Abdul Hamid Baba Explained

Abdul Hameed Mashogagar
Birth Place:	Mashogagar
Death Date:	Circa 1732
Death Place:	Mashogagar
Resting Place:	Mashogagar
Other Names:	Moshogagagar (wekhte seronky)
Known For:	Pashto poetry

Abdul Hameed Mashogagar (Pushto; Pashto: عبدالحميد ماشو گگر; died 1732), also known as Abdul Hamid Baba, was an Pashtun^[1] poet and Sufi figure.^[2]

Biography

Abdul Hameed baba Mashogagar was born in the second half of the 17th century (1664-1724 onward) at Mashogagar, a small village near Badaber Peshawar, a Pashtun tribe. Hameed travelled to Peshawar, where he undertook his education, and became a priest. At this point, Hameed was a man of considerable stature among intellectuals, and students from a number of surrounding districts came to receive instruction from him.^[3]

Hameed's poetry was written primarily in the Pashto language. His poems generally had a moral to them, and were often tinged with tones of contempt for the world and its lack of virtue. The morals of his poems were based on Sufism, as a large proportion of other Muslim poetry was.^[3]

Hameed's exact death date is not known, but it is thought by those in his home village that he died around the year 1732. He died in the same house that he had lived in for most of his life.^[3]

Reception

Hameed's poetry was popular even in Persia, where he was dubbed "Hameed the Hair-splitter".^[3]

The 19th century British officer and linguist Henry George Raverty calls Hameed Afghanistan's cynical poet and compares him to Saadi (c. 1210) in Persia,^[4] "the Saadi of the Pascho language"

Hameed's major works, Love's Fascination, The King and the Beggar and Pearls and Corals have all been translated into English.^[3]

Further reading

• Henry George Raverty: ÆBD-UL-ḤAMĪD (p. 85–86), in: Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, from the 16th to the 19th Century: Literally translated from the original Pushto; with notices of the different authors, and remarks on the mystic doctrine and poetry of the Sūfīs (scan of full text), edited by Henry George Raverty, Williams & Norgate, London 1862
• Poetry of Hamid Baba
  • A Biography of Hameed Baba in Afghanpedia website
• A short Biography of Abdul Hameed Mashogagar in Dawatan website

Notes and References

1. Book: Raverty, Henry George. Selection from the Poetry of the Pashtun. 1862. 85. Abd-ul Hamid, the author of the following poems, was born at Mashogagar, a small village belonging to the Kudrizi clan, or branch, of the Afghan tribe of Mohmand, one of the purely Afghän tribes at present dwelling in the Peshawar district..
2. News: 18th century Sufi poet's grave in ruins. Riaz Ahmad. The Express Tribune.
3. Web site: Abdul Hameed Baba . December 29, 2006 . Dawatan.com . January 27, 2011 .
4. Henry George Raverty: ÆBD-UL-ḤAMĪD (p. 85–86), in: Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, from the 16th to the 19th Century: Literally translated from the original Pushto; with notices of the different authors, and remarks on the mystic doctrine and poetry of the Sūfīs (scan of full text), edited by Henry George Raverty, Williams & Norgate, London 1862. p. 85