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Azar Bigdeli

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Azar Bigdeli
Born7 February 1722
Isfahan, Safavid Empire
Died1781
Pen nameAzar[1]
Occupationanthologist, poet
RelativesAgha Khan Bigdeli Shamlu, died 1737/8 (father)[2]
Isḥāq Beg ʿUdhrī, died 1771/2 (brother)[1]
Wali Mohammad Khan Bigdeli, died 1763 (paternal uncle)[2]

Hajji Lotf-Ali Beg Azar Bigdeli,[a] better simply called Azar Bigdeli ("Azar" being his nom de plume; 1722–1781), was an Iranian anthologist and poet.[1][3] He is principally known for his biographical anthology, the Atashkadeh-e Azar (lit. "Azar's fire temple"), which he dedicated to the ruler of Iran, Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779). Written in Persian, it is considered to be "the most important Persian anthology of the eighteenth century".[1] Azar was a leading figure of the bazgasht-e adabi ("literary return") movement.

Biography

Azar was a member of a family who descended from the Bigdeli branch of the Turkoman Shamlu tribe.[2][1][4] His ancestors, together with others belonging to the Shamlu tribe, had moved from Syria to Iran in the 15th century, during the last few years of Timur's reign, and had settled in Isfahan, whereafter they served the rulers of Iran as diplomats and bureaucrats.[2][1] A large number of Azar's relatives had been prominent in the late Safavid era and during the subsequent reign of Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747).[1]

Azar was born in Isfahan, the Safavid royal capital, in a time of chaos and instability.[2][1] In 1722, the year he was born, the Safavid state had entered the final stages of collapse and the rebellious Afghans had reached Isfahan.[2][1] As a result, Azar and his family were forced to move to Qom, where they owned property.[2][1] Azar lived in Qom for fourteen years.[2] In c. 1735/6, his father was appointed governor of Lar and the coastal areas of Fars Province, and thus Azar and his family moved to the provincial capital of Fars, Shiraz.[2] In 1737/8, following the death of his father, Azar made pilgrimages to Mecca and the Shi'ite holy shrines in Iran and Iraq.[2] He then moved to Mashhad where he enlisted in Nader Shah's army, and accompanied his troops to Mazandaran, Azerbaijan and Persian Iraq.[2][1] After Nader's death in 1747, Azar served Nader's nephews and successors Adel Shah (r. 1747–1748) and Ebrahim Shah (r. 1748), followed by the Safavid pretenders Ismail III and Suleiman II, before retiring to his modest manor in Qom.[2] Shortly however, when Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779) ascended the throne, Azar decided to devote his time to scholarly pursuits, and settled again in Isfahan.[1][2] During the sack of Isfahan in 1750 by Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtiari, Azar reportedly lost some 7,000 written verses.[2] Some years later, in 1774/5, Azar was forced to leave Isfahan once again, now due to misrule by its Zand governor, Mohammad Runani. He died in 1781.[2][1]

Literary output

Azar is principally known for his work of anthology, the Atashkadeh-e Azar (lit. "Azar's fire temple"), considered to be "the most important Persian anthology of the eighteenth century".[2][1] The chapters and titles within the work carry titles based metaphorically on "fire".[1][2] Completed shortly before his death, Azar dedicated the Atashkadeh-e Azar to then ruler of Iran, Karim Khan Zand.[2][1] The work primarily deals with poets, but also contains a small amount of information on the history of Iran from the Afghan invasion of 1722 onwards, a small autobiography, as well as a selected number of Azar's own poems.[2][1]

When Isfahan was sacked in 1750, a number of Azar's early poems were destroyed in the course of events.[1] However, Azar was still considered to be a respectable poet even in his own age.[1] Azar's teacher, Mir Sayyed Ali Moshtaq Esfahani (died 1757/8), firmly advocated the "literary return" (bazgasht-e adabi) to the typical stylistic standards of early Persian poetry, and was the initiater of this movement.[1][3][2] The Atashkadeh, alike many other contemporaneous works of poetry from Isfahan and Shiraz, was a manifestation of the bazgasht-e adabi, of which Azar was a leading figure.[2][5][1] The movement rejected what they considered to be an excess of the so-called "Indian style" (sabk-e Hendi) of Persian poetry, and sought, according to Ehsan Yarshater: "A return to the simpler and more robust poetry of the old masters as against the effete and artificial verse into which Safavid poetry had degenerated".[6][1] This style of Persian poetry had its origins in the Timurid period and was perfected in the courts of Mughal India, hence it was dubbed as "Indian"; it later spread back to Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey where it was prominent in the 17th century and to a certain degree in the 18th century.[7][8][9][10][b]

Azar speaks very positively about his teacher, Mir Sayyed Ali Moshtaq Esfahani, who influenced him considerably.[2] From his Atashkadeh:[3][2]

After he [i.e. Moshtaq] had broken the chain of verse that for years had been in the unworthy grip of poets of the past, with great effort and indescribable exertions he repaired it. Having destroyed for contemporary poets the foundation of versifying, he renewed the edifice of poetry built by the eloquent ancients.

Other than his divan, four extant masnavis have been attributed to Azar.[1] Yusof o Zolaykha; Masnavi-e Azar, a short love poem in imitation of a poem by Agha Mohammad Sadeq Tafreshi called Suz-u godaz ("Burning and melting"), which was popular in Azar's time; Saqi-nameh ("Book of the cupbearer"); and Moghanni-nameh (“Book of the singer”). Azar may have also written the Ganjinat ol-haqq ("The treasury of truth"), a work written in the style of Saadi Shirazi's Golestan; as well as the Daftar-e noh aseman ("The book of the nine skies") a work of anthology of contemporary poetry.[1] Azar was also considerably influenced by his paternal uncle Wali Mohammad Khan Bigdeli (died 1763).[2]

Notes

  1. ^ Also spelled "Lutf-Ali Beg Adhar Begdili".[1]
  2. ^ Persian poetry in the "Indian style" ended in Iran in the mid-18th century.[6] Noteworthy Ottoman poets who wrote in the "Indian style" (in Turkish: Sebk-i Hindi), or whose works were influenced by this style, include Na'ili (died 1666), Yusuf Nabi of Urfa (died 1712), Nahifi (died 1738) and Şeyh Galip (1757–1799).[8][11][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y de Bruin 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Matini 1987, p. 183.
  3. ^ a b c Hanaway 1989, pp. 58–60.
  4. ^ Doerfer 1989, pp. 251–252.
  5. ^ Parsinejad 2003, p. 21.
  6. ^ a b Yarshater 1986, p. 966.
  7. ^ Yarshater 1986, pp. 956, 965.
  8. ^ a b Ágoston & Masters 2009, p. 338.
  9. ^ a b Greene et al. 2012, p. 1472.
  10. ^ Andrews, Black & Kalpakli 2006, p. 147.
  11. ^ Algar 2018, p. 95.

Sources

  • Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 978-1438110257. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Algar, Hamid (2018). "Jāmī and the Ottomans". In d'Hubert, Thibaut; Papas, Alexandre (eds.). Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th-14th/20th Century. Brill. ISBN 978-9004386600. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • Andrews, Walter G.; Black, Najaat; Kalpakli, Mehmet, eds. (2006). Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An Anthology. University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0295800936. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • de Bruin, J.T.P. (2011). "Ādhar, Ḥājjī Luṭf ʿAlī Beg". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
  • Doerfer, Gerhard (1989). "BĪGDELĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 3. pp. 251–252. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Greene, Roland; Cushman, Stephen; Cavanagh, Clare; Ramazani, Jahan; Rouzer, Paul, eds. (2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4 ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400841424. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Hanaway, William L., Jr. (1989). "BĀZGAŠT-E ADABĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 1. pp. 58–60. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Matini, Jalal (1987). "ĀẔAR BĪGDELĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 2. p. 183. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Parsinejad, Iraj (2003). A History of Literary Criticism in Iran, 1866-1951: Literary Criticism in the Works of Enlightened Thinkers of Iran--Akhundzadeh, Kermani, Malkom, Talebof, Maragheʼi, Kasravi, and Hedayat. Ibex Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-1588140166. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Yarshater, Ehsan (1986). "Persian Poetry in the Timurid and Safavid Periods". In Jackson, Peter; Lockhart, Laurence (eds.). The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521200943. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
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