Table of Contents
- Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry
For Students
Safavid Iran, as it happened, lost most of its artists and poets to the neighbouring countries. There were no great masters of poetry in Iran between the 16th and 18th centuries. And while the Persian shah Ismāʿīl I wrote Turkish mystical verses, his contemporary and enemy, Sultan Selim I of Turkey (died 1520), composed quite elegant Persian ghazals. Bābur (died 1530), in turn, composed his autobiography in Eastern Turkic. Bābur’s autobiography is a fascinating piece of Chagatai Turkish prose and at the same time one of the comparatively rare examples of Islamic autobiographical literature. The classic example in this genre, ...(100 of 63390 words)