BĀZ-NĀMA, books or treatises on the keeping and training of falcons containing information concerning various kinds of birds of prey, how to capture and tame them, how to feed and train them, diseases afflicting them and their treatment. Aside from discussions of this subject in general works like Rāzī’s Jāmeʿ al-ʿolūm (chap. on ʿelm al-bozāh), and in Āmolī’s Nafāʾes al-fonūn (maqāla 4, qesm 2, fann 8, nawʿ 2, faṣl 2) and Tonokābonī’s Toḥfat al-moʾmenīn (chap. 24) there exist a number of books and treatises on the subject of falconry, which in turn mention Middle Persian, Persian, and Sogdian works of falconry, now lost. Storey discusses seventeen identified works on falconry and twenty-one unidentified ones. Twelve such books were identified by Monzawī in his Nosḵahā and thirty-seven in his Fehrest-e moštarak but the real number of extant bāz-nāmas appears to be much higher. Some important bāz-nāmas, extant or mentioned in sources, are the following: 1. Bāz-nāma-ye nowšīravānī in Pahlavi, parts of the Persian translation of which have been quoted by Rāzī (p. 143) and Āmolī (III, p. 349). 2. Jawāreḥ-nāma-ye šahanšāhī by Abu’l-Boḥtorī, translated from Pahlavi into Persian at the time of the Samanid ʿAbd-al-Malek (r. 343-50; Phillott, XII). 3. Bāz-nāma of the Saffarid Ḵalaf b. Aḥmad (r. 352-93; ibid.). 4. Bāz-nāma of Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Nasavī (the oldest extant bāz-nāma; ed. ʿA. Ḡarawī, Tehran, 1354 Š./1975). 5. Šekār-nāma-ye ḵosravī, also known as Ṣayd-nāma-ye malekšāhī, by Moḥammad b. Qaḷčaq Neẓāmī, commissioned by the vizier Ḵᵛāja Neẓām-al-Molk; a manuscript of this bāz-nāma is preserved in the library of the University of California, Los Angeles (ms. no. M 1404). 6. Resāla-ye fīrūzsāhī, compiled in 690/1281-82 for Fīrūzšāh Ḵalaǰ (Storey, II, pp. 403, 410). 7. Bāz-nāma-ye Amīr Ḵosrow Dehlavī, in verse, composed 685-93 (Monzawī, Fehrest-e moštarak, p. 397). 8. Šekār-nāma-ye īlḵānī by ʿAlī b. Manṣūr Ḵᵛāfī, an expanded version of the Šekār-nāma-ye ḵosravī, dedicated to Ṭoḡāy Tīmūr (r. 737-52; Storey, II, p. 404, Monzawī, op. cit., pp. 398, 428). 9. Bāz-nāma-ye tīmūrī, a selection from the Šekār-nāma-ye īlḵānī (Naḏīr Aḥmad, JASB 17, no. 257) by Šāhīn Beg Boḵārī. 10. Bāz-nāma by Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn ʿAlī Ḥosaynī Eṣfahānī Badaḵšānī, completed 893/1488 (Storey, II, p. 404; Laugier de Beaurecueil, p. 59). 11. A bāz-nāma by a pupil of ʿAlī Qūšjī (q.v.; Monzawī, op. cit., p. 400; also ms. Leningrad no. 1160 mentioned in the general catalogue of the Leningrad Oriental Library, ed. Akimushkin, p. 568). 12. Bāznāma-ye nāṣerī by Ḥosām-al-Dawla Tīmūr Mīrzā Qājār (completed 1285/1868; Tehran, 1285/1869; tr. D. C. Phillott, The Bāz-nāmah-yi Nāṣirī, London, 1908). For a more extensive listing of the bāz-nāmas see Storey, II/3, and Monzawī (below).
Bibliography:
Ḵodāyār Khan ʿAbbāsī, Qawānīn al-ṣayyād, ed. D. C. Phillott, Calcutta, 1908, VI, p. 433.
Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad Āmolī, Nafāʾes al-fonūn, ed. A. Šaʿrānī, Tehran, 1379/1959-60, III, pp. 349-50.
S. Laugier de Beaurecueil, Manuscrits d’Afghanistan, Cairo, 1964.
A. Monzawī, Fehrest-e moštarak, Tehran, 1348 Š./1969, vol. 1. Idem, Nosḵahā-ye ḵaṭṭī-e fārsī-e Pākestān, Eslāmābād, 1362 Š./1983, vol. 1. Naḏīr Aḥmad, “Notes on Important Arabic and Persian MSS Found in Various Libraries in India,” JASB, N.S., 13, 1917, pp. lxvii-cxxxix; 14, 1918, pp. cxcix-ccclvi. Faḵr Rāzī, Jāmeʿ al-ʿolūm, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967, pp. 143, 245.
Moḥammad Moʾmen Ḥosaynī Tonokābōnī, Toḥfat al-moʾmenīn, Tehran, 1339 Š./1959, chap. 24, p. 373.
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(Moḥammad-Taqī Dānešpažūh)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: December 15, 1989
This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 1, pp. 65-66
