Khamid al-Din Balkhi

Born in Balkh or Valvalij or Talekan, in Badakhshan; died 1164. Tadzhik-Afghan writer who wrote in Persian.

Khamid inherited the post of chief judge in Balkh. His most important work is a collection of short stories in the maqama genre, which became known under the title Maqamat-i Hamidi. As the author indicates in his foreword, the aim of the collection was to acquaint the “simple Iranians” who did not know Arabic with the maqamas of Badi al-Zaman and al-Hariri. However, Khamid al-Din actually digressed far from the works of his famous predecessors. While using the classical form of the Arabic maqama, he enriched it with lively contemporary content. Khamid also wrote in the traditional qasida and ghazal genres. He was the author of the narrative poem Journey to Merv, of which only a fragment has survived, and of several dogmatic treatises that have not come down to us.