Urdu poet of 19th century India.
He was the son of another poet – Shah Husayn Hakikat. Muhsin achieved fame through his Tadhkirah of Urdu poets – Sarapa Sukhan- , published in Lucknow,India, in 1860. Here the ghazals of over 700 poets are included.
His work is distinguished by its arrangement- the poetry is grouped in about 50 chapters- each representing a part of the human body- hence the term “sarapa “, where each part of the body forms
a rhyme ( radif ).
The book is particularly rich in poems of Mushafi, Ishki, Muhsin himself , and his father Hakikat. However, it mentions all poets – big or small with biographical details.
His arrangement appears to have been imitated once by Gogul Prashad Rosa.
Muhsin also translated and adapted two of the three sections ( tabakat ) of a tadhkirah of Urdu poets from Persian to Urdu. This is the ” Makhzan i Nikat ” of Muhammad Kaim.