Translation of the Words of ʿAli b. Abi Tālib in Early Fourteenth-Century Iran: A Local Bilingual Network

Abstract

The late Ilkhanid period saw a florescence of intellectual and cultural production in northwestern and west-central Iran. This article argues that a regional network with its center at Isfahan contributed to this creativity through the production of translation-adaptations between Arabic and Persian. In a period of episodic sectarian tensions, especially in the wake of Öljeytü’s efforts to declare Twelver Shiʿism the official religion of parts of ʿIraq-e ʿAjam, this local network produced a set of five bilingual treatments of parts of the literary legacy of ʿAli b. Abi Tālib (d. 40/661). The article argues that the authors and copyists of these texts sought, through their focus on the figure of ʿAli and their exploration of the ambiguities facilitated by bilingual composition, to expand a non-sectarian middle-ground.