The Influence of Persian Poetic Meter on Arabic Poems of MīrDāmād

After the rise to power of Shah Abbas the Safavid and the massive immigration of Shi'ite Ulama from Lebanon (Jabal 'Āmel and Beqā') and Bahrain to Iran, a literary movement began in Arabic language and its pioneers were these newly arrived immigrants. Another pillar of this movement was the Iranians who learned Arabic from these jurisprudents, including MīrDāmād, the famous philosopher and jurisprudent. Besides his philosophical works, MīrDāmād has some poems in Persian and Arabic. Although on the mother side he is the grandchild of MohaqeqKarakī, Lebanese scholar residing in Iran, in the musical structure of his Arabic poems he is markedly influenced by Persian poetry to the extent that in the selection of the meters and other metrical features of his poemshe has benefited enormously from Persian poetic meter. This has added Persian color and feel to the music of his poems. He has avoided in his poems the frequently used Arabic meters and on the other hand has made use of Persian meters such as circular meter. Based on the available examples, we may conclude that MīrDāmād, in composing his poems, has been influenced by Persian poems of Mevlana and Hafiz. These issues are examined in this paper using comparative criticism