The Shahnama in Contemporary Iranian Art

Sadegh Tirafkan (Iranian, 1965–2013). Multitude 10, 2008. Digital photo collage, lambda print; H. 29 1/8 in. (74 cm), W. 44 1/8 in. (112 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, 2011 NoRuz at the Met Benefit, 2013 (2013.258). Courtesy Met Museum.

by Courtney A. Stewart, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Though the vast majority of the Met's Islamic collection comprises historical artifacts, we have recently started collecting contemporary art from the regions represented in our galleries. Deciding what exactly is included in the field of contemporary Islamic art is an issue that has been heatedly debated in past years, including most recently at a conference, Contemporary Islamic Art, Design, and Architecture 2015, that I attended in Singapore just a few weeks ago. Scholars have differing opinions of how to define or label works from this category, and our department takes its own particular approach. For us, the collecting mandate is that modern and contemporary works must relate to the historical collection.

A popular theme for some contemporary Iranian artists is to use iconography that refers to the Persian national epic, the Shahnama (Book of Kings), originally composed by Abu'l Qasim Firdausi (935–1020). In the work above, Rustam Returns at Age 30 after Being Brought Up Abroad, Iranian artist Siamak Filizadeh uses new media and popular culture to reference the hero Rustam. This same character appears in illustrations found in various manuscripts of the Shahnama, including the famous sixteenth-century version created for Shah Tahmasp.

Identifiable by his leopard-skin helmet in both the historical and the contemporary depictions, artists have usually portrayed Rustam in a manner that highlights his bravery and strength. In Filizadeh's work, he represents Rustam the hero as a muscular bodybuilder, with the letter "R" covering a red-and-yellow Superman logo on his bare chest. Here, he holds a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with a small decal of the film character Rambo and wears a Dolce and Gabbana belt. Contemporary Rustam appears with a tiled Safavid-style arch and rocks akin to those found in Persian miniature painting, as well as the Shahyad monument (Burj-i Azadi) built in 1971, considered to be the quintessential symbol of and gateway to modern Tehran. The work is a whimsical creation of an immediately identifiable character and uses visual cues to bridge chronology between historical and contemporary Islamic art.

Meanwhile, in Sadegh Tirafkan's Multitude 10, the artist creates a digital photo collage of young Iranian girls performing exercises in a gym class.

Creativity and High Quality of Iranian Art in Medieval Time

Humay on the day after their wedding has gold coins poured over him as he leaves Humayun’s room. The name of the artist, Junayd, is inscribed in the arch above Humayun's head (Add.18113, f. 45v) - See more at: Asian and African studies blog. Courtesy The British Library.

Professor Blair teaches about all aspects of Islamic art from the seventh century to modern times. She offers surveys on Islamic art, architecture, and urbanism, as well as research seminars on the Silk Road, the Islamic book, and the arts of the object.

Interview by Maryam Kamali, Iranian Medieval History

Dear Prof. Blair it is a great pleasure for me to have an interview with you regarding Islamic medieval architecture. One of the controversial issues in Iranian studies is which period can be specified as the medieval time. Based on art history which phase of history do you regard as the medieval history of Iran?

I would say that for me as an art historian medieval history runs from post-Sassanian up to the modern period. So we are talking about chronological centuries, sometime between the eighth and the tenth centuries depending on where you are in Iran up until the pre-Modern period, which would be around 1500, so up to the rise of the Safavids.

 Based on the characteristics of the Iranian art and architecture to what phases do you divide the medieval history of Iran?

Pre-Mongol and Post-Mongol phases because the Mongol conquests were important for art not just in terms of conquests but more so in terms of the exchange of goods and ideas.

 You have done many precious studies on Islamic Art and Architecture including the Iranian art. What are the main characteristics of the Iranian art and architecture that distinguish them from those of other Islamic countries?

I would say that first and fore-most is quality. Iranian art is excellent, it is first rate, it is extremely creative, it is made from very fine materials and it is often just better in terms of quality; not necessarily in terms of interest or historical authenticity but in terms of quality; it is often better than the arts produced nearby.

 Is this also true about the architecture?

Architecture as well; it is just extraordinarily inventive the methods that builders created to support the domes, the techniques they invented to decorate with the tiles; the constant creativity of architects and artists.

Portrait of a Nation

From the harems of the Qajars to the Iran-Iraq War – a history of photography in Iran

Image by Bahman Jalali. Courtesy REORIENT.

By Sanaz Jamloo, REORIENT

The emergence of photography in Iran dates back to the mid-19th century, shortly after its invention in Europe in 1839. There have been academic debates regarding the exact date, but according to the remarkable collection of historic photographs in the Golestan Palace in Tehran, the very first photographic images taken in Iran can be dated between 1839 and 1842. The Iranian Qajar monarch, Mohammad Shah (1808 – 1848), was the first person to be gifted a camera by Queen Victoria. After a few training sessions with the instrument, the monarch’s young son – 11-year old Nasereddin Mirza – showed great enthusiasm for it, and became passionate about learning everything about the magic box that captured light.

In the following years, the young prince mastered the technique, and took his camera everywhere with him in the palace, capturing pictures mostly of himself, his jesters and clowns, members of the harem, his servants, royal events, and local monuments, in addition to people of lower social ranks serving the royal family. With his photographs, Nasereddin Mirza brought a certain personal and candid quality to the art of portraiture and self-portraiture in Iran. The future Shah’s passion for photography and documenting everyday life played a crucial role in promoting modern art and the science of photography in Iran as a new form of visual contact with the rest of the world. Not only did Nasereddin Shah promote a new ‘magic’ art in Iran, but also embraced photography’s power as a limelight for his social status as a ‘modern’ monarch.

Since the development of photography in Iran, the camera has been loyal as a means towards political ends. The Qajars relied deeply on the visual arts to confirm and solidify their new positions, and also tried to create an identity for themselves as modernisers and reformers, as well as give a completely new picture of Iran to the Western world. Nasereddin Shah established a contemporary iconography of Iran through his own actions and imagination, drastically different from what European travellers to the ‘Orient’ usually depicted. Although the photographs taken by the young monarch did not portray a genuine image of Iran, they introduced to viewers the dominant visual traditions of the long-ruling Qajar dynasty, and also opened a dialogue between two different representations of Iran and the surrounding region: one presented by local artists, and the other depicted by European travellers.

Iranian culture to be celebrated in new UK season of events

Didgah – New Perspectives on UK-Iran Cultural Relations. Courtesy The British Council.

by Danny Whitehead, The British Council

The cultural links between the UK and Iran will be explored and celebrated in a new series of events across the UK, launched January 28 by the British Council.

The ‘UK-Iran Season of Culture’ will feature three months of events which aim to promote, and develop the cultural relations ties between the UK and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Building on long-standing links and contemporary collaboration, the British Council’s UK-Iran Season of Culture will strengthen opportunities for greater cultural engagement, improve mutual understanding, and increase trust.

The British Council has brought together a number of major partners for the Season, including the V&A Museum, the British Library, the Southbank Centre, Asia House, Magic of Persia Foundation, Forest Fringe, the Edinburgh Iranian Festival, theatre groups 30Bird and ZENDEH, Wales One World Film Festival, Modern Poetry in Translation, and publishers IB Tauris.

The UK-Iran Season of Culture will see performances, talks, discussions, and exhibitions across the UK highlighting the richness of Iran’s heritage, the dynamism of its contemporary culture, and the strength of and potential opportunities for UK audiences and organizations in engaging with Iran. The Season comes at an important time in UK-Iran relations.

The Koran Does Not Forbid Images of the Prophet

The Charlie Hebdo killers were operating under a misapprehension. Courtesy Topkapı Palace Library and Newsweek.

by Christiane Gruber, Newsweek

In the wake of the massacre that took place in the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, I have been called upon as a scholar specializing in Islamic paintings of the Prophet to explain whether images of Muhammad are banned in Islam.

The short and simple answer is no. The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery. Rather, it castigates the worship of idols, which are understood as concrete embodiments of the polytheistic beliefs that Islam supplanted when it emerged as a purely monotheistic faith in the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century.

Moreover, the Hadith, or Sayings of the Prophet, present us with an ambiguous picture at best: At turns we read of artists dared to breathe life into their figures and, at others, of pillows ornamented with figural imagery.

If we turn to Islamic law, there does not exist a single legal decree, or fatwa, in the historical corpus that explicitly and decisively prohibits figural imagery, including images of the Prophet. While more recent online fatwas can surely be found, the decree that comes closest to articulating this type of ban was published online in 2001 by the Taliban, as they set out to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

In their fatwa, the Taliban decreed that all non-Islamic statues and shrines in Afghanistan be destroyed. However, this very modern decree remains entirely silent on the issue of figural images and sculptures within Islam, which, conversely, had been praised as beneficial and educational by Muhammad 'Abduh, a prominent jurist in 19th century Egypt.

In sum, a search for a ban on images of Muhammad in pre-modern Islamic textual sources will yield no clear and firm results whatsoever.

Persian Letters

The allure and enduring legacy of Persian Nasta’liq calligraphy

Detail of a work from Sadegh Tirafkan’s ‘Body Curves’ series. Courtesy REORIENT.

by Kevin Schwartz, REORIENT

When the famed calligrapher Mir Emad was murdered at the Safavid court in 1615 – perhaps on account of artistic rivalry or perhaps because of his religious affiliations – an important chapter in the history of the calligraphic script known as nasta’liq came to a close. Mir Emad was not the originator of nasta’liq, which emerged in 14^th century Iran as a likely marriage of two other styles (naskh and ta’liq), but he was nonetheless largely regarded as its undisputed master, attracting admirers among his Safavid patrons, Mughal emperors in South Asia, and countless others even long after his death. His demise brought to end a prolific period of nasta’liq production that witnessed the rise of an unknown script to one heightening the sensory reception of Persian verse to an artistic end in itself, often overpowering the meaning of the texts it was used to write with its visual appeal. In but a few centuries, nasta’liq had triumphed as the premier style for artfully presenting the words of poets and authors writing in Persian, both major and minor (in addition to occasionally being used for Ottoman Turkish, and in rare instances, Arabic). This rich period in the history of the script, the study of which is at times relegated to an afterthought compared to other Persianate arts such as poetry, painting, and architecture, is the subject of a new exhibition entitled Nasta’liq: The Genius of Persian Calligraphy at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. On display there are single folio pages and books featuring examples of nasta’liq in jali (large) and khafi (minute) scripts, as well as the calligraphic implements employed, making for an altogether admirable overview of a script that shot across the Persianate world between the 14^th and 17^th centuries and set the artistic standard for Persian calligraphy.

The Genius of Persian Calligraphy charts the emergence and proliferation of nasta’liq through the exploration of four of the style’s most preeminent exponents: the presumptive inventor, Mir Ali Tabrizi (active between 1370 and 1410); the exemplar of the classical style, Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520); the large-format specialist, Mir Ali Haravi (d. 1550), and the aforementioned Mir Emad al-Hasani (d. 1615). Each of these calligraphers’ artistic output mirrors an important phase in the development of nasta’liq, and lends insight into a specialised world of calligraphic expression. Beginning with the mastery of Mir Ali Tabrizi, whose talents and instruction led to the consecration of a number of selselehs (lineages) in eastern Iran and beyond, and continuing onwards to the peerless works of Mir Emad at the court of Shah Abbas the Great, the exhibition considers how the calligraphers honed their skills through long hours in their ateliers and raised nasta’liq to the highest reaches of aesthetic delight for patrons, kings, and connoisseurs throughout the Persianate world, from Anatolia to South Asia. The end result was the creation of a style equally attractive for calligraphers crafting the looping letters and diamond-shaped diacritics of the delicately curved script as it was for the connoisseurs left in awe of its artistry.

The Strange Fruits of Fascination

Exploring the mutual fascination between Iran and Europe through art in Switzerland

Still from Hamed Sahihi’s ‘Observer’. Courtesy REORIENT.

by Natasha Morris, REORIENT

Though the German word sehnsucht is often translated as ‘fascination’ in English, it also carries with it connotations of longing and desire. Between September 2013 and January 2014, the concept of sehnsucht was explored, particularly with respect to the longstanding relationship between Iran and Europe. Focusing on the threads of contact woven between the 1600s to the present day, a rich and thought-provoking dialogue of aesthetics, politics, and identity was presented, which featured some 200-odd works from both Persian and European classical artists, as well as some of Iran’s most important contemporary artists.

Nestled in a park below the Alpine mountains, Museum Rietberg is widely known as Switzerland’s sole museum dedicated to the showcasing of non-European art. For the exhibition, the building’s transparent façade was covered with confetti of green geometrical shapes that implied a sort of serendipitous Islamic minimalism, while the work chosen for the poster of the recent exhibition, Sehnsucht Persien – roughly translating to The Fascination of Persia – was one of a series of towering late 17^th century Safavid oil paintings depicting quixotic characters amongst ornate backgrounds. Although thought to have been decorated for the interiors of Isfahan’s wealthy elites, the subjects in the paintings were devoid of any concrete identity or attribution, thus presenting an immediate allure for the beholder. An older enigma in the series, that of a blonde, blue-eyed man in flowering Turco-Georgian robes stood out particularly luminescent beneath the dim lighting inside the museum.

The exhibition itself, housed deep within an underbelly extension of the building, presented an admixture of the grace and delicacy of classical Persian and European works with the beauty and brutality of ones by contemporary Iranian artists. The curation by Axel Langer and Susann Wintsch was sensitive in its display of a refreshing departure from the usual narrative of trade in an exhibition hinged on cross-cultural exchange. Speaking with Langer, he told me that the link he drew between his curated works became increasingly conceptual rather than formal, which resulted in comparisons between the pieces that were at times more subtle than straightforward. Langer and Wintsch didn’t shirk from past-present dialogues either, although the works by the contemporary artists in the exhibition seemed to be more influenced by modern-day Iran, their historical ties and connections with a Perso-European past being largely formulated through the curation. Also present there, sprinkled throughout the impressive and varied exhibition catalogue, were black and red caption boxes presenting a tripartite and trilingual dialogue between the works from Baroque Europe, Safavid Persia, and contemporary Iran.

Fake – Idyllic Life

Shoja Azari, Banquette of Houries, (The King of Black), 2013, lenticular 3D depth on acrylic sheet, 76.2 × 105.41 cm. Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York and ArtAsiaPacific.

by Bansie Vasvani, ArtAsiaPacific

In the press release for Iranian artist Shoja Azari’s exhibition “Fake – Idyllic Life” at the Leila Heller Gallery, New York, the artist states, “Faced with an increasingly hostile world governed by identity politics I approached this new series as a way to examine assigned and reassigned identities.”

Referencing famous 19th-century Orientalist paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eugène Delacroix, and Jean-Auguste Dominique-Ingres, that depict slaves waiting on reclining odalisques, Azari attempts to re-envision the objectified female body by making its objectification explicit. This is also an effort to challenge Western perceptions of the Middle East by generating more empowering narratives.

In Oriental Bath or Bunnies R Us (2013) and Oriental Interior or Bunnies R Us (2013), Azari attempts to upend the intentions of the original paintings by replacing the women’s languishing bodies with upright, voluptuous Playboy bunnies. The diptych created by the two works is surrounded by a wallpaper of violent images associated with Islam gleaned from YouTube. The composite is sensationalizing, and thus renders the central compositions impotent. Yet this swapping of female bodies, inspite of the replacements more sexualized and potentially more empowered nature, is not entirely effective. The women remain surrounded by 19th-century depitions of dark-skinned slaves and their Playboy status continues to reduce and caricature. In addition, pale bodies pandering specifically to a Western male gaze resist the reassignment of power.

Wise men from the east

Zoroastrian traditions in Persia and beyond

 24 October 2013 – 27 April 2014 at British Museum, London

Farvahar, Aida Foroutan, 2003. The winged figure is seen by the Iranian artist as a symbol of national identity. © Aida Foroutan 

by Wall Street International

This small exhibition will explain Zoroastrianism, an ancient but living religion named after the Prophet Zarathustra, through objects and coins from Persia (Iran) and beyond.

The display will feature a variety of ancient and modern objects and coins, and will highlight the importance of Zoroastrian traditions in other religions. It will touch on the concept and imagery of the Three Kings of the Christian tradition, who are described in the New Testament (Matthew 2.2) as Magi from the east – Zoroastrian priests in the Persian tradition.

Magnificent Islamic coins from Mughal India which follow the Iranian Zoroastrian calendar adopted by the emperor Akbar (1556–1605) will also be on display.

Modern objects will show the ongoing legacy of this ancient Iranian religion and its significance as a symbol of national identity for Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian Iranians in modern Persia and beyond.

Persia meets Europe in Zurich

by le mag, Euronews

The artistic dialogue between Persia and Europe is at the heart of a new exhibition in the Swiss city of Zurich.

It explores the way Europe and Persia, today’s Iran, began to inch closer 400 years ago – politically, economically, culturally and artistically. Europe dispatched trading companies and religious orders; the shah sent his ambassadors. Rubens drew inspiration from Persian miniatures and Muhammad Zaman created works inspired by Italian and French painters.

An exchange that lives on to this day according to curator Axel Langer: “I think it really comes from both sides. There isn’t one side which has less or more [impact] than the other. But, what I thought is interesting is that the two react differently to each others’ art,” he said.

The adaptation of famous engravings by Italian artist Marcantonio Raimondi is a prime example of the way European art influenced Persian painters. Semi-naked bodies had long featured in Persian painting, but nudes were used solely to illustrate stories and were not intended to be sensual. The encounter with European art brought about a dramatic artistic evolution.

“The Persian nude was something that might have been developed through contact with European sources. We don’t expect it, because we have a certain prejudice or certain idea of Islamic ethical behaviour, and we think this didn’t exist, but it is not true. it was for private use only. It was not copying European sources but they turned it to something new,” said Axel Langer.

Persian literature convention in Sarajevo

ASPS 2013 Conference: Program

 

by Ari Siletz, Iranian



This September the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina will host the 6th biennial convention of the Association for The Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS). The association publishes research on societies significantly influenced by Persian culture wherever in the world they may be, which is why the gathering is in Sarajevo this year. Under Ottoman rule until 1878, Bosnians still carry the Ottoman high regard for Persian literature and still have institutions dedicated to the study of Persian. Over the centuries, this Eastern European city has produced several poets who wrote in Persian.

This year novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi will attend the convention to receive a tribute from ASPS for his lifelong contribution to Persian literature. His monumental novel Kelidar  has been widely read in Iran since the first of ten volumes was published in 1977, but one of his novels written during the early 1980s is still at the censor’s office waiting for an approval that may never come. The Colonel is available in German, English, Italian and Hebrew, but not in the original Persian. The reason is that Dowlatabadi has declined to make the revisions required by the censor’s office.

Unpicking the Negatives

Images of Iran in the West

A German, an exiled Iranian and a Persian singer – at the "Bliss Festival", the clichés are roundly challenged and turned on their heads. If we look beyond the stereotypical images of Iran, we find a culture that has the power to touch our hearts.

by Marian Brehmer, Qantara

Here's Benedikt Fuhrmann, the spotlight trained on him, standing in lederhosen and woollen stockings, typical of Bavaria in southern Germany. But we're in Hamburg, in the North of Germany, and this is a festival of Iranian culture. How did this mishmash come about?

Benedikt Fuhrmann, a photographer and designer from Bavaria, travelled through Iran in 2006 and fell in love. "Fell in love," he says, with the effect that Iran had on him. The country had a firm hold on him, as did the hospitable and friendly Iranian people. So he stayed – ostensibly on his way to Vietnam – for a whole year, eventually expressing this affinity by way of a photo exhibition in 2012.

His collection of 24 empathic images and sound installations, aims to act as an antidote to the negative images of Iran so prevalent in the West.

Benedikt Fuhrmann spent a year in Iran and attempted to acquaint himself with the culture so often shrouded by negative images prevalent in the West. He aims to pass on his findings to a German audience in the form of an exhibition of photos and sound installations. Image courtesy of Qantara.

Art exhibition highlights Molla Nasreddin heritage

by Aynur Jafarova,  AzerNews

Azerbaijan's capital Baku will host the opening of an art exhibition devoted to the heritage of the Molla Nasreddin literary character inspired by 13th century Muslim cleric who was remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes, on June 21.

The exhibition, titled "The value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the modern world", is being organized by Miras Social Organization in Support of Studying Cultural Heritage and takes place in Baku Art Gallery.

The exhibits at the show, which aims to show the value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the present-day world, are devoted to the topics of the Molla Nasreddin satirical magazine, which was one of the most remarkable projects in the history of the Azerbaijani press.

The Baku exhibition features works by young painters such as Yaylagul Ramazanova, Emin Elishov, Shahin Guliyev, Matanat Aghazade, Aydan Aghazade, Kanan Mammadov, Anar Shamsiyev, Gurban Orujly, Vugar Gurbanov, Konul Mammadova, Vusala Talibova and others.

The eight-page Molla Nasreddin magazine, which was published in Azerbaijani and occasionally in the Russian language, represented a new stage in the development of national satire and cartoon art. The features and columns of the magazine were discussions, short witty pieces of writing, humorous poems, advertisement and telegrams, satirical stories, anecdotes, cartoons, caricatures, illustrations, etc.

Persian Influences and Women in Architecture

Gisue Hariri (R) and Mojgan Hariri (L), sisters and co-founders of Hariri & Hariri. Photo Courtesy Asia Society (Karin Kohlberg). 

Interview by Clara Lambert, Asia Society

In the male-dominated field of architecture, Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri have been a complementary force for over 20 years, pushing the boundaries of modern and technically inspired design. The Iran-born sisters came to America and studied architecture at Cornell University in the 1970's. Together they established their New York firm Hariri & Hariri in 1986. They have expanded and redefined the standard definition of architecture by a holistic approach in designing, masterplans, buildings, interiors, furniture, products and, more recently, jewelry and accessories.

The Hariris are often cited as innovators of cutting-edge materials and digital technology that are integrated into futuristic yet organic designs, from luxury residences like the iconic Sagaponac House in Long Island, New York to large-scale multi-use projects like the Sternbrauerei in Salzburg, Austria, which is currently in construction. Their work has been shown at the MOMA, National Building Museum, and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, among other institutions. 

Here, Gisue shares with Asia Society their family experiences, Persian influences, meaningful inspirations and insight.

Before coming to the U.S. for college, you were born and raised in Iran. How did your family and upbringing affect who or where you are today? Was there a cumulative or specific turning point when you realized you wanted to pursue architecture and come to America?

My sister and I are one and a half years apart and grew up in a small Iranian town in the south, attending public schools early on as my father's profession required that we live far in the desert near the oil fields. The desert became both deeply isolating and nurturing. Isolation encouraged our imagination to run wild and develop ideas that a more conventional childhood would have found odd, and we often had to invent our own world, toys and games.

Shahnameh, Re-Imagined: A Colorful New Vision of Old Iranian Folklore

Filmmaker Hamid Rahmanian's forthcoming illustrated tome will bring new, vivid life to the epic tales of the ancient Persian kings.

Courtesy Quantuck Lane Press and The Atlantic

by Steven Heller, The Atlantic

The ancient mythology of Iran is laden with heroic adventures of superhuman champions, magical creatures, heart-wrenching love stories, and centuries-long battles. Ferdowsi's 10th-century text Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), which at 60,000 verses weighs in as the longest epic poems ever written, is a foundation for this mythology, comparable to The Odyssey, Nibelungenlied, and Ramayana.

There has been a long tradition of depicting the stories of Shahnameh, even before Ferdowsi put them into verse. But that tradition reached its zenith in the 17th century and died out in the middle of the 19th. So, for more than 100 years, there has not been an illustrated Shahnameh, except for an occasional drawing of a story here and there.

That will change in May, though, with Quantuck Lane Press's publication of Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, which was produced, designed, and obsessively illustrated over the course of three years by the filmmaker Hamid Rahmanian. The colorful and painstakingly produced tome aims in part to make Persian culture's oldest stories accessible to the Western world—especially to the children of immigrants, for whom these stories may be new.

Whispers of Love

One man’s quest to translate the great poetry of Persia.

Hafez, Iran’s ubiquitous poet, as depicted in 16th Century painting by Sultan Muhammad. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum Of Art/President And Fellows Of Harvard College and The Daily Beast

by Brad Gooch, The Daily Beast

When Dick Davis, the preeminent translator of Persian poetry of our time, was a boy in Portsmouth, England, in the 1950s, he found on his parents’ bookshelf a copy of Edward FitzGerald’s swooning Victorian translations of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Its presence was not so unusual, as those verses (“A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou”) had set off a minor craze. If an English middle-class family owned just three books, along with the Bible and Shakespeare would be FitzGerald. “It was a kind of universal badge of culture,” Davis jokes. Yet he absorbed so much of what he later described as “the candied death-wish of FitzGerald” that he knew most by heart. Instead of anxiety of influence, he experienced an opiated hit of influence.

Teleport forward 60 years, and Dick Davis, white-haired, spectacled professor emeritus of Persian at the Ohio State University and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, is still adding tile by colored tile to a busy mosaic of translation that former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia insists is the “most remarkable poetic translation project in the last 20 years.” He began with epics the equal of The Iliad in Persian civilization—the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, and The Conference of the Birds, Attar’s flight of Sufi fancy about various birds in search of the eternally elusive Bird of Birds. Now Davis has succeeded at the enigmatic 14th-century poet Hafez, along with his contemporaries female poet Jahan Malek Khatun and dirty-minded Obayd, in Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz. Hafez is so beloved in Iran that cabdrivers recite his lyrics by heart and families at holidays tell fortunes by opening to random lines of his poems—attesting to both their seductive beauty and their Sphinx-like ambiguity. Davis reminds us by folding in these two other court poets that Shiraz in Hafez’s lifetime was a poetry genius cluster.

A Rose Garden Of Verse

Persian identity and culture survived the loss of an empire, the obliteration of a faith and the pressure exerted by the Arabic language.

by Eric Ormsby, WSJ

Sometimes a servant can teach his masters a thing or two. In AD 652 Arab armies toppled the Sasanian Empire, ending four centuries of Persian rule in the Middle East. A century later, an author named Ibn al-Muqaffa' opened his treatise on practical ethics, written in elegant Arabic, with slyly exaggerated praise of the "ancients." The men of old, he wrote, had bigger bodies than ours. They had sharper intellects. They knew how to balance the affairs of this world and the demands of the next. By "men of old" this author meant the Persians, his forebears, who would have regarded the victorious Arabs as little more than upstarts, crude and swaggering "lizard-eaters" fresh from the desert.

Ibn al-Muqaffa' was one of the first in a long line of Persian-born writers who effectively created Islamic literary culture. Others include the grammarian Sibawayhi (c. 760-c. 796), author of the authoritative grammar of Classical Arabic, as well as the philosophers Razi (c. 865-c. 925) and Avicenna (c. 980-1037), both Persians who wrote almost exclusively in Arabic. In his ambitious overview of Persian culture from the fall of Sasanians to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University, discusses all these men as early exemplars of "literary humanism."

By "literary humanism," Mr. Dabashi seeks to convey a key concept in medieval Islamic culture, especially in its Persian manifestations. In eight detailed and sometimes dense chapters, he aims to explain how Persian identity and culture survived the loss of an empire, the obliteration of a faith (Zoroastrianism) and the pressure exerted on the Persian language by the overwhelming dominance of Arabic, the language of scripture and all-conquering Arab armies. Indeed, Persian didn't merely survive, it flourished to such an extent that it served as the language of courts from Central Asia to India and gave birth to an enduring literary tradition, especially in poetry, equal to any in the world.