Lala SULTANOVA: "Mirza Kazim bey could translate this tadhkirat at a high level, but..."

Recently, the book "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" ("Memorial of poets") by Dawlatshah Samarqandi, which is considered "the oldest and most authoritative of existing tadhkirats", was published. Yesterday, the presentation and discussion of the book were held at the Institute of Literature of ANAS named after Nizami Ganjavi. Our next conversation is about this. This time Turan's guest is Lala Sultanova, a scientific worker of the Department of Research of Turkic-language Manuscripts of Eastern Countries of the Institute of Manuscripts of ANAS named after Mahammad Fuzuli, who prepared the work for printing and is the author of the foreword and some notes. We talked with her about the history of tadhkirat, the reason for its writing, its importance as a source, the difficulties faced during its translation, etc.

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Lala khanim, although Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s work "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" was translated into our mother tongue 35 years ago, it was not published. The task of preparing it for printing and making it available to literary critics fell on you...

Although the book has been translated and published in the languages of many nations, it is being published in our native language for the first time. However, this book should have been published and presented to readers a long time ago, as it talks about poets and historical figures of Azerbaijani origin, as well as some historical moments related to the history of Azerbaijan. This translation, which we obtained from the personal archive of Ahmadagha Ahmadov, was re-edited and prepared for publication by conducting the necessary research. Translating a work of this volume and scientific scale, as well as writing notes and comments on it, requires a lot of hard work, professionalism, and love for one's work. We hope that by publishing this translation, we make the soul of our great scientist happy, and we also make readers who want to see this book in our mother tongue happy. I would also like to mention that the book is dedicated to Ahmadagha muallim’s 100th anniversary.

By the way, Ahmadagha Ahmadov was not a philologist by profession...

Yes. He was a teacher in the Theoretical Mechanics Department of the Azerbaijan State Oil and Chemical Institute. But he also worked as a senior researcher in the Textual Studies Department of the Institute of Literature of ANAS named after Nizami Ganjavi. It was exceptional that he worked in both jobs at the same time. In 1977, when the book "History of Azerbaijan Literature" by Firidun bey Kocharli was transliterated from the Arabic alphabet at the Institute of Literature of ANAS named after Nizami Ganjavi, to overcome a number of difficulties, a specialist with deep knowledge of the Arabic language, literary and religious matters, Sharia laws, etc. was needed. The most suitable specialist sought for this job was Ahmadagha Ahmadov, who had universal knowledge. He was of great help in interpreting and editing the Arabic phrases in the book. Later, on the eve of Nizami Ganjavi's jubilee, the Institute of Literature of ANAS named after Nizami Ganjavi addressed the Ahmadagha muallim again regarding the philological translation, analysis, publication, and other issues of the great poet's works. The management of the Institute appoints him as a senior researcher in the Textual Studies Department of the Institute by a special decision...

From which copies was the translation made?

In the library of the Institute of Manuscripts of ANAS named after Fuzuli, several manuscripts and lithographic copies of Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s work "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" are preserved. Ahmadagha Ahmadov turned to these copies to translate the work into Azerbaijani. To be more precise, the cipher lithograph book VI-116-2096 was used as the base copy for the translation of the work. The publisher of this copy is Mirza Mahammad Malikul-kuttab Shirazi. This copy, the second edition of this work, was lithographed in Bombay in 1318 AH (1900). However, this copy has missing parts. To restore them, Ahmadagha muallim used encrypted copy XVI-834/4972. The publisher of this copy is Mirza Mahammad Malikul-kuttab. This copy, which is the first edition, was published in 1305 AH (1887) by the Alavi publishing house in Bombay. The copy consists of 231 pages. Ahmadagha muallim used this copy to complete the parts that were missing in the "preface" section ("Praise of the King of Islam" and "Declaration of the distinction of poets with fluency and eloquence, wise and virtuous") in the copy he used as a basis for translation. Furthermore, the part of the "preface", which is completely absent in the main copy, was taken from this copy and translated. Ahmadagha muallim, who took the part of the "preface" missing from the main copy and translated it, had to use the scientific-critical text principle for translation, as he mentioned in his writing entitled "From the translator".

Does "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" mainly provide information about the authors of Ajam? Russian sources call it "an important source on Persian and Tajik literature." Is the main reason for this related to giving examples of the biographies and works of the authors who wrote in Persian? By the way, the note about the tadhkirat in "Gamusul-Alam" is also interesting: "In this tadhkirat, biographies and many signs of the Persian Shura with 9 elements from Azimi-Shurayi-Arabic...".

Yes, Dawlatshah dedicated his tadhkirat to Ajam poets. According to the author, his aim was to write about Ajam (non-Arabic) poets of the post-Islamic period. However, the Arabs had many perfect poets and rich literary heritage who grew up before and after Islam. It would be remiss of this book not to mention them at all. Therefore, ten Arab poets who lived after Islam (Labid Aswad al-Bahili, Farazdaq Najdi, Di'bil ibn Ali Khuzai, Ibnur-Rumi, Mutanabbi, Abul-Ala Suleiman Maghribi Ma'arri, Hariri, Abulfath Busti Maghribi, Mu'inaddin Tantarani, Kab ibn Zuhayr ) are included in the book. Very brief information about them and a few examples of verses from their works are given.

Although Russian sources consider the tadhkirat an important source for Persian and Tajik literature, I would argue that this tadhkirat is an important source for Persian-language literature. Because although the tadhkirat is dedicated to Ajam poets, the life and creativity of poets of Persian and Tajik origin, based on their nationality, is not mentioned here. The life and creativity of poets of Turkish nationality are also reflected in the tadhkirat. Despite the fact that they wrote in Persian according to the demand of the time, they should be added to the list of poets who wrote in Persian, not for Persian literature. From this point of view, the tadhkirat is important not only for Persian and Tajik literature but also for Turkish literature.

Shamsaddin Sami gave information about Dawlatshah and his work "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" in his work "Gamusul-Alam". Although it is written here that 9 Arab poets are included in the tadhkirat, 10 Arab poets are mentioned in the tadhkirat. Shamsaddin Sami highly appreciated the tadhkirat in terms of its content and noted that the work contains a lot of information about the rulers, state and artistic figures of the times of the poets, as well as political events, in addition to famous poets. In "Gamusul-Alam", we also find such information that during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (Mahmudkhan Sani), Suleyman Fehim Efendi translated tadhkirat into Turkish. However, in accordance with the political requirements of his time, he did not include a number of political events and stories in the work, as well as a number of parts that clashed with state interests. That translation was published after Suleyman Fehim Efendi's death under the name "Safinat al-shu’ara". Dawlatshah Samarqandi's work "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" with its original text was first translated into Turkish by Necati Lugal and published in four volumes.

How many authors are included in the work?

Dawlatshah Samarqandi's work "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" includes 151 authors, including 10 Arab and 141 Ajam poets. In other words, special titles are devoted to the life and creativity of these poets in the layers - sections of the work. However, while getting to know these poets in the tadhkirat, we also come across the names and stories of their contemporaries, teachers, and poets they competed with. Thus, we get information about other poets who lived during the time of each famous poet, but who are not famous enough to be mentioned in this tadhkirat.

It is said that Ahmad Tantarani, who is given as one of the 10 Arab poets in the tadhkirat, is an Azerbaijani poet who wrote in Arabic...

Yes, many sources mention that Muinaddin Tantarani, known as Ahmad Tantarani Maraghayi, is an Azerbaijani poet. In Dawlatshah Samarqandi's tadhkirat, very little information was given about Muinaddin Tantarani, and nothing was written about his nationality. In the tadhkirat, only this information was given about Muinaddin Tantarani: "He is one of the greatest scholars. Shamsul-kifah taught at the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad during the time of Nizam al-Mulk. Undoubtedly, the science of poetry is the lowest level for him. He has many poems in Arabic, full of poetic subtleties and artistic expressions. Among other things, it is possible to show the double-rhymed terji ode that he said in praise of Khaja Nizam al-Mulk. The subtleties of the art of poetry have been elaborated there." As you can see, nothing is written in the tadhkirat about the poet's nationality. In the preface of Dawlatshah’s tadhkirat, while mentioning 10 famous Arab poets, he also wrote about Muinaddin Tantarani. It should be noted that Dawlatshah’s tadhkirat was compiled not according to the nationality of the poets, but according to the language they used in their works. Just as Persian-speaking poets do not necessarily have to be Persian by nationality, it is not necessary for Arabic-speaking poets to have Arab nationality either. From this point of view, the fact that Muinaddin Tantarani is among the ten famous Arabic-language poets does not indicate that he is an Arab. Among the Persian-speaking poets in the tadhkirat, there are also many Azerbaijani poets. For example, Nizami Ganjavi, Abulula Ganjavi, Falaki Shirvani, Khagani Shirvani, Humam Tabrizi, Shamsaddin Tabrizi, Mahsati Ganjavi, and many other poets. We can point to Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi as an example of the representatives of other Turkic peoples included in the tadhkirat. All these facts once again confirm that the tadhkirat is dedicated to the creativity of Persian-speaking poets.

"Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" consists of a preface, an introduction, and seven layers - sections. As it is known, there was a great interest in astronomy in Movarounnahr at that time. Is the number seven related to the seven layers of heaven?

Dawlatshah Samarqandi, who calls each chapter of his book "layers", says at the beginning of the work that "... We have divided this book into seven layers according to the layers of the stars." Ahmadagha Ahmadov, who is familiar with the science of astronomy, notes in his writing entitled "From the Translator" that the author means the Ptolemaic system of the sky in these verses. According to this system, the Earth is considered the center of the universe, and seven celestial bodies revolve around it. These celestial bodies are the planets Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Here, the layer is not the seven layers of the sky, but the seven planets. It should be noted that other planets were not discovered at that time. Ahmadagha Ahmadov explained his opinion as follows: "As a tradition, since the dream of poets has always been in vast spaces, in the infinite universe, and they are inspired by the Sun, the bright torch of the day, the Moon, the lamp of the night, Venus, the embodiment of beauty, love, and affection, Mercury, the "debir" (secretary) of fortune and fate, Mars, the symbol of anger, blood, and war, Saturn, the sign of misfortune, malice, and anger, and Jupiter, the harbinger of loyalty and happiness, here, the author compares the composition of his book to the composition of heavenly bodies and divides it into seven "layers"."

There are also different opinions about Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s nationality. In the preface of the book, it is written that he is Persian. But we also see those who claim that he is a Turk. Maybe this is related to the fact that his brother Amir Raziyaddin Ali, who was in Babur's court, wrote poems in Persian and in Turkish.

About Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s nationality, Russian sources say that he is a Central Asian Persian and Tajik writer, and Turkish sources say that he belongs to a noble Turkish lineage. It is known that Dawlatshah Samarqandi himself wrote poems in Turkish, like his brother Amir Raziyyaddin Ali. So, at the end of the book, Dawlatshah dedicated an ode to Alishir Navai in Persian and Chagatai languages. This ode was written in ramal metre with high artistic taste.

What Azerbaijani writers are included in "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara"?

Nizami Ganjavi, Abulula Ganjavi, Khagani Shirvani, Falaki Shirvani, Badr Shirvani, Mahsati Ganjavi, Izzadin Hasanoglu, Shamsaddin Tabrizi, Seyyid Zulfugar Shirvani, Humam Tabrizi, Mujiraddin Beylagani, and other Azerbaijani poets are included in the tadhkirat, and examples of their poems written in the Persian language were given.

Are all the poetry examples of Azerbaijani writers in Persian? According to the information we have, Hasanoglu's well-known poem in our native language was not included in the tadhkirat.

Yes, the poetry examples of all Azerbaijani writers whose lives and works are mentioned in the tadhkirat are in Persian. Persian poems of Izzaddin Hasanoglu are also included in the tadhkirat.

In any case, it seems to me that Samarqandi was Persian... Because according to the claim in the tadhkirat, the first poem in the world was an elegy. It is characteristic of the Iranian culture to tie the end of every manifestation to elegiac poetry and mourning. By the way, has that famous elegy been translated into Azerbaijani?

When talking about the history of the creation of poetry in his tadhkirat, Dawlatshah Samarqandi writes that the first poet in the world was the Prophet Adam. The reason why Prophet Adam wrote poetry is related to his son Cain killing Abel. Adam, who was saddened and affected by this incident, wrote the first poem in the world on this occasion. It is written about this in the tadhkirat: "Sheikh Abu Ali Miskawayh, in his book "Adabul-Arabi wal-Furs", says the following about this qasida: Amir al-Mu'minin Husayn ibn Ali - may peace be upon them - says that my father - may peace be upon him - was in the Jameh Mosque in Kufa. A man from the people of Sham stood up and said, O Amir al-Mu'minin, I am asking you who is the person who wrote the first poem. He said that it was Adam - peace be upon him. He asked what was his poem. He said that it was as if he had come down from the heavens to the earth, saw the air, the earth, the environment, and then Cain killing Abel, and uttered the following verses:

“Ölkələr və onlarda olanlar dəyişmişdir,

Yerin üzü eybəcər şəkildə tozla örtülmüşdür.

Hər şeyin rəngi və dadı dəyişmişdir,

Gözəl surətlərdəki şənlik də azalmışdır.

Əfsus mənim oğlum Habilə!

Qətl olundu, məzar onu öz ağuşuna çəkdi.

Düşmən bizə təcavüz etdi, bununla kifayətlənməz,

O lənətə gəlmiş ölməyəcək, rahatlanacaq.

(Countries and those there have changed,

The face of the earth is ugly covered with dust.

Everything has changed its color and taste,

The festivity in beautiful faces has also decreased.

Alas, my son Abel!

He was killed, and the grave drew him to its sorrow.

The enemy has harassed us, it won’t be contented with it,

It, the damned, isn’t going to die, it’s going to relax.)

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The accursed Devil answered him:

Ölkələrə və onların sakinlərinə ağlayırsan,

Cənnət isə sənə darlıq elədi, eybəcərmi göründü?!

Özün və zövcən orada qərar tutmuşdunuz,

Qəlbin də dünyanın əziyyətlərindən asudə idi.

Lakin mənim məkr və hiyləmdən qurtara bilməzsən,

Ta ki, sənin xeyir və mənfəətini fənayə verərəm.

Əgər Allahın rəhməti olmasaydı,

Cənnətin bircə qoxusu da sənə yetişməzdi.”

(You cry to countries and their inhabitants,

Heaven became narrow for you, did it look ugly?!

You and your wife were living there,

Your heart was free from the troubles of the world.

But you can't get rid of my cunnings and tricks,

I can damage your good and profit.

If Allah had not shown mercy,

Not even a single smell of heaven would reach you.")

It is certain that certain parts of "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" were translated into Russian in the 19th century. But what about Mirza Kazim bey's claim that he translated it completely, is it true?

Separate parts of the work were translated into Russian for the first time in Russia by V. Zhukovsky and R. Erdman. There is also information that Professor Mirza Kazim bey translated this work into Russian. Of course, Mirza Kazim bey could have translated this tadhkirat at a high level, but the opinions about it remain claims because we do not have facts to prove the truth of this.

Preparing such a book for printing probably requires a lot of hard work. What have been your main challenges?

Yes, preparing a work that is very valuable in terms of its content and scientific scale, such as "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara", requires great responsibility and hard work. For many years, we have done a number of things to prepare this work, which we obtained from Ahmadagha Ahmadov's archive, for publication. Unfortunately, since Ahmadagha muallim is no longer alive, we had to research and find the answers to the questions we encountered. First, since the Bombay edition used by Ahmadagha muallim had some shortcomings, we compared this text with the edition of Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s "Tadhkirat al-shu'ara" published by Edward Brown in Leyden in 1900 and revealed the differences between them. It should be noted that, unlike the Bombay edition, this book is elegantly designed, very clearly printed, and easy to use. As we mentioned while preparing the book for publication, we compared the Leyden and Bombay editions of the work.

Thus, let's note that when we compared the text of the Leyden and Bombay editions while preparing the work for printing, we witnessed that in some parts of the book, the issues that Edward Brown discussed in detail were given relatively differently in the Bombay edition. However, these are minor differences that do not harm the content of the book, nothing has been removed from the content of the work, and information has not been distorted. It's just that there are differences in some places in these editions, which we felt it necessary to mention in the book we prepared for publication. As we said, these are mainly differences in date, person and place names. So, some dates are given differently, sometimes they are correct in the Leyden edition, and sometimes they are correct in the Bombay edition. There are mistakes in personal names, some names are abbreviated or written completely differently. The same situation is also observed in geographical place names. Therefore, we had to write notes on some issues in order to clarify some confusing points related to these topics discussed in the book.

In the Bombay edition of the work used by Ahmadagha Ahmadov, a number of errors are noticeable. The translator himself gave detailed information about this in the preface he wrote under the title "From the Translator". We found it necessary to refer to the Leyden edition published by Edward Brown in order to clarify such points. The first thing that catches our eye is the abbreviation of the text entitled "The poem written by the author of the book about Khulafai-Rashid" before the chapter "Praise of the King of Islam" in the preface of the book. This is a rather short text, as the name suggests, devoted to the praise of the Rashidi caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali). Note that this title is the only fragment not found in the Bombay edition. So, even if sometimes some structural changes are found in other cases, the same consistency is expected in both editions. Another difference is that in both editions, the book's table of contents is given before the introduction, and then the introduction begins. The table of contents of the Bombay edition begins with a discussion of the first layer, while the table of contents of the Leyden edition begins with the contents of the prologue. The book we prepared for publication reflects the entire content of the book, including the preface. In the Bombay edition, the table of contents (probably a typographical error) shows confusion in the order of the poets, but there is no reduction in the number of poets. In the contents of the fourth layer, the name of Muhammad ibn Husam is missing, instead, there is an additional name that should not be there. The same situation is observed in the content of the fifth layer, where there is an additional name, and also the names of some poets are written incorrectly. In the content of the sixth layer, the names of Busati Samarqandi and Maulana Badakhshi were forgotten. The name of the first poet of the seventh layer is given as the last poet of the sixth layer, which is a typographical error. In the contents of the seventh layer, the name of Hafiz Halvai was forgotten. Therefore, since Ahmadagha muallim rightly prepared the translation for publication in accordance with the modern book layout, he found it appropriate to bring the table of contents to the end of the book. He also perfected it by adding other titles that we will encounter in the book to this table of contents.

At the same time, while preparing the work for printing, we wrote all the Hijri dates written in the book along with their counterparts in the Gregorian calendar, so that it would be easy for the reader to estimate the historical period.