Saib Tabrizi

Saib Tabrizi's “Indian style” verses reveal an elegant wit, a gift for the aphorism and the proverb, and a keen appreciation of philosophical and intellectual exercise.

[citation needed] A line from Saib's poem on Kabul provided the title for Khaled Hosseini's 2007 novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

[7] Saib's father was the wealthy and prominent merchant Mirza Abd-al-Rahim, while his paternal uncle was Shams-al-Din of Tabriz was skilled in calligraphy, for which he received the nickname Shirin Qalam ("Sweet Pen").

[2][8] As a result of attacks by the Ottoman Empire, many families, including that of Saibs, were evacuated from Tabriz by Shah Abbas I, who moved them to the Abbasabad neighbourhood in Isfahan.

[2] Saib seems to have withdrawn from the public eye in his final years, only receiving a small number of students and literary supporters from all around the Persian-speaking world.

When discussing Saib, his contemporary Mohammad Taher Nasrabadi mentions that "the sublimity of his genius and extent of his fame need no description."

A few years later, in India, Sarkhosh writes that Saib's "jewel-like verses have broadcast his fame throughout the world," and that the Safavid shahs gifted copies of his divan (collection of poems) to leaders in other Islamic nations.

The Central Asian poet and biographer Maliha of Samarqand provides an emotional description of his visit to Saib's tomb and the night he spent there.

One of its supporters, Azar Bigdeli, accused Saib of "losing track of the established rules of previous masters” and causing poetry to go in a downward spiral.