The earliest MS. that I have seen of these quatrains is one in my own collection, dating only from the end of the 18th century and containing 27 quatrains, and the only other to which I have had access is one in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (which bears the stamp “Acquisition Schefer No. 9655”),* which is a collec­tion of 174 rubā‘iyāt written in ordinary modern Persian, in an ordinary modern nīm-shikasta hand­writing, by one ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib Bakhsh ‘Alī Qarābāghī, in the year A.H. 1260 (A.D. 1844). This contains a prose preface of three and a half pages, but this preface is entirely devoted to praise of the poem itself, which is, to the writer, “such a book that it is the very pupil of the eyes of the clear-sighted, and a fair copy of it is the salt on the table of delicacy of meanings”—and so on ad infinitum, together with fulsome and exaggerated compliments to the reigning Shāh of the Kājār dynasty. The MS. ends abruptly and is apparently unfinished, but it would appear that this was intentional, as the compiler ends his preface with a statement that he has collected all the rubā‘iyāt of Bābā Ṭāhir that have come to light down to A.H. 1260 (<Arabic>), and that he proposes to add any others that he may find, expressing at the same time a hope that the supervising reader will also “show favour, in the event of discovering omissions, with the pen of completion.” There is not in this preface a word of historical or biographical information about the author. Mr. Browne tells me that there are six leaves of Bābā Ṭāhir’s rubā‘iyāt in a MS. at Berlin (Pertsch’s Catalogue, p. 727, no. 697). I have not been able to consult this MS.; but Herr Stern of the Königliche Bibliothek informs me that it contains fifty-six rubā‘iyāt, without any preface or introduction, and though undated, appears to have been written about 1820. It is therefore of no greater importance than the texts at our disposal.

M. Clément Huart, in his introductory essay to “Les Quatrains de Bābā Ṭāhir ’Uryān en Pehlevi Musulman,”* states that he infers from a passage in the Nuzhatu ’l-Qulūb of Ḥamdu ’llāh Mustawfi, who died in A.H. 750 (A.D. 1349), that this author flourished before that date. The passage referred to is to the effect that the tomb of Bābā Ṭāhir was, ten years prior to that date (i.e. in A.D. 1329), highly honoured at Hamadān. He also tells us, on the authority of Comte de Gobineau’s “Trois ans en Asie” (p. 344), that Bābā Ṭāhir is now regarded in Persia as one of the saints of the Ahl-i-Ḥaqq or Nuṣayrī sect, and that his sister, Bībī Fātimah, is equally venerated by this community.

All that we can safely state is that he was a “crazy saint,” a dervish, or religiously inspired beggar, from his popular name ‘Uryān (<Arabic>), “The Naked,” in which condition he doubtless roamed the streets of Hamadān, the especially protected of God and the Prophet, the prefix Bābā indicating the dervish, or kalandar condition, rather than prominence among the Ṣūfī sect. M. Blochet calls my attention to an Arabic MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale (No. 1903), by an anony­mous author, dated A.H. 890 (A.D. 1485), containing at pp. 74-100 a treatise upon the sentences of Bābā Ṭāhir Hamadānī. According to the opening lines of this treatise (after the invocation), it was written at the request of a Ṣūfī named Abu ’l-Baqā al-Aḥmadī; the aphorisms are typically Sufistic of a mild type, and are quite possibly the “treatises” referred to in his intro­duction by Riẓā-Qulī Khān (vide supra).

To the above information may usefully be added the following, which is a translation of an account gathered for me from a native scholar by Captain Charles Kemball, His Majesty’s Resident at Bushire. It is headed, “Account concerning Ṭāhir, known under the name of ‘Uryān, as handed down by tradition,” and is as follows:—

“It is stated that Ṭāhir-i-‘Uryān was an illiterate person and was a wood-cutter. During the day he was wont to go to the Madrasa (academy) and listen whilst the students would read their lessons, but the students used to make fun of him. One day he remarked to one of the inmates of the institution, ‘I wonder what these students do in order that they may understand the instructions of the Professors.’ The student replied jokingly, ‘At midnight they get into this pond and plunge their heads under the water forty times; after undergoing this process, they understand the instructions.’ Ṭāhir believed this account and did the same himself, though the weather was intensely cold. Just then a flash of light appeared and entered his mouth (?). Next day he came to the Madrasa and commenced a philosophical discussion with the students to which they were unable to respond. When they asked him the reason of this sudden change, he related his story to them, saying, ‘I passed the night as a Kurd and opened with the morning as an Arab.’ This immensely astonished his hearers. It is stated that there seemed to be extraordinary heat in his body, so much so that no one could sit near him. He used to pass his time continually in the jungles and mountains.” Such is the modern tradition concerning our poet-philosopher.

This is the sum total of what we have been able to discover concerning the author of these rubā‘iyāt, and in the absence of any early text that might throw further light on the subject it seems all that we are ever likely to obtain. M. Blochet in Paris, Dr. Ross in London, Mr. Browne in Cambridge, and Mr. Ellis at the British Museum, have, with the utmost kindness and patience, ransacked the stores of biographical lore of which they have command in the endeavour to obtain for me some more explicit information concern­ing this mysterious personage, and with their combined failure to elicit any details other than those recorded above, I must reluctantly abandon the search for the present.