Abbas Foroughi Bastami (Persian: عباس فروغی بسطامی: 1798–1857) was a poet in Qajar Iran.
Foroughi was born in the city of Karbala. He was the son of Aqa Musa, who worked as an accountant at the court of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar (r. 1789–1797), the Qajarshah (king) of Iran. Following Aqa Musa's decline in popularity and subsequent punishment by Agha Mohammad Khan, he relocated to Karbala, where he died in 1814. Soon afterwards, Foroughi moved to Sari in northern Iran, where he for some years lived with uncle Dust-Ali Khan Moayyer ol-Mamalek, who served as the chief of the royal coin mints.[1]
During his early twenties, Foroughi became acquainted with the court of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834), most likely through the efforts of Dust-Ali Khan. Some years later, Fath-Ali Shah dispatched him to Mashhad to be part of the retinue of the Qajar prince Hasan Ali Mirza, who governed Khorasan. It was there that he started switched his pen name from "Meshkin" to "Foroughi" in appreciation for Hasan Ali Mirza's son Forough ol-Dowleh. Foroughi and the poet Qaani also formed a close friendship that lasted their lifetime.[1]
Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language of Iran, Tajikistan and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.
