E. Pischurnikova

St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

E‑mail: katyasun86@mail.ru

Mathnawī Poems By ‘Abd Al‑Hamīd Momand: Stylometric Results

Abstract. The article aims to solve the authorship problem of the texts of three Afghan mathnawi poems by ‘Abd al‑Hamid Momand (d. ca. 1144/1732): Shah‑u darwish, Nayrang‑i ʻishq and Shir‘at al‑islam. Using the methods of machine and rolling classification via the R‑Stylo program, the texts of the poems were checked and compared against the corpus of texts by both the alleged author (Hamid) and other poets who created their works around the same time and / or in the style similar to Hamid's. As a result of textual analysis using computer stylometry, we conclude that the two love and mystery poems Shah‑u darwish and Nayrang‑i ʻishq belong to ‘Abd al‑Hamid; however, Hamid's authorship regarding the poem Shir‘at al‑islam is apparently questioned.

Keywords: Afghan literature, medieval Pashto literature, authenticity of medieval writings, stylometry, computer technology to determine authenticity of oriental texts, Hamid Momand, Rahman Baba, Hannan, Ghalandar, Shah‑u darwish, Shir‘at al‑islam, Nayrang‑i ʻishq

Acknowledgement. The work was supported by RFBR grant 20‑012‑00187 “Attribution of the Medieval Persian and Afghan Poetry Texts via the Methods of Digital Stylometry”.

DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2022-28-2-35-38

References 

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 Received by the Editorial Board: 21.01.2022