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, modern Urdu poet (1910-75). His real name was Nad̲h̲ar (Nad̲h̲r) Muḥammad, but he is universally known by his literary name, Nūn Mīm Rās̲h̲id. He was born in the township of ʿAlīpūr Ćat́t́ha (formerly Akālgaŕh) in the Gūd̲j̲arānwāla district of the Pand̲j̲āb in present-day Pākistān. His father, Faḍl Ilāhī Ćis̲h̲tī, was in the provincial educational service from which he retired as District Inspector of Schools. Rās̲h̲id pursued his early education in his native town passing his high school examination in 1926. Therea…

, celebrated female poet of Iran, was born on 16 March 1907 in Tabrīz. Her father, Yūsuf Iʿtiṣāmī (d. 2 January 1938), was a respected author known chiefly for his translations of French and Arabic works into Persian. He was also the founder and principal writer of the literary magazine Bahār , which appeared from April 1910 till November 1911 and again from April 1921 till December 1922. Parwīn received her early instruction in Persian and Arabic literature from her father. When she was still small, her father moved the fa…

, the pen-name of the Indo-Muslim Persian poet, Muḥammad Ḥusayn, who flourished during the 10th/16th and early 11th/17th centuries, d. 1021/1612-13. He belonged originally to Nīs̲h̲āpūr, from where he went to Kās̲h̲ān during his youth. There he participated in poetical contests with the leading local poets of the day. He was among the first Persian poets who migrated from their native land ¶ during the Ṣafawid period to seek their fortune at the Mug̲h̲al court. On his arrival in India ( ca. 993/1585-6), he attached himself to ʿAbd al-Raḥīm K̲h̲ān-i K̲h̲ānān [see k̲h̲ān k̲h̲ānān …

, Muḥammad ʿAlī K̲h̲ān , prominent Persian poet of the Ḳād̲j̲ār period. He was born around 1228/1813 in Sidih, a district of Iṣfahān. His ancestors were artisans and farmers, and his father was reportedly a butcher by trade (see Dīwān , i, introd., 2). About 1243/1827 Surūs̲h̲ moved to Iṣfahān after his father’s death. There he completed his education and also discovered his poetic vocation. In 1247/1831 he left Iṣfahān to find suitable patronage, ¶ and travelled to various cities. Finally, he settled down in Tabrīz, where he gained access to the heir-apparent, Nāṣir …

, Abū Naṣr Fatḥ Allāh K̲h̲ān , 19th century Persian poet, born around 1241/1825 in Kās̲h̲ān, died 20 Rad̲j̲ab 1308/1 March 1891. He came from a noble family claiming descent from the S̲h̲aybānī tribe, from which he took his pen name. His grandfather held the governorship of Naṭanz, Kās̲h̲ān, D̲j̲aws̲h̲aḳān and Ḳum during Āg̲h̲ā Muḥammad K̲h̲ān’s reign (1193-1212/1779-97), whilst his father, Muḥammad Kāẓim K̲h̲ān, was employed under Muḥammad S̲h̲āh (r. 1250-64/1779-97) and later served as financial agent of the govern…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim , Persian poet and revolutionary, was born in Kirmāns̲h̲āh on 4 December 1887, the son of a petty shoemaker. As a youth he joined the struggle for constitutionalism in Persia, and in 1908 took part in the fight against the royalist troops in Ras̲h̲t, following Muḥammad ʿAlī S̲h̲āh’s attempt to reimpose autocracy. After the restoration of the Constitution in 1909 he entered the gendarmerie and was eventually promoted to the rank of major. There, charged with subv…

, also known by his surname Čalabī, 17th century Persian poet, died probably between 1078/1667 and 1083/1672. Luṭf ʿAlī Beg Ād̲h̲ar, in his tad̲h̲kira , includes the poet among those of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and refers to him as a native of Tabrīz ( Ātas̲h̲kada , i, ed. Ḥasan Sādāt Nāṣirī, Tehran 1336/1957, 132). Muḥammad Ṭāhir Naṣrābādī reports having met ʿUnwān in Mas̲h̲had, where the latter’s father, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Tabrīzī, a wealthy individual, had sought residence ( Tad̲h̲kira-yi Naṣrābādī , ed. Waḥīd Dastgirdī, Tehran 1361/1982, 396-7). Not much i…

, Persian poet, b. S̲h̲īrāz, according to most accounts, in 1274/1858, d. 6 Rabīʿ II 1345/14 October 1926. His father ʿAbbās was an artisan by trade. S̲h̲ūrīda’s ancestry, from what is known, reached back to the poet Ahlī S̲h̲īrāzī (d. 942/1535-6), author of the mat̲h̲nawī Siḥr-i ḥalāl “Legal magic”. When he was seven years old he was struck blind by small-pox. Some two years later his father died, after which he came under the care of his maternal uncle. In 1288/1871-2 he accompanied his uncle in…

(a.), poet. ¶ 1. In the Arab world. A. Pre-Islamic and Umayyad periods. Among those endowed with knowledge and with power in ancient Arabia stands the figure of the s̲h̲āʿir , whose role is often confused with that of the ʿarrāf ( s̲h̲aʿara and ʿarafa having the same semantic value: cf. I. Goldziher, Abhandlungen , i, 3 ff.) and of the kāhin [ q.v.]. They were credited with the same source of inspiration, the d̲j̲inns (Goldziher, Die Ǧinnen der Dichter , in ZDMG, xlv [1891], 685 ff.). However, the s̲h̲āʿir was, originally, the repository of magical rather than divinatory knowledge; …

, the pen-name of K̲h̲wād̲j̲a Ḥusayn, Indo-Persian poet of the 10th/16th century, d. 996/1587-8. Born in Mas̲h̲had, T̲h̲anāʾī, writing about himself in the introduction to his dīwān , states that, despite having talent, he initially lacked perseverance and that he took up the poetic vocation following a dream which offered him the requisite guidance. He eventually found for himself a generous patron in the person of Sulṭān Ibrāhīm Mīrzā, governor of K̲h̲urāsān, who was a poet in his own right using D…

, Mīr Muḥammad Ḥusayn ʿAṭā K̲h̲ān , pioneer in Urdu prose-writing, who lived somewhere in the middle of the 18th cetury. He was a native of Etawah (It́āwa) in present-day Uttar Pradesh, and came from a middle-class family of sayyids . His ancestors reportedly migrated from Gardīz in what is now eastern Afg̲h̲ānistan, and settled in Kaŕa Mānikpūr. His father, Mīr Muḥammad Bāḳir, moved to Dihlī at an early age and was employed as commander of 3,000 ( sih hazārī ) in Awrangzīb’s administration; he is said to have been a poet writing under the pen-name S̲h…

(p.) or S̲h̲ahrās̲h̲ūb (“upsetting the town”), a genre of short love poems on young craftsmen, often related to the bazaars of specific towns. 1. In Persian In Persian literature, the genre is usually referred to under the latter name. E.J.W. Gibb’s contention that the genre was invented by the Turkish poet Mesīḥī [ q.v.] of Edirne ( HOP, ii, 232), was challenged already by E.G. Browne who, pointing to Persian specimens mentioned by the Ṣafawid anthologist Sām Mīrzā [ q.v.], concluded that “though they were probably written later than Masíḥí’s Turkish S̲h̲ahr-angíz …

, Indo-Persian poet of the 11th/17th century. Details are lacking regarding his early life. He went to India from his native Persia during D̲j̲ahāngīr’s reign (1014-37/1605-27), and lived on to serve under his successor S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān (1037-68/1628-58). Apart from poetry, he was skilled in calligraphy, engraving and assaying of precious stones. D̲j̲ahāngīr gave him the title of Bēbadal K̲h̲ān, perhaps as an appreciation of his talent since bēbadal means “matchless”. In addition, he was appointed officer-in-charge of the royal jewellery, a…

(a.), an Arabic term attested at a very early stage, in the ancient inscriptions of Arabia, with the meaning of message or of mission (G. Lankester Harding, An index and concordance of pre-Islamic names and inscriptions, Toronto 1971, 277). In fact, risāla has many meanings; it has signified message, missive, letter, epistle and monograph; from the 5th/11th century onwards it could also be a synonym of maḳāma (see below, section on Risāla and maḳāma). The synonyms recorded are kitāb [ q.v.], k̲h̲iṭāb (for Ps.-Ibn al-Mudabbir in the 3rd/9th century, risāla and k̲h̲iṭāb were synonyms, Ṣafw…

, poet at the Mughal court in India. He was born and raised in Mas̲h̲had, from where he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and was then engaged in the grocery trade before he went to India. In 1041/1632 he joined the ranks of the Emperor S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān’s poets. Dāg̲h̲istānī, the author of the Riyāḍ al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ , states that Ḳudsī preceded Kalīm as poet-laureate to S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān, but this is not confirmed by contemporary sources. He died in Lahore in 1056/1646-7 and, according to Ād̲h̲ar’s Ātas̲h̲-kada , his remains were removed to K̲h̲urāsān. Ḳudsī’s poems ar…

, 17th-century Indo-Persian poet, died ca. 1078/1667 (see Rieu, Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the British Museum , ii, Add. 16,852). According to most accounts, he was a native of Mas̲h̲had, but Ṭāhir Naṣrābādī, who was his contemporary, mentions him as a Tabrīzī, stating at the same time that he heard the poet being called Mas̲h̲hadī ( Tad̲h̲kira-yi Naṣrābādī , ed. Waḥīd Dastgirdī, Tehran 1361/1982, 339). Tug̲h̲rā went” to India towards the end of D̲j̲ahāngīr’s reign or in the beginning of S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān’s time. His first e…

(a.), “poetical contest”, in Urdu usually pronounced mus̲h̲āʿira , has come to be applied in its wider aspect to denote an assembly where Urdu poets come together to recite their compositions. Its origin in the Indo-Muslim cultural tradition can only be guessed. According to a statement by S̲h̲iblī Nuʿmānī, one may assume that the institution of the mus̲h̲āʿara must have appeared on the Persian literary scene in India by the beginning of the 10th/16th century. S̲h̲iblī points out that from the time of the poet Fig̲h̲ānī [ q.v.], who died in 925/1519, there grew up the custom of holding mus̲h̲…

, Fatḥ ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān , Persian poet, was born in Kās̲h̲ān, probably in 1179/1765, and died in 1238/1822-3. His people belonged originally to Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān. and came from the Dunbalī stock, a tribe of Kurds settled in the region of Ḵh̲ūy. Members of his family held jobs as governors and administrators under the Zand and Ḳād̲j̲ār rulers. His father, Āḳā Muḥammad, was governor of Kās̲h̲ān under the Zands, and his eldest brother, Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān, was minister to the Zand ruler Luṭf ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān ( r. 1203-9/1789-94). Ṣabā also seems to have been identified with this monarch, and i…

, the most important song form in the classical repertoire of north Indian music, is regarded by some to have been invented by Amīr K̲h̲usraw (651-725/1253-1325) and attributed by others to Ḥusayn S̲h̲āh S̲h̲arḳī (862-934/1458-1528), the ruler of Ḏj̲awnpūr. who was dispossessed by Buhlūl Lodī in ca. 1476. Whatever its genesis, there is little doubt that it saw its greatest development during the Muslim period of Indian history and that its major exponents have generally been Muslims. It arose as a reaction to the traditional composition dhrupad , whose rigid …

, modern Persian poet and scholar, born on 4 December 1896 at Kirmāns̲h̲āh and died in 1951. His real name was G̲h̲ulām Riḍā, but he is popularly known as Ras̲h̲īd Yāsimī in literary and intellectual circles. He came from a cultured and well-educated family, which counted as one of its respected members the author of the novel S̲h̲ams u ṭug̲h̲rā , namely Muḥammad Bāḳir Mīrzā K̲h̲usrawī (1849-1950), who was his maternal uncle. After completing his early education in his native town, Ras̲h̲īd Yāsimī proceeded to Tehran in 1333/1914-15…