Amir Khusro (1253-1325 CE) was an Indian Sufi mystic, poet, and musician. He served as poet laureate for the Delhi Sultanate and wrote extensively in Hindavi, Persian, and other languages of the subcontinent. Khusro was deeply influenced by Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya and played a major role in developing and blending Indian classical music with Persian and Arabic styles. He is regarded as a pioneer of Hindustani classical music and as an iconic figure who promoted cultural unity between Hindus and Muslims in India.

2. Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn
Khusro (1253–1325 CE) better
known as Amīr Khusro, was a Sufi
mystic and a spiritual disciple of
Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi.
An Indian musician, scholar and
poet laureate - Amir Khusro was
an iconic figure in the cultural
history of the Indian Subcontinent.

3. Amīr Khusro was born in Patiyali
in Uttar Pradesh.
His father, Amīr Sayf ud-Dīn
Mahmūd, was a Turkic officer and a
member of the Lachin tribe of
Transoxania.
 His mother was the daughter of
Rawat Arz, the famous war minister
of Balban, and belonged to Rajput
tribes of Uttar Pradesh.
He also had two brothers called
Aizazuddin Ali Shah and
Husamuddin.

4. After the demise of his father, Hazrat
Amir Khusro was brought up by his
maternal grandfather, Nawab Imadul
Mulk, in affluence.
He became learned in the arts and
literature, astronomy, grammar,
philosophy, logic, religion, mysticism
and history.
Besides mastering the Turkish,
Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit
languages, he acquired proficiency in
the Khariboli, Braj Bhasha and
Awadhi in the multi-ethnic
environment of Delhi.
Turkish Script
Arabic Script

5. He developed a taste for poetry at
an early age and began composing
verses at the age of twelve. He
himself writes in the introduction to
his diwan Ghurrat-ul-Kamaal - "At
an age when children shed their
teeth, I wrote poetry and my
compositions rivalled gems.”
Amir Khusro wrote poetry
primarily in Persian and in Hindvi (a
combination of Bhojpuri and Persian
languages).
He also wrote a war ballad in
Punjabi.

6. He compiled the oldest known
printed dictionary Khaliq-e-bari in
1320 which mainly dealt with Hindavi
and Persian words.
In his lifetime, Amir Khusro wrote a
staggering 92 books including Taj-
ul-fatah, Tughlak namah, Sheerin
Khusrau and Laila majnoon.
It is estimated that he wrote more
than 4 lakhs of couplets.

7. Amir Khusro is regarded as the “father
of qawwali”(the devotional music of the
Sufis).
He enriched the Hindustani classical
music by introducing Persian and Arabic
elements in it.
He was the originator of the khayal and
tarana styles of music.
His contribution to the development of
the ghazal, hitherto little used in India, is
particularly significant.
The invention of the tabla and sitar is
also traditionally attributed to him.

8. Hazrat Amir Khusro was exposed to
all famous literary figures of his time
when he accompanied his grandfather
to the royal courts to attend the
private congregations.
Khusro at first found his way to the
court of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban
who ascended the Delhi throne in 664
AH (1265 AD).
He was a prolific classical poet
associated with the royal courts of
more than seven rulers of the Delhi
Sultanate.

9. Hazrat Amir Khusro was a
devout Muslim, a profound
expounder of ethics and a strict
observant of Sharia.
For most of his life he offered
prayers,observed fasts, recited the
Holy Qur'an.
He was equally exceptional in
performing obligatory worship
and doing beneficence to others by
way of charitable acts.

10. His spiritualism was in the
philosophy of love, which he shared
with all the Sufis.
He was impregnated with divine
love and participated in sama.
The depth of humanity in his
poetry comes from the "Divine
love–which is infinite and covers the
entire cosmos."
He was a maestro who used to
invent new ragas and tunes.

11. Khusro's tryst with Love arose out of
the special bond he shared with his
preceptor Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya
and the Chisti Silsila, a bond that
transcended all other relationships.
 It was the bridge to the Beloved
which he sought.
Khusro believed that the preceptor
alone can transform the secular into the
divine, and this requires a surrender of
the ego through service, which Amir
Khusro himself exemplified by serving in
the kitchen of Nizamuddin Auliya's daily
langar .

12. Hazrat Amir Khusro was introduced
to Khwaja Nizamuddin at an early
age.
He was Nizamuddin Aulia's most
loved and devoted mureed and found
real love and an atmosphere for the
evolution of his creative and spiritual
faculties in his pir’s Khaneqah.
There are endless anecdotes in oral
tradition as well as documented
history as to how passionately the two
loved each other, right from their first
meeting till the moment of their death.

13. When Nizammudin Auliya passed
away Khusro tore his clothes and
blackened his face and went to his
master's grave.
Afterwards he said to those present:
"Who am I to wail for this
monarch? I lament my own fate,
because I will not survive him
much longer."
In a few months' time, in 1325 A.D.,
Khusro too passed away and was
buried near that grave as desired by
the master.
 These graves are a place of
pilgrimage for both Hindus and
Muslims to the present day.

14. Khusro proclaimed himself as “Tuti-e-Hind” (Parrot
of India).
 “To speak the truth, I am an Indian Parrot. If you
want to listen from me some subtle verses, ask me
then to recite some of my Hindvi poems.”
 He himself did not collect and preserve his Hindvi
poems but made a gift of them to his friends.
His poem, Kaliq Bari is a lexicon composed of
synonymous words, from four languages, Arabic,
Persian, Turkish and Hindvi.

15. Amir Khusro served as an ambassador of
Hindu-Muslim unity in his time.
In his introduction to Ghurra-ul-Kamal,
Khusro writes, “I am a Hindustani Turk. I
compose verses in Hindvi with the
fluency of running water.”
His poetry is still sung today at Sufi
shrines throughout Pakistan and India and
is popular in much of North India and
Pakistan, because of many playful riddles,
songs and legends attributed to him.
Through his enormous literary output and
legendary folk personality, Khusro
represents one of the first recorded Indian
personages with a true multi-cultural or
pluralistic identity.

16. Farsi couplets
Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast.
If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this (India)
Ba khak darat rau ast maara,
Gar surmah bechashm dar neaayad.
The dust of your doorstep is just the right thing to apply,
If Surmah (kohl powder) does not show its beauty in the eye!

17. Hindi couplets
Khusrau darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar,
Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar.
Oh Khusrau, the river of love
Runs in strange directions.
One who jumps into it drowns,
And one who drowns, gets across.
Sej wo sooni dekh ke rovun main din raen,
Piya piya main karat hoon pehron, pal bhar sukh na
chaen.
Day and night, I see an empty bed, and cry
Calling for my beloved, I remain restless for ever.