The little we know of al-Bursī’s life comes primarily from the late Ṣafawid biographers such as ʿAbd Allāh al-Afandī, who wrote his Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ sometime between 1107/1695 and 1130/1718. Al-Bursī was probably born in the village of Burs, between Ḥilla and Kūfa (Fīrūzābādī, 2/207), although he has also been linked to a village in Khurāsān (al-Qummī, al-Kunā, 2/167; see also Dihkhudā, 3/4576). According to a line in one of his poems (see al-Amīnī, 7/67), his birthplace was Burs but he lived in Ḥilla (al-Afandī, 2/304…