Mashriqi Tabrizi

 Mashreqi Tabrizi

'Abd al-Rahim Khalvati (Mashreqi) mystic and calligrapher poet (d. 85911454) whose poetic oeuvre and biography has, to date, been completely neglected by Persian literary historians, both east and west son Shams al-Din Mohammad al-Aqtabai l-Mashreqi, born in Tabriz, o f Transcaucasian origin.

Ebn Karbala'i also relates that both Shams al-Din Mohammad Aqtabi and 'Abd al-Rahim Khalvati (Mashreqi) were disciples of Mohammad Maghrebi. Khajeh Khalvati took his patronym, al-Mashreqi, as a pen-name, and along with his Divan, he composed the following works, which are primarily tracts and glosses on various aspects of Ibn 'Arabi's theosophy and Sufi poetry:

1. Mafatih al-ghayb 2. Hashiya bar sharh-i 'Isteilahat-e Shaykh 'Abd al-Razzaq Kashi 3. Sharh-e Nusfus-e Shaykh Sadr al-Din Mohammad Qunyavi 4. Sharh bar qasideh-ye 'Meymiya-I Khamriya-i Fariziyya 5. Rislih-ya sanih-ya Sarmadiya 6. Rislih-ya mirata l-'ibad fi ma'rifat al-ma'ad 7. Sharh bar Roba'i-yahora'iyeh 8. Sharhi bar ba'zi az abyat-i mushkeleh-y Gulshan-e raz.

In addition to his facility in poetry and his ability in the field of Sufi theosophy, Mashriqi was also one of the main historians and chroniclers of the spiritual culture of his day. Ibn Karbala' ciites a manuscript by him, which is no longer extant, to complete his account of no less than five major Sufi sages: Kamal Khojandi, Sharaf al-Din Tarami, Baba Faraj Tabrizi, Abu Mansur Mohammad Hafzat al-'Attar (id . 571/1175;), and Isma'il Sisi.

Mashreqi's father, Shams al-Din Aqtabi, according to 'Abd al-Razzaq Kermani and 'Abd al-'Aziz Ebn Shir Malek Va'ezi (two of the formost biographers of Shah Ne'matollah), was appointed a Khalifa (regional vicar) commissioned to take charge of Sufis in Tabriz by the renowned Sufi poet and founder of the Ne'matollahi Order, Shah Ne'matollah. This fact probably indicates that Mashreqi himself was directly acquainted with Shah Ne'matollah, 

The Divan o f Mashreqi like that of Maghrebi is heavily influenced by over a century and a half of Sufi teachings devoted to the exposition of the theosophical doctrines of Ebn 'Arabi ( d. 1240). As the various titles of Mashreqi's other works and the scant biographical material available demonstrate the poet is philosophically and methodologically of the same school of Sufism as Maghrebi: a follower of Ebn 'Arabi and Sadr al-Din Qunyawi (d. 1274). The fact that Mashreqi wrote a commentary on Shabestari's Garden of Mysteries (Sharhi bar ba'zi az abyat-i mushkeleh-y Gulshan-e raz), is significant in so far as it demonstrates his adherence to the spiritual lineage of emulators, commentators and lovers of this work, which has been extolled as one of the greatest master pieces of Persian literature and the handiest introduction to the thought of post Ebn 'Arabi Sufism

The type of the ghazal which appears in the Divans of Maghrebi and Mashreqi, it should be noted, is, as a verse-form essentially a romantic lyric devoted to erotic and Bacchus themes being, approximately speaking, the Persian counter part of our English sonnet. 

Leonard Lewisohn, "The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi", Iranian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2/3 (1989), pp. 99-127