Baba Tahir

Baba Tahir or Baba Taher Oryan Hamadani (Persian: باباطاهر عریان همدانی) was an 11th-century dervish poet from Hamadan, Iran who lived during the reign of Tugril of the Seljuk dynasty over Iran. This is almost all that is known of him as he lived a mysterious lifestyle. Although the prefix "Baba" (roughly meaning 'The Wise' or 'The Respected') has been thought as part of his name in all known sources, his nickname "Oryan" (meaning 'The Naked') did not appear until about the 17th century. It is likely that the nickname was attributed to him because he seemed to lead a very spiritual and stoic lifestyle and thus was figuratively not clothed with worldly and material needs and suggests he may have been a wandering dervish. His poetry is written in the Hamadani dialect of the Persian language. L. P. Elwell-Sutton theorises that Baba Tahir wrote in the Hamadani dialect, adding: "Most traditional sources call it loosely Luri, while the name commonly applied from an early date to verses of this kind, Fahlaviyat, presumably implies that they were thought to be in a language related to the Middle Persian language. Armenian Iranologist and linguist Rouben Abrahamian however found a close affinity with the dialect spoken at the present time by the Jews of Hamadan." According to The Cambridge History of Iran, Baba Tahir spoke a certain Persian dialect.

Biography