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The adaptation of Kalīla and Dimna written by Abū al-Maʿālī Naṣr Allāh Munshī in the 1140s CE is a cornerstone work of classical Persian prose literature—but there is a subtle tension in both its conception and its reception. Naṣr Allāh translated this book of fables from the second/eighth century Arabic version attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ. Along with bringing the text into Persian, he added a great deal of new material, and the result is a highly distinctive work. There is a substantial original preface, which argues for the value of Kalīla and Dimna within a framework of just Islamic governance. Then, throughout the fables themselves, Naṣr Allāh has inserted myriad quotes from qur’anic verses, ḥadīth, Arabic and Persian poetry, wise sayings, and beyond. So many of these references are in Arabic that it was evidently difficult for some medieval persophone readers to understand the text. What are we to make of a translation from Arabic to Persian which is then “re-arabicized” to such a degree that the reader must be biliterate? This talk will argue that Naṣr Allāh’s hybrid style represents an effort to forge a new path in Persian prose literature—which was still in a relatively early stage of development—through the adaptation of conventions from the Arabic adab tradition.
Theodore Beers is a Persian and (complementarily) Arabic philologist, currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he belongs to a research group focusing on the Kalīla and Dimna textual tradition. He received his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2020, having written a dissertation centered on Sām Mīrzā (d. 975/1567), a Safavid prince and author of an influential biographical anthology of poetry (taẕkira). Much of Theodore’s current research addresses points of literary exchange between Persian and Arabic in the medieval and early modern periods. He is also an avid digital humanist and open-source software developer.