نشریه جستارهای نوین ادبی
سال پنجاه و سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 209، تابستان 1399)

Molla Abdolmotaleb Khajeh, also known as Fahmi (death after 1286 AH), is a biographer from Transoxiana. There is little known about his personality, and some of the evidence from Tajikestan and Iran are rather faulty. This study aims to introduce this biographer and his categorization of biography, and then analyze his critical views. The content and genre analysis of the study attempts to answer the following questions. Who is Fahimi? What are the features of his biography? What are the author's critical views? What significance does this biography have in the Persian literary history of Transoxiana? The findings show that Fahimi's biography is a general independent unfinished prose in Farsi which was written in the 13th century AH, ordered by Haj Molla Mohammad Toughsabeh who was a military member of the then-Bokhara. Fahimi's critical views could be categorized into four groups: historical-analytical, moral, political-social, and rhetorical-aesthetic. Although the biography under investigation is an unfinished work, some rich data could be extracted about the Persian literature and the social and mystic understanding of the era, which could all be contributive to the history of Persian literature in Transoxiana.

Is art created consciously or unconsciously? This question always sparks controversies amongst artists, researchers, philosophers, and psychologists. Nonetheless, as an intricate phenomenon, art demands both consciousness and unconsciousness to come into existence, and manifest attributes of both realms. Poetry is the most prominent artistic form of the ancient world, and to our predecessors, thinkers, Sufis, and poets were educators. Therefore, the vast portion of the ancient literature is didactic, and poetry has been used as a rhetorical devise to effectively convey the poets’ beliefs and instructions to the audience or the readers. Needless to say, didactics requires forethought and conscious thoughts of the educators on what they aim to teach. Masnavi</em> is amongst the greatest Sufist didactic texts. Surprisingly, some believe that Masnavi</em> comes from a free stream of consciousness and, as a result, they describe Masnavi</em> as a chaotic, disorganized and opaque work. Chaotically, he delivers an ordinary tale by means of a chain of semantic and sentimental blocks (Abdul-Hakim, 1977). And sometimes researchers have doubts and offer contradictory observations; … Rumi has surrendered himself to inspiration to see where it gets him. However, this does not imply that Rumi does not engage his conscious thoughts. As he has mastered several levels of knowledge simultaneously, ‘no task stops Him from doing other tasks’. The proof is that he returns to speech whenever he wants (Zekavati Gharehguzlu, 2007).

Being melodic is one of the commonalities of literary works, particularly in Persian poetry and Nastaliq calligraphy. Apart from the structure of the Persian language and the Nastaliq calligraphy form, which is elegant and delicate, poets and calligraphers use methods to make their works more melodic. In literature, these methods are the subject of “verbal innovative”. The aim of this study, which is conduced in a descriptive-analytical manner and with a comparative approach, is to show the similarities of these methods in Persian literature and Nastaliq calligraphy, despite their different explanatory methods. The question is how do the visual equivalents of verbal figures of speech, manifest in the Nastaliq calligraphy? For this purpose, the calligraphic works of Gholamhossein Amirkhani have been studied and analyzed from this perspective. The reason for choosing him is easy accessibility to his works and also his ability to present quality works in different formats. The results of this study reveal that the creators of works in two different fields of Persian literature and Nastaliq calligraphy, use similar methods to make their works more melodic and this similarity is to some extent that a visual equivalent can be found in Nastaliq calligraphy for many verbal tricks in literature.

Abstract Marzbannameh</em> is one of the masterpieces of Persian literature both in terms of form and content and one of the precious jewels of the crown of Persian literature. This book contains the wise anecdotes, allegories, and myths, which have been prepared in the manner of Kelileh and Demneh</em> from the language of human beings, beasts, birds, demons, and fairies. Marzbannameh</em> is one of the valuable works of Persian literature that was written in the fourth century by Espahbod Marzban Ibn Rostam Ibn Shervin in Tabaristani language. He converted it into the technical language in 622-617 (Safa, 1990). In addition, this book is a successful example that has a high and significant literary value in Persian literature. It also has great content and stories with precious missions. Being familiar with Iranian culture, stories and myths, Marzban Ibn Rostam has used them artistically in thematic, characterization and symbolism, he has used them for the good effect of his words. With a general look at the text of this work, we will realize that the depth of many of his stories and the theme of this book originate from the worldview of ancient Iran, especially the culture of Mazdisna. In this regard, Mohammad Moein links many post-Islamic Iranian poems and the books of prose, including Marzbannameh</em>, with pre-Islamic narratives and legends, and he believes that many of the contents of Marzbannameh</em> can be traced to culture and literature. Found before Islam (Moein, 1945), some consider it a relic of Sassanid Iran (Ripka, 2002; Rezaei,2010). From this point of view of the mythological approach, the most controversial and famous story of this book is the story of "Gāvpāy Demon and the Religious Wise" (دیو گاوپای و دانای دینی) about which different opinions have been expressed.

The explanations of the literary texts are intended to explain and clarify the various aspects of the texts for the readers; in other words, from the exegete's view, a text has complexities that the reader, even an expert reader, may not be able to comprehend. Hence the commentator tries to resolve such difficulties and inform the reader about the process of the text. Hadith of Sanai is one of the texts that can be considered one of the original works (Canon) in the Persian language due to its influence on the thought of subsequent writers and poets, and consequently, on other texts. This has led to much research on aspects of this text, especially in the field of its description, but despite the efforts of the commentators, it can be said that the explanations of the Hadighah</em> have not been left without of the shortcomings and errors. In this research, we have studied one of the Hadighah’s</em> verses in different explanations and we have shown that these explanations are caught up in the fragmentation and repetition of the opinions of others, and they have not explained how to link their explanations to other parts of the text, and this has caused a profound change in the meaning of the text.

Authentication of the sources of poems from pioneering poets is of utmost importance due to the partial loss of cultural identity over time. Among these sources, dictionaries have always played a vital role in retrieving the scattered poems and verses of these poets, especially Rudaki Samarqandi. One of these dictionaries is the Persian-to-Persian dictionary of Ajayeb al-Loqha</em> (written around the middle of the tenth century) by Adibi. He has attributed some verses to Rudaki, of which, two verses and two stanzas does not seem to be in any other dictionaries such as Farsi dictionary</em>, Sehah al-Fors</em>, Qawas dictionary</em>, etc., which are probably the sources used by the author. Since the editor of this dictionary has not previously studied these verses in detail in his correction or a separate article, and also because this work has not been published in any of the editions of Rudaki's Divan</em>, including Nafisi, Mirzayev, Sheaar, Emami, Hadizadeh, Qader Rostam and was not one of the sources of the correctors, it was necessary to study these verses that are seen with a new appearance in the dictionary. In the present study, these four verses are explored following the principles of text correction and stylistic criteria.