Tathkirat al-Awliā and Al-Bayāz va Al-Savād

For his Tathkirat al-Awliā, Attār of Nishapur has again and again availed himself of Arabic sources. In his introduction, Shafi’i Kadakani, the redactor of the most recent edition of the Tathkira, has introduced eleven works as Attār’s main sources, one of which is the Al-Bayāz va Al-Savād by Khwaja Ali-e Hasan of Sirjān. In the present article, the manner and amount of Attār’s use of the Al-Bayāz va Al-Savād has been discussed with respect to certain extratextual as well as intratextual clues. In addition, in a comparative investigation into the words of the Sufi masters common in the Tathkirat al-Awliā and Al-Bayāz va Al-Savād and other principal sources of the Tathkira, the proportion and method of Attār’s utilization of the Al-Bayāz have been determined. The outcome of this comparison is the discovery of 550 words and stories shared by these two books of which 94 are solely found in the Al-Bayāz va Al-Savād. In the end, the results of our search have been set out in a table.