Hazrat Fariduddin Masud Gunj Shakar known reverentially as Baba Farid or simply as Fariduddin Ganj Shakar, was a 12th Century Muslim preacher and mystic. He was a great Sufi master who was born in (1179 AD) at a village called Kothewal, Multan to Jamal-ud-din Suleiman. He was one of the founding fathers of the Chishti Sufi order. He received his early education at Multan, which had become a centre for Muslim education; it was there that he met his teacher Qutab-ud-Din Bakhtiar Kaki (RA), a noted Sufi saint.
When his education was over, he moved to Delhi, where he learned the Islamic doctrine from his master, Qutab-ud-din Bakhtiar Kaki (RD). When Qutab-ud-din Bakhtiar Kaki (AD) died in 1235 (AD), Farid became his spiritual successor, and he settled in Ajodhan (the present Pakpattan). On his way to Ajodhan, while passing through Faridkot, he met the Nizam-ud-Din Auliya (AD), who went on to become his disciple, and later his successor Sufi Khalifah.
Hazrat Baba Farid (AD) had three wives and eight children (five sons and three daughters). One of his wives, Hazabara, was the daughter of Sulṭan Nasir-ud-din Maḥmud. The great Arab traveler Ibn Battuta once visited this Sufi saint. Ibn Battuta says that Fariduddin Gunj Shakar was the spiritual guide of the Sultan of Delhi Sultanate, and that the Sultan had given him the village of Ajodhan. He also met Baba Farid's two sons.
Hazrat Baba Farid's descendants, also known as Fareedi, Fareedies or Faridy, mostly carry the name Faruqi. Fariduddin Gunj Shakar's shrine is located in Pakpattan, Punjab. One of Farid's most important contributions to Punjabi literature was his development of the language for literary purposes. Although earlier poets had written in a primitive Punjabi, before Farid there was little in Punjabi literature apart from traditional and anonymous ballads, by using Punjabi as the language of poetry, Farid laid the basis for a vernacular Punjabi literature that would be developed later.
There are various explanations of why Hazrat Baba Farid (AD) was given the title Shakar Gunj ('Treasure of Sugar'). One legend says; his mother used to encourage the young Farid to pray by placing sugar under his prayer mat. Once, when she forgot, the young Farid found the sugar under his prayer mat, an experience that gave him more spiritual fervor and led to his being given the name.
The small Shrine of Hazrat Baba Farid is made of white marble with two doors, one facing east and called the "Nuri Darwaza" (Gate of Light) and the second facing north called “Bahishti Darwaza” (Gate of Paradise). Inside the tomb are two marbled graves, one is Baba Farid's, and the other is his elder son's.