Vaqar Shirazi

Vaqar Shirazi, Mirza Ahmad (1816-1880), son of Muhammad Shafi’ Visal. Poet, litterateur, calligrapher, and the eldest son of Visal Shirazi. Born in Shiraz, having received his preliminary education, he studied jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, and theology and then engaged himself in composition of works in prose and poetry. He had mastery in composing poetry in different forms and was also a skillful literary prose stylist. Accompanied by his brother, Mirza Mahmud Hakim, he departed for India in 1849 and copied Rumi’s Mathnawi in an elegant hand in four months, published it, and returned to his hometown. He went on pilgrimage to the holy shrines and upon his return was warmly received by Nasir al-Din Shah in Tehran. He had mastery in writing the nasta’liq, naskh, riqa’, and shikasta scripts, particularly in the naskh script. He died in Shiraz and was laid to rest beside his father. His works include Anjuman-i Danish, composed on the model of Sa’di’s Gulistan; Rumuz al-Amara, a translation of and a commentary on Imam ‘Ali’s epistle to Malik al-Ashtar; the mathnawi of Bahram wa Bihruz; Ruznama-yi Khusrawan-i Parsi, entitled by Farhang Shirazi as Tarikh-i Muluk-i ‘Ajam; the mathnawi of Khizr wa Musa; Qanun al-Sidara; Marghzar, composed in rhyming prose on the model of Kalila wa Dimna; Majalis al-Sunna wa Mahafil al-Azmina, composed on the model of Shaykh Baha’i’s Kashkul; ‘Ashara-yi Kamila, on the passions of Imam Husayn, his companions and offspring; a treatise on the exegesis of the Qur’anic 48:2 (“That God may forgive all the earlier and later sins of all the people of your community”); a commentary on six quatrains by Muhtasham in 12 chapters; Tarikh-i Chahardah Ma’sum (‘History of the Fourteen Infallibles’), completed by his son, Himmat Shirazi; Divan of poetry; and some short and incomplete treatises.

Asar-afarinan (6/ 115); Tazkira-yi Shu’ara’ Dar al-‘Ilm-i Shiraz (330-331); Majma’ al-Fusaha’ (6/ 1132-1153).