Jami

Biography

Nur al-Din Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414–1492 CE) was an Iranian poet, mystic, scholar, and writer of the 15th century, born in Khorasan and spending most of his life in Herat during the Timurid cultural flowering. He is often called the 'seal of the poets,' the last great master of the classical Persian tradition: a versatile author who produced significant work in poetry and prose, mysticism, grammar, prosody, and the religious sciences. His best-known verse collection is the Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones), comprising seven mathnavis including Yusuf o Zulaykha and Salaman o Absal; in mystical prose he wrote the Nafahat al-Uns (lives of the Sufis) and the Lawa'ih, and he was a leading expositor of Ibn Arabi's thought, with close ties to the Naqshbandi order. Jami was esteemed at the court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara and by the literary patron Ali-Shir Nava'i, and his fame reached the Ottoman and Indian courts. A notable nuance is that his standing is assessed two ways: the earlier literary tradition treats him as the apex of classical perfection, while some later critics regard his work as more masterly and synthetic-imitative than innovative — the close of an era rather than the opening of a new path.

Related entities

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Jāmi i. Life and Works"
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Jami"
• Hamid Algar, Jami (Makers of Islamic Civilization, 2013)