Nusrati

Muḥammad Nuṣrat (died 1674), called Nuṣratī ('victorious'),^[1] was a Deccani Urdu poet.^[2]

Life

Nuṣratī was born in the Carnatic region into an elite Muslim family of Brahmin origin.^[3] He lived as a Sufi dervish before moving to Bijapur.^[2] There he was made a mansabdar under Sultan ʿAlī II (r. 1656–1672) of the ʿĀdil-Shāhī dynasty.^[4] For his poem ʿAlī-nāma (c. 1665), he was named poet laureate (malik al-shuʿarāʾ).^[5] He died at an old age in 1674^[6] or 1683.^[7]

Works

Nuṣratī wrote in the Deccani variety of Urdu and Persian.^[8] His poetry uses archaic language and a complex style.^[2] He was a prominent practitioner of the qaṣīda, ghazal and especially mathnawī forms.^[9] One of his earliest works, Miʿrāj-nāma, was written for Sultan Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh (r. 1627–1656).^[10]

His most original work is the ʿAlī-nāma, an epic celebration of ʿAlī II's wars against the Mughals and Marathas.^[11] It is the earliest panegyric of a ruler in Deccani.^[4] Nuṣratī himself claimed to have invented a new poetic form with this work, which is "the only thing of its kind in Urdu".^[12] It is patterned on the Persian Shāh-nāma.^[13] Grahame Bailey calls it the greatest poem ever written at Bijapur.^[10]

Nuṣratī's final poem, written in a similar vein, is Taʾrīkh-i Sikandarī (also called the Taʾrīkh-i Bahlol Khani), a celebration of Bahlol Khan's victory over Shivaji at the battle of Umrani in 1672. It was written for ʿAlī II's successor, Sikandar.^[14] Unlike the ʿAlīnāma, written at the height of Bijapur's power, it is "largely in a minor key".^[12] Other works of Nuṣratī's include Gulshan-i ʿishq (1658), a collection of odes and the lyric collection Guldasta-yi ʿishq.^[15] Gulshan-i ʿishq is a highly conventional romance.^[16]

Notes

^ Saksena 1990, pp. 39–40. His (nick)name is also spelled "Naṣrat(ī)".
^ ^a ^b ^c Haywood 1995.
^ Haywood 1995; Zaidi 1993, pp. 42–43.
^ ^a ^b Saksena 1990, pp. 39–40.
^ Haywood 1995; Sharma 2020, p. 409; Saksena 1990, pp. 39–40.
^ Naim 2017; Sharma 2020, p. 402.
^ Bailey 1932, pp. 28–29. Zaidi 1993, pp. 42–43, says that he died after the fall of Bijapur (1686) and was laureated by Sultan Aurangzeb.
^ Sharma 2020, p. 402; Saksena 1990, pp. 39–40.
^ Naim 2017; Haywood 1995.
^ ^a ^b Bailey 1932, pp. 28–29.
^ Haywood 1995; Sharma 2020, p. 409; Dayal 2020, p. 428.
^ ^a ^b Sadiq 1995, pp. 55–56.
^ Zaidi 1993, pp. 42–43.
^ Dayal 2020, p. 428.
^ Haywood 1995; Sharma 2020, p. 409; Bailey 1932, pp. 28–29.
^ Sadiq 1995, pp. 55–56; Bailey 1932, pp. 28–29.

Works cited

Bailey, Thomas Grahame (1932). A History of Urdu Literature. Oxford University Press.
Dayal, Subah (2020). "On Heroes and History: Responding to the Shahnama in the Deccan, 1500–1800". In Overton, Keelan (ed.). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700. Indiana University Press. pp. 421–446. ISBN 978-0-253-04894-3.
Haywood, J. A. (1995). "Nuṣratī". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 154. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6004. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.
Naim, C. M. (2017). "Urdu Poetry". In Greene, Roland (ed.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th ed.). Princeton University Press.
Sadiq, Muhammad (1995) [1964]. A History of Urdu Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-563145-6.
Saksena, Ram Babu (1990) [1927]. A History of Urdu Literature. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 978-81-206-0616-6.
Sharma, Sunil (2020). "Forging a Canon of Dakhni Literature: Translations and Retellings from Persian". In Overton, Keelan (ed.). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700. Indiana University Press. pp. 401–420. ISBN 978-0-253-04894-3.
Zaidi, Ali Jawad (1993). A History of Urdu Literature. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 978-81-7201-291-5.

Life

Works

Notes

Works cited

Further reading