2. Bábá Fighání of Shíráz (d. 925/1519).

Fighání appears to be one of those poets who are much more highly esteemed in India than in their own country,

Fighání (d. 925/1519). for while Shiblí in his Shi'ru'l-'Ajam (vol. iii, pp. 27-30), like Wálih in his Riyáḍu'sh-Shu'ará, deems him the creator of a new style of poetry, Riḍá-qulí Khán only accords him a brief mention in his Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín and entirely omits him in his larger Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, while the notices of him in the Átash-kada and the Tuḥfa-i-Sámí are very brief. He was of humble origin, the son of a cutler or a vintner according to different accounts, and seems to have lived the life of a somewhat antinomian dervish. In Khurásán, whither he went from Shíráz, he was unappreciated, even by the great Jámí, with whom he forgathered; but at Tabríz he subsequently found a more appreciative patron in Sulṭán Ya'qúb the Prince of the “White Sheep” Turkmáns. He repented in later life and retired to the Holy City of Mashhad, so that perhaps this verse of his ceased to be applicable:

“Stained with wine Fighání sank into the earth: alas if the Angels
should sniff at his fresh shroud!”*

The longest extracts from his poems are given in the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín, but these are all qaṣídas in praise of 'Alí, presumably composed towards the end of his life, and, though they may suffice to prove him a good Shí'a, they are hardly of a quality to establish his reputation as a great poet.

3. Ummídí (or Umídí) of Ṭihrán (d. 925/1519 or
930/1523-4).

Little is known of Umídí except that his proper name was Arjásp, * that he was a pupil of the celebrated philosopher Jalálu'd-Dín Dawání, that his skill was in the qaṣída rather Umídí (d. 925/1519). than the ghazal, that he was on bad terms with his fellow-townsmen, on whom he wrote many satires, and that he was finally killed in Ṭihrán in a quarrel about a piece of land, at the instigation of Qiwámu'd-Dín Núr-bakhshí. Námí, one of his pupils, composed the following verses and chronogram on his death:

“The much-wronged Umídí, wonder of the Age, who suddenly and
contrary to right became a martyr,
Appeared to me at night in a dream and said, ‘O thou who art
aware of my inward state,
Write for the date of my murder: * “Alas for my blood unjustly shed,
alas!”’”

Reference has already been made (p. 59 supra) to a qaṣída composed by him in praise of Najm-i-Thání, and probably his poetry consisted chiefly of panegyrics, though he also wrote a Sáqí-náma (“Book of the Cup-bearer”) of the stereotyped form. Manuscripts of his poems are very rare, but there is one in the British Museum, * comprising, however, only 17 leaves, and even these few poems were collected long after his death by command of Sháh Ṣafí. Mention is, however, made of him in most of the tadhkiras, and the Átash-kada cites 24 verses from his Sáqí-náma, and 70 verses from his other poems. Amongst these are the following, also given in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá (vol. ii pp. 7-8):

“If the College hall should be turned upside down it matters little;
but may no injury befall the halls of the Wine-houses of Love!
The College buildings, high and low, were destroyed, while the
taverns continued to flourish just the same.”

“Thou art a half-drunk Turk, I am a half-slain bird; * thy affair with
me is easy, my desire of thee is difficult.
Thou settest thy foot in the field, I wash my hands of life; thou
causest sweat to drip from thy cheek, I pour blood from my
heart.
Behind that traveller in weakness and helplessness I rise up and
subside like the dust until the halting-place [is reached].
When shall the luck be mine to lift him drunken from the saddle,
while that crystal-clear arm embraces my neck like a sword-belt?
Thou bearest a dagger and a goblet: the faithful with one accord
drink blood beside thee and give their lives before thee.
Now that my scroll of praise is rolled up, hearken to the tale of Ray:
it is a ruin wherein a madman is governor:
A madman on whom counsel produced no effect; a madman whom
chains did not render sensible.
He is a madman full of craft, my old enemy; be not secure of him,
and be not heedless of me.
From the arbiter of eloquence this point is hidden, that a distracted
mind is not disposed to verse.
My genius would snatch the ball * of verse from all and sundry, if
only the bailiff were not in my house!”

4 and 5. The two Ahlís.

These two homonymous poets, the one of Turshíz in Khurásán (d. 934/1527-8) and the other of Shíráz (d. 942/

Ahlí of Turshíz (d. 934/1527), and Ahlí of Shíráz (d. 942/1535). 1535-6), of both of whom the names are more familiar than the works, must, as Rieu has pointed out, be carefully distinguished. Both are ignored by Riḍá-qulí Khán, and both belong, the former actually, the latter spiritually, to the Herát school which gathered round Sulṭán Ḥusayn and Mír 'Alí Shír. This school, to which also belonged Ẓuhúrí (d. 1024/ 1615), likewise of Turshíz, seems never to have been popular in Persia, except, perhaps, in their own day in Khurásán, but enjoys a much more considerable reputation in India, where Ẓuhárí, whose very name is almost unknown in Persia, enjoys an extraordinary, and, as I think, quite undeserved fame, especially as a writer of extremely florid and bombastic prose. Ahlí of Shíráz excelled especially in elaborately ingenious word-plays (tajnísát) and other rhetorical devices.

6. Hilálí (killed in 935/1528-9).

Hilálí, though born in Astarábád, the chief town of the Persian Province of Gurgán, was by race a Chaghatáy Hilálí (d. 935/1528). Turk, and was in his youth patronized by Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í. His most famous poem, entitled Sháh u Darwísh, or Sháh u Gadá (“the King and the Beggar”), has been harshly criticized by Bábur himself * and in later times by Sprenger, * but warmly defended by Ethé, who translated it into German verse. * He composed another mathnawí poem entitled Ṣifátu'l-'Áshiqín (“the Attributes of Lovers”) and a number of odes collected into a Díwán. Riḍá-qulí Khán says * that in Khurásán he was regarded as a Shí'a, but in 'Iráq as a Sunní. Unhappily for him 'Ubaydu'lláh Khán, the fanatical Uzbek, took the former view, and caused him to be put to death as a “Ráfiḍí.” It is curious, in view of this, that he is not mentioned in the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín amongst the Shí'a poets; and perhaps, as asserted in the Haft Iqlím, the envy of two of his rivals at the Uzbek Court, Baqá'í and Shamsu'd-Dín Kúhistání, rather than his religious views, may have caused his execution, which 'Ubaydu'lláh Khán is said to have subsequently regretted. The following verses, however, seem to indicate Shí'a propensities:

“Muḥammad the Arabian, the honour of both worlds: dust be upon
the head of him who is not as dust at his Door!
I have heard that his life-sustaining ruby lip uttered, like the Mes-
siah, this tradition:
‘I am the City of Knowledge and 'Alí is my Door’: a marvellously
blessed tradition! I am the dog of his Door!”*