Saeb Tabrizi

Mirza Mohammad Ali, renowned as Saeb Tabrizi, was born in Isfahan into a merchant family that had relocated from Tabriz under Shah Abbas I. After mastering classical literature, he traveled to the Mughal Empire, flourishing at the court of Emperor Shah Jahan and governor Zafar Khan in Kabul and Agra before returning to Isfahan, where Shah Abbas II appointed him Poet Laureate (Malek o-Sho'ara).

Saeb was the towering genius of the Indian Style (Sabk-e Hendi) of Persian poetry, composing over one hundred thousand verses. His poetry revolutionized the ghazal through the technique of irsal-e masal—embedding philosophical maxims and everyday observations into the second line of a couplet to mirror the first—making his verses ubiquitous proverbs in Persian speech.