ḎU’L-FAQĀR ŠĪRVĀNĪ

 

ḎU’L-FAQĀR ŠĪRVĀNĪ, MALEK-AL-ŠOʿARĀ QEWĀM-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN b. Ṣadr-al-Dīn ʿAlī (d. ca. 691/1291), Persian poet and panegyrist of the Il-khanid period. Through the intercession of the vizier Ḵᵛāja Moḥammad Māstarī he obtained the patronage of Atābak Yūsofšāh I of the Fażlūya branch of the Atābakān-e Lorestān; Yūsofšāh was governor of Ḵūzestān, Kūhgīlūya, the city of Fīrūzān (near Isfahan), Golpāyagān, and Lorestān (672-88/1273-89). Ḏu’l-Faqār dedicated a number of panegyrics to him. The poet also wrote poems in praise of the Il-khanid Gayḵātū Khan (690-94/1291-94); the Qara Khitay amir Jalāl-al-Dīn Soyūrḡatmeš b. Qoṭb-al-Dīn Moḥammad, who ruled Kermān in 681-91/1282-91; and Jalāl-al-Dīn’s half-sister Pādšāh Ḵātūn, who succeeded him and governed in 691-94/1291-94.

According to some sources (e.g., Dawlatšāh, ed. Browne, p. 146), Ḏu’l-Faqār had been employed by Moḥammad Ḵᵛārazmšāh (d. 617/1220) and had recorded in verse the circumstances of the sultan’s flight to Iraq during the Mongol invasion of 614-15/1217-18, but that would mean that the poet lived to be a hundred years old; none of his memorialists or biographers has noted such longevity. He is reported to have died in 679/1280 (Hedāyat, p. 219) or 689/1290 (Ātaškāda, p. 5), but, as he dedicated poems to Gayḵātū, Jalāl al-Dīn Soyūrḡatmeš, and Pādšāh Ḵātūn, he could not have died before 691/1291 (cf. Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, 2nd ed., 1356 Š./1977, p. 518). His tomb is in Maqbarat al-Šoʿarāʾ in the Sorḵāb quarter of Tabrīz.

Ḏu’l-Faqār’s dīvān includes 9,000 verses (ed. M. Edward, London, 1934). He was generally recognized as a master of versification (ṣanāyeʿ-e šeʿrī), and his poems have a charming, lyrical quality. Among his more important works is Mafātīḥ al-kalām wa madayeḥ al-kerām, dedicated to Moḥam-mad Māstarī. It is a lengthy panegyric ode (qaṣīda-ye maṣnūʿī) with two opening verses (maṭlaʿ) encompassing every possible combination of meter (dāʾera) and elision (zeḥāfāt), written in acrostic form (tawšīḥ); it is also remarkable in that from every few lines certain words can be strung together to form new distichs (abyāt) with different meters. The poet was rewarded for this work with seven bales (ḵarvār) of silk. Other odes of his have survived: one on ṭardoʿaks (making a statement, then reversing it, as in Būstān bar sarv dārad ān negār-e delsetān / Ān negār-e delsetān bar sarv dārad būstān)) and one of thirty-eight verses with three different rhyme schemes (qāfīa), a ḥājeb (identical repeating arrangement of syllables or auxiliary rhyme), and a refrain (radīf). The poet’s skillful use of semantics and thematic material (ṣanāyeʿ-e lafẓī o maʿnawī), particularly in Mafātīḥ al-kalām, influenced later poets, many of whom wrote imitative verses (esteqbāl) in response to his and one another’s work; they include Ṣarḥ-e momarrad by Salmān Sāvajī (d. 778/1376), Maḵzan al-boḥūr by Šams-e Faḵrī (d. after 758/1357), Maḵzan al-maʿānī by Ahlī Šīrāzī (d. 942/1535), and Badāyeʿ al-asḥār fī ṣanāyeʿ al-ašʿār by Qīāmī Moṭarrazī.

 

Bibliography: (For cited works not found in this bibliography and abbreviations found here, see “Short References.”)

Dawlatšāh Samarqandī, Taḏkerat al-šoʿarā, ed. M. ʿAbbāsī, I, Tehran, 1337 Š./1958, pp. 146-51.

Reżāqolī Khan Hedāyat, Majmaʿ al-foṣahāʾ, Tehran, 1284/1867, p. 219.

Moḥammad b. Badr Jājarmī, Mūnes al-aḥrār fī daqāyeq al-ašʿār, ed. M. S. Ṭabībī, 2 vols., Tehran, 1337-50 Š./1958-71.

Loṭf-ʿAlī Beg (Āḏar Bīgdelī), Ātaškada, ed. H. Sādāt Nāṣerī, I, Tehran, 1336 Š./1957, pp. 195-97.

Ṣafā, Adabīyāt III, pp. 518-23.

Tarbīat, Dānešmandān-e Āḏarbāyjān, 2nd ed., 1356 Š./1977, pp. 153-55 and sources cited there.

(Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī)

Originally Published: December 15, 1996

Last Updated: December 1, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VII, Fasc. 6, p. 569