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Baba Sheikh Farid Shakarganj was a great saint of India. He was a pioneer of the modern Punjabi culture and concept of Punjabiat. He was born in 1173 when Punjab was going through great crossroads.
When Baba Farid was 16 years old he went to Hajj and stayed in the house of Abdul Rahim Ansari. Since Baba Farid use to talk in Punjabi, an unkempt faqir on hearing Farid’s language foretold the boy’s subsequent greatness. After Farid came back to Punjab, he was sent to Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiar Kaki at Delhi to learn theology. Qutubuddin, on finding Baba Farid lacking in scholarship, sent him to the shrine of Abdul Shakur of Sarsa, near Delhi, to finish his education.
He made Pak Pattan a great centre of Sufi thoughts. He always used his language – Punjabi spoken by common people – even though he was highly learned and educated in Arabic, Persian, etc. All his couplets are written in Punjabi with Persian script. His torch of thoughts were carried by his successors. He died of pneumonia in 1266.
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