Panj peer


Panj peer, meaning the five saints in Persian, were Islamic saints who overlapped in late 12th and early 13th centuries in northwestern India. There was also a similar tradition in Rajasthan, known as Panch Pir, whose quintet were subsequently Rajputized.

Sufis

The Islamic panj pirs were:
No.NamePortraitLifespanRegionReference
1.Mu'in al-Din Chishti1143 - 1236Ajmer, Rajasthan
2.Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki1173 - 1235Mehrauli, Delhi
3.Farid al-Din Ganjshakar1179 - 1266Pakpattan, Punjab
4.Baha al-Din Zakariya1182 - 1268Multan, Punjab
5.Lal Shahbaz Qalandar1177 - 1274Sehwan, Sindh

The above Sufi saints are mentioned in the great love-epic of the Sufi poet sayyid Waris Shah, Heer Ranjha, which opens with an invocation to them.

Rajasthan

The concept of panch pir in Rajasthan likely derived from the earlier concept of punch pir in Punjab and other parts of northwestern India. Which figures were included in the panch pir quintet varied by region, however Goga was usually always included amongst the five. In Rajasthan, there panch pir were:
These five figures were folk-deities. Some of these figures were not originally perceived as Rajput heroes and became Rajputized later-on after the 18th century. Originally, figures such as Gogaji, Pabuji, Ramdetji, and Harabhuji were originally associated with the downtrodden sections of society, particularly peasants and pastoralists, but they became appropriated as Rajput figures and their identities were usurped by the ruling-classes.