A Critical Review of the Tazkire of Ka'abe-ye Erfan Owhadi Balayani

Purpose: Arafat-ul-Asheqin is one of the Tazkeres of Persian poets in the 11th century AH, which was composed by Owhadi Balyani between 1022-1024 AH, then 12 years later, in 1036 AH, he selected its best biographies and compiled them in the Ka'be Irfan, whose content is based on three Rokn (part): Hannani, Mannani, and Dayyani. There were previously two manuscripts of this abridgement, but only one is now held in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester.Method and Research: This article is based on library and electronic sources, and its contents are taken from Persian and English books, manuscripts and articles. So first, it examines the bibliography and manuscripttology of the Ka'be Erfan, and refers to topics such as the name, date of compilation, structure, motivation and incentives of the author, content and audience, and its two manuscripts. The necessity of correcting the Ka'be Erfan is the final section of the article.Findings and Conclusions: Owhadi in Ka'be Erfan, or introduced poets who were not mentioned in Arafat-ul-Asheqin, or added new information to the biography of some of the poets of Ka'be Erfan after the composition of Arafat-ul-Asheqin, or he has reached a point of doubt or certainty in quoting some of the material from Arafat-ul-Asheqin in the Ka'be Erfan, or he has changed the sentences of some of the biographies, or he has added Madde-Tarikhs (poetic year) to the Ka'be Erfan that is very useful for determining the year of death of some poets.Conclusions: It is necessary and essential that the text of the Ka'be Erfan be researched and critically corrected, because on the one hand, this Tazkere has an independent identity from Arafat-ul-Asheqin and Owhadi had her own motivations for compiling these two Tazkeres, on the other hand, the Ka'be Erfan regarding Arafat-ul-Asheqin also contains more correct recordings, which are very effective in correcting erroneous, doubtful, and omissions in Arafat-ul-Asheqin, but instead of using it, the correctors have took help or deductive method or from later sources.