Shahid Balkhi (or Shuhayd; fa, شهید بلخی, Shahīd-e Balkhī; died 927) was a scribe, philosopher and poet active in the
Chaghaniyan and
Samanid
The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in Kho ...
courts. He is notable being for one of the first composers of
New Persian
New Persian ( fa, فارسی نو), also known as Modern Persian () and Dari (), is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into thre ...
poetry.
Life
The modern historian Francois de Blois has argued that the name of "Shahid" is a misrepresentation of chronicles, stating that during that period the name was only used as a posthumous title for Muslims that had been killed in battle, and thus using it for a living person "would seem ludicrous and indeed sacrilegious." He instead suggests that the proper transliteration is "Shuhayd", a name that has in few occasions been attested, and is a
diminutive
A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...
of ''shahd'' (honeycomb).
Shahid was born in Jakhudanak, a village near the city of
Balkh
), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001
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, where his father later moved and raised him. Of
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
stock, Shahid was bilingual in his mother tongue as well as
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. Little is known about him. He was close friends with the polymath
Abu Zayd al-Balkhi and the
Mu'tazili
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
theologian Abu'l-Qasim al-Balkhi. The three of them, all connected to Balkh, appear jointly in the ''Yatimatu'l-dahr'' of
al-Tha'alibi
Al-Tha'alibi (961–1038), was a writer famous for his anthologies and collections of epigrams. As a writer of prose and verse in his own right, distinction between his and the work of others is sometimes lacking, as was the practice of writ ...
and the ''Mu'jamu'l-udaba'' of
Yaqut al-Hamawi. Based on this, de Blois suggests that Shahid may have been part of the somewhat pro-
Shi'ite Mu'tazili environment of his two associates. An adept scribe, Shahid was well-known for his accurate copying skills.
Shahid died in 927.
Philosophy
Shahid was a fierce opponent of
Abu Bakr al-Razi, who was from the same philosophical background. Razi had studied under an obscure figure called "al-Balkhi", who may also have been Shahid's teacher, or regardless whose philosophical system Shahid adhered to. Razi is known to have written two
polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
s (about pleasure and
eschatology
Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negati ...
, respectively) against Shahid. The ''Siwanu'l-hikma'' of
Abu Sulayman Sijistani contains a large excerpt from one of Shahid's books about the "superiority of the pleasures of the soul over those of the body", which may have been what Razi addressed in one of his polemics.
Poetry
Shahid also wrote poetry in Arabic, including two ''
qit'as'' that ridicules Ahmad ibn Abi Rabi'a, who served as the
vizier
A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was a ...
of the
Saffarid ruler
Amr ibn al-Layth () between 891–900. Shahid wrote a similar poem about the governor
Ahmad ibn Sahl
Ahmad ibn Sahl ibn Hashim (died 920) was an Iranian aristocrat who served the Saffarids and later the Samanids.
Biography
Ahmad belonged to a ''dehqan'' family of Merv known as the Kamkarian family, which claimed descent from the last Sasanian ki ...
, a distinguished governor in
Khurasan
Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plate ...
. This led to Shahid's flight from the angry governor, first returning to Balkh after Ahmad's execution in 920. Shahid is best known for being one of the first composers of
New Persian
New Persian ( fa, فارسی نو), also known as Modern Persian () and Dari (), is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into thre ...
poetry. More or less 100 of his verses have survived in the accounts of anthologists and lexicographers. These contain an erotic poem of eight lines, a portion of a ''
qasida'' written for the Samanid ''
amir'' (ruler)
Nasr II
Nasr ibn Ahmad or Nasr II ( fa, نصر دوم), nicknamed "the Fortunate", was the ruler (''amir'') of Transoxiana and Khurasan as the head of the Samanid dynasty from 914 to 943. His reign marked the high point of the Samanid dynasty's fortunes. ...
(), a poem that uses shifts between Persian and Arabic verses, and a number of
couplet
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
s from a poem of a story, supposedly romantic-related. A number of the surviving verses mentioned in the dictionaries have a
gnomic or philosophical tone. Some of his lines have been hypothesized to have subtle references to the religion of
Manichaeism
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian Empire, Parthian ...
.
Legacy
Shahid's close friend and teacher in poetry,
Rudaki
Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; fa, رودکی; 858 – 940/41) was a Persian poet, singer and musician, who served as a court poet under the Samanids. He is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. Said to have composed more than ...
(died 941), dedicated an
elegy to him;
Persian poets between the 10th and 12th-centuries mention Shahid in an respectful manner, but after that he fades into obscurity. The modern historian N. N. Negmatov calls Shahid "one of the best court poets of the Samanid Nasr II, and one of the leading scholars of the age." In the ''Prison Feats'' ''
masnavi
The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' ( fa, مثنوی معنوی), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi. The ''Masnavi'' is one of the most ...
'' of the modern Iranian poet
Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, several historical and fictional anecdotes of historical figures are used, including Shahid. The same work also narrates a fictional scene, where Bahar meets Shahid.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Balkhi, Shahid
927 deaths
10th-century Persian-language poets
Year of birth unknown
10th-century Iranian philosophers
Samanid-period poets