Nasrin Askari (University of Birmingham), An Intimate Companion from a Twelfth-Century Royal Court of Azerbaijan: The Mūnis-nāma and Its Audience. Co-sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

What do “folk” tales have in common with mystical treatises and advice literature for rulers? And why did a learned author at a medieval royal court decide to compile these seemingly unrelated literatures in one work for his educated, elite audience? The themes and linguistic styles of what is generally known as folk tales, at least in an Iranian context, are generally understood to be suitable for the taste and understanding of the uneducated people, not the members of the elite, who are usually presented as advocates of high culture. If these tales were meant for pure entertainment, why did the author present them in the same work that contains not-for-entertainment materials, such as the counsels of ʿAli b. Abi Ṭālib, the son-in-law and cousin of prophet Mūḥammad, to his son Ḥusayn? Compiled by Abū Bakr b. Khusrau al-Ustād and dedicated to the Eldigüzid atabeg of Azerbaijan, Nuṣrat al-Dīn Abū Bakr (r. 1191–1210), the Mūnis-nāma blurs the lines traditionally drawn between Persian “folk” and “elite” literature and provides a fascinating source for studying the two realms as parts of a larger whole. In this lecture, Nasrin Askari discusses the possible logic of the compiler in the organization of the seventeen chapters of the work and calls for a designation and defining criteria for a body of works that occupies the zone between the high and low ends of the wide spectrum of Persian literature.