A Study on Rumi-Attributed Ghazals in Two Ancient Jungs

The importance of Dīvān-e Kabīr in the history of Persian literature has led to generation of varied copies of this great work. Nonetheless, contrary to Mathnavi, due to various reasons, a verified text or comprehensive commentary on Dīvān-e Shams is still non-existent. There are still ghazals (odes) by Rumi which could not be found in the print manuscripts; whereas a good number of ghazals inKoliyat have not been composed by him without a shadow of a doubt.  The explanations made by the correctors of Dīvān-e Shams regarding selection of their manuscripts reveal that jungs (literary miscellanies) have not been the focus of their attention, despite the fact that numerous ghazals in these literary miscellanies are attributed to Rumi or Shams-e Tabrizi. It seems that collecting these ghazals could yield benefits in correcting and completing forthcoming editions; though their authenticity could be questioned. In this paper, besides presenting ghazals attributed to Shams or Rumi in jung 3528 of Tehran University and jung 13609 of Library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, it is discussed that a number of ghazals in the two literary miscellanies are present in Dīvān-e Shams as well with minor differences, and some vary in terms of the number of verses. Nonetheless, a number of ghazals in the two literary miscellanies are not present in the existing editions of Dīvān-e Shams. Some ghazals in the two Shiite jungs have mistakenly been attributed to Rumi or Shams by the scribers due to similarities in “Khamoosh” (Silent) or “Shams” pen-names. A number of other ghazals have also been composed in emulation orimitation of Rumi, while their contents and linguistic features indicate that they do not belong to him.