Baba Tahir or Baba Taher Oryan Hamadani () was an 11th-century
dervish
Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from ) in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage is found particularly in Persi ...
poet from
Hamadan
Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
who lived during the reign of
Tugril of the
Seljuk dynasty
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; , ''Saljuqian'',) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persian culture.
The founder of t ...
over Iran. This is almost all that is known of him as he lived a mysterious lifestyle. Although the
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
"Baba" (roughly meaning 'The Wise' or 'The Respected') has been thought as part of his name in all known sources, his nickname "Oryan" (meaning 'The Naked') did not appear until about 17th century.
It is likely that the
nickname
A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...
was attributed to him because he seemed to lead a very spiritual and stoic lifestyle and thus was figuratively not clothed with worldly and material needs and suggests he may have been a wandering dervish.
His poetry is written in the Hamadani dialect of the
Persian language
Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...
.
L. P. Elwell-Sutton theorises that Baba Tahir wrote in the Hamadani dialect, adding: "Most traditional sources call it loosely
Luri, while the name commonly applied from an early date to verses of this kind,
Fahlaviyat, presumably implies that they were thought to be in a language related to the
Middle Persian
Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
language.
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...
Iranologist
Iranian studies ( '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It is a part of the wider field ...
and linguist
Rouben Abrahamian however found a close affinity with the dialect spoken at the present time by the
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
of
Hamadan
Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...
."
According to
The Cambridge History of Iran
''The Cambridge History of Iran'' is a multi-volume survey of Iranian history published in the United Kingdom by Cambridge University Press. The seven volumes cover "the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as w ...
, Baba Tahir spoke a certain Persian dialect.
Biography
Baba Tahir is known as one of the most revered early poets in Persian literature. Little is known of his life. He was born in a
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
family and lived in
Hamadan Province
Hamadan Province () is one of the provinces of Iran, 31 provinces of Iran. Its capital is the city of Hamadan. In the Zagros Mountains, the province covers an area of 19,546 km2.
History
Hamadan province is one of the most ancien ...
in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
.
Legend tells that the poet, an illiterate woodcutter, attended lectures at a religious school, where he was not welcomed by his fellow-students. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. One source indicates that he died in 1019. If this is accurate, it would make Baba Tahir a contemporary of
Ferdowsi
Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...
and
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...
and an immediate precursor of
Omar Khayyam
Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) (Persian language, Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar ...
. Another source reports that he lived between 1000 and 1055, which is unlikely. It is said that Baba Tahir lived for seventy-five years. Rahat al-sodur of Ravandi, whose work was completed 603/1206, describes a meeting between Baba Tahir and the
Seljuq Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to:
* Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia
* Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities
* S ...
conqueror
Tughril
Abu Talib Muhammad Tughril ibn Mika'il (), better known as Tughril (; also spelled Toghril / Tughrul), was a Turkoman"The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turkomans at the battle of Malazgirt (Manzikert) is ...
(pp. 98–99). At the time when Baba Tahir lived in the 10th century, there were great changes occurring in the development and growth of literature and art. Medieval artists and poets in Persia were greatly respected and valued and had the right to express their thoughts freely. According to
L. P. Elwell-Sutton: "He could be described as the first great poet of Sufi love in Persian literature. In the last two decades his do-baytis have often been put to music".
Poetry
Baba Tahir's poems are recited to the present day all over Iran accompanied by the
setar
A setar (, ) (lit: "Three String (music), Strings") is a stringed instrument, a type of lute used in Persian traditional music, played solo or accompanying voice. It is a member of the tanbur family of long-necked lutes with a range of more than ...
, the three stringed lute. This ancient style of poetry is known as
Pahlaviat. The quatrains of Baba Tahir have a more amorous and mystical connotation rather than a philosophical one. Many of Baba Tahir's poems are of the ''
do-baytī'' style, a form of Persian quatrains, which some scholars regard as having affinities with Middle Persian verses.
Writing
Kalemat-e Qesaar, a collection of nearly 400 aphorisms in
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, is attributed to Baba Tahir. Kalemat-e Qesaar has been the subject of commentaries, one allegedly by Ayn-al-Qozat Hamadani.
An example of such a saying is one where Baba Tahir ties knowledge with gnosis: "Knowledge is the guide to gnosis, and when gnosis has come the vision of knowledge lapses and there remain only the movements of knowledge to gnosis"; "knowledge is the crown of the gnostic, and gnosis is the crown of knowledge"; "whoever witnesses what is decreed by God remains motionless and powerless."
Mausoleum
His
mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...
, was designed by
during the
Pahlavi era
The Imperial State of Iran, officially known as the Imperial State of Persia until 1935, and commonly referred to as Pahlavi Iran, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty. The Pahlavi dynasty was created in 1925 and lasted ...
. It is located near
Hamadan
Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...
's northern entrance, in a park and surrounded by flowers and winding paths. The structure consists of twelve external
pillars
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
surrounding a central
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
.
See also
*
Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani
Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani (; CE) was a Sufi saint of the Kubrawiya order, who played an important role in the spread of Islam in the Kashmir Valley. He was born in Hamadan, Iran, and preached Islam in Central Asia and South Asia. He died in S ...
*
Ahmad NikTalab
Ahmad NikTalab (, ; 22 April 1934 – 3 March 2020), also known as Yavar Hamedani ( ), was an Iranian poet, author, and linguist.
Life
He was born in Hamadan, Hamedan. After education and living in Hamedan for the first part of his life, he ...
*
Persian literature
Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...
Notes
References
*
*
* Browne, E.G. ''Literary History of Persia'', vol. 2 (1906).
* Jan Rypka, ''History of Iranian Literature''. Reidel Publishing Company. ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K
باباطاهر عریان , عارف و شاعر بلند آوازه ایران (in Persian)
*
* R. Abrahamian, ''Dialectologie iranienne : dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir'', Paris, 1936.
External links
*
*
Text of Baba Taher's poemsat Ganjoor library (in Persian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tahir, Baba
10th-century births
11th-century deaths
11th-century writers
Iranian Sufis
11th-century Iranian people
11th-century Persian-language poets
People from Hamadan