Takmila-yi Nafahat al-uns

Regarded by many as the last great mystical poet of medieval Persia, ?Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 898/1492) spent the greater part of his life in Herat. As a student he excelled in every subject he engaged in and appeared destined for an academic career. But then, in his early thirties, he went through a spiritual crisis that ended in his joining the Herat branch of the mystical Naqshbandiyya order, led by the charismatic Sa?d al-Din Kashghari (d. 860/1456). A protege of three successive Timurid rulers in Herat, Jami's wide network of friendships and relations extended from spiritual and literary circles through the political to the academic. With 39.000 lines of verse and over 30 prose works to his name, Jami's literary production is impressive. In his biographical handbook on Sufi masters, the Nafahat al-uns, Jami did not mention himself. This is why his student ?Abd al-Ghafur Lari (d. 912/1506) wrote this biographical supplement to it.