Mirza Salaamat Ali Dabeer

Mirza Salaamat Ali Dabeer (1803–1875) ( Urdu: مرزا سلامت علی دبیر ) was a leading Urdu poet who excelled and perfected the art of Marsiya writing. He is considered the leading exponent of Marsiya Nigari or marsiya writing along with Mir Anis.

Mirza Dabeer was born in 1803 in Delhi. He started reciting marsiya since childhood during muharram ceremonial gatherings called majalis (singular-majlis). He started writing poetry under the tutelage of Mir Muzaffar Husain Zameer. Dabeer himself was an erudite scholar of his time. He migrated from Delhi to Lucknow, where he found suitable environment to develop and demonstrate his skills in marsiya writing. According to Maulana Muhammad Husain Azad in Aab-e-Hayat quoting Tazkira-e-Sarapa Sukhan, there is confusion regarding his father's name because of two different names mentioned in Tazkira-as-Ghulam Husain /Mirza Agha Jan Kaghazfarosh. Mirza Dabeer died in Lucknow in 1875 and is buried there.

Works

According to Muhammad Husain Azad in Aab-e-Hayat: Mirzā Sahib died on the 29th of Muharram, AH 1292 [1875–76], at the age of 72 years. In his lifetime he must have written at least three thousand elegies. Not counting his salāms and nauhas and quatrains. He wrote a dotless elegy (be-nuqta) of which the opening verse is: