Badr Shirvani (Persian:بدر شيرواني; sometimes RomanizedShirwani; 1387–1450) was aPersian poet.^[1] He spent most of his career at the court of theShirvanshahs, but received patronage from other rulers as well.

Badr was born inShamakhi inShirvan (present-dayAzerbaijan) to a certain Hajji Shams al-Din, a seemingly wealthy figure. Badr's father paid little attention to him after his mother died. Little is known about his education; according to his own writings, Badr "was precocious and began writing poetry at the age of ten or eleven". Most information about Badr's life stems from his own works.^[1]

The majority of Badr'sdivan consists of "panegyric odes" (qasidas). Most of these "odes" are dedicated to the rulingShirvanshah dynasty and the court, in particularIbrahim I (r. 1378–1418) andKhalil I (r. 1418–1463). Badr however, did not devote himself exclusively to writing about the Shirvanshahs and the elite ofShirvan. He also received patronage from thePaduspanid rulerKayumarth I (r. ca. 1400–1453), theKara Koyunlu rulerJahan Shah (r. 1434–1467), and theTimurid rulerShah Rukh (r. 1409–1447), and thus wrote poems for all three as well.[1]

Though Badr may have travelled in order to present these poems to Kayumarth, Jahan Shah and Shah Rukh in person, he continued to live most of his life in Shirvan. According toDawlatshah Samarqandi, Badr met Katibi Nishapuri "when the latter visited Shirvan". Throughout his work, Badr compared himself on more than one occasion toKhaqani, who worked at the Shirvanshah court some two centuries earlier, and like him, wrote many works filled with panegyric text. The works of Khaqani and Badr Shirvani differ quite significantly however. Khaqani's poetry is characterized by "learned complexity and allusiveness", whereas that of Badr primarily contains "direct and flowing diction".^[1]

Other than his panegyric odes, hisdivan consisted of many other poetic forms which were significant at the time, in particular "occasional, monthematicqit'a and the lyricghazal". Badr wrote verses and poems inArabic,Azeri Turkish and variousCaspian Sea dialects ofPersian. According toPaul E. Losensky, this reflects "the multilingual environment" in which Badr lived.^[1] Badr's work also serves as documentation about the Persian andFahlavi dialect of Shirvan.^[2]

In 1985, Badr's works were "recovered, edited and published". According to Losensky, this was made possible thanks to a unique manuscript which had seemingly been prepared shortly after Badr's death.^[1]

Badr died in 1450, probably in his native Shamakhi.^[1] The location of his grave remains unknown.^[1]

• Lornejad, Siavash; Doostzadeh, Ali (2012). Arakelova, Victoria; Asatrian, Garnik (eds.).On the modern politicization of the Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi(PDF). Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2022-09-14. Retrieved2022-10-01.
• Losensky, Paul E. (2009)."Badr Shīrvānī". In Fleet, Kate;Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John;Rowson, Everett (eds.).Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online.ISSN 1873-9830.

• 1387 births
• 1450 deaths
• People from Shamakhi
• 15th-century Persian-language poets
• 14th-century Persian-language poets
• 14th-century Iranian writers
• 15th-century Iranian writers
• Azerbaijani-language poets
• 15th-century Arabic-language poets
• Panegyrists
• Arabic-language Iranian poets
• Poets of the medieval Islamic world
• 14th-century Arabic-language poets

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Persian-language text