Khorāsānī style (Persian: سبک خراسانی ''sabk-i Khorāsānī'' 'the style of Khurāsān', ', also transliterated ''Khurāsānī'') was a movement in Persian poetry associated with the court of the

Ghaznavids The Ghaznavid dynasty ( ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic peoples, Turkic ''mamluk'' origin. It ruled the Ghaznavid Empire or the Empire of Ghazni from 977 to 1186, which at its greatest extent, extended from the Oxus ...

, associated with

Greater Khorasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West Asia, West and Central Asia that encompasses wes ...

(now divided between Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan).

History

The term was coined in the early twentieth century. It is traditionally considered to characterise the first period of

New Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th ...

poetry, running from the ninth century CE into the second half of the twelfth. It is characterized by its plain poetic technique, concrete images and metaphors, and some archaic linguistic features. While showing limited use of Arabic loan-words, poetry in this style was influenced by Arabic verse, particularly in terms of its prosody, and the dominant genre was the praise-poem. The Khurāsānī period was succeeded by the '' sabk-i ‘Irāqī'' ('style of Iraq'), with its greater use of Arabisms, more elaborate metaphors and imagery, and turn towards spiritualism. However, the transition between the periods was not a sharp one. The style saw a return to popularity with the so-called literary revival (''

bazgasht-e adabi ''Bazgasht-e adabi'' (; "literary return") is the name of a literary style and movement that emerged in Fath Ali Shah Qajar Rule in 18th-century Iran, which advocated for the return of the Khorasani and Iraqi styles in Persian literature ...

'') of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.

Exponents

The pre-eminent study of the style was by Muḥammad Jaʻfar Maḥjūb in 1971. The chief representatives of this lyricism are

Asjadi Abu Nazar ʿAbdul ʿAziz bin Mansur ʿAsjadi () was a 10th-11th century royal Persian poet of the Ghaznavid empire located in the Ghazni province of today's Afghanistan. Originating from Merv, and in some accounts Herat, he was a follower of th ...

Farrukhi Sistani Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Julugh Farrukhi Sistani (), better known as Farrukhi Sistani (; – 1040) was one of the most prominent Persian court poets in the history of Persian literature. Initially serving a ''dehqan'' in Sistan and the Muhtajids in ...

Unsuri Abul Qasim Hasan Unsuri Balkhi (; died 1039/1040) was a 10th–11th century Persian poet. ‘Unṣurī is said to have been born in Balkh, today located in Afghanistan, and he eventually became a poet of the royal court of Mahmud of Ghazni A ...

, and

Manuchehri Abu Najm Aḥmad ibn Qauṣ ibn Aḥmad Manūčihrī (), a.k.a. Manuchehri Dāmghānī (fl. 1031–1040), was an eleventh-century court poet in Persia and in the estimation of J. W. Clinton, 'the third and last (after ʿUnṣurī and Farrukhī) o ...

. Panegyric masters such as

Rudaki Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; ; – 940/41) was a poet, singer, and musician who is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. A court poet under the Samanids, he reportedly composed more than 180,000 verses, yet only a small p ...

were known for their love of nature, their verse abounding with evocative descriptions.

Example

A. A. Seyed-Gohrab contrasts the following passages to illustrate the Khorāsānī style.A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, ''Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry'' (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), pp. 39-42, drawing on Julie Scott Meisami, 'Palaces and Paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry', in ''Islamic Art and Literature'', ed. by O. Grabar and C. Robinson (Princeton, 2001), pp. 21-54. The first is a description of a palace from ''Qaṣīda 31'' by Farrukhī Sistānī, writing in the earlier eleventh century. It is plain and concrete in its description:

: There was a kingly palace in the middle of the garden : The top of the parapets was situated between two turrets : Within the palace, there were decorated porticoes : Each opening towards a belvedere : One was adorned like Chinese brocade : The other contained pictures as in Mani's ''Artang'' : In this palace, the images of the King of the East : Were carved/painted in several places: : In one place, he is fighting, holding in his hand a small javelin : In another place, he is feasting, holding in his hand a cup of wine.

The second is from the end of the ''sabk-i Khurāsānī'' period, near to the ''sabk-i ‘Irāqī'' period: a description of a palace built by Arslān Shah of Ghazna, composed by

‘Uthmān Mukhtārī Abū ‘Umar ‘Uthmān b. ‘Umar Mukhtārī Ghaznavī (born c. 467/1074-75, died 513×15/1118×21) was a Persian poet of the Ghaznavids, an empire originating from Ghazna located in Afghanistan. He had patrons at the courts of the Qarakhānids, t ...

in the vicinity of 1100. This description is far less concrete and much more spiritual in tone:

: The ancient sphere established the centre of the world's empire : Through this place, through which Jupiter exercises its heavenly influence. : When the sun saw its parapets from the sky, : It bowed its head to the ground, and its eyes to the threshold. :
hen Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen, HEN or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in R ...
the virgins of paradise beheld it from their gardens, : They took this palace for gold, and paradise as the mine. : They considered the earth insignificant because of its firm structure; : The air in this palace was so fine that the air (outside) was heavy. : The architect used his intellect and soul to design this edifice : Through the firmness of his intellect and the grace of his soul.

References

{{reflist Persian literature History of literature Persian-language literature Arts in Iran