A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES I2IThe well of Baba Fa'rid. (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif.)Uch. Both the mosque and the well are pilgrimage sites, whitewashed
and adorned with flowers and incense. The well is on the right, facing
the threshold of the prayer room in a small courtyard. On the left is
the tree that Qasim planted. The well is covered in glazed tiles and a
small fence. Often there is someone standing nearby, offering a prayer.
This, however, is named the Well of Baba Farid because the Sufi
Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakr (d. I265)-remembered as Baba Farid-spent
forty days (or six months or ten years) suspended upside down in this
well in meditation.^33 Baba Farid's meditation resacralized Uch's im-
print on the landscape of contemporary Muslim imagination by con-
necting two histories of arrivals-that of Qasim's military campaign
and that of the spiritual campaigns of Chishti Sufis. I visited the well
to see for myself how the history of Islam's arrival is tied to Uch's m1;1-
terial landscape. On the wall above the well, a green sign informs the
reader about the history of this location. In English prose (with Urdu
verse), it reads as follows: