Shah Abbas’ eyebrows

Shah Abbas is often thought in terms of his luxuriant moustachios.  But maybe we should instead be thinking about his eyebrows. In 1595, a renowned poet and boon companion of the Shah, one Mowlana Sa’ni, composed some verses in praise of Abbas, including:

Whether it be friend or foe who quaffs the cup / He drinks to the arch of the Shah’s manly eyebrows

The Shah was apparently “visibly affected” by this, and he ordered that the Mowlana be weighed against gold, and the equivalent be given him as a reward. Unsuprisingly, “all the poets in the land” felt encouraged to submit poems eulogising the Shah. Unfortunately, no-one else had quite the same success.

One satirist, Hasan Vahm-e Din, inserted a bitter reference to the event in a poem he wrote for the vizier of Qom:

Hasan Vahm-e Din, indigent though he is / is weighed by the king with the gold of loathing

It is difficult to immediately understand the verse in translation since it involves a word-play between Sa’ni (the name of the golden poet), and sa’ne (meaning hating or loathing). But the poem does give an idea of the sort of word games that were considered essential for boon companions.

Eskandar Beg expands on the skills and talents that were valued: Mohammed Hoseyn Tafresi, for example, was “possessed of the most excellent taste as regards inventing new expressions and metaphors”; while Ostad Heydarqoli Udi was “a dexterous and melodious wielder of the plectrum”; and Mostafa Pasha, although an Ottoman prisoner-of-war, was apparently always invited to his captor’s parties because of his skills as a conversationalist.

Getting (vaguely!) back to eyebrows and gold; another rival poet, Mowlana Ajzi Tabrizi, when he once found himself in the presence of the Shah in the royal stables at Qazvin, “had the nerve to bring up the matter of Mowlana Sa’ni being weighed against gold”, boldly asking the Shah why he had not been treated in the same way.

The Shah immediately responded, “since we find ourselves in the stables, if you like I will have you weighed against dung!”. All of the courtiers roared with laughter; and the tale “was embroidered by poets and wits, with the result that everyone forgot about Mowlana Sa’ni and plagued the life out of Mowlana Ajzi”.