The Historic Nawa'i (1)

part of my research ... well, *part* of it now - probably most of it in the near future - involves examining how successive generations of poets engaged with and responded to Nawa'i's literary legacy. Quite simply, it means reading reams of late medieaval Turkic poetry (Central Asian or Ottoman) and identifying occasions on which poets either responded directly to Nawa'i - usually through the medium of often through the poetic form known as mukhammas, a five-line poem usually written in response to another - or by alluding to him in their poetry.

An example of the latter can be found in the poetry of the noted Khorezmian historian Shīr Muhammad Mīrāb bin ‘Awaḍ Biy Mīrāb al-Khīwaqī (1192/1778-1244/1829), or simply (and more commonly) Mu’nis. Nawa'i's works are known to have been on the curriculum (such as it was) in Central Asian madrassas by the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Examples of Nawa'i's works copied by Munis himself today survive in Central Asian collections.

References

V. A. Abdullaev, O’zbek Adabiyoti Tarixi II: XVII asrdan XIX asrning ikkinchi yarimgacha [History of Uzbek Literature, II: From the 17th Century to the Second Half of the 19th Century], (Tashkent: O’qituvchi, 1967).

Q. Munirov, Munis, Ogahiy va Bayonining Tarikhiy Asarlari [The works of history by Munis, Agahi and Bayani], (Tashkent: Uzbekistan SSR Academy of Sciences, 1960).

Gerhard Schoeler and Munibar Rahman, ‘Musammaṭ’, EI², VII (1993), pp. 660-2.

Nawa'i in Historical Context (1)

Maria Subtelny at University of Toronto is supreme among English-language scholars who focus on this period. Her most recent work, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), is effectively a summation of her life's work, combining both new and previously published scholarship on the latter years of the Timurid dynasty, with particular focus on the reign of Sultan Husayn Mirza and the socio-economic condition of Herat.

However, while it does a fine job detailing complex political machinations and interpreting the economic record - notably waqf (religious foundation) charters - it isn't overly concerned with Mir 'Ali Shir, at least not from the cultural perspective.

On a similar note, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483-1530) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), by Stephen F. Dale of Ohio State University, while ostensibly pre-occupied with the founder of the Mughal dynasty, has important points to make about the cultural significance of Herat and the flowering of Turkic literature under the benevolent gaze of Mir 'Ali Shir.

Maria Szuppe does a fine job analyzing political relationships, change and continuity at the beginning of the 15th Century in Entre Timourides, Uzbeks et Safavides: questions d'histoire politique et sociale de Hérat dans la première moitié du XVIe siècle (Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, 1992). Ultimately, her survey falls slightly - but only just - outside the period of interest, but her short survey on the main chroniclers of the period (Khwandamir, Vasifi et al) is invaluable.

Soviet and Uzbek scholarship on Nawa'i is voluminous, but for starters A. K. Borovkov's edited volume from 1946 - originally timed to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Mir 'Ali Shir's birth, but postponed due to a little unpleasantness involving Hitler on the USSR's western borders - contains several valuable articles, not least A. K. Yakubovsky's essay on the political, cultural and social milieu of 15th century Khurasan.

References

A. Yu. Yakubovskiy, 'Cherti obshestvennoy i kulturnoy jizni epokhi Alishera Navoi [some lines on the cultural life of the age of Alisher Navoi]', in A. K. Borovkov, ed., Alisher Navoi, (Moscow/Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1946), pp3-30.

Stephen F. Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483-1530), (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

Maria Subtelny, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran, (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Maria Szuppe, Entre Timourides, Uzbeks et Safavides: questions d'histoire politique et sociale de Hérat dans la première moitié du XVIe siècle, (Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, 1992).

Glossing Nawa'i (1)

In the absence of a Chaghatay-English dictionary/lexicon/glossary and so on, the reader of Mir 'Ali Shir is forced to consult a number of different reference sources to make either head or tail of his works which, transgressing on the territories of religion and poetry, often contain a lot of oblique or obscure words and phrases, many of them loans from Arabic and Persian.

A good starting point is that old warhorse, the Redhouse's [Ottoman] Turkish Dictionary. The English-Turkish/Turkish-English version is available in two editions (1856 & 1880), both out of copyright and both downloadable via Google books. The obvious advantage of Redhouse is that the Turkish is rendered in the Perso-Arabic script.

Good Arabic and Persian dictionaries are also a must. I have thus far relied on a compact paperback edition of The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (4th edn, repr. 1994) and Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (repr. 1975). Hans Wehr is arranged alphabetically by root, so a little knowledge of Arabic morphology is essentially because you often come across a word in Chaghatay that literally screams 'Arabic!'; words beginning 'muta-' fall into this category. Steingass is particularly useful when perusing Sufi texts inspired or based on Persian works.

Some Turkic works may be really archaic or obscure, so it's necessary to have one of Sir Gerard Clauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-thirteenth-century Turkish (1972) or Mahmud al-Kashgari, Diwan-i Lughat al-Turk (Compendium of the Language of the Turks) (Harvard, 1982-85) close to hand.

That's just the English-language materials. There are a couple of 19th Century French dictionaries by Abel Pavet de Courteille, Dictionnaire Turk-oriental (1870) and C. Barbier de Meynard, Dictionnaire turc-francais (1881). The former can be found on Google books and downloaded in its entirety.

A Russian curio is Budagov's Comparative Dictionary of Turco-Tatar Dialects (1869) and readers of Turkish, Uzbek, Uyghur and other Turkic languages may find contemporary dictionaries for those languages useful as well.

References

G. Clauson (Sir), An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-thirteenth-century Turkish (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).

Abel Pavet de Courteille, Dictionnaire Turk-oriental (Paris: 1870) [download].

Mahmud al-Kashgari, Diwan-i Lughat al-Turk (Compendium of the Language of the Turks) trans. and ed. by Robert Dankoff and James Kelly, 3 vols (Cambridge, MA: 1982-85).

C. Barbier de Meynard, Dictionnaire turc-francais (Paris: 1881-86).

J. W. Redhouse, An English and Turkish Dictionary, in Two Parts, English and Turkish, and Turkish and English, (London: Quaritch, 1856) [download].

J. W. Redhouse, An English and Turkish Dictionary, in Two Parts, English and Turkish, and Turkish and English, 2nd edn (London: Quaritch, 1880) [download].

F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, repr. 1975 (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1975).

H. Wehr, The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern written Arabic, ed. by J. M. Cowan, 4th edn (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994).

Sources on Mir 'Ali Shir (1)

While we lack for accessible translations of Mir 'Ali Shir's works, there are no shortage of sources on him, his life and times available in English translation (and other languages). An obvious starting point is the Makarim al-Akhlaq, a panegyric written by Khwandamir in Mir 'Ali Shir's honor, listing his virtues and literary achievements. Significantly, it gives details of the institutions established by Nawa'i and the notable scholars and religious figures employed therein. Also by the Khwandamir is the Habibu al-Siyar, a general history that includes a lengthy section on Sultan Husayn Mirza, including at least 200 potted biographies of notable personalities from his reign.

Similarly, the Tarikh-i Rashidi of Mirza Huseyn Dughlat, the Bada’ya’ al-Vaqa’ya’ of Vasifi, and Babur's Baburnameh also include lengthy descriptions of Herat in the time of Sultan Husayn Mirza and Mir 'Ali Shir. Later, 16th-century tazkirahs by Fakhri Heravi and Sam Mirza add more detail to the picture. Excerpts from several of these sources have been collated in a nifty volme edited by B. Ahmedov.

References

Ahmedov, B., ed., Navoiy Zamondoshlari Xotirasida, (Tashkent: 1985).

Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, Bábar-Náma [facsimile of the Haydarabad Codex], ed. by Annette S. Beveridge, E. J. W. Memorial Series, I, repr. (London: Luzac and Co., 1971).

—, Bâburnâma: Chaghatay Turkish Text with Abdul-Rahim Khankhanan's Persian Translation, trans. by Wheeler M. Thackston, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 18, 3 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1993).

—, Bābur-nāma (Vaqāyi’): Critical Edition Based on Four Chaghatay Texts, ed. by Eiji Mano, (Kyoto: Syokado, 1995).

—, The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, trans. by Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: Modern Library, 2002).

Mirza Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the Khans of Moghulistan, trans. by Wheeler M. Thackston, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 38, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1996).

Fakhri Haravi, Taẕkirah-‘i Rowẓat al-Salātīn, ed. A. Khayyampour (Tabriz: 1345/1966).

Khandamir, Makarimul Akhlaq, trans. by S. Mutallibov (Tashkent: OzFan, 1941).

Khwandamir, The ‘Makārim al-Akhlāq’: A Treatise on ‘Alishīr Navā’ī, ed. by T. Gandjeï (Cambridge, UK: E. J. W.Gibb Memorial Trust, 1979).

—, Habibu’s-Siyar: Tome Three, trans. by Wheeler M. Thackston, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 24, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1994).

Sām Mīrzā Ṣafavī, Taẕkirah-‘i Tuḥfaḥ-‘i Sāmī, ed. by Rukn al-Din Humayun Farrukh (Tehran: 1384/2005-2006).

Zain al-Din Mahmud Vasifi, Bada’ya’ al-Vaqa’ya’, ed. by A. N. Boldyrev 2 vols (Tehran: 1970–72).