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Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī (Mawlānā Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, with the sobriquet Vāʿiẓ, Ar. wāʿiẓ “preacher,” and the pen name Kāshifī, “the unveiler,” c. 830–910/1426–1504–5), was a prolific and influential Tīmūrid-era (771–913/1370–1507) Persian author and poet, religious scholar, preacher, Ṣūfī, and occultist. He was born in about 830/1426 (Herrmann, 90) in Sabzavār, in the province of Bayhaq, hence his name is often followed by the gentilics Bayhaqī or Sabzavārī. He lived for almost forty years in Herat, whe…

Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī (844–906/1441–1501), also known as Mīr ʿAlī Shīr, was an important cultural and political figure during the reign of the last great Tīmūrid ruler, Sulṭān Ḥusayn Bāyqarā (r. 873–911/1469–1506), and an outstanding Chaghatay Turkic poet writing under the pen name Navāʾī. Born in Herat (in present-day Afghanistan) on 17 Ramaḍān 844/9 February 1441, ʿAlī Shīr was the scion of a cultured family of Uyghur bakhshīs, or Turkic chancery scribes, who had long been in the service of the Tīmūrid dynastic family. His father, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kichik…

Sulṭān Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr b. Bāyqarā Mīrzā was born in Herat in Muḥarram 842/June–July 1438. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Sulṭān Ḥusayn, and he included the name of his paternal grandfather, Bāyqarā, in his own name. His name, with honorifics, was Muʿizz al-Dīn Abū l-Ghāzī Sulṭān Ḥusayn-i Bāyqarā Mīrzā. In 856/1452 he joined the retinue of his Tīmūrid cousin Abū l-Qāsim Bābur in Herat but shortly thereafter, evidently dissatisfied with his patron, he took advantage of the opportunity af…