An Annotated Bibliography of Persian Works

The researchers obviously consider the significance of providing a comprehensive index of all Persian writings and manuscripts.

The geographical territory of the Persian language writings covers a vast land of today’s Iran and Greater Khorasan, including Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Samarkand, and Bukhara. The clouds of mercy rose from these lands, rained on a vast area of ​​the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, and Bengal) and Asia Minor (Ottoman territory and the Balkans), sprouted and brought forth the blossoms of mutual Iranian-human culture in these lands. The books authored in various fields in the Persian language or were copied and moved with the migration of people have been a means of intellectual and cultural exchange between these lands. Such a comprehensive index is needed to understand this cultural ground and the circulation and transfer of sciences.

To identify and demonstrate the contribution of the Persian language to the foundation of human civilization and culture, it is necessary to know that Persian is one of the two main languages ​​of the Islamic world, and in some fields, it is in the first place. Nonetheless, this language has been neglected, and its services to the human culture have not been recognized appropriately. Hence, a collective index of all Persian writings from the first manuscripts to the end of the lithography era should be compiled. Also, to document the history of each field of knowledge, its development, and probable decline, we need a bibliography of the writings in that field.

The purpose of this project is to compile a bibliography of Persian texts according to their subjects in chronological order, including a census of all Persian writings and basic information about them. The index covers books, treatises and short treatises, divans specified by their introductions, parts of divans from the collections and miscellanies, such as Tarjiʻband, Robāʻī, and Ghazals, as well as collections of letters or single letters, Muraqqas and so on. The sources for compiling this index are bibliographies, tazkiras, Iranian and foreign indexes, and Iranology journals. The more sources are examined, the better the work will become in quantity and quality.

Each entry contains six items or fewer:

The book title: It may appear differently in several copies of a manuscript and other sources. We have tried to consider the most famous titles, the ones found in more reliable sources or the printed titles as the base, and provide reference sheets for other versions.

Author’s name: First, the full name of the author is given, and afterwards, the name of the translator or the scribe, the dates of birth and death of the author, and the approximate century are mentioned.

Date of the script: The date of writing of many books is unclear. In this index, an attempt is made to determine the dates; otherwise, no date (n.d., Persian: بی‌ت) is substituted. The sources mention various dates, including the beginning of writing or its completion, and in some cases, the date of the author’s life.

The topic of the book: The exact topic of writing can only be obtained by listing all the sections, which is not what we do in this index. At this stage, only the topic of the whole text is mentioned.

Division of the book: It is part of the bibliographic information of every book, which briefly shows the chapters. For chapters of manuscripts and books, terms such as Bāb, Faṣl, or Maqālat have been used.

The incipit: In this part, a complete sentence from the beginning and one or two words after the term “afterwards” (Persian: اما بعد) are given. These phrases are chosen in a way that reflects the introduction of the book.

List of authors: In merging the sheets provided for a book, the list of authors is also compiled. This prevents the inclusion of a book under two titles to some extent and links the works of one author. A list of authors is made for each set of knowledge, such as interpretation, recitation of the Quran (Tajwīd), and generalities about the Quran. These lists are the data for compiling the index of authors of Persian works, like Arab authors’ works, Al-Aʻlām, A Biographical Dictionary of Noted Men and Women among the Arabs, the Arabists and the Orientalists by Zirikli, or Muʻjam al-Muʼallifin, a bibliographic-biographical dictionary by Umar Rida Kahhala.

The indexing project of Persian manuscripts and books was implemented at the end of 1990 in the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia. An independent department under the supervision of Ahmad Monzavi was established for this purpose. This index will be published in 25 volumes, most of its topics have been authored, and ten books have been published so far. The number of the catalogues that have been searched is more than 800, and the extracted sheets are more than 800,000. The printed subjects of the index are: travelogue, geography, fiction, history (general), history of the world, history of Iran, history of the subcontinent, history of prophets and imams, biographies of composers, biographies of elders and sons, mathematics, bookkeeping, astronomy-astrology, medicine, pharmacy, natural sciences (zoology, botany, mineralogy), alchemy, philosophy, wisdom, practical philosophy and ethics, mysticism, theology and beliefs, and poems.