Muhtasham Kashani

Muhtasham Kashani, Mawlana Kamal al-Din Sayyid ‘Ali (d. 1587), son of Khwaja Mir Ahmad. A poet bearing the title Shams al-Shu’ara’ originally hailing from Naraq. Born in Kashan, he makes mention of his name and Sayyid descent in a couplet contained in his Divan. He was the son of a merchant trading in fabric and followed that profession in his youth. Then, he abandoned his father’s profession and embarked upon his poetical career. Having studied poetry under Mawlana Sidqi Istarabadi, he associated with the poets, Hiyrati Tuni, Vahshi Bafqi, Hali Gilani, and Zamiri Isfahani, and entered into poetical contests and correspondence with them. His mastery of poetry soon secured him patronage and led to an affluent life. He was a qasida poet eulogizing Shah Tahmasb, the Safavid kings and princes, and rulers of India, like Akbar Shah and ‘Abd al-Rahim Khan-i Khanan, but his renown is mainly indebted to composing poetry of a religious nature, particularly elegies on the Shi’i Imams. In his prose and poetry, he followed his predecessors, particularly the poets flourishing in the fourteenth century and composed his qasidas mainly on the models of his predecessors. He was renowned for composing chronograms, riddles, elegies, and compositions on the nobility of the Shi’i Imams. His students included poets, like Mir Taqi al-din Muhammad Husayni Kashani, the author of the biographical work entitled Khulasat al-Ash’ar, Muzafar al-Din Hasrati, Nu’i Khabushan, and Zuhuri Turshizi. He died in Kashan where he was laid to rest. The date of his death is recorded 1591 in Rayhanat al-Adab, Mushar’s Muallifin-i Kutub-i Chapi, and the Tadhkirat of Nazim Tabrizi. His works include Kulliyyat-i Muhtasham, including the seven Divans of Saba’iyya, embracing the poetry of his early youth; Shababiyya, that of his youth; Shaybiyya, that of his old age; Jalaliyya, containing miscelanae; Naql-i ‘Ushshaq, containing collectanae; Zarurriyyat, including the chronograms; and Mu’amayyat, the riddles, compiled by Mirza Mir Taqi al-Din Kashi; Jalaliyya and Naql-i ‘Ushshaq, composed in a poetical prose style is imbued with literary metaphors and lyrical ghazals; Manzuma-yi Dawazdah-band, an elegy on Imam Husayn, rendered into Arabic by ‘Allam Bahr al-‘Ulum; Jami’ al-Lata’if; and Divan of Qasaid. He follows his predecessors in prose and poetry, particularly modeling his qasidas on the style of the poets flourishing before the fourteenth century, though he approaches in many of his compositions in terms of vigor and elegance. He composed his qasidas mainly on the model of distinguished poets of the past, even Anwari, though at times, he brags by calling Anwari, the master from Abiward, the gleaner of his themes. He excels his contemporaries by the employment of novel poetical devices. His diction is pompous, though some of his ghazals are not affectatious. However, his qasidas are entirely vigorous and he is thereby called by critics only second to Khaqani. He failed to be on a par with the qasida poets of the second half of the fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries, but indifference towards his ghazals is due to his figures of speech and some of his ghazals follow the model of his qasidas which seemed unappealing to his contemporary ghazal poets who preferred novel themes and the natural flow. He is well-known for his chronograms, elegies, and praize of the Shi’i Imams among his contemporaries and later generations. His Dawazdah-band, an elegy composed on Husayn ibn ‘Ali and the incident of Karabala’ is well-known even today and is recited by religious scholars and the laity at the mourning sessions held for commemoration of the martyrs of Karbala’ in most of the Muslim lands.

Baharistan-i Sukhan (413); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5/ 792-799).