Each thing here, the rocks, the light, the soil, the heat, is hard and unbending. They equal each other in their devastating perseverance. The only things that seem airy and light are the shrubs that, from down below, seem to cling to the hillsides like grey brown clouds. But up above, when I touch them, they are as persistent as everything else here, strong, rough, unbreakable, rooted so deep into the hillside that even if I pull hard at the lowermost parts, I cannot dislodge them in any way. In the land below the hills, there are a few emaciated trees with green leaves, and though they may throw a shadow they never give shade. This is the edge of the diminutive town.
Four mausoleums stand below the hills, made of dark brown stone, placed at intervals from each other. Here the stone has been worked upon. There are arched entrances, carved niches and ledges, filigreed windows, and bands of carvings around the bases of the domes. Near them is a white dargah that reflects and multiplies the light of the sun.
“Six hundred years,” he says. “Shaykh Sharafuddin's dargah.” The keeper of this dargah is a slim, quietly smiling old man. “And the mausoleums go back five hundred years. Some are generals, some are Sufis. They all wanted to be buried here near the Shaykh. Five hundred years...This is an ancient, sacred place.”