Skip to content

Maḥmūd ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm Shabistarī 8th/14th cent. / d. c. 720/1320).

Maḥmūd ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm Shabistarī

 محمود بن عبد الکريم

شبسترى

(b. Shahbistar [near Tabriz] c.  686/1287 - d. c. 720/1320).

AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stephen Lambden, UC Merced. 

In Progress - last uploaded 27-10-2017.

 

 

Important expounder of the mystical and theological disclosures of the "Great Shaykh" Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-'Arabī (d. 638/1240) especially as expressed in his massive al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (Meccan Disclosures) and his Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). His birth and death dates are uncertain. Widely travelled in the Middle East, in Egypt, Syria and Arabia,  Shabistarī  was probably a member of a branch of the Kubrawiyya Sufi order.  Thirty of more commentaries have been written in his famous Mathnawi poem, the Persian Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of Secrets). This poetical work was written in response to seventeen issues pertaining to Sufi metaphysics raised in a letter of a leading Sufi of Khurasan, one Mir Husayni Sadat (d.718/1318) as mediated by  Sufis of Tabriz.

In a brief paragraph on Shabistari in vol. 5 of the The Cambridge History of Iran : The Saljuq and Mongol Periods,  John Boyle in rather arrogant orientalist fashion (writing in 1968),  refers to the author of the Gulshan-i raz (if this be authebtic !!) as "no outstanding poet" ( CH 5 p. 603). The very success and widespread Islamic and European (from the early 19th cent.) fascination with this outstanding and erudite mathnavi poem, makes something of a nonsense of Boyle's flipant, unappreciative remark. 

 

Shahbistārī, Maḥmud (d. 720/1320-1).

Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of Secrets), written c. 717/1317,

گلشن راز

Mss,

XXXX

  • The 1821 French translation.

Joseph Hammer-Purgstall, Freiherr von

  • Mahmud Schebisteri's Rosenflor des Geheimnisses. Pesth ; Leipzig : C.A. Hartleben, 1838.

The Bombay + elsewhere Isma'ili  lithograph printing of 1280/1863.

  • Add,

E.H. Whinfield

  • The Gulshan Ráz of Najm ud Din, otherwise called Sa'd ud Din Mahmud Shabistari Tabrizi. Translated by E.H. Whinfield. Calcutta, India : Wyman & Co., Publishers, 1876. xiv, 116 pp.
  • Gulshan i raz: The mystic rose garden of Sa'd ud din Mahmud Shabistari: the Persian text, with an English translation and notes, chiefly from the commentary of Muhammed bin Yahya Lahiji, by E.H. Whinfield. London, Trubner, 1880 Original text (58p.).
  • The Secret rose garden of Saʿd ud din Maḥmoud Shabistarī, rendered from the Persian with an introduction by Florence Lederer,... The Wisdom of the East series, Trans. Florence Lederer. London : J. Murray, 1920. 16,91 pp.
  • Wisdom of the east : the secret rose garden of Sa'd Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari. Florence Lederer, Lahore : SH. Muhammad Ashraf, 1969. vii, 74pp.   pDf rbsi ARCHIVE= LEDERER 1920.
  • The Secret Rose Garden.by Mahmud Shabistari; Florence Lederer; David R Fidele. Newburyport : Red Wheel Weiser, 2002.
  • The secret garden [Gulshan-i rāz, by] Mahmud Shabistari.  Johnson Pasha. London Octagon Press, 1969.
  • Gulshān-i rāz (The Rose Garden of the Secrets). Persian text and trans. R. H. Whinfield, 1880 Rep.  Markiz-I taḥqīqāt–i Fārṣi Īran va Pakistan. 1978.
  • ‏محمود شبسترى :‏ ‏سرايندۀ گلشن راز / Shaykh Maḥmūd Shabistarī : sarāyandah-ʼi Gulshan-i rāz. Ṣamad Muvaḥḥid. Tehran:  Tarḥ-i Naw, 1998.
  • Gulshan-i rāz : taṣḥīḥ-i intiqādī va muṭālaʻah dar ʻaqāyid va ʻirfān-i Shaykh Maḥmūd Shabistarī. Islāmʹābād, Pākistān : Markaz-i Taḥqīqāt-i Fārsī-i Īrān va Pākistān, 2007. vii. 286 pp.
  • Garden of mystery : the Gulshan -i rāz of Mahmud Shabistari. Classics of Sufi poetry, no. 2. translated by Robert Abdul Hayy Darr. Cambridge : Archetype, 2007.
  • Gülşen-i râz [Texte imprimé] : mesnevî / Şeyh Mahmud-ı Şebüsteri ; Atatürk kitaplığı (Istanbul) -- Manuscrit. Ms. Osman Ergin no. 224, hazırlayan Turgut Karabey., Erzurum : Fenomen, 2007 312pp.
  •  La roseraie du mystère [Texte imprimé] / Mahmûd Shabestarî... ; commentaire de Lahîjî... ; traduit du persan, présenté et annoté par Djamshid Mortazavi et Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch. Arles : Actes Sud ; [Montréal] : Leméac, impr. 2013. 216 pp.
  • La roseraie du mystère [Texte imprimé] / Mahmûd Shabestarî... ; comment. de Lahîjî... ; trad. du persan, présenté et annoté par Djamshid Mortazavi et Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch. Paris : Sindbad, 1991.
  • Gulshān-i rāz (The Rose Garden of the Secrets). Persian text and trans. R. H. Whinfield, 1880 Rep.  Markiz-i taḥqīqāt–i Fārṣi Īran va Pakistan. 1978.
  •  
  • Garden of Mystery, The Gulshan-i rāz of Mahmud Shahbistari Trans. Robert Abdul Hayy Darr. Cambridge: Archetype, 2007.
Henry Corbin.
  • ايران و يمن يعنى سه رسالۀ اسماعيلى :‏ ‏١. كتاب الينابيع از ابو يعقوب السجستانى، ٢. رسالة المبدأ والمعاد از سيدنا حسين بن على، ٣. بعضى از تأويلات گلشن راز =
  • Trilogie ismaélienne. 1. Abû Ya'qûb Sejestânî : Le livre des sources (4e/10es.) 2. Sayyid-nâ al-Hosayn ibn' Alî: Cosmogonie et eschatologie (7e/13es.) 3. Symboles choisis de la Roseraie du mystére, de Mahmûd Shabestarî (8e/14es) Textes édités avec tradution française et commentaires. Bibliothèque iranienne, v. 9. Tehran : Département d'Iranologie de l'Institut francoiranien, 1961.

Commentaries upon the Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of Secrets)

مفاتيح الاعجاز فى شرح گلشن راز

The Commentary of Muhammad ibn Yaḥyá  al-Lahījī on the Gulshan-i rāz (The Rose Garden of Secrets)

شمس الدين محمد لاهيجى

  • شرح گلشن راز. Sharḥ-i Gulshan-i rāz + Risālah-i tanbīhīyah by Ḥisām al-Dīn Khūsraw Parvīz. ed. Rāyiẓ al-Dīn ʻĀrīf ʻAlī Shāh.  Tabriz:  Chāp-i Ridāʼī, 1334 1956, 468, 36 pp.    
  • Mafātīḥ al-iʻjāz fī sharḥ Gulshan rāz. eds. Introd. muqaddamah, etc.,/ taṣḥīḥ va taʻlīqāt-i Muḥammad Riz̤ā Barzgar Khāliqī va ʻIffat Karbāsī. Tehran: Zavvār, 1371/1992. 8, 89, 818 pp. .

Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyá Lāhījī

  • Huva kitāb-i mustaṭāb-i Sharḥ-i Gulshan-i rāz.

 

 

Ḥaqq al-yaqīn.

 

Marātib al-ʻārifīn.

 

Mirʼāt al-muḥaqqiqīn.

 

Risala-i Shahid.

 

Saʻādat nāmah

 

 

 

Shahbistārī, Maḥmud - Compilations of his writings:

  • Majmūʻahʼi āthār-i shaykh Maḥmūd Shabistarī, bā muqaddamah va taṣḥīḥ va tawz̤īḥāt, bi-ihtimām-i Ṣamad Muvaḥḥid. ( = Zabān va farhang-i Īrān, 115.). Tehran : Kitābkhānah-i Ṭahūrī, 1371 /1992 or 1993, Contains: Gulshan-i rāz -- Saʻādat nāmah -- Ḥaqq al-yaqīn -- mirʼāt al-muḥaqqiqīn -- Marātib al-ʻārifīn. 420 pp.
  • Majmu`ah-'i asar-i shaykh Mahmud Shabistari.      Zaban va farhang-i Iran. 1365/XXXX.

 

SELECT SECONDARY SOURCES

Hans Daiber,

  • Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy: Index of names, terms and topics, Volume 2. See index.

Lewishon, Leonard

  • Beyond Faith and Infidelity: The Sufi Poetry and Teaching of Mahmud Shabistari. Curzon Sufi Series. Richmond, Surrey (UK) : Curzon Press, 1995 viii. 344 pp. + 1995 by Routledge Reference in Routkedge Sufi Series - 240 pp.

Review by  John Renard in BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,  59 no. 3 (1996), 574-575.

Review by Wilferd Madelung in JRAS - Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,  vol, 7 n01 (1997), 122-123.

J. T. P. De  Bruijn

  • `Maḥmud Shahbistārī', in EI2 vol.VI pp. 72-3. 

J. T. P. De  Bruijn,  entry, `Shabistari, Mahmud B. Abd al-Karim B. Yahya (d. 1287/8)', in N. Hanif,  Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: Africa and Europe, New Delhi : Sarup, 2000. pp. 150-152.