Dawlatshah Samarqandi

• Name — Dawlatshah Samarqandi • Born — c. 1438 • Died — 1494/1507 • Occupation — Poet, biographer • Notable Works — Tadhkirat al-shu'ara • Relatives — Amir Ala al-Dawla Bukhtishah (father) Amir Radi al-Din Ali (brother) Amir Firuzshah (cousin)

A member of the elite of the Timurid Empire, Dawlatshah was born in 1438. He was the son of Amir Ala al-Dawla Bukhtishah, who served under the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh. Dawlatshah was the cousin of Amir Firuzshah (died 1444), whose family had received the governorship of Isfahan following the death of the Timurid prince Rustam Mirza in 1423–1425. Dawlatshah had a brother named Amir Radi al-Din Ali, who served under the Timurid prince Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza and composed poems in Persian and Chagatai Turkic. Dawlatshah also wrote poetry and was occasionally a companion of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, but eventually retired and started living in a rural Sufi manner. In 1487, Dawlatshah completed his Tadhkirat al-shu'ara ("Memorial of poets"), a Persian biographical dictionary of 152 poets. The only older existing work is the Lubab al-albab of Awfi (died 1242), which Dawlatshah did not know about. Dawlatshah's death date is uncertain; Haji Khalifa and Ismail Pasha Baghdadi report that he died in 1507, while Mohammad-Ali Borhanpuri puts his death date in 1494.

The Tadhkirat al-shu'ara of Dawlatshah is written in a fluid Persian prose, has an autobiographical preface, an introduction that discusses ten Arab poets (such as Labid, died 661, al-Mutanabbi, died 965, and al-Ma'arri, died 1058), seven chapters or stages that are equivalent to the seven celestial spheres, and an epilogue that highly praises seven contemporary litterateurs that Dawlatshah considers to be as great as Abdallah Marvarid (died 1541). In the epilogue, Dawlatshah especially focused on Jami (died 1492) and Ali-Shir Nava'i (died 1501), the latter whom the work was dedicated to. It ends with a lengthy homage to Sultan Husayn Bayqara. The first four chapters focus on 76 Persian poets that lived before the Timurid era, including figures such as Rudaki (died 940/41), Ferdowsi (died 1019/25), Saadi Shirazi (died 1291/92) and Ubayd Zakani (died 1369–1371). The last three chapters focus on 59 poets of the Timurid era. In his work, Dawlatshah included sources such as the Chahar maqala of Nizami Aruzi, the Hada'iq al-sihr of Rashid al-Din Vatvat (died 1182/83), the Tarikh-i Guzida of Hamdallah Mustawfi (died after 1339/40), and the now-lost Manaqib al-shu'ara of Abu Tahir Khatuni (11th-century), the latter which was the first Persian work of the same type.

Where Dawlatshah Samarqandi came from, and how Dawlatshah Samarqandi was formed. Born on 1 January 1500.