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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Leonard Lewisohn
Leonard Lewisohn*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
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Extract

Of the rhyme and verse of Shams-e Mashreqi Go tell the news to all who merit it Because the worth of pearls borne from sea all jewelers will appreciate.

—Mashreqi

During the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century in Tabriz, the political and cultural capital of medieval Persia, a remarkable congregation of Sufi poets assembled whose society, fellowship, and fraternity in Sufism, made them all members of one literary movement in Persian poetry, known as the ‘School of Tabriz’. In presenting the literary accomplishments and the mystical outlook of this School to a wider audience, the present article attempts to introduce the least known member of this school, namely, the Sufi gnostic poet, ‘Abd al-Rahim Khalvatī (Mashreqī), whose poetic oeuvre and biography has, to date, been completely neglected by Persian literary historians, both east and west.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2-3 , 1989 , pp. 99 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1989

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References

1 The poets who belonged to this school include Mahmud Shabestari (d. 1339), Mohammad Shirin Maghrebi (d. 1408), Mohammad ‘Assar Tabrizi (d. 1390), Kamal Khojandi (d. 1400), Qasem Anwar Tabrizi (d. 1433), Salman Savaji (d. 1376), Homam Tabrizi (d. 1314), Mohammad Lahiji (‘Asiri’, d. 1506), Shah Ne'matollah (d. 1430), and Shah Da'i Shirazi (d. 1466). For a detailed study of the different poets and their mutual cross-influence of ideas, see Lewisohn, Leonard, A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi (forthcoming 1990), Vol. I, Chap. 9Google Scholar.

2 Ebn Karbala'i , Rawḍāt al-janān, 2 vols. Ed. Ja'far Soltan al-Qorra'i (Tehran: 1965).

3 Khajeh ‘Ali Safavi (d. 1429) was the third in succession to Safi al-Din Ardabili (d. 1334), the founder of the Safavi Order; the latter is referred to in the highest terms throughout the Rawḍāt al-janān by Ebn Karbala'i.

4 A famous calligrapher who flourished during the reign of the last Abbasid Caliph, Mosta'scm billah, dying in Baghdad in 698/1298 (Editor's note, Ebn Karbala'i, op. cit., I, p. 568). See also, Schimmel, A., “Poetry and Calligraphy: Thoughts about their Interrealtion in Persian Culture” in Ettinghausen, R. & Yarshater, E., eds., Highlights of Persian Art (Boulder: 1979), pp. 187-88Google Scholar, for a discussion of the importance of al-Mosta'semi.

5 Ebn Karbala'i, op. cit., I, pp. 83-85.

6 Ibid. I, p. 86.

7 A renowned mathematician and mystic famous for his treatise on “Sufi Terminology’ (al-Ta'rīfāt) who flourished in Shiraz, and passed away there in 1413.

8 Ebn Karbala'i op. cit., I, pp. 85-86.

9 Ebn Karbala'i, op.cit., I, p. 509.

10 Ibid., I, p. 225.

11 Ibid., I, p. 377.

12 Ibid., I, p. 287.

13 Ibid., II, p. 102-4.

14 His grandfather, ‘Abd al-Rahim Bazzazi was, incidentally, a highly advanced disciple of Mohammad Maghrebi, profoundly dedicated to the Sufi Path. See Ebn Karbala'i, I, pp. 367-68.

15 Ibid.

16 Ebn Karbala'i, op. cit., I, pp. 97-98.

17 Ibid., I, p. 510.

18 This year refers to the Islamic lunar calender, corresponding to 1401 A.D.

19 Ebn Karbala'i's reference here is to Shams al-Din Mohammad al-Aqtabi al-Mashreqi, the poet's father.

20 To this day, this verse cannot be found in ‘Aziz Dowlatabadi's edition of the Divān-e Kamāl al-īn Mas'ūd Khojandī (Tehran: 1958). It is also absent from the recent critical edition of Kamal's Divan edited by K. Shidfar (Moscow: 1975).

21 The first tradition is cited by the Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musūlmane, (ed. A.J. Wensinck et. al. ) Tome 3, p. 466; but the second tradition does not appear in any form in cither Wensinck, , ibid., or in B. Foruzanfar's Aḥādīth-e mathnawī (Tehran: 1955)Google Scholar. However, both traditions occur cited as a single aphorism by Najm al-Din Razi in the Merṣād al-'ebād, who attributes both sayings to Jesus. See Algar, H. (trans.), The Path of God's Bondsmen, Persian Heritage Series, No. 35; (New York: 1982), p. 324nGoogle Scholar.

22 Ebn Karbala'i, op. cit., I, p. 87.

23 For possible evidence of this, see Va'ezi's Resaleh dar siyar-e haḍrat-e Shāh Ne'matollah Vaiī, and Kermani's Manāqeb-e haḍrat-e Shāh Ne'matollah Vaiī in Aubin, Jean (ed.), Materiaux Pour La Diographie de Shah Ni'matullah Wall Kermani (Tehran & Paris: 1956, rprt. 1983), pp. 308Google Scholar: line 7; 110: line 14.

24 The manuscript is dated Baghdad, 15 Jumāda II, A.H. 953/1546. See: Rieu, Charles, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: 1895), pp. 181-2Google Scholar. This Divan, uncovered in the course of my research-work on Maghrcbi, has been noted by no other scholar, whether Occidental or Iranian. Munzavi in his Fehrest-e noskhehā-ye khaṭṭī-ye fārsī (pp. 2531-32) mentions several Divans of Mashreqi: Mashreqi Shirazi, Mashreqi Tusi, Mashreqi Kashani —but records no Mashreqi Tabrizi (unless possibly his reference to two Divān-e Mashreqī-s—nos. 26002 & 26003 in the Majles and E'temad al-Dowleh Hamadan Libraries refer to our Mashreqi). The British Library MS. of Mashreqi's Divan is bound together with a Divan of Maghrebi, which it follows in sequence (I have not employed this latter Divan of Maghrebi in my edition; it is also listed in Rieu's Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum; (London: 1881), Vol. 2, p. 633Google Scholar as “Add. 7739“).

25 See below, p. 20 ff. for a discussion of the importance of these adaptations.

26 Nasr, S.H., Islamic Art & Spirituality (Suffolk: 1987), p. 93Google Scholar.

27 Schimmel, A., Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: 1975), p. 280Google Scholar.

28 Baḥth dar āthār va afkār va aḥvāl-e Ḥāfeẓ: Tārīkh-e taṣavvof dar islām az ṣadr-e islām tā ‘aṣr-e Ḥāfeẓ, (Tehran: 1977), I, p. 563.

29 See Lewisohn, L., A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi, (forthcoming 1991), Vol. 2, Ghazal 169: 21–22Google Scholar.

30 This line occurs on fol. 72a. The word ‘Aṭṭār in Persian means ‘druggist’ or ‘perfumer’, the ‘apothecary's shop’ or ‘Aṭṭār's corner being the medieval drugstore. The poet ‘Attar was a druggist by profession. The word Mowlānā (meaning ‘our master’) in the next verse refers both to the honorary sobriquet of the poet Rumi, and, as an indirect pun, to Mashreqi himself, as spiritual master and doctor of souls. This verse constitutes the last couplet (maqṭa’) of a ghazal, in the third hemistich of which the poet claims himself to be ‘drowned in the ocean of wisdom; the Sīmurgh of the Mt. Qāf of spiritual power’.

31 These two couplets are found on folio 136b. The latter puns on the literal meaning of the name of Rumi's spiritual master, Shams-e Tabriz (sun of Tabriz).

32 Divān-e Mashreqī, fol. 187b. Sec T. Izutsu, “The Concept of Perpetual Creation in Islamic Mysticism and Zen Buddhism” in Mélanges Offerts à Henri Corbin, ed. S.H. Nasr, (Tehran: 1977), pp. 139-41.

33 See Chittick, William, “Ebn al-'Arabi's Doctrine of the Oneness of Being” in Sufi: A Journal of Sufism, 4 (1989), pp. 6–14Google Scholar.

34 Divān-e Mashreqī, Fol. 79a.

35 See Ehsan Yarshater, She'r-e fārsī dar ‘ahd-e Shāh Rokh (Tehran: 1955), p. 164-65.

36 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 188, Robā'ī.

37 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 83, Ghazal.

38 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 184, Qaṭ'eh.

39 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 185, Qaṭ'eh.

40 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 103a.

41 Divān-e Mashreqi, Fol. 184.

42 Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: 1973 reprt.), p. 97.

43 Although consideration of the antonym of ‘imitation', i.e., the notion of poetic originality (bdā’) in Persian literary criticism transcends the scope of the present article, poetic originality among the Persian Sufi poets seems to comprise three key elements:

  1. Firstly, the notion of poetic originality (ebdā’) among the Muslim mystical poets as well as their extraordinary preoccupation with the composition of poetry in general -may both be said to be derived from the the idea of the inimitability of the Koran. All the poetical figures of speech (ṣanāye'-e badi’) employed by the Sufis in their verse, in fact, seem to have had similar antecedents in the divine rhetoric of the Koran. Concerning the earliest systematic treatise on the rhetorical devices in the language of the Koran —Abu Bakr Moḥammad al-Baqillani's Inimitability of the Koran (I'jāz al-Qur'ān)—Vincente Cantarino (Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age [Leiden: 1975, p. 14]) observes that the author “spends a long part of the treatise answering the question: Can the I'jāz of the Koran be recognized by the rhetorical figures which it contains? His affirmative answer consists of a detailed demonstration that the same rhetorical figures of speech found in poetry are also found in the holy text. Abu Hilal al-'Askari (d. 1005), whose literary views greatly influenced those of al-Baqillani's, had stated in the introduction to his famous Kitāb al-ṣinā'atayn (The Book of the The Two Arts) that the rhetorical arts of eloquence —balāgha, faṣāḥa—are, after the knowledge of God, the worthiest of all things to be learned, since through them the I'jāz al-Qur'ān can be recognized.” And as Jalal al-Din Homa'i argued in his classic work on Persian poetic devices (Fonūn-e balāghat va ṣanā'āt adabī [Tehran: 1984, 2nd ed.], p. 316.), “The best example of poetic originality (ebdā’) in books written in the Arabic language occurs in Sūrah XI: 44 of the Koran. Entire treatises on the figures of speech expressed in this verse alone have been written by literary scholars, who have been able to adduce and discover all the other available figures of speech [in poetry] solely by reference to this verse.”

  2. Secondly, the Persian Sufi poets did recognize the existence of a definite kind of independent artistic originality at the basis of poetic inspiration. Rashid al-Din Vatvat, author of one the first manuals in Persian on poetic figures of speech, the Ḥadā'iq al-seḥr fī daqā'iq al-sha'r (ed. Abbas Eqbal, [Tehran: 1929] composed in 1157, about the same time as the Chahār maqāleh [The Four Discourses] of Nezami ‘Aruzi Samarqandi) describes the meaning of poetic originality ﹛ebdā’) as follows: ‘This figure of speech is said by masters of diction (arbāb-e bayān) to consist of novel ideas expressed with good words arranged in a verse-form without any apparent exertions. However, I say that ebdā’ cannot be considered merely a ‘figure of speech'; on the contrary, all intellectual and learned discourse must possess originality, for everything else besides this belongs to the vulgar diction.” (Ḥadā'iq al-seḥr, p. 83). And Dowlatshah, defending the spiritual basis of originality, observes: “It is a mistaken assumption to think that the purpose of poetry is merely regularity in metre (naẓm), failing to understand that behind the curtain of this bridal chamber lie virginal mysteries, and in this room are chaste ladies of Ideas” (Tadhkerāt al-sho'arā, ed. M. ‘Abbasi, [Tehran: 1958], p. 15). ‘Abd al-Hoseyn Zarrinkub's recent work on Literary Criticism (Naqd-e adabl, [Tehran: 1982] 2 vols.) discusses this type of literary originality among the Persian Sufi poets in great detail. See, for example, Vol. I, pp. 106-08, 212-14, 236; II, p. 762 (ft. 20), 787 (ft. 131).

  3. Thirdly, since in the Sufi poet's ethos and in the Islamic world-view there exists no purely individual originality, no merely human creativity whose Origin is not transcendent and divine, we also find that the Sufis’ theories of poetic inspiration equally efface the ego from the artist's atelier, instituting God—or Muslim mystical tradition —as the sole actor and agent on the mental screen and blank page of the poet's mind and paper. According to the Sufis, Beauty and Truth are of Divine origin, rays from the heavenly pleroma of the Divine Names (hence, al-Badī’ [The Originator] being a Divine Name, is the sole source of artistic creativity). Furthermore, the Koranic doctrine of the predestination and the creation of human actions explicitly negates any purely human creativity. Interpreting verse 17 of Sūrah 13 from the Koran:

    Or have they ascribed to God associates who have created as he created, so that creation is all alike to them?

    Say: ‘God is the Creator of everything, and he is the One, the Omnipotent’. (trans. A.J.Arberry, the Koran Interpreted)

    Abu Bakr al-Kalabazi (d. 995), the author of the first systematic treatise on Sufism, the Ketāb al-ta'arruf (concerning which the eminent Sufi theosopher, Sohravardi Maqtūl [d. 1191] commented: “But for the Ta'arruf we should not have known of Sufism.“) pronounced: “So God denies that there is any Creator other than himself. Now since acts arc things, it necessarily follows that God is the Creator of them: for if acts had not been created, God would have been the Creator of certain things, but not of all, and then his words, “God is the Creator of everything” would be a lie—far exalted is God above that!…Abu Bakr al-Wasiti interpreted God's words, “his is whatsoever dwells in the night or in the day” [Koran VI: 13], as follows: ‘If a man claims that anything of his kingdom--that is, ‘whatsoever dwells in the night or in the day'—be it so much as a thought or a motion, is his, or through him, or for him, or from him, then he is contending with (God's) absolute authority, and weakening his power.” (The Doctrine of the Sufis [Ketāb al-ta'arruf] trans. A.J. Arbcrry, [Cambridge: 1977 rpt.], p. 28.) Also cf. similar discussions of this issue raised by Bürgel, J.C., The Feather of Simurgh: The “Licit Magic” of the arts of Medieval Islam (New York: 1988), pp. 7–8, 16-23Google Scholar.)

    It is the first and the third elements of poetic originality mentioned above which mainly preoccupied the Sufi poets. However, because their conception of originality was based on an aesthetics of heart-savour or dhowq(the esoteric dimension of the poetic originality among the Sufis corresponding to an unveiling, tajallī) which strikes the heart, the organ of poetic vision; cf. the profound discussion of Ebn ‘Arabi's theories of poetic vision by W.C. Chittick, “The World of Imagination and Poetic Imagery According to Ibn al-'Arabi”, in Temenos: A Review Devoted to the Arts of the Imagination, No. 10, 1989, pp. 99-119), future study of the concept of ebdā’ in Persian Sufi poetry will require a careful review of the mystics’ theories relating to poetic Imagination and Inspiration.

    In conclusion, from this preliminary examination of the “central critical facts” in the aesthetics of classical Persian Sufi poetry, we find an oscillation between two poles of expression whose mutual relation is more complementary than contrary in nature. Briefly put, these two poles in our modern parlance are inspiration and tradition, and in the lexicon of the Persian poets: ebdā’ (invention, creativity, originality, innovative ability) and serqat (literary theft or plagiarism). The ensuing discussion, however, will be limited to analysing the significance of the latter pole—of literary theft or verse-imitation—rather than studying the former dimension of poetic originality.

44 Cited by Cantarino, Vincente, Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age, pp. 129-30Google Scholar.

45 Ed. Mohammad Qazvini & M. Razavi, (Tehran: 1957), pp. 464-76.

46 Chahār Maqāleh (The Four Discourses) of Niẓāmī 'Arūḍi-i Samarqandī, trans. E.G. Browne (London: 1921, repr. 1978), pp. 49-50.

47 Mohammad Qazvini summarizes the relationship of four of these devices as follows: “The principle and basis of taḍmīn, eqtebās, ersāl-e methāl, and talmīḥ is the poet's adoption of something from someone else without conciously intending to ‘use’ it or to ‘plagiarize’ it (serqat), yet also without this happening after the manner of an ‘inspired coincidence between two poems’ (tavarrod). In reality, if the item adopted by the poet be someone else's verse or poem, this art is called taḍmīn; if it be something from the Koran or Prophetic tradition it is called eqtebās; if it be a proverb it is called ersāl-e methāl; and if it be an allusion indirectly pointing to one of these things, or to a famous historical tale, then it is termed talmīḥ”. “Ba'ḍī taḍmīnhā-ye Ḥāfeẓ” in Majmū'eh-ye maqālāt darbāreh-ye Ḥāfeẓ, ed. A. Khodaparast (Tehran: 1985), pp. 78-79.

48 Classical Persian Literature (London: 1958), p. 352Google Scholar.

49 Kayvan Sami'i, Taḥqīqāt-e adabī: sokhanānī pīrāmūn-e she'r va shd'erī (Tehran: 1982), p. 384-85.

50 From an article by Peter Avery, “Borrowings and Allusion in Ḥāfeẓ”, p. 13, unpublished typescript lent to the author.

51 From his article in the Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 6 (The Timurid and Safavid Periods), ed. P. Jackson & L. Lockhart (Cambridge: 1986), p. 983.

52 Kayvan Sami'i, “Taḍmīn dar ghazaliyāt-e Ḥafeẓ” in Taḥqīqāt-e adabī, op., cit., pp. 378-79.

53 Tadhkerāt al-sho'arā ; ed. E.G. Browne (London: 1901), p. 204. See also Divān-e Ḥomām Tabriz, ed., R. Eyvazi (Tabriz: 1970), introduction, p. 57; for confirmation of this.

54 Divān-e Kamāl al-Dīn Mas'ūd Khojandī, ed. ‘A. Dowlatabadi, (Tehran: 1958), introduction, p. 7.

55 The phrase ‘As a thief I'm fine’ (dozd-e hasanam) here is also a direct pun on the Indian Persian poet Hasan Dehlavi (d. 1328), whose penname was Ḥasan. Thus the hemistich could also be interpreted to mean: ‘Clealy, I'm a plagiarist of the verse of Hasan Dehlavi’ (I stole from Hasan).

56 Bahārestān of Jami (Tehran: 1961; reprinted from the Vienna edition of 1846), pp. 100-01. See also Zarrinkub, A., Naqd-e adabī, op. cit., Vol I, pp. 235-36Google Scholar.

57 Cited by Qazvini, M., Baḍī' taḍmīnhā-ye Ḥāfeẓ, p. 112Google Scholar. The following translation of this verse by Browne, Edward, (A Literary history of Persia, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: 1920), p. 491)Google Scholar, casts a different light on its meaning:

If Hasan stole ideas from Khosrow, one cannot prevent him, For Khosrow is a master, nay, more than the masters! And if Kamal stole Hasan's ideas from his Divan One can say nothing to him: a thief has fallen on a thief!

58 Ketāb Tadhkerāt al-sho'arā', ed. E.G. Browne, op. cit., p. 358. The collected poetry of this poet has been recently edited and published by Karami, A., Divān-e ‘Eṣmat Bokhārā'ī (Tehran: 1987)Google Scholar.

59 Bahārestān, op. cit., p. 102.

60 See Graham, Terry, “The Influence of Sufism on Music in Islamic Countries” in Sufi: A Journal of Sufism, 1 (1988-9), pp. 22-7Google Scholar.

61 Tadhkerāt al-sho'arā , op. cit., p. 349.

62 Divān-e Amīr Neẓām al-dīn ‘Alī Shīr Navā'ī, ed. R. Homayunfar (Tehran: 1963), introduction, pp. 17-18.

63 Divān-e Navā'ī, op. cit., introduction, p. D. I am indebted to Professor T. Gandjei of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London University, for this reference.

64 Cf. J.C. Bürgel, op. cit., p. 59.

65 Tadhkerāt al-sho'arā, op. cit., p. 5.

66 Divān-e Mashreqī, Folios 92-93.

67 No. 35 in my edition of his Divan.

68 The term ‘Maghreb’ (Occident) mentioned here contains a pun on the literal meaning of the penname ‘Maghrebi'.

69 The term ‘Shams-e Din’ means the Sun of Faith or Sun of Religion while also containing an allusion to the alternate penname of Mashreqi which is Shams. The term dow rokh means here ‘two cheeks’, rokh being the Persian translation of the Arabic khadd (cheek), although in modern Persian rokh more often means merely ‘face’ or ‘features’.

70 For further examples of such similarities, see our list of parallels between the two poet's Divans in A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi, Chap. IX. A. 6.

71 The Art of Poetry, trans. Folliot, D. (New York: 1961), pp. 72–73Google Scholar.

72 Grant, The Literature of Mysticism in Western Tradition (London: 1983), p. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Rumi, Mathnawi, ed. Nicholson, Bk. IV 32-92.

74 Cf. Lewisohn, L., “Shabestari's Garden of Mysteries: The Aesthetics and Hermeneutics of Sufi Poetry” in Temenos: A Review Devoted to the Arts of the Imagination, 10 (1989), pp. 177–207Google Scholar