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The Arabic Sources of Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī Khān Ārzū’s Pioneering Work on Persian Rhetoric
Abstract by Alessia Dal Bianco On Session   (Islamic Poetics)

On Thursday, November 14 at 11:30 am

2024 Annual Meeting

Abstract
Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā (The Great Gift) by the Indian scholar Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī Khān Ārzū (d. 1756) is considered the first comprehensive Persian elaboration of the science of meanings (ʿilm-i maʿānī), one of the three branches of Arabic–Islamic rhetoric. A theory with Arabic roots, the science of meanings was applied to Persian poetry in Ārzū’s work. Since no organic description of the Persian language in terms of pragmatics and semantics had ever been written, Ārzū was a pioneer in this field. Ārzū modeled Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā after the Arabic works on rhetoric that had served as textbooks in the madrasas of Mughal India. A close reading of Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā, however, reveals that the Arabic works that served as primary sources are not acknowledged in the text. Using philological analysis methods, this paper traces the unacknowledged Arabic sources of Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā. A comparative textual analysis of Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā with the major works of Arabic rhetoric reveals that Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā draws primarily from al-Muṭawwal (The Long Commentary on al-Qazwīnī’s Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ) by al-Taftāzānī (d. 1390). There is also textual evidence that Ārzū translates into Persian parts of the marginal glosses on al-Muṭawwal by Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī (d. 1413). The paper suggests that a comparison of the Persian text with the Arabic sources may improve some of the readings offered in the published text of Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā, which was edited by the eminent Iranian scholar Sīrūs Shamīsa on the basis of a barely legible photocopied lithograph (Ārzū 2002). Examples of suggested corrections are presented and discussed. In addition, the research evaluates how the Arabic sources were elaborated, adapted, translated, and paraphrased in Ārzū’s Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā. Primary Sources: Ārzū, Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī Khān (2002), ʿAṭiyya-yi kubrā. Mawhibat-i ʿuẓmā (The Supreme Gift and The Great Gift). Ed. by Sīrūs Shamīsā. Tehran: Firdaws, 1381. al-Taftāzānī, Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd (1911). Kitāb al-Muṭawwal fī Sharḥ Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ li-Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd al-Taftāzānī al-Hirawī wa bi-hāmisha Ḥāshiya al-Mīr Sayyid Sharīf (The Long Commentary on the Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ with Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī’s Marginal Glosses). Istanbul: Aḥmad Kāmil, 1330 (Repr. Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya li-l-turāth).
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
India
Iran
Islamic World
Sub Area
None