"Velāyat-nāmeh"; A Prominent Genre in the Ninth Century Shiite Literature

The ninth century is the culmination of Shiite poetry in the form of religious composition, ode, and epic. In between, there is a form of ode which the poets of that time call "Velāyat-nāmeh." More than 60 cases of this form of ode have been seen so far in the divans of poets such as Salimi Tuni, Ibn Hosam Khusfi, Azari Esfarayeni, etc. This form has been unprecedented in the history of Persian ode for two reasons: the first is that it belongs to a specific religious and ideological group; and the second is that it has a specific name and a specific content.This article seeks to introduce “Velāyat-nāmeh” as a special Shiite literary genre in the ninth century and to discuss the role of this literary genre in shaping the Shiite discourse of poets in that century. In this study, the linguistic tools used by poets such as titling, exaggeration, imagining ideas as well as quoting verses and hadiths, Imamate, infallibility, knowledge and the key concept of “velāyat” in Shiism, the oratorical nature of “Velāyat-nāmeh”s, etc., with a historical and analytical discourse. It is intended to examine the efforts of poets to spread the Shiite discourse and promote the Shiite belief system in the ninth century. Also, in this article, a structure of this literary genre is mentioned.