The shrine was originally constructed by the local people in the cemetery area in Guru Nanak's holy memory.

The radiance on Guru Nanak's face was reported to be so profound that word spread that a saint had arrived.

A former Engineer-in-Chief of the Indian army, Major General Harkirat Singh—who was instrumental in the design and construction of the present-day Hemkund gurudwara and the technical and management brain behind it[6]—visited Baghdad in 1982, with a mission to encourage the local Sikh community to pitch in to make the Baba Nanak Shrine into a major gurudwara, which task was later undertaken after he died in 1983.

In that book, titled "Divine Master," Sardar Sewaram Singh writes about the Baba Nanak Shrine and the inscription on a stone tablet.

Reports of regular congregations by Indian workers in Iraq, and cooking and sharing langar by them at the shrine are also there.