Mirror of Heritage
Year:2016 | Volume:13 | Issue:2 (57)|Papers Count:18

Today, there is hardly any doubt that the Iranian painting designs have been composed by applying some pre-existing models [or prototypes]. Nevertheless, one may put forward the essential question that on what basis the composition of such models has taken place. Using a descriptive-analytic method, the present article, by taking a careful look at the 21st Scene in the Baysonqori Shanameh, that is, "the chess game between Buzarjomehr and the Indian ambassador", attempts to investigate into the composition process of the component parts in the Iranian designs. When advancing the most important theories as to the manner of this process, it turns out that none of these theories can singly account for the process in the above-mentioned painting design. However, a combination of those theories can help reconstruct and explain that process.

Along with the spread of Turkish in Iran under the Safavids and the need to know this language for communicating with the neighbouring Turkish states, a number of dictionaries were compiled in this period in order to facilitate the learning of this language or to facilitate the comprehension of difficult Turkish words, in various subjects written in this language.The Nasiri Farhang (Nasiri's Dictionary) is one of the Turkish-Persian dictionaries written by two court secretaries in the Safavid period towards this same goal. Its only manuscript has recently been amended and sent to the market by Hasan Javadi, and Willem Floor in collaboration with several others.My intention in this article is a brief presentation and then a critique of this book, quoting samples of its numerous strange mistakes. My conclusion is that what the respected editors have done is of little scholarly importance, resulting in nothing but waste of money.

Sayyed Hasan of Ghazni, known as Sayyed Ashraf, is one the 12th-century competent poets who holds a prominent standing in the history of Persian poetry; thus the study of his works is indispensible for the necessary assessments by the scholars of literary history.Sayyed Hasan's Divan was first published in 1328 Sh./1949 by Mohammad-Taqi Modarres Razavi. However, because of the relative decency of the manuscripts used in his edition, errors, digressions, and ambiguities and other problems in it, a re-editing of the Divan is badly needed, especially that a number of more original manuscripts of it have been discovered which would help remove many of those problems.In this article one of the best of these manuscripts is introduced and its merits are recounrted.

The illustrated manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights kept at the Golestan Palace is the latest illustrated royal manuscript and one of the most exquisite of all Persian manuscripts, which was produced during the Qajar period. It was completed under the directorship of Abu al-Hasan Ghaffari, Sani' al-Molk (d.1867) in collaboration with thirty-four painters, illuminators, book-cover makers and binders within a span of seven years (1853-1860). Although the names of some of the artists active in the project are known to us, the painter's name has always been heavily clouded by the overwhelming name of Sani' al-Molk, the master painter at Naser al-Din Shah's court.The present descriptive-analytic study is based on this hypothesis that the unknown painters of the manuscript Thousand and One Nights were chosen from among the prominent artists belonging to other artistic fields, and that if there is no mention of their names in the manuscript under discussion, it is possible to identify them through the structural similarities between the lithographically printed pictures and the paintings in the aforementioned manuscript. This study seeks to find out if the painter of the Thousand and One Nights manuscript could be one of the painters of the lithographic print of the Romuz-e Hamzeh. The similarities between the paintings of the Romuz and those of the Thousand and One Nights seem to substantiate the hypothesis that Mirza Hasan Esfahani was one of the painters of the manuscript The Thousand and One Nights.

A critical collating of a text such as the Shahnameh requires something much more than a command of the language and viewpoints of Ferdowsi's era. The Shahnameh has an intratextual link with the myths and traditions related in the Avestan and Pahlavi texts. On the other hand, the Shahnameh sounds an easy-reading text and, because it has been constantly narrated at public gatherings throughout the years, the epic sounds factual too. Such characteristics are amongst the problems of the Shahnameh.In this article, by taking account of the mythical underpinnings of the story of Gayumarth and its available manuscripts, an important verse in it, which has been read and emended in a different way than what we propose, has been corrected.

The decrees left from the previous kings are important and reliable sources in political and social studies. A significant number of royal edicts from the Afsharid period to the time of the early Qajarid kings have been preserved in the Library of the Islamic Assembly. Though very valuable, they have not received proper attention. Amongst them are the fifteen decrees in Arabic from Nader Shah addressed to the chiefs of Arab tribes in south Iran; they represent an evidence of the kind of Nader Shah's communications with the Arab tribes and his policies concerning the southwest frontiers of Iran. In this article, after giving some introductory information about Iran's situation around the time of Nader's coming to power, a number of the particularities of the edicts in terms of form and content are described, and then a re-reading of the documents is presented.

Edward West, who, for the first time, translated and published Manuchahr's Middle Persian letters into English together with some other works, has classified the letters into two categories: the first category has been taken from the manuscript N0.35, collected Pahlavi and Avestan manuscripts at Copenhagen University; the second, containing the manuscripts that, according to West's investigation, have been copied from the manuscript No.14, the Hough's Collection at Munich State Library.West has named these two basic manuscripts K35 and M14. Here, a brief review of these two categories and their sub-collections is presented and, then, a few other manuscripts including the text under discussion will be introduced.

Amongst the many valuable manuscripts in Dr. Asghar Mahdavi's esteemed library, there is an important Persian mystical treatise, widely believed to date back to the 5th or 6th /11-12 centuries. Due to some lacunae both at the beginning and at the end of this manuscript and because no other copy of it has been found, neither the title nor the author of the treatise is known. The treatise is assumed to have been a written version of some mystic's discourses, being in the same vein as other Sufi verbal teachings. The study of this work demonstrates that its author was a learned mystic, of the type of such personalities as Ahmad Ghazali and Ayn al-Qozat, who was, in addition to a knowledge of the Qor'an, Tradition, science of Shari'a, acquainted with Sufi experiences; that is, whatever he said resulted from his own direct experience.Some of the linguistic peculiarities of the treatise, extensively discussed in the present article, indicate that it is very old, substantiating the conjecture that it is a 5th-6th century text. However, other features such as the high frequency of Arabic words and expressions reveal the treatise somewhat more recent, bringing it closer to the 7th century texts.

The Haft Tamasha is one of the works by Mohammad-Hasan Qatil of Lahore (d. 1817), written at the instance of Aqa Mohammad-Sadeq of Farahan and Aqa Abu al- Hasan Khan of Qazvin. In the preface of the book, the author states his purpose of writing this book as presenting the state of Hindus and their customs and the life style of Muslims established in the Subcontinent.The Haft Tamasha consists of the beliefs and customs of the Hindus' races and sects, referring to some of the historical happenings, the movement leading to the translation of Indian books into Persian. The book even makes mention of the ways of mourning for Imam Husayn both among the Muslims of India and Hindus.In this article, attempt is made to introduce the three manuscripts of the Haft Tamasha available at the Malek Library, the National Museum at Karachi and the British Museum.

By examining and analysing Abu Ya'qub Sajestani's Kashf al-Mahjub, a very important Isma'ili treatise in Persian, this article intends to address a number of queries and ambiguities about it. To this end, the present writer puts forward five basic questions and, by going over the studies carried out up until now- especially the most recent ones made by Western scholars- endeavours to analyze and evaluate them, opting for the best of them by presenting sufficient reasons.These five questions are mainly concerned with the original language of the work, its translator, the degree of completeness or otherwise of the translation, how the word جستار (جستار) is read, and the contradiction between the views of Abu Ya'qub and his critics regarding the problem of (تناسخ) (metamorphosis).

The defiant stand of some of the shahnameh composers of recent times against Ferdowsi's artistic and intellectual dominance is one f their noteworthy approaches to the dazzling importance and overwhelming universal acceptance of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. Ashub Shahjahan-abaadi-eTurani (1199 A.H./1785), author of the nearly unknown poem Sowlat-e Farooqi, is one of these pretenders, who has endeavoured to gain public reception by denouncing, insulting and mocking Ferdowsi.The present study, based on Bloom's theory of "Anxiety of influence", has undertaken to address the manner of Ashub Turani's hostile confrontation with Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh. The result of the study reveals that the satirical and humiliating language in the Sowlat-e Farooqi is indicative of its writer's inability to attain public acceptance and his failure in securing personal credibility and independent identity of his own in shahnameh composing.

It is necessary to make use of secondary sources, especially when emending old manuscripts, as they contain rather archaic vocabulary and have peculiar syntax, their extant manuscripts being of recent time; hence they have been exposed to more errors and digressions. In the case of texts translated from other languages, the most important secondary source is the original text from which the translation has been made.While introducing two treatises in a book entitled Ahval va akhbar-e Barmakian (On the Barmakids' lives and chronicles), which were probably translated in the 6th /12th century by one or more translators from Arabic, this article is designed to discuss and correct the ambiguities and lapses in those two by referring to the providences of the stories recorded in them.

Following Said Nafisi and Mirzayef, who founded the practice of scholarly studies about Rudaki, and the endeavours to purge unauthentic elements from Rudaki's poetry- particularly, those by Qatran of Tabriz- a good many books and articles have been written in order to add to the number of Rudaki's verses and disprove the imputing of certain poems to him Nonetheless, one cannot still trust a great number of the verses ascribed to Rudaki in the collections of his poetry. In the present study, after reviewing and evaluating some of the articles and collections of Rudaki's poetry, attempts are made to point out as many of the shortcomings and defects as possible. In the meantime, two verses attributed to Rudaki are addressed. They appear under Rudaki's name in the manuscript No 8820, at Majles Library, the author of which is Mahmud b. Mohammad Qondozi.

Tarzi-e Afshar can be considered as the greatest anti-conventionalist poet in Persian language, whose poetry, in addition to linguistic conspicuousness, is to an acceptable degree endowed with other emotional and artistic qualities. However, in general, even the very characteristic that distinguishes his poetry and has been achieved in a variety of ways, has not up to now been carefully and scientifically identified and classified.Also, in the opinion of the experts, the poet's remarkable efforts merely boil down to the construction of a number of coined or unauthentic infinitives (مصادر جعلی).Of Tarzi's Divan two editions have hitherto been published, the first dating back to a hundred years ago, and the second, which has recently been put out, is nearly nothing but an incorrect repetition of the first edition and a hotchpotch of nonsense.In this article, attempts have been made to examine the newly printed Tarzi's Divan in a scientific and impartial fashion.

The manuscript 1511 at the Malek National Library includes a number of works dated between 517-519 A.H., written in Arabic and Persian largely on teaching Arabi language and literature; one of them on the various readings of the Qor'an, and other subjects. The scribe of all the collection is Abu Ja'far Mohammad b, abi al-Fazl al-Sadeghi al-Beyhaqi. His notes indicate that he transcribed this manuscript for his own use and read most of them to the experts in the subjects dealt with in the collection. The presence in the collection of works on the teaching of various disciplines of Arabic scholarship, including grammar, prosody, rhyme, sharh-e Mo'allaqat (commentary on the Seven Odes) and the likes of them reveal that in the scribe's time, these works were probably common for the instruction of Arabic language and literature and religious sciences in Neyshabur.Therefore, the study of the collection is of some value for becoming acquainted with the works prevalent for teaching Arabic scholarship in the 5th-6th- century Neyshabur. Considering the fact that the transcription date of the collection is sometime between the years 517-519 A.H., and that two Persian works are included in it, one could say that this collection is the oldest known dated manuscript, in Iran, containing Persian works.

Sadr al-Din Qunavi (1210-1275), one of the famous commentators of Ibn-e Arabi's school of thought, wrote most of his works in Arabic. However, a number of Persian treatises have also been ascribed to him. Obviously, the attribution of such treatises to him ought to be further authenticated.Nevertheless, the essay Tabserat al Mobtadi va Tazkerat al-Montahi, on a variety of important mystical issues such as sainthood (velayat), prophethood, God's Quiddity and Attributes and some other topics, is worth full attention despite its doubtful imputation to Qunavi.Of this treatse two different editions can be found in the publishing market, one of them, entitled the Afaq-e Ma'refat (Horizons of gnosis), has been amended by Najaf-Qoli Habibi. By reviewing Habibi's edition and the manuscripts used by him, the present article tries to evaluate this edition and address its defects and shortcomings, emphasising the need for a fresh redaction of the work.

Aziz-e Nasafi's "collected essays" is counted amongst his most important works, which consists of 22 essays on a variety of mystical topics. As these essays stand a special position among Nasafi's works in terms of simplicity, fluency and the ability to convey mystical thoughts, the availability of a free-of-error and neatly emended text of it is inevitable and of great importance.This work has once been published under Al-Ensan ol-Kamel (The Perfect Man), but because there were shortcomings in the process of two-stage amendment, that is, "editing the text" and "research into the text", incorrect views, misreadings, unjustified accounts and selections have found their way into the text.Based on the two-stage process of amendment, the present article seeks to undertake a critical study of Nasafi's collected essays, emphasising the need for providing a more orderly and correct edition of it.

Al-Tavassl ila al-Tarssol, by Baha' al-Din Mohammad b. Mo'ayyad of Baghdad represents an exquisite example of the 6th /7th century Persian epistolary writing which, due to its fluent and eloquent prose, is considered among valuable texts and important documents. This book only once in 1315 Sh. /1937 was edited based on two old manuscripts, and published by the late Ahmad Bahmanyar. However, thanks to a number of defects in the manuscripts used and Bahmanyar's overreliance on one of the two manuscripts, his edition can hardly be considered as perfect. In fact, in his introduction to the book, he admits that neither of his two manuscripts is free of the copyists' lapses, errors and unjustifiable alterations. Thus, with the discovery of new manuscripts of the Al-Tavassol, which in many cases have better versions recorded, a new edition of the book seems much required.