BHĪKHAN SHĀH or SHĀH BHĪKH, PĪR, a seventeenth century Sūfī saint, was born the son of Sayyid Muhammad Yūsaf of Siāṇā Sayyidāṅ, a village 5 km from Pehovā, now in Kurukshetra district of Haryāṇā. For a time, he lived at Ghuṛām in present-day Paṭiālā district of the Punjab and finally settled at Ṭhaskā, again in Kurukshetra district. He was the disciple of Abul Mu-ālī Shāh, a Sūfī divine residing at Ambhiṭā, near Sahāranpur in Uttar Pradesh, and soon became a pīr, saint of much repute and piety in his own right. According to tradition preserved in Bhāī Santokh Siṅgh, Srī Gur Pratāp Sūraj Granth, Pīr Bhīkhan Shāh, as he learnt through intuition of the birth of Gurū Gobind Siṅgh (1666-1708) at Paṭnā, made obeisance that day to the east instead of to the west. At this his disciples demurred, for no Muslim should make such respectful gestures except towards the Kā'bā. The Pīr explained that in a city in the east, the Beneficent Lord had revealed Himself through a new born babe, to whom it was that he had bowed and to no ordinary mortal. Bhīkhan Shāh with his disciples then travelled all the way to Paṭnā to have a glimpse of the infant Gobind Rāi, barely three months old. Desiring to know what would be his attitude to the two major religious peoples of India, he placed two small pots in front of the child, one representing in his own mind Hindus and the other Muslims. As the child covered both the pots simultaneously with his tiny hands, Bhīkhan Shāh felt happy concluding that the new seer would treat both Hindus and Muslims alike and show equal respect to both. Sikh chronicles record another meeting between (Gurū) Gobind Siṅgh and Pīr Bhīkhan Shāh which took place in 1672 when the latter went to see him at Lakhnaur, near Ambālā, where he was halting for some time on his way from Paṭnā to Kīratpur.