Baba Taher Oryan Hamadani with certainty is not much known about him. The
date of his birth and death are unknown, but one source indicates that he died
in 1019 CE. If this is accurate, then Baba Taher is a contemporary of Ferdowsi
and Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna) and an immediate precursor of Omar Khayyam. It is
said that he lived for seventy five years.
It is stated that he was one of the "Ahl-e Haqq" sect (Dervish or follower of
truth) and that his sister Bibi Fatimeh is equally respected by this community.
Baba Taher Uryan Hamadani was one of the most eminent mystics of his time. He
was from Hamadan; a learned man, knowing all things (meaning of hama dan in
Farsi). His popular name Uryan means "The Naked"; he was a dervish or inspired
beggar.
Baba Taher is known for his dubayti, four line poems that is not the common
rubai metre although Persians refer to the quatrains of Baba Taher as rubaiyat.
Baba Taher poems are recited to the present day all over Iran accompanied with
Sih-tar (three stringed viol or lute). The quatrains (dubeyti or two -beyt metre
poems) of Baba Taher are written in local accents such as Mazandarani. They say
Pehleviat to these kinds of poems and they are very ancient. Baba Taher songs
originally read in Fahlavi, Luri, Kurdish and Hamadani dialects, taking their
present form in the course of time. The quatrains of Baba Taher have a more
amorous and mystical connotation rather than philosophical.
It is said that he was a woodcutter. It is also said that Baba Taher had
extraordinary heat in his body so much that no one could sit near him. He spent
his time in the jungles and mountains. His tomb is in Hamadan.
Selected Quatrains of Baba Taher Oryan
You who haven't studied planets in the space,
You who haven't gone to the wine-bibber's place,
You who know not your gain or your loss,
How can you reach the dwelling of the mistress?
My pain and my cure is from the friend,
My union and parting is from the friend,
Should the butcher pull my skin off my flesh,
My soul shall never stay apart from the friend.
Happy mountains, happy mountains and the plain,
Happy those who sowed these buttercups in the plain,
Where are they? Where they went? Where shall they go
- those mountains, the deserts and the plain?
A groaning farmer in this fated field,
With bloody eyes lilies sowed and tilled,
He sowed and sowed and I heard him say: Alas
One must sow them and leave them in this field."
He who is a lover fears not to die,
A lover neither fears jail nor the iron tie,
A loving heart is like a hungry wolf,
For the wolf doesn't fear a shepherd's cry.
Happy are those who are fools indeed,
Who can neither write nor can read,
Who like lover Majnoun wander in the desert,
Or roam in the mountains and the deer they feed.
I'm that old man, libertine they call me,
I own neither an anchor, shed or family;
All the day I wander through the world,
At nights I lay on dust in the alley.
God forbid the day when in the tomb they will lay,
And cover my body with gravel and clay,
Neither I shall have legs to escape serpents,
Nor hands to fight worms who will eat my body away.
I complain from the inverted spheres,
For my heart is bleeding with a thousand cares,
My darling is surrounded by pointed thorns,
How can I be merry with all these cares?
Come mourners, let us together mourn,
From the faithless darling, let's together mourn,
Let's sit with lover bulbul in the garden,
If the bulbul fails to lament, we shall mourn.
When I look at the plain I see you there,
When I look at the sea, I see you there,
Wherever I look, whether in mountain or dale,
I see your beautiful image painted there.
I am the sea compressed into the bowl,
I am the dot that completes the vowel,
In every thousand men one rises higher,
I am the best of men, the most civil.
A thousand pains torture my chest,
A blazing furnace glows in my breast,
At down when I break into sigh, behold
A thousand rivals are burnt by the tempest.
Should my hand the revolving spheres reach,
From Almighty Maker I shall ask which is which?
Why one man must enjoy a hundred bounties,
Yet another eat oats running in the bloody ditch?
On Alvand's skirt a flower I planted,
I watered all the day, well tended the bed,
When it grew and I sought its heavenly scent
The wind blew the perfume, to other regions spread.
I regret, I regret, I regret,
When I see the caravan pass quit by sunset,
To all the ancient world has been faithless,
In vain we carry the load, in vain we sweat.
Old have I grown, my wit is dead,
My vigor is spent, my youth expended,
They tell me to go and watch the buttercup,
What can I see? My eyesight is fled.
My heart's grief resembles the wailing reed,
All the time for your absence I'm worried,
I must burn and lament, till doomsday I must burn,
God knows when doomsday will dawn indeed.
At dawn I chanced through tombs to pass,
I heard a groaning voice sigh and wail across;
A scull was addressing the earth, saying:
"This world is not worth the grass."
Drunk though with red wine our faith is in you,
Weak and helpless though, we believe in you,
Whether Zoroastrian, Christian or Muslim
Whatever our faith, we worship only you.
Your portion is to inflict pain, mine to bear,
Your lot is to shed blood, mine to drink with tear;
Shall you hear my wailing if I lament?
Sweet is the sword from you as my neck to my dear.
