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MSS 12, Kitāb-i Tarjī
āt (the Stanzaic Poems), is a relatively small book (290 pages) of poems, whose main topic is divine love, an extraordinary sensation, whose ultimate goal is the perfection of the human soul through selfless devotion and which is experienced only by a chosen human heart and expressed through his/her thoughts and deeds. The original manuscript is with Lutfullah Zaraboev in Yamg.
The references to the selected poetry in Mubārak’s various works, which are used and translated in this study, are made in the following way: MSS, the manuscript number, the folio number, and its division into ‘a’ and ‘b’ from right to left (e.g., MSS 01, 1a). In order to distinguish between the various forms of the quoted poetry, it uses various types of formatting.
In addition to the primary sources, this study employs several other secondary materials, which deal with general issues relating to Sufism, Ismāīlism, and the history of Badakhshan and the Pamir principalities, in English, Russian, Persian and Tajik, as recorded in the bibliography. It is noteworthy that the materials (reports, chronicles, travelogues, essays etc.), which were produced in the nineteenth century, constitute the main body of the written sources on the history, geography and ethnography of Pamir. For the nineteenth century was a significant epoch in Pamir’s political as well as cultural life. It was the beginning of the scientific and scholarly discoveries of the region by foreign travellers, especially Europeans and Russians. Of the early European travellers, the most important were J. Wood (in 1839), T. Gordon (in 1873), O. Olufsen (in 1898) and A. Stein (in 1901), all of whom later wrote travelogues on Pamir.27 These researchers give very general descriptions of the religious life of the Pamiris. For instance, Olufsen describes the shrine culture of the region and its coexistence with Islamic beliefs. He also offers an accurate description of the spatial composition of the Shrine of Alī (Shāh-i Mardān) in Wakhān.28 In the travelogues of Stein, who visited almost all parts of Pamir, there is useful information concerning the geography, climate and archaeology of the region. As for the latter, he describes the aforementioned pre-Islamic forts in Wakhān.29