KHADIV-JAM, HOSEYN

 

KHADIV-JAM, Seyyed HOSEYN (Seyyed Ḥoseyn Ḵadiv-Jam, b. 1927, Mashad; d. 17 October 1986, Tehran), Iranian translator and scholar of Persian and Arabic. His major publications range from translation of contemporary Arabic scholarship on Islamic philosophy to the critical edition of a number of major works in the fields of medieval philosophy and pre-modern history of Iran.

Born into an underprivileged family originally from Aškeḏar in Yazd, Khadiv-Jam dropped out of school at the end of his elementary studies. During his teenage years, he spent time as an apprentice carpenter in Mashad. Early in his twenties, Khadiv-Jam earned a high school diploma through self-study and in 1959 finished his B.A. studies in Persian language and literature at the University of Mashad. Before long, he embarked on a short stint of teaching in local high schools (Afšār, p. 603-604; Soltāni, p. 44; Yusefi, p. 32). While studying at the university, Khadiv-Jam frequented the literary meetings held at Maḥmud Farroḵ’s (1896-1981) house in Mashad. In 1963, he is reported to have collaborated with Farroḵ toward the publication of Majd-e Ḵᵛāfi’s (d. after 1338) Rowżeh-ye ḵold, an imitation of Saʿdi’s Golestān (Afšār, p. 607).

In 1962, the Ministry of Education arranged for Khadiv-Jam’s transfer to Tehran as an associate scholar on the payroll of the Bonyād-e Farhang-e Iran. Khadiv-Jam had been recruited to work as a librarian at the National Library of Iran (Ketāb-ḵaneh-ye melli) while doing research at the Bonyād under the supervision of Parviz Natel Khanlari (Afšār, pp. 603-4). During his time in Tehran, Khadiv-Jam was a regular visitor to the offices of various literary magazines including Soḵan, Yaḡmā, Rāhnamā-ye Ketāb, and Vaḥid, where he met regularly prominent writers and scholars such as Ali Dashti, Mojtabā Minovi (1903-1977), Moḥammad Moḥiṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾi (1902-1991), Aḥmad Ārām (1904-1998), Ḥabib Yaḡmāʾi (1901-1984), and Jaʿfar Šahidi (1918-2005). In 1965, Khadiv-Jam collaborated with Minovi in the publication of a festschrift on the occasion of the 70th birthday of his mentor, Maḥmud Farroḵ (Afšar, p. 607). Khadiv-Jam was a close friend of Jalal Al-e Ahmad. Al-e Ahmad was an admirer of Khadiv-Jam’s Persian translation of a book by contemporary Lebanese writer ʿOmar Farrukh (1906-1987) on the Arab freethinker Abu’l-ʿAlaʾ Aḥamd b. ʿAbd-Allah al-Maʿarri (d. 1058). During the first half of 1969, Al-e Ahmad and Khadiv-Jam were collaborating on the publication of the first part of a jargon-free, basic Persian translation of the Qurʾan, but Al-e Ahmad’s sudden death on 9 September 1969 halted the project (Khadiv-Jam 1984, p. 38).

It was after his arrival in Tehran that Khadiv-Jam was admitted to the graduate program at St. Joseph University in Beirut. In 1965, he completed his studies in Lebanon, graduating with a doctorat des lettres degree. Completed under the supervision of Professor ʿAfif ʿOsseiran, an established scholar of Persian, his doctoral thesis deals with the life and work of the Central Asian scholar and scribe Šaʿyā b. Fariḡun (fl. 900-950), the author of the Jawāmeʿ al-ʿolum. This latter work is a compendium of classified synoptic notes delineating the scope and subject of the major branches of knowledge among Šaʿyā b. Fariḡun’s contemporaries (Aʿlam, p. 105). Khadiv-Jam published a revised version of his thesis in 1971 in Iran.

The 1960s and early 1970s were the prime of Khadiv-Jam’s scholarly career. During the years spanning between 1963 and 1974, he published more than fifteen books, almost all of them being either translations from Arabic or critical editions of medieval Persian and Arabic texts. The most important among the texts edited by Khadiv-Jam during this period are one of the earliest Persian translations of Ḡazāli’s Eḥyaʾ ʿolum-al-din by Moʾayyad-al-din Moḥammad Ḵvārazmi (d. after 1223) in four volumes, the Mafātiḥ al-ʿolum, an encyclopedic dictionary on six key branches of knowledge in medieval Iran by Moḥammad b. Yusef Kāteb Ḵvārazmi (d. after 976), as well as Persian translations of the Al-Jabr wa’l-moqābela by Abu Jaʿfar Moḥammad b. Musā Ḵvārazmi and the Eḥṣāʾ al-ʿolum by Abu Naṣr Moḥammad Fārābi. He also edited and published in 1973 the Masir-e Ṭālebi, a late 18th century travelogue in Persian by the Deccan-based Iranian litterateur and globetrotter Mirza Abu Ṭāleb Eṣfahāni, also known as Landani.

In 1975, Khadiv-Jam published his critical edition of the Kimiā-ye saʿādat. This first print was based only on four manuscripts of the work kept in various libraries in Cairo, St. Petersburg, and Istanbul. About eight years later, in 1982, Khadiv-Jam completed a new edition of the book, this time based on six additional manuscripts and two lithograph editions of the Kimiā-ye saʿādat on top of the above-mentioned four manuscripts. This edition has been praised in modern scholarship as “the best and most accurate critical edition” of the Kimiā-ye saʿādat (Šafīʿī-Kadkani, p. 31). Another of his publications was the critical edition of a Persian dictionary on the Šāhnāmeh by Moḥammad b. al-Reża al-ʿAlavi al-Ṭusi, whom Khadiv-Jam claims in his preface to have authored the book early in the 16th century; an argument that was later challenged and rejected (Omid-Sālār, pp. 602–14). Khadiv-Jam died in Mashhad after a long illness on 17 October 1986.

Pictures of Hossein Khadiv-Jam with his handwriting. (Courtesy of Mr. Farid KhadivJam)

Mashhad - in Hesar Golestan with Mehdi Akhavan-Sales (Figure 1) description (Figure 1-A)
Mashhad University Club - with Doctor Seyyed Jafar Shahidi and Iraj Afshar (Figure 2) description (Figure 2-A)
The Second Congress of Iranian Research (Figure 3) description (Figure 3-A)
At Gazorgah (Figure 4) description (Figure 4-A)
Mr. Khadiv-Jam (Figure 5)  
Mr. Khadiv-Jam (Figure 6)  
Tehran University Club - with Doctor Salah al-Din and Doctor Ali Fayyaz (Figure 7) description (Figure 7-A)
Tehran - with Doctor Shafi Kadkani (Figure 8) description (Figure 8-A)
Beirut - with Ali-Naqi Monzavi (Figure 9) description (Figure 9-A)
Tehran - with Doctor Shafiei Kadkani and Mehdi Akhavan-Sales (Figure 10) description (Figure 10-A)
With friends (Figure 11)  

 

Bibliography:

Works.

Books and articles:

H. Khadiv-Jam, “Abu’l-ʿAlāʾ Maʿarrai o va ʿOmar Khayyam,” Yaḡmā 180, Tir 1342 Š./June-July 1963, pp. 173-77.

Idem, Derāsāt ḥawl-e Ketāb Jawāmeʿ al-ʿolum, taṣnif Šaʿyā b. Fariḡun, Mashad, 1972.

Idem, “Vafaiāt: Ṭāhā Ḥoseyn ham az in jahān raḵt bar-bast,” Yaḡmā 304, Dey 1352 Š./January-February 1974, pp. 632-33.

Idem, “Ostād Ramażān Kaffāš-e Mashadi,” Yaḡmā 307, Farvardin 1353 Š./March-April 1974, pp. 55-56.

Idem, “Yādi az Jalāl Āl-e Aḥmad,” Keyhān-e Farhangi 6, 1363 š./1984, p. 38.

Idem, “Ramz o ešārāt dar Javāher al-Qorʾān,” Keyhān-e andišeh 9, Āḏar-Dey 1365 š./December-January 1986-87, pp. 91-95.

H. Khadiv-Jam and Mahseti Baḥreyni, Ruz-e mādar, Tehran, 1963.

Translations:

ʿAqaʾed-e falsafi-e Abo’l-ʿAlāʾ filsuf-e Maʿarreh dar-bareh-ye siāsat o tudeh-ye mardom, by ʿOmar Farrukh, Tehran, 1963.

Esteḵrāj-e ābhā-ye panhāni by Abu Bakr Moḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥāseb al-Karḵi, Tehran, 1966.

Raveš-e taṣḥiḥ-e nusḵa-hā-ye ḵaṭṭi by Ṣalāḥ-al-din al-Monjid, Tehran, 1967.

Ān ruzhā by Ṭāhā Ḥoseyn, Tehran, 1969.

Eḥṣāʾ al-ʿolum by Abu Naṣr Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Fārābi, Tehran, 1969.

Resāla-ye Al-Ażḥawiyya fi’l-maʿād by Avicenna, Tehran, 1985.

Critical editions:

Kimiā-ye saʿādat by Abu-Ḥāmed Moḥammad Ḡazzāli, 2 vols., 1st print, Tehran, 1975.

Kimiā-ye saʿādat by Abu-Ḥāmed Moḥammad Ḡazzāli, 2 vols., 2nd print, Tehran, 1982.

Mafātiḥ al-ʿolum by Moḥammad b. Yusef Kāteb Ḵᵛārazmi, Tehran, 1967.

Eḥyaʾ ʿolum al-din, Persian translation by Moʾayyad al-Din Moḥammad Ḵᵛārazmi, 8 vols., Tehran, 1972-80.

Masir-e Ṭālebi by Mirzā Abu Ṭāleb Eṣfahāni, Tehran, 1973.

Moʿjam-e Shahnameh by Moḥammad al-ʿAlavi al-Ṭusi, Tehran, 1974.

Studies and obituaries:

H. Aʿlam, “Jawāmeʿ al-ʿolum aṯar-e Ebn-e Fariḡun,” Majalla-ye Tāriḵ-e ʿElm 8, 1388 Š./2009, pp. 103-112.

I. Afšār, Nādereh kārān: Sugnāmeh-ye nāmvarān-e farhangi o adabi, 1304-1381 šamsi, Tehran, 2004.

M. Omid-Sālār, “Dar-bāreh-ye Moʿjam-e Shahnameh-ye ʿAlavi-e Ṭusi,” Irānšenāsi 3, 1380 Š./2001, pp. 602-14.

M. R. Šafīʿī-Kadkani, “Enteqād az Kimiā-ye saʿādat,” Našr-e dāneš 3/6, 1983, pp. 30–32.

ʿA. Solṭāni, “Be yād-e ostād-e faqid doktor Seyyed Ḥoseyn Ḵadiv-Jam,” Rošd-e Amuzeš-e Zabān o Adab-e Farsi 6 1365 Š./1986, pp. 44-45.

Ḡ. Ḥ. Yusefi, “Dargoḏašt-e mardi sezāvār-e taḥsin,” Keyhān-e farhangi 32, 1365 Š./1986, p. 32.

(EIr)

Originally Published: August 22, 2014

Last Updated: November 6, 2014

Cite this entry:

EIr, "KHADIV-JAM, HOSEYN," Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2014, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/khadiv-jam-hoseyn (accessed on 22 August 2014).