1

-Dn Muammad b. Mu D -Ur, known

Waw(901 words)
Blois, F.C. de
, secretary and prolific author in Arabic and Persian. A reputed
ecennt of te cip Ur, e w orn eiter in k or
uk r, ut pent ot of i ife in urn

, te cpit of
w

r e ie, ccorin to Dwt , in 578/1182-3, in his
97th year, which would put his birth in 481/1088-9; Yt (t et
in the published text) has him die 5 years earlier.
-Dn w cief ecretry ( w - uner
te
w
r t (-- n i ucceor -
rn ( i oyty to t erne i te enity of
te

r wo, ccorin to D

uwyn, reoe t one

point to cut -Dn into piece, ut w iue fro
oin o y i own cief ecretry, Munt

-Dn -D

uwyn,
te unce of our infornt ret-grandfather. We possess a
considerable nuer of -Dn iy ornte eer,
incuin toe wic e wrote on ef of i two ter (in
ric to te cip n teir entoure, in erin to n

r n
others) and also his private letters in both languages. Two bilingual
coecon of epite were copie y -Dn ief,
- - w - and - wir wa
f -w , and others are preserved elsewhere. The
Persian letters found in the two collections were edited by .
Tyirkn (Tern ./1960), and a large number of Arabic
letters were published (from an unidentified source) by
Mu F uner te tite

-D
al-Waw , 2 parts, Cairo 1315/1897-8. Ten of the latter are
translated in H. Horst, Arabische Briefe der z e
Kfeof u e Fee e -D Waw ; in ZDMG, cxvi
(1966) 24-43, and the same author has summarised many of the
Persian letters in his De vewug e Goeqe u
z , Wiesbaden 1964.
-Dn erin w contains more than 8,500 verses in
Nf eition (Tern 9 9 n conit rey of
poe euoiin t . Modern Persian critics have in general not
had a high estimate of their merits. But the best known of his
works is Ma u -u .
, or

-yi ad kalima , conin of te ric

yin of i to e een coecte y -D

i [q.v.]; each
apothegm is followed by a verbose Arabic paraphrase, then a
Persian commentary and finally a poetic paraphrase in the form of
a mostly rather pedestrian Persian uy . It has frequently been
printed in the Eastthough in many of the editions (and mss.) one
or both of the prose commentaries are omittedalso with a Latin
translation by Stickel (Jena 1834), with a German version by
Fleischer (Leipzig 1837) and with an English verse rendering (but
without the prose versions) by Harley (Calcutta 1927) -
Dn uequenty e te e tretent to yin of ec
of the three first caliphs, with his works entitled Tufat al-a
2

-a -u B - , Fa -
-u U . -K and U
-f -u U . ff these
remain unpublished, though mss. are. available. Another work of
comparable nature, Laf - w f -aw , is a
collection of several hundred Arabic proverbs, each with a Persian
prose translation and often extensive commentary. It was
puie y M wr (np ./ 1979) on the basis of
n o foun in Men Furter prenetic work urie in
manuscript.
His much-admired handbook of rhetorical figures, al-si f
da - , i ie in ricy nnotte eition y
I (Tern ./1929-30; reprinted, but without the
eitor introuction n ennote, in te ppenix to Nf
edition of the w , n in, wit uin trnon y
NY u io, Mocow 9 t i trony epenent ot on -
Mr

nn al-Ma f -na w - , from which many

of the Arabic prose and verse quotations are derived, as well as on
Ryn

u -g

, wence -Dn
virtually all of the illustrative quotations from early Persian poets
(ee te eition of te two ook y Vn eer n te
respectively), but he added a good number of citations from
Persian poets of the 6th/12th century as well as from his own
poems in both languages. He has also been credited with a Persian
dictionary ( w , or Nu -zw w u -

w , extant in both prose and verse versions) and a short

treatise on metre ( -y ), but the question of their
authenticity requires closer scrutiny.
(F.C. de Blois)
Bibliography
Zayd al-Bayha, Tatimmat w -ikma, ed. M ,
Lahore 1935, 166-8 of the Arabic section
Muammad b. Muammad al-ti -Ifn, K -ar
(te reent entry w puie y M in Oriental College
Magazine [1934-5], at the end of fascicules xi/1, xi/2, xi/3, xii/4,
separate pagination)
Yt, U, vii, 91-5
wf, Lu i, 80-6
D

uwyn ii, -14, 18

Zkriyy Muammad al-wn, -, ed.
Wstenfeld, Gttingen 1848, 223-5
Dwt , 87-92
Browne, LHP, ii, 330-3
Brockelmann, I 275-6, S I 486
te, -D Vv eee z yz , in
Tarih Dergisi, x (1959) 1-24
3

torey, iii, -, - ee o te eitor introucon to
-Dn riou work (ite in te rtice
Cite this page
oi, F e -Dn Muammad b. Mu D -Ur, known as
Waw." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E.
Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online, 2014. Reference. Universita' "Ca'
Foscari" di Venezia. 28 April 2014
<http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/rashid-al-din-
muhammad-b-muhammad-b-abd-djalil-al-umari-known-as-watwat-SIM_6238>
First appeared online: 2012
First Print Edition: isbn: 9789004161214, 1960-2007