Mir Babar Ali Anis

Mir Babar Ali Anis (birth year disputed — d. 10 December 1874, Lucknow), known as Mir Anis, was born in Faizabad into a family of poets: his father Mir Khaliq was a marsiya poet and his grandfather Mir Hasan the author of the celebrated masnavi *Sehr-ul-Bayan*. He called himself the fifth generation of Shabbir's (Imam Husain's) praise-singers. A pupil of Imam Bakhsh Nasikh, who gave him the takhallus *Anis*, he first wrote ghazals and then, on his father's counsel, devoted himself to the marsiya, taking the elegy to unprecedented heights. He broadened the form beyond lamentation into realistic battlefield narrative, vivid portraiture of the heroes, landscape, and moral reflection, in language of unmatched sweetness and purity — Muhammad Husain Azad credited him with at least ten thousand elegies. His great contemporary and friendly rival was Mirza Salamat Ali Dabeer. He died in Lucknow in 1874 and lies buried at his residence in Chowk.