Bahadur Shah Zafar

Zafar, or Bahadur Shah, was the Padishah of Delhi and the last Mogul Emperor, son of Akbar II. The book gives his dates as 1768–1862 (other sources give 1775–1862). It says he was over sixty when he came to the throne, a poet and a good judge of music and painting, skilled in all kinds of poetry, author of a voluminous diwan, and a clever calligraphist. After the Mutiny of 1857 he was taken prisoner and sent to Rangoon, where he continued to write verses.

The 4 pieces given here are drawn from Hindustani Lyrics (London: The Sufi Publishing Society, 1919), in the English verse of Inayat Khan and Jessie Duncan Westbrook. They are free renderings, not literal translations, and the original Urdu poems are untitled; each is named here by its first line.