Introducing Mohammad ebn-e Mobarak Shah Ghazvini’s Javahernameh

جستارهای نوین ادبی

Article 3, Volume 45, Issue 4 - Serial Number 179, February 2012, Pages 45-64   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/jls.v45i4.22928

Authors

Samaneh Jafari^* ; Sayyed Ali Asghar Mirbagherifard; Hoseyn Aghahoseyni

Abstract

Mohammad ebn-e Mobarak Shah Ghazvini (d. 996), known as Hakim Shah, was a sage, orator, philosopher and well-practiced physician in the Ottoman court. He enjoyed the apprenticeship of great masters namely Jalaloddin Davani and Sadroddin Dashtaki. Due to his mastery of Persian, Arabic and Turkish and because of his access to ancient books, he has managed to write books on a variety of sciences. One of these books is called Javahernameh or Ma’refat al- Javaher which deals with describing the nature, attributes, types, mines, defects and preservation methods of jewels as well as some stones. Prior to the tenth century A.H., numerous other works on jewels had been compiled in the Islamic world. However, Ghazvini’s work shows some features which distinguish it from the works preceding and following it. One of these features is the variety of the jewels and stones introduced in addition to the large number of the types referred to in this book. Another feature of this book is its prose style. An investigation into the style of this book reveals that despite its author’s distance from the center of the Persian language and thanks to his poetic nature and literary taste as well as his mastery of the works of great authors in different areas of knowledge preceding him, his book is free from many lexical and syntactic errors and is also devoid of the prevalent sophistication of the time. Adopting the simplicity and brevity necessary for a scientific text, this book has well been able to communicate its message to the readers.

Keywords

Mohammad ebn-e Mobarak Shah Ghazvini; Hakim Shah; Javahernameh; Ma’refat al- Javaher; prose stylistics