Person · c. 1752/53 – 1821/23 (Athar Tahir's 'generally accepted dates'); a separate, more venerative tradition gives 1735–1843, with burial at Tharpal village, Narowal District, Pakistan · born 1753 · Sufi poet (qissa-nigar); by family trade a hakim (physician) and practitioner of piri-muridi; worked as a carpenter for sustenance before turning fully to poetry

Hashim Shah

ہاشم شاہ

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Hashim Shah, a Punjabi Sufi poet of Jagdev Kalan in Amritsar district, composed the qissa romances Sassi Punnun, Sohni Mahiwal and Shirin Farhad, and left almost nothing of his own life in them beyond the pen-name he tucked into the close of nearly every stanza.

His own words survive only inside the qissa itself, in the closing self-address he gives almost every stanza: 'Yet, Hasham, Sassi turns not back, / for Punnun still she cries' (Hashim Shah, trans. Christopher Shackle, Sassi Punnun, stanza 97, p.116, Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1985) — the nom-de-plume convention his editor notes is the one clue to authorship he ever gave, since he 'neither mentions his clan affiliations, place of residence, nor offers any clue for biographical inferences' (Athar Tahir, Introduction, p.3).

What the sources did afterwards. Wikipedia states as settled fact that Maharaja Ranjit Singh's patronage let Hashim give up carpentry, but his editor Athar Tahir found the whole claim of Sikh-court affiliation 'a matter of considerable controversy' and concluded that 'Hasham's appointment to the court is not borne out by facts' — 'no history of the Maharaja written before or after 1810 speaks of the poet' (Tahir, Introduction, pp.6–7). Even his birth and death float between two irreconcilable traditions (1752/53–1821/23 against a more venerative 1735–1843), what Tahir calls 'biography churning into hagiography' (Tahir, Introduction, p.3).

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The qissa-writer of Jagdev Kalan

Hashim Shah was born in the Punjabi village of Jagdev Kalan, in what his editor places as "the revenue circle of Ajnala, Amritsar District" (Athar Tahir, Introduction, p.4), where "the generally accepted dates are 1753 to 1823" (Tahir, Introduction, p.4) for his life, though a separate, more venerative tradition gives 1735-1843. Wikipedia's own summary of him is spare: "Hashim Shah was born in Jagdev Kalan... and lived in that village his entire life" (Wikipedia, Hashim Shah), following his family's trade of hikmat (physician), "copunselling and Piri-Muridi," and working "as a carpenter for sustenance" (Wikipedia, Hashim Shah) before turning fully to composing what his translator judged "one of the finest of the Punjabi verse romances known as qissas" (Christopher Shackle, Translator's Preface, p.i) — Sassi Punnun, Sohni Mahiwal and Shirin Farhad.

A biography argued over, not remembered

Hashim wrote almost nothing of himself into his verse: he "neither mentions his clan affiliations, place of residence, nor offers any clue for biographical inferences" (Tahir, Introduction, p.3), beyond the closing self-address he gives nearly every stanza, as in Sassi Punnun's desert stanzas — "Yet, Hasham, Sassi turns not back, / for Punnun still she cries" (Hashim Shah, trans. Shackle, Sassi Punnun, stanza 97, p.116). What later tradition added to that silence is disputed: "the question of Hasham Shah's affiliation to the Sikh court has been a matter of considerable controversy" (Tahir, Introduction, p.6), and his editor concludes "Hasham's appointment to the court is not borne out by facts" (Tahir, Introduction, p.7) — "no history of the Maharaja written before or after 1810 speaks of the poet" (Tahir, Introduction, p.7). Even his birth and death float between two traditions, a case, his editor writes, of "biography churning into hagiography" (Tahir, Introduction, p.3).

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Sources

n/a · read as web Hashim Shah was born in Jagdev Kalan in 1735, 1752, or 1753 and lived in that village his entire life.
n/a · read as web Hashim, besides following the family tradition of hikmat (physician), copunselling and Piri-Muridi, also worked as a carpenter for sustenance.
n/a · read as web He wrote three stories "Kissa Kaw" named Sassi Punnu, Sohni Mahiwal, and Shirin Farhad.
i · read as web It gives the reader no idea of the literary quality of Hasham's poem, which is rightly regarded as one of the finest of the Punjabi verse romances known as qissas.
3 · read as web Hasham Shah neither mentions his clan affiliations, place of residence, nor offers any clue for biographical inferences.
3 · read as web Biography churning into hagiography.
4 · read as web the generally accepted dates are 1753 to 1823
4 · read as web the revenue circle of Ajnala, Amritsar District
6 · read as web The question of Hasham Shah's affiliation to the Sikh court has been a matter of considerable controversy.
7 · read as web Hasham's appointment to the court is not borne out by facts.
7 · read as web no history of the Maharaja written before or after 1810 speaks of the poet
116 · read as web At noontide then there fiercely blazed an incandescent heat. From heaven blew a wind which brought the birds down from the skies. A fiery river then arose and swept across the Thal. Yet, Hasham, Sassi turns not back, for Punnun still she cries.