Amir Khusro

Ab’ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253 – 1325) (Persian: ابوالحسن یمین الدین خسرو‎, Urdu: ابوالحسن یمین‌الدین خسرو‬‎), better known as Amīr Khusrow Dehlavī, was a Sufi musician, poet and scholar from the Indian subcontinent. He was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. He was a mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi. He wrote poetry primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi. A vocabulary in verse, the Ḳhāliq Bārī, containing Arabic, Persian, and Hindavi terms is often attributed to him. Khusrow is sometimes referred to as the “voice of India” (Tuti-e-Hind), and has been called the “father of Urdu literature.”

Khusrow is regarded as the “father of qawwali” (a devotional music form of the Sufis in the Indian subcontinent), and introduced the ghazal style of song into India, both of which still exist widely in India and Pakistan. Khusrow was an expert in many styles of Persian poetry which were developed in medieval Persia, from Khāqānī’s qasidas to Nizami’s khamsa. He used 11 metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He wrote in many verse forms including ghazal, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band. His contribution to the development of the ghazal was significant.