Eminabad (Saidpur)
Home of Bhai Lalo the carpenter, whose honest bread Guru Nanak preferred to a rich man's feast. Babur's army sacked the town in 1521, and the Guru's verses on it are known as the Babarvani.
Eminabad, in the Middle Ages called Saidpur, lies near Gujranwala on the old road from Lahore to the north. Here lived Bhai Lalo, the carpenter whose coarse bread Guru Nanak preferred to the rich feast of the official Malik Bhago. Gurdwara Khoohi Bhai Lalo marks his house.
In 1521 Babur's army sacked Saidpur and killed or enslaved much of its population. Guru Nanak was there, and was imprisoned with the townspeople; tradition says he was set to grinding corn and the millstone turned by itself. His four hymns on the invasion, the Babarvani, were written of what he saw here.
Gurdwara Rori Sahib marks the place where the Guru sat on a bed of pebbles. It is now in Pakistan and visited by Sikh pilgrims.
People
Timurid prince from Fergana who invaded Punjab several times before founding the Mughal empire at Panipat in 1526. Guru Nanak witnessed his sack of Saidpur.
Founder of Sikhi. A poet and teacher who rejected caste and empty ritual and taught devotion to one formless God through the Name, honest work and sharing.
Carpenter of Saidpur whose coarse bread, earned by honest work, Guru Nanak chose over the feast of the official Malik Bhago.