Profile of Shaikh Zahuruddin Hatim
Sheikh Zahuruddin was known as Shah Hatim where Hatim was his pen name. The word Zahur also incorporates his year of birth, that is 1111 Hijri. He was a pure Delhvi and was a sepoy by occupation. He was under an oath of alliance to an Islamic religious priest, Muhammad Ameen. He was the inspector during the governance of Nawab Amdat-ul-Mulk of Allahabad. Later, he had been in the services professor Hidayat Ali Khan, Muraad Ali Khan and Faaqir Khan, etc. However, in his last days he preferred to live in complete seclusion. He was a very cultured person and headed the second grade of poets. Mirza Soda, a literary doyen of all the times was his disciple and he was proud of him. Saadat Yaar Khan Rangeen, Muhammad Aman Nisar and Mukund Singh Faarigh were his other disciples. He had a good sense of humor and his daily haunt was around the Delhi fort, in the vicinity of a holy man, Shah Tasleem. Initially, Eehaam Goi was his basic shade of poetry but he abandoned it later and focused on the improvement of his language skills. He quit the use of any ambiguous and strange words. However, the people of that era were oblivious about it. He writes in the foreword of his Deewan.. this idea ( of improvement in language) is supposed to take its birth in the era of Naasiq-o-aatish or Momin-o-Zoq, but it started a century earlier. However, the only difference is that it was declared obligatory for everyone during this period… and the idea of Faqir Shah Hatim could not take a flight beyond his words and the foreword of his Deewan and his first Deewan became a feast for mildew during turbulent times. Nevertheless, he is at the top in the list of the literary personalities who focused towards the improvement of language. His second Deewan, Musammi Ba Deewan Zaada is found that consists of ghazals, mukhammas, rubaiyaat, saaqi naama, two masnaviis in the praise of tobacco and qehwa and a shehre aashob the titled Baarah Sadi that describes the pathetic conditions of the period of Muhammad Shah very deftly. The basic essence of his ghazals is romance and self-realization. The tone of the couplets is conversational but like the other poets of his era the language of his poetry is not free of extra words, despite the eloquence. In the foreword of Deewan Zaada, he narrates the forty five names of his disciples and Soda is one of them. It seems that Taabaa was also his disciple.