TEHRAN -- Iranian literary and cultural circles marked the birth anniversary of Badiʿ al-Zamān Foruzānfar (Badiozzaman Forouzanfar) on Saturday, with new essays, recollections and tributes highlighting the enduring influence of one of the country’s foremost scholars of Persian literature and Rumi.
The anniversary prompted Iranian literary publications to revisit Foruzānfar’s intellectual legacy, including accounts by scholars who studied under him. The Iran Book News Agency published recollections by linguist Ali-Ashraf Sadeghi and linguist and music historian Sasan Sepanta, both of whom wrote about their former teacher’s influence on generations of researchers and his approach to Persian literary scholarship.
Foruzānfar was a literary scholar, critic, professor and author whose work played a major role in the development of modern academic studies of Persian literature. He joined the University of Tehran in the 1930s and became a professor of Persian literature and Islamic mysticism. He later served as president of the university’s Faculty of Theology, remaining an influential academic figure until his retirement in 1967. He subsequently became head of the Golestan Palace Library. 
His scholarly reputation rests particularly on his extensive research into Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi and the literary and intellectual world surrounding the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic. Foruzānfar produced critical editions of several important texts, including Rumi’s Fīh mā fīh and the Dīvān-e Shams. His edition of the Dīvān-e Shams, published in 10 volumes between 1957 and 1967, remains one of the major achievements of his scholarly career.
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