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Jāmī's Salāmān va Absāl: Political Statements and Mystical Advice Addressed to the Āq Qoyūnlū Court of Sultān Ya‘qūb (d. 896/1490)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Chad G. Lingwood
Chad G. Lingwood*
Affiliation:
Grand Valley State University, USA
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Abstract

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.

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Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , March 2011 , pp. 175 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2011

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References

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13 al-Ghazālī, Nasīhat al-mulūk, 37; Bagley, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings, 24.

14 Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 56.

15 Jāmī, SA, 405, lines 278–791.

16 Jāmī, SA, 405, line 290. In Persian: ‘adl dārad mulk rā qāyim na dīn.

17 Jāmī, SA, 406, line 291. In Persian: kufr kaishī ku ba ‘adl āyad farih mulk rā az zālim-i dīndār bih. The statement is also contained in the Siyar al-mulūk, the Nasīhat al-mulūk, and the Akhlāq-i Jalālī where it appears in Arabic as: al-mulk yabqā ma‘a al-kufr wa lā yabqā ma‘a al-zulm. See Nizām al-Mulk, Siyar al-mulūk: Siyāsat-nāma, ta‘līf-i Khvāja Nizām al-Mulk Abū ‘Alī Hasan Tūsī, ed. Darke, Hubert (Tehran, 1340/1962), 17Google Scholar; Darke, Hubert, trans., The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (London, 1978), 12Google Scholar; al-Ghazālī, Nasīhat al-mulūk, 82; Bagley, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings, 46; and Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 138.

18 See Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Rahmān Jāmī, Bahāristān va rasā’il-i Jāmī: Mushtamil bar risālahā-yi musīqī, ‘arūz, qāfiya, Chihil hadīs, Naiya, Lavāmi‘, Sharh-i Taiya, Lavāyih va Sar'rishta, ed. Afsahzād, A‘lā-Khān, Jān, Muhammad ‘Umarov, and Zuhūr al-Dīn, Abū Bakr (Tehran, 1379/2000), 52–53Google Scholar.

19 Jāmī, SA, 437, lines 897–904.

20 al-Ghazālī. Nasīhat al-mulūk, 139; Bagley, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings, 83. For the contention that al-Ghazālī did not write the section of the Nasīhat al-mulūk concerning kingship, see Crone, Patricia, “Did al-Ghazālī Write a Mirror for Princes? On the Authorship of Nasīhat al-mulūk,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1998): 167–191Google Scholar.

21 Tūsī, Nasīr al-Dīn, Akhlāq-i Nāsirī, ed. Mīnuvī, Mujtabā and ‘Alī, Rizā Haidarī (Tehran, 1357/1978), 109–111Google Scholar; Wickens, G. M., trans., The Nasirean Ethics (London, 1964), 80–81Google Scholar.

22 Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 27. The cardinal virtues described by Tūsī and Davānī are Platonic in origin, they appear twice in The Republic and entered Islamic political literature through the Tahzīb al-akhlāq of Abū ‘Alī Muhammad b. Miskavaih (d. 421/1030). See Walzer, R., “Some Aspects of Miskawaih's Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq,” in Studi Orientalistici in Onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida, 2 vols. (Rome, 1956), 2: 606–607Google Scholar.

23 Jāmī, SA, 405, line 284.

24 Kai Kā’ūs b. Iskandar, Qābūs-nāma, 30–32; Levy, A Mirror for Princes, 45–48.

25 Tūsī, Akhlāq-i Nāsirī, 341–344; Wickens, Nasirean Ethics, 258–260.

26 Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 161–165. The term nāmūs-i ilāhī also implies “divine commandment.”

27 Jāmī, SA, 444, lines 1034 and 1036.

28 Jāmī, SA, 444, line 1044.

29 Jāmī, SA, 445, lines 1063 and 1074.

30 Jāmī, SA, 396, lines 116–117.

31 Paul, Jürgen, Die politische und soziale Bedeutung der Naqšbandiyya in Mittelasien im 15. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1991), 219–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 136. For the original, see Divān-i Hāfiz, ed. Nātil-Khānlārī, Parvīz (Tehran, 1359/1980–81), 974Google Scholar.

33 In Persian: dīn va daulat du barādarand. The aphorism appears in: al-Ghazālī, Nasīhat al-mulūk, 106; Bagley, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings, 59; al-Mulk, Siyar al-mulūk: Siyāsat-nāma, 75; Darke, Book of Government, 60; Tūsī, Akhlāq-i Nāsirī, 285; Wickens, Nasirean Ethics, 215; and Davānī, Akhlāq-i Jalālī, 53 where it is stated in Arabic: al-dīnu wa al-mulku tawāmāni.

34 Jāmī, SA, 397, line 119.

35 Jāmī, SA, 397, line 119.

36 Lory, Pierre, “Kashifi's Asrār-i Qāsimī and Timurid Magic,” Iranian Studies 36, no. 4 (2003): 536–537CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Knysh, Alexander D., trans., Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism: Al-Risala al-qushayriyya fi ‘ilm al-tasawwuf (Reading, 2007), 111Google Scholar; Nicholson, Reynold A., trans., The Kashf, al-Mahjúb: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Súfism, by ‘Alí b. ‘Uthmán al-Jullábí al-Hujwírí (London, 1970), 294Google Scholar.

38 Jāmī, SA, 403, line 238.

39 Subtelny, “Late Medieval Persian Summa,” 604.

40 Jāmī, Masnavī-yi haft aurang, 1: 597, lines 838–876. See also 1: 600, lines 892–901.

41 Jāmī, SA, 403, lines 232 and 235. On the importance of this formulation to Naqshbandī devotional regimens, see Gall, Dina Le, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandīs in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany, NY, 2005), 110–113Google Scholar.

42 Knysh, Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism, 111; Nicholson, Kashf al-Mahjúb, 294.

43 Jāmī, SA, 401, line 199.

44 Jāmī, SA, 402–403, lines 231–232.

45 Jāmī, SA, 402, lines 226–229.

46 Khalil, Atif, “Ibn al-‘Arabī on the Three Conditions of Tawba,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 17, no. 4 (2006): 403–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the prevalence of Ibn ‘Arabi's metaphysics in the works of Jāmī, see Rizvi, Sajjad H., “The Existential Breath of al-rahmān and the Munificent Grace of al-rahīm: The Tafsīr Sūrat al-Fātiha of Jāmī and the School of Ibn ‘Arabī,” Journal of Qur'anic Studies 8, no. 1 (2006): 65–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Khalil, “Ibn al-‘Arabī,” 404. The verse in the Qur’ān, reads: “And turn all together to God, O you believers; haply so you will prosper.”

48 Jāmī, SA, 436, line 877.

49 Jāmī, SA, 403, line 235.

50 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975), 112. See Qur'ān 12: 53 and 75: 2.

51 Nicholson, Kashf al-Mahjúb, 200–201.

52 Nicholson, Kashf al-Mahjúb, 196–197.

53 “O soul at peace, return unto thy Lord, well-pleased, well-pleasing! Enter thou among My servants! Enter thou My paradise!” Qur'ān 89: 27–28.

54 Jāmī, SA, 426–427, lines 688–702; 427–428, lines 718–732; 447, lines 1098–1100.

55 Jāmī, SA, 426, lines 693–694.

56 Jāmī, SA, 426, line 694.

57 Jāmī, SA, 426, lines 699–700.

58 See Knysh, Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism, 237–242.

59 Jāmī, SA, 427, line 713.

60 The verse (7:172) reads: And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify to themselves, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ (a-lastu bi-rabbi-kum) They said, ‘Yes, we testify’ (balā shahidnā).

61 Nicholson, Kashf al-Mahjúb, 388.

62 Jāmī, SA, 428, lines 719–722.

63 An allusion to the central theme of Qur'anic mythology, the act of creation when the divine Pen (al-Qalam) wrote the realities of all things (haqā'iq) on the Well-preserved Tablet, also considered the primordial Qur'an.

64 That Adam refers to men in their state of (spiritual) perfection, see W. C. Chittick, “The Perfect Man as the Prototype of the Self in the Sufism of Jāmī,” Studia Islamica 49 (1979): 144 and 155–157.

65 The hadīth qudsī reads: kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan.

66 Chittick, “Perfect Man,” 143.

67 See Subtelny, Maria E., Le monde est un jardin: Aspects de l'histoire culturelle de l'Iran medieval (Paris, 2002), 137–144Google Scholar.

68 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 112.

69 Jāmī, SA, 428, lines 723–725.

70 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 188.

71 Schimmel, Annemarie, A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry (Chapel Hill, NC, 1992), 58Google Scholar.

72 Jāmī, SA, 428, lines 731–732.