poet – iTourismA

Rumi

2020/10/26/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Molana Jalal al-Din Balkhi, known in the West as Rumi, was born in early thirteenth century. in Balkh Province, Afghanistan, on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire.

Rumi descended from a long line of Islamic jurists, theologians, and mystics, including his father, who was known by followers of Rumi as “Sultan of the Scholars.”

When Rumi was still a young man, his father led their family more than 2,000 miles west to avoid the invasion of Genghis Khan’s armies.

They settled in present-day Turkey, where Rumi lived and wrote most of his life. His father was a preacher and religious scholar, and he introduced Rumi to Sufism.

Rumi continued his theological education in Syria, where he studied the more traditional legal codes of Sunni Islam, and later returned to Konya as a seminary teacher.

It was there that he met an elder traveler, Shams Tabriz, who became his mentor.

The nature of the intimate friendship between the two is much debated, but Shams, everyone agrees, had a lasting influence on Rumi’s religious practice and his poetry.

Rumi

Rumi’s mourning for the loss of his friend led to the outpouring of more than 40,000 lyric verses, including odes, eulogies, quatrains, and other styles of Eastern-Islamic poetry.

The resulting collection, Divan Shams Tabrizi or The Works of Shams Tabriz, is considered one of Rumi’s masterpieces and one of the greatest works of Persian literature.

In his introduction to his translation of Rumi’s The Shams, Coleman Barks has written: “Rumi is one of the great souls, and one of the great spiritual teachers.

He shows us our glory. He wants us to be more alive, to wake up… He wants us to see our beauty, in the mirror and in each other.”

For the last twelve years of his life, beginning in 1262, Rumi dictated a single, six-volume poem to his scribe, Husam Chelebi.

The resulting masterwork, the Masnavi Manavi, consists of sixty-four thousand lines, and is considered Rumi’s most personal work of spiritual teaching.

Rumi described the Masnavi as “the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion,” and the text has come to be regarded by some Sufis as the Persian-language Qoran.

Hafez Shirazi

2020/09/21/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Khaje Shams al- din Muhammad Hafez Shirazi is the 14th-century poet of Iran born, lived and died in Shiraz during the time Iran was ruled by the Ilkhanid.

He is one of the most beloved poets among Persians. Since he had memorized Quran at an early age, people addressed him as Hafez meaning memorizer and later, “Hafez” got his pen name.

He is one of the literary wonders of the world whose poems have been translated into different languages and whose art of poetry has been appreciated by many knowledgeable figures.

Hafez mingles his poems especially ghazal-sonnets with the essence of love and joy, teaches how to live a better life, and disgraces religious hypocrisy.

To commemorate Hafez, October 12 is annually celebrated as Hafez Day in Iran. Hafez has influenced many writers and philosophers.

His work translated into English by William Jones in 1771 influenced Western writers and philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Goethe.

Emerson described Hafez as a brave and thoughtful person who feared nothing. He had wished to see Hafez or to be more like him.

To appreciate Hafez, Emerson declared “Hafez is the poet for poets”. Goethe had also admired Hafez and believed that Hafez had no peer.

Hafez Shirazi

Hafez poems target different concepts of human life; however, love is the concept one would find ever in his poems and maybe that is why his verses are still popular among people.

Hafez lived during the Ilkhanid period and it was a tough time for people to express themselves or criticize the situation. As a result, He took advantage of an elaborate figurative language to express himself.

In a situation that nobody dared to violate the ruling system, Hafez tactfully put his words in the language of poetry to criticize the religious hypocrisy and ruling system of the time through his ironic tone called “Rendy” in Persian.

Hafez is known as the master of Persian ghazals. Divan-e-Hafez-the collection of his works- as a great example of Persian literature is found in homes of Persian speaking people around the world.

Iranians believe that Quran and Divan-e-Hafez are two books that should be found in every Iranian home. People still learn some of his poems by heart and use them as sayings in everyday life.

Performing fal-e-Hafez (Hafez reading) is also an ancient tradition among Persian speakers. It is an entertaining part of different ceremonies such as Yalda or Iranian New Year, Nowrouz.

Nizami Ganjavi

2020/08/22/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Nizami Ganjavi, was born around 1141 in Ganja, the capital of Arran in Transcaucasian Azerbaijan, where he remained until his death in about 1209.

His father, who had migrated to Ganja from Qom in north central Iran, may have been a civil servant.

his mother was a daughter of a Kurdish chieftain; having lost both parents early in his life, Nizami was brought up by an uncle.

Nizami was married three times, and in his poems laments the death of each of his wives, as well as proferring advice to his son Muhammad.

Nizami Ganjavi lived in an age of both political instability and intense intellectual activity, which his poems reflect.

but little is known about his life, his relations with his patrons, or the precise dates of his works, as the accounts of later biographers are colored by the many legends built up around the poet.

Although Nizami Ganjavi left a small corpus of lyric poetry, he is best known for his five long narrative poems, of which the Haft Paykar, completed in 1197, is his acknowledged masterpiece.

The region of Azerbaijan, where Nizami lived and wrote, had in his time only recently become the scene of significant literary activity in Persian.

Poetry in Persian first appeared in the east, where in the tenth and eleventh centuries it flourished at the courts of the Samanids in Bukhara and their successors the Ghazvanids, centered in eastern Iran and Afghanistan.

When the Ghazvanids were defeated in 1040 by the Seljuk Turks and the latter extended their power westwards into Iraq, which was predominantly Arabophone, Persian literary activity similarly spread westwards to the Seljuk courts.

Nizami Ganjavi

Nizami brought about a comparable expansion of the language of poetry, as well.

Nizami Ganjavi was among the first poets in Iran to wed the lyric style of court poetry, with its rhetorical intricacy and metaphoric density, to narrative form, and his language is as much a presence on the narrative stage as are the characters and events it depicts.

For him, discourse or eloquent speech (sokhan), or more particularly, the precise, beautiful, and signifying language of the poet, is his dominant concern.

For Nizami, poets have a status nearly divine.

The five long poems, known collectively as the Khamsa (Quintet) or Panj Ganj (Five Treasures), composed by Nizami in the late twelfth century, set new standards in their own time for elegance of expression, richness of characterization, and narrative sophistication.

They were widely imitated for centuries by poets writing in Persian, as well as in languages deeply influenced by Persian, like Urdu and Ottoman Turkish.

Sa’di Shirazi

2020/08/22/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Sa’di, Abu Mohammad Mosarref al-Din Mosleh, Persian poet and prose writer, widely recognized as one of the greatest masters of the classical literary tradition.

The thirteenth-century poet Sa’di is regarded as one of the greatest figures in Persian literature.

Sa’di Shirazi is best-known for his major works Bustan, or The Orchard and Golestan, or The Rose Garden.

Both of these works are filled with semi-autobiographical stories, philosophical meditations, pieces of practical wisdom, and humorous anecdotes and observations.

The books are valued not only for their elegant language and entertaining style, but also for their role as a rich source of information about the culture in which Sa’di lived and worked.

Abu Mohammad Mosarref al-Din Mosleh is considered as having an influence on the culture and language of Iran that equals in significance the role of playwright and poet William Shakespeare in the history of English language and literature.

What is known about the life of Sa’di is primarily drawn from folk legend and his own semi-autobiographical stories, which were likely embellished to suit his literary needs.

Therefore, the information that exists is somewhat suspect.

It is generally believed, however, that the writer was born around the year 1200 in the town of Shiraz, Persia.

Shiraz was located in the region of Fars Province, which was known in antiquity as Persis, a name the Greeks used for the entire country, bringing about the name Persia.

Saadi, Persian poet and prose writer

The pseudonym was drawn from the names of the leaders who ruled Fars Province during his lifetime: Sa’d ibn Zangi, his son Abu Bakr ibn Sa’d, and grandson Sa’d ibn Abu Bakr.

Sa’d ibn Zangi played an important role in Sa’di’s life, taking the boy into his care and providing him with an education after the death of Sa’di’s father, a court official for the ruler.

After completing his studies in Shiraz, Sa’di was sent to Baghdad to attend Nizamiya College, possibly the finest institution of learning in the world at that time.

But the young man was not much interested in academics; in his later writings he recalled his duties as a teaching assistant to be a tiring chore.

Sa’di Shirazi much preferred to spend his time in a more celebratory fashion and devoted a great deal of energy to socializing and enjoying himself.

Sheykh Bahaei

2020/08/17/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Shaykh Baha ad-Din, Shaykh Bahaei was a scholar, philosopher, architect, mathematician, astronomer and poet in 16th-century Iran.

He was born in Baalbek, Lebanon but immigrated in his childhood to Safavid Iran with his father. He wrote over 88 books in different topics mostly in Persian but also in Arabic.

He is buried in Imam Reza’s shrine in Mashhad in Iran. He is considered one of the main co-founders of Isfahan School of Islamic Philosophy.

In later years he became one of the teachers of Sadr al-Din Shirazi, also known as Mulla Sadra. His works include Naqshe Jahan Square in Isfahan, as well as designing the construction of the Monar Jonban, also known as the two shaking minarets, situated on either side of the mausoleum of Abdollah Garladani in the west of Isfahan.

Shaykh Baha al-Din contributed numerous works in philosophy, logic, astronomy and mathematics. His works include 88 articles, epistles and books. Shaykh Baha al-Din also composed poems in Persian.

His outstanding works in the Iranian language are Jameh Abbasi and two masnavis (rhymed couplets) by the names of “Milk and Sugar” and “Bread and Halva”. His other work Kashkool includes stories, news, scientific topics, persian and Arabic proverbs. He wrote Khulasat Al-Hisab and Tashrih Al-Aflak in Arabic.

Shaykh Bahaei

Shaykh Baha al-Din’s fame was due to his excellent command of mathematics, architecture and geometry. He was the architect of Isfahan’s Imam Square, Imam Mosque and Hessar Najaf.

He also made a sun clock to the west of the Imam Mosque. There is also no doubt about his mastery of topography. The best instance of this is the directing of the water of the Zayandeh River to different areas of Isfahan.

He designed a canal called Zarrin Kamar in Isfahan which is one of Iran’s greatest canals. He also determined the direction of Qiblah (prayer direction) from the Imam mosque.

He also designed and constructed a furnace for a public bathroom, which still exists in Isfahan, known as Sheikh Bahaei’s bathroom. The furnace was warmed by a single candle, which was placed in an enclosure.

The candle burned for a long time, warming the bath’s water. According to his own instructions, the candle’s fire would be put out if the enclosure was ever opened.

This happened during the restoration and repair of the building and no one has been able to make the system work again. He also designed the Monar Jonban (shaking minaret), which still exists in Isfahan.

Omar Khayyam

2020/08/16/0 Comments/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Omar Khayyam was a polymath, scientist, philosopher, and poet of the 11th century CE. Whereas his mathematical works and poetry have been the subject of much discussion, his recently edited and published philosophical works have remained a largely neglected area of study.

In what follows, we shall review and comment on the salient features of Khayyam’s poetry and philosophy, their relationship with one another, and Khayyam’s pioneering views on mathematics.

English-speaking readers know of his extraordinary work through the translation of his collection of hundreds of quatrains in Rubaiyat, an 1859 work on the “the Astronomer-Poet of Persia”.

He made such a name for himself that the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah invited him to Isfahan to undertake the astronomical observations necessary for the reform of the calendar.

To accomplish this an observatory was built there, and a new calendar was produced, known as the Jalali calendar. Based on making 8 of every 33 years leap years, it was more accurate than the present Gregorian calendar, and it was adopted in 1075 by Malik-Shah. In Isfahan he also produced fundamental critiques of Euclid’s theory of parallels as well as his theory of proportion.

Omar Khayyam

Omar’s poems had attracted comparatively little attention until they inspired FitzGerald to write his celebrated The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, containing such now-famous phrases as “A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread; and Thou,” “Take the Cash, and let the Credit go,” and “The Flower that once has blown forever dies.” These quatrains have been translated into almost every major language and are largely responsible for coloring European ideas about Persian poetry.

Some scholars have doubted that Omar wrote poetry. His contemporaries took no notice of his verse, and not until two centuries after his death did a few quatrains appear under his name.

Even then, the verses were mostly used as quotations against particular views ostensibly held by Omar, leading some scholars to suspect that they may have been invented and attributed to Omar because of his scholarly reputation.

Chogan

2019/12/21/0 Comments/in Fars, Isfahan, Isfahan, Other, Shiraz /by Iran Tourism

Chogan has been popular among the kings and Iranian grandee in the past and its name as an aristocratic sport is derived from that. Chogan, known also as polo, is a sporting team game with horses and a version of the modern polo game. It was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017. For the first time, Chogan was played during Achaemenians in Iran. As Achaemenians extended their borders to far and vast geographical spots, this ancient Iranian game found its way to other countries too. Chogan as one of the amusing activities between kings, rulers and wealthy people.

Kar Namag Ardashir Pabakan, is a middle Persian prose tale written in Sassanid Era. It narrates the story of Ardeshir I, the founder of this dynasty. It’s the first written document that mentions Chogan as an Iranian game. The theme of Chogan has been used widely in different areas of art and literature. For example, it’s been mentioned in the poems of Ferdowsi, Rudaki, Nezami, Sa’di, Hafez, and other great Persian poets. It has been also the theme in many valuable Persian miniatures and the designs on the potteries.

Chogan was played differently back then. Horse riding was more of a military and warfare practice. Therefore, this entertainment included horses’ military style marching and riding war horses. As the time went by, Chogan changed to the present day style. Polo firstly just had a recreational function in order to show the Iranian military horses talent. Chogan is a strategic game that requires physical readiness and skill for both riders and horses, just like a miniature battle. In the past, it was a play where the Persian riders exhibited their skills in riding, fighting, and playing as well as the fighting skills, speed, and agility of their horses. The horses of Chogan are called polo ponies. Since horse riding was a military practice in the past, Persians believed the horse that can do well in Chogan, can do well in the war too.

Today, in Chogan, ponies are full sized horses used for this traditional Iranian game. In Persian, they are referred to simply as Chogan horses. They should be equipped with safety gears to be ready for the races. They are supposed to have special leg wraps to be protected against the mallets. The line attached to the curb bit must be adjusted in a comfortable and free, so that ponies can be easily levered.

The Iranian Famous Men (Part 2)

2019/08/18/1 Comment/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Thirty-three names of Iranian Famous Men have been registered by UNESCO so far. 5 of these glorious celebrities was introduced in the first part. 5 others introduces in this part.

6. Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi (940–1020), was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh (Book of Kings), which is the world’s longest epic poem created by a single poet. Ferdowsi is celebrated as the most influential figure in Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.

7. Saib Tabrizi

Saib Tabrizi also called Saib Isfahani (born in Tabriz in 1592) was a Persian poet and one of the greatest masters of a form of classical Arabic and Persian lyric poetry characterized by rhymed couplets, known as the Ghazal.

8. Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. He was born in Neyshabur, in northeastern Iran. As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics. Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom. As an astronomer, he designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle.

9. Jami

Jami, was a Persian poet, musician, literate and Sufi in 16^th century. He is known for his achievements as a prolific scholar and writer of mystical Sufi literature. There are more than forty useful and valuable works from Jami.

10. Nima Yooshij

Ali Esfandiari, was a contemporary Persian and Tabarian poet who started the She’r-e now (new poetry) also known as She’r-e nimaa’i trend in Iran. He is considered as the father of modern Persian poetry.

The Iranian Famous Men (Part 1)

2019/08/13/1 Comment/in Other /by Iran Tourism

Thirty-three names of Iranian Famous Men have been registered by UNESCO so far. 5 of these glorious celebrities will introduced in this part.

1- Avicenna

Ibn Sina also known as Abu Ali Sina, Pur Sina, and often known in the west as Avicenna (980 – 1037), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of modern medicine. Avicenna is also called the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era.

His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650 in 1973, Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine was reprinted in New York.

2- Saadi Shirazi

Moshrefedin Muslih known Saadi Shirazi, the great Persian poet off all time, was born in Shiraz in the 13^th century. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts. Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the classical literary tradition, earning him the nickname “Master of Speech” or “The Master” among Persian scholars. He has been quoted in the Western traditions as well. Bustan is considered one of the 100 greatest books of all time according to The Guardian.

3- Al Ghazali

Al-Ghazali was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. He was of Persian origin.

4- Khwaja Abdullah Ansari

Abu Ismaïl Abdullah al-Herawi al-Ansari or Abdullah Ansari of Herat (1006–1088) also known as “Sage of Herat”, was a Persian Sufi saint of Arab origin who lived in the 11th century in Herat (then Khorasan, now Herat province, Afghanistan). He was commentator of the Qur’an, traditionist, polemicist, and spiritual master, and also known for his oratory and poetic talents in Arabic and Persian.

5- Hafez Shirazi

Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (born in 1326 AD) is one of the most famous poets in Iranian history. Hafez was born in Shiraz, Iran. Hafez learnt the Quran by heart at an early age. Hafez also preserved the poetry of great poets such as Saadi, Attar, Rumi and Nezami during his adolescence. The Hefez Divan contains 500 sonnets, 42 quatrains and several tales that have been completed over 50 years.