BADR ŠĪRVĀNĪ, 9th/15th-century poet (b. 789/1387 in the town of Šamāḵi/Shemaha in Šervān district of Caucasia, d. 19 Šawwāl 854/26 November 1450) and one of the most outstanding representatives of Azarbaijani poetry. Little is known about his childhood and education except that he studied at his birthplace, was badly treated by his father Ḥāji Šams-al-Dīn and his stepmother, and suffered from poverty. Though deeply attached to his own country, he had to travel extensively in search of daily bread for his family. In addition to his difficult life, the ravages of local wars and invasions and the occupation of his native land by the Qara Qoyunlū profoundly influenced his artistic development. He expressed strong feelings against those who waged war, yet had to compose odes praising amirs and men of wealth and power to gain a living.

Badr Šīrvānī began writing poetry at the age of 10-11. His dīvān was published in 1985 in Moscow based on the only known manuscript, preserved in the library of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Uzbekistan SSR Academy of Sciences. It contains 824 verses (12,437 bayts [couplets]), composed in almost all genres and forms of classical Persian poetry, though ḡazals and qaṣīdas predominate. In addition to Persian, Badr Šīrvānī wrote poetry in his mother tongue Azeri, Arabic, and in a dialect of Persian he calls zabān-e kenār-e āb (the coastline tongue).

Badr Šīrvānī was a contemporary of Fażl-Allāh Naʿīmī and Sayyed Yaḥyā Šīrvānī (Bākūʾī), leaders of the Ḥorūfī (q.v.) and Ḵalwatī movements, but sympathized with neither of them.