Abdul-Qader Bedil

Mawlānā Abul-Ma'ānī Mīrzā Abdul-Qādir Bēdil (or Bīdel) (Persian: مولانا ابوالمعانی عبدالقادر بیدل‎‎, Uzbek: 'Mirza Abdulqodir Bedil'), also known as Bīdel Dehlavī (1642–1720), was a famous representative of Dari poetry and Sufism in Afghanistan. He is considered the most difficult and challenging poet of Safavid-Mughal poetry.

Even though he is known as a master of Persian poetry, Bīdel was actually of Turkic Central Asian descent, his family originally belonging to the Arlās tribe of the Chaghatay, regarded by some as part of the Uzbek people. He was born in Azīmābād, present-day Patna in India.

Bīdel mostly wrote Ghazal and Rubayee (quatrain) in Dari-Persian, the language of the Royal Court, which he had learned since childhood. He is the author of 16 books of poetry, which contain nearly 147,000 verses and include several masnavi) in that language. He is considered as one of the prominent poets of Indian School of Poetry in Persian literature, and owns his unique Style in it. Both Mirza Ghalib and Iqbal-e Lahori were influenced by him. His books include Telesm-e Hairat (طلسم حيرت), Toor e Ma'refat (طور معرفت), Chahār Unsur (چهار عنصر) and Ruqa'āt (رقعات).

Possibly as a result of being brought up in such a mixed religious environment, Bīdel had considerably more tolerant views than his poetic contemporaries. He preferred freethought to accepting the established beliefs of his time, siding with the common people and rejecting the clergy who he often saw as corrupt.

Upon his emergence as a poet, Bīdel gained recognition throughout the Iranian cultural continent. has been much welcomed in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. Bīdel came back to prominence in Iran in 1980s. Literary critics Mohammad-Reza Shafiei-Kadkani and Shams Langrudi were instrumental in Bīdel's re-emergence in Iran. Iran also sponsored two international conferences on Bīdel.

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Wikipedia