Qasim-i Anvar

Mu'in al-Din Ali ibn Nasir, known by his poetic name Qasim-i Anvar, was born around 1356 in Sarab near Tabriz (in the north-west of present-day Iran) into a family of sayyids. He was not born in Uzbekistan: his life is tied to Transoxiana through his banishment to Samarkand. He was educated in Tabriz.

In his youth he became a disciple of Sheikh Sadr al-Din Musa, head of the Safaviyya Sufi order at Ardabil. According to tradition, he received the name Qasim-i Anvar ("distributor of lights") after a dream of his master. He took the khirqa from the sheikh, with the right to win converts and teach, and worked as a missionary in Gilan and Khurasan.

From about 1377 he lived in Herat, where he gathered many followers under Timur and then under Shahrukh. In 1426–1427 an attempt was made on Shahrukh's life in Herat by a man belonging to the Hurufi movement. Because the attacker was said to have visited the poet's hospice, Qasim-i Anvar was removed from the city; the sources present this charge as an allegation, not as an established fact.

Exile took him to Samarkand, where Shahrukh's son Mirzo Ulugh Beg received him warmly. A few years later Qasim-i Anvar returned to Khurasan and settled in the village of Kharjird in the Jam district near Nishapur.

Most of his writing is in Persian; poems in Azeri Turkish and Gilaki also survive. His legacy consists chiefly of mystical ghazals, along with mathnawis such as "Anis al-Arifin", quatrains and treatises. Jami and Alisher Navoi spoke of him with respect.

He died around 1433 at Kharjird (sources give dates from 1431 to 1434). His tomb was built on the order of Alisher Navoi. His collected works, the "Kulliyyat", were published in Tehran in 1958, edited by Said Nafisi.