Marṣad al-Aḥrār and Its Linguistic and Literary Significance

Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Kāzirūnī (352–426 AH), a prominent Sufi of the Fars region, played a significant role in spreading Islam and the Murshidīyah (or Kāzirūnīyah) order. After the Shaykh's death, his disciples remained active for several centuries. In the late fifth century AH, his third successor, Khaṭīb Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm (d. 502 AH), wrote an Arabic biography of him, which remained available until the eighth century AH; however, no manuscript of this biography is known to exist today. In the eighth century AH, two translations and compilations were produced based on this lost work: The Firdaws al-Murshidīyah fī Asrār al-Ṣamadīyah by Maḥmūd ibn ʻUthmān (d. 728 AH) and the Marṣad al-Aḥrār ilá Siyar Murshid al-Abrār by ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥīm Kāzirūnī. No comprehensive study has yet been conducted on this second book. This article first briefly introduces the book and its author, then examines the literary and linguistic value of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār using a descriptive-analytical approach.
 
2- Literature Review
Numerous studies on Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Kāzirūnī and the Murshidīyah order have been published in Western, Turkish, and Persian languages. Much of these researches have focused on the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah. Only one independent article on the Marṣad al-Aḥrār was written by Arthur John Arberry (1950). According to Arberry, he introduced the manuscript of Marṣad al-Aḥrār that he had seen at the Chester Beatty Library, and he briefly highlighted its differences from the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah in a comparison. Unfortunately, the fate of this manuscript remains unclear, and it appears that it was never actually added to that library's collection.
A Persian translation of Arberry's article was included in the preface to Iraj Afshar's critical edition of the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah and subsequently served as a foundation for further researches, including articles on the ancient dialect of Kāzirūn by Adib Tūsī (1955), Rezāʾī Bāghbīdī (2003), and Ṣādeqī (2004). Sadeghi referenced images of a manuscript of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār held in the Bayezid Library in Istanbul. In light of these prior researches, the present article does not deal with verses and sentences in the old Kāzirūnī dialect. Other information based on Arberry's article has been incorporated into reference works such as Ṣafā (1990). Günbal Bozkurt has also conducted several studies on the Kāzirūnīyah order based on both the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah and the Marṣad al-Aḥrār.
3- Methodology
First, the most essential information concerning the manuscripts and the author was gathered. Two manuscripts of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār have been identified: 1) A manuscript described by Arberry at the Chester Beatty Library (copied in 830 AH, 296 folios), unavailable; 2) Manuscript No. 3787 in the Bayezid Library in Istanbul (copied in 833 AH, 259 folios). The study and analysis of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār was conducted based on the Istanbul manuscript using a descriptive-analytical method.

Discussion

The author of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār recorded his name only once in the text: Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥīm al-Kāzirūnī, nicknamed “ʻAlāʼ”. The writing style has led some scholars to misinterpret the title word “Rajā” preceding “Muḥammad” as part of his name. It is more likely that “Rajā” is part of an Arabic phrase preceding the author's name.
The colophon of the manuscript described by Arberry (1950: 164) provides significant information about the author’s name, lineage, title, and scholarly and juridical standing; accordingly, he was well-versed in jurisprudence in addition to Sufism. The attribution “Qirṭasi” may indicate that he, his father, or his ancestors were involved in papermaking or paper trading.
Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī, a renowned scholar and theologian of the ninth and tenth centuries AH, mentioned ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Qirṭasī in an Ijāzah (permission to transmit ḥadīth) he wrote for ʻAfīf al-Dīn Ījī in 893 AH. Based on this, Davānī was a student of Mazhar al-Dīn Muḥammad Murshidī Kāzirūnī in theology and ḥadīth transmission. Mazhar al-Dīn, in turn, narrated ḥadīth from ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Qirṭasī (see: Kūrānī, 1910: 106-107).
Arberry (1950: 177) estimated the composition date of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār to be around 750 AH, arguing that it quotes an ode by Amīn al-Dīn Balyānī (d. 745 AH) and mentions his death. However, the exact date of composition is explicitly stated in the colophon of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār manuscript preserved in the Bayezid Library. According to this source, ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad Kāzirūnī completed the work on the evening of the 13^th of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, 781 AH.
The Marṣad al-Aḥrār contains approximately eight hundred verses of poetry in Persian, Arabic, and the Kāzirūnī dialect. These appear sometimes as short, scattered verses and sometimes as odes and longer compositions. In contrast, the verses in the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah number no more than two hundred and twenty. Among the poems in the Marṣad al-Aḥrār, about three hundred and seventy-five verses are composed by ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad Kāzirūnī. None of his poems have been found in available biographical sources or anthologies, and his possible poetic pseudonym remains unidentified.
The book also contains odes and verses (about two hundred and thirty verses) in Arabic composed in praise of or as elegies for Shaykh Abū Isḥāq. Only two of these verses appear in the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah (Maḥmūd ibn ʻUthmān, 1979: 366). The poets of these Arabic pieces were generally from the Kāzirūn region in the fourth and fifth centuries AH and are now obscure; thus, the information preserved in the Marṣad al-Aḥrār is highly significant.
The Marṣad al-Aḥrār further includes poems in Persian by other poets, including an ode in praise of Abū Isḥāq Kāzirūnī by Amīn al-Dīn Balyānī. Utilizing this manuscript could help correct errors in the established text of this poem found in published editions of Balyānī's Dīvān. Additionally, the text of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār is more cadenced and literary in style compared to that of the Firdaws al-Murshidīyah.
From a linguistic perspective, the Marṣad al-Aḥrār is also valuable. The translation of several Arabic poems includes notable Persian equivalents. The archaic nature of these translations within the Marṣad al-Aḥrār and their stylistic difference from other sections suggest they may originate from the original Arabic biography by Khaṭīb Abū Bakr (fifth century AH) or from earlier sources used by ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad Kāzirūnī (pre-eighth century AH), finding their way into this later compilation. The text of the Marṣad al-Aḥrār also contains words and compound phrases not recorded in comprehensive Persian dictionaries or for which no examples exist in ancient texts. Another significant linguistic feature is the discretization provided for some Persian words within the main text. Some of these vocalized forms persist in the modern Kāzirūnī dialect. Others are influenced by Arabic pronunciation, while another group of Persian words shows similarities to Middle Persian pronunciations.
5- Conclusion
As the Marṣad al-Aḥrār has not yet been published, information about the book and its author has been limited and occasionally inaccurate. This research corrects and supplements this information. ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn Kāzirūnī translated the Arabic biography of Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Kāzirūnī in 781 AH and incorporated additional material, making his work more than a mere translation. His book possesses significant linguistic and literary merits, the most important of which have been discussed here. These findings can serve as a foundation for further literary and linguistic studies (it should be noted that the edition of this text will be shortly published by the authors).