David Chaffetz at the Asian Review of Books:
Classical Persian literature offers very few autobiographies. We tend to admire the works of great poets in that tradition, in this case Amir Khusraw, without knowing much about them as individuals. If Khusraw’s poems are like flowers, “Exquisite Things and Strange Wonders” shows the gardens where the flowers grew. Alyssa Gabbay’s fluid translation brings to life the Indian song bird, as he called himself, letting us judge him on our terms or his.
The 13th-century Delhi Slave Sultanate (so-called because its rulers rose from the ranks of enslaved Turkish military personnel) enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity while the rest of the Islamic world suffered the depredations of the Mongols. Badghdad went into eclipse, and Delhi rose up like a new moon. Persian had been the language of its court already for three centuries, and would remain so for another five or more.
More here.
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