The emergence and consolidation of the Jalayerid rule over western Iran took shape during the socio-political transitions and the dynastic uncertainties that marked the aftermath of Abu Sa‘id’s death (1335). This nascent sultanate brought about a new, post- Mongolian ideal of kingship that sought to reassess the legitimacy of the Il-Khanid ideological apparatus, while laying emphasis on the renewal of its “Persian” identity. The choice of retaining Baghdad and Tabriz as capitals was a strategic decision meant to be followed by the annexation of Shiraz and Isfahan, which the Jalayerids had long coveted but always failed to conquer except for brief, episodic occupations.
By the second half of the fourteenth century the dynasty reached the apogee of its cultural and political hegemony with Soltān Ovays (r. 1356-74). As soon as the two capitals became the point of attraction of artists and literati from the entire Iranian world, most persophone poets decided to pay encomiastic homage to the Jalāyerid sultans, whose cultural patronage would often overshadow Injuid and Mozaffarid maecenatism.
It was during such geo-politically fortunate circumstances that Salmān Sāveji, the poet laureate of the new ruling dynasty and the preceptor of Ovays himself, reinvented the scheme of the classical qaside by contributing to the emergence of a new style in which the lyrical and the encomiastic are bound together by a language purified from the hyperbolic obscurities characterizing the poetry of his predecessors.
This paper will explore the ideological dynamics underlying the “Persianization” of post Il-Khanid heritage taken up by the Jalāyerids through the analysis of Salmān’s description of the royal capitals Baghdad and Tabriz and his immortalization of Soltān Ovays, whom he often described as the shadow of God on earth and exhorted to permanently occupy Fārs as well as Khorāsān.
By comparing Salmān’s qasides with the panegyrics composed by the Saljuk poets Amir Mo‘ezzi and Zahir Fāriyābi, this study will highlight the innovations in terms of structure and imagery introduced by the panegyrist of Sāve in the effort of celebrating Soltān Ovays as a king, a pupil, a friend, a beloved and a fellow-poet.
