The Citation of Arabic Poetry in Persian Literature in Historical Works of the 6th to 8th Centuries AH

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
siamak saadati 1
gholam abbas rezaei 2
1 Assistant Professor of the Department of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran.
2 Associate Professor Associate Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
10.2634/Lire.22.90.61
Abstract
The influence of the Arabic language and literature on Persian literature extends far beyond vocabulary and isolated morphological or syntactic features; it manifests vividly in the form of Arabic poetic citations embedded within Persian prose. This phenomenon frequently takes the shape of a “citation annexation” (iḍāfa-yi istishhādiyya), wherein the Arabic verse functions as a grammatical constituent of the Persian sentence. A survey of Persian historical texts reveals that verses by certain Arab poets are cited with remarkably high frequency—a pattern that is far from coincidental. In this study, we examine historical works from the 6th to 8th centuries AH through the lenses of the sociology of citing Arabic poetry in Persian literature, the recontextualization and repurposing of the poems’ original compositional settings, recurring poetic themes and repeated verses, and textual variants between the original Arabic lines and their Persian citations. The findings show that Iranian authors predominantly cited poets who were either of Iranian origin (Abu’l-Fath al-Busti, Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi, and al-Tughra’i al-Isfahani) or deeply connected with Iranians (al-Mutanabbi, Abu Tammam, and al-Buhturi). Moreover, Iranian writers sometimes detached an Arabic poem from its original occasion of composition and deployed it in a new context of their own making, thereby altering its intended function. A specific set of Arabic verses and themes recurs throughout Persian texts, which can be considered a distinctive stylistic trait. Finally, it is highly probable that Iranian authors, when citing poetry, drew upon earlier Persian writings rather than consulting the original Arabic dīwāns or reference works—in effect, copying from their predecessors.
Keywords
Persian historical works
Arabic language and literature
citation and quotation of Arabic poetry
citation annexation.
Subjects
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Literary Research
Volume 22, Issue 90
Winter 2026
Pages 61-78