Events

This talk explores the transregional journey of the marṡiyah (elegy) from Safavid Iran to Mughal India through the lens of Iranian émigré poets. It examines why, despite the reorientation of royal patronage under Shah Ṭahmāsp—which prioritized the composition of marṡiyah over qaṣīdah (panegyric) —the genre reached its fullest expression beyond Iran’s borders, specifically within the Shiʿi court of Awadh. Central to this discussion is the Persian dīwān of Mullah Ḳhat̤ā Shūshtarī, an eighteenth-century émigré who served as a formal roẓah-ḳhwān (reciter of Karbala elegies) at Nawāb Āṣif-ud-Dawlah’s court and imāmbāṛā in Lucknow. The talk argues that Ḳhat̤ā’s work represents both the final efflorescence of Persian marṡiyah in Lucknow and a crucial transitional moment in the vernacularization of the genre from Persian to Urdu. Ultimately, this identifies the Persianate foundations of a literary tradition in Lucknow that Mīr Anīs would later carry to its zenith in the nineteenth century