Abdur rahman jami biography of georgetown
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He also composed a poem in the form of bahr-i tawil. He departed for Samarqand at the age of 20 to further his studies and studied astronomy with Qazizada Rumi.
Jami died on 9 November 1492 in Herat and was buried near the tomb of Sa'd al-Din Kashgari. Perhaps, Jami returned to Herat due the political situation emerging after the death of Shah Rukh in 1447: the Timurid princes resumed the struggle for power, Timur's empire was partitioned into three parts.
Some are occasional poems presenting accounts of significant events in his poetical career. He was a contemporary of Shahrukh, Abu al-Qasim Babar, Abu Sa’id Gurkani, and Shah Sultan Husayn Bayqara. A splendid edifice was erected on his grave by Amir ‘Alishir Nawa’i, but later on, the Safavid Shah Isma’il I in his conquest of Herat burned his tomb.
He composed lyrical poetry for more than 50 years and collected them in three divans at different times and titled them in chronological order as Fatihat al-Shabab (prime of life), Wasitat al-‘Iqd (youth, lit. Baysonqor especially valued the art of calligraphy which he knew himself. In his midlife, possibly in his fifties, Jami married a granddaughter of his disciple, Sa’d al-Din Kashghari, and had four sons by her.
Jami's social critique and some of his polemic against fake scholars and sham Sufis can be understood as part of that concern for community. His compositions are also marked by intertwining prose and poetry. Jami composed in almost all Persian literary genres in prose and verse. The political, religious and cultural landscape of Iran and Central Asia changed dramatically: Shīite Islam was established as the state religion of Iran, and a very fanciful modern "Indian" style began to dominate in poetry.
Some orientalist maintain that Jami’s death marked the end of the golden era of classical Persian literature.
Well-versed in different sciences and arts, he created a vast array of compositions in prose and verse and is still recognized as the most distinguished poet, belletrist, and scholar flourishing in the 15th century. His most famous collection of poetry is a seven-part compendium entitled Haft Awrang (“The Seven Thrones,” or “Ursa Major”).
After treading the path of Sufism for years, he attained to exalted positions and became a distinguished Shaykh of the order. Famed for his patronage of the arts and sciences, Sultan Husayn revived the diminished flame of cultural life in Herat. Everyone, as a rule, had a profession: many of them were craftsmen, and all of them earned a living by working at their jobs.
His literary works include his Divan of qasidas and ghazals; Haft Awrang, consisting of seven mathnawis; Quatrains; Risala-yi Qafiya, in which he elaborates on distinctions and merits of Arabic and Persian poetry; Risala-yi ‘Aruz, in which he made attempts to some extent simplify and abridge prosody, thereby ignoring the meters and rhythms unemployed in Persian poetry; Rasa’il-i Mu’amma’i (cryptographs, acrostics), including: Risala-yi Kabir, Risala-yi Mutawassit, Risala-yi Saghir, Risala-yi Manzuma-yi Asghar on acrostics; Tashif, on displacement of letters and consequent semantic changes; Baharistan, in prose interspersed with poetry, in fact imitative of S’adi’s Gulistan; Risala-yi Sharh-i Ruba’iyyat, a commentary on 49 mystical quatrains of his composition; Risala-yi Munsha’at; al-Fawa’id al-Ziya’iyya fi Sharh al-Kafiya; Persian grammar in verse and prose; Tajnis al-Lughat or Tajnis al-Khatt.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Jāmī." Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Merriam-Webster, 1995.