Heydar Babaya Salam

Heydar Babaya Salam (Azerbaijani: Heydər Babaya Salam, Azeri: حيدر بابايه سلام) is the best known poetical work by Mohammad Hossein Shahriar (Shahriyar), a famous Iranian poet. Published in 1954, it is about Shahriyar's childhood and his memories of his village Khoshginab near Tabriz. Heydar Baba is the name of a mountain overlooking the village.

In Heydar Babaya Salam Sharyar shows a nostalgia for Azerbaijani-Iranian simple village life before modernisation. (From Wikipedia)



Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Behjat-Tabrizi



Heydar Babaya Salam's opening lines in English: (From shehriyar)

Hail to Haydar-Baba

1-
Haydar-Baba when it thunders,
Floods rush down
Girls stand back and watch,

I hail your glory and your people,
May you remember our names too.

2-
When your partridges take flight,
When the rabbits hop out of the bushes,
When your gardens have burst into blossoms,

May you remember our name too,
And make our depressed hearts happy.

3-
When Nowruz gales uproot garden shelters!
And Nowruz flowers and snow drops blossom!
When the clouds wring out their clothes!

Greetings to those who remember us,
Let our sighs turn into mountains.

4-
Haydar-Baba may the sun warm your back,
Make your smiles and your springs shed tears,
Your children collect a bunch of flowers,

Send it with the coming wind towards us,
Perhaps my sleeping fortune would awaken!

5-
Haydar-Baba may you be fortunate!
Be surrounded with springs and orchards!
May you live long after us!

The world is paved with events, deaths and losses!
This world has long been childless and an orphan!

6-
Haydar-Baba my way differed from yours,
Life passed, I could not come until late!
I could not learn what happened to your beautiful ones,

Did not know there were perilous paths,
Losses, separations and death.

7-
Haydar-Baba good sons are faithful,
Life passes,regrets are wasteful,
Disloyal sons won't live long,

Believe me we have never forgotten you,
Forgive us if we failed to see you.

8-
Haydar-Baba when Mirazhdar calls for pilgrimage,
And the village is filled with busy noise,
While Ashig Rustam played his saz,

Do you remember how with such enthusiasm we used to run?
Flapping like winged birds to fly?

9-
Ashig apples from Shangulava village,
Staying there as a guest now and then,
Throwing stones at the apple and quince trees,

All have stayed in my memory like sweet dreams!
Have left traces in my soul and whole being!

10-
Haydar-Baba the geese of Guri lake,
The musical melody of the wind at twisted highways,
The summer and autumn seasons of the village,

Are like moving pictures in front of my eyes!
I sit and watch them within myself!



Gholam-Reza Sabri-Tabrizi



Translated by Dr. Gholam-Reza Sabri-Tabrizi

University of Edinburgh and University of Baku

London, Febuary 29,2002.