Shirin Farhad Once More

From Turkey to India who may not be familiar with Shirin and Farhad and their tragic love story. The encounter between Shirin and Farhad is part of a longer and much more tragic love story of Shirin and Khusrow.

The love story of the Sāsānian King Khusrow II (r. 590-628 AD) and Shirin, the Christian princess from Armenia, is based on figures recorded in Firdawsī Shahnameh.  The romance begins before the pair meet, they fall in love after receiving physical descriptions of each other. Khusrow travels to Armenia to find the beautiful and accomplished woman who has captured his soul. At first, they enjoy a period of rapturous love, but the vagaries of fate intervene and keep them apart for some time. Khusrow marries more than once during this period, and though the plot’s twists and turns the rivals for his and Shirin’s respective affections end their own lives. Reconciled, the couple enjoys a more mature and deep love, but tragically their happiness is transient. Farhad, was a humble engineer, artist and craftsmen famed for his skill at carving rock, who served Shirin, the Queen of Armenia. Farhad fell in love with Shirin. In order to dissuade Farhad from his love for herself, Shirin set him the impossible task of carving a tunnel through a Mountain. Before starting this arduous task, Farhad carved the likeness of Shirin into the rock face. Farhad’s story does not end well. He is tricked by Shirin into believing that she has died, after which he kills himself using the tools that he had used to carve her very image into the rock. Taking a sigh of relief, Shirin thought that now, there would be nobody to come in between her and Khsurow, but their earthly union ends when, after neglecting his royal duties, Khusrow is assassinated by an enemy. After this, Shirin takes her own life.

Although, this love story is popularly known as Shirin Farhad, but is all about the romance between a powerful Persian Tsar and beautiful delicate Armenian princess, with this tale being retold by countless Sufi poets and writers the influence of the legend of Farhad is not limited to literature but permeates the whole of Persian culture, including folklore and the fine arts.

For some reasons I was searching something about this story that I found out that the Tomb of Shirin Farhad is located in Jhaoo tehsil Awaran District in Baluchistan, Pakistan. It is about 30 minutes’ drive from RCD Highway. Although there is only one grave in this mausoleum, there is a myth that Shirin was buried beside Farhad and after the burial, due to the power of Farhad’s love for her, the two graves united into one miraculously and till date, they remain as one single grave. Knowing the facts of the story I am not very sure about the authenticity of the mausoleum but, I am sure it would be worth a visit!