Baba Farid

Farid al-Din Mas'ud Ganjshakar, known as Baba Farid (died 1266), was a Punjabi Muslim mystic, poet and preacher of the 12th and 13th centuries ¹. The English article calls him one of the founding fathers of the Chishti Sufi order ¹. The Arabic article describes him as the third in the Chishti order ². His birth year is genuinely contested — 1188 in the English article's lead, 1179 and 1173 in sources it quotes, 1173 in the Urdu article's tradition and 1175 in Wikidata — and this record preserves all the readings ^{1 3}.

He was born at Kothewal village, about ten kilometres from Multan ¹. He studied at Multan, where he met his teacher Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki and became his disciple ¹. He settled at Ajodhan, the town later renamed Pakpattan ¹.

The English article says he became head of the Chishti order and is credited with founding its institutional form in the Punjab ¹. His most prominent disciple was Nizamuddin Auliya, who succeeded him in the Chishti chain ¹. Verses attributed to him were later included in the Guru Granth Sahib, though one theory traced in the article holds that those verses descend from a later Farid ¹.

The English article gives his death as circa 7 May 1266 at Pakpattan ¹. The Arabic article gives 664 AH / 1265 CE, and the Urdu article gives 5 Muharram 664 AH, 1265 CE, at the age of 92 ^{2 3}. This record builds the English article's year and preserves the others ¹.