Persian Princess Jahan Malek Khatun on Love

A Recently Discovered Medieval Persian Poem

The ghazal (lyric poem) translated here is missing from the standard edition of Jahan Malek Khatun’s poems. We (Kayvan Tahmasebian and myself) have translated it from an article recently published in Persian: Javad Bashari’s “Newly-found poems by Jahan Malek Khatun,” Payam-e Baharestan 1.3 (2009): 740–766. Bashari’s source is a 19th century manuscript that was copied in Istanbul in 1889 by the Iranian dissident Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani. Kermani was at that time residing at the home of Mirza Habib, best known as the translator of James Morier’s The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824). Both dissidents were at that time political exiles from the Qajar Iranian state.

In the 20th century, the same ghazal was attributed to the Indo-Persian poet Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) by the renowned Iranian scholar Said Nafisi. However, the attribution to Amir Khusrow is uncertain. The ghazal lacks what in Persian is called the takhallos — a concluding signature verse that identifies the poet while adding an additional layer of rhetorical embellishment to the poem — in Amir Khusrow’s name. Two other ghazals by Amir Khusrow contain the same refrain (khosh ast, meaning “it is sweet”) as the one used in this poem, but both are signed in Amir Khusrow’s name.

However, the poem translated here follows the same pattern as the other ghazals by Jahan Malek Khatun which use jahān — meaning “world” as well as referring to her name — in their signature verse. (Often, the takhallos is a fictional device that assigns an invented name to the poet’s persona, but in Jahan’s case, her takhallos matched her actual name.) This parallel casts doubt on Amir Khusrow’s authorship. For example, consider these two signature verses in two different ghazals by Jahan Malek Khatun, in which she identifies herself as author through a pun on her name (our translations follow):

I wondered if Jahan (the world) would rejoice in your justice; Now I’m sure you wish for Jahan (the world) to be desolate.

and:

When will you stop keeping me on fire like rue? When will you stop destroying Jahan (the world) with your coquettish eyes?

Jahan Malek Khatun’s rival in poetry Ubayd Zakani also puns on her name in a short and somewhat misogynistic poem addressing Jahan Malek Khatun’s husband Amin al-Din, who was vizier of Abu Ishaq, ruler of Shiraz:

O vizier! Jahan (the world) is an unfaithful whore. Aren’t you ashamed by such a whore? Go and seek another loose vagina; Jahan (the world) is not tight enough for the Lord of Jahan (the world).

Bashari’s 21st century discovery calls into question the attribution of this ghazal to Amir Khusrow. Neither Bashari or Nafisi were aware of the conflicting assumptions that the other had made regarding the authorship of this poem. We are presenting these different perspectives here for the first time. Although the debate may never be definitively concluded, after centuries of doubting the authorship of this poem by a female poet, it turns out that the poem may well belong to Jahan Malek Khatun after all.

Your love weighs sweetly on my heart. I’m occupied by love: a sweet profession.

I sacrifice my soul to him, though he’s unfaithful, I dedicate my heart to him. He’s a sweet lover.

For a frenzied nightingale in love with a rose it’s pleasant to converse on the grass with thorns.

They sell their lives in the market of love: Come inside! To sell is sweet.

The cypress that grows up straight sweetly represents my beloved’s the stature.

How can I compare his stature to a cypress? The cypress is sweetly stuck in the mud of astonishment.

That mouth is a vanishing point, shrinking: it’s sweet to be a point on the circle of a compass.

No sickness is sweet, yet it’s sweet to be made sick by your magic eyes.

The arrows from his eyes drown the world in blood yet it’s sweet to be shot by arched eyes.

تسا شوخ یراب ملد رب تقشع راب تسا شوخ یراک نیا و تسا قشع نم راک اپ رد مھد ناج ی تسافو یب ھچ را ش تسا شوخ یرادلد ھک مشخب ودب لد لگ قشع زا ار هدیروش لبلب تسا شوخ یراخ تبحص اب نمچ رد قشع رازاب رد دنناشورف ناج تسا شوخ یرازاب ھک ھن رد مدق کی تسامن و وشن رد ورس ار یتسار تسا شوخ یرادومن مرای دق زا ھک میوگ نوچ ورس ار وا دق ورس تسا شوخ یراتفرگ تریح لگ رد نھد نآ ینعی موھوم ھطقن ھطقن تسا شوخ یراگرپرود رد یا یلو ،شوخ دشابن یرامیب چیھ تسا شوخ یرامیب وت یوداج مشچ تفرگ نوخ رد ناھج وا مشچ ریت تسا شوخ یراد نامک تسد زا کیل

Jahan Malek Khatun (fl. 1324–1382) was an Iranian poet and princess at the Injuid court, which had its capital in Shiraz. She was a contemporary of Hafez, and is the only known premodern Persian poet to locate her writing within a tradition of female poets in a prose preface to her collected poems. She is best known for her ghazals. For more about Jahan and her preface on women’s writing in medieval Iran, check out this story: