Mullah Do Piaza

Mullah Do-Piyaza, according to popular folk tales of northern India, was among the Mughal emperor Akbar's chief advisors. Akbar regarded his advice in high esteem and included him among the nine gems of the Mughal court, or Navratnas, as he was known for his intelligence. He was a close competition to Birbal.

No contemporary record mentions about Mullah Do-Piyaza. A number of pamphlets on his life and jokes were published in the late 19th century, which were rejected as forgeries by a modern scholar Hafiz Mahmood Shirani in an article published by him in 1939. In this article, Shirani claimed that Mulla Do-Piyaza was a historical personality whose original name was Abdul Momin. He was born in India but left for Iran in 1582. He returned to India after 36 years and died in 1620. His tomb is located in Handia. He claimed that the major sources of his information were two long pieces written by certain Ashlaghi, son and student of Mullah in an early 19th century manuscript in Persian, which was in his possession. But his claim was refuted by other modern scholars, who consider Mullah Do-Piyaza as a fictional character.^[1]

References

1. ^ Naim, C. M. (2007). "Popular Jokes and Political History: The Case of Akbar, Birbal and Mulla Do-Piyaza". In Meenakshi Khanna (ed.). Cultural History of Medieval India. New Delhi: Social Science Press. pp. 24–43. ISBN 978-8-18735-830-5. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ZbKv3zyIFD8C&pg=PA24&dq=Mulla+Do-piyaza&hl=en&ei=LMjbTaqoHoOGrAfk94XbDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mulla%20Do-piyaza&f=false. 

Persondata
Name	Mullah Do Piaza
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death