FARROḴ, Sayyed MAḤMŪD (b. Mašhad, 23 Jomādā II 1314/29 Nov. 1896; d. Mašhad, 2 Ordībehešt 1360 Š./22 April 1981; Figure 1), litterateur, poet, Majles deputy, and executive. Farroḵ was born to Sayyed Aḥmad Jawāherī (pen name Dānā) and Bībī Ṭūbā Jawāherī, a cousin of Sayyed Aḥmad. He received his elementary education at a neighborhood maktab and then studied traditional subjects with Adīb-al-Tawlīa, Mo ḥammad-Ḥosayn Šīrāzī, and his father, who taught him literary techniques and encouraged him to write poetry. He was the Majles deputy from Qūčān in the 12th and 13th sessions, after which he avoided active politics. Farroḵ composed his first poem at the age of nine. The first poem he published was a maṯnawī emulating Ferdowsī’s Šāh-nāma on the occasion of the capture of Tehran by the Constitutionalists in 1909. One of his early poems prompted a religious leader to brand him as an infidel. In 1927 he entered the administration of Āstān-e qods-e rażawī (q.v.) and before long became the head of its personnel department. In 1935 he managed to save many lives when the soldiers attacked the people who had taken sanctuary (see BAST) in the Gowharšād mosque. In 1952 Moṣaddeq appointed him the chief executive of Āstān-e qods and the acting governor general of Khorasan. He resigned from his position after the coup d’etat of 1953 (q.v.) and never again accepted a governmental appointment. His pro-Moṣaddeq stand almost cost him his life when, following the 1953 coup, a gang of thugs tried to kill him. He served as the chairman of the board and executive director of the textile factory (Kār-ḵāna-ye naḵ-rīsī wa nassājī) in Mašhad for the rest of his active life.
Farroḵ published over three thousand verses of his poetry, mainly of qaṣidas in Khorasani style, in his Safīna-ye Farroḵ, which contains also selection from a variety of poets, both contemporary and classical. His poetry has been admired by poets and literati, including Moḥammad-Taqī Bahār and Moḥammad Qazvīnī. In the early 1970s the Ferdowsī University, in recognition of Farroḵ’s efforts in the establishment of that university in Mašhad as well as his years of scholarship and long-standing patronage of young poets, made him an honorary professor of literature. Farroḵ had a large library that was freely accessible to friends and students. Its manuscript collection is now kept at Ferdowsī University in Mašhad.
Bibliography:
Works: Gozāreš-e ʿomr (memoirs), unpublished; Safīna-ye Farroḵ, 2 vols., Mašhad, 1344-46 Š./1965-67; Monāẓarāt wa eḵwānīyāt, Mašhad 1344 Š./1965.
Works edited: ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Monšī Noṣrat, Maṯnawī-e forūzanda, Mašhad, 1331 Š./1951; selections from Awḥad-al-Dīn Marāḡī’s poetry as Ḵolāṣa-ye aḥwāl wa montaḵab-e āṯār-e Awḥad-al-Dīn Eṣfahānī Marāḡaʾī, Mašhad, 1335 Š./1956; idem, Manṭeq al-ʿoššāq, Mašhad, 1335 Š./1956; Faṣīḥ Aḥmad Ḵᵛāfī, Mojmal-e faṣīḥī, 3 vols., Mas¡had, 1339-41 Š./1960-62; Majd Ḵᵛāfī, Rawża-ye ḵold-e barīn, Tehran, 1345 Š./1966.
See also M.-T. Bīneš, “Maḥfel-e Farroḵ,” in Ī. Afšār, ed., Nāmvāra-ye Maḥmūd Afšār V, Tehran, 1368 Š./1989, pp. 2678-86.
M. Qazvīnī, in Yaḡmā 1/12, 1327 Š./1949, p. 449.
Ḡ.-Ḥ Yūsofī, “Sargoḏašt-e Maḥmūd Farroḵ,” in M. Mīnovī, ed., Haftād sālagī-e Farroḵ, Tehran, 1344 Š./1965, pp. 1-23; repr. in idem, Barghā-ī dar āḡuš-e bād, 2 vols., Mašhad, 1356 Š./1977, pp. 835-60.
Figure 1. Sayyed Maḥmūd Farroḵ. Photograph courtesy of Faridoun Farrokh.
(Jalal Matini)
Originally Published: December 15, 1999
Last Updated: December 15, 1999
