Ajodhan was a Sutlej crossing with a mosque already standing when Fariduddin Masud arrived from the Multan side. The town later took a new name — Pakpattan, the clean ferry. Cotton and wheat still pay the rent. The courtyard still sets the calendar.
The 2023 census counted 2,136,170 people in 344,546 households on 2,724 km². Urban 472,575. Literacy 57.13 percent — 64.70 among men, 49.27 among women. Punjabi first.
Pakpattan tehsil — 1,483 km², 1,136,892 people, literacy 56.11 percent. Headquarters and the shrine.
Arifwala — about 1,241 km², 999,278 people, literacy 58.24 percent. The mandi tehsil. Cotton and grain when the urs cameras have gone home.
Baba Farid (d. 1265) settled here in the Chishti line. His Punjabi sloks later entered the Guru Granth Sahib; Guru Nanak came, the tradition says, to collect them. The shrine holds the door called Bahishti Darwaza, open the first five days of Muharram. Ibn Battuta passed in 1334. Tughluq governors brought sons for a turban-tying. Akbar visited. Ranjit Singh sent gifts.
Sahiwal Division cotton-and-wheat country. The Maneka name keeps returning on assembly rolls — Ahmad Raza Maneka and earlier seats. The Faridi house around the dargah is a different office, older than the gazette.
DHQ at headquarters, THQ at Arifwala. Serious medicine still means Sahiwal or Lahore. Women here still read at just under half.
Census 2023. Shrine notes from the published Chishti record.