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Safavid Literature: Progress or Decline
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
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“The literature of the Safavid period is usually regarded as a literature of decline.” So Jan Rypka begins his chapter on this literature. In 1911, in a letter to E.G. Browne, Mīrzā Muḥammad Qazvīnī, the noted Persian scholar, pronounced an even harsher judgment on this period: “Under this dynasty,” he wrote, “learning, culture, poetry, and mysticism completely deserted Persia….”
The first question we must face is whether this was, in fact, the case. Did Persian poetry and prose under the Safavids sink into literary doldrums, as so many critics have judged, or, rather, was this an age of positive literary merit? And if our response should be negative, how are we to account for the decline of literature in the face of the political strength and economic prosperity of Persia under the Safavids, and for the flourishing of other arts in this period?
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- Iranian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2: Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part I , Spring Winter 1974 , pp. 217 - 270
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- Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974
References
Notes
1. Rypka, Jan et al., History of Iranian Literature, ed. Jahn, Karl (Dordrecht: 1968), p. 292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Browne, E.G., A Literary History of Persia, vol. iv (Cambridge: 1956-59), p. 26.Google Scholar
3. For Arabic and Turkish literature produced in India, see Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, pp. 6 ff, 25-26. In 1582 by royal decreee Persian was also made the official language of the government.
4. A History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i (London: 1902, repr. 1965), p. 29.Google Scholar
5. Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. xxxiv-v.
6. Ibid., pp. xxxv-vi.
7. Schimmel, op. cit., pp. 1 & 8.
8. SeeᶜAbd al-Qādir Badāᶜunī, Muntakhab al-Tavārīkh, vol. iii (Calcutta: 1869), pp. 170ffGoogle Scholar; Shiblī Nuᶜnanī, Shiᶜr al-ajam, tr. into Persian by Fakhr Daᶜī, vol. iii (Tehran: 1955), p. 4.Google Scholar
9. In this respect the names of several individuals come immediately to mind. These include Bayrām Khānkhānan of the court of Humāyūn (d. 1555); Abu'1-Fatḥ Gilanī, a dignitary of Akbar's period; Shaykh Abu'l Fazl, a learned and liberal vizier of Akbar and a younger brother of the poet Faizī;ᶜAbd al-Raḥīm Khānkhānan, the son of Bayrām, who succeeded to the title of his father and served Akbar and Jahāngīr; and Ẓafar khān Aḥsan, the governor of Kashmir under Shāh Jahān. For an account of these and several other personalities, see Shiblī, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 3-15.
10. The following lines by Ṣā'ib:
There is no head wherein the desire for thee dances not,
Even as the determination to visit India is in every heart.
(tr. by E.G. Browne, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 165) and byᶜAbd al-Razzaq Fayyāz Lahijī, the son-in-law of the philosopher Mulla Sadra Shīrāzī:
Great is India, the Mecca for all in need,
Particularly for those who seek safety.
A jouney to India is incumbent upon any man
Who has acquired adequate knowledge and skill.
(quoted by P. Bayza'i, Introduction to the Dīvān of Kalīm (Tehran: 1957), p. 5).
11. See, e.g.,ᶜAmīrī Fīrīzkūhī's impassioned argument in his introduction to the Dīvān of Ṣā'ib, 2nd ed. (Tehran: 1957), pp. 4-5 and R. Bayza'i, op. cit., p. 13.
12. R. Humāyūn Farrukh, ed. (Tehran: n.d.), pp. 3-4.
13. Ibid., p. 3.
14. See Abu'l FazlᶜAllamī's comment: “Poets strike out a road to the inaccessible realm of thought, and divine grace beams forth in their genius.” Aᶜin-i Akbarī, vol i, tr. Blochman, H. (Calcutta: 1873), p. 548.Google Scholar
15. Tadhkirah-i Ḥazīn, 2nd ed. (Sfahan: 1955), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
16. Ibid., p. 7.
17. M. Sirishk (M. Shafīᶜī Kadkanī), Ḥazīn-i Lahijī (Mashhad: 1963), p. 29.Google Scholar
18. Ed. Sadat-i Naṣirī, H., vol. i (Tehran: 1957), pp. 123–25.Google Scholar Two manuscripts have the following instead of what has been quoted above: “He (i.e. Ṣā'ib) has a peculiar style in poetry which has no resemblance to that of the eloquent poets of the past. Although he was not inclined to write panegyrics and quatrains, he has a dīvān of nearly one hundred thousand lines, which was examined by me, and after much consideration, the following lines were selected.” (Ibid., p. 127, n. 2).
19. Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 870-71.
20. Shawkat of Bukhara (d. 1695-96), poet who enjoyed great reputation in Turkey and Central Asia and served as a model to many Ottoman poets; see E.J.W. Gibb, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 96-97.
21. Muḥammad Ṭahir Vaḥid Qazvīnī (d. 1708-09), a Safavid poet, stateman and historiographer and a contemporary and friend of Sā'ib. See H. Ethé, “Neupersiche Literatur,” Gr. d. iran. Pil., vol. ii, pp. 312 & 342 and Ch. Rieu's Catalogue of Persian MSS, vol. I, p. 189b.
22. Quoted by M.T. Bahār from Hadā'iq al-Janān in his Sabk Shināsi III, 2nd ed. (Tehran: 1958), p. 318.
23. Majmaᶜ al-Fuṣaḥā', ed. Musaffā', Mazahir, vol. i (Tehran: 1957), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar
24. All these lectures are now published together in Bahār-i adāb-i farsī, a collection of one hundred of Bahar's articles, carefully edited by Muḥammad Gulbun, with an introduction by Ghulām Ḥusayn Yūsufī, 2 vols. (Tehran: 1972). See p. 43ff.
25. Ibid., p. 49.
26. Dīvān, vol. ii (Tehran: 1957), p. 228. The poem is a response to Sarmad, who had expressed different views.
27. The latest expression of this view appears in Arianpūr, Y., Az Ṣabā tā Nimā, vol. i (Tehran: 1972), pp. 7–13.Google Scholar
28. See Browne, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 163; Gibb, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 247-48.
29. Among the excellent examples of such criticism are Sarāj al-DīnᶜA1ī Khān Arizū's Tanbīh al-ghafilīn, directed against Hazīn's poetry, and the rejoinder to Arizū by GhulāmᶜA1ī Azād Biligrami in his KhizānahᶜAmarah. See Sirishk, op. cit., p. 40ff.
30. Op. cit., vol. v, p. 22.
31. Ibid.
32. Bīdil's works, however, which have often been singled out as a notorious example of obtuseness and bombast in Persian lyric poetry, had a major impact in Central Asia which continued into the 1920's. In fact, Bīdil's works gave rise to a my
tico-poetic cult in Afghanistan and Transoxania. This was reflected in Bīdilkhānī (reading of Bldil) which referred to weekly meetings at which Bidil's works were read and commented upon.
33. Gibb, op. cit., vol. i, p. 6 & vol. iii, pp. 247-48.
34. Ibid., p. 70.
35. Ibid., p. 71.
36. Ibid., p. 78.
37. Ibid., vol. i, p. 130 & vol. iv, pp. 95-97, 185.
38. Supra, note 32.
39. Ethé, op. cit., pp. 309-11; Rypka, op. cit., pp. 496-97; Browne, op. cit., p. 24ff.
40. Op. cit., pp. 164-65, 265ff. See a similar view expressed earlier by Charles Rieu, who remarks on Ṣā'ib: “By common consent the creator of a new style of poetry, and the greatest of modern Persian poets,” op. cit., p. 693.
41. Ibid., p. 25.
42. See Atashkādah, vol. i (Tehran: 1957), p. 124; Majmaᶜ al-Fuṣaḥā', vol. i (Tehran: 1957), p. 19Google Scholar of the introduction.
43. 2nd ed. (Tehran: 1957), p. 2.ᶜAmīrī's eloquent defense heartened several other admirers of Safavid poetry in their efforts to revive interest in it. See e.g. Biyzā'ö, op. cit., p. 12 of the introduction.
44. Dawlatshāh, Taẕkirat al-Shuᶜarā’ (Leiden: 1901), pp. 31–34Google Scholar; ᶜArūzi, Chahār Māqala, ed. Qazvīnī, M. (Leiden: 1910), p. 32.Google Scholar
45. See Shiblī, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 32, 60 & 152; for Kalīm see, for instance, Dīvān, ed. P. Bayzā'ī, p. 281 (ghazal no. 484); for Ṣā'ib, see Dīvān, p. 215 and also p. 871 where in a qaṣīdah in praise of Ẓafar Khān, he considers himself excelling the poets of all ages and challenges the boasts ofᶜUrfī, Nauᶜī, and Sanjar, his contemporaries.
46. See Shiblī, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 70-71, where a number of verses reflectingᶜUrfī's exaggerated view of himself are brought together.
47. This is a practice of long standing in Persian literature. One usually responds to a poem which one considers of special quality, and this is always a compliment to the original poet. The poet sometimes explicitly mentions the author of the poem to which he is reacting. This is particularly the case with Ṣā'ib, who generously refers to the poems which have moved him. In less confident periods, the poets respond to well-known poets of the past. In modern times Firdawsī, Saᶜdi and Ḥāfiẓ have been the poets most frequently responded to.
48. For some examples see Shiblī, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 82 (Faizī's comment onᶜUrfī in a private letter) and pp. 163-67;ᶜAmīrī Fīrūzkūhī, introduction to the Dīvān of Ṣā'ib, pp. 33-34;ᶜAbd al-Baqī Nahavandī, Ma'athir-i Raḥīmī III (Calcutta: 1931), p. 115Google Scholar; the Dīvān of Naẓīrī,pp. 618 & 622.
49. See Fīrūkūhī, op. cit., pp. 11 & 27. The two poets areᶜAmalā of Balkh and Fitrat.
50. Such an anthology was made, for instance, by Ẓafar Khān Aḥsan (v. supra), a patron of Qudsī, Kalīm, Ṣā'ib and some other poets. See Bayzā'ī, op. cit., p. 6 who quotes from Muḥammad Afzal Sarkhush's Kalamāt al-Shuᶜa
a', a contemporary Taẕkirah.
51. Pride in the innovative merit of their poetry finds adequate expression in the works of the poets. See, for some examples, Shiblī, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 10, 80, & 165; M. Musaffa, Dīvān of Na
īrī, notes, pp. 618 & 620; Sirishk, op. cit., p. 5*3ff.
52. Some forerunners in this respect are Kamāl Khujandī, Kātibī, Basaṭī, Khiālī,ᶜAmīr Shāhī and Azārī, all poets of the first half of the fifteenth century. The following lines show the consciousness of the poets themselves of their effort:
O Shāhī, describe the beloved's lips by some new image
There is no pleasure in oft-heard words.
(ᶜAmīr Shāhī)O Kamāl, even if I concur that the poems of your peers
Are all, like miracles, divinely inspired.
When they are void of distinctive images,
It is futile to imagine that they find renown.
(Kamāl Khujandī)The critics of the period were also alive to the issue, and not always in agreement, as evident from Dawlatshāh's comment on Kamāl Khujandī: “The learned men of letters maintain that the subtleties of the Shaykh [Kamāl] have removed his poetry from sincere feelings and passion.” Taẕkirah (Leiden ed.), p. 328. For further details and examples, see E. Yar-Shater, Shiᶜr-i farsī darᶜahd-i Shāhrukh (Tehran: 1953), p. 144ff.
53. Dīvān, p. 90.
54. Sirishk, op. cit., p. 86.
55. Dīvān, p. 181.
56. Dīvān, p. 231.
57. Most of the following lines are taken from an anthology which I made for myself when I was a graduate student.
58. Ghalib tuhī kunad has a double meaning: literally, “that it empties its vessel” and figuratively, “that its soul departs from its body.” As is usual in many verses of the period, both meanings apply, the figurative sense revealing a new level of meaning and affording the reader a pleasurable surprise.
59. Recourse to double-entendre (īhām), which is very frequent in Safavid poetry, but hardly translatable, may be classed under this category. Most rhetorical devices, in fact, are manifestly “witty.”
60. Dīvān, p. 1.
61. Kalīm's qaṣīdah in praise of the first imam (Dīvān, pp. 1-3) is replete with remarks based on the observation Of daily life.
62. Dīvān, p. 3.
63. Traditionally the eyes of the beloved are likened to the narcissus. The poet twists this cliche by saying that the narcissus should not dare to aspire to such resemblance. Since it has, however, it has been hit in the mouth; the idea is to offer a poetic raison d'être for the flower's stalk.
64. Dīvān, p. 279.
65. Dīvān, p. 42.
66. Op. cit., p. 80.
67. Shiblī, op. cit., v, p. 63.
68. Dīvān, p. 216.
69. In the world of Persian lyrics, the lover sheds tears of blood.
70. Shamᶜ-i maḥfil has a double meaning: literally, the candle of the gathering; figuratively, the center of attraction. Both meanings are exploited by the poet.
71. For instance, in the proverb “An empty shotgun scares two people,” both the literal and the figurative meanings apply.
72. Tr. by E.G. Browne, op. cit., iv, p. 276.
73. See Avicenna on “wonder” (taᶜjīb) as an element of aesthetic appreciation: “And in imagination there is something of [a sense] of wonder, which is absent in demonstrable truth… Imagination [which is the basis of the art of poetry] is a yielding to wonder and the pleasures that are in the utterance itself.” Al-Shifā', Al-Manṭiq, ‘IX Al-Shiᶜr,’ ed. Badawi, A. (Cairo: 1966), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar He uses the word muᶜjib “causing wonder” in reference to the pleasurable quality of poetry. Ibid. C.f. a similar approach by Naṣir Tūsī, Asās al-iqtibās, ed. Razavī, M. (Tehran: 1947), p. 590.Google Scholar
74. For details, see Yar-Shater, op. cit., p. 190ff.
75. Ibid., p. 122.
76. Ibid.
77. Majālis al-nafā'is, ed. Hikmat, A. (Tehran: 1944), p. 14.Google Scholar
78. Ibid., p. 207.
79. Poems which produce additional poems, lines, names or dates, when some specified letters or words of the poem (e.g. the first letter of each line) are put together.
80. For further details, see Yar-Shater, op. cit., p. 119ff & 131.
81. Examples of verbal and chrographic vituosity, however, can be found also in the Safavid period. See Ethé, IV, pp. 309-11; for the description of a congratulatory qaṣīdah by Vahmī, a poet of the court of Shāh Jāhān, which puts Ṣāhib's poem to shame.
82. Op. cit., iv. p. 164.
83. Le letterature del Pakistan e dell'Afghanistan, revised ed. (Florence & Milan: 1968), p. 49.Google Scholar See also his La letterature Persiana (Florence & Milan: 1968), p. 294ffGoogle Scholar and “Contribute a una definizione dello ‘stile indiano’ della poesia persiana,' Annali SN, VII, 167ff.
84. Language peculiarites cannot be brought out easily in a translation. Only an approximation of the syntactical haziness may be expected here.
85. In the original the subject of the verb in the first hemistitch is the brand. The poet is twisting around a simile in which the tulip's black spot and the beloved's brand are likened.
86. In the original the spark, which is the subject of both verbs, comes at the end of the line. The idea is to give a poetic explanation of the scintillation of the spark. It is likened to the crackling of wild rue on fire, implying that the spark was jumping for joy, knowing that the lover would borrow the fire from the stone as an expression of his love. The line is not only complicated, but somewhat defective in language. The poet is trying to do too much within a single line.
87. See Browne, op. cit., iv. p. 24ff, where M. Qazvīnī's view to this effect is also cited; and Bahār, op. cit., ii. p. 49.
88. La letteratura Persiana, p. 296; Le letterature del Pakistan e dell'Afghanistan, p. 51ff.
89. La letteratura Persiana, p. 294.
90. See below, p. 251.
91. C.f. Bertels' view, which also places the erosion of classical style earlier than the Safavid period and associates it with the poetical activity of the urban population as against the feudal aristocracy. See “K voprosu ob ‘indiyskom stile’ v persidskoy poezii,” Charisteria Orientalia (Collection of papers dedicated to J. Rypka), ed. Tauber, F., Kubičkovā, V. and Hrbek, I. (Prague: 1956), p. 59Google Scholar and below, p. 255.
92. See below, p. 257.
93. The mistaken view that Jāmī (d. 1492) either marks the end of the classical period or is the last great poet of the classical tradition is based partly on the onesided view of the Revivalist critics who chose to ignore the Safavid period, and partly on the lack of appreciation for the fact that Persian poetry continues its course without interruption, but with expected modification, to the end of the Safavid period.
94. Delivered at the Iran Center, Columbia University
95. According to the above report, we owe Muḥtasham's moving elegy on the martyrdom of Ḥusayn and the events of Karbela to Shāh Ṭahmāsp. Shāh Ṭahmāsp reportedly frowned upon a qaṣīdah in his praise sent to him by Muḥtasham and suggested poems in praise of the shiᶜite saints. See Turkaman, Iskandar Beg, ᶜĀlam Ārā, i (Tehran: 1955), p. 178.Google Scholar
96. According to Iskandar Beg, ibid., some fifty to sixty religious poems were quickly offered by various poets, following Muḥtasham's lead.
97. See Ahmad, Qāzī, Calligraphers and Painters, intro. by Zakhoder, B.N., tr. Minorsky, V. (Washington: 1959), pp.3–4.Google Scholar
98. Ibid., p. 5.
99. Iskandar Beg, op. cit., i, pp. 515-16; Naṣrabādī, op. cit., p. 212.
100. Zindigāni-i ShāhᶜAbbās-i Avval, ii (Tehran: 1955), p. 28ff.Google Scholar
101. Browne, op. cit., i, pp. 548-611. He adds, “There are, however, many others who were not presented, but who sent from distant places to his Majesty enconiums composed by them.” (p. 611)
102. Browne, op. cit., iv, p. 249.
103. See Jiři Bečka in Rypka et al., op. cit., pp. 496 & 537, note 51 and Bausani Le letterature, pp. 45-46.
104. For instance, Y. Arianpūr, op. cit., p. 8. See also Bahār, op. cit., p. 46.
105. Op. cit., v, pp. 163-64.
106. Op. cit., p. 104-139. A recent article in the Rāhnāmah- i Kītab tries to show that chracteristics of the Indian style are already discernible in Jāmī's lyrics: H. Khālaqi Rad, “Payiha-i sabk-i hindī dar ghazaliyyat-i Jāmī,” vol. xvi (1973), pp. 21-33. C.f. Rypka, op. cit., p. 295.
107. Op. cit., pp. 58-59.
108. Op. cit., iv, pp. 26-28.
109. “Persia: Religion and History,” Iranica (Tehran: 1964), pp. 247–48Google Scholar (originally published under the title of “Iran: Opposition, Martyrdom and Revolt,” Unity and Variety (Chicago: 1955), pp. 183–201).Google Scholar
110. Op. cit., p. 253.
111. Op. cit., p. 294. Rypka has perhaps read a little more into Minorsky's view than his succinct passage indicates—possibly on account of his own sympathies.
112. See, for instance, Ṣā'ib, Dīvān, p. 181, Faghānī, p. 145, Naẓīrī, p. 2; for Ḥazīn, see Sirishk, op. cit., p. 23.
113. Rypka, op. cit., pp. 293-94.
114. Ibid., p. 496.
115. Ibid., p. 293.
116. Op. cit., pp. 58-59.
117. Rypka, op. cit., p. 295.
118. E.g. Histoire de Thamas Kouli-kan nouveau roi de Perse ou Histoire de la dernière revolution de Perse arrivée en 1732 (Paris: 1742).Google Scholar Jonas Hanaway adds to his account of the British trade (London: 1754) the title of The Revolutions of Persia during the Present Century.
119. Spengler, Oswald, The Decline of the West, tr. Atkinson, Charles, abridged by Arthur Helps (New York: 1965), p. 244.Google Scholar
120. Ibid., p. 181.
121. Travels into Africa and Asia (London: 1638), p. 153.Google Scholar
122. Morier, James, A Second Journey Through Persia … Between 1810 and 1816 (London: 1818), p. 132.Google Scholar And this despite the “great pride in the improvement of the city and its environ” that was taken by Amīn al-Dawla, the governor of the city. (Ibid., p. 134)
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