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A HISTORY
OF PERSIAN LITERATURE
UNDER TARTAR DOMINION
(A.D. 12651502)
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.G. 4
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY \
CALCUTTA I MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
MADRAS j
TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF
CANADA, LTD.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
HULAGU
Add. 18803 (Brit. Mus.), f. 19
Frontispiece
A HISTORY
OF PERSIAN LITERATURE
UNDER TARTAR DOMINION
(A.D. 1265-1502)
BY
EDWARD G. BROWNE
M.A., M.B., F.B.A., F.R.C.P.
SIR THOMAS ADAMS'S PROFESSOR OF ARABIC
AND FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO MY WIFE, TO
WHOSE PERSUASION AND ENCOURAGEMENT
ITS COMPLETION IS CHIEFLY DUE
(Imdmi: see pp. 116-117.)
PREFACE
"T7OURTEEN years have elapsed since the second
JL volume of my Literary History of Persia 1 , of which
the present work is in fact, if not in name and form, a con-
tinuation, was published. That the appearance of this
continuation, which comprises the period between Sa'di and
Jam/, and extends from the death of Hulagu the Mongol to
the rise of the Safawi dynasty (A.D. 1265-1502), has been so
long delayed is due to a variety of causes, at one of which,
operative for five or six years (A.D. 1907-12), I have hinted
in the Preface (p. xx) to my Persian Revolution of 1905-9.
While Persia was going through what repeatedly appeared
to be her death-agony, it was difficult for anyone who loved
her to turn his eyes for long from her present sufferings to
her past glories. Often, indeed, I almost abandoned all
hope of continuing this work, and that I did at last take up,
revise and complete what I had already begun to write was
due above all else to the urgency and encouragement of my
wife, and of one or two of my old friends and colleagues,
amongst whom I would especially mention Dr T. W. Arnold
and Mr Guy le Strange.
The delay in the production of this volume has not,
however, been altogether a matter for regret, since it has
enabled me to make use of materials, both printed and
manuscript, which would not have been available at an earlier
date. In particular it has been my good fortune to acquire
1 Of these two volumes, published by Mr T. Fisher Unwin in the
" Library of Literary History," the full titles are as follows : A Literary
History of Persia from the earliest times until Firdaivst (pp. xvi + 521),
1902 ; and A Literary History of Persia from Firdawsi to Sa l di
(pp. xvi + 568), 1906. In the notes to this volume they are referred to
as Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. i or vol. ii.
viii PREFACE
two very fine collections of Persian and Arabic manu-
scripts which have yielded me much valuable material,
namely, at the beginning of 1917*, some sixty manuscripts
(besides lithographed and printed books published in Persia)
from the Library of the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler,
and at the beginning of 1920 another forty or fifty manu-
scripts of exceptional rarity and antiquity collected in
Persia and Mesopotamia by Hajji 'Abdu'l-Maji'd Belshah.
So many Persian works of first-class importance still remain
unpublished and generally inaccessible save in a few of the
great public libraries of Europe that the possession of a
good private library is essential to the student of Persian
literature who wishes to extend his researches into its less
familiar by-paths.
I regret in some ways that I have had to produce this
volume independently of its two predecessors, and not in
the same series. Several considerations, however, induced
me to adopt this course. Of these the principal ones were
that I desired to retain full rights as to granting permission
for it to be quoted or translated, should such permission be
sought ; and that I wished to be able to reproduce the
original Persian texts on which my translations were based,
in the numerous cases where these were not accessible in
printed or lithographed editions, in the proper character.
For this reason it was necessary to entrust the printing of
the book to a press provided with suitable Oriental types,
and no author whose work has been produced by the
Cambridge University Press will fail to recognize how much
he owes to the skill, care, taste and unfailing courtesy of all
responsible for its management.
I hope that none of my Persian friends will take ex-
ception to the title which I have given to this volume,
1 See my notice of this collection in iheJ.lf.A.S. for October 1917,
pp. 657-694, entitled The Persian Manuscripts of the late Sir Albert
Houtum-Schindler, K.C.I. E.
PREFACE ix
"A History of Persian Literature under Tartar 1 Dominion."
I have known Persians whose patriotism has so far outrun
their historical judgment as to seek to claim as compatriots
not only Timur but even Chingiz and Hulagu, those scourges
of mankind, of whom the two last mentioned in particular did
more to compass the ruin of Islamic civilization, especially
in Persia, than any other human beings. When we read of
the shocking devastation wrought by the Mongols through
the length and breadth of Central and Western Asia, we
are amazed not so much at what perished at their hands as
at what survived their depredations, and it says much for
the tenacity of the Persian character that it should have
been so much less affected by these barbarians than most
other peoples with whom they came in contact. The period
covered by this volume begins with the high tide of Mongol
ascendancy, and ends with the ebb of the succeeding tide
of Turanian invasion inaugurated by Timur. Politically,
during its whole duration, Turan, represented by Tartars,
Turks and Turkmans, lorded it over Iran, which, neverthe-
less, continued to live its own intellectual, literary and artistic
life, and even to some extent to civilize its invaders. It is
my hope and purpose, should circumstances be favourable,
to conclude my survey of this spiritual and intellectual life
of Persia in one other volume, to be entitled "A History
of Persian Literature in Modern Times," covering the last
four hundred years, from the rise of the great Safawf
dynasty, which restored the ancient boundaries and revived
the national spirit of Persia, to the present day.
There remains the pleasant duty of expressing my thanks
to those of my friends and fellow-students who have most
materially helped me in the preparation of this work. Nearly
all the proofs were carefully read by two Government of
1 I have yielded to the common usage in adopting this form instead
of the more correct "Tatar." The later and less accurate, though
more familiar, form " Tartar " owes its origin, as indicated on pp. 6-7
infra, to a popular etymology which would connect it with Tartarus.
x PREFACE
India Research Students of exceptional learning, ability and
industry, Muhammad Shaft'', a member of my own College
and now Professor of Arabic in the Panjab University, and,
on his departure, by Muhammad Iqbal, a young scholar of
great promise. To both of these I owe many valuable
emendations, corrections and suggestions.
Of the twelve illustrations to this volume four (those
facing pp. 8, 66, 74 and 96) have already appeared in the
edition of the Tarikh-i-Jahdn-gushd published in 1912 by
the "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust " (vol. xvi, I, pp. Ixxxvii,
147, 154 and 222), and are reproduced here by the kind
permission of my fellow trustees. To my old friend Pro-
fessor A. V. Williams Jackson, of Columbia University, and
to Messrs Macmillan, his publishers, I am indebted for
permission to reproduce the photograph of the Tomb of
Hafiz at Shfraz which originally appeared in his Persia,
Past and Present (p. 332), and here appears facing p. 310.
The facsimile of J ami's autograph facing p. 508 of this
volume is reproduced from vol. iii (1886) of the Collections
Scientifiques de I'Institut des Langues Orientales du
Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres a St P^tersbourg: Manu-
scrits Per sans, compiled with so much judgment by the late
Baron Victor Rosen, to whose help and encouragement in
the early days of my career I am deeply indebted. The
six remaining illustrations, which are new, and, as I
think will be generally admitted, of exceptional beauty
and interest, were selected for me from manuscripts in
the British Museum by my friends Mr A. G. Ellis and
Mr Edward Edwards, to whose unfailing erudition and
kindness I owe more than I can say. Three of them, the
portraits of Sa'di, Hafiz and Shah-rukh, are from Add. 7468
(ff. 19, 34 and 44 respectively), while the portraits of Hulagu
and Timur are from Add. 18,803, f. 19, and Add. 18,801,
f. 23. The colophon of the beautifully written Quran
transcribed at Mawsil in A.H. 710 (A.D. 1310-1 1) for Uljaytii
(Khuda-banda) and his two ministers Rashidu'd-Din
PREFACE xi
Fadlu'llah and Sa'du'd-Dm is from the recently acquired
Or. 4945 1 . All these have been reproduced by Mr R. B.
Fleming with his usual taste and skill.
Lastly I am indebted to Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell,
whose later devotion to Arabic has caused her services to
Persian letters to be unduly forgotten, for permission to
reprint in this volume some of her beautiful translations of
the odes of Hafiz, together with her fine appreciation of his
position as one of the great poets not only of his own age
and country but of the world and of all time.
EDWARD G. BROWNE.
April 5, 1920.
1 See the first entry in the Descriptive List of the Arabic Manu-
scripts acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum since 1894, by
Mr A. G. Ellis and Mr Edward Edwards (London, 1912).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
BOOK I
THE MONGOL IL-KH^NS OF PERSIA, FROM THE DEATH
OF HtJLAGtJ TO THE EXTINCTION OF THE DYNASTY
(A.H. 663-737 = A.D. 1265-1337)
CHAP.
I. The Mongol Il-khans of Persia (A.D. 1265-1337) . . 3
II. The Historians of the Il-khani Period .... 62
III. The Poets and Mystics of the Il-khanf Period . . 105
BOOK II
FROM THE BIRTH TO THE DEATH OF TfMUR-I-LANG,
COMMONLY CALLED TAMERLANE (A.H. 736-807 =
A.D. 1335-1405)
IV. The Period of Tfmur 159
V. The Poets and Writers of the Time of Tfmur . . 207
BOOK III
FROM THE DEATH OF TfMt/R TO THE RISE OF THE
SAFAWf DYNASTY (A.H. 807-907 = A.D. 1405-1502)
VI. History of the Later Tfmurid Period .... 379
VII. Prose Writers of the Later Tfmurid Period . . . 421
VIII. Poets of the Later Tfmurid Period 461
INDEX 549
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I. Hiilagu. (Phot, by Mr R. B. Fleming) . . Frontispiece
II. Batu's court on the Volga . . . To face page 8
III. Colophon of oldest MS. of the Tcfrikh-i-
Jahdn-giishd ...... 66
IV. Enthronement of Ogotay .... ,, 74
V. Colophon of Qur'an transcribed for Uljaytii,
Rashidu'd-Din and Sa'du'd-Di'n. (Phot.
by Mr R. B. Fleming) .... 78
VI. Mongol siege of a Chinese town . 96
VII. Timur-i-Lang (Tamerlane). (Phot, by Mr
R. B. Fleming) 180
VIII. Hafiz and Abu Ishaq. (Phot, by Mr R. B.
Fleming) 274
IX. The Hafiziyya or Tomb of Hafiz . . 310
X. Shah-rukh. (Phot, by Mr R. B. Fleming) 382
XI. Sa'di. (Phot, by Mr R. B. Fleming) . 484
XII. Jamfs autograph 508
ERRATA
p. 60, last line, read Matla'u's-Sa'dayn.
p. 1 10, 1. 25, for speed read speech.
p. in, 1. 23, for bfajmthtsk-SkttarA read Majmcfrfl-FusahA.
p. 311, 1. ii. The date given is evidently wrong, for Karim Khan
reigned from A.H. 1163-1193 (A.D. 1750-1779).
p. 398, 11. 28 and 31, for Bdyazid III read Bdyaztd II.
pp. 411, 1. 1 6, and 412, 1. 26. One of the two dates (A.D. 1472 and 1474)
here given is wrong, but I do not know which.
BOOK I.
THE MONGOL IL-KHANS OF PERSIA,
FROM THE DEATH OF HULAGU TO
THE EXTINCTION OF THE DYNASTY
(A.H. 663-737 = A.D. 1265-1337).
B. P.
CHAPTER I.
THE MONGOL IL-KHANS OF PERSIA.
Although to the student every period in the history of
every nation is more or less interesting, or could be made
Great epochs in so w ^ tn sufficient knowledge, sympathy and
Persian history, imagination, there are in the history of most
and their con- , - , .
nection with peoples certain momentous epochs of upheaval
world-history an( j reconstruction about which it behoves every
educated person to know something. Of such epochs Persia,
for geographical and ethnological reasons, has had her full
share. A glance at the map will suffice to remind the reader
that this ancient, civilized and homogeneous land, occupying
the whole space between the Caspian Sea and the Persian
Gulf, forms, as it were, a bridge between Europe and Asia
Minor on the one hand and Central and Eastern Asia on
the other, across which bridge from the earliest times have
passed the invading hosts of the West or the East on their
respective paths of conquest. The chief moments at which
Persian history thus merges in World-history are as follows :
(i) The Persian invasion of Greece by the Achaemenian
kings in the fifth century before Christ.
Enumeration of ( 2 ) Alexander's invasion of Persia on his
seven of these way to India in the fourth century before Christ,
resulting in the overthrow of the Achaemenian
dynasty and the extinction of Persia as a Great Power for
five centuries and a half.
(3) The restoration of the Persian Empire by the House
of Sasan in the third, and their often successful wars with the
Romans in the fourth and following centuries after Christ.
(4) The Arab invasion of the seventh century after
Christ, which formed part of that extraordinary religious
revival of a people hitherto accounted as naught, which in
4 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
the course of a few years carried the standards of Islam
from the heart of desert Arabia to Spain in the West and
the Oxus and Indus in the East.
(5) The Mongol or Tartar invasion of the thirteenth
century, which profoundly affected the greater part of Asia
and South-eastern F^urope, and which may be truly described
as one of the most dreadful calamities which ever befel the
human race.
(6) The second Tartar invasion of Tamerlane ( Timtir-
i-Lang or " Limping Ti'mur") in the latter part of the four-
teenth century.
(7) The Turco-Persian Wars of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, which gave Persia at that time so great an
importance in the eyes of Europe as a potential check on
Turkish ambitions, and caused her friendship to be so eagerly
sought after by the chief Western nations.
Of these seven great epochs in Persian history the fourth
and fifth are the most important and have had the greatest
The Arab and and most profound influence. In all points save
Mongol inva- one) however, the Arab and Mongol invasions
compared and were utterly dissimilar. The Arabs came from
contrasted the South-west, the Tartars from the North-
east; the Arabs were inspired by a fiery religious enthusiasm,
the Tartars by mere brutish lust of conquest, bloodshed and
rapine; the Arabs brought a new civilization and order to
replace those which they had destroyed, the Tartars brought
mere terror and devastation. In a word, the Tartars were
cunning, ruthless and bloodthirsty marauders, while the
Arabs were, as even their Spanish foes were fain to admit,
" Knights... and gentlemen, albeit Moors."
The one point of resemblance between the two was the
scorn which their scanty equipment and insignificant ap-
pearance aroused in their well-armed and richly-equipped
antagonists before they had tasted of their quality. This
point is well brought out in that charming Arabic history
the Kitdbu'l-Fakhri, whose author wrote about A.D. 1300,
some fifty years after the Tartars had sacked Baghdad and
CH. i] EFFECTS OF MONGOL INVASION 5
destroyed the Caliphate. After describing the Arab inva-
sion of Persia and the merriment of the Persian satraps
and officers at the tattered scabbards, slender lances and
small horses of the Arabs, he relates, a propos of this, the
account 1 given to him by one of those who " marched out
to meet the Tartars on the Western side of Baghdad on the
occasion of its supreme catastrophe in the year 656/1258,"
and tells how to meet one of their splendidly appointed
champions in single combat there rode forth from the
Mongol ranks "a man mounted on a horse resembling a
donkey, having in his hand a spear like a spindle, and
wearing neither uniform nor armour, so that all who saw
him were moved to laughter." " Yet ere the day was done,"
he concludes, " theirs was the victory, and they inflicted on
us a great defeat, which was the Key of Evil, and after which
there befell us what befell us."
It is almost impossible to exaggerate either the historical
importance or the horror of this great irruption of barbarians
out of Mongolia, Turkistan and Transoxiana in
Terrible charac- \c\-\cr\\- i A
ter and lasting the first half of the thirteenth century. Amongst
effects of the fa results were the destruction of the Arabian
Mongol invasion
Caliphate and disruption of the Muhammadan
Empire, the creation of the modern political divisions of
Western Asia, the driving into Asia Minor and subsequently
into Europe of the Ottoman Turks, the stunting and bar-
barizing of Russia, and indirectly the Renaissance. As
regards the terror universally inspired by the atrocious
deeds of the Tartars, d'Ohsson in his admirable Histoire
des Mongols observes 2 that we should be tempted to charge
the Oriental historians with exaggeration, were it not that
their statements are entirely confirmed by the independent
testimony of Western historians as to the precisely similar
proceedings of the Tartars in South-eastern Europe, where
1 For the full translation of this passage see Lit. Hist, of Persia,
vol. i, pp. 197-8.
3 Vol. i, p. vii : " On croirait que 1'histoire a exagdre leurs atrocite"s,
si les annales de tous les pays n'etaient d'accord sur ce point."
6 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
they ravaged not only Russia, Poland and Hungary, but
penetrated to Silesia, Moravia and Dalmatia, and at the
fatal battle of Liegnitz (April 9, 1241) defeated an army
of 30,000 Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and Poles com-
manded by Henry the Pious, Duke of Silesia. Already
two years before this date the terror which they inspired
even in Western Europe was so great that the contempo-
rary chronicler Matthew Paris, writing at St Albans, records
under the year A.D. 1238 that for fear of the Mongols
the fishermen of Gothland and Friesland dared not cross
the North Sea to take part in the herring-fishing at Yar-
mouth, and that consequently herrings were so cheap and
abundant in England that year that forty or fifty were sold
for a piece of silver, even at places far from the coast. In
the same year an envoy from the Isma'ilis or Assassins of
Alamiit by the Caspian Sea came to France and England
to crave help against those terrible foes by whom they
were annihilated twenty years later. He met with little
encouragement, however, for the Bishop of Winchester,
having heard his appeal, replied : " Let these dogs devour
each other and be utterly wiped out, and then we shall see,
founded on their ruins, the Universal Catholic Church, and
then shall truly be one shepherd and one flock ! "
The accounts given by Ibnu'l-Athfr, Yaqut and other
contemporary Muhammadan historians of the Mongol in-
vasion have been cited in part in a previous
pLrifcLd volume 1 and need not be repeated here, but
it is instructive to compare them with what
Matthew Paris says about those terrible Tatars, who, for
reasons which he indicates, through a popular etymology
connecting them with the infernal regions, became known in
Europe as " Tartars." Under the year A.D. 1 240 he writes
of them as follows 2 :
" That the joys of mortal man be not enduring, nor
1 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 426 et seqq.
2 Vol. iv, pp. 76-78, cited in the Introductory Note to vol. iv of the
Second Series of the Hakluyt Society's publications (London, 1900).
CH. i] MONGOL CHARACTERISTICS 7
worldly happiness long lasting without lamentations, in
this same year a detestable nation of Satan, to wit the
countless army of Tartars, broke loose from its mountain-
environed home, and, piercing the solid rocks (of the Cau-
casus) poured forth like devils from the Tartarus, so that
they are rightly called 'Tartars' or 'Tartarians.' Swarming
like locusts over the face of the earth, they have brought
terrible devastation to the eastern parts (of Europe), laying
them waste with fire and carnage. After having passed
through the land of the Saracens, they have razed cities,
cut down forests, overthrown fortresses, pulled up vines,
destroyed gardens, killed townspeople and peasants. If
perchance they have spared any suppliants, they have forced
them, reduced to the lowest condition of slavery, to fight in
the foremost ranks against their own neighbours. Those
who have feigned to fight, or have hidden in the hope
of escaping, have been followed up by the Tartars and
butchered. If any have fought bravely for them and con-
quered, they have got no thanks for reward ; and so they
have misused their captives as they have their mares. For
they are inhuman and beastly, rather monsters than men,
thirsting for and drinking blood, tearing and devouring the
flesh of dogs and men, dressed in ox-hides, armed with
plates of iron, short and stout, thickset, strong, invincible,
indefatigable, their backs unprotected, their breasts covered
with armour ; drinking with delight the pure blood of their
flocks, with big, strong horses, which eat branches and even
trees, and which they have to mount by the help of three
steps on account of the shortness of their thighs. They are
without human laws, know no comforts, are more ferocious
than lions or bears, have boats made of ox-hides which ten
or twelve of them own in common ; they are able to swim
or manage a boat, so that they can cross the largest and
swiftest rivers without let or hindrance, drinking turbid and
muddy water when blood fails them (as a beverage). They
have one-edged swords and daggers, are wonderful archers,
spare neither age, nor sex, nor condition. They know no
8 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
other language but their own, which no one else knows;
for until now there has been no access to them, nor did
they go forth (from their own country); so that there could
be no knowledge of their customs or persons through the
common intercourse of men. They wander about with their
flocks and their wives, who are taught to fight like men.
And so they come with the swiftness of lightning to the
confines of Christendom, ravaging and slaughtering, striking
everyone with terror and incomparable horror. It was for
this that the Saracens sought to ally themselves with the
Christians, hoping to be able to resist these monsters with
their combined forces."
So far from such alliance taking place, however, it was
not long before the ecclesiastical and temporal rulers of
Eari Euro an Christendom conceived the idea of making use
envoys to the of the Tartars to crush Islam, and so end in
their favour once and for all the secular struggle
of which the Crusades were the chief manifestation. Com-
munications were opened up between Western Europe and
the remote and inhospitable Tartar capital of Qaraqorum ;
letters and envoys began to pass to and fro; and devoted
friars like John of Pian de Carpine and William of Rubruck
did not shrink from braving the dangers and hardships of
that long and dreary road, or the arrogance and exactions
of the Mongols, in the discharge of the missions confided
to them. The former, bearing a letter from the Pope dated
March 9, 1245, returned to Lyons in the autumn of 1247
after an absence of two years and a half, and delivered
to the Pope the written answer of the Mongol Emperor
Kuyuk Khan. The latter accomplished his journey in the
years 1253-5 a d spent about eight months (January-
August, 1254) at the camp and capital of Mangu Khan,
by whom he was several times received in audience. Both
have left narratives of their adventurous and arduous
journeys which the Hakluyt Society has rendered easily
accessible to English readers 1 , and of which that of Friar
1 Second Series, vol. iv, London, 1900, translated and edited by
W. W. Rockhill.
II
Batii, the grandson of Chingiz, holds his Court on the Volga
From an old MS. of the
Jdmi'iit-Tawdrikh in the
Bibliotheque Nationale
CH. i] MONGOL RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 9
William of Rubruck especially is of engrossing interest
and great value. These give us a very vivid picture of
the Tartar Court and its ceremonies, the splendour of the
presents offered to the Emperor by the numerous envoys of
foreign nations and subject peoples, the gluttonous eating
and drinking which prevailed (and which, as we shall see,
also characterized the Court of Ti'mur 1 50 years later), and
the extraordinary afflux of foreigners, amongst whom were
included, besides almost every Asiatic nation, Russians,
Georgians, Hungarians, Ruthenians and even Frenchmen.
Some of these had spent ten, twenty, or even thirty years
amongst the Mongols, were conversant with their language,
and were able and willing to inform the missionaries "most
fully of all things" without much questioning, and to act
as interpreters 1 . The language question, as affecting the
answer to the Pope's letter, presented, however, some diffi-
culties. The Mongols enquired "whether there were any
persons with the Lord Pope who understood the written
languages of the Ruthenians, or Saracens, or Tartars," but
Friar John advised that the letter should be written in
Tartar and carefully translated and explained to them, so
that they might make a Latin translation to take back
with the original. The Mongol Emperor wished to send
envoys of his own to Europe in the company of Friar John,
who, however, discountenanced this plan for five reasons,
of which the first three were: (i) that he feared lest, seeing
the wars and dissensions of the Christians, the Tartars might
be further encouraged to attack them ; (2) that they might
act as spies; (3) that some harm might befall them in Europe
"as our people are for the most part arrogant and hasty,"
and " it is the custom of the Tartars never to make peace
with those who have killed their envoys till they have
wreaked vengeance upon them." So Friar John and his
1 M. Le"on Cahun in his Introduction a I ' Histoire de FAsie, p. 353,
n. 2 ad calc., puts forward the ingenious suggestion that the German
Dolmetsch is derived from the Turco- Mongol Tilmdj\ both words
meaning " Interpreter."
io THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
companions came at last to Kieff on their homeward journey,
and were there "congratulated as though they had risen
from the dead, and so also throughout Russia, Poland and
Bohemia."
The history of the diplomatic missions 1 which passed
between Europe and Tartary in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries has been admirably illustrated
Diplomatic re- > i \ *n
lations of the by Abel-Remusat in his two classical Memoir es
Bur?? Wkh sur les R e lations politiques des Princes Chretiens,
et particulierement les Rois de France, avec les
Empereurs Mongols. Fac-similes are here given, with
printed texts and in some cases Latin or French trans-
lations, of nine Mongol letters conveyed by different envoys
at different periods to the French Court. The originals of
these, measuring in some cases more than six feet in length,
may still be seen in the Archives in Paris. The arrogance
of their tone is very noticeable ; still more so the occurrence
in the Latin version of a letter to the Pope from Bachu
Nuyan of a very ominous and characteristic phrase which is
also noticed by the contemporary Persian historian Juwayni.
" Si vultis super terram vestram, aquam et patrimonium
sedere," runs the letter, "oportet ut, tu Papa, in propria
persona ad nos venias, et ad eum qui faciem totius terrae
continet accedas. Et si tu praeceptum Dei stabile et illius
qui faciem totius terrae continet non audieris, illud nos
nescimus Deus scit z " So Juwayni says* that, unlike other
great rulers and conquerors, they never indulged in violent
and wordy threats when demanding submission or sur-
render, but "as their utmost warning used to write but this
much: 'If they do not submit and obey, what do we know
[what may happen}? the Eternal God knows" 7" As to what
would inevitably happen if the Tartars were resisted (and
1 Published in the Mdmoires de I'Acade'mie Royale des Inscriptions
et Belles- Lettres in 1821 and 1822, vol. vi, p. 396 and vol. vii, p. 335.
2 See pp. 421-2 of the second memoir mentioned above.
3 Tctrikh-i-Jahdn-gushd (" E. J. W. Gibb Memorial " Series, vol. xvi,
i, 1912) Part I, p. 18, 1. 11.
CH.I] MONGOL ENVOYS TO ENGLAND n
often even if they were not resisted) men were not long
left in doubt. "Wherever there was a king, or local ruler,
or city warden who ventured to oppose, him they annihi-
lated, together with his family and his clan, kinsmen and
strangers alike, to such a degree that, without exaggera-
tion, not a hundred persons were left where there had been
a hundred thousand. The proof of this assertion is the ac-
count of the happenings in the various towns, each of which
has been duly recorded in its proper time and place 1 ."
Whether any such letters exist in the records of this
country I do not know, but in 1307, shortly after the
death of Edward I (to whom they had been accredited),
two Mongol ambassadors, whose names are given as
Mamlakh and Tuman 2 , came to Northampton
Mongol envoys -111-11 r
visit Edward ii and carried back with them an answer from
at Northampton Edward II written in Latin and dated Oc-
in 1307
tober 1 6, 1307. The principal object of this
and previous missions was to effect an alliance between
the Mongols and the European nations against the Mu-
hammadans, especially the Egyptians. To attain this end
the wily Mongols constantly represented themselves as dis-
posed to embrace the Christian religion, a deceitful pretence
which the more readily succeeded because of the belief pre-
valent in Europe that there existed somewhere in Central or
Eastern Asia a great Christian emperor called
'Presterjohn r /
"Prester John," generally identified with Ung
Khan the ruler of the Kari'ts (or Kera'its), a people akin
to the Mongols, with whom at the beginning of his career
Chingi'z Khan stood in close relations, and who had been
converted to Christianity by Nestorian missionaries 3 . But
as a matter of fact Islam had been the official religion of
1 Juwaynf, op. tit., p. 17.
2 Called elsewhere " Thomas Ildaci " or " louldoutchi " (Yoldiichi).
3 This identification is explicitly made byAbu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus
(Beyrout ed. of 1890, p. 394). See also d'Ohsson's Hist, des Mongols,
vol. i, pp. 48-9 and 52-3 with the footnotes, fag or Ong Khdn was
converted by popular etymology into Yokhnan=Johan.
12 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
the Mongol rulers of Persia for at least ten years before
the above-mentioned ambassadors obtained audience of
Edward II.
The contemporary Oriental histories of the Mongols
are singularly full and good 1 , and include in Arabic Ibnu
'1-Athir's great chronicle, which comes down
Excellence and , . _ , Of ., ,, , , T -., -, ,.,.
abundanceof to the year O28/I23I; Shihabud-Dm Nasais
materials for ver y f u u biography of his master Jalalu'd-Uin
Mongol history J J J
Mankobirm, the gallant Prince of Khwarazm
who maintained so heroic and protracted a struggle against
the destroyers of his house and his empire; the Christian
Abu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus, whose Arabic history (for he
wrote a fuller chronicle in Syriac) comes down to 683/1284,
two years' before his death; and Yaqut the geographer, most
of which have been discussed and quoted in a previous
volume. Of the three chief Persian sources, the Tarikh-i-
Jahdn-gushd of Juwayni, the Tarikh-i- Wassaf, and the
Jdmi'iJt-Tawdrikh, a good deal will be said in the next
chapter, but one may be permitted to express regret that
the last-mentioned history, one of the most original, ex-
tensive and valuable existing in the Persian language, still
remains for the most part unpublished and almost inac-
cessible 2 .
Of the three best-known European histories of the
Mongols, and of the point of view represented by each,
Euro an his- something must needs be said here. First there
tones of the is Baron d'Ohsson's admirable Histoire des Mon-
gols, depuis Tchinguiz Khan jusqit a Timour Bey
ou Tamerlan 3 , a monument of clear exposition
based on profound research. While recognizing, as every
1 They are admirably enumerated and described by d'Ohsson, op.
tit., vol. i, pp. x-lxvi.
2 I have discussed the materials available for a complete text of this
important work in an article published in the/. R.A. S. for 1908, vol. xl,
pp. 17-37, entitled Suggestions for a complete edition of the Jami'u't-
Tawarikh of Rashidifd-Din Fadhflldh.
5 Published in four volumes at the Hague and Amsterdam, 1834-5.
CH. i] HISTORIANS OF THE MONGOLS 13
student of the subject must recognize, the immense im-
portance and far-reaching effects of the Mongol conquests,
he finds this people utterly detestable: "their government,"
he says, "was the triumph of depravity: all that was noble
and honourable was abased ; while the most corrupt per-
sons, taking service under these ferocious masters, obtained,
as the price of their vile devotion, wealth, honours, and the
power to oppress their countrymen. The history of the
Mongols, stamped by their savagery, presents therefore
only hideous pictures ; but, closely connected as it is to
that of several empires, it is necessary for the proper
understanding of the great events of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries 1 ."
Next in point of time is Sir Henry Howorth's great
History of the Mongols in four large volumes 2 . His
view of the Tartars differs somewhat from
Howorth" 1 d'Ohsson's, for he sees in them "one of those
hardy, brawny races, cradled amidst want and
hard circumstances, in whose blood there is a good mix-
ture of iron, which are sent periodically to destroy the
luxurious and the wealthy, to lay in ashes the arts and
culture which only grow under the shelter of wealth and
easy circumstances, and to convert into a desert the para-
dise which man has painfully cultivated. Like the pestilence
and the famine the Mongols were essentially an engine of
destruction ; and if it be a painful, harassing story to read,
it is nevertheless a necessary one if we are to understand
the great course of human progress 3 ." After enumerating
other luxurious and civilized peoples who have been simi-
larly renovated by the like drastic methods, he asserts
that this "was so to a large extent, with the victims of the
Mongol arms ; their prosperity was hollow and pretentious,
1 Op. laud., vol. i, pp. vii-viii.
2 Published in London 1876-1888 and divided into three parts, of
which part 2 forms vols. ii and iii. Part 3 (vol. iv) deals with the
Mongols of Persia.
3 Op. latid., part I, p. x.
14 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
their grandeur very largely but outward glitter, and the
diseased body needed a sharp remedy; the apoplexy that
was impending could probably only be staved off by much
blood-letting, the demoralized cities must be sown with
salt and their inhabitants inoculated with fresh streams of
vigorous blood from the uncontaminated desert 1 ." With
more justice he insists on the wonderful bringing together
of the most remote peoples of the East and West which
was the most important constructive effect of the Mongol
conquest, and concludes: "I have no doubt myself. ..that
the art of printing, the mariner's compass, firearms, and
a great many details of social life, were not discovered in
Europe, but imported by means of Mongol influence from
the furthest East."
The third book which demands notice, chiefly on account
of its influence in Turkey in generating the Yeni Ttirdn,
or Pan-Turanian movement, of which it is not
(3) Lon Cahun
yet possible exactly to appraise the political
importance, is M. Leon Cahun's Introduction a I'Histoire
de rAsie: Turcs et Mongols, des Origines a 1405*. This
writer goes very much further than Howorth in his admi-
ration of the Mongols and the various kindred Turkish
peoples who formed the bulk of their following. A note
of admiration characterizes his description of their military
virtues 8 , their " culte du drapeau, la glorification du nom
turc, puis mongol, le chauvinisme 4 " ; their political com-
binations against the Sasanian Persians 5 , and later against
the Islamic influences of which Persia was the centre ; their
courage, hardihood, discipline, hospitality, lack of religious
fanaticism, and firm administration. This book, though
diffuse, is suggestive, and is in any case worth reading
because of its influence on certain chauvinistic circles in
Turkey, as is a historical romance about the Mongols by
1 Op. laud., p. ii. 2 Paris, 1896.
3 Op. laud., p. ix. 4 Ibid., p. 79.
5 Ibid., pp. 111-118.
CH. i] THE "PAN-TURANIAN" MOVEMENT 15
the same author, translated into English under the title of
The Yeni The Blue Banner. Of the Yeni Turdn movement
THrdn, or j nav e spoken briefly elsewhere 1 , and this is
nian" Move- hardly the place to discuss it more fully, though
ment
it has perhaps a greater significance than I was
at that time disposed to think. On the literary side it
aims at preferring Turkish to Arabic and Persian words,
idioms and vehicles of expression, and at combating Arabic
and Persian influences and traditions ; while on the political
side it dreams of amalgamating in one State all the Turkish
and kindred peoples west and east of the Caspian Sea (in-
cluding the Mongols on the one hand and the Bulgarians
on the other), and of creating a great Turkish or Turanian
Empire more or less coextensive with that of Chingiz Khan.
The ideas of this school were chiefly embodied in a fort-
nightly publication entitled Turk Yurdu (the "Turkish
Hearth") inaugurated in December, 1911.
It is not, however, with the Mongol Empire as a whole,
but with Persia under Mongol dominion that we are here
state of Persia chiefly concerned, nor is it necessary to record
under the Mon- in detail the history of the Mongol Il-khdns who
succeeded Hulagu, which can be read in full in
the pages of d'Ohsson and Howorth. Considering what
Persia suffered at the hands of the Tartars, it is wonderful
how much good literature was produced during this period.
Generally speaking the South of Persia, lying
Relative immu- * > J o
nity of South apart from the main track of conquest to the
West, suffered much less than the North, West
and Centre. Isfahan suffered a massacre in which one
famous poet at least perished 2 , but Shi'raz, owing to the
timely and prudent submission of its ruler, escaped almost
scatheless, a fact to which Sa'di ingeniously alludes in the
1 The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia, p. xxxix. An interesting
article on this subject, written, I understand, by Mr Arnold Toynbee,
also appeared in the Times for Jan. 3, 5 and 7, 1918.
- See Lit, Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 541-2.
16 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
panegyric on his patron prefixed to the Bustdn, where he
says 1 :
" Alexander, by means of a Wall of brass and stone, narrowed the
road of Gog from the world :
Thy barrier to the Gog of Paganism is of gold, not of brass like
the Wall of Alexander."
"By the 'Gog of Paganism,'" says the commentator,
" Chingi'z Khan is meant. The King-Atabek made peace
with him by money, so that the'Musulmans of Shi'raz were
saved from the hands of his tyranny. The author ascribes
pre-eminence to his patron because, says he, 'Alexander
barred Gog's advance with a brazen barrier, but thou didst
check the advance of the Gog of Paganism with gold.' "
Twenty-five years before Sa'di wrote this,Shamsu'd-Di'n
Muhammad ibn Qays of Ray, flying before the first fury of
the Tartar irruption, had found at Shi'raz a haven of refuge
wherein to complete his interrupted work on the Ars Poetica
and prosody of Persia 2 ; and the life of Shi'raz seems to have
gone on fairly tranquilly and suffered relatively little dis-
turbance during those stormy days.
Another point to be noted is that, while all learning
suffered from the wholesale massacres of scholars and des-
why certain struction of mosques, libraries, and other pious
branches foundations, some branches of learning suffered
oflearning *
suffered less much less than others. For theology and philo-
sophy, for example, the pagan Mongols naturally
cared little ; but they attached considerable importance to
medicine, botany, astronomy and other natural sciences,
1 See Graf's edition, last line on p. 22 and first line on p. 23. The
Bustdn was written in 665/1257, a year before the Gulistdn.
2 See the English Preface (pp. xv-xviii) to MirzA Muhammad's
edition of his Mu'jam fi Mcfdyiri Asfcdri 'l-'Ajam, published in the
" E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. x, 1909.
CH. i] ABAQA KHAN (A.D. 1265-1282) 17
were especially desirous that their achievements should be
fully and accurately recorded by competent historians, and
were not altogether indifferent to the praises of poets. At
no other period, as will be pointed out more fully in the next
chapter, were so many first-rate histories written in Persian ;
but it must be remembered that the writers were, as a rule,
men whose education reposed on the more scholarly tradi-
tion of pre-Mongol days, and that such historical works as
the T<Jrikh-i-Jahdn-gushd of Juwaynf and the Jdmi'rft-
Tawdrikh of Rashfdu'd-Di'n Fadlu'llah were isolated phe-
nomena, hardly approached in excellence in later days.
The Tarikh-i-Guzida is as inferior to the latter as it is
superior to the over-estimated histories of Mirkhwand and
Khwandami'r which will be discussed in the concluding
chapter of this volume. On the whole, then, it may be safely
said that, allowing for the terrible crisis through which Persia
was passing, when heathen rulers dominated the land, and
Christians and Jews lorded it over Muslims, the period of
Mongol ascendancy, from the death of Hulagu Khan on
February 8, 1265, until the death of the last Mongol Il-khan,
Musa, in 1337, was wonderfully rich in literary achievements.
Before passing to the detailed consideration of these
achievements, a brief sketch must be given of the external
history of this period, which is divided into two nearly equal
halves by the reign of Ghazan, who, though not the first
Mongol Il-khan to embrace the religion of Islam, was the
first to restore it to its position of supremacy and to purge
the land of Mongol heathenism.
i. ABAQA (A.D. 1265-1282).
The first successor of Hulagu was his son Abaqci (or
Abaqa), who was crowned on June 19, 1265, a date chosen as
auspicious by the famous astronomer and philo-
Abdqa,A.D. sopher Nasfru'd-Din of Tus, whose brilliant
1265-1282 _ r
scientific and dubious political achievements
have been discussed in a previous volume 1 . His life was now
1 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 484-6, etc.
B. P. 2
i8 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
drawing towards its close, but we hear of him once again five
years later, in 669/1 270-1, when he was called in
Last days and J T ' '
death of Nasiru to treat Abaqa, who had been gored by a wild cow
on one of his hunting expeditions. The wound
suppurated and an abscess formed which none of thell-khan's
other medical advisers dared to open. Nasiru'd-Di'n suc-
cessfully performed the operation. He died in the following
year at the age of seventy-five. Bar-Hebraeus gives him a
brief but laudatory notice in his Mukhtasarud-Duwal 1 ,
describing him as "the Keeper of the Observatory at Maragha
and a man of vast learning in all branches of philosophy."
" Under his control," he continues, " were all the religious
endowments in all the lands under Mongol rule. He com-
posed many works on logic, the natural sciences and meta-
physics, and on Euclid and the Almagest. He also wrote
a Persian work on Ethics 2 of the utmost possible merit
wherein he collected all the dicta of Plato and Aristotle on
practical Philosophy, confirming the opinions of the ancients
and solving the doubts of the moderns and the criticisms
advanced by them in their writings."
Abaqa was thirty-one years of age when he became ruler
of Persia, and whether or no there was any truth in the rumour
that he was actually baptised into the Christian
Zs 5 Church at the desire of his bride Despina, the
natural daughter of Michael Palaeologus 3 , he
consistently favoured the Christians, and, indeed, appears
to have owed his elevation to the throne to their influence,
exercised through Doquz Khatun, the widow of his father
and predecessor Hulagu, who survived her husband about
a year, and who never failed to befriend her co-religionists
in every possible way 4 . Abaqa's diplomatic relations with
1 Beyrout ed. of A.D. 1890, pp. 500-1.
2 I.e. the well-known Akhldq-i-Ndsiri, one of the three Persian
works on this subject which are most read even at the present day.
See Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 220, 456, 485.
3 See Howorth, op. cit., pt. 3, p. 223.
4 Ibid., p. 218. She belonged to the Christian tribe of Kera'it (or
CH. i] ABAQA KHAN (A.D. 1265-1282) 19
the Popes and Christian kings of Europe are, however, in all
probability to be ascribed rather to political than religious
motives. He was in correspondence with Clement IV, who
wrote him a letter from Viterbo in 1267; Gregory X in 1274;
and Nicolas III, who in 1278 sent to him and to his over-
lord the great Qubilay (" Kubla ") Khan an embassy of five
Franciscan monks. One of his embassies even penetrated
as far as England and was apparently received by Edward I,
but the records of it seem to be scanty or non-existent 1 . The
political object of these negotiations was to arrange for a
combined attack on the still unsubdued Muslims of Egypt
and Syria, the natural and deadly foes of the Mongols; and
the inducement held out to the Christians was the possession
of the Holy Land for which they had so long striven.
Fortunately for the Muhammadans, Islam possessed in the
Mamluk Sultan Baybars, called al-Malik az-Zahir, a doughty
champion well qualified to meet the double peril which
menaced his faith and his country. Already in 1 260, before
he was elected king, he had driven Hulagu's Mongols out
of Ghaza and routed them at 'Ayn Jalut, driven back the
Crusaders in Syria, and broken the power of the Syrian
branch of the Assassins ; and in April, 1277, he inflicted on
the Mongols another great defeat at Abulustayn, leaving
nearly 7000 of them dead on the field of battle 2 . When
Abaqa subsequently visited the battle-field, he was deeply
moved, even to tears, by the numbers of the Mongol slain.
Karit) and was the granddaughter of their ruler Ung or Wang Khan,
the original of the "Prester John" of mediaeval legend. Bar-Hebraeus
in recording her death (pp. cit., p. 497) describes her as " great in her
judgement and wisdom."
1 See Howorth, op. laud., pp. 278-281, and on the whole subject
Abel-Rdmusat's classical Memoires sur les Relations politiques des
Princes Chretiens... avec les Empereurs Mongols in the Me"m. de FAcad.
Royale des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres, vols. vi and vii, pp. 396 and
335 respectively.
2 See Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, p. 446 ; S. Lane-Poole's admirable
little History of Egypt, pp. 262 and 270 ; and Howorth, op. cit. pp.
257-9-
20 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
Bitter hatred subsisted during all this period between the
Mongol Il-khans and the Egyptian Mamluks, and no more
dangerous or damaging charge could be preferred against
a subject of the former than an accusation of being in com-
munication with the latter. Every Muslim subject of the
Mongols must needs walk very warily if he would avoid
such deadly suspicion, and, as we shall see hereafter, the
favourite method of ruining a hated rival was to denounce
him to the Mongol government as having relations with
Egypt.
From our present point of view we are less concerned
with the Mongol rulers and generals than with the Persian
functionaries whom they found indispensable in
The juwayni the ^jj serv j ce nfc e t h e Arabs in earlier times),
family
and amongst whom were included men of remark-
able talents. Conspicuous amongst these was the Juwayni
family, notably Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad the Sdhib-
Dtwdn, his brother 'Ala'u'd-Dm 'Ata Malik, and his son
Baha'u'd-Din. The Sdhib-Diwdn 's grandfather, also en-
titled Shamsu'd-Din, but distinguished by the epithets
Biizurg ("the Great") and Miiy-dirdz ("the long-haired"),
had been Prime Minister to Qutbu'd-Di'n Khwarazmshah,
while his father, Baha'u'd-Din, had held the office of
Mustawfil-Mamdlik (approximately equivalent to Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer). He himself had held the office
of Prime Minister for ten years under Hulagii Khan, and
was continued in this position by Abaqa. His brother,
'Ala'u'd-Din is chiefly interesting to us as one of the finest
historians whom Persia ever produced, and in this capacity
he will be considered in the next chapter; but he was also
a great administrator, and was for twenty-four years gover-
nor of Baghdad 1 . His son Baha'u'd-Din was governor of
Persian 'Iraq and Frs, while another son Sharafu'd-Din
1 He was appointed by Hiildgu in 657/1259, one year after the
capture of the city by the Mongols. See the Introduction to Mfrz
Muhammad's edition of the Tdrikh-i-Jahdn-gushd in the " E. J. W.
Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. xvi, i (1912), pp. xxviii.
CH. I] THE JUWAYNf FAMILY 21
Harun was a poet and a patron of poets 1 . A full and critical
account of this talented family, based on researches equally
extensive and minute, is given by Mirza Muhammad of
Qazwfn, one of the finest and most critical Persian scholars
whom I ever met, in his Introduction to the Tdrikh-i-
Jahdn-gushd (vol. i, pp. xix-xcii), to which the reader may
refer for much detailed information which considerations
of space render it impossible to reproduce here. The
Juwayni family, alike in their love of literature and learning,
their princely generosity, their administrative capacity, and
their tragic fate, irresistibly recall to one's mind another
great Persian family of statesmen, the celebrated House of
Barmak or Barmecides of "the Golden Prime of good
Haroun Alraschid 2 ." Their influence was great and wide-
spread ; their connection with literature, both as writers and
as patrons of poets and men of learning, extensive ; and
the jealousy of less fortunate rivals which embittered their
lives and finally brought about their destruction commen-
surate with the power and high positions which they so
long enjoyed. The first to die of those mentioned above,
and one of the few who was fortunate enough to die a
natural death, was Baha'u'd-Dfn, son of the
Death and char-
acter of Baha'u SdJub-Dzwdn and governor of Persian 'Iraq.
waynf His death took place in 678/1279 at the early
age of thirty. He was a terribly stern governor, who
inspired the utmost terror in the hearts of his subjects, and
whose ferocity went so far that he caused his little son, and
he a favourite child, to be put to death by his executioner
because in play he had caught hold of his beard. The
historian Wassaf gives many other instances of his implac-
able sternness, of which a selection will be found in Howorth's
History of the Mongols*; but it is fair to add that under his
1 His Diwdn is very rare, but there is a MS. (Or. 3647) in the
British Museum. See Rieu's Pers. Suppl. Cat., No. 254, pp. 166-7.
2 Cf. Mfrza Muhammad's Introduction to the Jahdn-gushd, p. 4.
3 Pt. 3, pp. 221-2, and the Tdrikh-i- Wassdf ( Bombay lith.), pp. 60
et seqq.
22 THE MONGOL T.L-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
stern administration the utmost security prevailed in the
provinces which he administered, while he eagerly cultivated
the society of poets, scholars and artists. His father the
Sdkib-Diwdn mourned his death in the following verse:
!L ' CjLJk .^XAs
j
" Muhammad's son ! Thy slave is Heaven high ;
One hair of thee the Age's Mart might buy ;
Thy Sire's support wert thou : bereft of thee
His back is bent as brow o'er beauty's eye."
The following verse was composed by Hindushah to com
memorate the date of his death :
jL&w oto jt .i^j a.=>
" On the eve of Saturday the seventeenth of Sha'ban's month
In the year three score and eighteen and six hundred from the Flight 1
From the world Baha'u'd-Din, that great wazir, in Isfahdn
Fled. Ah, when on such another ruler shall Time's eyes alight ? "
This was the first of the misfortunes which befel the
Juwaynf family, and which were largely due to their un-
grateful protege Majdu'1-Mulk of Yazd. whose
Misfortunes r
of juwayni ambition led him to calumniate both the Sdhib-
family Diwdn and his brother 'Ala'u'1-Mulk' 'Ata
Malik. While still subordinate to the Sdhib-Dlwdn, Majdu
'1-Mulk addressed to him the following quatrain :
1 Sha'ban 17, 678 = Dec. 23, 1279.
CH. i] ABAQA KHAN (A.D. 1265-1282) 23
" I said, 'I'll ever in thy service be,
intrigues of Not come like larch and go like willow tree' 1 :
Majdu'l-Mulk He who despairs is bold and sharp of tongue ;
Cause me not, Friend, thus desperate to be ! "
By traducing the Sdhib-Diwdn to Abaqa, he finally induced
that monarch to associate him in the government with his
rival, and this dual control gave rise to endless friction and
recriminations. On one occasion he sent another quatrain
to the Sdhib-Diwdn as follows :
" Into the Ocean of thy grief I'll dive,
And either drown, or pearls to gather strive ;
'Tis hard to fight with thee, yet fight I will,
And die red-throated, or red-cheeked survive 2 ."
To this the Sdhib-Diwdn sent the following answer
" Since to the King complaints thou canst not bear
Much anguish to consume shall be thy share.
Through this design on which thou hast embarked
Thy face and neck alike shall crimson wear."
1 I suppose the writer's meaning is, that he wishes to be a permanent
and honoured associate of the minister, not liable to reprimand, humili-
ation or dismissal, coming in erect as the larch or cypress, and going
out after some rebuff bowed down with humiliation like the weeping
willow.
2 "Die red-throated," i.e. by decapitation. "Red-cheeked" or "red-
faced" means " honoured," the opposite of "black-faced."
24 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
Ultimately Majdu'1-Mulk succeeded in arousing Abaqa's
suspicions against the Sahib -Diwdris brother, 'Ala'u'1-Mulk
'Ata Malik-i-Juwayni,whowas arrested, paraded
Disgrace and i ' i i / T i i y i i i
punishment of through the streets ot Baghdad, tortured, and
Ata Maiik-i- forced to pav large sums of money which he
Juwayni . .
was alleged to have misappropriated. Matters
might have gone yet worse with him had not Abaqa's sudden
death on April i, 1282, put an end to his persecution and
brought about his release from prison, while
Release of 'Ata a r
Malik and death soon afterwards his enemy Majdu'1-Mulk fell a
Majdu'l-Mulk
pieces by the mob, his dismembered limbs being publicly
exhibited in the chief cities of Persia. On this well-merited
punishment of the old and inveterate foe of his family 'Ata
Malik-i- Juwayni composed the following quatrain :
" For some brief days thy guile did mischief wreak;
Position, wealth and increase thou didst seek :
Now every limb of thine a land hath ta'en :
Thou'st over-run the kingdom in a week ! "
'Ata Malik, however, did not long survive his foe, for he too
Death of 'Ata died ' the Spring of 1283.
Maiik-i-juwayni In one curious particular connected with
Abaqa's death all the historians agree. He had,
in the usual Mongol fashion, been drinking deeply with his
favourites and boon-companions. Feeling uneasy, he had
withdrawn from them for a moment into the
Death of Abaqa , , , 111-1 1
palace garden when he suddenly cried out that
a large black bird was threatening him, and ordered some
of his servants to shoot it with arrows. The servants hastened
to him in answer to his call, but no bird was to be seen, and
CH. i] AHMAD TAKtfDAR (A.D. 1282-1284) 25
while they were still searching for it, Abaqa fell down in a
swoon from which he never awoke 1 .
A few other events of Abaqa's reign merit a brief men-
tion. The Assassins, in spite of all they had suffered at
Renewed the hands of the Mongols, so far recovered
activity of themselves as to attempt the life of 'Ata Malik-
i-Juwaynf in 670/1271-2, while four years later,
in 674/1275-6, they actually succeeded, under the leader-
ship of the son of their last Grand Master Ruknu'd-Din
Khurshah, in regaining possession of Alamut, though they
internecine were shortly afterwards subdued and destroyed
warsofMon- by Abaqa. Internecine wars between various
gol princes n/r i u i- i
Mongol princes began to be prevalent in
Abaqa's reign, as, for instance, that between Yushmut and
Nogay at Aq-sii in 663/1264-5, the year of Abaqa's ac-
cession, and that between Abaqa and Nikudar the son of
Chaghatay in 667/1268-9. Further turmoil was caused by
the repeated raids of the Nikudarfs, and by the revolt of
Buraq in Khurasan. The defeat of the latter
Revolt of Burdq , , , .
by Abaqa s troops was due almost entirely to
the valour of Subutay, in allusion to which a contemporary
poet says:
O"* L^'r IP
"'Gainst the army of thy love not one could stand save only I,
As against Burdq of all Abaqa's captains Subuta"y."
AHMAD TAKUDAR 2 (A.D. 1282-1284).
On the death of Abaqa two rival candidates appeared
on the scene, his brother Takudar 2 (who, on his conversion
1 Abu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus (Beyrout ed. of 1890, p. 505) says that
this happened at Ramadan in the house of a Persian named Bihndm
who gave a banquet in Abdqd's honour. He does not explicitly mention
the black bird, but says that Abqa "began to see phantoms in the air."
- This name is sometimes given as Nikudar or Nigudar, but the
Armenian form Tongudar given by Haithon seems decisive. See
Howorth, op. '/., pp. 310-11.
26 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
to Islam took the additional name of Ahmad) and his
Ahmad Takudar son Arghun. A majority of the Mongol nobles
A.H. 681-683 preferred the former, and he was accordingly
* proclaimed on May 6, 1282, under the title of
Sultan Ahmad Takudar. One of his earliest public acts
was to show his devotion to the religion which he had
adopted by letters addressed to the doctors of Baghdad 1
and to Qala'un, Sultan of Egypt 2 , in which he expressed
his desire to protect and foster the religion of Islam and
to live on terms of peace and amity with all Muslims.
His letter to Qald'un, dated Jumada I, A.H. 68 1 (August,
1282), was entrusted to two special envoys, Qutbu'd-Din-i-
Shi'razi and the Atabek Pahlawdn, and Qala'un's answer
was dated the beginning of Ramadan of the same year
(December 3, 1282).
However gratified the Muslims may have been at the
conversion of Ahmad Takudar and the evidences of sin-
cerity afforded by his conduct, the Mongols
Ahmad Takudar J ' . '
defeated, cap- were far from sharing this satisfaction, and in
in the followin g y ear (682/1283-4), a formidable
conspiracy of Mongol nobles to depose Ahmad
Takudar and place his nephew Arghun on the throne came
to light. Qunquratay, one of the chief conspirators, with a
number of his accomplices, was put to death on January 18,
1284, but Arghun successfully revolted against his uncle,
whom he ultimately captured and put to death on Au-
gust 10 of the same year, and was proclaimed King on
the following day.
1 See d'Ohsson's Hist, des Mongols, vol. iii, pp. 553 et seqq.
2 See the Tdrikh-i-Wassdf, Bombay lithographed edition of A.H.
1269, pp. 113-115, and, for Qala'un's answer, pp. 115-118 of the same.
Also Abu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus (Beyrout ed. of 1890), pp. 506-510 and
510-518. English translations of both letters are given by Howorth,
op. cit., pp. 260-296.
CH. i] DEATH OF THE SA#IB-DlWAN 27
ARGHUN (A.D. 1284-1291).
One of Arghun's first acts was to make his son Ghazan
governor of Khurasan, Mazandaran, Ray and Qumis. His
Rei nofAr hun f rma l recognition as Il-khan of Persia by his
A. H. 683-690 over-lord Qubilay Khan (" Kubla Khan") was
brought from China in the following year by
Urdugaya.
During the reign of Ahmad Takiidar the fortunes of
the Sdhib-Dtwdn and his family, threatened for a while
The.svrt#- ky the intrigues of Majdu'1-Mulk, revived
z>/' P utto once more, but they were finally eclipsed by
the accession of Arghun. On the death of
his master, Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad the Sdhib-Diwdn,
fearing Arghun's anger, fled to Qum, where he was over-
taken by Arghun's messengers, brought back, and finally
put to death at a place called Mu'ma near Ahar on Sha'ban
4 or 5, 683 (October 16 or 17, I284) 1 . Before submitting
himself to the headsman's hands he craved a brief respite,
which was granted him. After performing the ablution, he
took an augury from a Qur'dn which belonged to him, and
then wrote the following letter to the l ulamd of Tabriz :
"When I sought an augury from the Qur'an, these were
the words which came 2 : ' Verily those who said ''God is our
Lord" and then were steadfast, unto them do
The Sdhib-Dt- . , . r . n J . .
mdn's letter to the angels afscaut [sayingj : rear not, neither
Tab '" la "' 4 f be afraid. Receive good tidings of the Paradise
which ye were promised!" Since the Creator,
exalted is He, hath well maintained his servant in this
perishable world, and hath not withheld from him any
wish, it hath pleased Him even in this world to give him
glad tidings of the World Eternal. Therefore he hath
deemed it incumbent on himself to convey these glad
tidings to Mawlana Muhiyyu'd-Din, Mawlana Afdalu'd-
1 This is the last event recorded by Bar-Hebraeus in his history
(pp. 521-2 of the Beyrout ed. of 1890).
2 Qur'dn, xli, 30.
28 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
Din, Mawlana Shamsu'd-Din, Mawlana Humamu'd-Din
and those other great divines whom time and the circum-
stances do not permit me to mention by name, that they
may know that we have severed all ties and so departed.
Let them assist me with their prayers 1 !"
He also addressed the following farewell letter and
testament to his sons 2 :
"Salvation and greeting to my sons and dear ones, may
God Almighty preserve them ! Let them know that I en-
trust them to God, Mighty and Glorious is He :
tohiiKMu verily God doth not suffer that which is en-
trusted to Him to sustain loss. It was in my
mind that perhaps a meeting might be possible, whereat
my last wishes might be communicated orally, but my
days are ended, and my business is now with the world
to come. Do not fall short in the care of my children ;
incite them to study, and on no account suffer them to
have aught to do with the service of the State; let them
rather be content with that which God Most High hath
assigned to them. If my son Atabek and his mother wish
to return home, they have my permission so to do. Let
Nawruz, Mas'ud and their mother remain with Bulqan
Khatun, and should she grant them estates, let them ac-
cept them and be content therewith. Whither can my chief
wife go from Tabriz ? Let her then remain there near the
grave of me and my brothers. If they can, let them make
their dwelling in the monastery of Shaykh Fakhru'd-Din
and repair thither. Mumina hath received little satisfaction
from us : if she wishes to marry again, let her do so. Let
Farrukh and his mother remain with Atabek. Let them
leave Zakariyya with the crown lands and other estates
which I have given over to Amir Buqa. Let them petition
[on his behalf]: if some land should be granted to him, well
and good: if not, let him rest content. May the Almighty
1 Ta!rikh-i-Wassdf,v- HI.
2 The text of this is given in the Mujmal of Fasihi of Khwdf,
ff. 468 b -469 a of the MS. belonging to the Gibb Trustees.
CH. I] FATE OF THE JUWAYNf FAMILY 29
Creator have mercy upon us, and bless all of them. At
this hour my mind is fixed on the Divine Presence, and
I can write no more than this. Deal kindly with all, bond
and free, and forget us not on the nights when you remember
the absent."
The Sdhib-Diwdn did not perish alone. Four of his
sons, Yahya, Faraju'llah, Mas'iid and Atabek, were put
to death soon after him, and a little later another son,
Harun. "Two brothers and seven sons," according to the
Ta'rikh-i- Wassaf 1 , constituted the sacrifice demanded by
Mongol ferocity, ever ready to visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children, and little disposed to leave alive poten-
tial avengers. Added to these losses were the deaths in the
years immediately preceding of 'Ala'u'1-Mulk 'Ata Malik-i-
Juwayni and Baha'u'd-Dm, already mentioned, so that in
the course of five or six years this great family of states-
men was practically effaced from the page of history.
Fasihi, in his Mujmal (f. 469), quotes the two following
quatrains composed by the Sdhib-Diwdn in his last mo-
ments :
" O Hand of Fate, which doth my heart's steps stay,
My heart submits to thy desire to slay :
With all my heart I offer thee my life ;
For this throughout my life my heart did pray."
" Look, thou who caused'st life's bright lamp to die,
Two hundred worlds thou seest extinguished lie,
Yet do the slain eternal life attain,
And those in chief who are by heathens slain."
1 P. 142.
30 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
His death was universally lamented, even in towns like
Shiraz where he was known only by his charities and good
works, and which he had never visited. Amongst the verses
composed on his death are the following:
\
"The Night in grief hath dyed her cloak, and Morn,
Heaving cold sighs, appears with collar torn :
The Sun's 1 departure stains the sky with gore :
The Moon is veiled, the locks of Venus shorn."
" That minister whose head o'ertopped the skies
Hath earned, in truth, of martyrdom the prize ;
The Sdhib-Dtwdn, who for thirty years
Hath kept the world secure from hurts and fears.
O cruel heavens such a life to ban !
O cruel earth, to slay so great a man ! "
There were, however, others who regarded the Sdhib-
Diwdris fate as well deserved, on account of the part he had
played in respect to his unlucky predecessor Majdu'1-Mulk.
This point of view is represented in the following verses,
cited in the Tcf rikh-i-Guzida :
1 Shamsu'd-Dfn, " the Sun of Religion," was the Sdhib-Diivdris
name, to which allusion is here made.
CH. i] ARGHtiN KHAN (A.D. 1284-1291) 31
aU 5 i j JL-
" Since Majdu'1-Mulk, by God-sent destiny,
A martyr in Naw Shahr's plain did die,
By the Sdhib-Diwdn Muhammad's spite,
Who ruled the land with unrestricted might,
Two years, two months, two weeks went by, and lo,
Fate bade him drain in turn the cup of woe.
Beware how in this world thou workest harm ;
Fate's scales hold equal weight of bane and balm ! "
A violent death was, however, the common end of
those who were rash enough to act as ministers to Mongol
sovereigns. Thus Jalalu'd-Dm Simnani, who succeeded the
Sdhib-Diwdn, was executed in August, 1289; Sa'du'd-Dawla,
who succeeded him, was put to death at the end of February,
1291 ; Sadru'd-Dm Khalidi, who acted as minister to Gay-
khatu, suffered the same fate in May, 1298; and Rashidu'd-
Din Fadlu'llah, the most accomplished of all, was executed
in July, 1318.
Arghun reigned over Persia for nearly seven years
(August, 1284-May, 1291). The embassies which he sent to
Europe, and especially that of 1287-1288, of
Sa'du'd-Dawia, w hi c h one o f ^Q envoys, Rabban Sawma, has
theJewisha/aszV '
left us an account in Synac 1 , mark a revival of
Abaqa's policy, which had been reversed by Ahmad Takudar.
During the latter part of Arghun's reign Sa'du'd-Dawla
the Jew was his all-powerful minister. This man, originally
a physician, was detested by the Muslims, who ascribed
to him the most sinister designs against Islam. He was
originally a native of Abhar, and afterwards practised
medicine at Baghdad. He was recommended to Arghun
by some of his co-religionists, and, according to the 7V-
rikh-i- Wassdf", gained the esteem and confidence of that
prince not only by his knowledge of the Mongol and
1 See that most interesting book Histoire de Mar Jabalaha ///...<?/
du moine Rabban Cauma..*traduit du Syriaque et annotee par J.-B.
Chabot (Paris, 1895). 2 p. 236.
32 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
Turkish languages, but also by the skilful manner in which
he played on Arghun's avarice by the schemes for re-
plenishing the treasury which he unfolded. In the realiza-
tion of these schemes in Baghdad he showed such ability
that he was entrusted by Arghun with the financial control
of the whole kingdom. His co-religionists, hitherto despised
and repressed, began to benefit by his ever-increasing power,
and to fill many offices of state ; so much so that a con-
temporary poet of Baghdad wrote as follows 1 :
" The Jews of this our time a rank attain
To which the heavens might aspire in vain.
Theirs is dominion, wealth to them doth cling,
To them belong both councillor and king.
O people, hear my words of counsel true :
Turn Jews, for heaven itself hath turned a Jew !
Yet wait, and ye shall hear their torment's cry,
And see them fall and perish presently."
Sa'du'd-Dawla's boldness and open hostility to Islam
increased with his power, until he not only induced Arghun
to exclude the Muslims from all high civil and military
posts 2 , but endeavoured to compass the destruction of their
religion. To this end he sought to persuade Arghun that
the prophetic function had passed from the Arabs to the
Mongols, who were divinely commissioned to chastise the
disobedient and degenerate followers of Muhammad, and
proposed to turn the Ka'ba into an idol-temple. He began
to prepare a fleet at Baghdad to attack Mecca, and sent his
co-religionist Khwaja Najibu'd-Din Kahhal into Khurasan
with a black list of some two hundred notable and influential
1 Tctrikh-i-Wassdf, p. 238. 2 Ibid., p. 241.
CH. i] THE MINISTER SA'DU'D-DAWLA 33
Muslims whose death he desired to compass. A similar but
shorter list, containing the names of seventeen notable
divines and theologians of Shiraz, was also prepared for him.
"It is related," says the author of the Tdrtkh-i-Wassdf,
" that when Arghun Khan first ascended the royal throne he
greatly disliked bloodshed, so that one day, during the pro-
gress of a banquet, he looked at the number of sheep slain,
and, moved by excessive compassion, said, 'Hardness of heart
and a cruel disposition alone can prompt man to sacrifice
so many innocent beasts for the pleasures of the table.'
Yet this minister (Sa'du'd-Dawla) so constantly applauded
evil and represented wrong as right, urging that to clear the
garden of empire from the thorns of disaffection, and to
purify the wells of endeavour from the impurity of suspects
was required alike by prudence and discretion..., that finally,
through his evil promptings and misleading counsels, the
Il-khan's heart became as eager to kill the innocent as are
the infidel glances of the fair ones of Khutan, so that on the
least suspicion or the slightest fault he would destroy a
hundred souls. Such is the effect produced by intercourse
with an evil companion and the society of wicked persons 1 ."
But just when Sa'du'd-Dawla's influence was at its
highest and his schemes were approaching maturity, Arghun
fell grievously sick at Tabriz. The minister,
lasf nines realizing that he would certainly not long sur-
vive his master, became a prey to the most acute
and overpowering distress: he was unremitting in his atten-
dance, and also, with the view of propitiating Heaven, gave
away vast sums of money in charity, thirty thousand dinars
being distributed in Baghddd and ten thousand amongst the
poor of Shiraz. He also liberated many captives and renewed
or extended many benefactions. Some of the Mongol priests
declared that the execution of Qaranqay, Huldju, Jushkab
and other Mongol princes had brought this sickness on
Arghun ; others that he had been bewitched by one of his
wives. Sultan Idajf, who was alleged to have instigated
1 Ibid., pp. 242-3.
B. P. 3
34 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
the former deed, was sacrificed in expiation, and also Jush-
kab's niece Tuqjaq, who was suspected of the ensorcelment
of the king ; but naught availed to stay the progress of his
malady, and towards the end of February, 1291, his condition
was so critical that none were allowed to approach him save
Jushf and Sa'du'd-Dawla. The latter secretly sent mes-
sengers to Ghazan, bidding him be ready to claim the throne
so soon as Arghun should have breathed his last, but nothing
could now avail to save him from his foes, and he was put
to death a few days before his master expired, on March 9,
I29I 1 .
The death of Sa'du'd-Dawla was the signal for a general
persecution of the Jews, who were plundered and in many
cases slain. In Baghdad alone more than a
Persecution hundred of their chief men were killed. The
ot the Jews
collapse of thejewish ascendancy was celebrated
by Zaynu'd-Din 'All b. Sa'id the preacher in the following
Arabic qasida?, composed in the same metre and rhyme as
that quoted on p. 32 supra :
f 1 1 10*0 111
JXUJI d-o~.L>
, ~ 4
0*9 ' , i - - J i x> j j ^ Oi
i^TVJUj ^3 U JUU ^>Xi ' liwl "^La-Lc 4JLJI ^JkUC^I 5
6
0<0 X X 0X5 ,
7
ji.1 LJ 9
1 See Howorth, op. cit., p. 345.
2 Cited from the Tcfrikh-i- Wass&f, p. 247.
CH. i] ANTI-JEWISH POEMS 35
' \j->j3 & jLi
ijb UJ 13
H
L5 5iL " bj-f*-* 1 * l6
^"^
-liJ9 17
jxx e
18
il 19
> JL5 j>^ ^J 2 3
1 " His Name we praise who rules the firmament !
These apish Jews are done away and shent.
2 111 luck hath whelmed the Fortune of their State 1 ;
Throughout the lands they're shamed and desolate.
3 God hath dispersed their dominant accord,
And they are melted by the burnished sword.
4 How long they ruled in fact, though not in name,
And, sins committing, now are put to shame.
1 Scfdrfd-Dawla means the " Fortune," or " Good Luck of the
State." There is an antithesis between Safd, which applies to the fortu-
nate influence of the auspicious planets, and Nafys, the maleficent
influence of the unlucky planets.
32
36 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
5 God made them wail in woe right speedily,
After that in their days they laughed with glee.
6 Grim captains made them drink Death's cup of ill,
Until their skulls the blood-bathed streets did fill,
7 And from their dwellings seized the wealth they'd gained,
And their well-guarded women's rooms profaned.
8 O wretched dupes of error and despair,
At length the trap hath caught you in its snare !
9 Vile, carrion birds, behold, in open ground
The nets of ruin compass you around !
10 O foulest race who e'er on earth did thrive,
And hatefulest of those who still survive,
1 1 The Calf you served in place of God ; and lo,
Vain, vain are all your goings to and fro !
12 They doomed to death your ' Cleanser 1 ' and thereby
A host of sinful souls did purify,
13 What time they gathered round his head upraised
Midst dust and stench, and on its features gazed.
14 God sped the soul of him who was their chief
To hell, whose mirk is dark despair and grief.
15 In molten torments they were prisoned,
In trailing chains they to their doom were led.
16 Take warning, from this doom without reprieve ;
Recite the verse : " How many did they leave 2 / "
17 Tughachar, prince fulfilled with strength and zeal,
Hath caused the pillars of their power to reel.
1 8 His flashing falchion on their flesh did feed,
And none would hold him guilty for the deed.
19 Our Shaykh's prediction found fulfilment there,
What time he saw them rob him of his share ;
20 That holy man, our lord Jamalu'd-Din 3 ,
Aided by God, endowed with angel's mien,
21 Devoted, walking ever in the way
Of Him the fishes in their seas obey.
22 I penned this satire, hoping to attain
The Eternal Gardens' lake-encompassed plain,
23 And to refute that poet's words untrue
Who said, ' Turn Jews, for Heaven hath turned a Jew.' "
1 This word Muhadhdhib (" Purifier") probably forms part of some
such title as Muhadhdhibu'd-Dawla borne by one of the victims.
2 " How many gardens and fountains .. .did they leave behind them /"
Qur'an, xliv, 24.
3 Perhaps Jamdlu'd-Dfn Muhammad ibn Sulaymdn an-Naqfb al-
Maqdisf (d. 698/1298-9) is meant.
CH. i] PAPER CURRENCY RIOTS 37
GAYKHATU (A.D. 1291-1295).
Arghun was succeeded by his brother Gaykhatu, whose
coronation did not take place till July 22, 1291, four months
and a half after his predecessor's death. During
Gaykhatu this interval, in spite of the fact that Tughachdr
(A.D^ 1291- anc j other chiefs of the Mongols had hastened to
appoint governors in the different provinces,
anarchy was rampant, and Afrasiyab, of the House of
Hazarasp, which had ruled over Luristdn since the middle
of the twelfth century, broke out in an abortive revolt and
for a while held Isfahan.
Gaykhatu, whom the author of the Habibu's-Siyar
describes as " the most generous of the children of Hulagu,"
chose Sadru'd-Din Ahmad Khalidi of Zanjan,
Dissolute and , ', r> j T i * i
extravagant better known as Sadr-i-Jahan, as his prime
character of minister. Both the monarch and his minister
Gaykhatu
were disposed to extravagance and prodigality,
and the former at any rate to the pleasures of the table and
other less reputable enjoyments. Thus it soon happened
that the treasury was empty, and, money being urgently
required, Sadr-i-Jahdn determined to introduce
Introduction of +
paper money the ckao, or paper money, which was current in
the Chinese Empire. To this end establishments
for manufacturing the chao were erected in all the principal
towns, and stringent laws were enacted to restrict the use
of the precious metals as far as possible. Full descriptions of
the projected paper money are preserved to us in the Tartkh-
i- Wassdf 1 and other histories of the period. The notes
consisted of oblong rectangular pieces of paper inscribed
with some words in Chinese, over which stood the Muham-
madan profession of faith, "There is no god but God,
Muhammad is the Apostle of God," in Arabic. Lower down
was the scribe's or designer's name, and the value of the note
(which varied from half a dirham to ten dinars) inscribed
in a circle. A further inscription ran as follows: "The King
1 Pp. 272-3.
38 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
of the world issued this auspicious chao in the year A.H. 693
[A.D. 1294]. Anyone altering or defacing the same shall
be put to death, together with his wife and children, and his
property shall be forfeited to the exchequer." Proclamations
were also sent to Shi'raz and other towns explaining the
advantages of the new currency, answering imaginary objec-
tions against it, and declaring that :
" If in the world this chao gains currency,
Immortal shall the Empire's glory be,"
and that poverty and distress would entirely disappear.
One ingenious provision in the laws affecting the chao was
that notes worn and torn by circulation were to be returned
to the chao-khdna, or Mint, and new notes, less by ten per
cent, than the amount thus refunded, were to be given to
the person so returning them.
The issue of the chao in Tabriz was fixed for the month
of Dhu'l-Qa'da, 693 (Sept.-Oct, 1294). In three days the
bazaars of Tabriz were closed and business
S n the P ^ ity was practically at a standstill, for no one would
accept the chao, and gold and silver had been
withdrawn from circulation. The popular rage was largely
directed against 'Izzu'd-Din Muzaffar, who had been in-
strumental in introducing the hated paper money, and such
verses as the following were composed about him :
" Pride of the Faith 1 , Protection of the Land,
Would that thy being from the world were banned !
1 This is the meaning of I lzzu'd-Dtn.
CH. i] BAYDti (APRIL-OCTOBER, 1295) 39
Hence Muslim, Guebre and Jew first magnify
God, and declare His Power and Unity ;
Then, humbly praying, bow them in the dust,
And thus invoke the Judge All-wise and Just :
' Lord, send him not victorious 1 , we pray :
Cause all his schemes and plans to go astray ! ' "
Similar disturbances broke out at Shi'raz and in other
cities, and, yielding to the representations of the Mongol
nobles and others, Gaykhatu finally consented
withdraw * reca ll the obnoxious chao and abolish the
paper currency which had intensified instead of
ameliorating the financial crisis.
Shortly after this untoward experiment, Gaykhatu, in
one of those drunken orgies which were habitual to him,
grossly insulted his cousin Baydu. a grandson
Gaykhatu
insults his of Hulagu, and caused him to be beaten by one
of his retainers. Next morning, when he came
to his senses, he repented of his action, and endeavoured to
conciliate Baydu by means of gifts and honours. Baydu,
for reasons of expediency, concealed his resentment for the
time, but soon afterwards, encouraged by certain disaffected
Mongol nobles, he openly revolted against Gaykhatu, who,
betrayed by his general Tughachar, was taken prisoner and
put to death at Muqan, on Thursday, 6 Jumada II, 694
(April 23, 1295).
BAYDTJ (APRIL-OCTOBER, 1295).
Baydu was crowned soon after this at Ramadan, and
after celebrating his accession in the usual drunken fashion
of the Mongols 2 , proceeded to appoint Tugha-
Baydii (April- c harcommander-in-chief,dismiss the late premier
Oct., A.D. 1295)
Sadr-i-Jakdn, and replace him by Jamalu'd-Din
Dastajirdanf. He did not, however, long enjoy the high
position which he had gained, for six months after his
1 " Victorious " is the meaning of Muzaffar.
2 Habibu's-Siyar (Bombay lithographed ed. of 1857), vol. iii, pt. i,
p. 81.
4 o THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
accession he was overcome by Ghazan, the son of his cousin
Arghun, and, in the words of Khwandamir 1 , "quaffed a full
cup of that draught which he had caused Gaykhatu to taste."
GHAZAN (A.D. 1295-1304).
The accession of Ghazan, the great-grandson of Hulagii,
marks the definite triumph of Islam over Mongol heathenism,
and the beginning of the reconstruction of Per-
Ghdz4n (A.D. s j an independence. He was born on December
1295-1304)
4, 1271, and was therefore not twenty-four years
of age when he assumed the reins of government. At the
youthful age of seven he accompanied his grandfather Abaqa
on his hunting expeditions, and at the age of ten his father
Arghun made him governor of Khurasan, under the tutelage
of the Amir Nawruz, the son of Arghun Agha, who for
thirty-nine years had governed various Persian provinces
for Chingiz Khan and his successors. The Amir Nawruz had
GhAzdn's embraced Islam, and it was through him that
conversion Ghazan was converted to that faith, for at the
beginning of his struggle with his rival Baydu
he had been persuaded by Nawruz to promise that, if God
should grant him the victory, he would accept the religion
of the Arabian Prophet. This promise he faithfully fulfilled ;
on Sha'ban 4, 694 (June 19, 1295), he and ten thousand
Mongols made their profession of faith in the presence of
Shaykh Sadru'd-Din Ibrahim 2 , the son of. the eminent
doctor Sa'du'd-Din al-Hamawi. Nor did Ghazan lack zeal
for his new convictions, for four months after his conversion
he permitted Nawruz to destroy the churches, synagogues
and idol-temples at Tabriz. He also caused a new coinage
bearing Muhammadan inscriptions to be struck, and by an
edict issued in May, 1299, prohibited usury, as contrary to
the Muhammadan religion. In November, 1297, the Mon-
1 Habibds-Siyar (Bombay lithographed ed. of 1857), vol. iii, pt. i,
p. 81.
2 So the Habibrfs-Siyar and Dawlatshdh ; but, according to the
Mujmal of Fasihi, Shaykh Ibrahim al-Juwaynf.
CH. i] GHAZAN (A.D. 1295-1304) 41
gol amirs adopted the turban in place of their national
head-dress.
There was still, however, a considerable section of Mon-
gols, princes, nobles and others, which regarded Ghazan's
_. . . conversion with active dislike. This led to
Disaffection of
the old-fashioned sundry rebellions and intrigues, which, however,
were sternly repressed ; and in the course of
one month, according to the Habibu's-Siyar (loc. cit., p. 85),
no fewer than five Princes and thirty-seven amirs of the
Mongols were put to death by Ghazan and Nawriiz. Naw-
ruz himself, however, in spite of all that Ghazan owed him,
was suspected by his master of secretly intriguing with the
Sultan of Egypt ? and, though he fled to Herat and sought
refuge with Malik Fakhru'd-Dm Kurt, he was taken and
put to death. Shortly afterwards Jamalu'd-Dm Dastajir-
dani, the Sadr-i-Jahdn* and his brother Qutb-i-Jahdn, were
also put to death, and the great historian and physician
Rashfdu'd-Din Fadlu'llah was made prime minister. Ghazin
was a stern ruler; "his reign," as Sir Henry Howorth ob-
serves 2 , "was marked by a terrible roll of executions, and,
as d'Ohsson says, there is hardly a page of Rashfdu'd-Din
at this time without a notice of the execution of some public
functionary."
During a considerable portion of his reign, Ghazan
was at war with Egypt. His first campaign, which was
in the winter of 1299-1300, culminated in the
Mongol victory at Majma'u'l-Muruj near Hims
(Emessa), where the Egyptians, outnumbered
by three or four to one, were completely routed. The
Mongols occupied Damascus and other portions of Syria
for a hundred days, during which Ghazan's name was in-
serted in the khutba. In spite of Ghazan's reassuring
proclamation of December 30, 1299, Syria suffered heavily
from the cruelties and depredations of the Mongols 3 . In
1 On April 30, A.D. 1298. See Howorth's Hist, of the Mongols,
pt. 3, pp. 426-7.
- Howorth, loc. tit., p. 421. 3 Ibid., pp. 444~5-
42 THE MONGOL I'L-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
the following winter (1300-1301) Ghazan again prepared
to invade Syria, but was forced to retreat owing to floods
and bad weather. In the following May he despatched a
letter to the Sultan of Egypt, the answer to which, written
in October, was delivered to him by his envoys in De-
cember, 1 30 1 1 . Rather more than a year later, at the
end of January, 1303, Ghazan again marched against the
Egyptians. Having crossed the Euphrates at the date
above mentioned, he visited Karbala, a spot sanctified to
him by his strong Shi'ite proclivities, and bestowed on the
shrine and its inmates many princely favours. At 'Ana,
whither he next proceeded, Wassaf, the court-
The historian . t i ' i f i
Wassaf is pre- historian, presented him with the first three
sentedtoGhd- volumes (out of five) of the history on which
zan in A.D. 1303 ' . '
he was engaged, and which has been so otten
quoted or mentioned in these pages. Ghazan accompanied
his army for some distance further towards the West, and
then recrossed the Euphrates to await the result of the
campaign at Kashf, two days' journey westwards from
Ardabi'K This campaign proved as disastrous to the
Mongols as the previous one had been fortunate, for they
were utterly defeated by the Egyptians in
Defeat of the '
Mongols at March, 1303, at Marju s-Suffar near Damascus.
Marju's-Sufiar -phe Egyptian victory was celebrated by gene-
m A.D. 1303 . . . . c . J , \\ c
ral rejoicings in Syria and Egypt, especially, 01
course, at Cairo, where every house was decorated and every
point of vantage crowded to see the entry of the Sultan with
his victorious troops, preceded by 1600 Mongol prisoners,
each bearing, slung round his neck, the head of one of his
dead comrades, while a thousand more Mongol heads were
borne aloft on lances, accompanied by the great Mongol
war-drums with their parchment rent 3 . Ghdzan's vexation
was commensurate with the Egyptian Sultan's exultation,
and was increased by a scornful and railing letter addressed
to him by the victor 4 . Condign punishment was inflicted
1 For the contents of these letters, see Howorth, loc. cit.> pp. 458-461 .
2 Ibid., p. 467. 3 Ibid.) p. 474. 4 Ibid., pp. 476-8.
CH. i] CHARACTER OF GHAZAN 43
by him on the Mongol generals and captains who were sup-
posed to have been responsible for this disaster. Ghazan's
health seems to have been undermined by the distress re-
sulting from this reverse to his arms, which was perhaps
still further increased by the abortive conspiracy to depose
him and place his cousin Alafrank the son of
Ga y kMtu on the throne, and he died at the
early age of thirty-two on May 17, 1304.
The mourning for his death throughout Persia was uni-
versal, and appears to have been sincere, for he had restored
Islam to the position it occupied before the in-
Ghazan's / /~<i , -ir-\ / i
character vasion oi Lhingiz Khan, repressed paganism,
and reduced chaos to order. In spite of his
severity, he was merciful compared to his predecessors, and
had the reputation of disliking to shed blood save when
he deemed it expedient or necessary. He was, moreover,
a generous patron of science and literature and a liberal
benefactor of the pious and the poor. Though ill-favoured
and of mean and insignificant appearance, he was brave,
assiduous in all things, and gifted with unusually wide in-
terests and keen intelligence. He was devoted alike to
arts and crafts and to the natural sciences,
IdencT* especially to architecture on the one hand, and
to astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, metal-
lurgy and botany on the other. He was extraordinarily
well versed in the history and genealogy of the Mongols,
and, besides Mongolian, his native tongue, was more or
less conversant with Persian, Arabic, Chinese,
attainders' Tibetan, Kashmiri, and, it is said, Latin. Some-
thing also he knew more than his predecessors
of the lands and peoples of the West, a knowledge chiefly
derived from the numerous envoys of different nations
who sought his capital in Adharbayjcin, and reflected, as
Ho worth remarks (p. 487), in the work of the great his-
torian Rashidu'd-Dm, who acted as his prime minister
during the latter portion of his reign, and who was aware,
for instance, that the Scotch paid tribute to the English and
44 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
that there were no snakes in Ireland 1 . Amongst the envoys
who visited Ghazan's court were represented the Chinese,
the Indians, the Egyptians, the Spaniards (by Solivero of
Barcelona), the English (by Geoffrey de Langley), and many
other nations.
Ghazan was also well grounded in Islam, the faith of
his adoption, and showed a marked predilection for the
Shf'ite form of that religion 2 . How he enriched
tjharan s parti- o
aiityforthe Karbala we have already seen, and the shrine
of the eighth Imam 'All ar-Rida at Mash-had
also benefited by his charity. How far he was influenced
in his conversion by sincere conviction and how much by
political expediency is a matter open to discussion, but his
conversion was in any case a blessing for Persia. A harsh
government is always an evil thing for those subject to its
sway; more evil if it be administered by a foreign, domi-
nant caste; most evil if the administrators be also of an
alien religion hostile to, or unsympathetic towards, the faith
of their subjects. The Mongol dominion had hitherto been
of this last and cruellest type; by Ghazan's conversion it
was ameliorated at once to the second, which again pre-
pared the way for a return to the first. "When Ghazan
became a Muhammadan," says Howorth (p. 486), "he defi-
nitely broke off his allegiance to the Supreme Khan in
the furthest East. Hitherto the Il-khans had been mere
feudatories of the Khaqan of Mongolia and China. They
were now to become independent, and it is natural that
the formulae on the coins should accordingly be changed."
Henceforth Shamans and Buddhist monks could no longer
domineer over the Muslim l ulamd\ their monasteries and
temples gave place to colleges and mosques. Muslim
1 See f. 3i2 a of the India Office MS. of the Jdmi'tft-Taivdrikh
(Persian, 3524 = 2828 of Ethels Catalogue).
2 Sayyid Niiru'llah of Shiishtar includes him in the list of Shi'ite
rulers given in the sixth Majlis of his Majdlisdl-MiVminin. The
pages of the lithographed Tihran edition of this work published in
1268/1851-2 are unfortunately not numbered, so that no more exact
reference can be given.
CH. i] CHARACTER OF GHAZAN 45
learning, enriched in some directions though impoverished
in others, was once more honoured and encouraged. Nor
were material improvements, tending greatly to benefit
the hitherto oppressed subjects of the Il-khans, wanting.
Ghazan was at all times stern and often cruel, but he had
far higher ideals of his duties towards his subjects than
any of his predecessors, and he adopted practical means to
give effect to these ideals. " Be sure," he says 1 , "that God
has elevated me to be a ruler, and has confided his people
to me in order that I may rule them with equity. He has
imposed on me the duty of doing justice, of punishing the
guilty according to their crimes. He would have me most
severe with those who hold the highest rank. A ruler
ought especially to punish the faults of those most highly
placed, in order to strike the multitude by example." An
account of the reforms which he effected in the collection
of taxes, the prevention of extortion, the repression of the
idle and baneful extravagances of the dominant Mongols,
the restoration of confidence and security where the lack of
these had previously reduced prosperous towns to ruined
and deserted hamlets, and withal the restoration of the
finances of the country to a sound and healthy condition
would be out of place here, especially as the matter is fully
discussed by Howorth in his great history (loc. tit., pp. 487-
530). The institution of the new Era, called Il-khanf or
Ghazani, which began on Rajab 13, 701 (March 14, 1302),
was also dictated, at any rate in part, by a desire to put
an end to sundry irregularities which had crept into the
finance. To Ghazan 's credit must also be set his efforts to
suppress or at least minimize prostitution, and the example
he himself gave of a morality far higher than that generally
prevalent amongst his countrymen at that time.
Previous Mongol sovereigns had, in accordance with the
custom of their nation, always taken measures
onazan s mauso- *
leum and chant- to have the place of their burial concealed.
Ghazan, on the other hand, specified the place
1 Howorth, loc. '/., p. 491.
46 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK I
where he should be buried, and spent large sums in erecting
and endowing round about his mausoleum a monastery
for dervishes, colleges for the Shafi'i and Hanaff sects, a
hospital, a library, an observatory, a philosophical academy,
a residence for sayyids, a fountain, and other public build-
ings. Annual endowments amounting to over a hundred
tdtndns, or a million pieces of money, were provided for
the maintenance of these establishments, and every possible
precaution was taken to secure these revenues to their ori-
ginal use. Round about the mausoleum and its dependent
buildings grew up the suburb of Ghazaniyya, which soon
rivalled Tabriz itself in size and surpassed it in beauty.
KHUDA-BANDA (A.D. 1305-1316).
Ghazan was succeeded by his brother Uljaytu the son
of Arghun, who was crowned on July 21, 1305, under the
name of Uljaytu Muhammad Khuda-banda,
Reign of Ul- J
jaytu(A.n. being at the time twenty-four years of age.
1305-1316) As a child he had) at the desire of his mother
Uruk Khatun, been baptised into the Christian church
under the name of Nicolas, but later he was converted
to Islam by his wife, to whom he was married at a very
early age. In his youth he had received the
?L!Sir me curious name of Khar-banda ("ass-servant," i.e.
ass-herd or muleteer), which was afterwards
changed to Khuda-banda (" servant of God "). On the
former name Rashi'du'd-Din has the following verses in
the preface to vol. i of his great history :
CH. i] KHUDA-BANDA (A.D. 1305-1316) 47
The point of these verses, which are hardly worth trans-
lating in their entirety, is that the sum of the numerical
values of the nine letters constituting the words Shah Khar-
banda (jcjj^. ali) is equivalent to that of the fifteen letters
in the words Sdya-i-Khds-i-Afartnanda (jUijjjl jo\. p xL),
for the first gives 300 + I + 5+600+200+2 + 50+4 + 5 = 1 167,
and the second 60 + i + 10 + 5 + 600 +1+90 + 1 + 80 + 200
+ 10+50 +50 + 4+5 = 1 167. Since in the Muhammadan,
as in the Jewish view, words giving the same numerical
equivalent are in some sense identical, the King's name,
Khar-banda, is shown to be equivalent to Sdya-i-Khds-i-
Afarinanda, the "Special Shadow (i.e. Protection) of the
Creator." According to Dawlatshah 1 (an author on whose
uncritical statements no reliance whatever can be placed),
" when, on the death of Arghun Khan, Ghazan Khan be-
came king, Uljaytu Khan fled from him, and for some years
wandered with the ass-herds in the district of Kirman and
Hurmuz, on which account he was called Khar-banda, 'the
Ass-herd.' But others say that this is not so, but that the
parents of a very beautiful child give him an ugly name,
so that the evil eye may not affect him, and that on this
account he was called Khar-banda*"
1 P. 217 of my edition.
2 For another explanation see the Travels of Ibn Batuta (ed.
Defremery and Sanguinetti), vol. ii, p. 115.
48 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
Even before Uljaytu was crowned, it was deemed expe-
dient to get rid of his cousin Alafrank as a possible claimant
to the throne, and he, as well as the general
to death " Harqadaq, was accordingly assassinated by
three Mongol officers. Uljaytu's first act was to
confirm the laws of his predecessor Ghazan, and to ordain
the strict observance of the S/iarf'at, or Canon Law of
Islam; and he appointed Rashi'du'd-Dfn the historian and
physician, and Sa'du'd-Di'n of Sawa as joint Chancellors of
the Exchequer, with absolute authority over his Persian as
opposed to his Mongolian subjects. He visited the cele-
brated observatory of Maragha, and installed Asflu'd-Din,
the son of the eminent Nasiru'd-Din of Tus (who, as already
mentioned, had died in 1272-3), as Astronomer-royal 1 .
Abu Sa'i'd, the son and successor of Uljaytu, was born in the
year of the latter's accession, and in the same year was de-
posed Shah Jahan, the last sovereign of the Qara-Khita'i
dynasty of Kirman. In the same year was founded the
royal city of Sultaniyya 2 , near Zanjan, which
Sultaniyya i ,t , ,
founded soon assumed the most majestic proportions.
Now it is an almost uninhabited ruin, conspicu-
ous only for its magnificent though dilapidated mosque;
but the name of the royal founder is still remembered in
the following doggerel, which I heard from an old man
who accompanied me round the mosque when I visited it
in November, 1887:
" O Shah Khuda-banda, worker of injustice, two fowls for one village ! "
The last line is Turkish, but I have never been able to
ascertain to what it alludes.
1 The death of Asflu'd-Din is recorded in the MujmatofFusihi under
the year A. H. 7 1 4 (A.D. 1 3 1 4- 1 5). Abu'l-Faraj Bar- H ebraeus gives the date
of Nasfru'd-Din's death as 675/1 276-7 (Beyrouted. of 1890, pp. 500-501).
2 Tafrtkh-i-Waffdfi pp. 477-8. The author gives a long poem by
himself on this event, at the end of which he mentions " the day of
Anfran in the month of Farwardfn in the year A.H. 710" as the date
when his poem was completed (March-April, A.D. 1311).
CH. i] CLJAYTC'S EMBASSIES 49
Two months after Uljaytu's succession he received em-
bassies from three of the Mongol rulers (of whom Ti'mur
Oa'an, Emperor of China, was the most im-
Ambassadors i i i i
received and portant) to announce the truce which had just
^ es ?f, t . c , hec ! been concluded between them. Three months
by Uljaytu
later arrived an embassy from Tuqtay, and
shortly afterwards Uljaytu despatched ambassadors to
Egypt, to assure Sultan Ndsir of his friendly disposition.
He was also in correspondence with Philip le Bel, Edward
the Second, and Pope Clement V. The bearer of the II-
khan's letters to and from these potentates was Thomas
Ildouchi 1 , who, as d'Ohsson observes (vol. iv, pp. 590-8),
evidently concealed from the European courts to which he
was accredited the fact that his master Uljaytu had em-
braced Islam; for the letters on both sides are extant, and
both Edward II (in a letter dated Nov. 30, 1307) and
Pope Clement V (in a letter dated March i, 1308) assume
explicitly that Uljaytu would help them in extirpating
what they describe as " the abominable sect of Mahomet."
Uljdytu, meanwhile, was preoccupied with devising some
test whereby he might prove the sincerity of the numerous
Jews who at this time desired to profess Islam. This was
finally effected by the learning of Rashidu'd-Din, who, as
his history shows, was thoroughly conversant with Jewish
tradition and doctrine, and was even accused by his ene-
mies of being a Jew, or of regarding Judaism with undue
favour. The intending proselyte was bidden to partake of
camel's flesh seethed in milk, and the sincerity of his con-
version was judged by his readiness to eat this doubly-
unlawful food. It was about this time also (April 14,
1306) that the aforesaid Rashidu'd-Din presented the
finished portion of his great historical work, the Jdmi'u't-
Tawdrikh to Uljaytu.
The chief wars of Uljaytu's reign were the conquest of
Gilan in the early summer of 1307 and the
capture of Herat in the latter part of the same
1 Cf. p. 1 1 supra, and n. 2 ad calc.
B. P. 4
50 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
year. In both campaigns a gallant resistance was made, and
success was not achieved by the Mongols without serious
losses. In the defence of Herat especially the most con-
spicuous courage and resource were shown by the Ghuri
captain, Muhammad Sam, to whose charge the city had
been entrusted by Fakhru'd-Dm Kurt. He
Executions 1-111 i
was, however, ultimately taken by treachery
and put to death. Amongst other notable persons who
suffered death in Uljaytu's reign were Musa the Kurd, who
claimed to be the Mahdi or appointed Saviour of Islam ;
Sa'du'd-Dm, the associate and later the rival of Rashfdu'd-
Di'n, who was executed on a charge of peculation from the
treasury; and Taju'd-Din Awaji, an extreme Shi'ite, who
had tried to convert Uljaytu to his doctrines. But what the
unfortunate Taju'd-Dm failed to accomplish nevertheless
was brought about by other means. Uljaytu be-
s ' longed to the Hanafi sect, the doctors of which,
relying on the royal favour, waxed arrogant,
until the King was induced by his minister Rashidu'd-
Din to incline to the Shafi'f doctrine. Thereupon violent
disputes took place in Uljaytu's presence between the repre-
sentatives of these two Sunni schools, who, in the heat of
controversy, brought against each other such abominable
accusations that Uljaytu was greatly annoyed with both, and
even the Mongol nobles, who were by no means squeamish,
professed disgust, and began to ask whether it was for this
that they had abandoned the faith of their ancestors, to
which they now called on Uljaytu to return. The Il-khan
was further alarmed by a violent thunder-storm by which
he was overtaken about this time, and which, according to
the Mongols and their bakshis or priests (who, expelled by
Ghazan, would appear to have returned to Persia under his
successor, unless, as d'Ohsson implies, they were brought
back ad hoc) was a signal of the Divine displeasure 1 . For
some time he was distracted with doubt, until at length he
was persuaded by the Amir Taramtaz to follow Ghazan's
1 D'Ohsson, vol. iv, pp. 536-541.
CH. i] ABtJ SA'fD (A.D. 1317-1334) 51
example and adopt the Shf'ite creed. This he ultimately
did 1 , after he had visited 'All's tomb and there seen a vision
which convinced him that the homage of the faithful was due,
after the Prophet, to 'All ibn Abi Talib and his descendants.
Uljaytu conducted one campaign against Syria, of which
the chief event was the siege of Rahbat, which, however, the
Mongols were obliged to raise when the town
^nTtT'ria was re duced to the last extremity on account
of the heat and the scarcity of provisions. As
the result of dissensions between the brothers of the house
of Qatada who ruled Mecca alternately according to the
fortune of war, Uljaytu's name was for a while substituted
in public prayer in the Holy City for that of the Egyptian
Sultan Nasir.
Uljaytu died at Sultaniyya from the sequelae of an attack
of gout on December 16, 1316, at the comparatively early
age of thirty-five. He is described as "virtuous,
Death of J
uijaytu in liberal, not readily influenced by calumny ; but,
like all Mongol princes, addicted to spirituous
drinks, and chiefly occupied with his pleasures." His funeral
obsequies were celebrated with great pomp, and he was
mourned by his subjects for eight days. He had twelve
wives, who bore him six sons and three daughters, but five
of the former and one of the latter died in childhood.
His surviving son, Abu Sa'id, succeeded him ; his two
surviving daughters were married to the Amir Chuban, and
one of them, Sati Beg, subsequently held for a short time
the position of queen in the year 1339.
ABU SA'ID (A.D. 1317-1334).
Abu Sa'id, who was in Mazandaran at the time of his
father's death, was crowned in April, 1317, being then under
Reign of Abu thirteen years of age. The Amir Chuban was
Sa'id (A.D. 1317 made Amiru'l- Umard, while 'Ah'-shah was asso-
ciated with Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah in the
1 The inscription on one of his coins affords proof of this. See
d'Ohsson, vol. iv, p. 541 ad calc.
42
52 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
wazirate. Between these two ministers there existed a
great rivalry, and it soon became evident that one or other
must succumb. The victim was Rashidu'd-Di'n, whose
greater scrupulousness and honour placed him at a disad-
vantage. By the intrigues of his rival he was deposed in
October, 1317, and the death of the powerful Amir Savinj
in January, 1318, deprived him of his chief protector. The
Amir Chuban was anxious to reinstate him in office, but
though he pleaded his advanced age and desired only to
be allowed to live out the remainder of his life in peace and
retirement, his rival 'Ali-shah took alarm, renewed his in-
trigues, and succeeded in persuading Abu Sa'id that Rashidu
'd-Din and his youthful and comely son Khwaja Ibrahim
were guilty of poisoning the late ruler Uljaytu. Both were
condemned to death and executed on July 18,
Execution of <-> T-> ^ > i > < -r^> i ^1
Rashfdu'd-Dm I3i8, Rashidu d-Din being then over seventy
and his son in years f a g e - His body was outraged, his houses
and possessions plundered, and his relatives and
connections subjected to all sorts of persecution. More
will presently be said of his character, learning, charity and
literary achievements.
About a month after this sad event (August, 1318) began
the rebellion of Yasawur, whose ambition led him to covet
the province of Khurasan. He succeeded in
Rebellions
compassing the death of Yasa ul, and, having
made himself master of Khurasan, invaded and ravaged
Mazandaran, but retired before Abu Sa'fd's general, Amir
Husayn into the Garm-sir, or hot region bordering on the
Persian Gulf. About the same time a formidable conspiracy
of Mongol captains, such as Iranchin 1 , Tuqmaq and Isen-
buq was formed against Chuban, but the latter, supported
by Abu Sa'fd, utterly defeated them near Ujan in June,
1319, and those of the rebel leaders who did not perish in
the battle were put to death with every circumstance of
1 Or Irinjin, the nephew of Doquz KMtun. See Chabot's Hist, de
Mar Jabalaha III, p. 141 adcalc.
CH. i] ABti SA'fD (A.D. 1317-1334) 53
ignominy and cruelty at Sultaniyya. Amongst the victims
was Kinjik (or Kikhshik, or Kichik), the grand-daughter of
Abaqa and wife of Iranchin, who had fought with con-
spicuous bravery in the battle to avenge the death of her
son Shaykh 'Ah', and was now, according to Nuwayri's
account 1 , trampled to death by horses at the command of
Abu Sa'id. Two months later Chuban was rewarded by
being given in marriage Satf Beg, the king's sister, while
the king, to commemorate his valour in this battle, took the
title of Bahadur Khan.
The years 1318-1319 were remarkable for grievous
famines in Asia Minor and elsewhere, followed in 1320 by
terrific hail-storms. Abu Sa'id, much alarmed,
LTstorm 1 ? consulted the theologians as to the cause of these
calamities. They ascribed them to the laxity
which prevailed about wine-drinking and prostitution,
taverns and brothels being in many cases situated close to
mosques and colleges. Abu Sa'id thereupon closed all dis-
orderly houses, and caused an enormous quan-
Suppression t j t Q f to b destroyed, but he allowed
of taverns * *
one wine-shop to remain for the use of travellers
in each district. These measures produced a very good
impression in Egypt, and facilitated the conclusion of a
treaty between Abu Sa'id and Sultan Nasir, the Egyptian
ruler, who had recently carried his hostility against the
Mongols so far as to send thirty assassins of the
Assassins em- .
ployed against Isma'ili sect from Syria to attempt the life ot
Qara Sunqur. Although this attempt mis-
carried, it greatly alarmed the Mongols, and both sides were
thus prepared to come to terms and to set aside their
ancient feuds. A treaty was ultimately concluded in 1323
between the two states, after a Mongol princess 2 (a grand-
1 D'Ohsson, vol. iv, pp. 636 and 641 ad calc. According to another
account she perished in the battle, while WassaT (p. 645) says she was
stoned to death, and her body cast naked into the street.
* Ibid., pp. 655-6. The princess's journey from Sardy to Alex-
andria, where she arrived in April, 1320, occupied nearly six months.
54 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
daughter of Batu) had been given in marriage to Sultan
Nasir in 1320.
In 1322 Timur-Tash the son of Chuban revolted in Asia
Minor and declared himself to be the expected Mahdi or
Revolt of Messiah, but he was overcome by his father, par-
Tfmur-Tash doned, and ultimately reinstated in his govern-
ment by Abu Sa'id. About the same time Armenia was de-
Armenia vastated by the Egyptians,and Popejohn XXII
devastated endeavoured to stir up the European powers on
their behalf; to which end he wrote a letter (dated July 12,
I322) 1 to Abu Sa'id asking him to aid them, and exhorting
him at the same time to embrace the Christian faith. He
also appointed 2 a Dominican named Fra^ois de Peruse
archbishop of Sultaniyya.
Early in 1324 died the prime minister 'Ali-shah, who
was chiefly remarkable as the first Mongol wazir to die a
Abu Sa'id natural death. He was succeeded by Ruknu'd-
becomes Din Sa'in, who enjoyed the support of the
impatient J J rr
great Amir Chuban. The power of this Amir,
power however, began to arouse the jealousy of Abu
Sa'id, now about twenty-one years of age, and an open
rupture was precipitated by Abu Sa'id's passion for Baghdad
Khatun, the daughter of Chuban and wife of Shaykh Hasan
Jala'ir, and by the intrigues of the ungrateful Ruknu'd-Dm
against his benefactor. A threatened invasion of Khurasan
by the Mongols of Transoxiana obliged Chuban and his son
Husayn to be present in the eastern portion of the empire,
while another son named Dimashq Khwaja, against whom
Abu Sa'id was already incensed, remained at the court,
which returned from its winter quarters at Baghdad to
Sultaniyya in the spring of 1327. Abu Sa'id, growing daily
more impatient of Dimashq Khwaja's arrogance and im-
morality, only awaited a reasonable excuse to destroy him.
1 A translation of this letter is given by d'Ohsson, vol. iv, pp. 662-3.
2 D'Ohsson, vol. iv, p. 664. This appointment was made on May i,
1318. The first archbishop resigned in 1323, and was succeeded by
Guillaume d'Ada.
CH. i] DEATH OF AMfR CHtfBAN 55
Nor had he to wait long, for about this time it was discovered
that Dimashq was engaged in an intrigue with one of
Uljaytu's former concubines. Finding himself detected, he
endeavoured to escape, but was overtaken and
Kh *j a q put put to death, and his head was exhibited over
to death in one o f the gates of Sultaniyya. This took place
on August 25, I327 1 . He left four daughters,
of whom the most notable was Dilshdd Kh^tun. She was
married first to Abu Sa'i'd, to whom she bore a posthumous
daughter who died in infancy, and afterwards to Shaykh
Hasan Il-khanf, to whom she bore Sultan Uways and another
son. This Sultan Uways reigned at Baghdad from 1356-
1374, and was, as we shall see, a notable patron of poets
and men of letters and learning.
Abu Sa'i'd, having taken this decisive step, resolved to
exterminate Chuban and his whole family. Chuban, warned
of the king's intention, first put to death the
Death of wazir, Ruknu'd-Dm Sa'in, and then collected
Chubdn
his troops, to the number of seventy thousand,
and marched westwards, first to Mashhad and then to
Simnan, whence he sent the venerable Shaykh 'Ala'd-Di'n
to intercede for him with Abu Sa'i'd. The Il-khan was not
to be moved, and Chuban continued his advance westwards
until he arrived within a day's march of Abu Sa'i'd. All
seemed to be in Chuban's favour, until some of his most
important amirs deserted to the king, taking with them
some thirty thousand men. Thereupon Chuban retreated,
first to Savva, where he left his wives Karduchi'n and Sati
Beg, and then to Tabas. His followers continued to desert
him until he was finally left with only seventeen persons.
He then decided to take refuge at Herat with Ghiyathu'd-
Din Kurt, who, however, betrayed him, and caused him and
his chief officers to be strangled. His body was, by the
Il-khan's order, conveyed to al-Madfna with great pomp,
1 Ibn Batiita gives a full account of the death of Dimashq Khwaja.
See vol. ii, pp. 117-119.
56 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
and there buried in the tomb which he had prepared for
himself 1 .
Abu Sa'i'd was now free to marry Baghdad Khatun, but,
though she soon acquired a great influence over him, he did
not cease persecuting her family. Another of
Fate of Chuban s
son Timtir-Tash, Chuban's sons,Ti'mur-Tash, who was governor of
Asia Minor, took refuge at the Egyptian court,
where he arrived on January 21, 1328. He was at first well
received, sumptuously entertained, and given an allowance
of 1500 dinars a day; but the urgent demands of Abii Sa'i'd
for his extradition, combined with the intrigues of the
Egyptian Sultan's courtiers, soon decided the latter to get
rid of him. For a while he hesitated between the extradi-
tion and the execution of his once powerful guest, but finally
he decided to kill him, fearing lest, if he were sent to Abu
Sa'i'd, the intercession of his sister Baghdad Khatun and his
old friend Ghiyathu'd-Din, the son of the great Rashi'du'd-
Di'n, now himself prime minister, might induce the f 1-khan
to forgive him, and that, should this happen, he would
certainly seek to revenge himself on the Egyptians. Timur-
Tash was therefore put to death in prison on the night of
Thursday, August 22, 1328, and his head, embalmed and
placed in a casket, was sent to Abu Sa'i'd.
Of the waztr Ghiyathu'd-Din b. Rashidu'd-Di'n the con-
temporary historian Hamdu'llah Mustawfi ofQazwin speaks
in enthusiastic terms in his Ta'rikh-i-Giizida,
Ministry of Ghi- /-. i T T i i i i- i i
yathu'd-Dinb. or Select History, which is dedicated to him.
Rashidu-d-Dm <That minister of good repu te," he says, "like
his illustrious father, made the most admirable efforts to
secure the order of the world ; and inasmuch as to pardon
when one has power to injure is the extreme of human
perfection, and all the greatest of former ages have followed
this path, and thus 'obtained, by their virtuous conduct, the
highest honour and an enduring name, so this minister of
angelic temperament, inspired by the certainty of his con-
victions, did even more than this, for, instead of punishing
1 See Ibn Batiita, vol. ii, pp. 119-121.
CH. i] THE KURT RULERS OF HERAT 57
those who had wrought towards his noble family ill deeds
whereof the recapitulation would disgust the hearts of my
hearers, he drew the pen of forgiveness through the record
of their crimes, recompensed their evil actions with good,
and made each one of them an exemplar of the prosperity
of this Empire, raising them to the highest ranks, and en-
trusting to them the most important functions, so that each
now beholds with his own eyes that which he did most
ardently desire 1 ."
This complaisance of Ghiyathu'd-Din nearly caused his
destruction when the rebellious Amir Nan'n Buqa sought his
intercession with Abu Sa'id at the very moment when he
was plotting the minister's assassination. On this occasion,
however, the king, prompted by his wife Baghdad Khatun,
who hated Nan'n Buqa as the destroyer of her father and
brothers, intervened, and caused the rebel and his con-
federate Tash-Timur to be executed on October 5, 1327.
The last years of AbuSa'i'd's reign saw numerous changes
in the Kurt kings of Herat Ghiyathu'd-Din died in October,
1329, and was succeeded by his eldest son
Kurt rukrs Shamsu'd-Di'n, who was so much addicted to
of Herat
drink that it was said that during a reign of ten
months he was only sober for ten days. He was succeeded
by his younger brother Hafiz, a gentle scholar, who was
assassinated in 1332, and replaced by his infant brother
Mu'izzu'd-Din, whose election was approved by Abu Sa'id.
He enjoyed a long reign of forty years, and was followed
by his son, Ghiyathu'd-Din Pir 'All, in whose time the
dynasty, which had endured since 1245, was extinguished
by Tamerlane.
In August, 1335, Abu Sa'id, having learned that Uzbek,
the Khan of the Golden Horde, intended an invasion of his
Death of dominions, was preparing to take the field
Abu Sa'rd against him when he fell ill, and died at Qara-
bagh near Arrdn on Nov. 30 of that year. He
1 See p. 611 of the fac-simile edition of the Tc?rtkh-i-Guzida pub-
lished in the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial " Series, vol. xiv, i.
58 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
is described by Ibn Taghribardi as " a brave and brilliant
prince of majestic appearance, generous and witty." He
was a good calligraphist, composer and musician, and is
praised by this historian not only for his good moral
character and for his suppression of the drink traffic, but
also for his destruction of the Christian churches. It is
suggested by Mirkhwand and positively asserted by Ibn
Batuta 1 that Abu Sa'fd was poisoned by Baghdad Khatun,
who was jealous of the ascendancy obtained by her younger
rival Dilshad Khatun over the f 1-khan 2 . At any rate, whether
guilty or not, Baghdad Khatun was put to death 3 .
With Abu Sa'id's death the dynasty of the Il-khans of
Persia, founded by Hulagii Khan, practically came to an
end, and a period of anarchy ensued which lasted until
another great wave of conquest from the land of Turan
swept over Persia and Asia Minor thirty-five years later,
led by the ruthless and irresistible conqueror Timur-i-Lang
(" Limping Timur "), or, as he is commonly called in Europe,
Tamerlane. By a strange coincidence, noticed in the
Matla'u's-Sa'dayn*, the year of Timur's birth was the same
as that of Abu Sa'i'd's death, and the chronogram lawdh
( = " refuge ! ") 5 has been devised for it, since this word
gives the date (A.H. 736) according to the Muhammadan
computation, and men might well seek refuge with God
from this double calamity the death of Abu Sa'i'd and the
birth of Ti'mur which this year brought.
On the death of Abu Sa'i'd, who left no sons, Arpa, or
Arpaga'un, a descendant of Arik-buqa, the
^Arpl " brother of Hulagu, was, at the instance of
the minister Ghiyathu'd-Din b. Rashfdu'd-Din,
1 Ibn Batuta, vol. ii, p. 123.
' 2 See Howorth's History of the Mongols, pt. 3, p. 624. In the
first line of this page, Nov. 30, 1334, is given as the date of Abu Sa'i'd's
death. This error is apparently due to a careless perusal of the last
paragraph in d'Ohsson's Hist, des Mongols, vol. iv, p. 716.
3 The manner of her death is related by Ibn Batuta, vol. ii, p. 123.
4 See Rieu's Persian Catalogue, p. 182.
5 See Howorth's History of the Mongols, pt. 3, p. 634.
CH. i] COLLAPSE OF THE fL-KHANS 59
chosen as his successor. To strengthen his position, he
married Sati Beg, the widow of Chuban and sister of Abu
Sa'fd. He then marched against Uzbek and defeated him.
But meanwhile Amir 'All Padishah and other amirs, dis-
approving of Arpa's election, set up a rival
frivliSant f 1-khan in the person of Musa, a descendant of
Hulagu. A battle took place between the two
rivals near Maraghaon April 29, 1336. Arpa was defeated,
and both he and the wazir Ghiyathu'd-Di'n were put to
death shortly afterwards. Musa, however, was not suffered
to enjoy the fruits of victory for long : another rival,
Muhammad Shah, also descended from Hulagu, was set up
against him by Shaykh Hasan the Jala'ir (called Buznrg,
"the Great"). Another battle was fought at Ala-Tagh near
the town of Naw-Shahr,in which, by the treachery of Shaykh
Hasan Buzurg, Musa was routed and 'All Padishah killed.
Yet another claimant was set up in the person of Tughay-
Ti'mur, who joined forces with Musa, and fought another
battle with Shaykh Hasan Buzurg near Maragha in June,
1337, in which Musa was taken prisoner and put to death
(July, 1337), while Tughay-Timur fled to Bistam. Shaykh
Hasan,the son of Timur-Tash,the son of Chuban,now added
to the confusion by producing a pretender whom he asserted
to be his father Timur-Tash, whose execution by the Sultan
of Egypt has been already mentioned. A battle finally took
place at Nakhjuwan on July 10, 1338, between the two
Hasans, in which Hasan "the Greater" was defeated, while
his protege Muhammad Shah was taken prisoner and put to
death. Shaykh Hasan "the Less" (the grandson of Chuban)
now quarrelled with the pretended Ti'mur-Tash, and espoused
the cause of the princess Sati Beg, the sister of the late
king Abu Sa'fd and widow of his grandfather Chuban.
She was proclaimed queen in 739 (i 338-9), and a reconcilia-
tion was effected between the two Hasans.
It is hardly worth following these intrigues further.
Those who desire fuller information about them, and about
the tortuous policy of Shaykh Hasan " the Less," will find
60 THE MONGOL fL-KHANS (A.D. 1265-1337) [BK i
it in the pages of d'Ohsson and Howorth. Suffice it to say
that Tughay-Ti'mur was betrayed by the astute Shaykh
Hasan " the Less," who then set up another puppet, Sulay-
man Khan, a descendant of Hulagu, and gave him Sati Beg
in marriage, while Hasan " the Greater " set up as a rival a
descendant of Abaqa named Shah Jahan Tfmur. A battle
took place between the two factions near Maragha in 1 340.
Hasan "the Greater" was defeated, retired to Baghdad,
deposed his puppet Shah Jahan Ti'mur, and, proclaiming
himself king, founded the dynasty more important in
literary than in political history of the Jala'irs, who reigned
until 1411 over Western Persia and Mesopotamia, with
Baghdad as their capital. As for Hasan " the Less," the
grandson of Chuban, he was murdered in 1343, while march-
ing to attack his rival, by his wife 'Izzat Malik, who expiated
her crime by a most cruel and ignominious death. On this
event the contemporary poet Salman of Sawa (who, being
a protege of the rival Shaykh Hasan, was delighted at the
death of Chuban's grandson) has the following verses 1 ,
which hardly bear translation :
O- ***
The Mongol ascendancy in Persia was now at an end,
and, until Timur's hordes swept over the country (1384-
I 393) ^ was divided into at least four kingdoms, those of
the Jala'irs, the Muzaffan's, the Kurts and the Sar-ba-dars,
whose history will be considered in another chapter.
1 Habibrfs-Siyar, vol. iii, p. 131 (Bombay lithographed ed. of A.D.
1857). I cannot find these lines in the Bombay lithographed edition
of Salmon's poems, but they are given in the Matla <l n's-Sa i dayn.
CH. i] END OF MONGOL ASCENDANCY 61
Besides the travels of Ibn Batuta, repeatedly cited in the
notes, much light is thrown on this period by the travels in
Persia of Friar Odoric of Pordenone about A.D. I3I8 1 ; the
particulars given about " Bousaet " or " Boussay " (i.e. Abu
Sa'fd) and his kingdom by the Archbishop of Sultaniyya
in a tract written about A.D. 1330; and the narratives of
the consuls who represented Venetian interests in Tabriz
and other Persian towns between the years A.D. 1305 and
I332 2 .
1 A fine edition of this work, edited by M. Henri Cordier, was
published by Leroux of Paris in 1891.
2 See Howorth, op. cit., pt. 3, 628-633.
CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORIANS OF THE IL-KHANI PERIOD.
The period of about seventy years which we are now
considering is chiefly remarkable, from the literary point of
view, for the large number of eminent Persian
pre-eminently historians which it produced. At least eight of
that of the these deserve somewhat detailed notices, besides
great historians
a rather larger number of notable poets, whose
number might easily be increased if those of the second
rank were included. Before considering these Persian
writers, however, a few words must be said about the
Arabic literature of this period of which it behoves even
students whose primary interest is in Persian letters to have
at least some general idea.
So long as the Caliphate endured and Baghdad remained,
in theory at least, the metropolis of all orthodox Muslims,
the Arabic language held throughout those wide
Arabic literature Domains a position analogous to that of Latin
in this period
in Europe during the Middle Ages ; that is to
say it was not only (what it still remains) the language of
theology, philosophy and science, but also to a large extent
of diplomacy, polite society and belles lettres. The over-
throw of the Caliphate by the Mongols greatly impaired its
position and diminished its prestige, but this decline did
not become very conspicuous so long as those survived
whose education had been completed before Islam suffered
this great disaster, that is to say for some fifty or sixty
years after the fall of Baghdad. In the later periods which
we have to consider a knowledge of contemporary Arabic
literature, though always important, becomes less essential
to the student of Persian history and letters, but at this
BK I CH. n] ARABIC LITERATURE 63
period it is still vital, especially in the domains of history,
biography and travel, not to mention theology, philosophy
and science, where it continues to be indispensable.
The Arabic literature with which we are here concerned
falls into three classes. First, the Arabic works of bilingual
Persians whose Persian writings entitle them to
Three classes of men t j on j n the literary history of their country.
Arabic literature
important to the Of this class the Qadi'l-Qudat (Chief Justice)
student of Per- N ^i r u'd-Dfn al-Bayddwf may be taken as an
example. Al-Bayda ("the White"), from which
he derived his cognomen, is the Arabic name of a place in
Fars so called on account of a white tomb (turbat-i-safidy
(1) Arabic works which renders it conspicuous. Al-Baydawi is
of bilingual best known as the author of the famous com-
feaere mention mentary on the Quran entitled Asrdru't- Tamil,
on account of vvhich is written in Arabic 2 ; but he also wrote
tions to Persian in Persian a history of Persia entitled Nizdmu't-
Hterature Tawdrikh, whereof mention will be made in the
course of this chapter. To speak of him merely as a his-
torian of the second rank and to ignore his far more impor-
tant work as a commentator would be to do
(2) Arabic works , . . . . f, ,. . , . ,
which profoundly him a great injustice, secondly, Arabic works
influenced Per- ^y non-Persians which have profoundly in-
sian thought . ir->/
fluenced Persian thought, such as the Fusiisu l-
Hikam and other writings of Shaykh Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-
'Arabi, and the writings of Shaykh Sadru'd-Dm of Qonya
(Iconium), which were the sources whence such
(3) Arabic histori- . , T-II > i T^/ T ' > J J
cai, geographical mystical poets as Fakhru d-Din Iraqi derived
and biographical t ne j r inspiration. Thirdly, and most important,
Arabic historical, geographical and biographical
works which throw light on the persons, places, circum-
stances and ideas which we shall meet with in the course
of our investigations. Amongst these special mention
must be made of the lives of physicians ( Tabaqatu'l-Atibbd)
1 See Nuzhattfl-Quliib (ed. G. le Strange), vol. xxiii, I of the
" E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, p. 122, 11. 21 et seqq.
- See Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Lift., vol. i, pp. 416-418.
64 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a 1 (d. 668/1270); the great biographical
work of Ibn Khallikan (d. 681/1282) entitled Wafaydtu'l-
A'ydn*; the Athdru'l-Bildd ("Monuments of the Lands")
of Zakariyya b. Muhammad al-Qazwinf 3 (d. 682/1283) ; the
general history, especially important for the Mongol period,
entitled Mukhtasant d-Duwal of Abu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus
(d. July 30, 1289)*; the well-known history of Abu'1-Fida,
Prince of Hamat (d. 732/1331), entitled Al-Mukhtasar f{
Ta rikh? l-Bashar* ; and the illuminating travels of Ibn
Batuta 6 (d. 779/1377), which extended over a period of
24 years (1325-1349) and included not only Persia but the
greater part of Asia from Constantinople to India and
China, and from Arabia to Afghanistan and Transoxiana.
The student of Persian history and literature who ignores
these books is cut off from some of the richest sources of
trustworthy information, yet they are constantly
Value of the neglected even by experts who write authorita-
Atharul-Bilad J
tively on the Persian poets and other kindred
topics. Take only the " Monuments of the Lands " of
al-Qazwi'm above mentioned, consider the following list of
eminent Persian poets to whom reference is made under the
towns wherein they were born or where they spent their
lives, and see how much information about them is given
which is vainly sought in the Persian tadhkiras or " Memoirs "
commonly consulted on such matters 7 : Anwari (p. 242),
1 Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., vol. i, pp. 325-6. The text
was printed at Cairo in 2 vols., 1299/1882.
2 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 326-8. This work is accessible to the English
reader in the excellent translation of the Baron McGuckin de Slane,
4 vols., London and Paris, 1843-1871.
3 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 481-2 ; published by Wiistenfeld together with
the better known but less valuable 'Aja'ibTi'l-Makhluqdt, or " Wonders
of Creation " of the same author at Gottingen in 1818.
4 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 349-350. I have not used Pococke's edition
(Oxford, 1663), but the text printed at Beyrout in 1890.
5 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 44-46.
6 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 256-7 ; edited with a French translation by
Defre"mery and Sanguinetti in 4 vols. (Paris, 1853-1858, and 1869-1879).
7 The references are to the pages of Wiistenfeld's edition, which is
CH. n], TA'RlKH-I-JAHAN-GUSHA 65
'Asjadf (p. 278), Awhadu'd-Din Kirmani (p. 164), Fakhrf of
Jurjan (p. 351), Farrukhi (p. 278), Firdawsf (pp. 278-9 and
a verse from the Shdhndma quoted on p. 135), Jalal-i-Tabi'b
(p. 257), Jalal-i-Khwarf (p. 243), Khaqani (pp. 272-3,
where 3 bayts of his poetry are cited, and p. 404), Abu
Tahir al-Khatuni (p. 259), Mujfr of Baylaqan (p. 345),
Nizami (pp. 351-2), Nasir-i-Khusraw (pp. 328-9), Abu
Sa'fd ibn Abi'l-Khayr (pp. 241-2), Sana'i (p. 287), Shams-i-
Tabasi (pp. 272-3), 'Umar-i-Khayyam (p. 318), 'Unsuri
(p. 278)and Rashidu'd-Din Watwat (pp. 223-4). Here, then,
we have notices, some fairly full and containing matter not
to be found elsewhere, of 19 important Persian poets who
flourished before or during the thirteenth century, these
being in many cases the oldest notices extant 1 , since the
Lubdbul-Albdb of 'Awfi and the Chahdr Maqdla, "Four
Discourses," of Nizami-i-'Arudi of Samarqand are almost
the only Persian works of greater antiquity which treat
more or less systematically of the lives of Persian poets.
And this is only one subject out of many interesting to the
student of Persian dealt with in this most entertaining work.
We must now pass to the historians, who, as I have
already said, are by far the most important writers of this
period, for, while other periods, both earlier and later, have
produced poets alike more numerous and more celebrated,
none have produced historians comparable in merit to these.
Of 'Ata Malik-i-Juwaym"s Tdrikh-i-Jahdn-guslid or
" History of the World-Conqueror " (i.e. Chingiz Khan),
repeated mention was made in a preceding
The Ta'rikh-i- vo i ume 2 b u t something more must be added
Jahan-gushd
here. It was completed in 658/1260, but con-
the standard one. The work has not been translated, so far as I know,
into any European language.
1 On p. 334 of the AthdruH-Bildd the author tells us that he met
Shaykh Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabf in 630/1232-3, while the author's
autograph copy of the book is dated 674/1275-6, so that its composition
lies between these limits.
2 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, where the chief references are pp. 434,
435. 443 and 473-
B. P. 5
66 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
eludes with the events of the year 655/1257, notably the
destruction of the Assassins by the author's master and
patron Hulagu Khan. Some few MSS. contain an Appendix
describing the sack of Baghdad, which took place in the
following year, but this is probably an addition by a later
hand. The work comprises three parts, of which the first
deals with the history of Chingfz Khan and his ancestors,
and his successors down to Chaghatay ; the second relates
the history of the Khwarazm-shahs, especially of the two
last rulers of this dynasty, Qutbu'd-Di'n Muhammad and
his son Jalalu'd-Dfn ; while the third treats of the Isma'i'lf
sect and especially of Hasan-i-Sabbah and his successors,
the Assassins of Alamut. The work is therefore not a
general history, but a historical monograph on Chingfz
Khan and his predecessors and successors, to which are
added accounts of the two chief dynasties with which he
came in conflict in Persia and Mesopotamia. Further par-
ticulars about this most valuable and original history are
given in an article which I contributed to the J.R.A.S. for
January, 1904, pp. 1-17, and the first and second of the
three volumes which it comprises have already appeared
(in 1912 and 1916 respectively) in the " E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial " Series (xvi, I and xvi, 2), edited by my learned
friend Mirza Muhammad ibn 'Abdu'l-Wahhab of Qazwin,
who has prefixed to the first volume 1 a full and critical
account of the work and its author, and of the family of
statesmen to which he belonged, He died in March 1283.
His brother Shamsu'd-Dfn the Sdhib-Dzwdn wrote this
verse on his death :
"He and I, thou wouldst say, were two lamps which in unison shone ;
One lamp burneth still, but alas ! for the other is gone ! "
1 English Introduction, pp. xv-xcii ; Persian ditto, ^.5 -^.
Ill
^>U^%tu! r / ffij^b&Jj^t^jtf&jUj^
jw^J^ttu^^
j^oy
tj^U*D>v J
^f>cC^l**t/J
'>&Jj&^w^
bj*i$^>.yfajQj^
7^ ; A 6^ J^M^ii^2J!nI^^
W^>^^frfc^^&j$jJ\^ bUtjLu&J
tM^j&j&b -^bxjbJ^//^-^ U^L^
Colophon of the oldest MS. of the Tdrikh-i-Jahdn-gushd in the
Bibliotheque Nationale, dated A.H. 689 (A.D. 1290)
To face p. 66
CH. n] TA'RIKH-I-WASSAF 67
The following chronogram on his death was composed
by Sadru'd-Dm 'All, the son of Nasiru'd-Dm of Tus 1 :
O J* -5
The Tarikh-i- Wassdf was intended, as its author in-
forms us, to be a continuation of the above-mentioned his-
tory, and may therefore most conveniently be
mentioned next, although it is of slightly later
date than the Jdmi'u't- Tawdrikh, of which we
shall next speak. Its proper title is Tajziyatu'l-A msdr wa
Tazjiyatiil-A'sdr (the "Allotment of Lands and Propulsion
of Ages"), and its author, though commonly known simply as
Wassdf (the " Panegyrist ")or Wassdf-i-Hadrat(\he "Court
Panegyrist "), was properly named 'Abdu'llah ibn Fadlu'llah
of Shiraz. He was employed in the collection of revenue
for the Mongol Government, and was a protege of the great
minister Rashidu'd-Din, who presented him and his book to
Uliaytu. as he himself relates 2 , at Sultaniyya on
Dr Rieu's esti- J * TT-I- "T-.-H
mate of its merits June I, A.D. 1^12. HlS history, as RlCU Well
says 3 , "contains an authentic contemporary
record of an important period, but its undoubted value is
in some degree diminished by the want of method in its
arrangement, and still more by the highly artificial character
and tedious redundance of its style. It was unfortunately
set up as a model, and has exercised a baneful influence on
the later historical compositions in Persia." That these
criticisms are fully justified will be denied by no one who
has occasion to use the work, and indeed the author himself
1 Both these verses are taken from the Mujmal of Fasihf, f. 466 of
the Raverty MS., sub anno 68 1.
2 Pp. 544 etseqq. of the fine Bombay lithograph of 1269/1852-3.
3 Cat. of Pers. MSS. in Brit. Mus., p. 162.
52
68 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
declares that to write in the grand style was his primary
object, and that the historical events which he records
served merely as the material on which he might embroider
the fine flowers of his exuberant rhetoric. Uljaytii, we are
told, was unable to understand the passages read aloud to
him by the author on the occasion of his audience ; and the
reader who is not a Persian scholar may form some idea of
his pompous, florid and inflated style from the German
translation of the first volume published with the text by
Hammer in 1856. We could forgive the author more
readily if his work were less valuable as an original
authority on the period (1257-1328) of which it treats,
but in fact it is as important as it is unreadable. It com-
prises five volumes, of which the contents are summarily
stated by Rieu (op. cit., pp. 162-3), and there is, besides the
partial edition of Hammer mentioned above, an excellent
lithographed edition of the whole, published at Bombay in
Rajab, 1269 (April, 1853).
Here, perhaps, mention should be made of a quasi-
historical work similar in style but far inferior in value
to that just mentioned, I mean the Mu'jam
Mu'jam ft , J . ., . .
AthdriMuiukii- fi Athdri Mtilukt I- l Ajam, a highly rhetorical
account of the ancient Kings of Persia down
to Sasanian times, written by Fadlu'llah al-Husayni and
dedicated to Nusratu'd-Din Ahmad b. Yusuf-shah, Atabek
of Lur-i-Buzurg, who reigned from 1296 to about 1330.
This book, which is vastly inferior to the other histories
mentioned in this chapter, has been lithographed at Tihran,
and manuscripts of it are to be found in most large Oriental
libraries 1 .
We now come to the great fdmfu't-Tawdrikk, or
"Compendium of Histories," of which incidental mention
has been made in the last chapter in con nee -
e -^i v '~ tion with its illustrious author Rashfdu'd-Dfn
/ awarlKn
Fadlu'llah, equally eminent as a physician, a
1 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., p. 811 ; Ethe*'s Bodleian Cat., No. 285 ;
Ethels India Office Cat., Nos. 534-5.
CH. n] RASHfDU'D-DfN FADLU'LLAH 69
statesman, a historian, and a public benefactor. Of his
public career and tragic fate we have already spoken, but
something more must be said not only of the scope and
contents of his history, but of his private life and literary
activity. His history, unfortunately, has never yet been
published in its entirety, and manuscripts of it are compara-
tively rare, but amongst the published portions is his life of
. , Hiilasru Khan, edited by Quatremere at Paris
Quatremere s J *-'
critical account in 1836, with a French translation and many
valuable notes, under the title of Histoire des
Mongols de la Perse, ecrite en per s an par Raschid-eldin,
publiee, traduite en franqais, accompagnee de notes et dun
memoire sur la vie et les outrages de Cauteur. From this
excellent memoir, to which those who desire fuller and more
detailed information are referred, the following salient facts
of Rashidu'd-Dm's life and works are chiefly taken. He
was born at Hamadan about A.D. 1247, and was
His birth in 1247 111- i i /-
asserted by his enemies to have been of Jewish
origin. His grandfather Muwaffaqu'd-Dawla 'Alf was,
with the astronomer Nasiru'd-Din Tusi and Ra'isu'd-Dawla,
an unwilling guest of the Assassins of Alamut when that
place was taken by Hulagu in the very year of our author's
birth, and was at once received into Hulagu's service. As
court-physician Rashi'du'd-Din enjoyed considerable in-
fluence and honour during the reign of Abaqa, but it was
in the reign of Ghazan, whose accession took place in A.D.
1295, that his many merits were first fully recognized, and
three years later, on the dismissal and execution
He becomes *
Prime Minister of the prime minister Sadru'd-Din Zanjdni,
zani QI29 8 called Sadr-i-Jakdn, he was chosen by Ghazan,
conjointly with Sa'du'd-Din, to succeed him. In A.D. 1303
Rashi'du'd-Din accompanied Ghazan as Arabic secretary in
the campaign against the Syrians, and it was during this
period, while the Mongol court was established at 'Ana on
the Euphrates, that he presented to Ghazan the author of
the Tarikh-i- Wassdf, as has been already mentioned (p. 42),
on March 3, 1303.
70 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
During the reign of Uljaytu(or Khuda-banda)Rashidu'd-
Dfn enjoyed the same high position as under his predecessor,
and received from the new king several singular
add increaMd"* marks of favour and confidence. He also built
honour under j n Sultanivya, the new capital, a fine suburb,
Khuda-banda / J
named after him Rashidiyya, containing a
magnificent mosque, a college, a hospital and other public
buildings, and some thousand houses. In December, 1307,
he was instrumental in establishing the innocence of two
Shafi'ite doctors of Baghdad, Shihabu'd-Din Suhrawardi and
Jamalu'd-Din,whohadbeen accused of carrying on a treason-
able correspondence with Egypt 1 . Some two years later he
built another beautiful little suburb, near Ghaza-
He founds and - , t i i i j i
endows the niyya, the town which had grown up round
suburb called Ghazan's mausoleum, to the East of Tabriz,
Rab'-i-Rashfdt
and, at great expense, brought thither the
river Saraw-rud through channels hewn in the solid rock'-.
Immense sums of money were required for these and other
admirable works of piety and public utility, but Rashi'du'd-
Din, as he himself declares, had received from the generous
Uljaytvi such sums as no previous sovereign had ever
bestowed on minister or courtier. On the transcription,
binding, maps and illustrations of his numerous literary
works he had, according to the Ta'rikh-i- Wassdf, expended
no less a sum than 60,000 dinars (^36,000).
Early in the year 1312 Rashidu'd-Din's colleague Sa'du'd-
Di'n of Sawa fell from power and was put to death, the prime
mover in the intrigue of which he was the victim
SS^ bein g the clever and unscrupulous 'Ali-shah,
who at once succeeded the dead minister in his
office. Soon afterwards a dangerous intrigue was directed
against Rashidu'd-Di'n, but happily it recoiled on its authors
and left him unscathed. Whether he, on the other hand,
was responsible for the barbarous execution of SayyidTaju'd-
1 Quatremere, Hist, des Mongols, pp. xvi-xvii. The Shihabu'd-Din
here mentioned is not, of course, Sa'df's teacher, who died 632/1234-5.
2 See G. le Strange's Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, pp. 162-3.
CH. n] FALL AND DEATH OF RASHfDU'D-DfN 71
Din, the Naqibn'l-Ashrdf, or " Dean of the Shan'fs " (i.e. the
descendants of 'Ah') is a doubtful question, which Quatremere
answers in the negative.
In 1315 such acrimonious disputes broke out between
Rashidu'd-Din and 'Ah'-shah, as to who was responsible for
Fan and death of thejack of money to pay the troops, that
Rashidu'd-Din Uljaytu' assigned to the management of each
one different provinces of Persia and Asia Minor.
Nevertheless 'Ah'-shah continued his campaign of calumny
against his colleague, who succeeded only with the greatest
difficulty in saving himself from disaster. The same rivalry
and intrigue continued after the death of Uljaytu and the
accession of Abu Sa'id, until finally Rashi'du'd-Din, having
succumbed to the attacks of his traducers, was deprived of
his office in October, 1317, and ultimately, on July 18, 1318,
at the age of over seventy years, was put to death with his
son Ibrahim, a lad of sixteen years of age, on a charge of
having poisoned the late king. His property was confiscated,
his relatives were persecuted and despoiled, his pious founda-
tions were robbed of their endowments, and the
his foundations Rab'-i-Rashidi,the suburb which he had founded,
and desecration was given over to rapine. He was buried in the
mausoleum which he had prepared for his last
resting-place, but his body was not suffered to rest there in
peace, for about a century later Mi'ranshah the son of Timur-
i-Lang, in one of his fits of insane brutality, caused it to be
exhumed and buried in the Jews' cemetery. 'Ah'-shah, in
order to testify his joy at his rival's fall, presented magnifi-
cent presents to the Sanctuary at Mecca, and, escaping the
retribution which overtook most of his accomplices, died
peaceably in his bed six years later (in 1324), being, as
already remarked, the first minister of the Mongol Il-khans
who had the good fortune to die a natural death. Of Rashi-
du'd-Din's son Ghiyathu'd-Din, who resembled him in virtue
and learning, as well as in his public career and his sad end
(for he too was ultimately put to death in the spring of 1336)
mention has been already made in the preceding chapter.
72 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
For the conception of the Jdmi'u't- Tawdrikh the credit,
in Quatremere's opinion 1 , belongs to Ghazan Khan, who,
foreseeing that the Mongols in Persia, in spite
ande^ecudon f their actual supremacy, would in course of
ofttejdmfv time inevitably be absorbed by the Persians.
' t-Tawdrikh J
desired to leave to posterity a monument ot
their achievements, in the shape of a faithful record of their
history and conquests, in the Persian language. For the
accomplishment of this great task he chose (and no better
choice could have been made) Rashidu'd-Di'n, at whose
disposal were placed all the state archives, and the services
of all those who were most learned in the history and
antiquities of the Mongols. The minister, though engrossed
by the state affairs of a vast empire, yet succeeded in finding
time to prosecute his researches and commit them to writing,
though, according to Dawlat-shah 2 , the only time at his
disposal for this purpose was that which intervened between
the morning prayer and sunrise.
Before Rashidu'd-Din's history of the Mongols was
completed, Ghazan died (May 17, 1304), but his successor
Uljaytu ordered it to be finished and dedicated,
contents of the as originally intended, to Ghazan ; whence this
a- portion of the work, generally called the first
,. **,! j </> -/,/ r, - '
volume,is sometimesentitled la nkh-i-Ghazam,
the " Ghazanian History." Uljaytu also ordered the author
to write a companion volume containing a general history
of the world and especially of the lands of Islam, and a
third volume dealing with geography. This last has either
perished, or was never actually written, but only projected,
so that the work as we now know it comprises only two
volumes, the first on the history of the Mongols, written for
Ghazan, the second on general history. The whole work
was completed in 710/1310-11, though two years later the
author was still engaged on his supplementary account of
Uljaytu's reign.
1 Hist, des Mongols, p. Ixviii.
2 P. 217 of my edition.
CH. n] THE jAMPU'T-TAWARfKH 73
The contents of this great history are briefly as follows :
VOL. I, ch. i. History of the different Turkish and Mongol
tribes, their divisions, genealogies, pedigrees, legends,
etc., in a Preface and four sections.
ch. ii. History of Chingfz Khan, his ancestors and
successors, down to Ghazan Khan.
VOL. II, Preface. On Adam and the Patriarchs and Hebrew
Prophets.
Part i. History of the ancient kings of Persia before
Islam, in four sections.
Part 2. History of the Prophet Muhammad and of the
Caliphate, down to its extinction by the Mongols in
1258; of the post-Muhammadan Persian dynasties
of Persia, viz. the Sultans of Ghazna, the Seljuqs,
the Khwarazmshahs, the Salgharid Atabeks of Fars,
and the Isma'i'lis of the West and of the East ; of
Oghuz and his descendants, the Turks ; of the
Chinese ; of the Jews ; of the Franks and their
Emperors and Popes ; and of the Indians, with a
long and full account of Sakyamuni (Buddha) and
of the religion which he founded.
The above is the arrangement actually adopted in the
manuscripts of the India Office and the British Museum, but
the divisions proposed by the author in his Intro-
rangem^of duction are slightly different, for he intended to
tbe/dmi'ut- begin the second volume with the history of
Tawdrlkh / 7
the reigning king Uljaytu from his birth until
706/1306-7, and to add a supplement at the end of the same
volume continuing the history of this monarch year by year.
This confusing arrangement is not actually observed in most
manuscripts, which, if they contain Uljaytu's reign at all,
put it in its natural place, at the end of vol. i, after Ghazan.
Few if any of the extant manuscripts are, however, complete,
though every part of the history is contained in one or other
of them. In the J.R.A.S. for January, 1908 (pp. 17-37) I
have given a fuller analysis of the contents, together with a
scheme for the complete edition which is so much needed.
74 HISTORIANS OF THE IL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
Ignoring the complicated and confusing divisions made by
Scheme for a tne aut hor, I proposed to publish the whole
complete edition book in seven volumes, of which the first three,
of the Jam? u't- . .
TawMkh in containing the history of the Turks and Mon-
seven volumes go j g> WQuld correspond to yol j Q f the original,
and the last four to vol. ii, as follows :
Series L Special history of the Mongols and Turks.
VOL. I, from the beginning to the death of Chingfz Khan.
VOL. II, from the accession of Ogotay to the death of Timur
(Uljaytu), the grandson of Qubilay Khan 1 .
VOL. in, from the accession of Hulagu 2 to the death of
Ghazan, including the continuation of the history of
the later Il-khans down to Abu Sa'i'd compiled as a
supplement to this portion of Rashi'du'd-Din's work
in the reign of Shah Rukh and by his command.
Series II. General history.
VOL. IV. The Introduction, the history of the ancient kings
of Persia down to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty,
and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad.
VOL. V. The entire history of the Caliphate, from Abu
Bakr to al-Musta'sim.
VOL. VI. The history of the post-Muhammadan dynasties
of Persia (Ghaznawis, Seljuqs, Khwarazmshahs, Sal-
ghan's and Isma'ilis).
VOL. VII. The remainder of the work, comprising the history
(from their own traditions and statements) of the
Turks, Chinese, Israelites, Franks and Indians.
The Jdmi'ut-Tawdrikh is remarkable not only for the
extensive field which it covers and the care with which it
has been compiled from all available sources, both written
1 This is the portion which M. Blochet has published in the
" E. J. W. Gibb Memorial " Series, vol. xviii.
2 The portion of this volume dealing with Hulagu was, as already
stated, published by Quatremere under the title Q{ Histoire des Mongols
de la Perse, vol. i (Paris, 1836).
IV
Enthronement of Ogotay, the son and successor of Chingiz, from an old
MS. ot tiae fdmfiit-Tawdrikh in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
To face p. 74
CH. n] OTHER WORKS BY RASHfDU'D-DfN 75
and oral, but for its originality. It is doubtful whether any
Persian prose work can be compared to it in value, at any
rate in the domain of history, and it is the more to be re-
gretted that it remains unpublished and almost inaccessible.
" I will dwell no longer," says Quatremere 1 , " on the proofs
of the extreme importance of Rashfdu'd-Din's compilation ;
this excellent work, undertaken in the most favourable cir-
cumstances, and with means of performing it never before
possessed by any single writer, offered for the first time to
the peoples of Asia a complete course of universal history
and geography." The same writer illustrates the thorough-
ness of Rashidu'd-Di'n's work by indicating the extent to
which he drew on Chinese sources, written and oral, in
writing that portion of his history which bore reference to
Khata (Cathay) 2 , and expresses a regret, which all must
share, that the geographical portion of his work is lost, or
at least still undiscovered. Perhaps, as Quatremere conjec-
tures 3 ,it perished in the destruction and looting of the Rab'-i-
Rashidi which immediately followed Rashidu'd-Di'n's death.
Rashidu'd-Din composed numerous other works besides
the Jdmi'iit- Tawdrikk, and of these and their contents a
detailed account is given by Quatremere 4 .
S the h r 7fn by Amongst them is the KitdbiM-Ahyd wcil-Athdr
Rashidu d-Din -'
(the "Book of Animals and Monuments"), which
comprised twenty-four chapters treating of a variety of
matters connected with meteorology, agricul-
Kitdbu'i-Ahyd tu arboriculture, apiculture, the destruction
wa l-Athar
of noxious insects and reptiles, farming and
stock-breeding, architecture, fortification, ship-building, min-
ing and metallurgy. This work is unhappily lost.
Another of Rashidu'd-Di'n's works was the Tawdihdt,
or " Explanations," a theological and mystical work, of
which the contents are arranged under a pre-
face and nineteen letters. It was written at the
1 Op. laud., p. Ixxiv. 2 Ibid., p. Ixxviii.
3 Ibid., p. Ixxxi. 4 Ibid., pp. cxii-cxlvi.
76 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
request of Uljaytu, and is described by Quatremere from a
manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
This was followed by another theological work entitled
Miftdhu't-Tafdsir, the " Key of Commentaries," treating of
the divine eloquence of the Qur'dn, its com-
' mentators and their methods, Good and Evil,
rewards and punishments, length of life, Pro-
vidence, Predestination and the Resurrection of the Body.
To these topics are added a refutation of the doctrine of
Metempsychosis, and a definition of sundry technical terms.
" The Royal Treatise " (ar-Risdlatus-Siiltdniyya) is
another similar work, undertaken on Ramadan 9, 706
(March 14, 1307), as the result of a discussion
ar-Risdiatu's- Qn theological matters which had taken place
Sultdmyya o ,
in the presence of Uljaytu.
The Latd'ifu'l-Haqaiq, or " Subtle Truths," comprises
fourteen letters, and begins with an account of a vision in
which the author, on the night preceding Ra-
&%e l ~ madan 26, 705 (April 11, 1306), dreamed that
he was presented to the Prophet. Its contents
also are theological. This and the three preceding works
are all written in Arabic, and together form what is known
as the Majmrta-i-Rashtdiyya, or " Collection of the works
of Rashi'du'd-Din," of which a beautiful manuscript, dated
710/1310-11, exists at Paris. Another manuscript of the
same library 1 contains a Persian translation of the Latd
'ifitl-Haqd'iq, and there are also preserved there two copies
of an attestation of the orthodoxy of Rashidu'd-Din's
theological views, signed by seventy leading doctors of
Muslim theology. This attestation was drawn up in con-
sequence of accusations of heterodoxy made against Rashid
by a malicious fellow whose enmity had been aroused by
the frustration of his endeavours to appropriate an emolu-
ment from a benefaction for scholars and men of learning
made by Ghazan Khan on his death.
Another of Rashfd's works, of which, unhappily, only
1 Ancien Fonds Persan, No. 107, fif. 1-70.
CH. n] RASHfD'S CARE FOR HIS BOOKS 77
the general nature of the contents is known, is the Baydnu'l-
Haqd'tq, or " Explanation of Verities," com-
B Haqq l ~ prising seventeen letters, dealing mostly with
theological topics, though other subjects, such
as the small-pox and the nature and varieties of heat, are
discussed.
The elaborate precautions (precautions which, alas ! in
the event proved inadequate) taken by Rashidu'd-Din to
preserve and transmit to posterity the fruits of
Precautions J
taken by his literary labours are very fully detailed by
Kashidu'd- ,-*. \ , i i_ i_ n .
Din for the Quatremere, and can only be briefly recapitu-
preservation lated in this place. First, he caused several
copies of each of his works to be made for lending
to his friends and to men of letters, who were freely permitted
to transcribe them for their own use. Then he caused
Arabic translations of all his Persian, and Persian transla-
tions of all his Arabic works to be prepared, and of both
versions he caused numerous copies to be deposited, for the
use of anyone who might desire to read or copy them, in
the mosque-library of the quarter called after him Rab'-i-
Rashidi. He also caused one large volume, containing all
of his treatises with the necessary maps and illustrations,
to be prepared and deposited in the above-mentioned public
library, giving it the title of Jdnritit-tasdnifir-Rashidi 1 , or
"Complete collection of the works of Rashidu'd-Din." Of
four more works treating of Medicine and the Mongol system
of government he caused trilingual versions, in Chinese,
Arabic and Persian, to be prepared. He further accorded
the fullest liberty to anyone who desired to copy any or all
of these books, and, not content with this, assigned a certain
yearly sum from the revenues with which he had endowed
his mosque in order to have two complete transcripts of his
1 That this is the correct title appears from the text of this docu-
ment, published by Quatremere together with the translation. See his
Hist, des Mongols, p. cxlix, 1. 3. The Majmu'a contained four treatises
only (see the preceding page), while the Jdmi 1 contained everything
Rashfd had written.
78 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
works, one in Arabic and one in Persian, made every year,
and presented to one of the chief towns of the Muhammadan
world. These copies were to be made on the best Baghdad
paper and in the finest and most legible writing, and to be
carefully collated with the originals. The copyists were to be
carefully chosen, having regard both to the excellence and the
speed of their work, and were to be lodged in the precincts
of the mosque, as the administrators of the bequest might
direct. Each copy, when finished, bound and ornamented,
was to be carried into the mosque and placed on a book-
rest between the pulpit and the mihrdb, and over it was to
be repeated a prayer for the author, composed by himself,
and conceived in the following terms 1 :
"(9 God, who revealest the most hidden secrets, and gives t
knowledge of history and traditions ! As Thou hast graci-
ously guided thy servant Rashid the Physician,
Rashidu'd- who standeth in need of Thine Abundant Mercy,
Dm sprayer
in the composition of these works > which comprise
investigations supporting the fundamental dogmas of Islam,
and minute researches tending to elucidate philosophical truths
and natural laws, profitable to those who meditate on the in-
ventions of Art, and advantageous to such as reflect on the
^vonders of Creation, even so hast TJiott enabled him to con-
secrate a portion of his estates to pious foundations, on condition
that from these revenues should be provided sundry copies of
these books, so that the Muslims of all lands and of all times
may derive profit therefrom. Accept, O God, all this from
him with a favourable acceptance, and cause his efforts to be
remembered with thanks, and grant forgiveness for all sins,
and pardon all those who shall help to accomplish this good
work, and those who shall read or consult these works and
put in practice the lessons which they contain. And bestow
1 The original of this prayer is given by Quatremere on p. clxx of
his Hist, des Mongols, and the translation, which is more elegant than
literal, on pp. cxl-cxli. The translation here given is from the Arabic
original.
V
faii*&&-'Js&
Colophon of Qiir'an transcribed for Uljaytd, Rashidu'd-Din
and Sa'du'd-Din in A.H. 710 (A. D. 1310-11)
Or. 4945 (Brit. Mus.), f. i a To/ace />. 7 s
CH. n] ELABORATE PRECAUTIONS 79
on him a good recompense, both in this world and the next !
Verily Thou art worthy of fear, yet swift to forgive ! "
This prayer was also to be inscribed at the end of each
copy so completed, and was to be followed by a brief
doxology, also formulated by Rashidu'd-Din,and a colophon
penned by the administrator of the bequest, stating at what
epoch and for what town each copy had been made, and
giving his own name and genealogy, so that he also might
be remembered in the prayers of the faithful. Finally the
completed copy was to be submitted to the qddis, or judges,
of Tabriz, who should certify that all the formalities pre-
scribed by the author had been duly carried out ; and it was
then to be sent to the town for which it was destined, and
deposited in a public library where it could be freely used
by all students, and even borrowed against a bond for such
sum as the librarian might deem suitable. A copy of the
Arabic version of the MajmiVa-i-Rashidiyya, together with
the Baydnul-Haqd'iq and the Kitdbu'l-Ahyd wal-Athdr, was
also to be made for one of the Professors on the foundation,
who was daily to read and expound to the students some
portion of the contents.- Besides this, each lecturer on the
foundation was obliged to make a copy of one of these
\vorks,either in Arabic or Persian,during the period occupied
by his course of lectures, failing which he was to be dismissed
and replaced by one more diligent than himself. The copy,
when made, was to be his own, to sell, give away, or keep
as he pleased. All facilities were to be accorded to persons
desirous of copying any of these works in the library, but
they were not allowed to be removed from its walls. In
conclusion the successive administrators of the funds were
exhorted to carry out zealously and literally the wishes of
the benefactor, and curses were invoked on any administrator
who should fail to do so.
Yet, as Quatremere observes 1 , in spite of all these elabo-
rate precautions, " we have lost the greater part of the works
of this learned historian, and all the measures which he took
1 Op. laud., p. cxlv.
8o HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
have not had a more fortunate success than the precautions
devised by the Emperor Tacitus to secure the preservation
of his illustrious relative's writings. The action of time and
the vandalism of man, those two scourges which have robbed
us of so many masterpieces of antiquity, have also destroyed
numerous other productions, less brilliant without doubt,
but not less useful; and while worthless compilations are
spread abroad in all directions and load the shelves of our
libraries, we are left to lament bitterly a number of important
works, of which the loss is irreparable."
Of one such work, however, not apparently known to
Quatremere, I am the fortunate possessor. This is a col-
lection of Rashi'du'd-Di'n's letters, mostly on
A MS. collection f
of Rashidu-d- political and financial matters, addressed to
his sons and others who held various offices
under the Mongol government, and collected, arranged and
edited by his secretary Muhammad of Abarquh. For two
manuscripts of this work, one old, the other a modern copy
of the first, made, apparently, for Prince Bahman Mi'rza
Bahd'u'd-Dawla, I am indebted to the generosity of my
friend Mr G. le Strange, who obtained them from the late
Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler 1 . A third manuscript volume,
in English, is entitled in Mr le Strange's hand : Summary
of the Contents of the Persian MS. Despatches of Rashiditd-
Din: copied from notes supplied by Sir A. H. Schindler, and
afterwards corrected by him: Dec. 1913. In view of the ex-
treme rarity of this work and the interest of its contents,
a list of the 53 despatches and letters which it contains and
the persons to whom they are addressed is here appended.
1. Preface of the editor Muhammad of Abarquh, de-
fective at beginning.
2. Letter from Rashidu'd-Dfn to Majdu'd-Din Isma'il
Falf.
3. Answer to the above.
4. From Rashidu'd-Dfn to his son Amir 'All, Governor
1 See my article on the Persian Manuscripts of the late Sir Albert
Houtum-Schindler, K.C.I. E., in ihzJ.R.A.S. for Oct. 1917, pp. 693-4.
CH. n] LETTERS OF RASHfDU'D-DfN 81
of Iraq-i-'Arab, ordering him to punish the people of Basra
for rebellious conduct.
5. From the same to his son Amir Mahmud, Governor
of Kirman, reprimanding him for oppressing the people
of Bam.
6. From the same to his servant Sunqur Bawarchi,
Governor of Basra, instructing him as to the policy he
should pursue.
7. From the same to his sister's son Khwaja Ma'ruf,
Governor of 'Ana, Haditha, Hit, Jibba, Na'usa, 'Ashra(?),
Rahba, Shafatha (?) and Baladu'l-'Ayn, appointing him
Governor of Rum. Written from Sultdniyya in 690/1291
(or possibly 696/1296-7).
8. From the same to the Na'ibs of Kdshan concerning
the pension of 2000 dinars assigned to Sayyid Afdalu'd-
Din Mas'ud out of the revenues of Kdshan.
9. From the same to his son Amir Mahmud (see No. 5
supra) ordering the distribution of food to the poor of Bam,
Khabi's, etc.
10. From the same to his son Khwdja Sa'du'd-Dfn,
Governor of Antioch, Tarsus, Sus, Qinnasrfn, the 'Awasim
and the shores of the Euphrates, giving him fatherly advice
as to the methods of administration he should adopt, and
warning him against sloth, wine-drinking, and over-fondness
for music and dissipation.
11. From the same to his son 'Abdu'l-Mu'min, Governor
of Simnan, Damghan and Khwar, ordering him to appoint
the Qadi Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad b. Hasan b. Muham-
mad b. 'Abdu'l-Kan'm of Simnan Chief Judge of that
district.
12. From the same to Shaykh Sadru'd-Dm b. Shaykh
Bahd'u'd-Di'n Zakariyya condoling with him on the death
of a son.
13. From the same to Mawlana Sadru'd-Din Muham-
mad Turka'i concerning a revised and emended scale of
taxation to be applied to the people of Isfahan and other
places.
B.P. 6
82 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
14. Proclamation from the same to his son Amir 'Ah',
Governor of Baghdad, and to the people of that city, small
and great, concerning the appointment of Shaykh Majdu'd-
Din as Shaykhu'l-Islam and the provision to be made for
the professors, officers and students of the khdnqdh of the
late Ghazan Khan.
1 5. From the same to Amir Nusratu'd-Din Sitay, Go-
vernor of Mawsil, and Sinjar, concerning Sharafu'd-Din
Hasan Mustawfi.
1 6. Answers from the same to philosophical and reli-
gious questions propounded by Mawlana Sadr-i-Jahan of
Bukhara.
17. Letter from the same to his son Khwaja Jalal,
asking for 40 young men and maidens of Rum to be sent
to him at Tabriz to form the nucleus of a population for
one of the five villages he has included in his park in the
Rab'-i-Rashi'di.
1 8. From the same to Khwaja 'Ala'u'd-Din Hindu re-
questing him to obtain and send various medicinal oils for
the hospital in the Rab'-i-Rashidi.
19. From the same to his son Amir 'Ah', Governor of
Baghdad, concerning allowances and presents to various
theologians.
20. From the same to his son Khwaja 'Abdu'l-Lati'f,
Governor of Isfahan, giving him good advice.
21. From the same to his son Khwaja Jalalu'd-Dfn,
Governor of Rum, also giving good advice, and ordering
various quantities of different herbs and drugs for his hos-
pital at Tabriz.
22. From the same to his son Amir Shihabu'd-Dfn,
then Governor of Baghdad, giving him good advice, and
summarizing the revenues of Khuzistan.
23. From the same to Mawlana Majdu'd-Din Isma'fl
Fall, inviting him to be present at the marriages which he
has arranged for nine of his sons with various noble ladies.
24. From the same to Qara-Buqa, Governor of Kayff
and Palu.
CH. n] LETTERS OF RASHfDU'D-DfN 83
25. From the same to Mawlana 'Afifu'd-Dm Baghdad*.
26. From the same in answer to a letter from the Mawlds
of Qaysariyya (Caesarea) in Rum.
27. From the same to his son Amir Ghiyathu'd-Din
Muhammad on his appointment as Inspector of Khurasan
by Khuda-banda Uljaytu.
28. From the same to the people of Si'was concerning
the Alms-house for Sayyids founded there by Ghazan
{Ddrus-Siyddat-i-Ghdzdnf) and the necessity of its proper
maintenance.
29. From the same from Multan in Sind to Mawlana
Qutbu'd-Dm Mas'ud of Shiraz, giving an account of the
journey to India which he undertook at the Il-khan's com-
mand to greet the Indian kings and bring back various
drugs and spices not obtainable in Persia.
30. From the same to Takhtakh Inju as to complaints
of his tyranny made by the people of Fars, concerning
which he is sending his son Ibrahim to report.
31. From the same concerning Mawlana Muhammad
Rumi, and the teaching in the college at Arzanjan, of which
he has been appointed Master.
32. From the same to Shirwan Shah, ruler of Shabaran
and Shamakhi, inviting him to visit the Garden of Fath-
abad which he has made.
33. From the same to the revenue officers of Khuzistan,
concerning various financial and administrative matters, and
the sending of Khwaja Siraju'd-Dm of Dizful to audit the
accounts, make investigations, and report.
34. From the same to. his son Khwaja Majdu'd-Dm,
ordering him to collect stores for the army destined for the
occupation of India.
35. From the Seljuq ruler of Arzanjan, Malik Jalalu'd-
Din Kay-Qubad b. 'Ala'u'd-Din Kay-Qubad, asking advice
on sundry matters; with Rashidu'd-Dfn's replies.
36. Rashi'du'd-Din's reply to a letter from Mawlana Sa-
dru'd-Din Muhammad Turka'i, written duringa dangerous ill-
ness and containinghis last will and testament as to thedivision
62
84 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
amongst his children of his numerous and extensive estates
and other property. To the Rab'-i-Rashidi he bequeaths
a library of 60,000 volumes of science, history and poetry,
including 1000 Qur'dns by various excellent calligraphers,
of which 10 were copied by Yaqiit al-Musta'simf, 10 by Ibn
Muqla and 200 by Ahmad Suhrawardi. He enumerates
by name his 14 sons, viz. (i) Sa'du'd-Di'n, (2) Jalalu'd-Di'n,
(3) Majdu'd-Din, (4) 'Abdu'l-Lattf, (5) Ibrahim, (6) Ghi-
yathu'd-Din Muhammad, (7) Ahmad, (8) 'All, (9) Shaykhi,
(10) Pi'r Sultan, (n) Mahmud, (12) Humam, (13) Shihabu
'd-Di'n, (14) 'Ah'-shah ; and his 4 daughters, viz. (i) Farman-
Khand, (2) Ay Khatun, (3) Shahf Khatiin, (4) Hadiyya
Malik.
37. Rashfdu'd-Dfn to the same, concerning a book which
he had written and dedicated to him, and sending him a
present of money, choice garments, a horse and various
food -stuffs.
38. From the same to the people of Diyar Bakr con-
cerning the digging of a new canal to be called after him-
self, and the establishment and population of 14 villages on
both sides of it, with names and plan of the new villages,
which are for the most part named after his 14 sons.
39. From the same to his son Jalalu'd-Di'n, Governor
of Rum, concerning the digging of a new canal from the
Euphrates to be called after his late lord Ghazan Khan,
and the foundation of 10 villages, of which the plan and
names are again given.
40. From the same to his agent Khwaja Kamalu'd-Din
Siwasi, Mustawfi of Rum, ordering him to send, by means
of a merchant named Khwaja Ahmad, certain presents in
cash and in kind to ten learned men in Tunis and the
Maghrib (names given) in return for ten books (titles given)
in 36 volumes which they had sent to the Minister, of
whose generosity they had heard.
41. From the same to the authorities at Shi'raz ordering
them to make certain specified presents in cash and in
kind to Mawlana Mahmud b. Ilyas who had written a
CH. nj LETTERS OF RASHfDU'D-DfN 85
book entitled Lataif-i-Rashidiyya and dedicated it to
Rashfdu'd-Dm.
42. From the same to the authorities at Hamadan con-
cerning the maintenance of the Pharmacy (Ddrti-khdnd)
and Hospital (Ddru'sh-Shifd) which he had founded there,
and which he is sending a physician named Ibn Mahdf to
inspect and report on. Written from Caesarea (Qaysariyya)
in 690/1291.
43. From the same to his son Ami'r Mahmud, Go-
vernor of Kirman, recommending to his care and assist-
ance Khwaja Mahmud of Sawa, whom he is sending on a
mission to India, to Sultdn 'Ala'u'd-Dm, and also to collect
money due to Rashidu'd-Din from his estates there.
44. From the same to his son Pir Sultan, Governor of
Georgia, concerning the King's projected expedition to
Syria and Egypt, and an intended punitive expedition
of 120,000 men under ten Mongol amirs (names given)
which is to pass through Georgia to chastise the rebellious
people of Abkhaz and Trebizonde, and which Pir Sultan is
to accompany, leaving the government of Georgia in the
hands of his deputy Khwaja Mu'i'nu'd-Dm.
45. From the same to Shaykh Safiyyu'd-Dm of Ardabil
giving, after many compliments, a list of the supplies of
meat, fowls, rice, wheat, butter, honey, mast, perfumes and
money which he proposes to supply to the aforesaid
Shaykh's monastery (khdnqdh) for the festival to be held
there in commemoration of the Prophet's birthday.
46. Letter from Malik Mu'mu'd-Din, Parwana of Rum,
to Rashfdu'd-Dm, complaining of Turkman depredations
in his province.
47. Letter from Malik 'Ala'u'd-Din accompanying the
presents of precious stuffs, aromatic drugs, animals, con-
serves, spices, dried fruits, carpets, oils, plate, rare timber,
ivory, etc., which he is sending from India by way of Basra
to Rashidu'd-Dm.
48. Letter from Rashidu'd-Din to his son Amir Mahmud,
then engaged in studying Sufiism in Kirman.
86 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
49. Letter from the same to his son Amir Ahmad, at
that time Governor of Ardabfl, containing seven recom-
mendations (wasiyyat\ and expressing regret that he is
occupying himself with Astrology.
50. Letter of condolence from the same to Mawlana
Sharafu'd-Din Tabasf on the death of his son, and ordering
Shamsu'd-Di'n Muhammad of Abarquh to supply him yearly
with certain specified provisions.
51. Letter from the same to his son Sa'du'd-Din, Go-
vernor of Qinnasn'n, describing the completion of the Rab'-i-
Rashidi at Tabriz, with its 24 caravansarays, 1 500 shops and
30,000 houses; its gardens, baths, stores, mills, workshops,
paper-mills and mint; its workmen and artisans, brought
from every town and country, its Qnr'dn-readers, muadh-
dhins and doctors of theology, domiciled in the Kticha-i-
'Ulamd ("Rue des Savants"); its 6000 or 7000 students;
its 50 physicians from India, China, Egypt and Syria, each
of whom is bound to give instruction to ten pupils; the
hospital (Ddru'sh-Shifd) with its oculists, surgeons and
bone-setters, to each of whom are assigned as pupils five
of the writer's servants; and the allowances in kind and in
money made to all of them.
52. Letter from the same to his son Khwaja Ibrahim,
Governor of Shiraz, describing the campaign against Kabul
and Si'stan, and demanding various arms and munitions of
war in specified quantities.
53. Letter from the same to several of his sons con-
cerning the attributes of learning, clemency, reason and
generosity. The MS. breaks off abruptly in the middle of
this letter.
These letters, which ought to be published, are of extra-
ordinary interest on account of the light they throw on the
character and manifold activities of this most remarkable
man, at once statesman, physician, historian and patron of
art, letters and science. We have already noticed the tragic
fate which overtook him and to a large extent brought to
naught his careful and elaborate plans for the preserva-
CH. n] HAMDU'LLAH MUSTAWFf 87
tion of his books and the beneficent institutions which he
founded for the promotion of learning and charity; and the
least we can do in pious memory of a truly great scholar is
to perpetuate what is left of his writings.
But if Rashidu'd-Di'n failed to secure the immortality of
all his works, he set a fruitful example to other historians,
Hamdu'iiah so t ^ iat ** * s ^ ar S e ^y due to him that this period
Mustawfi of is so conspicuous for merit in this field of know-
ledge. We have seen how he helped Wassaf
and brought him to the Il-khan's notice. We shall now con-
sider the work of his most illustrious follower, Hamdu'iiah
Mustawfi' of Qazwfn. Of his life little is known save what
he tells us incidentally in his works. He professed to be
of Arab origin, tracing his pedigree to Hurr b. Yazid ar-
Riyahi, but his family had long been settled in Qazwin.
His great-grandfather, Amfnu'd-Din Nasr, was Mustawfi
of 'Iraq, but later adopted the ascetic life, and was finally
slain by the Mongols. His brother, Zaynu'd-Dfn Muham-
mad, held office under Rashidu'd-Dm, and he himself was
appointed by the same minister, about 1311, superintendent
of the finances of Qazwin, Abhar, Zanjan and Tarumayn.
For the rest, he tells us that he had from his youth upwards
eagerly cultivated the society of men of learning, especially
that of Rashidu'd-Di'n himself, and had frequented many
learned discussions, especially on history; so that, though
not by training a historian, he resolved to employ his leisure
in compiling a compendious universal history. Three of
his works, the Tdrikh-i-Gttzida, or " Select History," the
Zafar-ndma, or " Book of Victory," and the Nus-hatti'l-
Qulub, or " Heart's Delight," have come down to us. Of
these, the first two are historical, the third geographical.
The Tarikh-i-Guzidavjz.s composed in 730/1330, and is
Ta'rtkh- dedicated to Rashfdu'd-Di'n's son Ghiyathu'd-
Din Muhammad, who was made Prime Minister
in May, 1328, and, as we have seen, was put to death in
sources of May, 1336. The author enumerates about two
i-Gu^da l dozen of his sources, which include (i) the
88 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK r
Siratun-Nabi, or Biography of the Prophet (probably
Ibn Hisham's 1 ); (2) the Qisasu'l-Anbiyd (probably ath-
Tha'labfs 2 ) ; (3) the Risdla-i-Qushayriyyd*; (4) the Tadh-
kiratul-Awliyd (probably Farfdu'd-Din 'Attar's 4 ); (5) the
Tadwin of Imamu'd-Di'nal-Yafi'i 5 ; (6) the Tajdribu' l-Umam*
(probably of Ibn Miskawayhi); (7) the Mashdribu't-Tajd-
rib\ (8) the Diwdnu'n-Nasab" 1 ; (9) the Chronicle of Muham-
mad Jan'r at-Taban' 8 ; (10) the history of Hamza of Isfahan 9 ;
(n) the Tcirikhul-Kdmil of Ibnu'l-Athir 10 ; (12) the Zub-
datu't-Tawdrikh of Jamalu'd-Din Abu'l-Qasim of Kashan;
(13) the Nizdmiit-Tawdrikh of the Qadi Nasiru'd-Din
al-Baydawi 11 ; (14) the ' Uyiinu't- Tawdrikh of Abu Talib
'AH al-Khazin al-Baghdadi; (15) the Kitdlml-Mctdrif
of Ibn Qutayba 12 ; (16) the Tarikh-i-Jahdn-gushd of 'Ata
Malik-i-Juwayni 13 ; (17) Abu Sharaf Jarbadhaqani's Persian
translation of a.\- ( Uibi"sKztd&u7-Yamfnf 1 *; (18) the Siydsat-
1 Edited by Wiistenfeld, Gottingen, 1858-1860; German trans-
lation by Weil, Stuttgart, 1864.
2 Printed at Cairo in 1312/1894-5, with the Abridgement of
al-Ya"fi'i's Rawditr-Raydhin in the margins.
3 Printed at Bulaq, 1284/1867-8.
4 Edited by Dr R. A. Nicholson in my Persian Hist. Text Series,
vols. iii and v.
5 See Hajji Khalifa (ed. Fliigel), vol. ii, p. 254, No. 2773, where
623/1226 is given as the date of the author's death.
6 Vols. i, 5 and 6 have been published in fac-simile in the " E. J. W.
Gibb Memorial " Series, (vii, i ; vii, 5 ; vii, 6).
7 Probably one of the works on Genealogy entitled Kitdbtfl-Ansdb.
8 Published at Leyden in 15 vols. (1879-1901) by an international
group of eminent Arabic scholars presided over by the late Professor
de Goeje.
9 Edited with Latin translation by Gottwaldt, Leipzig, 1844-1848.
10 Ed. Tornberg, 14 vols., Leyden, 1851-1876 ; Cairo, 12 vols., 1290-
1303/1873-1886.
11 This work and its author will be discussed further on in this
chapter.
12 Ed. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen, 1850.
13 The first two of the three vols. constituting this work, edited by
Mirzd Muhammad of Qazwin, have appeared in the "E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial" Series, xvi, i and xvi, 2.
14 The Arabic original was lithographed at Dihlf in 1847, and printed
CH. n] THE TA'RfKH-I-GUZIDA 89
ndma (here called Siyarul-Muluk) of Nizamu'1-Mulk 1 ;
(19) the Shdhndma of Firdawsf 2 ; (20) the Saljuq-ndma of
Zahiri of Nishapur; (21) the Majma'u Arbdbil-Maslak of
Qadi Ruknu'd-Dm Juwayni ; (22) the Istizhdru'l-Akhbdr
of Qadi Ahmad Damghani; and lastly (23) the Jdmtu't-
Tawdrikh* of the author's late martyred master and patron
Rashidu'd-Dm Fadlu'llah.
After the enumeration of his sources, most of which, as
will appear from the foot-notes, are directly accessible to
. us. the author describes the different eras used
Different eras
used in com- by different peoples, some of whom date from
Adam, others from the Deluge, others from
Abraham or Moses, others from the destruction of Pharaoh,
others from the building of the Ka'ba or the Abyssinian in-
vasion of Yaman, while the Greeks date from Alexander, the
Copts from Nebuchadnezzar, and the pre-Islamic Quraysh
from the year of the Elephant. He then discusses the
confusion in chronology arising from these differences as to
the terminus a quo, which is increased by the fact that the
philosophers deny that the world had a beginning, while the
theologians assert that it had a beginning and will have an
end, but decline to define or specify either. The learned men
of India, China and Europe assert that Adam lived about
a million years ago, and that there were several Adams,
each of whom, with his descendants, spoke a special lan-
guage, but that the posterity of all save one (viz. the Adam
of the Hebrews) died out. Most of the Muslim doctors of
Persia, on the other hand, reckon the period between Adam
and Muhammad as six thousand years, though some say
more and some less. Astronomers reckon from the Deluge,
since which, at the time of writing (viz. in the year 698 of
in Cairo with al-Manmi's commentary in 1286/1869-70. Jarbadhaqani's
Persian translation was lithographed in Tihran in 1272/1855-6.
1 Edited and translated by Schefer (Paris, 1891, 1893).
2 The three printed editions are Turner Macan's (Calcutta, 1829),
Jules Mohl's (Paris, 1838-1878) and Viillers and Landauer's (Strass-
burg, 1877-1884, 3 vols., ending with Alexander the Great).
3 See above, pp. 68-9, 72-5.
90 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
the Era of Yazdigird, i.e. about A.D. 1330) 4432 years are
considered to have elapsed.
The Ta rtkh-i-Guzida comprises an Introd\iction(Fattha),
Contents of s ^ x cna pters (Bdb), each of which is divided
the ra'rtkh- into numerous sections (Fas/), and a conclusion
(Khdtima), as follows:
Introduction. On the Creation of the Universe and of Man.
Chapter /, in two sections. (i) Major Prophets, and
(2) Minor Prophets, and Sages, who, not being Pro-
phets, yet worked for the cause of true religion.
Chapter II. The Pre-Islamic Kings of Persia, in four sec-
tions, viz. :
1 i ) Pishdadiyan, eleven Kings, who ruled 2450 years.
(2) Kayaniyan, ten Kings, who ruled 734 years.
(3) Mulukut-Tawd'if (Parthians), twenty -two
Kings, who ruled 318 years 1 .
(4) Sasaniyan, thirty-one Kings, who reigned 527
years 2 .
Chapter III. The Prophet Muhammad and his Companions
and Descendants, in an introduction and six sections,
viz. :
Introduction, on the pedigree, genealogy and kin of
the Prophet.
(1) Life of the Prophet, his wars, his wives, secre-
taries, relations and descendants.
(2) The Orthodox Caliphs, who are reckoned as
five, al-Hasan being included. Duration, from
10 Rabi" I, A.H. ii to 13 Rabi" I, A.H. 41 (June 6,
632-July 17, 661), when al-Hasan resigned the
supreme power to Mu'awiya the Umayyad.
1 The period between Alexander the Great and the fall of the
Parthians (really about 5 50 years) is always under-estimated byMuham-
madan writers, with the one exception (so far as I know) of Mas'udi,
who, in MisKitdbdt- Tanbih wa!l-Ishrdf(pp. 97-9), explains the political
and religious motives which led the founder of the Sasanian Dynasty,
Ardashir-i-Bdbakan, to reduce it deliberately by about one half.
2 This period is over-estimated by more than a century. The
duration of the dynasty was from A.D. 226 to 652.
CH. n] THE TA'RIKH-I-GUZIDA gi
(3) The remainder of the twelve Imams, excluding
'Ah' and his son al- Hasan, who was poisoned in
49/669-70. Duration, 215 years and 7 months,
from 4 Safar, A.H. 49 to Ramadan, A.H. 264
(March 14, 669-May, 878).
(4) Notices of some of the chief "Companions" (As-
hdb) and "Followers" (Tdbi'un) of the Prophet.
(5) The Umayyad " Kings " (not regarded by the
author as Caliphs), fourteen in number. Dura-
tion, 91 years, from 13 Rabi' I, A.H. 41 to 13 Rabi' I,
A.H. 132 (July 17, 66i-Oct 30, 749).
(6) The 'Abbasid Caliphs, thirty-seven in number.
Duration, 523 years, 2 months and 23 days, from
13 Rabf i, A.H. 132 to 6 Safar, A.H. 656 (Oct. 30,
749- Feb. 12, 1258).
Chapter IV. Post-Islamic Kings of Persia, in twelve sec-
tions, viz. :
(1) Saffarids, three Kings, who reigned 35 years,
from 253/867 to 287/900, after which date their
posterity continued for some time to rule over
Sistan.
(2) Samanids, nine Kings, who reigned 102 years
and 6 months, from Rabi" II, A.H. 287 to Dhu'l-
Qa'da, A.H. 389 (April, 900 to Oct.-Nov. 999).
(3) Ghaznawis, fourteen Kings, who reigned 155 years
(30 years over most of Persia, and the remaining
years in Ghazna), from 390/1000 to 545/1150-1.
(4) Ghun's, five Kings, who reigned for 64 years, from
545/1150-1 to 609/1212-13.
(5) Daylamis (or House of Buwayh), seventeen
Kings, who reigned for 127 years, from 321/933
to 448/1056-7.
(6) Seljuqs, in three groups, viz.:
(a) Of Persia, fourteen Kings, who reigned for
161 years, from 429/1037-8 to 590/1194.
(b) Of Kirman, eleven Kings, who reigned for
150 years, from 433/1041-2 to 583/1187-8.
92 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
(c) Of Asia Minor, eleven Kings, who reigned
for 220 years, from 480/1087-8 to 700/1300-1.
(7) Khwarazmshahs, nine Kings, who reigned for
137 years, from 491/1098 to 628/1230-1.
(8) Atabeks, in two groups, viz.:
(a) Of Diyar Bakr and Syria, nine Kings, who
reigned for 120 years, from 481/1088-9 to 6oi/
1204-5.
(b} Of Pars (also called Salgharids), eleven Kings,
who reigned for 120 years, from 543/1148-9 to
663/1264-5.
(9) Isma'ih's, in two groups, viz.:
(a) Of North Africa and Egypt (the Fatimid
Caliphs), fourteen anti-Caliphs, who reigned for
260 years, from 296/908-9 to 556/1160.
(b} Of Persia (the Assassins of Alamut), eight
pontiffs, who ruled for 171 years, from 483/
1090-1 to 654/1256.
(10) Qara-Khita'i's of Kirman, ten Kings, who reigned
for 85 years, from 621/1224 to 706/1306-7.
(i i) Atabeks of Luristan, in two groups, viz.:
(a) Of Lur-i-Buzurg, seven rulers, who reigned
for 1 80 years, from 550/1155-6 to 730/1329-
30.
(b) Of Lur-i-Kuchak, eleven rulers, who reigned
150 years, from 580/1184-5 to 730/1329-30.
(12) Mongol Il-khans of Persia, thirteen Kings, who
had reigned at the time of writing 131 years, from
599/1202-3 to 730/1329-30. "Hereafter," adds
the author, " let him who will write the con-
tinuation of their history."
Chapter V. Account of men notable for their piety or
learning, in six sections, viz.:
(1) Imams and Mujtahids (12 are mentioned).
(2) " Readers" of the Quran (9 are mentioned).
(3) Traditionists (7 are mentioned).
(4) Shaykhs and Sufi's (about 300 are mentioned).
CH. n] THE TA'RIKH-I-GUZIDA 93
(5) Doctors of Divinity, Law and Medicine (about
70 are mentioned).
(6) Poets, of whom about 5 Arabic and 87 Persian
poets are mentioned. The biographies of the latter
have been translated and published by me in the
J.R.A.S. for October 1900 and January 1901, and
as a separate reprint.
Chapter VI. Account of Qazwin, the author's native town,
in seven sections, viz.:
(1) Traditions concerning Qazwin. Some 40 are
given, of which 36 are said to be from an auto-
graph copy of the Tadwin of ar-Rafi'i 1 . Nearly
all these agree in describing Qazwin as one of the
"Gates of Paradise."
(2) Etymology of the name of Qazwfn.
(3) Notable buildings of Qazwin ; its nine quarters
and architectural history from the time of Shapur I,
who was its original founder; its conquest by the
Arabs, and conversion to Islam.
(4) Its environs, rivers, aqueducts (qandts), mosques,
and tombs. Some of its inhabitants are said still
to profess secrstly the religion of Mazdak.
(5) Notable men who have visited Qazwin, including
"Companions" and "Followers" of the Prophet,
Imams and Caliphs, Shaykhs and 'ulamd, Kings
and wazirs, khdqdns and amirs.
(6) Governors of Qazwin.
(7) Tribes and leading families of Qazwin, including
Sayyids; l ulamd; Iftikharis (of whom the actual
representative, Malik Sa'fd Iftikharu'd-Dfn Mu-
hammad b. Abu Nasr, had learned the Mongol and
Turki languages and writing", and had translated
1 See G. le Strange's ed. and translation of our author's Nuz-
hatu'l-Qulub ("E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vols. xxiii, I, pp.
56-8 and xxiii, 2, pp. 62-3), where many of these traditions are given
on the same authority. See also p. 88 supra, n. 5 ad calc.
94 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK I
Kalila and Dimna into the first, and the Sindibdd-
ndma into the second); Bazdaris or Muzaffaris;
Bishan's ; Durham's ; Hanafis ; Hulwanis ; Kha-
lidi's; Khali'Hs ; Dabfran ; Rafi'fs ; Zakam's ; Zu-
bayn's ; Zadanis ; Shirzads ; Tausi's ; 'Abbasfs ;
Ghaffarfs ; Fi'lwagushan ; Qadawis ; Qarawuls ;
Tamfmfs; Karajfs or Dulafis (one of whom was
the cosmographer and geographer Zakariyya b.
Muhammad b. Mahmud) ; Kiyas or Kaysfs ;
Makanis ; Mustawfis (the author's own family,
said to be descended from Hurr b. Yazid ar-
Riyahi) ; Mu'minan ; Mukhtaran ; Mu'afiyan or
Mu'afaniyan ; Marzubanan ; Nfshapuriyan ; and
Bula-Ti'muris or Tababakan.
Conclusion. A tree of dynasties, or genealogical tree, based
on that devised by Rashi'du'd-Dfn, but improved. This
tree is, however, omitted in all the manuscripts which
I have seen.
Having regard to the extent of the field covered by the
Tarikh-i-Guzida, and its comparatively modest size (some
170,000 words), it is evident that it is of the nature of a
compendium, and that no great detail can be expected
from it. It is, however, a useful manual, and contains many
interesting particulars not to be found elsewhere, while for
contemporary history it is of first-rate importance, so that
the need for a complete edition of the text had long been
felt. Until the year 1910 the only portions accessible in
print were :
(1) The whole of chapter iv, on the Post- Islamic dy-
nasties of Persia, edited in the original, with French
translation, by M. Jules Gantin (Paris, 1903). Pp.
ix + 623.
(2) The whole of chapter vi, except the first section on
the Traditions, containing the account of Qazwin,
translated into French by M. Barbier de Meynard,
and published in the Journal Asiatique for 1857
(Ser. v, vol. 10, pp. 257 et seqq.}.
CH. n] THE ZAFAR-NAMA 95
(3) Section 6 of chapter v, the account of the Persian
poets, translated by myself in the J.R.A.S. for
October 1900 and January 1901.
In 1910, however, a fac-simile of a fairly accurate and
ancient MS. (transcribed in 857/1453) was published in the
"E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series (vol. xiv, i), and this was
followed in 1913 by an abridged English translation, with
full Indices, by myself and Dr R. A. Nicholson (vol. xiv, 2),
so that the whole work is now accessible to scholars, who
can form their own opinion of its value.
In the preface of the Tdrikh-i-Guzida, Hamdu'llah
Mustawfi speaks of a great historical poem on which he
was then engaged, and of which he had at that
ndma time (/3O/I33O) completed fifty and odd thou-
sand couplets out of a total of 75,000. This
poem, entitled Zafar-ndma, the " Book of Victory," was
actually completed five years later. It is essentially a
continuation of Firdawsf's Shdh-ndma, and the only known
manuscript (Or. 2833 of the British Museum, a huge volume
of 779 folios, transcribed in Shiraz in 807/1405, and bought
in Persia by Mr Sidney Churchill for the Museum about
I885 1 ) contains besides the Zafar-ndma the revised text
of the Shdh-ndma on which the author had spent six years.
The Zafar-ndma begins with the life of the Prophet
Muhammad, and comes down to the author's own time,
viz. to the year 732/1331-2, when Abu Sa'id was still
reigning. It comprises, as already said, 75,000 couplets,
10,000 couplets being assigned by the author to each of
the seven and a half centuries of which he treats, or, ac-
cording to the main chronological divisions of the work,
25,000 couplets to the Arabs, 20,000 to the Persians, and
30,000 to the Mongols. The author was forty years of age
when he began it, and spent fifteen years on its composition,
so that he must have been born about 680/1281-2. From
1 For full description of this precious MS. see Rieu's Persian Sup-
plement, No. 263, pp. 172-174, and also the Athenaeum for 1885, p. 314.
96 HISTORIANS OF THE iL-KHANl PERIOD [BK i
Dr Rieu's description, it is evident that the historical value
of this work is by no means to be neglected: "the author,"
he says (loc. cit., p. 173), "is very precise as to facts and
dates, and his third book will be found valuable for the
history of the Mongol period. He gives, for instance, on
f. 5i2 a , a very vivid description of the wholesale slaughter
wrought by the Mongols in his native place, Qazwfn. His
information was partly derived from his great-grandsire,
Ami'n Nasr Mustawfi, who was ninety-three years old at
the time." The following extract from this portion may
serve as a specimen :
d ' JkJ
****' j""*
JU 6J*\ rt,7,t,.f-. A^A
- 3 ^ J
VI
* u
Mongol siege of a Chinese town, from an old ws..o{ t\\eJdmi l u't-Taivdrikh
in the Bibliotheque Nationale
To face p. 96
CH. ii] THE ZAFAR-NAMA 97
ljJb jt j^j-ilj jJiLJ ^5**^ 'j^J tjt ^
O
J
j
jJ AJbj ' jLiXJ 4jl5l jjut JJU
"Thence 1 to the town of Qazwfn, Subutdy 2
Like raging tiger came right speedily.
The tale of years at six, one, seven stood
When that fair town became a lake of blood,
And Sha'bdn's month had counted seven days 3
When it was filled with woe and sore amaze.
The governor who held the ill-starred town
Muzaffar named, a ruler of renown,
Was, by the Caliph's most august command,
Set to control the fortunes of the land.
When came the hosts of war and direful fate
Firm as a rock they closed the city gate.
Upon the wall the warriors took their place,
And each towards the Mongols set his face.
Three days they kept the ruthless foe at bay,
But on the fourth they forced a blood-stained way.
1 I.e. from Zanjdn.
2 The MS. has ^U*~ (n for b\ but see the TcHrikh-i-Jahdn-gushd
("E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, xvi, i), p. 115, 1. 17.
3 Sha'bdn 7, A.M. 6i7 = October 7, A.D. 1220.
B. p. 7
98 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
Fiercely the Mongols entered Qazwin Town
And heads held high before were now brought down.
No quarter in that place the Mongols gave :
The days were ended of each chieftain brave.
Nothing could save the townsmen from their doom,
And all were gathered in one common tomb.
Alike of great and small, of old and young,
The lifeless bodies in the dust they flung :
Both men and women shared a common fate :
The luck-forsaken land lay desolate.
Many a fair one in that fearful hour
Sought death to save her from th' invaders' power :
Chaste maidens of the Prophet's progeny
Who shone like asteroids in Virtue's sky,
Fearing the lust of that ferocious host
Did cast them down, and so gave up the ghost.
Much in that land prevails the Shafi'ite ;
One in a thousand is a Hanafite 1 ;
And yet they counted on that gory plain
Twelve thousand Hanafites amongst the slain !
In heaps on every side the corpses lay,
Alike on lonely path and broad high-way.
Uncounted bodies cumbered every street :
Scarce might one find a place to set one's feet.
In terror of the Mongol soldiery
Hither and thither did the people fly,
Some seeking refuge to the Mosque did go,
Hearts filled with anguish, souls surcharged with woe.
From that fierce foe so sore their straits and plight
That climbing forms the arches hid from sight.
The ruthless Mongols burning brands did ply
Till tongues of flame leapt upwards to the sky.
Roof, vault and arch in burning ruin fell,
A heathen holocaust of Death and Hell ! "
Yet a third work produced by this industrious writer is
the well-known geographical and cosmographical treatise
entitled the Nuz-hatul-Qulub, or " Heart's De-
light." Manuscripts of it are fairly common,
but until 1915 the text was only generally ac-
cessible in the indifferent lithographed edition published
1 Cf. Nuz-hatu? l-Qulub (Gibb Series, xxiii, i), p. 59, last line.
CH. n] THE NUZ-HATU'L-QULUB 99
at Bombay in 1311/1893-4. In 1915, however, a critical
edition of the text was brought out by Mr G. le Strange
in the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series (vol. xxiii, i), and
the English translation (vol. xxiii, 2), which is now in the
Press, will shortly follow.
'T'he.Nuz-hatu'l-Qulub was composed five years later than
the Zafar-ndma, during the period of anarchy which suc-
ceeded Abu Sa'id's death, to which the author alludes with
feeling. He was persuaded, he says, to undertake the work
at the request of certain friends, who felt the want of a
Persian work on geography, most of the works on that sub-
sources of the J ect Dem g in Arabic. He enumerates amongst
Nuz-katu'i. his sources the following works, which he has
supplemented from his own observations during
his travels through Persia: the Suwaru'l-AqdUm of Abu
Zayd Ahmad b. Sahl al-Balkhf 1 ; the Tibydn of Ahmad b.
Abi 'Abdi'llah; the Road-book (Masdlik wa'l-Mamdlik) of
Abu'l-Qasim 'Abdu'llah ibn Khurdadhbih 2 ; and a work
entitled the Jahdn-ndma; besides nineteen other works,
of which the enumeration will be found in Rieu's Persian
Catalogue, pp. 418-419. The work is primarily divided into
an Introduction (Fdtihd), three Discourses (Maqdla), and
an Appendix (Khdtima). The third Maqdla is the impor-
tant part of the work: all that precedes this deals with
cosmography, the heavens, the earth, the three kingdoms,
and man. This third Maqdla, which contains the geo-
graphical portion of the work, deals first with the geography
of the two holy cities of Arabia and of Jerusalem; then
with the geography of Persia, Mesopotamia and Asia
Minor, with an appendix on the physical geography of
Persia; then with the countries bordering on Persia, and
some other lands never included in the Persian Empire.
1 This author is perhaps identical with the " Ibnu'l-Balkhi " whose
Fdrs-ndma Mr G. le Strange intends to publish in the Gibb Series.
- He wrote about 230-4/844-8. See Brockelmann, vol. f, pp. 225-6.
The text is included in de Goeje's valuable Bibliotheca Geographorum
Arabicoruin.
72
ioo HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
The Conclusion treats of the wonders of the world, espe-
cially of Persia. The book is of considerable value for a
knowledge of the geography and condition of mediaeval
Persia, and was largely used by Mr G. le Strange in the com-
pilation of his Lands of the Eastern Caliphate before he
published the edition mentioned on the preceding page.
Mention has been already made at the beginning of this
chapter (p. 63 supra) of a small historical manual entitled
Nizdmu't-Tawdrikh (the "Order of Histories"
Al- rsaydawi s
or " Dates ") by the well-known judge and
0rW-commentator Nasiru'd-Din al-Baydawi,
whose father held the same office under the Atabek Abu
Bakr b. Sa'd-i-Zangi, the patron of the great poet Sa'di.
This dull and jejune little book, compiled in the year 6/4/
1275, with a continuation, apparently added by the author,
down to 683/1284-5, and a further continuation, probably
by another hand, to 694/1294-5, contains an outline of
general history from the time of Adam to the date last
mentioned. It has not been published, and is probably
not worth publishing, since it is doubtful whether it con-
tains anything new or valuable, and whether it is calculated
to add to the fame which its author enjoys as a juriscon-
sult, theologian and commentator 1 .
Another still unpublished historical manual of this period
is that properly entitled Rawdatu Ulil-Albdb fi tawdrikhil-
Akdbir wa'l-Ansdb (the "Garden of the Intelligent, on the
histories of the great, and on genealogies") com-
faJkl^' P iled in 717/1317 by Abu Sulayman Da'ud of
Banakat (or Fanakat) in Transoxiana 2 . It is
better known as the Tdrikh-i-Bandkati, is obviously and
indeed admittedly inspired by Rashidu'd-Din's great work,
1 For further particulars see Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 832-4.
2 Ibid., pp. 79-80. The only copy to which I have access is a MS.
(unfortunately defective at beginning and end) from the Library of the
late Sir A. Houtum-Schindler. It formerly belonged to that great
bibliophile Prince Bahman Mirzd Bahd'u^d-Dawla.
CH. n] THE TA'RJKH-I-BANAKATI 101
and comprises nine sections, called qism, as follows: (i) Pro-
phets and Patriarchs; (2) ancient Kings of Persia; (3) the
Prophet Muhammad and the Caliphs; (4) Persian dynas-
ties contemporary with the'Abbasid Caliphs; (5) the Jews;
(6) the Christians and Franks; (7) the Indians; (8) the
Chinese; (9) the Mongols. In one respect it shows very
clearly the influence of Rashidu'd-Din's wider conception
of history, for more than half the book is devoted to the
non-Muslim peoples mentioned in the headings of the last
five qisms, to wit the Jews, the European nations, including
the Roman Emperors and the Popes, the Indians, the
Chinese and the Mongols. The accounts given of these
nations, though for the most part brief and dry, show some
real knowledge of the chief facts, while the statements of
non-Muslim religious doctrines are fair and devoid of acri-
mony or fanaticism. Baydawi, on the other
Contrast be- J . ,
tweenthe hand, like most Persian historians not directly
SSwild inspired by Rashi'du'd-Dfn, practically ignores
Banakati, and all history except that which is connected with
Islam and the Muhammadan peoples, the an-
cient Kings of Persia, and the Hebrew Prophets and Patri-
archs. This contrast between these two historical manuals
is probably in large measure due to the fact that Baydawi
lived in Ears, which, as we have seen, lay outside the great
stream of communication between East and West set in
motion by the Mongol dominion, while the author of the
Tdrikh-i-Bandkati was from Transoxiana, and, as poet-
laureate of Ghazan Khan (70 1/1301 -2), was doubtless familiar
with the Mongol court and the many foreigners from distant
lands who frequented it. His information about the Jews,
Christians, Indians, Chinese and Mongols, though largely
directly borrowed, often in the same words,
Wider range .
of Banakatfs from the pages of Rashidu d-Dm, was never-
SerS? e and theless undoubtedly supplemented by what the
author learned orally from representatives of
the peoples in question. In no Persian history before
the Mongol period and in few after it do we find so many
102 HISTORIANS OF THE fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
references to places, people, and historical events beyond
the ken of most Muslim writers ; places like Portugal,
Poland, Bohemia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Catalonia,
Lombardy, Paris and Cologne ; people like the Roman
Emperors from Romulus downwards, and the Popes from
St Peter to the Pope contemporary with the author, who is
said to be the two hundred and second in succession ; and
events like the different Church Councils, the Conversion
of Britain to Christianity in the time of Pope Eleutherius,
the Nestorian heresy, and the like. As a specimen of one
of the more interesting passages the following account of
printing from wood blocks in China is worthy of atten-
tion. Having described the care with which the Chinese
transcribe historical and other passages from their ancient
books, he says :
" Then, according to a custom which they have, they were
wont and still continue to make copies from that book in
Account of such wise that no change or alteration can find
Chinese print- ft s wav j n { O th e text. And therefore when they
ing from the i t 11 r
Ta'r{kk-i- desire that any book containing matter of value
BanUatt t o them should be well written and should re-
main correct, authentic and unaltered, they order a skilful
calligraphist to copy a page of that book on a tablet in a
fair hand. Then all the men of learning carefully correct it,
and inscribe their names on the back of the tablet. Then
skilled and expert engravers are ordered to cut out the
letters. And when they have thus taken a copy of all the
pages of the book, numbering all [the blocks] consecutively,
they place these tablets in sealed bags, like the dies in a
mint, and entrust them to reliable persons appointed for
this purpose, keeping them securely in offices specially set
apart to this end on which they set a particular and defi-
nite seal. Then when anyone wants a copy of this book he
goes before this committee and pays the dues and charges
fixed by the Government. Then they bring out these tab-
lets, impose them on leaves of paper like the dies used in
minting gold, and deliver the sheets to him. Thus it is
CH. n] OTHER MINOR CHRONICLES 103
impossible that there should be any addition or omission in
any of their books, on which, therefore, they place complete
reliance; and thus is the transmission of their histories
effected."
A third minor history of this period is the Majmctu'l-
Ansdb ("Collection of Genealogies") of Muhammad ibn
'Ah' of Shabankara, who, like Fakhr-i-Bana-
^Anb ajm 1 ' katf > was a P et as wel1 as a historian. Of this
book there seem to have been two editions, the
first issued in 733/1332-3, the second three years later and
one year after the death of Abu Sa'i'd. This work contains
a summary of general history from the Creation to the time
of writing, but I have unfortunately been unable to obtain
or read a copy, and am indebted for these meagre par-
ticulars to Rieu's admirable Persian Catalogue, pp. 83-4.
According to Ethe 1 the original edition perished when the
house of Rashidu'd-Dm's son Ghiyathu'd-Dm Muhammad
was pillaged, and the author rewrote the book from memory,
completing this second edition, according to Ethe, in 743/
1342-3.
Two rhymed chronicles of this period also deserve notice,
the Shdhinshdh-ndma ("Book of the King of Kings"), or
Chingiz-ndma (" Book of Chingiz"), of Ahmad of Tabriz,
containing the history of the Mongols down to 738/1337-8
in about 18,000 verses, and dedicated to Abu Sa'i'd; and
the Ghdzdn-ndma of Nuru'd-Dm ibn Shamsu'd-Dm Mu-
hammad, composed in 763/1361-2. Both works are very
rare. Rieu has described a MS. of the first, copied in 8oo/
1397-8, acquired by the British Museum at the sale of the
Comte de Gobineau's library in i885 2 ; and I possess a fine
MS. of the latter, copied at Tabriz in 873/1468-9 for the
Royal Library of Abu'n-Nasr Hasan Beg Bahadur Khan,
and given to me in August, 1909, by Dr Rida Tawfi'q, then
1 India Office Pers. Cat., cols. 10 11, Nos. 21 and 22.
2 Persian Suppl. Cat., No. 201, p. 135.
104 HISTORIANS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i CH. n
Deputy for Adrianople in the Turkish Parliament. Both
works are written in the same metre (the mutaqdrib) as the
Shdh-ndma of Firdawsi, of which they are imitations, but
the second is only about half the length of the first (some-
thing between 9000 and 10,000 couplets) 1 . Neither of these
two works appears to be of any exceptional merit either
as history or poetry, though useful information about the
period of which they treat could no doubt be extracted
from them by patient examination.
1 In the short prose preface describing how the poem came to be
written for Sultan Uways, who had restored the pension enjoyed by
the author, then fifty years of age, under Ghazan Khan, the number of
verses is stated as 10,000.
CHAPTER III.
THE POETS AND MYSTICS OF THE IL-KHANI PERIOD.
From the literary point of view the period which we
are now considering is, as we have seen, chiefly remarkable
for the quality and quantity of historical writers
which it produced. That it was also rich in
poetical talent cannot be disputed, but this is
less remarkable, since at hardly any period was there a
dearth of poets in Persia. Almost every well-educated
Persian can produce moderately good verses on occasion,
and it would be a hopeless and useless task even to mention
all of those who, transcending the rank of mere versifiers,
can fairly claim to be poets. Severe selection is necessary
but not easy, for on the one hand due regard must be paid
to the judgement of the poet's own countrymen, even when
it does not entirely accord with our own ; and on the other
hand care must be taken not to overlook any poet of
originality and talent merely because he has not found
favour with the Persian biographers, who, especially in
their treatment of contemporaries, are apt to be swayed by
personal, political, and even religious prejudices and pre-
dilections.
In the period with which we are now dealing there lived
at least a score of poets whose claims to consideration
The two greatest cannot be denied. The two greatest by far
poets whosur- were Jalalu'd-Din Rumf and Sa'di of Shfraz, of
pTriod^aiaiu'd. whom the former died in 672/1273 at the age of
DmRumiand 55 an( j t h e latter about 690/1291 at the very
Sa'di, discussed }
in a previous advanced age, as is generally asserted, of no
lunar years. Both these poets, therefore, belong
rather to the period preceding this, and have accordingly
106 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
been already discussed in a previous volume 1 , to which the
reader is referred. They might with equal justice have
been included in this volume, which is the poorer for their
omission, since their literary activity extended into the period
which it covers, and both poets came into relations with
some of its leading personages, Sa'di with the Sdhib-Diwdn
and his brother 'Ala'u'd-Din of the great Juwayni family, and
even with Abaqa Khan himself 2 , and Jalalu'd-Di'n Rumi
with the unfortunate Parwana of Rum, Mu'inu'd-Dm, who
was put to death by Abaqa for suspected complicity with
the Egyptians in 675/I276-/ 3 . It would be easy to devote
many pages to each of them in this place without repeating
anything that has been said before, but the difficulty is to
limit rather than to extend the scope of this chapter, and,
in spite of all temptations to the contrary, they must there-
fore be omitted here.
For similar reasons I shall content myself with a very
brief mention of three other poets of this time whom many
Persian students, especially such as have pur-
Oimssion of poets . . T . T ,.
who, though they sued their studies in India, would place next
wrote m Persian, t ^ ^ great poets mentioned above ; I mean
were not of Per-
sian race or resi- Amir Khusraw and Hasan of Dihli and Badr-
i-Chach, all of whom are highly esteemed in
India, but none of whom, so far as is known, ever visited,
much less resided in Persia. To reduce the subject-matter
of this book within any reasonable limits, it becomes more
and more necessary to exclude the great and increasing
number of Indian writers of Persian. Two considerations
besides that of space seems to me to justify this
Grounds for ex- _ . . .
eluding Indian- procedure. The first is that, owing to the greater
Persian literature j n t- eres f- j n i n di a which naturally prevails in
1 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 515-539.
2 See the English Introduction to vol. xvi, i, of the " E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial" Series (the Jahdn-gushd of Juwayni, edited by Mirzci
Muhammad), pp. lii-liv.
3 See Bar-Hebraeus' Mukhtasardd-Duival (Beyrout ed. of 1890),
pp. 501-3.
CH. in] INDIAN WRITERS EXCLUDED 107
England, far more has been written about these Indian-
Persian authors, whether poets or historians, than about
the purely Persian men of letters. The second is that, so
far as a foreign student may be permitted to express an
opinion on matters of literary taste, this Persian literature
produced in India, has not, as a rule, the real Persian flavour,
the tjtdf as the Irish call it, which belongs to the indigenous
product. Without making any invidious comparisons, it
will hardly be contested that there is just as good reason for
treating the abundant Persian literature produced in India
from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the
nineteenth century as a separate subject as for a similar
procedure in the case of the English literature produced in
England and that produced in America; and that therefore
the omission of Amir Khusraw from this chapter is as justi-
fiable as the omission of Walt Whitman from a modern
English literary history, especially as a very long notice of
the former is given in Elliot's History of India 1 . The same
observation applies in lesser degree to the Persian writings
produced in Afghanistan and Turkey respectively, though
Persian still remains the natural speech of a large number
of Afghans, and Turkish Sultans (notably the great Sah'm
" the Grim 2 ") have not disdained, even when at war with the
Persians, to make use of their language for literary purposes.
Exceptions will be made, however, especially in the period
succeeding that included in this volume, in the case of
native-born Persians who, attracted by the munificence of
the Moghul Emperor of Dihlf, emigrated to India in the
hopes of disposing of their intellectual wares more profitably
than was possible in their own country.
The attention of those who read Urdu should be called
1 Vol. iii, pp. 524-566.
2 A most sumptuous edition of this Persian Diwdn of Sultdn Sah'm,
edited by the late Dr Paul Horn of Strassburg, was printed by com-
mand of the German Emperor for presentation to the late Sultdn
'Abdu'l-Hamid in 1904. Of this rare and beautiful work I am fortunate
enough to possess a copy.
io8 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
to a very excellent modern book entitled Shi'rul-Ajam
Note on a good (" Poetry of the Persians") by the late Shibli Nu-
modem Urdu 'mam, lithographed at 'AH-garh in two volumes
work containing ...
critical studies of in or about 1325/1907, and containing critical
Persian poets studies of about a. score of the classical poets of
Persia from Firdawsi arid his predecessors to Hafiz. Amongst
these a long notice 1 is devoted to Amir Khusraw of Dihli,
which contains incidentally a good deal of information
about his friend, contemporary and fellow-poet Hasan of
Dihli. Those who do not read Urdu may be referred to
another excellent and scholarly work produced by Indian
scholarship under the auspices of my friend Sir Edward
Denison Ross, the Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian
Manuscripts in the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, of
which the first volume, containing the Persian poets from
Firdawsi to Hafiz, was published at Calcutta in 1908.
Twenty pages of this volume (pp. 176-195) are devoted to
Amir Khusraw and his various works, and the four following
pages to his friend Amir Hasan. Both were disciples of the
great Saint Nizamu'd-Di'n Awliya, who died in 725/1324,
only seven months before Amir Khusraw, who was buried
beside him. Amir Hasan only survived them a few (pro-
bably two) years.
Amir Khusraw, not less notable as a musician than as
a poet, was of Turkish race, his father Amir Sayfu'd-Dfn
Mahmud having fled before the Mongols from
Brief account of the region of Ba lkh to India, where he finally
Amir Khusraw
settled at Patyali. There the poet was born in
651/1253. He was therefore seventy-one years old when
he died, and " lived to enjoy the favour of five successive
kings of Dihli." He was enormously productive ; Dawlat-
shah credits him with nearly half a million verses. Of
these " Mirza Baysunqur, after ceaseless efforts, succeeded
in collecting 120,000," but having subsequently discovered
2000 more from his ghazals, he " concluded that it would be
1 Op. laud., vol. ii, pp. 107-195.
CH. HI] AMfR KHUSRAW OF DIHLf 109
very difficult for him to collect the complete work of the
poet, and gave up the idea for ever 1 ."
Although, for the reasons given above, I do not propose
to speak at length of Amir Khusraw, yet, in accordance
with the well-known Arabic saying 2 of which the gist is
that what cannot be fully included need not therefore be
wholly omitted, I shall give here " for good luck and a
blessing" (tayammun an wa tabarruk*"} one short extract from
his Layld wa Majmin in which he mourns, with a remark-
able touch of feeling, the death of his mother and younger
brother, both of whom died in 698/1298-9. The poet's love
for his mother, which is in strong contrast with his lack of
appreciation of his daughter, is one of the most attractive
features of his character 3 .
1 See the Bankipore Catalogue mentioned above, vol. i, pp. 176-7,
and my edition of Dawlat-shah, p. 240.
2 ' 4JL> Jjlj -N) J^ jj jj N) U
3 The five verses addressed to his daughter, who appears to have
been called 'Afifa, will be found on p. 125 of vol. ii of the Shfritl-
'Ajam, and the verses to his mother on pp. 126-7.
no POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
"A double radiance left my star this year :
Amir Khusraw's Gone are m y brother and my mother dear.
lament on his ., _,. j j i_
mother's death My two ""' moons have set and ceased to shine
In one short week through this ill luck of mine.
By double torture I am racked of Fate,
By double blow doth Heaven me prostrate.
Double my mourning, double my despair ;
Alas that I this double grief must bear !
Two brands for one like me is't not a shame ?
One fire's enough to set the stack aflame.
One breast a double burden should not bear,
One head of headaches cannot hold a pair.
Beneath the dust my mother lieth dead ;
Is't strange if I cast dust upon my head ?
Where art thou mother mine, in what strange place ?
Canst thou not, mother, show me thy dear face ?
From heart of earth come smiling forth once more,
And take compassion on my weeping sore !
Where'er in days gone by thy feet did fall
That place to me doth Paradise recall.
Thy being was the guardian of my soul,
The strong support which kept me safe and whole.
Whene'er those lips of thine to speed were stirred
Ever to my advantage was thy word.
To-day thy silence makes its dumb appeal,
And lo, my lips are closed as with a seal ! "
Badr-i-Chach, another poet of Transoxiana, has a con-
siderable reputation in India but is practically unknown in
Persia. The town of Chch or Shsh of which
he claimed to be the " Full Moon " (Badr) is
the modern Tashkand. His poetry, which I have never read,
but of which Sir H. Elliot has translated specimens in
his History of India 1 , is reputed very difficult, a common
characteristic of the Persian poetry produced by men of
Turkish race or writing under Turkish influence and patron-
age, but not in itself, from our point of view, a reason for
including him in this survey.
1 Vol. iii, pp. 567-573.
CH. in] QANI'f AND PtiR-I-BAHA in
Mention may here be made of a little-known poet called
Qani'i, who fled from his native town of Tus in Khurasan
before the terrible Mongol invasion, escaped to
Qani'i
India, and thence made his way westwards by
Aden, Mecca, Medina and Baghdad to Asia Minor, where
he attached himself to the court of the Seljuq rulers of
Qonya (Iconium), for whom he composed an immense versi-
fied history of the dynasty on the model of the Shdh-ndma,
and a metrical rendering of the celebrated Book of Kalila
and Dimna, of which a manuscript (Add. 7766) belonging
to the British Museum is described by Rieu 1 , from whom
these particulars are taken. In virtue of these and other
poetical productions, of which he boasted that they filled
thirty volumes and amounted to 300,000 bayts, he received
the title of Maliku'sh-Shtfard (" King of Poets " or Poet
Laureate), and he lived long enough to compose an elegy
on the death of the great Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, who died,
as already mentioned, in 672/1273.
Another early but little-known poet of this period is
Pur-i-Baha-yi-Jami',to whomDawlat-shah 2 devotes an article
containing but few facts about his life, to which
pur-i-Baha-yi- o ther biographical works, such as the Haft
Jami /
Iqlim, Atash-kada, Majma'u'sh-ShiJ'ard, etc.
add but little. His original patron was Khwaja Wajihu'd-
Dm Zangi'(Dawlat-shah)or Tahir-i-Faryumadf (//#/? /<7/z'#z),
but he afterwards enjoyed the patronage of the great Sahib
Diwdn. He seems to have been fond of quaint conceits
and tours de force, and Dawlat-shah cites an ingenious poem
of his, containing 28 bayts, in which he made use of as
many Mongol and Turkish words and technical terms as
possible, as when he says 3 :
1 Rieu's Brit. Mus. Pers. Cat., pp. 582-4. 2 Pp. 181-5 of my edition.
3 Loc. tit., p. 182, lines 22-3.
ii2 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANi PERIOD [BK i
" The wizards of thy tresses, like the pens of the bakhshis,
Have practised on thy cheek the Uyghiir writing 1 ."
The following quatrain, addressed to a friend who had
lost a tooth, is also rather neat.
._*
" If a pearl is missing from thy sweet casket
Thy dignity is in no wise diminished in the matter of beauty.
A hundred moons shine from the corners of thy cheek
What matter if one star be missing from thy Pleiades ?"
The two following poems by Pur-i-Baha, written in
the grand style cultivated by court poets, and filled with
elaborate word-plays and far-fetched metaphors, are chiefly
interesting because they can be exactly dated. The first
refers to the destruction of Nishapiir by an earthquake in
666/1267-8, and the second to its restoration in 669/1270-1
by order of Abaqa. Both are taken from that rare work
the Mujmal of Fasi'hi of Khwaf 2 .
1 See d'Ohsson, vol. i, p. 17, who defines "les Games " (Qdmdri) as
"ministres de leur culte grossier, qui e"taient a la fois magiciens,
interpretes des songes, augures, aruspices, astrologues et mddecins."
The bakhshis were the scribes who wrote the old Uyghur character,
which continued to be used in Turkistan until the fifteenth century of
our era.
2 Only four MSS. of this work are known to exist, two in Petrograd
and two in Cambridge. See my article on this rare book in the number
of the Muston published at the Cambridge University Press for the
exiled Belgian professors in 1915, pp. 48-78.
CH. in] PtiR-I-BAHA 113
j t
' U) (^I
" Through the shakes and knocks of the earthquake shocks it is upside
down and awry,
So that 'neath the Fish is Arcturus 1 sunk, while the Fish is raised to
the sky.
That fury and force have run their course, and its buildings are over-
thrown,
And riven and ruined are whole and part, and the parts asunder strown.
Not in worship, I ween, are its chapels seen with spires on the ground
low lying,
While the minarets stoop or bend in a loop, but not at the bedesmen's
crying.
The libraries all are upside down, and the colleges all forsaken,
And the Friday Mosque in ruins is laid, and the pulpits are shattered
and shaken.
Yet do not suppose that this ruin arose from the town's ill destiny,
But ask of me if thou fain wouldst see the wherefore of this and the why.
1 Arcturus (SimdK) is accounted one of the highest stars in
heaven. In the popular cosmogony of the less educated Muslims, the
earth is supposed to be supported by a great fish (Samak in Arabic,
Mdhi in Persian) which swims in a vast ocean contained by banks of
cloud. Hence the Arabic expression minds- Samak ila's-Stmdk ("from
the Fish to Arcturus"), corresponding to the Persian az mdh td bi-mdhi
("from the Moon to the Fish"), meaning from the highest to the
lowest.
B. P. 8
n 4 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK r
'Twas because the Lord had such high regard for this old and famous
place
That He turned His gaze ou its fashions and ways with the eyes of
favour and grace,
And such was the awe which His glance inspired, and His Light's
effulgent rays
That with shaking feet to earth it fell for fear of that awful blaze.
For did not the Mountain of Sinai once fall down and crumble away
Where Moses stood, and the Face of God to behold with his eyes did
pray ? "
" The buildings of Nishapur Time had striven to displace
And Ruin wide from every side had thither turned its face.
God willed that men should once again its buildings strive to raise
In the reign of just Abdqa, the Nushirwan of our days.
Of all the world the lord is he, of all the earth the king,
Foe-binder, world-subduer he, all kingdoms conquering.
It happened in the year six-hundred and three-score and nine
That from its ruins rose again this city famed and fine.
CH. in] IMAMf OF HERAT 115
Venus and Sol in Taurus, Ramadan was ending soon ;
In Gemini stood Mercury, in Pisces stood the Moon.
May this new town's foundation to thee a blessing bring,
And every desert in thy reign bear towns as flourishing !
By thy good luck Nishapiir old is now grown young again,
Like to some agdd dotard who his boyhood doth regain.
Three things, I pray, may last for aye, while earth doth roll along :
The Khwaja's 1 life, the city's luck, and Pur-i-Baha's song ! "
Not very much need be said, or indeed, is known, about
Imami of Herat, whose full name, according to the author
of the Tarikh-i-Guzida, was Abu 'Abdi'llah
Imami of Herdt , 11 A i / T- 1 i TT
Muhammad b. Abu Bakr b. 'Uthman. He was
the panegyrist of the rulers and ministers of Kirman, and
died, according to the Majmctul-Fusahd'*' in 667/1268-9.
An extraordinarily complicated acrostic on his own name,
composed by him according to the terminology of the state
accountants, will be found in the Guzida 3 . The highest
compliment which he ever received was probably that paid
him by his contemporary Majdu'd-Din Hamgar, in reply to
a versified question addressed to the latter poet by Mu'inu'd-
Din the Parwana, Malik Iftikharu'd-Din,Nuru'd-Din Rasadi,
and the Sdhib-Diwdn Shamsu'd-Din, enquiring his opinion
as to the respective merits of himself, Sa'di and Imami' 4 .
His reply was as follows :
" Though I in song am like the tuneful birds,
Fly-like I sip the sweets of Sa'di's words ;
Yet all agree that in the arts of speech
Sa'di and I can ne'er Imami reach."
1 Probably the Sdhib-Diwdn is meant. a Vol. i, p. 98.
:i See my translation of this section of the work (ch. v, 6) in the
J.R.A.S. for Oct. 1900 and Jan. 1901, pp. 13-15 of the separate reprint.
4 These verses are given by Dawlatshah, p. 166, 1. 24 p. 167,
11. 1-9 of my edition.
82
n6 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
To this Imami replied in the following complimentary
quatrain 1 :
"Though throned in power in eloquence's fane,
And, Christ-like, raising song to life again,
Ne'er to the dust of Majd-i-Hamgar's door,
That Sahbdn of the Age 2 , can I attain."
Sa'di, on the other hand, vented his spleen in the
following verse :
" Whoe'er attaineth not position high
His hopes are foiled by evil destiny.
Since Hamgar flees from all who pray or preach,
No wonder he ' can ne'er Imami reach 3 .' "
The poems of Imami, so far as I am aware, have never
been published, nor are manuscripts of them common. In
my necessarily limited investigations I have made use of
the British Museum manuscript Or. 2847. One of the
prettiest of his poems which I have met with occurs on
f. Q8 a of that manuscript, and runs as follows :
ii
s*o I
1 British Museum MS. Or. 3713, f. 179''.
3 Sahbdn ibn Wa'il, an ancient Arab, whose eloquence is proverbial.
3 There is an untranslateable pun here, for fmdmi means the posi-
tion of an Imdm, or leader in prayer, as well as being the poet's nom
de guerre.
4 MS.>**> which I have emended on account of the metre.
CH. in] IMAMf OF HERAT 117
" We celebrate the New Year's Feast but once in all the year ;
A Feast perpetual to me affords thy presence dear.
One day the roses hang in clusters thick upon the tree ;
A never-failing crop of roses yield thy cheeks to me.
One day I gather violets by the bunch in gardens fair,
But violets by the sheaf are yielded by thy fragrant hair.
The wild narcissus for a single week the field adorns ;
The bright narcissus of thine eye outlasts three hundred morns.
The wild narcissus must its freshness lose or vigil keep 1 :
To thy narcissus-eyes no difference waking makes or sleep.
Fragrant and fair the garden jasmine is in days of Spring,
But round thy hyacinths 2 the jasmine-scent doth ever cling.
Nay, surely from thy curls the hyacinths their perfume stole,
These are the druggist's stock-in-trade and those food for the soul.
Those from a ground of silver 3 spring, and these from heaps of stone ;
Those crown a cypress-form, while these adorn some upland lone.
There is a garden-cypress which remains for ever green,
Yet by thy cypress-stature it appears uncouth and mean."
Imami was for some time patronized by Fakhru'1-Mulk
1 A flower "keeps vigil" when it is fully open.
2 " Hyacinth " (sunbtit) is a common poetical metaphor for hair.
3 Meaning the fair, silver-like skin.
u8 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK I
of Khurasan 1 , who on one occasion submitted to him the
following versified enquiry 2 :
" What says that master of the Law, chief scholar of our land,
Our guide in doctrine and belief, to this which we demand :
Suppose a cat at dead of night feloniously should steal
A cage of pigeons or of doves, and make therefrom a meal,
Would Retribution's Law revealed the owner justify
If he in vengeance for the birds should doom the cat to die ?' ;
To this enquiry, Imami answered as follows :
"A subtle question this indeed ! The palate of the mind
Therein thy nature's fragrance fair and reason rare doth find !
No vengeance falls upon the cat, for nowhere hath implied
Our Prophet in his Holy Law that such is justified.
Have cats which hunt for birds less right than catkins 3 on the tree ?
Their claws upon the branch they spread whene'er a bird they see.
So, if his own white arm he seeks to keep secure from pain,
Let him avoid with Pussy's blood his hand and arm to stain.
If he the pigeon seeks to save, the dove to keep alive,
To hang their cages out of reach he surely could contrive ! "
Poetical interrogations of this sort seem to have been
the fashion at this time, for certain people of Kashan
addressed a similar versified question as to the respective
merits of the poets Anwari and Zahir of Faryab to
Majdu'd-Di'n Hamgar, and to this same question Imami also
thought good to reply in verse. The text and trans-
lation of this correspondence, including the question and
the two answers, all in verse, are given in the Tarikk-i-
Guztda*, to which the curious reader is referred. Majdu'd-
Dm Hamgar's reply contains the date when it was written,
viz. the end of Rajab, 674 (Jan. 19, 1276), and both he
and Imami agree in preferring Anwari to Zahir, a judge-
ment in which nearly all competent critics will concur.
1 Apparently that same minister Fakhru'1-Mulk Shamsu 'd-Dawla,
to whom several of Imami's poems are dedicated.
2 For the original verses, which it would be superfluous to reprint
here, see my edition of Dawlatshdh, p. 169.
3 Catkins are called gurba-i-bid, "willow-cats," in Persian.
4 See pp. 60-64 of the separate reprint of my translation of this por-
tion (ch. v, 6) published in \heJ.R.A.S. for Oct. 1900 and Jan. 1901.
CH. in] MAJDU'D-DfN HAMGAR 119
Majdu'd-Din's claim to prefer Imami's poetry not only to his
own but to Sa'di's, on the other hand, cannot be taken
seriously, and must have been prompted by some personal
motive, such as a desire to please Imami or to annoy Sa'df.
All Persian writers who have noticed this matter at all
have expressed amazement at the view which Majdu'd-Dm
Hamgar saw fit to advance; for in truth Imami's poetry, so
far as we can judge from the specimens given by Dawlat-
.shah 1 and in the Atash-Kada"- and the Majma'u'l-Fusakd*,
has no special distinction or originality, while Sa'di's claim
to be reckoned among the half-dozen greatest poets of his
country has never been disputed,
Majdu'd-Di'n Hamgar was, according to the Tarikh-i-
Guzida, a native of Yazd, and a protege of Baha'u'd-Din
Juwayni, the high-handed governor of Fars, who
Majdu'd-Dm died 678/I27Q 4 . When the poet came from
Hamgar I ' ?
Yazd to Isfahan, he left his elderly wife behind
him, but she soon followed him. News of her arrival was
brought to the poet by one of his pupils, who said, " Good
news ! Your lady has alighted in the house." " Good
news," replied Majdu'd-Din, " would rather be that the
house had alighted on her ! " The lady, to whom this
speech was reported, reproached her husband for his unkind
words, quoting the quatrain of 'Umar Khayyam beginning :
" Days changed to nights ere thou wert born, or I 5 ."
" Before me, perhaps," replied Majdu'd-Dm, "but Heaven
forbid that day and night should have existed before thee!"
According to Dawlatshah 6 , Majdu'd-Dm Hamgar boast-
ed descent from Nushfrwan the Sasanian, and was on this
1 Pp. 167-170 of my edition.
'* P. 137 of the lithographed edition of 1277/1860-1.
:! Vol. i, pp. 98-101. 4 See p. 21 supra.
5 See E. H. Whinfield's text and translation in Triibner's Oriental
Series (1883), No. 33 (pp. 24-5).
6 P. 176 of my edition.
120 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
account a somewhat privileged person at the courts which
he frequented. To this alleged genealogy the poet alludes
in the following verses 1 :
'JUj
' J'J
^>w
1 Cited in the Afajffia i u'/-Fusa/ui, vol. i, p. 596.
CH. in] MAJDU'D-DfN HAMGAR 121
" My virtues all a cruel age hath made for me a bane ;
My youthful blood the aged Sphere hath shed in grief and pain.
The envious Mercury 1 hath plucked the pen from out my hand,
The arching Heaven hath drawn a bow to smite me where I stand.
O Sphere, what vvould'st thou of me, a poor, bare-footed thing ?
O Time, what seek'st thou from me, a bird with broken wing ?
Make of the falcon's eyes a dish to satisfy the owl :
Make of the lion's thighs the food for which the jackals prowl.
In no wise like the noisy drum will I his blows bewail,
Although his lashes on my back descend as falls the flail.
O foot of trouble's elephant, prithee more gently press !
O hand of this ignoble Sphere, increase my dire distress !
Through tribulations bravely borne my heart hath grown more bright,
As mirrors gain by polishing in radiancy and light.
What time the rose-bush from the dust doth raise its flowering head,
The sapling of my luck (what luck !) hath withered and is dead.
My fault is this, that I am not from some base seed upgrown :
My crime is this, that noble is the pedigree I own.
The sons of Sasn, not Tigin, my ancestors I call ;
I'm of the race of Kisrd, not the household of InaT 3 .
My verse is sweet and exquisite as union with the fair :
My pen in picture-painting hath the gifts of fancy rare.
No eye hath seen an impulse mean impede my bounty's flow :
The ear of no petitioner hath heard the answer ' No ! '
When youth is gone, from out the heart all love of play is cast :
And lustre fadeth from the sun which hath the zenith passed."
Majdu'd-Di'n Hamgar wrote poems in praise of Shamsu'd-
Din Muhammad the Sdhib-Diwdn as well as of the Atabek
Sa'd b. Abu Bakr. Manuscripts of his poems
Quatrains of afe fa fc fi jj manuscr jpt (Qr. 3713)
Majd-i-Hamgar > J/ "
in the British Museum, transcribed in the years
A.D. 1293-8 by the poet's grandson, contains a number
of his quatrains. Unlike the quatrains of 'Umar Khay-
yam, Abu Sa'i'd b. Abi'l-Khayr, and other masters of this
style of verse, Majdu'd- Din's quatrains deal less with
1 Mercury is the planet which presides over the destinies of authors,
scribes and poets.
* Tigin or Tagin is a suffix of Turkish names (e.g. Subuk-tigin,
Alp-tigin, etc.} and Indl is another common Turkish name or title.
Kisra is the Arabic form of Khusraw (" Chosroes "), the proper name
of Nushirwdn and Parwiz, and the generic name for all the kings of the
Royal House of Susan.
122 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
mystical and philosophical ideas than with concrete things
and persons. Some are merely abusive epigrams, such as
the following :
" Born of a mother of accursed womb
From Ganja's town to Abkhdz thou didst come,
Where that dog-training swineherd nurse of thine
Fed thee on dog's milk and the blood of swine."
The following, expressing the poet's love of travel, is too
ingenious in its word-plays to admit of adequate translation :
->* J^
" O heaven, never turn aside my reins from wandering :
Give me my bread from Sarandfb (Ceylon), my water from Sarab:
Grant me each evening (shdni) a loaf of bread from Bamiyan,
And every morning (bam} give me a draught of water from Sham
(Damascus) 1 ."
In the two following quatrains he laments his advancing
age:
J '
1 Sarandzb, from the Sanskrit Sivarna-dipa, is the name given by
the Arab geographers to Ceylon, and Sardb is a town in Adharbayjan.
There is a kind of word-play between these two names, but a much more
complete one in the second half of the quatrain between bam (morning)
and Bdmiydn (north-west of Afghanistan) on the one hand, and
shiim (evening) and Sham (Damascus) on the other. The last is an
example of the " complete word-play."
CH. in] MAJDU'D-DfN HAMGAR 123
" Fiery and fluent, once my heart did hurl
Spontaneous verses forth, each verse a pearl :
Then Love, Desire and Youth were mine. These three
Not e'en in dreams I now can hope to see ! "
" This foot of mine no more the stirrup suits ;
For me no more are spurs and riding-boots.
Oppressed by aches and age, there now remains
No foot for stirrup and no hand for reins."
Here is another very insulting quatrain, but again no
record remains of the person to whom it was addressed :
" Compared to thee a pig's a pretty sight :
Beside thy face an ape's the heart's delight.
Thy temper's uglier than e'en thy face,
Compared to it thy face is fair and bright."
Some of the quatrains are acrostics on names, as, for
example, the following :
" The [sum of the] numbers of the letters in that graceful charmer's
name
Is exactly three hundred and sixty, like the divisions of the heavens.
The third letter is one-ninth of the fourth letter,
While the first letter is one-sixth of the second letter."
124 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
The name appears to be Nashdt (JUJ), for ,j = 50,
CH= 300, t = i, and J = 9, which yields a total of 360 and
fulfils the two other conditions.
The following is addressed to his sweetheart :
aj
"No means have I by thee to pitch my tent,
Nor money in thy street a house to rent :
My ears and eyes serve only to this end,
To hear thy voice and on thee gaze intent."
That Majdu'd-Dfn Hamgar reached an advanced age is
suggested by some of the quatrains just cited,whilein another
he describes himself as over eighty, but I have not been
able to ascertain the precise dates of his birth and death.
Mention must now be made of a poet of far greater
talent and originality than those of whom we have spoken
above, namely Fakhru'd-Dm Ibrahim of Hama-
dan, better known by his poetical nom de guerre,
or takhallus, of 'Iraqi. Notices of his life are found in
most of the later biographies of mystics and poets, notably
in the Nafakdtu'l-Uns of Jami' 1 and in the Majdlisu'l-
'Ushshdq of Husayn Mirza Bayqara ; but in the absence of
contemporary testimony the particulars there given must
be received with a certain reserve, while from his writings,
almost entirely of a mystical and erotic character, little or
nothing is to be gleaned as to his personal adventures. He
is the typical qalandar, heedless of his reputation, and seeing
in every beautiful face or object a reflection, as in a mirror,
of the Eternal Beauty. " Love," as one of his biographers
says, " was predominant in his nature," and hence his ghazals
have an erotic character which has exposed him to very
harsh strictures on the part of some European critics, notably
1 Pp. 700-704 of Nassau Lees's edition.
CH. in] 'IRAQI' 125
Sprenger 1 , who find scandalous in a Persian sentiments
which in Plato they either admire or ignore.
According to Jami, 'Iraqi was born at Hamadan, and in
childhood learned the Qur'dn by heart and could recite it
melodiously and accurately. When he was about seventeen
years of age, a party of qalandars, amongst whom was a
very beautiful youth, came to Hamadan, and, when they
left, 'Iraqi, attracted by the beauty of the young dervish,
followed them to India. At Multan he became the disciple
of Shaykh Baha'u'd-Dm Zakariyya, of whom he says in one
of his poems :
" If thou shouldst ask of the world ' Who is the guide of men ?'
Thou wilt hear from heaven no other answer than ' ZakariyyaV"
Soon after his arrival there the discipline of a chilla, or
forty days' retirement and meditation, was imposed upon
him, but on the tenth day the other dervishes came to the
Shaykh and complained that instead of meditating in silence
he was singing a ghazal or ode which he had composed, and
which in the course of a few days was in the mouths of all the
revellers in the city, who were singing it in the taverns to
the accompaniment of the harp and zither. This ghazal,
which is one of 'Iraqi's best-known poems, is as follows :
1 Catalogue of the Library of the King of Oude, pp. 440-1.
iz6 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
" The wine wherewith the cup they first filled high
Was borrowed from the Sdqi's languorous eye.
Since self-possessed the revellers they found
The draught of selflessness they handed round.
The loved one's wine-red lips supplied the cup :
They named it ' Lover's wine,' and drank it up.
No rest the hair of those fair idols knows,
So many a heart it robs of its repose.
For good and bad a place within our hall
They found, and with one cup confounded all.
They cast the ball of Beauty on the field,
And at one charge compelled both worlds to yield.
The drunken revellers from eye and lip
The almond gather, and the sugar sip.
But that sweet lip, desired of all, most fair,
Maketh harsh words the helpless lover's share.
CH. in] 'IRAQf 127
They loosen and set free their locks of jet
That they therewith for hearts a snare may set.
A hundred messages their glances dart ;
Their eyebrows signal secrets to the heart.
They speak in confidence and silence claim,
And then their secrets to the world proclaim.
Where'er in all the world is grief and gall
They mix them up, the mixture ' Love' they call.
Why should they seek to hurt 'Iraqi's fame,
Since they themselves their secrets thus proclaim ? "
When Shaykh Baha'u'd-Dm heard the last couplet, he
said, " This finishes his business ! " He then called to
'Iraqi in his cell," Do you make your supplications in wine-
taverns? Come forth!" So 'Iraqi came forth, and the
Shaykh clothed him in his own khirqa or dervish-cloak,
raised him from the ground to which he had cast himself,
and subsequently gave him in marriage his daughter, who
afterwards bore him a son named Kabfru'd-Din.
Twenty-five years passed, and Shaykh Baha'u'd-Din
died, naming 'Iraqi as his successor. The other dervishes,
however, disapproved of this nomination, and complained
to the King of 'Iraqi's antinomianism. He thereupon left
India and visited Mecca and al-Madina, whence he proceeded
to Asia Minor. At Qonya (Iconium) he attended the
lectures of the celebrated Shaykh Sadru'd-Din of that city
on theFustis of Shaykh Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabi 1 , and
composed his most celebrated prose work, the Lamctdt
(" Flashes " or " Effulgences "), which was submitted to the
Shaykh and won his approval. The powerful nobleman
Mu'fnu'd-Din the Parwana was 'Iraqi's admirer and disciple,
and built for him, it is said, a khdnqdh or monastery at
Tuqat, besides showing him other favours. On his death,
'Iraqi left Asia Minor for Egypt, where also he is said to
have been well received by the reigning Sultan, whose favour
he retained, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies to
traduce him. In Syria, whither he subsequently proceeded,
he met with an equally good reception, and there, after six
1 See vol. ii of my Lit. Hist, of Persia, pp. 497-501.
ia8 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
months' sojourn, he was joined by his son Kabiru'd-Din
from India. There also he died, on the 8th of Dhu'l-Qa'da,
688 (Nov. 23, 1289) and was buried in the Salihiyya
Cemetery at Damascus, beside the great mystic Shaykh
Muhiyyu'd-Di'n ibnu'l-'Arabi, who had predeceased him by
50 years, and whose influence in Persia, still prevalent even
in our days, was largely due to 'Iraqi, Awhadu'd-Di'n of
Maragha, and others of the same school.
The following poems from 'Iraqi's Diwdn may serve
besides that already given, as typical of his style :
CH. m] 'IRAQI 129
" From head to feet thou art gracious, pleasant and sweet, O Love !
Thee to prefer to life 'twere right and meet, O Love !
To thee doth aspire the heart's desire of all, O Love !
A hunter of hearts art thou to hold us in thrall, O Love !
To mine eyes appear thy features fair and dear, O Love !
Awake or asleep like a crystal stream so clear, O Love !
Though Beauty's wine doth incarnadine thy cheek, O Love !
Bear with thy comrades, nor causeless quarrels seek, O Love !
They melt in air, hope's promises false and fair, O Love !
Excuses, I ween, you'll find enough and to spare, O Love !
Kisses sip from thine own fair lip. and behold, O Love !
The Water of Life with its savour so sweet and so cold, O Love !
In the dust hard by thy path I die at thy door, O Love !
That a draught of wine on this dust of mine thou mayst pour, O Love !
Jewels of speech on all and each thou dost hurl, O Love !
So that every soul in its ear may wear a pearl, O Love !
None do I see in grace like thee, and I'm sure, O Love !
Thou art soul incarnate and spirit essential and pure, O Love !
In mine eyes and heart thou hast thy part and share, O Love !
Thou dost hide or appear, now dark and dim, now clear, O Love !
Never a moment on earth from North to South, O Love !
May 'Irdqi aspire to have his desire of thy mouth, O Love ! "
The following is the first strophe of a very fine Tarji 1 -
band:
B. P.
130 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
" Cups are those a-flashing with wine,
Or suns through the clouds a-gleaming ?
So clear is the wine and the glass so fine
That the two are one in seeming.
The glass is all and the wine is naught,
Or the glass is naught and the wine is all :
Since the air the rays of the sun hath caught
The light combines with night's dark pall,
For the night hath made a truce with the day,
And thereby is ordered the world's array.
If thou know'st not which is day, which night,
Or which is goblet and which is wine,
By wine and cup divine aright
The Water of Life and its secret sign :
Like night and day thou mayst e'en assume
Certain knowledge and doubt's dark gloom.
If these comparisons clear not up
All these problems low and high,
Seek for the world-reflecting cup
That thou mayst see with reason's eye
That all that is, is He indeed,
Soul and loved one and heart and creed."
Here is a fragment of another ode :
CH. m] 'IRAQf
131
" Forth from the Veil came that fair Cup-bearer, in hand the cup ;
He tore our veils asunder, and our vows forthwith broke up ;
Showed us His visage fair, and straightway us of sense bereft,
Then sat Him down beside us, when of us no trace was left.
His locks the knots unloosed ; our spirits' bonds were cast aside;
Our souls abjured the world, and to His curls their fortunes tied.
There in His fragrant tresses we remained in frenzy fine,
Intoxicated with the proffered cup of ruby wine.
Lost at His hands, our hearts for refuge clung unto His hair,
E'en as the drowning man will catch at straws in his despair.
And when His tresses' chains became the bonds of hearts that raved,
From their own being they escaped and from the world were saved."
Of the following ode a spirited translation was made,
but not published, by my friend Sir E. Denison Ross. The
translation here given resembles and is suggested by his,
but is not identical with it, for I cannot lay my hands on
the copy which I received, nor can I remember it in detail.
Lo
92
The '
nttma
1 32 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
" Save love of thee a soul in me I cannot see, I cannot see ;
An object for my love save thee I cannot see, I cannot see.
Repose or patience in my mind I cannot find, I cannot find,
While gracious glance or friendship free I cannot see, I cannot see.
Show in thy face some sign of grace, since for the pain wherewith I'm
slain
Except thy face a remedy I cannot see, 1 cannot see.
If thou wouldst see me, speed thy feet, for parted from thy presence sweet,
Continued life on earth for me I cannot see, I cannot see.
O friend, stretch out a hand to save, for I am fallen in a wave
Of which the crest, if crest there be, I cannot see, I cannot see.
With gracious care and kindly air come hither and my state repair ;
A better state, apart from thee, I cannot see, I cannot see.
Some pathway to 'Iraqi teach whereby thy gateway he may reach,
For vagrant so bemused as he I cannot see, I cannot see. 1 '
Besides his lyric poetry 'Iraqi composed a mathnawi
poem entitled the 'UshsJidq-ndina, or " Book of Lovers," but
this I have not read, nor is a copy of it at present
. access ible to me. I therefore pass to his most
notable prose work, the Lama'dt (" Flashes," or
" Effulgences "), a mystical treatise inspired, as already
mentioned, by the teachings of " the most great doctor" (ash-
Skaykhtil-akbar) Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabi, by origin of
the famous Arabian tribe of Tayy, an d by birth a Moor of
Andalusia.
The Lamddt is a comparatively small book, containing,
perhaps, between 7000 and 8000 words, and, though written
in prose, includes numerous pieces of verse. The
The Latna'dt . . . . . . _ , , r
many-sided and talented Jami, of whom we
shall speak in a later chapter, wrote a commentary on it,
entitled Ashfatul-Lama'dt 1 (" Rays of the Flashes "), in the
preface to which he says that he began by being
ilTworT 1 " 10 " f prejudiced against the work and its author, but,
being requested by one of his spiritual guides
to study and collate the text, he found it to consist of
"graceful phrases and charming suggestions, verse and
prose combined together and subtleties in Arabic and
Persian intermingled, wherein the signs of [human] know-
1 Lithographed, with other Sufi tracts, at Tihran in 1303/1885-6.
CH. in] 'IRAQI'S LAMA' AT 133
ledge and [superhuman] gnosis were apparent, and the lights
of rapture and ecstasy manifest, so that it would awaken the
sleeper, cause him who was awakened to apprehend secret
mysteries, kindle the fire of Love, and put in motion the
chain of Longing." The book is divided into 28 " Flashes"
(Lam'a), probably in correspondence with the number of
letters in the Arabic alphabet. As a specimen I give the
opening pages, down to the end of the first Lam'a, the prose
portion in translation only, the verses both in translation and
in the original.
"In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Forgiving.
" Praise be to God who illuminated the countenance of
His Friend with the Effulgence of Beauty, so that it gleamed
with Light ; and made visible therein the limits of Perfec-
tion, and rejoiced therein with joy ; and raised him up by
His hand and chose him out while Adam was not yet a
thing mentioned, nor had the Pen written, nor the Tablet
been inscribed. [His friend, who was] the Treasure-house
of the treasures of Being, the Key of the Store-houses of
Bounty, the Qibla of Desire and the Desired One, the
Possessor of the Standard of Praise and the Laudable
Station, the tongue of whose high degree declares :
' Though in outward form I seem one of Adam's progeny,
Yet the underlying truth claims for me paternity V
1 This verse, as J<lmi tells us, is from the Td'iyya, or qastda rhyming
in /*, of Ibnu'l-Farid. Though outwardly the Prophet is descended
from Adam, he is in reality the Object and Cause of Creation, so that
Adam exists through and because of him, not he through Adam. The
Muslims represent God as saying to the Prophet, " But for thee, I
had not created the Heavens."
i 3 4 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
' Although in form of Adam's race,' said he,
' Higher by far than his is my degree.
My beauty mirrored in a glass I see,
And all the world a picture seems of me.
Creation's Sun am I : doth it amaze
If each created atom me displays ?
The holy Spirits make my Essence plain,
And human forms my Attributes retain.
The boundless Sea's a sprinkling of my grace ;
The radiant light's a reflex of my face.
From Throne to Footstool all is but a mote
Which in the radiance of my Sun doth float.
The Veil of Attributes aside is hurled,
And my bright Essence brightens all the world.
The stream which Khidr's ebb of life did stop
Was of my Kawthar- stream a single drop.
That breath wherewith Christ loosed the thralls of Death
Was but a blast of my soul-saving breath.
CH. in] 'IRAQI'S LAM A' AT 135
My Essence all the Names doth manifest ;
I am of Names the greatest and the best ! '
( May God bless and hail Him /)
But to proceed. A few words on the degrees of Love,
dictated by the mood of the moment, are here set down in
the manner of the Sawdnih 1 , that they may be for every
lover a mirror to display the Beloved ; though the rank of
Love is too high for anyone to approach the pavilion of its
glory by dint of understanding or explanation, or to gaze on
the perfection of its true nature with the eyes of discovery
and observation.
Exalted high is Love o'er men's ambition,
And o'er ideas of union or partition ;
For when a thing transcends all thought and mention
'Tis freed from likeness and from comprehension.
It is veiled by the Veil of Glory and isolated in its Per-
fection. Its Attributes are the Veils of its Essence and
implicit in that Essence. Its Splendour is the Lover of its
Beauty, which is involved in that Splendour. For ever it
makes love to itself, and concerns itself not with aught else.
Every moment it casts aside the Veil from the face of some
loved one, and every instant it raises a new song in the
way of loverhood.
>U3I &}jj oW j' ^ Jl)
Within the Veil Love sings its air:
Where is the lover to hear it, where ?
1 This is the title of a treatise by Shaykh Ahmad Ghazzali on Love,
the Lover, and the Beloved.
136 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
Each moment it chants a different lay,
And ever some melody fresh doth play.
All the Universe echoes its song:
Who hath heard such an anthem long?
Its secret out from the world doth leap:
How can an Echo its secret keep ?
I tell no tales, but loud and clear
From the tongue of each atom its secret hear.
Every moment with every tongue it tells its secret to
its own ear ; every instant with all its ears it hears its
speech from its own tongue ; every minute with all its
eyes it flashes its beauty on its own vision ; every second
in every aspect it presents its being to its own notice. Hear
from me its description as it really is :
It speaks with me through speaking and through speechless 1 ;
Through lowered eyelashes and glancing eyes.
Knowest thou what it whispers in my ears ?
I am Love, for the which in these worlds there is found not a place :
The 'Anqd am I of the West 2 , who hath never a trace.
1 I.e. through articulate and inarticulate creatures, through the
organic and the inorganic.
2 The true explanation o^Anqd-yi-Mughrib is doubtful. See Lane's
Arabic- English Lexicon, s.v.
CH. in] 'IRAQI'S LAMA'AT 137
By my glance and my eyebrow the world I have captured, I trow,
Heed not that I do not possess either arrow or bow.
Revealed in the face of each atom am I, like the sun ;
So apparent am I that my form is apparent to none.
I speak with all tongues, and with every ear do I hear
Though, strange as it seems, I have neither a tongue nor an ear.
I am all that exists in all worlds, so 'tis patent and clear
That neither in this world nor that have I rival or peer.
FOREWORD.
Know that in each ' Flash ' of these ' Flashes ' some hint
is given of that Reality which transcends differentiation,
whether you call it Love or Attraction, since there is no
dearth of words ; and some suggestion is made as to the
manner of its progress in diverse conditions and cycles,
of its journey through the degrees of dissociation and es-
tablishment, of its manifestation in the form of ideas and
realities, of its emergence in the garb of Beloved and Lover,
and finally of the absorption of the Lover in the Beloved
formally, of the inclusion of the Beloved in the Lover
ideally, and of the comprehension of both together in the
Majesty of its Unity. There divergences are reconciled,
ruptures are made whole, the Light is concealed within the
Light, and the Manifestation lies latent within the Mani-
festation, while from behind the pavilions of Glory is cried:
' JJ*L 4DT y U ^ J ^1
O, is not all save God hollow and vain ?
The identity [of each] disappears [in the other], leaving
neither sign nor trace, and they merge in God, the One, the
All-compelling.
FIRST FLASH,
Setting forth the pre-existence of Love to both Beloved and
Lover, and the manner of their production by it,
which takes place in the First Differentiation ;
and setting forth that wherein each stands
in need of the other.
The derivation of both Lover and Beloved is from Love,
which, in its Abode of Glory, is exempt from differentiation,
138 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
and, in the Sanctuary of its own Identity, is sanctified from
inwardness and outwardness. Yea, in order to display its
perfection, in such way as is identical with its Essence and
[equally] identical with its Attributes, it shows itself to itself
in the Mirror of Loverhood and Belovedness, and reveals its
Beauty to its own Contemplation by means of the Seer and
the Vision. Thus the names of Loverhood and Beloved-
ness appeared, and the description of the Seeker and the
Quest became manifest. It showed the Outward to the
Inmost, and the Voice of Loverhood arose : it showed the
Inmost to the Outward, and the name of Belovedness was
made plain.
J^U ^j jAU
No atom doth exist apart from It, that Essence single:
'Tis when Itself it doth reveal that first those ' others ' mingle.
O Thou whose outward seeming Lover is, Beloved thine Essence,
Who hitherto e'er saw the Object Sought seek its own presence ?
Love, by way of Belovedness, became the Mirror of the
Beauty of Loverhood, so that therein it might behold its
own Essence, and by way of Loverhood the Mirror of
Belovedness, so that therein it might contemplate its own
Names and Attributes. Although but one object is beheld
by the Eye of Contemplation, yet when one face appears
in two mirrors, assuredly in each mirror a different face
appears.
* * ftio a 5 , * tot * iSti * 6 ' r > ' H J t f tie , *
U>JI O^jkfi cuil !>l ' <xjl j*e. j^-tj ^1 Ao-^JI U 3
The Face is only one, yet multiple
When thou in many mirrors see'st it.
CH. in] AWHADU'D-DfN OF KIRMAN 139
O how can ' Otherness ' appear when whatsoe'er existeth here
In essence is that Other One becoming to our vision clear ?"
Shaykh Abu Hamid Awhadu'd-Din of Kirman was,
like 'Iraqi, a follower, and, indeed, as it would appear from
the Majma'ttl-Fusahd 1 , a personal friend or dis-
KiS, U ' d " Dtn f ci P le of the S reat Sha 7 kh Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-
'Arabi, and had met (according to the same
authority) that wild mystic Shams-i-Tabriz, the inspirer of
Jalalu'd-Din's Mathnawi and Diwdn. He was also ac-
quainted, as some assert, with Awhadi of Maragha and with
'Iraqi himself, whom, in his heedlessness of appearances and
passionate admiration of beauty, he somewhat resembles.
Shaykh Shihabu'd-Din, who, for chronological reasons,
cannot be the famous Suhrawardi, strongly disapproved of
him, called him a " heretical innovator," and refused to
admit him to his presence, on hearing which Awhadu'd-
Din recited the followin Arabic verse 2 :
i
" I mind not that bad names thon dost me call :
I'm glad that thou shouldst mention me at all."
Jami apologizes for him for "contemplating the Truth
through the medium of its Manifestations in Phenomena,
and beholding Absolute Beauty in finite forms," and adds
that, being asked by Shams-i-Tabriz what he was doing, he
replied, " I am contemplating the Moon in a bowl of water,"
meaning the Beauty of the Creator in the beauty of the
creature ; to which Shams-i-Tabriz replied, " Unless you
are afflicted with a carbuncle on the back of your neck,
1 See the Tihran lithographed edition, vol. i, pp. 89-94, and Jmi's
Nafahdt, p. 685.
2 See Jami, Nafahdtu'l-Uns, ed. Nassau Lees, pp. 684-689. This
verse is ascribed by Badi'u'z-Zaman al-Hamadhanf to a poet named
Dumayna (Rascfil, ed. Beyrout, 1890, p. 96 and n. 8 ad calc.*). In its
original form it was addressed to a woman and runs :
140 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
why do you not look at the Moon in the sky?" Similarly
Mawlana Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, being told that Awhadu'd-
Din sought the society of the beautiful, but with purity of
purpose, exclaimed, " Would rather that his desires had
been carnal, and that he had outgrown them ! " Awhadu'd-
Din expresses his own point of view in the following
quatrain :
jj JA Juj
" Therefore mine eyes insistent gaze on forms
Because the Idea itself displays in forms :
We live in forms ; this World's the formal World :
The Idea we thus must needs appraise in forms."
Apart from a few quatrains cited in the Nafahdtul- Uns of
Jami, the Majma'ul-Fusahd of Rida-quli Khan, and other
biographical works, Awhadu'd-Din seems to have left little
save a mathnawi poem entitled " The Lamp of Spirits "
(Misbdhu'l-Ai"wdh), from which long extracts are given in
the Majmctu'l-Fusahd and the following eight couplets in
the Nafahdt (pp. 688-9) :
CH. in] AWHADf OF MARAGHA 141
" While the hand moves, the shadow moveth too :
What else, indeed, can the poor shadow do?
'Tis but the hand which makes the shadow fall,
The shadow, then, no substance hath at all.
To call ' existent ' what no Being hath,
Save through another, is not Wisdom's Path.
Absolute Being only wise men call
Being, and naught save God exists at all.
That which existent but through God became
Is NOT in truth, but only is in name.
And yet the Artist loves His work, 'tis clear ;
There's none but He, so be thou of good cheer.
Himself at once the Truth doth hear and tell
The Face He shows He doth perceive as well,
Know, then, by Allah, for a certainty
That nothing else existence hath save He."
Mention should also be made of Awhadu'd-Din's disciple,
Awhadi of Maragha,also called of Isfahan, because, though a
native of the former place, he passed a consider-
Awhadiof b j portion of his life and died at the latter 1 .
Maragha
Little seems to be known to the biographers
of his circumstances, but the prevalent opinion is that he
died in 738/1337-8. His chief poem is an imitation of the
Hadiqa of Sana'i entitled Jdm-i-Jam (the "Cup of Jamshfd,"
also known as the " World-displaying Glass "), of which
copious extracts are given by the biographers, and of which
I possess a good manuscript 2 . Dawlatshah, followed by
the Haft Iqlim, states that this poem was so popular that
within a month of its production four hundred copies of it
were made and sold at a good price, but adds that in his
time (892/1487) it was seldom met with and little read. This
seems to have been the only mathnawi poem he wrote, but
he also left a diwdn, estimated by Rida-qulf Khan, the author
of the Majma l t?l-Fusahd, to contain six or seven thousand
1 See my edition of Dawlatshah, pp. 210-215 ; Majma > 'u'l-Fusahd,
vol. ii, pp. 94-98 ; Haft Iqlim, under Isfahdn, etc. Jamf, however,
(Nafakdt, p. 707) reverses the roles of these two cities.
2 Dated 916/1510-11. The text comprises about 4500 couplets.
i 4 2 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
verses 1 , including qasidas and quatrains, of which a selection
is given by the biographers. The following may serve as
examples of his style :
(Part of a qasida taken from the Haft Iqltm}.
Jj lw J C*O J> IJJ 'J^! (^5-**
" How long wilt pride in beard and turban take ?
That Friend adopt as friend : all else forsake.
With stir and movement fill thy heart with pain :
1 Dawlatsh<ih (p. 210 of my edition) says 10,000.
CH. in] AWHADf OF MARAGHA 143
The soul in rest and quiet strength doth gain.
All scent and hue of self do thou efface,
That HE may clasp thee tight in His embrace.
Till thou art contrite vainly shalt thou seek
In truth the beauty of that lovely cheek.
If thou canst do what He enjoins on thee
He'll do what thou dost ask assuredly.
He's kin enough : all else forsake forthwith :
When wilt thou free thyself from kin and kith ?
Ask of thyself, when from thyself set free,
God-vexer, where and who thy God may be ?
Who is't in thee who speaks of ' us ' and ' me ' ?
Who fixed the evil and the good for thee ?
If there are ' others,' prithee point them out :
Art thou alone ? Then wherefore ' others ' flout ?
To be united is not as to see :
In this my speech is no hypocrisy.
Were sight and union one in fact and deed
The eye on looking at the thorn would bleed.
A cup he gives thee : spill not, drink it up !
Hold fast when I bestow another cup !
One is the Master's Face : pluralities
From Mirror and from Mirror-holder rise.
One the King's portrait and the coining-die :
Numbers in gold and silver coinage lie.
One sap supplies the flower which doth adorn
The rose-bush, and the sharp and cruel thorn.
Orange and fire alike 1 their hue derive
From that life-giving sun whereon they thrive.
A thousand circles issue from the point
What time the compass doth enlarge its joint.
The world entire reveals His Vision bright :
Seek it, O ye who are endowed with sight :
All things His praises hymn in voices still,
Sand in the plain and rocks upon the hill."
The following fragment is possessed of some beauty,
but is imitated from one of Sa'df's 2 .
1 Or " Orange and pomegranate,'' for ndr has both meanings.
2 See the Calcutta edition of 1795, vo1 - i' ff - 238 a -239 b .
144 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK I
e. OJ j ^rb j^-o J^-i
3 OJ L tt er'
" Think O thou who dost inherit, yet didst labour ne'er,
Who was he whose wealth was thine, and who art thou, the heir?
He amassed but did not spend it, so 'twas left behind :
Use it well, that when thou flittest, others good may find.
Gold a goblin is, and woman for the neck a chain :
Chained and goblin-haunted's he who greatly loves the twain.
Over-anxious for thy offspring be not, for the Lord
Knoweth better than the servant how to guard his ward.
Dally not with lust and passion, which do curses bring,
Curses which thou shalt not 'scape with Flying Ja'far's 1 wing.
This thy lust and this thy craving are a sea of strife :
1 I.e. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's cousin, who was killed by
the Romans in the Battle of Mu'ta (September, A.D. 629), and of whom
the Prophet said, " I saw Ja'far yesterday in a group of the angels,
having two wings whereof the pinions were stained with blood."
(Ibnu'l-Athir, ed. Tornberg, vol. ii, p. 181). Hence he was called the
"Winged (or "Flying") Martyr." (Muir's Life of Mahomet, new and
abridged edition of 1828, p. 410 ad calc.}
CH. in] AWHADf OF MARAGHA 145
Canst thou swim not ? Wherefore venture in the waves thy life ?
Washing of the coat and turban naught can profit you :
Wash thy hands of worldly longings : this is washing true !
On the evil wrought by others never wilt thou dwell
If upon the deeds thou doest thou shouldst ponder well.
Truth there lacks not in the sayings Awhadi doth say :
He who hearkens to his counsel wins to Fortune's way ! "
The following ode is another favourable specimen of
Awhadfs work :
JtU. Ji jlj!
Ojl-A-a*.-.*
" Many a Spring shall Autumn follow when thou'rt passed away ;
Many an evening, many a morning, many a night and day.
To the World thy heart incline not, though it seemeth fair ;
Deem it not a faithful friend who for its friends doth care.
Thou to-day who like a scorpion everyone dost sting,
Snakes shall be thy tomb's companions, shame to thee shall bring.
Comfort some afflicted spirit ; that is worth thy while ;
Else to vex thy fellows' spirits easy is and vile.
Look not on earth's humble dwellers with a glance so proud :
Knowing not what Knight is hidden midst the dusty cloud."
The following fragment must conclude our citations from
Awhadi :
jl^Jlwl U
B. P. 10
146 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
" These suppliant suitors hold in slight esteem ;
Hold thou their vows as frailer than a dream.
Honours which meanness winneth for thy name
Regard, if honour toucheth thee, as shame.
When Fortune's cup into your hands doth pass
Think of the headache as you raise the glass.
Like ill-bred camel seems thy restive soul ;
Put on the leading-rein or lose control ! "
The village of Shabistar (or Chabistar) near Tabriz, in
Adharbayjan, gave birth about the middle of the thirteenth
century of the Christian era (seventh of the
Mahmfid-i- hijra) to another notable mystic, Sa'du'd-Di'n
Shabistan /
Mahmud, generally called, after his native place,
Shabistarf. Little is known of his life, which seems to have
been passed quietly, and, so far as those stirring times
allowed, uneventfully, at or near Tabriz, where he died
about 720/1320. He was by no means a voluminous writer,
but his Gulshan-i-Rdz, or " Rose-Garden of Mystery," a
mathnawi containing about one thousand couplets, is one
of the best and most compendious manuals of the mystical
doctrine of the Sufis, and enjoys even at the present day a
high reputation. It has been edited with a translation,
Introduction, and valuable notes, by Mr E. Whinfield 1 , who
gives in his Introduction the few particulars known about the
author and the history of the poem. This attracted the
attention of European travellers as early as A.D. 1700,
reached certain Western libraries during the succeeding
1 Published by Triibner, London, 1880.
CH. in] MAHMtiD-I-SHABISTARf 147
century, was utilized by Dr Tholuck in his Ssufismus in
1821 and was partly translated into German by the same
writer in his Bluthensammlung aus der M orgenlandischen
Mystik in 1825, and was edited with a complete versified
translation in German by Hammer-Purgstall in 1838. The
poem was composed, as the poet himself informs us, in the
month of Shawwal, 710 (Feb.-March, 1311) in reply to
a series of fifteen questions on mystical doctrine propounded
by an enquirer from Khurasan named Amir Husaynf. These
questions, which are included in the poem, are briefly as
follows :
(i) As to the nature of thought.
The fifteen
questions (2) Why is thought sometimes a sin, some-
answered in the t j mes a dut and what sort of thought
Guhhan-i-Raz J '
is incumbent on the mystic?
(3) What am " I " ? What is meant by " travelling into
one's self"?
(4) What is meant by " the Pilgrim," and what by " the
Perfect Man " ?
(5) Who is the Gnostic ('Arif) who attains to the Secret
of Unity ?
(6) "If Knower and Known are one pure Essence,
What are the inspirations in this handful of dust ? "
(7) " To what Point belongs the expression, ' I am the
Truth ' ? "
(8) " Why call they a creature ' united ' ?
How can he achieve ' travelling ' and ' journey ' ? "
(9) " \Vhat is the union of ' Necessary' and ' Contingent'?
What are ' near ' and ' far,' ' more ' and ' less ' ? "
(10) " What is that Sea whose shore is speech ?
What is that pearl which is found in its depths ? "
(i i) " What is that Part which is greater than its Whole?
What is the way to find that Part ? "
(12) " How are Eternal and Temporal separate ?
Is this one the World and the other God ? "
(13) "What means the mystic by those [allegorical] ex-
pressions of his ?
148 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
What does he indicate by ' eye ' and ' lip ' ?
What does he intend by ' cheek/ ' curl,' ' down ' and
' mole ' ?
(He, to wit, who is in ' Stations ' and ' States.') "
(14) "What meaning attaches to 'Wine,' 'Torch' and
' Beauty ' ?
What is assumed in being a haunter of Taverns ? "
(15) " Idols, girdles and Christianity in this discourse
Are all infidelity ; if not, say what are they ? "
The book contains not only the answers to these ques-
tions, but a number of incidental illustrations, parables and
digressions, and is on the whole one of the best manuals of
Sufi Theosophy which exist, especially when taken in con-
junction with the excellent commentary of 'Abdu'r-Razzaq
al-Lahijf.
Since the whole of this work is accessible to the English
reader in Whinfield's excellent translation, the following
short specimen may suffice here :
Question X.
From the " What Sea is that whereof the shore is speech?
Gulshan-i-Raz What pearl from out its depths our hands can reach ? "
Answer X.
" The Sea is Being ; speech its shore ; the shell
Words, and its pearls Heart's Wisdom, wot thee well.
Each wave a thousand royal pearls doth pour
Of text, tradition and prophetic lore.
Each moment thence a thousand waves are tossed,
Yet ne'er a drop therefrom is ever lost.
Knowledge is gathered from that Sea profound :
Its pearls enveloped are in words and sound.
Ideas and mysteries descending here
Need some similitude to make them clear."
Illustration.
" In April's month, thus was it told to me,
The oysters upwards float in 'Umman's sea.
Up from the depths unto the Ocean's brim
Ascending open-mouthed they shorewards swim.
CH. in] THE GULSHAN-I-RAZ 149
Mists from the sea arise and veil the land,
And then in rain dissolve by God's command.
Into each oyster-mouth a rain-drop creeps :
The shell doth close, and sinketh to the deeps.
With heart fulfilled it sinketh down again ;
A pearl is formed from every drop of rain.
Into the depths himself the Diver hurls,
And to the shore brings back the lustrous pearls.
Being's the sea : the shore our human frames :
God's Grace the mist : the rain God's Holy Names :
Wisdom's the diver in this mighty deep,
Who 'neath his cloak a hundred pearls doth keep.
The Heart's the vase wherein is Wisdom found :
Heart's wisdom's shell the letters, words and sound.
The moving breath like lightning doth appear,
And thence words fall upon the hearer's ear.
Break, then, the shell : bring forth the royal pearl :
The kernel keep : the husk on ash-heap hurl.
Lexicon, grammar and philology
All these mere accidents of letters be.
Whoe'er on things like these his life doth spend
Doth waste his life without an aim or end."
Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari cannot, like so many Persian
poets, be charged with writing too much, for the Gulshan-i-
Rdz is, so far as I know, his only poem, while his only other
works are the Haqqiil- Yaqin (" Certain Truth "), and the
Risdla-i-ShdJiid (" Tract of the Witness "). The former is
fairly common, and has been lithographed at Tihran with
other Sufi tracts : the latter I have never met with. The
full title of the better-known treatise is " Certain truth on
the Knowledge of the Lord of the Worlds," and it contains
eight chapters, corresponding with the eight Gates of
Paradise, and dealing with the following topics :
(1) The Manifestation of the Divine Essence.
(2) The Manifestation of the Divine Attributes, and
the Statioii of Knowledge.
(3) The Manifestation of the Degrees thereof, and the
explanation of the Origin.
(4) On the Necessity of the Divine Unity.
(5) On Contingent Being and Plurality.
150 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
(6) On Differentiation of movement, and the continual
renovation of Differentiations.
(7) On the Philosophy of obligation, compulsion, pre-
destination and conduct.
(8) Explaining the Return and the Resurrection, and
Annihilation and Permanence.
The poet Rabf'f of Bushanj, the panegyrist of Fakhru'd-
Din Kurt of Herat, is little known, but a long notice of him
is given in that rare and valuable work the
Mujmal (" Compendium ") of Fasihf of Khwaf 1 ,
under the year 702/1399-1400 in which he was
put to death. He was a great drinker of wine, while
Fakhru'd-Dm was addicted to bang ; a fact to which refer-
ence is made in these two quatrains :
"When I wax cheerful with .the green-hued seed 2
I'm ready to bestride the heaven's green steed ;
With verdant youths on lawns the green 2 I eat
Ere like the grass the earth on me shall feed."
U
" The toper, e'en if rich, is harshly blamed,
While by his rioting the world's inflamed.
1 The MS. which I have used formerly belonged to Colonel Raverty,
and was bought by the trustees of the " E. ]. W. Gibb Memorial Fund "
on his death. A second MS., now in my possession, is from the Library
of the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler. There is a third MS. at St
Petersburg. There is, unfortunately, a large lacuna comprising the
years A.H. 718-840 (A.D. 1318-1436) in the Raverty MS.
2 I.e. Indian hemp (Cannabis Indica) or bang, the green colour of
which is also alluded to in its nicknames Aqd-yi-Sayyid (" Master
Sayyid ") and Tuti-yi-Sabz (the " Green Parrot ").
CH. m] RABM OF BtlSHANJ 151
In ruby casket emeralds I pour 1 ,
And blinding snake-eyed sorrow, grieve no more."
While in prison Rabf'f composed a poem called the Kdr-
ndma ("Book of Deeds") and other poems, wherein he sought
but failed to move the King's pity. Of these some seventy
couplets are cited in the Mujmal of Fasi'hi, of which the
following may serve as specimens :
(From the Kdr-ndma.)
a^fc.
'^tj^ ^ ; .0 ,>
'>
" The Empire's Lord, King of these realms so fair,
Prince Fakhru'd-Di'n the Kurt, great Jamshid's heir,
Had fetters fashioned for the culprit's heel
Most strongly wrought of iron and of steel.
Therewith my feet they bound by his command :
Bow to the will of him who rules the land !
The other captives all he did set free :
Of Heaven's wheel behold the tyranny !
1 This seems to point to the smoking of hemp, the hemp being
compared to the emerald and the fiery pipe-bowl to the ruby casket.
1 52 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BKI
Thus I myself in grievous fetters found,
As Ka'iis in Mazandaran was bound.
With feet in fetters, heart weighed down with care,
How long shall I in every sorrow share ?
Nor men nor demons are my comrades here :
My soul cries out at such companions drear.
No heart on earth through them doth gladness feel :
Hard as their hearts no iron is, nor steel.
The Devil's but a joke when they are there ;
Their pupil, only fit for blows, the bear.
Their custom is to hang, torment and bind ;
Bloodshed and slaughter occupy their mind.
Their life-long work is outrage, curse and blow :
To Khaysar 1 and to Ghur each year they go.
They're highland robbers all, in battle proved,
Themselves like mountains which God's power hath moved.
Ten of these wretches now control my fate :
Alas for my condition desolate ! "
In another qastda, composed during his imprisonment,
the poet says that he was thirty-one years of age at the
time of writing, and that of this period he had spent seventeen
years in the King's service and fourteen in the Holy Sanc-
tuaries (Mecca and Medina) :
A third poem in the same strain and composed under
the same conditions (a mathnawt'\v\ this case) is also recorded
in the Mujmal, but all appeals were unavailing, and the
unfortunate poet died in prison, none knows in what manner.
Humamu'd-Din of Tabriz is another poet of this period
who merits a brief mention. According to the
Humam of Mujmal he died in 714/1314, at the age of 1 16,
while a well-known anecdote 2 brings him into
1 Khaysar is a fortress in Khurasan, not far from Herat (Yaqiit,
vol. ii, p. 507) ; and Ghur a mountainous district in Afghanistan.
Perhaps, like Kaldt-i-Nadiri at the present day, they were formerly
used as penal settlements.
2 See Sir Gore Ouseley's Biographical Notices of Persian Poets
(London, 1846), pp. 14-15.
CH. in] HUMAMU'D-DfN-I-TABRrzf 153
contact with the great Sa'di (died 690/1291), with whom
he engaged in a wordy duel, not conspicuous for refinement,
in which he was signally worsted. No other particulars of
his life are known to me, except that he also was one of the
panegyrists of the Sahib Diwdn 1 . The following specimens
of his verse (which is said to have been greatly influenced
by that of Sa'di) are taken from the Haft Iqlim.
" On the day of life's surrender I shall die desiring Thee :
I shall yield my Spirit craving of thy street the dust to be.
On the Resurrection Morning, when I raise my head from sleep,
I shall rise desiring Thee, and forth to seek for Thee shall creep.
I will smell not blooms of Eden, nor of Heavenly Gardens speak,
Nor, desiring Thee alone, shall I Celestial Houris seek."
3*- J 3
JL
3 <4 ^ 3 **** 3 J3J ij* O3
" When the parting from country and friends to my vision appears
The stages I tread are fulfilled with the flood of my tears.
In parting one moment, one breath like ten centuries seems :
How weary the days and the weeks and the months and the years !"
1 See p. 1 of the English introduction to Part I of JuwaynPs
Ta'rikh-i-jahdn-gusM, edited by Mirza Muhammad (" E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial Series," vol. xvi, i).
154 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i
" That day of parting seemed the Day of Doom :
How were it if our friendship had been less ?
Make much, then, of your friends while they are here,
For this false sphere is fraught with faithlessness."
^J to
" Last night to tell my tale I did prepare
Unto my Friend, and forth from every hair
Flowed speech. Night passed, unended was my song ;
Blame not the night ; the tale was over-long ! "
A good many other poets of this period, such as Afdal-
i-Kashf, Athir-i-Awmani, Sayfu'd-Dfn-i-Isfarangf, Rafi'u'd-
Din-i-Abhari,Farid-i-Ahwal(" the squint-eyed")
2* p r erod S f and Niz ^ rf of Quhistan might be mentioned, did
space allow, but as in most cases their works are
inaccessible to me save in the brief extracts given by the
biographers, it has seemed better to pass them over for the
present. Of the last-named, however, a few
Quhlltdn words must be said, for a MS. of his poems
(Or. 7909) has been acquired by the British
Museum since the publication of the Supplement to the
Persian Catalogue, and of this MS. a transcript was made
for me in the autumn of 1913 by an Indian copyist, Mawlawi
Isma'il 'Alf. This transcript I desired because of the strong
probability that Nizari belonged to the sect of the Isma'ilis,
Malahida, or Assassins, and I hoped that his poems might
afford proof of this fact, and perhaps reveal a genius com-
parable to that of the one great Isma'i'li poet hitherto known,
Nasir-i-Khusraw 1 . That Nizari of Quhistan belonged to
the Isma'flf sect is not merely suggested by his pen-name
and place of origin, but is asserted or hinted at by most
of the biographers. On the death of al-Mustansir, the
eighth Fatimid or Isma'ili Caliph (A.D. 1035-1094), there
ensued a struggle for the succession between his two sons
al-Musta'H and Nizar 2 , in which the latter lost his life and
1 See vol. ii of my Lit. Hist, of Persia, pp. 218-247.
2 Ibid., pp. 199, 20 1, 203, 204, 206, etc.
CH. in] NIZARf. SULTAN WALAD 155
his throne, but continued to be regarded by the Eastern or
Persian Isma'ilfs (including the derived Syrian branch) as
the legitimate Imam. It was from him, no doubt, that the
poet took his nom de guerre, for the other suggestion, that
it was derived from the Persian adjective nizdr ("thin,"
" weak ") is quite untenable. Quhistan, moreover, was a
stronghold of the Assassins 1 , especially the towns of Qayin
and Birjand to which he particularly alludes in one of his
poems, where he says :
" I am seated over my treasure, whether I be in Birjand or Qdyin ;
O Nizdri, henceforth, free and untroubled, thou hast the treasure of
poverty and a safe corner."
The MS. of Nizarfs poems alluded to above contains
only ghazals or odes, and these, though spirited enough,
appear for the most part to be of the usual Bacchanalian
type, and to give little or no indication of the poet's religious
views or general circumstances. It is in qasidas and math-
nawis that such indications are generally to be found, and,
unfortunately, neither of these classes of poems are repre-
sented in the MS. in question. According to Sprenger 2 ,
Nizarf died in 720/1320, and left two mathnawis, one of
which, entitled Dastiir-ndma, he describes as " very witty
and amusing," but I have never seen it. Nizarfs writings
would probably repay further study.
In conclusion a few words must be said about Sultan
Walad (or Veled, according to the Turkish pronunciation),
the son and ultimately the spiritual successor
Sultan Walad '
(or Veied) and of the great Mawlana Jalalu'd-Dm Rumi. He
his Rab&b-n&ma ^ bom ^ j^^ jyjj^ ^ L randa ( thg mO dem
Qaraman) in 623/1226 when his father was only nineteen
years of age, and his proper name was Baha'u'd-Dm Ahmad.
1 See G. le Strange's Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, pp. 354-5.
2 Catalogue of the Library of the King of Oude, vol. i, p. 524.
156 POETS & MYSTICS OF fL-KHANf PERIOD [BK i CH.III
His best-known work is a mathnawi poem, entitled Rabdb-
ndma (the " Book of the Rebeck "), which, though mostly
written in Persian, contains 1 56 verses in Turkish, which Gibb
describes as " the earliest important specimen of West-
Turkish poetry that we possess." These archaic verses
have attracted the attention of Von Hammer, Wickerhauser,
Bernhauer, Fleischer, Salemann 1 and Radloff, and Gibb
has very fully discussed them and their author in the first
volume of his great History of Ottoman Poetry, pp. 149-163.
"To Sultan Veled," he says (loc. cit., pp. 156-7), "belongs
not only the honour due to the pioneer in every good work,
but the credit which is justly his who successfully accom-
plishes an arduous enterprise. To have inaugurated the
poetry of a nation is an achievement of which any man
might be proud." Thus even so great an admirer of
Turkish poetry as Gibb is constrained to admit that it
chiefly owes its inception to a Persian, and is in fact, in a
sense, a branch of Persian poetry, to which for five centuries
and a half (A.D. 1300-1850) it owed its inspiration. At all
events the rise of both the Ottoman State and Turkish
literature belong to the period which we have discussed in
this and the preceding chapters, and henceforth it will be
necessary to allude to both with increasing frequency.
1 For references see Gibb's Hist, of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, p. 157
ad calc. Radloff's article, which he does not mention, is entitled Uber
Alt-Tiirkische Dialekte. i. Die Seldschukischen Verse im Rebdbndmeh.
It was published in 1890 in vol. x, Livraison I, of the Melanges
Asiatiques at St Petersburg.
BOOK II.
FROM THE BIRTH TO THE DEATH OF Tl'MUR-
I-LANG, COMMONLY CALLED TAMERLANE.
(A.H. 736-807 = A.D. 1335-1405.)
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERIOD OF TIMUR.
The power of the Mongols in Persia practically came
to an end on the death of Abu Sa'i'd (13 Rabf II, A.H. 736
~ , . . , = Nov. 30, 1335), and some eight months later in
Definition of the j > Jjj/i ^ t>
period about to the same year of the Jiijra (Sha'ban 25 = April 8,
be considered ^^ ^^ bom Tfnuir> called L(mg ( the Hmp _
ing"), and generally known in the West as " Tamerlane,"
who was destined to become in his turn almost as great a
o
scourge to the Muslims of Western and Central Asia as
Chingiz Khan. The approximate coincidence of the death
of the last great Mongol ruler of Persia with the birth of this
new organizer of Tartar depredations has been remarked by
the author of the Matla'tis-Sa'dayn 1 , and makes this date a
convenient starting-point for the period of seventy years
which we are now about to consider; a period which, in spite
of the anarchy wherewith it began and the bloodshed where-
with it ended, is remarkable alike for the quantity and the
quality of the poets and writers which it pro-
oflrperi2 erS duced - Of the former were Salman of Sawa,
Khwajii of Kirman, 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, 'Imdd of
Kirman, 'Assar of Tabriz, the two Jalals, known respectively
as 'Adudi and Tabtb (" the physician "), Kamal of Khujand,
Maghribi, Bushaq, Ibn-i-Yamm, and last but not least the
incomparable Hafiz of Sm'raz; of the latter were the historians
of Ti'mur, Nizam -i-Shami and Sharafu'd-Din 'Ah' Yazdf,
and Mu'fnu'd-Din Yazdf, the historian of the House of
Muzaffar which perished at Tfmur's hands, not to mention
others who, though Persians, wrote chiefly in Arabic, such
as the Sayyid-i-Shan'fof Jurjan, Sa'du'd-Dfn Taftazani, and
'Adudu'd-Di'n al-Iji.
1 See Rieu's Persian Catalogue, p. 182.
160 THE PERIOD OF TIMtiR [BK n
Timur's first invasion of Persia took place in A.D. 1380,
when he subdued Khurasan, Si'stan and Mazandaran ; his
. second in A.D. 1384-5, when he again invaded
invasions of Mazandaran and extended his operations into
Adharbayjan, 'Iraq-i-'Ajam and Georgia, finish-
ing up with the subjugation of Shiraz and a massacre of
70,000 persons at Isfahan ; and his third and last in
A.D. 1392, when he again subdued Fars and extirpated the
Muzaffari dynasty, having already destroyed the Sarbadars
of Sabzawar (in 1381) and the Kurts of Herat (in 1389).
During the 45 years succeeding Timur's birth and Abu
Sa'id's death (A.D. 1335-1380) Persia was, however, left to its
own devices, and was divided between four or five
The minor petty dynasties, of which the Muzaffaris, ruling
dynasties Jr J J .
destroyed by over Fars, 'Iraq-i-'Ajam and Kirman, were the
Timur /
most important ; then the Jala irs (or Il-khanis)
of Baghdad and Adharbayjan ; and lastly the Sarbadars of
Sabzawar and the Kurts of Herat, both in the North-East.
The history of these dynasties is very intricate, and, perhaps,
hardly worth a detailed study ; while the territories over
which each held control were indeterminate, and their fron-
tiers (if such existed) constantly shifting, and often indeed
generally civil war prevailed between members of the same
dynasty,and their heritage was divided amongst rival brothers
or cousins. What is remarkable, however, is that it is pre-
cisely duringsuch periods of anarchy and division
t^rfmosfflour- of P ower that Persian literature has flourished
in troubled most ; so that, for example, while a dozen first-
class poets lived in the brief period of 45 years
now under discussion, the whole Safawi period, which in
all lasted 234 years (A.D. 1502-1736), and in which Persia
reached a degree of power, splendour and consolidation un-
equalled in modern times, hardly produced half that number
of poets of more than local fame, though arts flourished
and theology reached its zenith. The cause of this curious
phenomenon will be further discussed when we come to
speak of the Safawi period ; but it would seem that the
CH. iv] THE MUZAFFARf DYNASTY 161
existence of numerous small courts, rivals to one another,
and each striving to outshine the others, was singularly
favourable to the encouragement of poets and other men of
letters, who, if disappointed or slighted in one city, could
generally find in another a more favourable reception.
Before speaking of Ti'mur, then, it is necessary to give
some account of the petty dynasties which flourished in
Persia during this half-century's interregnum.
Muzaffaris _. ... ,
Of these the Muzaffaris werethe most important,
both on account of the position and extent of their realms,
and by reason of the eminent poets notably Hafiz of
Shiraz who frequented their courts. Next to them we
may place the Jala'ir or Il-khani princes who
jaia-irsor ruled Qver Baghdad and jabrfz as the direct
Il-khanis
heirs of the shrunken Mongol power, and under
whose aegis likewise many eminent poets flourished. The
Sarbadars (or Sarbadals) of Sabzawar seem to
Sarbadars
have held sway over a very restricted territory,
and were in fact (as their name, " Head-on-the-gallows,"
implies) little better than successful outlaws and highway-
robbers; while the Kurts of Herat, though more
civilized, greater patrons of letters, and more
stable in character (they ruled for 144 years, from A.D. 1245
to 1389), were established in a domain which is no longer
included in Persia, but now forms part of Afghanistan, and
were themselves, perhaps, of Afghan or semi-Afghan descent.
Of each of these dynasties some brief account must now be
given.
THE MuzAFFARfs.
Apart from the general histories, such as the Raivdatus-
Safd, with which every student of Persian is familiar, there
exists a monograph on the House of Muzaffar
Authorities
for history of by a contemporary scholar of some repute,
Mu'i'nu'd-Di'n of Yazd, who was made professor
at one of the colleges of Kirman in 755/1354. This history
exists only in manuscript 1 , and I have been able to consult
1 See Rieu's Persian Cat., p. 168, and Persian Supp!., p. 33.
B. P. II
1 62 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
it in an old copy belonging to the Fitzwilliam Museum at
Cambridge 1 , dated 7/8/1376-7, and, since January, 1917, in
two MSS.,one written in the author's life-time, from the library
of the late Sir A. Houtum-Schindler. It comes down only
to the year 767/1365-6, and so omits the last thirty years
of the dynasty ; and it is, moreover, written in a very stilted
and artificial style. So difficult, indeed, was it that a certain
Mahmud Kutbi, while engaged in transcribing the Tartkh-
i-Guzida in 823/1420, thought good to add to that history
an independent account of the Muzaffari dynasty from his
own pen. This account is contained in the fac- simile of an
old MS. of the Guztda published in the Gibb Memorial
Series (vol. xiv, I, pp. 6i3~755) 2 , and carries the history of
the dynasty down to its extinction in Rajab, 795 (May,
I 393)- This, and the account contained in the modern
Fdrs-ndma-i-Ndsiri* Q{ Hajji Mirza Hasan (pp. 49-66), have
been chiefly used in compiling the following brief account
of the dynasty, but I should like also to acknowledge my
indebtedness to an excellent and most readable sketch of
its history contained in the Introduction to Miss Gertrude
Lowthian Bell's Poems from the Divan of Hafiz* (pp. 8-28).
The ancestors of the House of Muzaffar are said to have
come to Persia from Arabia in the early days of the Mu-
hammadan conquest, and to have settled near
Origin of the l '
Muzaffari Khwaf in Khurasan, whence Amir Ghiyathu'd-
Dfn Hajji Khurasani, the grandfather of Mu-
bdrizu'd-Din Muhammad, the first king of the dynasty,
migrated to Yazd during the period of the Mongol invasion.
One of his three sons, Abu Bakr, with 300 horsemen, accom-
panied Hulagu's expedition against Baghdad, and was
subsequently killed in Egypt by Arabs of the Banu Khafaja
tribe. His brother Muhammad succeeded him as deputy to
the Governor of Yazd, but died without issue. The third son,
J Frank McClean Collection, No. 198.
2 See also Rieu's Persian Cat., p. 82.
3 Lithographed at Tihran in A.H. 1313/1895-6.
* London : Heinemann, 1897.
CH. iv] THE MUZAFFARf DYNASTY 163
Jalalu'd-Din Mansur, lived at Maybud, near Yazd, and like-
wise left three sons, Sharafu'd-Di'n Muzaffar, Zaynu'd-Din
'All, and Mubarizu'd-Din Muhammad. The first is said to
have been notified in a dream of the distinction to which
his family was destined, and while still young distinguished
himself by destroying a band of robbers from Pars who
were committing depredations in his province. In 685/1286
he went to Kirman and entered the service of Surghatmish
Qara-Khita'f. Later he served the four Mongol sovereigns
Arghun, Gaykhatu, Ghazan and Uljaytu Khuda-banda,
to the last-named of whom he was presented at Khaniqin
in 711/1311, and who conferred on him a more extensive
government. He died in 713/1313, leaving to succeed him
his son Mubarizu'd-Dfn Muhammad, then only thirteen
years of age, who was confirmed in his father's offices by
Uljaytu (died Dec. 16, 1316). At the age of 29 he married as
his second wife Banu Jahan, the grand-daughter of Surghat-
mish. He had five sons, Sharafu'd-Din Muzaffar (born
725/1325, died of a wound in 754/1353); Shah Shuja'
(born 733/1333); Qutbu'd-Dfn Mahmud (born 737/1336);
and two others named Ahmad and Bayazid.
Mubarizu'd-Din Muhammad is generally reckoned the
first of the Muzaffan dynasty, the duration of which, from
his accession in A.D. 1313 to the extirpation of
Mubarizu'-d-Din ,11 i T-' / i
Muhammad the dynasty by Timur in A.D. 1393, covered a
period of 80 years. His original governmen^
as we have seen, was the little town of Maybud near Yazd,
but in A.D. 1319 the latter town was added to his jurisdiction.
In A.D. 1340 Kirman also fell to his share, though the
previous ruler, Qutbu'd-Dfn, invoked and received help from
the Kurt kings of Herat, and offered a stubborn resistance. In
A.D. 1353, after a still more prolonged struggle, he succeeded
in wresting the province of Pars with its capital Shiraz from
Abu Ishaq Inju, whose little son, 'Ali Sahl, aged ten, was
taken prisoner and cruelly put to death by Shah Shuja' at
Rafsinjan. One of Mubarizu'd-Din's first measures was to
enact severe laws against wine-drinking and other forms of
164 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK 11
dissipation prevalent amongst the pleasure- loving Shirazfs,
concerning which his son Shah Shuja' composed the following
quatrain :
A.*"-.
" Closed are the taverns now throughout the land;
Zither and harp and tambourine are banned ;
Banned is wine-worship to the libertine ;
Only the proctor's 1 drunk, though not with wine !"
In the following year, A.D. 1354, whether in consequence
of this unpopular measure or not, Shiraz was seized by
rebels against the Muzafifaris, but was soon retaken. About
this time Mubarizu'd-Di'n declared his allegiance to the
titular Caliph al-Mu ! tadid 2 , whose name he caused to be
inserted in the khutba. In A.D. 1357 Isfahan was attacked
and ultimately taken, and its ruler Shaykh Abu
Isl ? dc l In J u was captured, brought to Shiraz,
and there put to death at Mubarizu'd-Din's
command by Amfr Qutbu'd-Dm, the son of Sayyid Amir
Hajji Darrab, who had suffered death by order of Abu
Ishaq. It is said that just before his death Abu Ishaq
recited the two following quatrains :
9~*TfJ
1 The Muhtasib, here rendered " proctor," was an officer whose
function it was to maintain public order and morality and ensure that
the goods sold by tradesmen should both in quantity and quality
maintain a proper standard.
2 Abu'1-Fath Abu Bakr al-Mu'tadid bi'llah, son of al-Mustakff, one
of the titular 'Abbasid Caliphs who exercised a merely nominal sway
in Egypt after the sack of Baghdad until the Ottoman conquest
(A.D. 1262-1517), succeeded his brother al-Hakim bi-amri'llah in
753/1352-3 and died in 763/1362. See as-Suyuti's Tdrlkhrfl-Khitlafa
(ed. Nassau Lees, Calcutta, 1857), p. 516.
CH. iv] THE MUZAFFARf DYNASTY 165
" No hope in kin or stranger doth remain,
Nor to the bird of Life one single grain ;
Of all we said throughout our life, alas !
Naught will survive us save an echo vain ! "
" Depart and quarrel not with Fortune's spite ;
Depart, nor strive with circling Heaven's might :
Drain with a smile the poison-cup of Death
And pour libations ere you take your flight"
After capturing Isfahan, Mubarizu'd-Din marched on
Tabriz, which also he occupied, after two engagements with
the troops of Akhi Juq, whom his sons pursued as far as
Nakhjuwan. Finally, however, his fortune turned against
him, for his sons Mahmud and Shuja', apprehensive of his
intentions towards them, seized and blinded him when they
reached Isfahan on the homeward march, and imprisoned
him first in the castle of Tabarak and then in the Qal'a-i-
Safid in Fars, where he succeeded in winning over the
warden to his interests. Some sort of reconciliation was
eventually effected between him and his rebellious sons,
but it did not long endure, and Mubarizu'd-Din finally died
in prison at Bam in Rabf I (December, 1363), at the age
of sixty-five 1 .
1 His severity was such that, according to one of his intimates,
Lutfu'llah b. Sadru'd-Dm 'Iraqi (cited in the Fdrs-ndma-i-Nasiri}, he
would often lay aside the Qur'dn which he was reading to decapitate
some criminal brought before him for judgement, and then calmly
resume the perusal of the Sacred Book.
1 66 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
SnAn SHUJA' (759-786=1357-1384).
Mubarizu'd-Din was succeeded by his son Shah Shuja',
whose chief claim to fame is that he was the patron of the
immortal Hafiz. He himself was not devoid of
Shdh Shujd' , ' . , , . . , .
poetic talent, and wrote verses both in Arabic
and Persian, specimens of which are given by Mahmud
Kutbi 1 . Nor did his intellectual attainments end here : he
knew the Qzir'dn by heart when he was nine years of age ;
could remember eight verses of Arabic poetry after hearing
them read once ; was famous for his epistolary style, wrote
a fine hand, and was skilled in all martial exercises. He
was also a great patron of men of learning, and at one time
used to attend the lectures of Mawlana Qiwamu'd-Din,
while he appointed the eminent Sayyid-i-Sharif-i-Jurjani
professor in the Daru'sh-Shifa College which he had founded
at Shiraz. Nor did his reign lack military glory of the
somewhat barren kind prevalent at that time, for he retook
Shiraz from his brother Mahmud, who had ousted him from
it by a trick, and Kirman, which had been seized by Dawlat-
shah ; and, on the death of Sultan Uways Jala'ir at Tabriz
in March, 1375, occupied not only that city, but also Nakh-
juwan, Qarabagh, Awjan, Sultaniyya, Shushtar and even
Baghdad, so that he became for a while the master of the
greater part of Persia.
In his family relations he was not happier than the rest
of his House. His brother Mahmud, who had strangled his
wife, the daughter of Shaykh Abu Ishaq, about A.D. 1368,
died in 1375 at the age of 38. On hearing of his death
Shah Shuja' wrote the following quatrain :
1 See pp. 683-4 of the fac-simile of an old MS. of the Tdrikh-i-
Guztda published in the Gibb Series (vol. xiv, i).
CH. iv] THE MUZAFFARf DYNASTY 167
" My brother Mahmud, lion-like crouched low,
For crown and ring was my relentless foe.
At length we shared the earth that men might rest :
I took the surface, he the realm below."
He was also troubled by the real disloyalty of one son,
Sultan Uways, and the fancied disloyalty of another, Sultan
Shibli, whom in a fit of anger, intensified by drink, he
caused to be blinded, and only repented of his rash act
when it was too late. This happened in A.D. 1383, a year
before his death, which took place on October 9, 1384, he
being then 53 years of age and having reigned 27 years.
On his death-bed he wrote a letter to the great Ti'mur 1 ,
setting forth his devotion and loyalty, and commending
to his care his sons and brothers, especially his successor
Zaynu'l-'Abidin. How much effect this letter, with its,
admonitions that " loyalty to promises is a part of Faith,"
produced on Ti'mur was shown nine years later when he made
a massacre of the whole family. The body of Shah Shuja'
was conveyed to Medina for burial, or, according to another
account, buried in a place called Kiih-i-Chahil Maqdm (the
' Mountain of Forty Stations ") a little to the North-east of
Shi'raz. The date of his death is given by the chronogram :
cla^w olwjt \jLfA. ("Alas for Shah Shuja' ! "), the numerical
equivalents of the component letters of which add up to
(A.H.) 786 (= A.D. 1384).
ZAYNU'L-'ABIDIN (786-789= 1384-1387).
Zaynu'l-'Abidin's reign was both short and troubled,
for not only was it marred by those family feuds and fratri-
cidal strifes which were characteristic of this
Muj&mdu d-Din
AiiZaynu'i- dynasty, but the menace of Ti'mur and his Tar-
tars hung ever more threateningly over the land.
Soon after his accession Zaynu'l-'Abidin was attacked by
his cousin Shah Yahya, and shortly after this arrived Ti'mur's
envoy Qutbu'd-Din and required the insertion in the khutba
1 The text of this letter will be found on pp. 730-733 of the fac-
simile of the Td'rikh-i-Guzida (Gibb Series, vol. xiv, i)
1 68 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
of his master's name, which was tantamount to recognizing
him as over-lord. In 789/1387 Timur himself made his
first entry into 'Iraq and Pars. From Isfahan, which was
governed by Majdu'd-Din Muzaffar, the uncle of Zaynu'd-
Din, he demanded a large sum of money, in collecting
which his agents showed so harsh and arrogant a disposition
that the inhabitants rose against them and killed them.
Tfmur took a terrible revenge on them, for he ordered a
general massacre, in which 70,000 persons 1 are said to have
perished. He then advanced on Shiraz, but Zaynu'l-'Abidm
did not await his arrival, and fled to Shushtar, where he
was treacherously seized by his cousin Shah Mansur, who
thereupon marched to Shiraz and drove out his brother
Yahya, who fell back on Yazd. The next six years (A.D.
1387-1393) passed in continual strife between
F r ra u ric a ' s J r * e the three Muzaffarf princes Shah Mansur (who
of the Muzaffans r V
reigned over Fars and Isfahan), his brother
Shah Yahya (who ruled at Yazd), and his cousin Shah
Ahmad (who held Kirman), until in 795/1393 Tfmur for
the second time descended on these distracted provinces.
He first took the Qal'a-i-Safid ("White Castle"), killed the
garrison, and released and restored to the throne Zaynu'l-
'Abidin, and then continued his march on Shiraz, whence
Shah Mansur fled to Pul-i-Fasa. Of some of the Shirazis
who had followed him thither he enquired what the people
of Shiraz were saying of him. " Some say," they replied,
" that those who wielded maces weighing ten maunds and
carried quivers weighing seventeen maunds have fled like
goats before a pack of wolves and have left their families
as an easy prey to the foe." On hearing this Shah Mansur,
moved alike by shame and compassion, resolved to go back
to Shiraz and face the inevitable death which a
Shah Mansur
gives battle to conflict with Timur's hosts involved. He had
with him only 3000 men, of whom 2000 fled
soon after the battle began, while the Tartar army "were
1 This is the number given in the Fdrs-ndma-i-NdsiH, but the
Tdrikh-i-Guztda (p. 739 of fac-simile) raises the number to 200,000.
CH. iv] THE MUZAFFARf DYNASTY 169
more numerous than ants and locusts," yet with such valour
and desperation did he engage the enemy that more than
once he forced his way almost to within striking distance
of Timur, until at last, wounded in the neck and shoulder,
he turned in flight towards Shiraz. He was overtaken by
some of Shah Rukh's soldiers, who dragged him
Death of shah f rom m 's horse and severed his head from his
Mansur
body. The year of his death (795/1393) is
01
given by the chronogram c~l& JUU ("he relinquished the
kingdom") 1 . The other Muzaffari princes (Ahmad 'Imadu'd-
Dm and Sultan Mahdi, son of Shah Shuja', from Kirman ;
Nusratu'd-Din Shah Yahya and his sons Mu'izzu'd-Dfn
^ , . Jahangi'r and Sultan Muhammad from Yazd :
Muzanari princes
put to death by and Sultan Abu Ishaq, son of Sultan Uways,
son of Shah Shuja', from Sirjan) surrendered
themselves to Ti'mur and were at first treated honourably,
but were finally put to death at Qumishah, a little to the
south of Isfahan, on Rajab 10, 795 (May 22, 1393), a date
commemorated in the following verses :
Only two were spared, Zaynu'l-'Abidin and Shiblf, both of
whom had been blinded, the one by his cousin Mansur, the
other by his father Shah Shuja'. These were taken by
Ti'mur to Samarqand, his capital, where they spent the
remainder of their days in tranquillity. So ended the
Muzaffari dynasty, which for eighty years had
L , ltc J a Z tas ^ s , held sway over the greater part of southern
of the Muzaffaris J .
and central Persia. Several of their princes
1 This works out at 40 + 30 + 20 + 5 + 300+400 = 795.
170 THE PERIOD OF TfMtf R [BK n
were distinguished alike by their taste and their talents,
and their patronage of learning and letters drew to their
court not only numerous poets of distinction, including the
incomparable Hafiz, but savants such as 'Adudu'd-Din al-Iji
and Mu'inu'd-Din Yazdi. Materially they did little to
benefit their subjects, save for the building of a few colleges;
while even in Eastern history it would be difficult to find a
household so divided against itself and so disposed to those
fratricidal wars and savage mutilations or destruction of their
kinsmen which constitute the greater part of their history.
THE JALA'IRS 1 , IL-KHANIS, OR fLKANIS.
During the period of the disruption of the Mongol Empire
two Shaykh Hasans play a prominent part, the one known
as "the Great" (Buzurg), the other as "the Little"
fikL/Dynrs'ty (Ktichctk\ The latter was the grandson of the
great Amir Chuban, whose power and influence
were still further increased by his marriage in 719/1319
with Satf Beg, the daughter of Uljaytu and sister of Abu
Sa'i'd, who bore him three sons, besides the six sons and one
daughter (Baghdad Khatun) born to him by another wife.
Of these ten children the most celebrated were Amir Hasan,
Timur-Tash, Dimashq Khwaja,and Baghdad Khatun. Amir
Hasan and his three sons,Talish, Hajji Beg and GhuchHusayn,
all died violent deaths about 727-8/1327-8. Timur-Tash
rebelled and fled to Egypt, where he was at first well received
by al-Malik an-Nasir, who, however, becoming alarmed at
his increasing influence and evident ambition, put him to
death in 728/1 328. He was the father of the above-mentioned
Shaykh Hasan -\-Kuchak (" the Little "), also called after his
grandfather " Chubani," and of Malik-i-Ashraf. Dimashq
Khwaja, the third of Amir Chuban's sons, was put to death
by Abu Sa'i'd in 727/1327 (a year very fatal to this family)
1 Concerning the Jald'irs, a tribe cognate to the Mongols, see the
History of the Moghuls of Central Asia by N. Elias and E. Denison
Ross (London, 1898), p. 88*.
CH. iv] THE fL-KHANfS OR JALA'IRS 171
on a charge of carrying on an intrigue with one of the
widows of the late king Uljaytu. His daughter Dilshad
Khatun and her aunt Baghdad Khatun were both ladies of
considerable note, and, extraordinary as it appears, both
were married at one time in their lives to the Sultan Abu
Sa'fd and at another to the rival Shaykh Hasan, called "the
Great " (Buzttrg). Baghdad Khatun is said to have been
remarkable for her beauty, and was married in 723/1323 to
Shaykh Hasan-i-Busurg, but unfortunately Abu Sa'i'd saw
her, was smitten by her charms, and conceived so violent a
passion for her that in 727/1325 he compelled her husband
to divorce her so that he might marry her himself. On
Abu Sa'fd's death in 736/1335-6 and the elevation to the
throne of Arpa, she was put to death privily by the new
Sultan on suspicion of having poisoned her late husband,
and Shaykh Ha.sa.n-i-Itusurg' compensated himself by appro-
priating the late monarch's other widow Dilshad Khatun 1 .
She bore him Sultan Uways, whose power she subsequently
shared, and, like him, was the subject of many panegyrics
on the part of the poet Salman of Sawa.
Shaykh Hasan " the Great" was the son of Husayn,the
son of Aq-Bugha, the son of Aydakan, and claimed descent
from Hulagu, whence, I suppose, the title of
llMnf (L^ 1 ' not J>^-\> Il-khani, though
probably a mere variant of it) by which, as well
as Jala'ir (the tribal name) the dynasty was known. For
about eight years (736-744/1335-1343) after the death of
Abu Sa'fd the history of Persia consists largely in the
struggles and intrigues of these two houses (of Chuban and
Jala'ir) for the supreme power, their ambitions being thinly
masked by the puppet-princes of the race of Hulagu whom
they successively raised to a nominal and generally very
1 The author of the Hakt'bu's-Siyar, Khwandamfr, endeavours to
explain the illegality of Abu Sa'fd's marriage with Baghdad Khatun
and her niece Dilshad KMtun by assuming that he divorced the
former before marrying the latter. He also asserts that Baghdad
Khatun avenged this slight by poisoning Abu Sa'fd.
172 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
brief sovereignty. By 737/1337 Shaykh Hasan-i-Buzurg
was in possession of Baghdad and Tabriz, the two capitals
of the Mongol Il-khans and afterwards of the Jala'irs, who
would therefore appear to have represented most directly
the older dynasty ; but his tenure only became relatively
secure on Rajab 27, 744 (Dec. 15, 1343), when his rival
Shaykh Hasan-i-Ktic/tak was murdered by his
Shaykh Hasan- unfaithful wife in a very horrible manner, which
\-Kuckak by nevertheless called forth a savage and untrans-
lateable epigram from Salman of Sawa, the
panegyrist of the Jala'irs, of which the text has been already
given on p. 60, supra.
Thejala'iror Il-kham'dynasty founded by Shaykh Hasan-
\-Bnzurg endured for some 75 years, and, though much
harassed by Ti'mur during the last fifteen or twenty years
of its existence, was never entirely crushed by him like the
Muzaffaris. Shaykh Hasan and hisson Shaykh Uways, whose
mother was DilshadKhatun, each reigned about twenty years
(A.H. 736 or 737 to 757 and A.H. 757 to 776 respectively) ; and
all three seem to owe much of their fame and good repute to
their indefatigable panegyrist Salman of Sawa, most of whose
poems are consecrated to their praise. The portrait of them
presented by most historians and biographers is therefore
a very flattering one, and, though their virtues may -have
been exaggerated, there seems no reason to believe that it
is altogether unfounded. After the death of Sultan Uways,
however, on the 2nd of Jumada I, 776 (Oct. 9, 1374), the
fortunes of the dynasty began to decline. On that same
day the late ruler's eldest son Hasan was put to death by
the nobles, and the younger son Husayn was placed on the
vacant throne at Tabriz, whence he was driven out, after a
successful war with the Turkmans, for a space of four months
by Shah Shuja' the Muzaffarf. Shortly after this his authority
was resisted by his brother 'Ah', and finally in Safar, 784
(April-May, 1 382),he was killed by another brother, Ahmad,
who in turn was proclaimed king, and became involved
almost immediately in a fratricidal conflict with yet another
CH. iv] THE fL-KHANfS OR JALA'IRS 173
brother named Bayazi'd. A partition of the kingdom was
finally effected, Adharbayjan being assigned to Ahmad and
'Iraq to Bayazi'd, but soon fresh conflicts occurred between
the two brothers in which the aid of Shah Mansur the
Muzaffari was invoked first by one and then by the other.
These unedifying squabbles were brought to an end by the
approach of Timur's army, which, after a protracted resist-
ance on the part of Ahmad, finally compelled him and
Qara-Yusuf the Turkman to seek refuge with the Turkish
Sultan Bayazi'd, known as Yildirim, "the
suhdn'^azid Thunder-bolt." Thence they passed to Egypt,
"the Thunder- the ruler of which country was preparing to
make his peace with Timur by surrendering
them to him when, fortunately for them, news arrived that
that sanguinary conqueror was dead. Shortly afterwards
Ahmad's bad faith led to a rupture between him and Qara-
Yusuf, who defeated him near Tabriz on the 25th of Rabi' II,
812 (Sept. 6, 1409). The same night he was captured and
put to death, after a troubled and turbulent reign of twenty-
seven years, by his conqueror, and with him practically
ended the Il-khdni or Jala'ir dynasty, though its final extinc-
tion at the hands of the Qara-qoyunlu or " Black Sheep "
Turkmans did not take place until a year or two later.
THE KuRTS 1 .
We pass now to the Kurt dynasty which ruled over
extensive territories in the N.E. of Persia and the adjacent
countries with their capital at Herat. The most detailed
account of them which I have met with is contained in a
still unpublished history of Herat entitled Rawddtu'l-Janndt
ft tcHrikhi madinati Herat (" Gardens of Paradise : on the
history of the city of Herat "), composed by Mawland Mu'i'n
of Isfizar. This history, which comes down to the year 8/5/
1 The name is generally spelt Kart by English Orientalists, but in
the carefully-written MS. of the History of Herat, which will be men-
tioned immediately, it is repeatedly pointed Kurt, which pronunciation
I have therefore adopted.
174 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK n
1473-4 or thereabouts, is based on the older works of Abu
Ishaq Ahmad b. Ya-Sin ; Shaykh 'Abdu'r-Rahman Farm ;
Sayfi of Herat ; and the Kurt-ndma of Rabi'f 1 of Bushanj ;
and is divided into 26 Rawdas^ Gardens "), each containing
two or more Chimans ("Parterres"). Of these, Rawdas vii-x
deal with the period and dynasty now under review. I am
indebted to Mr A. G. Ellis, Assistant Librarian of the India
Office, for the loan of an excellent MS. of this work, tran-
scribed in 1 073/1 662-3 and superior in accuracy and legibility
to either of the British Museum codices 2 . Another work
which supplies some useful information about this dynasty
is the very rare Mujmal of Fasihi of Khwaf 3 , from which the
poems of Rabi'i cited in the last chapter are taken. Some
account of the dynasty is, of course, also contained in all
general histories of Persia of a later date, such as the
Rawdatus-Safd, Habibu's-Siyar, Matltfus-Sctdayn, etc.
The ancestor of the Kurts was a certain Taju'd-Din
'Uthman-i-Marghim, whose brother, 'Izzu'd-Di'n 'Umar-i-
Marghim, was the powerful Wazir of Sultan Ghiyathu'd-Din
Muhammad-i-Ghuri (d. 599/1202-3). Taju'd-Din was made
Warden of the Castle of Khaysar, and on his death his son,
Malik Ruknu'd-Din Abu Bakr, married the daughter of the
above-mentioned Sultan. Their son Shamsu'd-
shamsu'd-Din Dfn succee d e d his father in 643/1245-6, joined
Sail Noyan in an invasion of India in the
following year, and met the great Shaykh Baha'u'd-Dfn
Zakariyya (the spiritual director of the poet 'Iraqi) at
Multan in 645/1247-8. Later he visited the Mongol ruler
Mangu Qa'an (646-655/1248-1257) who placed under
1 Rabi'f, called Khatib, of Bushanj, was killed, according to the
Mujmal of Fasfhf, in 702/1302-3. He was court-poet to Fakhru'd-
Dm Kurt.
2 Add. 22380 and Or. 4106.
3 See p. 150 supra, ad calc., where the MSS. are enumerated. The
St Petersburg MS. is No. 271 of the Institttt des Langues Orientates
du Ministtre des Affaires Etrangeres. See Baron Victor Rosen's
Manuscrits Per sans, pp. 111-113.
CH. iv] THE KURT DYNASTY 175
his sway Herat, Jam, Bushanj, Ghur, Khaysar, Firuz-Kuh,
Gharjistan, Murghab, Merv, Faryab (up to the Oxus),
Isfizar, Farah, Si'stan, Kabul, Tirah, and Afghanistan up to
the Indus. In 662/1263-4, after having subdued Si'stan, he
visited Hulagu, and three years later his successor Abaqa,
whom he accompanied in his campaign against Darband
and Baku. He again visited Abaqa, accompanied by
Shamsu'd-Din the Sahib Dtwdn, in 675/1276-7, and this
time the former good opinion of the Mongol sovereign in
respect to him seems to have been changed to suspicion,
which led to his death, for he was poisoned in Sha'ban, 676
(January, 1278), by means of a water-melon given
p^one/" 1 to him while he was in the bath at Tabriz.
Abaqa even caused his body to be buried in
chains at Jam in Khurasan. Mawlana Waji'hu'd-Dm Nasafi
commemorated the date of his death in the following verses :
The allusion is to the verse in the Qur'an (si'ira Ixxxi, i)
" When the sun is rolled up" for the title of the deceased
ruler, Shamsu'd-Din, signifies the Sun of the Faith.
The title of Malik (which means King in Arabic, but in
Persia at this period meant no more than Prince or Amir)
seems to have been first taken by Ruknu'd-Din, but already
the Shaykh Thiqatu'd-Di'n Farm had given the higher title
of Shah to his uncle 'Izzu'd-Din 'Umar in the following
verse :
176 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK n
The title of Malik was, however, that borne by all the suc-
ceeding members of this house.
Shamsu'd-Din was succeeded in 677/1278-9 by his son
Ruknu'd-Din, who thereupon assumed his father's title with
the adjective Kihin (" the Younger "). He died
Ruknu'd-Din J or
succeeds his at Khaysar on Safar 12, 705 (Sept. 3, 1305), but
father under seems at a much earlier date to have been
the title of
shamsu'd-Din- practically set aside by his son Fakhru'd-Di'n,
who, having been imprisoned by his father for
seven years, was released at the intercession of the Mongol
, general Nawruz, whom he ill requited by be-
He is superseded ...
by his son traying him in 696/1296-7 to Ghazan Khan,
Fakhm'd-DJn against whom Nawruz had revolted. Three
years later Fakhru'd-Din himself fought against Ghazan's
brother Khuda-banda, who succeeded Ghazan in 705/1305-6,
and in the following year sent an army of 10,000 men under
Danishmand Bahadur against Herat, of which the fortifica-
tions had been greatly strengthened by Fakhru'd-Din.
Danishmand was, however, killed by a treacherous stratagem
after he had been allowed to occupy Herat, together with
many of his men, and Fakhru'd-Din then returned from
Aman-Kuh, whither he had fled, and reoccupied the city.
Soon afterwards he died on Sha'ban 22, 706 (Feb. 26, 1307).
He was a great patron of literature. Sayfi says that forty
poets of note were his panegyrists, and that he himself
had composed eighty qastdas and one hundred and fifty
muqattctdt in his praise. On the other hand his rule was
austere : he forbade women to walk abroad, and sternly
repressed wine-drinking and public mourning.
Fakhru'd-Din was succeeded by his brother Ghiyathu'd-
Din, who soon afterwards had a quarrel with his brother
'Ala'u'd-Di'n, and went to lay his case before
2 C etds U ' d ' Din the Mon g o1 sovereign Khuda-banda, who ac-
corded him a gracious reception. On his return
to Herat in 708/1308-9 he extended his power over Ghur,
Khaysar and Isfizar. 'Ala'u'd-Din Hindu's intrigues against
him compelled him again to visit Shah Khuda-banda in
CH. iv] THE KURT DYNASTY 177
714/1314-15, and it took him some time, aided by the
intercession of Shaykh Nuru'd-Din 'Abdu'r-Rahman of
Isfara'in, to regain that monarch's confidence. On his return
he was confronted first, in 718/1318-19, with an invasion
of Khurasan by Prince Yasur 1 the Nikudan and, in the
following year, with the hostility of Qutbu'd-Dm of Isfizar
and the people of Si'stan, on which latter war Pur-i-Baha
of Isfizar has the following verses :
" O King, do not again, supported [only] by the weak Sistanis,
Venture to give battle to the army of the Persians.
The people of Sistan are nothing more than beards and moustaches ;
Beware lest thou place thy reliance on felt and cords ! "
In 720/1320 Prince Yasur was killed and the Nikudaris
dispersed, and in Rajab of that year (August, 1320)
Ghiyathu'd-Dm set out to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca,
leaving his son Malik Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad to act as
Viceroy. In 729/1329 Ghiyathu'd-Di'n died, leaving four
sons, the above Shamsu'd-Din who succeeded him ; Hafiz
and Mu'izzu'd-Dfn who successively ascended the throne ;
and Baqir.
On the date of Shamsu'd-Din's accession the following
Arabic chronogram was composed by Jamalu'd-Din Mu-
hammad ibn Husam :
The words Khullida mulkuhn (" May his rule be eternal-
ized!") give, according to the abjad reckoning, the date 729 ;
but unhappily so slight was their appropriateness that
1 See Howorth's Hist, of the Mongols, Part iii, pp. 590-1.
B. P. 12
178 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK n
Shamsu'd-Din died two months after his accession, and was
succeeded by his brother Hafiz, who in turn, after a brief and
troubled reign of about two years, was succeeded by the third
brother Abu'l-Husayn Malik Mu'izzu'd-Di'n.
The accession of Mu'izzu'd-Dm in 732/1331 almost
synchronized with three important events, the
Accession of death of Abu Sa < {d / which pra ctically marked
JVlu izzu d-JUin v
the end of the Mongol dominion over Persia) ;
the birth of Tfmur ; and the rise of the Sarbadar Dynasty.
THE SARBADARS.
The history of this dynasty, so far as it need be discussed
here, may well be considered in connection with that of the
Kurts. It is well summarized by Stanley Lane-
DynS y bad4r Poole 1 , who says that they held Sabzawar and
the neighbouring district for nearly half a cen-
tury, "during which period twelve successive chiefs assumed
the command, nine of whom suffered violent deaths." It
may be added that no one of them reigned more than six
or seven years, and that they were enthusiastic adherents
of the Shf'a doctrine, while in Nishapur and Herat the
Sunni doctrine predominated. Nevertheless Khwaja 'All
Mu'ayyad, the last of the line, succeeded in taking Bistam
and Farhadjird and winning over Nishapur, which, how-
ever, was recaptured by the Kurts in 777/1375-6. The
revolt which gave rise to this dynasty if such it can be
called took place on Sha'ban 12, 737 (March 16, 1337),
when Amir 'Abdu'r-Razzaq of Bayhaq, a disciple of Shaykh
Husayn Juri (whose murids or disciples formed an im-
portant element in the forces of this little kingdom) first
raised the standard of rebellion, saying, " A gang of evil-
doers dominates and oppresses the people. By God's grace
we will do away with the oppression of these tyrants,
failing which we will see our heads on the
^amTsarbaddr gibbet (sar-ba-ddr), since we can no longer
endure these tyrannical aggressions," and it
1 Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 251.
CH. iv] THE SARBADAR DYNASTY 179
was to this expression that the dynasty owed its name 1 .
One notable poet, Ibn-i-Yamin, is associated with the Sar-
badars, but after the battle of Zawa, in which Shaykh
Husayn Juri was killed and the Sarbadar forces routed, he
fell into the hands of Malik Mu'izzu'd-Din Kurt, by whom
he was well received and treated with honour.
Mu'izzu'd-Din Kurt reigned for forty years, not in-
gloriously, though not without occasional acts of barbarity
Death of Malik wmcn were, unhappily, characteristic of that
Mu'izzu'd-Dm time, as when, after the capture of Badghis,
he erected, in the style later made familiar
by Timur, two towers or minarets of the heads of his
enemies. Finally he sickened and died in 771/1369-70,
a date expressed in the following chronogram :
\
He was buried at Herat by the side of the Ghuri monarch
Sultan Ghiyathu'd-Din Muhammad Sam and of his own
father Ghiyathu'd-Din Muhammad-i-Kurt, and was suc-
ceeded by his son Ghiyathu'd-Din Pir 'All.
It was about this time that the shadow of Timur
(Tamerlane) began to fall over the land, but as usual his
first advances were of a friendly character, and
of^mT^ he S ave his niece Sevin J Qutluq Agha in
marriage to Ghiyathu'd-Din Pir 'Alf's son Pir
Muhammad in or about the year 778/1376. Five years
1 The original words (Rawddtu'l-Janndt, Mr Ellis's MS., f. 147) are
as follows :
i8o THE PERIOD OF TfJVItiR [BK n
later, in the spring of A.D. 1381, early in his first Persian
campaign, Ti'mur occupied Herat, placed it and the adjacent
territories under the control of his son Mfran-shah, and
carried off the Kurt ruler Ghiyathu'd-Di'n Pir 'All and his
eldest son Pir Muhammad to Samarqand, where he im-
ir * . f ,1, prisoned them, while two other members of the
Extinction oi the
Kurt Dynasty family, Amir Ghuri and Malik Muhammad,
were similarly imprisoned at Andakan. Soon
afterwards, however, an abortive rebellion at Herat in
A.D. 1389 furnished their captor with an excuse for
putting them to death, and so ended the Kurt dynasty, a
year after the extinction of their rivals the Sarbadars.
Amongst the four dynasties whose history has been
briefly sketched above was Persia for the most part divided
when, in the last quarter of the eighth century
Comparison of ' 1 J
Timur with of the kijra and the fourteenth of the Christian
Chingiz Khdn er ^ ^imfa burst upon the land and ravaged it
as Chingiz Khan had done some hundred and fifty years
before. Between the two Central Asian conquerors there
are many points of resemblance ; both had to begin by con-
solidating their power and destroying rivals amongst their
own people; both had passed the age of forty when they
embarked on their invasions of Persia ; and both were re-
sponsible for incalculable bloodshed and suffering. Two
circumstances chiefly differentiate them, the fact that Chingiz
Khan was a heathen while Ti'mur was, in name at least, a
Muhammadan ; and the fact that, while Chingiz Khan was
confronted with the great empire of the Khwarazmshahs,
Ti'mur found Persia, as we have seen, parcelled out amongst
a number of petty rulers whose dominions had no fixed
frontiers, and who were constantly at war with one another
and even with ambitious members of their own families.
That Ti'mur v/as a Muhammadan certainly tended to miti-
gate in some measure, so far as Persia and other Muslim
lands were concerned, a natural savagery not inferior to
that of Chingiz, for he at least showed more respect for
VII
TIMUR
Add. 18801 (Brit. Mus.), f. 23
To face p. 180
CH. iv] TfMtiR'S BIOGRAPHERS 181
shrines and sacred edifices, and for men reputed holy or
learned. Yet we must not be misled by panegyrists like
Sharafu'd-Dm 'Ah' Yazdf, author of theZafar-nama ("Book
of Victory ") 1 , who wrote under the patronage and for the
pleasure of the conqueror ; though we need not, on the other
hand, endorse all the abusive language employed by the
Arabic writer Ahmad ibn 'Arabshah in h.\s l Ajaibu'l-Maqdtir
fi akhbdri Timiir (" Marvels of Destiny in the History of
Timur") 2 , where the conqueror is habitually described as
" this traitor," " this criminal," " this mad dog," and the like.
But Sharafu'd-Din's fulsome flattery is less tolerable than
Ibn 'Arabshah's abuse, for though he is unable to omit all
mention of Timur' s massacres and pyramids of skulls, he
does not scruple to declare 3 that " his generous personality
manifested the boundless grace of God, while the purest
virtue and philanthropy were concealed in his light-seeking
mind ; and such acts of wrath and retribution as were
ostensibly committed in the initial stages [of his conquests]
by some of his world -endowed followers and partisans, as
will be presently set forth, were prompted only by the exi-
gencies of conquest and the necessities of world-empire."
As specimens of those acts mention may be made of his
massacre of the people of Si'stan in 785/1383-4, when he
caused some two thousand prisoners to be built up in a wall;
his cold-blooded slaughter of a hundred thousand captive
Indians near Dihlf in 801 (December, 1398); his burying
alive of four thousand Armenians in 803/1400-1, and the
twenty towers of skulls erected by him at Aleppo and
Damascus in the same year ; and his massacre of 70,000
of the inhabitants of Isfahan in 789 (November, 1387), to
quote only a few out of many similar instances of his callous
indifference to bloodshed and human suffering. Sir John
1 Published in two volumes at Calcutta in the Bibliotheca Indica
Series in 1887-8. This history, which comprises in this edition some
1560 pages, is prolix, tedious, florid and fulsome.
2 Published at Leyden, 1636; Calcutta, 1818; Cairo, A.H. 1285, etc.
3 Pp. 15-16 of the Bibl. Ind. edition.
1 82 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
Malcolm's judgements of Tfmur will command the assent
of all fair-minded students not blinded by a misplaced hero-
worship of great conquerors, such as Alexander, Chingiz,
Ti'mur or Napoleon, who deemed no price of human suffering
too great for the gratification of their ambitions. " Such a
leader as Timour," says Malcolm, in his excellent History
of Persia 1 , "must have been idolized by his soldiers ; and,
with an army of six or seven hundred thousand men attached
to his person, he was careless of the opinion of other classes
in the community. The object of this monarch was fame
as a conqueror ; and a noble city was laid in ashes, or the
inhabitants of a province massacred, on a cold calculation
that a dreadful impression would be made which would
facilitate the purposes of his ambition. He pretended to be
very religious, was rigid in performing his sacred duties, and
paid attention to pious men ; who, in return for his favour,
used to assure him that God had given the countries of other
monarchs to his victorious sword. The parade which he
made of these prophecies proves that he either believed in
them, or that he thought they might produce an effect
favourable to his designs."
" From what has been said," observes this judicious
historian a little further on 2 , "we may pronounce that
Timour, though one of the greatest of warriors, was one of
the worst of monarchs. He was able, brave and generous ;
but ambitious, cruel and oppressive. He considered the
happiness of every human being as a feather in the scale,
when weighed against the advancement of what he deemed
his personal glory ; and that appears to have been measured
by the number of kingdoms which he laid waste, and the
people that he destroyed. The vast fabric of his power had
no foundation, it was upheld by his individual fame ; and
the moment that he died, his empire dissolved. Some
fragments of it were seized by his children : but it was in
India alone that they retained dominion for any length of
time. In that country we yet perceive a faint and expiring
1 London, 1815, pp. 482-3. 2 Op. laud., p. 484.
CH. iv] TfMtiR'S BIOGRAPHERS 183
trace of the former splendour of the Moghul dynasty ; a
pageant, supported by the British nation, still sits upon a
throne at Delhi 1 ; and we view in him the gradual decline
of human greatness, and wonder at the state to which a few
centuries have reduced the lineal descendants of the great
Timour."
Besides the two histories of Timur already mentioned,
the Persian Zafar-ndma of Sharafu'd-Dm 'All Yazdi and
the Arabic 'Ajaibul-Maqdiir Q{ Ibn 'Arabshah,
SorTof Ttaflr there exis ts a third contemporary history, un-
published, and, so far as is known, represented
only by the unique MS. Add. 23,980 of the British Museum.
This history, also written in Persian, and also entitled
Zafar-ndma, was undertaken at Timur' s command in 8o4/
1401-2 by Nizam-i-Shami, and was concluded and presented
to Timur in 806/1403-4, just a year before his death.
The author was living in Baghdad when it was taken by
Ti'mur in 795/1393, and was the first person who came out
to greet him. "God have mercy on thee," said Ti'mur, "for
thou wert the first person to come forth from this city before
me! 2 " This history, conciser and less florid than the
homonymous work of Sharafu'd-Dm, appears to deserve
publication, and seems to have formed the basis of the later
work. In writing this chapter I have had at my disposal
not only my own brief notes on its contents, taken during
spare hours in the British Museum, but also a complete
transcript made for me by my friend Dr Ahmad Khan.
Reference must also be made to the so-called "Memoirs"
and "Institutes" of Ti'mur (Malfiizdt and Tuziikdt-i-Timtirt),
which, though translated into English from the
"Memoirs" and Persian and widely quoted and used by Euro-
" institutes" of p ean writers, are now generally, and I think
Timur . V
properly, regarded by the best judges as apocry-
1 Sir John Malcolm's History was published in 1815, long before
the Indian Mutiny, which led, among other results, to the final ex-
tinction of the dynasty of Ti'mur, commonly known as the "Great
Moghuls." 2 -MS., f. 99.
1 84 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
phal 1 . The Persian version of this book was first produced
in the seventeenth century of our era, in the reign of Shah
Jahan (1628-1659), by a certain Abu Talib al-Husayni, who
professed to have translated it from a Turki original dis-
covered by him in the library of a certain Ja'far Pasha,
governor of Yaman (Arabia Felix). Of the existence of
this Turki original no evidence whatever exists save this
statement of Abu Talib's, and it appears much more likely
that he himself compiled the Persian work, in imitation of
Bcibur's 2 authentic autobiography, with the aid of the Zafar-
ndma and other histories of Ti'mur. A manuscript of this
work was brought to England by Major Davy in 1779, and
on his death in 1784 passed into the possession of his son.
In 1779 he wrote to Dr White, then Laudian Professor of
Arabic in the University of Oxford, a high appreciation of
this book and a vehement defence of its authenticity 3 , and
in 1783 both the text and translation of the "Institutes" were
published in collaboration by these two. In 1787 Professor
Langles produced a French translation with the following
cumbrous title : Instituts politiques etmilitaires de Tamerlan,
proprement appelle Timour, ecrits par lui-meme en Mongol, et
traduits en Francois, sur la version Persane d'Abou-Taleb
Al-Hosse'ini, avec la Vie de ce Conquerant, d'apres les meilleurs
Auteurs Orientaux, des Notes, et des Tables Historique, Gfo-
graphique, &c. In 1830 Major Charles Stewart published
an English translation of the Malfiizdt or [pseudo] auto-
biographical Memoirs.
Not only as one of the greatest conquerors the world has
ever seen, but as the ancestor of the so-called Moghul
dynasty in India, Ti'mur has attracted the attention of many
1 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 177-180, where several very cogent
reasons against the authenticity of the book are given.
2 That this, not Bdbar, is the correct form has been shown by
Sir E. Denison Ross, in his interesting article on A Collection of Poems
by the Emperor Bdbur published on Oct. 26, 1910, as an extra number
to vol. vi of the J.A.S.of Bengal, pp. iv-vi of the Introduction.
3 See pp. ix-xiii of Major Charles Stewart's translation of the
Malfuz
CH. iv] TfMtfR'S EARLY CAREER 185
European (especially English) as well as Asiatic historians,
and has furnished a subject for many writers. For the
purposes of this book, in which the historical portion of the
subject is necessarily subordinated to the literary, it will be
sufficient to give a brief sketch of his career, based chiefly
on the Zafar-ndma and Ibn 'Arabshah, especially that
portion of it which is connected with Persia.
Timur (a name which in Turkish signifies " Iron") was
born at Kash in Transoxiana on Sha'ban 28, 736 (April 1 1,
1336). As usual in the case of men who after-
Birth of Timur , , - , ,
wards became famous, attempts are made by
his panegyrists on the one hand to affiliate him (through
Qarachar Noyan) to the Mongol Royal House of Chingiz
Khan, and on the other to surround his birth with all manner
of portents indicative of his future greatness. Ibn 'Arab-
shah, on the other hand, merely gives the names of his father
(Taraghay) and his grandfather (Abghay), says that "he
and his father were herdsmen, belonging to a gang of rascals
devoid alike of intelligence and religion," and ascribes the
limp to which he owed his sobriquet of " the Lame " (Lang)
to a wound received while engaged in stealing sheep. His
early adventures and the steps by which he gradually
attained the leading position amongst his people need not
here detain us, and it is sufficient to say that he first became
prominent at the age of 24 in 761/1360; received the title
of Sdhib-Qirdn ("Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction")
ten years later when he succeeded in killing his rival Sultan
Husayn in Sha'ban, 771 (March, 1370) ; spent six or seven
years after this in consolidating his power in Transoxiana,
and did not seriously turn his attention to Persia
First Persian ^jj ^ sprmg Q f AfD . 1381, when he Was 45
campaign 011381 * ~ J
years of age. In this first campaign, which
lasted only for the inside of a year, his attention was con-
fined to Khurasan. At Andakhiid he paid his respects to a
more or'less crazy dervish known as Baba Sangu 1 , and, with
that superstition which was so strangely blended with his
1 Zafar-ndma, i, p. 310.
186 THE PERIOD OF TfMtf R [BK n
ferocious energy, interpreted as a presage of victory the
piece of meat which that holy but demented personage
threw at his head. Sarakhs surrendered to him, and, after
visiting another holy man, Zaynu'd-Din Abu Bakr, at
Tayabad, he captured and destroyed Bushanj. The reduction
of Herat and submission of Ghiyathu'd-Dm Pfr 'All, the
Kurt ruler, followed ; and thereafter came the turn of Tus,
Isfara'in (which was levelled with the ground and many of
its inhabitants slain), and Kalat. He then returned to
Samarqand and Bukhara for the winter.
In the spring of the following year (A.D. 1382) he con-
tinued his operations against Persia. At Kalat, where he
encamped, he was joined by his son Miran-shah
Pe.rs.an cam- from Sarakhs and by the now submissive Ghi-
paign of 1382
yathu'd-Di'n Kurt from Herat ; and, having
established a blockade of this strong place, he passed on to
Turshiz, which also surrendered to him. Here he received
an ambassador from Shah Shuja', the Muzaffari ruler of Pars,
whose daughter he demanded in marriage for his grandson
Pir Muhammad. Having received the submission of Amir
Wall, the ruler of Mazandaran, Ti'mur returned for the winter
to Samarqand, his capital, where he was for a while plunged
in sorrow by the death of his wife Dilshad Agha and her
elder sister Qutlugh Turkan Agha.
In the autumn of A.D. 1383, after despatching an expe-
dition against the heathen Mongols to pursue Qamaru'd-Dm,
Ti'mur again set out on a campaign against
Third Persian
campaign of Mazandaran and Sfstan. Towards the end of
1383-4 October he attacked Sabzawar, undermined and
destroyed the citadel, and took captive some two thousand
persons, whom "he piled alive one on another, compacted them
with bricks and clay,and erected minarets, so that men, being
apprised of the majesty of his wrath, might not be seduced
by the demon of arrogance, and so cast themselves into the
pit of wailing and destruction 1 ." Having received the sub-
mission of Farah, he attacked Zirih, which was fiercely
1 Zafar-ndma, i, p. 360.
CH. iv] TfMtfR'S CAMPAIGNS (A.D. 1383-7) 187
defended by some five thousand men, most of whom were
slain, and their heads built up into minarets. In December
Si'stan fell before his onslaught, and " whatever was in that
country, from potsherds to royal pearls, and from the finest
fabrics to the very nails in the doors and walls, was swept
away by the winds of spoliation, while the lightning of
rapine, comprehending alike the greater and the less of that
land, consumed moist and dry together 1 ." After reducing
two or three other fortresses, and constructing more pyramids
of the skulls of his enemies, Ti'mur captured Qandahar,
hanged the commander of the garrison, and returned to his
capital Samarqand, where he allowed himself a period of
repose lasting three months.
It would be tedious, and, in a work of this character,
out of place to describe in detail the almost annual cam-
paigns which occupied the remaining twentyyears of Timur's
life, but in brief they were as follows :
In 786/1384-5 Ti'mur invaded Mazandaran and Adhar-
bayjan, wintered at Ray, continued his campaign in the
spring of 1385, and, having reduced the Caspian provinces
and the North of Persia as far as Sultaniyya, returned to
his capital Samarqand for the winter.
In 788/1386-7 Ti'mur, seeing the distracted state of
Persia, determined to effect its total subjugation, and set
out on a three years' campaign against that country. He
first marched against Malik 'Izzu'd-Di'n, the ruler of Luristan,
sacked Burujird and Khurramabad, and caused many of
his opponents to be cast alive over precipices. He next
marched on Tabriz, where Sultan Ahmad Jala'ir had col-
lected an army to oppose him, but on his approach the
latter, deeming discretion the better part of valour, retreated
to Nakhjuwan, and, after a fierce battle, succeeded in making
good his escape. Ti'mur spent the summer at Tabriz, and
despatched thence to Samarqand a selection of the most
skilful artificers and craftsmen whom he could find in the
conquered city. In the autumn he crossed the Araxes,
1 Ibid.) pp. 368-9.
1 88 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
pushed forward towards Nakhjuwan, and, having subdued
the strong fortress of Qars, proceeded to devastate Gurjistan
(Georgia). Having captured Tiflis, and, indulged in a great
hunting-expedition, in which the game slain was so abundant
that most of it was left to rot on the ground 1 , he returned
to winter quarters in Qara-Bagh.
In the spring of A.D. 1387 (A.H. 789) Timur renewed
his campaign in Asia Minor, subdued the cities of Bayazi'd,
Erzeroum, Erzinjan, Mush, Akhlat and Van, and received
the submission of Salmas and Urmiya, and in the autumn,
in consequence of the refusal of the Muzaffarf prince
Zaynu'l-'Abidm to appear before him, he marched against
Pars. On the way thither he entered Isfahan, and levied a
heavy contribution on the people of that city. This pro-
voked a riot, in which a good many of Timur's tax-collectors
and agents were killed, and Timur took a terrible revenge,
making a general massacre of the people, in which it is
computed that 70,000 perished, whose heads were counted
and afterwards built up into minarets. This
happened on Monday, Nov. i8 % ! 3 8 7 2 . Ti'mur
then continued his march to Shiraz, which sub-
mitted to him in the following month (Dec. 1387), and it is
on this occasion that the legendary interview between the
great conqueror and the poet Hafiz is supposed to have
taken place. Dawlatshah, who relates the anecdote 3 , with
characteristic inaccuracy assigns this meeting to the year
795/1392-3, when Hafiz had been dead for four years.
The story, which is probably entirely apocryphal, is that
Timur summoned Hafiz to his presence and upbraided him
for the well-known verse in which he says :
" If that unkindly Shirdz Turk would take my heart within her hand,
I'd give Bukhara" for the mole upon her cheek, or Samarqand."
" With the blows of my lustrous sword," exclaimed Timur,
"have I subjugated most of the habitable globe, and laid
1 Zafar-ndma, i, p. 404.
2 Ibid., p. 435.
3 See pp. 305-6 of my edition.
CH. iv] TfMtfR AND HAFI? 189
waste thousands of towns and countries to embellish Samar-
qand and Bukhara, my native towns and the seats of my
government ; and you, miserable wretch that you are, would
sell them both for the black mole of a Turk of Shi'raz ! "
" Sire," replied Hafiz, with a deep obeisance, " it is through
such prodigality that I have fallen on such evil days ! "
Timur is said to have been so much delighted by this quick
rejoinder that he not only refrained from punishing the
poet but gave him a handsome present. There is a variant
of the story, which I have heard in Persia but not met with
in any book, according to which Hafiz replied, " They have
misquoted me : what I really wrote was not
Bi-khdl-i-hinduwash bakhsham Samarqand u Bukhdrd-rd
but
Bi-khdl-i-hinduwash bakhsham du man qand u si khurmd-rd
I would give for the mole on her cheek two maunds of sugar and
three dates."
No mention of any such meeting occurs in contemporary
biographers of Timur, such as Sharafu'd-Dm 'Ah' of Yazd,
nor have I met with any trustworthy evidence in support
of it.
To return to Tfmur's invasion of Fars. Zaynu'l-'Abidin,
the Muzaffari prince, had fled to his cousin Shah Mansiir,
governor of Shushtar in the S.W. of Persia, who, violating
alike the bonds of kinship and claims of hospitality, cast
him into prison. Most of the other princes of the House
of Muzaffar, as well as the Atabeks of Luristan and other
petty rulers, waited on Timur at Shi'raz and tendered their
submission. But, even in the moment of his triumph, news
was brought to the conqueror by a messenger, who had
accomplished the long journey from Samarqand to Shi'raz
in the incredibly short space of seventeen days, that a
fresh revolt of the stiff-necked Tuqatmish required the
presence of Timur to defend his own realms. Thereupon,
in February, 1388, he at once set out for Samarqand, bearing
with him, as part of his spoils, the learned Sayyid-i-Shan'f-i-
1 90 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
Jurjini, and appointing the Muzaffari princes Shah Yahya,
Sultan Muhammad, Sultan Ahmad and Sultdn Abu Ishaq
governors of Shiraz, Isfahan, Kirman and Sirjan respectively.
For the next four years and a half Timur was engaged
in warfare against Tuqatmish, the Mongols, the realm of
Khwarazm or Khiva, and other northern peoples, and
Persia enjoyed a brief rest from his attentions, though a
rebellion which broke out in the summer of 1389 in Khu-
rasan (apparently prompted by reports of his defeat at the
hands of Tuqatmish) was put down in the usual bloody
and barbarous fashion by Miranshah, especially at Tiis,
where some ten thousand persons were massacred, and their
heads built up into pyramids or minarets.
On the last day of July, 1392, Tfmur, after some delay
occasioned by a serious illness, once again crossed the Oxus
on another of his devastating campaigns in the South.
This, known as the " Five Years' Campaign " ( Ytirish-i-
panj-sdla 1 ) included the Caspian provinces, Fars (where he
exterminated the princes of the Muzaffari dynasty, as already
described at p. 169 supra}, Armenia, Georgia, Mesopotamia,
and South Russia. In Gurgan and Mazandaran he came in
contact with certain heretical Sayyids, many of whom he
slew, "delivering those regions from the mischievous influence
of those misguided communists 2 ." Sharafu'd-Din's account
of their tenets is neither clear nor detailed, but it appears
highly probable that they belonged to the heretical Hurufi
sect, whose founder, Fadlu'llah, appeared, preached his
doctrines, and suffered death in Tfmur's reign, and was
a native of Astarabad. We shall have more to say about
him and his doctrine presently.
In the latter part of December, 1392, Tfmur, having
received a visit from his wives and family, set out for South
Persia, travelling by way of Damghan, Samnan, Ray,
Qazwin, Sultaniyya, Kurdistan, and Burujird (which he
reached on February 14, I393 3 ), and putting to death on
1 Zafar-nAma, \, pp. 561 et seqq. 2 Ibid., pp. 576-7.
3 Ibid., p. 587.
CH. iv] TfMUR OCCUPIES BAGHDAD 191
his way many of the Lurs. He reached Dizful on March 2
and Shushtar a day or two later, and thence set out for
Shiraz. On his way thither he captured the strong fortress
of Qal'a-i-Saffd and released the blinded captive prince
Zaynu'l-'Abidin, whom he treated with honour and promised
vengeance on Shah Mansur. Nor was this vengeance long
delayed, for, as already narrated, Shah Mansur was slain in
battle a few days later, while most of the remaining princes
of the House of Muzaffar were put to death by Timur's
order on May 22, 1393. " All the most skilful of the crafts-
men and artisans of the provinces of Pars and 'Iraq " were,
according to Sharafu'd-Din 'All of Yazd, transferred by
Tfmur to Samarqand 1 .
On August 10 Timur, who was approaching Baghdad,
was visited by Shaykh Nuru'd-Din 'Abdu'r-Rahman of
Isfara'in, who came as an ambassador from Sultan Ahmad
Jala'ir to make his excuses for not waiting on Ti'mur in
person. His excuses were ill received by Ti'mur, who
nevertheless treated the Shaykh with the respect which,
according to the Zafar-ndma (p. 629), he habitually accorded
to learned and pious men. Shortly afterwards he entered
Baghdad and occupied the palace of Sultan Ahmad, who
fled before him. Some of Timur's amirs went in pursuit,
overtook the fugitives near Karbala, and captured much
spoil and some of the wives and sons of Sultan Ahmad,
who, however, succeeded in making his escape. His son
'Ala'u'd-Dawla, together with his wives, a selection of the
most skilful artisans of Baghdad, and the celebrated musician
Khwaja 'Abdu'l-Qadir, were sent to Samarqand by Tfmur,
who also despatched an ambassador to Barquq al-Maliku'z-
Zahir, the ruler of Egypt, with a view to concluding a treaty
of friendship and commercial intercourse with him.
Timur's next exploit was the reduction of the strong
fortress of Takn't, which was gallantly defended. Finally,
however, the defenders were overcome and put to death, and
their heads built up into minarets. Continuing his march
1 Ibid., p. 619.
i 9 2 THE PERIOD OF TfMtf R [BK n
northwards he passed by Karkiik, Arbil, Mawsil (Mosul) and
Rawha, where, in March, 1 394, he was overtaken by stormy
and rainy weather, and compelled by this and the disobedi-
ence of Malik 'Izzu'd-Din to return to Mesopotamia. Having
in a brief space of time dealt with this rebellious chieftain,
Ti'mur again turned northwards and reduced the fortress of
Mardi'n. Luckily for the garrison, news had just reached
Ti'mur of the birth, at Sultaniyya, on March 22, 1394, of a
grandson, the afterwards celebrated Ulugh Bey, son of Shah-
rukh, and this put Ti'mur in such good humour that he
spared their lives, which would otherwise have certainly
been forfeited 1 . Amid (Diyar Bakr) next succumbed to his
victorious arms in April, but he had to abandon his attempt
to raze the fortifications on account of their extraordinary
strength and solidity 2 . He then passed on to Si'was, Mush,
Bitli's, Akhlat and Aydfn, halting for a while in the Plain
of Ala-dagh to receive his wives and younger children, who
came to visit him from Sultaniyya, and despatching an
army in pursuit of his enemy Qara Yusuf and his Turkman
followers. At the end of July, 1 394, he captured the fortress
of Avnfk, on the upper waters of the Araxes, and sent its
defender, Misr the son of Qard Yusuf, to Samarqand, to-
gether with Sultan 'Isa, the ex-governor of Mardi'n. He
next invaded Georgia and occupied Tiflis.
Fortunately for Persia, a fresh menace on the part of
his old enemy Tuqatmish compelled Ti'mur at this juncture,
towards the end of February, I39S 3 , to march northwards
to defend his own territories, and this, with the ensuing
campaign in Southern Russia, in the course of which he
penetrated as far as Moscow 4 , kept him occupied for more
than a year. During and in consequence of his absence
several revolts broke out in Persia, such as that of Qard
Yiisuf the Turkman in Adharbayjan 5 ; of Gudarz (probably
a Zoroastrian) at Sirjan 6 ; of Sultan Muhammad, son of
1 Zafar-ndma, \. p. 680. 2 Ibid., p. 684.
3 Ibid., p. 735. 4 Ibid., p. 761.
5 Ibid., p. 757. 6 Ibid., pp. 784-5-
CH. iv] TfMtfR'S INVASION OF INDIA 193
Abu Sa'id of Tabas, and some Khurasani soldiers who had
formerly been in the service of the Muzaffari dynasty
at Yazd ; and of Buhliil at Nihawand. All these revolts
were quickly and sternly repressed, and the ringleader of
that last mentioned, Buhlul, was burned alive 1 . The en-
suing month of Ramadan was passed by Ti'mur at Ramadan
" in obedience and devotion to the Divine Benefactor, and
in the observance of the obligations of fasting and vigils
and of every kind of religious rite and ceremony." He
then, having ordered his generals to subdue the whole
Persian shore of the gulf from Khuzistan to Hurmuz, set
out on July 18, 1396, for Samarqand.
On this occasion Ti'mur remained quiet at his capital
for a longer period than usual, and devoted a good deal of
attention to beautifying it and its environs by the labours
of " the expert engineers and skilful architects who had
been gathered to the Royal Metropolis from every clime
and country from East to West 2 ." He also gave a series
of gorgeous banquets, of which one of the chief was to
celebrate the conferring of the kingdom of Khurasan, in-
cluding Si'stan and Mazandaran, from Firuzkuh to Ray, on
his son Shah-rukh, which happened in May, I397 3 . Less
than a year later, in the spring of 1398, he set out on his
Indian campaign, instigated thereto, as asserted in the
Zafar-ndma*, by his desire to promote Islam and crush
idolatry, and by the accounts which reached him of the
toleration shown by the Muslim rulers towards their Hindu
subjects and neighbours. After some preliminary opera-
tions against the Afghans (or Awghans) of the Sulayman
Kuh and the Siydh-piish (" Black-robed") heathen of Kafir-
istan, he crossed the Indus on Muharram 12, 801 (Sept. 24,
1398) and proceeded to carry fire and sword into India. It
is unnecessary for our purpose to follow these operations in
detail. They were characterized by the usual bloodshed
and barbarities, amongst the worst of which was the massacre
1 Ibid., i, p. 788. 2 Ibid., ii, p. 6.
3 Ibid., i, pp. 803-4. * Ibid., ii, p. 15.
B. P. 13
194 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK n
in cold blood of 100,000 Indian prisoners near Dihlf on
December 12, I398 1 . Compared to this monstrous crime
the horrors enacted a few days later at Dihlf, and the
massacre of 10,000 persons a month earlier at Batnfr sink
into insignificance.
Reports of troubles in Persia (especially in Adharbayjan,
where his son, Mfranshah, to whom the government of this
important province had been entrusted, was courting disaster
by his insane vagaries, generally ascribed to an injury to his
head caused by a fall from his horse) impelled Timur to cut
short his Indian campaign early in the year A.D. 1399, and
to hasten homewards. He crossed the Indus on his return
journey on March 8 of that year, five months and seventeen
days after he had crossed it at the beginning of his campaign,
and the Oxus three weeks later. On April 7 he reached
his native town of Kash or Shahr-i-Sabz (the "Green City"),
and entered Samarqand, his capital, on April 27. A fort-
night later (May 9, 1399) he laid the foundation-stone of
the magnificent mosque (Masjid-i-Jdm?) which he had long
intended to erect for the embellishment of his metropolis.
On September 9, 1399, Timur again quitted Samarqand
for Adharbayjan, where the erratic conduct of his son
Mfranshah, of which fresh accounts continued to reach
him, urgently demanded his attention. At Aywanak, near
Ray, he was joined by his son Shah-rukh and by another
army which he had despatched by way of Mazandaran.
Mfranshah was induced to come to his father's camp to
render account of his misconduct, which included the waste
or embezzlement of a large proportion of the revenues, the
putting to death on mere suspicion of certain men of conse-
quence against whom he had conceived a spite, the wanton
destruction of certain historic buildings, and the exhuma-
tion of the eminent Minister and historian Rashidu'd-Dfn
Fadlu'llah, whose body he caused to be re-interred in the
Jews' cemetery. Mfranshah was punished by his father's
displeasure and the virtual transference of the authority he
1 Zafar-ndma, ii, p. 92.
CH. iv] DISGRACE OF MfRANSHAH 195
had misused to his son Abu Bakr, but Timur's fiercest
wrath fell upon certain minstrels and poets who had been
Miranshah's boon-companions, and who were alleged to
have corrupted his principles and encouraged his extrava-
gances. Several of these, namely Mawlana Muhammad of
Quhistan, " who, together with a complete mastery of the
technicalities of the various sciences, was unique in his age
and the marvel of his time in verse and prose composition,
both serious and frivolous 1 ," Qutbu'd-Di'n Na'f, Habib-i-
'Udf and 'Abdu'l-Mu'min the rhapsodist, were condemned
to death on this charge and hanged at or near Qazwfn.
According to Dawlatshah 2 , Muhammad of Quhistan must
needs indulge his propensity for jesting even on the scaffold.
Turning to Qutbu'd-Dm, one of his fellow- victims, he said,
" You had precedence in the King's company : precede
me, therefore, here also." " O unlucky heretic," replied the
other, " do you bring matters to this pass, and cannot you
cease jesting yet ? " When it came to Muhammad's turn
to die, he recited the following punning verse :
" 'Tis the end of the matter and the last round, O heretic !
Whether thou goest or not, the choice is no longer in thy hand !
If they lead thee, like Mansiir 3 , to the foot of the gibbet (pd-yi-ddr\
Stand firm (pdy-ddr) like a man, for the world is not enduring (pdy-
ddr) \ "
1 Zafar-ndma ii, pp. 213-214.
2 Pp. 330-1 of my edition. In the very rare Mujmal of Fasihf,
under the year A.H. 802, two other victims are enumerated, viz.
Ardashir-i-Changi (" the harper "), and Khwaja Yahyd-yi-Narrad (" the
backgammon-player ")
3 The celebrated mystic who was hanged or crucified in the tenth
century of our era at Baghdad for exclaiming Ancil-Haqq ! (" I am the
Truth ! " i.e. God). His real name was Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj
(" the wool-carder"). See my Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. i, pp. 428-437.
132
196 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK n
The campaign on which Timur was now embarked, and
which included some of his most remarkable achievements,
is called by Sharafu'd-Din 'All Yazdi (ii, 206) the " Seven
Years' Campaign." As it began about Muharram 8, 802
(Sept. 10, 1399), and as Tfmur returned to his capital,
Samarqand, in Muharram, 807 (July, 1404), this appellation
must be regarded as a misnomer. Even the abridged
account of the many bloody battles and brilliant victories
included in this period which is given in Price's Chrono-
logical Retrospect^ fills 166 quarto pages, and in this place
it must suffice to indicate only its chief events.
The winter of A.D. 1399-1400 was spent by Ti'mur in
Qarabagh near the Araxes, and ere spring had melted the
snows he once more invaded Georgia, devastated the country,
destroyed the churches and monasteries, and slew great
numbers of the inhabitants. In August, 1400, he began his
march into Asia Minor by way of Avni'k, Erzeroum, Erzinjan
and Sfvas. The latter place offered a stubborn resistance,
and when it finally capitulated Ti'mur caused all the Arme-
nian and Christian soldiers to the number of four thousand
to be buried alive; but the Muhammadans he spared 2 .
Meanwhile an animated correspondence was taking place
between him and the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid, called Yil-
dirim (the " Thunder-bolt "), from whom Ti'mur demanded
the surrender of Sultan Ahmad of Baghdad and Qara
Yusuf the Turkman. This Bayazid refused, as, until a very
recent occasion, the Turks have ever been wont to refuse
such betrayal of guests ; and, moreover, as must be admit-
ted, and as will presently be seen, he couched his refusal in
language little calculated to appease his great rival. With
the Sultan of Egypt also (al-Maliku'n-Nasir Faraj) Ti'mur
became embroiled by reason of the unlawful detention of
his ambassador at Cairo, and thus the campaign became
diverted not only against the territories over which the two
1 Published in London in 4 vols., 1811-1821. The portion to which
reference is here made is vol. iii, Part i, pp. 297-463.
2 Zafar-ndma, ii, p. 269.
CH. iv] TfMtiR'S SYRIAN CAMPAIGN 197
fugitive kings had reigned respectively, but against the
Ottoman and Egyptian, and incidentally the Syrian lands.
After taking 'Ayntab, Timur besieged and reduced
Aleppo in October, 1400, and there captured and sent with
other spoils of war to Samarqand his future
Damcu" historian Mawland Nizdmu'd-Di'n called Shdmi
d by ( the " Syrian "). Having next subdued in turn
Hama,Hims(Emessa) and Ba'labakk (Baalbek)
he proceeded to invest Damascus. Here an assassin, insti-
gated by al-Maliku'n-Nasir, Sultan of Egypt, attempted his
life, but failed and was put to death. Damascus surrendered,
but again revolted, and was again subdued in March, 1401,
when it finally submitted, and suffered Tfmur's name to be
inserted in the khutba, after it had suffered the horrors
of Tartar incendiarism and looting. Another portion of
Ti'mur's army ravaged the Syrian coast as far south as
'Akka.
Timur next turned his attention to Baghdad, the
capital of the recalcitrant Sultan Ahmad Jala'ir, and,
having taken it, made, on June 20, 1401, a
b a Timik aghdad S reat massacre, in revenge for the many notable
officers of his army who had perished in the
siege. Each soldier was ordered to bring a head 1 , and in
the words of Sharafu'd-Dfn 'Alf Yazdi, "the market of
retribution became so brisk that the broker of death sold
at one price the old man of eighty and the child of eight,
while the oven of wrath was so enkindled that it consumed
in like manner the corporeal vestiture of the wealthy
plutocrat and the wretched pauper 2 ."
Having left Baghdad a smoking charnel-house, Ti'mur
again turned his attention to the unfortunate Georgians,
until the approach of winter drove him in
Angola" 1 ' November, 1401, into his winter quarters at
Qarabagh. About the middle of February,
1 According to Ibn 'Arabshah the number of Ti'mur's soldiers on
this occasion was 20,000, and each v.'cs ordered to bring two heads.
2 Zafar-ndma, ii, p. 367.
198 THE PERIOD OF TIMtf R [BK n
1402, he prepared to attack the Ottoman Sultan Bayazi'd,
from whom he had received another defiant letter which
goaded him to fury. On July 20, 1402, was fought the
memorable battle of Angora, in which the Ottoman Turks
were utterly defeated and their Sultan, Bayazi'd, "the
Thunderbolt," taken prisoner. The well-known story that
The story of Ti'mur confined him in a cage and carried him
Bayazid and about with him wherever he went is now gene-
rally discredited 1 . No mention of this is made,
I think, by Sharafu'd-Din 'Ah' of Yazd and other Persian
historians of Ti'mur, and the story may have arisen from an
expression used by Ibn 'Arabshah, who, as already mentioned,
hated Ti'mur, and sought always to represent his actions in
the worst light. The expression in question is :
" The son of 'Osman fell into a hunter's snare, and became confined
like a bird in a cage "
a phrase which it is not necessary to take literally, and which
may well have been employed metaphorically and to fulfil
the exigencies of the rhymed prose in which Ibn 'Arabshdh's
work is composed. Sharafu'd-Din explicitly says 2 that
when Bayazi'd, with hands bound, was brought before Ti'mur,
the latter, after reproaching him for his previous contumacy,
expressing his regret at having been compelled to make war
on a fellow-believer who had rendered such signal services
to Islm, and reminding him how he would have probably
behaved to the conquered had their respective positions been
reversed, concluded by saying that " in gratitude for the
victory and help vouchsafed to him by the mercy of God "
he would do naught but good to his captive and the other
Turkish prisoners.
1 It is, however, accepted by Professor H. A. Gibbons in his very
interesting work on the Foundation of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford,
1916). See his long foot-note on p. 255, where the matter is very fully
discussed.
2 Zafar-ndma, vol. ii, pp. 438-9.
CH. iv] SPANISH EMBASSY TO TfMtfR 199
Be this as it may, the campaign against the Ottoman
Turks continued ; royal Broussa and "infidel" Smyrna were
attacked and made desolate, the latter in December, 1402;
and a little later, on February 26, 1403, the unfortunate
Bayazi'd died in captivity.
Seeing what had befallen the Turks, the Egyptian
Sultan, al-Maliku'n-Nasir Faraj, abandoned his former
attitude of defiance, released Timur's ambas-
f sador, and sent his submission to the victor
Suitin ai- O f Angora by an embassy which was graciously
Maliku'n-NSsir . b TA jo
received. In August and September, 1403,
Ti'miir again raided Georgia, and, having wintered once
more at Qarabagh, reached Rayon May 10 and Samarqand
about the end of July, 1404. Here a month later arrived
the Spanish Mission headed by Ruy Gonzalez
Ttai embasSy de Clavijo, who has left us an entertaining
account of his journey from Spain to Samar-
qand and back, and of his impressions of Tfmur, of which
account an English translation, edited by Sir Clements R.
Markham, was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1859.
Clavijo sailed from Seville in company with an envoy,
Muhammad al-Qadi, whom Ti'mur had sent to Spain,
accompanied by Gomez de Salazar and an ecclesiastic
named Fray Alonzo Paez de Santa Maria. Travelling by
way of Constantinople, Trebizond, Erzeroum, Khuy, Tabriz,
Tihran and Mashhad, the Spanish envoys reached Samar-
qand on August 31, 1404, in company with the ambassador
of " the Sultan of Babylon," and were received by Ti'mur
on Monday, September 8. He " was seated in a portal, in
front of the entrance of a beautiful palace ; and he was
sitting on the ground. Before him there was a fountain,
which threw up the water very high, and in it there were
some red apples. The lord was seated cross-legged, on
silken embroidered carpets, amongst round pillows. He was
dressed in a robe of silk, with a high white hat on his head,
on the top of which there was a special ruby, with pearls
and precious stones round it." The ambassadors were
200 THE PERIOD OF TfMtlR [BK n
brought close before him that he might see them better ;
for his eyesight was bad, he being so old that the eyelids had
fallen down entirely. He received them graciously, en-
quiring, " How is my son the king ? Is he in good health? "
and then turned to the nobles who stood round him, saying,
" Behold ! here are the ambassadors sent by my son the
King of Spain, who is the greatest King of the Franks, and
lives at the end of the world. The Franks are truly a great
people, and I will give my benediction to the King of Spain,
my son. It would have sufficed if he had sent you to me
with the letter, and without the presents, so well satisfied
am I to hear of his health and prosperous state."
The Spanish envoys were subsequently entertained at
several banquets, of which Clavijo gives detailed descrip-
ciavijo-s de- tions, and saw Timur several times. They seem
scriptionof t o have been much struck by the quantities of
Timur's Court, . , . . r
his banquets and meat and wine consumed, and the frequent
his "justice" drunkenness. "The drinking," says Clavijo
(p. 148), "was such that some of the men fell down drunk
before her" (Cano, wife of Timur) ; "and this was con-
sidered very jovial, for they think there can be no pleasure
without drunken men." On another occasion (Oct. 9, 1404),
besides the banquet, they were treated to an exhibition of
Timur's " justice," for " in the place where the traders had
pitched their tents, he ordered a great number of gallows to
be set up ; and declared that, in this festival, he knew how
to be merciful and kind to some, and how to be severe to
others." On these gallows he forthwith hanged several
persons of quality, besides " certain traders who had sold
meat for more than it was worth," and some shoemakers.
" The custom is," adds Clavijo, " that, when a great man is
put to death, he is hanged ; but the meaner sort are be-
headed " a curious inversion of the mediaeval practice in
England.
The ambassadors do not seem to have seen Ti'mur after
November I, 1404, on the morrow of which day " he did not
come out of his tent, because he felt ill." They were bidden
CH. iv] CLAVIJO AT TfMUR'S COURT 201
by the Mirzas, or Secretaries of the Court, to depart, but
this they at first declined to do until they should receive
theirdismissal from Timur and his messages and compliments
to their own King. Finally, however, they were compelled
to leave without another audience (Timur being then, as they
were led to believe, sick unto death) and quitted the city
on November 18 with the " ambassadors from Turkey " and
" the ambassador from the Sultan of Babylon." After re-
maining for three days in a garden outside the town, they
started on their homeward journey on November 21, 1404.
They reached Tabriz on February 28, 1405, and were
delayed there and at the camp of 'Umar Shaykh Mi'rza
in Qarabagh for six months, not leaving Tabriz on their
homeward march until August 22. After passing through
Armenia, of whose inhabitants Clavijo says that " the Chris-
tian Armenians are an evil race, who would not let the
ambassadors pass until they had given up some of their
property," they reached Trebizond on September 17, Con-
stantinople on October 22, 1405, Genoa on January 3, 1406,
and San Lucar in Spain on March i of the same year, after
an absence of nearly three years.
But few notices of this Embassy occur in the Persian
historians, though mention is made of it by Sharafu'd-Din
'Ah' of Yazd, who says 1 : "At this juncture there arrived an
ambassador from the ruler {farmdn-diJt) of the Frankish
realms, who presented many fine gifts and presents, and a
variety of offerings and oblations," amongst which "certain
tissues adorned with designs and pictures which would have
filled Manes with despair" specially aroused the author's
admiration. He also mentions on the next page the pre-
sence of the Spaniards at one of the banquets given by
Timur, adding that " even chaff finds its way into the sea,"
and, a few pages lower 2 , chronicles their departure.
By this time Timur was apparently recovered from his
indisposition, tired of the settled life, and eager for fresh
1 Zafar-ndma, ii, p. 598.
" Ibid., p. 633.
202 THE PERIOD OF TfMtJR [BK n
adventures, and he resolved to undertake a campaign
against China in order to destroy the temples
T imur prepares J _ L
for a campaign of the heathen, spread the true faith, and in-
against china Dentally enrich himself and his army with the
spoils of that spacious, ancient and wealthy land. After
making all necessary arrangements for the campaign and for
the administration of his vast territories during his absence,
he set out from Samarqand on his eastward march on
November 27, 1404. The winter was exceptionally severe,
and the army, after suffering much from the cold, crossed
the Jaxartes (Slktiri) on the ice, and reached Utrar on
January 14, 1405. A month later Ti'mur fell ill,
Illness and death * r
of Timuron and, though treated by Mawlana Fadlu'llah of
et>. 18, 1405 Tabriz, who was accounted one of the most
skilful physicians of his age, his sickness increased and
complications set in until he finally succumbed, a week after
the first attack, on February 18, 1405, being then seventy-one
[lunar] years of age, and having reigned thirty-six years.
His mind remained clear to the last, and having nominated
his grandson Pi'r Muhammad-i-Jahangfr to succeed him as
ruler of his vast empire, he embodied his last wishes in a
discourse which is fully reported by Sharafu'd-Dm 1 , and
died with the profession of the faith of Islam on his lips.
The character of Ti'mur has been differently appraised
by those who are dazzled by his military achievements on
the one hand, and those who are disgusted by
Various views . _ J
of Timur's his cruelty and utter disregard of human life
on the other. One factor in such judgement
is the acceptance or rejection of the much discussed and
quoted Tuztikdt, or " Institutes," which profess to contain
Timur's own philosophy of Empire. Thus Gibbon says, in
a foot-note in ch. Ixv, that though he " did not expect to
hear of Tfmour's amiable moderation "...he "can excuse a
generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the
editor, of the Institutions" though in the corresponding
portion of the text, he criticizes him pretty severely, and
1 Op. tit., vol. ii, pp. 656-7.
CH. iv] CHARACTER OF TfMtfR 203
admits that " perhaps we shall conclude that the Mogul
Emperor was rather the scourge than the benefactor of man-
kind." Sir John Malcolm's very judicious observations have
been already cited 1 . Sir Clements R. Markham 2 says that,
although Timur's conquests were the cause of much suffer-
ing to the human race, yet "he certainly was not the
remorseless tyrant he is represented by [Ibn] 'Arabshah
and his other enemies," and that " there is evidence that he
had loftier aims than the mere gratification of his lust for
conquest." He adds 3 that though " the name of Tfmur is
frequently coupled with that of Chingi'z Khan, yet the latter
was a rude uncultivated barbarian, while there is evidence
that the former was versed in all the knowledge of his age
and country." As regards the facts of Ti'mur's life, there
is little difference of opinion : his massacres and pyramids of
skulls are equally chronicled by his panegyrists, Sharafu'd-
Din 'Ah' of Yazd and Nizam-i-Shamf, and his detractor Ibn
'Arabshah, though the former affect to regard them as
" manifestations of the Divine Attributes of Wrath " (Sifdt-
i-Jaldliyya or Qahriyyd), and the latter as the outcome of
diabolic malignity. The latter view appears to me the
more reasonable and natural ; and as for the " Institutes,"
which supply a quasi-philosophic basis for this policy of
" frightfulness," I incline to the reasoned opinion expressed
by Rieu 4 that they are spurious.
Before closing this brief account of Tfmur, some refer-
ence should be made to certain despatches which passed
_^ between him and the Ottoman Sultan Bayazfd
Firidun Bey s . *
collection of and others, of which the texts are preserved in
an important collection of State Papers known
as the Munsha dt-i-Firidun Bey, of which a good edition was
printed at Constantinople in Jumada II, A.H. 1274 (February,
1858). The compiler of this work, Ahmad Firidun, known
as Tawqfi (Tevqfi), flourished in the middle of the tenth
1 See pp. 182-3 supra. * History of Persia, p. 219.
3 Ibid., p. 220, and the Introductory Life of Timur prefixed to
Clavijo's Embassy to the Court of Tzmur, p. li. 4 Pers. Cat., p. 178.
204 THE PERIOD OF TfMtfR [BK n
century of the Muhammadan (sixteenth of the Christian)
era, and composed, besides the Munsha'dt (compiled in
982/1574-5), a history entitled Nuz-hatu'l-Akhbdr. The
first volume of the Munshddt comprises State Papers
ranging in date from the time of the Prophet (seventh
century of the Christian era) to the middle of
n- tne sixteenth century. It contains 626 large
nectedwith pages, of which pp. 118-142 contain letters to,
from, or about Ti'mur, as follows :
(i) Letter from Qara Yusuf to Sultan Bayazfd, written
in Persian and undated, complaining of the aggressions of
Tfmur, whom the writer describes as " that quickener of the
fire of evil and trouble and agitator of the chain of mischief
and insolence, Ti'mur the object of Divine Wrath (may God
destroy and crush him !)," and demanding help from Bayazi'd
(pp. 118-119).
(2) Bayazi'd's answer to the above, also written in
Persian and undated (p. 119).
(3) Letter from Tfmur to Bayazi'd, written in Arabic
and undated, requiring in peremptory language that no
shelter shall be afforded to Qara Yusuf and Sultan Ahmad,
and warning the Ottoman Sultan against disobedience to
this command (pp. 120-1).
(4) Bayazi'd's answer to the above, also written in
Arabic and undated. This begins (after the doxology),
" Know, O ravening dog named Tfmur," and hurls defiance
at the invader, daring him to advance (p. 121).
(5) Letter from Sultan Ahmad Jala'ir of Baghdad to
Sultan Bayazfd, written in Persian and undated. The writer
describes how, after the capture of Baghdad and the two
'Iraqs by Tfmur, he withdrew to Malatya and Si was to
await the arrival of Qara Yusuf, according to Bayazi'd's
instructions, and how in conjunction they attacked, routed
and annihilated the Uzbeks who formed the vanguard of
Tfmur's army, but were awaiting with certainty an attack
from his main army so soon as news of this disaster should
reach him (pp. 124-5).
CH. iv] TfMtiR AND BAYAZfD 205
(6) Bayazi'd's answer to the above, announcing that, in
consequence of the news received from Sultan Ahmad,
he has concluded peace with the " Tekfur," or Byzantine
Emperor, and has advanced to Toqat to aid in checking
the invasion of Timur (p. 125). Dated Sha'ban, 798 (May,
1396).
(7) Second letter from Ti'mur to Bayazfd, written in
Persian and undated. It begins with a " salutation tem-
pered with reproach " (saldm-i-itdb-dmiz), describes the
writer's forty years' career of conquest, and how he has
now advanced to Si'was, and taunts his adversaries with
their failure to capture Malatya and Sinope. He is still,
however, ready to come to terms, since he is unwilling that
the dissensions of Muslims should afford fresh opportunity
to the " Prankish infidels " to pursue their schemes of
aggression. In conclusion he describes himself as of the
family of the Il-khdnis, and demands a speedy and con-
ciliatory answer to his overtures (pp. 126-7).
(8) Bayazid's answer to the above, also in Persian and
undated. The writer boasts of the martial prowess of the
Turks, reminds Ti'mur how his ancestor Er-Toghril with
300 horsemen routed 10,000 " Tartar and Mongol heathens,"
and rehearses other like glorious deeds of his predecessors.
He claims to be the protector of the Muslims, and declares
that "hitherto not one of the House of 'Othman has sought
by flattery to turn aside an enemy, or has had recourse to
deceit or guile" (pp. 127-8).
(9) Ti'mur's third letter to Bayazi'd, written in Persian
and undated, acknowledging a letter sent by means of the
Qadi Fan'du'd-Di'n and a person named Najashi, and ex-
pressing a desire for friendship and alliance. Timur alludes
to his Syrian campaign, objects to the Sultans of Egypt
calling themselves " Kings of the two Holy Shrines "
(Sultdnul-Haramayn), and complains of the return of
Sultan Ahmad Jala'ir to Baghdad (pp. 128-131).
(10) Bayazid's answer to the above, written in Persian.
It is couched in much politer language than his previous
206 THE PERIOD OF TfMtiR [BK 11 CH. iv
letters, but declines absolutely to surrender Sultan Ahmad
Jala'ir and Qara Yusuf, which, says the writer, would be
entirely incompatible with the Ottoman traditions of hospi-
tality. He alludes to the continuance in Egypt of the
lawful descendants of the 'Abbasid Caliphs, and calls on
Tfmur, if his intentions are really peaceful, to surrender
Sfwas (pp. 131-2).
(i i) Tfmur's fourth letter to Bayazfd. In this letter he
boasts his orthodoxy and adherence to the Sunni creed,
denounces the actions of Sultan Ahmad Jala'ir and Qard
Yusuf, and demands their banishment from Ottoman terri-
tory, and an apology from Bayazid (pp. 132-4).
(12) Bayazfd's answer to the above (pp. 134-5).
(13) Letters from Shah Mansur, the nephew of Shah
Shuja' the Muzaffarf ruler of Shfraz, to Bayazid, written
in Persian after Dhu'l Qa'da, 802 (June July, 1400), de-
scribing the mischief wrought by " the accursed ones of
Chaghatay," and the deceitfulness and cunning of " that
sinner and rebel " Tfmur (pp. 135-9).
(14) Bayazid's answer to the above. He abuses Tfmur,
alludes to the depredations wrought by him in Fars and at
Shfraz, and states that, though actually engaged in an
attempt to capture Constantinople, he is preparing to
abandon this in order to attack Tfmur (pp. 139-140).
(15) Tfmur's fifth letter to Bayazfd, written from
Maragha in Persian, but undated. He alludes to his
capture of Baghdad, and, after quoting a verse to the effect
that to win the whole world it is not worth vexing even
an ant, indulges in veiled threats as to what he will do if
Bayazfd still refuses to listen to his demands (pp. 140-2).
Here ends the correspondence between Tfmur and
Bayazfd preserved by Firfdun Bey.
It only remains to be added that Tfmur's corpse was
conveyed across the frozen Khujand River on the night of
Feb. 19, 1405, and interred four days later at Samarqand,
while the Chinese campaign happily for that people was
finally abandoned.
CHAPTER V.
THE POETS AND WRITERS OF THE TIME OF TIMUR.
Attention has already been called to the curious but
indisputable fact that in Persia, at any rate, periods of great
turmoil and disorder have generally produced
Stable govern- . ,, , ., . , ..
ment not neces- the finest poetry, while periods of relative
lVe P ros P er ity> when the country was under a strong
and stable government, have generally been
singularly barren in this respect 1 . In comparatively modern
times Persia has never been more strong, united and pros-
perous than under the Safawi dynasty (A.D. 1502-1736),
more particularly during the sixteenth century ; yet, though,
not only in military strength, national unity and commerce,
but also in the arts (especially architecture and painting)
and the sciences (especially theology), this period was
particularly brilliant, it hardly produced a single poet of com-
manding genius or wide-spread reputation ; a phenomenon
of which the causes will be discussed when we come to
speak of the epoch in question. The period with the literary
aspects of which we are now about to deal is, on the other
hand, as will have been sufficiently apparent from the pre-
ceding chapter, one of anarchy, misery and bloodshed ; yet
it would be hard to indicate any period of seventy years
(A.D. 1335-1405) which produced so many remarkable poets,
a galaxy of talent in which the great Hafiz is merely the
brightest of many brilliant stars. Probably the existence of
numerous little courts, each anxious to rival and excel the
others, is favourable to the development of poetical talent,
since the poet who fails to win appreciation from one royal
patron can easily find another who may prove more sus-
ceptible to his song ; while, when there is but one capital
1 Cf. pp. 1 60- 1 supra.
2 o8 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
and one court, he who fails there (not necessarily from lack
of talent so much as from lack of opportunity, ill fortune,
or the machinations of jealous rivals) is likely to be perma-
nently discouraged, or at least to remain unknown outside
his own immediate circle.
From this point of view, Persia, immediately after the
collapse of the Mongol power, and before the irruption of
Timur the Tartar, was an ideal field for the
ditfo'n o'fpersil" wandering poet. In the North-East, with their
from the extinc- ca pjtal at Herat, were the Kurt princes; at
tion of the * l
Mongol power Sabzawar and the neighbourhood the little
Timflr rise f Sarbadar dynasty (if such it can be called) held
sway; the Il-kham's,Shaykh Hasan-i-Buzurg,his
son Sultan Uways, and their descendants, ruled over a
curious elliptical domain which had its northern capital
at Tabriz and its southern capital at Baghdad ; while
Southern Persia was divided amongst princes of the House
of Muzaffar, often independent of, and even at war with, one
another, with Shiraz, Isfahan, Yazd and Kirman as their
seats of government. There were no hard and fast frontiers
to these little states, and no map could be made showing
the divisions of these fluid, ever-shifting kingdoms ; rather,
if we wish to reconstruct the political geography of Persia
at that period, we must conceive of some seven or eight
centres whence radiated, in ever-varying strength, the
influence of as many petty warrior-princes, whose truculent
activities were oftener than not combined with a fine
literary taste.
Of the poets of this period some ten at least deserve
mention, either on account of their evident originality and
beauty, or because of the reputation which they
fenTn b c e e r of thT en J o y in their own country. These two things
poets of this do no t necessarily go together, but either of
period
them seems to me to entitle a poet at any rate
to honourable mention ; for a foreign critic must always
entertain some mistrust of his judgements, and must re-
member that, strive as he may, he can hardly hope to
CH.V] CANONS OF CRITICISM 209
develop the fine and discriminating taste of the cultivated
native critic, and that the mere fact that a poet
By what cn-
terions poets has maintained his reputation amongst his own
b^I fordgif 5 countrymen for several centuries entitles him at
critic least to some respectful consideration. This
applies to lyrical poets like Khwaju and 'Imad of Kirman
and Kamal of Khujand, of whom one is apt to think as
mere dim reflections of the incomparable Hafiz, devoid of
any salient originality ; but it must not be forgotten that
the first died 37 and the second 18 years before him, and
that they may therefore well have prepared the way for his
greater achievements, while the eminence of the third, who
was his contemporary, is to a certain extent certified by
Hafiz himself in the verse
JujXi
which is translated by Rosenzweig-Schwannau 1
"Wenn er erst Hafisens Lieder horet,
Die als zart und lieblich Jeder kennt,
Wird sich selbst Kemal nicht unterfangen
Dichtend aufzutreten in Chodschend."
On the other hand poets like 'Ubayd-i-Zakani and
Bushaq (Abu Ishaq) are so original that, whether appreciated
or not in their own country, they cannot be ignored by any
student of Persian literature.
I propose, therefore, to discuss in this chapter the
following poets, and, that priority may be duly considered
in relation to actual merit, in chronological
Untrustworthi- , r^, . , 11 j i
ness of most of order. 1 his, however, can only be regarded as
the Persian Wo- approximate, since in most cases the date of
graphers of poets Ai .
death only is recorded (and that often uncer-
tainly), and we often do not know whether the poet died
young or at an advanced old age. Indeed, notwithstanding
the numerous biographies of poets given by Dawlatshah,
1 Hafts, Dtwdn, vol i, pp. 328, 329, 11. 13-14 of text.
B. P. 14
210 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
and in the Atash-kada, Haft Iqltm and other similar well-
known works, the lack of authentic particulars as to the
lives and characters of these poets is a very discouraging
feature in our quest. Most of the anecdotes given in these
books are trivial or fictitious, and, save for what can be
gleaned from their verses (where again we are often
hampered by the lack of anything approaching
Lack of crmcai a cr jtf ca i edition), we are finally driven to admit
editions " *
that we know very little indeed about most of
them. They were generally poor men, often socially obscure,
and as such were completely ignored by contemporary
historians, while all that later generations, who appreciated
their merit, could do was, as a rule, to string together a few
more or less trivial anecdotes, evidently constructed in many
cases to explain or illustrate passages in their poems. An
exception must be made in favour of one rare manuscript
work, the Mujmal (" Compendium ") of Fasihf of Khwaf 1 , a
chronicle of some thousand pages compiled in 845/1441-2
and containing many valuable details not to be found else-
where, especially in what concerns the province of Khurasan
in general, and the city of Herat in particular.
The poets of this period whom I propose to discuss are
the following :
(i) Ibn-i-Yamin (d. 745/1345 according to
be discussed in Dawlatshdh 2 , or /69/ 1 368 according to the more
this chapter authoritative Mujmal} was associated with the
Sarbadar dynasty.
1 So far as I know, only three MSS. of this work exist in Europe.
One, in St Petersburg, is described by the late Baron Victor Rosen at
pp. 111-113 of his Collections Scientifiques, vol. iii, Manuscrits Persans
(No. 271) and by Dorn in vol. ii of the Bulletin de la classe historico-
philologique de V Academic Imperiale des Sciences de St Pdtersbourg,
pp. i et seqq. The second (marred by an extensive lacuna comprising
the years A.H. 718-840) formerly belonged to the late Colonel Raverty,
and is now the property of the "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust." The
third, modern but complete, belonged to Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler
and is now in my possession. See also p. 150 supra, n. i ad calc.
2 See p. 276, 11. 12-13 of my edition.
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 211
(2) Khwdjii of Kirmdn (d. 753/1352, or, according to
Dawlatshah, 742/1341-2).
(3) 'Ubayd-i-Zdkdni, the great satirist and parodist
(d. 772/1371).
(4) l lmdd of Kirmdn (d. 773/1372).
(5) Salman of Saw a (d. 779/1378), the panegyrist of
Sultan Uways.
(6) fififo of Shirdz (d. 791/1389).
(7) Kamdl of Khujand (d. 793/1 39 r , or 803/1400).
(8) Maghribi, the mystic (d. 809/1407).
(9) Bushaq (Abu Ishaq) of Shirdz, the gastronomic
poet (d. 814/1416).
(10) Nizdmud-Din Mahmiid Qdri of Yazd, the poet
of clothes.
Of each of these poets I shall now proceed to speak in
detail.
I. Ibn-i-Yamin
(Amir Mahmiid ibn Amir Yaminu'd-Din Tughrdi\
Although notices of this poet and his father Yaminu'd-
Din (from whom he derives the name Ibn-i-Yamin "son
of Yamin" by which he is commonly known) occur in
Dawlatshah 1 , the Haft Iqlim, Atash-kada*, Majma'u'l-
Fusahd* and other biographical works, the few particulars
about him which are known to us are chiefly derived from
the rare Mujmal of Fasihi. In this work Ibn-i-Yamin is
thrice mentioned, under the years 743/1342-3, and 769/
1367-8, the year of his death.
The first of these two notices, so far as it concerns
Ibn-i-Yamin, runs as follows :
"War of Malik Mu'izzu'd-Dfn Abu'l-Husayn
ibn-i-vLnin Muhammad-i-ATr/ with Khwaja Wajihu'd-Dfn
i?l? jmal W-* 5 'u6.-\-Sarbaddr and Shaykh Hasan-i-Juri
between Zawa and Khwaf, and death of Shaykh
1 Pp. 272, 275-7 and 359 of my edition.
2 P. 7 of the Bombay lithographed ed. of A.H. 1277.
3 Vol. ii, pp. 2-5 of the Tihrn lithograph.
14 2
212 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
Hasan-i-Juri at the hands of Khwaja Wajihu'd-Din Mas'ud's
men on the I3th of Safar [A.H. 743 = July 18, 1342], and
flight of Khwaja Wajihu'd-Din.
"Loss of the Diwdn (complete poetical works) of the
late Amir Fakhru'1-Haqq wa'd-Dm Mahmud ibn-i-Yamin
the Mustawft (government accountant) of Faryumad, which
was looted in the battle mentioned above. Here is the
fragment [in which Ibn-i-Yami'n refers to this event] :
'It fell into the hands of the spoilers, and thereafter no trace of it was
found.'
"The above-mentioned Amir Fakhru'd-Din Mahmud
[Ibn-i-Yamfn] sent the following fragment which he had
composed from Sabzawar to Malik Mu'izzu'd-Dm Abu'l-
' O-* Ol*!* '^te J9*~>> j
<** I* _
j\ a
- f \
J Ji
-^" V ^*^^ *^^ ^ J
c *-**- -^ Lj
^ *<IIMI l^' ^ _ _ _
X ^
JU.
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 213
' C*..^. b ijt^^Uj .**:** OW?
ib jul U
" Seek as they might his Dtwdn was not to be found, so
he made a [fresh] compilation from the anthologies of the
Masters [of this art], and from what each [amateur of verse]
remembered by heart, and from what he himself subsequently
composed :
'jb j
'So that my verses, scattered like the Seven Thrones 1 ,
Might be again co-ordinated like the Pleiades.'"
1 I.e. the Great Bear, also called "the Seven Brothers" (Haft Bira-
dardri], and by the Arabs Bandtu'n-Na'-sh, "the Daughters of the
Bier," or " Pall-bearers."
214 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
This ends the first notice of Ibn-i-Yamm in the Mujmal>
but, before passing on to the second, I should give a trans-
lation of the fourteen couplets quoted above, which, if not
remarkable as poetry, are of interest on account of the data
which they afford.
( Translation}
"If Heaven, by a trick, snatched my Diwdn out of my hands,
Thanks be to God ! He who made the Dtwdn 1 is still with me !
And if Fate plucked from me a string of pearls fit for a king,
Yet I grieve not at its loss, since the remedy is with me.
And if the wind tore a flower from a branch of the rose-bush of my
talent,
A garden full of anemones, eglantine and basil is still with me.
And if one of my shells of brilliant pearls was emptied,
I still have a mind filled with pearls like the sea of 'Ummdn.
What matters it if a few drops of the sputterings of my pen are lost ?
There still remains with me a talent bountiful as the April cloud !
If the sweet water of my verse has been cast to the winds like dust
It matters -little, for with me is the Fountain of the Water of Life.
And though my heart is grieved at the loss of my Diwan,
Why should I grieve at this, since my pearl-producing genius re-
mains ?
And if the praise of the King of the World is, like the fame of his
justice,
Spread abroad throughout the earth, the praise-producing talent is
mine !
Although I could compile another Diwan, yet
My life's work is wasted, and regret for this remains with me.
If this vile Age is unkind to me, what matter
If the favours of the King of the Age are mine ?
That just Prince Mu'izziSd-Dtn, whose virtue cries,
4 Whatever of glory can enter the Phenomenal World is mine.'
The chief of the favours which in all circumstances
The King of the Age doth show me amongst all my peers
Is this, that by his favour one of noble rank says to me
'Rejoice, O Ibn-i-Yamm, for the constituent parts of the Diwan
are in my possession ! '
Life has passed : may he continue successful until Eternity,
And may the daily portion of me his servant be prayers for the
King so long as life remains to me ! "
1 I.e. my genius, myself.
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 215
The second entry in the Mujmal is very brief, and
merely records the death of Ibn-i-Yamin on the
ibn-i-Yamm's 8th of Jumada ii, 769 (Jan. 30, 1368), this date
being further commemorated in the following
chronogram :
This is followed by a quatrain 1 said to have been uttered
by the poet a little before his death:
" Regard not Ibn-i-Yamm's heart of woe ;
See how from out this transient world I go.
Qur'an in hand and smiling, forth I wend
With Death's dread messenger to seek the Friend."
Dawlatshah devotes an article to the poet's father as
well as to himself (Nos. 6 and 7 of the fifth Tabaqa\ but
Particulars given contributes few material or trustworthy facts,
by Dawlatshah though he cites one fine poem of 14 couplets
concerning ^ ^ r t 1111 i
ibn-i-Yanim by the former, whose death he places in the year
and his father 724/1324. According to him Amfr Yaminu'd-
Di'n, the father of our poet, was of Turkish origin ; settled
as a landowner at Faryumad, where his son was born, in
the reign of the Mongol Sultan Khuda-banda; and enjoyed
the favour and patronage of Khwaja 'Ala'u'd-Din Muham-
mad, who was in the fiscal service of Sultdn Abu Sa'fd,
1 Given also with very slight variations by Dawlatshdh, p. 276,
11. 15-18 of my edition.
216 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
and who was killed near Astarabad by the Sarbadars in
7 37 1 1 336-7. Concerning the son, Ibn-i-Yamm, he tells us
little, save that he was the panegyrist of the Sarbadars,
which is doubtful, and that he died in 745/1344-5, which
is almost certainly incorrect ; but he endeavours to make
up for this dearth of information by a digression of ten
pages on the history of the little Sarbadar dynasty, which
lasted about fifty years and was finally extinguished by
Timur about 788/1386. The Haft Iqlzm, Atash-kada and
Majma'u'l-Fusahd practically yield no further information,
except that the last-named work states that Ibn-i-Yamin
was the panegyrist of Tugha-Timur. Owing to the loss of
his Dtwdn, as described above, it is impossible to determine
with certainty who were his patrons and to whom his
panegyrics were chiefly addressed.
Ibn-i-Yamfn's extant work consists of his Muqattctdt,
or " Fragments," most of which are of a philosophical, ethical
or mystical character. An edition of them was
fb^Yamin s f printed at Calcutta in 1865, and I also possess
a pretty and carefully-written manuscript dated
Rajab 5. 88 1 (Oct. 24, 1476). A German rendering of many
of these poems by Schlechta-Wssehrd has also been pub-
lished 1 . The following fine verses on the evolution of the
soul are amongst the best and most celebrated of Ibn-i-
Yamin's poems :
1 Ibn Jemiris Bruchstucke, Vienna, 1852, pp. 191. It contains
translations of 164 "Fragments."
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 217
The following is a rather free translation of the above :
"From the void of Non-Existence to this dwelling-house of clay
I came, and rose from stone to plant ; but that hath passed away !
Thereafter, through the working of the Spirit's toil and strife,
I gained, but soon abandoned, some lowly form of life :
That too hath passed away !
In a human breast, no longer a mere unheeding brute,
This tiny drop of Being to a pearl I did transmute :
That too hath passed away !
At the Holy Temple next did I foregather with the throng
Of Angels, compassed it about, and gazed upon it long :
That too hath passed away !
Forsaking Ibn-i-Yamin, and from this too soaring free,
I abandoned all beside Him, so that naught was left but HE :
All else hath passed away ! "
The same ideas have been equally well expressed, how-
A parallel ever, by the great mystical poet Jalalu'd-Dm
passage on the Rumf, who lived a century earlier, in a very
evolution of the y
soul from the well-known passage of the Mathnawi which
Mathnant
2i 8 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
" I died from mineral and plant became ;
Died from the plant, and took a sentient frame ;
Died from the beast, and donned a human dress ;
When by my dying did I e'er grow less ?
Another time from manhood I must die
To soar with angel-pinions through the sky.
'Midst Angels also I must lose my place,
Since ''Everything shall perish save His Face.'
Let me be Naught ! The harp-strings tell me plain
That ' unto Him do we return again 1 ! '"
(Another Fragment)
" Only for one of reasons twain the wise
Possession of this varied world do prize :
Either to benefit their friends thereby,
Or else to trample down some enemy.
But he who seeketh wealth upon this earth,
And knoweth not wherein consists its worth
Is as the gleaner, who with toil doth bind
His sheaf, then casts the harvest to the wind.
Naught but a weary soul and aching back
Accrue to those who understanding lack."
The following is typical in its Manichaean and Malthu-
sian pessimism :
V 'ajudl
> >*!~3
1 Compare Tennyson in Locksley Hall :
" Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with
might ;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight."
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 219
" Knowest thou wherefore the child no gratitude bears
E'en to the father who makes him the chief of his heirs?
' 'Twas thou, 5 he seems to say, ' who my peace didst mar
By bringing me into a world where such miseries are !'"
The fragment next following also represents a line of
thought common with Ibn-i-Yamm and others of his school :
' C..IM.A Jjbt A*. Jiai ...o ^,-vsfc-ct A*.
" That God who on Creation's Primal Day 1
The first foundations of thy soul did lay,
Who in His Wisdom did for forty morns
Fashion the house of clay thy soul adorns 2 ,
1 The Ruz-i-Alast, or "Day of 'Am I not' [your Lord]?" is the
day at the beginning of time when God thus addressed the souls which
He had created, A -lastu bi-Rabbikum? "Am I not your Lord?"
' 2 It is said in the traditions " God Most High kneaded Adam's clay
for forty days." See Tabari, I, 91.
220 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
Who bade the Pen 1 inscribe upon thy brow
Whate'er betided thee from then till now,
It ill beseems Him on the Judgement-Day
'This was well done, and that done ill' to say !
For he who sows the camel-thorn can ne'er
Expect the aloe-tree to blossom there.
Since, then, the Muslim and the Christian stand
Subject alike to His supreme command,
' Why should He give,' in wonder ask the wise,
'To this one Hell, to that one Paradise?'"
(Another Fragment}
f^ ^ "
-\^ LJ '<t-\Jt
" Whoe'er he be, wherever he may dwell
A man should strive to guard his honour well ;
Conceit and folly he should put aside,
And turn his back on arrogance and pride ;
Should so behave that none through him should e'er
Endure vexation equal to a hair ;
None should despise for lack of power or pelf,
And deem each neighbour better than himself;
Then all his energies and wealth should spend
That so perchance he thus may gain a friend."
(Another Fragment)
1 According to another tradition (Tabarf, i, 29) the Prophet said :
" The first thing which God created was the Pen, and He commanded
it to write down everything" (i.e., as is explained in other traditions,
everything predestined to happen).
CH. v] IBN-I-YAMfN 221
jb jl >swj
l/o* jt ju
" A corner which no stranger can explore,
Where no one bores you, and you no one bore,
A sweetheart, lute and song, a friend or two
At most a party not exceeding four ;
A harp, a zither, roasted meats and wine,
A cup-bearer who is a friend of thine,
Reason, which doth distinguish good and ill,
Regarding not thy ploy with eyes malign !
Whoever doth disparage such affair
Is in the spirit- world devoid of share ;
To Ibn-i-Yamm should such luck accrue
For no one in this world or that he'd care !"
The following fragment is practically a paraphrase of
some very well-known Arabic verses ascribed to Qdbus ibn
Washmgi'r, Prince of Tabaristan (reigned A.D. 976-1012),
which are quoted in the Story of the Merchant and the
Jinni'm the Arabian Nights 1 :
1 See W. H. MacNaghten's edition (Calcutta, 1839), vol. i, p. 11,
11. 1-8.
222 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
" Not as I would, O friends, the world doth go :
Of men of genius 'tis the constant foe.
Though fickle Fortune trouble me, what then ?
Trouble's the portion of all noble men.
The sky holds countless stars, of which not one
Suffers eclipse, except the moon and sun.
'Tis custom now that he who wants for wits
Ever above the man of talent sits,
As on the sea the dust and rubbish swim
While pearls lie sunk in its abysses dim."
2. Khwdjti. of Kirmdn
(Kamdlud-Din Abu'l-Atd Mahmdd ibn 'Alt ibn Mahmtid}.
Although nearly all the well-known biographies, such
as Dawlatshah 1 , the Haft Iqlhn, the Atash-kada\ the
Majma'u'l-Fusahd 3 , etc., contain notices of
Khwaju of Kirman, they are singularly jejune
and lacking in precise information, while
such precise information as is given is often demon-
strably incorrect Indeed the carelessness with which
these works are compiled and copied is deplorable. To
take one instance only, Rida-qulf Khan, in spite of his
undeniable attainments as a poet, a lexicographer and
a historian, states in the Majmctul-Fusahd that Khwaju
was the panegyrist of Sultan Abu Sa'i'd Khan, who
1 Pp. 249-253 of my edition.
2 Pp. 109-110, Bombay lith. of A. H. 1277.
3 Vol. ii, pp. 15-18 of the Tihra"n lithographed edition.
CH. v] KHWAjtf OF KIRMAN 223
reigned from 716-736/1316-1335, and immediately after-
wards gives the year of his death as 503/1109-1110, which
is evidently a careless mistake for 753. Dawlatshah, who
gives 742/1341-2 as the year of his decease, describes
him as belonging to a good family in Kirman, where,
however, he spent but a small part of his life, though in
some verses quoted on the same page 1 , and evidently
composed at Baghdad, he speaks of his native town with
longing and affection:
***. O!P A;'* <*^ 'L^'J-* O^* Ah* O' ^
" Pleasant the fragrant and sweet-scented blast
Verses showing
his love of his Which o'er the earth of Kirman late hath passed !
native place Pleasant the days of that sweet Philomel
Which in its groves and gardens fair doth dwell !
What fault was mine that Heaven did decree
From that pure land I must an exile be ?
Wherefore in Baghdad city must I dwell
That tears like Tigris from mine eyes may well 2 ?"
During his travels, according to the Haft Iqltm, Khwaju
made the acquaintance of many of his contemporaries
amongst the poets and men of letters, and became the
disciple of the eminent and pious Shaykh Ruknu'd-Dm
'Ala'u'd-Dawla of Simnan, with a sketch of whose life
Dawlatshah seeks to compensate us for the exiguity of
his information about the proper subject of his biography.
Rieu 3 quotes some verses in which a little-known con-
temporary poet named Haydar of Shiraz fiercely attacks
1 Loc. cit., p. 249, 11. 1 8-2 1.
2 Literally, "Where naught but the Tigris comes into my eyes."
This may either mean "Where my eyes serve only to shed rivers of
tears," or, "Where I can see nothing but the Tigris."
3 British Museum Pers. Cat., p. 623.
224 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
Khwaju, whom he calls "a Kabuli thief from Kirman
town," as a plagiarist. He says :
. " Do not mention the name of Khwaju before a poet,
Khwajfi accused , *
of plagiarism For he is a thief from the Diivan of Sa di.
by Haydar of Since he cannot compete in verse even with me
Shiraz
I can find no mention of Khwaju in the Mujmal of
Fasihi, but Hamdu'llah Mustawfi of Qazwin accords him
a brief notice and cites one of his poems in
KwSaTn'the the Tctrikk-i-Guzida, which was completed
chief biographies j n 730/1 33O 1 , so that even during his life-
time he was evidently well-known throughout
Persia. He is also mentioned in the Majdlisu'l-Mu'mimn,
that late but extensive biographical work on the ornaments
of the Shi'a sect of Islam, which, however, in this case does
little more than copy Dawlatshah.
It may be laid down as a general principle that the
only satisfactory method of writing the lives of Persian
poets, with the possible exception of some of
Von Erdmann's , , , . . . . , - , _ r
critical study the older ones, who lived before the Mongol
of Khwaju's Invasion had destroyed the scientific spirit of
life and works .... .
historical criticism in Persia, is to collect and
collate such particulars as can be derived from their own
works as preserved in old and correct manuscript copies,
since little confidence can be placed in some of the modern
lithographed editions. This method has been followed in
the case of many of the older poets, such as Firdawsf,
Nizami, Anwari, Khaqani, etc., and in this respect Khwaju
is more fortunate than many of his contemporaries, for so
long ago as 1848 Dr Franz von Erdmann published 2 a
short account of him, in which, after quoting and translating
Dawlatshah's article, he gives a brief description of a manu-
1 P. 818 of \htfac-simile edition published in the "E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial" Series, xiv, i. See also pp. 29-30 of the reprint of an article
on the Biographies of Persian Poets contained in... the Tdrtkh-i-Guzida
which I contributed to the J.R.A.S. for Oct. 1900 and Jan. 1910.
2 Z.D.M.G. for 1848, vol. ii, pp. 205-215.
CH. v] KHWAjtf OF KIRMAN 225
script of his Kkamsa, or five longer mathnawi poems,
adding some useful particulars derived from them and
from his Diwdn. These particulars I shall here sum-
marize, together with the additional details contributed
by Rieu 1 .
According to his own statement, in his poem Naw-riiz
u Gul (" New Year's Day and the Rose "), he was born on
Shawwal 15, 679 (Feb. 7, 1281). He began his poetical
career by attaching himself to the court of one of the
Muzaffarf princes, probably Mubarizu'd-Dm Muhammad,
the founder of that dynasty, at Yazd. Later he fre-
quented the court of Shaykh Abu Ishaq (reigned 742-
754/1341-1353) at Shi'raz, and, as may be gathered from
the dedications of some of his qasidas (panegyrics) given
by von Erdmann, the courts of Shirwan-shah and Qizil
Arslan, Prince of 'Iraq, while the poem already cited shows
that he also spent some time at Baghdad. In short he
would seem to have wandered through the greater part
of Persia, and cannot be regarded, like some of his
contemporaries, as essentially the poet of one particular
dynasty.
Khwaju's poems comprise the five romantic mathnawis
which constitute the Kkamsa, or " Quintet " (of which no
copy is accessible in Cambridge, though the
E /' a , nt ?., ems British Museum possesses a fine copy 2 made
of Khwiju rv
in 798/1396), and a Diwdn containing qasidas
(some religious, but mostly panegyrics), ghazals (odes),
muqatta'dt (fragments), rubd'iyydt (quatrains), etc. Of the
Diwdn I possess two manuscripts, one quite modern, and
the other, bought at the sale of the Fiott-Hughes library
about twenty years ago, copied by " Darwish Hafiz of
Shi'raz " (not, of course, the great Hafiz, who died more
than a century earlier) in 899/1493-4. A former owner of
the last-mentioned manuscript has computed the number
of verses which it contains at about four thousand.
1 British Museum Pers. Cat., pp. 620-3.
2 Add. 18,113, to which Rieu's remarks, where cited, refer.
B. P. 15
226 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
The five poems which constitute the Khamsa are :
(1) Naw-rtiz u Gul ("New Year's Day and the Rose"),
of which the contents are briefly stated by
^thMw^r von Erdmann, who says that it comprises
2615 verses (bayf).
(2) Humdy u Hutndyun, dedicated, apparently, either
to Sultan Abu Sa'id (716-736/1316-1335) or to his minister
Ghiyathu'd-Din Muhammad, and containing 3203 verses.
This poem, as Rieu has shown, was composed at Baghdad
in 732/1331-2.
(3) Kamdl-ndma (the " Book of Perfection "), com-
posed in 744/1343-4, and dedicated to Shaykh Abu Ishaq,
Prince of Fars, who had ascended the throne only two
years previously.
(4) The Rawdatu'l-Anwdr ("Garden of Lights"), a
mystical poem composed at the shrine of Shaykh Abu
Ishaq Ibrahim, the patron saint of Kazarun in Fars, in
743/1342-3, a year before the poem last mentioned.
(5) Another mystical poem of the title of which I am
uncertain. The whole Khamsa, or "Quintet," is apparently
an imitation of the celebrated Khamsa of Nizamf of Ganja,
and was concluded in 744/1343-4.
In spite of the comparative celebrity which Khwaju
enjoys, I have not been able to discover any striking
beauty or conspicuous merit in his odes (ghazals}, of
which I have read some seventy-five. The following
may serve as a fairly favourable specimen :
U
CH. v] KHWAjC OF KIRMAN
{Translation)
" Pass us not by, for our thought is set on thy constancy,
Our heart on the hope of thy promise, and our soul on thy faith !
If it be thy pleasure to thwart our pleasure, that matters little ;
Our object in this world and the next is thy pleasure.
Hereafter, since we have staked our head in following thee,
Drive us not from thy presence, for our heart follows after thee.
I put my neck under the yoke and bow my head in service :
Forgive me, if thou wilt, or slay me : it is for thee to judge.
He who is thy slave becomes freed from all :
He who is thy friend becomes a stranger to his own kin.
O thou who art dearer to my heart than the soul which is in the body,
That soul which is in my body exists but for thee !
This sad-hearted victim who aspires to thy love,
His rightest oath is by thy heart-entrancing stature.
Khwaju, who is passing away through thy cruelty and harshness,
His heart is still set on thy love and loyalty ! "
Besides odes (ghazals) and the above-mentioned math-
nawis, Khwaju has several tarkib-bands, one or two
" fragments " (muqatta'dt), and a few quatrains, including
one about the dove crying " Ku, kti ? " (" Where, where "
are the great ones of yore departed ?), generally ascribed
to 'Umar Khayyam.
152
228 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
The following mustazdd is not without grace :
^Uj o+s-s U
j\~-j cA3' >v
v*y* -fb j*
^J^A Ji-UiLo
^UJ C^lXJl
l^W J-*^ >"
^L*-Jj ^jl^a-1 'jLwjAJ AS jJl>b
LS 51 ^ 5 J-" L5^ J 1
Jllft "Oj-J jt
^1^3 ii^-Jb jl
O'^-*^ J*J>
L5 51 ^ J3J A:
( Translation)
"Is there none to say from me to that Turk of Cathay (Khat)
' If any fault (khata) 1 has been committed
Come back, for we hope from thee for ourselves
Fidelity to promises.
1 This is a very common word-play, e.g. in the well-known verse :
The Turks of Cathay or Chinese Tartary are celebrated in Persia for
their fair complexions and beauty.
CH.V] KHWAjti OF KIRMAN 229
Do not cast pepper in the name of me, the heart-consumed,
On the fire of thy cheek 1 ,
For because of that musky grain of thine I have fallen, O friend,
Into the snare of misfortune.
Today I am, like the curve of thine eyebrow, in the city
Like unto the crescent moon 2 ,
Since I have seen that face of signal beauty
The cynosure of every eye.
Come back, that I may lay down my head at thy feet, and my life
At the feet of thy horse,
Since the hand of poor indigent me cannot provide
Anything more than ' hoof-money 3 .'
Is it a rule in your city not to enquire
Into the condition of poor strangers?
After all, what hurt could befall the realm of thy beauty
From one so helpless [as me] ?
How long, O sweet-voiced minstrel, wilt thou play out of tune
The 'Lover's Air'?
Soothe me, the poor and portionless, for once
By a song of substance !
After all, how much longer can I keep hidden
In my heart the grief of separation ?
O Beloved, I am sure that this grief will spread
One day somewhither.
Through regret for thy ruby lip I am in the Darkness of Alexander 4
Like Khwaju,
But what can I do, since the Kingdom of Darius.
Is not meet for a beggar?"
These few specimens of Khw^ju's poems will perhaps
suffice to show that his verse, while graceful and pleasing,
lacks any conspicuous distinction or excellence.
1 Rue (sipand] and pepper (filfif) are burned in incantations against
the Evil Eye. The black mole (khdl) or beauty-spot on the red cheek
of a beautiful person is often compared by the Persian poets to rue on
the fire.
2 I.e. bent with grief and disappointment.
3 Na'-l-bahd, or " hoof-money," is money paid to invading troops to
induce them to abstain from looting.
4 This alludes to Alexander's quest for the Water of Life in the
Land of Darkness.
230 POETS & WRITERS OF TIMOR'S TIME [BK n
3. ' Ubayd-i-Zdkdni
(Nizdtmtd-Din ' Ubaydiilldh).
'Ubayd-i-Zakani is, perhaps, the most remarkable
parodist and satirical writer produced by Persia, and
though, like most Persian, Arabian and Turkish
'Ubayd-i-Zikdni ' .
satirists, his language is frequently so coarse
as to render a large part of his writings unfit for trans-
lation, his Akkldqu'l-Askrdf, or "Ethics of the Aristocracy,"
is, where not so marred, a fine piece of irony, while some
of his serious poems (which have been too much ignored
by most of his biographers) are of singular beauty. Of
his life, as usual, little is known, save that he was originally
from Qazwi'n (for which city he seems to have had little
affection, since he is constantly gibing at the stupidity of
its inhabitants), lived at Shfraz (to which, on the other
hand, as several of his poems show, he was much attached)
during the reign of Shaykh Abu Ishaq Inju (who was killed
in 747/1346-7), abandoned serious writing for a ribaldry
more in accord with the taste of the great men of that
time, but none the less (as several of his poems and a well-
known anecdote about his death indicate) suffered much
from penury and debt, and finally died about 772/1371.
Another well-known anecdote describes his quarrel and
reconciliation with his contemporary Salman of Sawa 1 ,
and he appears to have enjoyed the patronage of Sultan
Uways at Baghdad or Tabriz, or both. Dawlatshah 2 con-
secrates a long but not very informative article to him,
most of which (with fuller quotations from his poems) is
reproduced in the Haft Iqltm. The notice in the Atash-
kada is very meagre, and no mention of him is made in
the Mujmal of Fasihi or in the modern Majmctul-Fusahd.
His satirical mathnawi of" the Mouse and the Cat" (Mtisk
u Gurba) has been lithographed, with quaint woodcuts, at
1 See 005616/5 Notices of Persian Poets, pp. 125-128.
2 Pp. 288-294 of my edition.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 231
Bombay, without date 1 ; and a selection of his Faceticz, to
which is prefixed a Persian preface, probably by the late
Mirza Habib of Isfahan, followed by another of M. Ferte",
was printed at Constantinople, at the Press of Ebu'z-Ziya
Tevffq Bey, in I3O3/I885-6 2 . As these two prefaces
contain most that is to be said about 'Ubayd-i-Zakanf, I
here append a translation, omitting only a few unsuitable
passages.
" Preface.
" That most witty poet 'Ubayd-i-Zakdni was of the village of Zakan 3
near Qazwfn, and was one of the notabilities of the eighth century of the
Flight 4 . He was a man of talent and learning, one of the masters of
style and sound taste. Although some reckon him as one of the ribald
writers, it is only fair to state that, though jests, ribaldry and satire
occur in his poems, he deserves to rank as something more than a
mere satirist, being, indeed, conspicuous amongst the older poets for
his grace and wit, and in these respects approached by few. He was
particularly skilful in incorporating in his poems and investing with a
ludicrous sense the serious verses of other poets, an achievement in
which he left no ground unturned. His own serious poems, on the
other hand, are incomparable in fluency of diction, sweetness and dis-
tinction, and are unrivalled in grace and subtlety.
"'Ubayd-i-Zakani pursued his studies at Shirdz in the reign of
Shcih Abu Ishaq, and became one of the most accomplished men of
letters and learning of his time, acquiring complete proficiency in every
art, and compiling books and treatises thereon. He subsequently
1 There is also a cheap English rendering, with the same woodcuts,
of which I once picked up a copy at the railway bookstall of Llandudno
Junction.
2 It comprises 128 pp.
3 Hamdu'llah Mustawfi of Qazwin in his Tdrikh-i-Guztda (Gibb
Memorial Series, vol. xiv, i, pp. 845-6) speaks of the Zdkdnts as one
of the notable tribes or families of Qazwin, says that they were de-
scended from the Arabian tribe of Khafaja, and quotes in the original
Arabic a rescript (manshtir} addressed to them by the Prophet Mu-
hammad. At the end of this article he mentions our poet as follows :
" Of them is that honoured gentleman Master [Khivdja\ Niz^mu'd-Din
'Ubaydu'lldh, who has some fine poems and incomparable writings."
This book was written in 730/1330, and as 'Ubayd-i-Zakdm was then
already a man of note in his own city of Qazwin, he cannot have been
born much later than 700/1300.
4 Fourteenth of the Christian era.
232 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK 11
returned to Qazwfn, where he had the honour of being appointed to a
Judgeship, and was chosen as the tutor and teacher of sundry young
noblemen. At that time the Turks in Persia had left no prohibited or
vicious act undone, and the character of the Persian people, by reason
of association and intercourse with them, had become so changed and
corrupted that 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, disgusted at the contemplation thereof,
sought by every means to make known and bring home to them the
true condition of affairs. Therefore, as an example of the corrupt
morals of the age and its people, he composed the treatise known as
the 'Ethics of the Aristocracy' (Akhldqitl-Ashrdf\ which was not
intended as mere ribaldry, but as a satire containing serious reflections
and wise warnings. So likewise, in order to depict the level of intelli-
gence and degree of knowledge of the leading men of Qazwin, each
one of whom was a mass of stupidity and ignorance, he included in
his 'Joyous Treatise' (Risdla-i-Dilgushd) many anecdotes of which
each contains a lesson for persons of discernment. As a measure of
his accomplishments, experience, learning and worldly wisdom, his
' Tract of a Hundred Counsels ' (Risdla-i-Sad Pand) and his ' Defini-
tions' ( Ta'rtfdt} are a sufficient proof. Moreover, even those who speak
of him as a mere ribald satirist admit that he composed a treatise on
Rhetoric (^Ilm-i-Ma i dni u Baydri) which he desired to present to the
King. The courtiers and favourites, however, told him that the King
had no need of such rubbish. Then he composed a fine panegyric,
which he desired to recite, but they informed him that His Majesty did
not like to be mocked with the lies, exaggerations and fulsome flattery
of poets. Thereupon 'Ubayd-i-Zdkanf said, 'In that case I too will
pursue the path of impudence, so that by this means I may obtain access
to the King's most intimate society, and may become one of his
courtiers and favourites,' which he accordingly did. Then he began
recklessly to utter the most shameless sayings and the most unseemly
and extravagant jests, whereby he obtained innumerable gifts and
presents, while none dared to oppose or contend with him.
"It is said that after 'Ubayd-i-Zdkam had despaired of entering the
King's assembly, he extemporized the following quatrain :
f
1 The Farhang-i-Ndsiri explains e^_i as <ti&- iy ij-ot, with a
reference to Sa'df's Khabithdt (Calcutta ed. of 1795, vol. ii, f. 4;o b , 1. 4) ;
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 233
' In arts and learning be not skilled like me,
Or by the great like me despised thou'llt be.
Wouldst earn applause from this base age of thine ?
Beg shamelessly, play lute and libertine ! '
" One of his acquaintances, hearing this, expressed astonishmen t
that one so talented and accomplished could abandon learning and
culture in favour of ribaldry and lewd utterances. To him 'Ubayd-i-
Zdkani sent the following verse :
o 13
5 j^ j
' Keep clear of learning, Sir, if so you may,
Lest you should lose your pittance for the day.
Play the buffoon and learn the fiddler's skill :
On great and small you then may work your will 1 !'.
" It is said that Salmdn-i-Sawaji, a contemporary poet, wrote these
verses satirizing 'Ubayd-i-Zakanf, whom he had never seen :
"Ubayd-i-Zdk4nf, the rhymester, whose damnable satirist pen
Hath made him accursed before God, and obnoxious to men ;
He's an ignorant oaf from the country, and not a Qazwinf at all,
Though him, and that not without reason, "Qazwi'm" they call 2 .'
"The point of this verse is that Persian wits affect to regard the
people of Qazwin as fools, just as they dub the Khurasdnfs ' asses,' the
as a very importunate type of beggar, who continues to make an
intolerable noise outside a house until the householder gives him money
ff?0
to go away; andj.\_i as an Indian musical instrument.
1 Here follow some very coarse verses on a lady named Jahan-
Khdtun whose hand had been sought in marriage by Khwaja Aminu'd-
Din, one of Shdh Abu Ishaq's ministers. She also was a poetess, and
I possess a MS. of her poems, the only copy I ever met with.
2 The people of Qazwin are reputed (very unjustly) to be the
stupidest in Persia.
234 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
people of Tus ' cows,' those of BukMrd ' bears,' and those of Trans-
oxiana ' Mashhadis,' that is, heretics (Rdfidh\ all of which attributions
are of the nature of disparagement.
"As soon as 'Ubayd-i-Zdkam heard this verse, he at once set out
for Baghdad. On his arrival there, he found Salmdn, surrounded with
great pomp and circumstance, on the banks of the Tigris, occupied
with pleasure and diversion and the society of learned and accom-
plished men. When by some means he succeeded in entering the
circle, Salmon had just composed this hemistich descriptive of the
Tigris :
' With drunken frenzy and fury fierce this year the Tigris flows '
which he asked the bystanders to complete. Thereupon 'Ubayd-i-
Zdkani extemporized the following complementary hemistich :
' With its foaming lips and its feet in chains, 'twere
mad, you might suppose.'
" Salman was delighted, and enquired whence he came. He re-
plied, ' From Qazwin.' In the course of the ensuing conversation
Salman asked him whether his name was known or any of his verse
familiar in Qazwin, or not. 'Ubayd-i-Zdkdni replied, ' The following
fragment of his poetry is very well known :
-J* 3*.
" A frequenter of taverns am I, and a lover of wine,
Besotted with drink and desire at the Magians' shrine.
Like a wine-jar from shoulder to shoulder amongst them I pass,
And go from one hand to another like goblet or glass." '
" ' Now although Salmdn is an accomplished man,' added 'Ubayd,
' and these verses may perhaps be truly ascribed to him, yet in my
opinion they were most probably composed by his wife 1 .'
" Salmdn perceived from this witty speech that this was none other
than 'Ubayd himself, whereupon he made much of him, apologized for
his satire, and so long as 'Ubayd remained in Baghdad, fell short in
no service which he could render him. And 'Ubayd used often to say to
1 The implication is, of course, that his wife was a woman of loose
morals and bad character.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 235
him, 'O Salman, fortune favoured you in that you so speedily made your
peace with me, and so escaped from the malice of my tongue ! '"
Then follows as a postscript the short Introduction
ascribed to M. Ferte, who describes therein his devotion to
Oriental and especially Persian literature, his desire to con-
tribute something to a fuller knowledge of it, and his ap-
preciation of the works of 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, a manuscript of
which happened to come under his notice. From this manu-
script he made the selections (amounting to about three-
quarters of the whole contents) contained in this volume.
These include :
(1) The Akhldqu'l-Ashrdf, or "Ethics of the Aristo-
cracy" (prose), composed in 740/1340.
(2) The " Book of the Beard " (Rtsh-ndma), in mixed
prose and verse, undated.
(3) The "Book of a hundred Counsels" (Risdla-i-Sad
pand), composed in 750/1350 (prose).
(4) The "Definitions" (Ta'rtfdt), or "Ten Sections"
(Dah Fasl), undated (prose).
(5) Poems of different kinds, mostly obscene, including
parodies.
(6) The "Joyous Treatise" (Risdla-i-Dilgushd), divided
into two parts, the one containing Arabic, the other Persian
anecdotes and/acetttz.
On the other hand, there are omitted from these selections
all 'Ubayd's serious poems and panegyrics, as well as the
"Book of Lovers" (^Ushshdq-ndma), "Book of Omens" (Fdl-
ndma), etc. Of the three MSS. of this poet's works which I
have examined in the British Museum (Or. 2947, Or. 5738,
and Or. 6303) the last contains the largest selection of poetry,
including panegyrics on Shaykh Abu Ishaq, Sultan Uways,
Ruknu'd-Din 'Amidu'1-Mulk, etc. Among these one of the
prettiest is the following :
236 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
U
CHJ ' L^P JJ-* CHJ L'yfc CHJ
ji 'ju djUa
-A u*>- 'u^^*- W Ji
( Translation)
"Once again a passion has entered my head ; again my heart inclines
in a certain direction.
He is of Royal birth, I am of the dust ; he is a King, and I am
portionless.
One tall of stature, with locks like lassoes, an autocrat descended
from Sultan Husayn :
One with eyebrows like bows and slender waist, one unkind, fair and
deceitful.
Such a charmer of hearts, such a graceful cypress-tree, such a shower
of oats and seller of barley 1 !
Without him the sun gives no light ; without him the world has no
lustre.
Wherever his ruby-lip smiles, there sugar is of no account.
Everywhere the heart holds with his vision pleasant speech and
sweet discourse
Thou wouldst say that I come to the house of a physician, that perhaps
I may procure a remedy for my heart.
Everyone else complains of a foe, but our complaint is of a friend.
Should the eyes of 'Ubayd not look their fill upon him, then his eyes
do not regard any other misfortune ! "
Another fine manuscript of the works of 'Ubayd-i-Zakani,
bearing the class-mark Suppl.persan 824,15 in the possession
1 "To show oats and sell barley" means to make specious promises
which one cannot fulfil, to let one's practice fall short of one's
promises, etc.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 237
of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. It was transcribed
in Muharram, 834 (Sept. Oct., 1430), comprises 1 1 1 leaves,
and contains besides the poems, serious and flippant, the
" Book of Lovers " (' Ushshdq-ndma), in verse and partly in
dialect; the "Ethics of the Aristocracy" (Akhldqul-Ashrdf),
the "Book of the Beard" (Risk-ndma), and the "Ten Chap-
ters " (Dak Fas/). The most striking feature of the serious
poems is the constant references to Fars and its capital
Shiraz, which evidently held the affection of the poet far
more than his native city Qazwin. Thus, to quote a few
examples, he says (f. I3 b ):
" By the auspicious justice of that King who is so gracious to his
servants the region of Shiraz has become an earthly Paradise."
So again he says (f. 23 a ):
JUU jJi
" By the favour of the Creator the Kingdom of Pdrs hath become
pleasanter than the Courts of Paradise and gayer than the Spring."
And again (f. 28 a ) he says:
" The victorious standard of the King who is so gracious to his
servants hath reached with glee and happiness the region of Shirdz :
Shaykh Abu Ishaq, that world-conqueror of youthful fortune, our
liege-lord who slayeth opponents and maketh the fortune of his loyal
supporters."
The following verse, again (f. 35 b ), is strongly reminiscent
of, and was probably inspired by, a very well-known verse
238 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
of Sa'dfs occurring in a poem quoted in vol. ii of my Literary
History of Persia, p. 535, lines 13-15:
" The gentle breeze of MusaM and the stream of Ruknabad cause
the stranger to forget his own native land."
The following verse occurring in a poem in which 'Ubayd
bids farewell to Shiraz affords further testimony of his attach-
ment to that place :
" I leave the region of Shfraz, being in peril of my life :
Alas, how full of anguish is my heart at this inevitable departure ! "
As in the case of Hafiz so also in 'Ubayd's Diwdn we
find one disparaging allusion to Hurmuz (Ormuz) in the
Persian Gulf which would seem to show that our poet had
once visited that place :
j\
" I am thus cast away in Hurmuz in grief and sorrow, isolated from
the companionship of friends and patrons."
Amongst the serious poems is one (f. 3O b ) in praise of
the Sdhib-Diwdn 'Amfdu'1-Mulk, while amongst the satires
are two (ff. 54 b and 55 a ) directed against Kamalu'd-Din
Husayn and Shihabu'd-Din Haydar 1 . One of the religious
poems at the beginning of the volume (f. i b ), containing the
praise of God, the Prophet, and the Four Orthodox Caliphs,
indicates that 'Ubayd was a Sunni, but, apart from his
disreputable facetia, the following verse shows clearly
enough that he neither claimed nor desired to lead a vir-
tuous life :
I have not been able to identify these persons.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 239
"God, of Thy grace one special hope I nourish,
That Thou wilt cause my pleasure-realm to flourish,
And turn from me the Doom of Abstinence,
And save me from the Plague of Penitence ! "
As regards 'Ubayd's facetice (fazaliyyai), which are
practically the only poems contained in the Constantinople
edition of his works, they are, as already stated, almost with-
out exception unfit for translation, and are regarded with
disapproval or disgust by all respectable Persians at the
present day. Their only point, moreover, lies in the skilful
turning to base uses of the serious verses of earlier or con-
temporary poets, who are thus held up to ridicule and made
to afford material for ribaldry by the unscrupulous 'Ubayd-
i-Zakani. Amongst the lighter poems which are unobjection-
able, however, the following may be cited :
A \
" Something at least from my small property
Was wont to reach me in the days gone by,
And when friends came to cheer my loneliness
A crust of bread they found, a dish of cress,
And sometimes wine withal, when some new flame
Or some old crony me to visit came.
But now, alas ! all that I reckoned on,
Solid or liquid, from my table's gone,
And only I am left, nor would remain
If my removal were another's gain ! "
That poverty and debt were our poet's usual lot appears
from other verses, such as the following 1 :
1 Pp. 6 1 -2 of the Constantinople edition.
240 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtJR'S TIME [BK n
J v^
" Others rejoice in merriment, while I am afflicted with debt ;
Everyone has his affairs and business, while I am in the misfortune
of debt.
My duty towards God and my debts to His creatures bow my neck;
Shall I discharge my duty towards God, or my debts ?
My expenses are more than usual, and my debts beyond bounds :
Shall I take thought for my expenses or for my debts ?
I complain of no documents save summonses for debt,
And I fear no one save the witnesses to my indebtedness.
I have debts in the town and debts in the suburb,
Debts in the street and debts in the store.
From morning until evening I continue in anxiety
As to where I may incontinently beg a loan.
Other people flee from the hands of debt, while I,
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 241
After prayer and supplication, pray for a loan from God 1 .
My honour, like that of beggars, is cast to the winds,
So often have I sought a loan from the door of every beggar.
If the Master does not bespeak for me the King's favour
How can poor 'Ubayd finally discharge his debts ?
Master i Ald'u'd-Dunyd ivrfd-Dtn, except whose hand
None other in the world hath given Debt its deserts ! "
Other poems to the same purport will be found on pp. 58
(11. 18-23) an d 61 (11. 16-20) of the Constantinople edition,
and whether or no the well-known story 2 about 'Ubayd-i-
Zakani's death-bed practical joke on his children be true,
it certainly accords alike with his character and his circum-
stances.
The following epigram on a physician is worth quoting :
OJjJfc
JUJU
^\ ) O^jf JUU
" To this fool-doctor no man need apply
For treatment if he does not wish to die.
At last to him the Death-Angel appears
Saying, ' Buy now the goods you've sold for years ; ! "
" The Mouse and the Cat " (Mush u Gurba} is a short
mathnawi poem of 174 verses, and in the Bombay litho-
graphed edition, with the numerous quaint woodcuts which
illustrate it, comprises only 18 pages. It opens with a de-
scription of the voracious, keen-eyed, " lion-hunting " cat,
with eyes like amber and sharp claws, feet like a scorpion,
a forehead like an eagle, a belly like a drum, a breast of
ermine, eyebrows like bows, and sharp teeth :
t
1 I.e. while others fear to become debtors, I pray that I may have
the chance of borrowing money and so becoming a debtor.
2 See my Year amongst the Persians, pp. 115-116.
B. P. l6
242 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
J.J
This cat, being in need of a meal, goes to a wine-tavern
and conceals itself behind a wine-jar. Presently a mouse
appears, leaps on to the edge of one of the jars, and begins
to drink the wine, until, filled with the arrogance engendered
by alcohol, and ignorant of the proximity of its formidable
foe, it begins to boast its prowess, saying : " Where is the
cat, that I may wring its neck and bear its head to the
market-place ? In the day of my munificence at the time of
conferring benefits I would distribute the heads of a hundred
cats ! Cats are but as dogs in my sight, were I to meet them
in the open field!"
Suddenly the cat leaps out upon it, seizes it, and cries,
" O miserable mouse, how wilt thou save thy life ? "
The mouse, effectively sobered now, adopts a tone of
piteous entreaty, saying, " I am thy slave : pardon me these
sins ! If I ate dirt (i.e. talked nonsense) I was drunk, and
drunkards eat much dirt ! I am your slave, your devoted
slave...":
The cat, however, pays no heed to the mouse's supplica-
tions, kills and eats it, and then goes to the mosque to pray
and repent of its mouse-eating:
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 243
Another mouse which was hiding in the pulpit of the
mosque hears these edifying utterances and hastens to bear
the good news of the cat's repentance to the other mice,
saying, in a verse which has become proverbial and is
alluded to by Hafiz 1 :
"Good tidings, for the cat has become devout, an ascetic, a true
believer, a Musulman ! "
The mice thereupon decide to express their satisfaction
by sending to the cat a deputation of seven mice bearing
suitable presents of wine, roasted meats, sweets, nuts, fruits
and sherbets. The cat invites them to approach, and then
seizes five of them, one in its mouth and one in each of its
four paws, while the two survivors escape and carry the sad
news of the cat's unchanged nature to the other mice. After
a week's mourning for their lost comrades, the mice, 330,000
in number, under the command of their king, march out to
do battle with the cats. After a fierce struggle, the cats
are defeated, and the chief offender, taken captive, is brought
before the king of the mice, who condemns it to die on the
gibbet, but at the end the cat breaks away from its captors,
1 See my Literary History of Persia, vol. ii, p. 78, on the figure
called talmih or " allusion."
16 2
244 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
kills the king of the mice, and scatters or slays his followers.
The poem ends :
x x
"This strange and wonderful story is a memento of 'Ubayd-i-
Zakam."
Passing now to 'Ubayd-i-Zakam"s prose works, we shall
first consider his " Ethics of the Aristocracy "
' Ethics (Akhldqul-Ashrdf), which is a very bitter satire
of the Aristo- on fa e morals of his time, composed in 740/1 340,
and comprising a Preface and seven chapters,
each of which deals with one of the virtues in the following
order: (i) Wisdom ; (2) Courage ; (3) Chastity; (4) Justice;
(5) Generosity ; (6) Clemency and Fidelity ; (7) Modesty,
Mercy, etc. In each chapter the author treats first of the
old or " abrogated " conception of the virtue in question
(madh-hab-i-manstikh), and then of the new or " adopted "
view (madh-hab-i-mukhtdr) of the moderns, whom he ironi-
cally extols for their discovery, that, for instance, Courage
is not really a virtue, as the ancients taught, but a very
dangerous and harmful quality. Concerning the purpose
of his book he thus speaks in the Preface :
"Just as the physicians have expended their energies on removing
the ailments of the body and maintaining its health, so likewise the
prophets have concentrated their attention on removing the maladies
and misfortunes of the spirit, so that they may bring it out of the
perilous gulfs and whirlpools of ignorance and imperfection to the
shores of salvation and perfection. When the wise man regards with
attentive gaze, it will become plain to him that the object of the mission
of those on whom has devolved the Prophet's trust is the refining of
the qualities and purification of the attributes of God's servants, a truth
thus enunciated in the words of the poet :
& AJjt j Jul jJ j
' Whether or no a Prophet comes, be thou virtuous in conduct,
For he whose conduct is virtuous will not go to Hell.'
"His Holiness the Prophet himself has removed the veil from the
virgin face of this idea, and has revealed the beauty implicit therein
CH. v] " ETHICS OF THE ARISTOCRACY " 245
on the bridal throne of this assurance ' / have been sent to complete
virtuous qualities} while learned men of former times have com-
mitted to writing, in lengthy treatises, most of which the defective
intelligence of this humble writer fails to comprehend, the laws of this
science, known as ' Ethics ' or ' Practical Philosophy,' whereby, in the
best and safest way, human nature may be perfected. From the
auspicious time of the pure Adam until these days the noblest of man-
kind, with much trouble and extreme endeavour, have made the most
strenuous efforts to acquire the four cardinal virtues of Wisdom, Courage,
Chastity and Justice, which they account the chief means to happiness
in this world and salvation in the world to come, and concerning which
they say :
>>
.I Ju 5 XM j <V
' Of whatever creed thou art, be a well-doer and a giver,
For Infidelity combined with good character is better than Isldm
combined with immorality.'
" But now in this age, which is the cream of all the ages and the
crown of all times, the nature of the leaders of mankind has been subli-
mated, and great and powerful thinkers have appeared who have con-
centrated their luminous thoughts and salutary meditations on all
matters appertaining to this life and the next, and in their clear vision the
ancient laws and practices appeared contemptible and unsubstantial.
Moreover, by the lapse of ages and passage of time, most of these rules
had become obsolete, and the observance of these ethical principles
and practices proved burdensome to the powerful minds and luminous
intellects of these people. Therefore they manfully trampled under
foot these principles and practices ; adopted instead, for their guidance
in this life and the next, the method now current amongst the great
and noble (to the elucidation of some portion of which this epitome is
devoted) ; and based on it their conduct of the affairs of this world and
the next. The portals of thought being thus opened and the chain of
speech extended, let us enter upon the matter in hand.
"It is now some time since this humble writer 'Ubayd-i-Zakdm
conceived the ambition of writing a compendious treatise dealing with
certain ethical conceptions of the ancients, which the people of our time
regard as ' obsolete,' and some portion of the principles and practices
of the leaders of thought in this age, which they regard as ' adopted,'
in order that this treatise might benefit students of this science and
neophytes in this path. Now at last, in this year 740 of the Flight
(A.D. 1339-1340) he hath hastily penned this epitome, entitled 'Ethics
of the Aristocracy,' dividing it into seven chapters, each of which
246 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtJR'S TIME [BK n
contains two views, first the 'obsolete' view, in accordance with which
our forefathers regulated their lives ; and second the 'adopted' view,
now discovered by our great thinkers, whereby they regulate their
affairs here and hereafter. And although this treatise borders on
ribaldry, yet
<c~~5u^ u cii a> jjb ' casua jyt, j **=> y~* \
' He who is familiar with the city will know whence our goods are
obtained.'
"The humble author's hope in striving to complete this brief
treatise is that
' Perchance somewhere and somewhen some man of heart
May utter a prayer on behalf of this poor fellow.' "
After these preliminary remarks, the author proceeds
to discuss in turn each of the seven virtues already enu-
merated, beginning in each case with the " obsolete view "
(which is exactly modelled on what is set forth at greater
length in such well-known treatises on Ethics as the earlier
Akhldq-i-Ndsiri or the later Akhldq-i-Jaldli or Akhldq-i-
Mu/tsmf), and then passing on to the " adopted " view of
his contemporaries. As a specimen we may take the first
chapter, which is less ribald than most.
" First Chapter. On Wisdom.
" Philosophers in defining Wisdom say that this consists in ''seeking
to perfect the human soul in its intellectual and practical aptitudes;
First chapter of "whereof the former is effected by an apprehension of the
the "Ethics of true nature of things as they really arc, and the latter by
the Aristocracy," ifa acquisition of a psychical habit or faculty, ivhereby the
soul is able to perform "virtuous actions and to abstain
from evil actions, which is called Character.' In other words 1 , there
are centred in the Rational Soul two faculties, on the perfecting of
which its perfection depends ; one, the speculative faculty, the other
the practical faculty. The first is that which craves after the appre-
hension of knowledge and the acquisition of science, so that, impelled
by its promptings, the soul acquires a power of knowing things as they
truly are, whereby eventually it attains the felicity of knowing that true
1 The preceding words in italics are in the original in Arabic. In
what follows they are explained in Persian.
CH.V] " ETHICS OF THE ARISTOCRACY " 247
Object of all Search and Universal Goal Who (Exalted and Holy is
He !) is the Consummation of all Existences. So, guided by this know-
ledge, the soul attains to the Realm of Unity, nay, even to the Pre-
cincts of Union, and becomes tranquil and composed (for 'are not
hearts composed by the remembrance of God l ?'\ while the dust of doubt
and the rust of uncertainty are cleansed from the visage of its mind
and the mirror of its heart, even as the poet says :
' Wherever Certainty entered, Doubt departed.'
" Now as for the Practical Faculty, it is that which coordinates and
arranges the powers and actions of the soul, so that they cooperate and
agree with one another, by virtue of which equipoise and accord its
qualities become pleasing in God's sight. And when such knowledge
and practice are combined in this degree in any person, he may fitly
be entitled the 'Perfect Man' and 'Vicar 2 of God,' and his rank becomes
the highest attainable by the human race, even as God Most High
hath said : '//<? giveth Wisdom to whom He will, and whosoever is
given Wisdom hath been given abundant good?? Moreover his spirit,
after its separation from the body, becomes fitted to dwell in Paradise,
to enjoy everlasting happiness, and to become receptive of God's
grace...
" Thus far is the view of the ancient philosophers."
The writer now passes immediately to the
"Adopted View.
"When the great and wise men of subtle understanding, with whose
honoured persons the face of the earth is now adorned, reflected on the
perfecting of the human soul and its future destiny, and examined the
practices and opinions of the famous men of former times, they soon
formulated a complete and categorical denial of all these beliefs. They
say : ' It has been revealed to us that the " Rational Soul" is a thing
of no consideration ; that its continuance absolutely depends on the
continuance of the body, and that its destruction is involved in the
destruction of the body.' They further say : ' What is asserted by the
Prophets as to its having perfections and defects, and as to its sub-
sisting and continuing in itself after its separation from the body is
impossible, as is also the Resurrection. Life consists in the just
1 Qur'dn, xiii, 28.
2 Khalifa ("Caliph"), or Representative, alluding to God's saying,
when He created man (Qur'dn, ii, 28), " Verily I am placing a Repre-
sentative (or Vice-Gerent) on Earth."
3 Qur'dn, ii, 272.
248 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
equipoise of the elements comprising the body, and when this is
decomposed its owner becomes for ever extinct and null. What is
intended by the joys of Paradise and the torments of Hell must be in
this world, as the poet says :
'jut o
' He to whom they give receives his gift even here,
And he who has nothing [here] is put off with promises for "to-
morrow 1 ."'
" Consequently our leaders of thought are entirely unconcerned with
such matters as the Resurrection, Future Punishment, Nearness to or
Remoteness from God, the Divine Approval or Wrath, Perfection and
Imperfection, and the like ; and the result of this conviction is that
they spend every day of their life in satisfying their lusts and pursuing
their pleasures, saying :
'O Final Outcome of the Seven and Four 2 ,
Who by the Four and Seven art vexe'd sore,
Drink wine ! A thousand times Pve told thee this
When once thou'rt gone, thou shalt return no more ! '
" While they commonly inscribe this quatrain on their fathers' tomb-
stones :
' No mansions lie beyond this earth and sea ;
No reason dwells outside of me and thee :
That Nothing which is deemed by some men All,
O pass it by ; 'tis but vain phantasy ! '
1 I.e. promises of a future life.
2 I.e. the Seven Planets and the Four Elements called the "Seven
Celestial Fathers " and the " Four Mundane Mothers."
CH. v] " ETHICS OF THE ARISTOCRACY " 249
"And it is for this reason that in their eyes attacks on men's lives,
property and honour seem insignificant and of small account.
1 To such one draught of wine in hue like fire
Outweighs the blood of brethren or of sire.'
"In truth our applause is the just meed of these our great and favoured
guides to whom matters which, notwithstanding the cultivation of the
reasoning powers, remained hidden for several thousand years have
been made plain without trouble."
So in like manner 'Ubayd-i-Zakani deals with the other
virtues. Thus in speaking of the "adopted" or current
view about Courage, which is the subject of the second
chapter, he says :
" Our teachers say that when one confronts a dangerous enterprise,
or engages in combat and conflict with another, one of two things will
'Ubayd-i- happen : either his adversary will prevail and slay him,
Zakani on or the contrary. If he slays his adversary, he will have
on his neck the burden of innocent blood, and as a
consequence thereof will undoubtedly sooner or later be overtaken by
punishment. If, on the other hand, his adversary prevails, that person
will assuredly go the road to Hell. How, then, can a wise man under-
take an action presenting such alternatives ? What proof, indeed, is
clearer than this, that whenever there is a wedding, or a dance, or any
social function where delicate meats, sweets, robes of honour and money
are in evidence, rakes, effeminate persons, minstrels and jesters are
invited there, while when arrows and spears are the entertainment pro-
vided, some stupid fool is persuaded that he is a man, a hero, a defeater
of armies, a captain courageous, and is thus induced to confront the
swords, so that when the poor wretch is slain in battle the rakes and
effeminates of the town wag their tails, saying :
' Scant attraction have arrow and axe and spear for me ;
Minstrels, wine and delicate meats far better agree ! ' "
The third chapter, dealing with Chastity, hardly lends
itself to translation, but the " adopted view " concerning
Justice in the fourth chapter is worth quoting.
" The view of our teachers is that this quality is the worst of all
attributes, and that Justice involves much loss ; a thesis which they
have proved by the clearest arguments. For they say : ' The founda-
250 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
tion of sovereignty, lordship and mastery is punishment, since men
Ubayd-i- w '^ not b ev any one until they fear him ; all will feel
ZakAnfon themselves equal ; the foundations of administration will
be undermined, and the order of public business dis-
organized. He who practices Justice (which God forbid!) refrains
from beating, killing and fining any one, and does not intoxicate him-
self and quarrel or be angry with his subordinates, him none will fear.
Then the people will not obey their kings, nor sons their sires, nor
servants their masters, while the affairs of the lands and the people
will lapse into chaos. Hence it is that they say:
' Kings to gain a single object oft will slay a hundred souls.'
" And they further say : ''Justice bequeaths disaster?
What proof, indeed, can be more convincing than this, that so long
as the Kings of Persia played the tyrant, like Dahhak the Arabian and
Yazdigird 'the Sinner' (who now confer distinction on the chief seats
of Hell, together with other later potentates who followed them), their
Empire increased and their realm flourished ; but when the reign of
Khusraw Amisharwan came, who, by reason of his weak judgement
and the policy of his feeble-minded ministers chose the attribute of
Justice, in a little while the pinnacles of his Palace fell to the ground, the
Fire Temples, which were their places of worship, were extinguished,
and all trace of them disappeared from the face of the earth 1 . The
Commander of the Faithful and Confirmer of the Laws of Religion
'Umar ibnu'l-Khattdb (may God be well pleased with him), who was
noted for his justice, made bricks and ate barley-bread, while his cloak,
as they relate, weighed seventeen maunds. Mu'awiya, by the blessing
of Injustice, wrested the kingdom from the hands of the Imam 'All (may
God ennoble his countenance). Nebuchadnezzar did not establish his
authority, nor become eminent in both worlds, nor did his empire in-
crease, until he slew twelve thousand innocent prophets in the Holy
City and cast into bondage many thousand more. Chingfz Khan, who
to-day, in despite of his enemies, stands supreme in the lower depths
of Hell as the exemplar and guide of all the Mongols, ancient and
modern, did not attain to the sovereignty of the whole world until with
ruthless sword he had destroyed millions of innocent persons.
" Anecdote.
" It is recorded in the histories of the Mongols that when Baghdad
was conquered by Hulagii Khan he ordered the remnant of the in-
1 These were some of the portents said to have heralded the Arab
Invasion and the overthrow of the Sasanian Empire.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 251
habitants who had escaped the sword to be brought before him. He
then enquired into the circumstances of each class, and, when he was
acquainted with them, he said : 'Artisans are indispensable,' and gave
them permission to go about their business. To the merchants he
commanded that some capital should be given, so that they might trade
for him. From the Jews he was content to take a poll-tax, declaring
them to be an oppressed people ; while the effeminates he consigned
to his gyncecia. He then set apart the judges, shaykhs, Sufis, Hajjis,
preachers, persons of note, beggars, religious mendicants, wrestlers,
poets and story-tellers, saying, ' These are superfluous creatures who
waste God's blessings,' and ordered all of them to be drowned in the
Tigris, thus purifying the face of earth from their vile existence. As a
natural consequence sovereignty continued in his family for nearly
ninety years, during which time their Empire daily increased ; until,
when poor Abu Sa'fd conceived in his mind a sentimental passion for
Justice, and branded himself with the stigma of this quality, his Empire
shortly came to an end, and the House of Hiilagu Khdn and all his en-
deavours were brought to naught through the aspirations of Abu Sa'fd...
"Blessings rest on those great and well-directed persons who guided
mankind out of the dark delusion of Justice into the light of right
guidance ! "
The " Book of the Beard " (Rtsh-ndma) is a fantastic
dialogue between 'Ubayd-i-Zakani and the
^filar'd" f beard considered as the destroyer of youthful
beauty.
The "Hundred Counsels" (Sad Pand} was composed
in 750/1350, and, as its name implies, comprises a hundred
aphorisms, some serious, such as : " O dear
Sun'l" ndred friends, make the most of life"; "Do not
defer until to-morrow the pleasure of to-day";
" Profit by the present, for life will not return a second
time " ; and some ironical and ribald, such as : " So far
as you are able, refrain from speaking the truth, so that
you may not be a bore to other people, and that they
may not be vexed with you without due cause " ; " Do
not believe the words of pious and learned men, lest you
go astray and fall into Hell " ; " Do not take lodgings in
a street where there is a minaret, so that you may be safe
from the annoyance of cacophonous mu adhdhins" ; "Despise
not ribaldry, nor regard satirists with the eye of scorn."
252 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
The "Definitions" (Ta'rifdt\ or " Ten Sections" (Dak
Fasl} is. like the "Hundred Counsels" just
'Ubayd-j- .
zdkanfs mentioned, a tract of only a few pages. A
few specimens from it will suffice to show its
character.
" First Section : on the World and what is therein.
" The World. That place wherein no creature can enjoy peace.
The Wise Man. He who does not concern himself with the world
and its inhabitants.
The Perfect Man. He who is not affected by grief or gladness.
Thought. That which wearies men to no purpose.
The Man of Learning. He who has not sense enough to earn his
own livelihood.
The Ignorant Man. Fortune's favourite.
" Second Section : on the Turks and their friends.
' Gog and Magog. The Turkish tribes when they set out for a
country.
The Infernal Guards. Their leaders.
Famine. The result of their advent.
The Constable. He who robs by night and demands payment from
the shop-keepers by day.
" Third Section : on the Judge and his appanages.
" The Judge. He whom all men curse.
The Advocate. He who renders the truth of no effect.
Bribery. That which does the business of the helpless.
The Lucky Man. He who never sees the Judge's countenance.
The Preacher. An ass.
The Prelector. An ass's tail.
The Poet. A greedy coxcomb.
" Fourth Section : on Shaykhs and their dependents.
" The Shaykh. Iblfs (the Devil).
The Devils. His followers.
The Sufi. He who eats what he has not earned.
The Hdjji. He who swears falsely by the Ka'ba.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 253
" Fifth Section : on the Gentry.
" Boasting and impudence. The Gentry's stock-in-trade.
Nothing. Their existence.
Hollow. Their politeness.
Vanity and folly. Their talk.
Fault-finding^ greed, avarice and envy. Their characteristics.
The Fool. He who hopes any good of them.
* * * *
" Sixth Section : on Artisans and Officials.
" The Shopman. He who fears not God.
The Druggist. He who wants to make everyone ill.
The Doctor. An executioner.
The Liar. The astrologer.
The Athlete. An idle rogue.
The Broker. The chartered thief of the market-place.
One per cent. What does not reach the landlord from his crops.
Complaint. What is carried to the landlord.
* * * *
" Seventh Section : on Wine and its appurtenances.
" Wine. The source of disturbance.
Backgammon, beauties, candles and desert. Its instruments.
The Harp, Lute and Dulcimer. Its music.
Soup and roasted meat. Its food.
The Garden and Parterre. Its appropriate place.
The ' Destroyer of Joys? Ramadan.
The ' Night of Worth: The eve of the festival.
* * * *
" Eighth Section : on Bang and its accessories.
" Bang. That which fills the Sufi with ecstasy.
The Bejewelled, or the Noble on both sides. He who indulges simul-
taneously in bang and wine.
The Disappointed. He who enjoys neither.
" Ninth Section : the Householder and what appertains to him.
" The Bachelor. He who laughs at the world's beard.
The Unfortunate. The householder.
The Two-horned (Dhu'l-Qarnayn). He who has two wives.
The most unfortunate of the unfortunate. He who has more.
The Futile. The householder's life.
254 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
The Wasted. His time.
The Dissipated. His wealth.
The Distracted. His mind.
The Bitter. His life.
The Abode of Mourning. His house.
The Enemy in the House. His son.
The Ill-starred. He who is afflicted with a daughter.
The Adversary. His brother.
The Kinsman. His deadly foe.
Joy after sorrow. The triple divorce.
* * * *
" Tenth Section: on the true nature of Men and Women.
" The Lady. She who has many lovers.
The House-wife. She who has few.
The Virtuous. She who is satisfied with one lover.
The Maiden. A name denoting what does not exist."
The "Joyous Treatise" (Risdla-i-Diiguskd) is a col-
lection of short Arabic and Persian stories and
'Ubayd-i-
Zakani's "joyous facetiae, mostly of a somewhat ribald character,
preceded by a short Preface. A few specimens
of both parts are here appended.
(Arabic Stories.}
" Julia" once went to al-Kindsa ('the Dust-heap ') to buy a donkey.
A man met him and asked him where he was going. He replied, ' To
al-Kindsa to buy a donkey.' 'Say, "Please God,"' answered the
other. 'There is no "Please God" about it,' responded Julia" : 'the
donkey is in the market and the money is in my sleeve.'
" Now when he entered the market, some pickpockets fell upon
him and stole his money. And as he returned, the man met him
again, and enquired whence he came. He replied, ' From the market,
Please God. My money has been stolen, Please God. So I did not
buy the donkey, Please God. And I am returning to my house dis-
appointed and despoiled, Please God.' "
" A certain man met another riding on a sorry ass, and enquired
of him, 'Whither away?' He replied, 'To try to reach the Friday
prayer.' ' Out on thee ! ' exclaimed the other ; ' To-day is Tuesday ! '
' I shall be lucky,' answered the rider, 'if my ass gets me to the mosque
by Saturday ! ' "
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 255
"A man came to I yds ibn Mu'awiya and asked him : ' If I should
eat dates, would it harm me ? ' He replied, ' No.' ' What would
happen,' he continued, ' if I were to eat fennel with bread ? ' ' Nothing
would happen,' he answered. 'And if I then drank a little water?' he
asked. 'What forbids?' replied the other. Said the questioner, ' Date-
wine is compounded of these things : how then can it be unlawful?'
' If I threw some earth at you,' said lyas, 'would it hurt? ' ' No,' said
the man. 'And if a little water was poured upon you, would any of
your bones be broken ?' continued lyas. 'No,' said the man. 'But
if,' said I yds, 'out of the earth and the water I made a brick, and dried
it in the sun, and then struck you on the head with it, how would it be ?'
' It would kill me,' answered the other. Said I yds, 'This case is like
that.'"
{Persian Stories.}
" A certain Shi'ite entered a mosque and saw the names of the [four]
Companions 1 written up on the wall. He wished to spit on the names
of Abii Bakr and 'Umar, but his spittle fell on the name of 'All. He
was greatly annoyed at this, and exclaimed, ' This is only what you
deserve for keeping such company ! ' "
"A certain man claimed to be God. He was brought before the
Caliph, who said to him, ' Last year someone here claimed to be a
prophet, and he was put to death.' ' It was well done,' replied the man,
' for I did not send him.' "
" Juha. in his childhood was apprenticed for some days to a tailor.
One day his master brought a jar of honey to the shop. Desiring to
go out on some business, he said to Juhd, ' There is poison in this jar :
beware lest you partake of it, or you will perish ! ' Said Juha, ' What
have I to do with it?' When his master had gone, Juha gave a piece
of cloth to a money-changer and bought a piece of baker's bread,
which he ate with all the honey. When his master returned, he
demanded the piece of cloth. 'Don't beat me,' said Juhd, 'so that I
may tell you the truth. A thief stole the piece of cloth while I was
not paying attention. I was afraid that when you came back you
would beat me, so I said to myself that I would take poison, so that
when you returned I should be dead. So I ate all the poison which
was in the jar, but I am still alive. The rest you know.'"
" A Qazwini armed with an enormous shield went out to fight the
Heretics 2 . A stone fired from their stronghold struck him and broke
1 I.e. the four Orthodox Caliphs, Abii Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthmdn and
'All, of whom the Shi'ites regard the first three as usurpers.
2 Maldhida, i.e. the Assassins, whose chief fortress, Alamut, was
situated near Qazwin.
256 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
his head. He was much annoyed and exclaimed, ' O fellow, are you
blind that you cannot see so large a shield and must needs hit me on
the head?'"
" The son of a certain Qazwmi fell into a well. ' O my dear boy,'
he exclaimed, 'don't move from where you are until I go and fetch a
rope and pull you out ! ' "
"A certain mu'adhdhin was running along shouting the call to
prayer. They asked him why he was running. He replied, 'They tell
me that my voice sounds best from a distance, so I am running away
from it to see if this is true.' "
" Sultan Mahmiid saw a feeble old man carrying on his back a load
of firewood. Being moved to pity, he said, ' Old man, would you
prefer that I should give you two or three gold dindrs, or a donkey,
or two or three sheep, or a garden, so that you may be delivered from
this misery?' 'Give me money,' said the old man, 'so that I may put
it in my girdle, and ride on the donkey, and drive the sheep before me,
and go to the garden, and rest there, through your favour, for the rest
of my life.' The Sulta'n was pleased at his reply, and gave orders that
this should be done."
"A man said to his friend, ' My eye hurts me. What should I do ? '
' Last year,' replied his friend, 'one of my teeth hurt me and I pulled
it out.'"
"A bald man coming out from the bath found that his hat had
been stolen, and had a violent altercation with the bathman, who
declared that he had no hat on when he came. ' O Musulmans ! '
exclaimed the man, 'is mine the kind of head which goes about
hatless?'"
"A certain Qazwmf was asked if he knew about 'All, the Commander
of the Faithful. ' Of course I know about him,' he replied. ' Which
of the Caliphs was he in order?' they asked. ' I know nothing about
Caliphs,' he answered, 'but it was he whom Husayn caused to die a
martyr's death on the Plain of Karbala 1 ! ' "
"A certain gipsy reproached his son, saying, 'You do nothing, and
spend your life in idleness. How often must I tell you that you should
1 'All, the first Imdm of the Shf'ites and Fourth Caliph of the
Sunnites, was assassinated by Ibn Muljam in A.D. 661. His younger
son, Husayn, the third Imam, called by the Persians "the Chief of
Martyrs," was slain at Karbald by Yazfd's myrmidons some twenty
years later. The anecdote is intended to illustrate the stupidity and
ignorance of the Qazwfnis. For a similar anecdote given by Zamakh-
shari see the English Preface to the Chahdr Maqdla ("E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial" Series, Vol. xi), pp. xxi-xxii.
CH. v] 'UBAYD-I-ZAKANf 257
learn to turn somersaults, make dogs jump through hoops, or walk on
the tight-rope, so that you may derive some profit from life. If you
won't listen to me, by Heaven, I will send you to college to learn their
moth-eaten science and to become a learned man, so that all your life
you may continue in abasement, poverty and evil fortune, and be un-
able to earn a single barleycorn anywhere.' "
" A certain Qazwini was returning from Baghdad in the summer.
They asked him what he was doing there. He replied, ' Sweating.' "
With the "Joyous Treatise," from which the few
anecdotes given above are taken, the printed edition of
'Ubayd-i-Zakani's works ends, except for two letters
models of unintelligible vulgarity and full of solecisms
ascribed to Shaykh Shihabu'd-Din Qalandar and Mawlana
Jalalu'd-Dm b. Husam of Herat, but no doubt written by
'Ubayd himself in order to hold them up to ridicule.
I have devoted to 'Ubayd-i-Zakani more space than he
may be deemed by many students of Persian literature
Reasons for to deserve, but, in spite of his coarseness and
devoting so cynicism, his strong originality and boldness
much space to c . i_i
of speech appear to me to entitle him to more
consideration than he has hitherto received.
His " Ethics of the Aristocracy " is valuable for the light
it throws on the corrupt morals of his age, and it is at
least conceivable that, as 'Ubayd's biographer suggests,
it was really written with serious purpose to awaken his
countrymen to the lamentable deterioration in public and
private life which had taken place in Persia during the
Mongol ascendancy. In style and subject-matter 'Ubayd-
i-Zakani stands almost alone amongst the older poets,
though he bears some resemblance to his predecessor
Suzani, and to his successors Abu Ishaq (Bushaq) of
Shi'raz, the parodist and poet of the kitchen, and Mah-
mud Qari of Yazd, the poet of clothes. Amongst the
moderns, the learned Mi'rza Habib of Isfahan, the editor
of his books, who died in Constantinople towards the end
of the nineteenth century, rivals and even surpasses him
in hazaliyydt or ribald poems.
B. P. 17
258 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
4. 'Imddu'd-Din Faqih (the Jurisconsult} of Kirmdn,
Such fame as this poet enjoys arises chiefly from the
fact that he was a rival of the great Hafiz, and
'Imdd of Kirmn . 1.1 i . - \ ' -L. r i
is supposed to be aimed at in a rather spiteful
poem 1 by the latter, especially in the verse :
" O gracefully-walking partridge, whither goest thou ? Stop !
Be not deceived because the zealot's cat says its prayers ! "
The story is 2 that 'I mad stood high in the favour of
Shah Shuja' the Muzaffarf, with whom, on the other hand,
Hafiz was by no means a persona grata. 'Imad, who, as
his title Faqih indicates, was a theologian, had a tame
cat which he had taught to go through the appropriate
postures and genuflections when he prayed, and this art
of mimicry was regarded by the Prince as miraculous, but
by Hafiz as a piece of hypocritical cunning.
Notices of 'Imad are given by Dawlatshah 3 and Jami
(in the Bahdristdn, chapter vii), and in the Atash-kada* ,
the Haft Iqlim and the Habibiis-Siyar (as mentioned
above), and most other biographies of poets, but these
contain very little indeed about his life. He is said to
have been highly respected at Kirman, and to have had
a college or retreat there. " He was wont," says Jami,
"to recite his verses to all who visited the rest-house
(khdnqdh), requesting them to criticize and amend them,
whence it is that they say that his poetry is really the
1 See Rosenzweig-Schwannau's edition of the Diwdn of Hdfiz,
vol. i, pp. 316-317, in the note to which, however, the allusion is other-
wise explained. See also p. 243, n. i supra.
2 See Habibit's-Siyar, vol. iii, pt. 2, p. 37 ; and the Haft Iqlim.
3 Pp. 254-6 of my edition.
' * P. no.
CH. v] 'IMAD-I-KIRMANf 259
poetry of all the people of Kirman." Dawlatshah quotes
the opinion of Adhari, author of the " Gems of Mysteries "
(Jawdhiru'l-Asrdr), who says :
" Critical scholars hold that some redundancy (' stuffing ' Jiashw)
is to be observed at times in the poetry of all the ancients and moderns
except in that of Khwaja 'Imdd-i-Faqih, in which, as they agree, there
is absolutely no such lapse, either in words or ideas."
'Imad's extant work comprises a Dlwdn of lyric poetry,
of which copies are not common 1 , and at least five mathnawi
poems, of which the earliest, entitled Mahabbat-ndma-i-
Sdhib-dildn, was composed in 722/1322, and the latest,
the Mtinisu'l-Abrdr, in 766/1364. According to Dawlat-
shah, he died in 773/1371-2, evidently at a fairly advanced
age. The following is a translation of the first of the two
odes of 'Imad quoted by this biographer 2 :
"The poor patient in the hospital of Religion who details his
symptoms to the physicians who sit by the road,
What cares he for the road, the pain, the trouble and the sickness
Who has Khidr for his friend and Christ for his companion ?
On the first day of Eternity Past I inscribed on the Tablet of my Soul
Of the words of my father (may his tomb be fragrant !) these :
' O child, if thou meetest with one who is fallen,
Do not mock him, nor look on him with the eyes of scorn ! '
For this reason did the great religious leaders ride on lions,
Because they trod the earth more gently than ants.
If no heart in the world is cheered by thee,
At least do not so act that any spirit may be saddened by thee.
O 'Imdd, one cannot seek for any friend but God :
Help, O Helper ! 'From Thee do we seek assistance 3 '!"
1 See the excellent Bankipore Catalogue, prepared under the super-
vision of Sir E. Denison Ross by Mawlawi'Abdu'l-Muqtadir,and printed
at Calcutta in 1908. ("Persian Poets," Firdawsf to Hdfiz, pp. 217-219.)
2 See p. 254, 1. 14, to p. 255, 1. 4, of my edition for the text.
3 The last words are from the opening sura of the Qur'an, v. 4.
17 2
260 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
5. Salman of Sdwa
(Jamdlu'd-Din Muhammad Salman b. 'Ald'itd-Dtn
Muhammad).
Salman of Sawa, who has been already mentioned in
connection with 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, is another
' Salman of Sdwa , . , , . _ . .
poet whose eminence has been certified by
the great Hafiz in the following verse :
" Dost thou know who is the chief of the scholars of this age
In the way of truth and certainty, not in the way of doubt and
falsehood ?
That monarch of the accomplished and king of the realm of verse
That ornament of Church and State (Jamdlu'd-Diri), the Master
of the World Salman."
He was essentially a court-poet and panegyrist, and
was attached during the greater part of his long life to
the Il-khani or Jala'ir dynasty, his special patrons being
Shaykh llas&n-t-Busurg, the founder of that dynasty, his
consort Dilshad Khatun, and their son Shaykh Uways.
Apart from the notices of him given by the biographers
cited throughout this chapter 1 , attention should be called
to two excellent biographies by Indian scholars, one in
English and the other in Urdu. The first, in the Catalogue
of ...the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, Fir daw si to
Hafiz (pp. 219-225), is by Mawlawi 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir, and
gives a very good critical summary of the data furnished
by the Persian biographers. The second is contained in
an admirable collection of studies of some twenty eminent
1 See Dawlatshdh (my edition), pp. 257-263; Atash-kada (lith. ed.,
A.H. 1277), pp. 208-211 ; Habibifs-Siyar (Bombay lith. ed., A.D. 1857),
vol. iii, pt. I, pp 130, 135, 137 ; J ami's BahAristdn, ch. vii, etc.
CH. v] SALMAN-I-SAWAjf 261
Persian poets by Shibli Nu'mdni entitled Shi'ru'l-'Ajam
("Poetry of the Persians") 1 , compiled in 1324-5/1906-7,
and lithographed at 'Aligarh.
That Salman was born in or about the year 700/1300
is proved, as pointed out by Mawlawi 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir,
,, . . , by a verse in the Firdq-ndma (" Book of
Materials for the J
biographyof Separation"), composed in 761/1360, in which
the poet says that his age had then passed
sixty-one ; and the same scholar gives good reason for
believing that he died on Monday, Safar 12, 778 (July i,
1376). He composed two mathnawl poems, the above-
mentioned Firdq-ndma and another entitled Jamshid u
Khurshid, and a number of odes (ghazaliyydf), fragments
(muqatta'dt), and quatrains (rubd'iyydi), but it is as a
qasida-vrntoex and panegyrist that he excels, often sur-
passing, as Jami says, the earlier masters, such as Kamal
Isma'il, Zahfr of Faryab, Athir-i-Awmani, Sana'f, etc.,
. . . whom he took for his models. Of his odes
Jarm s criticism
of Salman's {gJiazaliyydf) Jami says that they too are very
agreeable and highly finished, but that, " being
devoid of the savour of love and passion which is the
essence of the ghazal, they are not very highly esteemed
by men of taste." In the Bombay lithographed edition
of Salman's Kiilliyydt, the qastdas, with two tarjf -bands,
fill the first 135 pages, the ghazals pp. 136-230, and the
quatrains the last six pages.
Salman's earliest poems, as 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir observes,
are apparently his elegies on the death of Sultan Abu Sa'id
(Nov. Dec., 1335), and of his great minister Khwaja
Ghiyathu'd-Din Muhammad, who was put to death on
Ramadan 21, 736 (May 3, 1336). In this same year
Shaykh \$asax\.-i-Busttrg established the dynasty known
as Il-khani, with its capital at Baghdad, and thither Salman,
attracted by the fame of that ruler's generosity to men of
letters, made his way, probably soon after the cruel and
1 The notice of Salmdn is in the second part of this work, pp. 196-
211.
262 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
violent death of his earlier patron Ghiyathu'd-Di'n. It is
related by Dawlatshah and other writers that he first won
Shaykh Hasan's favour by the following verses which he
extemporized on some occasion when that Prince was
exhibiting his skill with the bow 1 :
"When the King lifted his Chichi 2 bow
Thou would'st have said that the Moon was in the Sign of
Sagittarius.
I saw the two 'crows' of the bow and the three-winged eagle 3
Bring their heads together in one corner 4 .
They laid their heads on the King's shoulder :
I know not what they whispered in the King's ear.
When the King loosed the bow-string from the finger-stall
From every side arose the twang of the string.
O King, the arrow is subject to thy schemes,
And fortune follows the flight of thy arrow.
In thy time complaints arise from none
Save from the bow, which it is but right should lament.
For, in the reign of this auspicious Sultan
None does violence save to the bow."
It was, however, according to the biographers, chiefly
to the beautiful and accomplished Queen Dilshad Khatun,
and to the amiable Prince Uways, that Salman owed the
favours which he enjoyed at the Il-khani court, of which
he says :
"Through the auspicious fortune of this House I have captured the
world with the sword of my tongue.
To-day from the East to the West I am more famous than the Sun."
Shaykh Uways succeeded to the throne in 757/1356
and reigned nearly twenty years, and to him a great
1 For the text, see my edition of Dawlatshah, p. 257, 11. 15-21.
2 Chach, or Shdsh, the modern Tashkand, is a place in Turkistan
celebrated for its bows.
3 Each of the two horns or tips of a bow is called zdgh, "crow."
The "three-winged eagle" is the arrow.
4 This indicates metaphorically the full drawing of the bow.
CH. v] SALMAN-I-SAWAjf 263
number of Salman's qasidas are addressed, while anecdotes
given by Dawlatshah and reproduced by Ouseley in his
Biographical Notices of the Persian Poets 1 show the intimacy
which prevailed between the two. This prince is said by
Dawlatshah to have been of such striking beauty that when
he rode out the people of Baghdad used to flock into the
streets to gaze upon a countenance which seemed to
reincarnate the legendary comeliness of Joseph. When
overtaken by untimely death, he is said to have composed
the following fine verses :
3 *.
b
" From the spirit-world one day to the realms of Body and Sense did
I roam ;
I sojourned here for a few brief days, and now I am going home.
The servant was I of a mighty Lord, and I fled from my Liege and
Lord,
Whom now in shame I am going to meet with a winding-sheet and
a sword 2 .
Comrades of mine, I leave you now to joys which I may not share,
And that you may enjoy this banquet long is my parting hope and
prayer ! "
As is usually the case with panegyrists, many of
Salman's qasidas refer to definite historical events, and
can therefore be dated. Mawlawi 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir gives
a list of ten such poems, with their dates and the occasions
1 Pp. 117 et seqq.
2 A fugitive and repentant slave, to show his readiness to surrender
himself unconditionally and submit to even the extremest punishment,
goes back to his master bearing a sword, wherewith he may be slain,
and a winding-sheet for his burial.
264 POETS & WRITERS OF TrMtfR'S TIME [BK n
which called them forth, from the Habtbus-Siyar 1 . The
earliest of them, composed in 739/1338 on the occasion of
the flight of Shaykh Hasan-i-Buzurg- to Baghdad, begins 2 :
'jlo jljdu Jxi U
" It is the time of morning, and the brink of the Tigris, and the breath
of Spring ;
O, boy, bring the wine-boat to the estuary of Baghdad ! "
The two latest, composed in 7/7/1375, celebrate a
victory of Shah Shuja' in Adharbayjan 3 . The second of
them, which won that Prince's high approval, begins 4 :
J
and it was after hearing it that Shah Shuja' observed :
" We had heard the fame of three notable persons of this
country, and found them differing in their circumstances.
Salman exceeded all that was said in his praise ; Yiisuf
Shah the minstrel agreed with his reputation; and Shaykh
Kajahanf fell short of his."
One of the most celebrated of Salman's qasfdas, how-
ever, was written to commemorate the death of Shaykh
Uways, which took place in Jum^da ii, 776 (November,
1374). It begins 5 :
*%*
1 Bankipore Catalogue, pp. 222-3.
2 This poem will be found on pp. 87-8 of the lithographed edition
of the Kulliyydt of Salmon.
3 Habibifs-Siyar, vol. iii, pt 2, p. 35.
4 See pp. 57-8 of the lithographed edition.
6 It does not seem to be included in the lithographed edition.
CH. v] SALMAN-I-SAWAjf
" O Heaven, go gently ! It is no slight thing that thou hast done :
Thou hast made desolate the land of Persia by the death of the King.
Thou hast brought down a heaven from its zenith,
And hast cast it on the earth and made it level with the dust.
If thou walkest with truth, this is no insignificant matter :
Thou hast attacked the life and property and honour of every
Musulma"n ! "
As already stated, Salman probably died in 778/1376,
a year after the composition of two of the qasidas mentioned
above, so that he evidently continued to write poetry until
the end of his long life, and did not, as stated by Dawlat-
shah 1 , actually retire into seclusion, though he implies his
desire and intention of so doing in an interesting poem cited
by Shibli Nu'mani in his Shi'nil-Ajam (vol. ii, pp. 198-200).
In this poem he says that for nearly forty years he has
celebrated his Royal patron's praises in the East and in
the West ; that he is now old and feeble, lame, and weak
of sight, and wishes to retire from Court and spend the
remainder of his days in praying for the King ; that having
been the master of the realm of poets, he desires to become
the servant of the poor ; that he has no doubt that the
King will continue his allowance, but that he would like
its source and amount to be definitely fixed ; and finally
that he owes considerable sums of money which he cannot
pay, and prays the King to discharge these debts for him.
In reply the King is said to have written two couplets on
the poet's versified petition, in the first of which he orders
his allowance to be continued as heretofore, while in the
second he assigns him the revenues of the village of In'n
near Ray.
Shibli Nu'mani concludes his notice of Salmon with
a fairly detailed and wholly favourable appreciation of his
skill in the different forms of verse. His skill is chiefly
1 P. 261, 1. 21, of my edition.
266 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
apparent in his qasidas, which are remarkable for grace and
fluency of language, and for a felicity of diction possessed
by none of the earlier poets, and peculiar to those of this
middle period, between which two groups Salman marks
the transition. Shiblf gives the following examples to
illustrate his assertion :
" Thy mouth smiled, and produced a jar of sugar :
Thy lip spoke, and revealed glistening pearls.
Thy waist was undiscoverable 1 , but thy girdle
Deftly clasped it round, and revealed it in gold.
Cast aside the veil from thy face, for those black tresses
Have affected the fairness of thy cheeks."
1 On account of its extreme slenderness.
CH. v] SALMAN-I-SAWAjf 267
"The breeze of the Naiv-rtiz 1 brings the aroma of the beautiful rose,
[And] brings the dust of the musk of Tartary from the borders of
the desert.
The garden has decked the branch with the patterns of a peacock's
tail;
The wind hath fashioned the bud into the likeness of a parrot's head.
The [red] anemone hath displayed from the mountain-slopes the
fire of Moses ;
The branch hath brought forth 'the White Hand' from its bosom 2 .
The sweet-voiced nightingale, for the [delectation of the] Rose-Prince,
Hath contributed the strains of Barbad and the songs of Nikfsd 3 .
The zephyr-breeze hath conferred high rank on the cypress ;
The sweetness of the air hath endowed the anemone with a noble
robe."
Shibli next gives examples of Salmon's skill in inventing
those graceful and subtle conceits in which the poets of
the middle and later periods take pride. The following
specimens may suffice :
1 The Persian New Year's Day, or Naw-niz, falls on March 21 and
corresponds with the Vernal Equinox.
2 " The White Hand " is the hand that Moses drew forth from his
garment "as white as snow." Here the allusion is to the white
blossoms.
3 Baibad was the famous minstrel of Khusraw Parwi'z the Sasdnian,
and Nikfsa his harper.
268 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
" The cornelian of thy lip placed the coin of life in a casket of pearls ;
It was a precious stuff, so it put it in a hidden place 1 .
Thy lips put a ruby lock on the lid of that casket ;
Thy mole, which was of ambergris, set a seal upon it.
A subtle thought, finer than a hair, suddenly came
Into the heart of thy girdle, and named it 'waist 2 '."
( ...J (
" Henceforth make your rosary from the knots of the Magian's tresses;
Henceforth take as your mihrdb the arch of the idols' (fair ones')
eyebrows.
Arise joyous like the bubbles from the rose-red wine, and base no
hopes
On this bubble-like revolving dome [of sky]."
" For some while the revolution of this circle parted us from one
another like the [points of a] compass, but at last brought us together
[once more]."
" The Zephyr found the rose-bud laughing before thy mouth, "
And smote it so sharply in the mouth that its mouth was filled with
blood."
1 This means that the life of the lover is in his sweetheart's mouth,
which, on account of the brilliant teeth, he compares to a casket of
pearls, and, on account of its smallness, to " a hidden place."
2 A slender waist and a small mouth are accounted amongst the
chief charms of Persian beauties. Both are here described in the most
exaggerated terms.
CH. v] SALMAN-I-SAWAjf 269
" I will not set my foot one hair's breadth outside this circle 1 ,
Even though they should split me like a compass into two halves
from head to foot."
Other points in Salman's poetry noted by Shibli Nu'mani
are his skill in the successful manipulation of difficult rhymes
and awkward refrains. Thus he has long qastdas in which
each verse ends with such words as dost (" hand "), pay
(" foot "), rti (" face "), bar sar (" on the head ") preceded by
the rhyming word, yet which maintain an easy and natural
flow of words and ideas.
Shibli Nu'mani next deals with the poet's " fragments "
(muqatta'dt}, or occasional verses, which, as usual with this
class of verse, are connected with various incidents in his
life, and therefore have a more personal note than the
odes (ghazaliyydt) and elegies (qasd'td"), but which are un-
fortunately omitted from the Bombay lithographed edition.
On one occasion the King gave Salman a black horse,
which he did not like and wished to exchange for one of
another colour, but the Master of the Horse apparently
would not permit this. Thereupon he wrote as follows to
his patron :
*"* !>*
1 My friend Muhammad Iqbal has called my attention to the follow-
ing parallel verse by Han"?, from which it appears that the circle formed
by the down on the cheeks is here intended :
See Rosenzweig-Schwannau's edition of the Dtwdn, vol. i, p. 510.
270 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
" O King, thou didst promise me a horse : no further discussion is
possible about the word of Kings.
They gave me an old, black horse, and I am of opinion that no more
aged black is to be found in the world.
I gave back that horse so that I might get another in such wise that
none should have knowledge of this secret.
I gave back a black horse, but they would not give me one of another
colour; yes, indeed, 'There is no colour beyond black 1 !'"
Salman further satirized this unfortunate horse as
follows :
" O King, I had hopes that, through thy good fortune, I might mount
a tall, young and ambling horse.
They give me an old, lazy, undersized horse, not such a horse as I
can ride.
It is a horse black, feeble and lean as a pen : it would be the height
of folly to mount such a beast.
In truth it must be thirty years older than myself, and it is dis-
respectful to sit upon one's elders."
In another fragment Salman excuses his absence from
the Court on the plea that his eyes are bad, and that though
the dust of the King's threshold is a collyrium, yet the evil
eye must be kept far from him :
J3JJ jL^ Jl 'C^l^ y Ajp JU.
1 This is a common proverbial saying in Persian.
CH. v] SALMAN HAFIZ 271
On another similar occasion he pleads the pain in his
feet (probably gout), to which he elsewhere alludes in his
poems, as the cause of his absence, wittily observing that
foot-ache prevents him from giving the King headache,
which in the Persian idiom means trouble :
Finally Shibli Nu'mani speaks of the innovations intro-
duced by Salman, and especially of his skilful
Shibhs summing t , .
upofSaimdn's use of the figure called {ham or "ambiguity."
The general conclusion seems to be that Salman
deserves to be ranked amongst the great panegyrists and
goftita-writcrs ; that he was an ingenious, skilful and to a
certain extent original poet, but that he lacks the fire, passion
and conviction which make a poet great and famous beyond
the limits of his own time and country.
6. Hdfiz of Shirdz
(Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad Hdfiz).
What has been already said generally at the beginning
of this chapter as to the extraordinary dearth
Hjifi? of Shiraz *, . - . ,
of trustworthy information concerning the poets
of this period applies especially to the most eminent and
famous of them, and indeed of all the poets of Persia, the
immortal and incomparable Hafiz of Shiraz, entitled by
his admirers Lisdnu l-Ghayb ("the Tongue of the Unseen")
and Tarjumdnul-Asrdr ("the Interpreter of Mysteries").
Notices of him naturally occur in all the numerous bio-
272 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
graphics of poets composed subsequently to his death,
beginning with Dawlatshah, who wrote just a century after
this event, down to quite modern compilations, like Rida-
quli Khan's Majma'ul-Fusahd and Riyddu'l-'Arifin ; but
these contain few trustworthy biographical details, and con-
sist for the most part of anecdotes connected with certain
verses of his poems, and probably in most cases, if not all,
invented to explain or illustrate them. The only con-
temporary mention of Hafiz with which I am acquainted
is contained in the Preface of his friend and the collector
and editor of his poems, Muhammad Gulandam, who, after
expatiating on the poet's incomparable genius, his catholic
sympathy, and the celebrity attained by his verse even in
his lifetime, not only in Persia, from Fars to Khurasan and
Adharbdyjan, but in India, Turkistan and Mesopotamia,
proceeds as follows :
" However, diligent study of the Qur'dn, constant attendance to the
King's business, the annotation of the Kashshdf 1 and the Misbdh*, the
Muhammad perusal of the Matdli^ and the Miftdh*, the acquisition
Guiandam's of canons of literary criticism and the appreciation of
account of Arabic poems prevented him from collecting his verses
and odes, or editing and arranging his poems. The
writer of these lines, this least of men, Muhammad Gulandam, when
he was attending the lectures of our Master, that most eminent teacher
Qiwamu'd-Din 'Abdu'llah, used constantly and repeatedly to urge, in
the course of conversation, that he (Hafiz) should gather together all
these rare gems in one concatenation and assemble all these lustrous
pearls on one string, so that they might become a necklace of great
price for his contemporaries or a girdle for the brides of his time.
With this request, however, he was unable to comply, alleging lack of
appreciation on the part of his contemporaries as an excuse, until he
bade farewell to this life. ..in A.H. 791" (A.D. 1389).
1 The celebrated commentary on the Qur'dn of az-Zamakhshari.
2 Of the many works of this name that of al-Mutarrizi (d. 610/1213)
on Arabic grammar is probably intended.
3 The MatdliWl-Anzdr of al-Bayddwi (d. 683/1284) is probably
meant.
4 The MiftAhu'l^Ulum of as-Sakkaki (d. 626/1229) is probably
intended.
CH. v] HAFIZ 273
The notice of Hafiz contained in that agreeable work of
Sir Gore Ouseley, the Biographical Notices of
Persian Poets 1 , gives most of the anecdotes
connected with verses in his Diwdn to which I
have already alluded ; while an admirable account of the
times in which he lived and the general character of his
poetry is to be found in the Introduction to Miss Gertrude
Lowthian Bell's Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (London,
1897), which must be reckoned as the most skilful attempt
to render accessible to English readers the works of this
poet. On the whole, however, the best and
most com P lete critical study of Hafiz with
which I am acquainted is contained in Shibli
Nu'mani's Urdu work on Persian Poetry entitled Skt'rul-
'Ajam 2 , already repeatedly quoted in this chapter. I feel
that I cannot do better than summarize at any rate that
portion of this notice which deals with the poet's life, and
the few facts concerning his personal circumstances and
relations with his contemporaries which can be deduced
from his poems, indicating at the same time the Persian
biographical sources to which the learned author refers.
Amongst these he specially mentions the well-known
Habibrfs-Siyar of Khwandamfr 3 and the May-khdna
("Wine-tavern") of 'Abdu'n-Nabi Fakhru'z-Zaman (com-
piled in 1036/1626-7, in the reign of Jahangi'r), of which
latter I have no copy at hand. The Persian
Persian
biographies biographical works which I have consulted, and
which yield but scanty results (since, as Shibli
points out, they generally copy from one another and often
make statements not merely unsupported by any respect-
able evidence but mutually destructive) are Dawlatshah's
" Memoirs of the Poets" ; Jdmi's Bakdristdn* and Nafakdtu'l-
1 Pp. 23-42.
' 2 Vol. ii, pp. 212-297.
3 See vol. iii, pt 2, p. 37 of the Bombay lithographed edition of
1857.
4 P. 90 of the Constantinople printed ed. of 1294/1877.
B. P. i 8
274 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtJR'S TIME [BK n
Uns 1 ; Lutf 'Alt' Beg's Atash-kada (" Fire-temple "), which
mainly follows Dawlatshah ; the Haft Iqlim ; and the quite
modern Majma'ul-Fusahd (" Assembly of the Eloquent "),
which gives several fresh particulars of doubtful authenticity,
such as that Hafiz came originally from Tuysirkan and that
he composed a commentary on the Qur'dn.
Shibli Nu'mani arranges his matter systematically, be-
ginning with an account of the poet's parentage
Parentage and b
childhood of and education derived from the above-men-
tioned May-khdna, to which, however, he
apparently attaches little credence. According to this
account, the father of Hafiz, who was named Baha'u'd-Din,
migrated from Isfahan to Shi'raz in the time of the Atabeks
of Pars, and there enriched himself by commerce, but died
leaving his affairs in confusion, and his wife and little son
in penury, so that the latter was obliged to earn a livelihood
by the sweat of his brow. Nevertheless he found time and
means to attend a neighbouring school, where he obtained
at least a respectable education and learned the Qur'dn by
heart, in consequence of which he afterwards adopted in his
poems the nom de guerre of "Hafiz" ("Rememberer"), a
term commonly applied to those who have committed to
memory and can recite without error the sacred book of
Islam. He soon began to compose and recite poems, but
with small success until in a vigil at the shrine of Baba
Kuhi on a hill to the north of Shi'raz he was visited by the
Imam 'All, who gave him to eat some mysterious heavenly
food and told him that henceforth the gift of poetry and
the keys of all knowledge should be his.
Shibli Nu'mani next passes to the enumeration of the
several kings and princes whose favour and
Patrons of Hafi?
patronage Hafiz enjoyed. Of these the first
was Shall (or Shaykh) Abu Ishaq Inju, the son of Mahmud
Inju 2 who was appointed governor of Pars in the reign of
1 W. Nassau Lees' Calcutta printed ed. of 1859, p. 715.
2 According to the Fdrs-ndma he was put to death by Arpa (in
736/1335-6), who was in turn put to death by his son Mas'iid Inju.
VIII
HAFI (left) and ABU ISHAQ (right)
Add. 7468 (Brit. Mus.), f- 34 b
To face p. 274
CH. v] HAFIZ 275
Ghdzan Khan. This Abu Ishaq 1 was a poet and friend of
poets, heedless, pleasure-loving, and so negligent
isS'Ui'" of th e affairs of state that when he was at last
induced by his favourite Shaykh Amfnu'd-Din
to fix his attention on the Muzaffarf hosts who were invest-
ing his capital, he merely remarked that his enemy must
be a fool to waste the delicious season of Spring in such
fashion, and concluded by reciting the verse :
"Come, let us make merry just for this one night,
And let us deal tomorrow with tomorrow's business."
Concerning Abu Ishaq's brief but genial reign at Shiraz,
Hafiz says :
"In truth the turquoise ring of Abu Ishdq
Flashed finely, but it was a transitory prosperity."
The following verses, commemorating five
The five orna-
meats of Shaykh of the chief ornaments of Shaykh Abu Ishaq's
Abulshaq'scourt
1 According to the Fdrs-ndma he captured Shiraz in 743/1342-3,
was besieged there by Mubarizu'd-Dfn Muhammad b. Muzaffar in
753/1352-3, when, after losing his little son 'AH Sahl, he was driven
back to Isfahdn, and was finally captured and put to death by his rival
in 758/1357.
1 8 2
276 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
' Ji Wj
Jja^t jl A-^
dj ^.j^i. j. , Jjj ,)
fJ. 3 >fi
" During the period of Shah Shaykh Abii Ishaq's rule
The kingdom of Fdrs throve wondrously through five persons.
First, a king like him, a giver of governments,
Who, thou would'st say, snatched preeminence by justice, bounty and
equity.
Secondly, that Remnant of the Abddl 1 , Shaykh Aminu'd-Din,
Who was numbered amongst the ' Poles ' and was the meeting-place
of the Avutdd 1 .
Thirdly, one like that just judge Asilu'l-Millat wa'd-Dfn,
Than whom Heaven remembers no better judge.
Again one like that accomplished judge 'Adudtyd-Dm /-/;/] 2 ,
Who dedicated his explanation of the Mawdqifto the King.
Again one so generous as Hajji Qiwam 3 , whose heart is as the Ocean,
Who, like Hatim, invited all men to partake of his bounty.
These departed, leaving none like unto themselves :
May God most Great and Glorious forgive them all ! "
1 The Abddl ("Substitutes"), Aqt&b ("Poles"), and Awtdd (literally
"Tent-pegs") are three classes of the Rijdlrfl-Ghayb, or " Men of the
Unseen World," who are supposed by the Sufis to watch over the order
of the world and the welfare of mankind. Their number and functions
are discussed in the "Definitions" (TcSrifdf) of ash-Sharff al-Jurjani,
who was appointed by Shah Shuja' to a Professorship in Shi'raz, and
must have been acquainted with Hafiz. He died in 816/1413.
2 'Adudu'd-Din 'Abdu'r-Rahmdn b. Ahmad al-Iji composed a
number of works on theology, ethics, philosophy, etc., amongst which
the Mawdqif ft ^IlmVl-Kaldm (on which al-Jurjanf, mentioned in the
preceding note, wrote a commentary) is the most celebrated. He died
in 756/1355. See Brockelmann, Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., ii, pp. 208-9.
3 Hajji Qiwdm is celebrated by Hafiz in other poems, as in the well-
known verse :
He died, according to the Fdrs-ndma, in 753/1352.
CH. v] HAFIZ 277
Mubarizu'd-Dm Muhammad b. Muzaffar, who ruled
over Fars from 754/1353 to 759/1357, was of
kStS' Dfn a very different type to his pleasure-loving
predecessor and victim. Harsh, stern and
ascetic in character, he had no sooner taken possession
of Shiraz than he caused all the taverns to be
Closing of the
taverns in his closed, and put a stop, as far as possible, to
the drinking of wine, to the great annoyance
of Hafiz, who refers to these lean days in the following
amongst other passages of his poems :
" Though wine gives delight and the wind distils the perfume of the
rose,
Drink not wine to the strains of the harp, for the constable 1 is alert.
Hide the goblet in the sleeve of the patch-work cloak,
For the time, like the eye of the decanter, pours forth blood.
Wash your dervish-cloak from the wine-stain with tears,
For it is the season of piety and the time of abstinence."
Lf
* . * fr I
X
** O^j 1 *- ^
1 Muhtasib, a police officer charged with the superintendence of the
weights, measures and morals of a town. His activities in certain
aspects correspond with those of a University Proctor.
278 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
l_j!X_
' jLoUJu t ju*. j^> jt *> j
" O will it be that they will reopen the doors of the taverns,
And will loosen the knots from our tangled affairs ?
Cut the tresses 1 of the harp [in mourning] for the death of pure wine,
So that all the sons of the Magians 2 may loosen their curled locks!
Write the letter of condolence for the [death of the] Daughter of the
Grape 3 ,
So that all the comrades may let loose blood [-stained tears] from
their eyelashes.
They have closed the doors of the wine-taverns ; O God, suffer not
That they should open the doors of the house of deceit and hypocrisy !
If they have closed them for the sake of the heart of the self-righteous
zealot
Be of good heart, for they will reopen them for God's sake ! "
Shah Shuja', who succeeded his father Mubarizu'd-Din
relaxed his oppressive restrictions, com-
aiiows the taverns posed the following quatrain on the same
to be reopened , .
subject :
"In the assembly of the time the concomitants of wine-bibbing are
laid low ;
Neither is the hand on the harp, nor the tambourine in the hand.
All the revellers have abandoned the worship of wine
Save the city constable, who is drunk without wine."
1 I.e. strings or chords.
2 The sale of wine in Muhammadan countries is carried on by non-
Muslims, Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians. With Hdfiz and his con-
geners the "Elder of the Magians" (/>/>-/'- Mughdii) and the "Magian
boys" (Mugh-bacha-hd] are familiar concomitants of the tavern.
3 I.e. Wine, similarly called by the Arabs Bintu 'l-'lnab.
CH. v] HAFIZ 279
The reopening of the taverns is celebrated by Hafiz in
the following verses :
UaJlo- ^
"At early dawn good tidings reached my ear from the Unseen Voice :
'It is the era of Shdh Shujd 4 : drink wine boldly ! '
That time is gone when men of insight went apart
With a thousand words in the mouth but their lips silent.
To the sound of the harp we will tell those stories
At the hearing^ of which the cauldron of our bosoms boiled.
Princes [alone] know the secrets of their kingdom ;
O Hafiz, thou art a beggarly recluse ; hold thy peace ! "
In another poem Hafiz says :
*-*=>
" I swear by the pomp and rank and glory of Shh Shuja.'
That I have no quarrel with anyone on account of wealth and
position.
See how he who [formerly] would not permit the hearing of music
Now goes dancing to the strains of the harp."
In another poem he says :
280 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
"The harp began to clamour ' Where is the objector?'
The cup began to laugh ' Where is the forbidder ? '
Pray for the King's long life if thou seekest the world's welfare,
For he is a beneficent being and a generous benefactor,
The manifestation of Eternal Grace, the Light of the Eye of Hope,
The combiner of theory and practice, the Life of the World, Shah
Shuja'."
In spite of this and other verses in praise of Shah
Shuja', the relations between the Prince and the Poet are
said to have been somewhat strained. Shah
jealous of J Hdfi? Shuja' had a great opinion of a poet named
'\rs\iA-\-Faqih ("the Jurisconsult") of Kirman,
who is said to have taught his cat to follow him in its
genuflections when he performed his prayers. This achieve-
ment was accounted by the Prince almost a miracle, but by
Hafiz a charlatan's trick, concerning which he said :
d b
"The Sufi hath made display of his virtues and begun his blandish-
ments ;
He hath inaugurated his schemings with the juggling heavens.
O gracefully-moving partridge who walkest with so pretty an air,
Be not deceived because the cat of the ascetic hath said its prayers l ! "
1 The reference in this line is otherwise explained on p. 243 supra.
Cf. also p. 258. The text given in Rosenzweig-Schwannau's edition
(vol. i, p. 316: No. 8 in i) differs somewhat from that adopted by
Shibli which is here given.
CH. v] HAFIZ 281
The scorn expressed by Hafiz for 'Imad is said to have
been the original cause of Shah Shuja^'s dislike for him,
Contempt of but the Prince himself was his not very suc-
? for 'imad cessful rival in the field of poetry, and jealousy
of Xirman . , . ... _^
appears to have increased that dislike. On one
occasion the Prince criticized Hafiz's verse on the ground
of its many-sided aspects : no one motive, he complained,
inspired it ; it was at one moment mystical, at another
erotic and bacchanalian ; now serious and spiritual, and
again flippant and worldly, or worse. " True," replied
Hafiz, "but in spite of all this everyone knows, admires
and repeats my verses, while the verses of some poets
whom I could name never go beyond the city gates."
Shah Shuja' was greatly incensed at this answer, and
soon afterwards came across the following verse of Hdfiz
which seemed to deliver the poet into his hands :
" If Muhammadanism be that which Hafiz holds,
Alas if there should be a to-morrow after to-day ! "
Hafiz, being warned that this verse was to be made the
ground of a charge of heresy or agnosticism against him,
went in great perturbation to Mawlana Zaynu'd-
Hafiz ingenious- ._. T i -r / , / i / < i <
ly extricates Dm Abu Bakr Tayabadi, who happened at that
h ! mselff ru raa time to be in Shi'raz, and asked his advice.
charge of heresy
The latter recommended him to add another
verse placing the words to which exception was taken in the
mouth of another, on the principle that "the reporting of
blasphemy is not blasphemy." Thereupon Hafiz prefixed
the following verse to the one cited above :
" How pleasant to me seemed this saying which at early morn
A Christian was reciting at the door of the tavern with tambourine
and flute:"
282 POETS & WRITERS OF TIMER'S TIME [BK n
On being charged with atheism he produced this verse
along with the other, and said that he was not responsible
for the opinions expressed by a Christian 1 .
Shah Shuja' died in 785/1383-4 or 786% and was suc-
ceeded by his son Zaynu'l-'Abidin, who, however, was
deposed and imprisoned by his cousin Shah
Mansur in 789/1387. Hafiz celebrated his
triumph in a poem beginning :
~3
" Come, for the standard of King Mansur has arrived ;
The good tidings of conquest and victory have reached the Sun and
the Moon."
The deposed ruler Zaynu'l-'Abidm (who was subse-
quently blinded) had accepted the suzerainty of Timur,
received his ambassador, Qutbu'd-Dm, and inserted his
name in the khutba and on the coins, and Tfmur himself
entered Shfraz in 789/1387, some time before Zaynu'l-
'Abidm's deposition. It must have been at
The alleged
meeting between this time, if at all, that the meeting between
Timur and H4fi ? ffafa and j^^ des cribed by Dawlatshah 3
and those who follow him in connection with Ti'mur's second
entry into Shfraz in 795/1393, three or four years after
the poet's death, actually took place. The story, which is
more celebrated than authentic, has been already given on
pp. 188-189 supra. Dawlatshah, with characteristic in-
accuracy, first gives the date of this supposed meeting as
795/1393, and then states (incorrectly) that
^ fi ? died in the Previous year, 794/1392- As
a matter of fact he died in 791/1389, or possibly
in the following year. The former date is that given by
1 This anecdote is given by the Habibu's-Siyar, vol. iii, pt 2, pp. 37
et seqq.
2 The latter is the date given by the Mujmal of Fasi'hf in the
chronogram cUJ! alw j\ wAg*.
3 See pp. 305-306 of my edition.
CH. v] HAFIZ 283
the chronogram on his tombstone, so ingeniously para-
phrased by Herman Bicknell 1 as follows:
" On spiritual man the lamp of Hafiz gleamed ;
'Mid rays from Glory's Light his brilliant taper beamed ;
Musalla was his home : a mournful date to gain.
Thrice take thou from MOSALLA'S EARTH ITS RICHEST
* * * *
GRAIN."
The sum of the letters composing the words
is 791, and the same date is obtained by subtracting three
times cm (= 309) from MLL (= i ioo) 2 . The same date
is given by Muhammad Gulandam, the editor of Hafiz's
Dtwdn ; while the following year (792) is given by Jami in
the Nafahdtul- Uns, by Khwandamir in the Habibus-Siyar,
and by Fasfhi of Khwaf in his Mujmal or Compendium of
History and Biography.
Mention has already been made of the
Celebrity of *
Hafi? during celebrity achieved by Hafiz even during his
lifetime. As he himself says :
"The black-eyed beauties of Cashmere and the Turks of Samarqand
Sing and dance to the strains of Hafiz of Shfraz's verse."
In another passage 3 he says, speaking of a poem he had
just composed :
1 Hdfiz of Shirdz : Selections from his Poems, translated from the
Persian by Herman Bicknell (Triibner and Co., London, 1875), p. xvi.
2 See my Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 76-7.
3 Ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, p. 416.
284 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
"All the parrots of India become sugar-breakers
Through this Persian candy which is going to Bengal.
Behold the annihilation of space and time in the pilgrimage of Poetry,
For this infant, though but one night old, is going on a year's
journey ! "
Not only with the Muzaffarf rulers of Shfraz, but with
many other contemporary princes, Hafiz entered into re-
lations. Sultan Ahmad ibn Uways-i-Jala'ir, the accom-
plished t l-khani ruler of Baghdad, himself a poet, musician,
painter and artist, repeatedly strove to induce Hafiz to visit
his court, but, as the poet himself sang :
" The zephyr-breeze of MusaM and the stream of RuknaMd
Do not permit me to travel or wander afield."
However he composed verses in this Prince's praise,
amongst others the following :
A A t . . i I r .1
~J 15 --^ A -*"-* 'g vO-S >J^ J-^ J 1
" I praise God for the justice of the King
Ahmad the son of Shaykh Uways the son of Hasan Il-khani ;
A Khdn and the son of a Khan, a King of kingly descent,
Whom it were meet that I should call the Soul of the World.
CH. v] HAFIZ 285
No rose-bud of delight bloomed for me from the earth of Fars :
O for the Tigris of Baghdad and the spiritual wine !
Curl your locks in Turkish fashion, for in thy fortune lie
The Empire of Khusraw and the status of Chingiz Khan."
But, though Hafiz never achieved the journey to
Baghdad, he seems often to have thought of it :
JaJU. A jjj ,
" In Shfraz we did not find our way to our goal ;
Happy that day when Hdfiz shall take the road to Baghdad ! "
Two kings of India also sought to persuade Hafiz
to visit their courts. One of these was Mahmud Shah
Bahmani of the Deccan, a liberal patron of
Invitations to *
Hdfi? to visit poets, who, through his favourite Mir Fadlu'llah,
invited Hafiz to his capital, and sent him money
for his journey. Hafiz spent a considerable portion of this
sum before leaving Shfraz, and on arriving at Lar on his
way to the Persian Gulf met with a destitute friend to
whom he gave the remainder. Two Persian merchants,
Khwaja Zaynu'd-Dm of Hamadan, and Khwaja Muham-
mad of Kazarun, who were on their way to India, offered
to defray the poet's expenses in return for the pleasure
of his company. He went with them as far as the port of
Hurmuz, where a ship was waiting to convey him to India,
but a tempest which arose just as he was embarking caused
him such lively consternation that, abandoning his intention,
he returned to Shfraz and sent to Mahmud Shah the poem
beginning :
u
Ul w
286 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
A verse-translation of the whole of this poem (though
the verses stand in an order different from that given above)
will be found amongst Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell's
graceful renderings of Poems from the Divan of Hafiz 1
(No. xxi, pp. 91-93), in which the stanzas corresponding
to the four couplets cited above are as follows :
" Not all the sum of earthly happiness
Is worth the bowed head of a moment's pain,
And if I sell for wine my dervish dress
Worth more than what I sell is what I gain !
* * * *
The Sultan's crown, with priceless jewels set,
Encircles fear of death and constant dread ;
It is a head-dress much desired and yet
Art sure 'tis worth the danger to the head ?
* * * *
Down in the quarter where they sell red wine
My holy carpet scarce would fetch a cup
How brave a pledge of piety is mine,
Which is not worth a goblet foaming up !
* * * *
Full easy seemed the sorrow of the sea
Lightened by hope of gain hope flew too fast !
A hundred pearls 2 were poor indemnity,
Not worth the blast 3 ."
Another Indian king, Sultan Ghiyathu'd-Din ibn Sultan
Sikandar of Bengal, stated by Shibli Nu'mani (who is
1 London : William Heinemann, 1897.
2 This translation corresponds with the alternative reading J^AI
in place of jj >* *X-oj.
3 This story rests on the authority of the historian of India, Mu-
hammad Qasim Firishta of Astarabad, who wrote in 1015/1606-7.
CH. v] HAFIZ 287
responsible for the story 1 ) to have ascended the throne in
768/1366-7, is said to have corresponded with Hafiz, who
wrote for him the ode beginning :
" O cup-bearer there is talk of the cypress, the rose and the anemone,
And this discussion goes on with 'the three cleansing draughts 2 .'
All the parrots of India will crack sugar
Through this Persian candy which is going to Bengal.
O Hafiz, be not heedless of the enthusiasm of the Court of Sultan
Ghiyathu'd-Dm,
For thy affair will be furthered by thy lamentation."
Having spoken of Hafiz's relations with contemporary
princes, we pass now to the little that is known or con-
jectured as to his personal circumstances. For
Domestic J r
circumstances the statement that he fell in love with and
ultimately married a girl called Shdkh-i-Nabdt
(" Branch of Sugar-cane ") there is no weighty authority,
nor are such domestic particulars to be expected from
Persian biographers, in view of their reticence on all
1 In Mawlawi 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir's excellent Bankipore Catalogue
(Persian Poets : Firdawsi to Hfiz : pp. 253-4) the King in question in
this anecdote is the same as in the last, viz. Mahrmid Shah Bahmanf,
who reigned 780-799/1378-1396, and the anecdote assumes a different
and fuller form.
2 This is generally explained as meaning three draughts of wine
taken in the morning after a debauch to " break the headache " caused
by previous excess. The author of the Catalogue cited in the last note
makes it refer to three of the Sultan's handmaidens called respectively
Cypress, Rose, and Anemone, and named collectively, for reasons which
he gives, " the three washerwomen."
288 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
matrimonial matters. That he married and had several
children is probable. To the death of his wife he is supposed
to allude in a poem beginning 1 :
" That sweet-heart through whom our home was Fairyland,
And who, from head to foot, was like a fairy, free from blemish,"
but there is nothing in the poem to show that his wife
is the person referred to. There is, however, a clearer
reference to the premature death of a son in the following
verses :
j j-J ^
" O heart, thou hast seen what that clever son
Has experienced within the dome of this many-coloured vault :
In place of a silver tablet 2 in his bosom
Fatd hath placed a stone tablet 3 on his head."
The following fragment 4 , also believed to refer to the
death of this or another son, gives the date of this loss as
Friday, 6th of Rabi" i, 764 (Dec. 24, 1362) :
' J5|j
1 Ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, pp. 596-8, and note on p. 819.
2 Corresponding to a slate on which a child does sums and
exercises.
3 I.e. a tombstone.
4 Ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, iii, p. 280.
CH. v] HAFIZ
" It was the morning of Friday and the sixth of the first Rabt 1
When the visage of that moon-faced one declined from my heart.
In the year seven hundred and sixty four of the Flight
This difficult story became clear to me like [limpid] water.
How can regret, grief or sorrow profit
Now that life has passed in vanity without result ? "
According to a biography of poets entitled Khizdna-i-
'Amira, composed in India by Mir Ghulam 'All Khan Azdd
in 1176/1762-3, a son of Hafiz named Shah Nu'man came
to India, died at Burhanpur, and is buried in the Asir-Garh.
As regards Hafiz's intellectual attainments, his bilingual
intellectual poems alone show that he had a good know-
attainments ledge of Arabic, apart from the statements of
his editor, Muhammad Gulandam 1 , as to his
more scientific work in the language. He himself says :
" No one of the Hdfizes* in the world hath combined as I have
The aphorisms of the Philosophers with the Scripture of the Qur'dn.^
That he knew the Quran by heart is proved by the
verse :
<>=>
" I have never seen any poetry sweeter than thine, O Hafiz,
[I swear] by that Qur'dn which thou keepest in thy bosom."
Mawlawi Shibli Nu'mani points out that the oft-made
assertion that Hafiz was indifferent to the favour of kings
Hafi not anc * P rmces ^ not borne out by his poems, in
indifferent to which there occur incidentally praises of the
majority of contemporary rulers, including Shah
1 See p. 272 supra.
2 I.e. those who have learned the Qur'dn by heart.
B. P. 19
290 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
Shuja', Shaykh Abu Ishaq, Sultan Mahmud, Shah Mansur,
and the rulers of Yazd and Hurmuz :
"The King of Hurmuz did not see me, yet showed me a hundred
favours without a word [of praise on my part] ;
The King of Yazd saw me, and I praised him, but he gave me
nothing.
Such is the conduct of Kings : be not thou vexed, O Hafiz ;
May God, the Giver of daily bread, vouchsafe them His Grace and
Aid!"
To the King of Yazd's failure to reward him, he again
alludes in a very famous and beautiful ode 1 :
'^.j to j\ }jj ^i tjU^L/ b
These lines are thus rendered by Herman Bicknell 2 :
" Many a year live on and prosper, Sdqis* of the Court of Jam 4 ,
E'en though I, to fill my wine-cup, never to your circle come :
East-wind, when to Yazd thou wingest, say thou to its sons from me :
' May the head of every ingrate ball-like 'neath your mall-bat be !
' What though from your da'is distant, near it by my wish I seem ;
' Homage to your King I render, and I make your praise my theme.'"
1 Ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, pp. 4-7.
2 Op. tit., pp. 6-7. 3 Cup-bearers.
4 Jam or Jamshid, a legendary king of Persia, whose reign is
associated with much glory. He corresponds to the mythical Yima of
the Avesta. The king of Yazd and his courtiers are here alluded to.
CH. v] HAFIZ
291
The difference between Hafiz and most Persian pane-
gyrists is, however, as Mawlawi Shibli Nu'manf
Wherein H4fi? ,, ... ,
differs from well points out, that, unlike even such great
gy'rtsT" 6 " P ets as Anwarf, Zahi'r of Faryab and Salman
of Sdwa, he never employs mean and despicable
methods to extort money, or has recourse to satire when
panegyric fails.
We have already seen how devoted Hafiz was to Shi'raz,
and he never wearies of singing the stream of Ruknabad
and the rose-gardens of Musalla :
" Bring, Cup-bearer, all that is left of thy wine !
In the Garden of Paradise vainly thou'lt seek
The lip of the fountain of Rukndbad
And the bowers of Musalld where roses twine 1 ."
And again :
4i U v ^
" There is a difference between the Water of Khidr, which dwells in
the Darkness 2 ,
And our water, of which Allahu Akbar 3 is the source."
Although it is chiefly of the Spring, the Rose, the
Nightingale, Wine, Youth and Beauty that Hafiz sings,
and at times of the Eternal Beauty of which all fair and
desirable things are but the pale reflection, he sometimes
1 Miss G. L. Bell's Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, pp. 71-2.
2 I.e. the Water of Life, said to be situated in the Land of Darkness.
It was sought in vain by Alexander the Great, but found by his saintly
companion and guide Khidr (sometimes identified with Ilyas or Elias),
who drunk of it and became immortal.
3 The Tang-i-Alldhu Akbar is the narrow defile whence the
traveller approaching from the North first sees Shirdz. See the plate
on p. xxi of Herman Bicknell's translation of Hdfiz.
19 - 2
292 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
makes incidental mention of various statesmen and scholars
whose favour and patronage he has enjoyed 1 . Amongst
these are Hajji Qiwam, Qiwamu'd-Din Hasan 2 , Khwaja
Jalalu'd-Di'n, Shah Yahya Nusratu'd-Din and others, be-
sides the kings and princes already mentioned. And though
he wrote mathnawis, " fragments " (muqatta'dt), qasidas and
quatrains (rubd'iyydt}, it is in the ode or ghazal that he
especially excels. To his incomparable skill in this branch
of verse many of his successors have borne testimony,
amongst them Sa'ib, Salfm and 'Urfi 3 ; but no one has
better expressed it than Sir Gore Ouseley, who says 4 :
" His style is clear, unaffected and harmonious, displaying at the
same time great learning, matured science, and intimate knowledge of
S' G reOuselev *^ e hidden as well as the apparent nature of things; but
on the genius above all a certain fascination of expression unequalled
Of H4fi?
It is, however, to Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell that we
are indebted for the best estimate of Hafiz, at once critical,
sympathetic, and full of insight. In particular she compares
and contrasts him in the most illuminating manner with his
elder contemporary Dante, after characterizing whose poetry
she says 5 :
" To Hafiz, on the contrary, modern instances have no value ; con-
temporary history is too small an episode to occupy his thoughts.
During his life-time the city which he loved, perhaps
Miss Gertrude '
Lowthian Bell as dearly as Dante loved Florence, was besieged and
on H4fi? and taken five or six times ; it changed hands even more
often. It was drenched with blood by one conqueror,
filled with revelry by a second, and subjected to the hard rule of
asceticism by a third. One after another Hfiz saw kings and princes
rise into power and vanish 'like snow upon the desert's dusty face.'
Pitiful tragedies, great rejoicings, the fall of kingdoms and the clash
1 The verses in question are given by Shiblf on p. 232 of vol. ii of
his Shfru'l-'Ajam.
2 See the Introduction to Miss G. L. Bell's Divan of Ha/iz,
pp. xxii-iii.
3 See p. 234 of Shibli's above-mentioned work.
4 Biographical Notices of Persian Poets (London, 1826), p. 23.
6 Op, tit., pp. 58-60.
CH. v] HAFIZ 293
of battle all these he must have seen and heard. But what echo
of them is there in his poems? Almost none. An occasional allusion
which learned commentators refer to some political event ; an ex-
aggerated effusion in praise first of one king, then of another ; the
celebration of such and such a victory and of the prowess of such and
such a royal general just what any self-respecting court-poet would
feel it incumbent upon himself to write ; and no more.
" But some of us will feel that the apparent indifference of Hafiz
lends to his philosophy a quality which that of Dante does not possess.
The Italian is bound down within the limits of his philosophy, his
theory of the universe is essentially of his own age, and what to him
was so acutely real is to many of us merely a beautiful or a terrible
image. The picture that Hdfiz draws represents a wider landscape,
though the immediate foreground may not be so distinct. It is as if
his mental eye, endowed with wonderful acuteness of vision, had
penetrated into those provinces of thought which we of a later age were
destined to inhabit. We can forgive him for leaving to us so indistinct
a representation of his own time, and of the life of the individual in it,
when we find him formulating ideas as profound as the warning that
there is no musician to whose music both the drunk and the sober can
dance."
Shibli Nu'mani ascribes the perfecting of \heghazal and
what the ^ Q ex tension of its scope to Hafiz, and in a
gkazai, or ode, lesser degree to his contemporaries Salman and
Khwaju. With the earlier masters, such as Sa'di,
Amir Khusraw and Hasan of Dihli, its almost invariable
theme was love. Khwaju sang of other matters as well,
such as the transitoriness of the world, while Salman ex-
celled in rhetorical artifices and novel comparisons and
similes. Hafiz combined the merits of all, adding to them
a charm all his own, and often it pleased him to take from
their Diwdns a couplet or hemistich and modify it so as to
add to its beauty. In the case of Sa'di I have given some
instances of this in the second volume of my
Parallel passages ^
of Hafiz and Literary History of Persia^, and Shibli Nu'mani
gives others as between Hafiz and Khwaju and
Salman respectively. Amongst these latter are the following:
1 Pp. 536-9. See Mawlawi 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir's remarks on this at
p. 255 of the Bankipore Catalogue (Firdawsf to Hafiz).
294 POETS & WRITER'S OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
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296 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtR'S TIME [BK n
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CH. V]
HAFIZ AND SALMAN
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CH. v] HAFIZ AND HIS COMMENTATORS 299
his predecessor or contemporary. This, of course, is quite
different from parody, such as that indulged in by 'Ubayd-
i-Zakani and Bushaq, where the object is not to surpass but
to deride.
The number of commentaries on the poems of Hafiz,
not only in Persian but also in Turkish, and
commentators possibly in Urd ^ also> is very considerable, but
few of those which I have had occasion to
examine are either very critical or very illuminating. The
three best-known Turkish commentaries are those of Sururi,
Shem'f and Sudi, of which the last is the most accessible 1
and the most useful, since the author very wisely confines
himself to the elucidation of the literal meaning, and avoids
all attempts at allegorical interpretation and the search for
the " inner meaning." That many of the odes are to be
taken in a symbolic and mystical sense few will deny; that
others mean what they say, and celebrate a beauty not
celestial and a wine not allegorical can hardly be questioned ;
that the spiritual and the material should, as Shah Shuja'
complained, be thus mingled will not surprise any one who
understands the character, psychology and Weltanschauung
of the people of Persia, where it is common enough to meet
with persons who in the course of a single day will alternately
present themselves as pious Muslims, heedless libertines,
confirmed sceptics and mystical pantheists, or even incarna-
tions of the Deity 2 . The student of Hafiz who cannot decide
for himself which verses are to be taken literally and which
1 His commentary on the first 80 odes is included in Brockhaus's
Leipzig edition of the Diwdn (1854-6), and the whole has been printed
with the text and another Turkish commentary at Constantinople about
1870. The English reader who desires to acquaint himself with Sudi's
methods may consult W. H. Lowe's Twelve Odes of Hafiz done literally
into English together with the corresponding portion of the Titrkish
Commentary of Siidi, for the first time translated (Cambridge, 1877,
pp. 80). See also Lieut.-Col. H. Wilberforce Clarke's English prose
translation (2 vols, London, 1891).
2 I have endeavoured to depict this type of Persian in the chapter
of my Year amongst the Persians entitled "Amongst the Qalandars."
300 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
symbolically is hardly likely to gain much from a com-
mentator who invariably repeats that Wine means Spiritual
Ecstasy, the Tavern the Sufi Monastery, the Magian elder
the Spiritual Guide, and so forth. To the English reader
who desires to pursue this method of study, however, Lieut-
Colonel H. Wilberforce Clarke's complete prose translation
of the Dtwdn of Hafiz "with copious notes and an ex-
haustive commentary 1 " may be recommended. On the sym-
bolical meaning of the erotic and Bacchanalian phraseology
of the mystic or pseudo-mystic poets of Persia generally
E. H. Whinfield's excellent edition and annotated transla-
tion of Mahmud Shabistarf's Gulshan-i-Rdz ("Rose-garden
of Mystery") and the late Professor E. H. Palmer's little
work on Oriental Mysticism may be consulted with ad-
vantage. On the origin, doctrines and general character of
Suffism I must refer the reader to chapter xiii (pp. 416-444)
of the first volume of my Literary History of Persia.
One little Persian treatise on Hafiz, to which my atten-
tion was first called by Mr Sidney Churchill,
GhayHyyaoi formerly Oriental Secretary of the British Le-
ofDa a rT ad gation at Tihran, deserves a brief mention,
chiefly because it formulates and subsequently
endeavours to refute certain adverse criticisms on his poetry
made by some of his compatriots. This little book is en-
titled Latifa-i-Ghaybiyya and was written by Muhammad
b. Muhammad of Darab, concerning whose life and date
I have been unable to learn anything. It comprises 127
pages of small size, was lithographed at Tihran in I3O4/
1886-7, an d chiefly consists of explanations of different
verses. The three hostile criticisms which it seeks to refute
are stated as follows on p. 5 :
(i) That some of his verses are meaningless, or that, if
they have any meaning, it is very far-fetched
Defence of Han? J J ' *
against his and enigmatical. The following instance is
critics
given :
1 See n. i on the preceding page.
CH.V] HAFIZ CRITICIZED 301
- 4^ T Jb
" Cease your recriminations and return, for the pupil of my eye
Hath pulled off the cloak over its head and burned it as a thank-
offering 1 ."
(2) That some of his verses are evidently secular and
profane, and refer to the pleasures of the senses in a manner
which cannot be explained as allegorical, as for instance :
" My heart, in love with Farrukh's face, is agitated like Farrukh's hair."
And again :
"A thousand blessings be on the red wine which hath removed the
sallow complexion from my face ! "
(3) That many of his verses smack of the Ash'arf
(Sunni) doctrines, which are repudiated and execrated by
the Imami (Shi'a) doctors, e.g. :
j j^ tjU
" They did not suffer me to pass through the street of good repute :
If thou dost not approve, then change Destiny 2 ."
" This borrowed life which the Friend hath entrusted to Hafiz
One day I shall see His Face and shall yield it up to Him 3 ."
1 For Sudi's explanation of this verse, see Rosenzweig-Schwannau's
edition of Hafiz, vol. i, No. 26 in O, p. 769 in the notes. It is not very
convincing, and I have never met with any other allusion to the custom
there alleged.
2 It is worth noting that the extreme Fatalism commonly regarded
in Europe as characteristic of Islam is repudiated by Muslims of the
Shi'a sect.
3 The doctrine called Ruyatdlldh ("The Vision of God") belongs,
I think, especially to the Hanbalf sect, but is held in detestation by the
Shi'a.
302 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK u
Although manuscripts of Hafiz offer as many variants
as is usually the case with Persian texts, there exists of
this poet's works an established and generally
Why the Turks , '
are better editors accepted text which WC OWC, I think, to the
of Persian poetry T ur kish commentator Sudi, and which has
than the Indians
been popularized in Europe by the editions of
Brockhaus and Rosenzweig-Schwannau, so that it is usual
to refer to the odes of Hafiz by the numbers they bear in
the latter edition. Turkish editions of Persian poetry, such
as the Mathnawioi. Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, the Diwdn of Hafiz,
etc., are generally more accurate and trustworthy than those
produced in India, which commonly contain many spurious
and interpolated lines composed by the editors, lines which
a Persian would be ashamed and a Turk unable to produce ;
for the Persian editor has in most cases enough taste
(dhawq) to know that he cannot produce verses likely
to be accepted as those of the master whom he is editing ;
while the Turkish editor is generally conscientious and
laborious, but incapable of producing any Persian verses
at all. The Indian editor, on the other hand, often has
a certain facility of versifying without much critical taste.
This "authorized version" of the Diwdn of Hafiz (which
could probably be much improved by a fresh and careful
collation of all the best and oldest manuscripts)
contains in all 693 separate poems ; to wit, 573
odes (ghazaliyydf) ; 42 fragments (muqattctdt) ;
69 quatrains (rubd l iyydt)\ 6 mathnawts; 2 qasidas, and one
" five-some" or mukkammas. Of all of these poems German
verse-translations are given by Rosenzweig-Schwannau, and
English prose translations by Wilberforce Clarke. There
exist also many translations of individual odes or groups
of odes in English, German, Latin, French, etc., either in
verse or prose 1 . Of English verse translations the largest
and most sumptuous collection is that of Herman Bicknell,
1 For a list of the chief of these, see Dr H. Ethd's Catalogue of the
Persian MSS in the India Office, No. 1246 (col. 720), and the Banki-
pore Catalogue (Firdawsf to Hdfiz), pp. 256-7.
CH. v] TRANSLATIONS OF HAFIZ 303
who was born in 1830, studied Medicine at St Bartholo-
mew's Hospital and took the degree of M.R.C.S. in 1854,
entered the Army Medical Service, went through the
Indian Mutiny, travelled widely in Europe, Asia, Africa
and America, made the pilgrimage to Mecca under the
name of 'Abdu'l-Wahfd in 1862, and spent some time at
Shi'raz " with the object of clearing up doubtful points [in
the Diwdri\, and of becoming personally acquainted with
the localities mentioned by the Poet." He died in 1875,
and his posthumous work was brought out with loving
care by his brother, A. S. Bicknell, in the same year. It
contains, besides the Preface, Introduction, Appendix and
Indices, and nine illustrations, translations, complete or
partial, of 189 ghazaliyydt, all the 42 muqatta'dt and 69
rubd'iyydt, 2 out of the 6 mathnawis, and the one muk-
hammas.
Of most of these translations of Hafiz, from the Latin
renderings of Meninski (1680), Thomas Hyde (1767) and
Revisky (1771); the French (1799) and English (1792)
versions of Sir William Jones ; the numerous German
versions from Wahl (1791) to Bodenstedt (1877); and the
later English efforts of Payne, Justin McCarthy and Wilber-
force Clarke, I do not propose to speak here ; but I shall
say something of three of the English verse-translations
which seem to me the most worthy of attention. Of the
oldest of these three, that of Herman Bicknell, published
in 1875, I have already spoken above. The next in point
of time is that of Miss Gertrude Lowthian Bell (London,
1897), which contains, besides an admirable Introduction
on the life, times and character of the poet, verse-translations
of 43 of the odes. These, though rather free, are, in my
opinion, by far the most artistic, and, so far as the spirit
of Hafiz is concerned, the most faithful renderings of his
poetry. Lastly, in 1898 Mr Walter Leaf published 28
"Versions from Hafiz," in which he endeavoured to re-
produce the form as well as the sense of the original
poems, with as much success, probably, as is attainable
304 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
under these conditions. The existence of these three
versions exonerates me from attempting, as I have done
in the case of other less known Persian poets, to produce
versions of my own. In their different ways they are all
good : Herman Bicknell's are accurate as regards the
sense, and often very ingenious, especially the chrono-
grams ; Walter Leaf's give an excellent idea of the form ;
while Miss Bell's are true poetry of a very high order,
and, with perhaps the single exception of FitzGerald's
paraphrase of the Quatrains of 'Umar Khayydm, are
probably the finest and most truly poetical renderings of
any Persian poet ever produced in the English language ;
for, though some of Sir William Jones's verse-translations
are pretty enough, they can hardly be dignified by the
name of poetry, and are, moreover, so free that they can
scarcely be called translations.
For the sake of comparison I gave elsewhere 1 five
different English verse-translations of one of the best-
known of the odes of Hafiz, that beginning 2 :
' IjU J> *
which has been rendered into English verse by Sir William
Jones, Herman Bicknell, Miss Bell, Walter Leaf, and myself.
I cannot find so many English verse-renderings of any other
of the odes of Hafiz, for, though many of those translated
by Miss Bell are also to be found in Herman Bicknell's
translation, only three or four of the former are included
amongst the 28 published by Walter Leaf. The one fault
to be found with Miss Bell's versions is that they are not
arranged in any order, nor is any indication given of the
opening words of the original, nor reference to its position in
the text of Rosenzweig-Schwannau which she has followed ;
1 In a lecture on the Literature of Persia delivered to the Persia
Society on April 26, 1912, and afterwards published for that Society by
John Hogg, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.G., price one shilling.
2 See Rosenzweig-Schwannau's ed., vol. i, p. 24 (No. 8 in alif}.
CH. V]
ENGLISH VERSIONS OF HAFIZ
305
and only after I had succeeded, with considerable labour,
in identifying the originals of all but nine or ten of her
translations did I ascertain that my friend Mr Guy le
Strange possessed an annotated copy of her book con-
taining all the references I required save one (No. xv),
which was wrongly given, and which I am still unable to
identify. For the convenience, therefore, of other readers
of her admirable book, I give below the reference to each
original in Rosenzweig-Schwannau's edition,
specifying the volume, page, and number under
each rhyming letter, and adding a reference
to Bicknell and Leaf in cases where an ode
has also been rendered by them.
Comparative
table of odes
translated by
Miss Bell and
other translators.
(No. in Miss Bell's
transl.)
1 No. i (p. 67)
No. ii (p. 68)
No. iii (p. 69)
No. iv (p. 70)
2 No. v (p. 71)
No. vi (p. 73)
No. vii (p. 74)
No. viii (p. 75)
No. ix (p. 76)
3 No. x (p. 78)
No. xi (p. 79)
No. xii (p. 80)
No. xiii (p. 81)
No. xiv (p. 83)
No. xv (p. 84)
No. xvi (p. 85)
No. xvii (p. 86)
No. xviii (p. 88)
No. xix (p. 89)
No. xx (p. 90)
1 See also
2 W. Leaf,
3 W. Leaf,
B. P.
(Reference to H.
Bicknell's transl.)
No. i (p. 3)
No. Ii (p. 83)
No. liv (p. 85)
(Reference to original in
Rosenzweig's ed.)
vol. i, p. 2 (\ i)
vol. i, p. 194 (O 58)
vol. i, p. 204 (O 63)
vol. i, p. 100 (O 19)
vol. i, p. 24 (t 8)
vol. ii, p. 86 (^ 6)
vol.i, p. 152 (O 41)
vol. i, p. no (O 24)
vol. i, p. 8 (I 3)
omitted
vol. i, p. 138 (O 36)
vol. i, p. 32 (I 12)
vol. i, p. 276 (O 90)
vol. i, p. 302 (i 3)
VOl. i, p. 222 (O 69)
vol. i, p. 148 (O 40)
vol. i, p. 360 (i 23)
vol. i, p. 368 (i 26)
vol. ii, p. 1 8 (j 6)
Palmer's Song of the Reed, pp. 53-4.
No. iv, pp. 27-8.
No. i, p. 23 ; Palmer, pp. 49-50.
No. viii (p. 20)
No. cxxvi (p. 172)
No. xxxi (p. 60)
No. iii (p. 9)
No. clxxii (p. 240)
No. xxxix (p. 71)
No. xii (p. 29)
No. Ixv (p. 99)
No. Ixx (p. 107)
No. Ivi (p. 88)
No. xliii (p. 75)
20
(Reference to H.
Bicknell's transl.)
No. Ixxx (p. 122)
No. ciii (p. 147)
No. xc (p. 133)
306 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK ii
(No. in Miss Bell's
transl.)
No. xxi (p. 91)
No. xxii (p. 93)
No. xxiii (p. 94)
No. xxiv (p. 95)
No. xxv (p. 97)
*No. xxvi (p. 98)
No. xxvii (p. 100)
No. xxviii (p. 10 1 )
No. xxix (p. 102)
No. xxx (p. 103)
No. xxxi (p. 104)
No. xxxii (p. 1 06)
No. xxxiii (p. 107)
No. xxxiv (p. 1 08)
No. xxxv (p. 109)
No. xxxvi (p. no)
No. xxxvii (p. in)
No. xxxviii (p. 112)
No. xxxix (p. 114)
No. xl (p. 115)
No. xli (p. 1 1 6)
No. xlii (p. 117)
No. xliii (p. 1 1 8)
(Reference to original in
Rosenzweig's ed.)
vol. i, p. 374 (> 28)
vol. i, p. 410 (^ 41)
vol. i, p. 596 (i 113)
vol. iii, p. 86 (^ 31)
vol. i, p. 502 (i 78)
vol. i, p. 520 (j 85)
vol. i, p. 256 (O 82)
vol. i, p. 490 (> 73)
vol. ii, p. 8 (j 3)
vol. ii, p. 104 (^i 7)
vol. i, p. 560 (> 99)
vol. ii, p. 32 (j ii)
vol. i, p. 576 (i 105)
vol. i, p. 584 (i 1 08)
vol. i, p. 662 (i 139)
vol. ii, p. 78 (^ 2)
vol. ii, p. 68 (j 10)
vol. i, p. 650 (> 135)
vol. i, p. 416 (> 44)
vol. ii, p. 120 (^i 15)
vol. iii, p. 296 (git'a
No. 33)
vol. i, p. 586 (j 109)
vol. ii, p. 398 (j> 74)
No. cxv (p. 158)
No. cxxviii (p. 176)
No. xcvii (p. 140)
No. cxvii (p. 162)
No. ci (p. 144)
No. cvii (p. 151)
No. cxxi (p. 1 66)
No. Ixxxi (p. 123)
Qit'a xxxiii (p. 292)
No. clxiii (p. 227)
As already noted, only three or four of the odes have
been rendered in English verse by Miss Bell, Herman
Bicknell and Walter Leaf, and of one of them {Agar an
Turk-i-Shirdzi...) the parallel renderings were published
in my paper on Persian Literature, to which reference has
been already made, together with others. Another ode
rendered by the three writers above mentioned is that
beginning 1 :
J~b O
1 See Rosenzweig-Schwannau's ed., vol. i, p. 1 10, No. 24 in O ;
Miss Bell, No. viii, pp. 75-6; Bicknell, No. xxxi, p. 60; and Walter
Leaf, No. v, p. 29.
CH. v] ENGLISH VERSIONS OF HAFIZ 307
Of this also, for the sake of comparison, I here reprint the
three versions, beginning with Herman Bicknell's, which is
as follows :
Bickneirs translation (No. xxxi, p. 60).
(1) "In blossom is the crimson rose, and the rapt bulbul trills his song ;
A summons that to revel calls you, O Sufis, wine-adoring throng !
(2) The fabric of my contrite fervour appeared upon a rock to bide ;
Yet see how by a crystal goblet it hath been shattered in its pride.
(3) Bring wine ; for to a lofty spirit, should they at its tribunal be,
What were the sentry, what the Sultan, the toper or the foe of glee ?
(4) Forth from this hostel of two portals as finally thou needst must go,
What if the porch and arch of Being be of high span or meanly low ?
(5) To bliss's goal we gain not access, if sorrow has been tasted not;
Yea, with Alastu's 1 pact was coupled the sentence of our baleful lot.
(6) At Being and Not-being fret not, but either with calm temper see :
Not-being is the term appointed for the most lovely things that be.
(7) Asaf s display, the airy courser, the language which the birds em-
ployed,
The wind has swept ; and their possessor no profit from his wealth
enjoyed 2 .
(8) Oh ! fly not from thy pathway upward, for the winged shaft that
quits the bow
A moment to the air has taken, to settle in the dust below.
(9) What words of gratitude, O Hifiz,
Shall thy reed's tongue express anon,
As its choice gems of composition
From hands to other hands pass on ? "
1 " It is maintained by certain interpreters of the Koran that Adam
and the whole of his future race appeared before their Creator on the
first day of the world. God said to them : ' A-lastu bi- Rabbi- kum,' ' Am
I not your Lord ? ' All responded ' Bald] ' Yes.' But the word ' bald '
has the additional signification of ' bale ' or ' evil.' Hence the sentence
of bale, or evil, was annexed to the pact of the ' Day of Alast] and was
constituted a condition of existence."
2 " How vain were the glories of Solomon ! Asaf was his minister,
the East-wind his courser, and the language of birds one of his accom-
plishments ; but the blast of Time has swept them away."
3o8 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
Walter Leaf's translation (No. v, p. 29).
(1) "Aflame with bloom is the red rose, the bulbul drunk with Spring;
What ho, adorers of Wine ! Hear the call to mirth that they fling.
(2) The corner-stone of repentance that seemed a rock firm-set
Is rent and riven asunder by touch of glasses a-ring.
(3) Fill high the bowl with the red wine, for here is Liberty Hall,
The sage is one with the toper, the ploughman e'en as the king.
(4) From out this Hostel of Two Doors the signal calls us away,
Alike if low be the roof-tree or lofty dome upspring.
(5) We conquer only through anguish the resting-place of delight ;
To life, by bond of Atast-vow, the long 'Alas'' must cling 1 .
(6) With is and IS NOT annoy not thy heart ; be merry of soul,
For is NOT is but the last end of every perfect thing.
(7) The fame of Asaph, the wind-steed, the speech with birds of the air
As wind have passed ; to their master no more avail shall they
bring.
(8) No pinion heavenward soaring desire ; the arrow aloft
Shall sink to dust in the end, howsoe'er it leap on the wing.
(9) What thanks and praises, O HAnz, shall yield the tongue of thy
pen,
That all the songs of thy singing from mouth to mouth men sing ?"
Miss Bell's translation (No. viii, p. 75).
(1) "The rose has flushed red, the bud has burst,
And drunk with joy is the nightingale
Hail, Sufis, lovers of wine, all hail !
For wine is proclaimed to a world athirst.
(2) Like a rock your repentance seemed to you ;
Behold the marvel ! Of what avail
Was your rock, for a goblet has cleft it in two !
(3) Bring wine for the King and the slave at the gate !
Alike for all is the banquet spread,
And drunk and sober are warmed and fed. )
(4) When the feast is done and the night grows late,
And the second door of the tavern gapes wide,
The low and the mighty must bow the head
'Neath the archway of Life, to meet what... outside?
1 See note i on previous page. Mr Leaf has here sought to para-
phrase the word-play on bald (' Yea ') and bald (Woe) in the original.
CH. v] ENGLISH VERSIONS OF HAFI? 309
(5) Except thy road through affliction pass,
None may reach the halting-station of mirth ;
God's treaty : Am I not Lord of the earth ?
Man sealed with a sigh : Ah yes, alas !
(6) Nor with IS nor IS NOT let thy mind contend ;
Rest assured all perfection of mortal birth
In the great IS NOT at the last shall end.
(7) For Assaf's pomp, and the steeds of the wind,
And the speech of birds down the wind have fled,
And he that was lord of them all is dead ;
Of his mastery nothing remains behind.
(8) Shoot not thy feathered arrow astray !
A bow-shot's length through the air it has sped,
And then. ..dropped down in the dusty way.
(9) But to thee, oh Hafiz, to thee, oh tongue
That speaks through the mouth of the slender reed,
What thanks to thee when thy verses speed
From lip to lip, and the song thou hast sung ? "
This one example of three parallel translations will
suffice to show generally the style of work of the three
translators. Miss Bell's is the least literal, but by far
the most poetical, and is a wonderful interpretation of the
spirit of the original. Walter Leaf aims especially at
exactly reproducing the form (both as regards rhyme
and metre), as well as the sense, of the original. Herman
Bicknell steers a middle course, making each verse of his
translation correspond with its original, but not attempting
to preserve the same rhyme throughout the poem.
In view of these and other excellent translations of
Hafiz into verse and prose in English and other European
languages, I will content myself with quoting here the
renderings by Miss Bell and Herman Bicknell of one more
ode of Hafiz, which has a certain special interest because
it is engraved on his tombstone 1 , and which begins :
1 For a complete translation of the inscription on the tombstone, see
the plate facing p. xvi of Herman Bicknell's work above mentioned.
3 io POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK 11
BickneWs translation (p. 227, No. clxiii).
" Where doth Thy love's glad message echo for my rapt soul
To rise ?
This sacred bird from the world's meshes yearns to its goal
To rise.
I swear, wilt Thou Thy servant name me, by all my love sublime
Higher than my desire of lordship o'er space and time
To rise.
Vouchsafe, Lord, from Thy cloud of guidance to pour on me Thy
rain,
Ere Thou command me as an atom from man's domain
To rise.
Bring minstrels and the wine-cup with thee, or at my tomb ne'er sit :
Permit me in thy perfume dancing from the grave's pit
To rise.
Though I am old, embrace me closely, be it a single night :
May I, made young by thy caresses, at morn have might
To rise!
Arouse thee ! show thy lofty stature,
Idol of winning mien :
Enable me, as soul-reft Hfiz,
From Nature's scene
To rise!"
Miss Bell's translation (No. xliii, pp. 118-119).
" Where are the tidings of union ? that I may arise
Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee !
My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for Paradise,
Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free.
When the voice of love shall call me to be thy slave,
I shall rise to a greater far than the mastery
Of life and the living, time and the mortal span :
Pour down, oh Lord 1 from the clouds of Thy guiding grace
The rain of a mercy that quickeneth on my grave,
Before, like dust that the wind bears from place to place,
I arise and flee beyond the knowledge of man.
When to my grave thou turnest thy blessed feet,
Wine and the lute shalt thou bring in thy hand to me,
Thy voice shall ring through the folds of my winding-sheet,
And I will arise and dance to thy minstrelsy.
Though I be old, clasp me one night to thy breast,
And I, when the dawn shall come to awaken me,
With the flash of youth on my cheek from thy bosom will rise.
S3 ^3
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CH.V] THE TOMB OF HAFI? 311
Rise up ! let mine eyes delight in thy stately grace !
Thou art the goal to which all men's endeavour has pressed,
And thou the idol of Hdfiz's worship ; thy face
From the world and life shall bid him come forth and arise !"
The tomb of Hdfiz is in a beautiful garden, called after
him the " Hafiziyya," situated near Shiraz. It was much
beautified by Abu'l-Qasim Babur 1 , the great-
Hafiz n grandson of Timur, when he conquered Shiraz
in 856/1452, the work being entrusted by him
to Mawlana Muhammad Mv'amiHd'i*. At a later date
(1226/1811) it was further embellished by Kan'm Khan-
i-Zand, one of the best rulers that Persia has ever had 3 ,
by whom the present tombstone, a slab of fine alabaster,
was contributed. The Hafiziyya is much honoured and
much frequented by the people of Shiraz and by visitors
to that city, and the poet's grave is surrounded by the
graves of many others who have sought proximity to those
illustrious ashes, so that his own words have been fulfilled
when he said :
" When thou passest by our tomb, seek a blessing, for it shall be-
come a place of pilgrimage for the libertines of all the world."
Before passing on to the mention of other poets, some-
thing must be said as to the practice of taking an augury
(tafaul} from the Diwdn of Hafiz which is so
1 aking auguries \ / /
from the Diwdn prevalent in Persia, where the only other book
used for this purpose (and that much more
rarely) is the Quran itself, just as the ancient Romans
used to use Vergil (Sortes Vergiliance). It has been already
mentioned that Hafiz is often entitled Lisdnu' l-Ghayb
1 Not the great Babur who was the great-great-great-grandson of
Timur, and who founded the so-called " Mogul Dynasty" in India.
2 See Dawlatshah, p. 308 of my edition.
3 See Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. ii, p. 147.
3 12 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
("The Tongue of the Unseen") and Tarjumdmil-Asrdr
("The Interpreter of Mysteries"), and it is generally be-
lieved by his fellow-countrymen that, in case of doubt as
to the course of action to be pursued, valuable indications
may be obtained by opening the Diwdn at random, after
the utterance of suitable invocations, and taking either the
first verse on which the eye falls, or the last ode on the open
page, with the first line of the succeeding ode. Tables,
called Fdl-ndma, comprising a number of squares (always
a multiple of some number such as 7 or 9) each containing
one letter are also employed for the same purpose ; and
one of these, with instructions for its use, is often prefixed
to Oriental editions of the Diwdn 1 . These tables, however,
in spite of their mysterious and impressive appearance,
only give a very limited number of answers seven when
the squares are a multiple of seven, nine when they are a
multiple of nine, and so on ; and as Lane has well observed,
in speaking of similar squares used by the Egyptians, in
consequence of the view prevailing in the East generally
that, if in doubt, it is better, as a rule, to refrain from
action, a majority of the answers provided for are generally
distinctly discouraging or of a negative character, and only
a few encouraging.
The table referred to in the last foot-note comprises
15 x 15 = 225 squares, each containing one letter. Nine
hemistichs each containing 25 letters are chosen
fdSdm? a (9 x 2 5 also =225). In the first square is placed
the first letter of the first hemistich ; in the
second square the first letter of the second hemistich, and
so on to the ninth square, in which is placed the first letter
of the ninth hemistich. Next follow the second letters of
each hemistich in the same order, the second letter of the
first hemistich in the tenth square, the second letter of
the second hemistich in the eleventh square, and so on,
1 A specimen of these tables will be found on p. 233 of the Banki-
pore Catalogue, in the volume consecrated to Persian Poetry from
Firdaws{ to Hdfiz.
CH. v] AUGURIES FROM HAFIZ 313
until the table concludes at the 225th square with the
last (25th) letter of the last (ninth) hemistich. In using
the table, the finger is placed at random on one of the
225 squares, and the letter it contains is written down,
and after it, in a circle, the 24 letters obtained by taking
each Qth square from the point of departure until the cycle
is completed. By beginning at the proper point, these
25 letters give the first hemistich of one of the odes, which
can then be readily found in the D{wdn. The table in
question gives the following nine hemistichs, to each of
which I have added the second hemistich (not included in
the table, but needed to complete the verse), the reference
to Rosenzvveig's edition, and the English translation.
i. No. 17 in cA R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 121.
" We have tried our fortune in this city ; we must withdraw our
gear from this gulf."
This would supply an answer to one who was hesitating
as to whether he should emigrate from the place where he
was, or not.
2. No. 62 in j. R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 364.
" Welcome, O bird of auspicious advent and fortunate message !
Good is thy arrival ! What news ? Where is the Friend ? Which is
the road ? "
3. No. 57 in j>. R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 352.
AiU.
" If I go home from this abode of exile, then, when I go thither, I
shall go wisely and sensibly."
POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
This would supply an answer to a traveller or exile
who was wondering whether he would not do well to return
home.
4. No. i in o. R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 160.
" Should my lucky star aid me, I will lay hold on his skirt ;
Should I pluck it, O the delight ! And should he slay me, O the
honour ! "
5. No. 4 in > R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 12.
" Show thy face and take away from my memory all thought of my
own existence ;
Bid the wind bear away all the harvest of those who are burned out !"
6. No. 80 in i. R.-Schw., vol. i, p. 508.
'jLjl J-J Osfrfr UA^vOjb JtS- J&J&
' juT jj J>\ U*^ $, ^> U A^ ^u^
" I said, ' I have longing for thee ! ' She replied, 'Thy longing will come
to an end.'
I said, 'Be thou my Moon!' She replied, 'If it comes off!'"
7. No. 19 in ^A R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 128.
" O Lord, that fresh and smiling rose which Thou didst entrust to me
I now entrust to Thee from the envious eye of the flower-bed."
8. No. 8 in j. R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 64.
LoJ jl jcL5 ^j
CH.V] AUGURIES FROM HAFIZ 315
" My desire hath not yet been fulfilled in respect to my craving for
thy lip ;
In the hope of the ruby goblet [of thy mouth] I am still a drainer
of dregs."
9. No. 24 in j>. R.-Schw., vol. ii, p. 270.
i jt
"Arise, that we may seek an opening through the door of the tavern,
That we may sit in the Friend's path and seek [the fulfilment of ] a
wish ! "
As will be seen, the answers supplied by these vague
oracles are often of a somewhat uncertain na-
approp'riatf ture, besides being limited in number to nine.
auguries drawn j^e other method of opening the Dtwdn at
from Hafiz r *f
random gives, of course, much richer results, and
there stands on record many a remarkable response, which
si non / vero e ben trovato. Six of these are recorded at the
end (pp. 122-7) of the little treatise entitled Latifa-i-Ghay-
biyya which has been already mentioned 1 .
The first refers to Shah Isma'il the Great, the founder
of the Safawi dynasty, who made the Shi'a doctrine the
official creed of Persia, and carried his energy so far in this
endeavour that he ordered the tombs of persons of suspected
orthodoxy or of known Sunni proclivities to be destroyed.
One day, accompanied by a certain ignorant and fanatical
priest known as Mulla Magas 2 , he visited the tomb of Hafiz,
and Mulla Magas urged him to have it destroyed, alleging
(as had been alleged by the poet's contemporaries) that he
was unorthodox in belief and dissolute in life. The King
thereupon announced his intention of taking an augury
from the Dtwdn of Hafiz, which opened at the following
verse :
" At dawn Orion displayed his belt before me,
As though to say, ' I am the King's slave, and this I swear.'"
1 See p. 300 supra. 2 Magas is the Persian for " a fly."
3 i6 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
This, it is to be supposed, Shah Isma'fl took as an ex-
pression of the deceased poet's loyalty to himself, and there-
upon, well pleased, he again opened the book at random and
was confronted by the following verse, which was even
more evidently intended for his ecclesiastical companion :
"O fly (magas} \ the presence of the Simurgh 1 is no fit place for thy
evolutions :
Thou dost but dishonour thyself and vex us ! "
After this it may be assumed that Mulla Magas effaced
himself!
The story referred to above, but not given in the Lattfa-
i-Ghaybiyya, is that, when Hafiz died, some of his detractors
objected to his being buried in the Muslim equivalent of
consecrated ground, but that, on an augury being taken
from his poems to decide the question, the following very-
appropriate verse resulted :
" Withhold not thy footsteps from the bier of Hdfiz,
For, though he is immersed in sin, he will go to Paradise !"
The second instance given by the Latifa-i-Ghaybiyya
refers to another king of the same dynasty, Shah Tahmasp 2 ,
who one day, while playing with a ring which he valued
very highly, dropped it, and, though he caused an exhaustive
search for it to be made under the carpets and cushions,
1 A mythical bird of great size and wisdom and almost or quite
immortal, which is supposed, like its Arabian equivalent the 'Angd, to
dwell in the Mountains of Qaf or of the Alburz, and which played an
important part in the legend of Sm and Zdl (the grandfather and
father of Rustam respectively) as recounted in the Shdh-n&ma of
Firdawsf.
2 There were two Safawi kings of this name. The first reigned
A.D. 1524-1576; the second 1722-1731.
CH. v] AUGURIES FROM HAFIZ 317
could not find it. An augury taken from Hafiz gave the
following result :
" What cares a heart which mirrors the Unseen and possesses the
Goblet of Jamshid for a ring which is mislaid for a moment 1 ?"
The king clapped his hands on his knees in admiration for
the appositeness of this verse, and immediately felt the ring
in a fold of his robe into which it had accidentally slipped.
The third anecdote refers to yet another Safawf King,
Shah 'Abbas the Second (A.D. 1642-1667), who obtained
the following augury as to a campaign which he was medi-
tating against the province of Adharbayjan, of which Tabriz
is the capital 2 :
> to
" Thou hast captured 'Iraq and Fdrs by thy verse, O Hfiz :
Come, for it is now the turn of Baghdad and the time for Tabriz."
This decided the king in favour of the campaign, which
turned out completely successful.
The fourth anecdote refers to the same king as the last.
He had a servant named Siyawush, whom his fellow-servants,
through jealousy and malice, desired to destroy, so that they
1 The original reference is, of course, to Solomon, whose ring,
engraved with "the Most Great Name" of God, whereby he exercised
authority over birds, beasts, fishes, the winds, men, and the Jinn, was
stolen for a while by the Jinni Sakhr. The Persians often seek to
identify their legendary King Jamshid or Jam (the Yima of the Avesta)
with Solomon, and attribute to the latter the "World- showing Goblet"
(Jdm-t-Jahdn-numd) of the former, which, like Alexander's Mirror
(A'ina-i-Sikandar\ revealed to its possessor all that was passing in the
world.
2 This story is more often told of Nadir Shah. See the Bankipore
Catalogue (Persian Poetry: Firdawsi to Hafiz), p. 235.
3i8 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
were constantly striving to convince the King that he was
worthy of death. The result of an augury from the Diwdn
of Hafiz was this verse :
t
" The King of the Turks hearkens to the speech of the accusers :
May he be ashamed of the wrong of [shedding] the blood of Siya-
wush 1 !"
The fifth instance is from the author's own experience.
In 1052/1642-3 he reached Ahmad-abad, then the capital
of Gujerat in India, and there made the acquaintance of a
certain Kan'an Beg, one of the notables of the place, who
had a brother named Yusuf Beg. The latter, who was in
the army of Gujerat, had a little time previously been re-
ported missing in a battle fought near Ahmad-abad against
a hostile force. His brother, Kan'an Beg, was greatly
disquieted until the following augury from Hafiz assuaged
his anxiety, which was soon afterwards dispelled by his
brother's safe return :
jut jU *I
" Lost Joseph ( Yusuf) will return to Canaan (Kan'dri) : grieve not !
The house of sorrows will one day become a rose-garden : grieve not ! "
The sixth and last instance refers to a certain Fath-'Ali
Sultan, the son of Imam-quli Khan, a youth remarkable
for his beauty, who was the author's contemporary. One
day, flushed with w r ine, and clad in a green coat (qaba)
embroidered with gold, he visited the tomb of Hafiz on the
day specially set apart for this, which falls in the latter part
of the month of Rajab, and while there took an augury from
the Diwdn, which gave the following verse :
1 See ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, p. 620, and the note on
p. 823, which explains the allusion to the old legend in question.
CH. v] AUGURIES FROM HAFIZ 319
U^u>j JiiU. j JJ
" When thou passest by, drunk with wine and clad in a gold-embroidered
coat,
Vow one kiss to Hfiz who is clad in wool 1 ! "
" What is one kiss ? " exclaimed Fath-'Alf ; " I promise
two kisses ! " A week passed ere he revisited the tomb,
and took another augury, which was as follows :
^ew
"Thou didst say, ' I will get drunk and give thee two kisses' :
The promise has passed its limit [of time], and we have seen neither
two nor even one."
" What are two kisses ? " cried the lad ; " I promise three
kisses ! " And again he went away without discharging his
vow, and did not return until another week had elapsed,
when he again took an augury, and received the following
answer :
"Those three kisses which thou didst assign to me from thy two lips,
If thou dost not pay them, then thou art my debtor ! "
Thereupon Fath-'Ali Sultan leapt from his seat and im-
printed kiss after kiss upon the poet's tombstone.
Other instances of omens taken from the Diwdn of
Hafiz by the Moghul Emperor Jahangfr, and recorded in
his own handwriting in the margins of a manuscript formerly
in his possession, are given in the Bankipore Catalogue
(Persian Poetry: Firdawsf to Hafiz), pp. 231-52.
1 Pashmfna-push (" clad in wool ") is the Persian equivalent of the
Arabic Sufi. See vol. i of my Lit. Hist, of Persia, p. 417.
320 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
7. Kamdl of Khujand
(Kamdlu 'd-Din b. Mas'tid}.
Not much is known concerning this poet, who, however,
since his verses won the admiration of Hafiz,
Kamiiof cannot be passed over. Tami says 1 that he was
Khujand * J
a great saint, and that if he deigned to write
verse it was to conceal the fullness of his saintly nature and
spiritual attainments, to prevent the complete suppression
of his exoteric by his esoteric life, and to maintain the
position of "servitude" to God against an overmastering
tendency to be merged in the Deity; an assertion in support
of which he quotes Kamal's verse :
" These efforts of mine in my poetry are my 'Speak to meO Humayrd' 2 !"
Kamal's spiritual guide was a certain Khwaja 'Ubaydu-
'llah who resided for some time at Shash 2 , a
K^maT'lTfe^ place situated like Khujand in Transoxiana.
At an unknown but probably fairly early period
of his life Kamal migrated to Tabriz, where he made his
home, and for which he conceived a great affection. The
Jala'irf Sultan Husayn, son of Uways (776-784/1374-1382)
showed him much favour and built for him a monastery or
rest-house. Jamf says that when after Kamal's death they
entered his private room in this rest-house, they found in it
no furniture save a mat of coarse reeds on which he used to
sit and sleep, and a stone which served him for a pillow.
In Tabriz, where he obtained a great reputation for sanctity,
1 Nafahdtu'l-uns, pp. 712-13.
2 The Prophet Muhammad, when recovering from the state of
exhaustion into which he used to fall after receiving a revelation, was
wont to summon his wife 'A'isha to come to his side and talk to him,
with the words Kallimi-ni yd Humayrd, " Speak to me O little red
one!"
3 Or Chdch, the modern Tashkand and ancient Bandkat or Fanakat.
Cf. pp. i oo and no supra.
CH. v] KAMAL OF KHUJAND 321
he came under the influence of Shaykh Zaynu'd-Din
Khwafi 1 .
^787/1385 Tuqtamish,Khanof Qipchaq, raided Tabriz,
and, after the fashion of Ti'mur and other conquerors of
those days, carried off Kamal amongst other learned and
pious persons to his own capital, Saray. There he remained
for four years 2 , at the end of which period he returned to
Tabriz where he died 8 , according to most authorities, in
803/1400-1. Dawlatshah places his death in 792/1390, a
date which Rieu shows reason for regarding as much too
early. A still later date (808/1405-6) is given by the
Majdlisiil-'Ushshdq. On the poet's tomb was inscribed
the verse :
" O Kamal ! Thou hast gone from the Ka'ba to the door of the Friend :
A thousand blessings on thee ! Thou hast gone right manfully ! "
During his second sojourn at Tabriz Kamal was patron-
ized by Timur's son Miranshah, who was then governor of
Adharbayjan, and who is said to have given the poet, in
return for some fruit which he or his soldiers had eaten
from his garden, a sum of a thousand dinars wherewith to
discharge his debts.
The Diwdn of Kamal of Khujand has never, so far as
I know, been published, and is not common in manuscript,
though copies are to be found in most of the larger collec-
tions of Persian books. I possess an undated but well-written
and fairly ancient manuscript, from which the following
selections are taken.
(1)
djLo
1 See pp. 569-72 of Jami's Nafahdt and Ibn 'Arabshdh's 'Ajd'ibu'l-
Maqdur, p. 34 of the Calcutta ed. of 1818.
2 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 632-3.
3 The Atash-kada alone says that he died at Yazd.
B. P. 21
322 POETS & WRITERS OF TIMOR'S TIME [BK n
" O Kamal, have thy tears from every eye-lash assumed the hue of
Salmon
Because he hath stolen from other people's poetry his brilliant
ideas?"
(2)
OX> f J J
* * ' * '
" The breeze combed the tresses of my Friend ; may God keep him in
health for ever !
So long as thou art upright in figure like an a/if, we are like a lam
in the midst of woe J !
The moist eye is best [laid] on thy lips, for sweet-meats are best
[eaten] with what is moist.
The wounded heart is so filled with the pain of thy love that the
very idea of healing cannot enter it.
Vex not thy heart with grief for the Friend, O Kamal : his mouth is
the Water of Life wherein is healing."
(3)
" Hardly can the artist draw the picture of thy two eyebrows ;
They cannot easily draw a double bow ! "
1 A graceful upstanding figure is compared to the letter alif (I),
one bent with age or sorrow to Idm (J) or ddl (>). Ldm is the middle
letter of the word bald ^), " woe."
CH. v] KAMAL OF KHUJAND 323
i,Juj
" What company, what paradise, what resting-place are here !
Lasting life, the lip of the cup-bearer, the brim of the goblet are here !
That Fortune which fled from all [others] did not pass by this door ;
That joy which escaped all is here a servant !
When thou enterest our joyous abode with sorrow in thy heart
All say, ' Indulge not in sorrow, for it is forbidden here !'
We are on the roof of heaven : if thou passest by us
Go gently, for here is the glass and the edge of the roof 1 !
In our audience-chamber there is neither seat of honour nor thres-
hold 2 ;
Here King and dervish know not which is which !
Like wood of aloes we are all hot-footed and burning,
Save the ice-cold ascetic, who is here [accounted] raw.
How often, O Kamal, wilt thou ask, ' What station is this which thou
possessest ?
Whose station is this ? ' For here is neither abode nor lodging ! "
1 A proverbial expression for what is very precarious. "A glass in
a stone-swept way " is another similar idiom.
2 Saff-i-nfdl ("the shoe-row") is at the lower part of the room,
where the servants stand, and visitors kick off their shoes before
stepping on to the raised and carpeted dais.
21 2
3 2 4 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
(5)
" O Moon of mine, the Festival 1 is come : may it bring thee happiness !
What wilt thou give as a festal-gift to thy lovers ?
Thy cheek is at once our festal-gift and our Festival :
Without thy cheek may our Festival be no Festival !
Thou hast said : ' I will ask after thee next Festival' :
Alas ! for this promise is of long standing !
Deliver my soul from grief since the Festival hath come,
For at the Festival they set free captives.
The Festival is come : cease to threaten Kamdl ;
At the festal season they make glad the hearts of all ! "
" Blessings on thy power of expression, O Kamal !
Thou hast, indeed, no choice as to approval.
The fruit which they bring from Khujand
Is not so sweet and so luscious !"
(7)
lUwljj jl *4 *J*
*^ ** *J*-iJ*
AJiti U
1 The great Persian festival is the Nawruz, or New Year's Day,
which corresponds with the vernal equinox (March 21). The two great
festivals of Islam are the 'Idu'l-Fitr at the end of Ramaddn, and the
'idu'l-Adhd on the loth of Dhu'l-Hijja, the month of the Pilgrimage.
CH. v] KAMAL OF KHUJAND
" Thy pain is better than balm, O Friend !
Thy sorrow enlargeth the soul, O Friend !
He who begs of thee at thy door
Seeks naught but pain and calamity, O Friend !
Notwithstanding that through poverty I have not
Aught which is worthy of thine acceptance, O Friend.
I will lay before thee my two bright eyes,
I will say, ' It is the gaze of sincerity, O Friend ! '
Thou didst say, ' I will slay thee,' but this is not right :
Is it right that a friend should slay, O Friend?
Whatever the heart said in praise of thy stature
God brought true (or straight), O Friend !
Straight have I made this ode to thy stature :
Write, ' It is by Kamal,' O Friend ! "
Kamdl is, so far as I know, the only poet who endeavours
as far as possible to make all his odes of a uniform length,
namely seven verses, as he expressly declares in the two
following fragments :
(8)
^Lj J
9
" My odes are for the most part seven verses,
Not forgotten like the utterance of Salman.
When Hafiz recites them in 'Irdq
Fluently and aloud, [they are] like 'the seven hard ones 1 ';
All seven [are] like heaven in their foundation,
And of such sort 'Imad [of Kirman] has not a single verse."
1 The " Seven Lean Years " are so called in the Suratu Yusuf
(Our 1 an, xii, 48). In another passage (Ixxviii, 12) the same expression
is used of the Seven Heavens, which is the meaning intended here.
326 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
(9)
" The odes of Kamil are seven verses ;
Of the grace thereof the ' Five Treasures 1 ' are but a tenth part.
There exist also poems of seven verses by some of my friends,
Each one of which is limpid and fluent and charming,
But of every seven of them there should be erased
Four verses from the beginning and three from the end ! "
(10)
JaJU
"When the Diwdn of Kamal falls into thine hand
Copy of his poetry as much as thou wilt.
If thou wishest to understand aright
His rare ideas and expressions and words
Do not pass swiftly over each word like the pen,
But dive down into every letter like the ink."
1 This (Panj Ganj} is the title given to the Five Romantic Poems
of Nizami of Ganja.
CH. v] KAMAL OF KHUJAND 327
(11)
" There are two Kamals famous in the world,
One from Isfahan 1 and one from Khujand.
This one is incomparable in the ode,
And that one unrivalled in the elegy.
Between these two Kamals, in a manner of speaking,
There is no more than a few hairs' breadths' difference !"
" Salman requested from me a poem, saying, ' In my album there is
no specimen of that verse.'
I gave him those answering words like unto which [in value] is no
pearl in [the Sea of] Aden.
I wrote them for thee, but his words are naught in my sight."
(13)
" That Sufi with his nose cut off hath nothing for us but helplessness
and humility ;
One cannot accuse him of the fault of self-conceit (khud-blni\
For the poor wretch hath not even a nose (khud bini na-ddrad} 2 ! "
1 Some account of Kamalu'd-Din of Isfahan, called "the Creator
of [new] ideas" (KhalldquU-Mctdni), will be found in vol. ii of my
Literary History of Persia (pp. 540-42).
2 The whole point of this verse lies in the untranslateable word-play
on khud-bini.
328 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
Two or three " fragments " are addressed to a certain
Hdfiz, who, however, appears to be a minstrel or harper of
that name, not the celebrated poet of Shiraz. The following,
however, almost certainly alludes to the contemporary poet
'Assar of Tabriz 1 :
(14)
" At length poor 'Assar died and departed : he took upon his neck
the blood of the courts 2 and departed."
(15)
The following fragment, to which Rieu refers 3 , contains
an allusion to an historical event, viz. the invasion of Tuq-
tamish :
Chi'
" Our Farhad said to Mir Wall, ' Let us restore the Rashidiyya 4 quarter ;
Let us give gold to the Tabrizis for bricks and stone for this building.'
The poor fellow was busy with his hill-piercing when, more numerous
than the ants of the mountain and the plain,
1 Some account of him will be found in Ousele/s Notices of the
Persian Poets, pp. 201-226, and another notice by Fleischer in the
Z.D.M.G., xv, 389-396. The date of his death is variously given as
A.H. 779 and 784 (A.D. 1377-8 and 1382-3).
2 I do not understand these words, which suggest that 'Assar was
put to death.
3 Pers. Cat., p. 633.
4 This was the quarter of Tabriz originally built by the great
minister and historian Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah. See pp. 70-71 supra.
en. v] KAMAL OF KHUJAND 329
The army of King Tuqtdmish arrived, and the Unseen Voice thus
cried :
' Shirin's ruby [lip] became the portion of Khusraw [Parwfz],
While Farhad vainly pierces the rock 1 !'"
The following fragment refers to the poet Humam of
Tabriz (a contemporary of Sa'df) and contains an "insertion"
( Tadmiii} or citation from his poems :
" I said, ' From the region [or Egypt] of ideas I will send thee
A few sweet trifles which will be like sugar in thy mouth' :
Again I feared this criticism, that thou mightest say like Humam
' Do not again bring sugar from Egypt to Tabriz ! ' "
Other fragments contain allusions to Nizami and Sa'df,
while one is addressed to a poet named Ma'jari of Samarqand,
and the following to another (presumably a contemporary
rival) called Ma'adhi :
" This is my petition in my every private prayer, ' O my Succour and
my Refuge,
Save all people of taste and lovers of music from the harp of Malawi
and the poetry of Ma'adhi ! "
1 The allusion in the last verse is to the well-known romance of
Khusraw and Shirin.
330 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
(18)
The following is a rather original and pretty conceit :
" Knowest thou what is the cause of chuckling of the wine-bottles ?
They are laughing at the beard of the town-constable ! "
(19)
The following fragment seems to show that Kamal's
odes were not collected into a Dtwdn until after his death :
' '(.
" A certain man of discernment said to me, ' Why is it
That thou hast [composed] poetry, yet hast no Diwdn ? '
I replied, ' Because, like some others,
My verse is not copious and abundant.'
He said, ' Although thy verse is scanty [in amount]
It is not less [in value] than their utterances.' "
As is so often the case with Persian poets, Kamal's
fragments are much more intimate and personal, and con-
tain more allusions to contemporary events and persons
(though for lack of fuller knowledge these allusions must
often remain obscure) than his odes ; and for this reason I
have here quoted them to a disproportionate extent.
8. Maghribt
(Muhammad Shinn Maghribt of Tabriz),
Of the life and circumstances of Maghribi, one of the
most thorough-going pantheistic poets of Persia,
little is known, though notices of him are given
CH. v] MAGHRIB! 33 i
by most of the biographers 1 . He is generally stated to have
died in 809/1406-7 at Tabriz at the age of sixty years, so
that he must have been born about 750/1349-1350; but by
a minority of the biographers his death is placed two years
earlier. The learned modern historian Rida-quli Khan states
that he was born at Na'in, near Isfahan, and buried at
Istahbanat in Fars, but he is generally reckoned a native
of Tabrfz. His poetical name Maghribi is said to be due
to the fact that he travelled in the Maghrib (N.W. Africa),
where he was invested with the dervish cloak (khirqd) by
a Shaykh who traced his spiritual pedigree to the great
Maghribf mystic Shaykh Muhiyyu'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabi,
whose thought even at the present day has a great influence
in Persia, and whose Persian disciples, poets like 'Irdqi,
Awhadu'd-Di'n, Maghribi and even the later Jami, are con-
spicuous for their thorough-going pantheism. Of Maghribi
Rida-qulf Khan truly says in his Majma'u'l-Fusakd:
O JJ jL>jJLt>
" His doctrine is the Unity of Being (Pantheism), and his inspiration
the rapture of Vision 2 , nor can one find throughout all his verse aught
save this one idea. His tarji^-bands andghazals are all filled with the
verities of the true Unitarianism 3 ."
Maghribi is said by Jami and other biographers to have
been personally acquainted with the poet last discussed,
Kamal of Khujand, which is probable enough, since the
1 Jcimfs Nafahdtu'l-uns, p. 713 ; Atash-kada and Haft Iqlim,
under Tabrfz ; Habfbu 's-Styar, vol. iii, pt. 3, p. 91 ; Majma l u'l-
Fusahd, vol. ii, p. 30 ; Riyddu'l- i Ariftn, pp. 134-5. There is no men-
tion of Maghribi in Dawlatshdh's Memoirs of the Poets.
2 I.e. of beholding the infinite manifestations of the Divine Beauty
in the beautiful things of the Phenomenal World.
3 Formal or exoteric Unitarianism is the declaration that there is
only One God ; esoteric Unitarianism is the conviction that there is
only One Being who really exists.
332 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
two were contemporaries and spent at any rate a consider-
able part of their lives at Tabriz. On one occasion he is
said to have found fault with the following verse of Kamal's
on the ground that it evidently referred to material charms,
and was not susceptible of a mystical interpretation 1 :
" If eyes be such, and eyebrows such, and charm and coquetry such,
Farewell, abstinence and piety ! Good-bye, reason and religion ! "
Kamdl, hearing this, sought an interview with Maghribi,
and said : " [The Persian] chashm is [equivalent to the
Arabic] 'ayn 2 ; so it maybe that in the language of allusion
it is to be interpreted as the Eternal Essence ('Ayn-i-Qadtm),
which is the Divine Personality. So also [the Persian] abni
is [equivalent to the Arabic] hdjib*, so it may be that it may
be taken as alluding to the Divine Attributes, which are
the veil of the Essence." Maghribi, on hearing this ex-
planation, apologized and withdrew his criticism. If it be
true, however, as stated by Rieu 4 , that Kamal superseded
Maghribi in the favour of Tfmur's son Miranshah, the Go-
vernor of Adharbayjan, it is possible that the relations of the
two poets were not of the most cordial character.
As the above particulars practically exhaust the little
we know of Maghribi" s life, we may now pass on to his
poetry, which is represented by a comparatively small
Diwdn, comprising for the most part odes (ghazaliyydf)
with a few tarji 1 -bands and quatrains. It has been several
times lithographed in Persia 5 , and I also possess a good and
well-written, but undated, manuscript. The lithographed
1 Nafahdt, p. 714.
2 Both mean "eye," but l ayn in Arabic also means the exact
counterpart of a thing, or its essence.
3 Both mean " eyebrow," but hdjib also means a veil or curtain.
* Pers. Cat., p. 633.
5 I have two editions, dated A.H. 1280 and 1287 (A.D. 1863-4 and
1870-1) respectively.
CH. v] MAGHRIBf 333
edition comprises 153 smallish pages each containing 17
lines, and the total number of verses may be estimated
at about 2300. The poems, so far as I have examined
them, are entirely mystical, and contain no allusions to the
poet's life and times. The following specimens are typical:
3
X*. UJ^t 'JL^ j-AUi-o
" When the Sun of Thy Face appeared, the atoms of the Two Worlds
became manifest.
When the Sun of Thy Face cast a shadow, from that shadow Things
became apparent.
Every atom, through the Light of the Sun of Thy Countenance, be-
came manifest like the Sun.
The atom owes its existence to the Sun, while the Sun becomes mani-
fest through the atom.
334 POETS & WRITERS OF TIMOR'S TIME [BK n
The Ocean of Being was tossed into waves ; it hurled a wave to-
wards the shore.
That wave sunk and rose in some heart-delighting raiment and form.
Like violets the Ideas sprung up like the pleasant down on some fair
beauty's face.
The anemones of the [Eternal] Realities blossomed ; a thousand tall
cypresses appeared.
What were all these ? The counterpart of that Wave ; and what was
that Wave? Identical [in substance] with the Ocean.
Every particle which exists is identical with the whole ; then is the
whole altogether the parts.
What are the parts ? The manifestations of the All ; what are
things ? The shadows of the Names.
What are the Names ? The revelation of the Sun, the Sun of the
Beauty of the Supreme Essence.
What is the Shore? The land of Contingent Being, which is the
Book of God Most High.
O Maghribi, cease this discourse : do not make plain the Mystery of
the Two Worlds ! "
(2)
CH. v] MAGHRIBf 335
" O Thou in whose life-giving Face all the Universe is manifest,
And O Thou whose Countenance is apparent in the Mirror of the
Universe !
Since the Darling of Thy Beauty looked in the Mirror
And saw the reflection of his face, he became wild and mad [with
love].
Every instant Thy Countenance displays the beauty of its features
To its own eyes, in a hundred fair vestments.
It looked forth from lovers' eyes
So that it beheld Its Beauty in the faces of Idols 1 .
Thy Face wrought a Mirror for Its self-display,
And called that Mirror ' Adam and Eve?
He beheld the Beauty of His Face in every face through him 2 ,
Therefore hath he 2 become the Mirror of all the Names.
O Thou whose Beauty hath shone forth to Thine own eyes,
And who hast plainly seen Thy Face in Thine own eyes,
Since Thou art at once the Seer and the Seen, there is none other
than Thee :
Wherefore, then, hath all this strife become apparent ?
O Maghribi, the horizons are filled with clamour
When my King of Beauty pitches His tent in the Plain ! "
1 I.e. beautiful persons. Both sanam (" idol ") and nigdr ("picture")
are constantly used in this sense. The same idea is also expressed in
the following well-known quatrain attributed to 'Umar-i-Khayyam :
' Ls juU
' U Jua-L, *rtT..t..<
2 In both cases Adam is meant.
336 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
(3)
" O Centre and Pivot of Being, and Circumference of Bounty,
O Fixed as the Pole, and Fickle as the Sphere!
If I send greetings to Thee, Thou art the greeting,
And if I invoke blessings on Thee, Thou art the blessing !
How can any one give Thee to Thyself? Tell me now,
O Thou who art Thine own alms-giver and Thine own alms !
O Most Comprehensive of Manifestations, and Most Perfect in
Manifestation,
O Gulf of gulfs, and O Combiner of diversities !
O most Beauteous of the beautiful, and O most Fair of the fair,
O most Gracious of the graceful, O most Subtle of subtleties !
Thou art at once both the Bane and the Balm, both Sorrow and Joy,
Both Lock and Key, both Prison and Deliverance !
CH. v]
MAGHRIBf
337
Thou art both the Treasure and the Talisman, both Body and Soul,
Both Name and Named, both Essence and Attribute !
Thou art both Western (Maghribt) and West, both Eastern and East,
Alike Throne, and Carpet, and Element, and Heavens, and Space!"
B. P.
338 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
" O [Thou who art] hidden from both worlds, who is He who is
apparent ?
And O [Thou who art] the Essence of the Apparent, who then is the
Hidden One?
Who is that One who in a hundred thousand forms
Is apparent every moment?
And who is that One who in a hundred thousand effulgences
Showeth forth His Beauty every moment?
Thou sayest, ' I am hidden from the Two Worlds ' :
Who then is He who appeareth in each and all ?
Thou didst say, ' I am always silent ' :
Who then is He who speaketh in every tongue?
Thou didst say, ' I stand outside body and soul ' :
Who then is He who clothes himself in the garment of body and
soul?
Thou didst say, ' I am neither this one nor that one' :
Who then is He who is both this one and that one ?
Thou who hast withdrawn apart,
1 conjure Thee by God tell me who is in the midst ?
Who is He whose effulgence shines forth
From the beauty and comeliness of the charmers of hearts ?
And who is He who hath shown His beauty
And who hath cast turmoil into the world ?
O thou who remainest in doubt,
Not knowing certainly who lurks in thy doubt,
Be hidden from the eyes of Maghribi,
And see who is apparent through his eyes ! "
(5)
The opening lines of the following poem strike an almost
Christian note :
CH. v] MAGHRIBf 339
l _ r .=> ^b <x <x5jJ? C
'Jti I^X*. AJU. ^ ^ JLT ulj^xfc. f 4JU.
-3
" That One who was hidden from us came and became us,
And He who was of us and you became us and you.
The King of the topmost throne of Sovereignty condescended,
And, notwithstanding that there is no King save Him, became a
beggar.
He who is exempted from poverty and wealth
Came in the garb of poverty in order to show forth [true] riches.
Who hath ever heard aught stranger than this, that one and the same
person
Became both his own house and his own householder?
That pure substance and that peerless pearl
When it germinated became earth and heaven.
Into the raiment of 'how-ness ' and ' why-ness ' one cannot say
How and why that 'how-less' and 'why-less' Charmer of hearts
entered.
His eyebrow revealed itself from the eyebrows of the beautiful,
Until it was pointed at by every ringer, like the new moon.
In the garden of the Universe, like the straight cypress and the
anemone,
He became both red-capped and green-robed.
That Sun of the Eternal Sphere shone forth
So that it became Western (Maghribi) and Eastern, Sun and Light."
22 - 2
340 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
(6)
J^r
i ^*^ -5 >-** J^' J
JU jU
Ask not the road to the College or the customs of the Monastery;
Pass by road and custom ; ask not about way and road.
Adopt the path of [religious] Poverty and Annihilation, and be happy ;
Look not behind thee, and ask not save of what lies before.
When thou steppest forth from the narrow cell of the body
Ask not save of the Holy Precincts and of the King.
Ask about the delights of Poverty and Annihilation from those who
have tasted them ;
Ask not of him who is the slave of wealth and rank.
CH. v]
MAGHRIBf
341
When the Royal Umbrella appears, acclamation arises :
Ask no longer then about the King from the army and the host !
When thou hast stepped forth in sincerity and staked thy head,
Ask not of thy cap, if they steal it of thee.
Since my state, O Friend, is not hidden from thee
Do not again enquire of my state from witnesses.
Wipe out the sin of his existence, since thou thyself art obliterated;
Do not again ask of sin concerning the sin of his existence !
O Friend, since Maghribi hath come to Thee to make his excuses
Overlook in Thy Grace, and ask not concerning the sin of him who
apologizes ! "
ij -I;M>*
342 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
"We have escaped from the Monastery, the Chapel and the College,
And have settled in the quarter of the Magians with Wine and the
Beloved.
We have cast aside the prayer-mat and the rosary,
We have girt ourselves with the pagan girdle 1 in the service of the
Christian child.
On the benches [of the Wine-house] we have torn up the dervish-
cloak of hypocrisy ;
In the taverns we have broken our hypocritical repentance.
We have escaped from counting the beads of the rosary ;
We have sprung forth from the snares of virtue, piety and asceticism.
In the quarter of the Magians we became annihilated from all exist-
ence :
Having become annihilated from all existence, we have become all
existence.
Hereafter seek not from us any knowledge or culture,
O wise and sensible friend, for we are lovers and intoxicated !
Thanks be to God that from this worship of self
We are wholly delivered, and are now worshippers of wine.
We are drunkards, wastrels, seekers of wine,
And we are most at ease with him who is, like ourselves, drunk and
ruined.
Since Maghribi has removed his baggage from our assembly
And has departed (for he was the barrier in our path), we are free !"
(8)
*'J k *
by
LJ j
1 The Zunn&r (Zonarium), regarded by the Muslim poets as the
symbol of misbelief, represents the Kushti, or " Kosti," of the Zoro-
astrians, the sacred thread of the Brahmins, and presumably the cord
worn round the waist by Christian monks.
CH. v] MAGHRIBf 343
'^ ^t OUl 3
> *}) jl .3 *5' Jl ; i *
LJ^t
"Thou art but a drop : talk not of the depths of the Ocean ;
Thou art but a mote : talk not of the high Sun !
Thou art a man of to-day : talk then of to-day ;
Do not talk of the day before yesterday and yesterday and to-morrow !
Since thou knowest not earth and heaven
Talk no more of below and above !
Since thou hast not the elements of musical talent
Talk not of tand, nd and tdnd l !
Cease, O my son, from denial and affirmation ;
Talk not of 'except' 1 and l no' 2 !
If they bid thee lay down thy life,
Go, lay down thy life, and talk not !
Until thou knowest who ' I ' and 'We ' are
Be silent ! talk not of I' and ' We ' !
Until, like Adam, thou receivest from God the Science of the Names
Do not talk about the Names !
He who hath become the Counterpart of all Things
Hath said to Maghribi, ' Speak not of Things ! ' "
The above specimens should suffice to give a fair idea
of Maghribfs thought and style. He belongs essentially to
the same class of mystical poets as Sana'i, Shams-i-Tabriz
1 Or, as we might say, " of sol, fa, re," or " ta, ta-at, ta-te," or " of
crotchets, minims and quavers."
2 Ld ("No") and illd ("except") is the Muhammadan profession
of faith, Ld ildha illa'lldh (" There is no god but God").
344 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK 11
(i.e. Jalalu'd-Dfn Rumi), and 'Iraqi, and, as he asserts, Fari-
du'd-Din 'Attar :
" From His waves 1 arose 'Irdqi and Maghribf,
And from His ferment came Sand'i and 'Attdr."
Yet though of the same category as these, he seldom
reaches their level.
9. Abti Ishdq (" Bushaq ") called " At'ima "
(Fakhru'd-Din Ahmad-i-Halldj of Shirdz).
Although there are several other poets of this period
who are not undeserving of notice, such as 'Assar of Tabriz,
Jalal-i-'Adudi, Jalal-i-Tabib, etc., this chapter
has already reached so considerable a length
that I shall make mention of only one other,
Abu Ishaq of Shfraz, the poet of foods, hence called At'ima,
who offers the greatest possible contrast to Maghribf, the
mystic and pantheist.
Of Abu Ishaq's life, as usual, very little is known,
except that he appears to have spent the greater part
of it at Shfraz, where he enjoyed the favour of the great,
and especially of Tfmur's grandson Iskandar ibn 'Umar
Shaykh Mfrza, who governed Fars and Isfahan from
A.H. 812 to 817 (A.D. 1409-1415). Dawlatshah consecrates
a long article to him 2 , which, however, chiefly consists of
quotations from his poems and an account of the ambitious
designs and tragic fate of his patron Iskandar, who was
deprived of his sight by his uncle Shah-rukh on the 2nd
of Jumada i, 817 (July 20, 1414), and died the following
1 I.e. God, considered as the Ocean of Being, whose waves are
phenomena.
2 Pp. 366-71 of my edition.
CH. v] " BUSHAQ " OF SHfRAZ 345
year. By trade Abu Ishaq was, as his title Halldj indicates,
a carder of cotton. On one occasion, when he had been
absent for several days from Prince Iskandar's receptions,
the latter asked him, when he reappeared, where he had
been ; to which he replied, " I card cotton for a day, and
then spend three days in picking the cotton out of my
beard." Short notices of Abu Ishaq are given in the
Atash-kada, the Haft Iqlim and the Majma'"u'l-Fusahd
(vol. ii, p. 10), but they add nothing to the little recorded
by Dawlatshah, save a brief anecdote in the last named,
according to which Abu Ishaq considered himself the
, disciple and admirer of Shah Ni'matu'iiah,
Bushaq and Shah
Ni'matu'iiah the mystical poet of Mahan, a little village
near Kirman, where he is still commemorated
in a handsome shrine served by dervishes of the order which
he founded. Abu Ishaq's admiration took the dubious form
of parodying Ni'matu'llah's mystical rhapsodies in profane
poems addressed to various culinary delicacies. Thus
Ni'matu'iiah has a poem quite in the style of Maghribi,
beginning :
U
Ijt j^. A> ' Lo jj ^ J^l v>JjU U
" We are the pearl of the shoreless Ocean ; sometimes we are the Wave
and sometimes the Sea ;
We came into the world for this purpose, that we might show God
to His creatures."
Bushaq parodied this as follows :
" We are the dough-strings of the bowl of Wisdom ; sometimes we are
the dough and sometimes the pie-crust ;
We came into the kitchen for this purpose, that we might show the
fried meat to the pastry."
When subsequently Sayyid Ni'matu'iiah met Abu
Ishaq, he said, "Are you the 'dough-strings of the bowl
346 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
of Wisdom ' ? " To which the latter replied, " Since I am
not in a position to talk about God {Allah}, I talk about
God's bounty (Ni'matu'lldh)."
Manuscripts of Abu Ishaq's works are not common.
The British Museum possesses a copy of one of them, the
Kanzu'l-Ishtihd (" Treasure of Appetite ")*, and I once had
the opportunity of examining an excellent and very com-
Dr wolfs plete manuscript from the collection of the late
MS. of the Dr Wolf of Bukhara fame, to whom it was
Dtwdn-i-At'ima. . . . ...... . TT ,, , , T . , , T ~. .
given by a certain Hajji 'Uthman Nuru d-Din,
and by whom it was left to the Society for the Propagation
of Christianity amongst the Jews. This manuscript was
copied in 970/1562-3, contains 162 ff. of 22.4 x 12.7 c. and
17 lines to the page, and is written in a small, neat ta'liq
hand between blue and gold lines. It is remarkable for
containing (on ff. 137-8 and 160-61) some half dozen
poems in dialect, comprising in all 44 couplets. The book,
however, would have remained hardly known
The Constant!- . ri 11 i 11
nopie printed but tor the excellent edition printed by the late
edition of the learned and indefatigable Mi'rza Habib of Is-
Dlwdn
fahan at Constantinople in 1303/1885-6. This
volume, which comprises 184 pages, begins with an extract
from Dawlatshah's notice of the author, and ends with a
vocabulary of the culinary terms occurring in the course
of the work, many of which are now obsolete in Persia,
often representing dishes no longer prepared, of which the
exact nature must in many cases remain doubtful. The
actual text of Abu Ishaq's works begins with the Kanzul-
Ishtihd ("Treasure of Appetite"), to which is prefixed a
short prose Preface. Then follow the poems, mostly
parodies, in which almost every variety of verse (qasida,
tarjf-band, ghazal, git 1 a, rubd'i and mathnawt) is repre-
sented; and these in turn are followed by several treatises
in mixed prose and verse, to wit "The Adventure of the
Rice and the Pie-crust" (bughra), "Abu Ishaq's Dream,"
the " Conclusion " (Khdtimd), and a " Glossary " (Farhang),
1 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., p. 634.
CH. v] " BUSHAQ " OF SHfRAZ 347
by the author, not to be confounded with the vocabulary
above mentioned, which was added by the Editor, who
also supplements Dawlatshah's account of the poet with
a few observations of his own. In these he emphasizes
the philological and lexicographical value of Abu Ishaq's
works, and adds that though they have been printed or
lithographed several times in Persia, these editions are so
marred by errors that they are almost valueless. He adds
that he discovered two MSS. at Constantinople, and that,
though both were defective, he succeeded from the two
in constructing what he hopes and believes to be a fairly
complete and trustworthy edition.
The poems, filled as they are with the strange and ob-
solete culinary terminology of mediaeval Persia, and deriving
such humour as they possess from being parodies of more
serious poems familiar to the author's contemporaries, do
not lend themselves to translation. In the Preface to the
"Treasure of Appetite" (Kanzu'l-Ishtihd) he claims to have
written it to stimulate the failing appetite of a friend, just
as Azraqf in earlier times wrote his Alfiyya Shalfiyya to
quicken the sexual desires of his royal patron, Tughanshah
the Seljuq 1 . Here is a translation of this Preface, omitting
the doxology :
''But to proceed. Thus saith the weakest of the servants of God
the All- Provider, Abu Ishaq, known as the Cotton-carder (Halldj),
Bushaq's Preface ma y ^' s com f rts endure ! At the time when the tree of
to the "Treasure youth was casting its shadow, and the branch of gladness
was heavy with the fruit of hopes, a few verses, of an
extemporized character and appropriate to every topic, were produced
by me. I thought within myself, 'The wisest course is this, that I
should in such wise guide the steed of poetry through the arena of
eloquence, and so spread the banquet of verse on the table of diction,
that those who partake at the board of pleasure should obtain the most
abundant helping ; and that the masters of eloquence should be filled
1 See vol. ii of my Lit. Hist, of Persia, p. 323, and, besides the refer-
ences there given, Jmi's Bahdristdn, Const, ed. of A.M. 1294, pp. 78-9
(near the beginning of chapter vii) ; and a note by Von Hammer in
the Journal Asiatique for 1827, vol. x, p. 255.
348 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
with admiration therefor, so that this may conduce to my greater fame
and popularity.' For I had heard this verse which says :
' Whatever verse I may utter, others have uttered it all,
And have penetrated all its domain and territory.'
" For some days my thoughts ran in this channel : 'having regard
to the epic narrative of Firdawsi, the salt of whose speech is the
flavouring of the saucepan of every food ; and the mathnawis of
Nizamf, the sugar of whose verses is the dainty morsel of sweet-tongued
parrots ; and the tayyibdt of Sa'df, which, by general accord, are like
luscious honey to the palate of the congenial ; and the odes of Khwaja
Jamalu'd-Dfn Salmon, which take the place of milk and honey in the
mouths of philologists ; and the products of the genius of Khwajii of
Kirmdn, the carroway-syrup of whose utterances is a cure for the
melancholies of the fetters of verse ; and the subtle sayings of 'Imad-i-
Faqfh, whose sweet utterances are as fragrant spices and delicious
potions ; and the fluent phraseology and well-weighed thoughts of
Hafiz, which are a wine fraught with no headache and a beverage
delicious to the taste ; and other poets, each of whom was the celebrity
of some city and the marvel of some age, what fancies can I concoct
whereby men can be made glad?'
" While I was thus meditating, on a favourable morning, when ac-
cording to my wont and habit, the smoke of an unfeigned appetite rose
up from the kitchen of the belly, there suddenly entered through the
door my silver-bosomed sweetheart, my moon-faced darling, whose eyes
are like almonds, whose lips are like sugar, whose chin is like an orange,
whose breasts are like pomegranates, whose mouth is like a pistachio-
nut, smooth-tongued, melodious of utterance, lithe as a fish, sweet-
voiced, with a mole like musk ; even as the poet says :
\
i
' By reason of the sweet smiles of the salt-cellar of her mouth 1
Blood flows from the heart, as from a salted kabdb?
" Said she, ' I have quite lost my appetite, and suffer from a feeling
of satiety ; what is the remedy ? ' I replied, ' Just as in the case of that
person who went to a physician, complaining that he was impotent, and
1 A particular kind of charm or beauty is called maldhal (from
milk, "salt"), which may be rendered as "piquancy" or "spiciness,"
and it is in reference to this that a saucy and provocative mouth is
compared to a salt-cellar.
CH. v] THE " TREASURE OF APPETITE " 349
the physician thereupon composed for him the [book entitled] Alfiyya
Shalfiyya^, which when he had perused he at once took to his em-
braces a virgin girl, so will I compose for thee a treatise on the table,
such that when thou hast once read it, thy appetite will return.' So for
her sake I girded up the loins of my soul, and cooked a meal garnished
with verbal artifices and rhetorical devices, and baked in the oven of
reflection with the dough of deliberation a loaf which rivalled the orb
of the sun in its conquest of the world ; so that I can proudly exclaim :
Jut <*
' I have spread a table of verse from Qaf to Qdf 2 :
Where is a fellow-trencherman who can rival me ? '
" I have entitled this table ' the Treasure of Appetite ' (Kanzu'l-
Ishtihd}, because the day was the I ldu'l-Fitr s ; and the cause of the
revelation of this book is commemorated in the following fragment 4 ."
1 See note on p. 347 supra.
2 The Mountains of QaY are supposed to form the boundaries of the
habitable globe.
3 The Festival of the breaking of the Fast, called by the Turks
Sheker Bayrdm.
* As this merely repeats the substance of the prose preface trans-
lated above, I give the text only without translation.
A. J
The whole poem is divided into ten sections (fas/),
comprises 108 verses with the same rhyme throughout, and
is a parody on Sa'di's qasida beginning 1 :
The first verse of the parody is
The "Treasure of Appetite" is followed by a qasida
entitled Afdq u An/us ("Horizons and Souls") in praise of
Remaining Shah Sayfu'd-Din, and this in turn by parodies
contents of the o f qasidas by Zahiru'd-Din Faryabi, Khwaju of
Kirman, Najmi/Imad-i-Faqih of Kirman, Hafiz,
Salman of Sawa, Hasan of Dihli, Mawlana 'All Dur-duzd,
Sa'di, Jalalu'd-Di'n Rumi, Jalal-i-'Adud, Sadru'd-Din Qay-
ruwani, Kamal of Khujand, Sa'du'd-Dfn Nasfr, Anwari,
Shaykh Faridu'd-Din 'Attar, Kamalu'd-Dm of Kashan,
Shah Ni'matu'llah of Kirman, Aminu'd-Din, Muhammad
Jawhari, 'Iraqi, Abu Nasr-i-Farahf, Adhari, 'Ubayd-i-Zakanf,
Jalal-i-Tabfb, Firdawsf, Nizami of Ganja, etc. These are
1 See the Calcutta printed edition of 1795, v l- "> ff- 223-224.
CH. v] THE POET OF CLOTHES 351
followed by the two prose treatises already mentioned, the
"Conclusion" (Khdtima), the "Glossary" (Farkang), a qasida
in praise of Kajri (" Kedgeree "), and the Editor's Vocabu-
lary of Culinary Terms which fills twelve pages.
For the reasons already given it is practically impossible
to translate these poems so as to preserve any of their
point, and it is sufficient for our purpose to note that Abu
Ishaq, with his predecessor 'Ubayd-i-Zakanf (already dis-
cussed earlier in this chapter) and his successor Nizamu'd-
Di'n Mahmud Qarf of Yazd, represents a definite school of
satire and parody.
10. NizdmiJd-Din MaJnmid Qdri of Yazd.
Of the last-named poet, who took for his subject clothes,
as Abu Ishaq had taken foods, we have an excellent edition
^y t ^ ie same Mfrza Habib who edited the works
of the two other poets of the group, all three
volumes being uniform in size and style. In
the short preface prefixed to the Diwdn-i-Albisa, which
contains the sartorial poems of Mahmud Qari of Yazd,
the learned editor says that he believes the manuscript
on which his text is based to be unique, and that he had
never met with another copy in any of the numerous
libraries in Persia and at Constantinople which he had
examined, nor had he found any mention of the author
or his date in any biographical or historical work except
in one Indian tadhkira (neither named nor cited by him),
and a single verse of his cited in evidence in the well-known
Persian dictionary entitled Burhdn-i-Jdmi 11 .
The Diwdn-i-Albisa was avowedly inspired by the
Diwdn-i-Atima, which, in style and arrangement, it closely
follows. There is a prose preface, which, unfortunately,
throws no light on the author's date ; a qasfda-i-Afdq u
1 This excellent and concise dictionary ("the Comprehensive
Proof") is essentially an abridgement of the better-known Burhdn-
i-Qdtf, or " Decisive Proof." The former has been well lithographed
at Tabriz in Shawwdl, 1260 (Oct.-Nov. 1844).
352 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK 11
An/us; a mock-heroic account of the war between cloth
and cotton (Jang-ndma-z-Miiina u Kattdti) ; a poem on the
"Mysteries of Silk"; parodies of Awhadi, Khwaju, Sa'di,
Sayyid Hasan of Tirmidh.Sana'i. Kamalu'd-Din
Poets * *
parodied by Isma'il of Isfahan, Zahir of Faryab, 'Imad-i-
MahmddQari p^ of jg^fa. H fi?> < A1{ Dur-duzd, Kamal
of Khujand, Muhammad-i-Firuzabadi, Nayyir of Kirman,
Sayyid Ni'matu'llah, Amir Khusraw, Jalalu'd-Dm Rumi,
Salman of Sawa, Sayyid Jalal-i-'Adud, Sa'du'd-Dm Nasi'r,
Sadru'd-Dfn Jawharf, Amini, Amir Hasan of Dihlf, Jama-
lu'd-Din, Shaykh Faridu'd-Din 'Attar, Katibi, Nasir of
Bukhara, Sultan Abu Sa'i'd, Humam of Tabriz, Amir
Khusraw of DihH, Darwish hs\xz.{-\-Namad-push, 'Ubayd-
i-Zakani, and Jalal-i-Tabib. Nearly all the chief varieties
of verse are represented, including a certain number of
poems in dialect (Fahlawiyydt and Shtrdziyydt), and the
volume concludes with several prose treatises, to wit a
Dispute between Food and Clothes, the Dream
Further contents I _ .
of Mahmud of the Bath, Eulogies of the chief Persian poets
OArfs/wto*. in terms of clothes and stu ff S) the story of the
clothes-thief, Wool's letter to Satin, and other similar
letters and official documents, the Ardyish-ndma ("Book
of Adornment"), the Book of Definitions entitled Dah
Wasl, containing, as its name implies, ten sections, the
treatise entitled Sad Wctz (" A Hundred Counsels "), a
mock-heroic mathnawt in the style of the Shdk-ndma on
the battle between Wool and " Cincob " (Kamkhd) en-
titled Mukhayyat-ndma, and finally a Glossary (Farhang)
of articles of clothing. The only indication of the author's
date which I can find is supplied by the list
MatSdQari ' of contemporary poets occurring at the end of
the Eulogies of Poets (pp. 138-9 of the text),
which includes Qasim[u'l- Anwar], who died 837/1433-4;
'Ismat [of Bukhara], d. 829/1425-6 ; Katibi, d. 838/1434-5 ;
Khay all [of Bukhara], d. circd 850/1 446-7 ; Shahf, d. 8 5 // 1 45 3 ;
and Adharf, d. 866/ 1 46 1 -2. We must therefore conclude that
Mahmud Qan of Yazd wrote subsequently to the date last
CH. v] AT-TAFTAzANf 353
given, so that he really belongs to a later period than that
which we are now considering, though it seemed convenient
to mention him here on account of his close literary affinity
with Abu Ishaq, to whom his work evidently owed its chief
inspiration. Sayyid Ni'matu'llah, on the other hand, who
is one of the poets parodied by Abu Ishaq, should, strictly
speaking, be included in this place, but since he survived
until 834/1430-1, and this chapter has already grown to an
inconvenient length, I shall defer his consideration, with
that of 'Ismat, Katibi and others, to a later section of this
book.
ARABIC PROSE-WRITERS OF THIS PERIOD.
Although it is not necessary to speak at nearly the same
length about the prose-writers of this period as
Ss S Sod ers f about the poets, some at least of them deserve
at any rate a passing mention, including one
or two who wrote chiefly or exclusively in Arabic.
Ti'mur resembled another great Eastern conqueror of
Turkish origin who lived four centuries before him, namely
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, in his passion for collecting
and carrying off to his capital eminent scholars from the
towns which he conquered, and thus endeavouring to in-
crease the splendour of his Court and his own reputation
as a patron of letters 1 . Amongst those whom Ti'mur thus
abducted the most celebrated were Sa'du'd-Din Taftazani
and as-Sayyid ash-Sharif al-Jurjam' 2 .
I. Sa'du'd-Din Mas'iid ibn ' Umar at- Taftdsdni.
This eminent scholar, who was described by the con-
temporary 'ulamd of Transoxiana as "at the
^Taft^i present time the chief man of learning in the
world, and the exemplar of scholars amongst
1 For an instance of this, see my translation of the Chahdr Maqdla,
p. 1 19 of the tirage-a-part.
2 See the Habibu's-Siyar (vol. iii, pt 3, pp. 87-90), which devotes a
long notice to him.
B. P. 23
354 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
the sons of men," and of whose works sixteen are enumerated
by Brockelmann 1 , was born at Taftazan near Nasa in Khu-
rasan in 722/1322, and is said to have written his first book
(a commentary on az-Zanjam"s Arabic Grammar) at the
early age of sixteen. Another of his works, the Mutawwal,
he is said to have dedicated to Malik Mu'izzu'd-Dm Husayn-
i-Kurt (who reigned at Herat from A.D. 1331 to 1370). He
then settled at Khwarazm, at that time a great centre of
learning, where he composed his Mukktasar, which he de-
dicated to Jam' Beg Khan of the Golden Horde, a descendant
of Batu the Mongol, who reigned in Western Qipchaq from
A.D. 1340 to 1357. When Ti'mur captured Khwarazm he
allowed Malik Muhammad of Sarakhs, the youngest son of
the above- mentioned Malik Mu'izzu'd-Din,to take Taftazani
with him to Sarakhs, where he was given a professorship; but
later, learning how great was his reputation as a scholar, he
summoned him to his own capital Samarqand, where he
remained for some years, greatly honoured by all. He died
in 791/1389 (in the same year as the poet Hafiz), or, ac-
cording to others, in 797/1 394-5 2 , and was buried at Sarakhs.
He left a son named Mawlana Muhammad who died of the
plague at Herat in 838/1434-5, and concerning whom an
anecdote is related in the Habibus-Siyar which reflects but
little credit either on his filial piety or his sincerity.
Of Taftazanf s works it is unnecessary to speak in detail,
for not only are they written in Arabic, but they do not even
fall into the category of belles lettres, being for the most part
on logic, Arabic grammar, philosophy, theology, exegesis
and jurisprudence. I am not aware that he wrote anything
in Persian, but, by virtue of a Turkish metrical trans-
lation of Sa'df's Bustdn which he composed, he is included
by the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb in his History of Ottoman
Poetry*.
1 Gesch. d. Arabisch. Lift., vol. ii, pp. 215-16.
2 According to the Mujmal of Fasfhf in 787/1385.
3 Vol. i, pp. 202-3.
CH.V] AL-JURjANf IBN 'ARABSHAH 355
2. 'Ali ibn Muhammad as-Sayyid ash-Sharif al-Jurjdni.
As-Sayyid ash -Sharif, chiefly known to European
scholars by his book of " Definitions " (ta'rifdf)
As-Sayyid * /
ash-Sharif of technical and especially Sufi terms, was born,
as his title al-Jtirjdni indicates, in the Caspian
province of Gurgan or Jurjan, near Astarabad, in 740/1339.
In 779/1377 he was presented by Sa'du'd-Din Taftazani to
the Muzaffari prince Shah Shuja' who was then residing at
Qasr-i-Zard, and who took him with himself to Shiraz, where
he became a professor at the Ddru'sh-Shifd. In 789/1387
Ti'mur conquered Shiraz and transported him to Samarqand,
where he again foregathered with Taftazani, with whom he
had many scientific controversies. On the death of Tfmur
in 807/1405 he returned to Shiraz, where he died in 816/1413
at the age of 76. Brockelmann enumerates 3 1 of his works,
all of which are in Arabic 1 . Three Persian works, a well-
known Arabic grammar commonly known as Sarf-i-Mtr,
a treatise on Logic (al-Kubrd fil-Mantiq), and another on
the Degrees of Existence, written by or ascribed to him,
are mentioned in Rieu's Persian Catalogue 2 , but he seems
to have composed but little in his mother-tongue.
3. Ibn 'Arabshdk.
A third but much younger writer of note who was carried
off by Ti'mur from his native place, Damascus,
Ibn 'Arabshah . , , . ,
m 803/1400, when he was only twelve years of
age, together with his mother and brothers, was Abu'l-' Abbas
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abdu'llah ibn 'Arabshah,
chiefly famous for the bitterly hostile biography of Tfmur
which he composed under the title of 'Ajd'ibu'l-Maqdur f{
nawd'ibi Timur, and to which reference has been made in
the last chapter 3 . He studied at Samarqand with the above -
1 See Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arabisch. Lift., vol. ii, pp. 216-17,
and the Habibrfs-Siyar, vol. iii, pt 3, p. 89.
2 Pp. 522, 812, 864, etc.
3 See Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arabisch. Litt., vol. ii, pp. 28-30,
where five of his works are described.
232
356 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
mentioned al-Jurja'nf, mastered the Turkish and Persian
languages, translated from the latter into Arabic the Mar-
zubdn-ndma of Sa'du'd-Dfn Warawfnf 1 , travelled widely,
visiting Khatd (Chinese Tartary), Khwarazm, Dasht, As-
trachan and Adrianople (where he became for a time private
secretary to the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad I). He returned
to his native town, Damascus, in 825/1422, made the pil-
grimage to Mecca seven years later, settled in Cairo in
840/1436, and died in 854/1450. The undisguised hatred
of Timur revealed in every page of his history forms a
piquant contrast to the fulsome flattery of Sharafu'd-Di'n
'AH Yazdf and other Persian biographers. Of Ibn 'Arab-
shah's other works the best known is the Fdkihatul-Khulafd.
4. 'Adudu'd-Din al-lji.
Of Arabic writers of this period who had no connection
with Persia, such as al-Yafi'i and as-Safadi, to both of whom
we are indebted for valuable biographical and historical
material, I do not propose to speak here, but two other
Arabic-writing Persians deserve at least a brief mention.
The first of these, 'Adudu'd-Dm 'Abdu'r-
Rahman ibn Ahmad al-lji, who died in /56/
1355, wrote in Arabic a good many books 2 on
philosophical, religious and ethical subjects, of which the
Mawdqif is the most celebrated ; but it is chiefly on account
of his connection with the Muzaffari dynasty that he is
mentioned here, for though his birthplace was in Fars at
Ij, a place between Darabjird and Nayn'z 3 , he seems to have
written little or nothing in his mother-tongue, though, as we
have seen above 4 , he is celebrated by Hdfiz as one of the
chief intellectual ornaments of Shi'raz. He was a Shafi'i
jurisconsult, a judge (qddi), and a mystic ; but he was also
1 A good and critical edition of this book by Mirzd Muhammad is
included in the "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. viii, 1909.
2 Brockelmann (pp. tit., vol. ii, pp. 208-9) enumerates eleven.
3 See G. le Strange's Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 289.
4 See p. 276 supra, and n. 2 ad calc.
CH. v] AL-fjf AL-FfRtiZABADf 357
employed at times in a diplomatic capacity, for we learn
from the Fdrs-ndma-i-NdsirP that he was sent by Shaykh
Abu Ishaq, at that time ruler of Shiraz, in 753/1352-3, to
the Amir Mubarizu'd-Di'n Muhammad the Muzaffarf, who
was then in the neighbourhood of Kirman, to endeavour to
dissuade him from attacking Shiraz. In this mission he
failed ; but he was well received by Mubarizu'd-Dm, whom
he had to entertain for three days at his native town of Ij,
and had the honour of reading and explaining the com-
mentary on the Mufassal (a well-known work on Arabic
grammar by az-Zamakhsharf) to the Amir's son Shah Shuja',
afterwards ruler of Shirdz and alternately patron and rival
of the poet Hafiz.
5. Al-Firtizdbddi.
Another Persian man of learning who met and received
favours from Ti'mur was the great Arabic scholar
Al-Finizabddi j 1 i i . i i i_
and lexicographer, best known by his monu-
mental dictionary the Qdmtis, or " Ocean," Abu't-Tahir
Muhammad ibn Ya'qub ash-Shi'razi al-Firuzabadi 2 . He
was born in 729/1326 at Firuzabad in Fars, and studied
first at Shiraz, then at Wasit in Mesopotamia,
St e e is tensive then at Ba g hd ad (745/1344), and afterwards
(75/ I 349- I 35) at Damascus, where he at-
tended the lectures of as-Subki, whom he accompanied to
Jerusalem. There he lectured for some ten years, after which
he set out again on his travels, in the course of which he
visited Asia Minor, Cairo, Mecca (770/1368), where he re-
mained fifteen years, and India, where he spent five years in
1 This copious and valuable account of the province of Fars, which
contains some 372 large pages, was lithographed at Tihran in
1313/1895-6.
2 See Brockelmann, op. tit., ii, pp. 181-3, from whom the particulars
here given are taken. Al-Firuzbadf is also mentioned in six or seven
places in al-Khazrajf s History of Yaman. See the second half of the
Arabic text ("E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, iii, 5), pp. 264-5, 2 ?8,
286, 290, 297, 303-4, and 311, where mention is made of him in every
year from 796/1393-4 to 802/1399-1400.
358 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
Dihlf. He then returned to Mecca, where he spent another
ten years. In 794/1392 he visited the court of the Jala'ir
Sultan Ahmad ibn Uways at Baghdad ; and he also visited
Tfmur at Shfriz, probably in 795/1393, and was received
with much honour. Thence he went by way of Hurmuz on
the Persian Gulf to Yaman, where he arrived in
"Yaman 1505 "' " the following year (796/1394), and remained at
Ta'izz for fourteen months. He was then made
Chief Judge (Qddi'l-quddt) of Yaman, and received in
marriage the daughter of the Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf.
In 802/1400 he again visited Mecca, where he established
a small college of Maliki jurisprudence : and, after visiting
al-Madina, returned to Zabi'd in Yaman, and died there in
817/1414.
Of the five Arabic writers mentioned above all save Ibn
'Arabshah (who is included on account of his connection
with Timur) were Persians ; and, for reasons which I have
elsewhere given 1 , I consider that no literary history of the
Persians which, confining itself to what is written in Persian,
ignores the immense amount of valuable work produced by
Persians in Arabic, can be regarded as adequate in its scope,
or just to this talented people.
PERSIAN PROSE-WRITERS OF THIS PERIOD.
The period which we are now considering is far less rich
in notable prose-writers than in poets, and not more than
four or five need detain us here.
I. Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad b. Sa'id-i-Fakhr of Isfahan.
The first writer who deserves mention is Shams-i-Fakhrf,
whose full name is given above. He compiled
Shams-i-Fakhri . _ .
in 745/1 344 a very excellent work on the Persian
language entitled Mi'ydr-i-Jamali, which he dedicated to
the amiable and talented but unfortunate Shaykh Abu
Ishaq Inju 2 . It is divided into four parts as follows :
1 Literary History of Persia, vol. i, pp. 445-7.
2 See p. 164 supra.
CH. v] SHAMS-I-FAKHRf MU'fN-I-YAZDf 359
Part i, in 9 chapters, on Poetry and Prosody.
Part ii, in 5 chapters, on Rhyme, the different varieties
of Poetry, etc.
Part iii, on Rhetorical Devices, Tropes and Figures of
Speech, etc.
Part iv, on the Persian language and its rare and archaic
words.
The fourth part, which is of most interest to philologists,
was printed at Kazan in 1885 by Carl Salemann. I possess
a good MS. of the whole work (except for one leaf missing
at the beginning) which was given to me by my friend
Dr Riza Tevffq in August, 1909. The date of composition
is given in a poem of 1 1 bayts in praise of " the son of
Mahmud Shah" ( i.e. Shay kh Abu Ishaq Inju) in the following
lines :
The rare Persian words explained in this fourth part
are arranged under the final letter, and each group is worked
up into a qasfda, of which they constitute the rhymes, in
praise of the author's royal patron. The first three (un-
published) parts of the book, though good, are relatively of
less value than the fourth, since the matters of which they
treat are more fully discussed in such older books as the
Mifjam ft Ma'dyiri Asfcdri'l-'Ajam 1 of Shams-i-Qays, and
the Hadd'iqiis-Sihr of Rashidu'd-Din Watwat.
2. Mtfinu'd-Din-i- Yazdi.
Nearly all that is known of this writer is recorded by
Rieu 2 in his notice of one of the British Museum
Y^d"shuto"y Mss - f tne Mawdhib-i-Ildkt, a historical mono-
^ e H use graph on the House of Muzaffar from its origin
of Mu?affar
until the battle fought at Shiraz in 767/1365-6
1 Published in the "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. x (1909).
2 Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 168-9.
360 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
between Shah Shuja' and his brother and rival Shah Mah-
mud. Mu'mu'd-Din is described by his fellow-townsman
Mufid in the Jdmi'-i-Mufidi (composed in 1082-1090/1671-
79) x as the greatest of the 'ulamd of his day. His lectures
were crowded with students, and occasionally honoured by
the presence of his patron Shah Shuja' the Muzaffarf, at
whose instigation and encouragement, seconded by that of
his father Mubarizu'd-Dm Muhammad, Mu'm began the
composition of his history at Isfahan in 757/1356, though,
as indicated above, he did not complete it until ten years
later. Two years earlier, in 755/1354, according to the
abstract of his history included in some manuscripts of the
Tarikh-i-Guzida?, he was made professor at a college at
Kirman. He died in 789/1387.
The Mawdhib-i-Ildhi, of which I possess two MSS. from
the late Sir A. Houtum-Schindler's library 3 , besides having
access to a manuscript belonging to the Fitzwilliam Museum
at Cambridge, is a disappointing book, written, as Rieu
justly remarks, like the History of Wassaf, mainly " with a
view to rhetorical display." It is in fact intolerably florid and
bombastic, a fault which we might more readily excuse but
for the undoubted value of the information which it contains.
Happily the simplified abstract of its contents mentioned at
the end of the last paragraph dispenses us in large measure
from the necessity of reading it in its unabridged form.
3. Shaykh Fakhrud-Din Abitl-Abbds Ahmad of Shirdz.
This author, a grandson of the famous Shaykh Zarkub
of Shfraz, deserves mention on account of a monograph on
his native town, entitled Shirdz-ndma, which
Idm*" h e composed in 744/1343-4, and which is de-
scribed by Rieu 4 . Manuscripts of this work,
1 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 207-8.
2 This abstract, by a certain Mahmud Kutbi (?), is included in the
MS. published in fac-simile in the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial " Series
(vol. xiv, pp. 613-755 ; and vol. xiv, 2, pp. 151-207).
3 See my list of these MSS. in the/.-ff.AS. for Oct. 1917, pp. 670-1.
4 Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 204-5.
CH. v] NIZAM-I-SHAMf 361
which has never been published, are rare ; and it is a
matter of regret that the author has devoted his attention
in the biographical portion of the work so much more to
Shaykhs and holy men than to poets.
4. Mawldnd Nizdmu'd-Din Shdmi.
This writer, called Shamb-i-Ghazani after a mausoleum
erected for his own sepulture by the Mongol Ghazan Khan
two miles to the S.W. of Tabriz, is notable as
Nizam-i-Shdmi, .,
the earliest the author of the only known history of I imur
^Timdr' 510 " 2111 com pil e d during his life-time. This history, en-
titled, like the later and much more celebrated
book of Sharafu'd-Dm 'Ah' of Yazd, Zafar-ndma (" The
Book of Victory"), is extremely scarce, the only manuscript
which I know of being the British Museum codex (Add.
23,980), of which I possess a copy made for me by my
friend Dr Ahmad Khan. Our knowledge of Nizam-i-Shami
is chiefly derived from incidental remarks occurring in his
history, some of which are copied by his successor Shara-
fu'd-Din 'All, 'Abdu'r-Razzaq (in the Matla'us-Sa'dayri),
Mirkhwand and Khwandami'r. Rieu has admirably sum-
marized all that is known about this author 1 . He was
living at Baghdad when it was conquered by Timur in
795/1392-3, and was amongst the first who came out to
do homage to the conqueror, by whom he was graciously
received; and he describes the impression made on him
by the Tartar attack. In 803/1400-1 he was detained as
a prisoner at Aleppo, and describes an attack on the citadel
of which he was a witness. In 804/1401-2 Timur summoned
him to his presence and ordered him to write the history
of his reign and his conquests, placing at his disposal the
necessary records, memoranda and official papers 2 , and
bidding him especially avoid bombast and rhetoric, and
1 Pers. Cat., pp. 170-2 and 1081. Cf. p. 183 supra.
2 As has been already pointed out, the absence of any mention of
the so-called Institutes of Timur in this place is one of the strongest
arguments against their authenticity. See pp. 183-4 supra.
362 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
write in a simple and straightforward style which ordinary
people could understand. In 806/1403-4 he preached a
homily before Timur in his camp near Ardabi'l on the
occasion of the 'Id or Festival at the end of the Ramadan
fast (April 12, 1404). Soon afterwards Ti'mur set out for
his capital Samarqand, and allowed Nizam-i-Shami to
return "home" (apparently to Tabriz), furnishing him with
letters of recommendation to his grandson Prince 'Umar
Bahadur, son of Miran-shah, who had just been appointed
Governor of Persia; a post which he held until 808/1405-6,
when he was dispossessed by his brother Prince Abu Bakr.
It does not appear that the history was continued beyond
the year 806/1404, when Ti'mur, having enjoyed a brief
period of repose after his last Georgian campaign, set out
on his last return journey to his capital Samarqand, which
he quitted on December 28, 1404, on his projected campaign
against China. This campaign was rendered abortive by
Timur's death on March 19, 1405. Particulars of the last
year of his life, therefore, are not included in
zafar^dma of Nizam-i-Shami's work, but must be sought for
sharafu-d-Din j n t h e homonymous Zafar-ndma of Sharafu'd-
AH Yazoi "
Din 'Ah' Yazdf, who wrote in 828/1424-5 and
died thirty years later. Although he strictly belongs, there-
fore, to the period which will be discussed in the next
chapter, it will be more convenient to consider him here
in connection with the author of the original Zafar-ndma,
of which his later Zafar-ndma is essentially a more florid
and verbose enlargement, garnished with many more verses,
and increased in bulk by about fifty per cent.
5. Sharafu 'd-Din 'Alt Yazdi.
All that is known about this historian, either from his
own statements or from such books as the Jdmi'-i-Mufidt,
Matla'ds-Sa'dayn, Haft Iqlim, Tdrikh-i-Rashtdi, Habtbu's-
Latd'if-ndma, and Dawlatshah's "Memoirs of the
1 Vol. iii, pt 3, p. 148.
CH. v] SHARAFU'D-DfN 'ALf OF YAZD 363
Poets 1 ," is, as usual, admirably summarized by Rieu 2 . It
is as a poet writing under the nom de guerre of Sharaf,
and with a special skill in versifying riddles and acrostics
(mu'ammd) that he is mentioned by Dawlatshdh, who also
speaks in terms of exaggerated praise of his history of
Timur, the Zafar-ndma, on which his fame chiefly rests,
though its style is intolerably inflated and bombastic, and
its facts in spite of the author's implication that he col-
lected them from original documents and orally from old
men who had taken part in the events described appear
to have been mostly borrowed with little or no acknow-
ledgement from his predecessor Nizam-i-Shami, to whom
he is even indebted for many of his citations from the
Quran and from the poets. His work, however, has entirely
eclipsed that of his predecessor. It has been published at
Calcutta in the Bibliotheca Indica Series in two volumes
(1887-8), and translated into French by Petis de la Croix
(1722) 'and from the French into English by J. Darby
(1723). The author of the Haft Iqlim calls Sharafu'd-Dfn
" the noblest of the scholars of Persia in his time, and the
subtlest of the doctors of that period; luminous in ex-
position, sharp-tongued, conspicuous in merit, the illuminator
of every assembly, the adorner of every company " ; and, in
speaking of his Zafar-ndma, says that " no book so elegant
has ever been written in Persian on the science of history."
He adds that it was composed in 828/1424-5, a date ex-
* rt J
pressed by the chronogram j\j~* ^ \J^a (" It was composed
Other works b m Shiraz "), and that the author also wrote a
sharafu'd-Din treatise on riddles and acrostics; a commentary
on the celebrated Arabic poem in praise of the
Prophet entitled al-Burda (" The Mantle ") by al-Busm ;
a book on magical squares and lucky numbers, entitled
Kunhu'l- Murdd dar 'Ilm-i-Wafq-i-A'ddd; and a number
of odes, quatrains and mathnawi poems, of which he gives
only one short specimen.
1 Pp. 378-81 of my edition. 2 Pers. Cat., pp. 173-5.
364 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtiR'S TIME [BK n
"Sharafu'd-Di'n," says Rieu, "attained a position of great
eminence, no less by his learning and piety than by the rare
elegance of his style, and was for a long time the favourite
companion of Shah-rukh and of his son Mi'rza Ibrahim
Sultan. It is related in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi^ that the former
entrusted to his keeping and able tuition Yunus Khan, the
young Khan of the Moghuls, who had been captured in
832/1428-9 by Mi'rza Ulugh Bey, and who stayed with
Sharafu'd-Din till the latter's death. In 846/1442-3 Mi'rza
Sultan Muhammad, who had been appointed Governor
of 'Iraq and established his residence in Qum, invited
Sharafu'd-Di'n, who was then teaching crowds of pupils
in his native city, to his court, and kept him there as an
honoured guest and trusted adviser. When some years
later, in 850/1446-7, the Prince having raised the standard
of rebellion, Shah-rukh came with an army to Isfahan to
enforce his submission, and ordered several of his ill-advised
councillors for execution, Sharafu'd-Di'n, who was also ac-
cused of haying incited the Prince to revolt, was rescued
from danger by the timely interference of Mi'rza 'Abdu'l-
Lati'f, who, on the plea that his father, Mi'rza Ulugh Bey,
required the Mawlana's assistance for his astronomical
observations, despatched him to Samarqand. After the
death of Shah-rukh, Sultan Muhammad, then master of
Khurasan, gave him leave to go back to Yazd. Sharafu'd-
Di'n returned to his birthplace in 853/1449-1450, and
settled in the neighbouring village of Taft. He died there
in 858/1454, and was buried in the precincts of a college
built by himself and called after him Sharafiyya"
Some manuscripts of the Zafar-ndma contain "an Intro-
duction treating of the genealogy of the Turkish Khans and
of the history of Chingiz Khan and his descendants down
to the time of Timur 2 ." This was compiled in 822/1419,
1 See Erskine's History of India, vol. i, pp. 45 and 49 ; and the
History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, by N. Elias and E. D. Ross,
p. 74 (ch. xxxvi), and pp. 84-5 and 155.
2 Rieu, Pers. Cat., pp. 174-5.
CH. v] THE HURtiFt HERESY 365
six years earlier than the Zafar-ndma. It is instructive to
compare parallel sections of the histories of Nizamu'd-
Dfn Shami and Sharafu'd-Din 'AH Yazdi, so as to see how
the latter has amplified and embroidered the work of his
predecessor ; and, did space allow, it would not be without
interest to offer side by side translations of such parallel
passages, e.g. the account of the Battle of Angora (June 16,
1402), which resulted in the overthrow and capture of the
Ottoman Sultan Bayazi'd, called " the Thunder-bolt " ( Yil-
dirini). Since Sharafu'd-Di'n's later work, for all its faults
of taste and style, probably contains all or nearly all the
matter chronicled by Nizam-i-Shamf, it is doubtful whether
the work of the latter, though more desirable in itself on
account of its priority, as well as of its greater simplicity
and concision, will ever be published.
THE HURUFI SECT AND ITS FOUNDER, FADLU'LLAH
OF AST ARAB AD.
Before concluding this chapter, it is necessary to say
something about the strange heretical sect of
the ff urji ff s ( Literalists ") invented and pro-
pagated by a certain Fadlu'llah of Astarabad
in the reign of Timur ; a sect worthy of attention not only
on account of its extraordinary doctrines and considerable
literature (including not a little poetry, especially in Turkish),
but on account of events of some historical importance, per-
secutions on the one hand and assassinations on the other,
to which it gave rise. The sect does not seem to have main-
tained its position long in Persia, but it passed over into
Turkey and there found a suitable medium for its develop-
ment in the order of the Bektashi dervishes, who are at the
present day its chief if not its only representatives.
Concerning this sect and its founder the Persian historians
of the period are unaccountably silent, and the only reference
to it which I have met with occurs in the Mujmal of Fasihi
of Khwaf under the year 829/1426, and in a fuller form in
3 66 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
the Habibu's-Siyar 1 , which places the event described a year
later. On the 23rd Rabf ii, 829 (March 4, 1426), or on the
same day of the month of the following year (Feb. 21, 1427),
a certain Ahmad-i-Lur, described as " a disciple (murtct) of
Mawlana Fadlu'llah of Astarabad," on the usual pretence
of presenting a petition to Shah-rukh, Timur's son and suc-
cessor, stabbed him in the stomach as he was leaving the
mosque at Herat, without, however, inflicting a mortal
wound. The would-be assassin was killed on the spot by
one of the King's servants named 'AH Sultan Quchin ; a
fortunate thing for him, as he was undoubtedly saved
thereby from torture, but subsequently a matter of regret to
Mirzd Baysunqur and the nobles charged with the investiga-
tion of the matter, who were thus deprived of a valuable
clue. However, they found in the dead man's pocket the
key of a certain house, the tenants of which being examined
cast suspicion on a certain Mawlana Ma'ruf, a notable calli-
graphist, scholar and wit, who had formerly been in the
service of Sultan Ahmad-i-Jala'ir at Baghdad, and after-
wards in that of Mirza Iskandar of Shi'raz, whence Shah-rukh
had brought him to Herat. Here he had associated with
many men of letters, dervishes and others, and apparently
amongst them with Ahmad-i-Lur. Baysunqur Mfrza, who
had a private grudge against him, wished to put him to
death, but, after he had been brought beneath the gallows
several times, he was finally imprisoned in a dungeon of the
Castle of Ikhtiyaru'd-Dfn. Others, more unfortunate, were
put to death and their bodies burned. Amongst these was
Khwaja 'Adudu'd-Din, the grandson of Fadlu'llah of Astar-
abad the Hurufi. The poet Sayyid Qasimu'l-Anwar, of
whom we shall speak in another chapter, also incurred some
suspicion, and was expelled from Herat by Mi'rz& Bay-
sunqur.
1 Vol. iii, pt 3, pp. 127-8. I have published a full translation of the
passage in the Mujmal in the special number of the Mus/on pub-
lished by the Cambridge University Press in 1915, pp. 48-78. See
also Price's Retrospect, vol. iii, pt 2, pp. 546-7.
CH. v] THE gURUFf HERESY 367
One of the few notices of Fadlu'llah "al-Hurufi" which
Account of I have met with occurs in the Inbd of Ibn Hajar
JuWnnNbn 6 al-'Asqalani (died 852/I448-9) 1 and runs as
Hajar's Inbd folloWS :
" Fadlu'llah, the son of Abu Muhammad of Tabriz, was one of those
innovators who subject themselves to ascetic discipline. Imbued with
heretical doctrine, he finally evolved the sect known as the Huriifis,
pretending that the Letters \_Hur&f\ of the alphabet were metamor-
phoses of men, together with many other idle and baseless fancies. He
invited the Amir Timur the Lame [Tamerlane] to adopt his heresies,
but he sought to slay him. This came to the knowledge of his [Timur's]
son [Mfranshdh] with whom he [Fadlu'lldh] had sought refuge, and he
struck off his head with his own hand. When this was made known
to Timur, he demanded his head and body and burned them both in
this year 804/1401-2."
The doctrines of Fadlu'llah were originally set forth in
a most extraordinary book, written partly in Arabic, partly
in Persian, and partly in a dialect of Persian,
5^lT*' fn entitled Jdwiddn-i-Kabir (" the Great Eternal "),
of which manuscripts exist in the library of
St Sofia at Constantinople, at Leyden, in the British Museum
(Or. 5957), in the Cambridge University Library (EE. i. 27),
and in my own collection. The first European description
of this curious book was, I believe, the brief notice of the
Leyden MS. contained in vol. iv (p. 298) of the old Leyden
Catalogue of 1866, the author of which observes "alternum
exemplar non vidi obvium." A much fuller account of
the work was published by M. Clement Huart in the Journal
Asiatique for iSSp 2 under the title Notice d'un manuscrit
pehlevi-musulman, and was based on the Constantinople MS.,
which was apparently labelled not by its proper title but as
"Questions connected with the Qur'dn." M. Huart did not
concern himself with the contents so much as with the
language of this manuscript, which he did not at that time
1 This book is not accessible to me, but the passage in question is
cited by Fliigel at pp. vii-viii of the preface to vol. ii of his edition of
Hajji Khalffa's Kashfu'z-Zunun.
2 viii e SeVie, t xiv, pp. 238-70.
368 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtfR'S TIME [BK n
recognize as the Jdwiddn-i-Kabir, or as the chief text-book
of the Hurufis, or as the work of Fadlu'llah of Astarabad.
In my Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library
of the University of Cambridge^ published in 1896, I devoted
a long notice (pp. 69-86) to our excellent copy of the
Jdwiddn-i-Kabir, which was "bought at Constantinople,
Oct. 1 68 1, price ten Lion dollars." A feature of special
interest in this manuscript is an appendix containing ac-
counts, written in a dialect of Persian explained to some
extent by interlinear glosses in red, of a series of dreams
seen presumably by Fadlu'llah himself. Many of these are
dated, the earliest in 765/1363-4, "at a time before the
explanation of visions and interpretation of dreams was
vouchsafed"; the latest in 796/1393-4. They thus cover
a period of thirty years, and contain references to a number
of places and persons. Amongst the former are
Persons and r
places mentioned Astarabad, Baghdad, Baku, Burujird, Damghan,
in connection , , . , , _ . T . , .
with Fadiu'iiah's Kgypt, r iruz-kuh, Iraq, Isfahan (especially a
buildingtherecalled 'Imdrat-i- TukhjiQr Tuqcht),
Khwarazm, Mesopotamia (Jazfra), Qazwin, Samarqand,
Tabriz, and the two celebrated strongholds of the Assassins,
Rudbar (near Astarabad) and the Fortress of Gird-i-Kuh.
Amongst the latter are Amir Tfmur (Tamerlane), " King "
Uways 1 , Tuqtamish Khan 2 , Pir Pasha, Sayyid 'Imadu'd-
Din (i.e. the Turkish Hurufi poet Nesimi 3 ), Sayyid Shamsu
'd-Dfn, Sayyid Taju'd-Din, Khwaja Fakhru'd-Dfn, Khwaja
Hasan, Khwaja Bayazi'd, Mawlana Kamalu'd-Dfn, Mawlana
Mahmud, Mawlana Majdu'd-Din, Mawlana Qiwamu'd-Din,
Mawlana Sadru'd-Din, Shaykh Hasan, Shaykh Mansur,
Malik 'Izzu'd-Din, Amir Shams, Darwfsh Tawakkul, Dar-
wish Musafir, Darwish Kamalu'd-Din, 'Abdu'r-Rahim, 'Ab-
du'1-Qadir, Husayn Kiya, 'Umar-i-Sultaniyya, and Yusuf
of Damghan.
1 Presumably Shaykh Uways the Jald'ir, who reigned 757-777/1356-
1375. 2 See p. 321 supra.
3 See Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, pp. 343-68. He
was flayed alive for heresy in 820/1417-18.
CH. v] TURKISH HURUFf POETS 369
The accounts of these dreams, even with the aid of the
interlinear glosses which explain most of the words in dialect,
are very elliptical and difficult to understand, being ap-
parently mere memoranda sufficient to recall the vision to
the memory of the writer. They seem to form no part of
the Jdwiddn-i-Kabir, and do not, I think, occur in most
copies of it.
On Oct. 23, 1896, soon after the publication of my
Catalogue, my friend the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb called my
attention in a letter to the fact that in several Turkish bio-
graphies of poets (such as those of Lati'fi and ' Ashiq Chelebi)
the Turkish poet Nesimf mentioned in the last paragraph
but one is described as "the Hurufi," and his connection
with Fadlu'llah is established by some of his own verses, e.g.:
" If thou would'st gain knowledge of wisdom's lore, come hither, O sage ;
Hearken to the speech of Nesimi and behold the Grace of God"
[Fadlu'llah] !
Mr Gibb, following up this clue, devoted a chapter (the
seventh, pp. 336-388) in the first volume of his
Sifthe'hutot 65 History of Ottoman Poetry to the Hurufis, and
of the Turkish especially to two of the Turkish Hurufi poets,
Hurufis r J
Nesimi 1 and Refi'i, of whom the latter was a
disciple of the former. Mr Gibb was unable to trace the
Hurufis beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, but
gives (pp. 381 et seqq.} two interesting extracts from Turkish
chronicles showing the fierce persecution of which the sect
was on several occasions the object. The first extract (from
the Memoirs of Turkish Divines entitled Shaqd'iqu'n-Nu'-
mdniyya, which Gibb renders as "the Crimson Peony")
1 Nesimi, who was a native of Baghdad, was bilingual, and his
Diivdn includes a Persian as well as a Turkish section. Both were
printed at Constantinople in one thin volume in 1298/1881. Mr Gibb
calls Nesfmi " the first true poet of the Western Turks, the only true
poet of this far-off period."
B. P. 24
370 POETS & WRITERS OF TIMOR'S TIME [BK n
relates how the Persian Mufti of Constantinople, Fakhru'd-
Din-i-'Ajami, a pupil of as-Sayyid ash-Sharif al-Jurjani 1 ,
seized and caused to be burned to death as heretics certain
Hurufis who had succeeded in gaining the confidence and
favour of the reigning Sultan Muhammad II, the "Conqueror"
of Constantinople, who, apparently, for all his power, was
unable to protect them from the fury of the 'ulamd and the
fanaticism of the orthodox. It is even related that the Mufti
was so carried away by his religious zeal that, in blowing the
fire kindled for his victims, he singed the long beard for
which he was conspicuous. The second extract (from
Latffi's Biographies of Turkish poets) denounces the heresies
and " blasphemous nonsense " of a Huruff poet named Ta-
manna'i, who with others of the sect was put to death by
sword and fire in the reign of Sultan Bayazid, who, as we
have seen above 2 , was defeated by Ti'mur at the Battle of
Angora in 804/1402 and died soon after. As it was in this
same year that Fadlu'llah the Huruff was put to death 3 , it
is evident that his doctrines had become widely diffused
(from Astarabad to Adrianople) even during his life-time,
and that they aroused the fiercest execration of the orthodox.
Mr Gibb says that as he had failed to discover any record of
later movements on the part of the Hurufis, he was inclined
to think that the activity of the sect did not extend much
beyond the close of the fifteenth century ; and that such
organization as it may have possessed was probably de-
stroyed in the persecutions to which it was sub-
The BektAshi . j 1.1 c TH ' i T> .1
Order of der- jected in the reign of Bayazid. But as a matter
vishesisthe Q f f act their activity continues down to the
present reposi-
tory of Hunifi present day, the Bektashi dervishes being still
doctrines . _
the representatives and repositonesof the Hurufi
1 See p. 355 supra.
2 Pp. 197-9 supra. Gibb thinks that Bayazfd II (reigned 886-
918/1481-1512) is meant, since in his reign, in 897/1492, there was,
according to the historian Sa'du'd-Dm, a fierce persecution of "the
Qalandars " in consequence of an attempt on the Sultan's life made by
one of them.
3 See p. 367 supra, but compare also p. 374.
CH. v] HURUFfS AND BEKTASHfS DENOUNCED 371
doctrines. As lately as 1291/1874-5 there was published
a Turkish denunciation of the sect entitled " the Revealer
of Mysteries and Repeller of Miscreants : a Refutation of
the Doctrines and Practices of the Hurufis and Bektashis,"
by Ishaq Efendi, who is very well informed concerning the
matters about which he writes and gives a clear and accurate
account of the doctrines which he denounces. He divides
his treatise into three chapters, of which the first treats of
the origin of Fadl[u'llah] the Hurufi', and the principles and
laws of certain of the Bektashis ; the second of the blas-
phemies of Firishta-zada's Jdwiddn ; and the third of the
blasphemies contained in the other Jdwiddns. He men-
tions a persecution of the Bektashis by Sultan Mahmud in
1241/1825-6, in which the Turkish poet 'Arif Hikmat Bey
acted as chief inquisitor ; and says that he was moved to the
compilation and publication of his work by the impudence
of the Bektashis in daring to print and publish the 'Ishq-ndma,
or " Book of Love," of Firishta-zada ('Abdu'l-Majfd ibn
Firishta Tzzu'd-Din) in 1288/1871-2. He says that "the
books which these persons (i.e. the Bektashis or Hurufis)
call Jdwiddn are six in number, of which one was composed
by their original misleader Fadlu'llah the Hurufi, while the
other five are the works of his Khaltfas" (Vice-gerents or
Successors). "In these five books," he adds, "their heresies
and blasphemies are very evident, and they are wont to
teach and study them secretly amongst themselves " ; but
" Firishta-zada in his Jdwiddn, entitled 'Ishq-ndma, did in
some measure conceal his blasphemies."
" After a while," continues the author, " the evil doctrines of those
heretics became known amongst men, and the son of Timur \yiz.
Mfrinshah] caused Fadl the Hurufi to be put to death, after which he
tied a rope to his legs, had him dragged publicly through the streets
and bazaars, and rid this nether world of his vile existence.
" Thereupon his Khalifas (vicars or lieutenants) agreed to disperse
themselves through the lands of the Muslims, and devoted themselves
to corrupting and misleading the people of Islam. He of those Khalifas
who bore the title of al-'Ali al-A'ld ('the High, the Supreme') came to
the monastery of Hajji Bektash in Anatolia and there lived in seclusion,
242
372 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtf R'S TIME [BK n
secretly teaching the Jdividdn to the inmates of the monastery, with
the assurance that it represented the doctrine of Hajji Bektash the
saint (waif). The inmates of the monastery, being ignorant and foolish,
accepted the Jdividdn, notwithstanding that its obvious purport was
the denial of all divine obligations and the pandering to the lusts of the
flesh ; named it 'the secret' ; and enjoined the utmost reticence concerning
it, to such a degree that if anyone enters their order and afterwards
reveals ' the secret,' they consider his life as forfeit. By this their so-
called ' secret' are meant certain blasphemous passages in \h&Jdwiddn,
hinted at by detached letters like alif (1), vudw (*),jim (~,), and zayn ( ;),
for the interpreting of which symbols they have compiled a treatise
entitled 'the Key of Life' (Miftdhu'l-Haydt). This they name 'the
Secret,' and should one possess it he understands the Jdwiddn, which
without this aid is unintelligible. They were thus careful to conceal
their secret for fear lest the doctors of religion (^ulama) should obtain
some inkling of its nature and should suppress it ; and thus, since
800/1397-8, they have succeeded in secretly seducing many."
The author then goes on to expose and denounce the
different tricks and stratagems by which they strive to win
men, both Muslims and non-Muslims, to their heresies, and
adds :
" From all this it is plain that these people [the Bektashis] are not
really Shf'ites, but are essentially a polytheistic sect [Mushrikuri^ who,
though unable to win over to themselves the Jews and Christians, how-
ever much they affirm their doctrines, do attract some of those Muslims
who are partial to the Shi'ite doctrine. So when I questioned certain
Bektashi neophytes, they declared themselves to be of the Ja'fari [i.e.
the Imami or Shi'a] sect, and knew nothing of the mysteries of the
Jdividdn, imagining themselves to be of the Shf'a. But when I enquired
of a learned Persian traveller named Mi'rza Safa his opinion concerning
the Bektashis, he replied, ' I have associated much with them, and have
carefully investigated their religion, and they deny [the necessity of]
actions prescribed by the Holy Law.' He thus decisively declared
their infidelity. We take refuge with God from their ignorance ! "
During the Easter Vacation of 1897 1 had the opportunity
of examining with some care two Hurufi manuscripts be-
longing to the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris 1 , which I
described in the J.R.A.S. for 1898 (pp. 61-94) in an article
1 They bear the class-marks Ancien Fonds Persan 24, and Suppl.
Persan 107.
The Istiiud-
ntima
CH. v] HURtiFf MSS. DISCOVERED 373
entitled " Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of
the Hunan' Sect." One of these MSS., dated 970/1562-3,
contains the Istiwd-ndma of Amir Ghiyathu'd-
Dfn, a mathnawi poem in Persian on Alexander
the Great's quest after the Water of Life, and
a glossary of the dialect words occurring in the Jdwiddn-i-
Kabtr. The other, dated 895/1489-90, contains
the Mahabbat-ndma, of which there is reason
to believe that Fadlu'llah himself was the
author.
Nine years later, in the J.R.A.S. for 1907, I published
another article on this subject entitled " Further Notes on
the Literature of the Hurufis and their connection with the
Bektashf Order of Dervishes," in which I described 43 Hu-
rufi MSS. recently acquired by the British Museum, the
Cambridge University Library, and myself. Concerning
the manner in which these MSS. were obtained I then wrote
as follows :
"The connection of the Hurufis with the Bektashis first became
known to me in the following manner. About three years after the
publication of the article to which I have referred above, a certain
dealer in Oriental manuscripts in London, a native of Baghdad, from
whom I had already purchased a number of MSS., invited me to furnish
him with a list of my desiderata, in order that he might submit the same
to his correspondents in the East. I did so, and mentioned in my list
the JdwidAn-ndma or any other Hurufi books. Shortly afterwards (in
Feb.-March, 1901) he forwarded to me a parcel of manuscripts in
which was included a copy of this work (now in the British Museum,
marked Or. 5957) besides some other books of the sort in question.
The prices set on these MSS. were high, but some half-dozen were
secured by the Cambridge University Library, while five or six more
were purchased by the British Museum, and now bear the class-marks
Or- 5957-O r - 5Q6i-
" The comparatively high prices realized by these MSS. seem to have
stimulated the search for other similar ones, and gradually, as the
supply not only continued but increased, it became clear that these
Hurufi books existed in considerable quantities, and were still widely
read and copied in the East, especially in Turkey. Prices consequently
fell rapidly, and latterly few of these MSS. have fetched more than 2
or ^3 in the limited market where the demand for them existed. Nor
374 POETS & WRITERS OF TfMtJR'S TIME [BK n
was it long before we discovered that it was from the Bektashf dervishes
that they were, in almost all cases, directly or indirectly derived, and
that it is amongst the members of this Order that the Hurufi doctrines
flourish at the present day."
Amongst the MSS. described in this article are two or
three treatises dealing with the biography and teachings of
Hajji Bektash, from whom the Order in question derives
its name, and who died in 73 8/ 13 37-8 1 , two years before
the birth of Fadlu'llah the Huruff. This latter date, with
five others connected with the early history of the sect, is
recorded on the fly-leaf of one of the British Museum MSS.
(Or. 6381) as follows :
(l). Birth of Fadlu'llah, 740/1339-1340.
(2) Manifestation or annunciation of his doctrine, 788/
1386-7.
(3) Martyrdom of Fadlu'lldh, 796/1 393-4, aged 56 lunar
years.
(4) Death of his Khalifa " Hadrat-i-'Aliyyu'l-A'la,"
822/1419.
(5) Death of Timur's son Mi'ranshah (whom the Hurufis
called "Antichrist," Dajjdl, and " the King of Snakes," Md-
rdn-shdh\ who slew Fadlu'llah, 803/1400-1.
From a verse on the same page it would appear that
Fadlu'llah performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in 775/1373-4.
On a page of another of these MSS. in the British Museum
(Or. 6380, f. 24) is inscribed a curious document which
appears to be Fadlu'llah's last Will and Testament. From
this, of which the text and translation are printed in full in
the article in question 2 , it would appear that he was put to
death at Shirwan. The article concludes with a complete
index of all the books and persons mentioned in it. The
titles of most of the books, whether Persian or Turkish, end
in ndma; e.g. Adam-ndma ("the Book of Adam "), Akhirat-
1 The authority for this date is Mu'allim Najf (Esdmt, p. 106). By
a curious coincidence this date is yielded by the sum of the letters
composing the word Bektdshiyya, the name of the order.
2 Pp. 9-10 of the separate reprint from the J. JR. A. S. for July, 1907.
CH. v] A FRENCH WORK ON THE HURtfFfS 375
ndma ("the Book of the Hereafter"), 'Arsh-ndma ("the
Book of the Throne "), Bashdrat-ndma (" the Book of Good
Tidings "), etc.
In 1909 there was published in the "E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial " Series a volume (vol. ix) containing translations
into French of several Hurufi treatises, with explanatory
notes, etc., by M. Cle'ment Huart, followed by a study of
the Hurufi doctrines (also in French) by Dr Riza Tevfiq,
commonly known in Turkey as " Feylesiif Rizd " or " Riza
the Philosopher," a man remarkable for his attainments in
the learning of both East and West, and an adept in all
that appertains to the various Dervish Orders of Turkey,
especially the Bektashi's. This volume, by far the most
important independent work on the subject, is a rich mine
of information on the strange and fantastic doctrines of a
sect which, though its very name seems to have been un-
known in Europe twenty years ago, played a not unimportant
part in the history of Western Asia. Its characteristic
doctrines, equally ingenious and grotesque, are pretty fully
discussed in the books and articles mentioned above, to
which such as desire fuller knowledge of them may be
referred.
BOOK III.
FROM THE DEATH OF TfMUR TO THE
RISE OF THE SAFAWf DYNASTY
(A.H. 807-907 = A.D. 1405-1502).
CHAPTER VI.
HISTORY OF THE LATER TIMURID PERIOD.
The century which we are now about to consider is in its
latter part one of those chaotic and anarchical periods which,
character of the m P ers i an history, commonly follow the death of
century which a great conqueror and empire-builder. It in-
forms the subject 11.1 /-^ITTLI T-
of the remainder eludes the rise of the Uzbek power m Trans-
of this volume oxiana ; the gradual decay and disruption of the
vast empire built up by Tfmur at so great a cost of blood
and suffering; the successive domination of two Turkman
dynasties known as the "Black" and "White Sheep" (Qdra-
qoyiinlii and Aq-qoyiinlii) ; and the appearance and triumph
of the Safawis, the greatest of modern Persian dynasties,
who may be regarded in a certain sense as the creators, or
at least the restorers, of Persian national sentiment in
modern times. It begins with the death of Ti'mur in 8o7/
1405, and ends with the Battle of Shurur, in 907/1501-2, in
which Shah Isma'il the Safawi utterly defeated the "White
Sheep" Turkmans, made Tabriz his capital, and was crowned
king of Persia; though it took him some years to extend
his sway over the whole country, until, as Stanley Lane-
Poole says, "his dominions stretched from the Oxus to the
Persian Gulf, from Afghanistan to the Euphrates."
When examined more closely, this period of a century
is seen to fall naturally into two unequal halves, divided by
The death of tne death of Tfmur's third son Shah-rukh in
Snah-rukhin 850/1446-7. As long as he lived and reigned,
1446 divides this . . . . . e .^
period into two he succeeded, in spite of numerous revolts on
dissimilar pans ^g p art o f hj s kinsmen, in maintaining almost
in its integrity the empire conquered by his father, which,
however, after his death underwent rapid disintegration at
the hands first of the "Black" and then of the "White Sheep"
380 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
Turkmans, and lastly of the Uzbeks, until these in their
turn, together with the remnants of the House of Timur,
were swept aside by the victorious Shah Isma'il the Safawi.
But though the House of Timur was driven out of Persia,
The Timurids it was still destined to play a splendid part in
after their expui- India, where Zahiru'd-Din Muhammad Babur,
sion from Persia, , , ' r _, . , , .
play a brilliant *C great-great-great-grandson of I imur, driven
pan in India ou t by the Uzbeks from his own principality of
Farghana, founded the dynasty commonly known in Europe
as the " Great Moguls," which endured there for more than
three centuries and finally disappeared in the great Mutiny
of 1857. With the "Great Moguls" of India we are not
directly concerned in this book, save in so far as they came
into relations with the Persian Safawis ; but though the
political importance of the later Tfmurids in Persia con-
tinually decreased after the death of Shah-rukh, the courts
of their diminished realms continued to be a centre of
literary activity, enriched by the presence of numerous cele-
brated poets and men of letters, while several princes of
this House, notably Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn b. Mansur
b. Bayqara, Ulugh Beg, Baysunqur and the great Bibur him-
self, made notable contributions to literature or science, and
Mfr 'Ah' ShirNawa'f, Ministerof Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn,
was at once a notable poet (especially in the Turki tongue)
and a generous patron of men of letters, so that the literary
splendour of Herat under the later Timurids is comparable
to that of Ghazua under Sultan Mahmud.
From the political point of view the most important
representatives of the dynasties mentioned above were
Shah-rukh of the House of Ti'mur ; Qara Yusuf of the
"Black Sheep" Turkmans; Uzun Hasan of the "White
Sheep" Turkmans; Shaybani Khan of the Uzbeks; and,
chief of all, Shah Isma'il the founder of the great Safawi
dynasty. Of Uzun ("Tall" or "Long") Hasan
to^zd^HasaiT we P ossess contemporary European accounts
in the narratives of Caterino Zeno, Josafa
Barbaro and Ambrosio Contarini, ambassadors from Venice
CH.VI] VENETIAN ENVOYS IN PERSIA 381
to this great ruler (whom they variously call "Ussun
Cassano" and "Assambei"), whose assistance against the
increasingly formidable power of the Ottoman Turks they
desired to gain. They successively visited Persia for this
purpose between the years A.D. 1471 and 1478, and their
narratives, full of interest and life-like touches seldom found
in the pages of Persian historians of this period, have been
published in English by the Hakluyt Society in a volume
entitled Six Narratives of Travel in Persia by Italians in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries^.
Before considering in greater detail these Turkman
dynasties of the "Black" and "White Sheep," the history
of the House of Ti'mur, so far as its connection
Timiir's sons ?. i i i
with Persia is concerned, must be briefly traced.
Ti'mur had four sons and a daughter. Of his sons the eldest,
Jahangir, predeceased his father by thirty years; and the
second, 'Umar Shaykh Mi'rza,by ten years. The third, Mfrdn-
shah, survived him by three years, but fell into disgrace and
appears to have become affected in his reason. The fourth
was Shah-rukh, who practically succeeded his father, and
had a long and prosperous reign of forty-three years (807-
850/1404-1447). Ti'mur's intention was that Jahdngir's son
Pir Muhammad should succeed him, but he was defeated
by his cousin Khalil Sultan, son of Mi ran shah, who succeeded
in taking possession of Samarqand and gaining
Kham'suitdn *^ e su PP or t of several powerful nobles, and was
finally murdered two years after his grandfather's
death by his trusted minister 'All Taz or Pir 'All. Khalil
Sultdn, though not without parts, was undone by his infatua-
tion for the courtesan Shad Malak, whose extravagant whims
he was ever ready to gratify, to the disgust of his nobles
and officers, who, headed by the two Khuda-dads and Bardi
1 The three other narratives are the Discourse of Giovan Battista
Ramusio on the "writings of Giovan Maria Angioletto...in which are
narrated the life and deeds of Ussun Cassano; the Travels of a Merchant
in Persia (in the time of Shah Isma'fl) ; and the Narrative of Vincentio
tf Allesandri, Venetian Ambassador to Shdh Tahmasp.
382 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
Beg, presently rose against him, deposed him, and banished
him to Kashghar. Thereupon his uncle Shah-rukh marched
in and took possession, but had sufficient kindliness to re-
unite the unhappy Khah'l to his beloved Shad Malak, who
showed her appreciation of his devotion by stabbing herself
with a poniard when he died. The two were buried together
in the same tomb at Ray 1 . Khah'l Sultan was not only a
generous patron of poets but himself wrote verse, of which
several specimens are recorded by Dawlatshah 2 .
Shah-rukh, who now succeeded to the throne, was born
in 779/1377, and was therefore 28 years of age at the time
of his accession. He had been made governor
ShAh-rukh
(reigned A.D. of Khurasan in his twentieth year (799/1396-7),
1404-1447) anc j wag a j reac jy practically absolute in that
province and struck coins in his own name. His dominions
were successively enlarged by the addition of Mazandar^n
(809/1406-7), Transoxiana(8n/i4o8-9),Fars(8i7/i4i4-5),
Kirman (819/1416-7) and Adharbayjan (823/1420). The
attempt on his life by Ahmad-i-Lur, alluded to in the last
chapter 3 , was made in 830/1427, and he finally died at Ray
in 850/1447, after a reign of 43 years at the age of 72. He
waged successful wars against the rulers of the "Black
Sheep" dynasty, Qara Yiisuf and his son Iskandar, but on
the whole, as Sir John Malcolm says 4 , "he desired not to
extend, but to repair, the ravages committed by his father.
He rebuilt the walls of the cities of Herat and Merv, and
restored almost every town and province in his dominions
to prosperity. This Prince also encouraged men of science
and learning, and his Court was very splendid. He culti-
vated the friendship of contemporary monarchs, and we read
in the pages of his historian a very curious account of some
1 This is Sir John Malcolm's version (Hist, of Persia, ed. 1815,
vol. i, p. 486), for which his authority is De Guignes. Dawlatshah,
however (p. 354), says that the rebellious nobles cut off Shdd Malak's
ears and nose, and makes no mention of her reunion with Khah'l
Sultan.
2 Pp. 355-6 of my edition.
3 See p. 366 supra. 4 Op. tit., \, p. 487.
X
SHAH-RUKH
Add. 7468 (Brit. Mus.), f. 44
To face p. 382
CH. vi] CHARACTER OF SHAH-RUKH 383
embassies which passed between him and the Emperor of
China 1 ."
With this estimate of Shah-rukh's character the most
recent native historian of Persia, Mirza Muhammad Husayn
Khan Zukaul-Mulk, poetically surnamed Fu-
charaoeriJ rAghijs in complete agreement 2 . " After Timur,"
depicted by he says, "his son Mirza Shah-rukh sat in the
place of his father. He was a successor who
was the exact opposite of his predecessor, a peaceful and
placable man, never prone to war and contention, save with
seditious rebels and such as sought means to create dis-
turbances in the empire, whom he deemed it necessary to
suppress. In brief, the Empire founded by Timur was
refined by the efforts of Mirza Shah-rukh, who during a
long period busied himself in repairing the devastation
wrought by his father, and in informing himself as to the
condition of his subjects and compassing their happiness.
It is an extraordinary fact that the son of one so hard-
hearted should be so kindly, amiable, gracious and friendly
to learning, showing favour and courtesy to all, especially
to scholars and men of parts. Ogotay Khan, the son of
Chingiz Khan, had a somewhat similar disposition and
practice, and in particular he has left on the page of history
a great reputation for generosity, so that he has been entitled
'the Hatim 3 of later days'; and we have met with many
anecdotes concerning his liberality and tenderness of heart
in the pages of former writers."
Dawlatshah 4 is equally flattering, and, with his usual
exaggeration, goes so far as to say that " from the time of
1 He received an embassy of Khidr Khn from India in 824/1421,
and sent one to the Turkish Sultdn Mura"d (Amurath) II in 839/1435-6.
(Munajjim-ba'shfs Sahtfifu'l-Akhbdr^ vol. iii, pp. 56-7.) Further
mention of the embassies to China and India will be made later on
in this chapter.
2 Tdrikh-i-frdn, lith. Tihrdn, A.H. 1323 (1905), pp. 266-7.
3 Hitim of the tribe of Tayy was celebrated amongst the old Arabs
for his generosity.
4 Pp. 336-8 of my edition.
384 HISTORY OF LATER TfMttRID PERIOD [BK in
Adam until this our day no age, period, cycle or moment
can be indicated in which the people enjoyed such peace
The same an< ^ tranquillity as they did in his [Shah-rukh's]
according to days." He adds that such were the virtues of
this Prince that he was credited with miraculous
gifts and knowledge of the Unseen. Of the two instances
of this which Dawlatshah gives, one rests on the authority
of his father, who was one of his familiar attendants. Ulti-
mately,however,accordingtothis writer, Shcih-rukh incurred
the Divine displeasure by putting to death three learned
and pious men of Isfahan whom he suspected of having
encouraged his grandson Sultan Muhammad Baysunqur in
his revolt against him. These cursed him ere they died,
and "the doors of Heaven being open, the prayers of those
innocent and illustrious victims were answered ; the seed of
that highly-placed king was cut off, and the sovereignty
returned to its original source." Amongst the many artists,
poets and men of learning contemporary with Shah-rukh
Dawlatshah 1 mentions four in particular as conferring special
lustre on his court, namely 'Abdu'l-Qadir of Maragha the
musician (who is mentioned by Munajjim-bdshi^ as one of
the eminent victims of the plague which afflicted Herat in
838/1434-5), Yusuf of Andakan the minstrel, Qiwamu'd-
Dfn the engineer and architect, and Mawlana Khah'l the
painter, who in skill was "second only to Mam" (Manes).
The Turkish historian Munajjim-bdshP speaks not less
favourably than the writers already cited of Shah-rukh's
character. " He was," says he, " a wise, just,
The same . .
according to prudent and benevolent king, prone to forgive
Munajjim-bashi and tQ do sood ^ devout) temperate and pious,
so that alike at home and on the march, nay, even in time
1 P. 340 of my edition.
2 Sahifitl-Akhbdr,vQ\. iii,p. 57 (Constantinople, A.H. 1285). This
useful history was originally composed in Arabic by Ahmad-Dede
Efendi ibn Lutfu'llah, and comes down to 1083/1672. The Turkish
translation was made in 1132/1720 by Ahmad b. Muhammad Nadfm
for the Grand Wazir Damad Ibrahim Pasha.
3 Ibid., p. 58.
CH. vi] SHAH-RUKH AND BAYSUNQUR 385
of war and battle, he never neglected the morning, noon and
evening prayers, while on ' white days ' and on the first day
of each month he used to fast, and on the eve of Fridays,
Mondays and Thursdays he used to assemble those who
knew the QuSdn by heart and cause them to recite the entire
scripture in his presence. During the whole period of his
life he never knowingly committed a major sin. He con-
tinually sought the society of learned and pious men, on
whom he conferred the greatest benefits and favours. He
never suffered defeat, but was always favoured by fortune
and victorious. To whatever land he went, he first of all
used to visit any shrine which might exist there." His
empire, in the words of the same writer, extended " from
the confines of China to the frontiers of Rum (Turkey in
Asia), and from the remotest parts of Turkistan to the limits
of India."
Of Shah-rukh's five sons 1 only one, Ulugh Beg, survived
to succeed him. Of the other four Baysunqur, who died of
drink (the curse of this family) in 837/1433 at
Baysunqur Mirzd ..
the age of 37, was, perhaps, the most talented 2 ,
and the greatest patron of art and learning, to whose court
flocked poets, artists, scholars, calligraphists, miniature-
painters, book-binders and illuminators from 'Irdq, Fdrs,
Adharbayjan, and all parts of Persia. In connection with
Persian literature he is chiefly associated with the preface
prefixed to the Shdh-ndma of Firdawsi in his name and
composed for him in 829/1426. The following chronogram
of his death is given in the Habibu's-Siyar:
j\J A&9 Ui
1 The remaining three sons were Abu'1-Fath Ibrahim (^838/1434-5),
who was the patron of the historian Sharafu'd-Dm 'AH of Yazd ;
Suyurghatmish (d. 830/1426-7) ; and Muhammad Juki (d. 848/1444-5).
2 Habibu's-Siyar, vol. iii, part 3, p. 131 ; Munajjim-bashfs Sahd-
'iftfl-Akhbdr, vol. iii, p. 66. He was especially interested in calligraphy.
B. P. 25
386 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtJRID PERIOD [BK in
" In the morning that august prince B^ysunqur said to me,
' Tell tidings of me to the people of the world :
I am gone, and this is the date of my death
May my father's life be long in the world 1 !'"
Shah-rukh died near Ray on March 13, 1447, and, as
stated above, was succeeded, though not peaceably, by his
son Ulugh Beg, who had during his father's
UlughBeg , *
life-time been governor or 1 uran or 1 urkistan.
It was during this period, in 824/1421, that he built at
Samarqand his celebrated observatory, where, with the col-
laboration of four eminent men of learning, Salahu'd-Dm
Musa, called Qadi-Zada-i-Rumi ("the Turkish Judge's son") ;
Mulla 'Ala'u'd-Di'n 'All Qiishjf, the commentator of the
Tajrid; Ghiyathu'd-Din Jamshid; and Mu'inu'd-Din of
Kashan, he compiled the notable astronomical tables known
as the Zij-i- Ulugh Beg, or Zij-i-jadid-i-Sultdni, which were
probably completed in 841/1437-8, and concerning which
full particulars are given by Rieu 2 .
Ulugh Beg, as already indicated, did not at once succeed
in establishing his supremacy, which was contested by
'Ala'u'd-Dawla, who seized Herat and cast
Ulugh Beg is
murdered by his ' Abdu'l-Latif, the son of Ulugh Beg, into prison.
Nor did his authority, when established, endure
long, for he was killed at the instigation of his son, the
above-mentioned 'Abdu'l-Latif, on Ramadan 10,853 (October
27, 1449) by a certain 'Abbas, the year of this tragic
event being given by the chronogram ' 'Abbas killed \hini\
'Abdu'l-Latif, not content with the murder of his father,
also murdered his brother 'Abdu'l-'Aziz, but did not long
profit by his crime, for he in turn was murdered
'Abdu'l-Latif .,- ,. n./uj'
in the ensuing year, 854/1450, by a certain Joaba
1 The sum of the letters composing this hemistich gives 837, the
date of Baysunqur's death.
2 Persian Catalogue, pp. 455-7, where the European editions and
translations of this work are enumerated. See also Clements Markham's
History of Persia, p. 224 ad calc.
CH. vi] ULUGH BEG AND 'ABDU'L-LATfF 387
Husayn, this date, curiously enough, being given by the
chronogram Bdbd Husayn killed \hini\ (c-JL^s O*~* > ^)-
Mfrkhwand, in recording this event, cites the well-known
dictum of the poet Nizami as to the short-lived prosperity
of royal parricides :
"The parricide is unworthy of sovereignty:
[Even] if he attains it, he will not survive more than six months."
"This'Abdu'l-Latff," says the Turkish historian Munajjim
Bdsht 1 , "was a talented and accomplished man, but very
impetuous, blood-thirsty and pitiless, so that men's hearts
were turned aside from him. With his death the succession
of Ulugh Beg came to an end in Transoxiana."
From this period onwards until its extinction in Persia
the House of Tfmur rapidly declined in power, cohesion
and territorial possessions, and even the suc-
'Abdu'llahb. . f , u
ibrahimSuitanb. cession of rulers is somewhat uncertain, or, to
be more precise, it is uncertain which should be
accounted supreme and which subordinate. Thus Stanley
Lane-Poole 2 regards 'Abdu'llah, the son of Ibrahim Sultan,
the son of Shah-rukh, as the successor of 'Abdu'l-Latif ;
while Mfrkhwand substitutes Mfrza Abu'l-Qasim Babur
(not the great Babur), the son of Baysunqur, the son of
Shah-rukh. He died in 861/1456-7. having lost
Abu'l-Qasim '
Babur b. 'Iraq, Fars and Kirman four years previously
Baysunqur ^ J ah nsh hj SQn Q f Q ar Y USUf of the " Black
Sheep " Turkmans, and killed his brother Sultan Muham-
mad, the expelled ruler of Fars, in battle.
Mfrza 'Ala'u'd-Dawla, another son of Baysunqur, was
acting as governor of Herat at the time of his grandfather
Shah-rukh's death, but, after a certain show of
b^Mysunq^ 13 opposition, he made peace with Ulugh Beg and
Babur, and contented himself with the govern-
ment of a district extending from Khabushan in Khurasan
1 Op. tit., vol. iii, p. 65.
2 Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 268.
252
3 88 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
to Astarabad and Damghan. In 852/1448-9 he was defeated
by Ulugh Beg near Herat and driven into Badakhshan and
the Plain of Qipchaq. After various vicissitudes, including
sundry wars with his brothers and a period of allegiance to
Jahan-shah, the "Black Sheep" Turkman and enemy of his
House, he finally died in 875/1470-1. His son Ibrahim,
having escaped from the custody of his uncle Abu'l-Qasim
Babur, fled to Murghab and there collected a considerable
army. He occupied Herat and defeated his
^AidVcUDawia c o usm Mfrz Shah Mahmud, whom he was
preparing to crush at Astardbad when be was
suddenly attacked by the redoubtable "Black Sheep" Turk-
man Jahanshah. Abandoning Herat he fled before the
invader, but returned on the withdrawal of the latter, only
to suffer defeat at the hands of Sultan Abu Sa'i'd. He died
in 863/1458-9 on the march from Damghan to Mashhad,
and his cousin and rival, the above-mentioned Mfrza Shah
Mahmud, was killed in the same year.
Sultan Abu Sa'fd, the grandson of Miranshah,is described
by Mirkhwand in the Rawdatus-Safd as " supreme amongst
the princes of the House of Timur in high em-
Sultan Abu
Sa'id b. Sultan prise, lofty rank and perfect discernment. He
Muhammad b. r J J c i i ^11-
was a iriend and patron of scholars, theologians
Timur anc j men O f letters, and during the period of
his rule the lands of Turkistan, Turan, Khurasan, Zabulistan,
Sfstan and Mazandaran attained the zenith of prosperity."
He had in early life been attached to the court of his ac-
complished kinsman Ulugh Beg, whose son 'Abdu'l-Latif,
after murdering his father as already related, cast Abu Sa'fd
into prison, whence, owing to the negligence of the sentries,
he escaped to Bukhara. When 'Abdu'l-Latif in turn was
killed, he marched out from Bukhara, and, after giving
battle to his kinsman Abu Bakr, made himself supreme in
Turkistan and Turan. In 861/1456-7 he captured Herat
and put to death Gawhar Shad Khatun. In 862/1457-8
Jahanshah invaded Khurasan and occupied Herat, but
afterwards relinquished it to Abu Sa'i'd. Ten years later,
CH. vi] ABtf SA'fD SLAIN BY tfZtfN HASAN 389
in 872/1467-8, when Jahanshah was defeated and slain by
Uzun Hasan, of the rival clan of the "White Sheep" Turk-
mans, Abu Sa'i'd, hoping to profit by this circumstance, and
encouraged by representations from 'Iraq, Fars, Kirman,
Adharbayjan and other lost provinces, marched westwards
against his new rival Uzun Hasan, by whom he was finally
defeated and taken prisoner near Mayana. After three
days his captor, having decided on his destruction, handed
him over to Yadigar Muhammad, who put him to death to
avenge the blood of his grandmother Gawhar Shad Khatun.
The philosopher Jalalu'd-Din Da warn, author of the well-
known ethical manual entitled Akhldq-i-Jaldti, commem-
orated his death in the following chronogram 1 :
By the Venetian travellers of this period, to whom we
are indebted for much interesting information and indepen-
, dent chronological details, Abu Sa'i'd is called
Abu Sa'id called / '
"Busech"bythe "Busech"; while Uzun Hasan is called "Ussun
Cassano," "Assimbeo," or "Assambei" (i.e.
Hasan Beg), and Jahdnshah "Giansa." The towns of 'Urfa,
Isfahan, Kashan,Qum,Yazd and Kharput appear as "Orphi,"
"Spaham" or " Spaan," " Cassan," " Como," "Jex" and
" Carparth." It should be noted also that, apart from such
well-known general histories as the Rawdatu's-Safd and
Habibus-Siyar, the hitherto unpublished Matlctu's-Sctdayn
. , , of Kamalu'd-Din 'Abdu's-Razzaq, a monograph
Historical value
ottheMatia'u'f- on the reigns of "the two Fortunate Planets,"
i.e. the two Abu Sa'i'ds (the Il-khanf Mongol,
reigned 716/1316 736/1335, and the Tfmurid of whom we
1 Given in the Rawdatds-Safd. The sum of the letters composing
the last four words (40 + 100 + 400 + 30 + 60 + 30 + 9+1 + 50+1 + 2
+ 6 + 60 + 70+10 + 4) gives the year of his death 873 (= A.D. 1468-9).
390 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
are now speaking), which was completed in 875/1470-1, only
two years after the later Abu Sa'id's death, affords a great
wealth of material for the history of this period.
Abu Sa'id was succeeded by two of his sons, Ahmad
and Mahmud, who are accounted by Stanley Lane-Poole
the last (eighth and ninth) rulers of the House
M'a'hmudTthe of Timur in Persia and Central Asia. Of these
sons of Suitan the first ruled in Transoxiana with Samarqand
Abii Sa'id
for his capital, and the second in Badakhshan,
Khatlan, Tirmidh, etc. Both died, the latter by violence
at the hands of the Uzbek Shaybani Khan, in the last years
of the fifteenth century (899/1493-4 and 905/1499-1500
respectively).
Much more important than the two princes last men-
tioned, from the literary if not from the political point of
o , * TI v view, was Sultan Husayn b. Mansur b. Bayqara\
Sultan Husayn b. J J n
Mansur b. whose court at Herat was one of the most
brilliant centres of letters, art and learning
which ever existed in Persia. This prince, originally at-
tached to and protected by Ulugh Beg, was, on the death
of this ruler and his son 'Abdu'l-Latif, cast into prison by
Abu Sa'id, but escaped, joined Abu'l-Qasi'm Babur, and fled
to Khwarazm or Khiva. In 862/1457-8 he captured Astar-
abdd, the capital of the province of Gurgdn or Jurjan (the
ancient Hyrcania) and was there crowned, but recognized
Abu Sa'id as his suzerain and' placed himself under his
protection. A year later Abu Sa'id again compelled him
to take refuge in Khwarazm and occupied Astarabad, which,
however, he shortly afterwards recovered, together with the
rest of the provinces of Gurgan and Mazandaran. On the
death of Abu Sa'id, Sultan Husayn captured Herat, and
was crowned there on Ramadan 10, 872 (April 3, 1468),
which date is regarded by Munajjim-bdshi as the beginning
of his 38 years' reign, terminated by his death at the age of
seventy years on Monday, 1 1 Dhu'l-Hijja,9i I (May 5, 1506).
During the last 20 years of this period he was partly para-
lysed. His talented minister Mir 'All Shfr Nawa'f, who,
CH. vi] BABUR, FIRST OF THE " GREAT MOGULS " 391
like his master, was not only a great patron of men of
learning and letters but himself a writer of distinction, both
in prose and verse, especially in the Turkf language, died
on the 1 2th of Jumada ii, 906 (January 3, 1501) at the age
of 62. An excellent monograph on his life and literary
activities was published by M. Belin in the Journal A siatique
for 1861, and reprinted in the form of a separate pamphlet 1 .
Sultan Husayn, besides his literary tastes, had a great passion
for pigeons, fighting-cocks and other birds, and, like so many
of his House, was much addicted to wine.
It still remains to mention one of the most notable of
all the descendants of Timur, namely Zahiru'd-Din Muham-
mad Babur, who, though he never ruled in
tT d " D ' n Persia, was the founder of a new and splendid
Tfmurid empire in India, the representatives
of which, commonly known in Europe as the " Great
Moguls," included such noble princes as Humayun, Akbar,
Jahangir, Shah-Jahan and Awrang-Zfb 'Alamgfr, and which,
though gradually shorn alike of its glories and its virtues,
continued to exist until the great Indian Mutiny in 1857.
Until the early part of the eighteenth century their magnifi-
cent court at Delhi continued to attract a great number of
eminent Persian poets and men of letters during a period
when fuller appreciation and more liberal patronage of
talent was to be found at Dihlf than at Isfahan.
Of the life of Babur we possess singularly full and
authentic details in the autobiographical memoir generally
known as the Bdbur-ndma, or "Book of Babur"
Jiphy SaUt0bi ~ which he composed in the Turkf or Chaghatay
language. Of the original Turkf text of this
remarkable work a printed edition was published by Ilminsky
at Kazan in i85/ 2 ; while a fac-simile of the then newly-
discovered Haydarabad codex was edited by Mrs Beveridge
1 Notice biographique et litte"raire sur Mir Ali-Chir Nfodii, suivie
(C ex traits tire's des ceu-vres du meme auteur^ par M. Belin, It com-
prises 158 pages.
2 The text comprises 506 pages
392 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
for the trustees of the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Fund " in
I9O5 1 . This Turki text has been translated into French
by M. Pavet de Courteille, and was published at Paris in
1 87 1 . There also exists a Persian translation of the original,
known as the Wdqi'dt (or Ttizuk}-i-Bdbari, made at the
request of the great Emperor Akbar, Babur's grandson,
by his accomplished general Mi'rzd 'Abdu'r-Rahi'm Khan-
Khanan in 998/1 SSg-QO 2 , on which Dr John Leyden and
Mr William Erskine's well-known English version, published
in London in 1826, is based. Besides this notable and
most authoritative work, we have the very valuable and
illuminating Memoir of Babur's cousin Mi'rza
Mirza Hayaar
Dughiat's Haydar Dughlat, now accessible to the English
reader in Sir E. Denison Ross's translation,
edited, with Preface, Introduction, Commentary, Notes and
a Map, by the late Mr Ney Elias, formerly H.B.M. Consul-
General for Khurasan and Si'stan, and published in London
in 1898 with the title A History of the Moghuls of Central
Asia, being the Ta'rikh-i-Rashi'di of Mirzd Muhammad
Haydar Dughldt, This book, which, as its title implies,
has a much larger scope than the Bdbur-ndma, of which the
author made use 3 in its compilation, greatly supplements
and illuminates the earlier work 4 . Apart from these two
works, which are worthy of special notice on account of the
high position of their authors and their active participation
in the making of the history which they narrate, the historical
sources for this period are unusually full and trustworthy.
Of Babur's life, which can be studied in detail in the
above-mentioned and numerous other works 8 , it is sufficient
1 It contains 382 ff. of text, 107 pp. of Indices, and an English
Preface of 10 pages.
2 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 244 et seqq.
3 See p. 23 of the Introduction to Mr Ney Elias's book.
4 The Bdbur-ndma comes down to the year 936/1529-30, while the
Tctrikh-i-Rashtdi ends with the year 948/1541.
5 The best and fullest account I know of is W. Erskine's History
of India under the two first Sovereigns of the House of Taimur, Bdber
and Humdyun (2 vols., London, 1854).
CH. vi] VICISSITUDES OF BABUR'S LIFE 393
to say here that it falls broadly into three periods, of which
the first was passed in the little principality of Farghana,
where he was born in A.D. 1482 and whence
e he was expelled by Shaybani Khan and his
Uzbeks about 1504. During the second period
(A.D. 1 504-1 525)he ruled over Afghanistan and Badakhshan.
Finally he decided on the invasion of India, and the founda-
tion of the "Great Mogul" Dynasty in that country dates
from his brilliant victory at Panipat over Sultan Ibrahim
Lodi of Dihli on April 20, 1 526, and the occupation of Agra
and Dihli and northern India from the Indus to Bengal.
This third and shortest period was brought to a close by
his death on December 26, 1530, when he was succeeded
by his son Humayun. The narrative of the Bdbttr-ndma
extends from Ramadan 899/June 1494 (the year of Babur's
accession at the early age of twelve tothethrone of Farghana)
to 936/1529-30, the year preceding his death. There are,
however, certain lacunae, to wit the years 915-924 (1509-
1518) and 927-931 (1521-1525).
We have, however, overshot the limits of the period
dealt with in this chapter; for, so far as Persia is concerned,
the House of Tfmur disappears from it before the year 1 500.
The great empire founded by Tfmur, that ruthless man of
blood, was maintained in Persia by his gentler and more
enlightened son Shah-rukh until his death in 850/1447.
What follows is mainly a dismal record of fratricidal strife
and invasions of Uzbeks and other barbarians, redeemed by
brilliant galaxies of poets, artists and men of letters and
science whom the lavish bounty and undeniable taste of
these truculent and quarrelsome princes continued to at-
tract to their various courts, in particular to Herat. The
details of these wars, set out at great length by Mirkh-
wand, Khwandamfr and 'Abdu'r-Razzaq, and in English
by Erskine 1 , are somewhat wearisome, being not so much
1 History of India under the first two Sovereigns of the House of
Tatmur, etc. See the preceding foot-note. Vincent A. Smith's Akbar
the Great Mogul, 1542-1605 (Oxford, 1917) forms a worthy continuation.
394 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
between different peoples or principles, as between ambitious
members of one family. Happily for our present purpose
we need not go much beyond Sir John Malcolm's excellent
summary of this period of Persian history. " After the death
of Ulugh Beg," says he 1 , "we discover a crowd of the
descendants of Ti'mur contending for the provinces of his
empire; and so great was the respect which men entertained
for the blood of the hero that everyone who could boast of
it in his veins found adherents who enabled him either to
obtain a throne or an honourable grave."
To the literary and artistic gifts and tastes of these
princes, on the other hand, that great authority on Persian
painting and miniatures, Dr F. R. Martin, bears the following
eloquent testimony in his monumental work on The Minia-
ture Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey*.
"The Tfmurids soon began to lead a life compatible
with the wealth their fathers and forefathers had amassed
during their wars, and tried to squander it as
Dr Martin on
Persian painting quickly as possible. History constantly repeats
at this period j^f The nfe Qf ^^ ^^ fo^ & ^^
epic. They recall to mind the old Paladins in the Chansons
de Gestes, passing in the space of a short time from the
splendours of a throne to a position of the utmost decay.
They were, however, the most artistic princes that ever
reigned in Persia. If the conquering armies of Ti'mur
destroyed many a work of art, his successors brought into
being works of art that would otherwise never have been
created. Does not Samarqand redeem the loss of many a
town destroyed by Ti'mur ? What he destroyed was already
of itself destined to fall, and Ti'mur simply gave the mortal
thrust. He was not the destroyer we are accustomed to
consider him, but the master who arranged matters with an
iron hand. He formed a link in the chain of natural develop-
ment, and from his realm arose the Persia of later times,
his successors bringing Persian art to its most flourishing
1 Vol. i, p. 488 n the 1815 edition. Ulugh Beg died in 853/1449.
2 Quaritch, 1912, vol. i, pp. 35-6.
CH. vi] DR MARTIN ON TfMtfRID ART 395
stage. These Tfmurids were no barbarians; indeed every-
thing goes to show that they were highly civilized and
refined men, real scholars, loving art for the sake of art
alone, and without ostentation. In the intervals between
their battles they enjoyed thinking of their libraries and
writing poetry, many of them having composed poetry that
far excels that of their court poets. Sultdn Husayn Mirza
was no bad poet, and his odes, written in Turki, are far
better than those of many celebrated poets. He also wrote
in Arabic and competed with the celebrated Jami. The
most refined style of life prevailed, in certain respects calling
to mind that of the European princes of the same time, or
that of France during the i8th century, although it was far
more literary than either.
"Baysunghur, Shh-rukh,Ulugh Beg and Sultan Husayn
Mirza were bibliophiles not surpassed by the Dukes of
Burgundy, or by King Rene of Anjou, their contemporaries,
and were far more illustrious than the celebrated French
and Italian book-lovers of the i6th and I7th centuries.
Not only did they collect books, but they created them.
Baysunqur and Husayn Mirza were to Persia what William
Morris was to England four hundred years later. They
created a new style of book, but theirs was infinitely more
aristocratic, solid and artistic. The very finest European
books and manuscripts cannot, except in a very few isolated
instances, bear comparison with those of the Orientals as
regards the fineness of their work.
"Bdysunqur was the son of Shah-rukh and grandson
to Tamerlane; he died in 837/1433, when 37 years of age,
at Astarabad, where he was governor. He was
oft^^eLest" 6 the founder of the most elegant style of book-
bibiiophiies of production in Persia, and well deserves to be
the world"
remembered as one of the greatest bibliophiles
of the world. Under his auspices forty artists were em-
ployed in copying manuscripts under the guidance of
Mawlana Ja'far of Tabriz, himself a pupil of 'Abdu'llah son
of Mir 'All. By paying large salaries and making princely
396 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
presents he retained in his service the cleverest masters of
the period, who executed the finest work in the production
of their splendid volumes. The paper was unsurpassed,
the illuminations of extreme delicacy, and the covers are
unequalled to the present day. Books from his vast library
are now dispersed over the entire world, and wherever found
should possess a place of honour.
" It was during the reigns of the Ti'murids and not during
that of Shah 'Abbas that the finest carpets were produced in
Persia. The finest arms and armour, and ivory-
Culmination of . J
other arts at work of a minuteness surpassing all examples
this period produced by other countries, were made at
their court. All specimens of Persian art that exhibit the
most refined taste and workmanship emanate from their
time or from the very beginning of the Safawf dynasty.
" All art produced in the East is the direct result of an
impulse given by the monarch. But for Bdysunqur and
Sultan Husayn Mirza we should not have had
" All real art in J
the East is that lovely miniature art their artists created,
for it was to adorn and illustrate their own
writings that they welcomed artists from all parts of their
kingdom. But for Shah 'Abbds we should not have had
the splendid figured velvet, and but for Sulayman the Mag-
nificent there would be no magnificent Turkish faience from
Izm'q, and but for Sultan Ahmad we should not have had
the wonderful manuscripts of the Qur'dn, by which their
aesthetic tastes are still perpetuated. All real art in the
Orient is court art, or is dependent on a Maecenas. It was
so in the 'Abbasid court at Baghdad in the ninth century ;
it was so in Egypt and Spain ; it was so everywhere. This
fact must be remembered, as it explains much that would
otherwise be incomprehensible.
" That an art so brilliant should entirely disappear with
the ruler was not to be expected. The princes died, but
the artists survived and entered the service of
Survival of this
art into the six- another. The impulse derived from theTimurids
teenth century SQ powerml that ft lasted through a great
CH. vi] EMBASSIES TO INDIA AND CHINA 397
partof thesixteenth century. It was notonly the newrulers of
Persia, the Safawfs, but also princes whose names are almost
unknown to history, who continued the fashion and had
manuscripts executed that were more costly than anything
of the kind produced in Europe."
It is necessary to remind the reader, who may be apt to
think of far-reaching international relations as in large
measure a product of modern times and an out-
Commumcations
between Persia, come of modern facilities of communication,
china and India ^ Qw conquerable was the intercourse in the
time which we are considering between Asiatic (not merely
Muslim) states far removed from one another. The inter-
esting extracts from that valuable but hitherto unpublished
history, the Matla'u's-Sa'dayn of 'Abdu'r-Razzaq of Samar-
qand, published in French by Quatremere in I843 1 , include
the accounts of two embassies from the court of Herat, the
one to China, the other to India, narrated in each case by
one who had headed or accompanied the mission. The
mission to China, described by Ghiyathu'd-Din Naqqdsh
("the Painter"), left Herat on December 4, 1419, reached
Pekin (Khdn-bdligh or " Cambaluc ") a year and ten days
later, and returned to Herat on September 2, 1422*. The
mission to India, confided to and narrated by the above-
mentioned 'Abdu'r-Razzaq himself, started on January 13,
1442, and landed once more on Persian soil at Hurmuz in
the Persian gulf on April 20, 1444 3 . The activity and cos-
mopolitan character of that port are well indicated by the
ambassador in the following descriptive paragraph :
" This Hurmuz, which they also call Jarun, is a port on
the open sea ' which has no equal on the face of the earth.'
Thither betake themselves merchants from the
Abdu r-Razzaq s
description of seven climes ; from Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor,
Adharbayjan, Arabian and Persian 'Iraq, the
1 Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la BibliothZque du Rot,
vol. xiv, pp. 1-473.
2 Loc. tit., pp. 387-426.
3 Loc. tit., pp. 427-473.
398 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
provinces of Pars, Khurdsan, Transoxiana, Turkistdn, the
Qipchaq Plain, the territories of the Calmucks and all the
realm of China and [its capital] Pekin (Khdn-bdligh}.
Thither coast-dwellers from the confines of China, Java,
Bengal, Ceylon and the cities of Zfrbad, Tanasurf, Shahr-i-
Naw, the Islands of Di'wa-Mahall, as far as Malabar, Abys-
sinia, and Zanzibar, the ports of Bi'janagar,Gulbarga, Gujarat,
and Kanba'it (Cambay), the coasts of the Arabian peninsula
as far as Aden, Jeddah and Yanbu' bring rare and precious
things to which the sun and moon and fertilizing virtue of
the clouds have given lustre and beauty, and which can be
brought by sea to that country. To that land come travellers
from all parts of the world, and whatever they bring they
find in that city, without over-much search, the equivalent
value thereof in whatever form they desire, whether by sale
or exchange. The officials levy a ten per cent, ad valorem-
duty on everything except gold and silver. In that city
are many adherents of all manner of diverse religions, in-
cluding heathens ; yet do they not deal otherwise than
fairly with any creature, for which reason men call the city
Ddrul-Amdn ('the Abode of Security'). The people of
that country combine the winning manner of the people of
'Iraq with the profound cunning of the Indians."
Allusion has already been made to the correspondence
between Shah-rukh and his successors and the Ottoman
Relations Sultans Muhammad I (1402-1421), Murad II
betweenthe (i42i-i45i), Muhammad II (1451-1481) and
Se m oa n n d Bsiyazfd III (1481-1512) ; but that this corre-
Sultans spondence was not confined to princes and
politics is shown by letters preserved by Firidun Bey 1 ex-
changed between Bayazi'd III on the one hand and the
poet Jamf, the philosopher Jalalu'd-Din Dawani and the
theologian Ahmed Taftazani on the other. To the first of
these the Ottoman Sultan sent a gift of a thousand and to
the second five hundred florins, accompanied by all manner
1 MunsMat, Constantinople, A.H. 1274/1858, vol. i, pp. 361-5.
CH.VI] THE "BLACK SHEEP" TURKMANS 399
of gracious and courtly compliments 1 . It was at Constan-
tinople, moreover, that Sultan Husayn's son, Badi'u'z-Zaman,
fleeing from the murderous Uzbeks, found a final refuge and
a last resting-place.
Having described the waning of the House of Tfmur,
we must, before tracing the growth of the Safawi power,
consider briefly the intermediate Turkman
L T "BSk" dynasties of the Black " and " White Sheep,"
and "White w ho were so much akin in race and character
that Josafa Barbaro is probably justified in
comparing them to the rival Italian factions of the Guelphs
and Ghibellines, or the " Bianchi " and " Neri" 2 . The
" Black Sheep " (Qara-qoyunlu, or " Caracoilu " as Barbaro
calls them) came first. In the time of Tfmur they were
established in the Persian province of Adharbayjan, and a
certain chief amongst them, Bayram Khwdja
Bayram Khwdja . /.
of the Baharlu tribe, attached himself to the
service of Sultan Uways the Jala'irf, after whose death he
possessed himself of Mawsil (Mosul), Sinjar and Arjfsh.
In 782/1380-1 he died and was succeeded by his son Qara
Muhammad, who similarly attached himself to
Qara Muham- thg ' service of Sultan Ahmad, the son of the
above-mentioned Sultan Uways, and ultimately
fell in battle in Syria in 792/1390. He was succeeded by
his son Oara Yusuf, who was the first of the
QaraYiisuf r -i i . . r .
family to attain the position of an independent
sovereign with his capital at Tabriz. After repeated conflicts
with Ti'mur, he took refuge with the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid
"the Thunderbolt," and succeeded in capturing Baghdad,
whence, however, he was shortly expelled by Tfmur's grand-
son Abu Bakr, and fled to Egypt with a thousand of his
followers. The Sultan of Egypt, fearing Tfmur's wrath,
imprisoned him ; but on Tfmur's death he was released, and,
1 Concerning the enormous influence exercised by Jdmf and Mir
'AH Shir Nawd'i on Ottoman literature, especially poetry, see the late
Mr E. J. W. Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. ii, pp. 7-11.
2 P. 85 of the Hakluyt volume above mentioned.
400 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
having been rejoined by his scattered followers, took Diyar
Bakr, and soon afterwards, in 809/1406-7, defeated Abu
Bakr at Nakhjuwan, reoccupied Tabrfz, and took possession
of the province of Adharbyj n. Four years later he defeated
and put to death near Tabriz his old master and fellow-
captive in Egypt, Sultan Ahmad Jala'irf. In 822/1419 he
captured the three important Persian cities of Sawa, Qazwi'n
and Sultdniyya, and died in the following year at the age
of 65, after a reign of 14 years, leaving five sons, of whom
two, Iskandar and Jahanshah, succeeded him on the throne.
Mention has been already made in a previous chapter
of the important collection of State Papers connected with
the diplomacy of the Ottoman Empire which
are contained in the Munshd'dt of Fin'dun Bey \
A good many of these refer to the period we
are now considering. Thus we have a letter to Sultan
Bayazid "the Thunderbolt" from Sultan Ahmad Jala'irf,
written in 798/1396, describing his flight before Tfmur's
advancing hordes, and the answer to it ; numerous letters
which passed between Sultan Muhammad I (805-824/1402-
1421) and Shdh-rukh, Qara Yusuf, Iskandar and Sultan
Khah'l of Shirwan ; letters between Sultan Murad II (824-
855/1421-1451) and Shah-rukh; letters between Sultan
Muhammad II " Fdtih" (855-886/1451-1481) and Jahan-
shah, Ulugh Beg, Baysunqur, Bahman Shah of India, Uzun
Hasan, and Husayn b. Mansiir b. Bayqara ; and later a
voluminous correspondence with the Safawf kings Shah
Isma'il and Shah Tahmasp. These letters are interesting
not only for the light they throw on the historical events
to which they refer, but as indicating the relations which
prevailed between these rulers respectively. Thus, for
example, in a letter from Shah-rukh to the Ottoman Sultan
Muhammad I in 818/1416 the arrogance of tone is very
noticeable, both in respect to the comparative poverty of
titles accorded and the reproaches addressed to the Sultan
for having put to death his rebellious brothers Sulaymdn,
1 Printed at Constantinople in 1274/1858, pp. 626.
CH. vi] FIRfDtiN BEY'S STATE PAPERS 401
Musa and 'Isa, which, though "conformable to Ottoman
practice," is branded as " improper according to the Il-khani
custom " ; and in the peremptory demand that Qara Yusuf
shall not be allowed to take refuge in Ottoman territory,
should he seek to do so. Sultan Muhammad's reply, on
the other hand, in not only conciliatory in tone, but even
humble. He accords to Shah-rukh a whole string of high-
sounding titles ; apologizes for killing his brothers by
quoting Sa'di's well-known dictum that " ten dervishes can
sleep in one blanket, but two kings cannot be contained in
a continent" 1 ; and expresses his fear that if he exasperates
Qara Yusuf by refusing him entry into his dominions, he
may endeavour to stir up trouble amongst the neighbouring
rulers of the Qaramani, Hami'di, Isfandiyari, Turghudi and
Dhu'l-Qadari dynasties, and even with the Sultan of Egypt.
In the case of the Ottoman Sultan and the " Black Sheep "
Turkman rulers, Qara Yusuf and Qara Iskandar, on the
other hand, the contrary holds good, the Sultan writing as
to inferiors and the Turkman princes as to a superior. The
numerous letters and dispatches contained in this interesting
volume would well repay a fuller examination than can here
be accorded to them, but reference will be made to them
from time to time, as occasion arises 2 .
Amir Iskandar Qara-qoyunlu inaugurated his reign by
an attack on Shah-rukh, in which he was defeated, but soon
afterwards he re -occupied Adharbayjan. In
828/1425 Shamsu'd-Din, the ruler of Akhlat,
and in 830/1427 Sultan Ahmad the ruler of Kurdistan and
'Izzu'd-Di'n Shir fell victims to his warlike prowess, and the
towns of Shirwan and Sultaniyya passed into his hands. In
832/1429 he and his brother Jahanshah, in spite of the valour
which they showed, were again defeated by Shah-rukh. Six
1 Gutistdn, ed. Platts, p. 16.
2 Firidun Bey's Collection of State Papers has been used by Pro-
fessor H. A. Gibbons in his interesting work on the Foundation of the
Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 1916), but only to a limited extent. It is
also enumerated by Hammer-Purgstall amongst his sources.
B. P. 26
402 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
years later, in 838/ 1434-5, Shdh-rukh again advanced against
Iskandar as far as Ray, where he was joined by Iskandar's
brother Jahanshah and his nephew Shah 'AH. Iskandar
fled, and Shah-rukh bestowed his territories on his brother
Jahanshah as a reward for his submission. Iskandar took
refuge in a fortress, but while preparing to resist a siege he
was murdered by his son Qubad, at the instigation of his
concubine Layla.
Jahanshah, with the support and approval of Shah-rukh,
now succeeded to the throne vacated by his brother's death
in 839/1435-6, and considerably enlarged the
Jahanshah 1-11 i i i
realm which he had inherited. In 856/1452 he
overran 'Irdq-i-'Ajam, made a massacre of the people of
Isfahan, and invaded Pars and Kirman. In 862/1457-8 he
conquered Khurasan, and in the month of Sha'ban in that
year (June-July, 1458), was enthroned at Hert, and
remained there for six months, when Sultan Abu Sa'id,
the great-grandson of Ti'mur, prepared to attack him. At
the same time news reached him that his son Hasan, who
was imprisoned in Adharbayjan, had escaped and was in
rebellion against him, so he was compelled to make peace
with Abu Sa'id and hasten westwards at the average rate
of twelve parasangs (some forty-five miles) a day, losing in
this forced march 20,000 camels and 10,000 horses. Having
subdued and expelled his son Hasan, he dismissed his other
son Pir Budaq from the government of Fars and transferred
him to Baghdad, where he also shortly revolted. Jahanshah
thereupon besieged Baghdad for a whole year, and finally
succeeded in killing Pir Budaq and replacing him by another
son, Muhammad Mi'rza, after which he returned to Adhar-
bdyjn. His realms now extended from the Turkish frontier
on the west to the two 'Iraqs, Kirman and the shores of the
Persian Gulf, thus including nearly the whole of Persia
except Khurasan and the Caspian provinces.
idiied by uzun In 871/1466-7 he attacked Hasan Bayandarf,
Hasan in A.D. better known as Uzun Hasan, intending to con-
1467
quer his realm of Diyar Bakr, but was surprised
CH. vi] OVERTHROW OF THE " BLACK SHEEP " 403
and slain by the latter while tarrying behind his army on
a hunting expedition. His two sons were taken prisoners
and most of his principal nobles slain. This disaster is
commemorated in the following verses :
" The army of Jahanshdh Bahddur Niiydn, notwithstanding all the
materials of mastery and strength,
On the twelfth of the month of the second Rabf perished, and the
date [of the year was] ' Hasan Beg slew \hitri\ ' 1 ."
Of the character of Jahanshah the Turkish historian
Munajjim-bdshi, from whom the above sketch of the Qdra-
qoyunlu dynasty is taken 2 , gives a most un-
character of favourable account. According to this writer, he
Jahanshah
was " a dissolute, immoral, blood-thirsty tyrant,
a malignant inclined to heresy and atheism, who paid no
heed to the Sacred Law, passed his nights until dawn in
revelry and vice, and slept like a dog during the day ; for
which reason he was called ' the Bat.'" He died at the age
of 70 after a reign of 32 years, was buried at Tabriz, and
was succeeded by Hasan 'Alf, the son whom he
Hasan 'Ali , , .... , , , , '
had cast off, and who had at one time been
protected by Uzun Hasan. This son, whose mind is said
to have been disordered by his captivity, reigned but a
short while in Tabriz ere he was driven thence by Uzun
Hasan to Hamadan, whither he was pursued and put to
death by Uzun Hasan's son Oghurlu Muhammad in
873/1468-9. With him the Dynasty of the
Extinction of the . o , ~ , .
" Black sheep" Black Sheep, or Qara-qoyunlu, came to an
Dynasty enc j anc j was replaced by that of the " White
873/1468-9 ' , ,,
oheep, or Aq-qoyunlu.
1 The words Hasan Beg bi-kusht (" Hasan Beg slew ") yield in
the abjad notation the number 872, and the I2th of Rabi' ii jn that year
corresponds with November 10, 1467.
2 Sahd'ifu'l-Akhbdr, Constantinople edition of A.H. 1285, vol. iii,
PP- I5<>-154-
26 - 2
404 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
Diyar Bakr was the original centre of activity of the
"White Sheep" or Bayandarf Turkmans, of whose amirs
Baha'u'd-Din Oara 'Osman, known as Qdra link
Ine White ~ <
sheep" Dynasty, ("the Black Leech") from his greedy and blood-
Qara 'Osman thirsty character, was the first to achieve fame.
Having defeated Qara Yusuf of the rival " Black Sheep "
Turkmans, he was driven by the envy of his less capable
brothers Ahmad and Pir 'All to seek service with Qadi
Burhanu'd-Din 1 at Sfwas. In 800/1397-8 Qara 'Osman
killed his host and seized his territory, but retired, on
learning that an Ottoman army under Prince Sulayman
was advancing on Sfwas, to Erzinjan. He joined Tfmur in
his campaign against Asia Minor and Syria, and received
as a reward for his services the town of Diyar Bakr. Shortly
afterwards Qdra Yusuf, the " Black Sheep ''' Turkman,
escaped from Egypt and made war on Qara 'Osman, but
died, as already mentioned, in Dhu'l-Hijja 823 (December
1420), and was succeeded by his son Iskandar, who suffered
defeat at the hands of Shah-rukh in the following year.
Qara 'Osman died in 838/1434-5, and was
'AKBegb. succeeded by his son 'All Beg, who was com-
pelled by a revolt of his brother Hamza to take
refusre for a time with the Ottoman Sultan Murad II.
o
'All Beg was succeeded by his son Jahangfr, who was
soon displaced (857/1453) by his more resolute and capable
brother Uzun Hasan (the " Ussun Cassano " or
Jahangir.
Uzun Hasan "Assambei " of Josafa Barbaro), who was by far
C'Ussun the most powerful and celebrated of the "White
" A^sTmber of Sheep" Dynasty. He was the grandson of
the Venetian ^g Black Leech," and succeeded to the throne
ambassadors) f XT * 4 . \ 1
at Amid (Diyar Bakr) in the year mentioned
above, which was the year in which the Ottoman Turks
1 A full account of this remarkable warrior-poet is given by the late
Mr E. J. W. Gibb in his History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, pp. 204-224.
Mention of him (under the form " Wurchanadin ") is also made by
Schiltberger in ch. ix of his Bondage and Travels, published in
English translation by the Hakluyt Society in 1879, an< i in the same
work there are several references to Qara 'Osman (" Otman ").
CH. vi] THE " EASTERN QUESTION " IN A.D. 1453 405
captured Constantinople. To the fear inspired in Europe,
and especially in Italy, by this fresh evidence of Ottoman
power and prowess were due the efforts made by successive
Venetian ambassadors to Persia to win the support of
Uzun Hasan against the Turks, whom it was hoped he
might harass on their Eastern frontier and so distract their
attention from further conquests in the West. Thus once
again since the Mongol Court at Q^ra-qorum had attracted
emissaries from Rome with a similar object, the " Eastern
Question" assumed a new importance, and the good will
of Persia began to be assiduously sought after by European
Powers. These Venetian ambassadors have left descrip-
tions of their voyages and adventures which shed a
welcome side-light on the condition of Persia and the
character of Uzun Hasan, of whom Ramusio, in his Preface
to Caterino Zeno's Travels, speaks in the highest terms, even
declaring that " amongst all the kings of the East, who
existed since the government was taken away from the
Persians and transferred to the Greeks, there have been
none who equalled the glory of Darius Hystaspes and
Ussun Cassano." " It is to be regretted," he adds, " that
some Eastern kings, great in power and intellect, have not
had historians to celebrate their deeds, since among the
Sultans of Egypt and among the Kings of Persia there
have been men most excellent in war, and worthy not only
of being compared with ancient barbarian kings famous in
arms but even with the great Greek and Roman commanders
in all those things which constitute able generals of armies 1 ."
He further speaks with admiration of " the manner in which
this Ussun Cassano, a poor nobleman and the weakest in
condition of many brothers,... not possessing more than
thirty soldiers, besides a small castle, afterwards raised him-
self to such grandeur that he had the courage to dispute
the empire of all Asia with the Ottoman House, which
under Muhammad II (A.D. 1451-1481) was a terror to the
1 P. 2 of the Hakluyt Society's Narrative of Italian Travels in
Persia in the xvi and xvii Centuries (1873).
406
East." Contarinij who was with Uzun Hasan in 1474-5,
says that he "always drank wine with his
Contanm s *
description of meals," and " appeared to be a good liver, and
took pleasure in inviting us to partake of the
dishes which were before him." " There were constantly
present," he continues 1 , "a number of players and singers,
to whom he commanded whatever he wished to be played
or sung, and His Majesty appeared to be of a very merry
disposition. He was tall and thin, and had a slightly Tartar
expression of countenance, with a constant colour on his face.
His hand trembled as he drank. He appeared to be seventy
years of age 2 . He was fond of amusing himself in a homely
manner ; but when too far gone was sometimes dangerous.
Take him altogether, however, he was a pleasant gentleman."
No such vivid portrait of this remarkable man is to be
found in the pages of any Oriental historian with whom I
am acquainted, but the following estimate of his character
by Munajjim-bdshi is worth quoting 3 :
" He Was a wise, just, brave, pious, religious and devout
King, a friend of learned and godly men, charitable and a
public benefactor. He built many buildings
Munajjtm- J
descrip- for pious uses. As has been mentioned, with
but a small army he overcame two such mighty
kings as Jahanshah and Abu Sa'fd; took tribute from
Georgia; and ruled over Adharbayjan, the two 'Iraqs,
Kirman, Pars, Diyar Bakr, Kurdistan and Armenia."
Concerning his patronage of learned men the same
historian remarks on the preceding page: "He adopted
Uzun Hasan's Tabriz as his capital, and there assembled from
patronage of men the surrounding lands and provinces many
learned men and doctors, who received favours
and honours beyond anything which could be expected."
1 Contarini's Travels to Tana and Persia in the Hakluyt Society's
translation of 1873, PP- I 3 2 ~3-
2 He must have looked older than his actual age, which is given
by Munajjim-bdsht as only 54 at his death, two years later (A.D. 1477-8).
3 SaM'ifu'l-Akhbdr, vol. iii, p. 165.
CH. vi] tf Ztf N HASAN 407
One of the most celebrated of those men of learning who
received honour and rewards at his hands was 'All Qiishjf,
who passed through his territories on his way home from
the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Uzun Hasan, while still a young man and only Prince
of Diyar Bakr, married a Christian wife, to wit the beautiful
DespinaKMtun ("LadyDespina"), daughter of
Kalo Joannes 1 , the last Christian Emperor of
Trebizond, of the noble family of the Comneni.
She bore him a son and three daughters, one of whom,
named Marta, was given in marriage to Shaykh Haydar,
the father of Shah Isma'il the founder of the Safawi dynasty.
The fullest account of Uzun Hasan's reign to which I
have had access is that contained in the Sahd'iful-Akhbdr
of Munajjim-bdshi'*, while another Turkish source from
which much information is to be gleaned is the collection
of State Papers (Munshadf) of Firidun Bey 3 , though the
paucity of dates in the dozen despatches interchanged be-
tween Uzun Hasan and Sultan Muhammad Fdtih (" the
Conqueror ") is a matter for regret. The narratives of the
Italian ambassadors and travellers already referred to are
also of great value. The accounts of the Qara-qoyunlu and
Aq-qoyunlu dynasties given by Mi'rkhwand and other
Persian historians are for the most part very meagre and
inadequate.
The first three or four years of Uzun Hasan's reign
(A.D. 1453-1456-7) were chiefly filled by repeated revolts
of his brothers, especially Jahangir, against his authority.
The scene of these struggles, which were repeatedly com-
posed by Saray Khatun, the mother of the contending
brothers, lay for the most part outside Persia, round about
1 See the Travels of a Merchant in Persia in the already cited
volume of the Hakluyt Society, pp. 178-9. He describes "Despina-
caton " as " very beautiful, being considered the most beautiful woman
of that time, and throughout Persia was spread the fame of her loveli-
ness and grace."
2 SahaHftfl-Akhbdr, vol. iii, pp. 157-164.
3 Vol. i, pp. 274-286.
408 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtlRID PERIOD [BK m
Diyar Bakr, Mosul and especially Mardm, which suffered
terrible devastation. Jahangir did not hesitate to invoke
the help of the rival House of the "Black Sheep" Turkmans,
represented by Jahanshah 1 . Once during this period Uzun
Hasan set out on an expedition against Khurasan, but was
obliged to turn back to deal with a revolt organized by his
brother Jahangi'r aided by Jahanshah, who sent one of his
generals, Rustam Beg, to his support. The rebels suffered
a severe defeat at the hands of Uzun Hasan near the
Euphrates, in which many of the fugitives were drowned,
while five hundred prisoners, including Rustam Beg, were
beheaded by Uzun Hasan, who, however, at the intercession
of his mother, again pardoned his brothers Jahangir and
Uways, but took 'All Khan, the son of the former, as a
hostage to Erzinjan.
After this victory (851/1456-7) Uzun Hasan's power and
prestige were greatly increased, and many amirs of Asia
Minor and Syria submitted to him. About 864/1459-60
he wrested from the Ayyubi dynasty the fortress of Hisn
Kayf, where he installed his son Khalilu'llah Mirza as
governor. In the same year Jahanshah's son Hasan 'All
rebelled against his father and took refuge with Uzun Hasan,
who, however, after a while drove him away on account of
certain heretical opinions ascribed to him. In or before
A.D. 1461 Uzun Hasan sent his nephew Murad Bey 2 on an
embassy to the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II
Uzun Hasan J
sends an " the Conqueror " to request him not to molest
Embassy to the hj father-in-law Kalo Joannes, Emperor of
Ottoman Sultan *
Muhammad Trebizond. To this request the Turkish Sultan
paid no attention, but attacked and subdued
Trebizond (where David Comnenas had recently succeeded
his elder brother Kalo Joannes) and carried off this last
1 The " Giansa " of the Venetian travellers.
2 In 'Abdu'r- Rahman Bey Sheref's History, entitled Tcfrikh-i-
Devlet-i-''Aliyya (p. 161), Uzun Hasan is said to have sent his mother
Sara Khatiin, who is evidently the same as the " Sardy KMtun "
mentioned at the bottom of the preceding page (p. 407).
CH. vi] JAHANSHAH DEFEATED AND SLAIN 409
representative of Byzantine power to Constantinople, where,
according to Giovan Maria Angioletto, "he was treated
honourably enough, but died before a year was over, in
1462 V
Thechronologyof the wars waged by Uziin Hasan against
the Ottoman Turks is somewhat confused. Munajjim-bdshi
speaks of a short contest immediately preceding Uzun
Hasan's first invasion of Georgia in 871/14667, and of an
embassy headed by Khurshfd Beg which he sent to Sultan
Muhammad II "the Conqueror" requesting him not to
attack Trebizond, which, as we have seen, had already
fallen to the Ottomans in A.D. 1461. On the first of Rabf ii,
872 (Oct. 30, 1467), however, he defeated the " Black Sheep "
Turkmans near Khuy in Adharb^yjdn, and,
delTtfdl^put taking their king Jahanshah off his guard while
to death by he was away from his army on a hunting expedi-
Uzun Hasan . /-r i i i i . , , .1 -r-r / i
tion, cut off his head and sent it to the Timund
Sultan Abu Sa'fd, while suffering his body to be buried in
the grave of his father Qara Yusuf. He then occupied
'Iraq and Adharbayjan and besieged Baghdad. The first
despatch from Uzun Hasan to Sultdn Muhammad II re-
corded by Fin'dun Bey 2 refers to this victory. It is couched
in very respectful terms (unlike some later despatches), but
seems to have received no acknowledgement
The second despatch from Uzun Hasan to "the Con-
queror " (which, unfortunately, is undated) refers to the next
important event in his career, namely the defeat of Jahan-
shah's son Hasan 'All at Marand. This prince, who, as
already mentioned, had taken refuge with him some seven
years previously, now attacked him to avenge the death of
his father Jahanshah. Uzun Hasan invoked the help of
the Timurid Abu Sa'fd, urging the constant loyalty of his
own House of the " White Sheep " to the House of Ti'mur,
and the disloyalty of the rival " Black Sheep." He also
1 See this part of the Hakluyt Society's volume above mentioned,
p. 74 and note 2 ad calc.
2 MunsM'df, vol. i, pp. 274-5.
4 io HISTORY OF LATER TfMURID PERIOD [BK m
offered, in return for help, to cede 'Iraq to Abi'i Sa'fd, pro-
vided he might keep Adharbayjan. Abu Sa'fd, so far from
accepting this proposal, immediately marched against Uzun
Hasan to avenge Jahanshah's death, but was
Sultan Ab<3 Sa'id . . ' .
("BusecVof defeated and captured, together with his sons
the Venetians) Muhammad and Shah-rukh, and handed over to
taken prisoner
and put to death Yadigar Muhammad, who killed him to avenge
by u z <in Hasan the death Q f his gran dm O ther Gawhar Shad
Khatun. When the Venetian Contarini was received by
Uzun Hasan in his palace at " Spaan " (Isfahan) on Nov. 6,
1474, he noticed "a painting, representing the decapitation
of Sdltan Busech (i.e. Abu Sa'fd), and showing how he was
brought by a rope to execution by Curlumameth (i.e. Uzun
Hasan's son Oghurlu Muhammad), who had caused the
chamber to be made 1 ." Abu Sa'fd's body was sent in the
charge of his mother (who had also been captured) to Khur-
asan with all honour and respect. In the same despatch
in which Uzun Hasan announces to Sultan Muhammad
" the Conqueror " the defeat and death of Hasan 'Alf and
" some 3000 of his men," he announces his capture of Adhar-
bayjan, 'Iraq, Fars and Kirman, and his intention henceforth
to fix his capital at Tabriz. This despatch appears to have
been sent by the hands of an ambassador, Sayyid Ahmad
Toghan-oghlu.
The third despatch from Uzun Hasan is still less re-
spectful in its form of address than the preceding one, and
is also undated. It mentions the arrival of an Ottoman
envoy named Amir Bey, and then proceeds to narrate his
negotiations and conflict with, and victory over the Tfmurid
Sultan Husayn [b. Mansur b.] Bayqara, and the manner in
which he had divided up and assigned his domains. He
also announces his conquest of Khurram-abad in Luristan.
In a fourth despatch, also undated, in which the great
Ottoman conqueror is insultingly addressed as the " most
puissant ^m/r...Shamsu'd-Dfn Muhammad Bey," while
Shfraz, which he had recently conquered, is described as
1 P. 131 of the Hakluyt volume already cited.
CH. vi] tiZtiN HASAN AND THE OTTOMANS 411
having become " the Seat of the Throne of Sovereignty and
the Station of the Caliphate," he further announces the sub-
jugation of Khuzistan. This at last calls forth a reply
which reveals a high degree of exasperation : the Ottoman
"Sultdn Muhammad, son of Murad, son of Muhammad,
son of Bayazfd " addresses his arrogant correspondent as
" thou," warns him not to be puffed up by temporary good
fortune, and threatens to march against him in the ensuing
month of Shawvval. About the same time he despatched
a letter to his sort, Prince Mustafa, governor of Qaraman,
ordering him to attack Uzun Hasan, whom he describes as
" deserving of the gibbet and the rope " (" mustahiqq-i-ddr
u rasan oldn Uztin Hasan ") ; and to this letter we have
Prince Mustafa's reply, describing how. aided by his tutor
Gedik Ahmad Pasha, he defeated Uzun Hasan's army
near Qonya on Saturday, I4th of RaW i, 877 (August 19,
1472), and killed his sons Yusuf, Zaynal and 'Umar. The
two last of this series of documents given by Firfdun Bey 1
contain Shaykh Aq Shamsu'd-Dm's interpretation of two
dreams about Uzun Hasan, and are written in Arabic.
The accounts of Uzun Hasan's conflict with the Ottomans
given by Caterino Zeno 2 , Giovan Maria Angioletto 3 , and
Causes of hos- the author of the Travels of a Merchant in
tiiity between Persia*, in conjunction with those of Munajjim-
gpvemihent and bdshi and 'Abdu'r- Rahman Sheref Bey, though
uzvin Hasan not rich j n chronological details, make the
causes and course of the struggle pretty clear. Apart from
the growing arrogance of Uzun Hasan, as revealed in the
despatches to which reference is made above, the Ottoman
Sultan had against his neighbour four principal causes of
complaint, to wit: (1) his negotiations with Venice for a
conjoined attack on Turkey from both East and West ;
1 Munsha'at, vol. i, pp. 280-2. The date here given (877/1472) does
not accord with that (A.D. 1474) given on the next page (line 26),
which seems to be the more correct.
2 See the above-mentioned Hakluyt Society's volume, pp. 14-31.
3 Ibid., pp. 74-96. 4 Ibid., pp. 180-182.
412 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
(2) his attacks on Jahanshah the " Black Sheep " Turkman,
whom he not only conquered but put to death, and on
Sultan Husayn Bayqara the Ti'murid, both of whom were
in friendly relations with Sultan Muhammad Fdtih ; (3)
his promise to support the Christian Emperor of Trebizond
against Ottoman aggression ; and (4) his protection of Pir
Ahmad (the " Pirameto " of Zeno) and other princes of the
Qaraman dynasty, who were the ancient and bitter foes of
the House of 'Osman.
The ensuing war, which began in 877/1472-3 and ended
in 878/1473-4, presented two phases, in the first of which
the victory was to the Persians and in the
TuTks ami 6 " second to the Turks. The first battle, which
Persians took place on the Euphrates near Malatya, was
lost chiefly through the rashness of Murad Pasha
Palaeologus, the young Beyler-bey of Rumelia (the " Asmu-
rat " of Angioletto). Many Turks were drowned in the "whirl-
pools" of the river, besides those who were killed, and twelve
thousand men, " among whom were several persons of note,"
were missing when the muster was called in the evening 1 .
" Having suffered this defeat," says Angioletto (who was
with the Turkish army), " the Turk became very apprehen-
sive, and determined to lead his army back to his country
by the shortest route." They therefore retired towards
Trebizond, in a valley near which place a second great
battle was fought towards the end of August, 1474, in which
Uzun Hasan was decisively defeated and his
Defeat of Uzun *
Hasan by the son Zaynal killed, while much spoil fell into
the hands of the victors. Prince Mustafa dis-
tinguished himself greatly in this battle. " If Ussun Cassano
had remained content with his first victory," says Angioletto,
"the Turk would have gone away ignominiously, and he
would not have lost the territories he did 1 ." " This battle,"
says 'Abdu'r-Rahman Sheref Bey 2 , " upset the cup of Uzun
1 See ch. vii of G. M. Angioletto's narrative in the Hakluyt Society's
volume, p. 88.
2 Ta!rtkk-i-Devlet-i- l Altyya, p. 173.
CH. vi] REBELLION OF OGHURLU MUHAMMAD 413
Hasan's fortune, and for twenty or thirty years assured
the safety of the Sultan's eastern frontier."
Uzun Hasan now retired to Tabriz, " where he caused
games and rejoicings to be held, not caring much for his
reverse, as he had lost none of his dominions." His ease
was, however, soon troubled by the rebellion of his son
Oghurlu Muhammad 1 , who seized Shiraz, and, on hearing
that his father was advancing against him with a great
army, fled to Constantinople, where he was received with
much honour by the Ottoman Sultan, who promised "to
make him king of Persia in the room of his father, who was
his enemy." Uzun Hasan, meeting filial ingratitude with
cunning, first feigned illness and then caused a rumour of
his death to be circulated.
" While thus dissembling," says Angioletto 2 , " a report
was spread abroad to Constantinople that Ussun Cassano
had fallen dangerously ill from melancholy, on
The stratagem . .
whereby Uzun account of the rebellion of his son, and, a rumour
onhackJtQ 8 ' f ^ s having got worse having been whispered
Persia and puts about, some of his most faithful adherents, as
had been arranged, announced his death, while
messengers were sent to Ugurlimehemet with letters and
tokens, as is customary, giving information of the death of
his father, and begging him to return and take possession
of the throne before either of his brothers Halul or Jacob 3
could do so. And in order to give greater semblance to
the affair, funeral rites were paid, and his death was really
believed in throughout the country. Ugurlimehemet having
received three different messengers with secret messages,
such as are used in affairs of state, thought it safe to go to
Tauris. He arrived there in a few days with a small escort,
and, on going to the palace to make himself sovereign, was
1 Called "Ugurlimehemet" by Angioletto, and " Ungermanmet "
by Zeno.
2 End of ch. ix, p. 96.
3 I.e. Khalil and Ya'qiib, who actually succeeded in turn to the
throne.
4 i4 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
taken to where his father was in perfect health, who ordered
him to be confined, and afterwards put to death, without
showing any consideration for his being his son."
For his defeat by the Ottomans Uzun Hasan was in
some degree compensated by a victory over the Egyptians,
who had taken and ravaged 'Urfa, and a successful cam-
paign in Georgia, from which he obtained a tribute of
16,000 ducats and the surrender of the city of Tiflis. He
finally died in 882/1477-8, and was succeeded
by his son Khah'l, who, however, had only
reigned six months when he was attacked and killed by
his brother Ya'qub 1 near Khuy. This prince reigned for
about thirteen years, in the course of which period he killed
Shaykh Haydar son of Shaykh Tunayd the
Ya'qiib's perse- r , / *i i n
cutionofthe Safawi (whose growing power and influence
caused him alarm) and interned his children
(including Isma'il, the future founder of the Safawi dynasty)
at the old Sasanian capital of Istakhr. Munajjim-bdshi
says that he built the beautiful summer palace of the Hasht
Bihisht, or "Eight Paradises" (the "Astibisti" of the Vene-
tians) outside Tabriz, but the Italian merchant-traveller 2
ascribes its construction to Uzun Hasan. Finally, according
to the same authority 3 (for the fact is not mentioned by
Mfrkhwand or Munajjim-bdshi\ he was poisoned by his
wife under the following circumstances.
" He took as his wife a high-born lady, daughter of a
Persian noble, but a most licentious woman : having fallen
in love with a great lord of the Court, this wicked
How Ya'qub
was poisoned woman sought means to kill Jacob Sultan her
husband, designing to marry her paramour and
1 According to Munajjim-bdshi (SahcCiftfl-Akhbdr, vol. iii, p. 165)
Khalfl put to death his brother Maqsud, and thereby alienated and
alarmed his other brothers.
2 Travels of a Merchant in Persia, in the Hakluyt Society's oft-
cited volume, ch. viii, " Description of the Royal Palace built by
Assambei outside the city of Tauris," pp. 173-8.
3 Ibid., pp. 183-4.
CH. vi] DEATH OF YA'QtiB 415
make him king, as, being closely related to Jacob, he would
become so by right in default of children. Having arranged
matters with him, she prepared an insidious poison for her
husband, who, having gone into a perfumed bath, as was
his custom, with his young son, aged eight or nine years,
remained there from the twenty-second hour until sunset.
On coming out he went into the harem, which was close to
the bath, where he was met by his wicked wife with a cup
and a gold vase containing the poison, which she had got
ready while he was in the bath, knowing that it was his
custom to have something to drink on coming out of the
bath. She caressed him more than usual to effect her
wicked purpose ; but not having sufficient command over
her countenance, became very pale, which excited the sus-
picion of Jacob, who had already began to distrust her from
some of her proceedings. He then commanded her to
taste it first, which, although she knew it was certain death,
she could not escape and drank some; she then handed the
gold cup to her husband Jacob, who, with his son, drank
the rest. The poison was so powerful that by midnight
they were all dead. The next morning the news was circu-
lated of the sudden death of Jacob Sultan, his son and wife.
The great lords, hearing of their king's decease, had quarrels
among themselves, so that for five or six years all Persia
was in a state of civil war, first one and then another of the
nobles becoming Sultan. At last a youth named Alumut,
aged fourteen years, was raised to the throne, which he held
till the succession of Sheikh Ismail Sultan 1 ."
Munajjim-bdshi describes Ya'qub as " disposed to drink
and a merry life, and very fond of poetry." " Many poets,"
he adds, " gathered at his court from all quarters, and com-
posed resonant qasidas in his praise." He was
Bdysunqur
b. Ya'qub succeeded by his son Baysunqur, who reigned
Rustamb. a year and eight months, when he was re-
Maqsud placed by his cousin Rustam, the son of Maqsiid-
1 Munajjim-bdshi merely says (vol. iii, p. 166) that Ya'qub died in
Muharram, 896 (Nov.-Dec. 1490).
4 i 6 HISTORY OF LATER TrMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
He marched against Badi'u'z-Zaman the Ti'murid, but ere a
battle had taken place in Khurasan was compelled to turn
his attention to Isfahan, the governor of which city had
revolted against his authority. On his approach the governor
fled to Qum, but was pursued and killed, and his severed
head brought to Rustam. In the same year, 898/1492-3,
he sent an expedition against Shi'rwan, which celebrated its
success in the Ti'murian fashion by building pyramids of
skulls. From these same Shfrwanis, however, Baysunqur
raised an army for the invasion of Adharbayjan, whereupon
Rustam released Sultan 'All and the other Safawi
Release of the prisoners at Istakhr and sent them to avenge
Safawi captives
the death of their father, Shaykh Haydar, who
had been slain by Baysunqur's father Ya'qub. Sultan 'All
and his followers were hospitably received at Tabriz by
Rustam, and proceeded thence to Ahar, where they defeated
and killed Baysunqur. Rustam, relieved of this anxiety,
now grew jealous of Sultan 'All's increasing power and
influence, and determined to destroy him. He sent one of
his generals with 4000 horsemen after him, and a fierce
battle ensued, wherein the Safawi's, though only 700 in
number, fought valiantly "like lions," says Angioletto 1
but were eventually defeated and Sultan 'All slain, after
nominating his young brother Isma'i'l as his successor. He
and his brother Ibrahim fled to Gilan and Mazandaran, and
remained in hiding for some time at Lahfjan and Lishta-
Nisha, whence Ibrahim presently made his way in disguise
to his mother at Ardabi'l. Isma'i'l remained in Gflan, pro-
tected by its governor Kar Kiya Mi'rza 'Ah', and
Activity of * , J
isma'iithe an active and successful Shi'ite propaganda was
carried on amongst the inhabitants, amongst
whom the number of "Sufi's of Lahijan" or "Red-heads"
1 See p. 101 of the Hakluyt volume already so often cited. Caterino
Zeno (Ibid., p. 46) says that the Safawi troops, though few, performed
prodigies of valour, and there was not one who was not dead or
mortally wounded. The Venetians throughout confuse Sultan 'AH
with his father Shaykh Haydar (" Secheaidare," " Sechaidar").
CH.VI] BATTLE OF SHURtiR 417
(Qizil-bds/i), as they were called 1 , continued steadily to
increase.
In 905/1499-1500 Isma'il, then only thirteen years of
age 2 , marched forth on his career of conquest with the nine
tribes which owed him allegiance, to wit the
Beginning of , ,
isma'ii's career Ustajlu,Shamlu,Takalu, Rumlu, Warsaq, Dhu'l-
Of conquest
bagh ; and, after formally visiting the tombs of his illustrious
ancestors at Ardabil, and seeking the blessing of his aged
mother, advanced by way of Qara-bagh, Gukcha Deniz and
Erzinjan on Shirwan. By this time news had spread abroad
that the " Shaykh's son " was about to claim his rights, and
his disciples flocked to his standard from Syria, Diyar Bakr
and Siwds, so that he now found himself at the head of
7000 men. Crossing the river Kur he attacked Farrukh
Yasar, the king of Shirwan and slayer of his father, near
Gulist^n in the neighbourhood of Shamdkha, killed him,
completely routed his army, and occupied Shirwan, where
he possessed himself of the royal treasure. He passed the
winter at Mahmud-abad near that place, and appointed the
AmirShamsu'd-DinZakariyyahis first WasirjChfi, theologian
Shamsu'd-Di'n Gilani his Chancellor (Sadr), and Husayn
Beg Shamlu and Abdal Beg his counsellors.
At this juncture, in 907/1 501-2, when he had taken Bdku
and was besieging the fortress of Gulistan, news reached
him that Alwand Beg, son of Yusuf Beg of the
Thejjattie of white Sheep" Turkman dynasty,had advanced
against him to Nakhjuwan, whither he at once
turned his victorious banners. A great battle took place at
Shurur,near Nakhjuwan, between the " White Sheep " Turk-
mans, commanded by Amir 'Osmdn ('Uthman) of Mawsil
(Mosul), and the Safawi army, commanded by Pin' Beg
1 Munajjim-bdshi, p. 181. The red caps from which they derived
their second name are here said to have been first given by Shaykh
Haydar to his followers when he attacked Shirwan.
2 According to Munajjim-bdshi he was born in Rajab 892 (June-
July, 1487).
B. P. 27
4 i8 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
Qajar. The Turkmans were utterly defeated and their
general captured and put to death. Alwand Beg fled to Diyar
Bakr, and Isma'il occupied Tabriz, where he was crowned
King. In the following year, 908/1502-3, he invaded 'Iraq
and routed Murad Beg, the last ruler of the "White Sheep"
dynasty, who fled to Shiraz, which, together with Kazarun,
Kirman and Yazd, submitted to the victorious Shdh Isma'il
Safawi in the course of the next year or two. He spent
the winter of A.D. 15045 at Isfahan, destined to become
the glorious capital of the dynasty of which he had by now
so truly and firmly laid the foundations, and here he received
an ambassador from the Ottoman Sultan Bayazi'd II. The
fuller history of the origin, development and decline of
this great and truly national dynasty will form the subject
of the next volume.
The relations between the Timurids and the Safawfs,
first between Babur and Shah Isma'il and later between
Humayun and Shah Tahmasp, will also be more
between 5 fully considered in the next volume. On the
Timurids whole these relations were singularly friendly,
and Safawis . . ... i /v /- i 1-1
in spite of the difference of doctrine which con-
tributed so much to isolate Persia from her Sunni neighbours
after the rise of the Safawi power and the definite adoption
of the Shi'a creed as the national faith. Babur and Shah
Isma'il were united by a common fear and hatred of Shay-
bam Khan and his terrible Uzbeks, at whose hands the
House of Timur suffered so much during its last days in
Khurasan and Transoxiana. The years 1 501-7 were marked
by a series of triumphs on the part of Shaybani Khan,
who successively seized Samarqand, Farghana, Tashkand,
Khwarazm, and finally Khurasan. Sultdn Husayn, of
whose brilliant court at Herat we have already spoken, died
in 1506, and the weakness and lack of unity of his sons and
younger kinsmen made them an easy prey to Shaybani
Khan, who, in the course of 1507, succeeded in defeating
and killing all of them with the exception of Sultan Husayn's
son Badi'u'z-Zaman, who fled for protection first to Shah
CH. vi] DEFEAT OF SHAYBANf KHAN 419
Isma'fl and later to the Ottoman court at Constantinople,
where he died. In 1510, however, Shah Isma'il marched
into Khurasan against the Uzbeks and utterly
Shah Isma'il's J ,
victory over the defeated them at the battle of Merv. Shaybam
Uzbeks at Merv j^^ ^ amongst the slam Ris body was
dismembered and his limbs distributed amongst different
cities ; his skull, set in gold, was made into a drinking-cup
for Shah Isma'il ; the skin of his head, stuffed with straw,
was sent to the Ottoman Sultan Bayazi'd at Constantinople;
and one of his hands constituted the gruesome credentials
of an envoy sent to one of his vassals, the ruler of Mazan-
daran 1 . Babur's sister, Khan-zada Begum, who had fallen
into the hands of the Uzbeks ten years before, was delivered
from her long captivity by Shah Isma'il, and was sent with
all honour to her brother, who in his Memoirs 2 gives an
interesting account of their meeting. Friendly embassies
were interchanged between the two monarchs (for Babur
had already in 1508 formally assumed the title of Padishah
or Emperor), and as Babur's final abandonment of Trans-
oxiana a year or two later, followed in 1526-9 by his
successful invasion of India, which thenceforth became the
seat of his government, removed all likelihood of friction
between him and the Persians, the friendship thus formed
was fairly stable, and was renewed in the next generation
by Shah Tahmasp's hospitality to Humayun when he was
temporarily expelled from his kingdom and driven into
exile. Indeed the complaisance shown by Babur towards
the strong religious views of Shah Isma'il at one time con-
siderably impaired his popularity amongst his subjects
Literary inter- beyond the Oxus, who then, as now, were
course between remarkable for their extreme devotion to the
during'the " Sunni doctrine, which Shah Isma'il relentlessly
safawi period persecuted 3 . Nor were the relations between
Persia and India confined to their rulers, for during the
1 See W. Erskine's History of India, etc., vol. i, pp. 303-4.
2 Ed. Ilminsky, p. n.
3 Erskine, Hist, of India, vol. i, p. 321.
27 2
420 HISTORY OF LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
whole Safawi period, and even beyond it, we shall, in a
subsequent volume, meet with a whole series of Persian
poets, including some of the most eminent of later days,
who emigrated from their own country to India to seek
their fortune at the splendid court of the so-called Mogul
Emperors, where, until the final extinction of the dynasty
in the Indian Mutiny, Persian continued to hold the posi-
tion not only of the language of diplomacy but of polite
intercourse.
CHAPTER VII.
PROSEJWRITERS OF THE LATER TIMURID PERIOD.
The literary and artistic wealth of the period now under
review has been already summarily indicated in the pre-
ceding chapter, and it will be our business in
tnormous
literary activity this chapter to discuss in greater detail the
work of some of its most eminent representa-
tives in the world of letters. To attempt to treat, even in
the briefest manner, of all its notable poets and men of
learning would be impossible in any moderate compass.
Thus the Habibiis-Siyar, a history specially valuable on
account of the biographies of notable writers and poets
added as an appendix to each reign or historical period,
enumerates no less than 211 persons of this class who
flourished during the Ti'murid period, of whom all save 23,
who belong to the reign of Timur himself, represent the
period now engaging our attention 1 . The city of Herat
during the reign of Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn (A.H. 878-
912 = A.D. 1473-1506) may be regarded as the culminating
point of this brilliant period, and it derives an additional
importance from the great influence which it exercised on
the development of Ottoman Turkish literature, a fact duly
1 These biographical notices all occur in vol. iii, part 3, on the
following pages of the Bombay lithographed edition of 1857 : pp. 85-
92 (reign of Ti'miir); pp. 142-150 (reign of Shh-rukh) ; pp. 151-161
(reign of Ulugh Beg); pp. 171-174 (reign of Abu'l-Qasim Bdbur) ;
pp. 196-201 (reign of Abu Sa'id); pp. 334-350 (reign of Sultdn Abu'l-
Ghazi Husayn b. Bayqara). To these must be added some of those
persons who flourished contemporaneously under the patronage of the
Turkmans of the " White Sheep" (Aq-qoyunlu) and early Safawis
(vol. iii, part 4, pp. 110-118), who raise the total number of separate
biographical notices to 274.
422 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BKIII
emphasized and fully illustrated by the late Mr E. J. W.
Gibb in the second volume of his monumental History of
Ottoman Poetry.
" This school," he says (pp. 7-8), speaking of what he
denotes as " the Second Period," " which cultivated chiefly
lyric and romantic poetry, and which was dis-
Innuence of * f
jami, Mir'Aii tinguished by its love of artifice, reached its
S n h otfom W at ietC ' meridian in the latter half of the fifteenth
Turkish Htera- century at the brilliant court of the scholarly
and accomplished Sultan Husayn [ibn] Bay-
qara of Herat. Here its spirit and substance were gathered
up and summarized in their manifold works by the two
greatest men of letters of the day, the poet Jamf and the
statesman Mir 'All Shir Nawa'i. As these two illustrious
writers were the guiding stars of the Ottoman poets during
the whole of the Second Period (A.D. 1450-1600), it will be
well to look for a moment at their work."
After a brief account of these two eminent men, and an
admirable characterization of the school which they repre-
sent, Mr Gibb (pp. 12-13) summarizes its chief features as
"subjectivity, artificialness, and conventionality, combined
with an ever-increasing deftness of craftsmanship and
brilliance of artistry." "This all-absorbing passion for
rhetoric," he adds, " was the most fatal pitfall on the path
of these old poets ; and many an otherwise sublime passage
is degraded by the obtrusion of some infantile conceit, and
many a verse, beautiful in all else, disfigured by the presence
of some extravagant simile or grotesque metaphor."
The high esteem in which the poet Jami was held in
Turkey and at the Ottoman Court is proved by two Persian
letters addressed to him by Sultan Bayazid II
otto- 6 (A.D. 148 1-15 1 2} and printed in the Munshd'dt
man Sultan o f Fi ri 'dun Bey 1 . The first, which is in a highly
Bayazid II 7
complimentary strain, was, as we learn from
Jami's answer, written " for no special reason and without
the intervention of any demand, out of pure grace and
1 Constantinople, Jumada ii, 1274 (Feb. 1858), vol. i, pp. 361-364.
CH. vn] PERSIAN INFLUENCE IN TURKEY 423
favour, and sincere virtue and gratitude." In his second
letter Sultan Bayazid expresses his gratification at receiving
the poet's letter and informs him that he is sending a gift
of one thousand florins 1 , which gift is gratefully acknow-
ledged by the poet in a second letter sent by the hand of
a certain darwish named Muhammad Badakhshi, who, with
some others, was setting out on the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Unfortunately none of these four letters are dated. Two
other Persian scholars, the philosopher Jalalu'd-
menofiettan Din Dawanf and the theologian Farfdu'd-Din
honoured by Ahmad-i-Taftazani, were similarly honoured by
Bayazid II ,' ,->i/i -11 T- r / / ?
the same Sultan, but m the last case Taftazam
took the initiative (October 25, 1505), while the Sultan's
answer was not written until July 13, 1507. The great
NawaTs influence exerted on Ottoman poetry by J ami's
influence in illustrious patron, the Minister Mir 'All Shir
Nawa'i, who was equally distinguished in prose
and poetry, both in Eastern Turkish and Persian, is
emphasized by Mr E. J. W. Gibb 2 ; who also describes 3 how
the eminent Ottoman jurisconsult Mu'ayyad-
'Abdu'r-Rahman Chelebf (afterwards in
seven years in the reign of Sultan Bayazid II famous as a
study at Shiraz
generous patron of letters and collector of
books) being compelled in A.D. 1476-7 to flee from his
country, spent seven years at Shiraz studying with the
above-mentioned philosopher Jalalu'd-Dfn Dawani. It was,
in short, during this period which we are now considering
that Persia began to exercise over Ottoman Turkish litera-
ture the profound influence which in the next period she
extended to India.
From these general considerations we must now pass to
a more particular examination of the most eminent prose
1 "The Ottoman florin was a gold coin of the approximate value
of 9 shillings." Gibb's Ottoman Poetry, vol. ii, p. 26, ad calc.
2 History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, p. 128 ; vol. ii, pp. 10-11, p. 48
and note, ad calc.
3 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 29-31.
424 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BKIII
writers of this period, deferring the consideration of the
poets to another chapter.
HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS.
In this, as in the preceding period, history and biography
are well represented, and at least nine or ten writers on
these subjects deserve at any rate a brief men-
SoSpheT" tion. Speaking generally they are distinctly
inferior in quality to their predecessors in the
Mongol period, for, while their style is often almost as florid
as, though less ingenious than, that of Wassdf-i-Hadrat,
they fall far short of him in wealth of detail, breadth of
treatment, and citation of documents of historic value,
while they compare even more unfavourably with the great
historical writers 'Ala'u'd-Din 'At Maltk-i-Juwaym and
Rashfdu'd-Dm Fadlu'llah. We shall now consider them
briefly in chronological order.
(i) Hdfiz Abrti.
Almost all that is known about this historian, whose
name is more familiar than his works, which remain un-
published and are very rare even in manuscript,
H4fi ? Abru . . . _. . ' . _ , _f.
is contained in Kieu s Persian Catalogues 1 . His
proper name (though otherwise given elsewhere, as we shall
presently see) is generally assumed to have been Khwaja
Nuru'd-Dfn Lutfu'llah. He was born in Herat 2 , but in what
year is not recorded, and educated in Hamadan. After
the death of Ti'mur, who showed him marked favour, he
attached himself to the court of his son and successor
Shah-rukh, and of his grandson Prince Baysunqur, for
whom he wrote his great history. This history, generally
known as Zubdatu't-Tawdrikh ("the Cream of Histories")
1 See pp. 421-424 for his geography, and pp. 16-18 of the Supple-
ment for his history. A long and careful account of three MSS. of the
latter is also given by Baron Victor Rosen in his Collections Scientifiques
( Manuscrits persans), vol. iii, pp. 52-111.
2 Or Khwaf, according to Fasihi. See p. 426 infra.
CH. vii] HAFIZ ABRti 425
but called by Fasihi of Khwaf Majma'ut-Tawdrikh as-
Sultdni ("the Royal Compendium of Histories"), was
concluded in A.H. 829 or 830 (A.D. 1426 or 1427)*, only
three or four years before the author's death. It comprised
four volumes, of which, unfortunately, the third and fourth,
dealing with the post-Muhammadan Persian dynasties down
to the date of composition, appear to be lost 2 . Manuscripts
of the first and second volumes exist at St Petersburg
and are fully described by Baron V. Rosen 8 ; a copy of
vol. i, formerly in the collection of the Comte de Gobineau,
is now in the British Museum and is numbered Or. 2774 ;
and I myself possess a very fine copy of vol. ii (containing
the history of Muhammad and the Caliphate down to its ex-
tinction) dated Friday, 15 Sha'ban, 829 (June 22, 1426), and
copied in Herat in the very year of the work's completion.
Besides this history, Hafiz Abrii also compiled a great
geographical work, of which the first volume is represented
by a manuscript (Or. 1577) in the British Museum (fully
described by Rieu 4 ), and another in St Petersburg 5 . From
this work, composed in 820-823/1417-1420 for Shah-rukh,
Rieu has succeeded in gleaning many particulars of the
author's life, and especially of his very extensive travels.
He accompanied Timur in several of his campaigns, and
was with him at the taking of Aleppo and Damascus in
803/1400-1401. When Shah-rukh succeeded to the throne
he settled down in Herat to a life of letters not later than
818/1415-1416, but died at Zanjan while returning with
the royal cavalcade from Adharbayjan, and is buried there.
Notice of Hifi? The following short obituary notice of him
Abni in Fasihfs occurs in the rare Mujma/ (" Compendium") of
Fasihf of Khwaf under the year 833/1429-1430,
in which (contrary to most authorities, who give the following
year 6 ) his death is placed by this writer :
1 See Rteu's Pers. Cat., p. 422 a. * See Rosen, loc. at., p. 53.
3 See the first foot-note on the preceding page.
4 Pers. Cat., pp. 421-4. 5 Rosen, loc. at., p. in.
6 See Rieu's Persian Cat., p. 422, and the chronogram there cited.
426 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
" Death of Mawlani Shihabu'd-Dfn 'Abdu'llah of Khwaf 1 , known
as Hafiz Abrii, the compiler of the Royal Compendium of Histories,
on Sunday the 3rd of Shawwal, at Sarjam, at the time of the return of
His Supreme and Imperial Majesty from Adharbayjan. He is buried
at Zanjan near the tomb of the Divine Doctor Akhu Abi'1-Faraj-i-
Zanjanf 2 ."
Free use was made of the Zubdatiit-Tawdrlkh by the
author's younger contemporary 'Abdu'r-Razzaq of Samar-
qand, of whom we shall shortly have to speak, and half of
the geographical work mentioned above consists of a his-
torical summary of post-Muhammadan Persian history,
which becomes very detailed in the latter part, down to
Ramadan 822 (October, 1419). The author's style, so far
as can be judged from vol. ii of the Zubdatut-Tawdrikh
(the only portion of his work to which I have access) is
very simple and direct, and it is greatly to be desired that
his works, so far as they are available, should be published.
(2) Fasihi of Khwdf.
This notable historian and biographer is known to us
only by one book, the Mujmal, or " Compendium " of
History and Biography, of which, so far as I
Fasihi of KhwAf , ' ' 7 ~ r ,
know, only three manuscripts exist. Oi these
three MSS. one, belonging to the Institut des Langues Orien-
tates du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres de St Petersbourg
is described by Baron V. Rosen 3 , whose description is
supplementary to the fuller and earlier one of Dorn. One
of the two others belonged to the late Colonel Raverty,
the Pushtu scholar, from whose widow it was purchased in
1907 by the trustees of the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial."
The third was given to me by my excellent friend Mr Guy
le Strange, who bought it from the late Sir Albert Houtum-
1 The discrepancy between the name and birthplace as given here
and elsewhere has been already noticed on p. 424 supra.
2 See Jami's Nafahdtu'l-Uns, ed. Nassau Lees, p. 166, where he is
called Akhi Faraj-i-Zanjanf, and is said to have died in 457/1065.
3 Collections Scientifiques de FInslitut ... Manuscrits persans,
pp. 111-113.
CH. vn] THE MUJMAL OF FASfHf 427
Schindler. It is much more modern than the Raverty MS.,
but is accurate and well-written, and has a lacuna of only
ten years (A.H. 834-844 = A. D. 1430-1440) instead of the
hundred and twenty-two (A.H. 71 8-840 = A.D. 1318-1437)
which are wanting in the other.
In 1915 the expatriated Belgian professors of oriental
languages temporarily resident in Cambridge brought out
Descri tion at t ^ le University Press there a number of the
ofFasihi's Museon, to which, at their kind invitation, I
contributed an article of thirty pages on this
interesting work, with numerous extracts, based on the
two English manuscripts, both of which were then in my
keeping. The Mujmal, as I there pointed out, consists of
an Introduction, two Discourses, and a Conclusion. The
Introduction epitomizes the history of the world from its
creation to the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. The first
Discourse continues the history down to the hijra, or flight
of the Prophet from Mecca to al-Madina. The second
Discourse, which is by far the largest and most important
part of the book, contains the history of the years A.H. 1-845
(A.D. 622-1442). The Conclusion, which is unfortunately
missing in all known manuscripts, contains an account of
the city of Herat, the author's birth-place and home, and
its history in pre-Muhammadan times.
All that we know of the author, Fasi'hi of Khwaf, is
derived from this book, and I have found no mention of
him elsewhere. Rosen says that he was born
Bu>graphyof in ^/^^ ^ j have ^ been aWe ^
verify this statement from the Mujmal. In
807/1404-5 he was employed with three other persons
whom he names on business connected with the Treasury.
In 818/1415-6 he accompanied Shah-rukh to Shiraz to
subdue the rebellious activities of the latter's nephew Prince
Bayqara. In 825/1422 he was sent to Kirman on business
connected with the Treasury. In 827/1424 he returned
thence to Badghis. In 828/1424-5 he obtained favourable
notice and State employment from Prince Baysunqur.
428 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
Under the year 841/1437-8 he cites some verses by
Shihabu'd-Din 'Azi'zu'llah of Khwaf commemorating the
birth of a son on the 24th of Dhu'l-Hijja (June 18, 1438).
In 842/1438-9 he mentions the birth of his grandson
Mughfthu'd-Din Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Mahmud on
the loth of Dhu'l-Qa'da (April 24, 1439). In 843/1439-40
he had the misfortune to offend and to be imprisoned by
Gawhar Shad Aqa, and he was again imprisoned in 845/
1441-2, with which year the chronicle ends (though the
date 849/1445 is mentioned in a verse with which one of
the MSS. concludes), and it was apparently in that year, on
the 1 5th of Dhu'l-Hijja (April 26, 1442), that he presented
his book to Shah-rukh.
The detailed account of Fasihi's Mujmal which I pub-
lished in the Cambridge number of the Museon to which
reference has been already made absolves me
Characteristics *
of Fasihi's from the necessity of enlarging on its contents
in this place. Its two chief features are a great
simplicity of style and a special attention to matters of
literary interest 1 . It is arranged in the form of a chronicle,
the events of each year, including the deaths of eminent
persons of all sorts, being grouped together under that year,
and in the necrological part it is remarkable how large is
the proportion of poets and men of letters, more especially,
of course, of such as belonged to Khurasan and Transoxiana.
Moreover it is evident that Fasihi drew his information to
a large extent from sources other than those employed by
later and better known biographers and historians, which
fact gives a special value to his work.
(3) Kamdlud-Din l Abdn!r-Razzdq of Samarqand.
Though born at Herat in 8 16/141 3 2 , 'Abdu'r-Razzaq is
called " of Samarqand," which was the native place of his
father Mawland Jalalu'd-Din Ishaq, a judge and chaplain in
1 See pp. 57-8 of my article in the Muston.
2 The Habibrfs-Siyar gives the date of his birth as the I2th of
Sha'ban in this year (Nov. 7, 1413).
CH . vii] THE MA TLA' U'S-SA'DA YN 429
Shah-rukh's army. At the age of 25, in 841/1437-8, after
his father's death, 'Abdu'r-Razzaq attracted the notice of
that monarch by a grammatical treatise which
Abdur-Razzaq he had composed and dedicated to him. Four
or .Samarqanu
years later, in 845/1441-2, he was sent to India
on a special mission to the king of Bijanagar, which lasted
three years, and of which he gives a detailed narrative in
his history. In 850/1446-7 he was sent on a mission to
Gi'lan ; and, on the death of Shah-rukh in this same year,
he was successively attached to the service of Mirza 'Abdu'l-
Lati'f, 'Abdu'llah, Abu'l-Qasim Babur, and lastly of Abu
Sa'fd. He afterwards retired into private life, became
Shaykh of the monastery or Khdnqdh of Shah-rukh in
Herat in 867/1463, and died there in 887/1482. All these
particulars are taken from Rieu's Persian Catalogue^, and
are for the most part derived either from the historian's
own statements or from the notice of him contained in the
Habibu's-Siyar*. The fullest account of his life and work
is that given by Quatremere in the Notices et Extraits des
Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale*, and other references
will be found in Rieu's Catalogue.
So far as is known, 'Abdu'r-Razzaq produced only one
great work, to wit the history entitled Matla'u's-Sa'dayn
(" the Dawn of the two Auspicious Planets "),
'Abdu'r-Razzaq's 1*1 i j
history, the which comprises two volumes and covers a
Matin's- period of 170 years extending from the birth
of the last Mongol ruler of Persia, Abu Sa'fd, in
704/1304-5 to the death of his namesake the great-grand-
son of Timur 4 , these two Abu Sa'fds being, presumably, the
"two Auspicious Planets." The first volume ends with the
death of Timur in 807/1405. Reference has been already
1 Pp. 181-3.
2 Vol. iii, part 3, p. 335.
3 Vol. xiv, pp. 1-514.
4 Abu Sa'fd the Tfmurid (the "Busech" of the Venetian ambas-
sadors to Persia) was captured and put to death by Uziin Hasan in
873/1468-9, and the history is continued a year or two beyond this to
875/H70-I.
430 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
made to the curious coincidence, noticed by the author of
the Matlctus-Sctdayn, that the date of the death of the
last great Mongol ruler of Persia, Abu Sa'i'd, corresponds
almost exactly with the birth of Timur, the founder of the
next great Tartar Empire in Central Asia 1 .
Manuscripts of the Matlctus-Sctdayn, though not very
common, are to be found in most large collections, and, so
value of the f ar as I have seen, are generally above the
Matia'us- average in point of excellence and accuracy 2 .
Sa'dayn, and . , ,
need of an The work, though based to a considerable
edition extent on the Zubdatut-Tawdrikh of Hafiz
Abru, is of great importance, and a critical edition of it is
much needed, for it deals in a very detailed manner with a
very important period of Persian history, and is the work
of one who wrote at first hand and took an active part in
many of the events which he describes.
(4) Mu'inud-Din Muhammad of Isfizdr.
Mu'inu'd-Din-i-Isfizarf is chiefly notable on account of
his monograph on the history of Herat entitled Rawdatu'l-
Janndt fi Tdrtkhi Madinati Herat, written for
Mu'mu'd-Dm-i- s ult n Rusayn Abu'l-Ghazi, and carried down
Isfizan '
to the year 875/1470-1 ; but he was also skilled
in the epistolary style (tarassul) of the Court and of Diplo-
macy, on which he compiled a manual, and was besides
MSS of his something of a poet 3 . Three MSS. of the History
History of of Herat are preserved in the British Museum 4 ;
another, belonging to Mr A. G. Ellis, copied in
1073/1663, has been generously placed at my disposal by
the owner ; and yet another, belonging to the late Sir
A. Houtum-Schindler, came into my possession in Jan.
1 See p. 1 59 supra.
2 There is a MS. of the work in 2 vols. (Or. 267 and 268) in the Cam-
bridge University Library, and a much better one (Dd. 3. 5), dated
989/1582, in the Library of Christ's College, Cambridge.
3 JJabtbu's-Siyar, vol. iii, part 3, p. 342.
4 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 206-7, and his Supplement, p. 64.
CH. vii] MfRKHWAND 431
1917. A detailed account of this important work, written
in French by the late M. Barbier de Meynard, was published
in the Journal Asiatique, 5th Series, vol. xvi, pp. 461-520.
It is divided into 26 Rawdas or " Gardens," of which i-vi
treat of the city of Herat, its environs, topography and
excellence, and its earlier rulers in Muhammadan times ;
vii-viii of the Kurt dynasty and its overthrow by Ti'mur ;
and the remainder of the history of Ti'mur and his suc-
cessors down to the second accession of Sultan Husayn
Abu'l-Ghazi. The name of the month of Safar (>*o JK&},
in which the book was completed, yields by the abjad
computation the date of completion, 875 (August, 1470).
The author enumerates amongst his sources the histories
of Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Ya-Sin, Shaykh 'Abdu'r-Rahman
Farm', and Sayfi of Herat, as well as the Kurt-ndma, or
" Book of the Kurt Dynasty " of Rabi'i of Bushanj. He
also cites the above-mentioned Matlctu's-Sctdayn in at least
one place (in Rawda xiii).
(5) Muhammad b. Khdwand Shah b. Mahmud,
commonly called Mirkhwdnd.
Mi'rkhwand's voluminous general history, the Rawdatus-
Safd, is perhaps the best-known work of this sort in Persia,
and has attracted a quite undue amount of
Mirkhwdnd . T1 - 11-11- 1-1
attention. It has been published in litho-
graphed editions at Bombay (1271/1854-5) and Tihran
(1270-4/1854-8), while a Turkish translation was printed
at Constantinople in 1258/1842. A number of separate
portions, dealing with particular dynasties, have been
printed, with or without translations, in Europe; and of an
English translation of the earlier portion by Mr Rehatsek
three or four volumes were published under the auspices of
the Royal Asiatic Society. These, it must be admitted
with regret, are of no great value, for, apart from the fact
that any student desirous of acquainting himself with the
ideas of the Muslims as to the prophets, patriarchs and
432 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
kings of olden time would prefer to seek his information
from earlier and more trustworthy sources, the translation
itself is both inaccurate and singularly uncouth, nor is it to
be desired that English readers should form their ideas
even of the verbose and florid style of Mirkhwand from a
rendering which is needlessly grotesque. The esteem in
which this history is still held in Persia, however, is suffi-
ciently shown by the fact that one of the greatest Persian
Ridd-qui; writers of modern times, Rida-quli Khan Ldld-
's Supple- bdshi, poetically surnamed Hiddyat, thought it
ment to the 11-1 110 i t_
Rawdatu's- worth while to add a Supplement bringing the
narrative down to his own time, a few years
after the middle of the nineteenth century. This Supple-
ment is a valuable source of information for the history of
modern Persia, including the rise of the Babf religion and
the civil wars and persecutions connected therewith, but
its consideration naturally belongs to a later period.
Of Mirkhwand's life not much is recorded, even by his
admiring grandson Khwandamir, the author of the Habibits-
Siyar. His father Sayyid Burhanu'd-Din, a
Bjogphy of nat j ve o f Bukhara, migrated to Balkh, where
Mirkhwdnd
he died. Mirkhwand spent most of his life at
Herat under the protection and patronage of that Maecenas
of the age Mir 'All Shir Nawa'i, and died there, after a long
illness, on the 2nd of Dhu'l-Qa'da, 903 (June 22, 1498) at
the age of sixty-six 1 . Of the seven books into
Contents of the '
Rawdatu's- which the historical part of the Rawdatu's-Safd
is divided, the first contains the history of
the patriarchs, prophets, and pre-Muhammadan kings of
Persia ; the second, that of the Prophet Muhammad and
the Four Orthodox Caliphs ; the third, that of the Twelve
Imams and the Umayyad and 'Abbasid Caliphs ; \hefourtk,
that of the post-Muhammadan dynasties of Persia down to
the irruption of Tfmur ; the fifth, that of the Mongols and
1 See tfabibit's-Siyar, part 3, vol. iii, p. 339 ; Rieu's Pers. Cat.,
pp. 87-8 ; S. de Sacy's Notice sur Mirkhond in his Mtmoire sur les
Antiquite's de la Perse, and other references given by Rieu.
CH. vii] THE RAWDATU'S-SAFA 433
Tartars down to Ti'mur ; the sixth, that of Timur and his
successors to 873/1468-9 ; while the seventh, which has been
continued by another hand (probably the author's grandson
Khwandami'r) to a period several years later than Mfrkh-
wdnd's death, is wholly devoted to the life and reign of his
patron Abu'l-Ghazf Sultan Husayn, who died in 912/1506-7.
The two last books (vi and vii), which deal with the author's
own time, are naturally of much greater worth and authority
than the earlier portions, and it is a pity that the attention
of students of this history has not been more concentrated
on them. The style employed by Mi'rkhwand is much more
florid and bombastic than that of the preceding historians
mentioned in this chapter, and in this respect is typical of
much that was written about this time. This style, im-
ported into India by Babur, continued to flourish at the
court of the "Great Moguls" and gave rise to the prevalent
idea that this floridity and bombast are essentially Persian,
which is far from the truth, for both in earlier and later
times many notable works were written with a simplicity
and sobriety which leave little to be desired. It was under
Tartar, Turkish, Indian, and other non-Iranian patronage
that this inflated rhetoric especially flourished, and the
Ottoman Turks in particular developed it to a very high
degree. Sir Charles Eliot in his Turkey in Europe (new
edition, 1908, p. 106) has described it in words so admirable
that I cannot refrain from quoting them here :
" The combination of dignity and fatuity which this style affords
is unrivalled. There is something contagious in its ineffable compla-
cency, unruffled by the most palpable facts. Everything
on the natural is sublime, everybody magnanimous and prosperous.
inclination of the We move among the cardinal virtues and their appro-
priate rewards (may God increase them!), and, secure in
the shadow of the ever-victorious Caliph, are only dimly
conscious of the existence of tributary European powers and ungrateful
Christian subjects. Can any Western poet transport his readers into
a more enchanted land ? "
R P. 28
434 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
(6) Khwdndamtr,
One is much tempted to include amongst the historians
of this epoch Mirkhwand's grandson Khwandami'r, on the
threefold ground that he also was one of the
Khwindamir . . 11-
many writers and artists who owed his success
in large measure to the enlightened patronage of Mir 'All
Shir Nawa'i ; that he belonged not merely to the same
circle as Mirkhwand, but was his disciple as well as his
grandson ; and lastly, that his first work, the Khuldsatu'l-
Akhbdr, or "Quintessence of Histories," was not only in
essence an abridgement of the Rawdatu's-Safd, but was
actually written in 905/1499-1500, two years before the
end of the period with which this chapter deals. His
greater work, however, the Habibu's-Siyar, so often cited
in this and the preceding chapter, was not written until
929/1523, and he lived until 941/1534-5, so that "he really
belongs more properly to the next period, and may be more
appropriately considered in connection with the founder of
the Safawi dynasty, Shah Isma'il, with a long account of
whose reign the Hablbu's-Siyar concludes.
BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS.
After the historians come the biographers, of whose
works five or six deserve notice, to wit Dawlatshah's
"Memoirs of the Poets" (Tadhkiratu'sh-Shtfard); Mir 'AH
Shir Nawa'i's Majdlisu'n-Nafd'is (which, however, is in the
Turki, not the Persian language) ; Jami's " Lives of the
Saints" (Nafahdtu'l-Uns)\ Abu'l-Ghazi Sultan Husayn's
"Assemblies of Lovers" (Majdlisu!l-'Ushshdq)\ Husayn
Wa'iz-i-Kashiffs "Mausoleum of Martyrs" (Ra^vdatusk-
Shuhadd) and the Rashahdt of his son 'AH. Each of these
works will be briefly considered here ; but as Nawa'f, Jami,
and Husayn Wa'iz-i-Kashiff are more celebrated in other
capacities than as biographers, their lives will be more
appropriately sketched when we come to speak of writers
belonging to other categories.
CH.VII] jAMf'S NAFAHATU'L-UNS 435
(i) J ami's NafaJidtu'l-Uns and Bahdristdn.
Mulla Nuru'd-Di'n 'Abdu'r-Rahman Jami, who derives
his last and best-known name, which he uses in his poems
jami'sA^/a- as h' s tdkhallus or nom-de-guerre, from the
Aatu 'i-uns and town of Jam in Khurasan where he was born
on November 7, 1414*, was equally remarkable
for the quality and the quantity of his literary work. He
is often described (wrongly, in my opinion, for reasons
which will be given later) as " the last great classical poet
of Persia," and it is as a mystical poet of remarkable grace
and fertility of imagination that he is chiefly known. Like
his great predecessor of the thirteenth century, Shaykh
Faridu'd-Din 'Attar, who even excelled him in fecundity,
though he fell short of him in grace, he composed, besides
his numerous poems, a great Biography of Mystic Saints
entitled Nafa/tdtu'l-Uns, or " Breaths of Fellowship." This
book, of which a good edition was printed at Calcutta in
1859, with an excellent notice of the author by W. Nassau
Lees, comprises 740 pages, contains the lives of 6n Sufi
saints, male and female, and is one of the most useful and
easily available sources of information on this subject. It
was written in 881/1476, and contains, besides the bio-
graphical notices, which are arranged more or less in
chronological order, and conclude with the poets Hafiz,
Kamal of Khujand, Maghribi, and others who flourished at
the end of Timur's and beginning of Shah-rukh's reign, an
Introduction of 34 pages dealing, in nine sections, with
various matters connected with the doctrine, practice and
history of the Sufi's or Muhammadan mystics.
The book is written in the simple and direct style
suitable to such a work ; and indeed Jamf's taste was too
good and his sincerity too great to allow him to fall into
the verbosity and bombast which mar so many books of
this period.
1 Sha'bdn 23, A.H. 817.
282
436 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BKIII
Another of Jami's prose works, the Bahdristdn, or
" Spring-land," of which the form seems to have been sug-
gested by Sa'di's Gulisldn or " Rose-garden,"
contains some biographical matter in chapter i,
dealing with the sayings of the saints, and
chapter vii, on poetry and poets. This work, however, is
designed rather to yield amusement and instruction than
accurate biographical information. In style it is distinctly
more ornate than the Nafahdtul-Uns. An English transla-
tion was published by the so-called "Kama-Shastra Society."
(2) Dawlatshah's Tadhkiratu'sh-Shu'ard.
Amir Dawlatshah, son of 'Ala'u'd-Dawla Bakhti'shab
Ghazi of Samarqand, is the author of the best known
"Memoirs of the Poets" existing in Persian, and
Dawlatshdh . , . _
is chiefly responsible, through his interpreter to
the West, Von Hammer 1 , for the perspective in which the
Persian poets stand in European eyes. His "Memoirs" are
divided into seven Tabaqdt or Generations, each containing
accounts of some twenty more or less contemporary poets
and the princes under whose patronage they flourished.
There is also an Introduction on the art of Poetry, and a
Conclusion dealing with seven poets contemporary with the
author and the virtues and accomplishments of his royal
patron Abu'l-Ghazf Sultan Husayn. This is an entertaining
but inaccurate work, containing a good selection of verses
and a quantity of historical errors which have in some cases
misled even such good and careful scholars as Rieu. The
book was lithographed in Bombay in 1887 and published
by me from a selection of the best available manuscripts
in 1901 as the first volume of my short-lived "Persian His-
torical Texts Series." A Turkish version by Sulayman
Fahmi was also published in Constantinople in 1259/1843
under the title of Safinatu'sh-Shu'ard.
1 Geschichte der schonen Redekiinste Persiens, mit einen Bliithen-
lese aus zweihundert persischen Dichtern (Vienna, 1818).
CH.VII] DAWLATSHAH'S TADHKIRA 437
The oldest account of Dawlatshah is that given by his
contemporary Mir 'AH Shir Nawa'i in his Majdlisu'n-
Nafa'is, which will be mentioned directly. A
DawiaS,4h f notice is devoted to him in chapter vi of that
work, dealing with "sundry gentlemen and
noblemen of Khurasan and other places whose ingenuity
and talent impelled them to write poetry, but who, by
reason of their high estate and exalted rank, did not
persevere therein." He is there described as " a wholly
excellent youth, unassuming and of good parts," who relin-
quished worldly pomp and power for a life of seclusion and
study, and " composed a Corpus Poetarum on the very same
subject which is treated in this manual." After praising
this work, Nawa'i adds that news had recently been received
of his death, which the Mirdtu's-Safd, according to Rieu 1 ,
places in 900/1494-5. This does not agree with the state-
ment of Nawa'i, who wrote in 896/1490-1, unless the
report of Dawlatshah's death which reached him was false.
Dawlatshah's "Memoir" was composed in 892/1487, when
he was about fifty years of age. Of the living contemporary
poets whom he mentions Jami is by far the most eminent,
and I believe that the notion prevalent amongst Persian
students in Europe that he is " the last great classical poet
of Persia " arises ultimately from the fact that, directly or
indirectly, they derive their ideas from Dawlatshah 2 .
(3) Mir 'Ali Shfr NawaTs Majdlisun-Nafais.
Of Mir 'AH Shir Nawa'i, the patron of a whole circle of
poets, writers and artists, and himself a poet of no mean
The Ma -diisu'n- or( ^ er > something has been said already, and
of Mir more remains to be said. For the moment we
are only concerned with his biographical work,
the Majdlisun-Nafd'is, written in the Eastern Turk{ or
1 Pers. Cat., p. 354.
2 Of the meagre information about Dawlatshdh which can be
deduced from his book, an epitome will be found in my edition of his
" Memoirs," p. 15 of the Preface.
438 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BKIII
Chaghatay dialect of Turkish which he did so much to
popularize and refine. This work, of which I possess a fine
manuscript, transcribed in 937/1530-1 at Samarqand, was
composed in 896/1490-1, and comprises an Introduction
and eight books.
Book i treats of poets who died while the author was
still young and whom he never had the good fortune to
meet, of whom the first and most important is Qasimu'l-
Anwar, who actually died in 835/1431-2, nine years before
'All Shir was born. Other celebrated poets mentioned in
this chapter are Adhari of Isfara'in, Katibi, Khayali, Bisati,
Sibak, Qudsi, Tusi, Baba-Sawda'i, Badakhshi, Talib of
Jajarm, 'Ariff, Masihi, Shahi of Sabzawar, etc.
Book ii treats of poets whom the author had known
personally, but who were dead at the time his book was
written. Of these the first and most celebrated is Sharafu'd-
Din 'AH of Yazd, the author of the well-known history of
Ti'mur known as the Zafar-ndma.
Book Hi treats of poets who were flourishing when the
author wrote and with whom he was personally acquainted,
such as Amir Shaykhum Suhayli, Sayff, Asafi, Banna'f and
Ahlf of Turshi'z.
Book iv treats of eminent and pious men who, though
not primarily poets, wrote occasional verses, such as Husayn
Wa'iz-i-Kashifi, the historian Mfrkhwand, etc.
Book v treats of Princes and members of the Royal
Family in Khurasan and elsewhere who wrote occasional
verses.
Book vi treats of scholars, poets and wits, not natives of
Khurasan, who shewed poetic talent.
Book vii treats of Kings and Princes who have either
composed verses, or cited the verses of others so appro-
priately as to entitle them to rank with poets. Amongst
the rulers mentioned in this chapter are Ti'mur himself,
Shah-rukh, Khali'l Sultan, Ulugh Beg, Baysunqur Mi'rza,
'Abdu'l-Latif Mi'rza, and other Princes of the reigning
house of Ti'mur.
CH. vii] NAWA'f'S MA/ALISU'N-NAFA'IS 439
Book viii treats of the virtues and talents of the reigning
King Abu'l-Ghazi Sultan Husayn ibn Bayqara, to the
political events of whose reign, as M. Belin observes in the
monograph on Mir 'All Shir which will be mentioned
immediately, Mfrkhwand devotes the seventh book of his
Rawdatiis- Safd 1 .
The monograph mentioned in the last sentence, which
contains the best account of Mir 'All Shfr and his works
with which I am acquainted, was published in the Journal
Asiatique for 1861 and also as a tirage-a-part comprising
158 pages. It is entitled Notice biographique et litte'raire
sur Mir Ali-Chir Ne'vdii, suivie d'extraits tires des ceuvres
du nieme auteur, par M. Belin, Secretaire-Interprete de
VAmbassade de France a Constantinople. The extracts from
the Majdlisu'n-Nafais (or " Galerie des Poetes " as Belin
translates it) include the text and translations of the Intro-
duction and Book vii. These suffice to give an adequate
idea of the style and scope of the work, which, apart from
the fact that it is written in Turki instead of in Persian,
differs from Dawlatshah's Memoirs in being much smaller
in extent, and in dealing only with contemporary poets.
It is worth noting that while, as we have already seen,
Nawa'f exercised a great influence over the development of
Ottoman Turkish poetry, the Ottoman poets seem to have
been entirely unknown to, or at least ignored by, him.
(4) Abu'l-Ghazi' Sultan Husayn's Majdlisul-Usfohdq.
But for the principle embodied in the well-known Arabic
saying, " the Words of Kings are the Kings of Words," and
the fact that another royal biographer, Sam
' 1 ' M{rz ^ the Safawi, has described it as supplying
adequate proof of its author's literary gifts 2 ,
this book, "the Conferences of Lovers," compiled by Sultan
Husayn in 908-9/1502-3, hardly deserves to be mentioned
1 See p. 433 supra.
2 See Rieu's Pers. Cat., pp. 351-3.
440 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
as a serious biographical work. Beginning with a flowery
Preface, filled with citations from the mystical poets, on
" real " (i.e. ideal) and " metaphorical " (i.e. material) love,
and the latter considered as a bridge to the former 1 , the
author proceeds to give 76 (or in some MSS. 77) articles,
each entitled Majlis (" Conference " or " Stance "), and each'
containing a more or less romantic account of some saintly
or royal personage, and, in most cases, of some Platonic
love-affair in which he was concerned. As Rieu has pointed
out, the first 55 articles follow a chronological order, be-
ginning with the Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (d. 151/768), and
ending with the author's contemporary the eminent poet
Jami (d. 898/1492-3). The last notice in the book is
devoted to the author himself " Sultan Husayn ibn Sultan
Mansur ibn Bayqara ibn 'Umar Shaykh ibn Timur Kurkan."
The title of the book, Majdlisul-'Ushshdq, is given in the
following verse :
The only copy of this book which I have been able to
consult is a modern but clearly written manuscript bearing
the class-mark Or. 761 recently acquired by the Cambridge
University Library, but I am informed that a lithographed
edition has been published at Lucknow.
It should be added, however, that the great Babur
disputes the authorship of this book (Bdbur-ndma, ed.
Ilminsky, p. 221), which he criticizes very harshly, and
which he declares was really written by Kamalu'd-Din
Husayn Gazargahi, one of the pseudo-Sufis who frequented
the society and enjoyed the patronage of Mir 'All Shir
Nawa'{. To this point I shall recur in discussing the work
in question.
1 According to the well-known saying of the Sufi mystics : " Al-
Majdzu qantaratrtl-Haqiqat" ("the Phenomenal is the Bridge to the
Real").
CH. vn] HUSAYN WA'IZ AND HIS SON 'ALf 441
(5) Husayn Wa'iz-i-Kashiffs Rawdatiish-Shuhadd.
Husayn-i-Kashifi, surnamed Wd'iz (" the Preacher "), is
better known as the author of that famous but over-esti-
mated work the Anwdr-i-Suhayli, of which we
shall speak presently ; but his " Mausoleum "
of Husayn / or "Garden") "of Martyrs," which depicts in a
Wd'iz-i-K4shifi \ *
rhetorical manner the persecutions and martyr-
doms of the Prophets and Imams, especially of the Prophet
Muhammad's grandson Husayn, the third Imam of the
Shf'ites, and the vengeance which overtook their perse-
cutors, though of no great account from a historical point
of view, deserves mention in this place. It is fully described
by Rieu 1 , and has been lithographed at Lahore in I28//
1870-1. It was translated into Turkish by the poet Fuduli
of Baghdad 2 , with some additions, about half a century after
its original composition.
(6) The Rashahdt-i- l Aynul-Haydt t by the
son of Husayn-i-Kashifi.
This work, though composed in 909/1503-4 (a date
indicated by the first word of its title Rashakdt, or "Sprink-
lings") and therefore falling just outside the
5j5JjJJSf period dealt with in this chapter, had best be
considered here, since its author 'All was the
son of Husayn-i-Kashifi, the author of the work last men-
tioned, while it was based on notes taken in Dhu'l-Qa'da
889 (Nov.-Dec. 1484) and Rabi" ii 893 (March- April, 1488)
on the occasion of the writer's visits to Khwaja 'Ubay-
du'llah (better known as Khwaja Ahrar), the great Naqsh-
bandi Shaykh, whose predecessors, life, teachings, miracles
and disciples form its subject-matter. A manuscript of
this book is preserved in the British Museum and is fully
described by Rieu 3 , but it is not common, and, so far as I
know, has never been published in its original form, though
1 Pers. Cat., pp. 152-3.
2 See E. J. W. Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. iii, p. 90.
Fuduli died in 963/1555-6.
3 Pers. Cat., pp. 353-4.
442 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK HI
a Turkish translation was printed at Constantinople in
1236/1820-1.
RELIGION, MYSTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY.
Less numerous and important in this period than the
histories and biographies above enumerated are the works
belonging to the above categories, but there are one or two
of each class which deserve at least a brief notice.
(l) Husayn-i-Kashifi"s Mawdhib-i-Aliyya^.
Husayn-i-Kashif{, who has been already mentioned as
the author of the Rawdatu'sh- Shuhadd, also compiled for
Mfr 'Ah' Shfr a Persian Commentary on the
The Ma-zvdhib- /^ , , u l- 11- u* '
Qur an, which, in allusion to his patron s name,
commentary on ne entitled Mawdhib-i- AUyya. His original
plan had been to write in four volumes a much
larger and more detailed Commentary, entitled Jawdhiru't-
Tafsir li-Tuhfati'l-Amir (" Gems of Exegesis for a Gift to
the Amfr"), but after finishing the first volume he resolved
to moderate his ambitions and write a much smaller, simpler
and more concise work on the same subject, to wit the
Mawdhib, or "Gifts," which he completed in 899/1493-4,
eleven years before his death. Manuscripts of this book
are not rare, but it is not often heard of, much less studied,
at the present day in Persia. In India, however, I am
informed that it is still widely read, and that it has been
published there, though I have never seen a printed or
lithographed edition.
(2) Akhldq-i-Jaldli and (3) Akhldq-i-Muhsini.
Of the older manuals of Ethics in Persian, the two
best known and most popular after the Akhldq-i-Ndsiri
(written about the middle of the thirteenth
pop^LrtreTtists century of the Christian era by the celebrated
on Ethics in astronomer Nasiru'd-Din-i-Tusi' 2 ) are the
Akhldq-i-Jaldli (properly entitled Lawdmi'u'l-
1 See Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 9-11.
2 See Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 441-2, and vol. ii of my Literary
History of Persia, pp. 220, 456 and 485.
CH. vii] WORKS ON ETHICS 443
Ishrdq ft Makdrimi l-Akhldq) composed by the philosopher
Jalalu'd-Din Dawani between A.D. 1467 and 1477, and
dedicated to Uzun Hasan of the Aq-qoyunlu or " White
Sheep " dynasty ; and the Akhldq-i-Muhsini compiled by
the already mentioned Husayn-i-Kashiff, "the Preacher," in
900/1494-5, and dedicated to Abu'l-Ghazi Sultan Husayn
ibn Bayqara. All three books are available in printed or
lithographed editions, which are enumerated by Rieu, and
of that last mentioned both the text (A.D. 1823 and 1850)
and the translation (A.D. 1851) have been printed at Hert-
ford, for this book was, like its author's other work the
Anwdr-i-SukayUy formerly popular (especially as a text-
book for examinations) amongst Anglo-Indian officials.
It is to Metaphysics and Mysticism rather than to
Ethics that the Persian genius turns, and none of these
three books can be regarded as having any
, , . . , , ..
great value, except incidentally, as throwing
light on Persian customs, institutions and ways
of thought. The Akhldq-i-Jaldlt is much the
most florid in style, and used formerly to be regularly pre-
scribed in the second or advanced part of Persian in the
Oriental (formerly Indian) Languages Tripos at Cambridge,
on account of its supposed difficulty, which, however, lies
rather in the form than the substance. Aristotle, as inter-
preted by Avicenna (Abu 'All ibn Sin a), has in the main
determined the form and arrangement of Muhammadan
Philosophy, which is primarily divided into "Practical Philo-
sophy" (Hikmat-i-'A malt) and "Theoretical Philosophy"
(Hikmat-i-Nazari). Of these two main divisions each is
subdivided into three branches : the Theoretical into Mathe-
matics (Riyddiyydt), Physical Science (Tabi'iyydt), and
Metaphysics (Md fawqdt- Tabi'at or Md ba'dat- Tabi'af) ;
and the Practical into Ethics (Tahdhibu l-Akhldq), CEco-
nomics ( Tadbiru l-Manzil), and Politics (Siydsatu'l-Mudun).
It is with the three branches of the second division that the
works now under consideration deal. The two which belong
to this period have both been translated into English and
444 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BKIII
printed, the Akhldq-i-Jaldlt by W. F. Thompson (London,
1839) under the title of "Practical Philosophy of the Mu-
hammadan People"; and the Akhldq-i-Muhsini (Hertford,
1851) by H. G. Keene. The English reader who desires
to acquaint himself with their contents can, therefore, easily
do so, and no further description of them is required in this
place.
As regards their authors, Jalalu'd-Din-i-Dawani was
born in 830/1426-7 at the village of Dawan (from which
he derives his nisba) in the province of Pars
Sw~ Din "" near Kazarun, where his father was Qadi or
judge. He himself held the same office in the
province and was also a professor at the Ddrul-Aytdm or
Orphans' College at Shiraz, where he passed most of his
life. He died and was buried at his native place in
908/1 502-3 1 . His fame even during his life-time spread
far beyond the confines of his native land, and, as we
have seen 2 , received recognition even at the distant Ottoman
Court. In spite of his fame, he seems to have left but
little behind him besides his work on Ethics, except some
Quatrains, written and commentated by himself, and an
explanation of one of the odes of Hafiz.
To Husayn-i-Kashifi we shall recur later.
(4) T\\eJawdhirul-Asrdr, (5) the Lawaih,
and (6) the Ashi"atul-Lama l dt.
Of the rich mystical literature of this period the major
portion, which is in verse, will be discussed when we come
to speak of the poets. Of the prose portion
prtle^rkI 1Cal tne three books mentioned above may be taken
as typical. Two are commentaries on earlier
texts, while the third is an independent work.
The Jawdhintl-Asrdr wa Zawdhirul-Anwdr ("Gems
of Mysteries and Manifestations of Lights") is a com-
mentary on the great Mystical Mathnawi of Mawlana
1 See Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 442-3.
2 See p. 423 supra.
CH. vn] jAMf'S ASHr'ATU'L-LAMA'AT. ETC. 445
Jalalu'd-Di'n Rumi by Kamalu'd-Dm Husayn b. Hasan of
Khwarazm, the author or translator of several other works 1 ,
who was killed by the Uzbeks some time be-
25i - " -IW * tween 835 and 840 (A.D. 1432-37). He was the
pupil of a somewhat celebrated Sufi Shaykh,
Khwaja Abu'1-Wafa, had assiduously studied the Mathnawi
from his youth upwards, and had already written a briefer
commentary on it entitled Kunuziil-Haqaiq ("Treasures
of Truths "). The Jawdkiru'l-Asrdr, the later and fuller
commentary, has been lithographed in India. There is a
manuscript of the first half in the British Museum 2 , and
one of the second Book (or Daftar) in the Cambridge
University Library 3 , besides a lithographed Indian edition.
The most important part of the work is the Introduction,
which deals with the history, terminology and doctrines of
the Sufi's.
The two other works mentioned above are from the
fertile pen of the great poet and mystic Mulla Nuru'd-Dm
'Abdu'r-Rahman Jami.
The A ski" atu I- Lama 1 at, or " Rays of the ' Flashes,' " is
a running commentary on the Lama'dt of 'Iraqi, which has
Timi's been already discussed in a previous chapter 4 .
AsWatu'i- Apart from manuscripts, which are not very
common, the text has been published in Persia
in an undated volume containing this and several other
mystical treatises. Of the genesis of the work Jami speaks
thus in his Preface :
" It is represented that at the time when the learned, practising,
gnostic lover, the author of excellent prose and admirable verse, that
cup-bearer of the bowl of generosity to men of high aspi-
Quotation from rations Fakhru'd-Din Ibrahim of Hamadan, commonly
the Preface , . . . *
known as Iraqi, attained to the society of that Exemplar
of learned seekers after Truth and that Model of Unitarian Gnostics
Abu'l-Ma'ali Sadru'1-Haqq Wa'1-Millat wa'd-Dfn Muhammad of Qunya 6
1 See Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 144-6.
2 Add. 14051. See Rieu's Persian Cat., p. 558.
3 Marked Or. 238.
4 See pp. 132-9 supra. 5 Or Qonya, the old Iconium.
446 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
(may God most High sanctify their secrets !), and heard from him the
truths contained in the Fusttsu ^l-Hikam l , he compiled a short manual,
which, inasmuch as it comprised several "flashes" from the lightnings
of these truths, he entitled Lama^dt. Therein, in pleasant phrases and
with charming allusions, he flung together jewels of verse and prose
and mingled aphorisms Arabic and Persian, from which the signs of
learning and wisdom were apparent, and in which the lights of taste
and ecstasy were manifest, such as might awaken the sleeper, render
him who is awakened cognizant of the mysteries, kindle the fire of
Love and put in motion the chain of longing.
" But since the author ['Iraqi] had become the target of the tongues
of l the vilifiers of sundry men of good repute j and had suffered at the
hands of ' 'certain ill-conditioned wanderers from the path?]
*on^lr~i t ^ ie Dunc ^y orthodox have imposed on him the stigma
of repudiation, and withdrawn from him the skirt of
acceptance. This humble writer also, in view of this rejection and
repudiation, abstained from preoccupying himself therewith ; until the
most illustrious of the ' Brethren of Purity' in this country, and the
most glorious of the friends of constancy (may God cause him to walk
in the ways of His adept servants !), whose auspicious name has been
enunciated in the course of this prayer in the best form of enigma and
allusion between God and His servants, requested me to collate and
correct the text thereof; which request could only be met with obedience.
When I entered on this business, and ran over the details of its com-
ponent parts, I saw in every leaf thereof a ' Flash ' from the lights of
Truths, and perceived in every page a gust of the declaration of Divine
Wisdom. The heart was attracted to the understanding of its subtle-
ties, and the mind was troubled at the difficulty of comprehending
its purport. Manuscripts of the text differed, and some of them ap-
peared to be perverted from the path of accuracy. In certain cases
of concision and passages of difficulty reference was made to the com-
mentaries on it ; but neither was any difficulty solved thereby, nor in
any of them was any concise statement properly amplified. As a
necessary consequence, this thought passed through a heart disposed
to the understanding of subtleties, and this wish established itself in a
mind regardful of the essence of truths, that, to correct its sentences and
elucidate its hints, a commentary should be compiled gleaned from
the sayings of the elders of the Path and leaders in the Truth, especially
1 A well-known and highly esteemed mystical work in Arabic by
Shaykh Muhyi'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabf. See vol. ii of my Lit. Hist, of
Persia, pp. 497-501.
2 These two half-verses are from a quatrain generally ascribed to
'Umar Khayydm. See E. H. Whinfield's edition and versified transla-
tion, No. 199, pp. 134-5.
CH. vn] jAMf'S LAWA'IH 447
those two great Shaykhs Muhyi'd-Din Muhammad ibnu'l-'Arabi and
his disciple and pupil Sadru'd-Dfn Muhammad of Qiinya and their fol-
lowers (may God most High sanctify their secrets !). So, in consequence
of these promptings, the mind decided on undertaking this difficult
task, which it brought to a conclusion, by the assistance of God's Grace,
in the shortest time. And since most of the statements which are
included in this commentary are of the kind which have shone forth
upon the heart from the consideration of the luminous words of the
text, it is proper that it should be named 'Rays of the "Flashes,"' and
should be represented to the eyes of students by this description. It is
hoped of such as regard justly, though not of scoffers characterized by
obstinacy, that when they take this manual into their consideration,
and devote their thoughts to its perusal, wherever they see aught of
goodness and perfection they will account it the gift of God (Glory
be to Him and exalted is He !), whilst wherever they find any fault or
defect they will attribute it to the impotence and shortcomings of
humanity ; and that they will not specially make the humble author a
target for the arrows of reproach, nor cast themselves into the vortex
of evil-seeking and evil-saying. We ask aid from God, to whom be
glory!"
This Introduction is followed by a long dissertation on
various points in the philosophy of the Mystics, together
with questions and answers designed to elucidate special
difficulties, after which the running commentary on the text
follows. The book ends with the following Perso-Arabic
t9*
chronogram, in which the word tammamtuhu (AZ+^J, " I
completed it ") gives the date of completion as 885 (A.D.
1480-81):
is j 'iu A-ij u 31
*
The Lawaih a word which also, like Lama'dt, means
" Flashes " or " Effulgences " of Light is a mystical treatise
in prose mixed with quatrains comprising thirty
Jimt's Lawd 'ik . . ,.,-,, , , , , 11-11
sections called r lashes. It has been published
in fac-simile with a Preface, translation and appendices,
448 PROSE WRITERS : LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
by Mr E. H. Whinfield, who has made such valuable con-
tributions to our knowledge of Persian mysticism, aided by
that great scholar Mirza Muhammad ibn 'Abdu'l-Wahhab
of Qazwin. This little volume, the sixteenth in the New
Series of the Oriental Translation Fund, was published in
1906 under the auspices of the Royal Asiatic Society, and,
since it is easily accessible to English readers, any lengthy
account of it would be superfluous. One of the most
beautiful things in it, in my opinion, is the prayer which
follows the Exordium and precedes the Preface, and which
runs as follows :
3 ^5*^ Jliii^t o- U
^Ju L Oj-^su J*OL> jt C-JLftC. O
J j
IU C~wU l A^A U
" My God, my God ! Save us from preoccupation with trifles, and
show us the realities of things as they are ! Withdraw from the eyes
of our understanding the veil of heedlessness, and show
Jdmi's prayer us everything as it truly is! Display not to us Not-
for spiritual . / . ' .
enlightenment Being in the guise of Being, and place not a veil of
Not-Being over the Beauty of Being. Make these
phenomenal forms a Mirror of the Effulgences of Thy Beauty, not a
cause of veiling and remoteness, and cause these phantasmal pictures
to become the means of our knowledge and vision, not a cause of
ignorance and blindness. All our deprivation and banishment is from
ourselves : leave us not with ourselves, but grant us deliverance from
ourselves, and vouchsafe us knowledge of Thyself ! "
CH. vn] FADLITLLAH THE HURtfFf 449
Literature of the Hurufi Sect.
In the account of the Hurufi heresy given in the last
chapter (pp. 365-375 supra) incidental mention has been
made of the principal books emanating from or connected
with that strange sect From the purely literary point of
view most of these (with the exception of a few poems like
the Iskandar-ndma published and translated by M. Cl. Huart
in vol. ix of the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial " Series) are of
little merit 1 , though to the student of religion and the psycho-
logist they are deeply interesting. To the uninitiated reader
Fadlu'llah's J dwiddn-ndma, whatever esoteric mysteries it
may contain, is a series of disconnected and almost un-
intelligible ravings, and the only one of his extant writings
which strikes anything approaching a human note is a letter
addressed to one of his disciples on the eve of his execution.
From this letter it appears that Fadlu'llah was put to death
at Shirwan, which, in allusion to the scene of the Imam
Husayn's martyrdom, he speaks of as " my Karbala 2 ."
In Persia, as already observed, the sect does not seem
to have played an important role, or to have long survived
the death of its founder and his immediate
Diffusion of the
Hurufi heresy successor. In Turkey, whither it soon spread,
it was far otherwise. There, in spite of several
severe persecutions recorded by the Turkish historians, it
counted many adherents, amongst the most famous of
whom was the poet Nasimi (Nesimi), who was skinned
alive for his heterodoxy in 820/1417-8, in the city of
Aleppo. An admirable account of him and the Hurufi
sect is given by the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb 3 , and also of
his chief disciple, the Turkish poet Rafi'i, author of the
1 This refers only to the Persian Hurufi writings, for, as already
indicated (p. 369, n. i supra), Mr Gibb regards Nesfmi as "the first
true poet of the Western Turks."
2 See my second paper on the Hurufis in the J. R. A. S. for July,
1907, pp. 9 and 10 of the tirage-a-part, where both text and translation
are given.
3 History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, pp. 336-388.
B. P. 29
450 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
Bashdrat-ndma. Here it may be observed that the titles
of nearly all Hurufi works are compounded with the word
-ndma, "book." Thus in Persian we have the Adam-ndma
("Book of Adam," or " Book of Man"), the 'Arsh-ndma
("Book of God's Throne"), Hiddyat-ndma ("Book of
Guidance"), fstiwd-ndma, Kursi-ndma, Mahabbat-ndma,
etc., and in Turkish, besides the above-mentioned Bashd-
rat-ndma (" Book of Good Tidings "), the Akhirat-ndma,
Fadilat-ndma, Faqr-ndma, Fayd-ndma, Ganj-ndma, Haqi-
qat-ndma, 'Ishq-ndma, and many others, of which the titles
will be found in the Index appended to my second article
on the Hurufi Literature in the/. R. A. S. for July, 1907,
where short descriptions of 45 Huruff MSS. are given.
The list of works in that Index is undoubtedly far from
complete, yet even these have for the most part received
only the most cursory examination, so that there is plenty
of scope for further research in this field. Ordinary curiosity
about the sect and its history and literature will, however,
be amply satisfied by what has been already
gurfiflMctfa published about it in English and French: to
English and w jt m y account of the Jdwiddn-i-Kabir* and
French J J
my two papers in the /. R. A. S. (for 1898
and 1907) ; the chapter in Mr E. J. W. Gibb's History of
Ottoman Poetry ; and vol. ix of the Gibb Memorial Series,
published in 1909, entitled Textes Persans relatifs a la secte
des Houroufis, publics, traduits et annotes par M. Clement
Huart, sidvis d'une Etude sur la Religion des Houroiifis^par
le Docteur Rizd Tevftq, connu sous le nom de Feylesouf Rizd.
Ishaq Efendi's refutation of the Hurufi's, written in
Turkish in 1288/1871-2, and published in 1291/1874, under
the title of the Revealer of Mysteries and Repeller
Ishaq Efendi's *
refutation of 0f Miscreants*, though very violent in tone, is
fairly accurate in substance, and is the result of
careful though prejudiced investigations. After a very brief
doxology it begins as follows :
1 See my Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the Cambridge University
Library, pp. 69-86.
2 KdshifuU-Asrdr <wa Ddfi'tfl-Ashrdr.
CH. vn] DENUNCIATION OF THE HURUFfS 451
" Be it known that of all those sects which devote themselves to the
misleading of the Muslims, the Bektashfs are the chief offenders, and
that although it is evident both from their deeds and words that they
are not truly Muslims, yet in the year 1288/1871-2 they made this fact
perfectly plain. The books called by these people Jdwiddn (' Eternal ')
are six in number, of which one was composed by their original mis-
leader Fadlu'llah the Hurufi, while the other five are the works of his
Khalifas (successors). And since in these five books their heresies
and blasphemies are very evident, they are accustomed to teach and
study them secretly among themselves ; but as Firishta-zada in his
Jdwiddn, entitled ''Ishq-ndma (' the Book of Love ')> did in some degree
veil his blasphemies, and as consequently in the year above-mentioned
(1288/1871-2) his followers made so bold as to print and publish it, it
has beyond question become a matter of urgent necessity that a treatise
should be compiled to warn the faithful as to the true nature and
blasphemous character of the doctrines contained in their books.
Therefore, relying on God, I have ventured to write such a treatise,
comprising three chapters, viz. :
" Chapter I. Setting forth the origin of Fadl the Hurufi, and the
principles and rules of certain of the Bektashis.
" Chapter II. Setting forth the blasphemies of Firishta-zada's
Jdwiddn.
"Chapter III. Setting forth the blasphemies contained in the
other Jdwiddns?
After a brief account of the Carmathians and other early
heretics, and of Fadlu'llah of Astarabad, the founder of the
Hurufi sect, the author describes how " the son of Timiir "
(Miran-shah) caused him to be put to death, " after which
he tied a rope to his legs, dragged him publicly through
the streets and bazars, and removed his foul existence from
this nether world." Thereupon his nine Khalifas or "Vicars"
dispersed through the lands of Islam, and he who was en-
titled a/-' A liyyu 'l-A'ld ("the High, the Supreme") 1 came to
the monastery of Hajji Bektash in Anatolia, and, having
won the confidence of its inmates, began secretly to teach
the doctrines of the Jdwiddn, pretending that they repre-
sented the esoteric doctrine of Hajji Bektash, and naming
them " the Secret," to divulge which was death. For the
understanding of certain obscure symbols and passages in
1 He died in 822/1419.
29 2
452 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
the Jdwiddn, a key entitled " the Key of Life " (Miftdktil-
Haydty was compiled. " Should one possess this," adds
the author, " he will understand the Jdwiddn, which, without
this aid, is incomprehensible."
In spite of all their precautions, however, several severe
persecutions of the Hurufis and Bektashfs took place in
Turkey, one of the latest of which was in
Persecutions *
ofthe Hurufis 1240/1824-5, in the reign of Sultan Mahmud,
who killed many of them, destroyed their
monasteries, and made over their property to the Naqsh-
bandi order of dervishes. Many of their surviving Shaykhs
and ordinary members took refuge amongst the Naqshbandi,
Qadirf, Rufa'i and Sa'di orders of dervishes, and cautiously
carried on their propaganda in these new environments.
The order, however, speedily revived, and is still widely
spread in Turkey, to which country rather than to Persia
the later history of the Huruff sect belongs. Of the con-
tinued existence of the sect in Persia there appears to
be no evidence, though doubtless many of their doctrines
and ideas are still current amongst the dervish " gnostics "
('urafa) of that unforgetting land, while some of their
peculiar views and terminology have been assimilated by
such later heretical sects as the Babi's, who will be discussed
in the concluding volume of this work.
The Turki literature of this period, especially the
Bdbur-ndma.
The principle has been repeatedly laid down in this
book that the literary history of a people in the wider
sense should not be confined to what they
Claims of Turki J
literature to wrote in their own language, and for this
reason Arabic books written by Persians have
tion even in a
Literary History been included in our survey. The case for
saying something about the considerable Turki
1 Three MSS. of this " Key " are described in my second paper on
the Literature of the Hurufts, viz. Or. 5957 of the British Museum ;
Or. 488 of the Cambridge University Library ; and a MS. of my own,
B. 15.
CH. viz] TURKf LITERATURE 453
literature produced at the Timurid courts, especially at
Herat during the reign of Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn
(A.H. 878-912 = A.D. 1473-1506), is not quite so strong,
because those who produced it were for the most part, if
not wholly, of Turkish race ; though since in Transoxiana
and Turkistan the two languages flourished (and, indeed,
still flourish) side by side, the number of bilinguals must
always have been considerable. The Persian, as being the
more polished idiom, was more generally used, even by
princes of the House of Timur like Ulugh Beg, Baysunqur,
Mfrza Haydar Dughlat and Sultan Husayn himself, for
Services of M, r literary purposes; but the great Mir 'AH Shir
-AH shir Nawa'i Nawa'i, who did more than any other man
hngukgeand to raise the Chaghatay Turki to the dignity
of a literary language, actually maintained its
superiority to Persian in a treatise entitled Muhdkamatul-
Lughatayn ("the Arbitration between the two languages").
Of some of Mir 'AH Shir's numerous works something has
been already said, and those who desire fuller information
can find it in M. Belin's monograph in \he Journal A siatique
for 1 86 1, already mentioned, and in another monograph of
his on \heMakbubul-Qulub 1 ("Hearts' Darling") published
in the same periodical in 1 866 under the title of Caracteres,
Maximes et Pensees de Mir AH Chir Nfodti, Dawlatshah
also in the Conclusion (Khdtima) of his Memoirs of the
Poets mentions several other eminent Turki poets amongst
his contemporaries, while numerous other works in this
tongue, both in prose and verse, will be found mentioned
in Rieu's Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British
Museum. Yet, save to the student of Turkish in its wider
sense, it is doubtful if the interest of this literature would
be commensurate with the trouble of learning this particular
dialect of Turkf, were it not for the sake of reading in its
original form that unique work, the Bdbur-
Unique character ^ _ *
ofRabur's Roma, or Memoirs of the Emperor Babur, of
which at any rate the French or the English
1 The text of this has been printed (I think at Constantinople) in
189/1872-3.
454 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
translation should be read by every student of Persian or
Indian history 1 . Enthusiastic as are the praises lavished
on this most remarkable book, " singular in its
Eulogies on the , f . . e . . .
Memoirs by aii own nature, and perfectly so if we consider the
who have made circumstances of the writer," by Erskine 2 , Pavet
use of them i /
de Courteille 3 , and all others who have worked
at it, no one who has perused its pages will deem them
exaggerated. It is impossible to better the description of
it given by Elphinstone 4 , who describes it as containing
"a minute account of the life of a great Tartar monarch,
along with a natural effusion of his opinions and feelings
free from disguise and reserve, and no less free from all
affectation of extreme frankness and candour. The style
is plain and manly, as well as lively and picturesque ; it
presents his countrymen and contemporaries in their ap-
pearance, manners, pursuits and actions as clearly as in
a mirror. In this respect it is almost the only specimen
of real history in Asia ; for the ordinary writers, though
they give pompous accounts of the deeds and ceremonies
of the great, are apt to omit the lives and manners even of
that class ; while everything beneath their level is left
entirely out of sight. In Baber the figures, dress, tastes
and habits of each individual introduced are described with
such minuteness and reality that we seem to live among
them, and to know their persons as well as we do their
characters. His descriptions of the countries he visited,
their scenery, climate, productions, and works of art and
industry are more full and accurate than will, perhaps, be
found in equal space in any modern traveller ; and, con-
sidering the circumstances in which they were compiled,
are truly surprising."
The book is, indeed, extraordinarily frank and intimate,
1 Pavet de Courteille's French translation was made directly from
the original Turkf, and is therefore preferable to Leyden and Erskine's
English translation, which was made from the Persian version.
2 History of India, vol. i, pp. 522-525.
3 P. ii of the Preface to his translation.
4 Vol. ii of his History of India, pp. 117-119.
CH. vn] THE BABUR-NAMA 455
being such a diary as a man writes for his own private
delectation rather than for the perusal of even his most
confidential friends, much less subjects ; and probably no
king at any rate ever wrote, or at any rate suffered to be
circulated, such Confessions. While recording fully the
many great historical events in which he took part, he
does not hesitate to mention when he shaved for the first
time 1 at the age of 23 in the year 909/1503-4; when he
saw the star Canopus for the first time 2 ; how he was first
induced to taste wine 3 at Herat in 912/1506-7; and when
he made his first attempt to write Turki verse 4 . He de-
scribes his unhappy marriage with 'A'isha Sultan Begum 5 ,
his reckless and unrestrained passion for Babun' 6 , his
drinking-bouts 7 , his favourite vintage 8 , and how on one
occasion he refrained from exceeding at a drinking-party
in order to form an impartial opinion as to the effects of
drunkenness on others 9 . Mention has already been made
of the value of his geographical observations, but his notes
on the fauna and flora of Central Asia and India are of
nearly equal interest, while his impartial and acute de-
lineations of the characters and personal peculiarities of
his royal kinsmen and most notable contemporaries are
of the highest interest and value. From our present point
of view, however, no portion of his Memoirs is
a more interesting than that which he devotes
and artists in the to a series of literary portraits of the leading
Babttr-ndnia ',
poets, writers and artists 10 who conferred such
distinction on the court of Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn,
beginning with that monarch himself and his eminent and
accomplished minister Mir 'All Shir Nawa'i 11 . As the whole
of it may be read in French in the first volume of Pavet de
1 Bdbur-ndma, ed. Ilminsky, p. 146.
2 Ibid., p. 153. 3 Ibid., p. 239.
4 Ibid., p. 107. ' Ibid., p. 62.
6 Ibid., pp. 62-63. : Ibid., pp. 291, 293, 305.
8 Ibid., p. 6. 9 Ibid., p. 304.
10 Ibid., pp. 221-231. u Ibid., pp. 203-214.
456 PROSE WRITERS : LATER Tf Mtf RID PERIOD [BK in
Courteille's translation (pp. 364-415), it will be sufficient
here to summarize a few of the more interesting passages.
Having spoken of Sultan Husayn's birth, death, family
and personal appearance, Babur mentions the predilection
for the Shi'ite doctrine which he showed at
Description of t ^ beginning of his reign, but which was
Siiliiut Husayn c> '
checked by Mir 'All Shir. Chronic rheumatism
prevented him from saying his prayers, but is no explana-
tion of his neglect to keep the fast. After he had reigned
six or seven years he took to drink, " and during the forty
years for which he reigned over Khurasan, there was not
a day whereon he did not drink after the morning prayer
though he never drank in the early morning." His sons,
soldiers and subjects imitated his example, and were for
the most part dissolute and self-indulgent. He was, how-
ever, of proved valour, a very skilful swordsman, and wrote
moderately good poetry in the Turki language under the
nom de guerre of Hasan. His kingdom of Khurasan ex-
tended eastwards to Balkh, westwards to Bistam and
Damghan, northwards to Khwarazm (Khiva), and south-
wards to Qandahar and Sistan. " His was a wonderful age,"
says Babur a little further on ; " Khurasan, and especially
Herat, were filled with men of talent and incomparable
artists. Whoever undertook any task, his aim and ambition
was to perform it to perfection."
Mir 'All Shir Nawa'f is next discussed, and a high
tribute is paid to his poetical talent, alike in romantic
and lyric verse and in the quatrain, but his
Shfc*Nawl'i epistolary style is rated lower. Though he
wrote chiefly in Turki, he has also a Persian
Diwdn, in which he uses the pen-name of Fani. He was
a great patron of art as well as of letters, and the fame
attained by the painters Bihzad and Shah Muzaffar was
largely due to his encouragement. He was devout, orthodox,
and attentive to his religious duties, and was an enthusiastic
chess-player. In this last respect he was excelled by Mir
Murtad the philosopher, who, when he found two good
CH. vn] THE BABUR-NAMA 457
players, would play a game with one while he held on to
the skirt of the other to prevent him from going away until
he had played a game with him also. He was a batchelor,
without domestic ties, and very free and easy with his
intimates. Thus on one occasion while engaged in playing
chess he stretched out his foot and accidentally kicked the
poet Banna'i, whereupon he jestingly exclaimed, "A plague
on Herat ! If you stretch out your feet, you kick the back-
side of a poet." "And so you do if you draw in your feet 1 ,"
retorted Banna'i.
Shaykhum Beg, who assumed the pen-name of Suhaylf,
was another of Sultan Husayn's amirs who had some
poetical talent, but was criticized for an undue
Be^SuhTu partiality for terrifying words and ideas. Thus
on one occasion he recited the following verse
in the presence of Jami:
" In the night of grief the whirl-wind of my sighs displaced the world ;
The dragon of my tear-torrent engulfed the habitable quarter [of the
globe]."
" Do you want to write poetry or to frighten your fellow-
creatures?" Jami enquired.
"Kamalu'd-Di'n Husayn G^zargahi," says Babur a little
further on 2 , "although he was not a Sufi, posed as such.
Pretended Suffs of this type were wont to
Shi Din S ather rounc * <All/ Shir Beg and indulge in their
ecstasies and religious music. This man's prin-
ciples were better than most of them, and to this fact he
probably owed the consideration which he enjoyed, for
otherwise he had no special talent worth mentioning.
He wrote a book entitled Majdlisul- Ushshdq (" Lovers'
Meetings") of which he ascribed the authorship to Husayn
1 I.e. "sit on your heels" in the Persian fashion.
2 Ed. Ilminsky, p. 2.2,1.
458 PROSE WRITERS: LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
Mirza 1 . It is a miserable production, mostly lies, and in-
sipid and impertinent lies to boot, some of which raise a
suspicion of heresy. Thus he attributes carnal loves to
many prophets and saints, inventing for each one of them
a paramour. Another astonishing piece of folly is that
while describing the book in the preface as the work of
Sultan Husayn Mirza himself, over every one of his own
verses and sonnets occurring in the course of the book he
puts ' by the author.' "
Of Jami, by far the greatest poet of the time, Babur
refrains from uttering any criticism, because, he says, " he
stands too high to need any praise," wherefore
Jami and J '
Sayfu'd-Din he only mentions his name " for luck and for a
blessing." He praises the Arabic scholarship
and theological attainments of the Shaykhu'l-Islam Sayfu'd-
Din Ahmad, son of the celebrated Sa'du'd-Di'n Taftazani,
who is said to have regularly attended public prayer for
nearly seventy years, and who was finally put to death by
Shah Ismail when he took Herat for refusing to conform to
the Shi'ite doctrines and observances so fanatically insisted
on by that monarch. A longer notice is devoted to Jami's
pupil and disciple Mulla 'Abdu'l-Ghafur of Lar,
^haWr-i-Lari w ^ commentated his master's Nafahdtiil- Uns,
and whose partiality for the society of dervishes
was such that when he heard of one who had newly arrived
he could not rest until he had seen and talked with him.
Mention is next made of Mir 'Ata'u'llah of Mashhad, a
good Arabic scholar, who also composed in Persian a treatise
on rhyme, of which Babur considers the chief defect to be
that the author's illustrations are all drawn from his own
poems, as well as another treatise on rhetorical figures en-
titled Baddyi'u's-Sandyi 1 .
Amongst the poets, besides those already noticed, of
whom he makes mention areAsafi, Banna'i, Sayff of Bukhara
1 Cf. pp. 439-440 supra.
CH. vn] POETS AND ARTISTS OF BABUR'S TIME 459
(the author of a useful treatise on Prosody 1 ), Hatifi (J ami's
nephew) also known as ' Abdu \\ah-\-Matkna-
Other poets
mentioned by ivt-gu, Mir Husayn Mu'ammd't, Muhammad
of Badakhshan, Yusuf Badf'i, Ahi, Muhammad
Salih, Shah Husayn Kami, Ahli and Hilalf, the last of
whom Babur criticizes very severely for the subject-matter
and treatment of his poem " The Prince and the Beggar "
(Shdk u Darwish or Shah u Gadd). Of the
caiiigraphists many caiiigraphists at the court he mentions
and artists f
only Sultan 'All of Mashhad, who copied manu-
scripts both for Sultan Husayn and for Mir 'All Shir;
and of the miniature-painters Bihzad and Shah Muzaffar,
who was also a poet. His criticism on Bihzad's portraits
is that though he drew bearded faces well, he was less
successful with beardless boys and girls, where he had a
tendency to exaggerate the chin 2 . Yet in another place 3 ,
in speaking of Shaybani Khan's proceedings after he had
captured Herat in 913/1507-8, he denounces his action in
attempting to improve and touch up Bihzad's paintings. In
conclusion Babur mentions a number of musicians, minstrels
and composers.
The materials for a literary history of this period,
especially of its poets, are therefore singularly copious
and authoritative, for besides Babur's incidental
materials for notices of which we have just spoken, we have the
literary history voluminous Memoirs of the Poets compiled by
of this period , ,~., , ,
Dawlatshah in 892/1487, and Mir 'Ah Shirs
Turki Majdltsun-Nafd'is, completed about four years later,
of the contents of which some account has been given above 4 .
As a pendant to these is the later work of another royal
author, Sam Mirza, son of Shah Isma'i'l the Safawi, who
was born in 923/1517 and put to death in 984/1576-7, and
1 Published with English translation and explanations by Bloch-
mann at Calcutta.
2 Ed. Ilminsky, pp. 228-229.
3 Ibid., p. 262.
4 Pp. 437-439 supra.
460 PROSE WRITERS : LATER Tf MtiRID PERIOD [BK in
who in 957/1550 wrote his Tuhfa-i-Sdmt 1 , a somewhat rare
book which will be considered in the subsequent volume.
In addition to these are the copious biographical notices
contained in Khwandamir's Habibus-Siyar. Of all these,
however, Babur is the most amusing and the most in-
structive, because he possesses both humour and a critical
faculty lacking in the other biographers, who, by indis-
criminate eulogies, deprive their appreciations of all real
value.
1 See Rieu's Persian Catalogue, pp. 367-368, and the references
there given. There is also a MS. (Or. 648) in the Cambridge University
Library.
CHAPTER VIII
POETS OF THE LATER TIMURID PERIOD
As already indicated in more than one place, the charac-
teristic of the art which prevailed under the Ti'murids,
whether literary or pictorial, was an extreme
Literary taste _ '
under the elaboration and preciosity little in accordance
with modern European taste, though very similar
on its literary side to that evolved by John Lyly and the
Euphuists in England nearly a century after Jamf's reputa-
tion had reached its zenith in Persia 1 . In England this
florid, artificial style enjoyed but a brief popularity ; in
Persia it has flourished intermittently for a long period,
especially under Tartar and Turkish patronage, but not
continuously nor in all parts of the country, so that it is
easy to point out fine specimens of simple, strong, natural
Persian prose and verse both before and after the period
now under consideration. During this period, however,
Period of greatest tne prevailing literary style in Persia was very
Persian influence ornate and artificial, and as it unfortunately
Indian literary happened that at no time was Persian literary
style influence greater in the adjoining lands of
Turkey, India and Transoxiana, this style became stereo-
typed throughout Western and Central Asia, and has come
to be regarded by many persons, especially those who have
pursued their linguistic studies in India, as typically Persian.
Still it is a fact that not only the Persians, Turks and
Indians, but even the Arabs, whose natural tendency is to
a chaster and more simple style, and who seldom quite forget
their adage that " tfie best speech is that which is brief and to
the point*" tend to regard form as more important than ideas
1 Lyly was born in 1553-4 and wrote his Euphues, the Anatomy of
Wit'vs\ 1578. Jami composed his Nafahdtii'l- Uns in 1478,. and com-
piled his first Diwdn in the following year.
462 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
in literary composition, to care less what a writer says than
how he says it, and to prefer conventionality to originality.
Most instructive are the remarks of that great and original
historian Ibn Khaldun, who was not only contemporary
with Timur but came into personal relations with him when
Damascus surrendered to him at the end of A.D. I4OO 1 .
These remarks, with other observations germane to this
subject, I have given in a previous volume 2 to which the
reader is referred. In particular the student of Persian
poetry, especially of the later more ornate writers, may be
recommended to read that curious work, "the Lovers'
Companion" (Anisu'l-Ushshdq), composed in 826/1423 by
Sharafu'd-Din Kami at Maragha in Adharbayjan, of which
a French translation by M. Cl. Huart was published in Paris
in 1875, and of which I have given a brief account in a
previous volume 3 .
It must not be supposed, however, that all the poets
who will be mentioned in this chapter, or even all who
flourished at the court of Sultan Husayn at
l^ZSZSZ, Herat, employ this inflated and ornate style,
universal as sup- which, indeed, is more noticeable in prose- writers,
including even historians, who ought to know
better than to fill ten pages with what could very well be
set forth in one. The earlier poets of whom we shall imme-
diately speak, like Shah Ni'matu'llah and Qasimu'l-Anwar,
are free from this blemish, for so we must regard it; and so
also, as a rule, is Jami, who is universally and justly regarded
not only as the chief ornament of the court of Herat, but
as one of the greatest Persian poets of all time. It is the
ornate prose-writers and minor poets and versifiers of the
later part of this period who are the chief offenders in this
respect. The passion for the riddle and acrostic (mu'amma)
which prevailed amongst the latter is very characteristic,
1 See Part i of the Baron McGuckin de Slane's translation in Notices
et Extraits, pp. v and Ixxxv-xcii.
2 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 17-89, especially pp. 86-89.
3 Ibid., pp. 83-84.
CH. vin] SHAH NPMATU'LLAH 463
while the methods of the former are well illustrated by
Husayn Wa'iz-i-Kashiff's Anwdr-i-Suhayli, where, for ex-
ample, a squeaking mouse is described as " raising its
outcry to the aetherial sphere." In a previous volume I
have shown 1 by parallel extracts from the Book of Kalila
and Dimna as rendered into Arabic by 'Abdu'llah ibnu'l-
Muqaffa' in the eighth century, and into Persian by Nizamu'-
d-Di'n Abu'l-Ma'alf Nasru'llah in the twelfth and Husayn
Wa'iz at the end of the sixteenth centuries how the last-
named writer set himself to "write up" and improve upon
the work of his predecessors.
I. Sayyid Ni'matulldh of Kirman.
Though Jamf is unquestionably the greatest poet of the
period which we are now considering, it seems better to
adhere to chronological sequence and to begin
nT id , ^-'T 1 with the earliest, Sayyid (or Shah) Ni'matu'llah
llih of Kirmin * J
of Kirman, who died at an advanced age in the
spring of 1431 (Rajab 22, 834), and was buried at the
charming village of Mahan near Kirman, of which some
malicious wit has said :
'
Epigram on
Mdhan
" Mdhdn an Earthly Paradise would be, I wot right well,
If you could clear its people out and shake them into hell."
The site of his grave is marked by a fine monastery
inhabited by dervishes of the Shah Ni'matu'llahi order which
he founded ; for he was a great saint and mystic as well as
a poet, and his verses abound in dark apocalyptic sayings
concerning the "Mischief of the Last Days" (Fitna-i-
Akkiru2-Zamdn\ the Advent of the Mahdi, and other
similar matters. I visited this shrine in September, 1888,
shortly before I left Kirman, and was very hospitably
entertained by its acolytes.
1 Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 349-353.
464 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRfD PERIOD [BK m
As usual, the best account of Ni'matu'llah is that given
by Rieu in his Persian Catalogue 1 , where the substance of
the information given by the ordinary biographical works
is supplemented by details drawn from a rare contemporary
monograph existing in the British Museum 2 and from the
history of Yazd and its most notable men known as the
Jdmi'i-Muftdi. His full name was Amir Nuru'd-Din
Ni'matu'llah, his father's name was Mir 'Abdu
Biography of '
Sayyid 'llah, andhe claimed descent from the fifth Imam
Ni'matu'llah of the Sh{ < a> Muhammad 3^ the great-grand-
son of 'AH ibn Abi'Talib. He was born at Aleppo ^730/1329-
30 or in the following year, but spent mpst of his youth in
'Iraq. At the age of 24 he visited Mecca, where he resided
for seven years, and became one of the chief disciples of
Shaykh 'Abdu'llah al-Yafi'i, a well-known mystical and
historical writer, who died in 768/1366-7. His later life
was passed in Samarqand, Herat, Yazd and finally, as
already mentioned, at Mahdn near Kirman, where he spent
the last twenty-five years of his life, and where he died on
Rajab 22, 834 (April 5, 1431) aged more than a hundred
years. The historian 'Abdu'r-Razzaq of Samarqand visited
his grave in 845/1441-2.
Ni'matu'llah was the king of dervishes (the title " Shah "
is always prefixed to his name) and the friend of kings.
He enjoyed the special favour of Shah-rukh,
scendants enjoy while Ahmad Shah Bahmani, King of the
Royal favoui Deccan, deemed himself fortunate in persuading
to come to his court one of his grandsons. Two other
grandsons with their father followed him thither, while
several of Shah Ni'matu'llah's descendants who remained
in Persia intermarried with the Royal Safawi House.
According to Rieu 3 , Ni'matu'llah left more than 500 Sufi
tracts besides his Diwdn of verse, but the latter is his chief
work, and it alone need be considered here. The only
complete copy at my disposal is the lithographed edition
1 Pp. 634-635. 2 Add. 16,837, ff. 339-355-
3 Pers. Cat. p. 635.
CH. vin] SHAH NPMATU'LLAH 465
published at Tihran in 1276/1860, but numerous selections
from it are contained in the various biographies and antho-
logies in which he is mentioned. His fame, however, is
that of a saint and mystic rather than a poet, and his verse
strikes one on the whole as monotonous and mediocre, similar
in style and subject-matter to that of Maghribi, and altogether
lacking the consuming ardour and brilliant illustration of
Shams-i-Tabriz. His most characteristic poems, though
few in number, are those couched in the prophetic strain,
and these still exercise a certain influence, and are appealed
to by other Persians than those who belong to
au^heTto his tne order of dervishes which he founded. The
prophetic Babis, for example, used to tell me in Kirman
utterances
that the date of the Babs "Manifestation
(1260/1844) was foretold in the following poem. When I
visited the saint's shrine I took the trouble to obtain from
one of the dervishes a copy of the poem in question from
the oldest and most trustworthy manuscript in their pos-
session, and I found that there the date was given as 274
instead of 1260 (p,j, 3=70 + 200 + 4 instead of i,j,^ =
1000 + 200 + 60), while in Rida-quli Khan's Majma'ul-
Fusa/id 1 , where the same poem is quoted, the date becomes
1 204 (> + j + i = 1000 + 200 + 4). In the last-named work
the poem is thus entitled :
" Declaration of sundry mysteries and revelations by
way of allegories."
(1)
1 Tihran lithographed ed., vol. ii, p. 45.
B. P. 30
466 POETS OF THE LATER TfMURID PERIOD [BK m
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CH. vin]
SHAH NPMATU'LLAH
The text here given is that copied for me at Mahan on
August 9, 1888. Of the 50 verses which it contains only 24
are given in the Majinrfiil-Fusahd, which only adds one or
302
468 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
two new verses, but in some cases adopts a different order,
besides supplying a few variants. The poem is not to be
found at all in the lithographed edition.
(Translation)
" I see the Power of the Maker ; I see the state of the time.
The state of this year is of another sort ; not like last year and the year
before do I see it.
These words I speak not from the stars ; rather I see them from the
Creator 1 .
When l ayn,rd and ddl( = 274) have passed of the years I see wonderful
doings.
In Khurasan, Egypt, Syria and 'Irdq I see sedition and strife.
I see the darkness of the tyranny of the lands' oppressors boundless
and beyond computation.
I hear a very strange story ; I see vexation in the land.
War, strife, mischief and injustice I see on the right and on the left.
Looting, slaughter and many armies I see in the midst and around.
I see the servant like the master ; I see the master like the servant.
They impress a new superscription on the face of the gold ; I see his
dirhams of short weight.
I see the dear friends of every people grown sorrowful and abased.
Each of the rulers of the Seven Climes I see involved with another.
I see the face of the moon darkened ; I see the heart of the sun trans-
fixed.
The appointment and dismissal of officials and agents, each one I see
twice repeated.
In Turk and Tajik 2 towards one another I see enmity and strife.
I see the merchant left friendless on the road at the hands of the
thief.
I see from small and great much cunning, guile and trickery.
I find the condition of the Indian ruined ; I see the oppression of
Turks and Tartars.
I see the Holy Place fearfully desolated, the abode of a number of evil
1 I.e. these predictions are not based on astrological predictions
but inspired by revelation from God.
2 Tdjik, a term originally applied to the Arabs ( Tdztk, Tdzi) who
garrisoned the towns of Khurdsan and Transoxiana, was later and is
still applied to the Persian settled population as opposed to the nomads
of Turkish stock.
CH. vin] SHAH NI'MATU'LLAH 469
Some of the trees of the Garden of the World I see springless and
fruitless.
If there be a little security, that too I see within the borders of the
mountains.
A companion, contentment and a [quiet] corner I now see as most to
be desired.
Although I see all these sorrows, I see the [final] joy of the sorrowful.
Grieve not, for in this trouble I see the harvest of union with the
Friend.
After this year and a few years more 1 I see a world like a [fair] picture.
I behold this world like Egypt ; I see Justice as its stronghold.
My king and his ministers are seven ; all of these I see triumphant.
Such as rebel against my immaculate Imam I see ashamed and dis-
graced.
On the palm of the hand of the Cup-bearer of Unity I see the pleasant
wine.
The friendly foe-destroying warrior I see as the comrade and friend
of the friend.
I see the swords of those whose hearts are hard as iron rusted, blunt
and of no account.
The beauty of the Law and the splendour of Islam, each one I see
doubled 2 .
I see the wolf and the sheep, the lion and the gazelle, dwelling
together in the meadow.
I see the treasure of Chosroes and the coin of Alexander all put to
good use.
I see the roguish Turk drunk, I see his enemy with the headache born
of wine.
I see Ni'matu'llah seated in a corner apart from all.
When the fifth winter has passed I see in the sixth a pleasant spring.
The vicar of the Mahdf will appear, yea, I see him plainly.
I see a king perfect in knowledge ; I see a leader endowed with dignity.
'I see the servants of His High Majesty all wearing crowns.
For forty years, O my brother, I see the cycle of that Prince continue.
When his cycle ends victoriously, I see his son as a memorial of him.
I see a king perfect in knowledge, a ruler of noble family.
After him will be the Imam himself, whom I see as the pivot of the
world.
I read ' M. H. M. D.' : I see the name of that famous one 3 .
1 The variants in the Majmcftt'l-Fusahd give a slightly different
meaning, viz. " After that year for several years more."
2 Or, if the variant be adopted. " strong and firmly established."
3 I.e. Muhammad.
470 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
I see his aspect and attributes like the Prophet : I see knowledge and
clemency as his distinctive signs.
I see again ' the White Hand n (long may it endure !) conjoined with
Dhu'l-Fiqdr 2 .
I see the Mahdi of the time and the Jesus of the age both royally
riding forth.
I smell the rose-garden of the Law, I see the flower of Religion in
blossom."
These "apocalyptic" poems, however, though they have
attracted most attention in Persia, constitute but a small
fraction of the whole. Most of Ni'matu'llah's
Pantheistic verses illustrate the doctrine of Wahdatul-
poems
Wujud (Pantheism), while a certain proportion
(in which again the Babi's see an allusion to their founder) use
the favourite illustration of the *' Point " (Nuqta), of which
the circle is only a manifestation ; just as the letter alif is, in
the world of calligraphy, a manifestation of the diacritical
" point," which shares with the mathematical " point " the
same title. A few specimens will suffice for the purpose
of illustration.
JLJ^
" King and beggar are one, are one ; foodless and food are one, are one.
We are stricken with grief and drain the dregs ; dregs and sorrow and
cure are one.
1 Alluding to the miracle of Moses, when he drew forth his hand
" white as snow."
2 The famous sword of 'All ibn Abi Talib.
CH. VHI] SHAH NI'MATU'LLAH 471
In all the world there is naught but One; talk not of 'Two,' for God
is One.
Mirrors a hundred thousand I see, but the face of that Giver of Life
is one.
We are plagued with the plague of one tall and fair, but we the
plagued and the plague are one.
Drop, wave and sea and the elements four without a doubt in our
eyes are one.
Ni'matu'llah is one in all the world : come, seek him out, he is one,
is one."
(3)
" The Point appeared in the circle and was not ; nay, that Point
produced the circle 1 .
The Point in its revolution becomes a circle in the eyes of him who
measured the circle.
Its beginning and end joined together when the Point measured the
completion of the circle.
When the circle was completed, the compass put its head and feet
together and rested.
We are all without Being, without Being ; we are without Being and
Thou art Existant.
I called the whole world His dream : I looked again, and lo, His
dream was Himself.
Sweeter than the sayings of our Sayyid Ni'matu'llah has heard no
other words."
1 Cf. 1. 710 of the Gulshan-i-Rdz (Whin field's edition).
472 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
*<= J
5
3-3 Ja j jl
JU.
" Know that the Named is one and the Names a hundred thousand,
That Being is one, but its aspects are a hundred thousand.
Its Form is the Glass, and its Meaning the Wine,
Although both are one substance in our eyes.
Perceive in two one unit and two units 1 ;
Search it out well, for I have told you a good bit.
Without His Being all the world is non-existant,
Of His Being and Bounty the world is a sign.
The world arises from the diffusion of His universal Being ;
Whatever thou seest is from His universal Bounty.
His Ipseity is essential, while our Ipseity
Is but casual : be annihilated, then, from this annihilation !
The Ipseity of the world is the veil of the world :
Nay, the world itself is the veil of the world.
This veil is eternal, O my soul,
my Friend of God, and O my Proof !
1 tell thee the state of the world in its entirety,
So that thou may'st know the state of the world, and so farewell ! "
The lithographed edition ofNi'matu'llih's poems contains
approximately some 14,000 verses, including a number of
quatrains, and from the following verse it would appear
1 f.e. 1x2 = 2.
CH.VIII] QASIMU'L- ANWAR 473
that his literary activities continued until he had reached a
very advanced age :
" The Living and Eternal [God] hath vouchsafed to this servant ninety
and seven years of pleasant life."
2. Qdsimul-Anwdr.
The next poet of this epoch who claims our attention
was like the last a Sayyid and a mystic. The main facts
concerning his life are thus summarized by
Qdsimu'l-Anwir . S> . , . '
Rieu 1 . He was born in Sarab (Saraw) in the
district of Tabriz in 7 5 7/1 3 56, and had for religious instructors
Shaykh Sadru'd-Dfn Ardabilf, an ancestor of the Safawfs,
and after him Shaykh Sadru'd-Dfn Yamanf, a disciple of
Shaykh Awhadu'd-Din Kirmanf. After staying some time
in Gi'lan he went to Khurasan and settled in Herat, where
he lived during the reigns of Ti'mur and Shah-rukh. There
disciples flocked to him in such numbers and he acquired
so great an influence as to give umbrage to the sovereign.
'Abdu'r-Razzaq relates in the Matlatu's-Sa'dayn that in
830/1426-7, Shah-rukh having been stabbed in the mosque
of Herat by a certain Ahmad-i-Lur 2 , Sayyid Qasim was
charged by Mirza Baysunqur with having harboured the
intended assassin, and was obliged to leave Herat 3 and
repair to Samarqand, where he found a protector in Mirza
Ulugh Beg. He returned, however, some years later to
Khurasan, and took up his abode in Kharjird, a town in
the district of Jam, where he died in 837/1433-4."
The intimacy of Qasimu'l- An war's relations with Shaykh
Sadru'd-Di'n of Ardabil, the ancestor of the Safawi kings
1 Pers. Cat., pp. 635-637.
2 See above pp. 365-366, where I have endeavoured to show that
this attempt was instigated by the Hurufi sect.
3 A pretty but probably fictitious anecdote about this event is given
by Ouseley in his Notices of the Persian Poets (London, 1846), pp. 101-
103.
474 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
of Persia, is abundantly confirmed by an unpublished
Persian work on the genealogy of that dyn-
QLhnu"i S - Anwar asty entitled Silsilatu'n-Nasab-i-Safawiyya, of
with shaykh which I possess a manuscript from the library
Sadru d-Din
of the late Sir Albert Houtum Schindler. In
this MS. (ff. 27 b 28 b ) the poet is mentioned as one of the
Shaykh's most enthusiastic disciples, and an account is
given of the rigid discipline whereby he attained in the
great Mosque of Ardabil to that vision wherein he beheld
himself distributing the light to his fellow-disciples, whereby
he earned the title of Qdsimul-Anwdr ("the Apportioner
of the Lights "). On the death of Shaykh Saf f, the father
of Shaykh Sadru'd-Di'n, he composed the following verses 1 .
(1)
> 4,., he
oUI .^-i b
" The chief representative of saintship, who is actually Shaykh Saf i,
Was for nearly ninety years the guide on this road.
His soul at the moment of its departure sneezed 2 and exclaimed,
' O Angel of Death, I have attained unto God ! '
When the Angel saw his condition he was amazed and cried,
' O Shaykh, a thousand times may God have mercy upon thee ! '
Thou art utterly consumed, O Qasimf, by separation from the Master ;
Be patient in separation : may God give thee patience ! "
1 These verses also occur in one of my MSS. of the poems of
Qdsimu'l-Anwar.
2 For sneezing as a sign of life (here, apparently, of Eternal Life)
see Sir J. G. Frazer's Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. i, pp. 6 and 9.
CH. vin] QASIMU'L-ANWAR 475
Jamf, in the notice which he consecrates to Qasimu'l-
Anwar in the Nafakdtu'l-Uns 1 , alludes to the suspicions
which fell upon him in connection with the
Suspected of r
heresy and ami- attempt on Shah-rukh's life in 830/1426-7 and
which led to his banishment, and also observes
that opinions differed as to his character, but that most of
his disciples with whom he was personally acquainted had
abandoned the observances of Islam, for which they ex-
pressed contempt, and had adopted a kind of communism.
There is therefore good reason to suspect that Qasimu'l-
Anwar was at any rate something of an antinomian, even if
he had not some quasi-political relation with the Shi'ite
partisans of the still uncrowned Safawis, or with the still
more irreconcilable Hurufi heretics.
The literary work of Qasimu'l-Anwar consists of an un-
published Diwdn of lyrical and some mathnawi poetry, of
which I possess two good manuscripts, one dated 861/14567,
only 24 years after the author's death. Several of these
poems are in Turkish and others in some dialect of Persian.
The poems are followed in this older manuscript by two
treatises, written wholly or partly in prose, entitled respec-
tively Anisii I- Arifm ("the Gnostics' Familiar") and the
Anisu'l-Ashiqin ("Lovers' Familiar"), or Risdla-i-Amdna
("Treatise of the Trust"). There is also a poem beginning:
in which there is supposed to be a reference to Timur's
death, though it is so vague as to be capable of application
to any public calamity.
The poetry of Qasimu'l-Anwar, so far as a foreigner
may venture to judge it, is only of average merit, and is
generally of the same mystical character as that of Maghribi
and other kindred poets. Of its general type the two
following ghazals may serve as fair specimens.
1 Ed. Nassau Lees, pp. 689-693.
476 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
(2)
" Of thy favour, Cup-bearer, fill me up that clear and crystalline bowl,
That spirit of holy sanctity, that high and exalted soul !
What day thou givest a cup of wine to settle our whole affair
Bestow, I pray, of your charity a draught on yon Preacher rare !
Woulds't thou that the motes of the universe may with thee in the
dance be whirled ?
Then toss aside in thy dance's stride thy tresses tangled and curled !
O chiding mentor, get thee hence : desist and cease thy strain,
For never thy windy talk can drive from our heads this passion and
pain.
' Lose thyself,' thou didst say, ' that thou to thyself the way may'st
gain ! '
But this riddle dark and inscrutable I cannot solve or explain.
Whenever I cast my life away, a hundred I win in its place :
Who can limit the miracles of Christ and His healing grace?
Qasim ne'er of his own free will would play the lover's part,
But what can one do when the matter lies with the Lord of the Soul
and Heart?"
1 One MS. has L as a variant.
CH.VIII] QASIMU'L- ANWAR 477
(3)
" Ere ever cloistered cell was built, or Somnath's ancient fane
We dwelt with Thee in every phase of life on Being's plane.
'Twixt us all talk of Messenger and Message 1 falls away:
What need of Messenger when Thou dost bide with me for aye?
Can I oppose the Loved One's will, when ever with the Friend
I hold communion sweet in moods and musings without end ?
From mention of all 'others' 2 let thy tongue be cleansed and freed,
Since those in whom the Spirit works of ' others ' take no heed.
Sober to tread the mystic Path no obligation's thine :
Each atom in the Universe intoxicates like wine.
O Zealot, press me not, I pray, in language harsh and rude,
For unto those of goodly kind allowed are all things good 3 .
O Qasim, silence ! to the steed of speech apply the rein,
That Love's High Priest may speak of things that neither fade nor
wane 4 ."
1 I.e. presumably of Prophet and Revelation.
2 I.e. other than God.
:i QuSdn, xxiv, 26.
4 Qur'dn, xviii, 44.
478 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK HI
The following ode is interesting as showing traces of
Hurufi ideas :
Mi-
" l In six days' 1 runs God's Word, while Seven
Marks the divisions of the Heaven.
Then at the last * He mounts His Throne*' 1 ;
Nay, Thrones, to which no limit's known.
Each mote's a Throne, to put it plain,
Where He in some new Name doth reign 3 :
Know this, and so to Truth attain !
' Fie, fie ! ' the zealot answers back
Whate'er I say. I cry 'Alack! '
1 One MS. has O
2 That God created the heavens in six days and then ascended (or
settled Himself) on His Throne is mentioned repeatedly in the Qur'dn,
e-g- v > 5 2 > x ' 3 > xxv > 6> e * c ' T* 16 num t>er of the heavens, not mentioned
in these verses, is given as seven in ii, 27 etc. The numbers 7, 14 and
28 have great significance in the Hurufi doctrine.
3 This is the characteristic pantheistic interpretation of the Hurufis.
CH. vni] QASIMU'L-ANWAR 479
' Who from the Prophet's cup drinks free
God's Wine, escapes calamity,
And over-boldness to dispense
With proper forms of reverence 1 !'
O drunk with fancies, cease to bawl,
Nor plague us with thy drunken brawl !
To glory in thine ignorance
Is but thy blindness to enhance.
O Qdsimi, what canst thou find
In jurists blind with leaders blind ?
Repeat a Fdtiha?, I pray,
That so this plague may pass away!"
Although the traces of Hurufi influence in this poem
are unmistakeable, it cannot on such evidence alone be
proved that Qasimu'l- Anwar was actually a member of that
sect, though his association with an admitted disciple of
Fadlu'llah of Astarabad and the suspicion which he thereby
incurred 3 afford strong corroboration of this conjecture.
But his saints and heroes were many, and we find in his
poems encomiums of theologians like al-Ghazzali, mystics
like Shaykh Ahmad-i-Jam, Bayazfd of Bistam, and Khwaja
'Abdu'llah Ansari, and theosophic poets like Shaykh
Faridu'd-Din 'Attar and Mawlana Jalalu'd-Dm Rumi, whose
works he bids his readers bind together in one volume :
It is indeed likely that one of his half-Turkish poems
with the refrain Chelebi, bizi onutma (" O Chelebi, forget us
not ! ") may be addressed to the " Chelebi Efendi," or
hereditary superior of the Mawlawi or Mevlevi order of
darwtshes, of Qonya in Asiatic Turkey. Of these Turkish
or half-Turkish poems there are only two or three, nor are
they of a high quality. The poems in some Persian dialect
(probably that of Gilan) are more numerous and more
1 I take these four lines to embody the orthodox objection to
mystical antinomianism, while the succeeding lines embody the poet's
dislike of the orthodox.
2 The opening chapter of the Qur'dn.
3 See p. 366 supra.
480 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
interesting, though our knowledge of these dialects in their
mediaeval forms is insufficient as a rule to enable us fully
to interpret them. The text of one, based on the two MSS.,
is here given as a specimen.
(5)
CH. vin] QASIMU'L-ANWAR 481
"Thou art the Qibla of my soul, O Gil 1 with the colour and fragrance
of an angel,
The Moon of the Heaven of Nobility, the Cypress of the Gardens
of Desire.
Thou art not a Gil but an angel, compounded of heart and soul,
How should any Gil be thus Hun-like and of such angelic temper?
May my heart and faith be thy sacrifice ! Take them if thou wilt 2 , for
thou art very fair :
Thou art the Qibla : why should I wander from city to city, from
street to street ?
The tyranny which thy musky tresses have wrought upon me
I will explain to thee hair by hair, if opportunity offers.
If the reflection of thy beauty reaches the mirror for a moment
How [much the more] should it reach him who is ever face to face
with thee?
Last night thou didst signify to me by hints, ' Tomorrow I will not
leave thee in sorrow 3 ' :
Once again of thy clemency repeat the tale of yesterday !
I said to her, ' O Desire of the Soul, thou didst give me a promise
of union ! '
She said, ' Seek not to recall those stories, for that has gone by ! '
I said to her, ' O my Dear, I have been brought low by thy love ! '
She said, ' No, regard not as low one who has spoken with me lip
to lip 2 !'
I said, ' I am thy lover : what is the cure for my pain ? '
She said, ' Thou speakest this word being beside thyself, and it will
yield no result 2 .'
Qasimi, through separation and grief, is lost and heedless of himself:
Of thy clemency seek to win back him who is lost in separation ! "
1 This term is applied to a native of the Caspian province of Gildn.
Rida-quli Khn in his Farhang-i-Anjuman-drd-yi Ndsirt says (s.v.)
that it is also pronounced Gay! (Get), in proof of which he cites the
following quatrain by Qdsimu'l-Anwar in which it rhymes with mayl
and say I :
2 These words are entirely in dialect, and the sense given is only
conjectural.
3 Meaning doubtful.
B. P. 31
482 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
That Qasimu'l- Anwar was familiar with Gilan and other
regions bordering on the Caspian Sea is confirmed by other
poems in which he mentions Astard, Lahijan, Ardabil and
other places in that part of Persia. Further facts about
him might undoubtedly be deduced from an attentive
examination of his poems, but space only permits me to
give two more extracts from them, both taken from his
mathnawi poem the A nisitl-'A rifin, in the prose preface to
which he gives his full name as " 'Ah' b. Nasi'r b. Harun b.
Abu'l-Qasim al-Husayni at-Tabrizi, better known as
Qasimf." The first extract is an allegory of the sinner who
clings to his sin because it is sweet to him.
(6)
W
CH. vin] QASIMU'L-ANWAR 483
3
Jut Osa
JL.J! ft^U ^jb ^, U
" A negro, lacking reason, faith and taste,
Whose life the demon Folly had laid waste
Had in a jar some treacle set aside,
And by mischance a mouse fell in and died.
He seized the mouse and plucked it out with speed
That cursed mouse, whose death was caused by greed.
Then to the Qadi sped the unwilling wight,
Taking the mouse, and told of Fortune's spite.
The Judge before the folk, refined and rude,
Condemned the treacle as unfit for food.
The luckless negro scouted this award,
Saying, ' You make a great mistake, my Lord !
I tasted it, and found it sweet and good ;
If sweet, it cannot be unfit for food.
312
484 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
Had this my treacle bitter been, then sure
Unlawful had I held it and impure.'
The mind perverted of this black accursed
Bitter and sweet confounded and reversed.
Sin seemeth sweet and service sour, alack !
To thee whose face is as a negro's black.
To passion's palate falsehood seemeth sweet ;
Bitter is truth to natures incomplete.
When men are sick and biliously inclined
The taste of sugar alum calls to mind.
Sick for this world all hearts, both young and old,
Jaundiced for love of silver and of gold.
O captive in the snare of worldly joys,
Perish not mouse-like for the sweet that cloys !
Though bitter seems God's discipline to thee
This bitter drug is thy sure remedy.
This bitter drug will cause thine ill's surcease,
And give the patient healing, rest and peace."
The second extract is of greater interest, for it describes
a meeting between Shaykh Safiyyu'd-Di'n, the ancestor of
the Safawfs, who take their name from him, and the famous
Shaykh Sa'di' of Shi'raz. Some independent corroboration
of this interview, or at least of its possibility, is afforded by
the previously-quoted Silsilatttn-Nasab-i-Safawiyya^^ftioh.
gives the date of Safiyyu'd-Di'n's birth as " in the last days
of the 'Abb^sid Caliphs in A.H. 650 " (A.D. 1252-3), at which
time, the author adds, Shams-i-Tabriz had been dead five
years, Shaykh Muhyi'd-Dfn ibnu'l-'Arabi twelve years, and
Shaykh Najmu'd-Din Kubra thirty-two years ; while of
eminent contemporary saints and poets, Jalalu'd-Din Rumi
died when he was twenty-two and Sa'di when he was forty-
one years of age. He was also contemporary with Amir
'Abdu'llah of Shi'raz, Shaykh Naji'bu'd-Di'n Buzghush,
'Ala'u'd-Dm Simna'ni, and Mahmud Shabistari 2 . A page or
two further on we read how Safiyyu'd-Din went to Shi'raz
to seek guidance from the above Shaykh Naji'bu'd-Din
Buzghush, but found on his arrival that this saintly personage
1 See p. 474 supra. The passage here referred to occurs on f. 9 of
the MS. 2 See pp. 146-150 supra.
XI
SA'DI
Add. 7468 (Brit. Mus.), f. 19
CH. VIH] QASIMU'L-ANWAR 485
had passed away. This, no doubt, is the occasion to which
/
the following passage in the Anisu' I- Arifin refers.
~
-
i-*i
Cj
1 The MS. has
the text.
xi which I have ventured to emend as in
486 POETS OF THE LATER TlMURID PERIOD [BKIII
From this passage, which is hardly worth translating in
full, we learn that, while at Shfraz, Shaykh Safiyyu'd-Din,
whose reputation had made Ardabil (or Ardawil) famous,
became acquainted with the great Sa'di, who was so much
impressed by his sanctity and holy enthusiasm that he
offered to add to his Diwdn some poems in his praise. This
offer, however, Safiyyu'd-Din declined, on the ground that
he was too much preoccupied with " the Beloved " to con-
cern himself with anything else ; a refusal which evidently
caused poor Sa'di some chagrin, as he "wept bitterly," while
paying tribute to the Shaykh's exalted motives.
Between the subjects of the last two biographies, who,
if not very remarkable poets, had at least a certain character
and individuality, and the great Jami, in whom culminated
CH. vni] KATIBf OF NfSHAPtiR 487
the literary talent of this period, there intervene a number of
minor poets amongst whom it is difficult to make a selec-
tion, but of whom half a dozen or more deserve at least a
brief mention. Little, as a rule, is known of their lives or
personal characteristics, though most of them are noticed
in the numerous biographical works of the period, and for
convenience they may best be arranged in chronological
order, according to the dates of their death.
Kdtibt of Ntshdpiir.
Katibi of Nfshapur (or of Turshiz), who died in
838/1434-5, comes first in sequence and perhaps
in merit Mfr 'AH Shl ' r Naw a'i> in his Majd-
tisu'n-Nafd'zs, classes him amongst the poets
who were living in his time but whom he had never had the
honour of meeting, and writes of him :
" He was incomparable in his time, and introduced wonderful ideas
into whatever kind of verse he attempted, especially his qasidas, even
inventing new artifices, which were entirely successful.
Mjr -AH shir's g Q also his mat ^ naw ^ s suc h as < Love and Beauty'
opinion 01 him *
(Husn u l lshq\ 'Regarder and Regarded' (Nazir u
Manziir), ' Bahram and Gul-andam,' which illustrate such artifices as
the double metre (dhtfl-bahrayri}, the double rhyme (dhu'l-qdfiyatayri)
and various kinds of word-plays 1 . His Dtwdn of ghazals (odes) and
qasidas (elegies) is, however, more celebrated and better. Towards the
end of his life he attempted an imitation of the Khamsa (Quintet), in
which he advanced great pretensions ; probably for this reason he
failed to complete it. In my humble opinion his poetical talent was
such that had he enjoyed the patronage of a ruler, like our own most
fortunate Sovereign, capable of appreciating good verse, and had his
life endured longer, he would have captured the hearts of all with his
effusions, but through his ill-fortune he did not survive into either of
the two reigns here mentioned 2 ."
Mir 'AH Shir then quotes a verse each from a qasida
and a ghazal of his, and finally the two following verses
1 Dawlatshdh, however, implies that these were separate poems
entitled Majma'u'l-Bahrayn, Dhdl-Qdfiyatayn, and Dah-ndma-i-
Tajnhdt.
2 Probably Sultan Abu Sa'fd and Abu'l-Ghazf Husayn are meant.
4 88 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
which Khwandamir 1 adduces as a proof that he perished in
the outbreak of plague at Astarabdd to which he alludes 2 :
" That Astardbdd whose dust was more fragrant than musk
Was suddenly made desolate by the fiery wrath of the pestilence.
No one, old or young, survived therein :
When fire falls on the forest neither moist nor dry remains."
Dawlatshah consecrates ten pages of his Memoirs of the
Poets 3 to Katibi, who, according to him, was born at a
village between Turshiz and Nishapur, whence he is some-
times called Turshizi and sometimes Nishdpun. He learned
the art of calligraphy from the poet Simi 4 , who, however,
became jealous of him, so that he left Nishapur for Herat.
Finding his talent unappreciated at the court there, he went
to Astarabdd and Shfrwan, where he attached himself for a
time to Amir Shaykh Ibrahi'm, from whom he received
large sums of money which he dissipated in a short while,
so that he was reduced to the state of penury depicted in
the following verses :
1 Habibrfs-Siyar, vol. iii, part 3, p. 149.
2 These verses are also given by Dawlatshah (pp. 389-390 of my
edition), who merely says that he composed them " on the plague and
the fierceness of the pestilence."
3 Pp. 381-391 of my edition.
4 Simf's life is given by Dawlatshah, pp. 412-417.
CH. vni] KATIBf OF NfSHAPtfR 489
" Yesterday I called my cook and bade him bake for me a pie
That my guest's needs and mine own might eke be satisfied thereby.
' If,' said he, ' I get the meat and get the fat, who'll give the meal?'
' He,' I answered, ' who the millstone of the heavens made to wheel.'"
Katibi next proceeded to Adharbayjan, and composed
a qasida in praise of the Turkman ruler Iskandar ibn Qara
Yusuf. As this potentate failed to appreciate his efforts or
to reward him for them, he wrote a very coarse lampoon on
him and departed to Isfahan, where he seems to have under-
gone a kind of conversion at the hands of Sa'inu'd-Din
Tarika, to have renounced the adulation of princes and
attendance at courts, and to have adopted the outlook of
the Sufi mystics. Dawlatshah 1 quotes one of his poems
(also occurring, with two additional verses, in a manuscript
of mine) which reflects this change of heart, but is more
conspicuous for piety than for literary merit. From Isfahan
he went to Rasht and thence once more to Astarabad,
where, as we have seen, he died.
Jami, a better judge than Dawlatshah, is more guarded
in his praise of Katibi, of whom he says in the seventh
chapter of his Bahdristdn that he had many original ideas
which he expressed in an original way, but that his verse
was unequal and uneven "cats and camels" (shutur gurbd).
I possess a good manuscript of his Diwdn (hitherto, so far
as I know, unpublished) dated 923/1517 and containing
nearly 3000 verses, odes, fragments and quatrains. As
usual the fragments are the most personal, and therefore,
from the biographical point of view, the most interesting,
though unfortunately ignorance of the persons and circum-
stances to which they refer often render a full appreciation
impossible. Of these fragments my MS. contains 105
(ff. iO4 b -ii5 b ), mostly consisting of only two verses, of
which only two can be precisely dated. The first records
the death by violence of Minuchihr Shah in 825/1422, and
the second the death of Mfr 'Adil Shah in 827/1424. The
following have been selected as presenting some special
1 P. 384 of my edition.
490 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
feature of interest. The first is remarkable only on account
of the ingenious rhyme and alliteration :
j-A. jUol jj
" O heart, if thou wouldst ride on the road of honour, swiftly gallop
the steed of ambition into the arena of contentment.
That thy heart may become acquainted with the mystery of everything
that is, cast the cash of thy being in full at the feet of the mystics.
If the substance of thy soul be diminished when thou siftest the dust of
poverty, suffer not dust from this road [to settle] on thy heart,
but sift again.
And if thou knowest rightly the occasions for sitting and rising 1 , sit
if thou wilt in Armenia, or rise up if thou wilt in Abkhdz.
The alliterations tdz ttz, rdz riz, bdz biz, and Abkhdz
khiz are very ingenious, though otherwise the lines are not
remarkable. The reference in the following fragment may
be to the poet Salmdn of Sawa himself 2 , or possibly to
Katibi's contemporary 'Arifi of Herdt, who, as Mir 'All
Shfr tells us in his MajdlisiJn-Nafd'is, was called by his
admirers " the second Salman."
1 By the "rules of sitting and rising" the Persians understand the
laws of etiquette.
2 See pp. 260-271 supra.
CH. vin] KATIBf OF NfSHAPtfR 491
" Those people who advance a claim on behalf of Salman, why do they
take objection to my verse ?
The verse of me the illuminated and then Salmon's poetry... I say
nothing ; all men can see [the difference for themselves] ! "
In the following squib the Kamal referred to may be
Kamal of Khujand, but is more probably Katibf's contem-
porary Kamalu'd-Dfn Ghiyath al-Farsi of Shfraz 1 , while
Khusraw and Hasan are presumably the two eminent poets
of Dihlf already noticed 2 .
" If Hasan stole ideas from Khusraw, one cannot prevent him,
For Khusraw is a master, nay, more than the masters !
And if Kamdl stole Hasan's ideas from his Dtwdn
One can say nothing to him : a thief has fallen on a thief ! "
The two following pleasant quips, which help to explain
Katibf's unpopularity with his colleagues, are addressed to
a contemporary poet named Badr (" Full Moon "). Dawlat-
shah, who accords him a brief notice 3 , tells us that this Badr
was for many years the principal poet of Shfrwan, where,
as we have seen, Katibi established himself for a time.
Dawlatshah gives the first of the two following fragments
as a specimen of the literary duels which took place between
these two, and adds that though some critics prefer Badr's
poetry to Katibf's, the people of Samarqand hold a contrary
opinion.
1 See Dawlatshdh, pp. 418-420 of my edition.
2 See pp. 108-110 supra,
3 Pp. 377-378 of my edition.
4 Dawlatshah has the better variant : '^'ji jJ
" I will tear thee asunder with my index finger."
492 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtRID PERIOD [BKIII
" I have the title Kdtibf, O Badr, but Muhammad is the name which
came to me from heaven ;
Muhammad became my name, and thou art Badr ; with my finger
I will tear thine asunder 1 ."
" Yesterday I said to the ill-conditioned little Badr, ' Thou art no poet !
He who is of the poets, him should one encourage.'
' In every city,' he replied, ' I have hung up 2 a poem' :
One who produces such poetry ought [himself] to be hung ! "
The following, on the other hand, is a tribute to the
skill shown by Abu Ishaq (Bushaq) of Shi'raz 3 in the gastro-
nomic poems contained in his Diwdn-i-Afima :
3
.^w
" Shaykh Bushdq (may his luxury endure !) dished up hot the idea of
foods :
He spread a table of luxuries : all are invited to his table."
The following satire on a poet named Shams-i-'Ala is
imitated, and indeed partly borrowed, from a well-known
poem by 'Ubayd-i-Zakani' 4 :
i J A^ A&l "}
1 The allusion is to the Prophet Muhammad's miracle of cleaving
the full moon (Badr) asunder with his finger. "Thine" means "thy
name."
2 Probably alludes to the common belief that the classical Mu i allagdt
of the Arabs were so called because they were "suspended" on the door
of the Ka'ba at Mecca. Badr means that he has produced a prize
poem in every city.
3 See pp. 344-351 supra.
4 See pp. 230-257 supra.
CH. vni] KATIBf OF NfSHAPtR 493
" Shams-i-'Ald hath at length departed from the world, he who now
and again used to be taken into account.
He hath departed and left behind him a Diwdn of verse ; even
that would not be left if it were of any use ! "
In the following he accuses the poet Simi 1 , who taught
him calligraphy, of plagiarism :
" When Simi saw the tasteful poems of Ka'tibi in the city of Nfsha'pur
He went to Mashhad and produced them in his own name : he ate
the salt and stole the salt-cellar ! "
Here is another denunciation of plagiarists :
*
" He is no poet who, when he produces verses, brings together images
from the poems of the masters ;
No house which is made of old bricks stands on so firm a foundation
as a new house."
Here is a gentle hint to one of his royal patrons to see
that he gets his full allowance of wine at the banquet :
1 Dawlatshdh (pp. 412-417) consecrates an article to him, in which
he mentions his migration from Nfshapur to Mashhad. Besides being
a notable penman, poet and maker of acrostics, he was an expert in
gilding, illumination, and all arts connected with books, and gave
instruction in these subjects. He is said to have composed 3000 verses
of poetry in one night. He had also so voracious an appetite that on
one occasion he ate twelve maunds of food and fruit without suffering
any evil effects.
494 POETS OF THE LATER TrMCRID PERIOD [BK m
" O Prince, thou art he on account of the weight of whose love the
back of the arch of the Placeless is bowed even as the vault of
Heaven !
Our share of favour is not lacking out of thy abounding liberality, but
the wine they bring is of short measure, like the life of thine
enemy."
Finally here is an epigram addressed to his pen :
"Alack at the hands of my pitch-stained pen, which showed forth
my secret to foe and friend !
I said, ' I will cut its tongue that it may become dumb ' : I did so,
and it waxed more eloquent than before 1 ."
There are references to other places, such as Sari in
Mazandaran, and to other individuals whom I cannot iden-
tify, such as Khwaja Nizam, 'Abdu'r- Rahman, a poet named
Amin, and Shapur, Jamshid and Ardashir, who were perhaps
Zoroastrians, since the first two of the three are mentioned
in connection with wine. The last seems to have been a
rebel against the king of Shfrwan, who, having got him into
his power, hesitated between killing and blinding him;
whereon the poet advises the latter course in these verses :
1 The nibs of the reed-pen (qalain) are cut to make it write better.
CH. vin] 'ARIFf OF HERAT 495
" O king, do not kill the rebel Ardashir, although he hath broken the
support of Shfrwan :
Thou didst ask, ' Shall I kill him, or apply the needle to his eyes ? '
It is not good to kill ; blind the devil ! "
'Arifi of Herat.
The next poet of whom something must be said is
,, . 'Arifi of Herat, whose best-known work is the
'Anfi of Merit
mystical and allegorical poem properly entitled
Hdl-ndma ("the Book of Ecstasy"), but more commonly
known, from its subject, as Giiy u Chawgdn ("the Ball and
the Polo-stick"), which was written in 842/1438-9 in the
space of a fortnight, and for which the author received as a
reward from his royal patron a horse and the sum of one
thousand dinars^. As he was, according to his own state-
ment, over fifty years old at the time, he must have been
born about 791/1389, the year in which the great Hafiz
died. His own death appears to have taken place in
853/I449-
As already mentioned 2 , he was called by his admirers
" the sec6nd Salman," partly because his style was deemed
similar to that of the earlier poet, and partly, as Mfr 'All
Shir informs us in his Majdlisu'n-Nafd'is, because both
poets suffered from weak and inflamed eyes. This is proved
in the case of 'Arifi by the following verse :
" The white salve on the red lid of my eye is exactly like powdered
salt on roast meat."
Though almost all the biographers (except the modern
Rida-quli Khan in his Majma'u'l-Fusahd) make mention of
'Arifi, the particulars which they give about him are very
1 See Rieu's Persian Catalogue, pp. 639-640, and his Persian Sup-
plement, p. 185.
2 P. 490 supra.
496 POETS OF THE LATER TlMtiRID PERIOD [BKIII
meagre. His Hdl-ndma, which Jami calls "one of his best
poems," comprises only some 500 verses. It has not, I
think, been printed, but I have looked at a pretty and fairly
good manuscript of it in the Cambridge University Library 1 ,
transcribed in 952/1546, and found it, I regret to confess,
laboured and insipid. The following passage, describing
the king's polo-pony, includes some of the specimen verses
given both by Jamf and Mir 'Ah' Shir, and may therefore
be assumed to be a favourable sample :
"The King of the denizens of earth Muhammad 2 , whose throne is
the sun and his cushion the moon,
That King for whom, when he lifts his polo-stick, the moon becomes
the ball and heaven the playing-field.
At what time he throws his leg over the saddle he raises the dust
from the terrestrial sphere.
When his spur excites his horse, thou wouldst say that fire mingled
with wind.
When the King's polo-pony is at the gallop it snatches away the ball
from the steed of heaven.
If he did not restrain it in its leaping, it would overshoot the goal of
heaven.
When it is drenched in perspiration it is like rain with lightning in
the midst.
Fire flies from its hoof, while the whirlwind clings to its tail."
1 Add. 3150. See my Camb. Pers. Cat., pp. 365-6.
2 I.e. Prince Muhammad ibn Baysunqur. See Rieu's Pers. Cat.,
loc. cit.
CH. vin] MINOR POETS OF THIS PERIOD 497
The whole poem is filled with these ingenious and often
far-fetched similes and metaphors drawn from the game of
polo, but to most European readers they will seem tasteless
and artificial, and the resulting product hardly worthy to
be called poetry in the sense in which we understand the
word.
Of the poets who died in the second half of the ninth
century of the hijra (fifteenth of the Christian era) it is diffi-
cult to decide which are of sufficient importance to deserve
mention in a work like this, until we come to the last and
greatest of them, Jami, whose claim to be regarded as one
of the most notable poets of Persia is indisputable. That
there is no lack of them, so far as numbers go, will be evi-
dent to anyone who consults the contemporary biographers.
Thus Dawlatshah gives notices of some two score of this
period, while Mir 'All Shir Nawa'i in his Majdlisu'n-Nafd'is
(composed in the Turki language) mentions forty-six in the
first chapter (Majlis) of his work, wherein he treats of those
poets who were still living in his time, though he had never
met them. Some of these poets are familiar by name to
students of Persian literature, and most of them have pro-
duced graceful verses, but few if any attain a degree of
excellence which would preserve their names from oblivion
but for their association with princes and rulers who gloried
not only in the quality but in the quantity of the men of
letters who frequented their courts and enjoyed their
patronage. Dawlatshah, implicitly recognizing this fact,
often makes a brief notice of some minor poet the peg on
which to hang a much fuller account of his royal patron.
Thus in his notice of Shah Ni'matu'llah, who really has
claims to distinction as a mystic if not as a poet, he con-
cludes by enumerating 1 the chief Shaykhs, men of learning,
poets and artists who added lustre to the court of Shah-
rukh. Of the poets he mentions Shaykh Adhari of Isfara'in
(d. 866/1461-2), Baba Sawda'i of Abfward (d. 853/1449-50),
1 P. 340 of my edition.
B. P. 32
498 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
Mawldna 'All Shihab of Turshfz, Amir Shahi of Sabzawar
(d. 857/1453), Katibi of Turshiz (d. 839/1435-6), and Nasimi,
" the fame of whose writings and diwdns" he adds, " is cele-
brated throughout the habitable quarter of the world."
" There were," he concludes, " four talented artists at the
court of Shah-rukh who in their own time had no peer,
Khwaja 'Abdu'l-Qadir of Maragha in the art of music and
roundels (adwdr\ Yusuf of Andakan in singing and min-
strelsy, Ustad Qiwamu'd-Din in geometry, design and
architecture, and Mawlana Khalfl the painter, who was
second only to Manf 1 ." Yet the verses of these poets, for
the most part unpublished till this day and very rare even
in manuscript, were probably but little known even in their
own time outside Khurasan, and we may consider ourselves
fortunate if we can individualize them by some special
personal characteristic or incident in their lives, such as that
Adharf visited Shah Ni'matu'llah, became a mystic and
renounced the flattery of kings, and made a journey to
India 2 ; or that Shahi was a descendant of the Sarbadarf
rulers of Sabzawar and a Shi'a, which latter fact has won for
him a long and laudatory notice in the MajdlisiJl-Mtfminiu
("Assemblies of true believers," i.e. Shi'ites) of Nuru'llah ibn
Sayyid Sharif al-Mar'ashi of Shushtar 3 . " Scholars are
agreed," says Dawlatshah 4 , with his usual exaggeration,
" that in the verse of Amir Shahi are combined the ardour
of Khusraw, the grace of Hasan, the delicacy of Kamal, and
the clarity of Hafiz." That he entertained no mean opinion
of himself is shown by the following verses which he extem-
porized when assigned a lower place at the reception of some
prince than that to which he considered himself entitled 5 :
1 It is commonly believed by the Persians that Mani (Manes), the
founder of Manichaeanism, claimed that his skill in painting was the
miraculous proof of his divine mission.
2 See pp. 399-400 of my edition of Dawlatshah.
3 Composed about 993/1585. See Rieu's Persian Cat., pp. 337-8.
4 P. 426 of my edition.
5 Ibid., p. 427.
CH. vin] AMfR SHAHl QUDSf 499
" O king, the revolution of heaven's wheel in a thousand years
Will not show forth one like me, unique in a hundred accomplishments.
If thou makest me to sit below everybody and nobody
Herein is a subtle point ; so much I know.
Thy court is an ocean, and in the ocean, without dispute,
The pearl is at the bottom and the rubbish at the top."
What, again, is to be thought of such a verse as this of
Qudsf of Herat in which he alludes to the slobbering mouth
with which he was afflicted as the result of some paralytic
affection of the face 1 ?
" Notwithstanding such a mouth as I have
I utter verse from which water 2 drips."
Such ingenuities are very characteristic of the time and
place of which we are speaking, and therefore deserve notice,
but they do not constitute what we understand by poetry.
The following passage from Dawlatshah 3 gives a good idea
of what the courts of these Tfmurid princes were like.
" Now the auspicious birth of Prince Bdysunghur took place in the
year 802/1399-1400. He possessed a perfect comeliness and favourable
fortune and prosperity. Alike in talent and in the encouragement of
talent he was famous throughout the world. Calligraphy and poetry
were highly esteemed in his time, and scholars and men of talent,
attracted by his renown, flocked from all regions and quarters to enter
his service. It is said that forty calligraphers were busy copying in
his library, of which scribes the chief was Mawlana Ja'far of Tabriz.
1 Cited by Mfr 'Alf Shfr Nawa'f in his MajdlisiSn-Naftfis.
2 Ab means water, but also lustre, temper (of steel), water (of
diamonds), splendour, and the like.
3 Pp. 350-351 of my edition.
322
500 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
He showed favour to men of talent, loved poets, strove after refinement
and luxury, and entertained witty courtiers and boon-companions. Of
the kings of all times since Khusraw Parwfz 1 none lived so joyous and
splendid a life as Baysunghur Sultdn. He composed and appreciated
good verse both in Turki and Persian, and wrote six different hands.
This verse is by him :
' Bdysunghur hath become the beggar in thy street :
The king is the beggar in the street of the fair.'
"It is related that, in the time of Sultan Baysunghur, Khwaja
Yusuf of Andakdn had no peer in song and minstrelsy throughout the
Seven Climes. His notes, sweet as David's song, lacerated the soul,
while his ' Royal Mode 2 ' sprinkled salt on wounded hearts. On several
occasions Sultan Ibrahim the son of Shdh-rukh sent from Shirdz to ask
for Khwaja Yusuf from Baysunghur Sultdn, who, however, raised diffi-
culties. Finally he sent a hundred thousand dhtdrs in cash in order
that Mirza Bdysunghur might send Khwaja Yiisuf for him, but Bay-
sunghur answered his brother in this verse :
' We will not sell our Yiisuf [Joseph] : keep thy black silver !'
"Between Ulugh Beg Kurkdn, Bdysunghur Bahddur and Ibrdhim
Sultdn there passed many pleasant sayings and much correspondence
which transcend the scope of this Memoir, but faithless Fortune and
the cruel Sphere laid hands on the life of that joyous prince in the days
of his youth, nor did the ministers of Fate and Destiny take pity on his
immaturity. One night, by the decree of the Lord of lords, through
excess of wine he was overwhelmed by the deep sleep of death, of
which the inhabitants of Herat supposed apoplexy to be the cause.
' They say that death is a strange sleep : that heavy sleep overtook us.'
" So the Prince, half-drunken, staggered to the bed of earth, whence
he shall rise up bemused on the Resurrection Morning, with others
drugged with the Wine of Death, to seek from the cup-bearers of 'and
their Lord shall give them to drink pure wine 3 ' the purification of the
1 The Sdsdnian, contemporary with the Prophet Muhammad
(seventh century after Christ).
2 Ahang-i-Khusrawdni, the name of one of the modes or airs of
Persian music.
3 Qur'dn, Ixxvi, 21.
CH.VIII] DAWLATSHAH'S PICTURE OF HIS TIME 501
headache-healing wine of ' a full bumper^? It is our firm hope that
the All-Merciful Judge will overlook his sin, which naught but the
dew of His Mercy can wash away. This tragic catastrophe of Bay-
sunghur Sultdn took place in the metropolis of Herat in the White
Garden in the year 837/1433-4, his age being then thirty-five years.
The poets who were attached to the service of Baysunghur Bahddur
during the reign of Shdh-rukh Sultan were Baba Sawda'f, Mawldna
Yusuf Amirf, Amir Shahf of Sabzawar, Mawlana Katibi of Turshiz,
and Amir Yammu'd-Din...The poets composed elegies on Sultan
Baysunghur's death, but Amir Shahi surpassed them all in this
quatrain :
' The age lamented much in mourning for thee ; the red anemone
poured forth all the blood of its eyes into its skirt ;
The rose rent the collar of its crimson mantle ; the dove clothed its
neck in black felt.' "
Dawlatshah, in spite of all his faults, of which inaccuracy
and an intolerable floridity of style are the worst, does suc-
ceed in depicting better than many contemporary historians
and biographers the strange mixture of murder, drunken-
ness, love of Art and literary taste which characterized the
courts of these Timurid princes, and it may not be amiss to
add to the preceding extracts the portrait of one of the
most accomplished of them, Ulugh Beg, with which he
concludes his notice of the poet 'Ismat of Bukh^ri, the
master of Bisati and Khayali, and the contemporary of
Rustam of Khuriyan, Tahir of Abfward, and Barandaq of
Bukhara. After mentioning that 'Ismat died in 829/1425-6
he continues 2 :
" Now as to the late Sultdn of blessed memory Ulugh Beg Kiirkan,
he was learned, just, masterful and energetic, and attained a high
degree in the science of Astronomy, while in Rhetoric he could split
hairs. In his reign the status of men of learning reached its highest
1 Qur'dn, Ixxviii, 34. * Pp. 391 et seqq. of my edition.
502 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
zenith, and in his period the rank of scholars was at its greatest.
In the science of Geometry he was an expositor of subtleties, and on
questions of Cosmography an elucidator of the Almagest. Scholars
and philosophers are agreed that in Islamic times, nay, from the days
of [Alexander] 'the Two-horned' until now no monarch like unto
Mirza Ulugh Beg Kurkdn in philosophy and science has ever sat on
a royal throne. He had the most complete knowledge of the mathe-
matical sciences, so that he recorded observations of the stars with the
cooperation of the greatest scientists of his age, such as Qadi-zdda-i-
Rumi 1 and Mawland Ghiyathu'd-Din Jamshid. These two great
scholars, however, died before completing their work, and the Sultan,
devoting all his energies to this task, completed the observations and
produced the Ztj-i-Sultdnl 2 (' Royal Almanac '), to which he himself
prefixed an exordium. These tables are today in use and highly
esteemed by philosophers, some of whom prefer them to the Zij-i-
flkhdni of Nasiru'd-Dfn of Tus 3 .
" He further constructed a fine college in Samarqand, the like of
which in beauty, rank and worth is not to be found throughout the
seven climes, and in which at the present time more than a hundred
students are domiciled and provided for. During the reign of his
father Shah-rukh he exercised absolute sway over Samarqand and
Transoxiana....
"It is related that Mirzd Ulugh Beg's intelligence and power of
memory were such that a record was kept of every animal which he
overthrew in the chase, with the place and date of the hunting, recording
the day, the locality, and the nature of the quarry. By chance this book
was mislaid, and seek as they might they could not find it, so that the
librarians were filled with apprehension. ' Be not troubled,' said Ulugh
Beg, ' for I remember all these particulars from beginning to end.' So
he summoned the scribes and repeated the dates and circumstances,
all of which the scribes took down until the record was completed.
After a while by chance the original record turned up. They collated
the two copies, and found divergences only in four or five places.
" Many such marvels are related of the genius and intelligence of
this prince. Thus the learned Shaykh Adhari (the poet) relates as
follows :
1 His proper name was Saldhu'd-Din Mtisa.
2 Concerning this important work, probably completed about 84 1/
1437-8, see Rieu's Persian Catalogue and the references there given,
especially to the partial text and translation published by Sedillot
(Paris, 1847 and 1853).
3 Rieu's Pers. Cat. pp. 454-5. Some account of Nasiru'd-Din of
Tiis will be found in my Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii, pp. 484-6.
CH. vni] HUSAYN W/'/Z-I-KASHIFf 503
"'In the year 800/1397-8, when I was in Qara-bagh with my
maternal uncle, who was story-teller to the great Amir, the Lord of
the Fortunate Conjunction, Timiir Kurkan, I became attached to the
service of Ulugh Beg Mirza in the days of his childhood, and for several
years was that Prince's playmate in childish games and used to tell
him tales and stories, while he, after the fashion of children, became
familiar and intimate with me. In the year 852/1448-9, when the above-
mentioned Prince conquered Khurasdn and halted at Isfard'in, I arose,
after the grey dawn of age had been kindled from the evening of
youth 1 , and hastened to wait upon him. When he saw me from afar
. off in the garb of the religious mendicants and men of God, after saluting
me and enquiring after my health, he said, "O darwish, thou seemest
to be my ancient companion and friend. Art thou not the nephew of
our story-teller ? " I was amazed at the quick apprehension and clear
memory of the King, and replied, that I was. He spoke of Qara-bagh,
the wars in Georgia and the marvels of that country, while I answered
to the best of my recollection.'
" Many similar instances are related of this Prince's keenness
of memory, but more than this much exceeds the scope of these
Memoirs."
A year after the meeting described above (in 853/1449-
1450) the talented Ulugh Beg was murdered by his un-
natural son 'Abdu'l-Latif, who was himself murdered seven
months later.
Husayn VJ&iz-i-Kdshifi.
Almost all the literary achievements of the latest period
treated in this volume centre round that great and liberal
patron of the arts the Minister Mir 'Ah' Shfr
Husayn
iwi?-i- Nawa'i, as they culminate in the brilliant and
KAshifi -11 . T > i -,! e
many-sided poet Jami, with some account ot
whom we shall conclude. First, however, a few more words
must be added about Mir All Shir and also about Husayn
Wa f iz-i-Kash\f\, agreeably to a promise given in the pre-
ceding chapter, where something was said about their more
solid prose work. Of the latter a notice is given by
Khwdndamir in his Habtbiis-Siyar"*, of which the substance
1 The turning grey of black hair is often poetically described by the
Persians as the dawn coming up out of the night.
2 Bombay lith. ed. of 1273/1857, vol. iii, part 3, p. 341.
5 o 4 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
is as follows. His full name was Kamalu'd-Din Husayn, and,
as his title Wd'iz implies, he was by profession a preacher.
He had a fine and melodious voice and a considerable know-
ledge of theology and traditions. Every Friday morning he
used to preach in the Ddrus-Siyddat-i-Sultdnf at Herat,
and afterwards used to officiate in the Mosque of Mir 'All
Shir. On Tuesday he used to preach in the Royal College,
and on Wednesday at the tomb of Khwaja Abu'l-Walid
Ahmad. In the latter part of his life he also sometimes
preached on Thursday in the chapel of Sultan Ahmad
Mirza. He was skilled in astronomy as well as in the
art of literary composition, and could hold his own with
his compeers in other branches of learning. His son
Fakhru'd-Din 'All, who succeeded him as a preacher, was
something of a poet and composed the romantic mathnawi
known as Mahmtid and Aydz. The father, however, does
not seem to have written poetry, but preferred to display
his skill in fine writing, chiefly in the well-known Anwdr-i-
Suhaylt, or " Lights of Canopus." This florid and verbose
rendering of the famous Book of Kalilaand Dimna, thanks to
the reputation which it enjoys in India, has attracted an undue
amount of attention amongst English students of Persian :
it was for many years one of the text-books prescribed
for candidates for the India Civil Service, and is one of the
lengthiest Persian texts which ever issued from an English
printing-press 1 . The way in which this wordy and bombastic
writer has embroidered and expanded not only the original
Arabic version of Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', but even the earlier
Persian version, may be appreciated by the English reader
who will refer to vol. ii of my Literary History of Persia,
pp. 350-353. The other works of Husayn Wd'iz have been
already mentioned 2 , except an epistolary manual entitled
Makhzanu'l-Inshd which I have not seen. He died in
910/1504-5, nineteen years before Khwandamir's notice of
his life was written.
1 Messrs Austin of Hertford, 1805.
2 Pp. 441, 442 supra.
CH. vni] MfR 'ALf SHfR NAWA'f 505
Mir 'Alt Shir Nawd'i.
The importance and influence of Mir 'AH Shir, both as a
writer and a patron of literary men, was, as pointed out in
the last chapter, immense, and he may without
sttrNawd'f exaggeration be described as the Maecenas of
his time and country. He was the friend and
patron of Jamf, who dedicated many of his works to him,
and on whose death in 898/1492 he composed an elegy of
which Khw^ndamir quotes the opening lines, and his name
occurs in connection with a large proportion of the scholars
and poets noticed by the last-named writer in the section
which he devotes in the Habibu's-Siyar* to the men of letters
of Sultan Husayn's time. Babur, who is much more critical
and much less addicted to indiscriminate praise than bio-
graphers like Dawlatshah and Khwandamir, speaks in the
highest terms of Mir 'All Shir 2 , and says that he knows of
no such generous and successful patron of talent. Apart
from the numerous writers and poets whom he encouraged
and patronized, the painters Bihzad and Shah Muzaffar and
the incomparable musicians Qul-Muhammad, Shaykhi Na'i
and Husayn 'Udi owed their success to him. He himself
was a successful musician, composer and painter, and un-
rivalled as a poet in the Turki language, in which he pro-
duced four Diwdns of lyric poetry and six long mathnaivis,
five in imitation of Nizamfs Khamsa ("Quintet"), and one
in imitation of 'Attar's Mantiqu't- Tayr (" Speech of the
Birds") entitled Lisdmi't-Tayr ("the Language of the
Birds"). In Persian poetry, which he wrote under the pen-
name of Fani, he was, according to Babur, less successful,
for though some of his verses were not bad, most were weak
and poor. His prosody also was lacking in accuracy, and
in the treatise entitled Mizdnul-Awzdn (" the Measure of
Metres ") which he wrote on that subject Babur asserts
1 Bombay lith. ed. of 1273/1857, vol. iii, part 3, pp. 334-351.
2 Bdbur-ndma, ed. Ilminsky, pp. 213-214 ( = Pavet de Courteille's
French translation, vol. i, pp. 382-385).
5 o6 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
that he made erroneous statements about four of the twenty-
four quatrain-metres which he discussed.
It is on his Turkish rather than on his Persian poetry,
therefore, that Mir 'AH Shir's claims to literary fame are
based, though his munificent patronage of all literature and
art entitles him to honourable mention in any history of
Persian literature. Such as desire further particulars of his
life and work will find them in the admirable monograph
published by M. Belin in the Journal Asiatique for 1861
under the title of Notice biographique et litteraire sur Mir
Ali-Chir NJvdii, suivie cTextraits tir^s des ceuvres du meme
auteur*. He was born at Herat in 844/1440-1 and died and
was buried there on the I2th of Jumada ii, 906 (January 3,
1501). His life, for a statesman in so troublous a land and
time, was singularly peaceful, and throughout it he enjoyed
the friendship and confidence of Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn,
his school-fellow in childhood and his sovereign in maturer
age 2 . For public life and political power he cared little,
and would willingly have renounced them in favour of
spiritual contemplation and literary leisure, nor did he ever
take to himself a wife. He was even admitted by the illus-
trious Jami into the Naqshbandi order of darwishes*. His
zeal for good works was unfailing, and he is stated to have
founded, or restored, and endowed no fewer than 370
mosques, colleges, rest-houses and other pious and charitable
institutions in Khurasan alone. He was a prolific writer,
and Belin 4 enumerates 29 of his works, composed at various
dates between the accession of Sultan Husayn and his
death. The latest of these was his Muhdkamatiil-Lttghatayn,
or "Judgement between the two Languages," in which he
endeavours to establish the superiority of the Turki over the
Persian tongue. This was written in 905/1499-1500, only
the year before his death.
1 Also published separately as a pamphlet of 158 pages.
2 He succeeded to the throne of Herat on the death of Abu Sa'id
in Ramadan 873 (March-April, 1469).
3 Belin, op. tit., p. 19. 4 Ibid., pp. 59-64.
CH. vin] jAMf 507
Jdmi.
Mulla Nuru'd-Din 'Abdu'r-Rahmdn Jami, who was born
at the little town of Jam in Khura'san on Sha'ban 23, 817
(November 7, 1414), and died at Herdt on
Muharram 18, 898 (November 9, 1492), was one
of the most remarkable geniuses whom Persia ever pro-
duced, for he was at once a great poet, a great scholar, and
a great mystic. Besides his poetry, which, apart from minor
productions, consisted of three Diwdns of lyrical poetry
and seven romantic or didactic mathnawis, he wrote on the
exegesis of the Quran, the evidence of the Divine Mission
of the Prophet Muhammad, traditions, lives of the Saints,
Mysticism, Arabic grammar, Rhyme, Prosody, Music,
acrostics (mtfammd) and other matters. In the Tuhfa-i-
Sdmi forty-six of his works are enumerated, and I do not
think this list is exhaustive. He was held in the highest
honour by his contemporaries, not only by his fellow-
countrymen, but, as we have seen 1 , even by the Ottoman
Sultan, who vainly endeavoured to induce him to visit his
court. By his most illustrious contemporaries he was re-
garded as so eminent as to be beyond praise and so well
High esteem in known as to need no detailed biography. Thus
which jdmi was Bdbur 2 , after observing' that "in exoteric and
heldbyBdbur . '
esoteric learning there was none equal to him
in that time," says that he is "too exalted for there to be any
need for praising him," and that he only introduces his
name " for luck and for a blessing." Sam Mirza\ the son
of Shah Isma'il the Safawi, places him first in
the fifth section (Sahifd) of his Tuhfa-i-Sdmt*,
and says "by reason of the extreme elevation
of his genius... there is no need to describe his condition or
set forth any account of him, since the rays of his virtues
have reached from the East to the uttermost parts of the
1 See pp. 422-3 supra.
2 Bdbur-ndma (ed. Ilminsky), pp. 222-223.
3 Cambridge MS. Or. 648, pp. 93-100.
5 o8 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
West, while the bountiful table of his excellencies is spread
from shore to shore." Dawlatshah, who puts him
s ~Mh y Daw ' at " first > before Ml ' r ' AH Shfr > in the concluding sec-
tion of his Memoirs 1 , which deals with living
contemporary poets, speaks in a similar strain. Mir 'All
Shir, besides the brief notice of him at the beginning of his
Majdlisun-Nafd'is, has devoted an entire work,
sh? Mir <AH the Khamsatu'l-Mutahayyirin (" Quintet of the
Astonished ") to his praises. This work, fully
described by Belin 2 , is so entitled because it is divided into
five parts, a preface, three chapters and an epilogue, which
treat respectively (i) of the origin, birth and life of Jamf,
and of the author's acquaintance with him ; (2) of events and
conversations between the author and Jamf indicating the
degree of their intimacy; (3) of the correspondence between
them preserved in Jami's works; (4) of the works composed
by Jamf at the author's suggestion and instigation ; (5) of
the books and treatises read by the author under Jami's
direction, with an account of his death and funeral, which
was celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and attended by
many members of the Royal Family, noblemen, divines and
scholars, besides a vast concourse of the com-
tsiograpny by
Abdu'i-Ghafur mon people. But the most valuable biography
of him is probably that written by his most
eminent disciple, 'Abdu'i-Ghafur of Lar, who died on
Sha'ban 5, 912 (December 21, 1506) and was buried beside
his master 3 .
All the essential facts of Jami's life, however, are given
in the excellent Biographical Sketch (pp. 1-20) prefixed by
Captain Nassau Lees to his edition of the Nafahatul-Uns*,
a sketch only marred by a violent and uncalled-for attack
on Mysticism. The details are far fuller and better vouched
for than, for instance, in the case of Hafiz. Jamf himself
1 Pp. 483 et seqq. of my edition.
2 Op. cit., pp. 101-158.
3 Rieu's Persian Catalogue, pp. 350-1.
4 Published at Calcutta in 1859.
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CH. vm] jAMf 509
has recorded the date of his birth and the double reason for
which he adopted the pen-name by which he is known, and
he has also recorded the dates when most of his poems and
other works were composed, for the most part during the
last fourteen or fifteen years of his long life. These dates,
as well as the texts of the poems, rest on an unusually firm
foundation, for there exists at St Petersburg, in the Institut
des Langues Orientales du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres,
an autograph manuscript of the poet's Kulliyydt, or Com-
plete Works, which has been described in great detail by
the late Baron Victor Rosen 1 , and which has finally settled
several doubtful points of chronology. For further details
of his life and character there is no lack of contemporary
evidence. Even as a boy he showed remarkable quickness
and ability, and, as he grew older and pursued his studies
under more famous masters, he rapidly assimilated such
knowledge as they were able to impart, and often finished
by being able to confute them in argument. Of his scholar-
ship Nassau Lees writes as follows :
" Considering Jamf, not as a poet, but simply as a scholar, it cannot
be denied that he was a man of remarkable genius and great erudition ;
and it is to be regretted that he does not seem to have been free from
self-conceit, supercilious hauteur, and contempt for the literati of his
day, so commonly the characteristic of the votaries of his peculiar
philosophy. He was extremely reluctant to admit that he was indebted
to any of his masters for his acquirements. ' I have found,' said he,
' no master with whom I have read superior to myself. On the con-
trary I have invariably found that in argument I could defeat them all.
I acknowledge, therefore, the obligations of a pupil to his master to
none of them ; for if I am a pupil of anyone it is of my own father, who
taught me the language.'"
More pleasing, though possibly due to the same motives,
T , ., was his refusal to flatter or humble himself
Jami s
independence before the rich and powerful, a rare virtue
amongst the poets of that day, which led his
biographer 'Ah' the son of Husayn Wd'iz al-Kashifi to
1 Collections Scientifiques de P Institut etc. Les Manuscrits Per sans,
pp. 215-259.
510 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
remark that to no one more than Jami did the following lines
of Nizamf apply 1 :
" Since in my youth I ne'er forsook Thy gate
To seek elsewhere the favours of the great,
Thou in return didst send them all to me:
I sought it not ; it was a boon from Thee."
To his spiritual teachers, on the other hand, and to those
who guided him in the mystic's path Jami showed the
greatest veneration and rendered the most ungrudging
homage ; a fact abundantly illustrated by Nassau Lees in
his Biographical Sketch?.
But though, or perhaps because, he refused to flatter or
fawn on the great, few Persian poets have enjoyed during
their lives such profound and widespread respect, or have
lived so long without being exposed to such disagreeable
experiences or discouraging vicissitudes of fortune as fell
to the lot of even the greatest of them, such as Firdawsi,
Nasir-i-Khusraw, Anwarf, Sa'di or Hafiz. The only un-
pleasant incident recorded as having befallen Jami, and one
from which he easily and speedily extricated himself,
occurred at Baghdad when he was returning from the Pil-
grimage in 877-8/1 472 3 . A garbled citation from one of
his poems, the Silsilatudh-Dhahab> or "Chain of Gold," was
employed by some ill-disposed persons to convict him of
hostility to the House of 'All, in spite of a remarkable poem 4
in praise of al-Husayn, 'All's son, which he had composed
a little while before when he visited the scene of his
martyrdom at Karbala. In a crowded meeting presided
over by the chief doctors of Baghdad, Jami easily succeeded
in refuting the accusation and turning the tables on his
detractors, adding that " if he had any fears at all in writing
1 Nassau Lees's Biographical Sketch, p. 5.
2 Pp. 5-11. 3 Ibid., pp. 12-15. 4 Ibid., p. 12.
CH. vin] jAMf 511
this book they were that... the people of Khurasan might
accuse him of Shf'a tendencies, but that it never occurred to
him to imagine that on account of it he should fall into
trouble at the hands of the Shi'a." The incident, however,
rankled in his mind, and is commemorated in a rather bitter
poem beginning 1 :
L5L/
X
l v-=> ?~ -A *=> ^o -.^5 jl
" O cupbearer, unseal the [wine-]jar by the brink of the Shatt*, and
wash from my memory the unpleasantness of the Baghdadis.
Seal my lips with the wine-cup, for not one of the people of this land
is worth discussion.
Expect not faithfulness or generosity from the unworthy ; seek not
for the virtues of men from the disposition of devils."
Notwithstanding his piety and mysticism, Jami had a
sharp tongue and was ready at repartee. Thus on one
occasion he was repeating with fervour the line :
" So constantly art thou in my stricken soul and sleepless eye
That whosoever should appear from afar, I should think that it was
thou."
An irreverent bystander interrupted him with the ques-
tion, " Suppose it were an ass ? " "I should think that it
was thou," replied Jamf 3 .
1 Nassau Lees, op. tit., pp. 14-15.
2 The Shatiu'l-'Arab is the name given to the united streams of the
Tigris and Euphrates
3 Ibid., p. 19.
512 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BKIII
On another occasion Jami composed the following verses
on a contemporary poet named Sagharf who had accused
his fellow-poets of plagiarizing his ideas :
J I d Jk-J>J,> Ij^ly-^JlXI A_J1 OA-AA.* C- ...itj
" Saghari was saying, ' Wherever the plagiarists have seen a fine idea
in my poetry they have stolen it.'
I have noticed that most of his poems are devoid of ideas : whoever
said that the ideas had been stolen spoke the truth."
When Saghari angrily reproached Jami for this verse, he
said, " It is not my fault. What I wrote was shd'iri (' a
certain poet,' ^j^U>), not Sdgharl (iJ>Lw), but some mis-
chief-maker has altered the dots over the letters to annoy
you 1 ."
Amongst the chronograms which commemorate the
j * , , t * *
date of Jamf's death the two best known are *d.> &*$
Cuf ,ji (Quran, iii, 91 : 6 + 40+50+4 + 600 + 30 + 5
+ 20 + i + 50 + i + 40 + 50 + i = 898) "And whosoever
entereth it is safe" ; and J^l j- (j(~>\j. j\ i_j>, " Smoke [of
the heart, i.e. sighs] came up [or ' was subtracted '] from
Khurasan" Khurasan gives 600 + 200 +1+ 60 +1+50=912;
smoke (dud) gives 4 + 6 + 4=14; 91214 =
We pass now to a consideration of Jami's numerous
works, which fall primarily into two categories,
pro^e works prose and poetry. Of his chief prose works, the
Nafahdtu'l-Uns (Biographies of Sufi saints,
composed in 883/1478), the Shawdhidiin-Nubuwwat ("Evi-
contents of the dences of Prophethood," composed in 885/1480),
shawdhidu'n- the commentary on 'Iraqi's Lama'dt (known as
Ashi"atu'l-Lama''dt, composed in 886/1481),
and the Lawd'ik ("Flashes") mention has been already
1 Nassau Lees, op. tit., p. 19.
CH. vm] jAMf'S SHAWAHIDU'N-NUBUWWAT 513
made. Of these the second only, so far as I know, remains
unpublished. I possess a fine old manuscript of it, on which
the following table of contents is based.
Preface (Muqaddamd). On the meaning of Nabi
(Prophet) and Rasiil (Apostle), and other matter connected
therewith.
First chapter (Rukn}. On the signs and evidences which
preceded the birth of His Holiness the Prophet.
Second chapter. Setting forth what took place from
the time of his birth until [the beginning of] his mission.
Third chapter. Setting forth what took place from [the
beginning of] his mission until the Flight.
Fourth chapter. Setting forth what took place from the
Flight until his death.
Fifth chapter. Setting forth what has, or is known to
have, no special connection with any one of these periods,
and that whereof the significance became apparent only
after his death.
Sixth chapter. Setting forth the signs and evidences
which became apparent through his Noble Companions and
the Imams of his House (may God be well pleased with
them !).
Seventh chapter. Setting forth the evidences which
were manifested through the Followers [of the Companions]
and the Followers of the Followers, down to the generation
of the [first] Sufi's 1 .
Conclusion (Khdtimd). On the punishment of his
enemies.
This book is written in a very simple style, and would,
if published, constitute an admirable introduction to the
beliefs of the Muslims about their Prophet.
Three other mystical works which I have not had an
opportunity of reading are the Lawdmi' ("Gleams"), a Com-
mentary on the celebrated Fustiml-Hikam of the great
1 On this classification (Companions ; Followers ; Followers of
the Followers ; Sufis) compare the Nafahdtrfl- Uns (ed. Nassau Lees),
P- 31-
B. P. 33
POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
mystic Shaykh Muhyi'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabi (composed in
896/1491), and a Commentary on the Nusus of his disciple
Shaykh Sadru'd-Din al-Qunyawf. This is entitled NaqdiJn-
Nustis, and is one of J ami's earliest works, for it was com-
posed in 863/1458-59.
Of Jamf's minor works I have noted some two dozen,
included by Sam Mirzd in the list of forty-six which he
gives in his Tuhfa-i-Sdmi, but this latter number
iforill smin r is more than doubled by the Mirdtu'l-Khayal\
which states that Jami left behind him some
ninety works. These minor works include commentaries
on portions of the Qur'dn, e.g. the Stiratul-Fdtika; com-
mentaries on Forty Traditions and on the Traditions of
Abu Dharr ; theological tracts on the Divine Unity (Risdla-
i-Tahliliyya and Ld ildha ilia 'lldk), the Rites of the Pil-
grimage (M&ndsik-i-Hajf) and the like ; monographs on
the lives or sayings of various eminent mystics, such as
Jalalu'd-Din Rumf, Khwaja Parsa and 'Abdu'llah Ansari ;
tracts on Sufi ethics and practice (e.g. the Tariq-i-Sufiydn
and Tahqiq-i-Madhhab-i-Sufiydri); and commentaries, on
Arabic and Persian mystical verses, such as the Td'iyya and
Mimiyya (or Khamriyyd) of 'Umar ibnu'l-Fdrid, the opening
verses of the Mathnawi (also known as the Nay-ndma, or
" Reed-book" from its subject), a couplet of Amir Khusraw
of Dihli, and a commentary of some of his own quatrains.
Besides all these Jami wrote treatises on prosody, rhyme 2
and music, a commentary on the Miftdhul-Ghayb, and
another for his son Diya'u'd-Din 3 on the well-known Arabic
grammar of Ibnu'l-Hajib known as the Kdfiya. There is
also a collection of Jamf's letters (Muns/id'dt), and five
treatises on the Mu'ammd, or Acrostic, which was so popular
at this period.
1 Cited by Nassau Lees, loc. cit., p. 19.
2 Published by Blochmann at the end of his Persian Prosody
(Calcutta, 1872).
3 This book, commonly called Sharh-i-Mulld Jdm{, is properly en-
titled, in allusion to the son's name, al-Fawd!idu?d-Diya!iyya, and is
well known and widely used in the East.
CH. vin] jAMf'S BAHAR1STAN 515
Last, but not least, amongst J ami's prose works is the
Bahdristdn, or " Spring land," a book similar in character
and arrangement to the more celebrated Gulistdn
lSdn ahdr ' of Sa<dl '> composed in 892/1487. It comprises
eight chapters (each called Rawda, " Garden "),
the first containing anecdotes about Saints and Sufis ; the
second sayings of Philosophers and Wise Men ; the third on
the Justice of Kings; the fourth on Generosity; the fifth
on Love ; the sixth on Jokes and Witticisms 1 ; the seventh
on Poets 2 ; and the eighth on dumb animals. The work is
written in mixed prose and verse, the proportion of verse
being very considerable. The text, accompanied by a
German translation by Schlechta-Wssehrd, was published
at Vienna in 1846. There are also several Constantinople
printed editions of the text 3 , a complete English translation
published in 1887 by the Kama Shastra Society, and an
English version of the sixth book entitled " Persian Wit
and Humour " by C. E. Wilson. The curious reader can
therefore easily acquaint himself more fully with the con-
tents of this book, even if he does not read Persian, and it
is therefore superfluous to describe it more fully in this
place.
It is as a poet, however, that Jami is best known, and it
is of his poetical works that we must now speak. These
comprise seven mathnawi poems, known collec-
Jdmi s poetry l l
tively as the SaVa (" Septet ) or Haft Awrang
("Seven Thrones," one of the names by which the constel-
lation of the Great Bear is known in Persia), and three
separate Diwdns, or collections of lyrical poetry, known
respectively as the Fdtihatu sh-Shabdb (" Opening of
Youth"), compiled in 884/1479-1480; the Wdsitatu'l-'Iqd
1 This chapter contains 53 "witticisms," many of them very coarse,
and hardly any of them sufficiently amusing to raise a smile.
2 Particulars of some three dozen are given, but the notices given
by Jami of his own contemporaries are very brief.
3 I possess that printed at the Akhtar Press in 1294/1877. See
also Ethe"'s India Office Persian Catalogue, col. 771-2.
332
516 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
(" Middle of the Necklace "), compiled in 894/1489 ; and the
Khdtimatul-HaydtC'fLnd of Life"), compiled in 896/1490-1,
only two years before the author's death.
The Haft A wrang comprises the seven following poems :
(i) Silsilatu'dh-Dhahab (the "Chain of Gold") com-
posed in 890/1485.
Ifwwe' ( 2 ) Saldmdn waAbsdl, published by Forbes
Falconer in 1850, and translated into English
in 1856. This edition contains 1131 verses. Another
English prose abridged translation by Edward FitzGerald
was published in London in 1856 (pp. xvi + 84).
(3) Tuhfatul-Ahrdr ("the Gift of the Noble"), com-
posed in 886/1481, was published by Forbes Falconer in
1848, and contains 1710 verses.
(4) Subhatu'l-Abrdr (" the Rosary of the Pious") has
been twice printed (1811 and 1848) and once lithographed
(1818) at Calcutta.
(5) Yusufu Zulaykhd, composed in 888/1483, the best
known and most popular of these seven poems, was pub-
lished with a German verse-translation by Rosenzweig
(Vienna, 1824). There is an English translation by
R. T. H. Griffith (London, 1881), and another in very
mediocre verse by A. Rogers (London, 1892).
(6) Layld wa Majmin, composed in 889/1484, has been
translated into French by Che'zy (Paris, 1805) an d into
German by Hartmann (Leipzig, 1807).
(7) Khirad-ndma-i-Sikandari ("the Book of Wisdom
of Alexander ") has received the least attention of the seven
poems, and, so far as I can ascertain, has never been pub-
lished or translated.
i. The Chain of Gold.
Of the Silsilatiidh-Dhahab, or " Chain of Gold," I possess
a good manuscript transcribed in 997/1588-9.
This poem discusses various philosophical,
Chain of ethical and religious subjects with illustrative
Gold") . . .
anecdotes, and comprises some 7200 couplets.
CH. vm] jAMf'S "CHAIN OF GOLD" 517
A certain incoherence and scrappiness, combined with a
not very pleasing metre, seem to have rendered it less
popular than the remaining poems of the " Septet," and
hence probably its comparative rarity. It is dedicated to
Sultan Husayn, "whose justice bound the hands of the
Sphere from aggression " :
and there follows a most elaborate and artificial acrostic on
this Prince's name, full of the most far-fetched conceits.
As a specimen of the poem we may take the following
anecdote concerning the distress of a poet who composed
a brilliant panegyric on a king, which no one applauded
save an ignorant fellow who had no acquaintance with the
forms of poetry.
)
j .X-JLwj A.,
518 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
l L.3
ft-^i .... .1
J- c^Ji o J'
->-J><0
t
J. kj . 3
>-
* . . i , ^-j xC JL
CH. vm] jAMf'S "CHAIN OF GOLD"
519
J i A *
ilj
' ftLj .L.
C * T^
>._^_jC-.i ij^
^ J
* 1 1 .
520 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK m
" A bard whose verse with magic charm was filled,
Who in all arts of eulogy was skilled,
Did for some king a flag of honour raise,
And wrought a poem filled with arts of praise.
Reason and Law the praise of kings approve ;
Kings are the shadow of the Lord above.
The shadow's praise doth to the wise accord
With praises rendered to the shadow's Lord.
A skilful rhapsodist the bard one day
Brought in his verse before the King to lay.
Melodious verse melodious voice doth need
That so its beauty may increase indeed.
From end to end these praises of the King
Unto his ears the rhapsodist did bring.
A fine delivery is speech's need :
The Book God bids melodiously to read 1 .
When to the end he had declaimed the piece
And from reciting it at length did cease,
The poet strained his ears to hear the pause
Swiftly curtailed by thunders of applause.
The man of talent travaileth with pain
Hoping the critic's well-earned praise to gain,
Yet no one breathed a word or showed a sign
Of recognition of those verses fine,
Till one renowned for ignorance and pride,
Standing beyond the cultured circle, cried,
' God bless thee ! Well thou singest, well dost string
' Fair pearls of speech to please our Lord the King ! '
The poet gazed on him with saddened eye,
Covered his face, and sore began to cry.
' By this,' he wailed, ' my back is snapped in twain :
' The praise of this lewd fellow me hath slain !
' That King and beggar grudged my praises due
' My fortune's face with black did not imbrue,
' But this fool-fellow's baseless ill-judged praise
' Hath changed to woe the pleasure of my days ! '
In folly's garden every flower and fruit,
Though fair of branch and bud, is foul of root.
' Verse which accordeth with the vulgar mood
' Is known to men of taste as weak and crude.
' Like seeks for like ; this is the common law ;
' How can the ripe foregather with the raw ?
1 Qur'dn Ixxiii, 4: "and chant the Qur'dn with a well-measured
recitation."
CH. vin] jAMf'S " CHAIN OF GOLD " 521
' The crow repeats the crow's unlovely wail,
' And scorns the warbling of the nightingale.
' The owl to some forsaken nook doth cling,
' Nor home desires in palace of the King.
' He hath no eye to judge the worth of verse,
' So from his praise I suffer shame and worse ! '
E'en so the Rdfidi 1 fulfilled with fraud,
When occupied with 'All's praise and laud,
Shame comes to 'All from his shameless praise,
Which praise on him a grievous burden lays.
If thou shouldst say, ' A heart's devotion ne'er
' Can be devoid of some relation fair ;
' 'All so high, the Rafidi so mean,
' Doth no relationship subsist between ? '
Another anecdote I pray thee hear,
Ponder it well, and rend an answer clear 2 ."
The Silsilatiidh-Dhahab is divided into three books or
daftars, whereof the first ends with an Ptiqdd-ndma, or
Confession of Faith, which exhibits Jdmi, in spite of his
mysticism, as a thoroughly orthodox Sunni. This is suffi-
ciently shown by the sectional headings, which run as
follows : Necessary Existence ; Unity of God ; the Attri-
butes of God, viz. Life, Knowledge, Will, Power, Hearing,
Seeing, Speech ; Divine Actions ; existence of the Angels ;
belief in all the Prophets ; superiority of Muhammad over
all other prophets ; finality of Muhammad's mission ; the
Prophet's Law ; his Night- Ascent to Heaven ; his miracles;
God's Scriptures ; eternal pre-existence of God's Word 3 ;
superiority of the people of Muhammad over all other
peoples; unlawfulness of regarding as infidels any of the
1 Literally "Rejector" (i.e. of the first three orthodox Caliphs), a
term of vituperation applied by the Sunnfs to the Shf'a.
2 The following lines, which are a continuation of these, are
entitled : " Story of that Rafidf who begged a certain scholar to
describe 'Alf, and how that scholar enquired, 'Which 'Alf shall I
describe, the 'All in whom I believe, or the 'AH in whom you believe?' "
3 This important dogma, hotly repudiated by the Mu'tazila, was
one of the test-beliefs of what ultimately became the orthodox doctrine
of IsMm.
522 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
" people of the Qibla 1 " ; the Angels of the Tomb, Munkir
and Nakfr ; the two blasts of the trumpet ; the distribution
of the books kept by the recording angels ; the Balance ;
the Bridge of Sirdt ; the fifty stations of'Arasat ; indicating
that the infidels shall remain in Hell-fire for ever, while
sinners shall escape therefrom by the intercession of the
virtuous and the pious ; Paradise and its degrees.
The second book of the "Chain of Gold " consists chiefly
of dissertations on the different kinds and phases of Love,
" metaphorical " and " real," and anecdotes of saints and
lovers. The third contains for the most part anecdotes of
kings, and towards the end several about physicians.
Amongst the latter it is interesting to find two borrowed
from the fourth Discourse of the Chahdr Maqdla of Nizamf-
i-'Arudi of Samarqand, one related by Avicejina concerning
a certain physician at the Samanid Court who healed a
maidservant by psychical treatment, and the other describing
how Avicenna himself cured a prince of the House of Buwayh
of melancholic delusions 2 . These are followed by a dis-
quisition on the two opposite kinds of poetry, the one " a
comfort to the soul " and the other " a diminution of the
heart " ; and an interesting dissertation on poets of old time
who rewarded their royal patrons by immortalizing their
names, which would otherwise have passed into oblivion.
The poets of whom mention is here made are Rudaki,
'Unsurf, Sana'i, Nizami, Mu'izzi, Anwari, Khaqanf, Zahi'r,
Sa'di, Kamal and Salman of Sawa. Another anecdote from
the Chahdr Maqdla? about one of 'Unsuri's happy improvisa-
tions is also introduced in this place. The book ends some-
what abruptly with a short conclusion which, one cannot
help feeling, would have seemed almost equally appropriate
at any other point in the text. In a word, the " Chain of
Gold " could bear the withdrawal of many of its component
1 I.e. those who turn towards Mecca when they pray.
2 See my translation of the Chahdr Maqdla, Anecdotes xxxiii
(pp. 113-115) and xxxvii (pp. 125-128).
3 Ibid., Anecdote xiv, pp. 56-58.
CH. vin] jAMf'S SALAMAN AND ABSAL 523
links without suffering much detriment. It contains some
excellent matter, but is too long, and lacks artistic unity of
conception.
2. Said man and A bsdl.
The character and scope of the curious allegorical poem
of Saldmdn and Absdl may be readily apprehended by the
English reader from Edward FitzGerald's rather
S ^!dAhdi * ree ancl somewhat abridged translation. His
rendering in blank verse is generally graceful
and sometimes eloquent ; but the employment of the metre
of Hiawatha for the illustrative anecdotes (which, as is
generally the case in poems of this class, frequently inter-
rupt the continuity of the text) is a less happy experiment.
The story is of the slenderest kind, the dramatis persona
being a King of Greece, a Wise Man who is his constant
mentor and adviser, his beautiful and dearly beloved son
Salaman, Absal the fair nurse of the boy, and Zuhra (the
planet Venus), representing the heavenly Beauty which
finally expels the memory of Absal from Salaman's mind.
Amongst the somewhat grotesque features of the story are
the birth of Salaman without a mother to bear him (the
poet's misogyny holding marriage in abhorrence, though he
was himself married), and the seniority by some twenty
years of the charming Absal over her nursling, whom, when
he reached maturity, she entangles in an attachment highly
distasteful to the king and the sage. The latter, by a kind
of mesmeric power, compels Salaman in the earthly paradise
whither he has fled with Absdl to build and kindle a great
pyre of brushwood, into which the two lovers cast them-
selves, with the result that, while poor Absal is burned to ashes,
Salaman emerges unhurt, purified from all earthly desires, and
fit to receive the crown and throne which his father hastens
to confer upon him. The allegory, transparent enough with-
out commentary, is fully explained in the Epilogue 1 .
1 Pp. 71-5 of FitzGerald's translation ; 11. 1076-1120 of the original
in Forbes Falconer's edition.
524 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
As FitzGerald's work has a special interest in the eyes
of all amateurs of Persian literature, I here give an extract
of his translation with the corresponding passage of the
original 1 . The passage selected describes the arrival of
the lovers, in the course of their flight from the King's
reproaches, in the enchanted island where they spend their
joyous days of dalliance.
*_ Alo jl
'jl c. ,,.t. .Oi 'A-fc-^-s jl ^ ,: a. .,,>j
1 Pp. 48-49 of the translation, 11. 802-824 of the text.
CH. vin] J AMI'S SAL AM AN AND ABSAL 525
j ^j
JLol
' a> ; n. t
i' W
LJ
526 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
FitzGerald's translation (pp. 48-49).
" When they had sailed their Vessel for a Moon
And marr'd their Beauty with the wind o' th' Sea,
Suddenly in mid Sea revealed itself
An Isle, beyond Description beautiful ;
An Isle that all was Garden ; not a Bird
Of Note or Plume in all the World but there;
There as in Bridal Retinue array'd
The Pheasant in his Crown, the Dove in her Collar;
And those who tuned their Bills among the Trees
That Arm in Arm from Fingers paralyz'd
With any Breath of Air Fruit moist and dry
Down scattered in Profusion at their Feet,
Where Fountains of Sweet Water ran, and round
Sunshine and Shadow chequer-chased the Ground.
Here Iram Garden seemed in Secresy
Blowing the Rosebud of its Revelation ;
Or Paradise, forgetful of the Day
Of Audit, lifted from her Face the Veil.
Sala'ma'n saw the Isle, and thought no more
Of Further there with Absal he sat down,
Absdl and He together side by side
Rejoicing like the Lily and the Rose,
Together like the Body and the Soul.
Under its Trees in one another's Arms
They slept they drank its Fountains hand in hand
Sought Sugar with the Parrot or in sport
Paraded with the Peacock raced the Partridge
Or fell a-talking with the Nightingale.
There was the Rose without a Thorn, and there
The Treasure and no Serpent to beware
What sweeter than your Mistress at your side
In such a Solitude, and none to chide!"
3. The Gift of the Free.
The Tuhfatu'l-Ahrdr, or " Gift of the Free," is a didactic
and moral poem of theological and ethical contents com-
prising, besides doxologies, eulogies of the
Akrtr Prophet, and Supplications to God (Mundjdt\
twenty Maqdldtor Discourses, of which the last 1
1 See note on p. 527.
CH. vni] jAMf'S " GIFT OF THE FREE " 527
is addressed to the poet's little son Yusuf Diya'u'd-Din, who
was then only four years of age, while his father was sixty.
Each discourse is, as a rule, followed by one or more illustra-
tive anecdotes. In a short prose preface prefixed to the poem
Jami implies that it was inspired by the Makhzanu'l-Asrdr
(" Treasury of Mysteries ") of Nizami and the Matla'uH-
Anwdr ("Dayspring of Lights ") of Amir Khusraw of Dihli.
The poem is on the whole dull and monotonous, and can-
not be regarded as a favourable specimen of J ami's work.
As a specimen I give a prose translation of part of the
author's above-mentioned address to his son, the original of
which can be consulted by those who desire it in Forbes
Falconer's printed text 1 .
Twentieth Discourse,
giving counsel to my precious son,
(May he be nurtured on the Herb of Beauty in the Garden of
Childhood, and may he find his way to the Limit of Perfection
in the School of Eloquence!}
(1615)
" O New Moon to the night of my hope, to whose Image the eye of
my fortune is a pledge !
The Crescent Moon arises after thirty days, while thou didst show
thy face after sixty years.
Thy years are four at the time of reckoning : may thy four be forty
and thy forty four 2 !
May each forty [years] of thine be quadraginta 3 , wherein, by know-
ledge and ecstasy, thou mayst explore the degrees of Perfection !
Thy name is the Yusuf [Joseph] of the Egypt of Faith: may thy
title be the Light (Dtya) of the Empire and of Religion !
With the pen which inditeth wisdom I write this Book of Wisdom
for thee.
Although thou hast not at present" understanding of advice, when
thou attainest the age of understanding put it into practice.
1 Pp. 91-93 of Forbes Falconer's edition, 11. 1615-1659.
2 I.e., I suppose, " may thy four years increase to forty years, yea, to
four times forty ! "
3 Chilla (Arabic Arba i m}, a period of fasting and religious exercises
lasting forty days practised \>ydarwishes and seekers after occult powers.
See my Year amongst the Persians, p. 148.
528 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
Until the hair of thy face becomes a veil, set not thy foot outside the
house into the market and the street 1 .
Be the enchainer of thine own feet ; be the [willing] prisoner of thine
own apartments (haram).
Never carry thy goods from the companionship of thy house-fellows
to the doors of strangers.
The sight of a stranger is not auspicious, especially if his age exceed
thine.
If they set thee to work at school and place the tables of the alphabet
in thy lap,
Do not sit beside every low-born [school-fellow] : separate thyself
from all and sit alone.
Although the letter alif(\) is not by itself of crooked stature, see how
crooked it becomes [in combination] as lam-alifty).
When thou placest thy slate in thy lap lift not up thy finger like an
alif therefrom.
Modestly hang thy head like the letter dal (3); fix thine eyes upon
it like the letter sdd (u)-
Smiling now at this one, now at that one, show not thy teeth like
the letter sin d^).
Divide not thy heart with errant thoughts ; be like the letter mini
(j>} too narrow-mouthed for speech.
Hearken not vainly to every kind of tittle-tattle, so that thou mayst
not suffer the pain of a box on the ear.
Take heed of right behaviour during the teacher's lessons, lest thou
become the little drum 2 of the school-room.
Although the [master's] slaps impart virtue, yet is it better if thou
dost not bring the affair to slapping !"
Excellent as this paternal advice (and there is much
more of it) may be, it does not constitute what we should
regard as suitable material for poetry, while here again the
many fanciful conceits about the ethical lessons to be learned
from the shapes of the letters of the alphabet make it diffi-
cult to produce a tolerable translation even in prose.
4. The Rosary of the Pious.
The Subhatu'l-Abrdr, or "Rosary of the Pious" is a
didactic poem of theological, mystical and
S Abrdr"' 1 ' ethical contents very similar to the last, equally
lacking in coherence and even less attractive in
1 Young boys in the East are almost as carefully secluded as girls.
2 By being beaten with the sticks.
CH. vni] jAMf'S " ROSARY OF THE PIOUS " 529
form and matter. The following story of Abraham and
the aged Fire-Worshipper, which also occurs in Sa'di's
Bustdn^, and is the subject of some very lengthy reflections
in Forbes's Persian Grammar*, where it is quoted amongst
the extracts, may serve as a specimen.
J->
1 See Graf's edition (Vienna, 1858), pp. 142-3, 11. 37-54.
2 Pp. 152-4 and 164-70.
B. P. 34
530 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtfRID PERIOD [BK in
" One from a heathen temple took the road
And lodged as guest in Abraham's abode,
Who, seeing that his practice did accord
111 with true faith, dismissed him from his board.
Beholding him a stranger to God's Grace,
The Fire-fane's smoke apparent in his face,
Bade him confess the Lord who doth bestow
Men's daily bread, or leave the board and go.
The aged man arose, and ' Friend,' quoth he,
' Can Faith the vassal of the Belly be ? '
With lips athirst and mouth unfilled with food
He turned away his face and took the road.
To Abraham a message from the skies
Came, saying, ' O most fair in qualities !
' Although that stranger held an alien creed,
' Food to forbid him was no righteous deed.
' For more than threescore years and ten, in fine,
' He offered worship at a heathen shrine,
CH. vm] jAMf'S YtfSUF AND ZULAYKHA 531
' Yet ne'er did I his sustenance withhold,
' Saying, " Thy heart is dead to faith and cold."
'What harm were it if from thine ample store
' Some morsels thou shouldst give him, less or more ? '
Abraham called him back, and did accord
A place to him at his most bounteous board.
' This flood of grace,' the aged man enquired,
' After that first rebuff what thought inspired ? '
He told the message which his act had banned,
And told him too of that stern reprimand.
' To one,' the old man said, ' who thus can take
' To task his servant for a stranger's sake
' Can I endure a stranger to remain,
' Or fail his love and friendship to attain ?'
Unto the Source of Good he then addressed
His homage, and his faith in God professed."
The story and the moral are admirable, but most Persian
scholars will, I think, prefer Sa'di's older to Jamf's later
version.
5. Yti suf and Zulaykhd.
The fifth of the " Seven Thrones," the Romance of
Yusuf (Joseph) and Zulaykha (Potiphar's wife), is by far the
most celebrated and popular, and is also the
most accessible both in the original and in trans-
lation. The entire text, with German metrical
translation and notes by Vincenz Edlem von Rosenzweig,
was published in a fine folio volume at Vienna in 1824, and
there are several Oriental editions of the text 1 . I have
already alluded to the late Mr A. Rogers' English rhymed
translation (1892) which cannot be described as happy;
R. T. H. Griffith's earlier translation (1881) I have not seen.
Of two fine passages on the nature of Beauty and its
essential desire to manifest itself, and on love of the creature
considered as the bridge leading to love of the Creator 2
I have published translations, originally in a lecture on
1 See Ethe's India Office Persian Catalogue, col. 746-747.
2 This latter passage is practically a commentary on the well-
known Sufi aphorism, " the Phenomenal is the Bridge to the Real."
342
532 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
Sufi'ism contributed to the Religious Systems of the World 1
and again in part in vol. i of my Literary History of Persia
(pp. 439 and 442).
The story itself, based on the Stiratu Yiisuf (Qur 1 an xii),
which describes it as " the most beautiful of stories," is one
of the most popular themes of romantic poetry in Persia
and Turkey, and engaged the attention of the great Firdawsf
after he had finished the Shdh-ndma^ and after him of a
whole series of Persian poets. Of the Turkish renderings
of the tale a pretty complete list will be found in a foot-
note in the second volume of Gibb's History of Ottoman
Poetry*. But of all these renderings of the well-known tale
Jami's deservedly holds the highest place, and on it his
reputation largely rests. The text of the following trans-
lation, which unfortunately is a very inadequate representa-
tion of the original, occurs on p. 81 of von Rosenzweig's
edition, 11. 19-42.
"This speech from Bazigha 3 when Joseph heard
From his sweet mouth came forth this living word :
'That Master- craftsman's work am I,' said he;
' One single drop contents me from His Sea.
' One dot is Heaven from His Pen of Power,
'And from His Beauty's garth this world a flower.
'The Sun's a gleam from out His Wisdom's Light,
'The Earth's a bubble on His Sea of Might.
' Each mundane atom He a Mirror made,
'And His Reflection in each one displayed.
' His Beauty from all faults and flaws is free,
' Hid 'neath the Veil of what no eye can see.
' Discerning eyes in all that's dowered with Grace
'See naught, when well they look, except His Face 4 .
' Beside the Prototype the Shadow's dim ;
' See His Reflection, haste thee unto Him.
' If from the Prototype you stand bereft,
'When fades the Shadow, naught to you is left.
1 Published by Swan Sonnenschein in 1892, pp. 314-332.
2 Vol. ii, pp. 148-150 ad calc.
3 A lady who, like Zulaykha, falls in love with Joseph, but is turned
by his exhortations from love of the creature to love of the Creator.
4 Cf. Qur'dn ii, 109.
CH. vm] jAMf 'S LA YLA AND MAJMlN 533
' Nor will the Shadow long remain with thee ;
' The Rose's colour hath no constancy.
' Look to the Source, if permanence you claim ;
' Go to the Root, if constancy's your aim.
' Can that which is, and soon is not again,
' Make throb the heart, or twinge the vital vein ?'"
6. Lay Id and Majniin.
Of the last two of Jami's "Seven Thrones," the Romance
of Layla and Majniin and the Book of Wisdom
^aj^ a f Alexander, copies are rare, but I have been
able to examine them cursorily in a fine manu-
script 1 , transcribed in 937/1530-1, belonging to Trinity Col-
lege, Cambridge, and have selected the following passages
as typical. The first two are from the Layld and Majntin*.
1 It bears the class-mark R. 13.8.
2 Ff. 68 b -69 b .
534 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
(7 />^ meaning of the Love of the Loyal and the Loyalty
of Lovers.
" When the Dawn of Eternity whispered of Love, Love cast the Fire
of Longing into the Pen.
The Pen raised its head from the Tablet of Not-Being, and drew a
hundred pictures of wondrous aspect.
The Heavens are the offspring of Love : the Elements fell to Earth
through Love.
Without Love is no token of Good or Evil : that thing which is not
of Love is indeed non-existent.
This lofty azure Roof which revolveth through the days and nights
Is the Lotus of the Garden of Love, and the ball [which lies] in the
curve of Love's Polo-stick.
That Magnetism which is inherent in the Stone, and which fastens
its grasp so firmly on the Iron,
Is a Love precipitated in Iron Resolve which hath appeared from
within the Stone.
Behold the Stone, how in this resting-place it becomes without
weight through longing for its opponent :
Judge therefrom of those who suffer sorrow in the attraction of the
love of those dear to the heart.
Although Love is painful, it is the consolation of pure bosoms.
Without the blessing of Love how shall a man escape from the
sorrow of the inverted Wheel [of Heaven] ? "
CH. vni] jAMf'S LA YLA AND MAJNVN
535
t C
ULJ
Concerning the cause of the versification of this Book, and the
reason of the arrangement of this Address.
" When I withdrew the Veil from this Mystery, and prepared this
strange Song,
The Parrot of my Genius became an eater of sugar from the Story
of Joseph and Zulaykha.
In this outpouring of sugar there sprang from my Pen sweet verses
mingled with sugar.
536 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
Therefrom tumult fell upon the World, and a gladness in the hearts
of lovers.
It was a Fountain of Graciousness, but therefrom my thirst was not
appeased.
The Bird of my Heart desired to sing another song on another topic.
When under fortunate auspices I cast lots, [the lot] fell on an account
of Majnun's plight.
Although aforetime two Masters, raised high above the Realm of
Verse,
Unloosed their tongues in the enunciation of subtleties, and therein
did full justice to speech ;
That one 1 pouring forth pearls like a Treasure (ganf) from Ganja,
and this one 2 scattering sugar like a Parrot in India;
That one smiting the ears of [unjustified] pretension, and this one
unveiling the bride of the Ideal ;
That one with his verse engraving an inscription on the rock, and
this one giving colour [to the tale] by his exquisite art ;
That one raising his standard to the Zenith of Glory, and this one
preparing the spells of Magic ;
I also bound my girdle behind me, and seated myself on my dromedary
fleet as the wind,
And wherever their Pegasus 3 attained, through their inspiring minds
I also urged onwards my camel in humility, and brought myself
within the range of their dust.
Though I fall behind their reckoning, yet their dust upon my face
sufficeth me."
7. The Book of Wisdom of A lexander.
The following anecdote from the Khirad-ndma-i-
Sikandari, or " Book of Wisdom of Alexander," is taken
from the same manuscript 4 as the last two extracts :
1 I.e., Nizdmi of Ganja.
2 Amir Khusraw of Dihli.
3 Rakhsh, the name of Rustam's celebrated charger.
< R. 13-8 of Trinity College, Cambridge, f. I7i a .
CH. vm] jAMf'S KHIRAD-NAMA-I-SIKANDARt 537
JU J
JJUO ji 4J
J A*^ J-H
U
538 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
1 Jl
*_j ^Jv ifc ^
' oj O
O *
15-0
CH. vm] jAMf'S KHIRAD-NAMA-I-SIKANDARI 539
Story of the Kite which lent an ear to the Frog's talk, and in
hope of credit let slip the cash from its hand.
"The cycle of heaven now bids me indite
For example the tale of the frog and the kite.
A kite, wont to prey on the birds of the air,
By the weakness of age was reduced to despair.
For soaring its pinions no longer avail ;
For hunting the strength of its talons doth fail.
From the depth of its soul bitter wailing arose ;
An abode by the shore of a lakelet it chose.
Now when in that place it had dwelt for a spell
On a sudden a frog in its clutches there fell.
The miserable frog made a piteous appeal :
'To woe thou hast turned,' it lamented, 'my weal!'
' O haste not to seek my destruction,' it cried ;
' Turn the steed of intent from my murder aside !
' An unsavoury morsel I yield at the best,
' Neither sweet to the palate not good to digest.
' My body is nothing save ill-flavoured skin :
' What eater of meat can find pleasure therein ?
' Unclose then thy beak, leave me free to depart,
' And tidings of gladness convey to my heart !
' Then by magic and spells evermore at thy wish
' I will guide thee to toothsome and savoury fish,
' In the river's clear streamlets long nurtured and bred,
' And with various food-stuffs abundantly fed,
' From the head to the tail flesh and fatness alone,
' With scarcely a skin and with hardly a bone !
'Their bellies like silver, their backs bright of blee,
' Their eyes like reflections of stars in the sea.
' With silvery scales back and sides are alight
'As with God's starry largesse the heavens by night.
' Far better, all persons of taste will agree,
' Is a mouthful of such than a hundred like me.'
The kite, by an oath confirmation to seek,
Relaxed its control : the frog fell from its beak ;
With one leap it returned to its watery lair,
And the kite once again was the slave of despair.
Its seat in the dust of destruction it took,
Neither frog in its talons nor fish on its hook.
540 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
That kite disappointed is like unto me,
Whose soul has been turned from the pathway of glee.
Composure has quitted my heart at the thought
Of finding expression for thoughts so distraught.
In my hands, through my lack of good fortune, I find
Neither graces of speech nor composure of mind.
O cupbearer, come, pass the bowl, I entreat,
And like heaven, I pray thee, the cycle repeat !
That wine I desire which to peace giveth birth,
And frees us from all the defilements of earth.
O minstrel, approach, that the listening lute
At the touch of thy fingers may cease to be mute.
The heart of the heedless shall wake at its cry,
And the message of angels descend from the sky."
As the Sab'a (" Septet") of Jamf was admittedly inspired
by and modelled on the Khamsa (" Quintet ") of Nizamf,
some comparison of their respective styles and
jdmi^T" methods may fairly be demanded. As I con-
romanticpoet sider that in questions of literary taste it is very
with Ni?Am( ' .
difficult for a foreigner to judge, I requested
my Persian colleague, Mfrza Bihruz, son of the distinguished
physician and writer Mi'rz Abu'1-Fadl of Sawa, a young
man of great promise and ability, well read in both Arabic
and Persian literature, to write a short essay on this point,
and I here reproduce in English the gist of his opinions.
Jamf's verses, writes Mi'rzci Bihruz, rival, and perhaps
even excel, those of Nizami in poetical form, sweetness and
simplicity, being unlaboured and altogether free from
artificiality ; but they fall far short of them in strength
(matdnat), poetic imagination and eloquence. To appreciate
and enjoy Nizimf a profound knowledge of the Persian
language is required, while Jamf can be read with pleasure
by all, whence his greater fame and popularity, especially
in India, Turkey and other lands where Persian literature
is an exotic. Moreover Nizami was a man of far-reaching
attainments, not only in the language and history of his
country, but in the sciences, especially the mathematical
sciences, of his time, so that often he cannot be understood
except by a reader similarly gifted. Such an one, however,
CH. vni] NIZAMf AND jAMf COMPARED 541
will find in him depths and subtleties for which he would
seek in vain in J arm's poetry.
In one only of his "Five Poems" does Nizami challenge
comparison with his great predecessor Firdawsi, to wit in
his "Alexander Book" (Sikandar-ndma), which,
R^u^'sT" alike in metre and subject-matter, resembles
the corresponding portion of the Shdh-ndma,
but, in the judgement of most critics, falls short of it 1 . But
here Nizami was apparently more hampered than Firdawsi
by the fanaticism of a less tolerant age, as he hints in the
following lines :
} ,x>
Cj_
" The world was so warmed by Fire-worship
That thou mayst well be ashamed of thy Muhammadanism.
We are Musulmdns, while he is called a Guebre (ga.br) :
If that be heathenism (gabrf), what is Muhammadanism ?
Return, O Nizami, to the tenour of thy tale,
For harsh are the notes of the bird of admonition ! "
Jami, though a mystic, was essentially an orthodox
Muhammadan, and shows little of the enthusiasm for pre-
Islamic Persia which inspired Firdawsi, and, in
JAmi s close
imitation of a lesser degree, Nizami. Of his indebtedness
to the latter he makes no secret, and, indeed,
follows his footsteps with extraordinary closeness, though
here and there he introduces topics and dissertations entirely
his own 2 . Not only does he imitate Nizami in the titles,
metres and subdivisions of his poems, but even in minute
1 This matter is discussed at length by Shiblf in his Skfnil- t Ajam t
vol. i, pp. 3 2 3-356.
2 E.g. his curious explanation of and commentary on the letters of
the Bismfllah near the beginning of the Tuhfatrfl-Ahrdr.
542 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK m
personal details. Thus each poet addresses himself and
gives advice to a seven-year-old son, the only difference
being that while Nizami encourages his son to study
Medicine, Jami recommends Theology. The parallelism
is especially apparent in the sections dealing with the
" cause of the versification of the tale " of Layla and
Majnun in the respective versions of the two poets, but
lack of space compels me to omit the illustrations of this
given by Mirza Bihruz in his essay. Such critical com-
parison of the works of the great Persian poets is very
important and has hitherto been too much neglected, but
the necessary preliminary work of a historical, biographical
and bibliographical character is all that I have been able to
attempt in this and the preceding volumes on the literary
history of Persia.
Of Jami's lyric poetry, embodied, as already mentioned 1
in three separate Dtwdns, it is impossible to give an adequate
account in this volume, which has already
jdmi-s lyric exceeded in bulk the limits I had assigned to it.
poetry
In Europe German scholars alone have done
much work in this field, notably von Rosenzweig 2 , Riickert 8
and Wickerhauser in his Bliitenkranz*. Having regard to
the eminence of Jami in this field also, and to the abundance
of his output, a separate monograph would be required to
do adequate justice to the subject, which deserves fuller
study not only on account of Jami's own merit as a lyric
poet, but also by reason of the profound influence which,
1 See pp. 5 1 5-6 supra.
2 Biographische Notizen iiber Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami
nebst Ubersetzungsproben aus seinen Diivanen von Vinzenz Edleni
von Rosenzweig (Vienna, 1840). The pages of this volume are,
unfortunately, unnumbered.
3 His work extends over 33 years (1844-1876). It began in the
Z. f. d. Kunde d. Morgenlandes, vols. v, pp. 281-336, and vi, pp. 189-
227 ; and was continued in the Z. D. M. G., vols. ii, pp. 26-5 1 ; iv, pp.
44-61; v, pp. 308-329; vi, pp. 491-504; xxiv, pp. 563-590; xxv, pp.
95-112; xxvi, pp. 461-464 ; and xxix, pp. 191-198.
4 Leipzig, 1855 and Vienna, 1858.
CH. vin] jAMf'S LYRIC POETRY 543
as already indicated 1 , he exercised over his successors,
not only in Persia, but also in Turkey. I hope that it may
be possible to recur to his lyric poetry in my next volume,
when I come to trace the development of the ghazal in
later times, but for the moment I must content myself with
a few specimens selected after a cursory perusal of the
edition of his first Diwdn printed at Constantinople in
1284/1867-8, and based, as stated in the colophon, on an
autograph manuscript 2 . I have also at hand a much fuller
text of the same Diwdn lithographed at Lucknow in
1298/1881, which contains many poems omitted in the
Turkish edition, and comprises 568 as against 182 pages.
(1)
Ijui
3* J* ** u~4 3 C-wl
>L.
1 See pp. 421-3 supra.
2 Unfortunately no indication of the whereabouts of this MS. is
forthcoming. The texts here given have been emended in some places
from the Indian lithographed edition, which often gives a more correct
reading.
544 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtiRID PERIOD [BK in
" O Thou whose Beauty doth appear in all that appeareth, may a
thousand holy spirits be Thy sacrifice !
Like the flute I make complaint of my separation from Thee every
moment, and this is the more strange since I am not parted
from Thee for a single instant 1 .
It is Love alone which reveals itself in the two worlds, sometimes
through the raiment of the King, and sometimes through the
garment of the beggar.
One sound reaches thine ear in two ways ; now thou callest it 'Echo'
and now ' Voice.'
Arise, O cupbearer, and graciously pour out a draught of that grief-
dispelling wine for the sorrow-stricken lovers !
Of that special wine which, when it delivers me from myself, leaves
in the eye of contemplation naught but God.
O JAmi, the road of guidance to God is naught but Love : [this] we
tell you, and ' Peace be upon him who followeth right guidance.'"
The following is evidently inspired by and modelled on
the well-known ode of Hafiz composed in the same metre
and rhyme 2 :
1 This line is an obvious reminiscence of the opening line of the
Mathnawi.
2 It is the first ghazal in the Dtwdn of Hdfiz.
CH. vni] jAMf'S LYRIC POETRY
" O Breeze of Morning, visit the hills of Nejd for me and kiss them,
for the fragrance of the Friend comes from those pure camping-
grounds.
When the longing for union increases, what occasion for blame is
there if Majnun follows the litters in the hope of [finding amongst
them] Layld's howdah ?
My heart is filled with love for the Friend, who is not heedless
thereof, for they say * Hearts have a road to hearts.'
Behold, Salma hath arrived from the road, while I am in such case
through bodily weakness ; take, then, O comrade, my spirit as
a gift from me and accept it.
O cloud-like 1 eye, do not shed the rain of regret in her path, for it
is better that her horse's hoof should be far removed from the
plague of such mire.
In my heart were knotted a hundred difficulties through separation
from her ; when I saw her form all difficulties were solved
forthwith.
Jami suffers vexations from the harshness of this grievous cycle, but
fear of the wearisomeness of penitents did not prolong them."
(3)
35
546 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK m
Jj^ ** *
*.-*-J
. ^ .,-0 ^l Cfc. A-flk. C
" Here is the border of the garden, the brink of the stream, and the
lip of the goblet : arise, O cup-bearer, for here abstinence is a
crime.
If the elder of the monastery is intoxicated with the delights of
music, give me the wine-tavern, for here this state endureth
continually !
Thou didst touch the lip of the goblet with thy lip, and I the drunkard
know not which is here thy ruby lip and which the wine.
Not my heart alone is bound in thy black tresses : wherever there is
a birdlike heart it is here caught in the snare.
Thou dost draw the sword to divide my heart in twain ; lay aside
the sword, for here one glance is sufficient.
Do not explain the difficulties of Love to the reasonable ; utter not
a private matter, for here is a public assembly.
Jamf is intoxicated with thy love, though he has seen neither wine
nor goblet: here is the Banquet of Love: what place is there
for wine or goblet ? "
CH. vmj jAMf'S LYRIC POETRY 547
" The fair ones are a thousand, but of them all my desire is one ; my
speech is one, though they cut me into a hundred pieces with
the sword.
The assembly of the beautiful is a pleasant meeting-place, but the
Moon whence this assembly derives its lustre is one.
For each pace of her advance we desire a different present, but we
fall short [of this our desire], for the soul in the body is [only] one.
I have grown so thin that, but for my lamentation and wailing, it
would not appear that there was anyone in this shirt.
Where the charming ruby [lips] of Shirfn are glowing, rubies and
pebbles are alike in the eyes of [Farhad] the Tunneller.
It was thou of all the fair ones who didst shatter my name and fame ;
yea, of a hundred Abrahams the breaker of idols is but one.
O Jdmf, close thy mouth from speech in this garden, for there the
song of the nightingale and the shriek of the raven are one ! "
This poem bears a great similarity, both in form and
ideas, to an ode of unknown authorship of which I printed
the opening lines with a verse translation in my Year
amongst the Persians 1 . The fourth couplet appears to have
been inspired by the well-known Arabic verses of al-Mu-
tanabbi 2 :
j j*
' ^>*J & *r*
1 p. 501. 2 Ed. Dieterici, p. 5.
352
548 POETS OF THE LATER TfMtf RID PERIOD [BK in
" On the day of parting passion wore away my body with sorrow,
while separation effected a divorce between my eyelids and sleep.
[I am only] a spirit permeating [a body] like a splinter [in leanness],
no longer visible when the wind blows the garment away from it.
Thin enough is my body, for indeed I am a man whom thou wouldst
not see if I did not speak to thee."
This is not an isolated instance of the influence of
Arabian poetry on Jami's Persian verse. Thus the line :
J ~
\ A
',jUJ JU j\ AJ 3 jjj ,jUJ JD jt 4J <t=>
" I was of the company of dreg-drainers on that day
When there was [as yet] no trace of the vine or of the vine-planter"
is, as Mfrza Bihruz has pointed out to me, almost certainly
inspired by the celebrated couplet of the great Egyptian
mystic 'Umar ibnu'l-Farid 1 :
" We drained a draught of wine to the memory of the Friend :
We were intoxicated therewith ere ever the Vine was created."
Of the great Persian lyrical poets who preceded Jamf
the influence of Sa'di and Hafiz is most noticeable ; and in
the verses sometimes known collectively as the Nay-ndma' 2 ,
or " Book of the Reed," he has skilfully imitated the style
and lucidly developed the idea of the Prologue to Jalalu'd-
Din Rumi's great Mystical Mathnawi. To conclude and
epitomize in one sentence this wholly inadequate account
of one who, though I decline to regard him as the last great
classical poet of Persia, was certainly one of the most talented,
versatile and prolific. In Jami the mystical and pantheistic
thought of Persia may be said to find its most complete and
vivid expression ; while, though he may have been equalled
or even surpassed by others in each of the numerous realms
of literature which he cultivated, no other Persian poet or
writer has been so successful in so many different fields, and
the enthusiastic admiration of his most eminent contempo-
raries is justified by his prolific and .many-sided genius.
1 Ed. Cheikh ed-Dahdah (Paris, 1855), p. 472.
2 See p. 514 supra.
INDEX
In the following Index where many reference-numbers occur under one
heading the more important are printed in Clarendon type, which is also used
for the first entry under each letter of the alphabet. To save needless repe-
tition, all references to any name common to several persons mentioned in the
text are brought together under one heading, the individuals bearing this name
being arranged either in chronological order, or in order of importance, or in
classes (rulers, men of letters, poets, etc.). The letter b. between two names
stands for Ibn (" Son of..."), and n. after the number of a page indicates a foot-
note. The addition in brackets of a Roman number after a name or book
indicates the century of the Christian era in which the man lived or the book
was written. Prefixes like Abu ("Father of...") and Ibn ("Son of...") in
Muhammadan, and de, le, von in European names are disregarded in the
alphabetical arrangement, so that names like Abu Sa'id, Ibn Sfna, le Strange,
de Slane, etc., must be sought under S, not under A, I, L or D. Titles of
books and foreign words are printed in italics, and an asterisk is prefixed to the
former when they are quoted at any length in the text. A hyphen preceding
a word indicates that the Arabic definite article al- should be prefixed to it.
Abaqa (Mongol Il-Khan, xiii), 17-25,
31, 40, 53, 69, 106, 112, 114, 175
'Abbas "the Great," Shah (Safawf
king, xvi-xvii), 317, 396
'Abbs (murderer of Ulugh Beg, xv),
386
'Abbasid Caliphs (viii-xiii), 91, 206,
396, 484
'Abbasf clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Abddl (a class of invisible saints),
276 and n.
Abdal Beg (xv-xvi), 417
'Abdu'l-'Aziz b. Ulugh Beg (Tfmurid,
xv), 386
'Abdu'l-Ghafvir of Lar (disciple of
Jami, xv-xvi), 458, 508
'Abdu'l-Hamid (Ottoman Sultan, xix-
xx), 107 n.
'Abdu'llah. Shaykh Ansarf (saint,
iv-v), 479, 514; Amir of Shfriz
(xiii) ; Mir (father of Sha"h
Ni'matu'llah, xiv), 464; - - b.
Fadlu'lhih of Shiraz (historian, xiii-
xivj, see Wassaf-i-Hadrat and
Ta'rikh-i-Wassaf ; Prince b.
Ibrahim b. Shah-rukh (Timurid,
xv), 387, 429 ; b. Mir 'Ali (calli-
graphist, xv), 395 ; Mathnaivi-
gu (known as Hatifi, xvi), 459
Abu 'Abdi'llah Muhammad b. Abi
Bakr b. 'Uthman.' See Imamf
'Abdu'l-Latff, son of the minister
and historian Rashidu'd-Din Fad-
lu'llah (xiii-xiv), 82, 84 ; Prince ,
son of Ulugh Beg the Tfmurid (xv),
82, 8 4 , 386, 387, 388, 390, 429,
438, 503
'Abdu'l-Majid b. 'Izzu'd-Dfn (Huruff
heretic, xv). See Firishta-zada
'Abdu'l-Mii'min, son of Rashfdu'd-
Dfn Fadlu'llah (xiii-xiv), 81;
the rhapsodist, put to death (xiv-
xv )> r 95
'Abdu'l-Muqtadir, Mawlawf (con-
temporary Indian scholar), 259 n.,
260, 261, 263, 287 n., 293 n.
'Abdu'l - Qadir. --of Mardgha
(musician, xiv-xv), 191, 384;
(? liuruff, xiv), 368
'Abdu'l -Wahid (name adopted by
Herman Bicknell, q.v., xix),
302-3
'Abdu'n-Nabf Fakhru'z-Zama"n (bio-
grapher of poets, xvii), 273
'Abdu'r-Rahim. - - Huriifi (xiv),
368 ; Kha'n-Kha'na'n (Akbar's
general, translator of the Bdbur-
ndma into Persian, xvi), 392
55
INDEX
'Abdu'r-Rahman. Shaykh Fmf
(author of old and apparently lost
history of Merit), 174,431; (un-
identified, xv ), 494 ; Bey Sheref
(contemporary Turkish historian),
408 n., 411, 412
'Abdu'r-Razzaq. SarbadaV ruler
(xiv), 178; Kamalu'd-Dfn of
Samarqand (historian, xv), 361,
393. 397.-.426, 428-430. 464. 4735
Ldhijf (commentator of the
Gulshan-i-Rdz, xvii), 148
Abel-Remusat, 10, 190.
Abghy (grandfather of Tfmur, xiv),
185
Abhar (near Zanjan), 31, 87
AW ward, 497
Abkhaz, 85, 122, 490
Abraham, 89, 529-31, 547
Abulustayn, Battle of (A.D. 1277), 19
Abyssinia, Abyssinians, 89, 398
Achaemenian dynasty, 3
Adam, 73, 89, 100, 133, 2ipn., 245,
, 335, 343
Adam-ndma (Huruff work), 374, 450
Aden, in, 327, 398
Adharbayjan (Persian province), 43,
122 n., 146, 160, 173, 187, 192,
194, 264, 272,317, 321, 332, 382,
385. 389* 397, 399, 4o, 401, 402,
406, 409, 410, 416, 425, 426, 462,
489
Adhari (poet, xiv-xv), 259, 350, 352,
, 438, 497, 498, 502-3
'Adil Shall, Mfr (d. A.D. 1424),
489
Adrianople (Turkish Edtrn<<), 104,
356, 370
'Adudu'd-Dfn. 'Abdu'r-Rahman
b. Ahmad al-Ijf (theologian and
philosopher, xiv), 159, 170, 276 n.,
356-7 ; (grandson of Fadlu'llah
al-Huruff, xv), 366
Afdq u Anfus (poem by Bushaq, xv),
350 ; (poem by Mahmiid Qarf
of Yazd, xv), 351-2
Afdal-i-Ka'shf (poet, xiv), 154
Afdalu'd-Din. Mawldna" (xiii),
27; Sayyid Mas'tid (pensioner,
xiv), 8 i
Afghanistan, Afghans, 64, 107, i22n.,
152 n., 161, 175, 193, 379, 393
'Afffa (daughter of Amir Khusraw,
xiii), 109
'Afffu'd-Dfn of Baghdad (xiv), 83
Afrasiyab (Atbek of Luristin, xiii),
37
Africa, North , 92
Afshar tribe (supporting Shah Isma'fl
the Safawi, xvi), 417
Agra (taken by Babur, A.D. 1526),
. 393
Ahang-i-Khusrawdni (name of a Per-
sian air), 500 n.
Ahar, 27, 416
Ahf (poet of Babur's time, xvi), 459
Ahlf (poet of Turshiz, xv), 438, 459
Ahmad. Sultan Takudar (Mongol
I)-khn, xiii), 25-6, 27, 31 ;
(Muzaflari prince of Kirman, xiv),
163, 168, 169, 190; b. Uways
of the Il-khdni or Jali'ir dynasty
(xiv), 172, 173, 187, 191, 196, 197,
204, 205, 206, 284,^358, 366, 399,
400 ; b. Abu Sa'id (Tfmurid
prince, xv), 390 ; Chapel of ,
504 ; Sultan (Ottoman, xvii),
396 ; Shah Bahmani (of the
Deccan, xv or xvi), 464 ; Sultan
(governor of Kurdistan, xv), 401 ;
- b. Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'lteh
(governo^of Ardabfl, xiii-xiv), 84,
86 ; (Aq-qoyunhi prince, xiv),
404; Shaykh i-Jain (saint, xi-
xii), 479 > Suhrawardi (calli-
graphist, xiii), 84 ; b. Sahl of
Balkh (geographer, cited in Nuz-
hatti'l - Qulub, ? xiii), 99 ; b.
Abi 'Abdi'llah (author of the
Tibydn, cited in the Nuzhatifl-
Qulub), 99; Qadf of Damghdn
(historian, source of Tdrikh-i-
Guzida), 89 ; Khwaja (mer-
chant, xiv), 84 ; of Tabriz (poet,
author of Shdhinshdk-ndma, xiv),
103 ; i-Lur (Huriifi, assailant of
Shah-rukh, A.D. 1426), 366, 382,
473 5 Sayyid Toghan-oghlu (en-
voy of Uzun Hasan to Ottoman
Sultan, xv), 410 ; Faridu'd-Din
b. Sa'd-at-Taflazanf (theologian
and jurist, xv), 398, 423, 458 ;
Dede b. Lutfu'llah (Turkish his-
torian, xvii), 384 n. ; b. Muham-
mad Nadfm (Turkish historian,
translator from the Arabic of the
last writer's Sahtiifrfl-Akkbdr,
xviii), 384 n. ; Dr Khan (con-
temporary), 183, 361
Ahmad-abad (Gujerdt, India), 318
Ahrar, Khwaja Naqshbandi (saint,
, xv )> 44i
'A'isha (wife of the Prophet, called
Humayrd}, 320 n.
INDEX
'A'isha Sultan Begum (Babur's wife),
455
'Aj&ibu'l-Makhluqdt ("Wonders of
Creation" of al-Qazwfni,xiii).64n.
'AjiVibifl-Maqdur fl akhbdri Tlmur
(' ' Marvels of Destiny in the History
of Timur," hy Ibn 'Arabshah,
<].v., xv), 181, 183, 321 n., 355-6
Akbar (the celebrated " Great Mogul "
Emperor of India, xvi-xvii), 391,
392, 393 "
Akhi Juq (antagonist of Mubarizu'd-
Dfn, xiv), 165
Akhirat-ndma (Turkish Hurufi book),
374-5. 45
Akhldq - i -Jaldli (by Jalalu'd-Din
Dawani, xv), 246, 389, 442-4
Akhldq-i-Muhsini (by Husayn Wa'iz-
i-Kashiff, xv), 246, 443, 444
Akhldq-i- Ndsiri (by Nasiru'd-Din
Tiisi, xiii), i8n., 442
*Akhldqu'l-Ashrdf (by 'Ubayd-i-
Zdkani, xiv), 230, 232, 235, 237,
244-51, 257
Akhlat, 188, 192, 401
Akhtar (the " Star," a Persian news-
paper published at Constantinople,
A.n. 1875-1895), 515 n.
'Akka (St Jean d'Acre in Syria,
ravaged by Tumir in A.D. 1401),
, 197
Ala Tagh (or dagh, mountain), 59,
192
Alafrank (son of Gaykhatu, Mongol
prince, xiii-xiv), 43, 48
Alarmit (stronghold of the Assassins),
6, 25, 66, 69, 92, 255
Alast ("Day of --"), 219 n., 307
and n., 308
'Ala'u'd-Dawla. b. Ahmad Jala'ir
(xiv), 191; b. Baysunqur
(Timvirid prince, xv), 386-8;
Bakhtfshdh Gha/i (father of Daw-
latshah, q.v., xv), 436
'Ala'u'd-Din. 'Ata Malik-i-Ju-
wayni (historian, xiii), 20, 22, 24,
25, 29, 65, 88, 106 ; Khwaja
Hindu (correspondent of Rashi-
du'd-Din Fadlu'llah, xiii-xiv), 82 ;
Malik (correspondent of same,
xiii-xiv), 85 ; Sultan of India
^correspondent of same, xiii-xiv),
85; Kurt (xiv), 176 ; Khwaja
- Muhammad (fiscal officer of
Sultan Abu Sa'fd, xiv), 215;
(appealed to by 'Ubayd-i-Zakanf,
xiv), 240, 241 ; Simnanf (xiii-
xiv), 484; 'All Qushji (astro-
nomer and philosopher, xv), 386,
407
Alburz Mountains, 316 n.
Aleppo (Halab)> 181, 197, 361, 425,
449, 464
Alexander "the Great" (hkandar-
i-Rum!}, 3, 16, 89, 90 n., 182,
228, 291 n., 317 n., 373, 533, 536,
54'
Alexandria (Iskandariyya), 53 n.
Alfiyya [tva] Skalfiyya (pornographical
work by A/.raqi, xi), 347 and n.,
349. 350
'Ali. b. Abi Talib (fourth Caliph
of Sunnis and first Imam of Shi'a,
vii), Si. 7i. 9' , 2 50, 255, 510,
519, 521 ; Rida (eighth Imam
of Shi'a, viii-ix), 44 ; Shaykh
b. Kinjik (or Kikhshik, or Kichik,
Mongol, xiv), 53 ; Amir Padi-
shah (Mongol noble, xiv), 59 ;
Amir (governor of 'Iraq-i-' Arab,
xiii-xiv), 80-8 1, 82 ; b. Rashf-
du'd-Din Fadlu'llah (xiii-xiv), 84 ;
Sahl (son of Shaykh Abu Ishaq
Inju, xiv), 163, 275 n.; - - b.
Uways Jala'ir (xiv), 172 ;
Mu'ayyad (Sarbadar, xiv), 178;
Sultan Qiichin (retainer of Shah-
rukh, xv), 366 ; Taz (or Pfr
'AH, xv), 381 ; Beg b. Qara
'Osman (or ' Uthman, of the "White
Sheep" Turkmans, xv), 404;
Qushjf (entitled 'Ala'u'd-Din,
q.v., xv), 386, 407 ; b. Husayn
Wa'iz-i-Kashifi (xv), 434, 441-2,
509
Abu 'Ali b.Sma", 443. See Avicenna
Ali-garh (A.-O. M. College, India),
108, 261
'Ali-shah. (rival and enemy of
Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'lldh, xiv),
51-2, 54, 70, 71; (son of the
same Rashfd, xiii-xiv), 84
'Aliyyu'1-A'la (successor of Fadlu'llah
al-Huriifi, xiv-xv), 371, 374, 451
Allahu Akbar, Tang-i (defile near
Shiraz), 291 and n.
Allesandri, Vincentio d' (Italian
traveller in Persia, xvi), 381 n.
Almagest, 18, 502
" Alumut " (last ruler of Aq-Qoyunlii
dynasty so called by Italians), 415
Alwand Beg b. Yusuf Aq-Qoyiinlu
(xv-xvi), 417-18
Aman-Kuh, 176
552
INDEX
America, 107
Amid (Diya> Bakr), 192, 404
'Amidu'1-Mulk Sdhib-Diwdn (patron
of 'Ubayd-i-Zka'ni, xiv), 235, 238
Amin (poet contemporary with Katibi,
xv), 494
Amini (poet parodied by Mahmud
Qarf of Yazd), 352
Aminu'd-Din. Nasr Mustawfi
(great-grandfather of Hamdu'llah
Mustawfi of Qazwfn, xiii), 87, 96 ;
Khwaja (minister of Shaykh
Abu Ishaq Inju, xiv), 233 ; Shaykh
(? identical with preceding),
275 ; (poet parodied by Busha~q,
probably identical with Amini
mentioned above), 350
Amir Bey (Ottoman envoy to Uzun
Hasan, xv), 410
Amfr Khusraw of Dihli (poet, xiii),
108-10. See under Khusraw
Amfrf, Yusuf (poet attached to
Baysunghur, xv), 501
Amurath, a corruption of Murad, q.v.
'Ana (in Mesopotamia), 42, 69, 81
Ana'l-ffaqq (" I am the Real," i.e.
God), 195 n.
Anatolia, 371, 451
Andakan, 180
Andakhud, 185
Andalusia, 132
Angioletto, Giovan Maria (Italian
traveller in Persia, xv), 381 n.,
409,411, 412, 413, 416
Angora (Anqura), Battle of (A. D.
1402), 198, 199, 365, 370
*Anisul - 'Arifin (the " Gnostics'
Familiar," by Qasimu'l-Anwar,
?), 47,5, 482, 485
Anisu'l- 'Ashiqfn (the "Lovers'
Familiar," by Qasimu'l- Anwar,
?*). 475
Anisu 1 1- 1 Ushshdq (by Sharafu'd-Din
Kami, A.D. 1423), 462
Anjou, King Rene of , 395
l Anqd (mythical bird), 136 and n.,
316 n.
Antioch (AntaMciya), 8r
Anusharwan, Khusraw (the Sasa-
nian, vi). See Nvishirwan
Anwari (poet, xii), 64, 118, 224, 291,
350, 510, 522
Anwdr-i-Suhayli ( " Lights of Cano-
pus," by Husayn Wa"'iz-i-Ka~shifi,
xv), 44 i, 443, 463, 504
Aq Bugha ("White Bull," grandfather
of Shaykh Hasan-i-Buzurg), 171
Aq-Qoyunlii ("White Sheep" Turk-
ma"n dynasty, xv-xvi), 379, 380,
381, 389, 399. 403-4, 407-9,
417, 418, 421 n., 444
Aq Shamsu'd-Dfn, Shaykh (Turkish
theologian, xv), 411
Aqldb ("Poles," plural of Qutb, a
class of the Rijdlu'l-Ghayb, or In-
visible Saints), 276 n.
Arabia, Arabic, Arabs, 3-5, 32, 64,
93, 99, 132, 162, 231 n., 250 n.,
461, 467, 468 n.
Arabia Felix, 184. See Yaman
"Arabian Nights" (Alf Layla wa
Lay la), 221
Arabic literature produced in Persia,
62-6*
Ibnu'l-'Arabf, Shaykh Muhyi'd-Dm
(the great mystic, xii-xiii), 63,
127, 128, 132, 139, 446 n., 447,
484, 5H
Ibn 'Arabshah (historian, xiv), 181,
183, 185, 197 n., 198, 203, 32 in. ,
355-6
Araxes (Aras) river, 187, 192, 196
Ardyish-ndma ("Book of Adorn-
ment " by the poet Mahmud Qari
of Yazd, xv), 352
Arbfl, 191
Archives (Paris), 10
Arcturus (Simdk), 113
Ardabfl, 42, 85, 86, 362, 416, 473,
474, 482, 485, 486
Ardashir. Babakan (founder of
Sasanian dynasty, iii), 90 n.;
-i-Changi(Miranshah's harper, xiv),
195 n.; (unidentified, xv), 494-5
Arghun (Mongol Il-khan, A.D. 1284-
,91), 26, 27-34, 37, 40, 46, 47, 163
'Arif Hikmat Bey (Turkish poet,
xviii-xix), 371
'Arifi (poet of Hera~t, xv), 438, 490,
495-7
Arik Buqa (brother of Hulagu the
Mongol, xiii), 58
Aristotle, 18, 443
Arji'sh, 399
Armenia, Armenians, 54, 181, 190,
196, 201, 406, 489
Arpa, Arpaga'un (Mongol Il-kha~n,
xiv), 58-59, 171, 274 n.
Arran, 57, 67
'Arsh-ndma (" Book of the Throne,"
Persian Hunifi work), 375, 450
Arzanjan,8 ; }j 188. See also Erzinjan
Asaf (Solomon's minister), 67, 307,
38, 39
INDEX
553
Asafi (poet, xv), 438, 458
'Ashara (unidentified place in Meso-
potamia), 8 1
Ash'ari (doctrine), 301
*Ashi"atu'l-L.ama' : dt (J ami's com-
mentary on 'Iraqi's Lama'at,
o.v.), 132-3, 444-7, 512
'Ashiq Chelebi (biographer of Turkish
poets), 369
Ashraf, Malik-i- (xiv), 170
Ashraf-i-JVamad-flisA (poet parodied
by Mahmiid Qarf of Yazd), 352
Asia Minor, 3, 5, 53, 54, 56, 58, 71,
92, 99, in, 127, 155, 188, 196,
357 397, 44, 408, 479
'Asjadf (poet, xi), 65
Asflu'd-Dfn (b. Nasiru'd-Din Tiisi,
astronomer, xiii), 48 ; (judge of
Shiraz, xiv), 275, 276
Asir-Garh (Burhanpur, India), 289
"Asmurat" (Italian corruption of
Murad), 412
Asrdru't-Tanzil (al-Baydawi's com-
mentary on the Qur'dn, xiii), 63
"Assambei" (Italian^ corruption of
Hasan Beg, i.e. Uziin Hasan,
q.v.}, 389, 404
'Assar (poet of Tabriz, xiv), 159, 328,
344
Assassins (of Alamut, q.v.), 6, 19, 25,
, 53, 66, 69, 73, 92, 154-5, 255
Astara, 482
Astarabad, 190, 216, 286, 355, 365,
368, 370, 388, 390, 395, 488, 489
"Astibisti" (Italian corruption of
Hasht Bihisht, "the Eight Para-
dises"), 414
Astrachan, 356
Astrology condemned, 86
Atabek (son of Shamsu'd-Din Mu-
hammad Sdhib-Diwdn, xiii), 28,
29; dynasty cf Pars, 92, 100,
121, 274 (see also Salgharid);
of Luristan, q.v., 68, 92, 189
Atash-kada ("Fire-temple," a well-
known biography of Persian poets
by Lutf 'All Beg Adhar, xviii),
in, 119, 210, 211, 216, 222, 230,
258, 274, 321 n., 331 n., 345
'Ata'u'llah, Mir of Mashhad (writer
, of Babur's time, xv-xvi), 458
Athdrul-Bildd (" Monuments of the
Lands " by al-Qazwini, xiii), 64-5
Athenaum (newspaper), 95 n.
Athfr-i-Awma'nf (poet, xiii), 154, 261
Ibnu'l-Athir (Arabian historian, xiii),
88, i44n.
Auguries from Hafi? (taful), 311-
19
Austin (printers, of Hertford), 504 n.
Austrians (defeated by Mongols at
Liegnitz, A. D. 1241), 6
Avesta, 290 n., 317 n.
Avicenna (Shaykh Abii 'AH ibn Sfna,
x-xi), 443, S'^
Avnik, 192, 196
'Awasim, 81
'Awfi (Niiru'd-Din Muhammad, bio-
grapher, xiii), 65
Awhadf of Mardgha (poet, xiii-xiv),
?i28, 141-6; parodied, 352
Awhadu'd-Dm of Kirman (poet, xiii),
65, ?i28, 139-41, 473
Awjan, 1 66
Awrang-zib 'Alamgir ("Great Mogul''
Emperor, A.D. 1659-1707), 391
A-wtdd (a class of the " Invisible
Saints"), 276 n.
Aydakan, 171
Aydin, 192
Ay KMtiin (daughter of Rashfdu'd-
Din Facllu'llah), 84
'AjTi Jaliit (defeat of Mongols by
Egyptians at in A.D. 1260), 19
'Ayntab, 197
Aywanak (near Ray), 194
Ayyiibi Dynasty, 408
Azad, Ghulam 'AH Khan (bio-
grapher, xviii), 289
Azraqi (poet, xi), 347
Baba Husayn (murderer of 'Abdu'l-
Latif the parricide in A.D. 1450),
386-7
B^bd Kiihf (Shrine of at Shiraz),
274
Baba Sangu (holy man of Andakhiid,
xiv), 185
Baba-Sawda'i (poet, xv), 438, 497, 501
Babis, 432, 452, 465, 470
Babur, Mfrza Abu'l-Qasim (Timurid,
d. 1456-7), 311, 387, 388, 390,
421 n., 429; Zahiru'd-Din Mu-
hammad (Timurid, founder of the
" Great Mogul " Empire in India,
xv-xvi), 184 and note on pro-
nunciation of the name, 311 n.,
380, 39I-3- 418-19, 433, 440,
453-60, 505, 507
Baburi (favourite of Zahiru'd-Dm
Babur), 455
* Bdbur-ndma (autobiography of Za-
hiru'd-Dfn Babur), 391-3, 440,
453-9, 5>5
INDEX
"Babylon," "Sultan of ," 199, 201
Bachu Ni'iyan (Mongol general, his
letter to the Pope), 10
Badakhshan, 388, 390, 393
Badakhshi (poet, xv), 438
Baddyi'tt 1 s-Sandyfr (a work on Rhe-
toric by 'Mir 'AtaVllah of Mash-
had, xv), 458
Badghfs, 179, 427
Badf'u'z-Zaman. al-Hamadh^ni
(man of letters, x-xi), 139 n. ;
b. Abu'l-Ghazf Sultan Husayn
(Timurid prince, xv-xvi), 399, 416,
418
Badr. (poet of Chch or Shash in
Transoxiana, xiii), 106, no;
(poet satirized by Katibf, xv),
491-2
Baghdad, 4, 20, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34,
54, 55, 60, 62, 66, 70, 78, 82, 1 1 1,
160, 161, 162, 164 n., 166, 172,
183, 191, 195 n., 196, 197, 204,
205, 206, 208, 223, 225, 226, 230,
234, 250, 257, 261, 263, 264, 284,
285. 3'7, 357, 361, 366, 368, 396,
399, 402, 409, 510, 511
Baghdad Khatun (daughter of the
Amfr Chuban, xiv), 54, 56, 57,
58, 170, 171
Bahadur (title assumed by the Mongol
Il-khan Abu Sa'id in A.D. 1318),
53
Bahdrlsldn (the "Spring- Land," by
Jami, xv), 258, 273, 347 n., 436,
489, 515
Bahdrlu tribe, 399
Bahd'u'd-Dawla, Bahman Mfrza (Qa-
jar Prince and bibliophile, xix),
80, 100 n.
Baha'u'd-Dfn. Juwayni (great-
grandfather of Shamsu'd-Dfn Mu-
hammad Sdhib-Dhudii, xii-xiii),
20 ; Juwayni (son of the above-
mentioned Sdhib-Diwdn, xiii), 21-
22, 29, 119; Zakariyya (saint
of Multan and spiritual guide of
'Irqi, xiii), 125, 127, 174; -
Ahmad (commonly called Sultan
Walad or Veled q. v., son of
Mawln Jaldlu'd-Dfn Rumf, xiii),
155; (father of the poet Hafiz,
xiv), 274; Qara 'Osman (known
as Qdralluk, "the Black Leech,"
of the Aq-qoyunlii, or "White
Sheep " Turkmans, xiv-xv), 404
Bahman Mfrza, 80, icon. See above
under Baha'u'd-Dawla
Bahman Shah (of India, xv), 400
Bahrain u Gul-anddm (poem by
Katibi, xv), 487
Bakhshis (Uyghur priests and scribes),
50, in, 112 and n.
Abii Bakr. (the first Caliph, vii),
74, 255 and n.; b. Sa'd-i-Zangi
(Atdbek of Fars, xiii), 100; -
(father of Mubarizu'd- Din, founder
of the Muzaffarf dynasty, xiii),
162 ; (son of Mfrdnshah b.
Tfmur, xiv-xv), 362, 399, 400
Baku, 175, 368. 417
Bala'bakk (Baalbek), 197
Baladu'l-'Ayn, 81
Balkh, 108, 432, 4=,6
-Balkhf, Abu Zayd Ahmad b. Sahl -
(geographer and author of the
Suwaru'l-Aqdltrn, one of the
sources of the Nuzhatu'l-Quliib,
q.v.), 99 and n.
Bam, 81, 165
Bamiyan, 122
Banakat (or Fanakat in Transoxiana),
100 and n., 320 n.
Bandkati, Td'rikh-i- , 100-103.
See Rawdatu Util-Albdb
Bandtun-Na'sh (Arabic name for the
constellation of Ursa Major), 2i3n.
Bang (Cannabis Indica or Hashish),
150 and n., 151 and n.
Bankipore (Library and Catalogues),
108, 10911., 259 n., 260, 28711.,
293 n., 312 n., 317 n., 319
Banna'f (poet, xv), 438, 457, 458
Bcinu Jahan (wife of Mubarizu'd-Dfn
Muhammad, xiv), 163
Baqir b. Ghiyathu'd-Din Kurt (xiv),
177
Barandaq (poet of Bukhara, xv), 501
Brbad (minstrel of Khusraw Parwi'z,
vii), 267 and n.
Barbaro, Josafa (Venetian envoy
to Persia, xv), 380, 399, 404
Barbier de Meynard, 431
Bardi Beg (xv), 381-2
Bar-Hebraeus, Abu'l-Faraj (Chris-
tian historian and physician, xiii),
12, 18, 19 n., 25 n., 26 n., 27 n.,
48 n., 64, 106 n.
Barmak, House of , or '' Barme-
cides," 21
Barquq (al-Maliku'z-Zahir, ruler of
Egypt, xiv), 191
Bashdrat-ndma (Turkish Huriiff poem
by Raff'i, xv), 375, 449-50
Basra, 81, 85
INDEX
555
Batnir, Massacre of (xiv), 194
Batii (Mongol prince, xiii), 54, 354
Ibn Batiita (Arabian traveller, xiv),
47 n., 55 n., 56 n., 58, 61, 64
Bayandari (the "White Sheep" Turk-
man dynasty, xv-xvi), 402, 404.
See Aq-qoyunhi
Baydnu'l-ffaqd'it] (by Rashidu'd-Dm
Fadlu'liih, xiv), 77, 79
Bayazid. (of Bistam, saint and
mystic), 479 ; b. Mubarizu'd-
Din Muhammad, founder of the
Muzaffarf dynasty (xiv), 163; -
b. Sultdn Uways of the Il-khanf
or Jald'ir dynasty (xiv), 173 ; I,
known as Yildirim, the "Thunder-
bolt" (Ottoman Sultan, A.D. 1389-
1402), 173, 196, 198-9, 203-6,
365, 399, 400; II (Ottoman
Sultan, A.D. 1481-1512), 398
(where " II " is twice erroneously
given as "III"), 418, 419, 422,
423; Khwdja (Huriiff, xiv),
368
Bdyazfd (Turkish frontier fortress), 188
Baybars (al-Maliku'z-Zahir, Sultan of
Egypt, xiii), 19
-Baydi (the Arabic name of Turbat-i-
Safid'm Fars), 63
Baydawf,Qddi Ndsiru'd-Din (com-
mentator, historian and judge, xiii),
63, 88, 100, ipi, 272 n.
Baydii (Mongol Il-khan, A.D. 1295),
39-4
Bayhaq, 178
Bayqara (Tfmurid prince, nephew of
Shah-rukh, xiv-xv), 427
Bayram, Khwaja Baharlu (of the
dynasty of the " Black Sheep " or
Qara-qoyxinlu, q.v.), 399
Baysunqur. (Timurid prince, son
of Shah-rukh, xv), 108, 366, 380,
385 and n., 386, 387, 395-6, 400,
424, 427, 438, 453, 473, 499-501 ;
b. Ya'qiib (of the Aq-qoyiinlu
or "White Sheep" dynasty, circ.
A.D. 1500), 415
Bazdari family of Qazwfn, 94
Bazigha (her love affair with Joseph),
532 and n.
"Beard," "Book of the " (Rtsh-
ndma, by 'Ubayd-i-Za"kan{, xiv),
235. 2 5i
Bektash, Hajji (d. A.D. 1337-8),
37,1-2,374, 45i
Bektashi order of dervishes, 365,
370-5, 450-2
Belgian professors at Cambridge (A.D.
1915), 112 n., 427. See also
Fasihi, Museon
Belin (Notice sur Mir Ali-Chir...,
1861), 391, 439, 506, 508
Bell, Miss Gertrude Lowthian
(Poems from the Divan of ffafiz,
1897), 162, 273, 286, 291, 292,
303-6, 308-11
Bengal, 286, 287, 393, 398
Bernhauer, 156
Beveridge, Mrs (edition of Bdbur-
ndma, 1905), 391
Bianchi, 399
Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris), 237,
372
Bicknell, Herman (translator of
Hafiz, d. 1875), 283, 290, 291 n.,
302-3, 304-7, 309, 310
B5hna"m (his fatal banquet at Hama-
dan, A.D. 1282), 25 n.
Bihruz, Mirza Dhabihu'llah --of
Sa"wa (contemporary), 541, 542,
548
Bihza"d (miniature painter, xv), 456,
. 459, 55
Bijanagar, 398, 429
Birjand, 155
Bisdti (poet, xv), 438, 501
Bishkrf (family or clan of Qazwin), 94
Bistam, 59, 178
Bitl'fs, 192
"Black Sheep" Turkmans. See
Qara-qoyiinlu
Blochet, M. Edgar (edition of part
of the Jami'u't-Tawarikh, q.v.},
74 n.
Blochmann {Persian Prosody, 1872),
5i 4 n.
Blue Banner (Leon Cahun), 15
Bliithensammhwg aus d. Morgenl.
Mystik (Tholuck, 1825), 147
Bliitenkranz (Wickerhauser, 1885-8),
542
Bodenstadt (translator of Hafiz, 1877),
303
Bohemia, 10, 102
Bombay, 231
"Bousaet," "Boussay" (Italian cor-
ruption of Abii Sa'id, q.v.), 61
Brahmins, 342 n.
Britain, British, 102, 183
British Museum, 367, 430, 445
Brockelmann, Karl (Gesch. d. arab.
Lift., 1898-1902), 63 n., 64 n.,
99 n -' 354,. 355, 36, 357
Brockhaus (editor of Ha"fiz), 299 n., 302
556
INDEX
Broussa, 199
Buddhist, Buddhism, 44, 73
Buhlul (rebellion of , A. D. 1395),
193
BukhinC, 82, 186, 188, 189,234,238,
43 2
Bula Timiiri (family or clan of Qaz-
wfn), 94
Bulgarians, 15
Bulqan Khatiin (mentioned in Rashi-
du'd-Din's will), 28
Btiqa', Amfr (mentioned in Rashi-
du'd-Dfn's will), 28
Buraq (rebellion of , A.D. 1268-9),
25
Burda (the "Mantle-poem" of al-
Busiri), 363
Burgundy, Uukes of , 395
Burhdn-i-Jdmi 1 ' (Persian dictionary),
35'
Burhdn-i-Qdti'' (Persian dictionary),
351 n.
Burhanf (family or clan of Qazwin),
94
Burhanpiir, 289
Burhanu'd-Dfn. Qadf (Turkish
warrior-poet, xiv-xv), 404; Say-
yid (father of Mfrkhwdnd the
historian), 432
Burujird, 187, 190, 368
"Busech" (Italian corruption of Abu
Sa'id, q.v.), 389, 410, 429 n.
Bushanj, 150, 175, 186
Bushaq (Abu Ishaq, parodist of
Shfraz), 159, 209, 211, 257, 299,
344-51. 353. 492
-Busiri (Arabic poet, author of the
Burda), 363
Bus/an (of Sa'di, xiii), 16, 354, 529
Buwayhid dynasty, 91, 522
Byzantine Empire, 205, 409
Caesarea (Qaysariyya), 83, 85
Cahun, Leon , 9n., 14, 15
Cairo, 42, 196, 356, 357
Calcutta, 216
Calf, Golden , 35, 36
Caliph, Caliphate (Khalifa, Khildfaf),
5, 62, 73, 74, 90, 91, 92, 101,
247 n. See also under 'Abbasias,
Fatimids, Umayyads
Calmucks, 398
Cambay, 398
Cambaluc (Khan-baligh, i.e. Pekin),
397
Cambridge, 112, 162, 367, 368, 373,
4 2 7> 43"-; 440. 443. 445. 49 6
"Cafio" (name of Timur's wife as
given by Clavijo), 200
Caracoili, 399. See Qara-qoyunlu
Carmathians, 451
"Carparth" (corruption of Kharput,
q.v.), 389
Cashmere, 283. See Kashmir
Caspian Provinces and Sea, 3, 6, 15,
'87, 355, 48r, 482. See also
Gilan, Mazandaran
"Cassan" (Italian corruption of
Kashan, q.v.), 389
Catalonia, 102
Cathay (A'hatd), 75, 228
Catholic church, 6
Catkins called "Willow-cats" (giirba-
i-btd), 118 and n.
Caucasus, 7
Ceylon, 122, 398
Chabistar, or Shabistar (q.v.), 146
Chabot, J.-B. , 31 n., 52 n.
Chach, Chachi, no, 262, 320 n.
Chaghatay Khan, 66
Chaghatay language, 391, 438. See
Eastern Turkish, Turki
Chahdr Maqdla (V>y Nizami-i-'Arudi
ofSamarqand, xii), 65, 256, 353 n.,
522 n.
Chansons de Gcstes, 394
Chao (Chinese paper-money intro-
duced into Persia), 37-9
Chelebi, 479
Chess, 456-7
Chezy (translator into French of
Jamfs Layla wa Majnun, Paris,
1805), 516
Chilla (forty days' fasting and self-
discipline, in Arabic arba'in), 125,
527 n.
China, Chinese, 37, 43, 44, 49, 64, 73,
74. 75. 77. 86 . ^9. 101-3. 202 >
206, 228, 362, 383, 397, 398
Chingfz Khan or Qa'an (xii-xiii), n,
12, 15, 16, 40, 43, 65, 73, 74, 103,
159, 180, 182, 185, 203, 250, 285,
364. 383
Chingiz-ndma (or Shdhinshdh-ndma
of Ahmad of Tabriz, xiv), 103
Chosroes (generic name for Ssanian
king, Arabic Kisra, Persian Khus-
raw, q.v.)
Christ, Christians, 17, 18, 19, 54, 58,
101, 116, 134, 196, 201, 259, 281,
282, 338, 342 n., 372, 467, 476
Chronograms, 58, 282, 283, 385, 386,
387, 512. This list is not ex-
haustive
INDEX
557
Chronological Retrospect (Major David
Price, 1811-21), 196 and n.
Chuban, Amir (xiv), 51-56, 59, 60,
170, 171
Churches destroyed by orders of
Ghazan (circ. A.D. 1295), 40
Churchill, Sidney (rare Persian
books acquired by ), 95, 300
Clarke,Col. H.Wilberforce (transla-
tor of Hafiz, etc.), 299, 300, 302,303
Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de (Spanish
ambassador to Tfmur, A.D. 1404-
5), 199-201
Clement. Pope IV, 19; Pope
-V, 49
Cologne (mentioned by the historian
Banakatf, xiv), 102
"Como" (Italian corruption of Qum,
?) 389
Comneni, 407, 408-9
Compass, invention of , 15
Constantinople, 64, 199, 201, 203,
206, 231, 257, 367, 368, 370, 399,
405, 409, 413, 419
Contarini, Ambrosio (Venetian
envoy to Persia, xv), 380, 406 and
n., 410
Copts, era of the , 89
Cordier, M. Henri (edition of
Odoric of Pordenone), 6r n.
Crusades, 8
"Curlumameth" (Italian corruption
of Oghurlii Muhammad, q.v.),
410
Dabfran (family of Qazwin), 94
Dah Fasl (by 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, xiv),
237. 252
Dah Wasl (by Mahmiid Q<Crf of Yazd,
xv), 352
Dahhak (legendary tyrant of Persia),
250
Dalmatia, 6
Damad Ibrahim Pasha (xviii), 384 n.
Damascus (Dimashq), 41, 42,122, 128,
l8l J97, 355. 35 6 . 357.425. 462
Damghan, 81, 190, 368, 388
Danishmand Bahadur (general, xiii),
176
Dante compared with Hafiz, 292-3
Darabjird, 356
Darband, 175
Darby (translator of Petis de la Croix's
Life of 7'imurmto English, 1723),
363
Darius (Dara). Hystaspes, 405 ;
the last , 228, 229
Darrab, Sayyid Amir Hajji (xiv),
164
Ddru l-Aytdm (in Shfraz), 444
Ddni'sh-Shifd (in Shiraz), 166, 355
Daru's-Siyadat-z'-/kzW/ (at Si-
was), 83 ; i-Sultdnt (at Herat),
5>4
Dasht, 356
Dastiir-ndma (by Nizarf), 155
David's melodious voice, 500
David Comnenas, 408
Davy, Major (xviii), 184
Dawan (in Pars), 444
*Dawlatshah. (ruler of Kirmdn,
xiv), 166; b. Bakhtishah of
Samarqand (author of the well-
known Biography of Poets, xv),
40 n., 47, 72, 108, io9n., in,
ii5n., n8n., 119, 141, 188,209,
210, 211,215, 222, 223, 224,230,
258, 259, 262, 263, 265, 272, 273,
274, 282, 311 n., 321, 33in., 344,
345. 346, 347, 3 62 . 363. 382, 383-
4. 4.H. 436-7, 439 453, 459'
48711., 488, 489, 491 n., 497, 498,
499-501, 505, 508
Daylamis, 91. See Buwayhids
Deccan, 285, 464
Defremery, 64 n.
Delhi. See Dihli
Deluge, era of , 89
Despina. (daughter of Michael
Palaeologus and wife of Abaqa"
Khan the Mongol Il-khan, xiii),
18; (daughter of Kalo Joannes
and wife of Uziin Hasan, xv),
407
Abii Dharr, traditions of , 514
Dhu'l-Fiqdr ('All's sword), 467, 468
and n.
Dhu'l-Qadar (one of the nine tribes
supporting Shall Isma'fl, A.D.
1500), 417
Dhu'l-Qadari dynasty (xv), 401
Dieterici (editor of al-Mutanabbi),
347 n-
Dihli, 107, 108, 181, 183, 194, 358,
391, 393
Dilshad. - Khatiin (daughter of
Dimashq Khwaja, q.v.), 55. 58,
171, 172, 260, 262; - - Agha
(Timur's wife, xiv), 186
Dimashq Khwaja (son of Am fr Chuban,
xiv), 54, 55 T 7
Diwa-Mahall, 398
Diwdn-i-Albisa (by Mahmud Qir{ of
Yazd, q.v.), 351-3
55*
INDEX
* Diwdn-i-At' i ima (by Bushaq of
Shiraz, q.v.), 346-51
Dlwdmfn-Nasab (source used by
author of Trfrikh-i-Guzida}, 88
Diyar Bakr (formerly Amid), 84, 92,
192, 400, 402, 404, 406, 407, 408,
417, 418
Diya'u'd-Din (J ami's son), 514
Dizful, 83, 191
Dolmetsch (suggested Turkish etymo-
logy), 9n.
Dominican archbishop of Sultaniyya
(xiv), 54
Doqiiz Khatiin (wife of Hulagii Khan,
xiii), 18, 52 n.
Dorn, Bernard , i ion., 426
Drink, indulgence in by Tartars,
24, 200, 391, 406 ; laws against ,
53 58, 277-8
Dughlat, Mirza Haydar (cousin of
Babur and author of Ta'rikh-i-
Rashidi, q.v.), 392, 453
Dulafi (clan or family of Qazwm), 94
Dur-duzd, Mawlana 'AU (poet
parodied by Bushq and Mahmud
Qari), 350, 352
Ebu'z-Ziya Tevfiq (Abu'd-Diya
Tawfiq) Bey (Turkish man of
letters and printer, xix-xx), 231
Edward King of England. I,
ii, 19; II, ii, 12, 49
Egypt, Egyptians, n, 19, 20, 41, 42,
44, 49, 51, 53, 54, 56, 70, 85, 86,
92, 106, 127, 162, 16411., 170.
173, 191, 197, 199, 205, 206,312,
329, 368, 396, 397, 399, 400, 401,
404, 405, 414, 466, 468, 469
"Elephant," "Year of the ," 89
Eleutherius, Pope , 102
Elias, N. (d. 1897), i7on., 364 n.,
392 n.
Eliot, Sir Charles , 433
Elliot, Sir H. (History of India),
107, no
Ellis, A. G. , 174, 1 79 n., 430
Elphinstone (History of India}, 454
Emessa. See Hims
England, English, 6, 43, 44, 102, 107,
395,
Era, Il-khanf , 45 ; others em-
ployed by different peoples, 89
Erdmann, Dr Franz von , 224, 225,
226
Erskine, W. (historian of India),
364 n., 392 n., 393 and n., 419 n.,
454
Er-Toghril (ancestor of the Ottoman
Sultans), 205
Erzeroum, 188, 196, 199
Erzinjan, 188, 196, 404, 408. See
also Arzanjan
Ethe, Dr Hermann (d. June 7,
1917), 68 n., 103, 302 n., 515 n.,
S3 1 n -
Euclid, 1 8
Euphrates (Furdt), 42, 69, Si, 84,
379, 408, 412, 511 n.
Euphuists, 461
Europe, Europeans, 89, 395
Eve (Hawwd), 334, 335
Evil Eye (rue or pepper burned for
protection against ), 2290.
Facetiae (Hazaliyydt) of 'Ubayd-i-
Zakanf, i/.v., 231, 238
Abu'1-Fadl of Sawa, Mirza (physi-
cian and writer, xix), 540
Fadtlat-ndma (Hurtiff work), 450
Fadlu'llah. al-Husayni (author
of al-AIu'jam fl Athdri Muluktl-
'Ajani, xiii-xiv), 68 ; (author
of Jdmi^u't-Tawdrikh, xiii-xiv),
see under Rashidu'd-Din ; al-
Huruff of Astarabad (heresiarch,
xiv), 190, 365-374, 449. 451, 479?
of Tabriz (physician to Timur,
xiv-xv), 202 ; , Mir (courtier
of Mahmud Shah Bahmani of the
Deccan, xiv), 285
Fahlawiyydt (poems in dialect), 352
Fdkihatrfl-Khulafd (by Ahmad ibn
'Arabshah, y.v., xiv), 356
*Fakhri, Kitabul- (xiv), '4-5
Fakhri'-i-Banakati (historian and poet,
xiv), 100-103
Fakhri-i-Jurjani (poet, xi), 65
Fakhru'd-Din. Monastery of Shakh
, 28 ; Kurt, Malik (xiv),
41, 50, 150-1, 174 n., 176; -
'Iraqi (q.v., poet, xiv), 63, 124-39,
74, 3 2I > 344. 35, 445- 446,
512; Abu'l-'Abba's Ahmad-i-
Shirazf (author of the 'Shlrdz-
ndma, xiv), 360-1 ; , Khwaja
(correspondent of Huriifis, xiv) ;
'Ajami (Persian Mufti of Con-
stantinople, xv), 370; 'AH b.
Husayn Wi'iz-i-Kashifi (poet,
preacher and biographer, xv-xvi),
441-2, 504, 509
Fakhru'1-Mulk Shamsu'd-Dawla (pa-
tron of the poet Imamf, xiii), 117,
1 18 and n.
INDEX
559
Fdl-ndma (table for taking auguries),
*35. 3'2-i5
Falconer, Forbes , 516, 52311., 527
Fani (Persian takhallus of Mir 'AH
Shir Nawa'i, q.v.), 505
Fayr-ndma (Huriifi work), 450
Farah, 175, 186
Faraju'llah (son of the Sdhib-Diwdn
Shamsu'd-Dfn Muhammad-i-Ju-
wayni. xiii), 29
Abu'l-Faraj, Gregorius b. Ahrun
(physician and historian). See
Bar Hebraeus
Akhii Abi'l-Faraj of Zanjan (saint,
xi), 426 and n.
Farghana, 380, 393, 418
Farhdd, 32*8, 329, 547
Farhadjird, 178
Farhang- i-Anjuman - drd -yi-Ndsiri
(Persian lexicon by Rida-quli
Khan, xix), 481 n.
Ibnu'l-Farid, ' U mar (Egyptian mys-
tical poet, xii-xiii), 133, 514, 548
Farid-i-Ahwal (" Squinting Farid,"
poet, xiv), 154
Faridu'd-Dfn. 'Attar (mystical
poet, xiii), 88, 344, 350, 352, 435,
479> 505; Q* di (envoy of
Bayazid " theThunder-bolt"to Tf-
mur).2O5; Ahmad b.Sa'du'd-Dm
at-Taftazanf. See under Ahmad
Farmin-Khand (daughter of Rashf-
du'd-Din Fadlu'llah, xiv), 84
Farrukh (ode of Hafiz addressed to
). 30i
Farrukh Yasar (king of Shirwan, c.
A.D. 1500), 417
Farrukhf (poet, xi), 65
Fars, 20, 73, 83, 101, 119, 160, 163,
165, 168, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191,
206, 226, 237, 272, 274, 275, 276,
277, 284, 285, 317, 344, 356, 357,
381, 3 8 5 3 8 7. 389- 397> 4^, 46>
410, 444
Fdrs-ndma-i-Ndsirt, 162, 165 n..
168 n., 274 n., 275 n., 357 and n.
Faryab, 175
Faryumad, 212, 215
Fasa (in Fars), 168
Fasfhi of Khwaf (author of the rare
Mujt/ial, or Compendium of his-
tory and biography), 28 n., 29,
4011., 67 n., 112 and n., 150 and
n., 151-2, 174 and n., 195 n.,
210 and n., 211, 214-15, 224,
230, 282 n., 283, 354 n., 365,
424 n., 425, 426-8
Fath-abad, Garden of , 83
Fatalism (Hifiz charged with ),
301 and n.
Fath-'Ali Sultan b. Imam-quH KMn,
318-19
Abu'1-Fath Ibrahfm b. Shah-rukh
(d. A.D. 1434-5). 385
Fdtihatifsh-Shabdb (J ami's first Di-
wdn, compiled in A.D. 1479-80),
5'5
Fatimid Caliphs, 92, 154
-FawidtJd-piyiyya (Arabic gram-
mar compiled by Jam! for the use
of his son), 514
Fayd-ndma (Turkish Huriiff work),
45
Ferte, M. , 231, 235
Fihvagushan (clan or family of Qaz-
win), 94
Fiott-Hughes (collector of Oriental
MSS.), 225
Firdq-iidma (by Salman-i-Sawaji,
xiv), 261
Firdawsf, 65, 89, 95, 104, 108, 224,
259, 316 n., 348, 350, 385, 510,
53' 1 ' 54 1 - See also Shah-nama
Fire-arms, invention of , 14
Fire-worshippers. See Gabr, Guebre,
Magian, Zoroastrian
Firidun Bey (Ahmad Firklun Tawqf'i,
'1'urkish writer and official, com-
piler of a great collection of State
Papers known as Mttnshd'dt, xvi),
203-6, 398 and n., 400, 401 and
n., 407, 409-11, 422-3
Firishta, Muhammad Qasim of
Astarabid (historian of India), 286
Firishta-zada ('Abdu'l-Majid b. p'i-
rishta 'Izzu'd-Din, Huriifi heresi-
arch and author of the ' Ishq-ndma) ,
37 , r> 45Z .
Firuzabad (in Fars), 357
-Ffnizabdi, Abii Tahir Muhammad
(lexicographer, xiv-xv), 357-8
Ffruz-Kuh, 175, 193, 368
Fish supporting the earth (mdhi or
satnak), 113
FitzGerald, Edward , 304, 516,
. 523. 5*4. 5*>
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 162,
360
Fleischer, 156, 328
Florence, 292
Florin, Turkish , 423 and n.
Flugel, 88 n., 367 n.
Forbes, Duncan , 529
"Four" (i.e. the Four Elements), 248
560
INDEX
France, French, 6, 9, 10, 395
Franciscan envoys to Mongol court,
'9
Franks, 73, 74, 101, 200, 205. See
also Europeans
Frazer, Sir J. G. , 474
Friesland, 6
Fuduli (Fuzuli, Turkish poet of Bagh-
dad, xvi), 44!
Funighi (Muhammad Husayn Khan
Zukd'iSl-Mulk, contemporary Per-
sian poet and historian), 383
Fustisu I - Hikam (by Shaykh Mu-
hyi'd-Din ibnu'l-'Arabi, g.v.),
63, 127, 44 6, 513
Gabr (Guebre), 38, 39, 541. See also
Magians, Zoroastrians
Ganja, 122, 326 n., 535, 536
Ganj-ndma (Turkish Ilurufi book),
45
Gantin, M. Jules (editor of Tfffikk-
i-Guztda), 94
Garm-sir, 52 ,
Gawhar Shad Khtun (or Aqa, xv),
388, 389, 410, 428
Gaykhdtu (Mongolll-khan, A. D. 1 291-
5). 3L37-9. 43. l6 3
Gayl (Gel, Gil), 4 8o, 481
Gedik Ahmad Pasha (tutor to the
Ottoman Prince Mustafa, xv), 411
G61. See above under Gayl
Genoa, 201
Geoffrey de Langley (English envoy
to Ghazdn's court), 44
Georgia, Georgians, 9, 85, 160, 188,
190, 192, 197, 199, 362, 406, 409,
4M, 503
German, Germany, 6, 542; German
Emperor, iO7n.
Gharjistdn, 175
Ghaza (Egypt), 19
Ghazan (Mongol Il-khan, A.D. 1295-
1304), 17, 27, 40-46, 47. 48, 69,
70, 7 2 73. 74. 7 6 ' 82, 83, 84,
iof, 104 n., 163, 176, 275, 361
Ghdzaniyya (suburb of Tabriz), 46,
70
Ghdzdn-ndma (by Ahmad of Tabriz,
xiv), 103
Abu'l-Ghdzi Sultan Husayn b. Man-
sur b. Bayqara (Timurid prince,
xv-xvi), 380, 390- 1, 395, 396,
399, 400, 410, 412, 418, 421-2,
430-1, 433, 434, 436, 439-40,
443, 453, 455-9, 48? n -> 505, 5 6 ,
517
Ghazna, House of , 73, 74, 91, 380
-Ghazzali, Shaykh Muhammad (xi-
xii), 479; Shaykh Ahmad ,
'35 n.
Ghibellines, 399
Ghiyathu'd - Din. Muhammad
Sam (king of Ghiir, d. A.D. 1202),
174, 179 ; Kurt ruler of Herat
(d. A.D. 1329), 55, 57, 176-7,
179; Pir 'AH Kurt (grandson
of the preceding), 57, 179, 186;
(Muhammad b. Rashidu'd - Din
Fadlu'llah (minister and patron of
letters, put to death in A.D. 1336),
56-7, 58-9, 71, 83, 84, 87, 103,
226, 261-2 ; Hajji Khurasini
(ancestor of the Muzaffari dynasty,
xiii), 162; b. Sultan Iskandar
(king of Bengal and correspondent
of the poet Hafiz, xiv), 286-7 ;
Amir (Huriifi poet), 373;
Naqqash (xv), 397
Ghiich Husayn b. Amir Chiiban (xiv),
170'
Ghulam 'AH Khdn Azdd (author of
the Khizdna-i- 1 Amira, xviii), 289
Ghur, 152, 175, 176; kings of ,
9 1 - J 79
Ghuri, Amir (Sarbadar, xiv), 180
" Giansa," 389. See Jahanshah
Gibb, E. J. W. (Turkish scholar,
d. 1901), 156, 210 n., 354, 368 n.,
369, 370, 392, 399 n -, 404"-, 422,
423, 426, 441 n., 449, 450, 532
Gibbon (author of the Decline and
Fall), 202-3
Gibbons, Professor H. A. , 198,
401 n.
Gilan, Gil, 49, 416, 429, 473, 479,
48 1 , 482. See also Caspian pro-
vinces, Gayl
Gird-i-Ktih (stronghold of the Assas-
sins), 368
Gobineau, le Comte de , 103, 425
de Goeje, 88 n., 99 n.
Gog, 1 6
Golden Horde, 57, 354
Gomez de Salazar (member of Spanish
mission to Timur, xv), 199
Gonzalez de Claviio (Spanish ambas-
sador to Timur), 199-201. See
Clavijo
Gothland, 6
Gottwaldt, 88 n.
Government service to be avoided, 28
Graf (editor of Sa'di's Bustdn), i6n.,
529 n.
INDEX
561
Greece, Greek, 3, 89, 405
Gregory X, Pope , 19
Griffith, R. T. H. (translator of
J ami's Yiisufwa Zulaykhd),$ 16,531
Giidarz (rebel at Sirjn, xiv), 192
Guebre \gabr], 38, 39, 541. See also
Magians, Zoroastrians
Guelphs, 399
de Guignes, 382 n.
Guillaume d'Ada (archbishop of
Sultaiiiyya, xiv), 54 n.
Gujarat, 318, 398
Gulandam, Muhammad (compiler
of the Diwdn of Hatiz), 272, 283
Gulbarga, 398
Giilistdn (of Sa'df), 16 n., 401 n.,
43 6 > 515
Gulistan (place in Caucasia), 417
* Gulshan-i- A'dz (" Rose-garden of
Mystery"), 146-9, 300, 471 n.
Gurgan, 190, 355, 390. See also
Astarabad, Jurjan
Gurjistdn (Georgia, y.v.), 188
*Guy u Cha-wgdn (" Ball and Polo-
stick, "a poem by'Arifi, xv), 495-7
Habib-i-'Udi (favourite of Miranshah
put to death by Tfmur), 195
Habib, Mirz of Isfahan (xix),
231,257,346,351
Habibu's-Siyar (history by Khwand-
amfr, xvi), 39 n., 40 n., 41, 60 n.,
171 n., 174, 258, 264, 273, 282 n.,
283, 331 n., 353 n., 354, 366,385,
389, 421, 428 n., 429, 430 n., 432,
434, 460, 4 88 n., 503, 505
Hadiqatrfl-Haqlqat (by Sana'i of
Ghazna), 141
Haditha, 81
Hadiyya Malik (daughter of Rashf-
du'd-Din Fadlu'llah), 84
Hafiz. Muhammad Shamsu'd-Din
of Shirz (the poet, xiv), 108,
159, 161, 166, 170, 188-9, 207,
209, 211, 225, 238, 243, 258,
259n., 260, 269 n., 271-319,320,
3 2 5, 348, 35. 35 2 . 354. 356,357,
435- 444. 495, 49 8 > 5 H , 5i> 544>
548 ; tomb of (Hafiziyya),
311,318-9; b. Ghiyathu'd-Dfn
Kurt (xiv), 57, 117-8; Abrii
(historian, xv), 424-6, 430 ;
(minstrel of Shiraz), 328; Darwish
(copyist, xv), 225
* Haft Awrang (the Sa&'a, Septet, or
"Seven Thrones" of Jami, xv),
5i5> 5'6
B. P.
Haft Birddardn (the " Seven Bro-
thers," the constellation of the
Great Bear)," 213 n.
*Haft Iqttm (the " Seven Climes," a
geographical and biographical work
by Amfn Ahmad-i-Razi), in, 141,
142, 153, 210, 211, 216, 222, 223,
230, 258, 274, 331 n., 345, 362, 363
Haithon (Armenian historian), 25 n.
*Ibn Hajar al-'Asqal^ni (Inbd), 367
*Ibnu'l-H4Jib (Arabic grammarian,
author of al-Kafiya), 514
Hajji Beg b. Amfr Chtiban (xiv), 170
Hajji Khalifa (Turkish bibliographer,
author of the Kashfu'z-Zunun),
88 n., 367 n.
Hakluyt Society, 6n., 8, 381, 399 n.,
4O4n., 405 n., 407, 416 n.
Hallaj (wool-carder). See Bushaq
(Abu Ishaq) of Shiraz, who fol-
lowed this trade
Hdl-ndma ("the Book of Ecstasy")
of 'Ariff, 495-7. See also Giiy
li Chawgan
"Hahil.'Vs- See Khalil, of which
this is an Italian corruption
Hama (in Syria), 197
Ramadan, 25, 39, 69, 85, 125, 193,
403> 424
Hamdu'llah Mustawfi of Qazwm (his-
torian and geographer), 56, 87-100,
224, 231 n.
Hamfdi dynasty, 401
von Hammer, 68, 156, 347 n., 436
Hammer-Purgstall, 147, 401 n.
Hamza b. Qara 'Osmdn ('Uthmn)
Aq-qoyunlii (xv), 404
Hanafi. sect, 46, 50, 97, 98 ; clan
or family of Qazwin, 94
Hanbalf sect, 301 n.
Haqlqat-ndma (Turkish Huniff book),
450
Haqqrfl-Yaqin (by Mahmiid Shabis-
tarf, xiv), 149-150
ffaramayn, Sultdmfl- (title as-
sumed by Egyptian rulers, xiv), 205
Harqaddq (Mongol general, xiv), 48
Hartmann, 516
Hanin. ar-Rashfd ('Abbasid Ca-
liph, ix), 21 ; Sharafu'd-Din b.
Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad Sdhib-
Diwdn (xiii), 20-21
Hasan. The Imam b. 'AH b. Abi
Talib (vii), 90, 91 ; Shaykh b.
Husayn Jala'ir or Ilkani (Il-Khani)
called Buzurg ("the Great," d.
A.D. 1356), 54, 55, 59, 60, 170-2;
36
562
INDEX
208, 260, 261, 262, 264;
Shaykh b. Timurtash b. Chiiban
called Kuchak ("the Little," d.
A.D. 1343), 59, 60, 170-2; b.
Uways b. Shaykh i-Buzurg
(killed A.D. 1382), 172, 320; b.
'AH Beg b. Qara 'Osman ('Uth-
man) Biyandarf or Aq-qoyiinlu
(A.D. 1453-77), 402, 403; see
Uziin Hasan ; ['AH] b. Jahdn-
shah (xv), 402, 403, 408, 409, 410;
i-Sabbah(founderof the Assas-
sins, q.v., xi), 66; Amir of
Dihli (poet, xiv), 106, 108, 293,
35> 352, 49*> 49 8 ; Shaykh-i-
Jiiri (xiv), 211-12; Sayyid of
Tirmidh (parodied by Mahmiid
Qa>f of Yazd), 352 ; Khwaja -
and Shaykh (correspondents of
Hunifis, xiv), 368; Hajji Mfrz;i
(author of Fdrs-ndma-i-Ndsirl,
xix), 162
Hasht Bihisht (a garden near Tabriz,
the "Astibisti" of the Venetian
travellers), 414
Hatifi (nephew of Jamf and poet, xvi),
459
Hdtim-T^'i, 276, 383
Haydar-i-Safawi, Shaykh (xv), 407,
414, 416, 41711.
Haydar of Shiraz (poet, xiv), 223-4
HaydaraMd codex of the Bdbur-
ndma, 391
Hazrasp dynasty in Luristan, 37
Hebrews. See Jews
Henry the Pious, Duke of Silesia, 6
Herat, 41, 49, 50, 55, 57, 115, 152,
161, 163, 173, i?5 J 7<>, 178, i?9.
180, 186, 208, 210, 354, 355 n.,
362, 366, 380, 382, 384, 387, 388,
39. 393. 397. 4<> 2 4 l8 . 4*i> 422,
424, 425, 427-32, 455, 457-9, 462,
464,473,488,500,501,503,506,507
Hertford (Oriental printing at ),
443. 444
Hiawatha, 523
Hidayat (takhallus of Rida-quli Khan
Lala-bashf, xix), 432. See Rida-
quli Khan
Hiddyat-ndma (Persian Huriifi book),
45
Hilali (poet, xv-xvi), 459
Hims (Emessa), 41, 197
Hindus, 193
Hindusha'h (poet, xiii), 22
Ibn Hisham (biographer of the Pro-
phet), 88
Hisn Kayf (fortress), 408
Hit, 81
Horn, Dr Paul , 107 n.
Houtum-Schindler, Sir Albert (d.
1916), 80, ioon., 150 n., 162,
2ion., 360, 426, 430, 474
Howorth, Sir Henry (History of the
Mongols), 13-14, 15, i8n., 19 n.,
21, 25 n., 26 n., 34 n., 41 n., 42 n.,
44, 45, 58 n., 60, 6 1 n., 177 n.
Huart, M. Clement , 365, 375, 449,
450, 462
Hulagu (Mongol Il-Khan, xiii), 15,
17, 18, 19, 20, 39, 40, 58, 59, 60,
66, 69, 74, 162, 171, 175, 250,251
Hiilaju (Mongol prince put to death
by Arghiin, xiii), 33
Hulwani (clan or family of Qazwin), 94
Humam, Humamu'd-Din. son
of Rashfdu'd-Dm Fadlu'llih (xiii),
84 ; Mawlana (contemporary of
above-mentioned Rashid), 28 ; ,
or I lumami, of Tabriz (poet, xiii-
xiv), 152-4, 329, 352
Humayri ('A'isha, the Prophet's wife,
so called), 320
Humayun ("Great Mogul" Emperor
of India, xvi), 391, 393, 418, 419
Humdy wa Humdyim (poem by
KhwaJYi of Kirman), 226
Hungary, Hungarians, 6, 9
Hurmuz, 47, 193, 238, 285, 290, 397
Hurr b. Yazid-Riydhf, 87
Huriifi sect (xiv), 190, 365-75, 449-52,
475. 478. 479
Husayn. The Imam b.'Ali Talib
(vii), 256, 441, 449, 510; b.
Mansiir al-Hallaj (mystic, x), 195
and n. ; b. Amfr Chtiban (xiv),
54; Amfr (general of Abu Sa'id
the Mongol, xiv), 52; b. Aq-
Biigha b. Aydakan-i-Jali'ir (or
Ilkdni (father of Shaykh Hasan-
i-Buzurg, q.v., xiv), 171 ; b.
Uways-i-Jala'ir (killed A.D. 1382),
172; Sultan (Timur's rival),
185; Shaykh Jurf (xiv), 178-9;
Abu'l-Ghazi Sultan b. Mansiir
b. Bayqari (Timiirid prince, xv),
see supra, s.v. Abu'l-Ghazf ;
Kiya (Hurufi correspondent,
xiv), 368 ; Beg Shamlu (coun-
sellor of Shah Isma'il the Safawi,
A.D.I 500), 417; Wa'iz-i-Kashifi
(man of letters, xv), 434, 438, 441-3,
463, 503-4 ; 'Udi (musician to
Mir 'All Shfr Nawa'i, xv), 505
INDEX
563
Husayni. Amir of Khurasan (ques-
tioner of Mahmud-i-Shabistari,
xiv), 147
Husn u 'Ishq (" Beauty and Love," a
poem by Katibf, xv), 487
Hyde, Thomas (xviii), 303
Hyrcania, 390. See Astarabad,
Gurgan, Jurjan
Ibnu'l-Athir (Arab historian, xiii), 6,
11, 88, 1440.
Ibrahim. Shaykh Sadru'd-Din
al-Hamawi (xiii), 40 ; Shaykh Ibra-
him al-Juwayni (xiii), 40 n. ;
Khwaja b. Rashidu'd-Din Fad-
lu'lhih (xiv), 52, 71, 83, 84, 86;
Mirz Sulta~n b. Shah-rukh
(xv), 364, 387, 500 ; b. 'Ald'u'd-
Dawla b. Bdysunqur (xv), 388 ;
Sultdn Lodf of Dihlf (xvi), 393 ;
(brother of Shah Isma'fl-i-Sa-
fawf, A.D. 1500), 416; Amir
Shaykh of Shfrwdn (xv), 488
Iconium, 63, 127. See also Qonya
Idajf, Sultan (put to death, A.D.
1291), 33
Idol-temples destroyed in Persia by
Ghazan (A.D. 1295), 40
'Idu'l-Fitr, 349 and n.
Iftikhari, clan or family of Qazwm, 93
Iftikham'd-Din, Malik Sa'id Mu-
hammad b. Abu Nasr (xiii), 93,115
Ij (place in Fars), 356/357
Ikhtiyaru'd-Din, castle of , 366
Ildaci or Ildonchi, Thomas (Mon-
gol envoy to Edward II in A.D.
1307), it and n., 49
fl-Khans. This title is properly ap-
plied to the Mongol successors
of Hulagu Khan, whose history
is contained in ch. i (1-61), but it
is also sometimes applied to the
dynasty founded by Shaykh Ha-
san-i-Buzurg, more correctly
called Jala'ir or Ilkani (170-3).
The references to the former are :
15, 17, 18, 20, 27, 44, 45, 49, 50,
58, 71, 74, 83, 87, 92, 172, 205;
to the latter: 160, 161, 170-3,
208, 260, 261, 262, 4Oi ; On the
forms Il-Khani and Ilkani see
especially 171 ; but it is to be
noted that in the received' text of
Hifiz (ed. Rosenzweig-Schwan-
nau, vol. iii, p. 8) the former title is
applied to the grandson of Shaykh
Hasan-i-Buzurg
Ilminsky (editor of the Bdbur-ndma),
391
'Imadu'd-Dfn. Faqih(" the Juris-
consult," poet of Kirma'n, xiv),
159, 209,211, 258-9,280, 281, 315,
348, 350, 352 ; Nasfmi(Nesrmf,
the Turkish Hurufi poet, xiv-xv),
368. See Nasfmi
Imams, the Twelve (vii-ix), 91.
See also under 'Ali, Hasan,
Husayn, etc.
Imam-quit Khan, 318
'Jmarat-i-Tuqchf (Isfahan), 368
Inal (old Turkish name), 120, 121 and
n.
-Inbd (of Ibnu'l-Hajar, xiv-xv), 367
India, Indians, 3, 44, 64, 73, 74, 83,
85, 89, 101, 106, 107, 108, in,
125, 127, 128, 174, 181, 182, 183,
184, 193, 194, 272, 284, 302, 318,
357. 380, 383 n-> 393- 397. 39 8 '
419, 420, 423, 429, 433, 442, 461,
466, 468, 498, 504, 335, 536, 540
Indian hemp (Bang, Hashish), 150
and n. , 151 and n.
Indian Mutiny, 183 n., 380, 391, 420
Indus, 4, 175, 193, 194, 393
Inju, Shaykh Abu Isha'q (xiv), 163,
164-5, 166, 5 226, 230, 231,
233 "> 235, 237, 274, 275, 290,
357
" Institutes "(Tuziikdt) ofTfmur, 183,
202, 361 n.
louldouchi, Thomas , n, 49. See
above s.v. Ildaci
Iram, 525
Iranchin (Mongol officer, xiv), 52, 53
'Iraq, 20, 21, 160, 168, 173, 191, 204,
225, 3 1 ?. 3 2 5 3 6 4. 36, 3 8 5 3 8 7.
389. 397. 398. 42, 409, 410, 418,
464, 466, 468
'Iraqi, Fakhru'd-Din (poet), 63,
124-39, 174, 321, 344, 350, 445,
446, 512
Ireland, Irish, 44, 102, 107
Irm (place near Ray), 265
'Isa. Sultan (governor of MaYdm,
xiv), 192 ; brother of the Otto-
man Sultan Muhammad I, 401.
See also Jesus
Isen-bviqa (Mongol officer, xiv), 52
Isfahan, 15, 22, 37, 81, 82, 119, 141,
160, 161, 165, 168, 169, 181, 188,
190, 208, 274, 331, 344, 360, 364,
368, 384, 389, 402, 410, 416, 489
Isfandiyarf dynasty, 401
Isfard'in, 186, 497, 503
36-2
564
INDEX
Isfizar, 175, 176
Ishaq Efendi (author of the Kdshifu'l-
Asrdr, xix), 371, 450
Abii Ishaq. b. Sultan Uways b.
Shall Shujd' Muzaffarf (slain by
Tfmiir, A.D. 1393), 169 ; Shaykh
Inju (xiv) ; see above s.v. Injii ;
Ahmad b. Y-Sm (historian of
Herat), 174, 431 ; of Shfrz
(gastronomic poet, xiv) ; see above
s.v. Bushaq ; Ibrahim (saint
of Kdzarun), 226
'Ishq-ndma (Persian Hunifi book by
Iskandar. b. 'Umar Shaykh Mirza
(Timurid, xv), 344, 345, 366; -
b. Qdra Yusuf Aq-qoyunlu (xv),
382, 400, 401, 402, 404, 489. See
also Alexander the Great
Iskandar-ndma (Hurufi poem), 449
Islam, 4, 8, n, 17, 31, 32, 40, 43, 44,
46, 48, 49, 73, 78, 93
Isma'il, Shall Safawf (A.D. 1500),
3i5 3 l6 379- 38o, 381, 400, 407,
414, 415, 416, 417-19, 434, 458,
459. 57
Isma'fl 'Ali (Indian copyist, xix), 154
Isma'fli sect, 53, 73, 74, 154. Seealso
Assassins
'Ismat of Bukha'ra' (poet, xv), 352,
353. 5i
Istahbnat (in Fdrs), 331
Istakhr (in Fais), 414, 416
Isliwd-ndma (Persian Huriiff poem),
373. 45
Istizhdru'l-Akhbdr (one of the sources
of the TcSrikh-i-Guzida), 89
Italy, Italians, 381, 395, 399, 405,
414. See also Venetians
Iys b. Mu'awiya, 255
Izniq, 369
'Izzat Malik (wife of Shaykh Hasan-
\-Kuchak, xiv), 60
'Izzu'd-Din. Muzaffar (minister
responsible for introducing paper
money into Persia, A.D. 1294), 38 ;
'Umar-i-Marghinf (minister,
xii-xiii and ancestor of Kurt dy-
nasty), 174, 175; Malik (ruler
of Luristdn, xiv), 187, 192, 368 ;
Shfr (xv), 401
Jacob, 413, 414, 415. See Ya'qiib
Ja'far. b. Abi 'f&fo-Tayydr (vii),
i44andn. ; Sa~diq (Imam, viii),
440 ; of Tabriz (calligraphist,
xv), 395, 499
Jahangir. b. Tfmur (xiv), 381 ;
(Mogul Emperor of Dihli, xvii),
273. 319. 39 1 ; b - 'Ali Beg b.
Qara 'Osman ('Uthman) Aq-qoy-
unlu (xv), 404, 407, 408
fahdn-gushd, Ta?rlkh-i- (by 'Ald-
'u'd-Dfn 'Ata Malik-i-Juwayni,
xiii) ; see under Ta'rikh
Jahn Khatun (satirized by 'Ubayd-i-
Zikani, xiv), 233 n.
Jahdn-ndma (one of the sources of the
Nuzhatu'l-Qultib], 99
Jaha"nshah b. Qara Yusuf Qara-
qoyiinlu (xv), 387-9, 400-3, 406,
408-10, 412
Jala'ir family and dynasty, 54, 59, 60,
160, 161, 166, 170-3, 187, 191,
260, 284, 320, 399. See also II-
khani (Ilkanf)
Jalal. i-'Adudi (poet, xiv), 159,
344, 350, 352 ; Khwaja [or
JaMlu'd-Din] b. Rashidu'd-Din
Fadlu'lldh (xiv), 82, 84; -i-
Khw^rf (poet), 65 ; - - i-Tabfb
(poet), 65, 159, 344, 350, 352
Jalalu'd-Din. Mankobirni Khwa-
razmsh^h (xiii), 12, 66; Sim-
nn( (minister to Arghun, put to.
death in A.D. 1289), 31 ; Kay-
QuMdb. 'Ald'u'd-DinKay-Qubad
Seljiiq of Rum (xiii), 8^; Khwaja
b. Rashidu'd-Dfn Fadlu'llah (xiv),
82,84; Mawlana Riiml (author
of the Mathnawi, q.v.), 105, 106,
in, 139, 140, 155, 217, 302, 344,
35. 445. 479. 4^4. S'4. 548 5 -
Mansur-i-Muzaffarf, 163 (see also
infra, s.v. Mansiir) ; Mawlina
b. Husdm of Herat (contemporary
of 'Ubayd-i-Zdkanf), 257; Khwaja
- (patron of Hafiz), 292 ;
Dawanf (philosopher, xv), 389,
398, 423, 442-4 ; Mawlan -
Ishaq of Samarqand (xiv-xv), 428
Jam (town in Khurasan), 175, 435,
473. 507
fdm-i-Jam (poem by Awhadf of Mard-
gha, xiv), 141
Jamf, Mulla Nuru'd-Dfn 'Abdu'r-
Rahman (poet, xv), 124, 125, 132,
r 33 n -> 139 n -> X 40 141 n., 258,
261, 273, 283, 320, 321 n., 331,
347 n -. 395, 398, 399 n., 422-3,
426 n., 434, 435-6; 437, 44 o,
445-8, 457, 459. 4<>i n., 463, 475,
486, 496, 497, 503, 505, 506, 507-
548
INDEX
565
Jamalu'd-Dfn. Shaykh - - (xiii),
35> 36 and n. ; Dastajirddni
(minister of Baydu, A.D. 1295),
39, 41 ; Shafi'i doctor of Bagh-
dad (xiv), 70; Abu'l-Qasim of
Kshan (historian cited in Ta'rikh-
i-Guzlda), 88; Muhammad b.
Husain (poet, xiv), 177; (poet
parodied by Mahmud Qarf of
Yazd), 352
fdmi^-i-Mitfidl (monograph on the
town of Yazd), 360, 362, 464
[dmi'iit-TttfAntf-i-Rashidt (xiv), 77
and n.
/dmi'u't- Tawdrikk (by Rashidu'd-
Din Fadlu'llah, author of the pre-
ceding work), 12, 17, 44 n., 49,
67, 68, 72-5, 89
Jamshid. or Jam (the Yima of
the Avesta, a legendary Persian
demi-god or king), 151, 290, 317;
Mawlana, Ghiyathu'd-Din
(astronomer, xv), 386, 502 ; -
(unidentified), 494
Jamshid u Khurshld (by Salman-i-
Sawajf, xiv), 261
Jani Beg Khan (of the Golden Horde,
xiv), 354
Jarbadhaqdni, Abu Sharaf (trans-
lator of al-'Utbi's Kilobit I- Ya-
mini), 88 and n.
Jarun, 397
Java, 30.8
Jawahiru'l-Asrar (of Adharf), 259 ;
of Kamalu'd-Din Husayn b.
Hasan of Khwarazm (commentary
on the Mathnawi), 444-5
fawahiru. V- To/sir (larger commen-
tary on the Qttr'dn by Husayn
Wa'iz-i-Kashifi, xv), 442
Jawhari, Sadru'd-Din Muhammad
(parodied by Bushaq and Mahmiid
QarO, 350, 352
fdwiddn-i-Kabir (by Fadlu'llah al-
Hurufi), 367-9, 449 (where Jdwf-
ddn-ndma is a mistake for the
above title), 450-2
Jaxartes (river), called by the Arabs
Sihiin, 202
-Jazh-a (Mesopotamia, q.v.), 368
Jedda, 398
Jerusalem, 99, 357
Jesus Christ ('Isa'l-Mastk), 298
Jews, 17, 31-6, 39-40, 47, 49, 69, 71,
73. 74. 89, 101, 194, 251, 372;
Society for the propagation of
Christianity amongst the , 346
"Jex" (Italian corruption of Yazd,
q.v.), 389
Jibba (place), 8r
/*'! 3i 7 "
Johan-Yokhnan-Ung (origin of "Pres-
ter John"), tin.
John XXII, Pope (A.D. 1322), 54
Jones, Sir William , 303, 304
Joseph, 263. See YUsuf
Juha (a celebrated wit or jester), 254,
'255
Junayd, Shaykh (Safawi, grand-
father of Shah Isma'il), 414
Jurjan (province of Persia), 355, 390.
See Astarabad, Gurgan
-Jurjanf, -Sayyidu'sh-Sharif (xv), 159,
276 n., 353, 355, 370
Jiishkab (Mongol noble executed), 33
Juwayni (family), 20-24; 'Al'u'd-
Dfn 'Ata Malik-i- (author of
the Ta'rf kh-i-Jahangusha, q.v.),
10, u n., 12, 17
Ka'ba, 32, 89, 321, 492 n.
Kabfru'd-Din b. Fakhru'd-Dm 'Iraqi
(xiii), 127, 128
K^bul, 86, 175
"Kabuli thief," Khwajuof Kirnian so
called, 224
Kfiristn, 193
Kdfiya (of Ibnu'l-Hajib), 514
Kajahanf, Shaykh , 264
Kalat-i-Nadirf, 152 n., i86(?)
Kalila wa Dimna (Book of ), 94
(translated into Mongolian); in
(versified by Qani'i, xiii) ; 463,
504. See also Anwar-i-Suhayli
Kalo Joannes (last Christian Emperor
of Trebizond, xv), 407, 408
Kamal of Khujand (poet contem-
porary with Hafiz, xiv), 159, 209,
211, 320-30, 331-2, 350, 352, 435,
491, 498. See also under the next
heading
Kamalu'd-Din. Khwaja of Sfwas
(correspondent of Rashfdu'd-Din
Fadlu'llah, xiv), 84; Isma'il of
Isfahan (poet, xiii), 261, 327 n.,
352,522; Husayn (satirized by
'Ubayd-i-Zakanf, xiv), 238;
of Kashan (poet parodied by
Bushaq), 350; Ghiyth al-Fa>sf
of Shiraz (accused of plagiarism by
Ktibi), 491 ; Khwaja (corre-
spondent of Hurufis, xiv), 368;
'Abdu'r-Razzaq (author of the
Matla'u's-Sa'dayn, q.v.), 389,
566
INDEX
428-30; Husayn Gazargalii
(pseudo-Sufi and poetaster, alleged
to be the real author of the Maja-
lisu'l-'Ushshaq, q.v .), 440, 457-
8 ; Husayn b. Hasan of Khwa"-
razm (author of a commentary on
the Matknawf entitled JawdAiru'I-
Asrdr, xv), 445
Kamdl-ndma (by Khwaju of Kirm^n,
xiv), 226
" Kma-Shastra Society," 436
Kami, Shall Husayn (poet con-
temporary with Bbur), 459
Kan'n Beg (xvii), 318
Kanbi'it (Cambay), 398
Kamdl-Ishtihd (the "Treasure of
Appetite" by Bushaq of Shiriz,
xv), 346-50
Karaji, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
KarbaM, 42, 44, 191, 256, 449, 510
Karduchin (wife of Amir Chvibn,
xiv), 55
Karim Khan-i-Zand (xviii), 311
Karit, Kerait (a people akin to the
Mongols), u, 1 8 n.
Ka"r-kiyd Mirz 'Ali (governor of
Gilaii, A.D. 1500), 416
Karkiik, 192
Kdr-ndma (of Rabi'iof Bushanj, xiv),
151-2
Kash, 185, 194
Kashan, 81, 118, 389
Kashf (near Euphrates), 42
Kashfa'z-Zumin (of Hajji Khalifa),
367 n.
Kdshghar, 382
Kdshifu'l-Asrdr (refutation of Hunifi
heresies by Ishq Efendi), 371,
45072
Kashmir, language of , 43 ; beauties
of, 283
-Kashshdf (<o{ -Zamakhshari), 272
Kdtibi (poet of Nishapur or Turshiz,
xv), 35 2 . 353. 438, 487-95, 49 8 >
5i
Kd'us, Kay (legendary king of
Persia), 152
Kawthar (stream or fountain in Para-
dise), 134
Kayini dynasty of Persia, 90
Kayfi (name of a place), 82
Kaysi, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Kazan, 391
Kazarun, 226, 418, 444
Keene, H. G. (translator of Akhldq-
i-MuAsmt), 444
Kerd'it, Karit, 11, i8n.
"Key of Life" (Miftdku'l-Haydt),
372
Khabis, 81
Khabtthdt (obscene poems of Sa'df),
232 n.
Khabushan, 387
Khafija (Arab tribe), 162, 231
Ibn Khaldun (historian, xiv), 462
Kh^lidi clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Khalfl. Sultan of Shirwan (xv),
400 ; Sultan b. Miranshih
(Timurid prince, xv), 381, 382,
438; Mawhina' Naqqash ("the
painter"), 384, 498
Khalili, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Khalilu'llah Mirza b. Uzun Hasan
Aq-qoyunlii (xv), 408, 413, 414
Khalldqifl-Ma'dni ("Creator of [new]
Ideas"), 327 n. See above under
Kamalu'd-Din Isma'il
Ibn Khallikn (biographer, xiii), 64
Khamriyya (the "Wine-poem" of
'Umar b. al-Farid, q.v.), 514
Khamsa ("Quintet") of Nizami of
Ganja, 226, 505, 541 ; - - of
Khwaju of Kirmin, 225-6; -
tu'l-Mutahayyirin of Mir 'Ali Shir
Nawa'i, 508
Khan-b;iligh ("Cambaluc," Pekin),
397> 398
Khdniqin, 163
Khan-zada Begum (B^bur's sister),
419
Kh^qani (poet, xii), 65, 224, 522
Khar-banda (original name of Ulja'ytu
changed to Khuda-banda, q.v.),
46-7
Kharjird, 473
Kharput, 389
Khat (Cathay), 75, 228, 356
Khatimatu* l-Haydt (Jami's last Dt-
wdn, compiled in A.D. 1490-1),
5i6
Khatlan, 390
Khayali (poet of Bukhara), 352, 438,
501
Khaysar, 152, 174, 175, 176
-Khazin al-Baghdadi, Abii T^lib 'Ali
(historian), 88
-Khazraji (author of gf-'UtA&it~
Ltflu'iyya, a history of Yaman),
357
Khidr, 134, 259, 291
Khidr Khdn (xv), 383 n.
*Khirad-ndma-i-Sikandari (byjami),
516, 536-40
Khiva, 190. See Khwarazm
INDEX
567
Khizdna-i- 1 Amira (biography of poets
by M(r Ghuldm 'AH Khan Azdd,
xviii), 289
Khuda"-banda(Uljaytu, A.D. 1305-16),
46-51, 83, 176, 215. See also
Uljaytii
Khuda-da"d (leader of revolt against
Khalil Sultan, xv), 381
Khujand, -206, 209, 320, 324, 327
Khuldsatifl-Akhbdr^y Khwa"ndamfr,
xv-xvi), 434
Khurasan, 25, 27, 32, 52, 54, 83, 147,
152 n., 160, 162, 175, 177, 185,
190, 193, 210, 233 n., 272, 354,
364, 382, 387, 388, 392, 398, 402,
408, 410, 416, 418, 419, 428,435,
438, 456, 466, 468, 473, 498, 503,
506, 507, 511, 512
Ibn Khurdadhbih (geographer), 99
Khurram-a'bad (Lurista'n), 187, 410
Khurshid Beg (ambassador from Uziin
Hasan to the Ottoman Sultan
Muhammad II), 409
Khusraw I (vi), see N \ishfrwan;
II ( Parwiz, vii), 267, 329,
500; Amir of Dihlf (poet, xiii),
106, 107, 108-10, 293, 352, 491,
498, 514, 527, 536 n. See also
Chosroes, Kisra, Sasanians
Khutan, 33, 266
Khuy, 199, 414
Khuzistdn, 82, 83, 193, 411
Khwaf, 112, 211, 424 n., 428. This
place is chiefly mentioned in con-
nection with Fasihf, q.v.
Khwaju (poet of Kirma'n, xiv), 159,
209, 211, 222-9, 293-5, 296, 348,
35. 352
Khwandamir (historian and bio-
grapher, xvi), 17, 40, 171, 273,
28 3. 361, 393. 433, 434.488, 503.
504, 505. See also Habibu's-
Siyar, Khulasatu'l-Akhbar
Khwar, 81
Khwa"razm (Khiva), 12, 190, 354.356,
368, 390, 418, 456
Khwarazm- shahs, 66, 73, 74, 92, 180
Kichik, 53
Kieff, 10
Kikshik, 53
-Kinasa, 254
Kinjik, 53
Kirman, 47, 48, 81, 85, 92, 115, 139,
160, 161, 163, 166, 168, 169, 190,
208, 223, 224, 258, 259, 280, 325,
345- 357, 360, 387, 3 8 9' 40-2, 46,
410, 418, 427, 463, 464, 465
Kisra, 120, 121, 285, 467, 469. See
also Chosroes, Khusraw, Nvis-
hirwan, Sasanians
Kitdb-i-Yamirtl (History of Sultan
Mahmud of Ghazna), 88
Kitdbu'l-Ahyd wa!l-Athdr (by Rashf-
du'd-Din Fadlu'lla"h, xiii-xiv), 75,
79
Kitdbitl-Ma'drifOteR. Qutayba), 88
Kitdbu't-Tanbih wa'I-Ishrdf (-Mas-
'udi), 90 n.
Kiyd, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Kosti (Zoroastrian girdle), 342 n.
Kubla Kh;in. See Qubilay
-Kubrd (treatise on Logic by al-
JurjiCni, xiv-xv), 355
K&cha-i-'Ulamd ("Street of the
Learned" in the Rab'-i-Rashfdf
at Tabrfz), 86
K&h-i-Chahil Maqdm (mountain near
Shiraz), 167
Kunhtfl-Murdd (by Sharafu'd-Dfn
'AH Yazdi), 363
KunuzuU-Haqd^iq (commentary on
the Mathnawf), 445
Kur, River , 417
Kurdista~n, 190, 401, 406
Kurs{-ndma (Persian Hurufi work),
450
Kurt (dynasty of Hera"t), 41, 50, 55,
57, 60, 160, 161, 163, 173-80, 186,
208, 211, 354, 43 r
Kurt-ndma of Rabi'f of Bushanj, 1 74,
43 1
Kushtf (Zoroastrian girdle), 342 n.
Kutbi, Mahmud (historian of Mu-
zaffarf dynasty, xv), 162, 166, 360
Kuyvik Khan(MongolEmperor,xiii),8
Lahijan, 416, 482
Ldhijf, 'Abdu'r-Rahma"n (commen-
tator of Gulshan-i-Rdz}, 148
Ldld-bdshl. See Rida-quli Khan
*Lama'dt (of 'Irdqii), 127, 132-9,
444-7. 5 12
Landauer (editor of Shdhndtna), 89
Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, by
G. le Strange, 100
Lane, Edward , 312
Lane-Poole, Stanley , 19 n., 178,
379, 387. 39
Langles, Professor , 184
Ldr, 285
Laranda, 155
Latd'if-i-Rashidiyya (dedicated by
the author Mahmud b. Ilyas to
Rashfdu'd-Dm Fadlu'lldh), 84-5
5 68
INDEX
Latff if-ndma, 362
Ldtffifttl-Haq'ffiq (by Rashidu'd-Din
'Fadlu'liah), 76
Latifa-i-Ghaybiyya (critical essay on
'Hiifiz), 300, 315, 316
Latffi (Turkish biographer of poets),
'369
Latin, 9, 10, n, 43, 62
*Lawa?ih (by Jdmi), 444, 447-8, 512
Lawdmi 1 (commentary by Jdmi on the
Fususti'l-Hikam), 513
Lawdmi^u^l-Ishrdq (by Jallu'd-Din
Daw^ni), 443. See Akhlaq-i-
Jalali
Layla (concubine of Qubad b. Iskan-
dar Qaia-qoyunlu), 402
*Layla wa Majniin (of Amir Khus-
raw, xiii), 109-10; (of Ja'mf,
xv), 516, 533-6, 545
*Leaf, Walter (translations from
Hafiz), 303-6, 308, 309
Leyden (in Holland), 367; Dr John
, 392, 454
Liegnitz, Battle of (April 9, 1241), 6
Lisdnu'l-Ghayb ("Tongue of the Un-
seen," Hfiz so entitled), 311
Lisdnu't-Tayr ("Language of the
Birds," poem by Mfr 'AH Shfr
Nawd'f), 505
Lishta-Nisha (in Gflan), 416
Literary History of Persia, by the
author of this volume (vol. i from
the earliest times to A.D. 1000,
vol. ii from A.D. 1000 to 1265,
published by Fisher Unwin in
1902 and 1906 respectively), 5 n.,
6 n., 15 n., 17 n. and passim
Llandudno Junction, 231 n.
Locks ley Hall (Tennyson), 218 n.
Lodf, Sultan Ibrahim of Dihlf
(xvi), 393
Lombardy, ro2
Lowe, W. H. (translator of Hafiz),
299
Lubdbttl-Albdb (by Muhammad ' Awff,
xiii), 65
Lur, Luristan, 37, 68, 92, 187, 189,
191, 410
Lutf 'Alf Beg (author of the Atash-
kada, q.v.}, 274
Lutfu'llah b. Sadru'd-Dfn 'Iraqi (xiv),
'165
Lyly, John (the Euphuist), 461
Lyons, 8
Ma'adhi (satirized by Kamal of
Khujand), 329
McCarthy, Justin , 303
-Madfna, 55, in, 127, 167, 427
Magas, Mulla 1 , 315-16
Maghrib (Morocco), 84, 331
Maghribi (mystical poet of Tabrfz,
xiv-xv), 159, 211, 330-44, 345,
435. 465. 475
Magians, 234, 278 and n. , 300, 342
and n. See also Gabr or Guebre,
Zoroastrian, Zunnar
Mdh (the Moon), 113 and n.
Mahabbat-nama. (Persian Hu-
rufi work), 373, 450; i-Sdhib-
dildn (by 'Imadu'd-Dm Kirmani,
^A.D. 1322), 259
Mahan (near Kirman), 345, 463, 464,
467
Mahbubu'l-Qulub ("Hearts' Darling,"
by Mfr 'Ali Shfr Nawsi'f), 453
Mahdi. Advent of the expected ,
463, 467, 469, 470; pretended ,
50, 54 ; Sultan b. Shall Shuja'
Muzaffari (xiv), 169; Ibn -
(physician, xiii), 85
Mdki (the Fish), 113
Mahmiid. Sultan of Ghazna
(x-xi), 256, 353, 380; Shah
Bahmani (of the Deccan, patron
of Hfiz, xiv), 285, 287 n., 290;
Sulta"n II (Ottoman, xix), 371,
452 ; b. Mubdrizu'd-Dfn Muzaf-
farf (xiv), 165, 166-7, 360; -
Injii (xiv), 274; b. Abu Sa'fd
(Tfrm'trid, xv), 390 ; Mfrza Shah
(Tfmurid, xv), 388; Amfr
b. Rashfdu'd-Dfn Fadlu'liah (xiii-
xiv), 8 1, 84, 85; '-- b. Ilyas
(rewarded for dedicating a book
to Rashidu'd-Din, xiii-xiv), 84 ;
Khwaja of Siwa (envoy to
India, xiii-xiv), 85 ; Qari of
Yazd (parodist, xv), 257, 351-3;
Kutbi (historian of MuzafFarfs),
360 n.; Mawlana' (correspon-
dent of Huruffs, xiv), 368
Mahmud-dbad (near Shfrwin), 417
Mahmud u Aydz (poem by Fakhru'd-
Dfn 'Ali), 504
Majdlisiil-Mtiminin (by Sayyid Nii-
ru'lldh of Shushtar, xvi), 44 n. ,
224, 498
"Majdlisu'n-Nafd'is (by Mfr 'Alf Shir
Nawa'f), 434, 437~9. 459. 487.
490, 495, 497, 499 n., 508
Majdlisu '!- ' Ushshdq (ascribed by
Babur to Kamalu'd-Din Husayn
Gazargahi, but generally attributed
INDEX
569
to Abu'l-Ghazf Sultan Husayn),
124, 321, 434, 439-40, 457-8
Ma'jarf (poet of Samarqand, xiv), 329
Majdu'd-Din. Isma'fl Fall (xiii-
xiv), 80, 82 ; Shaykh (xiii-xiv),
82 ; Khwaja b. Rashidu'd-Din
Fadlu'llah (xiii-xiv), 83, 84; -
Hamgar (poet of Yazd, xiii), 115,
116, 118, 119-24; Muzaffar
(xiv), 168; Mawlana (corre-
spondent of Hurufis, xiv), 368
Majdu'1-Mulk of Yazd (minister of
Abaqa, xiii), 22-4, 27, 30, 31
Majma'ti'l-Ansdb (xiv), 103
Majma'u Arbdbfl-Maslak (? Mulk:
one of the sources of the TcCrikh-
i-Guzidd), 89
Majma 'u'J- Fitsahd (of Rida - quli
Khan, xix), in, 115, 119, 139,
140, 141, 211, 216, 222, 230, 272,
*74> 33 r . 345. 495
Majma'u'l-Munij (Egyptians defeated
by Mongols in A. D. 1299-1300), 41
Majma'u't- Tawdrikh as-Sultdn{ (A. D.
1426), 425. See Hafiz Abrii and
Zubdatu't-Tawarikh
Majnn'Sa-i-Rashidiyya (xiv), 76, 79
Majniin. See Layla wa Majniin
Makani clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Afakhzanu'l-Asrdr (of Nizami of
Ganja), 527
Makhzanu 'I- Inshd (by Husayn Wa'iz-
i-Kashifi), 504
Malabar, 398
Maldhat, 348 n.
Maldhida (plural of Mulhid, " He-
retic"), 154, 255. See Assassins,
Isma'ilis
Malati (harper satirized by Kamal of
Khujand), 329
Malatya, 204, 205, 412
Malcolm, Sir John , 182, 183 n.,
203, 311 n., 382, 394
Malfuzdt, or "Memoirs," of Tmuir,
i3 T 4
Maliku'sh - SAit'ard, Qani'i (xiii)
created or Poet Laureate, 1 1 1
Malthusianism of Ibn-i-Yamin (xiv),
218
Mamlakh (Mongol ambassador to
Edward II in A.D. 1307), n
Mamluks of Egypt, 20
Mandsikrfl-Hajj( Rites of the Pilgrim-
age), Jamf's treatise on , 514
Mangii Khan (Mongol, xiii), 8, 174
Manf (Manes) as a painter, 201, 384,
498 and n.
Manichaeanism of Ibn-i-Yamin, 218
-Maninfs commentary on al-'Utbf's
Kitdbu'l- Yamtni, 89
Mansiir. Jalalu'd-Din (ancestor
of Muzaffarfs, xiii), 163; Shah
Muzaffari (xiv), 168-9, J 73 x ^9>
191, 206, 290; Shaykh (corre-
spondent of Hurufis, xiv), 368
Mantiqu't-Tayr (by Farfdu'd-Din
'Attar,, xiii), 505
Maqsiid (Aq-qoyunlii, xv), 414 n., 415
Maragha, 18, 48, 59, 206, 462
Marand, 409
Mardin, 192, 408
Marghinf, Taju'd-Dm 'Uthman
(ancestor of Kurts, xii), 174
Marju's-Suffar (Mongols defeated by
Egyptians at , A.D. 1303), 42
Markham, Sir Clements R. , 199,
203, 386
Ma'riif. Khwaja (nephew of Rashf-
du'd-Din Fadlu'llah, xiii-xiv), 81 ;
Mawlan (suspected of com-
plicity in attempt on Shah-rukh's
life in A.D. 1426), ,366
Marta (daughter of Uztin Hasan and
Despina Khatun, xv), 407
*Martin, Dr F. R. , 394-7
Marzubanan (clan or family of Qaz-
win), 94
Afarzubdn-ndma, 356 and n.
Masdlik wa Mamdlik (by Ibn Khur-
dadhbih, ix), 99 and n.
Mashhad, 44, 55, 199, 388, 493
"Mashhadis," men of Transoxiana so
called, 234
Mashdribu' t - Tajdrib (one of the
sources of the Ta'rtkh-i-Guzida), 88
Ma' sud. son of the Sahib- Diwdn
(xiii), 28, 29; Injii (xiv), 274 n.
-Mas'udi (the historian, x), 90 n.
Matdli l u l-Anzdr (of al-Baydawf, xiii),
272 n.
Mathnawi (of Jalalu'd-Din Rumi,
xiii), 139, 217, 302, 444, 445, 514,
544 n., 548
Matla l u'l-Anwdr (of Amir Khusraw
of Dihli, xiii), 527
Matla'u's-Sa'dayn (of Kamalu'd-Din
'Abdu'r-Razzaq of Samarqand,
xv), 58, 60 n., 159, 174, 361, 362,
389. 397. 428-30, 431, 473
Matthew Paris, 6-8
MaTvdqif(o{ 'Adudu'd-Din al-Iji, xiv),
^7 6 . 35.6
Mawdhib-i- 1 Aliyya (of Husayn Wa'iz-
i-Kashiff, xv), 442
570
INDEX
Mawdhib-i-Ildhi (of Mu'inu'd-Din
Yazdf, xiv), 359, 360
Mawsil, 82, 192, 399, 408, 417
Mayana, 389
Maybud, 163
May-khdna (of 'Abdu'n-Nabi, xvii),
273
Mazandar^n, 27, 51, 52, 152, 160,
186, 187, 190, 193, 194, 388, 390,
416, 419, 494
Mecca, 32, 51, 71, in, 127, 177,
356, 357. 358, 374. 407, 423. 427.
464, 492 n.
Meninski (Latin renderings of Hafiz,
1680), 303
Mercury (the planet), 121 and n.
Merv (Marw), 175, 382, 419
Mesopotamia, 6, 66, 99, 190, 192,
27 2 357. 368
Mevlevf (Mawlawf) dervishes, 479
de Meynard, Barbier , 94
Michael Palaeologus (xiii), 18
Miftdhrfl-Ghayb (Jdmf's commentary
on'), 514
Miftdhttl-8*ydt (key to the Jawi-
dan-i-Kabir, q.v.), 372, 452
Miftdhu'l- l Ulum (of as-Sakkaki, xiii),
272 n.
mftdhttt-Tafdsir (of Rashidu'd-Din
Fadlu'llali, xiii-xiv), 76
Mimiyya (or Khamriyya, poem of
'Umar ibnu'l-Fdrid), 514
Mimichihr Shah (killed in A.D. 1422),
489
Mir 'Ali Shah Nawd'i (man of letters,
patron of art and learning, and
minister to Abu'l-Ghazi Sultan
Husayn b. Mansur b. Bayqara,
g.v., xv), 380, 390-1, 399 n., 422-3,
432, 434, 437-9. 44. 442, 453.
455. 456, 457. 459. 487, 49. 495,
496, 497, 499 n., 503, 505-6, 58 ;
Mosque of , 504
Mfranshah (d. A.D. 1400), 71, 180,
" 186, 190, IQ4-5, 321, 332, 367,
371 n., 374, 381, 388, 451
Mirdtdl- fCkaydl, 514
Mirdtu's-Safd, 437
Mirkhwind (historian, xv), 17, 58,
361, 387, 388, 393, 407, 414,
431-3. 434, 438, 439- See also
Rawdatu's-Safa
Misbdh (? of al-Mutarrizi, xiii), 272
* MisbdhuU- Arwdh (by Awhadu'd-Din
of Kirmaii, xiv), 140-1
Ibn Miskawayhi (historian), 88
Misr b. Qara Yusuf (xiv), 192
Mizdnifl-Awzdn (treatise on prosody
by Mir 'AH Shfr Nawa'i), 505
Moguls or Moghuls ("Great " of
Dihli, xvi-xix), 107, 183, 184,319,
3 6 4, 38o, 391, 393, 420, 433- See
also Akbar, Babur, Humayun
Mohl, Jules (edition ofSMA-ndma),
89 n.
Mongols (or Tartars), 4-17, 32, 37,
39-45, 48, 49, 60, 62, 67, 71-4,
77. 87, 95-9, 101, 108, in, 159,
162, 170, 178, 185, 186, 190, 205,
208, 250, 405; Mongolian lan-
guage, 31, 93, in
Moravia, 6
Morris, William , 395
MosalM, 283. See Musalla
Moscow, 192
Moses, 89, 114, 267 and n.
Mu'ifiydn, or Mu'afaniyan, a clan or
family of Qazwin, 94
Mu'allaqdt (the seven ), 492 n.
Mu'ammd (acrostic). 462, 507, 514
Mu'amma'i Mawland Muhammad
(architect, xv), 311; Mir
Husayn (poet, xv or xvi), 459
Mu'awiya (Umayyad Caliph, vii), 90,
250
Mu'ayyad - zda, 'Abdu'r - Rahman
Chelebi (xv), 423
Mubdrizu'd-Dfn Muhammad (ancestor
of Muzaffarfs, xiv), 162-6, 225,
275 n., 277-8, 357, 360
-Mufassal of -Zamakhshari, 357
Mufid of Yazd (author of the_/awt'-2-
Mufidl, xvii), 360
Mughithu'd-Din (grandson of Fasihf
of Khwaf, y.v., xv), 428
Muhadhdhib (? Jewish notable who
perished in massacre about A.D.
1291), 35, 36 n.
MuhdkamatuU-Lughatyn (composed
in A.D. 1500 by Mfr 'Ali Shir
Nawa'i), 453, 506
Muhammad. The Prophet (vi-vii),
32, 49. Si. 73, 74, 76, 89, 90, 95,
101, 144 n., 231 n., 320 n., 424,
>427, 441, 492 n., 507, 513, 521;
- Baqir (fifth Iman of the Shi 'a,
viii), 464; Shamsu'd-Din b.
Qays of Ray (xiii), ser Mu'jam
and Shams-i-Qays; Shamsu'd-
Dfn Juwayni (xiii), see Sahib -
Diwan ; Sam (Ghuri captain,
defender of Herat, put to death in
A.D. 130,7), 50; Shah (last
Mongol Il-khdn, put to death in
INDEX
A.D. 1338), 59; of Abarquh
(editor of the letters of Rashfdu'd-
Din Fadlu'llfli), 80; Mawlana -
Rumi (appointed Head of the
College at Arzanjan, xiv), 83 ;
b. 'Ali of Shabdnkira (author of
the Majma'u'l - Ansab, y.v.),
103; Sultan (Muzaffari prince
put to death by Timur in A.D.
J 393)> ^9, 190; Malik Kurt
(put to death by Timur in A.D.
1389), 180; Sultan b. Abu Sa 'id
of Tabas (revolted against Tfmur
in A.D. 1395), 192; Mawla'na
Quhistanf (one of Mira'nsha'h's
intimates put to death by Tfmur
in A.D. 1399), 195; al-Qddi
(accompanied Clavijo from Spain
to Tfmvir's court in A.D. 1404),
199; Kazaruni (a merchant
who befriends Hafiz, xiv), 285;
Qasim Astaraba"df (historian of
India), see Firishta; b.
Da>db{ (author of Latffa - i -
Ghaybiyya, q.v.), 300; Fini-
zaba'di (poet parodied by Mahmud
QaVi of Yazd), 352; Malik of
Sarakhs b. Mu'izzu'd-Din Kurt
(xix), 354; b. Sa'du'd-DmTafta"-
za"nf (d. A.D. 1434) ; I (Ottoman
Sultin, A.D. 1402-21), 356, 398,
400; II (Ottoman Sulta"n, A.D.
1451-1481), 370, 398, 400, 401,
405, 407-12;, Mfrz Sultan
(governor of Iraq, xv), 364;
Juki b. Shdh-rukh (d. A.D. 1444),
385 n. ; Mfrza b. Jahdnshkh
Qa"ra-qoyunlii (xv), 402 ; b.
AbuSa'id (xv), 410 ; Badakhshf
(poet and bearer of Jami's letter to
Sultan Bdyazfd II, xv), 423, 459;
b. Khawand Sha"h (historian,
xv), 431, see Mfrkhwand;
Sa"lih (poet contemporary with
Bbur), 459 ; b. Bdysunqur
(xv), 496; Mfrz b. 'Abdu'l-
Wahhib of Qazwin (contemporary
Persian scholar), i6n., 21, 66,
88 n., io6n., 153 n., 356 n., 448;
Iqbal (contemporary scholar),
269 n. ; - - Husayn Kha"n, see
Zuka'u'1-Mulk
Abu Muhammad of Tabriz (father of
Fadlu'll^h al-Hurufi), 367
Muhtasib, functions of , 164 n. ,
277 n.
Muhyi'd-Din. (divine, xiii), 27;
Shaykh ibnu'l-'Arabf (xiii), 63,
127, 128, 132, 139, 331, 446 n.,
447. 484. 5M
Mu'fna (near Ahar), 27
Mu'ln-i-IsfizaVi (author of a history of
Herat), 173, 430-1
Mu'fnu'd-Din. Parwana (xiv),
85, 106, 115, 127; of Yazd
(historian of the Muzaffarfs), 159,
161-2, 170, 359-60; of Kshdn
(astronomer, xv), 386
Muir, Sir William (author of Life
of Mahomet), 14411.
Mu'izzf (panegyrist of the Seljuqs), 522
Mu'izzu'd-Din. b. Ghiydthu'd-
Din Kurt (xiv), 57, 177, 178, 179,
211-14, 354; Jaha"ngfr b. Shall
Yahya" Muzaffari (xiv), 169
-Mu'jam ft Athdri Multiktl- 1 Ajam
(history of the ancient kings of
Persia by Fadlu'lldh al-Husayni,
xiii-xiv), 68
- Mu 'jamfi Ma 'dyiri Asfcdrtl- 'Ajam
(work on Persian prosody by
Shams-i-Qays, xiii), 16 n.
Mujir of Baylaqan (poet, xii), 65
*Mujmal of Fasihf of Khwdf (A.D.
1442), 426-8.' 'See Fasihi
Mukhayyat-ndma (mock-heroic poem
by Mahmud Qa"rf of Yazd, xv),
352
Mukhtari, clan or family of Qazwfn, 94
Mukhtasar. (of -Taftazanf, xiv),
354; u'd-Duwal (of Bar-
Hebraeus, q.v.), 18, 64;
// Ta'rikhfl-Bashar, see Abu'l-
Fida
Ibn Muljam (assassin of the Imam
J Alf, A.D. 661), 256 n.
Mult^n, 83, 125, 174
"
90
Mu'minan, clan or family of Qazwfn, 94
Munajjim-bdshl (by this title, " the
Astronomer in chief," Darwfsh, or
Dervfsh, Ahmad, author of the
history entitled Sahtfifu'l-Akhbdr,
is generally known), 383 n., 384
and n.; 387, 390, 403, 407, 409,
411, 414, 415, 4 i?n.
Munisu'l-Abrdr (by 'Imid of Kir-
man, A.D. 1364), 259
Munkir (name of one of the angels
who conducts the " Questioning
of the Tomb"), 522
Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', 'Abdu'llah (viii),
463, 504
572
INDEX
39
Ibn Muqla (calligraphist), 84
Murdd II (Ottoman Sultan, A.D.
1421-51), 383 n., 398, '400, 404
Mur^d Bey (nephew and envoy of
Uziin Hasan, A.D. 1461), 408, 418
Murad Pasha Palaeologus (xv), 412
Murghab, 175, 388
Murtad, Mir - - (philosopher and
chess-player), 456-7
Miisa. (the last Mongol ruler of
Persia, d. A.D. 1337), 17, 59;
the Kurd (pretended Mahdi,
xiv), 50; (brother of Sultan
Muhammad I, put to death about
A.r>. 1416), 401
Musafir, Darwfsh (Hurufi corre-
spondent, xiv), 368
Musalla(" the Oratory," near Shiraz),
238, 284, 291
MusSon, le , 112 n., 366 n. , 427,
428, 465, 467, 469 n.
Miish (town in Armenia), 188, 192
*Mush u Gurba (" the Mouse and the
Cat," poem by 'Ubayd-i-Zaka'nf),
230, 241-4
Mustafa^ Prince (son of Sultdn
Muhammad II, campaign against
Uzun Hasan, A.D. 1472-4), 411-12
-Mustakff (titular Caliph at Cairo,
xiv), 164 n.
-Musta'H (Fatimid Caliph, A.D. 1094-
noi), 154
-Mustansir (Fatimid Caliph, A.D.
i35-94) '54
-Musta'sim (the last 'Abbasid Caliph,
killed by the Mongols in A.D.
1258), 74
Mustawfi, clan or family of Qazwin,
94 ; Amin Nasr (resident in
Qazwm when it was sacked by the
Mongols in A.D. 1220), 96. See
also Hamdu'llah, Ta'rikh-i-
Guzid'a
Mustawfi l~ Mamdlik (" Chancellor of
the Exchequer "), 20
Mii'ta, Battle of (A.D. 629), 144 n.
-Mu'tadid (titular Caliph at Cairo,
A.D. 1352-62), 164 n.
-Mutanabbf (Arabic poet, x), 547
-Mutarrizf (grammarian, xiii), 272 n.
-Mutawwal (of -Taftazanf, xiv), 354
Mu'tazila (sect), 521 n.
Mutiny, Indian (A.D. 1857), 183 n.,
380, 391, 420
Muwaffaqu'd-Dawla 'AH (grandfather
of Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah), 69
Muy-dirdz (" long-haired, "nick-name
of the Sdhib-Dtwdrfs grandfather),
20. See under Juwayni
Muzaffar, House of (xiv), 60, 139,
1*60-70, 172, 173, 186, 188, 189,
190, 191, 193, 206, 208, 225, 258,
275. 284, 355, 356, 357; (gover-
nor of Qazwin when it was sacked
by the Mongols in A.D. 1220), 96-
7 ; Shall (artist, xv-xvi), 456,
459. 55
Muzaflfarf, clan or family of Qazwin,
94
Nadir Shah (A.D. 1736-47), 371 n.
Nafahdtu'l- Uns (written by Jamf in
A.D. 1476), 124, isgn., 140, 141 n.,
273. 283, 321, 331 n., 426 n., 434-
6, 458, 461 n., 475, 508, 512, 513
Na'in, 331
Najashi (envoy of Sultdn Bayazid to
Timur), 205
Najibu'd-Din. Kahhdl ('* the
oculist, " xiii, creature of Sa'du'd-
Dawla, q.v.), 32 ; Shaykh
Buzghiish (xiv), 484
Najmi (poet parodied by Bushaq),
350
Najmu'd-Dfn Kubri (xiii), 484
Nakhjuwan, 59, 165, 166, 187, 188,
400, 417
Nakfr, 522. See above under Munkir
Napoleon I (compared with Timur),
182
Naqdrfn-Nusus (composed by Jami
in A.D. 1458), 514
Naqibu'l-Ashrdf, Sayyid Taju'd-Din
,71
Naqshbandi, order of dervishes, 441,
f 452, 506
Narin Biiqa, Amfr (xiv), 57
Nasa (in Khurasan), 354
Nas'f, Shihdbu'd-Din (biographer
of Jalalu'd-Din Khwarazmshah,
xiii), 12
Nashat (acrostic on the name ),
124
Nasfmi (or Nesimi, Turkish poet put
to death for heresy in A.D. 1417),
368, 369 and n., 449, 498
Nasir. Ah-Malik al (Muhammad,
Sultan of Egypt, A.D. 1293-1340),
49- 5i, 53- 54. i?>; (Faraj.A.D.
1398-1412), 196, 197, 199; -
-i-Khusraw (Persian poet and
traveller, xi), 65, 154, 510; of
Bukhara (Persian poet), 352
INDEX
573
Nasfru'd-Din Tiisi (astronomer and
philosopher, xiii), 17, 18, 48, 67,
442, 50J
Abii Nasr. Hasan Beg Bahadur
Khn (xv), 103 ; i-Far^hf (poet
and author of the well-known
rhymed vocabulary entitled Nisdb-
i-Sibydn), 350
'Nassau Lees, Captain W. (editor
of the Nafahatu'1-Uns, q.v.),
435, 5<>8-9, 5 ion.
Nd'us^ (place), 81
Nawa'i. See Mir 'Ali Shir
Nawniz, Festival of the , 3240.;
(son of Rashidu'd-Din Fad-
lu'llah, xiv), 28 ; Amir (Ghdzan
Khan's general, xiii), 40, 41, 176
Nawruz u Gul (poem by Khwaju of
Kirman, xiii-xiv), 225, 226
Naw-Shahr, 30, 31, 59
Ndy-ndma ("Book of the Reed-flute,"
byjamf), 514, 548
Nayriz (in Firs), 356
Nayyir of Kirman (poet parodied by
Mahmud Qari of Yazd), 352
Ndzir u Manzur (poem by Katibi of
Nfshapiir, xv), 487
Nebuchadnezzar, 89, 250
Nejd (or Najd), 544
Neri, 399
Nesimf. See above Nasimi
Nestorians, u, 102
Nicholson, Dr R. A. 88, 95
Nicolas III, Pope (sends envoys
to Mongols in A.D. 1278), 19
Nicolas (Uljaytii said to have been
baptized under this name), 46
Nihawand, 193
Nikfsa (harper of Khusraw Parwfz),
267 and n.
Nikiidaris, 25, 177
Ni'matu'llah, Sayyid or Shdh of
Kirmdn (xiv-xv), 345, 350, 352,
353. 463-73, 497, 49 8
Nisha'piir, 112-15, 178,487, 488, 493
Nishapuriyan (clan or family of Qaz-
win), 94
Nizam. Khwaja (unidentified),
494; -i-Sham( (biographer of
Tfmur, xiv-xv), 159, 183, 197,
203, 361-2, 363, 365
Nizami. (poet of Ganja, xii), 65,
224, 226, 326 n., 348, 350, 387,
5>5, 5!. 522, 527, 536, 540-42;
i-'Arudf of Samarqand (author
of the Chahar Maqala, q.v,, xii),
65, 522
Nizamu'd-Din. Awliya" (Saint,
d. A.D. 1324), 108; Mah-
mud Qa"rf of Yazd (parodist),
211, 351-3; Abu'l-Ma'ilf Nas-
ru'llah (translator into Persian of
the Book of Kalila and Dimna,
xii), 463
Nizdrnu'l Mulk (minister to the Selj viqs
Alp Arslin and Maliksha~h, xi), 89
Nizdmrft- 7a7i/aV/^(historical manual
by al-Bayddwi, xiii), 63, 88, 100
Nizar (b. -Mustansir, Fdtimid prince,
. xi), 154
Nizari of Quhistan (poet, xiii-xiv),
154-5
Nogay (Mongol prince, xiii), 25
Northampton visited by Mongol envoy
in A.D. 1307, 1 1
North Sea, 6
Nu'min, Shah , son of the poet
Hafiz (buried at Burhanpur in
India), 289
Nuqta ("Point"), 470, 471
Niiru'd-Dfn. -- b. Shamsu'd-Din
Muhammad (author of the Ghdzdn-
ndma, composed in A.D. 1361),
103; Rasadf(xiii), 115; Shaykh
'Abdu'r-Rahma"n of Isfard'in
(xiv), 177, 191; Mull 'Abdu'r-
Rahman, see Jami; Khwaja
Lutfu'lldh, 424, see Hafiz Abril
Nuru'liah, Sayyid --of Shushtar
(author of Majalisu'l-Mii'minin,
q.v.), 44 n., 498
Nushfrwan (Sasanian king of Persia,
vi), 114, 119, 121 n., 250. See also
Chosroes, Kisra, Sasanians
Nusratu'd-Din. Ahmad b. Yvisuf
(Atabek of Lur-i-Buzurg, xiii-xiv),
68; Amir Sitay (governor of
Mawsil, xiii-xiv), 82
-Nustis (of Shaykh Sadru'd-Din al-
Qunyawf), 5 '4
Nuzhatrfl-Akhbdr (history by Firfdun
Bey, xvi), 204
Nuzhatu 'l-Qulub (geography by Ham -
du'llah Mustawfi of Qazwin, xiv),
63 n., 87, 93 n., 98-100
Odoric of Pordenone, Friar (xiv),
61
Oghurlu Muhammad b. Uziin Hasan
Bdyandari (xv), the "Curlu-
mameth" or " Ugurlimehemet "
of the Venetians, 403, 410, 413
Oghuz (legendary ancestor of the
Turks), 73
574
INDEX
Ogotdy (son and successor of Chingiz
Khan, A.D. 1227-41), 74, 383
d'Ohsson's Histoire des Mongols
(Amsterdam, 1834-5), 5, rin.,
12, 13, 15, 26 n., 49, 50, 53 n.,
54 n. , 58 n., 60, H2n.
Omar. See 'Umar
Omayyads. See Umayyads
Ong Khan, n n. See Prester John
Oriental Translation Fund, 448
Orphi, 389. See 'Urfa
'Osmdn, Amir (xvi), 417. See
also 'Uthman
Ottoman ('Osmnli) Turks, 4, 5, 107,
156, 164 n., 196, 198-9, 201, 204,
381, 398, 400-1, 404-5, 409,
410-14, 419-23, 433, 439, 444,
507. See also Turks, and under
the names of the several Ottoman
Sultans
Ouseley, Sir Gore , 152 n., 263,
273, 292, 328 n., 473 n.
Oxford, ^184
Oxus (Amu, Jayhtin), 4, 175, 190,
*94 379' 419
Paez de Santa Maria, Fray Alonzo
(xv), 199
Paladins, 394
Palaeologus, Michael (xiii), 18
Palmer, Professor E. H. , 300,
35 n.
Pilu (place), 82
Panipdt, Battle of (April 20, 1526),
393
Panj Ganj ("the Five Treasures,"
i.e. the five great romantic poems
of Nizami of Ganja, q.v., also
known as the "Quintet" or
Khamsa, q.v.), 326n.
Pan-Turanian movement, 14, 15
Paper currency. See Chao
Paris, 1 02, 237
Parsa, Khwaja (mystic), 514
Parthians (Muhiku't- Tawcftf), 90
and n.
Parwiz, Khusraw (Ssinian king,
vii), I2in., 2670.
Patyalf (India), 108
Pavet de Courteille, 392, 454, 455,
55 n -
Payne, 303
" Pehlevi-musulman," 367
Pekin (Khan-baligh, Cambaluc), 397,
398
Pen, the (Qalam), 220 n.
Persia Society, 304 n.
Persian Gulf, 3, 285, 379, 402
" Persian Historical Texts Series,"
43 6
Peruse, Francois de (archbishop of
Sultdniyya, A.D. 1322), 54
Petits de la Croix, 363
Petrograd, 11211., 2ion. See also
St Petersburg
Pharaoh, 89
Philip le Bel, 49
Pian de Carpine, Friar John of ,
8,9
Pfr Ahmad (of the Qaraman dynasty,
xv), 412
Pir 'Ali, Ghiyathu'd-Din Kurt
(xiv), 179, 180; (minister and
murderer of Khalil Sultan b.
Mfrdnshdh b. Tfmur, xv), 381;
(brother of Baha'u'd-Dfn Qdra
'Osma~n of the " White Sheep "
Turkmans, xiv), 404
"Pirameto." See Pir Ahmad
above
Pfrf Beg Qajar (commander of Shah
Isma'fl's army at the Battle of
Shurur), 417-8
Pfr Budaq b. Jahanshdh (of the ' ' Black
Sheep" Turkmans, xv), 402
Pfr Muhammad (son of Ghiyathu'd-
Dfn Pfr 'AH, q.v.}, 179, 180; -
b. Jahdngfr b. Tfmur, 186, 202,
38i
Pir Pasha (connected with Huruffs),
368
Pfr Sultan (son of Rashfdu'd-Dfn
Fadlu'llah), 84, 85
Pfshdadf (legendary) kings of Persia,
90
Plato, 18, 125
Pococke, 64 n.
"Point." See Nuqta
Poland, 6, to, 102
Popes, 8,9, 10, 19, 101, 102
Portugal, 1 02
Potiphar's wife, 531. See Zulaykha
Press and Poetry of Modern Persia
(by E. G. Browne), 15
Prester John, n, ign.
Price's Chronological Retrospect, 196
and n., 366 n.
Printing, Invention of ascribed to
Chinese, 14, 102-3
Prostitutes, Abu Sa'id's legislation
against (A.D. 1318-19), 53
Pul-i-Fas^ (in Fars), 168
Pur-i-Baha-yi-Jami (poet, xiii), m-
15, 177
INDEX
575
Qabiis b. Washmgir (Prince of
Tabaristan, x-xi), 221
Qadawi, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Qadiri, order of dervishes, 452
Qadi - zada - i - Rural (Salahu'd - Din
Musa, astronomer, xv), 386, 502
Qaf, mountains of , 3i6n., 349
Qajar tribe, 417, 418
Qal'a-i-Saftd ("the White Castle"
in Fars), 165, 168, 191
Qalandar, 124, 125
Qala'un (Mamliik Sultan of Egypt,
A. D. 1279-90), 26 n.
Qdmdn (Mongol medicine-men), in,
112 and n.
Qamaru'd-Din (xiv), 186
Qdtnus of -Firiizabadi, 357
Qandahar, 187, 456
Qani'i (poet, xiii), in
Qara- bagh (near Arran), 57, 166, 188,
196, 197, 199, 201, 417, 503
Qara-Buqa ("Black Bull," xiii-xiv),
82
Qarachar Noyan (Mongol ancestor of
Timur), 185
Qdra Iluk (" the Black Leech," nick-
nameof Qara 'Osman Aq-qoyunlu,
xiv), 404
Qara-Khita'i, dynasty of Kirman, xiii-
xiv), 48, 92
Qaraman (formerly Laranda in Asia
Minor), 155, 411; dynasty of ,
401
Qara Muhammad b. Bayram Khwaja
Qara-qoyunlii (xiv), 399
Qaranqay (Mongol prince executed),
33
Qara 'Osman CUthman); see above
under Qara Iluk
Qaraqorum (the Mongol metropolis),
8, 405
Qara-qoyunlu (" Black Sheep " Turk-
mans), 173, 379, 380, 381, 382,
387, 388, 399, 401, 403, 404, 407-9
Qara Sunqur (xiv), 53
Qarawul, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Qara Yusuf ("Black Joseph") son of
Qara Muhammad, q,v., 173,
192, 196, 204, 206, 380, 382, 399,
400, 401, 404, 409
Qars (in Armenia), 188
Qasimu'l-Anwar (poet, xv), 352, 366,
438, 473-86
Abu 1-Qasim Babur (Timiirid prince,
xv), 311, 387
Qasr-i-Zard (in Fars), 355
Qatada (family of at Mecca), 51
Qayin, 155
Qaysariyya (Caesarea), 83, 85
Qazwin, 57, 87, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98,
190, 195, -230, 231, 232, 233, 234,
255. 256, 257, 368, 400
-Qazwini, Zakariyya b. Muhammad
(geographer, xiii), 64
Qibla, 522 and n.
Qinnasrin, 81, 86
Qipchaq, 321, 354, 388, 398
Qisasul - Anbiyd ("' Tales of the
Prophets "), 88
Qiwam, Hajji (xiv), 276 and n.,
292
Qiwamu'1-Din. Mawlana of
Shiraz (xiv), 166, 292 ; 'Ab-
du'llah of Shiraz (xiv), 272 ; Maw-
lana (connected with Hurufls,
xiv), 368 ; Ustad (architect to
Shah-rukh, xv), 384, 498
Qizil Arslan (ruler of 'Iraq, xiv), 225
Qizil-bdsh (" Red-heads "), 416-17
Qonya (Iconium), 63, in, 127, 411,
445. 479
Quatremere, 69, 70, 72, 74 n., 75, 76,
77, 78 n., 79, 80, 397, 429
Qubad b. Iskandar Qara-qoyunlu
(xv), 402
Qubilay ("Kubla") Khan (xiii), 19,
27 74
Qudsi (poet of Herat, xv), 438, 499
Quhistan, 155, 156
Qul-Muhammad (musician patronized
by Mir 'AH Shir Nawa'i), 505
Qum, 27, 364, 389, 416
Qumis, 27
Qumishah, 169
Qunquratay (Mongol noble put to
death, A.D. 1284), 26
Qur'dn, 27, 36 n., 63, 76, 84, 86, 92,
125, 165, 166, 175, 215, 259 n.,
272, 274, 289, 311, 363, 367, 385,
442, 478 n., 479 n., soon., 501 n.,
507. 5i4> 5'8, 520, 532
Quraysh, 89
Qiishjf, Mulla 'Ala'u'd-Din 'AH
(astronomer, xv), 386
Ibn Qutayba, 88
Qutb-i-Jahan (xiii), 41
Qu'tbu'd-Din. - Muhammad Kh-
warazmshdh (A.D. 1199-1220), 20,
66; Mas'ud of Shiraz (xiii-xiv),
83 ; (ruler of Kirman, xiv), 163 ;
- Mahmiid b. Mubarizu'd-Din
Muhammad (Muzaffarf, bom A.D.
1336), 163; Amfr (son of Say-
yid Amir Hajji Darra"b, xiv), 164;
576
INDEX
(envoy of Timiir), 167, 282 ;
Na"'i (courtier of Mira"nshah, put
to death by Timur in A.D. 1399),
195 ,
QutlughTurkan Agha (sister of Timur,
d. A.D. 1382), 186
Rabab-nama (of Sultan Walad or
Veled, xiii), 156
Rabban Sawmd (member of Arghun's
mission to Europe in A.D. 1287-8),
3 1
Rab'-i-Rashfdf (or Rashf diyya, q.v.),
71, 75, 77,82,^84,86
Rabi'f (poet of Bushanj, xiv), 150-2,
i74 43 *
Radloff, 156
Rdfidis (Rdfizis), 234, 519, 521 and n.
See Shi'a
Rafi'f. author of a work entitled
Tadwin, 93 ; clan or family of
Qazwfn, 94
Raff'i (or Refi'f, Turkish Huriifi poet,
xv), 369, 449
Rafi'u'd-Din-i-Abhari (poet, xiii-xiv),
154
Rafsinjdn, 163
Rahba (Rah bat) in Syria, 51, 8 1
Rakhsh (Rustam's war-horse), 535,
536 n.
Ramusio, Giovan Battista , 381 n.,
405
Rasadi, Nuru'd-Dfn (xiii), 115
Rashahdt-i- l Ayml-Haydt (composed
by 'Ali b. Husayn-i-Kdshifi in
A.D. 1503), 434, 441-2
Rashidu'd-Din. Fadlu'llah (states-
man, physician and historian, put
1,0 death by Abu Sa'id the Mongol
Il-Khan in A.D. 1318), 17, 31, 41,
43, 46-7, 48, 49, 50, 51-2, 56, 67,
68-87, 89, 94, 100, 10 1, 194,
328n., 424; Watwat (poet,xii),
65
Rashidiyya (quarter of Tabriz), 70,
328. See also above under Rab'-
i-Rashfdi
Rasht, 489
Raverty, the late Colonel 's manu-
scripts, 67 n., I5on., 2 ion., 426,
427'
Raivdatttl-Anwdr (poem by Khwajti
of Kirman composed in A.D. 1342),
226
* Rawdatu 1 1 Janndt (history of Herat
to A.D. 1473 by Mu'fn of Isfizdr),
173-4, 179 n-
Raivdatu's-Safd (general history by
Mfrkriwand, y.v.), 161, 174, 388,
389, 431-3, 434, 439
Rawdatu 'sh - Shuhadd (by Husayn
Wd'iz-i-Ka'shiff, xv), 434, 441, 442
*Rawdatu UlVl-Arbdb (composed in
A.D. 1317 by Fakhru'd-Din Bana-
kati), 100-103
Rawdu'r-Riydhin (by -Y^fi'f), 88 n.
Rawha, 192
Ray (Rhages), 16, 27, 187, 190, 193,
194, 199, 265, 382, 386, 402
"Red Heads," 416. See also Qizil-
bash
Reff'f. See Rafi'f supra
Rehatsek, 431
Religious Systems of the World (i 892),
53.2 n.
Renaissance, 5
Rend of Anjou, King , 395
Revisky (translator of Hafiz), 303
Rhages. See Ray supra
Rida-quli Khan Lala-bdsM, poetically
named Hiddyat (Persian states-
man, writer and poet, xix), 140,
141, 222-3, 2 ?2, 432, 465, 481 n.,
495. See also Farhang-i-Anju-
man-ara-yi-Nasiri, Riyadtrl-
'Arifin and Majma'u'l-Fusaha
RicU Tawffq (Riza Tevfiq, called
' ' Feylesiif Riz^, " contemporary
Turkish scholar and politician),
103, 375, 450
Rieu, Dr Charles , 58 n., 67, 68,
95 n., 96, icon., 103, 1 1 1, i84n.,
203, 223, 226, 321, 328, 33 2 ,355.
360, 361, 363, 364, 386, 424, 425,
429, 430 n., 436, 437, 440, 441,
443> 453, 4 6 o n., 464, 473, 495 n.,
502 n.
Rijdlu^l-Ghayb ("Men of the Unseen
World"), 276 n.
Risdla-i-Amdna (by Qa"simu'l-Anwar,
xiv-xv), 475
*Risdla-i-Dilgushd (by 'Ubayd-i-Za-
kanf, xiv), 232, 235, 254-7
Risdla-i-Qushayriyya, 88
Risdla-i-Sad Pand (by 'Ubayd-i-
Zdkani, A.D. 1350), 232, 235
Risdla-i-Shdhid (by Mahmiid Shabis-
tari, xiv), 149
Risdla-i-Sultdniyya (by Rashidu'd-
Dfn P'adlu'lldh, A.D. 1307), 76
Risdla-i-TahlUiyya (by Jamf, xv), 5x4
Rlsh-ndma (the " Book of the Beard,"
by 'Ubayd-i-Za'kani, xiv), 235,
237. 2 5i
INDEX
577
Riyddu'l-'Arifin (by Rid^-qulf Khan,
xix), 272, 331 n.
Rizd. See Ri'da
Rizwan or Ridwdn, the custodian of
Paradise, 215
Rockhill, W. W. , 8n.
Rogers, A., 516, 531
Rome, Romans, 3, 102, 311, 405
Romulus, 102
Rosen, Baron Victor , 17411., 2ion.,
424 n., 425, 426, 427, 509
von Rosenzweig, Vincenz Edlem ,
5'6, S3L 53 2 542
von Rosenzweig-Schwannau, Vincenz
Ritter , 200, 302, 305. See also
Hafiz
Ross, Sir E. Denison , 108, 131,
170 n., 184, 259, 364 n., 392
Royal College of Hera~t, 504
Rubruck, Friar William of (Rubru-
quis), 8, 9
Ruckert, 542
Rudakf (poet, x), 522
Rudbar, 368
Rufa'i, order of dervishes, 452
Rukndbad (stream of near Shfra'z),
238, 284, 291
Ruknu'd-Dfn. Khurshdh (late
Grand Master of the Assassins of
Alamiit, xiii), 25 ; Sa'in (prime
minister to Abu Sa'fd the Mongol,
A.D. 1324), 54, 55; Qadf Ju-
waynf (one of the sources of the
Ta'rikh-i-Guzida, q.v.), 89;
Malik Abu Bakr b. Taju'd-Din
'Uthman (ancestor of the Kurt
kings of Herat, xiii), 174, 175 ;
b. Shamsu'd-Dln-i-Kurt, known as
Kihin, "the Lesser" (A.D. 1278-
1307), 176; Shaykh 'All'u'd-
Dawla of Simnan, 223 ; (un-
identified, praised by 'Ubayd-i-
Zaka"ni, xiv), 235
Rum, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 106. Seealso
Asia Minor, Turkey
Rumhi (one of the nine tribes which
supported Shah Isma'fl the Safawi
in A.D. 1500), 417
Rumelia, 412
Russia, Russians, 5, 6, 9, 10, 190, 192
Rustam. (the legendary hero of
Persia), 3i6n.; Beg (general of
Jahanshah beheaded by Uzun
Hasan in A.D. 1456), 408 ; b.
Maqsud Aq-qoyunld (xv), 415,
416; of Khuriya'n (poet, xv),
501
B.P.
Ruthenians, 9
RAyatu'lldh ("the Vision of God"),
301 n.
Sad'a (the "Septet" of Jamf, also
called Haft Awrang, q.v.), 515
Sabzawa"r, 160, 161, 178, 186, 208,
212, 498
de Sacy, Silvestre , 432 n.
Sad Pand (by 'Ubayd-i-Zsikanf, xiv),
251
Sad Wa'z (by Mahmiid Qa"rf of Yazd,
xv), 352
Sa'd b. Abu Bakr, Atbek of Fdrs
(xiii), 121
Sa'di, Shaykh Muslihu'd-Din of
Shir^z (xiii), 15, 16, 70, 100, 105,
106, 115, 116, 119, 139, 143, 153,
224, 232 n., 238, 293, 329, 348,
350. 352, 4i. 484. 485, 486, 510,
516, 522, 529, 531, 548
Sa'df, order of dervishes, 452
Sadr-i-Jahan. Sadru'd-pfn Ahmad-
i-Khdlidf of Zanjan (prime minister
to Gaykhtu, A.D. 1291-5), 31, 37,
39, 69; Jamalu'd-Dfn Dastajirda"n(
(prime minister to Baydii, A.D.
1295), 41 ; Mawlan of Bu-
khdr^, 82
Sadru'd-Din. Ahmad-i-Khdlidi,
see immediately above ; Shaykh
Ibrahfm (xiii), 40; Shaykh
Qunyawi (of Qonya, Konia or
Iconium), 63, 127, 445, 514;
'AH b. Nasfru'd-Din Tiisi (xiii),
67; Shaykh b. Bah'u'd-D(n
Zakariyya" (xiii-xiv), 81 ; Mawl&ia"
Muhammad Turka'f (xiii-xiv),
81, 83; Qayruw^ni (parodied
by Bushdq), 350 ; Mawldna
(connected with the Hurufis, xiv),
368 ; Shaykh of Ardabil (an-
cestor of the Safawi kings, xv),
473, 474, 484 ; Shaykh Yamani
(xiv), 473
Sa'du'd-Dawla (Jewish minister of
Arghiin, A.D. 1284-91), 31-6
Sa'du'd-Din. Hamawi (xiii), 40 ;
of Sa"wa (xiii-xiv), 48, 50, 69,
70; Mas'ud b. 'Umar-Taftl-
zani (xiv), 159, 353-4. 45 8 ; b.
Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llih (xiii-
xiv), 84, 86 ; b. Nasir (parodied
by Busha"q), 350; Wara"winf
(author of Persian version of the
Marzubdn-ndmci) , 356
-Safadf (xiv), 356
37
578
INDEX
Safawi dynasty (A.D. 1502-1736), 160,
207, 3i5 3 l6n -, 3i7 379- 3 8 .
39 6 397, 399> 4> 47> 414. 416,
417-20, 421 n., 434, 439,459,464,
473. 475. 484, 507
Saffaii dynasty (A.D. 867-900), 91
Saff-i-Ni*dl (the "shoe-row"), 323 n.
Saff or Safiyyu'd-Din of Ardabil,
Shaykh (ancestor of the Safawi
kings), 85, 474, 484-6
Saffnatti'sh-Shu'ard (Turkish trans-
lation of Da wlatshah's " Memoirs of
thePoets"bySulayma~nFahmi),436
Saghari (poet, satirized by Jmi), 512
Sahd'ifu l-Akhbdr (general history in
'Turkish by Munajjim-bashi,
q.v.), 383 n., 384 n., 385 n., 403 n.,
407
Sahban b. Wa'il, 116 and n.
Sdhib-Diwdn - \ - Juwaynf, Shamsu'd-
Dm (xiii), 20-24, 2 7-3 J . 66,
106, 115, 121, 153, 175
Sdkib-Qirdn (" Lord of the Fortunate
Conjunction," title given to Ti-
miir, q.v.}, 185
S'ib (Persian poet), 292
Abti Sa'id. b. Abi'l-Khayr (mystic
and poet, xi), 65, 121 ; (Mongol
Il-Khan of Persia, A.D. 1317-35),
4 8, 51-8, 59, 71, 74, 95, 99, 103,
159, l6o, 170, 171, 178, 215, 222,
226, 251, 261, 352(?), 389. 429-
30 ; Sultaii (grandson of Miran-
shah b. Tfmur, xv), 388-90, 402,
406, 409-10, 42 in., 429, 487 n.,
506 n.
St Albans, 6
St Bartholomew's Hospital, 303
St Peter, 102
St Petersburg, 2 ion., 425, 509. See
also Petrograd.
St Sophia (Constantinople), 367
Sa'mu'd-Din Tarika (saint, xv), 489
-Sakkkf (author of Miftdhu'l-' UMm,
xiii), 272 n.
Sakyamuni (Buddha), 73
Salahu'd-Din Musd, 386. See Qadi-
zada-i-R\imf
*Saldmdn u Absdl (poem by Jami,
xv), 523-6
Salemann, 156
Salgharid Atdbeks of Firs (xii-xiii),
73. 74. 9 2
Salihiyya cemetery (Damascus), 128
Salim. (or Selim) "the Grim"
(Ottoman Sultan, xvi), 107 and
n. ; (Persian poet), 292
Salf Noyan, 174
Saljuqs. See Seljuqs
Saljuq-ndma (of Zahiri of Nishapur),
89
Salma (woman's name), 544, 545
Salmon of Sawa (poet, xiv), 60, 159,
171, 172, 211, 230, 233, 234, 260-
71, 291, 293, 296-8, 325, 348, 350,
352, 490, 491, 522
Salmas, 188
Sam. (legendary hero of Persia,
grandfather of Rustam), 3i6n. ;
Mirzd (Safawi prince, xvi, author
of the Tuhfa-i-Sami, q.v.}, 439,
459. 57. 5.14
Samak (the Fish which supports the
Earth), 113 and n.
Sa~manid dynasty (x), 91, 522
Samarqand, 169, 180, 186-9, 191-4,
196, 197, 199, 202, 206, 283, 329,
354, 355. 362, 368, 381, 386, 390,
394, 418, 428, 436, 438, 464, 473,
491, 502
Sana'f (poet, xii), 65, 261, 343, 344,
352, 522
Sanguinetti, 64 n.
San Lucar, 201
Santa Maria, 199
Sarb, Sarai, Sara\v, Sary, 53 n.,
122, 321,473
Saracens, 9
Sarakhs, 186, 354
Sarandib (Ceylon), 122
Sariw-rud, 70
Saray Khtun (or Sa"ra Khatun, mother
of Uzun Hasan, xv), 407, 408 n.
Sarbadar dynasty of Sabzawar (xiv),
60, 160, 161, 178-80, 208, 210,
in, 216, 498
Sarf-i-Mlr (by - Sharif- Jurjdnf, xiv,
xv), 355
Sa"rf (Mdzandara~n), 494
Sarjam (near Zanjan), 426
Sasanian kings of Persia (iii-vii), 3,
14, 68, 74, 90, 119, 120, 121, 250,
267, 414, soon.
Sa"ti Beg (daughter of Uljaytu, and
queen in A.D. 1339), 51, 53, 55,
59. !7
Savinj (Sevinj), Amir (d. A.D.
1318), 52
Savinj (Sevinj), Qutlugh Agha" (niece
of Timiir, xiv), 179
Sawa, 55, 400
Sawdnih (by Shaykh Ahmad Ghaz-
zlf), 135 and n.
Sawda'f, Bb (poet, xv), 438
INDEX
579
Sawma, Rabban (one of envoys
sent by Arghun to Europe in A.D.
1287-8), 31
Sayfi. of Herat (historian), 174,
[76, 431 ; of Bukhara (poet,
xv), 438, 458
Sayfu'd-Din. of Isfarang (poet,
xiii-xiv), 154; Shah (praised
by Bushaq), 350; Amir Mah-
miid (father of Amir Khusraw,
xiii), 1 08
Sayyids, heretical (xiv), 190
Sayyid-i-Sharif-i-Jurjanf (xiv), 159,
1 66, 189-90, 355
Schefer, M. Charles , 89 n.
Schiltberger, Johann (xiv-xv), 404 n.
Schlechta-Wssehrd, 216, 515
Scotland, Scotch, 43, 102
"Sechaidar," " Secheaidare " (Italian
corruption of Shaykh Haydar.
q.v.), 416 n.
Sedillot, 502 n.
Seljuqs, 73, 74, 83, 91-2, in
Seven Heavens, 248 and n.
" Seven Lean Years," 325 n.
" Seven Years' Campaign " of Timiir,
196
Seville, 199
Sevinj. See Savinj
Shabaran, 83
Shabistar, 146
Shabistari, Shaykh Mahimid
(mystical poet, xiii-xiv), 146-50,
300, 484
Shad Malak (the beloved of Khalil
Sultan, xv), 381-2
Shafatha, 81
Shafi'f (sect), 46, 50, 70, 97, 98, 356
Shah u Gadd (" the King and the
Beggar," poem by Hilali), 459
Shah Jahan. Qara-Khita'i (ruler
of Kirman, A.D. 1301-3), 48;
Timiir (descendant of Abaqa, xiv),
60; -- (Mogul Emperor, A.D.
1628-59), 184, 391
Shdh-ndma (of Firdawsi, xi), 65, 89,
95, 104, in, 316 n., 352, 385,
53 2 . 541
Shah-rukh. b. Timur (A.D. 1404-
47), 74, 169, 192, 193, 194, 344,
364, 366, 379, 380-7, 393, 395,
398, 400, 401, 404, 421 n., 424,
425, 427-8, 435, 438, 464, 473,
475, 498, 501, 502; b. Abu
Sa'id (Timurid, xv), 410
Shah Shuja' (Muzaffari, xiv), 163,
164, 165, 166-7, !69, 172, 186,
206, 258, 264, 276 n., 278, 279,
280, 281-2, 290, 299, 355, 357,
360
Shahi. Amir (poet of Sabzawar,
xv), 352, 438, 498, 501 ; Khatun
(daughter of Rashidu'd-Din Fad-
lu'llah, xiii-xiv), 84
Shdhinshdh-ndma (or Chingiz-ndma)
of Ahmad of Tabriz (A.D. 1337),
103
Shahr-i-Naw, 398
Shahr-i-Sabz (Kash.near Samarqand)
194
Shakh-i-Nabat (alleged sweetheart of
Hafiz), 287
Sham (Damascus, a word-play on the
name), 122
Shamakhi, 83, 417
Shamans, 44
Sham'i. See Shem'i
Shamlvt (one of the nine tribes who
supported Shah Isma'il the Sa-
fawi), 417
Shams. i-Qays (prosodist, xiii),
16; i-Tabrfz (mystic, xiii), 139,
343, 465, 484; i-Tabasi (poet), 65 ;
Amir (connected with Hurufis,
xiv), 368 ; i-'Ala (poet satirized
by Katibi, xv), 492-3
Shamsu'd-Din. Muhammad-i-
Juwayni, entitled Sahib -Diwan,
q.v. ; (grandfather of the pre-
ceding, xii), entitled Bu2urg(" the
Great") and Muy-dirdz ("the
Long-haired"), 20; Mawlana
(xiii), 28; b. Ruknu'd-Din-i-
Kurt (xiii), 57, 174, 175; -
Muhammad- i- Kurt (xiv), 177-8;
Qadi Muhammad b. Hasan
(xiii-xiv), 8 1 ; Muhammad-i-
Abarqiihi (xiii-xiv) , 86 ; Sayyid
(connected with Hurufis, xiv),
368; (ruler of Akhlat in A.D.
1425), 401; Amir Zakariyya
(first Prime Minister of Shah Is-
ma'il the Safawi, A.D. 1500), 417;
Gilani (first Chancellor of Shah
Isma'il, A.D. 1500), 417
Shanb-i-Ghazani, 361
Shapiir. I (Sasanian king, iii),
93; (unidentified, xv), 494
- Shaqaiqu'n - Nu'mdntyya (bio-
graphies of Ottoman divines), 369
Sharafu'd-Din. Harun-i-Juwayni
(poet and patron of poets), 20-1 ;
Hasan Mustawfi (xiii-xiv), 82 ;
Mawlana i-Tabasi (xiii-xiv),
5 8o
INDEX
86 ; 'Ali Yazdi (biographer of
Timur, xv), 159, 181, 183, 189,
190, 191, 196, 197, 198, 201, 202,
2 3> 356, 361, 362-5, 385, 438,
see also Zafar-nama; Muzaf-
far b. Mubarizu'd-Din) A.D. 1325-
53)) *63; Kami (author of the
Anhil- i Ushshdq) A.D. 1423), 462
Sharafiyya College (in Taft of Yazd),
364
Shash (or Chach, the modern Tash-
kand), no, 320 and n.
Shattu'l- 'Arab, 511 and n.
Shawdhidrfn-Nubuwwa (" Evidences
of Prophethood, " composed by
Jami in A.D. 1480), 512-13
Shaybani Khan the Uzbek (xv-xvi),
380, 390, 393, 418-19, 459
Shaykhi b. Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah
(xiii-xiv), 84
Shaykhi Na'i (musician, xv-xvi), 505
Shaykhum Suhayli, Amir (poet,
xv), 438, 457
Shem'i (Turkish commentator of
Hafiz), 299
Shibli. ' Sultan b. Shah Shuja'-i-
Muzaffari (xiv), 167, 169 ;
Nu'mani (Indian critic and scholar,
xix-xx), 108, 261, 265, 267, 269,
2 7 r > 273, 2 74 280 n., 289, 291,
292 n., 293, 296
Shihab, Mawlana 'AH of Turshiz
(poet, xv), 498
Shihabu'd-Din. -Nasa'i (bio-
grapher of Jalalu'd-Din Manko-
birni, xiii), 12; Suhrawardi
(Shafi'i doctor of Baghdad, xiii-
xiv), 70, 139; Amir (governor
of Baghdad, xiii-xiv), 82 ; b.
Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah (xiii-
xiv), 84 ; - - Haydar (satirized
by 'Ubayd-i-Zakani, xiv), 238 ;
Shaykh Qalandar (satirized
by 'Ubavd-i-Zakani, xiv), 257 ;
Shaykh 'Abdu'llah (or 'Azi-
zu'llah) of Khwaf, 426, 428. See
also Hafiz Abrii
Shi'a, Shi'ites, 42, 44, 50, 51, 178,
224, 255, 256, 301, 315, 372, 416,
418, 441, 456, 458, 464, 475, 498,
511, 521 n. See also Rafidis
Shiraz, 15, 16, 30, 33, 38, 39, 84, 86,
163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 188,
189, 190, 191, 206, 208, 225, 230,
231. 237, 238, 274, 276 n., 277,
281, 282, 283, 303, 31 r, 344, 355,
35 6 . 357. 358, 359> 363, 366, 410,
413, 418, 423, 427, 436, 444, 485,
486, 500
Shfrdz-ndma (composed in A.D. 1343
by Shaykh Fakhru'd-Din), 360-1
Shirin (the beloved of Khusraw Par-
wiz), 329, 547
Sh^ru'l-'Ajam (by Shibli Nu'mani,
g.v.), 108, 109, 261,265,273, 292n.
Shirwan, 374, 401, 416, 417, 449,
488, 494, 495
Shirwan-shah (xiii-xiv), 83, 225
Shirzad, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Shuja', Shah . See above under
Shah Shuja'
Shurur, Battle of (A.D. 1502), 379,
417-18
Shushtar, 166, 168, 189, 191
Sibak (poet, xv), 438
Sihun. See Jaxartes
Silesia, 6
* 'Sihilatu 'dh- Dhahab (the "Chain of
Gold," composed by Jami in A.D.
1485), 510, 516-23
Sihilatu' n-Nasab-i-Saf aw iyya (a rare
work on the Genealogy of the
Safawi kings of Persia), 474, 484
Simak (the star Arcturus), 113
Simi (poet and calligraphist, xv), 488,
493
Simnan, 55, 81, 190
Simurgh, 316
Sinai, Mount , 114
Sind, 83
Sindibad-ndma (Turki translation of
). 94
Sinjar (place near Mawsil), 82, 399
Sinope, 205
Siraju'd-Din of Dizful, Khwaja
(government auditor, xiii-xiv), 83
Sirdt, Bridge of , 522
Sirdtu 'n- Nabi ("Biography of the
Prophet," probably Ibn Hisham's),
88 and n.
Sirjan, 169, 190, 192
Sistan, 86, 91, 160, 175, 177, 181,
186, 187, 193, 388, 392, 456
Siwas, 83, 192, 196, 204, 205, 206,
44 4' 7
Siyah-push Kafirs, 193
Siyarifl-Muluk (" Biographies of the
Kings"), 89. The work here in-
tended is the Siyasat-nama, q.v.
Siydsat-ndma (by the Nizamu'1-Mulk,
xi), 88-9
Siyawush, 317-18
de Slane, Baron McGuckin , 64 n.,
462 n.
Smith, Vincent A. (historian of
Akbar's reign), 393 n.
Smyrna, 199
Solivero, of Barcelona (Spanish envoy
at Ghazan's court about A.D.
1300), 44
Solomon, 317 n.
Somnath, 477
" Sortes Vergilianae, " 311
" Spaan," "Spaham" (Italian cor-
ruptions of Isfahan, q.v.), 389,
410
Spain, Spaniards, Spanish, 4, 44,
199-201, 396
Sprenger (Catalogue of the Library of
the King of Oude), 125 and n.,
155 and n.
Ssufismus (by Dr Tholuck), 147
Stewart, Major Charles (translator
of Malfuzdt-i- Tttnurl, 1830), 184
le Strange, Guy , 63 n., 70 n., 80,
93 n., 99, 100, 155 n., 304, 356 n.,
426
Strassburg or Strasbourg, 107 n.
*Subhatu'l-Abrdr (the ' ' Rosary of the
Pious," by Jami, xv), 516, 528-31
-Subki (scholar and lecturer at Da-
mascus, xiv), 357
Subutay (Mongol general, xiii), 25,
9<5, 97
Siidi (Turkish commentator of Hafiz),
299, 302
Sufiism, Sufis, 85, 92, 319 n., 417,
Suhayli. See Anwar-i , Shayk-
hum
Sulayman., Khan (one of the last
puppet Il-khans of Persia, xiv),
60 ; Sultan " the Magnificent "
(Qdnunt, A.D. 1520-66), 396 ;
Prince (brother of Sultan Mu-
hammad I, killed in A.D. 1410),
400, 404 ; Fahmi (translator of
Dawlatshah's "Memoirs of the
Poets " into Turkish), 436
Abii Sulayman Da'ud. See Banakati
Sulayman Kuh, 193
Sultan 'All. (elder brother of
Shah Isma'il the Safawi), 416;
(calligraphist of Mashhad, xv), 459
Sultan Veled (or Walad, son of Maw-
lana Jalalu'd-Din Ruini and author
of the Rabdb-ndma, xiii), 155-6
Sultaniyya, 48, 51, 53, 54, 55, 61, 67,
70, 81, 166, 187, 190, 192, 400, 401
Sunnis, 50, 178, 238, 256, 301, 315,
418, 419, 521
INDEX 581
Sunqur Bawarchi (governor of Basra,
xiii-xiv), 8 1
Surghatmish Qara-Khita'i (ruler of
Kirman, xiii), 163
Sururi (Turkish commentator of
Hafiz), 299
Sus/8i '
Suwarutl-Aqdlim (geographical work
by Abu Zayd Ahmad b. Sahl al-
Balkhi), 99
Suyurghatmish (son of Shah-rukh,
died A.D. 1426-7), 385 n.
-Suyiiti, 'Abdu'r- Rahman Jalalu'd-
Din (historian and polymath,
xv), 164 n.
Siizani (poet and satirist, xii), 257
Swan and Sonnenschein (publishers),
532 n -
Syria, Syrians, 19, 41 , 42, 51, 53, 69,
85, 86, 92, 127, 197, 205, 397,
404, 408, 417, 466, 468
Syriac language, 12, 31
Synagogues (destroyed by Ghazan in
Persia about A.D. 1295), 40
Tababakan (clan or family of Qaz-
win), 94
Tabaqdtu'l-Atibbd ("Lives of the
Physicians" by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a,
xiii), 63-4
Tabarak, Castle of , 165
-Tabari (the historian Muhammad
Jarir ), 88, 220 n.
Tabaristan, 221
fabas, 55
Tabriz, 27, 28, 33, 38, 40, 46, 61, 70,
79, 82, 86, 103, 146, 161, 165,
166, 172, 173, 175, 187, 199, 201,
208, 230, 317, 3 2 o, 321, 3*8, 329,
330, 361, 362, 368, 379- 4> 403.
406, 410, 413, 414, 416, 418,
473
Tacitus, 80
Tadwin of -Rafi'i, 93 ; of -Yafi'i,
88
Tadhkirattfl-Awliyd (" Memoirs of
the Saints," by 'Attar, xiii), 88
Tadhkiratu'sh-Shu''ard (" Memoirs of
the Poets," by Dawlatshah,y.z>.),
434
Taf&ul (auguries from Hafiz, etc.),
311-19
Taft (near Yazd), 364
Taftazan (in Khurasan), 354
-Taftazani. See Sa'du'd-Din and
Ahmad b. Sa'du'd-Din
Ibn Taghribardi (historian), 58
373
582 INDEX
Tahir. Abiwardi (poet, xv), 501 ;
of Faryiimad, 1 1 1
Abu Tahir-Khatuni (Persian poet and
writer), 65
Tahmasp, Shah I (Safawi, A.D.
1524-76), 316 and n., 381 n., 400,
418, 419
Tahqiq i - Madhhab - i - Sufiydn (by
Jami, xv), 514
Tdtyya (poem by 'Umar ibnu'l-
Farid), I33n., 514
Tajd ribul- Umam (of Ibn Miska-
wayhi), 88
Tajik, 466, 468
Tajrid (commentary on by al-
Qushji, xv), 386
Taju'd-Dfn. Awaji( Shi 'ite divine
contemporary with Uljaytii, xiv),
50 ; Sayyid Naqibrfl-Ashrdf
(xiv), 70-1 ; Sayyid (connected
with Hunifis, xiv), 368 ; ' Uth-
man-i-Marghini (ancestor of the
Kurt kings, xii-xiii), 174
Tajziyatu'l-Amsdr. See Ta'rikh-i-
Wassaf
Takalu (one of the nine tribes who
supported Shah Isma'il in A.D.
1500), 417
Takhtakh Inju (xiii-xiv), 83
Takrit, 191
Takudar. See Ahmad Takudar
Talib of Jajarm (poet, xv), 438
Abu Talib al-Husayni (translator or
author of the supposed autobio-
graphical works of Timtir, xvii),
184
Talish b. Amir Hasan (xiv), 170
Talmih (allusion), 243
Tamanna'i (Turkish Hunifi poet, xiv),
370
Tamerlane (corruption of Tim&r-i-
Lang, "Limping Timvir "), see
Timiir
Tamimi (clan or family of Qazwin),
94
Tanasuri (place), 398
Taraghay (father of Timur), 185
Taramtaz, Amir (xiv), 50
*Ta'rifat ("Definitions"). - of
'Ubayd-i-Zakani (xiv), 232, 235,
252-4, 276 ; of -Sayyid^Sharif-
Jurjani (xiv-xv), 355
Ta'rikh. - - *i-Bandkati (composed
in A.D. 1317). 100-3; i-Ghd-
zdnf, 72 ; see Jami'u't-Tawa-
rikh ; i- Guztda (composed in
A.D. 1330), 17, 56, 57n., 87-95,
115, 118, 119, 162, i66n., 167,
168 n., 224, 231 n., 360 ; i-Jrdn
(by Zuka'u'l-Mulk.'xix), 383 n. ;
i-Jahdn-gushdy (by Ala'u'd-Din
'Ata Malik-i-Juwayni, completed
in A.D. 1260), ion., 12, 17, 2on.,
21, 65-6, 88, 97 n., 106 n., 153 n.;
Kdmil (by Ibnu'l-Athir, xiii),
88 ; -Khulafd (by Jalalu'd-Din
'Abdu'r- Rahman as-Suyuti), 164;
i-Rashldi (by Mirza Haydar-i-
Dughlat, xvi), 362, 364 and n.,
392 and n. ; i-Tabari, 88;
i-Wassdf (completed about A.D.
1312), 12, 21 n., 28 n., 29, 31, 33,
34, 37, 42, 48 n., 53 n., 67-8, 70,
360
Tar {q-i- Sufiydn ("the Sufis' Way,"
by Jami, xv), 514
Tarjumdnu'l-Asrdr ("the Interpreter
of the Unseen," Hafiz so called),
312
Tarsus, 81
Tartary, 266, 267
Tartars (properly Tatar, the common
form being based on a popular
etymology, see pp. 6-7), 4-10,
466, 468. See Mongols
Tarumayn, 87
Tashkand, no, 262 n., 320, 418
Tash-Timur (executed in A.D. 1327),
5?
Tauris, 413. See Tabriz
Ta'usi (clan or family of Qazwin), 94
Tawakkul, Uarwish (connected
with Hurdfis, xiv), 368
Tawdihdt (by Rashidu'd-Din Fad-
lu'llah, xiii-xiv), 75-6
Tawqi'i (Tevqi'i), 203. See Firidiin
Bey supra
Tayabad, 186
Tayy (Arab tribe), 132
Tekfiir (Byzantine Emperor so called),
205
Tennyson, 2i8n.
Tevqi'i (Tawqi'i), 203. See Firidun
Bey, supra
-Tha'labi (author of the Qisasu'l-An-
biyd), 88
Thiqatu'd-Din Fami, Shaykh (xiii),
J 75
Tholuck, Dr , 147
Thomas Ildaci or Ildouchi (Mongol
envoy to Edward II in A.D. 1307),
n, 49
Thompson, W. F. (translator of
the Akhldq-i-Jaldli}, 444
INDEX
Tibet, Tibetan, 43
Tibydn (of Ahmad b. Abi 'Abdi'llah,
one of the sources of the Nuzha-
tu'l-Quliib), 99
Tiflis, 188, 192, 414
Tigin (typical Turkish suffix to names),
1 20, 121 and n.
Tigris, 223, 234, 251, 264, 284, 285,
511 n.
Tihran, 300
timur( Turkish for "Iron"). Qa'an
(Emperor of China, A.D. 13051,49;
-tash (son of Amir Chiiban, put
to death in Egypt in A.D. 1328),
54> S^, 59, 170; (grandson of
Qubilay Khan), 74 ; - - i-Lang
("Tamerlane," the great Tinuir,
b. A.D. 1336, d. 1405), 4, 9, 12,
57, 58, 60, 71, 159, 160, 161, 163,
167-9, J 72> I 73) r 78, 179, 180-
206, 208, 216, 282, 311, 321, 332,
344. 353-5. 357. 361-8, 37i 374.
379, 380, 381, 383, 388, 390, 393,
394. 395, 399. 4> 404, 421, 424,
425, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 435,
438, 462, 473, 503
Tirah, 175
Tirmidh, 390
Tongudar (Armenian form of Takii-
dar, q.v. ), 25 n.
Toqat (or Tuqat), 127, 205
Tornberg, 88 n.
Toynbee, Arnold , 151
Transoxiana (Md ward^cHn-Nakr), 5,
54, 64, 100, 101, no, 185, 234,
320, 353 n., 379, 382, 387, 390,
398, 418, 419, 428, 453, 461, 468,
502
Trebizond, 85, 199, 201, 407, 412
Trinity College Library, Cambridge,
553 n -, 536 n.
Tughachar (Mongol general, put to
death in A.D. 1295), 35, 36, 37,
39
Tughan-shah (patron of Azraqi the
poet), 347
Tughay-Tiimir (xiv), 59, 60, 216
Tuhfa-i-Sdm! (Biography of later
poets by Sam Mfrza the Safawi),
460, 507, 514
*Tuhfattfi-Ahrdr (poem by Jami,
composed in A.D. 1481), 516, 526-
8, 541
Tiiman (Mongol Envoy to Edward II
in A.D. 1307), n
Tunis, 84
Tuqat (or Toqat), 127, 205
Tiiqatmish (rival of Timiir, xiv), 189,
190, 192, 321, 328-9, 368 (for
Tuqtamish in the later references
read Tuqatmish)
Tiiqjaq (niece of Jushkab, a Mongol
noble, put to death), 34
Tuqmaq (conspires against Chtiban in
A.D. 1319), 52
Tuqtay (xiv), 49
Ttiran, 58. See also Transoxiana,
Turkistan
Turghudf dynasty, 401
Turkey, 14, 107, 302, 365, 385, 422,
449. 452, 461, 540. 543- See also
Ottoman Turks
Turki (or Eastern Turkish) language
and literature, 32, 93, in, 184,
380, 391, 392, 395, 437-8, 439,
452-8, 505, 506
Turkistan, 5, 262 n., 272, 385, 386,
388, 398, 453. See also Turin,
Transoxiana
Turkmans, 85, 172, 1^73, 192, 379, 399,
418. See also Aq-qoyunlii and
Qara-qoyunlii
Turks (Eastern), 73, 74, 108, 228, 232,
252, 283, 318, 466, 467, 468, 469
Turk Yurdu (the organ of the Ye Hi
Turdn or Pan -Turanian party in
Turkey), 15
Turner Macan (editor of the Shdh-
ndma), 89 n.
Turshiz, 186, 487, 488
Tus (the modern Mashhad), in, 186,
190, 234
Tiisi (poet, xv), 438
Tuysirkan, 274
T&zuk-i- Bdburl (Persian translation
of the Babur-nama, q.v.), 392
Tuz&kdt-i-Tlmtiri ^the so-called "In-
stitutes of Timur "), 183-4, 202-3
'Ubayd-i-Zakani (poet and satirist,
xiv), 159, 209, 211, 230-57, 260,
299. 35. 35i, 352, 49 2
'Ubaydu'llah. Khwaja of Shash
(xiv, spiritual guide of Kamal of
Khujand), 320; Khwaja Ahrdr
(Shaykh of the Naqshbandi order
of dervishes, xv), 441
" Ugurlimehemet " (Italian corrup-
tion of Oghurlu Muhammad,
, 2-v-), 413
Ujan, 52
Uljaytti (Mongol Il-khan, reigned
A.D.i3o5-i6), 4&-51. 52,55. 67,68,
70.71.72,73.76,83, 163, 170, 171
5*4
INDEX
Ulugh Beg (son of Shah-rukh, mur-
dered by his son 'Abdu'l-Latif in
A.D. 1449), 192, 364, 385,' 386,
387. 388, 390, 394, 395, 4 oo, 438,
453- 501-3
'Umar. b. Abi'l-Khattab (the
Caliph, vii),25o, 255 ; i-Khay-
yam (the astronomer-poet, xi-xii),
65, 119, 121, 227, 304, 335 n.,
446 n. ; b. al-Farid (Egyptian
mystical poet, xii-xiii), 514, 548;
i-Sultaniyya (connected with
Hunifis, xiv), 368 ; Shaykh,
Mirza b. Miranshah (xiv-xv), 362,
381 ; b. Uzun Hasan (killed in
A.D. 1472), 411
Umayyad Caliphs (vii-viii), 90, 91
'Umman, Sea of , 148, 212, 214
Ung Khan (the supposed original of
Prester John), n, I9n.
'Unsuri (poet, xi), 65, 522
Urdu (Hindustani) language, 107-8
'Urfa, 389, 414
'Urfi of Shfraz (poet, circd A.D. 1000),
292
'Urmiya, 188
Uriik Khatun (mother of Uljatvi
Khuda-banda), 46
Ibn Abi Usaybi'a (author of the
Tabaqdtti'l-Atibbd, or Biographies
of Physicians, xiii), 64
'Ushshdq-ndma ("Book of Lovers")
of 'Iraqi, 132; of 'Ubaycl-i-
Zakani, 235, 237
" Ussun Cassano " (Italian corruption
of Uziin Hasan, g.v.), 389, 404
Ustajlu (one of the nine tribes which
supported Shah Isma'il the Safawi),
4 1 ?
Usury prohibited by Ghazan Khan
(A.D. 1299), 40
-'Utbi (author of the Ta'riMu'J-
Yamini, xi), 88
'Uthman. b. 'Affan (the Caliph,
vii), 255 ; Amir of Mawsil (A.D.
1502), 417. See also 'Osman
Utrar, 202
Uways. Sultan - - (Il-khani of
Baghdad, xiv), 55, 104 n., 166,
171, 172, 208, 230, 235, 260,
262-3, 264-5, 368 n., 399 ; Sultan
b. Shah Shuja' (Muzaffarf, xiv),
167,, 169 ; (Aq-qoyiinlu, brother
of Uzun Hasan), 408
Uyghiir script, 112 and n.
' Uyunu't- Tawdrikh (of al-Khazin al-
Baghdadi), 88
Uzbek Khan (of the Golden Horde,
A-D. 1335), 57, 59
Uzbeks, 204, 379, 380, 390, 393, 399,
, 418, 419, 445
Uzun Hasan (Aq-qoyiinlii, also called
Bayandari, y.v., d. A.D. 1477-8),
380, 381, 389, 400, 404-14, 429n.,
443
Van, 1 88
Venice, Venetians, 61, 380, 381, 405,
410, 411, 416, 429 n.
Vergil, 311
' ' Vision of God" (RuyatrflldK),^ n.
Viillers, 89 n.
Abu'1-Wafa, Shaykh (xiv-xv), 445
Wafaydtifl-A'ydn (by Ibn Khallikan,
xiii], 64
Wahl (translator of Hafiz), 303
Wajihu'd-Dfn. Khwaja Zangi
(xiii), in; Mavvlana Nasafi
(xiii), 175; Khwaja Mas'ud-i-
Sarbadar (xiv), 211-12
Wali, Amir (ruler of Mazandaran,
xiv), 186
Abu'l-Walid Ahmad, Tomb of in
Herat, 504
Walt Whitman, 107
Wang (or Ung or Ong) Khan, 1 1 n.
See Prester John
WdqVdt-i-Bdburi, 392. See Babur-
nama
Warawini, Sa'du'd-Din (author of
Marzubdn-ndma.) xiii), 356
Warsaq (one of the nine tribes who
supported Shah Isma'il the Safa-
wi), 417
Wasit (in Mesopotamia), 357
Wdsttatu'l- 'Iqd (Jami's second
Diwdri), 515
Wassdf-i-Hadrat (the ' ' Court Pane-
gyrist," 'Abdu'llah b. Fadlu'llah
of Shiraz, xiv), 21, 42, 67-8,
87, 424. See also Ta'rikh-i-
Wassaf
Water of Life, 291 n.
Watwat, Rashidu'd-Din (poet, xii),
65 '
Weil, 88 n.
Whinfield, E. H. , 11911., 146, 148,
300, 446 n., 448
White, Dr (Professor of Arabic at
Oxford in A.D. 1779), 184
" White Garden" (Herat), 501
"White Hand" (Yad-i-Baydd), 267,
470 and n.
INDEX
585
"White Sheep" Turkmans. See Aq-
qoyunlii
Wickerhauser, 156, 542
Wilson, C. E. , 515
Winchester, Bishop of (A.D. 1238),
6
Wine-drinking. See Drink
Wolf, Dr , 346
" Wurchanadin " (i.e. Burhanu'd-
Din, q.v.}, 404 n.
Wiistenfeld, 64 n., 88 n.
Yadigar Muhammad (xv), 389, 410
-Yafi'i, Imamu'd-Din (xiii), 88 ;
Shaykh 'Abdu'llah (xiv), 356,
464
Yahya. (son of the Sdhib-Dlwdn,
xiii), 29 ; Nusratu'd-Din Shah
Muzaffari (xiv), 167, 168, 169,
190, 292 ; Khwaja yi-Narrad
(favourite of Miranshah, put to
death by Timur about A.D. 1400),
195 n.
Yaman (Arabia Felix), 89, 184
Yaminu'd-Din. Amir Tughra'i
(father of the poet Ibn-i-Yamin,
xiv), 211, 215; Amir (one of
Mirza Baysunghur's poets, xv),
50i
Ibn-i-Yamin, Amir Mahmud (son
of the above, d. A.D. 1367-8), 159,
179, 2IO, 211-222
Yanbu', 398
Ya'qitb (son of Uztin Hasan, xv), 413
and n., 414-16
Yaqiit. (the historian and geo-
grapher, xiii), 6, 12; al-Musta'-
simi (the celebrated calligraphist,
xiii), 84
Yarmouth, 6
Yasa'iil (xiv), 52
Yasawur (rebellion of , A.D. 1318),
5 2
Yasiir Nikudari, Prince (killed in
A.D. 1320), 177
Yazd, 119, 162, 163, 168, 169, 193,
208, 225, 290, 364, 389, 418, 464
Yazdigird (name of three Sasanian
kings). I "the sinful" (A.D.
399-420), 250; -- III, son of
Shahriyar, the last of the line,
9
Yazid b. Mu'awiya (Umayyad), 256
Year amongst the Persians (by E. G.
Browne), 241 n., 299n.
Yeni Tiirdn (the " Pan-Turanian "
movement), 15
Yildirim ("the Thunderbolt") Baya-
zid (the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid I,
reigned A.D. 1389-1402), 173, 196.
See under Bayazid
Yima (in the Avesta, the Jam or
Jamshid of the Persian epic),
29on., 317 n.
Yunus Kha'n (xv), 364
Yurish-i-Panj-sdla (Timiir's " Five
years' campaign," A.D. 1392-6),
Yiisuf. Amiri (poet of Mirza
Baysunghur, xv), 501 ; i-Anda-
kani (musician of Shah-rukh, xv),
384, 498, 500; Badi'i (poet of
Bbur's time, xv-xvi), 459 ;
Beg (xvii), 318; i-Damghani
(connected with Hunifis, xiv),
368 ; Diya'u'd-Din (Jami's son),
514, 527 ; Shah (minstrel, xiv),
264 ; b. Uziin Hasan (killed
in A.D. 1472), 411, 417
* Yusuf u Zulaykhd (poem by Jami,
composed in A.D. 1483), 516, 531-
3, 535
Yiisuf, S6ratu (sura xii of the
Qur'dn), 325 n.
Zabulistan, 388
Zadani, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Zafar-nama. (of Hamdu'llah Mus-
tawfi of Qazwin, xiv), 87, 95-98,
99 ; (of Nizam-i-Shami, fired
A.D. 1404), 183, 361-2; (of
Sharafu'd-Dfn 'Alf Yazdf,^.z;.),
181, 185, 190 n., 191, 193, 361,
362-5, 438
-Zahir, al-Malik. (Sultan Bay-
bars of Egypt, A.D. 1260-77),
19; (Barqiiq, A.D. 1382-98),
191
Zahiri of Nishapiir (author of Saljuq-
ndma), 89
Zahir-i-Faryabi (poet, xiii), 118, 261,
29 Z 35. 352, 522
Zakariyya. b. Muhammad al-
Qazwini (geographer, xiii), 64,
94 ; (son of the Sahib-Diwdn,
xiii), 28
Zakan, village of near Qazwin, 231
Zakani, clan or family of Qazwin, 94,
23 in. Seealso'Ubayd-i-Zakani
Zal (son of Sam and father of Rustam
in the Persian epic), 316 n.
-Zamakhshari (philologist and com-
mentator), 256 n., 272 n., 357
Zand dynasty, 311
586
INDEX
Zanjan, 37, 48, 87, 97 n., 425
-Zanjani (grammarian), 354
Zanzibar, 398
Zarkub, Shaykh of Shiraz, 360
Zawa, 179, 211
Abii Zayd Ahmad b. Sahl al-Balkhi
(author of the Suwaru'l-Aqdlim),
99
Zaynal b. Uziin Hasan (killed in
battle in A.D. 1472 or 1474), 411,
412
Zaynu'l-'Abidin b. Shall Shuja'-i-
Muzaffari (A.D. 1384-7), 167-9,
i88J 189, 191, 282
Zaynu'd-Din. 'AH b. Sa'id
(preacher and rhapsodist, xiii),
34; Muhammad (brother of Ham-
du'llih Mustawff of Qazwin, xiv),
87 ; ' Ali (brother of MubaVizu'd-
Din Muhammad, xiii), 163;
Abii Bakr-i-Tdyabadi (saint, xiv),
1 86, 281 ; of Hamadan (mer-
chant, friend of Hafiz, xiv), 285 ;
Shaykh of Khwaf (xiv), 321
Zeno, Caterino (Venetian traveller,
xv), 380, 405, 411, 412, 4i6n.
Zij (Astronomical tables). i-Ilkhani
by Nasiru'd-Din of Ttis (xiii), 502 ;
- i-jadid-i-Sultdnt (by Ulugh
Beg, xv), 386, 502
Zirih, 1 86
Zirbad, 398
Zoroastrians, 342 n., 494. See also
Gabr, Guebre, Magians
Zubdatu't-Tawarikh. of Jama-
lu'd-Din Abu'l-Qasim of Kashan,
88 ; of Hafiz Abru, 424-6, 430
Zubayri, clan or family of Qazwin, 94
Zuhra (in the allegory of Saldmdn and
Absdl), 523
Zukaitl-Mulk (author of the Ta'rikh-
i-Irdn, xix), 383
Zunndr (zonarium or sacred girdle),
342 n.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
REC'D L9-URL
ftPR 7 1997
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