Inspiration and Aspiration: Oscillating Between the Past and Future in the Formulaic Epistles of Qazi Mir Husain Maybudi

One of the relatively understudied scholars of the 15th century is the qazi-cum-litterateur Mir Husain Maybudi who served as chief judge of Yazd on behalf of the Aq Qoyunlus as they spiraled towards collapse and extermination at the hands of the Safavids. Like other contemporary polymaths, such as Husain Va`iz Kashifi of Herat, Qazi Mir Husain produced substantial works on a wide array of subjects, including philosophy, scriptural exegesis, ethics, poetry, and prosody, and as such his writings can provide valuable insights into an intellectual and cultural landscape which was undergoing intense warp and shifting during the post-Mongol era. One collection of writings – his epistles (munsha’at) – are particularly insightful as they consist of official (diwani) as well as ‘friendly’ (ikhvani) letters to confidants, superiors, colleagues, rivals, and adversaries. These correspondences, and indeed his larger texts such as his commentary on Ali’s poetry (Sharh-i Divan-i `Ali), underscore Mir Husain as a Sufi-inspired scholar who defied crude confessional categories.
While there are dozens of epistles in his Munsha’at, a select cohort of ‘model’ letters are of particular interest for this study. The bulk of the letters are discrete epistolary texts with named addressees (e.g. Mir Ali Shir Nava’i, Siraj al-Din Abd al-Vahhab, Shah Ni`mat Allah), but this appended section in question (some 30 letters) contains mostly formulaic letters to unnamed rulers (sultans), chief functionaries (viziers, mustaufis), and constituencies of notables who held high rank in a typical post-Mongol, Perso-Islamic state (qazis, sadrs). Operating on the assumption that this cohort represents – in effect – a ‘portfolio’ of his best epistolary work, this paper will examine the extent to which such texts were not indeed composites from previous works reflecting a variety of traditions (epistolographic, poetic, exegetical). Given the importance of the genre of insha in the 15th and 16th centuries, understanding more about how intellectuals and scholars incorporated (and possibly attributed) texts by previous scholars can help us reinterpret ‘networks’ beyond physical space and contemporary connections. By emphasizing a temporal component, whereby a nuanced hierarchy of precedence and attribution is prioritized in the pre-modern Perso-Islamic world, this paper will hopefully contribute to current historiography and its ongoing reinterpretation of the 15th century and its denizens like Mir Husain Maybudi.