{ "id": "epknrhmzws", "slug": "bedil", "title": "Bedil", "updated": "2026-10-15", "topic_path": [ { "id": "society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society" }, { "id": "society.history", "label": "History and archaeology", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.history" }, { "id": "society.history.asia", "label": "Asian history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.history.asia" }, { "id": "society.history.asia.india", "label": "India and South Asia", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.history.asia.india" }, { "id": "society.history.asia.india.mughal-early", "label": "Mughal Empire to Aurangzeb (1526 to 1707)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.history.asia.india.mughal-early" }, { "id": "society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars", "label": "Artists, poets, and scholars", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars", "label": "India · 1000 to 1799: Artists, poets, and scholars", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars", "path": [ { "id": "geo.ind", "label": "India", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000", "label": "India · 1000 to 1799", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history", "label": "History and archaeology", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia", "label": "Asian history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india", "label": "India and South Asia", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early", "label": "Mughal Empire to Aurangzeb (1526 to 1707)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars", "label": "Artists, poets, and scholars", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1000.society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Bedil (بیدل) was the pen name of Mirza Abd al-Qadir, a Persian-language poet and Sufi of Mughal India, born in 1644 in Patna and active in Delhi.", "snippet": "Bedil (بیدل) was the pen name of Mirza Abd al-Qadir, a Persian-language poet and Sufi of Mughal India, born in 1644 in Patna and active in Delhi.", "node": "society.history.asia.india.mughal-early.artists-poets-and-scholars", "markdown": "# Bedil\n\n**Bedil** (بیدل) was the pen name of Mirza Abd al-Qadir, a Persian-language poet and Sufi of Mughal India, born in 1644 in Azimabad (present-day Patna) and active for most of his life in Delhi, where he became the foremost representative of the later phase of the \"Indian style\" (sabk-e hendi) of Persian poetry.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) He died in Delhi in late 1720, though one major reference work gives his death year as 1721.[2](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abdul-Qadir-Bedil) • [3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) • [1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/)\n\n| Fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Full name | Mirza Abd al-Qadir b. Abd-al-Khaleq, pen name Bedil[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) |\n| Born | 1644 (1054 AH) in Azimabad (Patna), Bihar[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [4](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan) |\n| Died | 4 Safar 1133 (5 December 1720) in Delhi, of typhus; Encyclopaedia Iranica gives 1133/1721[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) • [5](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10897583) • [1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) |\n| Polity | Mughal Empire[6](https://ojs.plhr.org.pk/journal/article/download/791/688) |\n| Principal works | At least three masnawis, including Mohit-e azam (1078/1667), Telesm-e hayrat (1080/1669), and Erfan (1124/1712)[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) |\n| Patrons | Nawab Shukrullah Khan and his son Shakir Khan, Mughal court officials[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) • [7](https://bedilfoundation.org/about/) |\n| Notable student | Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, founder of the Asaf Jahi dynasty of Hyderabad[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) |\n\n## Origins and family\n\nBedil was born in 1054/1644 into a Sunni Muslim family of Central Asian Turkic origin in the province of Bihar, with Mahsi and Patna the most likely locations of his birth.[4](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan) Encyclopaedia Iranica places his family in the Arlas tribe of the Chagatay Turks and records that his mother tongue was Bengali; Rekhta's profile instead describes the family as belonging to the Barlas clan of Chagatai descent.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [8](https://www.rekhta.org/authors/abdul-qadir-bedil-dehlavi/profile?lang=ur) He was named after the eponymous Sufi of the [Qadiri order](https://www.edgepedia.org/qadiri-order), Abd al-Qadir Gilani (d. 561/1166).[4](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan)\n\nHe lost both parents in childhood: his father Mirza Abdul Khaliq, described as one of the foremost Sufis, died when Bedil was four and a half, and his mother died when he was six.[9](https://sufinama.org/poets/bedil-azimabadi/profile) He then came under the guardianship of his step-uncle Mirza Qalandar, his father's disciple, and later of his maternal uncle Mirza Zarif, a merchant and jurist; Iranica identifies Mirza Qalandar simply as his uncle and a poet.[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) • [1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) Through this guardianship he met the renowned Sufis of the time, and in 1070 (1659-60) he toured the major cities of Bengal and stayed three years in Orissa, where he became a disciple of Shah Kasim Huvellahi.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil)\n\n## Career\n\nBedil moved to Delhi, then called Shahjahanabad, in 1075/1664, after which he wrote increasingly in the Indian style of Persian poetry.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) For some twenty years he traveled between Delhi, Agra, Mathura, Lahore, and Attock.[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) He married at twenty-five and took service in the army of Mohammad Azam Shah, a son of [Aurangzeb](https://www.edgepedia.org/aurangzeb), to earn a living; when the prince asked him to write qasidas in his praise, he resigned from public service and left.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [10](https://aipublisher.org/resources/article_documents/article_docajahss.7.10.1.pdf) • [3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil)\n\nAccording to *Encyclopaedia Iranica*, he wrote four masnawis (narrative poems in rhymed couplets): Moḥīṭ-e aʿẓam, completed in 1078/1667; Ṭelesm-e ḥayrat (1080/1669); Ṭūr-e maʿrefat (1099/1687-88), written in the Bairat mountains during his stay with Nawab Shukrullah Khan, a Mughal governor; and ʿErfān (1124/1712), the longest and most celebrated.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [11](https://www.tahoor.com/en/article/view/114073) In Erfan, composed over thirty to thirty-four years, he transformed the tale of Madhaval and Kamakandala into a Sufi allegory.[4](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan) His Roqaat is a collection of correspondence with Shukrullah Khan and other Mughal officials, his teacher Abd-al-Aziz Ezzat, and his students.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/)\n\nAt twenty-six he sent Telesm-e hayrat to Nawab Shukrullah Khan, a holder of high court office, and at forty-one he received an estate and stipend in Delhi from Shukrullah Khan and his son Shakir Khan, who later became governor of Delhi and supported him financially.[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) The Bedil Foundation adds that Shukrullah Khan bought a haveli worth five thousand rupees in the Khekhriyan quarter and gifted it to him, with a daily stipend of two rupees for expenses.[7](https://bedilfoundation.org/about/)\n\n## Political influence\n\nBedil avoided courtly panegyrics and remained independent of royal patronage, yet his standing at court was considerable.[12](https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/detail/deewan-e-bedil-abdul-qadir-bedil-ebooks) Aurangzeb, despite all his engagements, set aside a special time for reading Bedil's poetry and knew many of his verses by heart.[7](https://bedilfoundation.org/about/) • [12](https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/detail/deewan-e-bedil-abdul-qadir-bedil-ebooks) His influence ran through the nobility rather than the throne: his students included Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, who founded the Asaf Jahi dynasty of [Hyderabad](https://www.edgepedia.org/hyderabad), and his Delhi gatherings became a center for scholars, Sufis, poets, and intellectuals, shaping the cultural landscape of the late Mughal court.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/) • [12](https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/detail/deewan-e-bedil-abdul-qadir-bedil-ebooks) • [13](https://www.tareekheadabeurdu.com/assets-new/pdf/articles/v7s3-2025/24.pdf) Shah Abd al-Rahim, the father of Shah Wali Allah, considered attending Bedil's circle a source of honor.[7](https://bedilfoundation.org/about/)\n\nThe politics of the age touched him directly. After the death of [Bahadur Shah I](https://www.edgepedia.org/bahadur-shah-i) (1707-1712), a palace coup removed friends of his who held positions of power, and at seventy-seven he fled Delhi for Lahore, returning a year and a half later.[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) A journal account ties the flight to the assassination of the emperor Muhammad Farrukh in 1131 AH (1718-19), one of the rulers who supported him, after which Bedil wrote a poem and fled Lahore fearing persecution by the murdered ruler's enemies, living there almost two years.[14](https://inlibrary.uz/index.php/eijps/article/download/24039/24870/28060)\n\n## Death and successors\n\nBedil died of typhus on 4 Safar 1133 (5 December 1720) and was buried in the garden of his house in Delhi; Sufinama's Urdu profile instead gives 3 Safar al-Muzaffar 1133, corresponding to 23 November 1720, and the India Office manuscript catalog records A.H. 1133 (A.D. 1720, Dec. 5).[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) • [15](https://sufinama.org/poets/bedil-azimabadi/profile?lang=ur) • [5](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10897583) His son Abdul Khaliq had died in 1711, when Bedil was sixty-seven, and his elegy for the young man became famous.[3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil) His tomb was repeatedly desecrated and looted after the invasions of Delhi by [Nader Shah](https://www.edgepedia.org/nader-shah), the Marathas, and the Afghans, and no trace of it remains.[1](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/)\n\n## Historians' assessment\n\nScholars read Bedil's life as full of contradictions and paradoxes arising from his dual life as soldier-poet and soldier-Sufist, a combination described as unique in Iran and rare in the world.[16](https://jsal.ut.ac.ir/article_70800_en.html) According to the article \"Bedil as Militarist-Sufist: the Realization of Characteristics of Bedil's Society in his Poetry,\" his Sufism combined Iranian Sufism with the Indian mysticism of the [Upanishads](https://www.edgepedia.org/upanishads), and he avoided relations with the royal court while focusing on the hidden aspects of Being.[16](https://jsal.ut.ac.ir/article_70800_en.html) The formalism of the Indian style, on this reading, allowed \"secret speaking\" and criticism of governing power with least harm while maintaining relations with the political system of Indian states.[16](https://jsal.ut.ac.ir/article_70800_en.html) He composed under the patronage of Mughal Delhi's ruling elites while witnessing the dispersion of central Mughal political authority into provincial centers and factional infighting among the nobility.[4](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan)\n\n## Legacy\n\nBedil's standing has shifted repeatedly. His legacy was discredited in Iran by the Neo-[Classicism](https://www.edgepedia.org/classicism) of the late eighteenth century, again in Soviet Central Asia by early twentieth-century \"progressive\" poetics, and he became less read in [South Asia](https://www.edgepedia.org/south-asia) as Persian faded there, but his work has gained new legibility through critiques of nationalist literary historiographies.[17](https://www.perlego.com/book/1632858/persian-authorship-and-canonicity-in-late-mughal-delhi-building-an-ark-pdf) He has been widely celebrated in Afghanistan, and his elegy for his son influenced Abdulhak Hamid's Makber in Turkish literature.[10](https://aipublisher.org/resources/article_documents/article_docajahss.7.10.1.pdf) • [3](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil)\n\n## References\n\n1. [BĪDEL, ʿABD-AL-QĀDER - Encyclopaedia Iranica](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bidel-bedil-mirza-abd-al-qader-b/)\n2. [ʿAbdul Qādir Bēdil | Muslim poet | Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abdul-Qadir-Bedil)\n3. [BÎDİL - TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bidil)\n4. [Perso-Indica: The Maṯnawī-i ʿirfān of Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Qādir Bedil](http://perso-indica.net/work/matnawi-i_irfan)\n5. [IO Islamic 3480: Dīwān Bīdil (India Office manuscript catalogue)](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10897583)\n6. [A Brief Description of Bēdil's Mystical and Philosophical Ideas, Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review](https://ojs.plhr.org.pk/journal/article/download/791/688)\n7. [About - Bedil Foundation](https://bedilfoundation.org/about/)\n8. [Abdul Qadir Bedil Dehlavi profile, Rekhta](https://www.rekhta.org/authors/abdul-qadir-bedil-dehlavi/profile?lang=ur)\n9. [Profile of Bedil Azimabadi, Sufinama](https://sufinama.org/poets/bedil-azimabadi/profile)\n10. [Article on Mirza Abdul-Qadir Bedil, AJAHSS](https://aipublisher.org/resources/article_documents/article_docajahss.7.10.1.pdf)\n11. [Tahoor Islamic Encyclopedia: Bedil Dehlavi](https://www.tahoor.com/en/article/view/114073)\n12. [Deewan-e-Bedil, Rekhta](https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/detail/deewan-e-bedil-abdul-qadir-bedil-ebooks)\n13. [Delhi: The cradle of Persian literati circle of Abdul Qadir Bedil, Tareekh-e-Adab-e-Urdu](https://www.tareekheadabeurdu.com/assets-new/pdf/articles/v7s3-2025/24.pdf)\n14. [Article on Bedil, European International Journal of Philological Sciences](https://inlibrary.uz/index.php/eijps/article/download/24039/24870/28060)\n15. [Bedil Azimabadi profile (Urdu), Sufinama](https://sufinama.org/poets/bedil-azimabadi/profile?lang=ur)\n16. [Bedil as Militarist-Sufist, Journal of Studies on Literature, University of Tehran](https://jsal.ut.ac.ir/article_70800_en.html)\n17. [Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi, Prashant Keshavmurthy (Routledge)](https://www.perlego.com/book/1632858/persian-authorship-and-canonicity-in-late-mughal-delhi-building-an-ark-pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › Asian history › India and South Asia › Mughal Empire to Aurangzeb (1526 to 1707) › Artists, poets, and scholars*\n\n*Initially written Sep 23, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Bedil\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Bedil](https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil](https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Bedil\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/bedil. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Bedil was the pen name of Mirza Abd al-Qadir, a Persian-language poet and Sufi of Mughal India, born in 1644 in Patna and active in Delhi." }