Classical Persian Literature

Author(s): William L. Hanaway

Source: Iranian Studies , Summer - Autumn, 1998, Vol. 31, No. 3/4, A Review of the
"Encyclopaedia Iranica" (Summer - Autumn, 1998), pp. 543-559
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society of Iranian
Studies

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4311188

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Iranian Studies

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Iranian Studies, volume 31, numbers 3-4, Summer/Fall 1998

William L. Hanaway

Classical Persian Literature

THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL PERSIAN LITERATURE CAN BE SEPARATED FROM THE

study of modem Persian literature for heuristic reasons-one can be emphasized
more than the other in teaching, and the path away from classicism to modern-
ism and beyond can be charted-but it is impossible to draw a decisive line
dividing the two. The modem develops out of the classical and constantly inter-
acts with it. The two may be separated, but in the end Persian literature is one
and is best thought of as such. The present review, in which classical literature
will be the focus, is one such heuristic occasion.
This review will survey the field in terms of the major concems of literary
scholarship that are affected by the work of the Encyclopaedia Iranica and will
try to illuminate the role of this reference work as a source of, and an aid to,
literary scholarship. The field will be considered from the point of view of
authors and books, of questions of form, style, and genre, of literary themes,
topics, images, and movements. An effort will be made to show the contribution
to these various aspects of the study of classical Persian literature made so far by
the EIr. Although the Elr is still in the early letters of the alphabet, it is aheady
clear how rich the coverage of authors, books, and other topics of literary interest
is.
To begin exploring this coverage, one should consider the article Court
Poetry, which is part x. of the longer article COURTS AND COURTIERS. Not
a true genre but rather a form class, court poetry seems often to be accorded
almost a generic status. As an introduction to the major poetic forms and their
social context, this article serves as a good place to begin exploring the entries
for literature in the EIr. Although it goes without saying that the category
"literature" is larger than poetry alone, poetry was considered to be the highest
form of literary art in Persia. The article surveys poetic genres and styles from
the earliest period of Islamic Iran to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906.
Prose, while certainly an admired form, was thought to be a more workaday
medium, with certain exceptions. As styles of poetry changed over time, so did
prose style. The main vehicles for writers to display their skill at elegant prose
writing were official correspondence, taZkirahs (a genre that shares characteristics
of the biographical dictionary and the anthology of poetry), works of history, and
examples of belletristic prose such as "mirrors for princes" and didactic tales.
One hopes that a general survey of prose writing in Persian will appear later in
the alphabet.
The stage for understanding the status and role of literature in Persian culture
is set, so to speak, by the article ADAB. This article is divided into a discussion

William L. Hanaway is Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
544 Hanaway

of adab in Iran, based on pre-Islamic sources and on Firdawsi's Shazhnimeh, and

adab in Arabic literature. Both sections should be read by anyone interested in
Persian literature because of the close interaction of Persian and Arab literary
culture, especially up to the 10th century. The roots of adab in pre-Islamic
Persia are described, and the continuities in the attitudes and ideas comprising
adab from Sasanian times to Islamic Persia are shown, using Shiahniimeh as the
major source for the latter. This article is nicely complemented by ARABIC iii.
Arabic Influences in Persian Literature, and readers could benefit from reading the
two together.
In Sasanian times, the concept of adab revolved around dabtrt (the profes-
sion and practice of the secretary), rhetoric, and manners. In Islamic times adab
implied education, culture (in the sociological sense), good behavior, politeness,
and proper demeanor, and thus came to be closely allied with the concept of eth-
ics. It also implied a sort of literature, largely prose in Arabic; but in Persian,
poetry overshadowed prose. Adab applied to all aspects of cultivated life; it con-
noted refinement of thought, word, and deed. The notion of adab pervades
Persian literature from the earliest times, and even though the style of poetry and
prose continuously changed throughout the entire pre-modem period, the elite
culture that produced it helped keep the literature within certain bounds, in ethi-
cal as well as formal terms. Without the understanding of adab as presented in
this article, it would be difficult for anyone to understand the strong connections
that exist among writers, readers, and books in pre-modem Persia.
The idea of Persian literature (adab, or adabtyilt) in pre-modem times
encompassed a wider range of writing than what is considered literature today.
Poetry, prose fiction in the form of traditional stories, didactic writing such as
"mirrors for princes", historical and philosophical works and diplomatic corre-
spondence, in fact most cultured uses of the written language for other than eve-
ryday purposes, were literary genres. One indication of this is the clear differ-
entiation made then and maintained to a degree today between the written lan-
guage of literature and the spoken language of everyday life. While poetry was
prized as the highest literary art, elegant prose was also widely admired, as can be
seen in the clear statement to this effect by Muntajab al-Din Badic in the intro-
duction to cAtabat al-Katabah,1 a collection of official correspondence which
probably deserves its own entry in the EIr. Non-canonical texts such as the
popular prose romances (e.g. Dariab Nama) are considered literature by today's
scholars and critics, and should be taken into account in any broad survey of pre-
modem literature. In this regard, it is surprising that there is no entry for Abu
Muslim Nama, a popular romance of some importance about the life and adven-
tures of Abu Muslim Khurasani. The Elr has entries extending to a very broad
range of literary topics, plus a number of entries that touch on Persian or Iranian
literature indirectly and help to fill out the picture for the user of this reference
work.
Much attention in Persian literary scholarship has been focused on the study
of authors and books. This differs from the situation in contemporary Western
literary-critical thinking, where the attitude toward the author varies from consid-
ering him or her of crucial importance in understanding a work of literature, to

1. Mohammad Qazvini and cAbbas Iqbal, eds., (Tehran, 1329- S./1950).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 545

believing that the author is irrelevant and possibly even non-existent. Persian
and modem Westem attitudes toward texts parallel the attitudes toward authors:
the former accepting that a text is a concrete physical object that, if unmolested,
will remain unchanging in its form and content, while the latter often holds that
a text is something existing only in the mind of a reader. In Persian, and in
Western scholarship that follows the lead of Persian scholars, the author's life
has been felt to be closely connected with his or her literary output and conse-
quently considerable research has been carried out to determine the biographical
facts of an author. It is in this area that the Elr begins to show its real strength,
its scope and depth.
Taking its form from the way information about literature is organized and
presented in EIr, this review will focus on entries for authors, books, genres and
topics, and then other articles that bear, in whole or in part, on literature. One of
the strengths of Elr is its broad geographical coverage. In this regard, it is inter-
esting to observe that over 40% of the entries for literary topics in the first five
volumes pertain to Persia proper (present-day Iran, greater Khorasan), 25% to the
Indian subcontinent, 17% to Central Asia, and about 5% to other areas that in-
clude Turkey, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia.
The largest number of entries of literary interest is for authors. The range of
articles is broad, but the criteria for inclusion are not always clear. On the one
hand, there are entries for little-known poets from Bengal and Central Asia, from
Ossetia and the Deccan. In some cases very little of their work has survived, and
the documentation is often no more than a reference to Z. Safa's invaluable his-
tory of literature.2 On the other hand, entries for some important and influential
poets, such as AMIR KOSROW DEHLAVI, seem unnecessarily brief, espe-
cially when the author of the article calls him "the greatest Persian-writing poet
of medieval India." While nobody has yet been able to prove just what the roots
of the "Indian Style" (sabk-i hindT) in Persian poetry are, there are some who
claim that Amir Khosrow was influential in the genesis of this style. The article
hints at this when it mentions that he introduced new subjects into his poetry
and that "'his knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hindi enabled him to
produce exotic puns, wordplay, and stunning literary tricks." One longs to see
this discussion extended to his possible influence, if any, on the development of
the sabk-i hindT.
Three articles may be taken as examples of exemplary treatment given to
important authors. The first concerns Farid al-Din CATTAR, the mystical poet
from Nishapur who flourished in the late Saljuq period. cAttar was relatively
little known during his own lifetime and became famous as a mystic, poet, and
master of narrative verse only in the 9th/15th century. This means that the
majority of sources for his life date from long after his death. It was also in the
15th century that the many legends about his life and works, and particularly
about his initiation into Sufism, his teachers, and his Sufi masters, began enter-
ing biographical accounts of him. Because of the scarcity of sources close to his
lifetime and the nature of the information that the later sources provide, many
problems to do with his life and works have remained unsolved. One is the dates

2. Zabih Allah Safa, Tarikh-i adabiyat dar Iran 3 vols. (Tehran, 1953-62) and 3
vols. in 4 (Tehran, 1972-73).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
546 Hanaway

of his life. Estimates vary widely, but the consensus now appears to favor about
540-618/1146-1221. These dates accord best with the small amount of internal
evidence available in his writings, and with statements by medieval writers and
poets. Another problem is sorting out which of the many works attributed to
him are authentically from his pen. Persian and Western scholars have divided
the works attributed to cAttar into three groups: those that seem certain to be
his, those that are certainly not by him, and those that are doubtful but probably
not by him. There appears to be no doubt that his divan, Tazkirat al-Awliya-,
Mantiq al-Tayr, Khusraw Niama, Mukhtiir Naima, Asrar Niima, and lkihf
Nima are securely his. This list leaves out a number of long poems that have
traditionally been associated with cAttar, demonstrating again the value of the
up-to-date research that the EIr presents in its articles.
One interesting aspect of Persian literature is that there are many poets and
writers who are esteemed and widely read outside of Persia but who are ignored or
little read by Persians themselves. One of these is CAbd al-Qadir BIDEL (1054-
1133/1644-1721). Bidel is an outstanding representative of the late Indian style
(sabk-i hindf) and many feel that he brought that style to its most intricate and
elaborate level. Although his poetry has not generally appealed to Persians, it
has been extremely popular and influential in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and
India. Of a mystical and philosophical cast of mind, Bidel followed Ibn al-cArabi
in many of his reflections on God, humanity, and existence. His effect on poetry
in Persian, and later in Urdu and Chagatay, was profound, and strong traces of
his style and thought can be seen in the poetry of Mirza Ghalib and Muhammad
Iqbal. Unlike cAttar, the problems that Bidel presents to scholars are not textual
or biographical but stylistic. His works have been preserved and well edited and
one of them, the prose treatise Chahair cUnsur, contains a great deal of autobio-
graphical material. The problems with the works of this poet lie in understand-
ing his verbal style and his thought. Interest in the work of Bidel has recently
begun to increase in Persia, along with an interest in Indian-style poetry. EIr
displays its broadly non-chauvinistic approach by providing a substantial article
on BIDEL and a separate one on tAHAR ONSUR
The third example is the entry for AKUNDZADA, whose importance to lit-
erature and particularly to the beginnings of the Persian theater results from his
six satirical comedies. These were written in Azeri Turkish between 1850 and
1855, and translated into a simplified, nearly colloquial Persian by Mirza Jacfar
Qarajadaghi in 1870-71. Akhundzada's plays were ostensibly written with a
didactic intent, i.e., to improve people's morals, but their ridiculing of pompous
and corrupt characters had far greater resonance in Persian society than did his
intended moral purpose. Numerous imitators followed him, and his plays and
those of others were read aloud or performed in private settings among the upper
classes. All this activity laid the basis for modern, western-style drama as a liter-
ary form and a social force in later nineteenth-century Persia. Another activity of
Akhundzada that touched indirectly on literature was his proposal to reform the
Arabic script as it was used for writing Persian and Turkish. His proposal was
never widely accepted, but nevertheless it anticipated the alphabet reforms that
were discussed in Persia and which actually took place in Turkey and the Muslim
lands in the former Soviet Union. This article is extensively documented and

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 547

makes use of numerous Russian sources, a resource not often enough exploited
by Western scholars of literature.
Two shorter articles on the important tazkirah writers CAWFI and AZAR
BIGDELI may be mentioned as exhibiting solid scholarship. cAwfi (late
6th/12th-early 7th/13th centuries) was bom in Bukhara into a family of scholars
and litterateurs. After completing his education he entered the service of Qilich
Arslan Khaqan, the heir apparent of Samarqand, becoming head of the prince's
chancery (drvian-e insha1). With the threat of the Mongol invasion he left for
India, where he seems to have spent the remainder of his life. In India he wrote
Lubib al-albib, the oldest surviving tazkirah of poets in Persian, and Jawamic
al-hikiayat, a large compilation of prose anecdotes which has been only partly
published. The article explains the importance of these works and comments on
their literary style. The fact that cAwfi was for a while the head of a chancery is
another bit of evidence pointing to the close connections among poets, prose
writers, and munshts (secretaries who wrote official and diplomatic correspon-
dence) in pre-modern times. Azar Bigdeli (fl. 1134/1721-1 195/178 1), was born
in Isfahan at the time of the Afghan invasion and lived through a turbulent
period of political unrest, finally settling in Qum. He left a divan, a masnavi
poem entitled Yusuf wa Zulaykha, and a tazkirah called Atashkada-yi A.Zar, the
latter being the reason for his fame. Azar, in the introduction to his tazkirah, did
much to give shape to the baz-gasht-i adabi movement, a reaction against the
Indian style, by his censure of Indian-style poets and support of Mushtaq and his
circle of poets in Isfahan. Again, this article not only brings out the facts of the
author's life as they are known to us, but situates Azar in his literary and social
context.
Sometimes an opportunity is missed to add to the importance of an article
for literary study. One example is the entry for ABU NASR Mansiir b.
MOSKAN, the chief of the chancery for almost thirty years under sultans
Mahmud and Mascud of Ghazna. Almost all of our information about this man
appears in TiirTkh-i BayhaqT, where a substantial amount of Abu Nasr's prose is
preserved. Bayhaqi worked with Abu Nasr for at least nineteen years and his own
notable prose style was probably formed by that of Abu Nasr. One misses in the
EIr article mention of Bahar's extensive discussion with examples of Abu Nasr's
and Bayhaqi's style (Bahar sees them as identical) and its importance in early
Persian prose writing.3
Another point where some expansion could have been useful is in the entry
for Seraj al-Din cAll Khan ARZU. Khan-i Arzu was an important Indo-Muslim
poet, lexicographer, and scholar. The article mentions his dictionaries Siraj al-
lughah and its sequel, Chiragh-i Hidayah (both of which should be used in con-
junction with the earlier dictionary Burhain-i Qa!ic), but nothing is said about
the intense controversy set off by the Indo-Persian poet Ghalib in reaction to
Khan-i Arzu's corrections to Burhian-i Qiztic. A short discussion of this can be
found in the entry for BORHAN-E QATEC, and can be seen as an indication of
how seriously Persian-writing poets of the Subcontinent took their knowledge of
Persian. In addition to this shortcoming, the article could also have said more

3. Malik al-Shucara Muhammad Taqi Bahar, Sabk-shinasi ya thirikh-i tatawwur-i

shi"r-ifarsT, (Tehran, 1337/1958), vol. 2, 66-95.

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
548 Hanaway

about Khan-i Arzu's relations with other poets, his linguistic speculations, espe-
cially regarding the relation between Persian and Sanskrit, and his general influ-
ence on the literary scene of his time.
Besides entries for Iranian litterateurs, the EIr includes a number of entries
for Western orientalists who studied or translated Persian literature for Western
audiences. One example is the excellent article on E. G. BROWNE. Browne, by
personal example and scholarly publication, did more to stimulate interest in Iran
and Persian studies than any other individual in the English-speaking world. His
four-volume A Literary History of Persia, begun in 1902 and completed in
1924, was the standard introduction to Persian literature and history for students
from its completion until well after World War II. Browne was also interested in
Babism and Bahaism and published original documents relating to these faiths as
well as sympathetic accounts of their history in Iran. The Constitutional
Revolution inspired Browne to a great deal of activity, and represents the third
major area of his interest. Decorated by the Iranian government, Browne was
probably more warmly recognized by the Persians than he was by his own
British contemporaries.
A major article on E. E. BERTHELS, the prolific Russian Iranologist,
reveals the breadth and depth of his scholarship. The article on A. J. ARBERRY
seems unfortunately short, but it does give an extensive bibliography of
Arberry's writings. Another British Persianist, Dr. James A. ATKINSON, who
died shortly before Browne was born, was a prolific translator of Persian literary
texts. Like Browne, he was trained in medicine, but unlike the former, Atkinson
pursued his profession and also served in various civil and military positions in
India, for a while occupying the deputy chair of Persian at Fort William College
in Calcutta. His important translations were of Shahnameh, Nezami's Layla wa
Majnan, and various popular tales and stories. These and other entries for
Orientalists help develop the history of Persian studies in the West and throw
light on the scholarly traditions in various European countries.
No less important than articles about authors are articles about books. The
entry for ALF LAYLA WA LAYLA, for instance, describes the history of a text
that began with a group of tales of Iranian origin that went into Arabic, became
one of the most famous Arabic books (in the West, not in the Middle East) and
lost all its association with Iranian literature before it became the object of mod-
ern scholarship. Enormously popular and influential in the West, Alf Layla wa
Layla was a non-canonical text in Arab culture, spread by oral narrators and sto-
rytellers, and not until modern times was it the object of scholarly investigation.
The article begins by detailing the publishing history of the book. It then takes
up the question of the Middle Persian text Hazar Afsiana, and the Indo-Persian
origins of the prologue and the frame-story. The account of the operas, ballets,
plays, novels, short stories, and films in Arabic and Western languages inspired
by The Arabian Nights is astounding.4 Compare this article with that on
ANWAR-E SOHAYLI by Husayn Vaciz Kashifi. Competent enough, the

4. To the bibliography one might add the following: Muhsin Mahdi, ed., Kitab alf
layla wa layla (Leiden: Brill, 1984), and Ferial J. Ghazoul, Nocturnal Poetics: The
Arabian Nights in Comparative Context (Cairo: AUC Press, 1996), a later version of
her influential The Arabian Nights: A Structural Analysis (Cairo: UNESCO, 1980).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 549

quality of the article is marred by the somewhat pompously expressed personal

opinions of its author.
An interesting contrast is provided by the entry for AKLAQ al-A9RAF, the
ribald satirical book composed by cJUbayd Zakani in 740/1340-41. The book is
divided into seven chapters, each focusing on one of the traditional virtues (e.g.,
bravery, justice, wisdom, and the like). Each chapter is divided into two parts,
the first presenting the outmoded (i.e., the ideal) view and the second presenting
the accepted view (i.e., that which should be rejected). Zakani praises the success
of those who have succeeded by the clever application of, e.g., cowardice, tyr-
anny, and ignorance. He quotes other poets out of context, fabricates Hadith,
travesties the Shahnameh, and indulges in general ribaldry (many would say
obscenity) in his portrayal of the contemporary moral and ethical scene. The
article sets Akhliiq al-Ashraf in its Persian literary context and shows how it
seems to have been deliberately composed to bring to mind many preceding clas-
sics of Persian literature.5
DAci JAN NAPEL'ON, "Uncle Napoleon," is a satirical novel written in
1348-49/1969-70 by Iraj Pezeshkzad. It achieved great success and was made
into a television series that was widely viewed in Iran. In addition to its lively
style, the novel's success was due to the main character, who embodies the
Persian preoccupation with conspiracy theories and suspicion of foreigners
(especially the British). The book is now available to Western readers in a superb
English translation by Dick Davis.6
Much to the credit of EIr, the editors decided to include entries for popular
prose romances, texts that were never part of the canon of classical literature.
Told by oral narrators and storytellers and written down at some point in their
existence, these long, episodic tales, sometimes with interspersed verse, center
on the adventures of princes and princesses (with the notable exception of
Samak-i cAyydr), able or evil viziers, sorcerers and magicians, and those quin-
tessentially popular Persian characters the cayyars. The inclusion of entries for
such texts is another sign that the current definition of pre-modem literature is
broadening to include oral narrative as well as written texts. If the editors are
willing to go this far, could one suggest an entry for 'Aqadid al-Nisa, the
eighteenth-century popular text by Aqa Jamal Khwansari? It is mentioned in the
entry for AL, but perhaps should have an entry of its own in the Supplement.
So far, articles on AMIR ARSALAN, BORZU NAMA, and DARAB-NAMA
have been published, but one misses an article on Abu Muslim Nama.
A subject that comes up time after time while one reads the EIr is dictionar-
ies and lexicography. After literary texts themselves, there is hardly a resource
more useful to the scholar and student of literature than the dictionary. The his-
tory of lexicography in Persian is still to be written, although some beginnings
have been made. In any case, a number of dictionaries are mentioned by EIr,
probably the best-known of which is the classical dictionary BORHAN-E

5. The bibliography should be updated by the addition of Paul Sprachman,

Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (Costa Mesa, Calif.:
Mazda Publishers, 1995).

6. Dick Davis, trans., My Uncle Napoleon (Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers,

1996).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
550 Hanaway

QATEC. The work was completed in India in 1062/1651 by the scholar and poet
Muhammad Husayn b. Khalaf Tabrizi "Borhan." Combining material from other
dictionaries and adding many new words and expressions, some from Indian lan-
guages, the author produced a dictionary easier to use than many others by
arranging the entries in alphabetical order. Of course, this dictionary showed
many of the faults characteristic of pre-modern dictionaries: false words (many,
in this case, from the spurious dictionary s.v. DASATIR) false etymologies,
variant vocalizations, and definitions not evaluated critically. As noted above,
Khan-i Arzu published a list of corrections to Burhan-i QatiC that inspired a
furious response from Mirza Ghalib entitled Qatic-i Burhaln. This, in turn, elic-
ited further responses from scholars, and the uproar lasted for a number of years.
Whatever the motives behind these attacks and replies may have been, the inci-
dent demonstrates that Persian-writing scholars and poets in India took dictionar-
ies and their own knowledge of Persian very seriously and would go to great
lengths to defend their beliefs.
A number of important dictionaries followed Burhiin-i QatiC and depended
heavily on it. One, the FARHANG-E ANANDRAJ, will be described later in a
later fascicle. Another is the Farhang-i Anjumaniarii by Riza-Quli Khan Hidayat,
completed during the time of Nasr al-Din Shah. Others will, no doubt, be
described later in the alphabet. The entries for the above-mentioned dictionaries,
and for lexicographers such as Khan-i Arzu and numbers of other scholars and
poets who also write dictionaries, mostly now forgotten, all lead us to the com-
prehensive article on DICTIONARIES. The article is of considerable interest
because even though dictionaries are frequently used by literary scholars, they are
not generally studied by them and are more often simply taken for granted. The
article is divided into five sections covering Persian, Arabic-Persian, bi- and mul-
tilingual dictionaries, and specialized dictionaries. The section announced for
slang dictionaries will appear under SLANG. The various sections are filled with
bibliographical detail, and indications of how newer dictionaries depend upon
older ones and often repeat their errors. In addition to the dictionaries mentioned
in this article, there are (or will be) separate articles dealing with particularly
important dictionaries such as FARHANG-E ANANDRAJ and FARHANG-E
JAHANGIRL. What one discovers by reading the seemingly unrelated entry
DASATIR is that many entirely spurious words from that 16th-century work
have crept into both Persian and bi-lingual dictionaries. A point that might have
been made more strongly is the importance of the poetic examples in early dic-
tionaries for preserving the work of poets that has not survived elsewhere. In
some cases the only remains of a poet's work are found in single lines in early
dictionaries, used to illustrate the meaning or usage of words. The article reveals
a wealth of information about dictionaries and shows clearly how lexicography
was an important scholarly activity in the pre-modem period.
Almost as important as dictionaries for the scholar are BIBLIOGRAPHIES
AND CATALOGUES, an article that should be kept near at hand by anyone
working with Persian manuscripts and printed books. It is difficult to overesti-
mate the value to scholars of the lists of bibliographies and catalogues given in
this article. While the section dealing with catalogues and bibliographies pub-
lished in the West does not aim to be exhaustive, the section dealing with those
written in Persian and published in Iran and elsewhere seems to do so. The latter
section lists catalogues for libraries throughout Iran and in other countries, and

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 551

eighty-five subject bibliographies. There is probably no other source that bri

together Persian-language catalogues and bibliographies the way that this article
does.
Important manuscripts also have their own entries in EIr, an example being
the BAYSONGORI SAH-NAMA. The emphasis in the article is largely on the
paintings and decorations in this extremely elegant manuscript, which was com-
pleted in 833/1430. Sometimes refenred to, incorrectly, as an "edition," the text
of this manuscript was produced by comparing several copies of Shazhniimeh.
Since this process took place long before any consistent and rationalized meth-
odology had been devised for the purpose of editing texts, the result was not a
text that attempted to achieve fidelity to Firdawsi's original but rather one that
sought to include all the verses that the taste of the times considered appropriate.
The result was a manuscript containing over 58,000 verses, one of the larger
manuscripts of Shahnameh. But the manuscript also contains an extensive intro-
duction, and in my opinion, the article devotes insufficient attention to this
introduction. The importance of this introduction lies in the fact that it is the
most extensive presentation up to that date of the legend of Firdawsi. We know
almost nothing that can be independently verified about the life of the poet. We
are not sure of his birth and death dates, or even of the proper form of his name.
If we confine our attention to what Firdawsi says about himself in the
Shiahniameh, we can develop a relative chronology of his life and we learn that he
had a son who died during the composition of the text. Beyond these meager
scraps, we know that he came from Tus in Khorasan, and that is about all. Once
we go outside the text for information about the poet, what we learn is either
unverifiable from other sources or it is from unreliable historical sources such as
CAHAR MAQALA of Nizami CAruzi (see the excellent article on this book in
EIr; to brand such sources as unreliable is not to deny them literary value, but to
say that they must be used with great caution as historical sources). In spite of
all this, Persian writers down through the years did not hesitate to seize upon
any scrap of information about the author of their national epic and from this to
construct a detailed, legendary biography of the poet. This in itself is interesting,
not so much for the fanciful narrative of Firdawsi's life as for the way in which
that life was constructed. In essence, in the legendary biography of Firdawsi, the
poet is cast as a martyr, a prophet unsung in his own time, whose worth was
recognized only after his death. Many of the incidents of his legendary life have
formal parallels in the popularly constructed biographies of other important fig-
ures in Iranian culture such as Siyavush and the Imam Hosayn. If parallel inci-
dents in these various lives are compared, certain patterns of legend-building
emerge which seem to be particularly Iranian. From this standpoint, the intro-
duction to the BAYSONGORI SAH-NAMA merits considerable study and analy-

After the primary information for literary scholarship that appears in entries
for authors and books, one must look to articles on genres, movements, and
topics. EIr is still at an early point in the alphabet and few genres have been
dealt with so far. The article APHORISM could be singled out as a thorough and
sympathetic treatment of a small but pithy genre. The author finds that the core
of the Western notion of aphorism corresponds fairly well with the Persian
masal. Focusing on the uses of aphorisms in literature and folklore rather than
in the physical sciences (as in Hippocrates), the author places the aphorism in its

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
552 Hanaway

larger context of wisdom literature. Major sources for aphoristic statements ar

the Qur3an and the traditional wisdom literature available to classical Persian
writers in such texts as ShaJhnameh and Gulistin. At the same time, one should
not overlook the collection of anti-aphorisms compiled by cUbayd Zakani enti-
tled Risailah-i Sad Pand, wherein the usual wisdom of the aphorism is cleverly
(and sometimes obscenely) subverted.
While literature for children may not be, strictly speaking, a literary genre,
it seems close enough to a separate generic status to mention here. The article
CHILDREN vii. begins by reviewing the status of literature for children prior to
1911. It makes the interesting point that children used to read popular tales writ-
ten for adults in the Safavid and Qajar periods, tales such as Malik Jamshrd,
Amrr Arsalan, and Husayn-i Kurd, popular romances that had exciting episodes
and were chaste enough in content to be suitable for children. The first effort to
write material especially for children came in the late l3th/19th century when it
began to be understood that excerpts from the classics such as Gulistan were
often too difficult or simply inappropriate for young people. A notable exarnple
of these early works for children is Kitab-i Ahmad by CAbd al-Rahim Talebof,
published in Istanbul in 1311/1893.
From 1920 to after World War II, efforts to improve reading material for
children were closely tied to efforts at educational reform. Prose and poetry for
children was produced in quantity during the 1930s and '40s along with transla-
tions from Western languages, and the creation of appropriate illustrations kept
pace with the development of this literature.
A major step ahead was taken in the 1960s by the Bongah-e Tarioma va
Nashr-e Ketab when it launched three series of original works and translations
aimed at different age-groups of children. After the Islamic revolution the produc-
tion of children's books continued but with a radical change of content. Well-
known writers and poets continued to produce children's literature as greater
understanding was gained of how to write for children and greater control of
vocabulary for different age-levels was achieved. In sum, this article makes a
distinct contribution to the study of literature in Persian and adds an important
dimension to the overall understanding of the literary history of the twentieth
century.
CHRONOGRAMS might be considered another near-genre. The article
defines chronograms as "dates incorporated into Persian texts in disguised form,
especially those in which the letters of the alphabet have numerical value," and
discusses four types of chronograms, following the classification of Qabul
Mohammad in his Haft Qulzum. Chronograms were composed from the earliest
period of Persian literature but became very popular in the 9th/I5th century. The
Arabic script lends itself readily to the composition of chronograms because each
of the letter-forms has a numerical value. Chronograms were also used in the
West but with less flexibility, since only the letters used as roman numerals had
numerical value. An example, from an English pamphlet, would be "LorD haVe
MerCIe Vpon Vs," where the capitalized letters add up to 1666. (At the end of
the article a line seems to have been dropped.)
The EIr is still too early in the alphabet for many entries on major poetic
forms to have appeared, but there is an article on the interesting form BAHR-E
TAWIL. Conventional practice in the case of poetic forms such as the ghazal,
qasidah, masnavf, and others requires that each misrilC or hemistich contain

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 553

four, six, or at the most, eight poetic feet and that the two misrics that com-
prise the whole line or bayt be metrically equal. With bahr-i tawil, each hemis-
tich can contain up to twenty or more feet. Furthermore, the number of feet in a
line can vary in bahr-i tawil, whereas all the hemistichs and whole lines in a
ghazal or other conventional form must be of equal length. Not a major poetic
form, bahr-i tawtl was used mainly for oral recitation by storytellers (naqqiJl)
and passion play (tacziyah) actors. The earliest examples of this form are from
the Timurid period and it became quite popular during the Safavid era, when oral
narrators and reciters flourished. In the Constitutional period bahr-i tawil was
used for poetry with political and social themes.
Traditional criticism of Persian poetry involved the use of a theory and an
elaborate technical vocabulary, much of it developed earlier by Arab critics and
then taken over by the Persians. The source of much of the Arab theory of litera-
ture is not known for certain, but there are many parallels between the rhetorical
practice of classical Greece, based on Aristotle, and that of the Arabs, although
the former was used for oratory and the latter for written literature. Aristotle's
Rhetoric and Poetics were known to early Arab philosophers but probably not
to literary critics. A possible common background for the two traditions could be
the Hellenistic educational system that was in use in the Middle East before the
Islamic period, but no direct connections are known. A good place to begin a
summary of this tradition is with the term BALAGAT, eloquence, which is
often paired withfasihat, also meaning eloquence. The former refers to syntactic
units, while the latter refers to eloquence in the use of individual words, but the
two terms are often used synonymously and the concepts frequently seem to
overlap. No universally accepted definition of balaghat has yet been devised, but
the twelfth-century critic Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Qays said that balaghat
involves three qualities: concision, balance, and expansion. At some point in the
past, the various branches of literary criticism coalesced into three and were sub-
sumed under the collective expressions Cilm al-baliighah or sinacat-i balaghah
("the science or art of eloquence"). The three branches are: Cilm al-ma Cnf, con-
cemed with the role of syntax; 'ilm al-bayan, concemed with similes, meta-
phors and tropes, and Cilm al-badi", concerned with rhetorical embellishment.
The article on BADI', rhetorical embellishment, surveys the background of
this concept in Arabic literary theory and the development of the theory in
Persian culture, particularly as expressed in the manuals of rhetoric. The earliest
of these is the Tarjumian al-balaghah by the late eleventh-century scholar
Muhammad b. cUmar Raduyani, and the practice of writing such manuals has
continued to the present day. Many of the manuals remain unpublished, and a
survey of the entire field of them would be very useful for scholarship on the
pre-modem theory of poetry in Persian.
The second of the three branches of Cilm al-balaghah is treated in the article
BAYAN; the third branch, ma'Cjnl, will appear later in the encyclopaedia).
Meaning "statement," "explanation," "exposition," bayin is concerned with clar-
ity of expression. Again, most of the theoretical development of the concept was
done by Arab scholars, notably CAbd al-Qahir Jurjani, Sakkaki, and Ibn al-
Muctazz in the ninth through the twelfth centuries. The study of Cilm al-bayian
was developed by numerous Persian writers, many from the Indian subcontinent.
The treatment of these subjects by the Elr is excellent and the articles are impor-

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
554 Hanaway

tant contributions to the study of pre-modern literary theory and criticism in

Persia.
With regard to larger poetic movements, the only article dealing directly
with the subject is BAZGAST-E ADABI, the "literary return" that began in the
middle of the 12thlI 8th century. The history of Persian poetry has been conven-
tionally divided into three large "styles" with geographic names: the Khurasani
style, the Clraqi style, and the Indian style. These designations actually refer to
period styles and are only to a degree identified with the geographical areas that
name them. The changes from one style to the next are to a modest degree paral-
lel to changes in the political situation in Iran but are not to be directly linked to
dynastic shifts, despite the suggestion to this effect made in the older histories of
literature. Naturally, the political situation had an effect on the intellectual cli-
mate, but other factors such as religion and geography played a role too. The
forces causing literary change are little understood either in the West or in Iran,
and explanations of change tend to be reductionist. All this is to say that we do
not know precisely why the "literary return" occurred, and different interpreta-
tions of the phenomenon have been offered. The article presents the opinions of
several critics, both Iranian and Western, but the deeper causes of such a pro-
found literary change still remain unclear.
In any case, the Indian style was prevalent up to the middle of the 18th cen-
tury wherever Persian poetry was being written, which means in Iran itself, the
Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, and the Muslim parts of the Indian subcontinent.
Sometime in the middle of the 18th century a group of poets in Isfahan, led, it
seems, by Mir Sayyid cAli Mushtaq (ca. 1101-71/1689-1757), began to reject
the florid Indian style and to write in the simpler Khurasani style of the early
Ghaznavid poets. The result, in spite of what the poets believed, was not the
pure style of the early poets but was thoroughly influenced by the current Indian
style. Nevertheless, this stylistic reversion caught on and persisted until well
into the twentieth century, when the writing of classical poetry went into a
decline. One result of the biiz-gasht was that the poetry written on the Iranian
plateau, by and large, did not participate in the poetic currents that flowed in the
rest of the Persian-using world. The "neo-classicism" of the poets in Iran did not
develop and change as did the Persian poetry written outside Iran. When the
Constitutional Revolution brought far-ranging political and intellectual changes
to Iran, the Persian public was ready for modernism and the newer modes of
thought that came with it, and classical poetry was no longer centrally relevant
to the needs of the time. Prose style also responded to the forces that changed
poetry, and a long period of gradual simplification of prose that began with the
bdz-gasht lasted well into the twentieth century.
There are a number of entries for images, themes, and characters that appear
in literature, especially in poetry, that the literary scholar should be aware of.
Some of these articles provide a far wider context for the image or figure than
that found in poetry, and are doubly valuable for that reason. An example is
AHU (gazelle). In part i. of the article, The Gazelle in Iran Today, the two spe-
cies occurring in Iran are described along with their habits and distribution. Part
ii. The Gazelle in Literature, notes that the gazelle is mainly, but not exclu-
sively, a metaphor for the beloved or the lover's companion in love poetry, the
best-known instance of the latter role being the masnavi by Hafez beginning

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 555

"Illa ay ahui-yi wahshi kuja'i ma-ra ba tui-st chandin ashnad'." The gazelle is also
the subject of a tacziyah entitled Ya zamin-e hui.7
Some fairly extensive articles have a literary section embedded within them.
A good example of this sort is the entry for ANGUR (grapes). Most of the arti-
cle concerns the history and present state of grape production in Iran and
Afghanistan, but there is a section on grapes in literature. References to grapes
(and wine) are widely distributed in Persian literature. The many varieties of
grapes in Badghis are appreciated by the Samanid ruler Nasr b. Ahmad in a
famous passage in Chahair Maqalah. Rudaki wrote a qasTdah on winemaking
where the grape is called miadar-i may, the mother of wine. Mystical images of
grapes appear in Rumi's ghazals, and Bushaq parodies Hafez by speaking of
grapes instead of poetry.
While the grape may be a relatively small motif in the larger literary con-
text, the garden is a major element in poetic imagery, and is the actual subject of
many poems. The article BAG is divided into four sections, and section iii con-
cerns the garden in Persian literature. Three out of the four sections of the article
describe actual gardens. The poetic garden, however, is an abstracted, idealized
locale that lacks specific details to identify it with a particular garden even
though the poem might have been written to celebrate the opening of a real gar-
den. Certain specific plants and trees in Iranian and Indian gardens are mentioned,
but almost no other material details. It helps to understand the garden imagery if
the reader has some idea of what an actual garden looks like. Gardens in poetry
are places for private retreat, settings for parties and revelry, seasonal celebra-
tions, other public or private occasions, and examples of royal magnificence.
The description of actual, functional gardens of the past or present makes it clear
that the garden was also closely connected with the general agricultural enterprise
of the country.
Beyond its setting for intimate pleasure gatherings, the poetic garden soon
becomes identified with Paradise. Inspired by Qur'anic descriptions of the arche-
typical garden of Paradise, Persian poets likened royal pleasure gardens to their
celestial prototype. Beautiful beloveds were said to be houris, and the cypress
tree, common in Persian gardens, was an image of the Tuba-tree of paradise.
Because the garden, with its economic, social, artistic, and symbolic dimensions
is such an important element in Persian culture, its presence is felt in modern as
well as in classical poetry. In both classical and modern times the poetic garden
comes to symbolize humankind's relation to nature. Each has its life cycle of
youth, maturity, and decline in spring, summer, and autumn. Persian gardens are
usually surrounded by a high wall, and the contrast between what lies within the
wall and what is outside it suggests the essence of much life on the Iranian pla-
teau: nature is harsh, cruel, and dangerous outside the wall, but within, it can be
controlled and enjoyed on man's terms.
Characters in literature derive from many sources. An example of an actual
individual whose poetic persona developed in quite a different direction from his
historical role is AYAZ. Abu al-Najm b. Uymaq Ayaz (sometimes Ayaz in
poetry) was a Turkish slave of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud. Little is known

7. To the bibliography should be added E. Schroeder, "The Wild Deer Mathnawi,"

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11 (1952): 118-34.

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
556 Hanaway

about the actual individual beyond the fact that he was chief cupbearer and the
favorite of Mahmud, and that later under Sultan Mascud he was appointed gover-
nor of Kirman. Not long after his death, said to have been in 449/1057, legends
focused on the relationship of Mahmud and Ayaz began to appear. Rather
quickly, it seems, Ayaz became an idealized beloved in Persian poetry, pure and
beautiful. Later, the relationship of the sultan and the slave became a metaphor
for mystical love in the Sufi writings of cAttar and Rumi, among others. Sev-
eral long mystical poems were written about the lovers, and Mahmud and Ayaz
came to be thought of in the same category as Layli and Majnun, Khusraw and
Shirin, and Yusuf and Zulaykha. This is an interesting case of legend-building in
Persian literature, especially the tendency to idealize certain rulers and nobles as
examples of moral values.
A character from the Iranian epic tradition who caught the imagination of
modem Persian writers is ARAS. Arash appears in the Avesta and in certain
Middle Persian texts, and later in Shahnameh, Vrs o Ramin, Balcami's
translation of Tabari's TarTkh, and a number of other early texts. The legend,
appearing in generally similar forms but differing in details, holds that Arash
climbed a high mountain, sometimes Mt. Damavand, and shot an arrow
eastward. The wind, or an angel, or Arash's own great strength gave the arrow a
long flight and the spot on which it landed marked the boundary between Iran and
Turan. Mentions of Arash in the early classical texts are fleeting, and the legend
was almost forgotten in modem times until revived by E. Yarshater.8 It struck a
chord among Persian writers in the troubled times following the Mosaddeq
period, and at least four versions of the legend were published. In three of them,
where Arash is presented as the savior of Iran from the tyranny of Afrasiyab, he
seems to symbolize the political hopes of many Persians, and in the fourth
version, where Arash fails in his mission through lack of will, he expresses the
frustration of these hopes. The article is divided into two sections, covering the
older literature and modem literature, each written by a different scholar. This full
and careful treatment of a relatively minor figure shows again the care and
thought that have gone into the planning of the EIr.
A striking example of an article on literature embedded in a non-literary con-
text is CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vii. Constitutional Movement in
Literature. The article on literature follows directly on one devoted to the press of
the period that concludes with an extensive list of newspapers published during
the constitutional period. The close connection between joumalism and the
development of modem literature is highlighted by the physical juxtaposition of
these articles. The author of vii discusses what is termed "constitutional litera-
ture," which is literature produced from the late 19th century until 1921 "under
the impact of aspirations for reform and the constitutional movement" (p. 212).
Just as the Constitutional Revolution did not produce a violent political revolu-
tion, so the literary change that accompanied the revolution was not a clear brak
with the past but formed a transitional period between the classical traditions and
modem literature, following to some extent literary developments outside Iran.
Perhaps the most significant social change that affected poetry was the
change in the pattem of patronage. Court patronage had supported the majority

8. E. Yarshater, Ddstanhii-yi iriTn-i Bastan (Tehran, 1336/1957-58).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 557

of poets and writers up to the time of the revolution. Throughout the latter part
of the nineteenth century educational reforms and an increase in literacy had
begun to create a new audience for literature. With the new freedoms that came
with the revolution, journalism flourished, education and literacy spread, and an
educated middle class began to emerge. This middle class became both the source
and the audience for literature as the patronage of the court declined. Social and
political changes provided the new thematic material for poetry and prose. In
formal terms, while there were experiments with new verse forms and the use of
colloquial language, the familiar poetic forms did not change: the ghazal,
qasidah, masnavi, rub TC, and qit'ah still remained the important poetic forms,
with new attention being paid to the expressive possibilities of the tasnif, a
popular strophic form with a refrain meant to be sung. Subject matter did
change, with social and political issues being expressed using the traditional
verse forms and thus creating the context for the most contentious literary issue
of the twentieth century: Can new social themes be expressed using traditional
verse forms, or do these forms cary too much accumulated baggage with them
and impose too many artificial restrictions on the poet? Thus the battle-lines
between the "traditionalists" and the "modernists" were drawn, and the struggle
only ended after World War II when the modernists gained the upper hand.
In prose writing, the trend toward simplification that began with the baiz-
gasht-i adabt in the eighteenth century continued its course. Social and political
satire became favorite modes of expression, and historical novels began to be
written. The novel was a new genre in Persian literature, and with no models in
their own tradition to look to, writers began by imitating European novels.
Gaining control of a new and protean genre such as the novel was a slow and
difficult process, but it has been achieved, as is discussed in the review of mod-
em literature.
The article on the Constitutional movement in literature shows well the
importance of the Constitutional Period as a period of transition. Many aspects
of classical literature were challenged by the changing social, political, and intel-
lectual movements of the time. Some aspects of the classical tradition began to
disappear, some remained as they had been, and some evolved into something
new. It is difficult to draw lines between the classical and the modern periods
because the roots of modernism lie in the classical period, and the classical tadi-
tion persists still in the modern period. In a culture where literature, especially
poetry, is as important as it is in Iran, major changes come slowly and with
difficulty. The stereotype of the modernist is that he or she wants change at
once, while that of the classicist is that he or she wants it never. Between these
extremes the forces of each camp contend, and time does its work.
A number of articles in the EIr touch on literary study although they are
concerned with basically non-literary subjects. One example is COLOR i.
Symbolism in Persian Literature. The article reviews the literary use of color to
suggest various ideas, but one misses a more extended discussion of color terms
themselves and of how the color spectrum is divided up in Persian culture. All
students of Persian literature will have noticed that sabz refers to a range of
greens but also to a particular skin color (by no means green) common among
Persians. Blue and green objects are often described using the same word in
Pashto. Such different divisions of the color spectrum by Persians and
Westerners are striking and need further exploration.

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
558 Hanaway

The article CONSTELLATIONS contains a very useful table giving the

constellations with their Latin, Arabic, Persian, and English names. The list is
divided into zodiac constellations, and northern and southern constellations. The
fiequency with which the names of stars and constellations appear in classical
literature makes such a list an important aid for scholars and students.
The article CORRESPONDENCE holds unexpected treasures of information
for the literary scholar for two reasons: first, many letters appear in works of
history that are considered to be within the category of classical literature, begin-
ning with Abu'l-Fazl BAYHAQI's Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, and it is useful to know
the conventions that governed the formal aspects of epistolary writing in various
historical periods; second, the authors of epistolary manuals in Persian, such as
DASTUR-E DABIRI by Mohammad Mayhani (compiled 585/1189-90) and
DASTUR AL-KATEB by Muhammad b. Hindushah Nakhjawani (completed
767/1365-66) make it clear that they are writing for both secretaries and litter-
ateurs. This close connection between the secretarial class (dabrrs, munshrs) on
the one hand, and poets and writers on the other, requires much further research
to be properly elucidated. The article on correspondence in the Islamic period
brings out not only technical information about the structure and form of letters
but also about the context in which letters were written. Any general history of
Persian literature should go beyond discussing the prose style of official letters
and documents and attempt to set the whole question of correspondence in its
larger literary context.
One problem facing any encyclopedia appearing in fascicles over a long
period of time is that by the time the work approaches its conclusion, the arti-
cles in the earlier volumes are often out of date. This is the case with EIr, but
the situation is not yet desperate. A few suggestions will be given here for addi-
tions to the bibliographies of certain articles. For example, in the article on
cABD-al-NABI QAZVINI, author of the well-known Maykhana, it is stated that
his work concerning the art of reciting Qissah-i Amtr IHamza entitled Dastar al-
Fusahia3 is no longer extant, but recently a copy has been discovered in the
Majlis Library in Tehran. In the article on ABU'L-IHASAN KHAN IL(OI, it
should be noted that his Hayratnama has been published, albeit in a thoroughly
bowdlerized edition, by Hasan Morsalvand (Tehran, 1364/1985). There is also an
English translation that restores some of the deleted passages.9 The article on
CABDI ?IRAZI needs considerable updating following the publication of four of
his masnavi poems.'? The entry ANDARZ ii. Literature in New Persian should
include C. H. de Fouchecour, Moralia (Paris, 1986), a wide-ranging examina-
tion of this genre. In addition, since the article is broadly conceived, one might
have expected some mention of the numerous malffizti works so characteristic of
Sufi writers from South Asia. The entry for BABA FAGANI now needs a thor-
ough reworking in the light of the publication of Welcoming Fighani by Paul
E. Losensky (Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1998). The article BOOKBINDING inexpli-

9. Margaret M. Cloak, trans., A Persian in the Court of King George, 1809-10,

(London, 1988).

10. Abdi Shirazi, Majnun va Layli (Moscow, 1967); Rowzat al-Safat (Moscow,
1974); Haft Akhtar (Moscow, 1974); and A'in-e Eskandari (Moscow, 1977), all edited
by Abu al-Fazl Rahimov.

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Classical Persian Literature 559

cably omits an important reference, which presents photographs of previously

unpublished bindings in the Turk ve Islam Asari Muzesi and other collections in
Istanbul." Finally, in the article AFGHANISTAN xii. Literature, there is men-
tion of an early nineteenth-century poet named cAysha Durrani, who died in
1235/1819-20. Her diviin was lithographed in Kabul in the late nineteenth cen-
tury, and although it is not widely known, it is of such substantial size and high
quality that its author deserves an independent entry.
The above criticisms are offered in a helpful spirit and should not cast doubt
on the scholarly value of the EIr. Professor Yarshater and his staff deserve a great
deal of credit for the care and thoughtfulness that have gone into publishing the
encyclopaedia; we wish them well in their continuing efforts and hope for the
speedy completion of this most valuable reference work.

11. Mehmet Aga-Oglu, Persian Bookbindings of the Fifteenth Century (Ann Arbor,
1935).

This content downloaded from

223.190.85.47 on Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:36:51 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms