Nizam al-Din 'Ishrat Sialkoti

Nizam al-Din 'Ishrat Sialkoti was an 18th-century historian, judge, panegyrist, and a court poet of Ahmad Shah Durrani, from Sialkot, Punjab. He is best known for his Shāhnāma-yi Aḥmadiyya, a versified history of the reign of Ahmad Shah Durrani imitating Ferdowsi's Shāhnāma, completed in around 1772/1773.

As his nisbah indicates, Sialkoti hailed from the city of Sialkot. Prior to the reign of Ahmad Shah, Sialkoti was commissioned (possibly by Nader Shah himself)

In 1762 Sialkoti accompanied Nūr al-Dīn Khān Bāmīzay, the Afghan governor, to Kashmir Valley where he became a judicial officer. Sialkoti completed his Shāhnāma-yi Aḥmadiyya, a masnavi of 614 pages, in the valley in 1772/3, concluding it with the death of Ahmad Shah and the accession of Timur Shah Durrani. Sialkoti wrote another epic poem detailing campaigns of Ahmad Shah in Hindustan as well. The later biographical details of Sialkoti are unknown.

In his works Sialkoti refers to himself with the exalted titles of “pride of Punjab” (fakhr-i Panjāb) and “honored of India” (iʿzāz-i Hind). His masnavi is notable for containing correspondence of Ahmad Shah with Qianlong Emperor of Qing China and Sultan Mustafa III of Ottoman Empire.