Mirror of Heritage
Year:2012 | Volume:9 | Issue:2 (49)|Papers Count:8

The most astonishing critical edition of the Shahnameh ever produced in the history of the national Iranian epic text criticism studies is a six volume edition including one volume dedicated to the preface and five ones to the text, by Fereydoon Joneydi (Tehran, Bonyad- e Neyshaboor, 1387).The work does not follow the scientific method of text criticism; rather than concentrating on the manuscripts of the Shanameh, and collating them, it relies on the subordinate and marginal standards. From the total content, 33779 verses are considered as incorporated, and only 16095 are identified as authentically composed by Ferdowsi. Some of the editor’s rules and documents for recognizing two third of the Shahnamehas incorporated are: the necessity of coinciding the verses with ideas of ancient Iran; concentrating on the etymological meaning of the words; taking into account the incorrect readings, and the meaningless verses; considering all the stories in the Shahnameh as historical; ignoring the old usage of the words and the historical grammar, and, finally, ignoring the literary aspect of the poet’s work.After a thorough study of all the six volumes, the paper concludes that the present edition of the Shahnameh unfortunately lacks scientific value-despite its editor’s thirty year enthusiastic endeavor. The nine parts of the study covers the preface of the edition, explains the authentic verses, readings, and the spellings of words. Also, it illustrates the authenticity of the alleged incorporated verses, mentions the missed parts, points to some more details, and, discusses methodological considerations, before the conclusion.

Often, the wealth and depth of Persian literature and mysticism overshadows the names of many Iranian mystics and poets, and keeps them unknown and anonymous in every age. Consequently, there is no reliable and considerable information about them except their names, or in a better situation, there are incomplete pieces of biographical information on them, here and there in some texts.Mohammad Taqi Khooyee, the Qajarid mystic and poet, is one of the members of this large group. In Sufism, he was a disciple of Mohammad Jafar Kaboodar Ahangi (known as Majzoob Ali Shah).Some works by M.T. Khooyee survives, the most important of which is the valuable prose work, Adab al-Musaferin (آداب المسافرین). Initiating with the conditions of travel and the requirements of the traveler, Khooyee deals with the history of Sufism from the outset to his day. The part discussing mystics and mysticism of his time contains the best and oldest information on the Qajarid Sufism which has not been published so far.The article introducesAdab al-Musaferin (آداب المسافرین) and casts light over the author’s biography and works. Finally, it concludes with his critically edited autobiography, taken from the end of Adab al-Musaferin ((آداب المسافرین.

A number of Persian prose and poetry works have not efficiently undergone precise and critical editing, up to now. In fact, what we have available from these works are the published poetry and prose texts commonly edited incorrectly. One of them is the Divan of Jamal al-Din Abd al -Razzaq Esfahani edited by the Late Vahid Dastgerdi. Jamal al-Din is among the stylistic and influential poets of the sixth and seventh centuries AH; therefore it seems reasonable that his Divan would be re-edited, relying on authentic manuscripts and applying scientific approaches. In addition to preparing the correct manuscripts, it is important to take advantage of the results gained by the scholars who have studied Jamal’s poetry from a critical point of view and tried to find the original and authentic forms of his poems. Fortunately, there are some notes by Malek al-Shuara Bahar in the margin of Jamal’s Divan, and since Malek is a highly authoritative expert in the art of style discernment and the Persian language, his correcting suggestions can lead us to find the proper form of some of the verses in Jamal’s Divan.For this reason, the present article tries to correlate those notes with the relevant verses in his Divan.

The article aims to introduce the poem “Ghazavat” (غزوات), a work by the Safavid scholar and poet Mirza Abu Taleb Fendereski. Notably, the work is an independent poem while all the sources in the Persian literary history have identified it as Takmale-ye Bazel-e Mashhadi’s Hamle-ye Heydari (تکمله حمله حیدری). The article explains reasons depicting that it is not a complementary work ((تکمله.

Editing the poems composed by Salman-e Savaji is a difficult task which some researchers have dealt with so far. No doubt, the job involves more problems due to the large number of poems, variety of the prosodic forms and their requirements.However, if the proper principles of text editing are correctly observed and the editor possesses meritorious abilities, no negative effect will seriously appear but it will provide a ground for the editor to realize his technical skills.Unfortunately, the complete works (کلیات) of Salamn-e Savaji, whose second edition is published by Nashr-e Sokhan, does not meet such qualities and suffers from many defects.The article aims at achieving the correct readings of the corrupted lines in this edition and tries to mention the editor’s various pitfalls in this work.

Mathnavi is one of the very frequently used prosodic forms in the Persian literature and very often, it is used for narrating and describing long stories. On the other hand, the couplet form (مزدوج) has a long background in the Arabic literature.Concentrating on the oldest Arabic couplets and Persian mathnavi verses, the article tries to answer the question whether mathnavi is a poetic form invented by Iranians or the Arabs substitute it with the word muzdavaje, i.e. couplet.

Demand for a comprehensive and all-inclusive commentary on Hafiz is still persisting, in spite of the several commentaries dealing with his poems, produced in Iran. This means that none of them could prove itself as satisfactory.During the recent years, a commentary in the pen of Dr. Mohammad Estelami was published by Entesharat-e Sokhan, on which the present review looks from a critical point of view.

The manuscript of Khaqani’s Mathnavi-ye Khatm al-Gharaeb (مثنوی ختم الغرائب), dated 593 AH, published as a facsimile by the late professor Iraj Afshar, paved the way for creating a correctly and accomplishedly edited version of the work. The first step toward the goal was taken by Yusof Ali Abbas-Abad, in1386 AHS. Apparently, Ali Safari Aq-Qal’a was working on a similar project simultaneously, and his production was available to the lovers of the Persian culture and literature, by the year1387 AHS. Though the edition by Safari Aq-Qal’a lacks some of the qualities of an academic work, it brings hope and encouragement to the Khaqani researchers. The article explains and corrects the inaccuracies appearing in this edition. Though small in number, the corrections would certainly enrich the work.