EFTEḴĀR DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-WAHHĀB BOḴĀRĪ

 

EFTEḴĀR DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-WAHHĀB BOḴĀRĪ (b. Ahmadnagar, date unknown, d. Dawlatābād, 1190/1776; Malkāpūrī, pp. 205-09), Deccani biographer and poet in Urdu and Persian. According to his own account (Taḏkera-ye bīnaẓīr, pp. 33-34; cf. Belgrāmī, pp. 241-42), he was born and spent his early years in the Neẓāmšāhī capital, Ahmadnagar (q.v.), but later moved to Dawlatābād. After completing his studies in Persian and Arabic, theology, law, and medicine, he practiced as a physician. He also became interested in poetry and studied with Āzād Belgrāmī (q.v.; Taḏkera-ye bīnaẓīr, pp. 1-15).

Efteḵār seems to have spent his early adult years in poverty, but in 1182/1768 he was a courtier of the Deccani chief Ašjaʿ-al-Dawla Ḡoyūr Jang (ʿAlī-Ḥasan, pp. 301-02).He was buried in the shrine of Borhān-al-Dīn Ḡarīb in Dawlatābād.

Efteḵār’s poetry in both Persian and Urdu is not of the first rank (for some examples, see Malkāpūrī, pp. 205-09). He is best known for Taḏkera-ye bīnaẓīr (ed. S. Manṣūr ʿAlī, Allahabad, 1940), a prose work of 1172/1758 comprising biographical notices on 135 Persian poets who lived in Persia and the Indian subcontinent in the last decade of the 17th century and the first six decades of the 18th; eighteen are unknown from previously published compendia (p. 9; cf. Golčīn-e Maʿānī, Taḏkerahā I, pp. 194-203).

 

Bibliography: (For cited works not given in this bibliography and abbreviations given here, see “Short References.”)

ʿAlī-Ḥasan Khan, Ṣobḥ-e golšan, Bhopal, 1295/1878. Āzād Belgrāmī, Sarv-e āzād,Hyderabad, Deccan, pp. 241-43.

ʿA. J. Khan Malkāpūrī (Maḥbūb-al-Zamān), Taḏkera-ye šoʿarā-ye Dakan, Hyderabad, Deccan, 1320/1902. Storey, II, p. 854.

(S. Moinul Haq)

Originally Published: December 15, 1998

Last Updated: December 9, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 3, pp. 245-246