He was born in Iran and belonged to the Kalmyk people and received training in Khurasan. He started working in Kabul under Muhammad Hakim, half brother of emperor Akbar. And after the death of Hakim, he moved to Delhi in December 1585. He worked on many paintings for Mughal royalty between 1586 and 1590, when he took part in the Kandhahar campaign of Akbar, but after this seems to have been absent from the Mughal court until around 1605. He may also have been the painter known as Farrukh Hussein, who is recorded in Kabul, where he painted a portrait of Hakim in 1584. A Farrukh Hussein is also mentioned as the foremost painter in Bijapur during these "missing years", and various works in the Bijapur version of Deccan painting have been attributed to him. But these attributions, and the whole question, remain unsettled. After he reappeared at the Mughal court he worked for Jahangir, who in 1609 gave him 2,000 rupees, and described him as "unrivalled in his age".