Imitation and Innovation in Timurid Poetics: Kashifi'sBadāyiᶜ al-afkārand its predecessors,al-MuᶜjamandḤadāᵓiq al-siḥr

Abstract

Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi, The Persian Prose-Writer Par Excellence of the ninth/fifteenth century, did not compose his treatiseBadāyiᶜ al-afkār fī ṣanāyiᶜ al-ashᶜār[Wondrous Thoughts on Poetical Tropes] to compensate for the lapses of his predecessors, or to make a groundbreaking contribution to the Persian literary sciences. His stated purpose, at least, was rather prosaic.Badāyiᶜ al-afkārwas Kashifi's calling card to the new Timurid ruler Sultan-Husayn Bayqara (r. 873/1469–911/1506), which—so he hoped—would secure his place among the literary experts at the Timurid court. That much we know from the author's introduction to the treatise. At the time of Sultan-Husayn Bayqara's ascension to the throne, Herat was at the peak of its glory.

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