Mirror of Heritage
Year:2014 | Volume:12 | Issue:1 (54)|Papers Count:11

This article deals with the importance and advantages of printing the facsimiles of manuscripts. By citing from certain manuscript texts, attempts are made to study such advantages, particularly, in connection with the lexicology of those texts, identification of images therein, and their artistic significance, and the importance of the availability to researchers of (the pictures of) their original. There will, then, be mentioned a number of pathological instances of the printings of those texts and the necessity of reassessing them before publication as well as the priorities to be considered in publishing manuscripts.

Qawsi-e Shushtari, a 17th century poet, writer and calligrapher, is among those men of letters who, besides their poetic art, have produced numerous works in a variety of scientific and literary areas. In spite of all this, little is known today about his personality and poetry.In the present article, through exploring in the sources that have mentioned this Safavid-period literary scholar, we present new information about his life, writings, poetry and hand-written notes, which indicate that he was a man of some importance and credit in his own time, and that scholars benefited from his works.

The purpose of this article is to introduce a general method for reviving and reconstructing all the manuscripts that, due to the disorder of their pages and the possible confusion in identifying the exact pages or original folios, it is hard to correctly reorganize those pages. This method of reconstructing and reviving manuscripts has been utilized in the Excel Programme, and automatically takes place in nine stages. It has been used in the reconstruction of the illustrated manuscript of the Shahnameh known as the Second Smaller, resulting in its correct and precise revival.The suggested revival method is a general one and applicable to all defective and disordered manuscripts. Its precision can be tested by reconstructing several complete manuscripts artificially made imperfect.

"Amiri" is the most famous poem and song and "Amir" the most eminent poet in Mazandarani literature whose poems have reached well beyond the province of Mazandaran. Amiri poetry has continued to exist in a narrative fashion and by word of mouth; however, a number of Amiri verses are also recorded on the margins of certain books and anthologies as well as in separate forms the most extensive of which was published in 2 volumes as Kanz al-Asrar-e Mazandarani in 1277 H./1860 and 1283 H./1866. For a period of time after this date, numerous attempts were made to obtain Amir’s written legacy the result of which was a bibliographical compilation of all the documents, manuscripts and letters related and attributed to Amir, the publication of Divan-e Amir Pazvari (Amir Pazvari's Collection of Poetry) based on a manuscript at the library of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, the printing of "the oldest Mazandaran's Amiris" from the Majlislibrary manuscript, and the publication of single odd verses in various collections of articles. Access to the newly found manuscript of "Amiri" or the poem "Amir va Gawhar" in Iran's National Library is yet another step towards closer acquaintance with Amir, Amiri, Amir's written heritage and Mazandarani literary tradition.

Abu al-Fazl Beyhaqi is an historian well versed in the principles of historiography, a skilled narrator and fully aware of the secrets of attracting his readers, a just man and a seeker of the truth. All these qualities have turned his History into a superb work.What we read in this article is an attempt to demonstrate the techniques employed by Beyhaqi to include true facts in his writing. Beyhaqi's prudent and sharp mind hardly fails to maintain foresight and conservativeness lest anyone would be slightly offended.In the present article, mention is briefly made of nine techniques that are a combination of conservativeness and frankness in expressing the truth; eleven reasons are also proposed to prove his truth-telling, as well as a number of reasons why Beyhaqi has had to incline to conservativeness.

Persian authors have long since been interested in making use of Arabic sayings in their books and treatises, on the one hand, to better express their intended views and, on the other, by doing so, to show off their deep knowledge of Arabic literature. One of such Persian texts- on mystical literature, in particular-, which is counted as a treasure replete with various ideas and topics, is 'Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani's Letters. Nevertheless, because no comprehensive index has been provided for these letters, they have not been benefited from by scholars and researchers as much as they should.The present writer has extracted the Arabic sayings appearing in this source and compared them against important books on Arabic sayings and literature, thus demonstrating that the Qazi 'Ayn al-Qozat has made use of as many as 73 Arabic sayings including, in addition to ancient sayings, some of Movalladun's sayings as well (Movalladun being those Arab poets born in the early time of Islam). About one-fifth of these cannot, however, be found in old Arabic books of sayings and most important books of Arabic literature. The list we have prepared not only adds to the rich treasure of old Arabic sayings but also clearly demonstrates the Qazi's mastery of Arabic literature, showing, to some extent, his sources in writing the Letters, Arabic books of sayings.

One of the controversial discussions about the Shahnameh is about the absence of the story of Arash the Archer in it. A number of scholars are of the opinion that this story did exist in Abu Mansur's prose Shahnameh but Firdawsi intentionally did not turn it into verse. The reason some of them put forward in support of their argument is the spurious presence of an expression in the first edition of the Preamble of the Abu Mansuri' Shahnameh. In the second edition the phrase "dastbord-e Arash" (the appropriation by Arash) has replaced "dast-e baradarash" (his brother's hand) used in the first edition. It is this new recording that has become the basis of some scholars’ argument for the presence of the story of Arash in the Shahnameh. However, the AllamehQazvini is suspicious about the recording of "dastbord-e Arash". Moreover, this recording, based on the most important rule in critical redaction that the more difficult recording is more reliable, has little validity. Therefore, the more difficult recording, namely "dast-e baradarash" of which "dastbord-e Arash" appears to be the distorted form, is of greater credit and can well be related to the ensuing sentence, as confirmed by the reasons stated in the article.

Part of the research done in connection with Persian lexicography is based on the old bilingual dictionaries, especially those from Arabic to Persian. Therefore, the identifying of such dictionaries is an inevitable requirement for this research area.In the present article, one of these dictionaries- included in the Majlis Library collection 6788 ــ has been studied. Since the beginning and ending gages of the known manuscript of this dictionary are missing we have no knowledge of its title and author. However, investigations indicate that this work cannot be one the well-known dictionaries. The presence in it of a few Turkish words and a number of lexical elements peculiar to the Transoxiana dialect shows that this dictionary must have been compiled in that region. Certain indications demonstrate that this work could not have been written before the 6th century AH/12th AD. Besides, its extant manuscript was copied in the 7th century AH. Thus we can place it more or less amongst the 6th-7thcentury/12th-13th AD books.

Amongst the works of Persian poets, Mawlana's ghazaliyat (lyrics) are, in addition to their many other aspects, unique in terms of the kind of the words used in them. The extent of Mawlana's lexicon is in direct proportion with the extent of the motifs and themes of his poetry. His fluid mind, just as it is often active in creating novel ideas, hardly confines itself to the narrow circle of conventional stock words, fresh experiences in ideas and rhythms automatically filling his speech with new simple words as well as compounds and phrasal combinations.A number of words in Mawlana's poetry are Turkish-Mongolian. Of these some have come to him from the linguistic literary legacy of Khorasani folks, and some others have entered his verses as a result of his stay in Konya and close association with Turkish speakers. Exploring the number of these two groups of words and identifying and differentiating them is in itself useful, including the understanding of Mawlana's nature of inclination to Turkish and the degree of the impact on his poetry of the language and speech of those around him. Studies show that this topic has so far not been addressed as properly as it should, and that the definitions suggested by some of Mawlana's commentators for a group of such lexical items are to be doubted.In the present article, while presenting kinds of the Turkish-Mongolian words in gazaliyat-e Shams and the sort of changes Mawlana has made in them, the writers address the meanings of those words that had been used in Persian prose and poetry before Mawlana. Besides underlining the extent of the poet’s vocabulary, this study could play its part in assisting readers and researchers to further understand the language of Mawlana's poetry.

The Tazkerat al-tavarikh, by 'Abd-Allah of Kabul, covers the history of prophets, biographies of Sufi saints, life stories of poets and some historiographical material, most of which have been drawn from known and existing sources. But a very striking point about this book is that its author has provided the exact date of death, and sometimes birth date (day, month and year) of every single person in their respective biographies, something rarely seen in Persian books of poets and even in general biographies.In this article attempts have been made to establish the truth or falsity of such dates. With reliable sources consulted, it has been demonstrated that these dates are totally fabricated and that the Tazkerat al-Tavarikh is brimming with the author’s forgeries and that the book is not trustworthy by any means.

By benefiting from the Arafat al-asheqin, the author has endeavored to bring to light some of the dark aspects of the commercial relationships and emigration matters of the Iranian merchants to India, South East Asia and China and their role in spreading the Iranian culture, especially the Persian language. Then, based on historical texts, he has set to elaborate the terms afaqi (literally, "of the horizon, of or related to the material world") or qoraba (strangers), finally examining the information provided by the Arafat in this regard.