Mawlānā Abul-Ma'ānī Mīrzā Abdul-Qādir Bēdil (, or Bīdel, ), also known as Bedil Dehlavī (; 1642–1720), was an Indian Sufi, and considered one of the greatest Indo-Persian poets, next to Amir Khusrau, who lived most of his life during the reign of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor. He was the foremost representative of the later phase of the "Indian style" (sabk-e hendī) of Persian poetry, and the most difficult and challenging poet of that school. Life Bedil was born in Azimabad (present-day Patna) in India. He was the son of the Mirza Abd al-Khaliq (d. 1648), a former Turkic soldier who belonged to the Arlas tribe of the Chaghatay. The descendants of the family had originally lived in the city of Bukhara in Transoxiana, before moving to India. Bedil's native language was Bengali, but he also spoke Urdu (then known as rikhta), Sanskrit and Turkic, as well as Persian and Arabic, which he learned in elementary school. Bīdel mostly wrote Ghazal and Rubayee (quatrain) in Persian, the language of the Royal Court, which he had learned during his childhood. He was the author of 16 books of poetry, which contained nearly 147,000 verses and included several masnavi in that language. He is considered one of the prominent poets of Indian School of Poetry in Persian literature, and is regraded as having his own unique style. Both Mirza Ghalib and Iqbal-i Lahori were influenced by him. His books include Tilism-i Hairat (طلسم حيرت), Tur i Ma'rifat (طور معرفت), Chahār Unsur (چهار عنصر) and Ruqa'āt (رقعات). Possibly as a result of being brought up in such a mixed religious environment, Bīdel had considerably more tolerant views than his poetic contemporaries. He preferred free thought to accepting the established beliefs of his time, siding with the common people and rejecting the clergy who he often saw as corrupt. Bīdel's work is highly regarded in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. Bīdel came back to prominence in Iran in 1980s. Literary critics Mohammad-Reza Shafiei-Kadkani and Shams Langrudi were instrumental in Bīdel's re-emergence in Iran. Iran also sponsored two international conferences on Bīdel. The Indian school of Persian poetry, especially Bīdel's poetry, is criticised for its complex and implicit meanings. As a result, However, it better regarded in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India than in Iran. In Afghanistan, a unique school in poetry studying is dedicated to Bīdel's poetry called Bīdelšināsī (Bīdel studies), and those who have