Āthār-i Fatḥallāh Khān-i Shaybānī. Volume 2 : Jild-i duvum Zubat al-āthār, Maqālāt-i Shaybānī, Fawākih al-siḥr /
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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 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406391
9786002030887
Dastūr al-kātib fī taʿyīn al-marātib. Volume 1 /
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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 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407329
9786002031273
Maḥakk-i Khusrawī /
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When the founder of the Qajar dynasty of Iran, Āqā Muḥammad Khān Qājār (r. 1789-97), conquered the capital of Georgia Tiflis in 1795, two infant sons of the defeated king Heraclius II were captured. Of these, the eldest died on the way. The other, Khusraw Khān, the later Mīrzā Khusraw Bayg Gurjī (d. 1277/1860), was taken back to Tehran by the commander of the Persian forces, Ḥājjī Ibrāhīm, who treated him as if he were his own child, calling him Mīrzā. When Ḥājjī Ibrāhīm was executed in 1803 on the orders of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh (d. 1249/1834), Mīrzā Khusraw first lived with a family in Shiraz and then, in 1805, he was adopted by the childless Talpur ruler of Sind, Mīr Karam ʿAlī Khān (r. 1227-44/1812-28). It is there at the court in Hyderabad that he developed into a refined man of letters and where he compiled this poetical anthology, then only 27 years old.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405776
9786002030146
ʿArafāt al-ʿāshiqīn wa-ʿaraṣāt al-ʿārifīn. Volume 6, Qāf-Mīm /
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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. :
9789004405554
9789648700855
ʿArafāt al-ʿāshiqīn wa-ʿaraṣāt al-ʿārifīn. Volume 2, Bāʾ-Khāʾ /
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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. :
9789004405226
9789648700817
Mathnāwi-yi Shīrīn u Farhād /
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In the history of Persian literature, one finds quite a number of works by famous authors which later served as a model for similar works by other writers. By way of example one could mention Firdawsī's (d. 411/1020) Shāh-nāma and Niẓāmī's (d. 608/1209) Iskandar-nāma , Saʿdī's (d. 691/1291-92) Gulistān and Jāmī's (d. 898/1492) Bahāristān , or Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār's (d. 618/1221) Manṭiq al-ṭayr and Mīr ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī's (d. 906/1501) Lisān al-ṭayr . In the case of the mathnawī contained in the present volume, it was Niẓāmī's Khusraw u Shīrīn which served as the model for Shīrīn u Farhād , a romantic epos by the otherwise unknown 9th/15th-century poet Salīmī Jarūnī. A native of Hormuz (formerly Jarūn), he dedicated his poem in 880/1475 to the local sultan of his days, Salgharshāh. Its language is unpretentious and the native ambiance is sometimes palpable. Its heros are pure of heart, and a mystical thread runs throughout the poem.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402805
9789646781634
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
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
Sharḥ-i Naẓm al-durr : Sharḥ-i qaṣīda-yi tāʾiyya-yi kubrā-yi Ibn-i Fāriḍ /
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Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1235) is arguably the greatest mystical poet in the history of Arabic literature. Born in Cairo and a student of Shāfiʿī law and ḥadīth in his younger years, he turned to mysticism, living a solitary existence on Cairo's Muqaṭṭam hills, in the desert, and in the Hijaz. After his return to Cairo, people worshipped him as a saint, and even today admirers still visit his tomb. Ibn Turka Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432) stemmed from a well-educated family in Isfahan. A survivor of Tīmūr Lang's (d. 807/1405) massacre of the population of Isfahan in 789/1387, he first studied the Islamic sciences with his elder brother in Samarqand, after which he went on a study tour which took him to such great scholars as Shams al-Dīn Fanārī (d. 834/1451) and Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī (d. 805/1403). A specialist of mysticism in its relation to philosophy and Islam, this is his commentary on Ibn al-Fāriḍ's al-Tāʾiyya al-kubrā.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404632
9789646781962
Sullam al-samawāt /
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In the Persianate world, encyclopaedias have a long history. Arabic works by Persian authors aside (like Ibn Farīghūn's Jāmiʿ al-ʿulūm , 4th/10th century), the earliest encyclopaedia in Persian is Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) philosophical Dānishnāma-yi ʿAlāʾī . Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī's (d. 606/1210) Jāmiʿ al-'ulūm on the other hand, is an encyclopaedia on everything there was to know at the time. Philosophical encyclopaedias would usually divide into logic, physics and metaphysics, more general encyclopaedias into the pre-Islamic and Islamic sciences, also called the rational ( ʿaqlī ) and traditional ( naqlī ) sciences, even if a strict separation was not always maintained. In addition, there were also specialized encyclopaedias like Ibn Ḥusayn Jurjānī's medical Dhākhira-yi Khwārazmshāhī (early 6th/12th century). The content of encyclopaedias often being dependent on the author's interests and intellectual horizon, no universal format exists. The present work by Abū Qāsim Kāzarūnī (fl. early 11th/17th century) is an example of a very personal encyclopaedia, treating of religion, philosophy, and literature.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404939
9789648700305
Mathnawi-yi maʿnawī. Volume 3 : mujallad-i sivum daftar-i panjum u shishum /
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The founder of the Mawlawiyya order of dervishes, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273) is the most celebrated and widely quoted mystical poet of the Persianate world. Born in Balkh in 604/1207, he was still a child when his father, a preacher, emigrated westwards with his family, moving to Malaṭya, Sivas, Akshehir, Larende and, finally, Konya. It was in Konya that Rūmī, who had also received a regular education, met the people who would give his life a decisive turn towards mysticism: first, his father's former pupil Sayyid Burhān al-Dīn Muḥaqqiq (d. 637/1239-40) and then, most of all, the celebrated mystic Shams al-Dīn Tabrīzī (d. 645/1247). Rūmī's Mathnawi-yi maʿnawī is a didactic poem inspired by his favourite student Ḥusām al-Dīn Čelebi (d. 683/1284). Composed in six fascicles ( daftar ), it took several years to complete. The edition printed here is an enhanced version of the one by Nicholson, with Nicholson's introductory essays and notes translated into Persian. 4 vols; volume 3.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406339
9786002030818
Rāhnamā-yi dastnivishthā-yi Mānavi-yi Tūrfān (ravish shināsi-yi vīrāyish va bāz sāzī) /
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After its foundation by Mani in the third century CE, Manicheism spread quickly from Iran through the ancient world, from North Africa to Europe and from Central Asia to China. Mani wrote seven works, six in Syriac and one in Middle Persian. The spread of Manicheism led to the emergence of Manichean writings in a number of other languages, and also of texts in criticism or description of this religion by non-Manichean authors in some of these same languages, among them Greek, Latin, Coptic, Arabic, Soghdian, and Chinese. From among the archeological findings involving Manichean texts, one of the most exciting ones was the discovery, in the early nineteen hundreds, of many Manichean fragments in Turfan, in Xinjiang province, China. These are in Middle Persian, Parthian, Soghdian and Manichean New Persian, besides material in Uygur, Bactrian and Kuchean. The present work is a Persian manual for the interpretation, reconstruction and edition of these Turfan texts.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408074
9786002031372
ʿArafāt al-ʿāshiqīn wa-ʿaraṣāt al-ʿārifīn. Volume 8, Indices /
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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. :
9789004405578
9789648700879
Dīwān-i Jāmī. Volume 2 : Wāsiṭat al-ʿaqd, khātimat al-ḥayāh /
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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. His Dīwān , published here in two volumes, underwent various changes before he finalized it in 896/1491. This best edition so far is based on some of the oldest surviving manuscripts. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402409
9789646781146
Naqd wa bar rasī-yi Āthār u sharḥ-i aḥwāl-i Jāmī /
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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. The present volume by Aʿlākhān Afṣaḥzād contains an in-depth study of his life, work and significance, concluded by a two hundred-page analysis of his famous Laylī u Majnūn.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402478
9789646781160
ʿAlī-nāma : Manẓūma-ī kuhan (facsimile) /
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Until the discovery of the Persian ʿAlī-nāma , Ibn Ḥusām's Khawarān-nāma (completed in 830/1427) was believed to be the oldest Persian epic poem involving the often wondrous exploits of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the beginnings of Shīʿism. The Khawarān-nāma takes its inspiration from Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma (completed in 400/1010), but then adapted to fit the Shīʿī theme, with ʿAlī and his companions often taking the place of Rustam and other heroes. With this facsimile edition of the ʿAlī-nāma we now have access to a much older poem on this subject. Composed by someone using the alias of Rabīʿ, it was completed in 482/1089 in Khurāsān, most probably in or near the town of Sabzawār, just seventy years after the completion of Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma . The text is important because long before others, it acknowledges the heroes of the Shāh-nāma , some of whom were actually written into the script.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405127
9789648700732
Iskandar-nāma, bakhsh-i Khatā /
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The Persian Iskandar-nāma or Alexander romance is a collection of mostly legendary stories about Alexander the Great, whose core narrative goes back to a Greek account of his life and accomplishments, written between the third century BCE and the first century CE. In the Persian tradition, the work distinguishes itself from its Greek model in that Alexander is described as half-Persian and half-Greek, and also in that he is often identified with the prophet Dhu ʼl-Qarnayn mentioned in the Qurʾān, besides the introduction of all manner of local motifs and elements. There exist various versions of this romance in Persian, both in poetry and in prose, the oldest ones dating from the 4th/11th (Firdawsī, Shāh-nāma ) and 6th/12th (Ṭarsūsī, Dārāb-nāma ) centuries, respectively. The present work is one of seven chapters of a popular prose version in story-teller fashion dating from the Safavid era in which earlier, traditional themes are often overshadowed by elements introduced for entertainment.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404717
9789648700121
Haft manẓūma-yi ḥamāsī : Bīzhān nāmah, Kuk Kūhzād nāmah, Babr-i bayān, Patyārah, Tahmīna nāma-yi kūtāh, Tahmīnah nāma-yi buland, Razm nāma-yi Shakāvandkūh /
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In Persian literary history Firdawsī's (d. 411/1020) Shāh-nāma , the famous masnavi composed in celebration of the history of the kings and dynasties of Persia, is the archetypal epic poem. After the Shāh-nāma , many other epic poems saw the light, among them Asadī Ṭūsī's Garshāsp-nāma (dated 458/1066) and Īrānshāh b. Abi ʼl-Khayr's Bahman-nāma (dated 501/1107-08). There are also Shīʿī adaptations, celebrating the wondrous exploits of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the beginnings of Shīʿism, like Rabīʿ's ʿAlī-nāma (dated 482/1089) or Ibn Ḥusām's Khawarān-nāma (completed in 830/1427). The present work unites seven poems around themes inspired by the Shāh-nāma , each of unknown authorship: the Kuk Kūhzād-nama , Dāstān-i Babr-i Bayān , Dāstān-i Patyārah and Razm-nāma-yi Shakāvandkūh , all of the 5-6th/11-12th centuries; the Bīzhān-nāma of the 10th/16th century; and the Tahmīna-nāma-yi kutāh and Tahmīna-nāma-yi buland , not before the 9-10th/15-16th century. The poems each come with an introduction, followed by the text of the work itself. Includes vocabulary and indices.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406636
9786002030924
Badāyiʿ-i mulaḥ : Nawhā-yi namakīn /
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In the history of Arabic literature, the term adab ('custom', 'norm of conduct') applies typically to works providing a particular kind of moral and intellectual education. Aimed at a specific urban class whose values they reflected, these works offered a useful stock of relevant quotations to be used in social discourse. Among the adab works, the poetic anthology was extremely popular. These anthologies could take on different forms, depending on whether they were organised around a set of themes, a collection of motifs, a series of comparisons, a selection of geographical places, and so on. The poetic anthology published in the present volume was written in Khwārazm in 595/1199. As the title ' Marvels of Witticism ' suggests, its author, the linguist Qāsim b. al-Ḥusayn al-Khwārazmī (d. 617/1220), wanted to highlight the beauty of the repartee in different thematic contexts. The Persian translation accompanying the text was probably made by someone other than al-Khwārazmī himself.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402768
9789646781603
Sharḥ-i akhbār u abyāt u amthāl-i ʿArabi-yi Kalīla wa Dimna : Dū sharḥ az Faḍlallāh ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad al-Isfizārī wa muʾallifī nā shinākhta /
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Throughout history, Indian culture has had the interest of the Persians. At the time of the Sasanids (3rd-7th cent. CE) for instance, Sanskrit works on astronomy were translated into Pehlavi. Centuries later, in the early ʿAbbāsid period, a number of astronomers with a Persian background used information from these very same sources in writing their own books in Arabic. Besides scientific works, spiritual and ethical texts were also translated. An example is the famous collection of animal fables called Kalila and Dimna , which go back to the lost Sanskrit Pañcatantra . An equally lost Middle Persian translation of this work was rendered into Arabic several times, but the translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ca. 139/757) proved most influential and formed the basis of the famous Persian translation by Naṣrallāh Munshī (6th/12th cent.). On this latter translation, two Persian commentaries from the 7th/13th century survive. A critical edition of both is offered in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402751
9789646781559