BONDĀR RĀZĪ

 

BONDĀR (or Pendār) RĀZĪ, poet in the 4th/10th century and early years of the 5th/11th century, named as the author of a small number of surviving poems, some in literary (Darī) Persian, others in his local dialect.

Neẓāmī ʿArūżÎʷī (text, p. 45), writing in the 6th/12th century, mentions Bondār as a poet in the service of the Buyids, but gives no further information. Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfī, in his Tārīḵ-egozīda (compl. 730/1330), praises Bondār’s poetic innovations and states that in his own time Bondār’s dīvān was still popular (p. 816). From the 9th/15th century onward, however, various anthologists give short accounts of his career. Dawlatšāh (ed. Browne, pp. 42-44) describes him as a poet at the court of Majd-al-Dawla Abū Ṭāleb Rostam b. Faḵr-al-Dawla Daylamī (Buyid ruler of Ray 387/997-­420/1029) and an author of poems in three languages, Arabic, Persian, and Daylami, adding that he came from the highland (qohestān) of Ray and was a pupil of the Ṣāḥeb Esmāʿīl b. ʿAbbād (the celebrated vizier and patron of literature, d. 385/995). In the Haft eqlīm (II, pp. 21-23) fourteen verses in Persian and Fahlawī (i.e., dialect) are ascribed to him. Reżāqolī Khan Hedāyat (Majmaʿ al-foṣaḥāʾ I, pp. 439-40), who also states that he came from the highland of Ray, gives him the titles Ḵᵛāja Kamāl-al-Dīn but does not otherwise add to the information in the earlier sources. Saʿīd Nafīsī (Naẓm o naṯr, pp. 23, 715) attributes to him a lost dictionary called Montaḵab al-fors without mentioning the source of this information.

 

Bibliography:

Aḥmad b. ʿOmar b. ʿAlī Neẓāmī ʿArūżī, Čahār maqāla, ed. M. Qazvīnī, revised M. Moʿīn, Tehran, 1333 Š./1954, notes, pp. 143-44.

Reżāqolī Khan Hedāyat, Rīāż al-ʿarefīn, Tehran, 1316 Š./1937, pp. 290-91.

H. Ethé in Grundriss I, p. 223. Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia I, pp. 117, 157-59, 419.

Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., pp. 112, 147.

Search terms:

bondar razi  بندار رازی bondar razy bondaar raazi
boundar raazi boundar razi    

(Zabihollah Safa)

Originally Published: December 15, 1989

Last Updated: December 15, 1989

This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 4, p. 350