Ghulam Farid Sabri was born in Kalyana, a village in the district of Rohtak in Punjab, British India, in 1930.

His family claims direct descent from Mian Tansen, the musician of the court of Akbar the Great, the Mughal emperor.

Before starting to learn music, Ghulam Farid Sabri along with his father visited the shrine of Sufi saint Khwja Ghaus Muhammad Gwaliori in Gwalior to seek blessings.

Conditions in the camp were woeful, food was scarce and expensive, and the rewards for hard work were barely enough to sustain life.

All those days he bore the scars of beatings with wood sticks and stones thrown by his tired, sleepless neighbours and brawls he was in, when they were determined to stop him, but he would not be deterred, and, as time went by, his lungs grew stronger and his magnificent voice was formed.

Ghulam Farid Sabri's first public performance was at the annual Urs festival of the Sufi saint Mubarak Shah Sahab in Kalyana in 1946.

Before his family migrated to Pakistan in 1947, he had joined Ustad Kallan Khan's qawwali party in India.

Later in 1956, Sabri joined his younger brother Maqbool's qawwali ensemble which was earlier known as Bacha Qawwal Party.

Their first recording, released in 1958 under the EMI Pakistan label, was a popular hit called "Mera Koi Nahi Hai Tere Siwa."

Their greatest hit qawwalis include "Bhar Do Jholi Meri Ya Muhammad", "Tajdar-e-Haram", "O Sharabi Chore De Peena", "Khwaja Ki Deewani", and "Sar-e-La Makan Se Talab Hui."

Ghulam Farid Sabri was also a poet and wrote some famous qawwalis which were sung by him and his brothers, including "Aawe Mahi" and "Auliyao'n Ke Maula Imam Aaye Hai."

Ghulam Farid Sabri had been initiated into the Warsiyya order of Sufism by Hazrat Ambar Ali Shah Warsi.

Ghulam Farid Sabri lived in the heavily congested and overpopulated Pakistani suburb of Liaquatabad, Karachi.

His appearances in Britain and the United States set a pattern and began to build an audience for what has now come to be known as world music.

On 21 September 2011, his younger brother Maqbool Ahmed Sabri died due to cardiac arrest and was buried near his grave.