ABZARĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN ASʿAD B. NAṢR B. JAHŠĪĀR B. . . . FARROḴĀN ANṢĀRĪ FĀLĪ, poet and the vizier of the Salghurid Atabeg of Fārs Saʿd b. Zangī (594-623/1197-1226). Ebn Fowatī calls him ʿAmīd-al-molk Abū Ḡānem Abu’l-Moẓaffar (Qazvīnī’s note to Šadd al-ezār, p. 521). He was probably a native of Abzar/Afzar in Fārs, south of Shiraz. Fasāʾī cites the vizier’s nesba as Afzarī (I, p. 32; II, pp. 179, 332). C. Huart, however, interpreted the name as “Abrazī” and thus made him a native of the canton of Abarǰ (formerly Abraz), north of Shiraz (see bibliog.). While on a mission to the Ḵᵛārazmšāh ʿAlāʾ-al-dīn Moḥammad about 606/1209-10, Abzarī greatly impressed the king, who vainly sought to retain him as vizier. After Atabeg Saʿd died, his successor Abū Bakr accused Abzarī of spying for the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs and imprisoned him with his son in the Oškonvān fort near Eṣṭaḵr, where he died in Jomādā I-II, 624/April-June, 1227. Abzarī’s intellectual scope and his poetry in both Persian and Arabic earned him contemporary praise—e.g., from Faḵr-al-dīn Rāzī, who had scholarly correspondence with him (Šadd al-ezār, p. 215), the poets Rafīʿ-al-dīn Lonbānī Eṣfahānī and Kamāl-al-dīn Esmāʿīl.
Before his death he vaunted his virtues and deplored his destiny in a poem of 111 lines, al-Qaṣīdat al-Oškonwānīya, whose rhetorical subtleties have been extolled in later commentaries. It was dictated to his son Tāǰ-al-dīn Moḥammad who later dictated it to Imam Ṣafī-al-dīn Masʿūd Sīrāfī, a cousin of ʿAmīd-al-dīn. The latter arranged the lines and his son, Qoṭb-al-dīn Moḥammad Sīrāfī, added a commentary which made the poem famous. There exists also a poem by Abzarī written in Persian, in which he pleaded his case to the nobles of Abū Bakr’s court (Šadd al-ezār, pp. 523-26). Abzarī is credited with the foundation of a celebrated school, in Šīrāz near the Gate of Eṣṭaḵr, which was named after him.
Bibliography:
See also al-Qaṣīdat al-Oškonwānīya, ms. with commentaries, Berlin, Peterm. 565, fols. 109b-11a; ed. C. Huart, “L’Ode arabe d’Ochkonwān,” Revue sémitique, 1893, pp. 337-58; see also pp. 259-69 and EI1 I, pp. 6, 178.
M. Ṯābetī, Asnād va nāmahā-ye tārīḵī, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967, pp. 160-86.
Ebn Fowatī, Maǰmaʿ al-ādāb fī moʿǰam al-alqāb IV, ed. M. Jawād, 1962-, pp. 900-01.
Waṣṣāf, Taǰzīat al-amṣār, ed. M. Arbāb, Bombay, 1269, pp. 150-51, 156-57, 162.
Mīrḵᵛānd, Rawżat al-ṣafāʾ, Tehran, IV, pp. 608-09. Ḵᵛāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-sīar (Tehran) II, p. 562.
Jonayd Šīrāzī, Šadd al-ezār, ed. M. Qazvīnī and ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran, 1328 Š./1949, pp. 215-16, 355-56, 523-27.
Ebn Zarkūb, Šīrāz-nāma, ed. E. Wāʿeẓ Jawādī, Tehran, 1350 Š./1971, pp. 79, 81.
Rūzbehān-nāma, ed. M. T. Dānešpažūh, Tehran, 1347 Š./1968, pp. 31-32, 34.
Forṣat Šīrāzī, Āṯār-e ʿAǰam, Bombay, 1354/1935-36, pp. 223-24.
(A. E. Khairallah)
Originally Published: December 15, 1983
Last Updated: July 21, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 4, pp. 411-412
A. E. Khairallah, “ABZARĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, pp. 411-412; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abzari-kaja-amid-al-din-asad-b (accessed on 2 January 2014).
