Mohammad-Taqi Bahar

He was born in Mashhad on 10 December 1886, son of Mohammad Kazem Sabouri, poet laureate of the Imam Reza shrine. Tutored by his father and then by Adib Nishapuri, he memorised much of the Qur'an as a boy, chose the pen name Bahar ("spring") at eight, and on his father's death in 1904 succeeded him in the laureateship, the Shah confirming the title Malek osh-Sho'ara when he was nineteen. ¹²

At the Constitutional Revolution he laid down the laureateship and joined the movement, publishing the papers Khorasan, Now-bahar and Tazeh-bahar, and sat repeatedly in the Majlis. He co-founded the Daneshkadeh literary association and its magazine, was imprisoned in 1933 and exiled to Isfahan, and after Tehran University was founded became its professor of Persian literature. His books include Sabk-shenasi, the standard study of Persian prose styles, a concise history of Iran's political parties, and editions of early historical texts. Briefly minister of culture in 1945, he died of tuberculosis at Tehran on 21 April 1951 — the English article's lead dates the death 22 April, a split the museum's record discloses — and was buried at Zahir-od-dowleh. ¹³

His affiliation is recorded as unknown. No source read states his religion for him personally: the English article records only his youthful spell as a preacher and his office as poet of the Mashhad shrine, and Iranica discusses his religious poems as output. The Persian article makes no statement, and Wikidata carries no religion value. ¹³⁴

This entry is built from the cited source records in the museum's source registry (data/source/). Facts are stated only as the cited sources give them; where a source is silent, the entry is silent.