Amiri Firuzkuhi

Amiri-yi Firuzkuhi, Sayyid Karim (1910-1984), son of Sayyid Mustafa Quli Muntazam al-Dawla, a belletrist and poet with the nom de plume of Amir. He was born in Farahabad, Firuzkuh. His ancestors had been army commanders from the reign of Karim Khan to the end of the Qajar rule, so that their names all included the title of amir ("commander"). His father was a modernist under the Qajar Muzaffar al-Din Shah, accompanying the Shah to Europe as a commander and dignitary, thus having the opportunity to directly observe the latest developments of Western civilization. At the age of seven Karim was taken by his father to Tehran, though this great change in his life tragically coincided with his father's death. His grandfather, Amir Muhammad Husayn Khan Sardar (‘General’), who had captured Herat in the course of a campaign, was also founder of the orphanage school in Tehran, well-known as the Firuzkuhi Elementary School. After his father's decease, he was brought up by his mother. He received his primary and secondary education in Tehran at the Sirus, Servat, Alliance and Sultani Schools, going on to study logic, theology and philosophy at the American College in Tehran with such teachers as Aqa 'Abd al-Nabi Kajuri and Aqa Sayyid Husayn Mujtahid Kashani. Finishing study at the American College in Tehran, he went on to private study in the circles of learned scholars, such as like Vahid Dastgirdi, the director of the Armaghan journal and the president of the Hakim Nizami Literary Society, with whom he studied such subjects as the principles of philosophy, rhetoric and belles-lettres. He left off formal education in 1929 and found employment at  the Documents Registration and Real Estate Administration. He took up  music in 1935, then changed his mind a year later at the age of 26 and turned to the traditional sciences, studying six years with Shaykh 'Abd al-Nabi Kujuri, Sayyid Husayn Kashani, Sayyid Kazim 'Assar, Mirza Khalil Kamara’i, and Sayyid Mahmud Imam-i Jum'a, with whom he studied Arabic literature, logic, theology, philosophy, Islamic jurisprudence and the principles of Shi’ite doctrine, mastering prose-writing and the composition of poetry in Arabic. He came to head the documents department from 1947 to 1957, then resigned from government service altogether, devoting himself to freelance writing. He made contributions to the Literary Society of Iran, the Hakim Nizami Literary Society, and the Farhangistan Literary Society. He associated with scholars, writers and poets, like Rahi Mu'ayyiri, Bahmanyar, Muhammad 'Ali Bamdad, Vahid Dastgirdi, and Sadiq Hidayat, as well as with musicians like Habib Sama'i, Abu al-Hasan Saba and 'Abd al-Husayn Shahnazi. He began composing ghazals at the age of 12. When he discovered Sa'ib Tabrizi, he was captivated by his style and, as a result, became a distinguished adherent of the Indian genre of Persian poetry, though his ghazals are free of the elaborate flourishes of that style, rather approaching the more direct ‘Iraqi genre. His expression in ghazals is straighforward, clear, smooth and thematic. In his qasidas his rhetoric is reminiscent of Khaqani's lucidity and eloquence, and his poetic nostalgia that of Mas'ud Sa'd. In his qasida composition he intertwines a legacy of the Khurasan genre with developments of the restoration era in such a way, bringing grace to qasidas that are predominantly melancholic. In eulogy of Islam and the ahl-i bayt [the Prophet and his immediate family] his idiom is measured and stately,  intermixed with Qur'anic terminology, while in his informal poetry, the tone is gentle and passionate, and in his elegies, the tone is intimate and melancholic. His qit'as stylistically follow on the model of his qasidas, compared with the latter, these verse fragments tend to be apothegms in a more abstruse and archaic style. He chooses the mathnavi [rhyming couplet genre] to set a mood with an expression reminiscent of Nizami. His poetry runs to 3,000 couplets, in the composition of which he exercises the utmost precision and through a diversity of rhymes crafted in a multiplicity of couplets, he provides inventive imagery stemming from the interaction of his thoughts and feelings. He was acquainted with the subtleties of Persian poetry, which he applied to his compositions in the Indian genre in such forms as ghazal and qasida. He also had a thorough knowledge of Arabic, in which he composed poetry, as well. He died in Tehran and is buried in the court of the shrine of Shah 'Abd al-'Azim. The bulk of his poetic work was composed after he turned 50. He was celebrated in literary societies throughout Iran, working actively with them. His great admiration for Sa’ib is not only reflected on his poetry, but in his critical edition of that poet’s work to which he penned a detailed introduction. He was at odds with the conventional terming of Sa'ib's style is termed as ‘Indian’, insisting that it was in a separate ‘Isfahani’ genre. Amiri was also skilled in composing poetry in forms other than ghazal and qasida, notably the tarkib-band, while his informal compositions (ikhwaniyat) and elegies possess a unique subtlety and appeal. In contrast to his ghazals, he tended to compose his qasidas in the Khurasani genre, following the precedents of Khaqani, Nasir Khusraw, Mas'ud Sa'd and Anvari. His poetry is fraught with the bemoaning of life with its evanescence and vicissitudes, along with his own personal lack of fulfillment, his lyrically expressed pain and frustration. His Tehran home was a haven for the deeply feeling, where cultured people like 'Abd al-Rahman Parsa Tuysirkani, Ahmad Mahdawi Damghani, Habib Yaghma'i, and Ghulam Husayn Ra'di Adarakhshi gathered in a convivial atmosphere for fruitful discussion of poetry, belles-lettres and art. Being independently able to live off the proceeds of his inherited lands in Firuzkuh, he could spare his sensitive nature from the burden of the duties of professional involvement with the government. After his death, his daughter Amir Banu Amiri (Musaffa) published his Divan in two volumes and made his passionate ghazals available to eager readers. His works include translations of texts of the Nahj al-Balagha and Hajj Shaykh Muhaddis Qummi's Nafs al-mahmum; Wajiza fi 'ilm al-Nabi, a philosophical treatise published in the Javidan-i Khirad journal; Divan in two volumes; a critical edition of Sa'ib's Divan with introduction; a long poem entitled 'Ifaf-nama on the necessity of hijab (‘Islamic dress code’); Ihqaq al-Haqq in support of the poets of the Safavid era; and a defense of the Indian genre of poetry.

Asar-afarinan (1, 303); Az Nima ta ruzigar-i ma (530-537); Sukhanvaran-i nami-yi mu'asir-i Iran (1, 368-375).