Not to be confused with the Bengali musician Shah Abdul Karim

Shah Abdul Karim

Shah Abdul Karim , was one of the most famous legends of Bangladeshi folk music. He specialized in Bengali Baul music. Born and brought up in the village of Ujan Dhol, in Derai Upazila of Sunamganj, he lived there until his death. He was awarded the Ekushey Padok in the year 2001 for his...

Shah Abdul Karim Bulri(1536-1623) was a famous Sufi poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 of the Sindhi language

Sindhi language

Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...

 from Sindh

Sindh

Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. Shah Abdul Karim Bulri was the great-grandfather of the famous poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai

Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai

Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai was a Sindhi Sufi scholar, mystic, saint, poet, and musician. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the Sindhi language...

.

Life

He was born in a Sayed family in Matiari

Matiari District

Matiari District is located in Sindh, Pakistan, the city of Matiari is the capital. The district is administratively subdivided into three talukhas:* Hala* Matiari* SaeedabadThe district was created in 2005 out of Hyderabad District.History...

, presently in Eastern Sindh. Since he spent most of his life in Bulri, a village in the Tando Muhammad Khan District

Tando Muhammad Khan District

Tando Muhammad Khan District is one of the districts in the province of Sindh province, Pakistan. It is located in the south of the province.In North of the district, Hyderabad and Tando Allahyar districts are located, Badin district lies on South and East, West boundary is shared by district...

, the word Bulri is often appended to his name. As his father died when he was young, he was brought up by his mother and elder brother Sayed Jalal. From childhood he took a keen interest in matters related to God and spirituality and often didn't pay attention to the lessons taught in school and instead spent his time immersed in thoughts of God. He often went to mystical gatherings in his village where Sufi songs accompanied by rural music were sung. This affected him so much, that little by little he started to compose his own Sufi songs.

When he was of age, Shah Abdul Karim married as per the wish of his elder brother, although he himself thought that marriage might hinder his path towards God. He met a Sufi in his local mosque named Sultan Ibrahim and impressed by him became his disciple. After the death of his elder brother, to take care of his family, he became a laborer as per the advice of Sultan Ibrahim. After Sultan Ibrahim left for performing Hajj, Shah Abdul Karim came in close contact with another mystic named Makhdum Nuh and came under his tutelage. The Makhdum's insistence of formal observance of the Shariat (Islamic law) helped temper the growing mystic fervor of Shah Abdul Karim (which may have gone out of control at this stage).

Shah Abdul Karim imposed a very stringent discipline on himself which few people around him knew of. He used to work in the day with interludes for prayer. In the night, he used to walk around the locality filling any earthen pots he found empty. As he grew older he wrote many spiritual poems in Sindhi and used them as a device to express his love for the Divine. During his old age, he was highly respected by the people and had a number of disciples.

His poetry and malfuzat appeared for the first time in Bayan-al-Arifin, a Persian work, written by a disciple he had later in his life named Mir Daryai Tharawi,in 1630, seven years after his death. One of the major poets of Sindhi, Shah Abdul Latif has been called the Chaucher of Sindhi Literature.

Poetry and beliefs

Shah Abdul Latif gave a pantheistic meaning to many Quranic expressions such as "He is the first, He is the last, The Apparent and the Hidden(57:3)", "Wheresoever you may turn there is the face of God(2:115)", "He is nearer to you then your jugular vein(50:16)" and "Every moment he discloses himself in fresh glory((55:29)" and sang,

Separation and union are one and the same,

God, the best of proposers,

will unite the lover and the loved one.

Shah Abdul Latif knew of the works of Ibn Arabi

Ibn Arabi

Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...

and his doctrine of wahdat-ul-wujood and based his life on those principles.