Jami

Jami as an old man; identified on a miniature from 1494 attributed to Behzād .

Nūru'd-Dīn ʿAbdu'r-Raḥmān-i Jāmi ( Persian نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی, DMG Nūr ad-Dīn ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān-i Ǧāmī ; and with the title Maulānā ; Born on August 18, 1414 in Khardscherd in the area of Torbat-e Jām in Khorasan , died on November 19, 1492 in Herat ) was a Persian mystic and poet. As a Sufi he belonged to the Nakschbendi - Tariqa , which at that time played a politically and culturally important role in Central Asia . His honorific names "Light of Faith" (Nureddin) and "Pillar of Faith" (Imadeddin) , his nickname "Mighty Elephant" ("of knowledge", Sinde Fil ) and his metaphorical name "Lord of the Poets" ( Arabic مخدوم الشعراء, DMG Maḫdūmu'š-šu'ārā ' ) reflect the appreciation in his time. The honorary name chosen in the early 16th century and then again in the late 18th century "Seal of the Poets" ( Arabic خاتم الشعراء, DMG Ḫātamu'š-šu'ārā ' ) refers to its role as a completer of classical Persian poetry and thus refers to the Islamic religious founder Mohammed delivered suitable name "Seal of the Prophets" ( in Arabic خاتم الانبياء, DMG Ḫātamu'l-anbiyā ' ) as the perfecter of the prophetic divine revelations. Jami himself calls himself "The Old One of Herat" (Pīr-i Herāt) in some poems .

Life

Early childhood in Khardscherd and Jam

On his father's side, Jami’s family came from Dascht, a small town in the neighborhood of Isfahan , after which Jāmi chose his first Tachallus Dashti, before he named himself Jāmi like his father after Torbat-e Jām, the place of his childhood, between Herat and Mashhad . His place of birth, Chardscherd, from which his mother came, played no special role for him. His father, Nizām al-Dīn Ahmad b. Shams al-Dīn Muhammad, was a judge and mufti in Torbat-e Jām as a young man . He was Jami's first teacher of Persian and Arabic.

Scientific training in Herat and Samarkand

When he was about ten years old, Jami and his family moved to Herat, where he initially received lessons in theology, Arabic grammar and literature. Here he made a name for himself as a brilliant and somewhat arrogant student and young scientist within a few years.

An unhappy love made him flee Herat as a young man, and he continued his studies in Samarkand , the science center of Khorasan. After all, who was endowed with an excellent memory and an excellent intellect was considered to be well versed in all areas of knowledge learned at the time.

Turning to Sufism

Sufi dance ( Samā ), miniature by Behzād (around 1490). The central figure in the background was identified as jami. Mir ʿAli Schir Nawāʾi is assumed to be in the figure to the left with a stick.

But he gave up his scientific career, entered the path of a Sufi, and was accepted into the Herater Naqshbandīya. He quickly reached a high degree of perfection under the supervision of the Sheikh of the Order, Saʿd-al-Din Kāschghari, and was introduced by him to the Herater court. After Kāshghari's death in 1456 he was instructed by Chwādscha ʿObayd-Allāh Ahrār. These two Sufis seem to have influenced him most in his spirituality and creativity. Inspired by his connection with Ahrār, Jāmi began his first major work, the first book of Selselat al-ḏahab, and wrote in Arabic Naqd an-nuṣūṣ fī šarḥ naqš al-fuṣūṣ , a commentary on Ibn ʿArabī's works.

In retrospect, Jami himself saw his path to Sufism as predetermined. Chwādscha Mohammad Pārsā, one of the first disciples of the founder of the order Mohammad Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqschband, blessed him as a child in Herat in 1419. That connected him inextricably with the Naqshbandīya.

Jami's role in Herat

Portrait of the Sultan Ḥoseyn Mirzā Bāyqarā, copy after Behzād from around 1490

In 1452 Jami dedicated his earliest, surviving work, Ḥelya-ye ḥolal , to the Timurid ruler Abu'l-Qāsem Bābor. The connection to the court was also preserved when Abu Saʿid b. Moḥamma came to power. Jami dedicated the first part of his divan to him in 1463 . In the following years Jami was not only the spiritual leader and sheikh of the Herater Naqschbandīya, but he also played an important role as a teacher and advisor to the court, especially when the Timurid Sultan Ḥoseyn Mirzā Bāyqarā took over the rule. Together with Ḥoseyn Mirzā Bāyqarā and his minister Mir ʿAli Schir Nawāʾi he determined the religious, intellectual, artistic and political orientation of the Heratian domain.

Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Middle East

In 1472, Jami, equipped by Sultan Ḥoseyn Mirzā Bāyqarā and provided with letters of recommendation, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca . He left his Heratian affairs to Mir ʿAli Shir Nawāʾi. His path led him via Nischapur , Semnān and Qazvin first to Hamadan , to whose ruler Shah Manutschehr he dedicated the mystical treatise Lavā'ih (لوائح 'flashes of light'). Finally he got to Baghdad , where he stayed for six months. He visited the Imam Hussain shrine in Kerbala and the shrine of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib in Najaf . In May 1473 he performed the rites of Hajj in Mecca and began his return journey via Damascus and Aleppo . Here he received the message of the invitation of the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II , who wanted to persuade him to come to him at the court in Istanbul . Jami decided against it and avoided accepting the precious gifts that came with them, and turned to Tabriz . He also refused to accept the local ruler, Aq Qoyunlu Uzun Hasan , so he traveled on and returned to Herat in January 1474. His trip strengthened his reputation and enabled him to establish a political and scientific network within the Persian-speaking world.

Old age and death

Jāmi's nephew Maulana Abdullah Hātifi, portrayed by Behzād; Jami confirmed his rank as a recognized poet. He lived as a Sufi in Jāmi's birthplace, Khardscherd. His grave is in the same cemetery as the jamis.

After his return from Mecca, Jami strengthened his role at court when Mir ʿAli Shir Nawāʾi joined the Herater Naqschbandīya under his guidance. He was also a member of the triumvirate that determined the fate of Khorasan. Still, Jami lived simply and modestly a little outside of Herat. He married the granddaughter of his late first Sheikh Saʿd-al-Din Kāschghari and had four children with her, of which only his son Żiyāʾ-al-Din Yusof, who was born in 1477, survived childhood. Probably for his education, he wrote the anecdotal collection Bahāristān and Al-Fawāʾed al-żiyāʾiya , a treatise on Arabic grammar. He was more and more troubled by old age, which he complained about in the prologue to Salaman and Absal . From 1480 he had his most productive phase as a poet and scientist. Two years after the death of his spiritual guide Chwādscha ʿObayd-Allāh Ahrār, he died after a brief illness on November 9, 1492. Sultan Ḥoseyn Mirzā Bāyqarā carried the costs of his funeral. Mir ʿAli Shir Nawāʾi wrote a funeral speech, which was read from a pulpit in the presence of the Sultan, the Sheikhs and Mollahs as well as a crowd.

Jāmi's humble grave in Herat is still a destination for visitors from all over the world. It is considered a place of pilgrimage ( Persian زيارتگاه, DMG ziyārat-gāh , 'place of pilgrimage'), to which mainly Muslim believers, but also lovers of classical Persian poetry, make pilgrimages, and is located in a cemetery on the northern outskirts of the city. There are also the graves of his brother Mawlāna Moḥammad, his nephew and disciple Maulana Abdullah Hātefi and his disciple Mawlānā ʿAbd-al-Ḡafur Lāri as well as the graves of Saʿd-al -ā Din Kāschgharis and Kamāl-al-Din ʿḤosayn Kschefān Wschefe.

Poetic self-image

mauledam ǧām-o rašḥe-ye qalamam / ǧorʿe-ye ǧām-e šeyḫo 'l-eslāmī-st

lāǧaram dar ǧarīde-ye ašʿār / be do maʿnā taḫalloṣam ǧāmī-st

I was conceived in the cup, but my pen only writes drops from the cup of the one.
Therefore, on the pages of my poetry, I, Kelchler, try to unite both in the name only.

Works

Jāmi's work came into being over the course of nearly fifty years. He left behind works written in Persian and Arabic on a wide variety of subjects, including poetry collections, stories, explanations of the works of other well-known Sufis, philosophical and philological treatises, and even a book on puzzles that were very popular in the Persian-speaking world of the time.

A total of about 80 works were known. It is difficult to determine an exact number because not all scriptures have survived and some have been handed down under different titles.

Literary works

• Nafaḥāt al-uns ( Arabic نفحات الانس 'The scents of familiarity'): biography of the most important Islamic saints
• Al-lawā'iḥ ( Arabic اللوائح 'The Light Appearances'): A well-known treatise on mysticism
• Bahārestān ( Persian بهارستان, 'The Spring Garden '): Anecdotes in verse and prose, based on Saadi's rose garden
• Dīwān-e segāne ( Persian ديوان سگانه, 'The three-part divan'): Collection of poems from Jāmi's youth, adulthood and old age

Illustration for Silsilat az-zahab .
A father gives his son advice on love.

• Haft aurang ( Persian هفت اورنگ, 'The Seven Thrones'): A seven-part epicycle, created between 1468 and 1485, which is partly based on the Five Epics of Nezāmi :
  • Silsilat aḏ-ḏahab ( Arabic سلسلة الذهب 'The Chain of Gold'): Moral Anecdotes
  • Subḥat al-abrār ( Arabic سبحة الابرار 'The Rosary of the Pious'): More anecdotes, based on Nizāmi's Treasury of Secrets
  • Salāmān and Ābsāl ( Persian سلامان و آبسال, DMG Salāmān-o Ābsāl ): Tragic love story of a prince and his wet nurse.
  • Tuḥfat al-aḥrār ( Arabic تحفة الاحرار 'The Gift of the Free')
  • Josef and Suleika ( Persian يوسف و زليخا, DMG Yūsof-o Zoleiḫā ): The Koranic (and biblical as Joseph story ) love story of Joseph , the son of the patriarch Jacob, and the wife of Potifar . This epic became particularly famous. In the tradition of Islamic mysticism, Joseph appears here as the divine beauty in person and Zulaiḫā as the true lover who has to get rid of their marriage of convenience.
  • Lailā and Majnūn ( Persian ليلى و مجنون, DMG Leilī-o Maǧnūn ): The story of two unhappy lovers, whose tribes are enemies, according to Nizāmi. Jami, however, clearly interprets the story as an allegory of the soul's love for God.
  • Ḫeradnāme-ye eskandarī ( Persian خردنامهٔ اسكندرى, 'The Book of the Wisdom of Alexander'), based on Nizāmi's book of Alexander .

reception

Jāmi's works, which almost all refer to works by recognized older authors who were perceived as classical at the time and which could seem familiar with them, found widespread use in the Persian and, in the case of some tracts, in the Arabic-speaking world during his lifetime. As copies, they came to the Ottoman Empire and the Mogul Empire, often in lavishly designed translations and copies with miniatures, and made their way there.

With the Safavids coming to power and their propagation of state-sponsored Shiism, interest in Sufi-oriented literature was lost, and with that, Jāmi's reputation waned. In the 16th century, the Persian poets of the realistic school ( maktab-e woqūʿ  ) who replaced jāmi turned away from Sufi symbolism and a "new style" ( Persian شيوهٔ تازه, DMG šīwe-ye tāze ).

It was not until the end of the 18th century that a neo-classical period began in Persian poetry, during which Jāmi's reputation rose again. Jami was even known as the "seal of the poets" ( Arabic خاتم الشعراء, DMG Ḫātamu'š-šu'ārā ' ) and thus referred to as the last truly great master of Persian poetry.

expenditure

• XVI Century Miniatures Illustrating Manuscript Copies of the Works of Jami from the USSR Collections . Moskva (Moscow)
• Salman and Absal of Abd-al-Rahman Jami . Academy of Sciences and the Writer's Association . Tajik SSR 1977

literature

• Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig : Biographical notes on Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami along with translation samples from his divans . Vienna: Mechitarists, 1840.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jami in the catalog of the German National Library
• Fihrist

Remarks

1. ↑ Michael Barry: Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzâd of Herât (1465-1535) . Paris: Flammarion, 2004, p. 166 f.
2. ↑ The white hand belongs to the person standing next to Jami.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Cl. Huart et al. H. Massé: D̲j̲āmī . In: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition . Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, CE Bosworth, E. van Donzel, WP Heinrichs. doi : 10.1163 / 1573-3912_islam_SIM_1971 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} Paul Losensky: JĀMI i. Life and Works . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica online . Retrieved December 6, 2016.
5. ↑ Khardscherd is located in today's Iranian province of Razavi-Khorasan .
6. ↑ Sinde Fil is a spelling of Žandapīl (colossal or mighty elephant), the tachallus of AḤMAD-E JĀM , with which Jāmi is thereby compared.
7. ↑ For the names of honor, see: Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig: Biographical notes on Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami along with translation samples from his divans . Vienna: Mechitaristen, 1840, p. 14 of the e-book.
8. ^ ^{A b} Thibaut d'Hubert, Alexandre Papas: A Worldwide Literature: Jāmī (1414-1492) in the Dār al-Islām and Beyond. Retrieved December 27, 2017
9. ↑ See essay on the use of the term "seal" .
10. ↑ Pīr can be an indication of age (age = old man), but Jāmi could also allude to the fact that he assumed the office of Pīr (an elder = head of the order = sheik) in Herat. Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig (1840) on this: “Although Mewlana Saadeddin Kiasch had given Dschami the right to appear and teach as a sheikh, he did not want to exercise the burdensome office of such a head of the order or accept any disciples, as much as he did appreciated and attracted talented people. [...] Only in the evening of his days did he understand himself to accept disciples. ” See Annemarie Schimmel.
11. ↑ Ebadollah Bahari: Bihzad. Master of Persian Painting. London [u. a.]: Tauris, 1996. pp. 94 f.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Hamid Algar: JĀMI ii. And Sufism . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica online . Retrieved December 6, 2016.
13. ↑ Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig: Biographical notes on Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami along with translation samples from his divans . Vienna: Mechitaristen, 1840, p. 36 of the e-book.
14. ↑ Ebadollah Bahari: Bihzad. Master of Persian Painting. London [u. a.]: Tauris, 1996. p. 197.
15. ↑ Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig: Biographical notes on Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami along with translation samples from his divans . Vienna: Mechitaristen, 1840, p. 44 f of the e-book.
16. ↑ Hamid Algar: Kāšḡari, Saʿd-al-Din . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica online . Retrieved December 7, 2016.
17. ↑ Jāmi's Lament in Persian . Retrieved December 9, 2016.
18. ↑ Jāmi's complaint in English translation . Retrieved December 9, 2016.
19. ↑ Jāmi's complaint contains the first written reference to the - in this case inconclusive - use of glasses (“Franconian glass”) in Persia.
20. ^ Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig: Preliminary report on Joseph and Suleïcha; historical-romantic poem from Persian by Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami . Vienna 1824.
21. ↑ Mir Hafizuddin Sadri: Nuruddin Abdul Rahman Jami (Djami) . On-line. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
22. ↑ Hamid Algar: Kāšḡari, Saʿd-al-Din . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica online . Retrieved December 7, 2016.
23. ↑ Maria E. Subtelny: Kāšefi, Kamāl-al-Din Ḥosayn Wā'eẓ . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica online . Retrieved December 7, 2016.
24. ↑ transcription according to DMG
25. ↑ Literal translation:

    My place of birth is Jam, and from my pen drips run from the chalice of the one master of Islam.

    That is why my poet name Jami has two meanings in the book pages of the poems.

    Jāmī alludes to the term jām (جام), which has two meanings:

    1. his place of birth Jām , after which he is named;

    2. the jam (chalice) of the jamjīd (pers.جام جم Jām-e Jam ), a topos of early Iranian mysticism, which roughlycorresponds tothe Holy Grail and possibly contributed as a model to its legend formation among the originally Manichaean Cathars . It is filled with the elixir of life and has the shape of a crystal, which reflects the universe in its forms of existence. Once he was handed over by King Solomon to the mythical Persian original king Jamshid ; and whoever owns it remains immortal. The poet Hafiz also mentions him in his ghazeles , among others in the Ṣūfīnāme .

    In addition to the interpretation of the šey'o 'l-eslāmī as "the one master of Islam" (= God), there are two other interpretations:
    • šeyḫo 'l-eslāmī means Sheikh Ahmad Jām (born 1048; died 1141 in Torbat-e Jām), Jāmi's literary model
    • šeyḫo 'l-eslāmī means according to Vinzenz Edler von Rosenzweig (1840) Jāmi's father Sheikh al-Islam Nizām al-Dīn Ahmad b. Shams al-Dīn Muhammad Jāmi, who acquired the Tachallus Jāmi even before his son and was Jāmi's first formative teacher.
26. ^ Transcription according to DMG , in the case of the Persian title according to today's vocalization (since around the 16th century).
27. ↑ Extract from a miniature , accessed on December 27, 2017.
28. ↑ Stuart Cary Welch: Persian book illumination from five royal manuscripts of the sixteenth century. Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1976, 2nd edition 1978 ( ISBN 3-7913-0388-0 ), pp. 98-137; P. 98
29. ↑ The title is identical to the titles of two stories attributed to Avicenna . See Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , pp. 80-82 and 85.
30. ^ A German translation by Vinzenz Rosenzweig von Schwannau appeared in Vienna in 1824 under the title Joseph und Suleïcha; historical-romantic poem from Persian by Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami translated and commented on by Vincenz Edler von Rosenzweig .
31. ^ William L. Hanaway, Jr .: BĀZGAŠT-E ADABĪ. “Literary return,” a movement for a return to writing poetry in the Ḵorāsānī and ʿErāqī styles, which began in the mid-18th century and continued into the 20th century . In: Encyclopaedia Iranca online. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
32. ↑ Download e-book 2.47 MB, accessed on December 2, 2016.