1. Mirza Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi Sabzavari, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār fī ṣanāyiᶜ al-ashᶜār, ed. Mir Jalal al-Din Kazzazi, (Tehran, 1369/1990), 68–69.

2. Rypka, Jan, “History of Persian Literature up to the Beginning of the 20th Century,” in Rypka, Jan, History of Iranian Literature, ed. Jahn, Karl (Dordrecht, 1968), 280CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Safa, Zabih Allah, Tārīkh-i adabiyāt dar Īrān (Tehran, 1369/1990), 4: 118–19Google Scholar.

4. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 69.

5. Gholam Hosein Yousofi, “Kāshifī,” EI ², 4: 704–705. See also Maria Eva Subtelny, “Scenes from the Literary Life of Timurid Herat,” in Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in Honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens, ed. R. M. Savory and Dionisius A. Agius (Toronto, 1984), 145. In an anecdote from Badāyiᶜ al-vaqāyiᶜ by Kashifi's student Zayn al-Din Vasifi, Kashifi is listed among the “wits” rather than among the poets or writers present at a literary gathering (majlis) (cited in Subtelny's article).

6. Rahim Musul’mankulov, “Predislovie,” in Kamal ad-Din Husayn Va’iz Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār fī ṣanāyiᶜ al-ashᶜār: Novye mysli o poeticheskom iskusstve (Moscow, 1977), 4–5.

7. Fakhr al-Din ᶜAli Safi, Laṭāyif al-ṭavāyif, ed. A. Gulchin-i Maᶜani, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1346/1967), 277: “Let it not go unsaid that the poetical tropes (ṣanāyiᶜ-i shiᶜrī) are many and the wondrous thoughts (i.e., rhetorical devices—badāyiᶜ-i fikrī) are innumerable, and erudite persons have written books and penned treatises on this science, and the father of this humble [servant] has contributed to it by putting together a summary [of them] in Badāyiᶜ al-afkār fī ṣanāyiᶜ al-ashᶜār.”

8. Musul’mankulov, “Predislovie,” Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 10.

9. The geopolitical aspect of modern misgivings about the Indian style is noted in some works from the early 1970s. See Hanaway, William, “Comments on Literature Before the Safavid Period,” Iranian Studies 7.1 (1974): 132–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Yarshater, Ehsan, “Safavid Literature: Progress or Decline,” Iranian Studies 7 (1974): 217–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Yarshater in particular identifies Lutf-ᶜAli Azar Bigdali (1711–81), author of the influential Taẕkira-i Ātashkadah, as the leading critic of the Indian style, who was soon followed by other “Revivalist” (i.e. Bāzgasht) writers (222). He also notes that negative criticism of the style as such was prevalent in Iran, but not in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkey—at least not until Western influences made themselves strongly felt there (225). Hanaway argues for a reevaluation of prevailing attitudes towards post-Classical Persian literature, and especially for the inclusion of the Indo-Persian literature in the corpus of Persian literary works that are worthy of academic investigation (135–36).

10. See Browne, Edward G., A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, reprint 1964–69), 3: 504Google Scholar; and idem, A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1896)Google Scholar, No. CLXXX, Add. 794, 267–71. Apart from the usual physical description of the manuscript, Browne includes an excerpt from its introduction, and a list of the titles of all sections, complete with the terms expounded in each.

11. Bahar, Muhammad-Taqi, Sabk-shināsī (Tehran, 1369/1990), 3: 197Google Scholar.

12. Nafisi, Saᶜid, Tārīkh-i naẓm u nar dar Īrān va dar zabān-i fārsī (Tehran, 1965), 1: 245–47, 401Google Scholar.

13. Tauer, Felix, “Persian Learned Literature from Its Beginnings up to the End of the 18th Century,” in Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 433Google Scholar.

14. Safa, Tārīkh-i adabiyāt, 4: 121.

15. Rypka, “History of Persian Literature,” 283.

16. Ibid., 281. See also the blistering assessment of the Persian literary theorist and anthologist, Riza Quli-Khan Hidayat, in Yarshater, “Safavid Literature,” 222–23, and in Paul Losensky's review of attitudes of Bāzgasht scholars and Europeans towards postclassical Persian literature: “Under the Turkomans and the Safavids reprehensible styles appeared… and since there were no binding rules for ghazals, the poets, following their sick natures and distorted tastes, began to write confused, vain and nonsensical poems.” Welcoming Fighani: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, 1998), 134.

17. For a reference, see n. 6 above.

18. Shidfar, Betsy, Obraznaya sistema arabskoyazychnoy literatury VI–XII vv. (Moscow, 1974), 6Google Scholar; cited in Musul’mankulov, Rahim, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika X–XV vv. (Moscow, 1989), 4Google Scholar.

19. Jiřî Bečka, “Tajik Literature from the 16th c. to the Present,” in Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 486. On the linguistic changes in the period, especially with regard to the spoken language, see Perry, John R., “Persian during the Safavid Period: Sketch for an État de Langue,” in Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society, ed. Melville, Charles (London and New York, 1996), 269–83Google Scholar. On the aesthetic and linguistic implications of the social, political, and religious developments in the region at the end of the fifteenth century see also Prigarina, Natal’ya I., Indiyskiy stil’ i ego mesto v persidskoy literature: Voprosy poetiki (Moscow, 1999), 14–15Google Scholar.

20. On the factors which defined the Tajik cultural identity during the twentieth century see Bečka, “Tajik Literature,” 487. On issues concerning modern Tajik language see also Rzehak, L., Vom Persischen zum Tajikischen: Sprachliches Handeln und Sprachplanung in Transoxanien zwischen Tradition, Moderne und Sowjetmacht (1900-1956) (Wiesbaden, 2001.)Google Scholar

21. Husayni, Atoullo, Badoe’-us-sanoe’, ed. Musul’mankulov, Rahim (Dushanbe, 1974)Google Scholar.

22. Musul’mankulov, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika. The treatises included in his monograph are Tarjumān al-balāgha of Raduyani (tenth–eleventh century C.E.), Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr of Rashid al-Din Vatvat (twelfth century C.E), al-Muᶜjam of Shams-i Qays (thirteenh century C.E), Miᶜyār al-ashᶜār of Nasir al-Din Tusi (thirteenth century C.E), Daqāᵓiq al-shiᶜr of Taj al-Halavi (fourteenth century C.E), Haqāᵓiq al-hadāᵓiq of Sharaf al-Din Rami (fourteenth century C.E), Jamᶜ-i mukhtaṣar of Vahid Tabrizi (fifteenth century C.E), Risāla-i qāfiya of ᶜAbd al-Rahman Jami (fifteenth century C.E), Badāyiᶜ al-afkār of Vaᶜiz Kashifi (fifteenth century C.E), ᶜArūżz-i Sayfī of Sayfi Bukharaᵓi (fifteenth century C.E), and Badāyiᶜ al-ṣanāyiᶜ of ᶜAta Allah Husayni (fifteenth century C.E).

23. Musul’mankulov, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika, 158.

24. Mir Jalal al-Din Kazzazi, “Dībāchah,” in Husayn Vaᶜiz Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 65.

25. Ibid., 1.

26. Yarshater, “Safavid Literature,” 227, 244. See also Ahmad, Aziz, “The Formation of Sabk-i Hindi,” in Iran and Islam: In Memory of the Late V. Minorsky, ed. Bosworth, C. E. (Edinburgh, 1971), 1–9Google Scholar, who notes Alessandro Bausani's pioneering efforts in the publications “Contribution a una definitzione dello ‘stile indiano’ della poesia persiana,” Annali dell’ Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli 7 (1958): 167–78, and Storia delle letteratura del Pakistan (Milan, 1958), 65–97.

27. Subtelny, Maria Eva, “A Taste for the Intricate: The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 136 (1986): 56–79Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., 69–70.

29. Prigarina, Indiyskiy stil’.

30. All references to al-Muᶜjam in the present paper are to Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Qays al-Razi, al-Muᶜjam fi maᶜāyir ashᶜār al-ᶜAjam, ed. Muhammad Qazvini (Tehran, n.d., henceforth Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam). The Russian translation was also taken into account: See Shams ad-Din Muhammad Ibn Kays ar-Razi, Svod pravil persidskoy poezii/al-Mu’dzham fi ma’ayir ash’ar al-adzham: Chast II O nauke rifmy i kritiki poezii, trans., analysis, and commentary, Natal’ya Yu. Chalisova (Moscow, 1997).

31. All references to Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr in this article are to the Persian text in Rashideddin Vatvat (Rashid al-Din Vatvat), Sady volshebstva v ton’kostyakh poezii: Hada’iq as-sihr fi daqa’iq ash-shi’r (Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr fī daqāᵓiq al-shifir), ed. and trans., Natal’ya Yu. Chalisova (Moscow, 1985).

32. Some opinions regarding Kashifi's treatise were cited above. As for al-Muᶜjam, there is a broad scholarly consensus on its importance as a foundational text of Persian literary theory. Muhammad Qazvini, who published the treatise, considers it superior to its predecessor and source, Vatvat's Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, for the following reasons: because al-Muᶜjam covers all branches of the literary sciences while Ḥadāᵓiq concentrates only on poetical figures; because it discusses the entries in greater detail; and finally, because Shams-i Qays gives extensive poetic examples, often entire qaṣīdas, while Vatvat rarely provides more than a few verses. Thus, al-Muᶜjam has an additional value as a preserve of Persian poetry, and preserves excerpts by poets whose dīvāns have been lost. See Muhammad Qazvini, “Muqaddima-i musaḥḥiḥ,” Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, iv.

33. Qazvini, “Muqaddima-i muṣaḥḥiḥ,” iv–v.

34. For an analysis of the architectonics of the Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr and the patterning of the individual entries, see Natal’ya Yu. Chalisova, “Vatvat i ego traktat,” in Rashid ad-din Vatvat, Sady, 33–56. For an intriguing hypothesis regarding the aesthetic and philosophical principles underlying the classification and ordering of poetical figures in Vatvat's treatise, which finds a rationale for the placement of each figure, see Prigarina, Natal’ya I., “Sady persidskoy poetiki,” in Estetika bytiya i estetika teksta v kul’turakh srednevekovogo Vostoka, ed. Braginskiy, Vladimir I. (Moscow, 1995), 202–41Google Scholar.

35. Vatvat, Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, 321–23.

36. Musul’mankulov, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika, 13; and Natal’ya Yu. Chalisova, “Persidskaya poeziya na vesakh poetiki,” in Shams ad-Din Muhammad ibn Kays ar-Razi, Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 33.

37. On the similarities and differences between Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr and al-Muᶜjam, see Chalisova, “Persidskaya poeziya,” 31–36. She also cross-references other studies which make comparisons between the two treatises, such as K. Tuysirkani, Baḥ dar barāyi kitāb-i Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr fi daqāᵓiq al-shiᶜr (Tehran, n.d.).

38. Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, 328.

39. Qazvini, “Muqaddima-i muṣaḥḥiḥ,” iv.

40. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 176.

41. The medieval position on literary borrowing is found in al-Muᶜjam. (According to Chalisova, Shams-i Qays is the first Persian author to treat that problem from a philological perspective. See Natal’ya Yu. Chalisova, “Kommentariy,” in Shams ad-Din Muhammad ibn Kays ar-Razi, Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 423.) This section, however, is found not in the philological part, but in the adab-style conclusion of al-Muᶜjam. After discussing several types of what we today would define as plagiarism, Shams-i Qays comments: “And those, who are versed in (the science of) meanings, have said that when a poet stumbles upon a meaning, and he dresses it up in a robe of unpleasant expressions and coarse words, while another poet takes over that same meaning and presents it in beautiful words and pleasant expressions, then the second (poet) is worthier of it, and the meaning is considered his own, and the first retains [only] the precedence” (Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, 475). Kashifi repeats Shams-i Qays’ statement almost verbatim (Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 167–68).

42. Subtelny, “A Taste for the Intricate,” 78–79.

43. Musul’mankulov, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika, 15.

44. Rypka, “History of Persian Literature,” 281, 313.

45. Vatvat, Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, 227.

46. Chalisova, “Kommentariy,” Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 423.

47. See Chalisova, , “Persidskaya poeziya,” 24–25; Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Literary Theory: The Problem of its Efficiency,” in Arabic Poetry, Theory and Development, ed. von Grunebaum, G. E. (Wiesbaden, 1973), 19–69Google Scholar; Van Gelder, G. J. H., Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem (Leiden, 1982), 3–4Google Scholar, and especially 142–43, where Van Gelder notes: “The first true poetics in Persian is al-Muᶜjam by Shams-i Qays… .[Large] parts of it could easily have been translated into Arabic and be almost completely intelligible to Arabic critics of the same period without any knowledge of Persian literature. These might have been able, in that case, to recognize passages taken over paraphrasically from Ibn Tabataba… . [It ] adds nothing that is essentially new to Arabic poetics, whereas it ignores some typically Persian developments.”

48. Compare the two introductions regarding the circumstances of the books’ compilations. Kashifi chose to present to Sultan-Husayn Bayqara a treatise on badīᶜ prompted by the sultan's interest in the literary sciences, explicitly stated during one court gathering (Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 69). Shams-i Qays’ immediate audience were the “worthiest minds of Fars,” who encouraged him to finish a treatise on the poetic sciences, started before his coming to Shiraz. The treatise received its final form—and the exclusion of the Arabic examples—at the behest of practicing poets, “a circle of poets who lend the breath of fiIsa to the inimitable eloquence (ᶜiᶜjāz) of Persian poetry and show the hand of Musa in producing miraculous meanings in Dari verse,” who pointed out to him the lack of such works composed specifically for Persian literature (Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, 22–23, and the account of his travails before coming to Shiraz, Ibid., 2–9. Also Chalisova, “Persidskaya poeziya,” 22, and 30..

49. Losensky, Welcoming Fighani, 136. See also Yarshater, “Safavid Literature,” 243, who notes the infiltration of popular language (“the language of the streets”) into the realm of poetry, which as a result was “robbed…of its more elegant and musical diction.”

50. Nafisi, Tārīkh-i naẓm u nar, 232. The author states that Sultan-Husayn Bayqara was not only the “greatest driving force behind the literary progress of [his] century, …but also wrote good poetry, and has left behind a dīvān of poetry in Persian, and another in Turkish, under the takhalluṣ Husayni.”

51. Kashifi's treatise was not an isolated case of “poetics made simple” from that era. Vahid Tabrizi's little known Jamᶜ-i mukhtaṣar, compiled at the beginning of the ninth/fifteenth century, was selected for publication by Andrey Bertel's because it contained “a very concise, clear, and comprehensive exposition of all three [literary] sciences… . Once acquainted with the work of Vahid Tabrizi, a novice researcher of Persian and Tajik poetry will acquire all necessary information on ‘aruz, rhyme, and poetical figures.” See Andrey E. Bertel’s, “Predislovie,” in Vakhid Tabrizi, Dzham’-i mukhtasar: Traktat o poetike, critical text, trans., and commentary by A. E. Bertel's (Moscow, 1959), 12.

52. Vatvat's list of terms includes: madḥ/hajv; tashbīb/nasīb/ghazal; muṣarraᶜ; khaṣī; tarjīᶜ; ᶜaks; tadvīr/mudavvar; mukarrar; mutanāfir; irtijāl; fikrat; jazālat; alāat; sahl va mumtaniᶜ [sic.].ᶜAks is a miṣrāᶜ the second half of which repeats the first half in a reverse order; tadvīr—a bayt which, written in a circle, can be read from any point. Mukarrar—an adornment whereby a word from one bayt is repeated again in the next. The English translations of terms in this paper are offered after consultation with the following sources: Browne, “Qiwami's ornate qasida,” A Literary History, 2: 47–80; J. C. Garcin de Tassy, Rhétorique et prosodie de l’Orient musulman (Amsterdam, 1970); and Chalisova's translations of Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr and Part II of al-Muᶜjam.

53. In Kashifi's interpretation, classifying a poem as maṭbūᶜ or nā-maṭbūᶜ depends on the pleasantness of its mete.

54. According to ᶜAli-Akbar Dihkhuda, Lughat-nāmah (Tehran, 1993), s.v., sadaj is an Arabized form of the Persian word sādah (simple).

55. Musul’mankulov, Rahim, “O Kashifi i ego teoreticheskom traktate,” Archiv orientalny 45 (1977): 144Google Scholar.

56. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 69–70.

57. In support of his statement, Kazzazi quotes the following lines from Tusi's treatise: “The art of poetry is an acquired habit, with the attainment of which one becomes capable of influencing at will the incitement of the imagination, which is among the sources of the emotions. And the meaning of the noun shiᶜr in the tradition (ᶜurf) of the ancients was of a different kind, and in the tradition of the moderns it is of a different kind…” See M. J. Kazzazi, “Guzārish-i Badāyiᶜ al-afkār” in Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 200. Tusi's influence on Kashifi is mentioned as well by Justine Landau, “Xwaje Nasir al-Din Tusi: Me’yar al- Aš’ar dar ‘elm-e ‘arud va qavafi: L’étalon des poésies de la science de la métrique et des rimes: Traduction annotée” (Thesis, Université de Paris-III Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2002).

58. Chalisova, “Persidskaya poeziya,” 19–20.

59. Heinrichs, “Literary Theory,” 31–33.

60. Chalisova, “Kommentariy,” Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 346–47.

61. Vatvat, Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, 227. Chalisova, “Kommentariy”, Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 174, draws attention to the different perceptions of Vatvat and Shams-i Qays regarding rhyme in tarṣīᶜ and sajᶜ.

62. Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, 335.

63. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 85.

64. Chalisova, “Kommentariy,” Svod pravil persidskoy poezii, 174; Vatvat, Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, 227.

65. The use of the term ḥarf-i ravī with regard to tarṣīᶜ might be undesirable, because this figure is widely used in the Qur’an, as seen in Vatvat's very first example, which Shams-i Qays uses as well (for the examples see Vatvat, Ḥadāᵓiq al-siḥr, 227, and Shams-i Qays, al-Muᶜjam, 336). Any suggestion that the Qur’anic verses resemble poetry borders on blasphemy in Muslim eyes, since Muhammad was denigrated as a poet by his early detractors.

66. See Musul’mankulov, “Prilozhenie,” Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika, 204–27. The monograph features eleven treatises, but three of them do not contain a section on badīᶜ, hence the tables in the appendix of his book present the poetical figures in only nine works.

67. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 139.

68. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 149. The explanations and examples continue on 150.

69. Kashifi, Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, 150. The segment is identified and quoted in full by Kazzazi, “Guzarish-i Badāyiᶜ al-afkār,” 306–308.

70. Losensky, Welcoming Fighani, 144.

71. See Krachkovskiy, Ignatiy Yu., “Ibn al-Mu’tazz,” in Izbrannye sochineniya (Moscow and Leningrad, 1955–60), 6: 9–264Google Scholar. Krachkovskiy notes in particular, that Ibn al-Muᶜtazz's goal was to show that the “new” (al-badīᶜ) in the literary style of his contemporaries was not their invention, and that their departure from the ways of the ancients was in using rhetorical devices to excess (Ibid, 106).

72. See Chalisova, “Persidskaya poeziya,” 32, 23.

73. For the date of composition of ᶜAta Allah's treatise see Musul’mankulov, Persidsko-tadzhikskaya klassicheskaya poetika, 5. Most sources do not give an exact date for the compilation of Badāyiᶜ al-afkār, but its introduction suggests that the treatise was completed soon after the ascent to the throne of Sultan-Husayn Bayqara in 873/1469. The admittedly vague information in Kashifi's introduction contradicts the statement of Nafisi who gives the date of completion of Badāyiᶜ al-afkār as 6 Muharram 912/29 May 1506 (Tārīkh-i naẓm u nar, 402).