Excerpt from The Lament of Baba Tahir: Being the Rubaiyat of Baba Tahir, Hamadani (Uryan)

To write an introduction to the poems, and to en deavour to give information about the life of an author of whom the only thing that can be said with perfect accuracy is that practically nothing is known of him, suggests the brick-making industry as practised by the Jews in Egypt. Though the ruba'iyat of Babs Tahir are chaunted and recited to the present day all over Persia, to the accompaniment of the three-stringed Viol or lute, known as the Sih-tar Three-strings and few collections of poems have been published in that country (or indeed in the Persian language), since the introduction of the lithographic press, that do not contain some specimens of his quatrains, concerning the poet himself few precise details, biographical or otherwise, have yet come to light