A hadith collection for a Deccani sultan: glossed translation as Shii pedagogy in Ibn Khātūn al-ʿĀmilī’s (d. 1059/1649) <i>Tarjumih-yi Quṭb-Shāhī</i>

Abstract While the social and political contributions of Iranian Shii émigré scholars to the early modern Deccan have attracted some scholarly attention, the actual contents of their intellectual production remain understudied. An important reason for this is the broader neglect of the corpus of commentaries and translations in the early modern Islamicate world. To address this gap, this article analyses the ways in which Ibn Khātūn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1059/1649) combines the genres of translation and gloss in his Persian rendition of a hadith collection by Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1030/1621). After providing an overview of translation projects of Shii texts in the Deccan and a biographical sketch of Ibn Khātūn, I examine the latter’s translation and commentarial strategies. I show how, by merging elements of translation and gloss into his text, the author addresses the needs of an intellectual milieu characterised by a high level of pedagogical engagement in the transmission of Shii knowledge.