Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/689

 LITERATURE.] PERSIA 659 nawis (upwards of twenty in number), among which the Pandndma, or &quot; Book of Counsels,&quot; and the Mantik-uttair, or the &quot;Speeches of Birds,&quot; occupy the first rank. In the latter, an allegorical poem, interspersed with moral tales and pious contemplations, the final absorption of the Sufi in the deity is most ingeniously illustrated, and the seven valleys through which the birds travel on their way to the fabulous phoenix or simurg (literally thirty birds), and in which all except thirty succumb, are the seven stations of the mystic road that leads from earthly troubles into the much-coveted Fana or Nirvana. In strong contrast to these advanced Sufis stands the greatest moral teacher of Persia, Sheikh Sa di of Shiraz (died about 110 lunar years old in 1292; 691 A.H. ; see SA DI), whose two best known works, the Bustdn, or &quot; Fruit- garden,&quot; and the Gulistdn, or &quot;Rose-garden,&quot; owe their great popularity both in the East and the West to the purity of their spiritual thoughts, their sparkling wit, charming style, and the very moderate use of mystic theories. However, both have found comparatively few imitations, the former in the Dasturndma of Nizari of Kohistan (died 1320 ; 720 A.H.), in the Dah Bab, or &quot;Ten Letters,&quot; of Katibi (died 1434; 838 A.H.), and in the Gulzdr of Hairati (murdered 1554 ; 961 A.H.) ; the latter in Mu in- uddin Juwaini s Nigdristdn (1335; 735 A.H.) and Jami s Bahdristdn, or &quot;Spring-garden&quot; (1487; 892 A.H.); whereas an innumerable host of purely Sufic compositions followed in the wake of Sana i s, Attar s, and Jelal-uddin Rumi s matlmawis. They consist partly of mere expositions of doctrines with or without illustrations by tales and anec dotes, partly of complete Sufic allegories, often disfigured by the wildest eccentricities. It will suffice to name a few af the most conspicuous in each class. To the former belong the Lama at, or &quot;Sparks,&quot; of Iraki (died between 1287 and 1309; 686 and 709 A.H.), the Zdd-ulmusdfirin, or &quot; Store of the Wayfarers,&quot; by Husaini (died 1318 ; 718 A.H.), the Gulshan-i-Rdz, or &quot;Rose-bed of Mystery,&quot; by Mahmiid Shabistari (died 1320 ; 720 A.H.), the Jdm-i-Jam, or &quot; Cup of Jamshid,&quot; by Auhadi (died 1338; 738 A.H.), the Anis-ul &quot;Am/in, or &quot;Friend of the Mystics,&quot; by Kasim-i- Anwar (died 1434 ; 837 A.H.), and others ; to the latter Assar s Mihr u Mushtari, or &quot;Sun and Jupiter&quot; (1376; 778 A.H.), Arifi s Gdi u Chaugdn, or &quot; The Ball and the Bat&quot; (1438; 842 A.H.), Uusn u Dil, or &quot;Beauty and Heart,&quot; by Fattahi of Nishapur (died 1448; 852 A.H.), Sham u Parwdna, or &quot;The Candle and the Moth,&quot; by Ahli of Shiraz (1489 ; 894 A.H.), Shdh u Gadd, or &quot;King and Dervish, / by Hilali (put to death 1532; 939 A.H.), Baha-uddin Amili s (died 1621 ; 1030 A.H.) Nan u Halwd, or &quot; Bread and Sweets,&quot; Shir u Ska/car, or &quot; Milk and Sugar,&quot; and many more. During all these periods of literary activity, lyric poetry, pure and simple i.e., the ghazal, in its legitimate form- had by no means been neglected ; almost all the renowned poets since the time of Rudagi had sung in endless strains the pleasures of love and wine, the beauties of nature, and the almighty power of the Creator ; but, however rich the ghazals of Sa di in lofty thoughts and pious feelings, how ever sublime the hymns of Jelal-uddin Rumi, it was left to the incomparable genius of Hafiz (died 1389 ; 791 A.H. ; see HAFIZ) to give to the world the most perfect models of lyric composition ; and the lines he had laid down were more or less strictly followed by all the ghazal-writers of the 9th and 10th centuries of the Hijra, by Salman of Sawa (died about 1377; 779 A.H.), who excelled besides in kasida and mathnawi ; Kamal Khujandi, Hafiz s friend, and protege of Sultan Husain (776-784 A.H.); Mohammed Shirin Maghribi (died at Tabriz in 1406 ; 809 A.H.), an inti mate friend of Kamal ; Ni mat-ullah Wall (died 1431 ; 834 A.H.), the founder of a special religious order; Kasim-i- Anwar (see above) ; Amfr Shahl (died 1453 ; 857 A.H.), of the princely family of the Sarbaddrs of Sabzawar ; Banna i (died 1512; 918 A.H.), who also wrote a romantic poem, Bahrdm u Bihruz ; Baba Fighani of Shiraz (died 1519; 925 A.H.), usually called the &quot; Little Hafiz&quot;; Nargisi (died 1531; 938A.H.); Lisani (died 1534; 941 A.H. ), who himself was imitated by Damiri of Isfahan, Muhtasham Kdshi, and Wahshi Bafiki (all three died in the last decade of the 10th century of the Hijra); Ahli of Shfraz (died 1535; 942 A.H.), author of the Sihr-i-Haldl, or &quot; Lawful Witchcraft,&quot; which, like Katibi s (died 1434; 838 A.H.) Maj ma l -ulhahrain, or the &quot; Confluence of the Two Seas,&quot; can be read in two different metres ; Nau i (died 1610 ; 1019 A.H.), who wrote the charming romance of a Hindu princess who burned herself in Akbar s reign with her deceased husband on the funeral pile, styled Suz u Guddz, or &quot;Burning and Melt ing,&quot; etc. Among the immediate predecessors of Hafiz in the 8th century of the Hijra, in which also Ibn Yamin, the great kit ah-writer, 1 flourished, the highest fame was gained by the two poets of Delhi, Amir Hasan and Amir Khosrau. The latter, who died in 1325 (725 A.H.), two years before his friend Hasan, occupies the foremost place among all the Persian poets of India by the richness of his imagination, his graphic style, and the historical interest attached to his writings. Five extensive diwans testify to his versatility in all branches of lyric poetry, and nine large mathnawis to his mastership in the epic line. Four of the latter are poetical accounts of contemporary events during the reigns of the emperors of Delhi, Ala-uddin Mohammad Shdh Khilji (1296-1311), his predecessor Firuz Shah, and his successor Kutb-uddin Mubarek Shah, the Miftdh-ulfutuk, or &quot; Key of Mysteries,&quot; the Kirdn-ussa- dain, or &quot;The Conjunction of the Two Lucky Planets,&quot; the Nuh Sipihr, or &quot;Nine Spheres,&quot; and the love-story of Khidrkhdn u Duwalrdni. His other five mathnawis formed the first attempt ever made to imitate Nizami s famous Khamsah, or five romantic epopees, and this attempt turned out so well that henceforth almost all epic poets wrote quintuples of a similar description. Khwaju Kirmani (died 1352 ; 753 A.H.) was the next aspirant to Nizami s fame, with five mathnawis, among which Humdi u Humdyun is the most popular, but he had to yield the palm to Abd-urrahnicin Jami (1414-1492 ; 817-898 A.H.), Jdmi the last classic poet of Persia, in whose genius were summed an &amp;lt;l later up, as it were, all the best qualities of his great predecessors, P ets - and who combined, in a manner, the moral tone of Sa di with the lofty aspirations of Jelal-uddin Rumi, and the graceful ease of Hafiz s style with the deep pathos of Nizami, to whose Khamsah he wrote the most successful counterpart (see his Yusuf u Zalikhd mentioned above). Equally renowned are his numerous prose works, mostly on Sufic topics, and his three diwans. Many poets followed in Jami s footsteps, first of all his nephew Hatifi (see above), and either wrote whole khamsahs or imitated at least one or other of Nizami s epopees ; thus we have a Laild u Majnun, for instance, by Maktabi (1490), Hilali (see above), and Ruh-ulamin (died 1637). But their efforts could not stop the growing corruption of taste, and it was only at the court of the Mogul emperors, particularly of the great Akbar (1556-1605), Avho revived Sultan Mahmud s &quot;round table,&quot; that Persian literature still enjoyed some kind of &quot; Indian summer &quot; in poets like Ghazali of Mash- had or Meshed (died 1572); Urfi of Shiraz (died 1591), who wrote spirited kasidas, and, like his contemporaries Wahshi and Kauthari, a mathnawi, Farhdd u Shirin ; and Faidi(died 1595), the author of the romantic poem, Nal u Daman, who also imparted new life into the ruba i. In Persia proper 1 A kit ali or mukatta ah is a poem containing moral reflexions and differs from the kasida and ghazal only by the absence of a matla or initial distich.