According to most scholars,[who?] Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's lineage goes back to the Hirat. He however used the term "Shah" as a surname. His elders had migrated to Sindh during the era of Timur.
Shah Abdul Karim Bulri (1600s), whose mausoleum stands at Bulri, about 40 miles from Hyderabad, a mystic Sufi poet of considerable repute, was his great, great grandfather. His verses in Sindhi are existent and his anniversary is still held at Bulri, in the form of an Urs.
His father, Syed Habib Shah, lived in Hala Haveli, a small village, about forty miles from Matiari and not far from the village of Bhitshah. Later he left this place and moved to Kotri, where Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai spent some part of his adolescent life.