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Mirza Abu Talib Khan: notes and sources

Abu Talib was born in 1752. His father was a Turk from Isfahan who fled to India and later from India to Bengal. He died in Murshidabad in 1768, and left young Abu Talib to care for his family. Abu

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Posted in Character notes and sources, Knowledge base

I’tisam al-Din’s Shigarfnamah, 1: how the journey began

Initials indicate translator. GH stands for Gita Hashemi. KH stands for Kaiser Haq. Where both initials appear indicates that the passage is based on KH’s version but substantively modified by GH. My translation is based on the Farsi version, publication

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Posted in Archival material, Script

I’tisam al-Din’s Shigarfnamah – about translation

Passages from Shigarfnamah (also spelled as Shigurfnamah) that will be included in all the upcoming posts are my own translations based on the Farsi original, a draft of which was kindly sent to me by Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi. The Farsi

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Posted in Archival material, Character notes and sources, Script

Translation = appropriation = theft

From Refashioning Iran, p 32: Based on these and other collated texts, it seems that in its formative phase European students of the Orient, rather than initiating “original” and “scientific” studies, had relied heavily on research findings of native scholars.

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Posted in Knowledge base