Such fame as this poet enjoys arises chiefly from the 'Imád of Kirmán fact that he was a rival of the great Ḥáfiẓ, and is supposed to be aimed at in a rather spiteful poem * by the latter, especially in the verse:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“O gracefully-walking partridge, whither goest thou? Stop!
Be not deceived because the zealot's cat says its prayers!”
The story is * that 'Imád stood high in the favour of Sháh Shujá' the Muẓaffarí, with whom, on the other hand, Ḥáfiẓ was by no means a persona grata. 'Imád, who, as his title Faqíh indicates, was a theologian, had a tame cat which he had taught to go through the appropriate postures and genuflections when he prayed, and this art of mimicry was regarded by the Prince as miraculous, but by Ḥáfiẓ as a piece of hypocritical cunning.
Notices of 'Imád are given by Dawlatsháh * and Jámí (in the Baháristán, chapter vii), and in the Átash-kada, * the Haft Iqlím and the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar (as mentioned above), and most other biographies of poets, but these contain very little indeed about his life. He is said to have been highly respected at Kirmán, and to have had a college or retreat there. “He was wont,” says Jámí, “to recite his verses to all who visited the rest-house (khánqáh), requesting them to criticize and amend them, whence it is that they say that his poetry is really the poetry of all the people of Kirmán.” Dawlatsháh quotes the opinion of Ádharí, author of the “Gems of Mysteries” (Jawáhiru'l-Asrár), who says:
“Critical scholars hold that some redundancy (‘stuffing’—ḥashw) is to be observed at times in the poetry of all the ancients and moderns except in that of Khwája 'Imád-i-Faqíh, in which, as they agree, there is absolutely no such lapse, either in words or ideas.”
'Imád's extant work comprises a Díwán of lyric poetry,
of which copies are not common,
*
and at least five mathnawí
poems, of which the earliest, entitled Maḥabbat-náma-i-
“The poor patient in the hospital of Religion who details his
symptoms to the physicians who sit by the road,
What cares he for the road, the pain, the trouble and the sickness
Who has Khiḍr for his friend and Christ for his companion?
On the first day of Eternity Past I inscribed on the Tablet of my Soul
Of the words of my father (may his tomb be fragrant!) these:
‘O child, if thou meetest with one who is fallen,
Do not mock him, nor look on him with the eyes of scorn!’
For this reason did the great religious leaders ride on lions,
Because they trod the earth more gently than ants.
If no heart in the world is cheered by thee,
At least do not so act that any spirit may be saddened by thee.
O 'Imád, one cannot seek for any friend but God:
Help, O Helper! ‘From Thee do we seek assistance’!”*
Salmán of Sáwa, who has been already mentioned in Salmán of Sáwa connection with 'Ubayd-i-Zákání, is another poet whose eminence has been certified by the great Ḥáfiẓ in the following verse:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“Dost thou know who is the chief of the scholars of this age
In the way of truth and certainty, not in the way of doubt and
falsehood?
That monarch of the accomplished and king of the realm of verse
That ornament of Church and State (Jamálu'd-Dín), the Master
of the World Salmán.”
He was essentially a court-poet and panegyrist, and was attached during the greater part of his long life to the Íl-khání or Jalá'ir dynasty, his special patrons being Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Buzurg, the founder of that dynasty, his consort Dilshád Khátún, and their son Shaykh Uways. Apart from the notices of him given by the biographers cited throughout this chapter, * attention should be called to two excellent biographies by Indian scholars, one in English and the other in Urdú. The first, in the Catalogue of…the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, Firdawsí to Ḥáfiẓ (pp. 219-225), is by Mawlawí 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir, and gives a very good critical summary of the data furnished by the Persian biographers. The second is contained in an admirable collection of studies of some twenty eminent Persian poets by Shiblí Nu'mání entitled Shi'ru'l-'Ajam (“Poetry of the Persians”), * compiled in 1324-5/1906-7, and lithographed at 'Aligaṛh.
That Salmán was born in or about the year 700/1300 is proved, as pointed out by Mawlawí 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir,
Materials for the biography of Salmán by a verse in the Firáq-náma (“Book of Separation”), composed in 761/1360, in which the poet says that his age had then passed sixty-one; and the same scholar gives good reason for believing that he died on Monday, Ṣafar 12, 778 (July 1, 1376). He composed two mathnawí poems, the abovementioned Firáq-náma and another entitled Jamshíd u Khurshíd, and a number of odes (ghazaliyyát), fragments (muqaṭṭa'át), and quatrains (rubá'iyyát), but it is as a qaṣída-writer and panegyrist that he excels, often surpassing, as Jámí says, the earlier masters, such as Kamál Isma'íl, Ẓahír of Fáryáb, Athír-i-Awmání, Saná'í, etc., Jámí's criticîsm of Salmán's lyric poetry whom he took for his models. Of his odes (ghazaliyyát) Jámí says that they too are very agreeable and highly finished, but that, “being devoid of the savour of love and passion which is the essence of the ghazal, they are not very highly esteemed by men of taste.” In the Bombay lithographed edition of Salmán's Kulliyyát, the qaṣídas, with two tarjí'-bands, fill the first 135 pages, the ghazals pp. 136-230, and the quatrains the last six pages.Salmán's earliest poems, as 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir observes, are apparently his elegies on the death of Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd (Nov.—Dec., 1335), and of his great minister Khwája Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Muḥammad, who was put to death on Ramaḍán 21, 736 (May 3, 1336). In this same year Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Buzurg established the dynasty known as Íl-khání, with its capital at Baghdád, and thither Salmán, attracted by the fame of that ruler's generosity to men of letters, made his way, probably soon after the cruel and violent death of his earlier patron Ghiyáthu'd-Dín. It is related by Dawlatsháh and other writers that he first won Shaykh Ḥasan's favour by the following verses which he extemporized on some occasion when that Prince was exhibiting his skill with the bow:*
“When the King lifted his Cháchí * bow
Thou would'st have said that the Moon was in the Sign of
Sagittarius.
I saw the two ‘crows’ of the bow and the three-winged eagle *
Bring their heads together in one corner. *
They laid their heads on the King's shoulder:
I know not what they whispered in the King's ear.
When the King loosed the bow-string from the finger-stall
From every side arose the twang of the string.
O King, the arrow is subject to thy schemes,
And fortune follows the flight of thy arrow.
In thy time complaints arise from none
Save from the bow, which it is but right should lament.
For, in the reign of this auspicious Sultan
None does violence save to the bow.”
It was, however, according to the biographers, chiefly to the beautiful and accomplished Queen Dilshád Khátún, and to the amiable Prince Uways, that Salmán owed the favours which he enjoyed at the Íl-khání court, of which he says: