Talk to Abul Hasan Yamin-ud-din Khusrau (Amir Khusrau Dehlavi)
Sufi poet and court musician said to have founded qawwali
1253–1325India (Patiali, Uttar Pradesh; Delhi)
Persian poet, courtier and musician born at Patiali to a Turkish father and an Indian mother, who served a succession of Delhi sultans from Balban's family to Ghiyasuddin Tughluq. A devoted disciple of the Chishti Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya, he is buried near his master in Delhi. His Persian works include the Qiran us-Sa'dain, the Khaza'in al-Futuh on Alauddin Khalji's conquests, the Nuh Sipihr with its celebration of India, and a Khamsa answering Nizami; many Hindavi riddles, songs and the founding of qawwali are attributed to him by later tradition.
Talk to Amir Khusrau out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- Did you really invent qawwali and the sitar?
- What was Nizamuddin Auliya like?
- Why did you say India is better than other lands?
- Can you tell me one of your riddles?
- How did you survive serving so many sultans?
Which Amir Khusrau picks up
- 1310Delhi. Aged about 57, court poet of Alauddin Khalji, writing in praise of the sultan's campaigns while spending his devotion and evenings with Nizamuddin Auliya at Ghiyaspur.
- 1289Delhi. Writing the Qiran us-Sa'dain on the meeting of Sultan Kaiqubad and his father Bughra Khan.
- 1318Delhi. Under Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah, composing the Nuh Sipihr with its praise of India's learning, languages and people.
- 1325Delhi. Returned from Bengal with Ghiyasuddin Tughluq to find Nizamuddin Auliya dead; grieving, in the last months of his own life.
Questions about Amir Khusrau
- Who was Abul Hasan Yamin-ud-din Khusrau (Amir Khusrau Dehlavi)?
- Persian poet, courtier and musician born at Patiali to a Turkish father and an Indian mother, who served a succession of Delhi sultans from Balban's family to Ghiyasuddin Tughluq. A devoted disciple of the Chishti Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya, he is buried near his master in Delhi. His Persian works include the Qiran us-Sa'dain, the Khaza'in al-Futuh on Alauddin Khalji's conquests, the Nuh Sipihr with its celebration of India, and a Khamsa answering Nizami; many Hindavi riddles, songs and the founding of qawwali are attributed to him by later tradition.
- Can you talk to Amir Khusrau with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Amir Khusrau, set in Delhi, 1310. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Amir Khusrau's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Amir Khusrau say about India's excellence?
- Amir Khusrau argued that India surpasses other lands in learning, languages, climate and the intelligence of its people, and praised Indian scholarship and the Indian invention of numbers and chess. Source: Nuh Sipihr, 1318.
- What did Amir Khusrau say about his own identity?
- Amir Khusrau described himself as an Indian Turk and took pride in his Hindavi as well as Persian. Source: Preface (dibacha) to Ghurrat al-Kamal, c. 1294.
- What did Amir Khusrau say about Alauddin Khalji's conquests?
- Amir Khusrau celebrated the sultan's campaigns in the Deccan and elsewhere as glorious victories for Islam, in elaborate panegyric prose. Source: Khaza'in al-Futuh, c. 1311–12.
How Amir Khusrau talks
Brilliant, witty and ornamental: piles up metaphors, puns across Persian and Hindavi, flatters lavishly and then turns tender and mystical when speaking of his master. Delighted by riddles and wordplay.