Abdul Qader Bedil

Abul Ma'āni Mirzā Abdul-Qāder Bedil o Mawlānā Abul Ma'āni Abdul Qader Bedil (1642 - 1720) fue un famoso poeta y sufista, que nació en Azimabad (hoy Patna, India); su familia perteneció a la tríbu Barlas en Balh (Afganistán).

Acordado de otras fuentes, nació en Khwaja Rawash, un área de la provincia de Kabul en Afganistán. Su tumba, llamada Bagh-e-Bedil (Jardín de Bedil) está situado en la ruta Mathura en Delhi.

Escribió poesía y prosa en Dari o Persa. Es considerado uno de los fundadores y uno de los grandes poetas de la Escuela de Poesía India y su único estilo que usa es el Persa. Algunos escritores como Ghalib y Muhammad Iqbal fueron influenciados.

Es famoso en Afganistán y Asia Central que en Irán o en India, debido al estilo del lenguaje y que las expresiones usadas en sus poemas son más comprensibles para los Afganos hablantes de Dari y es figura culta entre Tayiks. En hecho fue el primer ministro de Tayikistán quién visitó en agosto del 2006 y que puntualizó oficialmente renovar su tumba en lo que hasta ahora se encuentra en estado de negligencia.

Un famoso de Bedil escribió: "Bedil az kulfat-e-shikasht mun'aal Bazm-e-hasti dukaan-e-shishagar ast" ("Bedil se lamenta no por sus pérdidas, esta parte es vida, es después toda ayuda en una tienda de vidrios").


Mirza Abdul-Qader Bedil is one of the most respected poets with the Afghans. In the early 17th century, his family moved from Afghan Turkestan (Balkh region) to India, to live under the Moghul dynasty. Bedil himself, although ethnically an Uzbek, was born and educated in India. In his later life he spent time travelling and visiting his ancestral lands.

His writings are extensive and none have been lost. His kulliat (complete works) consist of many ghazals, tarkib-bands, a tarjih-band, mu'ammas (riddles) and more. He also wrote four masnavis, the most important being "Irfaan", which he completed at age 68. It contains many stories and fairy tales, outlining the poets philosophical views.

Possibly as a result of being brought up in such a mixed religious environment, Bedil had considerably more tolerant views than his poetic contemporaries. He preferred free thought to accepting the established beliefs of his time, siding with the common people and rejecting the clergy who he often saw as corrupt.

He essentially believed that the world was eternal, and in constant motion. He believed that all life was first mineral, then plant, then animal. He also expressed disbelief in judgement day and other orthodox tenets of faith. Despite this, he was by no means an atheist or a freethinker in the modern day sense. On the contrary, he had complicated views on the nature of God, heavily influenced by the Sufis (with whom he spent a considerable period of time).

Bedil enjoyed virtually no fame in Iran, and only few scholars knew of him until recently. In Afghanistan and Tajikistan, however, he had a following that almost followed like a cult. People would get together at weekly Bedil meetings to study and interpret his poetry, and he was the poet of choice for many ghazal singers (including the most illustrious of all, Ustad Sarahang, who even expressed his desire to be buried at Bedils tomb.)

The language of Bedil is as complicated as his thoughts. His sentence structure and use of images often requires time to comprehend, being as difficult for a Dari speaker as Shakespeare is for the modern English speaker. If comparing his language to the Iranian contemporary poets such as Sa’ib, one can clearly see the difference between modern Dari and Iranian Farsi. Some of Bedils ghazals: Ba baghi ke chun gol khandida budum Sereshkam nuskha-e dewana-e kist