Problem of the Authorship of the ‘Ishq-name (“The Book of Love”) Poem Attributed to Sana’i from the Regard of Academic Oriental Studies and Modern Computer Technologies

Abstract

One of the greatest Persian Sufi poets of the 12th century Sana’i (d. 535/1140 or 545/1150) is founder of the Sufi didactical mathnawi poem in Iran. His works exerted enormous influence upon many posterior authors in the Persian Sufi and secular poetry. But the problem of the authorship of Sana’i in regard to the short poems has been debated among the scientists during 20th century and right up to the nowadays. The paper covers the history of studying of the short poems attributed to Sana’i , special attention is devoted to ‘Ishq name (“The Book of Love”), one of the main Sufi writing in the Persian literature on the subject of Mystical Love. For the definition of the authorship of this poem the paper proposes the using of the latest computational methods in particular digital stylometry. The paper tries to answer the question, who is the author of ‘Ishq name poem: Sana’i or the Sufi shaykh and author of the 14th century ‘Izz al Din Mahmud Kashani (d. 735/1334–35).