Nuṣratī wrote in the Deccani variety of Urdu and Persian.[8] His poetry uses archaic language and a complex style.[2] He was a prominent practitioner of the qaṣīda, ghazal and especially mathnawī forms.[9] One of his earliest works, Miʿrāj-nāma, was written for Sultan Muḥammad ʿĀdil Shāh (r. 1627–1656).[10]
His most original work is the ʿAlī-nāma, an epic celebration of ʿAlī II's wars against the Mughals and Marathas.[11] It is the earliest panegyric of a ruler in Deccani.[4] Nuṣratī himself claimed to have invented a new poetic form with this work, which is "the only thing of its kind in Urdu".[12] It is patterned on the Persian Shāh-nāma.[13] Grahame Bailey calls it the greatest poem ever written at Bijapur.[10]
Nuṣratī's final poem, written in a similar vein, is Taʾrīkh-i Sikandarī (also called the Taʾrīkh-i Bahlol Khani), a celebration of Bahlol Khan's victory over Shivaji at the battle of Umrani in 1672. It was written for ʿAlī II's successor, Sikandar.[14] Unlike the ʿAlīnāma, written at the height of Bijapur's power, it is "largely in a minor key".[12] Other works of Nuṣratī's include Gulshan-i ʿishq (1658), a collection of odes and the lyric collection Guldasta-yi ʿishq.[15]Gulshan-i ʿishq is a highly conventional romance.[16]
Notes
^Saksena 1990, pp. 39–40. His (nick)name is also spelled "Naṣrat(ī)".
Dayal, Subah (2020). "On Heroes and History: Responding to the Shahnama in the Deccan, 1500–1800". In Overton, Keelan (ed.). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700. Indiana University Press. pp. 421–446. ISBN978-0-253-04894-3.
Sharma, Sunil (2020). "Forging a Canon of Dakhni Literature: Translations and Retellings from Persian". In Overton, Keelan (ed.). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700. Indiana University Press. pp. 401–420. ISBN978-0-253-04894-3.
Haidar, Navina Najat (2014). "Gulshan-I 'Ishq: Sufi Romance of the Deccan". In Parodi, Laura E.; Eaton, Richard M. (eds.). The Visual World of Muslim India: The Art, Culture and Society of the Deccan in the Early Modern Era. London: I. B. Tauris. pp. 295–318. ISBN978-0-7556-0561-3. OCLC1128174855.