Lewisohn, Leonard -- The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi

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The life and poetry of

Mashreqi TabriziLeonard Lewisohn

a

aSchool of Oriental and African Studies, London

University,

Published online: 02 Jan 2007.

To cite this article:Leonard Lewisohn (1989) The life and poetry of Mashreqi

Tabrizi, Iranian Studies, 22:2-3, 99-127

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Leonard Lewisohn

The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi

Of the rhyme and verse of Shams-e MashreqiGo tell the news to all who merit itBecause the worth of pearls borne from seaall jewelers will appreciate. Mashreqi

I. M ystic and C alligrapher: The Life of Mashreqi (d. 85911454)During the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century in Tabriz, the political andcultural capital of medieval Persia, a remarkable congregation of Sufi poetsassembled whose society, fellowship, and fraternity in Sufism, made them allmembers of one literary movement in Persian poetry, known as the 'Scho ol ofTabriz'.1 In presenting the literary accomplishmen ts and the mystical outlook ofthis School to a wider audience, the present article attempts to introduce the leastknown member of this school, namely, the Sufi gnostic poet, 'Abd al-RahimKhalvati (Mashreqi), whose poetic oeuvre and biography has, to date, beencompletely neglected by Persian literary historians, both east and west.

* The poets who belonged to this school include Mahmud Shabestari (d. 1339),Mohammad Shir in Maghrebi (d. 1408), Mohammad 'Assar Tabrizi (d. 1390),Kamal Khojandi (d. 1400), Qasem Anwar Tabrizi (d. 1433), Salman Savaji (d.1376), Homam Tabrizi (d. 1314), Mohammad Lahiji ( 'Asiri ' , d. 1506), ShahN e'm ato llah (d. 1430), and Shah D a'i Shirazi (d. 1466). For a detailed study ofthe different poets and their mutual cross-influence of ideas, see Leonard Lewisohn,A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi (forthcoming 1990), Vol. I, Chap. 9.

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100 Lewisohn

The only available historical source to provide a detailed account of Mashrcqi'sbiography is theRawd at al-janan by Ebn Karbala ' i ,2 a biographical work onthe famous Sufis, scholars, and saints of Tabriz, written in 1567. The followingextracts provide an outline of the poet's background:Khajeh 'Abd al-Rahim (known as 'the Recluse' [Khalvati])was the sonof our master, Shams al-Din Mohammad al-Aqtabi al-Mashreqi, born inTabriz, of Transcaucasian origin [Nakhichevan), a distant relative ofal-Ziya al-M aleki al-'O sm ani. He was one of the eminent men of histime.Mowlana Shams al-Din Mohammad (al-Aqtabi al-Mashreqi) was adisciple of Mohammad Maghrebi, from whom he received his spiritualtraining. Khajeh 'Ab d al-Rahim , like his father, was also in thebeginning a disciple of our master M oham mad M aghrebi. Later, hecame to serve many other eminent masters of his day: Soltan Khajeh'AH Safavi3, Shaykh Zayn al-Din Khafi, and Shaykh Kamal Khojandi,and received their blessings.He wrote good poetry, particularly using the technical terminology [ofthe Sufis], taking as his pennam e 'Mashrcqi'. He has a Divan of poetryand was the leadin g figure of his time in the art of calligraphy. In fact,it appears that he had such a reputation as a fine calligrapher, that thediplomas in calligraphy of most the masters of the art in Azarbaijan andKhorasan bear his signature.M owlana Shams al-Din M ohamm ad has two sons : 1) the abov e-mentioned Khajeh 'Abd al-Rahim and 2) Khajeh 'Ab d al-Hayy. Bothwere excellent calligraphcrs and were pupils of their notable father. Thevenerable Khajeh 'Abd al-Rahim w as not as conscientious in the art ofcalligraphy [as his brother] owing to his preoccupation with bothexoteric and esoteric sciences, and abstention from matters of lesserimportance, leaving that business [calligraphy] up to his elder brother,'Abd al-Hayy.In calligraphy, 'Abd al-Hayy followed the style of Khajeh YaqutMos ta ' s cm 4 so well that it surpassed all imagination . According to

z Ebn Karba la'i , Rawd at al-janan, 2 vols. Ed. Ja'far Soltan al-Qorra'i (Tehran:196 5) .* Khajeh 'Ali Safavi (d. 14 29) was the third in succession to Safi al-Din Ard abili(d. 1334), the founder of the Safavi Order; the latter is referred to in the highestterms throughout theRawd at al-janan by Ebn Karbala'i.

A famous calligrapher who flourished during the reign of the last AbbasidCaliph, Mosta'scm billah, dying in Baghdad in 698/1298 (Editor 's note, EbnKarbala ' i , op. cit., I, p. 56 8). See also, A. Schim mel, "P oe try and Calligraphy:Thoughts about their Intcrrealtion in Persian Culture" in Ettinghausen, R. &

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The Life and Poetry of M ashreqi Tabrizi 101reliable accounts, there lived in Tabriz a calligrapher by the name ofMowlana 'Omar, who wrote a beautiful script and had a comprehensiveknow ledge of the art of calligraphy. Mowlana 'Om ar owned an originalpage of calligraphy written by Khajeh Yaqut, which he lent to Khajeh'Abd al-Hayy, who copied out the text in an identical hand onto paperof the sam e qua lity. Th en, instead of the origina l, he handed his owncopy of the page to Mowlana 'Omar, who failed to distinguish theforgery. A short wh ile later, 'Abd al-Hayy asked Mowlana 'Om ar if hecould borrow the page back. Khajeh 'Om ar brought it out, 'A bd al-Hayy presented him with the original calligraphy by Yaqut Mosta'sem,which Khajeh 'Omar still did not recognize, believing that YaqutM os ta'se m had written two pages with the sam e text. Upo ninvestigation, however, he realised that the original and the copy wereinscribed by separate hands.It is also said that 'Abd al-Hayy's frequent production of forged versionsof Khajeh Yaqut's calligraphy caused his early death, since this was anact of fragrant discourtes y. Since Khajeh Yaqut was a person ofspiritual eminence, and endowed with a subtle body (sahcb bdten),some eminent men -being of jealous dispositionwill not endure sucheffrontery and discourtesy.The death of Khajeh 'Abd al-Hayy occurred in 825/1421 at thebeginning of the reign of Eskandar, son of Qara-Yusuf. His grave isbeside that of Mowlana Moham mad Maghrebi, who used to address himas 'his son'.Following his brother's death, 'Abd al-Rahim was forced to resume theprofession of calligraphy since scribes and calligraphers were inconstant demand. Mow lana Bavvab, Mow lana Moham mad Khalili, andMowlana 'Abd al-Vase', and others, all received instruction incalligraphy from him.Another memorable tale told of 'Abd al-Rahim Khalvati is that he couldcopy out the whole edition of the Koran in forty days. Then he wouldjoke , "I sit in reatreat for forty days {Cheheleh) and bring forth anentire holy scripture . I wonder what other Sufis who sit for forty daysget from their retreat? "5

Ebn K arbala'i also relates that both Shams al-Din M ohammad A qlabi and 'Abdal-Rahim Khalvati (Mashreqi) were disciples of Mohamm ad Maghrebi. KhajehKhalvati took his patronym, al-Mashreqi, as a pen-name, and along with hisDivan, which is discussed later on, composed the following works, which are

Yarshater, E., eds., Highlights of Persian Art (Boulder: 1979), pp. 187-88, for adiscussion of the importance of al-Mosta'semi.5 Ebn Ka rbala ' i , op. cit., I, pp. 83-85.

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102 Lewisohnprimarily tracts and glosses on various aspects of Ebn ' Arabi's theosophy andSufi poetry:

1.Ma fdtlh al-ghayb 2. Hdshlyeh bar sharh-e 'Estelahat-e Shaykh'Abd al-Razzdq Kdshl 3 . Sharh-e Nosus-e Shaykh Sadr al-DlnMohammad Qunyavl 4 . Sharh bar qasldeh-ye ' M e y m i y e h - y eKhamr iyeh-ye Fdrediyyeh 5.Resaleh-ye saneh-ye Sarmadlyeh 6.Resdleh-ye m erdt al-'ibddfi ma 'rifat al-ma'dd 1. Sharh bar Roba ' i -ye hora'iyeh 8. Sharhl bar ba'dl az abydt-e moshkeleh-ye Golshan-eraz.6Mashreqi often excelled amongst his contemporaries in disputation on matters ofreligion, especially in elucidating subtle points of Sufi theosophy, as is evidentfrom the following tale:

One time, Mowlana Shaykh Ardabili, one of the eminent students ofMir Scyycd Jurjani^-God's grace be upon him -came to Tabriz toattend the wake of the funeral of Shaykh Shah Ibrahim Safavi [d. 1447],organized by Shah Hoscyn Sarpoli [d. 1457]. Many were the eminentScyycds, Sufi masters, and famous savants among the nobility andgentry of Tabriz who graced that gathe ring. In the cou rse of thecerem ony, certain questions concerning recondite and difficult points inthe science of Sufism were put by Shaykh Ardabili before the entiregathering to resolve. 'Abd al-Rahim Khalvati proceeded to answer allhis queries with suitable explanations, bringing forward appropriateexpressions couched in the technical terminology employed by theSufis so that the objections of the entire assembly were effectivelyanswered and indisputably resolved. M ow lana Ardabili praised hisreply; and by way of expressing his respect for Mashreqi, declared,"Until now, we all supposed that Shams al-Din's son (Mashreqi) wasbut a calligraphcr; we see now that you are a very adept philosopher, aswell".8

In addition to his facility in poetry and his ability in the field of Sufi theosophy,Mashreqi was also one of the main historians and chroniclers of the spiritualculture of his day . Ebn Karbala 'i cites a manuscript by him, which is no longerextant, to complete his account of no less than five major Sufi sages: KamalK h o j a n d i , 9 Sharaf al-Din Tarami,1 0 Baba Faraj Tabrizi,1 1 Abu MansurMohammad Hafdat al-'Attari (d. 571/1175;),12and Isma'il S isi.1 3

6 Ibid. I, p. 86.A renowned mathematician and mystic famous for his treatise on "SufiTerminology' (al-Ta'rifdt) who flourished in Shiraz, and passed away there in1413. Ebn Karbala'i op. cit., I, pp. 85-86." Ebn Karbala'i, op.cit., I, p. 509.1 0 Ibid., I, p. 225.

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The Life andPoetry ofM ashreqi Tabrizi 103

Mozaffar Bazzazi,a famous judgeandjurispruden tof the 9th/14th century inTabr iz , 1 4wassaidtohave commented: "However muchIponder,I canfindnoonewho haslivedin Tabrizin the two hundred years prior toKhajeh 'Abd al-Rahim,toequalhisstatureinlearningandvirtue. Indeed,it isso."1-" AnotherTabrizi jurisprudent, Qazizadeh Ansari, composed an elegy upon thegravesofMashreqi, Maghrebi, and other notables of Tabriz, which contains this line,reflecting Bazzazi's opinionofMashreqi's learning:

May peace also grace,maylove em bracehimW howas to us Perfection's summation,Wisdom's exposition,asynopsisof gnosis-Mashreqi ,ourmasterandvicar.16Accordingto EbnKarbala'i, Mashreqi diedin859/1454.Mashreqi also composed chronograms tocomm emorate the deaths of KamalKhojandi and Maghrebi. These short poems communicate his intimate andsympathetic relationship with many of the great Sufi mysticsof his day wholivedinTabriz. Following Kamal Khojandi's dem ise, Mashreqi w rot e:17

The Perfect Shaykh: KamaltheMaster- indeedagnosticman ofTruth--The worldhepossessedWith poetic purityandfreshnessof hisverse;Sincethe day,that first when SpeechUpontheearthwasswept,Nonehadheardthelikeof thespeechWhich that eminent poetdidspeak.Thoughin theyear'Eight-hundred&three'18Hissun didset-yetI seeHe lives, awake, secluded,

1 1 Ibid., I, p. 377.1 2 Ibid., I, p. 287.1 3 Ibid., II, p. 102-4.1 4 His grandfather, 'Abd al-Rahim Bazzazi was, incidentally, a highly advanceddiscipleof Mohammad Maghrebi, profoundly dedicated to the Sufi Path. See EbnKarbala'i, I, pp.367-68.1 5 Ibid.1 6 Ebn Karbala'i, op. cit.,I, pp. 97-98.1 7 Ibid., I, p. 510.1 " This year refers to the Islamic lunar calender, corresponding to 1401 A.D.


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104 LewisohnA moon by clouds concealed, secretedWithin the supersensory sphere.

Mashreqi's abilities as a composer of occasional poems and his genius for verseextemporization were obvious from his early youth, as another tale concerninghis encounter with the great poet of Khojand, with whom he was intimate,enjoying a relationship of 'spiritual paternity' from his childhood, demonstrates:

Once in his childhood, 'Abd al-Rahim Khalvati and his brother, 'Abdal-Hayy, went to pay a visit to Shaykh K amal Kh ojandi. It was theholy month of Ram adan. Shaykh Kam al remarked: "We shall passthis day in your company, for Shams al-Din,1 9 knowing that wewere about to go on a journ ey, sent you to us." Shaykh Kho jandiordered that food be brought forth for the you ths. They protested thatthey were fasting, but the venerable master objected, saying, "Youhave not yet been bound [at your ages] with the obligations offasting. Eat." Th e boys completely resigned them selves to thecom mand of Kamal Khojand i, and broke their fast. After they hadeaten, the master said, "We shall entertain you in another way aswell, and relate two Prophetic traditions (hadlth) to you, which youmay memorize, and one couplet of my poetry, which is not in myD i v a n . 2 0 Th e two traditions of sanctity hadlth-e qodsl) are asfollows: "Fasting is mine and I reward it" and "Go hungry, that youmay sec me . Becom e detach ed, that you may be in Union withme."21 The couplet is:

When I seized the hand of the FriendAnd did smear with kisses all her cuffAnd hand, I could swear mine own handIt was, that I saw kissing with such love.

" Ebn Karb ala'i 's reference here is to Shams al-Din Moham mad al-Aqtabi al-Mashrcqi, the poet's father.^ To this day, this verse cannot be found in 'Aziz Dowlatabadi's edition of theDivan-e Kamal al-ln Mas'ud Khojandi (Teh ran: 195 8). It is also abse nt from therecent critical edition of Kamal's Divan edited by K. Shidfar (Moscow: 1975).z l T he first tradition is cited by the Concordance et Indices de la TraditionMusulmane, (ed. A.J. W ensinck et. al. ) Tome 3, p. 466; but the second traditiondoes not appear in any form in cither Wensinck, ibid., or in B. Foruzanfar'sAhadlth-e mathnawl (Tehran: 1955). How ever, both traditions occur cited as asingle aphorism by Najm al-Din Razi in the Mersad al- ebdd, who attributes bothsayings to Jesus. See H. Algar (trans.), The Path of God's Bondsmen, P e r s i a nHeritage Series, No. 35; (New York: 1982), p. 324n.


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The Life and Poetry of Ma shreqi Tabrizi 105

Showing his grasp of this lesson in tradition by the Master, Mashreqiset to verse both traditions in a fragment (Qat'eh), versifyingKam al's couplet in another fragm ent.22

Mashreqi's father, Shams al-Din Aqtabi, according to 'Abd al-Razzaq Kermaniand 'Abd al-'Aziz Ebn Shir Malek Va'ezi (two of the formost biographers ofShah N e'ma tollah), was appointed aKhalifa (regional vicar) commissioned totake charge of Sufis in Tabriz by the renowned Sufi poet and founder of theNe'matollahi Order , Shah Ne'matollah.2 3 Th is fact probably indicates thatMashreqi himself was directly acquainted with Shah Ne'matollah, as an analysisof verse-parallels between their two Divans might well prove.

/ / . Love and Unity: Mystical Motifs in Mashreqi's VerseHaving summarized the biographical particulars of Mashreqi's life, scant as theyare, it is now fitting to turn to his only surviving work, his Persian Divan, theonly existing manuscript MS. OR 3313 (folios 66-195) in the BritishLibrary .2 4 Th is manuscript consists of 260 Persian ghazals (eight of which arebilingual lyrics: molamma'), one ode (qaslda), one construct-poem (tarkib-band), two strophe-poems {tarjl'-bands), fourteen fragments (moqata'dt), sixty-two quatrains (robd'iyydt), and eleven single-verse aphorisms (mofradat). Inthis manuscript are also found seven adaptations (ladmlndt: a poem of varyinglength in which a poet inserts a distich or hemistich by another poet), two ofwhich employ Maghrebi's verses, composed as direct answers(Javdb)to both therhyming-refrains of Maghrebi's two strophe-poems.25

2 2 Ebn Karb ala ' i , op. cit., I, p. 87.J For possible evidence of this, see Va 'ezi's Resaleh dar siyar-e hadrat-e ShahNe'matollah Vail, and Kermani's M anaqeb-e hadrat-e Shah Ne'matollah Vail inAubin, Jean (ed.), M ateriaux Pour La Diographie de Shah Ni'matullah W allKermani (Tehran & Paris: 1956, rprt. 1983 ), pp . 30 8: line 7; 110: line 14.

2 4 The manuscript is dated Baghd ad, 15 Jumad a II, A.H . 953/154 6. See: CharlesRieu, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian M anuscripts in the BritishMuseum (London: 1895), pp . 181-2. This Divan, uncovered in the course of myresearch-work on Maghrcbi, has been noted by no other scholar, whetherOccidental or Iranian. Mun zavi in his Fehrest-e noskheha-ye khattl-ye farsl (pp.2531-32) mentions several Divans of Mashreqi: Mashreqi Shirazi, Mashreqi Tusi,Mashreqi Kashani but records no Mashreqi Tabrizi (unless possibly his referenceto two Divan-e M ashreql-snos. 26002 & 2600 3 in the Majles and E'tem ad a l-Dow leh Ham adan Libraries refer to our M ashreq i). The British Library MS . ofMashreqi's Divan is bound together with a Divan of Maghrebi, which it follows insequence (I have not employed this latter Divan of Maghrebi in my edition; it isalso listed in Rieu's Catalogue of Persian M anuscripts in the British M useum;(London: 1881), Vol. 2, p. 633 as "Add. 7739").Z J See below, p. 20 ff. for a discussio n of the importan ce of these ad aptatio ns.


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106 Lewisohn

The Divan of Mashreqi , like that of Maghrebi, is heavily influenced by over acentury and a half of Sufi teachings devoted to the exposition of the theosophicaldoctrines of Ebn 'Arab i (d. 1240 ). As the variou s titles of M ashre qi's otherworks and the scant biographical material available demonstrate, the poet isphilosophically and methodologically of the same school of Sufism asM aghrebi: a follower of Ebn 'A rabi and Sadr al-Din Qunyaw i (d. 1274). Thefact that Mashreqi wrote a commentary on Shabestari's Garden of Mysteries(Sharlfi bar ba'di az abydt-e m oshkel-e Golshan-e raz), is significant insofar asit demonstrates his adherence to the spiritual lineage of emulators,commentators, and lovers of this work, which has been extoled as "one of thegreatest masterpieces of Persian literature"26 and "t h e handiest introduction tothe thought of post-Ebn 'Arabi Sufism".27

The type of theghazal which appears in the Divans of Maghrebi and Mashreqi,it should be noted, is, as a verse-form, essentially a romantic lyric devoted toerotic and bacchic themes-being, approximately speaking, the Pers iancounterpart of our English sonnet. Since the twelfth century , howev er, with theappearance of the Divans of Sana'i (d. 1131) and, later, 'Attar (d. 1220), adistinct and separate genre inspired by Sufi metaphysics and symbolism, knownas the mystical or gnostic ghaza l (ghazal-c 'erfan'i I 'drefdneh ) had evolved inPersia, which still had not, however, been sharply distinguished from thetraditional romantic ghazal (ghazal-e 'dsheqdneh). By the fourteenth andfifteenth cen turies, (M aghrebi's - M ashreqi's period) the gnostic ghazal hadfurther engendered another type of poem which was based upon the highly refinedsymbolic and abstract vocabulary found in the voluminous writings of Ebn'Arab i and those Sufis who followed his schoo l. In the fourteenth century , asQascm Ghani explains,

Some Sufi poets created a new style in the ghazal which perhaps hadlittle in comm on with the ghazal as it existed up till then . Th is newtype of ghazal can be classified as a type of verse-form which illustratesthe topoi, ideas, aims, spiritual stations and mystical states of theSufis, using a special technical 'Sufi termino logy ' (Esteldhdt-esufiyyeh) in a very explicit way , regardless of whether the poem beornam ented w ith proper poetic metaphors and allusions or not. Th epoetry of Maghrebi best illustrates this new type of ghazal. In hisghazals, it is clearly eviden t to every reade r that all the ideas andexpressions are exclusively my stical.2^

The Divan of Mashreqi belongs to this tradition of the more recent traditions ofthe Sufi symbolic ghazal-bcst illustrated in his own period by his spiritualmaster, Maghrebi -although he follows, as well, the conventions of the gnostic2 6 S.H. Na sr, Islamic Art & Spirituality (Suffolk: 1987 ), p. 9 3.2 7 A. Schimm el, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: 1975), p. 280. " Bahth dar dthdr va afkar va ahval-e Hafez: Tarikh-e tasawof dar islam azsadr-e islam id 'asr-e Hafez, (Tehran: 1977), I, p. 563.

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The Life and Poetry of M ashreqi Tabrizi 107ghazal beginning with Sana'i, flowing through 'Attar, Rumi, and 'Eraqi, andcontinuing down to Maghrebi, a kind of mystical 'stream of consciousness'expressed by the latter in the verse:

These waves of verse you read do flyfrom the cosmos-encompassing Sea of Reality.By the Red Sea's furious tidethis frothy foam was brought.His 'wave' did bring you Maghrebi;it spewed up 'Eraq i as well;'Attar has comefrom its 'frothy foam',And from it up swelledSana'i, as well.2 9The Divan of Mashreqi also stands in the central current of this mystical stream.In aghazal modeled on the style of theDivan-e Shams-e Tabriz of Rumi, forexample, Mashreqi identifies himself as a poet and spiritual master directly in theinitiatic line of 'Attar and Rumi:

Com e, come to the apothecary's shop,to 'Attar's corn er,30 if you haveThe heart's dolor; show 'our master'your weakly pulse , and lay the balmof wisdom upon your wo unds.

Not in the forum,Nor in the tavern,TheKhdneqdhor in mosques, am I seen:My sphere's beyond both the earth and heaven.The way to Shams-e Tabriz was lost to all;

'" See L. Lewisohn, A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi, ( for thcoming1991), Vol. 2, Ghazal 169: 21-22.3 0 This line occurs on fol. 72a. Th e word 'Attar in Persian means 'druggist ' or'perfumer', the 'apothecary's shop' or 'Attar's corner being the medieval drugstore.The poet 'Attar was a druggist by profession. The word Mowlana (mean ing 'ourm aster') in the nex t verse refers both to the honorary sob riquet of the poet Ru m i,and, as an indirect pun, to Mashreqi himself, as spiritual master and doctor ofsouls. Th is verse constitutes the last couplet (maqla') of a ghazal, in the thirdhemistich of which the poet claims himself to be 'drowned in the ocean ofwisdom; the Slmurgh of the Mt. Qaf of spiritual power'.


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70S LewisohnInvisible that Shams, that sun 3 1 did fallAnd now my Sun is visible to all.

The verse of Mashreqi is characterized by the same fundamental motifs whichinspire Magh rebi's Divan. M ashreqi is the traditional amant metaphysique,lover and poet enraptured with the Truth, his philosophy being mystical andamorous in one breath. In most of M ashreqi's poem s, as in those of Mag hrebi,there is a pun between Mashreqi, the poet's name, and its literal signification of'Eastern.' Additional puns come into play when the poet refers to himself asShams-e Mashreqi, alluding to (1) the literal meaning of 'the Eastern Sun', and(2) the allegorical sense of 'the aurora of spiritual illuminative wisdom shiningfrom the visionary O rient'. The major motifs in his verse m ight perhaps betypified as follows:A. Interiorization of the tenets of Islam.B. Pocticization of Ebn 'A rabi's thcosophyC. The Unity of Being {vahdat al-vojud)D.The Religion of LoveE. Unity of Religions

Although Maghrebi is perhaps more adept as a poet than Mashreqi, both displaygreat dexterity in expressing the elements of Ebn 'Arab i's thcosophy, adapted andcom pressed into the symb olic terms of their poetic medium. Som etimesMashreqi shows considerable originality, as his striking use of metaphors toexpress the theosophical doctrine of 'perpetual creation'32 (Islamic counterpart tothe Hcraclilian 'all things are a-flowing') in the following quatrain demonstrates:

As oil unto a lamp docs passThe strength of Being coursesWith unbroken flow from head to heart.It is just this that gnosticsProfess to be 'Creation's ever-new ness':The man from arbor to manor who is walkingHas altered w hen he reaches his dwelling.

The Sufi concept of the 'unity of being' or vahdat al-vojud^ expressed in thecontext of the Platonic do ctrine that there is but one Absolute Beauty reflected inphysical forms, is expressed by Mashreqi in the following verses:There is just one letter, one character

3 * Th ese two coup lets arc found on folio 136b. Th e latter puns on the literalmeaning of the name of Rumi's spiritual master, Shams-e Tabriz (sun of Tabriz).3 2 Divan-e M ashreqi, fol. 187b. Sec T. Izutsu, "T h e Con cept of PerpetualCreation in Islamic Mysticism and Zen Buddhism" in M elanges Offerts a H enriCorbin, ed. S.H. Nasr, (Tehran: 1977), pp . 139-41.3 3 See William Ch ittick, "Ebn al-'Arabi's D octrine of the Onen ess of Being" inSufi: A Journal of Sufism, 4 (1989), pp. 6-14.

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The Life and Poetry of M ashreqi Tabrizi 109W ithin all the scroll of existence;And yet it shows, that one letterThe whole scroll of God's unicity.The Love-of-Rcality is their originalAnd a ll these lovely idols' beauty fascimile.That Moon does cast the beams of lightWhich keeps alit my d om icile.34

The doctrine of the Unity of Being in fact permeates the Divans of all the Sufipoets of this period,3-' and is elaborated by Ebn ' Arabi in his writings w ithin theframework of the concept known as the 'revelation of the Divine Names' (tajalllal-asma'). Each act of creation, according to this doctrine, is generated by aDivine Name; the Names are in turn subdidvided into Names of W rath (qahr)andNames of Mercy (lot/), complementary contraries whose dynamic interactionoverrules and directs creation. The gnostic recognizes W hoit is who speaks, andwhat type of Name from Divine-One-Who-Is-Named is proclaimed by the eventsof each moment, as Mashreqi in a quatrain explains:

O look, I have becomeYour Essence's very nameAnd from this name which I've becomeYour light is cast throughout the world.It all is one: both I, the sunAnd you the light that's cast therefrom;One:both all name and qua lity--These belong to youand to meYour Essence which everything subsumes.3"

All speech in fact reveals the Divine Name, the Speaker (al-motekallem),Mashreqi claims:

That O ne who turns our breath to rhapsody,Within the tongue's rcedpipe sings his melody,At times is far, at times essentiallyDoes dwell with us in intimacy.Unto these men of busy-nessIndeed such mysteries appear a messAnd not adepts, they cannot senseThere's One who does possess'Locution', 'Vision', and 'Audition'.Because these arcane mysteries of Articulation

Divdn-e Mashreqi, Fol. 79a.^ See Ehsan Yarshater, She'r-e farsl dar 'ahd-e Shah Rokh (Tehran: 1955), p.1 6 4 - 6 5 .

Divdn-e Mashreqi, Fol. 188, Robd'l.


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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi 111shendsi). His general imp atience with formalistic Islam and particular dislikefor the heartless piety of ratiocentric ascetics led Mashreqi to compose thefollowing fragment (qat'e) elaborating an entirely esoteric exegesis of the four'Pillars of Islam ', a partial prose translation of which reads:

W hat are the pillars of Islam? Know them to be Fasting, Pilgrimage,Ritual Prayer, and Alms-giving. Fasting (sawm) which today are buthollow rituals; in truth, they signify Annihilation of the self in theDivin e Ess enc e. 'Pilgrimage ' is realization of the station of thegno stics, gaining salvation from the fires of separation. Lik ew ise,'Alms-giving' implies a charity which freely spends, sacrificing inGod's way everything in creation. Abandon yourself until you beco memerged and one in Him. Wash your hands of'self, to say your 'RitualPray er'. If your com plete the obligation s entailed by these 'Pillars' ofthe Religious Way, I'd offer you a thousand souls as a sacrifice.^

/ / / . Mashreqi's Imitation of MaghrebiW ho pulls tradition dow n and sets up fashion?Pretence is one thing, and another, passion.In every smith whose work I come acrossTradition is the ore, fashion the dross.Pretenders mock the dead to make their mark,As little children shout who fear the dark.'His work is new , W hy, then, his name encum berWith ancient poets?' He is of their number. Vernon Watkins

That many of Dante's sonnets in La vita nuova were composed in response tovarious poems by Cavalcanti; that Emerson paraphrased German translations ofHafez in his English verse; that William Blake set to verse the exordium ofThomas Jefferson's American 'Declaration of Independance'-is not consideredartless, unaesthetic, or abnorm al literary practise. When we speak of Persianpoetical tradition, citing the verse of the great Persian lyricists such as Nczami,Hafez, Salman Savaji, or Maghrebi, it is best to remember the importance of therole of conven tion in any literature. In the words of Northrope Frye:

All art is equally conventionalized, but we do not ordinarily notice thisfact unless we arc unaccustomed to the conv ention. In our day theconventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law ofcopyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctiveenough to be patented....This state of things makes it difficult toappraise a literature which includes Chaucer, much of whose poetry istranslated or paraphrased from others; Shakespeare, whose plays

Divdn-e Mashreqi, Fol. 184.

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112 Lewiso hnsometimes follow their sources verbatim; and Milton, who asked fornothing be tter than to steal as much as possible out of the Bible. It isnot only the inexperienced reader who looks for aresidual originalityin such w orks. Most of us tend to think of a poe t's real achievem ent asdistinct from, or even contrasted with, the achievement present in whathe stole, and we are thus apt to concentrate on peripheral rather than oncentral critical facts.

...It is hardly possible to accept a critical view w hich confusesthe original with the aboriginal, and imagines that a 'creative'poet sits down with a pencil and some blank paper andeventually produces a new poem in a special act of creation exnihilo. Hum an beings do not create in that way...Literaturemay have life, reality, experience, nature, imaginative truth,social conditions, or what you will for its content; butliteratu re itself is not made out of these thing s. Poe try canonly be made out of other poems; novels out of othernovels.

Nor, indeed, should w e wonder if Mashreqi imitates the poetic style of M aghreb i.Belonging to the same Sufi tradition as the latter, his poetry often seems toconstitute an attempt to 'redo' Maghrebi, to surpass his master's expression.This attitude demonstrates, on the one hand, the predominance of the elements ofpoetic devices such as 'allusion' (talmlh), 'quotat ion ' (tadmln), and 'poeticresponse' (esteqbdl)lo Maghrebi in the poet's Divan, and, on the o ther,communicates the eminence of his spiritual rank.Considering the importance of Mashreqi's 'creative imitation' of Maghrebi in hisDivan, a brief critical overview of the historical background and literary traditionof verse-imitation am ong Persian poet's in Mashreqi's day, is in order /'-' Th e

4 2 Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: 1973 rcprt.), p. 97.^-* Alth ou gh con sidera tion of the antonym of 'im itation', i.e., the notion ofpoetic originality (bdd') in Persian literary criticism transce nds the scop e of thepresent article, poetic originality among the Persian Sufi poets seems to comprisethree key elements:1. Firstly, the notion of poetic originality (ebda') among the M uslimmystical poets as well as their extraordinary preoccupation with the compositionof poetry in general -may both be said to be derived from the the idea of theinimitability of the Koran. All the poe tical figures of speech (sandye '-e badi')employed by the Sufis in their verse, in fact, seem to have had similar antecedentsin the divine rhetoric of the Koran. Con cerning the earliest systematic treatise onthe rhetorical devices in the languag e of the Koran Ab u B akr M oham mad al-Baqillani's Inimitability of the Koran (I'jaz al-Qur'an)Vincentc Cantarino(Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age [Leiden: 1975, p. 14]) observes that the author"spends a long part of the treatise answering the question: Can the I'jaz of theKo ran be recogn ized by the rhetorical figures which it con tains? His affirmativeanswer consists of a detailed demonstration that the same rhetorical figures ofspeech found in poe try are also found in the holy text. Abu Hilal al-'A sk ari (d.1005), whose literary views greatly influenced those of al-Baqillani's, had stated

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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi 113

in the introduction to his famous Kitab al-sina'atayn (The Book of the Th e TwoAr ts) that the rhetorical arts of eloquen ce balagha, fasaha are, after theknowledge of God, the worthiest of all things to be learned, since through themth e I'jaz al-Qur'an can be recog nized ." And as Jalal al-Din H om a'i argued in hisclassic work on Persian poetic devices (Fonun-e baldghat va sand'at adabl [Tehran:1984, 2nd ed .], p. 31 6.), "The best exam ple of poetic originality (ebda') in bookswritten in the Arabic language occurs in Surah XI: 44 of the Ko ran. Entiretreatises on the figures of speech expressed in this verse alone have been writtenby literary scholars, who have been able to adduce and discover all the otheravailable figures of speech [in poetry] solely by reference to this verse."2. Secondly, the Persian Sufi poets did recognize the existence of a definitekind of independent artistic originality at the basis of poetic inspiration. Rashidal-Din Vatvat, author of one the first manuals in Persian on poetic figures ofspeech, the Ha da'iq al-sehr fi daqa 'iq al-sha'r (ed. Ab bas Eqbal, [Tehran : 1929]composed in 1157, about the same time as the Chahdr maqaleh [The FourDiscourses] of Nezami 'Aruzi Samarqandi) describes the meaning of poeticoriginality {ebda') as follows: 'T hi s figure of speech is said by masters of diction(arbdb-e baydn) to consist of novel ideas expressed with good words arranged in averse-form w ithout any apparent exertions. However, I say that ebda' cannot beconsidered merely a 'figure of speech'; on the contrary, all intellectual and learneddiscourse must possess originality, for everything else besides this belongs to thevulgar diction." (Hada'iq al-sehr, p . 83). And Dowlatshah, defending the spiritualbasis of originality, observes: "It is a mistaken assumption to think that thepurpose of poetry is merely regularity in metre (nazm), failing to und erstand thatbehind the curtain of this bridal chamber lie virginal mysteries, and in this roomare chaste ladies of Ideas" (Tadhkerdt al-sho'ard , ed. M. 'Abbasi, [Tehran: 1958],p . 15). 'Abd al-Hoseyn Zarrinkub 's recent work on Literary Criticism (Naqd-eadabl, [Tehran: 1982] 2 vols.) discusses this type of literary originality amongthe Persian Sufi poets in great detail. See, for examp le, Vol. I, pp . 106-08 , 212 -14, 236; II, p. 762 (ft. 20), 787 (ft. 131).

3. Thirdly, since in the Sufi poet's ethos and in the Islamic world-view thereexists no purely individual originality, no merely human creativity whose Originis not transcendent and divine, we also find that the Sufis' theories of poeticinspiration equally efface the ego from the artist 's atelier, instituting GodorMuslim mystical tradition as the sole actor and agent on the mental screen andblank pag e of the poet's mind and paper. Acco rding to the Sufis, Beauty and Truthare of Divine origin, rays from the heavenly pleroma of the Divine Names (hence,al-Badl' [The Origin ator] being a Divine Nam e, is the sole source of artisticcreativ ity). Furtherm ore, the Koran ic doctrine of the predestination and thecreation of human actions explicit ly negates any purely human c r e a t i v i t y .Interpreting verse 17 of Surah 13 from the Koran:

Or have they ascribed to Godassociates who have created as he created, so that creationis all alike to them?Say: 'God is the Creator of everything, and he isthe One, the Omnipotent' .(trans. A.J.Arberry, the Koran Interpreted)Abu Bakr al-Kalabazi (d. 995), the author of the first systematic treatise onSufism, the Ketdb al-ta'arruf (conc erning which the em inent Sufi theosoph er,


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114 Lewisohnpractise of writing verse-imitations or poems composed 'after' the classicalmasters is of great antiquity. In theKetab al-Slna atdyn (The Book of the TwoArts) by Abu Hilal al-'Askari (d. after 1005), one of the earliest writers todiscuss the issue, the following observation is offered concerning literaryborrowing in general:

Not one of the various types of speakers can avoid borrowing conceptsfrom somebody else prior and adding to the molds of those whopreceded him. But if they borrow any concepts, they must dress themup with their own words....The Prince of the believers, 'Ali ibn AbuTalib-may God be pleased with him-has said, 'Were discourse notrepeated, it would dwindle away'....The ugliness of borrowing ideasconsists in one's accepting the idea and then also all of its wording, or

Sohravardi Maqtul [d. 1191]commented: "But for theTa'arruf weshould nothaveknown of Sufism.") pronounced: "So God denies that there is any Creato r otherthan himself. Now since acts arc things, it nec essarily follows that God is theCreator of them: for if actshad not been created, God would have been theCreatorof certain things, but not of all, and then his words, "God is the Creator ofeverything" would be a liefar exa lted is God above that ...Abu Bakr al-Wasitiinterpreted God's words, "his is whatsoever dwells in the night or in the day"[Koran VI: 13], as follows: 'If a man claims that anything of his kingdom--thatis , 'whatsoever dwells in thenightor in theday'be it so much as a thought or amotion, is his, or through him, or for him, or from him, then he is contendingwith (God's) absolute authority, and weakening hispower." (TheDoctrine of theSufis [Ketab al-ta'arruf] trans. A.J.Arbcrry, [Camb ridge: 1977rpt.], p. 28.)Alsocf. similar discussions of this issue raisedby J.C.Biirgel, The Feather of Simurgh:The "Licit Magic" of the arts of Medieval Islam (New York: 1988), pp. 7-8, 16-23 . )It is the first and the third elements of poetic originality mentioned above whichmainly preoccupied the Sufi po ets. How ever, becau se their conc eption oforiginality was based on an aesthetics of heart-savour or dhowq(lhc esotericdimension of the poetic o riginality amon g the Sufis corresponding to anunvei l ing, tajalli) which strikes the heart, the organ of poetic vision; cf. theprofound discussion of Ebn 'Arabi's theories of poetic vision by W.C. Chittick,"The World of Imagination and Poetic Imagery According to Ibn al- 'Arabi", inTemenos: A Review Devoted to the Arts of the Imagination, No. 10, 1989, pp.99-119), future study of the concept of ebda' in Persian Sufi poetry will require acareful review of the m ystics ' theories relating to poet ic Imaginat ion andInspi ra t ion.In conclusion, from this preliminary examination of the "central critical facts" inthe aesthetics of classical Persian Sufi poetry, we find an oscillation between twopoles of expression whose mutual relation is more com plemen tary than contraryin natu re. Briefly put, these twopoles in our modern parlance are inspiration andtradition, and in the lexicon of the Persian poets: ebda' ( invent ion, creat ivi ty,originality, innovative abili ty) and serqat (litera ry theft or plagiarism). Theensuing discussion, however, will be limited to analysing the significance of thelatter poleof literary theft or verse-im itation rather than studying the formerdimension of poetic originality.

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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi 115most of it, or presenting it in a place which is not suitable. The ideaonly becomes beautiful through its adornment.44

Shams al-Din Q ays al-R azi, the thirteenth-century author of a brillant treatise onmedieval Persian prosody: Al-Mo'jam fi ma'ayir ash'ar al-'ajam^ describesfour types of literary borrowing, two of these tending towards the negative poleof plagiary or serqat and two of which lean towards the positive pole ofinvention, novelty, and originality (ebda1). In one of the earliest works writtenin Persian detailing the classical education of poets and their literary milieu, thefamous Four Discourses (Chahar maqdleh) of Nezami 'Aruzi Samarqandi, theaspiring poet is exhorted to "commit to memory 20,000 couplets of the poetryof the Ancients and 10,000 verses of the works of the Moderns"; he is furthercounseled to keep these verses "constantly before his eyes, and continually readand mark theDlwdns of the masters of his art", The young poe t, says Nezami'Aruzi, should form his taste by a wide reading of poetry so as to strengthen hisstyle of expression, and acquaint himself with "the works treating of poetic ideasand phraseology,plagiarisms [italics min e], biographies, and all sciences of thisclass . "4 6During the late fourteenth century, the period of Maghrebi and Mashreqi, suchideas concerning imitation, emulation, study, and adoption of the Divans ofother poets had deeply permeated the minds of the Persian poets. The followingare the seven main poetic devices employed, whether consciously orunconsciously, by both the Sufi and the profane poets in the act of borrow ing:A. Talm'ih: indirect 'allusion' to a historical proverb or to a previous poet'scouplet.B.Eqtebas: 'Quotation' from the Koran orhadith inserted into a verse.C.Ersdl-e methdl: 'Narration of a proverb' in a verse.D. Tadmln: 'Insertion' or quotation of a entire distich or a hemistich of anotherpoet's verse by way of illustration of one's own ideas .E . Esteqbdl, javdb: com position of a poem of varying length and form in'response' and direct reference, sometimes to refute, sometimes to emulate theideas of the source poem .F. Tatabbo': 'Imitation', 'pursu it', or 'following ' of the manner or style ofanother poet.G.Naz'ireh:Poetical 'paraphrase' or imitation of a previous poet's p oe m .4 7

4 Cited by Vincente Cantarino, Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age, pp. 129-30.4 5 Ed. M ohamm ad Qazvini & M . Razavi, (Tehran: 1957), pp . 464 -76.

" Chaha r Maqa leh (The Four Discourses) of Nizdml 'Arudi-i Sama rqandi, trans.E.G. Brown e (London: 1921 , repr. 1978), pp . 49-50.4 ' M oha m m ad Q azvini summ arizes the relationship of four of these devices asfollows: "The principle and basis of tadmln, eqtebas, ersal-e melhal, and talmlh isthe poet's adoption of something from someone else without conciously intendingto 'use' it or to 'plagiarize' it (serqat), yet also withou t this hap pen ing after themanner of an 'inspired coincidence between two poems' (tavarrod). In reality , ifthe item adopted by the poet be someone else's verse or poem, this art is called

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116 Lewisohn

It should be emphasized that the practise of tatabbo' andNazlreh to whichM ashrcqi's Divan belongs, was quite widespread during this era. Indeed, artisticborrowing in the Persian poetic tradition came to be considered a necessaryaspect of literary erudition, part of the phenomenon whichAJ . Arberry describedas "the incessant emulation which was the inevitable consequence of theacceptance by all Persian poets of a comparatively narrow repertory of themesand images."4 8 Later on, in the Safavid era, it even becam e fashionable forpoets to write entire Divans in imitation of the classical Persian poets . W hilemuch of Mashrcqi's poetry constitutes unadulterated tatabbo' of Maghrebi, healso is particularly fond of the poetical device of tadmln. tadmln in Persianpoetry, according to Keyvan Sam i'i:

was usually emp loyed by the poet to bring about an appo siteresemblance (tamaththol) by way of demonstrating and illustrating hisviews through citing a hemistich or a famous couplet by another poet,inserting the latter in an proper context of his verse. I personallycannot recall that any poet engaged in the practice of tadmln in anyother style besides this before the Safavid period. In these latter days,however, a poet could quite often be found writing a tadmln or'imitation' of every line in another poet's ghazal. How ever, thiscustom cannot be properly designated astadmlnbecause in the technicallexicon of poetics, tadmln refers to a practic e involving a poet'sadoption of a hemistich or couplet or two couplets from another poet touse in his own poem in an appropriate place as an imitative illustration(tamaththol) to be borrowed rather than stolen or plagiarized (serqat).The inserted couplet or hemistich would have to be well-known and tocontain a proverbial allusion, so that the reader may not doubt thepoet's originality, or suspect him of plagiarism."49

The poetic device of tadmln, being an intregral part of the Persian poet'srhetorical tradition, docs not in any way indicate indigence of poetic imagination,but as Peter Avery remarks, demonstrates that

a continuing craft secret was being passed on among a select band ofcomposers and audiences who were upholders of a refined and subtleculture constantly threatened with extinction. Th e tadmln and talmlh,the ersdl-e mathal andcqtebds, signal the survival, through disastrousvicissitudes, of an asset which neither conquering warlords nor b igotted

tadmin; if it be som ething from the Ko ran or Pro ph etic tradition it is calledeqtebds; if it be a proverb it is called ersdl-e methd l; and if it be an allusionindirectly pointing to one of these things, or to a famous historical tale, then itis termed talmlh". "Da'di tadminhd-ye H afez" in M ajmu'eh-ye m aqalat darbdreh-yeHafez, ed. A. Khodaparast (Tehran: 1985), pp . 78-79 .4 8 Classical Persian Literature (London: 1958), p. 352.^" Kayvan Sami ' i , Tahqlqdt-e ada bl: sokhandnl plrdmun-e she'r va shd'eri(Tehran: 1982), p. 384-85.


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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi 117religious fanatics could obliterate. Threads from earlier poem s werewoven into an everlastingly renewed web of poetry to produce a fabricthat became the banner of an outstanding feat of cultural preservationthat has made Iranian literature a by-word for excellence and beauty.50

Speaking of the frequency of verse-imitation of one poet by another poet throughemployment of an identical or similar rhyme and/or meter (the practise ofnazlreh) in fifteenth-century Persian poetry, Ehsan Yarshater points out that, "Itbecame a current practise to write parallels to the works of older masters,emulating the metre, rhyme-pattern, and sometimes the type of content of anearlier ghazal, qasldeh, orm athnavi. Th is trend continued through the Safavidand Mughal period, when poets often found themselves challenged to 'respond' toa poem of a past or present master."-' The case of two sixteenth century poets,for instanceFazli (d. 1563) and and Abu al-Fazl Daftari (d. 1575), who wereknown to have extensively imitated the Divan of Hafez, to the extent of writingseparate ghazal-s in the same meters and rhymes in 'response' to all of Hafez'sp o e m s 5 2 , particu larly illustrates this prac tice. Do wlatshah Sam arqa ndi'scomment concerning the poet Homam Tabrizi (d. 714/1314), that, "Most of hispoems [Homam's] were written in response (Javdb miguyad) to theghazals andodes of Sa'di and Hafez", 5 3 is more understandable in light of this deeplyingrained aspect of the Persian poetic tradition. Th e same custom appears tohave been a prevalent literary practice among all of Maghrcbi's and Mashreqi'scontemporaries, such as Kamal Khojandi, most of whoseghazal-s were written,according to an editor of his Divan, 'Aziz Dowlatabadi, "in response (esteqbdl)to his predecessor' poetry, the great masters of Persian literature, such asFerdowsi, Anvari, Nezami, and especially Sa'di and Hafez."54 Kam al's open andunabashed admission of borrowing from the Divan of Hasan Dchlavi expressedin the following couplet also makes a paradoxical claim to a sort of poeticoriginality in the practise of tatabbo' andtadrnin:

None could find a flaw in me.To all its clear:As a thief I'm fine;I stole from Hasan.5 5

From an article by Peter Avery, "Borrowings and Allusion in Hafez", p. 13,unpublished typescript lent to the author.From his article in the Cam bridge History of Iran, Vol. 6 (The Timurid andSafavid Periods), ed. P. Jackson & L. Lockhart (Cambridge: 1986), p . 98 3.

5 2 Kayvan Sam i ' i, "Tadmln dar ghazaliydt-e Hafez" inTahqlqat-e adabi, op., cit.,pp. 378-79.5 3 Tadhkerat al-sho'ara ; ed. E.G. Brow ne (London: 1901), p. 20 4. See alsoDivdn-e llotndm Tabriz, ed., R. Eyvazi (Tabriz: 1970), introduction, p. 57; forconfirmation of this. ^ Divdn-e Kamdi al-Dln Mas'ud Khojandi, ed. 'A. Dowlatabadi, (Tehran: 1958),introduction, p. 7.3") The phrase 'As a thief I'm fine' (dozd-e hasanam) here is also a direct pun onthe Indian Persian poet Hasan Dehlavi (d. 1328), whose penname was Hasan.

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118 Lewisohn

Jami's comment on above verse in theBahdrestdn bears out the veracity of thisclaim, underlining Kamal's preoccupation with the art of tatabbo':Kamal Khojandi followed the poetic style of Hasan Dehlavi, but thepoetry of Hasan lacks the subtlety of thought and idea which is foundin Kam al's verse. Those who dubbed Kamal 'the brigand of Hasan'probably based their assertions on this type of imitation{tatabbo').56

Another poet of the same period, Katcbi Nishapuri (d. 838/1434) ridiculed Kam alKhojandi as a plagiarist in these two couplets:If the words of Hasan of DchliFrom the verse of Amir KhosrowAppear extracted, do not find fault.For Khosrow is a master; in fact, above all masters.Then when Kamal Khojandi you catchIn the act of snatching ideas from Hasan's verseDon't scream thief; it's no worseThan a brigand pinching from a brigand.-^

'Esmat Bokhara'i (d. 1425), one of the major poets of the fifteenth centurywhose style has been often compared with Maghrcbi, and whom Dowlatshahacclaimed as the most popular poet of the reign of Shah Rokh (reigned 1405-47) , is also judg ed by Jam i as a poet wh o merely imitated and followed{tatabbo') the style of Amir Khosrow Dehlavi.59

Thus the hemistich could also be interpreted to mean: 'Clealy, I'm a plagiarist ofthe verse of Hasan Dehlavi' (I stole from Hasan).-*" Bahdrestdn of Jami (Tehran: 19 61 ; reprinted from the Vienna edition of1846), p p . 100-01. See also A. Zan inkub , Naqd-e adabl, op. cit., Vol I, pp. 235-3 6 .

Cited by M. Qazvini, BadV tadminhd-ye Hafez, p. 112. The followingtranslation of this verse by Edward Browne, (A Literary history of Persia, Vol. 3(Cambridge: 1920), p. 491), casts a different light on its meaning:If Hasan stole ideas from Khosrow, one cannot prevent him,For Khosrow is a master, nay, more than the mastersAnd if Kamal stole Hasan's ideas from his DivanOne can say nothing to him: a thief has fallen on a thief3 Ketdb Tadhkerdt al-sho'ard', ed. E.G. Brow ne, op. cit., p. 358. The collectedpoetry of this poet has been recently edited and published by A. Karami, Divdn-e'Esmat Bokhara' (Tehran: 1987).59 Bah drestdn, op. cit., p. 102.


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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Ta brizi 119

From the above examples of the prevalence of the practise of tadmin andtatabbo' during this period, it is evident how integral an elem ent this was in therepertoire of the Persian poet's craft.There also exists a spiritual aspect to this poetic method which is by no meansinsignificant, related to various contemplative disciplines practised by the Sufis;in particular to the constant commemoration of God (dhikr)and the practise ofsama' (audition to mystical poetry and music)6 0 ; the latter being influenced bythe psalm-like nature of the Persian Sufi ghazal, written as much to be sung asto be read aloud - t h e situation of Sufi gnostic ghazal in the Ichaneqdhcorresponding more or less to the function of the hymn in the Church.This spiritual dimension of tatabbo' is perhaps best illustrated in the PersianDivan of Mir 'AH Shir Nava'i (d. 1501), known by the pen-name of 'Fani'.While wielding great political power as the vizier of Soltan Hoscyn Bayqara, Mir'Ali Nava'i was also famed for his patronage of poets and love of letters (hisbiographical work on the 'Lives of the Poets' in Turkish entitled Majdles al-nafd'es was translated several times into Pe rsian). Becau se his tremen douspolitical influence and power was also complemented by a sincere devotion toS u fi sm ^ , Jami gave this vizier his benediction as the "lover and devotee of theDarv ishes, rather one who is beloved and believed in by th e m ." ^ it was onM ir N av a'i's instigation that Jam i collated and collected his own D ivan. By hisprompting Jami also wrote many other works, including his famouscommenatary on 'Eraqi's Divine Flashes (Lama'at) entitledAsha 'at al-lama 'dl,and his biographical history of Sufi saints, the Nafahdt al-ons.Fani's Persian Divan is deliberately divided into two types of ghazals calledtatabbo' and mokhtara' (original inventions) and, of course, the imitative poemsfar outnum ber the original pieces. Stressing the spiritual basis of his practise oftatabbo', Mir 'Ali Nava'i composed this quatrain:

By Fani's followingPeople's verseIn 'poems of imitation'There is no intentionOf putting poetic prowess on exhibition,no conceit nor pretension.

See Terry Graham, "The Influence of Sufism on Music in Islamic Countries"in Sufi: A Journal of Sufism, 1 (1988-9), pp . 22-7."1 Tadhkera t al-sho'ara , op. cit., p. 349.Divan-e Amir Nezdm al-dln 'All Shir Naval, ed. R. Hom ayunfar (Tehran:1963), introduction, pp. 17-18.

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120 LewisohnBut masters of Letters a re princes of heart;So,standing by the door of the heartThe begging of inspiration is his intention.63

Fani, here, like other Sufi poets, subordinates poetry to prophecy, and art tolove. (We may recall that the rank of the poets was placed by Nezami in theMakhzan al-asrdr just behind the row of the Prophets, and poets were countedamong the number of the Saints.6 4) Perhaps Mir 'Ali N av a'i even wished inhis quatrain to elevate the stature and rank of the poet as high as hiscontemporary admirer, the author of the Memoirs of the Poets, DowlatshahSamarqandi, who declared, citing Sana'i, that

Poets arc maids-in-waiting to the brides of ideas; they are critics of therefined subtleties of the M ysteries. Lik e divers their magn anim ousnatures and upright consciences arc able to bring in as flash a myriadpearls from the depths of the ocean of Placclessness to the shores ofactua lity. They lavish these pearls upon the heads of adepts inArchetypal meanings {ahl-e ma'ant). Indeed the falcon of archetypalmeaning lies in the snare of this group, and the restive colt of gnosticsubtleties by this com pany has been tamed. Sana 'i says:

Do not count traditional historiansamong the number of the poets;for Jesu s' niche is in heavenbut parrots perch upon twig-ends65

The spiritual sense of tatabbo' is thus seen to involve the prac tise of a kind ofimitatio deus, a training and discipline to which the artist, the poet, and the Sufifedeli d'amore must submit to cleanse his heart and, thence, to perfect his art.

The influence of Maghrebi's inspiration on Mashreqi's Divan, in respect to bothspiritual content (ma'nd) and formal literary terminology (lafz),is overwhelmingto the point of saturation. One of the unique aspects of Mashreqi's Divan is theexistence of an entire section called tadmlndt(adaptions of a former poet's verse),noted previously, which are'found in a scries of sevendowbaytl-s on folios 186-187. M ashrcqi composed tadmlndt to the rhyming refrains of famous strophe-poems by Sa'di and 'Eraqi; there are also two tadmlndt of the rhyming refrainsof M aghrebi's two strophe -poem s. In the lyrical section (ghazaliyydt) of hisDivan, almost every second ghazal of Mashrcqi acts as a nazireh (poeticalparaphrase) of one of M aghrebi's po em s, constantly reiterating themes, repeating" Divan-e Nava 'i, op. cit., introduction, p. D. I am indebted to Professor T.Gandjei of the Scho ol of Oriental & African Studies, Londo n U niversity, for thisreference.6 4 Cf. J.C . Biirgcl, op. cit., p. 59.6 5 Tadhkerat al-sho'ara, op. cit., p. 5.

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The Life and Poetry of Ma shreqi Tabrizi 121meters, re-employing imagery, and revolving around the same general stock ofmetaphors: ocean vs. drop, plurality vs. unity, concentration vs. distraction ofheart, tress and face, indivisibility of name (esm) and Named One (mosammd),lover and beloved , etc., which grace M aghrebi's verses.

Consider, for instance, how Mashreqi follows Maghrebi's style, down to the verymeter and rhyme, and how his imagery is copied with precision (although hisideas undergo considerable poetic revision)-in the following Ghazal:Th e mesh of Faith and infidelityUpo n the heart's-beloved's wayIs set like gaudy spectres to beguile you.If you have stabilityCast the blaze of Love upon them both.To lovers how long shall you boast and blusterO Shaykh, of holy fear and piety?Such speech betrays the trace to meOf flux and variability.For grief and pain, and eyes which rainWith tears, a heart forlorn at dawnWhich heaves with sighs-these you must have.What will you gain, devoid of pain,But flowery talk and turgid rhetoric?In that reflecting glass in which ill-will,Con ceit or greed or envy still do have a placeNever will the heart's-beloved bare her face.W as that the meaning of R elig ion -To put your heart in hock in a hundred shopsW ith untrained hopes & eyes agape on every courseThen in the Mosque to toss your body in wantonness?Religion, Creed, and Faith to usIs the longing and the love we senseBeholding the heart's-beloved's face.Such Faith is true to visionaries,Considered by them sound theology.O Sham s-e Mashreqi, you are the Eastern Sun,For from your face the light of Heaven is shown.Pious remains the businessman,Gazing a t the promised landThe plighted w ord of Eden's virg ins.66

6 6 Divan-e Mashreqi, Folios 92-93.


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122 Lewisohn

Now, reading Maghrebi's own original Ghazal,^ imitated by M ashreqi above(composed even in the same m etre and rhym e), it quickly becom es evident howdeeply imbued Mashreqi's imagination was with the images, concepts andmelodies of Maghrebi's poetry:

What to men is infidelity and sinFor me is Faith and true doctrine.All the world's gall and bitternessTo m y taste seems sweet, delicious.An eye w hich sees the TruthHas no sight for lies;For all 'un-truth' that is conceivedOr what is perceived as lies, mendacityIs in the eyes themselves de ce ive d-Thc vantage-point of men without veracity.For in the briar-patch of pride and envy,Deceit, hypoc risy-polytheism and jealousy,The blossom of Unity cannot flourish.I sought from my soul the seat of the Friend;She said, 'The Friend's abod e, should it existIs within a heart that is destitute'.Paradise docs make for short-sighted manall life's business,Just for the sake of heaven h is exertions;It's dullness that makes him yearn for heaven's virgins.But in the Paradise of Verity's mastersOnly the TR UT H exists. For Verity's mastersVerily, no other paradise exists.If, indeed, you profess to viewThe Beloved Chinese fetish,Gaudy spectres hold your sight;Your purview 's just caricature.Alas Your gaze docs not scanThat Chinese image, and empty effigiesGrip your eyes, and you discernBut stray des ign s-n ot the Plan.

N o. 35 in my edition of his Divan.

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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi T abrizi 123

Mask yourself as you wish,no veil on Maghrebi is castby all such flux of figurationthrough all your forms of fluctuation:His quality is stability,his spirit at peace,his soul in consolidation.

Although the Persian original of this ghazal by M ashreqi is not the bestexample of his handling of this genre, his ripostes (Javdb)below to the rhymingrefrains of Maghrebi's two strophe-poems (tarjl'band) are brilliant, and showhow sucessfully Mashreqi could acquit himself in handling the device of tadmln:MAGHREBI'S refrain:All is Hewithin the spanof existence-In truth, but He exists,but He it is who lives.

MASHREQI's riposte:How can I select another to love?For 'All is Hewithin the spanof existence'.Who can my fancy affect

Since 'In truth but He exists.but He it is who lives'?

MAGHREBI'S refrain:There is a treasure:This world's its talisman;It is an essence:W hose attributes is man.


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124 Lewisohn

MASHREQI's riposte:For 'the treasure' I have on handIn that rag and bones shop of the heartThe world acts as charm and talisman'.Latent within my essence and attributesMy inward gaze contemplatesAn 'essence whose attributes are m an'.

In short, although Mashreqi was quite conscious of his emulation of Maghrebi,he adopts a quite independent attitude towards his mentor. Both poets wereluminaries unafraid of the effulgence of their verses, but Mashreqi tended tovocalize his brillance, beaming back his inspiration upon his original teacher,amplifying, expounding, with further poetic commentary the varioustheosophical doctrines preached by Maghrebi in the context of his own personalmystical exp erience. Som etimes he even claimed to outshine his master, as inthe following two verses where Mashreqi mentioned M aghrebi directly by nam e:

O Occident 68 O source of Love's lights to me;If you are 'Maghrebi'-I am solar luminosity,A sun whose Oriental blazeConsumes the W est, burns up all OccidentsSo no mote of dust without my glow exists.In these two Persian couplets Mashreqi is actually following the meter andrhym e-schem e of M aghrcbi's ghazal 125, the last line{m aqta')of which runs:

Now from the Orientmy sun appearsSo utterly from Maghrebiam I set free.

In another ghazal, Mashreqi indulges in a conceit common to the repertoire ofthe Persian Sufi poets (exotic to us, perhaps, although familiar to the likes of aBlake or Shakespeare), boasting that his brillance renders the light of thematerial sun unworthy for Maghrebi (addressed by his name in this line) tobehold:O sun of Faith -Shams-e Din,Before your features so fine,Your two bright cheeks,

The term 'Maghreb' (Occident) mentioned here contains a pun on the literalmeaning of the penname 'Maghrebi' .


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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi 125W hy should Maghrebi bend his looksto scan the moon or sun? 6 9

And yet the wine and light which both Mashreqi and Maghrebi quaff andcontemplate had but one Divine source, as the following response by Mashreqito a ghazal by Maghrebithe former poet practicing 'insertion' (tadmln) of adistich by the latter, again addressing Maghrebi directly by name (devices whichshow that hisghazalwas consciously modeled on Maghrebi's original ghazal]-demonstrates:

MAGHREBI's or iginal Ghazal (CXXVII: 9, 11, 12, 13):0 let us perish in nullityin the being of the Friend;Blase to existence, refuse to seeany self-identity, '/ ' or 'me'.Lend us your assistance, Sakiserve us the wine of eternity,give us a cup as offering,in love of wine we're languishing.Till within the Self we'll steepourselves so deep, so drunk shall weBecom e within, that from the nicheof nullity, we'll lift our heads to heaven.Are we not beams of luminosity?0 Friend, in the space of a breathWe'll make our way to the orb of dayaccidentally'like Maghrebi'.

MASHREQI's response (fol. 137):In Love's aseityWe'll reach nullity"Blase to existence, refuse to seeany self-identity, 7 ' or 'me',"Again we'll beAs Shams-e Maghrebi,

"" The term 'Shams-e Din' means the Sun of Faith or Sun of Religion while alsocontaining an allusion to the alternate penname of Mashreqi which is Shams. Theterm dow rokh means here 'two cheeks', rokh being the Persian translation of theArabic khadd (cheek), although in modern Persian rokh more often means merely'face' or 'features'.

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126 Lewisohn"0 Saki, give us a cup as offering,in love of wine we're languishing."

Despite such flagrant imitation and obvious adaption of Maghrebi's style, manyare the verse passages abounding in his Divanoften entire ghazalswhichdemonstrate that Mashreqi was able to transcend the degree of poetic imitationand even spiritual mendicancy (illustrated by the tatabbo' concept of 'Ali ShirNava'i) and, notwithstanding his obvious identification with Maghrebi's style, torealize the rank of independen t, adep t, and mystic poet in his own right. Hence,many of Mashreqi's ghazals appear as highly original re-visions of Maghrebi'sideas, rather than merely derivative imitations of a lesser quality.70

Because we do not possess the adequate critical means to assess Mashreqi'sstature amidst the pantheon of the previous and subsequent masters of Persiangnostic poetrythe poet's Divan has not yet been publishedmagnanimitydemands the utmost frugality in our exercise of the critical spirit, and sosuspension of passing a final judgem ent on his work. Furtherm ore, what wasoffered above by way of selected translation of random verses amounts to lessthan a fraction of the poet's whole D ivan, hardly a representative overview .What appears to be of greater significance is the poet's place as an exponent ofthe genre of the 'gnostic ghazaV (ghazal-e 'erfani-'drefdneh) Mashrcql'sparticular contribution to the legacy of medieval Persian Sufism. For in thistradition Mashreqi's degree as a poet is pre-eminent; he stands both as animportant disciple/initiate of Maghrcbi, progenitor of this symbolic tradition,and as a poet who copied Maghrebi's style, a style which was to be emulated bypoets as far-ranging as Shah Ne'matollah (d. 1430), 'Abd al-Rahman Jami (d.1492), and M oham mad Lahiji ('Asiri', d. 1516 ). But beyon d these m erelyliterary issues, we may say that Mashreqi's rank as a poet appears quite eminentif regarded from the standpoint of the mystical state(hal) in relation to which hisverse was but a vehicle. In fact, he no doubt would h ave concurcd with PaulValery's opinion71 that the essence of poetic language is the re-creation of thepoetic state, and thus, ultimately, the offspring of a certain spiritualconsciousness (hdl). He would well have felt as Richard Ro llc, the fourteenthcentury English mystic, did about poetry that, "Those who love the world indeedknow the words or verses of our songs, but not their m us ic ."7 2 So in surveyinghis Divan, we may recall that it is a matter of spirit and heart, rather than theletters and forms of verse, the metres and norms of prosody, which qualifies theSufi poet. For in Rumi's wo rds:

For further examples of such similarities, see our list of parallels between thetwo poet's Divans in A Critical Edition of the Divan of Maghrebi, Chap. IX. A. 6.7 1 The Art of Poetry, trans. D. Folliot (New York: 1961), pp. 72-73.7 2 Grant, The Literature of Mysticism in W estern Tradition (London: 1983), p.1 4 .


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The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tab rizi 127

W ords are only nests. Meanings winged creaturesaflight. Bod ies are rivers,the Spirit their steady current.73

A truth which M ashreqi also enunc iates in a verse (folio 103):Here all charm of diction is nothingin this tome of verse the art of rhetoricand poe tic science bears a spiritand all evokes a higher sense.

Having composed a commentary upon the Golshan-e raz of M ahmudShabestari, Mashreqi would no doubt have endorsed its author's view of thehermenuetics of Sufi poetry,74 that

The mystical significance unveiled,Experienced by heart-savour-No philological interpretation reveals.It was alluding to this truth in his own verse, that M ashreqi w rote (folio 126):

Of the rhyme and verse of Shams-e M ashreqiGo tell the news to all who merit itBecause the worth of pearls borne from the seaall jewelers w ill appreciate.

Leonard Lewisohn, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University

7 3 Rumi, Mathnawi, ed. Nicholson, Bk. IV 32-92 .Cf. L. Lewisohn, "Shabestari 's Garden of Mysteries: The Aesthetics and

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Lewisohn, Leonard -- The Life and Poetry of Mashreqi Tabrizi