Hayrati Tuni (Kashani)

Hayrati Tuni (d. 1554), a poet flourishing under the Safavid Shah Tahmasb, serving as his companion for a while. Some biographers record that he hailed from Bukhara. Sam Mirza reports, ‘He is reportedly from Marw, but he says that he hails from Tun.’ According to the majority of biographers, he composed numerous lampoons in early youth. According to Sam Mirza, ‘He and Wahidi Qumi composed many a lampoon for each other. Hasan Rumlu says that Hayrati and Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Sidqi Istarabadi, a distinguished poet, were always holding poetical debates.’ Such unbecoming activities and immoral conducts led him to fall out of favor with Shah Tahmasb. He fled to Gilan and was later pardoned as a result of composing a qasida on the merits of the Commander of the Faithful [Imam ‘Ali] and returned to Shah Tahmasb’s seat of government. He settled in Kashan in his last years and died there. Hasan Rumlu, his contemporary, records his death under the events of the year 1554. Consequently, Azar’s report in Atashkadih-yi Azar, ‘Finally, a tyrant greedy to seize his property killed him and it occurred in the year 1297 is inaccurate. Hayrati’s works, as enumerated by Hasan Rumlu, include: poetical his Divan, containing qasidas, ghazals, and Bahjat al-Mabahij, an ornate qasida composed in response to Khwaja Salman Savaji, in which Hayrati complains about the people of Qazwin. Attribution of Bahjat al-Mabahij to Hayrati is groundless, since it is a book by Hasan Sabzivari on the history of the traditions of the Prophet and the house of ‘Ali which was versified by Hayrati in 21,600 couplets in the meter of Khusraw wa Shirin. The poet clearly remarks that the title of this composition is Katib-i Mu’jazat, completed in 1546. In his Hamasihsara’i dar Iran (Composition of Epic in Persia), Dhabih Allah Safa gives the title of the work as Shahnamih-yi Hayrati and reiterates such statement in his Tarikh-i Adabiyyat [dar Iran] (Literary History of Persia). In his Fihrist-i Mushtarak (Comprehensive Catalogue), Ahmad Munzavi gives the title as Bahjat al-Mabahij by an anonymous poet, whereas the poet records the title at the end of the work. Hayrati’s Shahnama is one of the rare epic compositions in verse in the meter of hazaj Musaddas Maqsur (or Mahdhuf) which is about the battles fought by the Prophet and Shi’i notables whose couplets run to 20,000 in number.

Atashkada-yi Azar (1/ 161-162); Asar-afarinan (2/ 303-304); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5/ 586-588).