Siraj-ud-Din Ali Khan Arzu

Siraj-ud-Din Ali Khan (Urdu: سراج الدین علی خاں آرزو) (1687-1756), also known by his pen-name Arzu, was a Delhi-based poet, linguist and lexicographer of the Mughal Empire.[1] He used to write mainly in Persian, but he also wrote 127 couplets in Urdu. He was the maternal-uncle of Mir Taqi Mir. He taught Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda, Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan and Najm-ud-Din Shah Mubarak Abroo who also composed Persian literature.

Arzu was born in Agra. He was the son of Sheikh Hisam-ud-Din, a soldier who held many high offices in the court of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. He was highly proficient in Persian and Arabic, the two languages which he learned as a child. He also learned Urdu and Sanskrit.[2]

Arzu started writing at the age of fourteen, and came to Delhi in 1719. He was introduced to Nawab Qamar-ud-din Khan by Anand Ram 'Mukhlis'. Qamar-ud-Din, who was the prime minister at that time, gave him a suitable job. Arzu used to hold mushairas at his home, and attracted many disciples including Mir Taqi Mir. In 1751, he wrote an Urdu-Persian dictionary called the Navadirul Alfaz.[3] He migrated to Lucknow in 1754, and subsequently to Ayodhya, which was once the residence of his great-grandfather. He died in Lucknow in 1756, and was buried in the Vakilpura area of Delhi.[2]

Influence

Khan-i Arzu is the first scholar to suggest that the Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European language family tree, in his Persian-language philological treatise Muzmir ("Fruitful").[4][5]

Literary works

Arzu's works include:[2]

  • Siraj-ul-Lughat (a lexicon of Persian which also discusses the relationship between Persian and Sanskrit)
  • Chiragh-e-Hidayat (a glossary of words and idioms used by the Persian poets)
  • Nawadir-ul-Alfaz (a glossary of Indic words)[6]
  • Several ghazals and qasidas
  • Diwan-e-Asar Shirazi
  • Mohibbat-e-Uzma (a treatise on prosody)
  • Atiya-e-Kubra (another work on prosody)
  • Miyar-ul-Afkar (a treatise on grammar)
  • Payam-i-Shauq (a collection of letters),
  • Josh-o-Kharosh (masnavi)
  • Mehr-o-Mah
  • Ibrat Fasana
  • Gulzar-i Khayal (a long poem on Holi and the coming of the spring)
  • Muzmir ("Fruitful" in Arabic, a treatise on philology and linguistics)[5][7]

See also

References

  1. ^ Braj B. Kachru; Yamuna Kachru; S. N. Sridhar (27 March 2008). Language in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-521-78141-1.
  2. ^ a b c Abida Samiuddin (2007). Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Urdu Literature. Global Vision Publishing Ho. p. 75. ISBN 978-81-8220-191-0.
  3. ^ Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (1969). Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft:Volume 119. p. 267.
  4. ^ Truschke, Audrey (2025). India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0691221229.
  5. ^ a b Ahmad, Saifuddin (2022). "Crafting an Imaginative Style: Sirajuddin Ali Khan-i Arzu and the Development of Linguistics and Philology in the Eighteenth Century". Urdu Studies. 4. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  6. ^ Dudney, Arthur. "Ārzū, Nawādir al-Alfāẓ". Perso-Indica. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  7. ^ Dudney (2022), pg 56.

Further reading

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