Revised translation of the Chahár maqála : ("Four discourses") of Nizámí-i-ʼArúdí of Samarqand, followed by an abridged translation of Mírzá Muhammad's notes to the Persian text / by Edward G. Browne.

  • Niẓāmī ʻArūz̤ī, active 1110-1161.
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Revised translation of the Chahár maqála : ("Four discourses") of Nizámí-i-ʼArúdí of Samarqand, followed by an abridged translation of Mírzá Muhammad's notes to the Persian text / by Edward G. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from this book, which contains a good deal of autobiographical material. The events in his life to which he refers lie between the years 504/1110-1111 and 547/1152-3, and we find him suc¬ cessively at Samarqand, Balkh, Herat, Tus and Nfshapur. He was primarily a poet and courtier, but, as we learn from Anecdotes XXXI (p. 74) and XLIII (p. 96), he also practised Astrology and Medicine when occasion arose. His poetry, in spite of the complacency displayed by him in Anecdote XXI (pp. 59-61), was not, if we may judge by the comparatively scanty fragments which have survived, of the highest order, and is far inferior to his prose, which is admirable, and, in my opinion, almost un¬ equalled in Persian. It is by virtue of the Chahdr Maqdla, and that alone, that Nizamf-i-‘Arudf of Samarqand deserves to be reckoned amongst the great names of Persian literature. The Book. At the present day, apart from the text printed eleven years ago in this series and the rare and bad lithographed edition1 published at Tihran in 1305/1887-8, the Chakar Maqdla, so far as at present known, is represented only by three or four MSS., two in the British Museum (Or. 2955, dated 1274/1857-8, and Or. 3507, dated 1017/1608-9), and one in Constantinople transcribed at Herat in 835/1431-2, while a fourth, of which no particulars are available to me, is said to exist in India. During the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of our era it seems to have been better known than during the four succeeding centuries, for it is mentioned or cited in the thirteenth century by ‘Awfi (in the Lubabu' l-Albab) and I bn Isfandiyar (in his History of Tabaristan); in the fourteenth century by Hamdu’llah Mustawfi of Qazwfn (in the Td vikh-i-Guzida); in the fifteenth century by Dawlatshah and Jamf (in the Silsilatu dh-Dhahab)\ and in the sixteenth by the Qadf Ahmad-i-Ghaffari (.Nigaristdn). It is often referred to as the Majmdd n- Nawddir (“ Collection of Rarities ”), which the