Persian Literature at the Mughal Court

The Persian literary tradition of the Mughal court is one of the most extensive and influential of the early modern Persianate world. Persian — in its Indian form, sometimes called Farsi-ye-Hindi or Indo-Persian — served as the official language of the Mughal state, the medium of imperial administration, the literary idiom of high poetry, the diplomatic lingua franca connecting the Mughal court to the Safavids of Iran, the Uzbeks of Central Asia, and the Ottomans of Turkey, and the principal language of historical, biographical, religious, and scientific writing throughout the imperial period. The great Persian poets of the court — Faizi, Abu’l Fazl, Urfi Shirazi, Talib Amuli, Ghani Kashmiri, Kalim Kashani, Bedil, Sauda, Naziri Nishapuri, and many others — produced a body of poetry that is among the most distinguished of the wider Persian literary inheritance, and the great Persian chronicles of the court — the Akbarnama, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, the Padshahnama, the Ma’asir-i-Rahimi, the Alamgirnama, the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, the Tarikh-i-Firishta, the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, and many others — are among the most important historical and literary documents of the early modern world. The principal genres of the Persian literary tradition, the great poets of the court, the institutional setting of the mushaira and the kitab khana, the historiographical tradition, and the symbolic significance of Persian in the imperial ideology of the Mughals are treated in detail below.

Persian as the Court Language

The choice of Persian as the official language of the Mughal state was a direct inheritance from the Timurid and Turko-Mongol tradition of the dynasty. Babur, the founder of the dynasty, was a Central Asian prince of Timurid descent, and his mother tongue was the Chagatai Turki of the Timurid court. The Timurid cultural tradition, however, was deeply Persianised, and the Timurid court of Herat and Samarkand had been one of the principal centres of Persian literary production in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, particularly under the patronage of the sultan Husain Bayqara and the poet Mir Ali-Shir Nava’i, the great Chagatai Turki poet who was also a master of Persian verse. Babur himself, although his principal literary language was Turki, was deeply immersed in the Persian literary tradition, and the Babar-nama shows a wide familiarity with the Persian poets, particularly the Khamsa of Nizami Ganjavi and the Shahnameh of Firdausi.

The formal choice of Persian as the official language of the Mughal state was made by Humayun in the 1550s, and it was consolidated by Akbar in the 1560s and 1570s. The choice had a number of motivations: the Persian was the lingua franca of the wider Persianate world, the language of diplomacy, the language of high culture, the language of the Timurid and Safavid courts, and the language in which the imperial administration could most easily be carried on. The Mughal firmans, the wazir’s correspondence, the diplomatic letters to the Safavids, the Uzbeks, and the Ottomans, the records of the diwani offices, the imperial chronicles, the firman of the sadr-us-sudur, and the formal inscriptions of the imperial buildings were all in Persian. The Ain-i-Akbari of Abu’l Fazl records the formal arrangements of the imperial daftar khana, and Persian was the language of the imperial chancery.

The use of Persian as the court language had important cultural consequences. It connected the Mughal court to the wider Persianate world of Iran, Central Asia, and the Islamic Mediterranean, and it gave the Mughal court a recognised place in the wider Persian literary tradition. The great Persian poets of Iran and Central Asia, including the Sabk-i-Hindi (Indian style) poets, considered the Mughal court to be one of the principal centres of Persian literary patronage, and the mushaira tradition of the Mughal court, the formal poetry gathering, was a major institution of the wider Persianate literary world.

The Major Genres: Ghazal, Qasida, Masnavi, and Rubai

The principal genres of the Persian literary tradition of the Mughal court were the ghazal, the qasida, the masnavi, the rubai, the tarji-band, the tarikh, the maqamat, the insha, the safar-nama, the tazkira, the majalis, and the various technical manuals of music, astronomy, medicine, and natural science.

The Ghazal

The ghazal is the principal lyric form of the Persian poetic tradition, consisting of a series of bayts (couplets) of equal length, with the rhyme of the first bayt repeated in the second line of each subsequent bayt, and the final bayt, the maqta, typically containing the name of the poet. The ghazal of the Persian tradition is a poem of love, of wine, of mystical experience, of the natural world, and of the moral reflections of the poet, and the principal themes of the ghazal — the ishq (love) of the ashik, the wine of the sufi, the rose and the nightingale of the lyric, the dahr (time) of the moralist, the raz (mystery) of the mystic — were all developed in the Mughal court tradition. The ghazal of the Mughal court drew on the conventions of the classical Persian tradition of Hafiz Shirazi, Sa’di Shirazi, and Jami, and the great Mughal ghazal poets — Urfi, Bedil, Kalim, Sauda, and many others — were considered the peers of the Iranian masters.

The Qasida

The qasida is a more formal ode, typically panegyric in character, addressed to a patron, a ruler, or a religious figure, and consisting of a series of bayts with a single rhyme and a formal conclusion, the maqta. The qasida of the Persian tradition has a long and distinguished history, going back to the qasida of the pre-Islamic Arab tradition and the Persian poets of the Ghaznavid, Seljuk, and Timurid periods. The Mughal court qasida was a major poetic form, and the great court poets of the period — Faizi, Urfi, Talib, Kalim, Bedil, and others — were expected to produce qasidas on the principal ceremonial occasions: the imperial birthday, the Nauroz, the Eid, the wedding of a prince, the victory of a campaign, and the formal durbar assembly.

The Masnavi

The masnavi is a narrative poem in rhyming couplets, typically with a rhyming pattern of AA BB CC DD, and it is the principal narrative form of the Persian poetic tradition. The masnavi of the Persian tradition has a long and distinguished history, going back to the Shahnameh of Firdausi, the Khamsa of Nizami Ganjavi, the Mantiq-ut-Tayr of Attar, and the Masnavi of Rumi. The Mughal court masnavi tradition is particularly associated with the Nal-o-Daman of Faizi (a masnavi based on a Sanskrit source), the Sakinat al-Awliya of Amir Khusrau, and the various narrative masnavis of the imperial poets on the principal themes of the Persian epic tradition.

The Rubai

The rubai (or rubaiyat) is a quatrain, a poem of four lines, typically with the rhyme pattern AABA, and it is one of the most distinguished of the Persian lyric forms. The rubai tradition of the Persian world is associated with the great masters of the form — Khayyam, Attar, Sanai, and the other classical rubai poets — and the Mughal court poets produced a substantial body of rubais in the classical tradition.

The Tarikh and the Historical Writing

The tarikh (history) is Persian literary genres of the Mughal period, and the great chronicles of the imperial court — the Akbarnama, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, the Padshahnama, the Ma’asir-i-Rahimi, the Alamgirnama, the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, the Tarikh-i-Firishta, the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh — are among the most important historical and literary documents of the early modern world. The Persian tarikh of the Mughal court drew on the conventions of the classical Persian historical tradition — the Tarikh-i-Yamini of Utbi, the Tarikh-i-Jahan-Gusha of Juvaini, the Tarikh-i-Guzida of Hamdallah Qazvini, the Rauzat-us-Safa of Mirkhwand, the Habib-us-Siyar of Khwandamir — and the great Mughal chroniclers, including Abu’l Fazl, Abdul Qadir Badauni, Nizam-ud-din Ahmad, Firishta, Abdul Hamid Lahori, and Muhammad Waris, were considered among the most distinguished historians of the wider Persianate world.

The Major Poets of the Mughal Court

Faizi (1547–1595)

Faizi, the brother of Abu’l Fazl, served as the poet-laureate of Akbar’s court and was Persian and Arabic poets of the period. Faizi’s Nal-o-Daman, a Persian masnavi based on a Sanskrit source, is one of the most accomplished works of the literary tradition of the reign, and his Mahabharata translations, prepared in collaboration with the imperial maktab khana, are among the most important works of the translation movement. Faizi was awarded the title of Mulla and the Sabak of the imperial mushaira, and the mushaira of Faizi at the imperial court is described in the Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl.

Urfi Shirazi (1555–1590)

Urfi Shirazi, originally from Shiraz in Iran, was one of the most distinguished Persian ghazal and qasida poets of the late sixteenth century. Urfi joined the Mughal court in the 1580s and was patronised by Akbar, although his relationship with the court was marked by tensions with Faizi and Abu’l Fazl. Urfi’s ghazals and qasidas are considered among the most accomplished of the late sixteenth-century Persian tradition, and his Kulliyat (collected works) is a major document of the wider Persian poetic inheritance.

Bedil (1644–1720)

Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil, a Chagatai-Timurid poet of great originality, is generally considered the most distinguished Persian poet of the late Mughal period. He was associated with the court of Muhammad Shah, although he was famously indifferent to imperial patronage. Bedil’s Chahar Unsur, his Muhit-i-Azam, his various ghazal and qasida collections, and his philosophical prose works constitute one of the major achievements of late Indo-Persian poetry. The sabk-i-Hindi or “Indian style” of Persian poetry, of which Bedil is the most famous representative, was characterised by a complex and sometimes obscure vocabulary, a heavy use of Indian imagery, and a distinctive philosophical and mystical bent. Bedil’s influence on the later Persian poetry of the Indian subcontinent was substantial, and the sabk-i-Hindi of Bedil remained the dominant idiom of the Persian poetic tradition of the late Mughal period.

Ghani Kashmiri (d. 1669)

Ghani Kashmiri, originally from Kashmir, was one of the most distinguished Persian ghazal and masnavi poets of the seventeenth century. Ghani served as the poet-laureate of Shah Jahan’s court and was a major figure of the imperial mushaira. Ghani’s ghazals are characterised by their simplicity, their elegance, and their avoidance of the more obscure sabk-i-Hindi idiom of Bedil. Ghani’s masnavis include a Ramayana adaptation and a Mahabharata adaptation in the Persian tradition.

Kalim Kashani (d. 1651)

Kalim Kashani, originally from Kashan in Iran, was one of the most distinguished Persian ghazal and qasida poets of the seventeenth century. Kalim served as the poet-laureate of Shah Jahan’s court and was a major figure of the imperial mushaira. Kalim’s ghazals are characterised by their elegant simplicity, their use of the conventions of the classical Persian tradition, and their avoidance of the sabk-i-Hindi idiom of the period. Kalim’s Kulliyat is a major document of the seventeenth-century Persian poetic tradition.

Sauda (1713–1781)

Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda, originally from Delhi, was one of the most distinguished Urdu and Persian poets of the eighteenth century. Sauda’s qasidas and ghazals are among the most accomplished of the late Mughal Persian poetic tradition, and his Urdu and Persian letters, the insha tradition, are major documents of the insha of the late Mughal period. Sauda was a contemporary of Mir Taqi Mir, and the two are often considered the founders of the mature Urdu poetic tradition.

The Mushaira and the Patronage of Poets

The mushaira, the formal poetry gathering, was cultural institutions of the Mughal court. The mushaira brought together the leading Persian and Urdu poets of the period for a formal evening of poetry recitation, and the qasida and ghazal of the court poets were major literary events. The mushaira of Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan are described in the court chronicles, and the mushaira tradition continued under the Nawabs of Awadh, the Nizams of Hyderabad, and the later Mughal court at Delhi.

The Mughal court maintained a tradition of malka-shu’ara, or poet-laureate, and a number of the most distinguished poets of the period held this appointment or its equivalent. Faizi, Urfi, Talib, Ghani, Kalim, and Bedil were all associated with the imperial mushaira tradition, and the office of malka-shu’ara was a recognised position in the imperial household. The principal nobles of the imperial court — Asaf Khan, Mir Jumla II, Sa’dullah Khan, and others — also maintained their own mushairas and their own poets, and the mushaira tradition of the empire was extensive and well supported. The imperial karkhanas maintained a substantial body of sahibs (scribes) and naskh-navis (calligraphers), and the calligraphic tradition of the imperial mashq was a major element of the imperial cultural life.

The Symbolic Significance of Persian in the Imperial Ideology

The choice of Persian as the official language of the Mughal court had important symbolic consequences. Persian was the language of the wider Persianate world, and the use of Persian by the Mughal court signalled the dynasty’s place in the wider Persianate cultural inheritance. Persian was the language of the Timurid tradition, and the use of Persian by the Mughal court signalled the dynasty’s continuity with the Timurid cultural inheritance of Central Asia. Persian was the language of high poetry, of historical writing, of religious scholarship, and of diplomatic correspondence, and the use of Persian by the Mughal court signalled the cultural sophistication of the dynasty. The Persian literary tradition of the Mughal court was, in these senses, an essential element of the imperial ideology of the Mughals, and the great Persian poets of the court were among the most celebrated cultural figures of the empire.

The Persian literary tradition of the Mughal court declined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the Persian was progressively replaced by the Urdu and the regional vernaculars in the literary life of the empire, and as the imperial court itself contracted under the pressures of the post-Mughal period. Yet the Persian literary inheritance of the Mughals remained a major element of the cultural identity of the Muslim communities of the Indian subcontinent, and the great Persian poets of the court continued to be read and recited in the mushaira tradition of the South Asian Muslim community well into the modern period. The Persian literary tradition of the Mughal court, like the wider Mughal literary and linguistic tradition, remains one of the major chapters in the history of the literature of the early modern world.

Sources

Muzaffar Alam, The Mughals and the Sufis (2012), ch. 1.
Sheldon Pollock, ed., Literary Cultures in History (2003), ch. 6.

For the broader context of the literary and linguistic tradition, see the Mughal literature and languages page. The official chronicles of the imperial court are treated in greater detail in The Akbarnama and The Padshahnama. The development of Urdu as a literary language in the late Mughal period is treated in The origin and development of Urdu. The translation movement of Akbar’s reign, which produced a substantial body of Persian translations of Sanskrit works, is treated in the entries on Akbar and the Mughal culture overview. The painting tradition of the imperial atelier, which often illustrated the Persian manuscripts of the court, is treated on the Mughal art and miniature painting page. The religious and philosophical context of the Persian poetry of the court, particularly the Sufi themes of the ghazal and the masnavi, is examined in the Hindu-Muslim relations page.