Kitāb shināsi-yi āthār-i Fārsi-yi chāp shuda dar shibh-i qāra (Hind, Pākistān, Banglādish), 1160-1387/1195-1428/1781-2007. Volume 4 /
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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 4.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406087
9786002030443
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
Al-Riḥla al-Makkiyya : Tārīkh-i siyāsī u ijtimāʿi-yi Mushaʿshaʿiyān /
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In Islam, messianic beliefs are typically associated with the doctrines of the Shīʿa. The idea of the Manifestation of the Hidden Imam at the appointed time has always been part of their beliefs, then and now. Besides mainstream Shīʿa movements such as Twelver Shīʿism, Zaydism, or Ismailism, there have also been marginal and extremist groups around charismatic leaders claiming a messianic role. One of these is Sayyid Muḥammad b. Falāḥ (d. 861/1456-7), founder of the Mushaʿshaʿ movement among the Shīʿī Arab tribes of Khūzistān, western Iran. Fighting or arranging themselves temporarily with their neighbors, notably the Safavids and the Ottomans, the Mushaʿshaʿ dynasty continued to exist in different forms and shapes well into the nineteenth century. The present work is a nineteenth-century Persian translation of a history of the Mushaʿshaʿ dynasty in Arabic by the governor of Ḥuwayza and descendant of Ibn Falāḥ, ʿAlī Khān Mushaʿshaʿī (alive in 1128/1716). Based on written and oral sources.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408111
9786002031310
Rustam nāma : Dāstān-i manẓūm-i Musalmān shudan-i Rustam bih dast-i Imām ʿAlī ('alayhi al-salām) bih inḍimām-i Muʿjiz-nāma-yi Mawlā-yi muttaqiyān /
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In his Meccan days Muḥammad's message was rejected by many as a threat to the values and interests of the community. Among his opponents, there was a merchant called Naḍr b. Ḥārith. From his visits to the city of Ḥīra in Mesopotamia, a cultural melting-pot of Iranian, Christian, and pagan Arab beliefs and traditions, he had brought back stories from Iranian folklore, especially about Rustam and Isfandyār, with which he tried to attract the attention of those listening to Muḥammad's speeches, away from the latter's revolutionary message. This explains why the religious elite of the Persianate world rejected Iranian epic folklore as contrary to the message of Shīʿī Islam, Rustam in particular being viewed as incompatibele with the person of Imam ʿAlī. But folklore being difficult to eradicate, Rustam was often depicted as a Muslim convert and enemy-turned-friend of ʿAlī, like in this poem from Safavid times. A miracle story involving ʿAlī accompanies it.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405042
9789648700657
Akhbār wulāt Khurāsān /
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The present work is not an historical text in the regular sense of the word. It is rather an inventory of as many citations and borrowings in later sources as possible from a text now lost. Written in Arabic, the Akhbār wulāt Khurāsān was started by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Sallāmi (d. 300/912) of Khwār near Bayhaq, whose account ran to the year 289/902, and then continued by his brother Abū ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Sallāmī, finishing in the year 344/955. As stated by the author of the present compilation, the work is important in that it is an early history of the governors of Khurāsān which was not written from religious or political motives. A trusted source, it saw at least three abridgements and is cited or used by many later authors, among them Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048), ʿIzz al-Dīn b. al-Athīr (d. 630/1233), and ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. Ḍaḥḥāk Gardīzī (fl. middle 5th/11th century)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405806
9786002030177
Taḥsīn wa taqbīḥ-i Thaʿālibī /
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Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038) was a very productive writer in Arabic philology and belles lettres and a promotor of the Arabic language in the eastern lands of the Islamic word. Born in Nishapur, it was there that he began his career, forging bonds of friendship with influential literati and various men of state. From there he travelled to the courts of different rulers in some of the major cities in Transoxania and Khurāsān, finally to return to Nishapur where he spent the last years of his life. A compiler and literary critic more than an author in his own right, al-Thaʿālibī's literary anthologies have done much for the preservation of early Arabic literature-mostly poetry-otherwise lost. As explained by the editor, the present work is not a Persian rendering of his Taḥsīn al-qabīḥ wa-taqbīḥ al-ḥasan , but probably done from an Arabic original that was similar to two of Thaʿālibī's other compilatory works.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404786
9789648700220
Kitāb shināsi-yi āthār-i Fārsi-yi chāp shuda dar shibh-i qāra (Hind, Pākistān, Banglādish), 1160-1387/1195-1428/1781-2007. Volume 2 /
:
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 2.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004406063
9786002030429
Kitāb al-mulakhkhaṣ fi ʼl-lugha maʿa ʼl-wafāʾ bi-tarjamat mā fi ʼl-Qurʾān /
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A trusted and much-used means to navigate between words and languages, the dictionary has a long history. The oldest bilingual dictionary is a Sumerian-Eblaite lexicon of more than 4000 years ago. The earliest monolingual dictionary is preserved in fragments from a Chinese lexicon from around 800 BCE. As for Arabic-Persian dictionaries, of which the facsimile published here is a valuable specimen, these made their first appearance in the 4th/10th century, at the time of the first translations of the Qurʾān and its commentaries and the increase of scientific texts in Arabic eligible for translation into New Persian. The present dictionary was copied in 684/1286, but is certainly older than that. It is a general lexicon which has been alphabetically arranged. At the end there is an appendix with an overview of the terminology of various practical fields that leaves a very modern impression (days of the week, basic arithmetic etc.). Historical and philological introducton, indices.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407237
9786002031150
Mathnawi-yi Haft awrang. Volume 2 : Yūsuf wa-Sulaykhā, Laylā wa-Majnūn, wa-Khiradnāma-yi Iskandar /
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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 2.
:
Poems.
Vol. 2 edited by: Aʻlākhān Afṣaḥʹzād and Ḥusayn Aḥmad Tarbiyat. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402447
9789646781054
Dīwān-i ghazaliyāt-i Asīr-i Shahristānī /
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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's name comes from 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 from Ghaznavid times (11th-12th cent.). The Hindī style is often regarded as being of a lesser kind than the Khurāsānī or ʿIrāqī ones, but has the merit of having ended 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 poems of Asīr Shahristānī (11th/17th cent.), whose ghazal s are published here, are written in the Hindī style. Popular in India, even if he never went there, their appreciation in Iran has varied.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404137
9789646781733
Sharḥ al-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām : maʿa ʼl-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām, nuskha muṣawwara min majmūʿat ʿĀṭif Efendī raqm 1338/1 /
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The Imāmī scholar Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī (d. 459-60/1066-7) was born in Ṭūs in Khurāsān. Having completed his basic education there, he left for Baghdad, which at the time was ruled by the Shīʿī Buwayhid dynasty. In Baghdad he attended the classes of various prominent scholars, notably the leading Imāmī rationalist of his time, al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022) and his successor al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). After the death of al-Murtaḍā, Ṭūsī, who had already made a name for himself as a thinker and a writer, became the undisputed leader of the Imāmī community. About ten years later Baghdad was invaded by the Saljuqs and Ṭūsī's house and libraries were laid to waste. Tūsī fled to Najaf where he remained until his death. Al-Muqaddima fi ʼl-kalām on concepts in theology figures among Ṭūsī's most important works. The commentary by Najīb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī (d. 582/1186) printed in facsimile here are lecture notes, made by one of his students.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406230
9786002030658
Āthār-i Fatḥallāh Khān-i Shaybānī. Volume 1 : Jild-i avval Dīwān-i ashʿār, Fatḥ u ẓafar /
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Fatḥallāh Khān Shaybānī (d. 1308/1891) was a major poet of the Qajar era who belonged to the so-called 'return' movement, which wanted to break free from the Sabk-i Hindī or 'Indian style' in poetry, that was popular in Iran since Safavid times. Shaybānī was born in a suburb of Kashan around 1241/1825. Having completed his education there and thanks to his father's connections, he became a companion of the future Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh Qājār (r. 1264-1313/1848-96). However, due to courtly intrigues he was soon expelled, an expulsion which would last a full 35 years before relations were restored. In that period he served in various official capacities, lastly as the governor of Mashhad. Between assigments, he lived in the countryside near Natanz for around 25 years. Shaybānī's work, here published in full, is characterized by an aversion of undue embellishments, his choice of subjects, his criticism of politics and society, and his concrete suggestions for change. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406384
9786002030870
ʿArafāt al-ʿāshiqīn wa-ʿaraṣāt al-ʿārifīn. Volume 5, ʿAyn-Fāʾ /
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In Persian literature, tadhkira ('note', 'memorandum') works are for the most part collections of biographies of poets, combined with selections from their writings. The earliest such work is Dawlatshāh Samarqandī's Tadhkirat al-shuʿarāʾ (completed in 892/1487), which set a standard for posterity. The tadhkira genre was especially popular in the 10th/16th century and following. The present work by Taqī al-Dīn Awḥadī (alive in 1042/1632-33) is a good example of this. Born in Isfahan in 973/1565, as a young man his poetical talent was commended by, among others, the poet ʿUrfī Shīrāzī (d. 999/1591). After some time in the entourage of Shāh ʿAbbās I and a six-year stay in Iraq, he left Persia to try his luck at one of the courts in India. The present work, completed in 1024/1615, was written for a high official at the court of Jahāngīr. It contains about 3500 entries on Persian poets from the earliest times until his own day.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405547
9789648700848
Dastūr al-kātib fī taʿyīn al-marātib. Volume 2 /
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From the time that the art of writing was invented, people have been sending letters. This is true of the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets 5.000 years ago, as it is true today in the information age. But not every letter is the same: a letter to a lover, a friend, or a business relation, each requires a different tone. In the case of official correspondence, the need for a standard is even more pressing than in industry or trade. In the medieval Islamic world with its highly developed bureaucracies, there evolved a special type of textbook in the form of manuals for secretaries. These would include general information on the secreterial trade as well as collections of sample letters. This Persian manual by Shams Munshī was completed in 767/1366 and dedicated to Sultan Uways Jalāyirī of Tabriz (d. 776/1374). Wide in scope and well organized, it was superior to anything written before it. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407350
9786002031280
Minhāj al-wilāya fī sharḥ Nahj al-balāgha. Volume 1 /
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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 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402492
9789646781184
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Īrān u Islām. Volume 3 /
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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 3.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404366
9786002030702
Dīwān-i Qāʾimiyyāt /
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Ḥasan Maḥmūd Kātib (d. after 640/1243) was an Ismaili poet. Born near Qazvīn, he was alive when Imam Ḥasan of Alamūt (d. 561/1166) proclaimed his doctrine of qiyāmat or spiritual 'resurrection' in 559/1164. He was a secretary of the governor of the fortress of Gird Kūh, Shihāb al-Dīn, whom he later followed to Quhistān. Around 630/1232 he was in Alamūt, preparing a copy of the diwan whose surviving fragments are published here, to be offered to the Imam of the Ismailis at the time, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 653/1255). Ḥasan Maḥmūd was well-versed in the intellectual and spiritual universe of Nizārī Ismailism as recorded, inter alia, in Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī's (d. 672/1274) Rawḍa-yi taslīm , Sayr wa sulūk , and Āghāz wa anjām . The present diwan contains the most complete contemporary catalogue of the terminology used in expressing Nizārī Ismaili doctrine, surpassing even the works of Ṭūsī, Nāṣir Khusraw (d. after 462/1070) and Nizārī Quhistānī (d. 720/1320)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405929
9786002030283
Kitāb shināsi-yi āthār-i Fārsi-yi chāp shuda dar shibh-i qāra (Hind, Pākistān, Banglādish), 1160-1387/1195-1428/1781-2007. Volume 1 /
:
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 1.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004406032
9786002030412
Sharḥ al-Talwīḥāt al-lawḥiyya wal-ʿarshiyya. Volume 3 : al-Ilāhiyyāt /
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Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191) is arguably the most influential thinker in post-Avicennan (d. 428/1037) philosophy. He is best known as the originator of the Philosophy of Illumination, a mixture of Hellenistic, old-Iranian, and mystico-Islamic elements, further developed and transformed in the Transcendental Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640). Suhrawardī wrote four major works on the Philosophy of Illunination: al-Talwīḥāt al-lawḥiyya wal-ʿarshiyya , al-Muqāwamāt, al-Mashāriʿ wal-muṭāraḥāt , and the Ḥikmat al-ishrāq . This was also the order in which these works had to be studied. The Talwīḥāt being an introductory course on the Philosophy of Illumination, it is not surprising that three commentaries on it were written, by ʿAllāma Ḥillī (d. 726/1326), Shams al-Dīn al-Shahrazūri (d. 687/1288), and Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284), whose commentary is published here. Ibn Kammūna was a thinker of Jewish origin who by his own declaration was self-taught in philosophy. He wrote several other important philosophical works, among them his commentary of Avicenna's Ishārāt . Volume 3, Metaphysics.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405080
9789648700718
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (Fihrist-i 8000 nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhānahā-yi shakhṣī va dawlatī). Volume 2 : ʿIrfān 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 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408173
9786002031433