Diwan-i Ishraq

In early Islamic philosophy, poetry was regarded as a means to transmit the eternal truths of philosophy to the masses and to move them to virtuous conduct by the use of poetical syllogisms. We find this theory for the first time in the works of Abu Nasr al-Farabi (d. 339/950). In another application, poetry was used as a didactic tool in the philosophical curriculum, like Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) Urjuza fi 'l-mantiq or, much later, Mulla Hadi Sabzavari's (d. 1289/1873) Manzuma on logic and philosophy. Finally, there are the many poems which, while philosophical in spirit, were not written to be learned by heart by others but rather from personal motives. Here we can mention some of the Persian poetry ascribed to Avicenna or the philosophical poetry of Nasir Khusraw (d. 481/1088). The poems in this collection by Mir Damad (d. 1040/1631), a prominent member of the Isfahan School in philosophy, belong to this latter category.