Bulleh Shah
Sayyid Abdullāh Shāh Qādrī, popularly known as Baba Bulleh Shah and vocatively as Bulleya, was a Punjabi revolutionary philosopher, reformer and poet, regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Punjabi language and revered as the 'Father of Punjabi Enlightenment'. His [|literary oeuvre], comprising ~150 kafi and 94 other poetic compositions, reflect themes of Sufi and humanist philosophy — for which he is regarded as 'Poet of the People' among Punjabis.
Born in Uch, Multan Subah, Bulleh Shah belonged to a family of religious scholars. In his juvenile years, his family moved to Malakwal, and later Pandoke, in the Subah of Lahore; where he got his early education from his father, while working as a herder, in the village. He received his higher religious education at Kasur from Hafiz Ghulam Murtaza; and later studied in Lahore under Shah Inayat Qadiri.
Bulleh Shah’s poetry resonated with a wide audience due to the use of colloquial language; employing metaphors and imagery to convey complex spiritual ideas to those outside formal religious circles. He became known for his mystic poetry, which blended his philosophy of oneness of god, divine love, social equality; and critiqued social norms and institutions for exploiting the ordinary people. Bulleh Shah's works also left an impact on the Punjabi language, marking a new era of Punjabi literature which helped propagate a literary variety of Punjabi, based on colloquial speech, employing nuances from various local forms of the language.
He spent most of his life in Kasur, where he died at the age of 77. His poetry has been ingrained in Punjabi proverbs, qisse, and folk traditions; and has been recited at many cultural events, particularly his kafis, including one organized by UNESCO. The songs based on his lyrics have been sung on important occasions, including one at White House. It has also brought forth many modern renditions, particularly in the form of qawwali.
Biography
Early life and education
There is no consensus on Bulleh Shah's real name. While mainstream historians assert it was 'Abdullah,' some scholars argue that it was 'Bu Ali.'Bulleh Shah was born around 1680 in Uch, Subah of Multan, in Mughal Punjab into a Sayyid family.
Bulleh Shah's father, Shah Muhammad Darwaish, was well-versed in Arabic, Persian, and the Quran. For unknown reasons, in his early life, his family moved to Malakwal, a village near Sahiwal. Bulleh Shah had at least one sister who was also Sufi. Both siblings never married. According to another account, he had two sisters and none of them ever married.
Later, when Bulleh Shah was six years old, his family moved to Pandoke, which is 50 miles southeast of Kasur. Bulleh Shah was schooled by his father along with the other children of the village. Most sources confirm that Bulleh Shah had to work, as a child and adolescent, as a herder in the village. It is confirmed that he received his higher education in Kasur. Some historians claim that Bulleh Shah received his education at a highly reputed madrassa run by Hafiz Ghulam Murtaza, where he taught for some time after his graduation. After his early education, he went to Lahore where he studied with Shah Inayat Qadiri, a Sufi murshid of Lahore. Bulleh Shah later became an eminent scholar of Arabic and Persian.
By social stratum, Bulleh Shah was a peasant. He had at least one unmarried sister. Among his friends included Darshi Nath, a Hindu fakir.
One of the oldest texts to mention him is Gazetteer of the Multan District prepared and published by Edward Douglas MacLagan in 1902. The text identified Shah as the "best known, and it is said the first, writer of kafis." However, his kafis were published for the first time as "Qanun-i-Ishq", in 1889, by Anwar Ali in Lahore.
Persecution
There is a fort-like Gurdwara in Daftuh that was built in the 18th century by the Sikh Chieftainess Bibi Isher Kaur, who donated 80 squares of land for its construction. Bulleh Shah took refuge in this Gurdwara after a group of Islamic fundamentalists started threatening his life.In his bad times, when even his family looked down upon him, his sister loved him and stood with him.
During his lifetime, he was outcast as kafir by some Muslim clerics.
Death
He died in 1757, at the age of 77. He was buried in Kasur, where he had spent most of his life. As he was declared a kafir, religious fundamentalists of Kasur claimed it was prohibited to offer the prayer at his funeral. He was then buried on the outskirts of Kasur and his funeral prayer was led by Syed Zahid Hamdani, a renowned religious personality of Kasur.Tomb
A dargah was built over his tomb in the following decades. It is now, officially, a protected monument under regulation of the Punjab government. The tomb's premises are too small to accommodate the large number of visitors it receives each year. In 2024, due to overcrowding, the local government canceled several events and had to restrict entry to manage the overwhelming influx of people.Poetry
Bulleh Shah lived after the Punjabi Sufi poet and saint Fariduddin Ganjshakar, and lived in the same period as other Punjabi Sufi poet Sultan Bahu. His lifespan also overlapped with the Punjabi poet Waris Shah, who is famous for Heer Ranjha, the Sindhi Sufi poet Sachal Sarmast, and the Pashtun poet Khushal Khattak. Amongst Urdu poets, Bulleh Shah lived 400 miles away from Mir Taqi Mir of Delhi.Bulleh Shah practised the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain, Sultan Bahu, and Shah Sharaf.
The verse form Bulleh Shah primarily employed is the Kafi, popular in Punjabi and Sindhi poetry. His poetry is a mixture of traditional mystic thought and intellectualism.
Many people have put his Kafis to music, from humble street-singers to renowned Sufi singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Fareed Ayaz, Pathanay Khan, Abida Parveen, the Waddali Brothers and Sain Zahoor, from the synthesised techno qawwali remixes of UK-based Asian artists to the Pakistani rock band Junoon.
Among the most distinguished persons to be influenced by Bulleh Shah's poetry had been Muhammad Iqbal. It is maintained that Iqbal took his last breath while listening to his kafi.
He is the "most famous and celebrated" Punjabi poet and is widely recognized as "poet par excellence". A sample of his poetic work is presented below:
Verse 1:
"The mullah and the torch-bearer
Hail from the same stock;
They give light to others,
And themselves are in the dark."
Verse 2:
"Let anyone who calls me Sayyid be punished
with the tortures of hell;
And let him revel in the pleasures of heaven,
who labels me an Arain."
Verse 3:
“Not a believer in the ''mosque am I,
Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.
I am not the pure amongst the impure,
I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh''.”
Philosophy and views
Bulleh Shah's non-orthodox views and simple language played important role in popularization of his poetry. It has been noted in literature that "one reason for his all-time popularity is his relatively modern vocabulary." Among the core tenets of his philosophy includes humanism, equality, tolerance, rejection of double standards, and defiance to the authority of Ulama and blind faith in their authority. For his criticism of replication of beliefs, the "Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare" compared Bulleh Shah with Percy Bysshe Shelley. For his "ruthless human society" and an "unending quest" to change it, he is often compared with Karl Marx. Among major taboos in his philosophy was reciting words without comprehending them. He was a reformer with very much conscious of the contemporary religious, political and social situations.In Bulleh Shah's poetry, Sufism can be seen as an indigenous philosophy of political activism and class struggle and resistance to powerful institutions like religion and imperialism. Through his poems he spoke against "religious, political and social patriarchal high handedness" of his time. This side of his poetry is evident from his defying of the imperial ban on dancing and singing, and support for Sikhs, in general, and Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, in particular, in their struggle against the imperialist Mughal Empire. Thus, his version of Sufism is usually considered opposite to that of Ali Hajweri and other 'more spiritual' sufis who were confined to their libraries and schools and rarely participated in public discourse.
Bulleh Shah was a "revolutionary" and "rebel" poet who spoke against powerful religious, political and social institutions of his time and, thus, his influence can be seen on many noted socialists, progressives and workers and women rights activists like Jam Saqi, Taimur Rahman, Bhagat Singh, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Madeeha Gauhar, and Major Ishaque Muhammad.
Humanism is the key attribute of the life and works of Bulleh Shah.
Modern renderings
Bands and albums
In the 1990s, Junoon, a rock band from Pakistan, rendered his poems "Bullah Ki Jaana" and "Aleph". In 2004, Indian musician Rabbi Shergill turned the classical poem "Bullah Ki Jaana" into a rock/fusion song in his debut album Rabbi; the song was a chart-topper in 2005, helping the album to eventually sell over 10,000 copies and became immensely popular in India and Pakistan.The Wadali Bandhu, a Punjabi Sufi group from India, have also released a version of "Bullah Ki Jaana" in their album Aa Mil Yaar... Call of the Beloved. They also worked with British-Punjabi music composer, Mukhtar Sahota, to create their own rendition of a famous Punjabi folk song, "Charkha" which was released in May 2007. Another version was performed by Lakhwinder Wadali and entitled "Bullah". Dama Dam Mast Qalandar, a qawwali composed in honour of Shahbaz Qalandar, has been one of Bulleh Shah's most popular poems and has been frequently rendered by many Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi singers including Noor Jehan, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen, Sabri Brothers, Wadali brothers, Reshman and Runa Laila. Other qawwali songs by Bulleh Shah, include "Sade Vehre Aya Kar" and "Mera Piya Ghar Aaya". In 2008, a version of Bulleh Shah's famous verse, Aao Saiyo Ral Deyo Ni Wadhai, was sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan, for his debut solo album, Tabeer. Ali named the song "Bulleh Shah" in honor of the poet.
In 2016, a collaboration between two EDM artists named "Kundalini" used words created by Bulleh Shah, as well as having the words Bulleh Shah in the lyrics. Bulleh Shah's verses have been an inspiration to painters as well, as in the two series of paintings by an Indian painter Geeta Vadhera inspired by the poetry of Bulleh Shah and other Sufi poets and saints. In 2017, British-Pakistani singer Yasir Akhtar used Bulleh Shah's poetry in his song "Araam Naal Kar – Take it Easy". In 2019, Sona Mohapatra used a verse of Bulleh Shah in her song "R.A.T. Mashup".