Les saints des derviches tourneurs

A French translation (1918–22) of a fourteenth-century Persian text about the founders of the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes.

Clément Huart (Edited and translated by)

9781108042321, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 January 2012

410 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.3 cm, 0.52 kg

Clément Huart (1854–1926) studied Middle Eastern languages and served as a French diplomat for twenty years before becoming Professor of Persian at the Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris. This two-volume French translation (1918–22), published as part of a larger series on Islamic hagiography, focuses on the medieval founders of the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes, whose main centre, Konya, Huart had visited twenty years earlier. The fourteenth-century Persian text is preserved in several manuscripts, and Huart's translation follows an early seventeenth-century manuscript from his private collection. Huart regards the text as providing evidence primarily about the intellectual and moral contexts of the origins of the dervishes' mystical movement rather than about strict historical facts, but also points to the relevance of its treatment of dreams, prophecies, apparitions and paranormal phenomena to modern researchers of hypnosis and psychosis. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes.

Préface
1. Biographie de notre grand Maître Béhâ-ed-dîn Mohammed, fils d'el-Hoséïn, fils d'Ahmed, el-Khatîbî, el-Balkhî, el-Bakrî
2. Biographie du Seigneur connaisseur des mystères, Borhân el-Haqq wèd-dîn d'el-Hoséïn et-Tirmidî
3. Sur certains détails de la biographie de notre Maître Djé-lâl-ed-dîn
Biographie de Chems-ed-dîn Tébrîzî
Notes additionnelles
Table généalogique des Tchélébis de Qonya
Index alphabétique.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]