History of Persian satire

Early Persian satire

The Arabic poetic

Arabic poetry

Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed, or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter...

 genre of hija (satirical poetry) was introduced after the Islamic conquest of Persia

Islamic conquest of Persia

The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, the fall of Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia...

. The Greek dramatic genre of comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 was also later introduced after Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

's Poetics was translated into Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 in the medieval Islamic world

Islamic Golden Age

During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...

, where it was elaborated upon by Islamic philosophers

Early Islamic philosophy

Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...

 from Persia

History of Iran

The history of Iran has been intertwined with the history of a larger historical region, comprising the area from the Danube River in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and Egypt...

, such as Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi

' known in the West as Alpharabius , was a scientist and philosopher of the Islamic world...

 and Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

. Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with the Arabic poetic form of hija. They viewed comedy as simply the "art of reprehension", and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or troublesome beginnings and happy endings, associated with classical Greek comedy. The term "comedy" thus became synonymous with "satire" in medieval European literaure

Medieval literature

Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...

 after the Latin translations of the 12th century.

Perhaps the most notable early Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

 satirist is Obeid e Zakani

Obeid e zakani

Nezam od-Din Ubeydollah Zâkâni , or simply Ubayd-i Zākāni , was a Persian poet and satirist of the 14th century from the city of Qazvin. He studied in Shiraz, Iran under the best masters of his day, but eventually moved back to his native town of Qazvin...

 (d. 1370 AD). His work is noted for its satire and obscene verses, often political or bawdy, and often cited in debates involving homosexual practices. He wrote the Resaleh-ye Delgosha, as well as Akhlaq al-Ashraf ("Ethics of the Aristocracy") and the famous humorous fable Masnavi Mush-O-Gorbeh (Mouse and Cat), which was a political satire. His non-satirical serious classical verses have also been regarded as very well written, in league with the other great works of Persian literature

Persian literature

Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...

.

Persian satire and constitutionalism

Persian Constitutional Revolution coincided with the emergence of numerous legendary satirist and literary figures as Iraj Mirza

Iraj Mirza

Prince Iraj Mirza , son of prince Gholam Hossein Mirza, was a famous Iranian poet. He was a modern poet and his works are associated with the criticism of traditions. He had translations from the French language....

, Ali Akbar Dehkhoda

Ali Akbar Dehkhoda

Allameh Ali Akbar Dehkhoda was a prominent Iranian linguist, and author of the most extensive dictionary of the Persian language ever published.-Biography:...

 and Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi

Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi

Bibi Khānoom Astarābādi was a notable Iranian writer, satirist, and one of the pioneering figures in the women's movement of Iran....

. Most satirists wrote their works in the form of poetry. Apart from Persian satire, Azeri satire had a strong presence during the revolution. Legendary Iranian-Azerbaijani satirist, Jalil Mohammad Gholizadeh published his famous Molla Nasreddin weekly magazine in Tabriz

Tabriz

Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...

 during this period. He published the first very first cartoons in the history of Iranian cartoon art.

Contemporary Persian satire

During the middle half of the 20th century, Towfigh magazine broke all previous norms of political satire with very direct attacks and jabs at the establishment - all the while within the confines of true satire in a country with no freedom of the press. Three brothers: Hossein Towfigh, Hassan Towfigh and Abbas Towfigh turned Towfigh magazine into the highest circulating and most popular magazine in Iranian history. Never before or since has journalism in Iran been so brave in attacking the government with humor. At the turn of the millennium, Persian Satire underwent a revolution with the works of Ebrahim Nabavi

Ebrahim Nabavi

Seyyed Ebrahim Nabavi is a prolific Iranian satirist, writer, diarist, and researcher. , he is the most widely known and active Iranian satirist, currently living in Belgium...

 in Jame-eh daily. He offered a novel form of Persian satire in his work entitled "Sotoon e panjom".

The emergence and development of satire in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 is closely connected with political history. Mahmud Tarzi

Mahmud Tarzi

Mahmūd Bēg Tarzī was one of Afghanistan's greatest intellectuals. He is known as the father of Afghan journalism...

, Abdul Sabur Ghafory, Muhamad Yusof and Shaeq Jamal were perhaps the most notable satirists during the period 1873-1965. The period from 1965 to 1978 was the most productive, when different types of satire emerged and flourished in Afghanistan. In addition, an even larger amount of the same kind of work was imported from Iran.

External links

• Satire and Persian constitutional revolution (BBC Persian)
• A review of Satire in post-revolution Iran (BBC Persian)