Ghanimat Kunjahi
Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Kunjahi was a Punjabi poet of Persian language and Sufi in the Mughal Empire.
Biography
Little is known about his life with certainty, except that he descended from a family of muftis originating from the village of Kunjah, in Gujrat District. He was a disciple of Sayyid Muhammad Salih, himself a favourite disciple of Naushah Ganj Bakhsh, a well known saint associated with Qādiriyya Sufi order. He is reported to have travelled to Kashmir, Kabul and Delhi. The date of death of Kunjahi is not known: but since he praises Farrukhsiyar in his Golzār-e moḥabbat and his death is mentioned in his nephew Moḥammad Māh Ṣedāqat-e Konjāhī's Ṯawāqeb al-manāqeb, he probably died towards the end of 1713. He is buried in his native village of Kunjah.Works
Kunjahi wrote in Persian using the sabk-i hindī style, characterized by a fondness for the ghazal form and an interest in realistic and sometimes erotic themes. His works reflected complex imagery, themes, and syntax. Notable works of Kunjahi include a Dīvan consisting of 233 ghazals and 12 robāʿīs; Golzār-e moḥabbat, a mathnawi of 591 lines and the Nayrang-i ʿishḳ, a sentimental and romantic mathnawī of 1500 lines set in Punjab during Kunjahi's time.Nayrang-i ʿishḳ was written in 1685, and was highly esteemed in India. The poem starts with the formal praise to the land of Punjab where the story is set. It then tells the tale of love between prince Aziz and a dancer named Shahid. The poem was translated into several languages in the subsequent centuries. Notable translations include that of Abd al-Hamid Mohmand, Bhagwant Rai Rāhat and Mian Muhammad Bakhsh.