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XII. Nasir-i-Khusraw, Poet, Traveller, and Propagandist.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Every Persian scholar must, I suppose, have meditated at some time or other on the extraordinary disproportion between the vast number of Persian poets whose names are familiar to him, and whose lives are enshrined in the Biographies of ‘Awfí, Dawlatsháh, Taqiyyu'd-Dín Káshí, Luṭf ‘Alí Beg, and other tadhkira-writers, and the small number whose works are read, even in the East, save by the very curious or diligent student. So far as the West is concerned, it may be said, I think, that of only four, Firdawsí, Sa‘dí, ‘Umar Khayyám, and Ḥáfi
, does any clear and definite idea exist amongst educated Europeans not specially interested in Oriental literature. Of these four, thanks primarily to Edward FitzGerald, ‘Umar Khayyám is certainly the most popular in the West, especially in Europe and America; though ‘Awfí, writing exactly a century after his death, totally ignores him, and Dawlatsháh only mentions him incidentally in the course of another biography; while even his personal friend and admirer, Niámí-i-‘Arúḍí of Samarqand, places him in his Chahár Maqála not in the section which he devotes to poets, but in that which deals with astronomers. Ḥáfi, accessible to non-Orientalists in England in at least three good metrical translations, those of Hermann Bicknell, Miss Gertrude Bell, and Mr. Walter Leaf, and in Germany in the complete versified translation of Rosenzweig-Schwannau, certainly comes next in point of popularity.
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References
page 312 note 1 Beyrout (vocalized) edition of a.d. 1900, p. 573.
page 317 note 1 Translated by M. Cl. Huart, Paris, 1875.
page 320 note 1 Dawlatsháh, pp. 83–86 of my edition.
page 321 note 1 
page 323 note 1 See my translation of the Chahár Maqála, pp. 59–60 of the tirage-à-part.
page 326 note 1 The term Malá ḥida (‘Heretics’) is, so far as I know, only employed to denote the Assassins, not the parent sect of the Isma‘ílís from which they were evolved by the genius of Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ, who was the Dá‘i’d-Du‘át, or Chief of the Propaganda, in North and North-East Persia, next but one after Náṣir-i-Khusraw. To connect the older Isma‘ílís, to whom Náṣir-i-Khusraw belonged, with the Maláḥida properly so called, is, therefore, an anachronism.
page 329 note 1 Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum, pp. 379–381.
page 330 note 1 p. 61, 1. 6 of my edition.
page 331 note 1 Evidently 
is here used as the equivalent of the Arabic 
i.e. ‘logical.’
page 343 note 1 Text 
but ‘Utbí speaks of Júzján as more particularly the appanage of these kings, and I imagine that we have here the Persian form of this name.
page 344 note 1 Compare a very similar passage in Book i of the Mathnawí of Jalálu’d-Din Rúmí (ed. ‘Alá’u’d-Dawla, lith. Ṭihrán, a.h. 1299, p. 6, 11. 21–23) :— 
page 348 note 1 “The Most Bright One,” i.e. Fáṭima, the daughter of the Prophet, wife of ‘Alí and mother of the Imáms.
page 350 note 1 I.e. the Seljúqs.
page 350 note 2 I.e. Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Zábulistán, or Záwulistán, generally called “of Ghazna.” He reigned a.d. 998–1030.
page 350 note 3 I.e. the first dynasty of Khwárazmsháhs. “Faríghún,” says Ridá-qulí Khán in his Persian lexicon entitled Farhang-i-anjuman-árá-yi-Náṣirí, “rhyming with Farídún, was the name of a man who attained to the rule of Khwárazm, and whose children and grandchildren are called ‘the House of Faríghún’ or ‘Afríghún.’ These were the absolute rulers of Khwárazm, such as ‘Alí b. Ma’mún Faríghúni, who was the contemporary of Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna (to whom he was related by marriage), and who was murdered by his own slaves. Sulṭán Maḥmúd came to Khwárazm and put the murderers to death.” See also vol. ii, pp. 101–105 of the Cairo ed. (a.h. 1286) of al-‘Utbí's monograph on Sulṭán Maḥmúd, entitled at-Ta’rikhu’l- Yamíní.
page 350 note 4 The text has Gúrgánán (or Kúrkánán): the emendation is based on al-‘Utbí (loc. eit.). Compare n. 1 on p. 343 supra.