THE BOOK OF MIR Selected Poems of Mir Taqi Mir Translation and Introduction Paul Smith Mir Taqi Mir (1723 - 1810) was the leading Urdu poet of the eighteenth century and one of the pioneers of Urdu. He was one of the principal poets of the Delhi school of the Urdu ghazal. He was born in Agra and left for Delhi after the death of his father whose emphasis on the importance of love and the value of compassion remained with him, imbuing his poetry. At Delhi he finished his education and joined a group of nobles as a court-poet. At 17 he had a mental break-down and suffered from bouts of madness...

MIR: LIFE & POEMS Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Mir Taqi Mir (1723 - 1810) was the leading Urdu poet of the eighteenth century and one of the pioneers of Urdu. He was one of the principal poets of the Delhi school of the Urdu ghazal. He was born in Agra and left for Delhi after the death of his father whose emphasis on the importance of love and the value of compassion remained with him, imbuing his poetry. At 17 he had a mental break-down and suffered from bouts of madness all his life. After the sack of Delhi he eventually moved to the court in Lucknow where he stayed for the...

THE BOOK OF BIDEL DEHLAVI Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Mirza Abdul-Qader Bidel (1644-1721) is one of the most respected poets from Afghanistan. In the early 17th century, his family moved from Balkh to India, to live under the Mughul dynasty. He was born and educated near Patna but spent most of his life in Dehli. In his later life he spent time travelling and visiting ancestral lands. His writings in Persian are extensive, being one of the creators of the 'Indian style'. Bidel's 16 books of poetry contain nearly 147,000 couplets. With Ghalib he is considered a master of the 'Indian...

THE ARABIC QASIDA An Anthology Translations & Introduction Paul Smith The qasida is a form of praise poetry that dates from pre-Islamic Arabia and was still composed by Sufi and other poets in Arabic up to today. Here is the largest anthology of this epic form of poetry in the Arabic language spanning 13 centuries. It sometimes runs to 50 couplets and one by Ibn al-Farid to more than 700. It was later inherited by the Persians, Turks, Afghans and Urdu Poets where it was developed by Sufi, court and tribal poets. The qasida resembles a ghazal in many ways except that it is longer. In the first...

THE BOOK OF LESSER-KNOWN URDU SUFI POETS Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Some of the greatest and most memorable spiritual poems of all time have been composed in the Urdu language apart from Mir, Nazir, Ghalib, Iqbal, by their lesser-known Sufi poets and most are contained in this anthology. CONTENTS: The Urdu Language... page 7, Urdu Poetry... 10, The Ghazal in Urdu Poetry... 16, Ghazal Singing in India & Pakistan... 25, The Ruba'i in Urdu Poetry... 27, The Masnavi and other forms in Urdu Poetry... 32, Glossary for Sufi & Dervish Urdu Poetry... 35. THE POETS... Qutub Shah 41, Wali 47,...

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

TWO GREAT ARABIC SUFI POETS IBN AL-FARID & 'AISHAH AL-BA'UNIYAH Their Qasidas in the Rhyme of 'T' Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Umar Ibn al-Farid, an Egyptian poet (1181-1235), is considered to be the undisputed master of Islamic mystical or Sufi poetry into Arabic. He is considered not only to be a poet but a Perfect Master (Qutub) a God-realised soul... and it is his journey to unity with God that he reveals in probably the longest qasida (ode) in Arabic (761 couplets), his famous The Mystic's Way or Qasida in the Rhyme of 'T'. 'Aishah al-Ba'uniyah (1457 - 1517) came from the...

ANGELUS SILESIUS THE CHRISTIAN-MYSTIC SUFI POET A Selection of Rhyming Couplets from the Cherubinic Wanderer Translation and Preface by Paul Smith Angelus Silesius was a mystic of the Counter-Reformation. He was born Johannes Scheffler in 1624 in the province of Silesia, Poland. In 1653, he converted to Catholicism from Lutheranism and spent the rest of his life avidly trying to reconvert the people of Silesia. Today, however, he is known primarily for his mystical poetry, which was written in the form of 1676 'Alexandrines', which are simple rhymed couplets published as The Cherubinic...