Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar Bust

Mohammad Hossein Shahriar, was one of the first Azerbaijanis of Iran to write a significant collection of poetry in the Azerbaijani language. Born in 1906 in Tabriz, he received his elementary education, including the Divan of Hafez, under his father’s supervision. Shahriar’s first formal education was at the Motahari (former Mansoor High School) Secondary School in Tabriz. He subsequently studied at the Dar-ol-Fonoun (former higher education school) in Tehran. Although he studied medicine in college, he dropped out just before getting his diploma and went to Khorasan, where he found a job as a notary public and bank clerk. He returned to Tehran in 1935 and started working in the Agricultural Bank of Iran.

He also received an honorary Ph.D. degree from University of Tabriz in Literature.

He initially published his poems under his given name, Behjat, but later chose the name Shahriar. He published his first book of poems in 1929. His poems are mainly influenced by Hafez, a famous Persian poet, and Khasta Qasim, an old Azerbaijani poet.

His most famous work in Azerbaijani is Heydar Babaya Salam, published in 1954, which won immense popularity and has been translated into more than 30 languages and numerous plays all over the world.