Not much is known concerning this poet, who, however,

Kamál of Khujand since his verses won the admiration of Ḥáfiẓ, cannot be passed over. Jámí says * that he was a great saint, and that if he deigned to write verse it was to conceal the fullness of his saintly nature and spiritual attainments, to prevent the complete suppression of his exoteric by his esoteric life, and to maintain the position of “servitude” to God against an overmastering tendency to be merged in the Deity; an assertion in support of which he quotes Kamál's verse:

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“These efforts of mine in my poetry are my ‘Speak to me O Ḥumayrá’!”*

Kamál's spiritual guide was a certain Khwája 'Ubaydu- Particulars of Kamál's life 'lláh who resided for some time at Shásh, * a place situated like Khujand in Transoxiana. At an unknown but probably fairly early period of his life Kamál migrated to Tabríz, where he made his home, and for which he conceived a great affection. The Jalá'irí Sulṭán Ḥusayn, son of Uways (776-784/1374-1382) showed him much favour and built for him a monastery or rest-house. Jámí says that when after Kamál's death they entered his private room in this rest-house, they found in it no furniture save a mat of coarse reeds on which he used to sit and sleep, and a stone which served him for a pillow. In Tabríz, where he obtained a great reputation for sanctity, he came under the influence of Shaykh Zaynu'd-Dín Khwáfí.*

In 787/1385 Túqtámish, Khán of Qipcháq, raided Tabríz, and, after the fashion of Tímúr and other conquerors of those days, carried off Kamál amongst other learned and pious persons to his own capital, Saráy. There he remained for four years, * at the end of which period he returned to Tabríz where he died, * according to most authorities, in 803/1400-1. Dawlatsháh places his death in 792/1390, a date which Rieu shows reason for regarding as much too early. A still later date (808/1405-6) is given by the Majálisu'l-'Ushsháq. On the poet's tomb was inscribed the verse:

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“O Kamál! Thou hast gone from the Ka'ba to the door of the Friend:
A thousand blessings on thee! Thou hast gone right manfully!”

During his second sojourn at Tabríz Kamál was patron­ized by Tímúr's son Míránsháh, who was then governor of Ádharbáyján, and who is said to have given the poet, in return for some fruit which he or his soldiers had eaten from his garden, a sum of a thousand dínárs wherewith to discharge his debts.

The Díwán of Kamál of Khujand has never, so far as I know, been published, and is not common in manuscript, though copies are to be found in most of the larger collec­tions of Persian books. I possess an undated but well-written and fairly ancient manuscript, from which the following selections are taken.