Persian Language and Literary Studies in the Indian Subcontinent (3): The Qaṣīdas of Muṭahhar

This article is an abridged translation of two studies by Habib al-Rahman Sherwani entitled “Qaṣāʾid-i Muṭahhar,” originally published in the journal Ma‛ārif in 1935. The author introduces a manuscript containing the qaṣīdas of Muṭahhar (d. ca. 790 AH), an Indian poet who wrote in Persian, copies of which were discovered in Lucknow and at Aligarh Muslim University. Dating from the ninth century AH, the manuscript comprises seventy qaṣīdas, together with tarkīb-bands and musammaṭs, and preserves a relatively complete and reliable corpus of the poet’s works. Drawing on biographical anthologies (tadhkiras) and Muṭahhar’s own poetry, the author reconstructs aspects of his life. Muṭahhar was a court intimate of Fīrūz Shāh Tughluq, held a jāgīr, was a scholar and teacher, and was a devoted disciple of Shaykh Naṣīr al-Dīn Chirāgh-i Dihlawī. His poetry is praised for its creative power, fluency, imaginative elevation, and unaffected style, and is compared with the works of such poets as Saʿdī, Khāqānī, and Amīr Khusraw. The author also examines Muṭahhar’s treatment of everyday life, financial concerns, conflicts with religious opponents, and descriptions of horses, wine, and nature, as well as the philosophical and ethical themes found in his poetry. The second part of the article offers new observations concerning the poet’s lifespan (ca. 716–790 AH), his request that his jāgīr be transferred to his children, his Indian origin, and his elegies for Shaykh Chirāgh-i Dihlawī and Shams al-Dīn. The study demonstrates that Muṭahhar was an accomplished yet little-known poet of the pre-Timurid period whose works merit renewed recognition and scholarly attention.