Rasa?il-i Hazin-i Lahiji

Born into a wealthy intellectual family in Isfahan, Muhammad ?Ali b. Abi Talib, better known as Hazin Lahiji (d. 1180/1766), was a particularly gifted child. Greatly stimulated by his father, he received a varied education: from literature and the traditional Islamic sciences to mysticism, logic, philosophy and more. Until the siege of Isfahan by the Afghans in 1135/1722, Hazin lived mostly in that city. He then fled the capital, leading a wandering existence in Persia, Arabia and Iraq. Ten years later and seeing no future for Persia, he left the country for good to settle in India, dying in Benares, aged 74. Hazin is mostly famous as a poet and intellectual who left his imprint on India's Persian-speaking, ruling elites. His attractive prose-pieces on a wide variety of subjects, from Qur?an interpretation and knowledge of the soul to pearl-diving and the lifting of weights, are much less known. The present volume aims to fill this gap.