Pedro Shah, a Portuguese sailor, who, legend has it, was converted to Islam two centuries earlier. Pedro Shah Baba is probably the only saint in Mumbai credited with leveling a building. In 1903, Sita Ram Building, near Crawford Market, collapsed. And though weak pillars and load-bearing walls may have been ostensibly to blame, residents of the Muslim neighborhood saw it as an act of divine justice. At the time, the building housed Windsor Bar on its ground floor - patronized by boisterous British sailors - and the spot had become the focus of contentious clashes between Muslim morality and British revelry. Pedro Shah's shrine faced Windsor Bar and the caretaker had already complained about it to the authorities; but when they failed to act, devotees were convinced the pious saint had taken matters into his own hands. Coincidentally, all the casualties in the building collapse were bar patrons. In another narrative, the saint is a porter, who revealed himself first to a Parsi couple. "Instead of carrying his usual basket load on the top of his head, he walked past them with the basket floating above him," writes Nile Green in his book, 'Bombay Islam'. This Parsi couple had a blind daughter, who was later cured by the saint. A third version claims he was an Arab merchant, who came to Bombay from Makran and died here in 1799. A descendant of the prophet.
