Mushafi Gholam Hamdani

Mushafi Gholam Hamdani , who is considered to be one of the masters of classical Urdu ghazal. He was born in Akbarpur in Amroha district in the year 1750. He studied in Delhi where he began his poetry but later on migrated to Lucknow in 1783 having gained the patronage of Mirza Sulaiman Shikoh. He died in Lucknow. Before his time Urdu was known as Hindu, Hindoi, Dakni or Rekhta, Mashafi was the first person to simply call this language Urdu.He migrated to Lucknow during the reign of Asaf-ud-Daula; he was a prolific writer whose ghazals are full of pathos.

Mus’hafi’s works remained uncollected and unpublished for about a hundred fifty years after his death and were preserved in the form of manuscripts in various libraries.  His eight divans in Urdu and two in Persian, as well as his eighty six qasidas , twenty mathnawis, three tazkiras—Aqd-e Surraiya, Tazkira-i-Hindi, and Riyaz-ul-Fasha--and an incomplete and unpublished miscellany of his Arabic and Persian poetry and prose writings called Majma-ul-Fawaayid, bear witness to his creative potential and remarkable pedantry. A mentor of many poets of his age, Mushafi echoed several masters of the past whose poetry he admired but worked incessantly to develop his own poetics by blending multiple influences in a harmonious whole of his poetic oeuvre.  

There are ten collections of his poems extant today but it is believed that he used to allow others for a consideration to publish his poems under their own authorship.His personal life lacked discipline; his poetry reflects a level of sensuality. He excelled in lyrics but also composed odes and romances.

***********************