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book: Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature
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Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature

Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis
  • Majid Daneshgar
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025
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About this book

Presents the most complete Persian edition and the first known English translation of the Durr al-Majālis

  • A novel academic approach to the study of Persianate-Malay Islamic texts
  • Contributes Persian materials to the shaping of Southeast Asian culture and literature
  • Contributes a critical and comparative study of Malay history and literature from a Persianate perspective
This book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majālis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate. The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majālis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Dedication

    v
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    Contents

    vii
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    Acknowledgments

    xi
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    Transliteration Format

    xv
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    Table of Figures

    xvii
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    List of Tables

    xix
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    Preface

    xxi
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  • Part A: On Literature, Context and Text
  • I. Introduction
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    Intro

    1
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Southeast Asia

    6
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    The Persian-Malay Network: Historical Ties between Muslims

    7
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    Persian Phonology in Malay Language

    20
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    Persian Origin of Malay Islamic Literature

    25
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  • II. Durr al‑Majālis: Origins and Identity
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    Intro

    41
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    Reception of the Text

    46
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    Bibliographical and Biographical Details

    47
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  • III. Transregional Circulation
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    Intro

    61
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Punjabi

    63
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Pushto

    63
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Bengali (and in Bengal)

    64
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Turkic Languages and Contexts

    67
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    Durr al‑Majālis in the Arabic Zone

    72
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    Durr al‑Majālis in Kurdish

    73
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  • IV. Islamic Themes and Novelty
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    Belief and Doctrine

    75
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    Philosophical Theology

    76
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    Occultism and Magic

    76
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    About the Prophets

    77
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    A Killing Story of Sunnis and Shīʿīs, and the idea of de-Shīʿitisation

    79
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    Dialogue

    82
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  • V. Persianate-Malay Islamic Stories: A Comparative Analysis
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    Intro

    87
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    On Persian-Malay Muslim Literature

    88
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    Shared Islamic Stories in Persian and Malay

    88
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    Close Similarities

    96
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  • VI. A Critical Persian Edition and Critically Edited Translation of Durr al‑Majālis
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    Persian Edition

    125
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    English Translation

    129
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    Formation

    130
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  • Part B: Persian Edition and English Translation
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    Introduction

    132
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    1. On the virtues of the creation of His Eminence Adam (pbuh) and further similar examples

    141
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    2. On the virtue of Abraham’s (pbuh) generosity and further similar examples

    161
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    3. On the virtue of Jethro (pbuh)

    173
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    4. On the virtue of His Eminence Moses

    179
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    5. On the virtue of His Eminence Solomon (pbuh)

    189
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    6. On the virtue of His Eminence Jesus (pbuh) and his miracle

    199
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    7. On the virtue of our Prophet

    211
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    8. The right of orphans

    229
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    9. The story of the Prophet’s (pbuh) injured teeth

    239
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    10. An Entreaty

    245
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    11. On the Virtue of the Hero, the Commander of Believers ʿAlī (pbuh)

    253
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    12. The story of Mary the Copt, the servant of Muḥammad (pbuh)

    261
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    13. On the virtue of the Joseph-like youth after he was treated for the sake of God

    269
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    14. On the virtue of Khālid b. Walīd (pbuh)

    279
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    15. On the virtue of Bilāl, and a king from the Arab region

    293
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    16. The advice of Luqmān the Wise, ʿAbd al‑Raḥmān, to his son

    305
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    17. On the coming to faith of an idolater through Abraham

    313
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    18. The story of Sultan Ibrāhīm Adham, may his grave be sanctified

    321
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    19. The story of the generous husband and the miserly wife

    329
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    20. The story of Āzar, the idol-maker

    339
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    21. The story of the parrot speaking with the Prophet Solomon (pbuh)

    349
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    22. The story of Khwāja Ḥasan Baṣrī God’s mercy be upon him

    353
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    23. The story of the request of the outcast Satan who harassed the nation of the Prophet Muḥammad

    361
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    24. The story of the King of Nishapur’s treatment of the oppressed

    369
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    25. The story of Khwāja Rabīʿ Ḥusām

    375
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    26. The story of Khwāja Sufyān Thawrī with the outcast Satan, God’s curse be upon him

    385
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    27. The story of Khwāja Ḥasan Nūrī, may God’s mercy be upon him

    393
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    28. The story of Shaykh Barsīsā

    401
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    29. On the virtue of the holy month of Ramadan

    411
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    30. The story of the Kaʿba

    423
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    31a. The story of the killing of the commanders of believers Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (pbuh)

    435
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    31b. The story of the killing of the commanders of believers Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (pbuh)

    469
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    32. The story of our sovereign-master Abu Saʿīd Abū al‑Khayr

    525
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    33. The story of the inhabitants of paradise

    533
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    34. Regarding Balʿam Bāʿūr

    545
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    35. The tale of Moses

    551
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    36. The story of the King of the Levant

    587
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    Epilogue: Nūr-nāma

    597
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    List of the Chapters

    609
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  • PART C: APPENDICES
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    Intro

    615
    Majid Daneshgar
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    Appendix A A Description of Select Persian- Language Manuscripts

    617
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    Appendix B A Description of Select Translated Copies

    643
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    Appendix C A Description of Select South Asian/ Indic-Language Manuscripts

    647
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    Appendix D A Description of Select Printed Volumes

    653
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    Appendix E Personal Digital Collection

    655
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    Bibliography

    657
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    Index

    673
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    Persian Preface

    690
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 31, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781399537599
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
720
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399537599
eBook ISBN: 9781399537599
Keywords for this book
Persianism; Persianate-Malay; Malay Muslims; Durr al-Majālis; Sufism; Southeast Asia; Malay-Indonesian world
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
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