The Ways of Persuasion in "Nafsat-al-Masdoor"

Nafsat-al-Masdoor by Zeidari Nasavy, has often been considered a text which narrates some parts of the historical reality of the Mongol invasion in an emotional way. However, in this paper, authors try to indicate that the author, Zeidari, distorted some facts about this historic event. This was made possible by the opportunity that was given to him because of his status in the royal court. When he became sure that it’s the end of the previous sovereigns, using experiences gained in writing Sire-Jalal-Aldin, and taking advantage of his position in the court, he wrote Nafsat-al-Masdoor as an evidence of his innocence of the charge of escaping from the Mongol invasion. Using textual evidence and close reading of the text, it has been found that Zeidari has purposefully changed the reality by taking advantage of the genre he has chosen for his narrative, namely "historical narration," and in this way, he has been able to conquer the minds of his readers. These strategies begin with the gathering of four elements of nature (water, wind, soil, and fire) and utilizing the structure of Qasida in prose and proceeding to verbiage and finally preventing the formation of dialogue.