He was the son and successor of Shaikh Jamālī, the famous poet. He perfected himself in exoteric learning and enjoyed the society of the learned men of the age, being much benefited by their companionship. By means of the claim which intimate friendship gave him on Bairam Khān he obtained the appointment of Ṣadru-'s-Ṣudūr* in India, and was for several years resorted to, as an authority on religious questions, by the sages and principal men of Hindūstān, Khurāsān, Transoxiana, and ‘Irāq. He was a born poet, and used to compose and sing hymns and religious songs after the Indian manner,* to which pursuits he was passionately addicted.
After he had dissociated himself from Bairam Khān, the Khān-i-Khānān, and returned from the neighbourhood of Bīkānīr to Dihlī,* he was honoured and esteemed at Court as before. When in Dihlī he always used to attend the shrines of the saints there (may God sanctify their souls!) on their anniversaries, and used to hold assemblies with great pomp and circumstance. He left this world for the next either in the year H. 976 (A.D. 1568-69) or in the year H. 979 (A.D. 1571-72),* leaving behind him sons no better than the sons of most men in this degenerate age, “as has been decreed for these days, and in accordance with the decree of God the all-wise.”
The following verses are an extract from the poems of Shaikh Gadā'ī:—
“At times my soul, at times my heart became the abode of 77
grief,
“I ever grieve after thee, as I travel, stage by stage.
“Be not forgetful of my grief and pain,
“For there is no moment of my life which is not occupied
with thoughts of thee.
“I have bound my frenzied heart in thy tresses,
“Myself am bound in those musky chains.
“If desires could be easily accomplished by the surrender of
life
“No difficulties would remain to true lovers.
“Gadā'ī, thou hast lost thy life in unsuccessful endeavour!
“I have not obtained my desire from the lips of my
friend.”
I have copied these verses from the memoir of Mīr ‘Alā'u-'d-