Stanzas 41–42
When the messenger read that epistle, forthwith
The news was noised abroad by many mouths.
All the nobles present in that congregation,
Turned their eyes upon this durvesh.
As we’ve seen, the letter was not formally addressed to Shabistari but to masters in the subject. These were the “nobles” who were present, and they looked expectantly at Shabistari. Again, this does not look like a chance situation but a scripted one in which Shabistari will have a highly qualified audience to monitor his response.
Stanzas 43–46
One who was a man well versed in affairs,
And who had heard these mysteries from me a hundred times,
Said to me, “Tell the answers off straightway,
“That the men of the world may profit thereby”.
I replied, “What need? for again and again
“Have I set forth these problems in treatises”.
“True,” said he, “but I hope to have from you
Answers in rhyme corresponding to these questions”.
Now the network of connections becomes more revealing. Lahiji tells us that the man who instructed Shabistari to answer the letter (and to do so in verse) was Shaykh Amin al-Din[1]. This man was an extremely high-ranking Sufi Shaykh, who was listed as one of the five great men of Fars by the poet Hafez[2]. His full name was Shaykh Amin al-Din Baliyani Kazeruni (died 1344), and he was (either at this time, or certainly later) the Shaykh al-Islam. There is some uncertainty about the functions of the Shaykh al-Islam, but the evidence strongly suggests that he was the highest-ranking Sufi master, and that he directed the educational system and had the authority to certify teachers. Whether he was Shaykh al-Islam at the time of this event (717/1317) he was certainly Shabistari’s shaykh[3]. This explains why he had “heard these mysteries from [Shabistari] a hundred times” and why he also knew that Shabistari had already set out the answers in treatises.
So when Shaykh Amin al-Din instructed Shabistari to “tell the answers off straighway” and to do so in verse, this is more than a social nicety. We now have a situation in which a recognized authority on the spiritual journey who shared a master with Shabistari wrote a set of highly organized and challenging questions to the “masters” in the field, who looked expectantly at Shabistari while his own master and possible chief director and examiner in the education system instructed him to respond. The attendant “nobles” may therefore have functioned as a jury, and the whole event now emerges as a form of public examination and certification. Assuming Shabistari answered all the questions satisfactorily, he would then be authorized to teach about the whole range of material condensed and summarized in his poem.
The certification may have taken the form of an ijazah, which was often but not always a certificate[4]. It may be that this poem, which rapidly became well-known and was later annotated and translated by Lahiji represents Shabistari’s ijazah.
[1] Whinfield, p5, note 3; http://gulshan-raz.lossofgenerality.com/gulshan-e-raz-text-with-bookmarks/
[2] “City Administration in Hafez’s Shiraz”, by John W. Limbert, in Views from the Edge: Essays in Hornor of Richard W. Bulliet, by Richard W Bulliet, Neguin Yavari, Lawrence G Potter, Jean-Marc Ran Oppenheim, 116–140, see especially page 117; & 130 and 139 for the Shaykh al-Islam http://books.google.com/books?id=98s_RXcO2c4C&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false
[3] An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol IV: From the School of Illumination to Philosophical Mysticism, Volume 4, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, I.B.Tauris, Dec 11, 2012, 476–8, p 476 http://books.google.com/books?id=2GEBAwAAQBAJ&pg=P476#v=onepage&q&f=false
[4] wikipedia, Ijazah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijazah