This Divan is derived from a manuscript copy currently housed in the Manuscripts Section of the Astan Quds Razavi Library in Mashhad.
The handwritten Divan of the late Mohammad Hossein Taleb Qandahari’s poetry comprises four daftar (sections) with the following titles:
“See Paare Del” containing 30 Persian poems across 68 folios
“Ashk-e Golgoon containing 31 Persian poems across 48 folios, along with 6 folios of the poet’s prose samples
“Kharabat“ containing 19 Persian poems across 71 folios
and “Zakhmi Zar’e” (Wounded Heart) containing 12 Pashto poems across 93 folios.
The Persian poems in this Divan were inscribed in beautiful calligraphy by Mahmood Hosseini Balkhi,’ known as ‘Aashiq’ (The Lover), while the Pashto poems were written by the poet himself in beautiful handwriting. The late Taleb’s Pashto poems were previously published in Kabul in 1978, and the poet later recopied those same poems into this handwritten Divan.
During his time in Iran, the late Taleb gifted this unified volume—which contained all four handwritten sections—to the Astan Quds Razavi Library, and as mentioned, the handwritten manuscript copy of this Divan is currently preserved in the Manuscripts Section of that library in Mashhad. Mohammad Kazem Kazemi, the prominent Afghan poet who undertook the editing of this book, says about it: ‘The name Taleb Qandahari has a long history in my mind, perhaps since my adolescence and even before I became familiar with many of my country’s contemporary poets. I first heard this name from my father, who mentioned him with respect and occasionally brought him up in his own memories, which often had a political and social aspect.
He would also hum parts of the Mokhammas (a five-line stanza form) that Taleb had composed based on Hafez’s poetry. I must confess that despite my long acquaintance with this name, the image I had from this poet in my mind, was neither complete nor precise. I perceived him as a social and influential figure who occasionally composed Mokhammas for poets’ verses as a form of recreation, since we know that Mokhammas itself is generally considered a recreational and secondary form in Persian poetry. Nevertheless, Taleb Qandahari’s personality was particularly interesting to me.
When Mr. Mohammad Nabi Moradi, out of kindness and trust, entrusted me with editing and typesetting Taleb Qandahari’s poetry collection, the image of Taleb Qandahari renewed and completed for me, and he was truly admirable to me. I found him to be a professional and capable poet whose work easily matches that of his contemporaries and peers in classical Afghan poetry, and even possesses distinct advantages. His works are both polished and refined in terms of poetic language and mastery of classical poetic techniques, as well as being distinguished in terms of imagery and thematic creativity. The diversity of content in his works is also commendable, reflecting the poet’s social, political, and religious concerns, though it naturally includes an underlying thread of lyricism, as has been the tradition in our classical poetry.
I am delighted that, after nearly forty years of sporadic familiarity with the name and personality of this respected poet, I had the opportunity to edit his work, thanks to the grace and kindness of Mr. Mohammad Nabi Moradi. I hope that with the publication of this book, this Afghan poet will become better known. Perhaps, due to the non-publication of these works, this poet and his true capabilities have not been recognized in our literary community yet. It is worth noting that prior to the printing of “The Divan of Taleb”, some of this poet’s verses had been published sporadically in Afghan periodicals.
