Dramatis Personae (Major Figures and Works) Sirāj al-Dīn ‘Alī Khān “Ārzū” (1689–1756 AD/1101–69 AH) Born to a lineage of learned men descended from Shaykh Chiragh Dihlavi and Shaykh Muhammad Ghaws Gwaliori Shattari, Arzu was raised and edu- cated in Gwalior and Agra. In 1719–20 AD/1132 AH, he moved to Delhi, where he was at the center of scholarly and literary circles. An illustrious scholar, teacher, and poet, he wrote literary treatises, commentaries, poetic collections (dīvāns), and the voluminous commemorative biographical compendium (tazkirih), Majma‘ al-Nafa’is (1750–51 AD/1164 AH) centered on Timurid Hin- dustan. He was teacher to many Persian and Urdu poets, and his position on proper idiomatic innovation was central to the development of north In- dian Urdu poetic culture. Arzu’s main patron was Muhammad Shah’s khān-i sāmān, Mu’tamin al-Dawlih Ishaq Khan Shushtari, and then his eldest son, Najam al-Dawlih Ishaq Khan. Through Ishaq Khan’s second son, Salar Jang, Arzu moved to Lucknow under Shuja‘ al-Dawlih’s patronage in 1754–55, as part of the migration of literati seeking patronage in the regional courts after Muhammad Shah’s death. Arzu died soon after in 1756, and his body was transported back to Delhi for burial. xvi Dramatis Personae Mīr Ghulām ‘Alī “Āzād” Bilgrāmī (1704–86 AD/1116–1200 AH) He was a noted poet, teacher, and scholar (of Persian and Arabic). Born into a scholarly family of sayyids in the Awadhi town of Bilgram, his initial edu- cation was with his father and his grandfather, Mir ‘Abd al-Jalil Bilgrami. In his youth he traveled between Bilgram and Sindh (via Lahore and Delhi) in the employ of his uncle, the imperial chronicler (vaqā‘ nigār) of Sihvan. In 1738 Azad went to the Hijaz for hajj and to study hadith. After his re- turn in 1739, he settled in Aurangabad. There he was a participant of the Nakhshbandi Sufi lodge takiyyih)( , initially patronized by Nizam al-Mulk’s second son. He authored hadith commentaries, literary treatises, and poetry in both Arabic and Persian. During his time in Aurangabad, he was at the center of tazkirih production. Besides his own three tazkirihs, Yad-i Bayza (1732 AD/1145 AH); Ma’asir al-Kiram (1752–53 AD/1166 AH), the second part of which is Sarv-i Azad; and Khizanih-yi ‘Amirih (1763–64 AD/1176 AH), he also rescued and completed his friend Shahnavaz Khan Aurangabadi’s tazkirih of Timurid office holders, the well-known Ma’asir al-Umara, after the author’s death. Azad trained a number of students, including Shafiq Aurangabadi. He eventually relocated to Dawlatabad, where he continued his scholarly pursuits until his death. He was buried in Khuldabad. Lutf ‘Alī “Āzar” Baygdilī (1722–80 AD/1134–95 AH) Born in Isfahan, Azar fled with his Shāmlū family to Qum for fourteen years after the Afghan invasion, which occurred in the year of his birth. In 1736, Azar’s father was appointed governor of Lar (in place of the governor whose murder caused Hazin to flee to Hindustan) and then Fars, bringing the fam- ily to Shiraz. After his father’s death in 1738, Azar accompanied his uncle on hajj, by way of the Shi‘a shrine cities. Nadir Shah’s army was returning from Hindustan in 1741 (with Kashmiri in tow). Azar accompanied Nadir’s army to Mazandaran, Azarbayjan, and ‘Iraq-i ‘ajam, eventually settling in Isfahan. He spent the next years in service to various rulers of the city, frequenting circles of the eloquent and learned there and in Shiraz, in particular those of his teacher, Mir Sayyid ‘Ali “Mushtaq.” In the years that followed, he made Dramatis Personae xvii enough of a name for himself to be known in Delhi. Eventually, he retired to Qum in the 1760s, where he wrote poetry and his famed tazkirih, the Atashka- dih (begun in 1760–61 AD/1174 AH, with additions until 1779 AD/1193 AH). He died in 1780. Āqā Ahmad Bihbahānī (1777–1819) Aqa Ahmad was descended from the late Safavid Shaykh al-Islam of Isfa- han, Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, and related by descent or marriage to other great Shi‘a juris-consults (mujtahids) of late eighteenth-century Iraq, such as Vahid Bihbahani and Sayyid ‘Ali Tabataba’i. Born in Kermanshah, educated in the Iraqi shrine cities, he traveled extensively in Iran, studying and seeking patronage before traveling to Hindustan in 1805. He circulated through port cities and regional centers, such as Bombay, Hyderabad, Murshidabad (where he had relatives), Faizabad, Lucknow, and Patna, where he finally found pa- tronage under the East India Company as Friday prayer leader. He wrote his Mir’at al-Ahval before returning to Iran in 1810. The text is dedicated to the Qajar prince Mohammad ‘Ali Mirza Dawlatshah (1789–1821), though he purposefully left multiple copies in Patna. Joseph Emin (1726–1809) Born in Hamadan to a merchant family, Emin circulated with his merchant family through Iran and Iraq-i ‘arab (Hamadan, Gilan, Baghdad, Basra) be- fore finally settling in Calcutta. He grew up largely in the care of his pious grandfather, who was also responsible for his education. He arrived in Cal- cutta when he was seventeen. There he began learning English, though he ultimately rejected his family’s vocation and fled to England in1751 , where he charmed his way into elite circles, received military training, and made the ostensible liberation of an Armenian homeland a celebrated cause. His patrons and correspondents included Dukes of Northumberland and Cum- berland, Lady Montague, and Edmund Burke. He traveled three times to the Caucasus over the next two decades to achieve his goal. After these failed attempts to inspire the Armenian Catholicos, Georgian Prince Heraclius, or most of the Armenian merchant community, Emin finally settled in New xviii Dramatis Personae Julfa Isfahan, where he married. When Karim Khan died in 1779, Emin re- turned to Calcutta, where he found himself marginalized by the East India Company’s increasingly exclusionary governance policies. He wrote a mem- oir of his life and times in English in Calcutta (1788), which was republished in London (1792 and later reissued in 1918). Shaykh Muhammad ‘Alī “Hazīn” Lāhījī (1692–1766 AD/1103–80 AH) Though born and raised in Isfahan, Hazin identified himself according to his father’s birthplace of Lahijan. At the age of twenty, he traveled through Iraq-i ‘ajam and Fars to expand his education. He lived through the Afghan siege of Isfahan, though he lost many family, friends, and possessions. Afterward, he traveled incessantly between the lands of western and central Iran (‘Iraq-i ‘ajam), Mesopotamia (‘Iraq-i ‘arab) and the Hijaz, never remaining in one place for more than a couple of years. His alleged involvement in the assassination of Nadir Shah’s governor in Lar resulted in his voyage to Timurid Hindustan in 1734. He spent various periods of time in Sindh and the Punjab, particularly in Lahore. After a notorious decade in Delhi, where he alienated many politi- cal and learned elites, Hazin resettled in Benares in the year of Muhammad Shah’s death (1748) and lived out the rest of his days. He ostensibly wrote three dīvāns in Iran before migrating, though all are lost. His fourth dīvān was writ- ten in India, and collected by his companion and patron, Valih Daghistani, in 1742–43 AD/1155 AH. He wrote a memoir of his life and times, which came to be called Tazkirat al-Ahval (1742 AD/1154 AH). His narrowly focused Tazkirat al-Mu‘asirin was completed (1752 AD/1165 AH) soon after his move to Bena- res, where he was warmly received by its ruler, Raja Balvant Singh. During that time he taught a number of Hindu and Muslim students, including Raja Ram Nara’in (later governor of Patna), Sher Afgan Khan “Basiti,” Kumar Chet Singh, Shaykh Gulshan ‘Ali Jaunpuri, Ghulam Husayn Tabataba’i, and Tafaz- zul Husayn Khan. He is buried in Benares in a tomb of his own design. Mirzā Abū Tālib Khān Isfahānī (1752–1806) Born in Lucknow to a migrant father from Isfahan and mother from a Dramatis Personae xix well-established Mughal family, both in service to the second Navvab of Luc- know, Safdar Jang. Due to a change in political fortunes the family fled to Murshidabad in 1766. After serving in an administrative capacity there, Abu Talib returned to Lucknow after the rise of Asaf al-Dawlih and then moved to Calcutta in 1787, where soon after he met ‘Abd al-Latif Shushtari. His taz- kirih, Khulasat al-Afkar (1208 AH/1793–94 AD), focuses on the genre of masnavī (narrative verse). He also authored scientific treatises, adīvān , a masnavī, and historical works. In Calcutta, he entered into the employ of the East India Company, under whose auspices he traveled to London in 1799. On his return journey, he disembarked at Istanbul and traveled overland to the Iraqi shrine cities. His travel text, Masir-i Talibi, was written after his return in 1803. Khvājih ‘Abd al-Karīm Kashmīrī (d. 1784) Originally from Kashmir, he was a resident of Delhi at the time of Nadir Shah’s conquest (1739). He accompanied Nadir’s army as a functionary (mutasaddī) to Iran via Turan. He parted ways from Nadir’s army in Qazvin (1741) and made his way to the Iraqi shrine cities and then onto the Hijaz to perform hajj. He returned via ship to Bengal (1742) and resettled in Delhi. Written soon after his return (though ongoingly added to for decades), Bayan-i vaqi‘ provides an account of Nadir Shah’s rise and invasion, Kash- miri’s travels and pilgrimage, and the high politics of the Mughal kingdom from the 1740s up through his death.