Information About

Mahsati




A beautiful and talented composer of Quatrain s, she originated from Ganja , Azerbaijan , and is said to have associated with both Omar Khayyám and Nizami . She is also said to have been the companion of Sultan Sanjar . Her alleged free way of living and peddled verses have stamped her as a Persian Madame Sans-Gêne . Her purported love affairs are recounted in the works of ''Jauhari of Bukhara ''.

No details about her life are documented except that she was born in Ganja and was highly esteemed at the court of sultan Sanjar of the Seljuk dynasty. She is said to have attracted the notice and gained the favor of Sanjar by the following verse, which she extemporized one evening when the King, on going out from his audience-hall to mount his horse, found that a sudden fall of snow had covered the ground.

:For thee hath Heaven saddled Fortune’s steed,
:O, King, and chosen thee from all who lead,
:Now o’er the Earth it spreads a silver sheet


It is also known that Mahsati was persecuted for her courageous poetry condemning religious obscurantism, fanaticism and dogmas. Her only works that have come down to us are philosophical and love quatrains (rubaiyat), glorifying the joy of living and the fullness of love.


REFERENCES


  • Jan Rypka, ''History of Iranian Literature''. Reidel Publishing Company. 1968 . ISBN 90-277-0143-1

  • Edward Brown, A literary History of Persia in Four Volumes. Cambridge university Press 1969, vol. 2, p. 344)



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