‘Urfi Shirazi

‘Urfi Shirazi, Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Zayn al-Din ‘Ali Balawi (1555-1590), a poet born in Shiraz and bearing the nom de plume ‘Urfi. He received his education in his hometown and became a skillful musician and calligrapher, particularly writing an elegant Nashkhi hand. Having been inclined towards poetical compositions in his youth, he soon made a name for himself in Shiraz and found its way into the literary circles of Shiraz, e.g. the one held at the design work shop run by Mir Mahmud Tarhi Shirazi, where he made the acquaintance of poets, e.g. Ghiyrati Shirazi, ‘Arif Lahiji, Qiydi Shirazi, Taqiqa-yi Shushtari, and Awhad al-Din Balyani. He made a voyage to India in his youth, met Fayd Dakkani, and associated with him who introduced him to Hakim Masih al-Din Abu al-Fath Gilani and composed a qasida eulogizing him. The latter, in turn, introduced him to ‘Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan, Jalal al-Din Akbar Shah’s army general and patron of belletrists. ‘Urfi attached himself to Akbar Shah’s court in Lahore composing eulogies on him. ‘Urfi lived there to his last day. His body was transported, after a while, to Najaf. He is well-known for composing qasida and he is indebted for his recognition to his ability to follow the model of earlier masters; eloquence; imaginative delicacies; and embellishing his poetry with scholarly ideas. He composed poetry in other genres as well, but his dexterity in composing qasida has overshadowed his further poetical compositions. His complete works run to 14,000 couplets, composed in the forms of qasida, quatrain, mathnawi, and qit’a. His works include two mathnawi, Majma’ al-Abkar and Farhad u Shirin and a treatise in prose, Nafisa, on Sufism. His knowledge of medicine, logic, and philosophy is reflected in his poetry, particularly his qasida. Following the models of earlier masters, he created themes concerning such branches of knowledge and the employment of such terminology and his erudition led commentators to compose commentaries on his qasida, including Miftah al-Nikat written by a certain Mirza Jan in 1662. However, further significance must be accorded to the natural flow of his qasida which at times approaches the extent that the poet sounds to be preoccupied with expressing everyday words and his own biographical account. Disregarding few exceptions, one may say that such natural flow does not impede the poetical vigor and as mentioned by earlier scholars, he combined fluency, vigor, and elegance. Such characteristic had even attracted the attention of belletrists before his renown. His ghazals display innovative and delicate ideas, clear themes, novel and euphonious compounds, and vigorous and powerful words. His insistence in including delicate imagery and rich meanings in less number of words is reflected in his mathnawi, particularly in Majma’ al-Abkar. He made a compilation of his qasida, ghazal, qit’a, and quatrains in 1587, though the final compilation of his poetical compositions was done after his death. His complete works appeared several times in India and once Tehran, including Risala-yi Nafisa, qasida, tarji’band, tarkib-band, ghazal, saqinama, and mathnawi. His Persian Risala-yi Nafisa in prose treats of Sufism and as expressed by Mulla ‘Abd al-Baqi Nahavandi, ‘it may serve as a guide and model for Sufis and Dervishes.’ Manuscript copies of his works are available at different libraries. 

Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5, 799-812); Danishmandan va Sukhansarayan-i Fars (3, 606-622).