Writing Royal-Commissioned Tazkeras at Fath-ʿali Shāh's

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 ASPS brill.com/jps

The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran: Writing Royal-Commissioned Tazkeras at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s Court

Naofumi Abe University of Tokyo [email protected]

Abstract

The middle of the eighteenth century reportedly witnessed the emergence of the new literary movement in Persian poetry, called the “bāzgasht-e adabi,” or literary return, which rejected the seventeenth-century mainstream Indian or tāza-guʾi style. This literary movement recently merits increased attention from many scholars who are interested in wider Persianate cultures. This article explores the reception of this movement in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Iran and the role played by the Qajar royal court in it, mainly by the analysis of a specific sub-genre of tazkeras, called “royal-commissioned tazkeras,” which were produced from the reign of the second Qajar monarch Fath-ʿAli Shāh onward. A main focus will be on the reciprocal relationship between the court poets/literati and the shah, which presumably somehow affected our understanding of Persian literature today.

Keywords

Fath-ʿAli Shāh Qajar – court poets – tazkera – bāzgasht-e adabi – Āteshkada

* This is a revised version of my Japanese article entitled “Kyūtei shijin to Fath-ʿAlī Shāh (Persian court poets and Fath-ʿAlī Shāh)” in N. Kondo, ed., Studies on Early Modern Islamic Dynasties: The State of the Art, Tokyo, 2015, pp. 329–59. I wish to express my gratitude to Houchang Chehabi, Sunil Sharma, and Jessica Nguy for reading the earlier versions of my article and insightful comments. Stephen G. Kuehler kindly answered my questions. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 16K16921.

Introduction

Fath-ʿAli Shāh (r. 1797–1834), the second Qajar monarch, is famous for his patronage of Persian poets and literati at his court. Due to his defeats in the Russo- Iranian Wars, the subsequent loss of the Caucasian provinces, and particularly, his conservative attitude toward reforms have led historians to evaluate him negatively. However, it is an undisputable fact that thanks to his and his court- iers’ patronage, and the relative peace that characterized his reign, Persian literary activities were revitalized beginning in the early nineteenth century after a century of stagnation and turmoil following the fall of the Safavid capital Isfahan in 1722 (Āriyanpur, 14–15). Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court was the most important center of cultural and literary activity in Iran, where a large number of literary works and historical texts were written and composed. These included court chronicles such as Khāvari’s Tārikh-e Zu al-Qarneyn and Homā’s Tārikh-e Jahān-ārā, universal history such as the Zinat al-tavārikh by Razi Tabrizi as well as literary works, for instance, Monsha‌ʾāt-e Qāʾem-Maqām, and Qāʾāni’s Ketāb-e parishān. The shah was a poet himself, using the pen-name “Khāqān.”1 A literary movement in Iran in the middle of the eighteenth-century was called bāzgasht-e adabi (literary return), since poets mostly imitated classical poetry and rejected the seventeenth-century mainstream literary style known as sabk-e hendi (Indian style) or tāza-guʾi (style of “fresh speaking”) (Hanaway, 58).2 Mir ʿAli “Moshtāq” (1689–1757) is viewed as the founder of this “literary return” movement (Hanaway, 59).3 Although this movement is consid- ered the precursor of “modern literature” in Iran, which is deeply influenced by modern European thought and ideas, its importance has not been ad- equately appreciated until recently.4 Some scholars have started reconsider- ing the “literary return” by studying a famous late eighteenth-century Iranian tazkera (anthology of poets),5 the Āteshkada (Fire temple) composed by

1 Several copies of Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s divān have survived and even two lithograph editions were published during the nineteenth century (Gol-Mohammadi, 118). 2 Recent scholars, such as Losensky, criticize the appellation of “Indian style” for the post sixteenth-century Persian poetry and prefer to call it the tāza-guʾi style or the fresh style (shiva-ye tāza) which is the contemporary appellation of this literary school (Losensky, 4). Regarding the recent debate on the connotation of “Indian style,” see Dudney. 3 Reportedly around his literary circle in Isfahan, famous poets, such as Āzar, Sabahi, Sahbā and Hātef, gathered. 4 Langarudi (48) points out that this literature has no specific characteristics but “to imitate the style of the classical Persian great poets.” 5 The tazkera or anthology of poets is classified into two groups. One is the general tazkera, or tazkera-ye ʿāmm, which focuses on all Persian poets. The other is the particular tazkera,

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 131

Lotf-ʿAli Beg “Āzar.”6 Matthew Smith has discussed how Mohammad-Taqi Bahār, the twentieth-century Iranian poet known as malek al-shoʿarāʾ, imposed his nationalistic view of Persian literature in the evaluation of the “literary return.”7 Scholars, in analyzing the textual logic and structure of the Āteshkada and its placement in the context of Persian literary history, have examined the changes in the wider Persianate world caused by political divisions and a sort of “proto-nationalism.”8 However, very limited research has been done on the early nineteenth-century tazkeras composed under the influence of the Āteshkada. Anna Vanzan’s essay on Akhtar Gorji’s Tazkera-ye Anjoman-ārā9 is probably the only research primarily on early nineteenth-century tazkera literature,

tazkera-ye khāss, which deals with, for example, contemporary poets or poets of a specific region. As for the early tazkera literature and the cultural background in the Timurid period, see Subtelny. Kondo examines the chain of literary tradition of tazkera-writing up to the seventeenth century. See Kondo 2009; for tazkera-writing in the eighteenth century, see Kondo 2011. 6 The Āteshkada is a general tazkera completed in 1779, which consists of an introduction, anthology of kings and princes who composed Persian poetry (Chapter One), poets of former ages or classical poets, motaqaddemin (Chapter Two), contemporary poets, moʿāserin (Chapter Three), and the author’s autobiography as the epilogue. While the order of Chapter Two is based on a geographical division, Chapter Three is in alphabetical order. I will hereafter refer to the author of this work as Āzar. Apart from the Bombay lithographed editions, the text of the Āteshkada was published by Sādāt-e Nāseri and Mohaddeth. The former published the first part from 1957 to 1961 and the latter published the second half of the text in 1999. 7 Focusing on the fact that the concept of the “literary return” was widely propagandized through tazkeras such as the Āteshkada, Smith (204–5) argues that Bahār combined his attention to the formation of a national literature with his inclination toward classical Persian poetry, and then regarded this literary movement as the direct ancestor of modern Persian literature (Smith, 208). Very recently, Schwarz explores this issue, by examining the popularity of the India-born famous poet Bidel, the primary model of the Indian/tāza-guʾi style, in Afghanistan, Central, and South Asia (see idem). 8 Sharma examines the dissolution of the Persianate world and its influence on literature (see idem). Kia, analyzing the geographic information in the Āteshkada, discusses the early modern Iranian perception of others (see idem). 9 The text of the Anjoman-ārā was published twice. One was edited by Khayyāmpur, entitled Tazkera-ye Akhtar. The other is a facsimile version of the manuscript from the Iranian Diet Library (Ketābkhāna-ye Majles-e Showrā-ye Eslāmi). The former edited text is based on another manuscript and has great variations from the latter. I base my analysis mainly on the Khayyāmpur edition (Gorji 1964). In some cases, the facsimile version (Gorji 1986) will be also examined.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 132 Abe other than the aforementioned study by Smith (205–6).10 She points to early nineteenth-century Iranian poets and literati as the shah’s panegyrists who created replicas of early classical poetic works, in comparison with the eighteenth-century innovative predecessors (Vanzan, 48).11 Vanzan tends to negatively evaluate the court patronage of poets in terms of the literary devel- opments, asserting the value of the Anjoman-ārā, a non-commissioned work, as a source of literary life in the nineteenth century, vis-à-vis the Anjoman-e Khāqān (see below) (ibid., 49–50). However, the cultural continuity from the second half of the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, and the role of the Qajar court in it, remain less examined.12 This article explores the reciprocal relationship between the court poets and the second Qajar monarch Fath-ʿAli Shāh, which was established due to various reasons. It is based on the analysis of the tazkeras and other literary sources,13 my main focus being “royal-commissioned” tazkeras, by which I mean those that were commissioned by Fath-ʿAli Shāh himself or by other powerful princes rather than just presented to them.14 From the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, at least twenty two tazkeras have come down to us,15 among which seven were “royal-commissioned.” Of these, three were written by Qajar princes,16 while

10 Smith indicates that the Āteshkada was widely read and imitated both in its contemporary age and even today (Smith, 205). 11 Vanzan notices the relationship between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poets and literati with “literary return” (bāzgasht-e adabi); however, she is not concerning about the validity of its concept. She, for example, states “at its beginning, the bāzgasht movement was the product of the meeting between professional poets and amateurs” (idem, 49). 12 Smith briefly mentions the relationship between the late eighteenth-century Persian poets and those at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court. He indicates that Sabā, the poet laureate of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, had an intimate connection with eighteenth-century poets of the “literary return” movement and that he recommended Fāzel Khān “Rāvi,” the author of the Anjoman-e Khāqān to serve at the shah’s court (Smith, 205). 13 Although a number of court chronicles were written during the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, these sources rarely mention the relationship between the court and poets. 14 Though not commissioned, under the Mughal dynasty, some tazkeras categorize poets based on the reigning emperor at the time, taking into account the later dedication to the emperor (Kondo 2009, 57). 15 This figure is given on the basis of my research on Golchin-Maʿāni 1969, 1971. 16 The works are as follows: Bahman Mirzā’s Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi; Mahmud Mirzā’s two works, Safinat al-Mahmud and Noql-e Majles. Mahmud Mirzā completed the Safinat al-Mahmud in 1824–25/1240 at the order of the shah who gave the book its title (Mahmud Mirzā Qājār, 3). This tazkera introduces 358 contemporary Persian poets. Bahman Mirzā wrote the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāh on the commission by his half-brother Mohammad Mirzā, Mohamamd Shāh later. I use the manuscript preserved in the Iranian

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 133 the remaining four include one that was composed at a provincial court.17 Here I will explore the remaining three: Zinat al-madāʾeh (the Ornament of Panegyric Poems, 1803–4/1218) by Mohammad Sādeq Marvazi “Homā” from the early years of the shah’s reign;18 Anjoman-e Khāqān (The Gathering of Khāqān, 1818–9/1234) by Fāzel Khān Garrusi “Rāvi” from the middle of his reign;19 and Negārestān-e Dārā (the Picture-gallery of Darius, 1825–6/1241?) by ʿAbd al- Razzāq Donboli “Maftun” from the latter half of his reign.20 The first section of this paper is a study of the circle of literati at the shah’s court and its continuity with eighteenth-century Persian poets. In the second section, through an analysis of the textual structure of the royal-commissioned tazkeras, I will show that the intentions of both the Qajar monarch and the court poets were deeply intertwined. This will yield a new understanding of the characteristics of the cultural activities in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Poets at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s Court

The Imitation of the Ideal Court Culture of the Ghaznavids Fath-ʿAli Shāh, it seems, aspired to live up to the ideals of Iranian court culture by patronizing poets and literati at his court in Tehran. He reportedly showed

Diet Library (MS. 902), which was paginated. Both the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāh and the Safinat al-Mahmud are general tazkeras that attempt to comprehend all Persian poets from the beginning to the contemporary period. 17 The Tazkera-ye Delgoshā was written by Besmele at the court of Farmān-farmā, governor of Fārs. 18 As for the Zinat al-madāʾeh, which has not been published yet, this essay uses the manuscript of the Iranian Diet Library. Another manuscript in the central library of the University of Tehran does not have significant variations, at least in the main text. 19 The Anjoman-e Khāqān (Rāvi) was published in a facsimile version, but the published version does not specify the shelf of the manuscript; however, my research reveals that it is manuscript no. 909 of the Iranian Diet Library. Whereas the shah reportedly ordered to reproduce numerous manuscripts after its completion and then distributed them to the corners of his domain (Sobhāni, XV), there seems no evidence from any historical sources for this information. The Majmaʿ al-fosahāʾ, the mid-nineteenth-century memorial com- prehensive Iranian tazkera, states that although being appreciated by Fath-ʿAli Shāh, the Anjoman-e Khāqān did not gain fame (Hedāyat II, 454). 20 Although the prose text of the Negārestān-e Dārā was published by Khayyampur (Maftun 1964), most of the poems were omitted. The editor was planning on publishing these poems in the second volume (ibid., v–vi), but he seems to have not published them in the end.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 134 Abe a great interest in the idea of ancient Iranian kingship,21 which included a special relationship between the court and poets (Meisami, 3–5). Simultaneously, scholarship on Persian literary history frequently points out that Fath-ʿAli Shāh aspired to establish a court as splendid as that of the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud or the Saljuq sultan Sanjar, and that he was as generous in his patronage as the sultan Mahmud (Āriyanpur, 15). In his own divān, he wrote:

No one knows, like me, the value and price of the beloveds, It is Mahmud who knows the value of his Ayāz. Fath-ʿAli Shāh, 150

It is in fact Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāma, The Book of Kings, written at the Ghaznavid ruler’s court, that elicited the shah’s admiration, and to reconnect with the glories of Iran’s ancient monarchy, he commissioned his poet laureate (malek al-shoʿara‌ʾ), Sabā (Fath-ʿAli Khān Kāshāni), to compose an epic patterned on Ferdowsi’s seminal work. This work was titled Shāhanshāh-nāma, The Book of the King of Kings and celebrated the achievements of the shah and was dedicated to him. At least two of the manuscripts of the Shāhanshāh-nāma contain a prose preface written by the shah’s influential courtier and illustrious man of letters of the time ʿAbd al-Vahhāb “Neshāt,” who narrates the genesis of the composition:22

[Sabā] composed one of the shah’s expeditions in the metre of mutaqārib, and dedicated it to the shah; then, he was highly commended. He was previously commissioned to write a book on the great achievements of the shah since the foundation of the dynasty. He was awarded a mithqāl [ca. 5 g] of gold for each verse. Ostād-e Tus [i.e., Ferdowsi] tacitly predict- ed how the Ghaznavid monarch’s soul was in the following hemistich: It is him [i.e., Fath-ʿAli Shāh] who fulfilled the promise that you [i.e., Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi] had made.

21 We can find Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s preference for ancient Iran in various aspects. For example, he ordered the creation of rock reliefs in Rey and Shiraz which imitated the pre-Islamic Sasanian tradition. For more details, see Luft. 22 In this research, I used a manuscript of the central library of the University of Tehran copied in October–November 1830/Jomādā I 1246 as well as that of the British Library copied on 2 August 1810/1 Rajab 1225. The British Library manuscript is a gorgeous copy produced by order of Fath-ʿAli Shāh himself.

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To sum up, this auspicious book, which is concluded in good fortune, is entitled Sabā’s Shāhanshāh-nāma, the Book of the King of Kings, and was completed by the effort of his magical pen in a very short period of time. Sabā (Tehran), fols. 8b–9a; Sabā (BL), fol. 9b

Interestingly, Maftun reports a similar story in his Negārestān-e Dārā:

In the year when the armies of the most holy stirrup dispersed the dust of pain and adversity into the ebony sky in an attempt to drive the Russians away, he [viz., Sabā] versified the occurrences of one of the wars in the metre taqārib. As one attendant of the heaven-like court reported the synopsis of his work to the monarch, he [viz., Sabā] received applause. The monarch pointed out with his jewelry-scattering tongue that from the beginning of the victorious dynasty, he [i.e., Sabā] should adorn the achievements of the excellent majesty with his pearl-like nature and then exhibit it to jewelry connoisseurs in the foundation of the heavenly throne. For each verse, one mithqāl of gold was granted from the royal generosity. Sultan Masʿud was faithful to the promise that Sultan Mahmud had made. This auspicious book is entitled Shāhanshāh-nāma. Maftun 1964, 42

Clearly, both accounts deliberately relate Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court to that of the Ghaznavids.23 According to these sources, Sabā wrote the Shāhanshāh-nāma on the command of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, being rewarded with tremendous gratuities after its completion. Quoting a famous anecdote of Ferdowsi who wrote the Shāh-nāma for the dedication to Sultan Mahmud but was not well rewarded by him,24 both accounts emphasize the generosity of Fath-ʿAli Shāh who granted

23 Sultan Masʿud in the Negārestān-e Dārā who “was faithful to the promise that Sultan Mahmud had made” implies Fath-ʿAli Shāh. Masʿud who was actually the successor of Sultan Mahmud was enthroned in his early thirties and died in his forties. This was similar to Fath-ʿAli Shāh who succeeded his uncle, Āqā Mohammad Shāh, in his twen- ties. I express my gratitude to Mr. Omid Rezāʾi, the Vaqf Organization, Iran, for this interpretation. 24 This famous anecdote probably first appeared in the Chahār maqāla which was written in ca. 1156–7 (ʿAruzi-Samarqandi, 75–83) and is also recorded in the late fifteenth-century anthology of poets, Tazkerat al-shoʿarāʾ, of Dowlatshāh Samarqandi (75–83). The number of the manuscripts of the Chahār maqāla is quite limited; hence, it is highly probable that the aforementioned anecdote was circulated among people through the Tazkerat al-shoʿarāʾ.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 136 Abe enormous gratuities to Sabā. Both texts report the shah’s superiority over the the Ghaznavid sultan with respect to patronage of poets. A strong court patronage of poets was revived after several hundred years’ absence in Iran under Fath-ʿAli Shāh. Furthermore, the above-quoted phrase from the Negārestān-e Dārā, i.e., “one attendant of the heaven-like court reported the synopsis of his work to the monarch; then, he received applause,” indicates that channels of communication between the court and the poets were well developed during Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s reign. According to a widely held view, the panegyric tradition experienced a set- back under the Safavids, because they preferred religious verses, especially hymns of the Prophet and Imams, to secular poetry,25 and moreover there was a salient lack in the poets themselves (Smith, 202–3; Rypka, 293). The Safavids’ tepid enthusiasm was probably what led Persian poets to migrate to India, particularly to the extremely generous Mughal court. According to the above nar- rative, royal patronage was restored only at the end of the eighteenth century at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court. However, the reality of the court patronage of poets needs to be reconsid- ered. While it is true that we frequently encounter the discourse of the request for patronage in the tazkera literature of that period,26 it is too often overem- phasized and repeated (Yarshater, 280). What is important is to understand the socio-political subtext of the discourse which resulted from the poets’ strategy for survival and request for patronage, rather than to inquire precisely about the reality of the discourse. It is more plausible to say that Persian poets and literati admired the generosity and support of rulers, expecting their consis- tent patronage. Interestingly, none of our three court poets maintain the need for patronage in their tazkeras. Being employed as court literati as well as bureaucrats, the early Qajar poets were probably not in need of further support from the court and monarch. Where do we find differences between the court of Fath-ʿAli Shāh and that of Sultan Mahmud? The former’s court poets’ careers followed different paths. Famous poets such as Malek al-shoʿarā Sabā, Qāʾem-Maqām Farāhāni, and ʿAbd al-Vahhāb “Neshāt” were also government officials who wielded great political power.27 If we consider that Fath-ʿAli Shāh himself was also a poet whose

25 As for the case of the second Safavid monarch, Shāh Tahmāsp, see Torkaman, 178. 26 For example, see Dowlatshāh Samarqandi, 10; Āzar 1999, 459. 27 Sabā was appointed to the governorship of Kāshān and Qom. Qāʾem-Maqām is famous for being the first prime minister to Mohammad Shāh, the third monarch of the Qajar dynasty. Neshāt was the monshi al-mamālek (head of the royal chancellery) to Fath-ʿAli Shāh. Although in earlier periods poets had also held various positions at court, here

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 137 verses are collected in a divān, it becomes clear that the relationship between the Qajar court and poets/literati transcended a simple patron-protégé relationship, resulting in a highly sophisticated court culture. The visible friendship among the court poets/literati also distinguishes the Qajar court from its Ghaznavid or Saljuq predecessors. For example, Rāvi, the author of the Anjoman-e Khāqān, and Homā, the author of the Zinat al- madāʾeh were close friends (Rāvi, 443), and both happened to join the court upon Sabā’s recommendation. The Monsha‌ʾāt-e Qāʾem-Maqām which contains pieces of correspondence from the author of the book to Homā and Rāvi, indicates the close relationship between the literati/poets.28 Interestingly, in addition to personal affairs, this correspondence also touches on political and governmental matters, although the documentary format is private. What is worth noting is that the Qajar literati/poets, being also high-ranking bureaucrats, exchanged a variety of information through multiple channels and thus deepened their ties. In other words, these Qajar literati/poets, forming a literary circle around the royal court, shared multiple interests including adminis- trative and governmental policies as men of power. In sum, Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court established itself as the intertwined center of politics and Persian literature of the time, generating a new dimension of court culture in Iran.

A Genealogy of the Early Qajar Poets The poets of the “Literary Return,” most prominently Moshtāq, were acknowl- edged as direct precursors by the early Qajar poets. The Anjoman-ārā and royal commissioned tazkeras, such as the Anjoman-e Khāqān and the Negārestān-e Dārā, which are all anthologies of contemporary poets, classify them as “contemporary poets,” moʿāserin, even though they had already died by the time Fath-ʿAli Shāh acceded to the throne. Maftun, the author of the Negārestān-e Dārā, explains the reason for including them as follows: “since the tazkera authors of our age recorded their poetry and biographies (i.e., Moshtāq Āzar and his colleagues), I could not help including them accordingly” (Maftun 1964, 11–12). This statement also indicates that the poets of the shah’s court held Moshtāq and his followers in high esteem as the direct masters of their preceding years.

I would like to stress the point that at the court of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, poets and literati held higher positions, served at the center of the government, and were involved in the cultural policy of the court. 28 The Monsha‌ʾāt-e Qāʾem-Maqām records sixteen correspondence addressed to Homā, eight to Rāvi, and one to Maftun.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 138 Abe

Sabā, the poet laureate of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, was known to have been a disciple of Sabāhi, one of the prominent “literary return” poets (Smith, 205; Khātami, 330), and he was also acquainted with Āzar, Hātef, and other distinguished figures of that movement (Maftun 1964, 41). Thus some of the early nineteenth century court poets were directly or indirectly linked with Moshtāq, the puta- tive proponent of the “literary return” movement, or Āzar, his leading disciple. Smith has already noted a link between the “literary return” poets and the Qajar poets, particularly Sabā, and Rāvi, with Āzar (Smith 2009, 205–6). The following subsection revisit the aforementioned link, namely between the court poets and the “literary return” poets, focusing on two other of our tazkera writers, namely, Maftun and Homā, who were good examples of influential literati at the shah’s court.

Mirzā Mohammad-Sādeq Marvazi “Homā” Homā, also called “Vaqāyeʿ-negār,” and the author of the Zinat al-madāʾeh, was born in Marv and brought up there under the patronage of Mohammad- Hoseyn Khān Qajar Fakhr al-Dowla, a local notable of Marv in his early career. Following the Uzbek invasion of that region, he fled to the shrine cities of Iraq and devoted himself to learning in Karbalā and Najaf. Later, he moved to Kāshān where he became acquainted with Sabāhi who was, as discussed above, one of the prominent figures of the “literary return” and a close friend of Āzar. He devoted time to learning a variety of poetic techniques (marāteb-e shāʿeri) from him. On Sabā’s recommendation, he came to serve at the court of Fath-ʿAli Shāh and was commissioned to write a history of the dynasty as a vaqāyeʿ-negār (historiographer), while also being appointed superintendent in the royal chancellery (dārughegi-ye daftarkhāna-ye homāyun). In addition to the Zinat al-madāʾeh, he wrote a court chronicle, Tārikh-e Jahān-ārā, and mir- rors for princes such as the Tohfa-ye ʿAbbāsi and the Qavāʿed al-moluk. Later, he was a member of the crown prince ʿAbbās Mirzā’s embassy to Russia.29

ʿAbd al-Razzāq Donboli “Maftun”30 Maftun, one of the most distinguished literati in the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, left several autobiographic descriptions in his own works. He was the son of Najafqoli Khān Donboli, famous governor of Tabriz in the second half of the eighteenth century. In his teens he was sent to the Zand capital of Shirāz in

29 Homā, fols. 210b–211a; Rāvi, 441; Maftun 1964, 148–51. Homā did not mention Mohammad- Hasan Khān’s patronage of him in Marv in his Zinat al-madāʾeh. Presumably, he was deliberately silent about his former political career before entering the shah’s court. 30 See Homā, fols. 170a–170b; Rāvi, 296–97; Maftun 1964, 282–97.

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 139 order to replace his elder brother Fazl-ʿAli Beg who was living there as a hos- tage. In that city, he established a close friendship with Sahbā, an eminent poet of the “literary return” and a disciple of Āzar (Maftun 1964, 224; Maftun 1970, 434). After the fall of the Zand dynasty, he was released and then moved to Isfahan where he became acquainted with local literati and enjoyed friendship with them. After the establishment of the Qajar dynasty, he entered the court of the shah,31 and later collaborated on the compilation of the Zinat al-tavārikh (Homā, fols. 170a–170b; Rāvi, 296–97; Maftun 1964, 282–97).32 He entered the service of the crown prince ʿAbbās Mirzā when he arrived in Tabriz (probably in 1799).33 He wrote a chronicle of Fath-ʿAli Shāh named Ma‌ʾāther-e Soltāni and other books, for example, Tajrebat al-Ahrār, in addition to Negārestan-e Dārā.

These accounts clearly state that tazkera writers, including Rāvi, had close relationships with the survivors of “literary return” poets of the late eighteenth century. We can easily suppose that these personal relations greatly affected the evaluation and selection of poets in their tazkeras. We know that Moshtāq and some other “literary return” poets were highly valued in eighteenth and early nineteenth century tazkeras and other sources,34 but, at the same time, more attention should be paid to the effect of such personal bonds as on their literary merits. It is almost certain that it was Āzar who for the first time described Moshtāq as the initiator of the classical Persian poetry revival in his Āteshkada. In the Qajar period, their indirect disciples who formed a literary circle at the court and even monopolized the literary culture strongly propagandized the impact of the “literary return” movement. It is noteworthy that none of our three tazkera writers encountered either Moshtāq or Āzar in person.35 These

31 It appears that Maftun was not appointed to a specific position in the central government. He served at the shah’s court as court poet and received a certain allowance (Maftun 1964, 295–96). 32 The Zinat al-tavārikh is a Persian general history from the Creation to the author’s own times. Since the compilation of this text appears to be highly encouraged as an important royal project in the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, the Zinat al-madāʾeh precisely mentions the cooperation of the poets or literati who were involved in it. 33 ʿAbbās Mirzā frequently traveled between Tehran and Azerbaijan in the early years of his governorship of Azerbaijan. Maftun started his service under the crown prince when the prince was dispatched to Azerbaijan to suppress the local rebellions prior to the first Russo-Iranian war (Maftun 1964, 296). 34 Smith points to the high appreciation of Moshtāq’s poetry in the Golshan-e Morād, a famous Zand chronicle, the Anjoman-e Khāqān and the Negārestān-e Dārā (Smith, 205). 35 Maftun states that he could not meet Āzar when he happened to visit Shiraz in the last years of Karim Khān’s reign (Maftun 1970, 269).

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The Reception of the Āteshkada in the Reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh It was the Āteshkada that advertised, in the first place, the high reputation of Moshtāq and the “literary return” to which Bahār has referred.36 Despite the high popularity of the Āteshkada in both its contemporary period and later (Smith, 204–5), the history of its reception remains understudied. One cannot fail to note that the Āteshkada was the first voluminous “general tazkera” (tazkera-ye ʿāmm) written in a hundred years in Iran.37 It is true that a large number of tazkeras were written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but most of them were produced in the Indian subcontinent, some of them by Iran-born literati such as Hazin Lāhiji and Vāleh Dāghestāni, who composed the Tazkera-ye Moʿāserin and the Riyāz al-shoʿāra‌ʾ, respectively, after they settled in Delhi. In the following, I investigate the reception of the Āteshkada from the author’s contemporary period to the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh.38 The Āteshkada, completed in 1779/1193,39 has been widely read and referred to since it was written. Ghaffāri’s Golshan-e Morād, a Zand chronicle written

36 Bahār argues the “literary return” and the high appreciation of Moshtāq based on three tazkeras, namely, the Āteshkada of Āzar (written in the second half of the eighteenth century), the Hadāʾeq al-jennān of Maftun (in the early nineteenth century), and the Majmaʿ al-fosahāʾ of Rezaqoli Khān Hedāyat (in the middle of the nineteenth century) (Bahār, 54–55). Even though he did not clearly mention Āzar as the first person out of them, he did know the date of composition of each work. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that he roughly understood the Āteshkada as the first tazkera which introduced the “literary return.” 37 My research on Golchin-Maʿāni 1969, 1971 reveals that, in the eighteenth century, only four tazkeras were written in Iran and, furthermore, besides the Āteshkada and its synopsis Tazkera-ye Āsheq, the other two works are very short. Prior to the Āteshkada in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Kholāsat al-ashʿār by Taqi Kāshi written in 1607/08 is the sole voluminous general tazkera written in Iran. Taking these circumstances into consideration, we can say that the composition of the Āteshkada in the late eighteenth century was in fact an epoch-making event in the cultural history of Iran. 38 Kondo (2009) explains the reception and imitation of Persian tazkeras until the end of the seventeenth century. Subtelny (22–23) argues that until the end of the sixteenth century, Persian tazkeras were written with the intention of continuing and supplementing Navāʾi’s Majālis al-nafāʾis, a Chaghatay Turkic tazkera written in 1490–91/896. 39 Āzar started to write the Āteshkada in 1760–1/1174. Since some manuscripts of this text have earlier dates (e.g., 1767/1180) preceding the completion according to Storey (879), it

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 141 in 1785, contains an anthology of contemporary poets in which Moshtāq, Āzar and other “literary return” poets were well appreciated.40 My research demon- strates that this anthology section was in fact selected and extracted from the chapter on the contemporary poets of the Āteshkada,41 even though Ghaffāri does not acknowledge his source. The name of the Āteshkada does not appear in the Golshan-e Morād,42 although, to give two examples, the biographies of Āzar and Moshtāq as well as their verses cited there are almost the same or abridged versions of those found in the Āteshkada.43 This proves that this tazkera was widely read and imitated by literati in the late eighteenth century. Mahmud Mirzā’s Safinat al-Mahmud, a general tazkera completed in 1824–25/ 1240, attests to its great reputation at the time, stating: “he [Āzar] handed down a book titled Āteshkada as a memorable work (ba yādgār nehāda), and some- thing desirable for a book exists entirely in it. In short, more than ten thousand copies of the book have been circulated by now” (Mahmud, 133). Another example is Bahman Mirzā, who in expressing his motive to compose his tazkera in the introductory note of his Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi, sees Āzar’s tazkera as the primary model in this genre:

Without assistance, utensils or poets’ divāns and in the absence of samples of poetry and prose writing, I wrote this anthology (tazkera) clearly, simply, and fluently, not using complicated poetic techniques or arcane bookish metaphors. Since, regarding the illustrious poets, namely

was finally completed in 1779/1193 after several revisions and supplements by the author himself. 40 Smith (2009, 205) notes the evaluation of Moshtāq in the Golshan-e Morād (Ghaffāri- Kāshāni, 440–41). 41 The structure of the text is also common in both works. The Āteshkada’s contemporary part is written in alphabetical order which the Golshan-e Morād follows. 42 However, the appearance of Āzar in this Zand chronicle in addition to the anthology of poets proves his fame among his contemporaries (Ghaffāri-Kāshāni, 295, 373). Āzar dedicated his Āteshkada to Karim Khān Zand and Ghaffāri was a court chronicler of his dynasty; therefore, these two literati were acquainted with each other in the Zand court literary circle. 43 For example, Moshtāq’s verses on page 441 of Ghaffāri-Kāshāni (the Golshan-e Morād) are all selected from pages 638–41 of Āzar 1999, and verses on page 442 of Ghaffāri-Kāshāni are from pages 641–3 of Āzar 1999, and verses on page 443 of Ghaffāri-Kāshāni are from pages 643–9 of Āzar 1999, and verses on page 444 of Ghaffāri-Kāshāni are from pages 649–50 of Āzar 1999. The same happens to Āzar’s verses in the Golshan-e Morād (Ghaffāri- Kāshāni, 399–403), which are all from the Āteshkada without four pairs of verses (Āzar 1999, 819–21, 871–3, 876–8). I do not go further with this issue, but it is clear that the Golshan-e Morād was actually written in reference to the Āteshkada.

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Ferdowsi of Tus, Anvari, Saʿdi, Nezāmi, Khvāja Hāfez, Mollā Rumi and others, their divāns were available, and authors of tazkeras (ashāb-e tazkera), such as Āzar and others, provided an abridged version of their poetries, therefore, [writing a tazkera] was not a simple task (bostā na-dāsht). Nevertheless, I was determined to take pen in hand, and select verses of these poets in such a matter that [the verses] are closely tied with each other and the topics do not deviate from the interrelationship. Thus, without superfluity and redundancy, their verses are, in an appro- priate fashion, recorded in this book with no connivance in the selection (bedun-e eghmāz ba tariq-e entekhāb). Bahman Mirzā Qājār, 4–5

Furthermore, two of our three tazkeras, namely the Negārestan-e Dārā and the Anjoman-e Khāqān, devote some pages to Āzar and mention his Āteshkada even though these tazkeras in principle focus on contemporary poets. The author of the Negārestān-e Dārā, recognized Āzar not only as a great poet but also as a good critic of poetry (sheʿr-fahm va mazmun-band va sheʿr-shenās), saying that his Āteshkada proved his quality (Maftun 1964, 159). Besides tazkeras, an early nineteenth-century famous travelogue and to- pography, the Tohfat al-ʿālam (written in 1801), which contains the biographies of contemporary poets (like the Goshan-e Morād44) also highly evaluates the Āteshkada and attests to its popularity:

[Besides the Yusof and Zoleykhā] another literary work from this unique- ness of the age [viz., Āzar] is a tazkera entitled Āteshkada which is the emperor of books (homāyun-e safina) filled with the jewelry of words and the comprehensiveness of wisdom. His learning and knowledge are evi- dent from it. The Āteshkada is prevalent among people and agreeable to the taste of both noble and plebeian. Shushtari, 196

In the Tohfat al-ʿālam, the chapter on the biographies of contemporary poets heavily relies on the Āteshkada.45 In sum, the Āteshkada maintained its reputation in the genre of Persian tazkera literature until the early nineteenth century.

44 The Tohfat al-ʿālam, written by ʿAbd-Allāh Shushtari in September 1801/Jomādā I 1216, contains geographical accounts of Shushtar, the author’s hometown, and his travelogue to India, in addition to general information of European countries. 45 For instance, the heavy overlap of Moshtāq’s poems in the two works suggests that the author of the Tohfat al-ʿālam cited the Āteshkada which precedes the former by two

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Interestingly, apart from praising the Āteshkada as an important tazkera, the further attempt to “create” a direct link between this literature and the Qajar court literary circle merits attention. This attempt can be explained as the court poets’ tacit intention to emphasize the continuity of the “literary return” poets to their age and placing the court literary circle on that line. Praising the Āteshkada, Rāvi, in his Anjoman-e Khāqān, briefly reports the background of the composition of the Āteshkada, where he deliberately connects this eighteenth-century distinguished Persian tazkera with the literary circle of Fath- ʿAli Shāh’s court:

In the dār al-soltana of Isfahan, being encouraged by the governor Mirzā ʿAbd al-Vahhāb Musavi who was the maternal grandfather of Mirzā ʿAbd al-Vahhāb Moʿtamad al-Dowla [i.e., Neshāt] and the governor-general of Isfahan, he [i.e., Āzar] began to gather verses of ancient and contemporary poets. After a long period of time, he completed a tazkera entitled Āteshkada. In that book, the position of prose writing, critique of poetry, and discernment, regarding good and bad of his language (ghathth va samin-e sokhan), will appear through the judgment of insightful critics and exacting reviewers. Rāvi, 450–51

Whereas Rāvi points to the direct influence of Neshāt’s grandfather on the mo- tivation of writing the Āteshkada, he does not say anything about the fact that this tazkera was finally dedicated to Karim Khān Zand. Neshāt played a decisive role in entrusting Rāvi out of other literati to compose a royal-commissioned tazkera (Rāvi, 4). Interestingly, in the Āteshkada Āzar mentioned neither the encouragement by Mirzā ʿAbd al-Vahhāb to write the tazkera, nor the acquain- tance with him. Furthermore, Gorji’s Anjoman-ārā, on which the Anjoman-e Khāqān is reportedly heavily dependent, does not report anything about Āzar’s relationship with ʿAbd al-Vahhāb.46 In other words, the Anjoman-e Khāqān

decades. On the other hand, they are not unanimous in the order of poets. The order in the Tohfat probably reflects the author’s evaluation of contemporary poets which estab- lishes a structural difference from the Āteshkada which is written in alphabetical order. 46 Other source materials, such as the Negārestān-e Dārā and the Safinat al-Mahmud, do not record any accounts of ʿAbd al-Vahhāb’s role in the composition of the Āteshkada. As far as I know, Maftun is the only person who provides a report on their direct encounter, saying that ʿAbd al-Vahhāb gave favor to Āzar along with other eloquent poets (Maftun 1964, 159; Maftun 1970, 270). It may be possible to suppose that the reason for the lack of reference to the patronage of ʿAbd al-Vahhāb in the Āteshkada stems from Āzar’s careful considerations to Karim Khān Zand to whom Āzar finally dedicated his tazkera.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 144 Abe deliberately relates Neshāt, the leading figure of the Qajar court literary circle, to Āzar’s Āteshkada, the monumental work of the “literary return” movement.47 This creation of the missing link indicates that, in addition to the fact that the Qajar court literati were in turn direct successors of the “literary return” poets, the Āteshkada bridges the time gap between them. In sum, the literary circle at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court was deliberately placed under the strong influence of Moshtāq, Āzar and other “literary return” poets. The pupils of these poets, in an attempt to establish their literary school within the Qajar court culture, utilized Fath-ʿAli Shāh, who was pursuing cultural authority and was eager to create an ideal Persian court like the one of the Ghaznavids. In the following section, I will investigate how this reciprocal relationship affected the textual structure, contents and some characteristics of the aforementioned royal-commissioned tazkeras.

The Representation of the Qajar Court and Dynastic History in Tazkeras

Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s vigorous patronage of poetry triggered the production of numerous tazkeras during his reign, which were written voluntarily as well as by commission.48 Although until the nineteenth century many Persian tazkeras were dedicated to monarchs, royal family members, and dignitaries in Iran, India, and Central Asia, the rulers were rarely involved in the tazkera writing directly.49 The preface of the Zinat al-madāʾeh reports that it was at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s initiative that tazkera-writing took place:

47 Besides the creation of the link with the Āteshkada, the Negārestān-e Dārā adds to the biography of Mirzā ʿAbd al-Bāqi Musavi “Tabib” the information that he was a brother of the above Mirzā ʿAbd al-Vahhāb, the grandfather of Neshāt (Maftun 1964, 227). This family information is not document in the Āteshkada. 48 My research on Golchin Maʿāni 1969, 1971 reveals that seventeen tazkeras were written during Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s reign. Whereas thirty two tazkeras were produced in total in the first half of the nineteenth century, only five are general tazkeras and the remaining twenty seven are specific. On the other hand, in India, thirteen tazkeras out of a total of twenty six are general tazkeras during the same period. 49 Subtelny (23) points out that tazkeras were in principle written for reference use and as collections of poems, voluntarily, not by commission. Furthermore, Kondo’s research on tazkeras up to the end of the seventeenth century also suggests that tazkeras were written in order to record excellent verses of former and contemporary poets, and to supplement preceding tazkeras; see idem 2009, 42, 44, 48, 49, 51, 53, 57. Despite the fact that Āzar later dedicated the Āteshkada to Karim Khān Zand, he had started composing the tazkera on

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Since, by the command of intelligence and the fatvā of shariʿa, it is nec- essary and imperative to praise such a monarch as him, [who is] the asylum of Islam, consequently, the well-spoken poets and rhetorical eloquent men (shoʿarāʾ-e fasāhat-sheʿār va fosahāʾ-e balāghat-āthār)—some of whom were like fortune and auspiciousness attending the heavenly threshold day and night, and others of whom were peaceful and tranquil in the various places of the protected dominion, thanks to the kindnesses of that incomparable Khosrow and his conferring of favors, in praise of his gratuity and beneficence—chanted agreeable poems and colorful verses, which are sung for viewers and readers in the tongue of a night- ingale singing with perfect astonishment “we have never heard of such a thing happening in the days of our forefathers [Qurʾan 28:36],” in order to fill the ear of the time and to stuff the oyster of the age with pearls. These shining pearls and precious jewels (i.e., panegyrical poems), however, being dispersed in the manner of “scattered pearls [Qurʾan 78:19]” in the separate books and the numerous collections of poems, were neither strung in a string nor collected in a volume. Consequently, the rising-sun like view of Khosrow, the world conqueror, is inclined to get these colorful pearls and precious jewels threaded on a string or gathered around a ring in the manner of the necklace of the Pleiades (ʿeqd-e parvin), in an attempt to adorn the ear and neck of the bride of intelligence and to dec- orate the chest and shoulder of the beauty of vision with them. In keep- ing with the sign of the sovereign’s supremacy (hasb al-eshāre-ye lāzem al-beshārat-e ʿalliya-ye soltāniya), the devoted servant and faithful slave Mohammad-Sādeq Marvazi, being commanded to perform the aforementioned duty, is happy in composing this gracious book. This slave reg- istered in this volume of meaning selected and excellent odes and short poems (montakhab va lobāb-e qasāyed va moqtaʿāt), which court poets and others (shoʿarāʾ-e moltazem-e rekāb va gheyra) read from the beginning of the greatest sun of this eternal dynasty to the moment of writing, i.e., the seventh year of the prosperous enthronement, in addition to the reputation of poets (esm va rasm-e shoʿarāʾ), commentary on odes

his own initiative for easy access to poems of ancient and contemporary poets (Āzar 1957, I, 1, 14–15). No doubt, there are tazkeras that the authors intended to dedicate to monarchs from the beginning, shaping the structures and contents accordingly; see Kondo 2009, 57. However, very few works were in fact composed by a specific monarch’s initiative or command in the Persianate world. The Rowzat al-salātin, which was composed by Fakhri Haravi in the middle of the sixteenth century (958–62/1551–4) at the wish of Shāh Hoseyn, the local ruler of Thatta in Sind, is likely the exception; see Haravi, 3.

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and short poems, and reason of composition of each one. References and names of poets were written in alphabetical order of pen name, except for Malek al-shoʿarāʾ [i.e., Fath-ʿAli Khān “Sabā”], who precedes others with regard to poetic quality and rank. Homā, fols. 7b–8b

The structure and style of tazkeras, along with contents and information, indicate valuable meanings and the author’s intention. This section explores the following two points: the integration of poetry and the Qajar dynasty by the royal-commissioned tazkeras, and the court poets/literati’s tactics to uti- lize the opportunity of writing these tazkeras in an attempt to strengthen and authorize the status of the court literary circle. Following the analysis of the Zinat al-madāʾeh, an earlier tazkera in the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, I will demon- strate that the text structure of classify dividing court poets and others seen in the Zinat was imitated by subsequent tazkeras. Finally, I investigate the practice including the early history of the Qajar dynasty within the tazkera text from the Anjoman-e Khāqān onward.

Tazkera-Writing and Two Power Orientations This subsection investigates the increasing popularity of so-called “panegyrical tazkeras” in the early Qajar period, starting from the Zinat al-madāʾeh, which praises Fath-ʿAli Shāh, and then analyzes how deeply Qajar court hierarchy is reflected in tazkeras. The popularity of the qasida and eulogistic or panegyrical poetry is a well- known phenomenon in the Qajar period (Shafiʿi-Kadkani, 166), which in turn significantly affected tazkera-writing. In fact, a series of tazkeras, a compilation of the works of poets who exclusively composed eulogistic and panegyrical poems, madiha, for specific individuals, such as monarchs, royal family members, court dignitaries, and Shiʿi Imams, was remarkably being produced from Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s reign onward. Our Zinat al-madāʾeh is one of the earli- est works from this group in the Qajar period, followed by the Madāʾeh al- Hoseyniya (Eulogistic poems for Hoseyn) which reveres Shiʿi Imams and Amin al-Dowla, prime minister to Fath-ʿAli Shāh,50 and the Madāʾeh al-Moʿtamadiya

50 This tazkera, also called the Madāʾeh al-Aminiya (Panegerical poems for Amin al-Dowla), was written in 1807–8/1222sh. The author Mirzā ʿAbd al-Bāqi Esfahāni (d. 1822–3/1238) is a member of the notable Musavi sayyed family of Isfahan and a relative of Mirzā ʿAbd al-Vahhāb “Neshāt.”

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(Panegyrical poems for Manuchehr Khān Moʿtamad al-Dowla) and other works.51 The Zinat al-madāʾeh consists of four chapters. Chapter One records Fath- ʿAli Shāh’s eulogistic poems and monodies for Shiʿi Imams. While Chapter Two deals with biographies of court poets who read eulogies for Fath-ʿAli Shāh, in Chapter Three those of local poets/literati are written. Chapter Four, the last chapter, contains the author’s autobiography and his panegyrical poems for the shah. As cited above, the author was entrusted with composing this tazkera in order to gather the panegyrical poems for the shah, which had hitherto been dispersed in the manner of “scattered pearls,” in one place (Homā, fols. 7b-8b). Such was the importance of the Zinat al-madāʾeh that it was followed by the second volume or supplement written in 1808–9/1223.52 I focus on two points of this tazkera. First, this royal-commissioned tazkera, in spite of including the eulogies and monodies for the Shiʿi Imams, is mostly devoted to the panegyrical poems for Fath-ʿAli Shāh and biographies of the poets who read them. In other words, this tazkera, in both content and format, cultivates the shah’s magnificence in a cultural sense, being obviously different from most of the traditional tazkeras, whose main purpose is to serve as a reference for poets/literati and their literary activities.53 By contrast, the Zinat was composed in order to show how skillfully poets expressed their panegyrics for the shah in verse, not to convey the poetry of the contemporary poets to the subsequent generations. It is true that the panegyric for monarchs and princes is an important component of classical Persian poetry; the close association between panegyrics and tazkera-writing can be seen as a specific phenomenon of early Qajar literary culture. Furthermore, the shah’s monodies for the Shiʿi Imams at the beginning of the Zinat emphasize his piety, which in turn enforc- es his legitimacy as the shadow of God on earth and the deputy of the Hidden Imam on the basis of the Twelver Shiʿi faith.

51 Manuchehr Khān Moʿtamad al-Dowla was a courtier of Armenian origin during the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh and Mohammad Shāh. For more details on his career and vaqf endow- ment, see Kondo 2005. 52 The manuscripts of the second volume or supplement to the Zinat al-madāʾeh are preserved in the British Library, the National Library of Iran, and the Malek Library (Golchin- Maʿāni 1969, 694–95). 53 The chapter on biographies of poets recorded in court chronicles is also affected by the hierarchy of the court circle. For example, in the chapter on poets in the Āin-e Akbari by Abu al-Fazl, the poet laurate Sheykh Abu al-Feyz Feyzi comes at the top of the list. I am very thankful to S. Sharma for telling me of this mini-tazkeras in this Mughal court history as well as the Tārikh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsi.

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Second, the structure of this tazkera is likewise noteworthy. The Zinat clas- sifie “poets serving at the victorious stirrup (shoʿarāʾ-e moltazemin-e rekāb-e zafar-entesāb),” i.e., court poets, as well as poets of the protected dominion (shoʿarāʾ-e mamālek-e mahrusa),” i.e., local poets or so called “non-court poets.” I argue that the classification of Iranian poets based on the degree of their proximity to the royal court contains two intentions: the need to be a compre- hensive contemporary tazkera and the desire to represent the court hierarchy in the tazkera. In Chapters Two (court poets) and Three (non-court poets), the biographies of poets and their poems are in principle arranged in alphabetical order by pen names; however, the biography and poems of Sabā, the poet laureate to the shah, are placed at the beginning of Chapter Two because he “precedes others with regard to poetic quality and rank.” While the Zinat registers thirteen poets’ biographies and poems in addition to those of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, six are court poets and the other six are non-court poets, i.e., one-to-one, along with Homā, the author of the book in the last chapter. This structure implies the ubiquity of poets who praise the Shāh not only at the royal court but also all over “the protected dominion.” This is why the number of court poets and non-court poets is equal. Concurrently, it is clear that the Zinat, glorifying Fath-ʿAli Shāh to strengthen his legitimacy in a cultural sense, moreover represents the hierarchy of the literary circle at Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court since this tazkera classifies Iranian poets into court poets and non-court poets. In other words, the Zinat visual- izes the hierarchy at the royal court literary circle, which Sabā is at the top of. This project is a unilateral imposition by the court poets/literati in which we can see their ambition to establish their hegemony over the entire literary circle (world) in the “protected domain.” It is highly probable that in an effort to further ensure this ambition, a great emphasis on the court patronage of poets and literati, and the anecdote of the Ghaznavid court, are repeated in the early Qajar tazkeras. In short, a discourse on the ideal relationship between the royal court and the poets is in fact developed in accordance with the desires from the court poets’ side. Akhtar Gorji’s Anjoman-ārā, in spite of frequently citing biographies of poets and their poems from the Zinat,54 is simply arranged in alphabetical order. Since the Anjoman-ārā is composed solely for reference purposes and

54 For example, the Anjoman-ārā (Gorji 1964) imitates the biography of court poet “Banda” (Mirzā Razi Tabrizi) and cites his poems from the Zinat (Homā). Gorji 1964, 32–37 coin- cides with Homā, fols. 124b–126a, 128b–131a. It appears that poems of Sabur and Maftun in the Anjoman-ārā are also excerpted from the Zinat.

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 149 for poets’ literary activities, the division between court poets and non-court counterparts did not play any role in its structure.55 As for our two other royal-commissioned tazkeras, although Rāvi’s Anjoman-e Khāqān appears to be a simple contemporary tazkera, it follows the structural principle of the Zinat, arranging chapters based on the hierarchy of Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s court. This tazkera consists of: Chapter One on Fath-ʿAli Shāh, Chapter Two on Qajar princes, Chapter Three on court poets (shoʿarāʾ-e sharaf- yāftegān-e bārgāh), Chapter Four on non-court poets (shoʿarāʾ-e belād), and the last chapter on the author. By adding a new chapter on Qajar princes, the Anjoman-e Khāqān adopts the classification by court poets and non-court counterparts, which is modeled on the Zinat al-madāʾeh. While Chapters Three and Four are in alphabetical order, Chapter Two, dealing with the Qajar princes, is arranged not in alphabetical order but by seniority, although this is not made explicit in the text.56 The Negārestān-e Dārā has a structure identical to that of the Anjoman-e Khāqān, placing the poet laureate Sabā at the top of Chapter Three on court poets, which is modeled after the Zinat al-madāʾeh. In other words, the Negārestān-e Dārā integrates important characteristics of the two preceding royal-commissioned tazkeras. All three of our tazkeras in fact attempt to represent the court hierarchy and the special position of the Qajar royal family in Persian literature. The creation of these compositional principles on the basis of the proximity to the royal court, being significantly different from traditional tazkeras which were written by the author’s own initiative for the benefit of reference use and literary activities, was triggered by the court poets’ pursuit of fame and authority, being liberated by the commissions of writing tazkeras for the shah and his princes. At this point, we can understand that the Zinat al-madāʾeh, which was composed to glorify Fath-ʿAli Shāh and commissioned by the shah himself, is in fact probably the first tazkera classifying court poets and non-court counterparts as well as the first royal-commissioned tazkera in the Qajar period.57

55 The reason for writing the Anjoman-ārā in alphabetical order is, as the Majles manuscript of the Anjoman-ārā states, “may our colleagues not express their criticism against me due to precedence or delay in order (hamgenān rā dar taqdim va ta‌ʾkhir taʿrozzi ba faqir na-ravad)” (Gorji 1986, fol. 4a). This sentence is missing in the Khayyāmpur version (Gorji 1964). 56 The Anjoman-e Khāqān, not specifying the criteria of order in Chapter Two, is almost the same as in the Negārestān-e Dārā’s Chapter Two on the Qajar princes, which the author states that he writes in order of seniority (Maftun 1964, 11). 57 The famous Safavid court chronicle Tārikh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsi contains a chapter on biographies of poets in the reign of Shāh Tahmāsp (r. 1524–76), classifying poets

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Interestingly, two other royal-commissioned tazkeras in the reign of Fath- ʿAli Shāh, the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi and the Safinat al-Mahmud tacitly indicate the court poets’ intention. The Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi, a general tazkera written by Bahman Mirzā, son of ʿAbbās Mirzā the crown prince and commissioned by his brother Mohammad Mirzā, later shah, includes the following chapters: Chapter One on the ancient poets (motaqaddemin), Chapter Two on Fath-ʿAli Shāh and the Qajar princes, and Chapter Three on the contemporary poets (moʿāserin). As for the structure, the author took his own method to portray the hierarchical order in the tazkera, stating “since the just ruler has a place in the center, I locate the chapter [on the shah] in the middle [of this book] (chun soltān-e ʿādel rā manzel dar del ast, bedān jehat ān reshta rā dar qalb jā dādim)” (Bahman Mirzā Qājār, 4). This general tazkera, placing the royal family member at the center, arranges Chapter Three in alphabetical order without division between court poets and their non-court counterparts. The Safinat al-Mahmud written by Mahmud Mirzā, son of Fath-ʿAli Shāh, on the other hand, consists of four chapters: Chapter One on the shah and his princes, Chapter Two on the court dignitaries, Chapter Three on the poets in Iran and other regions, Chapter Four on the author. This tazkera seems to divide the court poets and their non-court counterparts in Chapters Two and Three, but in reality Chapter Two contains only four high-ranking officials, namely Neshāt, ʿIsā Qāʾem-Maqām, Sabā and Farrokh, while the remaining court poets are all recorded in Chapter Three with non-court counterparts. In other words, since Mahmud Mirzā and Bahman Mirzā, both members of the Qajar royal family, were far from the power struggle in the literary circle, they had no interest in classifying poets based on their proximity to the court. In short, in spite of being commissioned by the shah and Mohammad Mirzā, these two tazkeras, as they were written by members of the Qajar royal family, have a different structure and principle than our three works. The Zinat al-madāʾeh, in addition to praising Fath-ʿAli Shāh and enforcing his authority in a cultural sense, no doubt deeply represents the court hierarchy. The representation of the court hierarchy in tazkera-writing is succeeded

geographically into those from the capital city Qazvin (five poets) and other places (eighteen) (Torkaman, 178–89). This dichotomous structure is in some ways a prototype of the royal-commissioned tazkeras at the court of Fath-ʿAli Shāh. However, this chapter rarely attempts to indicate Tahmāsp’s patronage of poet. This Safavid shah, on the contrary, encouraged poets to compose verses to praise the Shiʿi Imams instead of being praised himself (ibid., 178). Furthermore, it is worth noting that the five poets in the capital cannot be categorized as “court poets;” rather, they are just poets in the capital, obtain- ing their daily bread through their own business outside the royal court (ibid., 187).

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 151 and reproduced by the Anjoman-e Khāqān and the Negārestan-e Dārā. It is in- deed worth noting that the early Qajar royal-commissioned tazkeras, which were particularly composed by court poets, not by royal family members, propagandized Fath-ʿAli Shāh, glorified his magnificence, enforced his cultural authority, and furthermore, manipulated the opportunity to write tazkeras, in an attempt to establish the court poets’ hegemony in the Persian literary circle in Iran. The court poets’s agency vividly appears in the text of these tazkeras.

The History of the Qajar Royal Family and Tazkeras Many Qajar royal-commissioned tazkeras incorporate Fath-ʿAli Shāh and the royal family in their structures for, most probably, propaganda. No doubt, prior to the Qajar period, some tazkeras dealt particularly with royal family members and others included a chapter on monarchs and princes.58 These tazkeras, of course, intended to glorify rulers or princes as sophisticated intellectuals who were well familiar with Persian culture, but less to propagandize them for their cultural policies.59 The Qajar royal-commissioned tazkeras, on the other hand, represent the Qajar dynasty even in the texts themselves, in addition to the structure ana- lyzed above. Hereafter, the representation of the Qajar dynasty in the tazkeras, i.e., the insertion of the early history of the Qajar dynasty into the tazkera texts, will be examined. Available documentation reveals that it is the Anjoman-e Khāqān that incorporates the history of the establishment of the Qajar dynasty as a part of the tazkera text for the first time. Chapter One of the Anjoman-e Khāqān, which contains Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s biography and his poems, also briefly depicts the genesis of the Qajars as well as the foundation of the dynasty as a part of the shah’s genealogy, nasab. This mythology further goes back to Yāfeth (Japheth), the legendary ancestor of the Turkic tribe, also reporting Qājār Khān as the eponym of the tribe. There are two topics worth examining in this short history: the Qajar tribe’s consis- tent loyalty to and close relationship with the Safavid dynasty, and the Qajars’

58 For example, the above-mentioned Rowzat al-salātin by Fakhri specifically records the biographies and poems of monarchs and princes. Āzar’s Āteshkada also includes a chapter on kings and princes following the introduction (Āzar 1957, I, 37–100). For further information about the tazkeras including the chapter referenced above, see Kondo 2009, 48–49. 59 Some Persian tazkeras written in Iran and Central Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries document the Ottoman and Mughal monarchs despite the political conflicts (Kondo 2009, 52).

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 152 Abe prolonged hardship after the fall of the Safavids, which finally ends with the establishment of the new glorious dynasty. The first topic is no doubt intended to emphasize the continuity with the former great dynasty and probably reflects continued pro-Safavid nostalgia in eighteenth-century Iranian society.60 For example, the Anjoman-e Khāqān reports that “[Shāh Esmāʿil] saw [the Qajar tribe] through the eyes of a brother, wrote letters to them as if they were siblings, and corresponded with them in- timately” (Rāvi, 10). Furthermore, Fath-ʿAli Khān Qājār, governor of Tabarestān and Gorgān and great-grandfather of the shah, was portrayed as an enthusias- tic devotee of the Safavid dynasty in this tazkera. In the case of the Afghan siege of the Safavid capital Isfahan in 1722, Fath-ʿAli Khān reportedly led a relief force to the city; however, because of the intrigues of evil court dignitaries, he reluc- tantly withdrew from the rescue. Furthermore, he was loyal to Shāh Tahmāsp II who fled to him after the Afghan occupation of Isfahan (Rāvi, 11–12). The second topic is that the Anjoman-e Khāqān records the shah’s enthronement following the severe hardship that the Qajar tribe had to bear. A series of tragic deaths of successive Qajar tribal leaders reminds most Shiʿi Iranians of the martyrdom of the Shiʿi Imams, which could in turn encour- age people’s loyalty to the new dynasty. All three Qajar leaders namely, Fath- ʿAli Khān, Mohammad-Hasan Khān, and the founder of the dynasty Aqa Mohammad Shāh, in fact died an unnatural death, which is emphasized in the Anjoman-e Khāqān: Fath-ʿAli Khān was killed by the imprudence of the inexperienced Tahmāsp II, Mohammad-Hasan Khān was murdered following his military defeat in the power struggle against the Zand dynasty (Rāvi, 12–13), and Āqā Mohammd Shāh, who reestablished the political unity of the Iranian plateau, was assassinated by his retainers in the course of the Georgian expedi- tion in 1797 (Rāvi, 20–21). Fath-ʿAli Shāh, therefore, following the unexpected death of his uncle, was enthroned with grand applause. Why are these historical incidents, despite being frequently recorded in history books, documented in a tazkera like the Anjoman-e Khāqān? In my view, the reason is that the tazkera itself has a strong intention to establish a link with the Qajar royal family. In other words, the Anjoman-e Khāqān attempted to integrate the dynastic history and poetry, making poets inseparable from the royal court. At the same time, this tazkera, deliberately, meets the demand from Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s side, who expected the tragic death of the former Qajar

60 A typical phenomenon originated from this sentiment is a number of Safavid pretenders who succeeded in gaining some popular support during that century. For further details, see Perry.

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 153 leaders to be discussed in light of the Shiʿi Imams’ martyrdom, in order to stim- ulate the loyalty of people to the ruling Qajar family. This practice of incorporating the history of the Qajar dynasty is adopted by the subsequent tazkeras. In short, kingship and poetry were firmly intertwined in tazkeras of the Qajar period. Each work, however, has minor variations on the Qajar history, which suggest the respective authors’ different perspectives. The Negārestān-e Dārā, which is modeled on the Anjoman-e Khāqān regarding the structure of the chapters and inclusion of the Qajar history, focuses more on praise for Fath-ʿAli Shāh rather than the hardship suffered by the Qajar tribe (Maftun 1964, 14–18). This tazkera, moreover, does not refer to the Qajars’ relationship with the Safavids. Bahman Mirzā’s Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi also depicts the history of the Qajars, which is likely to be cited from the Negārestan-e Dara (Bahman Mirzā Qājār, 335–39). However, there are some differences in the genealogy of the Qajar tribe as recorded in the two works, and the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi also vividly inscribes the hardship and unnatural death of the three Qajar leaders that does not appear in the Negārestān.61 In other words, in spite of the reference to the Negārestān-e Dārā, the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi adopts some key components from the Anjoman-e Khāqān’s Qajar history version. Rezāqoli Khān Hedāyat’s Majmaʿ al-fosahāʾ, the last monumental Persian tazkera completed in around 1871, also includes the history of the Qajar tribe and Nāser al-Din Shāh’s career at the beginning of the text (Hedāyat I, 9–12).62 Thus, it appears that the history of the Qajars with the achievement of the incumbent monarch becomes an inseparable element in the practice of tazkera-writing.

Conclusion

In the reign of Fath-ʿAli Shāh Qajar, the “royal-commissioned tazkera” emerged as a sub-genre in which the intentions of the shah and the court poets/

61 It is worth noting that the details in the Qajar’s genealogy differ in each tazkera. In spite of leaving certain traces of reference to other specific works, each tazkera deliberately pres- ents a different view on the genealogy. For example, although the Tazkera-ye Mohammad Shāhi supposedly cites the genealogy from the Negārestān-e Dārā, the author of the former tazkera deliberately changes it in part; see Bahman Mirzā Qājār, 336; Maftun 1964, 14–15. 62 The achievement of Nāser al-Din Shāh is inserted following the brief report on the genealogy of the Qajar tribe. This tazkera, however, does not mention the difficulties that the Qajar leaders faced after the collapse of the Safavid dynasty.

Journal of persianate studies 10 (2017) 129–157 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:14:46AM via free access 154 Abe literati were entangled. It is noteworthy that the discourse on nineteenth- century Persian poets’ succession in the “literary return” movement and their adherence to the classical style is not necessarily based on purely literary or poetic factors, but instead on an output of the worldly politics pursuing hegemony in the literary circle of Qajar Iran. The court poets’ agency coincidently accorded with, or rather, manipulated Fath-ʿAli Shāh’s desire to establish his authority in the cultural sphere. In other words, the entanglement of poetics and politics at the shah’s court contributed to a series of royal-commissioned tazkeras. Fath-ʿAli Shāh, seeing the court of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud, the patron of the Shāhnāma, as the ideal Persian court, allocated government of- fices and court positions to talented literati and poets in order to establish his court’s prestige. The literati bureaucrats, associating with each other through various channels, created a court culture where literature and politics were intertwined. The court poets and literati that engaged in writing the royal- commissioned tazkeras did not simply work for position or reward. The poets of the generation after Moshtāq and Āzar, i.e., the “literary return” movement, attempted to promote their group to the mainstream of the literary circle of Iran, being opposed to the Indian or tāza-guʾi style, and embodied the superiority of the “court poets” by writing tazkeras that were commissioned by the Qajar monarchs and princes. The repetitive discourse of the court patronage of the poets was likely to be a strategy used by the court poets and literati. Erkinov’s research on Central Asian cultural history also reveals that the Khoqanid monarch attempted to enforce the legitimacy of his authority by promoting literary activities and compiling literary works in the early nineteenth century, which is likely to be very similar to our case.63 Interestingly, it is the late Timurid period, particularly, the reign of Soltān Hoseyn Bāyqarā (r. 1469–1506), that is regarded as ideal by the Khoqanids (Erkinov, 290–91, 317). Taking into account the difference with Fath-ʿAli Shāh, who much admired the Ghaznavids most probably because of the Shāhnāma, we encounter an inter- esting divergence in the cultural history and reception of Persian/Persianate literature in Iran and Central Asia, which will be a topic for future research. Consequently, the court poetry of the early Qajar period, particularly royal- commissioned tazkeras, emerged as a product of the reciprocal relationship between Fath-ʿAli Shāh and the court poets. Moreover, the so-called “literary return” poets’ hegemony in Iran subsequently consolidated the “canoniza- tion” of classical Persian poetry, i.e., the works of Ferdowsi, Anvari, Nezāmi,

63 For further details, see Erkinov. N. Kondo kindly informed me of his research.

Journal of persianateDownloaded studies from 10 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 129–157 01:14:46AM via free access The Politics of Poetics in Early Qajar Iran 155 and Saʿdi, based on the assertion by Āzar in his Āteshkada (Āzar 1957, I, 216– 20), and such understanding is in turn succeeded in the literary reception of twentieth-century modern Iran. In fact, the power struggle over poetry, i.e., politics of poetics, in the early Qajar court greatly affects our understanding of Persian literary and cultural history.

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