Badiozzaman Forouzanfar
Quick Facts
Biography
Badiozzaman Forouzanfar or Badi'ozzamān Forūzānfar (also Romanized as "Badiʿ al-Zamān Furūzānfar") (12 July 1904 in Boshrooyeh in Ferdows County – 6 May 1970 in Tehran) (Persian: بدیعالزمان فروزانفر, born Ziyaa' Boshrooye-i ضياء بشرويهای) was a scholar of Persian literature, Iranian linguistics and culture, and an expert on Rumi (Molana Jalaleddin Balkhi) and his works. He was a distinguished professor of literature at Tehran University.
He is one of the "Five-Masters (Panj Ostād), five influential scholars of Persian literature, the others being Malekoshoara Bahar, Jalal Homaei, Abdolazim Gharib and Rashid Yasemi.
The critical edition of Rumi's Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi (in 10 volumes) by Forouzanfar is the best edition of the book available to date. The first critical edition of Fihi ma fihi was alsodone by B. Forouzanfar, which is now well known in the West thanks to the selective translation of A. J. Arberry. His Ahadith-i Mathnawi is a compilation of hadith from Rumi's Masnavi.
He was also a first cousin (maternal) of another famous Iranian scholar of literature, Professor Mohammad Parvin Gonabadi.