ĀḠĀJĪ BOḴĀRĪ

 

ĀḠĀJĪ (or ĀḠĀČĪ) BOḴĀRĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ B. ELYĀS, Samanid amir and poet; he served at the courts of Manṣūr b. Nūḥ and Nūḥ b. Manṣūr (350-87/961-97) and is called a contemporary of Daqīqī (ʿAwfī, Lobāb [Tehran], pp. 568, 623). He may have belonged to the Samanid family, a possibility strengthened by the fact that ʿAwfī discusses him in the chapter on “great kings” (see Nafīsī’s notes to Lobāb, pp. 623-24). He wrote panegyrics (of which a few bayts survive among his fragments) and was himself the subject of such poems. Ṯaʿālebī (Tatemmat al-yatīma, ed. ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran, 1353/1934-35, II, p. 113), while naming him among Arabic-speaking poets, states that his Persian dīvān was well known in Khorasan. He quotes two of his Arabic bayts, which translate two lines of his in Persian (occurring in Lobāb) and refer to his skills in horsemanship, archery, lasso-throwing, swordsmanship, backgammon, and chess. Ṯaʿālebī also cites two other bayts, abusive to the city of Balḵ. Several lines are quoted by Rādūyānī (Tarǰomān al-balāḡa, ed. A. Ateş, Istanbul, 1949) and possibly by Rāzī (al-Moʿǰam fī maʿāyīr ašʿār al-ʿaǰam, ed. Modarres Rażawī, Tehran, 1338 Š./1959, pp. 241, 424, verses attributed to “Aḡaǰī the poet”).

Bibliography:

See also: A. Ateş, introd. (in Turkish) to Tarǰomān al-balāḡa, pp. 123-24.

Ṣafā, Adabīyāt I, pp. 429-30.

(ʿA. Zaryāb)

Originally Published: December 15, 1984

Last Updated: July 28, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 6, p. 606

Cite this entry:

ʿA. Zaryāb, “ĀḠĀJĪ BOḴĀRĪ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/6, p. 606; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/agaji-bokari-samanid-amir-and-poet- (accessed on 16 March 2014).