Comparative Analysis of Mohtasham Kashani’s Religious Elegy and the Elegiac Works of Five Badakhshan Poets

الملخص

Religious elegy is considered one of the subgenres of lyrical poetry through which poets express their emotions and sentiments in response to death, suffering, and the afflictions of religious and spiritual figures. The present study, adopting a comparative approach, examines the religious elegies of Mowlana Mohtasham Kashani—particularly his renowned tarkib-band—in comparison with the elegies of five poets from Badakhshan: Mowlana Abdullah Mesraʿ, Mir Olya Hossein Maghmum, Seyed-ol-Zaman-od-Din Adim, Abdul-Wasel Latifi, and Abdul-Sattar Natiq. The findings indicate that although there are similarities in meter and rhythm between Mohtasham’s elegy and those of the Badakhshan poets, notable differences appear in poetic form and structure. However, in terms of themes, emotional intensity, depiction of the Karbala tragedy, devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet’s family), and criticism of fate’s cruelty, significant parallels can be observed among the studied poets. The study concludes that Mohtasham Kashani, through his immortal tarkib-band filled with vivid poetic imagery and emotional depth, exerted a profound influence on Persian poets after the tenth century AH; this influence is also evident among the poets of Badakhshan. The linguistic, metrical, semantic, and stylistic analyses demonstrate that religious elegy in both contexts serves as a means of expressing collective sorrow and fostering moral and spiritual reflection in the face of historical and human tragedies. Keywords: Mohtasham Kashani, Religious Elegy, Badakhshan Poets, Comparative Analysis, Lyric Poetry