Literary History of Persia

(13) Ṣá’ib of Tabríz⁵²² (d. 1088/1677-8) is considered by Shiblí⁵²³ as the last great Persian poet, superior in originality to Qá’ání, the greatest and most famous of the moderns, whom he regards as a mere imitator of Farrukhí and Minúchihrí. Riḍá-qulí Khán, on the other hand ⁵²⁴, says that Ṣá’ib has “a strange method in the poet’s path, which is not now admired.” He is, in short, like ‘Urfí, one of those poets who, while greatly esteemed in Turkey and India, are without honour in their own country. I have already expressed⁵²⁵ my own personal opinion as to his high merits.
[page 266]
According to the Átash-kada⁵²⁶, Ṣá’ib, whose proper name was Mírzá Muḥammad ‘Alí, was born in the village of ‘Abbás-ábád near Iṣfahán, whither his father’s family had been transferred from Tabríz by Sháh ‘Abbás. Having completed his studies in Iṣfahán, he visited Dihlí and other cities of India at an early age, certainly before 1039/1629-30, and was patronized by Ẓafar Khán and other nobles. He had only spent two years there, however, when his father, though seventy years of age, followed him to India in order to induce him to return home, for which journey he sought permission from his patron Ẓafar Khán in the following verses⁵²⁷:

[To face p. 266]

Autograph of the poet Ṣá’ib
Or. 4937 (Brit. Mus.), p. 472
[page 267]
“More than six years⁵²⁸ have passed since the passage of the steed of

my resolve from Iṣfahán to India took place.

The bold attraction of my longing has brought him weeping from

Iṣfahán to Agra and Lahore.

I your servant have an aged father seventy years old, who has countless

claims upon me by reason of the education [he gave me].

Before he comes from Agra to the flourishing land of the Deccan

with reins looser than the restless torrent,

And eagerly traverses this far road with bent body and feeble form,

I hope for permission from thy O thou whose threshold is

the Ka‘ba of the age’s hopes!

His object in coming is to take me hence, therefore cause thy lips

to scatter pearls [of speech] by [uttering] the word of permission,

And, with a forehead more open than the morning sun, raise thy

hand in prayer to speed me on my way.”
On his return to Iṣfahán, Ṣá’ib became poet-laureate to Sháh ‘Abbás II, but had the misfortune to offend his successor Sulaymán. He died in Iṣfahán after an apparently uneventful life in 1080/1669-70. The words “Ṣá’ib found death” give the date of his decease⁵²⁹.

Amongst the merits ascribed to Ṣá’ib by Shiblí is an appreciation of Indian poets rare with the Persians. Shiblí quotes thirteen verses in which Ṣá’ib cites with approval, by way of taḍmín or “insertion,” the words of Fayḍí, Malik, Ṭálib-i-Ámulí, Naw‘í, Awḥadí, Shawqí, Fatḥí, Shápúr, Muṭí’, Awjí, Adham, Ḥadhiq and Ráqim. In the following verses he deprecates the jealousy which-too often characterizes rival singers:

[page 268]

“Happy that company who are intoxicated with each other’s speech;

who, through the fermentation of thought, are each other’s red wine.

They do not break on the stone [of criticism] one another’s pearls

[i.e. verses], but rather strive to give currency to the wares of one another’s shops.

They pelt one another with tender-hued verses as with roses, with

fresh ideas they become the flowers of one another’s gardens.

When they shape their poetry it is with blades like diamonds, and

when their genius tends to become blunted, they are each other’s whetstones.

Except Ṣá’ib, the epigrammatic Ma‘ṣúm, and Kalím, who of all the

poets are kind to one another⁵³⁰?”

Ṣá’ib was a great admirer of Ḥáfiẓ, and is also complimentary to his masters Rukná and Shifá’í. Of the latter he says



“Who will care for poetry in Iṣfahán, O Ṣá’ib,

Now that Shifá’í, whose discerning hand was on the pulse of poetry, is no more?”

He puts Naẓírí not only above himself but above ‘Urfí. “So far,” says Shiblí⁵³¹, “no objection can be made, but it is a pity that, yielding to popular approbation and fame, he makes himself also the panegyrist of Ẓuhúrí and Jalál-i-
[page 269]
Asír…. This was the first step in bad taste, which finally established a high road, so that in time people came to bow down before the poetry of Náṣir ‘Alí, Bí-dil, and Shawkat of Bukhárá. ‘The edifice of wrong-doing was at first small in the world, but whoever came added thereunto⁵³².’”

Though Ṣá’ib tried his hand at all kinds of poetry, it was in the ode (ghazal) that he excelled. He was a ready wit. One of his pupils once composed the following absurd hemistich:

“Seek for the bottleless wine from the wineless bottle.”
Ṣá’ib immediately capped it with the following:

“Seek for the truth from the heart which is empty of thought.”
On another occasion one of his friends produced the following meaningless hemistich and apparently invited Ṣá’ib to complete the verse and give it a meaning:

Ṣá’ib immediately prefixed the following hemistich:

so that the completed verse runs in translation:
“Peace is in proportion to every pause: observe the difference between

‘to run, to walk, to stand, to sit, to lie, to die.’

Ṣá’ib was a very careful student of the works of his predecessors, both ancient and modern, and himself compiled a great anthology of their best verses, of which, according to Shiblí⁵³³ , a manuscript exists at Ḥaydar-ábád in the Deccan, and which appears to have been utilized by Wálih of Dághistán and other tadhkira-writers. Shiblí
[page 270]
compares Ṣá’ib to Abú Tammám, the compiler of the great anthology of Arabic poetry called the Ḥamása, inasmuch as his taste is shown even more in his selective than in his creative powers. The following are the verses by Ṣá’ib which I selected from the Kharábát and copied into a note-book many years ago⁵³⁴. They pleased me when I was a beginner, they still please me, and I hope that some of them at any rate may please my readers.

“When poison becomes a habit it ceases to injure: make thy soul

gradually acquainted with death.”

“The roots of the aged palm-tree exceed those of the young one;

the old have the greater attachment to the world.”

“In this market every head has a different fancy: everyone winds his

turban in a different fashion.”

“What profit accrues from a perfect guide to those whom Fate hath

left empty-handed, for even Khiḍr brings back Alexander athirst

from the Water of Life?”

“The rosary in the hand, repentance on the lips, and the heart full of

sinful longings — sin itself laughs at our repentance!”

[page 271]

“The place of a royal pearl should be in a treasury: one should make

one’s breast the common-place book for chosen verses.”

“All this talk of infidelity and religion finally leads to one place:

The dream is the same dream, only the interpretations differ.”

“The tyrant finds no security against the arrows of the victim’s sighs:

Groans arise from the heart of the bow before [they arise from] the target.”

“The cure for the unpleasant constitution of the world is to ignore it:

Here he is awake who is plunged in heavy sleep.”

“Flowers and fruit are never combined in one place; it is impossible

that teeth and delicacies should exist simultaneously.”

“Ten doors are opened if one door be shut: the finger is the

interpreter of the dumb man’s tongue.”

“The simple-minded quickly acquire the colour of their companions:

The conversation of the parrot makes the mirror [seem to] speak.”

[page 272]

“The march of good fortune has backward slips: to retreat one or

two paces gives wings to the jumper.”

“The wave is ignorant of the true nature of the sea: how can the

Temporal comprehend the Eternal?”

“The touchstone of false friends is the day of need: by way of proof,

ask a loan from your friends.”

“The learned man is a stranger amidst the people of the world,

just as the ‘witness-finger’ [i.e. the index-finger] appears

strange on the Christian’s band.”

“What doth it profit thee that all the libraries of the world should be

thine? Not knowledge but what thou dost put into practice is thine.”

“The life of this transitory world is the expectation of death: to

renounce life is to escape from the expectation of annihilation,”

“O my dear friend! thou hast more care for wealth than for life:

Thy attachment to the turban is greater than to the head.”

[page 273]

“Our heart is heedless of the Beloved, notwithstanding our complete proximity:

The fish lives through the sea, yet heeds not the sea.”

“The weeping of the candle is not in mourning for the moth: the

dawn is at hand, and it is thinking of its own dark night.”

“To quit this troubled world is better than to enter it: the rose-bud

enters the garden with straitened heart and departs smiling.”

“If friendship is firmly established between two hearts, they do not

need the interchange of news.”

“When a man becomes old, his greed becomes young: sleep grows

heavy at the time of morning.”

“To the seeker after pearls silence is a speaking argument, for no

breath comes forth from the diver in the sea.”

“Not one handful of earth is wasted in this tavern: they make it

either into a pitcher, a wine-jar, or a wine-cup.”

[page 274]

“The enjoyments of both worlds will not satisfy the greedy man:

Burning fire has always an appetite.”

“The humá⁵³⁵ of happiness came to me in old age; the shadow of

fortune came to me at the time of [the sun’s] decline:

Heaven became kind to me at the close of my life: peaceful slumber

visited me at morning-time.”

“I talk of repentance in the days of old age; I bite my lip [in

remorse] now that no teeth remain to me.”

“When perfection⁵³⁶ is unduly increased it becomes the destroyer of life:

The tender branch breaks when it bears too much fruit.”

“If I am mad, then who on the face of the earth is sane? If thou art

sane, then there is no madman in the world.”

[page 275]
“The only thing which troubles me about the Resurrection Day is this,

That one will have to look once again on the faces of mankind.”

“Become placeless, for to change this place of water and clay is but

to move from one prison to another.”

“I do not bid thee detach thy heart from the sum of the world:

detach thy heart from whatever lies beyond thy reach.”

“In the end the idolator is better than the worshipper of self:

better be in bondage to the Franks than in the bondage of self.”

“If thou dost not trample under foot this world of form, then suffer

until the Resurrection the torments of this tight boot.”

“Within his own house every beggar is an emperor: do not overstep

thine own limit and be a king.”

“If I worship the rose according to the rites of the nightingale, it is

a fault — I, who in the worship of fire am of the religion of the moth.”

[page 276]

“Everyone who like the candle exalts his head with a crown of gold

will oft-times sit [immersed] in his tears up to the neck.”

“Formerly people used to grieve over the departed, but in our days

they grieve over the survivors.”

Either one should not avert one’s face from the torrent of vicissitudes,

Or one should not make one’s home in the plain of the Phenomenal World.”

“Every tombstone is a hand stretched forth from the house of oblivion

of the earth to search for thee.”

“The hair has become white through the squeezing of the sphere, and

the milk which I had drunk in the time of childhood has

reappeared [on my head].”

“If everyone could easily become honoured in his own country,

How would Joseph have passed from his father’s embrace to a prison?”

[page 277]
III. Between A.D. 1700 and 1800 (A.H. 1111-1215).
From the literary point of view this century is perhaps the most barren in the whole history of Persia⁵³⁷, so much so that the only notable poem produced by it is, so far as I know, the celebrated tarjí‘-band of century. Hátif-i-Iṣfahání, of which I shall speak presently. On the other hand we have two full and authoritative accounts of the period by two men of letters who were personally involved in the disastrous events which befell Persia during and after the Afghán invasion, and who have left us a fairly clear and detailed picture of that sad and troubled epoch. These men were Shaykh ‘Alí Ḥazín (b. 1103/1692, d. 1180/1766-7), and Luṭf ‘Alí Beg poetically surnamed Ádhar (b. 1123/1711, d. 1195/1781). Both were poets, and the former even a prolific poet, since he composed three or four díwáns, but their prose writings are, from our point of view, of much greater interest and value than their verse.
Shaykh ‘Alí Ḥazín, whose proper name was Muḥammad ibn Abí Ṭálib of Gílán, is best known by his “Memoirs” (Tadhkiratu’l-Aḥwál), which he composed in India in 1154/1741-2, twenty years after he had become an exile from his native land, and which are easily accessible to students in the text and English translation published by F. C. Belfour in 1830-31. He was born, as he himself tells us, on Monday the 27th of Rabí‘ ii, 1103 (Jan. 19, 1692) at Iṣfahán, and was directly descended in the eighteenth degree from the famous Shaykh Ẓáhid of Gílán, of whom some account was given in a previous chapter⁵³⁸. The family continued to reside in Gílán, first at Astárá and then at Láhiján, until the author’s
[page 278]
father, Shaykh Abú Ṭálib, at the age of twenty, went to Iṣfahán to pursue his studies, and there married and settled. He died there in 1127/1715 at the age of sixty-nine, leaving three sons, of whom our author was the eldest, to mourn his loss⁵³⁹. Shaykh ‘Alí Ḥazín speaks in the highest terms of his father’s character and ability, and quotes a few lines from an elegy which he composed on this mournful occasion. He also mentions that, amongst other final injunctions, his father addressed to him the following remarkable words⁵⁴⁰: “If you have the choice, make no longer stay in Iṣfahán. It were meet that some one of our race should survive.” “At that time,” the author continues, “I did not comprehend this part of his address, not till after some years, when the disturbance and ruin of Iṣfahán took place⁵⁴¹.”

Since the “Memoirs” can be read in English by anyone interested in their contents, it is unnecessary to discuss or analyse them here, and it will be sufficient to emphasize their importance as a picture of the author’s times, and to note a few points of literary interest. In 1135/1722-3 he began to compile a kind of literary scrap-book or magazine (majmú‘a), probably somewhat similar in character to the Kashkúl of Shaykh Bahá’u’d-Dín ‘Ámilí, and entitled Muddatu’l-‘Umr⁵⁴² (“Lifetime”), but it was lost with the rest of his library in the sack of Iṣfahán by the Afgháns a few months later, About the same time or a little earlier he wrote, besides numerous philosophical commentaries, a book on the Horse (Faras-náma), and

[page 279]
published his second Díwán of poetry, and soon afterwards his third⁵⁴³.

The Afghán invasion and the misery which it caused, especially in Iṣfahán, put a stop to Shaykh ‘Alí Ḥazín’s literary activities for some time. “During the latter days of the siege,” he says⁵⁴⁴, “I was attacked by severe illness; and my two brothers, my grandmother, and the whole of the dwellers in my house died, so that my mansion was emptied of all but two or three infirm old women-servants, who attended me till my disorder began to abate.” Being somewhat recovered, he escaped from Iṣfahán early in Muḥarram, 1135 (October, 1722), only a few days before it surrendered to, and was entered by, the Afgháns. During the next ten years he wandered about in different parts of Persia, successively visiting or residing at Khurramábád in Luristán, Hamadán, Niháwand, Dizful, Shúshtar (whence by way of Baṣra he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and on his return journey visited Yaman), Kirmánsháh, Baghdád and its holy places, Mashhad, Kurdistán, Ádharbáyján, Gílán and Ṭihrán. From the last-named city he returned once more to Iṣfahán to find “that great city, notwithstanding the presence of the King⁵⁴⁵, in utter ruin and desertion. Of all that population and of my friends scarcely anyone remained.” It was the same at Shíráz, whither he made his way six months later. “Of all my great friends there,” he says⁵⁴⁶ “the greatest I had in the world, not one remained on foot; and I met with a crowd of their children and relatives in the most melancholy condition and without resource.” From Shíráz he made his way by Lár to Bandar-i-‘Abbás, intending to go thence in

[page 280]
a European ship to the Ḥijáz, “because their ships and packets are very spacious and are fitted up with convenient apartments, and their navigators also are more expert on the sea and more skilful in their art than any other nation⁵⁴⁷.” He was, however, prevented by illness and poverty (caused partly by the loss of his patrimony in Gílán, partly by the exorbitant and oppressive taxation which now prevailed) from carrying out this plan. A subsequent attempt carried him in a Dutch vessel as far as Muscat, which he found little to his liking, so that after a stay of rather more than two months he returned again to Bandar-i-‘Abbás. He next visited Kirmán, but, finding “the affairs of that ruined country in utter confusion by reason of the insurrection of a body of the Balúch tribe and other accidents⁵⁴⁸,” he returned thence after a few months’ stay to Bandar-i-‘Abbás in the hope of being able to go thence once again to Baghdád and the Holy Shrines. Finding this impracticable owing to Nádir’s operations against the Turks, and unable to endure any longer the sight of the misery prevailing throughout Persia, he embarked on the 10th of Ramaḍán, 1146 (Feb. 14, 1734) for India, where, in spite of the deep dislike which he conceived for that country, he was destined to spend the remaining forty-five years of his long life. “To me,” he says⁵⁴⁹, “who do not reckon the time of my residence in this country as a portion of my real life, the beginning of my arrival on the shores of this empire appears as it were the end of my age and vitality.” A little further on he says, “Altogether my nature had no agreement with the fashions and manners of this country, nor any power of patiently enduring them,” and adds a few lines lower “the sight of these dominions became more and more hateful to me, and being continually in hope of escape from them, I reconciled
[page 281]
my mind to the incidents in the affairs of Persia, and bent my thoughts on my return thither⁵⁵⁰.” Although unhappily disappointed in this hope, and compelled to spend the long remainder of his days in “a country traced…with foulness and trained to turpitude and brutality⁵⁵¹,” where “all the situations and conditions…are condemned by fate to difficulty and bitterness of subsistence⁵⁵²,” he declined to include in his “Memoirs” any account of his personal experiences in India, save in so far as they were connected with such important historical events as Nádir Sháh’s invasion and the terrible massacre he made in Dihlí on March 20, 1739. So, though the “Memoirs” were penned at “the end of the year [A.H.] 1154⁵⁵³” (beginning of A.D. 1742), they deal chiefly with the author’s personal history before he left Persia twenty years earlier. The accounts of contemporary scholars and men of letters (many of whom perished during the siege of Iṣfahán in A.D. 1722) with whom he was personally acquainted constitute one of the most valuable features of this interesting

book.

Eleven years later (1165/1752) Shaykh ‘Alí Ḥazín composed an account of about a hundred contemporary poets entitled Tadhkiratu’l-Mu‘áṣirín, which is included in the lithographed edition of his complete works published at Lucknow in 1293/1876, and of which mss. exist in the British Museum and elsewhere⁵⁵⁴.
[page 282]
Another and more accessible contemporary account of the poets of this period forms the last portion of the well-known Átash-kada (“Fire-temple”) of Luṭf ‘Alí Beg Ádhar. The greater part of this book deals with the Persian poets who flourished before the author’s time, arranged in alphabetical order under the various towns and countries which gave birth to them, including Túrán and Hindustán. This is followed by an account of sixty of the author’s contemporaries, which begins with a brief historical survey of the misfortunes of Persia during the fifty years succeeding the Afghán invasion down to the re-establishment of security and order in the South by Karím Khán-i-Zand⁵⁵⁵. The author recognizes the dearth of poets and men of letters during this period and ascribes it to the prevalent chaos and misery, “which,” he says, “have reached such a point that no one has the heart to read poetry, let alone to compose it”:

To most of these poets the author devotes only a few lines. The longer notices include Mullá Muḥammad Mú’min, poetically surnamed Dá‘í, who died in 1155/1742-3 at the age of ninety; Mullá Ḥusayn Rafíq of Iṣfahán; Sayyid Muḥammad Shu‘la of Iṣfahán; Sayyid Muḥammad Ṣádiq of Tafrish; Mírzá Ja‘far Ṣáfí of Iṣfahán; a young friend of the author’s named Sulaymán, who wrote under the name Ṣabáḥí, and to whose poems he devotes no less than thirteen pages; Mírzá Muḥammad ‘Alí Ṣubúḥ of Iṣfahán;
[page 283]
Áqá Taqí Ṣahbá of Qum; Sayyid ‘Abdu’l-Báqí Ṭabíb (“the physician”), whose father Mírzá Muḥammad Raḥím was court-physician to Sháh Sulṭán Ḥusayn, as he himself was to Nádir Sháh; Ṭúfan of Hazár-jaríb, whose death was commemorated by the author in a chronogram giving the date 1190/1776-7; Áqá Muḥammad ‘Áshiq of Iṣfahán (d. 1181/1767-8), to whom he devotes eight pages; and his own younger brother Isḥáq Beg, who wrote under the pen-name of ‘Udhrí and died in 1185/1771-2, according to the chronogram:

Other poets noticed are Muḥammad ‘Alí Beg the son of Abdál Beg, a Frankish painter who embraced Islám, Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ghálib, who spent fourteen years of his earlier life in India and married the daughter of the Nawwáb Sar-afráz Khán; Mír Sayyid ‘Alí Mushtáq of Iṣfahán; Sayyid Muḥammad Ṣádiq, nephew of the above-mentioned court-physician Mírzá Muḥammad Raḥím, who, besides several mathnawí poems dealing with the somewhat threadbare romances of Laylá and Majnún, Khusraw and Shírín and Wámiq and ‘Adhrá, was engaged on a history of the Zand dynasty; Mírzá Naṣír, son of the physician Mírzá ‘Abdu’lláh (d. 1192/1778); and Sayyid Aḥmad Hátif, the most notable of all these poets, of whom we shall shortly have to speak.

Luṭf ‘Alí Beg concludes his Átash-kada with an autobiography of himself, from which we learn that he was born on the 20th of Rabí‘ i, A.H. 1123 (June 7, 1711) at Iṣfahán, but spent fourteen years of his earlier life at Qum, whither his family migrated in consequence of the Afghán menace. At the beginning of Nádir Sháh’s reign his father was made governor of Lár and the coasts of Fárs, and he resided in Shíráz. On the death of his father two years later he accompanied his uncle Ḥájji Muḥammad Beg on the

[page 284]
pilgrimage to Mecca, and, after visiting that and the other holy places, returned to Persia, and was at Mashhad when Nádir’s victorious army returned from India. After accompanying them to Mázandarán he returned to Iṣfahán, and, after the assassination of Nádir Sháh, was attached for a while to the service of ‘Ali Sháh, Ibráhím Sháh, Sháh Isma‘íl and Sháh Sulaymán. He then seems to have retired from public life and devoted himself to the cultivation of poetry under the guidance and tuition of Mír Sayyid ‘Alí Mushtáq. With selections of this poetry, largely drawn from his Yúsuf u Zulaykhá, he concludes the book⁵⁵⁶.

Of Sayyid Aḥmad Hátif of Iṣfahán, though he was the contemporary and friend of Luṭf ‘Alí Beg, no biographical particulars are given in the Átash-kada, but only praises which appear somewhat exaggerated, since he is described as “in Arabic and Persian verse and prose the third after A‘shá and Jarír, and second only to Anwarí and Ẓahír.” Nearly ten pages are filled with citations from his poems, but of all these we need only concern ourselves with the beautiful and celebrated tarjí‘-band by which alone Hátif’s name has been immortalized.

[page 285

[page 286]

[page 287]

[page 288]

[page 289]

[page 290]

[page 291]

[page 292]

(Strophe I)
“O Thou to whom both heart and life are a sacrifice, and O Thou in

whose path both this and that are an offering!

The heart is Thy sacrifice because Thou art a charmer of hearts; life

is Thine offering because Thou art the Life of our lives⁵⁵⁷.

Hard it is to deliver the heart from Thy hand; easy it is to pour out

our life at Thy feet.

The road to union with Thee is a road full of hardships; the pain of

Thy love is a pain without remedy.

We are servants holding our lives and hearts in our hands, with eyes

[fixed] on Thy orders and ears [waiting] on Thy command. 5

If Thou seekest peace, behold our hearts; and if Thou seekest war,

behold our lives!

Last night, [impelled] by the madness of love and the impulse of

desire, I was rushing in bewilderment in every direction.

At last desire for the [Beatific] Vision turned my reins towards the

temple of the Magians.

Far from it be the Evil Eye! I beheld a secret gathering bright with

the Light of Truth, not with the Flames [of Hell].

On every side I beheld that fire which Moses the son of ‘Imrán saw

that night on Sinai. 10

There was an elder [busied] with tending the fire, round about whom

respectfully stood the young Magians,

All silver-skinned and rose-cheeked, all sweet-tongued and narrow-

mouthed.

[There were] lute, harp, flute, cymbals and barbiton; candles, desert,

roses, wine and basil;

The moon-faced and musky-haired cup-bearer; the witty and sweet-

voiced minstrel.

[page 293]
Magian and Magian boy, Fire-priest and High Priest, all with loins

girt up for His service. 15

I, ashamed of my Muhammadanism, stood there concealed in a

corner.

The elder enquired, ‘Who is this?’ They answered, ‘A restless and

bewildered lover.’

He said, ‘Give him a cup of pure wine, although he be an unbidden

guest.’

The fire-handed and fire-worshipping cup-bearer poured into the

goblet the burning fire.

When I drained it off, neither reason remained nor sense; thereby

were consumed both Infidelity and Faith. 20

I fell down intoxicated, and in that intoxication, in a tongue which

one cannot explain,

I heard this speech from [all] my limbs, even from the jugular vein

and the carotid artery:

‘He is One and there is naught but He:

There is no God save Him alone!’

(Strophe II)
O Friend, I will not break my ties with Thee, even though with a

sword they should hew me limb from limb!

Truly a hundred lives were cheap on our part [to win] from Thy

mouth a sweet half-smile. 25

O Father, counsel me not against love, for this son [of thine) will

not prove susceptible [to counsel]!

People counsel these [others]: O would that they would counsel

me concerning Thy love!

I know the road to the street of safety, but what can I do? for I am

fallen into the snare.

In the church I said to a Christian charmer of hearts, ‘O thou in

whose net the heart is captive!

‘O thou to the warp of whose girdle each hair-tip of mine is sepa-

rately attached! 30

‘How long [wilt thou continue] not to find the way to the Divine

Unity? How long wilt thou impose on the One the shame of the Trinity?

How can it be right to name the One True God “Father,” “Son,”

and “Holy Ghost”?’

She parted her sweet lips and said to me, while with sweet laughter

she poured sugar from her lips:

[page 294]
‘If thou art aware of the Secret of the Divine Unity, do not cast on

us the stigma of infidelity!

‘In three mirrors the Eternal Beauty cast a ray from His effulgent

countenance. 35

‘Silk does not become three things if thou callest it Parniyán,

Ḥarír and Parand⁵⁵⁸.’

Whilst we were thus speaking, this chant rose up beside us from

the church-bell:
‘He is One and there is naught but He:

There is no God save Him alone!’

(Strophe III)
Last night I went to the street of the wine-seller, my heart boiling

and seething with the fire of love.

I beheld a bright and beautiful gathering presided over by the wine-

selling elder. 40

The attendants stood row on row, the wine-drinkers sat shoulder

to shoulder.

The elder sat in the chief seat and the wine-drinkers around him,

some drunk and some dazed,

With breasts devoid of malice and hearts pure, the heart full of talk

and the lips silent.

The eyes of all, by the Eternal Mercy, beholding the Truth, and

their ears hearkening to secrets.

The greeting of this one to that one, ‘Wassail!’ the response of that

one to this one, ‘Drink-hale’! 45

With ears for the harp and eyes on the goblet, and the desire of both

worlds in their embrace.

Advancing respectfully, I said, ‘O thou whose heart is the abode of

the Angel Surúsh⁵⁵⁹,

I am an afflicted and needy lover: behold my pain and strive to

remedy it!’

The elder, smiling, said to me mockingly: ‘O thou to whom the

Guide of Reason is a devoted⁵⁶⁰ slave!

[page 295]
‘Where art thou, and where are we⁵⁶¹, O thou for shame of whom the

daughter of the grape⁵⁶² sits with veiled face?’ 50

I said to him, ‘My soul is consumed! Give me a draught of water,

and abate my fire from its vehemence!

‘Last night I was consumed by this fire: alas if my to-night be as

my yestere’en!’

He said smiling, ‘Ho! Take the cup!’ I took it. He cried, ‘Ha!

Drink no more!’

I drained a draught and became free from the pain of understanding

and the trouble of sense.

When I came to my senses I saw for a moment One, and all else

mere lines and figures. 55

Suddenly in the temples of the Angelic World the Surúsh⁵⁶³ whispered

these words into my ear:

‘He is One and there is naught but He:

There is no God save Him alone!’

(Strophe IV)
Open the eye of the heart that thou mayst behold the spirit, that

thou mayst see that which is not to be seen.

If thou wilt turn thy face towards the Realm of Love thou wilt see

all the horizons a garden of roses.

Thou wilt behold the revolution of the cycle of heaven favourable to

all the people of this earth. 60

That which thou seest thy heart will desire, and that which thy heart

desireth thou wilt see.

The headless and footless beggar of that place thou wilt see heavy-

headed with the dominion of the world⁵⁶⁴.

There also thou wilt see a bare-footed company with their feet set

on the summit of the Guard-stars⁵⁶⁵.

[page 296]
There also thou wilt see a bare-headed assembly canopied overhead

by the throne of God.

Each one at the time of ecstasy and song thou wilt see shaking his

sleeves over the two worlds⁵⁶⁶. 65

In the heart of each atom which thou cleavest thou wilt behold a sun

in the midst.

If thou givest whatsoever thou hast to Love, may I be accounted an

infidel if thou shouldst suffer a grain of loss!

If thou meltest thy soul in the fire of Love, thou wilt find Love the

Alchemy of Life;

Thou wilt pass beyond the narrow straits of dimensions, and wilt

behold the spacious realms of the Placeless;

Thou shalt hear what ear hath not heard, and shalt see what eye

hath not seen; 70

Until they shall bring thee to a place where of the world and its

people thou shalt behold One alone.

To that One shalt thou make love with heart and soul, until with

the eye of certainty thou shalt clearly see

‘That He is One and there is naught but He:

There is no God save Him alone!’

(Strophe V)
From door and wall, unveiled, the Friend shines radiant, O ye who

have eyes to see!

Thou seekest a candle whilst the sun is on high: the day is very

bright whilst thou art in darkest night. 75

If thou wilt but escape from thy darkness thou shalt behold all the

universe the dawning-place of lights.

Like a blind man thou seekest guide and staff for this clear and level

road.

Open thine eyes on the Rose-garden, and behold the gleaming of

the pure water alike in the rose and the thorn.

From the colourless water [are derived] a hundred thousand colours:

behold the tulip and the rose in this garden-ground.

Set thy foot in the path of search, and with Love furnish thyself with

provision for this journey. 80

By Love many things will be made easy which in the sight of Reason

are very difficult.

[page 297]
Speak of the Friend in the mornings and the evenings: seek for

the Friend in the gloaming and at dawn.

Though they tell thee a hundred times ‘Thou shalt not see me⁵⁶⁷,’ still

keep thine eyes fixed on the Vision,

Until thou shalt reach a place to which the foot of Fancy and the

eye of Thought cannot attain.

Thou shalt find the Friend in an assembly whereunto not even

Gabriel the trusted hath access. 85

This is the Road, this thy Provision, this the Halting-place: if thou

art a roadsman, come and bring!

And if thou art not equal to the Road, then, like the others, talk of

the Friend and scratch the back of thy head⁵⁶⁸!

O Hátif, the meaning of the Gnostics, whom they sometimes call

drunk and sometimes sober,

[When they speak] of the Wine, the Cup, the Minstrel, the Cup-

bearer, the Magian, the Temple, the Beauty and the Girdle,

Are those hidden secrets which they sometimes declare in cryptic

utterance. 90

If thou shouldst find thy way to their secret thou wilt discover that

even this is the secret of those mysteries,

‘He is One and there is naught but He:

There is no God save Him alone!’

CHAPTER VII.
POETS OF THE QÁJÁR PERIOD.
The Qájár rule was strong though severe, and, in spite of its harshness, was, perhaps, welcome on the whole to a country which had suffered seventy years of anarchy and civil war. The brief and bloody reign of the eunuch Áqá Muḥammad Khán⁵⁶⁹, who once more carried the Persian standards into Georgia and captured Tiflís, was followed by the milder administration of his nephew Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh (A.D. 1797-1834), to whose influence Riḍá-qulí Khán, in the Introduction to his Majma‘u’l-Fuṣaḥá, ascribes the revival of poetry and the restoration of a better literary taste. He himself wrote verses under the pen-name of Kháqán, and gathered round him a host of poets to whose lives and work several monographs are devoted, such as the Zínatu’l-Madá’iḥ, the Anjuman-i-Kháqán, the Gulshan-i-Maḥmúd and Safí-natu’l-Maḥmúd, the Nigáristán-i-Dárá, and the Tadhkira-i-Muḥammad-Sháhí, all of which are described by Rieu in his Supplementary Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum (pp. 84-91), and most of which were utilized by the above-mentioned Riḍá-qulí Khán. One of them, the Gulshan-i-Maḥmúd, contains notices of forty-eight of Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh’s sons who wrote poetry, and at a later date the Royal Family supplied Persia with another verse-making autocrat in Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh (A.D. 1848-1896), but these kingly outpourings need detain only those who accept the dictum Kalámu’l-Mulúk Mulúku’l-Kálám (“the Words of Kings are the Kings of Words”).
[page 299]
These poets of the earlier Qájár period might very well have been included in the preceding chapter, but for the inordinate length which it has already attained. The only respect in which they differed from their immediate predecessors was in their reversion to earlier models and their repudiation of the school typified by ‘Urfí, Ṣá’ib, Shawkat, and their congeners. This fact is established from two opposite quarters. On the one hand Shiblí, as we have seen⁵⁷⁰, takes the view that Persian poetry, which began with Rúdakí, ended with Ṣá’ib, and that Qá’ání and the moderns did but imitate the older classical poets, especially Farrukhí and Minúchihrí. Riḍá-qulí Khán takes the same view of the facts, but puts on them a quite different interpretation. According to him⁵⁷¹, Persian poetry had long been on the decline and at the end of the pre-Qájár period had become thoroughly decadent, so that the early Qájár poets did well to break away from the ideals of their immediate predecessors and revert to earlier models, amongst which he especially mentions the poems of Kháqání, ‘Abdu’l-Wási‘-i-Jabalí, Farrukhí, Minúchihrí, Rúdakí, Qaṭrán, ‘Unṣurí, Mas‘úd-i-Sa‘d-i-Salmán, Saná’í, Jalálu’d-Dín Rúmí, Abu’l-Faraj-i-Rúní, Anwarí, Asadí, Firdawsí, Niẓámí, Sa‘dí, Azraqí, Mukhtárí, Mu‘izzí, Lámi‘í Náṣir-i-Khusraw and Adíb Ṣábir, all of whom flourished before the Fall of the Caliphate and the Mongol Invasion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Of the later poets Ḥáfiẓ was perhaps the only one who retained an undiminished prestige in the eyes of his countrymen, and it is doubtful how far even he served as a model, though this was perhaps rather because he was inimitable than because he was out of fashion, like Jámí, ‘Urfí and Ṣá’ib, who lost and never regained the
[page 300]
position they had once held in their own country. Henceforth, therefore, the divergence between Turkish and Indian taste on the one hand and Persian taste on the other increases, while the action of the British rulers of India⁵⁷² in substituting Urdú for Persian as the polite language of that country in 1835-6 tended still further to cut off India from the intellectual and literary currents of modern Persia.

It would be easy with the help of the Biographies of Poets mentioned above and others of a later period to compile a list of a hundred or two more or less eminent poets of the Qájár period, but it will be sufficient for our purpose to mention ten or a dozen of those who followed the classical tradition. Nor is it necessary to group them according to the reigns in which they flourished, though it will be convenient to arrange them in chronological order. Of one great family of poets, the sons and grandsons of Wiṣál (Mírzá Shafí‘, commonly called Mírzá Kúchuk) who died in 1262/1846, it was my privilege to meet several, including the brothers Farhang and Yazdání, at Shíráz in the spring of 1888⁵⁷³. The latter was accompanied by his own son and the son of his deceased brother who wrote under the pen-name of Himmat. Of the three elder brothers, sons of Wiṣál, the eldest, Wiqár, was about forty-two years of age when Riḍá-qulí Khán⁵⁷⁴ met him in Ṭihrán in 1274/1857-8, while the second, Mírzá Maḥmúd the physician, who adopted the takhalluṣ of Ḥakím, died in 1268/1851. Of the third, Dáwarí, a specimen of whose work is quoted in translation in vol. ii of my Literary History, pp. 41-42, I do not know the date of decease. As his poems have not, I think, been published, I here give the Persian text on which the trans-

[to face p 300]

Autograph of the poet Wiṣál
Or. 4936 (Brit. Mus,), 20
[page 301]
lation above mentioned is based. It is taken from a small manuscript selection of his poems⁵⁷⁵ given to me in Ṭihrán in the winter of 1887-8 by my late friend the Nawwáb Mírzá Ḥasan ‘Alí Khán, one of his admirers and patrons.
Two stanzas of a musammaṭ by Dáwarí.



This mention of my kind friend the Nawwáb reminds me of a quaint incident which occurred while I was his guest at Ṭihrán in the early part of the year 1888, and which shows how relatively unprofitable is the profession of a Persian poet now compared to what it was in the “good old days” when a poet’s mouth was sometimes filled with gold or pearls as the reward of a successful poem which hit the taste of his patron. A minor poet, whose name I forget, if ever I knew it, came one day to the Nawwáb’s house and
[page 302]
asked and obtained permission to recite a poem which he had composed in his praise. On its conclusion he received the sum of one túmán (at that time worth about six shillings), with which he departed, apparently very well contented. But so far from the gift being deemed insignificant, the Nawwáb was subsequently reproached by some of his friends for turning the poet’s head and making him imagine that he could earn an honest livelihood by writing poetry!

This is no doubt one of the causes which are tending to put an end to the old style of poetry, especially the panegyric qaṣída. Another still more potent one is the position attained by the Press since the Revolution of 1905-6, for the poet now tends more and more to write for the people as a whole rather than for some special patron. The transition can be very well seen in the case of poets like the unfortunate Mírzá Jahángír Khán of Shíráz, the proprietor and editor of that remarkable product of the Revolution the weekly Ṣúr-i-Isráfíl, whose life, death, and literary activities in connection with that great national upheaval are fully discussed in my previous works, the Persian Revolution and the Press and Poetry of Modern Persia. As a poet and writer of the Revolution only did I know him until lately, when I received from my accomplished friend and former pupil Mr W. A. Smart, one of the most sympathetic Consular officers ever sent to Persia from this country, a large fragment (292 pages) of an untitled, anonymous, acephalous and incomplete Persian manuscript work⁵⁷⁶ containing accounts of thirty-eight poets, mostly of Fárs, who were either still living in A.D. 1910 or who had died in the course of the preceding forty years. Amongst these mention is made of Mírzá Jahángír Khán (pp. 74-77), and specimens are given of his earlier pre-revolutionary poems, including one addressed to his friends at Shíráz from

[page 303]
Ṭihrán, which are quite in the classical style, and bear no traces of the modern peculiarities. Two other not less eminent “transition poets” mentioned in this extraordinarily interesting volume are Abu’l-Ḥasan Mírzá, a grandson of Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh, born in 1264/1848, and commonly entitled Ḥájji Shaykhu’r-Ra’ís, chiefly known as a philosophical and political writer and a strong advocate of Pan-Islamism, who also wrote poetry, mostly topical, but in the classical forms, under the pen-name of Ḥayrat (pp. 102-121 of my ms.); and the eminent journalist Adíbu’l-Mamálik⁵⁷⁷ (born in 1277/1860-1), a descendant in the third degree of Mírzá ‘Ísá the Qá’im-Maqám, who composed verse under the pen-name of Amírí of Faráhán (pp. 39-50 of my ms.). The new poets of the Revolution were therefore, except in the case of the younger ones who have appeared since that epoch-making event, to a large extent the poets of the old school who had sufficient enthusiasm and flexibility to adapt themselves to the new conditions. But the transition itself is marked by as hard and fast a line as can mark any such historical transition, that line lying in the years 1906-7. Of course an abundance of poetry of the old type is still being produced, and I myself was gratified and honoured on the occasion of my sixtieth birthday (February 7, 1922) by receiving an album of verses contributed by sixteen of the most notable contemporary poets, besides a separate qaṣída from ‘Imádu’l-Kuttáb, that Benvenuto Cellini of contemporary Persia. Nor is there any reason to apprehend the early disappearance of the old verse-forms. The panegyric (as opposed to the philosophical and didactic) qaṣída will probably become rarer for the reasons given above, but the mathnawí, ghazal and rubá‘í will survive as long as mysticism, love and epigram continue to interest the Persians.
[page 304]
After these preliminary general remarks on the poetry of the latest epoch, we may pass to the consideration of some of its chief representatives. For information as to those who flourished before about A.D. 1870 my chief sources have been the three works of that industrious writer Riḍá-qulí Khán, poetically surnamed Hidáyat, to wit the large general biography of Persian poets entitled Majma‘u’l-Fuṣaḥá (“the Concourse of the Eloquent”); the smaller biography entitled Riyáḍu’l-‘Árifín (“Gardens of the Gnostics”), which deals chiefly with the mystical poets; and the Supplement to Mírkhwánd’s Rawḍatu’ṣ-Ṣafá, which carries that well-known general history down to about 1857 and was already well advanced in 1272/1855-6, when the author returned from the embassy to Khwárazm described in his Safárat-náma, of which the Persian text was published by the late M. Ch. Schefer with a French translation in 1876-9⁵⁷⁸. At the end of the ninth volume of the Rawḍatu’ṣ-Ṣafá (the second of the Supplement), which concludes the reign of Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh, several pages (unfortunately unnumbered, so that exact references are impossible) are devoted to the notable statesmen, poets, theologians and other eminent men of that period which sometimes contain biographical material lacking in the two earlier monographs. From these three sources, so far as they extend, the following particulars are chiefly drawn, but I have also made use of a rare manuscript work (possibly an autograph) entitled Tadhkira-i-Dilgushá, a biography of contemporary poets by Mírzá ‘Alí Akbar of Shíráz, who himself wrote poetry under the pen-name of
[page 305]
Bismil, composed about 1237/1821-2. This fine ms., written throughout in a large, clear naskh with rubrications, formerly belonged to the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler, and now bears in my library the class-mark J. 18. Mention is made of this author and his work by Riḍá-qulí Khán (who in his youth used to see him at Shíráz) both in the Majma‘u’l-Fuṣaḥá (ii, pp. 82-3) and the Riyáḍu’l-‘Árifín (pp. 243-4).