Mirror of Heritage
Year:2011 | Volume:9 | Issue:1 (48)|Papers Count:10

The article pursues a criticism of the bookManzar al-Awliya.The subject of the book deals with the shrines in Tabriz and is written by Mohammad Kazem Tabrizi. A critical text of the book was published by Mr. Mir Hashem Mohaddeth (Library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly Press, 1338) for the first time. Following an assessment of the editor’s introduction, some of the textual problems, including mistakes originated from the manuscript, misreadings, and its defective introduction are discussed in the article.

Shaikh Owhad al-Din Owhadi of Maragha, son of Husain Isfahani, and one of the celebrated poets of the Mongol period, lived in the last third part of the13th century A.D.Apart from his Divan of Qasidas and Qazals, etc., he is most renowned for his two Mathnavis: Jam-e Jam, and Mantiq al-Ushshaq (Dah Name).However, the only remaining prose work by him, known so far, is the treatiseTuhfa al-Mulook.The treatise is divided into nine chapters dealing with the moral subjects selected from the maxims presented by great men.While the first chapter begins with the two-word maxims, each next chapter adds one more word so that the last one reaches to maxims made up of ten words. There are two reasons emphasizing the attribution of this treatise to Owhadi: first, authenticity and age of the treatise which clearly shows the name of Owhadi at the beginning; and second, the style which is very close to the style of Dah Name. Of course, it is noticeable that the whole collection of manuscripts containing this work exclusively belongs to Owhadi’s authorships and is essentially written for the same purpose.The present work is a recently discovered treatise belonging to Owhadi of Maragha, not mentioned in any biography book. Even those who edited and publicized Owhadi’s works, such as the late Professor Saeed-e Nafisi, were unaware of such a manuscript and never mentioned it in their papers.

The article begins with a discussion on the skill of artistic book design in the Qajar period and speaks of the influential elements such as historical background, and supports from the Royal court, and is followed by a look into the life of the poet composer of Shahanshah Name, Fath Ali Khan-e Saba.Different manuscripts are identified, reviewing other Shahanshah Names, written before him, which are considered as enforcers for the art of painting in the Qajar period. A codicology of the Shahanshah Name Mss. preserved in the Library of Malik leads to a study on the works by Mohammad Hasan Afshar, the painter of Shahanshah Name of Fath Ali Khan-e Saba, and finally, we come to analyze the characteristics of his work.

This paper deals with a number of words written on two Sassanian seals and three Arab-Sassanian coins. The study of the Sassanian seals reveals two hitherto unknown Middle Persian titles: mayharan-salar ‘chief of wine merchants’ and wirbed ‘chief of men’. The author discusses a few historical and cultural points concerning Arab-Sassanian coins, and then introduces the oldest known Middle Persian equivalents of the Arabic phrases العزه لله and the shahadatayn, i.e. لااله الا الله, محمد رسول الله.

Some years ago, my article “A View on Recognizing the Sources of Arabic Aphorisms in Dehkhoda’s Amthal va Hekam” spoke of thirty Arabic aphorisms pertaining to the pre-Islamic Iranian sages, as attested by the men of letters and expertise, while Ali Akbar-e Dehkhoda did not mention their Iranian origins in his book Amthal va Hekam, despite his love for Iran.Today, after some years, I intend to introduce sixteen more examples of these Persian aphorisms, but with a wider view, to distinguish their Iranian identities neglected by Dehkhoda, and to depict their impacts on the Persian and Arabic literatures. Also, following a criticism on some studies connected with the influence of Arabic literature on Persian literature, the article shows that this minute fact remains neglected by many of our literary men and scholars, while the richness of Iranian culture is at a level that besides Arabic aphorisms and poems, we can use the sources attributed to ancient Iran, to interpret and explain many Persian and Arabic aphorisms.

This article gives a comparative catalogue of some Pahlavi manuscripts. The catalogues were published in the collection of “Treasures of Pahlavi Manuscripts and Persian Studies,” in the University of Shiraz, during1976−1978/1355-1357 A.H.S.The article aims at facilitating the recognition of the chapters of different Pahlavi texts in these manuscripts.

The Story of the Old and the Young Man, “Hekayat-e Pir va Javan”, is the only story written by Qajarid Naser al-Din Shah. The work, scribed by Mirza Abd al-Karim Monshi Tehrani, is a valuable heritage, since not only it is considered as a literary work pertaining to the Qajar period, but also the first or at least one of the first Persian story works that clearly gets away from the ancient style of writing stories and approaches more closely to the novel style in its Western modern sense.Discussing the most important characteristics of the work, the present paper deals with the ones depicting its distance from the ancient style and approaches to the modern style of writing novels in its western sense.

Due to the deep and sharp view of its author, Majma al-Nafayesclaims a special rank among the biographies of Persian poets. Though there are some inefficiencies, such as deliberate neglect of providing historical data particularly on the Iranian poets, it is often considered a book beyond a biography and as important as a collection of literary views expressed by the early scholars, hence a reliable first hand source in studying the developmental processes of literary sciences, particularly, literary criticism and stylistics. While the book is incredibly valuable, has, unfortunately, not been scholarly publicized so far, and what provided in its messed up publication by the men of letters in Pakistan, on which we will have a look, is merely a book of mistakes made up of this outstanding work.

Notes on Sandbad Nameby Mohammad Ali Honar, is a work devoted to the difficulties in Sandbad Name by Zahiri Samarqandi. The book helps the reader so much in solving the difficulties of Sandbad Name ranging from translations of the Arabic poems, proverbs and maxims to the meaning of the archaic words. Like every other authorship, this work is not devoid of deficiencies. This article gives the Persian translations of some of the Arabic poems not translated into Persian in the Notes on Sandbad Name (Yaddasht-ha ye Sandbad Name).Also, the mistranslated poems and words are presented in their proper Persian forms. Moreover, following the method of Notes on Sandbad Name, Some of the Persian and Arabic poems of Sandbad Name are annotated.

While the number of published critical texts increases every day, a large part of the literary works in manuscripts is preserved out of sight in different libraries. Divan of Najib-e Jorfadeqani is one of the texts critically edited by Ahmad Karami, and published for the first time in spring 1371.Suffering from many inaccuracies, corruptions, unsolved ambiguous misreadings, and lacking some verses present in the recently discovered manuscripts, this version cannot be considered as a reliable critical text of Jorfadeqani’s poems.Based on several recently discovered manuscripts, including the manuscript preserved in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, and the one preserved in British Museum Library, the paper attempts to compare and contrast them with the published text to show some of the existing problems of this text.