Baba Tahir

Baba Tahir Hamadani – there is also some other titles like Lurestani and Uryan – is one of great poets and mystics among Lurs. Beside Lurs, he has a wide popularity for Persians, in so far as they translated Baba’s quatrains in Persian along with light Lurian dialect and it is more this translations that is remained for us.

Baba Tahir was major devotee of Shah Khoshin Lurestani (965-1026 A.D.), a Jāma or Dūn (God’s clothing, Avatara) in Yarsan, and was the master of the master of Ayn al-Quddat (1051-1084 A.D.), grand Sufi. Even if, Sometimes, Sufism and Yarsan have not obvious boundary in Western regions of Iran, but it can be said that Baba had been Sufi before his meeting with Shah Khoshin and after that his triaqah (path) is the synthesis of Sufism and Yarsan, as it is evident in a figure like Ayn al-Quddat Hamadani.

Baba Tahir’s written heritage is a book contains quatrains and book of Kalamāt, has been commentated by Ayn al-Quddat Hamadani, contains aphorism on Sufi matters and here is some of them:

- Knowledge (elm) is lightening and [divine] ecstasy (vajd) is burning.

- The end of reason is wondering (tahayyor) and the end of wondering is drunkenness (sokr).

- Heart is God’s instrument for balancing.

- There is nothing between soul and hereafter but one moment.

- Remembrance [of God] (zikr) is life of heart.

- Meditation (murāqiba) is certainty in knowledge (elm ul-yaqin) and [sacred] vision (muŝāhida) is certainty in eye (ayn ul-yaqin).

- He who desires God is separated from people, especially himself among them.

- Loving in truth is compulsory for all men.

- Sufism is a life without any death and is a death without any life.

- Burnings are two types: burn by fire and by light; he who is burned by fire become ash without value, and he who is burned by light become lamp which is useful for men.

Baba’s Dobeyti (quatrain)

 And some quatrains (tran. Elizabeth Curtis Brenton):

har on baqē ke vāreŝ sar be dar bī
modāmeŝ bāqebun xūnin jigar bī
bebāyad kandaŝ az bix o az bon
agar bāresh hama la’l o gohar bī

When Trees to grow beyond their boundaries dare,
They Cause the Gardeners much anxious care;
Down to their very roots they must be pruned,
Though Pearls and Rubies be the Fruits they bear.

 

magar shēr o palanhē ey dil ey dil
be me dāyem be jangē ey dil ey dil
agar dastem rasa xūnet barējim
beuinim ta che rangē ey dil ey dil

A Lion or a Tiger thou might be,
Ever, O Heart, O Heart, at war with me;
Fall but into my hands, I’ll spill thy Blood,
That I may know what to make of thee.

 

xurāyīn cheh-rī-et afrūta tar bī
bejānim tir-i ishqet dūta tar bī
ze che xāl-i roxat zuni sīyāha?
har on nazdik-i khur bī sūta-tar bī

O may thy sunny face grow brighter yet,
May thy love’s arrow split my heart in twain;
Know thou why thy cheek’s mole is so black?
All things become burnt black close to the sun!

 

bē toe yikdam dilim xorram namuna
vagar rūyi toe vīinim qam namuna
agar dard-i dilim qesmat namāyand
dilē bē dard dar ālam namuna

Without thee my heart has no moment’s peace,
And if I see thy face my grief has fled;
If all men had a share in my heart’s grief;
No heart in all the world but would be sad.

 

me on bahrim ke dar zarf āmadistim
chu noqta bar sar-i harf āmadistim
be har alfē alif qaddi barāya
alif ghaddim ke dar alf āmadistim

I am the ocean poured into a jug,
I am the point essential to the letter;
In every thousand one greater man stand out,
I am the greater man of this mine Age!

 

bōra sūta dilun tā mā banālēm
ze dast-i yār-i bē parvā banalēm
baŝēm bā bulbul-i sheidā be gulŝan
agar bulbul nanāla mā banālēm

O Burnt-in-Heart, come ye and mourn with me,
Mourn we the flight of that most lovely Rose;
Hie we with the ecstatic Nightingale to the Garden,
And when she ceases mourning, we will mourn.

 

 

Tags: Ayn al-Qudat, Baba Tahir, Lurian Literature, Lurs, Persian Poems, Shah Khoshin