Bedil Dehlavi

Mawlānā Abul-Ma'āni Mirzā Abdul-Qādir Bēdil (Persian: مولانا ابوالمعانی عبدالقادر بیدل), also known as Bīdel Dehlavī (1642–1720) was a famous Persian poet and Sufi born in Azimabad (present day Patna, India); to a family of Chaghatay Turkic descent[1]. According to some other sources, he was born in Khwaja Rawash, an area of Kabul province in today's Afghanistan.

He mostly wrote Ghazal and Rubayee (quatrain) in Persian and is the author of 16 books of poetry (contain nearly 147,000 verses and include several masnavi) [2] . He is considered as one of the prominent poets of Indian School of Poetry in Persian literature, and owns his unique Style in it. Both Mirza Ghalib and Iqbal-e Lahori were influenced by him. His books include Telesm-e Hairat (طلسم حيرت), Toor e Ma'refat (طور معرفت), Chahār Unsur (چهار عنصر) and Ruqa'āt (رقعات).

Possibly as a result of being brought up in such a mixed religious environment, Bedil had considerably more tolerant views than his poetic contemporaries. He preferred free thought to accepting the established beliefs of his time, siding with the common people and rejecting the clergy who he often saw as corrupt.