Abu'l-Ma'ali Nasrallah

Nasrallah ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hamid Shirazi (Persian: نصرالله بن محمد بن عبدالحمید شیرازی), better known as Abu'l-Mali Nasrallah (ابوالمالی نصرالله), was a Persian^[2] poet and statesman who served as the vizier of the Ghaznavid Sultan Khusrau Malik.

"The New King Paraded around the Town on a White Elephant". Kalila and Dimna of Abu'l-Mali Nasrallah, 1410-1425, Tabriz (resued by Baysunghur in Herat in 1431). Topkaki Saray Museum, H.362, fol. 169r.^[1]

Biography

Nasrallah was born in Ghazni; he was the grandson of Abd al-Hamid Shirazi, a prominent Ghaznavid vizier, who himself was the son of the prominent Ghaznavid vizier Ahmad Shirazi, who was the son of Abu Tahir Shirazi, a secretary under the Samanids, whose family was originally from Shiraz in southern Iran. Nasrallah later became a secretary at the Ghaznavid court, and also became a poet.

Kalila wa Dimna

Between 1143 and 1146, Nasrallah translated the Arabic translated Indian fable story Kalila wa Dimna to Persian,^[3] and dedicated it to Sultan Bahram-Shah.

During the reign of the Bahram-Shah's grandson, the last Ghaznavid Sultan Khusrau Malik, Nasrallah was appointed as his vizier, but later fell into disfavor and was imprisoned, and then executed.^[4]