April 4
April 4
Events
- 1609 – Moriscos are expelled from the Kingdom of Valencia.
- 1960 – France agrees to grant independence to the Mali Federation, a union of Senegal and French Sudan.
- 1979 – Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan is executed.
- 1981 – Iran–Iraq War: The Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force mounts an attack on H-3 Airbase and destroys about 50 Iraqi aircraft.
Births
- 1179 -- Fariduddin Masud, Sufi saint (d. 1266)
- 1930 – Netty Herawaty, Indonesian actress (d. 1989)
- 1948 – Abdullah Öcalan, Turkish activist
- 1971 – Malik Yusef, American actor, producer, and poet
Deaths
- 968 – Abu Firas al-Hamdani, Arab prince and poet (b. 932)
Al-Harith ibn Abi’l-ʿAlaʾ Saʿid ibn Hamdan al-Taghlibi (932–968), better known by his nom de plume of Abu Firas al-Hamdani (Arabic: أبو فراس الحمداني), was an Arab prince and poet. He was a cousin of Sayf al-Dawla and a member of the Hamdanid dynasty, who were rulers in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia during the 10th century. He served Sayf al-Dawla as governor of Manbij as well as court poet, and was active in his cousin's wars against the Byzantine Empire. He was captured by the Byzantines in 959/962 and spent several years at their capital, Constantinople, where he composed his most famous work, the collection of poems titled al-Rūmiyyāt (الروميات). He was ransomed in 966, and was killed in 968, when he raised a revolt against his nephew Sa'd al-Dawla, Sayf al-Dawla's successor. He is considered among the greatest figures of classical Arabic poetry.
- 1979 – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 4th President of Pakistan (b. 1928)
- 1997 – Alparslan Türkeş, Turkish colonel and politician, 39th Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey (b. 1917)
- 2014 – İsmet Atlı, Turkish wrestler and trainer (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Muhammad Qutb, Egyptian author and academic (b. 1919)
- 2015 – Jamaluddin Jarjis, Malaysian engineer and politician (b. 1951)
Holidays and Observances
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Senegal from France (1960).
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Masud, Fariduddin
Farīd al-Dīn Masʿūd Ganj-i-Shakar (b. c. April 4, 1179, Kothewal, Multan, Punjab, Ghurid Sultanate (present-day Pakistan) - d. May 7, 1266 [5 Muharram, 665 AH] Pakpattan, Punjab, Delhi Sultanate (present-day Pakistan)) was a 12th-century Punjabi Sunni Muslim preacher and mystic, who went on to become one of the most revered and distinguished Muslim mystics of the medieval period. He is known reverentially as Baba Farid or Shaikh Farid by Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus of the Punjab Region, or simply as Fariduddin Ganjshakar.
Fariduddin Masud was a Sufi master who was born in 1179 in a village called Kothewal, 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Multan in the Punjab region of what is now Pakistan, to Jamāl-ud-dīn Suleimān and Maryam Bībī (Qarsum Bībī), daughter of Sheikh Wajīh-ud-dīn Khojendī. Masud was a Sunni Muslim and was one of the founding fathers of the Chishti Sufi order. Baba Farid received his early education at Multan, which had become a center for Muslim education. It was there that he met his teacher Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, a noted Sufi saint, who was passing through Multan on his way from Baghdad to Delhi. Upon completing his education, Farīd left for Sistan and Kandahar and went to Makkah (Mecca) for the Hajj pilgrimage with his parents at the age of 16.
Once his education was over, Masud moved to Delhi, where he learned Islamic doctrine from Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. He later moved to Hansi, Haryana. When Quṭbuddīn Bakhtiyār Kākī died in 1235, Farīd left Hansi and became his spiritual successor. He settled in Ajodhan (the present-day Pakpattan, Pakistan) instead of Delhi. On his way to Ajodhan, while passing through Faridkot, he met the 20-year-old Nizamuddin Auliya, who went on to become his disciple, and later his successor Sufi khalifah. His nephew and disciple and successor Alauddin Sabir Kaliyari was amongst the greatest Sufi saints and from him the Sabiriya branch under Chisty order started.
Baba Farid had three wives and eight children (five sons and three daughters). One of his wives, Hazabara, was the daughter of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud.
The great Arab traveller Ibn Battuta once visited this Sufi saint. Ibn Battuta reported that Fariduddin Ganjshakar was the spiritual guide of the Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate, and that the Sultan had given him the village of Ajodhan. He also met Baba Farid's two sons.
Baba Farid's descendants, also known as Fareedi, Fareedies or Faridy, mostly carry the name Faruqi, and can be found in Pakistan, India, and the Muslim diaspora. Fariduddin Ganjshakar's descendants include the Sufi saint Salim Chishti, whose daughter was the Emperor Jehangir's foster mother. Their descendants settled in Sheikhupur, Badaun, and the remains of a fort they built can still be found.
Fariduddin Ganjshakar's shrine darbar is located in Pakpattan, Punjab, Pakistan.
One of Farīd's most important contributions to Punjabi literature was his development of the language for literary purposes. Whereas Sanskrit, Arabic, Turkish and Persian had historically been considered the languages of the learned and the elite, and used in monastic centers, Punjabi was generally considered a less refined folk language. Although earlier poets had written in a primitive Punjabi, before Farīd there was little in Punjabi literature apart from traditional and anonymous ballads. By using Punjabi as the language of poetry, Farīd laid the basis for a vernacular Punjabi literature that would be developed later.
The city of Faridkot bears Masud's name. According to legend, Farīd stopped by the city, then named Mokhalpūr, and sat in seclusion for forty days near the fort of King Mokhal. The king was said to be so impressed by his presence that he named the city after Baba Farid, which today is known as Tilla Baba Farid. The festival Bābā Sheikh Farād Āgman Purb Melā' is celebrated in September each year for 3 days, commemorating Baba Farid's arrival in the city. Ajodhan was also renamed as Farīd's 'Pāk Pattan', meaning 'Holy Ferry'; today it is generally called Pāk Pattan Sharīf.
Faridia Islamic University, a religious madrassa in Sahiwal, Punjab, Pakistan, is named after Baba Farid, and in July 1998, the Punjab Government in India established the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences at Faridkot, the city which itself was named after him.
There are various explanations of why Baba Farid was given the title Shakar Ganj ('Treasure of Sugar'). One legend says his mother used to encourage the young Farīd to pray by placing sugar under his prayer mat. Once, when she forgot, the young Farīd found the sugar anyway, an experience that gave him more spiritual fervor and led to his being given the name.
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