Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:29:08.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Compilations of the Bustān of Saʿdī in Iran, Central Asia, and Turkey, ca. 1470–1550

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Lamia Balafrej*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

This article presents two hitherto unstudied compilations of verses from the Bustān of Saʿdī. Both circulated in the Persianate world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The article provides an analysis of the compilations’ content as well as their relation to the complete Bustān. By highlighting certain stories and themes at the expense of others, and by ordering these passages in a way that differs from the complete Bustān, each compilation transforms Saʿdī’s text into a shorter, more homogenous composition, with distinct formal, thematic, and generic qualities. The shorter compilation presents a series of aphorisms, forming a mirror for princes. The longer one offers a selection of stories and lessons and emphasizes mystical themes, including aspects of Sufi erotic theology. This article also investigates the manuscript copies of these compilations, revealing their use and transmission in Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia between 1470 and 1550.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aigle, Denise.La conception du pouvoir en islam. Miroirs des princes persans et théories sunnites (XIe‒XIVe siècle).” Perspectives médiévales 31 (2007): 1744.Google Scholar
Askari, Nasrin. The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes. Leiden, Boston: E.J. Brill, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ātābāy, Badrī. Fihrist-i dīvān-hā-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhāna-yi salṭanatī. Tehran: Chāpkhāna zibā, 1976.Google Scholar
Babajanov, Bakhtiyar, and Szuppe, Maria. Les inscriptions persanes de Char Bakr, nécropole familial des khwâja Juybâri près de Boukhara. Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum—Institut Français d’Etudes sur l’Asie Centrale. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2002 [ = Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum Part IV, vol. XXXI].Google Scholar
Bruijn, J.T.P. de.Mathnawī.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960‒2004.Google Scholar
Citton, Yves. Lire, interpréter, actualiser. Pourquoi les études littéraires? Paris: Editions Amsterdam, 2007.Google Scholar
Compagnon, Antoine. La seconde main ou le travail de la citation. Paris: Seuil, 1979.Google Scholar
Davānī, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad. Akhlāq-i Jalālī. Ed. Shīrāzī, M.K. Calcutta: 1911.Google Scholar
Dust, Muḥammad. “Preface to the Bahram Mirza Album.” In Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters. Trans. Thackston, Wheeler M., 417. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001.Google Scholar
Ernst, Carl W.The Stages of Love in Persian Sufism, from Rabiʿa to Ruzbihan.” In The Heritage of Sufism, Volume 1, Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi (700-1300), ed. Lewisohn, Leonard, 435–55. Oxford: One World, 1999.Google Scholar
Ethé, Carl Hermann. Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office. Oxford: 1903.Google Scholar
Ethé, Carl Hermann, and Sachau, Eduard. Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889.Google Scholar
Farhad, Massumeh, and Simpson, Marianna Shreve. Sultan Ibrahim Mirza’s Haft Awrang: A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Fouchécour, Charles-Henri de. Moralia. Les notions morales dans la littérature persane du 3e/9e au 7e/13e siècle. Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations, 1986.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Trans. Newman, Channa and Doubinsky, Claude. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Gross, Jo-Ann.Multiple Roles and Perceptions of a Sufi Shaikh: Symbolic Statements of Political and Religious Authority.” In Naqshbandis: Historical Developments and Present Situation of a Muslim Mystical Order, ed. Gaborieau, Marc, Popovic, Alexandre and Zarcone, Thierry, 109–21. Istanbul: Institut Français d’Etudes anatoliennes and Editions Isis, 1990.Google Scholar
Ingenito, Domenico.Tabrizis in Shiraz are Worth Less than a Dog: Saʿdī and Humām, a Lyrical Encounter.” In Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th–15th Century Tabriz, ed. Pfeiffer, Judith, 77127. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2013.Google Scholar
Jāmī, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Bahāristān. Ed. Ḥakīmī, Ismāʿīl. Tehran: Iṭṭilāʿāt, 1988.Google Scholar
Jāmī, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Manavī-i Haft Avrang. Ed. Afṣaḥzād, Aʿlākhān. Tehran: Markaz-i muṭālaʿāt-i irānī, 1997–99.Google Scholar
Karatay, Fehmi Edhem. Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi Farsça yazmalar kataloğu, no. 1–940. Istanbul: Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, 1961.Google Scholar
Keshavarz, Fatemeh. Lyrics of Life: Saʿdī on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefevere, André. “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature.” Modern Language Studies 12, no. 4 (1982): 320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewisohn, Leonard.Sufism’s Religion of Love, from Rābiʿa to Ibn ʿArabī.” In The Cambridge Companion to Sufism, ed. Ridgeon, Lloyd, 150–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Lingwood, Chad G.Jāmī’s Salāmān u Absāl: Political Statements and Mystical Advice Addressed to the Āq Qoyūnlū Court of Sultān Yaʿqūb (d. 896/1490).” Iranian Studies 44, no. 2 (2011): 175–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Losensky, Paul. Welcoming Fighani: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1998.Google Scholar
Meisami, Julie Scott.The Shāh-nāme as Mirror for Princes: A Study in Reception.” In Pand-o Sokhan, ed. Balaÿ, C., Kappler, C., and Vesel, Ž., 265–73. Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1995.Google Scholar
Melikian-Chirvani, Assadulleh Souren.Le Royaume de Salomon. Les inscriptions persanes de sites achéménides.” Le monde iranien et l’Islam 1, no. 4 (1971): 1141.Google Scholar
Merguerian, Gayane Karen, and Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Zulaykha and Yusuf: Whose ‘Best Story’?International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 4 (1997): 485508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minorsky, Vladimir.A Civil and Military Review in Fārs in 881/1476.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 10, 1 (1939): 141–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajabī, Muḥammad ʿAlī. Shāhkārhā-i nigārgarī-i Irān. Tehran: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005.Google Scholar
Richard, Francis. Splendeurs persanes: manuscrits du XIIe au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1997.Google Scholar
Ridgeon, Lloyd.The Controversy of Shaykh Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and Handsome, Moon-Faced Youths: A Case Study of Shāhid-Bāzī in Medieval Sufism.” Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012): 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridgeon, Lloyd.Mysticism in Medieval Sufism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Sufism, ed. Ridgeon, Lloyd, 125–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Ritter, Hellmut. The Ocean of the Soul: Men, the World and God in the Stories of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār. Trans. O’Kane, John. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roxburgh, David J. The Persian Album, 1400‒1600: From Dispersal to Collection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Saʿdī, Abū ʿAbdallāh Musharrif al-Dīn b. Muṣliḥ. Morals Pointed and Tales Adorned: The Bustān of Saʿdī. Trans. Wickens, G.M. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Saʿdī, Abū ʿAbdallāh Musharrif al-Dīn b. Muṣliḥ. Bustān. Ed. Yūsufī, Ghulām-Ḥusayn. Tehran: Anjuman-i Ustādān-i Zabān va Adabīyāt-i Fārsī, 1981.Google Scholar
Saʿdī, Abū ʿAbdallāh Musharrif al-Dīn b. Muṣliḥ. The Gulistan of Saʿdī. Ed. and trans. Thackston, Wheeler M. Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2008.Google Scholar
Seyed-Gohrab, A.A., ed. The Treasury of Tabriz: The Great Il-Khanid Compendium. Amsterdam: Purdue University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Shamīsā, Sīrūs. Shāhidbāzī dar adabīyāt-i fārsī. Tehran: Fīrdaws, 1381/2002.Google Scholar
Soucek, Priscilla.The Manuscripts of Iskandar Sultan: Structure and Content.” In Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Golombek, Lisa and Subtelny, Maria E., 116–31. Leiden: Brill, 1992.Google Scholar
Soucek, Priscilla.Interpreting the Ghazals of Hafiz.” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 43 (2003): 146–63.Google Scholar
Soucek, Priscilla.ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ḵvārazmī.” Encyclopædia Iranica, Accessed March 10, 2019. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-rahim-karazmiGoogle Scholar
Soudavar, Abolala. Art of the Persian Courts: Selections from the Art and History Trust Collection. New York: Rizzoli, 1992.Google Scholar
Stowasser, Barbara F. Women in the Qur’an, Tradition, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Subtelny, Maria E.A Taste for the Intricate: the Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 136, no. 1 (1986): 5679.Google Scholar
Subtelny, Maria E.A Late Medieval Persian Summa on Ethics: Kashifi’s Akhlāq-i Muhsinī.” Iranian Studies 36, no. 4 (2003): 601–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabrīzī, Abū al-Majd Muḥammad b. Masʿūd. Safīna-yi Tabrīz. Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 2003.Google Scholar
Taeschner, Franz.Beiträge zur frühosmanischen epigraphik und Archäologie.” Der Islam 20 (1932): 109–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uluç, Lale.Arts of the Book in Sixteenth Century Shiraz.” PhD diss., New York University, 2000.Google Scholar
Zipoli, Riccardo. The Technique of the Ǧawāb: Replies by Nawāʾī to Ḥāfiẓ and Ǧāmī. Venice: Cafoscarina, 1993.Google Scholar