A treatise on the criticism of popular story-telling from the Qajar period

At the Majlis Library there is a manuscript under no.13415 the first part of which is on story-telling (naqqali). Its author is Javad Isfahani and, based on a reference in the text, this critique appears to have been written during the reign of the Qajar Muzaffar al-Din Shah. Unique and extremely interesting of its kind, its subject matter is criticism and censure of naqqali (in the broad sense of narration). The author, on the basis of certain reasons, has set to denounce the art of narration at a time when it was enjoying one of its most flourishing phases. In the present article the text of the first section of Javad Isfahani's treatise is redacted, and then some of the significant points and references in the text, regarding story-telling, are highlighted and examined. Such things as the reasons for the author's disapproval of story-telling, the description of one of the story-tellers of the Qajarid times, the development of story-telling from Moaviyeh's days on, the passion of audiences for stories and their interest in story-teller's personalities, the reason for leaving a story unfinished in narrating practice, the daily income of one of the story-tellers of the city of Sabzevar in the Qajarid times, the significance of the phrase “Cheragh Allah” (the lamp/light of God) in the jargon of story-tellers, and finally the tale of Abu al-Qasem Gorgani and Firdowsi.