Abu Nazar ʿAbdul ʿAziz bin Mansur ʿAsjadi () was a 10th-11th century royal Persian poet of the Ghaznavid empire located in the

Ghazni Ghazni (, ), historically known as Ghaznayn () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana (), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan with a population of around 190,000 people. The city is strategica ...

province of today's

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. Originating from

Merv Merv (, ', ; ), also known as the Merve Oasis, was a major Iranian peoples, Iranian city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, near today's Mary, Turkmenistan. Human settlements on the site of Merv existed from the 3rd millennium& ...

, and in some accounts

Herat Herāt (; Dari/Pashto: هرات) is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Se ...

, he was a follower of the panegyric school of poetry of Unsuri in Khorasan, and was a companion of Farrukhi Sistani and

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...

as well. His

Divan A divan or diwan (, ''dīvān''; from Sumerian ''dub'', clay tablet) was a high government ministry in various Islamic states, or its chief official (see ''dewan''). Etymology The word, recorded in English since 1586, meaning "Oriental cou ...

was already unavailable by the 15th century (if not earlier) and is unknown though around 200 of his verses had been recorded elsewhere. A quatrain attributed to Asjadi was translated by Edward Granville Browne as follows:

''I do repent of wine and talk of wine,'' ''Of idols fair with charms like silver fine:'' ''A lip-repentance and a lustful heart—'' ''O God, forgive this penitence of mine!''

Another verse, quoted in the Qabus-Nama and attributed to Asjadi, is also translated by Browne: "In youth or age did the question lie, / The young would live and the old would die." Asjadi died between 1040 and 1043 CE.

References

See also