Abstract
Almost all researchers are familiar with the concept of plagiarism these days. However, many scholars allege that plagiarism and its ethical ramifications are new western concepts that have not existed in scientific and literary history. In their opinion, using the ideas of others was allowed liberally in past academic and literary communities. I have presented the definition of “plagiarism” according to Shams-e-Qays, a great Persian literary scientist of the thirteenth century AD, to show that this is not the case and that the attitude towards plagiarism was even more strict in ancient times.
Plagiarism is a form of scientific misconduct which is defined as stealing themes, technology, ideas, or words and reporting them as one’s own (Ahmadi, 2014; Cameron et al., 2012; Chowdhry, 2016; Habibzadeh and Marcovitch, 2011; Helgesson, 2014; Hosseini et al., 2009; Schulz, 2015; Resnik et al., 2015). Almost all researchers are familiar with the concept of plagiarism these days. However, many scholars allege that plagiarism and its ethical ramifications are new western concepts that have not existed in the scientific and literary history. In their opinion, using the ideas of others was allowed liberally in past academic and literary communities. Personally, I have encountered many researchers who have expressed the view that “plagiarism” is a new western concept and that in the past it was not considered as unethical as it is these days in the academic community (Amiri and Razmjoo, 2016; Fazly Bazzaz and Sadeghi, 2012).
I would like to elaborate on this view by presenting the definition of “plagiarism” according to Shams-e-Qays, who was a great Persian literary scientist of the thirteenth century AD. In the “plagiarism” section of his masterpiece on Persian prosody, al-Moʿǰam fī maʿāyīr ašʿār al-ʿaǰam, he mentioned:
the poet should not plunder the poems of others as this is not ethical and nobody approves of this corruption and using the words of others is not the sign of wisdom. (Shams-e-Qays, 1935)
He categorized plagiarism into four types: Intihal, Salkh, Elmam, and Naql:
Intihal (verbatim copy): Shams-e-Qays mentioned that this “means ascribing the exact words of someone to self. This is verbatim copy of the words without change (or very small change).”
Salkh: Salkh means flaying and, as Shams-e-Qays mentioned, this “ means using words from another scholar and changing the order of them and using them again.”
Elmam: Elmam means approaching, which “means using a concept from another scholar and using them as own with different words.”
Naql: Naql means transferring: “This means that a scholar takes a concept from another one and transferring its context.” He gives an example of transferring a concept from a complaint to a eulogy context.
Shams-e-Qays ended the section on “plagiarism” in these words:
The literary experts mentioned that if a scholar takes a concept and uses weak words to describe it, and another scholar uses strong words; the second poets will be more privileged as the owner of the concept, however the first poet should always be credited as being the pioneer.
The clear explanation of Shams-e-Qays in the thirteenth century AD shows that the concept of plagiarism was well known among the scholars in medieval Persia. His criteria of plagiarism are actually stricter than the modern criteria. This shows that medieval Persian scholars considered plagiarism as a form of ethical misconduct and despised it as vehemently as modern scholars do.
In conclusion, plagiarism is not a new western concept; considering plagiarism as a form of ethical misconduct has a deep root in the history of science and literature.