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TEHRAN -- Persian literature expert Mohammad-Ali Eslami Nodushan said that Iranian poet Nasser Khosro (1004-C1072) guaranteed Iranian identity and became eternal in the history of Persian literature.
“He was influenced by [Persian poet] Ferdowsi and was one of his enthusiasts. More than everything and everyone else, these two poets were similar in their attitudes toward Iranian identity,” he said during a meeting held by the Book City Institute in Tehran to commemorate Nasser Khosro.
“We have the genres of ode and eulogy in Iranian poetry, but Nasser Khosro did not belong in any of these genres. He was awakened by the call of his conscience and reached a place he desired. He could not confine his soul to a certain place and situation, and this can be identified as his mental turmoil which compelled him to create his literary works,” stated Eslami Nodushan, who is author of dozens of books and articles on Persian language and literature.
However, Eslami Nodushan criticized him for his tendency towards the Fatimids who headed the Ismailite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam whose missionaries were engaged in propagating their doctrine throughout the Islamic world. Nasser Khosro became such a missionary following his journey to Egypt in 1045.
During the meeting, the philosopher and Persian literature expert, Gholam-Hossein Ebrahimi Dinani, called Nasser Khosro a prominent Persian poet, who is considered as the pillar of the Khorasani style.
He referred to Eslami Nodushan’s remarks in which he called Iranians “double thinking people” and said, “How great remark is it.”
“Of course, the intention is not in a bad sense. He [Eslami Nodushan] also said that many countries forgot their past after the advent of Islam: Egypt is not Coptic anymore; Lebanon is not Phoenician anymore; Iraq is Babylonian or Assyrian anymore… Iran is the only country that did not become arabized after the advent of Islam.”
A professor of Al-Azhar University told me ‘Alas! We had no Ferdowsi.’ Of course he is right. We had Ferdowsi and Nasser Khosro, but they had no one like that. Why did the other Islamic countries forget their past and we did not?… The answer is that they did not have a robust culture and we had… This is what double thinking means: that the robust culture is never expelled from the souls of Iranians.”
Nasser Khosro’s poetry is of a didactic and devotional character and consists mainly of long odes that are considered to be of high literary quality, Encyclopædia Britannica wrote.
His philosophical poetry includes the Rawshanainame (Book of Lights). His most celebrated prose work is the Safarname (Diary of a Journey Through Syria and Palestine), a diary describing his seven-year journey. He also wrote more than a dozen treatises expounding the doctrines of the Ismailis, among them the Jami al-Hikmatayn (“Union of the Two Wisdoms”), in which he attempted to harmonize Ismaili theology and Greek philosophy.
Nasser Khosro’s literary style is straightforward and vigorous. In his verse he displays great technical virtuosity, while his prose is remarkable for the richness of its philosophical vocabulary.
MMS/YAW
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