In Section 1 of Jami's Baharestan, poetry is defined through two contrasting lenses: that of the philosophers (hukama) and that of common usage (urf-e jomhur).

• Philosophical definition: For the ancients and philosophers, poetry is speech composed of imaginative premises (muqaddimat-e mukhayyila) — utterance whose function is to cast into the listener's imagination meanings that provoke attraction toward, or aversion from, something. Crucially, this holds whether or not the statement is objectively true, and whether or not the listener believes it true. Jami illustrates this with figurative claims such as calling wine molten ruby or flowing carnelian, and honey the bitter, briny vomit of bees.
• The addition of meter and rhyme: Later philosophers supplemented the logical definition by also requiring meter (vazn) and rhyme (qafiyeh).
• Popular definition: In common convention only meter and rhyme count, so poetry is simply metrical, rhymed speech, and neithe...