FAḴRĪ HERAVĪ, SOLṬĀN-MOḤAMMAD

 

FAḴRĪ HERAVĪ, SOLṬĀN-MOḤAMMAD b. Moḥammad Amīr Khan (or Solṭān) Amīrī Heravī (b. Herat, ca. 903/1497, d. probably in Agra, after 974/1566), poet, scholar, and Sufi who wrote on various aspects of the poetic art. His father was also a poet, who had adopted the pen name Amīrī (Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Kārvān-e Hend II, p. 996; idem, Taḏkerahā I, p. 430; Bakkārī, p. 206; Tattavī, p. 487). Faḵrī Heravī himself was a panegyrist of the Safavid shahs Esmāʿīl I (907-30/1501-24) and Ṭahmāsb (930-84/1524-76; Storey, I, p. 795). He dedicated to the former his Haft kešvar, a historical work incorporating aspects of the genre “mirror for princes” (four manuscripts are preserved: MS. London, India Office Library, no. 2215; MS. Tehran, Dāneškada-ye Adābīāt, no. 33; MS. Tehran, Sepahsālār Library, no. 5806; MS. Tehran, Dāneškada-ye Ḥoqūq, no. 62b; see Monzawī, Nosḵahā VI, p. 4212).

At Herat Faḵrī briefly enjoyed the patronage of the functional governor Dūrmeš Khan (q.v.) and his vizier, Karīm-al-Dīn Ḵᵛāja Ḥabīb-Allāh Sāvajī, to whom in about 930/1524 he dedicated Laṭāʾef-nāma, a Persian translation of the Chaghatay Turkish Majāles al-nafāʾes by Mīr ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾī (d. 12 Jomādā II 906/2 January 1501), containing biographies of Turkish and Persian poets and scholars from the time of Sāhroḵ (807-50 /1405-47) to that of Esmāʿīl, to which Faḵrī had added a ninth section (majles)with additional biographies of 180 living poets (Rieu, Persian Manuscripts I, p. 366). Faḵrī also dedicated to Sāvajī Toḥfat al-Ḥabīb, a collection of lyric poems (ḡāzals) composed by various poets in praise of one another (Storey, I, p. 796).

During the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsb Faḵrī left Persia for the court of the Arghunid Mīrzā Shah Ḥasan (930-63/1524-55) in Sind; at the shah’s request he compiled Taḏkera-ye rawżat al-salāṭīn (ed. Ḥ. Rāšedī, Hyderabad, Sind, 1968), containing notices on royal poets of the Saljuq, Uzbek, and Chaghatayid dynasties, as well as of Persia and India (Storey, I, p. 797; Naqawī, p. 96; Bakkārī, p. 206; Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Kārvān-e Hend II, p. 996), and Ṣanāyeʿ al-Ḥasan, on poetical figures (Cat. Bankipore IX, no. 848). Jawāher al-ʿajāʾeb (ed. Lucknow, 1873; ed. Rāšedī, Hyderabad, Sind, 1968; cf. Rieu, Persian Manuscripts I, p. 366; Storey, I, p. 797) includes short notices on twenty-three women poets (Naqawī, p. 98); it was compiled for Ḥājīa Māh Begom, Shah Ḥasan’s wife, but later Faḵrī amended it and rededicated it to Māhem Anga, popularly known as Jiji Begom, wet nurse of the Mughal emperor Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605), at whose court the poet found patronage after the death of Shah Ḥasan (Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Kārvān-e-Hend II, p. 996). Another of Faḵrī’s works, Bostān al-ḵayāl, is a collection of maṭlaʿs (opening lines) from the ḡāzals of various Persian poets (Rieu, Persian Manuscripts I, p. 366).

 

Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):

Mohammad Maʿṣūm Bakkārī, Tārīḵ-e Send, ed. U. M. Daudpota as Taʾrikh-i-Sind . . . Ta’rīkh-i-Maʿṣūmī . . ., Poona, 1938.

ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾī, Majāles al-nafāʾes, Pers. translations by Faḵrī Heravī and Ḥakīm Šāh-Moḥammad Qazvīnī, ed. ʿA.-A. Ḥekmat as Taḏkera-ye Majāles al-nafāʾes, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984.

ʿA.-R. Naqawī, Taḏkera-nevīsī-e fārsī dar Hend o Pākestān, Tehran, 1347 Š./1968.

ʿAlī-Šīr Qāneʿ Tattavī, Taḏkera-ye maqālāt al-šoʿarāʾ, ed. Ḥ. Rāšµedī, Karachi, 1957, p. 487.

(Sharif Husain Qasemi)

Originally Published: December 15, 1999

Last Updated: January 20, 2012

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Vol. IX, Fasc. 2, pp. 165-166