Qasim-i Anvar

Qasim Anwar, Sayyid Mu’in al-Din, Safi al-Din ‘Ali (1356-1431/1433/1434), son of Nasir. A Sufi, mystic, and poet with the nom de plume Qasim or Qasimi, better known as Shah Qasim Anwar. His family were Sayyids from Tabriz and he was a disciple of Shaykh Safi al-Din Ardabili aa most distinguished Sufi Shaykh. Born in Sarab, he departed for Tabriz in his youth to study and became a disciple of Shaykh Sadr al-Din Musa, Shaykh Safi al-Din’s son and successor whom he mentions as Sadr-i Wilayat (lit. the most distinguished personality in the land). Later, Qasim traveled to Gilan and established friendly relations with the successors of Shaykh Zahid Gilani. Then, he traveled to Khurasan and settled in Herat where he found a name for himself and attracted numerous disciples. He was sent into exile from Herat to Samarqand on political charges in 1426, but he returned after some years to Khurasan and settled in the village of Kharjird Jam, also reported as the village of Langar, in the district of Nishabur, where he died at the age of 80. His tomb was constructed at the behest of Amir ‘Alishir Nawa’i. It is reported that he went on pilgrimage to Mecca four times on foot and made two of them barefoot. According to reliable sources, he died in 1433, though the date is recorded as 1433 in Jami’s Nafahat al-Uns, 1431 in Dawlatshah’s Tazkirat al-Shu’ara’, 1433 in Ghiyath al-Din Mirkhwand’s Habib al-Siyar, 1431 in Fakhri Hirawi’s biographical account in Majalis al-Nafa’is, and 1433 in the biographical account of Hakim Shah Muhammad. He wielded great sway among Sufis and the public and reportedly wrought wonders. Owing to the words which he uttered in his ecstatic and mystical states, he was condemned as an apostate by some biased Muslims oalthough accusation might have been instigated by some of his contemporaries who were envious of his wide sway among the public. His works include Kulliyyat, viz. complete works, comprising of the mathnawis of Anis al-‘Arifin in 583 couplets in the meter of ramal musaddas; Sad Maqam, also known as Maqamat al-‘Arifin, Maqamat al-Salikin, or Tazkirat al-Awliya’ on the Sufi terminology and spiritual states; the account of meeting with Amir Timur; ghazals, qit’as, and bi-lingual poetry in Gilaki and Turkish, and quatrains; Risala-yi Su’al wa Jawab; Risala dar Bayan-i ‘Ilm; Risalat al-Amana. Numerous manuscripts of his Kulliyyat are available which was published by Sa’id Nafisi in Tehran in 1958. The most significant and most famous works of his are his ghazals which include mystical themes and above all resemble those by Rumi. In these ghazals he does not follow ghazal poets who were in quest of delicate themes, novel similes and metaphors, and imaginative metonymies and allusions depicting their own states, the beloved and their attributes, but he expresses fluently the spiritual states of a true mystic in quest of truth. The significance of his simple mathnawis lie in expressing Sufi doctrines and terminology and as it was the common practice, they have been expressed by anecdotes in harmony with themes. Fluent and simple expression, as particularly reflected in Anis al-‘Arifin, is the most elegant of poetic adornments distinguishing them from lyrical mathnawis intermingled with depictions or those imbued with highly ornate mathnawis intertwined with obsolete and literary diction.

Asar-afarinan (1/ 322); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (4/ 252-264); Nafahat al-Uns (590-593).