Ubayd Zakani

Ubayd Zakani was a Persian poet who lived in the 14th century, during the Mongol rule over Iran. He is regarded as one of the best satirists in Persian literature, who used his wit and humor to criticize the social and political conditions of his time. He also wrote lyrical poems, such as ghazals and masnavis, that expressed his love for wine, women, and poetry. He was influenced by the Sufi mysticism of Rumi and Saadi, as well as the classical Persian poets like Ferdowsi and Nizami. He studied in Shiraz under the best masters of his day, but eventually moved back to his native town of Qazvin. He was part of the court of the Injuid ruler Abu Ishaq Inju, who was later executed by the Muzaffarid ruler Mubariz al-Din Muhammad. Ubayd also dedicated some of his poems to the Jalayirid ruler Shaykh Uways Jalayir, who ruled over Baghdad and western Iran. Ubayd died sometime between 1369 and 1371, possibly in Shiraz. His most famous work is Mush-o Gorbeh (Mouse and Cat), a political satire that attacks religious hypocrisy and corruption. The story is about a mouse who becomes a disciple of a cat, who pretends to be a holy man. The cat teaches the mouse various religious rituals and doctrines, while secretly devouring other mice. The mouse eventually realizes the cat's deception and escapes from his clutches. The story is an allegory of the relationship between the Mongol rulers and their Persian subjects, who were exploited and oppressed by their foreign overlords. Ubayd also wrote other works of satire, such as Resaleh-ye Delgosha (The Joyous Treatise), Akhlaq al-Ashraf (The Ethics of the Nobility), and Nuzhat al-Arwah (The Pleasure of the Souls). These works mock the moral pretensions and vices of the aristocracy, the clergy, the scholars, and the common people. Ubayd's style of satire has been compared to the French Enlightenment writer Voltaire, who also used humor to expose the follies and injustices of his society. Ubayd's poems are full of witty remarks, puns, double entendres, sarcasm, irony, parody, and exaggeration. He also used colloquial language, slang, and vulgar expressions to create a contrast with the high-flown rhetoric of his targets. Ubayd's works have been widely read and appreciated by Persian speakers for centuries. They have also been translated into several languages, such as Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, English, French, German, Russian, and Italian. Ubayd is considered one of the pioneers of Persian prose fiction, as well as one of the greatest humorists in world literature.