Linguistic Analysis of Zidari Nasavi's Nafathat al-Masdoor

The technical prose of Nafathat al-Masdoor was written by Shahab-Eddin Mohammad Khorandezi Zidari Nasavi in the first half of the 7th century on the Islamic lunar calendar. The main theme of the book is an autobiography of the writer during the period of the Mongols attacks; in addition, the book includes valuable historical information. The dual purpose of the writer, who wrote the book for both history and literature, has made researchers and Persian literature linguists express different opinions on the literary value of the book. Some consider the book as a technical prose written to reflect history; thus, questioning the literariness of the prose. Others, however, consider the book as one of the most valuable Persian literature prose works for its artistic utilization of language. Still, some others maintain that the lexical and semantic complexities of Nafathat al-Masdoor prove that the work belongs to only a certain period of time, which reduces its literary value. Using linguistic criticism, the present study explores the literary beauties and deficiencies of this work, and through this procedure, it answers the question as to why there are various opinions on the literary value of Nafathat al-Masdoor. At the end, it is explained that Nafathat al-Masdoor enjoys a well thought-out language in which many lexical and semantic symmetries have been implemented. However, the overall structure of Nafathat al-Masdoor is a reference to biography and history, which reduces the literary value of the work.