ii. Andarz Literature in New Persian

The andarz themes found in Pahlavi writings reap­pear in new forms but without much change of sub­stance in New Persian. Short homilies and terse maxims are replaced by longer discourses in verse or prose, which contain the same ideas and sometimes explain the moral principles in detail. As time passes, the content is gradually adapted to the norms of Iranian Islamic culture and becomes greatly enriched thereby. Ethico-­didactic writings constitute a large part of classical Persian literature, certainly larger than in the case of most other languages. Such writings, whether in verse or prose, are termed pand (maxim), andarz (counsel), naṣīḥat (advice), waṣīyat (testament), waṣāya (instruc­tion), mawʿeẓa (exhortation), or ḥekmat (wisdom, proverb).

In the period up to the early years of the 5th/11th century, when the pre-Islamic Iranian culture was still pervasive, all counsels, whether or not translated from Pahlavi originals (for passages in Arabic tr. see, e.g., Masʿūdī, Morūǰ II, pp. 159f., 165, 166, 172, 210, ed. Pellat, secs. 584, 587, 591, 593, 597, 631; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, pp. 40-41, 482-84), urge the individual to learn the conventions of social life, to make himself acceptable in cultured society by acquiring good manners and good speech, working hard and guarding against laziness, shunning falsehood and injustice, and always being truthful and honest, and generally to adorn himself with virtue, knowledge, and skill. Significantly little or nothing is said about devotions and spiritual or bodily asceticism, let alone fasting and vigil-keeping, as means to divine favor and celestial reward. In other words, negative ideas about life do not enter into their concept of piety. When they speak about the transience of this world, their purpose is not to warn the hearer or reader against absorption in worldly affairs but to urge him to be virtuous and do good so that he may leave behind a good name (e.g., Rūdakī in Ṣafā, Ganǰ-esoḵan, 6th ed., Tehran, 1357 Š./1978, I, p. 8; Šāh-nāma, ed. Borūḵīm, pp. 1918, 2261, 2374, and elsewhere; Faḵr-al-dīn Asʿad Gorgānī, Vīs oRāmīn, passage quoted in Ṣafā, Adab­īyāt, pp. 378-79). Both the maxims and the discourses reflect a tradition of personal and social morality and of professional or occupational standards required in tradesmen, secretaries, officials, soldiers, and kings and their viziers and courtiers.

Around the middle of the 5th/11th century, when Islamic teachings had penetrated more deeply and knowledge of Arabic and Arab culture had spread more widely, Iranian culture entered a new phase, which may be divided into two periods: The first up to the end of the 9th/15th century when Sunnism was dominant; second from the beginning of the 10th/16th century when Shiʿism prevailed. In both periods ethico-didactic writers present Koranic verses, Prophetic traditions, and sayings of eminent Moslems (whether Sunnite saints or Shiʿite imams) as rules for life, linking them to Islamic doctrines and laws and to hopes of reward or salvation from punishment in the afterworld. Such material is either added to materia1 from the early period or, increasingly as time passes, substituted for it. The displacement of counsels of national origin by counsels of religious origin is much more marked after the victory of Twelver Shiʿism. Up to the end of the 9th/15th century, despite the constantly growing influence of Islamic teachings of Arab culture, the tra­ditional Iranian counsels are still va1ued and placed side by side with the imported counsels, whereas in the subsequent period this is not the case. The Shiʿism of Safavid times fell under the sway of scholars; of Arab descent from Jabal ʿĀmel, Aḥsāʾ, Bahrain, etc., whom the Safavid kings invited to Iran to direct the training of Shiʿite ʿolamāʾ. These scholars naturally took no inter­est in Iranian counsels, their concern being to propagate Shiʿism and Arab culture (for a more detailed dis­cussion, see Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V, pp. 126-28, 187-92). Thus Bozorgmehr is replaced by Loqmān, and, even then, the maxims are usually accompanied by corroborative reports of words or deeds of the Shiʿite imams, parti­cularly ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, Moḥammad al-Bāqer, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq, and Mūsā al-Kāẓem (see, e.g., Maǰlesī’s Ḥayāt al-qolūb, Tehran, n.d., I, pp. 314-23). In Twe1ver Shiʿite ethical treatises countless exhortations are as­cribed to the Prophet, the imams, and 1eading Shiʿites and used as the basic subject-matter.

Counsel-giving in verse can be traced back to the 3rd/9th century in the earliest preserved fragments of Persian poetry by such poets as Ḥanẓala Bādgīsī and Bū Salīk Gorgānī (Lazard, Premiers poètes I, pp. 12, 21). From then onward it flourished without a break. In the next century Rūdakī (d. 329/940) devoted much of his very large poetic output to mora1 exhortation, some of which have survived in the form of short poems (qeṭʿas). A major contribution of his was a versified version of the Kalīla wa Demna fables into matİƎnawī verse.

Other poets of the 4th/10th century, such as Šahīd Balḵī, Abū Ṭāher Ḵosrāvānī, Daqīqī, Ḵosravī Saraḵsī, Abu’l-Fatḥ Bostī, are all known to have written 1ong or short moralistic poems, but none is comparable to Abū Šakūr Balḵī partly preserved in his Afarīn-nāma, a long maṯnawī in the motaqāreb meter completed in 336/947, which probably served as the prototype of later didactic maṯnawīs such as Saʿdi’s Būstān. The verses, touching on social and moral matters, rules of conduct, man’s duty to control his instincts and im­prove his mind through knowledge and understanding (see Lazard, op. cit., pp. 91-127; Nafīsī, Rūdakī, pp. 1233-60), reveal an outlook similar to that which we find in the Pahlavi andarz books or in the Šāh-nāma and recall the descriptions of virtues cherished by the Iranians in Meskawayh’s (Meskūya’s) al-Ḥekmat al-ḵāleda and al-Saʿāda wa’l-esʿād (Tehran, 1336 Š./1957). The obviously practical intent and the didactic method are far removed from the philosophical theorizing and logical reasoning of Aristotelian ethics.

The very numerous counsels found in the āh-nāma stem from the texts to which Ferdows-1 had access. They may be divided into three main types: Those of the first and most basic type appear in the parts of the Šāh-nāma concerning careers of Sasanian kings, particularly Ardašīr Bābakān (ed. Borūḵīm, pp. 1990-92, 1998-99), Šāpūr I (p. 2008), and Hormozd (pp. 2009-14), and in the account of Anōšīravān’s seven banquet-sessions with Bozorgmehr (pp. 2373-401). The last one, demonstrably derived from Pahlavi advice-books such as the Pand­-nāmag ī Wuzurgmihr ī Bōtagān, consist of maxims of conduct and civility, such as good manners in conver­sation, seeking excellence, behaving like a man, being truthful and honest, avoiding slackness and laziness, amassing know1edge, and the like, each of which is enunciated in one or two verses or sometimes in a half­verse. (Ṣafā, Ḥamāsasarāʾī dar Īrān, 4th ed., Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, p. 69). The maxims of the second type are those put into the mouth of a king as his throne address and his testament. They are generally about statecraft, treatment of the subjects, avoidance of injustice and tyranny, as well as the necessity of obedience to kings and respect for religious ordinances. The counsels of the third type come in comments by Ferdowsī himself at the end of stories of kings and heroes (particularly when one dies or is killed); these include remarks on the transience of worldly life and exhortation for good thoughts, good deeds, justice, and avoidance of evil (e.g., the end of the story of Żaḥḥāk, ed. Borūḵīm, p. 61). Furthermore the story-texts, and especially the dialogues between heroes, often contain maxims which Ferdowsī probably found in his sources (e.g., the story of Īraǰ, verses 509-10, 524-25).

Among the epic poems written after the Šāh-nāma and under its influence only the Garšāsp-nāma of Asadī Ṭūsī (d. 465/1072) deserves attention for our purpose. Counsels and maxims are found in various contexts and one cannot be sure whether the author inserted them or took thern from the condensed prose version of the Garšāsp saga on which he depended. Also relevant are the exchanges of questions and answers between the Brahmin and Farāmarz in the Farāmarz­nāma (Bombay ed., pp. 152-56) and the occasional dialogues in other epics, particularly Nezāmī’s Es­kandar-nāma and works modeled on it.

Among the poets of the first part of the 5th/11th century, one named Badāyeʿī Balḵī (not to be confused with Badīʿ Balḵī, see Maǰmaʿ al-foṣaḥāʾ I, pp. 456-62) made a verse rendering of the Pand-nāma of Anōšīravān in the motaqāreb meter (409 verses) and entitled it Rāḥat al-ensān (ed. Ch. Schefer in Chrestomathie Persane, Paris, 1885; repr., together with Pers. tr. of the Pahlavi Pand-nāmak, by S. Nafīsī in Mehr 2/2-3, 1313 Š./1934). As in other Iranian andarz books of this type, many different virtues of self-control and self-perfection, such as following reason, seeking knowledge, speaking courteously, showing kindness, telling the truth, keeping good company, and being content with one’s lot, are here epitomized in one or two verses each.

The writing of didactic matnawīs and qeṭʿas, begun by Rūdakī, received a great impetus by Kesā’ī Marvazī (late 4th/10th and early 5th/11 th cent.) and Nāṣer(-e) Ḵosrow (d. 481/1088) the author of two relatively short matnawīs, the Rowšanāʾī-nāma and the Saʿādat-nāma. Nāṣer Ḵosrow is also unique in having written long qaṣīdas on ethical, philosophical, and practical subjects.

In the first half of the 6th/12th century Sanāʾī Ḡaznavī (d. 545/1150), after undergoing a spiritual transformation, opened a new chapter by writing poetry with a combined mystic and moral content. The example was to be widely followed. Sanāʾī expounded mystic and ethical ideas and poured forth counsels and homilies in qaṣīdas and qeṭʿas of seldom equalled eloquence and in long matnawī poems, particularly his Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa. His success led a number of poets of the 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries to take works of his as their models: e.g., Qewāmī Rāzī (d. ca. 560/1164), Jamāl-al-dīn Eṣfahānī (d. 588/1164), Ḵāqānī Šervānī (d. 595/1198), in the writing of didactic qaṣīdas, Neẓāmī Ganǰavī (d. 614/1217) in his maṯnawī, the Maḵzan al-asrār, and several others.

One of the ablest poets of this period was Awḥad-al-­dīn Anwarī (d. 583/1187); famous above all for his qaṣīdas, he also knew how to evoke social and moral problems through counsels or critical taunts in short, cogent qeṭʿas. This style of exhortative qeṭʿa-writing was to be brought to perfection by another great poet, Ebn Yamīn (d. 769/1367), whose qeṭʿas soon won renown for their variety and simplicity and for the author’s mani­fest sincerity.

Didactic literature reached its zenith in the works of Shaikh Moṣleḥ-al-dīn Saʿdī Šīrāzī (d. 691/1291 or 694/1294). In his Golestān, with its wealth of moral, educational, and political maxims in both prose and verse, and in his celebrated maṯnawī the Būstān, and his qaṣīdas, he gives counsels on every aspect of private and social life which remain well-known and, for the most part, are seen by Iranians as enduringly valid. In both of his major works, Saʿdī prefers to impress moral lessons on the reader’s mind by means of exemplary anecdotes and vivid comparisons rather than dry statements of principle. This method was main­tained by all the imitators of the Golestān and Būstān.

Following Sanāʾī’s initiative in linking moral to mystic themes, later poets composed maṯnawīs with the aim of expounding basic principles of Sufism and guiding seekers to ways of spiritual self-protection. Their discourses are accompanied by anecdotes and comparisons and are frequently interspersed with moral and social maxims. The number of such maṯnawīs is very large. Names of the authors and titles of the finest works in this genre are listed below: Neẓāmī Ganǰavī, Maḵzan al-asrār (the model for many later didactic maṯnawīs); Farīd-al-dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. 618/1221 or 627/1229), Manṭeq al-ṭayr, Asrār-nāma, Elāhī-nāma, and others; Jalāl-al-dīn Moḥammad Balḵī Rūmī (d. 672/1273), the Maṯnawī, Mīr Ḥosaynī Heravī (d. 718/1318), Zād al-mosāferīn and Kanz al-romūz; Amīr Ḵosrow Dehlavī (d. 725/1324), Maṭlaʿ al-anwār (on the model of Neẓāmī’s Maḵzan al-asrār); Awḥadī Marāḡaʾī (d. 738/1337), Jām-e Jam (important for its plentiful data and recommendations on social and educational matters); Kᵛāǰū Kermānī (d. 753/1352), Rawżat al-anwār; ʿEmād-al-dīn Faqīh Kermānī (d. 773/1371), Moʾnes al-abrār; Kātebī Nīšābūrī (838/1434), Golšān-e abrār; ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Toḥfat al-aḥrār and Sobḥat al-abra@r; Ḡazālī Mašhadī (d. 936/1528), Mašhad-e anwār; Fayżī or Fayyażī (d. 1004/1595), Markaz-e adwār. The above­mentioned works, beginning with the Maṭlaʿ al-anwār of Amīr Ḵosrow are all imitations of the Makzan al­asrār of Neẓāmī, whose works, like those of Sanāʾī, Rūmī, and Saʿdī, were imitated up to the mid-13th/19th century.

From around the beginning of the 8th/14th century, another poetic vehicle for the conveyance of counsels, namely the ḡazal, came into widespread use. The counsels in this genre of poetry are often expressed, particularly in the works of the adherents of sabk-e Hendī (q.v.), in delicate, poetic language, sometimes with accompanying current proverbs and symbolic comparisons; their contents usually have a bearing on the poet’s own circumstances and environment.

Prose. Post-Islamic wisdom literature by Iranians was initially in Arabic. Among the subsequently written Persian books of this genre, some are translated or derived either from ancient, mainly Pahlavi, sources, or from their Arabic versions; some are grounded in the moral and social conventions which had gradually arisen in Islamic Iranian civilization; a few fall into the category of philosophical ethics.

A prominent example of the works translated from Arabic versions of Pahlavi originals is Nāma-ye Tansar (ed. M. Mīnovī, Tehran, 1311 Š./1933; tr. M. Boyce, The Letter of Tansar, Rome, 1968). It is a letter allegedly written by Tansar (Tōsar?), the chief priest of Ardašīr I, to Jošnasf (Gošnasp) Šāh the ruler of Ṭabarestān, answering a number of questions posed by the latter with regard to the legitimacy of the king’s rule (see Boyce, op. cit., intro.; Mīnovī, intro.). It was translated into Arabic by Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ and then into Persian by Ebn Esfandīār (6th-7th/12th- 13th cent.) who included it in his Tārīḵ-e Ṭabarestān (pp. 15-41).

Among the Persian works ascribed to Ebn Sīnā (d. 428/1036) is one entitled Ẓafar-nāma (Tabrīz, 1307 Š./1928 as a feuilleton to the Taqwīm-e Tarbīat; Tehran, 1331 Š./1952, several other eds.). Its contents are manifestly based on Bozorgmehr’s counsels and sayings in reply to Anōšīravān’s questions. According to the preface, the book was translated by order of the Samanid amir Nūḥ b. Manṣūr (r. 365-87/975-97). Another set of counsels ascribed to Anōšīravān is found in chapter 8 of the Andarz-nāma (q.v.), known as the Qābūs-nāma, of ʿOnṣor-al-maʿālī Kaykāvūs. It com­prises fifty-eight counsels, each epitomizing a moral principle, which according to ʿOnṣor-al-maʿālī were inscribed on the wall of Anōšīravān’s tomb. There is also a short Pand-nāma-ye Anōšīravān (Armaḡān 12/9, 1310 Š./1931, pp. 623-26), discussing the maxims which, according to the preface, were inscribed on each side of his decagonal crown; as already noted, it was put into verse by Badāyeʿī Balḵī in his Rāḥat al-ensān.

Ebn Sīnā’s contemporary Abū ʿAlī Ḵāzen Aḥmad b. Moḥammad known as (Ebn) Meskūya or Meskawayh (d. 421/1030) compiled an Arabic work entitled al-Ḥekmat al-ḵāleda from ancient materials, including maxims of pre-Islamic Iranians, Indians, Arabs, Romans, and Greeks as well as wise sayings of Moslems (ed. with intro. by ʿA. Badawī, Cairo, 1952. See also W. B. Henning, in ZDMG 106, 1956, pp. 73-77; M. Moḥammadī, “Āyīn-nāma wa’l-maqāṭeʿ al-bāqīa menhā fi’l-maṣāder al-ʿarabīya,” al-Derāsāt al-adabīya 1/2-3, pp. 15-39, esp. 36-39, and idem, al-Tarǰama wa’l-naql men al-fāresīya fi’l-qorūn al-eslāmīya al-ūlā, Part 1, Kotob al-tāǰ wa’l-āyīn, Beirut, 1964). Two Persian translations of this work were made in India: one, entitled Jāvīdān ḵerad, in Jahāngīr’s reign (1014-37/1605-27) by Taqī-al-dīn Moḥammad b. Šayḵ Moḥammad Arraǰānī Šūštarī; the other, entitled Enteḵāb-e šāyesta-ye Ḵānī, in Awrangzēb’s reign (1068-118/1658-707) by Šams-al-dīn Moḥammad Ḥosayn Ḥakīm.

A little after ʿOnṣor-al-maʿālī’s time, Ḵᵛāǰa Neẓām-al-molk Ṭūsī (d. 485/1092) wrote the celebrated Sīāsatnāma for the Saljuq sultan Malekšāh (465-85/1072-92). The work consists mainly of counsels on governmental problems, statecraft, and royal treatment of courtiers, ministers, peasants, and troops. Neẓām-al-molk has also left a letter to his son Faḵr-al-molk (d. 500/1106) on qualities required of ministers, copies of which have reached us under the title Waṣāyā-ye Neẓām-al-molk or Dostūr al-wezāra, and another essay in the same field entitled Qānūn al-molk (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt II, p. 907).

Counsels on morality, statecraft, social conduct, and education are of course to be found in many Persian prose classics, e.g., the Kīmīā-ye saʿādāt and Naṣīḥat al-molūk of Moḥammad Ḡazālī, the Marzbān-nama, the Baḵtīār-nāma, the Persian version of Kalīla wa Demna, the Sendbād-nāma, the Ṭūṭī-nāma, and the Golestān of Saʿdī.

Among the works written in the late 6th/12th century and early 7th/13th century, one which deserves mention is Makārem al-aḵlāq in forty chapters by the poet and scholar Rażī-al-dīn Nīšābūrī (d. 598/1201; see the notice in S. Nafīsī’s ed. of the Tārīḵ-e Bayhaqī III, Tehran, 1319 Š./1940, pp. 1339f.). Also interesting are two advice-books, the first on political, the second on military matters, by Mobārakšāh Moḥammad b. Manṣūr known as Faḵr-e Modabber (d. before 633/1235); the first is named either Ādāb al-molūk or Kefāyat al-molūk, the second, unique in its field, Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-šafāʾa. A book named Toh¡fat al-molūk written by an unknown author some time after 618/1221 uses material from early sources such as Rūdakī’s Kalīla wa Demna and Ferdowsī’s Šāh-nāma in its advice to kings, and is noteworthy because it contains instructions on practical morality in the traditional Iranian style.

This interest in the traditional mores of the Iranians was maintained in the 7th/13th century. Ḵᵛāǰa Noṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1273) has left us a Persian translation of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s advice to his own son al-Adab al-wafīz le’l-walad al-ṣaḡīr (Short book of advice on morals and manners for a young son). In his treatises on ethics he uses three different methods. In his Aḵlāq-e Nāṣerī he generally follows the Aristotelian method in discussing theoretical and practical ethics (including politics and economics), and views these subjects mainly from a philosophical standpoint; in his Awṣāf al-ašrāf he looks at moral education from a Sufi standpoint. In his Aḵlāq-e Moḥtašamī he writes about ethics mainly from a religious standpoint, presenting counsels and arguments based on verses of the Koran, traditions of the Prophet, and sayings of sages and saints.

From the 8th/14th and later centuries we possess a number of books on ethics whose approach to the subject is half way between that of the Aḵlāq-e Nāṣerī and that of the Aḵlāq-e Moḥtašamī. In the main they tend to link ethical principles to words and deeds of great religious and historical figures, with frequent citation of Koranic verses and Prophetic traditions, as well as poems and parables, in support of arguments. Aside from the Aḵlāq-e Jalālī of Jalāl-al-dīn Davānī (d. 908/1502), which is largely philosophical, the following works may be mentioned: Aḵlāq-e Moḥsenī by Ḥosayn Kāšefī Sabzavārī (d. 910/1504); Aḵlāq-e Homāyūn, on right conduct for princes, written for Ẓahīr-al-dīn Bābor by Qāżī Eḵtīār-al-dīn Ḥosaynī Torbatī in 912/1506; Toḥfa-ye Qoṭbšāhī, written for the sultan of Golkonda, ʿAbdallāh Qoṭbšāh (d. 1083/1672), by ʿAlī b. Ṭayfūr Besṭāmī; Aḵlāq-e Šefāʾī, by Moẓaffar b. Moḥammad Ḥosaynī Šefāʾī Kāšānī (d. 1088/1676); and Abwāb al-ǰanān, by Wāʿeẓ Qazvīnī (d. 1089/1677), a work with a more emphatically religious tone (he planned eight chapters, but only wrote two, and his son Mollā Moḥammad Šafīʿ compressed the remaining material into a single chapter).

Emphasis on religious premises and concern for Islamic culture in the treatment of ethical and related subjects long antedated the appearance of the above-mentioned books. The spread of the teachings of Moḥammad Ḡazālī, who abjured the Aristotelian method of inquiry into ethical matters and based his writings about these matters on Islamic law, Koranic teaching, and intuitive faith, had prompted Muslim thinkers to refute the Greek philosophy and to declare philosophers to be infidels (see Ṣafā, Adabīyāt II, pp. 274-88). Even such intellectual poets as Sanāʾī Ḡaznavī and Ḵāqānī Šervānī joined in the condemnation of philosophy, insisting that human salvation lies only in adherence to religion and Koranic precepts (ibid., pp. 288-92).

The contents of Ḡazālī’s Kīmīā-ye saʿādat (Alchemy of happiness), itself a Persian summary of his Eḥyāʾ ʿolūm-al-dīn, are both abstract and concrete, arranged under four “headings” (ʿonwān) and four “pillars” (rokn) respectively. The four “headings” are knowing one’s self, knowing the True God, knowing this lower

world, and knowing the afterworld. The four “pillars” are about rituals of worship, dealings with fellow-humans, removal of obstacles to religion, and private confessions and prayers to God. Ḡazālī planned the work on these lines with the aim of leading his readers to the “alchemy of happiness,” i.e., the essential element of intuitive faith which would enable them to throw off bad qualities, develop good qualities, break loose from worldly attachments, submit wholly to God’s will, and thus advance to the ultimate and eternal happiness of total self-effacement and absorption in God. In his opinion, character training and moral improvement are the proper concern of ethics and are only possible through fulfillment of religious commandments and purposes.

Ḡazālī’s method is more or less followed by several later writers of ethical treatises, some of which have already been mentioned. Mollā Moḥsen Fayż Kāšānī (d. 1091/1680) even tried to improve on Ḡazālī’s major Arabic work Eḥyāʾ ʿolūm al-dīn. In a book entitled al-Meḥaǰǰa al-bayżāʾ fī eḥyāʾ Ketāb al-eḥyāʾ (Tehran, n.d.), he supplements Ḡazālī’s work with traditions of the imams of the Shiʿites and reported pronouncements by Shiʿite ʿolamāʾ (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt V, Tehran, 1362 Š./1983, p. 334). The same technique of deducing ethical principles from religious teachings, above all verses of the Koran and reported words and deeds of the Prophet Moḥammad and the imams, is used in books which other theologians of the Safavid period wrote in Persian, the best examples being those by Mollā Moḥammad-Bāqer Maǰlesī (d. 1110/1698), particularly his Ḥelyat al-mottaqīn and a section of his Ḥaqq al-yaqīn. In the former he lays down rules, based on precedents set by the Prophet and the imams, for every action in a believer’s life, even for such things as dressing, eating, marrying, and going to public baths. On minute details Maǰlesī quotes precise instructions or counsels said to have been given by the Prophet or an imam.

One of the Arabic classics in the field of adab is a book which is also of religious importance and has strongly influenced Persian ethico-didactic literature, namely the Nahī al-balāḡa ascribed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, the first imam of the Shiʿites. The book is a collection of ʿAlī’s sermons and short sayings on religious and mundane matters assembled and put into literary form by Sayyed Rażī (d. 406/1015), but its main significance for this study lies in the short sayings, many of which give advice on various subjects not unlike the old Iranian counsels. There are also separate collections of the short sayings, which are very numerous—over 13,000 in some collections. The first collection, made by the famous Arab writer al-Jāḥeẓ (d. 255/868) and entitled Meʾat kalema, consists, as the title shows, of only 100 sayings. Many Persian prose and verse translations of this were brought out under the title Ṣad kalema, the earliest being by the well-known poet of the 6th/12th century Rašīd-al-dīn Vaṭvāṭ (for the later translations and commentaries, see the Catalogue of Tehran University Library, vol. 2, pp. 137-41). The main collection containing most, if not all, of ʿAlī’s real or purported short sayings, was made in the 5th/11th century by Nāseḥ-al-dīn Abu’l-Fatḥ Āmedī, a contemporary of Sayyed Rażī, the compiler of the Nahī al-balāḡa; it is entitled Ḡorar al-ḥekam wa dorar al-kalem and consists of twenty-nine chapters arranged in the alphabetical order of the spelling of the first word of each saying (Bombay, 1280/1863). A Persian commentary on this work was made by Āqā Jamāl Ḵᵛānsārī (d. 1125/1713), and a complete translation was produced by ʿAbd-al-Karīm Qazvīnī, a contemporary of the Safavid king Solṭān Ḥosayn.

The Nahī al-balāḡa was, of course, not the only channel of Arabic influence on the language and content of Persian ethico-didactic writings. Virtually all Persian prose writers and poets had some knowledge of Arabic texts and, roughly speaking, from the 6th/12th century onward they showed a fondness for filling their works with references to well-known sayings of Arab orators, sages, and poets, and for citing Arabic maxims as proof of arguments. Good examples of this style of writing by pretentious Persian scribes are to be found in Ṣaʿd-al-dīn Varāvīnī’s version of the Marzbān-nāma and Ḥosayn Kāšefī’s version of Kalīla wa Demna, in the works of historians such as Ebn Bībī, ʿAṭā Malek Jovaynī, Nāṣer-al-dīn Monšī, and Waṣṣāf, and in collections of letters from subsequent centuries.

None of these Arabic influences left such a mark on the Persian language as the practice of paraphrasing Koranic verses, Prophetic traditions, and sayings of saints, etc. Most quotations of this type are, by their very nature, religious injunctions, and they are presented by didactic writers as keys to happiness in the present life and salvation in the afterlife. Such material is used in different ways: Either an entire verse, report, or saying, or a part of it having special importance for the writer, may be brought into the Persian discourse, or a mere reference to it may be considered sufficient. The practice is best illustrated in Persian writings of mystics, Sufis, and preachers, such as the Maǰāles of Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Karīm Šahrestānī (d. 548/1153), the Ketāb al-taṣfīa of Abū Manṣūr ʿAbbādī (d. 547/1152), the Ketāb al- maʿāref of Bahāʾ-al-dīn Moḥammad Balḵī (d. 628/1230), and the Maṯnawī of Jalāl-al-dīn Moḥammad Balḵī Rūmī and all matnawīs modeled on it (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt II, pp. 953-54, 1019-22; idem, Ganǰīna-ye soḵan, Tehran, 1353 Š./1974, II, pp. 207-20). Some of these authors extended the practice to letter-writing, as can be seen in surviving collections of their letters, e.g., the Makātīb of ʿAyn-al-qożāt Hamadānī (d. 523/1130; 2 vols., repr. Tehran, 1362 Š./1983), and the Maktūbāt of Rūmī (Tehran, 1356 Š./1977).

Counsels and maxims of Indian origin have also entered Persian literature as a natural result of the translation of Indian writings. They are generally linked to exemplifying allegories and parables, as in Kalīla wa Demna, the Sendbād-nāma, and the Ṭūṭī-nāma. Translation from Sanskrit into Persian was pursued until relatively late times, in particular in the reigns of Akbar (963-1014/1605-56), Jahāngīr (1014-37/1605-27), and Šāh Jahān (1037-69/1627-59).

Perhaps to a wider extent than any other influence, the ideas of Iranian mystics and Sufis have left their stamp on the content of Persian ethico-didactic literature. From early times such men began (as already noted) to propagate their ideas by writing as well as preaching. They composed maṯnawīs, qaṣīdas, ḡazals, prose treatises and, above all, accounts of the lives and sayings of Sufi saints and leaders. The number of such writings is extremely large (some are listed in the bibliography). Works such as Hoǰvīrī’s Kašf al-maḥǰūb, ʿAṭṭār’s Taḏkerat al-awlīāʾ, Jāmī’s Nafaḥāt al-ons, ʿAlī Ṣafī’s Rašaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt contain so many moral exhortations and educational and other counsels that these alone could fill separate volumes. They are usually centered on themes such as self-perfection, moral purification, spiritual detachment, intensification of faith, self-respect, magnanimity, service to fellow-men, generosity and charity, or avoidance of greed, ambition, distrust, hypocrisy, untruthfulness, dishonesty, and conceit—in short, on ways to become a perfect man who will seek, heed, and see only God.

Sufi shaikhs made abundant use of Koranic verses and reported words and deeds of great Moslem theologians and mystics as instructional material for their disciples and for people in general. Their teachings hinge on Koranic precepts and Islamic norms as they understood them. With the passage of time and the maturation of Islamic Iranian civilization, this characteristic of Sufi didactics becomes more marked. The later writers appear to have completely lost touch with their Iranian ancestors. They show no knowledge of the moral teachings and counsels to be found not only in Pahlavi andarz texts but also in Persian books such as Abū Šakūr Balḵī’s Āfarīn-nāma, Badāyeʿī Balḵī’s Rāḥat al-ensān, Ferdowsī’s Šāh-nāma, and ʿOnṣor-al-maʿālī’s Andarz-nāma.