Faizi

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Faizi (1547-1595) was the poet laureate of Akbar's Court. He was the brother of Akbar's historian Abul Fazl. He composed beautiful poetry in Persian and is estimated by his contemporaries to have composed nearly 100 poetic works. He wanted to produce a Panj Ganj (lit. five treasures) in imitation of the Persian poet Nezami, but died after writing only three out of the five works. Towards this end he wrote Nal Daman, Makhzan ul-advar, and Bilqis va Salman. These were in imitation of Nezami's Layla va Majnun, Makhzan ul-Asrar, and Shirin va Khusrau, respectively. Akbar highly recognized the genius in him and appointed him teacher for his son and gave place to him among his decorative 'Nav Ratnas'. He also wrote a commentary on the Quran and translated Lilavati, a Sanskrit work on mathematics, into Persian.