Almost all the literary achievements of the latest period treated in this volume centre round that great and liberal Ḥusayn Wá'iẓ-i­Káshifí patron of the arts the Minister Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í, as they culminate in the brilliant and many-sided poet Jámí, with some account of whom we shall conclude. First, however, a few more words must be added about Mír Alí Shír and also about Ḥusayn Wá'iẓ-i-Káshifí, agreeably to a promise given in the pre­ceding chapter, where something was said about their more solid prose work. Of the latter a notice is given by Khwándamír in his Ḥabíbu's-Siyar, * of which the substance is as follows. His full name was Kamálu'd-Dín Ḥusayn, and, as his title Wá'iẓ implies, he was by profession a preacher. He had a fine and melodious voice and a considerable know­ledge of theology and traditions. Every Friday morning he used to preach in the Dáru's-Siyádat-i-Sulṭání at Herát, and afterwards used to officiate in the Mosque of Mír 'Alí Shír. On Tuesday he used to preach in the Royal College, and on Wednesday at the tomb of Khwája Abu'l-Walíd Aḥmad. In the latter part of his life he also sometimes preached on Thursday in the chapel of Sulṭán Aḥmad Mírzá. He was skilled in astronomy as well as in the art of literary composition, and could hold his own with his compeers in other branches of learning. His son Fakhru'd-Dín 'Alí, who succeeded him as a preacher, was something of a poet and composed the romantic mathnawi known as Maḥmúd and Ayáz. The father, however, does not seem to have written poetry, but preferred to display his skill in fine writing, chiefly in the well-known Anwár-i-Suhaylí , or “Lights of Canopus.” This florid and verbose rendering of the famous Book of Kalíla and Dimna, thanks to the reputation which it enjoys in India, has attracted an undue amount of attention amongst English students of Persian: it was for many years one of the text-books prescribed for candidates for the India Civil Service, and is one of the lengthiest Persian texts which ever issued from an English printing-press. * The way in which this wordy and bombastic writer has embroidered and expanded not only the original Arabic version of Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', but even the earlier Persian version, may be appreciated by the English reader who will refer to vol. ii of my Literary History of Persia, pp. 350-353. The other works of Ḥusayn Wá'iẓ have been already mentioned, * except an epistolary manual entitled Makhzanu'l-Inshá which I have not seen. He died in 910/1504-5, nineteen years before Khwándamír's notice of his life was written.

The importance and influence of Mír 'Alí Shír, both as a writer and a patron of literary men, was, as pointed out in Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í the last chapter, immense, and he may without exaggeration be described as the Mæcenas of his time and country. He was the friend and patron of Jámí, who dedicated many of his works to him, and on whose death in 898/1492 he composed an elegy of which Khwándamír quotes the opening lines, and his name occurs in connection with a large proportion of the scholars and poets noticed by the last-named writer in the section which he devotes in the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar * to the men of letters of Sulṭán Ḥusayn's time. Bábur, who is much more critical and much less addicted to indiscriminate praise than bio­graphers like Dawlatsháh and Khwándamír, speaks in the highest terms of Mír 'Alí Shír, * and says that he knows of no such generous and successful patron of talent. Apart from the numerous writers and poets whom he encouraged and patronized, the painters Bihzád and Sháh Muẓaffar and the incomparable musicians Qul-Muḥammad, Shaykhí Ná'í and Ḥusayn 'Údí owed their success to him. He himself was a successful musician, composer and painter, and un­rivalled as a poet in the Turkí language, in which he pro­duced four Díwáns of lyric poetry and six long mathnawís, five in imitation of Niẓámí's Khamsa (“Quintet”), and one in imitation of 'Aṭṭár's Mantiqu'ṭ-Ṭayr (“Speech of the Birds”) entitled Lisánu'ṭ-Ṭayr (“the Language of the Birds”). In Persian poetry, which he wrote under the pen­name of Fání, he was, according to Bábur, less successful, for though some of his verses were not bad, most were weak and poor. His prosody also was lacking in accuracy, and in the treatise entitled Mízánu'l-Awzán (“the Measure of Metres”) which he wrote on that subject Bábur asserts that he made erroneous statements about four of the twenty-four quatrain-metres which he discussed.

It is on his Turkish rather than on his Persian poetry, therefore, that Mír 'Alí Shír's claims to literary fame are based, though his munificent patronage of all literature and art entitles him to honourable mention in any history of Persian literature. Such as desire further particulars of his life and work will find them in the admirable monograph published by M. Belin in the Journal Asiatique for 1861 under the title of Notice biographique et littéraire sur Mir Ali-Chir Névâii, suivie d'extraits tirés des æuvres du même auteur. * He was born at Herát in 844/1440-1 and died and was buried there on the 12th of Jumáda ii, 906 (January 3, 1501). His life, for a statesman in so troublous a land and time, was singularly peaceful, and throughout it he enjoyed the friendship and confidence of Sulṭán Abu'l-Ghází Ḥusayn, his school-fellow in childhood and his sovereign in maturer age. * For public life and political power he cared little, and would willingly have renounced them in favour of spiritual contemplation and literary leisure, nor did he ever take to himself a wife. He was even admitted by the illus­trious Jámí into the Naqshbandí order of darwíshes. * His zeal for good works was unfailing, and he is stated to have founded, or restored, and endowed no fewer than 370 mosques, colleges, rest-houses and other pious and charitable institutions in Khurásán alone. He was a prolific writer, and Belin * enumerates 29 of his works, composed at various dates between the accession of Sulṭán Ḥusayn and his death. The latest of these was his Muḥákamatu'l-Lughatayn, or “Judgement between the two Languages,” in which he endeavours to establish the superiority of the Turkí over the Persian tongue. This was written in 905/1499-1500, only the year before his death.

Mullá Núru'd-Dín 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán Jámí, who was born at the little town of Jám in Khurásán on Sha'bán 23, 817

Jámí (November 7, 1414), and died at Herát on Muḥarram 18, 898 (November 9, 1492), was one of the most remarkable geniuses whom Persia ever pro­duced, for he was at once a great poet, a great scholar, and a great mystic. Besides his poetry, which, apart from minor productions, consisted of three Díwáns of lyrical poetry and seven romantic or didactic mathnawís, he wrote on the exegesis of the Qur'án, the evidence of the Divine Mission of the Prophet Muḥammad, traditions, lives of the Saints, Mysticism, Arabic grammar, Rhyme, Prosody, Music, acrostics (mu'ammá) and other matters. In the Tuḥfa-i-Sámí forty-six of his works are enumerated, and I do not think this list is exhaustive. He was held in the highest honour by his contemporaries, not only by his fellow-countrymen, but, as we have seen, * even by the Ottoman Sulṭán, who vainly endeavoured to induce him to visit his court. By his most illustrious contemporaries he was re­garded as so eminent as to be beyond praise and so well High esteem in which Jámí was held by Bábur known as to need no detailed biography. Thus Bábur, * after observing that “in exoteric and esoteric learning there was none equal to him in that time,” says that he is “too exalted for there to be any need for praising him,” and that he only introduces his name “for luck and for a blessing.” Sám Mírzá, the son — by Sám Mírzá of Sháh Isma'íl the Ṣafawí, places him first in the fifth section (Ṣaḥífa) of his Tuḥfa-i-Sámí, * and says “by reason of the extreme elevation of his genius…there is no need to describe his condition or set forth any account of him, since the rays of his virtues have reached from the East to the uttermost parts of the West, while the bountiful table of his excellencies is spread — by Dawlat­sháh from shore to shore.” Dawlatsháh, who puts him first, before Mír 'Alí Shír, in the concluding sec­tion of his Memoirs, * which deals with living contemporary poets, speaks in a similar strain. Mír 'Alí Shír, besides the brief notice of him at the beginning of his — by Mír 'Alí Shír Majálisu'n-Nafá'is, has devoted an entire work, the Khamsatu'l-Mutaḥayyirín (“Quintet of the Astonished”) to his praises. This work, fully described by Belin, * is so entitled because it is divided into five parts, a preface, three chapters and an epilogue, which treat respectively (1) of the origin, birth and life of Jámí, and of the author's acquaintance with him; (2) of events and conversations between the author and Jámí indicating the degree of their intimacy; (3) of the correspondence between them preserved in Jámí's works; (4) of the works composed by Jámí at the author's suggestion and instigation; (5) of the books and treatises read by the author under Jámí's direction, with an account of his death and funeral, which was celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and attended by many members of the Royal Family, noblemen, divines and Biography by 'Abdu'l-Ghafúr of Lár scholars, besides a vast concourse of the com­mon people. But the most valuable biography of him is probably that written by his most eminent disciple, 'Abdu'l-Ghafúr of Lár, who died on Sha'bán 5, 912 (December 21, 1506) and was buried beside his master.*