17 Facts About Mohammad-Taqi Bahar

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, widely known as Malek osh-Sho'ara and Malek osh-Sho'ara Bahar, was a renowned Iranian poet, scholar, politician, journalist, historian and Professor of Literature.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar was born on 10 December 1886 in the Sarshoor District of Mashhad, the capital city of the Khorasan Province, north-eastern Iran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar's father was Mohammad Kazem Sabouri, the Poet Laureate of the shrine in Mashhad who held the honorific title of Malek o-Sho'ara, while his mother was a devout woman named Hajjiyeh Sakineh Khanum.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar began his primary education when he was three, with his father, Mohammad Kazem Sabouri, as his tutor.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar composed his first poem at age eight, at which time he chose the name Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, meaning Spring, as his pen name.

At 14, Mohammad-Taqi Bahar was fluent in Arabic, and later he achieved spoken and written fluency in French.

At the onset of the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, Mohammad-Taqi Bahar laid down his position of Poet Laureateship and joined the revolutionary movement for establishing the parliamentary system of democracy in Iran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar became an active member of the Mashhad branch of Anjoman-e Sa'adat that campaigned for establishment of Parliament of Iran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar published the semi-covert newspaper Khorasan, in collaboration with Hossein Ardebili, Nou-bahar, and Tazeh-bahar, both in collaboration with his cousin Haj Sheikh Ahmad Bahar who operated a printing company and who acted as the Senior Editor first in Mashhad and later in Tehran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar published numerous articles in his newspapers in which he passionately exhorted his readers to stand up and help bring about the establishment of a functioning Parliament.

In 1918, when Ahmad Shah Qajar, the seventh and the last ruler of the Qajar dynasty, was in power, Mohammad-Taqi Bahar reinvented himself: he ceased all his clerical activities and became an entirely new man.

In 1945, during Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign, Mohammad-Taqi Bahar served for a short period as the Minister of Culture and Education in the Cabinet of the then Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar sought medical treatment in Leysin, Switzerland, in a sanatorium, where he stayed between 1947 and 1949.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar died on 21 April 1951, at his home in Tehran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar is entombed in Zahir-od-dowleh cemetery in Darband, located in Shemiran, northern Tehran.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar's symbol for provoking patriotic upheavals is a reflection of the growth of the notion of nationalism which had been introduced to Iranians only few decades before.

Mohammad-Taqi Bahar describes Damavand as a beast, and asks it to rise and wipe out injustice, and let the real Iran flourish.