JIGAR & SEEMAB Meher Baba's Favourite Urdu Poets Selected Poems Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Meher Baba, took Huma (Phoenix) as a pen-name when he composed ghazals in his twenties and later on. He knew the ghazals of Hafiz by heart. He went on to reveal himself as Qutub (Perfect Master) and later as the Rasool or Messiah (Avatar). Of the Urdu Poets, Jigar and Seemab in particular were his favourites and he had a connection with them. Jigar was admired and read by many. He had a large following among the ordinary people. His fame transcended religious and language barriers. He was a great admirer of beauty and painted a living picture of it in his ghazals, but not stopping at that, his description of beauty carries one to a different timeless place where Eternal Beauty reigns supreme. On his death-bed Meher Baba contacted him. Seemab began ghazal writing in the 19th century. He composed remarkable Urdu translations in rhyming poetry of the Quran and the Masnavi of Rumi. His ghazals are suffused with true Sufism. Meher Baba while listening to the singing of a ghazal of Seemab was so impressed by a particular couplet that he stopped the singer and declared that because of it he had bestowed on him the ultimate gift of liberation or God-realization. The correct rhyme-structure of the ghazal has been kept throughout. 240 pages Paul Smith is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets from the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Khayyam, Rudaki, Lalla Ded, Mahsati, Baba Farid, Kabir, Iqbal, Ghalib, Mansur Hallaj, 'Iraqi and others, and his own poetry, fiction, biographies, plays, children's books and a dozen screenplays. www.newhumanitybooks.com