Manuchiri Damaqani

Manuchihri Damghani, Abu al-Najm Ahmad ibn Qaws ibn Ahmad Manuchihri Damghani (d. 1040), a poet with the nom de plume Manuchihri born in Damghan. He took his nom de plume after the Ziyarid Manuchihr ibn Qabus ibn Wushmgir. He was attached to the court of the Ziyarid ruler in his early poetical career, though his extant divan is devoid of eulogies to or any mention of the ruler. He spent his childhood in Damghan and traveled to Gurgan and Tabaristan in his youth and entered the services of the Ziyarids, though his early attachment to the Ghaznavids is not clearly known. It is reported that he was so talented and clever in his childhood that he could compose poetry impromptu. His keen mind and intelligence led him in his youth to learn Arabic literature and memorize the poetry of distinguished poets versifying in Arabic and achieve mastery of the biographical accounts and works of Persian poets. He had mastery of Arabic as well as astronomy, religious sciences, medicine, grammar, history, and mythology. One of his couplets read,

‘I know religious sciences, medicine, and grammar

But you have not learned the alphabet yet!’

His masters are not known to us, though it is reported that he was a student of Abu al-Faraj Sigzi, though the report is open to doubts. Upon the Ghaznavid Sultan Mas’ud’s march on Rayy, he was summoned and entered the services of the Ghaznavids. He was well respected and also envied at the court of Mas’ud for his youth, acute mind, and elegant diction. His extant qasidas and musammats are mainly eulogies to Sultan Mas’ud and some of his court dignitaries, like the army general ‘Ali ibn ‘Ubayd Allah Sadiq, Khwaja Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Samad, the vizier, Khwaja Tahir, the chancery secretary and the governor of Rayy, and Abu Sahl Zawzani, a dignitary under Mas’ud, Abu al-Hasan ibn Hasan, Fazl ibn Muhammad, and Khwaja Muhammad. His contemporary distinguished poets include Farrukhi, Zaynabi ‘Alawi, ‘Asjadi, and ‘Unsuri, though he acknowledged ‘Unsuri as his master. After the death of Amir Manuchihr, Manuchihri departed for Rayy and stayed for a while with Tahir Dabir, the governor of Ray. Then, he was invited by the Ghaznavid Sultan Mas’ud to his court in 1034. Damghani flourished under the prosperous rule of the Ghaznavids. The most famous Persian musammat is by Manuchihri:

‘Arise and bring beaver skins as it is the autumnal season

 A cold wind is blowing from the region of Khwarazm.’

He was the first poet to compose poetry in the form of musammat, since such form is not present in the works of his predecessors. He died in his youth. His students are scantily known, though Lami’i Gurgani followed Manuchihri in composing musammats. Ancient Persia is well reflected in Manuchihri’s poetry in which he makes mention of Naw Ruz, Mihragan, Bahmanja, and Sada, celebrating the feasts of ancient Persia. A distinguished poet composing poetry in the Khurasani style, he is considered on a par with prominent poets like Rudaki, Farrukhi, ‘Unsuri, Daqiqi, and Kisa’i. His contemporaries include Zaynabi ‘Alawi and ‘Asjadi. Manuchihri skillfully composed lyrical poetry in the forms of qasida and musammat. His world is that of the happy early rising drinkers and lovers of flowers and nature. Philosophical pessimism cannot find its way into his poetry. His novel themes and depictions present novelties of nature. His similes in his famous qasida, opening with ‘A night whose hair is flowing onto her lap’, are lively, valuable, intuitive, fluent, and exciting. In eulogizing his patrons, he still makes use of natural elements in depicting fresh and lively scenes. The attention he accords to music is reflected by the names of musical modes and tunes. His poetry is intimately connected to the nature of music, hence his recurrent inclusion of musical instruments, birds, and the harmony of the trees, grass, flowers, birds, and musical tunes. He is one of the most talented poets in Persian literature. Notwithstanding his youth, he had mastery of Arabic and Persian prose and poetry. In his poetry, he recurrently makes use of the themes and diction of the poets who had composed Arabic poetry, includes Arabic obsolete and rarely used words, and composes qasidas on the model of Arab poets. He was also well-versed in medicine and astronomy and astronomical terminology are evident in his poetry. Music has been accorded particular significance in his poetry and his references to Persian classical music modes and tunes as well as musical instruments reflect his vast knowledge in this domain. Early manuscripts of his divan are not extant, the earliest of which dates back to the Safavid times. These manuscripts abound in scribal distortions, hence the hard task of editing his divan. Following the edition of A. de Biberstein-Kazimirski (1886), Muhammad Dabirsiyaqi edited his divan on the basis of 36 other manuscripts.

Asar-afarinan (5/ 302); Tarikh-i Adabiyyat dar Iran (1/ 597-580); Danishnama-yi Adab-i Farsi, Adab-i Farsi dar Afghanistan (3/ 984-987).