By Jonaid Iqbal

Dawn January 09, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Jan 8: The Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) on Monday launched Urdu translation of the poetry of Khwaja Fareed Ganj Shakkar, a great saint whose benign teachings had greatly influenced the people of southern Punjab.

The saint inspired a large number of local people to embrace Islam in these areas.

At the book launching ceremony, PAL Chairman Iftikhar Arif said that Baba Fareed was the spiritual heir to Hazrat Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar, one of the foremost saints of the Chishtia order.

The current volume, a small monograph of 145 pages, is among many books on the works of the mystic poets of Pakistan the PAL has published since 1990s, including translations into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Persian, Russian, Spanish and Urdu languages.

He said the great attraction of the present book, authored by scholar Sharif Kunjahi, was that it contained a selection made by prominent critic and scholar, Aslam Farrukhi.

The book Abiyat-i-Fareed is a selection of some of the most pithy sayings and verses of the saint (1188-1280), a contemporary of Hazrat Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273).

The author has written in the short biographical introduction of the book that the masses found themselves harried by a number of invading hordes in a period of unrest in the northwest.

It was an era when the people hoped for someone to deliver them from their sufferings and trouble. And yet they felt depressed at the lack of the means to convey their despair and sought solace in rushing to God-fearing people such as Hazrat Khwaja Fariduddin Shakkar.

The saint patiently listened to the sad tales of his audience and asked them to fortify their hearts against their sufferings and to act against those who had caused mischief.

This kind of therapy is heightened with the knowledge that Baba Fareed was made of the same mettle and avoided all kinds of luxuries. The saint built a khanqah (monastery) and avoided the company of kings and courtiers.