Literary History of Persia

283 Sir Harford Jones Brydges’ Dynasty of the Kajars translated from the Original Persian Manuscript (London, 1833) opens with a valuable Introduction (Preliminary matter) filling pp. xiii-cxci. The text of the original, entitled Ma’áthir-i-Sulṭániyya, was printed at Tabríz in Rajab, 1241 (March, 1826) and comes down to that year, but-Brydges’ translation ends with the year 1226/1811-12, and, in the latter part especially, differs very greatly from the printed text. Sir John Malcolm’s History ends with the year 1230/1814; R. G. Watson’s excellent monograph with A.D. 1857-8. The latest History of Persia, by Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes (2nd edition, London, 1921), is continued down to the actual year of publication.

284 Like Nádir, he was crowned by acclamation in the Plain of Múqán in the spring of 1796, and met his death on June 17, 1797.

285 Malcolm’s History, ii, p. 287.

286 Ibid., pp. 300-302.

287 The infamous traitor Ḥájji Ibráhím, who personally communicated to Sir John Malcolm the opinion here recorded.

288 According to the Násikhu’t-Tawáríkh, the issue of Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh during the 47 years of his mature lifetime amounted to two thousand children and grandchildren, and would, adds the historian, during the twenty-one years intervening between his death and the date of writing, probably amount to about ten thousand souls. He enumerates 57 sons and 46 daughters who survived him, 296 grandsons and 292 granddaughters, and 158 wives who had borne children to him. R.G. Watson (History of Persia, p. 269) puts the number of his children at 159. In any case the number was so large as to justify the well-known Persian saying Shutur u shupush u shahzáda hama já paydá’st (“Camels, lice and princes are to be found everywhere”).

289 See R. G. Watson’s History of Persia, pp. 128-129.

290 Ibid, pp. 247-256.

291 Ibid., p. 269.

292 His father, Mírzá ‘Ísá of Faráhán, bore the same title. Notices of both occur in vol. ii of the Majma‘u’l-Fuṣaḥá, pp. 87 and 425. Some account of his literary achievements will be given when we come to consider the prose-writers of the Qájár period in the penultimate chapter of Part iii of this volume.

293 See Gobineau’s Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale (2nd ed., Paris, 1866), pp. 160-166; and my Year amongst the Persians, pp. 116-117. A sketch of his character is also given by R. G. Watson, History of Persia, pp. 288-289.

294 Lit. Hist. of Persia, i, pp. 391-4 15, etc.

295 Ibid., ii, pp. 190-211; 453-460.

296 R. G. Watson in his History of Persia gives a fairly full account of the insurrection (pp. 331-334).

297 Sulṭán Muḥammad Sháh, G.C.I.E., etc., born in 1875. See Who’s Who, s.v. “Aga Khan,” and the conclusion of Stanislas Guyard’s entertaining article Un Grand Maitre des Assassins au temps de Saladin in the Journal Asiatique for 1877.

298 For a bibliography of the literature to 1889 see my Traveller’s Narrative written to illustrate the Episode of the Báb (Cambridge, 1890, vol. ii, PP. 173-211; and for the subsequent literature, my Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion (Cambridge, 1918), pp. 175-243.

299 Cited in the Hasht Bihisht, f. 244^a of my ms. The verse is ascribed to Nabíl of Zarand, who killed himself at ‘Akká on Bahá’u’lláh’s death on May 28, 1892.

300 R. G. Watson’s History of Persia, pp. 357-8.

301 He was born on July 17, 1831.

302 Some account of the two celebrated men, father and son, who bore this title will be found in the account of modern prose-writers of note in Part iii of this volume. See p. 147 supra, ad calc.

303 See Watson’s History, p. 264.

304 Ibid., pp. 398-406.

305 Ibid., p. 403.

306 Founded in 1894.

307 I possess two by Ludwig Schemann, Eine Biographie and Quellen und Untersuchungen (Strassburg, 1913 and 1914). The monthly review Europe for October, 1923 (No. 7), has published a very important Numéro consacré au Comte de Gobineau, which contains (pp. 116-126) an excellent article by M. Vladimir Minorsky entitled Gobineau et la Perse, followed (pp. 127-141) by a list of his published and unpublished works, a biography, and an account of Le mouvement Gobiniste en Allemagne et en France.

308 See my Travellers Narrative, vol. ii, pp. 326-334, and Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, pp. 265-271.

309 I refer to the second and enlarged edition, published in 1921, in which (on p. 526 of vol. ii) March of that year is mentioned as the current date at the time of writing.

310 Op. cit., ii, p. 369.

311 See p. 10 of my Press and Poetry in Modern Persia, where the whole subject is fully discussed.

312 A Year Amongst the Persians (London: A. & C. Black, 1893). This book has long been out of print and is now very scarce.

313 Náṣiru’d-Dín, indeed, approximately means “Victor” or “Defender of the Faith.”

314 The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia (Cambridge, 1914).

315 Lit. Hist. of Persia, ii, pp. 83-9.

316 Cf. Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. iv, p. 4. Such allusions will, however, be found in the poem by Na‘ím quoted in the latter part of this chapter, though in general it follows the orthodox qaṣída form.

317 Lit. Hist. of Persia, ii, pp. 41-2.

318 History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. iii, pp. 247-48.

319 Riḍá-qulí Khán explicitly says of both of them that their style is not approved by modern Persians.

320 See Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, pp. 113-14.

321 Compiled by Ẓiyá (Ḍiyá) Pasha, and published in three volumes at Constantinople in 1291-2/1874-5.

322 Muntakhabu’t-Tawáríkh (Calcutta, 1869), vol. iii, pp. 170-390.

323 Shi‘ru’l-‘Ajam, vol. iii, p. 5.

324 Catalogue of the Library of the King of Oude, vol. i, pp. 55-65.

325 Shi‘ru’l-‘Ajam, vol. iii, p. 10.

326 When a Muslim kills a bird for food by cutting its throat, he must pronounce the formula Bismi’lláh (“In the Name of God”) over it. Such a bird, in its (lying struggles on the ground, is called Murgh-i-Bismil, or Nim-bismil.

327 Shi‘ru’l-‘Ajam, vol. iii, p. 13.

328 I.e. ‘Urfí, as Shiblí notes.

329 I.e. Turkey. See above, p. 80, n. 5.

330 Cf. p. 164 supra.

331 See S. Lane-Poole’s Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 313.

332 Ibid., pp. 300 and 303.

333 Ibid., p. 320. I doubt if Baḥrí is a correct reading: it should perhaps be Burhán, the proper name of the second of the Niẓám Sháhs of Aḥmadnagar, who reigned from 914 to 961 A.H. (1508-1553 A.D.).

334 My text has gáhí, which I have ventured to emend to Qásim. For the particulars of Humáyún’s death, see Erskine’s History of India under the first two sovereigns of the House of Taimúr, Baber and Humáyún (London, 1854), vol. ii, pp. 527-8. The chronogram is unusually natural, simple and appropriate.

335 Ff. 138^a-139^b of my MS. marked H.13. Unfortunately this very important history has never been published.

336 This excellent anthology of Arabic, Persian and Turkish poetry was printed in three volumes in Constantinople in A.H. 1291-2 (A.D. 1874-5). See p. 164, n. 3 supra.

337 I.e. ‘Alí ibn Abí Ṭálib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law and the first of the Twelve Imáms.

338 ‘Alí’s eldest son, the second Imám, said to have been poisoned at the instigation of Mu‘áwiya.

339 The Prophet, his daughter Fáṭima and her husband ‘Alí and their sons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn once sheltered under one cloak, whence these five most holy beings are often collectively called by this title.

340 I.e. his younger son Ḥusayn, the third Imám and “Martyr of Karbalá.”

341 I.e. stature, as in the fifth verse.

342 The colour of mourning in Persia.

343 I.e. sorrow and vexation.

344 God or His Prophet.

345 No game or wild animal or bird may be slain within a certain radius of Mecca.

346 I.e. the head of the Imám Ḥusayn.

347 One of the rivers of Paradise.

348 Yazíd was the son of Mu‘áwiya, the rival of ‘Alí and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, who was the son of Abú Sufyán and Hind “the liver-eater” (Ákilatu’l-akbád). The term “bastard origin” should refer to Ibn Ziyád, not to Yazíd. See the Kitábu’l-Fakhrí, ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 133-5.

349 ‘Alí ibn Ḥusayn, commonly called Zaynu’l-‘Ábidín (“the Ornament of the Worshippers”), who, on the death of his father at Karbalá, succeeded him as the Fourth Imám.

350 He died in 910/1504-5. See my Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion, pp. 441 and 503-4.

351 The author’s name is given as Turkí of Shíráz, and the little book (48 pp.) was lithographed at Bombay in 1309/1891-2.

352 I.e. her son the Imám Ḥusayn. Jigar-gùsha (lit. “corner of the liver”) is an expression very similar to the Irish

353 Again Ḥusayn, “the martyr of Karbalá.”

354 e. its trace is ineffaceably stamped upon them.

355 The professional reciters or rhapsodists employed on these occasions.

356 The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain (2 vols., London, 1879).

357 Professor J. B. Bury’s edition of the Decline and Fall in seven volumes (London, 1898), vol. v, p. 391.

358 Sir Lewis Pelly’s Miracle Play, vol. ii, p. 347.

359 By an Azalí controversialist it is said to have been written of Bahá’u’lláh by one of his followers, but I have been told that it, or a very similar verse, was really composed in honour of Ḥusayn.

360 Nabíl is a Bábí substitute for Muḥammad, the numerical values of both names being equivalent to 92. The poet Nabíl at one time after the Báb’s death advanced a claim on his own behalf, and the verse here cited appears to have been composed at this period. Later he became one of the most devoted adherents of Bahá’u’lláh, on whose death in 1892 he drowned himself at ‘Akká.

361 See Wüstenfeld’s Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber, No. 19 (pp. 5-6), and his translation of this work under the title of Der Tod des Ḥusein ben ‘Alí und die Rache: ein historischer Roman aus dem Arabischen (Göttingen, 1883).

362 See Pelly’s Miracle Play, vol. ii, pp. 222-240.

363 Lithographed with crude illustrations at Ṭihrán in 1274/1857-58.

364 This expression in the mouth of a professing Muslim is extraordinary.

365 This constitutes a separate scene in Sir L. Pelly’s Miracle Plays, vol. i, pp. 171-189.

366 I.e. the Imám Ḥusayn son of ‘Alí and Fáṭima the Prophet’s daughter.

367 The Ḥúru’l-‘Ayn, or black-eyed damsels of Paradise.

368 The point to which the worshipper turns in prayer in order to face Mecca-wards.

369 The eldest son of the Imám Ḥusayn. His death forms the subject of Scene xvii of Pelly’s Miracle Play (Vol. i, pp. 287-303).

370 The daughter of ‘Alí and sister of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn.

371 It is not clear from the text whether this verse is uttered by one or both of the speakers.

372 No. LXVI, pp. 122-142. On this last page are given references to descriptions of other similar collections.

373 A good instance of that sense of justice (inṣáf) which my talented friend and former pupil Mr W. A. Smart of the Consular Service regards as one of the most admirable attributes of the Persians.

374 The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia (London, 1903), p. xii.

375 E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. xi, i (Text), p. 26; vol. xi, 2 (Translation), p. 27.

376 Both are given in full, with versified translations, in my Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, pp. 347-51.

377 Compare the initial verse of the poem cited on p. 173 supra.

378 Concerning this typical doctrine of “Return” (Raj‘at) see my Materials etc., pp. 330, 335 and 338, and my translation of the New History, pp. 334 et seqq.

379 Nuqṭatu’l-Káf (Gibb Series, vol. xv), pp. 404-5.

380 He is referred to in my Year amongst the Persians (p. 519), where he is wrongly described as a native of Abáda.

381 One of the seven great noble houses of ancient Persia. See Nö1deke’s Sasaniden, especially pp. 437 et seqq. These seven families constituted the Bar-bítán of the Pahlawí inscriptions, the Ahlu’l-Buyútát of the Arab historians.

382 See Qur’án, xxviii, 76 and commentary thereon in Sale’s translation and elsewhere. He is identified with Korah of the Old Testament, and amongst the Muslims is proverbial for wealth as is Croesus with us.

383 A short note on aksún, “a black brocade worn by the rich for ostentation,” will be found on p. 108 of my translation of the Chahár Maqála (Gibb Series, xi, 2).

384 Literally, made the colour of indigo.

385 The full explanation of these terms will be found in Blochmann’s Persian Prosody, or in any book treating of the metrical systems of the Arabs and Persians.

386 The two great rival philological schools of early Islám.

387 ‘Ilmu’r-Rijál (“the science of notable men”) means particularly the biography and authority of the transmitters of religious traditions.

388 Or God, which is the usual meaning of Ḥaqq amongst the Persians. Gibb (Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, p. 60, ad calc.) gives “the Fact” as a translation suggested by one of his Muslim friends.

389 There is a word-play here, of the kind called tajnís-i-zá’id, between falsafah (philosophy) and safah (folly).

390 The early Bábís were often accused of holding communistic views like the ancient Persian heresiarch Mazdak. Such views are here explicitly repudiated.

391 Alexander the Great is supposed to have built the Great Wall of China (hence called Sadd-i-Sikandar, “the Barrier of Alexander”) to prevent the tribes of Gog and Magog (Yájúj wa Májúj) from overrunning the world.

392 An evident allusion to the Darwinian theory.

393 God is so called (Bí-chún) because none may question Him as to the reason of His actions.

394 Doubtful. The original has Shílún, an evident error.

395 A well-known tradition of the Prophet.

396 Cf. Qur’án, xxiii, 98.

397 I.e. the world, whereof but one quarter is supposed to be capable of sustaining human life.

398 This and the following verses refer to the readiness with which the Bábís suffer martyrdom.

399 Like Sulaymán Khán, for instance. See p. 196 supra, and my Year amongst the Persians, p. 102.

400 The fulfilment of these prophecies is especially discussed in a Bábí work entitled Istidláliyya addressed to the Jews, and in English by Ibráhím Khayru’lláh in Bahá’u’lláh, the Splendour of God. To give only one instance, “a time and times and half a time” is explained as three years and a half of 360 days each = 1260. Now A.H. 1260 (A.D. 1844) was the year of the Báb’s “Manifestation.”

401 This verse is entirely in Arabic.

402 I.e. Bahá’u’lláh, who was most commonly entitled by his followers Jamál-i-Mubárak, “the Blessed Beauty,” or “Perfection.”

403 The reference is to Súra xcv of the Qur’án, entitled “the Fig.”

404 Not, of course, verses of poetry (abyát), but the revealed “signs” (áyát) which constitute His credentials.

405 I.e. of Law and Religion. It is, I think, misleading to translate ‘Ulamá as “clergy.”

406 I.e. lasts as long as life endures.

407 See Qur’án, xiii, 2 and xxxi, 9.

408 Ibid., ii, 111; iii, 42, etc.

409 I.e. the followers of Bahá’u’lláh.

410 I.e. ever changing, inconstant.

411 Perfection exposes the owner to special risks, and the Evil Eye is called by the Arabs ‘Aynu’l-Kamál because it especially menaces, whatever is perfect of its kind. Cf. p. 117, n. 2 supra.

412 So Ḥáfiẓ: “If the understanding knew how happy the heart is under the locks of the Beloved, the intelligent would go mad for the sake of our chains.” (Ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, p. 28, ll. 7-8.)

413 It is impossible to render the word-plays between ‘aql (understanding) and ‘iqál (hobble, tether, shackle fastened round a camel’s knee to keep it from straying), and bakhtí (dromedary) and bakht (fortune). Even when treating of the most solemn themes few Persian poets can resist such echolalia.

414 This is one of the titles given by the followers of Bahá’u’lláh to his son ‘Abbás Efendí, also called Sirru’lláh (“God’s Secret“), and after his father’s death ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

415 See the note on verse 92 above (p. 215, n. 4).

416 Ma‘n ibn Zá’ida is proverbial for his courage, virtue and generosity. For an account of him, see Zotenberg’s Chronique de Tabari (1874), vol. iv, pp. 373 et seqq. This verse affords another instance of echolalia (Ma‘n, máni‘, má‘ún).

417 Qur’án, xxvi, 224, on account of which the whole Súra is entitled the “Chapter of the Poets.”

418 According to Muhammadan tradition, he was a son or grandson of Noah, who, on account of his unbelief, was not saved in the Ark, but perished in the Flood. See Qur’án, xi, 42, and commentary thereon.

419 See the note on verse 4 of this poem (p. 209, n. 2 supra).

420 I can find no mention of such a person, and suspect that the reading is corrupt.

421 The title Waḥíd (“Unique”) appears to have been taken by the early Bábís as numerically equivalent to Yaḥyá, but this equivalency can only be obtained by writing the letter yá (ى) in the latter name only twice instead of three times (ﯽﺣﯿ for ﯽﯿﺣﯿ). Thus misspelt, it, like ﺪﻴﺤ و would yield the number 28. At any rate, as we learn from Mírzá Jání’s Nuqṭatu’l-Káf (Gibb Series, vol. xv, pp. 243, 250, 257, 259) the title was first given to Sayyid Yaḥyá of Dáráb, the leader of the Nayríz rebellion, and on his death was transferred to Mírzá Yaḥyá Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, the half-brother and rival of Bahá’u’lláh, who is therefore called “the Second Waḥíd” (ﻰﻨ اﺜ ﺪﻴﺤ و) It is, of course, to him that Na‘ím applies the term “cowardly traitor.”

422 The allusion here is to Bahá’u’lláh’s sons (half-brothers) ‘Abbás Efendí ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Muḥammad ‘Alí, between whom arose the same dispute about succession as arose in the previous generation between their father and his half-brother Ṣubḥ-i-Azal.