HAZRAT Baba Fareeduddin Ganj-i-Shakar is one of the most venerable and eminent mystics of the Chishtiya order of Sufis in the subcontinent. But he was a poet, too, and his Sufi poetry touches a chord with Sufis and poets alike.

Baba Fareed’s full name was Masood Bin Sulaiman Bin Shoaib. Historians differ on his date of birth. According to Siyer-ul-Aulia, Baba Fareed was born in 569 Hijri which corresponds to 1173-74 AD. But Tareekh-i-Farishta mentions 584 Hijri (1188 AD) as his year of birth. Similarly, his different dates of death are quoted, but Punjab University’s Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam mentions Muharram 5, 664 Hijri, or October 17, 1265 as Baba Fareed’s date of death, which seems more plausible.

Baba Fareed’s shrine is in Pakpattan, Punjab, where he spent last years of his life. He had become quite well-known in his lifetime and Ibn-i-Battuta, the Arab scholar and traveller (1304-1369), who had visited Ajodhan (now Pakpattan) some 65 years after Baba Fareed’s death, has referred to Baba Fareed in his travelogue.

Though he was basically a Sufi and remained deeply engrossed in worship most of the time, Baba Fareed penned a few tomes too, as was common among the Sufi saints of his era. He penned the ‘malfoozaat’, the utterances or dicta, of his spiritual mentor Hazrat Bakhtiar Kaki. Baba Fareed’s disciple Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia in turn recorded Baba Fareed’s ‘malfoozaat’, published under the title Rahat-ul-Quloob. Some other books, too, are attributed to Baba Fareed, but his poetry became more famous and popular than some of his other works. His Punjabi poetry has recently been translated into Urdu by Dr Arshad Mahmood Nashad. Titled Ashlok and published by Karachi’s Idara-i-Yadgar-i-Ghalib, the translation is versified and explains the text in prose also. Every page carries footnotes that explain the difficult Punjabi words into Urdu.

Some scholars have dubbed Baba Fareed ‘the first poet of the Punjabi language’. Although some critics have expressed their doubts about the Urdu and Punjabi verses attributed to him, many scholars believe that the Punjabi poetry attributed to Baba Fareed was genuinely composed by him. But a shadow of doubt is cast on Baba Fareed’s Urdu poetry as some researchers of Urdu feel that the Urdu couplets believed to be composed by Baba Fareed were probably written either by some of his disciples or his devotees after his death.

As for Baba Fareed’s Punjabi poetry, Dr Abdul Aziz Sahir in his preface to the book says that Baba Fareed was the first poet of the Punjabi language and the objections raised in this respect have been removed by Muhammad Asif Khan, the renowned scholar of Punjabi language and literature. Asif Khan has proved with his research the genuineness of Baba Fareed’s Punjabi poetry. According to Dr Sahir, before the translation by Dr Nashad, about half a dozen translations of Baba Fareed’s poetry have appeared, both in English and Urdu. Though Nashad’s translation may not be compared with the original as it is extremely difficult to match the observation and analysis of the original writer, says Sahir, Nashad has surpassed all the translations and elucidations rendered previously.

Arshad Mahmood Nashad in his intro says that the most reliable source on Baba Fareed’s Punjabi poetry is Guru Granth Sahib, the religious text of Sikhs. It was Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, who had included Baba Fareed’s Punjabi poetry in the first rendering of Guru Granth Sahib, which is written in Gurmukhi script. When Baba Fareed’s poetry was rendered from Gurmukhi to Perso-Arabic script, known as Shahmukhi script, full care was not taken and as a result, writes Dr Nashad, differences are found in the texts compiled by different scholars. Some compilers even changed the original text to make it “clear”, an utterly useless exercise that in a way mutilated the original text. Another irritating factor is attribution of Baba Fareed’s poetry included in Guru Granth Sahib to Sheikh Ibrahim also known as Fareed Sani. It was Max Arthur Macauliffe who first opined that Baba Fareed’s poetry was wrongly attributed to him and later other scholars replicated the views, writes Dr Nashad. Macauliffe, a British civil servant and scholar, had embraced Sikhism.

But Nashad has paid rich tributes to Asif Khan, the Punjabi scholar who spent decades on research related to Baba Fareed and compiled the most authentic version of Baba Fareed’s Punjabi poetry with the help from different historical and rare original sources. Asif Khan’s book Aakhia Baba Fareed ne (Said Baba Fareed) is an authoritative work and Nashad has based his translation on that text.

Dr Nashad teaches Urdu at Islamabad’s Allama Iqbal Open University. He not only is a poet himself but is also a research scholar with a knack for translation. His love of Sufism and Sufis has lent the work a delicate touch. So reading this Urdu translation that beautifully versifies and explains Baba Fareed’s thought is a sheer delight.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2018

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