But if Persian influences were thus dominant at the 'Abbásid court, and Persian fashions thus prevalent amongst its frequenters, the activity of this talented people was even more conspicuous in the realm of literature and science.
“Not only in the government are the foreigners always to the
front,” says Goldziher in the illuminating chapter 'Arab und 'Ajam
(Arabs and Persians) in his Muhammedanische Studien (vol. i, p. 109);
“we find them also in the foremost ranks even in the specifically
religious sciences. ‘It almost seems,’ says von Kremer,*
that these
scientific studies (Reading and Exegesis of the Qur'án, Sciences of
Tradition and Law), were, during the first two centuries [of the
hijra], principally worked by clients [Mawálí, i.e., non-Arab
Muslims], while the Arabs proper felt themselves more drawn to the
study of their ancient poetry, and to the development and imitation
of the same; but, we would add, even in this field they were often
outstripped by the foreigners, whose men of learning in no small
degree advanced this sphere of the Arabian genius by literary
and historical studies on the antiquities of the Arabs, by thorough
critical researches, and so forth. It would be superfluous to cite
here the many names whereof the mere sound affords proof of
what Arabic Grammar and Lexicology owe to non-Arabs, and even
if we cannot permit Paul de Lagarde's assertion*
that ‘of the
Muhammadans who have achieved anything in Science, not one was
a Semite’ to pass in this absolute form, yet so much at least may
be said, that alike in the specially religious studies as in those
which grew up round the study of the Arabic speech, the Arabian
element lagged far behind the non-Arabian. And this was
principally the fault of the Arabs themselves. They looked down
with sovereign contempt on the studies so zealously prosecuted
by the non-Arabs, considering that such trivialities were unworthy
of men who could boast so proud an ancestry, but befitted only the
pedagogue, anxious to gloss over with such pigments his dingy
genealogy. ‘It befits not the Qurayshites’—in such words a full-
The Arabs of the Jáhiliyyat, or pagan time, were, as Gold-
The Persians, on the other hand, even in early Sásánian times, included a knowledge of writing (dapíríh) amongst the accomplishments proper to a prince,* and many of them seem to have also possessed a good knowledge of Arabic before the days of Islám. Thus King Bahrám Gúr (A.D. 420-438), who was educated by Mundhir amongst the Arabs of Ḥíra, was instructed in the Persian, Arabic, and even Greek languages and writings,* and poems in Arabic ascribed to him are cited in 'Awfí's Lubábu 'l-Albáb.* Khurra-Khusraw, the Persian satrap of Yemen about the time of the Prophet, “became fully Arabicised; he recited Arabic poems, and educated himself in the Arabian fashion; these Arab tendencies of his (‘ta'arrubuhu’ says our source) were the primary cause of his recall.”
* “There are also named,” continues Goldziher, “amongst the
doctors of the religion of Islám men of Persian origin whose
ancestors did not through Islám first come in contact with Arab
life, but who belonged to those Persian troops*
who, under Sayf b.
Dhú Yazan, became settled in Arabian lands. In Islám the Arabi-
The whole of this chapter in Goldziher's masterly work is profoundly instructive, and to it we refer the reader for fuller information on this matter. Amongst the most striking illustrations which he gives* of the preponderating influence of these foreign Mawálí is a dialogue between the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik and the famous theologian az-Zuhrí, whence it appears that alike in Mecca, Yaman, Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Khurásán, Kúfa, and Baṣra foreign “clients” held the chief positions of authority in religion. And when the Caliph expressed his amazement at this state of things, the theologian replied, “So it is, O Commander of the Faithful! This is effected by the Command of God and His Religion; who observes these attains to authority, who neglects them goes under.”
The tendency of pious Muslims of the early period, as expressed in numerous traditions, was, as Goldziher also points out, to supply the strongest authority for disregarding racial prejudices in the domain of religion. Amongst these traditions are the following:—
“O man, forsooth God is one God, and the ancestor of all mankind is one, the religion is the same religion, the Arabic speech is neither father nor mother to any one of you, it is naught else but a speech. He who speaks Arabic is thereby an Arab.”
*“He of [the people of] Párs who accepts Islám is [as good as] a Qurayshite.”
“Did Faith reside in the Pleiades, yet would men of this people [the Persians] reach it”; a tradition afterwards modified as follows: “Were knowledge suspended to the ends of heaven, yet would a section of the people in Párs reach it.”
*