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Introductory notes

Hazin Lāhiji (1692-1766) migrated to India in 1734. He came from a family of scholars and landowners in Gilān. His father had come to Isfahan as a student in the reign of Shah Sulaimān I. Hazin grew up in the Safavid court, and travelled widely in Iran, India, and Arabia. In 1722, when the Afghan army defeated Safavid forces and besieged Isfahan, Ḥazin tried to persuade the Shah and his own family and friends to flee the famine-stricken city; finally, selling all except his books, he escaped in peasant attire. For two years he taught in Korramābād, and organized an army to defend the town against Ottoman troops. He made several voyages in the Persian Gulf, resided at Najaf for three years, and then travelled through Russian-occupied Gilān to Mašhad. Returning to Isfahan, he found the city devastated, and after further voyages, he left Iran for good, horrified by the oppression of the Nādir Shah regime. His memoirs (completed in 1742) say little of his travels in India, where he was treated well but disliked the country and its people. He was patronized by the Mughal court of Moḥammad Shah in Delhi, and hid during Nādir Shah’s occupation of Delhi in 1739. He later moved to Agra and Benares where he died. Ḥazin – the takallus means “sorrowful” – compiled four divāns of verse, only one of which survives.