Literature—West Asia, Persian

Islamic literatures have been expressed in two languages more than others: Arabic and Persian. Persian literature flourished not just in Persia (Iran), but also in Central Asia, Turkey, Afghanistan, and South Asia. A great deal of debate surrounds the rise and nature of Persian literature in the aftermath of the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century. Some scholars have argued that post-Islamic Persian literature is part and parcel of the attempt of Iranians (and, subsequently, other Persian speakers) to express their own identity as non-Arabs. At least some of these early expressions are no doubt connected to protonationalist shuʿubi movements in the early eras of Islam. Other scholars have identified Persian literature as quintessentially mystical, epitomized in the poetry of great masters such as Rumi (c. 1207–1273) and Hafiz (d. 1389). The truth, as usual, would seem to lie in neither extreme, nor in a convenient middle point. It is true that much of classical Persian literature is characterized by a high degree of Sufi (that is, Islamic mystic) imagery. However, the origin of much Sufi imagery can be traced to regal court poetry, which was subsequently applied to lover-beloved or spiritual master-disciple relationships.

There is also some ambiguity about the origin of this new Persian literature. The thirteenth-century literary historian Muhammad ʿAufi relates that Bahram Gur, a pre-Islamic Sassanian Iranian king who flourished in the fifth century, was the first to compose Persian poetry. Earlier figures from the eleventh century (Thaʿalibi and Ibn Khurdadhbih) had also claimed.that Bahram Gur was the first. The accuracy of such claims may be questioned; one is on much firmer ground in tracing the blossoming of Persian literature to the Samanid dynasty (864–999 CE).

An important figure in this early stage was the poet Rudaki (d. 940). He was affiliated with the Samanid ruler Amir Nasr ibn Ahmad. The Chahar-maqala of Nizami Arudi (d. 1174, an important author from Samarqand) states that once when the Samanid king had taken a longer than usual excursion from the much-loved Transoxiana city of Bukhara, the courtiers pleaded with Rudaki to write a line that would move the king to return home. The result was this much-loved and oft-recited line:

The Ju-yi Muliyan we call to mind

We long for those dear friends long left behind

(Arberry 1958: 33)

The next grand figure of Persian literature was Firdawsi (d. 1020 or 1026), whose monumental Shahnameh (Book of Kings) is the quintessential recollection of pre-Islamic Persian glory. Although not a historical text per se, this text has radically shaped the way that many later Iranians have come to imagine their historical heritage. Ironically, Firdawsi did not receive the compensation he was hoping for from the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud. Mahmud, a Turk who had positioned himself as the defender of Sunni Islam, was not impressed by the extensive glorification of pre-Islamic (largely Zoroastrian) Persian kings. A devastated Firdawsi responded with a scathing critique of the miserly sultan. Still, history seems to have verified Firdawsi's boast that through his thirty years of toiling over the composition of the Shahnameh, he resurrected Persian language and literature.

After Firdawsi, Persian literatures gradually became infused with the imagery of Sufism, the mystical expression of Islam. Almost from the start, the mystics sought to express the ineffability of their spiritual experiences through the terse and often-ambiguous medium of poetry. As early texts such as the Asrar altawhid—written by Ibn Munawwar in the twelfth century about the great early Sufi Abu Saʿid ibn Abi ʾl-Khayr (d. 1049)—clearly demonstrate, poetry was often recited in Sufi gatherings. There were many significant Sufi-influenced Persian writings in this period. As with Firdawsi, medieval masters find a receptive audience even in contemporary Iran. One of the identifying features of Persian literature has been its continuity, to the point that even elementary school education in Iran today includes reading poetry from a thousand years ago.

Among other great figures such as Anvari, Nizam al-Mulk, Nasir Khusrau, Sana'i, al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, ʿAttar, Nizami of Ganja, and Amir Khusrau, the next monumental figure is Saʿdi (c. 1213–1292). If Firdawsi has become the identifying mark of a nationalist Iranian consciousness, Saʿdi more than any other figure has contributed to the articulation of a distinctly Persian, Islamic, spiritually influenced humanistic ethic that can perhaps best be represented by the term adab (cultured etiquette). Saʿdi's Gulistan (Rose Garden) and Bustan (Orchard) are two classics of Persian literature. The Gulistan in many ways has become the model of prose works that are interspersed with lines of poetry here and there. The chapters of this important text deal with kingship, Sufi teachings, virtues of silence, old age and youth, and passionate love.

Living roughly a generation after Saʿdi was the most luminous of all Persian Sufi poets, Mawlana (Our Master) Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, simply called Rumi in most English sources. Had he not composed a single line of poetry, he would still be recognized as one of the most important figures of Persian culture due to his elevated rank as a much-loved Sufi exemplar whose legacy has forever shaped the spiritual lives of Muslims in Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, and South Asia. What is more relevant here is that he also composed masterful works of poetry: the Masnavi is perhaps the most widely read of all Persian didactic Sufi poems. His Divan of Shams of Tabriz contains 33,135 lines of passionate love poetry. The Fihi ma fihi is a prose collection of Rumi's table talks, gathered by his students. Rumi's literary output is now being transmitted to the West: in the past twenty years various translations and "versions" of Rumi's poetry have made Rumi the top-selling poet in America, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Although Rumi is undoubtedly the master of explicitly Sufi poetry, the absolute pinnacle of lyric love poetry (ghazal) was to be achieved by Shams al-Din Hafiz, often called Tarjuman al-asrar (interpreter of mystical secrets) and Lisan al-ghayb (tongue of the unseen realm). Hafiz's Divan contains almost five hundred short love poems, often held to be the absolute finest example of Persian poetry. His poems are characterized often by a delicious ambiguity: one is never sure if the subject of the poem is a wine minstrel, a spiritual teacher, an earthly beloved, or God. Chances are that all of them are intended at the same time. Both Hafiz and his legion of admirers seem to revel in this deliberate ambiguity, which has characterized so many of the best examples of Persian literature.

No doubt some will object to such a selective reading of Persian literature that essentially stops in the fourteenth century. Much has been left out in the preceding, most of all prose works of ethics and philosophy, history, and other subjects. Also, a reading of Persian literature that ends at the fourteenth century tends to perpetuate historiographic models of a "golden age" inevitably followed by "decline," which have been so problematic in depicting many facets of Islamic society. These shortcomings are freely acknowledged. But it is no exaggeration to state that this literature, the grandest aesthetic achievement of Persian speakers, is also the single greatest contribution of Persian societies to humanity.

Arberry, A. J. (1958) Classical Persian Literature. London: Allen & Unwin.

Browne, Edward G. ([1902] 1997) A Literary History of Persia. 4 vols. Reprint ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jalal Al-Din Rumi, Maulana. (1925–1940) The Mathnawí of Jalalu'ddin Rum. Trans. by Reynold A. Nicholson. London: E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series.

Saʿdi, Shaykh Muslih Al-Din. (1965) The Gulistan. Trans. by Edward Rehatsek. New York: G. P. Putnam's.

Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. (1988) Persian Literature. Albany, NY: Bibliotheca Persica.