Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau, better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. He was a mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, India. He wrote poetry primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi. A vocabulary in verse, the Ḳhāliq Bārī, containing Arabic, Persian and Hindavi terms is often attributed to him. Khusrau is sometimes referred to as the "voice of India" or "Parrot of India", and has been called the "father of Urdu literature."
Khusrau is regarded as the "father of qawwali", and introduced the ghazal style of song into India, both of which still exist widely in India and Pakistan.
Khusrau was an expert in many styles of Persian poetry which were developed in medieval Persia, from Khāqānī's qasidas to Nizami's khamsa. He used 11 metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He wrote in many verse forms including ghazal, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band. His contribution to the development of the ghazal was significant.