He was born in 345 AH. He travelled to Baghdad, where Abū al-Ḥasan al-Nuʿaymī compiled several fascicles containing his narrations. Al-Barqānī heard ḥadith from him but later exposed his mendacity, to the point that some people dubbed him “the bag of lies.” He stayed in Baghdad for seven years, then returned to Ahwāz and died there in this same year.
[Mihyār al-Daylamī, the Poet]
Mihyār ibn Marzawayh (1), Abū al-Ḥasan al-Fārisī, known also as al-Daylamī, was originally a Zoroastrian who embraced Islam. Yet he adopted the path of the Rāfiḍah, composing powerful, virile verse in support of some of their doctrines—among them reviling the Companions. Abū al-Qāsim ibn Burhān (2) once reproached him, saying, “O Mihyār, you have only moved from one corner of the Fire to another! You were a Magian and became Muslim, and now you abuse the Companions.”
His residence was on Darb Rabaḥ in the district of al-Karkh. He left a large and famous dīwān of poetry. Among his most admired lines are:
I summon patience to aid me concerning you, but it is overwhelmed,
I beg sleep to flee from thoughts of you, yet it too is plundered. (3)
I seek from you the heart you once so freely bestowed— (4)
But how can a gift be reclaimed after it has been given?
I never knew the true worth of your union (5)
Until you abandoned me—desertion itself can be a discipline. (6)
He also said—may Allah have mercy on him and pardon him by His grace and generosity—:
O neighbour of ours in the lowland, while their caravan is there, (7)
Can one who rests untroubled know how the lovesick spend the night?
You departed, and the span of the night is the same for us and for you, (8)
Yet we lie wakeful, whereas others sleep.