Vahshi Bafqi

Vahshi Bafqi, Mawlana Shams al-Din, Kamal al-Din Ahmad (1523-1583), distinguished poet with the nom de plume Vahshi flourishing under the Safavids. He was born in Bafq, en route between Yazd and Kerman and his hometown has been regarded as a  district at times in the Yazd province and at other times in the Kerman province, hence his appellations Yazdi and Kirmani. Kamal al-Din Muhammad Bafqi was from a hardworking, middle class, and peasant family. His elder brother, Muradi Bafqi played a major role in Vahshi’s poetical career whom he introduced to literary circles, though he had died before his younger brother made a name for himself. Vahshi makes mention of his elder brother in some of his verses. Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali, a distinguished litterateur, was the master of the two brothers. Vahshi spent his youth in his hometown, receiving his education from his brother and Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Bafqi. Having received his literary education, he departed his hometown for Yazd and then for Kashan, where he ran a primary school. He returned to Yazd after a while where he settled and composed poetry and eulogies to the rulers of the city. Having traveled to Kashan, the port of Hurmuz, and India, he returned to Yazd in his middle age where he lived till his last days. He died at the age of 61. Kamal al-Din Muhammad Vahshi Bafqi was one of the poets who composed Layla and Majnun after Nizami Ganjavi. A distinguished ghazal poet, he treats sad love and hardships. Further, his mastery of Persian poetry and literature is reflected in his elegant quatrains, tarji’bands, tarkib-bands, and mathnawis. His major works include the incomplete mathnawi of Farhad wa Shirin which was later completed by Visal Shirazi, a distinguished poet flourishing under the Qajars. He also composed appealing tarkib-bands in praize of Imam Husayn and some other notables. His divan also includes a qasida eulogizing Shah Tahmasb and also a chronogram on the latter’s death, though his patron was actually Mirmiran, the governor of Yazd. Vahshi made the acquaintance of local poets, e.g. Mawlana Muwahhid al-Din Fahmi, Muhtasham Kashani, Shuja’ al-Din Ghazanfar Kashani, and Tabi’i Khawansari, when he was in the service of the administration system of that city and at times entered competitions with them. He was a contemporary of the Safavid Shah Tahmasb, Shah Isma’il, and Shah Muhammad Khudabanda. His complete poetical works, composed in the forms of qasida, tarkib-band, tarji’band, ghazal, qit’a, quatrain, and mathnawi, exceed 9,000 couplets. His tarkib-bands and tarji’bands, particularly those consisting of four and six stanzas, are accorded significance in lyrical poetry, and are regarded as appealing compositions from the Safavid times such that their verses are generally memorized. His long and most elegant Saqinama, composed in the form of tarji’band, served as a model for later poets who composed signatures with similar themes and in the same meter. Although he did not invent the genre of tarkib-band, but he excels all lyrical poets in his tarkib-bands in that similar verses were not composed by later poets. His ghazals are the best of his poetry and also the best of Persian lyrical poetry, the majority of them reflect his passionate feelings and sorrows in a simple and appealing language most vigorously. His mathnawis have been composed on the model of Nizami. His mathnawis, Nazir wa Manzur and Farhad wa Shirin have been composed on the model of Nizami’s Khusraw wa Shirin. He composed his first mathnawi in 1,569 couplets in 1587. His second mathnawi is indubitably one of the greatest Persian dramatic masterpieces by which he made a name for himself, though his could not compose more than 1,070 couplets and it was later completed by Wisal Shirazi in the nineteenth century by supplementing 1,251 couplets and a further 304 couplets by another poet, Sabir. Vahshi also composed his famous mathnawi, Khuld-i Barin, on the model and in the meter of Nizami’s Makhzan al-Asrar. His shorter mathnawis, in other genres, such as eulogy and satire, are not on a par with his these mathnawis. He expresses his poetical themes, delicacies, and feelings in such fluent and simple diction that at times it approaches the colloquial language which accords further significance to his poetry.  His diction is simple and sincere, making him the best of the poets of the Vuqu’ school. Difficult Arabic obsolete words and compounds are rarely seen in his poetry wherein everyday words and expressions have been used. He did not pay attention to figures of speech unless he regarded them beneficial to the vigor of his diction. He had innovative poetical talents, although he mainly followed Nizami in his mathnawis and his distinguished predecessors in his ghazals, his ghazals served as models for later poets.

Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (5/ 760-777); Tarikh-i Nazm wa Nathr (434-435).