introduction Shakeel Hossain
‘Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan (1556–1627) was the son of Bairam Khan-i-Khanan, the regent of Mughal Emperor Akbar from 1556 to 1560. Upon his birth, Maulana Fariduddin Dehlavi, the learned associate of Bairam Khan, composed the line (of chronogram) yielding the year of his birth: “The pearl from the river of good fortune has come forth.”1 The Mughal annals record this “pearl” to have grown up to be the greatest of the all greats, the noble of nobles, Khan-i-Khanan, of the courts of the Mughal Empire (1526–1857). However, the multifaceted shines of ‘Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan’s genius and compassion faded within the changing times in the mosaic of Indian history. It was also the changing times of early 20th century “Indian” nationalism, which re-produced Rahim to modern India through his Hindi literature. The Indic languages and imageries of the poetry of ‘Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan drew curious interests from writers and scholars with the discovery of his Hindi verses and, later, with the finding of volumes (together, the three volumes run into 3,000 pages) of his biography in Persian by ‘Abdul Baqi Nihavandi, Ma’āsir-i-Rahīmī.2 Who was this larger-than-life Khan-i-Khanan of Emperor Akbar (r 1556–1605) and Emperor Jahangir (r 1605–1628)? Later, a mentor of Prince Khurram (Emperor Shah Jahan, son and successor of Jahangir), for whom he went to battle with the imperial Mughal army. Who was he, the unmatched soldier and statesman, who wrote poems in Persian, Sanskrit and in dialects of Hindavi, with metaphors ranging from Giridhar to Ganga, evoking basics of morals and human values in precise and concise mātrās (metres) of dohās and barvais? His barvais supposedly inspired Tulsidas to write his Barvai Rāmāyana.3 He became so legendary for his generosity and patronage in his own time that great poets composed uncounted verses in Sanskrit, Hindavi and Persian in praise of him. As a lover of books,
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Celebrating Rahim
