Bhagat Kabir was a revolutionary saint-poet of the Bhakti Movement. He placed emphasis on the equality and fraternity of all mankind. Once Bhagat Kabir was going to sell cloth he had made himself. He met some Sadhus on the way to whom he gave the entire cloth free of cost.

Bhagat Kabir Das (Kabir is Arabic for "great", and Das is Prakrit for "slave" or "servant"), is widely acknowledged as one of the great personalities of the Bhakti movement in North India. He was, as is widely acknowledged, born in year 1398 CE (71 years before Guru Nanak). Kabirpanthis (followers of Kabir) say that he lived up to the age of 120 years and give the date of his death as 1518 CE, but relying on the research of Hazari Prasad Trivedi, British scholar Charlotte Vaudenville is not inclined to lend credence to these dates and has proven that 1448 CE is probably the correct date of Bhagat Kabir's demise.

He is one of the medieval Indian saints of Bhakti movement whose compositions figure in Guru Granth Sahib. Among all of them, Kabir's contribution is the largest, 227 Padas in 17 ragas and 237 slokas. Under each raga or musical mode marking a section of the Holy Book, Kabir's hymns appear at the head of Bhagat Bani, a generic name for the works of contributors other than the Gurus. The presence of a substantial number of Kabir's verses in the Sikh Scripture and chronologically, he being the predecessor of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, misled some Western scholars to describe him as the forerunner of Sikhism. Some have even called him the preceptor of Guru Nanak There is, however, ample evidence to prove that Guru Nanak and Kabir had never met. In fact their life-periods do not coincide. Kabir's compositions do figure in what are known as Goindval Pothis, anthologies of the hymns of the Gurus along with those of some of the Bhagats prepared in the time of Guru Amar Das, Nanak III. They were included in Guru Granth Sahib as well, but this happened much later when Guru Arjan, fifth in spiritual line from the founder, compiled the Holy Book. Besides his own works and those of his four predecessors, he entered in it hymns of some saints and mystics, Hindu and Muslim, Kabir being one of them.

Kabir lived in the fifteenth century after Christ, which was a time of great political upheaval in India. As is true of many contemporary religious teachers, very little reliable information concerning Kabir's life is available, though there is no dearth of legend around him. Kabir's life centred around Kashi, also called Banaras (Varanasi). Legend has it that he was actually the son of a Brahmin widow who abandoned him fearing social censure, and that he was found by a Muslim weaver named Niru (Ali) and his wife, Nima, who adopted the boy and taught him the weaver's trade. It is not clear whether he ever married, but tradition gives him a wife named Loi and two children. His caste was that of Julaha and from his sayings his caste's heriditary occupation was of weaving. Weavers, in the caste system, were put amongst the lower castes. On the basis of modern research, it seems probable that Kabir belonged to a family of non-celibate yogis, converted not long before to Islam. From the writings of Kabir it seems that his knowledge of Islam was not very deep, rather in his poetical utterances (Bani), many references to Hathayoga practices are found.

Bhakti movement mainly involved lower-caste Hindu saints while Sufi mysticism involved Muslim saints in medieval India (1200-1700). Kabir immensely contributed to the Bhakti Movement and is considered a pioneer of Bhakti along with Ravdas, Farid, and Namdev. His concept of devotion as a path of suffering may possibly indicate, in some measure, a debt to the Sufis. These and other elements from Nath tradition, bhakti and sufism, Kabir combined with his own mystical nature and produced synthesis which is the distinctive religious path traversed by Kabir. History indicates that Bhagat Ramanand was his preceptor in the initial days.

In the fifteenth century, Banaras was the seat of Brahmin orthodoxy and their learning center. Brahmins had stronghold on all the spheres of life in the society. Thus, Kabir, belonging to a low caste of Julaha had to go through great difficulties in practicing his ideology. Kabir and his followers would gather at one place in the city and meditate. Brahmins ridiculed him for preaching to prostitutes and other low castes. Kabir satirically denounced Brahmins and thus won hearts of people around him. There is no doubt that the most famous person from the city of Banaras in history today is none other than Bhagat Kabir. Kabir, through his couplets not only reformed the mindset of common villagers and low caste people, but gave them self-confidence to question Brahmins. Kabir was in fact the first person to go against Brahmins and did so successfully. Banaras was devastated in an attack by a Muslim invader, Taimur Lang or “Tamur the lame” or “Tamarlane” during his time. Kabir also denounced Mullahs and their rituals of bowing towards Kaba five times a day. Because of open condemnation of established and popular religions, Kabir became an object of the wrath of both Hindus and Muslims in and around Banaras. Kabir travelled in and around Banaras to preach his beliefs.

Kabir believed in total self-surrender and God's bhakti. The Kabirpanthis follow a unique style of singing the praises of God, and lead a simple and pure life of devotion. Kabir recommends a ceaseless singing of God's praises. He preaches against withdrawal from the world. He was against all ritualistic and ascetic methods as means to salvation. It is true that Kabir refers to some yogic terms in describing the meditational and mystic methods of the yogis, but there is no ground to suggest that he himself recommends the yogic path. In fact, far from recommending yoga, he is quite strong in condemning ascetic or yogic methods, and says that yogis, in their meditations, fall prey to maya or materialism. This point, however, will be considered further while comparing radical bhagti with Nathism. The moral tone is quite strong in Kabir's hymns. “Kabir, deck thyself with garments of love. Love them and give honour to those whose body and soul speak the truth.” “The ruby of goodness is greater than all the mines of rubies; all the wealth of three worlds resides in the goodness of heart. When the wealth of contentment is won, all other wealth is as dust.” “Where there is mercy, there is strength, where there is forgiveness, there is He." "The man who is kind and practices righteousness, who remains passive in the affairs of the world, who considers creatures of the world as his own self, he attains the immortality. The true God is ever with him. Kabir suggests inward worship and remembrance of God. For him, true worship is only inwards. Put on the rosary inward. By counting beads, the world will be full of light. He clearly suggests moral discrimination between good and bad deeds. What can the helpless road do, when the traveller does not walk understandingly. "What can one do, if, with lamp in hand, one falls in the well. Or goes astray with open eyes. Discern ye now between good and evil."

It is not surprising that Kabir's satire was brought to bear not simply on the vices and weaknesses of men but reached through and beyond them to the very system itself. It was the authority of Vedas and Quran that more than the authority of Brahmin or Qazi which Kabir attacked. He rebelled against the pretension of resolving by the means of books or by way of authority, the mystery of human conditions and the problem of liberation (Moksha). He spent his last 40 days living in a place where it was believed that if you die, you would be born as a donkey in next life, just to prove the falsehood of the myth.

Kabir composed no systematic treatise, rather his work consists of many short didactic poems, often expressed in a vigorous language in the form of Padas, Dohas, Slokas, etc. In addition to his work recorded in 1604 CE in Guru Granth Sahib by Guru Arjan, Nanak V, and preserved inviolate since, two other collections exist - Kabir Granthavali, and Bijak. The authenticity of much of the writings outside Guru Granth Sahib is suspect because of many statements, which apparently contradict beliefs associated with Kabir. In his poems, he was quick to express the illustrations of moral and spiritual truth in the incidents of everyday life, and many of his similes and metaphors are very striking.