From the thirteenth to the fourteen century, two Persian poets of Indian background changed literary history. The most famous is Amir Khusrow, who has attained iconic status in South Asian historiography. The second is Amir Khusrow's friend, rival, and contemporary, Hasan Sijzi, whose work has almost been forgotten, except by devotees of classical Persian poetry. (Although in Central Asia, where the longest standing tradition of modern scholarship exists [see Salmatshoeva], and South Asia, where Hasan's poetry has until recently been neglected, scholars have begun to rediscover the founder of the South Asian ghazal [see Borah; Jahan 1998]). Although Hasan's fame does not approach that of Amir Khusrow, many medieval Persian poets acknowledged Hasan to be superior to Amir Khusrow in the domain of the ghazal, a genre introduced to South Asia. Amir Khusrow himself was among Hasan's admirers; he acknowledged the inspiration he drew from his fellow poet:
Khusrow, your poetry contains the secrets of speech
but your words breathe Hasan's poetry.
Shibli Numani, arguably the most famous modern Urdu critic, offered much the same praise to Hasan as a poet who surpassed Amir Khusrow in the domain of the ghazal (Numani 1: 131). Concerning Hasan's prose recollections of the Sufi Shaikh Nizam al-Din Awliya, entitled Fawa'id al-Fuwad (Morals of the Heart), Amir Khusrow was even more enthusiastic:
If only all my writings were inscribed with the name of Hasan
if only Hasan's book would be inscribed with my name.
In addition to his many ghazals, Hasan also composed a verse narrative called Ishqnama (Love). This narrative tells the story of a Muslim man who falls in love with a Hindu girl. Contrary to the common practice of widowers burning themselves on pyres when their husband died, the Muslim man in this particular narrative burns to death on a pyre after his wife's death. Until Amir Khusrow and Hasan Sijzi, such tales had never been part of Persian literature. These two Delhi poets Indianized Persian, and thereby influenced the future of Indo-Persian literary culture.
Morals of the Heart testifies to Hasan's preference for keeping a distance from courtly life. Like Amir Khusrow, but to an even greater extent, Hasan severed his connections with the court late in his life. From 1307 onwards, Hasan completely broke with the Khalji court and turned to Shaikh Nizam al-Din Awliya as his spiritual guide. He eventually moved to Dawlatabad, a city in southern India to which Mohammad Tughluq had moved his capital in 1327, with the intention, according to one scholar, of "preaching Islam" (Jahan 1998: 9). Hasan died just under three decades later and was buried in Khuldabad in the district of Aurangabad in modern-day Maharashtra.
Called the Sa'di of Hindustan even during his lifetime, after the most famous Persian poet and didacticist of the thirteenth century, Hasan's ghazals probe the depths of human condition, asking what it means to love, to die, and to be born. Their meaning is frequently as ambiguous as the gender of the beloved (Persian does not distinguish between male and female pronouns; I have chosen to translate the neutral third person by "she" though the beloved Hasan had in mind may well have been male). But even and especially when their precise referents are ambiguous, these ghazals seek, and sometimes find, that space where language overcomes mortality. (Rebecca Gould)
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