Make a shield from wisdom: selected verses from Nasir-i Khusraw's Divan

Persian literature, through its poetry, represents one of the world's great literary experiences. Amongst the foremost but, in the west, least known medieval Persian poets was Nasir-i Khusraw. A great thinker of the early Islamic world, whose writing inspired the intellectual development of the Ismaili tradition within Islam, Nasir-i Khusraw's poetry - lyrical and deeply human - has so far received suprisingly little attention from translators in the west. Unique and important for our understanding of the times in which it was written, Nasir-i Khusraw's ideas, expressed with consummate artistry, will appeal strongly to readers of today. His descriptions of the world around him, his breathtaking skill in the use of language and metre, all serve to excite the enthusiast for poetry as well as students of the medieval Islamic world and Ismaili thought.

The noted Islamic scholar Annemarie Schimmel here provides the first ever translation of Nasir-i Khusraw's 'qasidas' together with a detailed study of the poet and his work.