Routledge Handbook of Ancient, Classical and Late Classical Persian Literature [1 ed.] 1138567248, 9781138567245, 9781032455242, 9781315124216

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ANCIENT, CLASSICAL AND LATE CLASSICAL PERSIAN LITERATURE

The Routledge Handbook of Ancient, Classical, and Late Classical Persian Literature contains scholarly essays and sample texts related to Persian literature from 650 bce through the 16th century ce. It includes analyses of some seminal ancient texts and the works of numerous authors of the classical period. The chapters apply a disciplinary or interdisciplinary approach to the many movements, genres, and works of the long and evolving body of Persian literature produced in the Persianate World. These collections of scholarly essays and samples of Persian literary texts provide facts (general information), instructions (ways to understand, analyze, and appreciate this body of works), and the feld’s state-of-the-art research (the problematics of the topics) regarding one of the most important and oldest literary traditions in the world. Thus, the Handbook’s chapters and related texts provide scholars, students, and admirers of Persian poetry and prose with practical and direct access to the intricacies of the Persian literary world through a chronological account of key moments in the formation of this enduring literary tradition. The related Handbook (also edited by Kamran Talattof ), Routledge Handbook of Post Classical and Contemporary Persian Literature, covers Persian literary works from the 17th century to the present. Kamran Talattof is Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Chair in Persian and Iranian Studies and the Founding Chair of the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Arizona, USA.

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ANCIENT, CLASSICAL AND LATE CLASSICAL PERSIAN LITERATURE

Edited by Kamran Talattof

Cover image: © Mohammad Javed Rakhshani First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Kamran Talattof; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Kamran Talattof to be identifed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-138-56724-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-45524-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-12421-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

ix xi xii

List of Contributors List of Tables List of Figures 1 A Review of the History and Categories of Persian Literature: An Introduction Kamran Talattof 2 Avesta and Avestan Literature Shima Jaafari-Dehaghi

1 17

Sample Literature for Chapter 2

39

3 A Stylistic Shift in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran: The Semantics of Power to the Semantics of Politeness Narges Nematollahi Sample Literature for Chapter 3

44 73

4 Genre in Classical Persian Poetry Matthew Thomas Miller

77

Sample Literature for Chapter 4

105

5 Rudaki: Father of Persian Poetry Sassan Tabatabai

122

Sample Literature for Chapter 5

137 v

Contents

6 The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi Olga M. Davidson

148

Sample Literature for Chapter 6

182

7 Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām Juan Cole

187

Sample Literature for Chapter 7

201

8 Ghazal: Form in Meaning Alireza Korangy

203

Sample Literature for Chapter 8

234

9 Niẓāmī Ganjavī: An Innovator of Persian Narrative Poetry A. A. Seyed-Gohrab Sample Literature for Chapter 9

245 252

10 Geographical Space and Historical Time Layers in Nizami Ganjavi’s Works Hamlet Isaxanli Sample Literature for Chapter 10

257 283

11 Erotic Narratives and ʿAttār’s Refashioning of the Didactic Masnavi Austin O’Malley Sample Literature for Chapter 11

287 310

12 Analysis of the Ratio of Poetry and Islamic Mysticism in the Formation of Rumi’s Personality Seyyed Ali Asghar Mirbagherifard Sample Literature for Chapter 12

313 331

13 Poetry and Patronage: Persian Literature During the Mongol Empire Kacey Evilsizor Sample Literature for Chapter 13

335 341

vi

Contents

14 Sa’di of Shiraz Kourosh Kamali Sarvestani

344

Sample Literature for Chapter 14

366

15 Gendering Obeyd: Rereading Zakani’s Sexual Satire Mostafa Abedinifard Sample Literature for Chapter 15

369 392

16 Congruity of Structure and Content in the Ghazals of Hafz and Their Cultural and Historical Context Manizheh Abdollahi Sample Literature for Chapter 16

395 414

17 Non-Ideological or Bibliomantic Reading of Hafz’s Poetry Saeedeh Shahnahpur Sample Literature for Chapter 17

417 432

18 Jami: The Seal of the Great Poets or the Emblem of an Era? Kamran Talattof Sample Literature for Chapter 18

434 449

19 A Lost Literacy: Reading Tadhkiras of Persian Poets in the 21st Century Kevin Schwartz Sample Literature for Chapter 19

455 470

20 Persian-Language Anthological Manuscripts: Typologies and Terminologies Denise-Marie Teece Sample Literature for Chapter 20

471 492

21 The Grounds of Verse: A Geopolitical Turn in Early Modern Persian Literary Criticism Jane Mikkelson Sample Literature for Chapter 21

503 521

vii

Contents

22 Persian-Language Literature in Dagestan: The Poetry of Hasan Alqadari Patimat Alibekova Sample Literature for Chapter 22

527 532

23 Nizami Ganjavi and Georgian Literature of the 12th–18th Centuries Gaga Lomidze Sample Literature for Chapter 23

534 542

Bibliography Index

543 576

viii

CONTRIBUTORS

Abdollahi, Manizheh is currently at Shiraz University, Iran Abedinifard, Mostafa is currently at University of British Columbia, Canada Alibekova, Patimat is currently at G. Tsadasa Institute of Language, Dagestan Cole, Juan is currently at University of Michigan, USA Davidson, Olga M. is currently at Boston University, USA Evilsizor, Kacey is currently at University of Arizona, USA Isaxanli, Hamlet is currently at Khazar University, Azerbaijan Jaafari-Dehaghi, Shima is currently at Velayat University, Iran Kamali Sarvestani, Kourosh is currently at Hafez University, Iran Korangy, Alireza is currently at American University of Beirut, Lebanon Lomidze, Gaga is currently a literary critic at Tbilisi, Georgia Mikkelson, Jane is currently at University of Chicago, USA Miller, Matthew Thomas is currently at University of Maryland, USA Mirbagherifard, Seyyed Ali Asghar is currently at Tarbiat Modares, Iran Nematollahi, Narges is currently at University of Arizona, USA O’Malley, Austin is currently at University of Arizona, USA Schwartz, Kevin is currently a Research Fellow at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague ix

Contributors

Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. is currently at Utrecht University, the Netherlands Shahnahpur, Saeedeh is currently at Leiden University, the Netherlands Tabatabai, Sassan is currently at Boston University, USA Talattof, Kamran is currently at University of Arizona, USA Teece, Denise-Marie is currently at New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

x

TABLES

Letter 3.1 Letter 3.2

From superior to subordinate From subordinate to superior: from the Jewish leaders of Elephantine to the governor of Judah Letter 3.3 Letter of Antiochus I to Meleager, the governor of the Hellespontine satrapy Letter 3.4 (Heliodoros letter): Letter of Seleucus IV to his minister, Heliodoros Letter 3.5 The Parthian letter from Dura-Europos Letter 3.6 A document of the cavalry Letter 3.7 An announcement of the arrival of an ofcial Letter 3.8 An invoice letter from the Pahlavi Archive Table 3.1 The layout of Aramaic letters according to the relevant rank of the sender and recipient Table 3.2 The use of pronouns in ofcial epistolary data of Aramaic, Greek, Parthian, and Middle Persian Table 3.3 The format of praescriptio in Aramaic, Greek, Parthian, and Middle Persian letters Table 3.4 The format of greeting sections in Aramaic, Greek, Parthian, and Middle Persian letters Table 4.1 Key Arabic poetic forms adopted into Persian Table 4.2 Key indigenous Persian poetic forms, meters, and features Table 11.1 Number and lengths of anecdotes Table 11.2 Number of anecdotes over forty verses and their lengths Table 11.3 Amatory anecdotes Appendix Table 11.A Lengths of narratives in the Fakhri-nāmeh Appendix Table 11.B Lengths of narratives in the longer Hadiqat Appendix Table 11.C Lengths of narratives in the Makhzan

xi

47 48 51 52 54 58 59 63 49 66 66 67 79 80 291 292 293 301 302 302

FIGURES

4.1 4.2 19.1

Distribution of MiM qalandariyyāt poems on basis of topic probability score of “qalandari topic” Distribution of all MiM poems on basis of topic probability score of “qalandari topic” Graph of tadhkiras according to method of organization and temporal focus

xii

90 91 463

1 A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY AND CATEGORIES OF PERSIAN LITERATURE An Introduction Kamran Talattof

This collection of scholarly essays and samples of Persian literary texts provides facts (general information), instructions (ways to understand, analyze, and appreciate this body of work), and the feld’s state-of-the-art research (the problematics of the topics) regarding one of the most important and oldest literary traditions in the world. Persian literature is regularly featured in encyclopedias and anthologies worldwide. Its literary works are constantly translated into English and other languages. Courses on Persian literature are routinely ofered in the most prominent universities in the United States, Europe, India, and East Asia. Khayyam’s quatrains have become canonical and are quoted in music, flms, and books; Nezami’s romances have been imitated by tens of poets in several countries, Rumi has been a bestseller in the United States for decades. It has profoundly infuenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India, and Turkic Central Asia. It has been a source of inspiration for Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Jorge Luis Borges among others, and has been praised by William Jones, Tagore, E.M. Forster, and many more.1 Deservedly, Ehsan Yarshater initiated a comprehensive encyclopedic series on what is hoped to be the entirety of Persian literature, and numerous others have published monographs and edited volumes on a variety of literary subjects. However, despite the signifcance of this body of literature and the attention it has received, no handbook has ever been published to provide practical and direct access to the intricacies of the Persian literary world. The Routledge Handbook of Persian Literature intends to fll this gap, ofering facts, instructions, and insight into future studies of the feld and its subjects. It includes new scholarships to shed light on some well-known and neglected areas of Persian literary studies, such as major poetic works or the problematics of genre and gender. The volumes contain scholarly works from established scholars as well as younger academics to provide a depth of knowledge, various insights, and the latest research. Of course, the books cannot be comprehensive due to the vastness of the feld; however, they are designed around the best examples of subjects and authors and broad and specifc themes to allow for the application of several methodological and theoretical approaches.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-1

1

Kamran Talattof

Despite multiple invasions and occupations of what was once the Persian Empire and the transformation and exile of its habitants, numerous Persian poets and writers have continued to preserve a national identity, a connection to the ancient Persian worldview, and a fascination with the Persian language. Many of them including Ferdowsi painstakely used the surviing ancient texts and oral tales to weave their own masterpieces. My recent book, Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Poetry: Demystifying the Mystic, argues that what connects Nezami’s thematically various poems is his passion for words, literary creativity, and polymathic fuency with the art of rhetoric or Sakhon, which he enriches with themes and subjects such as love, religion, science, wine, and philosophy. All are rendered in an exclusive style and with intricate technique.2 In fact, my conceptualization of Nezami’s notion of Sakhon as literature and the Nezamian pictorial allegory will help to prove that his main concern was to weave poetry and not promote religiosity. In his poetry, he renders space and cosmic constellations, but it does not mean he was an astronomer; he writes on philosophy, but it does not mean he was a philosopher; he ponders justice, but it does not mean he was a scholar of law; he incorporates veganism in his romance, but it does not mean he was a vegan; he speaks of music, but it does not mean he was a musician. He regularly mentions gems such as rubies, emeralds, diamonds, garnets, and pearls as physical objects, adjectives, or metaphors, and that does not make him a gemologist either. When Nezami refers to and uses religious and mystic concepts, it does not mean he was a religious zealot or Suf activist. An analysis of his poetry reveals that he was familiar with many subjects and sciences. Still, he used such materials as themes rather than including them in his verse to market any ideology.3 The possibilities ofered by literary criticism might allow future studies to compliment, say, the numerous studies that have focused on Hakim Sanai’s mysticism and religiosity by analyzing his innovative style, his poetic rendition of the concept of love, his dualistic approach to life and philosophy, and his shifting approach to religion. These Handbook’s various literary approaches further help expand literary analysis of other Persian literary works beyond a mere religious reading that is often associated with denying any notion of national identity. They also confrm the validity of describing the vast body of classical Persian literature as a “shared heritage.”

Basic Defnitions Persian is the ofcial language of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and it is spoken in many other communities in Central, South Asia, and Western Asia. It is a branch of the Indo-European languages, and its grammar resembles that of some European languages. Persian literature consists of a body of poetry, prose, and belles lettres produced mainly in Iran, Afghanistan, Caucasia, the Indian subcontinent, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and in contemporary times in Europe and the United States. This literature has appeared in a diferent writing system and various forms since the ancient times when the literary/religious works were written in Old or Middle Persian (Pahlavi) languages in use between 650 BCE (Cyrus the Great was born in 590 BC) and 650 CE. Therefore, these volumes touch upon literature produced in diferent eras and numerous parts of the Persian world. Persia covered a vast number of territories beyond what is contemporary Iran. Numerous scholars refer to this entity as the Persianate world.4 In many of these communities and nations, from Eastern Europe to China and from northern Russia to the Indian subcontinent, Persian was the court’s dialect, the ofcial language of the government, and the language which poets used when writing and reciting poetry: a lingua franca indeed.5 Nearly 80 poets from various parts of this world, for example, imitated the 12th-century Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi. The massive amount of literary works produced over such an extended period in the preIslamic and Islamic periods holds universal appeal. Persian literature was dominated by poetry for more than a millennium, and Persian poetry has been translated into numerous languages. 2

A Review of the History and Categories of Persian Literature

Some of the translated works, such as the works of Rumi and Khayyam, have become canonical in their host languages. In addition, since the beginning of the 20th century, new genres such as the short story and the novel have been added to this repertoire.

Problematics of Categorization Periodization or classifcation of the long and vast classical Persian literature is problematic, particularly if it is based on the dynasties or ideological representations. Contemporary Persian literature, on the other hand, has been highly infuenced by its contextual social discourses. Nevertheless, after the pioneering literary historiographies by scholars such as Carl Hermann Ethé, E. G. Brown, M. H. Forughi, A. Qazvini, A. E. Ashiani, Foruzanfar, Jan Rypka, Shibli Nomani, and S. Nafsi, two signifcant works were published after the 1940s. Zabihollah Safa published his infuential, comprehensive, multivolume Tarikh Adabiayt dar Iran (Literary History in Iran 1953–1988), categorizing the literary products of an extended period based mostly on the historical dynasties of Persia and Iran, starting with the classical period in the period after the fall of last Persian empire.6 The work became a textbook and a signifcant source. Second, M. S. Bahar published Sabk Shenasi ya Tarikh-e Tatavor-e She’r-e Farsi (The Study of Styles and Development of Persian Poetry), which argued for the existence of a few distinct styles of poetry in the classical period. Such eforts have not stopped; others have published newer literary history books focusing on a particular era or genre. As mentioned, Ehsan Yarshater’s project to publish signifcant historiography is of immense importance.7 It is equally problematic to delineate the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the pre- and postmodern eras. When I wrote about the conceptualization of contemporary Persian literature, I was able to explain the changes in that body of literature in the episodic literary movement. However, this project is not historiography; instead, it is a collection of analytical chapters addressing a consequential author, a signifcant text, or a shifting literary event. Furthermore, the entire history of Persian literature from the beginning to the contemporary period is too long and too vast, with too many paradigmatic and discursive shifts, to lend itself easily to one analytical model. I have selected the following four categories to grasp and understand numerous important texts and authors in terms of social context, literary discourse, and poetic styles. The categories also allow us to discuss literature anachronistically and synchronically. It is, of course, impossible for a handbook to cover all texts, events, and authors of a period that extends back to at least 2,600 years – and much longer, according to many other estimates. However, a brief description might be benefcial. For this project, I chose to divide the history/types of Persian literature into the following four periods/categories.8 Still, even such a scheme of Persian literary history based on historical context, genre, and themes cannot be comprehensive. It can only show where in the past, the authors, books, and literary samples presented in this volume can be located. It is chronological, but it has also delineated and categorized the history based on period, genre, and thematic as well as stylistic changes. It includes the names of signifcant authors (some of whom are discussed in the chapters) of each category, accompanied by some brief, basic information about each category, period, or school of poetry. This scheme includes two hiatuses during which Persian authors either could not write, wrote minor works, or had to write their highly essential books in a foreign language. The frst one began in the aftermath of the Macedonian Alexander’s invasion and destruction of Persia and during the Hellenistic Period. The second one began after the Arab Muslim invasion and occupation of the country in the 7th century ad, with lasting efects for about two centuries. Please note that some poets and authors lived in two diferent centuries. In such cases, they are listed under the century in which they were most productive. 3

Kamran Talattof

Ancient Literature 1

2

3

4 5

The historical context of this category/period: During the Persian Empires (Medes, Achaemenid, Parthian Empire a.k.a. Arsacid Empire, and Sasanian), inspired by ancient Persian religions such as Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, literature was composed mostly of poetry and some prose, all mostly religious or philosophical works produced in the ancient forms of the Persian language, Old Persian and Middle Persian or Pahlavi. This period of literary production, which began with oral literature and inscriptions, could have started around the 11th century bc and lasted until the end of the Persian Empire in the 7th century ad. Examples of texts and books written in this category, some of which are addressed in the chapters of these volumes, include: Inscriptions including Persian (Old Persian, Pahlavi) poetry, Avesta and all related texts, Ghasas, Arda Viraf (Arda Viraz Nameh), the Kartir (the Mobad of Hormozd), Middle Ancient Literature or Pahlavi, Zabur Pahlavi, Saghodi and Manavi literatures, Yasht, Yasna, The Gahan and Haftha, and a few tablets and inscriptions. Recurrent literary genres and themes/subjects in this period/category include: Poetry, hymns, religious texts, books of philosophy, tablets, and inscriptions Legends, histories, kings, advice, religious songs, love, and Scythian tales. The presumed school or style: Ancient forms. Regions well known for poetic productivity: At times, the Persian Empire stretched from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to the Indus Valley, making it the largest empire in history.

Classical Literature 1

The historical context of this category/period: Following two or so centuries in which Iranians wrote highly consequential books in Arabic and to a limited extent in Pahlavi or local Persian dialects, thousands of poets and prose writers appeared in the next several centuries known as the classical period. This category’s (spanning approximately the 7th to 15th centuries) features include transformation from Pahlavi to Dari Persian, the infuence of Arabic poetry, changes in the Persian language and its writing system, the beginning of classical Persian literature, the slow rise of a new literature, and new genres. Classical literature began to fourish under such dynasties as the Samanids and the Ghaznavids (whose territories are now partly located in Tajikistan and Afghanistan), and later the Seljuks (part of whose territory is now Republic of Azerbaijan). I propose dividing the Classical period (after the fall of the Persian Empire) into three categories/periods. First, the 7th to 9th centuries, in which, despite being dubbed two centuries of silence, Iranians tried to preserve their identity and language while being forced or encouraged to write in Arabic. Some also produced works in a variety of Persian form and genres which become known as Fahalaviat, Khosravani, and the Siavah Eulogy (in oral form). Second, the 9th to 11th centuries, in which issues related to identity, preservation of ancient and Zoroastrian culture and heritage, adjustment to the foreign religion of Islam, and accumulation of new knowledge gained signifcance. These literary interests in the past heritage could also be observed in other social trends and art forms. Third, from the 12th to 14th centuries, other subjects including those related to spirituality and mysticism, entered literature. 4

A Review of the History and Categories of Persian Literature

2

3

4

5

However, the forms, the high quality of poetry and prose, and the underlying Persian features remained the same. Recurrent literary genres and themes/subjects in this period/category include: Elegies, odes, epics, couplet poems, romances, quatrains, lyrics, prose, rhymed prose, travelogues, legends, histories, books of kings, love stories, and later spiritual and religious themes. The presumed school or style: The birth of court poetry: A simple encounter between Yaqub Lays and Mohamadd Yasif Khorasani style. Regions well known for poetic productivity: The greater Khorasan, Central Asia, Azerbaijan and the Caucasia, Pars/Arak-e Ajam, Indian subcontinent. Examples of the signifcant poets and authors belonging to this category, some of whom are addressed in these volumes, include the following.

7th–8th Centuries Poetry Persians wrote mostly in other languages or in other alphabets because writing in Persian was forbidden. Abu’l-Abbas Marwazi is believed to have been the frst to write a poem in Persian.

Prose Iranians authored pioneering books of Arabic grammar, Arabic fction, and scientifc texts and translated works from Pahlavi to other languages or other alphabets.

9th Century Poetry Rudaki Mansur Al-Hallaj

Shahid Balkhi Abu Hafs Sughadi

Prose (Writers and Texts) Hafs Bin Mansur Marwazi (Taxes of Khurasan book) Kalileh o Demneh Khwatāy-nāmak

Tabari history Farabi Razi

10th Century Poetry Ferdowsi Abusaeid Abolkheir Abu Mansur Daqiqi Mansur Al-Hallaj Onsuri Abu-Sa’id Abul-Khayr (967–1049)

Rabi’a Balkhi Asjadi Farrukhi Sistani Kisai Marvazi Abu Shakur Balkhi

5

Kamran Talattof

Prose Abdullah al-Kukhari (History of Bukhara) Tarikh-e Sistan (early Ghaznavids) Qabus ibn Wushmagir (d.1012) Khwaja Abdullah Ansari Avicenna’s writings

Bal’ami history History of the Rulers of Khurasan by Abul Husain Ali b. Ahmad Sallami Zain ol Akhbar by Gardezi Tarikh-e Kamel by Ibn al-Ashir

11th Century Poetry Fakhruddin As’ad Gurgani Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) Sanai (1080–1131/1141) Manuchihri Baba Tahir Oryan

Rabi’ah Quzdari Masud Sa’d Salman Qatran Tabrizi Asadi Tusi

Prose Bayhaqi (Author of Bayhaqi History) Naser Khosrow Nizami Arudhi Samarqandi Imam Muhammad Ghazali Qabus Nameh by Kaykabus (c. 1080 ad)

Siyasat Nameh by Khajeh Nezam al-Mulk Abu Hamed Muhammad Ghazali (1058–1111) Farsnameh

12th Century (Thematic Changes Occur) Poetry Suzani Samarqandi Adib Sabir Am’aq Anvari Farid al-Din Attatr (1130–1220) Nizami (1140–1203) Sheikh Ruzbehan Khaqani Shirvani Sanaayi

Sheikh Ahmad Jami Falaki Shirvani Sanai Ghaznavi, poet Mu’izzi Ibn Balkhi Mahsati Ganjavi, poet Rashid al-Din Muhammad al-Umari Vatvat

Prose (Writer or Texts) Tarjoman al-Balaghe by Raduyani Kalileh o Demneh of Bahram Shah Maqamat-e Hamidi Chahar Maqaleh by Nizami Aruzi

Asrar al-Tohid Samak Ayyar Sohrevardi’s writing Tazkareh al-Olia 6

A Review of the History and Categories of Persian Literature

13th Century Poetry Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, poet (1207–1273) Khwaju Kermani Mahmoud Shabestari Najmeddin Razi Muhammad Auf Qazi Beiza’i Awhadi Maraghai Auhaduddin Kermani Ghiyas al-Din ibn Rashid al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni

Sultan Walad Saadi, poet (1184–1283/1291?) Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318) Shams Tabrizi Sheikh Ruzbehan Zahed Gilani

Prose (Writers or Texts) Tabarestan History

Marezban Nameh Muhammad Auf (Lubab al Albab)

14th Century Poetry Amir Khosrow Dehlavi Ghiyas al-Din ibn Rashid al-Din Hafez Junayd Shirazi Kamal Khojandi

Nasimi Qasem Anvar Shah Nimatullah Wali Shahin Shirazi Ubayd Zakani

Prose Writers Fazl al-Allah Ruzbahan Hafez Abru

Late Classical Literature 1

2

The historical context of this category/period: Conceptualizing the literary works produced between the 15th and 17th centuries better helps us understand the nature of these works and the literature produced after that (which I conceptualize as post-classical literature). The rise of Shiism to state ideology during the Safavid Dynasty in Iran ruled by such kings as Shah Abbas, the opportunity for writers to beneft from their religious afliations, the migration of poets to India ruled by the Moghuls and kings such as Akbar Shah and the Delhi sultans, and the centrality of Herat (now in Afghanistan) to literary and artistic activities were factors in shaping social ideas and literary themes. Recurrent literary genres and themes/subjects in this period/category include: Odes, epics, lyrics, Masnavi, Quatrain, prose writing, religious texts, popularity of Tazkareh (bibliographical books of who’s who in poetry), Safneh (poetry compendiums which could contain a broader literary corpus), dictionary, humor tales, popular literature, animal

7

Kamran Talattof

3 4 5

allegory, histories, spiritual and Suf poetry, Shiite-inspired writings, wine and wine drinking, riddles, biographies, letters, grammar. The presumed school or style: Occurrence (Simplicity) School and Indian Style. Regions well known for poetic productivity: India, Iran, Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, Transoxiana, Caucasia. Examples of the signifcant poets and authors belonging to this category, some of whom are addressed in these volumes, include the following.

15th Century Poetry Abd al-Rahman Jami Badriddin Hilali Fuzuli

Imrani Mir Ali Shir Nava’i

Prose Abd al-Rahman Jami Dowlatshah Samarqandi Mir Khaand (Khund)

Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqara Va’ez Khashef

16th Century Poetry Mohtesham Kashani Nahapet Kuchak Sultan Selim

Tahmuras Khan Vahshi Bafeqi Zolali Khansari

Prose Orf, Sheikh Bahaii

An Outline of Post-Classical and Contemporary Persian Literature9 Post-Classical Literature 1

The historical context of this category/period: Even though they might overlap with the previous and following categories, the literary works produced in the period of the 17th to 19th centuries also exhibit common features, which allows me the conceptualization of the Post-Classical Literature. This post-Safavid body of work is also conceptualized as the Persian Literary Return Movement. They were written from the Zands and Afsharid dynasties to the middle Qajar period. Issues critical to the study of this movement include how poets could use the Khoransani and Araqi Styles to address issues of their day such as reforms during Naser al-Din Shah’s reign; the rise of national literatures; and the end of Persian in India (following the English Education Act of 1835, when Persian lost its signifcance to English and Hindi/ Urdu). 8

A Review of the History and Categories of Persian Literature

2

3 4 5

Recurrent literary genres and themes/subjects in this period/category include: Imitations or modifcations of classical genres and forms, odes, elegies, popular storytelling, travelogues, journalistic writing, histories, letters, later prose with some modern features, riddles, dramas Praise, biographies, histories, advice, religion, eulogies, military, travelogues. The presumed school or style: School of Literary Return (to classical period) Regions well known for poetic productivity: Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Indian subcontinent, Ottoman Empire. Examples of the signifcant poets and authors belonging to this category, some of whom are addressed in these volumes, include the following.

17th Century Poetry Abul Ma’āni Abdul Qader Bedil Bhai Nand Lal Brahman Lahuri Gani Kashmiri Guru Gobind Singh

Kalim Kashani Saeb Tabrizi Sarmad Kashani Taleb Amoli Zeb-un-Nissa Makhf

Prose (Religion, Philosophy, Science, or Encyclopedic Works) Abiverdi Beha al-Din Ameli Bidel Dehlavi Borhane Qate’ Brahman Fakhri Heravi Farhang Jahangiri Farhang Sarvari Farhang-e Rashidi Fayz Kashani

Hakim Shafai Mirfendereski Mohammad Baqir Majlesi Mola Sadra Molla Fathollah Kashani Sayed Hasan Astarabadi Shah Taher Dakani Shaykh Bahani Sheikh Bahaii

18th–Early 19th Century Poetry Abbas Foroughi Bastami Hatef Esfehani Mirza A. Ghalib (19th century but classical) Moshtaq Isfahani

Hazin Lahiji Razi Artimani Saba Kashani Vesal Shirazi

Prose Abd al-Salam Dehati Abdollah Rahman Abdollah Sobhan, Parisa

Jafar Mohmmad Jalil Zaland Khushal Khattak 9

Kamran Talattof

Abdul Latif Pedram Ali-Shir Nava’i Asad Golzadeh Bokharai Azar Bigdeli Chah Abi Delshadeh Elyas Alavi Habib Yusof Hayat Ne’mat

Lahuti Mohammad Jan Rahimi Pari Hesari Parwin Malaal Payman Payrov Soleimani Qahar Asi Rahman Baba Shakila Azizzadeh

Contemporary Literature 1

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3 4 5

The historical and social contexts of this category/period: The end of the 18th century witnessed a movement in Persia which was later labled Bazgasht-e Adabi (Return Movement, which wished for a return to the classical period or the revival of the literary tradition of the magnifcent poets, the last of whom was Jami, thus “the seal of the poets” designation). Scholars, critics, and journalists have understood the movement as a rejection of the stylistic and thematic forms and norms of the post-classical period. The movement for the most part failed and opened a path for what critics called Modern Persian literature. Hatef Isfahani and Azar Bigdeli are examples of poets who belonged to this movement. Since the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Persian-speaking nations and communities have produced a vast amount of literary works in modern forms and genres. Social reforms, experiencing modernity, constitutional movements, the rise of national literature in Persian-speaking countries, ideological and discursive changes, and continued social upheaval have marked this period. Recurrent literary genres and themes/subjects in this period/category include: New genres, travelogues, short stories, novels, dramas, romances, humor, journalism, classical and free styles of poetry, modernity, military, translations, modern ideas, the question of the west, justice, revolution, love and gender. The presumed school or style: Modern fction and modern poetry. Regions well known for poetic productivity: Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, diaspora, and other Persian-speaking communities. Examples of the signifcant poets and authors belonging to this category, some of whom are addressed in these volumes, include the following.

19th Century Poetry Aref Qazvini Farrokhi Yazdi Hamza H. Niyazi Hassan Roshdieh Iraj Mirza

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib Mirzadeh Eshghi Qa’ani Sheyda Gerashi Tahirih Qorrat al-’Ayn

Prose Reza Qoli Khan Hedayat, Maraghei, Talbof 10

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20th Century Poetry Abdumalik Bahori, Tajik poet Abolghasem Lahouti Ahmad Shamlou Allama Muhammad Iqbal Aref Qazvini, Fereidoon Tavallali Fereydoun Moshiri Forough Farrokhzad Gulnazar Keldi, Tajik Iraj Mirza, poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales Mirzadeh Eshghi Mirzo Tursunzoda, Tajik

Mohammad Reza Shafei-Kadkani Nadia Anjoman Nima Yushij Parvin E’tesami Sadr al-Din Ayni Sadriddin Ayni, Tajik Siavash Kasraie Simin Behbahani Sipandi Samarkandi, Tajik Sohrab Sepehri, poet and painter Syed Abid Ali Abid, poet and author Syed Waheed Ashraf, poet, Suf, critic Temur Zulfqorov

Prose Ahmad Kasravi Ahmad Mahmud Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, scholar, also linguist Ali Mohammad Afghani, writer Bahram Bayzai, playwright Bozorg Alavi Ebrahim Nabavi, satirist Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, writer Roya Hakakian, poet, writer Sadegh Choubak, writer Sadeq Hedayat

Ebrahim Poordavood, Avesta expert Ghazaleh Alizadeh, novelist Gholam Hossein Saedi, writer Houshang Golshiri Iraj Pezeshkzad, novelist Jalal Al-e-Ahmad Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Marjane Satrapi, graphic novelist Samad Behrangi, writer Shahrnush Parsipur, novelist Simin Daneshvar, writer Zoya Pirzad, novelist

Other Subjects Related to Persian Literary Studies Persian oral and folk literature Amir Arsalan Namdar, Reciting Book of Kings, Samak Ayar, Tuti Nameh, stories, lullabies, proverbs, and so on Persian literary criticism and the use of literature in other subjects M. A. Dastghayb Mohammad Reza Shafei-Kadkani Mohammad-Taghi Bahar, poet Reza Baraheni, poet and critic Saeed Nafsi, scholar, poet and writer Sirus Tahbaz These categories are discussed by studying poets, authors, or literary works representing their era and genre. As such, the chapters cover several essential and prolifc poets and prose writers, the crucial 11

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characteristics of Persian literature, literary changes, literary genres, critical literary events, and to some extent, criticism.10 In addition to this chronological scheme, the handbook touches upon Persian oral and folk literature and Persian literature in several diferent regions. This division avoids the unsettled debates about periodization, poetic styles, and the diversity of genres by encompassing them all. While Persian-speaking communities worldwide may consider the ancient and classical products a common heritage, the last two categories, consisting of works produced since the 17th century in Iran; the Ottoman Empire; Tajikistan; Afghanistan; India; and other places in Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Indian subcontinent, are sometimes marked with a national identity and specifc national characteristics. The ancient or pre-Islamic Persian literature written in Old Persian or Pahlavi consists of the Gathas (divine songs), the ancient and sacred Zoroastrian (ancient Persian religion) writings collectively called the Avesta, the Middle Persian texts of Avesta, and a few ancient epics. In classical literature alone, there seem to have been 12,000 poets, of whom 800 were women. Only a few verses remain from some of these poets, while others have left us with volumes of work. Historians believe frequent invasions from nearby countries over the centuries explain the loss of these works. Persian literary output includes religious texts and hymns; epics; lyrics; fables; numerous types of poetry; advice literature; mystical writings; biographical anthologies (tazkereh, compendia); genres; travelogues; treaties; essays; and, in recent centuries, free verse poetry, short stories, novels, prison writings, memoirs, and plays.

Contents The chapters of this handbook cover not all but numerous authors and their work. The sections are also followed by a related and representative sample text. Through a close reading of poetry or prose texts, biographical stories, and historical documents, the contributing authors provide a view of the literary, generic, and discursive movement of Persian literature over an extended period, all the while keeping in mind the infuence of social contexts that often changed dramatically. After this introduction (1), the chapters will cover many aspects and areas listed in the previous literary categories, with analysis and a sample text following.

Chapters on Ancient, Classical, and Late Classical Persian Literature The literary works belonging to these categories will be covered in the Routledge Handbook of Ancient, Classical, and Late Classical Persian Literature, with the following chapters that appear after this introduction. 2 Shima Jaafari-Dehaghi, in “Avesta and Avestan Literature,” does a comprehensive examination of the Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians and the only text that remains in the Avestan language. The chapter begins with the origins of the Avesta, broadens to include the various sections that make up the text, and concludes with a history of Western scholarship on the text. 3 Narges Nematollahi, in the chapter “A Stylistic Shift in the Ofcial Documents of PreIslamic Iran: The Semantics of Power to the Semantics of Politeness,” studies the style of the ofcial letters that survived from the Achaemenid Empire (550–320 bce), the Seleucids (320–129 bce), the Arsacids (129 bce–224 ce) and the Sasanids (224–650 ce) and traces the 12

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stylistic shifts that happened in this genre over time. She argues that the ofcial letters showcase a semantic shift from the semantics of power under the Achaemenids to the semantics of politeness under the Sasanids. Matthew Thomas Miller, in the chapter “Genre in Classical Persian Poetry,” establishes the nuanced role that genre plays within literary traditions not only as categories for similar literary works but also as socio-political and historical constructs and guides for writers and readers. He focuses on genre in New Persian literature, which has changed over its long history and as it interacted frst with genre systems from Arabic literature and later on with European ones. The chapter focuses on the genre system of classical Persian poetry, which developed from the 10th to the 15th centuries, and shows how the creation of this system relied on themes found within poetry as much as their various forms. Sassan Tabatabai, in the chapter “Rudaki: The Father of Persian Poetry,” writes on the life of Rudaki and how he seized the opportunity to carve a dominant niche for himself in the history of Persian literature. When the Samanids came to power, they provided a fertile ground for a renaissance of Persian literature by sponsoring and drawing literary talent to their court. Rudaki established himself as a prominent poet of the Samanid court and subsequently as a cornerstone of the Persian literary genius to unfold over the following centuries. Olga M. Davidson, in “The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi,” writes on the Persian Book of Kings, which is commonly described today as the national epic of Iranians. This chapter addresses the historical circumstances surrounding not only the composing of the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi the poet but also the traditions involved in the performing of such poetry by the poet himself in the presence of diferent audiences who typifed diferent potential patrons. In so doing, the chapter follows the textual history of the Shahnameh and discusses the reception that Ferdowsi received for it in his lifetime. In his chapter, “Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām,” Juan Cole discusses Omarian poetry, the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyām (d.1131) throughout the history of classical Persian poetry. However, Cole discusses the strong possibility that Khayyām is a frame author and that Omarian poetry is not poetry written by him but rather a genre of poetry written during the centuries following his life. In his chapter, “Ghazal: Form in Meaning,” Alireza Korangy explores and ofers a macrostudy of ghazal (lyric poetry) as a genre in Persian literature. It will show that although ghazal as a concept (conceit) far pre-dates Persian poetry, it in fact reaches its zenith within the Persian-speaking world, as will be examined under the rubric of the works of some of ghazal’s most impactful poets. This chapter’s tracing of the development of ghazal shows that ghazal has been, and is, far more a conceit than it is a content form, even when the content form is well established in the late 12th century. In “Niẓāmī Ganjavī: An Innovator of Persian Narrative Poetry,” A. A. Seyed-Gohrab explores the life and impact of the great poet Nizami Ganjavi. Beginning with a brief biography of the poet, Seyed-Gohrab discusses the impact that Nizami’s work has had not only on poetry but on other forms of visual arts that have rendered his work into other media. He then discusses each of Nizami’s fve narrative poems as well as traditions of translation and emulation and concludes with Nizami’s poetic organization and style. I have written extensively on the poetry of Nezami Ganjavi, who lived in a part of Iran which is now the Republic of Azerbaijan. Like several other Persian authors of Iran, the designation of his nationality has become problematic due to the modern redrawing of the national borders. Numerous scholars in the west and elsewhere have pointed out verses 13

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and documents in which Nezami identifed himself as a Persian-speaking Iranian.11 Two chapters add valuable perspectives from Azerbaijan. In fact, the second chapter on Nezami sheds light on the category allocated to Persian literature of other contemporary nations, and that is why it is presented later in this book, where the necessity for understanding what is conceptualized as “the common heritage” becomes most apparent. Hamlet Isaxanli, in the chapter “Geographical Space and Historical Time Layers in Nizami Ganjavi’s Works,” also pays tribute to the great poet Nizami but this time through his extensive worldview and philosophy of life and his knowledge of sciences, history, and geography and the exceptional role they played in his descriptions of geographical space and historical time in all his fve poems united under the name “Khamsa.” This chapter attempts to answer questions like: What is the known world for Nizami’s favorite heroes? How did Nizami use historical sources? Why did Nizami allow historical anachronisms? How does the history of Iskender, Nizami’s favorite hero, difer from that of Alexander the Great? Austin O’Malley, in the chapter “Erotic Narratives and ʿAttār’s Refashioning of the Didactic Masnavi,” focuses on frame-tales, in which a series of narratives are uttered by characters in an overarching story, and which were often used by medieval Persian poets and authors to organize their works. Although various texts structured by this device have been studied in isolation, there has been no attempt to trace its development within the Persian literary tradition or delineate the various functions it performs. This chapter will thus overview the historical development of the frame-tale device with an eye to its form and function, including discussions of Kalila va Demna, Sendbâd-nâma, Ṭuṭi-nâma, Haft Paykar, and especially the mas̱anvis of ʿAṭṭâr. Seyyed Ali Asghar Mirbagherifard, in his chapter, “Analysis of the Ratio of Poetry and Islamic Mysticism in the Formation of Rumi’s Personality,” examines the life of Rumi and the impact of his works on both mysticism and poetry. This chapter ofers a discussion of Rumi’s position and innovations within mysticism. According to the chapter, Rumi belonged to an earlier tradition of Sufsm, but he also founded his own infuential mystic approach. The author covers the essential literary aspects of Rumi’s work, albeit briefy. Kacey Evilsizor, in the chapter “Poetry and Patronage: Persian Literature During the Mongol Empire,” discusses the Ilkhanate period of Persian literary history, during which the Mongols ruled Persia. There are two components of this chapter: placing Persian poetry of this era within the context that came before, as well as discussing the Mongols’ contribution to the tradition as patrons. In his chapter “Sa’di of Shiraz,” Kourosh Kamali Sarvestani explores the life and work of Sa’di Shirazi, the great 13th-century Iranian poet. The author discusses the veracity of Sa’di’s travels, his patronage relationships, his poetic prowess, his extant collections, and his common themes, as well as his infuence both in the present day and on other parts of the world. Mostafa Abedinifard, in the chapter “Gendering Obeyd: Rereading Zakani’s Sexual Satire,” writes that despite the 14th-century poet Obayd Zakani’s celebrated reputation as a satirist, much of his work features sexuality but has not been viewed through the lens of gender. This chapter rereads Zakani’s sexual humor, with particular attention to its recurrent phallocentric rhetoric as a winning argument, in an attempt to map and reconstruct the gender order of the audience to whom the poet is attempting to convey his humor. Manizheh Abdollahi, in the chapter “Congruity of Structure and Content in Ghazals of Hafz and Their Cultural and Historical Context,” discusses Hafz as a representative of the leading literary and intellectual currents of his time. The intention of this chapter is to show that the seemingly discrete themes of Hafz’s poems are a refection of the turbulent intellectual and political time in which he lived. 14

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17 In her chapter, “Non-Ideological or Bibliomantic Readings of Hafz’s Poetry,” Saeedeh Shahnahpur seeks to shed light on the history of divination in Iranian society and examine the characteristics of Hafz’s poetry that led to its widespread use as a divining tool. By studying non-ideological interpretations of some of Hafz’s poems, this chapter illustrates their capacity to provide a message that corresponds to the diviners’ stations in life and their knowledge of certain elements employed in their divination. 18 In the chapter, “Jami: The Seal of the Great Poets or the Emblem of an Era?”, We will look at some of the works of the 15th-century poet and author Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414–1492), often referred to as the last great poet of Persian classical tradition. In it, he argues that in his numerous books, including his romances, which are largely rewriting of the works of other poets, including Nezami Ganjavi, Jami presents a biased characterization of women that is rooted in his ideological philosophy and the dominant mystic religiosity of his time. Such a bias discourages the reading of his love poetry within the romance genre, which otherwise could shed light on similar works such as those of Nezami Ganjavi. Jami’s ideological views simply weigh centrally in his entire corpus of narrative works. 19 In “A Lost Literacy: Reading Tadhkiras of Persian Poets in the 21st Century,” Kevin Schwartz investigates the broad-ranging genre of tadhkiras, sometimes translated as “biographical anthology” or “biographical dictionary.” These texts often take on a tripartite structure of an introduction, a biographical entry about a poet, and fnally an afterword. Through an analysis of how individual tadhkiras are constructed according to organizational templates, temporal focus, and compilatory practices, this chapter proposes a model for understanding the development of tadhkiras over time. 20 Denise-Marie Teece, in the chapter “Persian-Language Anthological Manuscripts: Typologies and Terminology,” discusses the proliferation of manuscripts of Persian-language anthologies since the 15th century. Teece argues that whether the large numbers of remaining anthologies are due to a rise in literacy or a Persian fascination with the idea of collecting in many forms, these manuscripts are intrinsically beautiful and worthy of study. 21 Departing from the debate on the “Indian style” (sabk-e hendī) of Persian poetry, Jane Mikkelson examines tazkeres (biographical compendia) composed both by Indian intellectuals (Gholām ʿAlī Āzād Belgrāmī’s Imperial Treasury, 1762/3 and Sher ʿAlī Khān Lodī’s Mirror of the Imaginary, ca.1690) and Iranian authors (Ṭāher Naṣrābādī’s Biographical Compendium, 1672/3 and ʿAbd al-Nabī Fakhr al-Zamānī Qazvīnī’s Compendium of the Wine-Tavern, 1618), arguing that they attest to a shift in the 17th century towards a geographically infected mode of literary criticism: in increasingly self-conscious ways, conceptions of style, canonicity, and periodization became explicitly entwined with geography, politics, and interregional tensions. 22 Patimat Alibekova, in the chapter “Persian Language and Literature in Dagestan: Stages of Origin and Development,” discusses the penetration of Persian book culture into Dagestan and argues that the sources of written culture in the Persian language that have survived to this day are a vivid confrmation of the importance and demand for the Persian language and literature in Dagestan. Knowledge of the Persian language and literature in medieval Dagestan was considered a measure of education. 23 Gaga Lomidze, in the chapter “Nizami Ganjavi and Georgian Literature of the 12th–18th Centuries,” studies the infuence of Persian literature, specifcally Nizami Ganjavi, on the Georgian literary tradition. Georgia long had contact with Persian-language folklore and literature, and many of these works were translated into Georgian and became integrated with Georgian literature. 15

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Post-Classical and Contemporary Persian Literature The second part of this handbook, entitled Routledge Handbook of Post Classical and Contemporary Persian Literature, will cover the literary works belonging to these categories, following the same methodology in presenting discussions and samples of Persian literary poetry and prose. That volume also includes chapters on theory, music, teaching Persian literary narrative, and translation, focusing on Kelileh o Demneh. Some of these chapters also cover some classical materials. Thus, in addition to general information and analysis of well-known Persian literary works, the volumes introduce and discuss some of the lesser-known issues related to Persian literary studies, often in comparative contexts. Hopefully, this handbook of Persian literature will foster further scholarship and debates on the critical issues raised by the contributors. I am thankful to Yaseen Noorani, Austin O’Malley, and Kacey Evilsizor for their comments on the proposal and help.

Notes 1 Charles Melville, ed., Persian Historiography (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012). 2 Kamran Talattof, Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Poetry: Demystifying the Mystic (London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). 3 Ibid., viii. 4 Richard Eaton, India in the Persianate Age: 1000–1765 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019); Nile Green, The Persianate World (Oakland: University of California, 2019); Abbas Amanat, Assef Ashraf, The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere (Leiden: Brill, 2019). 5 This language has always been known as Persian. In English, it is called Persian. In French, it is persan, in German it is Persisch, in Spanish it is pérsico, in Italian it is persiano, and so on. However, in recent decades, new immigrants, some second-generation Iranians, some reporters, and some Hollywood flms use the word Farsi, which has been increasingly used to replace Persian. In Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the terms Dari and Tajik have been used instead of Farsi. In this work, Persian includes all these dialects and more. In an article, I have explained why such a substitution happens, who does it, and, fnally, what the negative aspects of this replacement are. See Kamran Talattof, “Social Causes and Cultural Consequences of Replacing Persian with Farsi: What’s in a Name?”, in Persian Language, Literature and Culture: New Leaves, Fresh Looks, ed. Kamran Talattof (London: Routledge, 2015). 6 See, Zabihollah Safa, Tarikh-e Adabiat dar Iran, vol. 1 (Tehran: Amir Kabir Publishing Corp., 1977); Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidael Publishing Company, 1968); Richard Frye, “Development of Persian Literature under the Samanids and Qarakhanids,” in Islamic Iran and Central Asia (7th-12th Centuries) (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979); E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia (Cambridge: The University Press, 1951–1956). 7 For example, one of the volumes is titled Persian Prose: A History of Persian Literature, vol. V, August 12, 2021, ed. Bo Utas. 8 For this purpose, several sources have been consulted: Safa, Tarikh-e Adabiat dar Iran; Rypka, History of Iranian Literature; Frye, “Development of Persian Literature”; Browne, Literary History of Persia; Encyclopaedia Iranica; and the Cambridge History of Iran. 9 Chapters that cover these categories will appear in the next volume under the same title. 10 The frst category is the least-covered section in these volumes because, among other reasons, they are written in older forms of Persian that are not comprehensible to contemporary readers. Such texts include the Zoroastrian texts of Avesta, Gathas, Pahlavi narratives and songs, Minuye Kherad (Spirit of Reasoning), and Matigan-e Hezar Datistan (Book of a Thousand Judgements). 11 For the debate over the nationality and the occasional misrepresentation of the native language of Nezami, see Siavash Lornejad and Ali Doostzadeh, On the Modern Politicization of the Persian Poet Nezami Ganjavi (Yerevan: Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, 2012) and the informed review of the book by Paola Orsatti, “Nationalistic Distortions and Modern Nationalisms,” Iranian Studies, 48, no. 4 (2015): 611–627. Nezami lived when parts of Iran under the Seljuk Empire and other areas between the Mediterranean and Central Asia enjoyed a period of cultural eforescence.

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2 AVESTA AND AVESTAN LITERATURE Shima Jaafari-Dehaghi1

Introduction2 The holy book of the Zoroastrians is called Avesta, and the language in which this book has been written is Avestan. There is no other work remaining in Avestan except this book; therefore, the name Avestan is given to the language. There is no direct indication of the name Avesta in the corpus of the book itself. It is in the Sasanian period and Middle Persian (Pahlavi) books that the name “abestāg” can be found. The language Avesta in Middle Persian texts is sometimes called the “language of religion.” The etymology of the name Avesta is not clear as yet, but Bartholomae mentions that it might mean “worship” and derives this from Old Iranian *upa-stāvaka- “praise” (1905: 108). Other researchers such as Belardi have diferent views (1979: 251–274). There are diferent opinions on the place of origin of Zoroaster and Avesta. Researchers suggest Sistān (Gnoli 1967), northeast Iran (Morgenstierne 1926), Chorasmia (Henning 1942), Margiana-Bactria (Humbach 1973), and other regions, but the most widely accepted region is Chorasmia. Furthermore, linguists consider Avestan to have originated in the eastern regions of Iran, probably in Chorasmia in Central Asia (for details, see Boyce 1992: 1–51). This suggestion is given by comparing Avestan to Old Persian and other Middle Iranian languages. Researchers believe that the name “airyana-vaējah-” in Avesta is where this language originated. In Avesta itself, the geography mentioned makes it clear that these texts locate themselves in eastern Iran. Even though there are later traditions which place Zoroaster in Azerbaijan and Media, it is more reasonable to locate him somewhere in eastern Iran along with the rest of the Avesta. The Avestan texts cannot be dated accurately, and they were not written at the same time. While most scholars fnd a date around 1000 bce for the time of Zoroaster himself (Mayrhofer 1994: 177; Humbach 1991: 23, 26, 30, 49; Kellens 1998: 513) most plausible, there are those who argue either for an earlier one between 1500 and 1200 (Boyce 1992: 27–51; Skjaervø 1994: 201) or for a later date in the 6th century bce. (Gershevitch 1995; Gnoli 2000). Whether Avesta is the words of Zoroaster himself is another question. It is acceptable to assume that the Gathas and the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (the oldest parts of the Avesta) were composed at the time of Zoroaster and most probably composed by him. Avesta consists of diferent parts which are not parallel linguistically. Some parts have an older style and are grammatically more correct than other sections, which seem more recent. The DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-2

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diference between these sections can be due to two factors. One is that some are older, and the second is that there may have been two diferent dialects for the Avestan language.

Sections of Avesta The Avesta we have today is considered one fourth the size of the Avesta in the Sasanian period (according to some scholars, it is one third). This can be confrmed by the description of the book in the Sassanian era given in the Middle Persian text Dēnkard (book eight).3 The texts which form the canon were not all written in the same period. We must at least make a chronological distinction between the Old Avestan and Young Avestan texts. Old Avestan consists of the Gāthās, the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, and the four great prayers of Yasna 27. Young Avestan is the rest of the texts. The Old Avestan texts are probably several centuries older than the others, although a precise date cannot yet be justifed. They can be dated to the time of Zoroaster. Avesta has fve main sections: Yasna, Visperad, Vendidād, Yašts, and xwardag Avesta. These sections will be discussed in the following.

Yasna Yasna is composed of 72 sections (hāiti) of widely difering compositional form, character, and language. The number 72 is represented symbolically by the 72 threads used in weaving the sacred girdle of the Zoroastrians, the kusti. These 72 chapters fall into three major divisions: Yasna 1–27, Yasna 28–54, and Yasna 55–72 (Geldner 1896: 4). Some of the Old Avestan texts, the Gāthās and the Yasna Haptanghaiti, are placed among the Yasna chapters. Yasna is an extended liturgy which accompanies the Yasna ritual. Its full recitation takes approximately two and a half hours. Yasna is the central ritual of Zoroastrianism, which has as its focus the consumption and preparation of the sacred drink of immortality, Haoma. It must be performed daily, at the morning watch, by qualifed priests only. The following is an excerpt from chapter 3 of Yasna:4 1 With a Baresman brought to its appointed place accompanied with the Zaothra at the time of Hawan, I desire to approach the Myazda-ofering with my praise, as it is consumed, and likewise Ameretat (as the guardian of plants and wood) and Haurvatat (who guards the water), with the (fresh) meat1, for the propitiation of Ahura Mazda, and of the Bountiful Immortals, and for the propitiation of Sraosha (who is Obedience) the blessed, who is endowed with sanctity, and who smites with the blow of victory, and causes the settlements to advance. 2 And I desire to approach Haoma and Para-haoma with my praise for the propitiation of the Fravashi of Spitama Zarathushtra, the saint. And I desire to approach the (sacred) wood with my praise, with the perfume, for the propitiation of thee, the Fire, O Ahura Mazda’s son! 3 And I desire to approach the Haomas with my praise for the propitiation of the good waters which Mazda created; and I desire to approach the Haoma-water, and the fresh milk with my praise, and the plant Hadhanaepata, ofered with sanctity for the propitiation of the waters which are Mazda-made. 4 And I desire to approach this Baresman with the Zaothra with my praise, with its binding and spread with sanctity for the propitiation of the Bountiful Immortals. And I desire with (?) my voice the thoughts well thought, and the words well spoken, and the deeds well done, and the recital of the Gathas as they are heard. And I desire to approach the wellsaid Mathras with my praise, and this (higher) lordship with this sanctity, and this exact

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regulation (of the Ratu), and the reverential prayer for blessings (spoken at the ftting hour); and I desire to approach them for the contentment and propitiation of the holy Yazads, heavenly and earthly, and for the contentment of each man’s soul. And I desire to approach the Asnya with my praise, the lords of the ritual order, and the Havani and Savanghi and Visya, the holy lords of the ritual order. And I desire to approach with the Yasht of Mithra of the wide pastures, of the thousand ears, of the myriad eyes, the Yazad of the spoken name, and with him Raman Hvastra. And I desire to approach Rapithwina with my praise, the holy lord of the ritual order, and Fradat-fshu and Zantuma, and Righteousness the Best, and Ahura Mazda’s Fire. And I desire to approach Uzayeirina, and Fradat-vira and Dahvyuma* with my praise, with that lofty Ahura Napt-apam, and the waters Mazda-made, And Aiwisruthrima, and Aibigaya, and Fradat-vispam-hujaiti, and Zarathushtrotema with the Yasht of the Fravashis of the saints, and of the women who have many sons, and the year long unchanged prosperity, and of Might, the well-shaped and stately, smiting victoriously, Ahura-made and of the Victorious Ascendency (which it secures). And I desire to approach Ushahina, Berejya, and Nmanya with the Yasht of Sraosha (Obedience) the sacred, the holy, who smites with the blow of victory, and makes the settlements advance, and with that of Rashnu, the most just, and Arshtat who furthers the settlements, and causes them to increase. And I desire to approach the monthly festivals, the lords of the ritual order, and the new moon and the waning moon, and the full moon which scatters night, And the yearly festivals, Maidhyo-zaremaya, Maidhyo-shema, Paitishahya, and Ayathrima the breeder who spends the strength of males, and Maidhyairya, and Hamaspathmaedhaya, and the seasons, lords of the ritual order, and all those lords who are the three and thirty, who approach the nearest at the time of Havani, who are the Lords of Asha called Vahishta (and whose services were) inculcated by Mazda, and pronounced by Zarathushtra, as the feasts of Righteousness, the Best. And I desire to approach Ahura and Mithra, the lofty and imperishable two, the holy, and with the Yasht of those stars which are the creatures of Spenta Mainyu, and with the Yasht of the star Tistrya, the radiant, the glorious, and with that of the moon which contains the seed of cattle, and with that of the resplendent sun, the eye of Ahura Mazda, and of Mithra, province-lord of the provinces, and with that of Ahura Mazda (as He rules this day) the radiant, the glorious, and with that of the Fravashis of the saints, (who rule this month), And with thy Yasht, the Fire’s, O Ahura Mazda’s son! with all the fres, and to the good waters with the Yasht of all the waters which are Mazda-made, and with that of all the plants which Mazda made. And I desire to approach with the Yasht of the Mathra Spenta, the holy, the efective, the law composed against the Daevas, the Zarathushtrian, and with that of the long descent of the Religion which Mazda gave. And I desire to approach with the Yasht of Mount Ushi-darena, Mazda-made, and of all, glorious with sanctity, and abundant in brilliance, and with that of the Kingly Glory, Mazda-made; yea, with that of the unconsumed glory which Mazda made, and with that of Ashi Vanguhi, and Chishti Vanguhi, and with that of the good Erethe, and the good Rasastat, and the good Glory, and of the Beneft which Mazda gave. And I desire to approach with the Yasht of the good and pious Blessing of the pious man and of the saint, and with that of the awful and swift Curse of the wise, the Yazad-curse,

19

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18 and to these places, regions, pastures, and abodes, with their water-springs, and with that of the waters, and the lands, and the plants, and with that of this earth and yon heaven, and with that of the holy wind and of the stars, moon, and sun, and with that of the stars without beginning, self-determined and self-moved, and with that of all the holy creatures which are those of Spenta Mainyu, male and female, regulators of the ritual order, 19 and with that of the lofty lord who is Righteousness (himself, the essence of the ritual), and with that of the days in their duration, and of the days during daylight, and with that of the monthly festivals, and the yearly festivals, and with those of the several seasons which are lords of the ritual at the time of Havani. 20 And I desire to approach the meat-ofering with a Yasht, and Haurvatat (who guards the water), and Ameretatat (who guards the plants and wood), with the Yasht of the sacred fesh for the propitiation of Sraosha (Obedience) the blessed and the mighty, whose body is the Mathra, of him of the daring spear, the lordly, the Yazad of the spoken name. 21 And I desire to approach both Haoma and the Haoma-juice with a Yasht for the propitiation of the Fravashi of Zarathushtra Spitama, the saint, the Yazad of the spoken name. And I desire to approach the wood-billets with a Yasht, with the perfume for the propitiation of thee, the Fire, O Ahura Mazda’s son! the Yazad of the spoken name. 22 And I desire to approach with a Yasht for the mighty Fravashis of the saints, the overwhelming, the Fravashis of those who held to the ancient lore, and of those of the next of kin. 23 And I desire to approach toward all the lords of the ritual order with a Yasht, toward all the good Yazads, heavenly and earthly, who are (set) for worship and for praise because of Asha Vahishta (of Righteousness the Best). 24 I will confess myself a Mazdayasnian, of Zarathushtra’s order, a foe to the Daevas, devoted to the lore of the Lord for Havani, the holy lord of the ritual order, for sacrifce, homage, propitiation, and for praise, and for Savanghi and Visya, the holy lord(s) of the ritual order, and for the sacrifce, homage, propitiation, and praise of the day-lords of the days in their duration, and of the days during daylight, and for the month-regulators, and the year-regulators, and for those of the (several) seasons, for their sacrifce, and homage, their propitiation, and their praise. The following is an excerpt from chapter 12 of Yasna:5 1

2 3

4

I curse the Daevas. I declare myself a Mazda-worshipper, a supporter of Zarathushtra, hostile to the Daevas, fond of Ahura’s teaching, a praiser of the Amesha Spentas, a worshipper of the Amesha Spentas. I ascribe all good to Ahura Mazda, “and all the best,” Asha-endowed, splendid, xwarena-endowed, whose is the cow, whose is Asha, whose is the light, “may whose blissful areas be flled with light.” I choose the good Spenta Armaiti for myself; let her be mine. I renounce the theft and robbery of the cow, and the damaging and plundering of the Mazdayasnian settlements. I want freedom of movement and freedom of dwelling for those with homesteads, to those who dwell upon this earth with their cattle. With reverence for Asha, and (oferings) ofered up, I vow this: I shall nevermore damage or plunder the Mazdayasnian settlements, even if I have to risk life and limb. I reject the authority of the Daevas, the wicked, no-good, lawless, evil-knowing, the most druj-like of beings, the foulest of beings, the most damaging of beings. I reject the Daevas and their comrades, I reject the demons (yatu) and their comrades; I reject any who harm beings. I reject them with my thoughts, words, and deeds. I reject them publicly. Even as I reject the head (authorities), so too do I reject the hostile followers of the druj. 20

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5 6

7

8

9

As Ahura Mazda taught Zarathushtra at all discussions, at all meetings, at which Mazda and Zarathushtra conversed; as Ahura Mazda taught Zarathushtra at all discussions, at all meetings, at which Mazda and Zarathushtra conversed – even as Zarathushtra rejected the authority of the Daevas, so I also reject, as Mazda-worshipper and supporter of Zarathushtra, the authority of the Daevas, even as he, the Asha-endowed Zarathushtra, has rejected them. As the belief of the waters, the belief of the plants, the belief of the well-made (Original) Cow; as the belief of Ahura Mazda who created the cow and the Asha-endowed Man; as the belief of Zarathushtra, the belief of Kavi Vishtaspa, the belief of both Frashaostra and Jamaspa; as the belief of each of the Saoshyants (saviors) – fulflling destiny and Asha-endowed – so I am a Mazda-worshipper of this belief and teaching. I profess myself a Mazda-worshipper, a Zoroastrian, having vowed it and professed it. I pledge myself to the well-thought thought, I pledge myself to the well-spoken word, I pledge myself to the well-done action. I pledge myself to the Mazdayasnian religion, which causes the attack to be put of and weapons put down; [which upholds khvaetvadatha], Asha-endowed; which of all religions that exist or shall be, is the greatest, the best, and the most beautiful: Ahuric, Zoroastrian. I ascribe all good to Ahura Mazda. This is the creed of the Mazdayasnian religion.

Gāthās and Yasna Haptanghāiti6 Yasna 28–34, 43–51, and 53, consisting of fve Gāthās (meaning “song”), is the oldest part of Avesta. It consists of 17 hymns, which are located among the Yasnas. These 17 hymns are arranged by meter into fve groups. Each is named according to the frst few words with which it begins. The frst, Ahunauuaitī Gāthā (Y. 28–34), is seven songs with 100 stanzas of three lines of regularly 7 + 8–9 syllables each. This Gāthā is named after the Yaθā ahū vairiiō, which is composed in the same meter. The second, Uštauuaitī Gāthā (Y. 43–46), after uštā ahmāi yahmāi uštā kahmāicīṱ (Y. 43.1), consists of four songs with sixty-six stanzas of regularly fve (46.15 four) lines of eleven (4 + 7) syllables each. The third, Spə̄ṇtāmańiiu Gāthā (Y. 47–50), after spə̄ṇtā mańiiū vahištācā manaŋ́hā (47.1), is four songs with forty-one stanzas of four lines of regularly eleven (4 + 7) syllables each. The fourth, Vohuxšaθrā Gāthā (Y. 51), after vohū xšaθrəm vairīm (51.1), is one song only, with twenty-two stanzas of regularly three lines of fourteen (7 + 7) syllables each. The ffth, Vahištōišti Gāthā (Y. 53), after 53, 1 vahištā ištiš srāuuī zaraθuštrahē, is one song only with nine stanzas of four (53. 6 fve) lines of varying numbers of syllables (Humbach 2000: 321–322). It can be said that the composition of the hymns in Gāthās is very complex. Each stanza consists of a fxed number of verse lines and each verse line of a fxed number of syllables. Detailed studies on the composition of individual Gāthic hymn indicate that they possess a symmetrical structure (Schmidt 1968: 170–179, 1974, 1985).7 Of the entire corpus of the Avesta, the Gathas have been translated far more frequently than any of its other divisions.8 With the exception of Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart, translators have assumed that Zoroaster was the Gāthās’s author, with a consensus that the last in the collection, Yasna 53, was not his composition but issued from his circle of followers (Malandra 2000: 327). The following is an example from the Gāthās.

Yasna 28–34. Ahunavaitī Gāthā9 [Of Truthful Zarathushtra the thoughts, words, and actions are entreating] [May the Holy Immortals accept the Gāthās] [Reverence to you, O truthful Gāthās] 21

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Yasna 28. Ahiyāsā Hāiti 28.1

In reverence for him, with hands out-stretched at frst I entreat (you) all, O Mazdā, for the actions of support of the sprit holy through truth, through whom you may gratify the intellect of good thought and the soul of the cow. 28.2 I approach you with good thought, O Mazdā Ahura, so that you may grant me (the blessing) of the two existence, the material and that of thought, the blessing emanating from truth, with which one can put (your) supporters in comfort. 28.3 I extol you as never before, O truth, and good thought and Mazdā Ahura, for (all of ) whom right-mindedness increases also unfading power. May you come to my calls for support. 28.4 Inspired by good thought and being a witness for Mazdā Ahura, I have in mind (one’s) soul for (his commendation by my) song as well as the rewards for (his) actions. For as long as I can and am able I shall look out in (my) search for truth. 28.5 O truth, shall I see you, I who possess good thought as well as obedience to be a throne for Him, the very strong Mazdā Ahura? O you beasts,10 through his manthra, (spoken) by (my) tongue, we would win (Him), the greatest one. 28.6 Come with good thought. With truth grant (us) a long-lasting gift through your exalted utterances, O Mazdā Ahura. (Grant it) as strong support to Zarathushtra and to us all so that thereby we may overcome the hostilities of (your) enemy. 28.7 Grant us that reward, O truth, the blessings of good thought. Grant, O right-mindedness, vigor to Vishtāspa and me. Grant (these things), O Mazdā, and rule with a manthra through which we can learn of your bounties. 28.8 I lovingly ask you, O Best one, the Ahura who is in harmony with best truth, for that which is best for gentle Frashaoshtra, and for me, and for all those on whom you will bestow it with good thought for all time. 28.9 With these entreaties, O Mazdā Ahura, may we not anger you, nor truth or best thought, we who are standing at the ofering of praise to you. You are the swiftest (bringers) of invigorations, and (you hold) the power over the benefts. 28.10 Fulfll with gains the desire of those whom you know to be just and meticulous through truth and good thought, O Mazdā Ahura. For (all of ) you, O Rich ones, I know loving eulogies conducted by a good charioteer.11 28.11 Through these you store for yourself truth and good thought for eternity, O Mazdā Ahura, So teach me with your mouth, in accordance with your spirit, how to pronounce these (eulogies) by which the frst existence comes into being. Yasna 3012 1 Now I will proclaim to those who will hear the things that the understanding man should remember, for hymns unto Ahura and prayers to Good Thought; also the felicity that is with the heavenly lights, which through Right shall be beheld by him who wisely thinks. 2 Hear with your ears the best things; look upon them with clear-seeing thought, for decision between the two Beliefs, each man for himself before the Great consummation, bethinking you that it be accomplished to our pleasure. 3 Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves in vision as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action. And between these two the wise ones chose aright, the foolish not so. 4 And when these twain Spirits came together in the beginning, they created Life and NotLife, and that at the last Worst Existence shall be to the followers of the Lie, but the Best Existence to him that follows Right. 22

Avesta and Avestan Literature

5 Of these twain Spirits he that followed the Lie chose doing the worst things; the holiest Spirit chose Right, he that clothes him with the massy heavens as a garment. So likewise they that are fain to please Ahura Mazda by dutiful actions. 6 Between these twain the Daevas also chose not aright, for infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together, so that they chose the Worst Thought. Then they rushed together to Violence, that they might enfeeble the world of men. 7 And to him (i.e. mankind) came Dominion, and Good Mind, and Right and Piety gave continued life to their bodies and indestructibility, so that by thy retributions through (molten) metal he may gain the prize over the others. 8 So when there cometh their punishment for their sins, then, O Mazda, at Thy command shall Good Thought establish the Dominion in the Consummation, for those who deliver the Lie, O Ahura, into the hands of Right. 9 So may we be those that make this world advance, O Mazda and ye other Ahuras, come hither, vouchsafng (to us) admission into your company and Asha, in order that (our) thought may gather together while reason is still shaky. 10 Then truly on the (world of ) Lie shall come the destruction of delight; but they who get themselves good name shall be partakers in the promised reward in the fair abode of Good Thought, of Mazda, and of Right. 11 If, O ye mortals, ye mark those commandments which Mazda hath ordained – of happiness and pain, the long punishment for the follower of the Druj, and blessings for the followers of the Right – then hereafter shall it be well. Yasna 3413 1 The action, the word, and the worship for which Thou, O Mazda, shalt bestow Immortality and Right, and Dominion of Welfare – through multitudes of these, O Ahura, we would that thou shouldst give them. 2 And all the actions of the good spirit [Spenta Mainyu –JHP] and the holy man, whose soul follows the Right, do ye set with the thought (thereof ) in thine outer court, O Mazda, when ye are adored with hymns of praise. 3 To Thee and to Right [Asha] we will ofer the sacrifce [myazda, i.e. ofering] with due service [veneration], that in (Thy established) Dominion ye may bring all creatures to perfection through Good Thought. For the reward of the wise man is for ever secure, O Mazda, among you. 4 Of Thy Fire, O Ahura, that is mighty through Right, promised and powerful, we desire that it may be for the faithful man with manifested delight, but for the enemy with visible torment, according to the pointings of the hand. 5 Have ye Dominion and power, O Mazda, Right and Good Thought, to do as I urge upon you, even to protect your poor man? We have renounced the robber-gangs, both demons and men. 6 If ye are truly thus, O Mazda, Right and Good Thought, then give me this token, even a total reversal of this life, that I may come before you again more joyfully with worship and praise. 7 Can they be true to thee, O Mazda, who by their doctrines turn the known inheritances of Good Thought into misery and woe [usheuru?]. I know none other but you, O Right, so do ye protect us. 8 For by these actions they put us in fear, in which peril is for many – in that the stronger (puts in fear) (me) the weaker one – through hatred of thy commandment, O Mazda. They that will not have the Right in their thought, from them shall the Good Abode be far. 23

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9 These men of evil action who spurn the holy Piety, precious to thy wise one, O Mazda, through their having no part in Good Thought, from them Right shrinks back far, as from us shrink the wild beasts of prey. 10 The man of understanding [or good will] has instructed (people) to cling to action of this Good Thought [Vohu Manah], and to the Holy Piety [Spenta Armaiti], creator, comrade of Right [Asha] – wise that he is, and to all hope, O Ahura, that are in thy Dominion, O Mazda. 11 And both thy (gifts) shall be for sustenance, even nectar and ambrosia. Piety linked with Right shall advance the Dominion of Good Thought, its permanence and power. By these, O Mazda, dost thou bless the foes of thy foes. 12 What is thine ordinance? What willst thou? What of praise or what of worship? Proclaim it, Mazda, that we may hear what ordinances Destiny will apportion. Teach us by Right the paths of Good Thought that are blessed to go in, – 13 Even that way of Good Thought, O Ahura, of which thou didst speak to me, whereon, a way well made by Right, the Daena of the future benefactors shall pass to the reward that was prepared for the wise, of which thou art determinant, O Mazda. 14 The precious reward, then, O Mazda, ye will give by the action of Good Thought to the bodily life of those who are in the community that tends the pregnant cow, (the promise of ) your good doctrine, Ahura, that of the wisdom which exalts communities through Right. 15 O Mazda, make known to me the best teachings and actions, these O Good Thought and O Right the due of praise. Through your Dominion, O Ahura, assure us that mankind shall be capable according to (Thy) will. Yasna Haptanghāiti is a set of seven hymns within Yasna 35–41. The older part of the Yasna Haptanghāiti is generally considered to have been composed by the immediate disciples of Zoroaster, either during the prophet’s lifetime or shortly after his death. Narten suggests that Yasna Haptanghāiti is liturgical recitation prose close to poetry (1986: 21). In substance, the seven chapters are a splendid relic and contain implications for the common (not fundamentally Zoroaster-infuenced) devout convictions of the period in which Zoroaster was himself a cleric. Moreover, the writings are hence of importance to researchers of religious history and play a key part within the remaking of (Indo-) Iranian religion and for recognizing Zoroaster’s commitments from already existing thoughts and convictions. The contents of these hymns are as follows: Yasna 35: ten verses, praise to Ahura and the Immortals (Ameša Spenta), prayer for the practice and difusion of the faith; Yasna 36: six verses, to Ahura and the Fire (Ātar); Yasna 37: fve verses, to Ahura, the holy Creation, the Fravašis, and the Bounteous Immortals; Yasna 38: four verses, to the earth (Zam) and the sacred waters (Āpas), Yasna 39: fve verses, to the soul of kine (Gavaevodata-); Yasna 40: four verses, prayer for helpers; Yasna 41: six verses, prayer to Ahura as the king, the Life, and the Rewarder. Yasna 3514 35.1

35.2

[We worship Ahura Mazdā, the truthful judge of truth. We worship the Amesha Spentas, the munifcent good rulers. We worship all the spiritual and material property of the truthful one with celebration of the good Mazdayasnian Religion]. We are the eulogists of the well-thought (thoughts), of the well-spoken (words), and of the well-performed (actions) that are being performed and that have been performed here and elsewhere, as we are also non-revilers of (all) good things. 24

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35.3

O Ahura Mazdā, beautiful through truth, the following we would choose: that we might think, pronounce, and perform the actions that would be the best among the actions of the existing,15 for both existences. 35.4 Through these best actions we urge those who listen as well as those who do not listen, those who hold power as well as those who do not hold power, to establish peace and (provide) a pasture for the cow. 35.5 Thus we ofer, commit, and delegate the power which is with us to the best ruler, Mazdā Ahura, and to best truth. 35.6 Just as a man or a woman knows something (to be) true, being so, let him cultivate it for himself (as) a good seed grain and let him make it known just as it is to those who would cultivate it.16 35.7 As we have realized worship and glorifcation of Ahura Mazdā to be best for you (all) and likewise the pasture of the cow, so we wish to cultivate it for you and make it known to the extent that we are able. 35.8 He has declared the best search for refuge for anyone among the existing to be in the shelter of truth and in the community of truth, for both existences. 35.9 O Ahura Mazdā, with a better devotion we wish to proclaim these uttered words as truth. We choose you to be their listener and elucidator. 35.10 In accordance with truth, good thought, and good power (we choose you) with a praise above praises, with an utterance above utterances, and with a worship above worships.

Visperad In Avesta, vīspe ratavō has an ambiguous meaning. Some translate it as “all chiefs” (Bartholomae 1961: 1467), and others, like Kellens, argue that 2ratu- should be understood as “prototype of beings” (see Kellens 2006–2011). This section of Avesta is very similar to Yasna in content and can even be thought as complementary to it. Visperad and Yasna are read in the religious ceremony of Now Rooz and Gāhanbārs,17 and it can be said that Visperad is never recited on its own. According to the edition of Geldner, Visperad has 24 sections, or “Karde” (Geldner 1896: 5). The Visperad is similar to the liturgical invocations and praises that also characterize the frst half of the Young Avestan Yasna (Yasna 1–8; 14–18; 22–27.12). Therefore, the sections of the Visperad prolong the portions of liturgical praises. In particular, the praises they contribute refer to those stanzas of the Yasna after which they are recited. Visperad is directly dependent on the Yasna, its sections praising the verses of the Yasna after which they are recited. In particular, Visperad expands on the stanzas of the Staota Yesnya (Hintze 2009: 37–38). For example, Visperad 13, which is placed after the frst three hymns of the Ahunavaiti Gāthā (Yasna 28–30), refers to them explicitly: Of the three, we worship the frst one, (recited) without interpolation, without transposition18 Of the three, we worship the frst two, (recited) without interpolation, without transposition We worship all of the frst three ones, (recited) without interpolation, without transposition Of all of the frst three ones, (recited) without interpolation, without transposition We worship the chapters, the verse lines, the words and stanzas, the loud recitation, the singing and the worshipping. 25

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Visperad 1519 Hold your feet in readiness, and your two hands, and your understandings, O ye Zarathushtrian Mazdayasnians! for the well-doing of lawful deeds in accordance with the sacred Order, and for the avoidance of the unlawful and evil deeds which are contrary to the ritual. Let the good deeds for the furtherance of husbandry be done here. Render ye the needy rich. 2 Let Sraosha (Obedience) be present here for the worship of Ahura Mazda, the most helpful, and the holy, who is so desired by us in the pronunciation, and for the service, and the pondering of the Yasna Haptanghaiti, for the heart’s devotion to it, for its memorization, and its victorious and holy recital (or for the victorious saint), without addition or omission, 3 which has been intoned, and which shall yet be uttered as great, powerful, smiting with victory, separate from harmful malice, for the pronunciation of victorious words for Ahura Mazda’s Fire. Visperad 20.020 We worship the Vohuxšaθrā Gāθā, the truthful one, the Ratu of truth, together with the verse lines, with the stanzas, with the interpretation, with the questions, with the answers, with the two utterances and with the (verse-) feet, well recited when being recited, well worshiped by the worshippers. Visperad 20.1 We worship the good rule, we worship the desirable rule, we worship the molten metal, we worship the rightly spoken, victorious words, we slay the demons, we worship that reward, we worship that health, we worship that medicine, we worship that prosperity, we worship that growth. Visperad 2321 We worship Ahura Mazda as the best (worship to be ofered in our gifts). We worship the Amesha Spenta (once more, and as) the best. We worship Asha Vahishta (who is Righteousness the Best). And we sacrifce to those (prayers) which are evident as the best; that is, the Praises of the Yasnas. Also we sacrifce to that best wish, which is that of Asha Vahishta, and we worship Heaven, which is the best world of the saints, bright and all glorious; and we sacrifce likewise to that best approach which leads to it. And we sacrifce to that reward, health, healing, furtherance, and increase, and to that victory which is within the two, the Ahuna-vairya and the Airyema-ishyo, through the memorized recital of the good thoughts, words, and deeds (which they enjoin). 26

Avesta and Avestan Literature

Vendidād/Vīdēvdād Avestan “vidaēva-dāta-” (Bartholomae 1961: 1441–1442), Middle Persian “jud-dēw-dād,” “The Law repudiating the Demons,” is a section of Avesta which has come down to us in complete form. The word “daeva-” originally meant “God,” meaning the Indo-Iranian gods, which Zoroaster had banned from worship. Therefore, the term “daeva-yasna-” in Avestan is opposed to the “Mazda-yasna-.” Later in the Sasanid period the word “daeva-” had its original meaning of “God” transform into “banned gods” and then into “demons.” The editors of the “nasks” of Avesta named this section, which is about purity and being away from flth, “Vendidād.” Vendidād is a set of purifcation laws and the punishment for disobedience and atonement for each one. This section of Avesta is compiled in the form of questions and answers and has 22 chapters, or “Fragards.” The questions are asked by Zoroaster himself in order to validate them, and they are addressed to Ahura Mazdā and He answers them. However, in some cases, there are topics which are not related directly to the purity laws; for example, the frst chapter is about diferent lands which Ahura Mazdā has created and the evil that Ahreman (devil) has created in each of them. The second chapter, which is one of the interesting Fragards of Vendidād, is about the story of Jamshid, the storm that happened in the world during his time, and the fortress that he built in order to protect all the beings from that storm. In the nineteenth Fragard, the eforts of Ahreman to deceive Zoroaster are recounted. In terms of grammar, Vendidād is often distorted, and compared to the Yašts, its grammatical forms are incorrect. Nominal and verbal endings are usually distorted. The compilers of Vendidād have abundantly quoted and repeated grammatical forms and sentences from one part of the text in another, or they have arranged words and phrases imitating other parts of the Avesta and transferred them to the text. Since the text of Vendidād is heterogeneous, it is very difcult to fnd the date of its compilation. Some scholars believe that the text is post-Achaemenid (cf. Gershevitch 1968: 27; Boyce & Grenet 1991: 68). However, considering that the text contains many cases of grammatical lack of agreement in case and number, as well as gender, in unexpected verbal forms, it leads us to the conclusion that the text of the Vendidād was redacted after Avestan ceased to be a live medium of communication, yet was still understood in its general contours. Vendidād is the third great Avestan text recited during an “inner liturgical ceremony” celebrated only inside the fre-temple, the Dar-e Mehr. As a liturgical text, the Vendidād, just like the Visperad, is recited not on its own but in combination with the Yasna extended by the Visperad. Vendidād was translated extensively by Zoroastrian theologians into Middle Persian with many commentaries. This shows that it was considered an important text to them at that time, as this was a set of rules of conduct for their everyday life. It belongs to a literary genre which may be described as “Frašna literature,” characterized by a stylistic device involving teaching being cast into a catechismal form of instruction given by Ahura Mazdā to Zoroaster. Zoroaster asks questions, and Ahura Mazdā provides answers and teaching. This sort of didactic literature contrasts in both form and content with the liturgical genre of praise preserved, for instance, in the Yasna and Visperad (Hintze 2009: 39). Fragard 2 of Vendidād is about the Myth of Yima: 1 Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda:22 O Ahura Mazda, most benefcent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who was the frst mortal, before myself, Zarathushtra, with whom thou, Ahura Mazda, didst converse1, whom thou didst teach the Religion of Ahura, the Religion of Zarathushtra? 27

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2 Ahura Mazda answered: The fair Yima, the good shepherd2, O holy Zarathushtra! he was the frst mortal, before thee, Zarathushtra, with whom I, Ahura Mazda, did converse, whom I taught the Religion of Ahura, the Religion of Zarathushtra. 3 Unto him, O Zarathushtra, I, Ahura Mazda, spake, saying: “Well, fair Yima, son of Vivanghat, be thou the preacher and the bearer of my Religion!” And the fair Yima, O Zarathushtra, replied unto me, saying: “I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the bearer of thy Religion.” 4 Then I, Ahura Mazda, said thus unto him, O Zarathushtra: “Since thou dost not consent to be the preacher and the bearer of my Religion, then make thou my world increase, make my world grow: consent thou to nourish, to rule, and to watch over my world.” 5 And the fair Yima replied unto me, O Zarathushtra, saying: “Yes! I will make thy world increase, I will make thy world grow. Yes! I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world. There shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind not hot wind, neither disease nor death.” 6 Then I, Ahura Mazda, brought two implements unto him: a golden seal and a poniard inlaid with gold Behold, here Yima bears the royal sway! 7 [Obscure.] 8 Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred winters passed away, and the earth was replenished with focks and herds, with men and dogs and birds and with red blazing fres, and there was room no more for focks, herds, and men. 9 Then I warned the fair Yima, saying: “O fair Yima, son of Vivanghat, the earth has become full of focks and herds, of men and dogs and birds and of red blazing fres, and there is room no more for focks, herds, and men.” 10 Then Yima stepped forward, in light5, southwards6, on the way of the sun7, and (afterwards) he pressed the earth with the golden seal, and bored it with the poniard, speaking thus: “O Spenta Armaiti8, kindly9 open asunder and stretch thyself afar, to bear focks and herds and men.” Fragard 5 of Vendidād is about funerals and purifcation:23 1 A man dies there, down in the valleys of river. A certain bird fies up from the tops of the mountains, down into the valleys of the rivers. It eats of the corpse (nasā) of that dead man. Then that bird fies up from the depth of the valleys to the heights of the mountains. It fies to some tree whether of hard wood or soft wood. It spits on it, and passes dung and water on it. 2 A man goes there, from the depth of the valleys to the heights of mountains. He comes upon the tree on which that bird (perched). He wants fuel for fre. He fells it, he hews it, he chops it, he kindles it for fre, son of Ahura Mazda. What is his punishment? 3 Then said Ahura Mazda: “Dead matter carried by dog or carried by bird, carried by wolf or carried by the wind or carried by fies does not make a man sinful. 4 Indeed, if dead matters carried by dog or carried by bird . . . were to make a man sinful, straight away, my whole material world would become afrighted of soul and condemned of body, because of the quantity of these corpses which have lain upon the earth.” Fragard 6 of Vendidād is about death and purifcation: 26 If walking or running, riding or driving, these Mazda-worshippers come upon a corpse in fowing water, what would you have them do? 28

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27 Then said Ahura Mazda, “let them halt, Zarathushtra, with taking of shoes, with taking of clothes. . . . Let (them) go forward, let (them) lift the body out of the water-up to the shins in water, up to the knees in water, up to the waist in water, up to a man’s height in water . . . 29 Let them lift (it) from the water, let them lay (it) on dry land. They shall not sin against the waters by casting into them bones nor hair nor spittle nor excrement nor blood” . . . 44 “Where shall we carry the body of a dead man, where lay it down?” Then said Ahura Mazda: “on the highest places, so that corpse-eating beasts and birds will most readily perceive it. 46 There the Mazda-worshippers must fasten down this corpse by its feet and hair, using a piece of metal or stone or horn. Otherwise corpse-eating beasts and birds will come to drag these bones away to the waters and plants” . . . 49 Where shall we carry the bones of a dead man (thereafter), where lay them down? 50 Then said Ahura Mazda: “a receptacle should be made out of reach of dogs and foxes and wolves, not to be rained on from above with rain-water. 51 If these Mazda-worshippers have the means, (let it be placed) on stones or chalk or clay. If they have not the means, let it (the skeleton) be laid down upon the earth, being its own couch, being its own cushion, exposed to the light, seen by the sun.” Fragard 9 of Vendidād is about The Nine Nights’ Barashnum:24 1 Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda: “O most benefcent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! To whom shall they apply here below, who want to cleanse their body defled by the dead?” 2 Ahura Mazda answered: “To a pious man1, O Spitama Zarathushtra! who knows how to speak, who speaks truth, who has learned the Holy Word [manthra], who is pious, and knows best the rites of cleansing according to the law of Mazda. That man shall fell the trees of the surface of the ground on a space of nine Vibazus2 square”; 3 “in that part of the ground where there is least water and where there are fewest trees, the part which is the cleanest and driest, and the least passed through by sheep and oxen, and by the fre of Ahura Mazda, by the consecrated bundles of Baresma, and by the faithful.” 4 How far from the fre? How far from the water? How far from the consecrated bundles of Baresma? How far from the faithful? 5 Ahura Mazda answered: “Thirty paces from the fre, thirty paces from the water, thirty paces from the consecrated bundles of Baresma, three paces from the faithful.” 6 “Then thou shalt dig a hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come.” 7 “Thou shalt dig a second hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come. Thou shalt dig a third hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come. Thou shalt dig a fourth hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come. Thou shalt dig a ffth hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come. Thou shalt dig a sixth hole, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come.” 8 How far from one another? “One pace.” How much is the pace? “As much as three feet.” 29

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9 “Then thou shalt dig three holes more, two fngers deep if the summer has come, four fngers deep if the winter and ice have come.” How far from the former six? “Three paces.” What sort of paces? “Such as are taken in walking.” How much are those (three) paces? “As much as nine feet.” 10 “Then thou shalt draw a furrow all around with a metal knife.” How far from the holes? “Three paces.” What sort of paces? “Such as are taken in walking.” How much are those (three) paces? “As much as nine feet.”

Xwardag Avesta The Xwardag Avesta, or Ḵhorda Avesta, literally meaning “Little Avesta,” is a collection of prayers for non-clerics to read on everyday occasions as opposed to those which are recited by priests. The date of these prayers is not certain. The most important prayers of Xwardag Avesta are as follows.

Niyāyišn The name of fve “praises” addressed to the sun, Miθra, the moon, the waters, and the fre. They largely contain passages from the Yasna, including the Gāthās and the Yasna Haptanghāiti.25

Gāh The name for prayers meaning “moments of the day” to be recited not only in praise of the respective time but also of divine beings associated with it and considered its co-workers. Each of the Gāhs is devoted to one of the fve divisions of the day: the morning (Hāwan, Gāh1, from sunrise to midday), midday (Rapithwin, Gāh2), afternoon (Uzayarin, Gāh3, from midday to sunset), evening (Aiwisrūthrim, Gāh4, from sunset to midnight), and night (Ušahin, Gāh5, from midnight to sunrise) (Hintze 2009: 64).

Āfrīngān These are four prayers recited while giving oferings. Their names are Āfrīngān ī Dahmān (prayer in honor of the dead), Āfrīngān ī Gāhān (prayer for the fve days at the end of the year, when it is believed that the souls of the dead come down to earth), Āfrīngān ī Gāhānbār (recited at the Gāhānbār festivals), and Āfrīngān ī Rapithwin (prayer for the beginning and the end of the summer).

Sīrōze These are prayers for the thirty days of the month, which is named after a deity. There are two versions of the Sīrōze prayers, the short Sīrōze and the longer version. Sīrōze is also recited for praise of the deceased. 30

Avesta and Avestan Literature

There are other short prayers in Avestan and Pahlavi for diferent occasions. Some of these prayers, such as Hērbedestān and Nērangestān, Pursišnīhā, Aogəmadaēcā, Hāδōxt Nask, Vištāsp Yašt, Āfrīn ī Zardušt, Vaēθā Nask, and Nērang ī Ātaxš, are remnants of the once-great corpus of Avestan literature that are either accompanied by their Pahlavi translation or are basically Pahlavi texts containing quotations from the Avesta.

Yašts The name for this section of Avesta is taken from the verb “yaštan-“ meaning “to praise, to worship.” These are prayers recited in praise of Old Iranian deities such as Miθra,26 Anāhita,27 Tištarya,28 and others. There are 21 Yašts, and their names are:29 1. Ohrmazd, 2. Amšāspand,30 3. Artawahišt, 4. Hvartāt, 5. Arədwi Sura (Ābān), 6. Xwaršēd, 7. Māh, 8. Tištarya, 9. Druvāspā, 10. Mihr, 11. Srōš,31 12. Rašn,32 13. Frawardīn, 14. Wahrām,33 15. Vāyu,34 16. Dēn,35 17. Ard,36 18. Aštāt,37 19. Xwarrah (hvarəna),38 20. Hōm,39 and 21. Wanand.40 Yašts were written at diferent times. The more recent are Yašt 1–4, 12, 18, and 20. The rest are older. Yašt 5 in praise of Anāhitā, Yašt 8 in praise of Tištarya, Yašt 10 in praise of Miθra, Yašt 13 in praise of Frawašīs,41 Yašt 17 in praise of Ard, and Yašt 19 in praise of Zāmyād are in fact the longer Yašts. The names of some of the Yašts do not match their content; for example, Aštāt Yašt is about Xwarrah, Zāmyād Yašt is about Kiānian Xwarrah, and Rām Yašt is about Vāyu. The division of each Yašt into paragraphs, which is available in modern Avesta editions and is not seen in manuscripts, is an invention of modern Avestan scholars for ease of use and reference. However, each of the longer Yašts in the manuscripts is divided into sections called “Karde.” The words with which each line begins and ends, usually beginning with the second or third line, remain constant in all Yašts until the end. The number of verses in each Karde is not the same. Each verse begins with describing and praising the deity and ends with the repeating phrase. Another feature in the Yašts is the narration of diferent mythical accounts, such as the battle between Tištarya and Apōš42 or the legend of Āraš43 and the battle between Ātar44 and Ažidahāk.45 Hintze (1995) writes about the compositional techniques in the Yašts. She compares the techniques in the Gāthās and the Yašts and mentions that: The stanzas of the individual hymns of the Gāthās are always made up of the same number of verse lines whereas in the Yašts the number of verse lines that constitute a stanza varies. Furthermore, the Gāthās are composed in fve diferent metrical patterns according to which the individual hymns are grouped together. The Yašts, on the other hand, do not show the same metrical stringency. However, they seem to be metrical texts because to a large extent they may be divided into octosyllabic verses. Obviously they belong to a diferent poetic genre. It may therefore be expected that also the poetic techniques of the hymns of the Younger Avesta is diferent from that of the Gāthās. (Hintze 1995: 277) Here is a selection of the Mihr Yašt: Karde 1.46 Section 1 1

Said Ahura Mazdāh to Zarathuštra the Spitamid: “When I created grass-land magnate Mithra, O 31

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2

3

4

Spitamid, I made him such in worthiness to be worshipped and prayed to as myself, Ahura Mazdāh. The knave who is false to the treaty, O spitamid, wrecks the whole country, hitting as he does the Truthowners as hard as would a hundred obscurantists. Never break a contract, O Spitamid, whether you conclude it with an owner of Falsehood, or a Truthowning followers of the Good Religion, for the contract applies to both the owner of falsehood and him who owns Truth. To those who are not false to the contract grass-land magnate Mithra grants (possession of ) fast horses, while Fire (the son of ) Ahura Mazdāh, grants them the straightest path, and the good, strong, incremental Fravašis of the owner of Truth give them noble progeny. On account of his splendor and fortune I will audibly worship grass-land magnate Mithra with libations. Grass-land magnate Mithra we worship, since it is he who bestows peaceful and comfortable dwellings on the Iranian countries.

Karde 13.47 53 Grass-land magnate Mithra we worship . . . who at times complains to Ahura Mazdāh with outstretched hands, as follows: 54 “I am the benefcent protector of all creatures, I am the benefcent guardian of all creatures; yet men do not worship me by mentioning my name in their prayer(s), as other gods are worshipped with prayer(s) in which their names are mentioned. 55 If indeed men were to worship me by mentioning my name in their prayer(s), as other gods are worshipped with prayer(s) in which their names are mentioned, I should go forth to men who own Truth, for the duration of a limited time; interrupting my own radiant immortal life I should come. 56 Mentioning you regularly by name in his spoken prayer, the owner of Truth worships you ofering libations. Mentioning you regularly by name in my spoken prayer, O strong one, I worship you, Mithra, with libations; mentioning . . . libations Tishtar Yašt48 1 Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathushtra, saying: “We worship the lordship and mastership [of Tishtrya], whereby he protects the Moon, the dwelling, the food, when my glorious stars come along and impart their gifts to men. I will sacrifce unto the star Tishtrya, that gives the felds their share [of waters]. 32

Avesta and Avestan Literature

2 “We ofer up libations unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, that gives happy dwelling and good dwelling; the white, shining, seen afar, and piercing; the health-bringing, loud-snorting, and high, piercing from afar with its shining, undefled rays; and unto the waters of the wide sea, the Vanguhi of wide renown, and the species of the Bull, made by Mazda, the awful kingly Glory, and the Fravashi of the holy Spitama Zarathushtra. 3 “For his brightness and glory, I will ofer unto him a sacrifce worth being heard, namely, unto the star Tishtrya.” Unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, we ofer up the libations, the Haoma and meat, the baresma, the wisdom of the tongue, the holy spells, the speech, the deeds, the libations, and the rightly-spoken words. “Yenhe hatam: All those beings of whom Ahura Mazda . . . 4 “We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, who is the seed of the waters, powerful, tall, and strong, whose light goes afar; powerful and highly working, through whom the brightness and the seed of the waters come from the high Apam Napat.” For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . 5 “We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star; for whom long focks and herds and men, looking forward for him and deceived in their hope: “When shall we see him rise up, the bright and glorious star Tishtrya? When will the springs run with waves as thick as a horse’s size and still thicker? Or will they never come?” “For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . . 6 “We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star; who fies, towards the sea Vouru-Kasha, as swiftly as the arrow darted through the heavenly space which Erekhsha, the swift archer, the Arya amongst the Aryas whose arrow was the swiftest, shot from Mount Khshaotha to Mount Hvanvant. 7 “For Ahura Mazda gave him assistance; so did the waters and the plants; and Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, opened a wide way unto him. “For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . 8 “We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, that aficts the Pairikas, that vexes the Pairikas, who, in the shape of worm-stars, fy between the earth and the heavens, in the sea Vouru-Kasha, the powerful sea, the large-sized, deep sea of salt waters. He goes to its lake in the shape of a horse, in a holy shape; and down there he makes the waters boil over, and the winds fow above powerfully all around. 9 “Then Satavaesa makes those waters fow down to the seven Karshvares of the earth, and when he has arrived down there, he stands, beautiful, spreading ease and joy on the fertile countries (thinking in himself ): “How shall the countries of the Aryas grow fertile?” “For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . 10 “We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, who spoke unto Ahura Mazda, saying: ‘Ahura Mazda, most benefcent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!’”

Oral Tradition and Poetic Language in Avesta There is some evidence that shows that Avestan literature was most likely read aloud. It has been mentioned that Basilius (377 ad) said that “the Moghs did not have books . . . and the sons learned from their fathers” (Bailey 1971: 164). Therefore, we can say that the Avestan texts were transmitted orally until the Sasanian times, somewhere between the 4th to 6th centuries ad. At that time, Avesta was written down using the invented script by the Zoroastrian Mowbeds. As mentioned before, the poems of Old Avesta are more elaborate than those of the Young Avesta, and by the eight-syllable poems in the Young Avestan parts that have formulaic material, we can 33

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conclude that they were recited orally for centuries. The poetic structures of Gāthās are framed in the language of customary oral composition of the Indo-Europeans. The evidence we show that composers of Avesta were steeped in an ancient oral tradition of themes and forms. These they reproduced, updated linguistically, and modifed before or during performances according to the expectations of their time and place (Skjaervø 2012: 5–6). The Avestan texts were composed orally, performed orally through centuries, and written down on the basis of these oral performances; even after that, oral transmission remained a fundamental factor.

Recording Avesta Avestan texts known to us today represent only a small part of the oral traditions that were committed to writing in the Sasanian period (224–651 ce). Sometime during this period, a phonetic alphabet was invented, which was used to write down in minute detail the known texts. At this time, all the available Iranian alphabets were consonant alphabets descended from Aramaic (except the Bactrian alphabet, which was Greek), which were quite unsuitable for recording a largely unfamiliar language. A new alphabet was therefore invented, based, apparently, on the cursive Pahlavi script of the Zoroastrian literature, but with the addition of earlier forms of some letters taken from the script found in the Pahlavi Psalter, a Middle Persian translation of the Psalms of David found in Chinese Turkestan. It must be kept in mind that our earliest manuscripts are all probably over 500 years younger than the “proto-manuscript” of the Avesta. Thus, we do not know exactly what forms the letters had. According to the tradition contained in the Pahlavi texts (especially the Dēnkard) about Avesta, after Alexander had destroyed or dispersed the text written in gold on bulls’ hides, it was then reassembled, presumably on the basis of oral traditions and, perhaps, surviving manuscripts. It begins with the king Wištāsp, who, after his war with Arjāsp (q.v.), is said to have sent messengers and books to disseminate the Mazdayasnian religion. It culminates with the Sasanian redaction of the Avesta under Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (for sources, see Humbach 1991 I: 49–55). In the so-called Pahlavi Yasna manuscripts, the Gāthas are accompanied by a word-for-word Middle Persian translation, which seems to originate from the late Sasanian period. The view that the Zoroastrian textual tradition in Persia was maintained by priests who frst lost their active command of Avestan and whose passive comprehension deteriorated as Persian moved towards the Middle Iranian stage is supported by the evidence of the Zand. As is well known, Zand was word-for-word translations of Avesta which nearly always used the same Middle Persian word for an Avestan one, or indeed for clusters of sounds which seemed similar to it (Kreyenbroek 1996: 225).

Zand and Pāzand Pahlavi translations and exegesis of Avesta are based on the written Sassanid Avesta. However, the need to translate Avesta was undoubtedly felt for a long time before that, because in the Parthian period and more and more in the Sassanid period, the Avestan language was considered a dead language that only priests knew. There is no doubt that parts of the Avesta had exegesis in the Avestan language in earlier periods, and today we see words and sentences in the Avestan text that were probably originally intended for interpretation and explanation, and then when Avesta was compiled, they were inserted into the text. Translation and exegesis of the Avesta to Pahlavi is called Zand, meaning “explanation.” For Zoroastrians, the translation of the Avesta into Pahlavi, which is often accompanied by exegesis, is as valid and important as the Avesta itself because they believe that the source of this translation is ultimately Zoroaster himself. 34

Avesta and Avestan Literature

We know that the Sasanian great Avesta included not only the Avestan text but also a translation into Pahlavi, because its description in the Dēnkard is based on the Pahlavi translation and because the manuscripts of texts deriving directly from the great Avesta always included the Pahlavi translation. On the other hand, the collection of the ritual Avestan texts originally did not include the Pahlavi translation, since the translation plays no role in the Zoroastrian ritual (Cantera 2015).49 Today, translation and exegesis (Zand) of all sections of Avesta is not available. There are Zands for the Yasna (including the Gāthās), Visperad, Vendidād, Xwardag Avesta, and some other smaller Avestan texts. Zands are not from the same time and do not have the same validity. Zands for Vendidād, Hērbadistān, and Neyrangestān are more genuine because the context of these parts of Avesta, which include rituals and religious laws, was more familiar to the translators. Pāzand is transliteration of Pahlavi texts in Avestan script. Since the end of the Sassanid period, it became difcult to read the Pahlavi script, and Zoroastrian Mowbeds50 decided to write the Avesta and some Zoroastrian religious works in a script that could be read by everyone. Then, in the 4th century, when the Pahlavi language declined, it gradually became difcult to read the texts. In addition, the Pahlavi script also had ambiguities that did not indicate the exact pronunciation of the word. Therefore, the Mowbeds began to write these texts in Avestan script. This was the beginning of Pāzand. Pāzand texts started to be written when large number of Zoroastrians emigrated from Persia to Gujarat, India, following the Arab conquest of Persia. Some scholars, such as Lazard, believe that Pāzand was the way late Pahlavi was pronounced and perhaps some version of a regional dialect of late Pahlavi (1995: 133). By this time Pahlavi most likely was just an archaic liturgical language infuenced by the pronunciation of the 9th century. Antia made an inventory and divided the Pāzand texts into six groups: texts of known Pahlavi books, texts used as parts of the prayer books, Incantations (Nirangs), Rīvāyets, Praises of the Yazatas (Setāyaš), and fnally miscellaneous (Antia 1909; Moein 2012: 4–5).

Western Studies on Avesta Avesta was frst translated and introduced to the West in 1771 by Anquetil Duperron. He was a French orientalist, and his studies started with Arabic. He also studied oriental languages. In 1754, he was shown a few lines copied from a fragment of the Avesta brought in 1723 to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, by Richard Colbert. He decided to go to India to retrieve the sacred book, which Colbert, Louis XIV’s minister, had ordered Father J. F. Pétis de la Croix to bring back from Iran without success. Anquetil’s three-volume translation of the Avesta, including some other writings as well, was published in 1771. Anquetil was nonetheless the frst to bring a manuscript of an ancient oriental sacred text other than the Bible to the attention of European scholars (Duchesne-Guillemin 1985: 100–101). Later, the works of Emmanuel Rask and Eugène Burnouf not only established an adequate method for a philological approach to Avesta but also proved conclusively that though Avestan was a language with an Iranian phonetic system, it was not the direct ancestor of Modern Persian. The publication of a complete edition of the Avesta by Nicolas Westergaard concluded this frst stage of the research. During the second half of the 19th century, there were two schools for the study of Avesta: the “traditional school” introduced by Spiegel and Darmesteter and the “Vedic” school favored by Geldner. The traditional school considered the Pahlavi translations (Zand) and commentaries of the Avesta very important in its understanding. The Vedic school did not consider the Zand very reliable in understanding the Avesta. After some time, it was understood that some texts like Vendidad could be studied via Zand, and some like the Yasna and other texts could 35

Shima Jaafari-Dehaghi

not. Therefore, new approaches to the study of Avesta was introduced. The pioneering works on Avesta and its translations include Darmesteter’s translation (1892–1893); Geldner’s critical edition (1889–1896), which was based upon the analysis of more than 120 manuscripts; the grammatical description of Avestan in the Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (1896); and the Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904) by Christian Bartholomae. At the beginning of the 20th century, major works on Avesta were written by Benveniste (1935) and Duchesne-Guillemin (1936). These studies are mainly etymological surveys, and most of the studies on Avesta at that time included etymological surveys. In his new translation of the Gāthās, H. Humbach (1959) exploited to the full the etymological comparison with Vedic texts. This method was used later by S. Insler in his translation of the Gāthās (1975). On the other hand, I. Gershevitch (1959), in his edition of Yašt 10, shed much light on the text by comparing Middle Iranian languages. Hofmann was the scholar who started his studies on Avesta after Humbach and Gershevitch. He often brought Vedic, as the most closely related language, into his arguments. This practice made it possible for him to release Old Iranian problems from their isolation, that is, to put content-related or linguistic questions in a new light or to rearrange them by approaching them from Veda. Hofmann’s book on Avestan appeared after his death: Avestische Laut- und Flexionslehre (1996, with B. Forssmann). This is a very carefully prepared, historical-comparative grammar of Avestan, in which ancient Indo-Iranian on the one hand and the two most closely related languages, Old Persian and Vedic, on the other play essential roles. One of the most important arguments that Hofman put forward was about the Avestan script. He argued that the Avestan script, which possesses an extensive inventory of vowel and consonant signs, was a phonetic alphabet, which was especially created to record the contemporary oral tradition of the Avesta with phonetic precision. Therefore, there is no direct testimony for the language of the author of the text, and the Avestan texts represent the pronunciation of Avesta during the Sasanian period (Narten 2004: 420–423). The next generation of scholars studying Avesta had a diferent approach to this sacred text. Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart translated the Gāthās and the Old Avestan texts in 1980s and gave diferent and new understandings of these texts to their readers. Kellens, in his introduction to volume one, afrmed the historicity of the setting of the Gāthās, as well as that of Zoroaster, defning it as a real society peopled by real men and women. This was an issue of debate in previous studies. Prods Oktor Skjaervø also made great contributions to the study of Avesta. He wrote many articles and primers on Avesta. About the Gāthās, he said, “I think we must assume, until proved wrong, that what we have in the Gāthās too is a glimpse of the Old Iranian epic-hymnic tradition” (Skjaervø 1997: 108). Moreover, Alberto Cantera has studied many words and terms in Avesta. He has carried out projects on Avestan manuscripts and manuscript tradition. Almut Hintze is another scholar working on Avesta. Her publications include works on Zāmyād Yašt (1994), Compositional Techniques in the Yašts of the Younger Avesta (1995), On the Literary Structure of Avesta (2004), Zarathustra’s Time and Homeland: Linguistic Perspectives (2015), and many more. There are also works by Alexander Lubotsky, Antonio Panaino, Eric Pirart, Velizar Sadovski, de Vaan, and many other scholars who have studied Avesta for many years. Students and scholars who are interested can refer to their works.

Notes 1 Assistant Professor of Ancient Iranian Languages, Faculty of Persian Language and Literature, Velayat University, Iranshahr, Sistan and Balochistan, Iran.

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Avesta and Avestan Literature 2 Terms and titles in this contribution are given in the original languages and in transcription. The Avestan terms and titles are according to Bartholomae and Pahlavi terms and titles according to MacKenzie. In transcriptions and translations taken from other research, the method of the original writer has been used. 3 A collection of nine books written during the 9th or 10th century in Middle Persian about the Zoroastrian religion. The frst two and the beginning of the third books are lost. This collection is named “The Encyclopedia of Mazdean Religion.” For more information, see de Menasce 1958; Gignoux 2011: 284–289. 4 http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm. 5 http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm. 6 For more information about The Gāthās, see Bartholomae 1905; Humbach 1959; Humbach et al. 1991; Humbach & Ichaporia 1994; Isnsler 1975; Kellens & Pirart 1988–1991; Lommel 1971. 7 On the great variety of stylistic features on the phonic, lexical, and phraseological levels of the Gāthās, see Schwartz 1991: 128; 1998: 197. 8 Some of these translations include Bartholomae 1905; Insler 1975; Kellens & Pirart 1988; Humbach et al. 1991; Humbach & Ichaporia 1994. 9 Translation is from Humbach & Ichaporia 1994: 23. 10 The beasts (or: noxious animals) include the Daevas and the (evil) mortals. They are addressed here in order to discourage and chase them away from the ritual so as not to spoil it. 11 The eulogies are compared with a team competing at a horse-race. Thus, the “good charioteer” is the well-trained tongue of the singer. 12 http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm#y28v. 13 http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm#y28v. 14 Translation from Humbach & Ichaporia 1994: 53. 15 “The best among the actions of the existing” (= of those who exist), or: “the best among the actions that are.” 16 The sections seems to deal with knowing and practicing a Manthra. 17 Middle Persian name for the feasts held at the end of each of the six seasons of the Zoroastrian year. Their names are as follows: Maiδyōi.zarəmaya (midspring), Maiδyōi.šam (midsummer), Paitiš.hahya (bringing in the corn), Ayāθrima (homecoming), Maiδyāirya (midyear), Hamaspaθmaēδaya (for which no generally accepted meaning has been proposed). 18 Translation from Hintze 2009: 37–38. 19 www.avesta.org/visperad/vrsbe.htm. 20 Translation from Hintze 2009: 37–38. 21 www.avesta.org/visperad/vrsbe.htm. 22 www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd_tc.htm. 23 Translation from Boyce 1984: 65. 24 www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd9sbe.htm. 25 For more information, see Taraf 1981. 26 The name of the Indo-Iranian god based on the common noun mitrá “contract,” with the connotations of “covenant, agreement, treaty, alliance, promise.” Mitra is thus the personifcation and deifcation of the concept of a contract (Schmidt 2006). 27 Anāhita or Arədvī Sura Anāhita is the heavenly river and goddess of the waters. 28 Tištarya or the star Sirius is the god who controls the weather and the rain. 29 The names given here are the Middle Persian or Pahlavi forms of the names. 30 The seven Life-giving Immortals. 31 God of obedience and judge in the hereafter. 32 The deity of the ancient Iranian pantheon who functions as the divine judge. 33 God of victory who manifests himself in ten diferent incarnations. 34 God of the space between heaven and earth. 35 A visionary sense of man, his “vision soul,” that after death assumes the form of a woman, beautiful or ugly according to the person’s thoughts, words, and acts in life, who leads the soul to paradise or hell, as the case may be. 36 Goddess of the rewards. 37 The goddess of rectitude or justice. 38 Royal Fortune, a magic force or power of luminous and fery nature.

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Shima Jaafari-Dehaghi 39 Hōm or Haoma is a plant and divinity which yields the essential ingredient for the parahaoma. This is the consecrated liquid prepared during the main act of worship, the Yasna, and its extensions, the Visperad and Vendidad. 40 Name of a star. 41 Tutelary deities and warriors, probably the personifed faith. 42 Demon responsible for drought. 43 A heroic archer in Iranian legend. 44 Fire, a divinity. 45 A monster with three mouths, six eyes, and three heads, cunning, strong, and demonic. In other respects, Aži Dahāka has human qualities and is never a mere animal. 46 Translation from Gershevitch 1967: 74–75. 47 Gershevitch 1967: 100–101. 48 www.avesta.org/ka/yt8sbe.htm. 49 For more information, see Cantera 2004; Josephson 1997, 2003. 50 Zoroastrian high priests.

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 2

Yasna: Part Tree 1 With a Baresman brought to its appointed place accompanied with the Zaothra at the time of Hawan, I desire to approach the Myazda-ofering with my praise, as it is consumed, and likewise Ameretat (as the guardian of plants and wood) and Haurvatat (who guards the water), with the (fresh) meat1, for the propitiation of Ahura Mazda, and of the Bountiful Immortals, and for the propitiation of Sraosha (who is Obedience) the blessed, who is endowed with sanctity, and who smites with the blow of victory, and causes the settlements to advance. 2 And I desire to approach Haoma and Para-haoma with my praise for the propitiation of the Fravashi of Spitama Zarathushtra, the saint. And I desire to approach the (sacred) wood with my praise, with the perfume, for the propitiation of thee, the Fire, O Ahura Mazda’s son! 3 And I desire to approach the Haomas with my praise for the propitiation of the good waters which Mazda created; and I desire to approach the Haoma-water, and the fresh milk with my praise, and the plant Hadhanaepata, ofered with sanctity for the propitiation of the waters which are Mazda-made. 4 And I desire to approach this Baresman with the Zaothra with my praise, with its binding and spread with sanctity for the propitiation of the Bountiful Immortals. And I desire with (?) my voice the thoughts well thought, and the words well spoken, and the deeds well done, and the recital of the Gathas as they are heard. And I desire to approach the well-said Mathras with my praise, and this (higher) lordship with this sanctity, and this exact regulation (of the Ratu), and the reverential prayer for blessings (spoken at the ftting hour); and I desire to approach them for the contentment and propitiation of the holy Yazads, heavenly and earthly, and for the contentment of each man’s soul. 5 And I desire to approach the Asnya with my praise, the lords of the ritual order, and the Havani and Savanghi and Visya, the holy lords of the ritual order. And I desire to approach with the Yasht of Mithra of the wide pastures, of the thousand ears, of the myriad eyes, the Yazad of the spoken name, and with him Raman Hvastra. 6 And I desire to approach Rapithwina with my praise, the holy lord of the ritual order, and Fradat-fshu and Zantuma, and Righteousness the Best, and Ahura Mazda’s Fire.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-3

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Sample Literature for Chapter 2

7 And I desire to approach Uzayeirina, and Fradat-vira and Dahvyuma* with my praise, with that lofty Ahura Napt-apam, and the waters Mazda-made, 8 And Aiwisruthrima, and Aibigaya, and Fradat-vispam-hujaiti, and Zarathushtrotema with the Yasht of the Fravashis of the saints, and of the women who have many sons, and the year long unchanged prosperity, and of Might, the well-shaped and stately, smiting victoriously, Ahura-made and of the Victorious Ascendency (which it secures). 9 And I desire to approach Ushahina, Berejya, and Nmanya with the Yasht of Sraosha (Obedience) the sacred, the holy, who smites with the blow of victory, and makes the settlements advance, and with that of Rashnu, the most just, and Arshtat who furthers the settlements, and causes them to increase. 10 And I desire to approach the monthly festivals, the lords of the ritual order, and the new moon and the waning moon, and the full moon which scatters night, 11 And the yearly festivals, Maidhyo-zaremaya, Maidhyo-shema, Paitishahya, and Ayathrima the breeder who spends the strength of males, and Maidhyairya, and Hamaspathmaedhaya, and the seasons, lords of the ritual order, (12) and all those lords who are the three and thirty, who approach the nearest at the time of Havani, who are the Lords of Asha called Vahishta (and whose services were) inculcated by Mazda, and pronounced by Zarathushtra, as the feasts of Righteousness, the Best. http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm

Yasna 28–34. Ahunavaitī Gāthā Yasna 30 1

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Now I will proclaim to those who will hear the things that the understanding man should remember, for hymns unto Ahura and prayers to Good Thought; also the felicity that is with the heavenly lights, which through Right shall be beheld by him who wisely thinks. Hear with your ears the best things; look upon them with clear-seeing thought, for decision between the two Beliefs, each man for himself before the Great consummation, bethinking you that it be accomplished to our pleasure. Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves in vision as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action. And between these two the wise ones chose aright, the foolish not so. And when these twain Spirits came together in the beginning, they created Life and NotLife, and that at the last Worst Existence shall be to the followers of the Lie, but the Best Existence to him that follows Right. Of these twain Spirits he that followed the Lie chose doing the worst things; the holiest Spirit chose Right, he that clothes him with the massy heavens as a garment. So likewise they that are fain to please Ahura Mazda by dutiful actions. Between these twain the Daevas also chose not aright, for infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together, so that they chose the Worst Thought. Then they rushed together to Violence, that they might enfeeble the world of men. http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm#y28v

Yasna 34 1

The action, the word, and the worship for which Thou, O Mazda, shalt bestow Immortality and Right, and Dominion of Welfare – through multitudes of these, O Ahura, we would that thou shouldst give them. 40

Sample Literature for Chapter 2

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And all the actions of the good spirit [Spenta Mainyu –JHP] and the holy man, whose soul follows the Right, do ye set with the thought (thereof ) in thine outer court, O Mazda, when ye are adored with hymns of praise. To Thee and to Right [Asha] we will ofer the sacrifce [myazda, i.e. ofering] with due service [veneration], that in (Thy established) Dominion ye may bring all creatures to perfection through Good Thought. For the reward of the wise man is for ever secure, O Mazda, among you. Of Thy Fire, O Ahura, that is mighty through Right, promised and powerful, we desire that it may be for the faithful man with manifested delight, but for the enemy with visible torment, according to the pointings of the hand. Have ye Dominion and power, O Mazda, Right and Good Thought, to do as I urge upon you, even to protect your poor man? We have renounced the robber-gangs, both demons and men. If ye are truly thus, O Mazda, Right and Good Thought, then give me this token, even a total reversal of this life, that I may come before you again more joyfully with worship and praise. Can they be true to thee, O Mazda, who by their doctrines turn the known inheritances of Good Thought into misery and woe [usheuru?]. I know none other but you, O Right, so do ye protect us. http://avesta.org/yasna/yasna.htm#y28

Visperad 15 Hold your feet in readiness, and your two hands, and your understandings, O ye Zarathushtrian Mazdayasnians! for the well-doing of lawful deeds in accordance with the sacred Order, and for the avoidance of the unlawful and evil deeds which are contrary to the ritual. Let the good deeds for the furtherance of husbandry be done here. Render ye the needy rich. 2 Let Sraosha (Obedience) be present here for the worship of Ahura Mazda, the most helpful, and the holy, who is so desired by us in the pronunciation, and for the service, and the pondering of the Yasna Haptanghaiti, for the heart’s devotion to it, for its memorization, and its victorious and holy recital (or for the victorious saint), without addition or omission, (3) which has been intoned, and which shall yet be uttered as great, powerful, smiting with victory, separate from harmful malice, for the pronunciation of victorious words for Ahura Mazda’s Fire. Visperad 23 We worship Ahura Mazda as the best (worship to be ofered in our gifts). We worship the Amesha Spenta (once more, and as) the best. We worship Asha Vahishta (who is Righteousness the Best). And we sacrifce to those (prayers) which are evident as the best; that is, the Praises of the Yasnas. Also we sacrifce to that best wish, which is that of Asha Vahishta, and we worship Heaven, which is the best world of the saints, bright and all glorious; and we sacrifce likewise to that best approach which leads to it. And we sacrifce to that reward, health, healing, furtherance, and increase, and to that victory which is within the two, the Ahuna-vairya and the Airyema-ishyo, through the memorized recital of the good thoughts, words, and deeds (which they enjoin). www.avesta.org/visperad/vrsbe.htm 41

Sample Literature for Chapter 2

A Part of Fragard 2 of Vendidād Is About the Myth of Yima 1

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Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda: O Ahura Mazda, most benefcent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who was the frst mortal, before myself, Zarathushtra, with whom thou, Ahura Mazda, didst converse1, whom thou didst teach the Religion of Ahura, the Religion of Zarathushtra? Ahura Mazda answered: The fair Yima, the good shepherd2, O holy Zarathushtra! he was the frst mortal, before thee, Zarathushtra, with whom I, Ahura Mazda, did converse, whom I taught the Religion of Ahura, the Religion of Zarathushtra. Unto him, O Zarathushtra, I, Ahura Mazda, spake, saying: ‘Well, fair Yima, son of Vivanghat, be thou the preacher and the bearer of my Religion!’ And the fair Yima, O Zarathushtra, replied unto me, saying: ‘I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the bearer of thy Religion.’ Then I, Ahura Mazda, said thus unto him, O Zarathushtra: ‘Since thou dost not consent to be the preacher and the bearer of my Religion, then make thou my world increase, make my world grow: consent thou to nourish, to rule, and to watch over my world.’ And the fair Yima replied unto me, O Zarathushtra, saying: ‘Yes! I will make thy world increase, I will make thy world grow. Yes! I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world. There shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind not hot wind, neither disease nor death.’

A Part of Fragard 9 of Vendidād Is About the Nine Nights’ Barashnum 1

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Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda: O most benefcent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! To whom shall they apply here below, who want to cleanse their body defled by the dead?’ Ahura Mazda answered: ‘To a pious man1, O Spitama Zarathushtra! who knows how to speak, who speaks truth, who has learned the Holy Word [manthra], who is pious, and knows best the rites of cleansing according to the law of Mazda. That man shall fell the trees of the surface of the ground on a space of nine Vibazus2 square; ‘in that part of the ground where there is least water and where there are fewest trees, the part which is the cleanest and driest, and the least passed through by sheep and oxen, and by the fre of Ahura Mazda, by the consecrated bundles of Baresma, and by the faithful.’ How far from the fre? How far from the water? How far from the consecrated bundles of Baresma? How far from the faithful? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘Thirty paces from the fre, thirty paces from the water, thirty paces from the consecrated bundles of Baresma, three paces from the faithful. www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd9sbe.htm

Tishtar Yašt 1

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Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathushtra, saying: ‘We worship the lordship and mastership [of Tishtrya], whereby he protects the Moon, the dwelling, the food, when my glorious stars come along and impart their gifts to men. I will sacrifce unto the star Tishtrya, that gives the felds their share [of waters]. ‘We ofer up libations unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, that gives happy dwelling and good dwelling; the white, shining, seen afar, and piercing; the health-bringing, loud-snorting, and high, piercing from afar with its shining, undefled rays; and unto the waters of the wide sea, the Vanguhi of wide renown, and the species of the Bull, made by Mazda, the awful kingly Glory, and the Fravashi of the holy Spitama Zarathushtra. 42

Sample Literature for Chapter 2

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‘For his brightness and glory, I will ofer unto him a sacrifce worth being heard, namely, unto the star Tishtrya.’Unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, we ofer up the libations, the Haoma and meat, the baresma, the wisdom of the tongue, the holy spells, the speech, the deeds, the libations, and the rightly-spoken words. ‘Yenhe hatam: All those beings of whom Ahura Mazda . . . . ‘We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, who is the seed of the waters, powerful, tall, and strong, whose light goes afar; powerful and highly working, through whom the brightness and the seed of the waters come from the high Apam Napat.’ For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . ‘We sacrifce unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star; for whom long focks and herds and men, looking forward for him and deceived in their hope: “When shall we see him rise up, the bright and glorious star Tishtrya? When will the springs run with waves as thick as a horse’s size and still thicker? Or will they never come?” ‘For his brightness and glory, I will ofer him a sacrifce worth being heard . . . www.avesta.org/ka/yt8sbe.htm

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3 A STYLISTIC SHIFT IN THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF PRE-ISLAMIC IRAN Te Semantics of Power to the Semantics of Politeness Narges Nematollahi

In the surviving documents from pre-Islamic Iran, one can identify two major genres of ofcial documents: ofcial letters and royal inscriptions. In this chapter, I study the style of the ofcial letters that survived from the Achaemenid Empire (550–320 bce), the Seleucids (320–129 bce), the Arsacids (129 bce–224 ce), and the Sasanids (224–650 ce) and trace the stylistic shifts that happened in this genre over time. I argue that the ofcial letters showcase a shift from the semantics of power under the Achaemenids to the semantics of politeness under the Sasanids. I further look at the Achaemenid and Sasanid royal inscriptions and identify some tokens which suggest a similar shift in the royal inscriptions. By studying the ofcial epistolary tradition in pre-Islamic Iran based on actual letters, and in the framework of politeness theories,1 this chapter provides the necessary background for more informed studies of the epistolary tradition in post-Islamic Iran, the so-called Enšā’ literature.2 The roadmap of the chapter is as follows: in the frst section, I provide a survey and analysis of the ofcial letters that survived from pre-Islamic Iran: the collections of Aramaic ofcial letters from the Achaemenid administration, the Greek inscriptional letters and announcements composed by the Seleucid rulers, the few Parthian letters preserved from the Arsacid period, and the collections of Middle Persian ofcial letters dating to the Sasanid period. In the second section, I study the development of the structure and style of the ofcial letters from the 5th century bce under the Achaemenids to the 7th century ce under the Sasanids and argue that the prominent trend in this time period can be described as a shift from the semantics of power to the semantics of politeness, similar to what is observed in Brown & Gilman’s (1960) study of the use of pronouns in some European languages. In the third section, I discuss the nature of this shift, whether internal development or contact induced under the infuence of Greece, and I argue that the shift towards politeness might have been initiated under the infuence of the Greeks. In this section, I also look at the Achaemenid and Sasanid royal inscriptions and identify some similar changes in the

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DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-4

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran

inscriptional literature, namely in the use of pluralis majestatis and epithets, both emerging after the Seleucid rule of Iran.

A Survey of the Surviving Ofcial Letters3 From Pre-Islamic Iran Under the Achaemenids (550–320 bce) The Achaemenid Empire (c.550–320 bce) emerged out of a local polity in modern Fars (Old Persian: Parsa) in southwest Iran, and under Cyrus II (r. 559–530 bce) and Cambyses II (r. 530–522 bce), it incorporated in less than thirty years the highly developed states and empires of western Asia, that is, the Neo-Babylonian Empire in Mesopotamia, Lydia in Asia Minor, Elam in the southwest of the Iranian plateau, and Egypt, as well as Media and Central Asia. Darius I (522–486 bce) added the Indus Valley to the empire, which then spanned the Hellespont in the west of modern Turkey to north India, including Egypt in the south and extending up to the frontiers of modern Kazakhstan in the north. The native language of the Achaemenid rulers was Old Persian, but their vast territory embraced several nations with diferent local languages. Furthermore, the newly established empire inherited earlier administrative languages of the conquered empires and states: Elamite used in the kingdom of Elam, Babylonian and Aramaic used in the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Lydian in Lydia, and Demotic Egyptian in Egypt. Several bilingual, trilingual, and quadrilingual inscriptions found in various regions of the empire demonstrate the complex linguistic situation under the Achaemenids. However, Aramaic, a Semitic language which had been used as the ofcial language under the previous Mesopotamian empires of Neo-Assyria (ca. 911–609 bce) and Neo-Babylon (ca. 626–539 bce), continued to be used as a prominent ofcial language under the Achaemenids. The corpus of ofcial letters in Achaemenid Iran includes a few collections of letters from diferent regions of the empire, and they are all written in Aramaic. There are three surviving collections of Achaemenid ofcial letters written in Aramaic and found in two corners of the empire: Egypt in the west and Bactria near Balkh in modern Afghanistan in the east: 1 2 3

A collection of letters known as the Arshama dossier, exchanged between the Persian satrap of Egypt and his ofcial subordinates in Egypt dating to the 5th century bce; A collection of letters exchanged between Achaemenid ofcials of the satrapy of Bactria, located to the far east of the empire dating to the 4th century bce; and Three letters exchanged between the members of a Jewish colony at Elephantine in Egypt and ofcials in Samaria and Jerusalem dating to the late 5th century bce, which are part of the massive collection of Aramaic papyri found at Elephantine.

Prior to providing some more details about the letters in each collection, we should take note of the general status of the composers of ofcial documents in Achaemenid Iran. They were professional scribes working at administrative centers in various regions of the empire whose native language could be any local language of that region. As the names of the scribes recorded in the letters suggest, the majority of them were Iranian-speaking scribes and thus non-native speakers of Aramaic, who were trained to compose ofcial letters in Aramaic. This is further confrmed by the large number of Iranian loanwords and a few syntactic infuences in the ofcial letters, as

45

Narges Nematollahi

compared to other variants of Aramaic that were used in the personal letters exchanged between native speakers of Aramaic.4

Te Arshama Dossier The full collection comprises a well-preserved, generally perfectly legible set of letters on leather, written in what is variously known as Imperial Aramaic or Ofcial Aramaic, . . . a set of eight clay sealings . . . and the fragments of two leather bags in which this assemblage is presumed to have been stored. (Tuplin & Ma 2020: 4) The collection is now kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The letters are undated, but judging from the people involved, most notably Arshama, the Persian prince of the Achaemenid period whose name is also mentioned in the dated letters of Elephantine, these letters must also date to the 5th century bce. With respect to the parties involved, the letters are exchanged between Arshama, the Achaemenid prince, estate holder, and most likely satrap of Egypt in the 5th century bce, and two other Iranian estate holders who most probably resided in Babylonia, on the one hand, and their Egyptian land stewards and Achaemenid ofcials stationed in Egypt, on the other. Judging from the titles, greeting formulas, and general tone of the letters, we can identify some letters as exchanged between people of the same rank, namely, Arshama and Artavanta, who was most likely an Achaemenid ofcial of high rank stationed in Egypt, and some from a superior to his subordinates, such as the letters from Arshama to Nakhthor, his Egyptian land steward. Most of the letters deal with Arshama and two other Iranian estate holders’ concerns about their lands in Egypt, containing orders, for example, to the Egyptian land stewards to be more diligent in collecting revenues and extending the lands, or Arshama’s request to the Achaemenid ofcial in Egypt to transfer a grant to a deceased tenant’s son, and so on.

Te Aramaic Letters From Bactria This collection is called the Khalili collection after its owner, Nasser D. Khalili, and comprises thirty documents written on leather and eighteen inscribed wooden sticks. Naveh and Shaked (2012: 15) report that the documents were acquired from several dealers in London and elsewhere over decades. The places mentioned in the documents are clearly connected to the Achaemenid satrapy of Bactria, located near modern Balkh in Afghanistan. Most relevant to our study are eight letters which were from Akhvamazda to Bagavant. Akhvamazda bears no title in any of the letters, but Bagavant is designated on one occasion as the “governor” (A2) and in almost all letters as residing in Khulmi, which is identifed by Naveh & Shaked (2012: 16) as a place near the city Kholm in modern Afghanistan. The style and content of the letters show that Akhvamazda was Bagavant’s superior, so perhaps he was the satrap of Bactria residing in Bactria/modern Balkh, which was about 80 kilometers west of the city Khulmi. Based on the dated letters, the collection dates back to the second half of the 4th century bce. The letters, all from superior to subordinate, give instructions, for example, to build fortifcations around a certain city, or contain complaints about Bagavant’s failure to fulfl his duties.

46

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran

Te Elephantine Letters According to Porten et al. (1996), at the time of constructing the Aswan Low and High Dams in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of papyri and ostraca were discovered on ancient mounds in the ancient site of Syene and the island of Elephantine, located in the modern-day Aswan region in Southern Egypt. The documents are in seven diferent scripts and languages and cover a period of around three millennia, from hieratic documents of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2575–2134 bce) to Arabic documents of the Fatimid dynasty (909–1171 ce). Among the documents, there are ffty-two Aramaic documents in total, thirty legal documents, and twenty-two letters. All the legal documents as well as some of the letters are dated. Porten (1996) attributes all the Aramaic documents to the Achaemenid period when Egypt was under the Persian rule, that is, 525–404 bce, spanning the reigns of Darius I (521–486), Xerxes (485–465), Artaxerxes I (464–424), Darius II (423–405), and Artaxerxes II (404–359). As far as the type and subject matter of the Aramaic letters are concerned, a group of them are family letters; another group was exchanged between members of the Jewish community about religious matters; and the third group, which is more relevant to our study, contains petitions written by the Jewish community to Achaemenid ofcials. Here I discuss two samples of Aramaic letters: Letter 3.1 is from superior to subordinate, from Prince Arshama to one of his land stewards, and Letter 3.2 is from subordinate to superior, from the Jewish community in Elephantine to the governor of Judea. I will also mention in passing the features of letters exchanged between peers. As we can see, while the body of the letters follow a similar tripartite format, there are differences in the praescriptio and the greeting sections based on the relative rank of the sender and recipient. As the layout shows, the letter has three sections: praescriptio, body, and signature. The format of the praescriptio is from sender to recepient, and the body can be divided into three subsections: (1) background history, which gives some context for the order; (2) the order; and (3) warning. Each subsection is marked by a transition phrase, which are bolded in the text. The order is expressed as plain imperative forms. This layout is observed repeatedly in Aramaic letters written to subordinates.6

Letter 3.1 From superior to subordinate (TAD A6.8 in Porten & Yardeni (1986–1999))5 Praescriptio Body • Background history

•

Order

•

Warning

Signature

From Arshama to Armapiya And now, Psamshek my official has sent (word) to me saying that Armapiya with the forces which is at his control do not obey me in the affairs of my lord which I am telling them. Now, Arshama says thus: The affair of my estate which Psamshek shall tell to you and to the force which is at your control, (in) that (affair) obey him and act! Thus let it be known to you, if Psamshek sends me a complaint about you, you will be questioned forcefully and a severe sentence will be produced for you. Bagasrava is cognizant of this order. Ahpepi is the scribe.

47

Narges Nematollahi Letter 3.2 From subordinate to superior: from the Jewish leaders of Elephantine to the governor of Judah (B19 in Porten (1996) = TAD A4.7 in Porten & Yardeni (1986–1999))7 Considered “the most significant of all the Elephantine Aramaic texts” (Porten 1996: 138), this letter is a petition by the Jewish priests in Elephantine to the governor of Judah. They ask for his intercession so that they can rebuild their temple, which was demolished by the Egyptian Khnum priests and the local Persian authorities three years earlier. The letter is dated “Year 17 of Darius the king,” which corresponds to 407 bce. Praescriptio Greeting

Body • Background history

•

Request

•

Reward

Date

To our lord Bagavahya governor of Judah, your (sg.) servants Jedaniah and his colleagues the priests in Elephantine the fortress. The peace of our lord, may the God of Heaven seek for abundantly at all times, and may He present you (sg.) as persona grata8 before Darius the king and the princes more than now a thousand times. May He give you (sg.) long life. Be happy and strong at all times! Now, your servant Jedaniah and his colleagues say thus: In the month of Tammuz, year 14 of Darius the king, . . . (a report of the incident followed by its aftermath) Now, your (sg.) servants, Jedaniah and his colleagues and all the Jewish citizens of Elephantine say thus: If to our lord (is) good, take thought of that temple to rebuild it! since they do not let us build it. Consider your (sg.) friends here in Egypt. Let a letter be sent from you (sg.) to them about the temple of YHW the God to build it in Elephantine fortress, just as it was built before They will offer meal-offering and the incense and the burnt-offering on the altar of YHW the God in your (sg.) name, and we shall pray for you (sg.) at all times;9 we and our wives and children and all the Jewish people here. If they do so until the temple is built, there will be a merit for you (sg.) before YHW the God of Heaven, . . . On the 20th of Marcheshvan, year 17 of Darius the king

As the layout shows, the letter has four sections: praescriptio, greeting, body, and date. The format of the praescriptio is to recipient from sender, in which the recipient is preceded by “our lord,” and the sender by “your servants.” The letter is characterized by having an extended four-fold greeting section in which the senders pray to God for the well-being of the recipient. As far as the body of the letter is concerned, we can identify the same tri-partite structure as in the Arshama letter quoted previously: (1) background history; (2) request, corresponding to the order section; and (3) reward, that is, the good things that will follow if the request is fulflled, corresponding to the warning section, which states the punishments that will follow if the order is not carried out. As far as the transition phrases are concerned, we note the phrase If to our lord (is) good, a recurring phrase in the Aramaic letters which precedes requests made to superior recipients. The corpus of ofcial Aramaic letters also includes some letters exchanged between peers, such as between Prince Arshama and Artavant, who seems to be an ofcial in Egypt. In those letters, the praescriptio follows the format of from sender to recipient, and there is a formulaic greeting section, copied in the following: šlm wšrrt šgy’ hwšrt lk wk‘t šlm bznh qdmy ’p šlm tmh qdmyk yhwy I send you (sg.) much peace and prosperity! And now, (there is) peace here before me. May there also be peace there before you (sg.)! 48

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran Table 3.1 The layout of Aramaic letters according to the relevant rank of the sender and recipient To subordinate

To equal

To superior

Praescriptio

From sender to recipient

From sender to recipient

Greeting

Absent

Body

(1) Background history (2) (Reprimand) (3) Order (4) Warning Order is in direct active voice “X is the scribe, Y is cognizant of this order”

Simple (1-sentence) or extended (2-sentence) Sender himself sends (wishes of ) peace and prosperity to the recipient (1) Background history (2) Order/request (3) (Reward) Request may be preceded by “if thus (sounds) good to you” absent

To my/our lord recipient from your servants sender Simple (1-sentence) or extended (4-sentence) Sender prays to God for the recipient’s welfare and prosperity (1) Background history (2) Request (3) Reward Request is preceded by “if thus (sounds) good to the lord” absent

Signature

In conclusion, the layout of the Aramaic letters according to the type of the letter is summarized in Table 3.1.

Under the Seleucids (320–129 bce) The Seleucid dynasty was one of the Hellenistic kingdoms, beside the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt and the Attalid kingdom in Asia Minor, which inherited the eastern part of the vast territory conquered by Alexander the Great, including the Iranian lands. In spite of a number of scholarly discussions about the nature of the Seleucid kingdom in general,10 there seems to be a consensus among scholars on Seleucid rule over Iran. Given that the Seleucids were non-native rulers who had their headquarters on the fringe of Iranian lands, their rule over Iran is generally described as “colonization” and “imperial formations.” Hannestad (2012: 986) calls the process of founding new cities throughout the empire “a program of colonization.” Furthermore, the archeological and textual data gathered from two such settlements in Iran, Seleucia-on-the-Eulaeus and Antioch-in-Persis, show that the colonies were mostly, if not exclusively, occupied by Greek, Macedonian, and southern Balkan people (Le Rider 1965: 285–287). The settlements featured a city council (boulē), an assembly (ekklesia) with an executive body (prytaneis) and citizen-body (dēmos), which indicates that their “internal political organization corresponded to the traditional decision-making organs of the Greek city-state” (Kosmin 2013: 682). Furthermore, the rich epigraphic tradition of the cities includes dedications to Greek gods as well as manumission inscriptions, which are purely Greek traditions abundantly recorded in Aegean Greece (Rougemont 2013: 796). So, in short, the Greek settlements in Iran were inhabited almost exclusively by non-Iranian people and seem to refect more than anything else the Greek way of life, with little intermingling with indigenous people and traditions. This is further confrmed by the language of the documents, which is described as being “fawlessly Greek,” in which “signs of bilingualism, of contacts between Greeks and non-Greeks, or cultural intermingling” are very rare (Rougemont 2013: 797–798). As such, we should assume that the scribes in the royal chanceries of the Seleucids were native Greek speakers, who wrote in Greek, targeting mostly, if not exclusively, the Greek settlers of the 49

Narges Nematollahi

empire. This is obviously very diferent from what we observed about the use of Aramaic in the Achaemenid administration. The apparent lack of intermingling between Greek and the Iranian indigenous languages should not discourage us from studying the Greek epistolary conventions in view of their possible infuences on later Iranian traditions under the Arsacids and the Sasanids. Even though it was the Aramaic script, and not the Greek, which was adopted for writing the Iranian languages under these dynasties, we know that the Seleucids ruled the Iranian lands for no less than 180 years, and the use of Greek continued in Iran for about two more centuries under the Arsacids, in their numismatics and in a few surviving ofcial documents (Rougemont 2013: 798–800). Furthermore, there are arguably strong indications that the Arsacids had access to the Greek language and were in fact infuenced by various aspects of Greek culture through the medium of language.11 Finally, we know from other sources that the Hellenistic culture and ideology which accompanied the Seleucid rule of Iran infuenced to varying degrees the political ideology and organization of later Iranian dynasties, that are, the Arsacids and the Sasanids.12 So we can similarly ask whether the ofcial epistolary style of the Seleucid kingdom manifested in the Greek language has infuenced the ofcial epistolary style of later Iranian dynasties, which used one or another Middle Iranian language for their administration. Royal letters from the Seleucid Empire survive only in the form of copies carved into stone monuments and installed at public places in cities. These inscriptional letters were published mostly with the purpose of commemorating the king’s words for the beneft of the community (Bencivenni 2014: 141). With respect to this particular form of letters, Bencivenni (2014: 145) notes that in the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt, another Hellenistic kingdom contemporary with the Seleucid kingdom, we have letters which survived on papyri, with some of them carved on stone if initiated by the city or asked for by the king himself. We should assume a similar situation under the Seleucids, but since in Asia Minor and the Iranian lands, the climate rarely favors the preservation of papyri, all our surviving documents in these areas are those that were published on stone. Welles’ (1934) edition of Hellenistic letters includes sixty-nine letters, mainly from the Seleucid and Attalid kings scattered through their territories, covering the time span of 311 bce to 21 ce. As for the Seleucid letters found in Iranian lands, Rougemont (2012) presents the Greek inscriptions found in Iran and Central Asia with translation and commentary. Among the inscriptions he describes, there are four ofcial letters; two letters (No. 51 and No. 66=68) are from Antiochus III (r. 222–187 bce); one (No. 52) is from his son, the crown prince Antiochus; and one (No. 80bis) is from a king, Seleucus. However, these letters are copies of letters found elsewhere in the Seleucid kingdom, and thus, there is nothing special which distinguishes the Seleucid letters found in Iran from other letters found in other parts of the Seleucid Empire. Therefore, in what follows, I provide a survey of the letters that survived from the Seleucid period based on Welles’ study of sixty-nine letters, which also include the original copies of the four royal letters found in Iran. The numbering of the letters in this section follows Welles’ (1934) numbering, and the translations are his unless mentioned otherwise. Based on the parties involved, the surviving Seleucid inscriptional letters can be put into four categories: 1 2 3 4

from the Seleucid king to a Greek city, from the Seleucid king to a state ofcial, from a state ofcial to a Greek city, from the Seleucid king to his peer, in this case, the king in Egypt. 50

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran

As such, we only have access to letters from superior to subordinate and one letter exchanged between peers. In other words, our corpus has no letter written to superiors. As far as the subject matter of the letters is concerned, we identify three major themes: 1 2

3

Order: One fnds diferent sorts of orders in these letters, such as conveyance of property or giving instructions for receiving oferings and performing sacrifces at certain sanctuaries. Approval of a request: Bencivenni notes that the majority of letters addressed to the cities are in fact “responses to cities’ embassies delivering decrees or to envoys with oral messages” and therefore contain approvals of the requests. The cities usually “asked for grants from the king and/or bestowed honors on him, especially when a change of rule occurred” (Bencivenni 2014: 155). Announcement of a new policy/appointment: As an example for the letters in this category, we can mention letter No. 36, from the king to a governor, in which the king announces a new policy which also involves a new appointment; he announces the policy to establish the new position of chief-priestess throughout the empire in the name of his queen. He then continues with announcing the name of the chief priestess in the satrapy in question.

We will discuss two samples of the Seleucid letters: Letter 3.3, which is a simple order letter from the Seleucid king to a local governor, and Letter 3.4, the so-called Heliodoros letter, which is from the king to his minister. The former is characterized by a laconic style of language, similar to what we saw in the Aramaic letters, whereas the Heliodoros letter displays a more rhetorical style. The layout of Letter 3.3, containing praescriptio, background history, order, and farewell sections, is basically similar to what we observed in the previous section for the Aramaic letters. However, we note that this letter, even though written to subordinates, includes a one-word greeting (χαίρειν “greeting”) in the praescriptio section. This one-word greeting is present in all the Greek letters in our corpus. Furthermore, the majority of the letters include a subsection in the order section in which the decision is justifed.14 In the previous letter, this section is underlined. In Letter 3.4, the king announces a new appointment, the appointment of certain Olympiodoros to taking care of certain sanctuaries. Similar to Letter 3.3, the body of the letter includes a section on justifying the appointment, followed by the statement of the appointment. However, this letter is distinct in that it features an extended section on justifying the decision, carefully designed to move from general to specifc, from the king’s concern for the safety of his subjects Letter 3.313 Letter of Antiochus I to Meleager, the governor of the Hellespontine satrapy Praescriptio Background history

Reason for the decision + order

Farewell

King Antiochus to Meleager, greeting. Aristodicides of Assus has come to us, asking us to give him in the Hellespontine satrapy Petra, which formerly Meleager held, and of the land of Petra fifteen plethora of cultivable land from the country adjacent to the . . . And we have given him both Petra, . . . and two thousand plethora of cultivable land besides, because he as our friend has furnished us services with all good-will and enthusiasm. Having made an investigation, if this Petra has not already been given to some one else, convey it with its land to Aristodicides, and . . . Farewell.

51

Narges Nematollahi Letter 3.4 (Heliodoros letter): Letter of Seleucus IV to his minister, Heliodoros15 Praescriptio Extended reasoning for the decision

Statement of the decision

King Seleucus to Heliodoros, his brother, greeting. Taking the utmost consideration for the safety of our subjects, and thinking it to be of the greatest good for the affairs in our realm when those living in our kingdom manage their life without fear, and at the same time realizing that nothing can enjoy its fitting prosperity without the good will of the gods, from the outset we have made it our concern to ensure that the sanctuaries founded in the other satrapies receive the traditional honors with the care befitting them. But since the affairs in Coele-Syria and Phoenicia stand in need of appointing someone to take care of these (i.e., sanctuaries), we observed that Olympiodoros would prudently see to their proper conduct . . .

to his commitment to taking care of the sanctuaries. It is only after the extended introduction that the main topic of the letter is discussed. With respect to the use of rhetorical fgures in Seleucid ofcial letters, Welles (1934) identifes “a neglect of rhetoric” as a general characteristic of not only the “purely administrative notes but also of texts of more ‘diplomatic’ character” (xlvi). However, as we saw in Heliodoros’ letter, there are also letters whose language is far from being laconic and can be characterized by a careful use of rhetorical fgures, including balanced sections, triads, antitheses, and so on.16 Based on our discussion of the Seleucid letters, we can compare the Greek ofcial epistolary style with that of Aramaic as follows: • •

In the letters written to subordinates, the praescriptio in both the Greek and Aramaic ofcial letters has the format of “(from) sender to recipient.” The body can be described as having a bipartite structure: the background history, followed by the order. The major diferences are:

• • •

In the letters written to subordinates, the Aramaic convention includes no greetings, whereas the Greek letters have a one-word greeting. The Greek letters, unlike the Aramaic ones, may have a section in which the sender justifes the order. Although the style of the language in the majority of the Greek letters is laconic, similar to what we saw for the Aramaic letters, there are also letters which are carefully designed and display a wide array of rhetorical fgures.

Under the Arsacids (129 bce–224 ce) The Arsacids, otherwise known as the Parthians,17 ruled the Iranian plateau and beyond after the Hellenistic period of the Seleucids. The Arsacid era marks the transition period when the heritage of Aramaic and Greek epistolary stylistics is employed in writing ofcial letters for the frst time in an Iranian language, Parthian, which was the native language of the Arsacid kings. Unfortunately, only few pieces of ofcial documents have been preserved from this period. Judging from our admittedly limited data for ofcial documents in the Arsacid period, the state languages of the Arsacids can be described as follows: Greek, the ofcial language of the 52

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran

former dynasty, continued to be used throughout the Arsacid period, within the former Greek cities (two Greek poems celebrating the satrap of Susa),18 and in addressing them (the Greek letter by Artabanus II),19 as well as in legal documents (Awrāmān’s sale contracts)20 and on coinage.21 It was most likely considered the prestige language. However, the Nisa economic documents of the 2nd and 1st centuries bce,22 followed by several other ofcial documents, including coins from the 1st century ce onwards, as well as royal inscriptions and legal documents,23 all written in the Parthian language using an adopted version of the Aramaic script, show that the Parthian language gradually became the dominant ofcial and administrative language in Arsacid territory. Finally, the more or less decentralized Arsacid rule led certain local rulers to mint coins and write inscriptions in their local languages, including the Fratarakas in Persis writing in early Middle Persian and Kamnaskirid and Characene kingdoms in Elymaean and Mesene writing in local variants of Aramaic.24 Before describing the data, we should make a brief note about the Parthian writing system: a signifcant feature of the Parthian texts, which is also observed in the Middle Persian texts of Sasanid times, is the scribal practice of writing heterograms, also known as logograms or Aramaeograms, that is, Aramaic words which function as masks for their corresponding Iranian words; for example, ZNH, the Aramaic word for “this,” was to be read /im/, the Parthian word for “this,” when it was used in a Parthian text.25 The convention in transliteration of the Parthian, and for that matter Middle Persian, texts is that the Aramaic heterograms are transliterated in capital letters, as opposed to the phonetically written Iranian words, which are transliterated in small letters. The small corpus of ofcial letters that survived from the Arsacid period includes three ofcial letters, of which only two are accessible in print: 1 2 3

Scribal exercises of the introductory epistolary formula found in Nisa ostraca, probably dating to the 1st century bce. The Parthian parchment found in Dura-Europos, uncertain date (Henning 1959; Harmatta 1957). Draft of an ofcial letter found in Nisa dated to 88 bce. Livshits & Nikitin (1994) put this letter among the unedited texts. I did not fnd a further reference to its publication.

In what follows, I provide more details about the frst two letters listed previously.

Te Scribal Exercises Found in Nisa The excavation of several buildings with diferent administrative functions in Nisa, as well as the discovery of a considerable number of ostraca in the city with administrative or economic contents dating to the 1st century bce, mark Nisa as an administrative city of the early Parthian period (Invernizzi 2012; Diakonof & Livshits 1976–2001). In addition to economic documents found at Nisa, Harmatta (1981) reports on four ostraca with scribal writing exercises of introductory formulae of letters, where the same introductory greeting phrases are repeated over and over again. The writing exercises were most probably done by students of scribeship in their training to serve as ofcial scribes. Harmatta (1981) provides an edition of these scribal practices.

Te Parthian Parchment in Dura-Europos Dura Europos is located to the east of modern Syria near the border with Iraq. The archeological fndings of the city include many documents in Greek and Latin, as well as a few in Parthian and Middle Persian, including one parchment in the Parthian script which contains the beginning 53

Narges Nematollahi Letter 3.5 The Parthian letter from Dura-Europos MN snysrk(n) ‘L (ḥ)wsrw- ḥn(dymn)26 ŠLM W-ŠRRT ŠGY’ (ḤW)ŠRT L-MR’Y QDM ḥwtwy KTYT wspz(m)ny ŠL(M) (Ḥ)WY(t) ’wgwn šwgwn ḥwtwy B-NPŠH ṢBW ’brzwk ḤWYt B-k’m NP(ŠH) . . . (ḥ)wsrw “From Sānēsarakān to Husraw-handēmān(?). I send my Lord (greetings of ) peace and much prosperity. Before the Lord there shall be peace, fixedly for all time. So as it may be the Lord’s desire in his affairs, so according to his own wish [LARGE GAP]. Husraw . . .”

section of a letter. Unfortunately, the body of the text has not been preserved, and the parties involved cannot be identifed. The text is edited and discussed briefy in Henning (1954, 1959) and at greater length in Harmatta (1957). Henning (1959: 415) notes that “since neither of the two persons can be identifed, the date of the letter cannot be determined, . . . it was probably written in the frst half of the 3rd century, but might belong even to the 2nd century.” With respect to the language of the text, even though the letter still uses several Aramaic ideograms, the use of such Iranian words as ’wgwn, ḥwtwy, and ’brzwk, as well as the syntax of the text, mark the language as Parthian rather than Aramaic. As such, the Parthian letter in Dura Europos is our earliest evidence for a letter written in an Iranian language. As a sample letter from the Arsacid period, I quote the Dura-Europos letter in Letter 3.5, of which only the praescriptio and the greeting sections have been preserved. There are slight diferences between Henning’s (1954, 1959) and Harmatta’s (1957) readings of the text. I quote Henning’s reading in transcription and translation. In what follows, I discuss the praescriptio and the greeting sections of this letter in view of the epistolary conventions of Aramaic. Praescriptio: In Harmatta’s reading, the use of the word “lord” in the praescriptio suggests that the letter is from a subordinate to his superior. In Henning’s reading also, even though “lord” is not there in the praescriptio, it is used later on in the greeting section. So we should assume that the letter was sent from a subordinate to his superior. In this case, we can compare the praescriptio in this letter with ‘l mr’n bgwhy pḥt yhwd ‘bdyk ydnyh “To our lord Bagavahya governor of Judah, your servants Jedaniah” in Letter 3.2, discussed previously. However, a signifcant diference is that in the Parthia letter, the name of the subordinate sender precedes that of the superior recipient, which is not the case in the Aramaic letters. We can assume two possibilities to account for this: 1

2

The epistolary convention in Parthian is diferent from Aramaic in that the order of names in the praescriptio of Parthian letters follows the order of sender-recipient, as opposed to superior-subordinate in Aramaic.27 Alternatively, we can assume that the Parthian word xvaδāv “lord” does not refect a large gap in hierarchy; rather, it is used as a polite title of address which can be used to address peers too. In this case, even though the sender addresses the recipient as “lord,” he is not in a subordinate position. The Dura-Europos letter then represents a letter exchanged between peers, and the order of names in the praescriptio does not deviate from the Aramaic practice (see Table 3.1).

Now, looking forward at the Middle Persian material of Sasanian times, to be discussed below in “Under the Sasanids (224–650 ce),” we can confrm that it is a common practice in Middle Persian letters to use xwadāy “lord” (corresponding to Parthian xvaδāv) in reference to the recipient regardless of his status. On the other hand, the format sender-recipient fnds no parallels in 54

Stylistic Shif in the Ofcial Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran

Aramaic conventions (which follow superior-subordinate order), nor in Middle Persian letters (which follow the order recipient-sender). So the second possibility sounds more likely than the frst one. Greeting: There is a three-sentence greeting in this letter. In the frst sentence, ŠLM W-ŠRRT ŠGY’ ḤWŠRT L-MR’Y, all the words are Aramaic heterograms, which suggests that the entire Aramaic greeting phrase was transferred to Parthian as a stereotyped form. Comparing this Parthian greeting with the inventory of greeting phrases in Aramaic, we observe that the Parthian greeting shares some features with the Aramaic greetings to peers and some features with those to superiors: On the one hand, the Parthian greeting is most similar to the Aramaic greeting exchanged between peers, which is quoted in the following: šlm wšrrt šgy’ hwšrt lk wk‘t šlm bznh qdmy ’p šlm tmh qdmyk yhwy I send you (sg.) much peace and prosperity! And now, (there is) peace here before me. May there also be peace there before you (sg.)! On the other hand, we see that in the Parthian greeting, ‫ לך‬/lk/ “to you (sg.)” is replaced by L-MR’Y “to my lord,” and ‫ קדמיך‬/qdmyk/ “before you (sg.)” is replaced by QDM ḥwtwy “before the lord.” Furthermore, the Parthian greeting uses two intensifying adverbs: KTYT “fxedly/unshakably”28 and wspz(m)ny “at all times,” which are absent in greetings to peers in Aramaic letters. Addressing the recipient as “my lord” instead of “you” and the use of intensifying adverbs are features of Aramaic greeting phrases to superiors, as we saw in Letter 3.2. So in short, the frst part of the Parthian greeting stands between the Aramaic greeting to peers and the one to superiors. On the one hand, the recipient is addressed as “my lord” and the greeting uses intensifying adverbs, and, on the other hand, the sender uses frst person “I send peace and prosperity” instead of praying to God for the peace and prosperity of the recipient. This discrepancy fnds an explanation if we look at the Middle Persian data: as we shall see in “Under the Sasanids (224–650 ce),” Middle Persian letters avoid making direct references to the recipient in the greeting and body sections and use epithets like “lord” instead. This observation can justify the use of “lord” in the Parthian letter in reference to a recipient who is not necessarily of a higher rank relative to the sender. The last sentence of the greeting, So as it may be the Lord’s desire in his afairs, so according to his own wish, does not have a parallel in the inventory of Aramaic greetings accessible to us, and thus we should consider it an Iranian innovation. This assumption is further supported by the fewer Aramaic heterograms used in this sentence: Apart from NPŠH “self,” ṢBW “afair, thing,” and the copula, which are all among the frequently used heterograms in Parthian, other words of the sentence are Parthian, namely ’wgwn šwgwn “so . . . as,” ḥwtwy “lord,” ’brzwk “desire,” and k’m “wish.” In conclusion to this section, based on the extremely limited data for the epistolary conventions under the Arsacids, the Parthian epistolary conventions follow in principle the Aramaic conventions, with some modifcations: the beginning part of the greeting is copied verbatim from Aramaic written in Aramaic heterograms. There is, however, an additional sentence which seems to be an Iranian innovation, having no parallels in the Aramaic inventory of greeting phrases and using mostly Parthian words. Furthermore, it seems that Parthian uses the epithet “lord,” written as MR’Y or ḥwtwy, more freely than does Aramaic to denote not only people of higher rank but also in reference to peers. This trend, as we shall see in the following section, continues in the Middle Persian tradition. 55

Narges Nematollahi

Under the Sasanids (224–650 ce) The Sasanids, people of the family of Sasan originating from the province of Persis (modern day Fārs in southwestern Iran), ruled the Iranian plateau and beyond for about four centuries before the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century ce. The ofcial language of the Sasanids was Middle Persian, also known as Pahlavi, the native language of the Sasanid kings. It is a western Middle Iranian language and shares many similarities with Parthian, the ofcial language of the Arsacid dynasty. Fortunately, the corpus of Middle Persian is larger than that of Parthian and gives us access to not only some inscriptional data dating to the beginning of the dynasty in the 3rd century ce29 but also to a collection of texts under the general title Book Pahlavi, which are believed to refect Sasanian practices and materials, even though they are preserved only through manuscripts of some centuries later. With respect to the epistolary corpus in particular, we have one letter dating to the 3rd century ce and three collections of letters dating to the 6th–8th century ce. We also have a short manual on writing letters which belongs to the corpus of Book Pahlavi. In the development of the ofcial epistolary style in Iran, the Middle Persian data from the Sasanian Empire is signifcant for two reasons: apart from the small amount of data preserved in Parthian, which we discussed in the previous section, the letters in Middle Persian represent the frst surviving ofcial letters written in an Iranian language almost half a millennium after the Achaemenid ofcial letters written in Aramaic. As I will discuss later, the epistolary conventions in Middle Persian refect to certain degree the inherited Aramaic conventions but also reveal certain divergences and innovations. Furthermore, as the early Islamic sources frequently mention, the administrative practices in the Sasanid Empire, which was one of the two major empires conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century, infuenced to a large extent the administrative system of the emerging Islamic Empire, the ofcial language of which was Arabic frst and was replaced later by New Persian within the Iranian lands. As such, the style and format of ofcial letters in Middle Persian under the Sasanids was one of the potential sources in forming the ofcial epistolary style in Arabic and later in New Persian. Before presenting the data, a brief note about the script of the letters is in order. Similar to Parthian, Middle Persian also uses Aramaic heterograms in its writing system, that is, words written in Aramaic but pronounced and understood as the corresponding word in Middle Persian (e.g., ŠRM ; Utas, “Prosody,” 117; de Bruijn, “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature,” 373; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 127. On the origins of the ghazal, see: Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 128; Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, 237–238, no. 1. On the ghazal in general, see: Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation”; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal”; Paul E. Losnesky, “Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects of the Signature Verse (Takhallus) in the Persian Ghazal,” Edebiyât 8 (1998): 239–271; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry,” in Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500: Ghazals, Panegyrics, and Quatrains, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 315–487 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2019). de Bruijn, in “The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry” (348–349), makes a similar argument and argues that we should look to the pre-New Persian minstrel tradition for clues. L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 174–175; L. P. Elwell-Sutton, “The “Rubāʿī” in Early Persian Literature,” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, The Period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs, ed. Richard N. Fyre, 633–657 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); J. T. P. de Bruijn, B. Flemming, and Munibur Rahman, “Mat̲ h̲nawī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs, 2nd ed. (2012), http://dx.doi.org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1163/1573–3912_ islam_COM_0709>; Ahmad Tafazzoli, “FAHLAVĪYĀT,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (1999): www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fahlaviyat; Utas, “Prosody,” 116–121; Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” 612–614; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 126. For the argument for an Arabic origin of the robāʿi, see: Tilman Seidensticker, “An Arabic Origin of the Persian Rubāʿī?,” Middle Eastern Literatures 14, no. 2 (2011): 155–169. For a discussion of the possible Turkish or even Chinese origin of the roba’i, see: C. H. de Fouchecour, G. Doerfer, and W. Stoetzer, “Rubāʿī (Pl. Rubāʿiyyāt),” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. 2nd ed. (2012), http://dx.doi.org.proxy-um.researchport.umd. edu/10.1163/1573–3912_islam_COM_0933; Utas, “Prosody,” 120. Elwell-Sutton, Persian Metres, 170–171; Boyce, “Pārthīān Gōsān and the Iranian Minstrel Tradition”; Bo Utas, “Arabic and Iranian Elements in New Persian Prosody,” in Arabic Prosody and Its Applications in Muslim Poetry, ed. Lars Johanson and Bo Utas, 129–141 (Uppsala: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1994), 140; Utas, “Prosody”; Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” 614–628; S. Shaked and Z. Safa. “ANDARZ,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (1985), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/andarz-precept-instruction-advice. de Bruijn, “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature,” 372. On robāʿi, see studies cited in footnote #18. On motaqāreb, see studies cited in following note and: Jalāl Khāleghi-Motlagh, “Pirāmun-e Vazn-e Shāh-Nāmeh,” Irān-Shenāsi 2, no. 5 (1369 [1990–1991]): 48–63; Elwell-Sutton, Persian Metres, 172–174. Elwell-Sutton, Persian Metres, 58, 57–69, 168–222, 243–245; L. P. Elwell-Sutton, “ʿArūz,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (1986), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aruz-the-metrical-system; Utas, “Arabic and Iranian Elements in New Persian Prosody”; Gilbert Lazard, “Prosody i. Middle Persian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (2006), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/poetry-iv-poetics-of-middle-persian; Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” 612–614. de Bruijn et al., “Mat̲ h̲nawī”; Utas, “Prosody,” 116–117; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 126, no. 32.

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Genre in Classical Persian Poetry 24 Finn Thiesen, A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody: With Chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman Prosody (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1982), 12, 112–121. Also see studies cited in footnotes #21–22 for more motaqāreb. 25 Thiessen, A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody, 166–173; Elwell-Sutton, Persian Metres, 58–60, 80, 99, 110, 174, 252–255. Also see studies cited in footnote #18 for more on robāʿi. Both Thiessen and Elwell-Sutton have recommended dispensing with the tradition terminology drawn from the Arabic metrical system for describing the metrical pattern of robāʿiyyāt and instead just refer to the “robāʿi metre.” For a general overview of the Persian robāʿi, see: A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains,” in Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500: Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 488–568 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2019). 26 Franklin D. Lewis, “The Rise and Fall of a Persian Refrain: The RADĪF ‘ĀTASH U ĀB,’” in Reorientations: Arabic and Persian Poetry, ed. Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, 199–226 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994); Utas, “Prosody,” 114–115. 27 This point recently has been echoed by de Bruijn as well. See: de Bruijn, “The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry.” 28 By “formal types,” I mean generic categories that are determined strictly by formal features (e.g., such as length, rhyme scheme, etc.) without regard to the poems’ internal thematic characteristics. 29 Kamāl al-Din Hoseyn Vāʾez Kāshef Shirāzi, Badāʾeʿ al-afkār f sanāʾeʿ al-ashʿār, ed. Mir Jalāl al-Din Kazzāzi (Tehrān: Nashr-e Markaz, 1369 [1990–1991]), 69, 71–81. Kāshef’s phrase here “divisions and genres of poetry” (aqsām va anvāʿ-e sheʿr) and similar ones by Shams-e Qays, Tāj al-Halāvi, and Kāshef (e.g., Shams-e Qays’s “kinds of poetry and types of verse,” or ajnās-e sheʿr va anvāʿ-e nazm) seem to refer to a broad range of fxed forms, components of poems, poetic devices, and, in the case of Kāshef at least, thematic genres. See Shams al-Din Mohammad Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam f maʿāyir-e ashʿār-e al-ʿajam, ed. ʿAllāmeh Mohammad ben ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Qazvini et al. (Tehrān: Nashr-e ʿElm, 1388 [2009–2010]), 342, 416f; ʿAli ebn Mohammad Tāj al-Halāvi, Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr, ed. Seyyed Mohammad Kāzemi Emām (Tehrān: Dāneshgāh-e Tehrān, 1962), 81. Marta Simidchieva has analyzed Kāshef’s work in depth and positioned it in the tradition of Persian poetic treatises. See: Marta Simidchieva, “Imitation and Innovation in Timurid Poetics: Kashif’s Badāyiʿ al-Afkār and Its Predecessors, al-Muʿjam and Hadāʾiq al-sihr,” Iranian Studies 36, no. 4 (2003): 509–530. 30 Kāshef Shirāzi, Badāʾeʿ al-afkār, 81–83. 31 Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani, Sovar-e khayāl dar sheʿr-e Fārsi: tahqiq-e enteqādi dar tatavvor-e imāzhhā-ye sheʿr-e Pārsi va seyar-e nazariyyeh-ye balāghat dar Eslām va Irān (Tehrān: Āgāh, 1350 [1971–1972]), 377–378. Shafʿi-Kadkani repeated this form-centric view to me in person at the conference Fools and Vagabonds: Non-Violence in the Islamic Mystical Tradition (Leiden University, June 4, 2015). 32 See, for example, Zayn al-ʿĀbedin Moʾtaman, Tahavvol-e sheʿr-e Fārsi (Tehrān: Ketāb-forushi-ye Mostafavi, 1339 [1960–1961]); Mohammad Jaʿfar Mahjub, Sabk-e Khorāsāni dar sheʿr-e Fārsi: mokhtasāt-sabki-ye sheʿr-e Fārsi az āghāz-e zohur tā pāyān-e qarn-e panjom-e hejri (Tehrān: Chāp-khāneh-ye Sāzmān-e Tarbiyyat-e Mo’allem va Tahqiqāt-e Tarbiyati, 1345 [1966–1967]); Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani, “Anvāʿ-e adabi va sheʿr-e Fārsi,” Majalleh-ye Kherad Va Kushesh 11–12 (1352 [1973–1974]): 97–98; Sirus Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi (Tehrān: Nashr-e Mitrā, 1370 [1991–1992]). 33 Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 54. 34 Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 223–254. 35 Bo Utas, “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900,” in Literary Genres: An Intercultural Approach, ed. Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, vol. 2, 199–241 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 202–203, 210–215, 229, 231. 36 For more on the concept of esteemed genre and systematic poetics, see: Earl Miner, “On the Genesis and Development of Literary Systems: Part I,” Critical Inquiry 5, no. 2 (1978): 339–353; Earl Miner, “On the Genesis and Development of Literary Systems: Part II,” Critical Inquiry 5, no. 3 (1979): 553–558. Despite Miner’s misconceptions about Arabic and Persian poetics – he claims in a note that “[n]either Arabic nor Persian literature has an originative poetics per se” – his theory of a literary tradition’s systematic poetics developing in response to an esteemed genre is actually quite useful for the study of Persian and Arabic poetics. See Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics: An Intercultural Essay on Theories of Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 82n1. 37 G. J. H. van Gelder, “Some Brave Attempts at Generic Classifcation in Premodern Arabic Literature,” in Aspects of Genre and Type in Pre-Modern Literary Cultures, ed. Bert Roest and Herman Vanstiphout, 15–31 (Groningen: Styx, 1999), 19–20; Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 27–30. See also Breatice Gruendler on Arabic maʿāni collections: “Motif vs. Genre: Refections on the Dīwān al-Ma’ānī of

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38 39

40 41

42

43

44

45

46

47

Abū Hilāl al-’Askarī,” in Ghazal as World Literature I: Transformations of a Literary Genre, eds. Thomas Bauer and Angelika Neuwirth, 57–85 (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2005). Meisami, Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry, 437–438, no. 35; G. J. H. van Gelder, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 142–143. Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam, 226; Rashid al-Din Vatvāt, Divān-e Rashid al-Din Vatvāt Saʿid bā ketāb-e hadāʾeq al-sehr f Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr, ed. Saʿid Nafsi (Tehrān: Ketāb-khāneh-ye Bārāni, 1339 [1960– 1961), 705. The page numbers cited here are where these authors provide a specifc list of these themes, but see also the way in which they discuss poetic excerpts throughout these works. Shafʿi-Kadkani, Sovar-e khayāl dar sheʿr-e Fārsi, 378. C. H. de Fouchecour emphasizes this point as well, asserting in his overview of classical Persian literature that “[t]he question of thematic genres in Persian poetry requires further study, given the wealth of the material and the frequent references in traditional manuals and anthologies.” See: Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, “IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (2) Classical,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (2006), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-viii2-classical-persian-literature. Specifcally, Lewis examines the poetry of Daqiqi, Shahid-e Balkhi, Rudaki, Mohammad ben Vasif, Gorgāni, Farrokhi, ʿOnsori, Labibi, ʿAmʿaq-e Bokhārāʾi, Masʿud-e Saʿd Salmān, Abu al-Faraj Runi, ʿAbd al-Vāseʿ Jabali. See Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 49–60, and his “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 129–133. Shamīsa adds an example from Anvari and Zahir-e Fāryābi. See: Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 55–56. Lewis has studied the development of the ghazal from a thematic section of the polythematic qasideh and thematic genre into a formal genre. See: Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal”; Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 53–60. This process took centuries, and a lot of shorter, monothematic poems from the earliest period now labeled “ghazals” may not have always been considered such. As Shahla Farghadani has recently pointed out, even some Safavid-Mughal tazkereh writers, such as Vāleh Dāghestāni (d.1756), did not consider pre-Saʿdi shorter monothematic poems true “ghazals” but rather “ghazals . . . in the manner of qasida” (her translation). See her “A History of Style and a Style of History: The Hermeneutic of Tarz in Persian Literary Criticism,” Iranian Studies 55, no. 2 (2022): 510–511, doi: 10.1017/irn.2021.2. On this point, also see Matthew Thomas Miller, “The Poetics of the Suf Carnival: The Rogue Lyrics (Qalandariyyāt) as Heterotopic Countergenre(s) (b),” Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists 30 (2022): 10, https://journals.library. columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/uw30mmiller. Lewis, Shamīsā, Utas, and Farghadani have all discussed this poem. See: Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 135; Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 54–55; Utas, “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900,” 210–211; Farghadani, “A History of Style and a Style of History.” Persian text of this passage can be found in Afzal al-Din Khāqāni Shervāni, Divān-e Khāqāni Shervāni, ed. Ziyā al-Din Sajjādi (Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Zavvār, 1388 [2009–2010]), 926–927. Utas concurs on this point too, remarking “there must have been some idea of a fxed system of poetic themes at that time.” See: Utas, “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900,” 210–211. While the identity of these “ten poetry styles” is not made clear in the text, there are some obvious candidates. Shamisā relates, and seemingly agrees with, Ziyā al-Din Sajjādi’s interpretation of this verse that these ten styles are as follows: “nasib va tashbib, mofākhereh, hamāseh, madh, resā, hejā, eʿtezār, shekvā, vasf, hekmat va akhlāq” (Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 55). While I agree that many of these are candidates for the “ten styles,” the three thematic categories that Khāqāni himself mentions in the very next line – namely, spiritual (tahqiq), homiletic (vaʿz), and ascetic poetry (zohd) – also need to be included in this list of ten styles (whether as one category or more than one I am not entirely sure). For an in-depth discussion of what “shiveh,” and related terms such as “tarz” and “tariq,” meant in premodern Persian poetry and poetic criticism, see Farghadani’s recent study, “A History of Style and a Style of History.” These verses are a comment – related by Saʿdi – of another person on Saʿdi’s inability to write in the heroic epic genre. Translation is mine. Persian text can be found in Mosleh ben ʿAbd Allāh Saʿdi, Kolliyyāt-e Saʿdi, ed. Bahāʾ al-Din Khorramshāhi (Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Dustān, 1389 [2010–2011]), 284. There is a mistaken notion in some contemporary Arabic and Persian literary scholarship that the thematic genre terms such as khamriyyāt and qalandariyyāt are an invention of modern literary critics and have no historical basis in medieval Arabic poetry. This assertion is patently false. J. E. Bencheikh, Douglass Young, and Ashk Dahlén advance this claim in their studies, and it likely originates in Bencheikh’s otherwise excellent and important study. See: Ashk P. Dahlén, “The Holy Fool in

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Genre in Classical Persian Poetry Medieval Islam: The Qalandarīyāt of Fakhr al-Dīn ʿArāqī,” Orientalia Suecana 53 (2004): 71; Douglass C. Young, “Wine and Genre: Khamriyya in the Andalusī Maqāma,” in Wine, Women, and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature of Medieval Iberia, 87–99 (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2004), 91; J. E. Bencheikh, “K̲h̲amriyya,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs, 2nd ed. (2013), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/ entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/khamriyya-COM_0491. 48 Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Literary Theory: The Problem of Its Efciency,” in Arabic Poetry: Theory and Development, 19–69 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1973), 25, 36, 42–43; M. M. Badawi, “From Primary to Secondary Qasīdas: Thoughts on the Development of Classical Arabic Poetry,” Journal of Arabic Literature 11 (1980): 13–31; M. M. Badawi, “ʿAbbasid Poetry and Its Antecedents,” in ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), ed. Julia Ashtiany and T. M. Johnstone, 146–66 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Andras Hamori, “Zuhdiyyāt,” in ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), ed. Julia Ashtiany and T. M. Johnstone, 265– 274 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); F. Harb, “Khamriyyāt,” in ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), ed. Julia Ashtiany and T. M. Johnstone, 219–234 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Noorani, “Heterotopia and the Wine Poem in Early Islamic Culture”; Gregor von Schoeler, “Bashshār B. Burd, Abūʾl-ʿAtahiyah, and Abū Nuwās,” in ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), ed. Julia Ashtiany and T. M. Johnstone, 275–299 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); G. Rex Smith, “Hunting Poetry (Tardiyāt),” in ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), ed. Julia Ashtiany and T. M. Johnstone, 167–184 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Julie Scott Meisami, “Arabic Mujūn Poetry: The Literary Dimension,” in Verse and the Fair Sex: Studies in Arabic Poetry and the Representation of Women in Arabic Literature, ed. Frederick de Long, 8–30 (Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting, 1993); Philip F. Kennedy, The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abū Nuwās and the Literary Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 30–45, 66; Bencheikh, “K̲h̲amriyya”; Philip F. Kennedy, “Zuhdiyya,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al., 2nd ed. (2013), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/ zuhdiyya-COM_1392. The proliferation of thematic subgenres (e.g., khamriyyāt, tardiyyāt, zohdiyyāt, mojuniyyāt) is usually traced to the Arabic mohdathun poets of the ʿAbbasid period, but several scholars have pointed out that the mohdathun were actually building on some earlier Arabic poets’ work on these same themes. Hamori (266–267) and Schoeler (287) note, for example, that the prison poems of the ʿAdī b. Zayd (d.ca. 600 ce) can be considered a precursor of the later zohdiyyāt and may be indebted to the homiletic tradition of the Eastern Church. Kennedy (2013) and Schoeler (287) also add that the “pious/didactic” poetry of Sābik al-Barbarī and Sālih b. ʿAbd al-Qoddus is an important forerunner of the classical zohdiyyat poetry of the ʿAbbasid period poets (especially Abu al-ʿAtāhiyah). Moreover, on the topic of ghazal and khamriyyāt, Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 443n22; Schoeler, 280–286, 291, 296–297; Bencheikh, “K̲h̲amriyya”; and Badawi, “From Primary to Secondary Qasīdas,” 13–18; “ʿAbbasid Poetry and Its Antecedents,” 152–164, also note other parallels in the ʿOdhrī and Hejāzī love poetry and the wine and libertine poetry of al-Walid ibn Yazīd, ʿAdī b. Zayd, al-Ashʿa Maymun, Abu Mihjān al-Thaqafī, al-Oqayshīr al-Asadī, Wālibah b. al-Hobāb, and Abu Dulāmah, among others. 49 Abu Nowās’s (d.813) divān was organized into thematic genres by al-Suli (d.946) and Hamzah al-Esfahāni (d.ca. 970); Abu Tammām’s (d.845), by Hamzah al-Esfahāni; Ebn al-Moʿtazz’s (d.908), by al-Suli; and Saf al-Din al-Helli (d.1349) and al-Bohtori’s (d.897) divāns also organized into thematic genres. Some of these thematic genres are mentioned in the poetic manuals Naqd al-Sheʿr by Qodamāʾ b. Jaʿfar (d.ca. 932) and al-ʿOmdah by Ebn Rashiq (d.ca. 1065). For more details on thematic divān organization in the Arabic tradition, see: Gregor von Schoeler, “Die Einteilung der Dichtung bei den Arabern,” Zeitschriften Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 123 (1973): 35–53; Kennedy, Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry, 4–5; Kennedy, “Zuhdiyya.” For a list of traditional thematic content genres in Abbasid Arabic divans, see: Ewald Wagner, Die Überlieferung des Abū Nuwās-Dīwān und seine Handschriften (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaftten und der Literatur, 1958). There are also other less commonly mentioned thematic genres, such as poems focused on types of fowers (e.g., zahriyyāt, nawriyyāt), on which see: Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Rose versus Narcissus: Observations on an Arabic Literary Debate,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East, ed. G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout, 179–198 (Leuven: Department Oriëntalistiek, 1991). 50 See studies of Kennedy, Hamori, and Meisami cited in footnote #48.

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Matthew Tomas Miller 51 The concern with thematic categorization in Arabic literature extends beyond the divān. Cameron Cross has shown that narrative genres were occasionally topically identifed. For example, the famous bookseller of Baghdad, Ebn al-Nadim (d.ca. 995), in his Fehrest, uses a number of highly specifc categories for love stories in his chapter on “evening tales” (asmār), “fables” (khorāfat), and books on “tricks (khiyal ) and “talismans” (telesmāt), which, to me, may suggest the existence of a more general “romance genre” at this time (Cameron Cross, Love at a Crux: The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages, chapter one (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Forthcoming)). Also, there are some similarities between the specifcity of these sub-categories in Ebn al-Nadim’s work and ʿAttār’s large number of highly specifc sub-categories for robāʿiyyāt on love themes in the Mokhtār-Nāmeh – at least in the sense that the apparent need to sub-categorize at such a fne level of distinction hints at the existence of a broader thematic genre (e.g., “romance” epics, “love” poetry) that unites all of its constituent sub-types. For an overview of romantic epic poetry, see Cross’ book and Julia Rubanovich, “In the Mood of Lovers: Love Romances in Medieval Persian Poetry and Their Sources,” in Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond, ed. Carolina Cupane and Bettina Krönun, 67–94 (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 52 Shams-e Qays, in his brief defnition of the ghazal, describes it as monothematic in focus and “shortened” (maqsur) – that is, presumably, “shortened” or “cut-of ” in comparison to the longer and frequently polythematic qasideh. His comment may be the frst evidence in the poetic treatise tradition for the development shorter, monothematic forms of poetry. See Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam, 226, 418– 419. On this section of Shams-e Qays, see also Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 63–64; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 133. See also comments and studies in footnote #43 on whether these new shorter monothematic poems should be understood as ghazals or something else. 53 It is worth considering to what extent the development of monothematic types may also have happened in conjunction with the development of diferent nasib types. On diferent nasib types, see Gabrielle van den Berg’s observations on the nasibs of Farrukhi Sistāni’s qasidehs in “The Nasibs in the Divan of Farrukhi Sistani: Poetic Speech versus the Refection of Reality,” Edebiyât 9 (1998): 24–26. 54 I have included citations here both from works where it is clear the author is referring to a particular group of poems by using the Arabic genre marker -iyyāt or a thematic adjective with a poetic form or where the author introduces the discussion with phrases such as “most of their poems are on [insert theme],” indicating that he sees the unit of the poem as primarily “on” a particular topic. For a more detailed discussion of all the terms discussed in this section and the works in which they appear, see: Matthew Thomas Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (a): The ‘Rogue Lyrics’ (Qalandariyyāt) of Sanāʾi, ʿAttār, and ʿErāqi” (PhD diss., St. Louis: Washington University in Saint Louis, 2016), appendix 2. 55 Many of these terms are echoed in Kāshef’s work discussed previously as well. 56 Vatvāt, Divān-e Rashid al-Din Vatvāt Saʿid bā ketāb-e hadāʾeq al-sehr f Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr (ed. Nafsi), 648; Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam, 223, 411; Mohammad ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, ed. Edward Browne et al. (Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Hermes, 1389 [2010–2011]), 415–418; Tāj al-Halāvi, Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr, 81–82. 57 ʿOnsor al-Maʿāli Kaykāvus ebn Voshmgir, Qābus-Nāmeh, ed. Gholāmhoseyn Yusef (Tehrān: Sherkat-e Enteshārāt-e ʿElm va Farhang, 1345 [1966–1967]), 191; Nezāmi ʿAruzi Samarqandi, Chahār maqāleh va taʿliqāt, ed. Allāmeh Mohammad Qazvini and Mohammad Moʿin (Tehrān: Nashr-e Moʿin, 1388 [2009–2010]), 104–105, 127; Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam, 367–68, 413; Shams al-Din Mohammad ebn Fakhr al-Din Saʿid Fakhri Esfahāni, Meʿyār-e Jamāli, ed. Yahyā Kārdgar (Tehrān: Ketāb-khāneh, Muzeh, va Markaz-e Asnād-e Majles-e Shurā-ye Eslāmi, 1389 [2010–2011]), 142. 58 Jājarmi, Moʾnes al-ahrār (jeld-e dovvum), 893; ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, 555; Tāj al-Halāvi, Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr, 75. 59 Jājarmi, Moʾnes al-ahrār (jeld-e dovvum), 893; ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, 555. 60 ʿAruzi Samarqandi, Chahār maqāleh va taʿliqāt, 150; Tāj al-Halāvi, Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr, 95. Vatvāt also refers to Masʿud Saʿd Salmān’s habsiyyāt but does not actually use this term (Vatvāt, Divān-e Rashid al-Din Vatvāt Saʿid bā ketāb-e hadāʾeq al-sehr f Daqāʾeq al-sheʿr (ed. Nafsi), 702). Nevertheless, it seems that he views them as a thematic type of poetry. 61 ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, 415–418. 62 Ibid., 573. 63 Kaykāvus ebn Voshmgir, Qābus-Nāmeh, 195. 64 ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, 415–418, 573, 685. 65 Qays al-Rāzi, al-Moʿjam, 411. 66 ʿOwf, Lobāb al-albāb, 550, 669.

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Genre in Classical Persian Poetry 67 Ibid., 81. 68 Ibid., 84–85. 69 Although I agree with Utas that studying Persian manuscripts is one of the best approaches to studying historical approaches to poetic organization (as shown subsequently), he is incorrect in “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900” (212) when he seems to suggest that divāns have been organized by form and alphabetically within each formal division since the earliest manuscripts. See studies cited in footnote #71 and my subsequent discussion. 70 Elwell-Sutton remarks in passing that it has been the practice of Persian literati since the 13th century to organize divāns by formal genres (e.g., qasideh, ghazal, robāʿiyyāt) and then alphabetically (by last letter of the end rhyme) within these formal divisions and sometimes by meter as well. He does, however, also mention that “Collected Works” (kolliyyāt) sometimes contain thematic divisions – such as madh, zohdiyyāt/mowʿezeh, marsiyyeh, qalandariyyāt, hazliyyāt, and khamriyyāt, among some other formal categories) (Elwell-Sutton, Persian Metres, 259–260). I would push that date a bit later, at least into the 14th or 15th century, and possibly, as de Bruijn maintains in his case of Sanāʾi’s divān, even the 16th century: “It appears that the neat alphabetical order of the poems in the modern editions is a comparatively recent innovation in the transmission of the text. All existing copies of the [i.e., Sanāʾi’s] Dīvān older than the late 16th century are arranged in a non-alphabetical order. The alternative principle of arrangement is, in some cases, a thematic one, explicitly marked by rubric titles; in other cases no guiding principle can be noticed at frst sight, although it is possible that thematic considerations did play a role in determining the order of the poems.” See: Nazir Ahmad, “Some Original Prose and Poetical Pieces of Hakim Sana’i,” Indo-Iranica 16, no. 2 (1963): 48–65; J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakim Sanaʾi of Ghazna (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 103–108, 110; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Transmission of Early Persian Ghazals (with Special Reference to the Dīvān of Sanāʾī),” Manuscripts of the Middle East 3 (1988): 27–28; de Bruijn, “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature,” 374. Lewis concurs with de Bruijn’s dating here. Lewis also points out that in Turkish manuscripts Rumi’s poems in his divān are also sometimes organized by meter. See: Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi, Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalāl al-Din Rumi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000), 295. 71 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 103–104; but see de Bruijn’s larger discussion of the organization of early Sanāʾi divāns at 93–112, where he makes this point repeatedly. He also makes the same point in his “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature,” 374. 72 Ahmad, “Some Original Prose and Poetical Pieces of Hakim Sana’i”; de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 104–108. 73 de Bruijn has analyzed this phenomenon in the case of Vel. 2627 manuscript of Sanāʾi, which has fehrest-e anvāʿ (table of contents), but no thematic divisions within the actual text (i.e., the poems just run continuously without any thematic subheadings). “Still,” de Bruijn maintains, “the thematical arrangement of the fhrist can indeed be recognized in the sequence of the poems, even if there is no exact agreement” (Of Piety and Poetry, 106–107) – a point echoed by Ahmad as well in his analysis of Sanāʾi manuscripts (“Some Original Prose and Poetical Pieces of Hakim Sana’i,” 49–50). de Bruijn provides a detailed layout of the thematic subdivisions that he observes in the Vel. 2627 manuscript (broadly refected in the MiF 2353 manuscript as well) and argues that the following basic arrangement “may be regarded as typical of the medieval collections of Sanāʾi’s poetry: a b c d e f g h i j

48 “religious poems” (e.g., towhid, naʿt) 58 panegyrics 4 elegies (including, tarkib-band, qasida, moqattaʿāt) 55 ghazaliyyāt and/or qalandariyyāt 11 panegyrics 38 ghazaliyyāt and/or qalandariyyāt 9 panegyrics 187 mostly ghazaliyyāt and some qalandariyyāt 76 muqattaʿāt 250 robāʿiyyāt.”

As de Bruijn notes (Of Piety and Poetry, 106–108), it is important to highlight that the thematic groupings of poems appear in a repeating sequence (with the exception of religious-homiletic poetry, which seem to only occur in the frst section).

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Matthew Tomas Miller 74 A. L. F. A. Beelaert, A Cure for Grieving: Studies on the Poetry of the 12th-Century Persian Court Poet Khāqānī Širwānī (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, 2000), 33–34; Paul E. Losensky, “SAʿDI,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (2000), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ sadi-sirazi. 75 ʿAttār’s work is actually not the frst such thematically arranged collection, although it appears to be the frst such work that is extant in its entirety. We also know of a compilation of robāʿiyyāt (quatrains) from various poets produced by Abu Hanifeh ʿAbd al-Karim b. Abi Bakr (c. ca. end of the 12th century) for the Seljuk Mohyi al-Din Masʿud b. Qılıč Arslan in Ankara. Unfortunately, only selections of this work have survived, according to Hellmut Ritter, and in any case, the manuscript was not accessible to the author. See: Hellmut Ritter, “Philologika XI. Maulānā Galāladdīn Rūmī und sein Kreis,” Der Islam 26 (1942): 245; Hellmut Ritter, “Philologika XVI. Farīduddīn ‘Aṫṫār. IV,” Oriens 13–14 (1960): 195. I want to thank Austin O’Malley for drawing my attention to this point. 76 The Kholāsat al-ashʿār f robāʿiyyāt (ca. between 1342–1343 and 1344–1345) of Abu al-Majd Mohammad ben Masʿud Tabrizi is contained in Abu al-Majd Mohammad ben Masʿud Tabrizi, Safneh-ye Tabriz, ed. ʿAbd al-Hoseyn Hāʾeri and Nasrollah Poujavady (Tehrān: Markaz-e Nashr-e Dāneshgāhi, 1381 [2002–2003]), 593–612. See also Seyed-Gohrab’s discussion of this collection, in “Literary Works in Tabriz’s Treasury,” in The Treasury of Tabriz: The Great Il-Khanid Compendium, ed. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab and S. McGlinn, 114–136 (Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers, 2007), 125–126. 77 The small collection of ghazaliyyāt are on the topics of towhid and tāmāt (“Ghazaliyyāt f al-towhid va al-Tāmāt”) (Tabrizi, Safneh-ye Tabriz, 440–441), and the collection of robāʿiyyāt by Kermāni (collected and organized by Amin al-Din Hajj Bolleh) (Tabrizi, Safneh-ye Tabriz, 581–592) includes the categories of towhid, “love,” “sufsm,” “ritual purity” (tahārat), and “travel,” among others. 78 Farid al-Din ʿAttār, Mokhtār-Nāmeh: majmuʿeh-ye robāʿiyyāt-e Farid al-Din ʿAttār Nishāburi, ed. Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani (Tehrān: Sokhan, 1386 [2007–2008]); Jamāl al-Din Khalil Shervāni, Nozhat al-Majāles, ed. Mohammad Amin Riāhi, 2nd ed. (Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e ʿElmi, 1375 [1996–1997]); Jājarmi, Moʾnes al-ahrār (jeld-e dovvum); Tabrizi, Safneh-ye Tabriz. 79 In addition to the works mentioned here, there are other later works – such as Qazvini’s Tazkereh-ye Mey-khāneh (a collection of sāqi-nāmehs) and the thematic divāns of poets like Abu Eshāq Atʿemeh and Nezām al-Din Mahmud Kāri on the topics of food and clothes, respectively – that further illustrate the importance of thematic genres. See: ʿAbd al-Nabi Fakhr al-Zamān Qazvini, Tazkereh-ye may-khāneh, ed. Ahmad Golchin-e Maʿāni (Tehrān: Eqbāl, 1390 [2011–2012]). 80 Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 216–217, 338; de Bruijn, The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry, 361–362; Paul E. Losensky, “The Palace of Praise and the Melons of Time: Descriptive Patterns in ʿAbdī Bayk Šīrāzī’s Garden of Eden,” Eurasian Studies 2 (2003): 1–29; Paul E. Losensky, “‘The Equal of Heaven’s Vault’: The Design, Ceremony, and Poetry of the Hasanābād Bridge,” in Writers and Rulers: Perspectives on Their Relationship from Abbasid to Safavid Times, ed. Beatrice Grundler and Louise Marlow, 195–215 (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2004); Paul E. Losensky, “Coordinates in Space and Time: Architectural Chronograms in Safavid Iran,” in New Perspectives on Safavid Iran Empire and Society, ed. Colin P. Mitchell, 198–219 (New York: Routledge, 2011); Paul E. Losensky, “‘Square Like a Bubble’: Architecture, Power, and Poetics in Two Inscriptions by Kalim Kāshāni,” Journal of Persianate Studies 8 (2015): 42–70. 81 This work is already partially underway but varies signifcantly in terms of its level of detail and the degree to which it historicizes and critical analyzes these thematic genres. There are basic thematic overviews and anthologies of particularly prominent thematic types, such as Mahjub, Sabk-e Khorāsāni dar sheʿr-e Fārsi and “Sāqi-Nāmeh – Moghanni-Nāmeh,” Sokhan 11 (1960): 69–79; Shamisā, Anvāʿ-e adabi, 223–254; Zabihollāh Safā, Tārikh-e adabiyyāt dar Irān va dar qalamrow-ye zabān-Pārsi (Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Ferdows, 1388 [2009–2010]); Nasr Allāh Emāmi, Marsiyyeh-sarāʾi dar adabiyyāt-e Fārsi-ye Irān (Ahvāz: Enteshārāt-e Daftar-e Markazi-ye Jihād-e Dāneshgāhi, 1369 [1990–1991]); Vali Allāh Zafari, Habsiyyeh dar adab-e Fārsi az āghāz-e sheʿr-e Fārsi tā pāyān-e Zandiyyeh (Tehrān: Amir Kabir, 1364 [1985–1986]); Ahmad Golchin-Maʿāni, Tazkereh-ye paymāneh: Dar zekr-e sāqi-nāmeh-hā va ahvāl va āsār-e sāqi-nāmeh-sarāyān (Tehrān: Ketāb-Khāneh-ye Sanāʾi, 1368 [1989–1990]); Ahmad Golchin-Maʿāni, Shahr-āshub dar sheʿr-e Fārsi (Tehrān: Amir Kabir, 1346 [1967–1968]). However, critical and historical analysis of thematic genres has been a rarity until recently, and, even then, it often occurs in the context of studies primarily focused on other matters. For a representative sample of work on panegyric (madh/madhiyāt) poetry, see Glünz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change” and the following works by Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, 40–76; “Ghaznavid Panegyrics: Some Political Implications,” Iran 28 (1990): 31–44; “Poetic Microcosms,” 137–164; “The Poet and His Patrons: Two

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Genre in Classical Persian Poetry Ghaznavid Panegyrists,” Persica 17 (2001): 91–105; Structure and Meaning, 66–110, 144–155, 235–43, 366–377. For a representative sample of work on religious-homiletic (zohdiyyāt/mowʿezeh) poetry, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 164–182; “Symbolic Structure in a Poem by Nasir-i Khusrau,” Iran 31 (1993): 103–117; Meisami, “Poetic Microcosms,” 164–181; J. T. P. de Bruijn, Persian Suf Poetry: An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Persian Poems (Richmond, VA: Curzon, 1997), 29–50; Julie Scott Meisami, “Places in the Past: The Poetics/Politics of Nostalgia,” Edebiyāt 8 (1998): 63–106; 84–89; Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 39–40, 69–71, 172–181, 200–204, 219, 303–304, 375–376; Leonard Lewisohn, “Hierocosmic Intellect and Universal Soul in a Qasida by Nāsir-i Khusraw,” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 45 (2007): 193–226; Alice C. Hunsberger, “‘On the Steed of Speech’: A Philosophical Poem by Nāsir-i Khusraw,” in Pearls of Persia: The Philosophical Poetry of Nāsir-i Khusraw, ed. Alice C. Hunsberger, 147–190 (New York: I. B. Tauris, in association with Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2012), 158–180; Leonard Lewisohn,“Nāsir-i Khusraw’s Ode to the Universal Soul and Intellect,”in Pearls of Persia: The Philosophical Poetry of Nāsir-i Khusraw, ed. Alice C. Hunsberger, 53–70 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012); Julie Scott Meisami, “Nāsir-i Khusraw: A Poet Lost in Thought?,” in Pearls of Persia: The Philosophical Poetry of Nāsir-i Khusraw, ed. Alice C. Hunsberger, 223–255 (New York: I. B. Tauris, in association with Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2012). Paul Sprachman has published insightful studies on invective or satirical (hajv and hejā) poetry – see: Paul Sprachman, Licensed Fool: The Damnable, Foul-Mouthed Obeyd-e Zakani (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2012); Paul Sprachman, Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1995); Paul Sprachman, “Hajv and Profane Persian,” in Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500: Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 579–602 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2019). For poetic studies of the shahr-āshub/shahr-angiz (city disturber) genre in Persian poetry, see Sunil Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier: Masʿûd Sa’d Salmān of Lahore (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2000), 107–116; Michele Bernardini, “The Masnavi-Shahrashubs as Town Panegyrics: An International Genre in Islamic Mashriq,” in Narrated Space in the Literature of the Islamic World, ed. Roxane Haag-Higurchi and Christian Szyska, 81–94 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlaq, 2001); Sunil Sharma, “Generic Innovation in Sayf Bukhārāi’s Shahrāshub Ghazals,” in Ghazal as World Literature II: From a Literary Genre to a Great Tradition – The Ottoman Gazel in Context, ed. Angelika Neuwirth et al., 141–149 (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2006); Sunil Sharma, “Hāfz’s Sāqīnāmah: The Genesis and Transformation of a Classical Poetic Genre,” Persica 18 (2002): 75–83; Sunil Sharma, “Shahrāshub,” in Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500: Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 569–578 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2019); J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Shahrangīz 1. In Persian,” Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al., 2nd ed. (2012), http://referenceworks.brillonline. com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/shahrangiz-COM_1026. For studies of the sāqi-nāmeh/ moghanni-nāmeh (cupbearer or singer’s ode) genre in Persian poetry, see Ehterām Rezāʾi, Sāqi-Nāmeh dar sheʿr-e Fārsi (Tehrān: Amir Kabir, 1387 [2008–2009]); Safā, Tārikh-e adabiyyāt dar Irān, 3/1, 334– 335; Sharma, “Hāfz’s Sāqīnāmah”; Paul E. Losensky, “Sāqī-Nāma,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (2009), www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saqi-nama-book; Christine van Ruymbeke, “Iskandar’s Bibulous Business: Wine, Drunkenness and the Calls to the Sāqī in Nizāmī Ganjavī’s SharafNāma,” Iranian Studies 46, no. 2 (2013): 251–272; Paul E. Losensky, “Vintages of the Sāqī-nāma: Fermenting and Blending the Cupbearer’s Song in the Sixteenth Century,” Iranian Studies 47, no. 1 (2014): 131–157; Paul E. Losensky, “Saqi-Nameh: Song of the Cupbearer,” in The Layered Heart: Essays on Persian Poetry, ed. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, 173–196 (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2019). See also Ahmad Golchin-e Maʿāni’s introduction to Qazvini, Tazkereh-ye may-khāneh. Although not on the topic of the sāqi-nāmeh/moghanni-nāmeh genre specifcally, Yarshater and W. L. Hanaway’s work on wine poetry (khamriyyāt/sharāb) also provide important background here (see: William Hanaway, “Blood and Wine: Sacrifce and Celebration in Manūchihrī’s Wine Poetry,” Iran 26 (1988): 69–80; Ehasan Yarshater, “The Theme of Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,” Studia Islamica 13 (1960): 43–53). For treatments of the habsiyyāt (prison poetry) genre in Persian poetry, see Shafʿi-Kadkani, Sovar-e khayāl dar sheʿr-e Fārsi, 595–612; Beelaert, Cure for Grieving, 30–36; Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier, 68–106; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Habsiyya,” Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al., 2nd ed. (2012), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/ encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/habsiyya-SIM_8580; Rebecca Gould, “Wearing the Belt of Oppression: Khāqāni’s Christian Qasida and the Prison Poetry of Medieval Shirvān,” Journal of Persianate Studies 9 (2016): 19–44. For a discussion of the signifcance of habsiyyāt for broader theoretical debates about prisons and prison literature, see: Rebecca Gould, “Prisons before Modernity: Incarceration in the Medieval Indo-Mediterranean,” Al-Masāq 24, no. 2 (2012): 179–197. For more on tarsā-bacheh poems,

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also see: Franklin D. Lewis, “Sexual Occidentation: The Politics of Conversion, Christian-Love and Boy-Love in ʿAttār,” Iranian Studies 42, no. 5 (2009): 693–723. There is also Lewis’ important study of the thematic genres or subgenres of Sanāʾi’s ghazals (lyrics), which has strongly shaped my approach to early Persian poetry: see his “Reading, Writing and Recitation.” In addition to the genre-specifc studies cited here, Meisami, de Bruijn, and Losensky have discussed thematic types and categories of poetry in their broad treatments of Persian literature and poetry. See: Julie Scott Meisami, “Genres of Court Literature,” in A History of Persian Literature, Volume I: General Introduction to Persian Literature, ed. J. T. P. de Bruijn, 233–269 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2009); J. T. P. de Bruijn, Persian Suf Poetry; J.T. P. de Bruijn, “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature”; Paul Losensky, “Persian Poetry,” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Stephen Cushman et al., 4th ed., 1021–1024 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). Much work, however, remains to be done on all these genres, and there are still many thematic types that have received little or no sustained scholarly treatment to date. Lewis, referring specifcally to the 10th–12th centuries, presses this point even further, arguing that early Persian poets were “categoriz[ing]” and “conceive[ing] of their poems primarily in terms of mood and topoi rather than formal structure” (Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 53–60; Lewis, “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 129–131). Meisami has echoed this point as well: Meisami, “Genres of Court Literature,” 234. Qalandariyyāt are carnivalesque poems that celebrate an antinomian mode of piety and the transgressive fgures, settings, and symbols associated with it. The ultimate aim of this poetry is to move ordinary pious Muslims beyond superfcial modes of Islamic piety and towards the radical “path of love” (rāh-e ‘eshq) Suf spirituality. For more detailed studies of qalandariyyāt poetry, see: Miller, “The Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b): The Rogue Lyrics (Qalandariyyāt) as Heterotopic Countergenre(s)”; Matthew Thomas Miller, “The Qalandar King: Early Development of the Qalandariyyāt and Saljuq Conceptions of Kingship in Amir Moʿezzi’s Panegyric for Sharafshāh Jaʿfari,” Iranian Studies 55, no. 2 (2022): 521–549, doi: 10.1017/irn.2021.8; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanāʾi Onwards,” in The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufsm, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 75–86 (London: Khaniqahi Nimatullah Publications, 1992); Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani, Qalandariyeh dar tārikh: degardisi-hā-ye yek ideʾuluzhi (Tehrān: Sokhan, 1386 [2007–2008]). In addition to the foregoing analysis, also see: J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Anvari and the Ghazal: An Exploration,” in Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, ed. Daniella Meneghini, 7–36 (Venice: Cafoscarina, 2006), 23–27; de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry”; Lewis, “Reading, Writing, and Recitation,” 364–368, 559–578; Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b)”; Miller, “The Qalandar King.” Although a few isolated examples of qalandariyyāt can be found in the divāns of other poets of this early period (e.g., Abu Saʿid Abu al-Kheyr, Bābā Tāher, Sheykh Yusof ʿĀmeri, Anvari, Khāqāni) (or are attributed to them in other works), this chapter focuses primarily on the poetry of Sanāʾi and ʿAttār because these fgures are roundly recognized as the leading qalandari poets. For examples and discussion of other early qalandari poems, see Shafʿi-Kadkani, Qalandariyeh dar tārikh, 39–40, 48, 296–299; de Bruijn, “Anvari and the Ghazal,” 23–27; Miller, “The Qalandar King”; Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b).” Both Shafʿi Kadkani and de Bruijn are of the opinion that the MiF manuscript of Sanāʾi’s divān is not an early copy, although, as de Bruijn notes, it may be based on a “medieval reconstruction” of a very early copy. See: Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani, Tāziyāneh-hā-ye soluk: naqd va tahlil-e chand qasideh az Hakim Sanāʾi (Tehrān: Āgāh, 1372 [1993–1994]), 530; de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 100–102. In either case, I was not able to obtain a copy of it for my own analysis. For detailed discussion of these two manuscripts, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 95–112. The MiM manuscript’s thematic categorization is reproduced in Razavi’s edition, and I have relied on it here, as I was unable to obtain a copy of the MiM manuscript. For de Bruijn’s discussion of the dating of these manuscripts, see Of Piety and Poetry, 99–100. For a full discussion of the dating and authenticity of the various works attributed to ʿAttār, see: Austin O’Malley, “An Unexpected Romance: Reevaluating the Authorship of the Khosrow-Nāma,” Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 214–216; Austin O’Malley, “Poetry and Pedagogy: The Homiletic Verse of Farid al-Din ʿAṭṭâr” (Diss., Chicago: University of Chicago, 2016), 12–30. Even if the thematic ordering of the Mokhtār-Nāmeh was not done by ʿAttār, it is a very early tradition and thus still useful for the present purposes. For more on ʿAttār’s qalandariyyāt poems, see: Shafʿi-Kadkani, Qalandariyeh dar tārikh, 307–13; Hellmut Ritter, “Philologika XV: Fariduddin ‘Attar. III. 7. (Der Diwan) (Mit vergleich einiger verse von

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Sana’i und Hafz),” Oriens 12 (1959): 1–88; Leonard Lewisohn, “Suf Symbolism in the Persian Hermeneutic Tradition: Reconstructing the Pagoda of ‘Attar’s Esoteric Poetics,” in ‘Attar and the Persian Suf Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight, ed. Leonard Lewisohn and Christopher Shackle, 255–308 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2006); Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b)”; Mohammad Rezā Shafʿi-Kadkani, Zabur-e Pārsi: negāhi beh zendegi va ghazal-hā-ye ʿAttār (Tehrān: Āgāh, 1378 [1999–2000]), 57–58. In contrast, it is worth considering the degree to which all ffty chapters could be considered subgenres, or microgenres of subgenres, of the broader and better-established thematic genres discussed elsewhere. Even this qualifcation, however, is not universally true. As Paul Losensky pointed out to me, ʿAttār’s penultimate chapter, “On the description of being elderly and the end of life” (dar sefat-e piri va ākhar-e ʿomr), should be regarded as a distinct thematic genre, since such poems exist in the oeuvre of poets from Rudaki (d.940) to (at least) Sāʾeb (d.1676). This lack of clarity and easy answer on what constitutes a genre and what does not is what makes the deep historical study of these genres and terminologies so important. Reinert argues that ʿAttār includes the chapter “on qalandariyyāt and khamriyyāt” here “on the ground of their connection with erotic themes.” I certainly agree that the qalandariyyāt and khamriyyāt are deeply interconnected with love (ghazal) poetry (as we will see in the case of Sanāʾi’s qalandariyyāt). However, I would not go as far as Reinert to say that ʿAttār includes the qalandariyyāt and khamriyyāt “on the ground of their connection with erotic themes” (emphasis added). See: Benedikt Reinert, “AṬṬĀR, FARĪD-AL-DĪN,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (1987), www.iranicaonline. org/articles/attar-farid-al-din-poet. No sustained analysis has been done on the poems in this chapter. Ritter and Shafʿi-Kadkani have both made passing reference to the poetry in this chapter in their studies, saying that it treats the topics of kofr, wine drinking, and other antinomian themes. See Shafʿi-Kadkani, Qalandariyeh dar tārikh, 300n4; Hellmut Ritter, The Ocean of the Soul: Man, the World and God in the Stories of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAttār (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 505–506. de Bruijn has commented on the formal ambiguity of the qalandariyyāt in several places and has drawn our attention to the thematic basis for early groupings of poems (irrespective of formal considerations): “Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry,” 79; “Arabic Infuences on Persian Literature,” 374; “Transmission of Early Persian Ghazals,” 29–31. Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (a),” 38–43. On the dating of KM, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 99–100. A comprehensive study of all the poetry of KM’s thematic sections would help answer this question. Although it is pure speculation, my personal inclination is that the compiler of KM may have been working from an older manuscript (e.g., MiM) that contained the thematic sections (e.g., zohdiyyāt, qalandariyyāt, ghazaliyyāt) and thus adopted them but without entirely understanding them or, at the very least, without careful attention to their thematic horizons in the categorization of poems into each thematic section. Both de Bruijn and Shafʿi Kadkani have commented on the confusing variety or “very mixed group” of poems that are placed in these qalandariyyāt sections. See: de Bruijn, “Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry,” 79; Shafʿi-Kadkani, Qalandariyeh dar tārikh, 300–302. Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (a),” 38–43. The computational analysis provided here is a shortened and revised version of an earlier study done in Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (a),” 43–55. “Distant reading” is a term coined by Franco Moretti for computational methods of analyzing literature. Other scholars have referred to it as “macroanalysis” or “cultural analytics” as well. See: Franco Moretti, Distant Reading (Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2013); Franco Moretti (ed.), Canon/Archive: Studies in Quantitative Formalism from the Stanford Literary Lab (Brooklyn: n+1 Foundation, 2017); Matthew L. Jockers, Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013); Matt Erlin and Lynne Tatlock, eds., Distant Readings: Topologies of German Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014); Journal of Cultural Analytics. The poems I am using for these experiments are a slightly modifed form of Sanāʾi’s poems from his divān in the Persian Digital Library (PDL), which originally drew most of its poems from the Ganjoor site. See: “Persian Digital Library (PDL),” (2016), https://persdigumd.github.io/PDL/. For an accessible overview of topic modeling, probabilistic modeling, and LDA and their relevance to the humanities, see: David M. Blei, “Topic Modeling and Digital Humanities,” Journal of Digital Humanities 2, no. 1 (2012), http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/2-1/topic-modeling-and-digital-humanities-by-david-m-blei/. For a highly technical overview, see: David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, and Michael I. Jordan, “Latent Dirichlet Allocation,” Journal of Machine Learning Research 3 (2003):

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993–1022. TM has not been widely used in computational studies of literary genres. To date, the only published study is Christof Schöch’s “Topic Modeling Genre: An Exploration of French Classical and Enlightenment Drama,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 11, no. 2 (2017), www.digitalhumanities.org/ dhq/vol/11/2/000291/000291.html. Blei, “Topic Modeling and Digital Humanities.” For this experiment I used the topicmodels package in the open-source statistics software environment R. I also used the R text mining package tm to pre-process the texts and visualized the results with the LDAvis package. On these, see: Bettina Gruen and Kurt Hornik, “Topicmodels: An R Package for Fitting Topic Models,” Journal of Statistical Software 40 (2011): 1–30; “R: A language and environment for statistical computing”; Ingo Feinerer, Kurt Hornik, and David Meyer, “Text Mining Infrastructure in R,” Journal of Statistical Software 25 (2008): 1–54; Ingo Feinerer and Kurt Hornik, “Tm: Text Mining Package. R Package Version 0.6–2,” (2015), http://cran.r-project.org/package=tm; Carson Sievert and Kenneth E. Shirley, “LDAvis: Interactive Visualization of Topic Models (0.3.2),” (2015), https://github.com/cpsievert/LDAvis. For the full R code that I used in this experiment, see Appendix IV of Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (a).” After adjusting the λ-value in the LDAvis visualization to 0.6 (recommended practice to flter out words common in other topics), the following highly prototypical qalandariyyāt terms appear in the top-30 terms of this “qalandari topic” in a 16 topic TM: kharābāt (dilapidated winehouse), towbeh (repentance), zonnār (non-Islamic cincture), qallāsh (rogue), zāhed (ascetic), kharābāti (haunter of dilapidated winehouse), zohd (asceticism), mey-khāneh (winehouse), sowmeʿeh (christian monastery), ʿeshrat (feasting, pleasure, revelry), pārsāʾi (piety), kharābi (being wasted), rend (libertine), kam-zan (self-deprecator), and a series of terms related to wine (bādeh, jām, sāqi, qadh, ratl). Many of the terms most closely associated with the qalandariyyāt, such as kharābāt, zonnār, qallāsh, kharābāti, mey-khāneh, sowmeʿeh, bādeh, and kharābi, occur almost exclusively in this particular topic, indicating that it is a “strong” topic. The main outputs of TM are two tables. The frst is a large topic probabilities table that includes the percentile distribution of each identifed topic represented in each text. The second table is a list of the statistically most signifcant words associated with each of the identifed topics. For an example of a polythematic panegyric poem with a qalandari nasib, see: Miller, “The Qalandar King.” It is poems such as this that may be classifed in this method into the bottom 70 percent because of their mix of qalandari and royal panegyric elements. Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 438–440. Lewis makes a similar point in “Transformation of the Persian Ghazal,” 123–124. And he makes this point about qalandariyyāt poetry specifcally in Lewis, “Reading, Writing and Recitation,” 560. For more on the qalandariyyāt as a countergenre to the madhiyyāt and zohdiyyāt, see: Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b).” Meisami, “Genres of Court Literature,” 234. Practically speaking, what this means is that, for example, the ghazal is most frequently employed for the writing of love lyrics, whereas the qasideh is generally more closely associated with poetry of the panegyric and didactic variety. However, it is also possible (though not nearly as common) to have panegyric ghazals. For more on this broader point, see my discussion of various subtypes and speculations on their development out of the larger qalandariyyāt genre in Miller, “Poetics of the Suf Carnival (b).” The notable exception here is Kāshef’s introduction to his poetic treatise Badāʾeʿ al-afkār, which I discussed previously. In Persian literary scholarship, the confusion and ambiguity about these thematic types of poetry seems to have its origin in the gap that exists between a normative and idealized theoretical framework of genres and poetic terms (refected in poetic manuals and treatises), and dynamic poetic practice and historical descriptions of it. The authors of the former are bound by conventions particular to the genre in which they write and are constantly pressured by the weight of the classical tradition to reproduce its systemic poetics. The poets and other litterateurs writing outside of the confnes of the poetic treatise genre, however, are more at liberty to negotiate with the classical system and develop it in new ways that are related to, but not fully captured by, the tradition’s systemic poetics. Meisami, de Bruijn, and Farghadani have pointed out that there is often a disjuncture between the theoretical treatment of the Persian poetic system in the poetic manuals and actual poetic practice, especially in the early poetic manual tradition. See: Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 9–11, 246; de Bruijn, The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry, 345–347; Farghadani, “A History of Style and a Style of History,” 505. Cross has pointed out a similar issue with the romance masnavi too – that is, it is never “theorized” in the poetic manual but was obviously of great importance in poetic practice. See: Cross, Love at a Crux, introduction and chapter one).

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Tis text was translated by Jerome Clinton and is taken with permission from: Clinton, Jerome W. “Shams-i Qays on the Nature of Poetry.” Edebiyât I (1989): 101–28. Tis text was transcribed from the original by John Mullan.

Al-Muʿjam f Maʿayir Ashʿar al-ʿAjam Khatimah-yi kitab (Conclusion) (445)1 0.1 Since with the completion of the preceding chapter we have fnished the substance of the book and are freed from the responsibility, undertaken in the introduction, for two sections on meter and rhyme, let us end with this conclusion (khatima), which is the comencement (fatiha) of the true essence of this science and the central jewel in the necklace of this craft, and so bring to an end this guide to the right path, if God the Most High so wills It.

Chapter 1.1 Know that poetry has tools and poesy (shaʿiri) has preliminaries without which no one is dignifed by the title of poet nor is any poem rightly known as good. But the tools of poetry are correct words, palatable expressions, eloquent phrases and subtle themes which, when they are poured into the mold of acceptable meters and drawn out in a string (silk) of pleasing verses (baits) are called good poetry. The whole of the art [of poetry] lies in nothing but the perfection of its tools and devices, as the perfection of an individual is not achieved without the soundness of limbs and parts.2 1.2 However, the preliminaries of poesy are these that a man become informed about the linguistic elements with which he will compose poetry, and become aware of the correct and corrupt kinds of their compounds, and be familiar with the procedures of exceptional poets and princes of discourse in establishing the foundations of poetry and their methods of ordering it; and [that he] know their customs and manners in description and depiction, the degrees of public discourse, the arts of implication and clarifcation (446), the rules of simile and homonymy, the bases of antonymy and exaggeration, the aspects of tropes and metaphors and the other rhetorical arts. [He should also] know a smattering of aphorisms and wise saws and something of the histories and DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-7

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conditions of earlier kings and former sages, and be able to distinguish subtle from weak themes. He should be informed as to how to begin a poem beautifully and conclude it exquisitely so that he may present any subject on a dais adorned with worthy phrases. In the weaving of his discourse he should abstain from dull themes, lying similes, ignorant insinuations, difcult allusions, sickly ambiguities, repetitious homonymy, strange descriptions, strained similes, inaccurate analogies, heavy ceremoniousness and disagreeable {transposititions} transpositions (taqdim-i taʾkhirat). By all means let him not pursue excess and overstatement beyond the bounds of necessity, and neither diminish what is necessary nor increase what is meaningless (ma la yaʿni). Before he begins to versify and to engage himself in the profession of poesy let him frst read a little in the sciences of rhyming and metrics so that he may become familiar with ancient and modern meters, be able to distinguish pleasant measures from disagreeable ones, know what variations in them are permitted and what not, discriminate between sound verses and sickly ones, and discern an original rhyme from ordinary ones. He should acquire excellent capital in sweet and artful words from the masters of this art and those of this craft whose language is purest. From qasidas and muqattaʿs of correct composition, palatable expression, subtle theme, excellent inception, agreeable conclusion and sweet signature, from divans, famous and well-known, and from works both luscious and laudable, let him learn a full measure of the various arts and the varied kinds. Let him expend the whole of his endeavors in studying and deliberating on them, and by discussion and diligent inquiry become conversant with the subtle essences of their art, so that their themes become frmly fxed in his heart, their expressions take root in his mind, their phrases (447) rule his tongue, and their sum becomes the stuf of his being and the essence of his thought. Then, when his genius begins to function and the sluice gate of his being is opened, the virtues of this poetry will manifest themselves and the efects of what he has memorized will become apparent in that his poetry will be like a spring of pure water which is replenished from great rivers and deep streams or like a sweet scented confection whose fragrances perfume the palate of the soul but whose blending no one can master. When he begins a poem and starts to versify [a poet] should bring to mind its prose substance and sketch its themes on the pages of his heart and then provide himself with words appropriate to them and choose a meter agreeable to that poem and rhymes which are both possible and easy to the mind and write them on a sheet of paper. He should choose whichever of them are easy and right and in which the meter fts frmly, and admit no forced rhymes or common expression. While versifying the baits let him give no heed to the sequence of the discourse or the arrangement of the themes until he has strung out the whole of the qasida in a rough draft, but speak it and write it as it occurs. And should it happen that after a rhyme on some theme has been uttered and employed in one bait, a better theme should then manifest itself and a more palatable bait become possible, and that the former rhyme sits better in this latter bait, let him transfer it. If the frst bait is necessary let him seek another rhyme, and if it isn’t, let him abandon it. When the baits have become numerous and the themes complete, let him read over the whole repeatedly and with great care and strive to the utmost in weighing and polishing them, and arrange the baits together, placing each one in its proper place and eliminating transposition so that the themes will not be broken of from each other nor the baits appear strangers to each other. Let him consider as necessary all aspects of the agreement of baits and misraʿs, and the correspondence of words and themes, for (448) frequently two misraʿs or two baits are inharmonious as regards theme, and for that reason the lustre of the poetry is dimmed – as when the poet said: 106

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The spring of life lies in his cup since through him Religion and kingship are both made frm. The first misraʿ is not suitable to the second. This sort of thing occurs more often in ruba ʿiyyat when a pleasant theme occurs to a poet and he usually makes it the last bait. He then adds the frst to it, and in the latter he is neglectful of the harmony of words and dialogue of themes. 1.8 Thus it is in Razi Nishapuri: Every moment {form} from thee my heart has uttered cold sighs, And from the cup has had one swallow and the lees (murdi). I apologize if I have given thee a headache. That headache has come from my own pain. Here he composed the last bait frst and added the frst bait to it. The second misraʿ of the frst bait is not suitable to the theme of the bait, and its addition to the frst has not turned out well. 1.9 So it is again where the vazir Bu Nasr Kunduri has said: Without anyone having sufered cruelty from us, Or the heart of an ant having been distressed by us, Without warning, in this scandalous way{.}, The tip of thy tress has caused us anguish. Here the second bait is what is intended, and the frst bait, the whole of it, has been annexed to that. (449) Inevitably it has unsound propositions because the anguish that arises from the tip of the beloved’s tress is not the result of the tyranny or torment of a heart unless it is perhaps thought that “although I have not distressed any hearts, the tip of thy tress distressed my heart,” and this conceit is a feeble one in the language of love. 1.10 With regard to rhyme, it is better that the determination of the rhyme should precede the theme, then the theme is added to it so that it is frmly seated, and it would not be possible for anyone to alter it. As Anvari has said: Last night I spoke with the heavens, Asking of it this question; “Who is the pivot of this world’s life?” It turned its face to thee, and said, “It’s he.” I said “Some reason must be given for this. Dost thou know what it is thou sayest?” “He is a Watermaster (mirab), and God says, ‘From water we gave life to everything.’” [Qurʾan, xxi:30] No poet can replace one rhyme in this poem with another as appropriate. 107

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1.11 If a poet begins to versify and then afxes rhymes, it will happen that they will not be wellseated and it would be possible to alter or exchange them for others. As another poet has said: When thy melancholy settled in my head (sakht maqarr) Grief for thee left no trace of my body. (benagzasht asar) Now in my heart I have no desire Save the desire for thee, O beauteous sun. (ziba khᵛar) If someone wishes to substitute better rhymes for these, he can, thus: When thy melancholy settled in my head, (sakht qarar) Grief for thee laid waste to my body. (bar avard dimar) Now in my heart I have no desire, Save desire for thee, O beauteous friend. (ziba yar) 1.12 In the same way the greatest nicety must be exercised with regard to the words and themes of every bait, so that if some feeble word occurs, he may put an agreeable one in its place, and if he fnds an idea to be lacking in something, he can complete it. In this regard, he should be like a skillful painter who in the composition of designs (taqasim-i nuqush) and in the drawing of the curving branches and leaves (tadavir-i shakh va bargha) places every fower somewhere and draws each branch outward from it, and in the blending of colors uses each color in some place and gives every color to some fower. Where a deep color is appropriate, he does not use a pale one, and where a light dye is appropriate, he does not use a dark one. He should be like a master jeweler who increases the elegance of his necklace by beauty of combination and proportion of {composition} composition, and does not diminish the lustre of his own pearls by diferences in joining and disorder in arrangement. 1.13 He must not deviate with regard to the species of discourse and the varieties of poetry, such as: romantic and erotic preludes, praise and dispraise, encomium and imprecation, gratitude and grievance, stories and tales, question and reply, wrath and reconciliation, haughtiness and humility, disdain and forbearance; the mention of regions and customs, the descriptions of the heavens and the stars, the depiction of fowers and streams, the reporting of winds and rainstorms, the similes of night and day and descriptions of steeds and arms; complaints of war and battle and the arts of congratulation and consolation in the manner of the most excellent and learned of the poets and the most poetic of the excellent and learned. 1.14 In the movement from theme (451) to theme and the substitution of one fgure (fann) for another, he should consider a graceful conclusion and an elegant inception obligatory. He should strive to the utmost to consider the degrees of those whom he praises. He ought not to praise kings and sultans except with royal terms of description such as those mentioned in the chapter on hyperbolic description (cf. p. 358). Ministers and princes he should praise for prodigies of the sword and pen and the drum and banner; sayyids and the ʿulama for nobility of descent and purity of lineage, for abundant culture and plenteous learning, for untainted honor and great merit. Let him describe the asceticism and penitence of the pious and the reclusive, and their attention to the glory and majesty [of God]. Let him not degrade the middle grade of men to the common, nor raise the common much above their proper degree. Let him address each according to his place and station. 1.15 He [the poet] should bring forth every idea in the dress of suitable words and the clothing of agreeable phrases since the costumes of expression are numerous and the aspects of conceits are various. And in the same way that a beautiful woman looks better in certain clothes and a priceless slave girl will attract customers more readily in certain settings, for every 108

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conceit there are words in which it seems more acceptable and a phrase in which it seems more lovely. In this regard poetry and prose are the same, and metrical and non-metrical discourse on a par, for as they say:

[Story] 1.16 One of the conquering Caliphs sent a governor to a city [of his realm] and watched over him with care. He entrusted the protection of one of the notables of that region to him (i.e. the governor), and he strove diligently in this. The governor, at the behest of the Glorious Court, held respect of that person to be an obligation and at his request assigned the tax revenues of some of the estates to his name, and. placed the collection of a portion of the revenues of the treasury at his disposal. Then through the lies of the malevolent and the calumny of slanderers, the mind of the governor became ill-disposed toward him and a coldness appeared on both sides. However, because of the strength of the support which he had from the Court, that person paid it no heed (452) and gave it no weight. So with the passage of time, that vexation became active rancor and a great enmity. The governor took away his ofce and disputed his accounting. One day that notable raised his voice while speaking with the governor and berated him. The governor ordered that he be chastised. All about him fsts were raised and clubs few into action. One of these various blows fell upon a mortal spot and he yielded up his spirit instantly. The governor regretted his action and dreaded the Caliph’s anger. He expended gold readily and sought protection with the intimates of the Caliph and grasped the skirts of those nearest the Presence with the hand of entreaty, and wrote something to each of them so that one of them would convey the case to the Place of Petitioning in a favorable manner and present his excuse by such steps that the recompense for that crime would stop with the payment of coin and not be drawn on to the requital of the Glorious Court’s wrath. No created being was capable of taking any action in this regard – of submitting this plea – and all were unanimous in the opinion that if this matter reached the Blessed Hearing he would, without doubt, order the governor’s death, and no one would have scope to intercede. The governor had a learned scribe, a perfect master of eloquence, and when he saw his anxiety and distress, and witnessed his need and incapacity, he said to his master, “You ought not to so give way to anxiety. You ought not to make so much of this matter, for in the folds of a letter which we will write to the Caliph or in the gaps of a report which we will send the court, we will cloak this matter in the garment of a phrase; and I will so pen the account of this event that no fne shall befall you and there will be no such great need for supplication and exertion to gain the acquiescence of the Caliph.” He then took up his pen (453) and began to write on some matters that were before him. When the course of his discourse reached this tale he wrote [Arabic] “And as for so-and-so, I trusted him and I found him a traitor. I chastised him, and that chastisement coincided with the moment of his death.” That is, the situation of such and such a notable is thus, that I made him responsible for some of the revenues of the Caliph, and I found him to be a traitor, I disciplined him and my discipline coincided with the moment of his death. When that epistle reached his Eminence, and that matter was given expression, his pleasure in the eloquence of this phrase and the delicacy of the placement of this excuse did not in any way permit the fame of anger to be ignited in the Caliph’s bowels, nor any sense of ofense to enter his mind. The governor escaped safely from that abyss and was completely freed of that danger. 109

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There are many such examples as this in poetry, where with one bait the most important matters are resolved, where the necks of reason are subjugated to a halter, and an inherited vengeance is transformed into love and afection. The opposite has as often occurred, where one verse has been the stimulus that stirred up great seditions and become the occasion for the momentous shedding of blood. As the poet has said: A line of poetry may soften one man’s wrath Another line may set blood rushing from the body. Many a heart has been calmed by poetry Many a neck has been severed by verse.

Chapter 2.1 No wise and magnanimous man ought to deny a reward to his own panegyrist when he has brought him a poem expecting something (454) and give him no favor, whether great or small, in exchange for his praise. For as it is said of Hoseyn ibn ʿAli (God be content with them both), one day he gave a poet a handsome reward and one of those present said, {(Arabic)} [Arabic] “Wonder of God, dost thou give a man gifts who rebels against the Merciful and speaks calumny?” He replied, “The best expenditure thou canst make of thy wealth is to preserve thy honor by it. Shunning evil is a way of seeking good.” That is, the best expenditure that thou makest of thy wealth is the one by which thou preservest thy honor from popular slander. And among thy means of seeking and desiring what will beneft thyself, one is that thou avoidest evil, and dost not expose thyself to it. In this regard, the poet Muʾayyadi has composed a qitʿa. Not everyone knows how to make verse of prose For ordering poetry is a gift of the Sole Watcher If a poet is proud be not amazed For God one day gave him his heavenly degree. His praise lifts the head of one to Ursa Major His satire covers the head of another with dust Although prose is fne, it improves When a poet versifes it in fne phrases. A cheerful man is rejoiced by poetry on the day of celebration. A warlike man is ennobled by poetry on the day of battle. Him on whom the poet has drawn his line Cannot expunge it from himself by any trick. Strive to content the poet and in no way Deceive him, if thou art a wise and clever man. (455) And another has said: By poetry the name of a good man is made eternal. By poetry are abased those who believe ill. In order that he may appear as one who desires the good, The intelligent man cuts of his desires from evil. 2.2 And for that reason as well no self-controlled, learned man ought to dare to reject and fault a poet or argue with him about the weakness of his expression or the meanness of his ideas unless he is confdent that the poet will consider his comments as ofered out of compassion only, and 110

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with the desire to instruct him, and that he will seek to beneft and improve by them. For in our time no craft is more diminished and no profession more commonplace than poetry. In every trade that is not inferior to it and every craft that is not easier even for the aged to learn, until a man perseveres in assiduous study for a time and acquires that profciency which the masters of the craft approve, he can make no pretense of it and can ofer no display of what he has himself made or prepared. Only in poetry can anyone who can distinguish metrical from unmetrical discourse, and has learned of a few qasidas any which way, and has studied over a few qasidas from a couple of divans, then start of composing poems and consider himself a poet solely on the basis of verse quite bare of refnement of expression and pertinence of themes. 2.3 When some fool is enchanted with his own talent and certain of his own poetry (456) it is quite impossible to dissuade him from that certainty or to mention the faws in his poetry. The consequence of guidance and counsel will be that he becomes vexed with the speaker and consider his words as motivated by meanness, and a proof of envy. By reason of that rancor he will talk nonsense and begin to mock (his critic) as well. That’s what occurred between me and a faqih who sought my acquaintance in Bokhara in the year 601, and who for some fve or six years I esteemed highly. He continually composed dreadful poetry, and people laughed at him. Then, after a number of years, I came to Marv one day on my way to Iraq, and on the wall of the inn where I had dismounted I saw written: Consider the world ordered as thou desirest, what is there at last? Read of the hundred books of life, what is there at last? By way of a joke, I asked him, “What does this bait mean? Who does the pronoun (hu) refer to, and who is the subject of the verb akhraja?” He said, “It’s beautifully expressed and states a truth. It means that even if you achieve your every desire and have a life of many years’ duration, in the end the appointed day will come and carry a man out of this world. The subject of akhraja is “the day appointed (ajal)” and the pronoun refers to “man” (457), which is necessary for the interpretation (taqdir) of this bait. Its interpretation is as follows: “Oh, man, consider the world as ordered by thy wish.” Then he says, ‘It has cast him out,’ that is, the day appointed will come and carry him away.” The crowd that was there laughed at his explanation of the {bait} bait, and his analysis of its grammar. Then he said, “There is no question that ‘It cast him out’ doesn’t ft very well. Its subject ought to have been clearer. I’ll compose a better bait than this.” One day he came and said, “I’ve made up a very fne bait,” and this is what it was: Joy from my heart is free, he cast it out. When there is no proft in loss, he cast it out. When the army of grief took the province of my heart, He is the Sultan (and) all at once, he cast it out.3 We laughed at these baits for a bit, and praised them repeatedly. Then it happened that I was fasting on a Thursday, and about sunset, while I was engaged in prostration and prayer, he approached me and said, “I have composed a quatrain better than the other in ‘he made it/them enter’ (adkhalahu) and ‘he cast it out.’ Just listen,” Joy and mirth and cheer, how he made them enter. Since they were not in his heart, he himself now made them enter. When the army of love seized the desert of my heart, Grief cast (joy and) happiness out more (than) he made them enter. 111

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I told him out of the kindliness that I then felt, “Oh, Khʷajah Imam. You are a man of pure and simple heart. You have established the claims of service over me (i.e. you invite me to speak honestly). I do not accept that you, knowing nothing (458) about the art of poesy, should compose poems. What you compose is not good. I and others laugh {as} at you and do ourselves ill thereby. Heed my advice and compose no more poetry.” He arose and said, “Take heed! It would be better (for you) if I did not.” After that, he began to make satires against me, and recited them to those whom he knew would not repeat them to me. However, those people would continually say to him (in my presence), “Oh, Khʷajah Imam, your ability to make rags of your enemies is indisputable.” I asked one day what sort of idiom that was. “Has he composed a poem and ‘made rags’ of some person in it?” They said, “No, but he says, ‘Whomever I dispute cannot match me, and by decisive proofs and arguments I diminish and abase him – like menstrual rags.”’ And so it was until the year (6)/17 when I came to Ray. He had befriended a boy there, and would give him things and get things from me for him lest he write some of his verses (satirizing me) in an album (safna) that he had made for him. After fve or six months, he died in Ray. The boy used to come to me asking for the considerations that he had always had from me through the Khʷajah Imam. One day he said, “The Khʷajah Imam did not recognize the claim to consideration imposed by your generosity to him, and he often spoke ill of you. He composed satires and wrote them in my album.” I told him, “Bring it so that I may look at them.” He said, “I have an older brother. The album is with him and he has gone to Hamadan. However, I do have a brief one. I’ll bring it. It is the least of his satires.” I took the paper, and I saw written on it: Yesterday, out of envy, {Shams-I} Shams-i Qays told me, “Your poetry is not good, compose (maguy) no more.” (459) I wanted to say to him, “Look you ass, There is no one who faults (ʿaybguy) people like you do. You make pretension to poetry and metrics Well, compose (biguy) two couplets better than mine. And if you can’t, cease faulting the poetry of one Who makes rags (ruguy) of you with his satires.” Under he had written, “That is, the menstrual rags of women having monthly courses, and how could anyone improve on the four uses of the rhyme guy, each one more meaningful. Curses on the envious and the ignorant.” When I saw this poem I understood that when people had said in Marv, “Khaʷjah Imam, your ability to make rags of your enemies is indisputable,” these were the words that he had recited to them, and that phrase had become the expression that they repeated to me. So the “beneft” to me of the advice that I ofered him out of kindliness was that insults and satires about me should be frmly recorded in both Khorasan and Iraq. 2.4 Nevertheless, in all fairness, the varieties of human discourse are as varied and diferent as the kinds and classes of people. Some are fair, some foul, some good, and some bad, some lively (malih), some dull (barid). And all occur in popular discourse and are in common usage. So it is that there are disagreeable witticisms and dull jests that in a large gathering may be appropriate, and by which their speakers may obtain a beneft that many agreeable witticisms and witty jests would not obtain the tenth part of. Thus it is also with the 112

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scurrilous songs of hermaphrodites which by their coarseness of language and vulgarity of subject arouse a delight (460) in some gatherings that many original utterances and exquisite songs could not. When the situation is thus: to reject the discourse of anyone, and to rebuke him to his face for it, is far from discretion and intelligence, and excluded from nobility of character. 2.5 However, if anyone wishes to reach the degree of perfection in the art of poetry, and to so adorn discourse that it will be acceptable to those of taste (arbab-i tabʿ), he must strive so that his poetry and prose are adorned with pure expressions and fne themes. And lest it present itself as original themes dressed in common expression let him not be deceived by images of eloquent phrases on fragile themes. For a theme without a phrase has no freshness and a phrase without a theme is appropriate to nothing. Whenever Abu al-Hudhayl ʿAllaf used to hear an utterance lacking a fne theme, he would say, “This (461) is empty discourse (hadha kalamun farighun).” He was asked what he meant by “empty discourse (kalam-i farigh).” He said, “Words are the containers of themes and themes are their goods. Thus every utterance in which there is no fne theme that will appeal to the taste of the discerning is just like a vacant, empty container in which there are no goods.” 2.6 At the very frst, (the poet) must on no account have confdence in what he has composed. Nor should he seat it upon the dais of general regard nor expose it to acceptance or rejection, until he submits it repeatedly to critics of discourse and sympathetic learned friends, and learns by seeking their guidance what is both right and wrong, and they pronounce judgment on the correctness of its arrangement, the acceptability of its meter, the rightness of its rhyme, the sweetness of its words, and the fneness of its themes. 2.7 When some person of ability (sahib-i hunar) becomes famous for his knowledge, and has become accepted as an authority and as a source of reference for his poetic criticism by experts, and his utterances rejecting or accepting (poetic) expression and themes are recognized as unequivocal proof, and he is recognized as a diligent person of sound opinion, then clear and defnitive proofs are not to be sought for whatever he says, for there are many things which are matters of taste and cannot be expressed in words, just as Ibrahim Mawsili says: “One day Muhammad Amin asked me which of two poems was better. The two were very much alike except that I sensed a refnement in one which I could not put into words. I said, ‘This poem is better.’ Amin said, ‘What is the basis for your preference for this one to that?’ I said, ‘This one is in a language that gives proof of literary talent, but language cannot describe it.’ He said, ‘You are right, for it sometimes happens that we discover in two horses the same signs of swiftness and sturdiness or two female slaves are brought (for sale) in both of whom we see every trait of beauty and excellence (462), but when we present both to an auctioneer of ability he prefers one horse to the other and gives one female slave the advantage over the other. When we inquire as to the basis of the preference, he cannot put into words that special sense that he has acquired from great experience and long practice in the purchase and sale of horses and slaves.” 2.8 It should be known that poetic criticism and the knowledge of what is weak or sound, or frail and robust in it has no connection with the composition of good poetry. There are many poets who compose poetry well but cannot judge it as they ought. There are also many critics of poetry who cannot compose poetry well. They asked one of the learned princes of discourse, “Why do you not compose poetry?” He replied, “Because it does not come out as I would like it to, and what does come out I do not like.” 113

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Most poets believe that gifted poets can criticize poetry, and only they can speak of its faults and failings, but this is wrong. Since a poet in versifying discourse is like a master weaver who weaves precious stufs and works (padid arad) various images – graceful branches and leaves, precisely detailed sketches – into them. But no one but merchants and clothiers, through whose hands priceless stufs of every kind and the products of every region have passed in abundance, can determine their price. None but they know what is appropriate to the padishah’s wardrobe and what is proper for the costume of every kind of the classes of the great. No one tells a weaver, “Fix the price of this cloth.” And if a weaver does fx the price of his own cloth he cannot add beyond the price of the linen silk (463) and gold thread and the days of his labor. He cannot appreciate the fneness of the cloth and its agreeableness and beauty, unless he has been a clothier and becomes a connoisseur of cloth. Then if they heed what he says, they heed it by reason of his being a clothier and merchant, not his being a weaver and cloth maker. Whoever sees a thing in its composed form, and who has made use of it in that form, knows its goodness and badness better than its producer (bar darandah-yi an) for by the composing of its elements he has brought it from potential to practice. Moreover, the poet orders discourse by the passion of his own nature and composes poetry according to need and to suit the occurrence of some event. The critic chooses it for the excellence of its expression and themes, and there is a great diference between that which they desire for its passion and felicity and that which they like for its excellence and praiseworthiness. 2.9 Poetry is the child of the poet. When he has produced a few baits, however they turn out, even if he knows they have not turned out as well as other baits, he does not fnd it in himself to destroy his own composition. The learned have said, {(Arabic)} [Arabic] “A man is beguiled by his intelligence, his poetry and his sons (al-murʾu maftunun biʿaqlihi wa shiʿrihi waʾbnihi).” That is, a man is enamored and deceived by his intellect, his poetry and his sons and he is aficted by the approval of his intellect, poetry and children. But a critic’s heart does not bleed for the poetry of others for he has not wracked his brain in versifying it (464) or composing its words and themes. So he chooses whatever is good and rejects whatever is poor. In his poetry, a poet seeks what is satisfactory, a critic looks for what is best.

Chapter 3.1 A poet should not think to himself that poetry is a matter of constraints (mawziʿ-i iztirar), and that the ancients were guilty of errors out of poetic necessity and employed “licenses” in their poetry since imitation of good poets (nikuguyan) turns out well, but not of bad poets (badguyan).4 3.2 (A poet) ought not to plunder the poetry of other poets and employ their themes with diferent meters and words in his own poetry, nor appropriate the property of others for improper use, nor make the appropriation of others’ work a demonstration of his own excellence. It should be known that poetic theft is of four kinds: intihal, saIakh, elmam and naql. Intihal means ascribing what is another’s to oneself, as when someone arrogantly takes another’s poetry and makes it his own without change or alteration in the words or themes, or with only very slight ones, such as introducing a strange bait into their midst or altering the identifcation of the patron (takhallus). 114

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Thus Sana’i has said: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Around thy face armies of divs and peris have formed ranks, The kingdom of Solomon is thine, lose not the ring. (465) Strike up a beautiful melody tonight and strut forth. Burn the lustre of Venus with thy face like Jupiter’s. Unbelief would have become fxed with the aid of impatience for thee If thy ruby (lips) had not joined the procession of the Prophet. Love of thee brought an illness without remedy. Separation from thee brought execution without trial. Separation from thee is afecting like union with them in that In a busy bazaar the customer is blind. (?) Wit knocked at the door of the heart, love of thee said “Come in!” The chief place in the palace is thine if thou lookest not in the harem. Since the heart has no hope ever of thee, Choose service to the Khosrow so that thou mayest have hope of thyself. Khosrow of the line of Khosrow, Sultan Bahram Shah, Whose doorsill is, like that of Mars (bahram), Jupiter. The Khosrow of Mazandaran, the essence of good fortune.

Both lived in the same age and it is not clear who came frst and who is the thief.5 In the same way Muʿizzi has said: Although thou hast raised thy hand in tyranny, I will give over so thou wilt lower thy hand. and Rafʿi has taken it from him and said (468): From now on, by God, oh coquetry worshipping idol, I will give over so that thou wilt lower thy hand. So also Muʿizzi has said: The sequence of his movements does to the eye of his enemy Just what an emerald does to the eye of the basilisk.6 Adib Sabir has taken this from him and said: To my patience, oh Idol, thy lips like coral do, Just what an emerald does to the eye of the basilisk. Bulfaraj Runi has said: The creaking of the door said to the pilgrims, “Welcome! Welcome! Come in! Come in!” Anvari has taken it from him and said: The creaking of the door said to all the pilgrims: “Welcome! Pass not by, oh Lord, dismount and enter!” 115

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And Farrukhi has said: From fear of thy bloodthirsty dagger, on the day of battle, Blood oozed from thy enemies’ pores instead of sweat. Zahir has taken this from him and said: From the heat of his anger, The ill-wisher drips blood from his pores instead of sweat. And Muʿizzi has said: In his city a man has no great importance. A gem in the mine brings no great price. Anvari has plundered him of this and said: In his own city a man is without importance. Within its mine, a gem is without value. And Bulfaraj has said: From its heavy sleep sedition will not lightly raise its head While thy vigilant eye is alert and awake. Zahir has taken this from him and said: Not for eternity will sedition raise its head from the sleep of annihilation While in the heavens vigilance like thine is alert.

3.3 As for salakh, it means loosening the skin, and this kind of theft is that in which the theme and words are taken, but the arrangement of the words is altered and presented in another way. Thus Rudaki has said: Whoever has not learned from the passing of time, Will not learn from any other teacher. Bu Shukur has taken this from him and said: Perhaps time will seat thee before him, For thou wilt fnd no better teacher. (380) Rudaki has said: Thou dost ever dye thy beard and moustache Thou dost ever torment thyself. 116

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Abu Tahir Khosravani has taken this from him and said: I do wonder at the old man Who does ever dye his beard He’ll not escape fate through dye, However he does torment himself Muʿizzi has said: My back is not bent because the love of thee Has placed a burden of worry and trouble upon it. My heart fell from my hand upon the ground, (and) I have bent my back to search for it. Another has taken from him and {said,} said: Thou hast said “Why should a man’s fgure bend When the jewel of youth has left him?” Well he from whose hand a thing has fallen Must bend his back to fnd it. Masʿud-i-Saʿd (Salman) has said: {I} “I am (bent like) a bow from the pain of (longing for) thy arrowlike fgure. Grief and pain are all the fate and portion I have from it. (471) Separation has made me the arrow’s target, and never Has anyone heard that a bow should be the target for an arrow.” Tabidi Razi has taken from him and said: “Thou hast made my body a bow out of sport By the many arrows thou sendest from thine eyebrows The Turks all shoot arrows from a bow. So why dost thou shoot them at a bow?” 3.4 As for ilmam, It means “to intend to,” “to approach.” In poetic theft it is that in which the theme is taken and employed in diferent words and a diferent aspect. Thus Azraqi has said: The pearl oyster from fear of warriors will fee into the crocodile’s mouth From ruby colored blood to the color of emeralds colored red (That is the i of lali was dropped because of poetic exigency) Anvari has taken this from him and said it better: If thy wrath should draw the vanguard into the sea Within the oyster the pearl will become a pomegranate seed. 117

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Shahab-i Muʿayyad-i Nasaf has said: Blood oozed out from the tiny rings of the armour Like the juice of the pomegranate strained through a sieve. Zahir took it from him and said it better than he: (472) Thou art the one on the bodies of whose enemies, the armor of David Becomes a blood straining sieve from the slashing of thy sword. Muʿizzi has said: When it wrote thy name on the tablet, The pen ceased from writing. It said, “What more than this do I know to write? For I have written ‘whole’ and ‘part’ together.” Anvari took this idea from him and said very well: When the Earth achieved the honor of thy birth The heavens sought to fnd a way to thine equal But itself fails of another like thee Or if not, neither is the reed pen of abundance broken nor is generosity a miser. 3.5 And as for {Naql} naql It occurs when a poet takes· the theme of another poet and transfers it from one subject to another, but expresses it in that form (pardah). Example. Mukhtari has said, Where has that one gone who sewed a (vazir’s) parasol from a (suf’s) torn cloak? Now he must tear his parasol and sew a cloak. Razi Nishapuri has employed this in eulogy and said: Intending service to thy court, from every side Many kings have made girdles (of servitude) from their crowns. And thus as another has said in complaint against the times: Today the heavens place that one upon a throne of gold Who is (there) like a plain ruby bezel. Razi Nishapuri has transferred this to eulogy: Whoever has put the seal (ring) of praise on his fnger Sticks his head out through a small opening like a bezel. 118

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And Ghadaʾiri has said: He, the Unique God, the Peerless Dispenser of Justice, Acted right when he did not make both worlds manifest (to thee). (474) Otherwise thou wouldst have given both away in thy generosity, And (thy) slave could not have hoped for anything from (his) High Lord. Razi Nishapuri has made a fne naql of this and knocked of his (Anvari’s) literary {cap} cap: Look not at the sea’s waves and the bounty of the clouds and shining moon. And do not shake the chain (boast) of thy bounty. For He is master of both existences and when He stirs. These mean goods will in no way sufce Him. And as a poet said: In loving thee I sufer Majnun’s plight. That is, I am outside the ranks of the rational. My grief is that thou art not as straight with me as the alif. Thou art like vav, in the midst of my blood (khun). (475) Another has done this trick with jan: With the fuzz on thy cheek I will polish my eyes. And with thy words I will sweeten my discourse. Every letter of thy blessed love {letter.} letter, I will give a place within my soul like alif in jan. And among the rarities of naql is that which was made on Rudaki: If his cheeks bear fowers, it is no wonder. Since he ever drinks wine, his fowers blossom. 3.6 The masters of themes have said that when a poet hits upon a theme and dresses it in disagreeable words and expresses it in unpleasing language, and then another (poet) takes that very theme and displays it in pleasing language and acceptable words, he takes priority, and that theme becomes his property. “{(Arabic)} [Arabic] But to the frst belongs the excellence of precedence.” Thus Rudaki has said: With a hundred thousand men thou art alone. Without a hundred thousand men thou art alone. That is, “With a hundred thousand men” thou art unique in knowledge and skill among them. And “Without a hundred thousand men,” thou art great, and it seems as though thou canst replace a hundred thousand. Although the concept is fne, the expression (476) is weak. ʿUnsuri has taken it from him and said: 119

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Although he be alone, the whole world is with him. And though all the world be with him, he is alone. Although ʿUnsuri has expressed the concept with more amplitude in his bait, it is better and more pleasing than Rudaki’s bait with its laconicism. Thus this theme has become ʿUnsuri’s property, but Rudaki retains the excellence of precedence. It is just the same with the bait of Muʿizzi and Anvari’s naql of it we cited. But if the second poet does not make some addition to the concept of the frst poet, by which the {luster} lustre of the theme is increased, and does not clothe it in more eloquent and pleasing expression, he has (simply) stolen the theme and its excellence belongs to the frst. Thus it is with the bait of Bulfaraj and Anvari we cited. For these are examples of {plagairism} plagiarism and (the baits) remain the property of the original poets.

Chapter 4.1 It should be known that a poet needs most of the sciences and polite learning for the excellence of his poetry, and for this reason he must be accomplished and know something of every subject so that if he needs to express some concept that is not part of his art, it will not be difcult for him to do so, and he will not say anything by which people will infer he did not understand what he was saying. Thus Muʿizzi has said: It is right that whatever pious man (mo’min) who is a Muslim Should hear of the Oneness of God (towhid). For when a pious man is a Muslim, His heart opens up at the Oneness of God. Now there are no pious men who are not Muslims, but there are Muslims who are not pious. For when they seek to distinguish between faith and submission to God faith comes frst then submission. Faith is confrmation of the truth of belief in God and the Prophet, and submission is bending one’s neck to the commands of God and the Prophet. The Arabs (of the desert) say, “We believe,” Say to them: You do not believe. Say rather, “We submit.” . . . Qur’an XLIX:14 Thus as Anvari has said: If Saturn gnaws the livers of those who favor thee, May Aries become a morsel (mustah) for the two vultures of the heavens. Now mustah means the food of hunting birds, which they are fed as required. But the vulture is not a hunting bird who eats mustah and for this reason they have criticized him for this bait. 4.2 (478) That is what is necessary to the art of poesy. It is hoped that if a person of ability studies this compilation (the Moʿjam) carefully and does not press on from each chapter ignorant of its contents, he will in a brief time achieve the degree of perfection in discourse, both in prose and in poetry, and he will be master of graceful, eloquent expression and themes. 120

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If God the Most High wills. Praise be to God, Lord of Worlds, and prayers and peace upon the best of creation and the manifestation of His Truth, Muhammad, and his family, the virtuous and pure, the most noble and best, and God grant them great and perpetual salvation.

Notes 1 In his history of Arabic literary criticism, Ihsan ʿAbbas writes that al-Hatami was the frst critic in the Arabic tradition to speak of the symmetry and proportion of the parts of a poem as like that of the human body (Tarikh naqd al-adabi ʿind al-ʿarab. Beirut, page 457, a correction is made to the original text). 2 The last phrase in both half lines could, in the orthography of the time, be read either as Persian (akhar chih) “What is there at least?” or Arabic (akhrajahu) “He/it cast him/it out” or “expelled him/it” since the initial alif was written without a maddah and both ch and j were represented by the letter jim. Only the Persian reading is intended, of course, but Shams-i Qays pretends that the Arabic is, and, in jest, asks his friend to interpret that. Unfortunately, although it is transparent to everyone else, his friend does not see the jest, and ofers a bizarre, strained interpretation of what is simple and obvious. 3 These lines ofer the same mixture of Persian and Arabic as the poet imagines the initial ones to have done. 4 This passage echoes arguments presented more fully on page 297 of the book. 5 In the edition of Sanaʾi’s works prepared by the editor of Muʿjam, this poem has ffteen {beyts} baits, of which those given here by Shams-i Qays correspond to numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, and 15 (Divan-i hakim abu majd majdud ibn adam Sanaʾi Ghaznavi. Edited by Mudarris Razavi, Tehran, 1354, page 647). The edition of ʿAli Asghar Bashir (Kabul, p. 418–19, a correction is made to the original text), which is in fact a photographic reproduction of the earliest manuscript of Sanaʾi’s divan, gives the text as it is in Shams-i Qays with the exception of one additional bait between baits two and three. There is no published edition of Imadi’s works, nor have I found mention of him in the manuscript of catalogues available to me. 6 That an emerald would burst the eye of a basilisk (afʿa) was a poetic commonplace. The Farhang-i dikhuda ofers citations for a number of poets who use this image, including Nizami, Anvari, and Salman-i Savaji. However Abul-Qasim Abdallah Kashani, the author of a 14th-century work on the wonders of the natural world, dismisses the idea quite crisply. “Among both the great and mean it is asserted that if a pure emerald is held before the eye of a basilisk it will burst. That is impossible” (Arayish al-javahir va nafaʾis al-atayib, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1345), 56).

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5 RUDAKI Father of Persian Poetry Sassan Tabatabai

Abu ‘Abollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki (c. 880–941 ce) was the court poet to the Samanids, a local Persian dynasty who ruled much of Khorasan from their seat in Bukhara during the 9th and 10th centuries. He is considered one of the frst major poets to write in New Persian following the Arab conquest and is credited as an originator and innovator of poetic forms that have become synonymous with classical Persian poetry. He is recognized as the frst poet to write in the ruba’i form and is credited with Persianizing the Arabic qasideh.1 The rule of the Samanids in Khorasan in Eastern Iran during the 10th century is a monumental period in the history of Persian literature. The gradual weakening of the caliphate and the distance of Khorasan to the center of the caliph’s power in Baghdad gave the Samanids a considerable amount of autonomy. The Samanid amirs’ embrace and sponsorship of art, literature, and scholarship created prime conditions for the development of Persian literature. They rekindled a sense of pride in the accomplishments of pre-Islamic Persia and a fertile climate for a renaissance of Persian literature. This literary renaissance embodied more than just a continuity with pre-Islamic Persian literature and to a large extent was informed by the forms and themes of classical Arabic poetry. Jan Rypka asserts that, under Samanid rule, the frst manifestation of a new written Persian was Dari. It was Dari that developed into the frst literary forms of Persian literature at the Samanid court, with the poet Rudaki as its brightest star.2 According to Richard Frye, Dari could be seen as “a simple style of New Persian free from Arabic words, whereas the term Farsi in this period was a designation of the style of the New Persian language which was greatly mixed with Arabic words and was rather ornate than simple.”3 Dari, which already existed in the 7th century at the time of the spread of Arabic, would set the stage for the development of the new Iranian languages and dialects and form the basis for New Persian. “The Arab conquest helped make Dari rather than Arabic the common spoken language,” contends Ira Lapidus. “Paradoxically, Arab and Islamic domination created a Persian cultural region in areas never before unifed by Persian speech.”4 By the 10th century, the Persian cultural renaissance was in full swing under the tutelage of the Samanids. New Persian as a literary language, states Rypka, is “sufciently developed to produce such splendid fruits as the poems of Rudaki.”5 At the Samanid court, during the 9th and 10th centuries, Persian gradually replaced Arabic in most aspects of ofcial governance. Frye suggests that, in fact, much of the bureaucracy was 122

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conducted in written Persian, which had become the de-facto “ofcial” spoken language. In turn, Arabic was reserved for more formal afairs such as religious or caliphal matters.6 By elevating the status of Persian vis-à-vis Arabic, the Samanids not only laid the foundations for the wonders of Persian poetry in centuries to come, but they also changed the cosmopolitan outlook of Islam itself. “The Samanids liberated Islam from its narrow Arab Bedouin background and mores and made of it an international culture and society,” writes Frye. “They showed that Islam also was not bound to the Arabic language, and in so doing they earned a signifcant niche in world history.”7 One of the earliest forms of Persian poetic expression is the ruba’i, and Persian poets – in particular the Suf poets – have found the terse quatrain an ideal vehicle to express succinct meditations on love. An often-repeated anecdote names Rudaki as the originator of the form. The story, which Edward Browne attributes to Shams-e Qays in approximately 1220–1221 ce, goes as follows: Rudaki was taking a stroll through the streets of Bukhara when he encountered a group of children playing and singing a jingle, “ghaltan ghaltan hami ravad ta bon-e kuh.” The verse caught the poet’s ear, and he later started composing the ruba’i modeled on the overheard verse.8 Even though Rudaki is generally lauded as the frst major poet to write in the ruba’i form, there is dispute as to the earliest use of the quatrain. Mohammad-Reza Shaf’i Kadkani acknowledges the sources that indicate Rudaki as the originator of the form but proposes that a similar quatrain recited in Dari was already being used in the Sama sessions among Suf circles.9 The debate over the frst utterances of the ruba’i is further complicated by its predominant theme of love, a truly universal fascination for most poets, which creates much uncertainty with the attribution of the poems. By its very nature, the author of the pithy quatrain is notoriously diffcult to establish with certainty, as is evident from the same ruba’iyat being credited to diferent poets. This is manifest in a number of ruba’iyat that are attributed to both Rudaki and Abu Sa’id Abolkhayr, the 10th-/11th-century Suf poet from Khorasan. Nevertheless, in the ruba’iyat that are attributed to Rudaki, one can see the symbols and metaphors that embody a uniquely Persian outlook and have become staples of Persian poetry: the moon as the beautiful face of the beloved, narcissus as eyes with which to see the beloved, the tulip as the cheeks of the beloved, and agate as tears of blood shed because of heartache. A sample of Rudaki’s ruba’iyat shows a range of approaches that relate to the theme of love. A main preoccupation in the poems is the emotional pain sufered by the aficted lover: Each agate of sorrow you draw from my eyes, pierces My cheek, opening a thousand roses of secrets. Secrets my heart had kept hidden from my soul, In rapture’s language, are revealed by my tears. –– I eagerly place your letter before me. Teardrops pattern the Pleiades on my shirt. His treatment of love also extends to the appreciation of beauty: Her hair, down, is a long dark night; Parted: a pair of open claws. –– You’ve stolen color and scent from the rose: Color for your cheeks, scent for your hair. 123

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In some of the ruba’iyat, we even see a more playful Rudaki, who seems to be having fun with his amorous discourse: She came to me. Who? The beloved. When? At dawn. Afraid of whom? The guardian. Who is that? Her father. –– She sold a tryst for a heart, a fair price. She sells a kiss for a soul, and it’s cheap. –– In his ruba’iyat, Rudaki engages themes other than love as well. True to his identity as a court poet, and consistent with his collected body of work, we encounter panegyric sentiments in a number of his quatrains My lord bestows much that isn’t required of him. How can I neglect what is required of me? –– Day raises its banner in your name. The crescent moon is your cup. Other than his role as an innovator of the ruba’i, Rudaki was instrumental in laying the foundation for another major form of Persian poetry. The emergence of the qasideh, the frst major genre of Persian court poetry, adapted from the Arabic model, dates from the time of the Samanids and of Rudaki. The origins of the qasideh as oral poetry of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia can be traced to about 500 ce, a little over a century before the advent of Islam and the start of the Islamic era in 622. Even though the origins of the qasideh are rooted in Bedouin Arab poetry, thematically, it lent itself to be seamlessly adapted to the poetry of the Persian courts. The Persians had been well acquainted with the panegyric from long before the advent of Islam and the adoption and imitation of the qasideh presented little trouble for Persian poets.10 The word qasideh comes from the Arabic verb qasada, which implies a movement towards something or efort towards a particular end. It is typically characterized by a stylized progression through the poem itself in which the poet arrives at the main theme of the poem through a circuitous route that progresses along prescribed lines. The standard pattern of the pre-Islamic qasideh consists of three sections. The amatory prelude (nasib) acts as an introduction to the poem, with such themes as love and the appreciation of women, memories of youth, bygone times, and longing for home. The transition (rahil) usually takes the form of a camel journey to a distant place where the poet hopes to reach his loved one. In turn, this leads to the central theme of the poem (madih), which in pre-Islamic qasidehs includes love, ranging from the experience of true love to the appreciation of beauty, lamentation in the form of elegies or complaints about old age and the anticipation of death, praise for the poet’s patron and tribe, and lampooning the enemies and rivals of the poet’s patron.11 Over the next four centuries, the qasideh would undergo several thematic transformations and emerge as the principal form of panegyric court poetry. During the Abbasid Dynasty

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(750–1258), the rahil as a camel journey is gradually replaced by a journey of the poet towards the patron. Thematically, the qasideh becomes predominantly panegyric. Stefan Sperle identifes three aspects of the Abbasid panegyric that address the qualities of the caliph that are to be lauded by the poet, “virtue,” “divine sanction,” and “mythic power.” “Virtue” pertains to the moral qualities exemplifed by the caliph as the ultimate node of power and includes nobility of character, generosity, equanimity, and resolution, all qualities one would like to fnd in the head of government. “Divine sanction” establishes the caliph as the inheritor of al-Abbas and his descendants, grounding his authority in the family of the prophet and legitimizing the Abbasid Caliphate as one rooted in Islam and sanctioned by god. “Mythic power” roots the power of the caliph in tradition and the authority associated with kingship in the ancient Near East.12 In the 9th century, poets begin writing qasidehs in Persian, but they seem to be no more than imitations of the Arabic model. The Persian qasideh blooms with Rudaki. “Rudaki represents a turning point in the early development of the Persian qasideh,” writes Meisami, “the point when it becomes naturalized, internalized and, indeed, truly Persian.” In the Persian qasideh, conventions inspired by the desert are replaced by typically “Persian” features such as scenes of courtly love and descriptions of gardens.13 The panegyric nature of the Persian qasideh also strengthened the symbiotic nature of the relationship between poet and patron. By divorcing the qasideh from the narrow, tribal environment of pre-Islamic Bedouins, the poet becomes the herald of the Persian aristocracy. Consequently, the poet has to embrace even greater responsibility vis-à-vis the privileged class that sustains him. According to Rypka, the poet has to extol his patron in “extravagant panegyrics and to entertain them by depicting scenes from their lives, which revolve around razm u bazm (‘fghting and feasting’), and to defend them by pouring scorn upon their enemies.”14 Rudaki’s longest qasideh, “mādar-e may” (“Mother of Wine”), is exemplary of the Persian court panegyric. Kamran Talattof sees “Mother of Wine” not only as a poem that refects all the central characteristics of a qasideh but one that transcends the established parameters of the poetic form because of its novel Persianness. In his analysis, the poem unfolds synchronically and diachronically. “On the one hand, the poem refers to the contemporary characters and geographical places in all directions,” writes Talattof. “On the other hand, and through symbolism, [it] makes references to the Persian Past.”15 Consequently, Rudaki engages his primary audience, which is the Samanid aristocracy, and grounds their legitimacy in the accomplishments of the Sassanians. The poem begins with a description of making refned wine that is to be served at a feast in honor of the amir. The grape is personifed, and Rudaki takes the reader through the winemaking process: choosing the grapes, crushing, distilling, and fnally aging.16 You must sacrifce the mother of wine, Take away and imprison her child. But you cannot take away her child Before crushing her and taking her life. It is important to start the process with grapes that have been allowed to ripen on the vine: It is not just to separate A baby from its mother’s breast, Before it has suckled for seven months, From early spring until late fall.

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A literal translation of Rudaki’s last line here reads “from early Ordibehesh until the end of Aban,” the second and eighth months of the Persian calendar, respectively, which constitutes the seven growing months it would take for the grapes to mature. Only when the grapes have adequately ripened are they ready to be crushed and start the fermentation process: Then, in all fairness, it is just To imprison the child, kill the mother. Once the grapes have been crushed and placed inside a cask, the distillation process begins. Here, the personifed grapes are described as confused prisoners who are struggling to come to terms with the changes in their chemical constitution. Once securely locked away, the child Roams, confused for seven days and nights. When it realizes what has happened, It will froth. It will moan from heartache, Sink to the bottom with sadness, Boil to the surface with sorrow. It is a painful growing process that the grape must go through if it is to emerge as the special wine that is ft for the amir. The detailed description of the wine-making process underscores the gravity of the occasion in which it is to be served. Only the fnest wine will do in any feast honoring the amir. A camel drunk with rage Foams at the mouth, throws its rider. The guard will wipe away the froth, Remove the darkness, reveal its brilliance. Finally, when it has stopped struggling, The guard will secure the lid. Rudaki’s description of this new wine – loaded with the typical conceits found in classical Persian poetry – puts the emphasis on the precious nature of the wine. Its red color is compared with that of coral and jewels: When completely calmed and clear, It becomes red like a ruby, like coral, Red like a carnelian from Yemen, Or a precious ring from Badakhshan. Its bouquet is described as that of a rose: If you smell it you will say it is a rose Scented with ambergris, myrobalan and musk. Now Rudaki tells us the wine is aged for an additional six months or so until Nisan, the frst month of the Syrian calendar, which roughly corresponds to April. The description of the 126

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wine, which up until this point had been phrased in terms of precious objects, takes on cosmic characteristics. Remove the lid at midnight You will see a burning sun. And when you see it in a glass, you will say Moses, son of Amram, holds a gem in hand. Having described the process of making the wine, Rudaki mentions the general virtues and benefts of the precious liquid before turning his attention to the feast and ultimately praise of the amir. The miser become generous, the weak becomes brave. After one sip, a rose garden will bloom on pale cheeks. And he who drinks a cup with joy Will feel no pain or sorrow. Ten-year-old sorrow will get banished to Tanjeh. New hope will arrive from Omman and Rey. Finally, the wine is ready to be served at the feast in honor of the poet’s patron. For Talattof, Rudaki’s elaborate description of wine in the qasideh functions as a bridge between the present and the past of Persian history. “Persian language as the desired utterance, i.e. within the poem,” he writes, “is praised for being the ideal language for a poem on wine and identity as a central focus.”17 With such wine, so well-aged, Its shirt worn threadbare for ffty years, We will have a feast ft for kings, Adorned with mallow, jasmine and roses. At this point the poem shifts gears as Rudaki makes the transition from the wine prelude to the magnifcent scene in the amir’s palace. Heaven spreads its grace in all directions, Building something no one can copy: Clothes of golden thread, newly-woven rugs, Exotic fowers, and seats in plenty. He sets the mood by identifying the court musicians who will be entertaining the assembly: ‘Isa’s harp, which makes the heart blush, Madaknir’s lute, and Chabak-e Janan’s ffe. The scene he depicts is populated by the ruling class. He emphasizes the gravity of the occasion by mentioning the notables who are present and the focal point of the assembly towards whom all attention is directed. Seated in rows are the Amirs, Bal’ami, The nobles, and respected elders. 127

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Up front, on his throne sits the king, Lord of all kings, the Amir of Khorasan. It is worth noting that the only guest he mentions by name is Bal’ami, the vazir to Amir Nasr-ibn Ahmad II’s (reigned 914–943). Abolfazl Mohammad-ibn Abdullah Bal’ami, who held ofce from 922–938, is a signifcant character in the renaissance of Persian literature during the Samanids. A great patron of Rudaki, Bal’ami is credited with drawing literary talent to the Samanid court. Bal’ami commissioned Rudaki to translate the Kalila u Dimna into Persian. Unfortunately, only fragments remain from Rudaki’s translation. Elaborating on the festive nature of the gathering, Rudaki describes the jovial mood that permeates the assembly: The wine is happily passed around, The king of the world is content, he laughs, Taking wine from a dark-haired, angel-faced Turk, With the body of a cypress, and hair in waves. The poet has now arrived at the panegyric proper and identifes his patron who is being honored. He drinks and cheers, as do his friends. All are happy with wine in hand. They drink to the health of Ahmad-ibn Mohammed, The greatest of free men, the pride of Iran, The lord of fairness, the sun of his times Through whom justice thrives and brightens the world. He roots the identity of his patron squarely within the imperial Persian tradition by tying him back to Sassan, the grandfather of Ardeshir Babakan, the founder of the Sassanian Dynasty in the 3rd century ce. Man is made of earth, water, fre and wind. This king is from the sun of the line of Sassan. Having worked through the prelude of the poem and set the scene that is to unfold, Rudaki fnally begins his praise with broad, sweeping strokes, using the typical cant of the court panegyrist. This dark land has found glory through him. This wrecked world has become Eden through him. From here, the poem systematically tackles the diferent qualities of the amir and reads like a detailed catalogue of virtue and accomplishment, comparable only to the greatest examples the poet can come up with. Rudaki addresses the amir’s knowledge and wisdom by comparing him to the great Greek philosophers. When it comes to wisdom, you will say Before you stand the Greeks: Plato and Socrates. 128

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To emphasize the amir’s piety, Rudaki puts him alongside notable Islamic jurists and theologians: If you profess to be a man of god, Here are Shaf ’i, Abu Hanifah and Sofyan. Also known as Imam Shaf ’i, Mohammad ibn Idris (767–820) was the founder of the Shaf ’iyah school of Islam. Abu Hanifeh No’man ibn Sabet (696–767) was the founder of the Hanafi school. Sofyan ibn Sa’id Suri (713–778) was a prominent 8th-century theologian. Rudaki continues with the Islamic references by comparing the amir’s wisdom to that of Loqman, a character known for his wisdom and piety whose name is mentioned several times in the Koran. If you talk of science or philosophy, Listen to the wisdom of Loqman. The amir even assumes otherworldly qualities, as his beauty is compared to that of Rezvan, the door-keeper of paradise. If you are looking for an angel, Before you stands Rezvan, that is clear. Look closely at his soft, beautiful face, You will see the proof of what I say. It must be noted that despite the examples just cited, overall, the Islamic references in Rudaki’s poetry are few and far between. This is consistent with the paucity of Islamic themes in early Persian literature. The Encyclopaedia Iranica states that “signifcantly little or nothing is said about devotion and spiritual bodily asceticism, let alone fasting and vigil-keeping, as means to divine favor and celestial reward.” When poets speak of the transience of this world, their objective is not to warn against absorption in worldly afairs. Their purpose is to urge man to be virtuous and do good so that he may leave behind a good name. Much of Rudaki’s poetry is devoted to such moral exhortation.18 According to Shaf’i Kadkani, the imagery in Rudaki’s poetry resonates with references to Zoroastrian culture and ancient Iranian themes rather than Islamic and Semitic ones.19 For the most part, the underlying ethos in Rudaki’s poetry has a pre-Islamic outlook. The Islamic references we do fnd in his poetry convey more the philosophical spirit of Islam, something that would have been more suited and have broader appeal to his Persian audience. They are in stark contrast to the examples we fnd in Arabic qasidehs in praise of the Abbasid caliphs that try to give genetic legitimacy to the caliph by grounding his authority in the blood-line of the prophet. Rudaki continues with the description of the amir’s virtues, whose earthly qualities now resonate with supernatural characteristics. If his words fall upon your ears, It will reverse the bad luck of Saturn. If you see him sitting on his throne, You will say Solomon has come to life. 129

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Having established the moral qualities of the amir in Islamic terms, Rudaki turns to his patron’s valor, which takes on mythical dimensions. On the day of battle, of hate, of bravery, When you see him clad in helmet and armor, He will make an elephant seem small, Even one that is roaring and drunk. When Rudaki addresses the amir’s prowess on the battlefeld, the references the poet uses are predominantly Persian, as in Sam and Esfandiyar, who are mythical Persian heroes. He rides like Sam, and while stars still shine, No horse shall see a rider like him. ... During battle, even Esfandiyar Trembles and runs from his spear. In fact, nothing can withstand the superhuman powers of the amir: Facing his spear, even a dragon Melts like wax, as if facing fre. Even Mars if he comes to his battle, Will become a meal for his sword. Next, Rudaki turns to his patron’s peace-time qualities. He addresses the amir’s generosity: Spring clouds only shower dark rain, He rains parcels of silk and sacks of gold. He gives and gives, with both hands, Making the storm seem mundane. His equanimity: As for fairness and justice, There is no one like him, so honest and fair. Both weak and strong get justice from him. He displays no tyranny or hatred. His grace is spread all over the world, From which no one is deprived. And his compassion: Those troubled by the world fnd comfort in him. The heart-broken fnd a remedy in him. The mercy of this glorious king, Like a rope, binds all deserts and felds. He accepts remorse, pardons sin, Will not anger, and strives to forgive. 130

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Having painted a vivid portrait of the amir and his admirable traits, Rudaki once again turns to the references that make his qasideh identifably Persian: Amr Lays is reborn in him, With his entourage and times. The name of Rostam is grand, but Rostam, son of Dastan lives because of him. Amr Leays is the second Safarid king (887–900), and Rostam is the most famous hero from Persian myth. Consistent with the concept of fakhr or self-glorifcation by the poet, Rudaki even boasts of his abilities as a panegyrist. In a display of mock humility, he claims the inadequacy of his verse for such an occasion but places his own work alongside the great Arab poets and orators of the past: Jarir-ibn ‘Attieh (d.727), Abu-Tammam Ta’i (d.727), Hassan-ibn Sabet Ansari (d.670), Sarie’ Alghavani (d.814), and Sahban Va’el (d.670). Here is a eulogy, it’s the best I could do. It has good words and is easily understood. But I don’t know words that beft the Amir, Although my poems rival Jarir’s, Ta’i’s and Hassan’s. ... I complain because my poems reveal my weakness Although I have the gift like Sari and Sahban. The poem builds to a crescendo with the poet asking the heavens to rain down blessings on his patron. May the glory of my Amir always soar, That of his enemies always fall. May his head reach as high as the moon, His enemies, buried under the fsh. The qasideh fnally ends with a ftting expression of celestial magnifcence by conjuring an image of the sun, as well as earthly permanence like the unmovable bulk of mountains: May his face be more brilliant than the sun, His grace more lasting than mount Joudy and Sahlan. Other than “Mother of wine,” which is a wonderful example of a panegyric qasideh by a Persian court poet, “My teeth are all worn down and falling out” (Marā besud o foru rikht har che dandān bud) is a more intimate, emotionally charged qasideh that addresses the ups and downs of a poet who has to navigate the competitive and often hostile environment of a royal court. The qasideh provides valuable insight into Rudaki’s personal predicament and psychological constitution as a poet attached to the Samanid court. Rudaki’s position as the Samanid court poet can be considered the most signifcant aspect of his life. In fact, the relationship between poet and court, with its roots in pre-Islamic times, is an important facet in the development of Persian poetry. Traditionally, the court poet, whose function went far beyond that of a mere entertainer, was an integral part of the Persian court. 131

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Ardeshir Babakan, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty in the 3rd century, considered the poet “part of government and the means of strengthening rulership.”20 The relationship between poet and patron was one of mutual beneft. The poet would glorify his patron and preserve his name and reputation. In return, the poet would gain wealth and infuence and enjoy the luxuries of a courtly life. Nizami Arudi describes the poet–patron relationship in Chahar Maqala (1155–1157), a discussion in four discourses of the four infuential professions of medieval Persia: civil service, poetry, astrology, and medicine. “A king cannot dispense with a good poet, who shall conduce to the immortality of his name, and shall record his fame in diwans and books,” he writes. “For when the king receives that command which none can escape [i.e. death], no trace will remain of his army, his treasure, and his store; but his name will endure forever by reason of the poet’s verse.”21 The relationship between poet and patron, however, was a precarious one. When addressing the patron, whether praising or giving advice, the poet had to be careful not to ofend. Ofending the ruler could be costly to the poet, who could easily lose his livelihood and quite possibly his life. The poet’s life at court was also infuenced by the internal politics and power struggles within the court. Rudaki’s fortune was to a large extent dependent on the support of his main benefactor, Bal’ami the vazir.22 With the death of Bal’ami (937), Rudaki’s fortune took a turn for the worse. Soon after, Rudaki fell out of favor with the amir and was expelled from court. This traumatic event in Rudaki’s life was followed by the death of the poet Shahied Balkhi, a close friend of Rudaki who also enjoyed the patronage of the Samanid court. In a moving elegy on the death of Balkhi, one can sense Rudaki’s anguish at his own situation: Shahied’s caravan has left before ours. Believe me, ours will also leave. Count the eyes, there is one pair less, Measure the wisdom, thousands less. With his connection to the court severed, Rudaki spent the rest of his life in poverty and died shortly after. “My teeth are all worn down” is a moving qasideh in which the poet, now old and marginalized from court, reminisces about the vitality of his youth, fondly recalls his days of glory at the Samanid court, and laments the sad predicament in which he fnds himself towards the end of his life. The poem opens with a snapshot of the poet’s present condition in old age, which provides the context for a description of the heyday of his youth and his unmatched stature at court. He reminisces about his youth, his health, his strength, his vitality, and his good looks. Rudaki describes his teeth using the imagery of precious objects, putting emphasis on their importance to the poet as a source of pride and something worth treasuring. My teeth are all worn down and falling out. They weren’t just teeth, they were as bright light, Rows of white silver, coral and pearl, Bright as raindrops or morning star against night. He attributes their decay and loss to fate and divine inclination. He speculates on the transience of life and the cyclical nature of existence, something that transcends the specifc actor who plays but a small role on a vast cosmic stage that surpasses the will of the individual. They have all worn down, each in its turn. Such bad luck! The bad luck known as Saturn’s. 132

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Was it Saturn or the long years? I will Tell you what: It was surely divine will. The world’s like an eye, round and rolling, Ruled by an axiom, the cycles revolving. It’s the cure that alleviates our pain, or The pain yet again supplanting the cure. It makes old what was new, rejuvenates What’s been worn down with the years and with age. Many lush gardens are now deserts dry, And lush gardens grow where desert once sprawled. Having placed the responsibility for his demise on fate, he now turns to himself and recalls the splendor of his youth. He frames this section of the poem as a dialogue with an imaginary beloved and starts with a description of his own physical beauty. My dark-haired beauty, you can’t possibly know, What shape I was in a long time ago! You can caress your lover with your curls, But never saw him with curls of his own. The days are past when his skin was silken-soft. The days are past when his hair was raven-dark. Beauty and charm were once his darling guests, Guests who will not come back, nevertheless. There were many beauties who bewildered all, And their beauty always bewildered my eyes. Gone are the days when he was happy, When joy was plentiful and sorrow was slight. Having depicted himself in his youth as attractive and desired, he elaborates on his carnal portrayal by putting emphasis on his sexual vitality. When he found Turks with pomegranate breasts, He appraised and counted out the dirhems. Many a lovely slave girl sought him out And came to him by night, hidden from all, Who dared not come to him by light of day, For fear of their masters and fear of jail. Costly was the wine and each lovely face, But they were always inexpensive for me, Having grounded his physicality in terra frma, the poem takes an emotional turn as Rudaki delves into the sensitive side of the poet. By illustrating his happiness, his kindness, his spiritual wealth, his appreciation of beauty, and ultimately his poetic gift, he sets the stage for the lamentation that results from their loss. For my heart was a treasury of riches, Of words we call Love and Poetry. I was happy, my soul was a meadow 133

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Filled with joy, never having known sorrow. My songs served to soften many a soul That before was hard and heavy as stone. My eyes watched for sweet, delicate curls, My ears listened to the words of the wise. No wife, no child, and no expenses, I was weighed down by none of these burdens. My sweet, you’ve seen only Rudaki of late, You never saw him in his greater state, Never saw him when he used to tell tales And sang songs that rivaled the nightingales’. But the inevitable loss of the poet’s fortune – as dictated by the turning wheel of fate from the beginning of the poem – is something the reader has been anticipating all along. Here, Rudaki displays his loss against the backdrop of the most notable aspect of his life, his unrivaled position as a court poet. He’s no longer the friend of nobles. The days Are past when he was favored by princes, At the king’s court, his volumes of verse Were held in high esteem, when he held sway. Gone are the days when everyone knew his lines And he was the poet of Khorasan. Perhaps looking to fnd his way back into favor with the Samanid court, he makes it very clear that his social stature, wealth, and privilege were a direct consequence of his dominant position as the favored court poet. In fact, he tells us his relationship with the Samanids was not only directly lucrative for him, it brought him peripheral revenue from diferent parts of the ruling establishment, be they the immediate nobility or a character like the Amir of Makan, a reference to Makan-e Kaky (d.945), who ruled part of Tabarestan. Wherever I went in noble houses, Silver was bestowed on me as a gift. However came honor and riches for some, For me they came from the House of Saman: Forty thousand from the Amir of Khorasan, Another ffth from the Amir of Makan. And eight thousand more from the nobles. Life was good. Those were indeed the days. When my words fell on the Amir’s ears, He gave ftly from his own purse and others’. Having taken the reader on a journey that displays Rudaki’s rise and fall, the poet accepts his sad predicament and resigns himself to his fate. But times have changed, so have I. Bring me my staf. It’s time for the cane and the beggar’s purse. 134

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Rudaki was in the right place at the right time to carve a dominant niche for himself in the history of Persian literature. During the 9th century, the centralized power of the caliphate with its seat in Baghdad had diminished enough to allow for a resurgence of local autonomy at the fringes of the Islamic Empire, which allowed the Samanids to come into power in Khorasan. In turn, the Samanids provided fertile ground for a renaissance of Persian literature by sponsoring and drawing literary talent to their court. Much to his credit, Rudaki found himself at the center of this literary renaissance by establishing himself as one of the preeminent poets of the Samanid court. Although most sources suggest that much of Rudaki’s poetry has been lost – A. J. Arberry claims that Rudaki was believed to have composed a staggering 1,300,000 couplets23 – the surviving body of work attributed to him establishes him as a cornerstone of the Persian literary genius that unfolds over subsequent centuries. He is recognized as the frst poet to compose in the ruba’i form, a uniquely Persian poetic expression. Furthermore, he is credited with Persianizing the Arabic qasideh and laying the foundations for the development of the qasideh as the dominant form of Persian court poetry. Justifably, many of the later giants of Persian poetry have tipped their hats to Rudaki as the father of Persian poetry.

Notes 1 Some of the material in this chapter has been adapted from my longer work on Rudaki. See Sassan Tabatabai, Father of Persian Verse: Rudaki and his Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010). 2 Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidael Publishing Company, 1968), 72–73. 3 Richard Frye, “Development of Persian Literature under the Samanids and Qarakhanids,” Islamic Iran and Central Asia (7th-12th Centuries) (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), 71 4 Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 154–155. 5 Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 67. 6 Richard Frye, “The Samanids,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. R. N. Frye, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 145. 7 Frye, Cambridge History, 147. 8 Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 473. 9 Mohammad-Reza Shaf’i-Kadkani, Musiqi-e She’r (Tehran: Entesharat-e Agah, 1989), 467–478. For a discussion on the origins of the ruba’i also see Elwell-Sutton, “The ‘ruba’i’ in Early Persian Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. R. N. Frye, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 633–658. 10 Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, p. 94. 11 Abdulla el Tayib, “Pre-Islamic Poetry,” in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A. F. L. Beeston et. al., 38–92 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 38–92. The Tayib chapter in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, 27–111, provides a good overview of the origins of the qasideh. Also see Renate Jacobi, “The Origins of the Qasida Form,” in Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, ed. S. Sperle and C. Shackle, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 21–31. 12 Stefan Sperle, “Islamic Kingship and Arabic Panegyric Poetry in the Early 9th Century,” Journal of Arabic Literature 8, 20–23. 13 Julie Scott Meisami, “Poetic Microcosm: The Persian Qasideh to the End of the Twelfth Century,” in Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, ed. Sperle and Shackle, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 140. 14 Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 142. 15 Kamran Talattof, “What Kind of Wine Did Rudaki Drink?,” in The Layered Heart: Essays on Persian Poetry, ed. A. A. Seyed-Ghorab (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2019), 133. 16 Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Rudaki’s poetry cited in this chapter are mine. 17 Talattof, “What Kind of Wine Did Rudaki Drink?,” 134. 18 Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Andarz,” 11–12.

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Sassan Tabatabai 19 Mohammad-Reza Shaf’i-Kadkani, Sovar-e Khial dar She’r-e Farsi (Tehran: Entesharat-e Agah, 1996), 415. 20 Julie Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 6. Meisami provides a detailed account of the relationship between poet and court from its pre-Islamic origins. 21 As quoted in Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, 10. 22 For a discussion of the role of Bal’ami as Rudaki’s patron, see Zabihollah Safa, Tarikh-e Adabiat dar Iran, vol. 1 (Tehran: Amir Kabir Publishing Corp., 1977), 376–381. 23 A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1958), 33–34.

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 5

Sassan Tabatabai (translated by Sassan Tabatabai)

You Who Are Sad by Rudaki (ay ānke ghamguni) You who are sad, who sufer, Who hide your eyes that fow with tears For him, whose name I don’t mention For fear of more sorrow and hardship: Went what went and came what came, Was what was, why grieve in vain? You want to give harmony to the world? The world wont accept harmony from you. Don’t complain, it doesn’t heed complaints. Stop wailing, it doesn’t hear you wail. Even if you wail until the day of reckoning, How could your wailing bring back the one who is gone? You will see more torment from this wheel If you are tormented at every turn. It’s as if disasters have been assigned To anyone to whom you give your heart. There are no clouds, there’s no eclipse, But the moon is covered, the earth is dark. Accept it or not, I am sorry to say You will not be able to conquer yourself. To break the siege of sorrow on your heart It is better to fetch the wine and drink. Out of great disasters, there will appear Virtue and grace and nobility. DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-9

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[Note: This poem was written for the Samanid Emir Ahmad-ibn Ismail (reigned 907–914) on the death of his father, the Emir Ismail-ibn Ahmad (died 907).] ––

I Didn’t Have the Chance to Apologize (agar che ‘ozr basy bud) I didn’t have the chance to apologize For it all, but he pardoned me anyway. I worship god. He is my creator. My tongue did not rest from praising his servants. Life’s wheel is all trickery and bondage: Poison mixed with nectar, gold-plated zinc. Many, many new violets have blossomed, Like a fame, bruised, when it touches sulfur. Bring out the sun, pour it, drink from it. It passes the lips and shines through the cheeks. ––

Moradi Has Died (mord morādi) Moradi has died, but is not really dead. Such a great man’s death is no trivial matter. His precious life he returned to his father, His dark body entrusted to his mother. What belonged to the angels has gone with them. The man you say has died has just begun to live. He was no hay to blow away in the wind. He was no water to freeze in the cold. He was no comb to be broken by hair. He was no seed to be crushed by the earth. He was a golden treasure in this world, Both worlds were worth a grain of barley, to him. His earthen shell was cast back into the earth. His soul and wisdom rose to the heavens. The second life, of which people don’t know, He polished and entrusted to god. He was clear wine mixed with sediment, Which settled while he rose to the top. They all take the trip together, my dear, The Marvazi, Razi, Rumi and Kurd. In the end, each returns to his own home. How could satin be equal to rough cloth? Stop, like a period. Because the lord Has struck your name from the book of speech. 138

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[Note: Abol-Hassan Mohammad-ibn Mohammad Moradi was a poet who lived during the same time as Rudaki. Very little remains of his works.] ––

Jouye-Mouliyan (buye juye muliān) The smell of Jouye-Mouliyan drifts my way, As do distant memories of a kind friend. The Amuy is hard to cross, but its stones Feel as soft as silk beneath our feet. Thrilled to see a friend, the Jeyhoun’s waves Leap halfway up the fank of our horse. O Bukhara, be happy, live long: The cheerful Emir is coming home, to you. The Emir is the moon, Bukhara, the sky. The moon is coming home to the sky. The Emir is a cypress, Bukhara, a garden. The cypress is coming home to the garden. [Note: Jouye-Mouliyan was a scenic estate on the outskirts of Bukhara. Amuy (Amu Darya) and Jeyhoun are the Persian and Arabic names, respectively, of the river Oxus in Central Asia.] ––

Shahied’s Caravan (cārvān-e shahied) Shahied’s caravan left before ours. Believe me, ours will also leave. Count the eyes, there is one pair less, Measure the wisdom, thousands less. Reap all that enriches your soul Before death comes to bind your legs. ... All you have struggled to fnd, You must not lose easily. Proft turns friend into stranger. Pay him less to ward of that day. ... No wolf is as ferce as a lion. The sparrow’s cry does not reach the hawk. [Note: This poem is an elegy for the poet Shahied Balkhi (died, 940), a friend and contemporary of Rudaki who also enjoyed the patronage of the Samanid Emir, Nasr ibn-Ahmad. The ellipses indicate possible fragments missing from the poem.] –– 139

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Dear Heart, Why Are You So Selfsh (delā tā kei hami juyi mani rā) Dear heart, why are you so selfsh? Why do you love the enemy in vain? Why do you seek faith from the unfaithful? Why do you strike iron that is cold? And you, whose cheeks are like the lily, The lily is jealous of your beauty. Go down this dead-end street just once, You’ll light a fre under its residents. My heart is a grain, your love, a mountain. Why crush the millet under the mountain? Forgive me dear boy, forgive me. Don’t needlessly kill a lover like me. Come now, take a look at Rudaki, If you want to see a lifeless body walk. ––

A Hundred-Petaled Rose (gol-e sad barg) A hundred-petaled rose, musk, ambergris, Apples, white jasmine and fragrant leaves, It contains all of these, your beauty, O Beauty, who captivate kings. Your lover’s night is the Divine Night, When the veil is removed from your face. The sun hides its face behind a veil When the veil reveals your two tulips. And your chin is just like an apple, An apple with a mole made of musk. [Note: I have translated Leilat-al Gadr as “Divine Night.” It is a reference to the night when the prophet Mohammad received the frst revelation of the Koran.] ––

May He Live Long (dir ziād ān bozorgvār) May he live long, our glorious lord. May my precious life be added to his. I always worry about his life, because Mother of the free bears few children like him. 140

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Of all kings there has not been one youth like him Forgiving, literate, brave and wise. Can anyone know how much he tries? Can anyone know how generous he is? With hand and tongue he spreads gold and pearls. Not in vain, has his name spread through the world. He planted the branch of kindness in our hearts. It’s no joke that he has turned his back on wealth. It’s a puzzle, describing his grace and will: He is the Avesta in wisdom, the Zand in essence. No matter how much the poets try, They cannot praise him the way they should. His essence is the seed, his grace is water. The poet’s talent is his fertile ground. His essence is the Vahi Nameh to Kasra. His ways have flled the Pand Nameh with guidance. The essence of this king is the real Pand Nameh, So that fortune itself can take counsel from him. Whoever turns his back on the king’s advice Sets the foot of happiness into sorrow’s trap. Who in this world is the raw dough of defeat? Anyone who is not pleased at his prosperity. To anyone who does not wish splendor for him, Say: You just try to tie fortune’s hands. Dear angels, be proud of the glory of his friends. Dear heavens, laugh at the misery of his foes. At the poem’s end, I do what I said at frst: May he live long, our glorious lord. [Note: The Avesta, written in Avestan (an ancient Eastern Iranian language), is the sacred writings of Zoroastrianism and the chief source for the teachings of Zoroaster. The Zand is the interpretation of the Avesta. Vahi Nameh is a “Letter (book/document) of Revelation.” Kasra is the title of Khosrow Anushirvan (531–579), the twenty-frst Sassanian king. The prophet Mohammad was born during his reign. Pand Nameh is the “Letter of Guidance.” There is a Pand Nameh attributed to Anushirvan, a copy of which is in the British Museum.] ––

I Have the Right to Moan (be haq nālam) I have the right to moan for my love’s absence, As the nightingale moans for the red rose, at dawn. If fate does not deliver you to me, I will burn fate with the fames in my heart. When you brighten your face, a thousand 141

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Butterfies will burn around you, as I do. I will not ft under the tombstone, if For one moment you sit grieving by my grave. The world is as it has always been, And will be the same for ever, my dear. With one turn it will make a king, With a throne, a crown and earrings. O world, you make them rot under ground, And the ground piles more torment on them. Now, bring some of that life-giving wine, And crush the past under a grinding stone. ––

If I’m Not Unlucky (gar na badbakhtami) If I’m not unlucky, how did I get involved With this quick-to-anger woman of easy virtue? She likes it if I’m thrown to the lions. I can’t stand it if a fy sits on her. She tortures me. But my love for her And loyalty to her never leave my heart. ––

I Want to Stroke Your Amber-Scented Hair (geref khāham zolfn-e ‘anbarin-e to rā) I want to stroke your amber-scented hair, Paint with kisses the jasmine petals of your face. If only you’d place one foot upon this ground, I’d make a thousand prostrations to its dirt. I’ll kiss the seal on your letter a thousand times If I see the mark of your seal ring on it. Tell them to cut of my hand with an Indian blade, If one day I try to raise a hand on you. I was silent when I should have been saying poems. But my tongue now turns with compliments of you. ––

Song, Rose-Colored Wine (somā’ o bādeye golgun) Song, rose-colored wine, and beauties like the moon, Would make an angel fall in the well. How can I sew my gaze shut? To see my love 142

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Only narcissi grow on my grave, not weeds. For the man who knows love’s drunkenness, It’s a shame to be sober for a moment. Your eyes can’t make out the ceiling beams by day. But you spot a straw in someone else’s eye at night. [Note: In the second line of the frst couplet of this poem, Rudaki is making reference to the story of Harut and Marut, which has pre-Islamic roots (“Ho’avrutat” and “Amrotat” in Avestan literature) and is retold in the Koran. As the story goes, the angels Harut and Marut were sent to earth to guide mankind. They were seduced by the beautiful Nahid (“Zohreh” in Arabic) and engaged in singing, drinking wine, and merry-making. As punishment, God threw them into the well of Babylon.] ––

A Lush Spring Has Arrived (āmad bahār-e khorram) A lush spring has arrived, colorful, efervescent, A hundred thousand delights and decorations. It is fair that the old man becomes young, In a world that supplants old age with youth. The mighty heavens have felded an army: An army of dark clouds led by the zephyr, Lightning its artillery, thunder its drummer. I have seen a thousand armies, never so ferce. Look at that cloud, how it cries like a grieving man, Thunder moans like a lover with a broken heart. Now and then the sun peeks from behind the clouds Like a prisoner hiding from the guard. The world, which had been in pain for some time, Has found a cure in a jasmine-scented wind. A shower of musk streams down in waves, On leaves, a cover of shiny new silk. Snow covered crevices now bear roses. Streams that had been dry now swell with water. Upon the feld, thunder howls like the wind. Lightning cracks its whip from among the clouds. On the meadow, a distant tulip smiles Like the henna-painted nails of a bride. The nightingale sings from the willow. The starling answers from the cypress tree. The ringdove’s old song comes from the cypress tree. The nightingale serenades the red rose. Now, drink wine. Now, be happy. Now is the time for lovers. Choose the cup bearer and the wine. Drink. Sing Like the starling or the nightingale. 143

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Even though this young spring is a sight to see, It pales before the pleasure of seeing my lord. In your old age, as throughout your youth, Everyone has always marveled at you. You have had many dreams, and fulflled them all. You are the source of joy, splendor and majesty. ––

Mehregan (malekā jashn-e mehregān āmad) Dear lord, the feast of Mehregan has come. The feast of kings and nobles has come. It’s time for fur instead of silk, a tent Instead of the garden and the meadow. The myrtle has replaced the lily, Wine has replaced the Judas-tree. You are generous and your reign is young. Such luck: the wine has ripened in your youth. The fower has returned to the garden. It’s time for the garden and the meadow. The fames of Azar have died down. The fames rise up now in the tulip. ––

I Saw a Hoopoe (pupak didam) I saw a hoopoe near Sarakhs Whose little song reached the clouds. She was wearing a little cloak Of many diferent colors. O ugly and inverted world, I stand before you in awe. ––

Now We Are Drunk (bed tā khorim bādeh ke mastānim) Now we are drunk, so let’s drink wine. Let’s drink from the hands of beauties. They call us crazy and senseless. We are not crazy. We are drunk. –– 144

Sample Literature for Chapter 5

Wine Brings Out Dignity (mei ārad sharaf) Wine brings out the dignity in man, Separates the free from the man bought with coins. Wine distinguishes the noble from the base: Many talents are bottled in this wine. It’s joyous, when you are drinking wine, Especially when the jasmine is in bloom. Wine has scaled many fortress walls, Broken many newly-saddled colts. Many a mean miser, having drunk wine, Has spread generosity throughout the world. ––

Tis Breeze From Bukhara (har bād ke az suye Bokhārā) This wind that blows my way from Bukhara Smells of roses and musk, a jasmine breeze. Any man or woman caressed by this wind Says: maybe this wind blows from Khotan. No, no. Such luscious wind could not blow from Khotan. This wind blows from the bosom of my love. Each night I look to Yemen until you appear Because you are Canopus rising from Yemen. My dear, I try to hide your name from people, Keep it from falling in the public mouth. Want to or not, with whomever I speak, When I speak, it’s your name that comes to mouth. ––

Te Great Men of Tis World (mehtarān-e jahān) The great men of this world have all died. They have all bowed their heads to death. Even those who built palaces Now lie covered under dirt. From the thousands and thousands of comforts Were they left with anything but a shroud? From their blessings they enjoyed what they wore, What they ate and what they gave away. –– 145

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Ruba’iyat Her hair, down, is a long dark night; Parted: a pair of open claws. Disentangled braids, through each twist and turn Cast wave upon wave of Tarrazian musk. –– Day raises its banner in your name. The crescent moon is your cup. Like destiny, you are driven. Like daily bread, you provide for all. –– No one seeks me out but misfortune. Only my fever asks about my health. If I’m on the brink of death, no one spares A drop of water, except my eyes. –– She came to me. Who? The beloved. When? At dawn. Afraid of whom? The guardian. Who is that? Her father. I gave her two kisses. Where? On her moist lips. Lips? No. What, then? Carnelian. How was it? Like sugar. –– Greedy one, don’t seek fruit in this orchard, This two-door garden is full of willows. Don’t rest idle, the Gardener is behind you. Be still like the dirt, and pass like the wind. –– When you fnd me dead, my lips apart, A shell empty of life, worn out by want, Sit by my bedside and say, with charm: “It is I who killed you, I regret it now.” –– People aren’t required to be generous and kind, But they are required to be thankful for grace. My lord bestows much that isn’t required of him. How can I neglect what is required of me? –– I eagerly place your letter before me. Teardrops pattern the Pleiades on my shirt. Replying, when I take pen in hand, I want to fold my heart in the letter. –– 146

Sample Literature for Chapter 5

We’ve spread our rug in sorrow’s house, Shed tears. Ours is a heart on fre. We’ve endured the world’s tyrannies, We, playthings of evil days. –– As with Rudaki, love has made me tired of life. Tears of blood have turned my lashes to coral. I fear the pain of separation. I burn With jealousy, like those who live in hell. –– She sold a tryst for a heart, a fair price. She sells a kiss for a soul, and it’s cheap. It’s true, when this beauty is the merchant, She sells trysts for hearts, kisses for souls. –– You’ve stolen color and scent from the rose: Color for your cheeks, scent for your hair. The stream turns rose-colored when you wash your face. The street smells of musk when you let down your hair. –– Fate felt no remorse when killing you, No soft heart for your elegance and youth. I am amazed at the Taker, shameless Before such beauty, stealing your life.

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6 THE SHAHNAMEH OF FERDOWSI Olga M. Davidson

Completed in the early 11th century ce, the Shahnameh of the poet Abu ʾl-Qāsem Manṣur Ferdowsi, whose pen name Ferdowsi means “the man of paradise” in the Persian language, become over time what is commonly described today as the national epic of Iranians. But what does it mean to say “Iranians”? And what does it mean to say “national” or even “epic”? In a search for answers, this chapter examines, comparatively as well as historically, not only the monumental poem of Ferdowsi but also the reception of both the poet and his poetry over time, from its very beginnings all the way to the present. The chapter takes into account such basic concepts as “Iranians,” “nation,” and “epic” in the context of modern as well as traditional literary approaches to classical Persian poetry, the overall evolution of which was decisively infuenced by the Shahnameh. Of prime relevance is the meaning of the poem’s title, Shahnameh, “Book of Kings,” since even such concepts as “book” and “king” underwent multiple transformations in meaning both before and after the poetic composition achieved by Ferdowsi. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of such transformations, this chapter addresses the historical circumstances surrounding not only the composing of the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi the poet but also the traditions involved in the performing of such poetry by the poet and his successors – in the presence of diferent audiences who typifed diferent potential patrons. Historical questions of patronage, it can be shown, extend not only to such primary fgures as the Sultan Maḥmud of Ghazna, who was a contemporary of the poet, but also to secondary fgures who became “provincial” patrons of the poet. In studying the patterns of patronage that supported and in some cases impeded the poetry of Ferdowsi, the chapter will consider the external textual evidence of the so-called “Life of Ferdowsi” traditions, which feature stories about the interactions of Ferdowsi, mostly positive but sometimes negative, with a wide variety of persons who are said to have heard or read the poet’s poetry. The value of such stories, it must be emphasized, centers on the historical facts of reception as memorialized in localized traditions of storytelling, not on the mythologizing narrative embellishments that attach to the stories themselves. Such evidence points to the makings of what was described from the start as the “national epic” of Iranians writ large, accommodating a wide range of Islamic world views, Shi‘ite as well as Sunni, and even leaving room for the Zoroastrian heritage of a notionally archetypal Book of Kings tradition. Such a tradition had existed before Ferdowsi ever composed his Shahnameh in the context of the “brave new world” that superseded the pre-Islamic past that had been represented by the ancient shahs of the Iranian Empire. 148

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-10

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As for the historical contexts of a “post-Ferdowsi” era, the chapter highlights the impact of a particularly important recension of the poet’s Shahnameh, commissioned by the Timurid prince Bāysonghor in the 15th century. In general, the chapter will also outline the textual history of the Shahnameh as refected in all the major modern editions of the text. This chapter, then, takes into account not only the historical circumstances of Ferdowsi’s reception in his own lifetime but also the overall reception and transmission of his poetry. The various forms of patronage that contributed to the shaping of the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi extended eventually to regions and eras that were far removed from the original life and times of the poet himself. Thus the reception of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh ultimately became transcendent, embracing a vast variety of ideological and political concerns for speakers of the Persian language. For an illustration of the ideals represented by such transcendent poetry, the chapter will conclude with a reading taken from the text of a story that Ferdowsi tells about a one-on-one fght to the death involving two fgures who typify the twin concerns of the Shahnameh as an epic about heroes and as a book about kings, the hero Rostam and the hero-prince Esfandiyār.

Introduction There are two central fgures in this chapter.1 One is the hero Rostam, just mentioned. The other is the poet Ferdowsi himself. A native of Ṭōs, a renowned city of Khorāsān province in the eastern sector of medieval Iran, he is recognized as the creator of the monumental Persian epic poem known as the Shahnameh or “Book of Kings,” over 50,000 couplets in length and said to have been completed in the early 11th century ce.2 We start with Rostam. He is the kind of fgure whom we would ordinarily associate with characters of epic and myth in other literary traditions, and he is readily identifable as what we would conventionally call a “hero.” But the Shahnameh, the poem in which Rostam is so central, is more difcult to reconcile with the expectations we hold about any epic about heroes. Like epic as we ordinarily understand it, the Shahnameh is indeed poetry about heroes. But it is also much more: as the very name indicates, it is a “Book of Kings” – which suggests that we are witnessing recorded history, not epic or myth. The Shahnameh presents itself as a book of kings chronicling the reigns of all the national shāhs of Iran, from the primordial founders all the way down to the last days of the Sasanian dynasty (651 ce). It is as if we are dealing with a combination of myth and history. The key to understanding this apparent combination is Ferdowsi the poet. To come to terms with the heroic essence of Rostam, as glorifed by the Book of Kings, we must understand the poet’s role in Iranian society.3

An Overview of Scholarship on Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh By virtue of its sweeping range over the history of Iran, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh seems destined to have become a centerpiece for scholarship in Iranian studies. For over a century, a prime concern of scholars working in this feld has been to ascertain whether the information it contains about the kings of Iran can be verifed – by way of actual historical evidence from the Sasanian dynasty (ca. 224 to 651 ce) and before. Such preoccupations mark the relevant scholarly contributions of such prominent orientalists of the past as Theodor Nöldeke and Arthur Christensen, whose painstaking work goes a long way in showing that the Shahnameh by and large preserves a vast body of lore that must have been gathered and stored primarily in the Sasanian dynasty.4 Later work by such scholars as Ḥasan Taqizāda and Moḥammad Qazvini has helped to clarify 149

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how the fow of authentic information into the Shahnameh came about.5 They have argued for the existence of a Persian prose version of a Book of Kings, slightly antedating Ferdowsi’s poetic version and translated by Zoroastrian savants from a purportedly original Pahlavi text. The very idea of such an original text, written in Pahlavi, the ofcial language of the Sasanian dynasty, imparts a sense of defnitive authority. Iranists could thus feel confdent if Ferdowsi’s primary source was indeed a document stemming ultimately from the lost archives of the Sasanian dynasty. They could hope to have no better evidence to authenticate the memory of the past that Ferdowsi preserved. This assumption concerning the authenticity of what the poet says has encouraged a historicist perspective on the Shahnameh. Such a perspective seems all the more “scientifc” because the actual sequence of monarchs who ruled over Iran provides the narrative superstructure for all the stories that make up this monumental poem. The historicist perspective is further encouraged by the apparent realism that we shall see in the poet’s numerous self-references within the poem. The main concern here, however, is not the poet’s “autobiography” or the “history” that can be reconstructed through the Shahnameh. Rather, it is the poetry exemplifed by the poet’s life and the story that he tells. This poetry is a combination of history and myth, and understanding it requires careful study of both Ferdowsi’s self-presentation and his focal portrayal of the hero Rostam. In Rostam, we confront a character who, even superfcially, strikes us as a poetic creation of mythological traditions rather than a historical reality. This impression is fostered by the very beginning of the story: according to the Shahnameh, Rostam’s father, Zāl, is rejected by his own father, Sām, because he was born with an old man’s white hair. Shunned by his parents, Zāl is raised in the wilderness by a magical bird called the Simorgh. Even these few details sufce to show the mythical heritage of the Rostam fgure. As for Rostam himself, there is a wealth of narrative traditions that follow in a similar mythical vein. Rostam is hardly peripheral to the Shahnameh. His exploits dominate the overall narrative for vast stretches, and in fact, as we will see, the combined lifetimes of this hero and of his father overlap with the set chronology of a kingly succession covering a whole millennium. Given the centrality of both the shāh-s and Rostam in the Shahnameh, we may pose the question: how can we reconcile the book of kings with the epic of heroes? The general attitude of Iranistic scholarship, as we see in the synthesis of Dhabiḥollāh Ṣafā or in such specialized studies as the dissertation of Marcia Maguire on Rostam, is to treat the “book of kings” aspect of the Shahnameh as history, especially in light of Ferdowsi’s purported Pahlavi “sourcebook,” and to treat by default the “epic of heroes” as myth.6 A corollary to this attitude is to assume that Rostam and his family are themselves an intrusion into the Iranian history of kings. This assumption is encouraged especially by Rostam’s relationship, as portrayed in the Shahnameh, to the national kings of Iran. Always a kingmaker but never a king of all Iran, Rostam has as his main task in life the continual protection of Iran as a nation and of its kings. It is relevant, as we will see later, that one of the hero’s distinctive epithets is in fact tājbakhsh “crown-bestower.” And yet, Rostam is also often at odds with the kingship of Iran and at times seems more of a menace to the shāh than a help. Moreover, he is an outsider to the national ways: he comes from Sistān, a region visualized in the Shahnameh as a remote outpost in the eastern stretches of Iran. Recognizing the historically verifable distinctness of Sistān from the centralized nation of Iran, experts like Ṣafā associate this distinctness with Rostam’s idiosyncrasies. They assume that the epic stories of Rostam are regional traditions that have intruded on the central Iranian traditions as represented by the books of kings. 150

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But there is a serious problem with this tendency to divide the Shahnameh into two separable components, the “book of kings” and the “epic of heroes.” The conjunction of the stories of kings with the stories of Rostam was already clearly attested in the Sasanian era.7 Thus it cannot be attributed to artistic invention by Ferdowsi and must instead be considered a tradition in its own right. Another problem is that the stories of kings, in the era of the Sasanian dynasty and even before that, in the era of the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids (ca. 200 bce to 227 ce), were transmitted not only by the records of the royal archives but also in oral performances by professional poets, and the same goes for the stories of heroes, Rostam in particular.8 This chapter juxtaposes such considerations with the internal testimony of the Shahnameh itself. Ferdowsi claims as his source not only a single Book of Kings but also the multiple oral reports of learned men called mōbad-s and dehqāns, whom he conventionally describes as masters of traditions that are specifcally poetic in nature. What Ferdowsi is claiming, as we shall see, is that he is creating his Persian Book of Kings from a Pahlavi Book of Kings and from the Persian oral poetic tradition. Moreover, there is nothing in the poet’s testimony that would suggest a clear delineation between the stories of kings as drawn from a book and the stories of heroes as drawn from the oral tradition. It is as if both kinds of stories came from both kinds of sources. Thus I take issue with the idea of Nöldeke and other experts in Iranistic studies that the Rostam tradition is extrinsic or intrusive to the Book of Kings tradition. If there had been any intrusion at all, I argue, it would have happened at least as early as the era of the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids. Whereas Ferdowsi implicitly presents his poem as if it were the very frst to combine a book of kings and oral poetic traditions as sources, the fndings of Mary Boyce suggest that, even in Sasanian times, the subject matter found in books of kings was just as much an aspect of oral poetry as that in epics of heroes.9 As the discussion proceeds, we shall have reason to posit the existence of separate narrative traditions about kings and heroes, but I shall also be arguing that stories of kings were potentially just as much an inherited poetic form as the stories of heroes and that the two kinds of story could exist as one: an epic about kings and heroes. A case in point will be the passage I have chosen as a sample for reading from the Shahnameh, which comes from a scene where the warrior Rostam and the would-be king Esfandiyār engage in mortal combat with each other. Still, it is problematic to assume that the traditions about kings should have had a predominantly historical basis, while traditions about heroes were grounded in myth. I propose that the poetic combination of themes concerning the hero Rostam and themes concerning national kings is a tradition that does not only go back to Parthian Arsacid times. Rather, it can be traced all the way back to the remotest Indo-Iranian and even Indo-European layers of the classical Persian language.10 I argue, however, that we need not deny the existence of an element of historicity in epic. We need only afrm a discovery by such experts in oral poetry as Albert Lord, who notes that mythical patterns regularly absorb and then reshape historical patterns in the context of oral poetry.11 In other words, the Iranian “book of kings” tradition can theoretically stem from a combination of history and myth. But if it is oral poetry, it must be a combination where the patterns of history are subordinated to the controlling patterns of myth. Because we do have evidence, thanks to Mary Boyce’s survey of the Arsacid period and beyond, for thinking that the “book of kings” tradition was indeed a matter of oral poetry, we have a sound theoretical basis for positing the continuity of Indo-European traditions up to Ferdowsi. But the impact of Boyce’s work is blunted precisely at the point where the application of her fndings would be most striking. Although she corroborates the fourishing of oral poetry from Arsacid times all the way to the era of Ferdowsi, we encounter a major obstacle in the era of Ferdowsi. The consensus among Iranists is that, on the basis of internal and external evidence, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi draws its treasury of lore about kings from a prose Persian translation 151

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of a Pahlavi Book of Kings, not from a continuum of Persian oral poetic traditions about kings.12 Boyce’s work, however, suggests that even the Pahlavi Book of Kings is a repository of oral traditions. I should add that the multiformity of the Arabic translations of the Shahnameh provides supporting evidence.13

An Overview of Persian Civilization and the Iranian Empire Inspired by the linguistic terms “Old Persian” (as marked by the Achaemenid dynasty, 559 to 330 bce), “Middle Persian” (as marked by the Sasanian dynasty, ca. 224 to 651 ce), and “New Persian” (as marked by the Islamic period, after ca. ce 642), with their implications of cultural continuity spanning the political vicissitudes of the Iranian Empire in its historically attested phases, I shall frequently refer to the traditions studied in this chapter as Persian as well as Iranian. These traditions of poets and heroes transcend politics and even history. The classicism of these traditions deserves and demands scrutiny beyond the historicism of those specialists in Iranian studies who may not wish to concern themselves with the humanism inherent in Iranian traditions. Such an attitude on the part of experts only reinforces a lack of interest on the part of nonexperts, who may feel either threatened by, or at least indiferent to, whatever might be called “non-Western” values.14 Let the classicism inherent in the concept of “Persian” symbolize a resistance to any hostility or indiference on the part of such nonexperts, who would dismiss Iranian civilization because it seems alien to them.15 And let the resistance extend to the parochialism of those experts in Iranistic studies who may foster such prejudice by treating their subject so narrowly as to exclude interested nonexperts. While the concept of “Persian” helps us keep track of the continuum of traditions inherited by Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, we must not lose sight of the diversity represented by the concept of “Iranian” – and realized in the actual history of the Iranian Empire. This diversity is brought to life in the very geography of Iran, as captured in the panoramic visualization of the empire in the Shahnameh: we see a dazzling array of mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers, lakes, and oases framing a vast variety of peoples and cultures. Most dramatically, eastern and western Iran are divided by two salt deserts that run through the center of the country. This east–west division fgures prominently in the history that unfolds. That history, the story of the Iranian Empire, is refected in the narrative sweep of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Granted, this colossal poem may not be history as we know it, but it was indeed considered history by the society that made it possible in the frst place. For us it may be just a story, but we must also treat it as evidence for the study of history, to the extent that we wish to study the society for which the Shahnameh was indeed history. The Shahnameh is a formal and traditional expression of how Iranian society views itself and how it wishes to be remembered through the ages. Only from this point of view can the Shahnameh be deemed history. Such a distinctly Iranian vision of history has been described as follows: The purpose of history was to maintain and promote the national and moral ideas of the state. . . . History was to teach the rulers and the ruling classes the virtues of abiding by the dictates of “the good religion,” of rendering justice to the people and making the land prosper. To the people it taught the virtues of unswerving loyalty to the kings and observing “law and order.” Innovations were to be mistrusted, unless they were benefcial ones instituted by a good king. History was, then, an educational instrument of social stability and cohesion. It was intended to strengthen the common heritage and promote a common ideal. It was to teach its readers love of their homeland and pride in their ancestry. It exalted the life of the heroes of the Iranian past before their eyes as models to be emulated.16 152

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I ofer here a brief overview of this majestic story or history as retold by the Shahnameh. To trace what this monumental poem retells is to grasp the central interpretive challenge of this chapter, the concepts of poet and hero in Persian epic. The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi refects the national history of the Iranian Empire before Islam by telling the stories, or dastans, of ffty canonical pre-Islamic shāhs, beginning with the very frst king of the world, the mythical Gayomars Keyumarth, who is the shāh at the time of creation, and ending with the last of the Sasanian shāhs, Yazdgerd (632–651 ce), who died only a few years after the Islamic conquest of Iran. The Shahnameh divides these ffty shāhs into four dynasties: Pishdādians, Keyānids, Ashkānians, and Sasanians. The frst two dynasties, especially the frst, are grounded in myth, but the last two are “historical” to the extent that they do coincide closely with the history of pre-Islamic Iran as we know it. Let us consider, briefy, the highlights of these four dynasties as narrated by the Shahnameh, focusing on the frst two inasmuch as they are the primary concern of this book and take up the bulk of Ferdowsi’s colossal poem. The Pishdādians are traced back to primordial times and are said to last for 2441 years. There are ten shāhs, the frst being Keyumarth, the prototype of all humankind. He incurs the jealousy of Ahriman, the incarnation of evil, who attacks him and kills his son. Keyumarth is followed by Hushang, his grandson, according to the Shahnameh. Hushang bears the title Pishdād, whence the name of the dynasty. A culture hero, he introduces agriculture. The next shāh is Ṭahmurath, who subdues the archfend Ahriman and the divs, demonlike fgures who ally themselves with Ahriman in hopes of overthrowing the social order established by Ahura Mazdā, the incarnation of Good. Ṭahmurath is followed by Jamshid, who organizes society into four classes: (1) priests, (2) warriors, (3) farmers, and (4) artisans. He rules in peace and prosperity, but his good fortune makes him so arrogant that he likens himself to divinity. Jamshid is punished for his excess by losing his farr “luminous glory,” the visible sign of kingly grace that accompanies rulers and entitles them to reign with success. With no farr-bearing king, Iran falls into the hands of the evil oppressor, Ẓaḥḥāk, As a youth, Ẓaḥḥāk is seduced by a demonlike fgure called Iblis, and he eventually becomes a three-headed monster, with two serpents growing out of each of his shoulders. He depopulates Iran by feeding young men’s brains to these serpents, and his reign is marked by darkness and chaos lasting for a thousand years. Faridun, with the aid of a smith called Kāva, overthrows Ẓaḥḥāk and chains him inside a mountain called Mount Alborz, where he must stay until the eschatological moment of reckoning is destined to arrive. Faridun has three sons, Salm, Tur, and Iraj (in that birth order), and he divides his kingdom, ostensibly the world, among the three of them. Salm gets the western lands; Tur gets the north and east, namely China and Turān, the second of which is a mythical land that will fgure prominently in the discussion that follows; and Iraj gets Iran, which is considered the center of the world and therefore the choice territory. Jealous because he inherited Iran, Salm and Tur murder Iraj. Manuchehr, the grandson of Iraj, avenges his grandfather by killing both Salm and Tur, thus becoming the next shāh. During the reign of Manuchehr, Zāl, son of Sām, is born and rejected by his father because of his white hair. Exposed on a mountain, Zāl is raised by a magical bird, the Simorgh. Sām later reclaims his son Zāl, who, after a long courtship, marries Rudāba, a descendant of the evil Ẓaḥḥāk himself; Rudāba and Zāl conceive Rostam, the primary heroic fgure of the Shahnameh. Manuchehr is succeeded by three other shāhs, but the interest in the Shahnameh is centered on the childhood deeds of Rostam. The second of the four dynasties in the Book of Kings, the Keyānid, consists of ten shāhs and lasts for 732 years. After a period with no farr-bearing shāh on the throne, the hero Rostam 153

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is sent out to fetch Key Qobād, who is said to be of princely origin. He fnds Key Qobād in a beautiful wilderness setting, sitting on a throne by a stream under Mount Alborz. Seeing that Key Qobād has the bearings of farr, Rostam brings him back to Iran to be the shāh. Key Qobād begins the Keyānid dynasty and is succeeded by his son Key Kāus, choleric, arrogant, unpredictable. The reign of Key Kāus is marked by rash and foolish exploits that lead him into all sorts of troubles, and many a time is Rostam compelled to come to his rescue. Though Rostam has as much difculty in respecting Key Kāus as Achilles has with Agamemnon in the Iliad, he remains staunchly loyal to this irascible and vacillating monarch. During the reign of Key Kāus, there is continuous warfare against Iran’s archenemy, the land of Turān, led by Afrāsiyāb, king of the Turanians. Key Kāus and Afrāsiyāb share a grandson called Key Khosrow, who becomes the next Iranian shāh. This Key Khosrow is thus of both Iranian and Turanian descent. Famed for his wisdom and nobility, Key Khosrow is the shāh who fnally ends the fendish Afrāsiyāb’s life. Shortly after defeating Afrāsiyāb, he chooses the life of a hermit and vanishes from public view, having already left instructions that a distant relative, Lohrāsp, should succeed him as shāh. The reign of Lohrāsp is followed by that of his son, Goshtāsp. This succession happens prematurely in that Goshtāsp, in his eagerness for the crown, had put pressure on his father Lohrāsp to abdicate before the fullness of time. Despite this characterization of rashness, Goshtāsp is treated with reverence in the Shahnameh inasmuch as it is his reign that marks both the coming of Zoroaster and the prophet’s acceptance by both king and empire. At a later point, King Goshtāsp is in turn threatened by his son Esfandiyār, who shows a similar impatience for the crown. Such impatience eventually leads Esfandiyār into an inevitable confrontation with Rostam the crown-bestower. Rostam is beset with the awkward situation of having to abandon his conventional role of defending the crown, as is always expected of him, and being forced either to kill Prince Esfandiyār or to lose face. Rostam does indeed kill the future shāh Esfandiyār. When it fnally happens, however many times Rostam may have earlier been tempted to kill any of the shāhs that he served, this killing of the king by the kingmaker is conceived by the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as a fundamentally unnatural act. This deed seals Rostam’s own fate: he is to die through treachery, murdered by his own half-brother. With the death of Rostam, the Shahnameh shifts into a narrative mode that becomes ever less mythical and more historical, as the tales about the kings begin to coincide more and more with what the Persian and Arab chroniclers report – and with what we ourselves interpret as historical facts. After Goshtāsp, a series of successive shāhs culminates with Dārā the Second (Darius), who is overthrown by Eskandar, that is, Alexander the Great. Although the historical Alexander in fact posed a threat to the very fabric of Iranian society by overthrowing the authority of its kings, dividing the empire among feudal lords, and undermining all that is sacred to Zoroastrianism, he is nevertheless treated with sympathy in the section devoted to him in the Shahnameh. Ferdowsi’s colossal poem highlights the legendary life of Alexander and portrays him as a legitimate ruler of Iran, the true son of Dārā the First – the son that Dārā never knew he had. Here is a clear example where epic mythmaking reshapes history to serve its own purposes. The third of the four dynasties celebrated by the Shahnameh is called the Ashkānian (the Arsacids), which is described as lasting for 200 years – and although several of the kings are mentioned by name, it is the last one of the dynasty, King Ardavān, who occupies a substantial part of the narrative so that the emergence of the fourth and last dynasty, the Sasanians, may be described in full. The whole episode can therefore be described as a 200-year interregnum in which “you would have thought there were no kings upon the earth,” to gofti ke andar zamin shāh nist (VII 116.53). It is both an explicit acknowledgment of the efectiveness of Alexander’s precautionary stratagem, dividing the conquered lands among petty rulers, so that by squabbling 154

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among themselves they would leave his homeland alone (VII 116–117.54–55, 66–68), and an implicit laudatory reference to the Sasanians as the true heirs to the Keyānids and founders of another long era of unifed power and imperial magnifcence. The fourth and last dynasty that the Shahnameh celebrates is the Sasanian, described as lasting for 501 years and composed of a succession of twenty-nine shāhs. Ardavān of the Ashkānians is overthrown by Ardashir Pāpagān, a vassal king from the House of Sasan. Ardashir is supposedly the great-grandson of Shāh Goshtāsp, and he is therefore of Keyānid descent. He founds the Sasanian dynasty and is succeeded by twenty-eight shāhs, the last one being Yazdgerd. With the death of Yazdgerd and the fall of the Sasanian House, historically dated at 651 ce, the Shahnameh comes to an end. Thus the poem stops precisely at the time of the Islamic conquest, where the history of Islamic Iran begins. This beginning inaugurates the social milieu of the poet Ferdowsi himself. With the Islamic conquest, the historical Iran at frst ceases to be an empire ruled by shāhs. Still, after a difcult period of Arab-centered rule by caliphs, the rudiments of empire return, albeit in strikingly diferent shapes and sizes. New dynasties appear, the major ones being the Buyids in the west (932–1062 ce) and the Ghaznavids in the east (977–1186 ce). Our interest centers on the Ghaznavids, a dynasty of newcomers descended from Turkic invaders, and on one particularly powerful ruler in this dynastic line, Sultan Maḥmud of Ghazna (998–1030 ce). As we shall see, it was under the reign of this Maḥmud that Ferdowsi is said to have composed the Shahnameh. Though the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi was created in the Islamic Iran of the early part of 11th century, both its narrative time-frame and even its orientation are pre-Islamic. This pre-Islamic orientation of the Shahnameh refects at least in part a Zoroastrian world-view, even though the audience of Ferdowsi was predominantly Muslim. As we look back at this panorama that is the Shahnameh, we cannot think of it simply as one of several sources for the true history of pre-Islamic Iran – a source to be treated on a par with the works of Persian and Arab chroniclers. Rather, we may appreciate it for its sheer monumentality: it is a majestically vast poem concerned with the very identity of Iran as a nation, as an empire. As we look ahead to the central issues of poet and hero in the Shahnameh, their very greatness is a function of this identity that is Iran.

Te Authority of Ferdowsi the Poet It is universally acknowledged that Ferdowsi, in composing the Shahnameh, produced the authoritative national epic about the Iranian Empire. The most eloquent confrmation of Ferdowsiʼs poetic authority is that his poem precluded any subsequent poetic version of the narratives it treated.17 This pattern of preclusion can readily be seen from the subject matter of the major epic nearest in time to the Shahnameh, completed about 1010 ce, namely the Garshāspnāma of Asadi Ṭōsi, completed about 1056 ce. The narrative here centers on an ancestor of Rostam, Garshāsp, an important fgure in traditional Iranian lore who is barely even mentioned in the Shahnameh.18 Even though the poet of the Garshāspnāma considers himself a rival of Ferdowsi, the only way in which he can compete is to select something that Ferdowsi has not touched. Even the Garshāspnāma never questions the poetic accuracy and quality of Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh, insisting instead on the superiority of its own central hero to Rostam (Garshāspnāma 264–281).19 Ironically, Garshāspʼs realm of heroic activities in the Garshāspnāma is restricted by – and therefore predicated on – that of Rostam and the Shahnameh. The rival poet could not claim to substitute a better version of the traditions already treated by Ferdowsi; he has to content himself with other stories and other traditions. 155

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The same pattern is in force with later national epics of the 11th and 12th centuries such as the Borzunāma and the Farāmarznāma. They consistently treat those traditions that have not been treated by Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh.20 From the testimony of all subsequent epics, then, we can conclude that Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh is the normative version of the epic traditions of medieval Persia. Ferdowsi himself makes the claim that his version is the frst as well as the best. His Shahnameh presents itself as the frst full poetic treatment of the entire Iranian heritage in the Persian language. The only poetic antecedent in Persian that he formally acknowledges is a section of a thousand-odd verses, attributed to a poet called Daqiqi, which Ferdowsiʼs epic actually incorporates (Shahnameh VI 68–136.14–1022).21 And except for Daqiqi, the claim of Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh is that there is no other poetic version. At a later point, I will examine Ferdowsiʼs account of a Pahlavi Book of Kings, which he described as an ancient prose text and claimed as a primary source of his Shahnameh. This claim is a crucial aspect of the poemʼs authority. For now, however, since we are concentrating on the authority personally claimed by the poet himself, we shall consider Ferdowsiʼs references to the Pahlavi Book of Kings only to the extent that this “source” is supposed to refect on the poetʼs authority as poet. Still, since Ferdowsi explicitly described the Pahlavi Book of Kings as a prose text that he was the frst, except for Daqiqi, to transform into poetry, it is central to the poetʼs claim that he is the frst authoritative poet of a Book of Kings. This claim becomes most explicit where Ferdowsi contrasts his poetic skills with those of Daqiqi. Criticizing Daqiqiʼs verses, Ferdowsi declares that no one before him, with the exception of Daqiqi, had ever tried to put the Book of Kings into verse:

‫سخنهای آن برمنش راستان‬ ‫طبایع ز پیوند او دور بود‬ ‫گر ایدونک پرسش نماید شمار‬ ‫پر اندیشه گشت این دل شادمان‬ ‫که پیوند را راه داد اندرین‬ ‫ز رزم و ز بزم از هزاران یکی‬ ‫که بنشاند شاهی ابر گاه ب‬

‫یکی نامه بود از گه باستان‬ ‫چو جامی گهر بود و منثور بود‬ ‫گذشته برو سالیان شش هزار‬ ‫نبردی به پیوند او کس گمان‬ ‫گرفتم به گوینده بر آفرین‬ ‫اگرچه نپیوست جز اندکی‬ ‫همو بود گوینده را راه بر‬

There was a book [nāma] from ancient times, the words of which are noble and just. It [the book] was like a goblet full of jewels, and in prose. Menʼs dispositions were far from versifying [peyvand] it. Six thousand years had passed it by if thus the inquiry shows [correct] counting. No one had thought of versifying [peyvand] it. This glad heart became full of care. I praised the reciter [guyanda, that is, Daqiqi] who showed the way within this [poem], for versifying [peyvand], although he did not versify but a few verses, only one thousand among thousands more about feasting and fghting. It was he also, this singerʼs guide, who placed kingliness upon the throne. VI 136.9–15 156

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Earlier in the same passage, Ferdowsi has declared that Daqiqi is an inferior poet:

‫بسی بیت ناتندرست آمدم‬ ‫بداند سخن گفتن نابکار‬

‫نگه کردم این نظم و سست آمدم‬ ‫من این زان بگفتم که تا شهریار‬

I glanced at these verses, and they appeared to me weak. Many of the lines [beyts] appeared defective to me. I recited this [portion] from them so that the ruler may know worthless speech. VI 136.2–3 So Ferdowsi ostensibly incorporates the verses of Daqiqi by “reciting” them in his own Shahnameh. Despite such claims by Ferdowsi that his is the frst and the best poetic version of the Book of Kings, we know for a fact that there were earlier poetic versions.22 Even the critic Nöldeke, who consistently takes the words of Ferdowsi literally, as if the poetʼs claims were ipso facto historical data, documents fragments of earlier heroic poetry, composed in Ferdowsiʼs heroic narrative meter, mutaqārib,23 that are attributed to Abu Shakur24 and that have been preserved in the 11th-century glossary of Asadi.25 We also have independent evidence that Daqiqi himself was credited with poetic works beyond the thousand-odd lines that he ostensibly incorporated in the Shahnameh. There is, for example, a fragment attributed to Daqiqi that mentions such subjects as the prodigious bird known as the Simorgh, an unfeathered arrow, Rostamʼs wondrous horse Rakhsh, and the “magician” Zāl, father of Rostam.26 Such subjects pervade Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh. Why did Ferdowsi ostensibly incorporate only the poetry of Daqiqi, not that of other poets, and why these particular 1000 lines? The answer suggested by Nöldeke and now generally accepted is that Ferdowsi appropriated Daqiqiʼs poetry, despite his claims concerning its inferiority, in order to deal with a “rather ticklish subject” for Ferdowsiʼs Muslim context, namely the coming of Zoroaster.27 I suggest that there is another equally strong reason for Ferdowsiʼs appropriation of Daqiqi: he is seeking to make Daqiqi the representative of the preexisting poetic traditions, a single foil for and rival of his own version. In fact, we know that Daqiqiʼs Zoroastrian themes share the heritage of a Middle Persian epic tradition: there is a Pahlavi narrative poem, Ayādgar ī Zarēran “The Memorial of Zarēr,” the themes of which converge with those in the verses of Daqiqi as incorporated in the Shahnameh.28 In this connection, it seems to be no accident that Daqiqi supposedly just happens to have composed only those thousand-odd lines incorporated in the Shahnameh and that these lines, in turn, just happen to coincide with the narrative framework of The Memorial of Zarēr. In this light, it may have been more prudent for Ferdowsi to present the orthodox Zoroastrian doctrine from the mouth of Daqiqi. By supposedly quoting Daqiqi on the overall narrative of the coming of Zoroaster, Ferdowsi achieves a critical distance, being thus one step removed from his own Muslim context and thereby not personally responsible for anything that might be ofensive to Muslim sensibilities. But he also achieves something that is even more important: with his gesture of quoting Daqiqi in the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi appropriates, in one stroke, the cumulative poetic traditions of his Zoroastrian predecessors. Such poetic traditions, I argue, are oral poetic traditions. I use the term “oral” in line with the investigations of living oral traditions by Parry and Lord.29 As we know from evidence independent of Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh, a lengthy history of Iranian oral poetic traditions stretches 157

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back many centuries. The most striking testimony, collected by Mary Boyce, centers on the New Persian and Middle Persian contexts of the Parthian word gōsān, roughly translatable as “minstrel.”30 Boyce sums up the essence of this testimony: The gōsān played a considerable part in the life of the Parthians and their neighbours, down to late in the Sasanian epoch: entertainer of king and commoner, privileged at court and popular with the people; present at the graveside and at the feast; eulogist, satirist, storyteller, musician; recorder of past achievements, and commentator of his own times. He is sometimes an object of emulation, sometimes a despised frequenter of taverns and bawdy houses; sometimes a solitary singer and musician, and sometimes one of a group, singing or performing on a variety of instruments. The explanation of such diversity is presumably that for the Parthians music and poetry were so closely entwined, that a man could not be a professional poet without being also a musician, skilled in instrumental as well as vocal music. . . . As poet-musicians, in Parthian society as in any other, the gōsān-s presumably enjoyed reputation and esteem in proportion to their individual talents.31 There is comparable evidence about singer-poets in the earlier Iranian traditions of the Medes (Athenaeus 633d–e), Achaemenids (Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.2.1), and Sasanians (Letter of Tansar, Minovi 1932: 12).32 The medium of the singer-poet was competitive. Particularly striking anecdotes concern competitions between Barbad, traditionally the greatest Sasanian minstrel, and various rivals (cf. Thaʿālibī, Zotenberg 1900: 704).33 These traditions of poetic competition are prominently featured in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi (for example, IX 226–228.3610–3677).34 And these traditions help explain the tenor of Ferdowsiʼs competitiveness with Daqiqi. In this connection, it is important again to draw attention to the way in which Ferdowsi presents Daqiqi as the sum total of previous traditions. Oral poets in most cultures appropriate all previous traditions of composition to themselves in the context of each poetʼs own performance/composition.35 So, too, Ferdowsi claims that he is defnitive by virtue of being the ultimate transmitter of the stories he tells. The poet fguratively owns the whole poem in the context of composition, which is presented as a stylized performance:

‫همی نو شود بر سر انجمن‬

‫کهن گشته این داستانها زمن‬

These stories, grown old, will be renewed by me in all assemblies. III 6.9 In performance, the oral poet appropriates the song to himself at the expense of other oral poets.36 A cross-cultural survey reveals that such a claim on the part of the performer/composer is typical of oral poetics.37 Some may think that the testimony of Ferdowsi about Daqiqi should be taken more literally, to the extent that Ferdowsi may be citing Daqiqi because the latter fgure is truly his only significant predecessor in his use of poetic form. In this line of thinking, some might argue that, even if there were oral poetry in the time of Ferdowsi, this poetry would still be very diferent from that of Daqiqi and Ferdowsi. For example, if we take the obvious aspect of the formal features shared by Daqiqi and Ferdowsi, namely the mutaqārib meter, some would be inclined to think 158

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that the poetry of these two poets, as well as all New Persian poetry, results from the artifcial literary adoption of Arabic poetic forms.38 But this line of thinking has been seriously challenged by L. P. Elwell-Sutton, who makes a strong case for quantitative meter as the basic principle of Middle Persian poetry, thereby directly linking it with the quantitative meter of New Persian poetry, like the mutaqārib lines of Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh.39 Moreover, Elwell-Sutton argues convincingly that Ferdowsiʼs mutaqārib meter, as well as other meters related to it, is not derived from the corresponding Arabic meter, one that is unattested in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, extremely rare in the Umayyad period (661–750 ce), and relatively frequent only in ʿAbbāsid times (750–1258 ce); rather it is the Arabic mutaqārib that seems to be modeled on the Persian.40 In fact, the New Persian mutaqārib seems to be derived from Middle Persian forms.41 The thrust, then, of Elwell-Suttonʼs fndings is that the attested fragments of New Persian poetry before Daqiqi and Ferdowsi consistently reveal the formal characteristics of Middle Persian poetry.42 I cite Elwell-Suttonʼs illuminating survey of these New Persian poetic fragments, such as the three surviving lines attributed to the Sasanian minstrel Barbad,43 part of a hymn recited by the Zoroastrian priests at the fre-temple of Karkoy,44 and a two-line lament for the ruin of Samarqand.45 Accordingly, I maintain that Ferdowsiʼs description of Daqiqi as his only predecessor cannot be taken literally. By appropriating his rival Daqiqi as the representative of Zoroastrian traditions, Ferdowsi implicitly declares himself heir to the Middle Persian epic traditions, and he does so with a gesture typical of oral poetics.

Te Authority of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh Evidence shows that Ferdowsi’s epic poetry cannot have been the frst of its kind. The question remains, however: why was his claim to be the frst poet of national epic implicitly accepted by later generations of poets? It will not sufce to assume that Ferdowsi’s poetry came to be considered the frst of its kind simply because it was the best. Ferdowsi’s primacy is not just a matter of artistic superiority. As the poet himself afrms, it is also a matter of authenticity and authority. And authority is a matter of control over tradition. For Ferdowsi, moreover, such control is specifed as control over both oral and written traditions. The oral traditions, as we shall see, are represented as stylized performances by fgures called mōbads and dehqāns, while the written traditions take the form of an archetypal book, the Pahlavi Book of Kings. Ferdowsi’s claimed control over both oral and written traditions, I argue, is an expression of authority that is derived primarily from oral, not written, poetic traditions. Ferdowsi’s poetic tradition was an oral tradition in its own right, and his Shahnameh had survived as a living oral tradition in the period following its composition. Ferdowsi’s poetry was an accretive medium that kept adapting itself to the society for which it was composed and recomposed. Ferdowsi not only inherited the Middle Persian oral poetic traditions; he also re-created the New Persian oral traditions, composing a version of national epic meant to be both more comprehensive and better than any that preceded him. His version became canonical. And yet, ironically, this very fact of canonicity became a guarantee that the national epic tradition would not come to an end with Ferdowsi. Rather, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi went on regenerating itself all over the land. The key to this process was the oral poetic tradition that Ferdowsi had inherited and appropriated from his predecessors. In his extensive study of medieval Western European literary traditions, Paul Zumthor describes as mouvance the phenomenon in which the act of composition is regenerated with each act of copying a manuscript; we may expect such a process to be ongoing in any tradition where the act of composition is still part of a living 159

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process of composition-in-performance.46 With the passage of time, the national epic of Ferdowsi even became a focus for the accretion of extraneous oral poetic traditions. It is not necessary to apply our own modern poetic criteria in order to determine whether the poet Ferdowsi was indeed superior to all other poets of national epic. A clear sign of Ferdowsi’s poetic superiority from his own society’s point of view can be found in the very fact that it was Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, not some other poet’s Book of Kings, that survived and that its survival precluded any subsequent treatment of the narratives that the Shahnameh has treated. This is a matter of authority as well as artistry, and that authority, I propose, is conferred by the continuum of oral poetic traditions. With its authority, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh became perceived as the only Shahnameh. It survived Ferdowsi’s formative social context, as defned by the patronage of the Sunni sultanate of Maḥmud of Ghazna (998–1030 ce), founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty,47 and it continued through the centuries, prevailing as the national epic of Shīʿite Iran.48 Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh has carried such weight and prestige that, even down to the present century, the recitation of oral prosaic traditions of the Book of Kings is conventionally attributed by the reciters to Ferdowsi.49 The survival of the Shahnameh from Sunni to Shīʿite contexts raises the possibility that there were shifts in the actual orientation of the poem as it kept on being reshaped in performance over the course of time. Such shifts seem to be refected in the “Life of Ferdowsi” traditions, both what is built into the Shahnameh and what is extraneously supplied from the prefaces and other sources. I interpret the “Life of Ferdowsi” lore not simply as raw data about the real life and times of the poet but as a traditional discourse that merges factual details with an ongoing mythical reinterpretation of the poem’s role in society.50 A salient example is the tradition that tells of Ferdowsi’s supposedly having composed a poem of blame, that is, a satire or invective, against the Sunni sultan Maḥmud of Ghazna.51 The essential themes of this poem of blame attributed to Ferdowsi are accretively built into the Shahnameh proper.52 The purpose of such accretions in the Shahnameh may well have been to acclimatize the poetry of Ferdowsi to a Shīʿite audience at large. In terms of my interpretation of the “Life of Ferdowsi” tradition, instances of praise for Sultan Maḥmud refect the requirements of Sunni listeners, whereas instances of invective refect those of Shīʿites. Thus there is no need to reject the authenticity of the blame passages, as a strictly biographical reading requires on the grounds that the blame itself seems to undermine any impression of sincerity that we may read into Ferdowsi’s words of praise elsewhere.53 Since the praising of Maḥmud is centrally and pervasively refected by the Shahnameh itself, while the blaming of this sultan is represented more marginally and sporadically, it seems reasonable to infer that the Sunni orientation of the poet’s patronage was dominant in the most formative phases of the poem, while the Shīʿite orientation may have developed only over time, accretively. In any case, it seems to me fruitless to discount the patronage of Maḥmud’s Ghaznavid dynasty in considering the historical formation of the text that we know as Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. There is also a related problem concerning the historical attribution to Ferdowsi of a work known as Yusof and Zoleykhā.54 Ferdowsi’s appropriation of all previous poetic traditions in his Shahnameh goes beyond the formal gesture of incorporating the poetry of his main rival Daqiqi. On another level, the poet is making a colossal efort to establish his poetry as the text of a defnitive book, and in fact the entire Shahnameh is pervaded by references to this efort. On the surface, such references to the Shahnameh as a book seem to contradict the argument that Ferdowsi’s poetry is the product of an oral tradition. As we shall see, however, the idea of a book, in Ferdowsi’s medieval Persian context, is not at odds with the dynamics of the oral poetic traditions that he inherited. A basic question arises: should we assume that oral poetry is basically incompatible with literacy? The cross-cultural evidence of social anthropology suggests that no universalized 160

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formulation can be made about the phenomenon of literacy: in some societies, literacy erodes the traditions of oral poetry, whereas in others, these traditions may remain unafected.55 There is therefore no justifcation in assuming a priori that the poetry of Ferdowsi is not oral poetry or that it is some kind of “semi-oral” poetry, solely on the grounds that the Shahnameh refers to itself as a book in the making.56 Moreover, the act of writing, of creating a book, can be assumed to be a factor merely in the recording, not necessarily in the composing, of Ferdowsi’s poetry. In other words, whatever we may ultimately conclude about the question of deriving the Shahnameh from oral traditions, it cannot simply be taken for granted that the actual composition of the Shahnameh depended on writing. We can be certain about the factor of literacy only to the extent that writing had played a part in the recording of the poem and that the factor of literacy is a prerequisite for the reading of any recording in the form of a book. It does not necessarily follow that literacy was a prerequisite for the composition that resulted in such a book. Moreover, according to the account of Neẓāmi ʿAruḍi Samarqandi in his Chahār Maqāla,57 the Shahnameh was dictated by Ferdowsi to one ʿAli Daylam and performed on behalf of Ferdowsi on specifc occasions by one Abu Dulaf, described as a rāwi “repeater.”58 As we have seen so far, then, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, his Book of Kings, talks about itself both as a book and as a stylized performance. But now we will see that his Shahnameh talks about its sources in the same way: Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings refers to his sources in terms that suit either stylized performances or a stylized book. In what follows, I will analyze the self-presentation of Ferdowsi’s authority as modeled on two such sources, starting with (1) stylized performances and then proceeding to (2) a stylized book.

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh as Modeled on Stylized Performances In his Shahnameh, Ferdowsi often says that he actually “hears” poetry spoken by performers called mōbads and dehqāns. The frst term, mōbad, means “priest” or “wise man,” and the second, dehqān, means “landowner.” The latter meaning, however, masks the actual function of the dehqān: as a chief owner of property in a particular locale, he is the “authority” not only in the narrow sense that he has administrative powers but also in the broader sense that he actually validates the traditions of that given locale.59 In other words, the mōbads and dehqāns are performers of the oral tradition. In fact, Neẓāmi ʿAruḍi Samarqandi, in his Chahār Maqāla, reports that Ferdowsi himself was a dehqān.60 In a detailed study of the words mōbad and dehqān, I have found that they are the functional equivalents of each other, inasmuch as they both designate performers of an oral tradition, validators of tradition itself.61 In one case (III 7.19–20), the words are even synonymous.

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh as Modeled on a Stylized Book There are two central passages in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh concerning the theme of an authoritative book as the poet’s source. Here I ofer merely a brief analysis, referring to these two passages short-hand as (1) the “mystical gift” and (2) the “regenerated archetype.”62 Let us begin with the passage about the “mystical gift” (I 23.156–161). Ferdowsi says at the opening of his monumental poem that he received an archetypal Book of Kings, written in Pahlavi, as a gift from a mysterious “friend” or “dear one.” In previous scholarship, this passage has been interpreted literally as a piece of historical information, and some have gone so far as to claim, on the basis of external lore about the life of Ferdowsi, that the man here described as a mehrbān “friend” of the poet can be identifed as one Moḥammad Lashkari.63 161

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I suggest, however, that it is more productive to exhaust frst the internal evidence of the Shahnameh itself. Specifcally, this passage should be compared with a passage that leads into the Story of Bēzhan and Manēzha, Shahnameh V 6–9.1–37, a description of a mystical nighttime encounter between Ferdowsi and an unnamed fgure who is, again, described as a mehrbān “dear one” (lines 15, 16, 29). Some commentators infer that the “dear one” is in this case meant to be understood as a concubine.64 This mehrbān proceeds to recite from a nāma “book,” said to be written in Pahlavi, the love story of Bēzhan and Manēzha, which Ferdowsi is then to put into verse. It seems that both passages, Shahnameh I 23.156–161 and V 6–9.1–37, are variants of an integral type-scene where a “dear one” gives Ferdowsi a prose rendition of a part of the Shahnameh, supposedly taken from a book written in Pahlavi, and where it is Ferdowsi’s task to convert the given rendition from prose to verse. In the second passage, we are told explicitly that Ferdowsi has difculty falling asleep, whereupon the mehrbān consoles him by reading out loud from this Pahlavi book the story of Bēzhan and Manēzha. We can compare this theme of a sleepless night in the second passage with the words of the mehrbān in the frst passage, where that “dear one” is pictured as exhorting Ferdowsi not to sleep. I draw attention to a detail from another passage, where yet another mehrbān is pictured as setting for Ferdowsi a spread-out feast [khwān]; in the mode of a dehqān, this mehrbān sets the spread in order to tell a story (Shahnameh V 167.25). In this image, we see a stylized reference to performance in oral poetic traditions – a reference that is fused in the same context with a reference to the alleged acquisition of a Pahlavi book from this mehrbān. A key to my argumentation so far is the second central passage, about the “regenerated archetype,” to which we now turn (I 21.126–136). Here we see Ferdowsi’s own description of the genesis of the Pahlavi book of Kings that he claims as his source. In this description, we have what amounts to a myth-made stylization of oral poetry.”65 A noble and wise pahlavān, who is described as a hereditary dehqān, assembles mōbads from all over Iran, each of whom possesses a fragment of a preexisting Pahlavi book that had disintegrated through neglect. What now happens is an imagined reintegration of the disintegrated text. After all the mōbads are lined up in the correct order, each of them is called upon to recite his own part of the notional totality that is the book. It is thus that this ancient but once fragmented book is wondrously reassembled by the assembly of mōbads. Following my analysis of the “mystical gift” and the “regenerated archetype” passages in the Shahnameh, Gregory Nagy interprets them as evidence for the kind of culture “where written text and oral tradition coexist.”66 In such cultures, as Nagy argues, “the idea of a written text can even become a primary metaphor for the authority of recomposition-in-performance.”67 The consequences are enormous: The intrinsic applicability of text as metaphor for recomposition-in-performance helps explain a type of myth, attested in a wide variety of cultural contexts, where the evolution of a poetic tradition, moving slowly ahead in time until it reaches a relatively static phase, is reinterpreted by the myth as if it resulted from a single incident, pictured as the instantaneous recovery or even regeneration of a lost text, an archetype. In other words, myth can make its own “big bang” theory for the origins of epic, and it can even feature in its scenario the concept of writing.68 In brief, the Persian model of a “regenerated archetype” of the Shahnameh reveals “a myth about the synthesis of oral traditions that is articulated in terms of written traditions.”69 For Nagy, the most striking comparative parallel with the Persian model is a set of ancient Greek myths that 162

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tell of the disintegration and subsequent reintegration of the Homeric corpus itself, culminating in the historicized narrative of the “Peisistratean Recension.”70 Other comparable parallels include the medieval Irish aetiology of the “lost” book of the Cattle Raid of Cúailgne.71 Another parallel adduced by Nagy is the medieval French narrative of Guiron le courtois, which “lays the foundation for its authority by telling of the many French books that were produced from what is pictured as an archetypal translation of a mythical Latin book of the Holy Grail.”72 Yet another parallel comes from ethnographic feldwork on the oral epic tradition of an illiterate society, the untouchable Malas of India: “The epic, it is claimed [by the performers], was frst written by a Brahmin poet, torn into shreds, discarded, and then picked up by the present performers.”73 We can supplement these parallels with two more parallels adduced by Dick Davis in a 1996 article: the two sources he cites are the Historia Regum Britanniae, by Geofrey of Monmouth, and the Brut of Layamon.74 In the case of Geofrey (ca. 1150 ce), his prologue about “a very ancient book” (vetustissimus liber) that had once been given to him by a “friend” (one “Walter of Oxford”) is comparable to the ancient book given to Ferdowsi by his mysterious “friend.” There are further analogies to be drawn from Layamon’s Brut: The picture of an author gathering together his sources, collating them and beginning work, is in essence very similar to the one given at the beginning of the Shāhnāmeh, where Ferdowsī speaks of a dehqan’s gathering (farāham āvordan) of scattered texts which were then reduced to one narrative, and both Ferdowsī and Layamon insist on the added authority of unfamiliar or ancient languages.75 With reference to the Persian theme of a dehqān’s “gathering (farāham āvordan) of scattered texts which were then reduced to one narrative,” we may compare again the Greek myths that tell of the disintegration and subsequent reintegration of the Homeric corpus, culminating in historicized narratives about the “Peisistratean Recension.”76

On the “Older Preface” to the Shahnameh Stories about poetry originally written in prose lead to another important point of comparison. In the classical Persian traditions, as I have argued extensively in my earlier work, there is a comparable narrative about a prose Shahnameh, as reported in the text of the so-called “Older Preface” to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, completed in the month of April in the year 346 AH/957 ce.77 This Older Preface, according to a theory proposed by Moḥammad Qazvini, originally introduced not Ferdowsi’s poetic Shahnameh but rather a “prose Shahnameh” that somehow managed to fnd its way into the hands of Ferdowsi, who then used it as his primary source to compose his own “poetic Shahnameh.”78 In my work, I ofer a modifcation of the theory proposed by Qazvini. Before I outline the modifcation, however, I will quote the core of the text that led to the original theory. That text, the Older Preface, has been translated into English by a most distinguished student of Qazvini, Vladimir Minorsky, who added in his own work some further extensions of the original theory developed by his teacher.79 At the core of that text, which I will now quote, following the translation of Minorsky, we read that a prose Shahnameh was commissioned by the “Lord of Ṭōs,” Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and compiled by his secretary, Abu Manṣur Maʿmari: Therefore he [Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq] commanded his minister [dastur] Abu Manṣur Maʿmari to gather owners of books from among the dehqān-s, sages, and men of experience from various towns, and by his orders his servant (the said) Abu 163

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Manṣur Maʿmari compiled the book: he sent a person to various towns of Khorasan and brought wise men therefrom [textual variant: and from elsewhere?], such as Mākh, son of Khorāsān, from Herāt; Yazdāndād, son of Shāpur, from Sistān; Māhōy Khorshēd, son of Bahrām, from Bishāpur; Shādān, son of Borzin, from Ṭōs. He brought all four and set them down to produce those books of the kings, with their actions, their life-stories, the epochs of justice or injustice, troubles, wars, and the (royal) institutions, beginning with the frst king [key] who was he who established the practices of civilization in the world and brought men out of (the condition of ) beasts – down to Yazdgerd Shahriyār, who was the last of the Iranian kings.80 Minorsky’s interpretation of this textual core, combined with the earlier interpretation by Qazvini, exerted an enormous infuence on literary historians of the Shahnameh.81 My interpretation, however, is in some respects diferent, as we will now see, from the theory developed by Qazvini and Minorsky. Here as also in my previous work, I argue against the assumption that the book we see being commissioned in this narrative must have been Ferdowsi’s all-defning source.82 In arguing against this assumption, I emphasize that this historicized narrative is strikingly parallel to Ferdowsi’s own poetic narrative, as cited earlier, concerning the genesis of the Book of Kings. My argument that the narrative of the Older Preface is driven by mythological themes necessitated by the prestige of the very idea of a Book of Kings has been supported by Dick Davis, who has developed further arguments against the simplistic notion that it was merely the historical details about Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq that drove the narrative of the preface.83 For another example of mythological themes that drive narratives explaining the genesis of books, I cite the prooemium of the Zartoshtnāma (ca. 978 ce), where the poet claims that he has turned an ancient book, written in Pahlavi, into Persian poetry.84 Yet another example is the narrative tradition about the Persian version of Kalīla and Dimna.85 We start with an earlier Pahlavi version, produced in the reign of Khosrow I Anōshirvān (531– 579 ce), which was a translation of an Indic corpus of fables known as the Pañcatantra; an Arabic version by Ibn al-Muqafaʿ, apparently based on the Pahlavi version, is known by the title Kalīla and Dimna. Then there was also a version of Kalīla and Dimna in Persian, composed in verse by the poet Rōdaki and commissioned by Abuʾl-Fażl Balʿami, secretary to the Samanid king Naṣr II Ibn Aḥmad (reign: 914–943 ce); this poetic version is not extant, except for some fragments. Ferdowsi himself draws a parallel between his own Shahnameh and Rōdaki’s Kalīla and Dimna, stressing that the uniqueness of both compositions depends on what is described as the turning of prose into poetry (VIII 655.3460–3464).86 Here I disagree with François de Blois, who takes a literal interpretation of all such references to the turning of Pahlavi prose into Persian poetry.87 Also, he thinks that such poetry is merely “versifcation”: The Arabic text [of the Kalīla and Dimna] has a number of times been translated back into (Neo-)Persian. The oldest translation, sponsored by the well known Samanid wazīr Balʿamī and mentioned in Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma, . . . is lost. That version was apparently the basis for the Persian versifcation by the celebrated poet Rōdakī, of which scattered verses have survived.88 Because de Blois assumes that oral traditions exclude written traditions, for him the poetry of Rōdaki is in this case merely the “versifcation” of prosaic content. He makes a parallel assumption about the poetry of Ferdowsi as merely a “versifcation” of Persian prose translations of an 164

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earlier Pahlavi prose account, the Khwadāynāmag.89 I have argued against such an assumption in the case of the Shahnameh90 and also in the case of the Kalīla and Dimna: Here again it is unjustifed to posit a Persian prose archetype for the Persian poetry of the Kalīla and Dimna merely on the basis of references to an authoritative book of prose as source. The implicit equation of “prose” with Pahlavi documents conveys an authority that is comparable to the medium of Ferdowsi’s poetry. In this medium, as we have seen, both the Pahlavi book and oral poetic traditions are visualized as the basis for a poem’s authority.91 As I note here, the Shahnameh contains one of the “versifed” versions of the story of the origins of the Kalīla and Dimna – versions that go beyond the content of what de Blois supposes to be the prosaic source. According to de Blois, the role played by a fgure named Borzōy in his quest for the Kalīla and Dimna “has been infated to absurd proportions” by the Shahnameh and other retellings.92 Such is the fate of Ferdowsi’s poetic craft at the hands of de Blois. Written sources are being “versifed” and thereby “infated.” Since de Blois thinks that oral poetic traditions cannot tap into lore that derives from written sources, as in the case of the Kalīla and Dimna, he cannot conceive of the elaboration of such lore by way of oral poetic traditions. For him, the esthetics of poetic elaboration become mere infations of historical facts. For him, the Shahnameh is a versifed infation of a prosaic exemplar. I prefer to view Ferdowsi’s poetry as a re-creation, through living oral traditions, of lore learned from both books and “singers”: Ferdowsi’s claim, that he received an old Pahlavi Book of Kings, written in prose, and that he turned it into poetry – the frst, the best, and therefore the only Shahnameh – could not have been made without the authority of the oral poetic traditions that he had mastered. The idea of the book contains, like a time-capsule, not only an idealized composition-in-performance but also, cumulatively, an idealized sum total of all oral poetic traditions as they were performed before Ferdowsi and as they continued to be performed after Ferdowsi. As such, the book is both a concrete object and a symbol, expressing the authority and authenticity of the oral poetic traditions that are being performed.93 Here I extend the exploration to prose prefaces in manuscripts of the Shahnameh. Even more explicitly than the poetry, the narrative of one of these prose prefaces goes out of its way to explain the Zoroastrian background of the Shahnameh in terms of both patronage and general reception. And it does so while all along enfolding this background with a foreground of Islamic worldviews. This narrative is found in the Older Preface. As we will see presently, the Zoroastrian cultural agenda of a certain Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq and his administrator, Abu Manṣur Maʿmari, are carefully and accurately described in the narrative of this Older Preface. I contend, however, that the theory of Moḥammad Qazvini, in editing the text of the Older Preface, has skewed the narrative of that text. Restricting himself to an exclusively “archaeologizing” approach, Qazvini truncates the Older Preface by cutting out all the aggiornamento that is built into its narrative; by privileging the older layers of content, he excludes the newer ones that frame the older.94 Qazvini’s procedure of truncating the text of the Older Preface is driven by his theory, already noted, that the Older Preface originally introduced not Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh but rather a 165

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“prose Shahnameh” that somehow managed to fnd its way into the hands of Ferdowsi, who then used it as his primary source to compose his own “poetic Shahnameh.” Qazvini’s theory, as I have also already noted, has been followed by his student Vladimir Minorsky, who published a translation of the Older Preface, along with further extensions of the theory.95 Minorsky’s work has exerted an enormous infuence on literary historians of the Shahnameh.96 In what follows, I will for the sake of convenience refer to the Older Preface (hereafter “OP”) in terms of Minorsky’s paragraph-subdivisions (I write “¶” before each mention of a paragraph-number). I should already note, however, that I do not accept the editorial excisions that Minorsky and Qazvini have applied to the text. A key to my argument concerns the following set of details in the narrative of the OP: in Ṭōs of Khorasan province, the native city of Ferdowsi, a local potentate called Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq, in concert with his administrator, Abu Manṣur Maʿmari, commissioned a Book of Kings (OP ¶6), completed in the year 346 AH/957 ce (OP ¶7). This book was based on a “compilation” of older books (OP ¶6). According to the narrative, Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq was inspired to commission this book after he heard the story about the genesis of the book Kalīla and Dimna (OP ¶6). I fnd it signifcant that the “happy ending” of that story, as told in the OP, develops as follows: King Anōshirvān commissions the translation of the Kalīla and Dimna from “Indian” into Pahlavi (OP ¶4); the potentate Ma ʾmūn, through the agency of his administrator Ibn Muqafaʿ, commissions a translation from Pahlavi into Arabic (OP ¶4); the Samanid king Naṣr II Ibn Aḥmad (reign: 914–943 ce), through the agency of his secretary Balʿami, commissions a translation (by Balʿami himself ) from Arabic into Persian prose (OP ¶5); this text is then fnally translated into Persian verse by Rōdaki (OP ¶5). It is said of the Persian prose version: “the book fell into men’s hands and every man turned its pages” (OP ¶5, Minorsky’s translation; he draws special attention to the expression dast badu andar zadand). Then, it is said of the poetic version: from then on, the Kalīla and Dimna “was on the tongues of the great and the lowly” (OP ¶5). The rhetoric and “poetics” of this narrative operate on an ascending scale – a crescendo – of prestige. At the climax, which is the “happy ending,” the Persian prose version is fnally capped by the Persian poetic version. I argue that the same kind of rhetoric is at work in the “happy ending” built into the narrative about the genesis of the Shahnameh. Just before the climax – that is, just before the “happy ending” – the Book of Kings has been turned into Persian prose (OP ¶15–¶16; the Persian text is presumably a translation of the original Pahlavi). Then, for a climactic “happy ending,” the prose version is fnally capped by the poetic version. This time, it is Ferdowsi who gets a chance to convert the prose into poetry; his patron is specifed as Maḥmud of Ghazna (OP ¶16). In this narrative, there is no explicit time-gap between the compilation of the Persian prose version and its subsequent conversion into Persian poetry: And after they had compiled it in prose, Sultan Maḥmud, son of Sebüktegin, ordered the sage Abu ʾl-Qāsem Manṣur Ferdowsi to turn it into the dari language in verse, and the circumstances of it will be mentioned at their proper place. (again, OP ¶16) In terms of Qazvini’s theory, however, this crucial part of the narrative, this climax, is to be dismissed as an “interpolation.”97 After this “interpolation” (¶16), the narrative proceeds through the genealogies of Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq (¶17) and his administrator, Abu Manṣur Maʿmari (¶¶18–20). After these genealogies, Qazvini brackets as a further “interpolation” the entire end of the OP, where the narrative is rounded out with accounts about Daqiqi and Ferdowsi (Minorsky omits this entire passage from his translation).

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By way of these editorial and interpretive excisions, the rhetoric of the OP as an organic whole is undone, and the truncated text is then “archaeologized” as having had a completely diferent purpose from what the OP itself declares to be its own raison d’être, which is to introduce the poetry of the Shahnameh. According to Qazvini, the text had been meant to introduce a hypothetical “prose Shahnameh,” no longer attested, which supposedly corresponds to the original text commissioned by Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Qazvini’s “archaeologizing” approach needs to be supplanted by a combination of synchronic and diachronic approaches. From a synchronic point of view, the narrative of the OP requires the predecessor-text of the poetic Shahnameh to be a foil: something very good but not quite so good as the fnal product. In terms of narrative precedents for what a foil like this should be, it is clear that the predecessor-text has to be in prose, at least in terms of the rhetoric and “poetics” of the narrative. That was the case with the prose Persian Kalīla and Dimna of Balʿami, the predecessor-text for the poetic Persian Kalīla and Dimna of Rōdaki. We see a comparable situation in the case of the “prose” Persian Shahnameh: in terms of the logic that takes shape in the narrative of the OP, just as the Kalīla and Dimna has a prose version that is capped by a poetic version, so also the Shahnameh must have a prose version as a predecessor-text of the poetic Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Such a rhetorical build-up, where a prose Shahnameh commissioned by Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq becomes a stepping-stone leading to even bigger and better things, would make sense from the standpoint of a later era marked by a poetic Shahnameh commissioned by Maḥmud of Ghazna. This is not to say that there never existed a prose Shahnameh commissioned by Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq as potentate of Ṭōs. But it is to say that the OP narrative about such a commissioning of a prose Shahnameh is inextricably tied to the OP narrative about the conversion of this prose into poetry by Ferdowsi as poet of Ṭōs. Here we may consider a further possibility. Perhaps the patronage of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh had once gone all the way back to Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq. It is relevant to note that Ferdowsi, in the interpretation of some scholars, may have made actual contact with Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq and the “four translators” commissioned by that potentate of Ṭōs.98 If indeed Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq had once been the patron of Ferdowsi, then the narrative tradition that features Maḥmud of Ghazna as Ferdowsi’s prime patron could be viewed as a later accretion that negates earlier facts about an earlier patronage; a similar formulation could be applied to stories about the emancipation of Ferdowsi from Maḥmud’s patronage, which may be viewed as a still later accretion, refecting an ideology that transcends the Sunni worldview of Maḥmud’s court. Such accretions are also built into the actual poetry of the Shahnameh, as I have argued elsewhere.99 Having merely noted this possibility, I return to my main argument, which remains this: the narrative of the OP rhetorically motivates the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, not the earlier “prose Shahnameh” that serves as its foil.100 The question remains whether the “prose Shahnameh” mentioned in the narrative of the OP must have been Ferdowsi’s actual source. In my previous studies, I have argued that Ferdowsi was not confned to any single textual source and that he had free access to other sources as well, most notably to contemporary oral traditions of the “Book of Kings” traditions; moreover, I have argued that the historicized narrative of the OP is strikingly parallel to Ferdowsi’s own poeticized narrative concerning the genesis of the Book of Kings.101 In other studies, I back up this argument by comparing another parallel as found in other preface narratives besides what we fnd in the OP.

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A Parallel: Te Bāysonghori Preface to the Shahnameh Most relevant is a monumental preface to a lavish new recension of the Shahnameh that was commissioned in 829 AH/1426 ce (and completed in 833/1430) under the aegis of a Timurid prince named Bāysonghor.102 According to the narrative of the Bāysonghori Preface (BP), it was King Anōshirvān who commissioned a collection, converging from all the provinces in his empire, of popular stories concerning ancient kings (BP pp. 368–369).103 The narrative goes further: the last Sasanian king, Yazdgerd, commissioned the dehqān Dāneshvar to put together the Book of Kings (BP p. 369). On the basis of such parallel versions in the BP, involving two diferent generations of kings commissioning two diferent “prototypical” Book of Kings, I argue that the version of the OP, even if it has a historical basis, conforms to a narrative strategy that keeps revalidating the Book of Kings by way of explaining its “origins.” I also argue that the version of the OP, where the man who commissions the Book of Kings is not a king but a local potentate, counts as a variant in its own right. Even if all the other versions seem more “mythical” while the version of the OP seems more “historical,” the parallelism itself is still a matter of “myth,” not “history.” The greater density of historical information in the “prose preface” version need not take it out of consideration as a variant. Cross-cultural studies of interaction between the myths and historical events that are independently known to have taken place show that myths tend to appropriate and then reorganize historical information. As for Ferdowsi’s own version of the story, it is more versatile because it is more stylized and therefore generic. Ferdowsi’s version of how the Book of Kings came about can usurp more specifc versions because it is so generic. His version implicitly acknowledges the variation of these stories by avoiding specifcity in referring to the persons, places, or time involved in the genesis of his own source “book” for the Shahnameh. And by acknowledging this multiformity, Ferdowsi is in efect transcending it. His Shahnameh does not depend on any one version for the establishment of a text. The myth gives validity to the text by making the assembly of wise and pious men in the community the collective source of the text. In other words, I resist the simplistic notion that it was merely the historical details about Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq that drove the narrative of the OP. To be contrasted with the “historicized” specifcity of the OP narrative about the genesis of the Book of Kings is the poeticized universalism of Ferdowsi’s own narrative. The same kind of universalism is evident in the narrative of the BP. Considerations of space prevent a full discussion of the complex narratological structure of the BP – a topic that I reserve for elsewhere.104 Here I simply point out that the universalism of the BP narrative is achieved not by way of generalizing several diferent versions, as in the case of Ferdowsi’s own narrative about the genesis of the Book of Kings, but rather by way of including the widest possible variety of diferent versions. The BP synthesizes the diferent versions of the story about the genesis of the Book of Kings as a way of explaining the genesis of the Bāysonghori text itself. By contrast with the BP, the OP particularizes one version. Even so, there are a number of important parallels between the universalizing BP and the particularizing OP. Most important, for the purposes of my main argument here, is the parallelism centering on the trope of representing the art of making poetry as equivalent to the “event” of turning prose into poetry. The parallels between the tropes of the OP and the BP emerge from a juxtaposition of the narratives. The next two paragraphs present the raw narratological material for such a juxtaposition. The frst of the two is a paraphrase of the narrative in the OP, which is brief 168

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and simple; the second paraphrases the relevant narrative in the BP, which is enormously long and complex. 1

2

In the OP, the “event” of turning the prose of the Book of Kings into poetry can be paraphrased in a single narratological layer: the prose Book of Kings, as compiled by Abu Manṣur Maʿmari at the behest of Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq and as translated into Persian by four distinct wise men (OP ¶6), is turned into poetry by Ferdowsi, as commissioned by Maḥmud of Ghazna (OP ¶17). In the BP, by contrast, this “event” can only be paraphrased in multiple layers. The prose Book of Kings is compiled by Abu Mansur al-Maʿmari at the behest of Abu Mansur ʿAbd al-Razzāk b. ʿAbd-Allah b. Farrokh (BP p. 370; his full name no longer matches exactly what is reported by the OP), who in turn acts at the behest of Yaʾqub of the al-Layth dynasty of Khorasan. In other words, Abu Manṣur Maʿmari and Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq do not get full credit in the narrative. This Yaʾqub of the al-Layth dynasty of Khorasan had acquired the “original” Pahlavi version by sending an envoy to fetch it from India (BP p. 370); this version of the Book of Kings is said to originate from the Book of Kings that had been compiled by Dāneshvar and commissioned by King Yazdgerd. That Book of Kings had been plundered from the king’s treasury at the time of the Arab conquest and was then brought to the Caliph, who rejected it (BP pp. 369–370); now it gets allotted to the people of Abyssinia, and its fame spreads throughout Abyssinia and India (BP p. 370). So, according to the story, it is from India that the “original” Book of Kings version makes its comeback to Iran (again, BP p. 370). This version of the Book of Kings is then translated into Persian prose, at the initiative of Abu Manṣur ʿAbd al-Razzāq, who as we have seen is ordered to do so by his superior, Yaʾqub of the al-Layth dynasty, and to this new version is now added all that happened between the reigns of Khosrow Parviz and Yazdgerd himself, so that the Book of Kings is now updated to cover the whole line of Iranian kings (BP p. 370). This new version is combined with four other versions, emanating from the authority of four distinct wise men, and the project is completed in 360 AH (BP p. 370, as opposed to 346 AH, the date given in the OP). Copies of this new version thereafter proliferate throughout Khorasan and Iraq. The patronage of the Book of Kings then passes from the al-Layth dynasty to that of the Samanids, who commission the poet Daqiqi to turn the prose of the Book into poetry. But the dynasty of the Samanids is then cut short, and there is a transfer of power to Maḥmud of Ghazna; correlatively, the life of the poet Daqiqi is cut short, and the turning of prose to poetry is interrupted (Daqiqi gets only as far as one or two thousand lines: BP p. 370). At the court of Maḥmud, an expert in poetry by the name of Khor Firuz, who is from Fars, takes up where Daqiqi left of. Like his predecessor, Khor Firuz has his own engagements with the turning of the prose of the Book of Kings into poetry; there follows an extended narrative about this Khor Firuz, who represents a West Iranian version of the Book of Kings tradition, and about his involvement in the reception of this poetic tradition at the court of Maḥmud – at the expense of the court poet of Ghazna, ʿOnsori (BP pp. 370–374). Then, at long last, the narrative approaches its climax. The poet Ferdowsi enters the scene, and from here on this fgure dominates the rest of the narrative and, in the process, he earns his poetic name Ferdowsi “man of paradise” (BP pp. 374–418). Before this core of the “Life of Ferdowsi” gets underway, however, the narrative pauses to ofer a supplementary catalogue of further textual sources that Maḥmud collects to augment the repertoire of his Book of Kings (BP p. 375). After this fnal narratological motivation of the poet’s sources, the story of the poet’s actual life can begin in earnest. This fnal story, once it is told, becomes of course the ultimate narratological motivation of Ferdowsi’s authority as the defnitive poet of the Book of Kings. 169

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The enormity of the preceding paragraph is a ftting symbol for the great complexity of the BP narrative, in contrast to that of the OP. It would take a much longer inquiry to examine in detail all the contrasts that abound. Here I confne myself to the most salient of these contrasts: whereas the OP shows the trope of turning prose into poetry as an event that takes place in a single phase, the BP shows multiple phases, involving multiple poets drawing from multiple sources. And, as we will see, this theme of multiplicity suits the agenda of what I have been calling the Shahnameh commissioned by Prince Bāysonghor.

An Overview of the Textual History of the Shahnameh Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is comparable in content to a number of Persian and Arabic prose texts dating from the 9th through the 11th centuries ce.105 As these texts gradually became better known and edited in the 19th century of our era, it became tempting for orientalists to assume a purely textual history and prehistory for not only these texts but also for the text of the Shahnameh itself. But the variations in all these texts proved to be an obstacle to such an assumption. Also, from the 12th century onwards, there are extant works that contain many episodes or details not found in the earlier sources, at times providing radically diferent narratives of the same episodes.106 In the case of parallel retellings of the Book of Kings in Arabic and Persian prose, Theodor Nöldeke thought of these parallelisms as proof of the existence of a Pahlavi archetype, the Khodāynāma. But such retellings are so often at variance with Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, and with each other, that a stemma leading back to a single archetypal Khodāynāma simply cannot be constructed, by Nöldeke’s own admission.107 It is pertinent here to cite the anecdote, recorded in Ḥamza 24, that one Mōbad Bahrām had to use twenty “copies” to establish the “correct” chronology of the Khodāynāma.108 Yet Nöldeke, who wants to believe that there is an archetypal version of the Shahnameh, is in fact the frst to despair of establishing, by way of Arabic and Persian prose sources, a textual stemma for Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Even the Ghurar of Thaʿālibī, a contemporary of Ferdowsi,109 is disappointing in this regard. Although Nöldeke believes that the Ghurar, unlike the other Arabic sources, was based directly on the Persian prose Shahnameh commissioned by Abu Manṣur, he is forced to posit, on the basis of the textual divergences, that Thaʿālibī and Ferdowsi must have used diferent copies of this Persian prose Shahnameh, copies that varied considerably one from the other.110 Nöldeke rationalizes even further the divergences between Thaʿālibī and Ferdowsi. Since Ferdowsi is after all a poet, so Nöldeke reasons, he may allow his imagination to elaborate and make more beautiful those things that the “elegant rhetoric” of the scholar Thaʿālibī would have left alone.111 The same sort of reasoning emerges in a monograph by Kurt Heinrich Hansen that systematically compares the parallel narratives of Thaʿālibī and Ferdowsi.112 I conclude, then, that the tradition of oral poetics, as refected in the references to performances by mōbads and dehqāns, accounts ultimately for the authoritativeness of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Ferdowsi’s claim, that he received an old Pahlavi Book of Kings, written in prose, and that he turned it into poetry – the frst, the best, and therefore the only Shahnameh – could not have been made without the authority of the oral poetic traditions that he had mastered. The idea of the book contains, like a time capsule, not only an idealized composition-in-performance but also, cumulatively, an idealized sum total of all oral poetic traditions as they were performed before Ferdowsi and as they continue to be performed after Ferdowsi. As such, the book is both a concrete object and a symbol, expressing the authority and authenticity of the oral poetic traditions that are being performed.113 170

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If indeed textual variants arise from the perpetuation of the Shahnameh in performance, we need just the opposite of the so-called critical Moscow edition (1960–1971) of Y. E. Bertels and his colleagues.114 This edition strips Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh to its bare bones (50,000-odd distichs), selecting variants essentially on textual grounds by comparing “superior” and “inferior” manuscripts. It is based essentially on fve manuscripts: 1

2 3 4 5

L = ms. Add. Or. 21103 of the British Library, London, dated 1276 ce, the oldest extant ms. at the time when the work on the Moscow edition was proceeding; contains the preface of Abu Manṣur. I = ms. 329 of the National Public Library of St. Petersburg, dated 1333 ce and the second oldest ms. after L. IV = ms. S.1654 of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, dated 1445 ce; contains the preface of Abu Manṣur. VI = ms. S.822 of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, dated 1450 ce. K = ms. S.40 of the Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīya, Cairo, dated 1394 ce,115 utilized only in volumes IV–IX of the Moscow edition; contains the preface of Abu Manṣur.

In view of the fact that there are around 500 extant manuscripts of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh,116 and especially in view of all the variations in manuscript readings, the restriction of the editorial feld of vision to fve manuscripts is a bold move indeed. The Moscow editors’ confdence in this particular 1 percent of manuscript evidence was based primarily on two facts: that this particular manuscript family was singularly old and that this family inherits the “older preface,” that is, the preface of Abu Manṣur. But we have already seen that the “older” preface of Abu Manṣur, no matter how valuable it is for understanding the history of early Persian prose, cannot be directly linked to the composition of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Even on textual grounds, there is a contextual gap between the poetry of Ferdowsi and this particular preface, in marked contrast with the preface of the recension of Bāysonghor.117 The latter recension of Bāysonghor, transmitted in a vast family of manuscripts, represents our “vulgate”: the Calcutta edition (Macan 1829) follows it closely, and this edition, collated with the eclectic Paris edition of Mohl (1838–1878), is the basis for the incomplete Leiden edition of Vullers (1877–1884) and the completed Tehran edition of Nafsi-Vullers (1934–1936). But the recension of Bāysonghor is late: the commissioning, as we saw, is dated 1426 ce, in marked contrast to the preface of Abu Manṣur, dated 957 ce. In view of this contrast, the Moscow editors of the Shahnameh considered the Bāysonghor recension inferior, as opposed to the recension represented by the family of manuscripts L, I, IV, VI, and K, a recension that seems to have had afnities to the preface of Abu Manṣur. Guided by the reasoning that a more recent recension must be inferior to an older recension, the Moscow editors as a matter of policy rejected variant readings stemming from the Bāysonghor recension. They also eliminated readings that could not be verifed from the collective testimony of the old family of manuscripts that they had isolated, thereby reducing the corpus of the Shahnameh to 48,617 distichs, to which are added in the appendix another 1,486 distichs, deemed probably spurious. We may appreciate the extent of this textual reduction by comparing the number of distichs in the Calcutta edition, 55,204. But the basic principle of the Moscow edition, that the older group of manuscripts is by necessity closer to the “original,” is open to question. If, as I claim, the many variations in the textual transmission of the Shahnameh are due at least in part to the rich repertoire of concurrent 171

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oral poetic traditions, then each attested variation must be judged on its own merits, regardless of its textual provenience. Moreover, the Moscow edition’s dependence on the manuscript family L, I, IV, VI, and K, to the exclusion of others, must now be brought in line with the discovery of yet another, although incomplete, manuscript of the Shahnameh: F = ms. Cl.III.24 (G.F.3) of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, dated 1217 ce. Here, then, is a document considerably older than L, which in turn is dated 1276 ce and which had been for the Moscow editors the oldest extant manuscript of the Shahnameh. As Angelo Michele Piemontese, the discoverer of F, has demonstrated, this manuscript, two centuries away from the traditional date of the completion of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, is replete with valuable new readings that are not to be found in the manuscript family of L;118 there are also about 200 “new” distichs attested – distichs that have not been known to exist before.119 This is not to say that F is closer to the “original” than L simply by virtue of being older than L. Moreover, this is not to discredit L and its family, as opposed to F. Rather, the point is simply that the editorial feld of vision cannot be restricted to the family of L. In fact, the preface of F is clearly in the same tradition that we fnd attested in the much later preface of the Bāysonghor recension.120 Even more important, the actual variants that we fnd in F correspond far more closely to those of the Bāysonghor recension than those of L and its family.121 Thus, ironically, the Calcutta edition and its ofshoots, most notably the Paris edition of Mohl and the Tehran edition of Nafsi-Vullers, contain “genuine” aspects of the Shahnameh tradition that have been neglected by the “critical” Moscow edition.122 What we ultimately need is an edition of the Shahnameh that accounts for all the variants, each of which may be a refex of variation in the oral tradition. In addition, we need a concordance that would include all variants that are demonstrably not just a matter of textual corruption or editorial tampering. With the aid of such an ideal edition and concordance, we could demonstrate more rigorously both the power and the fexibility of the oral tradition as it was kept alive in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Even without such ideal aids, however, we can already begin to appreciate the qualities of oral tradition in the poetry of the Shahnameh. As I hope I have demonstrated, there is enough evidence, both in the Shahnameh and in the history of Persian poetry before and after this monumental composition, to show that the creative power of a rich oral tradition produced and then maintained the authority of the national poem of the Persian Book of Kings, Epic of Heroes I propose that there are two kinds of authority that sustain the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. One kind, traced to now, is based on the very idea of a Book of Kings. The other kind, as we will now see, is based on the essence of heroes like Rostam. These two kinds of authority represent a dichotomy between what may be called a “book of kings” and an “epic of heroes” tradition. This is not to say that we are dealing with two separate kinds of narrative tradition. I contend rather that such a dichotomy between “book of kings” and “epic of heroes” can exist within a single kind of narrative tradition, which actually combines lore about kings and heroes. If I succeed in making this case, then the Shahnameh can be seen not as an innovative confation of a “book of kings” and an “epic of heroes” but rather as a traditional combination of these distinct and sometimes conficting elements. The central fgure in the argumentation is the hero Rostam of Sistān. This hero Rostam has been perceived as an “outsider” to the Shahnameh. Such a perception, as we shall see, is in part inspired by the poem itself. For scholars like Theodor Nöldeke, who take as a given the historicity of the Keyānids, the dynasty with which Rostam and his father, Zāl, coincide in the Shahnameh, the qualities and actions that characterize Zāl and Rostam are evidence enough that they must be considered essentially unlike their royal contemporaries.123 The story of Zāl’s being born with white hair and raised by a giant bird called the Simorgh, and 172

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also the many stories of Rostam’s extraordinary feats, led Nöldeke to the conclusion that these heroes, unlike the kings they served, were mythical rather than historical.124 Thus, the argument goes, if the Keyānids are historical, then surely Zāl and Rostam are intrusive. Then there is the matter of chronology, which again suggests at frst glance that Zāl and Rostam are exceptional in the Book of Kings.125 Between the two of them, Zāl and Rostam live over a millennium, covering the reigns of kings extending from Manuchehr all the way to Goshtāsp.126 This stretch of narrative takes up the frst six volumes of the nine-volume Moscow edition of the Shahnameh. No king that they served rivals the span of roughly 500 years allotted to Zāl and Rostam each: the closest is the shāh Key Khosrow, whose own span is 150 years.127 As Georges Dumézil has observed, the parallel narratives of the kings on the one side and of these heroes on the other reveal distinctly diferent “rhythms.”128 It even seems as if the Shahnameh itself were emphasizing the anomaly of Rostam and his ancestors. He is, after all, descended on his mother’s side from the archdemon or div Ẓaḥḥāk, the monstrously cruel tyrant with snakes growing from his shoulders, and, as such, Rostam qualifes as part div “demon” himself. In reference to Rostam’s maternal grandfather Mehrāb, the mōbads, who have been consulted by Shāh Manuchehr, have this to say:

‫و گر چند بر تازیان پادشاست‬

‫بدانست کز گوهر اژدهاست‬

It is well known that his [Mehrāb’s] roots are from the dragon Ẓaḥḥāk], although he has been the ruler over the Arabs for some years. I 177.634 Marcia Maguire suggests that this genetic heritage of Rostam does not afect the hero’s character and his actions.129 Still, she and others are ready to build from such details the inference that Rostam belongs to a “pre- or extra-Zoroastrian climate.”130 Thus, when Rostam confronts the Zoroastrian prince and hero Esfandiyār, whose character and actions are in certain episodes strikingly parallel to those of Rostam,131 Maguire is led to interpret the confrontation of the two heroes as a conscious juxtaposition of difering poetic traditions – a fading pre-Zoroastrian poetic mode on one side and the prevalent Zoroastrian mode on the other.132 I argue, however, that (1) the fgures of Rostam and his ancestors cannot be separated from the Zoroastrian traditions, and (2) the homeland of Rostam can in some traditions be identifed with the “sacred space” of Zoroastrianism.133 The anomalous nature of Rostam and his ancestors in the Shahnameh has led scholars to focus their attention on Sistān, the hero’s homeland. The consensus, as refected in Maguire’s dissertation on Rostam, is to attribute the hero’s anomaly in the Book of Kings to the native traditions of Sistān. The reasoning is that these native traditions would naturally be at variance with the national traditions of the Book of Kings, especially if Sistān were a remote outpost of the empire – an impression fostered by the Shahnameh itself. According to this theory, a remote Sistān would surely refect an outlook that is diferent conceptually – and maybe even politically – from that of the central power of the empire under the rule of shāhanshāh “king of kings.” For Nöldeke and others who believe that Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is based on the text of an earlier Pahlavi Book of Kings or Khodāynāma, it follows that the traditions about Rostam and his family, which seem so distinct from the Book of Kings, should in turn be based on a separate text, of Sistanian provenience. Indeed, there is a report by Masʿūdī (Murūj II p. 118) about a book called ‫( السکیسران‬ʾlsakiysarān), concerning such events as the combat of Rostam and Esfandiyār and the death of Rostam at the hands of Bahman, the son of Esfandiyār; accordingly, 173

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Arthur Christensen interprets the reported book title ‫ السکیسران‬as Pahlavi Sagēsarān, which would mean “The Chiefs of the Sakas,” that is, “The Chiefs of Sagastan [= Sistān].”134 This book, which was reportedly translated into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqafaʿ, could then have supplemented the national Khodāynāma, also translated by Ibn al-Muqafaʿ, to constitute the general history of the Keyānid period as we fnd it represented by writers like Ṭabarī.135 The problem is that there is no indication, in Masʿūdī’s description of the contents of this Book of Sistān, that its narratives actually veered from the traditions glorifying the national shāh, glorifying instead the heroes of Sistān at the expense of the shāh. Such references as there are, indeed, refect a variant that seems perfectly appropriate to a national tradition that primarily glorifes the shāhs of Iran: the national king Bahman is shown killing Rostam, thus taking vengeance against the local hero of Sistān.136 In this case it is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi that veers in the direction of what seems to be a local variant, in which Rostam is slain not by King Bahman but rather by his own treacherous half-brother, Shaghād (VI 322.1–7). We may conclude, then, that the anomalies in the Rostam stories of the Shahnameh cannot be explained away simply by attributing them to the provincial lore of Sistān. The time has come to propose another, more comprehensive, explanation: the Rostam stories may be anomalous in the Shahnameh simply because the “epic of heroes” and the “book of kings” represent two distinct aspects of poetic tradition. Instead of stressing, along with Nöldeke and others, a dichotomy between national and local (Sistanian) traditions, or between Zoroastrian and pre-Zoroastrian traditions, I want to make a case for a dichotomy along the lines of two diferent levels of narrative, one concerning heroes and the other kings. The problem with Nöldeke’s approach is that he takes literally the testimony of the Shahnameh, which presents itself as a direct descendant of a Pahlavi Book of Kings. The temptation, in light of this testimony, is not to treat the stories of kings as a poetic tradition in its own right. My working hypothesis, by contrast, is that both the “book of kings” and the “epic of heroes” components of the Shahnameh are a matter of poetic tradition. The parallel but consecutive actions of Rostam and King Khosrow against the Turanian Afrāsiyāb represent a juxtaposition of parallel themes in two diferent poetic forms. Nöldeke’s sense of verisimilitude is violated by the tactical pointlessness of Rostam’s conquering and ruling Turān – only to withdraw from it.137 Rostam’s actions may be tactically pointless in military strategy – but not in poetic strategy. Rostam’s conquest, followed by his withdrawal, sets the stage for glorifying the subsequent conquest by King Khosrow – an act that seems to receive priority over the “epic of heroes” in the overall plan of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. So it is not a matter of Ferdowsi’s inserting a contradictory local Sistanian version about Rostam’s defeat of Afrāsiyāb and then having to distort it in order to make room for a rival national version about King Khosrow’s defeat of Afrāsiyāb. Instead, the roles of Rostam and Khosrow in the defeat of Afrāsiyāb may be complementary – a traditional function of their roles as hero and king. Even if the anomalous nature of the Rostam tradition in the Shahnameh is due to its heritage as epic poetry and not to its provenience from Sistān, an explanation must still be found for why it is specifcally Rostam of Sistān who became a focal point of the heroic level of the Shahnameh. One possible solution is available from the research of Mary Boyce on the Parthian oral poetic traditions. In a well-known article, Boyce makes it clear that the Pahlavi documents of the Sasanian dynasty draw on the heritage of a vigorous oral poetic tradition that fourished under the earlier Parthian dynasty.138 In another article,139 Boyce also shows that the Parthians, who are North Iranians, were in close political and cultural contact with Northeast Iranians, such as the Sakas.140 Thus the Parthians hypothetically absorbed the epic traditions of Rostam that were native to the Sakas, and these epic traditions as appropriated by the Parthian oral poets were then “nationalized,” spreading throughout the Empire in the era of the succeeding dynasty, 174

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the Sasanians.141 In this way, the hero of Sistān, “the land of the Sakas,” became part of a national epic tradition, alongside the royal line of Keyānids. Supposedly, then, both the story of Rostam and the history of the Keyānids were transmitted by way of Parthian poetry.142 In brief, then, I accept Boyce’s claim that Rostam “was truly a Saka hero, and not a hero of the indigenous pre-Saka population [of Sistān].”143 The Sakas, it seems, invaded Sakastān = Segistān = Sistān, the country that was to be named after them, toward the end of the 2nd century bce.144 If, then, the opinion advanced by Boyce is correct, it must be assumed that the Rostam stories of the Sakas from that point on developed into a national Iranian epic tradition, through Parthian intermediacy. By the beginning of the 7th century ce, it is clear that this national tradition was already in efect: in Mecca itself, according to a report by Ibn Ḥishām (Wüstenfeld 1858: 191, 235), the citizens of that city were entertained with the stories about Rostam and Esfandiyār as narrated by one Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith, who learned them in the course of commercial travels along the Euphrates.145

Te Hero as the Guardian of Kingship, as the Tājbakhsh, “Crown-Bestower” This pointed reference to stories about Rostam and Esfandiyār leads to a fnal and most fundamental observation to be made about the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as a form of epic: this poetic form, which is considered a genre in a wide variety of poetic traditions both related and unrelated to Iranian poetic traditions, is fused with a distinctly Iranian genre, the Book of Kings tradition. The lasting fusion of these two genres is most evident in the story of a fght to the death between the hero Rostam, who, as a supreme warrior, is a guardian of kingship, and the prince-hero Esfandiyār, who, as a would-be supreme king, must have his kingship guarded by Rostam – except that this would-be supreme king is also a supreme warrior, and, as such a warrior, he becomes a deadly rival of Rostam. The extended sample text that I will now show from the Shahnameh focuses on the scene that climaxes in the fght to the death between the warrior-hero Rostam and the would-be king Esfandiyār, who gets killed in his alternative role as a warrior-hero in his own right. The tragedy of the prince’s death is that he is killed by a warrior-hero whose sworn obligation is to sustain his own sworn role as guardian and protector of the supreme kings of Iran. This role is most succinctly expressed by the poetic epithet of Rostam, tājbakhsh, meaning “crown-bestower” – an epithet that is admiringly recognized by Esfandiyār himself. Speaking to his father, the morally defective shāh Goshtāsp, the prince Esfandiyār evokes the epic reputation of Rostam, overtly describing that hero as tājbakhsh, “crown-bestower” (VI 225.123). Conversely, Rostam declares to Esfandiyār that his fondest wish is to place the tāj “crown” of the Iranian Empire upon the prince’s head (VI 264.779). In the context of their fght to the death, Esfandiyār ofers another most signifcant compliment to Rostam by comparing him to the hero Zarēr (VI 247.482–487). Now this Zarēr belongs to the royal lineage of the Keyānids, and, as a paternal uncle of Esfandiyār, this hero connects the nephew to the same lineage. The hero’s name, Zarēr, is attested already in the Avesta (Zairiwairi in Yašt 5.112 and Yašt 13.101), and he is celebrated as a heroic paragon of the Zoroastrian way: in an attested Pahlavi poem known as the Ayādgār ī Zarērān “Memorial of Zarēr,” he is presented as a pious warrior who was instrumental in a key victory of the Iranians in a battle against their enemy, the Turanians, and who lost his own life in that battle.146 This Pahlavi poem is strikingly parallel in both form and content to the later narrative about the death of Zarēr in the part of the Shahnameh that is attributed to the self-confessed Zoroastrian poet Daqiqi VI 66–119.39–787). In this story of Zarēr, the victory of the Iranians is described as worthy of Rostam (VI 118.769). In other words, the royal Zoroastrian tradition of the Keyānids 175

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is complementing the heroic tradition of Rostam within the poetry of the Shahnameh. Similarly, the heroic tradition of Rostam is complemented by royal tradition when the princely Esfandiyār describes that hero by way of his most recognizable epithet, tājbakhsh, “crown-bestower” (again, VI 225.123).147 In what follows, the translator of the original Persian text was Jerome W. Clinton, who was my esteemed teacher when I was a doctoral student at Princeton University.

Notes 1 The same two fgures, Rostam and Ferdowsi, are central in my book, O. M. Davidson. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings, 3rd ed. (Boston and Washington: Ilex Foundation, 2013a), the content of which has mainly shaped the content of my chapter here. 2 Citations from the Shahhameh are keyed to the Moscow edition of Y. E. Bertels, A. E. Bertels, O. I. Smirnova, R. M. aliev, M.-N. O. Osmanov, eds. Ferdowsi: Shāhnāma I–IX (Moscow: Idārah-i̕ Intishārāt-i Adabīyat-i Khavar 1960–1971). For example, my frst citation from the Bertels edition in this chapter, VII 116.53, is to be read as volume VII page 116 line 53. On the edition of Khaleghi-Motlagh (1988–), see Davidson 2013b: 14–17. In the chapter here, all translations are my own unless otherwise specifed. 3 References to the life of Ferdowsi, both external and internal (that is, internal to the Shahnameh), have been exhaustively collected by Shahbazi 1991. 4 T. Nöldeke, The Iranian National Epic 1894–1904, trans. L. Bogdanov (Bombay: Cama Oriental Institute, 1930); A. Christensen, Les Kayanides (Copenhagen: Andr Fred Host & Son, 1932). 5 S. Ḥ. Taqizāda, “Shāhnāma o Ferdowsi,” in Ketāb-e hezāra-ye Ferdowsī/The Millenium of Firdawsi, the Great National Poet of Iran, ed. Ī. Ṣadīq (Tehran: Ferdowsi Millenary Congress, 1944): 17–107; M. Qazvini, “Muqaddama-ye qadim-e Shāhnāma,” in Ketāb-e hezāra-ye Ferdowsī/The Millenium of Firdawsi, the Great National Poet of Iran, ed. Ī. Ṣadīq (Tehran: Ferdowsi Millenary Congress, 1944): 123–148. 6 D. H. Ṣafā, Ḥamāsa sarāʾi dar Irān (Tehran: Amīr Kabir̄ Publishers, 1944 [1333]); M. Maguire, Rustam and Isfandiyar in the Shahnameh (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1973). 7 M. Boyce, “Zariadrēs and Zarēr,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 17 (1955) 463–477; M. Boyce, “The Parthian Gōsān and the Iranian Minstrel Tradition,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18 (1957) 10–45. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 I make the argument in O. M. Davidson. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings, 3rd ed. (Boston and Washington: Ilex Foundation, 2013a), Chapters 5 and 6. See J. Puhvel, Comparative Mythology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987): 118–121, with reference especially to G. Dumézil, Mythe et épopée II. Types epiques indo-europeens: un heros, un sorcier, un roi (Paris: Gallimard, 1971); see also O. M. Davidson, Comparative Literature and Classical Persian Poetics, 2nd ed. Ilex Foundation Series 12 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013b): 1–6, 50–64. 11 A. B. Lord, “Tradition and the Oral Poet: Homer, Huso, and Avdo Medjedović,” Problemi Attuali di Scienze e di Cultura 139 (1970); G. Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990b): 7–9. 12 See M. Minovi, Tansar’s Epistle to Goshnasp. (Tehran: Majless Printing House, 1932); A. S. Shahbazi, Ferdowsī: A Critical Biography (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1991): 39–41. 13 That Ferdowsi knew neither the Pahlavi nor the Arabic language is argued by Shahbazi 1991: 39–41. 14 On the dangers of orientalism, see E. W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). 15 It should be noted that the nomenclature of “Old Persian” and “Middle Persian” masks some signifcant discontinuities. 16 E. Yarshater. “Iranian National History,” in Cambridge History of Iran, 7 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 368–369. 17 J. Mohl, ed. Le livre des rois I–VII (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1838–1878): lx. 18 For the importance of the traditions surrounding Garshāsp, see M. Molé, “L’épopée iranienne après Firdosi,” La Nouvelle Clio 5 (1953): 382. 19 Mohl 1838: lvi–lvii.

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Te Shahnameh of Ferdowsi 20 See Molé 1953: 386–390. 21 For a defnitive introduction to Daqiqi the poet, see Gilbert Lazard. Les premiers poètes persans (IX e–X e): Fragments rassembles, edites et traduits. 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1964): 32–36. Addenda in Lazard, 184–187. 22 For traces of earlier poets of the Book of Kings tradition, such as Masʿudi Marvazi (early 10th century ce), see Shahbazi 1991: 35–36. For an introduction to the traditions of Persian court poetry, see J. S. Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 23 For background on this meter, see L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976): 180–183; see also O. M. Davidson, “Monroe’s Methodology in Analyzing Andalusī Meters and Its Relevance to a Comparative Analysis of a Classical Persian Meter, the mutaqārib,” in The Study of al-Andalus: The Scholarship and Legacy of James T. Monroe, ed. M. M. Hamilton and D. A. Wacks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018). 24 For a defnitive introduction to Abu Shakur, see Lazard 1964: I 27–30. 25 Paul Horn. Asadi’s neupersisches Wörterbuch Lughat-i Furs nach der einzigen vaticanischen Handschrift, (Abh. der Gesellschaft der Wiss. zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Kl., N.S. 1/8, Berlin, 1897); see Nöldeke 1930: 35. Addenda in Lazard 1964: I 181–184. 26 Daqiqi fr. 126, in the edition of Lazard 1964; see Nöldeke 1930: 33n4. 27 Nöldeke 1930: 35. 28 For a detailed survey of convergences, see E. Benveniste, “Le Mémorial de Zarēr,” Journal Asiatique 221 (1932). For a discussion of the continuity of the narrative traditions as attested in The Memorial of Zarēr and in the Shahnameh, see Boyce 1955: 18, 36. 29 A. Parry, ed. The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) and A. B. Lord, The Singer of Tales. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960/2000). 30 See especially Boyce 1957. 31 Boyce 1957: 17–18; for a comparative discussion of oral traditions in poetry and song, see G. Nagy, Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990a): 17–51. 32 See Boyce 1957: 20–22. 33 Ibid., 23–25, 27n6. 34 Ibid., 23n7. 35 See Lord 1960: 102: “A song has no ‘authorʼ but a multiplicity of authors, each singing being a creation, each singing having its own single author.” 36 Ibid. 37 See Nagy 1990a: 54–56. 38 See, for example, M. Qazvini, Bist Maqāla, 2 vols, ed. ʿAbbās Eqbāl (Tehran: Čāpḫāna-i Šarq, 1953 [1332]): I 35. 39 Elwell-Sutton 1976: esp. 180–183. For the linguistic concepts of Old, Middle, and New Persian, see the introduction to the chapter here. 40 Elwell-Sutton 1976: 172–173. 41 Elwell-Sutton, 172; see N. Marr, “Vazn-e sheʿr-e Shāhnāma,” in Ketāb-e hezāra-ye Ferdowsī/The Millenium of Firdawsi, the Great National Poet of Iran, ed. Ī. Ṣadīq (Tehran: Ferdowsi Millenary Congress, 1943). 42 Elwell-Sutton, 172–179. 43 Elwell-Sutton, 178; quoted in G. Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” Cambridge History of Iran 7, no. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 605. For the time-frame of the Sasanian era, see the introduction. For more on Barbad, see Boyce 1957: 23–25. 44 Attested in the Tārikh-e Sistān: see Elwell-Sutton 1976: 176; also Lazard 1975: 605, 614. 45 See Elwell-Sutton 1976: 173; also Lazard 1975: 605. 46 P. Zumthor, Essai de poetique medievale (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972): 40–41, 65–75. 47 For a valuable collection of references to this patronage, both internally in the Shahnameh and externally, see Shahbazi 1991: 2, 52, 83–103. My interpretation of these references, as the following discussion makes clear, difers in some respects from his. 48 On the later traditions that represent Ferdowsi himself as a Shīʿite, see E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902–1924): 134, and the general discussion in Shahbazi 1991. 49 M. E. Page, Naqqāli and Ferdowsi: Creativity in the Iranian National Tradition (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1977): 224.

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Olga M. Davidson 50 For comparative evidence on the function of myth in “Lives of Poets” traditions, see G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979): 304 paragraph 4 (with n4), 306–307, and 1990a: 80, n140; also O. M. Davidson, “Life of Ferdowsi’ myths as evidence for the reception of Ferdowsi.” Classical Inquiries (2015). https://classicalinquiries.chs.harvard.edu/life-of-ferdowsi-myths-as-evidence-for-the-receptionof-ferdowsi/. 51 See Browne II, 134–139 and Shahbazi 1991: 2–8. 52 For examples of built-in references to Ferdowsi’s “satire” within the Shahnameh, see Nöldeke 1930: 46. For the opposite view, that such built-in references must consistently be explained as textual interpolations, see Shahbazi 1991: 13. For a new analysis of the “satire,” I cite O. M. Davidson, “Ecumenism and Globalism in the Reception of Ferdowsi and his Book of Kings: Evidence from the Bāysonghori Preface,” Classical Inquiries (2020). https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/ecumenism-and-globalism-in-the-receptionof-ferdowsi-and-his-book-of-kings-evidence-fromthe-baysonghori-preface/. 53 Here I disagree with Shahbazi. On the appropriateness of assigning poetic words of praise or blame, whichever is required in the poetic traditions of languages cognate with the Persian, especially Greek and Irish, see Nagy 1979: 222–242. More now in Davidson 2020.03.02. 54 On which see Shahbazi 1991: 11, 13–14, who disputes the authenticity of this attribution, on the grounds that the world-view of this work is “anti-Iranian and fercely pro-Arab” (p. 14). For me, the question is not whether Ferdowsi composed this poem. What is of interest is the question why the poem was later attributed to him. 55 For an admirable survey, see P. Zumthor, Introduction a la poesie orale (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1983). See also G. Nagy, “Orality and Literacy Revisited,” Classical Inquiries, February 02, 2017. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/orality-and-literacy-revisited/ and O. M. Davidson, “On the Sources of the Shahnameh,” in A Celebration in Honor of Dick Davis: The Layered Heart, Essays on Persian Poetry, ed. A. A. Seyed-Ghorab (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers Inc, 2019a): 353–362. 56 There is no ethnographic basis for such categories as “semi-oral” poetry: see Zumthor 1983: 34 (cf. also Nagy 1990a: 8, 17–18). 57 M. Qazvini and M. Moʿin, eds. Chahār Maqāla (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-i Zavvār, 1953 [1331]): 76. 58 On the meaning of the term rāwi in Arabic usage as “performer” of oral poetry, see M. Zwettler, The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry: Its Character and Implications (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1978): 85 and following. As for the reference in the Chahār Maqāla of Neẓāmi ʿAruḍi to the scribe ʿAli Daylam, we may compare an internal reference to Abu Naṣr-e Warrāq, a scribe described in Shahnameh IX 381.n18 as having written down what Ferdowsi composed at a specifc stage of his overall composition (on the chronology, see Shahbazi 1991: 73–74; I disagree, however, with Shahbazi’s inference that Abu Naṣr-e Warrāq achieved the master copy of an incomplete “frst edition”). 59 See Mohl 1838: viii–x. 60 See Qazvini & Moʿin 1953: 74. 61 In O. M. Davidson, Comparative Literature and Classical Persian Poetry, Bibliotheca Iranica: Intellectual Traditions Series (Los Angeles, CA: Mazda Press, 2000; 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013): 30–33, I quote and translate seventeen relevant passages from the Shahnameh. 62 O. M. Davidson, “Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings”, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA, 2013a). [Ilex Foundation Series 11. (2nd ed. 2006, Costa Mesa, CA; 1st ed. 1994, Ithaca, NY: Ilex Foundation).]; Chapter 2; summarized in O. M. Davidson, Comparative Literature and Classical Persian Poetics, 2nd ed. Ilex Foundation Series 12 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013b), Essay 3. 63 See Nöldeke 1930: 40 (cf. Mohl III, iv); also Shahbazi 1991: 68–71, who in general extrapolates a historicized account of Ferdowsi’s poetic career on the basis of the Bāysonghor preface and various passages of the Shahnameh. I stress that my goal is not to deny the likelihood that some of the declarations by the poet within the poem, especially concerning such details as his precise age at various stages of his composing the Shahnameh, are based on historical fact (Shahbazi’s book is particularly valuable in ofering a rich collection of such details). Rather, I see such details not as raw data about the life and times of the poet but as part of a traditional discourse that incorporates factual details into an ongoing reinterpretation of the poem’s role in society. Such reinterpretation operates on the principles of myth, provided we understand myth in the sense of a given society’s codifcation of its own truth-values. For a pertinent theoretical discussion of myth in contexts of authorial self-defnition, see Nagy 1990a: 436; also now O. M. Davidson, “Life of Ferdowsi’ myths as evidence for the reception of Ferdowsi.” Classical Inquiries (2015). https://classical-inquiries.chs. harvard.edu/life-of-ferdowsi-myths-as-evidence-for-the-receptionof-ferdowsi/. 64 Further discussion and references in Shahbazi 1991: 65. 65 Davidson 2013a: 41.

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Te Shahnameh of Ferdowsi 66 67 68 69 70

71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

G. Nagy, Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996a): 70. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 71–72, with bibliography; see also Nagy 2017.02.02. M. Omidsalar, Poetics and Politics of Iran’s National Epic, the Shahnameh (New York: Palgrave, 2011): 162–163 voices his opinion about an “absentminded” remark about the Peisistratean Recension in his foreword written by Nagy for the frst edition of Davidson 2013a [1994] (p. ix): with reference to Ferdowsi’s narrative about the disintegration and reintegration of a Pahlavi Book of Kings, Omidsalar thinks that Nagy has engaged in an illusory comparison with ancient Greek narratives about the Peisitratean Recension of Homer, which Nagy “imposes” on Ferdowsi. Despite Omidsalar’s protestations, Nagy’s comparative interpretation of Ferdowsi’s etiological narrative remains for me both valid and insightful: see O. M. Davidson, “The Written Text as a Metaphor for the Integrity of Oral Composition in Classical Persian Traditions and Beyond,” in Singers and Tales in the 21st Century: The Legacies of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, ed. D. F. Elmer and P. McMurray (2016). Classics@ Issue 14. I would also like to take this opportunity to register my objection to the subtitle of the concluding chapter of Omidsalar 2011 (“Shāhnāmeh and the Tyranny of Eurocentrism”) and to the ofensive language contained in that same chapter, where Nagy becomes the initial (perhaps archetypal) target of Omidsalar’s complaints about the “callousness and arrogance” shown by “Western” academics in their approach to the Shahnameh. Nagy 1996a: 70, following J. F. Nagy, “Orality in Medieval Irish Narrative,” Oral Tradition 1 (1986) 292–293; see also O. M. Davidson, “Parallel Heroic Themes in the Medieval Irish Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Medieval Persian Book of Kings,” in Erin and Iran: Cultural Encounters between the Irish and the Iranians, ed. H. E. Chehabi and G. Neville (Cambridge, MA: Ilex Foundation, 2015b) 36–44. Nagy 1996a: 71; see Davidson 2013a: 38n43. S. H. Blackburn, “Patterns of Development for Indian Oral Epics,” in Oral Epics in India, ed. S. H. Blackburn, P. J. Claus, J. B. Flueckiger, and S. S. Wadley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 15–32: 32n25; see Nagy 1996a: 71. D. Davis, “The Problem of Ferdowsi’s Sources,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996) 48–51. Davis 1996: 50. Nagy 1996a: 93–112. O. M. Davidson, “The Crown-Bestower and the Iranian Book of Kings,” Acta Iranica 10: Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce (1985) 61–148; 2013a: 36–46. Qazvini 1944. V. Minorsky, “The Older Preface to the Shāh-nāma,” in Iranica, Twenty Articles (Publications of the University of Tehran, 755, 1964) 260–274. Translation by Minorsky 1964: 266. For a defense of the reading “Bishāpur,” see Shahbazi 1991: 36n96. For an admirable survey, see Shahbazi 1991. Already Nöldeke 1930; see Shahbazi 1991: 37, with qualifcations. Further qualifcations in Francois De Blois. Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, 5 vols. (London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1997), who fnds numerous “contradictions” between Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and what is imagined to be the prose Shahnameh. Davis 1996. Details in Davidson 2013a: 36–37. Background on the Kalīla and Dimna in O. M. Davidson, “Aetiologies of the Kalīla wa Dimna as a Mirror for Princes,” in Global Medieval: Mirrors for Princes Reconsidered, ed. R. Forster and N. Yavari (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015a). Davidson 2013a: 38. François De Blois. Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of “Kalīlah wa Dimnah” (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1990): 5, 51–57. His difculties in explaining all the narratives in terms of textual stemmata become especially evident at p. 57. de Blois 1990: 5. Ibid., 51–57, esp. p. 51. Davidson 2013a: 38–39. Ibid., 38. de Blois 1990: 53. Davidson 2013a: 46; also Davidson 2016. Qazvini 1944.

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Olga M. Davidson 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

103 104

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127 128

Minorsky 1964. For an admirable survey, see Shahbazi 1991. Minorsky, 271. For a brief analysis of this interpretation, see Davidson 1994: 51. Davidson 1994: 31–32. See also Davidson 2013a Essays 3 and 4. Ibid. Edited by M. A. Riyāhi, ed. Sar-chashma-hā-ye Ferdowsi shenāsi (Tehran: Muʼassasah-ʼi Muṭālaʻāt va Taḥqīqāt-i Farhangī (Pizhūhishgāh), 1993): 349–418. On my use of the term “recension” in referring to the Bāysonghori Shahnameh, I cite my analysis in O. M. Davidson, “Why the Bāysonghori Recension is a Recension,” in No Tapping Around Philology: A Festschrift in Honor of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday, ed. A. Korangy and D. J. Shefeld (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014) 127–130. Here and elsewhere, I follow the pagination in the edition of Riyahi 1993. O. M. Davidson, “Ecumenism and Globalism in the Reception of Ferdowsi and his Book of Kings: Evidence from the Bāysonghori Preface,” Classical Inquiries (2020). https://classical-inquiries.chs. harvard.edu/ecumenism-and-globalism-in-the-reception-of-ferdowsi-and-his-book-of-kingsevidence-from-the-baysonghori-preface/. I survey eleven such texts in Davidson 2013a: 35. I list some examples in Davidson 2013a: 35. Nöldeke 1930: 25. Again, Nöldeke 1930: 25; see also Lazard 1975: 624–625. The traditional dates for Thaʿālibī are 961–1037 ce. For the standard edition and translation of Thaʿālibī, see H. Zotenberg, ed. ath Thaʿālibī, Ghurar akhbar mulūk al furs wa siyarihim (Paris, 1900). Nöldeke 1930: 63–64. Nöldeke 1930: 64. K. H. Hansen, Das Iranische Königsbuch: Aufbau und Gestalt des Schahname von Firdosi (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1954). See now also Davidson 2013b Essays 3 and 4. For a brief history of this edition, see E. Yarshater, Introduction to Khaleghi-Motlagh 1988 (New York, NY: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988): viii–ix. On the principles governing the new edition of Khaleghi-Motlagh (1988–), see Yarshater 1988: x–xi. On the problems in dating this manuscript, see Yarshater 1988: ix. See A. Piemontese, “Nuova luce su Firdawsi: Uno Šāhnāma datato 614H./1217 a Firenze,” Istituto Orientale di Napoli, Annali 40 (1980), 11–12, n27. Ibid., 32–34. See Piemontese, 218–221. Ibid., 222–226. Ibid., 31–34; see Shahbazi 1991: 4, n9 (paraphrase of this preface at 5–6). Piemontese, 218–219. Piemontese, 194, 219. In n145 of 219, for example, Piemontese cites cases where the readings of the Florence manuscript vindicate the adopted readings of (1) the Calcutta edition as against the Moscow and Tehran editions; (2) the Paris edition of Mohl as against the Moscow and Tehran editions; and (3) the Paris edition and the Manuscripts I, IV, VI of the Moscow edition as against the Tehran edition and the preferred manuscript L of the Moscow edition. Khaleghi-Motlagh (1988) takes into account the evidence of the Florence manuscript. See also Yarshater 1988: viii–xi. More on the edition of Khaleghi-Motlagh in Davidson 2013b: 14–18. Nöldeke 1930: 16–20. Another prominent believer in the historicity of the Keyānids is A. Christensen, Les Kayanides (Copenhagen: Andr Fred Høst & Søn, 1932). Nöldeke 1930: 16–20. See A. Pagliaro, “Lo zoroastrismo e la formazione dell’epopea iranica,” Annali, Istituto Univers. Orientale di Napoli, n. s. 1 (1940): 248. See S. Wikander, “Sur le fonds commun indo-iranien des épopées de la Perse et de l’Inde,” La Nouvelle Clio 1/2 (1950): 324. Wikander 1950: 324. Dumézil 1971: 231; we may compare the theme of the longevity of the Indic hero Bhisma, as discussed by Dumézil, G. 2nd ed. 1979, 3rd ed. 1986. Mythe et epopee I. L’ideologie des trois fonctions dans les epopees des peuples indo-europeennes (Paris: Gallimard, 1968): 176–190.

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Te Shahnameh of Ferdowsi 129 Maguire 1973: 77, n4, as opposed to A. Zajączkowski, “La compostion et la formation historique de l’épopée iranienne,” in Atti del Convegno Internazionale sul tema: La poesia epica e la sua formazione (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1970): 683. 130 Maguire 1973: 116. 131 Maguire 1973: 158–170 for further discussion of the parallel seven deeds of Esfandiyār and Rostam. 132 Maguire 1973: 116. For a warning against the extreme position of interpreting the confrontation of Rostam and Esfandiyār as a juxtaposition of conficting ideologies, see Boyce 1954. 133 Chapter 6 in Davidson 2013a. 134 Christensen 1932: 142–143. 135 Ibid. 136 C. A. C., Barbier de Meynard and A. J. B. Pavet de Corteille ed. and trans. Masʿūdī, ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn, Murūj aḍ-ḍahab, 9 vols. Reprint 1965 (Beirut: Universite Libanaise, 1861–1877); M. J. Goeje ed. aṭ-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad Ibn Jarīr, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk (Cairo, 1879-1901). Reprint. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964). See Nöldeke 1930: 29. 137 Nöldeke 1930: 76. 138 Boyce 1957. 139 Boyce 1955; not cited by, for example, Maguire 1973. 140 Boyce 1955: 475. 141 Boyce 1955: 476. 142 Boyce 1955: 474. Moreover, the Rostam tradition has now been discovered in yet another branch of the Northeast Iranian family. Fragments of a text composed in Sogdian, a language closely related to that of the Sakas, tell of the adventures of rwstmy “Rostam” and his wondrous horse rγšy “Rakhsh” as they confront murderous demons or δywt “divs”: see Davidson 2013a: 74–79. 143 Boyce 1955: 475; see also Yarshater 1983: 455–456. 144 Nöldeke 1930: 19, n2; see now W. W. Tarn. The Greeks in Bactria and India, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951): 494–502. 145 See Nöldeke 1930: 19 for this and other pieces of evidence for the presence of the Rostam tradition in West Iran by the 7th century ce. It is important to note that the report of Ibn Ḥishām specifes that the stories about Rostam and Esfandiyār are narrated in the general context of stories about “the kings of Persia.” That is, the specifc narrative about Rostam and Esfandiyār is being highlighted in a general “Book of Kings” narrative tradition, which is here represented as an oral tradition. 146 On which see especially Benveniste 1932; on p. 245, this poem is characterized as one of two rare instances of epic to survive from the Sasanian period. See also Lazard 1975: 625. 147 For more further background on the poetic heritage of this epithet, I refer to Essay 5 of Davidson 2013b.

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 6

How Rustam Brought Kai Kubád From Mount Alburz “How Rustam Brought Kai Kubád From Mount Alburz” from Ferdowsi’ Shahnameh Then glorious Zál spake unto Rustam, saying: – “Bestir thyself, take up thy mace, select V. 291 The escort, go with speed to mount Alburz, Do homage unto Kai Kubád, but stay not With him, be back within two sennights, sleep not, But late and early hurry on and tell him: – ‘The soldiers long, and deck the throne, for thee. We see none ftted for the royal crown, O monarch, our defender! but thyself.’” When Zál had spoken matchless Rustam swept The ground with his eyelashes, joyfully Got on the back of Rakhsh, and proudly rode In quest of Kai Kubád. A Turkman outpost Held the road strongly, but he charged the foe As champion of the host with his brave troops, Armed with the ox-head mace. He brandished it And towering in his wrath struck out and raised His battle-cry. The Turkmans’ hearts all failed, His arm laid many low. They strove with him, But had to fee the battle in the end. With broken hearts and tearful eyes they turned Back to Afrásiyáb, and told him all. He sorrowed at their case, called one Kulún, A gallant Turkman warrior full of craft, And said to him: “Choose horsemen from the host, 182

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-11

Sample Literature for Chapter 6

Go thou too to the palace of the king, Be careful, prudent, and courageous, And specially keep watch with diligence; V. 292 The Íránians are human Áhrimans And fall on outposts unawares.” Kulún Departed from the royal camp with guides To bar the road against the noble foe, With warriors and lusty elephants. Now Rustam the elect and brave marched on Toward the new Sháh, and when within a mile Of mount Alburz perceived a splendid seat With running water and abundant trees – The home for youth. Upon a river’s bank Was set a throne besprinkled with rose-water And purest musk. A young man like the moon Was seated on the throne beneath the shade, While many paladins with girded loins Stood ranked as is the custom of the great, And formed a court well ftted for a Sháh, Like Paradise in form and hue. On seeing The paladin approach they went to greet him And said: “Pass not, O famous paladin! We are the hosts and thou shalt be our guest. Dismount that we may join in jollity, And pledge thee, famous warrior! in wine.” But he replied: “Exalted, noble chiefs! I must to mount Alburz upon afairs Of moment, and not loiter in my task. I have much work to do, the Íránian marches Are full of foes, all households weep and mourn, I must not revel while the throne is void.” They said: “If thou art hasting to Alburz V. 293 Be pleased to say of whom thou art in quest, For we who revel here are cavaliers From that blest land, and we will be thy guides And make friends on the way.” He thus replied: – “The Sháh is there, a holy man and noble. His name is Kai Kubád, sprung from the seed 183

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Of Farídún the just and prosperous. Direct me to him if ye wot of him.” The leader said: “I wot of Kai Kubád. If thou wilt enter and delight our hearts I will direct thee and describe the man.” The peerless Rustam hearing this dismounted Like wind, and hurried to the water’s edge, To where the folk were seated in the shade. The youth sat down upon the throne of gold And taking Rustam’s hand within his own Filled up and drained a goblet “To the Free!” Then handed it to Rustam, saying thus: – “Thou askest me, O famous warrior! About Kubád, whence knowest thou his name?” Said Rustam: “From the paladin I come With joyful news. The chiefs have decked the throne And called on Kai Kubád to be the Sháh. My sire, the chief whom men call Zál, said thus: – ‘Go with an escort unto mount Alburz, Find valiant Kai Kubád and homage him, V. 294 Yet tarry not, but say: “The warriors call thee And have prepared the throne.”’ If thou hast tidings Give them and speed him to the sovereign power.” The gallant stripling, smiling, answered: “I Am Kai Kubád and sprung from Farídún, I know my lineage from sire to sire.” When Rustam heard he bowed, rose from his seat Of gold to do obeisance, and thus spake: – “O ruler of the rulers of the world, The shelter of the brave and stay of chiefs! Now let Írán’s throne wait upon thy will, Great elephants be taken in thy toils. Thy right seat is the throne of king of kings; May Grace and glory be thine own! I bring A greeting for the king of earth from Zál, The chieftain and the valiant paladin. If now the Sháh shall bid his slave to speak I will acquit me of the chieftain’s message.” Brave Kai Kubád rose from his seat, intent Upon the speaker’s words, while peerless Rustam Discharged his embassage. With throbbing heart The young prince said: “Bring me a cup of wine,” And drank to Rustam’s health, who likewise drained A goblet to the monarch’s life, and said: – “Thou mindest me of glorious Farídún” 184

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(For Rustam was rejoiced at seeing him), “Not for an instant may the world lack thee, The throne of kingship, or the royal crown.” The instruments struck up, great was the joy, The grief was small, the ruddy wine went round V. 295 And fushed the youthful Sháh, who said to Rustam: – “Mine ardent soul in sleep saw two white hawks Approaching from Írán, and bringing with them A crown bright as the sun. They came to me With dainty and caressing airs and set it Upon my head. I wakened full of hope Because of that bright crown and those white hawks, And made a court here such as kings would hold, As thou perceivest, by the river-side. Like those white hawks hath matchless Rustam come With news that I shall wear the warriors’ crown.” When Rustam heard thereof he said: “Thy dream Had a prophetic source. Now let us rise And journey to Írán and to the chiefs.” V. 296 Then Kai Kubád rose swift as fre and mounted His steed, while Rustam girt his loins like wind And journeyed proudly with him. Night and day He travelled till he reached the Turkman outposts, When bold Kulún, ware of his coming, marched To meet and fght with him. The Sháh thereat Was fain to put his battle in array, But mighty Rustam said to him: “O Sháh! ‘Tis not a fght for thee, they will not stand Against my battleax and barded Rakhsh; My heart and arm and mace are help enough; I ask but God’s protection. With a hand Like mine and ruddy Rakhsh to carry me Who will confront my mace and scimitar?” He spake, spurred on and with a single blow Threw one and hurled another at a third Whose brains ran down his nostrils. Those strong hands Unhorsed the foe and dashed them to the ground, And in their fall brake heads and necks and backs. Kulún beheld this dív escaped from bonds With mace in hand and lasso at his saddle, Charged him like wind and thrusting with his spear Brake through some fastenings of his mail, but Rustam, What while his foe was lost in wonderment, 185

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Seized on the spear and wrenched it from Kulún, Then roared like thunder from the mountain-tops, Speared him and having raised him from his seat Put down the spear’s butt to the ground.* Kulún Was like a spitted bird in sight of all. The victor rode Rakhsh over him, and trod him V. 297 To death. The Turkman horsemen turned to fee And left Kulún upon the feld. His troops Fled in dismay from Rustam. In an instant Their fortune was o’erthrown. He passed the outposts And hastened toward the hills. The paladin Alighted at a place with grass and water Till night had come and he had furnished robes Fit for a paladin, a royal steed And crown, then introduced the Sháh to Zál Unnoticed. For a week they sat in conclave But kept their movements secret. All agreed: – “Kubád hath not his peer in all the world.” For seven days they revelled with Kubád, Upon the eighth hung up the crown on high And ‘neath it decked the throne of ivory.

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7 ROBĀ’ĪYĀT OF OMAR KHAYYĀM Juan Cole

The medieval mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyām (d.1131), as he is known in English, is, ironically enough, irrelevant to the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām except as the label for a genre. By the mid-20th century, most academics had become convinced that Khayyām was what scholars call a “frame author” and that he had not written the verse attributed to him, which was instead written by a variety of other hands but repackaged by anthologists under his name. Perhaps the most famous frame author is Scheherazade, a fctional fgure, to whom the diverse Arabic tales collected over centuries were ascribed under the rubric of the Thousand and One Nights tales.1 It is only after the Mongol invasion of Iran began in 1219 that Khayyām gradually emerges in a signifcant way as a frame author. Over the following three centuries, a bewildering array of quatrains were attached to his name, embodying everything from wine poetry to romance to Suf mysticism. Very suspiciously, the number of poems he is said to have authored grows by leaps and bounds in every century. Many of the same poems were ascribed to other authors or were tagged as anonymous by anthologists. This proliferation of attribution, and multiple attribution, is the sure sign of a frame author. Since there is no stable core of quatrains that we can confdently trace to Khayyām, my approach in this chapter will be to trace the practices of ascription in each era that produced a genre of Omarian poetry. These are quatrains on specifc topics, having in common the expression of views that mainstream Muslim society would have found objectionable, including questioning God’s justice, denying the afterlife, advocacy for wine as an intoxicant, sexual license, and ecstatic Suf themes locating the divine within the individual self. These themes often contradict one another but appear to have produced a synthesis that appealed to readers throughout the Persophone world for the past eight centuries and which made the leap into English literature with Edward FitzGerald’s loose translation of 1859.2 Some of this poetry falls into the category of Persian humanism as described by Hamid Dabashi.3 It often, however, contravenes religious strictures to the extent that I would characterize it instead as a form of Muslim secularism. I will come back at the end of this chapter to attempt to consider what the Omarian corpus tells us about practices of authorship in medieval Persian literature. German scholar H. H. Schaeder concluded in 1933 that Khayyām’s name should be “struck out of the history of Persian literature.”4 Schaeder’s view has become the consensus in the academy, though it was resisted by L. P. Elwell-Sutton, A. J. Arberry, and poet Robert Graves. Arberry’s clinging to the myth of Khayyām as poet caused him to fall for 20th-century forged DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-12

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manuscripts that he dated to the 13th century, and Graves likewise fell victim to manuscript fraud perpetrated by supposed Suf Omar Ali Shah, the brother of the better-known phony guru Idries Shah.5 The case against Khayyām as libertine poet is strong. He served at the court of the Saljuq Empire in Isfahan and later at Merv as a court astronomer. His work on mathematics included an early treatise on geometric algebra. Although he later became a fgure of legend and hundreds of Persian quatrains were attributed to him through the centuries, there is no reason to believe that he wrote Persian poetry or that he held the Epicurean views later attributed to him. It was common in medieval Iran to attribute otherwise anonymous poetry to some well-known fgure. Editors later ascribed pious quatrains to the mystic Abū Saʻīd Abū al-Khayr (967–1049), but an early biographer of Abū Sa’īd denied that he wrote poetry.6 Some quatrains were attributed both to Khayyām and to Abū Sa’īd. Beginning a few decades after his death in 1131, some brief biographical notices began appearing that painted Khayyām as an atheist, but then scientists often had that reputation among the orthodox. Puzzlingly, later sources such as Shahrazūrī (d.1288) also allege that Khayyām had memorized all seven canonical readings of the Qur’an, astonishing the Suf master Abū Hāmed al-Ghazzālī, which points in the opposite direction.7 In contrast, the earliest notice of Khayyām, written by Ahmad Neẓāmī Arūzī of Samarqand, who knew him and appears to have studied with him, gives no hint that Khayyām was a drunk or particularly impious, though he does present him as a rationalist dismissive of superstition. Despite his having known Khayyām and having felt himself to be the master’s pupil, he quoted no poetry from him or gave us any reason to think Khayyām was known in that feld.8 François de Blois pointed out that anthologists of Khayyām’s era who gave poetry from even minor poets do not mention him as a poet. He wrote, “None of the 12th-century sources say anything to suggest that ‘Umar wrote poetry in Persian.”9 He added, It is accepted now, I should think, by everyone that the great majority of the quatrains that have come to be ascribed to ‘Umar could not possibly be his. To begin with, a good number of them have been attributed to other authors as well.10 He pointed out that the Omarian poems exhibit vast diferences in language, style, and content that can only be explained by their deriving from diferent periods and authors. Russian scholar Valentin Zhukovsky demonstrated in the late 19th century that much of the poetry later attributed to Khayyām was also ascribed to other fgures, calling them “wandering verses.”11 For a variety of reasons, the conclusions of academic scholarship have tended to be rejected in Iran itself. Because Edward FitzGerald’s translation made the Robā’īyāt the most celebrated poem in the English language from the late Victorian period through the 1970s, infuencing everyone from William Morris and Ezra Pound to T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost, 20th-century Iranian nationalist thinkers took pride in this adulation of it by foreigners. Moreover, this poetry’s secular emphases could be cited in favor of the anti-clericalism of some intellectuals in 20th-century Iran.12 For the religious, the tradition of reading the racy corpus of Omarian poetry through the lens of Suf symbolism allows many Iranians to continue to value it despite the country’s turn to public religiosity since 1979. Iranian scholar Sayyed ‘Alī MīrAfzalī attempted to trace the history of attributing Persian quatrains to Khayyām in Persian manuscripts of the medieval period.13 His work is painstaking, comprehensive, and important. He appears, however, to have carried it out in hopes of demonstrating that much of the poetry ascribed to Khayyām really was from his pen. His compilation, however, inadvertently shows that this notion is entirely implausible, since there is no stable Ur-text, only varying and idiosyncratic attribution on the part of editors. 188

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Schaeder’s conviction that the poetry attached to Khayyām’s name should no longer be studied, however, privileges the notion of the author in organizing a canon of literature. There is no more reason to neglect the wandering quatrains of medieval Persian letters than to neglect the Thousand and One Nights in Arabic literature, which were similarly produced in many times and places over a long period of time.

Khwarazmian Period Mīr-Afzalī’s work on the appearance of quatrains attributed to Khayyām in medieval Persian manuscripts allows us to trace the evolution of this corpus. Possibly the frst time a Persian quatrain was posthumously portrayed as deriving from the mathematician and astronomer was in a work of Qur’an commentary by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (c. 1150–1210). Speaking of theodicy, he instanced a poem he attributed to Khayyām to illustrate the conundrums of this feld of theology: Since the Proprietor ordained the arrangement of natural things, what is the reason that He shatters them to bits? If this construction is malformed, whose fault is that? And if well-formed, why is it then destroyed?14 This citation shows that the custom of making Khayyām a frame author for skeptical verse began within seventy or eighty years of his death and that the frst eforts in this regard addressed the philosophical and theological issue of God’s justice, or theodicy, about which controversies raged among religions in medieval Iran.15 Another scholar from Mazandaran, Najm al-Dīn Rāzi, joined in with this construction of Khayyām as a frame author two or three decades later, ascribing a version of the same poem to him plus two others. He lived at a time of the collapse of Muslim power and fed Rey for Anatolia before the Mongol advance in the early 1220s. In his The Path of God’s Bondsmen (completed c. 1223), Najm al-Dīn described Khayyām as a “dahrī,” or atheist who believed in natural processes rather than God. He ascribes to him this quatrain: In this cycle of our coming and going, Neither a beginning nor an end is apparent. No one breathes a single word in this world about where we come from or where we go. Najm al-Dīn also cites two versions of the quatrain given by his countryman Fakhr al-Dīn but only attributes one of them to Khayyām.16 It may well be that the Mongol onslaught, which overturned Muslim rule in Central Asia and Iran, resulted in some Schadenfreude among the dahrī poets and intellectuals, to which Najm al-Dīn was responding.

Te Mongol Khayyām The cultural and political atmosphere in Iran and surrounding regions was altered dramatically from 1219 forward, as Mongol armies entered the Iranian plateau. In the subsequent three decades, they made various arrangements, ruling directly in the east but initially fnding vassals in the west. By the late 1230s, however, Mongol governor Arghun Agha directly governed the northwest, including Tabriz, from 1239 until 1243, when he was promoted to rule all four 189

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Mongol provinces that covered what is now Iran, reporting to the Great Mongol Möngke Khan. For most of the 13th century, the Mongols maintained the Tibetan-style Buddhism they brought with them from East Asia. They promoted the religion in Iran, though they did not attempt to impose it. Hülegü (r. 1256–1265) had three magnifcent Buddhist temples constructed, two in Iran and another in Armenia, with what one Armenian historian called “enormous idols.”17 When Hülegü created his own Iran-based state in 1256, he sought support from Iran’s other religious communities. He summoned a council of thirty sages to Baghdad as his advisers, even in matters of war, including all the major religious communities of his realm.18 This atmosphere of religious pluralism is sometimes refected in the unconventional quatrains composed in this era. During this era, an Illuminationist in the school of Sohravardī, ‘Abd al-Qādir Ahrī (d.1259), proved enthusiastic about Omarian poetry. In his “The Ultimate in Wisdom” (al-Balāgha fī al-Ḥikma), he quoted one quatrain and one line that he ascribed to Khayyām. The latter went, “Both worlds are full of You, but you are outside both of them.” The quatrain was, I went on a quest for the world-displaying cup of Jamshīd I did not rest during daytime, and did not slumber at night. Then I heard the mystery of the cup of Jamshīd from a master: That world-displaying cup of Jamshīd is . . . I!19 Using the cup of the fabled ancient emperor Jamshid as a metaphor for the mystic quest, or for the soul, was common among the Persian poets. Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār compared it to the divine tablet on which all things are written.20 It is clear that the two pieces of poetry that Ahrī quoted are of this Suf sort and completely diferent in tenor from the verses cited by the two Rāzīs. The sentiments here, however, are those of the ecstatic rather than the sober tradition of Sufsm, with an intimation in the frst verse of pantheism and with a hyperbolic self-realization paradigm in the other.21 This mixture of the atheistic and the mystical in attributions of poetry to Khayyām continued with later editors and exemplifed in the Victorian translations of Edward FitzGerald, producing puzzlement in commentators such as Charles Eliot Norton.22 As François de Blois wrote, “In the Mongol period ‘Khaiyām’ is no longer a historical person but a genre.”23 This use of Khayyām in this context is visible in the History of the World-Conqueror of Atā-Malik Jovaynī (1226–1283), who served the Mongols as a bureaucrat and in 1259 succeeded Chinese general Guo Kan as governor of Baghdad. Jovaynī says that a local Sayyed or reputed descendant of the Prophet in Khurasan estimated that the Mongols had killed astronomical numbers of the region’s inhabitants, which brought to his mind a poem, which he ascribed to Khayyām. In my modern translation it goes, Not even a drunk would try to sunder the graceful stem and bowl of a wine glass. As for the shapely hands and feet of a temptress – for whom are they crafted? And whose hatred in the end shatters them?24 The real-life Khayyām had been accused by some later biographers of having disputed the notion that ours the best of all possible worlds.25 Like the poem cited frst by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, this quatrain addresses the issue of theodicy. Could the same God, its author wondered, create great beauty out of love, only to degrade and annihilate it, presumably out of hatred? I conjecture that it originated in Zoroastrian circles and intended to tease Muslims about their conception of an all-powerful God responsible for everything in the universe. The poem was also ascribed to the philosopher Nāser al-Dīn Tūsī, who is no more likely to have written it than Khayyām.26 190

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In the late 1250s in Tabriz, after over a decade and a half of direct Mongol rule of that city, littérateur Jamāl al-Dīn Khalīl Sharvānī published in manuscript his massive anthology of some 4000 Persian quatrains by over 300 authors, which he dedicated to the nearby Shervanshah vassals of the Mongols.27 He actually lived in Tabriz under the rule of the Buddhist Mongols Arghun Khan and then Hülegü. Although the authors covered in the “Diverting Evening Sessions” (Nozhat al-Majāles) lived in the 11th–13th centuries, the bulk of the poets represented were active in the Saljuq period (1037–1194). For instance, the following quatrain is attributed to a Saljuq courtier, Zāher al-Dīn Faryābī (1201), from what is now Afghanistan: Give me some pure ruby red wine! Liberate from the bottle’s neck its unsullied blood. For today save for a glass of wine, I do not have a single friend who has a pure interior.28 These verses treat themes of a sort later attributed to Khayyām. Indeed, Sharvānī presented seventy-three quatrains focused on wine, of the sort later anthologists ascribed to Khayyām, though in his compendium only a small minority of them are so attributed. Sharvānī’s anthology demonstrates that quatrains treating the topics of wine, romance, and religious skepticism were produced in the Seljuq period, though these themes occur in a minority of the quatrains recorded. Felicitas Opwis has demonstrated that wine-drinking became an arena of contest between the Saljuq rulers and their powerful corps of ulema or clerics, with the latter deploying their prohibition on alcohol and willingness to punish drinking to gain more cultural and political power. These clerical practices of Establishment power collapsed with the Mongol invasions.29 That the publication in manuscript of these wine verses had to be postponed until the Buddhist Mongols had ruled Tabriz for two decades may suggest that they had remained in oral form or circulated furtively because of the powerful clerical corps. By the 1250s when Sharvānī released his collection, Tabriz and environs had long since passed into the hands of the powerful Buddhist landholding notables (moyons). The poetry of the Saljuq court that had circulated orally or in rare manuscripts was now made public and revived. Sharvānī did, however, include some of his older 13th-century contemporaries, such as Awhad al-Dīn Kermānī. Many of the quatrains are anonymous and may be the work of Mongol-era poets of Azerbaijan whose identities Sharvānī shielded. The manuscript has an appendix that presents a handful of quatrains on unconventional themes that are attributed to Khayyām, along with similar verses by other hands. François de Blois observed of Nozhat al-Majāles, A number of quatrains are quoted more than once, in diferent sections, and are sometimes ascribed to a diferent poet on their second occurrence. And it should come as no surprise that a large number of quatrains ascribed elsewhere to Khaiyāmī, Abū Sa’īd, Rūmī and others, or included in the published diwans of some well-known poet, are found here with an entirely diferent attribution. Sharvānī’s anthology illustrates as well as anything else that the problem of “wandering quatrains” is by no means specifc to Khaiyam: the Persian rubā’ī wanders by nature.30 Throughout his massive work, Sharvānī ascribed some quatrains to Khayyām, including sixteen in one of the last chapters of the book, which is dedicated to Omar Khayyām’s verse. Sharvānī failed, however, to create a stable oeuvre under the rubric of this frame author, since later anthologists did not follow his lead. They attributed other poems to the astronomer, neglecting 191

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the ones he identifed, and by the mid-15th century, they had begun ascribing authorship of hundreds of quatrains of the sort Sharvānī collected under other rubrics to Omar Khayyām. As Mīr-Afzalī shows, the 1295 manuscript Gleams of the Lamp (Lam’at al-Serāj), written in the reign of the Mongol emperor of Iran, Gaykhatu (r. 1291–1295), ascribes a handful of quatrains to Khayyām. One of them is this: How long will I obsess about what I have or what I don’t? Or whether I’ll spend a joyous life or not? Fill the wine cup, for no one knows if I’ll get to breathe out this very breath that I am drawing in.31 The poem mixes a call to abandon materialism with an insistence on the unknowability of one’s fate. The sentiment that we may be less than a breath away from death perhaps echoes Buddhist ideas that were well known in Iran during the Mongol period. Nagarjuna, speaking of the danger of sinners going to hell, wrote that “only the time between the beginning and end of a breath separates them.”32 In contrast to the Buddhist nirvana, however, this poem can only ofer the transcendence of this-worldly inebriation on wine. The poem’s themes exemplifed the court culture of Gaykhatu, whom the chroniclers depict as a devotee of wine and partying with women and young men. At the same time, he was a devout Buddhist, whose lamas invested him with the title Rinchen Dorje (“Indestructible, Precious Gem” in Tibetan).33 The sort of verse being ascribed to Khayyām during his rule perhaps refected that mixture of libertine style of life with a Buddhist philosophy that life is ephemeral. Rudi Matthee explained that In Iran, taverns and brothels fourished under Mongol (Īl-Khānid) rule (1256–1336), their business intertwined to the point where the two were often indistinguishable. Public drunkenness in urban areas had a negative efect on law and order, with drunks harassing people in bazaars and getting into brawls that caused injuries and fatalities.34 Abū al-Majd Tabrīzī, an ofcial of the Īl-Khānid state in Tabriz, included in his massive miscellany of the 1320s a compilation of some 500 quatrains, many but not all of them from Sharvānī’s Nozhat al-Majāles. His selections mainly treated love poetry. This editor only ascribed three quatrains to Khayyām, and his selection does not entirely overlap with those attributed to that author by Sharvānī.35 My thesis is, in any case, that the frst signifcant corpus of poetry ascribed to Khayyām arose in the Mongol era, which is when he began being adopted as a frame author for certain themes in the quatrains. Mīr-Afzalī cites some ffty-one discrete such quatrains to which Khayyām’s name was attached in that era.36 The themes that accounted for the bulk of the poems included, at about a ffth each, were the shortness of life and our destiny as mud and clay, our incomprehension of the meaning of life, and God’s injustice and the menace of the turning vault of heaven (imagined as a hard turquoise shell whose revolutions crush succeeding generations). Thus, some 60 percent of these poems are bleak in their emphases. Wine poetry of various sorts makes up another 30 percent, but some of it, too, is despairing rather than celebratory. One of the poems attributed to Khayyām in this era frankly denies the existence of heaven and hell and appeals to the pre-Islamic Arabian notion of dahr (the relentless time-fate that ultimately takes a person’s life). Since in fate the call of the rose is renewed, my idol issues her dictum that wine is best. 192

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Abandon all thought of houris and celestial palaces, and of heaven and hell – for they are empty words.37 This Mongol-era picture of Khayyām poetry envisaged it as philosophical and skeptical, as resigned to a short miserable life and a bleak fate. There is almost no love poetry and little attempt, on the model of Ahrī, to attribute to the astronomer Suf notions (one does mention the wandering Suf or Qalandar). Khayyām was still depicted as a minor author, to whom only a few quatrains were ascribed, and there was no intimation that he had a divan, as a proper poet would have, consisting of various genres. In Persian, only quatrains were attributed to him. After the Mongol state went into decline, small successor states ruled until the rise of the Timurids, who then also declined in Iran in the early 15th century. Meanwhile, compiling the unconventional quatrains and attributing them to Khayyām continued to preoccupy anthologists. In 1423 in Timurid Kerman, one Qavām Māzandarānī made an anthology of the works of ffteen major poets, organizing it by author. One of the authors represented was Omar Khayyām, to whom he attributed 206 quatrains, four times as many as were assigned to him during the entire Mongol period. Māzandarānī made a step forward in the creation of a Khayyām corpus but continued to anthologize Khayyām with other poets.38 Two manuscripts that contain short sections devoted to a few dozen quatrains said to be Khayyām date to 1448, as Timurid rule began to collapse into chaos and Turkmen vassals fought over the spoils. They are in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, one having forty-seven quatrains and the other ffty-six. Likewise, a manuscript with a Khayyām section of forty-two quatrains survives in Vienna, dated 1451.39

Te Qara Qoyunlu Khayyām The next stage of the emergence of Omariana took place in a succeeding empire. The paramount chief of the Qara Qoyunlu or Black Sheep dynasty, Jahānshāh (1397–1467), emerged as a ruler in his own right after the eclipse of the Timurids (whose vassal he had been in Azerbaijan).40 He ruled an empire that included what is now eastern Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and western Afghanistan from the metropolis of Tabriz. Contemporary Muslim chroniclers routinely depicted the various Black Sheep princes and notables as atheists or heretics and said of one that he “spent his days and nights in impiety and licentiousness.”41 In the late 1450s, Jahānshāh’s eldest son, Pīr Būdāq, rebelled against his father and made Shiraz the capital of his statelet. A chronicler wrote that Pīr Būdāq raised the banner of rebellion there and used expletives against his father. He associated with atheists, abandoning fasting and prayer and abolishing the regulations of Islam. No distinction was any longer made between women who were permitted to mix with a man because of their close kinship with him, and those who were not.42 A surviving painting of a party at Pīr Būdāq’s court lends credence to these charges.43 De Blois observed, It is clear that by the 15th century at the latest the name of the famous philosopher and scientist had become a collective pseudonym for authors of Robā’īyāt, especially those of hedonistic, fatalistic and more or less overtly anti-Islamic content, in the same way that that of Abū Sa’īd Abū al-Khayr had become the point of crystallization for a whole corpus of mystical quatrains.44 193

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In 1460 the Black Sheep anthologist, Mahmūd Yerbūdāqī, ascribed 158 quatrains to Khayyām, almost as many as Māzandarānī had, but in a single volume rather than as part of an anthology or a section in a larger manuscript. His colophon contains a prayer for the “capital” of Shiraz, suggesting that he was at Pīr Būdāq’s court and that this poetry collection was made at his court during his period of rebellion. Although he may have had obscure predecessors in this endeavor, in our current state of research, it appears that Yerbūdāqī had done something new. He created a standalone, single-author collection of unconventional quatrains, endowing them with the authority of the medieval astronomer. Unlike the dour Mongol-era Khayyām, the poet who emerges in Yerbūdāqī’s anthology is a good-natured rake. About 25 percent of his poems are celebrations of wine and parties. He is also a lover in the way that the Mongol Khayyām was not (Tabrīzī had only ascribed three poems to the astronomer in his collection of romantic verse). Love and romantic passion account for 9 percent of this collection. Some 7 percent of the quatrains here are antinomian, urging the violation of laws and customs, and 5 percent complain of the uselessness of trying to fght one’s preordained sinfulness, a similar theme. Two of the stanzas are frankly anti-clerical. About another quarter focus on the feeting nature of human existence or complain of the difculties of life and its lack of meaning. Yerbūdāqī’s Khayyām refutes the afterlife, with some 7 percent treating that theme, whereas such a denial was a minor theme for the Mongol Khayyām. Three quatrains praise science over superstitions such as astrology. Four percent of these quatrains, hearkening back to Ahrī, treat Suf themes. The quatrains chosen out by Yerbūdāqī include some to which Khayyām’s name had been attached in the Mongol and Timurid periods but also many others that had been considered anonymous or ascribed to other poets or were previously unknown. It seems clear that the varied themes of the anthology took precedence and that the frame author was a mere convenience.45 What may be an autograph of Yerbūdāqī’s anthology was collected by Sir Gore Ouseley or his brother William when Ouseley was the British ambassador to the Qajar court in 1810–14 and ultimately was deposited in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. It was discovered by Edward Cowell, who was working on Persian with Edward FitzGerald in the mid-1850s, and became one of the two base texts for FitzGerald’s loose rendering of the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām. In the Victorian era and into the late 20th century, then, Yerbūdāqī’s achievement as an anthologist became a phenomenon in world literature.

Te Spread of the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām The idea of a whole book of Omarian poetry presented as the work of a single author proved popular wherever Persian was known, in Ottoman lands, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and South Asia. Yār Aḥmad Rashīdī, an anthologist in the Black Sheep capital of Tabriz, made a much bigger collection of the supposed Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām in 1462–3, two or three years after Yerbūdāqī’s Shiraz compendium. This Tabriz edition had over 500 poems, arranged under ten topical headings, and the introduction and conclusion are at pains to suggest that if anything in the book seems contradictory to Islam, it should be taken metaphorically rather than literally. Legend had it that Omar Khayyām’s father, Moḥammad, had been a tent-maker, and the whole metaphor of the tent plays a part in this use of the poetry, since pastoralist tents were one site for evening revelry. Rashīdī played with this simile, speaking of God’s grace to “the people of the tent of existence,” calling the earth the “tented tableau,” and saying that the divine had “secured the felt pavilion of the nights and days with the tent peg of constancy.”46 Implicitly, perhaps the message is that the Omarian poetry is the poetry of the tent, where people of pastoralist background could party hard away from the downtown urban complex of mosque and sharia court judge. Rashīdī goes on to call Omar Khayyām “without doubt the best friend in any gathering and the life of any party.”47 194

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Three or four years after the Shiraz manuscript was completed, one Hājjī Faraj Allāh made a similar collection in Baghdad of 143 quatrains, all but 6 of them shared with the Yerbūdāqī version. In the next few decades, stand-alone, attributed editions popped up in Istanbul, where so many MSS survive in Ottoman repositories that the poetry was clearly very popular. It seems to have been even more popular in South Asia. The court chronicler of the Mughal emperor Akbar in India (r. 1556–1605) wrote that “Akbar expressed the opinion that after every ode of Hafez one ought to write out a quatrain of Omar Khayyām, otherwise reading the ode is like wine without a relish.”48 Many manuscripts of The Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām survive in Lahore, one dated 1568, and in other Indian cities, including Lucknow, Bankipore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, attesting to the work’s popularity in the Indian subcontinent, where Persian was widely used as a language of bureaucracy and belles-lettres.49 The manuscripts we know about are so numerous after 1460 that it seems clear that Yerbūdāqī, creating the standalone book of unconventional quatrains with a single author, supplied a need.50 Although anthologists collected and published anonymous verse in the medieval period, it had less authority, and authority might have been especially important for unorthodox ideas. The anthologies grew in size, becoming repositories for irreverence, free-thinking, libertinism, atheism, and existential despair. Indian anthologists and poets joined in the game, adding new stanzas to these collections, some of which became enormous and sometimes exhibited clearly Indian themes. The great historian Irfan Habib once remarked to me in puzzlement that the poetry did not appear to have been much cited by Persophone Indian littérateurs. My suspicion is that it was quoted at evening parties rather than in books of literature. This verse was not seen as a sign of erudition but was reserved for display at times of revelry. That Omarian quatrains continued to be widely cultivated wherever Persian was spoken is clear from the manuscript history.

Lithographs That the Omar Khayyām genre continued to be popular into the 19th century is proven by its publication in afordable lithographs. A Calcutta edition of the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām of 1836 contained 492 quatrains. A Tehran lithograph of 1857 contained 230 and was bundled with works of fgures such as Farīd al-Dīn Attār and Nāser-e Khosrow. Also in 1857, a Tehran anthology came out containing 454 quatrains attributed to Khayyām, along with works of other medieval writers. Further lithographs of this sort appeared in the Iranian capital in 1861 and 1862.51 J. B. Nicolas, the translator for the French embassy in Tehran, brought out a translation and edition of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyām at Paris in 1867, following on this activity of Iranian publishers in the 1850s and 1860s. He urged a reading of the poetry as mystical and allegorical, rather than as Epicurean and libertine. He wrote, Khayyām, gentle and modest by nature, was as much given to the contemplation of things divine as to the enjoyments of everyday life. This penchant and the sort of studies he cultivated made of him a mystic poet, a philosopher who was at once a skeptic and a fatalist, or, simply put, a Suf, like the majority of poets.52 Nicolas gave credit for his help with the work to the Qajar ofcial Mirzā Ḥasan Khān, presumably Nizām al-Molk Garrūsī, and so refected the reading of the poetry as Suf in character common in Iran. The Paris edition was not an innovation but rather followed on several lithographs in Iran and India that had already likely revived interest in the unconventional quatrains. The appearance of the Paris edition was consequential inasmuch as it impelled FitzGerald to 195

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produce a second, expanded edition, apparently in a quest to keep control of his narrative about the poetry, that it was secular-minded. The Nicolas-FitzGerald debate obscured the degree to which irreverence could be linked with Sufsm itself. Wandering Suf Qalandars were well known for their antinomianism, in contrast to sober members of urban Suf orders. A British traveler in Iran during the 1850s, Robert B. M. Binning, said that Sufs “are divided into two great classes.” These were those who acknowledge the authority of the Qur’an and the prophet and the “complete” or “absolute” (moṭlaq) Suf. The absolute Sufs “do not scruple to avow an entire disbelief in both book and prophet; and are, in reality, deists, admitting of no revealed religion whatever, except what is made known by the inward light, with which they suppose every man to be gifted.”53 The lithographs continued to appear. An omnibus edition came out in Tabriz in 1868, with 453 quatrains. Another Tehran lithograph of 1877 collected The Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām together with other works of medieval literature.54 After the British conquest of Oudh, famed Nawal Kishore publishing house at Lucknow brought out the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām in 1868 with 716 quatrains and followed it in 1878 with an edition with an even larger number, 763, of quatrains.55 In Bombay (Mumbai), another lithograph appeared in 1880 that included the Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām but also works attributed to other authors such as Abū Sa’īd Abū al-Khayr.56 Indians were lapping this work up, since it was reprinted in Luckow in 1880 and again in 1882 and 1883, then once more in 1894 (770 quatrains!) and again in 1904 (the “seventh edition”).57 These reprints continued appearing into the 20th century, even while FitzGerald’s English version became a publishing sensation in Britain and the United States. In his preface to the 1878 Nawal Kishore edition, the editor, Sayyid Muhammad Sādiq ‘Alī Lakhnavī, remarked of Khayyām that he was a master of the quatrain in the same way that Hafez had been the foremost writer of the ghazal. He continued, “the parrot of his pen in the sweetness of its discourse is laden with sugar, and like a poplar-waisted young man of the ‘four blows,’ its speech is clear” (va navā-ye qamarī-e sarvestāni-e chahār ẓarb-e kalāmesh ṣāf).58 The male youth with a fgure like the poplar is a stock image in homosocial Persian poetry but here is being associated with the lithe wandering dervish or Qalandar, who has shaved of all four types of facial hair. For this editor, then, the Omarian quatrains were especially associated with wandering mystics of the Qalandar sort, who were numerous in 19th-century India. Lithographs are close to manuscripts, since they were handwritten, and these early publications continued the legacy of the vigorous manuscript tradition for this work. These editions suggest that the conviction of observers such as E. G. Browne that Omarian poetry was looked down on in Persophone regions, and that the European and North American enthusiasm for it was an anomaly, was incorrect. The impact of the genre of The Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām on Urdu literature was immense but cannot be explored here. The Urdu unconventional quatrain was produced by fgures such as Mirza Asadullāh Ghālib, in terms very similar to the verses in Yerbūdāqī’s collection.59 The genre went on to have an impact on Bollywood, the Indian flm industry, in the 20th century, which even made a flm about the astronomer in 1946, directed by Mohan Sinha.

Conclusion The kinds of authorship discussed in this chapter make for what Lithuanian linguist Algirdas J. Greimas called a semiotic square, governed by the considerations of authority and misdirection, with four boxes.60 In the top two boxes, we have named authors on the left (S1) and anonymous authors on the right (S2), which are opposites from the point of view of transparency and authority. But at the same time, they share the attribute of straightforwardness. That is, in 196

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neither case has the work been misattributed. The bottom right square is a frame author who was a historical person (~S2), and the bottom left is an imaginary frame author such as Scheherazade (~S1). The two types of frame author are opposites in the sense that one is an actual historical person, whereas the other is fctive. Historical frame authors are the contrary of actual historical authors, and imaginary frame authors are the contrary of anonymous ones (they share a sidestepping of authorship but constitute diferent strategies of misdirection from the actual author). Frame authors are deployed to organize written works which are too controversial to risk actual attribution. But they can also simply be a form of marketing. The terms S1 and ~S1 share the attribute of authority, possessed by named authors and historical personages who were made into frame authors. Being able to ascribe a piece of writing to an individual with a known biography gave that writing a higher status. Even in the Victorian era, Fitzgerald’s Omarian verses benefted reputationally from being understood as the work of an actual 11th-century scientist. Michel Foucault made the point that ordinary persons’ names function diferently from those of authors, since they are not used to organize and categorize information. If we discovered that some detail of a random person’s biography was incorrect, it would have little impact. But if, he said, we discovered that William Shakespeare actually wrote a work attributed to Francis Bacon, it would change a great deal.61 The diference is that authorship creates relationships among literary works, and a changed biography can alter those relationships. Authorship, according to Foucault, is an organizing principle for works. The author also is given social authority, so that if a work is proven to have been misattributed, that authority is lost or changed. On the right side of the semiotic square, we have anonymous authors and fctional frame authors, both of whom lack authority but who are allowed to say things that challenge societal norms. The Omarian quatrains, then, had many origins – in the traditions of urban Persian humanism, in the more salacious courts of Mongol and post-Mongol chieftains, and in the inspiration ofered poets by the unconventional wandering Sufs. The result was a hodgepodge, with some quatrains urging celibacy and avoidance of family ties and others celebrating blithe promiscuity. They had in common, however, a fear of married domesticity. The editors of these poetry collections typically threw in verses from all of these social locations, varying the themes in hopes of avoiding boredom on the part of the reader.

Notes 1 For the notion of the frame author, see Karla Malette, “The Hazards of Narration: Frame-Tale Technologies and the ‘Oriental Tale,’” in Suzanne Conklin Akbari, The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), chap. 28, and Karla Malette, “Reading Backward: The 1001 Nights and Philological Practice,” in A Sea of Languages: Literature and Culture in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, ed. Suzanne Akbari and Karla Malette (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 100–116. 2 Edward FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (London: B. Quaritch, 1859); Juan Cole, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020), surveys the infuence of this poem on English letters. Some passages of the present chapter appeared in a diferent form as an epilogue to the Cole translation. 3 Hamid Dabashi, The World of Persian Literary Humanism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). 4 L. P. Elwell-Sutton, “Introduction,” in Ali Dashti, In Search of Omar Khayyām, trans. L. P. Elwell-Sutton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 20. 5 Scott Jermyn, “Loaves of Bread and Jugs of Wine: Three Translations of Omar Khayyám,” Meta: Journal des traducteurs 34, no. 2 (juin 1989): 242–252; J. C. E. Bowen, “The Rubāՙiyyāt of Omar Khayyām: A Critical Assessment of Robert Graves’ and Omar Ali Shah’s Translation,” Iran 11 (1973): 63–73. 6 J. T. P. de Bruijn, Persian Suf Poetry: An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Persian (London: Routledge 2014), 16–17.

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Juan Cole 7 Shams al-Dīn al-Shahrazūrī, Nuzhat al-Arwāh wa Rawdat al-Afrāh (Paris: Dar Byblion, 2007), 324. 8 Aḥmad b. ‘Umar Aḥmad Nezāmī [Arūzī] Samarqandī, Chahār Maqāleh, ed. Mo ḥ ammad Qazvīnī (Leiden: Brill, 1909), 98–99; Edward G. Browne, Revised Translation of the Chahár Maqála (Four Discourses) of Niẓámí-i ʿArúḍí of Samarqand, Followed by an Abridged Translation of Mírzá Muḥammad’s Notes to the Persian Text (London: Luzac & Col., 1921), 71–72 see also Browne’s notes, 134–140. 9 François de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, vol. 5, part 2 (London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1994), 362. 10 De Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2:363. 11 E. Denison Ross, “Al-Muzafariyé: Containing a Recent Contribution to the Study of ‘Omar Khayyām,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 30, no. 2 (April 1898): 349–366; Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902–1924), 2: 246–250. 12 Examples of this approach include Sādeq Hedāyat, Khayyām-e Sādeq, ed. Jahāngir Hedāyat (Tehran: Nashr-e Cheshmeh, 2002) and ‘Ali Dashtī, Damī Bā Khayyām (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1965), trans. Elwell-Sutton as In In Search of Omar Khayyām, op. cit. 13 Sayyed ‘Ali Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt-e Khayyām dar Manābi’-e Kohan (Tehran: Markaz-e Nashr-e Daneshgāh-e Tehrān, 2003). 14 Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 23–24. 15 See, for instance, Jason Mokhtarian, “Zoroastrian Polemics against Judaism in the Doubt-Dispelling Exposition,” in Michael Pregill, ed., New Perspectives on Late Antique Iran and Iraq, Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations 3, no. 1 (2018); http://mizanproject.org/journal-post/ zoroastrian-polemics-against-judaism-in-the-doubt-dispelling-exposition/. 16 Najm al-Dīn Rāzī, Mersād al-’ebād min al-bid’ elā al-ma’ād (Tehran: Matba’-e Majles, 1933), 18; Najm al-Dīn Rāzī, The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return, trans. Hamid Algar (Delmar: Caravan Books, 1982), 54; Mīr-Afzalī, 28–29. 17 Johann Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 139–140. 18 Reuven Amitai, “Hülegü and His Wise Men: Topos or Reality?,” in Politics, Patronage, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, ed. Judith Pfeifer (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 15–34. 19 Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 31–32. 20 Mahmoud Omidsalar, “JAMŠID ii. In Persian Literature,” Encyclopeedia Iranica, April 10, 2012, www. iranicaonline.org/articles/jamsid-ii. 21 See e.g. Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufsm (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985). 22 Charles Eliot Norton, “[Review:] 1. ‘Les Quatrains de Kheyam . . . 2. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia,” The North American Review 109, no. 225 (October 1869), 565–584. 23 De Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2: 363; see also A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “Khayyām’s Universal Appeal: Man, Wine, and the Hereafter in the Quatrains,” in The Great Omar Khayyām: A Global Reception of the Ruba’iyat, ed. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012). 24 ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Atā Malik Jovayni, Tārīkh-e Jahān-goshā, ed. M. Qazvini, 3 vols. (Leiden and London: E. J. Brill, 1912–37), 1:128; Ala’ al-Dīn Ata-Malik Juvayni, The History of the World-Conqueror, trans. John Andrew Boyle, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 1:163–164, Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 25–27; translation from Cole, The Rubáiyát, 93–94. For the Jovayni family of Persian bureaucrats under the Mongols, see George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), chapter 6. 25 Aminrazavi, Wine of Wisdom, 51–52. 26 Pace Ali Dashti, In Search of Omar Khayyām, trans. L. P. Elwell-Sutton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 179–180. 27 Moḥammad Amīn Riāḥi, “Nozhat al-majālis,” Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, 2010, www.iranicaonline. org/articles/nozhat-al-majales. 28 Jamāl Khalīl Sharvānī, Nozhat al-Majāles, ed. Moḥammad Amīn Riyāhī (Tehran: Enteshārat-e Zovvār, 1366s/1987), 140, no. 235. 29 Felicitas Opwis, “Shifting Legal Authority from the Ruler to the ῾Ulamā᾿: Rationalizing the Punishment for Drinking Wine during the Saljūq Period,” Der Islam 86, no. 1 (2011): 65–92. 30 Francois de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, vol. 5, part 3 (London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1997), 593–594. 31 Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 60. I give a less literal translation in my The Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām, 62, no. 135.

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Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām 32 Peter Della Santina, Causality and Emptiness: The Wisdom of Nagarjuna (Singapore: Buddhist Research Society, 2002), 33, nos. 33–34. Many thanks to my colleague Donald Lopez for sending me in search of this citation. 33 Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, 149; George Lane, Daily Life in the Mongol Empire (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 162. 34 Rudolph P. Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 42. 35 “Kholāsat al-ash’ār f al-Robā’īyat,” in Safīneh-‘e Tabrīz, ed. Abū al-Majd Moḥammad ibn Mas’ūd Tabrīzī (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 2001), 593–612; Ali-Asghar Seyyed-Gohrab, “Literary Works in Tabriz’s Treasury,” in Seyyed-Gohrab and McGlinn, 126–130. 36 Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 34–81. 37 Sharvānī, Nozhat al-Majāles, 141, no. 237; Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 43; see Dashti, In Search of, 117. 38 M. Mahfuz-ul-Haq, The Robā’īyāt of ‘Umar-i-Khayyām, Persian Text Edited from a Manuscript Dated 911 A.H. (1605 [sic: 1506] A.D.) in the Collection of Professor S. Najib Ashraf Nadvi with a Facsimile of the Manuscript (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1939), 31–32. 39 Ibid., 34; Mahfuz-ul-Haq gives the impression that the Paris and Vienna mid-15th century MSS are stand-alone books, but this is not true, as de Blois’ descriptions make clear: F. de Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2:367–368. 40 Some attention is given to Jahānshāh Qara Qoyunlu in Beatrice Forbes Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), for example, 45. 41 V. Minorsky, “Jihān-Shāh Qara-Qoyunlu and His Poetry,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 16, no. 2 (1954): 271–297, this quote on p. 277. 42 Būdāq Monshī Qazvīnī, Javāhir al-Akhbār: Bakhsh-e Tārīkh-e Irān az Qarāqoyūnlū tā Sāl-e 984 H.Q., ed. Mohsen Bahrāmnezhād (Tehran: Āyenih-’e Mīrās, 2000), 67–68. 43 “The court of a Timurid prince, Pir Budaq,” Iran (Shiraz), c. 1455–1460, Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, MIA.2013.150, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar. 44 De Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2:363. 45 For further considerations on the Yerbūdāqī collection, see Juan Cole, “The Rubā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām and Muslim Secularism,” Studies in People’s History 3, no. 2 (2016): 138–150, especially 140– 148; It was published in facsimile and translated literally by Edward Heron-Allen, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Facsimile of the MS in the Bodleian Library (Boston, MA: L. F. Page & Co., 1898); a contemporary translation in verse is Cole, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. 46 ‘Umar Khayyām, Ṭarabkhāneh, ed. Yār Ahmad Rashīdī, in Abdülbâki Gölpinarli, ed., Robā’īyāt-e Hakim Khayyām: Ṭarabkhaneh-‘e Yār Ahmad Rashīdī, Risaleh-’i Selselat al-Tartīb, Khoṭbah-e Tamjīd-e Ibn Sīnā (Tehran: Mīrās-e Maktūb, 2007), 61. 47 Rashīdī, introduction, Ṭarabkhāneh, in Gölpinarli, 63. 48 Abū al-Fazl ibn Mubārak, Āʾīn-ī Akbarī, ed. H. Blochmann, 3 vols. (Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1993; repr. of 1877 Calcutta edn.), 2:238. 49 Juan Cole, “Iranian Culture and South Asia, 1500–1900,” in Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, ed. N. Keddie and R. Matthee (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 15–35. 50 De Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2:368–369. 51 Ibid., 5, 2:369–70. 52 J. B. Nicolas, Les quatrains de Khèyam (Paris: L’Imprimerie Impériale, 1867), iii. 53 Robert B. M. Binning, A Journal of Two Years’ Travel in Persia, Ceylon, etc. (London: W.H. Allen and co., 1857), 400. 54 Omar Khayyām et al., Ketāb-e Ḥakīm-e ʻOmar Khayyām. Va Robā’īyāt-e Shams. Va Robā’īyāt-e ʾBābā Ṭāher, ed. Āqā Zartāb Khonsārī (Ṭehran: Dār al-Khilāfeh], 1294 [1877]), http://babel.hathitrust.org/ cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076361748;view=1up;seq=3; these remarks on the lithographs contain material that appeared in a diferent form in Cole, “The Rubā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām and Muslim secularism.” 55 ‘Omar Khayyām, Robā’īyāt ed. with marginal notes by Muhammad Sadiq Ali Lakhnavi (Lucknow: Nawal Kishore, 1878). 56 ‘Omar Khayyām et al., Īn kitāb majmūʻehīst mashḥūn az har gol va riyāḥīn moshtamal ast be-Robā’īyāt-e solṭān al-foṣaḥā Ḥakīm ʻUmar Khayyām va Robā’īyāt-e morshed al-sālekīn majẕūb-e ḥazrat-e bārī Bābā Ṭāher Lūr Hamadānī va Robā’īyāt-e Khvājah Abū Saʻīd Abū al-Khayr va Robā’īyāt-e Khvājeh ʻAbd Allāh Anṣārī va qaṣāʼed-e Salmān Sāvajī dar ʻelm-e ʻarūz, ed. Mīrzā Mohammad Shīrāzī (Bombay: Kārkhāneh-e Moḥammadī, 1297 [1880]).

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Juan Cole 57 De Blois, Persian Literature, 5, 2:70. 58 Lakhnavī in ‘Omar Khayyām, Robā’īyāt, 102. 59 E.g. Mīrzā Asadullāh Khān Ghālib, Bāgh-e do dār, ed. Vazīr al-Hasan ‘Ābidī (Lahore: Punjabi Urdu Academy Press, 1970), 86; for context see Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, The Oxford India Ghalib: Life, Letters, and Ghazals, ed. Ralph Russell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 60 I found suggestive the use to which the Greimas square was recently put by Rebecca Warner, “The Beauty and the Beast Trope in Modern Musical Theatre,” Studies in Musical Theatre 9, no. 1 (March 2015): 31–51, in also dealing with long-lasting memes that were transmitted in diferent forms over centuries and across cultural boundaries. 61 Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in Michel Foucault, Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology, ed. James D. Faubion (New York: The New Press, 1998), 210–211.

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 7 Robā’īyāt of Omar Khayyām Translated by Juan Cole

Nozhat al-Majāles1 The night and day were there before we were. In every age shone greatness like the sun. On every part of earth you set your foot you’re standing on the sweetheart of someone. As hidden as the phoenix bird must be each mystery within the deepest sea. Within the shell there lies an unseen pearl; that droplet is the secret of the sea. I don’t drink wine to fee my poverty nor to get drunk because of grief or shame. I drink to fll my heart with happiness; I do not drink now that you are my fame. Lam’at al-Serāj2 If you should wish to wisely pass your life, drink wine, for it has never harmed a soul. I hold that its sole beneft is this: That it can liberate you from yourself. Tārīkh-e Vassāf 3 Beneath your feet lie buried in the ground an idol’s locks and a beloved’s gown; each spear above the royal parapet; a minister’s hand and a sultan’s crown. “Kholāsat al-ash’ār f al-Robā’īyat,” Saf īneh-‘e Tabrīz4 Wine server, rise and bring shame to my name. The old and young have often seen our like. DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-13

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Musician, my physician, sing a song, then grab a wine decanter: a chord strike! Mo’nes al-Ahrar5 The dawn has broken: rise, you hopeless firt, and gently – gently – sip some wine and strum. For those who dwell here will not be here long. Of those who left, not one again will come. When New Year’s rainclouds wash the tulip’s face, get up and to red wine your will entrust. Since this green lawn that now delights your eye Tomorrow will be growing from your dust. A drop of water formed, joining the sea. A mote of dust became as one with earth. A fy buzzed in and then could not be seen. What is your coming into this world worth? The days of this age stand ashamed of one who sits distressed at cares and all alone. Drink deep from a wine cup and pluck the strings before your cup is broken on a stone. No one has reached the secret of this gem: This sea of being hides itself no more. All of them spoke, but only for themselves. Of that which is, none can express its lore. I threw my clay mug down upon a stone, Committing, drunk, this sheer barbarity. That cup addressed me in a mystic tongue: “Once I was like you; you will be like me.” This cycle inside which we come and go Has neither a beginning nor an end. No one can breathe a word about where we came from or to what place our way we wend.

Notes 1 Drawn from Sayyed ‘Ali Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt-e Khayyām dar Manābi’-e Kohan (Tehran: Markaz-e Nashr-e Daneshgāh-e Tehrān, 2003), 39–47. 2 In Mīr-Afzalī, Robā’īyāt, 59–61. 3 Ibid., 64. 4 Ibid., 72. 5 Mohammad ibn Bahr Jājarmī, Mo’nes al-Ahrār, dated 1340, in E. Denison Ross, “Omar Khayyam,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 4, no. 3 (1927): 433–439.

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8 GHAZAL1 Form in Meaning Alireza Korangy

You’ll look at least on love’s remains, A grave’s one violet: Your look? – that pays a thousand pains. What’s death? You’ll love me yet!

Introduction Many of the genres in Persian literature, from their very earliest inception, were defned within a certain content form, that is, number of distichs, themes appropriated within those distichs, and so on. However, the ghazal does not follow that logic right from its nascency. Although the ghazal eventually does fnd a prosodical and thematic template in the middle of the 12th century, it was always there as a conceit, a certain intent and message – a kind of mannerism that lurked between different thematic forums in order to speak to human emotions that transcend poetic form as defned within the vertical axis of a poem, that is, literary forms and conventions. Eventually, in its “fnalized” form, the ghazal was composed of 15–20 distichs on topics ranging from panegyric, existential, and theosophical to romantic and bacchic and all thematic substrata that fall under those categories. In its development, the ghazal uses expressions that range from clear to incomprehensible. The very same themes (ghazal-like) could have persisted in other content forms – and, in fact, they did just that in the ghazal’s early fedgling until about the late 11th century in the Persian-speaking world.2 In order to understand the ghazal and its development in the Persian-speaking world, it is incumbent upon any query to frst visit the early Arab poetry of the pre-Islamic era. This is where we fnd the ghazal, in its earliest days, lodged in the body of the qaṣīda of the Arab-speaking Jāhiliyya. It is also prudent to note that the fedgling of social cognizance of a ghazal-like expression in pre-Islamic Iran and early post-Islamic era in Iran was always associated with lyrics that were accompanied by music and were in fact a sung lyrical tradition (ghanā’ī) performed by a bard in the courts of the Iranian dignitaries, such as Khosrow Parvīz. These sung ditties, per se, were the frst inklings of ghazal-like expressions in the Persian-speaking world. These were poetic utterances that went hand in hand with a fully realized musical ethos.3 Upon the branches of the Jasmine The garden-praising birds are singing in the manner of Bārbad.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-14

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The Jāhiliyya poet’s oral traditions represent not only the earliest notion of a ghazal as a developing form but also as a theme and content. This is highlighted by studies of the early major poets of the post-Islamic period in the Persian-speaking world, who clearly beneftted from both their distant Arab predecessors – and many post-Islam Arab contemporaries in some cases5 – and who played the largest roles in the development of the ghazal. These early poets, in turn, aford a clear glimpse into the themes of the ghazal in the brilliant works of ensuing masters such as exemplars like Ḥāfẓ and Sa‘dī whose ghazals were the template par excellence and remain so today. Nearly all poetic production of the ghazal is, to varying degrees, tinged with both localized and individualistic traits, making diferent stylistic classifcations difcult; however, what can be estimated is that ghazal, in varying degrees and various periods, had a social obligation that is often overlooked by its lyrical one that made it seem at times quixotic. What is true is that it is a poetics with a didactive, and as such civic, canon that at its zenith speaks to existentialism as embodied in interpersonal relationships: love, lover, and beloved – and the events and actions that are associated with them: wine, nostalgia, and remembrance. As such it speaks to the gentler side of the human condition and echoes those feelings as it crystallizes existence in an enigmatic relationship complicated by the sometimes-murky identity of the role-players – particularly at its peak and with the introduction of Sufsm in the 12th century. As such, it allows interpretation and afords individualistic applications by its audience as concerns their own modus vivendi: it is the poetic genre that most resonates with its audience.

Origin of the Persian Ghazal in Pre-Islamic Arabia The roots of the ghazal can be traced to the year 500 in the Arabic peninsula, with the people Nicholson terms the folk of “two kindred races widely diferent in their character and way of life.”6 The ghazal was born of the body of the qaṣīda under the rubric of themes that best addressed pre-Islamic Arabian life and which Arab poets perfected. Qaṣīda was a polythematic and rich form that was itself the crown jewel of Arabic tradition and also remained the crown jewel of the Persian-speaking world until the rise of fully realized ghazal poetry early in the 12th century.7 A monorhythmic content form with a single persisting meter, a qaṣīda is, next to the mathnavī, the longest of all content forms.8 The pre-Islamic poets, who were preoccupied with their social and religious worlds, used the qaṣīda to engage with the concrete quotidian details of desert life and their tribal modus operandi.9 These included the setting up and departure from camps (iṭlāl va diman), the herd animals and camels on which they depended, the leaders and families who made up their societies, and last but not least tribal boasting ( fakhriyya) and censuring of other tribes.10 In many of these themes, embedded in the qaṣīda lurked a sub-poem (sub-theme) of sorts in the frst 10–15 distichs cracking beneath the heavy weight of the main theme of the qaṣīda, which poignantly and efectively touched on topics such as adoring a beloved, odes to youth, and odes to an exuberant life that was both fantastical and barely concrete – yet hope-inducing: Companions of the road, let’s stop for just a minute; The tents of my beloved, between Dakhūl and here Where in those sandy spaces; the remnants are still there The two conficting winds have fought to let them stay The place of my beloved, once beautiful to see Is empty and deserted now, the haunt of those white deer Their droppings black as peppercorns upon the desert sands Let me stop and remember and weep today For the day of our separation11 204

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The pre-Islamic qaṣīda takes into consideration the decoding processes – or rather the poetic and poetics – of its audience and is well aware of the social cognizance that guides it. Undoubtedly, this becomes a major component and afective trait of the ghazal in the Persian world and later in the ghazals of South Asian poets as well. This was a poetry philosophically rich in terms of the complicated existentialist questions put forth by simple folk under the auspices of a brilliant narrative structure that did not dabble in the notional and embraced the realities – and hardships. It was further motivated as much by questioning selfhood – all of which found their way into these early lines as well. The pre-Islamic Arabic qaṣīda’s frst 10–15 – and at times more – lines were either tashbībs (exordiums to youth), nasībs (love exordiums),12 or taghazzuls (love ditties). The thematic lines between the three are blurry at best and often are simply treated together as the nasīb genre of the Jāhiliyya.13 What is clear, however, is that these embedded themes, which followed the strict prosodical design of the qaṣīda that bore them, had their own specifc message and highlighted sub-nuances in the Jāhiliya’s oral pastoral tradition: Halt, friends both! Let us weep, recalling a love and a lodging by the rim Of the twisted sands between Ed-Dakhook and Haumal, Toodih and El-Mikrat, whose trace is not yet efaced for all the spinning of the South winds and the northern blasts; ... There, all about its yards, and away in the dry hollows you may see the dung of antelopes spattered like peppercorns.14 These themes and their subsidiaries, that is, iṭlāl va diman, are fedglings of the ghazal, although they are re-defned by Persian poets thematically (wine as an elixir to the end of achieving true reason, beloved as divine, youth as a feeting river, etc.). Sufce to say many of the Arab themes are later less utilized by their Persian counterparts. As in storytelling, the Arab poet, after the nasīb (tashbīb/taghazzul), then transitions into the raḥīl (praise of the camel traversing the vast arid landscape) or the madīḥ (panegyric), fakhriyya (boasting), vindictive lines (hijā’),15 the latter of which were the diatribe of other ilks; and a variety of other themes, be it praise for the sword of the champion of the tribe or of the tribe itself: Among the most perplexing features of classical Arabic poems is surely the juxtaposition of nasīb or ghazal and hijā’, the combination in one poem of tender, elegiac, chaste love poetry with scathing, foul-mouthed, obscene vituperation; two themes utterly unrelated, employing discordant types of diction, yet not rarely found together without any attempt at a logical transition.16 These early lines which were to become the ghazal often concluded with a few climactic lines whereby the poet cunningly and masterfully switched the topic. And, of course, the more subtle this transition, the more skillful the poet. This latter, the takhalluṣ (escape), was to become the last distich in the Persian ghazal where the poet uttered a profound pun, dictum, or spoonerism tying up the previous lines of the ghazal and often included the poet’s nom de plume: Sa‘dī if the food of death seems to make life less valid Fret not as the foundation based on the beloved is not pallid.17 At frst glance, the Arabic qaṣīda may seem a disjointed amalgam of thematic clusters, and it would be true; however, what is pertinent is that this is precisely what made it a powerful tool 205

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of expression and one which ghazal poetry inherited, having been borne of the qaṣīda.18 During the early development of the ghazal in the Persian-speaking world, these initial 10–15 distichs continued to be fundamental parts of the Persian qaṣīda as well, as is abundantly clear in the frst few lines of a qaṣīda by Mu‘izzī (d.1092) where he employs the iṭlāl va diman theme, indeed a category of nasīb employed frst by the Arab poet (See Sample 1, Vol. II). The poem begins with:19 O camel-driver don’t stop but at the abode of my beloved now gone So that, just a bit, I get to shed tears where the beauty once was and now fown This theme, iṭlāl va diman, a subsidiary of the broader nasīb, has a particularly potent role in identifying for the poet an existentialist dilemma further exaggerated and aggregated by the image of the moving caravan, that is, feeting life. It is also the one theme from whose conceit many of the existentialist aspects of the later ghazal stem. For the Arab it spoke to the spirit of the warrior-poet, the many foibles of the universe and its consequential follies, and the romantic episodes that stood in opposition to his harsh desert life, and for Mu‘izzī, in the previous poem, it speaks to a battle with nostalgia as an able opponent:20 It is the most popular of all the narratively motivated themes in the nasīb, tashbīb, or the taghazzul of the Arab poet but less utilized by the Persian counterpart in its full thematic sense since the ecologically bucolic nuance of the Arab poet of the peninsula was not mirrored in the Persian counterlife: In rocky Thahmad, the homeland of Khaula, there still can be seen some remnants of Khaula’s home and tent in the distance, They look like a mole on the back of a hand. My companions on their camels sat above my head and said: “Do not worry yourself to death,” and consoled me for my loss. On the morning that we parted, the camels bore litters of Maliki across the vast desert of Da‘d. As they left, they looked like boats, we thought, Huge boats in the desert heat. That is what we said when we saw them: “They look like ‘Adūl’s boats or those of Ibn Yamīn; Their captain is sailing straight ahead and he keeps them from tipping over.”21 In fact, much of what constitutes the early thematic makeup of the ghazal within the qaṣīda of the Arab poet is redefned and reconstituted in the Persian-speaking world. With the incursion of Arabs into Iran in the late 7th century, a cultural and literary dialogue was necessarily established, and as such, Persian poets became very familiar with these poetics, adopting them and changing them accordingly to mirror their own cultural poetics, even though ghazal-like work as a court ditty of sorts, as previously mentioned, and as a musical idea, was already in existence.

Ghazal: A Persian (and Indo-Persian) Defnition The ghazal is the crown jewel of Persian (and Indo-Persian) poetry beginning in the mid- to late 12th century and dominantly so in its zenith – and after – in the 14th century by which time the qaṣīda was long dismissed as the primal poetic form. Ghazal poetry became the “normative mode” of expression in the Persian-speaking world by the beginning of the 13th century when the erstwhile charitable inclinations of the court had given way to reluctance to recognize the panegyric as a necessity. As a genre, it has been utilized by poets for epideictic purposes of 206

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praise or blame, philosophical ponderings, and even ribaldry. However, its main purpose from the very early stages of its development had been predominantly lyrical, which celebrated life, mourned youth-no-more, and praised a beloved – and all the thematic minutiae inherent in the nuanced understandings of a beloved: all commensurate with a regional understanding of an enigmatic beloved, with nothing if not a labyrinthine social paradigm cognizant of its nuances. As pertains to the stages in the development of the ghazal, it was ultimately infuenced most by Sufsm22 beginning in the 12th century with the poetry of Sanā’ī (d.1130) and his magnifcent, and large, Suf propagandic epic Ḥadīqat al-Ḥaqīqat (The Garden of Truth), which is “a loose collection of parables and excursuses on reason, gnosis, trust in God, love, philosophy, heaven and hell, etc.”23 Thematically his ghazals are a mirror of what is seen in his Ḥadīqat al-Ḥaqīqat’s much longer discursive: Of China and Byzantium, you have heard much talk Now come and into the realm of Sanā’ī take a walk You will see a heart of avarice and want ridden: You will see all venge and ego forbidden There is no gold, but kingly treasures abound Not a modicum of hay but the horse that is this sphere to mount24 With Sufsm, the lyrical aspect of the ghazal, closely tied to its romantic interludes, robustly changes with the active and intensifed imagination of the Suf, fueled by transmutative nuances and vigor exaggerated by the poet, the Suf, all of which revolutionize the fgurative nature of love into that which is real. No kind of poem was more conducive to the compounding nature of the Suf Sprachgefühl and the vague identity of its beloved than was the ghazal – and the lack of congruity that became a signature of a perfect ghazal in its more mature stages. Consequently, this lent to the choice of ghazal as an appropriate transitory vehicle for such complex ideas.25 The fully mature ghazal afords a poet, as compared with other genres and content forms, unique poetic feats. First, the poet can work unapologetically, compounding messages in each hemistich (miṣra‘) and distich (bayt), and second, inextricably bound to the former, it allows the poet a fight of fancy into the minutiae of existence under the rubric of the trials that are signifed by love’s broader social and philosophical parameters. The reason for this, more than all else, is the origin of the ghazal anthe stylistic and social expectations from a ghazal. As such, this ingenious narrative structure accentuates a poet’s ability to guide the emotive intelligence of the reader: like a symphony, it has emotive variations and thematic movements within the structure of its theme while remaining metrically uniform throughout. The Persian ghazal from its beginning until the 14th century and the crushing of the ‘Abbāsids by the Mongol hordes (1258) can be decidedly divided into three thematic epochs, each with a particular fgurative, thematic, and historical importance and each with an indisputable contribution to the ghazal.26 The frst of these epochs locates the ghazal in the 11th century, and in this period, the most important fgure in its development is perhaps Manūchihrī (d.1040). It has been disputed, and correctly so, that in the 9th and 10th centuries, there were poets who wrote ghazals. However, these poets, frst among them Rūdakī (d.940), the father of Persian poetry, have only scant remnants of their poetic corpus remaining today. There have been attributions of more than 1,300,000 distichs to Rūdakī – certainly not realistic: If we are to deem a poet head and shoulders above the rest Then it shall be no doubt that Rūdakī is to be deemed the best 207

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His poems number over one million three hundred thousand distichs in accord with my statistic Or maybe even more than that and that too can be deemed correct and realistic27 The existence of this allegedly massive corpus of poetry, along with some of the high estimations of his “ghazal” by poets who lived a century later in their respective poems – and who undoubtedly had access to a more complete manuscript of his works – can verify and imply two possible conclusions regarding the ghazal: (1) ghazal poetry has nuanced meanings, and (2) understanding of what a ghazal is difered widely in diferent times of its development – and even today. This further complicates the question immemorial: is something ghazal-like (themes discussed in the ghazal persisting in other content forms) also a ghazal? The best ghazal is that which is Rūdakī-like And my refned ghazals in comparison are like those of a tyke No matter how deep I delve into my mind and soul’s deepest deep To a second place I deservedly and resoundingly keep28 Certainly, in the scant poetical register that is the divan of Rūdakī and the works of some of his contemporaries, we can see ghazal-like expressions and as such can make semi-educated replies to the previous arguments. What stands out in their poems is the simplicity of expression, particularly in the use of similes (A is like B, and C reminds of D), which is a far cry from the more fguratively knotty centuries of ghazal to follow. Here is the frst distich of a poem by Daqīqī (d.978), a near contemporary of Rūdakī, which can certainly be considered an early ghazal (See Sample II, Vol. II): The dark night likens your hair The day like your cheeks white and bare All said, however, there are several poets who have been credited as having composed the frst ghazal-like poems in Persian verse: Even though there are scattered poems which resemble the structure and theme of a ghazal in the remnants of Maḥmūd Varrāq Haravī (d.832), Fīrūz Mashriqī (d.894), and Ḥanẓala Bādqīsī (d.unknown); nonetheless, the frst poem that most resembles the ghazal in form and meaning as per the poetic idiom accorded the ghazal is Shahīd Balkhī (d.936) and then Rūdakī (d.940):29 I swear on your life and swear with moxie That I will not turn away from you nor hear advice from a proxy They keep advising and I give in at no price For my fealty to you trumps any old advice I have heard that paradise is found by him who Can bring to fruition another’s hope earnest and true A thousand partridges don’t hold a candle to a hawk And a thousand slaves can’t match one king and his regal stock If the Chinese kings take just one whif of your face They would abandon all and all possessions seem as though disgrace If the Indic lords saw a hair of yours, even a strand 208

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Prostrate will they and idol houses will no longer stand Just alike Abraham in the abadon of hell am I: you bet As you will set me ablaze with the fre of regret May you be healthy and well: O thou bloom of heaven and Spring Upon whose qibla, your visage, praise to God all who to God upon praise sing30 The ghazal – and poems that are ghazal-like – due to its favored prosodical schemes and the use of shorter to medium meters, encourages excellence in terms of compound metaphors with loaded signifcations. This is particularly true later when a good ghazal is required to maintain a lack of congruity in its vertical axis. These tools owe their ingenuity and enigma to the poets’ vast knowledge of diferent sciences (i.e., astronomy and medicine), customs and mannerisms of daily life (both in their periphery and abroad), interactions with the Christian world31 and its customs, the emergence of Sufsm, existentialist dilemmas, a vast vocabulary, and many other factors and realities, most of which were encapsulated in their milieu: His fowing tresses form a cross And his lips give of the miraculous breath of Jesus When those tresses fall and cross, I see in them the abyss, but my soul’s fountain of life beseeches.32 This infusion of learnedness and sagacity in tandem with the development of the ghazal as a genre in later years, necessitated a slight elongation (thaqīl or heavy as pertains to meters) of the meters in some of the ghazals.33 It is of note that the prosodical patterns of the ghazal are commensurate with its developmental stages that include but are not limited to variations of theme in accord with time, the philosophical tendencies of any given period leading to existentialist questions, and of course other happenings within the poet’s own life. Generally speaking, with some obvious exceptions, the early days of the ghazal demonstrate a preference for shorter (lighter) meters, as the musicality of the ghazal far superseded its social impact. The “art of verbal embellishment” (badī’) deals with rhetorical fgures.34 The usage of these literary devices and fgures depends largely on the genre. Perhaps the most important of these as far as a ghazal is concerned is paronomasia and its many derivatives: paronym (ishtiqāq), quasi-paronym (shubh-i ishtiqāq), paronomasia (jinās-i tām), quasi-paronomasia (jinā-is nāqiṣ), contiguous paronomasia (jinā-is lāhiq), anagram (qalb), palindrome (qalb-i mustavī), and so on. Poets used rhetorical fgures to create enigmas that were emotionally charged and afective; however, they also used them to show of their slight-of-hand with these fgures. Other important rhetorical devices of distinction were etiology (ḥusn al-ta‘līl), amphibology (īhām), eapanadiplosis (radd al-‘ajuz ala al-ṣadr), epanastrophe (radd al-ṣadr al al-‘ajuz), and amphibological congruity (īhām al-tanāsub). All said, none of these are of any surprise in any genre of poetry post the 11th century. Further to this, however, ghazal is not a genre obsessed with a handful of literary devices, and it can be considered an equal-opportunity genre when concerning such devices; however, the previously mentioned amply utilized, as they yielded the desired compounding efect in each hemistich and distich.

Manūchihrī:35 Wine and Other Temes We have already seen that there were certainly early harbingers of the ghazal as concerns meaning and even intent. However, when considering these early works (9th–11th century), Manūchihrī can be credited as having had the most impact on the theme and the lexicon of the ghazal, even 209

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though, as far as many are concerned, he never wrote a ghazal as it is conceptualized today.36 His qiṭ‘as37 are for all intents and purposes ghazals that were merely only shorter, being only 7–10 lines, and were thematically congruous in each distich. By popularizing and establishing his leitmotif of wine-songs (khamriyyāt) and descriptive poems (vaṣfyyāt), he set the stage for the creation of a thematically loaded ghazal lexicon and a platform upon which serious potential was realized in later years. His afnity for the theme of wine, particularly, does infuence the derivative meaning of it in the ghazals of the following centuries and as such is a major thematic infuence with the onslaught of Suf themes in the 12th century: Wine was an elixir, which if drunk by a gazelle in a meadow, would turn the gentle antelope into a roaring lion. Wine possessed all the attributes “known” to man, but in the twelfth century these virtues are supplanted by the truer virtues of the developed intellect. This subject is one of many where a clear divide exists between the Persian poet and his Arab predecessors and even contemporaries.38 This is a particularly important area, among many others, in the study of the ghazal, where we see an incontrovertible thematic schism with the Arab poets of Arabia. Take, for example, this khamriyya by ‘Amr b. Kulthūm: A wine mixed with water and red as if mixed with ḥuṣṣ After drinking it, we will think of “no mas” We will become benefcent, philanthropic, elevated higher This wine will keep the needy free from desire: And all memories of their hardship will fade away.39 Compare with Anvarī’s (12th-century) ghazal (Sample III, Volume II), where the only mention of drinking and wine is the image of the beloved drinking the poet’s blood and the only other concern is the oblique mention of wisdom within the nuance of sobriety and insobriety. If reason is held to be synonymous with sobriety, then love will fall on the far side of the spectrum: insobriety. A reasonable individual will think that love is a foolish emotion, because it makes one behave in demeaning ways that contradict one’s better judgment, but the ghazalist of the 12th century fnds reason a contradiction to love and love the greatest form of reason. This infatuation is not limited to Manūchihrī’s qiṭ‘as by any means.40 His expressions of disillusionment with his routine courtly duties, which otherwise impressed upon the poets pouring outlandish praise upon an often noxious patron, can explain his particular focus on these themes (particularly wine and its existential angle) and can be clearly seen as a scathing commentary: This world is a dog acting the fool upon the bite If you don’t bite it frst and bite with all your might Don’t let your heart the evil of this world ponder For the world will with no thought tear you asunder Bring forth the wine for it is still the best of all With wine in the fangs of time you are no longer a thrall41 Even his panegyrics show his reliance on wine as a thematic mainstay in many of the nasībs in the 12th century. His very famous panegyric and nasīb in the mentioned qaṣīda speak to this. The following is a small excerpt of a far larger and astoundingly detailed discursive on wine and the grape that makes it, far from being commensurate with its ensuing pukka in its madḥ. 210

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What is particularly of note in this otherwise extremely long nasīb is that we are witnessing a recalibration of poetics of the period and a poignantly revealing eye for the minutiae which will become the characteristic of the fully developed ghazal. The very frst distich is both enigmatic and typical of a nasīb of the period (for the complete poem, see Sample IV, Volume II):42 It is the month November, so bring forth that juice of the grape For fate has given the king luck of the draw and luck wears no drape This following qiṭ‘a speak to a fully-fedged ghazal in terms of meaning and we see the beginnings of some incongruous distichs as well; and again we see the theme of wine fully highlighted as an elixir of self-realization: Here comes the night and so tortures me sleep Forsooth friend bring forth the elixir, so sleep makes no peep I will rob away sleep with reddest of all red wine Indeed, no better way for the eye of youth not to shut a lign I am bafed how one even can want to head to bed When in the palace there is wine that is so red Even more bafing is how one can drink with no harp abound And runs to fnd that wine and goes round and round With no whistle the horse does not budge to drink water And man is no less than a horse and no wine is less than water In the congregation of the free the three things that are and more the better The yawp of the rebec, juiciest of kebobs, and wine that is redder than redder We are the folk of wine, meat on a stick, and the lute And so happy that they are all available: what a hoot, what a hoot!43 His sentiments on wine undoubtedly remind one of Khayyam’s ephemeral nuances and foreshadow a later Suf insistence on the ethereal and wine as the facilitating elixir.44 The ghazal goes through a myriad of substantial changes starting from the 10th century until the 12th century in the Persian-speaking world in terms of its themes, even its purpose. Certainly, however, it is in the 12th century that the ghazal begins to become potent as a genre and settle into being a content form that has specifc formatting conventions: 10–15 distichs, thematic incongruity of the distichs, and most importantly the themes it covers. As mentioned, Sanā’ī’s monumental presence as the father of Suf poetry in this century, compounded by the existential uncertainties that the poets began to face, played a major role in this development, particularly the concept of qalandariyya (antinomianism). Thematically we see an angst directed at a mendacious celestial sphere, considered a co-conspirator in the existential dilemma of the poet compounded by the no longer benefc, and even lackadaisical, patron of the age: an unexpected nodus. This not only underscores a metamorphosis of the beloved in Persian verse but also grounds a new understanding of the beloved by poets at large by means of the pertinent style (sabk)45 of an epoch that is bent on ameliorating massive shortcomings – both earthly and divine: Your temperance refects the hardship of the times Your beauty refects God’s glory and grace Your whisper of union in the ears of intellect Prepares the way for the long wait to come The fragrance of a fower from the garden of your face 211

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Can cast in my path a thousand painful thorns Having seen that face, now tell me of your abstinence And give my heart a chance to think of what to do The nature of the times has burnt me up alive I pray to God your temperance is not akin to that! Anyone like Athīr who fell in your trap His life until eternity would not be free from fear46 We see in the 12th century a new nuance of love and romanticism that is thematically indirect and a thematic maze of sorts. This blurry distinction between love, lover, and beloved becomes a key component of the ghazal’s ability to speak to the more philosophical and existential issues as the role of the protocol role players in this triangle gets extended to include a profound discursive on madness and reason.47 These are the themes that continue to dominate the ghazal to this day, particularly the notion of the mad sage: I am drunk and you mad: who is to guide us to abode? Hundred times no less I said stop drinking more than allowed I don’t see a soul in this township wise One worse than the other: mad with no disguise48 As such, the defning characteristics of an erstwhile beloved are further morphed into a complex web of coquetry, deceit, and injustice that was a refection of the times these poets were living in. This is also consistent with the uncanny similarities per images conveyed by the poet about both the patron and a beloved from whom one is not to expect the slightest warmth.

Khāqānī Shirvānī:49 Angst as Ghazal Tematic Impetus In the 12th century, the poet who probably more than any other paves the way for the multifunctionality of a ghazal as a philosophical tool is Khāqānī Shirvānī (d.1199).50 He personifes the bitterness and hatred that the poet feels as pertains to his society – and metaphysically towards the Celestial Sphere, and this shapes his metaphors. His bitterness towards the Celestial Sphere is at times his personifcation of the universe in the body of a rival in a ghazal (see Sample V, Volumve II).51 As is seen in his ghazals, and indeed his other poetry, we come across a mature refection on life burdened by an existential tinge that has no pretenses of propriety. This is a far cry from poets in the 10th and 11th centuries, and this is what sets this century apart. It is an introduction to a theme of angst that later incorporates the erstwhile other themes to further exaggerate its intent. It does have its share of appeasement of an unrelentingly vicious beloved, but it also cries foul and speaks to a higher reason for the beloved’s behavior, in many instances positing the celestial sphere as a source of all that tortures him: Will anyone ever show me kindness? I don’t think so. Will anyone ofer me shelter from the storm? I don’t think so. Will a time come in life when I can take a deep breath? I don’t think so! My heart is knotted in sorrow. Will the heavens ever ofer a cure? I don’t think so. Is there anyone out there who can untie these knots, Or give me some friendly advice? I don’t think so. 212

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Alas! Will my fery sail ever lead me to shore On this stormy sea of sorrow? I don’t think so. If waves smash your bark to pieces, would you Still rely on the jib? I don’t think so. Khāqānī has petitioned the heavens for justice. Will they ever respond? I don’t think so52 At times it even seems that the mention of a beloved is symbolic of simple desires and needs whereby luck is a foe cradled by the cycles determined by the celestial sphere. What is most striking, however, and it is prevalent in the ghazal of this century, is that more often than not, Sufsm is merely a terminological source for these poets whose main complaint is being forsaken by the courts. Although there are certainly exceptions to this rule, it stands to reason that the Suf lexicon plays well into the hands of poets who want more from earthly life and ironically use the language meant for those who strive for less – as far as a true seeker of the path is concerned. This is most poignantly seen in an acute sense of self-pity and a rigid adherence to a martyr complex. These feelings of the poet, well refected in their ghazals, are by no means absent from their other works and are by no means mere trivial, particularly so in the poetry of Khāqānī, who feels like an eternal victim to luck and love: I have not even a half-pal in all of Shirvān Ok! Let’s forget friends I could not call acquaintance even a one I am the Hussein of times, and this so-called folk my Yezid and Shimr My days are all ‘Āshūrā and Shirvān indeed my Karbalā53 There is a sense of angry surprise concerning the way he is being treated by the world at large in his ghazals and other poetic expressions: all other pains and people are merely subsidiaries under the yoke of the celestial sphere. The surprise is curiously close to what is encountered in the nasīb of the Jāhiliyya, albeit under the rubric of a varied motif: I did not know that this could be the color of love Nor did I know the world intended for me to be hand in glove I did not think that such a lovely blossom Could hide fangs so awesome My health and wealth have vanished Commensurate with my mind and reason: famished And all my patience feverish has fed from this feld For there was no room for patience here and not one to yield When I was bound and branded with passion as though a dove When trapped completely I was no longer worthy of love From pain to love there was but four fngers a distance But from fealty to promise there was to be no instance The heart quit in joining the caravan of its beloved and its journey to endure For its horse was too lame and the distance long and unsure And Khāqānī’s lament is now heard beyond the reaches of the spheres Where love’s lament of the beloved never disappears54 Khāqānī is the prime representative of a time where the ghazal seems to become indispensable as a self-soothing literary weapon and a potent philosophical heuristic. His ghazals are a 213

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thematic potpourri, none devoid of fury that lashes at an unrelenting, aggressive world where his movements are limited, his fnances limited, and his pain limitless. He was not allowed to leave Shirvān to go to Khurāsān for a mystical hajj of sorts on many occasions, leading at times to his imprisonment; the result of one of these times is an encomium for the visiting Andronicus Comnenus under the rubric of a prison song (ḥabsiyya) – one of his best and a testament to his awe-inspiring hand at artifcial wordplay and flled with the ample substance and veiled hints typical of his poetry:55 God, I seek refuge in you from the torments of the times! I want no mercy from the ‘Abbāsids, Nor do I wish to bend in servitude to the Saljuqids. Since the celestial sphere does not heed my cries, Whether it be Arslān or Bughrā, what diference can it make?56 A study of his magnifcent and large corpus clearly shows one thing in the study of ghazal: there is an underlying interlinear connection between his qaṣīda and the ghazal thematically, which in the case of this study points to the fact that the ghazal is truly the summary of the emotional state of a poet otherwise forsaken in his qaṣīda and some of his other genres: For those to whom you are counsel, what sorrows are in store? For those whose souls you possess, what fear of death can there anymore? I wish eternal happiness to the man who drinks from sorrow’s cup In your presence, and who raises a during to the memory of that sorrow up! At the gates of your abode, lamentation is the lot of your suitors; They are stabbed and beaten in the stomach like kettledrums – nay looters. No one who is interested in you gets anything from the heavens above But the sphere’s oppressive strap across the back is the response to love Your love without hesitation easily tortures all If one suitor still says he is true, even the abdāl will concur the fall Your tresses are like infdels, who drink the blood of a thousand folk But that is only when they want to be nice that only in blood they soak You are always on the make and still you say, “Khāqānī is mine.” It’s just a lot of hot air; will Khāqānī’s heart and action align?!57 With the invasion of the Mongols in the early 13th century, the literary geography of Persian poetry changes immensely. Existentialism, desire for a better milieu, and nostalgia become major themes, and as such, many poets appeal to Suf ideas to better defne, and make sense of their environment. There are far too many poets to mention; however, the most important fgure, and perhaps the most well-known poet, in the history of Persian verse, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d.1273), who, along with Irāqī (d.1289), re-defned Sufstic inclinations in the future of ghazal in his massive work Dīvān-i Shams, focuses entirely on a divinely romantic tryst with Shams, whose character necessitated for him a canonical poetic treatise and a sample of whose work is indispensable in any study of the ghazal. It is a Suf testament to parameters of love and reason, as the very frst line indicates (See Sample VI, Volume II):58 Reason is here, O lover hide and hide quick Alas, alas, what to do with reason not to get sick 214

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Rūmī, the study of whose ghazal is deserving of a voluminous work in itself, plays a large part in advancing the language of the ghazal not only in the way he capitalizes on the incongruity of each line as a macro-discursive within the body of the ghazal but also because of how he is able to compound the development of the theme of the martyr-poet in his ghazal and other works. His ghazals succinctly chronicle much of what came before him in this genre.

Ḥāfẓ and the Post-Ḥāfẓ Ghazal: Perfection Gained, Perfection Emulated The 14th and 15th centuries are noteworthy. For one, Ḥāfẓ and Jāmī lived and died in the 14th and 15th centuries, respectively, but also because it is in these centuries that we see the manneristic inheritors of the 12th and the 13th centuries both in terms of the rhetoric and themes of the ghazal. Their work, furthermore, defnes, through its treatment of the typical topics and tropes, both within the body of the ghazal and other nostalgic canons of Persian verse, an insight into an erstwhile poetics and ethos while being mindful of their present. These poets are sometimes also shown to be experimentally unabashed with their penchant for stubborn riddle-like vagueness that fnd its peak in the ghazal of the Indian style beginning in the early to mid-16th century. Geopolitically speaking, these were tumultuous times in the Persian-speaking world, as confusion persisted and violence roared in most places, particularly in the 14th century, when the Timurids were waging wars of expansion and regions were brimming with civil unrest. Geopolitical upheavals can have literary reactions commensurate with the intensity of time and place, and the ghazal has been the most apt tool, although also the most cryptic, for that reaction in the literary history of the Persian-speaking world. These are by no means the only indicators of success, as Ḥāfẓ’s milieu was for all intents and purposes a safe haven and was one of the few tranquil environments in the war-ridden 14th century.59 In hindsight, many poets have been put through immense difculty in their environments and have been, and are, mediocre at best. As concerns the scholarly parsing of the ghazal in varied centuries, it is the poet’s ability to create an inspired vision of his or her milieu, which can in fact be entirely antithetical to the ideas and ideals of the times, that can extend the potency of their ghazal. It is their ability to use the localized and globalize it that ultimately defnes their ghazal as an empathetic tool that has in its view humanity at large. Ḥāfẓ’s contemporaries and near contemporaries received little attention because of Ḥāfẓ’s brilliance, his immense humanistic reach, and his uncanny ability to synthesize existentialism and angst while speaking fuently to his time and place in the world: all with a bacchic and antinomian tinge.60 As such, the 14th and 15th centuries were not considered rich in ghazals, which in itself is a subjective assessment for any period, as they did not and could not have the capability to escape their “Ḥāfẓocentric” classifcation. The poets of these centuries are considered part of the School of ‘Irāq (Sabk-i Irāqī). This assessment has contributed to stylistic misnomers in their regard in the 19th and 20th centuries, when most, if not all, of the Persian literary past has been redefned and post-rationalized. If any style at all, these poets fall into a category all their own, that is, Sabk-i Ḥāfẓ, and later maybe even Sabk-i Jāmī. Ḥāfẓ is the pinnacle of the ghazal and perhaps the reason poets such as Khusrau of Delhi (d.1325), Amīr Ḥasan Sijzī of Delhi (d.1337), Khwāja Niẓām al-Dīn ‘Ubaidullāh Zākānī of Qazvīn (d.1371), Rukn al-Dīn Auḥadī (d.1337), Abū al-‘Atā’ Kamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd Khwajū (d.1352), ‘Imad al-Dīn Faqīh of Kirmān (d.1371), Jamāl al-Dīn Salmān Sāvajī (d.1376), Shāh Ni‘matullāh Valī (d.1431), Mu‘ī al-Dīn ‘Alī (Qāsim), Amīr Āq-Malik Shāhī (d.1453), Ibn Ḥusām (d.1470), and Hilālī (d.1529), who could lay claim, in any given century, to being crown jewels of their time are heralded for their other genres of poetry and always less for their ghazal or ghazal-like expressions. In studies of this period, when concerning the ghazal, these poets are 215

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criticized for a lack of creativity or the exaggerated imitative character of their ghazals – certainly not their other genres.61 Ḥāfẓ, and his insurmountable shadow, can almost solely take responsibility for these estimations that are at times plainly wrong when we revisit some of the all-encompassing ghazals by the likes of Hilālī (see Hilālī, Sample VII, Volume II). Ḥāfẓ can no longer be categorized within an epoch since all that follow are in one way or another parroting his thematic approach or are composing while conscious of being compared. Ḥāfẓ is synonymous with the ghazal in the Eastern world, and his ghazals defne for many the cognitive and nostalgic paradigms so embedded in the region, particularly Iran, where they are considered prophetic: If Sa‘dī’s Gulistān has been read by more people, and Mawlavī’s Manavī has been called the Koran in Persian, no book has been so reverenced, no poet so celebrated, and no verse so cherished as Ḥāfẓ’s ghazals. Auguries from his divan have decided the fates of individuals and empires, rebels and heretics as well as the pious have died with lines by Ḥāfẓ on their lips, and religious and philosophic arguments have been won by apt quotation of a hemistich. Ḥāfẓ sang a rare blend of human and mystic love so balanced, proportioned, and contrived with artful ease that it is impossible to separate the one from the other; and rhetorical artifce is so delicately woven into the fabric of wisdom and mysticism that it imparts a vivacity and freshness to ideas that, in and of themselves, may not have been new or original with Ḥāfẓ.62 He says: O cupbearer, come forth, take the fask around, and pour if for one and all For love seemed easy at frst, didn’t seem hard, didn’t require a raucous brawl From the smell of the musk that the wind unwinds from her swaying bangs From the twist of her black hair what blood that upon the hearts dost befall pranks If the old Zoroastrian of the tavern says, make your prayer rug red with wine Don’t Fiddle! For the wayfarer knows of the ways and means of life and its riddle. In the abode of the loved ones what safety, what continuity, what joy For every other minute the caravan screams: Pack up and join the convoy The night is dark, the waves are scary, and a whirlpool looms horridly near Those on the shore can never know our state and how dear is our fear I achieved ill repute by being selfsh in my ways How will my ill repute be hidden when it is talked of in every place? If you seek union, don’t be hidden from the beloved Ḥāfẓ, Heed: Run from all your desires, your wants: run hard, run steady with sprightly speed!63 Here he exemplifes lyric poetry that is mindful of its milieu and well aware of a long literary history going back to the Arab poet: In the abode of the loved ones what safety, what continuity, what joy/ For every other minute the caravan screams: Pack up and join the convoy (reminiscent of the itlāl va diman). Also, following the logic of the distichs and the hemistichs in this poem, it becomes clear that the speculations per the molecular nature of Persian poetry stand most to reason in the ghazal and more so in Ḥāfẓ’s ghazal. The atomistic chronology of the distichs speaks to this clearly: Yester night our master came from the mosque to the tavern So, what are we to do? O men of the path, the companions of the cavern? 216

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How are we, the followers, to prostrate in the direction of God’s home? When the Caesar of our souls has called the house of wine his Rome In the ruins of the Magi explain we too want to be neighbors For from the day immemorial, this destiny has been deemed the fruit of our labors If intellect knew how fancy heart fnds the chains of his tresses The “wise” would have gone mad to know the feel of his caresses The bird of our soul had momentarily acquired a sense of relief When you unwound your hair and yet again we were mad with grief Your pretty face revealed a divine sign of kindness and fealty Therefore, all we interpret, from that one sign, is your temperamental facility Is your heart of stone, even one night, in despair? From our fery sighs and our nightly pangs in our lonely lair A wind clashed with your hair and my whole world turned black With the atrabilious hair of yours I got punished with a vicious smack The arrow of our sorrow has surpassed the Seventh Heaven Hafz heed for this arrow is only meant to cause grieving!64 Rypka speaks to this type of thematic and topical chronology in Ḥāfẓ’s ghazal when he says, Thus, a Persian poem should be read in a diferent manner from that customary to the European, less as a whole, more as fligree work, for it is full of fnely-wrought details, with no strictly logical sequence of verses in any given poem as is common in the West. It is as if the poets exhausted themselves to such an extent by giving form to such refnement that the ftting together as a whole escaped:65 If that Turk of Shiraz attains my heart with her mole For that mole, I will endow Samarqand and Bukhara all at once – all in whole Give the rest of the wine O cupbearer for in paradise you could not fnd Neither the promenade of Muṣallā and the riverside of Rukn Ābād nor their kind My God! These dark-eyed beauties, with their coquette and playful cause Can do more damage than Tatars at the King’s spread meant for their applause The beauty of the beloved is complete due to our demise Colors, lipsticks, and mascaras will never do, as we do sufce Talk about the musicians and the feast and the wine and don’t talk of fate For no one can philosophize that secret before it’s too late From that ever-growing passion that Joseph displayed I knew That love would bring Zulaykhā out from her veil of chastity to plain view You called me names and I am glad: May God keep you safe! But tell me is it ftting for those luscious ruby lips to afict such grief Listen to my advice my dear and know that far and near Wise youth prefer the console of the old sage to all else: Hear! Hear! You have written an ode and have pierced so many a pearl Now come forth and sing it loud and hurl So that the sphere rewards you with Pleiades and deems you Earl66 This poem is often interpreted as though the poet is in despair due to the jealousy he feels from the warring winds touching the beloved’s hair. However, a better interpretation, in accord with the lexicon of the time, would be to say the hair’s wild (dishevelled) nature prompted the lover’s 217

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heart to be in a wild commotion, as though a breeze were moving to and fro. There are other particularities worth noting in this poem. The concept of the mole in the frst distich is one such thing. The darkness of the mole suggests the unknown, which, in company with the superfcial aesthetics of a poem, can create a sense of ambiguity on the part of the poet. It is the darkness of the mole that suggests the unknown and the beyond, but because it is attractive, it begs investigation for him: a lovely trap. At the same time, because of the teasing nature of the beloved, it remains hidden. Hence, it is impossible to go beyond this point in our investigation, whether we posit a physical or a mystical beloved. Ḥāfẓ’s cited poems (see Sample VIII–X, Volume II) are considered the best ghazal can be and has been, and it is easy to see why. There is a veiled congruity in the incongruous thematic build-up of the poems. There is a refned admixture of mystical, bacchic, and existentialist dilemma that is well woven into the inter-fabric of lines, where a reader, although aware of the celestial banality, in terms of its mean and unforgiving actions, never seems to lose hope. In the 15th century, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d.1492) became the undisputed champion of Persian poetry. His ghazals, among his other works, symbolize a nuanced approach to poetics, one which was not experienced since the time of Ḥāfẓ: Jāmī scarcely wrote a line of poetry that does not reverberate with mystical overtones; and in him and the Herat school of poets, many of whom migrated to the Indian subcontinent after the fall of Herat to the Uzbeks and then to the Safavids shortly after Jāmī’s death, the subtle twists of meaning and calculated use of mystically ambiguous vocabulary that is normally said to characterize the “Indian” style of Persian poetry surface from the accumulated stock of topoi and tropes inherent to the poetic idiom. With Ḥāfẓ, the readeer is never quite certain which meaning is intended to predominate: from Jāmī’s time on, one may be certain that all possible meanings are intended, but especially the “sufstic.”67 His ghazal follows the same logic and in the usual fattery as concerns the beloved, and we can see much of what was already expressed in the hyperbolic images describing a patron, although he did not dabble in panegyrics. Nonetheless, the template was long established for such analogousness (see Sample XI, Volume II).68 Jāmī’s pictorial poetics is a perfect prelude to what comes in Indian-style poetics after him. It speaks to an efort to create Shelley-like synesthesia as a backdrop to his philosophical discourse. It is potently revealing of a poet who dabbles in all poetics, contemporary and historical. He speaks to a path, a way, and a mannerism, and as such, he is ultimately a didactic ghazalist who decorates philosophy with otherwise typical fattery – though Sufstic fattery: The ray of the candle of your face refected upon the sphere It became a slice of sun and provided a shadow below far and near Jumped up from your illuminating face a bolt of ray – and then some Burned to the ground the fstful of fotsam and jetsam How lucky that wild buck, sphere the blood fend, that love for it deemed A saddle-strap upon its collar no matter how it galloped and careened Your promenade upon the earth enacted from the holy spirit a praise: “How lucky the dust that upon your path prostrated and further dost raze” Saw in the morning the jolly spirit of those drunk with your mien and feast It tore as such its azure shirt and lit up as to say “I am pleased, so pleased!” The parrot of logic by the wonder that is your eyes and face Saw dusted its mirror of comprehension with tongue ablaze 218

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Jāmī had no business thinking he could go and your love brave If it weren’t for his sheer will to seek death in its awe-striking wave69 Jāmī does not insinuate. His notion of love is no more nuanced than is his topic. What sets him apart in his ghazals is his unabashed appeasement of a beloved, who is still oblique as to whether earthly or divine: this latter is a mainstay of any good ghazal of the period. The last four lines speak to the massive infuence of Ḥāfẓ on any poetry or poetics after him: “For love seemed easy at frst, didn’t seem hard, didn’t require a raucous brawl” and “The night is dark, the waves are scary, and a whirlpool looms horridly near/Those on the shore can never know our state and how dear is our fear.” If we are to consider his ghazal commensurate with his other works, it becomes abundantly clear that the path of the lover in his ghazal is that of a hero in an epic agenda, as articulately stated by Yaghoobi. The beloved facilitates a favor for the lover no matter how hard the task: For Jāmī, the importance of Zulaykhā’s character is directly related to Yūsuf ’s own quest for the divine. In this work she is portrayed as the embodiment of the trials and tribulations that Yūsuf must overcome on his path.70 There is a subtle uncertainty as to his Suf inclinations, and this resonates with other scholarly estimations of Jāmī and the sincerity of his intent in his ghazals and other works. This is the type of ambiguity that can at times bafe in works that have an epic tinge to their celestial, and otherwise divine, inclinations.71

Maktab-i Vuqū‘ and Sabk-i Hindī What follows is a summary study of two particularly important periods in the post-Ḥāfẓ and post-Jāmī era in the history of the development of the ghazal. Maktab-i Vuqū‘ (School of the Realism), which is a less-studied 16th-century phenomenon in scholarly investigation of the ghazal, fnds its themes in the most clichéd of Persian topics: love and the interpersonal relationship of the lover and the beloved. What is missed in the scholarly estimation of this period, and is unique, is the large theater of poetic experimentation with the ghazal, particularly as concerns the dynamics of the lover and the beloved. This period, or rather this school, shuns the standards of this relationship, which were priorly immersed in varying degrees of blind fealty to unrequited love. In the earlier ghazals, we see the lover, the poet, often masochistically entangled with dramatic and insincere expressions, whether veiled in divine or earthly appeasement. Maktab-i Vuqū‘ ’s more sincere approach punctuates marked diferences from the poetic past in that regard: a short-lived school that questions blind devotion, particularly so in its ghazal expressions. The “school of the realists” sets into motion a new criterion for the lover in the ghazal. It is a renegade thematic derivation. In terms of stylistics and poetic presentation, its poets are inheritors of the style and mannerisms of the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly the 15th century. Their treatment of the triangle of love was already two centuries in the works. The forerunners of this new style are Bābā Fighānī72 and Lisānī Shīrāzī,73 who defnitively instituted it. Gulchīn Ma‘ānī speaks to this “school of the realists” as one whose poets let their audience into their emotions without the many fgurative complexities that can often hinder such insight. Clearly, Ḥāfẓ’s poetry is a logical precedent for this school, as it displays, in many of its elements, an immense sincerity.74 Maktab-i Vuqū’ is a crucial point in history of Persian literature not because it was an extraordinarily fruitful time poetically but because it highlights the development of Persian verse, particularly in terms of theme and movement of theme, in the ghazal and highlights the importance of milieu in appraising a beloved. It does serve a lesser role in its early – even opaque – years; however, it 219

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becomes a focal point in the study of Sabk-i Hindī, which follows it almost immediately – and even overlaps it in its later years. As Sabk-i Hindī could be considered a mishmash of 12th-century poetics and rhetoric, harsher in its tone due to its theater of geo-politics, and difcult, as far as its overly ambiguous language is concerned, Maktab-i Vuqū‘, with its simple utterance, although clever in its sense of observance in terms of poetical historicity and rhetorical protocol, does highlight a speck of creativity by the token of putting forth an extreme sense of anxiety by defying its thematic precedence, consequentially giving it more credence. Maktab-i Vuqū‘ was an instance when poets seem to have foregone their dealings with difcult mannerisms and enigmatic expressions to search for true human emotions and realistic human reactions. It took on the realities of existence without persistence in canonical methods of expression that in many instances lacked emotional intelligence and logic. It is essential to see that reality, in their poetic parlance, is almost consequentially defned and found on a versifed expression of truth that is fueled by annoyance and angst. Maktab-i Vuqū‘ has been often perpetrated as a purgatory between the Timurid period and Sabk-i Hindī. Having been coined as such, a purgatory, certainly one should not be led to believe that in that taxonomy, Indian style is a paradise when it comes to poetic expressions and the ideas and ideals that made up the parameters of its dilectio, as will be discussed. Looking at the corpora of these poets, it becomes clear that they are merely interconnected stages on a path to another typology of meaning and another estimation of rhetoric. However, the one thing that can be ascertained is that it was a confused time for the dynamics of ideas that were immersed in the ideal love: The smoke of the fre worshiper’s house rises from the cabin of the lover proud If the lover chooses to take Moses’ fre to his abode A lightning upon the soul is the gratuity for your separation To Joseph and Zulaykhā, in whole, who will give the news of that mirror occasion Once the army of love decides to rumble and plunder It will frst make you stationary by taking away your legs from your under Whoever desires love upon the lane of the slender-bodied ones Will be sure to annihilate his heart and soul even if they were made of stones That who wants to reap the benefts of the bazaar of love and the lovely They must frst leave collateral for their eternal debt with their miserly melancholy If the beloved takes me in for a moment on that promenade of the garden in paradise Even if I had God’s heaven in embrace, without her face, God’s garden deems demise Not once will Shaykh-i Ṣan‘ān give a twirl around the house of idols – even if it were counted as a pilgrimage plus ten What use that, when his heart is somewhere with the Nestorian idol – immersed in unholiest of sin With this pain that Vaḥshī̄ seeks with a prayer to boot He should be killed, if he asked for remedy, and even that [death] is minute75 It is quite easy, based on the ongoing discussions of ghazal vs. ghazal-like, to see why ghazal is not just a content form, a genre per se, when we come across the following by Vahshī (d.1582), who in a ghazal in the body of a tarkīb-band, and centuries after the frst mature ghazal, displays all things ghazal and realist (with stress on the latter in the sarcastic last line) (see Sample XII, Volume II, for Vahshī’s tarkīb band): Even though Vaḥshī thinks of you no more And his heart does not envision your lustrous galore 220

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Even though his heart was broken and broken hearted he fared Even though he cried from the tyranny of what you had dared God forbid he might forget all your “tender care” God forbid he might listen to his real friends: Would he dare?!76 Here, Vaḥshī, perhaps the symbolic epitome of Maktab-i Vuqū‘, is building an argument in the vertical axis of his ghazal, indicating one by one and step by step the hyperbolic images of the beloved, likening the pangs of his separation to those in the legendary love of Yūsuf and Zulaykhā. Then he speaks of a pilgrimage around the idol house, and so on. In the maqṭa‘ (last line) of its poetic tautology, because it disengages with the Persian fatalistic view of acceptance in the most facetious manner, it serves as a good representative of how the poetry of four centuries were somewhat alike rhetorically and thematically and perhaps couched in similar topoi – yet diferent in terms of the linguistic nuances within an established theme. In the last line, it could be implied that Vaḥshī is abiding by the same traditional responsibilities of a lover by attesting to the notion that it is indeed blasphemy to ask for a remedy even if one is meant to be killed by such a beloved. It may seem that Vaḥshī is content with the typical absence of the quid pro quo; however, he is merely displaying an excellent example of feigned ignorance to highlight an un-burning (vāsūkht). This literary device, here, furthers the expressions of a fed-up lover. In the ghazal of this episode of Persian literary history, sentiment still takes center stage, so we see that no matter how dramatically void the frst few lines are, it is often the last line that defnes it as real, all in all creating a thematic escape of sorts. Superfcially, we can see that the poet is still bound to a code of etiquette long preached by poets before him, and this is true – with a melodious tone to boot – when he continues: He who wants the benefts of the Love’s bazaar Must invest with their madness – not with one but a thousand dinar It has been highlighted already that the image of the beloved has always been inextricably bound, even at its beginning, to the idea of the patron in Persian verse. One can see some of the very same imagery in the praise poems of this period as well. This following expression is quite contradictory to his lyrical one, whether ghazal or ghazal-like. It is also a testament that making blanket statements regarding any period is difcult. In a nasīb of a qaṣīda in praise of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad Mīr Mīrān, he says: I want one world worth of soul and many a mercy from the times So that I would sacrifce that whole world of soul [life] for the soul of my world, my beloved If he allows, I will lease the steadfastness of a mountain That is how much I want to be bound by my feet to his service Since this world made me gravitated to your threshold Even the wind of resurrection cannot force me [this dust] to leave your threshold Don’t even think that the storm of Noah could wash . . . Could wash from my forehead the dust that is stamped due to my prostration in his path77 This view of the patron from time immemorial and extending even to this period in praise expressions was a great step towards the realists’ view of love, as it widened the scope of an emotional syllogism. There is a Kierkegaard-like anxiety about sin that doesn’t occur in what can be called the “inimitable facility” or other attributed mannerisms of the 13th- to 15th-century 221

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bacchanalian poet, that is, the ghazals of Sa‘dī. The topos is at times juxtaposed with simpler rhetoric expanded within the lines. We see ‘Urfī (d.1591) demonstrate this in his ghazals. We also see clear sentiments of being nonplussed with the beloved in the very early lines. There is practically no thematic build-up to the vāsūkht nuance in this ghazal: O you jesting coquette what would happen if you were to be convivial What would happen if I were not to hear irreverent didactics? True I am a beggar all-around But so what if I were to sit in the circle like a king A bit too much I have set up tent upon the highest peak of the sphere What would happen if I were to come down and were aforded a corner? With this hand that is more tied up than the foot of my heart What would happen if I picked [with this hand] a fruit from the garden of immemorial? ‘Urfī this gussied-up face ruined all the masses What if I come out from under the veil of this yoke and say I am not who you thought78 The attainment of the beloved, especially in the latter part of the 11th century, became analogous with any game of chance. Consequentially, the role of the suitor metamorphosed and diverged in the ghazal into two diferent directions. One role was that of a gambling fend, who, faithful to his passion, kept on losing and came back to lose even more. The other role was that of a pawn (foot soldier) whose fate was predetermined by the whims of the player: the sphere and/ or the beloved. These elements of chance, fortune, and fate were attributes of a celestial sphere that was not to be trusted from time immemorial and was slowly beginning to complement the role of the beloved, both philosophically and thematically. There was one unequivocal disparity in this established parallelism: the suitor, historically, although fully aware of his eventual demise, chose to play this vicious game of love. This use of cosmology to describe the perversity of the beloved produced a vast array of metaphors in which the stars, the heavens, and the beloved are portrayed as coconspirators, whose single obsessive aim is to destroy the poet/suitor in a predestined pathetic game in which the lover has no chance. In the same breath, the beloved’s behavior, as that of the sphere (fate), is in many works compared to the game of dice as a logical consequence. Long before this literary school, and before being almost entirely overtaken by Suf ideals, this unpredictability already persisted: Until when will you attack Sanā’ī’s soul? How long will you threaten to take your hypocritical love away from me? Whatever used to be me, you fully erased and removed. How much longer will you play this game of deceit?79 This continued until the 14th century, where these phenomena are a foregone conclusion, yet now the lover, the poet, is determined to express his state in lieu of what is already a canon. This was a poetic canon, indicative of a poet ill with despair and a society weakened by social ills and injustice. This masochistic acceptance with no recourse was this school’s thematic preamble. No longer, however, is a beloved so vicious, shunning, and crude allowed to do what he does without stating his motivation: an icon probed. In the following dichotomy, this is clearly exhibited. This by Khāqānī: You have a single tongue and a thousand seductive ways. My soul and a thousand like it are hoping for one little wink. 222

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How, O how, will you ever stop killing our souls, When they are your God-given means of survival? You once said to me, “Think of me when you think of loyalty.” Go away, you pitiful jester! You are scarcely worth my time. I called upon you this morning, And all I got was a stream of abuse. The hand of your absence has sewn up my mouth; I am not able to say how perverse you are. How long will this insolent attitude last? What am I to do if not moan and cry?80 At the end of this ghazal he says in a sarcastic manner: You said, “I will drag your name through the mud, Khāqānī!” By God! You already have, and I’ll bet you have not fnished. Compare this with Āq Malik Shāhī’s ghazal in the 15th century: If I am not yearning, then what is this smoke churning If there is no fre, can there be smoke without burning Fate is determined to kill us and that is clear So why bite my fngers in sorrow and slap my hands arear When the arrow of that eye kills one and kills all When fate is set, what diference whether now or later I fall Just once for the sake of asking, ask that non-idyllic tress of hers – enquire What is in it for you, our pain, breaking our hearts, you desire? Shāhī’s sorrow and the prostrations of my competitors to what avail We are both slaves! What diference if this one’s good and the other you assail81 In this genre, which can even be called Vaḥshī style, he builds up the character of the beloved, for all intents and purposes his patron, and in the end, quite subtly so, gives a bite of sarcasm, whereas Khāqānī, who is known to have had the harshest of characters, bites the proverbial bullet anyway. This type of narrative structure in praise-type poems was already long in play. Dhamm-i shabīh bi madḥ, meaning a “reviling in a panegyric (praising here of a beloved) skin” was used to revile patrons to avoid certain reprisal. This leads one to believe that hypercereblization of topos was required in creating what was in the poet’s own mind a didactic (of sorts) backlash. This line by Anvarī is suggestive of this, and one may say it foreshadows the future of the beloved in the coming centuries, particularly as we see with the realists. Here, the cognitively nuanced and culturally biased notion of the beloved is clearly defned: I have a mind like fre and a discourse like water Acute in response and a nature so pure Unfortunately, there is no worthy patron in need of lionizing As alas there is no beloved deserving of a ghazal82 An interesting geo-political point in the origins of Maktab-i Vuqū‘ is that the patrons were now the Safavids, and they were not to be panegyrized. No longer could poets count on being under 223

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their aegis. The same was true, of course, of the 12th century, though to a lesser degree, as we have already seen. The poetics refects much of the qalandariyya (antinomian) nuances of the prior centuries. The antinomianism can be credited with much of the early nuance that highlighted much of the close attention that defnes Maktab-i Vuqū in its treatment of love. Salmān (d.1376), who was in his own right a master of bacchanalia and antinomianism, says, Your red ruby was seen on the day of creation on the surface of the cup The poor lover foolishly thought you would share your crop The cup was be-sweetened by your sweet ruby lip The secret of the “wine” was relinquished by every sip Man saw your black mole upon the olive of your hay He came to get a ration, but couldn’t leave, no how, no way Again the cincture of your tress untied Would make a hundred pious ones their religion chide Love was turning the wheel of fortune as to who must die The frst number hit was mine whom love appointed to cry My love got greedy and lifted the veil of piety Why stay quiet since I have become known as one with no propriety Last night Salmān was using his pen to convey the pain that overwhelms The was fre upon the paper and smoke riding upon the realms83 Although Suf language abounds, the intent here is not to be wholly free of this world but rather to give some thought to the surroundings in terms of treatment, having been completely complacent most times. Maktab-i Vuqū‘ is really a thickening of the same antinomian narrative that speaks to a fgurative ruin that is the real state of the soul. Many of its early social paradigm is refected in the lyrical works of such masters as Manūchihrī and Sanā’ī as well. In Maktab-i Vuqū‘, we see in earnest the refection of what would have logically been expected, although sporadically achieved before: anti-encomium. This taps into the reality of Classical poetics and begs the question of why a poet would want to dabble in realities where it is the fantastical images, particularly in the ghazal, that enshrine his or her ability. Rypka’s discourse on the nature of poetical experience directly addressed the realist phenomenon: Finally let us consider one of the fundamental questions: the reality of experience in the Persian lyric of the classical period, viz. until the rise of the European school. It is not possible to agree altogether with the conjecture that the contents refect only phantasy or imagination and not reality, but neither can one refute it entirely. The premises just expounded cover a wider span. Formalism, virtuosity, and convention tend, it is true, to a purely verbal play on images. But this would not at all be doing justice to Persian poetry, for within these limits too there are innumerable cases “where the experience, though unreal, is nevertheless encased in the innermost recesses of the soul”, thus representing no mere artistic verbalism or “poeticism”.84 Vāsūkht may seem to be the only redeeming characteristic in this literary school. It isn’t, but even if it were, considering the geopolitical situation of the times – and the poetical treatment of the beloved of the lover – it would have been well warranted: a natural moralistic progression of the lover or the poet and simultaneously the digression of beloved’s erstwhile indisputable esteemed standing – all commensurate with the rapidly deteriorating standing, or absence, of the patron. 224

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Maktab-i Vuqū‘ could have been an uprising against, as some have speculated, fighty mysticism and excess: If my beloved, my moon, takes the veil of that fery face With a fery sigh I will torch the nine spheres If you want to assassinate me O my bacchanalian beauty, you won’t need a blade Isn’t enough that you idle have made my repute so ill-fated A hundred calamities afect the masses, so much so that the angels warn far and near A hundred calamities in any direction you make visible that lascivious body O my silvery bodied one do not let just let anyone near For it is your real beauty that should be noticed, Like I do with you85 This of course can be true, but it is difcult to estimate these poets’ mystical standings. Some of these pent-up aggressions follow the poets well into the Indian style as well. Khiyālī (lit. imaginative) is a poet who fts perfectly well into the school of realists but is also very much a Sabk-i Hindī poet, as his sobriquet suggests: From the dewy green of your mustache, fowers grew healthy And from the cypress that is your slender body, sedition demanded fealty Now that your narrow mouth utters what is in your narrower heart From which I asked proximity and was still miles apart The heart in lieu of your long slender body Thought of the long cypress tree as pointless and shoddy I am so torn up that from my state in shambles Whoever became aware they too damned my gambles O you to whom Khiyālī no longer pays no mind From not giving a shit no more he can for a while unwind This derivation from a canon is a form of acusatio. It is a vituperation of sorts, enumerating pent-up aggressions. Even in the works of those in the 15th century with excessive Suf inclinations, although sometimes exaggerated, there are occasions when angst comes through, as we see in ghazals by Kamāl Ghiyāth Shīrāzī (d.1445), wherein a schizophrenic state, somewhere between a style and a mode, or even a mood, persists, imbued with bawdy epicureanism, although there is some uncharacteristic lollygagging still. What is clear, as is clearly delineated in such poems, is that this mode of discursive was a long time coming (see Sample XIII, Volume II).

Sabk-i Hindī (the Indian Style) Sabk-i Hindī (Indian style) refers to an episode in the literary history of the Persian-speaking world, but it also alludes to a cultural movement, at times linguistically marked, which was charged not only rhetorically but historically. With the onslaught of the Safavids (16th century), Persian poets began to represent their milieu accordingly, and although the Realists and the Indian style poets occupy more or less the same time, it is the Indian style poet who was most infuenced by the new attitude espoused by the Safavids. Understanding this style of poetics demands an understanding of its impetus. The centuries of the Indian style confront poets with geo-political upheavals whereby the patron in the Persian-speaking world was wholly preoccupied with a Shiite fervor that warded of panegyrics and court life. There were regional power vacuums to be flled in the subcontinent and inter-family and internecine squabbles. 225

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To estimate the traits of the poets who fall under the auspices of this period and its poetic production proves a difcult task, because a large number of these poets, over 450, had migrated to the subcontinent and were received graciously at the court of the Mughal emperors, especially that of Shāh Jahān (d.1666). They were Persian speakers – or at times Turkish speakers – who had a burden of a long tradition of Persian poetry as an insurmountable – yet resourceful – poetic reservoir: qaṣīda had once more a brisk business with the Mughals, and so did the ghazal. There were many Indian-born poets who were also part of this movement, and they dabbled in hard-to-fathom imagery to compete and save face. Unknowns such as Khwaja Husein Thanā’ī (mentioned in Bahārsitān-i Sukhan) to the very much known Ṭālib Āmulī (d.1626), Mashhadī Qumī, and so on have been called the forefathers of this style. Sufce it to say this diversity in thought and ethnicity in the Indian subcontinent certainly led to the production of some of the most enigmatic poetic compositions, particularly ghazals, in the history of Persian literature, tinged with the hypercerebralization particular to the Indian subcontinent and the Indian mind. The coinage of the term sabk-i Hindī was the result of this migration and the Indian-infuenced imagery. A distinct characteristic of the rhetoric in Sabk-i Hindī is the surgicality by which it draws its poetic images. Far-fetched images predominate in the verses of these poets. A particular diference in the ghazal of this period from that of the 12th century is the use of metaphors as compared to tropes. Several poets stand as the most prominent of the poetae docti in the Indian style. A study of their ghazals points to a trans-generational rhetorical and thematic metamorphosis that aimed to be diferent at any cost. Their distinction was more of a syntactic metamorphosis than a semantic one. The one constant in the ghazal of this style is the recurrence of amatory expressions tinged with the mystical. The beloved was the antagonist, the poet was the protagonist, and the patron (the sovereign for whom the poetry was composed) was the tertiary element to whom the poet escapes for protection from the vicissitudes of time and life singly personifed in the agony that was the beloved. As such, there are particularities that hark back to the earlier centuries of the qaṣīda, where one can see ample similarities between the characteristics of the beloved and the patron – yet again. Ṣā’ib Tabrīzī (d.1678) is considered a champion of this movement, whose ghazals are not only innovative and original but are also a testament to a literary resurgence deeply rooted in the historical poetics and productions of the Persian-speaking world. He traveled to India on two diferent occasions during Shah Jahān’s reign (1628–57) before he adjourned to Iran for good to be the poet-laureate at the court of Shāh ‘Abbās II (d.1666). The cerebral poetics and quasi-philosophical themes characteristic of the Indian style reach their climax with Ṣā’ib in his ghazals and other works. Although his magnifcent ghazals are thematically concurrent with the pertinent, and some address “common” themes of his period, they show subtle diferences in that they fnd their roots in another important century for the ghazal, the 12th century. The 12th-century ghazal of Iran has the prominent distinction, as mentioned, of being the frst century when a thematic shift occurs in the vertical axis of the ghazal with Sufsm; however, it is its labyrinthine language and images that are of most concern as pertains to the – sometimes considered derivative – poets of this period. A favorite theme in the ghazals of this school was heuristic. These were expressions that embodied the tribulations of mankind’s existential trial and error, and as such the poet’s utterance syntactically implied, often third-person, even impersonal, expressions that outlined to-dos and not-to-dos. Last and certainly not least were the homiletic expressions, where the poet preached to the audience (see Sample XIV, Volume II). There are many occasions when cryptic comments serve the poet well in keeping with the thematic incongruity necessary for the ghazal, and many of these poets observed that aspect 226

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of the ghazal. This particular observance was indebted to a compounding language and the manner by which they tried to force their heuristic language through theme. Once that theme engages images that are über-fantastical, then the image and theme fawlessly converge to make the intent clear. Ṣā’ib’s ghazal (Sample XIV, Volume II), although cleverly in line with a perfect ghazal expression, nonetheless abides by a certain poetic-thematic doctrine, which gives the reins to the theme even though the language is terse and intricate. This phenomenon is a mere infuence on Ṣā’ib by such predecessors as Ḥāfẓ and Sa‘dī and their panache for sahl-i mumtani‘, inimitable facility. This is clearly demonstrated in his reference to the lightning in the haystack of masses, whereby by mentioning masses, he has given away the tertiary element that is usually cryptic in a trope. Kinra aptly says in assessing the munshi writing, This line of thinking directly implicates a writer like Chandar Bhan in all the alleged faws of the so-called sabk-i hindī (with nary a mention, by the way, of tāza-gū’ī). But again, note the argument’s essential contradiction. On the one hand, it is stipulated categorically that Hindu munshīs were, by defnition, incapable of fully mastering Persian and thus had to resort to inserting Hindi words and expressions into their compositions. Yet this very same intellectually defcient species managed somehow to smuggle the hyperintellectual abstraction of the “Indian mind” into not only their own writings but the literature of the entire era – forcing even non-Indians like ‘Urf, Naziri, Nau‘i, Sa’ib, and the like to “succumb” (a word that is often used in the scholarly literature on so-called sabk-i hindī) to the new fad for abstraction, experimentation, and excess.86 This hyperintellection may be what makes Indian literati (Hindus in particular) especially prone not only to produce but also to appreciate esthetic formalism, artifce, and other fancy tricks to a degree unthinkable in other places (or among non-Indian Muslims). From this perspective, sabk-i Hindī is not just a particularly abstruse authorial style but also an ontology of audience reception. Rhetorically and fguratively, one can see an over-abundance of amphibological congruity, palilogy, overutilizations of paronymy, epanothosis, epanadipolosis, and so on in the poetry of Indian-style poets (see Sample XV, Volume II).

Notes 1 This chapter is dedicated to my daughter Iran Ghazal Korangy, for whom to wax lyrical is to understate: my fgurative, my real, my all. 2 Aside from the earlier forms of poetry, such as musammaṭ and Rubā‘ī, which contained an abundance of ghazal-like motifs, tashbīb, nasīb, and taghazzul were the frst aesthetically formulated examples of the ghazal. This is to say that, if extracted from the body of the qasīda, they are, in fact, ghazals. For more, see Alireza Korangy, Development of the Ghazal and Khāqānī’s Contribution: A Study of the Development of Ghazal and a Literary Exegesis of a 12th c. Poetic Harbinger (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 5. 3 Tenth-century Transoxania knew ghazal as a form of musical expression that went as far back as the Sasanid period. In a clever take on the ghazal, comparing it to the German lied, Fehn and Thym have correctly attributed the musicality of the ghazal to the repetitive nature of its prosody. Through a thematic argument, they bind the form and musicality of the Persian ghazal even to Schubert via the infuence on German poets. For more, see Ann C. Fehn, “Repetition as Structure in the German Lied: The Ghazal,” Comparative Literature 41, no.1 (1989): 36–45. Even though there is little doubt that ghazal-like poetry went at least back to that date, it is also quite clear that this form of musical expression in the Sasanid period was not based on prosody but on syllabry. In the Sasanian period, the fve musical forms that many Arab poets considered rhymed (musajja’) prose with ghazal-like themes were qaul, tarāna, surūd, pahlaviyyāt, and Khusravānī. Bārbad, at the court of Khusrau Parvīz, is credited with these expressions, and in fact the latter of these is named for this court: “The name of the musician at the court of Khusrau Parvīz. They say he came from Jahrum, which is a subsidiary of Shiraz and that,

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4 5 6 7

as a music theorician and a harper, he was second to none. They also say that the rhymed ballad originated with him and that rhymed ballad was named Khusravānī.” For more on Bārbad and his symbolic infuence on classical Persian genres, see ‘Alī Akbar Dihkhudā, Lughatnāma-i Dihkhudā, vol. 9 (Tehran: Mu’assasa-i Intishārāt va Chāp-i Dānishgāh-i, 1994), 285–287. Ibid. Also see Sīrūs Shamīsā, Sayr-i Ghazal dar Shi‘r-i Fārsī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Firdaus, 1991), 26. All translations in this chapter are mine. For more on this, see John N. Mattock, “Description and genre in Abu Nuwas,” Quaderni di studi Arab 5–6 (1987–88), where Abū Nuwās’s immense infuence on both Arab and Persian alike is highlighted both in terms of imagery and theme. Reynold Nicholson, History of Arab Literature, trans. Kayvāndukht Kayvānī (Tehran: Vistār, 2001), XVII. The main reason for this departure from panegyric was the marginalization of the panegyric in the court and the resulting penury of its poet – as such forcing the court poets to look inward for answers. This was an important event in the development of the ghazal, as it introduced Sufsm as a major thematic source for the ghazal. The shock of their newfound reality in the 12th century drew scathing responses from poets: Brother, a day will come when you hear about poetry and poets, And you will say that poets were has-beens and beggars. Know that in any realm, there is no escape from scavengers. God forbid that you fail to heed this advice!

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See also Muḥammad Ghulāmriḍāˀī, Sabkshināsī-i Shi‘r-i Fārsī (Tehran: Jāmī), 154. This is not to say these 12th-century poets completely abandoned their erstwhile panegyric production; however, it implies a slow emotional and as such productive digression in the panegyric, whereby the poets started to question the purpose of the panegyric and, as such, through these queries, questioned a hereto unforeseen existentialist dilemma that very early on found its way into their taghazzuls, nasībs, and tashbībs. Ultimately it found its perfect medium in the ghazal, where lyrical and existential become powerful cohorts. Alireza Korangy, “Masnavi,” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 849. For more, see Anne Blunt and Wilfred Blunt, The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia, Known Also as the Moallakat (London: Chiswick Press, 1888). Also see Ignác Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien (Halle: Niemayer, 1889). Also see Abū al-Faraj Isfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī, eds. ‘Abdullāh al-Alāyilī, Mūsā Sulaymān, and Aḥmad Abū-Sa‘d, 25 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1957–1964). For more on the structure and the importance of ecology, making it an ernest expression, see G. Jacobi, Altarabisches Beduinenleben nach den Quellen geschildert (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1967). Also see Renate Jacobi, “The Origins of the Qasida Form,” in Qaṣīda Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa (Leiden: Brill, 1996). The most famous and exemplary qasīdas per se are the pre-Islamic mu‘allaqas. In them, as well as in other long odes, the poets give form to a sequence of diverse themes. The polythematic qasīdas generally begin with amatory verses (nasīb). This prologue is often followed by a description of a camel; however, this section can also be absent. The closing of the ode is mostly formed by a section expressing a special aim of the poet. In case of the so-called qasīda containing a proclamation (or message), it can constitute a normal proclamation directed at another tribe or an individual but also a threat, warning, reproach, lampoon, demand, and so forth. In a praise qasīda, the fnal section is formed by a glorifcation of a tribe, tribal head, or, later, a ruler (e.g. the caliph or a governor). However, the closing of the ode can also be represented by a section in which the poet gives expression to his view of life or commemorates the past joys of youth (so-called remembrance qasīdas). Aḥmad Turjānīzāda, Sharḥ-i Mu‘allaqāt-i Sab‘ (Tehran: Surūsh, 1995), 16–18. Mokhtar Labidi, “Le Prelude Amoureux ou la Quete de L’ipseite dans la Poesie Arabe Classique,” Journal of Arabic Literature 38, no. 1 (2007), 94–95: Dans le nasib de la periode preislamique, il y a “quelque chose dont l’invisible presence nous comble, dont l’absence inexplicable nous laisse curieusement inquiets, quelque chose qui n’existe pas et qui est pourtant la chose la plus importante entre toutes les choses importantes, la seule qui vaille la peine d’etre dite et la seule justement qu’on ne puisse dire” (Vladimir Jankelevitch, Le je ne sais quoi et le presque rien). En efet, les themes amoureux que l’on trouve dans le prelude conventionnel refetent le desir du poete arabe classique de comprendre “l’inexplicable,” de se dégager de l’inertie voire de la decrepitude et de la mort pour aviver par le truchement de la reminiscence, de l’apostrophe et de la deploration des campements desertes le monde de la vie et

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de et de la stabilité. See also Sperl who speaks about the later qasīdas of the Arab poet and says, “This simple juxtaposition of some common features of aṭlāl/nasīb and madīḥ suggests a structure which moves per aspera ad astra, from afiction to redemption. The relationship between the two consists in a sheer juxtaposition of opposites, a structural feature of the parallelistic style of Arabic poetry. Nasīb literally means ‘description of a woman’s beauty in a poem and telling one’s state to the beloved in a poem.’” See Stefan Sperl, Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 19–20. Interestingly, tashbīb is also defned exactly as nasīb in Kitāb al-Maṣādir. See Qāḍī ‘Abdullāh Ḥusain b. Aḥmad Zauzanī, Kitāb al-Maṣādir, ed. Taqī Bīnish (Tehran: Alburz, 1995), 92. Lines from a qaṣīda by Imru al-Qays cited in Arberry, The Seven Odes (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957); also see Alireza Korangy, “Love and Reason in the Ghazal,” in A Companion to World Literature (New York: Wiley, 2018). For more, see Geert Van Gelder, The Bad and The Ugly: Attitudes towards Invective Poetry (ḥijā‘) in Classical Arabic Literature (Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1996). Lampooning or hijā’ seems to be the earliest of the intents of a qaṣīda. This nuance of the qaṣīda, though later somewhat less utilized, was not entirely abandoned by the poets. Of course, there were the occasional hijās of poets, in most cases in attacks against one another, but there were also occasions when the poet, in the most elemental purpose of the qaṣīda, panegyric, reminds us of qaṣīda’s early uses: hajv mushabbih bi madḥ (a ribald veiled in a panegyric); also see G. J. H. Van Gelder, “Genres in Collision: Nasīb and Hijā,” Journal of Arabic Literature 21, no. 1 (1990): 14–25. van Gelder, “Genres in Collision: Nasīb and Hijā,” 14. https://ganjoor.net/saadi/mavaez/ghazal2/sh13/ (accessed 12 March 2021). For more on cohesion in the disjointedness of the qaṣīda, see van Gelder, “Genres in Collision: Nasāb in Hijā,” 21. For a detailed discussion on many such borrowings by the Persian from the Arab, see Muḥammad-Riḍā Shafī‘ī-Kadkanī, Suvar-i Khiyāl dar Sh‘ir-i Fārsī (Tehran: Zavvār, 1983); also see ‘Umar Muḥammad Daudpota, The Infuence of Arabic Poetry on the Development of Persian Poetry (Bombay: The Fort Printing Press, 1934). Mu‘izzī captures the infuence of this theme (iṭlāl va diman), registering a macho past, as love is almost always characterized as frontlines of a battle, such as “let me nourish the quarters of my heart with blood.” This particular characteristic of love as a battle, a war, is the conrnerstone of the ghazal’s thematic drive through most of its developmental stages. Turjānīzāda, Sharḥ-i Mu‘allaqāt-i Sab‘, 55–57, ll; for more, see Pierre Jorris, www.albany.edu/~joris/ Tarafa.html (aaccessed 10 March 2018). “Sufsm kindles the poet-mystic’s sensitivities leading to an emotional uncertainty in the ghazal. A taste for the unattainable paradise preempted by a lack of concern for the mundane creates a sort of purgatory within the poet’s mind where the otherwise clear syllogism gives way to doubt. When love and reason were at odds, the poet accepted the fact that the sufering inficted on him by his earthly-divine beloved was meant to prepare him for his own eventual death and transfguration. Nonetheless, without abandoning his passionate compositions or compromising his beliefs, he still managed to maintain a certain degree of rational doubt, as we can see in the last line of this poem by Anvarī. For the poet-mystic true wisdom could be in binary opposition to the so-called rational behavior of intelligent beings. Though intellect (a‘ql) was said to be necessary for us to comprehend our world and survive, love (‘ishq) was identifed as the power that overcomes all and governs both this world and the next.” For more, see Korangy, “Love and Reason in the Ghazal”. Also see Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, “Prioriotizing Metaphysics over Epistemology: Divine Justice ‘adl and Human Reason (‘aql) in al-Shaykh al-Mufīd’s Theology,” in Essays in Islamic Philology, Philosophy, and History, ed. Alireza Korangy, et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995). Wheeler M. Thackston, A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry (Maryland: IranBooks, 1994), 37. ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd Gulshan Ibrāhīmī, ed., Gulshan-i Shi‘ir-i Fārsī (Tehran: Īrānmihr, nd.), 243. Also, see Thackston, Millennium, 37. For more, see Henry Corbin, “L’Imagination Ce Sourfsme d’Ibn Arabi”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions (1959), 78. As a genre, the ghazal has been steadfastly a tool for lyrical expressions of love, wine, and remembrance, and as such it has not abandoned its narratival structure beginning especially in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. However, “it too has been subject to a series of profound transformations. In the broadest terms, its evolution may be characterized by four distinct, partly overlapping and partly conficting,

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normative sets: the pre-Islamic qaṣīda, rooted in the ancient Arab tribal code; the panegyric qaṣīda, expressing an ideal vision of just Islamic government; the religious qaṣīda, imparting diferent types of commendable religious conduct; and the modern qaṣīda, infuenced by secular, nationalist, or humanist ideals” (Sperl & Shackle, 4–5). Rūdakī Samarqandī, Dīvān-i Rūdakī Samarqandī, ed. Sa‘īd Nafīsī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Nigāh, 1997), 22. ‘Unṣūrī Balkhī, Dīvān-i ‘Unṣurī Balkhī, ed. Muḥammad Dabīr Siyāqī (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-i Sanāˀī, 1963), 327. Sīrūs Shamīsā, Sayr-i Ghazal dar Shi‘r-i Fārsī, 54–55. Mahdī Ḥamīdī, Bihisht-i Sukhan (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Pīrūz, 1967), 17. See Āryān, Chihra-i Masīḥ dar Adabiyyāt-i Fārsī, 99. Mir Jalāl al-Dīn Kazzāzī (ed.), Dīvān-i Khāqānī Shirvānī (ed. Kazzāzī) (Tehran: Markaz, 1997), 727–728. In one of the most vivacious centuries in the rising of the ghazal, the 12th century, this is clearly seen: hajz-i muthamman-i sālim (mafā‘īlun mafā‘īlun mafā‘īlun mafā‘īlu), and rajaz-i muthamman-i sālim (mustaf‘ilun mustaf‘ilun mustaf‘ilun mustaf‘ilun) are sometimes used in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. It is no coincidence that the poets representative of these centuries are some of the most learned and most anguished. As such, their meters in their ghazal refect this angst and the compounding metaphors that express it. For more on these meters, see Dāryūsh Ṣabūr, Āfāq-i Ghazal-i Fārsī Pazhūhishī Intiqādī dar Taḥavvul-i Ghazal m Taghazzul az Āghāz tā Imrūz (Tehran: Guftār, 1991), 394. See Edward J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, 6 vols., 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); and Jalāl al-Dīn Humā’ī, Funūn-i Balāghat va Sanā‘āt-i Adabī, 2 vols. in 1 2nd ed. (Tehran: Humā, 1982). The former has a great account of the rhetorical and fgurative tools of the whole region’s poetry, and the latter is a great source for the study of the fgurative language in the Persian-speaking world. Most of what it covers applies to Arabic poetry as well. Abū al-Najm Aḥmad b. Qaus b. Aḥmad Dāmghānī was a poet in the frst half of the 5th century of Hijra (d.1040). His sobriquet was the result of his connection to the court of the Ziyārid Sultan Manūchihr b. Qābūs b. Vashamgīr. He mastered the style of many of the Arab and Persian poets and was a religious scholar and a student of science. Sultān Mas‘ūd Ghaznavī, who, in 1034, attacked Gurgān and Māzandarān, requested his services while he was there. At the time, Abū al-Najm was residing in Ray, but as soon as he heard of the command, he walked all the way from Ray to Māzandarān and joined the Sultan’s court. While there, many honors were heaped upon him. See Dihkhudā, Lughatnāma, vol. 46; See also Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902–1924), 153–156; also see Julie Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 59. An ossifed ghazal with a specifc number of lines and a takhalluṣ: a specifc content form. See Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 1136: “A *monorhyme poetic form common to Ar., Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and other related lits. The name qiṭ‘a means “fragment” or “piece” and originally served to distinguish this form from the *qaṣīda. Formally, the qit‘a typically lacks the *internal rhyme found between the *hemistichs in the frst verse of the qaṣīda (and *ghazal) and is much shorter than the qaṣīda, containing at least two and normally no more than 20 verses. In contrast to the polythematic qasīda, the qiṭ‘a is characterized by a unity of topic and mood.” See Turjānīzāda, Sharḥ-i Mu‘allaqāt-i Sab‘ for more on the subject. Turjānīzāda, Sharḥ-i Mu‘allaqāt Sab‘, 166, ll. 2–3; also see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 39. “Poets like Manūchihrī and Farrukhī gradually began to include themes in their qasīdas that went beyond the limits of the taghazzul and continued into the body of the poem, thereby creating very long ghazals. At this stage of ghazal development, poets begin to establish a poetic framework for the ghazal in terms of its language. It was no longer just a conjoined section of a qasida in taghazzul form. By the middle of the 11th century, a ghazal, independent in both form and purpose, had emerged from the taghazzul.” Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 21. A. N. Manūchihrī Dīvān, Muḥammad Dabīr Siyāqī (Tehran: Sanā’ī, 1963), 138. This line is very similar to Ḥāfẓ’s very popular line: ilā yā ayuhal sāqī adir kas va nāvilhā/ki ‘ishq āsān nimūd avval valī uftād mushkilhā. Both lines speak of wine as anesthetic elixir when it comes to the pain of love and by extension the sufering associated with the times, that is, the sufering associated with the celestial sphere and its crooked ways. The kind of minutiae that are being discussed can be best seen in the poetry and poetics of the Russian romantic period and the British poetics of the 19th century, with William Blake as the harbinger of such detail and also a forerunner in “seeing” the complexities embodied in the simple, i.e., wine, human communication with his or her environment, and so on. In truth this is also a large part of what makes

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Ghazal ghazal an utterly important genre: To see a world in a grain of sand/And heaven in a wildfower/hold infnity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour/A robin redbreast in a cage/Puts all heaven in a rage/A dove house flled with doves and pigeons/shutters hell through all its regions/A dog misused at his master’s gate/Predicts the ruin of the state. 43 Manūchihrī Dīvān, Muḥammad Dabīr Siyāqī, 6f. 44 Korangy, Development of Ghazal and Khāqānī’s Contribution, 7. It is also important to note that he is not the frst to discuss wine but is the frst to initiate insight into its ephemeral qualities, although others had alluded to the less intrinsic nuances before him in their ghazal-like poems: Untouched, it stained the hands red, Undrunk, it caused intoxication. That pure wine, which once grasped in the hand, Reveals not the diference between the cup and wine. Which was a borrowing from an Arab poet indicating the close observance of the development of the theme and familiarity of the Persian poet with the Arab counterpart: Fill the cup with that pure wine, Whose fragrance before tasting, Brings fights of fancy.

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For a general overview of the efects of the Arab poet upon his Persian counterpart, see Muḥammadriḍā Shafī‘ī Kadkanī, Ṣuvar-i Khiyāl dar Shi‘r-i Fārsī (Tehran: Nīl, 1970), 354–399; also see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 27–28. Sabk in Arabic refers to the elaboration of language (style), but its original meaning is the casting of molten silver and gold. Some, like Shajī‘ī, agree in part with Sénèque’s discourse that sees sabk (style) as both the “key to discovering the soul of the poet and a representation of the life and morale of humans” and casting her own doubt in the mono-treatment of style, as this creates an enticing discourse. For more, see Pūrān Shajī‘ī, Sabk-i Shi‘r-i Pārsī dar Advār-i Mukhtalif (Shīrāz: Dānishgāh-i Shīrāz, 1961), 1–2. Athīr al-Dīn Akhsīkatī, Dīvān-i Athīr al-Dīn Akhsīkatī, ed. Rukn al-Dīn Humāyūn Farrukh (Tehran: Rūdakī, 1958), 341. For more on the dynamics of love and reason, see Shaykh Najm al-Din Razi, Rasala-yi ‘Ishq va ‘Aql (Mi‘yar al-Sidq f Misdaq al-‘Ishq), ed. Taqi Tafadduli (Tehran: Bungah-i Tarjuma va Nashr-i Kitab, 1966): “When the fre of love in opportune moment turned its attention to taking care of humanity’s core characteristics, in the shadow of the luminous light of Muhammadan law, every step that it takes, founded upon the canon of subservience, which is the rule of thumb for non-existence (fana), the ‘light’ of attraction, which is the true extinguisher will receive it with pleasure since God almighty has mercifully willed it: ‘Anyone who gets close to me by an inch, I will get – in turn – a meter closer to them’.” Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī Mawlavi, Dīvān-i Kāmil-i Shams-i Tabrīzī, ed. Badī‘ al-Zamān Furūzānfar et al. (Tehran: Jāvīdān, 1983), 393. This theme is later far more clearly, and as often, stated in the poetry that follows in the later centuries: Whoever does not go mad for Layla, that is the madman/For when you look upon Majnūn (lit. Mad and the name of Layla’s lover), he is not mad. For more see Khwājū Kirmānī, Ghazaliyāt-i Khwājū-yi Kirmānī (Kirmān: Intishārāt-i Khidmat-i Farhangī-i Kirmān, 1991), 100. The nuance of drunkenness is often associated with the backlash against the hypocrisy of the ascetic at whose expense the same poets rebel poetically, whether in their ghazals by scathing pun or in their other poetic genres. For more on his life, see Dihkhudā, Lughatnāma, vol. 30, p. 342. ‘Aufī, Lubāb al-albāb (ed. Browne), II, 221. Also see Bīgdilī, Ātashkada, vol. I, 149–152. Also see Daulatshāh Samarqandī, Tadhkirat al-shu‘arā, 88–94; Hidāyat, Majma‘ al-fuṣahā, II, 608–638; Khayyāmpūr, Farhang-i Sukhanvarān, 181–182; Ṣafā, Tarīkh-i Adabiyyāt dar Irān, II, 776–798; Dāghistānī, Riyāḍ al-shu‘arā, 231–232; Furūzānfar, Sukhan va Sukhanvarān, 612–684; Amīr Shēr ‘Alī Khān Lōdī, Mirˀāt al-khiyāl, ed. Mirzā Muḥammad Khān Malik al-Kuttāb al-Mukhātib Khān (Bombay: [n.p.], 1906), 29–31. For a detailed synopsis and study of Khāqānī’s emulation of the Arab poet Buḥturī in some of his themes and the extent to which Arabic poetics continued to infuence the Persian counterpart well into the 12th century, see Sayyid-Amīr Maḥmūd-Anvar, “Ayvān-i Mada’in az Dīdgāh-i du Shā‘ir-i Nāmī-yi Tāzī va Pārsi: Buḥturī va Khāqānī”, Dānishkada-yi Adabiyāt va ‘Ulūm-i Insānī-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, vol. 1 (85), 1974. “There is a strong sense of an unknown rival in Khāqānī’s work. In the context of his daily life, we know that his irascible personality continually made him enemies and created frequent upheavals in his life.

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Alireza Korangy His ghazal is simply a refection of that common dilemma, as when he says nākasān, kam zi mā, khasān, yārān-i bīvafā. He seems to be seeking apocalyptic overtones in all genres of his poetry, especially in his most passionate of utterances, the ghazal.” For more see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 341. 52 Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Sajjādī), 761; also see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 261. 53 Ibid. Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Kazzāzī), 8–11. There are many instances where his utter anger at the world is clearly seen, and there is no surprise whatsoever why we see such rabid behavior in the persona of his beloved as well: God, I seek refuge in you from the torments of the times! I want no mercy from the ‘Abbāsids, Nor do I wish to bend in servitude to the Saljuqids. Since the celestial sphere does not heed my cries, Whether it be Arslān or Bughrā, what diference can it make? Since there is no Joseph to free me of my needs, how can Benjamin or Judah save me? Since Muslims ofer me no refuge, What am I to do? Should I turn from Islam? God forbid! See Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 277. 54 Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Kazzāzī), 816–817. 55 For more, see Sūzan-i ‘Īsā: Guzārish-i Chāma-i Tarsāˀiyya az Afḍal al-Dīn Badīl Khāqānī Shirvānī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i ‘Allāma Tabāṭabāˀī, 1376 [1997]). For more, see Vladimir Minorsky, “Khāqānī and Andronicus Comnenus,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) 11 (1945): 551–553; For an example of the level of difculty in Khāqānī, see Benedikt Reinert, Ḥaqānī Als Dichter: Poetische Logik und Phantasie (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1972), 4. 56 Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Kazzāzī), 40–44, ll. 23–27; also see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 277. 57 See Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Kazzāzī), 850; also see Korangy, Development of the Ghazal, 376. 58 Rumi’s ghazal alone requires voluminous work, and space simply does not allow further elaborations here under the particular rubric of this chapter. 59 “During the tumultuous years leading to Amir Temür (Tamerlane)’s campaigns into and through Iran, Khwâja Shamsuddîn . . . Hâfz (1326–1389) was a lifelong resident of the relatively tranquil Shiraz and enjoyed the patronage of several viziers and ruler sof the Inju and Muzafarid dynasties.” For more, see Thackston, Millennium, 64. 60 For more, see J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanā’ī Onwards,” in Pearls of Meanings: Studies on Persian Art, Poetry, Sūfīsm and History of Iranian Studies in Europe, ed. A. A. Seyed Gohrab, 181–192 (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2020). 61 As concerned Jāmī or Khwajū, the high estimation of their works is not merely limited to the ghazal but also includes – particulary in case of Jāmī – his other genres of poetry as well, many of which had ghazal-like motifs: tarkīb-bands, tarji‘-bands, qit‘a, Rubā‘ī, and so on. He “scarcely wrote a line of poetry that does not reverberate with mystical overtones.” He is unfairly placed by some within the large circle of poets of the Indian style. The predomination of meaning in Hafz can often be lost to a reader, but with Jāmī, this is never the case. With him, all possible meanings could be intended, particularly those that speak to Suf ideas and ideals. For more on this, see Thackston, Millennium, 72. 62 Thackston, Millennium, 64. 63 Ḥāfẓ, Dīvān, Ghazal 1. 64 Ibid., Ghazal 8. 65 T. Kowalski, Na szlakach Islamu (Krakow, 1935), 109 as quoted by Rypka, op.cit., 102, and Rypka, ibid., 102; see also 99–100. Also see “Unity of Ghazals of Ḥāfẓ,” 63. 66 Ḥāfẓ, Dīvān, Ghazal 3. 67 Thackston, Millennium, 71. 68 It has been asserted that the king himself and even the vizier are these “boys” and “moon-faced” beauties that the poet is speaking of. After all, the Persian poet was in most, if not all, cases panegyrizing a Turk. This notion seems outrageous if it is to be taken literally – although in terms of imagery it is certainly true – at least if one is to believe this was known to all. Also using this medium as a romantic–panegyric one seems quite illogical. For more on this, a good and brief discourse is presented in W. Skalmowski,“The Meaning of the Persian Ghazal,” Orientalia Lovanensia Periodica, no. 18 (1987): 147. 69 Thackston, Millennium, 71. 70 Claudia Yaghoobi, “Zulaykhā’s Displaced Desire in Jāmī’s Yūsuf va Zulaykhā,” Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 4, no. 2 (2019): 62–77.

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Ghazal 71 See Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 286: “Maulānā Nuru’d-din ‘Abdu’r-Raḥmān Jāmī (b. 817/1414, d. 898/1492) was an outstanding man and poet. Close relations with the court at Herat and the sincere friendship of the vizier ‘Alī-Shīr Navā’ī did not afect his independence. His object was neither wealth nor success, though the general respect paid him at home and abroad did perhaps stir his vanity.” 72 Z. Safa, “BĀBĀ FAḠĀNI,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, III/3, 291, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/babafagani (accessed 30 December 2012). 73 A. A. Razi, Haft Eghlim Biography, ed. M.R. Taheri (Tehran: Soroush Publications, 1999), 217. 74 Although Baba Fighānī has been credited with having poetic qualities that fall somewhere between those of Ḥāfẓ and what is encountered in the poets of Sabk-i Hindī, this by no means implies that he is the founder of Maktab-i Vuqū‘, and, by extension, the founder of Sabk-i Hindī, regardless of how infuential he has been in creating some of the nuances present in these poetical schools or cliques. Styles are not instantaneously bloomed and are rather hiccups in an ongoing historical process. Also, it should be noted that others have credited others as founders of this school, such as Shahīdī Qumī, Lisānī Shīrāzī, and Mīrzā Sharaf Jahān. 75 Vaḥshī, Dīvān-i Vahshī Bāfqī, ed. Ḥusayn Nakha‘ī (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1987), 210. 76 Ibid., 293; This level of sarcasm is unlikely with most romantic genres of Persian verse. However, due to many factors that might seem redundant to repeat here, there is an eighty-year period that brings about a backlash against the beloved. It is as though the traditional is being shunned for all his/her doings against a lover that is willing and has done everything is in its power to court a beautiful muse and all he gets in response is torture and forgetfulness, or, better said, lack of appreciation. Ḥāfẓ says: If you are a man who has destined himself to fealty in the path of love – don’t think of the ill repute/The Shaykh of Ṣan‘ān had pawned his pious cloth at the house of the drunkard en route. Mullā Sālik Yazdī says: I will abandon my garb of faith and wear instead the cincture of the Christian All just to gain the loving favor of a Christian youth to love me, that’s my mission See Ghiyāth al-Lughāt, “subḥa.” 77 www.60barg.ir/sher/vahshi-bafghi/divan/2/12 (accessed 1 May 2021). 78 Mohammad ‘UrfĪ, Kulliyyāt, ed. Ghulām-Ḥusayn Javāhirī (Tehran: Muḥammad ‘ALĪ ‘ILMĪ, n.d.). 79 Khāqānī says: “I begged for your complete devotion and never-ending union from the dice: 3 sixes!/ The last time it had given me 3 ones instead: your complete separation and lack of devotion.” 80 Khāqānī, Dīvān (ed. Kazzāzī), 1053. 81 Dhabiḥullāh Ṣafā Shāhī, ed., Ganj-i Sukhan, vol. 2, 4th ed. (Tehran: Ibn Sīnā, 1969), 338. 82 These lines are indicative of a time when the would-be-panegyrized was no longer interested in the poet and his glorifcation of him. From the time of Anvarī to the periods in question, this situation worsens, of course with scarce exceptions; for example, Ḥāfẓ in the court of Muẓafarids was held in high esteem for a short while before he too was shunned. This is quite essential in studies treating the mannerisms of the poets of the 14th–16th centuries, since, as mentioned, the language of love has always been inextricably entwined with the idea of the patron, undoubtedly presented to the reader as a kind of beloved, and certainly, just like the beloved, as infallible. Stefan Sperl, in his view of Persian poetry’s Arabic counterpart, points to the antithetical nuances that persist with aṭlāl and nasīb, on the one hand, and madīh, on the other “A very large number of binary oppositions relate and contrast the two parts. Some are oppositions of concepts and motifs, others of imagery and, in some poems, there are oppositions of phonetic and grammatical structure.” Stefan Sperl, Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 19. 83 Dhabiḥullāh Ṣafā, ed., Ganj-i Sukhan, vol. 2, 4th ed. (Tehran: Ibn Sīnā, 1969), 296. 84 Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 104; also see (cited in Rypka) Jan Rypka, Bāqī als Ghazeldichter (Praze: University Karlovy, 1925), 76. 85 Amir ‘Alishēr Navā’ī, Dīvān, ed. Rukn al-Dīn Humāyūn Farrukh (Tehran: Asātīr, 1970), 5. 86 Rajeev Kinra, Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 223.

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Sample I O camel-driver don’t stop but at the abode of my beloved now gone So that, just a bit, I get to shed tears where the beauty once was and now fown Let me nourish the quarters of my heart with blood Allow me to plant fowers upon the plane with that food I will make the dusty ruin fow like a river I will make the hearts at my sight quiver I see balcony void of the beauty of that beloved of my past And the green of the feld of our passage regrets her loss so fast Instead of the beauty that once was The donkeys and the beast now poop upon the caravan’s pause Instead of the sound of the fute There is the dead silencing sound of the owl: hoot hoot!1 Sample II Once Ruby is rubbed by those who rub it Once juicily clear, equals the lip of yours that I covet I have had a promenade or two in the garden of Lords And the bloom of every primrose and crocus no visage like yours afords Two eyes, that of a gazelle, and or a narcissus plump and full Faced with your eyes, even they begin to drool The Bows of the Babylonian and the arrow set to fy Elongated and majestic – reminds of the brow upon your eye The Cyprus is no longer the measure for height For even a Cyprus to be you – it must take fight2 Sample III My heart makes my visage ruddy with love While my soul with mistreatment is driven mad The beloved drinks my heart’s blood and my heart swallows his deeds like good wine. 234

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-15

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I told him, “Your eyes are like cruel oppressors.” He said, “If that is so, that is what they should be” His beautiful eyes in this board game of love Pin down my reason and beat it six times (double sixes). When I go to stroke his black hair The hair reaches out for more money And when I do not have it, he gets very angry And reminds me of all of my faults He says, “Gold” I say, “Soul” And he says, “Whoop de doo It is money I need, not you” I tell him the soul is worth more than gold And he fatly says, “No it is not” Anvarī, you ought to be ashamed of yourself Kissing the ground this beloved walks on And he treats you no better than dirt3 Sample IV It is the month November, so bring forth that juice of the grape For fate has given the king luck of the draw and luck wears no drape It is time to look about, so look and see the felds abound Look and see how the hand of Summer on the feld is not found It is time to drink that grape juice of autumn It seems that no one has requested it: Was is really forgotten? The branch of the vine gave birth to many a daughter It felt no pain and it gave no cry as though no bother It gave them birth, all at once, no order at all It did it alone, no help, and no nurse to call What wonder! No one has ever given birth with such ease No intermittent pain, no screaming, and no painful squeeze When it gave them birth, it’s head bowed to the ground And then nurtured those babies in her stomach safe and sound Round little babies, no height, with no feet to stand Hundred and thirty of them, two by two, holding hand Two seeds in the belly of each, not one more not one less No bone structure, no vein, and no veterbrate did they possess When the old mama looked upon those little girls, all so sweet They were all satiated, big or small, they were all replete The mother pampered them in a green brocade of silk She did not feed them and nor gave them milk They didn’t cry, these little girls, not let out a screech How does a hungry babe her mother not beseech?! The Vine attendant said: “Mighty lord what is the deal with this? The mother does not feed them, won’t they their mother’s milk miss? This mother does not seem caring as far as I can see Yet she keeps them intact and does not want them to fee These children are going to die waiting for some care 235

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I am about to go crazy with this and this I won’t bear! The gardener left like a lightning bolt and from the well Nurtured these babes with water and let them swill He said: “Since the mother’s milk is out of the question for y’all Every time you get thirsty I be there to answer your call It is a man’s duty to do his best in this regard I declare! Until God fnds a purpose for each of you somehow somewhere His ‘little babies’ lied listlessly upon the water To move and or fdget even once they didn’t bother They got themselves cozily situated and leaned their necks together And their color turned and turned and from red to redder The gardener kept giving them water – the best he had Not for a second did he ignore their needs – like a good lad He said: “I feel as though these girls are mine” He said: “They are my body, soul, life, their happiness to me benign” “As long as they are upon the vine, I am their host” “If the vine is my paradise, the grapes have the keeper’s post” “As long as they are in my property, my home, my domain I will cover them with a green cover, so all won’t be in vain” The gardener sped towards the city, away from his vine He closed the doors to the vineyard for safety: All was his design! He was visiting with acquaintances and family and such His is heart was sickened from missing his babies’ touch He said: “The hell with this as I can’t wait anymore” He went back to them with speed, with passion galore As he opened the lock and entered, he looked upon their state He saw each as black as a Hindu slave and thought he was too late Here and there shining his babies looking like Venus and the moon The red babies the color of blood and the yellow ones like the dune All their heads bent in shame and their faces black from sin Each pregnant with a child within The viticulturist had two big knots in his brows from steaming blood He said: “Nothing is ever done except by the will of the almighty God” How can this calamity upon these children befall Overnight they all got pregnant: big and small Not one amongst them can redeem themselves, none were wise The child of each would be a bastard, what demise! You have not yet been born but six days now You have not yet even told your own mother ciao You have not yet even been given milk from her breast You have not yet been told the do’s and don’ts and all the rest You have all become pregnant; and hence are now ghouls This is what happens when one night is forsaken you fools Tell me the truth: what is the story, what’s the tale Tell me who tore your chastity’s veil What shameful behavior is this?; what were you thoughts? It is ftting to cry over your faults Not one, not two, not three, but two hundred and eighty 236

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A bachelor could not have done it, the nonsense too weighty The daughters of the vine said: We are innocent of being with human You should think of us as having a bit more acumen All of us from here to there are all impregnated by the sun and the moon We don’t like to dance to the rhyme of mankind, we don’t like the tune We cannot run away from the stars and the moon How can we hide from them, nature did not make us immune Every morning the sunlight appears upon our bedside He lies with us right here where we bide He stays there until it is late and when gone is the sun The moonlight comes and then he is the one These two hooligans don’t go too far away from our door We wonder if anyone will ever have for them a punishment in store? Our kids are just like the moon and the sun They look just them and that notion we won’t shun They are shiny and bright since the fathers are But if we are too be scarred, this is the better scar Their face, their color, their visage, their ways, Are like them and no one else, no matter what anyone says The gardener said: “I don’t believe these lies nor these claims Unit with my Ḥanafī sword I decapitate these dames Until I rip their stomach open and cut them proper Until it is blood red, the shirt of yours truly, this cropper Until I know this what you say is for certain Until I know there is nothing hidden behind the curtain If indeed these boys hang on to their life If indeed they survive my knife Then I will know them to be The children of sun and moon, you see! But if they indeed are borne of another source After my killing, coming back to life won’t be a recourse” The gardener came forth and cut their throats one and all Not a drop of blood from even one neck did fall Not one of them let out a sound of pain or despair Putting them through the wine press was next in this afair He pummeled their bellies and private parts by kicking His anger at them was the reason for this intense licking He skinned them all and took out their liver and their bone He put their blood and covered it in a big jar made of stone He covered the top and the sides with quick-lime He put a warm coarse garment over the jug of their hard time For fve to six months of winter he kept it closed This was what his test was and what he imposed Then he came back like a pompous king So, to see what calamity this treatment did bring He looked inside the jar, it was early eve He saw that they were all one now, who could conceive? It was a shining visage, like a round moon in the night 237

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Due to them, the universe had been lit with their mighty light The gardener said: “These babies did not commit a sin There is no doubt to the sun and the moon they are akin They are ofsprings of the two mightiest kings So, what if their mother was black in this fing! It is time and right that they shan’t sufer no more A proper celebration should be my today’s chore I should see to a feast with lutes and crwth Apples, oranges, kebab, sweets, and fruit I should drink until the early dawn from this glorious spirit It is like rosewater in smell and looks like a fower: I can’t bear it! As I am about to take the last sip before I crash: Here is to that great king – of the grandest and most confdent dash The lion-heart, elephant-bodied, master of beasts Abū Sa‘īd b. Abū al-Qāsim, our faith’s highest priest Nine maunds and a half is his weighty blade of retribution Three arm lengths is the height of the sheath of that ‘resolution’ He is the best of God’s creatures, heed his charity! Articulate, well-bred and his manner knows not asperity He is God’s chosen, and his lineage ambrosian When it comes to charity and good he is God’s chosen He is from the heavenly essence of Maḥmūd And just like him, his is the foundation of good Anywhere there ever was incense, he is the smell emitting Other pieces of wood and limber are simply for sitting Anyone to be regarded as a king, must be like him of lineage supreme Must be anointed by God excellent and like him be crème de la crème Must be a conqueror of India and Āmul as he did prove And towards the rebellious Ghuzz made his grand army move Must be one who puts fear in the heart of Caesar and his clique Makes him see visions of his head brought to Ghazna on a stick The Almighty entrusted earth and the sky to our lord The world, the spheres, every nook and cranny and every ford He cleansed with his blade in all India all that was rust And India who thought of itself as mighty was reduced to dust This action tested his armies and they won utterly and complete It is now Byzantium that must test its luck and taste defeat As long as there is a universe, may our king have joy and health May God keep away the bad omen and keep him his wealth May his body never age and may his heart be young and fresh May his chores be limited to hobbies and may knowledge be his dish May his friends’ and enemies’ fates be as he does want it May God not afict him with any harm and by illness haunted4 Sample V O you, a friend of yester year and now just a I-know fellow You who shun the worthy and to the unworthy answer hello 238

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You who now the diamond of the wicked is pierced by your view Like a magnet for how long will you attract the unworthy few For how long like the Sun will you show up in the dark night To appease the disloyal, the so-called friends with your divine light Friends you are with those who have forsaken me Those less than me in every way have overtaken me It is right and let it be known that it is just A donkey shall have grass and Jesus a feast must I, a jewel, possessed freely only by you and you alone Your cruelty made you see me as just another and my worth overblown How can the blind grasp the sun and its glorious glow? A vat apprentice would know a ruby as could nightingale be a crow Ensnared by your love I am as fate – evil and unabashed – would have it As such I wish fate eternal hate and an endless black sabbath Forsooth, I wish a fre would come and burn it all Both your beauty and this lame old thrall For only would fate conjure me to think your love’s at hand Why would Khāqānī think he can fnd water in the desert sand?5 Sample VI Reason is here, O lover hide and hide quick Alas, alas, what to do with reason not to get sick O eyes and reason, leave our midst, for I fear We, by the disgrace you bring, will be devoid of sight and a hearing ear You are like water: leave our fre blazing Or come and join us boiling and stop your devious gazing If you don’t want to be torn to pieces minced and done Play dead, don’t mess with this, don’t mess with this one You say you are a lover: well, there is a test Don’t turn your head and hold dearly their vat of knowledge abreast As such I thunder from the inebriation that love afords And alike a harp I am unaware of the invigoration it purports O Shams, you all but ruined me through and through You are the cupbearer, you are the wine, and he who doth it brew6 Sample VII The bottle of wine cried being taken from those ruby lips To satisfy its pain one could see tears of blood, drip upon drips Yesternight the candle was crying for my heart and ache My eyes would see this and cry for the tears shed for my sake That was no dew that you saw in the days of Layli every morn The skies were crying all night long for Majnūn as his heart had torn Flood in the plane; thunder in the yonder, for the answer your ears loan From my pain yonder thundered, and the plain did moan Why is the skirt of the sphere so bloody from sun’s descent? The sphere was from love’s pain crying and out of shape bent See upon my yellow cheeks the traces of red tears 239

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My eyes were crying blood with much in arrears When you called Hilālī forth and shunned him all the same While inside he smiled with you and outside his tears still afame7 Sample VIII O cupbearer with the candle of wine lit the cup at once O minstrel, sing and convey our blissful bunce In red wine, I have seen the moon that is my desire O you who knows not why I stare always into the liquid fre Tease of the long, handsome and the beautiful was indeed fne Until walked in my cypress, my all, that love of mine That who lives by love knows no death The Universe won’t condemn a lover to a last breath I fear that on the day of resurrection the pious won’t sit prettier than us Granted, he eats the bread of piety and about my drinking makes a fuss O wind if you pass by the lane of the one I adore Do give her the news of my longing core Ask her why she chooses on purpose to forget me whole That is nature’s work, eventual, and not in our control The most wonderful is when I see drunkenness in his eyes That is why I keep giving her my rein to no-one’s surprise Ḥāfẓ, shed a tear or two form your eyes my good chap Maybe the bird of union would intend for your trap The azure sea of the sphere and the boat of the crescent Are both drowning in the charity of our Sheikh, the God sent8 Sample IX I am leaving, so you and my sorrowful heart do what you must Look how fate moves my watering hole with its lustful gust With the golden tears, resembling your golden tress I will mold in gold the feet that news of your greeting they possess I have come to pray, so you should ask from the Almighty as well That He should make you one with fealty and my wishes quell If the whole world would polish my mind with razors and blades My desire for you will not be reduced nor your images fades The Celestial sphere throws me around, this way and that It is jealous of our soul-nurturing chit chat It the whole world chooses to be cruel with you and with me Then God we will be our avenger one day, wait and you will see One day my beloved will come here again to ofer salutations O, how wonderful that day will be, the best of all situations Whoever says: “Ḥāfẓ does not have a long trip in store!” Tell them: “Ḥāfẓ has been preparing for the longest trip to the nevermore”9 Sample X I did not get to quench my thirst from her ruby lips and she left me I didn’t satiate my eyes with her moon and O how she left deftly 240

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It would seem that my chit chat was no longer to her taste She packed up, and catching that speeding beloved was a waste My prayers and my proclamation to the Oneness of God all day long Did not sway my beloved from separation, as she is head strong She would be coquettish and say: “You know I will never your loyal lane” Now she is gone, I feel bamboozled and that is simple and plain She would say: “That who loves me must abandon their own being” Well, I did just that to prove my love and loneliness is what I am seeing She was on a promenade in the garden of her own wonder Not having taken that promenade, she is gone, this poor heart asunder Like Ḥāfẓ I cried all night and day to no avail Because I didn’t say my goodbyes before she set sail10 Sample XI Sedition in all directions, my seditious one must be near Upon a charming buck, here arrives my Turkish dear Afoat the breeze ambergris and musky dust abound? It is my musky gazelle, what is there to confound? Bloody tears are vivid reminders upon my face A trace of the lonely nights is this horrid grimace His blade is sharpened with limpid water rife As such when upon my neck it revives my life Any mean stone that landed upon this sandy ball Was in fact a stroke of luck when it smashed the cup of this thrall O what sweet serenity when you said “as I got near – I saw the mad soul that adores me aptly severe” Jāmī, to see far and wide, has upon his eyes set collyrium Dust from of your horse’s hoof me fares well delirium11 Sample XII Friends listen as I tell the tale of my pain! Listen to my hidden misery: cause of my bane! Listen to this ditty of my ruin! Listen to me! Listen to what inside me is brewing! Until when must I conceal this heart-burning scorch? I am burning, burning, how long must I carry alone this torch? Once upon a time, the heart and I were dwellers upon a lane. We were dwellers upon a lane of an idol that lived to make us insane. Having lost our sense and faith, we were crazy for her face We were at the mercy of the chains of her hair – her tress’s grace. There was no one in the chains of those tresses but me. I was the only one who was bound in her hair you see. Her winking narcissus did not have these many perplexed as are now aficted. Her layered hyacinth did not have a soul entrapped as is now depicted Her market was not as brisk at it is now. She was a Joseph, but no buyers presented themselves somehow I was the frst to seek her favor and be enthused 241

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I was the frst to make her Bazaar brisk and fall bemused My love highlighted her beauty and her way. My crazy heart became proof for her coquettish play I had so much told the tale of her teasing fashion The whole city woke up to her beauty with untold passion Now she has so many who would give life and limb When would she notice me now, the future is dim To make distinctions between an old and a new lover Has been lost to her, they are both like insects that hover The ugly quack of the crow and the ghazal of the nightingale Are monotonous tunes that thru her eardrums sail How foolish of her not to know what is what How foolish of her to mistake pedigree for a mutt Since it is such I best get busied with another loving task And perhaps look for a beloved and take a chance reprise! Perhaps I shall become a nightingale to a new fower Perhaps with my songs of passion a new beloved I should shower Where is this new beloved so that I can become its lionizing tongue And make her grass from fresh saplings, soft and strong Even though Vahshi thinks of you no more And his heart does not envision your lustrous galore Even though his heart was broken and broken hearted he fared Even though he cried from the tyranny of what you had dared God forbid he might forgive all your ‘tender care’ God forbid he might listen to his real friends: Would he dare!12 Sample XIII I have a beloved who doesn’t ask for me Of looking into the state of the wanting, and the ones with fealty You would think he is in a deep sleep, just like the luck of the dervish Since he doesn’t enquire of the moist state of the ‘conscious’ ones I have been aficted with a malady and our beloved a medicine man He doesn’t provide remedy from the potion of cure, nor he can I am always sad, the poor me, that my beloved with his self-seeing bent Is so immersed in joy [self-appreciation] that it doesn’t enquire of the friend Completely sober, he intoxicates me and that cupbearer of the drunk Has gotten so drunk from his own potion that he doesn’t enquire: not a peep, not a sound Many complaints I have here as such how that calamity-ridden beloved Is busy with his nasty business and doesn’t ask about the state of the ‘unemployed’ Kamal will never ask why and how, who and what You know what: He is now too busy with others to worry about that kind of thing13 Sample XIV In utter need, it is best to be of the masses free! When thirsty, it is best to wither by the plentiful sea! 242

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The ill fated don’t fear love and its sour dish. Seawater tastes sweet in the mouth of saltwater fsh. When the wayfarer is alone, he sets upon the path alone. He needs not the heavy burden of this world or the other’s burdenful stone. The Suf’s cloak of hypocrisy is pregnant with pride It is best to worship Him in a silken brocade and by His command abide The thought of a Monday is a sour note on a child’s Sunday: It is best to enjoy today without the thought of hasn’t-come day! The sail of the boat of wine is a drunkard’s scream: The ruckus of the drunk in a feast of wine is of highest esteem! He who has seen the masses joyous, mistook lightning for light They are not the same: one is divine, the other fright The cloud does heedlessly upon the moon prance So what?: the visage of servility while veiled is of worthy stance What was subtracted from life, he thinks of it fond For the tomorrow of today is one of many todays abound For all things man is told Ṣā’ib: refect and ponder! Yet when its time to abandon this world, be quick as thunder!14 Sample XV As you seek, how long will you disrepute desire Just once make your importuning a student of a cause higher How long will you fend for high of knowing the not-to-know Mature cannot be, by fery red adamance, a desire green: Lo! Opportune time is key, don’t ignore it, otherwise in time of want A mere burp, to your alas, its superiority will faunt A sleepy leg is no hindrance to a light fight Of imaginary, the messenger, and the message lose sight Had achieved perfection, self-praise made a mirror of me Delusion as such overtook me and was to be my pedigree Till when will your life ruin you in your Ka’ba and the holy house dogma? It is best that you relinquish that cloak as to not sufer that karma From ignorance to the gaze of the beloved is but a stone throw The dreg, the wine, and the clarity have one source bro How can the folk of hate to the feast of hurt be late How can a snake lose sight of its poisonous palate Just a curl from that hair dusted of the weary heart’s skimper The eye of the trap is cured by the smoke of the prey’s whimper To say what needs saying and acting the act is another Bīdil, no mirror is ever to become the cup: don’t bother!15

Notes 1 (Mu‘izzī) Mu’izzī, Divān, 597. Also see Wheeler M. Thackston, A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry (Maryland: IranBooks, 1994), 24. 2 (Daqīqī) Daqīqī u Ash‘ār-i Ū, ed. Muhammad Dabīr-Siyāqī (Tehran: ‘Ilmī, 1962), 99; also see Thackston, Millennium, 3.

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Sample Literature for Chapter 8 3 (Anvarī) See Alireza Korangy, “Love and Reason in the Ghazal,” in A Companion to World Literature (New York: Wiley, 2018); also Auḥad al-Dīn Anvarī, Dīvān-i Anvarī, ed. Mudarris Radavī (Tehran: Bungah-i Tarjuma va Nashr-i Kitab, 1961). 4 A. N. (Manūchihrī) Manūchihrī, Dīvān, Muḥammad Dabīr Siyāqī (Tehran: Sanā’ī, 1963). 5 (Khāqānī) Kazzazi, Divan-i Khāqānī, 774–775. 6 Thackston, Millennium, 43. 7 Ibid., 76. 8 (Ḥāfīẓ) Ḥāfẓ, Dīvān, Ghazal 90. 9 Ibid., Ghazal 13. 10 Ibid., Ghazal 16. 11 (Jāmī) Thackston, Millennium, 71. 12 (Vaḥshī Bāfaqī) Vaḥshī, Dīvān-i Vahshī Bāfqī, ed. Ḥusayn Nakha‘ī (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1987), 210. 13 (Ghiyās Shīrāzī) Kamāl Ghiyās Shīrāzī, Dīvān-i Kāmil-i Kamāl Ghiyās Shīrāzī (Tehran: Kitābkhānah, Mūzih va Markaz-i Asnād-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, 2011). 14 (Ṣā’ib) Ṣā’ib-i Tabrīzī, Kulliyāt-i Ṣā’ib-i Tabrīzī, ed. Amīrī Fīrūzkūhī (Tehran: Khayyām, 1954), 262. 15 (Bīdil) Thackston, Millennium, 89.

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9 NIẒĀMĪ GANJAVĪ An Innovator of Persian Narrative Poetry A. A. Seyed-Gohrab

Niẓāmī Ganjavī (1141–1209) is a Persian poet whose name is associated with Persian romantic and didactic epics. Although he composed most of his poetry for courts, he shunned the courts, often advising readers to live a secluded life. Rulers respected his ascetic comport.1 When Qizil Arslān invited the poet to his court, he ordered that the wine should be removed and the music and dance stopped out of respect. His work has inspired generations of poets, from the Balkans to Bengal, to write creative imitations of his epics. Niẓāmī is also a favourite of visual artists who have illustrated various scenes from his epics in manuscripts, on Persian carpets, vases, tiles, and other artefacts. Next to Firdowsī, he is perhaps the most illustrated poet in the entire world of Islam. In addition to the lyrical ghazals, qaṣīdas, and rubāʿīs collected in his Dīvān, amounting to 1989 couplets, Niẓāmī wrote fve narrative poems, entitled Khamsa (“The Quintet”) or the panj ganj (“The Five Treasures”). The frst of these is the didactic Makhzan al-asrār (The Treasury of Secrets, 1166), consisting of 2260 couplets in sarīʿ meter. It is dedicated to Bahrām Shāh. In addition to its long dībācha, or “introductory part,” the poem consists of twenty maqālāt or “discourses,” each followed by an illustrative anecdote, imparting ethical virtues such as justice, man’s position in the world, asceticism, and preparation for the Hereafter. I will discuss this narrative further in the next section. When Niẓāmī had established his reputation, the ruler of Darband sent him, in recognition, a beautiful slave girl named Āfāq. Niẓāmī fell in love with her and married her in 1173. A son named Muḥammad was born, but Āfāq died in 1181. In the same period, Tughril II invited Niẓāmī to write a love story. As a memorial to his beloved wife, Niẓāmī wrote about the love between the last great Persian king before the Arab conquest, Khusrow Parvīz II (590–628), and the Armenian Christian princess Shīrīn. Niẓāmī composed the work, running to more than 6000 couplets in hazaj meter, between 1176 and 1191.2 The subject had been treated by Firdowsī, but Niẓāmī creates a new version, applying narrative techniques borrowed from poets such as Fakhr al-Dīn Asʿad Gurgānī, whose Parthian romance Vīs and Rāmīn was completed in 1054.3 In addition to the ethics of love, Niẓāmī treats the themes of loyalty, implications of political and interreligious marriages, and of love marriage. In this romance, Niẓāmī presents strong women who claim their place in society even when confronted with a mighty king. Shīrīn is an ideal of beauty, chastity, and wisdom and is probably a tribute to Āfāq. Another strong woman is Mahīn Bānū, Shīrīn’s aunt, who advises her on how DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-16

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to deal with Khosrow. The courtesan Shakar (“Sugar”) runs a brothel but appears to be a virgin: if Khosrow wants to go to bed with her, he should frst marry her. While in the frst episode of Shīrīn, the poet allows women to claim their positions, in the Shakar episode, he emphasizes how a chastely comport may lie behind an outwardly immodest lifestyle. In this and in his other narratives, moral and ethical tensions lead the reader to ponder biases and preconceptions. While he is telling an entertaining story, the didactic aspects never escape the poet’s attention, especially when he refers to love, sex, and marriage. What are the consequences of political and love marriage? How can love be assimilated into an arranged marriage? And how is male chastity viewed as compared to female chastity, given the examples of Khusrow and of Shīrīn?4 The third epic is the romance Leylī and Majnūn (1188), some 4000 couplets in hazaj meter, perhaps the most imitated romance in the Islamic world. The story has a simple plot. An Arab boy named Qays falls deeply in love with Leylī, but her father rejects him and Qays becomes so mad, even “possessed” (majnūn), by Leylī that he leaves human society and wanders half-naked in the wilderness, composing love poetry. The story circulated widely, long before Niẓāmī’s time, as unconnected anecdotes, popular among Islamic mystics and common people.5 Niẓāmī strung these pearls of anecdotes together, adding oral traditions and his own imagination, to create a dynamic epic with an opening, an exciting climax, and a touching ending. Both Leylī and Majnūn die as virgins. The poem belongs to the ʿUdhrī love tradition in which the woman is idealized in a courtly fashion. Niẓāmī’s poem oscillates between earthly and heavenly love, as Majnūn could be regarded as a wandering dervish seeking union with his Beloved. A profane reading emphasizes the devastating force of love and how love as illness may cause destruction, while a spiritual interpretation points to the concept of longing for the unreachable. Paradoxically, when Majnūn is fnally able to marry Leylī, he is so much infatuated with the idea of love that he rejects physical love. Niẓāmī creates levels of tension in this simple story, especially when he depicts Leylī. To begin with, he was the frst poet to name Leylī frst in the title. Some scholars say that the whole story is about Leylī rather than Majnūn. Leylī is presented as a poet. Arab patriarchal society subordinates her to the dictates of his father and the tribe. When she is married of to Ibn Salām against her will, she protects her virginity by slapping her husband when he makes sexual advances. She even arranges meetings with Majnūn. Through Leylī’s character, Niẓāmī demonstrates the tensions among tribal and even religious laws on love and marriage and individual human character. The poet gives many speech turns to Leylī to express herself. In one passage, Leylī elaborates on how it is to live as a woman in such a situation. This story with a simple plot shows Niẓāmī’s virtuosity. In his hands it becomes a didactic and mystico-philosophic epic that can be read as an allegory of mystical love, an entertaining story, and a critique of patriarchal society. In the modern critical text editions of Niẓāmī’s collected epics, these three poems are followed by Haft Peykar (“The Seven Beauties”) and then Iskandar-nāma (The Alexander Romance) as Niẓāmī’s fnal narrative work. This order is open to question. According to De Blois, Niẓāmī composed Iskandar-nāma in 1194 and Haft Peykar in 1197.6 The Alexander epic is over 10,000 couplets in mutaqārib meter, in two parts, recounting the life of Alexander of Macedon. The frst part is entitled Sharaf-nāma, dealing with Alexander’s exploits as a king, while the second part, Iqbāl-nāma or khirad-nāma, is devoted to ethics, philosophy, and mysticism, portraying Alexander as a sage, a mystic, and a prophet. Here Alexander is presented as one who seeks “knowledge rather than pleasure,” holding dialogues with philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Porphyry, Hermes, and Plato.7 Alexander has a dual image in Persian cultural history. On the one hand, he is seen, especially by Zoroastrian Persians, as the destroyer of temples and sacred books and is called “the cursed” (kujastag), while, from Niẓāmī’s time onwards, he is “the blessed” (khujasta) in many narratives.8 246

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Niẓāmī’s positive depiction of Alexander has had a strong infuence on representations of Alexander. In this huge narrative, Niẓāmī weaves many Judaic, Christian, Pahlavi, and other sources into the fabric of his narrative while adding his own innovative elements. Each episode starts with two couplets in which the poet summons the cupbearer. While wine, the cup, and the cup-bearer may be taken literally, they also allude in each case to certain elements of the story to come.9 As Chelkowski states, “historical truth is heavily overshadowed by the fabulous and fantastic adventures of the hero, more so than in any other previous work on the same subject. Lyrical and didactic even mystical passages are woven into the fabric of Alexander’s life and conquest.”10 Haft Peykar is a romance in some 5000 couplets in khafīf meter, recounting the love story of the pre-Islamic Persian King Bahram, who falls in love with seven princesses from seven regions of the world.11 While the erotic and entertaining quality of the poem is central, in terms of symbolism and structure, this is perhaps the most convoluted romance in classical Persian literature.12 The seven princesses symbolize the seven divisions of the world (haft kishvar) according to the ancient Persian worldview, in which Persia is the centre and the other six regions are on the periphery.13 The regions also correspond to the seven planets, the seven days of the week, and the seven stages of mystic progress. The princesses teach King Bahrām lessons of life, and at the end he realizes that deliverance cannot be found in this world. He leaves behind each of these princesses, just as, in the ascension of Muḥammad, the Prophet passes through the heavenly spheres, leaving behind an aspect of his humanity at each station, until he goes beyond time and place to a beatifc vision of God. The poem also contains many didactic lessons about just rule and ideal kingship.14 These poems have been imitated by generations of poets and have survived in many manuscripts. Niẓāmī’s most eminent emulators are Amīr Khusrow (1253–1325), Khājū Kirmānī (1290 – d. around 1349), and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414–1492). There are several critical text editions of the epics. Vaḥīd Dastgirdī’s edition and his helpful commentary is still one of best, although one should be cautious about his subjective inclusion or exclusion of verses. Another edition is by Bihrūz Tharvatīyān, whose rich annotations can be complementary to those of Dastgirdī. Neatly organized critical editions were also made in Azerbaijan from 1941. It should also be added here that the completion dates assigned to individual poems sometimes difer, as they may refer to a poem’s dedication to a ruler or to its actual completion, which remains a point of discussion. The poems have also been adapted and translated in various languages.15 Several of these poems have also been put to music. Perhaps the most famous of them in the West is the song “Layla” by Eric Clapton, part of the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.16 The album’s cover and the ffth song are credited to Niẓāmī and Clapton. Another famous musical adaptation is Puccini’s opera Turandot, which is based on an episode from Haft Peykar.17 Adaptations in various artistic domains would be worthy of a separate study. Sufce to say that Niẓāmī had, and still has, a lasting impact on Persian literature, across and beyond the Persianate cultural areas.

Niẓāmī’s Style and Organizational Skills Among classical Persian poets, Niẓāmī is a unique phenomenon, a poet who is envied even by the grand lyricist of Persia, Ḥāfẓ of Shiraz, who borrows many compound words, metaphors, and images from Niẓāmī. To show his organizational skills, I would like to concentrate on his frst known narrative, Makhzan al-asrār, which is inspired by Ḥakīm Sanāʾī’s Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa va sharīʿat al-ṭarīqa, written for Fakhr al-Dīn Bahrāmshāh, the ruler of Arzanjān, around 561/1165. Like Sanāʾī’s poem, Niẓāmī’s Makhzan is a moral, didactical, ethical, and philosophical poem. 247

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However Niẓāmī’s poem is a quarter of the length of Ḫadīqa, has a diferent metre, and, unlike Sanāʾī’s Ḫadīqat, is neatly organised. In addition to its dībācha, “introductory part,” the poem consists of twenty maqālāt, followed by illustrative anecdotes, which form a bridge to the next subject. There are sixty chapters in total. The neat organisation of the poem appears when we see that the poet devotes nineteen chapters to the introduction, before the frst maqāla. The order and titles of the introductory chapters are as follows: (1) Praise of God, (2) First prayer (munājāt) on God’s punishment and wrath, (3) Second prayer, on God’s forgiveness and salvation, (4) Praise of the Prophet, (5) On the Prophet’s ascension, (6) First encomium, (7) Second encomium, (8) Third encomium, (9) Fourth encomium, (10) Praise of Malik Fakhr al-Dīn Bahrāmshāh b. Dāvūd, (11) Regarding the zamīn-būs (“kissing the ground”), (12) On the position and rank of this poem, (13) The excellence of speech, (14) The superiority of verse over prose, (15) The description of night and understanding of the heart, (16) The frst seclusion: on cultivating the heart, (17) The fruit of the frst seclusion, (18) The second seclusion: on a nocturnal intimacy, and (19) The fruit of the second seclusion. Several of these chapters are mesmerising descriptions of concepts such as devotions in seclusion or the Prophet Muḥammad’s ascension, while others treat essential theological concepts such as sukhan, a concept corresponding to “word,” “logos,” and “speech.”18 Like many other Persian religious narratives, Makhzan is intended to show how to live as a good Muslim and prepare oneself for the Hereafter, the approach being “salvation through love.” To accomplish this, one should know oneself, according to the adage, “to know oneself is to know the Creator.” The poet gives ample attention to the mysteries of the heart in several chapters, as the heart is the site where God’s secret is lodged. These nineteen chapters prepare the reader to read the theoretical parts and the illustrative anecdotes, each dealing with an essential ethical concept in Islam. The fourth discourse, on “The treatment of subjects,” will serve as an example (see Sample I in the accompanying chapter). In the frst twenty-two couplets, the poet advises the ruler why and how he should be fair and just. In the frst four couplets, the poet depicts the ruler as one who focuses on the pleasures of this world, as if this world were eternal. Instead of taking the Quran in one hand and the sword in the other, following the example of Islamic rulers who conquered large areas, this ruler has taken to wine and the fagon. Niẓāmī accuses the king of behaving like an idle woman with a comb in hand, admiring the beauty of her tresses in the mirror. Niẓāmī is not against behaving like a woman, as his next argument shows. He cites the example of the female mystic Rābiʿa al-ʿAdaviyya (d.801), who saw a thirsty dog in the desert. She cut of her hair to make a rope, and drew water from a well to save the poor beast. The Arabic word rābiʿ (“fourth”) refers to that story and to the Quranic account of the seven sleepers of Ephesus: “The sleepers were three: their dog was the fourth” (18:21). This cryptic allusion is to teach the ruler a lesson in benevolence, extending to all subjects, even animals. It illustrates Niẓāmī’s love for animals. In medieval Islam, the hair of a woman stands for chastity, so cutting one’s hair to save a dog is a daring matter. The allusion also shows Niẓāmī’s brilliance and how he conjures up various layers of signifcation in a single couplet. The ruler should follow the example of this woman and put aside his boasts of bringing down strong men. Niẓāmī even says directly to the ruler that he is even lower than a woman in such a male-dominated society. In the last part of this didactic section, Niẓāmī elaborates on the concept of himmat and connects it to justice. Himmat is hard to translate into a single English word: it may mean “(spiritual) ambition” or “aspiration” but also “meditation.”19 Niẓāmī emphasizes that the ruler should be fearful of taẓallum or “Complaints of injustice,” as they will have efects on his rule. The imperative use of many verbs addressing the ruler underscores the importance of just rule but also gives the poet a superior position as a wise advisor, imparting wisdom and counsel to the king. Here, poetry engages with politics, warning the ruler of unrest among his subjects. To buttress the impact of 248

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himmat, Niẓāmī gives an example of how Indians focused their thoughts on the mighty Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, and, by their strong himmat, they wished to kill him. As explained by Dastgirdī, the himmat of “the two men” mentioned towards the end of the poem alludes to the eforts of some Indian ascetics who tried to kill Sulṭān Maḥmūd.20 The story goes that when Maḥmūd invaded India, the Indian ascetics went to their Temple of Idols, concentrating their thoughts on killing the Sulṭān. After a while, Maḥmūd grew ill, and no one could cure him until a mystic informed the Sulṭān that his illness was due to the himmat of the Indian ascetics. In order to heal the Sulṭān, their himmat had to be weakened. Afterwards, the poet concludes that justice is the precondition of worldly rule, because a just ruler thrives in this world and fnds eternal redemption in the Hereafter. After his candid advice to the ruler, Niẓāmī gives an illustrative anecdote to support his arguments about justice. This is the story of “the Old Woman and Sulṭān Sanjar.” The anecdote has been included in the primary school curriculum in Iran, so many children have learned it by heart. It is conspicuous that Niẓāmī chooses to base his argument for justice on an old woman, after having told the ruler that he cannot match the virtues of a woman. This moving story depicts how drunken policemen come to the house of an old woman, insulting her, beating her up, dragging her by her hair from one end of the alley to another, and asking her about a murderer. One day, when the old woman sees Sulṭān Sanjar passing through her neighbourhood on horseback, she runs to him and seizes the hem of his clothing, asking for justice. This scene is extremely popular with Persian painters, who have painted this picture through the centuries, putting the old woman in the centre. The story speaks for itself, perfectly showing Niẓāmī’s technique, coining of new compound words and contriving new metaphors.21 It would be beyond the scope of the present chapter to analyse the literary and linguistic aspects of this splendid piece, yet the passage shows how Niẓāmī convinces his courtly readers to behave justly. (see Sample II literary text): One of Niẓāmī’s strengths as a poet is his knowledge of scientifc disciplines such as astronomy, cosmology, theology, and medicine, which he incorporated in his metaphors and imagery. This is why he is characterised as a poeta doctus or “learned poet,” bearing the title of Ḥakīm or “the Sage.”22 Further research on the scientifc references in Niẓāmī’s poetry would be welcome. There are several scholars whose work has been essential in appreciating Niẓāmī’s poetic oeuvre. Hellmut Ritter’s study on Niẓāmī’s imagery; Evgeniĭ Èduardovich Bertel (1890–1957) and his examination of Niẓāmī’s poetics, his sources and textual criticism, and his social views; Peter Chelkowski’s presentation of Niẓāmī as a master dramatist; Christine van Ruymbeke’s analyses of his botanical knowledge; Kamran Talattof ’s monography on Niẓāmī’s poetic allegory; Julie Scott Meisami’s analysis of the poet’s romances; and R. Würsch’s examination of the poet’s conceptualisation of a varied range of concepts remain indispensable studies.23 Another distinguishing characteristic of Niẓāmī is the systematic introduction of a series of topics in the long introductions to his epics. These usually start with an encomium to God, praise of the prophet Muḥammad, praise of the ruler, praise of the word, and the reason for writing the poem, followed by personal notes ranging from biographical references to ideas about the world. In these introductory parts, we see a passionate virtuoso who weighs every syllable in mesmerising imagery and metaphors. To give one example to end this chapter, I would like to cite a short excerpt from Niẓāmī’s depiction of the Prophet Muḥammad’s ascent through the heavens, an episode that the poet included in all fve epics, even those that deal with secular and pre-Islamic subjects. This may simply show that Niẓāmī is consistent in the organisation of his long narratives, but it may also be a hint to readers to interpret the story that follows as an allegory. In such passages, Niẓāmī shows his profound knowledge of medieval astronomy, mixing this with lyricism and mysticism. (see Sample III literary text) 249

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Notes 1 For biographies of Niẓāmī, see ʿAbd al-Ḥuseyn Zarrīnkūb, “Niẓāmī, a Life-Long Quest for a Utopia,” in Colloquio sul Poeta Persiano Nezami e la Leggenda Iranica di Alessandro Magno (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1977), 5–10; idem, Pīr-i Ganja dar justijū-yi nākujā-ābād: dar bāra zindagī, āthār va andīsha-yi Niẓāmī (Tehran: Sukhan, 1374/1995); The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, ed. K. Talattof and J. W. Clinton (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 1–13. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Laylī and Majnūn: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī’s Epic Romance (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), 25–40; Chelkoswki, P. in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, s.v. Niẓāmī Gandjawī; idem, Mirror of the Invisible World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nezami (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975). 2 Amin Banani, “Az Vīs u Rāmīn tā Khusrow u Shīrīn,” Irānshenāsi 3/4 (1991–92): 708–713; P. Orsatti, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Ḵosrow o Širin and Its Imitations. 3 See Dick Davis, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Vis o Rāmin; idem, Panthea’s Children: Hellenistic Novels and Medieval Persian Romances, Biennial Yarshater Lecture Series, No. 3, New York, 2002; also J. Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 86–113. 4 Hishmat Muʾayyad, “Maryam u Shīrīn dar shiʿr-i Firdowsī u Niẓāmī,” in Iranshenāsi 3/3 (1991–92): 526–539. 5 Seyed-Gohrab, Laylī and Majnūn; idem, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Leyli o Majnun. 6 See François de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, Begun by the Late C. A. Storey, vol. 2 (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1994), 438–446; idem, 1997, 585–591; see also Domenico Parrello, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Ḵamsa of Neẓāmi. 7 William L. Hanaway, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Eskandar-Nāma. Seyed-Gohrab, “A Persian Alexander Romance: The Cupbearer’s Functions in Niẓāmī’s Sharafnāma,” he International Journal of Persian Literature 5 (2020): 40–62. 8 The words are parallel: the only change is that the letter “k” is altered into “kh” after the islamization of Persia. The ending “-ag” in middle Persian has developed into the silent “h,” usually transliterated as -a or -ih. See P. J. Chelkwoski, “Niẓāmī’s Iskandarnāmeh,” in Colloquio sul Poeta Persiano Nezami e la Leggenda Iranica di Alessandro Magno (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1977), 19. Chelkowski elaborates on the dual image of Alexander, citing the opinions of Niẓāmī’s editor Dastgirdī, the literary historian Zeyn al-Dīn Muʾtaman, and the poet Pizhmān Bakhtiyārī; see also J. C. Bürgel, “On Some Sources of Nezami’s Eskandarnama,” in The Necklace of the Pleiades, ed. F. Lewis and S. Sharma (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), 21–30; idem, “Conquérant, philosophe et prophète. L’image d’Alexandre le Grand dans l’épopée de Nezami,” in Pand-o Sokhan. Mélanges oferts à Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, ed. C. Balay et al. (Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1995), 65–78. Bürgel has also translated this epic: Nezami. Das Alexanderbuch. Eskandarnama, Zürich: Manesse-Verl, 1991; see also the contributions of Mario Casari (pp. 95–105), Patrick Franke (pp. 107–25) and Carlo Saccone (pp. 167–80) in A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim: Artistic and Humanistic Aspects of Nizami Ganjavi’s Khamsa, ed. J. C. Bürgel and C. van Ruymbeke (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2011). Valuable monographs on the Alexander romance in Persian and Arabic are by M. S. Southgate, Eskandarnamah: A Persian Medieval Alexander-Romance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Marina Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand en Iran: Le Dārāb Nāmeh d’Abu Tāher Tarsusi (Paris: De Boccard, 2005) (a translation of a Persian prose romance Dārāb-nāma); F. Doufkar-Aerts, Alexander Magnus Arabicus: A Survey of the Alexander Tradition through Seven Centuries: From Pseudo-Callisthenes to Surı (Leuven: Peeters, 2010); R. Stoneman, K. Erickson, and I. Netton, eds., The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East (Groningen: Barkhuis, 2012). 9 See Christine van Ruymbeke, “Iskandar’s Bibulous Business: Wine, Drunkenness and the Calls to the Sāqī in Nizāmī Ganjavī’s Sharaf-nāma,” Iranian Studies 46, no. 2 (2013): 251–272; A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “A Persian Alexander Romance: The Cupbearer’s Functions in Niẓāmī’s Sharafnāma,” in The International Journal of Persian Literature 5 (2020): 40–62. 10 P. J. Chelkwoski, “Niẓāmī’s Iskandarnāmeh,” in Colloquio sul Poeta Persiano Nezami, 23–24. 11 de Blois, François, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Haft Peykar; Iran-shenāsi, vol. 3/4, Winter 1992 (special issue devoted to Haft Peykar); C. Cross, “The Many Colors of Love in Niẓāmī’s Haft Paykar Beyond the Spectrum,” Journal of Medieval European Literatures (2016): 52–96. 12 See the introduction in Niẓāmī Ganjavī, Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance, trans. J. Scott Meisami (Oxford: World’s Classics, 1995); also see J. Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 13 A. Shapur Shahbazi in Encyclopædia Iranica, s.v. Haft Kešvar.

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Niz.āmī Ganjavī 14 Julie Scott Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah? Nizami’s Ethical Poetic,” Edebiyāt 1, no. 2 (1989): 41–75; Alyssa Gabbay, “Love Gone Wrong, Then Right Again: Male/Female Dynamics in the Bahrām Gūr-Slave Girl Story,” Iranian Studies 42, no. 5 (2009): 677–692. 15 For a bibliography on Niẓāmī in various languages, see The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi, 189–204; also see Abu’l-Qāsim Rādfar, Kitāb-shināsī-yi Niẓāmī-yi Ganjavī (Tehran: Mu’assissa-yi muṭāliʿāt va taḥqīqāt-i farhangī, 1992); for the most recent and splendid literary translation, see Nezami Ganjavi, Layli and Majnun: Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Dick Davis (Washington, DC: Penguin Books, 2021) (frst published by Mage Publishers, 2020). 16 For the reception of this romance and Clapton’s song, see Seyed-Gohrab, “Longing for Love: The Romance of Layla and Majnun,” in A Companion to World Literature, ed. Ken Seigneurie, vol. 2 (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2020), 861–872. 17 Several studies are available on the sources of Puccini’s opera: an invaluable recent study is by Y. Mogtader and G. Schoeler, Turandot: Die persische Märchenerzählung, Edition, Űbersetzung, Kommentar (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2019); also see F. Meier, “Turandot in Persien,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 95 (1941): 1–27. 18 See K. Talattof, “Nizāmī Ganjavi, the Wordsmith: The Concept of Sakhun in Classical Persian Poetry,” in A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim: Artistic and Humanistic Aspects of Nizami Ganjavi’s Khamsa, ed., J. C. Bürgel and C. van Ruymbeke (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2011), 211–244; also see idem, ezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature: Demystifying the Mystic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). 19 Steingass gives a wide range of meanings for himmat, “inclination, desire, resolution, intention, design; ambition, aspiration; mind, thought, attention, care; magnanimity; power, strength, ability; auspices, grace, favour.” 20 Niẓāmī Ganjavī, Makhzan al-asrār, ed. V. Dastgirdī (Tehran: Armaghān, 1313/1934), 2nd ed. (Tehran: ʿIlmī, 1363/1984), 90; also see R. Würsch, Niẓāmīs Schatzkammer der Geheimnisse: Eine Untersuchung zu Maḫzan ak-asrār (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2005), 42–43. 21 Würsch, Niẓāmīs Schatzkammer der Geheimnisse, 245–249. 22 On the application of this concept, see J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna (Leiden: E.J. Brill, Publication of the “De Goeje Fund,” No. 25, 1983), 22. 23 See Ritter, Über die Bildsprache Niẓāmīs (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1927), reprinted 2013; E. È. Bertel’s, Izbrannye Trudy: Niẓāmī i Fušūlī (Moskwa: Izdatelstvo vostochnoy literatury, 1962); idem, Niẓāmī: Tvorcheskij put poeta (Moskwa: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1956); on Bertel’s see Michael Zand, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Berthels, Evgeniĭ Èduardovich. P. Chelkowski, “Nezami Master Dramatist,” in Persian Literature, ed. E. Yarshater (Columbia: The Persian Heritage Foundation, Columbia Lectures on Iranian Studies, (3), 1988), 179–189; idem, Mirror of the Invisible World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nezami (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975); C. van Ruymbeke, Science and Poetry in Medieval Persia: The Botany of Nezami’s Khamsa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); eadem, “From Culinary Recipe to Pharmacological Secret for a Successful Wedding Night,” Persica 17 (2001): 127–135; eadem, “Nizami’s Poetry Versus Scientifc Knowledge: The Case of the Pomegranate,” in The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, ed. K. Talattof and J. W. Clinton (New York: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 141–162; R. Würsch, Niẓāmīs Schatzkammer der Geheimnisse: Eine Untersuchung zu Maḫzan ak-asrār (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2005); K. Talattof, ezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature: Demystifying the Mystic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022); J. Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 9 Poems by Nezami Ganjavi

Sample I O you who have thrown away the shield of manliness your demon lies in the cave of alienation. You are proud of a dominion that elicits no loyalty you live a life that knows no eternity. You follow the draught of those who drink wine; a plaything of the planets’ games. You’ve thrown away both Book and blade taking a cup and fagon instead. You hold a mirror and comb in your hands like a lovely woman who worships her tresses. Behold how Rābiʿa treated the dog of those seven men: See what she did to her tresses! O, virtue is shamed for your manliness: be shamed by the virtue of a widow. How long will you boast of pulling down a chevalier? Boast less, boast less, for you’re less than a woman. The neck of the intellect’s not free of virtue’s yoke: no virtue is greater than justice. This water has become fresh but it is not in your brook, the mole has grown beautiful, but it’s not on your face. You are not the heavens, favour the presence of good: be very fearful of the heavens’ Wheel. Only good gems should be displayed; Proft can be made from this good, proft.

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‫ای سپر افکنده ز مردانگی‬ ‫غول تو بیغوله بیگانگی‬ ‫غره به ملکی که وفائیش نیست‬ ‫زنده به عمری که بقائیش نیست‬ ‫پی سپر جرعه میخوارگان‬ ‫دستخوش بازی سیارگان‬ ‫مصحف و شمشیر بینداخته‬ ‫جام و صراحی عوضش ساخته‬ ‫آینه و شانه گرفته به دست‬ ‫چون زن رعنا شده گیسو پرست‬ ‫رابعه با رابع آن هفت مرد‬ ‫گیسوی خود را بنگر تا چه کرد‬ ‫ای هنر از مردی تو شرمسار‬ ‫از هنر بیوه زنی شرم دار‬ ‫چند کنی دعوی مرد افکنی‬ ‫کم زن و کم زن که کم از یکزنی‬ ‫گردن عقل از هنر آزاد نیست‬ ‫هیچ هنر خوبتر از داد نیست‬ ‫تازه شد این آب و نه در جوی تست‬ ‫نغز شد این خال و نه بر روی تست‬ ‫چرخ نهای محضر نیکی پسند‬ ‫نیک دراندیش ز چرخ بلند‬ ‫جز گهر نیک نباید نمود‬ ‫سود توان کرد بدین مایه سود‬

DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-17

Sample Literature for Chapter 9

It is not fortunate to do injustice to shed the blood of others and dishonour yourself. Previously, much has been claimed until two or three eforts (himmat) combined together.1 Do justice for fear of the people’s himmat, fear complaints of injustice like arrows by night. From wherever himmat may cast its glance, do not humiliate it, for it leaves many traces. See what the impure himmat of those two men did to Maḥmūd’s body! Then think what the himmat of so many pure souls will do to you on Judgement Day! The travellers who follow the angels on the manifest path are not inferior to a tortoise.2 Remove the blade of injustice from their path lest you receive their arrows at dawn. Justice is the condition for ruling the world, behold the condition of the world: it is injustice. Whoever does justice in this house for one night his house for tomorrow will fourish.

‫نیست مبارک ستم انگیختن‬ ‫آب خود و خون کسان ریختن‬ ‫رفت بسی دعوی از این پیشتر‬ ‫تا دو سه همت بهم آید مگر‬ ‫داد کن از همت مردم بترس‬ ‫نیمشب از تیر تظلم بترس‬ ‫همت از آنجا که نظرها کند‬ ‫خوار مدارش که اثرها کند‬ ‫همت آلوده آن یک دو مرد‬ ‫با تن محمود ببین تا چه کرد‬ ‫همت چندین نفس بیغبار‬ ‫با تو ببین تا چه کند روز کار‬ ‫راهروانی که مالیک پیند‬ ‫در ره کشف از کشفی کم نیند‬ ‫تیغ ستم دور کن از راهشان‬ ‫تا نخوری تیر سحرگاهشان‬ ‫دادگری شرط جهانداریست‬ ‫شرط جهان بین که ستمگاریست‬ ‫هر که در این خانه شبی داد کرد‬ 3‫خانه فردای خود آباد کرد‬

Sample II An old woman was burning because of injustice; she reached out and grasped the hem of Sanjar’s robe. “O king, little of your justice I have seen, year after year I’ve sufered your tyranny. A drunken watchman came to my alley and kicked me some times on my head and my face. Though I was blameless, he pulled me from my home, dragging me by my hair to the alley’s end. In the land of oppression he cursed and abused me, he put the seal of oppression on the door of my house. He shouted: “You hunchback, who was killed and by whom at midnight at the end of your alley? He searched my house shouting: “Where is the murderer?” O king, what greater humiliation could there be? 253

‫پیرزنی را ستمی درگرفت‬ ‫دست زد و دامن سنجر گرفت‬ ‫کای ملک آزرم تو کم دیدهام‬ ‫وز تو همه ساله ستم دیدهام‬ ‫شحنه مست آمده در کوی من‬ ‫زد لگدی چند فرا روی من‬ ‫بیگنه از خانه برویم کشید‬ ‫موی کشان بر سر کویم کشید‬ ‫در ستم آباد زبانم نهاد‬ ‫مهر ستم بر در خانم نهاد‬ ‫گفت فالن نیمشب ای کوژپشت‬ ‫بر سر کوی تو فالنرا که کشت‬ ‫خانه من جست که خونی کجاست‬ ‫ای شه ازین بیش زبونی کجاست‬ ‫شحنه بود مست که آن خون کند‬ ‫عربده با پیرزنی چون کند‬

Sample Literature for Chapter 9

The watchman was drunk when that murder was done; so he raised an uproar with an old woman. While drinking at the town’s expense they charge old women with crimes. Those who witnessed this injustice have taken away my veiling and your justice. My wounded breasts have been beaten, nothing is left of me and my soul. O King, if you do not give me justice it will be counted against you on the day of reckoning.4 You’re the judge yet I see no justice in you I do not see you free of tyranny. From kings come strength and succour behold what humiliation comes from you on us. It is not right to seize the property of orphans, let it go, for this is not the way of the noble.5 Do not steal trifes from old women be abashed before old women’s grey hair. You’re a slave who claims to be king, you’re not the king when you bring destruction. A king who puts the land in order passes judgement on his subjects with due regard, So that all may obey his commands, placing his love in their hearts and souls. You have turned the world upside down: what virtuous act have you done in your life? The reign of the Turks who achieved such eminence was a kingdom based on the love of justice. Since you foster injustice, you’re not a Turk, you’re a Hindu plunderer. The homes of city-dwellers, ruined by you; the village granary holds not a grain, and thanks to you. Reckon with the coming of death while you can still build a refuge. Your justice a light to illumine your night, your today will be your companion tomorrow. Make old women joyful by your words and remember these words from an old woman. Withdraw your hand from the heads of the wretched, lest you sufer from the mourners’ reaction. How long will you shoot arrows into every corner, unmindful of the journey without provisions.

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‫رطل زنان دخل والیت برند‬ ‫پیرهزنان را به جنایت برند‬ ‫آنکه درین ظلم نظر داشتست‬ ‫ستر من و عدل تو برداشتست‬ ‫کوفته شد سینه مجروح من‬ ‫هیچ نماند از من و از روح من‬ ‫گر ندهی داد من ای شهریار‬ ‫با تو رود روز شمار این شمار‬ ‫داوری و داد نمیبینمت‬ ‫وز ستم آزاد نمیبینمت‬ ‫از ملکان قوت و یاری رسد‬ ‫از تو به ما بین که چه خواری رسد‬ ‫مال یتیمان ستدن ساز نیست‬ ‫بگذر ازین غارت ابخاز نیست‬ ‫بر پله پیرهزنان ره مزن‬ ‫شرم بدار از پله پیرهزن‬ ‫بندهای و دعوی شاهی کنی‬ ‫شاه نهای چونکه تباهی کنی‬ ‫شاه که ترتیب والیت کند‬ ‫حکم رعیت برعایت کند‬ ‫تا همه سر بر خط فرمان نهند‬ ‫دوستیش در دل و در جان نهند‬ ‫عالم را زیر و زبر کردهای‬ ‫تا توئی آخر چه هنر کردهای‬ ‫دولت ترکان که بلندی گرفت‬ ‫مملکت از داد پسندی گرفت‬ ‫چونکه تو بیدادگری پروری‬ ‫ترک نهای هندوی غارتگری‬ ‫مسکن شهری ز تو ویرانه شد‬ ‫خرمن دهقان ز تو بیدانه شد‬ ‫زامدن مرگ شماری بکن‬ ‫میرسدت دست حصاری بکن‬ ‫عدل تو قندیل شب افروز تست‬ ‫مونس فردای تو امروز تست‬ ‫پیرزنانرا بسخن شاد دار‬ ‫و این سخن از پیرزنی یاد دار‬ ‫دست بدار از سر بیچارگان‬ ‫تا نخوری پاسخ غمخوارگان‬ ‫چند زنی تیر بهر گوشهای‬ ‫غافلی از توشه بی توشهای‬ ‫فتح جهان را تو کلید آمدی‬

Sample Literature for Chapter 9

You are the key to the conquest of the world, you were not created to pursue injustice. You are a king to decrease tyranny, where others are in pain, you are the balm. It’s right for the weak to appeal to you; it’s right for you to be kind to them. Listen to the impoverished souls, protect two or three ascetics, sitting in a corner. Sanjar, who took in the Province of Khurāsān, lost out since he took this discourse lightly. In our era, justice has been overturned today its home’s on the wings of Sīmurgh. No shame remains under this blue vault no water (i.e. honour) is left in a world of tumbling dust. Rise up, Niẓāmī, abandon restraint! Weep blood for the heart that bleeds.

‫نز پی بیداد پدید آمدی‬ ‫شاه بدانی که جفا کم کنی‬ ‫گرد گران ریش تو مرهم کنی‬ ‫رسم ضعیفان به تو نازش بود‬ ‫رسم تو باید که نوازش بود‬ ‫گوش به دریوزه انفاس دار‬ ‫گوشه نشینی دو سه را پاس دار‬ ‫سنجر کاقلیم خراسان گرفت‬ ‫کرد زیان کاینسخن آسان گرفت‬ ‫داد در این دور برانداختست‬ ‫در پر سیمرغ وطن ساختست‬ ‫شرم درین طارم ازرق نماند‬ ‫آب درین خاک معلق نماند‬ ‫خیز نظامی ز حد افزون گری‬ 6‫بر دل خوناب شده خون گری‬

Sample III: Translation by Julie Scott Meisami, The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance As he [Muḥammad] rushed on like morning’s wind, astride a mount like raging lion, His comrade left of his attack, and in his course Buraq grew slack For he had reached a stage so far that Gabriel dared not come near. ... Companions left behind, he pressed On to the Sea of Selfessness; ... Beyond his being’s bounds he trod, till he achieved the sight of God. He saw outright the Worshipped One, and cleansed his eyes of all but Him; Nor did in one place rest his sight, as greetings came from left and right. All one – front, back, left, right, high, low, the six directions were no more. ... When sight is veiled by direction, the heart’s not free from false perception.7

Notes 1 According to Dastgirdī, the frst hemistich refers to the king and his daʿvī, “claiming” (or “pretending”) to be a valiant, mard-afkan, in line eight. The compound means literally “to overthrow a man.”

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Sample Literature for Chapter 9 2 The poet is referring to a turtle laying eggs on the beach and returning to the sea. From the water, the turtle exerts its himmat so that the baby turtles hatch and run to the water. The comparison is that mystics have high aspirations and can achieve their goal through himmat, which here means concentration or meditation. The mystics are no less able than a turtle to achieve their goals by unseen means. 3 Niẓāmī Ganjavī, Makhzan al-asrār, ed. V. Dastgirdī (Tehran: Armaghān, 1313/1934), 89–90. 4 The second hemistich can also be translated as, “on the day of reckoning, the same will happen to you.” 5 According to Steingass, Abkhāz is the “name of a country in Turkistān, the inhabitants of which are said to be very ferocious.” The poet is probably referring to the plunder of this region. A variant reading is aḥrār which means “free,” “free-born,” or “noble,” and I have chosen this reading. 6 Niẓāmī, Makhzan al-asrār, 91–93. 7 The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance, trans. By Julie Scott Meisami (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 8–9.

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10 GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE AND HISTORICAL TIME LAYERS IN NIZAMI GANJAVI’S WORKS Hamlet Isaxanli Introduction The great poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209?), who was born and buried in Ganja (now in the Republic of Azerbaijan), spent most of his life in this city and did not travel much; in any case, neither in his own works, nor in medieval sources and contemporary research on Nizami, is there any information about Nizami’s travels to distant lands. However, the poet, who called himself: “This Nizami, captured in Ganja” (d.241),1 travelled the world in his thoughts, and his rich imagination took him on a journey through space and time. Nizami described diferent countries and people; their philosophies of life, customs, and traditions; and everyday lives and culture and emphasized their diferences. Nizami talked of the cities and villages inhabited by these people, the mountains, the steppes and deserts, the nature around them, the seas and rivers, as if he were a traveler walking on his own feet in these places. Nizami’s verse-novels, known as Khamsa (Arabic for “Quintet”), demonstrate his extensive knowledge of world geography, world history, and the cultures of the people around the world. Nizami, whose works were dedicated to the past historical events and human problems, had a unique philosophy of history. His views on what constitutes a good human, a just ruler, beauty, and love are not outdated and are still read with interest and make one think today. When discussing the issue of geographical space and historical time, which occupy a substantial place in Nizami’s work, I tried to rely as much as possible on Nizami’s own words. Nizami is the author of fve verse novels written in Persian (chronologically, in order of writing: Makhzan al-Asrar (“Treasury of Mysteries”); Khosrov and Shirin; Leyli and Majnun; Haft Peykar (“Seven Beauties”); and Iskendername (“The Book of Alexander”), which consists of two parts: Sharafname (The Book of Honor) and Iqbalname (The Book of Fate) and lyrical poems. Nizami, the greatest poet of his time, realizes his own poetic eminence, speaks about it, and muses that in order to escape his imprisonment in Ganja, it is necessary to create beautiful verse to spread his fame around the world: Free yourself from being prisoner in Ganja The lion’s bridle is in your hand, open your clutches Ride your horse outside, the feld is wide You are young, and the branch of your luck is young DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-18

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There is no greatest poet of our time Even if there were, there is no one like you (dd. 536–8)2 Nizami’s claim is well founded. There are few well-known poets among Nizami’s contemporaries who have a prominent place in the history of literature. It is worth mentioning Faridaddin Attar (?1145–?1221), famous for his Suf-like works such as Mantiq-at-Tayr and Ilahiname. Nizami, like other poets before and after his time, as well as his contemporaries, dedicated his creations to monarchs or was commissioned by monarchs, seeking a reward for his work. However, Nizami wrote his immortal poems with great love, and the main driving force behind his works was his creative passion. There are many examples of this; here are just two verses to illustrate my point from the last chapter of the Sharafname, “Praise to Sultan Nusrat al-Din:” My goal is not to obtain from you an elephant’s weight in gold (d.6828)3 No! My love drew me to this work (d.6831)4 When Nizami wrote his last work, Iskendername, he was no longer a young man; he was old and sick. However, together with his hero Iskender, in his imagination he rode his horse all over the world, charged across wide felds, crossed great seas, and travelled long distances on water and land.

Scientifc Tinking Khamsa is full of ideas and concepts of philosophy and music, geography and history, art and chess, arithmetic and geometry, alchemy, biology and medicine, astronomy, and physics. Attempts to depict Nizami as a natural scientist, or assertions like “Nizami was not only ahead of the scientists of his time, but also of later scientists (including some true greats who made revolutionary scientifc discoveries)” by some authors who have read and studied Nizami are wrong and unfounded, if I put it mildly. Nizami was neither a scientist who advanced any feld of science nor a professional philosopher. Nizami was a poet and a thinker who read and gained extensive knowledge of science and philosophy and instinctively understood and loved science and philosophy. Nizami expresses it himself beautifully: “I have received enlightenment from every science” (d.428).5 Creative people – painters, sculptors, engineers, musicians – occupy a prominent place in Nizami’s poems. Nizami features many scholars and philosophers in Khamsa, stating that, “The rank of a scholar is higher than any other rank” (d.367).6 Nizami values scientifc judgment, the substantiation of an idea with valid arguments: It is unfortunate not to listen To any statement with strong evidence (d.991)7 Nizami also understands the limitations of science and emphasizes a subtle point: All the wise and dedicated people are helpless to see How did this world come to be? If someone knew how the world came to be created 258

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It is possible that that someone would be able to do the same Since it is impossible for us to create the world How it is done is beyond our imagination (dd. 40–42)8 He skillfully uses the concepts intrinsic to science, philosophy, and art; ponders philosophical thoughts about life; and creates beautiful figurative expressions and metaphors. In his Treasury of Mysteries, young Nizami stresses the need for scientific thinking in the poet’s verse: Every word that raises its fag outside the science, – Even if this word is even mine, – cross it out (d.2227)9 It is worth mentioning here that the distich at the Introduction to Divan (“Dibache”) by Mohammad Fuzuli (?1494–1556) in Azerbaijani Turk language is often cited when noting the importance of scientifc thought in poetry: Poetry without science is a wall without foundation A wall without foundation becomes rather unreliable.10

An Innovative Poet Who Benefted From His Creative Predecessors Nizami loved and was most infuenced by another Iranian poet Firdowsi (935–1020), the author of famous Shahname (The Book of Kings). Storylines of the three poems included in Khamsa – Khosrov and Shirin, Seven Beauties, and Iskendername – featured in Firdowsi’s Shahname before Khamsa. However, according to Nizami, even though the great “previous master of words” said a lot in Shahname, he didn’t say everything: The previous master of words, the judge from Tus He adorned word’s face like a bride In his letter, he strings many pearls of words But much worthwhile content remains to be said (dd. 493–4)11 Generously, he muses that the main reason for this shortcoming is Firdowsi’s desire to leave some stories to his friends, in this case to Nizami: He also set aside a share for his friends After all, halva should not be eaten alone (dd. 497)12 At the same time, Nizami does not neglect to point out the real diferences between Shahname and his own work: I did not say what the connoisseur said before me It is not good to repeat what has been already said (d.476)13 259

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For example, Nizami explains the superiority of his Khosrov and Shirin, powerfully written from artistic viewpoint as great love story, over the story of Khosrov and Shirin in Shahname by Firdowsi’s advanced age and inability to serenade love appropriately: Because he has reached the age of sixty His arrow has fallen from bow of youth (d.474)14 Nizami also emphasizes the sometime need for repetition, comparing his Seven Beauties with the corresponding part of Shahname: But because the way to the treasure is one Although the arrows are two, the target is one (dd. 1057–8)15 However, in Seven Beauties, Nizami also speaks about events not found in Shahname: I spoke the unspoken half of this [book] I pierced through the half-pierced jewel (d.193)16 Among the themes that Nizami re-visited from Shahname, Iskendername, the last verse-novel of Khamsa, dedicated to the great military leader and ruler Iskender (Alexander), is radically diferent from Firdowsi’s approach: It was an unpierced pearl, which I pierced (d.3625)17 Evidently, Nizami considered the “Seven Beauties” in the Shahname a half-pierced jewel, and he declared that with his own Seven Beauties, he had pierced this jewel to the end. He thought the story of Iskender in the Shahname was an unpierced pearl, judging it very poorly described, so Nizami wrote his monumental Iskendername and declared, “I pierced the unpierced pearl.” So, what are the main diferences between Nizami’s Iskendername and the story of Iskender in Shahname? They are many! These diferences are driven by Nizami’s philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic views and his thoughts on historical time and geographical space. Firdowsi praised ancient Iran. Shahname is a poetic history of the Iranian dynasties from the legendary period until the victory of the Arab Islamic armies over Iran. The Iran–Turan conficts and wars play an important role in Shahname. Iran also occupies a signifcant place in Nizami’s work: “The whole world is the body, and Iran is the heart” (d.356).18 However, Nizami does not dwell on the legendary and heroic periods of Iran; he is content with just two beautiful poems about two famous rulers of the historical period – Khosrov Anushirvan and Bahram-Gur. In Shahname, Iskender is the king of Iran, the elder brother of Dara (Darius III), while Nizami demonstrates his commitment to historical accuracy here: Iskender (Alexander) is a Macedonian. Nizami mentions the ruler of Macedonia, Feylagusus (Philip II): His name was Feylagus, and he was a famous king Both the Greeks and the Russians obeyed his orders 260

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His home was in Greece His real place was Magdunia (dd. 820–2)19 Talking about Iskender, Nizami acknowledges various legends and that most of them are fabricated, and he compares the legends and concludes that Iskender is descended from Feylagus (dd. 832–851):20 There is only one truth in the narrations from each land That this king was descended of Feylagus (d.851)21 Firdowsi’s Shahnameh is the largest poem ever written by a single person; the text of the Shahnameh is about 52,000 distiches (couplets). The section dedicated to Alexander is relatively small – 1261 distiches. Nizami’s Iskendername is the largest poem of Khamsa, its length is about 10,500 distiches. Nizami says that he corrected Firdowsi’s mistakes: Where I came across a mistake I adorned it with the jewel of truth (d.6781)22 He, an old embellisher out there He was mistaken in his words of truth I re-wrote those falsehoods over again (dd. 6783–4)23

“Khamsa” and Geographical Location I Nizami’s heroes roam the steppes and deserts, travel, ride horses, cross mountains and rivers, and set sail. In Treasury of Mysteries, the frst work included in Khamsa, Nizami followed Abulmajd Sanai (1048–?1141), a poet from Ghazna, and was inspired by Sanai’s Suf-like work Hadiqat-ul-Haqaiq (Garden of Truth), and at the same time, Nizami rated his own work higher: He raised his fag in Ghazna This hit the fgure on the Rum coin Although the words on that coin are equal to gold My gold coin is better than that (dd. 403–4)24 After The Treasure of Mysteries, Nizami changed his poetic ideas and began to write great love poems instead of works with collection of didactic stories. Even though, in Khosrov and Shirin and Leyli and Majnun, Nizami engaged in scientifc and philosophical thoughts and appropriate metaphors, as well as moral admonition, both works went down in history as passionate love stories. Nizami became famous for his “lyrical character brought to the epic genre.”25 The protagonists of these two poems think, move, walk, or travel with desire for love. Khosrov and Shirin, which is considered Nizami’s strongest work in the literary sense, was accepted as a love story; it received wider recognition in written and oral literature as “Farhad 261

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and Shirin,” focusing on the leading man Farhad, an architect and engineer who was in love with Shirin. This verse-novel became a source for literary works of various styles. One could say that Khosrov’s travels are connected with searching for a beautiful woman he has heard of, capturing her heart, and bringing her to the palace. In accordance with Khosrov’s wishes, as he fell in love with Shirin as a result of painter Shapur’s praise, Shapur went to Shirin and sweet-talked her to such extent that Shirin ran away from home; got on her horse; and went to Khosrov, south, to Madain. At the same time, Khosrov, who was forced to fee his father, went north towards Barda, wanting to join Shirin. Then Shirin returns to her homeland in the north. Upon receiving the news of his father’s death, Khosrov returns south, but to avoid the attack by Bahram Shah, Khosrov travels to Shirin’s side again, and fnally the lovers meet each other, and a fre of love breaks out in both. Khosrov, who attempts to capture Shirin without marrying her, is unable to do so, becomes angry, travels to the west, and marries Maryam, the daughter of a Rum (Byzantium) emperor (Qeyser or Kaiser). Shirin can’t stand it and goes south again, to Qasri-Shirin. After Maryam’s death, Khosrov goes south to Isfahan to seek out Shekar, of whom he has heard praises, and marries her. Apparently, Khosrov did more horse riding on the battlefeld of love, not on the real battlefeld. In the end, the lovers – Khosrov and Shirin – meet and reunite. I think Rasulzade’s words about this musical meeting scene are very true: “The 12th century poet describes this scene so skilfully, that any modern composer or director would envy.”26 However, the fate of the lovers – Khosrov and Shirin – was bitter in the end; Khosrov is killed by his son, Shirin kills herself: Except for Shirin, who lies in the black soil No one killed herself for another one (d.5594)27 Rasulzade supports this assertion by Nizami: “There were other women who could not tolerate the death of their husbands and died. But Shirin earned this right: no one has died for someone else quite so beautifully.”28 Of course, the last sentence in the great Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet comes to mind here: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.29 The legend of Leyli and Majnun, widespread among the Arabs, was not seriously developed as an epic-lyrical work of poetry before Nizami. Nizami thought about how he would work on this story that was dull in comparison to the traditional Iranian shahs, their decadent lives, and love afairs: Although this story is popular The feeling of joy is far from it The meaning of a poem is joy and caprice Poetry creates wonders from these two things (dd. 53–4)30 And for this reason, he says that “no one has wandered around this sad [subject]” (d.62).31 What journey of interest could Majnun be on, driven to the wilderness by his love for Leyli, having ran away from people to frolic with wild animals?! His only trip was to go to the Kaaba at his father’s insistence. His father asks Majnun to cling to the ring of the Kaaba and to say, “Return 262

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me to the righteousness from this path of madness.” Majnun, on the contrary, declares that his greatest wish is to become a madman of love: Bring me to such point of love Even if I don’t stay, let it stay [alive] (d.32)32 Nizami’s Leyli and Majnun made both Majnun and Leyli immortal! This passionate, crazy love story had a great impact on literature; many famous poets followed Nizami and wrote about them.

“Khamsa” and Geographical Location II In Nizami’s verse-novel known as Seven Beauties or Bahramname, Prince Bahram was sent by his father to Arabia, Yemen, where he grew up, was educated, and showed bravery. Upon hearing the news of his father’s death, he returned to Iran and retrieved the royal crown from between two lions. Bahram spends his days with seven beauties and enjoys life. These girls are the daughters of the seven rulers of the seven nations. Nizami seems to divide the world into seven major regions, parts, or climatic zones: the Maghreb (the West), Rum (Greece, Byzantium), Iran, India, and China, which stretch from far west to far east, and the relatively northern Kharezm (Central Asia) and even more northern Saqlab (Slavic) country. Bahram Shah invaded Rum and took the emperor’s daughter, then went to India and brought back the raja’s daughter. He brought the other fve girls by sending matchmakers and putting them under duress. The Maghreb refers to the countries inhabited by Arabs and Berbers to the west of Egypt in North Africa, as well as Andalusia in the Iberian Peninsula, conquered and ruled by a Muslim state. The Europeans called the Andalusian Muslims Moors (moors, maures, moro). The Greeks considered the Mediterranean the center of the world, naming the lands north of it Europe, the lands south of it Africa, and the great lands west of it Asia. Nizami, who had taken a close interest in Greek history and philosophy, does not use European, African, or Asian terms. Nizami imagined the place we call Africa consisting mainly of three major parts: Egypt, the Maghreb, and Black peoples. Nizami mentions Berbers in the Maghreb; uses the words Habash (“Abyssinian”), Zanji, and Zangi for the people of Black Africa; and also talks about the kingdom of Zangibar (Zanzibar). Muslims used the word “Rum” for the Eastern Roman Empire – Byzantium – which they considered the main part of the non-Muslim lands we call Europe. Greek was spoken in Rum, including in Anatolia. Even after the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, the word Rum did not disappear, for example, as in the name of the great Suf poet Jalaleddin Rumi. The lands “on the other side” of Rum – to the west – were not of particular interest to Nizami; he used the word “Afranja” for those lands. The word is associated with the ancient German tribe the Franks; among the Muslims, the common name for the inhabitants of the Western Roman Empire was “Firang”; the words “Firangistan,” “Afranja,” or “Afrang” were also used for the Western Europe. The term “France” is also derived directly from the word “Frank.” The travel trajectory of Nizami’s protagonist Iskender, who voyaged all over the world (d.2103),33 also included Afranja (see subsequently). Nizami’s heroes act mainly in territories where Muslims live, trade, or fght: more familiar areas. This, as we know it, is Asia. Only one of the “seven beauties” is non-Asian, from the Muslim Maghreb. Nizami’s Iskender, of course, is the exception; he is a world ruler and world traveler. 263

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“Khamsa” and Geographical Location III The three successive heroic kings that Nizami lovingly created – Khosrov, Bahram, and Iskender – are very diferent from each other. Accustomed to pleasure and love afairs, Khosrov is far from a perfect ruler; he commits sin after sin and hurts the villagers; even though he loves Shirin, he becomes impatient and resentful and marries Maryam, daughter of the emperor; he kills Farhad, who loves Shirin, leaves Shirin again, and marries Sheker of Isfahan. Shirin encourages him to study science and perfect himself. Finally, Khosrov, disrespects the Prophet’s letter and is punished: God took his throne from under him His son drew his sword to kill him (d.5805)34 Bahram-gur, the protagonist of Seven Beauties, according to E. E. Bertels, “in the frst part of the poem he resembles Khosrov,” and then “this ruler is completely renewed from the inside, he comes nearer to the ideal hero.”35 I should also mention that from the very beginning, from his earliest youth, Bahram “learned the essence of all sciences” (d.812).36 Only in his last and most substantial piece of work, Iskendername, was Nizami able to create the image of the hero he was thinking of and looking for. In addition to being a great commander and a just ruler, Iskender is a highly educated and wise man, and Nizami even elevates him to the rank of a prophet. Khosrov and Bahram are the rulers of Iran, while Iskender is the ruler of the world. Of course, Nizami’s Iskender is very diferent from the historical Alexander the Great. Nizami chose Alexander of Macedon, founder of a world empire and subject of legends, to create what he had in mind: the personifcation of a strong and just ruler, an intelligent and wise man enriched with scientifc and philosophical knowledge. Nizami, who “found a drop of the water of life” (d.505),37 believes in his own strength, intelligence and poetic talent, saying that Iskender will be immortalized because of Iskendername. For a long time with this famous saga I kept alive his name in the world (d.555)38 He looked for the spring of life But he found now what he was looking for (d.812)39 Nizami’s Iskender travels a lot more and farther than historical Alexander the Great; he travels the world: Iskender was a king who wandered the world Supplied were always ready for the trip (d.703)40 Of course, Iskender’s journey is directed by Nizami, so Nizami himself escapes from his captivity in Ganja, and his name and fame travel the world: Nizami, untie the knot of treasure How long will you be a prisoner in Ganja?! (d.274)41 264

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“Iskendername” and Geographical Location I As soon as Iskender ascended the throne, a messenger came and said that the “black zengis” were attacking Egypt and that the situation would deteriorate very quickly if Iskender did not come to help: “Neither Egypt, nor Afranja, nor Rum will remain” (d.1037).42 Nizami’s Iskender would not deny anyone who asked for help. Iskender with his army marched on Egypt. King of Zangibar43 gathered a large army: The Ethiopian was on the right and the Berber on the left There was a giant Zengi in the middle (d.1314)44 Defeating the zengis in a ferce battle, Iskender “entered Egypt, caressed the people” (d.1496),45 “Built a city like a green spring (d.1501)46 named Iskenderiyye (Alexandria)” (d.1501), and “He crossed the sea and came to Rum” (d.1506).47 In ancient Greek times, one of the world’s great powers was Iran. In terms of territory and population, Greece was small, and Iran was large. The Iskendername says that the Greeks paid taxes to Iran, and this was still happening when Iskender ascended the throne. Believing in his own power, Iskender decided to put an end to this – “Why should I pay taxes to Dara?” (d.1609). Thus, Iskender saw himself as a conqueror and set out to conquer Iran and the world in general: He refrained from serving the Iranians He decided to conquer Iran (d.1573) He decided to own the world (d.1667)48 Of course, Nizami highly valued Iran, and in his Seven Beauties, dedicated to the ruler of Maragha, Aladdin Korpe Arslan, he praises this ruler and presents Iran as the heart of the world: The whole world is the body, and Iran is the heart The one who states this will not ashamed of such analogy Because Iran is the heart of the Earth It is well known that the heart is better than the body (dd. 356–7)49 And, at the essence of this defnition, he says to Korpe Arslan, “Your province is the core of that country” and “You are the heart” (d.359).50 However, unlike Firdowsi, Nizami does not specifically refer to the legendary and heroic periods of Iran and does not worship the kings of Iran, including his heroes Bahram-gur and Khosrov Anushirvan, but rebukes them, and, through his female heroines, implores them to study science and learn courtesy and calls for justice. Nizami chooses as his main protagonist Iskender – Alexander of Macedon, of Greek origin – or, rather, he creates him and raises him to the rank of a prophet. Shah of Iran Dara and Iskender are preparing for war. Nizami has an interesting idea about which peoples constituted the two armies: Dara drew troops from Iran, China, Kharezm, Ghazni, and the Qur (dd. 1806–7),51 and Iskender drew troops from Egypt, Afranja, Rum, and Rus (d.1842). Here in particular and in general in the Iskendername, the issue of “Rus” and its 265

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existence, which is incomprehensible at frst glance and an anachronism, will be discussed in the following. In Iran, Iskender “began to eradicate fre-worship,” “smoked out the fre-worshipers” (d.2819), then turned to Babylon and from Babylon “turned to Azerabadgan (Azerbaijan)” (d.2836). In Azerbaijan, in the land of fres, he turned to ashes “the self-burning fre:” There was a fre burning inside the stone fence The fre-worshiper called it “self-burning” (d.2838) He ordered, they extinguished The old burning fre and turned it to ashes (d.2840)52 Iskender reached his last place in Iran, Isfahan, where he married Dara’s daughter Rovshanak.53 Finally, Alexander sat on the throne in the city of Istakhr: He went to Istakhr54 and put a crown on his head (d.3061)55 After this ceremony, Iskender intended to make a pilgrimage and return to his homeland; Nizami, a believer, would not have been comfortable without taking his Iskender to the Kaaba: After subjugating the Ajam’s (Iran’s) land to Shah He set out for the Arabian estate (d.3273) He frst knocked on the door of the Kaaba (d.3292) Once again, he came to his Iraqi lands, He decided to return to his home (d.3299)56 At that moment, the news from a messenger from Azerbaijan radically changed Iskender’s plans. At the moment from the ruler of Azerabadgan A messenger like freeman came (3300)57 The messenger said: in Abkhaz and in Armenia, which is subordinate to Abkhaz, “they worship fre” (d.3304). Alexander did what was necessary: He transferred his army from Babylon to Armenia He cleansed the country of this dirt (dd. 3310–11)58 As a result, the “Davali, the commander of the Abkhaz region” (d.3316) obeyed him. An old man said, “He (Iskender) built Tifis” (d.3336). 266

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And then He made his way to Nushaba in Barda (d.3341)59

Nizami’s Philosophy of History I The topics addressed by Nizami are directly related to history, famous people, and events of the past. Nizami has repeatedly stated that he has read many history books in various languages (mainly Arabic and Dari-Persian). He mentions that he was familiar with a special book, which included “Everything about the history of rulers” (d.188) and that one person (Firdowsi) used to turn those histories into poetry – “He came and put them all into verse precisely” (d.189).60 Nizami says that he was not just satisfed with reading this history book; he investigated a lot, collected and read the works of well-known historians, and sought out scattered copies: Again, I searched for all the secret books – [Books] scattered to the ends of the earth [Spoken] words in Arabic and Dari Manuscripts of Bukhari and Tabari And those other scattered copies that were kept in the treasures of various houses [palaces] – I collected all the pages I could get into one sack (dd. 196–9)61 In order to understand the historical narrative better, Nizami emphasizes the importance of researching histories of diferent peoples, studying many sources written in diferent languages, choosing the right sources, and understanding the essence of the historical event: The trace [story] of the king walking on those horizons I did not see written in a concise copy It was scattered across separate copies I got an inspiration from each copy I arranged and decorated them in my poem Not just new histories I looked for Jewish, Christian and Pahlavi history I chose what was valuable from each book I took the essence from among covers I collected treasures in every language I wrote this saga from all of them (dd. 692–7)62 He writes that while working on the poem Khosrov and Shirin, he used a source that was “thrown away,” out of sight: The story of Khosrov and Shirin is no secret There is really no sweeter saga than that (d.462) There was a discarded manuscript of it in Barda (d.463).63 267

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According to Nizami, the poet is not a historian, and therefore it is impossible for him to refrain from adding a certain embellishment to a historical event, that is, there is a diference between literary, artistic work and historical research. On the other hand, he says he wouldn’t accept very outlandish things: If histories are written in poetry It is impossible not to lose the way (d.753) But if I found something unbelievable I refused to accept it (d.755)64 At the same time, the poet wants to make the reader feel excited, to make him cry or laugh; the poet’s job is not to write a chronicle, describing factually what happened. A great poet like Nizami knows that a poet can also allow lies and declares so: A lie similar to the truth Is better than a truth far from the veracity (761)65 Nizami does not consider it important for the poet and writer of a saga to follow the historical chronology, or rather, that it is impossible to write without breaking the chronology: Don’t see for a shortcoming getting ahead or falling behind The writer [of the saga] cannot avoid this (d.689)66

Nizami’s Philosophy of History II How does the history of Iskender, Nizami’s favorite hero, difer from that of Alexander the Great? What ideas and what historical and literary sources did Nizami rely on when creating his Iskender? How did Nizami use historical sources? Why did Nizami allow historical anachronisms? I will attempt to cover these and similar questions. The life and deeds of Alexander the Great have been studied and written about by his contemporary and traveling companion Callisthenes, as well as by later ancient world historians and philosophers such as Diodorus Siculus (1st century), Quintas Curtius Rufus (1st century?), Plutarch (1st and 2nd centuries), Arrian (mostly 2nd century), and Marcus Justinus (2nd–3rd centuries). A collection of stories and legends about Alexander the Great took shape in Greek around the 4th century, became very popular, took the form of an historical novel, gradually acquired the name of Alexander Romance and similar, was translated into other languages, and moreover, was updated and changed in every language it was translated into. The tendency to attribute these stories to Callisthenes did not take hold (Callisthenes died before Alexander), and the name Pseudo-Callisthenes was used as the unknown author. These legends became widespread in the Syriac-Aramaic language from the 6th century onwards and were translated from this language into Arabic, Persian, and other languages.67 It is said that there is a connection between the Quran’ic legend of Zul-Qarnain68 and Alexander Romance. In Shahnameh, Firdowsi used Pseudo-Callisthenes as his source and did not hesitate to include the miracles characteristic of this source in his saga. Pseudo-Callisthenes is also chief among sources used by Nizami, but he avoids miracles and uses this source more creatively; his 268

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Iskendername is very diferent from the legends about Alexander the Great from the historicalgeographical-philosophical point of view. This will be discussed in the following.

“Iskendername” and Geographical Location II Nizami’s Iskender is not just marching into battle for conquest; he is fghting to save the people and the country from oppressors and disaster; Iskender’s war is a just war. He wants to save Egypt from Zangibar, meet the needs for a just ruler in Iran, and cleanse Abkhazia and Armenia of fre worship. Alexander of Macedonia, who killed and captured people and destroyed and burned cities, is a stranger to Nizami; Nizami’s Iskender is a just ruler who does not shed blood unjustly and helps people. According to Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander went to the palace of the Abyssinian princess Kandaki as an envoy. However, the princess is suspicious of the ambassador’s behavior and recognizes Alexander by his portrait kept in her palace. In Shahname, Iskender goes as an ambassador not to Abyssinia but to the palace of Andalusian princess Kaydaf; moreover, Iskender also visits the land of warrior Amazonian women living without men; this is also taken from Alexander Romance. Nizami explored this topic more deeply and connected it not with Africa or Andalusia but with his homeland, in today’s vernacular, Azerbaijan. Nizami brings Iskender to “mentally strong, open-hearted, sweetly-spoken” (d.3368) Nushaba, the beautiful ruler whose capital city is located near Nizami himself – in Barda. “The land of Barda is beautiful” (d.3346): If you need bird’s milk, it can be found here They kneaded the soil with golden water (dd. 3353–4)69 Nizami does say that Barda used to be this beautiful, but not any longer; in the poet’s time, “Only a trace of that pomegranate and narcissus remains” (d.3557). Nizami does not pay special attention to the legends about the Amazons, and he puts forward Nushaba in this regard as well: Girls with malt breasts and silver legs They are together with her in everything (d.3386) She entrusted all the work to the women She did not need to see men (d.3372)70 Nizami stays true to tradition; Iskender goes to Nushaba’s palace as an envoy, Nushaba recognizes him by his portrait kept in palace, and they become friends. True, historical Macedonian Alexander did not set foot in Caucasus, while in Nizami’s Iskendername, the arrival of Iskender in the Caucasus, his friendship with Nushaba, and the subsequent events related to the Russians form a very important part of the work. Nizami, in order to achieve his goal, changed history as he wished, took Iskender to the countries not mentioned in history in his time, had him meet the peoples, and forced him to go to (just) wars. Iskender “walked like a lion through Shirvan” (d.3887), captured the fortress of Derbent, and ordered the construction of a “wall on the narrow road” (d.3994) to protect the people of that place from the “savage” Kipchaks. Then he turned south “along the sea, along the shore,” cleansed Rey and Khorasan of provocateurs and oppressors, “punished the fre-worshipers” (d.4312), and “clipped the ears of the people of Khorasan” (d.4345).71 269

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“Iskendername” and Geographical Location III Nizami does not forget that Iskender is a conqueror. Iskender’s march to India seems to be motivated by passion for conquest: Iranian land is completely mine Now I want to ride a horse to India (d.4368) To eat kebab from the meat of a drunken elephant (d.4395)72 Iskender passes through Gilan, Rey, Herat, Nishapur, Merv, Balkh, Kerman, and Ghazni and enters the lands of India. An Indian ruler named Keyd achieves peace by giving Iskender valuable gifts (including the “fairy-faced girl” – d. 4488).73 Iskender does not approach war with the second Indian ruler, Fur (in Greek: Por or Poros), as he had in other cases, does not correspond with him, just enters the war without delay and wins. Nizami does not say anything about the great battle of Hidaspes between the armies of Alexander and Fur in Punjab in the year 326 bc. Iskender, as it seems, is drawn to China also not by a desire to end a certain oppression or restore justice, but by passion. He went from India to the land of Tibet He passed through Tibet and came to the border of China (d.4566)74 The Chinese khagan sent a spy to fnd out what Iskender was thinking. The spy’s understanding of Iskender as “He is no in a hurry to shed blood” (d.4636) and “God is pleased with him, and the people are happy” (d.4637) prompted the Chinese khagan to seek peace. Nizami’s understanding of China is somewhat confusing; whom does he call Chinese – a Chinese-speaking representative of the Chinese people or a Chinese Turk living in northern China? Nizami brings together Iskender and the ruler whom he calls the Chinese khagan. Iskender wants to establish good relations with China without a war; he writes in a letter to the Chinese khagan: I came to China from Abyssinia I rode from the West to the East (d.4694) We did not come here from Iran for war (d.4689) I brought troops to the Chinese border To capture the land of Turan (d.4959)75 Nizami says of the Chinese khagan: The heir of the Afrasiyab dynasty Rose from China as the sun (d.4773)76 270

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When Khagan is Alexander’s guest, they begin to argue: what is better, “Greek painting” or “Chinese pattern?” (dd. 5062–5). In order to clarify the issue, a competition is held between Greek and Chinese artists. In the end, the work of both artists receives praise (dd. 5066–5093). Nizami also talks about the famous artist Mani’s visit to China; the Chinese artist creates a “bright pool of pure crystal” that surprises and amazes Mani, in return, Mani “drew a dead dog on that pool” and amazed the Chinese people (dd. 5094–5110). It is natural to assume that the Chinese side in these competitions was represented by a “real Chinese.” Nizami presents the Chinese khagan either as a “Chinese ruler” or as a “Turkish ruler.” Nizami uses the word Turk in many diferent senses; on the one hand, he talks about ethnic Turks: From the Caspian Mountains to the China Sea I see everywhere full of Turks (d.5525)77 On the other hand, Nizami uses the word Turk as a multifaceted metaphor that describes qualities such as beauty, grace, fair complexion, power, strength, and goodness. China and Chinese are Nizami’s favorite widely used terms of geographical and cultural ideas and metaphors.78

“Iskendername” and Geographical Location IV Iskender decides to return from China, and “He said goodbye to that Turkish ruler” (d.5272)79 – the Chinese khagan, who became his friend. He rested on the shores of Jeyhun and continued with a more traditional work of creating and building: It is said that he built Samarkand, which inspires people (5281) Iskender wanted to return to Iran, which he considered his second homeland: “I was determined to go to the land of Ajam” (d.5354). However, “Devali, the ruler of Abkhazia” (d.5304) came and moaned: “This is cry for help for the injustice of the Russians, O Shah!” (d.5307). Devali tries to explain to Iskender in detail who the Russians are, for example: They raided excessively (d.5311) They plundered this people, this country (d.5312) They demolished properties in Barda They emptied the city which was so wealthy Nushaba was taken prisoner (dd. 5316–7) Because they are the crudest of nations and the lowest of lows (d.5325) No one expects mercy from a Russian (d.5327) 271

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They will make many countries sufer They will revel in oppression (dd. 5329–30)80 Upon hearing this news, Alexander became very angry: If I don’t take vengeance on Russian lions Dog I will be, dog, not Iskender, the son of Feylaqus! (d.5345) We will not leave Nushaba in chains (d.5348) He could not sleep that night from anger (d.5367)81 In historical sources, the term Russian frst appears in the 9th century; the people who were building a state around the city of Kiev were named Russians. That is, the Russians appeared on the historical stage about 1200 years after the reign of Alexander the Great. Why does Nizami resort to such an obvious massive historical anachronism, bringing the Russians face to face with Iskender and having them battle each other? Except for Nizami’s writing, there isn’t even a legend that puts Iskender and the Russians together. The just ruler Iskender, the product of Nizami’s imagination and poetic mastery, wanted to teach the oppressor a lesson and protect the oppressed, in this case punishing the Russians for occupying the land and looting. In the 9th–11th centuries, the Russians sailed in the Caspian Sea and repeatedly raided and plundered the western and southern shores of the sea. In 912–13 and 943–44, the Russians carried out more raids, looting, and massacres in these areas. During the invasion of 943–44, they say about 3000 (?) Russians sailed west from the Caspian Sea along the Kura River to the rich city of Barda, occupying the city for some time (six months, even a year?), and robbed and looted. Historical sources say that these Russians were very strong, warriorlike people. Both sides suffered heavy losses in the battles, and in the end the Russian forces were depleted from an infectious disease, and the survivors left Barda by boats.82 Nizami probably did not know all the details of the real history of Alexander the Great. Like other poets, he relied on stories and legends later known under the name Pseudo-Callisthenes, but in Iskendername, he didn’t draw attention to the miracles in Pseudo-Callisthenes’s writing but used information creatively, changed and interpreted as he saw ft. The looting of the city of Barda, which Nizami loved and praised, by the Russians and the great massacre that took place there probably left their mark not only on the works of historians but also in the memory of the people. Nizami refected this well-known to him historical event in his Iskendername and directed Iskender to take revenge on the Russians.

“Iskendername” and Geographical Location V Iskender began to march towards the Russians: He passed his horse through wavy Jeyhun (d.5371) Crossed the Kharezm steppe (d.5373) 272

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Eventually he reached the Saqlab steppe (d.5375)83 Although Nizami mentions “Saqlab steppe,” he called this part of the poem “Iskender’s arrival in Kipchak steppe.” Iskender was surprised that beautiful Kipchak women walked among the Kipchak Turks with open faces: He saw many Kipchak people at this steppe He saw beautiful women with malt-like shins (dd. 5375–6) Their faces are never covered They are not afraid of their brother or their husband (d.5379)84 Iskender was cautious about his young soldiers’ behavior and had to appeal to the Kipchak leaders: Lustful, single soldiers Can get excited from the fre of youth (dd. 5380–81) He said delicately to the Kipchak’s elders It will be better for women to cover their faces (d.5388)85 Kipchak leaders defended this situation as their custom: When listening to the words of the king one by one In this case, they did not obey the verdict Because they remained faithful to their customs (dd. 5391–2)86 Their answer is extraordinarily beautiful and interesting: They bowed down and said, “We are your servants We are always ready to obey the Shah’s decree However, covering the face is not by order Because Kipchaks’ nature doesn’t allow for this custom If your custom is to cover faces According to our custom – the eyes should be closed (dd. 5393–5) The crime is not the face, but the eyes that look (d.5396) Yes, we are all subjects of the king But we will never break our custom (d.5402)87

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In general, Iskendername shows Russians, Burtases, Bulgars, Khazars, and Kipchaks living side by side; this demonstrates Nizami’s knowledge of northern people’s geography. Nizami describes at length Iskender’s war with the Russians as his greatest, most difcult, and fearful war. Iskender, who had won the war, released Nushaba. In this battle, the Chinese maid who was presented to Alexander by Chinese khagan, but then forgotten and neglected by Iskender, showed great heroism. Alexander fell in love with her. After the war with the Russians, Iskender received the news that there was water of life or water of immortality in the far dark north: There is a dark hijab under the North Pole There fows a pure spring of protein water Under the black hijab, which is called darkness Water of life fows in silence (dd. 6446–7) Alexander “travelled in northern direction exactly for a month” (d.6478). They came to a place where One could imagine the sun only in the dream (d.6481) On one side, darkness covered every place On another side the deep ocean blocked the way (d.6484) The clarity suddenly disappeared Darkness covered every side of the road (dd. 6487–8)88 Thus, Iskender reaches another edge of the world, in this case the north, what we now call the Arctic Ocean. Iskender pursues the water of life in the dark, but he is not fortunate enough to obtain this water of immortality, “Iskender was in search, but did not fnd the water of life” (d.6624). Iskender turned and started making his way back. He reached Russia from happy Bulgaria (d.6445) From there he returned to the Rum Sea He sailed ships to the comfortable Rum lands (d.6747) Iskender “took rest from toils of long journeys” (d.6758). Iskender, a great warrior, a just ruler, and a worldly-wise man, was called to be a prophet. The order came to prophecy He did not refuse to obey (d.6767)89

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“Iskendername” and Geographical Location VI Nizami returns to the issue of prophecy given to Iskender in Iqbalname and clarifes the news: An angel came from God (d.1649) Who conveyed a revelation from pure Allah (d.1651) Who considered you worthy of prophecy? (d.1653) The messenger accepted the order from the angel “He is God, and our name is the servant” (d.1710) With the will to travel, he prepared for the journey (d.1712)90 Iskender began his prophetic march in Rum, stayed in Egypt for a few days, and went to Jerusalem, where, “after he settled his afairs” (d.2103), he continued on the Maghreb-Afranja-Andalusia road: He rapidly directed the rains of his horse to West side From there he led an army to Afranja From Afranja he went to Andalusia (dd. 2103–4)91 Iskender “sailed a ship on the sea” (d.2111), went “in the direction where the sun was hidden” (d.2113), “saw many islands without humans” (d.2114). Then he went ashore and walked a long way through the great desert. “They rode in that desert for a month” and Iskender reached a large sea He admired this deep sea The Greeks called it Oceanus (dd. 2122–3)92 It is worthy of note that Nizami, in Treasury of Mysteries, his frst work of Khamsa, already emphasized that it is not right to praise either the desert or the sea and criticize the other and that the diference between them is relative: Those in the desert say: “How happy are those in the sea!” But those who are in trouble at sea With horseshoe on fre, they scream: “How beautiful is the desert!” (d.1045)93

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Therefore, Nizami takes Iskender to the Atlantic Ocean too. Nizami emphasizes that when the sun shines here, it is dark on the other side, “because the roundness of the earth is also taken into account” (d.2136). Then Alexander “hurried from the sea to the desert” (d.2189) and He reached the Nile River He dreamed of seeing the source of the Nile (dd. 2191–2)94 It should be noted that the ancient Greeks did not know the source of the Nile. In general, many philosophers, scholars, rulers, and travelers in the ancient and medieval world wondered where the Nile began. Even in the new era, discussions about “Where do the Nile’s tributaries begin?” have not stopped. It looks like Nizami heard about the discussions around the source of the Nile and solved it with the intervention of his favorite hero. The springs were mixed with rain A river was formed from both of them (d.2235)95 Nizami’s Iskender continues his world tour. Reaching the source of the Nile, Iskender seems to have reached the utmost south of the known world. Nizami’s interesting observations on nature and living conditions in Africa show that he studied these issues carefully. He talks about the rich diamond deposits of these places. Alexander felt like going to India again, “raised the fag to the East” (d.2530), passed through Kandahar, and Wandering through the countries of the East He came again to China (dd. 4572–3)96 Iskender fulfls his dream of reaching the ends of the known world in every direction. In the Far East, that is, in China, too, he wants to reach the sea: “I want to see the good and the bad of the sea” (d.2584). Iskender reaches the sea, in this case the Pacifc Ocean, as we know it. This sea, which the Greeks were not familiar with, was not called the “Ocean,” of course; Nizami simply called it the “Sea of China.” “The Experienced Shah boarded the ship” (d.2625), “He put the ship in the Sea of China” (d.2630). After traveling a long way, they came across a strong current in the middle of the sea. “The direction of the current has been determined” (d.2635) and it was decided that There is no way to the other side No one knows the other side of the sea (d.2647)97 They experienced the same situation in the Atlantic Ocean and also turned back: The sea was in a terrible state It was impossible to go beyond that (d.2124)98 276

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Iskender, who escaped great danger at sea, was only able to rest for a week: “He remembered wandering the world again” (d.2740), “Iskender thought of a trip from China to Khirkhiz” (d.2824), and “He came from the east to the northern limit” (d.2827), here, to protect the northern people from the attacks of ruthless hostile Yajuj tribes. “Iskender’s Wall was built” (d.2893). And fnally, Iskender encountered a city that was truthful, just, and did not need protection; he came to a place where utopian social equality prevailed – “None of us has more property than another” (d.2936). Iskender came to the conclusion that “The world stays in its place because of these good people” (d.2974).99 Iskender “reached Kerman from the edge of the world” (d.3021), then came to Kermanshah, and from there to Babylon, where he fell ill. “The strong man succumbed to weakness” (d.3067). “He closed his eyes and, unawares, went to eternal sleep” (d.3159).100

Philosophical Layers and Anachronism in “Iskendername” Alexander, or rather, Nizami’s Iskender, who learned philosophy and science from Aristotle, is himself a philosopher and likes to maintain friendships with philosophers and organize philosophical meetings. An old Indian sage questioned Iskender about mysterious issues such as the world; the nature and place of God; the world and its end; life after death; body and soul (spirit); the nature of sleep; the meaning of the evil eye; fortune-telling with stars; and the reasons for there being two colors of human face, black and white. These questions can be analyzed in terms of the views of Indian philosophers. Iskender’s answers seem detailed and convincing. According to Camal Mustafayev, the eminent scholar on Nizami studies, Nizami is better acquainted with Indian materialism than with Greek philosophy.101 In other poems, Nizami asks these and similar philosophical questions, which he answers in the language of his heroes. Iskender was surrounded by philosophers. Everyone was proud of certain science Everyone had their own world (d.1002)102 Nizami speaks of “Iskender’s secret gathering with seven philosophers.” Iskender gathered seven philosophers chosen by him by requesting “Let’s unravel the secrets of the universe” (d.1474); he asked them one by one to answer the frst question “How did this world come to be at the beginning?” (d.1482). After seven answers by the philosophers, Iskender himself takes the foor, and comes out with “what Nizami said.” According to Nizami, the “Great Creator” “frst created the mind” (d.1602).103 Which philosophers gathered around Iskender? “Vizier”; “pure-hearted, intelligent” Aristotle; “young,” “scholarly” Bolinas; “old” Socrates, “master of all”; “great old man” Plato; “scholar” Vales (Fales); Forfuriyus (Nizami did not mention Neoplatonic Porphyry with any distinct feature); and “well-reasoned,” “sharp-minded,” “heavenly” Hormuz (actually Hermes). It would not be possible to bring these philosophers together alive, as they lived in diferent times, sometimes very distant from each other. Let us recall when they lived: Fales or Vales (late 7th century BC and the second half of the 6th century BC); Socrates (469 BC–399 BC); Plato (428/7 BC–348/7 BC); Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC); Porphyry (234–305); Neopythagorean and alchemist Apollonios of Tiana, or Bolinas or Balinas (mostly 1st century). Bolinas was considered a philosopher who could perform miracles. In Iskendername, Bolinos accompanies Alexander and advises and helps him during his travels. However, the real Bolinas lived at least four centuries from Alexander the Great. The philosopher Hermes, known in Nizami’s work as Hormuz, can be identifed as the mythological Hermes Trismegistus (Triple 277

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Almighty Hermes); the Greeks combined Thot, the Egyptian god of knowledge and magic, and Hermes, the Greek god, to create Hermes Trismegistus. As can be seen, there is an eight- to nine-century gap between the times of Fales and Porphyry, two of the seven philosophers in Iskendername. Socrates died when Alexander was born, and Alexander was 7–8 years old when Plato died. Thus, only one of the seven philosophers mentioned, Aristotle, was acquainted with Alexander the Great; Aristotle had indeed taught him. Nizami also places Socrates and Plato among Iskender’s teachers; after accepting the prophecy, Iskender wants to go on a journey and seeks advice from his three “favourite teachers” – Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. Nizami was familiar with the age hierarchy of the Socrates-Plato-Aristotle trio, but he was most likely unaware of the period where the other four philosophers lived, who lived before and after whom; Nizami’s use of the word “young” about Bolinas indicates that he at least accepts Bolinas as having lived after Aristotle. How well did Nizami know these seven philosophers? Nizami had a certain idea of Greek philosophy and the philosophers mentioned; he talks about some of the views of these philosophers. However, his knowledge was not deep, and Nizami attributed some ideas to these philosophers that they never professed. Nizami had not read the works of Greek philosophers, it seems clear; he had an incomplete picture of the lives and philosophies of those philosophers, and he most likely had learned about them from popular literature. Nizami sometimes confused philosophers with each other. The story of the meeting of Diogenes of Sinopus with Alexander of Macedonia is well known. Nizami writes in Iskendername that this story took place between Iskender and Socrates. According to Nizami, Socrates lives an ascetic hermit’s life. He likes to live alone in a corner (d.1184) “My soul is accustomed to a piece of barley bread Why should I grieve for the whole wheat bread?!” (d.1242)104 Nizami’s description of the scene of Socrates’ death is true in principle. Stating that there is a rivalry and conflict between Plato and Aristotle, Nizami writes that, in order to punish his student’s arrogance, Plato invented an unusual musical instrument that could put the listener to sleep and wake him up again with its voice. In fact, such a thing did not happen. There is a legend that with the music played by Farabi, he made the listeners cry and laugh, put them to sleep, and then woke them up. It seems that Nizami used this legend and connected it with Plato. Some ideas which bear a relation to Bolinas, according to Nizami, actually belong to Empedocles. I do not intend to go into detail about the ideas of the seven Greek philosophers in Iskendername and their degree of accuracy (for further information, see Camal Mustafayev 1962). Regarding philosophers and scholars, Nizami allows several other anachronisms. He describes Archimedes (287–212 BC) as a student of Aristotle. However, Archimedes was born 35 years after the death of Aristotle. The information Nizami gives about one of the frst alchemists in the history of science, a woman named Maria of Qibt (Maria of Kopt) or Mary the Jewess,105 is interesting (“Iqbalname” in Iskendername, the story of Mary Gibtli and her preparation for chemistry). Nizami says that Maria learned alchemy from Aristotle, how Iskender and Mary had a falling out, and that Aristotle reconciled them. In reality, Maria lived after Alexander and Aristotle, and this story has no historical roots. 278

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Conclusion Nizami is a thinker poet. Nizami’s fve verse-novels united under the name of “Khamsa” had a decisive infuence on the further development of oriental literature. Although Nizami’s poetic prowess is very important among the indicators that determine the strength of his poems, Nizami’s worldview and philosophy of life are equally important. Nizami was well acquainted with the natural sciences, especially astronomy and alchemy, and in his works, he uses the knowledge of sciences as well as employing them masterfully to create powerful metaphors. Nizami had some knowledge of Greek, Indian, and Islamic philosophy. Nizami had a broad understanding of music, religion, and psychology and used them efectively in his works. Nizami’s main themes are love, a good man, and a just ruler. The poems Khosrov and Shirin and Leyli and Majnun are based on love, but Khosrov’s mistakes and motives calling him to justice are also important in the work. In Seven Beauties, I think, each of the main themes is represented, and they are intertwined. The principal theme of Nizami’s last and largest work – Iskendername – is a just ruler; other topics take up relatively little space: they do not have independent powers and depend on the main theme. Iskender, the conqueror of the world, marries the daughter of Darius and does not keep her with him but sends her to his home – Rum. He treats the daughter of the Indian ruler Kayd in the same way. The conqueror of the world, wandering the globe and restoring justice, does not want to waste his time on women. He forgets the beautiful Chinese maid given to him by the Chinese khagan, and only during the war with the Russians does he see her unusual bravery, fall in love with her, and enjoy her company. Nizami says that he immortalized Iskender, who could not get the water of life, with Iskendername, but the poet, who is unrivalled in singing praises to love, emphasizes the vital importance of love through the Chinese maid, arguing that love can replace the water of life: Iskender mistakenly goes to the spring of life I’m here, where is Iskender going?! (d.6374)106 Most of the heroes of Khamsa are rulers: they march for conquest. Sometimes, for example, in Khosrov and Shirin, journeys undertaken in pursuit of love prevail over those for conquest. In any case, the geography of the marches and travels shows that Nizami had a very broad idea of world geography. Nizami is not satisfed with just naming the lands but also talks about the nature, population, and traditions of the place. Nizami created his ideal of a just ruler in Iskendername through the poetic image of Iskender. Although the history of Nizami’s character of Iskender is based on the life story of Alexander the Great, there is a big diference between a literary hero and a real warlord and ruler. Nizami’s two ruler-heroes, Khosrov and Bahram, are the kings of Iran, their lives take place in or around Iran, and their travels take place in the same lands. While Iskender is the ruler of the world, he raids many more and larger countries than the historical Alexander the Great. Nizami decides that his commander, the wise ruler and the prophet, will travel and conquer the known world. In this way, Nizami deliberately allows historical anachronisms, as Iskender meets peoples who did not appear on the stage of history in the time of Alexander the Great and also sends him to places where real Alexander never went. Iskender comes to the Caucasus, to the city of Barda, near Nizami’s hometown Ganja, and befriends Nushaba, the ruler of Barda. Then he goes to war with the Russians, who plundered Barda and captured Nushaba, and wins, albeit with difculty. Iskender goes to China 279

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and meets Kipchak Turks. These are historical anachronisms. Nizami gathers seven philosophers around Iskender, who together with Iskender think about and discuss the mysteries of the world. In fact, only one of these philosophers, Aristotle, met and taught Alexander of Macedon; the other philosophers were separated from Alexander by centuries (both before and after). Iskender goes to Europe, namely Afranja (land of Franks) and Andalusia, known to Muslims (one more anachronism). Iskender travels to Africa, namely Egypt and the Maghreb, that is, to the lands of North Africa, west of Egypt, and to Abyssinia and Zangibar, which are south of Egypt and represent black Africa. Nizami focuses Iskender on fnding the source of the Nile; it is described as the southernmost point of Africa and the known world. Iskender sails to the edge of the world on the Okyanus (Atlantic Ocean) and the Chinese Sea (Pacifc Ocean), saying “it is impossible to go further from here.” Finally, Alexander travels to the northern hemisphere, the North Sea, to obtain the water of life. Nizami tasks his hero Iskender with travelling, conquering the world, changing world history, and restoring justice in the world, and for this purpose he creates his own world geography and philosophy of history.

Notes 1 Nizami Ganjavi, İskəndərnamə [The Book of Alexander] (Baku: Elm, 1983), d. 241; this chapter refers to Nizami’s works through numeration of rhyming couplets or distiches, based on the Baku edition (“Elm” Publishing House, 1981, 1983). 2 Nizami Ganjavi, Xosrov və Şirin [Khosrov and Shirin] (Baku: Elm, 1981), dd. 536–538. 3 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 6828. 4 Ibid., d. 6831. 5 Ibid., d. 428. 6 Ibid., d. 367. 7 Ibid., d. 991. 8 Nizami Ganjavi, Leyli və Məcnun [Leyli and Majnun] (Baku: Elm, 1981), dd. 40–42. 9 Nizami Ganjavi, Sirrlər xəzinəsi [Treasury of Mysteries] (Baku: Elm, 1981), d. 2227. 10 Məhəmməd Füzuli, Əsərləri: 5 cilddə [Works in 5 volumes], vol. 1, ed. Hemid Araslı (Baku: AzSSR Academy of Sciences, 1958), 43. 11 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 493–494. 12 Ibid., d. 497. 13 Nizami, “Khosrov and Shirin,” d. 476. 14 Ibid., d. 474. 15 Nizami Ganjavi, Yeddi Gözəl[Seven Beauties] (Baku: Elm, 1983), dd. 1057–1058. 16 Ibid., d. 193. 17 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 3625. 18 Nizami, “Seven Beauties,” d. 356. 19 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 820–822. 20 Ibid., dd. 832–851. 21 Ibid., d. 851. 22 Ibid., d. 6781. 23 Ibid., dd. 6783–6784. 24 Nizami, “Treasury of Mysteries,” dd. 403–404. 25 Mammad Amin Rasulzade, Azərbaycan şairi Nizami [Azerbaijani Poet Nizami] (Baku: Azərnəşr, 1991), 68. 26 Rasulzade, “Azerbaijani Poet Nizami,” 116. 27 Nizami, “Khosrov and Shirin,” d. 5594. 28 Rasulzade, “Azerbaijani Poet Nizami,” 170. 29 William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html. 30 Nizami, “Leyli and Majnun,” dd. 53–54. 31 Ibid., d. 62. 32 Ibid., d. 32.

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Geographical Space and Historical Time in Ganjavi’s Works 33 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 2103. 34 Nizami, “Khosrov and Shirin,” d. 5805. 35 Yevgeny E. Bertels, “Низами и Фирдовси” См: Выдаюшиеся русские ученые и писатели о Низами Гянджеви [“Nizami and Ferdowsi” in Outstanding Russian Scholars and Writers on Nizami], ed. Rustam Aliyev (Baku: Yazichi, 1981), 23. 36 Nizami, “Seven Beauties,” d. 812. 37 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 505. 38 Ibid., d. 555. 39 Ibid., d. 812. 40 Ibid., d. 703. 41 Ibid., d. 274. 42 Ibid., d. 1037. 43 Zangibar means “black shore” in Persian; in Arabic it took the form of Zanjibar; it encompassed the black peoples of modern Tanzania and its environs. Zanzibar is now part of Tanzania. 44 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 1314. 45 Ibid., d. 1496. 46 Ibid., d. 1501. 47 Ibid., d. 1506. 48 Ibid., dd. 1609, 1573, 1667. 49 Nizami, “Seven Beauties,” dd. 356–357. 50 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 359. 51 Ibid., dd. 1806–1807. 52 Ibid., dd. 1842, 2819, 2836, 2838, 2840. 53 According to Greek sources, the girl named Roxana whom Alexander married was not the daughter of the Shah Dara but the daughter of a Sogdian nobleman. However, Alexander also married Stateira, the eldest daughter of Dara, as well as Parisatis, the daughter of Artaxerxes III, the Achaemenid king of Iran. 54 The real Alexander the Great did indeed go to Istakhr (a place near Persepolis) and destroyed the city considered the centre of fre-worshiping. 55 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 3061. 56 Ibid., dd. 3273, 3292, 3299. 57 Ibid., d. 3300. 58 Ibid., dd. 3304, 3310–3311. 59 Ibid., dd. 3316, 3336, 3341. 60 Nizami, “Seven Beauties,” dd. 188–189. 61 Ibid., dd. 196–199. 62 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 692–697. 63 Nizami, “Khosrov and Shirin,” dd. 462–463. 64 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 753–755. 65 Ibid., d. 761. 66 Ibid., d. 689. 67 Claudia A. Ciancaglini, “The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance,” Le Museon 114, no. 1–2 (2001): 121–140; Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Richard Netton, eds., The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, Ancient Narrative, Supplementum 15 (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing, 2012). 68 The Quran, Translated to English by Talal A. Itani (USA: Clear Quran, 2012), 18: 83–102. 69 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 3346, 3353–3354, 3368. 70 Ibid., dd. 3372, 3386, 3557. 71 Ibid., dd. 3887, 3994, 4312, 4345. 72 Ibid., dd. 4368, 4395. 73 Ibid., d. 4488. 74 Ibid., d. 4566. 75 Ibid., dd. 4636, 4637, 4689, 4694, 4959. 76 Ibid., d. 4773. 77 Ibid., dd. 5062–5065, 5066–5093, 5094–5110, 5525. 78 Hamlet İsaxanli, “Böyük çaylar qərbdən şərqə doğru axır: Çin və Azərbaycan” [Major Rivers Flow from the West to the East: Azerbaijan and China], in Çin azərbaycanlıların gözü ilə [China with the Eyes of Azerbaijanis] (Baku: Letterpress Publishing House, 2013), 51–64. 79 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 5272.

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Hamlet Isaxanli 80 Ibid., dd. 5304, 5307, 5311–5312, 5316–5317, 5325, 5327, 5329–5330, 5354. 81 Ibid., dd. 5345, 5348, 5367. 82 A. Yu, Yakubovskiy, “Ибн-Мискавейх о походе Русов в Бердаа в 332 г. = 943/4 г” [Ibn Miskawayh on the expedition of the Russians to Berda in 332 = 943/4], Византийский Временник [Byzantine period] 24, no. 2 (1926): 63–92; Boris Andreevich Dorn, Каспий: о походах древних русских в Табаристан, с дополнительными сведениями о других набегах их на прибрежья Каспийского моря: с двумя литограф. картами и восемью политипажами [Caspian: On the campaigns of the ancient Russians in Tabaristan with additional information about their other raids on the shores of the Caspian Sea: with two lithographers, maps and eight polytypes] (Saint Petersburg: Printing House of the Academy of Sciences, 1875), 524–530; F. Donald Logan, The Vikings in History (London: Routledge, 1992). 83 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 5371, 5373, 5375. 84 Ibid., dd. 5375–5376, 5379. 85 Ibid., dd. 5380–5381, 5388. 86 Ibid., dd. 5391–5392. 87 Ibid., dd. 5393–5395, 5396, 5402. 88 Ibid., dd. 6446–6447, 6478, 6481, 6484, 6487–6488. 89 Ibid., dd. 6445, 6624, 6747, 6758, 6767. 90 Ibid., dd. 1649, 1651, 1653, 1710, 1712. 91 Ibid., dd. 2103–2104. 92 Ibid., dd. 2111, 2113–2114, 2122–2123. 93 Nizami, “Treasury of Mysteries,” d. 1045. 94 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” dd. 2136, 2189, 2191–2192. 95 Ibid., d. 2235. 96 Ibid., dd. 2530, 4572–4573. 97 Ibid., dd. 2584, 2625, 2630, 2635, 2647. 98 Ibid., d. 2124. 99 Ibid., dd. 2740, 2824, 2827, 2893, 2936, 2974. 100 Ibid., dd. 3021, 3067, 3159. 101 Camal Mustafayev, Философские и этические воззрения Низами [Philosophical and Ethical Views of Nizami] (Baku: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences, 1962), 91. 102 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 1002. 103 Ibid., dd. 1474, 1482, 1602. 104 Ibid., dd. 1184, 1242. 105 Hamlet Isaxanli, Əlkimya: Elm, Sənət və Mistika [Alchemy: Science, Art and Mysticism] (Baku: Khazar University Press, 2018), 38–45. 106 Nizami, “The Book of Alexander,” d. 6374.

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SAMPLE LITERATURE FOR CHAPTER 10 Poems by Nezami

Under the North Pole is the black hijab There fows a spring with protein water Under a black hijab, called darkness In the silence, living water fows.1 Exactly one month they walked towards the north2 . . . Reached a place where one can only dream about the Sun.3 . . . On the one hand, everything was in darkness On the other, a deep sea blocked the path.4 . . . Clarity suddenly disappeared Darkness covered the road . . .5 Khizr the Prophet walking ahead was his guide.6 If it was a spring, then it was the spring of light.7 . . . It was a fre as well as the fame.8 . . . He drank plenty of the spring’s water And thus, acquired immortality.9 Khizr was quick-witted, understood quickly, Alexander was deprived of this water. Caused not by his anger, but by his deprivation He disappeared as soon as the spring did . . .10 Alexander was looking for the living water, but failed, Khizr found the living water, not seeking it.11 You are neither red sulfur nor white ruby, For the seeker to return without hope of you.12 Cupbearer, bring the smelt gold, Wherefrom red sulfur is made, Give it to me to prepare a medicine and apply chemistry to my copper.13 DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-19

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As the alchemist threw iron into his sphere, And extracted gold, The sparks that generate the golden elixir Plenty of gold was scattered on all sides.14 Now in this word-poetry festivity I’m beating Alexander’s fate I’m telling of his happiness and knowledge And I praise his throne and crown. After so much time I bring him back to life with my water of life.15 . . . He searched so long for the fountain of life But he has now found what he searched for then.16 That venerable decorator Who erred in the essence I have amended the wrongly written.17 I cherish roses from yellow soil and fll the treasury with gems prepared by my inspiration.18 It is not possible to fnd a precious stone easily The silver extracted from the mine surely needs to be processed.19 If you want to hear this symbol in another way from me Then pull out the old cotton from your ears Not to cover this new silk with a dust sheet.20 I gathered the selected treasures together Also those sheets that are in disorder. From chemistry flled with mystery I piled a wonderful treasure trove.21 Kimya should be in the grip of such a man Who is not deceived by alchemists.22 . . . If the essence of chemistry (here: elixir-H.I.) is in herbs, The herb of the pen is the essence of chemistry.23 No matter how the golden powder is crumbled A skillful man brings it together with mercury.24 Only soul, again soul, because the word is in the soul Be the servant of your soul to become a sultan.25 If you are mixed ore, be halal (give in – H.I.) to fre If you are gold and ruby, do not be afraid of fre.26 Is there a man whose hat has not been stolen by this thief? Or was not misled by this devil’s charm?27 How can arsenic be as precious as a gem? A “batman” of that is equal to a “mithgal” of this.28

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From the neighing of the Arab fre-breathing horses Mercury has fown to the Earth’s ear.29 To this head fate would rain mercury And run away from silver bodied beauties like mercury.30 If we disagree with you If we sufer injustice as in Ferdowsi’s work You may put an ice seal on the gold And give it to the brewer.31 Mercury of the water glass Bit by bit turned into pure silver.32 But because there is only one way to the treasure [And] Although the arrows are two, the target is one.33 Although there is no way but to repeat [some things] I know how to weave silk from rug The alchemy of word is made up of two devisers (two manners) Have renewed the old counts – He made silver from copper, pure silver And this one turned silver into pure gold. If you see copper changing its quality into silver Do not be surprised when silver turns into gold.34 Simiyager, tricky, enchanter fortune Has created a few bodies with human appearance. . . . The nation is gone, religion is lost “Their mere names have remained, like Chemistry and Felix.”35

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Nizami Ganjavi, “Sharafname,” (Baku: Elm, 1983), dd. 6446–6447. Ibid., d. 6478. Ibid., d. 6481. Ibid., d. 6484. Ibid., dd. 6487–6488. Ibid., d. 6558. Ibid., d. 6571. Ibid., d. 6576. Ibid., d. 6579. Ibid., dd. 6584–6585. Ibid., d. 6624. Ibid., d. 319. Ibid., dd. 4355–4356. Ibid., dd. 3733–3734. Ibid., dd. 807–809. Ibid., d. 812. Ibid., dd. 6783–6784. Ibid., d. 6789. Ibid., d. 518. Ibid., dd. 2824–2825. Ibid., dd. 2828–2829.

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Sample Literature for Chapter 10 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Nizami Ganjavi, “Iqbalname,” (Baku: Elm, 1983), d. 743. Ibid., d. 741. Ibid., d. 1633. Nizami Ganjavi, “Treasury of Mysteries,” dd. 1214–1216. Ibid., d. 1882. Ibid., d. 1697. Nizami Ganjavi, “Leyli və Məcnun” [Leyli and Majnun] (Baku: Elm, 1981), d. 65. Nizami Ganjavi, “Xosrov və Şirin” [Khosrov and Shirin] (Baku: Elm, 1981), d. 2190. Ibid., dd. 5204–5205. Ibid., dd. 193–194. Nizami Ganjavi, “Yeddi Gözəl” [Seven Beauties] (Baku: Elm, 1983), d. 1878. Ibid., d. 1057. Ibid., dd. 1058–1061. Nizami Ganjavi, Lirika [Lyrics] (Baku: Elm 1983), 95–97.

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11 EROTIC NARRATIVES AND ʿATTĀR’S REFASHIONING OF THE DIDACTIC MASNAVI* Austin O’Malley

Thanks to Rumi (d.1273) and his famous Masnavi-ye maʿnavi (Spiritual Couplets), the didactic masnavi is one of the best-known genres of Persian poetry. In terms of form, the genre is composed in the rhyming half-lines of masnavi verse; in terms of content, it consists of exhortative homilies in which the poetic persona instructs his audience and urges them to pious behavior in direct discourse studded with illustrative anecdotes or intertwined with longer tales.1 The anecdotes are culled from a variety of genres, including history, hagiography, stories of the prophets (qesas al-anbiā), folk tales, animal fables, and even bawdy jokes, through which the speaker amplifes his religious and ethical points. The didactic masnavi can thus be considered something of a “supra-genre”: it absorbs and assimilates narratives from other generic traditions, repurposing them for its own aims and inserting them into direct homiletic address. Although it may be difcult for modern readers to imagine Rumi’s Masnavi-ye maʿnavi without its rich, complex, and often digressive stories, such narratives were not always a pronounced feature of the genre. As J. T. P. de Bruijn has shown, early 12th-century manuscripts of Sanāʾi’s Hadiqat al-haqiqeh (Garden of Truth; composed c. 1130), the frst complete extant didactic masnavi, contain fewer (and shorter) narratives than later 13th-century manuscripts of the poem.2 This suggests that narrative, as a general component of the didactic masnavi, may have appealed more to later audiences than earlier ones. The present chapter examines this possibility in more detail by extending de Bruijn’s analysis to the didactic masnavis of Nezāmi (d.1209), Fakhr al-Din Marvrudi (d.1206), and Farid al-Din ʿAttār (d.c. 1221), quantitatively tracking their use of narrative. As we shall see, masnavis by all three of these poets include a greater proportion of narrative than early versions of the Hadiqat, consistent with the notion that narrative was playing an increasingly important role in the genre as the 12th and early 13th centuries progressed. ʿAttār, however, pushed these generic developments further than any of his predecessors. Not only does he include far more narrative material in his poems, but he also introduces a specifc, unprecedented kind of narrative into the didactic masnavi – the extended erotic tale – which would be adopted by Rumi a half century later with relish. ʿAttār was a prolifc author. Besides a substantial amount of lyric poetry and a prose hagiography, he composed four long didactic masnavis – the Elāhi-nāmeh (Divine Book), Mosibat-nāmeh (Book of Afiction), Asrār-nāmeh (Book of Secrets), and Manteq al-teyr (Conference of the Birds). With the exception of the Asrār-nāmeh, these masnavis are structured around frame-tales, much like the Canterbury Tales or the Decameron. The anecdotes and homilies are thus not spoken in DOI: 10.4324/9781315124216-20

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ʿAttār’s own voice but by characters in overarching allegorical dramas. Although his innovative use of the frame-narrative structure receives most of the scholarly attention, ʿAttār’s narrative inventiveness extends to the embedded material as well. He includes an unparalleled number of illustrative anecdotes that are also longer than anything seen before. Furthermore, many of these narratives – especially the longer ones – treat the exploits of lovers and beloveds, a kind of story that had not previously been incorporated into the “supra-genre” of the didactic masnavi in any signifcant way. ʿAttār has long been recognized as a proponent of love mysticism and a consummate storyteller, but the scope of his deviation from previous models has not yet been fully appreciated, nor has his signifcance for the historical development of the genre.3 Besides a better understanding of the genre’s history, an investigation into ʿAttār’s expansion of the narrative frontiers of the didactic masnavi will also help us to interpret his own poetry in its proper context. His incorporation of more narratives, longer narratives, and erotic narratives was a departure from established generic norms and was thus accompanied by a certain amount of anxiety. This anxiety is palpable in his work, especially in apologetic sections where he defends himself from imagined critics who would dismiss him as a frivolous “storyteller.” These defensive passages take on new meaning in light of his specifc literary-historical situation. Far from mere boilerplate, they refect a real concern over the reception of his masnavis given their unprecedented narrative content. Even the allegorical frame-tales for which ʿAttār is most often remembered can be productively explained as preemptive authorial reactions to anticipated criticism: by framing the anecdotes as the content of explicitly pedagogical dialogues, he asserts the didactic function of embedded narrative material that might otherwise be viewed with suspicion. The frst half of this chapter documents the scope of ʿAttār’s generic innovations by comparing his masnavis to those of his predecessors. More specifcally, it counts the number of anecdotes in each poem, the lengths of those anecdotes, and the number of erotic stories. The amount of verse necessary for literary-historical comparisons of this nature – in our case, eight texts, 30,000 lines, and over 1000 anecdotes – lends itself to a quantitative method in which a few abstract data points are systematically traced.4 By “zooming out” and focusing on a handful of quantifable markers, we can observe broad trends in this large corpus without getting bogged down in the specifcs of individual stories and their meanings.5 The resulting analysis shows that, even if narrative content was already increasing in didactic masnavis over the course of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, ʿAttār pushed these trends to the extreme: his four masnavis contain up to eight times as much narrative content as previous instances of the genre, including erotic narratives of unprecedented length. Armed with this contextual knowledge, we can then “zoom in” on specifc passages that speak to the anxieties engendered by these generic shifts and examine how ʿAttār responded to facilitate the reception of his work. In this way, the chapter not only clarifes the history of the didactic masnavi and the work of ʿAttār but also demonstrates the fraught status of erotic narratives in didactic contexts at a particular historical moment.

Outline of a Genre Although not an emic term, the poems that we now know as “didactic mas̱navis” formed a recognizable genre of Persian literature by at least the early 1100s, characterized by by direct, exhortative discourse enlivened with illustrative narratives. Poets who composed didactic masnavis understood that they were working within a distinct poetic tradition, even if they did not classify the genre with a single fxed term of its own. For example, Nezāmi, in his Makhzan al-asrār (Treasury of Secrets), acknowledges the Hadiqat of Sanāʾi (d.c. 1130) as the model he was imitating – and aiming to surpass.6 The Makhzan, in turn, set a paradigm for later poets, who adopted not only its meter (sariʿ) but even the -ār ending of its title in their own didactic 288

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mas̱navis: thus the the Matlaʿ al-anvār of Amir Khosrow (d.1325), the Rozat al-anvār of Khwāju (d.c. 1349), the Moʾnis al-abrār of ʿEmād al-Din Faqih Kermāni (d.1371–72), and the Tohfat al-ahrār of Jāmi (d.1492).7 Rumi, who was said to have been inspired by both Sanāʾi and ʿAttār, adopted the ramal meter of the latter’s Manteq al-teyr and Mosibat-nāmeh, while Shabestari (d.c. 1339–40) explicitly cites ʿAttār as the suf-poet par excellence and adopts the hazaj meter of his Asrār-nāmeh and Elāhi-nāmeh.8 In short, poets were working within a multi-stranded, interconnected web of formal and thematic relationships, in which both the Hadiqat and the Makhzan were early major foci. ʿAttār’s primary model is usually assumed to have been Sanāʾi’s Hadiqat. Unlike Nezāmi, however, ʿAttār does not state this explicitly, even though he references Sanāʾi three times (twice as a poet and once as a pious character in an anecdote).9 Sanāʾi’s infuence may also be observable in the frame-tale of the Mosibat-nāmeh, in which a suf wayfarer undertakes a cosmic journey that recalls Sanāʾi’s short allegorical masnavi, the Seyr al-ʿebād (Journey of the Believers).10 Another potential infuence is Marvrudi’s Rahiq al-tahqiq (Limpid Wine of Realization), a relatively short masnavi of 1000 distiches completed in 1190. It is written in the khaff meter of Sanāʾi’s Hadiqat and Seyr al-ʿebād, and according to Nasrollah Pourjavady it is the only “mystical masnavi” written in Khorasan between Sanāʾi and ʿAttār, as well as the frst to be organized around an allegorical frame-tale.11 The frame-tale, taken from Ghazāli’s Ehyā ʿolum al-din (Revivifcation of the Religious Sciences), begins with the protagonist asking a piece of paper who caused the writing that mars its face. Thus begins an ascent through the intermediary causes of writing, from ink, to hand, to will, all the way back to God as the frst and primary cause of all existence. Short anecdotes are embedded in this tale of ascent, along with passages of exhortation. Although there is no hard evidence that ʿAttār was familiar with the Rahiq, it is an important precursor to his more sophisticated use of the frame-tale, and its thematic similarities with the Mosibat-nāmeh are striking. ʿAttār’s relationship to Nezāmi is also ambiguous. He never explicitly references Nezāmi, who lived slightly earlier than him in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, some scholars have perceived signs of Nezāmi’s infuence in ʿAttār’s works.12 This is by no means impossible, especially in the case of the Makhzan, which has been dated to 1165–66 by François de Blois.13 ʿAttār’s masnavis, in turn, may have been composed as late as the early 1200s, which would have been more than enough time for the Makhzan to reach Khorasan, where ʿAttār spent his entire life.14 Even if ʿAttār was not himself familiar with the Makhzan, the poem is, along with the Hadiqat and the Rahiq, an important indicator of the generic contours of the tradition in which ʿAttār worked. The genre was likely established earlier than Sanāʾi, but no didactic masnavi older than the Hadiqat has survived in its entirety. A few scattered verses have been preserved from Abu Shakur Balkhi’s Āfarin-nāmeh (Book of Wonder), an early 9th-century masnavi in the motaqāreb meter, the same meter that was later chosen by Saʿdi (d.c. 1291) for his Bustān (Rose Garden).15 Its surviving verses consist mostly of aphoristic exhortations related to practical morality, such as the importance of keeping secrets, supporting friends, and following wisdom. It has been aptly characterized by Gilbert Lazard as a versifed New Persian andarz, in reference to the Middle Persian collections of wise sayings.16 Some of its verses also appear to be the opening lines of narratives, including animal fables. It is therefore probable that, like later didactic masnavis, the Āfarin-nāmeh contained both narrative exempla and direct admonishment. Due to scattered nature of the surviving verses, however, it is impossible to determine the relative amounts of both kinds of material. Some early masnavis, such as the Rowshanāʾi-nāmeh attributed to Nāser-e Khosrow (b. 1004), also contain aphorisms, proverbs, and exhortative discourse but lack the illustrative anecdotes so critical to the later development of the didactic masnavi as a specifc genre.17 Other masnavis, by contrast, are primarily story collections, and their tales are pointed with only minimal didactic 289

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exhortation. The versifed Kalileh and Demneh of Rudaki (d.c. 940), for instance, survives in only a few scattered verses, but if extant prose versions are any indication, then its animal fables and stories dominated any explicitly interpretive or homiletic content. In any case, the fables of the Kalileh and Demneh cycle are rooted in traditions of courtly ethics and political advice more in line with the Sendbād-nāmeh, the Marzbān-nāmeh, and other narrative “mirrors for princes” than the tradition of homiletic didactic masnavis that forms our focus here.18

Counting Lines, Measuring Tales To trace ʿAttār’s reworking of this generic tradition, we will begin by comparing the number and length of anecdotes in his works to those of his predecessors. This is, however, not as straightforward as it seems. It is complicated by the ambiguous endings of many of these anecdotes, which are not explicitly marked, as well as the messy textual history of Sanāʾi’s Hadiqat. As de Bruijn, Maryam Hoseyni, and Franklin Lewis have shown, extant manuscripts of the Hadiqat cannot be easily distilled down to a single authoritative text. Sanāʾi was revising the work up until his death, when several drafts were circulating among his students and patrons, which were then subject to posthumous revisions. This has led to multiple, irreconcilable textual traditions of vastly varying lengths that include diferent anecdotes and diverging arrangements of the material.19 The edition of Modarres-e Razavi, which was the standard scholarly reference throughout the second half of the 20th century, represents a rather uncritical “vulgate” in which these various textual traditions have been mashed together.20 Newer critical editions, however, have attempted to disentangle particular strands of the poem’s textual history in a more sophisticated way. In particular, on the basis of four early manuscripts dating back to 1157 – only a couple of decades after Sanāʾi’s death – Hoseyni has sought to reconstruct the poem as it was dedicated to the Ghaznavid Sultan Bahrām-Shāh (d.c. 1157) under the title Fakhri-nāmeh (Boastful Book). Comprising around 5000 verses, this edition likely represents the closest we can come to the poem as it looked (or, rather, as one of its recensions looked) during the lifetime of Sanāʾi.21 Mohammad Yāhaqqi and Sayyed Mehdi Zarqāni have also edited a 10,000-verse version of the Hadiqat al-haqiqeh found in later manuscripts – the earliest dated manuscript they use, which serves as the basis of their edition, is held in John Rylands Library, Manchester, and dated 1283.22 While Yāhaqqi, Zarqāni, and Hoseyni believe that this textual strain is the direct descendent of a 10,000-verse draft (mosavvadeh) that Sanāʾi sent to his patron Borhān al-Din Beryāngar in Baghdad near the end of his life, de Bruijn is more skeptical.23 Although these manuscripts probably contain some authentic material that the author did not incorporate into the Fakhri-nāmeh, this longer version of the poem is rather unstable and was likely subject to numerous editorial interventions and interpolations before its appearance in the 13th century. It can thus be most productively viewed as a composite text, in which some version of Sanāʾi’s original content has been repeatedly reworked in accordance with the changing aesthetic preferences and expectations of a 12th/13th-century readership. The earliest textual strand of Sanāʾi’s poem, edited by Hoseyni, contains ffty-six anecdotes; the later strand edited by Yāhaqqi and Zarqāni contains one hundred (Table 11.1).24 In both cases, however, measuring the length of those anecdotes is more difcult than it frst appears. The narratives in the Hadiqat, as in most didactic masanvis, often end with one character haranguing or exhorting another, followed by the narrator’s more general admonishment to his own audience. These transitions are never explicitly marked, however, meaning that the exact length of many anecdotes is ambiguous. Nevertheless, it is usually possible to determine where a narrative likely ends on the basis of changing pronouns, a shift to generalizing sententiae, and other contextual clues. With this caveat, Tables 11.A and 11.B in the appendix list, based on 290

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my readings, the length of every anecdote in Hoseyni’s and Yāhaqqi’s respective editions of the poem. As summarized in Table 11.1, the anecdotes in the early Fakhri-nāmeh are substantially shorter than those in the later textual strand: the median length in the former is four, whereas the median length in the latter is nine. But because the Fakhri-nāmeh as a whole is also a shorter work, the two recensions are not too diferent in terms of their total proportion of narrative content: 8 percent of the Fakhri-nāmeh’s almost 5200 verses are devoted to narrative, and 11 percent of the over 10,000 verses in the enlarged Hadiqat. In comparison with Sanāʾi’s work, Nezāmi’s Makhzan is a much more systematic text, which may partially account for the greater stability of its transmission. It consists of twenty thematic chapters, each one of which ends with a single anecdote. It therefore includes only half as many anecdotes as the Fakhri-nāmeh and a quarter as many as the later strand of the Hadiqat, but those that it does include are substantially longer. In Table 11.C in the appendix, I have listed the length of each anecdote based on my reading of Berhruz Sarvatiān’s edition. The median length is 17.5 verses, with the longest narrative coming to thirty-eight verses. Moreover, the work is considerably shorter than both traditions of Sanāʾi’s masnavi, so its total proportion of narrative is higher (16%). Finally, Marvrudi’s Rahiq, which is shorter than even the Makhzan, contains a mere thirteen anecdotes with a median length of fve. Narrative content represents 11 percent of the total poem, in line with the later versions of the Hadiqat.25 The number of anecdotes included by ʿAttār, by contrast, far exceeds those of predecessors. His shortest work, the Asrār-nāmeh, contains 101 narratives, nearly twice as many as the Fakhrināmeh and fve times as many as the Makhzan. His other masnavis are even more narrative heavy: the Manteq al-teyr contains 181 anecdotes, the Elāhi-nāmeh includes 261, and the Mosibat-nāmeh boasts 361 anecdotes. This increase in narrative likely refects a broader change in tastes: as we have already seen, 13th-century manuscripts of the Hadiqat contain almost twice as many narratives as the earlier Fakhri-nāmeh. Most of ʿAttār’s masnavis, however, contain even more narratives than the enlarged Hadiqat, as well as a much higher proportion of narrative content. The Elahi-nāmeh, Mosibat-nāmeh, and Manteq al-teyr are all over 50 percent narrative. The Asrār-nāmeh, with only 101 anecdotes, is a more modest 21 percent narrative; nevertheless, it still exceeds both textual strands of Sanāʾi’s Hadiqat, Nezāmi’s Makhzan, and Marvrudi’s Rahiq. ʿAttār’s masnavis are also unusual in terms of their narratives’ lengths. Shafʿi-Kadkani, in his editions of ʿAttār’s masnavis, introduced paratextual markings to divide the anecdotes from the subsequent homilies. His divisions are reasonable, and for the sake of simplicity and transparency, I have adopted them here.26 On the basis of these divisions, the median narratives in ʿAttār’s poems are actually revealed to be shorter than those in Nezāmi’s Makhzan and the enlarged Hadiqat (Table 11.1), but the longest stories are longer by far (Table 11.2). In the Fakhri-nāmeh, there is

Table 11.1 Number and lengths of anecdotes

Total Length (Verses) Number of Anecdotes Median Anecdote Length Percent Narrative Content

Sanāʾi Fakhri

Sanāʾi Hadiqat

Nezāmi Makzan

Marvrudi Rahiq

ʿAttār Asrār

ʿAttār Manteq

ʿAttār Elāhi

ʿAttār Mosibat

5181 56

10916 100

2209 20

1021 13

3307 101

4724 181

6685 261

7425 361

4

9

17.5

5

5

8

10

8

8%

11%

16%

11%

21%

52%

67%

54%

291

Austin O’Malley Table 11.2 Number of anecdotes over forty verses and their lengths27

Total Number Lengths

Sanāʾi Fakhri

Sanāʾi Hadiqat

Nezāmi Makhzan

Marvrudi Rahiq

ʿAttār Asrār

ʿAttār Manteq

ʿAttār Elāhi

ʿAttār Mosibat

1

4

0

0

1

4

17

10

57

40, 42, 46, 50

n/a

n/a

70

80, 88, 163, 411

40, 40, 41, 48, 50, 53, 54, 55, 62, 65, 65, 70, 85, 88, 99, 309, 411

40, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 50, 69, 70, 93

only one anecdote over forty lines, and in the Rahiq and Makhzan, there are none. The later textual strand of the Hadiqat claims four anecdotes over forty lines: they all feature aggrieved subjects demanding justice from kings, and their length is due to their protagonists’ extended speeches. The Elāhi-nāmeh, by contrast, boasts a total of seventeen anecdotes over forty lines, including two long tales of 309 and 411 verses. The Mosibat-nāmeh contains ten anecdotes over forty lines. The Manteq al-teyr has four anecdotes over forty lines, including two long tales of 163 and 411 verses. The Asrār-nāmeh again lags behind, with only a single story of seventy lines – still longer than anything in Sanāʾi or Nezāmi – but all its other narratives clock in at under thirty lines. Because ʿAttār’s works contain more stories than those of Sanāʾi, Nezāmi, and Marvrudi, the presence of more outliers is, to some degree, unsurprising. But it does not take any particular expertise in statistics to see that stories of 93, 163, 309, and 411 lines are well outside of any expected distribution. Even the more reasonable outliers of forty and ffty lines are still outliers, and recognizable as such to readers of the poem; they often involve multiple plot points, and their palpable presence in ʿAttār’s works changes the reading experience. Many of these longer stories are invested with special meaning and occupy key structural points, as Dick Davis has shown for the two longest tales of the Manteq al-teyr.28 Furthermore, as we shall see, these long narratives overlap with another of ʿAttār’s key innovations: the incorporation of erotic themes. As Hellmut Ritter, Jan Rypka, and others have observed, ʿAttār displays a marked afnity for storytelling. A quantitative analysis of didactic masnavis, however, shows the surprising extent to which ʿAttār deviated from previous generic exemplars in his use of narrative. These changes cannot be solely attributed to ʿAttār’s individual poetic taste or genius: they likely refect broader literary trends, as suggested by the evolution of the Hadiqat. Still, ʿAttār includes an unprecedented proportion of narrative content, and his longest narratives are far longer than anything in previous didactic masnavis. Even though he was participating in a broader literary shift, ʿAttār was at the forefront of these developments, which, as is often the case, were not immediately accepted by all readers. As we shall see, ʿAttār’s meta-poetic commentary displays deep authorial anxiety over the reception of his densely narrative work.

ʿAttār’s Erotic Didacticism Within ʿAttār’s masnavis, these longer and more plentiful anecdotes also treat new thematic content: in particular, they include dozens of amatory narratives and longer tales. Legendary lovers such as Leyli and Majnun, Mahmud and Ayāz, and Yusof and Zoleykhā are recurring characters in his narratives, as are numerous anonymous beggars and bath-stokers who fall in love with 292

Erotic Narratives and ʿAttār’s Refashioning of the Didactic Masnavi

kings, princes, and princesses: descriptive titles for these stories can be found in Appendix 2. Such narratives are a staple of ʿAttār’s works and later didactic masnavis, but they are largely absent from those of Sanāʾi and Nezāmi. There are only two anecdotes in the Fakhri-nāmeh that deal with lovers or beloveds, and they do not treat erotic themes with nearly the relish of ʿAttār, such that I am almost tempted to exclude them according to the criteria outlined below.29 Even more surprisingly, there is not a single anecdote related to lovers or beloveds in Nezāmi’s Makhzan. On the other hand, three amatory anecdotes are found in the Rahiq, a substantial number given that it features only thirteen total narratives. In this regard (and in its use of the frame-tale), Marvrudi’s Rahiq is an important precursor to ʿAttār’s masnavis. The total number of amatory stories in Attar’s masnavis, by contrast, exceeds 100 anecdotes, as summarized in Table 11.3. For the purpose of these data, I counted only those anecdotes that explicitly feature lovers and beloveds, whether anonymous or named, and treat well-worn erotic topoi known from the ghazal or romance traditions such as the tyranny and inaccessibility of the beloved; descriptions of his eyes, mouth, hair, or waist; and the jealousy, sufering, or selfess devotion of the lover. Such stories are, in ʿAttār, often interpreted allegorically in the subsequent homiletic sections. The love of Mahmud for Ayāz, for instance, is used to illustrate various facets of the human-divine relationship.30 ʿAttār also includes many stories in which a dervish might be identifed as a “lover of God” in the absence of a human beloved. Such stories, however, do not usually develop erotic topoi to the same degree as those that feature human beloveds (allegorical or otherwise).31 For this reason, they were not counted as amatory stories or listed in Appendix 2. Also excluded were those anecdotes in which erotic topoi are only used sparingly in an incidental fashion, and those in which erotic terminology appears only in the narrator’s subsequent homily and not the anecdote itself. In ambiguous cases I used my best judgement; a diferent researcher might thus come up with a slightly diferent list. If anything, I have undercounted amatory narratives in ʿAttār, so the trend is clear: amatory stories played almost no role in Sanāʾi’s Fakhri-nāmeh and none in Nezāmi, and while additional erotic narratives were incorporated into the later strand of the Hadiqat and the short Rahiq, nothing compares to the explosion of such stories in the Manteq al-teyr, Elāhi-nāmeh, and Mosibat-nāmeh. ʿAttār’s Asrār-nāmeh is again a clear outlier, with only three amatory narratives, proportionately less than even Sanāʾi’s Fakhri-nāmeh.32 The lack of amatory content in Sanāʾi’s and Nezāmi’s didactic masnavis cannot be attributed to a blanket distaste for love stories or erotically tinged verse. Nezāmi, after all, is the most famous romancer of the Persian tradition, and he composed multiple romances in the masnavi verse form, including Khosrow and Shirin and Leyli and Majnun.33 Sanāʾi, too, was well acquainted with amatory topoi. Although he produced no romances, he composed a voluminous collection of ghazals that invoke, in a more atemporal mode, the same characteristics of lovers and beloveds that are narratively embodied in ‘Attar’s amatory anecdotes. The dearth of such narratives in the

Table 11.3 Amatory anecdotes

Total Number Percentage of All Anecdotes Percentage of Total Length

Sanāʾi Fakhri

Sanāʾi Hadiqat

Nezāmi Makhzan

Marvrudi Rahiq

ʿAttār Asrār

ʿAttār Manteq

ʿAttār Elāhi

ʿAttār Mosibat

2 4%

6 6%

0 0

3 23%

3 3%

24 13%

41 16%

48 13%