Women and Love in the Works of Nezami, Ferdowsi, and Jami

Talattof, Kamran

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-97990-4_3

Kamran Talattof³

Part of the book series: Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World ((LCIW))

157 Accesses

Abstract

Women feature in the works of Nezami Ganjavi (1140–1202), Abul al-Qasim Ferdowsi (932–1020), and Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414–1492), three major classical Persian poets, to differing degrees. All three poets are skillful in their portrayal and distinguished from poets such as Hafez or Rumi, who are not closely concerned with characterization. If they refer to Shirin, for example, or to her relationship with the Persian king, they do not feel the need to elaborate, because they assume the names they invoke will naturally conjure the needed sentiment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 84.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 109.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 109.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
This chapter is an expanded version of “Nezami’s Unlikely Heroines: A Study of the Characterizations of Women in Classical Persian Literature,” in The Poetry of Nezami Ganjavi, 51–81.
2.
Of course, one might even compare Nezami’s characterization of women with that of Anvari (1126–1189), who lived closer to the time of Nezami. Anvari, known to know a few different fields of knowledge, also wrote numerous bold anti women’s poems. However, he did not write narrative poetry featuring female figures.
3.
Sai'idi Sirjani, Sima-ye do zan (Tehran: NoAvaran, 1991).
4.
Behruz Sarvatiyan, A'inah-i Ghayb, Nezami (Tehran: Kalameh, 1989), 37, 40.
5.
Behruz Sarvatiyan, Ed. Makhzan al-Asrar-e Nezami (Tehran: Tus, 1984), 283.
6.
Jalal Matini, “Azadigi va Tasahul-i Nezami Ganjavi,” in IranShinasi, 4, 1 (Spring 1992), 1–20.
7.
Fatamah Alaqih, “Sima-ye Zan az Didgah-e Nezami” in Farhang 10 (1992), 317–30.
8.
Ibid.
9.
Ahmad Mahdavi Dameghani, “'Aqayed-e Nezami dar Tohid va Sefat-e Barita'ala” IranShenasi, 3, 3, (1991), 458–468.
10.
Julie S. Meisami, “Kings and Lovers: Ethical Dimensions of Medieval Persian Romance,” in Edebiyat 1 n. 1 (1987), 7.
11.
Christoph Bürgel compares romance writing in the work of Gorgani, Nizami, Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, Jami, and others. See Christoph Bürgel, “The Romance” in E. Yarshater, Persian Literature (New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 161–79 and “Die Frau als Persien in der Epik Nizamis,” Asiatische Studien 42: 137–55.
12.
Kolliyat, 104. The passages start with the following line.
13.
Nezami is not writing history, but we should keep in mind that Armenians followed Zoroastrianism for about a millennium before the Christianization of the region in the fourth century.
14.
Mahmud Dowlatabadi, Kalidar, (Tehran: Farhang Mu'aser, 1989).
15.
Mehdi Zarghani, Tarikh-e Badan dar Adabiyat (Tehran: Sokhan, 2019).
16.
This is the year when Zoroastrians inhabited the Armenian region. For an informative study about historical Shirin, see Ghodrat Ghasemipour, “Shirin” Zaban va Adabiyate Farsi” Tabriz, 74, 244, 2021.
17.
For a treatment of this text as a work of drama, see Peter Chelkowski, “Nizami: Master Dramatist,” in E. Yarshater, Persian Literature (NY: Bibliotheca Persica, 1987), 190–213.
18.
Abd al-Majid Ayati, Dastan-i khusraw va shirin (Tehran: Jibi, 1974), 27–29.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Farhad’s passionate and unfulfilled love for Shirin has been sufficiently significant for some poets to entitle their version of this romance as Farhad O Shirin. Nezami’s characterization of Farhad further points out his deep involvement with the human aspects of the Pre-Islamic Persian philosophies and lifestyle.
22.
See the Haft Paykar by G. E. Wilson and more recently Julie Meisami.
23.
Elements such as colors, numbers, and the names of weekdays play important roles in this book and indicate Nezami’s awareness of some of the sciences of his time. See Meisami, The Haft Paykar and Georg Krotkoff, “Colour and Number in the Haft Paykar” in Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica, ed. Roger M. Savory and Dionisius A. Agius (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984).
24.
Cameron Cross studies Nezami’s intricate and complex portray of love and how one might understand its forms and types of love and their connection to colors, buildings, and sequences. Cameron Cross, “The Many Colors of Love in Niẓāmī’s Haft Paykar: Beyond the Spectrum” Interfaces 2 2016, pp. 52–96.
25.
Peter Chelkowski, “Aya upra-yi turmdut-i Puchini Bar Asas-i Kushk-i Surkh-i Haft Paykar Ast?” IranShinasi vol. 3 no. 4 (Winter 1991), 714–22.
26.
Nezami, Haft Paykar, ed. Dastgerdi (Tehran: IbnSina, 1955), 233.
27.
In the absence of an open treatment of sexuality by the advocates of modernity, the religious fundamentalists have used their notion of sexuality to provoke resistance to modernization, affecting the interpretation of literary texts. See, Kamran Talattof, Modernity, Sexuality, and Ideology in Iran: The Life and Legacy of a Popular Female Artist (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2011), chapter 2.
28.
According to David Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: UPS, 2002), the history of sexuality is not the mere history of sexual classifications; it includes a history of human subjectivity.
29.
Ibid.
30.
See M.T. Jafari, Hikmat, Irfan, va Akhlaq dar Shir-i Nezami Ganjavi (Tehran: Kayhan, 1991) and Behruz Sarvatiyan, A'inah-i ghayb.
31.
Some scholars apply the pir and morid model in many situations even today, and it has, in my opinion, become a cultural woe. Many have explained the ‘improvement’ in the works of Forough Farrokhzad using this model, seeing Golestan as a mentor who changed Farrokhzad. They impose a Rumi-Shams relationship on her relationship with Golestan forgetting that the latter does not even feature in any of her writings. As an example, see Naser Saffariyan, Ayeh-ha-ye Ah (Tehran: Dur Negar, 2002), 124.
32.
Kolliyat, 556.
33.
Nizami, Haft Paykar (1955).
34.
He has renamed other female characters such as Ferdowsi’s Qaydafeh to Nushabeh in Sharafnameh.
35.
Kolliyat, 203. The passage starts and ends with (که خوبانی که در خورد فریشند) and the line after.
36.
This segment appears in Nezami, Khosrow va Shirin edited by Barat Zanjani (Tehran: U-Tehran, 1997), 63–67 and in Kolliyat, Introduction (Tehran: Behzad, 1999), 126–127. The first line starts with (یکی شب از شب نوروز خوشتر).
37.
The proverb goes, “Baalaa tar az siyahi rangi nist,” meaning you have hit rock bottom. Furthermore, Nezami says, there is an amber color after the charcoal lights, and a white/grey color after one’s hair turns white due to aging.
38.
Christoph Bürgel, “The Romance” in E. Yarshater, Persian Literature, 161–79.
39.
Julie S. Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah? Nezami’s Ethical Poetic,” in Edebiyat N. S. vol. I, no. 2, 1989, 41–77.
40.
Julie Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1987).
41.
For a discussion of Layli’s character, see A. A. Sa'idi Sirjani, Sima-yi du zan, 24.
42.
Barat Zanjani, Layli o majnun-i Nezami ganjai (Tehran: Tehran UP, 1990), 113.
43.
This passage (Kolliyat, 60) shows Layli’s ability to face and deal with the harsh reality of her life. It begins with this (لیلی بودم ولیکن اکنون).
44.
Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1968), 211.
45.
Many saw the defeat of the Sasanian Empire (224–642) which marked the beginning of a regression in the Persian world. For Nezami, Khosrow o Shirin represented the era before the defeat when an “urban” love is portrayed in the domes or gardens, and Layli o Majnun belonged to the post-invasion time when the unfulfilled love is portrayed to trigger tribal wars.
46.
Layli and Majnun by Nezami Ganjavi, translated by Dick Davis, 104.
47.
Kolliyat, 369.
48.
See Seyed-Gohrab, Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizami’s Epic Romance (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 198–200.
49.
Layli and Majnun by Nezami Ganjavi, Dick Davis, trans, 106.
50.
Kolliyat, 369–70.
51.
Seyed-Gohrab’s Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness is a comprehensive study and among several explanations, the book argues for the possibility of double meaning and thus the double reading of Nezami’s story as a mundane love story featuring a madman’s love and an allegory and expression of mystic love, 200.
52.
Seyed-Gohrab provides a detailed analysis of this scene in his major book, Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing, 198.
53.
Ibid., 198.
54.
Arjang Maddi, “Barrasi-e Suvar-e Khiyal dar haft paykar,” Farhang, 10 (Fall 1992), 331–408.
55.
See Christoph Bürgel, “The Romance” in E. Yarshater, Persian Literature (NY: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 161–79.
56.
Nezami compares his Makhzan to Sanai’s Hadiqatu' l-haqiqat, (The enclosed garden of the truth) and his romances to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh.
57.
Hamid Dabashi, “Harf-i Nakhostin: Mafhum-i Sokhan dar Nazd-i Hakim Nezami Ganjavi” in IranShenasi vol III, no, 4, (Winter 1992), 723–40.
58.
Ibid, 733.
59.
Sabatino Moscati, The Face of the Ancient Orient (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1951), 111.
60.
Jalil Dustkhah, Avesta (Tehran: Murvarid, 1983), 9.
61.
“Yasna,” 53.
62.
²⁹ Kolliyat, 23.
63.
From Haft Paykar.
64.
Khusraw O Shirin.
65.
From Haft Paykar, 1168.
66.
In Layli and Majnun, he passionately talks about his mother too.
67.
Kolliyat, 1196.
68.
Barat Zanjani, Khosrow va Shirin-e Nezami (Tehran: U-Tehran, 1997), 22.
69.
Because the word She'ari has a few different meanings, this half line can also be rendered differently. For example, it can read, “For me there is no chanting/mott/custom/device/habit better than love.” However, it must be rendered in a way that makes sense when combined with the second half. This line is included in the editions by Dastgerdi and Sarvatiyan but is omitted in Zanjani’s edition.
70.
For example, see M. Mashhadi, and Esfandiari. “Tahlil-e Bonmayeh-haye Erfani Khosrow o Shirn” in Pazhuheshnameh Erfan 19, 2018, 162–183 and articles in Peter J. Chelkowski, ed. Reza Ali Khazeni Memorial Lectures in Iranian Studies, V. 2, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013).
71.
See for example, Mehdi, Zarghani, Tarikh-e Adabiyat-e Iran va Qalamrov-e Zaban-e Farsi (Tehran: Fatemi, 2019).
72.
Maryam Sa'eb, Ta'vilat-e Erfani dar Shahnameh, Mo'aref, 34, Bahman 1384. Streak is for rageh (vein, seam), a rather vague word for this occasion.
73.
See the chapter entitled “The Religious Use of Persian Poetry” in J. T. P. de Bruijn Pearls of Meanings: Studies on Persian Art, Poetry, Sufism and History of Iranian Studies in Europe (Leiden: Leiden UP, 2020), 161–172.
74.
Ibid.
75.
See Kolliyat, page 95 (line 1 and 4): Section 12, “Sokhani chand dar eshq.”
76.
Kolliyat, 96.
77.
Kolliyat, 284–288; ‘On the prologue of the book’ and ‘denouncing the jealous.’
78.
Kolliyat, 96–97. The most pertinent passage starts with (ز شیرین کاری شیرین دلبند). Then he makes yet another connection to the pre-Islamic religions by evoking Mani’s book of drawing, Arjang, a reference that changes the friend’s criticism: he advises Nezami not to cover copper with gold and instead to take a path of abstinence and chastity to receive more gold. This verse has two levels of meaning related to the content of the book and the resulting compensation. Of course, Nezami disagrees with him.
79.
The section in Khosrow o Shirin on love starts with (مراکز عشق به ناید شعاری).
80.
Another passage from Khosrow o Shirin exemplifies the centrality of love in the life of his hero. It starts with (می و معشوق و گلزار و جوانی).
81.
Kolliyat, section 12, page 95 (line 3–4 and 12–13).
82.
Kolliyat, 2 (line 39).
83.
Kolliyat, 282 (line 16), and in the following line from his Me’raj story.
ز حیض دختران نعش رسته / ز رفعت تاج داده مشتری را
84.
Prior to Nezami, Ferdowsi pioneered the portrayal of women characters in epic stories. Therefore, this segment could have come before the discussion of Nezami’s work for chronological purposes; however, this book is focused on Nezami’s work. The discussion of other poets serves substantiating the arguments.
85.
The article, M. Dabir-Siyaqi, “Chihrah-i Zan dar Shahnamah” in Kitab-e Paz, 20–78, counts to 32 named women and 35 other women without name in the Shahnameh.
86.
Obviously, this is not to suggest that Ferdowsi does not sometimes portray men negatively.
87.
See C. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (London: St. Martin’s, 1961).
88.
Julie S. Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah? Nezami’s Ethical Poetic” in Edebiyat, 1, n. 2 (1989), 44.
89.
For information about this work, see E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 2 vols.; J. Rypka et al., History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1968); Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992 and Olga M. Davidson. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings, (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994).
90.
Ferdowsi, Abolqasem, “Rostam va Sohrab,” Shahnameh, edited by M. A. Furughi. (Tehran: Javidan, 19--.), 83–98.
91.
On this important scene of lovemaking, Seyed-Gohrab writes, “It is difficult for Muslim audiences to identify with a story in which intercourse outside marriage is not condemned. In the oldest manuscript of the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi tells how Rostam and Tahmineh spend the night together, and how Tahmineh becomes pregnant, without making any value judgment. But in later manuscripts, and especially in naqqali retellings, this passage is modified.” See, Seyed-Gohrab, “Corrections and Elaborations: A One-Night Stand in Narrations of Ferdowsi’s Rostam and Sohrab,” in Iranian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2015, 443–461. Such textual modification is part of the renewed post-1979 Islamization of the Persian culture including the poetry of Nezami Ganjavi and Forough Farrokhzad, all as part of the mystification of Persian poetry. The poems that do not lend themselves to a mystical or religious reading are often ignored or excluded from official sites. In a study of such poetry produced from tenth to fifteenth centuries, R. Zipoli writes, “These genres include invective, cursing, lampoon, satire, diatribe, mockery, facetiae, social criticism, burlesque, parody and the like.” See, Riccardo Zipoli, Irreverent Persia: Invective, Satirical and Burlesque Poetry from the Origins to the Timurid Periode (10th to 15th Centuries) (Leiden UP, 2015), 11. Also see Paul Sprachman Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1995).
92.
See M. Islami-Nodushan, “Mardan va Zanan-i Shahnamah” in Hariri, ed. Ferdowsi, Zan, va Terazhedi (Babol: Kitabsara, 1986).
93.
Ferdowsi, Abolqasem, “Rostam va Sohrab.”
94.
Julie S. Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah? Nezami’s Ethical Poetic” in Edebiyat N. S. volume I, n. 2, 1989, 46.
95.
Ibid, 63.
96.
Abu al-Qasim Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, 195.
97.
See also Thibaut d’Hubert and Alexandre Papas (ed.), Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s Works in the Islamicate World, ca. 9th/15th–14th/20th Century (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018).
98.
Peter Jackson (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran, volume 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), 913.
99.
Shannon Stack, Heart: A Political and Social Study, Dissertation, ULC, 1975, 241.
100.
Terry Allen, Timurid Heart (Wiesbaden: LRV, 1983), 15.
101.
In some of his other works such as those on Sufism, he imitated Attar.
102.
Abd al-Rahman Jami, Masnavi-i Haft Awrang, edited by M. Mudarris Gilani (Tehran: Sa’di, 1958), 331, Salaman va Absal, ed. Muhammad Rawshan, (Tehran: Asatir, 1994), 118.
103.
Jami, Salaman and Absal, trans. Edward FitzGerald, edited, prose translation by A. J. Arberry (Cambridge: CUP, 1956), 174–175.
104.
Ibid, 341.
105.
Jami, Salaman and Absal, trans. Fitzgerald, 160.
106.
Jami, Masnavi-i Haft Awrang, 330.
107.
Jami, Masnavi Haft Urang, 28.
108.
Christoph Bürgel, “The Romance,” in Persian Literature, no. 3, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 175–77.
109.
Hadland F. Davis, Wisdom of the East: The Persian Mystics, Jami. (London: John Murry, 1908), 23.
110.
Fatima Mernissi. Women and Islam, trans. Mary Lakeland (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), viii, 126, and 128.
111.
Jami, Abd al-Rahman, Silsalat-al-zahab (Golden Chain) in Masnavi-i Haft Awrang (Tehran: Sa'di, 1972).
112.
G.H. Yusofi, Chishmeh-ye Rowshan (Tehran: Ilmi, 1970), 269–78.
113.
Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam (London: Saqi, 1998), 30.
114.
J. W. Wright Jr. and Everett K. Rowson, eds. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature (NY: Columbia UP, 1997), xv.
115.
Ibid, xv and 3.
116.
Paul Sprachman “Le beau garcon sans merci: The Homoerotic Tale in Arabic and Persian” in J. Wright and Everett Rowson, Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature. 192–209, 196.
117.
Gayane Merguerian and Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Zolaykha and Yusof: Whose Best Story?” IJMES, 29, no. 4 (November 1997), 485–508.
118.
Ibid.
119.
Jami, Subhat al-Abrar, 495.
120.
Davis, 254.
121.
Kolliyat, 415.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

School of Middle Eastern & North Africa Studies and Founding Chair of the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Kamran Talattof

Authors

Kamran Talattof
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kamran Talattof .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Talattof, K. (2022). Women and Love in the Works of Nezami, Ferdowsi, and Jami. In: Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature. Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97990-4_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97990-4_3
Published: 29 September 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-97989-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-97990-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics