Saif-ul-Malook lake takes its name from an old story of a prince and a fairy, not from any person who lived beside it. The tale of Prince Saiful Malook and the fairy princess Badi-ul-Jamal reached Pakistan through Arabic storytelling and was carried into Punjabi verse in the nineteenth century, and it is that verse most people in Kaghan still half-remember when they name the lake.
This post covers where the story comes from, how it is told, and how it attached itself to a lake in the Kaghan valley. For getting there, opening dates and what to do at the water, see our complete Saif-ul-Malook visitor guide.
Where the story comes from
The tale of Saiful Malook is older than the lake's fame in Pakistan. It belongs to a group of stories added to the One Thousand and One Nights tradition, with Arabic manuscripts of it known from around the seventeenth century. In that telling, Saiful Malook is a prince of Egypt who falls in love with a fairy, Badi-ul-Jamal, after seeing her in a dream and on a pair of engraved seals left to him by his father.
The story reached South Asia as part of a wider Persian and Arabic storytelling tradition that travelled with traders, Sufis and court poets. It did not originally have anything to do with Kaghan. That connection was made later, by a poet from what is now Azad Kashmir.
Mian Muhammad Bakhsh's poem
The version most people in Pakistan know is a long narrative poem in Punjabi by Mian Muhammad Bakhsh, a nineteenth-century Sufi poet from Mirpur. Writing in the 1860s, he retold the Arabic tale as a spiritual romance, using the prince's search for the fairy as an allegory for a soul's search for the divine.
The poem became one of the best-known works of Punjabi Sufi literature, still recited and sung generations later. It is this poem, not the older Arabic original, that fixed the name Saiful Malook in the popular imagination of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and it is why the lake below Malika Parbat carries the prince's name rather than any local one.
The story, in outline
Accounts vary in their detail, as folk tales do, but the shape of the story is consistent:
- A prince and a dream. Saiful Malook, heir to an Egyptian king, inherits a treasure sealed with two engravings: his own likeness and that of a fairy, Badi-ul-Jamal. He becomes fixed on finding her.
- A guide and a test. A holy figure sets him on the path, telling him he must prove himself worthy of a fairy's love, since she is not mortal and he is.
- A long search. The prince travels far in search of her, in some versions guided by dreams and signs, until he reaches a remote lake ringed by mountains.
- The lake and the meeting. At the lake, under a great peak, the fairy and the prince finally meet, and the story's romance plays out against the water and the mountain.
In the versions told locally around Kaghan, a jealous demon working against the lovers is sometimes woven in, and the lake's setting below the peak now called Malika Parbat, at about 5,290 metres, is often read as the mountain of the tale. Our guide to Malika Parbat covers the peak itself, including the best places to view it from the lakeshore.
Why the name stuck to this lake
Kaghan has several glacial lakes, but Saif-ul-Malook is the one that became a place of pilgrimage for the story: a striking, isolated lake below a snow-capped peak, reachable only by a hard climb until relatively recent decades, which matched the poem's picture of a fairy's hidden home closely enough that the name transferred naturally. Local storytelling filled in details the poem does not give, including the belief among some visitors that on certain nights fairies still visit the lake, a piece of folklore rather than anything the lake's records or geography confirm.
The name is now fixed by use: on maps, in government notices and in every hotel sign in Naran, this is Lake Saif-ul-Malook, whatever the older Arabic tale it descends from once was.
What the story means for a visit today
Nobody expects to see a fairy at the lake, and the site itself has nothing built to mark the legend, no shrine or plaque telling the tale. What the story adds is context: it explains an unusual name, points visitors toward the poem's continuing life in Punjabi and Kashmiri culture, and gives a reason, beyond the scenery, that this particular lake became the valley's best-known destination rather than any of the others.
Visitors who want to see the physical side of the story, the lake, the mountain behind it and the walk or jeep ride up from Naran, should start with our practical guide to visiting the lake, and our guide to planning a Kaghan trip if this is part of a longer itinerary.
Frequently asked questions
Is Saif-ul-Malook lake named after a real person?
No. It is named after a legendary prince, Saiful Malook, from a folk tale that reached Pakistan through Arabic and later Persian storytelling before being retold in Punjabi verse.
Who wrote the story of Saif-ul-Malook?
The version best known in Pakistan is a nineteenth-century Punjabi poem by the Sufi poet Mian Muhammad Bakhsh, based on an older Arabic tale connected to the One Thousand and One Nights tradition.
What is the story about?
An Egyptian prince, Saiful Malook, falls in love with a fairy princess, Badi-ul-Jamal, after seeing her in a dream, and travels far to find her at a remote mountain lake, a story Mian Muhammad Bakhsh retold as an allegory of spiritual longing.
Is the fairy tale connected to Malika Parbat?
Local tradition around the lake often links the story's mountain setting to Malika Parbat, the peak of around 5,290 metres that stands behind the lake, though the poem itself does not name it.
Do people still tell this story in Kaghan?
Yes, in outline, as part of why the lake carries its name. The full poem is better known as a piece of Punjabi Sufi literature than as a story retold in detail at the lake itself.