Mu'izzi

{{Infobox writer

| name = Mu'izzi

| image = Amir Mu'izzi (d. circa 1127), Divan, poetry, Persia, 19th Century.jpg

| caption = Manuscript of Amir Mu'izzi's divan. Copy created in 19th-century Qajar Iran

| birth_date = 1048/9

| birth_place = Nishapur, Seljuk Empire

| occupation = Poet

| death_date = 1125/7

| death_place =

| pseudonym =

| movement =

| children =

| relatives = Abd al-Malik Burhani (father)

}}

Amīr ash-Shu‘arā’ Abū Abdullāh Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Malik Mu‘izzī ({{langx|fa|امیرمعزی}}, romanized as Mu'ezzi) (born Nishapur 1048/9) was a poet who ranks as one of the great masters of the Persian panegyric form known as qasideh.

Mu'izzī's father, Abd al-Malik Burhani, was poet laureate of Sanjar under Malik Shāh I and Sultān Sanjar. His son followed, self-consciously, in his footsteps, styling himself as his father's deputy (nāyib) and inheriting his role.{{ref|granville}}A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 113. He was renowned both in his own time and to later scholarship.A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 113-14.

His surviving divan extends to 18,000 distichs. Anvari accuses Mu'izzi of copying the verses of other poets (which cannot be proven for certain), yet Anvari himself is known to have copied Mu'izzi's verses. Mu'izzi is said to have died by the arrow shot at him by the King's son in 1125 CE for reasons unknown. He was accidentally shot by Sanjar.{{ref|granville2}}

Life

Mu'izzi was of Persian{{cite book|last1=Donzel|first1=E. J. van|title=Islamic Desk Reference|date=1 January 1994|publisher=BRILL|isbn=90-04-09738-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/islamicdeskrefer00donz_0/page/291 291]|quote=Muizzi*, Muhammad b. Abd* al-Malik: Persian panegyrist of the Saljuq period and poet laureate of the Great Saljuqs Malik Shah II and Sanjar; 1049ca. 1125.|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/islamicdeskrefer00donz_0/page/291}} origin. He was born to Abd al-Malik Burhani, the renowned poet laureate (Amir al-Shoara) who sojourned at the courts of the Seljuk rulers Alp Arslan and Malik-Shah I.{{Encyclopædia Iranica Online|last=Davarpanah|first=Hormoz|title=MOʿEZZI NIŠĀBURI|url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/moezzi-nisaburi|year=2008}}

Work

Some of his poems were dedicated to his father's patrons. Not much is known of his father's work. Burhani died in Qazvin during the early years of Malik-Shah I's reign. Mu'izzi's claim to have succeeded his father as 'the nightingale's child', seemingly justified by a famous verse cited by Nizami Aruzi and Aufi, has been cast into doubt as lacunae and possible attribution of the line to another writer. Burhani's divan seems to have been lost early in history, and few references survive from anthologies or later works. Raduyani quotes Burhani once in Tarjuman ul-Balagha, but other than this, his name is absent from known works produced in later centuries, such as Rashid al-Din Vatvat's Hada'iq al-sihr and Shams-i Qays's al-Mujam. Both later works contain references to Mu'izzi, but none of his father. Mu'izzi himself quotes his father's work once, in a qasida for the deputy of Nizam al-Mulk.{{cite book |last=Tetley |first=Gillies |title=The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History |publisher=Routledge |date=2009 |page=91}}

Comparison with Farrukhi Sistani

Mu'izzi was an admirer of Unsuri and Farrukhi Sistani. His poems were composed in the panegyric tradition they established, which was later to be imitated by Sanai and others.{{cite book |last=Tetley |first=Gillies |title=The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History |publisher=Routledge |date=2009 |page=91}}

References

Sources

{{cite book |last1=Tetley |first=Gillies |title=The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134084388}}