III. Between A. D. 1700 and 1800 (A. H. 1111-1215).

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-Dín 'Ámilí, and entitled Muddatu'l-'Umr * (“Lifetime”), but it was lost with the rest of his library in the sack of Iṣfahán by the Afgháns a few months later. About the same time or a little earlier he wrote, besides numerous philosophical commentaries, a book on the Horse (Faras-náma), and published his second Díwán of poetry, and soon afterwards his third.*

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-'Abbás in the hope of being able to go thence once again to Baghdád and the Holy Shrines. Finding this imprac­ticable owing to Nádir's operations against the Turks, and unable to endure any longer the sight of the misery prevailing throughout Persia, he embarked on the 10th of Ramaḍán, 1146 (Feb. 14, 1734) for India, where, in spite Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín's deep dislike for India. of the deep dislike which he conceived for that country, he was destined to spend the remaining forty-five years of his long life. “To me,” he says, * “who do not reckon the time of my residence in this country as a portion of my real life, the beginning of my arrival on the shores of this empire appears as it were the end of my age and vitality.” A little further on he says, “Altogether my nature had no agreement with the fashions and manners of this country, nor any power of patiently enduring them,” and adds a few lines lower “the sight of these dominions became more and more hateful to me, and being continually in hope of escape from them, I reconciled my mind to the incidents in the affairs of Persia, and bent my thoughts on my return thither.” * Although unhappily disappointed in this hope, and compelled to spend the long remainder of his days in “a country traced … with foulness and trained to turpitude and brutality,” * where “all the situations and conditions … are condemned by fate to difficulty and bitterness of subsistence,” * he declined to include in his “Memoirs” any account of his personal experiences in India, save in so far as they were connected with such important historical events as Nádir Sháh's invasion and the terrible massacre he made in Dihlí on March 20, 1739. So, though the “Memoirs” were penned at “the end of the year [A.H.] 1154” * (beginning of A.D. 1742), they deal chiefly with the author's personal history before he left Persia twenty years earlier. The accounts of contemporary scholars and men of letters (many of whom perished during the siege of Iṣfahán in A.D. 1722) with whom he was personally acquainted con­stitute one of the most valuable features of this interesting book.

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.*