1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jāmī

JĀMĪ (Nūr-ed-din ʽAbd-ur-raḥman Ibn Aḥmad) (1414–1492), Persian poet and mystic, was born at Jām in Khorasan, whence the name by which he is usually known. In his poems he mystically utilizes the connexion of the name with the same word meaning “wine-cup.” He was the last great classic poet of Persia, and a pronounced mystic of the Sūfic philosophy. His three diwans (1479–1401) contain his lyrical poems and odes; among his prose writings the chief is his Bahāristān (“Spring-garden”) (1487); and his collection of romantic poems, Haft Aurang (“Seven Thrones”), contains the Salāmān wa Absāl and his Yūsuf wa Zalīkha (Joseph and Potiphar’s wife).

On Jāmī’s life and works see V. von Rosenzweig, Biographische Notizen über Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami (Vienna, 1840); Gore Ouseley, Biographical Notices of Persian Poets (1846); W. N. Lees, A Biographical Sketch of the Mystic Philosopher and Poet Jami (Calcutta, 1859); E. Beauvois s.v. Djami in Nouvelle Biographie générale; and H. Ethé in Geiger and Kuhn’s Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. There are English translations of the Bahāristān by E. Rehatsek (Benares, 1887) and Sorabji Fardunji (Bombay, 1899); of Salāmān wa Absāl by Edward FitzGerald (1856, with a notice of Jāmī’s life); of Yūsuf wa Zalīkha by R. T. H. Griffith (1882) and A. Rogers (1892); also selections in English by F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics: Jāmī (1908). (See also Persia: Literature.)