Mehdi Bayani (‎; 1906 – 6 February 1968) was the founder and the first head of the

National Library of Iran The National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI; ) or National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran is located in Tehran, Iran, with twelve branches across the country. The NLAI is an educational, research, scientific, and service institute a ...

, specialist in

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 ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s and

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

, writer, researcher, and professor at the

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...

Life and careers

Mehdi Bayani was born in 1906 in

Hamedan Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...

Qajar Iran The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic peoples, Turkic origin,Cyrus G ...

. His father, ''"Mirza Mohammad Khan Mostofi Farahani"'', was from the succession of teachers and accountant of Farahan and his maternal ancestor was ''"Mirza Soleimaan Bayan ol-Saltaneh Farahani"'', the head of the royal exchequer and the author of ''"the treatise on the rules of clerking and accounting"''. At the age of two, his father died and his mother came to

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

with him and other children. He studied elementary and calligraphy in the primary schools of ''"Aqdasiyeh"'' and ''"Ashraf"''. He spent his high school years at the Dar ul-Funun then entered the ''"Teachers High College"'' (now

Kharazmi University Kharazmi University (Abbreviation: KHU) (, ''Daneshgah-e Xuarazmi''), formerly Tehran University of Teacher Training (), is a public research university in Iran, KHU named after Khwarizmi (c. 780–850), Persian mathematician, astronomer and g ...

) for a bachelor's degree in literary and philosophical sciences. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he entered

. In 1945, received a doctorate in the field of ''"Persian language and literature"'' from the University of Tehran. After passing the training course of the officer's college and military service, Bayani started teaching

Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...

and

Persian literature Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...

in 1933, while working in the library of the ''"Teachers High College"'', and in 1934 he was appointed the director of the public library of Islamic sciences. In this position, he collected books from the ''"Royal Library"'' and the ''"Library of Islamic Sciences"'' to establish the ''"National Library of Iran"'' and after the establishment of this library in 1937, he became its director. In 1940, he was sent to the Department of Culture of

Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...

by the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

(formerly the ''"Ministry of Culture"'') for a year, and after returning and completing a one-year educational mission, he was again appointed director of the National Library. In 1956, he became the director of the ''"Royal Library"'', a post which held until the end of his life. He was also a professor at the University of Tehran, where he taught ''"History of the Evolution of Islamic scripts"'' and ''"Bibliography of Manuscripts"'' courses. He also founded an association to support and introduce calligraphers and the art of calligraphy called the ''"Association for the Support of Script and Calligraphers"''. He collaborated as an expert in manuscripts and prints with the National Library, the National Consultative Assembly's

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

and the Central Library of the University of Tehran due to his expertise in recognizing scripts and manuscripts. He himself had an elegant handwriting and was especially strong and skilled in

Nastaliq ''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also Romanization of Persian, romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main book hand, calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Persi ...

. He is mentioned as one of the students of Mirza Hossein Khan Mostofi, a prominent calligrapher of the Qajar era. The book ''"Biography and Works of Calligraphers ()"'' which he published in 4 volumes is one of the valuable research works in the field of biography and introduction of Iranian calligraphers that has preserved its value so far. Mehdi Bayani

Bayani was one of the founders of the Iranian-Soviet cultural association and a member of it, and worked for nearly 25 years to expand and strengthen the friendly and cultural ties between these two neighboring countries. He had many cultural missions to Asian, European and American countries.

Death

Mehdi Bayani died of cancer on 6 February 1968. He was buried in

Ibn Babawayh Cemetery Ibn Babawayh cemetery ( or ), also spelled as Ebn-e Babviyeh, Ebn-e Babooyeh, is located in Iran in the town of Rey (which is now inside Greater Tehran metropolitan area). About The cemetery is named after Shia scholar Ibn Babawayh (d.991 CE) ...

Legacy

The book ''"Fifty Years with Dr. Mehdi Bayani ()"'' deals with his life story, photographs and documents, and reviews Bayani's book the ''"Biography and Works of Calligraphers ()"'', has been published by the National Library of Iran on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death in 2018. Lately, a virtual (due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions) commemoration ceremony of Mehdi Bayani was held by the

Society for the National Heritage of Iran The Society for the National Heritage of Iran (SNH; ) was a grassroots political and archeological group created by a group of educated, and nationalistic Iranians in 1922, toward the end of the Qajar governance in Iran. The society was composed ...

on 21 October 2020.

Bibliography

His works are: * Bibliography of Manuscripts () * Index of Nastaliq Elegant Script Exhibition of National Library () * Index of Royal Library ( Diwans) () * Index of Persian sources, letters, essays and poems () * Index of exhibitions of Ibn Sina's works in the library of the

() * Index of exhibitions of works by

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (1201 – 1274), also known as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (; ) or simply as (al-)Tusi, was a Persians, Persian polymath, architect, Early Islamic philosophy, philosopher, Islamic medicine, phy ...

in the National Library () * Index of Samples of Elegant Scripts of the Royal Library () * Guide to the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

treasure in the

Museum of Ancient Iran The Museum of Ancient Iran is located at the western part of Mashhq Square in Tehran, Iran. It was designed by André Godard by the order of Ali-Asghar Hekmat, then Minister of Education of Pahlavi Iran. Two Iranian master builders, Ostad Morad T ...

() * Some examples of calligraphers' scripts () * Example of Persian discourse () * Biography and works of calligraphers, in four volumes () * Biography and works of Manuscript-writers () * Shikasta-writers and Nastaliq-writers and Taliq-writers () * Biography and works of

Mir Emad Hassani Mir Emad (born Emad al-Molk Qazvini Hasani (),‎ 1554 – August 15, 1615) is perhaps the most celebrated Persian calligrapher. He was born in Qazvin, Iran. It is believed that the Nastaʿlīq style reached its highest elegance in Mir ...

() * Preparation and publication of four Persian treatises (treatise in the state of infancy, one day with the Sufi community; Red Wisdom; The song of Gabriel's wing), by

Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi Shihāb ad-Dīn Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardī (, also known as Sohrevardi) (1154–1191) was a Persian philosopher and founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism, an important school in Islamic philosophy. The "light" in his "Philosophy of ...

() * The tragedies in the love of

Ahmad Ghazali Ahmad Ghazālī (; full name Majd al-Dīn Abū al-Fotuḥ Aḥmad Ghazālī) was a Sunni Muslim Sufi mystic, writer, preacher and the head of Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad (c. 1061–1123 or 1126). He is best known in the history of Islam for his id ...

() * Ascension letter attributed to

Ibn Sina Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

, in the handwriting of Imam Fakhr Razi () * The best history or chronology of

Kerman Kerman (; ) is a city in the Central District (Kerman County), Central District of Kerman County, Kerman province, Kerman province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. History Kerman was founded as a def ...

events by Afzal al-Din Kermani () * A few quatrains by Hakim Omar Khayyam in

Mir Emad Mir Emad (born Emad al-Molk Qazvini Hasani (),‎ 1554 – August 15, 1615) is perhaps the most celebrated Persian calligrapher. He was born in Qazvin, Iran. It is believed that the Nastaʿlīq style reached its highest elegance in Mir ...

script () * Five hundred years of the history of royal jewelry in Iran () * Incomplete index of some books in the Royal Library () * Rosery Album: three treatises and four biographies; Serat al-Sotoor by

Sultan Ali Mashhadi Sultan ‛Ali Mashhadi, (full name: Sultan Ali-i Muhammad-i Mashhadi) ( fl 1453–1519, d. 1520) was a Persian calligrapher and master of nastaliq script. Born in Mashhad, Sultan ‛Ali lost his father when he was seven and that early on in life ...

- Medad al-Khotoot by

Mir Ali Heravi Mir Ali Heravi (Persian: میرعلی هروی), also known as Mir Ali Hossein Heravi and Mir Jan, titled as ''Kateb-e Soltani'', was a prominent Persian calligrapher and calligraphy teacher of Nastaʿlīq script in the 16th century. He was the se ...

- Adaab al-Mashq by

; With works by great calligraphers () * Collection of Dr. Mehdi Bayani () * A comprehensive list of Persian poems () * Translation and stories of the Qur'an from the endowment version of Torbat Sheikhe Jam, based on the commentary of Abu Bakr Atiq () * Index of Samples of Elegant Script of the Imperial Library of Iran that has been exhibited () * Two Persian treatises by Shahabuddin Suhrawardi () * An example of Persian prose from the

Rudaki Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; ; – 940/41) was a poet, singer, and musician who is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. A court poet under the Samanids, he reportedly composed more than 180,000 verses, yet only a small p ...

period, or the oldest Persian prose in existence () * Elegant Scripts Sample of the Imperial Library of Iran () * The workbook of prominents of Iran () * Calligraphers: Nastaliq-writers () * Lectures of the Association of Lovers of Books, Biography and Works of Mir Emad, the famous calligrapher of the

Safavid The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the begi ...

era () * Research in the biography and works of Ibn Shahaba Yazdi (poet, historian and anonymous astronomer of the ninth century) ()

References

External links