tadhkirah

The term "tadhkirah" refers to a literary genre that combines biography and anthology, primarily focusing on the lives of Persian poets. The oldest surviving example is \u02bfAwf\u012b's 13th-century Lub\u0101b al-alb\u0101b ("The Quintessence of the Hearts"). This genre flourished until the 19th century across regions where Persian literature was prominent, serving as a valuable, though sometimes unreliable, source of information about poets' lives.1

While prose in Persian literature was often secondary to poetry, it served important utilitarian purposes in scholarship, religion, and government. Mystics also contributed significantly to Persian prose, creating genres like collections of letters, conversations of sheikhs, and mystical commentaries, some of which were unique to Arabic literature. The concept of "tariqa" relates to the Sufi path of spiritual development and can also refer to a Muslim religious brotherhood.12