Ahli, Shirazi

Born circa 1460 in Shiraz; died there in 1536. Iranian poet famed for his lyric ghazah.

Ahli dedicated the Sufic narrative poem The Candle and the Moth to Sultan Yakub of the Ak Koyunlu dynasty. Also Sufic in character was another narrative poem, Legal Sorcery, which was written as a poetic reply to a composition of the same name by the 15th-century Persian poet Katibi. In striving to perfect his verse, Ahli became infatuated with rhetorical contrivances. Many of his works written in aruz can be conveyed in different meters. However, his ghazals are very simple and unaffected in form.