Al-Ẓahīrī al-Samarqandī’s mid-6th/12th-century redaction of the Sindbādnāmah, produced for the Qarakhanid court, constitutes the definitive Persian prose recension and the primary vector for the text’s subsequent transmission across Islamicate and later European literary traditions. The vast majority of surviving Sindbadnama manuscripts use Zahiri's version, and various rulers commissioned copies of the text despite being in possession of other, similar versions (eg British Library Or. 225). Its canonical status derives not from innovation in narrative material but from al-Samarqandī’s strategic reframing of pre-existing story cycles into a coherent work of political adab, executed through specific linguistic, structural, and thematic interventions.
As a kātib, al-Samarqandī composed in a polished, rhythmic prose (nasr musajjaʿ) characteristic of contemporary chancery style and high literary adab. The language operates within a carefully modulated classical Persian register, avoiding both the colloquial and the excessively ornate, whilst skilfully imitating the rhetorical styles of other genres (historiography, Ghazal poetry, natural philosophy, fiqh) at different points, and blanketing the underlying text with a range of quotations and allusions from the conventional (the Quran, the Hadiths), to the heterodox (Ismaili devotional literature) to the borderline blasphemous (Zoroastrian cosmogonies and Pahlavi Andarz literature). This rhetorical choice signifies a deliberate move from the earlier, presumably more functional Samanid translation of Fanaruzi toward a text designed for courtly consumption and pedagogical utility. The prose serves as a vehicle for embedding narrative within a framework of ethical instruction, its cadence and clarity facilitating memorization and recitation, key aspects of its didactic function.
A significant departure in al-Samarqandī’s version is its systematic attenuation of the “Wiles of Women” (makr al-nisāʾ) motif, which earlier commentators like al-Yaʿqūbī explicitly linked to the Sindbād corpus. While retaining the core frame narrative - a prince silenced, a malicious queen, and seven viziers delivering exculpatory tales - al-Samarqandī recalibrates the thematic center of gravity. The embedded narratives are curated to address a wider spectrum of princely conduct: the fallibility of judgment, the importance of counsel (andarz), the deciphering of signs, the nature of loyalty, and the operations of chance (dahr). Female guile becomes one contingency among many within a broader political ontology focused on the vulnerability of the sovereign to deception and the necessity of forensic reason. This shift aligns the text more closely with the generic conventions of Indo-Persian wisdom literature (andarz-nāmah, pand-nāmah) and mirrors-for-princes, effectively distancing it from the potentially narrower, misogynistic story-collection tradition.
The recension standardizes a structure of 21 tales: ten accusations from the queen, ten defenses from the viziers (distributed among the seven), and the prince’s concluding narrative. This symmetrical, dialogic format transforms the text into a forensic dramatization of counsel, where each story functions as a piece of evidence within a life-or-death rhetorical contest. The selection of tales privileges plots hinging on interpretation, deduction, and the revelation of hidden truths—a narrative embodiment of ʿaql (intellect) overcoming hawā (passion) and ghish (deceit). The integration of tale and frame is taut; each narrative is diegetically motivated as a direct argument within the prince’s trial, reinforcing the overarching didactic premise that wisdom is performative and situational. This structural rigor facilitated the text’s utility as a pedagogical instrument for statecraft, wherein narrative exempla model the cognitive processes required for just rule.
| Language & Composition
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| Language of version |
Persian
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| Translated into (languages) |
Ottoman Turkish
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| Place of composition |
Samarqand
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| Date of composition |
c.1150 (c.550AH)
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| Source for date of composition |
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| Literature & Editions
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| Modern research literature |
Clouston, W. A. The Book of Sindibād, Honar, A.M, Persian Verses and Proverbs in Sandbadnameh, Mecmûa-i Maḳālât-ı Mütâlaʿât-ı İslâmî II, Tahran, 1999, Hoffmann, A. Cats and Dogs, Manliness, and Misogyny: On the Sindbad-nameh as World Literature, Persian Literature as World Literature, 2021, Perry, Ben Edwin, The Origin of the Book of Sindbad Fabula 3 (1960): 1–94, Weinstein, Laura S. ", Variations on a Persian Theme: Adaptation and Innovation in Early Manuscripts from Golconda, PhD diss., Columbia University, New York, 2011., Zakeri, Mohsen, Ẓahīrī of Samarqand’s ‘Sindbādnāma’. A Mirror for Princes.", In Die ‚Sieben weisen Meister‘ als globale Erzähltradition/The ‘Seven Sages of Rome’ as a Global Narrative Tradition, 172–188
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| Recorded branch of this secondary version
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| Connected prints
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No connected prints
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| Adaptations
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| Languages in Use
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| Regional or specific language of version |
Dari (Insha)
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| Pattern of embedded stories in this version
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| Has Short Title | Has Sequence Number | Has Narrator | Has Name Variation |
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