From the literary point of view this century is perhaps the most barren in the whole history of Persia, * so much so Barrenness of the eighteenth century. that the only notable poem produced by it is, so far as I know, the celebrated tarjí'-band of Hátif-i-Iṣfahání, of which I shall speak presently. On the other hand we have two full and authoritative accounts of the period by two men of letters who were Two important contemporary records. personally involved in the disastrous events which befell Persia during and after the Afghán invasion, and who have left us a fairly clear and detailed picture of that sad and troubled epoch. These men were Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín (b. 1103/1692, d. 1180/1766-7), and Luṭf 'Alí Beg poetically surnamed Ádhar (b. 1123/1711, d. 1195/1781). Both were poets, and the former even a prolific poet, since he composed three or four díwáns, but their prose writings are, from our point of view, of much greater interest and value than their verse.
Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín, whose proper name was Muḥammad ibn Abí Ṭálib of Gílán, is best known by his “Memoirs”
Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín (b. 1103/ 1692; d. 1180/ 1766-7). (Tadhkiratu'l-Aḥwál), which he composed in India in 1154/1741-2, twenty years after he had become an exile from his native land, and which are easily accessible to students in the text and English translation published by F. C. Belfour in 1830-31. He was born, as he himself tells us, on Monday the 27th of Rabí' ii, 1103 (Jan. 19, 1692) at Iṣfahán, and was directly descended in the eighteenth degree from the famous Shaykh Záhid of Gílán, of whom some account was given in a previous chapter. * The family continued to reside in Gílán, first at Astárá and then at Láhiján, until the author's father, Shaykh Abú Ṭálib, at the age of twenty, went to Iṣfahán to pursue his studies, and there married and settled. He died there in 1127/1715 at the age of sixty-nine, leaving three sons, of whom our author was the eldest, to mourn his loss. * Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín speaks in the highest terms of his father's character and ability, and quotes a few lines from an elegy which he composed on this mournful occasion. He also mentions that, amongst other final injunctions, his father addressed to him the following remarkable words: * “If you have the choice, make no longer stay in Iṣfahán. It were meet that some one of our race should survive.” “At that time,” the author continues, “I did not comprehend this part of his address, not till after some years, when the disturbance and ruin of Iṣfahán took place.”* Since the “Memoirs” can be read in English by anyone
interested in their contents, it is unnecessary to discuss or
Shaykh 'Alí
Ḥazín's
Memoirs.
analyse them here, and it will be sufficient to
emphasize their importance as a picture of the
author's times, and to note a few points of literary
interest. In 1135/1722-3 he began to compile a kind of
literary scrap-book or magazine (majmú'a), probably somewhat
similar in character to the Kashkúl of Shaykh Bahá'u'd-
The Afghán invasion and the misery which it caused,
especially in Iṣfahán, put a stop to Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín's
literary activities for some time. “During the latter days
of the siege,” he says,
*
“I was attacked by severe illness;
and my two brothers, my grandmother, and the whole of the
dwellers in my house died, so that my mansion was emptied
of all but two or three infirm old women-servants, who
attended me till my disorder began to abate.” Being somewhat
recovered, he escaped from Iṣfahán early in Muḥarram,
1135 (October, 1722), only a few days before it surrendered
to, and was entered by, the Afgháns. During the next ten
years he wandered about in different parts of Persia, successively
visiting or residing at Khurramábád in Luristán,
Hamadán, Niháwand, Dizful, Shúshtar (whence by way of
Baṣra he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and on his return
journey visited Yaman), Kirmánsháh, Baghdád and its holy
places, Mashhad, Kurdistán, Ádharbáyján, Gílán and Ṭihrán.
From the last-named city he returned once more to Iṣfahán,
to find “that great city, notwithstanding the presence of
the King,
*
in utter ruin and desertion. Of all that population
and of my friends scarcely any one remained.” It was the
same at Shíráz, whither he made his way six months later.
“Of all my great friends there,” he says,
*
“the greatest I had
in the world, not one remained on foot; and I met with a
crowd of their children and relatives in the most melancholy
condition and without resource.” From Shíráz he made his
way by Lár to Bandar-i-'Abbás, intending to go thence in
a European ship to the Ḥijáz, “because their ships and
packets are very spacious and are fitted up with convenient
apartments, and their navigators also are more expert on
the sea and more skilful in their art than any other nation.”
*
He was, however, prevented by illness and poverty (caused
partly by the loss of his patrimony in Gílán, partly by the
exorbitant and oppressive taxation which now prevailed)
from carrying out this plan. A subsequent attempt carried
him in a Dutch vessel as far as Muscat, which he found
little to his liking, so that after a stay of rather more than
two months he returned again to Bandar-i-'Abbás. He
next visited Kirmán, but, finding “the affairs of that
ruined country in utter confusion by reason of the insurrection
of a body of the Balúch tribe and other accidents,”
*
he returned thence after a few months' stay to Bandar-i-
Eleven years later (1165/1752) Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín composed an account of about a hundred contemporary Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín's biography of contemporary poets. poets entitled Tadhkiratu'l-Mu'áṣirín, which is included in the lithographed edition of his complete works published at Lucknow in 1293/ 1876, and of which MSS. exist in the British Museum and elsewhere.*