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The Rose and the Wine: Dispute as a Literary Device in Classical Persian Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Asghar Seyed-Gohrab
Asghar Seyed-Gohrab*
Affiliation:
Persian Language and Literature at Leiden University
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Abstract

As everyone knows, alcoholic drinks, including wine, are forbidden by Islam. Readers of Persian poetry often wonder how is it possible that Persian wine literature is one of the richest in the world and whether the poets and authors ever address the illicitness of the wine in their works. This article examines how one author, Zangī Bukhārī, presents a catalogue of positive and negative qualities of wine in his Gul u mul (“The Rose and the Wine”). Through the genre of debate (munāzara), he shows how a courtly audience may have tried to justify the drinking of wine. The article examines the formal generic characteristics of such debates, showing how the form of the debate is rather appropriate to let forbidden objects or ideas, in this case the wine, speak for themselves thus defending their position in an Islamic society. entertaining in is richness in metaphors and imagery used by the wine and the rose to voice their superiority to each other, but it also addresses a rather controversial topic in an uncontroversial style.

Type
Special Section: Wine in Pre-Modern Persian Literature
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 69 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2014

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References

1 Tafazzulī, A., Tārīkh-i adabiyāt-i Īrān pīsh az Islam (Tehran, 1998), 256–9Google Scholar; idem, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Draxt-i Assurig; also see Lazard, G., “Le mètre du Draxt asûrîg,” Orientalia Suecana LI–LII (2002–3): 327–36Google Scholar; al-Amīnī, M. Rūh, “Justārī mardum-shināsī az manzūma-yi Dirakht-i āsūrīg,” in Haftād maqāla. Armaghān-i farhangī bih duktur Ghulām-Husayn Saddīqī, ed. Mahdavī, Y. and Afshār, Ī. (Tehran, 1990), 323–36Google Scholar; Unvala, J.M., “Buz ud Draxt-i Asurīk,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 2, no. 4 (1923): 637–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; West, E.W., “Pahlavi Literature,” in Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, II (Strassburg, 1895–1904)Google Scholar.

2 For more information on munāzara in Persian literature see Pourjavady's, N. Zabān-i hāl dar ‘irfān va adabiyāt-i Pārsī (Tehran, 2006)Google Scholar, and his series of articles on zabān-i hāl in Nashr-i Dānish, 17, nos. 2, 4, (2000): 27–42, 14–26; many of the poems cited by Pourjavady are munāzāra. See also his introduction to Tabrīzī, Yār-‘Alī, Riyāz al-afkār dar tawsīf-i khazān u bahār (Tehran, 2003), 22–30Google Scholar; Nasrollah Pourjavady has published several Persian debates: Quhistānī, Nizārī, Mathnavī-yi rūz u shab, ed. Pourjavady, N. (Tehran, 2006)Google Scholar; “Munāzara-yi shatranj u nard (tasnīf-i Husām Sarrāf-i Khārazmī),” Nāma-yi Farhangistān 6, no. 4 (2004): 16–29; “Munāzara-yi ‘aql u ‘ilm u hilm u dawlat az mu'allifī nā-shinākhta,” Nāma-yi Farhangistān 7, no. 2 (2006): 8–17; Bulbul-nāma by ‘Alī Gīlānī Pūmanī, ed. N. Pourjavady, in Nāma-yi Farhangistān, appendix to number 17 (2004). (All these and many other debates are discussed in Pourjavady's book Zabān-i hāl.) Also see Mu'taman, Z.A., Shi‘r va adab-i Fārsī (Tehran, 1967), 242–9Google Scholar; E. Wagner in Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. Munāzara. Although outdated, an important study on this genre in Persian poetry is that of Ethé, H., “Über persische Tenzonen,” in Verhandlungen des fünften internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses (Berlin, 1882), II/1: 48–135Google Scholar; see also Abdullaeva, F., “The Origins of the Genre of Munāzara in New Persian Literature,” in Metaphor and Imagery in Persian Poetry, ed. Seyed-Gohrab, A.A. (Leiden, 2011)Google Scholar. Debate poetry is a favorite genre in many literary traditions around the world, and there are many similarities between these poems. A good monograph on this topic is Reed, T.L., Middle English Debate Poetry and the Aesthetics of Irresolution (London, 1990)Google Scholar; also see a varied range of articles on this genre in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literature, ed. G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (Leuven, 1991).

3 See the Safīna-yi Tabrīz, compiled by Abū l-Majd Muhammad ibn Mas‘ūd Tabrīzī (Tehran, 2003), 562; see also Seyed-Gohrab, A.A., “A Treasury from Tabriz: A Fourteenth-Century Manuscript Containing 209 Works in Persian and Arabic,” Persica 19 (2003): 125–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On E‘tesāmī's debates and dialogue poems see Moayyad, Heshmat, “Parvīn's Poems. A Cry in the Wilderness,” in Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, ed. Gramlich, R. (Wiesbaden, 1974), 164–90Google Scholar, 173–80; also see Karimi-Hakkak, A., “The Unconventional Parvin: An Analysis of Parvin E‘tesami's ‘Jula-ye Khoda’ (God's Weaver),” in Once a Dewdrop: Essays on the Poetry of Parvin E‘tesami, ed. Moayyad, H. (Costa Mesa, CA, 1994), 120–40Google Scholar.

5 Sīstānī, Farrukhī, Dīvān, ed. Dabīr-Sīyāqī, M. (Tehran, 1999), 227Google Scholar, qasīda 115, 11. 4545–51. References to the rose and wine appear in the works of many other Persian poets of this period, as referred to by N. Pourjavady. In several of his panegyrics, Manuchihrī Dāmghānī describes the convivial courtly setting with descriptions of the two objects. See, for instance, qasīdas 43, 69 in his Dīvān, ed. M. Dabīr-Sīyāqī (Tehran, 1996).

6 For such courtly gatherings see Parviz Brookshaw, Dominic, “Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-Gardens: The Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis,” Middle Eastern Literatures 6, no. 2 (2003): 199–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Sīstānī, Dīvān, 227–28, qasīda 115, 11. 4552–8.

8 For the aspect of zabān-i hāl and how this literary device is used in debates see Pourjavday, Zabān-i hāl, 97–8.

9 This debate is also included in the Safīna-yi Tabrīz, 234–9. In addition to Nizāmī's munāzara in Khusraw va Shīrīn, Abū l-Majd has included the following debates: Munāzara-yi Sarv u āb (“Debate between the Cypress and the Water”) by Qāzī Nizām al-Dīn Isfahānī; Munāzara-yi shārāb u hashīsh (“Debate between the Wine and the Hashish”) by Sa‘d Bahā’; Munāzara-yi shimshīr u qalam (“Debate between the Sword and the Pen”); Munāzara-yi zamīn u āsimān (“Debate between Heaven and Earth”); Munāzara-yi nār u turāb (“Debate between Fire and Dust”) by Amīn ad-Dīn Abū l-Qāsim Hājjī Bulah; Munāzara-yi sam‘ u basar (“Debate between the Ear and the Eye”); Munāzara-yi nazm u nathr (“Debate between Poetry and Prose”); Munāzara-yi gul u mul (“Debate between the Rose and the Wine”) by Sirāj ad-Dīn Qumrī Āmulī; Āhū u Sayyād (“Debate between a Hunter and a Gazelle”); Munāzara-yi gul u mul (“Debate between the Rose and the Wine”) by Zangī Bukhārī; Munāzara-yi ‘aql u ‘ishq (“Debate between Reason and Love”) by Majd al-Dīn Malik Mahmūd Muzaffar Tabrīzī. The debate between love and reason became increasingly popular from the fourteenth century, and several debating texts, in prose and in verse, recount the arguments between love and reason. One of the most popular and comprehensive debates is by Sā’in al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn Muhammad Turka Isfahāni. For a critical edition of this text, see ‘Aql u ‘ishq yā munāzarāt-i khams, ed. Ni‘matī, A. Jūdī (Tehran, 1996)Google Scholar. These debates have several precedents, including the Risāla-yi ‘aql u ‘ishq by the famous Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (better known as Dāya), ed. Tafazzulī, T. (Tehran, 1966)Google Scholar; for a discussion of these debates see Pourjavady, N., “Literary Debates in the Safīna-yi Tabrīz,” in The Treasury of Tabriz: the Great Il-Khanid Compendium (West Lafayette, IN, 2007), 137–52Google Scholar.

10 Pourjavady, Zabān-i hāl, 463.

11 Bukhārī, Muhammad Zangī, Zangī-nāma, ed. Afshār, I. (Tehran, 1993), 53Google Scholar.

12 As translated and quoted by de Bruijn, J.T.P., “Spring versus Autumn: A Dispute in the Meadows of Thoughts,” Persica 21 (2006–7): 7Google Scholar.

13 Ibid.

14 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma: 53-5.

15 Qārun is the name of the son of Moses's paternal uncle, the Korah of the Old Testament, and proverbial for his wealth and avarice.

16 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma, 55–8.

17 Ibid., 62.

18 Ibid.

19 For an analysis of this genre in Persian poetry, especially in the poetry of Hāfiz see Sharma, Sunil, “Hāfiz's Sāqīnāmah: The Genesis and Transformation of a Classical Poetic Genre,” Persica (2002): 74–83Google Scholar. See also Paul Losensky's article in this issue.

20 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma, 63.

21 This brings to mind the proverbial saying by Sa‘dī who says, kamāl-i hamnishīn dar man athar kard va-gar na, man hamān khākam ki hastam. See al-Din Sa‘dī, Muslih, Gulistān, ed. Yūsufī, G.-H. (Tehran, 1994), 51Google Scholar, 1. 20. For an English translation see Rehatsek, E., The Rose Garden (Victoria, 1990), 19Google Scholar: “The perfection of my companion took effect on me, And if not, I am the same earth which I am.”

22 See Tabatabai, S., Father of Persian Verse: Rudaki and his Poetry (Leiden, 2010), 34–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For this particular description, see pages 38–9. On this poem, see also Dominic Parviz Brookshaw's article in this issue.

23 For the representation of Turks see Parviz Brookshaw, Dominic, “To be Feared and Desired: Turks in the Collected Works of ‘Ubayd-i Zākānī,” Iranian Studies 42, no. 5 (2009): 725–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 See K. Kueny in Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an, s.v. Wine.

25 See Zipoli, R., “Poetic Imagery,” in A History of Persian Literature, vol. I, ed. de Bruijn, J.T.P. (London, 2009), 188Google Scholar.

26 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma, 60.

27 For a discussion on beheaded lovers and their nobility see Seyed-Gohrab, A.A., Laylī and Majnūn: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizāmī's Epic Romance (Leiden, 2003), 130–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma, 61.

29 This anecdote also appears in Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār's hagiography. See Farīd ad-Din ‘Attār's Memorial of God's Friends: Lives and Sayings of Sufis, trans. Losensky, P. (New York, 2009), 135Google Scholar.

30 Bukhārī, Zangī-nāma, 67.