Aziz Lakhnavi

Aziz Lakhnavi, born Mirza Mohammad Hadi in Lucknow in 1882, was a distinguished Persian and Urdu scholar and poet of the Lucknow school. His family, descended from migrants from Shiraz who first settled in Kashmir and later moved to Lucknow under the Awadh nobles, was renowned for scholarship. Educated at home after his father's death when he was seven, he later taught Persian and Urdu at Aminabad School and then became guardian to the siblings of Ali Mohammad Khan, Maharaja of Mahmudabad, spending the rest of his life there. A disciple of Safi Lakhnavi, he practised every poetic form and earned a particular reputation as a qasida poet, praised for the magnanimity of his language and the vitality of his imagination. His works include Gulkadah and the collected Kulliyat-e-Azeez.