Hasan Dilhavi
Biography
Hasan Dihlawi (1251 or 1252-1336 or 1337), Indian mystic and poet versifying his works in Persian with the nom de plume Hasan. Well-known as the Sa’di of India, he composed poetry in the style of Amir Khusraw Dihlawi, his companion. Consequent to the Mongol invasion, numerous Persian scholars, Sufis, belletrists, and poets sought refuge in North India where they settled in the majority of prosperous cities. Together with their descendants, they disseminated Persian language and literature and the Persianate culture in India. Prominent poets like Hasan Dihlawi and Amir Khusraw Dihlawi were nurtured in such brilliant period when they maintained their friendship for a long time and left behind valuable works. It was perhaps owing to their friendship that in his advanced years that Amir Hasan Dihlawi turned towards Sufism and served as a disciple of Nizam al-Din Awliya’, since Khusraw had followed his father and brother in associating with the Sufis. Hasan’s familiarity with and attachment to Sufi works and doctrines are reflected in his ghazals and mathnawis. Hasan had attached himself to the court long before his acquaintance with Khusraw, but following their acquaintance, they collaborated in assuming courtly services. Amir Hasan Dihlawi’s divan exceeds 9,000 couplets in number, versified in the genres of ghazal, qasida, tarji’, tarkib, quatrain, and mathnawi. Hasan’s innovations include some of his eulogies versified in different meters in the form of short mathnawis. Some of his mathnawis versified independent anecdotes or were versified on certain occasions, like births and new edifices. They include ‘Ishqnama, treating of the love of an India youth for a girl and the latter’s demise and cremation as per the Hindu rituals and the lover’s cremation to follow his beloved. Next to Amir Khusraw Dihlawi, Amir Hasan is the greatest of the Indian poets of the 13th and 14th centuries versifying in Persian. Although he versified many a qasida on the model of his predecessors, but he is famous for his ghazals which embrace many delicate themes expressed in simple and fluent diction; as such he professed, he followed Sa’di, hence his appellation ‘the Sa’di of India’.
Zindiginama-yi Sha’iran-i Irani az Rudaki ta Imruz.
