THE URDU POET DAGH DEHLEVI & HIS THREE MORE FAMOUS PUPILS: IQBAL, SEEMAB & JIGAR Lives & Selected Poems( Ghazals) Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Dagh Dehlevi was born in Delhi in 1831. He is considered the last great poet of the Mughal period of Urdu poetry. His takhallus or pen-name of Dagh means 'scar'. Ghalib was a relation of his and he could also seek advice from him on his poetry. His fame as a fine poet in Delhi soon came and he was loved for his simple style and his naturalism and the musical nature of his work. Like his pupils Iqbal, Seemab and Jigar, many of his poems have a strong Sufi influence. Dagh married and had children but he was occasionally separated from his family for a variety of often political reasons and he wrote poems about this situation. Some of his ghazals have been set to music by ghazal singers. Dagh Dehlvi suffered a paralytic stroke and died on the 17th March 1905 at the age of 73. Sir Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot on 9 November 1877 within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan). Iqbal decided to approach Dagh, the most famous Urdu poet of his era, for mentoring. Though they are thousands of miles apart from each other, the relationship of master and disciple was established through correspondence. Iqbal sent Dagh some of his ghazals for correction. Dagh accepted him as his student and sent back Iqbal's poems with comments and advice. Iqbal is considered one of India's greatest poets and a founder of Pakistan. Born in 1882, Seemab was a renowned Urdu poet belonging to the Dagh School. He hailed from Agra where his family had lived for nearly three hundred years. Seemab began ghazal writing in 1892 and in 1898 became a disciple of Dagh to whom he was personally introduced by Munshi Nazar Dehlevi at the Kanpur Railway Station. His ghazals are suffused with true Sufism. Jigar... meaning 'heart or liver') who was born in 1893 came originally from Moradabad in Uttar Pradash, India. When young but showed a ghazal to Dagh. He was a great admirer of beauty and successfully painted a living picture of his earthly beloved in his ghazals, but not stopping at that, his description of beauty carries one to a different timeless place where Eternal Beauty reigns supreme. Introduction... On Urdu Poetry & on Sufism in Poetry. Biographies on all four great Urdu poets & Selected Bibliographies. The correct rhyme-structure has been kept in the beautiful, insightful, often mystical, powerful, loving ghazals. Large format Paperback, 7" x 10" Pages 217. Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets of the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish and other languages... including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Obeyd Zakani, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Baba Farid, Mu'in, Lalla Ded, Seemab and others and his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children's books, plays and 12 screenplays. amazon.com/author/smithpa