REFLECTIONS ON THE ISLAMIC LITERATURE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE: ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE QALANDAR-NĀME

Abstract

This article was presented at a roundtable devoted to a discussion of the Qalandar-nāme. The author, basing himself on the 9 chapters of the monumental Qalandar nāme published to date with commentary, tries to compare this work with what else is known about Islamic civilization in the Golden Horde in this period. In particular, he exa mines the account of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa and compares the Persian-language Qalandar-nāme with the Turkic works on the history of the prophets (Qısas ül-änbiya), a Sufi manual (Muc in ül mürid), two romantic poems (Qutb’s Xusrev u Şirin and Khorezmi’s Muhabbätname), and a handbook of Islam (Nähc ül-färadis). The author finds similarities between the works of Sufi literature and the Qalandar-nāme. He concludes by posing a series of questions for future researchers, including whether this work can also be seen as a response to the Black Death, similar to the Nähc ül-färadis, as the author has argued elsewhere.