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Nozhat al-Majales

Nozhat al-Majales. Moḥammad Amin Riahi.
Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, 2008

NOZHAT AL-MAJĀLES, an anthology of some 4,000 quatrains (robāʿi; a total of 4,139 quatrains, 54 of which have been repeated in the text) by some 300 poets of the 5th to 7th/11th-13th centuries, compiled around the middle of the 7th/13th century by the Persian poet Jamāl-al-Din Ḵalil Šarvāni. The book is arranged by subject in 17 chapters (bābs) divided into 96 different sections (namaṭ). The anthology also includes 179 quatrains and an ode (qaṣida) of 50 distiches written by the author himself, who is also credited with one lyric (ḡazal) in Moḥammad Jājarmi’s Moʾnes al-aḥrār.

Some ‘Umarian quatrains from the lifetime of ‘Umar Khayyám

Some ‘Umarian quatrains from the lifetime of ‘Umar Khayyám. Alexander H. Morton.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 55-65.

Morton draws attention to an overlooked anthology compiled by Abu ‘l-Qásim Nasr b. Amad b. who was writing during the reign of the Ghaznavid Mas ‘ùd III (492-508/1099-1115).

Other Persian quatrains in Holland: the Roseraie du savoir of Husayn-i Ázád

Other Persian quatrains in Holland: the Roseraie du savoir of Husayn-i Ázád. J.T.P. de Bruijn.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 105-114.

De Bruijn explains how, from the nineteenth century onwards, Persian quatrains became fashionable in Dutch poetry. After briefly referring to two great Dutch poets, P.C. Boutens (1870-1943) and J.H. Leopold (1865-1925), De Bruijn concentrates on their common source, an anthology of Persian quatrains in two parts published in 1906 under the titles Gulzár-i ma ‘rifat and La Roseraie du Savoir respectively. The author of these Persian and French anthologies was a Persian by the name of Husayn-i Ázád, who was a physician at the provincial Qajar court of Isfahan. He travelled to London and Paris, but later settled in Paris, where he concentrated on European and Persian poetry. In his chapter, De Bruijn gives a vivid picture of Husayn-i Ázád’s life and how he tried to introduce treasures from the Persian literary tradition to a western public.