A Life in Verse: Based on the Dīvān of Mīrzā Hidāyatullāh Farāhānī (Composed in 1301 AH / 1884 CE)
Document Type : pajoohesh
Author
10.22081/jap.2025.77756
Abstract
Mīrzā Hidāyatullāh was a poet of ascetic disposition from Farāhān, who compiled his poems around the year 1301 AH (1884 CE), at approximately the age of forty. In his dīvān, he offers a poetic narrative of his rather eventful life, revealing the intellectual and religious tensions within an Iranian family of diverse cultural-religious inclinations. He depicts not only debates with his father while awake, but also confrontations in dreams. Amid these conflicts, he alludes to familial tensions and the role of a stepmother in sowing discord among the children. The poet expresses Ṣūfī inclinations, with references to his time as a pupil of Mīrzā-ye Shīrāzī, his spiritual attachment to certain shaykhs of the Dhahabīyya order, and companionship with the Qajar-era Shaykh al-Raʾīs in Mashhad. In the fifth decade of his life, he laments not having chosen a practical profession earlier. What we encounter is a poetic autobiography—though modest in literary merit—offering an authentic report of a life lived.
Keywords
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