Mirza Ghalib

1797 - 1869, Agra, Mughal Empire (present-day India)

Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, known by his pen name Ghalib, was a prominent Urdu and Persian poet during the last years of the Mughal Empire. He is considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the Urdu language. Today, Ghalib remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the Hindustani diaspora around the world. Ghalib was born in Agra, into a family descended from Aibak Turks who moved to Samarkand after the downfall of the Seljuk kings. His paternal grandfather, Mirza Qoqan Baig Khan, was a Seljuq Turk who had immigrated to India from Samarkand during the reign of Ahmad Shah. He worked at Lahore, Delhi and Jaipur, was awarded the subdistrict of Pahasu and finally settled in Agra. He had four sons and three daughters. Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan and Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan were two of his sons. Ghalib's father, Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan, married Izzat-ut-Nisa Begum, and then lived at the house of his father-in-law. He was employed first by the Nawab of Lucknow and then the Nizam of Hyderabad, Deccan. Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan died in a battle in 1803 in Alwar and was buried at Rajgarh (Alwar, Rajasthan). At the age of thirteen, Ghalib married Umrao Begum, daughter of Nawab Ilahi Bakhsh. He soon moved to Delhi, along with his younger brother, Mirza Yousuf Khan, who had developed schizophrenia at a young age and later died in Delhi during the chaos of 1857.