The Story of “Mu’ashers” throughout History: Development of Mu’asher as a Character and Its Reflection in Persian Literature

Changes in historical and cultural conditions and contexts have consigned some implications of the term “Mu’asher” to oblivion. These lost implications are recognizable if the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of the words in a text are analyzed. Mu’asher is defined as “friend” and “companion” in dictionaries. However, these implications are not supported in verses such as “There would be trouble in the neighborhood of the beauties/by the Mu’arbads (revelers), Masts (drunks), Mu’ashers and Rends (rogues)” when their syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations are analyzed. In this verse, Mu’asher, Rend, Mast, and Mu’arbad are evidently co-hyponyms. In this context, it means a person “seeking immoral pleasures”. It also means those who render services to the said persons. Some Mu’ashers called Nadiman-e Mu’asher organized or served at the feasts. Anvari refers to one of most renowned Mu’ashers of the Seljuk Court as “Akram-e Mu’asher”. This research introduces and studies the historical origins of the new implication of “Mu’asher” and the contexts in which “Mu’ashers Caste” evolved.Keywords: Mu’asher, Mu’asherat, Mu’ashers Caste, context, implication