22. The Poet Shaikh Mufakhkhar-al-din Azari of 
arayin. 
By Lr.-Cotonet T. W. Hata, C.M.G. 
“The luminary of his auspices shed its light on the lords 
of spirituality. 
“He was the noble falcon of the zenith of perception, 
winged with high resolve.” 
For the life of Shaikh Azari we have more than one 
authority, the best and most ample being his life by Daulat 
Shah in the Tazkirat-al-Shu‘ara, which has been edited by 
Professor Browne. Firishta, however, in his history of the 
Babmanids vf the Dakan, gives many details of Azari’s life 
which are not mentioned by Daulat Shah, and both he and 
‘Ali bin ‘Aziz Allah Tabataba‘i of Samnan, in the Burhan-i- 
Ma‘asir, the first part of which has been translated by Major 
J. §. King, give accounts of Azari which differ from that of 
Daulat Shah by representing the poet not as the contented 
darvish withdrawing himself from mundane a airs, but as a 
courtier accepting large gifts and writing for gain like any 
other court poet. 
Isfarayin was a small town situated in longitude 57°18’ E. 
and latitude 37°6’ N. on a plateau known as the Plain of 
Isfara yin. It is still marked in most large maps, but T am 
reigned until a.p. 1381, with their capital at Sabzavar.' 
Khyaja ‘Ali Malik was governor of Isfarayin under the later 
Sarbadarids and Shaikh Azari was born there in 4.H. 784 (A.D. 
1382), one year after the overthrow of the dynasty by Taimir. 
As a young man he devoted himself to poetry, and especially 
to its most lucrative form, the writing of odes in praise of 
kings and rulers, with the object of obtaining preferment. 
Daulat Shah quotes the opening couplet of an ode which he 
wrote in praise of Shah Rukh Sultan, Taimir’s third son, then 
‘See The Mohammadan Dynasties, by Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, p. 251. 
