Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Under circumstances like these it is not surprising to find that a similar claim is raised against the famous exposition of the Sufic system, the well-known versified treatise Gulshani raz. It was composed in the month of Shawwal 710 A.H. (beg. 1311 A.D.)(1) by Sa'du'd-din Mahmud Shabistari (or Chabustari), a Sufic philosopher of Adharbayjan, who died circa 720/1320.(2) The work is probably one of the most popular books on Sufism; its manuscript copies are very common; it was often lithographed and printed in the East. A great number of commentaries on it were composed, and a great number of imitations written by different poets of Persia. Its full english translation with the original text was published in 1980, by E. Whinfield, in Trubner's Oriental Series (unfortunately, I could not find any copy of it in the Bombay libraries to give reference to it in the present paper). On the whole, the work is very incomplete and superficial, the author was badly upset by the requirements of the metre and rhyme ; but the most valuable feature of the work which made it so popular and so well-known in the Muhammadan world is its conciseness, which is particularly welcome in view of the usual profusion of the Sufic writers.

Amongst some Persian Ismaili manuscripts, which I could examine, I found a short work (3) with
the title of Ba'di az ta'wilati Gulshani raz(4), which gives some Ismaili explanations of selected passages of the treaties, thus implying its being recognised as an Ismaili work. This, however, is not explicitly stated in the text itself. The work is not a real commentary, and it is not concerned with the whole of its text. It is better to regard it as an original and independent work based on the Gulshani raz.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. In some Manuscripts the date of composition is 717/1317, cf. H. Ethe, Gr. d. Iran. Phil., vol. II, p. 299.
2 For an account of the author's biography, his works, and details of the Gulshani raz, see E. G. Browne's Literary History of Persia, vol. III, pp. 146
150.
3. The copy is dated 1312/1895, 28 pages of 14 lines each, 4,5 inches by 2,5 in fairly good Persian nasta'liq. It is not free from bad orthographical errors.
4. Here the term ta'wil is used in a peculiar sense which it probably acquired in Persian-speaking countries in fairly modern times. According to the earlier ideas of Ismailism, ta'wil can be given only by the Imami, and can refer only to the Coran and fundamental ideas of the religion, not to any ordinary book.