Abstracta Iranica

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276
Ṭūsī, Abū Naṣr Serrāj-e
al-Loma‘ fī al-taṣawwuf. Edited by Reynold A. Nicholson, Persian translation by Mehdī Mojtabā, Tehrān, Asāṭīr, 1382/2003, 509 p.

[N.B.: the publication date given in the publisher’s information is 1382š., which differs from the date given in the pre-publication cataloguing data from the Ketābḫāne-ye Mellī, which lists 1381š. The former date is presumably more accurate, though the translator’s introduction was completed on 2 Dey māh 1379/22 December 2000 and the publisher’s introduction in the summer of 1381š/ summer 2002]

This modern Persian translation of the classic Sufi manual of Serrāj (d. 378 h.q./988) follows the critical Arabic text established by Reynold Nicholson in his edition of 1914. A complete translation of Nicholson’s painstaking introduction, notes and apparatus would have added 230 pages to the present translation, making the book too long, and some of it – such as Nicholson’s English summary of the contents of al-Loma‘ – is unnecessary, since the entirety of the Arabic text is here rendered in Persian (47n). Only Nicholson’s explanations about Serrāj and his book are included in this translation (pp. 47-59), to which are added nine indices (pp. 453-509) re-worked from Nicholson: Qur’ānic verses, technical terms and phrases, proper names, sects – demonyms – ethnic groups (aṣnāf-e mardom), place names, foodstuffs, animals, precious metals and stones, and books mentioned). In his translator’s introduction Mojtabā considers the Iranian attraction for gnostic thought (i.e., ‘erfān in both its general and its elite expression), and whether this ‘erfān can be compatible with modern rationalism (pp. 21-31), before discussing Serrāj’s book itself, and the translator’s approach to it (pp. 31-45). The translation itself reads smoothly and provides short vowel markings in cases where readers may be in doubt of the correct reading.

Franklin Lewis

Pour citer cette recension

Franklin Lewis. Ṭūsī, Abū Naṣr Serrāj-e, al-Loma‘ fī al-taṣawwuf. Edited by Reynold A. Nicholson, Persian translation by Mehdī Mojtabā, Tehrān, Asāṭīr, 1382/2003, 509 p., Abstracta Iranica [En ligne], Volume 27, mis en ligne le : 2 janvier 2007. URL http://abstractairanica.revues.org/document6272.html. Consulté le 8 janvier 2009.