Shu'ayyah Biography and the Need for its Correction

One of the most important Persian biographical works is Shu'ayyah Biography of Mohammad Hossein Sha'a Shirazi (Shua'a al-Mulk) which is written in Qajar dynasty in Shiraz in 1942. Shuayyah Biography includes biography and sample poems of 150 poets that the author has seen or heard them from 1941 to 1951. This biographical work was edited and revised by Mahmoud Tavousi, and was published by the Persian Foundation in 2001. The question of the present article is to what extent the correction of this biographical work is scientific, critical, and valid? Investigations show that the edited and revised text of Shu'ayyah Biography is full of errors. Three major reasons can be made to correct the mistakes in the revised text: choosing a wrong method, ethical correction, and bad reading. Contrary to the general correction principle, the editor is confined to a handwritten version of the Faculty of Literature of University of Tehran, which is late, and ignored the handwritten version of the Malek National Library, which is a more appropriate measure. Due to the fact that Shu'ayyah Biography is the most important work of Shua'a al-Mulk and has significant historical, social, and linguistic advantages, criticism needs to be made and its edited text should be available to the scholars and enthusiasts of the ancient Persian language.