BADRĪ KAŠMĪRĪ

 

BADRĪ KAŠMĪRĪ, BADR-AL-DĪN ʿABD-AL-SALĀM B. EBRĀHĪM ḤOSAYNĪ, a Persian poet in India in the second half of the 10th/16th century. He was an adherent of the Naqšbandī order and a disciple of one of its masters, Ḵᵛāja Moḥammad Eslām, at whose instance he composed most of his poems. In the ornate prose preface of his versified story of Alexander (Qeṣṣa-ye Ḏu’l-qarnayn), he states that in the years 976/1568-988/1580 he had written maṯnawīs, qaṣīdas, ḡazals, and prose works entitled Meʿrāj al-kāmelīn, Rawżat al-jamāl, and Serāj al-ṣāleḥīn, that he had compiled a dīvān of his qaṣīdas and ḡazals, and that subsequently in 988/1580 he had planned a collection of seven narrative poems in maṯnawī verse, namely Manbaʿ al-ašʿār on the model of Neẓāmī’s Maḵzan al-asrār, Mātam-sarā on that of ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭeq al-ṭayr, Zohra o Ḵᵛoršīd on that of Sanāʾī’s Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa, Šamʿ-e delafrūz on that of Amīr Ḵosrow’s Ḵosrow o Šīrīn, Maṭlaʿ al-fajr on that of Jāmī’s Sobḥat al-abrār, Laylī o Majnūn on that of Hātefī’s Laylī o Majnūn, and Rosol-nāma on that of Saʿdī’s Būstān; the collection was entitled Baḥr al-awzān, and he had completed the seventh piece (i.e., the Rosol-nāma) in 989/1581, using the motaqāreb meter and drawing materials from different historical sources such as the annals of Ṭabarī, the history of Ebn Aʿṯam Kūfī, the Jāmeʿ al-tawārīḵ of Rašīd-al-Dīn Fażl-Allāh, the Tārīḵ-egozīda of Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfī, the Żafar-nāma of Šaraf-al-Dīn Yazdī, etc. Badrī Kašmīrī’s Qeṣṣa-ye Ḏu’l-qarnayn or Eskandar-nāma runs to 7,000 verses and is dedicated to the Uzbek ruler ʿAbd-Allāh II (991/1583-1006/1597); it is a mediocre work of little substance, being limited to rapid recitation of events with none of the artistic coloring or attention to scenes and moods usually to be found in Persian narrative poems.

 

Bibliography:

Badr-al-Dīn Kašmīrī, Qeṣṣa-ye-Ḏu’l-qarnayn, the poet’s preface, ms., Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Suppl. 501.

E. Blochet, Cat. Bib. Nat. III, pp. 352-54, s.v. Eskandar-nāma. Nafīsī, Naẓm o naṯr I, pp. 444-45.

Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V/2, Tehran, 1364 Š./1985, pp. 713-17.

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badree kashmeeree badry kashmery badry kashmeery  

 

(Z. Safa)

Originally Published: December 15, 1988

Last Updated: August 22, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 4, p. 383