Shah Abdul Karim Bulri (1536-1623) (Sindhi: ﻩﺎﺷ ﻱڙﻠﺑ ﻢﻳﺮڪﻟﺍﺪﺒﻋ ) was a famous Sufi poet of the Sindhi language from Sindh, Pakistan. Shah Abdul Karim Bulri was
the great-grandfather of the
famous poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai. Life He was born in a Sayed family
in Matiari, presently in Eastern Sindh. Since he spent most of
his life in Bulri, a village in the Tando Muhammad Khan, 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.
