Correction of a Mistake: A Study on the Nature of a Text Called the Preface of Behzād’s Album and its Author

For the first time, Qazwini and Bouvat published "Two unpublished documents related to Behzād" in 1914/1298 in Revue Du Monde Musulman, based on a copy of Nāmeh Nāmī in the National Library of Paris, one of which introduced as the preface to Behzād’s Album. Since then, many scholars have taken this issue for granted and referred to it as the preface of Behzād’s Album. Mohammad Taghī Dāneshpajooh was the first and only scholar who, according to Sām Mīrzā in the Tohfe Sāmī, considered the author of the text as Amīr Sūltān Ibrahīm Amīnī. After that, controversy arose among scholars over whether the text belonged to Khwāndamīr or Amīnī, but no one questioned the nature of the text itself or whether it was a preface. Therefore, the main issue of the present study is who is the author of the preface of Behzād’s Album? But before answering it, this question must be answered whether the text in Nāmeh Nāmī is a preface or not. The purpose of this study is to critique the historical texts of Persian art and the method of research is content analysis method. In order to give a logical and reasoned answer to the research question the researcher tried to examine the course of publishing the text as a preface and then analyzing its content and structure. The research findings focus on the content and structure of the text. In discussing the content, the title of the text was considered, which it seems that researchers have not paid attention to so far. Because the title states that this text is a description of the album, not the preface of the album. The next issue is the existence of a quatrain at the beginning of the text, which indicates that this text belongs to the reader. The text also mentions the list of artists in the preface of the album, which is another reason why the preface of the album was another text. The same text written by Ebrāhīm Amīnī and referred to by Sam Mirza. In the discussion of the structure of the text, its structure was matched with the structure of the prefaces before and after the text, and it was found that the text of Khwāndamīr lacks any Praise of God, Prophet and eulogy of Sūltān or Prince, list of artists, and conclusion. So the content and the structure of the text is not match with those common of a Preface of an Album. The results show that the text called the preface of Behzād’s Album is not a preface and is only a description of Behzād's Album by Khwāndamīr. Therefore, according to Sām Mīrzā’s report, the preface of Behzād’s Album was written by Amīnī, which its fate along with the Album aren’t known.