چكيده لاتين :
In the treasury of Persian manuscripts, there are many books on the subject of mineralogy under the name of ‘Javāhir-nāmeh’ or ‘Marifat-al-jawāhir’. The subject of jewelry is the introduction of gems, the description of traits, types, mines, flaws, maintenance methods, their medical properties and prices, and even the recognition of some of the least valuable gems, metals, and sometimes perfumes. Similar to other works in the field of natural sciences, they are written in a scientific, simple and fluent prose and their contents involve repeated themes adapted from ‘Al- Jamāhir’ and ‘Javāhir nāmeh’ by AbuRayhān Al-Biruni and Nezāmi, respectively. A unique version of ‘Monazere-y-e Goharha’ (Debate of Jewels), which is held in the Islamic Consultative Assembly Library, is written in a completely different style. Its unknown author has used an inventive format of debate to introduce twelve jewels. In this way, he/she has shifted from a scientific style to a narrative and attractive one and has created the most comprehensive Persian prose debate. It’s exact and, sometimes, unique information about some jewels and their Indian synonyms have added to the distinctiveness of the work.
Introduction
The Jewels’ Debate is the 4th part of a collection with record index of 492597 and recognition No. of 5/56 which is bestowed by Commander Majid Firouz (Nasir-ul-Dolah) to the library of Islamic Consultative Assembly. This book is compiled in small square format of 12/5×20 sizes. Its cover is a one-fold red color one with vermeil titles within the book. Its lines and pages are written in different Nastaliq and broken Nastaliq calligraphy styles. The monograph constitutes 141-160 pages of the collection and is written in broken Nastaliq style. Similar to other monographs, each page involves 14 lines and all pages have Rekabah (footnotes). Within the text, there are vermeil signs of comma, dash and three triangular commas.
About the Author
Unfortunately, some parts of the preface and some pages of the debate itself are lost. Because of this, we have no correct information about the book’s name and its writing date or reason. But, the author’s exact information about the types of jewels and their Indian equivalents, citing some Hadiths about stones from Imams (religious leaders) and his/her reference to ‘General Peace’ (which is more related to Akbar Shah Gurkani), suggest that he/she has been an Iranian Shiite who has emigrated to India during the Safavid Dynasty and has spent most part of his/her life over there.
The writing features of the work, especially frequent use of incomplete verbs such as ‘Kardeh’ and ‘Rafteh’ instead of ‘Kardeh ast’ and ‘Rafteh ast’, the Indian equivalent of some words, using of the term ‘General Peace’, and its recommendation, and, particularly, exact information about stones and their traditional names, make us admit that the work is written during the 11th century.
Discussion
The narrative style and debate like the structure of the work and its literary tune make it thoroughly different from the other works written in this field. The author’s use of the narrative language and debate makes the work a pleasant and attractive one. The debate is a method to convince audiences (readers), so its implementation increases the author’s success level in drawing readers’ attention to his/her work and the speech impact. This way, the author personifies jewels. These abstract and unreal characters, all of which are formed within the author’s mind, determine the narration progress by their speeches.
The debate includes 12 distinct parts. In each part, the author, also as the narrator, describes one jewel’s features and its types. The described jewels include crystal, jade, opal, turquoise, cats-eye, ruby, emerald, sapphire, pearl, and coral. Toward the end of the last part, when the debate reaches its peak, and insults are emerged, a heavenly voice is heard. It advices and reproaches jewels and talks about their essence unity and invites them to General Peace. The narrator follows that heavenly voice. Unfortunately, the next pages are lost and the debate is incomplete.
Conclusion
Totally, this work is valuable because of its use of narrative structure. Also, from the subject perspective, there are exact and detailed information about types of jewels, their Indian equivalents, verses, and hadith about jewels, all of which add to its content richness.
