This issue of Iranian Studies is Devoted to the Late Medieval Persian Preacher and polymath, Kamal al-Din Husayn b. ᶜAli Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi, and it coincides roughly with the quincentenary of his death in 910/1504–05. It is based on a panel of papers delivered at the Fourth Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies, which was held in Bethesda, Maryland, May 24–26, 2002, under the sponsorship of the Society for Iranian Studies, and co-sponsorship of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies. It brings together papers on a number of Husayn Kashifi's works with the aim of demonstrating the breadth of his oeuvre, and in particular his contribution to the codification, primarily in Persian, of knowledge in fields covering the entire spectrum of learning in medieval Iran at the turn of the sixteenth century. As such, the volume seeks to “rehabilitate” Kashifi, who has usually been regarded merely as a compiler or popularizer, and to present him as a figure who was instrumental in the preservation and transmission of the state of the art of knowledge in a wide variety of fields in late medieval Iran.

Hundreds of Manuscript Copies of the Qur’anic Commentary of Husayn B. ᶜAli Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi (d. 910/1504–05), known as the Mavāhib-i ᶜaliyya or Tafsīr-i Husaynī, have been catalogued in libraries and personal collections throughout Iran, Central Asia, Pakistan and India. The enormous popularity of Kashifi's commentary, which was known simply as Tafsīr-i Mullā, can be understood primarily by its unique accessibility and literary quality. Although Kashifi himself was well-versed in the many different sciences of commentary, the Mavāhib rarely addresses the kind of linguistic, philological, legal and theological issues that would require an extensive background in Arabic and Islamic religious scholarship. Instead, Kashifi combined an explanatory translation of Qur’anic verses in simple, concise Persian with highly selective citations from other works of tafsīr and Sufi poetry and prose, to create a remarkably short work for a commentary addressing the entire Qur’an.

It is Generally Agreed that the Beginning of the Persian Literary Renaissance of the tenth–eleventh centuries was concomitant with the emergence of a bureaucratic tradition that had its roots in pre-Islamic Sasanian Iran. The avatars of these bureaucratic principles in medieval Perso-Islamic history—Nizam al-Mulk, Rashid al-Din, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, to name the most famous—were trained in Arabic and Persian, wrote scholarly treatises on a wide array of religious, philosophical, and scientific topics, and advocated, among other things, the need for responsible rule and consistent administration according to Islamic law and custom. These admonitions were generally directed at their Turkic and Mongol dynastic patrons whose steppe traditions were often at cross-purposes with the running of a sedentary society that depended on irrigated agriculture, commerce, public works, and systems of taxation. Prominent Persian bureaucrats and their descendents undertook these duties and were able to accrue considerable power and wealth, but often at a high cost when we read of the fates of Rashid al-Din, Saᶜd al-Dawla and Juvayni.

Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi, The Persian Prose-Writer Par Excellence of the ninth/fifteenth century, did not compose his treatise Badāyiᶜ al-afkār fī ṣanāyiᶜ al-ashᶜār [Wondrous Thoughts on Poetical Tropes] to compensate for the lapses of his predecessors, or to make a groundbreaking contribution to the Persian literary sciences. His stated purpose, at least, was rather prosaic. Badāyiᶜ al-afkār was Kashifi's calling card to the new Timurid ruler Sultan-Husayn Bayqara (r. 873/1469–911/1506), which—so he hoped—would secure his place among the literary experts at the Timurid court. That much we know from the author's introduction to the treatise. At the time of Sultan-Husayn Bayqara's ascension to the throne, Herat was at the peak of its glory.

The Work of the Scholar, Moralist and Exegete, Husayn Kashifi, is Fairly well-known, and becomes even more so with the appearance of this special issue of Iranian Studies. On the other hand, the esoteric dimension of Kashifi's work has received far less attention. It represents, however, an integral part of the author's world vision. The goal of the present article is to cast light on the principal ideas and character of Kashifi's work on magic, entitled Asrār-i Qāsimī. This medium-sized book opens like any other, as if it were dealing with a subject as incontestable as pharmacology or astronomy. Its goal, however, is to outline the procedures that enable one to participate in the hidden laws that connect all living things. Kashifi's stated purpose is to make the contents of the voluminous general surveys of the Ancients on esotericism accessible to a wider Persian-speaking audience.

Iranian Society has Traditionally had a Deep Admiration for the Courageous hero or champion, often called jawānmard (lit., young man; jawānmardī—manliness). Such a person possessed the aggregate of all positive virtues of manhood—courage, honesty, hospitality and generosity. One model of the jawānmard is the heroic warrior, as reflected in Persian epic literature and classical popular romance. In Persian culture, Rustam, the legendary pre-Islamic hero of the epic Shah-nāmah embodied the characteristics of the heroic warrior.

A related term for jawānmard is the Arabic fatā (lit., young man; manliness—futuwwa; Persian futuwwat), which designated the ideal hero of pre-Islamic Arabia. In Perso-Islamic culture, a synthesis of ancient Persian and Arabo-Islamic ideals, the ethic of piety towards God, which was influenced by the increasing dominance of Sufism, shaped a second model of heroism.

The Date of the Composition of Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi's Anvār-i Suhaylī is uncertain. It is conjectured that it must have been completed at the end of the ninth/fifteenth century, probably about the time that he wrote another famous work, the Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī. Since Kashifi died in 910/1504-05 “at a ripe old age,” this implies that he had probably already reached an age of experience and wisdom when he started to recast the collection of fables known as Kalīla wa Dimna.

This is not the place to go into detail about the rich and varied history of these fables, and of their adoption in most cultures of the ancient world. It will suffice to recall only the stages of the history of this text that are directly related to the late fifteenth- century Timurid version studied here.

The Pancatantra, the Sanskrit text on which Kalīla wa Dimna was based, was probably composed in Kashmir by an unknown Brahmin around 300 A.D. By using fables which had animals as the main characters, the text aimed at informing youths, who were destined for government posts, about the laws governing political life.

Iranian Civilization Fostered an Interest in Astrology Starting from Pre-Islamic times. Thanks to the studies of David Pingree and R. Lemay and, more recently, of George Saliba, Charles Burnett, A. Panaino, and E. Raffaelli, we are on firm ground regarding the development of astrological knowledge in the Islamic world, and specifically the contribution to it of pre-Islamic Iranian civilization. As for the Persian texts in the field, even though they have been studied to a much lesser extent than those written in Arabic, they contain rich materials which shed further light on the socio-cultural context of science in the Iranian world during the Islamic period.

The Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī of Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi in Many Respects Represents a late medieval summa, or codification, of the Persian genre of ethical and advice literature. Designated variously as andarz, pand, naṣīḥat, siyar and akhlāq, the genre of political advice literature is an ancient one in Persian culture, going back to Late Antiquity and exhibiting concordance with Greek and Indian sources. Most works of Sasanian political wisdom literature, such as the Advices of Anushirvan, Buzurjmihr, and Ardashir, as well as those attributed to the ancient Greek sages Aristotle, Plato, and others, are of indeterminate authorship. Many have been preserved only in late manuscript copies dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and some, like the famous Letter of Tansar, may even have been composed in later periods.

Of the Many Recorded Manuscripts of Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi's Treatise on ethics, Akhlāq-i Muḥinī, only six were planned to have illustrations to the text. The manuscript bearing what is ostensibly the earliest date (900/1494-95), was acquired by the Royal Ontario Museum in 1997. It opens with a shamsah, inscribed with a dedication to the Timurid prince Abu’l-Muhsin, and containing the date 900 in numerals (fig. 1). On the last folio, a quatrain relating to the year of composition of the treatise contains a chronogram as well as the date 900 in numerals. The abjad date can, however, be read either as “900” or “907,” and Maria Subtelny has demonstrated convincingly that the latter date must be the correct one, as the text contains a reference to the reconciliation of Abu’l-Muhsin and his father Sultan-Husayn, which took place around 906/1500. Therefore, the work could not have been composed in 900 A.H., and, consequently, the attribution of the Toronto manuscript to this date is false.