Feyżī’s Poetry at the Mughal Court
Fatemeh Naghshvarian
July 10, 2026 DOI: 10.33540/3755 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Keywords | Poetry Emperor Reincarnation Contradiction Sufism Religious experience Period music Literature Islam |
| Key points | Argues that Feyżī's poetry, building on Persian mystical traditions, used paradox and contradiction to reflect on spiritual experience and challenge established religious binaries, thereby playing a significant role in Mughal debates about religion, tolerance, and spiritual truth. |
Abstract
How did religious poets contribute to ideas about religion, tolerance, and spiritual truth in the Mughal Empire? This dissertation examines the poetry of Feyżī (1547–1595), the poet laureate of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Feyżī wrote during a period in which Emperor Akbar promoted a vision of peaceful coexistence among people of different religious backgrounds, known as ṣulḥ-i kull ("universal peace"). Akbar's religious vision is commonly associated with the concept of dīn-i ilāhī ("Divine Religion"). The dissertation demonstrates how Feyżī built upon a rich tradition of Persian mystical poetry that challenged religious conventions and questioned established oppositions between belief and unbelief, the tavern and the mosque, and other conventional binaries. In his poetry, he employs themes such as doubt, love, wine, and even blasphemy to reflect on spiritual experience and the search for mystical truth. Rather than offering straightforward answers, Feyżī embraced paradox and contradiction as ways of approaching the divine. By situating Feyżī's poetry within its historical and intellectual context, this dissertation shows how literature played a significant role in debates about religion, knowledge, and diversity in the Mughal world. It argues that poetry was not merely an artistic form, but also a vehicle for philosophical reflection, theoretical inquiry, and a powerful means of exploring different modes of belief and the human condition.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |