FAṢĪḤĪ HERAVĪ, MĪRZĀ FAṢĪḤ-AL-DĪN, b. Abu’l-Makārem b. Mawlānā Mīrjān Anṣārī, poet of the 11th/17th century (b. ca. 987/1579, d. 1049/1639). Faṣīḥī belonged to a noble family of Herat, which traced its lineage back to Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣārī (d. 481/1088, q.v.). During the invasion of Khorasan in 930/1523 by ʿObayd-Allāh Khan, the Uzbek ruler of Bukhara, Faṣīḥī’s grandfather, Mawlānā Mīrjān, and a number of other nobles of Herat were forced to migrate to Transoxiana. Mīrjān stayed in Bukhara, where both Faṣīḥī and his father Abu’l-Makārem were born. The family remained in Bukhara until the conquest of Herat by ʿAbd-Allāh Khan Uzbek in 997/1588-89, when Abu’l-Makārem and his family returned to Herat. At this time, according to Faḵr-al-Zamānī (p. 573), Faṣīḥī was ten years old.
Faṣīḥī spent his early youth and poetic career in Herat, where he was attached to the court of Ḥosayn Khan Šāmlū (d. 1027/1617), the Amīr-al-Omarāʾ of Khorasan, and his son and successor, Ḥasan Khan. In 1022/1613, eager to go to the Mughal court in India, Faṣīḥī fled from Qandahār, but was brought back to Herat by the order of Ḥosayn Khan. He remained in Herat until 1031/1621 when Shah ʿAbbās I, on his return trip from Khorasan, took the poet along with him. Thenceforth, until his death in 1049/1639, Faṣīḥī was in the entourage of the king.
Faṣīḥī’s poetry is graceful and mostly in the style of Khorasani masters. Preoccupation with creating new, intricate ideas and images, which characterizes most of the poetry of the period and often made poets sacrifice clarity of expression is, however, absent from Faṣīḥī’s poetry. He versified his ideas in simple, eloquent, poetic language without resorting to multi-faceted metaphors and complex structures. A number of biographers (e.g., Āzād, p. 51) criticized his poetry for being devoid of subtle, innovative purport. His dīvān is still in manuscript.
Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):
Aḥmad-ʿAlī Aḥmad, Taḏkera-ye haft āsmān,Calcutta, 1290/1873, facs. repr., Tehran, 1965, p. 154.
Ḡolām-ʿAlī Āzād Belgrāmī, Sarv-e āzād, Hyderabad, 1331/1913, pp. 50-51.
Ātaškada II, pp. 770-72.
Mollā ʿAbd-al-Nabī Faḵr-al-Zamānī, Taḏkera-ye mey-ḵāna, ed. A. Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Tehran, 1340 Š./1961, pp. 571-80.
Moḥammad Qodrat-Allāh Gūpāmavī, Natāyej al-afkār, Bombay, 1957, pp. 539-40.
Moḥammad-Moẓaffar Ṣabā, Taḏkera-ye rūz-e rowšan, ed. M.-Ḥ. Roknzāda Ādamīyat, Tehran, 1343 Š./1964, pp. 628-30.
Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V/2, pp. 1126-34.
Mīrzā Moḥammad-Ṭāher Naṣrābādī, Taḏkera-ye Naṣrābādī, ed. Ḥ. Waḥīd Dastgerdī, Tehran, 1317 Š./1938, pp. 247-49, 270.
Eskandar Beg, I, Tehran, pp. 988-89.
(ḎABĪḤ-ĀLLĀH ṢAFĀ)
Originally Published: December 15, 1999
Last Updated: January 24, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. IX, Fasc. 4, p. 392
