Persian Historiography And Geography

The role played by the Persian language in the context of the Islamic world of learning, literature and scholarship, especially in parts of the Muslim lands under Persian cultural influence, has often been overlooked. While what is generally known of Persian writing covers mostly only certain aspects of mystical poetry, such as those by Maulana Rumi, Sa'di or Hafiz, less is understood about the richness of travel literature, geography or historiography written in this language. Even more astonishing is that the Persian language had virtually been the lingua franca of the educated Muslims in Central Asia and Muslim India as well, and this partly up to the early twentieth century! Even in the Malay world, famous mystics, such as Hamzah Fansuri, used to have a thorough knowledge of Persian.