Licit Magic – GlobalLit Working Papers 3. Amīr Khusraw's Introduction to His Third Dīvān, The Full Moon of Perfection

Nicknamed as the “Parrot of India” for his exceptional eloquence, Amīr Khusraw of Delhi (1253–1325) wrote elaborate prose introductions to all his dīvāns, but the one he wrote to his Ghurrat al-kamāl (The Full Moon of Perfection)—compiled around 1293–94, at the approximate age of 43—is particularly important because of his critique of Arabic and Persian poetry in general, and the critique of his own writing in particular. As a literary critique by an author of Turko-Indian background, who emulated the styles of various great Persian poets from Ghazni (in modern-day Afghanistan) to Shiraz and Isfahan (in modern-day Iran), to Ganja (in modern-day Azerbaijan), Amīr Khusraw’s work would provide valuable insights into the literary sphere of the medieval Persianate world. The present paper summarizes the author’s first part of the introduction to his third dīvān, Ghurrat al-kamāl (The Full Moon of Perfection), followed by an English translation of the section where he critiques his own poetry and prose

Licit Magic – GlobalLit Working Papers 2. Persian Dream Writing (khāb-nāma): With Translations from Khābguzārī (12th or 13th century), and ʿAjā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (12th century)

There is something literary about dreams when they are written down. Dreams and literature intersect in wonder, imagination, and freedom. The excerpts translated here are dream writings from Khābguzārī by an anonymous writer in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and ʿAjā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt by Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Hamadānī (also known as Ṭūsī) (circa 1161–1178). Translated here for the first time into English, the two excerpts provide examples of how dreams shaped literary imagination in medieval Persian dream interpretation manuals (khāb-nāma) and anthologies of wondrous things (ʿajāyib-nāma)

Arbitrary Constellations: Writing the Imagination in Medieval Persian Astrology, with Translations from Tanklūshā (11th – 12th century)

The book we read today in the name of Tanklūshā in Arabic and Persian versions is pseudepigraphic––most likely an imaginary reconstruction of an astrological work by Teukros, rich with images of everyday life appearing in supernatural tints as constellations on the vast screen of the night sky. Each of the twelve zodiac signs contains depictions, of varying lengths, of thirty sets of triptych images. For those interested in Islamic theories of imagination (khayāl), Tanklūshā offers highly visualised texts and fantastic combinations of images. For those interested in Islamic sciences and practices of divination and prognostication, Tanklūshā presents a vivid map of the constantly changing sky — variously rendered as charkh, gardūn, falak, all meaning “turning,” and all representing fate in classical Persian literature — with its aleatory faces. Falak (sphere), which was described by Khāqānī Shirvānī as a “blank dice [kaʿbatayn-i bī-naqsh],” turns, in Tanklūshā, into a dice with 360 sides each inscribed by its dream-like patchworks of arbitrary images

Al-Rāzī’s Discussion on the Meaning of Speech [Kalām] & its Origins: Introduction & Translation

Known as one of the Sultans of the theologians, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150 – 1210) was a Persian Sunnī scholar of Arab origins who was renowned for mastering various disciplines including but not limited to exegesis [tafsīr], principles of Islamic jurisprudence [uṣūl al-fiqh], theology [kalām], logic [manṭiq], astronomy [falak], cosmology, physics, anatomy, and medicine. This paper delves into al-Rāzī’s discussion on semantics and its relation to the foundations of languages by examining multiple views on the composition of speech. By raising the rather simple question as to what constitutes speech (kalām) and what does not, al-Rāzī presents us with a terse, yet enlightening presentation of rhetoric's very building blocks, the word. His focus then moves to the vexed issue of whether the waḍʿ or establishment of speech is through divine revelation or human convention