Place · Sufi poet's dargah · Pakistan
Bulleh Shah, Kasur
The shrine of Bulleh Shah (1680-1757), the Punjabi Sufi poet of the Qadiri order, at Kasur, Pakistan, 55 kilometres south of Lahore. Bulleh Shah's kafis — 'Bulleya ki jana main kaun' and others — remain some of the most widely sung Punjabi devotional poems, performed in both Sikh gurdwara and Muslim dargah traditions and in modern Pakistani and Indian film music. His verses address the common devotional ground across religions and have been sung by Pathane Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rabbi Shergill and Abida Parveen. The Kasur shrine was closed to Indian pilgrims after Partition; Bulleh Shah's Punjabi circulates across the border as the inheritance his tomb cannot.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Tradition
- Punjabi Sufi poetry
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 31.120, 74.450
Connections (1)
- Samadhi atBulleh Shāh
Bulleh Shāh's clerics refused him burial in Kasur's main graveyard, so he was put on the edge of the town and the shrine grew there instead; it is now Kasur's chief monument. His kāfīs are sung on both sides of the Punjab border by qawwals, folk singers and film composers, and they attack clerics, caste and the claims of respectability with a contempt nothing in Punjabi has matched since.
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Sources
Shrine of Bulleh Shah, Kasur
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