Browne, Edward Granville, A history of Persian literature under Tartar dominion (A.D. 1265-1502)

(Cambridge [England] :  University Press,  1920.)

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CHAPTER VII.

PROSE WRITERS OF THE LATER TIMURID PERIOD.

The literary and artistic wealth of the period now under
review has been already summarily indicated in the pre-
Enormous          ccdlng chaptor, and it will be our business in

literary activity    this  chapter to discuss  iu  greater detail  the

of this period                        i          r                          r   ' i                    j              -            a.                            j.

work of some of its most eminent representa¬
tives in the world of letters. To attempt to treat, even in
the briefest manner, of all its notable poets and men of
learning would be impossible in any moderate compass.
Thus the Habibds-Siyar, a history specially valuable on
account of the biographies of notable writers and poets
added as an appendix to each reign or historical period,
enumerates no less than 211 persons of this class who
flourished during the Timurid period, of whom all save 23,
who belong to the reign of Timur himself, represent the
period now engaging our attention\ The city of Herat
during the reign of Sultan Abu'l-Ghazi Husayn (A.H. 878-
912 = A.D. 1473-1506) may be regarded as the culminating
point of this brilliant period, and it derives an additional
importance from the great influence which it exercised on
the development of Ottoman Turkish literature, a fact duly

^ These biographical notices all occur in vol. iii, part 3, on the
following pages of the Bombay lithographed edition of 1857 : pp. 85-
92 (reign of Timur); pp. 142-150 (reign of Shah-rukh); pp. 151-161
(reign of Ulugh Beg); pp. 171-174 (reign of Abu'l-Qasim Babur);
pp. 196-201 (reign of Abu Sa'id); pp. 334-350 (reign of Sultd.n Abu'l-
Ghazi Husayn b. Bayqard.). To these must be added some of those
persons who flourished contemporaneously under the patronage of the
Turkmans of the " White Sheep" {Aq-qoyunlu) and early Safawis
(vol. iii, part 4, pp. 110-118), who raise the total number of separate
biographical notices to 274.
  Page [421]