Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Shah Kunjahi (b.

Kunjah Kunjah ( Punjabi and ur, ) is a city in Gujrat District of Punjab, Pakistan. History Various accounts date the founding of Kunjah anywhere from the 4th century BCE during the time of Alexander the Great to the 8th century CE. Kunjah is name ...

; d. c. 1695 CE) was a

Persian-language Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and u ...

poet and

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

in the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Biography

He belonged to the

Banu Hashim ) , type = Qurayshi Arab clan , image = , alt = , caption = , nisba = al-Hashimi , location = Mecca, Hejaz Middle East, North Africa, Horn of Africa , descended = Hashim ibn Abd Manaf , parent_tribe = Qu ...

family and was a descendant of Ali. Kunjahi primarily resided in his native village but also traveled to

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

, and

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. He followed the Ḳādiriyya Sufi order. Notable pieces include a poem praising

Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

and the Nayrang-i ʿishḳ ('Talisman of Love'), Kunjahi wrote in Persian using the sabk-i hindī style, characterized by a fondness for the

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

form and an interest in realistic and sometimes erotic themes. His works reflected complex imagery, themes, and syntax. a sentimental and romantic mathnawī poem set in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

during Kunjahi's time. In popular local memory, Kunjahi was remembered as a

miracle worker Thaumaturgy is the purported capability of a magician to work magic or other paranormal events or a saint to perform miracles. It is sometimes translated into English as wonderworking. A practitioner of thaumaturgy is a "thaumaturge", "thaumatu ...

associated with improving mental faculties, curing insanity, and aiding aspiring poets. His tomb was revered for its alleged powers, and it became a site for interring other poets, including

Shareef Kunjahi Sharif Kunjahi ( pa, (Shahmukhi)) (1914 – 2007) was a leading writer and poet of Punjabi. He was among the first faculty members of the Department of Punjabi Language at University of Punjab in the 1970s and contributed to Punjabi literatu ...

. The Bazm-i-Ghanimat literary organization in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

was named after him.

Studies

* A. Bausani, 'Indian Elements in the Indo-Persian Poetry: The Style of Ganimat Kunǧāhī', in ''Orientalia hispanica sive studia F.M. Pareja octogenario dicata'', ed. by J.M. Barral, Arabica-Islamica, 1 (Leiden 1974), pp. 105–19. * * Arun Singh, ''Black Light: Islamic Philosophical Themes from the Nayrang-e ‘Ishq'' (London: Buzurg Omid, 2013)n: Lewisohn, Leonard, (ed.), The Heritage of Sufism: III. Late Classical Persianate Sufism (1501 - 1750). Oxford: Oneworld Publications, pp. 435–463.

Editions

* ''Dīwān'', ed. Ghulām Rabbānī ʿAzīz (Lahore 1958) * ''Nayrang-i ʿishk'', ed. Ghulām Rabbānī ʿAzīz (Lahore: Panjabi Adabi Akademi, 1962)

References

{{authority control 1695 deaths Persian-language poets People from Gujrat District Mughal Empire poets