This work is a compendium of the compositions (primarily in verse) of Ghulām Muḥammad Khān (1830-1900), a prominent Pashto Afghan intellectual of the 19th century. Known by his pen name Ṭarzī (the Stylist), Ghulām Muḥammad Khān was a member of the important Bārakzay tribe of Kandahār. The dībācha (introduction) of this work includes an account of Ghulām Muḥammad Khān and his family's exile from Afghanistan in 1882, which was ordered by Amir ʻAbd-al-Raḥmān (reigned 1880-1901). The important and detailed account of the family's life outside Afghanistan, dated June 15, 1892, was written by Ghulām Muḥammad Khān's son, Maḥmud Ṭarzī (1868-1935), a famous intellectual and author in his own right who is generally referred to as the father of journalism in Afghanistan. It describes his family's stay in Karachi and subsequent immigration to Syria, where Ghulām Muḥammad Khān received the protection and sponsorship of the Ottoman ruler Abdülhamid II (reigned 1876-1909). The bulk of Ṭarzī's dīwān (divan or collection) consists of his ghazals (lyric poems), which are grouped alphabetically according to the last letter of the radīf (rhyme). In Persian literature the ghazal generally denotes a metered and rhymed poem expressing the beauty and pain of love. The ghazal was derived from the qaṣīda (ode); and it matches the rhyme scheme of the qasida, although it is shorter, generally consisting of 12 verses or less. Many of Ṭarzī's ghazals are response poems, referring to earlier poets in the Persian and Indo-Persian tradition. In this regard, the poems of ʻAbd al-Qādir Bīdil (1644 or 1645-1720 or 1721) and of Ṣā'ib Tabrīzī (1601 or 1602-77) figure prominently. In addition to poems in the ghazal form, Ṭarzī's divan includes his rubāʻīyāt (quatrains) and other poetic forms, such as the tarjīʻ band and the tarkīb band (strophic forms, with a series of isolated verses marking the end of each strophe). This edition is dated August 10, 1893. The work was published by Sardār Muḥammad Anwar Khān and printed at the press of Fayḍ Muḥammadī in Karachi. The calligrapher is Muḥammad Zamān. The cover of this copy contains a handwritten note indicating Asmā' Ṭarzī, wife of Maḥmūd Ṭarzī, as the owner, and containing the date 11 Sha'ban, 1336 AH (May 22, 1918). Upon his accession to the throne, the Afghan ruler Amir Ḥabībullāh (reigned 1901-18) gave amnesty to Ghulām Muḥammad Khān's family, allowing its members to return to Afghanistan. A measure of the family's improving fortune is that Asmā' and Maḥmūd Ṭarzī's daughter, Soraya, married Amir Ḥabīballāh's son and was queen of Afghanistan from 1913 to 1929. World Digital Library.
This copy of the Shahnameh (Book of kings) was published by subscription in Bombay in 1906 by the Indian Parsi community. The Shahnameh is a Persian epic poem of more than 50,000 couplets that recounts the pre-Islamic and Sassanid history of Persia and the story of the Islamic conquest. Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi, the author, worked for some 30 years on the Shahnameh, which he presented to his patron, the Turkic-Persianate ruler of Ghaznavid dynasty, Sultan Mahmud, in 1010. This lithographic edition has a table of contents, a prose foreward, the Hajw-nama (a verse lampoon of Sultan Mahmud), the Shahnameh narrative, and a section with additional information (paginated differently). The foreward discusses the modern Persian language, the role of Firdawsi in its development, the greatness of the Shahnameh, the politics of writing the Shahnameh under the patronage of Sultan Mahmud, and the use and consultation of previous manuscripts for the compilation and publication of this edition. The Hajw-nama is a satirical poem that describes the dispute between Firdawsi and Sultan Mahmud; historians and literary scholars disagree about whether or not Firdawsi himself wrote it. The main narrative begins with verse notes praising God, the conception of wisdom, the creation of the world and human beings, the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, and the composition of the Shahnameh. The narrative that follows tells the stories of the mythical pre-Islamic Persian heroes and kings, starting with the mythical accounts of the creation of the world and the first man, Keyumars, the heroic wars between Iranian and Turanian heroes (particularly of the greatest Iranian hero, Rustam). This is followed by the history of the late Sassanian kings and the story of the conquest of Persia by Muslim armies. The book includes a glossary of rare and non-Persian words that appear in the Shahnameh. The final section contains notes on the publication of this edition, the names and professional titles of many notable individuals of the Parsi community in India, and the list of subscribers. Pagination is done differently throughout the text, both in Arabic and modern Persian numerals. Lithographic images depict individuals who play roles in or are described in the poem, beginning with the pre-Islamic Persian prophet Zoroaster. The image on page 15 shows Firdawsi standing in line with other great Persian poets, offering his completed Shahnameh to Sultan Mahmud. World Digital Library.
Abū Ṭālib Kalīm Hamadānī (or Kāshānī, died 1651; 1061 A.H.) was one of the foremost Persian poets of the 17th century. He was born in Hamadan (present-day Iran) but appears to have lived in Kashan (also in Iran) for a sizeable portion of his life--hence the appellation Kāshānī. He received his education in Kashan and in Shiraz before moving to India to serve the Mughal ruler Jahangir (reigned 1605-27). Abū Ṭālib was thus among a large number of Persian poets and literati who left Persia in search of patronage in the Indian subcontinent beginning in the 16th century. Under Jahangir's successor, Shah Jahan (reigned 1628-58), Abū Ṭālib achieved the rank of poet laureate. Later in life he is said to have accompanied Shah Jahan to Kashmir, which became his home until his death. Abū Ṭālib's fame rests principally on his ghazalīyāt (a metrical form expressing the pain of loss and the beauty of love). Of the 10,000 verses that appear in his divan (or collected poems), about half were written in the ghazal form. He is especially renowned for the novelty of his themes, for which he came to be known as khallāq al-maʻānī (creator of meaning). Other characteristics of his poems are the originality of his khayāl bandī (rhetorical conceits) and the aptness of his mithālīya (illustrations). Abū Ṭālib was also the author of Shāh Jahān Nāma (The book of Shah Jahan), a work which, following the style of the epic Shāhnāma (The book of kings), praises Timur and the Timurid rulers up to Shah Jahan. In the present illuminated copy of Abū Ṭālib's divan, the maqtaʻ (final verse) of many of the poems, which generally includes the takhalluṣ (pen name of the poet), is set off in its own frame. The year 1103 A.H. (1691-92) is written in the colophon. World Digital Library. Collected poems of Abū Ṭālib Kalīm.
Collected works of a classical Afghan poet, first published during the reign of Ḥabīb Allah Khān, Amir of Afghanistan, during late 19th century. Divan-i Mullah Rahmat Badakhshani (The collected works of Mullah Rahmat Badakhshani) is a divan of Khwaja Rahmat Ullah Badakhshani, a late-19th-century poet from Badakhshan, Afghanistan. The book's main section includes several forms of ghazal (lyric) poetry. They include ghazal-e char dar char (ghazals in four by four), ghazal-e ka tama-e huruf ash hech nuqta nadara (ghazal poems where the words have no diacritical marks), and ghazal-e laf-o nashr-e muratab (a form in which the subject of the poem appears in the first lines and is then described in detail in the rest of the poem). Some other forms appear in the supplementary section, pages 103-11, such as musalas ghazals (with three-line rhythms), mutazad ghazal (where the verses can take opposite meanings), and rubai (quatrain) poems. The author's pen name, Rahmat, often appears at the end of each stanza. The section also includes some prose, in which the author talks about an imaginary garden, gardening, and different flowers that "look like paradise." Rahmat explains that this special garden does not exist in known places. The last few pages contain information about the poet and his family. His father Mirza Ismail appears to have been a state official and the family was khwaja'zada (descended from Muhammad). Rahmat seems to have been a literary servant or courtier of the local rulers in Qaţaghan, the political center of northeast Afghanistan, but the biographical section is incomplete; the last two pages are missing from this copy. These pages would have clarified for readers that Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, the ruler of Afghanistan, had ordered Crown Prince Sardar Habibullah Khan to collect and publish the works of Rahmat. Matba-e dar al-Sultanah-e Kabul, the Royal Printing Press of Kabul, published the book by lithography in 1894. The pages are numbered, and on page 112 a red-colored hand-written verse by an anonymous author reads: "I provide/write this book for three reasons; do not politicize, misuse, or hide it." World Digital Library.
Divan-i Mir Zahi Afghani Muhashi (Collection of poetics of Mir Zahid) is a collection of Pushto poems of Mir Zahid Afghani Muhashi. There is no information about this person other than his name, which appears in this collection. It is not known whether Mir Zahid is the author or the compiler. The collection is a lithographic publication, printed in Lahore in 1915. The contents and genre suggest that it is most likely a copy of an older work of Pushto language and literature. The work is in five sections. Section one (pages 1-19) is organized by the Arabic alphabet and includes one or more poems starting with each of the 28 Arabic letters. Section two (pages 19-45) follows no order. However, the poems contain similar themes, such as the importance and value of unity in a society, the power and immortality of God, and other ethical and doctrinal themes. Section three, the longest section (pages 46-168), is organized according to an old Pushto alphabetic order, made up of 39 letters rather the current 45. One, or several, poems in this section starts or ends metrically with each of the Pushto alphabetic letters. Section four, which is only two pages, has few a Pushto rubayat (quatrains). Section five, also about two pages, has random verses from the poet, which seem to have been added by the publisher. All five sections contain various discourses about ethics, philosophy, knowledge, education, and related themes, major concerns of the Muslim literati classes, including Pushto poets, at the turn of 20th century, as well as earlier in the modern era. The collection has a number of distinctive, and even unique, characteristics. The poet or a later compiler has provided extensive commentaries and interpretations in the footnotes and margins. While the verses are in Pushto, the commentaries are almost entirely in Persian. In addition to its literary value, the book is an important source for intellectual history and for Pushto literary materials, which have remained unknown among scholars of Pushtun societies. The work has the official Afghan governmental emblem on its cover, but it also lists private sponsors. The first two patrons are introduced as "booksellers of Qandahar." The third person, the designer of the cover page, is identified as Abdul Rashid Mahboob; his name appears on the bottom right-side of the cover page. This lithographic edition is 172 pages in all. The pages have clear Arabic numbering. A Persian handwritten verse note on the second blank page of this copy invokes a religious discourse from the medieval Persian poet Abu Said Abu al-Khair and states that the writer of the note, either the compiler or a later owner, wishes to live until the year 2015 or 2017. World Digital Library.