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A TRANSREGIONAL PERSIANATE LIBRARY: THE PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF TADHKIRAS OF PERSIAN POETS IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2020

Kevin L. Schwartz
Kevin L. Schwartz*
Affiliation:
Kevin L. Schwartz is a research fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The tadhkira (biographical anthology) represents one of the most prolific and prevalent categories of texts produced in Islamicate societies, yet few studies have sought to understand the larger processes that governed their production and circulation on a transregional basis. This article examines and maps the production, circulation, and citation networks of tadhkiras of Persian poets in the 18th and 19th centuries. It understands tadhkiras of Persian poets as a transregional library that served as a repository of accessible and circulating texts meant to be incorporated, reworked, and repackaged by a cadre of authors separated by space and time. By relying on a macroanalytical approach, quantifiable data, and digital mapping, this article highlights the overall construction of the transregional library itself, the impact of state disintegration and formation on its constitution, and the different ways authors on opposite ends of the Persianate world came to view this library by the end of the 19th century.

Keywords

Persianate literaturePersian poetstadhkira
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 109 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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References

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5 While “West Asia” may be a less politicized and more apt term to describe early modern tadhkira production in an area that includes contemporary Iran, I have opted to use “Iran” in this article as a way to best highlight the different modes and features of tadhkira production there vis-a-vis South Asia.

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7 A list of the 144 tadhkiras (Appendix 1) as well as other appendices and resources related to this article, including copies of digital maps, can be viewed in the supplementary material section.

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14 Naqavi, Tazkirih-Navisi, 495–96.

15 Ibid., 470.

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18 Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 194; vol. 2, 266.

19 See introduction to Tuhfat al-Shuʿaraʾ quoted in Naqavi, Tazkirih-Navisi, 379.

20 Muhan Laʿl “Anis”, Anis al-Ahibba’ (Berlin: Staatsbiliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz), 5, accessed 26 November 2018, http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0001DD2700000000.

21 See Naqavi, Tazkirih-Navisi, 500–11.

22 Sultan Muhammad Bahadur Khan Safavi also wrote his own tadhkira entitled Tuhfat al-Shuʿaraʾ (Lucknow, 1801–02). See Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 160–67.

23 Riyad al-Shuʿaraʾ was one of the most cited tadhkiras during the 18th and 19th centuries. See appendices 2 and 3 in the supplementary materials section.

24 On the growing importance of Urdu poetic networks and master-student relationships during this time, see Faruqi, Shamsur Rahman, “A Long History of Urdu Literary Culture, Part 1: Naming and Placing a Literary Culture,” in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Pollock, Sheldon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 850Google Scholar.

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26 Dhavan and Pauwels, “Controversies,” 629.

27 Ibid., 625.

28 For a longer discussion on the inaccuracy and problems of the decline narrative of Persian in South Asia see the section “South Asian Stagnation” in chapter 1 of Kevin L. Schwartz, Remapping Persian Literary History, 1700–1900, forthcoming.

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37 See The Last Mushaʿirah of Delhi: A Translation into English of Farhatullah Baig's Modern Urdu Classic, Delhi ki Akhri Shama‘, by Farhatullah Bayg, trans. Akhtar Qamber (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1979), 15; and Madhu Trivedi, The Making of Awadh Culture (Delhi: Primus Books, 2010), 91.

38 Muhammad Aslam Syed, “How Could Urdu be the Envy of Persian (rashk-i Farsi)! The Role of Persian in South Asian Culture and Literature,” in Literacy in the Persian World, Spooner and Hanaway, 299.

39 Naqavi, Tazkirih-Navisi, 562.

40 Ibid., 522–23.

41 Ibid., 559.

42 Mir Sayyid Muhammad, Bustan-i Sukhan, Salar Jung Museum Manuscript Collection, Hyderabad, India, Ar. m 103.

43 Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 2, 406–7.

44 Moazzam, “Urdu Insha,” 312.

45 See Amanat, Abbas, “Legend, Legitimacy and Making a National Narrative in the Historiography of Qajar Iran (1785–1925),” in A History of Persian Literature, vol. 10, Persian Historiography, ed. Melville, Charles (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 292–366Google Scholar.

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50 Ibid., vol. 1, 225–38.

51 Ibid., vol. 2, 105–9.

52 Ibid., vol. 1. 83–85.

53 Ibid., vol. 2, 393–401. Dunbuli was equally invested in the project of Qajar history writing. See Amanat, “Legend, Legitimacy,” 299–303.

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56 See Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 2, 392–93.

57 The texts composed by Mahmud Mirza's brothers were Bazm-i Khaqan by Sayf al-Dawla Sultan Muhammad bin Fath ʿAli Shah in 1829–30 (see Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 93–100); Tazkirih-yi Khusravi by Muhammad Quli Mirza bin Fath ʿAli Shah “Khusravi,” ca. 1834 (see Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 221–22); and Tazkirih-yi Khavar by Haydar Quli Mirza bin Fath ʿAli Shah “Khavar” during the last quarter of the 19th century (see Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 219–20).

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59 See Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 482–512.

60 Edgar Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1912), 332.

61 Introduction to Kharabat quoted in Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 483–84; introduction to Mastabih-yi Kharab quoted in Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans, 332.

62 For Makhzan al-durar, see Gulchin-i Ma‘ani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 2, 173–76. For Tuhfat al-Shuʿaraʾ, see Gulchin-i Ma‘ani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 168.

63 Gulchin-i Ma‘ani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 742–44.

64 Ibid., vol. 1, 439–57.

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70 Ibid., 132.

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76 Ibid., 65.

77 For a full list and comparison of the texts cited by each tadhkira see Appendix 4 in the supplementary material section.

78 See Amanat, “Legend, Legitimacy.”

79 Khan, Muhammad Siddiq Hasan, Shamʿ-i Anjuman (Bhopal: Matbaʿ-i Shahjahani, 1875), 15Google Scholar.

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81 Ibid., 160–61.

82 Ibid., 161.

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85 Introduction to Ruz-i Rawshan quoted in Gulchin-i Maʿani, Tarikh-i Tazkirih-ha, vol. 1, 640–41.

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