Talib Amuli

Talib Amuli Mazandarani, Muhammad (d. 1625/1626), a calligrapher and poet with nom de plume Talib and bearing the title Taliba. Born in Amul, he received his education in his hometown and embarked upon his poetical career in his youth. He was 26 years of age when he eulogized the governor of Amul. He departed from Mazandaran in 1601 and stayed for a while in Isfahan, where he met Taqi al-Din Awhadi. He left Isfahan for Kashan, where he settled and married. Then, he traveled to his hometown and later to Khurasan and joined the services of Baktash Khan Ustajlu, the governor of Marv Shahjan to whom he dedicated a Mathnawi in the meter of Khusraw u Shirin. Later, wandered in India for a while and then returned to Qandahar, joined the services of Ghazi Khan Tarkhan, and eulogized him. After the death of his patron, he traveled to India and met the author of Tadhkira-yi Maykhana in Agra. Having traveled to different cities in India, he finally met Shapur Tehrani in Lahore and the latter introduced him to I’timad al-Dawla, the then vizier, who introduced him to the court of Jahangir. Talib was promoted soon. He was appointed poet laureate in 1618. He died in Lahore. His works include a divan of poetry. Talib wrote different calligraphic hands elegantly. He was praised by all his contemporaries for his acute mind, intelligence, unsurpassed poetical talent, and erudition. Some biographers, particularly Taqi al-Din Awhadi, have written about him in detail. However, there are biographers, e.g. Adhar, who regard his poetry ‘unpleasant to eloquent poets.’ Those who extolled him praised his eloquence and novelty of themes, likening his poetry to flowers, fresh in spring rain, imbued with delicate metaphors and imagery surpassing the imaginative compositions of his contemporaries or predecessors. In this respect, Ibrahim Suhuf states, ‘His themes were innovative and he founded a novel style.’ Talib is accorded significance for the impressions he made on the development of poetry under the Safavids. He was one of the poets who gave birth to a spontaneous development in and a drastic change to the poetical style which had begun in early sixteenth century leading to the emergence of poets, e.g. Mirza Jalal Asir, Kalim Kashani, and Sa’ib Tabrizi in the seventeenth century. Although he follows Khaqani in the employment of long meters in qasida, but in some of them, he uses simple meters and radif. His inclination towards using radif is reflected in all his ghazals. As was the common practice in his time, he employs repetitive rhymes. 

Asar-afarinan (4, 81-82; Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5, 1056-1068).