Khosrow-nameh

Attribution note: In his critical edition of Attar’s Mukhtar-nameh, Dr Muhammad Riza Shafi‘i Kadkani devotes twenty-six pages to evidence that Khosrow-nameh was not written by Attar. It is likely that Khosrow-nameh was instead the original title of another genuine work by Attar, now known as Ilahi-nameh.

The principal objections are historical, literary, and stylistic. The preface to Mukhtar-nameh describes Khosrow-nameh as an earlier work, yet the preface to Khosrow-nameh itself contains inconsistencies that cast doubt on its authenticity. Its subject also differs sharply from Attar’s other writing: it is a romance rather than a Sufi poem. Its mystical ideas resemble those of Ibn Arabi, ideas that became current only after Attar’s lifetime and are not otherwise characteristic of him. Confusion may also have arisen because some manuscripts of Ilahi-nameh circulated under the title Khosrow-nameh. Modern scholars, including Abd al-Husayn Zarrinkub, have rejected the attribution on stylistic and thematic grounds. Finally, no reliable manuscript of Khosrow-nameh appears to predate the fifteenth century, whereas earlier manuscripts of Attar’s established works do survive.