
27. The Sources of Jami’s Nafahat. 
By W. Ivanow. 
Not many biographical and hagiological works in Persian 
literature have attained the exceptional popularity of Jami’s 
well-known Nafahatu’l-uns. Since its completion, in 883 A.H. 
(1478 A.D.) it has exercised an enormous influence upon con- 
temporary and later writers. It contains the fullest avail- 
able collection of biographies of the leading Sufic saints who 
lived from the beginning of the movement till the first appear- 
ance of signs of its decay. The book undoubtedly constitutes 
an important authority on the religious, social and even liter- 
ary development of Muhammadanism in Western Asia. 
As we learn from the preface, Jami’s original intention 
was not to write a complete and systematic history of Sufism. 
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others again are not locally accessible for reference. , 
the sources of a number of biographies can only be hypotheti- 
