
1922.] The Sources of Jami’s Nafahat. 387 
tries to dissociate the saint from his followers, whom he 
regards as obnoxious heretics, outside the pale of Islam 
(p. 690). But at the same time he systematically ignores all 
saints who had any relation with Shi‘ism. So he entirely omits 
all the famous Sufic ancestors of the rising Safawide dynasty, 
although there can be no doubt that they were much discussed 
in his time,! and that the MSS. of Sifwatu’s-safa, in which 
their lives are recorded, were not uncommon. Probably 
for the same reason he omits the famous Ni‘matu’l-lah Wall, 
Sayyid Nurbakhsh, Shaykh Adhari, with their associates, as 
well as many others.” But most amaziag is his disregard for 
‘Attar’s beautiful Tadhkira. He mentions it only once (p. 
687) in the’ biography of that poet, borrowed, as we wiil see 
later, from a work of Indian origin, Lataif-i-ashrafi. It is 
highly improbable that Jami should never have seen it 
Copies of the T'adhkira dating from Jami’s time and earlier are 
still very numerous; therefore this omission can only be in- 
tentional. Besides ‘Attar’s biography, his name is mentioned 
only five times in the course of the whole book (pp. 21, 447, 
531, 534, 540), usually in a context of extracts from other 
treatises. The mere enterprise of a re-edition of Ansari’s 
Tabogat shows that Jami was not satisfied with ‘Attar's 
Tadhkira, which deals with the same subjects. This strange 
to the beliefs of the Shi‘ite extremists, and certainly would be 
very repugnant to Jami’s piety 
In handling his authorities Jami rarely reproduces them 
in their integrity. He obviously avoids long stories. and whea 
he had at his disposal a circumstantial monograph on a saint, 
he used to condense it into a few pages, but summarised in 
additional separate biographies the narratives about the second- 
ary personages menitoned therein. Whenever he leaves them 
and alters the order not only of separate anecdotes but even 
of sentences, usually for reasons which are not ap] 
His arrangement, generally speaking, is chaotic. The rawr’ 
sion which one receives from a study of his work is mane oa 
was originally written on separate slips which were transcr 
oe i a MINI sate —_ 
11 fact Farnk-thsitides Soca et "d- 
! In fact Jami mentions once (p. 672) the greatest of them, Safiyyu 
not included in the Nafa- 
Din Ardabili. 
before the completion of the 
‘i Fe The suggestion that the latter two were 
wat because they died only less than 20 years 
: =e mi ntions six 
book does not explain the omission, epee Ja aie several others 
