The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi

Abstract

Of the rhyme and verse of Shams-e Mashreqi Go tell the news to all who merit it Because the worth of pearls borne from sea all jewelers will appreciate.—MashreqiDuring the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century in Tabriz, the political and cultural capital of medieval Persia, a remarkable congregation of Sufi poets assembled whose society, fellowship, and fraternity in Sufism, made them all members of one literary movement in Persian poetry, known as the ‘School of Tabriz’. In presenting the literary accomplishments and the mystical outlook of this School to a wider audience, the present article attempts to introduce the least known member of this school, namely, the Sufi gnostic poet, ‘Abd al-Rahim Khalvatī (Mashreqī), whose poetic oeuvre and biography has, to date, been completely neglected by Persian literary historians, both east and west.