Adab chīst? Adīb kīst?

This posthumous study gathers the literary lectures and reflections of Muḥammad ʻAlī Bāmdād, sometime president of the Literary Society of Īrān, compiled and edited by his son Maḥmūd Bāmdād from notes left after the author's death. Cast in a fresh, accessible style, it asks the two questions that give the work its title: what is adab, and who is the adīb? Beyond expounding the conventional rules and craft of Persian letters, illustrated with apt examples and verse, the book draws a careful distinction between adab-i darsī, the formal literature of instruction, and adab-i nafsī, the cultivation of the inner self. It is this second sense, the moral and humane training of character, that the author places at the centre, presenting refinement of the soul as the higher aim of true learning. Readers meet celebrated figures of Persian literature alongside fresh observations seldom found elsewhere, making the volume a rewarding guide for all who seek both eloquence and ethical depth.