.
How the dogs became a test of ritual purity
According to Qazmi, some devotees objected to dogs entering the shrine because they considered the site pure and dogs impure. The caretakers then stopped allowing the animals inside. Khalid interprets that accommodation as possibly related to the financial importance of influential donors. That is the author’s inference from conversations, not the result of a published financial audit.
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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →The dispute therefore involved more than animal access. It concerned who could define the shrine’s proper boundaries:
| Question | Local shrine tradition | Purity-focused interpretation | What the 2016 report establishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Treatment of dogs | Dogs linked to Peer Abbas are respected, fed and marked with wreaths. | Dogs are viewed as impure animals whose presence can compromise a sacred setting. | These contrasting views were reported at Peer Abbas’s shrine. |
| Religious authority | Custom, the saint’s remembered conduct and the shrine lineage. | Purity rules derived from particular readings of Islamic jurisprudence and hadith. | The report describes a conflict between these sources of authority; it does not rank all Islamic schools. |
| Economics | Visitors bring food for the shrine’s dogs as part of their offerings. | Donor expectations may influence how caretakers regulate the site. | Donor influence is Khalid’s interpretation, not an independently measured finding. |
| Ritual space | Dogs were associated with the saint and, in the older practice, entered the shrine. | Dogs were excluded from the interior after objections. | The reported restriction is tied to the conversations in the 2016 article. |
| Cultural memory | A plural, locally specific memory of a saint who travelled with dogs. | A standardized religious identity that places greater weight on uniform purity norms. | Khalid presents the shrine as an illustrative case, not a national measurement. |
Are dogs considered impure in Islam?
There is no single uncontested Islamic position that can be used to describe every Muslim community. Khalid’s report discusses hadith interpretations concerning dog saliva, dogs entering homes, angels and the cleaning of objects touched by dogs. Muslim legal schools and communities differ in how they assess those reports, what kind of impurity they infer and how strictly they apply the related rules.
That distinction matters at Peer Abbas’s shrine. The devotees who objected were acting within a purity-focused understanding, but their view should not be presented as the only Islamic position. Other Muslims care for dogs, keep them for work or companionship, and participate in local traditions that give particular dogs devotional significance. The shrine’s conflict shows competing interpretations in one place; it does not settle Islamic law for all Muslims.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the shrine suggests about puritan Islam in Pakistan
Khalid reads the exclusion of the dogs as part of a broader post-Partition movement toward religious standardization. In this interpretation, locally inherited shrine customs are increasingly judged against a puritan ideal that seeks clear, repeatable rules for worship and ritual space. Practices that once coexisted with pilgrimage—feeding animals, venerating a saint’s unusual habits or preserving regional symbols—can then be recast as improper.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe change also reveals how religious authority works socially. A shrine is sustained through custodians, pilgrims, offerings and donors, not only through written doctrine. If caretakers alter a practice to accommodate powerful visitors, a jurisprudential argument and an economic relationship may reinforce each other. The available account does not quantify donations or establish that money caused the policy change, so that connection remains an interpretation rather than a demonstrated national pattern.
Most importantly, Peer Abbas’s shrine is a case study. It cannot provide a nationwide rate of shrine closures, a count of Muslims who reject Sufi customs or a representative measure of attitudes toward dogs. Pakistan contains diverse Sufi lineages, reform movements, legal traditions and local practices; one shrine illuminates a tension without measuring the whole country.
What happened during the urs
The report says the dogs return during the urs, the festival marking the saint’s death anniversary. Qazmi claimed that they refuse food during that week. This is a statement attributed to a shrine representative in the 2016 report, not an independently verified behavioural study. It belongs to the shrine’s oral and devotional account of the animals.
What is known—and unknown—in 2026
- The documented account concerns conditions described in a report published on March 9, 2016.
- It does not establish the shrine’s current rules for dogs, visitor access or interior entry.
- No independently verified current count of the shrine’s dogs is provided.
- No published financial record proves that donors caused the restriction.
- The report does not show how widespread comparable disputes are across Pakistan.
Anyone planning a visit should confirm access rules and festival arrangements locally rather than assuming that the 2016 description still applies.
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Further reading on Pakistani folk religion
For a longer treatment of the region’s layered religious practices, see Haroon Khalid’s book In Search of Shiva: A Study of Folk Religious Practices in Pakistan. His bibliography is available at haroonkhalid.com/articles-2/. The book’s availability, edition and price vary by seller.
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