Visitors to the shrine chant a prayer to the saint. Before heading back to their homes, many will give alms to the beggars who sit on the tomb’s marble steps. Mariya Karimjee

In Manghopir, the shrine’s caretakers worry about the consequences for their fledgling microeconomy. Vendors struggle to sell flowers outside the shrines, the mosaic tile work at the shrine falls into disrepair as donations shrink, and the beggars who once lived off visitors’ alms have dispersed. The shrine’s caretakers are concerned that eventually there may be no crocodiles left. Currently, they say, there are an estimated 200 crocodiles at the shrine, though the actual number appears to be smaller.

“Every so often we’ll sacrifice a goat and cut it up and feed it to the crocodiles, but these animals live off the donations of shrine visitors,” says Mahmood, who has watched over the reptiles since he was a young boy.

Each year since 2010, citing imminent threats by Islamic fundamentalists, the Sindh government has canceled the Sheedi Mela, an annual festival that long honored the culture of those responsible for caring for the shrine — all descendants of African slaves brought to Pakistan by Omani traders. Proceeds from the festival could often feed the crocodiles for months.

Muhammad Saleem Shaikh, the public-relations manager for the province’s charitable-giving department, which oversees shrines, mosques and historic religious venues, says he saw no choice but to cancel the festival again this year. Manghopir has become one of Karachi’s no-go zones, where violence and crime are so rampant that security forces refuse to enter. These pockets of lawlessness within Pakistan’s largest city have become safe havens for the Taliban, say analysts. In early November, five tortured bodies were found in the area; police have no leads or pending investigations into the crime. Says Shaikh, “Elsewhere in Karachi, homeless men seeking refuge in various shrines are found beheaded simply for practicing their religion.”

In January, at another shrine in the city, police found a scroll of paper inside the mouth of a man who had been beheaded. The note, signed by the Pakistani Taliban, said that worshipping Sufi saints was blasphemy and forbidden by Islam.

Baba Mohammad, an elder patron of Manghopir’s shrine, says he believes the Taliban consider the local Sufi community a threat. The Sufi culture that thrives in Sindh is one reason the Taliban haven’t made bigger inroads in the province, he says.

But more and more people are drawn to the Taliban’s brand of Islam. Mohammad’s grandson, Mohammad Bilal, began taking classes three years ago at a local madrassa. According to Baba Mohammad, his grandson was alarmed to learn how fundamentally opposed Sufism was to the Wahhabi Islam he was learning at the madrassa. He’s now stopped going to the shrine where he grew up, but his grandfather and uncles still visit almost every single day.

Iqbal says she saved for months to make the journey. She points to the face of her only son, partially paralyzed after an insect bite. She doesn’t have any money for doctors, she says; working as a maid in a middle-class neighborhood, she earns the equivalent of $50 a month. Even if she did have enough money, Iqbal says, she doesn’t believe that medical care could help her son. Instead, she came to pray to God, to feed the crocodiles and to wash her son in the hot springs, hoping for a miracle.

“My husband said, ‘Don’t go. The Taliban will kill you,’” she says. “But I had to try.”