Safi Isfahani

 Safa'i Isfahani, Aqa Safi (d. 1618), son of Khwaja Qasim. A poet with nom de plume Safi. Born in Isfahan, he studied account-keeping, arithmetic, and the Shikasta script in his hometown. He departed for India and after traveling in India for a while, he became a companion of Mahabat Khan and was promoted under the Gurkanid Akbar Shah. He died in Kabul. His surviving poetry runs to approximately 14,000 couplets. He composed a Saqinama, consisting of 85 couplets, and other mathnavi in the meter of Nizami’s Khusraw u Shirin and Rumi’s Mathnavi. Muhammad Amin Razi thus depicts him, ‘he was well-known for his powerful poetical talent and acute mind. He was very kind and of good disposition and serene as the sea as firm as the Mount Behistun.’ He followed the models of the poets flourishing in the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century.

Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5, 1003-1007); Divist Sukhanvar (275).