Jamal al-Din ‘Abdu’l-Razzaq Isfahani

Jamal al-Din Isfahani, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Razzaq (d. 1192), a Persian poet flourishing in the 12^th century, well-known as Jamal al-Din ‘Abd al-Razzaq. He was the father of Kamal al-Din Isma’il. His precise date of birth is unknown, but taking into account the date of his death and some of the verses included in his divan, it may be said that he was born in Isfahan in the first quarter of the 12^th century and because of his interest in his hometown, he only departed from it on his few journeys. He was a goldsmith and a miniaturist; as a consequence of his profession, he was well-known as Jamal Naqqash (Jamal, the painter). He composed eulogies to many a ruler and shaykh of his time, e.g. those from the Houses of Khujand and Sa’idis of Isfahan, including Khwaja Qawam al-Din Sa’id, Khwaja Sadr al-Din ibn Qawan al-Din, and Khwaja Rukn al-Din Sa’id. He also eulogized the Seljuk Malikshah and Arsalan ibn Tughril, Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk, and Ardashir ibn Hasan, a Ispahbid of Mazandaran and was generously rewarded by him. However, he was not attached to any court and despite the abundance of the rewards granted to him, he earned his living by his profession. Some biographers have erroneously regarded him as a contemporary of the Khwarzmshahid Sultan Jalal al-Din, but he was a child upon the death of our poet. He corresponded and held poetical contests with other poets. For instance, when Khaqani sent his mathnavi, titled Tuhfat al-‘Iraqayn, in which he had contested for precedence and glory, to Isfahan, he composed a qasida in which he praised and lampooned Khaqani. The account is well-known. In a qit’a, he eulogized Rashid al-Din Watwat and also composed a long tarkib-band in which he eulogized Zahir al-Din Faryabi and complained about the vicissitudes of the world. Jamal al-Din Isfahani was so interested in Isfahan that in response to Mujir al-Din Baylaqani’s quatrains in which he had lampooned Isfahan, Jamal al-Din composed a qit’a with the radif ‘What will happen’ (Chih rasad) and also a satirical piece in which he derided Mujir. Consequently, Mujir, who had been appointed as the governor of Isfahan by the Atabeks of Azerbaijan, had to depart from the city. Jamal al-Din suffered from constant eye pain and speech defects. He fathered four children, the most renowned of whom is Kamal al-Din Isma’il, the distinguished poet flourishing in the 12^th and early 13^th centuries. Jamal al-Din died before 1202 and probably in 1192 and his son, Kamal, composed an elegant elegy for him. Although Jamal al-Din was titled Sayyid al-Shu’ara’ (‘Lord of Poets’) for having eulogized the Ispahbed of Mazandaran, but he was not of renown thereafter, as the Gurkanid Ulugh Beyg was surprised at hearing that Kamal al-Din Isma’il had enjoyed more fame than his father whose compositions were ‘more poetical and more elegant’. Jamal al-Din is regarded among the poets who paved the ground for the emergence of the ‘Iraqi style and is in fact one of the avant-gardes of the style. According to Bahar, he is on a par with poets like Sayyid Hasan Ghaznavi, Nizami Ganjavi, Rashid al-Din Watwat, and ‘Imadi Shahriyari, who created a style of poetry lying between the old and the new styles. Jamal al-Din made compositions in different forms, including qasida, ghazal, tarkib-band, qit’a, and quatrain. In his qasidas, he followed the models of Anwari and Sana’i, though critiques regard his imitation of Sana’i as his lack of profundity of thought and distinction and that of Anwari as lacking of eloquence and originality of expression. In his well-known qasida opening with the couplet:

‘Beware the ignorant of this awe-inspiring place, beware!

Flee from this devil! O wise people, flee!’

in which he follows on the footsteps of a well-known qasida by Sana’i including complaints about the hardships of the times, he reiterates some of the words, phrases, and clauses of Sana’i. Jamal’s Qasidas are at times devoid of the expected exordium and lyricism and he opens them with eulogies. In his qasidas, he often employs difficult radifs and rhymes, but the elegance and delicacy of the ghazal are reflected in his qasidas and thereby has rendered them similar to ghazals. Besides eulogy, the themes of his qasidas mainly include councils and admonitions, complaints, elegies, and responses to other poetical compositions. Unlike poets like Sana’i and ‘Attar who brought ghazal to the zenith of meaning, Jamal al-Din, Anwari, and later on Kamal al-Din Isma’il, made developments in the form of ghazal and paved the ground for its improvement, to the extent that they prepared the path for the emergence of ghazal poets, like Sa’di. Jamal al-Din’s ghazals are elegant and melodious and they oftentimes have radifs, at times long radifs, e.g. na in bud (‘it was not this’) and sara budi (‘it was pure’). His divan is imbued with short ghazals, at times in three or four couplets. He also composed some tarkib-bands with praise and complaint themes, the most well known of which is in the meter of hazaj musaddas devoted to the praise of the Prophet.  Jamal al-Din’s poetry is not devoid of florid embellishments, as mentioned by one of his friends in a qit’a in critique of his poetry. Jamal al-Din’s poetry is also accorded significance for his reflection of the turbulent times and famine in Isfahan. His Divan was published by Adib Nayshaburi in Tehran. The best edition of his Divan is published by Wahid Dastgirdi (Tehran 1941) to which he wrote a detailed introduction.

Asar-afarinan (2/ 205-206); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (2/ 731-740); Da’irat al-Ma’arif-i Farsi (1/ 746); Divist Sukhanvar (67-68); Danishnama-yi Jahan-i Islam (10/ 629-630).