Dr. Akbar Irani, the head of the Miras Maktoob Research Institute, underscored the need for a comprehensive and integrated study of the works of Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, stressing that the preparation of a critical collected edition of his writings requires sustained scholarly cooperation among research institutions across the region.
Speaking at the international conference on Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani at ECO Cultural Institute, Dr. Irani highlighted the distinguished place of the renowned scholar, mystic, and author in the intellectual and cultural heritage of the Islamic world. He noted that the study of prolific authors whose authentic and attributed works have survived in large numbers demands a methodology different from that applied to ordinary textual studies. Referring to major scholarly projects on the works of Avicenna and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, he emphasized the importance of undertaking a similarly comprehensive study of Hamadani’s literary legacy.
Dr. Irani stated that more than 105 works attributed to Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani have so far been identified in manuscript catalogues and bibliographical sources, with the number continuing to grow. He explained that the challenges extend beyond the sheer volume of the corpus, pointing to inconsistent titles, uncertain attributions, and the wide geographical dispersion of manuscript copies as major obstacles to establishing an authoritative catalogue of Hamadani’s writings.
He further noted that many of Hamadani’s shorter treatises and epistles have been recorded under different titles in manuscript collections, resulting in the same text being catalogued as multiple independent works. In other cases, the same work has been attributed to different authors, making careful comparative examination of manuscripts essential for determining authentic authorship.
According to Dr. Irani, the fact that many of Hamadani’s writings survive only as short texts embedded within larger manuscript compilations presents an additional challenge for researchers, often requiring the examination of entire codices in order to identify and assess individual works. He also observed that the scarcity of early manuscript witnesses for many texts limits the usefulness of chronology alone in textual criticism and necessitates the collection and comparison of all available copies.
Dr. Irani also drew attention to instances of erroneous attribution in manuscript catalogues, explaining that similarities in authors’ names or inaccurate cataloguing practices have occasionally led to works by other scholars being attributed to Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. He stressed that resolving such questions requires rigorous manuscript-based research and systematic comparison with Hamadani’s authenticated writings.
Highlighting another important dimension of Hamadani’s legacy, Dr. Irani pointed to the existence of translations of his works into several languages, including Persian and Turkish. He remarked that these translations offer valuable evidence of the scholar’s intellectual influence across diverse regions and cultural traditions.
Addressing the methodological framework for future research, Dr. Irani proposed the preparation of a comprehensive corpus of textual incipits, the systematic comparison of manuscripts, the identification of authentic and widely accepted titles, and the adoption of appropriate editorial methods for each work as essential steps toward producing a reliable collected edition.
In conclusion, Dr. Irani emphasized that because Hamadani’s manuscripts are dispersed across libraries in numerous countries, the project requires institutional cooperation and international scholarly collaboration. Referring to the Miras Maktoob Research Institute’s three decades of experience in editing and publishing classical Islamic texts, he expressed the Institute’s readiness to contribute to this initiative and voiced hope that the preparation of a collected edition of Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s works would further strengthen academic and cultural cooperation among the countries of the region.