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-blooded Arab expresses himself—‘to go deeply into any study save that of the old histories [of the Arabs], especially now, when one has to bend the bow and attack the enemy.’* Once a Qurayshite, observing an Arab child studying the Book of Síbawayhi,* could not refrain from exclaiming, ‘Fie upon thee! That is the learning of schoolmasters and the pride of beggars!’ For it was reckoned as a jest that any one who was a grammarian, prosodist, accountant or jurist (for the science last mentioned arithmetic is indispensable) would give instruction in these subjects to little children for sixty dirhams (for what length of time is not, unfortunately, men­tioned).”

The Arabs of the Jáhiliyyat, or pagan time, were, as Gold-ziher fully shows, so little familiar with the art of writing Lack of literary tendencies amongst the pure Arabs. (save in the case of those who had come under Jewish, Christian, Greek, or Persian influences) that an old poet distinguishes a wise man from whom he cites a sentence as “he who dictates writing on parchment, whereon the scribe writes it down;” and that even in the Prophet's time they were not much more literate is shown, as he says, not only by the strange materials on which the Qur'án was inscribed, but also by the fact that those taken captive at the Battle of Badr could, if they pos­sessed a knowledge of writing, obtain their liberty without paying any further ransom. Al-Wáqidí, cited by al-Baládhurí (Futúḥu'l-Buldán, ed. de Goeje, pp. 471-72), expressly states that in the early days of Islám only seventeen men of the tribe of Quraysh, the aristocracy of Mecca, could write; and he enumerates them by name, including amongst them 'Umar, 'Alí, 'Uthmán, Ibnu'l-Jarráḥ, Ṭalḥa, Abú Sufyán, and his son Mu'áwiya. Dhu'r-Rumma, who is regarded as the last of the old Bedouin poets (died between A.D. 719 and 735), had to conceal the fact that he was able to write,* “because,” said he, “it is regarded as a disgrace amongst us.”

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-cisation of the non-Arabian elements and their participation in the learned world of the Muhammadan community underwent a rapid development, to which the history of the civilisation of mankind affords but few parallels. Towards the end of the first century [of the hijra] we find in Madína a grammarian named Bushkast, a name which sounds altogether Persian; and we find this gram­marian, who busied himself with imparting instruction in his science, playing a conspicuous part in the Khárijite rebellion of Abú Ḥamza, in consequence of which participation he was put to death by Marwán's adherents, who succeeded in getting him into their hands. A whole series of the most eminent Muhammadans was descended from Persian prisoners of war. The grandsire of Abú Isḥáq, whose Biography of the Prophet is one of the principal sources for the history of early Islám, was Yásár, a Persian prisoner of war; so likewise was the father of Abú Músá b. Nuṣayr, who thrust himself into prominence in Andalusia; while the fathers and grandfathers of many other men distinguished in politics, learning, and literature were Persian and Turkish prisoners of war, who were affiliated [as mawálí, or clients] to some Arab tribe, and who, by their thoroughly Arabian nisba, almost cast into oblivion their foreign origin.* But the retention of the remembrance of their foreign origin is not altogether excluded in the case of such Arab ‘clients’ [mawálí], even though it be not exactly common. The Arab poet Abú Isḥáq Ibráhím aṣ-Ṣúlí (d. A.D. 857) retained in this his family name aṣ-Ṣúlí the remembrance of his ancestor Ṣol-takín, a chief of Khurásán conquered and deprived of his throne by Yazíd b. al-Muhallab. Converted to Islám, he became one of the most devoted partisans of his conqueror. On the arrow which he shot against the troops of the Caliph he is said to have written the words, ‘Ṣol summons you to follow the Book of God and the Sunna of his Prophet.’ From this Turk the celebrated Arabic poet was descended.”

*

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.”

*