A Bilingual Text in Timurid Herat: A Manuscript Study of Amīr ʿAlīshīr Navāʾī’s Khamsat al-Mutaḥayyirīn

In this paper, I focus on the manuscript evidence from Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn by Amīr ʿAlīshīr Navāʾī (d. 1501) to ask how many foreign quotations, sentences, terms and expressions, etc., must a text contain in order to be considered bilingual? Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn was produced in Timurid Herat at the end of the fifteenth century. During the Timurid era, Herat was a cosmopolitan intellectual center, where Persian, the common language of Khurasan, interacted with Chaghatay, the Turkic tongue of the Timurid princes and administrators originating from Transoxiana. An influential minister in the court of Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā (r. 1469–1506) in Herat, Navāʾī was a proficient prose writer and poet in both Chaghatay and Persian. His extensive literary and historical output is evidence of this. Navāʾī’s Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn stands out among the earliest accounts written to celebrate the life and works of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 1492), arguably the most significant Persian poet of the fifteenth century Iran and an illustrious Sufi master based in Herat.

Navāʾī clearly intended to write Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn for an audience learned in Chaghatay Turkish to exhibit his remarkable relationship with the late Jāmī. However, the frequent use of Persian poetry, numerous references to his exchanges in Persian with Jāmī throughout the text, long Persian expressions and combinations of words and a Persian eulogy composed for the deceased master at the end render Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn a bilingual work. In other words, in light of an assessment of the manuscripts, I argue that Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn should be considered a bilingual text even though it has been traditionally classified as a work in Chaghatay Turkish. In spite of the value of this work for the literary, social, and intellectual histories of Timurid Iran and Central Asia, in this paper I am primarily interested in illustrating the mechanism of interaction between Chaghatay Turkish and Persian in the manuscripts of the Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn in order to shed light on bilingualism during this period. 

I also seek to demonstrate what happens to multilingualism in a manuscript when a modern edition is prepared. Considering that the Turkic countries most interested in reviving the works of Navāʾī, namely Uzbekistan and Turkey, have changed their original Persian-Arabic script into Cyrillic and Roman respectively, one might wonder how this bilingualism may be reflected in the modern editions compiled in these two countries. I intend to highlight the shortcomings of the modern editions of the Khamsat al-mutaḥayyirīn in order to advocate for the preparation of critical editions in the original script for scholarly purposes. In this way, the multilingual nature of the manuscripts can be better preserved in the process of converting them into modern texts.

Structure of Khamsat al-Mutaḥayyirīn

Navāʾī divided his work in five interlinked parts (khamsat), that is, three chapters (maqāla) enclosed by an introduction (muqaddima) and a final section (khātima).

Preface

• The Occasion for the Composition of Khamsat al-Mutaḥayyirīn

Introduction

• On Jāmī’s Birthdate and Lineage
• On Jāmī’s Residence in Herat and His Education
• On Jāmī’s Fame as a Sufi Master and a Teacher
• A Table of Contents

Chapter One

• Twenty Wonderful Anecdotes Which Attests to Jāmī and Navāʾī’s Special Relationships

Chapter Two

• An Account of Letters Exchanged Between Jāmī and Navāʾī on Various Occasions Mixed with Some Anecdotes

Chapter Three

• An Annotated Register of Jāmī’s Work Written Due to Navāʾī’s Patronage
• An Annotated Register of Navāʾī’s Works Written in Response to Jāmī’s Works

Closing Remarks (Khātima):

• An Annotated Register of Books and Treatises that Navāʾī Had Read under Jāmī’s Supervision
• An Account of Five Saintly Miracles of Jāmī that Navāʾī Had Witnessed
• A Description of Jāmī on His Deathbed
• A Description of Jāmī’s Funeral in Herat
• A Description of Jāmī’s First Death Anniversary
• Navāʾī’s Eulogy for Jāmī in Persian