Umid Tehrani

Biography

Umidi Tihrani, Khwaja Arjasb ibn Khwaja Shaykh'Ali Tihrani (executed in 1519), a physician and poet of renown in the late Timurid and early Safavid times whose nom de plume was Umidi-yi Razi. His original name was Arjasb. He received the title and the name of Sa'd al-Din Mas'ud from his master, Jalal al-Din Davvani became well-known by that name, though his original name was his father's name. His father, Shaykh 'Ali Tihrani was a notable of  Rayy who had agricultural lands and possessions there. He departed Tehran for Shiraz to study the religious sciences and gnossis. There, he studied with Mawlana Jalal al-Din Davvani, the scholar of renown, and having studied different sciences, particularly medicine with him, he became one of his distinguished students. He made acquaintance with notables of the Safavid Shah Isma'il, e.g. Amir Najm Zargar, Mir 'Abd al-Baqi Yazdi, and Khwaja  Habibullah Savaji, and composed qasidas in which he eulogized them. He settled in Terhan in his last years and constructed a garden called Umid. It was for the sake of this garden that he came into conflict with Shah Qawam al-Din Nurbakhsh, the Sufi master of the Nurbakhshi Order. He was injured in the conflict and died at the age of 65 and was buried in Tarasht, Tehran. Few of his poems are extant: 17 qasidas, 3 ghazals, 15 Quatrains, and one Saqi-namih. His limited number of verses reflects his mastery in poetry.

Asar-afarinan (1, 297); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (4, 425-431); Da'irat al-Ma'arif-i Buzurg-i Islami (10, 241-242).