Poetry
The Treasury of Mysteries
Məxzən-ül-əsrar
Nizami Ganjavi · 1163
Synopsis
A didactic and mystical poem of about two thousand two hundred and fifty couplets. After the praise of the Prophet and a meditation on the value of poetry, the poet recounts his solitary vigils and the journey to his own heart, where the archangel bids him purify himself. There follow twenty discourses on the justice of kings, hypocrisy, the vanity of the world, renunciation and preparation for the hereafter, each followed by an exemplary story and closed by the poet's address to himself, in which a vision of the end of time also appears.
Context
The poem is dedicated to Fakhr al-Din Bahramshah, ruler of Erzincan, in Anatolia. Its date remains disputed: 1163 for most sources, between 1165 and 1173 or 1176 for others, and a catalogue of Anatolian manuscripts goes as far as 1184. The shortest of the five poems of the Khamsa, it draws on Sanai's Garden of Truth; Renate Würsch notes in it a rich and difficult style, made of complex metaphors and chains of associations. Gholam Hosein Darab translated it into English in 1945 and Djamchid Mortazavi into French in 1987.
Who it is for
A long Persian poem, translated into French; the exemplary stories are easier to read than the moral discussions.
Prizes and reception
First poem of the Khamsa, copied and illustrated for centuries, from the workshops of Herat to the libraries of Istanbul.
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