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The fifteenth-century Persian poet Ashraf has received little attention from the tadhkirah-writers. His name occurs in Aḥmad ‘Alīkhān Hāshimī's vast Makhzan al-gharā'ib, but only with a few baits from a ghazal attached to it, and no details of his life. The only tadhkirah which contains a biographical notice of him is Taqī al-Dīn Kāshī's Khulāṣat al-ash'ār wa zubdat al-afkār. In the India Office manuscript of this work the notice occupies ff. 872 verso—875 verso.
page 15 note 1 Two later poets of this name do not concern us here, viz.: Muḥammad Sā'īd ibn Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Māzandarānī (died 1124/1712) who is the best known poet of this takhalluṣ; and a certain Mīrzā Ashraf mentioned in the Makhzan al-gharā'ib (Bodleian Library, MS Elliot 395, fol. 41 verso), who since he is stated to be a grandson of Mīr Bāqir Dāmād (died 1020/1611) must also have flourished in the latter part of the eleventh/seventeenth century.
page 15 note 2 Bodleian Library, MS Elliot 395, fol. 41 recto.
page 15 note 3 H. Ethé, Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the India Office Library, No. 667.
page 15 note 4 See Huart, C., Histoire de Bagdad dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1901), pp. 24–5Google Scholar. A short biographical notice of Pir Budäq is also to be found in Sakhäwl's, al-Ḍau' al-lāmi' (ed. , Haidarabad 1353/1934), vol. 3, p. 2Google Scholar. The death date 870 is given by al-'Imād, Ibn, Shadharāt al-dhahab (ed. , Cairo 1350–1/1931–1932), vol. 7, p. 310Google Scholar. The Cairo edition prints his name in this passage as 
, but this must be merely a scribal error for 
; the person referred to is certainly identical with our Budāq, since he is described by Ibn al-'Imād as governor of Baghdad and son of Jahānshāh b. Qara Yūsuf b. Qara Muḥammad al-Turkmānī.
Professor Arberry has pointed out to me that Sulṭān Ḥusain Baiqāra's Majālis al-'ushshāq gives a death date of 800 for Sulṭān Pīr Budāgh (see Rieu, , Catalogue of Persian MSS. in the British Museum, vol. 1, p. 352Google Scholar). This round number is, however, in itself suspect, and suspicion of it is confirmed by the fact that in the copy of the Majālis al-'ushshāq found in the Bodleian MS. Elliot 345, fol. 667 recto, a blank space follows the word hashtṣad; it seems certain therefore that Sulṭān Ḥusain in his original left a similar blank in the hope of filling in the exact date later, which was not done.
page 16 note 1 Sprenger, A., Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian, and Hindústány manuscripts of the Libraries of the King of Oudh (Calcutta, 1854), p. 20Google Scholar.
page 16 note 2 A “splendid copy” of the diwan formerly existed in the Faraḥbakhsh Library at Lucknow (Sprenger, op. cit., p. 341), but like so many other treasures, perished in the sack of the city in 1857. Sprenger further records a manuscript in his own collection, but as nothing further seems to have been heard of it, this also must be presumed lost.
page 16 note 3 Ethé, H., Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, No. 874Google Scholar.
page 16 note 4 Rieu, C., Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. 2, p. 734Google Scholar.
page 16 note 5 Ethé, op. cit., No. 1212.
page 17 note 1 The use of the phraae qaddasa sirrahu is surprising in reference to our author who was certainly alive at the time when Niẓām b. 'Alī penned this. I have discussed the point with Professor Arberry, but no fully satisfactory explanation seems possible. The only conjecture that I have been able to form is that the poet may have left his native town before 851 (a large portion of his middle life was at any rate spent in Baghdad, as Taqī al-Dīn Kāshī mentions, see above, p. 15), and that Niẓām b. 'Alī was unaware of his being still alive. This might also explain why Niẓām b. 'Alī was unable to make good his defective copy of the first diwan.