A Lost Voice in Persian Literature and Sufism

The ghazal is a central genre of poetry in Persian literature and intellectual history. It is a medium of expression in which erotic language is merged with politics and mysticism.  Jahan-Malik Khatun (d. after 784/1382) is the only Persian female poet of medieval times who has a substantial Divan (‘poetry collection’), most of which is written in the poetic form of ghazal. Yet, she has been marginalised and her work has remained understudied. This book investigates different aspects of Jahan-Malik Khatun’s ghazals to find the reasons for the obscurity of work despite its high quality and substance. It offers a critical analysis of Jahan-Malik Khatun’s medieval reception history in which she was slandered by sexually suggestive remarks and excluded from the literary and Sufi tradition. It engages with her contemporary reception history in which she remains an outsider to Persian Sufi poetry. With a new conceptual model to explore the Persian ghazal as a medium for intellectual discourse, this book sheds light on Jahan-Malik Khatun’s agency despite her marginalisation as a woman. The author investigates the codification of Persian ghazal as Sufi poetry to explain Jahan-Malik Khatun’s exclusion from the Persian Sufi tradition. The new perspectives offered in this book contribute to the study of Persian ghazal as a multi-functional literary genre for both Persian literature and Sufi tradition. It also brings forth the important but ignored role of a medieval female poet in shaping the Persian literary and Sufi tradition.