Mawlānā Abul-Ma'ānī Mīrzā Abdul-Qādir Bēdil, also known as Bīdel Dehlavī, was a Sufi saint and a remarkable poet from the Indian subcontinent. He was the foremost representative of the later phase of the "Indian style" of Persian poetry and the most difficult and challenging poet of that school. He is considered the most difficult and challenging poet of Safavid-Mughal poetry.
Works
Even though he is known as a master of Persian poetry, Bīdel was actually of Turkic Central Asian descent, his family originally belonging to the Arlās tribe of the Chaghatay, regarded by some as part of the Uzbek people. He was born in Azīmābād, present-day Patna in India.
Bīdel mostly wrote Ghazal and Rubayee in that language. 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-i Lahori were influenced by him. His books include Tilism-i Hairat, Tur i Ma'rifat, Chahār Unsur and Ruqa'āt. Possibly as a result of being brought up in such a mixed religious environment, Bīdel had considerably more tolerant views than his poetic contemporaries. He preferred freethought to accepting the established beliefs of his time, siding with the common people and rejecting the clergy who he often saw as corrupt. Bīdel is much welcomed in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. Bīdel came back to prominence in Iran in 1980s. Literary criticsMohammad-Reza Shafiei-Kadkani and Shams Langrudi were instrumental in Bīdel's re-emergence in Iran. Iran also sponsored two international conferences on Bīdel. The Indian school of Persian poetry and especially Bīdel's poetry is criticized for its complex and implicit meanings, however, it is much welcomed in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India than in Iran. The main reason could be his style which is kept a bitIndian. In Afghanistan, a unique school in poetry studying is dedicated to Bīdel's poetry called Bīdelšināsī and those who have studied his poetry are called Bīdelšinās. His poetry plays a major role in Indo-Persian classical music of central Asia as well. Many Afghan classical musicians, e.g. Mohammad Hussain Sarahang, have sung plenty of Bīdel's ghazals.
