He was sister's son to Maulānā Nargisī, and, in accordance with the saying, “the true son resembles his maternal uncle,” he was distinguished by his wit and the strength of his intellect. He came from Turkey to India in the days of Bairam Khān's supre­macy, and profited much by his generosity. He was captured in the battle fought beneath the mountains* by Ataga Khān, and was by him paraded before the emperor, as the chief of his gifts, with the banner of the eighth Imām, ‘Alī-ur-Riẓā* (may God accept him). He was very favourably received by the emperor. He composed his treatise on Beauty and Yūsuf for Yūsuf Muḥammad Khān,* the son of Ataga Khān. The opening couplet of the poem is as follows:—

“In the name of Him to whom the face of foe and friend
Is turned, in which direction soever He may be.”

He composed some verses descriptive of the members of the beloved, among which are the following couplets:—

“Her face is a mirror, her neck is a shaft of ivory,
Those who are in face like the fairies desire that mirror;
The palm of her hand is, like the sun, a mirror of light,
The fingers of that houri are the rays of the sun
To the eye of understanding the parting of the hair of that
sweet-lipped maid
Is a meteor resplendent in the heart of the night.*
Nay, I erred in describing it as a meteor,
Rather is it a stream of fair water traversing a garden of
hyacinths.

Desire fails* in its hope of reaching her navel, ²⁰³
Remaining for ever in the pit of despair.
Desire ever hovers round about her,
Like the thirsty quarry round about the well.
Above her nose is the palm-tree of our desire.
Her arched eyebrows stained with dye:
There grow, in spite of nature's rule,
Two lily petals from a wild rose sprig.
In the eye of that light of my eyes
There appears, as it were, a drop of dew on a rose.
Circumdant pudendum margaritae illius intemeratae,
Lunge velut crescentes duae.
In grace she excels the lily bud,
Tongue placed in palate and lip on lip.”

He has written in reply to the Dihnāma of ‘Imād a mauavī in which the following couplets occur:—

“From regret for thy moist* ruby lip
And from separation from thy curled looks
His (the lover's) weak body has dwindled to a hair,
In his body there remains no place for his soul.
From vexation and grief his heart is melted to blood,
He drinks his own blood and draws no breath.”

In a description of the morning he has written:—

“The ashes of the morning have gone on the breeze,
Fire has caught the cotton of the morning.”*

Couplets.

“When my head droops on my knees in separation from that
faithless one,

My body is reduced to a heap of ashes by my burning
heart.”

“When her cruel sword is raised like a banner to slay me,
I make my complaint of her cruelty, my excuse for falling
at her feet;
For her sake I cheerfully endured the cruelty of the world,
not knowing
How little trust could be placed in her tenderness and
faith.”

“In truth the quiltings of the patched woollen robe of
poverty
Bind upon the hands and feet of avarice the chains of con-
tentment.”

204 “Love's mendicant laughs at the ermine of royalty,
As he comes forth from love's furnace smeared with ashes.”

“The dust of existence has gone on the breeze, but still from
moisture of tears
The feet of Thy humble lovers remain in the mire.”

“The sword of thine eyelashes came as a boon to me when
I was beside myself,
When I came to myself I had a hundred wounds on my
soul.”

By the emperor's order he wrote the following verses, descrip­tive of an elephant:—

“From the dust of the road of the emperor whose throne is
the sky,
He scatters ambergris on himself by way of perfume.
The constellation of the Eagle appears on his head, without
exaggeration,
Like a midge on the summit of the mountains of Caucasus:
When his body is encircled with its golden chain
The milky way and the heavens come into view.

When he is distressed by the heat of the sun
He pours water over himself like a fountain.
Damsels of fairy form and moon-like countenance
Sit, by the emperor's command, on the throne which he
bears.
They sit there ever in their entrancing beauty
For verily the mountains of Caucasus are a meet resting-
place for fairies.”

One night in the year H. 975* robbers put him to death with cruel sword, and he was buried in the building which he had erected for himself in Agra.