Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Jerome W. Clinton

Reviewed work(s):
The Shahnameh by Abu-'L-Qasem Ferdowsi
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), pp. 599-601
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/164122
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 Reviews 599

ABU-'L-QASEM FERDOWSI, The Shahnameh (Book of Kings), vol. 1. Djalal Khaleqi-

Motlagh, Ed. Persian Heritage Foundation, Persian Text Series, New Series, No. 1,
Bibliotheca Persica (Albany, N.Y.: University of New York Press, 1987). Pp. 385.

This is the first volume of a projected eight-volume edition of the Iranian national epic,
the Shahnameh-six volumes of text and variora and two of Professor Khaleqi-Motlagh's
annotations and commentary. The present volume carries the story through the reign of
Kay Qobad. It is provided with indices of personal names and places and two separate
introductions. The first, in Persian, is a brief but detailed description by Professor
Khaleqi-Motlagh of how he has understood and carried out his responsibilities as editor.'
The second introduction, in both English and Persian, is by Professor Ehsan Yarshater
and consists of a concise but highly informative history of the editing of the Shahnameh
since its "discovery" by European scholars nearly two centuries ago. The volume is
handsomely printed in a clear and readable typeface, and is, so far as I have been able to
determine, remarkably free of typographical errors.
At present there are essentially two approaches to the preparation of critical editions of
medieval texts. The first is synthetic and seeks to reconstruct the lost original of a work by
collating old and good manuscripts that have been weighted for authenticity and com-
pleteness. The result is a new, composite text that is presumed to be a fuller and better
version of the original than any of the individual manuscripts used. This approach is
especially helpful when existing manuscripts are fragmentary, of poor quality, or both.
The second approach takes a single best manuscript and emends it on the basis of other
old and good manuscripts to eliminate or reduce scribal errors and intrusions. This
method is most suitable when at least one old, good, and essentially complete manuscript
exists. It is helpful if there are other good manuscripts available, and if their genealogical
relationships to the "best" manuscript are relatively clear. Both approaches give prece-
dence to early manuscripts unless there are compelling reasons for thinking that later
manuscripts are truer to the original, and both require that the editors record variant
readings systematically.
Until quite recently, no edition of the Shahnameh has adhered consistently to either
approach. All modern editions-from Turner Macan's of 1829 to Sa'id Nafisi's of 1934-
1936-were based on relatively late manuscripts, and all tended toward the production of
new synthetic texts rather than editions as we presently accept the term. While they were
often based on a wide selection of manuscripts, the reasons for selecting these manuscripts
from among the thousands available were not argued in a sustained and logical way nor
were the variora recorded. The reader had to take on faith that the editor's choices were
sound. Indeed, the editor's personal taste was as much the basis of the edition as was
scholarly method. In this reliance on taste rather than method, the first modern editions
were closer to the medieval recensions than to the modern European editions of other
medieval works.
The first scholarly edition of the Shahnameh was undertaken by the Oriental Institute
of the Soviet Academy of Sciences under the general editorship of Ye. E. Bertel and, after
his death in 1957, A. H. Nushin. This edition was published in nine volumes between 1960
and 1971. It was both the first to be based exclusively on the early manuscripts, most
notably the British Museum manuscript dated 675/1276-the oldest complete manuscript
known-and the first to include all variants from the other manuscripts used. It was a
substantial improvement over existing editions and quickly became the edition of choice
among scholars.
Although the Soviet edition was the first to apply current scholarly methods to the
editing of the Shahnameh and so established an invaluable precedent for all subsequent
600 Reviews

editions, it suffered from important limitations, as the editors themselves recognized.

While the Soviet scholars used what was then demonstrably the best manuscript as the
basis of their work, they were restricted in their access to other early manuscripts.
Manuscripts equal or superior to those they relied upon were already available or came to
light as their edition was in the course of publication, and one of those they relied on has
lately been shown to be younger by nearly four centuries than its ostensible date.2 In
addition, there is an inconsistency of method and unevenness in performance, especially
in the earlier volumes, that results from its being both a collaborative effort and a
pioneering one.3 The editors recognized these limitations and attempted to compensate
for them, in part, by revising the first two volumes and reissuing them in 1971.
Khaleqi-Motlagh has benefited from the experience of the editors of the Soviet edition
and has improved on their work in a number of important respects. To begin with, he has
used more and better manuscripts than the Soviet scholars. This edition is based on the
careful comparison of some 15 early manuscripts, and these in turn were winnowed from
a preliminary list of 45.4 Twelve of these the editor has designated as primary (asli), which
means that all their textual variants are recorded as footnotes. Three others and the 13th-
century Arabic translation of Bundari, he has designated as secondary (gheyr-e asli).
Their variants are not recorded, and they are referred to only as they clarify particular
readings. This procedure by itself would have yielded a superior edition, and, happily,
good fortune has strengthened his hand still further. Shortly after the Soviet edition was
completed, the first volume of a two volume manuscript was discovered in Florence that
both antedated the British Museum manuscript by 60-odd years and was superior to it in
a number of important respects.5 This manuscript has been used as the basis of the first
half of the Khaleqi-Motlagh edition.
The other great advance of the present edition is in methodological rigor and con-
sistency. Khaleqi-Motlagh has been systematic in his application of the best manuscript
approach, where the Soviet scholars sometimes wavered. Where he has emended the
Florence manuscript he has done so for reasons that have everything to do with sound
and careful scholarship and nothing to do with the vagaries of individual taste. This is not
just a superb edition of the Shahnameh, it is a model of how editions should be done.
The achievement is a staggering one, particularly when one considers that it has all
been done by a single scholar and that he has accomplished it with virtually no institu-
tional support. Khaleqi-Motlagh is impressively modest about the scope of his accom-
plishment. He invites scholars in the field to study his text with the most scrupulous
attention and to be frank and unsparing in their criticisms. He anticipates that a text
edition sans apparatus criticus will be prepared, based on his own but incorporating
these criticisms. There is much yet to be done on the study of the manuscript tradition of
the Shahnameh, and much that we have yet to learn about how this great work was
performed, understood, and transmitted, but thanks to Dr. Khaleqi-Motlagh we now
have a Shahnameh that Ferdowsi would have recognized as his own.

NOTES

Khaleqi-Motlagh has published a number of articles on the text of the Shahnameh and a wide
variety of related subjects. References to these articles are included in the notes to the introduction by
Yarshater-see notes 1, 21, and 22 in the English text.
2English introduction, p. ix, note 15.
English introduction, p. viii.
 Reviews 601

4The editor has given detailed descriptions of these mss. in "Mo'arrefi o arzyabi-e barkhi az
dastnevisha-ye shahname," Iran Namah, 3, 3 (1364/1985), 378-406, 4, 1, 2 (1364/1985), 16-47,
225-55.
5Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, "Dastnevis-e shahname movarrekh-e 613 hejri qamari (dastnevis-e
felorans)," Iran Namah, vol. 7, 1 (Fall 1376/1988), 63-94.

Department of Near Eastern Studies JEROMEW. CLINTON

Princeton Universitv

BERNARD LEWIS,The Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). Pp. 245.
BENJAMIN BRAIJDE AND BERNARD LEWIS, eds., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman
Empire, 2 vols. (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1982). Vol. 1: The Central
Lands. Pp. 449. Vol. 2: The Arabic-Speaking Lands. Pp. 248.

The Jews of Islam, by Professor Bernard Lewis, explores the Jewish experience in the
Islamic world from the rise of Islam to the present. Expanded from four lectures, the
book reflects the erudition of one of the foremost scholars in the field of Islamic history
with extensive knowledge of both Arabic and Turkish sources. Now available in paper-
back, The Jews of Islam can be used to supplement the more systematic history and
source book by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (1979), and the pioneering
survey by S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs (first published in 1955). Although covering
much of the same ground as these previous works, Lewis' book is a useful and eloquent
addition to the understanding of Jewish history in the Middle East. The many interesting
and amusing anecdotes make the book inviting to a wide readership.
The subject of Muslim-Jewish relations in history has often been treated by apologists
and polemicists. Lewis sets out at the beginning of the first chapter to disassociate himself
from partisan scholarship by emphasizing that neither the stereotype of a golden age of
tolerance, nor fanatical oppression accurately describe the conditions of Jews under
Islamic rule. In a semantic discussion of the meaning of tolerance, Lewis dismisses the
utility of loaded, modern comparisons. And yet the book returns to an underlying theme
which is clearly predicated by modern concerns: Was the Jewish experience in Islam a
good or bad one? Lewis' answer to this question is ambivalent. While discrimination was
a permanent feature throughout Islam, persecution in the "classical" period was rare, at
least in the Islamic heartlands.
Lewis certainly recognizes the disparity between theory and practice as it pertained to
the dhimmi. Practice tended to be less harsh then precept, though when the Islamic state
was weak, conditions tended to deteriorate. Lewis suggests two typologies in which the
state endeavors to restore a stricter interpretation of the status of dhimmis. The first is
when rulers insist on restoring a purer and more authentic Islam, adopting measures to
curtail the influence of non-Muslims on the state. The second, which had much more
deleterious results, is characterized by messianic and millenarian regimes, such as the
Almohads or the Shici dynasty of the Safavids. But often the most exacting requirements
on dhimmis reflect more the "history of mentalities than of institutions" (p. 16).
It is, thus, a history of attitudes that is the primary focus of the first two chapters and,
to a degree, the preoccupation of the entire book. Lewis is particularly adept at explaining
the conceptual framework of the dhimma, which was formulated in early Islam to
symbolize the inferiority of non-Muslims. As Lewis is clearly aware, concepts were not
always translated into practice. But sometimes he does not clearly distinguish between