EBN NOṢRAT, AMIR BAHĀʾ-AL- DĪN BARANDAQ ḴOJANDĪ, Timurid poet (b. 757/1356; d. ca. 837/1433). Son of Amir Noṣratšāh, governor of Ḵojand under Tīmūr, he pursued a career as a poet, despite retaining the title amir. After a period of travel in Persia and India, he settled in Samarkand. He wrote panegyrics for a number of rulers and high officials including the Delhi Sultan Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Toḡloqšāh II (r. 790-91/1388), Sultan Ḵalīl b. Mīrānšāh b. Tīmūr, who was in Samarkand in 807-12/1404-09, and Sultan Bāyqarā, governor of Erāq and Fārs in 817-20/1414-17. Ebn Noṣrat’s poetry was ranked high among the poets of his time by critics such as Dawlatšāh and Amīr ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾī. In his poems he followed the style of the 11th-12th-century masters, particularly Anwarī and Ḵāqānī.
His dīvān is not extant, but a selection of about 1,800 verses of his poetry (qaṣīdas, ḡazals, and qeṭʿas) are preserved in Kāšānī’s Ḵolāṣat al-ašʿār. In his poetry he refers to his knowledge of medicine and his familiarity with Syriac and Hebrew languages.
Bibliography: (For cited works not given in detail see “Short References.”)
Āḏar Bīgdelī, Ātaškada, Bombay, n.d., p. 319.
ʿAlī-Ebrāhīm Khan Ḵalīl, Ṣoḥof-e Ebrāhīm, Berlin MS no. 663.
Dawlatšāh, ed. Browne, pp. 371-75.
Faḵr-al-Dīn ʿAlī Ṣafī, Laṭāʾef al-ṭawāʾef, ed. A. Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Tehran, 1336 Š./1957, pp. 252-53.
Haft eqlīm III, pp. 434-35.
Mīr Taqī-al-Dīn Ḏekrī Kāšānī, Ḵolāṣat al-ašʿār, Majles Library, Tehran, MS no. 334 (the major source).
Majāles al-nafāʾes, p. 19.
Nafīsī, Naẓm o naṯr, p. 297.
Ṣafā, Adabīyāt IV, pp. 264-86.
(Ḏabīḥ-Allāh Ṣafā)
Originally Published: December 15, 1997
Last Updated: December 6, 2011
This article is available in print.
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