Amin Ahmad Razi (), was the author of the ''
Haft eqlim'' (), a Persian geographical and biographical encyclopedia composed in 1593–94.
Amin Razi was born in
Ray, Persia into a prestigious family; his father was
Ahmad Tehrani, the mayor of Ray by appointment of
Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576). His paternal uncle was
Khvajeh Mohammad-Sharif
Khvajeh Mohammad-Sharif () was a Persian people, Persian statesman, who occupied the post of vizier of several Safavid Iran, Safavid provinces. He was also a poet, who wrote under the pen name Hejri ().
Biography
Mohammad-Sharif was a native of ...
, a poet and minister to the governor of
Khorasan and later to the Shah.
Amin Razi states that he completed his encyclopedia in AH 1002 (1593/4) after six years of work, although the work as extant includes additions of younger date. His dates of birth and death are unknown. He may have visited
Mughal India during the reign of
Akbar
Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
.
''Haft eqlim'' (also ''Haft iqlīm'') provides extensive historical, biographical and topographical information, arranged by "clime", i.e. the major division of the known world by geographic latitude according to Ptolemy.
The total number of biographies in the work is 1,560, in many cases giving more detail than those found in medieval works such as
Lubab ul-Albab or
Tazkirat al-Awliya.
The work also cited samples of poetry which is not recorded elsewhere, and some prose passages, e.g. by
Ubayd Zakani.
Amin Razi's sources have been researched by Naqawī,
who identified thirty-nine.
Ethé provides a table of the contents of the work.
The work survives in numerous manuscripts. The only complete edition is by Jawād Fāżel (1961). The Calcutta edition by Ross et al. is superior to Fāżel's but is incomplete, omitting the fourth clime (which encompasses more than half of the work).
[M. U. Memon (1984)]
References
*
* E. D. Ross et al. (eds.), ''Haft eqlīm'', Calcutta, 1918–72.
*
Jan Rypka, ''Hist. Iran. Lit.'', pp. 452, 495.
*Storey, I., pp. 1169-71.
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Razi, Amin
16th-century births
17th-century deaths
16th-century geographers
People from Ray, Iran
16th-century Iranian writers
16th-century writers from Safavid Iran
17th-century writers from Safavid Iran
17th-century Iranian writers