From Khamseh/Quintet Composing to Khamseh/Quintet Scholarships(Critical Study of Khamseh/Quintet Researches)

Khamseh/Quintet composing is one of the long-standing traditions of Persian literature. This literary tradition was founded by Nezami Ganjavi in 6th/12th century and continued to 14th/20th century in Iran and its cultural realm. During these 8 centuries, many Iranian, Indian and Turkish poets imitated Nezami’s Khamseh. This literary tradition is the most popular tradition in Persian literature, after Shahnameh composing; but extensive research has not been done on it, and a lot of quintets have remained unexplained, and the detailed list of them is not available. This article introduces and criticizes the major researches done in this field and notes the deficiencies of these studies. Finally it offers some recommendations for research into this field.