Introduction
Iranian émigré intellectuals have been widely recognised as one of the most influential groups in the social, cultural, and political history of the early modern Deccan. Among these ‘foreigners’ (gharīb/pl. gharāʾib),Footnote 1 as they are called both in the sources and in modern historiography, we can count poets, men of letters, diplomats, and merchants, with many among them (if not the majority) playing more than one role at a time, and with many of them rising to positions of political authority. This was already an expanded phenomenon during the heyday of the Bahmanid Sultanate (r. 748–933/1347–1527), which hosted powerful gharībs, such as Maḥmūd Gāvān (d. 886/1481), the Gilani prime minister of Sultan Muḥammad Shāh III Lashkarī (r. 867–887/1463–1482) or Shāh Khalīl Allāh (d. 859/1455), the son of Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Valī (d. 834/1431), the eponym of the Nimatullahi Sufi order.Footnote 2 However, after the disintegration of the sultanate and with the adoption of Twelver Shiism at different times by the rulers of three of its five successor states, this migratory trend began to include a significant number of Shii religious scholars.Footnote 3
Despite the importance of such scholars, and despite many well-known cases of occupants of political office among them, the content of their intellectual output has received relatively little in-depth attention. One reason for this neglect in the scholarship could be the nature of the debate on the adoption of Shiism in the Deccan. Scholars like Haroon K. Sherwani, Juan Cole, or Moojan Momen noted that the Deccani sultanates modelled their court cultures and political institutions after those of Safavid Iran (r. 907–1135/1501–1722).Footnote 4 There is, however, a risk in over-emphasising this characteristic of Deccani court culture, namely that it can be taken to imply that the sultanates were merely passive imitators of Safavid trends. To be sure, Safavid influence is undeniable, but the sultanates’ ‘adoption’ of Shiism was far from a simple copy of Iranian models. Moreover, to understand the court cultures and the politics of patronage of the sultanates properly, one needs to consider the rivalries between the cosmopolitan gharīb elites and the indigenous Sunni Muslim Dakhanis and the Hindu population, as Roy Fischel and Emma J. Flatt have done.Footnote 5 Others, like Karen Ruffle, have advocated looking beyond the textual tradition and examining the material culture for signs of the ‘domestication’, as she calls it, of Shii practices in places like early modern Hyderabad.Footnote 6
This justifiable need to consider local indigenous elements and to move beyond the textual archive has had, however, a perhaps unintended effect: Shii gharīb ulema have attracted some attention for their role as diplomats and as agents of Iranian acculturation, but the nature of their intellectual engagement with their Iranian counterparts remains in need of a thorough assessment. The most comprehensive study on Shii religious thought in the Deccan can be found in the relevant sections of Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi’s quasi-encyclopaedic A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnā ‘Asharī Shī‘īs in India, and some schematic insights can also be found in the works of Sherwani, Sadiq Naqvi, and Mohammed Ziauddin Shakeb.Footnote 7 However, these works provide rather macroscopic views of intellectual developments in the Deccan and of the careers of key actors, rather than engaging in detail the production of any one thinker. An exception to this trend is Muḥiy al-Dīn Qādirī Zūr’s study of Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin Astarābādī (d. 1034/1625), although this too prioritises the latter’s political career.Footnote 8 Since the intellectual production of Shii gharībs addressed the religious interests of a (seemingly unrooted) Shii cosmopolis, their works have not attracted the attention of those seeking to find examples of vernacularisation, domestication, or indigenisation. However, the Shii ulema of the Deccan represent an interesting paradox: as Shii ulema, they were indeed participants in a transregional community and were therefore not necessarily interested in producing a distinctively ‘Deccani scholarship’. But this did not mean that they were indifferent to the particularities of their contexts. For a better assessment of their contribution to the domestication of Shiism in their milieus, one needs to consider not only their participation in the popularisation of Shii practices (through Muharram festivals, for example) but also the subtler ways in which they used their scholarship as a pedagogical tool.
This brings us to another potential reason for the neglect of the production of the Shii gharīb scholars: a substantial part of it consists of commentaries (sharḥ/pl. shurūḥ) and of works that could be classified as glosses or supercommentaries (ḥāshiya/pl. ḥawāshī), as well as translations. These genres have long been dismissed as derivative. In studies on early Islamic intellectual history (broadly defined), however, this trend has been reversed in the last decades, with Ahmed El Shamsy’s work on the ḥāshiya as a genre as a notable example.Footnote 9 The same can be said of the growing interest in translations as a genre of creative intellectual engagement and of shared authorship. In an Islamic context, Johanna Pink has contributed to this reappraisal of the genre by considering not only the purely linguistic aspects of translation but also things like the format of the works and the philosophical and ideological rationale behind translation choices.Footnote 10
In this study, I focus on the work of one such gharīb Shii scholar, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Khātūn al-ʿĀmilī, better known simply as Ibn Khātūn (d. 1059/1649), and his engagement with the work of his maternal uncle, the famous Shaykh al-Islam of Isfahan, Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, better known as Shaykh Bahāʾī (d. 1030/1621). After providing a contextual and biographical introduction to Ibn Khātūn and his milieu, I will focus on his translation and commentary of one of his uncle’s works. I will analyse the ways in which he blended his translation techniques and his commentarial input, interpreting this as a characteristic feature of the broader intellectual production of Shii ulema in the early modern Deccan.
Translations of Shii works and the intellectual life of the Qutub-Shahi period
Among the successor states of the Bahmanid Sultanate, it was under the Qutub-Shahis of Golconda (and later Hyderabad) (r. 924–1098/1518–1687) that Shiism enjoyed the longest rule and produced the most fruitful intellectual heritage. The dynasty’s biggest patron of the arts was Muḥammad Qulī Quṭb-Shāh (r. 988–1020/1580–1612), who founded the city of Hyderabad and moved his capital there in 999–1000/1591. He was also a committed sponsor of literature in Telugu and Dakhani, in which he wrote poetry himself.Footnote 11 Following the confessional policies of his ancestors, he was also an enthusiastic patron of Shii knowledge and culture, which he promoted through the building of ʿāshūr-khānihs and the expansion of Muḥarram celebrations.Footnote 12 It was during his tenure that Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin Astarābādī—a gharīb from Gilan—moved to Hyderabad. As we will later see, he would eventually be appointed as peshwa (pīshvā), something akin to prime minister or grand vizier, and become one of the most influential politicians of the Deccan and a key promoter of Ibn Khātūn’s career.Footnote 13
The next sultan, Muḥammad Quṭb-Shāh (r. 1020–1034/1612–1625), was particularly enthusiastic about Persian and Arabic scholarship, though not exclusively of religious content, and moved away from his father’s interest in Dakhani poetry. According to Sherwani, it was probably during his reign that the largest influx of gharībs arrived in Hyderabad.Footnote 14 Among the notable scholars to have contact with his court was Muḥammad Amīn Astarābādī (d. 1033/1623–1624 or 1036/1626), the father of the Akhbari trend in Shii jurisprudence, who dedicated to him his only work in Persian, the Dānish-nāmih-yi shāhī (The royal book of knowledge).Footnote 15 Aside from commissioning the compilation and copying of various manuscripts, the sultan engaged with these works actively, writing notes on many of the texts that were presented to him.Footnote 16
In this context, translations of Shii texts received the sultan’s enthusiastic support. For instance, at the time, many Persian translations and commentaries of Nahj al-balāgha (The path of eloquence), a collection of utterances attributed to ʿAlī compiled by Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 404–406/1013–1015), circulated in Hyderabad. One of them, entitled Rawżat al-abrār (The garden of the righteous), completed in 1027/1618, was based on a translation made in Iran by a certain ʿAlī b. Ḥasan from Zawwara in 947/1549.Footnote 17 Another notable case was that of Sayyid Abū’l-Maʿālī, whose father Qāżī Nūr Allāh Shūshtarī (d. 1019/1610) famously wrote many Shii polemical texts and was martyred in Agra during Jahāngīr’s (r. 1014–1037/1605–1627) rule.Footnote 18 The sultan hosted Sayyid Abū’l-Maʿālī at his court and requested that he translate one of Shūshtarī’s major polemics, the Maṣāʿib al-nawāṣib (The calamities of the Nasibis), which was written in response to Mīrzā Makhdūm Sharīfī (d. 995/1587), an Iranian émigré in the Ottoman empire.Footnote 19 In addition, the sultan commissioned one of Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin’s disciples, known as Shāh Qāżī, to translate Kitāb Kathīr al-mayāmīn (The most auspicious book), a legal manual attributed to Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidīn (d. 95/713). The translation, titled Tarjumih-yi fiqh al-rażavī (Translation of the jurisprudence of [Imam] Riżā), was based on a manuscript said to have been copied by Imam al-Riḍā (d. 202/ 818), which Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin began to transcribe before his passing and to which he had added some introductory remarks.Footnote 20
Under ʿAbd Allāh Quṭb-Shāh (r. 1035–1082/1626–1672), literature in Telugu experienced a resurgence of patronage. This period was also particularly fertile for Arabic literature in Hyderabad, with the court chronicler Mīrzā Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad (d. after 1053/1643–1644) building an influential network of scholars around him. He married the sultan’s older daughter, and his son would eventually become one of the main compilers of Arabic poetry and Arabic literary history in Golconda.Footnote 21 However, interest in Persian works did not wane. One of the major achievements of this period was the completion in 1061/1651 of a Persian dictionary written by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Burhān, with the title of Burhān-i Qāṭiʿ (A convincing proof).Footnote 22 Also from this time is a major anthology known as Jung-i Quṭb-Shāhī, which contains excerpts of Makārim al-akhlāq (The noble traits of character), an ethics treatise by Al-Ḥasan b. al-Fażl al-Ṭabarsī (d. sixth century/twelfth century), Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-Dīn (The revival of religious sciences) of al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), and Kashf al-ghumma (The unveiling of affliction) by ʿAlī b. ʿIsā al-Irbīlī (d. 692/1293), which is a compendium on the lives of the infallibles, selections of Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-ṣafā (The brethren of purity), among other works.Footnote 23 Finally, as in the preceding period, translations of Shii texts continued to play a major role in the intellectual life of the court. The most prolific translator of these was perhaps ʿAlī b. Ṭayfūr Bisṭāmī, better known for his chronicle Ḥadāʾiq al-salāṭīn (The gardens of the rulers) and author of another monolingual Persian dictionary. He produced six translations with commentaries of hadith, sermons, and other kinds of religious literature, chiefly among them from the canonical Shii hadith collector Ibn Bābawayh (d. 381/991) and from Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidīn.Footnote 24
Ibn Khātūn’s life and works
Ibn Khātūn was a typical case of a transregional gharīb intellectual in the early modern Deccan. He arrived in Hyderabad from Mashhad in 1009/1600–1601 and soon became the protégé of Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin. On the latter’s recommendation, he was dispatched to Shāh ʿAbbās I’s (r. 996–1038/1587–1629) court in Isfahan, where he stayed between 1024–5/1615–1616 and 1034–1035/1625 as a diplomatic attaché.Footnote 25 His nisba links him to the prestigious lineage of Shii scholars from Jabal ʿĀmil, in today’s southern Lebanon, from where the early Safavids recruited ulema who helped promote Shiism in Iran.Footnote 26 In addition, he was the nephew of Shaykh Bahāʾī, the Shaykh al-Islam of Isfahan under Shāh ʿAbbās.Footnote 27 Since his early years in Hyderabad, Ibn Khātūn attracted the attention of Muḥammad Qulī Quṭb-Shāh, who wanted to appoint him to a high position. However, while this opportunity arose after Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin’s passing in Jumādā al-Ūlā 1034/February 1625, Ibn Khātūn was still on his mission to Isfahan. It was not until 1038/1629, that the position became vacant again, already during ʿAbd Allāh Quṭb-Shāh’s reign.Footnote 28 During his first tenure as peshwa, he reached out to the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān (r. 1037–1068/1628–1658), to assure him that the Qutub-Shahs sought no enmity with the Mughals. Political intrigues caused him to lose his position, but upon being cleared of any wrongdoings, he was assigned to the second most important office of the court, that of mīr jumlih (commander-in-chief) in 1043/1634. In Rajab 1045/December 1635, he was reappointed as peshwa and retained the title of mīr jumlih for some time because the sultan could not find anyone fit for the task.Footnote 29 He died in 1059/1649 in Mocha on his way to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, shortly after resigning from his position.Footnote 30
Aside from his diplomatic overtures to Shāh Jahān, Ibn Khātūn’s time in office was characterised by his fostering of a vibrant intellectual environment in Hyderabad. He held morning assemblies in which he welcomed scholars, judges, and dignitaries, and hosted Arabic and Persian poets every Tuesday in a garden at the outskirts of the city.Footnote 31 The chronicler Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad, whose Ḥadīqat al-salāṭīn (The garden of the rulers) Ibn Khātūn himself commissioned,Footnote 32 gives some indications about the readings at these sessions. These included the poetry of Khāqānī (d. 595/1199), Auḥad al-Dīn Anvarī (d. 585/1189), and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273), as well as commentaries (shurūḥ) on religious sciences, exegesis (tafsīr), hadith, jurisprudence (fiqh), and even maths and logic (manṭiq).Footnote 33 In addition to his political capabilities, his intellectual production assured him a lasting prestige among the Shii elites of the Persian cosmopolis of his time. Among his many works, one counts a commentary on Shaykh Bahāʾī’s famous manual of jurisprudence in Persian, the Jāmiʿ-i ʿAbbāsī (The compendium of [Shāh] ʿAbbās), which was originally conceived simply as marginal notes to Shaykh-i Bahāʾī’s text and was compiled later in 1054/1644 as a book by a certain Burhān Tabrīzī.Footnote 34 Another work of his was a commentary on al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’s (d. 726/1325) Irshād al-adhhān (The guidance of the intellects), and a book titled Kitāb al-Imāma (The book of the imamate), which draws significantly on the work of the above-mentioned Qāżī Nūr Allāh Shūshtarī.Footnote 35 The work with which we are concerned in this study, the Tarjumih-yi Quṭb-Shāhī, was also a product of his engagement with Shaykh Bahāʾī’s work, since it is a translation of the latter’s hadith collection and commentary titled Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan (The 40 hadiths). This is his earliest known work, which he completed in 1024/1615, before departing to Isfahan.Footnote 36 Shaykh Bahāʾī had the opportunity to review the work and wrote a note praising Ibn Khātūn’s achievement.Footnote 37
Shaykh Bahāʾī and the arbaʿīn tradition
Shaykh Bahāʾī’s most widely circulated work was probably his Jāmiʿ-i ʿAbbāsī. Its appeal as the legal manual in Persian ‘for the lay person’, to borrow Rula Abisaab’s characterisation, accounts for its popularity.Footnote 38 In contrast, the Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan was more of an exercise in piety associated with a long-standing tradition of collecting and commenting on 40 hadiths. The reason for this specific number can be explained by the importance of the number 40 in the Islamic tradition. For instance, 40 was the age of the Prophet at the time of the first revelation. Also, in Qur’an 7:142, Moses fasts for 40 days, and in Qur’an 2:51 the believers are reprimanded for worshipping the calf during the 40 nights that should have been dedicated to Moses.Footnote 39 However, more concretely, the tradition of collecting 40 hadiths is associated with a hadith that appears in many such collections, including Shaykh Bahāʾī’s.Footnote 40 There are slight variations of it, but the one quoted by Shaykh Bahāʾī reads:
Whoever memorises 40 hadith related to religious matters for my umma, will be considered by God Almighty in the Day of Judgement as a knowledgeable jurist (man ḥafaẓa ʿalā ummatī arbaʿīn ḥadīthan mimmā yaḥtājūn ilayhi fī amr dīnihim baʿthuhu Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla yawm al-qiyāma faqīhan ʿāliman).Footnote 41
This compilation tradition thus came to constitute a genre of its own, often recognised as such with the term arbaʿīn (40). In the Shii tradition, many of the most prominent scholars engaged in the practice. Among them we can count ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Ṭabarī (d. seventh century/thirteenth century), who was known mostly for his Kāmil-i Bahāʾī (Absolute beauty); the famous hadith compiler Ibn Shahrāshūb (d. 588/1192); Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn al-Makkī al-ʿĀmilī al-Jizzinī, better known as the First Martyr (Al-Shahīd al-Awwal) (d. 787/1385); and Zayn al-Dīn al-Jubaʿī al-ʿĀmilī, the Second Martyr (Al-Shahīd al-Thānī) (d. 965/1558).Footnote 42 Within Shaykh Bahāʾī’s own lineage, his grandfather ʿAbd al-Ṣamad (d. 935/1528–1529) compiled his own collection and presented it to Shāh Ismāʿīl I (r. 907–930/1501–1524), whereas his father, ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad did the same with Shāh Ṭahmāsp (r. 930–984/1524–1576).Footnote 43 In slightly later periods, the likes of Muḥsin Fayż Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680), Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1110/1699), and Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī (d. 1186/1772) also contributed their own versions.Footnote 44 It is perhaps meaningful that these latter three were associated with the Akhbari trend in jurisprudence, which advocated the primacy of hadith over ijtihād, although one should be careful not to over-interpret, given the widespread practice of arbaʿīn compilations generally. In his encyclopaedic Al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa (Compendium of Shii writings), Āghā Buzurg Tihrānī mentions a certain Qāżī Muḥammad Saʿīd b. Muḥammad Mufīd al-Qummī and a certain Muḥammad Nāṣir b. Muḥammad Ṣādiq al-Isfahānī who dedicated their works to Shāh ʿAbbās II (r. 1052–1077/1642–1666) and Shāh Sulaymān (r. 1077–1105/1666–1694), respectively, thus keeping with the tradition of dedicating arbaʿīns to the sovereign.Footnote 45
Shaykh Bahāʾī’s Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan was completed in 995/1586–1587. Apart from the author’s own manuscript, another early copy was completed in 997/1588–1589 by a certain Sayyid Shāh Mīr al-Ḥasanī. In 999/1590–1591, the author endowed his manuscript to the Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī Library in Mashhad.Footnote 46 In the text, each hadith is followed by an explanation (bayān) of its most ambiguous or enigmatic terms and then by a more in-depth interpretation. Some hadith include more than one subsection of the interpretations, which appear under different subtitles, such as note (tanbīh), supplement (tatimma), clarification (tabṣira), guidance (hidāya), or indication (ishāra).
In his introduction, Shaykh Bahāʾī rationalises the need for a commentary after each hadith as a kind of virtuous guidance:
I complemented each hadith with a required explanation (bayān), so that seekers (al-ṭālibīn) can stop in their way, and so that the [God-]fearing (al-rāghibīn) are guided towards the nectar (raḥīq) sealed under the Well of Paradise (Salsabīl).Footnote 47
He then proceeds to describe in more detail the structure of the work, defining the different layers and aspects of the commentaries, ranging from strictly semantic aspects to the use of hadith in jurisprudence:
I turned my efforts into writing a book that would contain thousands of hadiths of rulings, including a series of chapters (abwāb) on jurisprudence in full-length (bi’l-tamām). I put my efforts into this endeavour and examined it word by word. I arranged its precious pearls into a delicate string (anẓum durar farāʾidihi fī simṭ daqīq) and presented the finest [aspects] of its benefits in an elegant fashion (anshur ghurar fawāʾidihi ʿalā ṭarz anīq), supplementing every hadith with an analysis of its structure (bi-taṣḥīḥ mabānīhi) and an explanation of its meaning (tawḍīḥ maʿānīhi) […]; extracting from [each hadith] whatever legal rulings can be extracted (mustanbiṭan minhu mā yumkin istinbāṭuhu min al-aḥkām al-sharʿiyya), and indicating what its attributes suggest, based on its fundamental and secondary details (mushīran ilā mā yalūḥ khilāluhu min al-daqāʾiq al-aṣliyya wa-l-farʿiyya).Footnote 48
After the introduction, the collection begins appropriately with the aforementioned hadith on the importance of memorising 40 narrations. The rest of the hadiths cover different topics, which is in itself significant, given that it was not unusual for arbaʿīn compilers to select narrations focusing only on a single issue. Ibn Shahrāshūb’s, for example, focused exclusively on the deeds and virtuous traits (manāqib) of Fāṭima, Shaykh Bahāʾī’s father’s on ethics (akhlāq), and both Fayż Kāshānī’s and Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī’s on the virtues of ʿAlī.Footnote 49 Shaykh Bahāʾī’s, however, is thematically broad, ranging from aspects of prayer and ablution,Footnote 50 to the virtues of ʿAlī and the ahl al-bayt,Footnote 51 to commanding right and forbidding wrong (amr bi’l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahīy ʿan al-munkar),Footnote 52 and to the question of contradictory reports among the hadith and what to make of them.Footnote 53
The Tarjumih-yi Quṭb-Shāhī of Ibn Khātūn
As mentioned earlier, this was not the only work in which Ibn Khātūn engaged with Shaykh Bahāʾī’s work, given that one of Ibn Khātūn’s most important scholarly achievements was his commentary on the Jāmiʿ-i ʿAbbāsī. The precedent of Shaykh Bahāʾī and his ancestors dedicating their respective arbaʿīns to the Safavid shahs could have served as a model for Ibn Khātūn’s translation project, since he dedicated it to Sultan Muḥammad Quṭb-Shāh,Footnote 54 who died before his return from Isfahan and did not live to see the final product.Footnote 55 The question would remain of course why he opted for a translation of an existing arbaʿīn rather than producing an original compilation, even in Persian. Precedents of arbaʿīns in Persian can be traced to at least as early as the aforementioned one by ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarī.Footnote 56 As for translations of existing arbaʿīns, the ones mentioned by Āghā Buzurg Tihrānī in Al-Dharīʿa were all completed after Ibn Khātūn’s time.Footnote 57 Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin also produced an important study on hadiths, titled Kitāb al-rijaʿ (The book of return), which shows, unsurprisingly, the interest in the subject among the scholars of the court.Footnote 58 One can speculate as to whether choosing to translate Shaykh Bahāʾī’s work, rather than compiling his own 40 traditions, served as a way to reaffirm the symbolic link between the Shii intelligentsia of Iran and that of Golconda/Hyderabad. The choice of language is also not so obvious, given what we know about Muḥammad Quṭb-Shāh’s engagement with Arabic-speaking scholars and his conspicuous annotations in manuscripts, as mentioned. In any case, Ibn Khātūn’s undertaking can be thought of as mirroring that of Shaykh Bahāʾī, his uncle and patron.
As for the manuscript reception of this work, the Library of the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad alone holds ten copies of it, including one autographed by the author.Footnote 59 Harvard University hosts a copy of a work with the same title dating from 1658, which in their catalogue is classified as simply being Shaykh Bahāʾī’s work.Footnote 60 I have not examined this manuscript, but I suspect that this attribution is a cataloguing mistake rather than a translation produced by Shaykh Bahāʾī himself. For this study, I have had access to a copy from Tehran’s Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī Library and one from the Indian National Library in Kolkota.Footnote 61 The latter, from which the references will be taken, is dated 22 Dhū’l-Qaʿda 1315/13 April 1898.Footnote 62
Ibn Khātūn describes the origin of his undertaking, emphasising also the fact that the original is an analytical compendium, containing different kinds of commentaries, all of which he considers important to retain in the translation:
[I embarked] in the translation of the book Forty Hadiths, which is a compendium of these, [including] the roots of their expressions (bi-aṣl-i alfāẓ) and an explanation of their meanings (basṭ-i maʿānī), the intended meaning of their subtleties (īrād-i nikāt), the exposition of their structure (iẓhār-i mabānī), the derivation of legal rulings and questions (istinbāṭ-i aḥkām va-masāʾil), and the clarification of terms and difficulties (istikshāf-i lughāt va-maʿāżil) […].Footnote 63
He then continues to elaborate on his translation technique, as well as on his rationale for including commentaries and excerpts of stories and traditions that are not found in the original:
[I] began [working on] the above-mentioned Tarjumih-yi Quṭb-Shāhī. And since each term has one that corresponds to it, and each language has its own requirements for clear patterns of speech and eloquence (bayān va-balāgh-i mubīn), which are like the pearl-piercing (gawharīyān-siftan) that makes speech more lucid and memorable (rawshan-tar va khāṭir-nishān-tar); [then], following the practice of other translators, I have sought not to abridge Arabic terms like ‘it was/ it is’ (kāna/yakūn) [nor] to rearrange the sentences and place the beginning and the end (taqdīm va-taʾkhīr) [in an order that is not the one] required by the original source (aṣl). And each word will be placed in its required position, and the original source will be craftly summarised and the examples [used to facilitate] the understanding [of each hadith] (taqrīban li-l-afhām) will be put in the right place [after each clause]. And in each place, there will be the remembrance of a martyr or an exemplary story, corresponding to a deed, [so that] the explanation of the intended [meaning] (tawżiḥan al-murād) will be exemplified with a real story. And wherever the translator has something to say related to the knowledge of a term (kalām) that might be suitable to the story at any [particular] moment, he will bring it forward.Footnote 64
In Al-Dharīʿa, in the entry devoted to the Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan, Āghā Buzurg Tihrānī describes Ibn Khātūn’s Tarjumih as a ḥāshiya.Footnote 65 Translations being complemented by a gloss were of course not a novelty by the seventeenth century. In the Mughal north in Allahabad, to mention just one important example, Muḥibb Allāh b. Mubāriz Ilāhābādī (d. 1058/1648) produced a translation of the Qur’an to which he then added a ḥāshiya.Footnote 66 As Ahmed El Shamsy has observed in his study of Shafiʿī ḥawāshī, works classified under this rubric tend to share certain characteristics: (a) a high level of erudition, with rather unpredictable patterns regarding which terms are chosen for discussion; (b) a special focus on linguistic matters; and (c) scholasticism, with a focus on precise discussions of terms and definitions.Footnote 67 These are all, to a greater or lesser extent, present in Ibn Khātūn’s work. However, a major difference that makes it perhaps problematic to describe the Tarjumih primarily as a ḥāshiya is that these works tend to be much more extensive, often comprising many volumes.Footnote 68 In any case, whatever characteristic we may choose to highlight, it seems fair to say that to classify a work primarily as a ḥāshiya the gloss itself should be significantly more substantial than the main text it elaborates on. For whatever definitions of genres are worth, and for analytical purposes, I find Johanna Pink’s criterion on the study of printed Qur’an translations useful: to differentiate between commentaries and translations as a genre of their own, she considers within the latter category only those works in which ‘the text in the target language is not considerably longer than the Arabic text of the Qurʾān and contains only a marginal amount of commentary’.Footnote 69 Following this, I prefer to treat the Tarjumih primarily as a translation but keeping an eye on the characteristics of the ḥāshiya tradition when analysing the translator’s own input.
Glossed translation
Translation theorists have long been aware that meanings from the source language can often only be conveyed into the target language through extended clauses or phrases. This usually occurs when the target language lacks an appropriate equivalent at the word level, oftentimes as a result of a cultural specificity in the former that does not exist in the latter. In his seminal 1959 work, Roman Jakobson classified translations into intralingual (rewording or paraphrasing within the same language), interlingual or translation proper (from one language to another), and intersemiotic transmutation (‘translating’ language into non-linguistic signs).Footnote 70 However, these different kinds are not always mutually exclusive, as the ‘translation proper’ often requires a level of reordering and paraphrasing that goes beyond transferral from one language to another. In their work on colonial bilingual Spanish–Zapotecan catechisms, Martina Schrader-Kniffki, Yannic Klamp, and Malte Kneifel illustrate this very well by showing that Christian concepts in Spanish like trinidad, Dios, and santo required elaborate explanations and ultimately calques or neologisms in Zapotecan to become meaningful to their intended audience.Footnote 71 Likewise, Tony K. Stewart has spoken of ‘the search for cultural equivalence’ to show how Islamic concepts were translated into Bengali through the use of Hindu terms that served a similar cultural function in their context, despite not being technically ‘accurate translations’ of the terms in question.Footnote 72
The case of the Tarjumih-yi Quṭb-Shāhī is obviously quite different in the sense that Arabic and Persian had a long history of shared cultural codes by the time of its composition. Moreover, most religious terms are not only easily translatable between the two languages but in many cases are the exact same term (Arabic cognates used in Persian). However, keeping in mind the above-mentioned concepts and examples remains useful, given that Ibn Khātūn often ‘translated’ terms (or complemented proper names) through the use of extended clauses that provided historical or technical information related to each term or character. Here, I am not referring to the commentaries added to Shaykh Bahāʾī’s own text, which I will also analyse in the later section, but rather to the ‘glossed translation’ (for the lack of a better term) that comes in the place of individual words in the original.
Before looking into examples of the above, it is worth noting that in the introduction to the first hadith (that is, the beginning of the work as such), Ibn Khātūn shifts the narrative person in the presentation of the extended chain of transmission (isnād/pl. asānīd). By the latter term, I mean the isnād that links Shaykh Bahāʾī to his teachers and ancestors, as opposed to the one connecting the early transmitters of the hadith to the Prophet or the imams. Shaykh Bahāʾī retells in first person how he learned these hadiths from his father: ‘My father and teacher, Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Ḥārithī al-Hamdānī, on whom I relied upon for matters of juridical sciences (min ilayhi fī ʿulūm sharʿiyya istinādī), told me […]’.Footnote 73 And he then continues to present the scholars whose ijāzas (permission or licence) his father had acquired:
[I heard] in our home in the Holy City of Mashhad of [Imam] al-Riḍā (peace be upon its Guardian) (al-Mashhad al-Muqaddas al-Raḍawī ʿalā musharrifihi al-Salām), on behalf of the two shaykhs entrusted in Islam and jurists of the People of the House (peace be upon them), Sayyid Ḥasan b. Jaʿfar al-Karakī and Shaykh Zayn al-Milla wa’l-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī […]Footnote 74
In his rendition, however, Ibn Khātūn shifts the narrative to the third person, thus presenting it as reported speech, as opposed to an autobiographical testimony:
The assembler of the aforementioned book recounted […] from his great teacher and most exalted father (pidar-i ʿālī-miqdār), the godly jurist (faqīh-i rabbānī) and enlightened scholar (ʿālim-i nūrānī) Shaykh Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Ḥārithī al-Hamdānī.Footnote 75
This brings us to the point of the glossed translation. It becomes clear that many of the decisions seem to stem from a need to explain rather than simply translate or reproduce names and terms. Thus, for example, in the passage that mentions the two ijāza transmitters on whom Shaykh Bahāʾī’s father relied, Ibn Khātūn omits the name of the first one (al-Kārakī) but adds a detailed explanation of who the second one was:
The Second Martyr and the Forever Living (Shahīd-i Sāni va-zindih-yi jāvidānī), Shaykh Zayn ‘of the Community and the Religion’ (al-Millih va-l-Dīn) al-ʿĀmilī, who was one of the famous religious scholars (mashāhīr-i ʿulamāʾ-yi Dīn) and the greatest among later jurists (aʿẓam-i fuqahā-yi mutaʾakhkhirīn), and author of many books and treatises, such as the Sharḥ Sharāʾīʿ al-aḥkām (The commentary on the requirements of rulings).Footnote 76
We can speculate as to rationale behind this. It is possible that his intended audience (that is, Muḥammad Quṭb-Shāh and other court dignitaries) was, despite their professed Shiism, not necessarily familiar with many of the names of scholars and characters beyond those of the Prophet and the imams. In any case, the pattern continues as the text proceeds:
Since, following [the case of] Shaykh Muḥammad Makkī, whose whereabouts, God willing, will be [later] recounted, he [too] became victorious through martyrdom; religious scholars have honoured him in their own works [with the title] of ‘The Second Martyr’ (Shahīd-i Sānī).Footnote 77
In the same fashion, while Shaykh Bahāʾī introduces another member of the extended isnād, Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Khātūn, without elaborating on who he is;Footnote 78 Ibn Khātūn adds his familial relationship to him: ‘ancestor one generation removed from the translator (jadd bi-yik-vāsiṭanih-yi mutarjim)’.Footnote 79
This pattern becomes recurrent in the isnāds as well as in other sections where many proper names appear. For instance, in the tabṣira (clarification) of the twelfth hadith of the collection, which deals with the subject of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’, Shaykh Bahāʾī explains that scholars have disagreed on whether retribution (ḥisba) was an individual or a collective duty (farḍ ʿaynī or farḍ kifāya) for Muslims. When presenting the scholars that have held different positions on the matter, he mentions that among the proponents of the farḍ ʿaynī position, there was ‘Al-Shaykh, Al-Muḥaqqiq, Ibn Idrīs, and among the later ones (mutaʾkhkhir), our Shaykh al-Shahīd and al-Muḥaqqiq Shaykh ʿAlī [al-Karakī] (d. 940/1534)’. Among those arguing for ḥisba being farḍ kifāya, he mentions al-Sayyid al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), Abū Ṣalāḥ, and al-ʿAllāma, together with al-Shahīd al-Thānī among the late scholars.Footnote 80 While Shaykh Bahāʾī does not see the need to present the full names of some of them, presumably since the epithets should be sufficiently recognizable to any informed Shii scholar, Ibn Khātūn does provide more extended versions of their names. Thus, in the Tarjumih, ‘Al-Shaykh’ becomes ‘Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī’ (d. 460/1067), ‘Al-Muḥaqqiq’ becomes ‘Shaykh Abū’l-Qāsim-i Ḥillī’ (d. 676/1277), and ‘Al-ʿAllāma’ becomes ‘Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn Muṭahhar’.Footnote 81
While the above examples could, admittedly, be the result of random choice, or a question of variation among the different versions of the Tarjumih and of the different vorlages of the Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan consulted by Ibn Khātūn, there are reasons to believe that this is unlikely to be the case. For one, the critical edition of the Al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan made by the Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, on which I rely in this study, includes footnotes on the different variations, and yet it does not indicate that there are any variations related to this particular aspect. And while I have not been able to consult all the manuscripts of the Tarjumih, the two manuscripts available to me have almost no significant variations in this regard either. Moreover, while this pattern does not seem to apply to the names of the imams or to the compilers of canonical Shii collections, that is, Ibn Bābawayh, Shaykh Ṭūsī, and Al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941), it happens recurrently in different parts of the text.
In the second hadith in the original text, for example, the names Al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. Idrīs, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Khālid, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Kūfī, and Muḥammad b. Sinān appear without any further biographical explanation.Footnote 82 However, Ibn Khātūn emphasises their nisbas and their scholarly achievements. The first one is described as an Ashʿarite from Qom who was among the ‘trustworthy hadith transmitters (ravāyān-i siqih)’ and the ‘respected jurists (faqīhān-i muʿtabar)’. Of the second, we are told that he traced his origins to Kufa, that his nisba was al-Barqī because his grandfather had been summoned to Barqa (Cyrenaica), where he was then born, and that he was the author of close to a hundred books. The translator also tells us that, while some rijāl experts considered him a weak transmitter, both Ibn Dawūd (d. 368/978–979) and Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn Muṭahhar [al-Ḥillī] considered his compilations trustworthy (thiqa/siqih). About the third, we learn that rijāl scholars have also described him as weak and described his reports as lacking in credibility (ʿadam-i qabūl), given the instances of exaggeration (ghulūw) they contained. As for the fourth one, he was also disapproved of by many, but counted among his supporters the likes of Shaykh Mufīd (d. 413/1022) and Shaykh Ṭūsī.Footnote 83 A similar thing happens in hadith four, in which the original text mentions a certain Aḥmad b. Muḥammad without giving further information on him.Footnote 84 The translation, in contrast, tells us that although rijāl scholars have not said much about him, Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn [Shahīd-i Sānī] had nonetheless attested to his trustworthiness and included reports by him in his own works.Footnote 85 And the same happens with Al-Ḥasan b. Saʿīd, of which Shaykh Bahāʾī tells us nothing,Footnote 86 while Ibn Khātūn, who actually gives his name as Ḥusayn, elaborates on his being a client (mawlā) of Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.Footnote 87
For reference, this way of citing the names of authorities contrasts even with Ibn Khātūn’s own practice in his commentary on the Jāmiʿ-yi ʿAbbasī. In it, the patterns are more inconsistent, in that the same names are presented differently throughout the text, without the first occurrence being necessarily the most elaborated one; however, the tendency is to treat the potential reader as someone with a certain degree of familiarity with the Shii intellectual tradition. Thus, for example, Abū’l-Qāsim al-Ḥillī is referenced, in one of the earliest occurrences in the text, simply by his epithet ‘Ṣāḥib al-sharāʾīʿ (The Master of the Law)’ and as the author of Kitāb-i muʿtabar, giving the shortened version of the title Al-Muʿtabar fī sharḥ mukhtaṣar al-nāfiʿ (The most esteemed commentary on the compendium of benefits). Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s name, however, is not omitted before mentioning his epithet ‘ʿAlam al-Hudā (The Banner of Guidance)’.Footnote 88 While this may appear to be a minor difference, the contrast with the elaborate, and often rijāl-like, references to the authorities in the Tarjumih suggests, if not a different readership, at least a different approach to the pedagogics of how to present authorities and terms. Can this be reflective also of differences of approach between self-standing glosses as opposed to those embedded within translations? More data would be needed to reach a conclusion on this regard.
What is clear is that the glossed translation does not stop with onomastics. One can find a similar pattern in the reproduction of technical terms, which were deemed to require elaboration. For instance, in the above-mentioned section on ḥisba, Ibn Khātūn explains the meaning of farḍ ʿaynī and farḍ kifāya. The first one is defined as an obligation ‘for each individual of a group (har fard az afrād-i jamʿ) upon whom the requirements of its obligations (shurūṭ-i vujūb) are [incumbent] to effectuate (taḥaqquq)’. And he gives as examples prayer and fasting.Footnote 89 In contrast is farḍ kifāya, which he defines as an obligation that ‘some [in the group] have to carry out (qiyām namūdand), whereas others are exempted therefrom (sāqiṭ mīshavad)’, and lists as examples reciting the prayer for the dead and answering religious questions.Footnote 90
The translator says (mutarjim gūyad)
In addition to the translation itself, and aside from the above-mentioned ellipses within it, Ibn Khātūn’s text introduces short meta-commentaries on those by Shaykh Bahāʾī. These appear under the rubric ‘the translator says (mutarjim gūyad)’. It is in these short passages that the work most resembles the genre of the ḥāshiya. In the rest of the above-mentioned interventions, even with the addition of substantial information on biographical data in the chains of transmission or with the explanation of technical terms, the text of the translation follows the structure of the original and is not seeking to add to it more than what is needed for clarification. In contrast, in the examples below, the translator/author contributes a layer of commentary that goes beyond the bayāns (explanations) and other commentaries on the original, displaying his erudition and adding his own independent thoughts to the body of the text.
In the first hadith, which as was mentioned above is that in which the Prophet recommends his followers to collect 40 hadith for the Umma, Ibn Khātūn introduces his commentary following Shaykh Bahāʾī’s bayān on the meaning of ‘whoever memorises’ or ‘whoever preserves [40 hadith]’ (man ḥafaẓa).Footnote 91 Shaykh Bahāʾī says that the apparent meaning of this would seem to be ‘[whoever can learn] the hadiths by heart (ʿan ẓahr al-qalb)’, by ‘engraving [them] in the mind (al-naqsh fī’l-khawāṭir)’ but not by ‘recording [them] in notebooks (al-rasm fī’l-dafātir)’. This would seem to imply that only the original transmitters of the first two Islamic centuries after the Hijra would qualify as legitimate transmitters, and that anyone who studied or learned through books would not be counted among the transmitters. However, he then clarifies that the real meaning would actually include those who learned through six different ways: (1) by hearing the hadiths reported directly from the sources (al-muqarrara fī’l-uṣūl); (2) by hearing them from a shaykh and reciting them back to him (al-samāʿ min al-shaykh wa-l-qirāʾa ʿalayhi); (3) by hearing them being recited by someone other [than the shaykh] (al-samāʿ ḥālat qirāʾat al-ghayr); (4) by a permission [to transmit them] (al-ijāza); (5) by them being handed over (al-munāwala) to the students; and (6) by writing (al-kitāba). The latter three terms are not defined at any length.Footnote 92
In his intervention, the translator delves into the intricacies and nuances of these conditions. For example, in the second case, after repeating the hadith to the shaykh, it is important that he not disapprove (inkār nakunad) of what he hears; or in the third case, the shaykh must confirm (taṣdīq nimāyad) what the third person says. Since Shaykh Bahāʾī does not define either ijāza or munāwala, Ibn Khātūn explains that the former term requires the shaykh to declare (orally) who can transmit certain books and hadiths without hearing them directly from him, whereas the latter means that the shaykh gives the student a book revised (taṣḥīḥ kardih) by him and shows in it what passages the student can transmit on his behalf. Al-kitāba refers to the written permission to transmit hadith. Ibn Khātūn then states that the most desirable condition for the transmission of reports would be the first one, followed by the following two, given that these retain a level of orality and memory.Footnote 93 In these cases, the gloss is intended to clarify technical terms, not just at the purely linguistic level but rather in terms of the legal requirements that need to be fulfilled for such terms to retain their technical connotation.
But not all the gloss sections serve the same function, nor do they concentrate exclusively on the definition of terms. For instance, in the tabṣira (clarification) of this same hadith, Shaykh Bahāʾī raises the question whether one should be given credit for learning hadiths in translation. While the answer is negative, given the analogy with the Qur’an, which should be learned and recited in Arabic, it is permissible to learn hadith translations for the sake of understanding their meaning.Footnote 94 In his commentary on this passage, Ibn Khātūn reflects on why, despite the precedent of the Qur’an, learning hadith in translation would be justified in the above-mentioned circumstances. He suggests that this could be because hadiths are used for religious counsel (mawāʿiẓ) and to extract legal rulings (aḥkām), and hence it is permissible to use the language of the preacher for the purpose of instruction and clarification.Footnote 95 In this case, then, the gloss serves to interpret the rationale behind a ruling, despite there being no challenging terminology in the passage.
Something similar occurs with the translator’s gloss to hadith 30, which is concerned with the prohibitions of the Prophet (manāhīy Rasūl), based on a report collected in Al-Amālī (The dictations) of Ibn Bābawayh. Among these is the prohibition of passing by a mosque without stopping in it to pray.Footnote 96 In his commentary on this section, Ibn Khātūn explains that the obligation of not passing by a mosque without praying applies only to cases in which the believer had decided to head in a certain direction for the purpose of praying and had then failed to complete his prayer.Footnote 97 In this case, the translator’s commentary serves the purpose of clarifying the nuances of what would otherwise seem to be an unusually strict and almost unfulfillable command. The clarification here is not at the level of the term, nor intended to explain the reasoning behind a clear ruling, but rather serves to explain the limits of a ruling that, taken literally, would seem to have a much broader scope.
Afterwards, in the tabṣira section, Shaykh Bahāʾī analyses the difference between accepted prayer (al-ʿibāda al-maqbūla) and a prayer that fulfils an obligation (al-ʿibāda al-mujziʾa). This comes about in the context of the prohibition of wine (khamr) and on the fact that prayer is not accepted within 40 days after consuming it. He then notes that the ʿibāda mujziʾa is void if the worshipper is bleeding, and that ʿibāda maqbūla is that for which the believer gets credit. In this context, the author cites a series of Qur’anic verses, among them 5:27: ‘[the sacrifice] was accepted from one and not the other (fa-tuqubbila min aḥadihimā wa-lam yutaqabbal min al-ākhar)’.Footnote 98 He then proceeds to list the arguments for the separation between the above-mentioned kinds of prayer. Commenting on this section, Ibn Khātūn adds a fairly detailed account of the story of Cain and Abel, drawing a parallel between their sacrifices and the conditions that lead to a prayer not being accepted, giving as examples the rejection of Cain’s sacrifice and the acceptance of Abel’s.Footnote 99 In this case, the gloss uses a familiar scriptural example to illustrate the intricacies of the law.
Finally, other commentaries also serve to illustrate the sense of the hadith in question by adding other examples from the hadith. This we can see in the case of hadith 21, which elaborates on the reasons for the contradictions between reports (ʿillat ikhtilāf al-aḥādīth). For this, Shaykh Bahāʾī refers to a hadith from Kitāb al-Kāfī (The sufficient book) by Al-Kulaynī. In it, ʿAlī explains the matter by recounting the stories of four men. The first was a hypocrite who presented himself as a man of faith (munāfiq yuẓhir bi’l-īmān) and who pretended to be Muslim (mutaṣanniʿ bi’l-Islām). Muslims rejected him because of his lack of faith despite the fact that he did not say anything false about the revelation. The second was someone who heard the reports directly from the Prophet but did not memorise them, so Muslims rejected him. The third one had heard from the Prophet that one should command certain things and prohibit others but forgot which one was which, and learned abrogated verses (mansūkh) and forgot the abrogative ones (nāsikh). Muslims could recognise the fault and rejected him as well. Finally, the fourth one had learned everything correctly and was aware of the existence of abrogative and abrogated verses, and accepted the former and rejected the latter. However, since this demonstrated his lack of awareness of the distinction between the specific (khaṣṣ) and general (ʿāmm) sense of certain rulings, he was also rejected. ʿAlī then recalls meeting with the Prophet and being taught the scripture and its interpretation. When he expressed to the Prophet his concerns about remembering, the Prophet replied: ‘I am not afraid of you forgetting or ignoring (lā lastū atakhawwaf ʿalayka al-nisiyān aw al-jahl).’Footnote 100 The implication of this is, of course, that ʿAlī would be protected from the fate of the four men of the narration.
In the tanbīh (note) of this hadith, Shaykh Bahāʾī says that a group of ulema, with Al-Ṣaghānī among them, had compiled explanations of hadith and grouped them into different topics for analytical purposes.Footnote 101 At this point in his translation, Ibn Khātūn once again expands on the name and work of the scholar referred to in the passage. He provides his full name, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Ṣaghānī (d. 650/1252), as well as the name of one of his major works: Al-Aḥādīth al-mawḍūʿa (The forged reports).Footnote 102 He then moves on to his commentary, also using the previously mentioned rubric of ‘mutarjim gūyad’. In it, he cites a hadith in which ʿAlī says:
Look at your face in the mirror, for whoever is good, his actions will be good accordingly; and whoever is evil will not be able to choose between two evils (Unẓur wajhaka fī’l-mirāʾa fa-inna kāna ḥasanan fa-afʿaluhu yunāsibuhu fa-inna kāna qabīḥan fa-lā jamaʿa bayn al-qabīḥayn).Footnote 103
Ibn Khātūn compares the sense of this hadith with the fate of someone who, despite feeling heartache (bad-bakht-i dilī), is happy to accept the fulfilment of God’s will.Footnote 104 Thus, in this case the function of the commentary is, in the context of a discussion of hadith collections themselves, to provide further scriptural examples on the link between good character and faith, and on the value of resignation.
One common characteristic of all these examples is worth noting. These are the sections that the translator had reserved primarily for the display of his erudition. However, in contrast with what happens in his renditions of the isnāds, regarding which the translator has recourse to rijāl scholarship to complement the information provided by the original, here he does not refer to opinions of other authorities. Although in the last two cases he illustrates his point with scriptural references, he does not reference exegetical scholarship but rather limits himself to providing his own interpretation of the text.
Here too a brief comparison with Ibn Khātūn’s own approach to the ḥāshiya of the Jāmiʿ-yi ʿAbbāsī is pertinent. While detail comparison is of course beyond the scope of this study, it is worth noting that in the latter work, the author almost always provides detailed scholarly references to illustrate things like the interpretation of a certain passage by a given authority or to exemplify disagreements among scholars. For example, when discussing matters of ritual purity (ṭahāra) in prayer, there is a section in the Jāmiʿ-yi ʿAbbasī in which Shaykh Bahāʾī notes that scholars have disagreed on whether the restrictions for praying during the menstrual period could apply to pregnant women at the moment in which the blood-flow turns into milk to feed the foetus.Footnote 105 In the ḥāshiya, Ibn Khātūn cites Ibn Bābawayh, Shaykh Ṭūsī, and Sharīf al-Murtaḍā in agreement with the restrictions, whereas Sayyid Muḥammad al-Mūsawī al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1009/1600), who in this case is only referred to as the author of Madārik, in reference to his work Madārik al-aḥkām fī sharḥ sharāʾīʿ al-Islām (The reasoning of the rulings for commenting on the laws of Islam), is cited as being in disagreement.Footnote 106 The display of erudition that one can see in examples like this contrasts with the relatively simpler approach to the glosses introduced by the ‘mutarjim gūyad’ rubric in the Tarjumih. Once again, however, the question of whether this pattern was dictated by the different nature of the works themselves is something that will require further investigation to conclude decisively. One possibility too could be simply that the Tarjumih was the author’s earliest work and that it was only in his mature works (of which the ḥāshiya on the Jāmiʿ-yi ʿAbbāsī was a major example) that he displayed his knowledge more profusely.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Ibn Khātūn’s engagement with Shaykh Bahāʾī’s text consisted of identifying minute details at the lexical, biographic, juridical, and theological levels, even in passages that might at first glance seem straightforward and almost suitable for a word-by-word translation. In his Tarjumih, the author/translator blended the features of translation and gloss. And by incorporating aspects of the gloss into the translation proper—sometimes at the level of the individual word or concept—he combined elements of intralingual and interlingual translation. These aspects are proper of texts with pedagogical concerns, given, for example, the precedence of ḥawāshī being used as introductory texts for instruction.Footnote 107 But more importantly, the translation strategies of the Tarjumih have much in common with those of missionary texts and of translations between languages of cultural milieus that did not share the same cultural and conceptual repertoire that Arabic and Persian already had by the eleventh/seventeenth century. It is also noteworthy that the self-standing gloss passages—that is, the ones introduced by ‘mutarjim gūyad’—were seemingly meant to elaborate on the sense of the original text itself, but not on its lexical challenges nor on the rationale of the translator’s decisions. In this sense, the gloss, if one were to consider the sum of all such passages as such, is independent from (albeit complementary of) the translation. In contrast, the translation proper, which represents the bulk of the text, does make use of some of the common resources of the glosses, as in the recourse to rijāl scholarship in the isnāds or the lexical explanations embedded in the text.
A question that would require further investigation is whether the choice of translations and commentaries by the Shii gharīb ulema of the Deccan responded to the needs of an environment where, despite the enthusiastic patronage of the court, the development of Shii institutions and circles of learning lacked the established tradition and resources that Iran already boasted of at the time. If so and if the characteristics of texts like Ibn Khātūn’s Tarjumih are indeed consistent across the Shii Qutub-Shahi archive, we could begin to rethink of the glossed translation as a strategy of domestication of the transregional Persianate Shii tradition.
Acknowledgements
Earlier drafts of this work were presented at the ‘14th Biennal Conference of the Association for Iranian Studies’, held at the Autonomous National University of Mexico in August, 2024, and at the ‘Arab-German Young Academy Conference’, held at the Free University of Berlin in November 2024. I am grateful for the comments I received from colleagues at these events.
Conflicts of interest
None.
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