Jangnāma-yi Kishm wa Jarūnnāma /
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For over a hundred years, between 1507 and 1622, the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf was in the hands of the Portuguese. It was only under Shāh ʿAbbās I that the Safavids were able to recapture Hormuz and the neighbouring island of Qishm, under the leadership of general Imām Qulī Khān and with the unexpected help of some forces of the British East India Company that happened to be in the area at the time. The two epic poems from the 11th/17th century published in this volume, one by an otherwise unknown 'Qadrī' and the other by an anonymous author, deal with the recapture of Qishm and Hormuz under Imām Qulī Khān. While not of high literary quality, the poems show some interesting local and historical features, especially the longer one on Hormuz whose author had a great admiration of Imām Qulī Khān, whom he appears to have known personally.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404663
9789648700046
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Īrān u Islām. Volume 2 /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published in these three volumes describes the history of Iran and Islam. Section: Iran, 3 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404342
9786002030696
Dīwān-i Fānī : Mawsūm bih Ganj Allāh /
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Born in Khūy (Azerbaidjan), Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥasan Zunūzī Khūʾī (1172-1225/1758-1810) was a traditional Islamic scholar and man of letters who signed his poems as 'Fānī'. He received his basic education in Zunūz, Tabriz and Khūy, leaving for the holy cites of the Shīʿa in Iraq at the age of 23. There he attended the classes of, among others, Āqā Muḥammad Bāqir Bihbihānī (d. 1205/1790) and Mīrzā Muḥammad Mahdī Shahristānī (d. 1215-16/1800-01). He then returned to Khūy where he spent the rest of his life, save for a two-year 'sabbatical' in Mashhad. In Khūy Fānī was a protégé of the local ruler, Aḥmad Khān Dunbul (d. 1200/1785) and his son Ḥusayn Qulīkhān Dunbul (d. 1213/1799). He is the author of a number of works, among them the encyclopaedic Baḥr al-ʿulūm (Persian) and the spiritual Wasīlat al-najāh (Persian). The Persian poems published here are mostly mystical in tone, often inserting terms or concepts taken from astronomy.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405851
9786002030238
Dīwān-i ashʿār-i Fahmī Astarābādī /
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This is a collection of poems, mostly ghazals, by the otherwise little-known 10th/16th century poet Fahmī Astarābādī. All that the available sources tell us about him is that he was talented and intelligent, that (as a young man?) he went to India, that he earned a living in business, and that he died in Delhi. Thanks to the research of the editor of his divan, we now know somewhat more. First, that Fahmī spent a certain time in the entourage of Rustam Rūzafzūn (d. 917/1511), ruler of Mazandaran and that he also wrote poetry in praise of some of the other members of that family; that he lived in Yazd for two years and lost his fortune there, returning broke to Mazandaran; that he travelled to Najaf, Mecca and Mashhad; and that he was in India when Sultan Bābur died in 937/1530. Alive in 948/1541, is not known when or where he passed away.
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Poems. :
1 online resource. :
9789004405608
9789648700930
Navīsanda-yi Rustam al-tawārīkh kīst? : va pizhūhishī dar nigāh-i ū bih Īrān /
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In literary criticism, the blending of historical fact and literary invention is often referred to as 'fictionalized history'. While the main characters and episodes are largely based on historical record, in works of this kind, the author takes the liberty to invent or manipulate thoughts, dialogues, or events. Gore Vidal's Lincoln or Robert Graves' I, Claudius are modern examples of fictionalized history. In early Persian literature, Firdawsī's (d. 411/1020) Shāh-nāma is a fine specimen of fictionalized history. Rustam al-ḥukamā's (19th century) Rustam al-tawārīkh pretends to be an historical work, covering the last days of the Safavid era from the beginning of the rule of Shāh Sulṭān Ḥusayn (r. 1105-35/1694-1722), until the death of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh Qājār (d. 1249/1834). In this critical study, Jalīl Nudharī argues that Rustam's work is fictionalized history rather than history, and that Rustam al-ḥukamā is an alias of the well-known nineteenth-century writer Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat (d. 1871)
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1 online resource. :
9789004408142
9786002031402
Dīwān-i Hātif-i Iṣfahānī /
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Persian poetry of the pre-modern era is divided into three successive styles, each belonging to a different period: Khurāsānī, ʿIrāqī and Hindī. The Hindī style is called such because in Safavid times, during which it developed, poets no longer enjoyed the shah's patronage so that many of them went to India, where Persian poetry had flourished since Ghaznavid times (11th-12th century CE). The Hindī style is often regarded as a lesser style, but has the merit of having put a halt to the decline that Persian poetry was suffering from at the time and also, by its accessible language and subject matter, of having brought poetry within reach of the ordinary man. The poetry of Hātif Iṣfahānī (d. 1198/1783) published here was written in the latter half of the 12th/18th century, at the beginning of the neo-classical period of return ( bāzgasht ) to the poetical styles of the pre-Safavid era.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407244
9786002031167
The adventures of Shah Esma'il : a seventeenth-century Persian popular romance /
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The Adventures of Shāh Esmāʿil recounts the dramatic formative years of the Safavid empire (1501-1722), as preserved in Iranian popular memory by coffeehouse storytellers and written down in manuscripts starting in the late seventeenth century. Beginning with the Safavids' saintly ancestors in Ardabil, the story goes on to relate the conquests of Shāh Esmāʿil (r. 1501-1524) and his devoted Qezelbāsh followers as they battle Torkmāns, Uzbeks, Ottomans, and even Georgians and Ethiopians in their quest to establish a Twelver Shiʿi realm. Barry Wood's translation brings out the verve and popular tone of the Persian text. A heady mixture of history and legend, The Adventures of Shāh Esmāʿil sheds important light on the historical self-awareness of late Safavid Iran.
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Translation of a collection of manuscripts that was edited and published in Iran in 1971 by its owner, Aṣghar Muntaẓir Ṣāḥib, and published under the title: ʻĀlamʹārā-yi Shāh Ismāʻīl. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004383531
Nuskha-shinākht : Pizhūhishnāma-yi nuskhashināsi-yi nusakh-i khaṭṭi-yi Fārsī /
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This is a work on the codicology of Islamic manuscripts with a special emphasis on manuscripts in Persian. According to the great Iranian codicologist Iraj Afshar it is the most detailed and complete work in its field in Persian after Mahdī Bayānī's Kitābshināsi-yi kitāb-i khaṭṭī , published posthumously in 1353/1974-75. The work is divided into two parts: the first part discusses all the elements related to the physical existence of a manuscript in the order in which these come to be, while the second part describes various aspects of the embellishments with which manuscripts were often provided once the codex had been produced. The work is extremely detailed and comes with many photographs in illustration of the text. Special attention is drawn to the care with which the author records the terminology around Islamic manuscripts in Persian. As such, this work may be regarded as complementary to A. Gacek's Arabic Manuscripts and The Arabic Manuscript Tradition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405936
9786002030252
The arts of ornamental geometry : a Persian compendium on similar and complementary interlocking figures, Fī tadākhul al-ashkāl al-mutashābiha aw al-mutāwafiqa (Bibliothèque Nation...
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This collective study focuses on a unique anonymous medieval document on ornamental geometry featuring geometrical constructions and textual instructions in Persian. Selections from the unpublished work of Alpay Özdural (d. 2003) on this subject have been updated with original contributions by Jan P. Hogendijk, Elaheh Kheirandish, Gülru Necipoğlu, and Wheeler M. Thackston. The chapters interpreting this fascinating document are followed, for the first time, by a facsimile, transcription, and translation, as well as drawings of incised construction lines invisible in the photographed facsimile. This publication intersects with the current interest in Islamic geometrical patterning as an inspiration for tessellation and parametrically derived forms in contemporary architecture and the arts. It aims to make this celebrated source more accessible, given its multifaceted relevance to historians of art, architecture, and science, as well as mathematicians, physicists, artists, and architects. For those who wish to obtain a copy of the full, unedited original book manuscript of Alpay Özdural, where he discusses the mathematical properties of all geometrical constructions in the Anonymous Compendium as well as the step-by-step method for drawing each one, his work is available online at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5255416
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004315204 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tuḥfat al-fatā fī tafsīr sūrat Hal atā /
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One of the challenges that the Qurʾān poses to its readers is the apparent contradictions that it contains. In order for these contradictions to be removed, Muslim scholars developed a doctrine according to which one verse could be abrogated by another. Abrogation being linked to temporality, the question whether a verse was revealed in Mecca or Medina became a major point of discussion. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Dashtakī (d. 949/1542) was one of the major representatives of the School of Shiraz in philosophy and a specialist in Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy, as well as mysticism. The present volume contains a new edition of his commentary on Sūrat al-Insān (no. 76), which is one of the suras on whose time of revelation much had already been written. In this seminal and innovative work, emphasis is given to a mystico-philosophical reading of the text, an appoach that would reach its zenith in the work of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640)
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1 online resource. :
9789004403017
9789646781740
Kalimāt-i qiṣār-i Imām ʿAlī : Du majmūʿa: 1. Miʾat kalima - Nathr al-laʾālī, 2. Tarjuma-yi manẓūm-i Nathr al-laʾālī /
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Being the first imam of the Shīʿa, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib's (d. 40/661) statements-in any form-have always been important. In the centuries following his death, there appeared several collections of aphorisms, speeches, sermons, rulings and letters, all ascribed to him. The significance of these works was not just informative or even literary; they also had a didactic side insofar as ʿAlī was regarded as a channel for God's grace to man, it being through him that man could learn how to fulfil God's wish of obeying Him. Among these works, there are the Miʾat kalima by Baḥr b. ʿAmr al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-69) and the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ , probably by Faḍl b. Ḥasan Ṭabarsī (d. 548/1153). The present volume contains the facsimile editions of a well-executed 19th-century copy of both of these Arabic texts, followed by a Persian translation into poetry of part of the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ by Yār ʿAlī ʿAlānawī Tabrīzī (early 16th century)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405691
9786002030092
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (Fihrist-i 8000 nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhānahā-yi shakhṣī va dawlatī). Volume 1 : ʿUlūm-i Qurʾānī etc. /
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This catalogue of Persian manuscripts in Pakistan was compiled by the well-known specialist of Islamic manuscripts ʿĀrif Nawshāhī (1955). It can be seen as a sequel to Aḥmad Munzawī's (d. 2015) 14-volume Fihrist-i mushtarak-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (1983-1997), besides Nawshāhī's own catalogues of the Persian manuscripts in the National Archives of Pakistan and the Punjab University Library in Lahore. The catalogue published here contains information on around 8000 manuscripts in 335 collections in Pakistan, mostly in non-government and private libraries, madrasas, and monasteries. In view of the threat of decay of manuscripts in private collections due to poor storage conditions and a declining interest in the Persian language, this catalogue is both a witness and a wake-up call. In this work, Nawshāhī relies on his own research, on notes by others, until then forgotten in the archives of the Iran-Pakistan Institute of Persian Studies in Islamabad, and also on different kinds of published sources. 4 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408159
9786002031426
Taḥqīq dar majālis-i tafsīri-yi Faḍl b. Muḥibb-i Nīshābūrī wa abyāt-i Fārsi-yi ān : Ganjīnaʾī az surūdhā-yi Zāhidāna-yi Fārsī az sada-yi panjum-i hijrī /
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In Persian literature, so-called ' majālis ' (sg. majlis , 'session') works typically evoke the atmosphere of a religious gathering. In some of these gatherings, a lecturer recounted parts of the history of Islam and the lives and times of its prominent representatives. In others, his focus was on the interpretation of the Qurʾān or some other subject. Sometimes, a speaker answered questions and at others, he sermonized. An early work in this genre is a majālis text on Qurʾān interpretation by Faḍl b. Muḥibb Nīshāpūrī (d. 472/1079). Issuing from a well-educated family of Nishapur, Faḍl was known for his learning and his virtue, earning him the nicknames of ustādh ('master') and wāʿiẓ ('preacher'). The lines of poetry published here were culled from a majālis text by him, the title of which remains unknown. Testimony to his use of rhetorical means to enhance the impact of his talk, these lines of poetry are also among the earliest in their genre in Khurāsān.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406643
9786002031044
Maḥbūb al-qulūb. Volume 1 : Al-Maqāla al-thāniya fi aḥwāl ḥukamāʾ al-Islām wal-ʿulamāʾ al-aʿlām wal-udabāʾ al-kirām mimman lahum al-iʿtināʾ bi-shaʾnihim wal-iʿtibār bi-kalāmihim /...
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In the Islamic world, the writing of biographical reference works has a very long tradition. In the field of philosophy and other rational sciences such as medicine, one could, for example, mention Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn's (d. 298/910) Taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ wal-ḥukamāʾ or Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's (d. ca 668/1270) ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ . The present two-volume biographical dictionary of philosophers and physicians of all times thus continues a centuries-old tradition. Its author, Quṭb al-Dīn Ishkawarī Lāhijī (d. ca. 1088-95/1677-78), was a student of the great Safavi thinker and founder of the School of Isfahan in philosophy, Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631). This is also obvious from his spiritually-orientated, inclusive understanding of the various actors and episodes in the history of philosophy. Written in classical Arabic, at times sprinkled with his native Persian, it distinguishes itself from earlier dictionaries in that it also contains many of the author's own philosophical opinions. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402263
9789646781047
Muntakhab-i risālāt-i Ṣafāʾ al-Ḥaqq /
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Ṣafāʾ al-Ḥaqq (1879-1962) is the artist's name of an Iranian Kurd whose family had moved from Kurdistan to Hamadan when he was still a child. His father was a respected businessman and a follower of the ideas of Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī (d. 1241/1826). Though well-educated, having studied traditional and herbal medicine and animal husbandry, as an adolescent Ṣafāʾ al-Haqq spent a lot of time in his father's business in the bazaar. Due to his convictions, his father lost his livelyhood and Ṣafāʾ al-Ḥaqq started travelling. He spent several years in India, where he worked in a British hospital in Bombay. He then returned to Hamadan, where he settled as a physician. As a poet Ṣafāʾ al-Ḥaqq wrote in the Hindī style. He was an amateur musicologist as well as an accomplished calligrapher. This volume contains his autobiography, a treatise on animal husbandry, and two further treatises on various aspects of Shaykhism and music.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404892
9789648700466
Kitāb al-adwār fi ʼl-mūsīqī : Tarjuma-yi Fārsī bih inḍimām-i matn-i ʿArabi-yi ān /
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In his younger years, the famous musician and theorist of music Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī (d. 683/1294) seemed destined for an administrative career. Having moved to Baghdad as an adolescent, he had received a first-class education, excelling in Arabic, calligraphy, and Shāfīʿī and comparative law especially. For a time he was a copyist in the library of the caliph al-Mustaʿṣim (reg. 640-56/1242-58) and a teacher of calligraphy. His talents as a lute-player and musician then led to a brilliant career at al-Mustaʿṣim's court. Under al-Mustaʿṣim he also held juridical office, while under the Mongols he was head of the chancery of Baghdad and supervisor of the religious endowments of Iraq. Administrative talents notwithstanding, it was in musical theory that Urmawī secured himself eternal fame. Innovative and concise, yet complete, his Kitāb al-adwār fi ʼl-mūsīqī became the most popular textbook in music for centuries. An undated, anonymous Persian translation is published here, together with the Arabic original.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402782
9789646781627
Rubāʿiyyāt-i Ḥakīm Khayyām /
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The rubāʿī or quatrain is a short Persian poem in a special metre with a rhyme suitable to its form. Its use is not bound to any specific field, there being philosophical, satirical, romantic, lyrical and other types of quatrain. In the past, it was believed that the rubāʿī was a special form of the hazaj metre of Arabic poetry. Meanwhile, it has been established that it is in fact Iranian, its origin being the pre-Islamic tarānah or song for feasting and wine. In the West the quatrain was rendered immortal through the work of ʿUmar al-Khayyām (d. ca. 517/1123). A native of Nishapur, he was a respected mathematician and astronomer, as well as a recognized expert in poetry. Many of the quatrains ascribed to him are, however, spurious. This volume contains a reprint of Yār Aḥmad Rashīdī's selection (dated 867/1460), first published in 1953, followed by two other works in Persian, also by Khayyām.
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Includes facsimile text originally published in Istanbul, 1953. :
1 online resource. :
9789004404885
9789648700374
Minhāj al-wilāya fī sharḥ Nahj al-balāgha. Volume 2 /
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The Nahj al-balāgha is a collection of sermons, letters, testimonials, and wise sayings attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the Prophet's son-in-law, successor, and first imam of the Shīʿa. The collection was compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1088), a distinguished ʿAlid member of Baghdad's ruling elite. The Nahj al-balāgha is widely considered as a work of extraordinary literary quality, besides being an invaluable source of information on the person, opinions, and virtues of ʿAlī. Many commentaries on it were written, in Arabic and in Persian. The present, two-volume Persian commentary was written by ʿAbd al-Bāqī Ṣūfī Tabrīzī (d. 1039/1629-30), who spent most of his active life in then-Ottoman Baghdad, mystics mostly having a hard time under the Safavid ruler Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 1587-1629). The commentary is thematically organized into twelve sections and explains the text from a variety of angles, with discussions ranging from theology and tradition to philosophy and mysticism. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402515
9789646781191
Kitāb shināsi-yi āthār-i Fārsi-yi chāp shuda dar shibh-i qāra (Hind, Pākistān, Banglādish), 1160-1387/1195-1428/1781-2007. Volume 3 /
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Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century marked the beginning of a new era in the transmission of knowledge, the spread of ideologies, and the administration of peoples. Even if the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr (d. 1627), when presented with a printed copy of the Gospels, expressed his interest in exploring the possibilities for the printing of texts in nastaʿlīq in movable type, it would take another two hunderd years before the people of the Indian subcontinent started printing themselves. In the 1820's, when Indians began using western printing techniques to reproduce texts in local languages, they preferred lithographs over movable type. The former required less technology, were typographically superior, and also closer to the traditional reading experience. Movable type came only later. The printing of Persian texts had its heyday between the 1820's and 1850's. The present inventory shows the immense richness of two centuries of Persian printing on the Indian subcontinent. 4 vols; volume 3.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406070
9786002030436
Mathnawi-yi Haft awrang. Volume 1 : Silsilat al-dhahab, Salmān wa-Absāl, Tuḥfat al-aḥrār wa-suḥbat al-abrār /
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Regarded by many as the last great mystical poet of medieval Persia, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492) spent the greater part of his life in Herat. As a student, he excelled in every subject he engaged in and appeared destined for an academic career. But then, in his early thirties, he went through a spiritual crisis that ended in him joining the Herat branch of the mystical Naqshbandiyya order, led by the charismatic Saʿd al-Dīn Kāshgharī (d. 860/1456). A protégé of three successive Timurid rulers in Herat, Jāmī's wide network of friendships and relations extended from spiritual and literary circles through the political to the academic. With 39.000 lines of verse and over 30 prose works to his name, Jāmī's literary production is quite overwhelming. Highly imaginative in their treatment of the human condition, Jāmī's seven long mathnawī s contained in the present two-volume edition bear witness to his great artistic talents and wide intellectual horizon. 2 vols; volume 1.
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Poems.
Vol. 2 edited by: Aʻlākhān Afṣaḥʹzād and Ḥusayn Aḥmad Tarbiyat. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402423
9789646781030