Saib

Mirza Muhammad Ali Saib Tabrizi (1592–1669), poet laureate at the Safavid court, was one of the most celebrated Persian poets and the outstanding master of the Indian style. His inventiveness, subtle imagination, and fresh approach to poetic themes were so influential that later critics called him the king of the Indian style. Some even referred to his particular manner as the style of Saib.

Like many writers of his generation, Saib travelled to India as a young man and remained there for several years, absorbing the literary and intellectual culture of the subcontinent. He later returned to Iran, joined the court of Shah Abbas II, and was appointed poet laureate.

Saib wrote on a remarkable scale. Estimates of the size of his work vary, but modern scholars generally accept a figure close to one hundred thousand verses. He is known above all for his ghazals, which make up the greater part of his surviving poetry. He also wrote qasidas, masnavis, qit‘as, and other forms, but the ghazal is where his art finds its fullest expression. A small number of ghazals in Azerbaijani Turkish also survive.

His poetry is distinguished by finely drawn ideas, intricate themes, memorable images, and an ability to turn the experience of daily life into polished verse. Many of his lines have entered Persian literary memory as familiar sayings.

Saib died in Isfahan in 1669. His tomb stands in the city’s Abbasabad quarter.