THE GREAT URDU POET MOMIN: SELECTED POEMS (Large Print & Large Format Edition) Translation & Introduction Paul Smith. With Ghalib and Zauq, Momin Khan Momin (1801-1852) was one of the three great poets of Delhi and his poetry was loved by the common people. The main theme in his poetry is love, in the physical sense and the human sense... earthly and real. He belonged to a family of doctors and was tall and handsome and was also a physician who was also interested in astrology, playing chess and music. Mir was one of his teachers in the art of poetry. He composed seven long masnavi poems and hundreds of ghazals and ruba'is and also composed elegies on the deaths of his many mistresses. He wrote not only in Urdu, but in Persian and Arabic which he knew perfectly. Momin was essentially a poet of the earthly love which he expressed best in the form of ghazal. In celebrating romantic love in all its manifestations, he drew upon the purity of diction, deeply nuanced phrases, and indirect modes of expression. All these made way, sometimes, for a metaphysical apprehension of the phenomenon of love and the figure of the lover (Sufism). He fell from a roof and was badly injured and using astrology predicated his own death. This is the only translation of ghazals & ruba'is and it has the correct rhyme structure of the originals. Introduction on the Urdu Language, Urdu Poetry, Life & Times & Poetry and on the ghazal. A Selected Bibliography. Large Print (16pt) Large Format ('7 x'10) Edition 120 pages. Comments on Paul Smith's Translation of Hafiz's 'Divan' "It is not a joke... the English version of ALL the ghazals of Hafez is a great feat and of paramount importance. I am astonished.." Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran. "Superb translations. 99% Hafez 1% Paul Smith." Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator of English to Persian and knower of Hafiz's Divan off by heart. "Smith has probably put together the greatest collection of literary facts and history concerning Hafez." Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books author). Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets from the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, and others, and poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children's books & 12 screenplays. amazon.com/authoe/smithpa