Introducing the manuscript of the Kholasah Al-Haghaegh by Najibauddin Reza Tabrizi Isfahani

Abstract

The literary texts of each period serve as major sources of knowledge of the religious, historical, political and social situation of that period, representing the lives and times of the people. One of these texts is the Masnavi “Kholasah Al-Haghaegh” by the 11th-century (AH) mystic Najib Al-Din Reza Tabrizi Esfahani (1047 - 1102 AH) , known as the thirtieth Qutb of the Zahabiiya hierarchy. With 3500 verses, this Masnavi (also couplet poem) was composed in the year 1100 (AH) and included mystical subjects, basics of Sufism and ethics, as well as components of the [mystical] way; however, the poet has striven to use the imagery in the book to bring it out of a purely training and didactic book and express the complicated mystical and theological terms in a symbolic one using allegories. Five manuscripts of the Kholasah Al-Haghaegh Masnavi are available. Also, Mirza Ahmad Ardabili (another Aqtaab of the Zahabiiya hierarchy) had published this Masnavi from a manuscript with leaded print in a book called “Kefayat Al-Mo’menin Va Osaf Al-Mogharrebin” in 1338 (AH). This research is descriptive-analytical and uses library and documentary methods. In the meantime, the oldest version was scribed in the poet’s lifetime, i.e., the one with the least error or typing misspellings was selected as the top version and then compared to other versions to investigate the differences between the versions. The manuscripts have some misspellings, found in all or sometimes in some. The poet himself has made some rhyming mistakes in a number of verses.

Keywords

• correction
• manuscript
• kholasah al-haghaegh
• najid al-din reza tabrizi esfahani
• masnavi
• mystics