Poetry is the highest medium of literary expression, and it flourished in new ways in the early modern era as literate communities built on the region’s rich traditions. Many streams of commonality were rooted in the pre-Islamic period, more specifically, in the late antique literary traditions. These communities benefited greatly from this shared heritage in the production of their own literature. Knowledge of Arabic, the Qurʾan, hadith, and the vast exegetical corpus greatly enhanced major languages of the arts such as Persian, Turkish, and, albeit to a lesser extent, Sanskrit, which prevailed at courts and in scholarly circles of the era. With the flourishing of Sufi literature from the thirteenth century onward, the Persian language became a major strand connecting some of the literate communities of the three empires as Sufi guides and their disciples articulated their spiritual experiences and teachings. Many scholars in eastern Islamic lands adopted Persian as a medium of literary expression, and many theologians, jurists, philosophers, and scientists who primarily wrote in Arabic also composed poetry in Persian.
Poets experimented with new modes of abstraction and symbolism, drawing on the conventions of the ghazal (lyric poem) and the qasidah (ode), which had been perfected by the masters of previous centuries. This chapter explores how celebrated poets of each empire found ways to reinvent and reshape classical leitmotifs in their respective works and engaged with contemporary sociopolitical and religious concerns, thereby challenging the view that the early modern era witnessed a widespread decline in poetic creativity.
In the first essay, Paul Losensky presents the poetry of Muhtasham Kashani (1528–1588), who developed a close association with the Safavid court society. Muhtasham dominated the blossoming literary life of sixteenth-century Iran. As his many odes to Shah Tahmasb and other members of the ruling elite indicate, he actively engaged with the politics of the Safavid court. Losensky explains that his panegyric poetry not only promotes the careers of his patrons but also projects the public image of the dynasty. The poems for which he is most famous today, his strophic elegies on the Shiʿite imams, do not mention a royal patron, but they legitimate Safavid power through their celebration of the state-sponsored religious ideology.
Muhtasham was equally active in the popular literary scene beyond court circles. As Losensky further explains, his many lyric ghazals set the fashion for amatory poetry in a realistic mode (maktab-i vuquʿ), which flourished in Persian poetry of the sixteenth century, and his purportedly autobiographical treatise “The Lover’s Confection” (Nuql-i ‘ushshaq) chronicles his adventures in the urban demimonde. His large collection of occasional chronograms commemorates a wide range of events, from the deaths of his friends and rivals to the birth of a child, the dedication of a building, and appointment to high office. The selection of poems from Muhtasham’s works includes samples and excerpts of all of these themes and genres, representing not only the varied facets of his oeuvre but the many functions of poetry in the political, social, and cultural life of early modern Iran.
In the second essay, Berat Açıl examines the developments in Ottoman literature through study of the seventeenth-century poet scholar ʿAzmizade Haleti. A selection of poems from his collected works, Divan, is translated along with explanatory notes. As Açılexplains, Ottoman literature in general, and poetry in particular, underwent a major transformation in the later sixteenth century, which was especially felt among the poets of Istanbul, the capital of the empire. Haleti was active in Istanbul, and his work can be viewed both as a turning point in the aesthetics of Ottoman poetry and as representative of the so-called transformation. The excerpts from Haleti’s Divan show his uniqueness in literary aesthetics in establishing a direct relationship with his milieu. For example, the poem related to Abu Ayyub al-Ansari reflects his deep connections to the city of Istanbul. The ghazal regarding the controversy over tobacco consumption, for instance, demonstrates both sides of his poetry, the use of a new element (tobacco) in society as a figurative as well as an aesthetic expression.
In the third essay, Audrey Truschke explores the significant role Sanskrit literature played within the Mughal literary and cultural landscape. The sources chosen include excerpts from The Book of War (Razmnama) and The Treasury of Compassion (Krparasakośa), both written in the later part of the sixteenth century. The Mughal emperor Akbar ordered the translation of the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian epic written in Sanskrit, in the 1580s. The project took a team of translators several years to complete and thereafter was lavishly illustrated and widely copied. Of the nineteen books of this translation, book twelve, the Shanti Parvan, stands out as eliciting particular imperial attention due to its relevance to kingship. In it, Bhishma, the family patriarch, offers advice to the soon-to-be-enthroned king, Yudhishthira. This work sheds light on the nature of ancient political advice and its reception at the center of Mughal power. It also allows us to see how literature (both prose and poetry) was being redefined in Mughal India, the importance of translations within Mughal literary culture, and how the Mughals related to the ancient history of the subcontinent and its legacy of non-Muslim kingship. The excerpt here illustrates Bhishma’s royal advice from The Book of War (Razmnama), the Persian translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata.
The second excerpt is from Shanticandra’s Treasury of Compassion (Krparasakosa). Shanticandra wrote his Treasury of Compassion, a Sanskrit poem, around 1590 to “enlighten Shah Akbar.” This poem is one of several Sanskrit works written explicitly for the enjoyment and edification of Akbar and his successors, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. This body of material remains virtually unknown to Mughal historians largely because few modern Mughal historians work with Sanskrit sources, and these texts have never been translated. Indeed, Shanticandra’s poem is enigmatic in terms of its reception because, so far as we know, Akbar did not comprehend Sanskrit. Nonetheless, this poem and others like it project an imperial reception and accordingly constitute an important part of Mughal literary culture. The Treasury of Compassion furthermore contains valuable descriptions of the early Mughal kings, Akbar’s childhood and military conquests, imperial administrative practices, details of Akbar’s marriages to Rajput women, and Akbar’s din-i ilahi (discipleship program). Translations of this poem make it available for the first time to Mughal scholars and students who do not read Sanskrit. In addition, it broadens our conception of Mughal literary culture as a sphere not restricted to Persian, Turkish, and Arabic but also encompassing works in Sanskrit and a variety of other Indian languages.
FIGURE 9.1
An illuminated illustration of three young men exchanging poetry in a garden from a collection of short love poems by Nur al-Din ʿAbd al-Rahman Jami (d. 1492). The manuscript was scribed by the famed calligrapher Muhammad Zaman al-Tabrizi. The verses inscribed in the corners read: “Sit for a while and extinguish my fire [of love] with your presence.”
Source: Manuscript W.651, fol. 3A
Date: 1589–1590 CE
Place of origin: Iran
Credit: Walters Art Museum