By the time the first Persian poems were written Arabic ‘arūż was already firmly established as a scholarly tradition, even amongst the Persians. The earliest poets were undoubtedly familiar with its basic rules as, together with Arabic poetry itself, it had become a basic element of Muslim education. One of the unfortunate consequences of this situation was that an adequate set of terms for the metres at that time current in Persian poetry was never established. Even now, individual Persian metres cannot be named other than by resorting to clumsy formulas, which are not only needlessly complicated but also misleading, as some of their parts have no meaning at all in the Persian system as it actually works.

Elwell-Sutton made an effort to improve on this handicap of Persian metrics by introducing a set of numerical codes. These codes did away with the illusion of a relationship where there really was none, while retaining the ability to indicate the length of the pattern concerned. Unfortunately, numerical codes have a great mnemotechnic disadvantage, and Elwell- Sutton's innovation, therefore, is not likely to replace the timeworn names of the traditional system.

The metre dealt with in the present paper received the code “4.5.11” in the numerical classification, which indicates that it normally has 11 syllables per hemistich. It is still better known under its ʿarūż appellation: khafīf-i musaddas-i makhbūn-i maḥdhūf. The bit of useful information contained in this name is that every distich written in this metre is divided into six metrical feet. As a matter of fact, this formulation is slightly more exact than the reference to the syllables contained in Elwell-Sutton's formula, which fails to indicate that a half-verse in this pattern may also have ten syllables instead of 11. It should be noted here that, according to Elwell-Sutton, the feet are only a theoretical concept in Persian metrics and do not have a clear function in the actual structure of the verse. In our discussion the abbreviated name khafīf will be sufficient, because the supposed variation of the ideal khafīf metre is virtually the only pattern carrying this name that can be met with in classical Persian poetry. Elwell-Sutton could record only a few cases of the use of one other pattern, the acatalectic khafīf (4.5.12).