A NASTA'LIQ QUATRAIN

Mir 'Ali, the famous nasta'liq scribe (d. circa AH 951/1544-55 AD), studied in Herat. He spent most of his life working as a scribe of firmans and then at the Royal Library of the Timurid Sultan Husayn Bayqara, from whom he received the title 'Sultani'. After the capture of Herat by the Safavid ruler Shah Isma'il, Mir 'Ali worked under the patronage of Khwaja Karim al-Din Habibullah Savaji, the Minister to the Governor of Khorassan and brother of Shah Tahmasp, Sam Mirza.

After the subsequent Uzbek invasion of the city, Mir 'Ali was taken to Bukhara by 'Ubaydullah Khan and made to work as a scribe at his court and as the teacher of his son 'Abd al-'Aziz Khan. His recorded work includes numerous manuscripts and calligraphic pages, including 61 in the famous Gulshan Album in the Gulistan Palace Library in Tehran, and is dated between AH 914/1508-09 AD and AH 951/1544-45 AD (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va Asar-e Khosh-Nevisan, Vol. II, Tehran, 1346 sh, pp. 493-516).