: 2 Through his father's influence, he imbibed Islam and Sufism coupled with proficiency in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic languages. Amir Saif ud-Din Mahmud died in 1260, when Khusrau was only eight years old. Early years Īmir Saif ud-Din and Bibi Daulatnaz became the parents of four children: three sons (one of whom was Khusrau) and a daughter. Daulatnaz's family belonged to the Rajput community of modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Īmir Saif ud-Din married Bibi Daulat Naz, the daughter of Rawat Arz, an Indian noble and war minister of Ghiyas ud-Din Balban, the ninth Sultan of Delhi. In 1230, Amir Saif ud-Din was granted a fief in the district of Patiyali. Iltutmish not only welcomed the refugees to his court but also granted high offices and landed estates to some of them. This was the reason the group had turned to him in the first place. Sultan Shams ud-Din Iltutmish, ruler of Delhi, was himself a Turk like them indeed, he had grown up in the same region of Central Asia and had undergone somewhat similar circumstances in earlier life. This was granted, and the group then travelled to Delhi. A group of families, including that of Amir Saif ud-Din, left Kesh and travelled to Balkh (now in northern Afghanistan), which was a relatively safe place from here, they sent representations to the Sultan of distant Delhi seeking refuge and succour. When he was a young man, the region was despoiled and ravaged by Genghis Khan's invasion of Central Asia, and much of the population fled to other lands, India being a favored destination. He grew up in Kesh, a small town near Samarkand in what is now Uzbekistan. Amīr Khusrau was born in 1253 in Patiyali, Kasganj district, in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, India, in what was then the Delhi Sultanate, the son of Amīr Saif ud-Dīn Mahmūd, a man of Turkic extraction and Bibi Daulat Naz, a native Indian mother.

Amir khusro biography