Shaikh Farid-U’D -Din Gang -i-Shakar

Shaikh Farid-u’d-din Mas’ud Ganj-i-Shakar (1175-1265), popularly known as Bäbä Farid, is one of the most revered and distinguished of medieval Muslim mystics. For many years his Khanqah at Ajodhan- the modern Päk-Patan-was a place of pilgrimage for millions of people of all castes and creeds. Teeming crowds flocked to it and found spiritual solace in his company. A calm spiritual atmosphere pervaded his dwelling, and men who were secretly tormented by flames of mundane ambitions, found in his Khanqah ‘the refreshing breeze of a different world’. He was a living light to which it was good and pleasant to be near and he inspired everyone who came into contact with him. To-day, when we think of him, thanks to the Fawa’id-u’l-Fu’ad of Amir Hasan Sijzi and the Siyar-ul-Auliya of Amir Khurd, a world of historic visions and memories glows into conciousness.

Baba Farid lived at a very significant period of Indo-Muslim history. He saw the collapse of the Ghaznawid power in the Punjab, the march of the Ghurian armies into Aryavarta, the liquidation of Rajput power in Northern India and the final subjugation of Hindustan by the Turks. Later on, he heard the Mongols knocking at the gates of India and saw the panic and the fear which gripped the people at every Mongol incursion. The stream of Central Asian refugees flowed into his neighbourhood. The city of Dehli-with her newly built minarets, mosques and tanks-rose into prominence in his life-time. He was in his thirties when Sultan Shihab-u’d-din Muhammad Ghuri was assassinated at Damyak and in his ninetics when Balban ascended the throne of Dehli. Thus the story of his life is an important aspect of the spiritual history of medieval India during its most momentous and significant years of hectic and restless political activity. At a time when the entire country was resounding with the din and clatter of the Ghurian arms,Baba Farid sat cool and collected in his tumbling hut in a far-off town of the Punjab, teaching lessons of human love and affection. Today the territorial achievements of Shihab-u’d-din are tales of the past, but the message of Baba Farid still echoes through the corridors of time.

Muslim mysticism is, in its essence, a message of love. It aims at creating harmony in the discordant elements of society. True to these ideals, Bābā Farid strove day and night to create that atmosphere of love and good-will which was, and is even to-day, the greatest desideratum of human society. A healthy social order-free from

dissensions, conflicts, discriminations, hatred and jealousy-was the thing he longed for. In love, faith, toleration and sympathy, which included even the enemy, he found the supreme talisman of human happiness. “Do not give me scissors”, he told a visitor who had presented him a pair of scissors, “give me a needle. I sew.I do not cut”.[1]

[1] Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Reader in History, Muslim University, Aligarh.

Shaikh Farid-u’d-din Mas’ud Ganj-i-Shakar (1175-1265), popularly known as Bäbä Farid, is one of the most revered and distinguished of medieval Muslim mystics. For many years his Khanqah at Ajodhan- the modern Päk-Patan-was a place of pilgrimage for millions of people of all castes and creeds. Teeming crowds flocked to it and found spiritual solace in his company. A calm spiritual atmosphere pervaded his dwelling, and men who were secretly tormented by flames of mundane ambitions, found in his Khanqah ‘the refreshing breeze of a different world’. He was a living light to which it was good and pleasant to be near and he inspired everyone who came into contact with him. To-day, when we think of him, thanks to the Fawa’id-u’l-Fu’ad of Amir Hasan Sijzi and the Siyar-ul-Auliya of Amir Khurd, a world of historic visions and memories glows into conciousness. 

Baba Farid lived at a very significant period of Indo-Muslim history. He saw the collapse of the Ghaznawid power in the Punjab, the march of the Ghurian armics into Aryavarta, the liquidation of Rajput power in Northern India and the final subjugation of Hindustan by the Turks. Later on, he heard the Mongols knocking at the gates of India and saw the panic and the fear which gripped the people at every Mongol incursion. The stream of Central Asian refugees flowed into his neighbourhood. The city of Dehli-with her newly built minarets, mosques and tanks-rose into prominence in his life-time. He was in his thirties when Sultan Shihab-u’d-din Muhammad Ghuri was assassinated at Damyak and in his ninetics when Balban ascended the throne of Dehli. Thus the story of his life is an important aspect of the spiritual history of medieval India during its most momentous and significant years of hectic and restless political activity. At a time when the entire country was resounding with the din and clatter of the Ghurian arms, Baba Farid sat cool and collected in his tumbling hut in a far-off town of the Punjab, teaching lessons of human love and affection. Today the territorial achievements of Shihab-u’d-din are tales of the past, but the message of Baba Farid still echoes through the corridors of time.

Muslim mysticism is, in its essence, a message of love. It aims at creating harmony in the discordant elements of society. True to these ideals, Bābā Farid strove day and night to create that atmosphere of love and good-will which was, and is even to-day, the greatest desideratum of human society. A healthy social order-free from dissensions, conflicts, discriminations, hatred and jealousy-was the thing he longed for. In love, faith, toleration and sympathy, which included even the enemy, he found the supreme talisman of human happiness. “Do not give me scissors”, he told a visitor who had presented him a pair of scissors, “give me a needle. I sew.I do not cut”. We