Muqimiy – the people’s poet

Muhammad Aminxo‘ja Muqimiy was born in 1850 in Kokand in the family of the baker Mirzaxo‘ja; his mother was Oyshabibi. He studied at the Hokim oyim madrasa and in 1872–1873 at the Mehtar Anbar madrasa in Bukhara. In 1876 he returned to Kokand and worked as a clerk in a land-survey office, later selling ferry tickets on the Oqjar river; thanks to his beautiful handwriting he was also a calligrapher. Muqimiy led the Kokand literary circle with poets such as Furqat, Zavqiy, Nisbat and Muhayyir. In 1887 he went to Tashkent and wrote “Sayohatnoma”. The poet died in 1903 aged 53; about 10,000 lines of his poetry survive, and his first collection, “Devoni Muqimiy”, was printed in 1907. Muqimiy is especially famous for satirical poems depicting people’s lives and the injustice of officials.