Seyyed Mohammad-Hossein Behjat Tabrizi[i] (January 2, 1906 – September 18, 1988), known by his pen name Shahriar,[ii] was an Iranian poet who composed works in both Azerbaijani and Persian.

His most important work, Heydar Babaya Salam, is considered to be the pinnacle in Azerbaijani literature which gained great popularity in the Turkic world and was translated to more than 30 languages.

Many of his writings were also motived by his religious beliefs, and he composed very popular poems in praise of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Imam of Shia Islam.

[2] During the 1945–1946 Soviet occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan and ascendancy of the separatist Azerbaijani Democratic Party, Shahriar composed poems in glorification of Iran's national unity.

[citation needed] His most famous work in Azerbaijani is Heydar Babaya Salam, published in 1954, which won immense popularity and has been translated into more than 30 languages and numerous plays all over the world.

[3] Shahriar was a critic of the usage of the Latin alphabet for Turkic languages, writing a poem on the topic called Şeyṭān Alifbāsı (Azerbaijani: شیطان الفباسی, lit.

[4][5] The poem was broadcast via Radio to both the Soviet Union and Turkey, with Shahriar reciting it in both Istanbul Turkish and Azerbaijani in two separate recordings that were disseminated.