Mukhammad Riza Agakhi

Born 1809; died 1874. Uzbek writer, historian, and translator. Nephew of the poet Munis Khorezmi, author of the historical work Paradisiacal Garden of Happiness.

Agakhi served at the court of the Khiva khans as a court chronicler and mirab (water distributor). He continued the work of his predecessor and kept Khorezmi’s chronicles up to 1872. Civic-minded themes—dissatisfaction with reality, censure of hypocrisy—resound in his Uzbek and Tadzhik verses. In his lyrical divan Talisman of the Lovers, Agakhi glorified lofty human feelings. He translated over 20 historical and artistic Oriental classics into Uzbek, including Saadi’s Gulistan.