According to Muhammad Hussain Azad, "The late Mīr Sahib must certainly have composed at least ten thousand elegies, and salāms beyond count. He composed as easily and casually as he spoke." In his essay "How to read Iqbal?" Shamsur Rahman Faruqi wrote: "
Iqbal was placed better because he had, among others,
Bedil (1644–1720) in Persian and Mir Anis (1802–1874) in
Urdu." He further asserts: "The mention of Mir Anis may surprise some of us until we realize it that Mir Anis’s
Marsiyas are the best premodern model in Urdu of narrative-historical, narrative-lyrical, and oral-dramatic poetry, and Iqbal’s
poetry extends and exploits the possibilities created by Anis." Mir Anis was criticized for playing on religious sentiments giving his work a vertical appeal at the expense of poetic beauty. While Farhat Nadir Rizvi, in her research, has propounded that Anis was narrating recorded history and was therefore restricted in use of pure imagination and fantasy, yet he dexterously harnessed the art of
storytelling in his work and we cannot but accept that he was not only a Marsiya writer but also a successful storyteller. Anis has been compared with
Shakespeare. Shakespeare creates imaginary plots and characters so beautifully that they appear real to the reader; Anis narrates events and characters fossilized in history so vividly that they become alive in the eyes of his audience. Anis is also known as a pioneer in
Rubai, an Urdu poetry branch, and enjoys status akin to that of
Mirza Sauda,
Khwaja Mir Dard and
Dabeer. == Books on Mir Anis ==