A Study of Manuscripts of Sharh-e Shatahiat and the Necessity of its re-Correction

Sharh-e Shatahiat has been written by Shiekh Ruzbahan Baqli Shirazi، one of the great mystics of sixth century (A. H). The title of this book implies that it is about Shatahiat، that is، the strange and exotic sayings of mystics. Henri Corbin، the famous French orientalist، corrected this work for the first time in 1344. The manuscripts he used for such correction are: 1) manuscripts of Shahid Ali library (Istanbul)، 2) manuscripts of Mulla Murad library (Istanbul)، 3) manuscripts of Manteq al-Asrar Bebayan al-Anwar (Astan-e Quds library) and 4) Hallaj Divan published by Massignon. The valuable attempt of Corbin to introduce this literary-mystical text to researchers is praiseworthy but، unfortunately، due to various reasons such as many mistakes of scribes in the first two copies، and also the difficult and complicated language of Ruzbahan، some mistakes are seen in this correction which make the reading of the text difficult. Moreover، the book has been published without annotations and table of content. Although another authentic manuscript of this book was not found during extensive searches and after passing half a century of the text’s correction، the more precise reading of available manuscripts، use of books which have mentioned some parts of Sharh-e Shatahiat text and also adding proper annotations and indices can all contribute to a good and trimmed correction of the book.