Person · Sufi shaikh & Punjabi poet

Bābā Farīd

Also known as Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Baba Farid, Farid, Ganj-i-Shakar

Date

c. 1188 – 1266

Function

Religious institution & practice

Tradition

Punjabi verse; Guru Granth Sahib; Chishti hagiography

Confidence

Established / referenced

Worth knowing

Once a year the shrine's Bahishtī Darwāza, the gate of paradise, is opened for the urs and pilgrims pass through it in numbers that have repeatedly caused deaths in the crush. Guru Nanak is said to have collected Farīd's verses from his twelfth successor here.

Connections (3)

• Monastic foundationPākpattan (Ajodhan)

  Farīd moved the Chishti centre out of Delhi to Ajodhan on the Sutlej, and wrote in Punjabi rather than Persian. Both decisions mattered: the order stopped being a capital institution, and its shaikh became the first substantial poet in a north Indian vernacular. Once a year the shrine's Bahishtī Darwāza, the gate of paradise, is opened for the urs, and the crush of pilgrims passing through it has repeatedly killed people.

• Scripture as guruHarmandir Sāhib (Golden Temple)

  134 of Farīd's Punjabi compositions are in the Guru Granth Sāhib, the largest Muslim contribution to it. Guru Nanak is said to have collected them at Pākpattan from Farīd's twelfth successor, which is how a thirteenth-century Chishti's verse reached a sixteenth-century Sikh compilation. His is the largest body of Muslim writing in any Sikh scripture, and it is read in Punjabi rather than in translation, so the language carries both traditions without needing an intermediary.

• Teaching lineageBulleh Shāh

  Bābā Farīd in the thirteenth century and Bulleh Shāh in the eighteenth are the two poles of Punjabi Sufi verse, and the language runs from one to the other: Farīd's slokas are the earliest substantial Punjabi literature and are in the Guru Granth Sāhib, while Bulleh Shāh's kāfīs are the form at its most popular and most impious. Both are sung rather than read, and both are claimed by Sikhs and Muslims alike.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Fariduddin Ganjshakar”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.

• Wikipedia — Fariduddin Ganjshakar