Abstract

Intertextuality is the overt or covert appearance of a contemporary or
earlier text in another, and texts with similar themes can more often
impact each other intertextually. From this perspective, the intertextual
impact of ‘Attār’s Asrār Nāmeh, as the background text, on
Shabestari's Golshan Rāz, as the foreground text, was studied. It is
argued that this intertextual impact begins with the title and poetic
rhythm of the foreground text and continues through tacit/covert and
overt semantic and literary images in it. Shabestari occasionally expands
‘attār’s concepts to enhance the didactic overtones of his own work, and
sometimes tacitly exploits and borrows concepts, allusions and poetic
imageries of the Sheikh of Neyshabur to afford a mystic text with a new
diction.
Though the original aim of this research was to expose samples of
the intertextuality of Asrār Nāmeh in Golshan Rāz, it also concluded
that ‘Attār’s and Shabestari's similar cultural and thought milieu has also
resulted in the similarity of the texts and contents of their works owing
to the fact that they had both been brought up and educated in the context
of the grand sources of Islamic mysticism including Hadith and Erfān,
and this partly explains the intertextuality observed between the two
works. Since Shabestari had also studied the works of Ibn ‘Arabi, traces
of Ibn ‘Arabi's line of thought are also observed in Golshan Rāz which
the researcher has broached in this paper.

Keywords

• Asrār Nameh
• Golshan Rāz
• Theory of Intertextuality
• Ibn ‘Arabi's works
• Sheykh Mahmood Shabastari