An introduction and study of the Sharh-e Golshan-e Raz, by Ahmad b. Moosa Rashti-e Ostadi

The Golshan-e Raz is one of the most important and most concise mystical poems in Persian, composed by Sheikh Mahmud Shabastari in the mathnavi form and in the aruzi meter of hazaj-e mosaddas-e mahzuf. Thanks to its significance and succinctness, the Golshan-e Raz has drawn the interest of many scholars, resulting in a substantial number of commentaries on the book. One of them is the work of Ahmad b. Moosa Rashti-e Ostadi, a 15th- century scholar and a student of Shams al-Din Maghrebi. In this work, which represents one of the examples of free-flowing prose from the Timurid period, nearly all the couplets of the Golshan-e Raz, excepting a few, have been interpreted.
This study addressed a brief introduction and examination of the commentary in question and presented the characteristics of its contents and style, giving also a description of its existing manuscripts. Also, some of the couplets in Ostadi’s commentary have been compared with those in Lahiji’s an Elahi Ardabili’s commentaries in order to demonstrate its merits and faults.