Person · b. February 1723, Agra – d. 1225 AH / 1810 AD, Lucknow (Saksena: "there is a conflict of statements as regards the age of Mir") · born 1723 · Urdu ghazal poet; author of six diwans of Rekhta ghazals, several masnavis, the tazkira Nakat-ush-Shu'ara, and (per Sprenger) a lost Persian autobiography, Zikr-i Mir

Mir Muhammad Taqi "Mir"

میر تقی میر

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A Delhi poet who reached Lucknow in 1782, answered a mushaira's laughter at his old-fashioned Delhi dress with an improvised ghazal that won the room over, and whose one autobiography — seen once in the Nawabs' library in 1848–50 — was already gone by the time Saksena wrote of him in 1927.

On his own art of rekhta, in the epilogue to his Nakat-ush-Shu'ara (Saksena's translation): "Be it known that rekhta is of several kinds, which I will explain to the extent of my knowledge. Firstly, one hemistich is Persian and one Hindi like the fragment of Amir Khusru. Secondly, half the hemistich is Persian and the other half Hindi, like the verses of Mir Moizz... The style which I have adopted comprises all the figures of speech, as puns, resemblance of corresponding words in rhyme and measure, etc." — no original-language text is printed on this page, only Saksena's English rendering.

What the sources did afterwards. Sprenger, cataloguing the Kings of Oudh's library at the Moti Mahal in 1848–50, saw a 152-page Persian autobiography of Mir titled Zikr Mir; Saksena records in 1927 that it "seems to have been lost," adding that had it survived it "would have thrown a flood of light and dealt a coup de grace to a great mass of incorrect speculation, fanciful stories and legends that have gathered round his name as round Chaucer's" (Saksena, p. 72). Separately, English Wikipedia's article on him states that the marker of his actual burial place in Lucknow "is believed to have been removed in modern times when railway tracks were built over his grave," and that a cenotaph was only built nearby in the 1970s — and the same article gives two different death dates for him, 20 September in its infobox and 21 September in its body text.

Draft. This entry is an unreviewed first draft. It has not yet been checked by a subject reviewer — see sources and method.

Arrival at Lucknow: an old man mocked, then apologised to

Mir left Delhi for Lucknow in the time of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah. He "had not enough money to engage the whole of the coach to himself and he shared it with a gentleman, who to beguile the tedium of the journey commenced some small talk," and, "feeling offended at being addressed, peremptorily snubbed him at once" (Saksena, p. 71). Arriving at Lucknow, he put up at an inn, and "hearing that a Mushaira was to be held in the evening he hastily composed a ghazal in the particular refrain set by the assembly and having dressed himself in the fashion of Delhi which was not in vogue at Lucknow he proceeded to the scene of poetical contest" (Saksena, p. 71).

"Such an old figure dressed grotesquely in old fashion excited the laughter of the smart people of Lucknow which cut the old man to the quick," and when his turn came to recite, people questioned him about himself; "Mir improvised a few couplets in the set refrain and incorporated them in his ghazal which he read out with much feeling and pathos. People apologised when they knew it was the great Mir who had come amongst them" (Saksena, p. 71). Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah then assigned him a monthly allowance of two or three hundred rupees, continued by his successor Saadat Ali Khan (Saksena, p. 71).

A strained patronage, a poet's death, and a lost account of himself

The court relationship did not hold: "Mir however thought himself affronted by some seeming supercilious acts of the Nawab and according to Azad, retired early from the court and died in utter poverty and starvation 1225 A. H. (1810 A. D.)" (Saksena, pp. 71–72). Saksena adds that the record of his exact age is itself contested — "Azad" gives a hundred lunar years, "Jahan" says eighty — and that "only a few scanty details which are authentic are available about Mir's life" (Saksena, p. 72).

The one document that might have settled the record did not survive to be read again: cataloguing the Oudh kings' library in 1848–50, Sprenger "noticed in the Moti Mahal an autobiography of Mir Taqi (152 pages of 12 lines) bearing the title of 'Zikr Mir'... written in Persian," but, Saksena writes, "this valuable work seems to have been lost otherwise it would have thrown a flood of light and dealt a coup de grace to a great mass of incorrect speculation, fanciful stories and legends that have gathered round his name as round Chaucer's" (Saksena, p. 72). What did survive of Mir's own account, his preface to the Nakat-ush-Shu'ara, he wrote "with well assumed humility... he only states that he is staying at Delhi" (Saksena, p. 72).

Where this sits

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Sources

p. 71 · read as page image Such an old figure dressed grotesquely in old fashion excited the laughter of the smart people of Lucknow which cut the old man to the quick... People apologised when they knew it was the great Mir who had come amongst them.
pp. 71–72 · read as page image Mir however thought himself affronted by some seeming supercilious acts of the Nawab and according to Azad, retired early from the court and died in utter poverty and starvation 1225 A. H. (1810 A. D.).
p. 72 · read as page image Sprenger however mentions that in the years (1848-50 A. D.)... he noticed in the Moti Mahal an autobiography of Mir Taqi (152 pages of 12 lines) bearing the title of 'Zikr Mir'... This valuable work seems to have been lost otherwise it would have thrown a flood of light and dealt a coup de grace to a great mass of incorrect speculation, fanciful stories and legends that have gathered round his name as round Chaucer's.
p. 76 · read as page image Urdu poetry is popularly regarded to be co-extensive with Urdu ghazal and as Mir is preeminent as a ghazal writer he is naturally regarded to be the greatest of Urdu poets... His verses are simple, eloquent, poignant, winged with pathos and pain.
p. 76 · read as page image Be it known that rekhta is of several kinds, which I will explain to the extent of my knowledge... The style which I have adopted comprises all the figures of speech, as puns, resemblance of corresponding words in rhyme and measure, etc.
web (article body, raw wikitext fetched 2026-09-25) · read as web The marker of his burial place is believed to have been removed in modern times when railway tracks were built over his grave... In the 1970s, a cenotaph was built in the vicinity of his actual burial place.