Saib Tabrizi

Who was Saib Tabrizi?

Saib Tabrizi also called Saib Isfahani was a Persian poet and one of the greatest masters of a form of classical Arabic and Persian lyric poetry characterized by rhymed couplets, known as the ghazal. Besides writing in Persian, Saib was known to have written 17 ghazals and molammaʿs in his native Azeri.

Saib was born in Tabriz, and educated in Isfahan and in about 1626/27 he traveled to India, where he was received into the court of Shah Jahan. He stayed for a time in Kabul and in Kashmir, returning home after several years abroad. After his return, the emperor of Persia, Shah Abbas II, bestowed upon him the title King of Poets.

Saib's reputation is based primarily on some 300,000 couplets, including his epic poem Qandahār-nāma. His “Indian style” verses reveal an elegant wit, a gift for the aphorism and the proverb, and a keen appreciation of philosophical and intellectual exercise. Saib was especially well known for his Persian panegyric poetry during the reigns of Persian Emperors Safi, Abbas II and Suleiman.