SOURCE: Bly, Robert. “Some Rumors about Kabir.” In The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir, adapted by Robert Bly, pp. 61-9. Boston: Beacon Press, 1977.

In the following essay, originally published in 1971, Bly recounts some stories about Kabīr's life, discusses his status as a Bhakti poet, and offers brief comments on what he regards as the poet's intensely spirtual and controversial verse.

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No one knows much about Kabir. A few life details and a few stories are told over and over. He was evidently not a monk or ascetic, but was married, had children, and made his living by weaving cloth at home. Some say he was the son of Moslem parents, others that he was found on the streets and brought up by a Moslem couple. There may have been in the house books of the great Sufi poets of two hundred years before...