Ta’adib ol-Atfāl (Disciplining Children)

Ta’adib ol-Atfāl (Disciplining Children)

This is claimed to be one of the first Iranian books written for children and it is an innovative book in some respects. The writer, Miftāh Al-Mulk, claimed to have translated it from an Arabic translation of a French book. However, the names of the characters, the settings of the tales, and the stories are to a great extent Iranian. For example, there are references to Iranian households, Islamic prayers and reading Quran. Thus, it cannot be deemed a translation, at least in the modern sense of the word (Mohammadi and Ghaeni 2001). However, the style of the book as an illustrated storybook exclusively written for children had no known antecedents in Persian literature (Nasab and Asadi 2020) and resembled the European tradition of illustrated books for children and folktales like those written by La Fontaine, Aesop, and others.

An interesting point about the book is that it is probably the first Iranian illustrated book for children. A very modern perspective of the book is that almost half of the tales are about girls, which was unprecedented and unmatched among other instances of children’s literature during that period and even years to come.

Miftāḥ al-Mulk, Maḥmūd ibn Yusuf

Published text is held in Iranian Parliament Library

Tehran: Unknown

It was first published in 1876. The same edition has been used here.

Mehdi Farhoodinia

Public domain

Persian

Storybook