FOR many years I had cherished a desire to write a history of the intellectual and literary achievements of the Persians, somewhat on the lines of that most admirable work, Green's Short History of the English People, a work which any writer may be proud to adopt as a model, but which few can hope to rival and none to surpass. Considering the immense number of books which have been written about Persia, it is strange that so few attempts should hitherto have been made to set forth in a comprehensive yet comparatively concise and summary form the history of that ancient and most interesting kingdom. Excellent monographs on particular periods and dynasties do indeed exist in plenty; but of general histories of Persia those of Sir John Malcolm and Clements Markham are still the chief works of reference in English, though they no longer represent, even approximately, the present level of knowledge (enormously raised in recent times by the unremitting labours of an ever-increasing band of students and scholars), in addition to which they both deal rather with the external political conditions of Persia than with the inner life of her people.
Conscious of the magnitude and difficulty of the task, and constantly engaged in examining and digesting the abundant and almost unexplored materials which every large collection of Oriental manuscripts yields, I might probably have continued to postpone indefinitely an attempt for which I felt myself ever more rather than less unprepared, had I not received almost simultaneously two separate invitations to contribute a volume on Persian Literature or Literary History to a series which in each case was of conspicuous merit, though in plan, scope, and treatment the difference between the two was considerable. In choosing between the two, I was less influenced by priority of appeal, extent of remuneration, or personal predilection, than by the desire to secure for myself the ampler field and the broader—I had almost said the more philosophical—plan. The model placed before me in the one case was Jusserand's charming Literary History of the English People, the conception and execution of which (for reasons more fully explained in the Introductory chapter of the following work) so delighted me that I thereupon decided to make for the series to which it belonged the effort which I had long contemplated. For it was the intellectual history of the Persians which I desired to write, and not merely the history of the poets and authors who expressed their thoughts through the medium of the Persian language; the manifestations of the national genius in the fields of Religion, Philosophy, and Science interested me at least as much as those belonging to the domain of Literature in the narrower sense; while the linguistic vehicle through which they sought expression was, from my point of view, indifferent. I trust that my readers will realise this at the outset, so that they may not suffer disappointment, nor feel themselves aggrieved, because in this volume more is said about movements than books, and less about books written in Persian than about those written in Pahlawí, Arabic, or some other language.
It was originally intended that the work should be completed in one volume, carrying the history down to the present day. But I soon convinced myself (and, with more difficulty, my publisher) that this was impossible without grave modification (and, from my point of view, mutilation) of my original plan. At first I hoped to carry this volume down to the Mongol Invasion and the extinction of the Caliphate of Baghdad in the thirteenth century, which, as I have elsewhere observed (pp. 210-211 infra), is the great turning-point in the history of Islám; but even this finally proved impracticable within the limits assigned to me, and I ultimately found myself obliged to conclude this part of my work with the immediate precursors of Firdawsí, the writers and poets of the Sámánid and Buwayhid dynasties.
This division is, perhaps, after all the best, since the Prolegomena with which the student of Persian literature ought to be acquainted are thus comprised in the present volume, while the field of Persian literature in the narrower sense will, with the aid of one chapter of recapitulation, be entirely covered by the second, with which it is intended that this should be supplemented. Thus, agreeably to the stipulations imposed by my publisher, the two volumes will be independent one of the other, this containing the Prolegomena, and that the History of Persian Literature within the strict meaning of the term.
My chief fear is lest, in endeavouring to present to the general reader the results attained by Oriental scholarship, and embodied for the most part in books and periodicals which he is unlikely to read, or even to meet with, I may have fallen, so to speak, between two stools, and ended by producing a book which is too technical for the ordinary reader, yet too popular for the Orientalist by profession. To the former rather than the latter it is addressed; but most of all to that small but growing body of amateurs who, having learned to love the Persian poets in translation, desire to know more of the language, literature, history, and thought of one of the most ancient, gifted, and original peoples in the world. In a country which offers so few inducements as England to what may be called the professional study of Oriental letters and languages, and which consequently lacks well-organised Oriental schools such as exist at Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and other Continental capitals, it is chiefly with the amateur (and I use the word in no disparaging sense, but as meaning one whose studies are prompted by taste and natural inclination rather than by necessity) that the future extension and development of these studies lies. To him (or her), therefore, this book is especially addressed; and should it prove of use to any of those whose interest in the East is more real and abiding than that of the ordinary reader, but who have neither the opportunity nor the apparatus of study necessary to the professional student, I shall deem myself amply rewarded for my labour in compiling it.
Concerning the system of transliteration of Oriental names and words here adopted little need be said; it is essentially that approved by the Royal Asiatic Society for the transcription of the Arabic character, and will be readily understood by all who are familiar with that script. That consistency (or, as I fear may be said by some of my critics, pedantry) has compelled me to write Ḥáfidh, Nidhámí, 'Umar, Firdawsí, &c., for the more popular Háfiz, Nizámí, Omar, and Ferdousi may be regretted from some points of view, but will at least generally save the student from doubts as to the correct spelling in the original character of the names occurring in the following pages. I only regret that this consistency has not been more complete, and that I have in a few cases (notably Ádharbáyján, Ázarbáyján) allowed myself to be swayed by actual usage at the expense of uniformity. But at least the reader will not as a rule be puzzled by finding the same name appearing now as 'Uthmán, now as 'Usmán, and again as 'Osmán, according as it is sought to represent its Arabic, its Persian, or its Turkish pronunciation.
And so I commend my book to the benevolent reader, and, I hope I may add, to the not less benevolent critic. Of its many defects, alike in plan and execution, I am fully conscious, and to others, no doubt, my attention will soon be called. But “whose desireth a faultless friend remains friend-less,” says a well-known Eastern adage, and it is no less true that he who would write a flawless book writes nothing. I have admitted that I felt myself unprepared for so great a task; but I should have felt equally unprepared ten or twenty years hence, the subject ever widening before our eyes more rapidly than the knowledge of it grows in our minds. Even the most imperfect book, if it breaks fresh ground, may, though itself doomed to oblivion, prepare the way for a better.
EDWARD G. BROWNE.
SEPTEMBER 14, 1902.
OF THE PEOPLE, LANGUAGES, AND
LITERATURES OF PERSIA
THIS book, as its title implies, is a history, not of the different dynasties which have ruled in Persia and of the kings who Scope of work. composed those dynasties, but of the Persian people. It is, moreover, the history of that people written from a particular point of view—the literary. In other words, it is an attempt to portray the subjective— that is to say, the religious, intellectual, and æsthetic— characteristics of the Persians as manifested in their own writings, or sometimes, when these fail, in those of their neighbours. It is not, however, precisely a history of Persian Literature; since, on the one hand, it will exclude from consideration the writings of those who, while using the Persian language as the vehicle of their thought, were not of Persian race; and, on the other hand, it will include what has been written by Persians who chose as their medium of expression some language other than their mother-tongue. India, for example, has produced an extensive literature of which the language is Persian, but which is not a reflex of the Persian mind, and the same holds good in lesser degree of several branches of the Turkish race, but with this literature we are in no wise concerned. Persians, on the other hand, have continued ever since the Muhammadan Conquest—that is to say, for more than twelve hundred years—to use the Arabic language almost to the exclusion of their own in writing on certain subjects, notably theology and philosophy; while during the two centuries immediately succeeding the Arab invasion the language of the conquerors was, save amongst those who still adhered to the ancient national faith of Zoroaster, almost the sole literary medium employed in Persia. To ignore this literature would be to ignore many of the most important and characteristic manifestations of the Persian genius, and to form an altogether inadequate judgment of the intellectual activity of that ingenious and talented people.
The term “Persian” as used by us, and by the Greeks,
Jews, Syrians, Arabs, and other foreigners, has a wider sig-
Meaning of the
term Persian.
nification than that which it originally bore.
The Persians call themselves Írání and their
land Írán,4a
and of this land Pársa, the Persis of
the Greeks, the modern Fárs,4b
is one province out of several.
But because that province gave birth to the two great dynasties
(the Achæmenian in the sixth century before, and the Sásánian
in the third century after Christ) which made their arms formidable
and their name famous in the West, its meaning was
extended so as to include the whole people and country which we
call Persian; just as the tribe of Angles, though numerically
inferior to the Saxons, gave their name to England and all
that the term English now connotes. As in our own country
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes merged in one English people, and
the dialects of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex in one
English language, so in Írán the inhabitants of Parthia,
Media, and Persis became in course of time blended in one
Persian people, and their kindred dialects (for already Strabo
found them in his time “almost of the same speech,”
The Persian language of to-day, Fársí, the language of Fárs, is then the lineal offspring of the language which The Persian language of Achæmenian times. Cyrus and Darius spoke, and in which the proclamations engraved by their commands on the rocks of Behistun (now called Bí-sitún) and Naqsh-i-Rustam, and the walls and columns of Persepolis, are drawn up. These inscriptions of the Achæ-menian kings, who ruled in Persia from B.C. 550 until the last Darius was overthrown by Alexander the Great, B.C. 330, are sufficiently extensive and well understood to show us what the Persian language was more than 2,400 years ago.
Remote as is the period from which the earliest written monuments of the Persian language date, they do not, unfor- Interruptions in the series of written monuments of the Persian language. tunately, present an unbroken series. On the contrary, their continuity is broken between the Achæmenian period and the present day by two great gaps corresponding with two great foreign invasions which shattered the Persian power and reduced the Persian people to the position of a subject race. The first of these, beginning with the Greek invasion under Alexander and ending with the overthrow of the Parthian by the Sásánian dynasty, embraces a period of about five centuries and a half (B.C. 330-A.D. 226). The second, beginning with the Arab invasion and Muhammadan Conquest, which destroyed the Sásánian dynasty and overthrew the Zoroastrian religion, though much shorter, had far deeper and more permanent effects on the people, thought, and language of Persia. “Hellenism,” as Nöldeke says, “never touched more than the surface of Persian life, but Írán was penetrated to the core by Arabian religion and Arab ways.” The Arab conquest, though presaged by earlier events,6a may be said to have begun with the battles of Buwayb and Qádisiyya (A.D. 635-637), and to have been completed and confirmed by the death of the last Sásánian king, Yazdigird III, A.D. 651 or 652. The end of the Arabian period cannot be so definitely fixed. In a certain sense it endured till the sack of Baghdad and murder of al-Musta'ṣim bi'lláh, the last 'Abbásid Caliph, in A.D. 1258 by the Mongols under Hulágú Khán, the grandson of Changíz Khán. Long before this, however, the Arab power had passed into the hands of Persian and Turkish vassals, and the Caliph, whom they sometimes cajoled and conciliated, but more often coerced or ignored, had ceased to exercise aught beyond a spiritual authority save in the immediate neighbourhood of Baghdad. Broadly speaking, however, the revival of the Persian language proceeded pari passu with the detachment of the Persian provinces from the direct control of the Caliph's administration, and the uprising of local dynasties which yielded at most a merely nominal obedience to the 'Abbásid court. Of these dynasties the Ṭáhirids (A.D. 820) are sometimes accounted the first; but they may more truly be considered to begin with the Ṣaffárids (A.D. 867), Sámánids (A.D. 874), and Buwayhids (A.D. 932), and to reach their full development in the Ghaznawids and Seljúqs.
The history of the Persian language falls, therefore, into Periods in the development of the Persian Language. three well-defined periods, as follows:—
I. The Achœmenian Period (B.C. 550-330), represented by the edicts and proclamations contained in the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, which, though of considerable extent, are similar in character and style, and yield a vocabulary of not much more than 400 separate words.7a The language represented by these inscriptions, and by them only, is generally Old Persian. called Old Persian.7b
II. The Sásánian Period (A.D. 226-652), represented by inscriptions on monuments, medals, gems, seals, and coins, and Middle Persian, or Pahlawí. by a literature estimated as, roughly speaking, equal in bulk to the Old Testament.7c This literature is entirely Zoroastrian and almost entirely theological and liturgical. The language in which it is written, when disentangled from the extraordinary graphic system, known as Huzváresh (Zuwárishn), used to represent it, is little more than a very archaic form of the present speech of Persia devoid of the Arabic element. It is generally known as Pahlawí, sometimes as Middle Persian. Properly speaking, the term Pahlawí applies rather to the script than the language, but, following the general usage, we shall retain it in speaking of the official language of Sásánian Persia. This script continued to be used on the coins of the early Caliphs and the independent Spáhpats or Ispahbadhs of Ṭabaristán for more than a century after the Arab conquest; and for at least as long additions continued to be made by the Zoroastrians of Persia to the Pahlawí literature, but the latest of them hardly extend beyond the ninth century of our era.8a Practically speaking the natural use of what we understand as Pahlawí ceased about a thousand years ago.
III. The Muhammadan Period (from about A.D. 900 until the present day). When we talk of “Modern Persian,” we Modern or NeoPersian. mean simply the Persian language as it reappears after the Arab Conquest, and after the adoption of the Muhammadan religion by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Persia. The difference between late Pahlawí and the earliest form of Modern Persian was, save for the Arabic element generally contained in the latter, merely a difference of script, and script in this case was, at this transition period (the ninth century of our era), mainly Dislike of written characters associated with other religions. a question of religion. In the East, even at the present day, there is a tendency to associate written characters much more than language with religion. There are Syrian Christians whose language is Arabic, but who prefer to write their Arabic in the Syriac character; and these Karshuni writings (for so they are called) form a considerable literature. So also Turkish-speaking Armenians and Greeks often employ the Armenian and Greek characters respectively when they write Turkish. Similarly the Jews of Persia have a pretty extensive literature written in the Persian language but in the Hebrew character, while Moors of Spain who had forgotten how to speak Arabic wrote Spanish treatises in the Arabic Reasons why the Pahlawí script rapidly fell into desuetude. character.9a The Pahlawí script was even more closely associated in the Eastern mind with the Zoroastrian religion than was the Arabic character with the faith of Islám; and when a Persian was converted from the former to the latter creed he gave up, as a rule, once and for all a method of writing which was not only cumbrous and ambiguous in the highest degree, but also fraught with heathen associations. Moreover, writing (and even reading) was probably a rare accomplishment amongst the Persians when the Pahlawí character was the means of written communication, save amongst the Zoroastrian magopats and dastobars and the professional scribes (dapír). We read in the Kárnámak-i-Artakhshír-i-Pápakán,9b or Book of the Deeds of Ardashír, the son of Pápak (the founder of the Sásánian dynasty)—one of the three Pahlawí romances or “historical novels” which time has spared to us in the original form9c — that when this prince “reached the age for the higher education, he attained such proficiency in Writing, Riding, and other accomplishments that he became famous throughout all Párs.” So also we read in the account which the great historian Ṭabarí10a gives of the reign of Shápúr, the son and successor of Ardashír, that “when he came to the place where he wished to found the city of Gundê-Shápúr, he met there an old man named Bêl, of whom he enquired whether it would be permitted him to build a town on this site. Bêl answered, ‘If I at my advanced age can learn to write, then is it also permitted thee to build a town on this spot,’” by which answer, as Nöldeke has pointed out, he meant to imply (though in the issue he proved mistaken) that both things were impossible. To the Pahlawí script, in short, might well be applied the Frenchman's well-known definition of speech as “the art of concealing thought”; it had no intrinsic merits save as a unique philological puzzle; and, once deprived of the support of religion, ancient custom, and a conservative priesthood, it could not hold its own against the far more legible and convenient Arabic character, of which, moreover, a knowledge was essential to every Muslim. But the fact cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the peculiarity of Pahlawí (as will be more fully explained presently) lay in the script only, and that a Pahlawí book read aloud by a Zoroastrian priest or scribe of the ninth century of our era would have been perfectly intelligible to a contemporary Persian Muhammadan; and that if the latter had taken it down in the Arabic character as he heard it read, what he wrote would have been simply “Modern Persian” in its most archaic form without admixture of Arabic words. Indeed, so comparatively slight (so far as we can judge) are the changes which the Persian spoken language has undergone since the Sásánian period, that if it were possible for an educated Persian of the present day to be suddenly thrust back over a period of fourteen or fifteen hundred years, he would probably be able to understand at least a good deal of what his countrymen of that period were saying. The gulf which separates that speech from Old Persian is far wider, and the first Sásánian king, notwithstanding the accomplishments which made him “famous throughout all Párs,” if he could similarly have travelled backwards in time for some six centuries, would have comprehended hardly a word of what was said at the Achæmenian court.
It is impossible to fix a definite date at which Modern Persian literature may be said to have begun. Probably Beginning of Modern Persian Literature. Persian converts to Islám began to write their language in the Arabic character very soon after the Arab Conquest—that is to say, some time in the eighth century of our era. The first attempts of this sort were probably mere memoranda and notes, Prose. followed, perhaps, by small manuals of instruction in the doctrines of Islám. Fragmentary utterances in Persian, and even brief narratives, are recorded here and there in the pages of early Arabic writers, and these at least serve to show us that the Persian of late Sásánian and early Muhammadan times was essentially the same as that with which we meet in the earliest monuments of Modern Persian literature. Of actual books of any extent, the Persian translation of Ṭabarí's history made for Manṣúr I, the Sámánid prince, in A.D. 963 by his minister Bal'amí; the Materia Medica of Abú Manṣúr Muwaffaq b. 'Alí of Herát (preserved to us in the unique MS. of Vienna dated A.D. 1055, of which a beautiful reprint was published by Seligmann in 1859) composed for the same royal patron; and the second volume of an old commentary on the Qur'án (Cambridge University Library, Mm. 4. 15)12a belonging, apparently, to about the same period, are, so far as is known, the oldest surviving specimens.
It is very generally assumed, however, that in Persian, as in Arabic, verse preceded prose. One story, cited by several of Poetry. the native biographers (e.g., Dawlatsháh in his Lives of the Poets), ascribes the first Persian couplet to the joint invention of Bahrám Gúr the Sásánian (A.D. 420-438), and his mistress Dil-árám.12b Another quotes (on the authority of Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní, a writer of the twelfth century of our era) a Persian couplet engraved on the walls of the Qaṣr-i-Shírín (“Palace of Shírín,” the beloved of Khusraw Parwíz, A.D. 590-628), said to have been still legible in the time of 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla the Buwayhid (tenth century of our era).12c Another tells how one day in Níshápúr the Amír 'Abdu'lláh b. Ṭáhir (died A.D. 844) was presented with an old book containing the Romance of Wámiq and 'Adhra, “a pleasing tale, which wise men compiled, and dedicated to King Núshírwán” (A.D. 531-579); and how he ordered its destruction, saying that the Qur'án and Traditions of the Prophet ought to suffice for good Muslims, and adding, “this book was written by Magians and is accursed in our eyes.”12d Yet another story given by Dawlatsháh attributes the first line of metrical Persian to the gleeful utterance of a little child at play, the child being the son of Ya'qúb b. Layth “the Coppersmith,” founder of the Ṣaffárí (“Brazier”) dynasty (A.D. 868-878).13a Muḥammad 'Awfí, the author of the oldest extant Biography of Persian Poets,13b who flourished early in the thirteenth century of our era (A.D. 1210-1235), asserts that the first Persian poem was composed by one 'Abbás of Merv in honour of the Caliph al-Ma'mún, the son of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd, on the occasion of his entry into that city in A.D. 809, and even cites some verses of the poem in question; but, though this assertion has been accepted as a historical fact by some scholars of repute,13c the scepticism of others13d appears to the writer well justified. All that can be safely asserted is that modern Persian literature, especially poetry, had begun to flourish considerably in Khurásán during the first half of the tenth century, especially during the reign of the Sámánid prince Naṣr II (A.D. 913-942), and thus covers a period of nearly a thousand years, during which time the language has changed so little that the verses of an early poet like Rúdagí are at least as plain to a Persian of to-day as is Shakespear to a modern Englishman.
Most of the legends as to the origin of Persian poetry are, as we have seen, unworthy of very serious attention, and certainly merit little more credence than the assertion of serious and careful Arab writers, like Ṭabarí (†A.D. 923), and Mas'údí (†A.D. 957), that the first poem ever written was an elegy composed in Syriac by Adam on the death of Abel, of which poem they even give an Arabic metrical rendering14a to this effect:—
“The lands are changed and those who dwell upon them;
The face of earth is marred and girt with gloom;
All that was fair and fragrant now hath faded,
Gone from that comely face the joyous bloom.
Alas for my dear son, alas for Abel,
A victim murdered, thrust within the tomb!
How can we rest? That Fiend accursed, unfailing,
Undying, ever at our side doth loom!”
To which the Devil is alleged to have retorted thus:—
“Renounce these lands and those who dwell upon them!
By me was cramped in Paradise thy room,
Wherein thy wife and thou were set and stablished,
Thy heart unheeding of the world's dark doom!
Yet did'st thou not escape my snares and scheming,
Till that great gift on which thou did'st presume
Was lost to thee, and blasts of wind from Eden,
But for God's grace, had swept thee like a broom!”
Nevertheless there is one legend indicating the existence of Persian poetry even in Sásánian times which, partly from the Bárbad the Sásánian minstrel (A.D. 590- 627.) persistency with which it reappears in various old writers of credit,14b partly from a difference in the form of the minstrel's name which can hardly be explained save on the assumption that both forms were transcribed from a Pahlawí original, appears to me worthy of more serious attention. According to this legend, one of the chief ornaments of the court of Khusraw Parwíz, the Sásánian king (A.D. 590-627), was a minstrel named by Persian writers Bárbad, but by Arabic authors Bahlabad, Balahbad or Fahlabad, forms of which the first and third point to a Persian original Pahlapat. Bahlabad and Bárbad when written in the Arabic character are not easily confounded; but if written in the Pahlawí character, which has but one sign for A and H on the one hand, and for R and L on the other, they are identical, which fact affords strong evidence that the legends concerning this singer go back ultimately to books written in Pahlawí, in other words to records almost contemporary. Now this Bárbad (for simplicity the modern Persian form of the name is adopted here, save in citations from Arabic texts) presents, as I have elsewhere pointed out,15a a striking resemblance to the Sámánid poet Rúdagí, who flourished in the early part of the tenth century of our era; and indeed the two are already associated by an early poet, Sharíf-i-Mujallidí of Gurgán, who sings:—
“From all the treasures hoarded by the Houses
Of Sásán and of Sámán, in our days
Nothing survives except the song of Bárbad,
Nothing is left save Rúdagí's sweet lays.”
For in all the accounts of Rúdagí which we possess his most remarkable achievement is the song which he composed and sung in the presence of the Sámánid Amír Naṣr b. Aḥmad to induce that Prince to abandon the charms of Herát and its environs, and to return to his native Bukhárá, which he had neglected for four years. The extreme simplicity of this song and its entire lack of rhetorical adornment, have been noticed by most of those who have described this incident, by some (e.g. Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí of Samarqand) with approval, by others, such as Dawlatsháh, with disapprobation, mixed with surprise that words so simple could produce so powerful an effect. And indeed it is rather a ballad than a formal poem of the artificial and rather stilted type most admired in those decadent days to which Dawlatsháh belongs, and in which, as he says, “If any one were to produce such a poem in the presence of kings or nobles, it would meet with the reprobation of all.” To the musical skill of the minstrel, and his cunning on the harp wherewith he accompanied his singing, the simple ballad, of which a paraphrase is here offered, no doubt owed much:—
“The Jú-yi-Múliyán we call to mind,
We long for those dear friends long left behind.
The sands of Oxus, toilsome though they be,
Beneath my feet were soft as silk to me.
Glad at the friends' return, the Oxus deep
Up to our girths in laughing waves shall leap.
Long live Bukhárá! Be thou of good cheer!
Joyous towards thee hasteth our Amír!
The Moon's the Prince, Bukhárá is the sky;
O Sky, the Moon shall light thee by and by!
Bukhárá is the Mead, the Cypress he;
Receive at last, O Mead, thy Cypress-tree!”
“When Rúdagí reached this verse,” adds the oldest authority for this narrative (Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí of Samarqand), “the Amír was so much affected that he descended from his throne, bestrode the horse of the sentinel on duty, and set off for Bukhárá in such haste that they carried his riding boots after him for two parasangs, as far as Burúna, where he put them on; neither did he draw rein anywhere till he reached Bukhárá; and Rúdagí received from the army the double of that five thousand dínárs [which they had promised him in the event of his success].”
Thus Rúdagí was as much harper, ballad singer, and improvisatore as poet, resembling, probably, the minstrels whose taṣnífs, or topical ballads, may be heard to-day at any Persian entertainment of which music and singing form a part; resembling also, as has been pointed out, that dimly visible Bárbad or Bahlabad of the old Sásánian days. Of the ten men reckoned by the Persians incomparable each in his own way, he was one; and herein lay his special virtue and merit, that when aught must be made known to King Khusraw Parwíz which none other dared utter for terror of the royal displeasure, Bárbad would weave it dexterously into a song, and sing it before the king. Parwíz had a horse called Shabdíz, beautiful and intelligent beyond all others; and so greatly did the king love Shabdíz that he swore to slay that man who should bring the tidings of his death. So when Shabdíz died, the Master of the Horse prayed Bahlabad to make it known to the king in a song, of which Parwíz listening divined the purport and cried, “Woe unto thee! Shabdíz is dead!” “It is the king who sayeth it,” replied the minstrel; and so escaped the threatened death and made the king's oath of no effect. Thus is the tale told by the Arab poet, Khálid b. Fayyáḍ, who lived little more than a century after Khusraw Parwíz:—
“And Khusraw, King of kings, him too an arrow
Plumed from the wings of Death did sorely smite,
E'en as he slept in Shírín's soft embraces
Amidst brocades and perfumes, through the night
Dreaming of Shabdíz whom he used to ride,
His noble steed, his glory and his pride.He with an oath most solemn and most binding,
Not to be loosed, had sworn upon the Fire
That whoso first should say, ‘Shabdíz hath perished,’
Should die upon the cross in torments dire;
Until one morn that horse lay low in death
Like whom no horse hath been since man drew breath.Four strings wailed o'er him, while the minstrel kindled
Pity and passion by the witchery
Of his left hand, and, while the strings vibrated,
Chanted a wailing Persian threnody,
Till the King cried, ‘My horse Shabdíz is dead!’
‘It is the King that sayeth it,’ they said.”
Other minstrels of this old time are mentioned, whose names alone are preserved to us: Áfarín, Khusrawání, Mádharástání,18a and the harper Sakísá,18b beings yet more shadowy than Bárbad, of whose notes not so much as an echo has reached our time. Yet can we hardly doubt that those old Sásánian halls and palaces lacked not this ornament of song, whereof some reflex at least passed over into Muhammadan times. For though the modern Persian prosody be modelled on that of the Arabs, there are types of verse—notably the quatrain (rubá'í) and the narrative poem in doublets (mathnawí) —which are to all appearance indigenous. Whether, as Darmesteter seems to think,18c there is sufficient evidence to warrant us in believing that romantic poetry existed in Persia even in Achæmenian times is too problematical a question to be discussed in this place.
Hitherto we have considered only the history of the Persian language and the Persian power in the narrower sense of the Wider view of the Íránian people. term. We have now to extend the field of inquiry so as to include the whole Íránian people and their literary remains. The ground on which we now enter is, unfortunately, much less sure than that which we have hitherto traversed; the problems which we shall encounter are far more complicated, and their solutions are, in many cases, uncertain and conjectural.
The oldest Persian dynasty, the Achæmenian, with which we began our retrospect of Persian history, rose by the fall of The Medes. a power not less famous than itself, that of the Medes, whom from our earliest days we are accustomed to associate with the Persians. In the modern sense of the term, indeed, they were Persians, but of the West, not of the South, having their centre and capital at Ecbatana (Hagmatána of the Old Persian inscriptions, now Hamadán), not at Persepolis (Sásánian Istakhr, near Shíráz, the present chief town of Fárs). The actual boundaries of Media cannot be precisely defined, but, roughly speaking, it extended from the Mountains of Ázarbáyján (Atropatene) on the north to Susiana (Khuzistán) on the south, and from the Zagros Mountains on the east to about the line of the modern Tihrán-Isfahán road, with a north-eastern prolongation including the whole or part of Mázandarán. In modern phraseology, therefore, it comprised Kurdistán, Luristán the northern part of Khuzistán, the western part of 'Iráq-i-'Ajamí, and the southern part of Ázarbáyján. Amongst the hardy mountaineers of this wide region arose the Medic power. The name of Media does not, like that of Persia, still survive in the land to which it originally belonged, but, as has been shown by de Lagarde and Olshausen, it continued, even in Muhammadan times, under the form Máh (Old Persian Máda) to enter into certain place names, such as Máh-Kúfa, Máh-Baṣra, Máh-Naháwand.
19aThe Medes, unfortunately, unlike the Persians, have left no records of their achievements, and we are consequently Sources of Medic history. dependent for information concerning them on the records of other nations who had direct or indirect knowledge of them, notably the Assyrians, Jews, and Greeks. As regards the Assyrian records, Amadana (Hamadán), the capital of the Medes, is mentioned in an Assyrian records. inscription of Tiglath Pileser (circ. B.C. 1100) as a subject territory;20a and it is again mentioned in an inscription of the ninth century before Christ. Salmonassar-Sargon (B.C. 731-713) boasts that he had made his name feared in distant Media, and the same region is Jewish records. referred to by his successor Sennacherib, and by Esar-haddon (B.C. 680-669). In 2 Kings xvii, 6 we read that “in the ninth year of Hoshea” (B.C. 722) “the King of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes;” and this statement is repeated in verse 11 of the next chapter.
20bOf the three Greek historians whose works are primary sources for this period, Herodotus merits the first mention, both Greek records. Herodotus. Ctesias. on account of his veracity (to which the cuneiform inscriptions bear abundant testimony) and because his history alone of the three is preserved to us in its entirety. Ctesias, who flourished in the fifth century before Christ, was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, and professed to derive his information from the Persian royal archives. This statement at least affords evidence of the existence of such documents, which are also referred to in the Book of Esther, where we read (chap. vi, 1) that King Ahasueras, being unable to sleep, “commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles;” and (chap. ii, 23) that the plot against the king's life devised by Bigthan and Teresh and disclosed by Mordecai “was written in the book of the chronicles before the King.” Whether because Ctesias imperfectly understood or deliberately misrepresented these records, or because the records themselves were falsified (a thing which modern analogies render conceivable), the prevailing view is that little reliance can be placed on his narrative, which, moreover, is only preserved to us in a Berosus. fragmentary condition by much later writers, such as Photius (A.D. 820-891). Berosus was a Chaldæan priest who lived in the time of Alexander the Great and his immediate successors, and translated into Greek, for his patron Antiochus of Syria, the records of his country. Of his work also fragments only are preserved to us by later writers, Polyhistor and Apollodorus (first century before Christ), who are cited by Eusebius and Syncellus.
The Medes, according to Herodotus, were the first of the
peoples subject to Assyria who succeeded in securing their
independence, after they had borne the yoke for 520 years.
Deioces.
This took place about B.C. 700, and a year
or two later Deioces (
With the exploits of the Medes, however, we are not here concerned. The two questions in connection with them which are of importance from our present point of view are— first, what was their language? second, what was their religion?
It has been hitherto assumed, in accordance with the most prevalent, and, in the opinion of the writer, the most The language of the Medes. probable view, that the Medes were an Íránian race speaking an Íránian language closely akin to Old Persian. This is the view taken, for instance, by Nöldeke, who, in concluding his account of the Medic Empire, says:22a —
“Perhaps careful examinations of the neighbourhood of Hamadán, or excavations, may still some day bring to light other traces of that ancient time. It would be of the greatest value if inscriptions of the Medic kings should chance to be found; I should conjecture that these, both in language and script, would be quite similar to those of the Persian kings.”
Darmesteter, whose views will be discussed at greater length presently, goes further, and declares that the language of the Avesta, the so-called Zend language, is the language of Media, the Medic tongue.
“La conclusion qui s'impose,” says he,22b after adducing evidence in favour of his view, “c'est que la tradition parsie et l'Avesta, confirmés par des témoignages étrangers, voient le centre et le berceau du Zoroastrisme, soit en Atropatene, soit a Raï, dans l'un et l'autre cas en Médie… Je crois que les droits de l'Atropatène sont mieux établis, et que c'est de là que le Zoroastrisme a pris sa course de l'Ouest à l'Est. En tout cas, le Zoroastrisme est une chose médique, et l'Avesta est l'œuvre des prêtres mèdes… Il suit … par le témoignage externe des classiques joint au témoignage intrinsèque des livres zends et de la tradition native, que l'Avesta est l'œuvre des Mages, que le zend est la langue de la Médie ancienne, et que l'on aurait le droit de remplacer le nom impropre de langue zende par le terme de langue médique.”
A totally different view, which ought not to pass unnoticed,
is held by Oppert, and set forth at length in his work Le
Oppert's view
that the Medes
were a Turanian
race.
Peuple et la Langue des Mèdes. The inscriptions
of the Achæmenian kings, as is well known, are
drawn up in three different languages, of which
the first is Old Persian and the third Assyrian.
As to the second, concerning the nature of which much doubt
has prevailed, M. Oppert holds that it is Medic, and that it is
not an Aryan but a Turanian tongue; which astonishing
opinion he supports by many ingenious arguments. The
very name of Media (Máda) he explains by a Sumerian
word mada, meaning “country”; and the names of the
Medic kings given by Ctesias he regards as the Aryan
equivalents of the Aryanized Turanian names given by
Herodotus and in the Old Persian inscriptions. Thus, for
instance, in his view, the name of the first Medic king of
Herodotus was compounded of daya (other) and ukku (law),
the Aryanized or Persianized form of which was probably
Dáhyuka, “le réunisseur des pays”; while the Persian
translation of the same was the form given by Ctesias,
There are but very few scholars who are qualified to resurvey the ground traversed by M. Oppert and to form an Darmesteter's view. independent judgment of his results in matters of detail; but, as regards his general conclusions, we concur with Darmesteter in the summary statement of objections to M. Oppert's theory wherewith he closes his review of the book in question:24a —
“Nous ne voyons donc pas de raison suffisante pour abandonner l'opinion traditionelle, que la langue des Mèdes était une langue aryenne, opinion qui a pour elle, en somme, le témoignage direct de Strabon, er le témoignage indirect d'Hérodote, sans parler des raisons très fortes qui font de la Médie le lieu d'origine du Zend Avesta et par suite la patrie du zend.”
In the absence of further discoveries, the theory that the Medes were an Íránian people speaking an Íránian language closely akin to Old Persian is the view which we must continue to regard as most probable.
It has already been said that the Medic kings, unlike the Achæmenians, left no records of their achievements; while, as The Avesta. regards their language, some scholars, like Nöldeke, think that, though specimens of it may be brought to light by future discoveries, none are at present accessible; others, like Oppert, find such specimens in the cuneiform inscriptions of the second class; while others, like Darmesteter, believe that we possess in the ancient scriptures of the Zoroastrians, the Zend-Avesta, an ample specimen not only of the language, but also of the literature, of the Medes. That the language of the Avesta is an Íránian language, standing to Old Persian in the relation of sister, not of daughter or mother, is proved beyond all reasonable doubt. As to the part of Írán where it flourished, there is not, however, the same unanimity; for while Darmesteter, as we have seen, regards it as the language of Media, the opinion prevalent in Germany is that it was the language of Bactria, and it has even become fashionable to speak of it as “Old Bactrian” and “East Íránian.” Darmesteter, in his usual clear and concise way, sums up the arguments of the East Íránian or Bactrian theory before proceeding to refute them, as follows:25a —
(1) Zend is not the language of Persia.
(2) It is in Bactria that, according to tradition, Zoroaster made his first important conquest, King Gushtásp.
(3) The geography of the Avesta only knows the east of Írán.
“The first fact,” he continues, “is correct, but purely negative; it excludes Persia [i.e., Persis proper] from the question, but leaves free all the rest of Írán.
“The second fact is correct, but only proves that Bactria plays a great part in the religious Epic of Zoroastrianism; the struggles maintained by the Íránians against the idolatrous Túránians, of which Bactria, by its geographical position, was the natural theatre, must necessarily have drawn the thoughts of the faithful to this part of Írán, where the worshippers of Ahura Mazda were at death-grips with the worshippers of the daêvas, and which formed the frontier-post of Ormazd against barbarous idolatry; it is even very probable that the legends concerning the conversion of Bactria and of King Gushtásp bequeath to us a historic recollection of the conquests of Zoroastrianism in the East. Nowhere, however, is Bactria represented as the cradle of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism; Pársí tradition is unanimous and consistent in placing this cradle, not in the East, in Bactria, but in the West, in Atropatene; and not only Pársí tradition, but the Avesta itself, for—
“The third fact adduced is incorrect: the Avesta knows the North
and West of Írán as well as the East: the first chapter of the
Vendidâd, which describes Írán as it was known to the authors of
the Vendidâd, opens the enumeration of the Íránian regions by the
Êrân-Vêj, washed by the Good Dâitya (I, 3); now the Êrân-Vêj is
on the borders of Atropatene, and the Good Dâitya is the Araxes.25b
It is equally familiar with the North, for it cites Rhagæ, the
One piece o?? philological evidence is adduced by Darme-steter
in support of his opinion that the language of the
Avesta is the language of the Medes. The modern Persian
word for dog, sag, implies, says he,26a
the existence of an Old
Persian form saka (not actually occurring in the meagre
documents on which we depend for our direct knowledge of
the ancient language of Párs). Herodotus, however, mentions
(I, 110) that in the language of the Medes the dog was called
It is not less difficult to speak with certainty as to the religion of the Medes than as to their language; nay, in spite Religion of the ancient Íránians.— Zoroaster. of their numerous inscriptions it has not yet been decided whether or no the Achæmenians who succeeded them did or did not hold the faith of Zoroaster, as to whose personality, date, and native land likewise the most various opinions have been emitted. By some the very existence of a historical Zoroaster has been denied; by others his personality has been found clearly and sharply revealed in the Gáthás, which they hold to be, if not his actual utterances, at least the words of his immediate disciples. By some his date has been fixed in the Vedic period—1,800, 2,000, even 6,000 years before Christ, while by others he is placed in the seventh century B.C. By some he is, as we have seen, regarded as of Bactria, in the extreme north-east of Persia, by others of Atropatene, in the extreme north-west. So too with the Avesta, the sacred scripture of his adherents, which Darmesteter in his Traduction nouvelle (Annales du Musée Guimet, vols. xxi-xxiv, Paris, 1892-3) has striven to drag down—at least in part— from a remote antiquity even into post-Christian times. Not only has opinion varied thus widely; feeling has run high; nay, in the opinion of that eminent scholar and courageous traveller, M. Halévy, expressed in conversation with the writer, the calm domain of Science has been invaded by racial prejudices and national antipathies. We had been discussing the views set forth in Darmesteter's work above mentioned, at that time just published; and I had expressed surprise at the very recent date therein assigned to the Avesta, and inquired whether those numerous and eminent scholars who maintained its great antiquity had no reason for their assertion. “Reason enough,” was the answer; “their hatred of the Semitic races, their pride in their Aryan descent. Loath to accord to the Jews any priority or excellence over the Aryan peoples, they belittle Moses to glorify Zoroaster, and with one hand drag down the Pentateuch while with the other they raise up the Avesta!” Sad enough, if true, that this accursed racial feeling, responsible for so many crimes, should not leave unmolested even these high levels where passion should have no place!
To enter these lists is not for those who, like the writer, have devoted themselves to the literature and thought of Muhammadan times, a field sufficiently vast and sufficiently unexplored to satisfy the most ambitious and the most industrious; preferable, moreover, in this, that here we stand on firm historic ground, and deal not with dates which oscillate over centuries and scenes which swing from Bactria to Atro-patene. Yet all honour to those who so courageously labour in those arid fields of a remote antiquity, striving with infinite toil and tact to bring history out of legend, and order out of chaos! From such must we needs choose a guide in forming our views about that time and those events which, though strongly appealing to our curiosity, lie beyond the range of our own studies. Sanest and skilfulest of such guides, trained in the profundity of the German school, yet gifted with something of that clearness as to the issues and alternatives of every question which gives so great a charm to French science, and adding to these that combination of fairness and decision with which we are wont to credit the Anglo-Saxon genius, is Professor A. V. Williams Jackson of Columbia University, New York. In a series of admirable papers published in the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, the American Journal of Philology, &c., he has successively dealt with most of the difficult questions above alluded to, and with many other points connected with the history and doctrine of Zoroastrianism; and has finally summed up his views in a work, at once most scholarly and most readable, entitled Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Írán (New York, 1899). His principal conclusions are as follows:—
1. That Zoroaster was a perfectly historical personage, a member of the Median tribe of the Magi. Professor Williams Jackson's conclusions.
2. That he flourished about the middle of the seventh century before Christ—that is, during the dominion of the Medes and before the rise of the Achæmenian power—and died about B.C. 583, aged 77.
3. That he was a native of Western Persia (Atropatene or Media), but that his first notable success was gained in Bactria (Balkh), where he succeeded in converting King Vishtáspa (Gushtásp).
4. That the Gáthás (admittedly the oldest portion of the Avesta) reflect with fidelity the substance of his original preaching in Balkh.
5. That from Bactria the religion of Zoroaster spread rapidly throughout Persia, and was dominant in Párs (Persis proper) under the later Achæmenians, but that the date of its introduction into this part of Írán and its adoption by the people and rulers of Párs is uncertain.
Though these conclusions are not universally accepted, the evidence, in the opinion of the writer, is strongly in their favour, more particularly the evidence of native tradition in the period immediately succeeding the Muhammadan Conquest, which is derived mainly from the tradition current in Sásánian times. And it may be remarked that since it is not the habit of writers of this class to understate facts, it Reasonableness of these conclusions. appears unlikely that they should concur in assigning to Zoroaster too modern a date. As regards the Medic origin of Zoroastrianism, Geiger, who is in full accord with both Darmesteter and jackson on this point, remarks that though the language of the Avesta belongs, in his opinion, to the north-east of Persia (Bactria), the doctrines were, as all Pársí tradition indicates, introduced there by Medic áthravans, or fire-priests, these áthravans being uniformly represented as wanderers and missionaries in the north-east, whose home was in Ragha (Ray) and Media. Darmesteter,31a in this connection, has called attention to the interesting fact that the Noteworthy use of the term “Magian” in the Avesta. word Môghu (from which we get “Magian”) only occurs in one passage in the Avesta (Yasna xliv, 25), in the compound Môghuṭbish, “a hater” or “injurer of the Magi”; for it was as Magi of Medic race, not as áthravans of Zoroastrian faith, that they were exposed to the hatred and jealousy of the Persians proper, whose power succeeded that of the Medes, and whose supremacy was threatened from time to time in early Achæmenian The PseudoSmerdes. days by Medic insurrections, notably by that of Gaumáta the Magian (Magush), the impersonator of Bardiya (Smerdes) the son of Cyrus, whom Darius slew, as he himself relates in his inscription at Behistun in the following words:—
“Says Darius the King: Thereafter was a man, a Magian, Gaumâta by name; from Pisiyâuvâdâ did he arise, from a mountain there named Arakadris. In the month of Viyakhna, on the fourteenth day, then was it that he rose. Thus did he deceive the people [saying], ‘I am Bardiya, son of Cyrus (Kuru), brother of Cambyses (Kambu-jiya ).’ Thereupon all the people revolted against Cambyses, they went over to him, both Persia and Media, and likewise the other provinces. He seized the Throne: in the month of Garmapada, on the ninth day, then was it that he seized the Throne. Thereupon Cambyses died, slain by his own hand.
“Says Darius the King: This Throne which Gaumâta the Magian took away from Cambyses, this Throne was from of old in our Family. Citation from the inscription of Darius. So Gaumâta the Magian took away from Cambyses both Persia and Media and the other provinces, he appropriated them to himself, he was king.
“Says Darius the King: There was no one, neither Persian, nor Mede, nor any one of our family, who could wrest the kingdom from this Gaumâta the Magian: the people feared him, for many people did Bardiya slay who had known him formerly: for this cause did he slay the people, ‘lest they should recognise me [and know] that I am not Bardiya the son of Cyrus.’ None dared say aught concerning Gaumâta the Magian until I came. Then I called on Ahuramazda for help: Ahuramazda brought me help: in the month of Bágayádish, on the tenth day, then it was that I with a few men slew that Gaumâta the Magian, and those who were the foremost of his followers. In Media is a fortress named Çikathauvatish, in the district named Niçâya: there slew I him: I took from him the kingdom; by the Grace of Ahuramazda I became King; Ahuramazda gave to me the kingdom.
“Says Darius the King: The kingdom which had been alienated from our house, that I restored: in its place did I establish it: as [it was] before, so I made it: the temples which Gaumâta the Magian overthrew I restored to the people, the markets, and the flocks, and the dwellings according to clans which Gaumâta the Magian had taken away from them. I established the people in their [former] places, Persia, Media, and the other provinces. Thus did I restore that which had been taken away as it was before: by the Grace of Ahuramazda have I done this, I laboured until I restored this our clan to its position as it was before, so, by the Grace of Ahuramazda, did I restore our clan as [it was] when Gaumâta the Magian had not eaten it up.
“Says Darius the King: This is what I did when I became king.”
Of the nine rebel kings whom, in nineteen battles, Darius
defeated and took captive, Gaumâta the Magian, who “made
Persia (Párs) revolt,” was the first but not the only Mede.
Fravartish (Phraortes), who “made Media revolt,” and was
taken prisoner at Ray, mutilated, and finally crucified at
Hamadán (Ecbatana, the old Medic capital), claimed to be “of
the race of Huvakhshatara” (Cyaxares, the third Medic king
of Herodotus), and so did Chitratakhma, who rebelled in Sagar-
Other Medic
pretenders
suppressed by
Darius.
tia, and was crucified at Arbíl (Arbira). We find,
it is true, Medic generals and soldiers fighting
loyally for Darius, but nevertheless between the
Mede and the Persian at this time such antagonism
must have existed as between Scotch and English in the
days of the Edwards. Almost the same in race and language—
As it is the aim of this book to trace the developments of post-Muhammadan literature and thought in Persia, or in other Periods earlier than the Medic distinguishable in the history of the Persian race. words the literary history of the last thousand years, with only such reference to earlier times as is requisite for a proper understanding of this subject, a more detailed discussion of the ancient times of which we have been speaking would be out of place. In this chapter we have gone back to the beginning of the Medic power (about B.C. 700), at which point the historical period may be said to commence; but it is possible to distinguish, in the dim light of antiquity, still earlier periods, as has been done by Spiegel in his excellent Erânische Alterthumskunde (3 vols., Leipzig, 1871-78). Putting aside the vexed question of an original Aryan race spreading outwards in all directions from a common centre, it at least seems pretty certain that the Indians and Persians were once united in a common Indo-Íránian race located somewhere in the Panjáb. The pretty theory as to the causes which led to the cleavage of this community which was so ingeniously advanced by Max Müller
33ais, I believe, generally abandoned, but it is so attractive that it seems a pity to pass it over.
Briefly stated, this theory hinges upon the occurrence in the Vedas of the Hindús and the Avesta of the Zoroastrians of Max Müller's theory. certain theological terms, which, though identical as regards etymology, are here diametrically opposed. Deva in Sanskrit means “bright,” and the Devas, or “Bright ones,” are the Hindú gods. In the Avesta, on the other hand, the daêvas (Modern Persian dív) are devils, and the Zoroastrian, in his confession of faith, solemnly declares: “I cease to be a worshipper of the daêvas;” he renounces these daêvas, devas, or Hindú gods, and becomes the servant of Ahura Mazda. Now it is a phonetic law that Persian h corresponds to Sanskrit s (e.g., Hind, whence we get our name for India, represents Sind, that being naturally the part of India best known to the Persians), so the Ahura of the Avesta is equivalent to asura in Sanskrit, which means an evil spirit or devil. And so, from these two little words, Max Müller conjures up a most convincing picture of Zoroaster, the reformer and prophet, rising up amongst the still united Indo-Íránian community to protest against the degradation of a polytheistic nature-worship which had gradually replaced the purer conceptions of an earlier time; emphasising his disapproval by making the gods of the system he laboured to overthrow the devils of his own; and finally, with his faithful following, breaking away in an ancient hijra from the stiff-necked “worshippers of the daêvas” to find a new home in that more Western land to which we now give the common name of Persia. This theory, it may be remarked, depended in great measure on the Bactrian hypothesis of Zoroaster's origin, which, based on Fargard I of the Vendidâd, so long held sway, especially in Germany.
Concerning the composition of the Avesta we shall say
something in another place; for the present it is sufficient to
state that the Vendidâd is that portion of it which contains
the religious laws and the mythology—a sort of Zoroastrian
Pentateuch—and that it is divided into twenty-two Fargards,
or chapters. Of these the first describes the creations of
Ahura Mazda, and the counter-creations of Anra Mainyu,
the Evil Spirit (Ahriman), and includes an enumeration of the
following sixteen lands created by the former: (1) “The
Airyana Vaêjô, by the good river Dâitya” (a mythical region,
identified in Sásánian times with the region of the River Araxes,
that is, with the modern Ázarbáyján); (2) Sughda (Sogdiana,
Sughd); (3) Môuru (Margiana, Merv); (4) Bâkhdi (Bactria,
Balkh); (5) Nisâya (?
In this list Geiger and some other scholars suppose that we have an itinerary of the migrations of the Íránians on their entry into Persia after the fission of the original Indo-Íránian community, which was located in the region of the Pamirs, whence the first stream of migration flowed mainly westwards to Sughd, Merv, Balkh, Nasá, and Herát; another stream south and south-west to the Panjáb, Kábul, and the Helmand region; while some adventurous spirits continued the westward migration as far as Gurgán and Ray. But it is doubtful if much stress can be laid on the order observed in this enumeration, that order being in any case almost indefensible (even excluding all doubtful identifications) on geographical grounds. And it seems at least possible that it may represent the conquests of the Zoroastrian faith rather than of the Íránian people, which hypothesis would be much strengthened if the identification of the Airyana Vaêjô with Atropatene (Ázarbáyján) could be established more surely: we should then have a fairly clear confirmation of that theory which we regarded as most probable: to wit, a religion having its source and home in the extreme north-west, but making its first conquests in the extreme north-east. Did we need any proof that a prophet is often without honour in his own country, the history of Islám would supply it, and Balkh may well have been the Medína of the Zoroastrian faith.
Another period, subsequent alike to the Indo-Íránian and the primitive Íránian epochs, has been distinguished and discussed Period of Assyrian influence. with care and acumen by Spiegel,36a who places its beginning about B.C. 1000, namely, the period of Assyrian influence—an influence salient to all eyes in the sculptures and inscriptions of the Achæmenians, and discernible also, as Spiegel has shown, in many Persian myths, legends, and doctrines reflecting a Semitic rather than an Aryan tradition. It is a remarkable thing how great at all periods of history has been Semitic influence on Persia; Arabian in the late Sásánian and Muḥammadan time; Aramaic in earlier Sásánian and later Parthian days; Assyrian at a yet more ancient epoch. And indeed this fact can scarcely be insisted upon too strongly; for the study of Persian has suffered from nothing so much as from the purely philological view which regards mere linguistic and racial affinities as infinitely more important and significant than the much deeper and more potent influences of literary and religious contact. Greek is far more widely studied in England than Hebrew, but for the understanding of the motives and conduct of a Scottish Covenanter or English Puritan, not to mention Milton's verse, a knowledge of the Bible is at least as necessary as a familiarity with the Classics; and in Persia, where both literary and religious influences have generally been in large measure Semitic, the same holds good to a much greater extent. If, as an adjunct to my equipment for the study of Persian thought and literature, I were offered my choice between a thorough knowledge of the Semitic and the Aryan languages, I should, from this point of view alone, unhesitatingly choose the former. A good knowledge of the Aramaic languages is essential for the study of Pahlawí, and a fruitful investigation of the post-Muhammadan literature and thought of Persia is impossible without a wide acquaintance with Arabic books; while in both these fields a knowledge of Sanskrit is practically of very little use, and even in the interpretation of the Avesta it must be employed with some reserve and due regard to the Pahlawí tradition.
In concluding this introductory chapter it may be well to Recapitulation. recapitulate the periods in Persian history of which we have spoken.
| I. | The Indo-Íránian period. |
| II. | The early Íránian period. |
| III. | The period of Assyrian influence (B.C. 1000).1 |
| IV. | The Medic period (B.C. 700). |
| V. | The Old Persian (Achæmenian) period (B.C. 550). |
| VI. | Interregnum, from the Invasion of Alexander to the Sásánian Restoration (B.C. 330—A.D. 226). |
| VII. | The Sásánian period (A.D. 226-652). |
| VIII. | The Muhammadan period, extending from the fall of the Sásánian Dynasty to the present day. |
It is with the last of these periods that we are principally concerned, and, as will in due time appear, it comprises numerous important subdivisions. Before approaching it, however, something more remains to be said of the older Persian literature and its discovery, and sundry other matters germane thereto, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
THE DISCOVERY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE INSCRIPTIONS AND DOCUMENTS OF ANCIENT PERSIA, WITH OTHER PHILOLOGICAL MATTER.
THE language of Modern, that is to say of Post-Muhammadan, Persia, was naturally, for practical reasons, an object of Brief sketch of the development of Oriental studies in Europe interest and study in Europe long before any serious attempt was made to solve the enigmas presented by the three ancient languages of which this chapter will briefly trace the discovery and decipherment: to wit, the Old Persian of the Achæmenian inscriptions, the Avestic idiom, and the Pahlawí of Sásánian times. The study of Modern Persian, again, was preceded by that of Arabic; which, as the vehicle whereby the Philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle, first became clearly known to Western Europe, commanded in a far higher degree the attention and interest of men of learning. The first translations from the Arabic into Twelfth century. European languages were made about the beginning of the twelfth century of our era by Jews and Moors converted to Christianity,39a who were soon followed by native Europeans, such as Gerard of Cremona (b. A.D. 1114); Albertus Magnus (b. A.D. 1193), who, dressed as an Arab, expounded at Paris the teachings of Aristotle from the works of al-Fárábí, Ibn Síná (Avicenna), and al-Ghazzálí; and Michael Scot, who appears to have studied Thirteenth century. Arabic at Toledo in A.D. 1217. Roger Bacon and Raymond Lull (thirteenth century) also called attention to the importance, for philosophic and scientific purposes, of a study of Oriental languages. In Fourteenth century. A.D. 1311-1312 it was ordained by Pope Clement the Fifth that Professorships of Hebrew, Chaldean, and Arabic should be established at Rome, Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Salamanca, whose teaching, however, was soon afterwards (A.D. 1325) placed by the Church under a rigorous supervision, lest it should tend to endanger Christian orthodoxy. At each of these five seats of learning there were to be two professors, paid by the State or the Church, who were to make faithful Latin translations of the principal works written in these languages, and to train their pupils to speak them sufficiently well for missionary purposes.
It does not appear, however, that these laudable proposals met at first with any great measure of success, or that much Sixteenth century. was actually done to further the study of Arabic until the establishment of the Collège de France in A.D. 1530 by Francis the Fifth. Armegand of Montpellier40a had already, in A.D. 1274, translated portions of the works of Avicenna and Averroes into Latin, but that remarkable scholar and traveller, Guillaume Postel40b may, according to M. Dugat, be called “the first French Orientalist”; and he, apparently, was the first who caused Arabic types to be cut. In A.D. 1587 Henry the Third founded an Arabic chair at the Collège de France, and a few years subsequently Savary de Brèves, who is said to have had a fine taste in Oriental literature, and who later brought to Paris excellent founts of type which he had caused to be engraved in the East, was appointed French Ambassador at Constantinople. On his death these founts of type (Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Armenian, and Æthiopic), together with his Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Syriac MSS., were bought by Louis the Thirteenth (assisted financially by the clergy), and passed into the possession of the Imprimerie Royale.
The full development of Oriental studies in Europe, however, may be said to date from the seventeenth century, since Seventeenth century. which epoch progress has been steady and continuous. This century saw, for example, in England the establishment, by Sir Thomas Adams and Archbishop Laud respectively, of Arabic chairs at both Cambridge (A.D. 1632) and Oxford (A.D. 1636), of which the latter was filled by the illustrious Pococke and the former by the equally illustrious Abraham Wheelock, who, with the teaching of Arabic and Anglo-Saxon, combined the function of Thomas Hyde. University Librarian. Amongst his pupils was that distinguished scholar, Thomas Hyde, afterwards Professor of both the Hebrew and the Arabic languages at Oxford, whose work on the History of the Religion of the Ancient Persians, Parthians, and Medes, published in 1700, little more than a year before his death,41a may be taken as representing the high-water-mark of knowledge on this subject at the close of the seventeenth century, and, indeed, until the publication of Anquetil du Perron's epoch-making memoirs (1763-1771), of which we shall shortly have to speak. A brief statement, therefore, of Hyde's views may appropriately form the starting-point of this survey; for his industry, his scholarship, and his linguistic attainments, added to the facilities which he enjoyed as Librarian of the Bodleian, rendered his work as complete and comprehensive an account of the ancient Persian religion as was possible with the materials then available. Hyde not only used the works of his predecessors, such as Barnaby de Brisson's De Regio Persarum Principatu Libri Tres (Paris, 1606)—a book based entirely on the statements of Greek and Latin authors,—Henry Lord's Religion of the Parsees42a (1630), Sanson's De hodierno statu Persiæ (1683), and the narratives of the travellers Pedro Texeira (1604), Père Gabriel de Chinon (1608-1650), Tavernier (1629-1675), Olearius (1637-1638), Thevenot (1664-1667), Chardin (1665-1677), Petits de la Croix (1674-1676), and Samuel Flower (1667), but also a number of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Syriac manuscripts, which he manipulated with a skill deserving of the highest praise; and the knowledge thus acquired was supplemented in some cases by information verbally obtained by his friends in India from the Parsees. His work, in short, is a monument of erudition, most remarkable when we consider the time at which it was written and the few facilities then existing for research of this kind; and in some cases his acumen anticipated discoveries not confirmed till a much later date. Thus he recognised the name of Media in the Arabic Máh prefixed to certain place-names (p. 424), was aware of the existence amongst the Zoroastrians of Persia of a peculiar “gabrí” dialect (pp. 364, 429), knew the Ḥurúfí sect as a revived form of Manichæanism (p. 283), made free use of the rare Arabic translation of the Sháh-náma of al-Bundárí, and was acquainted with the so-called Zend character,43a and with such later Pársí writings as the Zarátusht-náma, the Sad-dar (of which he gives a complete Latin translation), and the Persian translation of the Book of Arda Viráf.
On the other hand he had no knowledge whatever of the Avestic or Pahlawí languages, entirely misunderstood the Hyde had no knowledge of any one of the three ancient languages of Persia. meaning of the term Zend Avesta or Avesta va Zend, and endeavoured to prove that the Old Persian inscriptions were not writing at all, but mere architectural ornamentation. Anquetil du Perron at the end of his Discours Préliminaire (pp. cccclxxxix-ccccxcviii) is at some pains to prove the first of these statements, and points out that throughout Hyde's work the Zend character merely serves to cloak Persian sentences cited from late Pársí writings. But in fact proof is unnecessary, for Hyde had in his own possession a MS. of part of the Avesta, and was also acquainted with the MS. of the Yasna presented to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, by an English merchant named Moody about the middle of the seventeenth century;43b and is quite certain that he would have made use of documents so important for his purpose had he been able to read them. Now since he was conversant with the character in which they were written, and even, as we have seen, employed it in his work, it is evident that he could make nothing whatever of the language. As regards the title of the sacred book of the Zoroastrians, he regarded it as “exotic and hybrid,” supposing that it consisted of the Arabic word Zend (an implement for kindling fire), and the Hebrew-Chaldæan eshta, “fire” (op. laud., pp. 335 et seqq.). Lastly, he regarded the Old Persian inscriptions as trifles, hardly worthy of attention but for the curiosity already aroused by them (p. 546), and declared in the most positive fashion that they were not Old Persian (p. 547), and, indeed, not inscriptions at all, but mere fanciful designs of the original architect (pp. 556-557). In the adjacent Pahlawí inscriptions of Naqsh-i-Rajab he equally refuses to recognise any form of Persian script. “As regards Nos. 1 and 4” (the Sásánian Pahlawí), he says, “I assert that these characters cannot be ancient Persian, which are perceived, in their ancient books, which I myself possess, to differ from them toto cœlo” (p. 548.)
Such, then, was the state of knowledge in 1754. No further advance had been made towards the understanding Anquetil du Perron (1754- 1771). of the Avesta, though several new MSS. had been brought to England: to wit, a MS. of the Vendidâd obtained from the Pársís of India by George Bourchier (or Bowcher) in 1718, conveyed to England by Richard Cobbe in 1723, and presented to the Bodleian, where it is now preserved (BODL. OR. 321); and two MSS. of the Yasna bought at Surat by Frazer, who also endeavoured, but vainly, to induce the Zoroastrian priests to teach him the Avestic and Pahlawí languages. But in the year above mentioned a facsimile of four leaves of the Bodleian MS. of the Vendidâd fell into the hands of a young Frenchman, Anquetil du Perron, then not much more than twenty years of age; and he, with an impulsiveness and devotion to science truly Gallic, at once resolved to win for his country the glory of wresting from the suspicious priesthood who guarded them the keys to these hidden secrets of an old-world faith, and of laying before the learned world a complete account of the Zoroastrian doctrines, based, not on the statements of non-Zoroastrian or even modern Pársí writers, but on the actual testimony of the ancient Scriptures themselves. So eager was his haste that, though assured of help and pecuniary assistance in his projected journey to India, his impatience to begin his work impelled him to enlist as a common soldier of the French East India Company; so firm was his purpose and so steadfast his resolve that, in face of every kind of difficulty and discouragement, suffering, sickness, opposition, perils by sea and perils of war, he persevered for seven years and a half, until, on March 15, 1762, having at length regained Paris after his long and adventurous exile, he deposited his precious manuscripts, the fruits of his incredible labours, in the Bibliothèque du Roi. Yet still nine years' laborious, but now tranquil, work lay before him ere, in 1771, he was able to offer to the world the assured and final outcome of his endeavour—a great work in three volumes bearing the following cumbrous title: Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, contenant les idées théologiques, physiques, et morales de ce legislateur, les cérémonies du culte religieux qu'il a établi, et plusieurs traits importans relatifs à l'ancienne histoire des Perses, traduit en Français sur l'original Zend avec des Remarques: et accompagné de plusieurs traités propres à éclaircir les matières qui en sont l'objet. This work was in the fullest sense of the word epoch-making, or, as the Germans say, “bahn-brechend.” Anquetil completely accomplished the great task he had set himself. Much remained to be done in detail by his successors, many inaccuracies are naturally to be found in his work;46a yet we may fairly say that to him in chief belongs the merit of those discoveries as to the religion and language of the ancient Zoroastrians from which so many important results, literary, philological, ethnological, and philosophical, have since been drawn.
Of the details of Anquetil's journey this is hardly the place to speak. They are narrated with great minuteness in the Anquetil's adventures. first volume of his work (pp. i-cccclxxviii), and include, in truth, a mass of purely personal details which might, perhaps, as well have been omitted, and which certainly rendered the book an easier target for the derision to which it was destined shortly to be exposed. Briefly, Anquetil quitted Paris with his “petit equipage” (containing, except for a few books, only two shirts, two handkerchiefs and a pair of socks), without the knowledge of any one except his brother, who was bound to secrecy, on November 7, 1754, and marched with his company—men little to his taste, whom he speaks of as “ces brutaux”—to L'Orient, which he reached on the 16th. Here he was informed that the King had been graciously pleased to grant him an allowance of five hundred livres, and he was further accorded a first-class passage to India. Sailing from L'Orient on February 7, 1755, he reached Pondichery on August 9th of the same year, and there was hospitably received by M. Goupil, the Commandant of the troops. He at once set himself to learn Persian, which afterwards served as the means of communication between himself and the Zoroastrian priests. More than three years elapsed, however, ere he reached Surat (May 1, 1758), shortly before it passed into the hands of the English (March, 1759). This long delay in the prosecution of his plan was caused, apparently, partly by his insatiable curiosity as to the antiquities, religions, customs, and languages of India (for his original scheme extended far beyond what immediately concerned the Zoroastrian religion), partly by the political complications of that time. After numerous adventures, however, he ultimately arrived at Surat on the date indicated above. He at once put himself in relation with two Pársí dastúrs, or priests, named Dáráb and Ká'ús, from whom, three months later, he received, after many vexatious delays and attempts at extortion and evasion, a professedly complete copy of the Vendidâd. Fully aware of the necessity for caution, he succeeded in borrowing from another dastúr, Manúchihrjí (who, owing to religious differences, was not on terms of intercourse with Dáráb and Ká'ús) another good and ancient manuscript of the same work; and, on collating this with the other, he was not long in discovering that his two dastúrs had deliberately supplied him with a defective copy. They, on being convicted of this fraud, became at once more communicative, and less disposed to attempt any further imposition, and furnished him with other works, such as the Persian Story of Sanján (of which Anquetil gives an abstract at pp. cccxviii-cccxxiv of his work), an account of the descent of all copies of the Vendidâd and its Pahlawí commentary preserved in India from a Persian original brought thither from Sístán by a dastúr named Ardashír about the fourteenth century of our era, and a further account of the relations maintained from time to time by the Zoroastrians of Persia with those of India.
On March 24, 1759, Anquetil completed his translation of the Pahlawí-Persian vocabulary, and six days later began the Anquetil's work. translation of the Vendidâd, which, together with the collation of the two MSS., he finished on June 16th of the same year. A severe illness, followed by a savage attack by a compatriot, interrupted his work for five months, and it was not till November 20th that he was able to continue his labours with the help of the dastúr Dáráb. During this time he received much help and friendly protection from the English, notably from Mr. Spencer, of whom he speaks in the highest terms (p. cccxlvi), and Mr. Erskine. Having completed the translation of the Yasna, Vispered, and Vendidâd, the Pahlawí Bundahish, the Sí-rúza, Riváyats, &c., and visited the sacred fire in its temple, and the dakhmas, or “towers of silence,” Anquetil, again attacked by illness, and fearful of risking the loss of the precious harvest of his labours, resolved to renounce his further projects of travel, which included a journey to China. Again assisted by the English, to whom, notwithstanding the state of war which existed between his country and theirs, he did not fear to appeal, knowing them, as he says, “généreux quand on les prend par un certain côté” (p. ccccxxxi), he sailed from Surat to Bombay, where, after, a sojourn of more than a month, he shipped himself and his precious manuscripts (180 in number, enumerated in detail at pp. dxxix-dxli of the first volume of his work) on board the Bristol on April 28, 1761, and arrived at Portsmouth on November 17th of the same year. There he was compelled, greatly to his displeasure, to leave his manuscripts in the custom-house, while he himself was sent with other French prisoners to Wickham. As, however, he was not a prisoner of war (being, indeed, under English protection), permission was soon accorded him to return to France; but, eagerly as he desired to see his native country after so long an absence, and, above all, to secure the safety of those precious and hardly-won documents which still chiefly occupied his thoughts, he would not quit this country without a brief visit to Oxford, and a hasty inspection of the Avestic manuscripts there preserved. “Je déclarai net,” he says (p. ccccliv), “que je ne quitterais pas l'Angleterre sans avoir vu Oxford, puis qu'on m'y avait retenu prisonnier contre le droit des gens. Le désir de comparer mes manuscrits avec ceux de cette célèbre Université n'avait pas peu ajouté aux raisons qui m'avaient comme forcé de prendre, pour revenir en Europe, la voie Anglaise.” Well furnished with letters of introduction, he arrived at Oxford on January 17, 1762, whence, after a stay of two days, he returned, by way of Wickham, Portsmouth, and London, to Gravesend, where he embarked for Ostend on February 14th. He finally reached Paris on March 14, 1762, and on the following day at length deposited his manuscripts at the Bibliothèque du Roi.
The appearance of Anquetil's work in 1771 was far from at once convincing the whole learned world of the great Reception of Anquetil du Perron's work. services which he had rendered to science. In place of the wisdom expected from a sage like Zoroaster, who, even in classical times, enjoyed so great a reputation for profound philosophic thought, the curious and the learned were confronted with what appeared to them to be a farrago of puerile fables, tedious formulæ, wearisome repetitions, and grotesque prescriptions. The Sir William Jones. general disappointment (which, indeed, Anquetil had himself foreseen and foretold, pp. i-ii), found its most ferocious expression in the famous letter of Sir William Jones, at that time a young graduate of Oxford.49a This letter, written in French on the model of Voltaire, will be found at the end of the fourth volume (pp. 583-613) of his works (London, 1799). It was penned in 1771, the year in which Anquetil's work appeared, and is equally remarkable for the vigour and grace of its style, and the deplorable violence and injustice of its contents. The writer's fastidious taste was offended by Anquetil's prolixity and lack of style; while his anger was kindled by the somewhat egotistic strain which, it must be admitted, runs through the narrative portion of his work, and by certain of his reflections on the English in general and the learned doctors of Oxford in particular; and he suffered himself to be so blinded by these sentiments that he not only overwhelmed Anquetil with satire and invective which are not always in the best taste, but absolutely refused to recognise the immense importance, and even the reality, of discoveries which might have condoned far more serious shortcomings. As Darmesteter happily puts it, “the Zend-Avesta suffered for the fault of its introducer, Zoroaster for Anquetil.”
As a matter of fact Anquetil's remarks about the English are (when we remember the circumstances under which he Vindication of Anquetil. wrote, in time of war, when he had seen his nation worsted by ours, and had himself been held captive, not being a prisoner of war, within our borders) extremely fair and moderate, nay, most gratifying, on the whole, to our amour propre, as may be seen in his glowing eulogy of Mr. Spencer (p. cccxlvi), his remarks on the generosity of the English towards the unfortunate of even a hostile nation (p. ccccxxxi), his recognition of their hospitality and delicacy of feeling (pp. ccccxxxvii-xxxix), and the like; while his railleries at one or two of the Oxford doctors— at the “méchant bonnet gras à trois cornes” of Dr. Swinton, the ill-judged pleasantry of Dr. Hunt, the haughty and magisterial bearing of Dr. Barton—are in reality very harmless, and quite devoid of malice. In short, there is nothing in Anque-til's book to justify Sir William Jones's bitter irony and ferocious invective, much less his attempt to deny the great services rendered to science by the object of his attack, and to extinguish the new-born light destined to illuminate in so unexpected a manner so many problems of history, philology, and comparative theology. Here are a few specimens sufficient to illustrate the general tone of his letter:—
“Ne soyez point surpris, Monsieur, de reçevoir cette lettre d'un Specimens of Sir W. Jones's letter to Anquetil. inconnu, qui aime les vrais talens, et qui sait apprécier les vôtres.
“Souffrez qu'on vous félicite de vos heureuses découvertes. Vous avez souvent prodigué votre pré-cieuse vie; vous avez franchi des mers orageuses, des montagnes remplies de tigres; vous avez flétri votre teint, que vous nous dîtes, avec autant d'élégance que de modestie, avoir été composé de lis et de roses; vous avez essuyé des maux encore plus cruels; et tout cela uniquement pour le bien de la littérature, et de ceux qui ont le rare bonheur de vous ressembler.
“Vous avez appris deux langues anciennes, que l'Europe entière ignorait; vous avez rapporté en France le fruit de vos travaux, les livres du célèbre Zoroastre; vous avez charmé le public par votre agréable traduction de cet ouvrage; et vous avez atteint le comble de votre ambition, on plutôt l'objet de vos ardens désirs; vous êtes Membre de l'Académie des Inscriptions.
“Nous respectons, comme nous le devons, cette illustre et savante Académie; mais vous méritez, ce nous semble, un titre plus distingué… Plus grand voyageur que Cadmus, vous avez rapporté, comme lui, de nouveaux caractères, et de nouveaux dieux… À parler franchement, ou doit vous faire pour le moins l'Archimage, ou grand prêtre des Guèbres, d'autant plus que, dans ce nouveau poste, vous auriez l'occasion de mettre un peu plus de feu dans vos écrits.
“Voyageur, Savant, Antiquaire, Héros, Libelliste, quels titres ne méritez-vous pas? …
“Permettez maintenant, Monsieur, qu'on vous dise sérieusement ce que des gens de lettres pensent de votre entreprise, de vos voyages, de vos trois gros volumes, et de votre savoir que vous vantez avec si peu de réserve… On doit aimer le vrai savoir: mais toutes choses ne valent pas la peine d'être sues.
“Socrate disait, en voyant l'étalage d'un bijoutier, ‘De combien de choses je n'ai pas besoin!’ On peut de même s'écrier, en contemplant les ouvrages de nos érudits, Combien de connaissances il m'importe peu d'acquérir!
“Si vous aviez fait cette dernière réflexion, vous n'auriez pas affronté la mort pour nous procurer des lumières inutiles…
“Si ces raisonnemens, Monsieur, ne portent pas absolument à faux, il en résulte que votre objet était ni beau ni important; que l'Europe éclairée n'avait nul besoin de votre Zende Vasta; que vous l'avez traduit à pure perte; et que vous avez prodigué inutilement pendant dix-huit ans un temps qui devait vous être précieux… Quelle petite gloire que de savoir ce que personne ne sait, et n'a que faire de savoir! … On veut même croire que vous avez dans la tête plus de mots Zendes, c'est-à-dire, plus de mots durs, trâinans, barbares, que tous les savans de l'Europe. Ne savez-vous pas que les langues n'ont ancune valeur intrinsèque? … D'ailleurs, êtes-vous bien sûr que vous possédez les anciennes langues de la Perse? … On ne saura jamais, ne vous en déplaise, les anciens dialectes de la Perse, tandis qu'ils n'existent que dans les pré-tendus livres de Zoroastre, qui d'ailleurs sont remplis de répétitions inutiles.
“‘Mais,’ direz vous, ‘me soupçonne-t-on d'avoir voulu tromper le public?’ Non, Monsieur, on ne dit pas cela. Vous vous êtes trompé vous-même…
“Jusqu'ici, Monsieur, nous n'avons d'autre plainte envers vous, que celle de nous avoir endormis; ce qui n'est pas certainement un crime en soi-même: quant à ceux qui craignent ces vapeurs sopori-fiques, il est facile ou de ne pas lire un livre qui les donne, ou de l'oublier; le remède est aussi naturel que la précaution est bonne.
“On ne dira rien de votre style dur, bas, inélégant, souvent ampoulé, rarement conforme au sujet, et jamais agréable… Nous aurons plus à dire sur la fin de votre discours… Quelle punition votre Zoroastre ordonne-t-il pour les ingrats? Combien d'urine de bœuf sont ils obligés d'avaler? On vous conseille, Monsieur, de prendre une dose de cette sainte et purifiante liqueur…
“Nous avons, Monsieur, l'honneur de connaître le Docteur Hunt, et nous faisons gloire de le respecter. Il est incapable de tromper qui que ce soit. Il ne nous a jamais dit, il n'a pu vous dire, qu'il entendait les langues anciennes de la Perse. Il est persuadé, aussi bien que nous, que personne ne les sait, et ne les saura jamais, à moins qu'on ne recouvre toutes les histoires, les poëmes, et les ouvrages de religion, que le Calife Omar et ses généraux cherchèrent à détruire avec tant d'acharnement; ce qui rend inutile la peine de courir le monde aux dépens de l'éclat d'un visage fleuri. Il ne regrette pas à la verité son ignorance de ces langues; il en est assez dédommagé par sa rare connaissance du Persan moderne, la langue des Sadi, des Cashefi, des Nézamis, dans les livres desquels on ne trouve ni le Barsom, ni le Lingam, ni des observances ridicules, ni des idées fantastiques, mais beaucoup de réflexions piquantes contre l'ingratitude et la fausseté…
“Vous triomphez, Monsieur, de ce que le Docteur Hyde ne savait pas les langues anciennes de la Perse; et vous ne dîtes rien de nouveau… Vous reprenez le Docteur Hyde de ce qu'il ignorait que les cinq gahs signifiassent les cinq parties du jour; de ce qu'il dit tou au lien de ton; et de ce qu'il ne savait pas qu' Aherman, le nom de votre diable Persan, était un abréviation du mot mélodieux Enghri meniosch; car vous savez qu'en changeant Enghri en Aher et meniosch en man on fait Aherman. De la même manière on peut faire le mot diable en changeant Enghri en di, et menoisch en able.”
Sir William Jones then proceeds to make merry at the expense of Anquetil's translation—no difficult feat even with a better rendering of a work containing so much that is to us grotesque and puerile, as must, in some degree, be the case with what is produced by any people in its infancy—and thus sums up his reasonings:—
“Ou Zoroastre n'avait pas le sens commun, ou il n'écrivit pas le livre que vous lui attribuez; s'il n'avait pas le sens commun, il fallait le laisser dans la foule, et dans l'obscurité; s'il n'écrivit pas ce livre, il était impudent de le publier sous son nom. Ainsi, ou vous avez insulté le goût du public en lui présentant des sottises, ou vous l'avez trompé en lui débitant des faussetés: et de chaque côté vous méritez son mépris.”
Sir William Jones's letter, though it served to mar Anquetil du Perron's legitimate triumph, and (which was more serious) Anquetil avenged. to blind a certain number of scholars and men of letters to the real importance of his discoveries, has now only a historic interest. Time, which has so fully vindicated the latter that no competent judge now fails to recognise the merit of his work, also took its revenge on the former; and he who strained at the gnat of the Zend Avesta was destined to swallow the camel of the Desátír—one of the most impudent forgeries ever perpetrated. With the original of this egregious work he was, indeed, unacquainted, for the only known manuscript of it, though brought from Persia to India by Mullá Ká'ús about the year 1773, was only published by the son of the purchaser, Mullá Fírúz, in 1818;53a his knowledge of its contents was derived from a curious but quite modern Persian book (to which, however, it was his incontestable merit first to direct attention in Europe) entitled the Dabistáni-Madháhib or “School of Sects,” a treatise composed in India about the middle of the seventeenth century of our era.54a Of this work Sir William Jones spoke in 178954b in the following terms of exaggerated eulogy:—
“A fortunate discovery, for which I was first indebted to Mír Sir W. Jones's credulity equals his scepticism, and is as misplaced. Muhammed Husain, one of the most intelligent Musel-máns in India, has at once dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Írán and of the human race, of which I had long despaired, and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter.
“This rare and interesting tract on twelve different religions, entitled the Dabistán, and composed by a Mohammedan traveller, Sir W. Jones's exaggerated idea of the value of the Desátír and Dabistán. a native of Cashmír, named Mohsan, but distinguished by the assumed surname of Fání, or Perishable, begins with a wonderfully curious chapter on the religion of Húshang, which was long anterior to that of Zerátusht, but had continued to be secretly professed by many learned Persians even to the author's time; and several of the most eminent of them, dissenting in many points from the Gabrs, and persecuted by the ruling powers of their country, had retired to India; where they compiled a number of books, now extremely scarce, which Mohsan had perused, and with the writers of which, or with many of them, he had contracted an intimate friendship: from them he learned that a powerful monarchy had been established for ages in Írán before the accession of Cayúmers, that it was called the Mahábádian, for a reason which will soon be mentioned, and that many princes, of whom seven or eight only are named in the Dabistán, and among them Mahbul or Mahá Beli, had raised their empire to the zenith of human glory. If we can rely on this evidence, which to me appears unexceptionable, the Íránian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world; but it will remain dubious to which of the stocks, Hindu, Arabian, or Tartar, the first Kings of Írán belonged, or whether they sprang from a fourth race, distinct from any of the others; and these are questions which we shall be able, I imagine, to answer precisely when we have carefully inquired into the languages and letters, religion and philosophy, and incidentally into the arts and sciences, of the ancient Persians.
“In the new and important remarks, which I am going to offer, on the ancient languages and characters of Írán, I am sensible, that Sir W. Jones's notions about the history of Ancient Persia. you must give me credit for many assertions, which on this occasion it is impossible to prove; for I should ill deserve your indulgent attention, if I were to abuse it by repeating a dry list of detached words, and presenting you with a vocabulary instead of a dissertation; but, since I have no system to maintain, and have not suffered imagination to delude my judgment, since I have habituated myself to form opinions of men and things from evidence, which is the only solid basis of civil, as experiment is of natural, knowledge; and since I have maturely considered the questions which I mean to discuss; you will not, I am persuaded, suspect my testimony, or think I go too far, when I assure you, that I will assert nothing positively, which I am not able satisfactorily to demonstrate.”
It will be seen from the above citation that Sir William Jones was just as positive in his affirmations as in his negations, Sir W. Jones's blunders. and too often equally unfortunate in both. He confidently, and “without fear of contradiction,” identified Cyrus with the entirely legendary Kay-Khusraw of the Persian Epic (the Kawa Husrawa or Husrawaṅh of the Avesta), and the legendary Píshdádí kings with the Assyrians; derived the name of Cambyses (the Kambujiya of the Old Persian inscriptions) from the Modern Persian Kám-bakhsh, “granting desires,” which he regarded as “a title rather than a name,” and Xerxes (the Khshayárshá of the inscriptions) from Shíru'í (and this after his scornful rejection of Anquetil's correct derivation of Ahriman from Aṅra Mainyush!); continued to see “strong reasons to doubt the existence of genuine books in Zend or Pahlawí,” on the ground that “the well-informed author of the Dabistán affirms the work of Zerátusht to have been lost, and its place supplied by a recent compilation;” held “that the oldest discoverable languages of Persia were Chaldaick and Sanscrit, and that, when they had ceased to be vernacular, the Pahlawí and Zend were deduced from them respectively, and the Pársí either from the Zend, or immediately from the dialect of the Bráhmans;” believed (with the Persians) that Jamshíd (the Yima of the Avesta and Yama of the Hindú mythology, a shadowy personality belonging to the common Indo-Íránian legend) built Persepolis, and that the Achæmenian inscriptions there visible “if really alphabetical, were probably secret and sacerdotal, or a mere cypher, perhaps, of which the priests only had the key”; and finally accepted the absurd Desátír—“a sacred book in a heavenly language” (which proves, in fact, to be no language at all, but mere gibberish, slavishly modelled on the ordinary Persian in which the “Commentary” is written)— as an ancient historical document of capital importance, destined to throw an entirely new light on the earliest history of the Aryan people, and to prove “that the religion of the Bráhmans … prevailed in Persia before the accession of Cayúmers, whom the Pársís, from respect to his memory, consider as the first of men, although they believe in an universal deluge before his reign.” Truly Anquetil was abundantly avenged, and the proposition that misplaced scepticism often coexists with misplaced credulity received a striking illustration!
But Sir William Jones, however greatly he may have fallen into error in matters connected with the ancient history and languages of Persia, was so eminent in his public career, so catholic in his interests, so able a man of letters, and so elegant a scholar, that his opinion was bound to carry great weight, Influence of Sir W. Jones's views. especially in his own country; and consequently we find his scepticism as to the genuineness of the Avesta echoed in England by Sir John Chardin and Richardson (the celebrated Persian Lexicographer) and in Germany by Meiners and, at first, Tychsen, who, however, afterwards became one of Anquetil's strongest supporters, an attitude assumed from the first by another German scholar, Kleuker, who translated Anquetil's work into his own language, and added to it several appendices. In England, for the moment, Sir William Jones's opinion carried everything before it, and Anquetil's translation “was laid aside as spurious and not deserving any attention;”57a while in France, on the other hand, it from the first commanded that general recognition and assent which are now universally accorded to it. To trace in detail the steps whereby this recognition was secured is not within the scope of this book, and we can only notice a few of the most important. Such as desire to follow them in detail will find all the information they require in the excellent accounts of Haug and Darmesteter referred to in the footnote on this page, as well as in Geldner's article, Awestalitteratur, in vol. ii (pp. 1-53, especially p. 40, Geschichte der Awestaforschung) of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (Strassburg, 1896).
The first important step in the vindication of Anquetil was made by his illustrious compatriot, Sylvestre de Sacy, De Sacy's Mémoires sur diverses Antiquités de la Perse (1793). who, in 1793, published in the Journal des Savants his five celebrated Mémoires sur diverses Antiquités de la Perse, which dealt chiefly with the Pahlawí inscriptions of the Sásánian kings, for the decipherment of which he chiefly relied, apart from the Greek translations which accompany some of them, on the Pahlawí vocabulary given by Anquetil (vol. iii, pp. 432-526), “whose work,” as Darmesteter well says, “vindicated itself thus— better than by heaping up arguments—by promoting discoveries.” For the oldest extant manuscripts of the Avesta date only from the fourteenth century of our era, while the Sásánian inscriptions go back to the third, and could not, therefore, be set aside, even for a moment, as late forgeries; and if Anquetil's vocabulary furnished a key to these, it was manifest that the Pahlawí which he had learned from his dastúrs was the genuine language of Sásánian times; and that the occurrence in it of Semitic words, such as malká “king,” shanat “year,” ab “father,” shamsá “sun,” lá “not,” which Sir William Jones, regarding them as Arabic58a (though he afterwards recognised them as Chaldæan),58b cited as proof of the fictitious antiquity of the language in which they occurred, of Anquetil's credulity, and of his Pársí instructor's fraud, was an indisputable fact, whatever might be its true explanation. Tychsen insisted strongly on this point.
“This,” said he, “is a proof that the Pahlawí was used during the reign of the Sásánides, for it was from them that these inscriptions emanated, as it was by them—nay, by the first of them, Ardashír Bábagán—that the doctrine of Zoroaster was revived. One can now understand why the Zend books were translated into Pahlawí. Here, too, everything agrees, and speaks loudly for their antiquity and genuineness.”
58cThe Pahlawí inscriptions thus deciphered by de Sacy had been known in Europe since Samuel Flower published in the Philosophical Transactions for June, 1693 (pp. 775-7) the Pahlawí inscriptions. copies of them which he had made in 1667, while further copies appeared in the works of Chardin (1711), Niebuhr (1778), and, at a later date, of other travellers;59a but, though Hyde reproduced them in his book, de Sacy was the first to attempt with any success their interpretation.
Five years after the publication of de Sacy's Mémoires (1798), the Carmelite father, Paul de St. Barthélemy, published at St. Barthélemy. Rome his essay, De antiquitate et affinitate linguæ samscredamicæ et germanicæ, in which he defended the antiquity of the Avesta, and even uttered a conjecture as to the affinity of the language in which it is written with Sanskrit.
59bThe first important step in the next, and perhaps the greatest, achievement of Persian scholarship—to wit, the Decipherment of the Old Persian Inscriptions.-Grotefend. decipherment of the Persian cuneiform inscriptions (writings of which the character and language were alike unknown)—was made early in the nineteenth century by Grotefend, whose papers on this subject—models of clear reasoning and acute insight— have only recently been unearthed from the Archives of the Göttingen Royal Society of Sciences and published in the Nachrichten of that Society (September 13, 1893, pp. 571-616) by W. Meyer. Of these papers the first was originally read on September 4, 1802, the second on October 2nd, the third on November 13th of the same year, and the fourth on May 20, 1803. Till this time, though Tychsen and Münter had made vain attempts at decipherment, it was, as we have seen when examining Hyde's work, very generally held, even by men of learning, that these characters were not writing at all, but were either architectural ornaments, the work of worms or insects, or mason's marks and numerical signs. Grotefend, primarily impelled to this inquiry by a dispute with his friend Fiorillo as to the possibility of arriving at the meaning of inscriptions whereof the script and language were alike unknown or buried in oblivion, arrived in his first communication at the following important general conclusions: Grotefend's general conclusions. (1) That the figures constituting these inscriptions were graphic symbols; (2) that the inscriptions were trilingual, that is, that they consisted, as a rule, of three versions, each in a different language and script; (3) that the inscriptions which he proposed to explain, that is, those of the first class (the Old Persian) in particular, and also those of the second, consisted of actual letters, not of ideograms or logograms comparable to those employed in Assyrian and Chinese; (4) that all known cuneiform inscriptions were constant in direction, being in every case written horizontally from left to right.
From these general conclusions (all of which have since proved to be perfectly correct) Grotefend proceeded to Grotefend's method of procedure. examine more minutely two inscriptions of the first class, which he believed to be written in the so-called Zend (i.e., Avestic) language—a conjecture which, though not the truth, was near the truth—and which he correctly referred to “some ancient king of the Persians between Cyrus and Alexander,” in other words, to the Achæmenians.60a An examination of the Pahlawí inscriptions of the Sásánians, already deciphered by de Sacy, suggested to him the probability that the first word in the inscription was the name of a king of this dynasty, and the second his title. He then observed that that name which stood at the beginning of the second inscription was in the first placed after the title, which (again guided by the analogy of the Sásánian inscriptions) he rightly assumed to signify “King of Kings,” with a slight final modification, which he correctly conjectured to be the inflexion of the genitive case, from which he gathered that the two names in the first inscription were those of father and son. One of these names, which Tychsen had read Malkéusch, appeared to him to square best with Darius, whose name in the Books of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah occurs in the form Dáriyávush (“Darjavesch”); another, read by Tychsen as Osch patscha, with Xerxes (“Khschhêrschê). For both these names consisted, in the Old Persian inscriptions, of seven separate characters (these being, as we now know, in the first, D. A. R. Y. V. U. SH, and in the second, K. SH. Y. A. R. SH. A), of which one (A) occurred three times, and three (R, Y, SH) twice, in the two names; and the assumption as to the reading of these names was confirmed by the order of the component letters of each. Now it was known from the accounts of the Greek historians that Darius was the son of Hystaspes, which name appeared in Anquetil's work in the native forms Gushtásp, Vishtásp, &c. and, from the analogy of the inscription of Xerxes, it appeared probable that Darius also in his inscription would mention this, his father's name. And, in effect, there occurred in the proper place in this inscription of Darius a group of ten letters, of which the last three (now known to represent H. Y. A.) had already been recognised as the case-ending of the genitive. Of the remaining seven, two—the third (SH) and fifth (A)—were already known, while, from what was common to the Greek and Avestic forms of the name, the fourth, sixth, and seventh might fairly be assumed to represent T, S, and P respectively. There remained the two initial letters, of which it was pretty evident that the first was a consonant (G or V), and the second a vowel (not U, already known, and therefore presumably I); but Grotefend actually read them as G. O. instead of V. I.
Such were the great and definite results of Grotefend's discoveries. Further than this he endeavoured to go; but, Grotefend's results. on the one hand, he was misled by his belief that the language of the inscriptions was identical with that of the Avesta, and by the fact that Anquetil's account of the latter was imperfect and in many details erroneous; and, on the other hand, the materials at his disposal were inadequate and did not supply sufficient data for full decipherment and interpretation. Hence his scheme of the values of the letters was, as we now know, scarcely even half correct, while his interpretations and transcriptions of the texts which he attacked were but approximations. Thus one of the Persepolitan inscriptions with which he especially dealt (Niebuhr, Pl. xxiv; Spiegel's Keilinschriften, ed. 1862, p. 48, B), is now known to read as follows:—
Dárayavush . Khsháyathiya . vazraka . Khsháyathiya . Khsháyathi-yánám . Khsháyathiya . dahyunám . Vishtáspahya . putra . Hakháma-nishiya . hya . imam . tacharam . akunaush.
That is to say:—
“Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the provinces, the son of Vishtáspa, the Achæmenian, who made this temple.”
Grotefend's transcription and translation were as follows:—
Dârheûsch . Khshêhiôh . eghré . Khshêhiôh . Khshêhiohêtchâo . Khshehioh . Dâhûtchâo . Gòschtâspâhê . bûn . âkhêotchôschôh . Âh . ôoo . Môro . êzûtchûsch.
“Darius, rex fortis, rex regum, rex Daharum (filius) Hystaspis,
stirps mundi rectoris. In constellatione mascula. Môro
Yet, though Grotefend failed to accomplish all he attempted, few would have ventured even to attempt what he accom- Estimation of Grotefend's achievement. plished; and his method, and the discoveries to which it led, formed the starting-point of the further researches which ultimately resulted in the complete solution of this difficult enigma. De Sacy, whose discoveries had prepared the way for those of Grotefend, was the first to recognise the immense value of his results, and to make them more widely known, while the rival system of interpretation proposed by Saint-Martin met with but little acceptance.
63aThe next great advances in decipherment were made almost simultaneously in the years 1836-1837 by Lassen, Burnouf, Work of Rawlinson, Burnouf, and Lassen. and Rawlinson, the last of whom, working independently in Persia, without knowledge of what had been effected by Grotefend, succeeded in reading the names of Arsháma, Ariyárámna, Chaishpish, and Hakhámanish in the first paragraph of the great Behistun inscription of Darius. Burnouf had already made use of his knowledge of Sanskrit to elucidate the Avesta, both by the comparative method and by the use of Neriosengh's Sanskrit translation; and he now turned from the completion of his great work on the Yasna63b to an examination of the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, for the study of which the labours of the unfortunate traveller Schultz had furnished him with fresh materials from Alvand and Ván.63c His work was to some extent thrown into the shade by the more brilliant results of Lassen; but, besides reading the name of the Supreme Being, Ahuramazda, and some other words, and pointing out that the language of the inscriptions, though akin to that of the Avesta, was not identical with it, and that the writing did not, as a rule, express the short vowels except when they were initial, he first called attention to the list of names of countries contained in the great inscription of Darius. This last indication, communicated to Lassen in the summer of 1835, was fruitfully utilised by the latter for the fuller and more accurate determination of the values of the letters, and the demonstration of the existence of an inherent short a (as in Sanskrit) in many of the consonants, so that, for example, S.P.R.D. was shown by him to stand for Sparda. Within the next four years (up to 1840) Lassen's results had been further extended, elucidated, and corrected by Beer and Jacquet, while new materials collected by the late Claude James Rich, British Resident at Baghdad, had been rendered available by publication, and Westergaard had brought back fresh and more accurate copies of the Persepolitan inscriptions.
It is unnecessary in this place to trace further the progress of this branch of Persian studies, or to do more than mention the Further progress of the study of Old Persian. later discoveries of Loftus (1852) and Dieulafoy (1884) at Susa; the photographs taken at Persepolis in 1876 and the following years by Stolze, and published at Berlin in 1882 in two volumes entitled Persepolis; and the additional light thrown on the Old Persian language and script by such scholars as Bang, Bartholomae, Bollensen, Foy, Halévy, Hitzig, Hübschmann, Kern, Müller, Ménant, Sayce, Thumb, and others. Nor need the wild theories as to the talismanic character of the inscriptions propounded by M. le Comte de Gobineau in his Traité des écritures cunéiformes (Paris, 1864) detain us even for a moment. A few words must, however, be said as to Oppert's ingenious theory as to the origin and nature of the script.
From the Old Persian character the Assyrian differs in one most essential respect, in spite of the superficial resemblance of Oppert's theory as to the origin of the Persian cuneiform alphabet. these two cuneiform scripts. The former, as we have seen, is truly alphabetical (the alphabet consisting of forty-one symbols, whereof four are logograms, or abbreviations for the constantly-occurring words “Ahuramazda,” “King,” “Land,” and “Earth,” while one is a mark of punctuation to separate the words from one another); the latter is a syllabary, or rather an immense collection of ideograms or logograms, comparable to the Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphics. An Assyrian graphic symbol usually connotes, in other words, an idea, not the sound representing that idea, and has, therefore, only a casual relation to its phonetic equivalent, so that, for instance, an ideogram from the older Akkadian could continue to be used in Assyrian with the same meaning but with a different phonetic value. Oppert's theory is that the Old Persian letters, invented about the time of the fall of the Medic and rise of the Persian (Achæmenian) power, were derived from the Assyrian ideograms as follows. An Assyrian ideogram was given its Persian phonetic equivalent, or, in other words, read as a Persian ideogram; this ideogram was then simplified and used as a letter having the value of the initial sound of the Persian word; and this process was continued until enough graphic symbols, or letters, had been formed to represent all the Persian phonetic elements. Thus the Persians, in the sixth century before Christ, made this great advance from a system of ideograms (probably hieroglyphic or pictorial in their first origin) to a real alphabet; but their analysis stopped short at the separation of a short vowel following a consonant, and therefore they employed separate characters, for example, for the syllables ka, ku; ga, gu; ja, ji; da, di, du; ma, mi, mu, &c.
We see here another illustration of the extent to which Persia, from very early times, has been under Semitic influence, first Assyrian, then Aramaic, and lastly Arabian. The Assyrian influence is as unmistakable in the sculptures of Persepolis Assyrian influence on Persian. and Behistun as in the inscriptions; and, as Spiegel has well shown (Eranische Alterthumskunde, vol. i, pp. 446-485), it can be traced with equal clearness in the domain of religion, probably also of politics, social organisation, jurisprudence, and war. “The great King, the King of kings, the King in Persia, the King of the Provinces,” was heir in far more than mere style and title to “the great King, the King of Assyria,” with whose might Rabshakeh threatened Hezekiah. And this relation perhaps explains the enigma presented by the Huzvárish element in Pahlawí which so long misled students as to the true character of the latter.
Why did the Pahlawí scribe, fully acquainted with the alphabetical use of the Pahlawí character, write the old title “King Discussion of a peculiarity of the Pahlawí script. of kings” as Malkán-malká when (as we know from the contemporary historian Ammianus Mar-cellinus) his soldiers and people hailed him (as they still hail their monarch) as Sháhán-sháh—the later equivalent of the old Khsháyathiya Khsháyathiyánám? Why did he write bisrá for meat and lahmá for bread when (as we learn from the author of the Fihrist, and other well-informed writers of the early Muhammadan period) he read these Aramaic words into Persian as gúsht and nán? To us it seems unnatural enough, though even we do pretty much the same thing when we read “i.e.” as “that is,” “e.g.” as “for example,” and “&” or “&” as “and.” Yet how much easier and more natural was such a procedure to a people accustomed to scripts wholly composed of ideograms and symbols appealing directly to the intelligence without invoking aid from the auditory sense? If the Assyrian adopted the Akkadian logogram connoting the idea of “father,” and read for it his own and not the original foreign equivalent, why should the Persian hesitate to treat the Aramaic words malká, bisrá, lahmá and the like, in the same way, as though they too were mere ideograms rather than groups of letters? The general use of Pahlawí, it is true, belongs, as we have already seen, to a time when Assyria had long passed away, viz., the Sásánian period (A.D. 226-640), and the early Muhammadan times immediately succeeding it, but it has been traced back to the third and fourth centuries before Christ, and may in all likelihood have existed at a yet earlier date. In the essentially conservative East there is nothing very wonderful in this; and the siyáq, universally used for keeping accounts even at the present day in Persia, presents a somewhat analogous phenomenon, for the symbols used therein instead of the ordinary Arabic numerals are in reality mutilated and abbreviated forms of the Arabic names of the different numbers, a fact which the Persian accountant who uses them often forgets and occasionally does not know.
Before speaking further of Pahlawí, however, something more must be said of the continued progress of Avestic studies. Further progress of Avesta studies. We have seen what help was derived from Sanskrit by Burnouf and Lassen in their study of the Achæmenian Inscriptions, and have already alluded incidentally to the monumental work on the Yasna published by the former in 1833-1835. Working with the copious materials collected by Anquetil, which had long lain neglected in the Bibliothèque Nationale, he first set himself, by careful collation of the MSS., to establish a correct text of this portion of the Avesta. For the elucidation of this he relied chiefly on Neriosengh's Sanskrit translation, as representing the oldest traditional interpretation available to him, which, however, he weighed, tested, and proved with the most careful and judicious criticism; while at the same time he sought to establish the grammar and lexicography of the Avestic language. But he was content to show the way to others, and to place the study of the Avesta on a really sound and scientific basis: the large volume which he published elucidates primarily only the first of the seventy-two chapters composing the Yasna, which is itself but one of the five divisions (the liturgical) of the Zoroastrian Scriptures; and though at a later date (1844-1846), he subjected the ninth chapter of the Yasna to a similar though briefer examination, he carried no further his investigations in this field.
The appearance of Bopp's great work on the Comparative Grammar of the Aryan, or Indo-Europæan, languages about “The War of the Methods.” this period brings us to the next great controversy which raged round the Avesta—that of the Traditional and Comparative Schools. By this time no sane and competent scholar had any doubt as to the genuineness of the book itself; the question now was as to the worth of the traditional interpretation of the Zoroastrians. Burnouf, in so far as he relied on the traditional explanation of Neriosengh (for the older Pahlawí translations were not at that time sufficiently understood to be of much use), belonged to the former school; Bopp, pre-eminently a Sanskritist and Comparative Philologist, to whom the study of the Avesta was a mere branch of Sanskrit Philology, to the latter. The publication (1852-1858) of Westergaard's and Spiegel's editions of the text greatly enlarged the circle of students who were able to attack on their own account the problems presented by the Avesta; and what Darmesteter calls “the war of the methods” (i.e., the Traditional and the Comparative) soon broke out on all sides. Of the Traditional School the most prominent representatives were, after Burnouf, Spiegel, and Justi, and, in a lesser degree, de Harlez and Geiger: of the Comparative School, Benfey and Roth. Windischmann held a middle position, while Haug, at first an ardent follower of Benfey, returned from India fully convinced of the value of the Pársí tradition, and thereafter became one of the pioneers of Pahlawí studies, a path in which he was followed with even more signal success by West, “whose unparalleled learning and acumen,” as Geldner says,69a “have raised up Pahlawí studies from the lowest grade of science,” so that “indirectly he Geldner's encomium on Darmesteter and his “historical method.” became the reformer of Avesta studies.” But it was by that incomparable man, the late James Darmesteter, that the judicious and almost exhaustive use of the traditional materials (combined, of course, with a careful study of the texts themselves) was carried to its fullest extent, and it is pleasant to find Geldner, whose methods of textual criticism he had so severely criticised, describing his work and methods in the following generous words:—”
69b“From the beginning an eager partisan of the Sásánian translation and thoroughly grounded in Pahlawí, he in no wise based his interpretation on this alone, but recognised that, amidst the strife as to the best method, only a comprehensive enlargement of the field of vision could lead from groping and guessing to clear and certain knowledge. His immediate sources of help are the native translations, carefully used in detail, and thoroughly studied as a whole, and the entire learning accumulated therein. His indirect means of help is the entire tradition from Sásánian times down to the present day, the whole Pahlawí and Pázand literature, the Sháhnáma, the Arabian chroniclers and historical notices of the Ancients, personal information derived from living Pársís, their customs and ideas, the ritual of the present time, which is likewise a piece of unfalsified tradition, and, on the linguistic side, the entire material of Íránian philology in all its degrees of development and dialectical variations, and likewise Sanskrit, especially that of the Vedas. The dispositions and beginnings had, for the most part, been already made before him, although imperfectly, and with insufficient means, but Darmesteter combined them and carried them on to a certain conclusion. The ripest fruit of these endeavours is his most recent monumental work: le Zend-Avesta, traduction nouvelle avec commen-taire historique et philologique (Annales du Musée Guimet, vols. xxi, xxii, xxiv, Paris, 1892-3). Darmesteter rejuvenated the traditional school, and is properly speaking the creator of what he calls the historical method of the study of the Avesta, for the elucidation of which he collected an incomparably rich material. How far indeed he succeeded in this, how far as regards points of detail he overshot the mark, the Future must decide.”
Let us now return to the history of the decipherment of the Pahlawí inscriptions and texts—that branch of Persian philology Continuation of the decipherment of Pahlawí. in which, despite the fruitful labours of de Sacy and his successors, of whom we shall speak immediately, and the copious illumination of this difficult study which we owe in recent times to West, Andreas, Nöldeke, Darmesteter, Salemann, and others, most yet remains to be achieved.
De Sacy's brilliant attempt to read some of the Sásánian inscriptions at Naqsh-i-Rustam (situated on the cliffs which The Naqsh-iRustam Sásánian inscriptions. lie to the right of the Pulwár river, at the point where the valley through which its course has hitherto lain debouches into the Marv-Dasht plain between Síwand and Zargún, and consequently opposite Perse-polis, which lies across the river, some two or three miles eastward) has been already mentioned (pp. 57-8 supra). The inscription which he especially studied was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of those which the Sásánian monarchs cut on these rocks in imitation of their Achæmenian predecessors, for it dates from the reign of Ardashír (Artakhshatr) the son of Pápak, the founder of this dynasty (A.D. 226-241). It is written in two forms of Pahlawí (the so-called Chaldæan and Sásánian), each having its own peculiar script, and is accompanied by a Greek translation, which runs as follows:—
70a “
The Sásánian Pahlawí, when transliterated, runs something like this:—
“PATKARÍ ZANÁ MAZDAYASN BAGÍ ARTAKHSHATR, MALKÁN MALKÁ AÍRÁN, MINÚ CHITRÍ MIN YAZTÁN, BARÁ PÁPAKÍ MALKÁ.”
71aThe English translation is:—
“THE EFFIGY OF THAT MAZDA-WORSHIPPING DIVI-NITY ARTAKHSHATR, KING OF KINGS OF ÍRÁN (PERSIA), OF SPIRITUAL ORIGIN FROM THE GODS, SON OF PÁPAK THE KING.”
Encouraged by the results of this investigation, de Sacy proceeded in his third and fourth memoirs to examine the Application of de Sacy's results to numismatology. Pahlawí legends on certain Sásánian coins, as well as other inscriptions from Behistun of the same period. How his labours formed the starting-point for Grotefend's attempt to decipher the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions we have already seen (pp. 60-61 supra). The numismatic portion of his work was continued by Ouseley (1801), who succeeded in reading the legends on some twoscore Sásánian coins; and also (1808-1813) by Tychsen.
The character in which the Pahlawí books are written differs considerably from that of the contemporary monuments Pahlawí of inscriptions and books. (inscriptions and coins) of the Sásánians, and is far more ambiguous. It must be remembered that, with the exception of the fragments of Pahlawí papyrus discovered some twenty-two years ago in the Fayyúm in Egypt, and hitherto unpublished and but partially deciphered, the oldest specimen of written Pahlawí goes back only to A.D. 1323—that is, is subsequent by more than a thousand years to the inscription cited above. During this period (for the last half of which the Pahlawí script had ceased to be used save by the Zoroastrian priests for the transcription of works already extant) the written character had undergone considerable degeneration, so that characters originally quite distinct had gradually assumed the same form, thus giving rise to polyphony, or the multiple values of single characters. This polyphony already existed to some extent in the inscriptions, but in the book-Pahlawí it has undergone so great an extension that, to take only one instance, a single character now stands for the four values z, d, g, y, each of which had in the inscriptions its separate graphic symbol. Hence the difficulty of the book-Pahlawí, and hence the value of the Sásánian inscriptions in its elucidation. This value Marc Müller's essay. Joseph Müller, professor at Munich, thoroughly recognised in his Essai sur la langue Pehlvie, published in the Journal Asiatique of April, 1839, which essay, as Haug says, marks a fresh epoch in Pahlawí studies. Amongst the Zoroastrians, especially amongst the Pársís of Bombay, a traditional but corrupt method of reading the Pahlawí books had been preserved, which resulted in a monstrous birth of utterly fictitious words, never used by any nation either in speech or writing, such as boman (really bará) “son,” modá (really malyá) “word,” Anhoma (really Awharmazd) “God,” jamnuntan (really yemaleluntan) “to speak,” and the like. In each instance the ambiguous Pahlawí character admitted of this reading, as it admitted of a dozen others, but a comparison with the less ambiguous inscriptional Pahlawí sufficed in many cases to establish the correct form, and this control it was Müller's merit to have introduced, though naturally it was not in every case vouchsafed to him to arrive at the correct reading.
Before going further, it will be proper to say something more as to the essential peculiarity of Pahlawí to which we have already repeatedly alluded, namely, its Huzvárish or Zavárishn element of Aramaic words more or less defaced in many cases by the addition of Persian inflexional terminations and “phonetic complements.” When a Pahlawí text is read, a large proportion of the words composing it are found to be Semitic, not Íránian, and, to be more precise, to be drawn from an Aramaic dialect closely akin to Syriac and Chaldæan. Now since an ordinary modern Persian text also contains a large proportion of Semitic (in this case Arabic) words, which are actually read as they are written, and are, in fact, foreign words as completely incorporated in Persian as are the Greek, Latin, French, and other exotic words which together constitute so large a portion of the modern English vocabulary in our own language, it was at first thought that the Aramaic element in Pahlawí was wholly comparable to the Arabic element in modern Persian. But a more careful examination showed that there was an essential difference between the two cases. However extensively one language may borrow from another, there is a limit which cannot be exceeded. It would be easy to pick out sentences of modern Persian written in the high-flown style of certain ornate writers in which all the substantives, all the adjectives, and all the verbal nouns were Arabic, and in which, moreover, Arabic citations and phrases abounded; yet the general structure of the sentence, the pronouns, and the auxiliary verbs would and must continue to be Persian. Similarly in a sentence like “I regard this expression of opinion as dangerous,” only four of the eight words employed are really of English descent, yet the sentence is thoroughly English, and it is inconceivable that the pronouns “I” and “this,” or the particles “of” and “as,” should be replaced by equivalents of foreign extraction. In Pahlawí, however, the case is quite different. Haug goes, perhaps, a trifle too far when he says (Essay on Pahlawí, pp. 120-121) “all the case-signs and even the plural suffixes in the nouns; all the personal, demonstrative, interrogative and relative pronouns; all the numerals from one to ten; the most common verbs (including the auxiliaries) such as ‘to be, to go, to come, to wish, to eat, to sleep, to write, &c.’; almost all the prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, and several important terminations for the formation of nouns, as well as a large majority of the words in general (at all events in the Sásánian inscriptions), are of Semitic origin;” yet in the main such is the case, and “the verbal terminations, the suffixed pronouns and the construction of the sentence” are often the only Íránian part of the Pahlawí phrase, though they are its essential and characteristic part. But in addition to this we have a number of monstrous, hybrid words, half Aramaic, half Persian, which no rational being can imagine were ever really current in speech. Thus the Semitic root meaning “to write” consists of the three radicals K, T, B, and the third person plural of the imperfect is yektibún (Arabic, yaktubún), while the Persian verb is nabishtan, napishtan, or navishtan. The Pahlawí scribe, however, wrote yektibún-tan, but assuredly never so read it: to him yektibún, though a significant inflected word in Aramaic, was a mere logogram or ideogram standing for napish-, to which he then added the appropriate Persian termination. So likewise for the Persian word mard, “man,” he wrote the Semitic gabrá, but when he wished the alternative form mardum to be read, he indicated this by the addition of the “phonetic complement,” and wrote gabrá-um.
The analogies to this extraordinary procedure which exist in Assyrian have already been pointed out. In the older Túránian language of Akkad “father” was adda. “When the Assyrians,” says Haug, “wished to write ‘father,’ they used the first character, ad or at, of adda, but pronounced it ab, which was their own word for ‘father’; and to express ‘my father,’ they wrote atuya, but read it abuya; u being the Assyrian nominative termination, and ya the suffix meaning ‘my,’ which, in the writing, were added to the foreign word at.” So in like manner the Pahlawí scribe who wished to write “father” wrote abitar for pitar (pidar), the Assyrian ab being used as a mere ideogram, of which the Persian equivalent was indicated by the “phonetic complement” -tar.
Another curious (and, in this instance, valuable) feature of the Pahlawí script was that in the case of a Persian word recognised at that time as compound and capable of analysis, each separate element was represented by a Semitic or Huzvárish equivalent. Take, for instance, the common Persian verb pindáshtan, “to think, deem.” A modern Persian has no idea that it is capable of analysis, or is other than a simple verb; but the Pahlawí scribe was conscious of its compound character, and wrote accordingly pavan (= pa, “for”) háná (= in, “this”) yakhsanún-tan (= dáshtan, “to hold”); and Nöldeke has called attention to a similar analysis of the common word magar (“unless,” “if not”), which is represented by two Aramaic words, or Huzvárish elements, of which the first signifies “not” and the second “if.” And this principle has another curious and instructive application. The modern Persian pronoun of the first person singular is man, which is derived from the stem of the oblique cases of the corresponding Old Persian pronoun adam (= Avestic azem), whereof the genitive is maná. Of this fact the Pahlawí script takes cognisance in writing the Semitic lí, “to me” (or “of me”), as the Huzvárish equivalent of man.
These considerations, apart from external evidence, might have suggested to a very acute mind the belief that the peculiarities of Pahlawí lay almost entirely in the script, and that they disappeared when it was read aloud. Fortunately, however, there is sufficient external evidence to prove that this was actually the case.
First, we have the direct testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, who says (xix, 2, 11): “Persis Saporem et Saansaan [i.e., Sháhán-sháh] adpellantibus et Pyrosen [i.e., Piruz or Pêrôz], quod rex regibus imperans et bellorum victor interpretatur.” This notice refers to Shápúr II (A.D. 309-379), whose title stands on his coins Malkán malká, but was in the actual speech of the people, then as now, Sháhán-sháh.
Secondly, we have the direct testimony of the learned author of the Fihrist, Muḥammad b. Isḥáq (A.D. 987-8), who relies here, as in other places where he speaks of matters appertaining to Sásánian Persia, on the authority of that remarkable man Ibnu'l Muqaffa'. Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', a Persian Zoroastrian who flourished about the middle of the eighth century of our era, made a doubtfully sincere profession of Islám, and was put to death about A.D. 760. He was reckoned by Ibn Muqla, the wazír and calligraphist († A.H. 939), as one of the ten most eloquent speakers and writers of Arabic, and Ibn Khaldún the Moor pays a similar tribute to his command of that language; and with this he combined a thorough knowledge of Pahlawí, and translated several important works from that language into Arabic, of which, unfortunately, only one of the least interesting (the Book of Kalíla and Dimna) has survived to our time. Relying on the authority of this learned man, the author of the Fihrist, after describing seven different scripts (Kitába) used in pre-Muhammadan times by the Persians, continues as follows, in a passage to which Quatremère first called attention in 1835, but of which the original text was not published till 1866, when Charles Ganneau printed it with a new translation and some critical remarks on Quatremère's rendering:—
“And they have likewise a syllabary [hijá, “a spelling,” not kitába, “a script”] called Zawárishn [or Huzvárish], wherein they write the letters either joined or separate, comprising about a thousand vocables, that thereby they may distinguish words otherwise ambiguous. For instance, when one desires to write gúsht, which means ‘meat,’ he writes bisrá like this [here follows the word written in the Pahlawí script], but reads it as gúsht; and similarly when one desires to write nán, which means bread, he writes lahmá like this [again follows the Pahlawí word], but reads it nán; and so whatever they wish to write, save such things as have no need of a like substitution, which you write as they are pronounced.”
77aThirdly, we have the fact of the complete disappearance of the whole Aramaic or Huzvárish element in even the earliest specimens of Persian written in the Arabic character, which could hardly have occurred if these words had ever been used in speech, but which was natural enough if they belonged to the script only, and were mere ideograms.
Fourthly, we have the tradition surviving amongst the Zoroastrians to the present day, a tradition faulty enough in detail, as we have already seen, but quite clear on the general principle that Huzvárish words ought to be read as Persian. Hence the so-called Pázend and Pársí books, which are merely transcriptions of Pahlawí books into the unambiguous Avestic and Arabic characters respectively, all the Huzvárish, or Aramaic, words being replaced by their Persian equivalents, or supposed equivalents.
It may be well that we should conclude this chapter with Definition of terms. a recapitulation of the various terms that have been used in speaking of the ancient languages of Persia, an explanation of their precise meaning, and a statement of their etymology, where this is known.
Medic, the language of Media, i.e., the western part of what Medic. we now call Persia, the Máda of Darius's inscription, the Máhát (plural of Máh, which occurs as a prefix in Máh-Baṣra, Máh-Kúfa, Mah-Naháwand, &c.) of the early Arabian geographers, a region having for its capital the ancient Ecbatana (Hagmatána of the inscriptions), now called Hamadán. Of this language we have no remains, unless we accept Darmesteter's view, that it is identical with the language of the Avesta, or Oppert's, that it is the language which occupies the second place (between the Old Persian and the Assyrian versions) in the Achæmenian trilingual inscriptions. It was in all probability very closely akin to Old Persian, and certain words of it preserved by writers like Herodotus make it appear likely that from it are descended some of the modern dialects of Persian.
Avestic, the language of the Avesta, often improperly called “Zend,” sometimes also termed “Old Bactrian,” a most Avestic. undesirable name, since it is, as we have seen, quite as likely that its home was in Atropatene (Ázarbáyján) in the north-west as in Bactria in the north-east. In it is written the Avesta, and the Avesta only; of which, however, certain ancient hymns called Gáthás are in a different dialect, much more archaic than that in which the remaining portions of the book are composed. A special character, constructed from, but far superior to, the Pahlawí script, is used for writing it. The word Avesta can scarcely be traced back beyond Sásánian times, though Oppert believes it to be intended by the word abastám in Darius's Behistun inscription (iv, 64). It appears in Pahlawí as Avisták (Darmesteter, Apasták), in Syriac as Apastágá, in Arabic as Abastáq. Andreas is inclined to derive it from the Old Persian upastá (“help, support”) and to interpret it as meaning “ground-text.” This, at any rate, is its “Zend.” signification in the term “Avesta and Zend,” which gave rise to the misleading “Zend-Avesta”: the “Avesta” is the original text of the Zoroastrian scripture, and the “Zend” is the running Pahlawí “explanation” (translation and commentary) which generally accompanies it. If, therefore, the term “Zend language” be used at all, it should mean the language of the Zend, or explanation, i.e., the Pahlawí language; but as it was applied in Europe, owing to a misunderstanding of the terms, to the language of the original text, it is best to drop the expression “Zend language” altogether.
Old Persian is the term which denotes the ancient language of Persia proper (Persis, Fárs), the official language of the Old Persian. Achæmenian inscriptions, and without doubt the speech of Darius, Xerxes, and the other kings of this house. It is known to us by the inscriptions, and by them only.
Pahlawí, as shown by Olshausen, properly means Parthian; for as the ancient mithra, chithra, go into mihr, chihr, so Pahlawí. Parthava, the Old Persian name for Parthia, goes through the analogous but hypothetical forms Parhav, Palhav, into Pahlav, a term applied, under its Arabic form Fahlav, by the old Arabian geographers to a certain region of Central and Western Persia said to include the towns of Isfahán, Ray, Hamadán and Naháwand, and a part of Ázarbáyján. As has been already said, we know but little of the Parthians from native sources; so little that it is not certain whether they were an Íránian or a Túránian race; the national legend takes so little account of them—whom it calls Mulúku'ṭ-ṭawá'if, “tribal kings”—that one single page of the Sháhnáma amply suffices to contain all that Firdawsí (who speaks of them as illiterate barbarians unworthy of commemoration) has to say of them; and the Sásánian claim to have revived the national life and faith crushed by Alexander is to some extent borne out by the Greek inscriptions of the earlier Parthian coins, and the title “Phil-Hellenes” which it pleased their kings to assume. Yet the name of the “Pahlavas” was known in India, and survives to the present day in Persia as an epithet of the speech and the deeds of the old heroic days—the days of the pahlawáns, “heroes,” or mighty warriors. As applied to the language, however, it has a much less precise signification in Persia than in Europe, where its application is definitely restricted to Sásánian or “Middle” Persian written in its appropriate script with the Aramaic or Huzvárish element of which we have spoken. But the “Pahlawí” in which Firdawsí's legendary monarchs and heroes indite their letters, the “high-piping Pahlaví” of 'Umar Khayyám and Háfiz, the Fahlaviyyát, or verses in dialect, cited in many Persian works, and the “Pahlawí” mentioned by Ḥamdu'llah Mustawfí of Qazwín, a historical and geographical writer of the fourteenth century, as being spoken in various parts of Persia, especially in the north-west, is a much less definite thing. Tahmúrath, “the Binder of Demons” (Dív-band), was the first, according to Firdawsí, to reduce to writing “not one but nearly thirty tongues, such as Greek (Rúmí), Arabic (Tází), Persian (Pársí), Indian, Chinese and Pahlawí, to express in writing that which thou hearest spoken.”80a Now Tahmúrath was the predecessor of Jamshíd, the Yima of the Avesta and Yama of the Hindú books, an entirely mythical personage belonging to the common Indo-Íránian Legend, that is to say, to the remotest Aryan times, long before Avestic or Old Persian, let alone Middle Persian, were differentiated from the primitive Aryan tongue. When, on the other hand, a writer like the above-mentioned Ḥamdu'lláh Mustawfí says that “Pahlawí” is spoken in a certain village, he means no more than did a villager of Quhrúd (a district in the mountains situated one stage south of Káshán) who, in reply to the writer's inquiry as to the dialect there spoken, described it as “Furs-i-qadím,” “Ancient Persian.” With the Persians themselves (except the Zoroastrians) the term Pahlawí, as a rule, means nothing more precise than this; but in this book it is, unless otherwise specified, employed in the narrower acceptation of “Middle” or “Sásánian Persian.” It is only so far Parthian that the earliest traces of it occur on the 'Abd Zohar and sub-Parthian coins of the third and fourth centuries before Christ, that is, during the Parthian period.
81aHuzvárish, Zawárish, or Zawárishn has been already explained, but the derivation of the word itself is more doubtful. Huzvárish. Many rather wild etymologies have been proposed, such as Dastúr Húshangjí's huzván-ásúr, “tongue of Assyria,” and Derenbourg's “há Súrsí,” “this is Syriac”; but Haug's explanation, that it is a Persian verbal noun from a verb zuvárídan, “to grow old, obsolete,” or a similar verb, supposed by Darmesteter to have “grown old and obsolete” to such an extent that it is only preserved in its original sense in the Arabic zawwara (verbal noun tazwír), “he forced, concealed, distorted, or falsified [the meaning of a text], he deceived, tricked, misled,” is the most probable. Anyhow a graphic system which writes, for example, “aêtûno yemalelûnt aigh” for words intended to be read “êtûn goyand ku” (which is the Pázend or Pársí equivalent of the Huzvárish) may fairly be described as a “forcing,” “concealing” or “distorting” of the speech which it is intended to represent.
Just as Zend is the “explanation” of an Avestic text in Pahlawí, so is Pázend (= paiti-zainti) a “re-explanation” of Pázend and Pársí. a Pahlawí text by transcribing it into a character less ambiguous than the Pahlawí script, and substituting the proper Persian words for their respective Huzvárish equivalents. When the Avesta character is used for this transcription, the result is called “Pázend”; when the Persian (i.e., the Arabic) character is adopted, the term “Pársí” is often substituted. In either case the product is simply an archaic or archaistic (for unfortunately, owing to the defective character of the Parsee tradition, no great reliance can be placed on its accuracy in points of detail) form of “modern” (i.e., post-Muhammadan) Persian, from which the whole Aramaic element has disappeared. Of several books such as the Mainyo-i-Khirad, or “Spirit of Wisdom,” we have both Pahlawí and Pázend or Pársí manuscripts,82a but all genuine Pázend texts ultimately go back to a Pahlawí original (though in some cases this is lost), since naturally no “re-explanation” was felt to be needful until, from long disuse, the true nature of Pahlawí began to be forgotten, and the scribes and scholars skilled in its use became nearly extinct.
When we speak of Modern Persian or simply Persian, we merely mean post-Muhammadan Persian for the writing of Modern Persian. which the Arabic character is used. “Old Persian” (Achæmenian), “Middle Persian” (Sásánian), and “Modern Persian” (Musulmán) are terms quite analogous to the expressions “Old English” (i.e., Anglo-Saxon), “Middle English,” and “Modern English” now commonly used to denote the different stages of development of our own tongue. In this sense we may without objection apply the term “Modern Persian” to the language of poets like Rúdagí who flourished nearly a thousand years ago, just as we may say that Shakespeare wrote “Modern English”; but if the application of this epithet to a language which goes back at least as far as the ninth century of our era be disliked, we can only suggest that it should be called “Musulmán Persian,” a term, however, which is not wholly beyond criticism. This language, as has been already pointed out, has changed less in ten centuries than English has in three, and archaisms of a distinctive character are almost confined to books composed before that great turning-point of Muhammadan history, the Mongol Invasion of the thirteenth century.
Before concluding this chapter, a few words may be fitly added concerning the dialects of Modern Persian, to which reference has already been repeatedly made: I mean dialects Dialects of Persia. belonging to Persia proper, and confined to it, not the interesting Íránian tongues of Afghánistán, Balúchistán, Kurdistán and the Pamirs, together with Ossetic, concerning which full information and references will be found in the last portion of the first volume of the excellent Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie of Geiger and Kuhn, to which reference has already been made so frequently. More work remains to be done here than in any other branch of Persian philology, notwithstanding the labours of Berésine, Dorn, Salemann, and especially Zhukovski in Russia; Geiger, Socin, Hübschmann, and Houtum-Schindler in Germany; Huart and Querry in France; and, to a very small extent, by myself in England. These dialects, which will, without doubt, when better understood, throw an altogether new light on many dark problems of Persian philology, may be studied either orally on the spot (as has been done notably by Dorn in Mázandarán and Gílán; Zhukovski in Central Persia, especially in the Káshán and Isfahán districts; Socin in Kurdistán; Houtum-Schindler at Yazd and Kirmán, &c.), or in the scanty literary remains, which, nevertheless, are far more abundant than is generally supposed. Of the poets who wrote in dialect on a large scale only two are widely Amír Pázawárí and Bábá Ṭáhir. and generally known, viz., Amír Pázawárí (whose poems have been published by Dorn) in Mázandarání, and Bábá Ṭáhir-i-'Uryán, whose quatrains (composed in what is variously described as “the dialect of Hamadán” or “the Lurí dialect”) are widely cited and sung in Persia, and have been repeatedly published there, as well as by Huart (with a French translation) in the Journal Asiatique for 1885. The popularity of Bábá Ṭáhir, who may be called the Burns of Persia, is due, no doubt, in large measure to the simplicity of his thoughts, the nearness of the dialect in which he writes to standard Persian, the easy and melodious flow of his words, and their simple, uniform metre (that fully styled Hazaj-i-musaddas-i-mahdhúf, i.e., the hexameter Hazaj, of which the last foot in each hemistich is apocopated, or deprived of its last syllable, and which runs: four times repeated in the quatrain). Here are three of his best-known quatrains:—
Chi khush bí mihrabúní az du sar bí,
Ki yak-sar mihrabúní dard-i-sar bí!
Agar Majnún dil-i-shúrída'í dásht,
Dil-i-Laylá az un shúrída-tar bí!“How sweet is love on either side confessed!
One-sided love is ache of brain at best.
Though Majnún bore a heart distraught with love,
Not less distraught the heart in Laylá's breast!”
In this quatrain the only dialect-forms are bí (= buvad, “is, will be”), and the substitution (common to most of the dialects, and prevalent to a great extent in the standard Persian speech of the present day, especially in the South) of the ú-sound for á in un, mihrabúní.
Magar shír u palangí, ay dil, ay dil!
Ba-mú dá'im bi-jangí, ay dil, ay dil!
Agar dastum futí, khúnat vi-rízhum:
Vi-vínum tá chi rangí, ay dil, ay dil!“Lion or leopard fierce thou surely art,
Ever at war with us, O heart, O heart!
If I can catch thee, I will spill thy blood,
And see of what strange hue thou art, O heart!”
Here ba-mú = bá má, “with us”; while dastum, vi-rízhum, and vi-vínum are equivalent respectively to dastam (for bi-dastam, “into my hand”), bi-rízam “I will shed”), and bi-bínam (“I will see”).
Vi-shum, váshum, azín 'álam ba-dar shum!
Vi-shum, az Chín u Má-chín dír-tar shum!
Vi-shum, az Ḥájiyán-i-Ḥaj bi-pursum
Ki ‘í' dírí bas-é', yá dír-tar shum?’“Out of this world I will arise, and fare
To China and beyond; and when I'm there
I'll ask the Pilgrims of the Pilgrimage,
‘Is here enough? If not, direct me where!’”
Here vi-shum = bi-shavam, “I will go”; vásham = either básham, “I will stay, abide,” or báz shavam, “I will again go,” or “I will go back”; dír-tar = dúr-tar, “further”; í' = ín, “this”; bas-é = bas-ast, “is enough.”
Besides these, however, many other well-known poets, such as Sa'dí, Ḥáfidh, Pindár or Bundár of Ray, Bus-ḥáq (Abú Isḥáq), the gastronomic poet and parodist of Shíráz, and others enumerated in my article in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal for October, 1895 (pp. 773-825), on “the Poetry of the Persian Dialects,” composed occasional verses in various forms of patois, though these present, save in the best and most ancient manuscripts, so hopelessly corrupt a text that it is very difficult to make anything of them. One very good and ancient manuscript, dated A.H. 635, of a probably unique Persian work on the history of the Seljúqs, entitled Kitábu Ráḥati'ṣ-Ṣudúr … fí tawáríkhi Kay-Khusraw wa Ál-i-Saljúq, composed by Najmu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. 'Alí b. Sulaymán b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Himmat ar-Ráwandí, and now forming part of the magnificent library of the late M. Charles Schefer, contains numerous Fahlawiyyát, or verses in dialect, which appeared to me, on a cursory examination, to merit, in spite of their difficulty, a careful study on account of the age of the manuscript and the presumable correctness of the text.
In the notices of poets and poetesses (eighty-nine in number) contained in ch. v, § 6 of Ḥamdu'lláh Mustawfí's excellent Táríkh-i-guzída, or “Select History,” compiled in A.D. 1330, the following are mentioned as having composed verses in dialect (where such verses are actually cited, an asterisk is prefixed to the poet's name):—*Abu'l-Májid Ráyagání of the Qazwín district (late thirteenth century); Amír Ká', also of Qazwín; *Utánj Zanjání(?); Pindár or Bundár of Ray; *Júláha (“the Weaver”) of Abhar; *'Izzu'd-Dín of Hamadán; *Káfí-i-Karachí (thirteenth century). The celebrated poet, traveller, and Isma'ílí propagandist Náṣir-i-Khusraw mentions in his Travels (Safar-náma, edited with a French translation by Schefer, Paris, 1881, p. 6 of the text) that on his westward journey in A.D. 1046 he was questioned by the poet Qaṭrán at Tabríz as to the meaning of certain verses in dialect of the poet Manjík, so that we have definite proof that such dialect-poetry has existed in Persia from the eleventh century till the present day. Asadí's Persian Lexicon (Lughat-i-Furs), edited by Dr. Paul Horn from the unique Vatican MS. (Berlin, 1897), another eleventh century work, also cites here and there verses in dialect, called, as usual, “Pahlawí.” Of prose works in dialect the two most remarkable are both heterodox, viz., the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, one of the principal books of the Ḥurúfí sect which arose in the days of Tamerlane (fourteenth century), and is partly written in a West Persian dialect;86a and a romantic history of the Bábí insurrection in Mázandarán in 1849, written in the dialect of that province, and published by Dorn, with a translation in vol. v of the Mélanges Asiatiques (St. Petersburg, 1866), pp. 377, et seqq.
The best-known dialects of Persian spoken at the present day are those of Mázandarán, Gílán, and Tálish in the north; List of the more important dialects. Samnán in the north-east; Káshán, Quhrúd, and Ná'in in the centre, with the peculiar Gabrí dialect of the Zoroastrians inhabiting Yazd, Kirmán, Rafsinján, &c. Síwand in the south; Luristán, Behbehán (which possesses a real poet, Riḍá-quli Khán by name), and Kurdistán in the west; but many other dialects, some entirely unknown to Europeans, doubtless exist in out-of-the-way places. Of those hitherto hardly studied the Bakhtiyárí idiom in the west and the Sístání in the east most deserve careful attention.
THE PRE-MUHAMMADAN LITERATURE OF THE PERSIANS, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR LEGENDARY HISTORY, AS SET FORTH IN THE BOOK OF THE KINGS.
IN a book professing to treat of the literary history of any people in its entirety it would at first sight appear proper that A personal explanation. each period and manifestation of the national genius should, as far as possible, receive an equal amount of attention. In the case of Persia, however, a complete survey of the whole ground could only be made at first hand either by a combination of specialists working together (as has been done in the truly admirable Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie of Geiger and Kuhn, to which reference has already so often been made), or by a scholar of such varied and multiple attainments as can but rarely coexist in one man. Corresponding with the philological divisions already laid down, we have four separate literatures (though one is perhaps too scanty and limited in extent and character to deserve this title) which may fairly be called “Persian”: to wit:—
(i) The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Achæ-menian kings.
(ii) The Avesta (or rather the fragments of it which we still possess), including the more ancient Gáthás, written in a different and more archaic dialect, and believed by many to date from Zoroaster's own time.
(iii) The Pahlawí literature, including the contemporary Sásánian Inscriptions.
(iv) The post-Muhammadan, or “Modern Persian” literature of the last thousand years, which alone is usually understood as “Persian Literature.”
To this last we must also add, for reasons advanced in Chap. I (pp. 3-4 supra),—
(v) That large portion of Arabic literature produced by Persians.
Now, of the three more ancient languages and literatures above mentioned I can claim only a superficial and second-hand knowledge, since the study of Modern Persian and Arabic is amply sufficient to occupy even the most active mind for a life-time. The other literatures lie quite apart, and primarily require quite different qualifications. For the student of Old Persian and Avestic a good knowledge of Sanskrit is essential, while a knowledge of Arabic, Muhammadan theology, and the like is of quite secondary importance. For the study of the first, moreover, a knowledge of Assyrian, and for the second, of Pahlawí, is desirable; while Pahlawí, in turn, cannot be fruitfully studied save by one well-versed in the Aramaic languages, especially Syriac and Chaldæan. Wherefore, since it behoves an author to write of what he knows at first hand, and since my knowledge of the pre-Muhammadan languages and literatures of Persia is only such as (with the desire of extending and completing, as far as possible, my view of the people whose later history is my chosen study) I have derived from the writings of experts, I would gladly have confined the scope of this book to the post-Muhammadan period, whereon alone I have any claim to speak with authority. Yet since every increase of knowledge makes one feel how much greater than one had supposed is the continuity of a nation's history and thought, and how much weaker are the dividing lines which once seemed so clear, I could not bring myself to mislead such as may read my book as to the true scope and unity of the subject by such artificial and unnatural circumscription. I began my Oriental studies with Turkish, and was soon driven to Persian, since from the Persians the Turks borrowed their culture and literary forms. Soon I found that without a knowledge of the Arabic language and literature and of the Arabian civilisation and culture one could never hope to be more than a smatterer in Persian. Still I thought of the Arab conquest of Persia and the conversion of the bulk of the Persians to the religion of Islám as a definite and satisfactory starting-point, as an event of such magnitude and of so revolutionary a character that it might fairly be regarded as creating practically a tabula rasa, from which all earlier writing had been expunged. But gradually it became apparent that this conception was very far from the truth; that many phenomena of the complex 'Abbásid civilisation, of the early religious history of Islám, of the Book and Teaching of the Arabian Prophet himself, could only be understood in the light of earlier history.90a Inevitably one is carried back from Muhammadan to Sásánian times, from Sásánian to Parthian, Achæmenian, Medic, Assyrian, primitive Aryan, and I know not what besides, until one is fain to exclaim with the Persian poet:—
Marā-i khiradmand-i-hunar-písha-rá
'Umr du báyast dar-ín rúzgár,
Tá bi-yakí tajriba ámúkhtí,
Dar digarí tajriba burdí bi-kár!“The man of parts who after wisdom strives
Should have on earth at least a brace of lives;
In one experience he then might learn,
And in the next that same to profit turn!”
Therefore, unwilling on the one hand to speak much of matters wherein I have but little skill, and on the other to produce what I should regard as an essentially defective and misleading book, false to my conception of what is meant by the Literary History of a people, and faulty not only in execution but in conception, I have decided to set forth briefly in this chapter the main facts about the Achæmenian Inscriptions, the Avesta, the Pahlawí monuments and literature, and the Zoroastrian religion, to know which is important even for those whose main interest lies in Modern Persian. Of the Sásánian period, and therefore incidentally of Pahlawí, the official language of that time in Persia, I shall speak in greater detail in the next chapter, since in it lie the roots of so much that attracts our attention in the early Muhammadan days, and the gulf which severs it from what precedes is so much harder to bridge satisfactorily than that which divides it from what follows. And since, for literary purposes, the legendary is nearly as important as the actual history of a people, I shall also discuss in this chapter the Persian Epos or National Legend, which, as will be seen, only approaches the real National History at the beginning of the Sásánian period. This chapter will therefore be divided into four sections, which may be briefly characterised as follows: (1) Achæmenian; (2) Avestic; (3) Pahlawí; and (4) National Legend.
Our fullest knowledge of that first great Persian dynasty which began with Cyrus in B.C. 559, and ended with the defeat of the last Darius by Alexander, and his tragic death at the hands of his two treacherous satraps, Bessus and Barzaëntes, in B.C. 330, is derived from Greek historians, notably Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xenophon (Anabasis, Cyropœdia, Agesilaus), while some sidelights may be derived from such works as the Persœ of Æschylus. Of these external sources, however, which have been fully used by those who have written the history of the Achæmenians (such as Rawlinson, Spiegel, and Justi), I do not propose to speak further, since they lie rather in the domain of the classical scholar than of the Orientalist. Raw-linson, however, in his admirable translation of Herodotus, points out how much the authority of that great historian is strengthened, not only by the Achæmenian inscriptions, but also by the true and convincing portraits of the national character which his work contains. But for him, indeed, the inscriptions, even if deciphered, must have remained obscure in many points which by his help are clear, as, for example, the words in ll. 8-11 of the first portion of Darius's great Behistun inscription: “Saith Darius the king: ‘Eight of my race who were aforetime were kings; I am the ninth: we are kings by double descent” [or, “in a double line”]. In the light of the following genealogical tree deducible from Herodotus (Polymnia, vii, 10) the meaning of this becomes evident:—
| (1) Achæmenes (Hakhámanish) | |
| (2) Teispes (Cháishpish) | |
| (6) Ariaramnes (Ariyárámna) | (3) Cambyses (Kambujiya) |
| (7) Arsames (Arsháma) | (4) Cyrus (Kurush) |
| (8) Hystaspes (Víshtáspa) | (5) Cambyses (Kambujiya) |
| (9) Darius (Dárayavush) | |
| Xerxes (Khshayárshá) | |
Ordinarily, of course, Cyrus (B.C. 559-529) is reckoned the first king of the line; his son Cambyses (B.C. 529-522) the second, and Darius (B.C. 521-485) the third; but Darius himself counts his own ancestors up to Achæmenes, as well as the three kings (for he evidently includes Cambyses the father of Cyrus as well as Cambyses the son) of the collateral branch, and so the meanings of duvitátaranam, “in a double line” (it was formerly translated “from a very ancient time”), and of Darius's “I am the ninth” become perfectly plain.
Any observant traveller who visits Persepolis and its surroundings will remark with some surprise that the inscriptions of the oldest period are the best preserved, while the most modern are the least legible. The Achæmenian cuneiform is so clear and sharp that we can hardly believe that nearly two thousand four hundred years have elapsed since the chisel which cut it rested from its labour. The Sásánian (Pahlawí) inscriptions, though younger by some seven hundred and fifty years, are blurred and faint in comparison; while the quite recent inscriptions in Modern Persian are almost obliterated. This seems to me a type of the three epochs represented by them, and to be reflected in the literary style of their contents. The great Darius is content to call himself “the Great King, the King of kings, King in Persia, King of the provinces, the son of Víshtásp, the grandson of Arsháma, the Achæmenian.” Shápúr the Sásánian calls himself in the Pahlawí inscription at Hájí-ábád, “the Mazda-worshipping divine being Shahpúhar, King of kings of Írán and non-Írán, of spiritual descent from God, son of the Mazda-worshipping divine being Artakhshatr, King of kings of Írán, of spiritual descent from God, grandson of the divine being Pápak the King.” As for the mass of empty, high-sounding titles with which the most petty Persian rulers of later Muhammadan times thought it necessary to bedeck their names, they are but too familiar to every Persian student, and I will not weary others by such vain repetitions.
I have said that we should rather speak of the Achæmenian inscriptions as historical than as literary monuments of the Old Persian language, yet there is in them a directness, a dignity, a simplicity and straightforwardness of diction, which entitle us to regard them as having a real literary style. The portion of Darius's great inscription from Behistun translated at pp. 31-32 supra, will serve as one specimen, and here is another, emanating from the same king, from Persepolis:—
“A great god is Ahuramazda, who hath created this earth, who hath created that heaven, who hath created man, who created the gladness of man, who made Darius king, sole king of many, sole lawgiver of many.
“I am Darius, the great King, the King of kings, King of lands peopled by all races, for long King of this great earth, the son of Víshtásp, the Achæmenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan of Aryan descent.
“Saith Darius the King: By the grace of Ahuramazda, these are the lands of which I held possession beyond Persis, over which I held sway, which brought me tribute, which did that which was commanded them by me, and wherein my Law was maintained: Media, Susiana, Parthia, Haraiva [Herát], Bactria [Balkh], Sughd, Khwárazm [Khiva], Drangiana, Arachosia, Thatagush [the Sata-gydæ], Gandára, India, the Haumavarka Sacæ and Tígrakhuda Sacæ, Babylon, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, Cappadocia, Sparda, the Ionians, the Sacæ across the sea, Skudra, the crown-wearing Ionians,94a the Putiya, the Kushiya, the Machiya, the Karkas.
“Saith Darius the King: When Ahuramazda saw this earth …, then did He entrust it to me, He made me King, I am King, by the grace of Ahuramazda have I set it in right order, what I commanded them [i.e., men] that was carried out, as was my Will. If thou thinkest, ‘How many were the lands which King Darius ruled?’ then behold this picture: they bear my Throne, thereby thou may'st know them. Then shalt thou know that the spears of the men of Persia reach afar; then shalt thou know that the Persian waged war far from Persia.
“Saith Darius the King: What I have done, that did I all by the grace of Ahuramazda: Ahuramazda vouchsafed me help till I completed the work. May Ahuramazda protect me from …, and [likewise] my House and these lands! For this do I pray Ahura-mazda: may Ahuramazda vouchsafe me this!
“O man! This is Ahuramazda's command to thee: Think no evil; abandon not the right path; sin not!”
One curious phenomenon presented by one of the latest Achæmenian inscriptions (that of Artaxerxes Ochus, B.C. 361-336) deserves a passing notice. Does some subtle connection exist between the decay of a language and the decay, or at least temporary subordination, of a race? I have heard it said by English scholars that already before the Battle of Hastings the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, language had, Degeneration of language and creed in latest inscriptions. to a great extent, ceased to be written grammatically, and that it was in full decadence before the Norman invasion. As regards the Old Persian language, at least, this appears to be beyond doubt; and in the inscription to which reference is made above we find such errors in declensions and cases as bumám (“earth,” acc. case) for bumim; asmánám (“heaven,” acc. sing.) for asmánam; sháyatám (“joy,” acc. sing.) for shiyátim; martihyá (“of men,” gen. pl.) for martiyahya; khsháyathiya (“king,” nom. for acc. sing.), and the like. And concurrently with this decay of language appear signs of a degeneration in creed; Ahuramazda no longer stands alone, but is associated with other gods, Mithra (the Sun) and Anahita (Venus).
We have already, in Chapter I, touched on some of the general questions connected with the origin, age, and home of the Avesta, and the language in which it is written—questions not admitting, unfortunately, of very precise or certain answers. Geldner's article on “Zoroaster” in the ninth edition of the Encyclopœdia Britannica (1888), and Dar-mesteter's French translation of the Avesta in the Annales du Musée Guimet, vols. xxi, xxii, xxiv (1892-3), may be taken as representing the two extreme views. According to Geldner's earlier views (1888). the former, part of the Avesta at least (the Gáthás) represented the actual utterances of Zoroaster or his immediate disciples; Bactria was the scene of his activity, and its language the vehicle of his teaching; the King Víshtásp (Gushtásp, Hystaspes), whom he converted, and who became the zealous patron and protector of his creed, “has no place in any historical chronology,” “must have lived long before Cyrus,” and “must be carefully distinguished from Hystaspes the father of Darius;” and the period at which he flourished may have been anything from B.C. 1000 (Duncker) to B.C. 1400 (Gutschmid). According to the latter, the Zoroastrian scriptures of Achæ- Darmesteter's later views (1893). menian times (if they ever existed) entirely perished after Alexander's invasion; the construction of the Avesta (of which we now possess a portion only) began in the first century of our era, in the reign of the Parthian Vologeses I (A.D. 51-78), was continued under the Sásánians until the reign of Shápúr II (A.D. 309-379), and, in its later portion, was largely influenced by the Gnosticism of the Alexandrian or Neo-Platonist philosophy; Media was the home of the Zoroastrian doctrine, and the Medic language its vehicle of expression; and the origin of the Zoroastrian creed goes back (as definitely stated in such Pahlawí books as the Arda Viráf Námak and the Bundahish) only to a period of three centuries or less before Alexander's time, that is, to the sixth or seventh century before Christ, or, in other words, to a period slightly more remote than the beginning of the Achæmenian dynasty.
The views advanced by Darmesteter, though they have not
commanded general assent, have nevertheless greatly modified
Geldner's later
view (1896).
those of the other school, notably of Geldner,
especially by causing them to pay much greater
attention to the traditions embodied in the
Pahlawí, Pársí, and early Muhammadan writings. Thus
Geldner, in the interesting article on the Avesta contributed
by him to Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss (1896), while withholding
his assent from some of Darmesteter's most revolutionary
views as to the modern origin of the Avesta in the
form known to us, attaches great importance to the Pársí
tradition; identifies Zoroaster's King Hystaspes with the
historical father of Darius; makes Zoroaster a contemporary
of Cyrus the Great; fixes, accordingly, the earliest limit of
the Avesta as B.C. 560; admits the destruction of the original
Avesta during the period separating Alexander's invasion from
the reign of Vologeses I, who first began its reconstruction, a
work renewed with vigour by Ardashír, the founder of the
Sásánian dynasty; and allows that additions may have continued
to be made to it till the reign of Shápúr II (A.D. 309-379).
He still holds, however, that the Gáthás are not
only the oldest portion of the Avesta, but represent the actual
teachings and utterances of Zoroaster, of whose real, historical
character he remains firmly persuaded; and adduces good
historical evidence against Darmesteter's view that the Gáthás
are to be regarded as reflecting Alexandrian Gnosticism, or
that the Vôhu-manô (Bahman) which appears so frequently in
them owes its origin to the
Since Anquetil's time it has been well known that the Avesta, as we now possess it, is only a fragment of the entire The Sásánian Avesta. work which existed even in the Sásánian period; while this in turn was “not more than a single priest could easily carry in his head” out of the Avesta “written with gold ink on prepared ox-hides and stored up in Stâkhar-Pápakán,” which was destroyed by “the accursed Alexander the Roman.” Yet the Vendidâd, which constitutes a considerable portion of the existing Avesta, makes a fair-sized volume, and it was but one of the twenty-one nosks into which the Sásánian Avesta was divided, and of which the contents are in some measure known to us from the Pahlawí Dínkard, a very important work, dating, probably, from the ninth century of our era. These twenty-one nosks, of which the Pahlawí names are known to us,97a were divided equally into three groups—the gásáník (mainly theological and liturgical), the dátík (mainly legal), and the hátak-mánsarík (philosophical and scientific). Of the seven nosks constituting the first group (intended principally for the priests) we still possess fragments of three—the Stôt-yasht, the Bako, and the Hâtôkht; of the second seven (intended for the laity) also three—the Vendidâd, and parts of the Hûspâram and Bakân-yasht; while the third group, appealing to the more limited circle of learned and scientific men, has unfortunately (probably for that very reason) perished entirely. According to West's conjecture, these twenty-one nosks, which composed the Sásánian Avesta, contained in all about 347,000 words, of which we now possess only some 83,000, or about a quarter. Concerning the division above mentioned, Geldner remarks that it is “partly artificial, and is based on the attempt to establish a strict analogy between the whole Avesta and the Ahuna-Vairya verse, which is regarded as the quintessence and original foundation of the whole Avesta revelation.” This remark A curious analogy. suggests two interesting analogies with later times, and serves to illustrate what has been already said as to the remarkable persistence or recurrence of ideas in the East—a phenomenon of which I have elsewhere spoken in greater detail. The first of these is embodied in a Shí'ite tradition ascribed to 'Alí, which runs as follows:—
“All that is in the Qur'án is in the Súratu'l-Fátiḥa [the opening chapter], and all that is in the Súratu'l-Fátiḥa is in the Bismi'lláh [the formula ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Forgiving,’ which stands at the head of every chapter except one of the Muḥammadan Scripture, and which is used by Muhammadans when entering on any undertaking], and all that is in the Bismi'lláh is in the B of the Bismi'lláh, and all that is in the B of the Bismi'lláh is in the point which is under the B, and I am the Point which is under the B.”
The second is the further expansion and application of this idea by the Báb, the founder of the last great religious movement in Persia, who was put to death in 1850 at Tabríz; for he declared 19—the number of the letters in the Bismi'lláh— to be the “Unity” (in Arabic Wáḥid, “One,” in which, curiously enough, the numerical values of the component letters add up to 19) which was at once the intelligible Manifestation of the Ineffable One and the proper numerical base of all computation, so that he made his books to consist of 19 “Unities,” each containing 19 chapters, and the year to consist of 19 months of 19 days each (= 361 days).
The existing Avesta, as already said, contains but one complete nosk out of the twenty-one which it comprised in Divisions of the present Avesta. Sásánian times, viz., the Vendidâd; while portions of at least four others enter into the composition of the Yasna, and other fragments are preserved in some Pahlawí books, notably the Hûspâram in the Níran-gistán. The extant books and religious formulæ of the Avesta are divided into five chief groups or sections, which are as follows:—
1. The Yasna, or liturgical portion, consisting of hymns recited in honour of the different angels, spirits, and divine The Yasna. beings. It comprises seventy-two chapters (called háiti or há), symbolised by the seventy-two strands which compose the kushtí, or sacred girdle, investiture with which constitutes the formal admission of the young Zoroastrian to the Zoroastrian Church. In it are included the ancient Gáthás to which reference has already been made.
2. The Vispered, comprising 23-27 chapters (called karde), is not an independent, coherent, and self-contained book, but The Vispered. a collection of formulæ and doxologies similar and supplementary to the Yasna, in conjunction with which it is used liturgically.
3. The Vendidâd, or “Law against the demons,” is, in Geldner's words, “the Leviticus of the Pársís, the Eccle- The Vendidâd. siastical Law-book, which prescribes the priestly purifications, expiations, and ecclesiastical penances,” and comprises twenty-two chapters (fargard). Of these, the first, describing the successive creation by Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) of the good lands, and the counter-creation by Ahriman (Anro Mainyush) of a corresponding evil in each case, has been the chief basis of all discussion as to the regions originally known to and inherited by the people of the Avesta.
4. The Yashts, twenty-one in number (cf. p. 98, l. 5 supra), are hymns in honour of the various angels and spiritual beings, the The Yashts. Amshaspands and Ízads, one of whom presides over, and gives his name to, each of the thirty days which constitute the Zoroastrian month. Originally, as the Pársís hold, each of these had his appropriate Yasht; so that it would appear that nearly a third part of this portion of the Avesta has been lost. This mention of the Zoroastrian calendar reminds me of another illustration of Another illustration of the resurgence in the East of ancient religious doctrines and observances that resurgence of ancient religious beliefs and observances in the East of which I have already spoken. The Zoroastrian year comprises 12 months of 30 days each, to which are added 5 extra days, called the gáthás. The year, in short, is a solar year, comprising, like our own, 365 days, with a suitable arrangement for further intercalation. The modern Bábís, wholly Muhammadan in outward origin, and ultra-Shí'ite in their earlier stages of development, abandoned the Muhammadan lunar year (which falls short of the solar by about 11 days), and, taking as their numerical base their favourite number 19, substituted for it a solar year consisting of 19 months of 19 days each, making a total of 361 (= 19 × 19) days, which were supplemented as required to maintain the correspondence between the calendar and the real season, by some or all of the five extra days which represented the numerical value of the Báb's title (B = 2, Á = 1, B = 2), and were, in the Bábí phrase, fixed “according to the number of the Há,” i.e., of the Arabic letter which stands for five. More than this, each day of the Bábí month, and each month of the Bábí year, is consecrated to, and derives its name from, some attribute, aspect or function of the Deity, just as each day and each month of the Zoroastrian year stand in a similar relation to one of the angelic beings who constitute the Zoroastrian spiritual hierarchy. The only difference between the two systems—the most ancient and the most modern which Persia has produced—lies in the substitution of attributes for Angels by the Bábís, and further in the fact that to only twelve of the thirty Amshaspands and Ízads who preside over the days of the month are allotted months also, while with the Bàbís the same nineteen names serve for both purposes. In both calendars the week plays no part; in both it happens once in each month that the same name indicates both the month and the day; and in both cases such days are observed as festivals. Yet it is most improbable that the Báb, who was a Sayyid, and, ere he announced his Divine mission (A.D. 1844), an ultra-zealous Shí'ite, holding all unbelievers as unclean and to be sedulously avoided (he enjoins in the Persian Bayán the expulsion of all who refuse to accept his doctrine, save such as are engaged in avocations useful to the community, from the five principal provinces of Persia), had, or would have condescended to acquire, any direct knowledge of the Zoroastrian religion and practices; and the same applies to the many striking analogies which his doctrine, and even phraseology, present with those of the Isma'ílís and other older sects; so that we are almost driven to regard a certain circle of religious and philosophical ideas as endemic in Persia, and liable at any moment, under a suitable stimulus, to become epidemic. To this point we shall have repeated occasion to recur later.
5. The Khorda Avesta, or “Little Avesta,” is a kind of prayer-book or religious chrestomathy compiled for the use of The Khorda Avesta. the laity in the reign of Shápúr II (A.D. 310-379) by the priest, Ádharpádh Mahraspand. It consists partly of selections from the whole Avesta, partly of formulæ written in Pázend (see pp. 81-2 supra); and comprises the five Nyáyishes (prayers addressed to the Sun, the Moon, Mithra, the Genius of the Water, and the Bahrám-Fire), the five Gáhs, the greater and lesser Sírúza (“thirty days”), and the four Áfríngán, or blessings.
Such, with the independent fragments preserved in Pahlawí books like the Nírangistán (chief amongst which are the Review of the Avesta as a whole. Aogemadaêcâ and Hâdôkht-nosk), is that remnant of the Zoroastrian scriptures which we now know as the Avesta. Intensely interesting though it be as an ancient document embodying the doctrines of so celebrated a person as Zoroaster, and the tenets of an old-world faith which once played an important part in the world's history, and which, though numbering at the present day not ten thousand adherents in Persia, and not more than ninety thousand in India,102a has profoundly influenced other religions of intrinsically greater importance, the Avesta cannot be described as either pleasant or interesting reading. It is true that the interpretation of many passages is doubtful, and that better understanding might lead to higher appreciation of these; but, speaking for myself, I can only say that while my appreciation of the Qur'án grows the more I study it and endeavour to grasp its spirit, the study of the Avesta, save for philological, mythological, or other comparative purposes, leads only to a growing weariness and satiety. The importance of its place in the history of religious thought, as well as its interest from an antiquarian and philological point of view, will ever attract to it a certain number of devoted students, apart from those who regard it as a Revelation and a Law from God; but to me it is doubtful whether any translation of it could be made which the ordinary reader of average curiosity and intelligence would be willing to read through from cover to cover, save for some special purpose. At any rate the number of translations into English, French, and German is sufficiently large to enable any one who chooses to try the experiment for himself, and the citation of selected passages in this place appears quite superfluous.
The earliest traces of the Pahlawí language (of which, as already pointed out, the apparent mingling of Semitic and Pahlawí legends on coins (B.C. 300—A.D. 695). Íránian words, brought about by the use of the Huzvárish system, is the essential feature) occur, as first pointed out by Levy of Breslau in 1867,103a on sub-Parthian coins of the end of the fourth and beginning of the third century before Christ—in other words, soon after the end of the Achæmenian period; and Pahlawí legends are borne by the later Parthian, all the Sásánian, and the early Muhammadan coins of Persia, including amongst the latter the coins struck by the independent Ispahbads of Ṭabaristán, as well as those of the earlier Arab governors. The Pahlawí coin-legends extend, therefore, from about B.C. 300 to A.D. 695, when the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik abolished the Persian currency and introduced a coinage bearing Arabic legends.
103bThe Pahlawí inscriptions date from the beginning of Sásánian times, the two oldest being those of Ardashír and Pahlawí inscriptions. Shápúr, the first and second kings of that illustrious house (A.D. 226-241 and 241-272); and they extend down to the eleventh century, to which belong the inscriptions cut in the Kanheri Buddhist caves in Salsette near Bombay by certain Pársís who visited them in A.D. 1009 and 1021. Intermediate between these extremes are ten signatures of witnesses on a copper-plate grant to the Syrian Christians of the Malabar coast. The grant itself is engraved in old Tamil characters on five copper plates, and a sixth contains the names of the twenty-five witnesses attesting it, of which eleven are in Kufic Arabic, ten in Sásánian Pahlawí, and four in the Hebrew character and Persian language.
103cOf the age of the Pahlawí literature, properly so called, we have already spoken (pp. 7-8 supra). It was essentially the Pahlawí literature. Persian literature of the Sásánian period, but was naturally continued for some time after the fall of that dynasty. Thus the Gujastak Abálish námak, to which reference has already been made, narrates a discussion held between an orthodox Zoroastrian priest, Átur-farnbag son of Farrukh-zád, and a heretical dualist (perhaps a Mani-chæan) in the presence of the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833), so that the period to which this literature belongs may be considered to extend from the third to the ninth or tenth centuries of our era, at which time the natural use of Pahlawí may be considered to have ceased, though at all times, even to the present day, learned Zoroastrians were to be found who could compose in Pahlawí. Such late, spurious Pahlawí, however, commonly betrays its artificial origin, notably by the confusing of the adjectival termination -ík with the nominal or substantival termination -íh, both of which are represented by -í in Modern Persian.
Of actual written Pahlawí documents, the papyrus-fragments from the Fayyúm in Egypt, which West supposes to date from Pahlawí manuscripts. the eighth century of our era, are the most ancient, and after them there is nothing older than the MS. of the Pahlawí Yasna known as “J. 2,” which was completed on January 25, A.D. 1323. Pahlawí manuscripts naturally continue to be transcribed amongst the Pársís down to the present day, though since the introduction of Pahlawí type, and the gradual publication by printing or lithography of the more important books, the function of the scribe, here as in the case of other Eastern languages, has in large measure fallen into abeyance.
The Pahlawí literature is divided by West, who is certainly Extent and character of the Pahlawí literature. the greatest living authority on it, and who is in this portion of our subject our chief guide, into three classes, as follows:—
1. Pahlawí translations of Avesta texts, represented by twenty-seven works, or fragments of works, estimated to contain in all about 141,000 words.105a Valuable as these are for the exegesis of the Avesta, they “cannot be really considered,” in West's words, “as a sample of Pahlawí literature, because the Pársí translators have been fettered by the Avesta arrangement of the words.”
2. Pahlawí texts on religious subjects, represented by fifty-five works, estimated to contain about 446,000 words. This class contains, besides commentaries, prayers, traditions (riwáyats), admonitions, injunctions, pious sayings, and the like, several important and interesting works, amongst which the following deserve particular mention. The Dínkart The Dínkart (9th century). (“Acts of Religion”), “a large collection of information regarding the doctrines, customs, traditions, history and literature of the Mazda-worshipping religion,” of which the compilation was begun in the ninth century of our era by the same Átur-farnbag who appears before al-Ma'mún as the champion of orthodox Zoroastrianism against “the accursed Abálish,” and concluded towards the end of the same century.105b The Bundahishn The Bundahishn (12th century). (“The Ground-giving”), an extensive manual of religious knowledge,105c comprising, in the fuller recession known as the “Iránian,” forty-six chapters, which appears to have been finally concluded in the eleventh or twelfth century of our era, though the bulk of it is probably a good deal earlier. The Dátistán-i-Díník, or The Dátistán-iDíník (9th century). “Religious Opinions” of Mánúshchíhar, son of Yúdán-Yim, high-priest of Párs and Kirmán in the latter part of the ninth century, on ninety-two topics, characterised by West as “one of the most difficult Pahlawí texts in existence, both to understand and to translate.” The Shikand-gúmáník Víjár106a (“Doubt-dispelling Explanation”), a controversial religious work, composed towards the Shikandgúmánik Víjár. end of the ninth century, in defence of the Zoroastrian dualism against the Jewish, Christian, Manichæan, and Muhammadan theories of the nature and origin of evil; and described by West as “the nearest approach to a philosophical treatise that remains extant Mainyo-iKhirad. in Pahlawí literature.” The Díná-i-Mainyo [or Máinóg] -i-Khirad (“Opinions of the Spirit of Wisdom”) contains the answers of this spirit to sixty-two inquiries on matters connected with the Zoroastrian faith. The publication of the Pahlawí text by Andreas (Kiel, 1882), and of the Pázend text with Neriosengh's Sanskrit translation by West (Stuttgart, 1871), who has also published English translations of both texts (1871 and 1885), render it one of the most accessible of Pahlawí works, and as pointed out by Nöldeke in his translation of the Kárnámak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Pápakán , one of the best books for beginning the study of Arda-Víráf Námak. book-Pahlawí. The Arda-Víráf Námak is another very well-known work, accessible in the original (Bombay, 1872) and in English and French translations, and may be briefly described as a prose Zoroastrian Paradiso and Inferno. It is interesting for the picture it gives of the religious and material anarchy in Persia produced by the invasion of “the accursed Alexander the Roman,” of the Sásánian national and religious revival in the third century of our era, and of the Zoroastrian ideas of the future life. In the latter we can hardly fail to be struck by the analogy between the Chinvat Bridge and the Muhammadan Bridge of Ṣiráṭ, “finer than a hair and sharper than a sword,” to which Byron alludes in the well-known lines—
“By Allah, I would answer ‘Nay!’
Though on al-Sirat's bridge I stood,
Which totters o'er the burning flood,
With Paradise within my view,
And all its houris beckoning through.”
And these houris also seem to find their more spiritual prototype in the fair maiden who meets the departed soul of the righteous man, and who, on being questioned, declares herself to be the embodiment of the good deeds, the good words, and Mátígán-igujastak Abálish. the good thoughts which have proceeded from him during his life. The “Book of the accursed Abálish,” already mentioned more than once, was published by Barthélemy in 1887, with the Pázend and Pársí-Persian versions and a French translation. The Jámásp-námak, known in its entirety only in Pázend and Persian versions, contains some interesting mythological and legendary matter Andaraz-iKhusraw-iKavátán. about the ancient mythical kings of the Persian Epos. The Andaraz-i-Khusraw-i-Kawátán, or dying injunctions of King Núshírwán (Anôshak-rubân, A.D. 531-578) to his people, though of very small extent, deserves mention because it has been taken by Salemann in his Mittelpersische Studien (Mélanges Asiatiques, ix, pp. 242-253, St. Petersburg, 1887) as the basis of a very interesting and luminous study of the exact fashion in which a Pahlawí text would probably have sou??hen read aloud; an ingenious attempt at a critical Pázend transcription.
3. Pahlawí texts on non-religious subjects, represented by only eleven works, comprising in all about 41,000 words. This Non-theological Pahlawí works. class of Pahlawí literature is at once the most interesting and the least extensive. A large nontheological literature no doubt existed in Sásánian times, and many works of this class no longer extant (notably the Khudháy-námak, or “Book of Kings,” which will be discussed in the next section) are known to us by name, and to some extent in substance, through the early Arabic and Muhammadan Persian writers. The same cause which led to the loss of the scientific and philosophical nosks of the Avesta (the hátak mánsarík: see p. 97 supra), namely, the comparative indifference of the Zoroastrian priests, who were practically the sole guardians of the old literature after the fall of the Sásánian Empire, to all books which did not bear immediately on their own interests, led, no doubt, to the loss of the greater part of the profane literature of the Sásánian period. The works of this class now extant are so few that they may be enumerated in full. They comprise: (1) The Social Code of the Zoroastrians in Sásánian Times. (2) The Yátkár-i-Zarírán (also called the Sháhnáma-i-Gushtásp and the Pahlawí Sháhnáma), translated into German by Geiger in the Sitzungsberichte d. phil. und hist. Classe d. Kais. bayer. Akad. d. Wissenschaften for 1890, ii, pp. 243-84, and further discussed by Nöldeke two years later in the same periodical.108a (3) The Tale of Khusraw-i-Kawátán (Núshírwán) and his Page. (4) The extremely interesting Kárnámak-i-Artakh-shatr-i-Pápakán , or “Gests of Ardashír Bábakán,” the founder of the Sásánian dynasty, of which the Pahlawí text108b (which appears, however, to be edited with little criticism) was published at Bombay in 1896 by Kayqubad Ádharbád Dastúr Núshírwán, while an excellent German translation, with critical notes and a most luminous Introduction, by Professor Nöldeke of Strassburg, appeared at Göttingen in 1878. Of this book I shall have occasion to speak much more fully in connection with the Sháh-náma, or “Book of Kings.” It and the two preceding ones may be classed together as the sole survivors of the “historical novel” of Sásánian times; though the contents or titles of others are known to us through Arabic writers (such as Mas'údí, Dínawarí, and the author of the invaluable Fihrist), while the substance of one, the Book of the Gests and Adventures of Bahrám Chúbín, has been in part reconstructed by Professor Nöldeke (Geschichte der … Sasaniden, Leyden, 1879, pp. 474-487). The remaining books of this class (mostly of small extent) are: (5) The Cities of Írán; (6) the Wonders of Sagistán; (7) the Dirakht-i-Asúríg , or “Tree of Assyria”; (8) the Chatrang-námak, or “Book of Chess”; (9) Forms of Epistles; (10) Form of Marriage Contract, dated to correspond with November 16, A.D. 1278; and (11) the well-known Farhang-i-Pahlawík, or “Old Pahlawí-Pázend Glossary,” published at Bombay and London by Hoshang and Haug in 1870.
Besides the Pahlawí literature, there also exists a modern Persian Zoroastrian literature, of which the most important Persian Zoroastrian literature. works are: the Zartushtnáma (“Book of Zoroaster”) in verse, composed at Ray in Persia in the thirteenth century; the Sad-dar (“Hundred Chapters”), a sort of epitome of the Zoroastrian faith in three recensions (one prose, two verse), of which the first is the oldest; the 'Ulamá-i-Islám (“Doctors of Islám”); the Riwáyats, or collections of religious traditions; the Qiṣṣai-Sanján , or narrative of the Zoroastrian exodus to India after the Muhammadan conquest of Persia; and several Persian versions of Pahlawí texts. These are discussed by West in an Appendix to his article in the Grundriss (pp. 122-129). I know of no literary activity amongst the Persian Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kirmán in recent times, and though amongst themselves they continue to speak the peculiar Gabrí dialect already mentioned, their speech in mixed society scarcely Existence of verse in Sásánian times. differs from that of their Muhammadan fellow-citizens, and their letters are entirely copied from the ordinary models.
The question of the existence of poetry in Sásánian times has been already discussed at pp. 14-16 supra. If it ever existed, no remnants of it, so far as is known, have survived till the present day.
As has been already pointed out, the substance of a certain number of Pahlawí works which have perished is preserved to some extent by some Muhammadan writers, especially the earlier Arabic historians (that is, Arabic-writing, for most of them were Persians by race), such as Ṭabarí, Mas'údí, Dínawarí, and the like, who drew for the most part their materials from Arabic translations of Pahlawí books made by such men as Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', who were well acquainted with both languages. Of such translations a considerable number are enumerated in the Fihrist, but Ibnu'l-Muqaffa''s rendering of Kalíla and Dimna (brought from India in the time of Núshírwán “the Just,” together with the game of Chess, and translated for him into Pahlawí) is almost the only one which has survived in its entirety. Amongst the early Arabic writers, the best informed on Persian topics include, besides Ṭabarí († A.D. 923), al-Jáḥidh († A.D. 869), al-Kisrawí († A.D. 870), Ibn Qutayba († A.D. 889), al-Ya'qúbí († A.D. 900), Dínawarí († A.D. 895), Mas'údí (flourished in the middle of the tenth century), especially his Murúju' dh-dhahab and Kitábu't-tanbíh wa'l-ishráf, Ḥamza of Isfahán (A.D. 961), al-Bírúní (end of tenth and early eleventh century), al-Baládhurí († A.D. 892), the author of the Fihrist, Muḥammad b. Isḥáq (end of tenth century), and others. Amongst Persian works, Bal'amí's translation of Ṭabarí's history (A.D. 963), the anonymous Mujmalu't-Tawáríkh, and Firdawsí's great epic, the Sháhnáma, of which we shall speak immediately, are perhaps the most important from this point of view.
Hitherto we have spoken chiefly of the real history of Ancient Persia, as derived from the oldest and most credible sources—inscriptions, coins, and the writers of antiquity. It is now necessary that we should briefly examine the ideas that the Persians themselves entertain as to the dynasties and kings who ruled over them in days of old—in other words, the National Legend, which only begins to run parallel with actual history at the beginning of the Sásánian period. This National Legend finds its ultimate development in the celebrated epic of the Sháhnáma, or “Book of Kings,” an immense poem, generally computed at about 60,000 couplets, composed by Firdawsí for Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna, and completed, after some forty years of labour, in the year A.D. 1010. As a literary work this great epic will be more properly discussed in a later chapter, but, since it remains till the present day the chief source whence the Persians derive their ideas as to the ancient history of their nation, it will be proper to discuss briefly in this chapter both the nature and antiquity of its contents. This matter has been treated in a most exhaustive and scholarly manner by Professor Nöldeke of Strassburg in his article entitled Das Iranische Nationalepos, contributed to vol. ii of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss, and also published in separate form (Trübner, Strassburg, 1896). Of this excellent work, which probably represents the limit of knowledge attainable in this direction, the freest use is made in the brief account here given of the history of this National Legend or Saga.
The Sháhnáma recognises four dynasties of pre-Muhammadan Persian kings—the Píshdádí, the Kayání, the Ashkání Contents of the Sháhnáma. (or Parthian, also called in Arabic Mulúku't-Ṭawá'if , or “Tribal Kings”), and the Sásání. Of these, the two first are entirely unhistorical, belonging, as we have already said, to the mythology of the Avesta and the common Indo-Íránian legend; the third is historical in a sense, but nothing is remembered of it save a few names, mentioned without much order or method, and the fact that it filled the gap between Alexander the Great and Ardashír the first Sásánian; the fourth is wholly historical in the sense that the kings composing it are historical personages arranged in correct order, though naturally their deeds and adventures contain much legendary matter, especially in the earlier portion.
The first king of the legendary Píshdádí dynasty, called Gayúmarth, is the first man of the Avesta, Gayô Mareta, the Píshdádí dynasty. Zoroastrian Adam. He dwells in the mountains, dresses himself and his people in leopard-skins, brings the beasts of the field into subjugation, wages a war on the demons, in which his son Siyámak is killed, and, after a reign of thirty years, dies, and is succeeded by his grandson Húshang (Arabic Úshhanj. Húshang reigns forty years, accidentally discovers how to produce fire by flint and steel, and establishes the Festival of Sadah to commemorate this great discovery. He is succeeded by his son Tahmúrath, called Dív-band, “the Binder of Demons,” since he brought these beings into subjection, but spared their lives on condition that they should teach him the art of writing “not one but nearly 30 languages.”112a After reigning thirty years he is succeeded by his son Jamshíd, a much more important figure in the Persian Legend than any of his predecessors.
The early Arab (i.e., Arabic-writing) historians, who for the most part endeavour to combine the Íránian with Semitic and Jamshíd. Biblical legends, commonly identify Jamshíd with Solomon. Practically speaking nearly all the Achæmenian monuments about Persepolis are referred by the Persians to these kings, and apparently for no better reason than the following: “These gigantic buildings,” they say, “are evidently beyond the power of the unaided humanity of that age; therefore whoever built them was helped by the demons. But it is a well-known fact that only two kings had command over the demons, namely Solomon and Jamshíd; therefore Solomon and Jamshíd built these monuments.” Accordingly they call Persepolis Takht-i-Jamshíd, “the Throne of Jamshíd”; the Tomb of Cyrus, Masjid-i-Mádari-Sulaymán , “the Mosque of Solomon's Mother”; and another platform-like structure on a hill adjacent to the monuments in the Murgháb plain Takht-i-Sulaymán “the Throne of Solomon.” Such identifications were favoured by the Zoroastrians in Muhammadan times as tending to improve their position with their conquerors, and secure for them the privileges accorded by victorious Islám to “the people of the Book”—that is, peoples like the Jews and Christians who, though not believers in the Qur'án, possessed Scriptures recognised by Muḥammad. The most notable of these false identifications is that of Zoroaster with Abraham, and of the Avesta with the Ṣuḥuf (“Leaflets” or “Tracts”) supposed by the Muhammadans to have been revealed to him, and recognised by them as one of the five revelations made to the five great Prophets, the other four being the Pentateuch (Tawrát) of Moses, the Psalms (Zubúr or Mazámír) of David, the Gospel (Injíl) of Jesus Christ, and the Qur'án of Muḥammad. But of course well-informed writers like Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' knew that these identifications were wrong, just as well as we now know that Sir William Jones's identifications of Kay-Khusraw and Shírúyé with Cyrus and Xerxes are wrong. Thus Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' (quoted by Dínawarí, ed. Guirgass, p. 9) says: “Ignorant Persians, and such as have no science, suppose that King Jam was Solomon the son of David, but this is an error, for between Solomon and Jam was an interval of more than 3,000 years.” It is now well known that Jam (the termination—shíd, frequently dropped, is a mere epithet or title, as it is in Khurshíd, “the Sun,” representing the Avestic Khshaêta, “chief, sovereign, brilliant”) is identical with the Yama of the Hindú and the Yima of the Avestic mythology, though this hero of the Indo-Íránian legend appears under rather different aspects in the three cases. With the Hindús, he is the first great mortal to pass over into the After-world, and hence appears as a kind of Pluto, or King of Hades. In the Avesta he is “the fair Yima of goodly flocks,” the son of Vívaṅhâo (a name which, though absent from the Sháhnáma, occurs in early Muhammadan historians like Dínawarí and Ṭabarí as Vívanjhán, described as son of Írán or Arfakhshad, son of Sám or Shem, son of Noah), who is invited, but declines, to be the bearer of Ahura Mazda's message to mankind, and who is commissioned to build “the four-cornered Varena” for the protection of his people from the plague of cold created by Aṅra Mainyush (Ahriman), the Evil Spirit. In the Sháhnáma he appears as a great king, who reigns for 700 years, not only over men, but over demons, birds, and fairies; invents weapons of war and the textile art; teaches men the use of animals; institutes the priestly, military, agricultural, and artisan classes; compels the demons to practise architecture; introduces the use of precious stones and metals, perfumes, and medicines; builds ships; causes himself to be transported (like Solomon in the Muhammadan legend) on an aërial throne whithersoever he will; and establishes the great national festival of the Nawrúz, or New Year's Day, at the vernal equinox, when the Sun enters the sign of Aries. Thereupon his luck turns, for he becomes so inflated with pride as to claim divine honours, whereon he is overthrown and ultimately slain by the usurper Dahák.
This Dahák represents the snake Azhi Daháka (later Azhdahák, Azhdahá, “a dragon”) of the Avesta; and, with Azhidahák or Dahák. the two snakes growing from his shoulders which require a daily meal of human brains, stands for the three-headed dragon of other Aryan mythologies. By Firdawsí (in whose time the memory of the Arab Conquest was still alive, and race hatred still ran high) he is metamorphosed into an Arab, and his name is consequently given an Arab form, Ḍaḥḥák (with the hard Arabic ḍ and ḥ); he appears as a parricide, tyrant, and chosen instrument of the Devil, who beguiles him from the primitive and innocent vegetarianism supposed to have hitherto prevailed into the eating of animal food and ultimate cannibalism. His demand for fresh victims to feed his snakes ultimately, after he has reigned nearly a thousand years, drives his wretched subjects into revolt, to which they are chiefly incited by the blacksmith Káwa, whose leathern apron, by a patriotic apotheosis, becomes the standard of national liberty. The young Ferídún (Avestic Ferídún. Thraêtaôna, Indian Thrâitana), son of Ábtín, a descendant of Tahmúrath and “of the seed of the Kayán,” is brought forth from his hiding-place and hailed as king. He defeats Dahák, and chains him alive, Prometheus-like, in a cave at the summit of Mount Damáwand (or Dunbá-wand), the great conical peak of which is so clearly visible to the north-east of Tihrán, after which, amidst general rejoicings, he becomes king, and rules with great justice and splendour for five hundred years, so that of him it is said—
Farídún-i-farrukh farishta na-búd:
Zi mushk ú zi ‘anbar sarishta na-búd.
Bi-dád ú dahish yáft án níkú'í:
Tú dád ú dahish kun: Farídún tú'í!“Ferídún the fortunate was not an angel:
He was not compounded of musk and of ambergris.
By justice and bounty he attained such excellence:
Be thou just and bountiful, and thou shalt be a Ferídún!”
Yet for all this he was not exempt from bitter trouble in his own house. Having given his three sons in marriage to the Ferídún's three sons. three daughters of Sarv (or Surv, according to al-Bundárí's Arabic prose translation of the Sháhnáma, made about A.D. 1223),115a he divided between them his vast dominions, giving to Íraj, the youngest, the land of Írán (Érán-shahr). His other two sons, Salm and Túr, regarding this as the choicest portion of the heritage, were filled with envy, and eventually, by a dastardly stratagem, succeeded in compassing the death of their younger brother. His body is brought to Ferídún, who bitterly laments his death, and swears vengeance on Túr and Salm.
Some time after the murder of Íraj, his wife Máh-áfaríd bears a son, named Manúchihr, who, on reaching mature age, Manúchihr. attacks and kills his wicked uncles, and sends their heads to Ferídún. Soon after this, Ferídún abdicates in favour of Manúchihr, and shortly afterwards dies.
The three sons of Ferídún may be roughly described as the Shem, Ham, and Japhet of the Íránian legend; and from this Afrásiyáb. fratricidal strife date the wars between the sons of Túr (the Túránians or Turks), long led by the redoubtable Afrásiyáb, and those of Íraj (the Íránians) —wars which fill so great a part not only of the legendary, but of the actual history of Persia. At this point the The Sístán legend. National Epic begins to be enriched by a series of episodes whereof the Avesta shows no trace, and which are connected with a series of heroes belonging to a noble family of Sístán and Zábulistán, viz., Naríman, Sám, Zál, Rustam, and Suhráb. Of these Rustam Rustam. is by far the most important. For centuries he plays the part of a deus ex machinâ in extricating the Persian Kayání monarchs—especially Kay Qubád, Kay Ká'ús, and Kay Khusraw—from their difficulties and dangers, while, with his good horse Rakhsh, he plays the chief part in a series of heroic adventures in combats with men and demons. His death is only compassed at last by a treache- Isfandiyár. rous stratagem of his brother, after he has slain Isfandiyár (Isfandiyádh, Spandedát), the son of Gushtásp (Víshtáspa), the champion of Zoroaster. Spiege. supposes116a that Rustam's name was deliberately suppressed in the Avesta as an adversary of “the good Religion,” but Nöldeke117a thinks this improbable, and inclines rather to the view that the Sístán legend to which he and his ancestors belong was almost or quite unknown to the authors of the Avesta. At any rate Rustam's name has only been found in one or two places in late Pahlawí writings, though his doughty deeds were known to the Armenian Moses of Khorene in the seventh or eighth century, and the stall of his horse Rakhsh was shown about the same period to the Arab invaders of Sístán.117b Moreover, the Persian general who was defeated and slain by the Arabs in the fatal battle of Qádisíyya (A.D. 635) was a namesake of the great legendary hero.
The death of Rustam brings us nearly to the end of the
Kayání, or purely mythical period of the Epic. Isfandiyár,
End of the purely
mythical part of
the Epic.
the son of Gushtásp, leaves a son named Bahman
(Vôhumanô), who succeeds his grandfather. In
the later construction of the Epic this Bahman
was identified with Artaxerxes (Artakhshatr, Ardashír) Longi-
Bahman Artaxerxes Longimanus.
manus (
We have seen that the Parthians Ashkániyán, Mulúku'ṭ-Ṭawá'if ) occupy hardly any place in the Epic, and it might The Alexanderlegend. therefore be supposed that we should find therein an almost direct transition from the second Dárá (son of him mentioned above) to the Sásánians. At this point, however, an entirely foreign element is introduced, namely, the Alexander-romance, which, reposing ultimately on the lost Greek text of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, is preserved in Syriac, Egyptian, Abyssinian118a and Arabic, as well as Modern Persian, versions. The fate of Alexander in Alexander in the Zoroastrian tradition. Persian legend is curious. In the genuine Zoroastrian tradition (as, for example, in the Pahlawí Arda Víráf Námak),118b he appears as “the accursed Alexander the Roman,” who, urged on by the evil spirit, brought havoc, destruction, and slaughter into Persia, burned Persepolis and the Zoroastrian Scriptures (which, written with Alexander in the Sháhnáma. gold ink on 12,000118c prepared ox-skins, were stored up in the Archives at Stákhar Pápakán), and finally “self-destroyed fled to hell.” Later, the picturesque contents of the romance of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, and a desire to salve the national vanity comparable to that which tempted the authors of former English histories to treat William the Conqueror as an English king, led the Persians, including Firdawsí, to incorporate Alexander in the roll of their own monarchs, a feat which they achieved as follows. The first Dárá demanded in marriage the daughter of Philip of Macedon, but afterwards, being displeased with her, divorced her and sent her back to her father. On her return she gave birth to Alexander, who was in reality her son by Dárá, though Philip, anxious to conceal the slight put upon his daughter by the Persian King, gave out that the boy was his own son by one of his wives. Hence Alexander, in wresting Persia from his younger half-brother, the second Dárá, did but seize that to which, as elder son of the late King, he was entitled, and is thus made to close the glorious period of the ancient Píshdádí and Kayání kings. In the third Alexander in the Sikandar-náma. version, represented by the Sikandar-náma of Nidhámí (twelfth century), he is identified with a mysterious personage called Dhu'l-Qarnayn (“The two-horned”) mentioned in the Qur'án as a contemporary of Moses (with whom some suppose him to be identical), and, instructed by his wise and God-fearing tutor Aristotle (Aristú, Aristátalís), represents the ideal monotheistic king, bent on the destruction of the false creed of the heathen Persians. It is important to bear in mind these different conceptions of Alexander, and also the fact that he does not really survive in the genuine national remembrance, but has been introduced, together with Darius, from a foreign source, while the national memory goes no further back than the Sásánians.
Concerning the Parthian period we must notice, besides its very scanty and unsympathetic treatment, the curious fact that Parthian period. whereas five centuries and a half actually elapsed between the death of Alexander and the establishment of the Sásánian dynasty, this period is habitually reduced by the Persian and Arab historians to 266 years. The falsity, as well as the reason, of this arbitrary and misleading chronology is understood and explained by the learned Mas'údí in his Kitábu'-t-tanbíh wa'l-ishráf119a as follows. When Ardashír Bábakán established the Sásánian dynasty in A.D. 226—that is, about 550 years after Alexander—a prophecy was generally current in Persia that a thousand years after Zoroaster the faith founded by him and the Persian Empire would fall together. Now Zoroaster is placed 280 or 300 years before Alexander: hence, of the thousand years about 850 has already elapsed. Ardashír, fearing, apparently, that the prophecy might work its own fulfilment (for obviously he cannot have had any great belief in it if he hoped to cheat it of its effect by such means), and wishing to give his dynasty a longer respite, deliberately excised some three centuries from this period, thus making it appear that only 566 years out of the thousand had elapsed, and that his house might therefore hope to continue some 434 years; which, in fact, it did, for Yazdigird III, the last Sásánian king, was murdered in A.D. 651-2. This extraordinary falsification of history is described by Mas'údí as an “ecclesiastical and political secret” of the Persians, and the fact that it was possible shows how entirely the archives and the art of reading and writing were in the hands of the ministers of Church and State.
With the Sásánian period, as already remarked, the National Legend, though still freely adorned with romantic and fictitious incidents, enters on the domain of real history, and becomes steadily more historical as it proceeds. As the Sásánian period will be discussed in the next chapter, it is unnecessary to enlarge further upon it in this place, and we shall accordingly pass at once to the history and antiquity of the Epic.
The references in the Avesta to Sháhnáma heroes are sufficient to show that even at the time when the former work History and antiquity of the National Legend was composed the National Legend already existed in its essential outlines. This, however, is by no means the only proof of its antiquity, for Nöldeke has shown the occurrence of epic features in the accounts of the ancient Persian kings given by Greek writers, notably Ctesias, who was court-physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, and professedly compiled his work from Persian written sources. These epic features are, moreover, recurrent, and are transferred from one king and even dynasty to another; so that, for example, a strong resemblance exists between the circumstances surrounding the youth and early adventures of Cyrus the first Achæmenian in his struggle against the Medes, and Ardashír the first Sásánian in his war with the Parthians; while the appearance of the Eagle, Símurgh or Humá (in each case a mighty and royal bird) as the protector of Achæmenes, Zál and Ardashír; the similar rôle played by two members of the noble Qáren family in the rescue of Núdhar the Kayánian and Pírúz the Sásánian from Túránian foes; and the parallels offered by the Darius-Zopyrus and the Pírúz-Akhshunwár episodes, are equally remarkable.
The story of Zariadres, brother of Hystaspes, and the Princess Odatis is preserved to us by Athenaeus from the The Yátkár-iZarírán. history of Alexander composed by his chamberlain Charas of Mitylene, and the same episode forms the subject of the oldest Pahlawí romance, the Yátkár-i-Zarírán (see p. 108 supra), written about A.D. 500. This important little book, the oldest truly epic fragment in Persian speech, though treating only of one episode of the National Legend, assumes throughout a certain acquaintance with the whole epic cycle.
“We have here,” says Nöldeke, “unless we are wholly deceived, the phenomenon which shows itself in connection with the epic history of divers other peoples: the substance is generally known; individual portions therefrom are artistically elaborated; and out of such materials, by adaptations, omissions, and remodellings, a more or less coherent and comprehensive epic may arise. The essential features of the Legend of Zarír reappear in the short Arabic version of Ṭabarí, which entirely agrees, in part almost word for word, with the corresponding portion of the Sháhnáma; whence it must have been taken from the ancient general tradition which forms the basis of the great Epic.”
The “remodellings” to which Nöldeke alludes consist chiefly, as he points out, of modifications designed to facilitate the artistic combination and fusion of the different episodes in one epic, and the suppression, in the case of Firdawsí's and other later versions, of such features or phrases as might be offensive to Muhammadan readers.
Of the Sásánian portion of the Epic we still possess one
Pahlawí element in the Kárnámak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Pápakán,
now accessible, both in the original and in a German translation
(see p. 108 supra). A comparison of this with the
corresponding portion of the Sháhnáma (such as will be made
for a portion of this episode in the next chapter) cannot fail to
raise greatly our opinion of Firdawsí's fidelity to the sources
on which he drew, for the correspondence is continuous and
remarkable. This Kárnámak was probably composed about
A.D. 600, and the reference of Agathias (A.D. 580) to written
Persian chronicles of the Kings (
According to the introduction prefixed to Firdawsí's Sháhnáma (A.D. 1425-6) by order of Baysunghur, the grand- Final Pahlawí recension of the Book of Kings. son of Tímúr (Tamerlane), a complete and corrected Pahlawí text of the whole Epic from Gayúmarth to Khusraw Parwíz (i.e., to A.D. 627) was compiled by the dihqán Dánishwar in the reign of the last Sásánian king Yazdigird III; and Nöldeke remarks on this that, whatever may be the worth of this account in itself, the agreement of the versions given by the Arab historians with the Sháhnáma down to the death of Khusraw Parwíz, and their wide divergence after that event, afford evidence of its truth in this particular point; while the strongly patriotic and legitimist tone which pervades it sufficiently prove that it was compiled under royal supervision and patronage.
This Pahlawí Khudháy-náma(k), constantly alluded to by Arab writers such as Ḥamza, the author of the Fihrist, &c., Arabic and Persian versions of the Pahlawí Book of Kings. was translated into Arabic by Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' in the middle of the eighth century of our era, and so became generally known in the world of Arabic literature. This version, most unfortunately, is lost, as is also the Persian prose version made in A.D. 957-8 by order of Abú Manṣúr al-Ma'marí for Abú Manṣúr b. 'Abdu'r-Razzáq, at that time governor of Ṭús, by four Zoroastrians of Herát, Sístán, Shápúr, and Ṭús.123a The metrical Persian Sháhnáma, which was constructed chiefly from this, was begun for the Sámánid Prince Nuḥ b. Manṣúr (A.D. 976-997) by Daqíqí, who, however, had only completed some thousand couplets, dealing with the reign of Gushtásp and the advent of Zoroaster, when he was assassinated by a Turkish slave. It was reserved for Firdawsí to complete, a few years later, the task he had begun, and to display in some sixty thousand couplets (which include Daqíqí's work) the National Legend in its final and perfect form. To Daqíqí and Fir-dawsí we shall recur when speaking of Modern Persian literature, and nothing more need therefore be said about them in this chapter, save that the Sháhnáma represents the National Legend in its final epic form.
OF THE SÁSÁNIAN TO THE FALL OF THE
UMAYYAD DYNASTY
It would be neither suitable nor possible to attempt in this chapter to give a detailed history of the Sásánians, though on the other hand a period of such great interest and importance could not fittingly be omitted altogether. For this is a period which marks the transition from the old to the new, intimately connected with both, embodying still much of the ancient glory of the Achæmenians, yet standing in a far clearer historical light—a light to which, besides contemporary inscriptions, coins, and seals, and the native records preserved by Arabic and Persian historians and romance-writers, Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, and Jewish records each add their contribution. It was these kings, called by the Greeks Chosroes and by the Arabs Kisrá (pl. Akásira), who were the restorers of the ancient Persian Empire and the “Good Religion” of Zoroaster, and of whom Mas'údí (writing in A.D. 956) thus speaks in the preface to his Kitábu't-tanbíh wa'l-ishráf (p. 6): “And we have restricted ourselves in this our book to the mention of these empires because of the mighty dominion of the kings of Persia, the antiquity of their rule, the continuity of their sovereignty, the excellence of their administration, their well-ordered policy, the prosperity of their domains, their care for their subjects, and the subjugation to their allegiance of many of the kings of the world who brought unto them taxes and tribute. And they held sway, withal, over the fourth Clime, which is the Clime of Babel, the middle part of the earth, and the noblest of the [seven] Climes.” In the same spirit sings a poet cited in the same work (p. 37), who, though he wrote in Arabic, boasted descent from the Royal House of Persia:—
“And we portioned out our empire in our time
As you portion out the meat upon a plate.
Greece and Syria we gave to knightly Salm,
To the lands wherein the sunset lingers late.
And to Túj the Turkish marches were assigned,
Where our cousin still doth rule in royal state.
And to Írán we subdued the land of Párs,
Whence we still inherit blessings rare and great.”
We have seen that the Sásánian kings called themselves
“gods” or “divine beings” (Pahlawí bagh, Chaldæan alâhâ,
The Sásánian
kings regarded
as divine beings.
Greek
“Now Kisrá [Chosroes, here Khusraw Anúshírwán] used to sit in his audience-hall where was his crown, like unto a mighty cask, The splendour which they maintained. according to what they say, set with rubies, emeralds, and pearls, with gold and silver, suspended by a chain of gold from the top of an arch in this his audience-hall; and his neck could not support the crown, but he was veiled by draperies till he had taken his seat in this his audience-hall, and had introduced his head within his crown, and had settled himself in his place, whereupon the draperies were withdrawn. And no one who had not previously seen him looked upon him without kneeling in reverence before him.”
In no country, probably, has the doctrine of the Divine Right of kings been more generally and more strongly held The doctrine of the “Divine Right” in Persia. than it was in Persia in Sásánian times. That any one not belonging to the Royal House should dare to assume the royal title was, as Nöldeke has pointed out129a in reference to the rebellious noble Bahrám Chúbín and the usurper Shahrbaráz, regarded as an almost incredible act of wickedness and presumption. The prevailing sentiment of the people is, no doubt, truly reflected in the following anecdote told by Dínawarí (p. 98) of the flight of Bahrám Chúbín after his defeat by Khusraw Parwíz and his Byzantine allies—
“And Bahrám fled headlong, and on his way he passed by a hamlet, where he halted, and he and Mardán-Sína and Yazdán- Anecdote of Bahrám Chúbín. Gushnasp alighted at the dwelling of an old woman. Then they produced some food which they had with them, and supped, and gave what was left over to the old woman. Then they produced wine; and Bahrám said to the old woman, ‘Hast thou nothing wherewith we can drink?’ ‘I have a little gourd,’ replied she; and she brought it to them, and they cut off the top and began to drink from it. Then they produced dessert; and they said to the old woman, ‘Hast thou nothing wherein we can put the dessert?’ So she brought them a winnowing-shovel, into which they poured the dessert. So Bahrám ordered that wine should be given to the old woman, and then he said to her, ‘What news hast thou, old lady?’ ‘The news with us,’ answered she, ‘is that Kisrá hath advanced with an army of Greeks, and fought Bahrám, and overcome him, and recovered from him his kingdom.’ ‘And what say'st thou,’ asked Bahrám, ‘concerning Bahrám?’ ‘A silly fool,’ replied she, ‘who claims the kingdom, not being a member of the Royal House.’ Said Bahrám, ‘Therefore it is that he drinks out of gourds and eats his dessert out of winnowing-fans.’ And this became a saying amongst the Persians, which they are wont to cite as a proverb.”
For myself, I believe that Gobineau is right in asserting that this doctrine of the Divine Right of the House of Sásán has Influence of this doctrine in later times. had an immense influence on all subsequent Persian history, more especially on the tenacity with which the Persians have clung to the doctrine of the Shí'a or sect of 'Alí. To them the idea of electing a Caliph, or spiritual successor to the Prophet, natural enough to the democratic Arabs, could not appear otherwise than revolting and unnatural, and in the case of 'Umar, the second orthodox Caliph, there was also an element of personal hatred against the destroyer of the Persian Empire, which, though disguised under a religious garb, is nevertheless unmistakable. Ḥusayn, on the other hand, the younger son of the Prophet's daughter Fáṭima, and of his cousin 'Alí, was believed by them Yazdigird's daughter “Bíbí Shahr-bánú.” to have married Shahr-bánú, the daughter of Yazdigird III, the last Sásánian king; and hence the remaining Imáms of both great Shí'ite factions (the “Sect of the Twelve” now prevalent in Persia, and the “Sect of the Seven,” or Isma'ílís) represent not only the Prophetic but the Kingly right and virtue, being at the same time descended from the Prophet Muḥammad and from the House of Sásán. Hence the political doctrine to which Gobineau (Rel. et philos. dans l'Asie Centrale, p. 275) alludes in the following passage:—
“C'est un point de doctrine politique incontesté en Perse que les Alides seuls ont le droit à porter légitimement la couronne, et cela Basis of Shí'ite politics. en leur double qualité d'héritiers des Sassanides, par leur mère, Bibi-Sheher-banou, fille du dernier roi Yezdedjerd, et d'Imams, chefs de la religion vraie. Tous les princes non Alides sont des souverains de fait; aux yeux des gens sévères, ce sont même des tyrans; dans aucun cas, personne ne les considère comme détenteurs de l'empire à titre régulier. Je ne m'étendrai pas ici sur cette opinion absolue, tranchante, qui n'a jamais admis la prescription; j'en ai assez longuement parlé dans un autre ouvrage. Ce fut sur cette base que les politiques bâbys élevèrent tout leur édifice.”
Now whether this marriage really took place or not, it has been accepted by the Shí'ites as a historical fact for many centuries. Amongst early authors who allude to it we may cite al-Ya'qúbí (ed. Houtsma, vol. ii, p. 293), an Arabic historian who flourished in the latter part of the ninth century of our era, and who concludes his account of Ḥusayn's tragic death as follows:—
“Amongst the sons of al-Ḥusayn were 'Alí Akbar, who was killed in aṭ-Ṭaff,131a and left no offspring, whose mother was Laylá, the daughter of Abú Murra b. 'Urwa b. Mas'úd ath-Thaqafí; and 'Alí Aṣghar, whose mother was Ḥarár,131b the daughter of Yazdigird, whom al-Ḥusayn used to call Ghazála (‘the Gazelle’).”
This Shahr-bánú, “the Mother of Nine Imáms” (the fourth to the twelfth) still holds a place in the hearts of her country- Shahr-bánú in the Persian Passion-plays. men; she gives her name to a mountain three or four miles south of Tihrán (the Kúh-i-Bíbí Shahr-bánú) which no male footstep may profane, and which is visited by women who desire an intercessor with God for the fulfilment of their needs; and she is one of the heroines of those heart-moving passion-plays (ta'ziyas) which are yearly enacted in every Persian town and colony to crowds of weeping spectators. And this is how she is made to speak in the drama entitled “the Passing of Shahrbánú” (Ta'ziya-i-ghá'ib shudan-i-Shahr-bánú, Tihrán, A.H. 1314, p. 19):—
Zi nasl-i-Yazdijird-i-Shahriyáram,
Zi Núshirwán buwad aṣl-i-nizáram.
Dar án waqtí ki bakhtam kámrán búd
Badán shahr-i-Ray-am andar makán búd.
Shabí raftam bi-súyi qaṣr-i-bábam,
Biyámad Ḥaẓrat-i-Zahrá bi-khwábam,
Bu-guft, ‘Ay Shahr-bánú, bá sad á'ín
Turá man bar Ḥusayn áram bi-kábín.’Bi-guftam, ‘Man nishasta dar Madá'in,
Ḥusayn andar Madína hast sákin:
‘Muḥál-ast ín sukhun!’ Farmúd Zahrá,
‘Ḥasan áyad bi-sardárí dar ínjá;
‘Tú mí-gardí asír, ay bí-qarína;
‘Barand-at az Madá'in dar Madína;
‘Bi-farzandam Ḥusayn paywand sází,
‘Mará az nasl-i-khud khursand sází.
‘Zi nasl-at nuh Imám áyad bi-dawrán
‘Ki na-b'wad mislashán dar dár-i-dawrán.’“Born of the race of Yazdigird the King
From Núshirwán my origin I trace.
What time kind Fortune naught but joy did bring
In Ray's proud city was my home and place.
There in my father's palace once at night
In sleep to me came Fáṭima ‘the Bright’;
‘O Shahr-bánú’—thus the vision cried—
‘I give thee to Ḥusayn to be his bride!’
Said I, ‘Behold Madá'in is my home,
And how shall I to far Madína roam?132a
Impossible!’ But Fáṭima cried, ‘Nay,
Ḥasan shall hither come in war's array,
And bear thee hence, a prisoner of war,
From this Madá'in to Madína far,
Where, joined in wedlock with Ḥusayn, my boy,
Thou shalt bear children who will be my joy.
For nine Imáms to thee shall owe their birth,
The like of whom hath not been seen on earth!’”
A few lines further on occurs a passage so characteristic of the Persian hatred of 'Umar and love of 'Alí that I cannot forbear quoting it in this connection. Shahr-bánú is brought to Madína in a litter, as befits a king's daughter, by the chivalrous Ḥasan, but then her troubles begin:—
“Walí chún shud Madína manzil-i-má
Gham-i-'álam fuzún shud bar dil-i-má.
Yakí guftá ki, ‘Ín dukhtar kaníz-ast’:
Yakí guftá, ‘Bi-shahr-i-khud ‘azíz-ast.’
Bi-masjid mard u zan dar bám maḥẓar,
Mará nazd-i-'Umar burdand, mádar!
Kalámí guft k'azú dar khurúsh-am:
Bu-guft, ‘Ín bi-kasán-rá mí-furúsham!’
'Alí jiddat chu bar ámad khurúshán
Bu-guftá, ‘Lab bi-band, ay dún-i-nádán:
Na-sháyad burdan, ay mal'ún-i-ghaddár
Buzurgán-rá sar-i-'uryán bi-bázár!’
Pas az án khwárí, ay núr-i-dú 'ayn-am,
Bi-bakhshídand bar bábat Ḥusayn-am.
Ḥusayn karda waṣiyyat bar man-i-zár
Na-mánam dar miyán-i-Ál-i-Aṭ-hár.
Agar mánam, asír u khwár gardam,
Birahna-sar bi-har bázár gardam.
Tú, chún hastí Imám u Shahriyáram,
Bi-dast-i-tust, mádar, ikhtiyáram.
Agar gú'í, rawam, dard-at bi-jánam;
Ṣaláḥ-am gar na-mí-dání, bi-mánam!’“But when at last I reached Madína's town
A whole world's sorrow seemed to weigh me down.
One cried, ‘This girl a serving-maid shall be!”
Another, ‘Nay, she was of high degree!’
The women thronged the roofs; the mosque, the men:
O Mother! Me they bore to 'Umar then,
Who spoke a word that caused me pain untold:
‘These hapless wretches shall as slaves be sold!’
But 'Alí then appeared upon the scene,
And cried, ‘Be silent, fool and coward mean!
These gentle women, traitor, void of grace,
Shall not stand naked in the market-place!’
Light of mine eyes! After such treatment dire,
They gave me to Ḥusayn, thy noble sire,Who did advise poor me, to spare me pain,
That after him I should not here remain.
Should I remain, enslaved, in fashion base,
I should be driven through each market-place.
Now, Mother, dear, Imám and Sov'reign mine,
Into thy hands my option I resign.
Bid my fare forth, my bosom filled with pain,
Or bid me tarry, and I will remain!’”
A darker picture of the Sásánians is presented by Christian, notably by Syrian, writers, a source of information “not Views of Christian subjects and contemporaries of the Sásánians. sufficiently used,” as Nöldeke remarks, “by most Orientalists.” Two works of this class in particular may be recommended to those students of Persian history who, like the writer, are unfortunately unable to consult this literature in the original. The first is the Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite,134a composed in A.D. 507, describing the Persian invasion of Asia Minor by Kawád, and especially the sufferings of Edessa and Âmid (now 'Urfa and Diyár Bekr) in the beginning of the sixth century of our era. The other is the Acts of the Persian The Persian martyrs. Martyrs,134b excerpted from various Syriac manuscripts and translated into German with the most scholarly notes, by George Hoffmann. In these books, both on political and religious grounds, it is natural that the Persians should be depicted in rather lurid colours, but in the first, at any rate, it does not appear that they acted more cruelly or more falsely than their Christian antagonists, though it is natural enough that the author, writing within two or three years of the war which had desolated his home, should occasionally speak of them in such terms as these:—“Now the pleasure of this wicked people is abundantly made evident by this, that they have not shown mercy unto those who were delivered up unto them; for they have been accustomed to show their pleasure and to rejoice in evil done to the children of men.”
Religious feeling, indeed, ran high on both sides, and in the matter of toleration there was little to choose between the Instances of religious bias. Zoroastrian and the Christian priesthoods. A good instance of the extent to which judgment of character was influenced by purely theological considerations is afforded by comparing the accounts of Yazdigird “the sinner.” Yazdigird I (A.D. 399-420) given by the Arabic historians (who drew their information and their views ultimately from the Pahlawí Book of Kings, which was composed under the influence of the Magian priests) with a Syriac account of the same king's character from the pen of a contemporary Christian writer. In the former Yazdigird is called “the sinner” (Pers. Baza-gar, Arab. al-Athím), and his wickedness, frowardness, and tyranny are described as almost superhuman. In the latter he is spoken of in the following terms: “the good and merciful King Yazdigird, the Christian, the blessed amongst the kings, may he be remembered with blessing, and may his future be yet more fair than his earlier life! Every day he doeth good to the poor and the distressed.”135a So too Khusraw I (A.D. 531-578) gained the title of Núshírwán “the Just.” Núshírwán (Anúshak-rúbán, “of immortal soul”), by which he is still remembered as the very embodiment of kingly virtue and justice, by his high-handed suppression of the heresy of the communist Mazdak, which, in the eyes of the intolerant Magian priests, constituted his chief claim to “immortality”; and such service has their approval done him that Sa'di, zealous Muhammadan as he was, says:—
“Zinda'st nám-i-farrukh-i-Núshírwán bi-'adl,
Garchi basí guzasht ki Núshírwán na-mánd.”
“The blessed name of Núshírwán doth still for justice stand,
Though long hath passed since Núshírwán hath vanished from
the land.”
For the Christians, too, Núshírwán, as we learn from Dínawarí (p. 72), entertained the greatest contempt. When Núshírwán's opinion of the Christians. his son Anúsha-zádh, who had espoused the faith of his Christian mother, revolted against him, and his viceroy at Ctesiphon wrote to him for instructions, he wrote in his reply as follows: “Let not the multitude of the people affright thee, for they have no enduring might. How, indeed, shall the Christians endure, when it is prescribed in their religion that if one of them be smitten on the left cheek, he shall offer the right also?”
To return now to the scope of this chapter. Being unable to do more than glance at certain points in the history of this Scope and plan of this chapter. period, I propose to speak especially of its beginning and its end; the first, which is largely mixed with legend and fable, in order that I may have an opportunity of comparing certain episodes therein as sung by Firdawsí in the Sháhnáma with the same episodes as narrated in the Pahlawí Kár-námak-i-Artakshatr-i-Pápakán; the last, as having an immediate connection with the Arab Conquest which marks the inauguration of the modern, or Muhammadan period. Besides this, two religious movements of this epoch—those associated with the names of Manes (Mání) and Mazdak—deserve some notice, as early instances of that passion for philosophical speculation which is so remarkable a characteristic of the Persians, who have probably produced more great heresiarchs than any other nation in the world. Of these two men the first was born, according to his own statement, 136a during the reign of Ardawán (Artabanus) the last Parthian king, and was contemporary with the founder of the Sásánian dynasty; the second, as we have seen, was put to death by Núshírwán in A.D. 528 or 529, at which time the Sásánian power was at its height, though the first symptoms of its decline were not far distant. This chapter will therefore fall into four divisions—namely, (1) The Legend of Ardashír and the foundation of the Sásánian dynasty; (2) Manes and the Manichæan doctrine; (3) Núshírwán and Mazdak; (4) the last days of the House of Sásán.
The principal episodes of this Legend, as presented by the Pahlawí Kárnámak (of which I make use of Nöldeke's excellent German translation, a tirage-à-part of 21-69 pages, whereof the Introduction occupies pp. 22-34) and the Sháhnáma (Macan's Calcutta ed., vol. iii, pp. 1365-1416) are as follows.
(1) Sásán, fifth in descent from Bahman “Diráz-dast” (Longi-manus, see p. 117 supra), enters the service of Pápak (Bábak), Prince of Párs, as a herdsman. Pápak, warned in a dream of Sásán's kingly origin, raises him to high honour and confers on him the hand of his daughter. Of this union Ardashír is the offspring (K. 36-38; Sh. 1365).
(2) Pápak adopts Ardashír as his son, and as he grows up the fame of his courage, wisdom, and knightly virtues reaches Ardawán, the last Parthian King, who summons him to his court at Ray. There he is honourably entertained, until one day out hunting he gives the lie to one of Ardawán's sons who claims a remarkable shot made in reality by him. Thereupon he is disgraced, and dismissed to serve in the Royal stables (K. 38-41; Sh. 1366).
(3) A beautiful and wise maiden who enjoys Ardawán's fullest confidence takes pity upon Ardashír, provides two swift horses, and escapes with him to Párs. Ardawán pursues them, but turns back on learning that the “Royal Splendour,” personified as a fine ram, has caught up Ardashír and rides behind him on his horse (K. 41-46; Sh. 1370).
(4) Ardashír's wars with the Parthians and others; his defeat of Ardawân and his son, and his reverse at the hands of the Kurds (K. 46-49; Sh. 1374).
(5) The episode of Haftán-bókht (Haftawád) and the monstrous worm of Kirmán, including the war with Mithrak (Mihrak) (K. 49-57; Sh. 1381).
(6) How Ardawán's daughter, married to Ardashír, is by him doomed to death; how her life is saved by the chief múbad (named Abarsám by Ṭabarí); how she brings forth a son, who is named Shápúr (Sháh-puhar, “King's son”); and how the boy is recognised by his father (K. 57-63; Sh. 1392).
(7) Ardashìr, having learned from the King of India, Kayt or Kayd, that the sovereignty of Persia will be in his family or in that of his enemy Mihrak, endeavours to extirpate the latter. One of Mihrak's daughters is saved from the massacre, and brought up amongst peasants. Shápúr sees and falls in love with her, but conceals his marriage, and the birth of his son Hurmuzd in which it results, from his father Ardashír. Hurmuzd, when seven years old, is recognised by his grandfather by his boldness on the polo field (K. 64-68; Sh. 1397).
No one who has read the Kár-námak and this portion of the Sháhnáma side by side can fail to be greatly impressed by the general fidelity, even in minute details, with which the latter reproduces the former; and our opinion of Firdawsí's faithful adherence to genuine old legends is equally strengthened by a comparison of the Pahlawí legend of Zarír (Yátkár-i-Zarírán, translated into German by Geiger)138a with the corresponding part of the Sháhnáma. Now it is a mere accident that we happen to be able to check these portions by the originals, and we may fairly assume that elsewhere, where we have no such means of control, the poet is equally conscientious in his adherence, even in detail, to ancient legend. Space, however, will not allow the comparison in this place of more than one or two incidents of these two versions of the Legend of Ardashír. We will begin with the account of his birth.
“After the death of Alexander the Roman there were in Írán 240 tribal princes. Ispahán, Párs, and the neighbouring lands were in the hands of the chief of them, Ardawán. Pápak was Warden of the Marches and Prince of Párs and Governor for Ardawán. Pápak dwelt in Stakhr; he had no son who might be able preserve his name. Sásán was a herdsman of Pápak and abode ever with the flocks; but he was of the race of Dárá the son of Dárá. During the evil reign of Alexander he had fled away and gone forth with Kurdish shepherds. Pápak knew not that Sásán was of the race of Dárá the son of Dárá. Now one night Pápak dreamed that the Sun from the head of Sásán illuminated the whole world. Next night he saw Sásán riding on a richly-caparisoned white elephant, while all throughout the whole Kishwar (region, clime) surrounded him, tendered him their homage, and invoked on him praises and blessings. On the third night he saw how the (sacred) Fires Frobá, Gushasp, and Mithr waxed great in the house of Sásán and gave light to the whole world. This amazed him, and so he summoned before him the wise men and interpreters of dreams and related to them what he had dreamed on all three nights. Then said the interpreters of dreams, ‘Either the man himself concerning whom thou hast dreamed this, or one of his children, will attain to the lordship of the world: for the sun and the richly-caparisoned white elephant signify Strength, Might, and Victory, while the Fire Frobá signifies men well instructed in religion, and eminent over their peers; the Fire Gushasp, warriors and captains of hosts; and the Fire Burjín-Mihr, the peasants and husbandmen of the whole world. So the kingship will accrue to this man or to his children.’ When Pápak heard this speech, he dismissed every one, summoned Sásán before him, and asked him, ‘Of what family and stock art thou? Was any one of thy fathers or forbears a ruler or sovereign?’ Then Sásán prayed Pápak for indulgence and safety [with the words] ‘Inflict not on me hurt or harm.’ Pápak agreed to this, and thereupon Sásán revealed to him his secret, and who he was. Then Pápak was glad, and said, ‘I will promote thee;’ whereupon, at his bidding, a full royal dress was brought to him and given to Sásán [and he bade him] ‘Put it on.’ Sásán did so, and at Pápak's commend, he then strengthened himself for some days with good and proper meals. Later, he gave him his daughter in marriage, and when the time (according to the predestination of fate) was in accord, the girl forthwith conceived, and from her Artakhshír was born.”
“When on the wæl-stow Dárá his doom met
From all his House her face Fortune averted.
Him did a son survive, worthy of worship,
Wary and wise in war, Sásán ycleped,
Who, when he saw his sire thus foully smitten,
Saw, too, on Persia's arms Fortune look frowning,
Fled from his foes of Greece, swift and fleet-footed,
Stayed not to stumble on snares of ill fortune.
In distant lands of Ind death overtook him,
Where he in turn a son left to succeed him.Thus in like wise for four generations
From sire to son the name Sásán descended.
Herdsman were these and hinds, tenders of cattle,
Laden each year long with heavy burdens.When now the last in birth came unto Bábak,
And on the grazing-grounds sought the head-herdsman,
‘Hast thou,’ he questioned him, ‘need for an hireling,
Who here is fain to dwell, even in hardship?’
Him the head-herdsman hired to his service,
Holding him night and day unto long labour.
So for a while the man thus did continue,
Heart-sick and woe-worn, wearied with toiling.Sunk in deep slumber Bábak one night slept,
And his bright spirit thus in his dream saw.
On a fierce elephant Sásán was seated,
Held in his hand a sharp sword-blade of India,
While those who ringed him round in adoration
Bowed down, and on him blessings invokèd.
He by right rule and wise made the earth prosper,
And from the saddened soul banished the sorrow.When on the second night Bábak to sleep sank,
140a
Care of his anxious mind was the companion.
Thus in his dream he saw now, that the Fire-Priest
Held in his hand aloft three flaming censers,
Kharrád and Mihr-fires, Ádhar-Gushasp too,Brilliantly blazing like the bright heavens,
There before Sásán fiercely were flaring,
While in each blazing fire aloe-wood smouldered.Then from his slumber Bábak awaking
Felt in his anxious heart fearful forebodings.
Such as were wise to read dreamings and visions,
Such as were skilled in solving of riddles,
Straightway assembled at Bábak's palace,
Seers and Saga-men, skilful in learning.
Then unto these revealed Bábak his vision,
And all his dreamings frankly unfolded,
While the dream-readers, pondering deeply,
Lent all their ears while forming their answer.Answered the spokesman then, ‘King, highly favoured,
Look we now closely to the dream's showing.
He whom thou sawest thus in thy slumber
High o'er the sun shall lift his head in lordship.
Even though he should fail in the fulfilment,
Him will a son succeed earth to inherit.’
Blithely did Bábak lend ear to this answer,
Unto each gifts he gave after his measure.Then Bábak straightway hailed the head-herdsman;
Forth from the flocks he came through the thick fog-drifts,
Breasting the sleet and snow, wrapped in his blanket,
Fear in his bosom, frost on his fur-cloak.141a
When from his audience-hall Bábak had ousted
Strangers, alike both statesman and servant,
Then by his side the shepherd he seated,
Graciously greeted him, asked him of Sásán,
Asked of his lineage and of his fore-bears,
While, with foreboding filled, Sásán sat silent.Then at length spake he, ‘Sire, to thy shepherd
If thou wilt freely grant grace and forgiveness,
All that concerns my race I will discover,
If, hand in hand,141b with oath thou wilt assure meThat neither privily nor yet in public
Thou wilt attempt to wreak on me thy vengeance.’
Bábak, thus hearing, loosened his tongue in speech:
Much made he mention of the All-Giver,
Saying, ‘I swear no hurt shall befal thee,
Nay, I will hold thee honoured and noble.’Then spake the youth again freely to Bábak,
‘Know, valiant knight, that Sásán my sire is,
Who from King Ardashír's seed was descended,
(He who is called by you ‘Bahman the Long-hand’);
Of brave Isfandiyár he was the offspring,
Who of King Gushtásp's fair fame was the guardian.’142a
When Bábak heard this, tear-floods he rained
From those clear eyes which gazed on the vision.
Then kingly garments brought he from out his store,
And eke a horse equipped with lordly harness.
‘Hence to the bath,’ quoth he, ‘hie thee in all haste,
And there abide till fit raiment be brought thee.’Soon a fair palace built he for Sásán;
(Thus from the herdsman did he upraise him),
And in this palace when he had placed him
Bondsmen and servants set he before him,
Gave him all gear and garb needful for lordship,
And of all goods and gifts ample endowment,
Last, his dear daughter gave him in wedlock,
Crown of his glory she, and his heart's darling.When o'er the moon-faced maid nine moons had wanèd
To her a son was born, radiant as sun-light,
Like unto Ardashír, famed in the older time,
Graceful, and growing daily in favour.
Him too his father Ardashír named,
By him his grand-sire greatly was gladdened.”
The next episode which I shall give is the flight of Ardashír from Ardawán's court at Ray to Párs, accompanied by the beautiful and wise maiden (called Gulnár by Firdawsí) who had hitherto acted as Ardawán's counsellor and adviser, but who is moved by love for Ardashír to cast in her lot with him.
“Thereupon Ardawán equipped an army of 4,000 men and took the road towards Párs after Artakhshír. When it was mid-day he came to a place by which the road to Párs passed, and asked, ‘At what time did those two riders whose faces were set in this direction pass by here?’ Then said the people, ‘Early in the morning, when the sun rose, they passed by swiftly as the wind Artai, and a very large ram ran after them, than which a finer could not be found. We know that already ere now he will have put behind him a distance of many parasangs, and that it will be impossible for you to catch him.’ So Ardawán tarried not there, but hastened on. When he came to another place, he asked the people, ‘When did those two riders pass by?’ They answered, ‘To-day at noon did they go by like the wind Artai, and a ram ran after them.’ Then Ardawán was astonished and said, ‘Consider: the two riders we know, but what can that ram be?’ Then he asked the Dastúr, who replied, ‘That is the Kingly Splendour (Khurra-i-Khud'á'íh); it hath not yet overtaken him, but we must make haste; it is possible that we may catch them before it overtakes them.’ Then Ardawán hastened on with his horsemen. On the second day they had put behind them seventy parasangs: then a caravan met them. Ardawán asked the people, ‘In what place did you meet those two riders?’ They replied, ‘Between you and them is still a distance of twenty parasangs. We noticed that beside one of those riders a very large and mighty ram sat on the horse.’ Ardawán asked the Dastúr, ‘What signifies this ram which is beside him on the horse?’ He answered, ‘May'st thou live for ever! The Royal Splendour (Khurrak-i-Kayán = Firdawsí's farr-i-kayání, and the Kawaêm Hwarenô of the Avesta) hath overtaken Ardashír; in no wise can we now take them captive. Therefore weary not yourself and your horsemen more, nor further tire the horses, lest they succumb. Seek in some other way to prevail against Artakhshír.’ When Ardawán heard this, he turned back and betook himself again to his home.”
“Then did the King perceive plain that the maiden
With Ardashír had fled, his favours scorning.
Thereat his heart was stirred into dire anger,
And, on his chestnut horse hastily mounting,
Called he his horsemen bold out on the war-trail,
And on the southward road forth like a fire flamed.On the road came he to a fair township,
Wherein were many men and countless cattle.
Of them demanded he whether at day-break
Any had heard the beat of horses' hoof-strokes,
Or had beheld a pair riding right hotly,
One on a snow-white steed, one on a black barb.
Answered one, ‘Yea, hard by on the road here,
Forth to the plain fared two with their horses,
And at the horses' heels galloped a wild sheep,
Which, like the horses, hurled dust-clouds behind it.’Then quoth King Ardawán to his adviser,
‘What was this mountain-sheep which ran behind them?’
Answered the other, ‘That Royal Splendour
Which, by his lucky star, leads him to lordship.
If now this sheep should o'ertake him in running
Naught there is left us saving long labour.’There then King Ardawán hastily halted,
Rested, refreshed him, then hastened onward.
After Prince Ardashír hotly they hurried,
At their head Ardawán with his adviser.
When of the day had passed half, and the world-light
Up to the midmost point heaven had measured,
Saw he again a fair hamlet and fragrant,
Where, too, the village-folk hastened to meet him.
Thus quote the King once more unto their head-man,
‘Tell me, these riders, how passed they your hamlet?’
Thus quoth the head-man: ‘Lord of fair fortune,
Born 'neath a lucky star, cunning in counsel!
What time the sun in high heaven was paling,
And night was spreading her purple vestment,Hard by our hamlet two riders hastened,
Dry were their lips with thirst, their raiment dust-stained,
And behind one on the saddle a sheep sat:
In palace hunting-scenes ne'er was its like met.’Then to King Ardawán spake his adviser:
‘Turn we now back again whither we came from,
Since now the matter changeth its aspect,
In that King Ardashír's luck rides behind him.
So with hands empty will the quest leave us.
Unto thy son now send thou a letter,
Unto him, point by point, make clear the matter,
That he, perchance, may gain trace of our quarry,
Ere of the mountain-sheep's milk he partaketh.’When Ardawán had heard thus from the spokesman
He for a surety knew his fortune faded.
So in the hamlet straight he alighted,
And rendered praises to the All-Giver.
But when the night was spent, at early morning,
Bade he his armed host turn themselves homewards.
So, with cheeks sallow like the scorched reed-bed,
Did he to Ray return in the dark twilight.”
The Legend of Haftán-bókht (Haftawád in the Sháh-náma ) and the Worm of Kirmán is too interesting to be entirely omitted, though lack of space compels me to give only that portion of it which relates to the actual destruction of this monster. The connection of this Worm (Kirm) with the city of Kirmán is, of course, a piece of popular etymology, but it serves to show that those who persist in writing the name of this town as Karmán adopt a pronunciation which has certainly not been used in Persia for nine hundred years, whatever may have been the case in more ancient times. A similar word-play occurs in the Bústán of Sa'dí (ed. Graf, p. 87, l. 535). On the name Haftán-bókht, “the Seven have delivered,” Nöldeke has a very interesting note (Kár-námak, p. 49, n. 4). He points out that many names, notably of Christians, were compounded with the word bókht, “hath delivered,” e.g., Mârâ-bókht, “the Lord hath delivered,” Yishú'-bókht, or Bókht-yishú', “Jesus hath delivered,” while amongst Zoroastrians we find Si-bókht, “the Three (i.e., good thoughts, good words, and good deeds) have delivered,” and Chahár-bókht , “the Four have delivered.” “The Seven” referred to in the name of Ardashír's opponent are, he adds, the seven planets, which belong to the Creation of Ahriman the Evil Spirit. This name is therefore peculiarly appropriate for one whose reliance is in the powers of hell and the magic of the demons. Firdawsí was compelled by the exigencies of his metre to alter the name into Haftawáa (explained in the Sháhnáma glossaries as meaning “Having seven sons”),146a a form obtainable from the Pahlawí by excision of the three middle characters of the word, since the last three characters can equally well be read -ókht or -wát.
146b“Then he sent forth people to wage war with the Worm, summoned Burjak and Burjátur before him, and took counsel with them. Thereafter they took many gold and silver coins and garments; he himself [Artakhshír] put on a dress of Khurásán, came with Burjak and Burjátur to the foot of Castle Gulár, and said: ‘I crave of my august masters the boon of being admitted to the service of the Court.’ The idolaters admitted Artakhshír with the two men, and installed them in the house of the Worm. Then for three days Artakhshír showed himself eager in service and devoted to the Worm. The gold and silver coins and the garments he presented to the servants. Then all who were in the Castle, marvelled and were loud in his praises. Then said Artakhshír, ‘It would give me pleasure to feed the Worm for three days with my own hand.’ To this the servants and attendants consented. Then Artakhshír dismissed every one, and commanded an army of four hundred valiant and devoted men to conceal themselves opposite that place in a cleft of the mountain. Also he commanded, ‘When on the day of Ásmán146c ye see smoke from the fortress of the Worm, then put forth your valour and courage and come to the foot of the Castle.’ On that day he himself held the molten copper, while Burjak and Burjátur offered praise and glory to God. When now it was the time for its meal the Worm roared, as it did each day. Artakhshír had previously made the attendants and watchers of the Worm drunk and senseless at a meal. Then he went himself with his attendants to the Worm, bringing to it the blood of oxen and sheep, such as it received daily. But as soon as the Worm opened its mouth to drink the blood, Artakhshír poured the molten copper into its throat, and when this entered its body it burst asunder into two pieces. Thereupon such a roaring arose from it that all the people from the Castle rushed in thither, and confusion arose amongst them. Artakhshír laid his hand on his shield and sword, and made a great slaughter and massacre in the Castle. Then he commanded, ‘Kindle a fire such that the smoke may be manifest to those knights.’ This the servants did, and when the knights who were in the mountains saw the smoke from the Castle, they hastened to the foot of the Castle to help Artakhshír, and forced the entrance with the cry, ‘Victorious be Artakhshír, King of kings, the son of Pápak!’”
“Thence he returnèd war with the Worm to wage,
He with his warriors bold, bent on its slaughter.
World-tried and war-wise came he with armed hosts
Numbering two thousand over ten thousand.
When thus his scattered hosts he had assembled
'Twixt the two mountains boldly he brought them.Then spake King Ardashír unto his captain,
147a
One who was skilled in war and wise in counsel,
Shahr-gír named, ‘Taker of cities’:
‘Watchful and wakeful thou shalt abide here,
Keeping thy scouts alert day-time and night-time,
Ringing thy camp around with ready horsemen;
Sentries about thee, warders around thee,
By night and day shall keep watch o'er thine army.
Such cunning wile of war now will I venture,
As did Isfandiyár, my noble forbear.If then thy sentry by day a smoke-cloud
Sees, or at night a fire like the sun flaming,
Know then at last the Worm's witcheries ended,
Know that its star is set, its strength departed.’Out of his captains then seven men chose he,
Brave men and valiant all, lions in warfare;
E'en from the winds of heav'n kept he his counsel.
Then from his coffers fair gems he gathered,
Gold coins and rare brocades and rich possessions,
Holding things priceless cheap in his prudence.
With lead and copper then two chests he crammed full,
And, midst his baggage bound one brazen cauldron,
Being well skilled in crafts and devices.When in this wise his wares had been chosen
From the horse-master ten asses claimed he,
And like an ass-herd in coarse apparel clad,
But with his bales filled full with gold and silver
Fared he with anxious heart forth on the forward way,
And from the camp set his face to the fortress.
Also those two brave peasants who gave him
Harbour and shelter once in disaster
Chose he as comrades on his forth-faring,
Since he had proved them loyal and wary.
Thus on the road they drew near to the fortress,
Breasted the hill-ridge, rested to breathe again.For the Worm's service sixty were set apart,
Eager and earnest each in his service,
Of whom one cried aloud as they approached,
‘What have ye hidden there in your boxes?’
Thus the King answered that stern inquiry:
‘Of every precious stuff samples I bring you:
Red gold and silver white, ornaments, raiment,
Dínárs and fine brocades, jewels and sable.
I from Khurásán come as a merchant,
Leaving luxurious ease for toilsome journeys.
Much wealth have I amassed by the Worm's blessing,
And now I grateful come unto the Worm's throne;
Since by its favour my fortunes prospered,
Right do I deem it service to render.’When the Worm's warders thus heard the tale he told
Forthwith the fortress-gates wide they flung open.
Then, when his loads were laid safe in the fortress,
Thus did the King prepare his task to finish.
Swiftly before them spread he the wares he brought,
Graciously gave to each what he most cravèd.
Then for the warders spread he a rich repast,
And like a servitor stood there to serve them,
Cast loose the locks and clasps of chest and coffer,
Brought forth a beaker brimming with date-wine.
But from the brimming bowl those who were chargèd
With the Worm's feeding turnèd their faces.
Since milk and rice for its meal must they carry
Feared they that wine might their footsteps unsteady.Then to his feet leaped Ardashír lightly,
Crying, ‘With me I bear much milk and fine rice.
Let me, I pray you, for days and nights three,
Gladden my spirit with the Worm's service.
Thus in the world fair fame shall I win me,
And from the Worm's luck borrow new blessing.
Blithely three days and nights quaff ye the wine-cup,
And on the fourth day, when the world-kindler
Rises, a booth right royal I'll build me,
Which shall o'ertop the towers of the Palace.
I am a chapman, eager for custom,
And by the Worm much fame shall I win me.’He by these cunning words his aim accomplished:
‘Feed thou the Worm,’ they cried, ‘so an it please thee.’
Thus did the ass-herd win by his wiles his aim,
While unto wine and song wended the warders.When these had drunk deep wine overcame them;
Thus to wine-worship turned they from watching.
And when their souls were deep steeped in the wine-cup
Forth fared the Prince with his hosts of the hamlet,
Brought with him copper and brazen cauldron,
Kindled a flaming fire in the white daylight.
So to the Worm at its meal-time was measured
In place of milk and rice much molten metal.
Unto its trench he brought that liquid copper;
Soft from the trench its head the Worm upraisèd.
Then they beheld its tongue, like brazen cymbal,
Thrust forth to take its food as was its custom.Into its open jaws that molten metal
Poured he, while in the trench helpless the worm writhed.
Crashed from its throat the sound of fierce explosion
Such that the trench and whole fort fell a-quaking.
Swift as the wind Ardashír and his comrades
Hastened with drawn swords, arrows, and maces.
Of the Worm's warders, wrapped in their wine-sleep,
Not one escaped alive from their fierce onslaught.
Then from the Castle-keep raised he the smoke-wreaths
Which his success should tell to his captains.
Hasting to Shahr-gír swift came the sentry,
Crying, ‘King Ardashír his task hath finished!’
Quickly the captain then came with his squadrons,
Leading his mail-clad men unto the King's aid.”
We see from the above extracts not only the fidelity with which Firdawsí followed the Pahlawí legend (known to him, Ardashír a historical figure surrounded by legends. as Nöldeke has shown, not in the original, but in Persian translations), but also to what extent legends and fables gathered round the perfectly historical figure of “Artakhshír, King of kings of Persia and non-Persia, son of Pápak the King,” known to us not only from historical works, but from coins and inscriptions 150a dating from his own time. With him, indeed, the native tradition may be said to pass from mythology to history (for the Alexander-legend, as we have already seen, is an importation from without), a point well put by the historian Ibn Wáḍiḥ al-Ya'qúbí (ed. Houtsma, vol. i, pp. 178-179), who flourished towards the end of the ninth century of our era, in the following words:—
“Persia claims many supernatural attributes for its kings which cannot be accepted as credible, such as that one had a number of al-Ya'qúbí on Persian legend and Persian history. mouths and eyes, and another a face of copper,150b and that on the shoulders of another grew two snakes which ate human brains,150c the long duration of their lives, their keeping death from mankind, and the like of this; things which reason rejects, and which must be referred to the category of idle tales and frivolous fables, devoid of actuality. But such of the Persians as possess sense and knowledge, or nobility and distinguished extraction, alike princes and squires (dihqán), tradi-tionists and men of culture, neither believe nor affirm nor repeat these things, and we find them reckoning the Persian Empire only from [the time of] Ardashír Bábakán… So we have omitted them [these legends], our method being to reject what is of ill savour.”
Shápúr, the son of Ardashír (the interesting legend of whose birth and recognition, given in the Kár-námak, the Sháh-náma, Shápúr I. and most of the Arabian historians, I am compelled to omit for lack of space) is notable in Western history for his successful campaigns against the “Romans” and his capture of the Emperor Valerian, achievements com- Shápúr's inscriptions and monuments. memorated in the sculptures of Naqsh-i-Rustam and Shápúr.151a The Greek translation attached to the short bi-lingual Pahlawí inscription of this king at Naqsh-i-Rajab (which formed, as we have seen, the starting-point of the decipherment of both the Sásánian and the Achæmenian inscriptions) was probably cut by some Greek The Ḥájí-ábád inscription. prisoner. The longer Ḥájí-ábád inscription still presents some difficulties, in spite of the labours of Thomas (1868), West (1869), Haug (1870), and other scholars, and the excellent reproductions of it (casts, copies, and photographs) available. Thomas did excellent service in publishing all the available Pahlawí inscriptions, but he was more successful in decipherment than in interpretation, where his results were of the most amazing kind, for he explained several of these edicts as professions of faith on the part of the Sásánian kings in the God of the Jews and Christians, and in consequence the divergence between the translations offered by him and the other scholars mentioned is so great that Lord Curzon says in his work on Persia (vol. ii, pp. 116-117):—
“That the decipherment of the Pehlevi character has reached no scientific stage of development is manifest from the different readings that have been given of the Hájíábád lines; and sooner than pin my faith either to the philo-Christian theory of Mr. Thomas, or to the bowshot theory of Dr. M. Haug, although I believe the latter has secured the verdict of most scholars, I prefer the security of unshamed ignorance.”
No one, however, who is at all capable of weighing the evidence can doubt the general correctness of the renderings of Haug and West, who had the advantage over Thomas of being familiar with the book Pahlawí. Out of the 115 words which constitute the Sásánian-Pahlawí version, not more than half a dozen are uncertain in meaning (though unfortunately they are of importance for the understanding of the sense), and the meaning of the first six lines and a half is perfectly certain. The difficulty of fully comprehending the whole largely arises from our absence of information as to the nature of the ceremony described, and the exact object of the shooting of the arrow by the King out of this lonely little cave. Parallels, however, are not wanting, and evidently the shooting of an arrow to determine a site was not unusual in Sásánian times. Thus Ṭabarí (Nöldeke's translation, pp. 263-264) and Dína-warí (p. 66) tell us that when the Persian general Wahriz, the conqueror and governor of Yemen, felt his death approaching, he called for his bow and arrows, bade his retainers raise him up, and shot an arrow into the air, commanding those who stood by him to mark where it fell, and to build a mausoleum for his body there; and it is very probable that the shot which forms the subject of the Ḥájí-ábád inscription was made for some similar purpose, which, were it known, would greatly facilitate the full explanation of the inscription.
152a We ought, however, to refer in this connection to a very
ingenious attempt at a new translation of this inscription
F. Müller's interpretation of
the Ḥájí-ábád
inscription.
made by Friedrich Müller in the Vienna Oriental
Journal for 1892 (vol. vi, pp. 71-75). Citing
for illustration and comparison a passage from the
Iliad (xxiii, 852) and an episode from the life
of Charles VI (M. Bermann's Maria Theresa u. Joseph II,
p. 38), he takes minô (translated by Haug as “spirit”) as a conventional
honorific epithet of Royalty at this time (similar to
“sublime” in modern Turkey and Persia and “celestial” in
China), chêtâk (= Balúchí chêdag, “a stone-arrow”) as a
pillar set up as a target (= Homer's
“This is the edict of me, the Mazda worshipper, Sháhpuhr, placed amongst the gods, King of kings of Persia and non-Persia, of celestial descent from God, son of the Mazda-worshipper Artakh-shatr, placed amongst the gods, King of kings of Persia, of celestial descent from God, grandson of Pápak, placed amongst the gods, the King.
“And when we shot this arrow, then we shot it in the presence of the Satraps, the Princes, the Great ones and the Nobles: we set the foot on this stone153a and shot out the arrow at one of these targets: where the arrow was shot, however, there was no bird at hand, where, if the targets had been rightly set up, the arrow would have been found outwardly visible [or ‘sticking in the ground.’]
“Then we ordered a target specially set apart for His Majesty to be erected in this place. The Celestial hand [i.e., the hand of His Majesty] wrote this: ‘Let no one set foot on this stone or shoot an arrow at this target.’ Then I shot the arrow destined for the Royal use at these targets.
“This hath the hand [of the King] written.”
At the end of the Parthian period, in the fourth year of King Ardawán (A.D. 215-216), as we learn from the Chronology Manes and his doctrine. of Ancient Nations (Sachau's translation, p. 121) of the learned al-Bírúní (early eleventh century), was born Manes, or Mání, the founder of the Manichæan religion—a religion which, notwithstanding the fierce persecutions to which it was exposed both in the East and the West, alike at the hands of Zoroastrians and Christians, from the very moment of its appearance until the extermination of the unfortunate Albigenses in the thirteenth century, continued for centuries to count numerous adherents, and to exercise an immense influence on religious thought both in Asia and Europe.
In the system which he founded Manes was essentially eclectic; but though he drew materials both from the ancient Babylonian and from the Buddhist religions, his main endeavour was, as Gibbon has said, “to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ,” an attempt which resulted in his being “pursued by the two religions with equal and unrelenting hatred.” His system, however, is to be regarded rather as a Christianised Zoroastrianism than as a Zoroastrianised Christianity, since he was certainly a Persian subject, and probably at least half a Persian; wrote one of his books (the Sháburqán, or Sháh-puhrakán , characterised by the Muhammadan al-Bírúní as “of all Persian books one that may be relied upon,” since “Mání in his law has forbidden telling lies, and he had no need whatever for falsifying history”) in Persian for King Shápúr, whose conversion he hoped to effect, and was finally put to a cruel death by one of Shápúr's successors.
154aThe sources of our information about the life, doctrines, and writings of Manes are both Eastern and Western, and since the former (notably the Fihrist, al-Bírúní, Ibn Wáḍiḥ al-Ya'qúbí and Shahristání)155a have been made accessible, it has Sources of our knowledge of Manes and his system. been generally recognised that the information which they yield us is of a more reliable character than that contained in the writings of St. Augustine, the Acts of Archelaus, &c., on which the older European accounts of this remarkable man are entirely based. As considerations of space render it impossible to devote more than a few pages to this topic, which will be found fully discussed in the books cited at the end of the last note, we will first give a translation of al-Ya'qúbí's account of the life and doctrines of Manes (this being the only one of the four Arabic authorities above enumerated which is not at present accessible in a European translation), and then add such few remarks as may appear necessary for the further elucidation of the outlines of the subject.
Al-Ya'qúbí says:—
“And in the days of Shápúr the son of Ardashír appeared Mání the Zindíq, the son of Ḥammád, who invited Shápúr to Dualism Al-Ya'qúbí's account of Manes. and cast censure upon his religion (i.e., Zoroastrianism). And Shápúr inclined to him. And Mání said that the Controller of the Universe was twofold, and that there were two Eternal Principles, Light and Darkness, two Creators, the Creator of Good and the Creator of Evil. The Darkness and the Light, each one of them, connotes in itself five ideas, Colour, Taste, Smell, Touch, and Sound, whereby these two do hear, see, and know; and what is good and beneficial is from the Light, while what is hurtful and calamitous is from the Darkness.
“Now these two [principles] were [at first] unmixed, then they became mixed; and the proof of this is that there was [at first] no phenomenon, then afterwards phenomena were produced. And the Darkness anticipated the Light in this admixture, for they were [at first] in mutual contact like the shadow and the sun; and the proof of this is the impossibility of the production of anything save from something else. And the Darkness anticipated the Light in admixture, because, since the admixture of the Darkness with the Light was injurious to the latter, it is impossible that the Light should have made the first beginning [therein]; for the Light is by its nature the Good. And the proof that these two, Good and Evil, were eternal, is that if one substance be posited, two opposite actions will not proceed from it. Thus, for example, Fire [which is], hot and burning, cannot refrigerate, while that which refrigerates cannot heat; and that wherefrom good results cannot produce evil, while from that which produces evil good cannot result. And the proof that these two principles are living and active is that good results from the action of this, and evil from the action of that.
“So Shápúr accepted this doctrine from him, and urged his subjects to do the same. And this thing was grievous unto them, and the wise men from amongst the people of his kingdom united in dissuading him from this, but he did not do [what they demanded]. And Mání composed books wherein he affirmed the Two Principles; and of his writings was the book which he entitled Kanzyu'l Iḥyá (‘the Treasure of Vivification,’)156a wherein he describes what of salvation wrought by the Light and of corruption wrought by the Darkness exists in the soul, and refers reprehensible actions to the Darkness; and a book which he named Sháburqán, wherein he describes the delivered soul and that which is mingled with the devils and with defects, and makes out heaven to be a flat surface, and asserts that the world is on a sloping mountain on which the high heaven revolves; and a book which he named Kitábu'l-Hudá wa't-Tadbír (‘the Book of Guidance and Administration’), and the ‘Twelve Gospels,’ whereof he named each after one of the letters of the alphabet, and described Prayer, and what must be done for the deliverance of the soul; and the Sifru'l-Asrár (‘Book of Secrets’),156b wherein he finds fault with the miracles of the prophets; and the Sifru'l-Jabábira (‘Book of the Giants’); besides which he has many other books and epistles.
“So Shápúr continued in this doctrine for some ten years. Then the Múbadh (Fire-priest) came to him and said, ‘This man hath corrupted thy religion; confront me with him, that I may dispute with him.’ So he confronted them, and the Múbadh bested him in argument, and Shápúr returned from Dualism to the Magian religion, and resolved to put Mání to death, but he fled away and came to the lands of India, where he abode until Shápúr died.
“Then Shápúr was succeeded by his son Hurmuz, a valiant man; and he it was who built the city of Rám-Hurmuz, but his days were not prolonged. He reigned one year.
“Then reigned Bahrám the son of Hurmuz, who concerned himself [only] with his minions and amusements. And Mání's disciples wrote to him, saying, ‘There hath succeeded to the throne a King young in years, greatly preoccupied [with his amusements].’ So he returned to the land of Persia, and his doings became noised abroad, and his place [of abode] became known. Then Bahrám summoned him and questioned him concerning his doctrine, and he related to him his circumstances. Then [Bahrám] confronted him with the Múbadh, who disputed with him, and said, ‘Let molten lead be poured on my belly and on thine, and whichever of us shall be unhurt thereby, he will be in the right.’157a But [Mání] replied, ‘This is a deed of the Darkness.’ So Bahrám ordered him to be imprisoned, and said to him, ‘When morning comes I will send for thee and will slay thee in such wise as none hath been slain before thee.’
“So all that night Mání was being flayed, until his spirit departed [from his body]. And when it was morning, Bahrám sent for him, and they found him [already] dead. So he ordered his head to be cut off, and his body to be stuffed with straw; and he persecuted his followers and slew of them a great multitude. And Bahrám the son of Hurmuzd reigned three years.”
The account of Mání given in the Fihrist is much fuller,
but as it is accessible to all who read German in Flügel's
translation, only a few important points will here be mentioned.
His father's name is given as Futtaq (the arabicised form of a
Persian name, probably Pátaka, represented by Western writers
as
“Manichæanism,” says the first (Sachau's translation, p. 191), “increased by degrees under Ardashír, his son Shápúr, and Hurmuzd son of Shápúr, until the time when Bahrám the son of Hurmuzd ascended the throne. He gave orders to search for Mání, and when he had found him, he said: ‘This man has come forward calling people to destroy the world. It will be necessary to begin by destroying him, before anything of his plans should be realised.’ It is well known that he killed Mání, stripped off his skin, filled it with grass, and hung it up at the gate of Jundê-Shâpûr, which is still known as the Gate of Manes. Hurmuzd also killed a number of the Manichæans… I have heard the Ispahbadh Marzubán the son of Rustam say that Shápúr banished him out of his empire, faithful to the Law of Zoroaster which demands the expulsion of pseudo-prophets from the country. He imposed on him the obligation never to return. So Mání went off to India, China, and Thibet, and there preached his gospel. Afterwards he returned, and was seized by Bahrám and put to death for having broken the stipulation, whereby he had forfeited his life.”
What, now, was this “gospel” which so aroused the enmity of the Zoroastrian priesthood, and which (to speak of the East only) was still so active in the latter part of the eighth century, that the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Mahdí appointed a special inquisitor, called Ṣáḥibu (or 'Arífu) z'-Zanádiqa, to detect and punish those who, under the outward garb of Islám, held the doctrines of the Manichæans or Zindíqs? And what was the exact meaning of this term Zindíq, which, originally used to denote the Manichæans, was gradually, and is still, applied to all atheists and heretics in Muhammadan countries?
Let us take the last inquiry first, as that which may be most
briefly answered. The ordinary explanation is that the term
Meaning of the
term Zindíq.
Zandík is a Persian adjective meaning “one who
follows the Zand,” or traditional explanation (see
pp. 78-9 supra) in preference to the Sacred Text,
and that the Manichæans were so called because of their disposition
to interpret and explain the scriptures of other
religions in accordance with their own ideas, by a process
akin to the
The Manichæans, as we have seen, like the followers of Marcion and Bardesanes, were reckoned by Muhammadan Doctrines of the Manichæans. writers amongst the “Dualists.” But since the Zoroastrian religion is also essentially dualistic, whence arose the violent antagonism between it and the Manichæan doctrine? The answer is not far to seek. In the former the Good and the Evil Creation, the realm of Ahura Mazda and that of Aṅra Mainyush (Ahriman), each comprised a spiritual and a material part. Not only the Amshaspands and Angels, but also the material elements and all animals and plants useful to man, and of mankind those who held “the Good Religion,” fought on the side of Ahura Mazda against the dívs and drujes, the khrafstars, or noxious animals, the witches and warlocks, the misbelievers and heretics, who constituted the hosts of Ahriman. In general the Zoroastrian religion, for all its elaborately systematised Spiritual Hierarchies, presents itself as an essentially material religion, in the sense that it encouraged its followers to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,” and to “sow the seed and reap the harvest with enduring toil.”161a According to the Manichæan view, on the other hand, the admixture of the Light and the Darkness which gave rise to the material universe was essentially evil, and a result of the activity of the Powers of Evil; it was only good in so far as it afforded a means of escape and return to its proper sphere to that portion of the Light (“Jesus patibilis”: see Spiegel, Erân. Alt., ii, p. 226), which had become entangled in the darkness; and when this deliverance was, so far as possible, effected, the angels who supported the heavens and upheld the earth would relax their hold, the whole material universe would collapse, and the Final Conflagration would mark the Redemption of the Light and its final dissociation from the irredeemable and indestructible Darkness. Meanwhile, by the “Column of Praise” (consisting of the prayers, doxologies and good works of the faithful ascending up to Heaven, and visible as the Milky Way),161b the particles of Light, set free from their imprisonment in the Darkness, ascend upwards, and are ferried across by the Sun and Moon to the “Paradise of Light,” which is their proper home. All that tends to the prolongation of this state of admixture of Light and Darkness, such as marriage and the begetting of children, is consequently regarded by Manes and his followers as evil and reprehensible, and thus we see what King Hurmuz meant by the words, “This man has come forward calling people to destroy the world.” Zoroastrianism was national, militant, materialistic, imperialist; Manichæanism, cosmopolitan, quietist, ascetic, unworldly; the two systems stood in essential antagonism, and, for all their external resemblances (fully indicated by Spiegel in his Erânische Alterthumskunde, vol. ii, pp. 195-232), were inevitably hostile and radically opposed. In the case of Judaism, orthodox Christianity and Islám, the antagonism was equally great, and if the Manichæans suffered less at the hands of the Jews than of the other three religions, it was the power rather than the will which these lacked, since, as we have seen, Judaism was held by Manes in particular abhorrence.
Into the details of the Manichæan doctrine—the causes which led to the admixture of the Darkness and the Light; their theories concerning the “King of the Paradises of Light,” the Primal Man, the Devil, and the mechanism of the material universe as a means for liberating the Light from its captivity; and their grotesque beliefs concerning Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Ḥakímatu'd-Dahr (“the World-wise”) and Ibnatu'l-Ḥírṣ (“the Daughter of Desire”), Rawfaryád, Barfaryád, and Sháthil (Seth), and the like,—it is not possible to enter in this place. As a set-off against their rejection of the Hebrew prophets the Manichæans recognised not only Zoroaster and Buddha as divine messengers, but also Christ, though here they distinguished between the True Christ, who was, in their view, an Apparition from the World of Light clad in a merely phantasmal body, and His counterpart and antagonist, “the Son of the Widow” who was crucified. It is a curious thing that this belief of the Manichæans was adopted by Muḥammad: in the Qur'án (súra iv, v. 156) it is written:—
“And for their saying, ‘Verily we slew the Messiah, Jesus the Son of Mary, the Apostle of God;’ but they did not slay Him or crucify Him, but the matter was made doubtful to them [or, a similitude was made for them]. And verily those who differ about Him are in doubt concerning Him; they have no knowledge concerning Him, but only follow an opinion. They did not kill Him, for sure! but God raised Him up unto Himself; for God is mighty and wise!”
As regards the history of the Manichæans in the East, we have already mentioned that during the Caliphate of al-Mahdí Progress of Manichæanism in the East. (A.D. 775-785), the father of Hárúnu 'r-Rashíd, they were so numerous that a special Inquisitor was appointed to detect and destroy them. The author of the Fihrist (A.D. 988) knew 300 professed Mani-chæans at Baghdad alone, and al-Bírúní (A.D. 1000) was familiar with their books, especially the Sháburqán (the one book composed by Manes in Persian, i.e. Pahlawí; for the other six of his principal writings were in Syriac) which he cites in several places, including the opening words (Sachau's translation, p. 190), which run thus:—
“Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been Citation from one of the books of Manes. brought by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereafter this revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me, Mání, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia.”
The migrations of the Manichæans are thus described in the Fihrist:—
“The Manichæans were the first religious community to enter the lands of Transoxiana beside the Shamanists. The reason of Migrations of the Manichæans. this was that when the Kisrá (Bahrám) slew Mání and crucified him, and forbade the people of his kingdom to dispute about religion, he took to killing the followers of Mání wherever he found them, wherefore they continued to flee before him until they crossed the river of Balkh and entered the dominions of the Kháqán (or Khán), with whom they abode. Now Kháqán (or Khán) in their tongue is a title conferred by them on the King of the Turks. So the Manichæans settled in Transoxiana until such time as the power of the Persians was broken and that of the Arabs waxed strong, whereupon they returned to these lands ('Iráq, or Babylonia), especially during the break up of the Persian Empire and the days of the Umayyad kings. Khálid b. 'Abdu'lláh al-Qaṣrí163a took them under his protection, but the leadership [of the sect] was not conferred save in Babylonia, in these lands, after which the leader would depart into whatever land would afford him most security. Their last migration took place in the days of al-Muqtadir (A.D. 908-932), when they retired to Khurásán for fear of their lives, while such as remained of them concealed their religion, and wandered through these regions. About five hundred men of them collected at Samarqand, and their doctrines became known. The governor of Khurásán would have slain them, but the King of China (by whom I suspect the ruler of the Taghazghaz to be meant) sent unto him saying, ‘There are in my domains double the number of Muhammadans that there are in thine of my co-religionists,’ and swearing to him that should he kill one of the latter, he would slay the whole of the former to avenge him, and would destroy the mosques, and would establish an inquisition against the Muhammadans in the rest of his dominions and slay them. So the Governor of Khurásán let them alone, only taking from them the jizya (poll-tax on non-Muslims). So they diminished in numbers in the lands of Islám; but in the City of Peace (Baghdad) I used to know some three hundred of them in the days of Mu'izzu'd-Dawla (A.D. 946-967). But in these our days there are not five of them left at the capital. And these people are named Ájárí, and they reside in the suburbs of Samarqand, Sughd, and especially Nuwíkath.”
Of those who, while outwardly professing Islám, were really Manichæans, the author of the Fihrist gives a long list, which Manichæans in Islám. includes al-Ja'd b. Dirham, who was put to death by the Umayyad Caliph Hishám (A.D. 724-743); the poet Bashshár b. Burd, put to death in A.D. 784; nearly all the Barmecides, except Muḥammad b. Khálid b. Barmak; the Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833), but this is not credited by the author; Muḥammad ibnu'z-Zayyát, the Wazír of al-Mu'taṣim, put to death in A.D. 847; and others.
The Manichæans were divided into five grades—the Duties imposed on the Manichæans. Mu'allimún or Teachers, called “the Sons of Tenderness”; the Mushammasún or those illuminated by the Sun,164a called “the Sons of Knowledge”; the Qissísún or priests, called “the Sons of Understanding”; the Ṣiddíqún or faithful, called “the Sons of the Unseen”; and the Sammá'ún or hearers, called “the Sons of Intelligence.” They were commanded to perform the four or the seven prayers, and to abandon idol-worship, falsehood, covetousness, murder, fornication, theft, the teaching and study of all arts of deception and magic, hypocrisy in religion and lukewarmness in daily life. To these ten commandments were added: belief in the four Supreme Essences: to wit, God (“the King of the Paradises of Light”), His Light, His Power, and His Wisdom; fasting for seven days in each month; and the acceptance of “the three seals,” called by St. Augustine and other Christian writers the signacula oris, manuum et sinûs, typifying the renunciation of evil words, evil deeds, and evil thoughts, and corresponding to the hûkht, hûvarsht, and hûmat (good words, good deeds, and good thoughts) of the Zoroastrian religion. Details of the fasts and prayers, and some of the formulæ used in the latter, are also given in the Fihrist, from which we also learn something of the schisms which arose after Mání's time as to the Spiritual Supremacy, the chief divisions being the Mihriyya and the Miqlásiyya. The seven books of Mání (of which, as has been already said, six were in Syriac and one—the Sháburqán—in Pahlawí) were written in The writing invented by Manes. a peculiar script invented by their author and reproduced (in a form greatly corrupted and disfigured in the existing MSS.) by the Fihrist. To this script, and to the art of writing in general, the Manichæans (like the modern Bábís, who, as is well known, have also invented a script peculiar to themselves called khaṭṭ-i-badí', “the New Writing”) would appear to have devoted much attention, for al-Jáḥidh (ninth century) cites Ibráhím as-Sindí as saying that “it would be well if they were The legendary Arzhang-i-Mání. to spend less on the whitest, finest paper and the blackest ink, and on the training of calligraphists.” From this, as Professor Bevan conjectures, arose the idea of Mání as a skilful painter which is prevalent in Persia, where it is generally believed that he produced a picture-book called the Arzhang or Artang, to which he appealed (as Muḥammad appealed to the Qur'án) as a proof of his supernatural power and divine mission.
166a“I was born,” the Prophet Muḥammad is reported to have said, “in the reign of the Just King,” meaning thereby Character of Núshírwán. Khusraw Anûshak-rûbân (“of Immortal Spirit”), who is still spoken of by the Persians as “Núshír-wán the Just” and regarded as the perfect type of kingly virtue. We have already seen that this verdict cannot be accepted without reserve, and that Núshírwán's vigorous measures against heretics rather than his justice (in our sense of the term) won him the applause and approval of the Magian priests by whose hands the national chronicles were shaped; just as the slur which rests on the name of the first Yazdigird (called Baza-gar, “the Sinner”) is to be ascribed rather to his tolerance of other religions and his indifference to the Zoroastrian clergy than to any special wickedness of life. Yet Núshírwán, though severe on heretics whose activity threatened the welfare of the State, was by no means a fanatic, but on the contrary interested himself greatly in foreign religions and philosophies. In this respect he reminds us of the Caliph at Ma'mún and the Emperor Akbar, both of whom took the same delight in religious and philosophical controversies and speculations. Nöldeke (Gesch d. Sasaniden, p. 150, n. 3 ad calc.), who is by no means disposed to look favourably on the Persians, gives, on the whole, a very favourable summary of his character, which he concludes in the following words: “On the whole Khusraw (Núshírwán) is certainly one of the greatest and best kings whom the Persians ever possessed, which, however, did not prevent him from being capable of reckless cruelty, nor from having little more regard for the truth than the Persians, even the best, are wont to have.” His suppression of the Mazdakites, his successful campaigns against the “Romans” (Byzantines), his wise laws, his care for the national defences, and the prosperity enjoyed by the Persian Empire during his reign (A.D. 531-578) all conduced to the high reputation which he enjoys in the East as an Neo-Platonist philosophers at the Court of Núshírwán. ideal monarch; while his reception of the seven Greek philosophers, expelled from their native land by the intolerance of the Emperor Justinian, and his insertion of a special clause in their favour (whereby they were guaranteed toleration and freedom from interference on their return thither) in a treaty which he concluded with the Byzantines at the close of a successful war, as well as his love of knowledge, exemplified not only by his patronage of learned men, but by the establishment of a great medical school at Jundê-Shâpûr, and by the numerous translations from Greek and Sanskrit into Pahlawí executed by his orders, caused it to be believed, even in the West, “that a disciple of Plato was stated on the Persian throne.”
167aThe importance of the visit to the Persian Court of the Neo-Platonist philosophers mentioned above has, I think, Introduction of Neo-Platonist ideas into Persia at this epoch. hardly been sufficiently emphasised. How much the later mysticism of the Persians, the doctrine of the Ṣúfí?? which will be fully discussed in a later chapter owes to Neo-Platonism, is beginning to be recognised, and has been admirably illustrated by my friend and former pupil Mr. R. A. Nicholson, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his Selected Poems from the Díván of Shams-i-Tabr'z (Cambridge, 1898); nor, if Darmesteter's views be correct, did Zoroastrianism disdain to draw materials from the same source. The great historical introduction of Greek phiosophical and scientific ideas into the East took place, as is well known, during the early 'Abbásid period, especially during the reign of Hárunu'r-Rashíd's son al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833), but it is exceedingly probable (though, owing to the loss of the great bulk of Pahlawí literature, especially the non-religious portion, it cannot be proved) that already in the sixth century, during the reign of Núshírwán, this importation had begun, and that the beginnings of the Ṣúfí doctrines, as of so many others, may in reality go back beyond the Muhammadan to the Sásánian times. As regards the Christians, Núshírwán's contempt for their pacific doctrines and vexation at the rebellious behaviour of his son Anúsha-zádh (see p. 136 supra) did not prevent him from according certain privileges to the dangerous and often disloyal Monophysites,168a or from accepting in one of his treaties with the Byzantine Emperor certain stipulations in favour of the Catholics;168b nay, it was even asserted by Euagrius and Sebêos168c that he was privately baptized before his death, which statement, though certainly false, shows that he was generally regarded as favourably disposed towards the Christians, who, as Nöldeke remarks, gave a touching proof of their gratitude for his favours a century later when they would not suffer the remains of his unfortunate descendant Yazdigird III, the last ruler of the House of Sásán, to lie unbaried. Such toleration, however, was always subject to considerations of the safety of the State and the order of social life, both of which were threatened by the doctrines of the communist Mazdak, of whom we shall now speak.
The evidence which has come down to us concerning this remarkable man has been carefully collected by Nöldeke168d in the fourth Excursus (Ueber Mazdak und die Mazdakiten, pp. 455-467) appended to his admirable History of the Sásánians, Mazdak the Communist. which we have already had occasion to cite so frequently. It must naturally be borne in mind that this rests entirely on the statements of persons (whether Zoroastrian or Christian) who were bitterly opposed to his teaching, and that if the case for the defence had been preserved we might find favourable features, or at least extenuating circumstances, of which we now know nothing. What, for example, to take an analogous case from modern times, would be our judgment of the Bábís if we depended solely on the highly-coloured and malicious presentations of their doctrines and practices contained in such official chronicles as the Násikhu 't-Tawáríkh of the court-historian Lisánu'l-Mulk, or of the talented Riẓá-qulí Khán's supplement to the Rawẓatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, or even of presumably unprejudiced Europeans who were dependent for their information on the accouuts current in court circles? In this connection it is worthy of remark that the charges of communism and antinomianism, especially in what concerns the relation of the sexes, were those most frequently brought alike against the Mazdakites of the sixth and the Bábís of the nineteenth century by their opponents; and since we now know that the alleged communism of the early Bábís, so far as it existed at all, was merely incidental, as in the similar case of the early Christians, and cannot be regarded as in any sense a characteristic of their doctrines, we cannot avoid a suspicion that the same thing holds true in some degree of Mazdak and his followers.
Whether Mazdak himself originated the doctrines associated with his name is doubtful, a certain Zarádusht the son of Doctrines of Mazdak. Khurragán, of Fasá in the province of Fárs, being mentioned in some of the sources as their real author. Of the theoretical basis of this doctrine we know much less than of its practical outcome, but Nöldeke well remarks that “what sharply distinguishes it from modern Communism and Socialism (so far as these show themselves, not in the dreams of individuals, but in actual parties), is its religious character.” All evils, in Mazdak's view, were to be attributed to the demons of Envy, Wrath, and Greed, who had destroyed the equality of mankind decreed and desired by God, which equality it was his aim to restore. The ascetic element which has been already noticed (p. 161 supra) as one of the features of Manichæanism to which the Zoroastrians so strongly objected also appears in the religion of Mazdak in the prohibition of shedding blood and eating meat. Indeed, as we have already seen (p. 169 n. 1 ad calc.), to the Zoroastrian theologians Mazdak was par excellence “the ungodly Ashemaogha who does not eat.”
For political reasons, of which, according to Nöldeke's view, the chief was a desire to curb the excessive power of the priests Rise and fall of the Mazdakites. and nobles, King Kawádh (or Qubád) favoured the new doctrine; an action which led to his temporary deposition in favour of his brother Jámásp. This untoward event probably produced a considerable alteration in his feelings towards the new sect, and the balance of testimony Massacre of the Mazdakites (A.D. 528-9). places in the last years of his reign that wholesale slaughter of the Mazdakites with which, in the popular legend, Khusraw the First is credited, and by which he is said to have earned his title of Núshírwán (Anúshak-rúbán, “Of Immortal Spirit”). According to the current account (given in its fullest form in the Siyásat-náma of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk (ed. Schefer, pp. 166-181; transl. pp. 245-266), Prince Núshírwán, after exposing the evil designs and juggler's tricks of Mazdak to his father King Kawádh, deceived the heresiarch by a feigned submission, and fixed a day when, in presence of all the Mazdakites, he would make formal and public profession of the new doctrine. Invitations were issued to the Mazdakites to a great banquet which the prince would provide in one of the royal gardens; but as each group entered the garden they were seized by soldiers who lay in wait for them, slain, and buried head downwards in the earth with their feet protruding. When all had been thus disposed of, Núshírwán invited Mazdak, whom he had himself received in private audience, to take a walk with him through the garden before the banquet, and to inspect the produce thereof. On entering the garden, “Behold,” said the prince, pointing to the upturned feet of the dead heretics, “the crop which your evil doctrines have brought forth!” Therewith he made a sign, and Mazdak was at once seized, bound and buried alive head downwards in the midst of a large mound of earth specially prepared for him Contemporary testimony. in the middle of the garden. A contemporary account of the massacre by an eyewitness, Timotheus the Persian, has been preserved to us by Theophanes and John Malalas. The presence at this horrible scene of the Christian bishop Bazanes, who was also the King's physician, finds a curious parallel in recent times, for Dr. Polak, court-physician to the late Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, was present at the cruel execution of the beautiful Bábí heroine Qurratu'l-'Ayn in 1852.
However great the number of Mazdakites who perished in this massacre (which took place at the end of A.D. 528, or Subsequent history of the Mazdakites. the beginning of 529) may have been, the sect can hardly have been exterminated in a day, and there are reasons for believing that a fresh persecution took place soon after Nushírwán's accession to the throne (A.D. 531). After that, even, the sect,though no longer manifest, propably continued to exist in secret; nor is it unlikely that, as is suggested by some Muhammadan writers, its doctrines, like those of the Manichæans, passed over into Muhammadan times, and were reproduced more or less faithfully by some of those strange antinomian sects of later days which will demand our attention in future chapters. This view is most strongly advanced by the celebrated Nizámu'l-Mulk, who, in his Treatise on Government (Siyásat-náma) endeavours at great length to show that the Isma'ílís and Assassins towards whom he entertained so violent an antipathy (amply justified in the event by his assassination at their hands on October 14, 1092) were the direct descendants of the Mazdakites.
In the long and glorious reign of Nushírwán (A.D. 531-578), no year, perhaps, was so memorable, or so fraught with consequences of deep and unsuspected importance, as the forty-second “The Year of the Elephant.” (A.D. 572-3), called by the Arabs “the Year of the Elephant.” In this year, on the one hand, culminated a long series of events which led to the annexation by Persia of the rich and ancient kingdom of Yaman, an acquisition which might well arouse the enthusiasm and awaken the plaudits of the Persian imperialists of that epoch; while in it, on the other hand, was born in distant Mecca one whose teaching was destined to overthrow the House of Sásán and the religion of Zoroaster, the Prophet Muḥammad. On the night of his birth, according to the legends so dear to pious Muslims, the Palace of the Persian King was shaken by an Prognostications of misfortune to the Sásánian Empire. earthquake, so that fourteen of its battlements fell to the ground; the Sacred Fire, which had burned continuously for a thousand years, was extinguished; and the Lake of Sáwa suddenly dried up; while the chief priest of the Zoroastrians saw in a dream the West of Persia overrun by Arabian camels and horses from across the Tigris. At these portents Núshírwán was greatly troubled, nor was his trouble dispelled by the oracular answer brought back by his messenger 'Abdu'l-Masíḥ, a Christian Arab of the tribe of Ghassán, from his uncle, the aged Saṭíḥ, who dwelt on the borders of the Syrian desert. This answer, conveyed in the rhyming rajaz regarded by the Arabian soothsayers (kahana) as the appropriate vehicle of their oracles, was couched in the following strain:—
“On a camel 'Abdu'l-Masíḥ hastens toward Saṭíḥ, who to the verge of the Tomb is already come. Thee hither doth bring the Oracular utterance of Saṭíḥ. command of the Sásánian King because the Palace hath quaked, and the Fire is slaked, and the Chief Priest in his dream hath seen camels fierce and lean, and horse-troops by them led over the Tigris bed through the border marches spread.
“O 'Abdu'l-Masíḥ! When reading shall abound, and the Man of the Staff174a be found and the hosts shall seethe in the Vale of Samáwa,174b and dried up shall be the Lake of Sáwa, and the Holy Fire of Persia shall fail, no more for Saṭíḥ shall Syria avail! Yet to the number of the turrets174c your kings and queens shall reign, and their empire retain, though that which is to come cometh amain!”
These tales of portent and presage must, however, be regarded rather as pious after-thoughts than as historical facts. The birth of the Arabian Prophet, like many another momentous event, was announced, we may be sure, by no such blare of celestial trumpets, and did not for a moment occupy the attention even of the men of Mecca, for whom the “Year of the Elephant” afforded ample food for thought and anxiety.
In the early part of the sixth century the political position of the Arabs was as follows. In the west the kingdom of Ghassán and in the east the kingdom of Ḥíra acknow- Political relations of the Arabs in the sixth century. ledged more or less the suzerainty of Byzantium and Persia respectively. The bulk of the Arabs of Central Arabia, secure in their deserts and broken up into numerous more or less hostile tribes, fought and sang and robbed and raided much as do the Bedouin of to-day, with little regard for the neighbouring states. In the south the rich and ancient kingdom of Yaman enjoyed, under its own Tubba's or kings, a larger measure of wealth, prosperity, and civilisation. The infamous usurper Lakhí'a, called Dhú Shanátir, met his well-merited doom at the hands of the young prince Dhú Nuwás, who—for since the days of Bilqís Queen of Sheba regicide seems to have been regarded in South Arabia as the best title to the Crown—was by acclamation elected king, the last king, as it proved in the event, of the old Ḥimyarite stock.
Now Dhú Nuwás elected to turn Jew, and with the zeal of a proselyte, proceeded to persecute the Christians of Nejrán, Dhú Nuwás and the persecution of the Christians of Nejrán. whom, on their refusal to embrace Judaism, he slew with the sword, burned and roasted in pits dug for the purpose, and barbarously tortured in other ways. To this event allusion is made in súra lxxxv of the Qur'án: “Death upon the People of the Pits, “The People of the Pits.” of the Burning Fire, when they sat over them, watching what they did to the believers, against whom they had no complaint save that they believed in God, the Mighty, the Praiseworthy!”
That, as stated by Ṭabarí, 20,000 Christians perished in this persecution (A.D. 523) is, of course, incredible, the actual number of victims being probably not much more than a hundredth part of this; but the news, brought by one of the fugitives, was horrible enough to stir the wrath of the Abyssinian Abyssinian conquest of Yemen. Christians, and to induce their ruler, the Nejáshí or NĖgúsh, to send an army to avenge his co-religionists. This army, commanded by Aryáṭ and Abraha, utterly defeated the Yamanites, and Dhú Nuwás, perceiving that all was lost, spurred his horse into the sea, and disappeared for ever from mortal ken. To this event the Ḥimyarite poet Dhú Jadan refers in the following verses:—
“Gently! Can tears recall the things that are spent and sped?
Fret thyself not with weeping for those who are lost and dead!
After Baynún,175a
whereof nor stones nor traces remain,
And after Silḥín, shall man ere build such houses again?”
And again:—
“Leave me, accursed shrew! For what can avail thy cries?
Plague on thee! Peace! In my throat thy scolding the spittle dries!
To the music of cithers and singers in bygone days 'twas fine
When we drank our fill and revelled in royallest, ruddiest wine!
To drain the sparkling wine-cup I deem it, indeed, no shame,
When it brings no act that a comrade and boon-companion can blame;
For Death is by no man cheated, the grave is the share of each,
Though protection he seek of the perfumes and potions and drugs of
the leech!
The monk in his cloistered dwelling, which rears its fanes as high
As the nest of the hawk and eagle, in vain would death deny.
Thou hast heard, for sure, of Ghumdán,176a
the house with the lofty roof,
Which they built on a mountain-summit, from meaner dwellings aloof;
Crowned with the joiner's labour, with square-hewn stones for stay,
Plastered without and within with clean, tough, slippery clay.
With burden of dates half-ripened already the palm-trees seemed
Ready to break, while the oil-lamps like summer lightning gleamed.
Yet is this once-new Castle a pile of ashes to-day,
And the lambent flames have eaten its beauty and form away.
For Abú Nuwás, despairing, hath hastened to meet his death,
Foretelling their pending troubles to his folk with his latest breath!”
Aryáṭ, the Abyssinian conqueror of Yaman, did not, however, long survive to enjoy the fruits of victory, for he was Aryáṭ killed by Abraha. treacherously slain in a duel by his ambitious lieutenant, Abraha, who, however, emerged from the combat with a wound across his face which earned for him the nickname of al-Ashram, “the split-nosed.”
Now it pleased Abraha to build at Ṣan'á, the capital of Yaman, a great and splendid church, whereby he hoped to Abraha's expedition against Mecca. divert the stream of Arab pilgrims away from the Square Temple of Mecca. But the Arabs murmured at his endeavour, and one of them, a soothsayer of the tribe of Fuqaym, entered the church by stealth and defiled it. Then Abraha was filled with wrath, swore to destroy the Temple of Mecca, and set out to execute his threat with his elephants of war and a vast host of Abyssinians.
While Abraha lay encamped at Mughammas, hard by the city of Mecca, he was visited by 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib, the grand- 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib and his camels. father of the Prophet Muḥammad, who was one of the principal men of the Quraysh, that noble tribe to whom was specially entrusted the care of the Sanctuary. And Abraha, being well pleased with his manners and address, bade him through his interpreter crave a boon. “I desire,” replied 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib, “that the King should restore to me two hundred camels which have been taken from me.” “Thou speakest to me,” answered Abraha in astonishment, “of two hundred camels which I have taken from thee, yet sayest naught of a Temple which is the Sanctuary of thee and thy fathers, and which I am come to destroy!” 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib's rejoinder is characteristically Arabian. “I am the master of the camels,” said he, “but the Temple has its own Master, who will take care of it;” and, on Abraha's remarking, “He cannot protect it against me!” he added, “That remains to be seen; only give me back my camels!”
Having recovered his camels, 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib withdrew with his associates to a mountain-top to await the event, but ere he retreated from Mecca he paid a visit to the Ka'ba, and, holding in his hand the great ring-knocker on the outer door, exclaimed:—
“Lord, in Thee alone I trust against them!
Lord, repel them from Thine Holy Land!
'Tis the Temple's foe who fights against Thee:
Save Thy town from his destroying hand!”
Next day Abraha prepared to carry out his threat, and advanced with his army, at the head of which marched his The elephant Maḥmúd. great elephant Maḥmúd, against Mecca. But as the elephant advanced, an Arab named Nufayl came up to it, took hold of its ear, and cried, “Kneel down, O Maḥmúd, and return by the direct way whereby thou camest hither, for thou art on God's holy ground!” Thereat the elephant knelt down, and, notwithstanding all their blows and stabs, refused to move a step against Mecca, though ready enough to go in any other direction.
Then God sent against the Abyssinians hosts of little birds like swallows—abábíl, as the Qur'án calls them—each of The Ababíl birds. which held three little stones or pellets of clay, one in its beak and two in its claws. These they let fall on the Abyssinians, and whosoever was struck by them died, and so the great host was routed. One fugitive, they say, returned to Abyssinia to tell the tale, and when they asked him “What manner of birds were these?” he pointed up at one which still hovered over him. Even as he did so, the bird let fall the stone that it held, and he too was stricken dead.
Such are the events which gave their name to this momentous year, and to which allusion is made in the chapter of the Qur'án entitled the “Súra of the Elephant.” “Hast thou not seen,” it runs, “how thy Lord dealt with the people of the Elephant? Did He not cause their plan to miscarry? And made them like chaff consumed?”
The opinion which now generally prevails amongst European scholars is that the above legend rests on a real basis of Historical basis of the legend. fact, and that a sudden and virulent outbreak of small-pox did actually decimate and put to rout the impious invaders. Small wonder that the Arabs saw in this almost miraculous preservation of their Sanctuary the Manifest Power of God, and that the “Year of the Elephant” marked an epoch in the development of their national life.
But Yaman still groaned under the Abyssinian yoke, and Abraha of the split nose was succeeded in turn by his sons Sayf b. Dhú Yazan's appeal to Persia. Yaksúm178a and Masrúq, whose hands were heavy on the Ḥimyarites, so that at length Sayf the son of Dhú Yazan went forth as their ambassador to seek relief from one of the two great empires, the Byzantine and the Persian, which then divided the mastery of that region of the world. Meeting with no encouragement from the former, he induced Mundhir, the Arab King of Ḥíra, to present him at the Persian Court. Núshírwán received him in his audience-hall, seated on his gorgeous throne, his head surmounted by, though not supporting, the gigantic barrel-like crown, glittering with rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones, supported by a chain from the roof, which was at once the glory and the oppression of the Sásánian kings.
“O King!” said Sayf ibn Dhú Yazan, when he had prostrated himself before this gorgeous apparition, “the Ravens have taken our land!”
“Which Ravens?” inquired Núshírwán; “those of Abyssinia or those of India?”
“The Abyssinians,” continued Sayf; “and now I come to thee that thou may'st help me and drive them away from me; then shall the lordship over my land be thine, for ye are preferred by us to them.”
“Thy land,” answered the King, “is too remote from ours, and is withal too poor a land, wherein is naught but sheep and camels, for us to desire it. I cannot venture a Persian army in Arabia, nor have I any wish so to do.”
So Núshírwán gave him a present of ten thousand dirhams and a robe of honour, and so dismissed him. But the Ḥim- Economical Imperialism. yarite envoy, as he went forth from the palace, cast the gold in handfuls amongst the retainers, slaves, pages, and handmaidens who stood round, and these greedily scrambled for it. When the King heard this, he recalled the envoy, and asked him how he dared deal thus with the King's gift. “What else should I do with it?” answered he; “the mountains of my land whence I come consist only of gold and silver.” And when the King heard this, he swallowed the bait so artfully presented, and detained the envoy till he should lay the matter before his advisers. Then said one of his counsellors, “O King, in thy prisons are men whom thou hast cast into fetters to put them to death; canst thou not give him these? If they perish, then is thy purpose fulfilled; but if they take the country, then is thy lordship increased.”
This ingenious plan for combining Imperial expansion with domestic economy was enthusiastically approved, and an Composition of the Persian expeditionary force. examination of the prisons produced eight hundred condemned felons, who were forthwith placed under the command of a superannuated general named Wahriz, so old that, as the story runs, his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and must needs be bound or held up when he wished to shoot.180a The expeditionary force thus constituted, and accompanied by Sayf, was embarked on eight ships, of which two were wrecked, while the remaining six safely reached the coast of Ḥaḍramawt, where the little Persian army of six hundred men was largely reinforced by the Yamanite Arabs. The news of this bold invasion soon reached Masrúq, and brought him out at the head of his hosts to give battle. Then Wahriz made a great feast for his followers, and, while they were carousing, burned his ships and destroyed his stores, after which, in a spirited harangue, he pointed out that the choice between death and victory was the only choice open to them, and called on them to play the part of men. They responded (having, indeed, but little option in the matter), and the battle began. Wahriz caused some of those who stood by The historic shot of Wahriz. him to point out to him the Abyssinian king, who was rendered conspicuous by an immense ruby, the size of an egg, which blazed on his forehead. Choosing an auspicious moment, Wahriz shot an arrow at him as he rode on his mule, and the arrow struck fair in the middle of the ruby, splintering it in pieces and transfixing Masrúq's forehead.
The death of their king was the signal for the rout of the Abyssinians, whom the victorious Persians massacred without Yaman as a Persian satrapy. mercy, though sparing their Arab and Ḥimyarite allies; and Yaman became a Persian province, governed first by its conqueror, Wahriz (and for a part of his lifetime by Sayf), then by his son, grandson, and great-grandson, and lastly, in the time of Muḥammad, by a Persian named Bádhán of another family. Even in early Muhammadan days we hear much of the Banu'l-Aḥrár, or “Sons of the Noble,” as the Persian settlers in Yaman were called by the Arabs.
With the death of Núshírwán (A.D. 578), which happened shortly after these events, the decline of the Sásánian Empire Rapid decline of the Sásánian power after Núshírwán. began. Proud and formidable to outward appearance as was the Persian power against which the warriors of Islám hurled themselves in the following century, it was rotten to the core, honeycombed with intrigues, seething with discontent, and torn asunder by internecine and fratricidal strife. Núshírwán's own son, Anúsha-zádh the Christian, revolted, as has been already mentioned, against him. His successor, Hurmazd the Fourth, provoked by his folly and ingratitude the formidable revolt of Bahrám Chúbín, which led directly to his estrangement from his son Khusraw Parwíz; the flight of the latter and his two uncles, Bistám and Bindú'è, to the Byzantines; and his own violent death. Parwíz in turn, after a reign long indeed (A.D. 590-627), but filled with strife, intrigue and murder, was murdered by his son, Shírú'è, after a travesty of judicial attainder which did but add senseless insult to unnatural cruelty. After a reign of only a few months, which he inaugurated by the murder of eighteen of his brothers, the parricide sickened and died; and a fearful plague which devastated Persia seemed the appropriate sign of Heaven's wrath against this wicked king. His infant son, Ardashír, a boy seven years old, succeeded him, but was besieged and slain in his capital Ctesiphon by the usurper Shahrbaráz, who in turn was assassinated some forty days later (June 9, A.D. 630) by three of his bodyguard. Púrán-dukht, daughter of Khusraw Parwíz, next ascended the perilous throne, and seemed by her wisdom and good intentions destined to inaugurate a brighter epoch, but, after restoring the wood of the True Cross to the Byzantine Emperor, she too died after a reign of sixteen months. She was succeeded by a distant cousin of her father, who, under the name of Pírúz, reigned less than a month, and was followed by her sister, the beautiful Ázarmí-dukht. She, to avenge an insult, compassed the death of Farrukh-Hurmazd, the Spahbadh of Khurásán, and was in turn slain, after a brief reign of six months, by his son Rustam, the Persian general, who four years later (in A.D. 635) perished in the disastrous defeat of Qádisiyya. Four or five other ephemeral rulers, some of whom were murdered and some deposed, intervened between her and her father's grandson, the ill-fated Yazdigird the Third, who, last of that royal and noble House, perished miserably, a solitary fugitive, at the hands of a wretched churl whose greed had been aroused by the jewels which alone remained to the hunted and ruined king to tell of his rank and riches. When Núshírwán had heard from 'Abdu'l-Masíḥ the intepretation of his vision he consoled himself wlth the reflection that fourteen kings of his House should rule after him ere the final catastrophe. The first fourteen kings of the dynasty reigned in all more than two centuries: who could suppose that the reigns of the eleven rulers who intervened between Khusraw Parwíz and Yazdigird the Third would not altogether amount to more than five years?
182aAnd all this time the enemy was thundering at the gates of the doomed empire with ever-increasing insistence. Three Warnings of disaster. presages of disaster, in particular, are enumerated by Ṭabarí,183a the Muslim historian, as Divine warnings to Khusraw Parwíz of the consequences which his rejection of the message of the Arabian Prophet would entail. The letter in which this message was embodied is said to have been couched in the following words:—
183b“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. From Muḥammad the Apostle of God to Khusraw son of Hurmazd. But to The Prophet's etter to Parwíz. proceed. Verily I extol unto thee God, beside whom there is no other God; He it is who guarded me when I was an orphan, and made me rich when I was destitute, and guided me when I was straying in error. Only he who is bereft of understanding, and over whom calamity triumphs, rejects the message which I am sent to announce. O Khusraw! Submit and thou shalt be safe, or else prepare to wage with God and with His apostle a war which shall not find them helpless! Farewell!”
Khusraw Parwíz, according to one story, tore the letter in pieces, whereupon the Muslim envoy exclaimed, “Thus, O impious King, shall God rend asunder thine empire and scatter thy hosts!” In another account, the Persian King is said to have written to Bádhán, satrap of Yaman (see p. 181 supra) bidding him march on Medína, seize the Prophet Muḥammad, and bring him captive to Ctesiphon.
183cThe portents described as warning Khusraw Parwíz of the swiftly approaching doom of the Persian Empire fall into three categories—visions, signs, and actual historical events.
The visions include the apparition to Khusraw Parwíz of an The Portents. (1) Visions. angel, who breaks a staff symbolising the Persian power, and the writing on the wall, whereof the purport is thus given in the Niháyatu'l-Irab:—
“O weak man! Verily God hath sent unto His people an Apostle, and hath revealed unto him a Scripture, therefore submit and believe, and He will vouchsafe to thee the good of this world and the next. But if thou wilt not do this, thou shalt shortly perish, and thy kingdom shall perish, and thy power shall depart from thee!”
The signs include the repeated bursting of a dam placed by order of the King in the “blind” Tigris (a branch of that (2) Signs. river which flowed by Baṣra); the collapse of the vaulted arch from which depended the mighty barrel-like crown over his throne; and the play of lightnings reaching towards the east over Ḥijáz.
The historical event was the Battle of Dhú Qár (fought between A.D. 604 and 610), an engagement which, com- (3) The Battle of Dhú Qár. paratively insignificant in itself, yet served to teach the Arabs that, for all their higher civilisation, their wealth, and their renown, the Persians were not invincible. “This,” said the Prophet, when he heard of it, “is the first day whereon the Arabs have obtained satisfaction from the Persians; through me have they obtained help!”
“DURING the first half of the seventh century,” says Dozy in his excellent work on Islám,185a “everything followed its accustomed Dozy on the rise of the Arab power. course in the Byzantine as in the Persian Empire. These two states continued always to dispute the possession of Western Asia; they were, to all outward appearance, flourishing; the taxes which poured into the treasuries of their kings reached considerable sums, and the magnificence, as well as the luxury of their capitals had become proverbial. But all this was but in appearance, for a secret disease consumed both empires; they were burdened by a crushing despotism; on either hand the history of the dynasties formed a concatenation of horrors, that of the state a series of persecutions born of dissentions in religious matters. At this juncture it was that, all of a sudden, there emerged from deserts hardly known and appeared on the scene of the world a new people, hitherto divided into innumerable nomad tribes, who, for the most part, had been at war with one another, now for the first time united. It was this people, passionately attached to liberty, simple in their food and dress, noble and hospitable, gay and witty, but at the same time proud, irascible, and, once their passions were aroused, vindictive, irreconcilable and cruel, who overthrew in an instant the venerable but rotten Empire of the Persians, snatched from the successors of Constantine their fairest provinces, trampled under their feet a Germanic kingdom but lately founded, and menaced the rest of Europe, while at the same time, at the other end of the world, its victorious armies penetrated to the Himalayas. Yet it was not like so many other conquering peoples, for it preached at the same time a new religion. In opposition to the dualism of the Persians and a degenerate Christianity, it announced a pure monotheism which was accepted by millions of men, and which, even in our own time, constitutes the religion of a tenth part of the human race.”
We have seen that, as at the Battle of Dhú Qár, signs of the immense vitality and potential strength of the Arabs— hitherto regarded by their neighbours as a “negligible quantity”—were not altogether wanting even before the triumph of Islám; yet it was undoubtedly to Islám, that simple yet majestic creed of which no unprejudiced student can ignore the grandeur, that they owed the splendid part which they were destined to play in the history of civilisation. In judging of the Arabian Prophet, Western critics are too often inclined to ignore the condition from which he raised his country, and to forget that many institutions, such as slavery and polygamy, which they condemn were not introduced but only tolerated by Islám. The early Muslims were very sensible of the immense amelioration in their life effected by Muḥammad's teaching. What this amelioration was is well shown in the following passage from the oldest extant biography of the Prophet, that of Ibn Hishám († A.H. 213 = A.D. 828-9):—
186a“How the Negúsh summoned the Muhájirún186b before him, and questioned them concerning their Religion; and their answer concerning this.
“Then he (i.e., the Negúsh or ruler of Abyssinia) sent unto the followers of the Apostle of God and summoned them. So Ibn Hishám's account of the Muslim exiles before the Negúsh of Abyssinia. when his messenger came unto them, they gathered together, and said one to another, ‘What will ye say to the man when ye come before him?’ ‘By Alláh!’ they replied, ‘we will declare what we know, and what our Apostle hath enjoined on us, come what may!’ So when they came to the Negúsh, he had convened his bishops, who had spread out their books round about him; and he inquired of them saying, ‘What is this religion by reason of which ye have separated from your people, yet enter not withal into my religion nor into the religion of any other of these churches?’
“Then answered him Ja'far the son of Abú Ṭálib (may God's approval rest upon him!) saying, ‘O King! We were a barbarous folk, worshipping idols, eating carrion, committing shameful deeds, violating the ties of consanguinity, and evilly entreating our neighbours, the strong amongst us consuming the weak; and thus we continued until God sent unto us an Apostle from our midst, whose pedigree and integrity and faithfulness and purity of life we knew, to summon us to God, that we should declare His unity, and worship Him, and put away the stones and idols which we and our fathers used to worship in His stead; and he bade us be truthful in speech, and faithful in the fulfilment of our trusts, and observing of the ties of consanguinity and the duties of neighbours, and to refrain from forbidden things and from blood; and he forbade us from immoral acts and deceitful words, and from consuming the property of orphans, and from slandering virtuous women; and he commanded us to worship God, and to associate naught else with Him, and to pray and give alms and fast.’ Then, when he had enumerated unto him the commandments of Islám, he continued, ‘So we accepted him as true and believed in him and followed him in that which he brought from God, worshipping God alone, and associating naught else with Him, and holding unlawful that which he prohibited to us, and lawful that which he sanctioned unto us. Then our people molested us, and persecuted us, and strove to seduce us from our faith, that they might bring us back from the worship of God to the worship of idols, and induce us to hold lawful the evil practices which we had formerly held lawful. So they strove to compel us, and oppressed us, and constrained us, and strove to come between us and our religion. Wherefore we came forth unto thy land, choosing thee over all beside thee, and eagerly desirous of thy protection. And now, O King, we pray that we may not be oppressed before thee!’
“Then said the Negúsh to him, ‘Hast with thee aught of that which thy Prophet received from God?’ ‘Yea,’ said Ja'far. ‘Then read it to me,’ said the Negúsh. So he read unto him the opening words of the súra entitled K.H.Y.'.Ṣ.,187a and the Negúsh wept so that his beard was wet with his tears, and his bishops wept with him, until their books were wet with their tears, when they heard what he read unto them. Then said the Negúsh to them, ‘Verily this and that which Moses brought emanate from one Lamp. Go, for by Alláh I will not suffer them to get at you, nor even contemplate this.’”
To enter into a discussion as to the character and motives of the Prophet Muḥammad would lead us too far afield, more especially as these matters, together with his history, the development of his doctrines, and the progress—slow at first, but afterwards lightning-like in its rapidity—of his religion, have been ably and adequately discussed in the monographs of Sale, Sprenger, Muir, Krehl, Nöldeke, Boswell Smith, and Sayyid Amír 'Alí. Of these works the last, written from the point of view of a modern broad-minded and wellread Muslim, conversant alike with Eastern and Western views, is especially deserving of study by those who desire to understand the strong hold which Islám and its Prophet still have even on those Muslims who are most imbued with European culture and learning. The great strength of Islám lies in its simplicity, its adaptibility, its high yet perfectly attainable ethical standard. The Christian ethical standard is, we must admit, higher, but almost beyond the reach of the individual, and quite beyond the reach of the State. The ideal Muslim state is conceivable and was actually realised, or very nearly so, by Muḥammad's immediate successors, the four “Orthodox Caliphs,” whose rule the historian al-Fakhrí thus describes:—
“Know that this was a state not after the fashion of the states of this world, but rather resembling prophetic dispensations and Citation from al-Fakhrí. the conditions of the world to come. And the truth concerning it is that its fashion was after the fashion of the Prophets, and its conduct after the model of the Saints, while its victories were as those of mighty Kings. Now as for its fashion, this was hardship in life and simplicity in food and raiment; one of them (i.e., the early Caliphs) would walk through the streets on foot, wearing but a tattered shirt reaching half-way down his leg, and sandals on his feet, and carrying in his hand a whip, wherewith he inflicted punishment on such as deserved it. And their food was of the humblest of their poor; the Commander of the Faithful (on whom be peace!) spoke of honey and fine bread as typical of luxury, for he said in one of his speeches, ‘If I wished, I could have the finest of this honey and the softest of this barley-bread.’
“Know further that they were not abstinent in respect to their food and raiment from poverty or inability to procure the most sumptuous apparel or the sweetest meats, but they used to do this in order to put themselves on an equality with the poorest of their subjects, and to wean the flesh from its lusts, and to discipline it till it should accustom itself to its highest potentialities; else was each one of them endowed with ample wealth, and palm-groves, and gardens, and other like possessions. But most of their expenditure was in charitable uses and offerings; the Commander of the Faithful 'Alí (on whom be peace!) had from his properties an abundant revenue, all of which he spent on the poor and needy, while he and his family contented themselves with coarse cotton garments and a loaf of barley-bread.
“As for their victories and their battles, verily their cavalry reached Africa and the uttermost parts of Khurásán and crossed the Oxus.”
Muḥammad's task was no easy one, and for the first eight or ten years of his mission, in fact till his flight (hijra) from Character of the Arabs. Mecca to Madína in A.D. 622—the epoch whence to this day his followers date—must have appeared hopeless save to such as were possessed by a faith which neither recognised impossibility nor admitted despair. It was not only that the Arabs, especially the Bedouin of the desert, did not wish to abandon their old gods and their ancient customs; they definitely disliked the pious ideals of Islám, disbelieved in its threats and promises of pains and pleasures beyond the grave, and intensely resented the discipline to which it would subject them. The genuine Arab of the desert is and remains at heart a sceptic and a materialist; his hard, clear, keen, but somewhat narrow intelligence, ever alert in its own domain, was neither curious nor credulous in respect to immaterial and supra-sensual things; his egotistical and self-reliant nature found no place and felt no need for a God who, if powerful to protect, was exacting of service and self-denial. For the rest, Alláh ta'álá, the Supreme God preached by Muḥammad, was no new discovery of Islám, and if He received from the old Pagan Arabs less attention and poorer offerings than the minor deities, it was because the latter, being in a sense the property of the tribe, might fairly be expected to concern themselves more diligently about its affairs. Yet even to them scant reverence was paid, unless matters went as their worshippers desired. “À la moindre occasion,” says Dozy, “on se fâchait contre les dieux, on leur disait comme il faut leurs vérités et on les outrageait.” Oracles which failed to give the desired reply were insulted; idols which did not accept the sacrifices offered to them in a becoming manner were abused and pelted with stones; gods were deposed and improvised on the smallest provocation. Yet all this did not dispose the Arabs to accept a new and exacting religion. The old gods, if ineffectual, were at least intimate and inoffensive, and if they gave little, they expected little in return. Islám, moreover, was uncompromising in its attitude towards them; they and their followers—even those who lived before the Light came—were in hell-fire, and no favourite fetish was suffered to endure for a moment by the iconoclastic zeal of the new faith. More than this, as Dr. Goldziher has well shown in the first chapter of his luminous and erudite Muhammedanische Studien, wherein, under the title “Dín and Muruwwa,” he contrasts the ideals of the Jáhiliyya, or pagan times, with those of Islám, these ideals were in many respects incompatible, and even diametrically opposed. Personal courage, unstinted generosity, lavish hospitality, unswerving loyalty to kinsmen, ruthlessness in avenging any wrong or insult offered to one's self or one's relations or tribesmen: these were the cardinal virtues of the old pagan Arab; while resignation, patience, subordination of personal and tribal interests to the demands of a common faith, unworldliness, avoidance of ostentation and boastfulness, and many other things enjoined by Islám were merely calculated to arouse his derision and contempt.
To make the contrast clearer, let us compare the spirit revealed by the two following passages, of which the first is Ideals of the Jáhiliyya and of Islám contrasted. taken (v. 178) from the second súra of the Qur'án (entitled “the Cow”), while the second is a poem ascribed to the old robber-minstrel Ta'abbaṭa Sharran, a name suggestive enough, for it signifies “he took an armful of wickedness.”
The first runs as follows:—
“Righteousness is not that ye turn your faces to the East and to the West, but righteousness is this: whosoever believeth in God, Qur'án, ii, 178. and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Prophets; and whoso, for the love of God, giveth of his wealth unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the poor, and the traveller, and to those who crave an alms, and for the release of the captives; and, whoso observeth prayer and giveth in charity; and those who, when they have covenanted, fulfil their covenant; and who are patient in adversity and hardship, and in times of violence. These are the righteous and they that fear the Lord!”
191aThe second is sometimes considered to be a forgery made by that clever but not very scrupulous scholar Khalaf al- The qaṣída of Ta'abbaṭa Sharran. Aḥmar; but the late Professor Robertson Smith held, as it seems to me with good reason, that it breathes throughout so essentially pagan a spirit that it can scarcely be regarded as a fabrication; or, if it be such, it is so artfully devised as to sum up, as it were, the whole spirit of the old pagan Arabs.191b The poem celebrates the vengeance exacted by the singer from the tribe of Hudhayl for the murder of his uncle, with a description of whose virtues it opens:—
“Verily in the ravine below Sal'a lies a murdered man whose blood
is not suffered to rest unavenged.
He left and bequeathed the burden [of vengeance] to me, and
blithely did I take up the burden for him.
And in quest of the blood-revenge, on my part, is a sister's son, a
swordsman whose harness is not loosened,
A stealthy tracker who sweats venom, tracking like the rustling
viper, spitting poison.Grievous and crushing were the tidings that reached us, waxing
great till the greatest seemed small beside them!
Fate hath robbed us (and she was ever faithless) of one hard of
approach whose client was never abased!
A sun-beam in the winter-weather, until, when the Dog-star blazed,
he was a coolness and a shadow;
Lean of the sides, but not from want, open-handed, wise and
disdainful;
Journeying with prudence, so that, when he halted, prudence
halted where he halted;
The rushing rain of the rain-cloud when he would confer benefits,
and, when he sprang to the fray, a conquering lion;
Long-bearded in the tribe, swarthy, ample-skirted; and, when on
the war-path, a slim hyæna-wolf.
And he had two tastes, honey and colocynth, of which two tastes
every one had tasted.
He would ride through the ‘Terror’ [i.e., the Desert] alone, none
bearing him company save his notched sword-blade of Yemen.A band of brave fellows travelling through the noon-day glare and
then on through the night, until, when the morning mists were
dispelled, they alighted;
Each keen warrior girt with a keen blade, flashing like the light-
ning when unsheathed.
So we exacted from them the blood-revenge, and of the two
factions there escaped not save the fewest.
They were sipping breaths of sleep, and when they dozed I smote
them with consternation and they were scattered.And if Hudhayl broke his sword-blade, many a sword-blade of
Hudhayl did he break!
And many a time did he make them kneel down in a jagged
kneeling-place, whereon the feet were torn!
And many a time did he surprise them at morning in their shelter,
whereby there was plundering and looting when the killing
was done!Hudhayl hath been roasted by me, a gallant warrior who wearieth
not of evil till they weary,
Who giveth his spear its first drink, so that, when it hath drunk its
first draught, it hath thereafter its second draught.
Wine hath become lawful to me when it was unlawful; and by
what labour did it scarce become lawful!
Give me to drink, then, O Sawád son of 'Amr, for verily my body
hath waxed lean since my uncle's death!The hyæna laughs over the slain of Hudhayl, and thou may'st see
the wolf baring his gleaming teeth upon them,
And the birds of prey awake gorged in the morning, trampling
upon them, unable to fly!”
“Honour and revenge,” in short, as Muir well says, were the keynotes of the pagan Arab's ideal muruwwa (“manliness” or “virtue”); to be free, brave, generous; to return good for good and evil for evil with liberal measure; to hold equally dear wine, women, and war; to love life and not fear death; to be independent, self-reliant, boastful, and predatory; above all, to stand by one's kinsmen, right or wrong, and to hold the blood-tie above all other obligations, such were the ideals of the old pagan Arabs, as they are still of the Bedouin, who are Muslims in little else than the name. Alike typical and touching was the attitude of Muḥammad's uncle Abú Ṭálib towards his nephew. “O my nephew,” he said, in reply to the Prophet's earnest attempts to convert him to Islám, “I cannot forsake the faith of my fathers and what they held, but, by Alláh! naught shall be suffered to befall thee whereby thou may'st be vexed so long as I remain alive!”
193aDisbelieving in the Prophet's claims, or, if believing them, preferring hell-fire in the company of his ancestors to the paradise offered to him as the reward of belief, he yet would not suffer his nephew to be molested at the hands of strangers.
The period extending from the hijra or Flight of the Prophet (June, A.D. 622) to the death of 'Umar, the second of the Four Orthodox Caliphs (al-Khulafá'u 'r-Ráshidún), in A.D. 644, may be regarded as the golden age of pious, as opposed to philosophical, Islám; for though the ideal theocracy depicted by al-Fakhrí in the passage already cited endured till the death of 'Alí (A.D. 661), who is regarded by a large section of the Muslim world as the noblest, best, and worthiest of the Prophet's successors, discord, schism, murder, civil war, and internecine feuds entered in during the disastrous rule of the third Caliph, 'Uthmán. Muḥammad lived to see all Arabia apparently submissive to his doctrine, but no sooner was he dead than a widespread revolt against Islám broke out amongst the Arab tribes, and not till this was quenched in blood, and the “renegades” either slain or reduced to obedience, could Abú Bakr seriously turn his attention to the conquest and conversion of non-Arabian lands. Of these Persia alone concerns us, and once more we may with advantage turn to that graphic and picturesque historian al-Fakhrí, who, after detailing the signs and warnings which caused Núshírwán and Khusraw Parwíz such disquietude, and remarking that “the like of these ominous portents continually succeeded each other until the end of the matter,” continues as follows:—
“And verily when Rustam went forth to do battle with Sa'd the son of Abú Waqqáṣ he saw in his dream as it were an Angel who Al-Fakhrí's account of the Conquest of Persia. descended from heaven, and gathered up the bows of the Persians, and set a seal upon them, and ascended with them into heaven. Then there was added thereunto what they constantly witnessed in respect to the resolute speech of the Arabs, and their confidence in themselves, and their extreme patience under hardships; and thereafter the dissentient voices which arose amongst themselves towards the end of the matter, after the death of Shahriyár and the accession of Yazdigird to the royal throne, he being then but a young lad, feeble in council; and lastly the supreme catastrophe, which was the veering of the wind against them during the Battle of Qádisiyya, so that it blinded them with dust and encompassed them in a universal destruction. There was Rustam slain and their host put to rout: look, then, at these omens, and know that God hath a purpose which He fulfilleth.
from the Persians of their empire.
“The frontiers of Persia were the most formidable of frontiers to the Arabs, and those which inspired in their minds the greatest respect and fear, so that they were loath to attack them, but rather avoided them out of respect for the state of the Persian kings, and because of what was generally believed as to their power to subdue other nations. And thus it continued until the latter days of Abú Bakr, when there rose up a man of the Companions named al-Muthanná son of Ḥáritha, who incited the people to give battle to the Persians, making light of the matter and inspiring them with courage therein. So a number of them responded to his appeal, and men remembered what the Apostle of God had promised them in respect to the taking possession of the treasures of the Persian kings. But naught was effected in the matter during the Caliphate of Abú Bakr.
“But during the time of 'Umar ibnu 'l-Khaṭṭáb, al-Muthanná ibn Ḥáritha wrote to him informing him of the troubled state of Persian affairs, and of the accession of Yazdigird the son of Shahriyár to the throne, and of his youth; for he was but twenty-one years of age at the time of his accession.
“Then the eagerness of the Arabs to attack Persia was increased, and 'Umar went forth with the army outside Madína, the people knowing not whither he would go, and no man daring to question him concerning aught; until at length one inquired of him once as to the time of their departure, but got nothing from his question save a rebuke.
“Now it was their habit when any matter troubled them, and they must needs get information concerning it, to seek aid from 'Uthmán ibn 'Affán, or 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán ibn 'Awf; and, when the matter was very urgent to them, they added unto these al-'Abbás. So 'Uthmán said to 'Umar, ‘O Commander of the Faithful, what tidings have reached thee, and what dost thou intend?’ Then 'Umar called the people to public prayer, and they assembled round him, and he announced the news to them, and exhorted them, and urged them to attack the Persians, making light of the enterprise; and they all consented willingly. Then they asked him to go with them in person, and he answered, ‘I will do so unless a better plan than this should appear.’ Then he sent for those who were wisest in council and most eminent among the Companions and most prudent, and summoned them before him, and sought counsel of them, and they advised that he should remain and should send one of the chief men of the Companions, remaining behind himself to strengthen him with support. Then, should they be victorious, the end would be attained, while if the man perished, he would send another.
“So when they had agreed to this plan, 'Umar ascended the pulpit; for it was their custom, when they wished to address the people collectively, that one of them should ascend the pulpit and harangue them on that subject whereon he desired to speak. So when 'Umar had mounted the pulpit he said, ‘O people, verily I was resolved to march forth with you, but the wise and prudent amongst you have turned me from this plan, suggesting that I should abide here and send one of the Companions to undertake the conduct of the war.’ Then he asked their advice as to whom he should send; and at this juncture a letter was handed to him from Sa'd ibn Abí Waqqáṣ, who was absent on some employ; and they recommended him to 'Umar, saying, ‘He is a very lion in attack.’ And this proposal met with 'Umar's approval, and he summoned Sa'd, and conferred on him the chief command in 'Iráq, and entrusted unto him the army.
“So Sa'd marched forth with the people, and 'Umar accompanied them for some parasangs; then he exhorted them and incited them to the holy war, and bade them farewell, and returned unto Madína. But Sa'd, continuing his march, shifted his line of advance into the desert which lies between the Ḥijáz and Kúfa, seeking intelligence, and receiving constant messages and letters from 'Umar, who kept advising him with plan after plan and strengthening him with successive reinforcements, until he finally decided to march on Qádisiyya, which was the gate of the Persian Empire.
Now when Sa'd halted at Qádisiyya, he and those who were with him were in need of provisions, so he sent out some of his men, commanding them to bring in some sheep and cattle. The people of Sawád feared their advance, but they found a man and questioned him about sheep and cattle. But he replied, ‘I have no knowledge concerning this;’ and behold, he was himself a herdsman who had concealed his beasts in a place of security thereabouts. Then, as they relate, a bull amongst them cried out, ‘The herdsman lies! Lo, here we are in this enclosure!’ So they entered in and drove out therefrom a number of cattle, and brought them to Sa'd. And they augured well from this incident, accounting it a sign of help from God Almighty. For even though the bull did not speak actual words to give the lie to the herdsman, none the less did its lowing at this juncture, whereby they were guided to the cattle when they were so grievously in need of them, clearly give the lie to the herdsman. And this was one of those remarkable coincidences which presaged victory and empire, and wherefrom they were justified in auguring well.
“Now when the news of Sa'd's advance with his army reached the Persians, they despatched against him Rustam at the head of thirty thousand warriors, the Arab army consisting of only some seven or eight thousand men, though afterwards they were reinforced by others. And when the two armies met, the Persians were laughing at the spears of the Arabs, which they compared to spindles;197a à propos of which I may relate an anecdote of a similar character which there is no harm in introducing here. Falaku 'd-Dín Muḥammad the son of Aydamir related to me as follows: ‘I was in the army of the lesser Dawídár197b when he marched forth to meet the Tatars197c on the western side of the City of Peace [Baghdad] on the occasion of that most grievous catastrophe which befell it in the year A.H. 656 [= A.D. 1258]. We met at Nahr Bashír, one of the tributaries of the Little Tigris; and from our side would go forth to challenge an adversary a horseman mounted on an Arab horse and wholly clad in mail, as though he and his horse were a mountain in solidity. Then there would come out to meet him from the Mongols a horseman mounted on a horse like unto an ass, and holding in his hand a spear like unto a spindle, unclad and unarmed, so that all who beheld him laughed at him. Yet ere the day was done the victory was theirs, and they scattered us in a dire defeat which was the key of disaster, so that then there happened what happened in this matter.’
“Then ambassadors passed between Rustam and Sa'd; and the Arab of the desert would come to Rustam's door as he sat on a throne of gold, supported by gold-embroidered cushions in a room carpeted with gold-embroidered carpets, the Persians wearing crowns and making display of their ornaments, and the elephants of war standing on the outskirts of the assembly. So the Arab would approach with his spear in his hand, girt with his sword and carrying his bow across his shoulders, and would tie up his horse near to Rustam's throne. Then the Persians would cry out at him and endeavour to prevent him, but Rustam would stay them; and the Arab would approach him, walking towards him leaning on his spear, pressing therewith on the carpet and cushions and tearing them with its spike, while the Persians looked on. And when the Arab came unto Rustam he would answer him back, and Rustam continually heard from them wise words and replies which astonished and affrighted him. Thus, for instance, Sa'd used to send a different ambassador each time; and Rustam inquired of one so sent, ‘Why do they not send to us him who was with us yesterday?’ ‘Because,’ answered the other, ‘our Amír deals equitably with us both in woe and weal.’ Another day he asked, ‘What is this spindle in thy hand?’ meaning his lance. ‘The smallness of a burning coal,’ replied the other, ‘is no hurt to it.’ To another he said on another occasion, ‘What ails your sword that I see it so worn?’ ‘Worn of sheath, keen of blade,’ retorted the Arab. So these things and the like which Rustam saw alarmed him, and he said to his retainers, ‘Behold, the pretensions of these people are either true or false. If they be false, then a people who guard their secrets thus carefully, differing in naught, and agreed with such accord in the concealment of their secret that none discloseth it, is assuredly a people of great strength and power. But if they be true, then can none withstand them.’ Then they cried out round him, saying, ‘We conjure thee by God not to abandon aught which thou holdest by reason of anything which thou hast seen on the part of these dogs! Rather be firm in thy resolve to do battle with them.’ Then said Rustam, ‘This is my view which I tell you; but I am with you in whatsoever ye desire.’
“Then they fought for several days, on the last of which happened the veering of the wind against the Persians, so that the dust blinded them; and Rustam was slain, and his army was routed, and their possessions were plundered, and the Persians, stricken with panic, sought the fords of the Tigris that they might pass to the eastern shore. But Sa'd pursued them, and crossed the fords, and inflicted on them another great slaughter at Jalúlá, and plundered their possessions, and took captive a daughter of the Persian King's.
199a“Then Sa'd wrote to 'Umar to inform him of the victory. And during these days 'Umar was anxiously on the watch for tidings of the army, so that every day he used to go forth outside Madína on foot seeking for news, that perchance one might arrive and inform him of what had happened to them. So when he who brought the good tidings from Sa'd arrived, 'Umar saw him and called to him, ‘Whence comest thou?’ ‘From 'Iráq,’ answered he. ‘What of Sa'd and the army?’ inquired 'Umar. Said the other, ‘God hath rendered them victorious over all this;’ and 'Umar was walking by the side of the man as he rode on his camel, not knowing that this was 'Umar. But when the people gathered round him, saluting him as Commander of the Faithful, the Arab recognised him and said, ‘Why did'st thou not tell me (may God be merciful to thee) that thou wert the Commander of the Faithful?’ ‘O my brother,’ replied 'Umar, ‘thou hast done naught amiss.’ Then 'Umar wrote to Sa'd, ‘Stay where thou art; pursue them not, but be satisfied with this; and make for the Muslims a place of refuge and a city wherein they may dwell, and set not a river betwixt me and them.’ So Sa'd made for them Kúfa, and traced out therein the plan of the Mosque, while the people marked out their dwellings; and he made it the capital of the province. And thus he obtained control over al-Madá'in199b (Ctesiphon), and got possession of its treasures and stores.
“Amongst these was that an Arab got possession of a bag filled with camphor, and brought it to his companions, who, supposing it to be salt,199c put it in the food which they were cooking, and found it lacking in savour, not knowing what it was. Then one who knew what it was saw it, and bought it from them for a ragged shirt worth a couple of dirhams.
“And amongst these was that an Arab of the desert got possession of a great ruby worth a large sum of money, and knew not its value. And one who knew its value saw it and bought it from him for a thousand dirhams. Then afterwards the Arab discovered its value, and his comrades reproached him, saying, ‘Why didst thou not ask more for it?’ He answered, ‘If I had known of any number greater than a thousand, I would have demanded it.’
200a“And amongst these was that one of the Arabs was holding in his hand red gold and crying, ‘Who will take the yellow and give me the white?’ supposing that silver was better than gold.
“Then Yazdigird fled to Khurásán, and his power was ever waning until he was slain there in the year 31 of the Flight [= A.D. 651-2], and he was the last of the Persian kings.”
I have translated this long passage from al-Fakhrí because, in comparatively few words and in a graphic and forcible way, it details the most salient features of the Arab conquest of Persia, though it is summary and sketchy, for the struggle was neither begun nor ended with the fatal battle of Qádisiyya. Early in the war the Muslims sustained a severe defeat at Qussu'n-Náṭif at the hands of Mardánsháh and four thousand Persians (November, A.D. 634), nor did the battle of Nahá-wand, which happened seven years later than that of Qádisiyya, put an end to the resistance of the Persians, who continued to defend themselves in individual localities with a stubbornness which reached its maximum in the province of Párs, the cradle and centre of Persian greatness. In Ṭabaristán, protected by forests and fens, and separated by a wall of mountains from the great central plateau of Persia, the Ispahbads, or military governors of the Sásánian kings, maintained an independent rule until about A.D. 760.
More difficult to trace than the territorial conquest of the Sásánian dominions is the gradual victory of the religion of Muḥammad over that of Zoroaster. It is often supposed that the choice offered by the warriors of Islám was between the Qur'án and the sword. This, however, is not the fact, for Magians, as well as Christians and Jews, were permitted to retain their religion, being merely compelled to pay a jizya or poll-tax; a perfectly just arrangement, inasmuch as non-Muslim subjects of the Caliphs were necessarily exempt both from military service and from the alms (Ṣadaqát) obligatory on the Prophet's followers. Thus in al-Baládhurí's History or the Muslim Conquests (Kitábu futúḥi'l-buldán)201a we read (p. 69) that when Yemen submitted to the Prophet, he sent agents to instruct them in the laws and observances of Islám, and to collect the alms of such as adopted it and the poll-tax from such as continued in the Christian, Jewish, or Magian religions. Similarly in the case of 'Ummán he ordered Abú Zayd to “take alms from the Muslims and the poll-tax from the Magians” (p. 77). In Baḥrayn the Persian marzubán and some of his fellow-countrymen embraced Islám, but others continued in the faith of Zoroaster, paying a poll-tax of one dínár for every adult person. “The Magians and Jews,” we read (p. 79), “were averse to Islám, and preferred to pay the poll-tax; and the hypocrites amongst the Arabs said, ‘Muḥam-mad pretended that the poll-tax should be accepted only from the People of the Book, and now he hath accepted it from the Magians of Hajar, who are not of the People of the Book;’ whereupon was revealed the verse, ‘O ye who believe! look to vourselves; he who errs can do you no hurt when ye are guided: unto God is your return altogether and He will make plain unto you that which ye knew not.’”201b The treaty concluded by Ḥabíb b. Maslama with the people of Dabíl in Armenia ran as follows: “In the Name of God the Merciful the Clement. This is a letter from Ḥabíb b. Maslama to the people of Dabíl, Christians, Magians, and Jews, such of them as are present and such of them as are absent. Verily I guarantee the safety of your lives, properties, churches, temples and city walls; ye are secure, and it is incumbent upon us faithfully to observe this treaty so long as ye observe it and pay the poll-tax and the land-tax. God is witness, and He sufficeth as a witness.” The Caliph 'Umar, as would appear from a passage in al-Baládhurí (p. 267), had some doubts as to how he ought to deal with the conquered Magians, but 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán b. 'Awf sprang to his feet and cried, “I bear witness of the Apostle of God that he said, ‘Deal with them as ye deal with the People of the Book!’”
Towns which resisted the Muslims, especially such as, having first submitted, afterwards revolted, did not, of course, escape so easily, and, more particularly in the latter case, the adult males, or at any rate those found in arms, were generally put to the sword, and the women and children taken captive. Still it does not appear that the Zoroastrians as such were subjected to any severe persecution, or that the conversion of Persia to Islám was mainly effected by force. This has been very well shown by Mr. T. W. Arnold, professor at the College of Aligarh, in chap. vii of his excellent work The Preaching of Islám (London, 1896, pp. 177-184); he points out that the intolerance of the Zoroastrian priests, not only towards those of other religions, but towards nonconformist Persian sects, Manichæan, Mazdakite, Gnostic and the like, had made them widely and deeply disliked, so that in many Persian subjects “persecution had stirred up feelings of bitter hatred against the established religion and the dynasty that supported its oppressions, and so caused the Arab Conquest to appear in the light of a deliverance.” Moreover, as he further points out, the simplicity and elasticity of Islám, as well as the numerous eschatological ideas which it had borrowed from Zoroastrianism, and the relief which it gave from the irksome disabilities and elaborate purifications imposed by that religion, commended it to many, and it is quite certain that the bulk of conversions were voluntary and spontaneous. After the defeat of the Persians at Qádisiyya, for example, some four thousand soldiers from Daylam (near the Caspian Sea) decided, after consultation, to embrace Islám and join the Arabs, whom they aided in the conquest of Jalúlá, after which they settled in Kúfa with the Muslims;203a and other wholesale and voluntary conversions were numerous. Indeed the influx of Persian converts and captives into Arabia caused 'Umar some anxiety, so that, as the historian Dínawarí informs us (p. 136), he exclaimed, “O God! I take refuge with Thee from the children of these captives of Jalúlá!” Nor, in the event, did his anxiety prove baseless; and he himself was struck down by the dagger of one of these Persian captives, named by the Arabs Abú Lúlú'a; a fact which even at the present day is recalled with satisfaction by the more fanatical Persian Shí'ites, who, at least till very lately, used to celebrate the anniversary of 'Umar's death (called 'Umar-kushán) much as Guy Fawkes' day is celebrated in England.
The earliest Persian convert, Salmán, one of the most revered “Companions” of the Prophet, whom the Syrian Salmán the Persian. sect of the Nuṣayrís include in their mystical Trinity denoted by the letters 'A, M, S ('Alí “the Idea,” Muḥammad “the Name,” Salmán “the Gate”),203b embraced Islám before its militant days, and, by his skill in military engineering, rendered material service to the Prophet in the defence of Madína. His history, given at considerable length by Ibn Hishám (pp. 136-143), is very interesting; and that eager curiosity in religious matters which led him in his youth to frequent the Christian churches of Isfahán, to flee from his luxurious home and indulgent father, and to abandon the Magian faith in which he was born, first for Christianity and later for Islám, is characteristically Persian. And if Salmán was the only Persian who was included in the honoured circle of the Aṣ-háb or “Companions,” many an eminent doctor of Islám was from the first of Persian race, while not a few prisoners of war or their children, such as the four sons of Shírín (Sírín), taken captive at Jalúlá, became afterwards eminent in the Muhammadan world. Thus it is by no means correct to imply (as is often done by those who take the narrower view of Persian literary history against which I have expressly guarded myself at the beginning of this book) that the two or three centuries immediately following the Muhammadan conquest of Persia were a blank page in the intellectual life of its people. It is, on the contrary, a period of immense and unique interest, of fusion between the old and the new, of transformation of forms and transmigration of ideas, but in no wise of stagnation or death. Politically, it is true, Persia ceased for a while to enjoy a separate national existence, being merged in that great Muhammadan Empire which stretched from Gibraltar to the Jaxartes, but in the intellectual domain she soon began to assert the supremacy to which the ability and subtlety of her people entitled her. Take from what is generally called Arabian science—from exegesis, tradition, theology, philosophy, medicine, lexicography, history, biography, even Arabic grammar—the work contributed by Persians, and the best part is gone. Even the forms of State organisation were largely adapted from Persian models. Says al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt, p. 101), on the organisation of the díwáns or Government offices:204a —
“The Muslims were the army, and their wars were for the faith, not for the things of this world, and there were never lacking amongst them those who would expend a fair portion of their wealth in charitable uses and offerings, and who desired not in return for their faith and their support of their Prophet any recompense save The organisation of the díwáns. from God; nor did the Prophet or Abú Bakr impose on them any fixed contribution, but when they fought and took spoil, they took for themselves a share of the spoils fixed by the Law, and when any wealth flowed into Madína from any country it was brought to the Prophet's Mosque and divided according as he saw fit. Thus matters continued during the Caliphate of Abú Bakr; but in the year A.H. 15 (A.D. 636), during the Caliphate of 'Umar, he, seeing how conquest succeeded conquest, and how the treasures of the Persian Kings were passing into their possession, and how the loads of gold, silver, precious stones and sumptuous raiment continually followed one another, deemed it good to distribute them amongst the Muslims and to divide these riches between them, but knew not how he should do or in what manner effect this. Now there was in Madína a certain Persian marzubán, who, seeing 'Umar's bewilderment, said to him, ‘O Commander of the Faithful! Verily the Kings of Persia had an institution which they called the díwán, where was recorded all their income and expenditure, nothing being excepted therefrom; and there such as were entitled to pensions were arranged in grades so that no error might creep in.’ And 'Umar's attention was aroused, and he said, ‘Describe it to me.’ So the marzubán described it, and 'Umar understood, and instituted the díwáns…”
In the finance department not only was the Persian system adopted, but the Persian language and notation continued to be used till the time of al-Ḥajjáj b. Yúsuf (about A.D. 700), when, as we learn from al-Baládhurí (pp. 300-301), Ṣáliḥ the scribe, a son of one of the captives taken in Sístán, boasted to Zádán, the son of Farrukh, another Persian, who held the position of chief scribe and accountant in the Revenue Office of Sawád (Chaldæa), that he could, if he pleased, keep the accounts wholly in Arabic; which al-Ḥajjáj, to whom his words were reported, ordered him to do. “May God cut off thy stock from the world,” exclaimed Zádán's son Mardán-sháh, “even as thou hast cut the roots of the Persian tongue;” and he was offered, but refused, 100,000 dirhams if he would declare himself unable to effect this transference. At this time, indeed, a strong effort was made by 'Abdu'l-Malik, seconded by his ferocious but able lieutenant al-Ḥajjáj, to repress and curtail the foreign influences, Persian and Byzantine, which were already so strongly at work, and to expel non-Arabs from the Government offices, but the attempt resulted only in a partial and temporary success.
206aMeanwhile, as has been already pointed out, Zoroastrianism, though cast down from its position of a State religion, by no means disappeared from Persia, and the bands of exiles who fled before the Arab invasion first to the islands of the Persian Gulf and then to India, where they founded the Pársí colonies which still flourish in and about Bombay and Surat, were but a minority of those who still preferred Zoroaster to Muḥammad and the Avesta to the Qur'án. Pahlawí literature, as we have seen, continued side by side with the new Arabic literature produced by the Persian converts to Islám; the high priests of the Magian faith were still persons of importance, in pretty constant communication with the Government officials, and still enjoying a large amount of influence amongst their co-religionists, to whom was granted a considerable measure of self-government;206b and the fire-temples, even when laws were promulgated ordering their destruction, were in practice seldom molested, while severe punishment was sometimes inflicted by the Muhammadan authorities on persons whom an indiscreet zeal led to injure or destroy them.206c Three centuries after the Arab Conquest fire-temples still existed in almost every Persian province, though at the present day, according to the carefully compiled statistics of Houtum-Schindler, 206d the total number of “fire-worshippers” in Persia only amounts to about 8,500. According to Khanikof (Mémoire sur la partie mèridionale de l'Asie Centrale, p. 193), at the end of the eighteenth century, when Ághá Muḥammad Khán, founder of the present Qájár dynasty, laid siege to Kirmán, it alone contained 12,000 Zoroastrian families; so that the rapid diminution of their numbers must be regarded as a phenomenon of modern times, though lately, if reliance can be placed on the figures of earlier observers quoted by Houtum-Schindler, they appear to have been again gaining ground.
“In the face of such facts,” says Arnold (op. laud., pp. 180-181), “it is surely impossible to attribute the decay of Zoroastrianism to violent conversions made by the Muslim conquerors. The number of Persians who embraced Islám in the early days of the Arab rule was probably very large from the various reasons given above, but the late survival of their ancient faith and the occasional record of conversions in the course of successive centuries, render it probable that the acceptance of Islám was both peaceful and voluntary. About the close of the eighth century Sámán, a noble of Balkh, having received assistance from Asad ibn 'Abdu'lláh, the governor of Khurásán, renounced Zoroastrianism, embraced Islám, and named his son Asad after his protector: it is from this convert that the dynasty of the Sámánids (A.D. 874-999) took its name. About the beginning of the ninth century Karím ibn Shahriyár was the first King of the Qábúsiyya dynasty who became a Musalmán, and in A.D. 873 a large number of fire-worshippers were converted to Islám in Daylam through the influence of Náṣiru'l-Ḥaqq Abú Muḥammad. In the following century, about A.D. 912, Ḥasan b. 'Alí of the 'Alid dynasty on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, who is said to have been a man of learning and intelligence, and well acquainted with the religious opinions of different sects, invited the inhabitants of Ṭabaristán and Daylam, who were partly idolaters and partly Magians, to accept Islám; many of them responded to his call, while others persisted in their former state of unbelief. In the year A.H. 394 (A.D. 1003-4), a famous poet, Abu'l-Ḥasan Mihyár, a native of Daylam, who had been a fire-worshipper, was converted to Islám by a still more famous poet, the Sharíf ar-Riḍá, who was his master in the poetic art.207a Scanty as these notices of conversions are, yet the very fact that such can be found up to three centuries and a half after the Muslim Conquest is clear testimony to the toleration the Persians enjoyed, and argues that their conversion to Islám was peaceful, and, to some extent at least, gradual.”
For a time, however, the intellectual as well as the political life of Persia and Arabia were so closely connected and even identified with each other that in the next chapters, dealing with the evolution of Islám and the origin of its principal sects and schools of thought under the Umayyad and 'Abbásid Caliphs, it will be necessary to speak of the two together, and to treat of some matters more closely connected with the latter than with the former.
THE period of the Caliphate (Khiláfat) began when Abú Bakr succeeded the Prophet as his Khalífa (Caliph, vice- Definition of the period of the Caliphate. gerent, or vicar) in June, A.D. 632; and ended when, in A.D. 1258, Hulágú Khán, at the head of his Mongol hordes, seized and sacked Baghdad, and put to death the last Caliph, al-Musta'ṣim bi'lláh. The title, it is true, was, as Sir Edward Creasy says,209a “perpetuated for three centuries longer in eighteen descendants of the House of 'Abbás, who dwelt in Egypt with titular pomp, but no real power, in the capital of the Mameluke rulers, like the descendants of the Great Mogul in British India,” until A.D. 1517, when the Ottoman Sultan Selím the First, having overthrown the Mameluke dynasty, induced the puppet-Caliph to transfer to him the title and visible insignia of the Caliphate, the sacred standard, sword, and mantle of the Prophet. Since that time the Ottoman Sultans claim “the sacred position of Caliph, Vicar of the Prophet of God, Commander of the Faithful, and Supreme Imám of Islám”; but whatever advantage they may derive from these high titles, the Caliphate, as a historical actuality, ceased to exist, after enduring 626 years, in A.D. 1258.
210aThis period falls into three well-marked but very unequal divisions, viz.:—
1. That of the Orthodox Caliphs (al-Khulafá'u'r-Ráshidún) Abú Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthmán, and 'Alí (632-661 A.D.), which may be briefly The three periods of the Caliphate. characterised as the Theocracy of Islám.
2. That of the Umayyad Caliphs (or Kings, for the spiritual rank of Caliph is often denied to them by later Muslim historians), the Banú Umayya, who, fourteen in number, ruled from A.D. 661 to 749. This may be defined as the period of Arabian Imperialism and Pagan Reaction.
3. That of the 'Abbásid Caliphs, the Banu'l-'Abbás, thirty-seven in number, who held sway from A.D. 749, when, on October 30th, Abu'l-'Abbás 'Abdu'lláh, called aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ, “the Shedder of Blood,” was proclaimed Caliph at Kúfa, till the sack of Baghdad and murder of al-Musta'ṣim by Hulágú and his Mongols in A.D. 1258. This may be defined as the period of Persian Ascendancy, and of Philosophical and Cosmopolitan Islám.
During the first period, Madína was the centre of government; during the second, Damascus; during the third, The Mongol Invasion the great turningpoint in the intellectual as well as in the political history of Islám. Baghdad. The Mongol Invasion of the thirteenth century, and the destruction of the Caliphate which it entailed, put an end to the formal unity of the Muhammadan Empire in the East and the palmy days of Islám, and is by far the most important event in the history of Asia since the time of the Prophet Muḥammad. Long before this catastrophe, indeed, the power of the Caliphate had been reduced to a mere shadow of what it was in what Tennyson calls “the golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid”; but, though the Empire of the Caliphs was for the most part portioned out amongst dynasties and rulers whose allegiance, when yielded at all, was as a rule the merest lip-service, Baghdad remained until that fatal day the metropolis of Islám and the centre of learning and culture, while Arabic maintained its position not only as the language of diplomacy and learning, but of polite society and belles lettres. The scientific and critical spirit which we so admire in Muhammadan writers antecedent to the Mongol period becomes rapidly rarer in the succeeding years, and hence it is that Persian literature (that is, the literature written in the Persian language), which falls for the most part in the later days of the Caliphate and in the period subsequent to its fall, cannot, for all its beauties, compare in value or interest with that literature which, though written in Arabic, was to a large extent the product of non-Arab and especially Persian minds. The Mongol invasion was not less an intellectual than a political disaster, and a difference, not only of degree but of kind, is to be observed between what was written and thought before and after it.
To write a detailed history of the Caliphs forms no part of the plan on which this book is conceived, especially as this has already been admirably done in German by Dr. Gustav Weil (1846-1862) and in English by Sir William Muir.211a Nor, indeed, are these excellent works amongst the European sources on which we shall chiefly draw in endeavouring to delineate in broad outlines the characteristics of each period, especially as regards its Persian manifestations in the fields of religious and philosophical speculation, culture, politics, and science. For this purpose the most valuable and suggestive books written in European languages are the following: A. von Kremer's Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams (1868); Idem, Culturgeschichtliche Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete des Islams (1873); Idem, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter dem Chalifen (2 vols., 1875-1877); Dozy's Het Islam (1863) translated into French by Victor Chauvin under the title Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Islamisme (1879); Idem, Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne; Goldziher's Muhammedanische Studien (2 vols., 1889-1890); Van Vloten's Recherches sur la Domination arabe, le Chiitisme et les Croyances Messianiques sous le Khalifat des Omayades (1894); Idem, Opkomst der Abbasiden; T. W. Arnold's Preaching of Islam (1896), and other similar works by Caussin de Perceval, Schmölders, Dugat, &c., to which must be added numerous valuable monographs, such as those of Brünnow on the Khárijites, Goldziher on the Záhirites, de Goeje on the Carmathians, Steiner on the Mu'tazilites, Spitta on the School of al-Ash'arí, and many others.
In the two histories of Persia with which Englishmen are most familiar, those of Sir John Malcolm and Clements Markham, the transition period intervening between the Arab Conquest in the seventh century of our era, and the formation of the first independent or semi-independent post-Muhammadan Persian dynasties in the ninth, is rather cursorily and inadequately treated, as though, like the period which separates the fall of the Achæmenian from the rise of the Sásánian dynasties (B.C. 330—A.D. 226), it were a mere interruption of the national life, instead of being, as in many ways it actually was, the most interesting, and intellectually, the most fruitful of all the periods into which Persian history can be divided. For this reason it will here be discussed with some fulness, especially in what concerns the origin of the first sects whereby Islám was torn asunder.
Although the Umayyad Caliphate, strictly speaking, began with the death of 'Alí and the accession of Mu'áwiya in A.D. 661, the tendencies which led to its establishment go back to the rule of 'Uthmán (A.D. 644-656), the third of the four “Orthodox Caliphs.” We have seen that the creation of a common national feeling amongst the Arabs, nay more, of a common religious feeling among all Muslims, in place of the narrow clannishness of the heathen Arabs, was one of the greatest and most notable results of the Prophet's mission. But such counsels of perfection were from the first hard to follow, being too radically opposed to ancient and deeply-rooted national instincts, and even the Prophet's partiality for Mecca, his native city, and the Quraysh, his own tribe, had on several occasions given rise to some discontent and murmuring on the part of his allies of Madína (the Anṣár, or “Helpers”) to whose timely aid his cause owed so much. Still, on the whole, this ideal of equality amongst all Muslims was fairly maintained until the death of 'Umar in A.D. 644. That it was the ideal is apparent from numerous passages both in the Qur'án and in Tradition, such as “the noblest of you in the sight of God is he who most feareth God” (Qur'án, xlix, 13); “the believers are but brethren, so make peace between your two brothers” (Qur'án, xlix, 10); “O man! God hath taken away from you the arrogance of heathen days and the ancient pride in ancestry; an Arab hath no other precedence over a barbarian than by virtue of the fear of God; ye are all the progeny of Adam, and Adam himself is of the earth” (Tradition).213a At this time, it is true, there were but a very few non-Arabs or “barbarians” who had embraced Islám, and it is doubtful whether, even in his moments of greatest optimism, the Prophet ever dreamed of his religion extending much beyond the Arabian peninsula; but here at least is the idea, clearly expressed, of a potential equality amongst believers, and an aristocracy not of birth but of faith.
With the accession of 'Uthmán, however, the old nepotism and clannish feeling once more became very evident; and dangers of sedition and schism, already imminent by reason of the jealousies between Mecca and Madína, between the Muhájirún (“Exiles”) and the Anṣár (“Helpers”), between the Háshimite and Umayyad factions of the Prophet's tribe of Quraysh, and between this tribe and the other Arabs, who regarded its ascendancy with ill-concealed discontent, were brought to a head by the new Caliph's irresolution and weakness, obstinacy, and undisguised furtherance of the interests of his Umayyad kinsmen, even of those whose attachment to Islám was most open to doubt. To make clearer what follows, two genealogical tables from Stanley Lane-Poole's most useful manual on the Muhammadan Dynasties (1894) are here inserted. Of these, the first shows the subdivisions of the tribe of Quraysh and the general connection of the lines of Caliphs.
| QURAYSH | |||||
| 'Abd Manáf | |||||
| Háshim | 'Abd Shams | ||||
| 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib | Umayya | ||||
| 'UMAR | ABÚ BAKR | 'Abdu'lláh | Abu Ṭálib | 'Abbás | 'UTHMÁN and the UMAYYADS |
| Ḥafṣa = MUḤAM-MAD | 'Á'isha = MUḤAMMAD THE PROPHET | 'ABBÁSIDS | |||
| 'UTHMÁN = | Ruqayya and Umm Kulthúm | Fáṭima = 'ALÍ = al-Ḥanafiyya | |||
| Muḥammad Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya | |||||
| al-Ḥasan | al-Ḥusayn | ||||
| SHÍ'ITE IMÁMS, FÁṬIMID CALIPHS, &c. | |||||
From this table we see that of the four “Orthodox Caliphs,” the two first, Abú Bakr and 'Umar, were the Prophet's fathers-in-law, while the two last, 'Uthmán and 'Alí, were both his sons-in-law; but that 'Alí alone was closely related by blood, he being Muḥammad's first cousin, in addition to which he was distinguished by his early and devoted adhesion to the Faith. We also see (and the importance of this fact will appear in the next chapter) that the term Háshimite, or descendant of Háshim, is equally applicable to the Shí'ite Imáms descended from 'Alí and the Prophet's daughter Fáṭima, and to the 'Abbásid Caliphs, but excludes the Umayyads.
The second table shows the relation of the Umayyad Caliphs to one another and to 'Uthmán.
| UMAYYA | ||||||
| Abu'l-'Aṣ | Ḥarb | |||||
| Abu Sufyán | ||||||
| 'Affán | Ḥakam | |||||
| 1. Mu'áwiya I | ||||||
| 'UTHMÁN | 4. Marwán I | |||||
| 2. Yazíd I | ||||||
| Muḥammad | 5. 'Abdu'l-Malik | 'Abdu'l-'Aziz | 3. Mu'áwiya II | |||
| 14. Marwán II | 8. 'Umar II | |||||
| 6. Walíd I | 7. Sulaymán | 9. Yazíd II | 10. Hishám. | |||
| 11. Walíd II | Mu'áwiya | |||||
| 12. Yazíd III | 13. Ibráhím | |||||
| 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán | ||||||
| UMAYYADS OF SPAIN. | ||||||
From the very beginning of his reign 'Uthmán showed a tendency to favour his friends and kinsmen at the expense and to the detriment of that rigid and unswerving justice which Islám had set up as its ideal. That Abú Lúlú'a, the Persian slave who had assassinated 'Umar the late Caliph, should suffer the penalty of death was natural enough; but 'Umar's son, 'Ubaydu'lláh, not content with slaying the assassin, also slew a Persian noble named Hurmuzán, a captive of war who had made profession of Islám, because he suspected him of complicity. Of such complicity there was no proof, and 'Alí, ever rigorous in upholding the laws of Islám, held that 'Ubaydu'lláh should be put to death, as having slain a believer without due cause. 'Uthmán, however, would not hear of this, but instead named a monetary compensation, which he himself paid;215a and when Ziyád b. Labíd, one of the Anṣár, upbraided him in verse215b for his misplaced leniency, he silenced and expelled the over-bold poet.
Thus from the very moment of his accession 'Uthmán's readiness to be swayed by personal considerations was apparent, but it became much more conspicuous as time went on. The Arabs in general were embittered against the tribe of Quraysh, whose supremacy they watched with growing jealousy; and now 'Uthmán's open partiality for the Umayyad branch of that tribe, which had strenuously and bitterly opposed the Prophet so long as opposition was possible, and had only made a tardy and unwilling profession of Islám when it could no longer be resisted, thoroughly alienated the Háshi-mite branch, so that even Quraysh was no longer united. Some of the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, such as Abú Sarḥ, 'Uthmán's foster-brother, whom Muḥammad would have put to death on the capture of Mecca but for 'Uthmán's intercession, were raised to the highest commands and enriched with the most princely salaries. Men notoriously lax in their religious duties, like Walíd b. 'Uqba, whose father had been put to death by the Prophet after the battle of Badr with a “promise of hell-fire,” and Sa'íd b. al-Áṣ, whose father was slain at the same battle in the ranks of the heathen, were given rich governments. Walíd, to whom the government of Kúfa was given, came drunk to the mosque, said the wrong prayers, and then asked the congregation whether they had had enough, or would like some more. He was of course dismissed, but the further chastisement ordained by Islám was only inflicted by 'Alí's insistence against 'Uthmán's wish. Ibn 'Ámir, the Caliph's young cousin, was made governor of Baṣra, on hearing which the old governor, Abú Músá, whom he had supplanted, said, “Now ye will have a taxgatherer to your heart's content, rich in cousins, aunts, and uncles, who will flood you with his harpies.”216a Sa'íd b. al-'Áṣ, the new governor of Kúfa, was as bad as his predecessor, so that the people murmured and said, “One of Quraysh succeedeth another as governor, the last no better than the first. It is but out of the frying-pan into the fire.”
The growing discontent had other grounds, which led to the alienation of many old Companions of the Prophet remarkable for their piety and ascetic life. Ibn Mas'úd, one of the greatest authorities on the text of the Qur'án, was deeply of- Assassination of 'Uthman in A.D. 656. fended by 'Uthmán's high-handed recension of the Holy Book, and more particularly by his destruction of all “unauthorised versions.” Abú Dharr, who preached the equality of all believers and denounced the growing luxury, was driven into exile, where he died.217a Innovations, for which no good reason beyond the Caliph's will was assigned, added to the rising flood of disaffection, which culminated in the cruel murder of the aged Caliph by a band of malcontents, in the women's apartments of his own house, in the holy city of Madína, on June 17, A.D. 656. His wife Ná'ila, faithful to the last, attempted to ward off with her hand a blow aimed at him by one of the assassins, whereby several of her fingers were cut off. These fingers, together with the blood-stained shirt of the aged Caliph, were afterwards exhibited by Mu'áwiya in the mosque of Damascus, in order to arouse the anger of the Syrians against the murderers.
217bThe death of 'Uthmán destroyed once and for all the outward semblance of unity which had hitherto existed in Islám, 'Alí elected Caliph. and led directly to wars wherein for the first time the sword was turned by Muslims against their fellow-believers. 'Alí was at length chosen Caliph—a tardy recognition, as many thought, of his wellfounded claims to that high office—to the disappointment of Ṭalḥa and Zubayr, who, incited by 'Á'isha, the daughter of Abú Bakr and widow of the Prophet, revolted against him Battle of the Camel. and paid for their presumption with their lives at the Battle of the Camel, wherein ten thousand Muslims perished (December, A.D. 656). 'Alí himself was most anxious to avoid this carnage, but just when his efforts at conciliation seemed crowned with success the murderers of 'Uthmán, who were included in his army, fearing lest punishment might fall upon them if peace were restored, succeeded in precipitating the battle.
Worse trouble, however, was impending in Syria, where 'Uthmán's kinsman Mu'áwiya was governor, and where the Mu'áwiya refuses to acknowledge 'Alí as Caliph. Umayyad influence and interest were supreme. 'Alí, refusing to listen to those who advised him not to interfere with this powerful and cunning governor, persisted in his intention of at once recalling him from his post. Mu'áwiya refused to obey the summons, and retaliated by roundly accusing 'Alí of being privy to 'Uthmán's murder, a charge which had been already formulated by Walíd b. 'Uqba (who, as we have seen, had suffered punishment at 'Alí's hands), in some verses218a addressed to the Háshimites in general, which conclude:—
“Ye have betrayed him ('Uthmán) in order that ye might take his place,
Even as once Kisrá (Khusraw Parwíz) was betrayed by his satraps.”
Mu'áwiya, therefore, posing as the avenger of 'Uthmán, not merely refused to obey 'Alí, or to acknowledge him as Caliph, but himself laid claim to this title, a pretension in which he was ably supported by the astute 'Amr ibnu'l-'Áṣ, to whom, as the reward of his services, he promised the government of Egypt. All negotiations having failed, 'Alí, who had left Madína and established himself at Kúfa, declared war on Mu'áwiya and his Syrians, and, with an army of fifty thousand Battle of Ṣiffín. men, marched against him. The two armies met at Ṣiffín, a place lying between Aleppo and Emesa (Ḥims) in Syria, and after several weeks of desultory skirmishing and fruitless negotiations, a pitched battle was fought in the last days of July, A.D. 657. On the third day victory inclined decisively to 'Alí's side, when 'Amr ibnu'l-'Áṣ, ever fertile in stratagems, counselled Mu'áwiya to bid his troops raise aloft on their lances leaves of the Qur'án, and cry, “The Law of God! The Law of God! Let that arbitrate between us!” In vain did 'Alí warn his followers against this device, and urge them to follow up their advantage; the fanatical puritans who formed the backbone of his army refused to fight against men who appealed to the Qur'án; a truce was called; arbitration was accepted by both parties; and even here 'Alí was forced to accept as his representative the feeble and irresolute Abú Músá al-Ash'arí, whom he had but lately dismissed for his lukewarmness from the government of Kúfa, while Mu'áwiya's cause was committed to the wily and resourceful 'Amr ibnu'l-'Áṣ, who, by another discreditable Mu'áwiya proclaimed Caliph, Feb., 658. trick,219a succeeded in getting 'Alí set aside and Mu'áwiya declared Caliph. This took place at Dawmatu'l-Jandal (a place in the Syrian desert just south of the thirtieth degree of latitude, and about equidistant from Damascus and Baṣra), in February, A.D. 658.
On the disappointment and disgust of 'Alí and his followers it is needless to dwell. A daily commination service, wherein 'Alí's position. Mu'áwiya and his allies were solemnly anathematised by name, was instituted in the mosques of 'Iráq, which province still remained more or less faithful to 'Alí; and Mu'áwiya returned the compliment at Damascus, where the cursing of 'Alí, his sons and adherents, remained in force till it was abolished by 'Umar II, almost the only God-fearing ruler of the whole Umayyad dynasty. Nor did 'Alí rest content with mere curses; he began to prepare for another campaign against his rival, when other grave events nearer home demanded his attention.
'Alí's followers included, besides personal friends and retainers, Composition of 'Ali's forces. political schemers, and the factious and unsteady inhabitants of Baṣra and Kúfa, two parties, diametrically opposed in their views, which represented the two most ancient sects of Islám, the Shí'ites, and the Khárijites. The former were the devoted partisans of 'Alí, the “Faction” (Shí'a) of him and his House, the defenders in The Shí'ites. general of the theory which has been exposed at pp. 130 et seqq., and which we may briefly define as the theory of the Divine Right of the Prophet's descendants and nearest of kin to wield the supreme authority in Islám, both temporal and spiritual. Of these, and of the fantastic doctrines propounded and maintained by the more extreme amongst them, we shall have to speak repeatedly in the following pages, and will only add here that these extreme views as to the sanctity, nay, divinity, of 'Alí had, even during his lifetime, and in spite of his strong disapprobation, found a vigorous exponent in the converted Jew, 'Abdu'lláh ibn Sabá,220a who carried on a propaganda in Egypt as early as A.D. 653, during the Caliphate of 'Uthmán.
The Khárijites (Khawárij), “Seceders,”220b or (as Muir calls them) “Theocratic Separatists,” represented the extreme demo- The Khawárij. cratic view that any free Arab was eligible for election as Caliph, and that any Caliph who ceased to give satisfaction to the commonwealth of believers might be deposed.220c Their ranks were chiefly recruited from the true Arabs of the desert (especially certain important tribes like Tamím), and the heroes of Qádisiyya and other hard-fought fields; with whom were joined the puritans of Islám, “the people of fasting and prayer” as Shahristání calls them, who saw the unity of the Faith imperilled by the ambition of individuals, and its interests subordinated to those of a clique. Alike in their indomitable courage, their fierce fanaticism, and their refusal to acknowledge allegiance save to God, these Shurát, or “Sellers” of their lives for heavenly reward (as they called themselves, in allusion to Qur'án ii, 203)221a remind us not only of the Wahhábís of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but of the Scottish Covenanters and the English Puritans, and many a Khárijite poem221b is couched in words which, mutatis mutandis, might have served Balfour of Burleigh.
To this democratic party the aristocracy of Islám, represented by 'Alí and the Háshimite faction of Quraysh, was only in degree less distasteful than the aristocracy of heathenesse, represented by Mu'áwiya and the Umayyads; and though they fought on 'Alí's side at the Battle of Ṣiffín, their alliance, as has been already observed, was by no means an unmixed advantage. For after the fiasco resulting from the arbitration on which they themselves had insisted, they came to 'Alí saying,221c “Arbitration belongs to God alone. What ailed thee that thou madest men arbiters?” “I never acquiesced in the matter of this arbitration,” replied 'Alí; “it was ye who wished for it, and I told you that it was a stratagem on the part of the Syrians, and bade you fight your foes, but ye refused aught save arbitration, and overrode my judgment. But when there was no escape from arbitration, I made it a condition with the umpires that they should act in accordance with God's Scripture, … but they differed, and acted contrary to Scripture, acting in accordance with their own desires; so we are still of our original opinion as to giving them battle.” “There is no doubt,” answered the Khárijites, “that we originally acquiesced in the arbitration, but we have repented of it, and recognise that we acted in error. If now thou wilt confess thine infidelity (kufr), and pray God to pardon thy fault and thine error in surrendering the arbitration to men, we will return with thee to do battle with thine enemy and our enemy, else will we dissociate ourselves from thee.”
'Alí was naturally incensed at the unreasonable behaviour of these men, but his remonstrances and exhortations were of The Battle of Nahruwán. no avail, and ere his retreating army reached Kúfa, twelve thousand of the malcontents did, as they had threatened, dissociate themselves from him, and retired to Ḥarúrá, where they encamped. Adopting as their warcry the words “Lá ḥukma illá li'lláh!” (“Arbitration belongs to none save God!”), they advanced towards Madá'in (Ctesiphon) with the intention of occupying it and establishing a “Council of Representatives” which should serve “as a model to the ungodly cities all around.”222a Foiled in this endeavour by the foresight of the governor, they continued their march to Nahruwán, near the Persian frontier. They also nominated a Caliph of their own—'Abdu'lláh b. Wahb of the tribe of Rásib)222b —on March 22, A.D. 658, and proceeded to slay as unbelievers Muslims who did not share their views, recognise their Caliph, and consent to curse both 'Uthmán and 'Alí. Ferocity was strangely mixed with the most exaggerated scruples in their actions. One of them picked up a date which had fallen from the tree and placed it in his mouth, but cast it away when some of his companions cried out, “Thou hast eaten it without right, having taken it without payment!” Another smote with his sword a pig which happened to pass by him, and hamstrung it. “This,” exclaimed his fellows, “is a mischief on the earth!” Thereupon he sought out the owner and paid him compensation.223a On the other hand harmless travellers were slain, and women great with child were ripped open with the sword. For such cruelties the fanatics offered no apology; on the contrary, when invited by 'Alí to surrender the murderers and depart in peace, they cried, “We have all taken part in the slaughter of the heathen!”
With such a danger threatening their homes, it was not to be expected that 'Alí's troops would consent to march again on Syria until they had made an end of these schismatics. 'Alí, still for clemency, suffered such of them as would to withdraw themselves from the Khárijite camp. Half of them availed themselves of this offer; the remaining two thousand, scornfully rejecting all overtures, stood their ground and perished almost to a man, while of 'Alí's 60,000 warriors only seven fell. This happened in May or June, A.D. 658, and served but to render more implacable the enmity of the surviving Khárijites towards 'Alí, whom henceforth they hated even more than they hated Mu'áwiya. 'Alí's troops, moreover, refused to march against his rival until they had rested and recruited themselves. “Our swords are blunted,” they said, “our arrows are spent, and we are wearied of warfare; let us alone, that we may set our affairs in order, and then we will march.”223b But instead they began to slip away as occasion offered, until at length the camp was left empty; and Mu'áwiya, waxing Gathering misfortunes. ever bolder as he saw the increasing difficulties against which his rival had to struggle, seized Egypt and stirred up revolt even in Baṣra; while fresh Khárijite risings extending throughout the south of Persia (the people of which were won “by the specious and inflammatory cry that payment of taxes to an ungodly Caliph was but to support his cause, and as such intolerable”),
224a Truce with Mu'áwiya. followed by a series of untoward and painful events, so broke 'Alí's spirit that in A.D. 660 he was fain to conclude a treaty which left Mu'áwiya in undisturbed possession of Syria and Egypt. A year later Assassination of 'Alí, Jan. 25, A.D. 661. (January, 661) 'Alí was assassinated in the mosque of Kúfa by Ibn Muljam and two other Khárijite fanatics. Thus died, in his sixtieth year, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, the last of the four Orthodox Caliphs of the Sunnís, the first of the Shí'ite Imáms. He was succeeded by al-Ḥasan (the eldest of the three sons224b born to Succession and abdication of al-Ḥasan. him by Fáṭima, the Prophet's daughter), who, on August 10, 661, tamely abdicated, leaving Mu'áwiya undisputed master of the great Muhammadan Empire, and the Umayyad power firmly established and universally acknowledged.The triumph of the Umayyads was in reality, as Dozy well says, the triumph of that party which, at heart, was hostile to Islám; and the sons of the Prophet's most inveterate foes now, unchanged at heart, posed as his legitimate successors and vicegerents, and silenced with the sword those who dared to murmur against their innovations. Nor was cause for murmuring far to seek even in the reign of Mu'áwiya, who, in the splendour of his court at Damascus, and in the barriers which he set between himself and his humbler subjects, took as his model the Byzantine Emperors and Persian Kings rather than the first vicars of the Prophet. In the same spirit he nominated his son Yazíd as his successor, and forced this unwelcome nomination on the people of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madína.
It was still worse when, on the death of Mu'áwiya (April, A.D. 680), Yazíd came to the throne. No name is more Yazíd I (A.D. 680-683). execrated throughout Islám, but most of all in Persia, than his. A Persian who will remain unmoved by such epithets as “liar,” “scoundrel,” or “robber,” will fly into a passion if you call him Yazíd, His very name execrated by the Persians. Shimr, or Ibn Ziyád. A Persian poet, who had been rebuked for adding a curse to his name, retorted, “If God can pardon Yazíd, then He will very surely pardon us for cursing him!” Ḥáfidh has been severely censured because the first ode in his díwán begins with the second hemistich of the following verse from the poems of this impious Caliph:—
Ana'l-masmúmu má 'indí bi-tiryáqin wa lá ráqí;
Adir ka'san wa náwil-há, aláyá ayyuha's-sáqí!
“I, drugged with poison, have neither antidote nor guarding
charm;
Pass the cup and give it me to drink, O cupbearer!”
Ahlí of Shíráz, seeking to apologise for “the Tongue of the Unseen” (Lisánu'l-Ghayb), as the admirers of Ḥáfidh call him, says:—
“One night I saw Master Ḥáfidh in a dream;
I said, ‘O thou who art peerless in excellence and learning,
Wherefore didst thou take to thyself this verse of Yazíd,
Notwithstanding all this virtue and eminence?’
He answered, ‘Thou understandest not this matter;
The infidel's goods are lawful spoil to the true believer!’”
But even this excuse would not pass. Kátibí of Níshápúr replies:—
“Greatly do I marvel at Master Ḥafidh,
So that thereby understanding is reduced to helplessness.
What virtue did he perceive in Yazíd's verse
That in his díwán he first sings of him?Although to the true believer the infidel's goods
Are lawful spoil, and herein no discussion is possible,
Yet is it a very shameful act for the lion
To snatch a morsel from the mouth of the dog!”
Needless to say Yazíd has found defenders amongst European historians, to some of whom the reversal of unanimous verdicts Character of Yazíd. is always an alluring aim. Nor, indeed, is his personality repulsive. Born of a Bedouin mother,226a bred in the free air of the desert, an eager and skilful huntsman, a graceful poet,226b a gallant lover, fond of wine, music, and sport, and little concerned with religion, we might, for all his godlessness, levity, and extravagance, have suffered his handsome face,226c his pretty verses, his kingly qualities, and his joyous appreciation of life to temper our judgment had it not been for the black stain which the tragedy of Kerbelá has left on his memory. “His reign,” says al-Fakhrí, “according to the more correct statement, lasted three years and six months. In the first year he slew al-Ḥusayn, the son of 'Alí (on both of whom be Peace!); and in the second year he sacked Madína and looted it for three days; and in the third year he attacked the Ka'ba.”
Of these three outrages, the first in particular sent a shudder of horror throughout the Muhammadan world, nor can any The tragedy of Kerbelá (Oct. 10, A.D. 680). one endowed with feeling read unmoved the lamentable tale. It was not only a crime but a gigantic blunder, whereby Yazíd and his execrable minions, Ibn Ziyád, Shimr, and the rest irretrievably alienated from the House of Umayya not the love or loyalty—for there was little enough of that already—but the tacit toleration of all those who loved the Prophet or cared for the religion which he had founded. The Shí'a, or “Faction” of 'Alí, had, as we have seen, hitherto been sadly lacking in enthusiasm and self-devotion; but henceforth all this was changed, and a reminder of the blood-stained field of Kerbelá, where the grandson of the Apostle of God fell at length, tortured by thirst and surrounded by the bodies of his murdered kinsman, has been at any time since then sufficient to evoke, even in the most lukewarm and heedless, the deepest emotion, the most frantic grief, and an exaltation of spirit before which pain, danger, and death shrink to unconsidered trifles. Yearly, on the tenth day of Muḥarram the tragedy is rehearsed in Persia, in India, in Turkey, in Egypt, wherever a Shí'ite community or colony exists; and who has been a spectator, though of alien faith, of these ta'ziyas without experiencing within himself something of what they mean to those whose religious feeling finds in them its supreme expression? As I write it all comes back: the wailing chant, the sobbing multitudes, the white raiment red with blood from self-inflicted wounds, the intoxication of grief and sympathy. Well says al-Fakhrí:227a —
“This is a catastrophe whereof I care not to speak at length, deeming it alike too grievous and too horrible. For verily it was a Al-Fakhrí on Kerbelá. catastrophe than which naught more shameful hath happened in Islám. Verily, as I live, the murder of ['Alí] the Commander of the Faithful was the Supreme Calamity; but as for this event, there happened therein such foul slaughter and leading captive and shameful usage as cause men's flesh to creep with horror. And again I have dispensed with any long description thereof because of its notoriety, for it is the most celebrated of catastrophes. May God curse every one who had a hand therein, or who ordered it, or took pleasure in any part thereof! From such may God not accept any substitute or atonement! May He place them with those whose deeds involve the greatest loss, whose effort miscarries even in this present life, while they fondly imagine that they do well!”
“The tragedy of Kerbala,” says Sir William Muir,227b “decided not only the fate of the Caliphate, but of Mahometan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared. Who that has seen he wild and passionate grief with which, at each recurring anniversary, the Muslims of every land spend the live-long night, beating their breasts and vociferating unweariedly the frantic cry— Hasan, Hosein! Hasan, Hosein!—in wailing cadence can fail to recognise the fatal weapon, sharp and double-edged, which the Omeyyad dynasty allowed thus to fall into the hands of their enemies?”
The rebellion of 'Abdu'lláh ibn Zubayr, who for nine years (A.D. 683-692) maintained himself as independent Caliph in the Rebellions of Ibn Zubayer and Mukhtár. Holy Cities, like the more formidable insurrection of Mukhtár (A.D. 683-687), owed its success to the general desire for vengeance on the murderers of al-Ḥusayn and his kinsmen which possessed not only the whole Shí'ite party, but even many of the Khárijites.228a In the sack of Madína by Yazíd's army (A.D. 682) there perished eighty “Companions” of the Prophet, and no fewer than seven hundred “Readers” who knew by heart the whole Qur'án. The blood of these too cried for vengeance, as did the desecrated sanctuary of Mecca. Kerbelá at least was amply avenged by Mukhtár (A.D. 686), who put to death, in many instances with torture, Ibn Ziyád, Shimr, 'Amr ibn Sa'd, and several hundred persons of lesser note who had borne a share in that guilty deed. He himself, however, was slain less than a year afterwards by Muṣ'ab, the brother of Ibn Zubayr, together with 7,000 or 8,000 of his followers. The growing dissensions whereby the Musulmán world was torn found a remarkable illustration in June, A.D. 688, when four rival leaders—the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik, 'Alí's son Muḥammad (generally known as “Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya,” “the son of the Ḥanafite woman,” in allusion to his mother), Ibn Zubayr, and Najda the Khárijite—presided over the ceremonies of the Pilgrimage at Mecca, each at the head of his own followers.
The movement headed by Mukhtár was, as we have seen, essentially Shí'ite; the cry was throughout for vengeance on the murderers of al-Ḥusayn and his companions, and it professed to aim at establishing the rights of the above-mentioned Characteristics of Mukhtár's rebellion. Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya.229a Herein it differed from later Shí'ite movements, since it did not recognise the importance attached by these to direct descent either from the Prophet through his daughter Fáṭima (who was the mother of both al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, but not, of course, of Ibnu'l Ḥanafiyya), or from the Persian Royal House of Sásán. This double qualification appears first in al-Ḥusayn's son 'Alí, called as-Sajjád, “the Worshipper,” or more often “Zaynu'l-'Abidín,” “the Ornament of the Devout,” whose mother was believed to be the daughter of Yazdigird;229b and it was in him and his descendants that the legitimist aspirations of the two great branches into which the later Shí'ites became divided (the “Sect of the Twelve” and the “Sect of the Seven”) first found complete satisfaction. Amongst Mukhtár's followers there were, as we know, a great number of non-Arab “clients” (mawla, pl. mawálí), of whom the majority were in all probability Persians; of his army of 8,000 men which capitulated to Muṣ'ab, the brother of Ibn Zubayr, less than one-tenth (some 700) were Arabs.229c The causes which enlisted these foreign Muslims in his ranks have been most carefully studied by Van Vloten in his scholarly Recherches sur la domination arabe, &c., the work to which we are most indebted in the following paragraphs.
The Umayyad rule reached its culminating point in the reign of 'Abdu'l-Malik (A.D. 685-705), in which the purely Reign of 'Abdu'lMalik (A.D. 685-705.) Arabian secular power reached its zenith. Then, as we have seen, Arabic coinage first came into general use; the Government accounts were transferred from the Persian into the Arabic language; the old Arabian aristocracy was dominant; the foreign “clients” were despised and oppressed; and the feelings of the pious Muslims —especially the Anṣár, or “Helpers,” of Madína, and the loyal adherents of the House of the Prophet—were repeatedly and ruthlessly outraged. 'Abdu'l-Malik's capable but cruel lieutenant, Hajjáj ibn Yúsuf (a name hardly less execrated than those of Yazíd, Ibn Ziyád, and Shimr), who first recommended Cruelty of al-Ḥajjáj. himself to his master's notice by his readiness to undertake the siege and bombardment of Mecca230a and the suppression of Ibn Zubayr's rebellion, was for more than twenty-two years (A.D. 691-713) the bloodthirsty and merciless scourge of the Muslim world. The number of persons put to death by him in cold blood, apart from those slain in battle, is estimated at 120,000; and his savage harangue to the people of Kúfa,230b beginning, “By God! I see glances fixed upon me, and necks stretched forward, and heads ripe for the reaping, ready to be cut off, and I am the man to do it!” is typical of the man's ferocious nature. Not less typical of his master, 'Abdu'l-Malik, are the words wherewith he is said to have received the news of his accession to the Caliphate.230c He was reading the Qur'án when the messenger came to him; on hearing the message, he closed the holy volume, saying, “‘This is a separation between me and thee!’”230d To the sanctity of places and persons he was equally insensible when political considerations bade him destroy, and his Syrians hesitated not to obey his behests. “Reverence and loyalty clashed,” says al-Ya'qúbí,231a “and loyalty conquered.”
“Thus, then,” as Dozy well remarks,231b “the party hostile to Islám did not rest until they had subdued the two Sacred Cities, turned the The Umayyad rule characterised by Dozy. mosque of Mecca into a stable, burned the Ka'ba, and inflicted deep humiliation on the descendants of the first Muslims. The Arab tribes, which a minority had subdued and compelled to embrace Islám, made it pay dearly for this double success. The whole Umayyad period is nothing else but the reaction and triumph of the pagan principle. The Caliphs themselves were, with about one exception, either indifferent or infidel. One of them, Walíd II (A.D. 743-744), even went so far as to suffer his concubines to take his place in public prayer, and to use the Qur'án as a target for his arrows.”231c Four classes entirely alienated by Umayyad policy.
Broadly speaking, the policy of the Umayyads utterly alienated four classes of their subjects, to wit:—
(1) The pious Muslims, who saw with horror and detestation the sacrilegious actions, the ungodly lives, the 1. Devout Muslims. profanity and the worldliness of their rulers. Amongst these were included nearly all the “Companions” (Asḥáb) and the “Helpers” (Anṣár), and their descendants. From these elements the rebellion of Ibn Zubayr derived most of its strength.
(2) The “Faction” (Shí'a) of 'Alí, which had suffered from the House of Umayya the irreparable wrongs, culminating 2. Shí'ites. in the tragedy of Kerbelá, of which we have already spoken. This constituted the kernel of al-Mukhtár's rebellion.
(3) The Khárijites, or puritan theocrats, who, reinforced by 3. Khawárij. malcontents and freebooters of every kind, continued, till about A.D. 700, to cause continual trouble of the most serious kind to the Umayyad Government.
232a(4) The “Clients” (Mawálí), or non-Arab Muslims, who, far from being treated by the Government as equal to their 4. Subject-races. co-religionists of Arab birth, were regarded as subject-races to be oppressed, exploited and despised by their rulers.
Following Van Vloten's admirable researches, it is of this last class in particular that we shall now speak. This learned Causes of the fall of the Umayyad power. writer ascribes the fall of the Umayyad dynasty and the triumph of the 'Abbásids mainly to three causes: to wit:—
(1) The inveterate hatred of a subject race towards its foreign oppressors.
(2) The Shí'ite movement, or Cult of the descendants of the Prophet.
(3) The expectation of a Messiah or deliverer.
The rivalry of the Arab tribes of the north and the south, a rivalry carried with them to the remotest towns which they occupied, and immortalised in the celebrated verses of Naṣr ibn Sayyár to which we shall presently refer, has, in his opinion, been exaggerated as a factor in the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, and is consequently relegated to a secondary place.
The condition of the conquered races—not only those who embraced Islám, but also those who continued to profess the Condition of the subject-races. Jewish, Christian, and Magian faiths—was, as we have already seen, tolerable, if not precisely enviable, in the pre-Umayyad days.232b Under the Umayyad rule, however, with its strong racial prejudices and aggressive imperialism, wars and invasions originally undertaken, in part at least, for the propagation of Islám degenerated into mere predatory raids,232c of which booty was the principal if not the sole aim. But this did not suffice to meet the growing luxury and extravagance of the ruling class, and a heavier burden of taxation was constantly imposed on the subject-races, so that the profession of Islám became to them, from the material point of view, but a doubtful relief. Embezzlement and peculation, moreover, became increasingly common amongst the governors and their myrmidons (ṣaní'a),233a who, for the most part, simply strove to enrich themselves by every means in their power during their tenure of office. These peculations were so serious that a regular process of “squeezing” (istikhráj) came to be practised by each new governor on his predecessor, the right of exercising this privilege being actually bought from the central Government at Damascus. The sums which these tyrannical governors were thus compelled to disgorge were sometimes very great; thus, for instance, Yúsuf ibn 'Umar extracted from his predecessor in the government of 'Iráq, Khálíd al-Qaṣrí, and his creatures, no less than seventy million dirhams (about £2,800,000). The burden of all these exactions fell ultimately on the wretched peasantry, who had no means of lodging any effective complaint; and it was aggravated by the humiliating circumstances attendant on the collection of the taxes.233b The old Persian aristocracy and landed proprietors (dihqán) did, it is true, succeed in preserving much of their power and wealth by embracing Islám and throwing in their lot with the conquerors, to whom their services were needful and their local influence and knowledge indispensable, but for the humbler classes it was not so, for, as Van Vloten remarks, “the ambition and racial pride of the Arabs, combined with their greed, offered an insuperable obstacle to the amelioration” of their lot. The “clients” were, indeed, regarded by the Arabs as an inferior race, little better than slaves. “Nothing,” says the historian Ṭabarí, in speaking of the revolt of Mukhtár (whose supporters, as we have seen, consisted to a great extent of “clients,” or non-Arab Muslims, Mawálí), “so exasperated the [Arab] Kúfans as to see Mukhtár assign to the clients' their share of the spoil. ‘You have taken from us our clients,’ they cried, ‘who are the spoil which God hath destined for us with all this province. We have liberated them, hoping for a reward from God, but you do not trouble yourself about this, and cause them to share in our booty.’”
234aUnder the government of the cruel and godless Ḥajjáj ibn Yúsuf, converts to Islám were compelled to pay the jizya, or poll-tax levied on non-Muslims, from which they ought to have been exempt. Their discontent caused them to join the rebellion of 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán ibn Ash'ath in great numbers, but the revolt was quenched in blood, and the “clients” were driven back to their villages, the names of which were branded on their hands.234b The action of al-Ḥajjáj, as von Kremer remarks, put an end to the hopes entertained by the “clients” and new converts of becoming the equals of the dominant race, but their discontent continued, and was the most potent of the causes which contributed to the downfall of the Umayyad dynasty.
234c“Of all the Umayyads,” says Dozy,234d “'Umar II (A.D. 717-720) was the only truly believing and pious prince. He was not moved by 'Umar ibn 'Abdu'l-'Aziz. pecuniary interest; but, on the other hand, the propagation of the faith was all the more dear to his heart. The officials found it difficult to adapt themselves to this new principle, which contrasted so strongly with that which had hitherto been in force. ‘If things continue in Egypt as at present,’ wrote an official to the Caliph, ‘the Christians will, without exception, embrace Islám, and the State will lose all its revenues.’ ‘I should regard it as a great blessing,’ replied 'Umar, ‘if all the Christians were converted, for God sent His Prophet to act as an apostle, not as a tax-collector.’ To the governor of Khurásán, who complained that many of the Persians in his province had only embraced Islám in order to be exempt from the payment of the poll-tax (jizya), and that they had not caused themselves to be circumcised, he replied in a similar strain, ‘God sent Muḥammad to make known the true faith unto men, not to circumcise them.’235a He did not, therefore, interpret too rigorously the prescriptions of the law: he did not ignore the fact that many conversions were lacking in sincerity, but at the same time he saw, and saw truly, that if the children and grand-children of these converts were brought up as Muslims, they would one day become as good, perhaps even better, believers than the Arabs.”
'Umar ibn 'Abdu'l- 'Aziz stands out as a bright and noble exception amidst the godless, greedy, self-seeking rulers of the Character and effects of the reign of 'Umar II House of Umayya. His rule, it is true, inspired throughout by considerations of the other world rather than of this, was disastrous to the revenue; his methods, faithfully copied from those which prevailed during the Caliphate of his illustrious namesake 'Umar ibnu'l-Khaṭṭáb, were too conservative—even reactionary—to achieve success; and the hopes aroused once more in the breasts of the subject-races by his endeavours to secure for them justice and security, but destined only to be crushed again by his successors, did but quicken and strengthen the growing reaction against Arab imperialism. Judged from the worldly point of view, in short, 'Umar II struck a fatal blow at the supremacy of his House and race; judged by the religious standard he acted as a faithful Muslim should. By his abolition of the public cursing of 'Alí in the mosques he gained the approbation of all pious Muham-madans, and must to some extent have conciliated the Shí'ite party. The poet Kuthayyir has some verses235b praising him for this, which begin:—
“Thou hast succeeded to the throne, and didst not revile 'Alí, nor
terrify
The innocent man, nor follow the counsel of the evil-doer;
Thou didst speak, and didst confirm what thou didst say by what
Thou didst do, and every Muslim became well content.”
'Umar's death nearly coincided with the end of the first End of the first century of the hijra. Beginning of the 'Abbásid propaganda. century of the Muhammadan era, at which time, added to the prevailing discontent of the subject-races, there seems to have been a prevalent belief that some great revolution was impending.
“In this year” (A.H. 101 = A.D. 719-720), says Dínawarí,236a “the Shí'ites sent deputations to the Imám Muḥammad b. 'Alí b. 'Ab-du'lláh b. 'Abbás b. 'Abdu'l-Muṭṭalib b. Ḥáshim,236b whose abode was in the land of Syria, at a place called al-Ḥumayma. The first of the Shí'ites who thus came forward were Maysara al-'Abdí, Abú 'Ikrima the saddler, Muḥammad b. Khunays, and Ḥayyán the druggist. These came to him, desiring to swear allegiance to him, and said, ‘Stretch out thine hand that we may swear allegiance to thee in the endeavour to secure for thee this sovereignty, that perchance by thee God may quicken justice and slay oppression; for verily now is the time and season of this, which we have found handed down from the most learned amongst you.’ Muḥammad b. 'Alí answered them saying, ‘This is the season of what we hope and desire herein, because of the completion of a hundred years of the calendar. For verily never do a hundred years pass over a people but God maketh manifest the truth of them that strive to vindicate the right, and bringeth to naught the vanity of them that countenance error, because of the word of God (mighty is His Name): “Or like him who passed by a village, when it was desolate and turned over on its roofs, and said, ‘How shall God revive this after its death?’ And God made him die for a hundred years, then He raised him up.”236c Go, therefore, O man, and summon the people cautiously and secretly, and I pray that God may fulfil your undertaking and make manifest [the fruits of] your Mission; and there is no power save in Him.’”
Such was the beginning of the celebrated “Mission” or “Propaganda” (da'wa) of the 'Abbásids, which, working silently but surely on the abundant elements of disaffection which already existed, undermined the Umayyad power, and within thirty years overthrew the tottering edifice of their dynasty. The agents of this propaganda (dá'í, plural du'ât)— able, self-devoted men, who, though avoiding any premature outbreak, were at any moment ready to sacrifice their lives for the cause—worked especially on the ferment of discontent which leavened the Persian province of Khurásán, where, as Dínawarí tells us (p. 335)—
“They invited the people to swear allegiance to Muḥammad b. 'Alí, and sought to disgust them with the rule of the Umayyads by Dínawarí cited. reason of their evil conduct and their grievous tyranny. Many in Khurásán responded to their call, but somewhat of their doings becoming known and bruited abroad reached the ears of Sa'íd [b. 'Abdu'l-'Azíz b. al-Ḥakam b. Abu'l-'Áṣ, the governor of Khurásán].237a So he sent for them, and when they were brought before him said, ‘Who are ye?’ ‘Merchants,’ they replied. ‘And what,’ said he, ‘is this which is currently reported concerning you?’ ‘What may that be?’ they asked. ‘We are informed,’ said he, ‘that ye be come as propagandists for the house of 'Abbás.’ ‘O Amír,’ they answered, ‘we have sufficient concern for ourselves and our own business to keep us from such doings!’ So he let them go; and they went out from before him, and, departing from Merv, began to journey through the province of Khurásán and the villages thereof in the guise of merchants, summoning men unto the Imám Muḥammad b. 'Alí. Thus they continued to do for two years, when they returned to the Imám Muḥammad b. 'Alí in the land of Syria, and informed him that they had planted in Birth of Abu'l'Abbás. Khurásán a tree which they hoped would bear fruit in due season. And they found that there had been born unto him his son Abu'l-'Abbás,237b whom he commanded to be brought forth unto them, saying, ‘This is your master;’ and they kissed his limbs all over.”
On the support of the oppressed and slighted Persians especially the propagandists could reckon, for these were a Persian support of 'Abbásid pretensions. wise and capable people with a great past, reduced to misery and treated with contempt by a merely martial race, inferior to them in almost every respect save personal valour and love of independence. Mukhtár and his general, Ibráhím ibnu'l-Ashtar, had already proved the worth of the Persians, from whom, as we have seen, Worth of thePersians appreciated by Mukhtár and Ibnu'l-Ashtar. their ranks were largely, indeed chiefly, recruited.238a When Furát and 'Umayr, officers in the Syrian army sent by the Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik against Mukhtár, visited Ibnu'l-Ashtar in his camp, they complained that from the time they entered his lines until they reached his presence they had scarcely heard a word of Arabic, and asked him how with such an army he could hope to withstand the picked troops of Syria.
“By God!” replied Ibnu'l-Ashtar, “did I find none but ants [as my allies], yet would I assuredly give battle to the Syrians therewith; how then in the actual circumstances? For there is no people endowed with greater discernment wherewith to combat them than these whom thou seest with me, who are none other than the children of the knights and satraps of the Persians.” Mukhtár also “promoted those of Persian descent, and assigned gifts to them and their children, and set them in high places, withdrawing from the Arabs, and putting them at a distance, and disappointing them. Thereat were they angered, and their nobles assembled, and came in unto him, and reproached him. But he answered, “May God be remote from none but yourselves! I honoured you, and you turned up your noses, I gave you authority, and you destroyed the revenues; but these Persians are more obedient to me than you, and more faithful and swift in the performance of my desire.”
There was, however, another party whose support was needed for the success of the 'Abbásid propaganda, namely, the Shí'ites. These, holding in general the same views as to the rights of the Family of the Prophet, yet differed in detail as to which candidate of that house had the better claim. Broadly speaking, they became divided, on the death of al-Ḥusayn, into two parties, of which the one supported his younger half-brother, Muḥammad ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya, and the other his son 'Alí, better known as Zaynu'l-'Ábidín.
The former party, on the death of Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya, transferred their allegiance to his son Abú Háshim (whence they The Háshimiyya received the name of Háshimiyya), who, as Van Vloten thinks,239a was the first to organise a propaganda, and to encourage the feelings of adoration with which the Shí'ites were from the first disposed to regard their Imáms and the belief in an esoteric doctrine whereof the keys were committed to his keeping. This Abú Háshim died (poisoned, it is said, by the Umayyad Caliph Sulaymán)239b in A.H. 98 (A.D. 716-717), bequeathing his rights to Muḥammad b. 'Alí, the head of the House of 'Abbás. Thenceforth the Háshimiyya and the propaganda which they had organised became the willing instruments of the 'Abbásids.
The second party of the Shí'a, or Imámiyya, were less easily attached to the 'Abbásid cause, since in their view the The Imámiyya. Imám must be of the descendants of 'Alí and Fáṭima, their actual Imám at this time being 'Alí Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, the son of al-Ḥusayn, who died in A.H. 99 or 100 (A.D. 718).239c To secure the support of these, the 'Abbásid propaganda was carried on in the name of Háshim, the common ancestor of both 'Abbásids and 'Alids, and only at the last, when success was achieved, was it made clear, to the bitter disappointment of 'Alí's partisans, that the House of 'Abbás was to profit by their labours to the exclusion of the House of 'Alí.
So the propaganda continued actively but silently. Sometimes the propagandists would be taken and put to death by the Government, as happened to Abú 'Ikrima and Ḥayyán, in whose place, however, five others were immediately despatched to Khurásán, with orders to be cautious and prudent, and to disclose nothing until they had put a binding oath on the inquirer.240a During the reign of Hishám, while Khálid was governor of 'Iráq, several strange and serious outbreaks of Khárijites and Shí'ites occurred, the leaders of which were in several cases burned to death.240b In Khurásán, on the other hand, a somewhat unwise leniency was shown by the Caliph, in spite of the warnings of his governor, towards the 'Abbásid propagandists,240c whose movements were controlled and directed by a council of twelve naqíbs and a Senate of seventy subordinate chiefs.240d Now and then, however, some dá'í would break loose from control and preach the wildest doctrines of the extreme Shí'ites (al-Ghulát), as happened in the case of al-Khaddásh, who was put to death in A.D. 736. For further information concerning him and the Ráwandís and Khurramís we must refer the reader to Van Vloten's masterly study (pp. 47-51), and to ch. ix. infra.
About A.D. 743, Muḥammad b. 'Alí the 'Abbásid died, after nominating as his successors first his son Ibráhím, and after Death of Muḥammad b. 'Alí. him his other sons Abu'l-'Abbás and Abú Ja'far, of whom the first was put to death by Marwán II, the last Umayyad Caliph, about A.D. 747-748, while the two others lived to enjoy the fruits of the long and arduous labours of the 'Abbásid propaganda, and to inaugurate the 'Abbásid Caliphate. About the same time, too, appeared on the scene that remarkable man, Abú Muslim who, having Abú Muslim. contributed more than any one else to the overthrow of the Umayyads and the victory of the 'Abbásids, himself at last fell a victim to the jealousy of those who owed him so great a debt of gratitude.
Everything now portended that the final struggle was at hand. Marwán II, nicknamed “the Ass” (al-Ḥimár) on account of his endurance in battle, succeeded to the throne in A.D. 745, and men remembered the prophecy that in the “Year of the Ass” deliverance should come, and that 'Ayn the son of 'Ayn the son of 'Ayn ('Abdu'lláh b. 'Alí b. 'Abdu'lláh, i.e., Abu'l-'Abbás, afterwards known as aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ) would kill Mím the son of Mím the son of Mím (Marwán the son of Muḥammad the son of Marwán, the last Umayyad Caliph).241a Such dark sayings were widely current and greedily absorbed, while the apocryphal books of the Jews and Christians, prophetic poems (maláḥim), and the like were eagerly studied by the long-suffering subject-races, who felt that now at length their deliverance was at hand, and that the Advent of the Promised One “who should fill the earth with justice after that it had been filled with iniquity” could not long be deferred. Only the Caliph Marwán and his courtiers seemed blind to the signs of the gathering storm, and that in spite of the repeated warnings of Warnings of Naṣr b. Sayyár to the Umayyads. his lieutenants in the East, notably Naṣr ibn Sayyár, the governor of Khurásán, who wrote to him that 200,000 men had sworn allegiance to Abú Muslim, and concluded his letter with some very fine and very celebrated verses, of which the translation is as follows:241b —
“I see amidst the embers the glow of fire, and it wants but little to
burst into a blaze,
And if the wise ones of the people quench it not, its fuel will be
corpses and skulls.
Verily fire is kindled by two sticks, and verily words are the
beginning of warfare.
And I cry in amazement, ‘Would that I knew whether the House
of Umayya were awake or asleep!’”
To the Arab garrisons too, torn by tribal feuds and heedless of the impending danger, he addressed the following verses:241c —
“Tell those of Rabí'a in Merv and her brethren242a
to rise in wrath
ere wrath shall avail nothing,
And to declare war; for verily the people have raised a war on
the skirts of which the wood is ablaze!
What ails you that ye stir up strife amongst yourselves, as though
men of sense were absent from among you,
And neglect an enemy who already overshadows you, a hetero-
geneous horde, devoid alike of religion and nobility?
They are no Arabs of ours that we should know them, nor even
decent clients, if their pedigree be declared,
But a people who hold a faith whereof I never heard from the
Prophet, and which the Scriptures never brought,
And should one question me as to the essence of their religion,
verily their religion is that the Arabs should be slain!”
Vain, however, were these and other warnings.242b Khurásán was seething with disaffection and revolt, and Abú Muslim, Raising of the Black Standard of the 'Abbásids, June 9, A.D. 747. having assured himself at length that all was ready, raised the Black Standard242c of the 'Abbásids at the village of Siqadanj, near Merv, on June 9, A.D. 747. This standard bore the following significant inscription from the Qur'án: Permission [to fight] is accorded to those who take up arms because they have been unjustly treated.” Yet for a while the insurrection did not spread beyond the extreme north-east of Khurásán, Nasá, Bíward, Herát, Marwarúdh, and the surrounding regions. In response to the appeal of Naṣr b. Sayyár the Caliph Marwán wrote:242d “Verily he who is present seeth what he who is absent seeth not: do thou, then, treat this disease which hath appeared amongst you!” The only practical step which it occurred to him to take was to seize, imprison, and poison Ibráhím the 'Abbásid, whereupon his two brothers Abu'l-'Abbás and Abú Ja'far, accompanied by some of their kinsmen, fled from al-Ḥumayma, their home in Syria, and escaped to Kúfa, where they were concealed and cared for by Abú Salma and other leading men of the Shí'ites.
“Then,” says al-Fakhrí,243a “there occurred between Abú Muslim and Naṣr b. Sayyár and the other Amírs of Khurásán engagements Citation from al-Fakhrí. and battles wherein the victory was to the Musawwida, that is the army of Abú Muslim, who were called Musawwida [‘the people who make black’] because the raiment which they chose for the House of 'Abbás was black in colour. Regard now the Power of God (exalted is He!), and how, when He willeth aught, He prepares the means therefor, and how, when He desireth anything, nothing can oppose His command. So when He had decreed that the dominion should pass unto the House of 'Abbás, He prepared for them all the means thereto. For the Imám Ibráhím b. Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'lláh b. al-'Abbás was in Syria or in the Ḥijáz, seated on his prayer-mat, occupied with himself, his devotions, and the concerns of his family, and not possessed of any great worldly power, while the people of Khurásán fought for him, risking their lives and property for him, though most of them neither knew him, nor could distinguish between his name and his personality… Nor did he spend on them any wealth, or bestow on any one of them horse or arms; nay rather it was they who bestowed wealth on him and brought him tribute every year. And since God had decreed the abasement of Marwán and the disruption of the kingdom of the Umayyads, although Marwán was the acknowledged Caliph, and was possessed of armies, and wealth, and weapons, and worldly goods to the fullest extent, yet did men desert in all directions from him, and his authority waxed weaker, and his tenure was shaken, and he ceased not being worsted till he was routed and slain.”
The enthusiasm of the Musawwida and their devotion to Abú Muslim—“homme sombre et dur que les jouissances de ce monde n'occupaient guère”243b —were unbounded, while their obedience was such that they would neither accept ransoms nor slay the enemy who lay at their feet without the command of their chiefs. Amongst the Arabs, on the other hand, there was an utter lack of enthusiasm, patriotism, or loyalty; “chacun avait en vue ses intérêts personnels ou tout au plus l'intérêt de sa tribu: se dévouer pour les Omayades personne n'y pensait; même s'il faut en croire Ya'qoubi, les Yéménites de Merw étaient tout à fait gagnés aux sentiments chiitiques.” Yet Abú Muslim proceeded with caution and deliberation. For seven months he maintained his army in the neighbourhood of Merv without attempting any serious advance, and only when assured of the support of the Yamanite Arabs did he at length seize and occupy the capital of Khurásán. Then indeed the insurrection became general:244a —
“They poured in from all sides to join Abú Muslim, from Herát, Búshanj, Marwarúdh, Ṭálaqán, Merv, Níshápúr, Sarakhs, Balkh, Ṣaghániyán, Ṭukháristán, the country of the Khuttal, Kashsh, and Nasaf (Nakhshab).244b They came all clothed in black, and carrying clubs half blackened which they called káfir-kúb (maces wherewith to beat the unbelievers).244c They kept arriving on horse, on foot, on asses. They urged on their asses with cries of ‘harra Marwán!’ because Marwán II was surnamed ‘the Ass (al-Ḥimár). They numbered about 100,000 men.”
From this moment till Abu'l-'Abbás 'Abdu'lláh aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ (also entitled al-Mahdí), first Caliph of the House of 'Abbás, inaugurated his reign on October 30, A.D. 749, by pronouncing the khuṭba, or homily, customary on such occasions, the progress of Abú Muslim and the other 'Abbásid leaders was one continuous triumph. Naṣr ibn Sayyár—“le seul homme loyal, et qu'on est heureux de rencontrer dans ces temps des perfidie et d'égoïsme”—died a fugitive at Sáwa in November, A.D. 748; Kúfa was occupied by Qaḥṭaba in August, A.D. 749; in the same month Marwán's son 'Abdu'lláh was utterly routed on the lesser Záb by Abú 'Awn; Marwán himself suffered final and irrevocable defeat on the river Záb on January 25, A.D. 750; Damascus, the Umayyad capital, was occupied three months later; and Marwán, last Caliph of the House of Umayya, a fugitive in Egypt, was finally taken and slain on August 5th of the same year, and his head sent to Abu'l-'Abbás. General massacres of members of the Umayyad family, accompanied in most cases by circumstances of inhuman cruelty and revolting treachery, took place in the following year (A.D. 751) in Palestine, at Baṣra, and even in the sacred cities of Mecca and Madína. One, Abdu'r-Raḥmán, the grandson of Hishám, after many hairbreadth escapes, ultimately made his way to Spain, and, being well received by the Arabs there settled, founded the Umayyad dynasty of Cordova, which endured for nearly three centuries (A.D. 756-1031). The desecration of the tombs of the Umayyad Caliphs at Damascus, and the exhumation of their bodies, has also been cast as a reproach against the 'Abbásids;245a but since this practice has been recently revived by an English general, and condoned if not applauded Disillusionment of many of the supporters of the revolution. by the majority of his countrymen, it would hardly beseem us to denounce it too violently.
In any case the 'Abbásids, even when, wading through seas of blood, they had finally grasped the Caliphate and become sole and undisputed masters of the Eastern Empire of Islám, were very far from “filling the earth with justice,” so that we find a poet exclaiming:245b —
“O would that the tyranny of the children of Marwán might return
to us,
And would that the justice of the children of 'Abbás were in
hell-fire!”
Many of those who had worked most strenuously for the revolution were most bitterly disappointed when it was an accomplished fact.245c More especially was this so in the case of the Shí'ites, who, misled by the delusive belief that by the term “Háshimites,” in whose name the propaganda was carried on, the House of 'Alí was intended, discovered, when it was too late, that not even in the Umayyads had the true descendants of the Prophet enemies more implacable than in their “Háshi-mite” cousins of the House of 'Abbás. The 'Abbásids did Abú Salma and Abú Muslim put to death. not even spare their own chosen instruments; Abú Salma was treacherously murdered in A.D. 749-750; and Abú Muslim himself, to whose untiring zeal, rare genius, and relentless activity the 'Abbásid triumph was chiefly due, suffered a like fate four or five years later (A.D. 755).246a For him, indeed, in spite of his rare abilities, we can feel little pity, for on his own admission246b the number of those whom he caused to be slain in cold blood, apart from those slain in battle, amounted to 100,000 persons, while by others246c their number is raised to 600,000. Yet did Immense influence of Abú Muslim. he inspire in his followers a rare devotion, extending even to non-Muslims: “in his time,” the historian tells us,246d “the dihqáns [Persian landed proprietors] abandoned the religion of the Magians and were converted to Islám.” Speaking of the Khurramís, ultra-Shí'ites, and other exalted visionaries and syncretists, Van Vloten says:246e “Many of them regarded him as the only true Imám; it is even possible that he may have been considered as one of the descendants of Zoroaster, Oshêderbami, or Oshê-derma, whose advent, in a rôle similar to that of the Muhammadan Mahdí, was expected by the Magians. These sects would not believe in the death of Abú Muslim, they awaited his return to fill the earth with justice. Others held that the Imámate passed to his daughter Fáṭima. A certain Isḥáq “the Turk”247a escaped into Transoxiana after the death of Abú Muslim, whose dá'í [missionary, or propagandist] he claimed to be, and maintained that his master was concealed in the city of Ray. Later he pretended to be a prophet sent by Zoroaster, who, according to him, had not ceased to live.”
Of the Khurramís or Khurram-díniyya, whose essential tenets appear to have been those of Mazdak (see pp. 168-172 supra), The Khurramdíniyya. we continue to hear for another century, and the more or less serious revolts in Persia headed by the pseudo-prophets Sinbádh the Magian (A.D. 754-5), Ustádhsís (A.D. 766-768), Yúsuf al-Barm and al-Muqanna' “the veiled Prophet of Khurásán” (A.D. 777-780), 'Alí Mazdak (A.D. 833), and Bábak (A.D. 816-838) were in most cases associated with the memory of Abú Muslim.
If it did nothing else, however, the revolution which placed the 'Abbásids on the throne entirely altered the status of the Persians, who at once rose from the position of a despised and slighted subject-race to the highest and most influential offices and commands. It was their swords which won the victory for the House of 'Abbás, whom al-Bírúní, not without good reason, calls “a Khurásání, an Eastern dynasty”;247b and it may truly be said that Qádisiyya and Naháwand were avenged on the banks of the Záb. The fall of the Umayyads was the end of the purely Arabian period.
247cGOLDEN AGE OF ISLÁM
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLÁM (A.D. 749-847), FROM THE ACCESSION OF AṢ-ṢAFFÁḤ TO THE DEATH OF AL-WÁTHIQ
THE general characteristics of the 'Abbásid dynasty, and the nature of the forces which contributed to its establishment General characteristics of the 'Abbásid period. and the overthrow of the Umayyads, have been to some extent discussed in the last chapter. Sir William Muir, in the short introductory remarks which he prefixes to his account of this illustrious house (op. laud., pp. 430-432) emphasises three features in particular Characterised by Sir W. Muir. wherein this period differs from the last; firstly, that the Caliphate was no longer coextensive with the limits of Islám (since Spain never accepted 'Abbásid rule, and the allegiance of Africa was fitful and imperfect); secondly, that the martial vigour of the Arabs declined along with their fervent faith, and that they ceased to play the predominant rôle in the history of Islám; thirdly, that Persian, and later Turkish, influences became all-powerful at the centre of government, now transferred from Syria to 'Iráq.
“With the rise of Persian influence,” he adds (p. 432), “the roughness of Arab life was softened; and there opened an era of culture, toleration, and scientific research. The practice of oral tradition was also giving place to recorded statement and historical narrative,—a change hastened by the scholarly tendencies introduced from the East. To the same source may be attributed the ever-increasing laxity at Court of manners and morality; and also those transcendental views that now sprung up of the divine Imámate, or spiritual leadership, of some member of the House of 'Alí; as well as the rapid growth of free thought. These things will be developed as we go on. But I have thought it well to draw attention at this point to the important changes wrought by the closer connection of the Caliphate with Persia and Khurásán caused by the accession of the 'Abbásids.”
In a similar strain Dozy writes:252a —
“The ascendancy of the Persians over the Arabs, that is to say of the conquered over the victors, had already for a long Characterised by Dozy. while been in course of preparation; it became complete when the 'Abbásids, who owed their elevation to the Persians, ascended the throne. These princes made it a rule to be on their guard against the Arabs, and to put their trust only in foreigners, Persians,252b especially those of Khurásán, with whom, therefore, they had to make friends. The most distinguished personages at court were consequently Persians. The famous Barmecides were descended from a Persian noble who had been superintendent of the Fire-temple at Balkh. Afshín, the all-powerful favourite of the Caliph al-Mu'taṣim, was a scion of the princes of Usrúshna in Transoxiana. The Arabs, it is true, murmured, and endeavoured to regain their ancient preponderance. The war which broke out between the two brothers al-Amín and al-Ma'mún, the sons of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd, was in its essence merely the renewal of the war waged between the Arab and Persian nationalities for the supremacy. But the Arabs again experienced a check; again, cost them what it might, they had to recognise the supremacy of Persia; again they were compelled to watch as passive spectators a change of government dependent on the defeat of one of these races by the other and resulting from it. The democratic point of view of the Arabs was, indeed, replaced by the despotic ideas of the Persians.”
“Know,” says that charming historian al-Fakhrí,252c “that the 'Abbásid dynasty was a treacherous, wily, and faithless dynasty, Characterised by al-Fakhrí wherein intrigue and guile played a greater part than strength and energy, particularly in its latter days. Indeed the later rulers of this House lost all faculty of energy and courage, and relied solely on tricks and stratagems. To this effect speaks the poet Ibn Kushájim,253a alluding to the truce observed by the people of the sword and the hostility and enmity of the people of the pen one to another:—
‘Pleasant to the people of the sword be that idleness
Whereby their days are passed in self-indulgence!
How many a man is there amongst them who lives a tranquil
life, and has never stirred forth
To any war, nor ever attacked a resolute and equal adversary!
Evening and morning he struts about, girding to his sword-belt
A sword secure from serious work, which has never risked
fracture.
But as for the people of the pen, at no moment
Are their swords dry of blood.’
“In the same strain sang a certain poet when al-Mutawakkil slew his minister Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'l-Malik az-Zayyát:—
‘The heart was like to leave me for distress
When it was said, “The Wazír is slain!”
O Commander of the Faithful, thou hast slain one
Who was the axle on which your mill revolved!
Gently, O sons of al-'Abbás, gently!
For in truth men's hearts burn at your treachery!’
“Yet withal it was a dynasty abounding in good qualities, richly endowed with generous attributes, wherein the wares of Science found a ready sale, the merchandise of Culture was in great demand, the observances of Religion were respected, charitable bequests flowed freely, the world was prosperous, the Holy Shrines were well cared for, and the frontiers were bravely kept. Nor did this state of things cease until its last days were at hand, and violence became general, government was disturbed, and empire passed from them, all of which will be set forth in its proper place, if God please.”
As it is not my intention to discuss in detail the reigns or characters of the Caliphs of this House, or to repeat anecdotes of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd's nocturnal rambles through the streets of Baghdad in the company of Ja'far the Barmecide and Masrúr the black executioner, which are familiar to all readers of the Thousand and One Nights, and of which a copious selection will be found in the late Professor Palmer's entertaining little volume on that celebrated monarch,254a I here append, for the convenience of the reader, a table of the 'Abbásid Caliphs of this earlier period, adapted from Stanley Lane-Poole's excellent Muhammadan Dynasties (London, 1894).
| 'Alí b. 'Abdu'lláh b. 'ABBÁS | |||||
| Muḥammad | 'Abdu'lláh | Músá | Sulaymán | ||
| Ibráhím | 1. -Ṣaffáḥ | 2. -Manṣúr | 'Ísá | ||
| 3. -Mahdí | |||||
| 4. -Hádí | 5. -Rashíd | -Manṣúr | Ibráhím | ||
| 6. -Amín | 7. -Ma'mún | 8. -Mu'taṣim | |||
| Muḥammad | 9. -Wáthiq | 10. -Mutawakkil | |||
| 12. -Musta'ín | 14. -Muhtadí | 11. -Muntaṣir | 13. -Mu'tazz | 15. Mu'tamid | -Muwaffaq |
| Ibnu'l-Mu'tazz | 16. -Mu'taḍid | ||||
The first century of the dynasty, from its establishment till the death of al-Wáthiq and accession of al-Mutawakkil (A.H. 132-232 = A.D. 750-847), will chiefly be dealt with in this Third Book. It is the Golden Age of the Caliphate, and is characterised by the ascendancy of Persian influence, typified in the celebrated and noble Barmecides (descendants of Barmak), by the wit and learning so much in fashion at the Court, and by the complete dominance of the broad and liberal Mu'tazilite doctrines in the field of religion. With the accession of the tenth Caliph, al-Mutawakkil, Turkish influences (always somewhat barbarous in many aspects, and seldom favourable to free thought and enlightened intellectuality) largely displaced Persian; the Mu'tazilite doctrine, no longer patronised by Royalty, was supplanted by what now passes current as orthodoxy, to the great detriment of philosophical speculation; and for a time a violent anti-Shí'ite bias was displayed. This earlier period of the 'Abbásid Caliphate is therefore well defined, both in respect to racial dominance and religious tendencies, and reached its culminating point in the splendid reign of al-Ma'mún, whose mother255a and wife255b were both Persians, and whose ministers, favourites, and personal characteristics were, for the most part, Persian also. “We have seen,” says Professor Palmer, “how the Arabs perforce left the actual administration of the conquered countries in the hands of native officials. The 'Abbásids owing their rise entirely to Persian influence, it was only natural that Persian counsels should prevail, and we accordingly find a minister of Persian extraction at the head of affairs, and the Caliphate carried on by almost precisely the same machinery as that by which the Empire of the Sásánians was governed.”
To this machinery belonged, amongst other things, the office of Wazír (of which “Vizier” is the commoner, though Institution of the office of Wazír. less correct, form in English books), a word commonly derived from the Arabic root wizr “a burden,” because the Wazír bears the burden of administration, but probably identical in reality, as Darmesteter has shown,255c with the Pahlawí vi-chír (from ví-chirá, “to decide”), gazír in the Talmud. Of the history of this office al-Fakhrí256a gives the following account:—
“Before entering more fully into this matter, we must needs say a few prefatory words on this subject. I say, then, that the Wazír is Al-Fakhrí on the history of this office. one who is intermediate between the king and his subjects, so there must needs be in his nature one aspect which accords with the natures of kings, and another aspect which accords with the natures of the common folk, so that he may deal with both classes in such a manner as to secure for himself acceptance and affection; while trustworthiness and sincerity constitute his capital. It is said, ‘When the ambassador plays the traitor, policy avails naught;’ and it is also said, ‘The man belied hath no opinion;’256b so it is important for him to be efficient and vigorous, and necessary that he should possess intelligence, wariness, cunning, and resolution. It is likewise needful that he should be generous and hospitable, that thereby he may incline men's necks to his yoke, and that his thanks may be on the tongues of all; nor can he dispense with gentleness, patience, stability in affairs, clemency, dignity, gravity, and an authoritative address… Now the rules of the Wazírate were not fixed, nor the laws which govern it set in order, before the dynasty of the 'Abbásids. Before that time its rules were indeterminate and its laws unsettled; nay, rather each king was surrounded by certain courtiers and retainers, and, when any important crisis arose, he took counsel of such as were most sagacious and wise in council, each of whom, therefore, acted as Wazír. But when the 'Abbásids came to the throne, the laws of the Wazírate were fixed, and the Wazír was named Wazír, having hitherto been entitled Secretary (Kátib), or Counsellor (Mushír). Lexicographers say that wazar means ‘a place of refuge,’ ‘an asylum,’ and that wizr means ‘burden,’ so that Wazír is either derived from wizr, in which case it means that he ‘bears the burden,’ or from wazar, in which case it means that the king has recourse to his judgment and counsel.”
But the office of Wazír, for all the power and dignity which Perilous character of the office. it carried with it, was a perilous one. Abú Muslim, entitled Amínu Áli Muḥammad, “the Trusted Agent of the Family of Muḥammad,” was, as we have seen, treacherously murdered by al-Manṣúr (A.D. 754-755), after he himself had, by order of aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ, caused Abú Salama, who first bore the title of Wazír, to be assassinated (A.D. 749-750). Abu'l-Jahm, who succeeded him, was poisoned by his master. Feeling the poison work within him, he rose up to leave the room. “Whither away?” asked the Caliph. “To where thou hast sent me,” answered the unfortunate minister.257a His death coincided with the rise The Barmecides. to power of the great and noble Persian family of the Barmecides, or descendants of Barmak, who for fifty years (A.D. 752-804) so wisely directed the affairs of the Caliphate, and, by their generous patronage of learning, lavish hospitality, and wise administration, conferred such lustre upon the reigns of the first five 'Abbásid Caliphs, till the insensate jealousy of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd led him to destroy Ja'far and al-Faḍl, the sons of Yaḥyá, the son of Khálid, the son of Barmak, and many members of their family. Barmak, their ancestor, was a Magian, and the high priest of the great Fire-Temple of Nawbahár at Balkh. Mas'údí tells us (Murúju'dh-Dhabab , iv, 48) that—
“He who exercised these functions was respected by the kings of this country, and administered the wealth offered to the temple. He was called Barmak, a name given to all those invested with this dignity, whence is derived the name of the Barmecides (Barmakí, pl. Barámika); for Khálid b. Barmak was the son of one of these great pontiffs.”
In support of this view that Barmak was really a title rather than a name we may also cite the words of the geographer al-Qazwíní (Átháru'l-Bilád, pp. 221-222, s.v., Balkh):—
“The Persians and Turks used to revere it [the Temple of Nawbahár] and perform pilgrimages to it, and present offerings to it. Its length was one hundred cubits, its breadth the same, and its height somewhat more, and the care of it was invested in the Barámika. The Kings of India and China used to come to it, and when they reached it they worshipped the idol, and kissed Barmak's hand, and Barmak's rule was paramount in all these lands. And they ceased not, Barmak after Barmak, until Khurásán was conquered in the days of 'Uthmán b. 'Affán, and the guardianship of the temple came at length to Barmak the father of Khálid.”
The Barmecides naturally used their great influence in favour of their compatriots, but they had to be careful lest a too evident partiality for the institutions of Persia should bring them under suspicion of being still at heart Magians. Thus, whilst engaged in constructing his new capital of Baghdad, the Caliph al-Manṣúr was advised by Abú Ayyúb al-Múriyání to destroy the Sásánian palace known as Aywán-i-Kisrá, and utilise the material for building purposes. He consulted Khálid b. Barmak, who replied, “Do not this thing, O Commander of the Faithful, for verily it is a sign of the triumph of Islám, for when men see it they know that only a heavenly dispensation could destroy the like of this building, besides which it was the place of prayer of 'Alí b. Abú Ṭálib. The expense of destroying it is, moreover, greater than what will be gained thereby.” “O Khálid,” answered al-Manṣúr, “thou hast naught but partiality for all that is Persian!” Khálid's prophecy as to the labour and expense involved in its destruction proved, however, to be correct, and so one day the Caliph said to him, “O Khálid, we have come over to thine opinion, and have abandoned the destruction of the palace.” “O Commander of the Faithful,” said Khálid, “I advise thee now to destroy it, lest men should say that thou wert unable to destroy what another built!” Fortunately, however, the Caliph again refused to follow his advice (given, no doubt, from prudential motives, on account of what the Caliph had said to him before), and the demolition of the palace was suspended.
258aAnother old Persian custom reintroduced very early in the 'Abbásid period was the observance of the Festival Revival of Persian festival of Nawrúz. of the New Year (Nawrúz), the first day of the Persian solar year, corresponding with the vernal equinox and the entry of the sun into the sign of Aries.
“In the time of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd,” says al-Bírúní,259a “the landholders assembled again and called on Yaḥyá the son of Khálid the son of Barmak, asking him to postpone the Nawrúz by about two months.259b Yaḥyá intended so to do, but then his enemies began to speak of the subject, and said, ‘He is partial to Zoroastrianism.’ So he dropped the subject, and the matter remained as it was before.”
Von Kremer, in those admirable works which we have already so often had occasion to cite, treats fully of the Persian influences which were everywhere active, and which so largely moulded not only the organisation of the Church and State, but, in 'Abbásid times, even the fashions of dress, food, music and the like.
“Persian influence,” he says,259c “increased at the Court of the Caliphs, and reached its zenith under al-Hádí, Hárúnu'r-Rashíd, and al-Ma'mún. Most of the ministers of the last were Persians or of Persian fashions in dress adopted. Persian extraction. In Baghdad Persian fashions continued to enjoy an increasing ascendancy. The old Persian festivals of the Nawrúz, Mihrgán, and Rám were celebrated. Persian raiment was the official court dress, and the tall, black, conical Persian hats (qalansuwa, pl. qalánis) … were already prescribed as official by the second 'Abbásid Caliph (in A.H. 153 = A.D. 770). At the court the customs of the Sásánian kings were imitated, and garments decorated with golden inscriptions were introduced, which it was the exclusive privilege of the ruler to bestow. A coin of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil shows us this Prince actually clothed in true Persian fashion.”
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,260a 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 assertion260b 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.’260c Once a Qurayshite, observing an Arab child studying the Book of Síbawayhi,261a 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,261b “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,262a 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,262b and poems in Arabic ascribed to him are cited in 'Awfí's Lubábu 'l-Albáb.262c 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.”
262d“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 troops262e 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.263a 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.”
263bThe 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 gives263c 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.”
264a“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.”
264bThat the full-blooded Arabs, in whom racial feeling greatly outweighed the religious sense, were very far from sharing the views embodied in these and similar traditions is abundantly shown by Goldziher, who cites many facts and passages which indicate their contempt for the foreign Mawálí, and in particular their disapproval of marriages between Arabs (especially Arab women) and non-Arabs.264c A precisely similar phenomenon is presented at the present day by the English in India, who are no more disposed to accord social equality to a Christian than to a non-Christian native, but rather the contrary; indeed, the comparison here is on the whole to the advantage of Islám, where at least the professedly pious steadily opposed this dominant racial prejudice in a way very rare amongst our missionaries—a fact which, without doubt, accounts for their slender success in most parts of Asia.
With the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the “Persian and Khurásánian” dynasty of the 'Abbásids265a there came true, as has been already sufficiently indicated, part at least of Naṣr b. Sayyár's warning to his master Marwán “the Ass”:—
Fa-firrí 'an riḥáliki, thumma qúlí
'Ala'l-Islámi wa'l-'Arabi 's-salámu!
“Flee from thine abode, and bid farewell to Islám and the Arabs!”
There now appears on the scene a definite party, the Shu'úbiyya, or “partisans of the Gentiles,”265b who, beginning with the contention that all Muslims were equal, finished in some cases by declaring the Arabs inferior to many other races. “Already under the Caliph Abú Ja'far al-Manṣúr,” says Goldziher (op. cit., p. 148), “we are witnesses of how the Arab waits vainly for entrance before the Caliph's Gate, while men of Khurásán freely go in and out through it, and mock the rude Arab.” The poet Abú Tammám († A.D. 845-46) was rebuked by the Wazír, because he had compared the Caliph to Ḥátim of the tribe of Ṭayy and other personages in whom the Arabs gloried, with the words, “Dost thou compare the Commander of the Faithful with these barbarous Arabs?”
266a Of these Shu'úbiyya each one vaunted particularly the claims
to distinction of his own nationality, whether Syrian, Naba-thæan,
Egyptian, Greek, Spanish, or Persian; but the last
named were at once the most vehement and the most
numerous. In Umayyad times Isma'íl b. Yásár was, by
order of the Caliph Hishám (A.D. 724-43), thrown into a
tank of water because he had boasted his Persian descent in
verses amongst which occur the following:—266b
“Princes were my ancestors, noble satraps, of high breeding, generous,
hospitable,
Comparable to Khusraw or Shápúr, and to Hurmuzán in renown
and consideration;
Lions of the war-hosts, when they rushed forth on the day of
battle.
They disheartened the Kings of the Turks and Greeks, they stalked
in heavy coats of mail
As ravenous lions stalk forth.
Then, if thou askest, wilt thou learn that we are descended from
a race which excels all others.”
Such boasts on the part of the Persian Mawálí were gall
and wormwood to the Arab party, who would fain have
enjoyed a monopoly of this sort of self-glorification; and,
when they could do no more, they replied by such verses as
these:—266c
“God so ordained it that I knew you ere Fortune smiled upon you,
when ye still sat in the Haymarket,
But not a year had elapsed ere I saw you strutting about in silk
and brocade and samite.
Then your women sat in the sun and moaned under the water-
wheels in harmony with the turtle-doves:
Now they trail skirts of flowered silk from the looms of 'Iráq, and
all kinds of silk stuffs from Dakn and Ṭárún.
They have already forgotten how but a little while since they
broke Ḥalání-stones in the quarries, and how they carried
bundles of moss in the skirts of their frocks.
But when they had grown rich, then spoke they with impudent
falsehood, ‘We are the noble ones, the sons of the Dihqáns.’
If one questions the meanest and commonest of them, he answers
full of arrogance, ‘I am a son of [Bahrám] Chúbín,’
Adding thereto, ‘Khusraw endowed me with goods and made me
his inheritor: who dares to set himself up against me?’”
The Persian aristocracy of this period, as we learn from al-Mas'údí,267a preserved their genealogies with the same care as did the Arabs, so that these boasts which so offended the Arabs may in many cases have been well founded. Even in the genealogies of the Arabs they were better instructed than the Arabs themselves, as we see in the anecdote cited by Gold-ziher (op. cit., p. 190), when a Qurayshite is obliged to appeal to a Persian for information about his own ancestors. The Persians on their side were quick to seize and turn into ridicule the weak points of the Arabs, and even, as Goldziher remarks,267b to belittle those virtues (such as liberality) whereon they especially prided themselves; so that, for example, one of al-Ma'mún's three Persian librarians named Sahl b. Ḥárún, a fanatical Shu'úbí, was pleased to write a number of treatises extolling avarice.267c The blind Persian panegyrist of the Caliph al-Mahdí, Bashshár b. Burd,267d a well-known freethinker, who was ultimately put to death for his heterodoxy in A.D. 783-84, ventured so far as to say:—
“The Earth is dark and the Fire resplendent, and the Fire has been
adored since it became Fire.”
For our knowledge of the Shu'úbí controversy and the literature which it evoked, of which echoes only are preserved in the works of al-Jáḥidh († A.D. 869) and Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi († A.D. 940), we are chiefly indebted to Goldziher's excellent Muhammedanische Studien, already so freely cited in this chapter. Amongst the defenders of the Persian pretensions he enumerates Isḥáq b. Ḥassán al-Khurramí († A.D. 815-16), a native of Sughd, who, in one of his verses, boasts268a that his father is Sásán, and Kisrá, son of Hurmuz, and the Kháqán his cousins; Abú 'Uthmán Sa'íd b. Ḥumayd b. Bakhtagán († A.D. 854-5), who composed books on the superiority of the Persians over the Arabs;268b Abú Sa'íd ar-Rustamí (tenth century of our era), “in whom,” says Goldziher, “the national cry of the Persians against the Arabs sounds its last notes;” and that great scientist, Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní († A.D. 1048). Amongst the most notable of their opponents, the champions of Arab superiority, are enumerated the historians Ibn Qutayba († A.D. 883 or 889) and al-Baládhurí († A.D. 892),268c both of whom were of Persian origin,268d although they wrote exclusively in Arabic. To them may be added a Persian-writing Persian of a later epoch, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, the poet, traveller, and Isma'ílí propagandist († circ. A.D. 1074), who in his Díwán (lith. ed. of Tabríz, A.H. 1280, p. 150), says:—
Bi-dín kard fakhr án-ki tá rúz-i-ḥashr
Bidú muftakhir shud 'Arab bar 'Ajam
Khasís-ast u bí qadr bí-dín, agar
Farídún-sh khál-ast, u Jamshíd 'am.
“'Twas in Religion that he gloried by whom till the Day of
Judgement
The Arabs excel the Persians in glory.
He who lacks religion is ignoble and mean,
Though Ferídún be his maternal, and Jamshíd his paternal
uncle.”
The Shu'úbiyya controversy extended itself, as Goldziher also shows, to the regions of Genealogy and Philology, wherein lay the special pride of the Arabs, who valued nothing more highly than nobility of descent and purity of speech. Even into these fields the “Iranophiles” carried their attacks, using their knowledge in the first to rake up all the scandals connected with the different Arab tribes and the pedigrees of their favourite heroes and warriors—scandals which were embodied in a whole series of incriminating poems called Mathálib—and in the second to vindicate the superiority of other languages, notably the Persian and the Greek, over Arabic. To one of the most accomplished of these “Irano-phile” scholars, Abú 'Ubayda Ma'mar b. al-Muthanná († circ. A.D. 824), Goldziher devotes a long notice.
269aThis most learned philologist, notorious as a Shu'úbí, was always eager to point out how much, even of what they most prized, and esteemed most national and original, the Arabs really owed to other nations; how much, for example, their poetry and rhetoric owed to Persian models, how many of their stories were drawn from Persian sources, and the like. The superior attractions of the Persian legends had, indeed, as we learn from Ibn Hishám (ed. Wüstenfeld, pp. 235-6), already caused the greatest vexation to the Prophet, who found his audiences melt away when an-Naḍr b. al-Ḥárith al-'Abdarí appeared on the scene to tell them tales of Rustam and Isfandiyár and the ancient kings of Persia.
As regards Philology proper, Goldziher specially mentions as champions of the Arab cause the great commentator az-Zamakhsharí (also a Persian: † A.D. 1143-4), who in his preface thanks God for his learning in, and enthusiasm for, the Arabic language, and his exemption from Shu'úbí tendencies; Ibn Durayd († A.D. 933); and Abu'l-Ḥusayn b. Fáris (early eleventh century). Amongst their most notable opponents he reckons Ḥamza of Iṣfahán, who “was enthusiastic for the Persians,”270a and who shows his enthusiasm, amongst other ways, by finding Persian etymologies (rarely satisfactory) for names generally regarded as purely Arabic. Thus he explained the name of the town of Baṣra as “Bas ráh” (“Far Road,” or “Many Roads”); an etymology which reminds us of the statement in that late and greatly overestimated Persian work the Dabistán (see pp. 54-55 supra), that the original name of Mecca was “Mah-gah,” which in Persian signifies “the Place of the Moon.” Such childish etymologies are, unfortunately, only too popular with Persian writers down to the present day.
270bThe way in which the different sciences, especially History, arose amongst the Muslims in connection with the study of the Qur'án, and grouped themselves, as it were, round a theological kernel, is admirably sketched by that great Arabist, Professor de Goeje, in the article on Ṭabari and Early Arab Historians which he contributed to vol. xxiii (1888) of the Encyclopœdia Britannica. The philological sciences naturally come first. With the influx of foreign converts to Islám an urgent need arose for grammars and dictionaries of the Arabic language in which the Word of God had been revealed. To elucidate the meanings of rare and obscure words occurring therein, it was necessary to collect as many as possible of the old poems, which constituted the inexhaustible treasury of the Arabic tongue. To understand these poems a knowledge of the Ansáb, or genealogies of the Arabs, and of their Battles or “Days” (Ayyám) and their history (Akhbár) generally was requisite. To supplement the rules laid down in the Qur'án for the conduct of life, it was necessary to find out, by questioning his “Companions” (Aṣḥáb), or those who had associated with them and “followed” them (Tawábi', tubbá' or tábi'ún), what the Prophet had said and how he had acted under different circumstances; whence arose the science of Tradition (Ḥadíth). To test the validity of these traditions it was necessary to know not merely the content (matn) of each, but also its isnád, i.e., the chain of persons through whom it had been handed down ere it was finally reduced to writing; and to test this isnád a knowledge of the dates, characters, and circumstances of these persons was requisite, which again led in another way to the study of Biography and Chronology. Nor did the history of the Arabs alone suffice; it was necessary to know something of the history of their neighbours, especially the Persians, Greeks, Ḥimyarites, Æthiopians, &c., in order to grasp the significance of many allusions in the Qur'án and in the old poems. A knowledge of Geography was essential for the same purpose, and also for more practical reasons connected with the rapid expansion of the Muhammadan Empire.
During the first century after the flight hardly any books were written; all this knowledge continued to be handed down orally, and the Qur'án remained almost the only prose work (and it is chiefly written in rhymed prose) in Arabic. Such as desired to study Arabic philology, poetry, and legend had to go into the Desert amongst the Bedouin tribes to pursue their researches; such as sought a knowledge of Tradition and the religious sciences had to seek it at Madína. Knowledge could only be obtained by travelling, and this travelling “in search of knowledge” (fí ṭalabi'l-'ilm), rendered necessary at first by the circumstances of the case, gradually became a fashion, and finally almost a craze, favoured and justified by such traditions as: “Whosoever goeth forth to seek for learning is in the Way of God until he returns home; the Angels blithely spread their wings over him, and all creatures pray for him, even the fish in the water.”272a Makḥúl († A.D. 730), originally a slave in Egypt, would not on receiving his freedom leave that country “till he had gathered together all the learning which was to be found there;” and, having accomplished this, he journeyed through Ḥijáz, 'Iráq, and Syria seeking for an authentic tradition as to the division of spoils taken in battle, which he at last obtained from an old man named Ziyád b. Járiya at-Tamímí, who had it on the authority of Ḥabíb b. Maslama al-Fihrí.272b Here we have an actual application of the principle enunciated in the following words ascribed to Abu'd-Dardá: “If the explanation of a passage in the Book of God presented difficulties to me, and if I heard of a man in Birku'l-Jumád” (a most inaccessible spot in South Arabia, proverbially spoken of as equivalent to the ends of the earth) “who would explain it to me, I would not grudge the journey thither.”
272cThe two oldest Arabic prose works of importance (except the Qur'án) which have come down to us are Ibn Isḥáq's († A.D. 767) Biography of the Prophet in the recension of Ibn Hishám († A.D. 834),272d and a work on genealogy by Ibnu'l-Kalbí († A.D. 763-4), of which manuscripts exist in the libraries of the British Museum and the Escorial.272e Manuscript notes, however, were constantly made at an earlier date, during the first century of the Flight, by such men as Abú Hurayra, 'Abdu'llah b. 'Amr b. al-'Aṣí, az-Zuhrí272f († A.D. 742) and Ḥasan of Baṣra,272g who in some cases ordered that these notes should be burned at their death, because they were mere aids to memory, “and what they knew these scholars had handed on by word of mouth.” Indeed, as Goldziher has shown,273a there existed till well into the second century after the Flight a strong feeling against the writing down of traditions, so that 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán b. Harmala al-Aslamí († A.D. 762) had to obtain a special permission from his teacher Sa'íd b. al-Musayyib to reduce his teachings to writing, on the pretext that his memory was not strong enough to retain them without such aids. The grounds on which this objection rested were chiefly two: a fear lest the books wherein these holy sayings of the Prophet were recorded might not be treated with enough respect; and a fear lest, on the other hand, they might, as had happened in other religions, become invested, to the prejudice of the Book of God, with an undue authority. Against this objection stood the truer view embodied in such sayings as: “Knowledge not put on paper is lost;” “What is committed to memory passes away, but what is written remains;” “The best teacher of traditions is the written record;” and the Imám Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal's reputed aphorisms, “Publish traditions only after written texts,” and “the book is the most faithful recorder.”273b Naturally such objections did not exist in the case of profane literature, and, in the short section which he devotes to the prose-literature of the Umayyad period, Carl Brockelmann273c mentions the following early works and writers: the Southern Arabians Wahb b. Munabbih (of Persian origin)273d and 'Abíd b. Shariya, both of Ṣan'a, of whom the former died at an advanced age in A.D. 728, and the latter in the reign of 'Abdu'l-Malik (A.D. 685-705); Abú Mikhnaf Lúṭ b. Yaḥyá al-Azdí, celebrated for his historical romances (d. circ. A.D. 750); the already-mentioned az-Zuhrí (d. A.D. 742); and his pupil Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'r-Rahmán al-'Ámirí († A.D. 737), author of an older Muwaṭṭa' than the wellknown law-book of the same name compiled by the Imám Málik b. Anas (d. 795). Amongst the oldest Arabic prose works of which copies actually exist are the Kitábu'z-Zuhd (on Asceticism) of Asad b. Músá b. Ibráhím († A.D. 749); the Kitábu'l-Jawámi' (on Oneiromancy) of Muḥammad b. Shírín (see p. 263, n. 1 supra); and the Kitábu'l-Ishára bi-'ilmi'l-'ibára of Muḥammad b. 'Alí b. 'Umar as-Sálimí. Last, but not least, is the Umayyad prince Khálid b. Yazíd († A.D. 704), who studied Alchemy with a monk named Marianus, composed three treatises on Occult Science, and had for his pupil the celebrated occultist Jábir b. Ḥayyán (circ. A.D. 776).
Brockelmann in his admirable Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Weimar, 1897- ) divides the earlier portion of his subject into the following periods:—
I. The purely Arabian literature (almost entirely consisting of poems composed by pagan, and a few Jewish and Christian, poets), from the earliest times till the time of the Prophet.
II. The literature (also purely Arabian, and, with the exception of the Qur'án, poetical) of the Prophet and his time.
III. The literature (also purely Arabian) of the Umayyad period (A.D. 661-750).
IV. The classical period (A.D. 750-1000) of Muhammadan literature, composed in the Arabic language, but no longer exclusively, or even mainly, by Arabs.
V. The post-classical period (A.D. 1000-1258) of the same, down to the Mongol invasion, sack of Baghdad, and extinction of the 'Abbásid dynasty.
Of these periods the first three but slightly concern us, and all that is needful for our purpose has been already said. The periods subsequent to the Mongol invasion lie also beyond the scope of this work, since even before this momentous event the national life of Persia had been definitely detached from that of Arabia and Western Asia, and the Persian language had become the main vehicle of Persian thought. The fourth and fifth periods, on the other hand, concern us closely; for during the first (A.D. 750-1000) the Persian tongue had scarcely re-emerged, as a literary language, from the eclipse which it suffered at the Arab Conquest; and during the second, although it was once more widely and successfully cultivated for all literary purposes, there was in Persia a large co-existent Arabic literature produced by Persians. The Arabic literature produced in Persia after the Mongol Invasion was far more restricted in scope, and was mainly confined to the domains of Theology, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence.
From the Persian point of view, then, whence we here regard the matter, it is the Arabic literature of 'Abbásid times with which our concern chiefly lies, and, in the present chapter, those writers who belong to what we have defined as “the Golden Age” (A.D. 749-847). A list of the most important of these, arranged in order of the dates of their decease, here follows.
(1) Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' († A.D. 757), the converted Magian, who, notwithstanding the fact that he was born a Persian and a Zoroastrian, is counted by Ibn Muqla († A.D. 939) and Ibn Khaldún the Moor († A.D. 1405-6) amongst the past-masters of the Arabic tongue. He was also, as has been already remarked, an accomplished Pahlawí scholar, and translated from this language many works into Arabic. Of these, his Arabic version of Kalíla and Dimna, still a classic in all Arabic-speaking countries, alone survives in its entirety, his much more important translation of the Pahlawí “Book of Kings” (Khudháy-náma) being only known to us by citations in later histories.
(2) Ibn 'Uqba († A.D. 758), the oldest biographer of the Prophet, whose work, as it would seem, is unfortunately entirely lost.
(3) Muḥammad b. as-Sá'ib al-Kalbí († A.D. 763), who, together with his son Hishám b. al-Kalbí († A.D. 820), was well versed in the history of the ancient Arabs.
(4) 'Ísá b. 'Umar ath-Thaqafí († A.D. 766), one of the founders of Arabic grammar, the teacher of both Khalíl b. Aḥmad (the alleged inventor of the Science of Prosody in Arabic) and the great Síbawayhi, the Persian.
(5) Ibn Isḥáq († A.D. 767), the biographer of the Prophet, whose work (though possibly, as de Goeje thinks, still extant in its original form in the Kyüprülü Library at Constantinople) is known to us only in the recension of Ibn Hishám.
(6) Abú Ḥanífa an-Nu'mán († A.D. 767), one of the four orthodox “Imáms” of the Sunnís, the founder of the Ḥanafí school, of Persian origin, and in strong sympathy with the descendants of 'Alí.
(7) Ḥammád b. Sábúr (Shápúr) ar-Ráwiya († A.D. 772-775), of Persian (Daylamite) origin, the collector and editor of the seven ancient Arabic poems known as the Mu'allaqát.
(8) Jábir b. Ḥayyán, the occultist (circ. A.D. 776; see p. 274 supra).
(9) Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'lláh al-Azdí (circ. A.D. 777), who wrote a history of the Conquest of Syria.
(10) Abú Duláma († A.D. 777), a negro, “more jester and Court-fool than poet,” who enjoyed the favour of the Caliphs al-Manṣúr and al-Mahdí.
(11) Bashshár b. Burd († A.D. 783), the blind Persian sceptic and poet, to whom reference has already been made.
(12) Al-Mufaḍḍal aḍ-Ḍabbí († A.D. 786), tutor to the Caliph al-Mahdí during his youth, who made a collection of old Arabic poems not less important, though less celebrated, than the Mu'allaqát.
(13) As-Sayyidu'l-Ḥimyarí (“the Ḥimyarite Sayyid,” † A.D. 789), a zealous Shí'ite, “whose poems” (mostly in praise of the Prophet and his family) “are distinguished,” says Brockelmann (p. 83), “like those of Abu'l-'Aṭáhiya and Bashshár, by simplicity of language.”
(14) Khalíl b. Aḥmad († A.D. 791), the grammarian and prosodist mentioned under (4) supra.
(15) Síbawayhi († A.D. 793), the Persian grammarian, also mentioned under (4) supra.
(16) Abú Yúsuf Ya'qúb al-Anṣárí († A.D. 795), jurisconsult and pupil of Abú Ḥanífa.
(17) Málik b. Anas († A.D. 795), the second of the four orthodox “Imáms,” the Founder of the Málikite school.
(18) Marwán b. Abí Ḥafsa († A.D. 797), poet, a Jew of Khurásán.
(19) Muslim b. al-Walíd († A.D. 803), court-poet of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd and protégé of the Barmecides and Faḍl b. Sahl.
(20) Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan ash-Shaybání († A.D. 804), the Ḥanafí jurisconsult, and for a while Qáḍí of Raqqa in the reign of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd.
(21) 'Alí b. Ḥamza al-Kisá'í († A.D. 805), the grammarian, a Persian by birth, entrusted by Hárúnu'r-Rashíd with the education of his two sons al-Amín and al-Ma'mún.
(22) Al-'Abbás b. al-Aḥnaf († A.D. 806), another half-Persian poet of the Court of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd, chiefly celebrated for his love-poems.
(23) Abú Nuwás († A.D. 806-813), also half Persian by birth, one of the most brilliant and shameless poets of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd's Court. His discreditable adventures, ready resource, and unfailing wit are familiar to all readers of the Arabian Nights.
(24) Ibn Zabála († A.D. 814), a pupil of Málik b. Anas, who wrote a History of Madína.
(25) Yaḥyá b. Biṭríq (who flourished about A.D. 815), one of the translators of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers into Arabic.
(26) Hishám b. al-Kalbí († A.D. 819-820), the historian; see (3) supra.
(27) Ash-Sháfi'i († A.D. 820), the third of the four orthodox “Imáms” of the Sunnís, founder of the Sháfi'ite school.
(28) Quṭrub († A.D. 821), grammarian and philologist, pupil of Síbawayhí and ath-Thaqafí.
(29) Al-Farrá († A.D. 822), grammarian, pupil of al-Kisá'í, and, like him, of Persian origin.
(30) Al-Wáqidí († A.D. 823), the great historian of the Muslim conquests, who was liberally patronised by Yaḥyá the Barmecide, and, on his death, left behind him 600 great boxes of books and manuscript notes, each one of which required two men to carry it.
(31) Abú 'Ubayda Ma'mar b. al-Muthanná († A.D. 825), a philologist of strong Shu'úbí tendencies and of Jewish-Persian origin, the rival of al-Aṣma'í, and the bitter satirist of the Arab tribes. See p. 269 supra.
(32) Abu'l-'Aṭáhiya († A.D. 828), one of the most notable poets of this epoch, who, alike in his earnestness, his religious pessimism, and his extreme simplicity of speech, stands in the sharpest contrast to his contemporary the dissolute, immoral, and time-serving Abú Nuwás.
(33) Al-'Akawwak († A.D. 828), a poet and panegyrist of Persian extraction.
(34) Ibn Qutayba († A.D. 828), a historian of the first rank, also a Persian. Of the twelve works composed by him which Brockelmann enumerates (i, pp. 120-123) the best known are his Kitábu'l-Ma'árif (ed. Wüstenfeld, 1850), his Adabu'l-Kátib, or Secretary's Manual (Cairo, A.H. 1300), and his 'Uyúnu'l-Akhbár, now being published by Brockelmann at Berlin.
(35) Al-Aṣma'í († A.D. 831), the grammarian and philologist, a prominent member of that circle of learned men wherewith Hárúnu'r-Rashíd surrounded himself.
(36) Ibn Hishám († A.D. 834), the editor of Ibn Isḥáq's Biography of the Prophet; see (5) supra.
(37) Al-Akhfash “the intermediate” (al-Awsaṭ), or “the second” († A.D. 835, or earlier), grammarian and philologist, a pupil of Síbawayhi, and probably, like his master, of Persian extraction.
(38) Qusṭá b. Lúqá, a Christian of Ba'labakk (Baalbek), a notable translator and compiler of medical, astronomical, and mathematical works, flourished about this time. He was still famous in Persia as an authority on these subjects in the middle of the eleventh century of our era, when Náṣir-i-Khusraw wrote:—
Har kasí chízí hamí-gúyad zi tíra ra'y-i-khwísh,
Tá gumán áyad-'t k'ú Qusṭáy bin Lúqá-stí.
“Every one, in his benighted ignorance, propounds some theory,
That thou may'st suppose him to be a Qusṭá b. Lúqá.”
(39) Al-Madá'iní († A.D. 840-845), a prolific writer on history, of whose works, unfortunately, only the titles (of which 111 are enumerated in the Fihrist) are preserved to us.
(40) Al-Kindí († A.D. 841), the eminent Arabian philosopher and physician.
(41) Ibnu'l-A'rábí († A.D. 844), a well-known grammarian of Indian origin, the step-son and pupil of al-Mufaḍḍal (see No. 12 supra).
(42) Abú Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. Sallám al-fumaḥí († A.D. 845), the author of a Biography of Poets (Ṭabaqátu'sh-Shu'ará), which is unfortunately lost, and is only known to us by citations.
(43) Ibn Sa'd († A.D. 845), secretary to the celebrated al-Wáqidí (see No. 30 supra), author of the great Kitábu't-Ṭabaqáti'l-Kabír, which is to be published in the near future at Leyden.
(44) Abú Tammám († A.D. 846), panegyrist of the Caliph al-Mu'taṣim and later of 'Abdu'lláh b. Ṭáhir, the governor of Khurásán, but better known as the author of the great Anthology of ancient Arabic poetry called the Ḥamása, “wherein,” says his commentator at-Tabrízí, “he showed himself a better poet than in his own verses.”
(45) Díku'l-finn († A.D. 849), the Syrian Shu'úbí and Shí'te poet.
Other names might be added, but for our present purpose these are sufficient, since they serve to indicate how large a proportion (thirteen out of forty-four) of the most celebrated contributors to “classical” Arabic literature were of Persian extraction. For fuller particulars of their works and characteristics the reader must refer to von Kremer, Brockelmann, and other writers on the Litteraturgeschichte and Culturgeschichte of the Arabs.
GOLDEN AGE OF ISLÁM.
TWO of the most important early sects of Islám, the republican Khárijites and the legitimist Shí'ites, have been already discussed at some length; while the extremists (Ghulát) of the latter body, with their wild doctrines of Incarnation (Ḥulúl), “Return” (Rij'at) and Metempsychosis (Tanásukh), will form the subject of the following chapter (pp. 308 et seqq.). These sects may be regarded, primarily at least, as to a large extent political in their character, and as representing respectively the democratic Arabian and the monarchic Persian tendencies as applied to matters of religion. To them must be added a third sect of mainly political character, the Murjiya, and a fourth of more purely theological or speculative nature, the Qadariyya or Mu'tazila. These four sects are regarded by von Kremer,279a who follows Ibn Ḥazm,279b as the four primary divisions (Hauptsekten) of the Muhammadans;279c and, according to his view,280a the two last arose at the Umayyad capital, Damascus, partly under Christian influences, during the first half of the eighth century of our era (A.D. 718-747), while the two first, as we have already seen, were already in existence in the latter part of the seventh century.
The Murjiya (so called from the root arja'a, “he postponed,” because they postpone or defer judgment against sinful Muslims The Murjiya. till the Day of Resurrection,280b and refuse to assert that any true believer, no matter what sins he may have committed, is certainly damned) were essentially that body of Muslims who, unlike the Shí'ites and Khárijites, acquiesced in the Umayyad rule. In doctrine they otherwise agreed in the main with the orthodox party, though, as von Kremer thinks, they greatly softened and mitigated its more terrible features, holding “that no believing Muslim would remain eternally in hell,”280c and, in general, setting faith above works. Their views were so evidently adapted to the environment of the Umayyad Court, with which no sincere Shí'ite or Khárijite could have established any modus vivendi, though Christians and other non-Muslims stood in high favour there, and held important offices,280d that it is hard to regard them otherwise than as time-servers of the Vicar of Bray type. With the fall of that ungodly dynasty their raison d'être ended, and they ceased to exist as an independent party, though from their ranks arose the celebrated Abú Ḥanífa, the founder of one of the four orthodox schools of the Sunnís which endure to the present day.
280e“It is much to be regretted,” says von Kremer,280f “that we have so little accurate information about this sect, but they shared the fate of that whole epoch. The Arabic historical sources of the Umayyad period perished altogether, and the oldest writings preserved to us arose in 'Abbásid times. We are therefore driven back for information as to the Murjiya to the scattered notices which we find in later Arabic writers.”
Of much greater interest and importance was the sect of the Qadariyya (“Partisans of Free Will”) or Mu'tazila The Mu'tazila. (“Seceders,”) whose leading idea, to quote Dr. Steiner,281a “is best characterised as the enduring protest of sound human understanding against the tyrannical demands which the orthodox teaching imposed upon it.” They called themselves Ahlu'l-'Adl wa't-Tawḥíd, or “Partisans of the Divine Justice and Divine Unity”; of the Divine Justice, because the orthodox doctrine of Predestination, which represented God as punishing man for sins forced upon him, as it were, by a Fate which he had no power to resist, made God in effect a pitiless Tyrant; of the Divine Unity, because, said they, the orthodox party, who make the Qur'án coeternal and coexistent with God, and who regard the Divine Attributes as separate or separable from the Divine Essence, are really Polytheists or Mushrikún (associaters of other gods with the One God). The account generally given of their origin and name is that Wáṣil b. 'Aṭá al-Ghazzál, a Persian Ḥasan of Baṣra and Wáṣil b. 'Atá. disciple of the celebrated theologian Ḥasan of Baṣra, differed from his master as to the question whether a believer, after he had committed a grievous sin, still deserved to be called by that appellation. Wáṣil held that such an one could neither be called a believer nor an unbeliever, but must be regarded as occupying a middle position between the two, and withdrew to a different part of the mosque to expound this view to those of his fellow-students who followed him; whereupon Ḥasan of Baṣra observed to those who stood round him, “I'tazala 'an-ná” (“He hath seceded from us”), in consequence of which saying Wáṣil's party were called by their opponents “al-Mu'tazila” (“the Separatists” or “Seceders.”)282a This, the generally received account of the origin of the sect, would make 'Iráq—“cette antique Babylonie, où la race sémitique et la race perse se rencontraient et se mélangeaient, et qui devint bientôt le centre de la science, puis, peu de temps après, sous les 'Abbásides, le siège du gouvernement”282b —its birthplace and cradle; but von Kremer,282c as we have seen, thinks that their doctrines were developed at Damascus under the influence of Byzantine theologians, notably of John of Damascus and his disciple Theodore Abucara. The other and more definite name—Qadariyya282d —by which they were known referred to their doctrine of man's free-will; and the spurious tradition “al-Qadariyyatu Majúsu hádhihi'l-Ummati,” “the Partisans The Qadariyya compared to Magians. of Free-will are the Magians of this Church” (because, as Steiner observes, to explain the existence of Evil they also set up a second Principle, the Will of Man, against the Will of God), was freely applied to them by their adversaries. Even in much later times, at the beginning of the thirteenth century of our era, we find the Persian Ṣúfí poet Maḥmúd Shabistarí referring to this tradition in that well-known manual for mystagogues the Gulshan-i-Ráz282e as follows:—
Har án kas-rá ki madh-hab ghayr-i-fabr-ast,
Nabí farmúd kú mánind-i- gabr-ast.“Every man whose faith is other than predestinarian
Is, according to the Prophet, even as a guebre.”
Von Kremer, as already noticed, considers that the Doctrine of Free-will was already taught in Damascus at the end of the seventh century of our era by Ma'bad al-Juḥaní (died in A.D. 699), who had imbibed the doctrine from a Persian named Sinbúya, and who was put to death by the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik, or, according to other narratives, by Ḥajjáj b. Yúsuf. 'Awfí, the Persian thirteenth-century writer, in the account of the Umayyad Caliphs contained in bk. v of his immense collection of stories, the Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát (which, unfortunately, exists only in rare manuscripts), says that Ghaylán the Qadarí was put to death in Damascus by Hishám b. 'Abdu'l-Malik (A.D. 724-743) for teaching the doctrine of Free-will; and even describes how he was confuted by the Caliph in the presence of the doctors of Syria. Yazíd II (A.D. 720-724), on the other hand, is said to have himself embraced the views of the Qadariyya, and, if 'Awfí may be believed, he also showed a marked partiality for the House of 'Alí. Shí'ite and Qadarí tenets, indeed, often went together, and the Shí'ite doctrine current in Persia at the present day is in many respects Mu'tazilite, while Ḥasan al-Ash'arí, the great opponent of the Mu'tazilites, is by the Shí'ites held in horror. Muḥammad Dárábí,283a the author of an Apology for the poet Ḥáfidh,283b mentions as one of the three grounds whereon objection was commonly made to his verses that some of them appeared to indicate an inclination to the doctrines of al-Ash'arí, “which,” he adds, “the doctors of the Imámiyya” (or Shí'ites of the Sect of the Twelve) “regard as false;” and he cites as an example of these Calvinistic leanings the verse:—
Dar kúy-i-ník-námí márá guzar na-dádand:
Gar tú na-mí pasandí, taghyír kun qaḍá-rá!“They suffered us not to enter the Street of Good Repute:
If thou likest it not, then change Destiny!”
It was, however, under the earlier 'Abbásid Caliphs, notably in the reign of the Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833) and his son al-Wáthiq (A.D. 842-847), that the Mu'tazilite school was most powerful. It had taken possession of these Caliphs and their Courts, had enriched its stores of argument and methods of dialectic by the study of Greek Philosophy, and, supported thus by its internal strength and the external favour of the governing classes, bade fair altogether to extinguish the orthodox party, towards whom, in spite of its generally liberal and tolerant attitude, it showed itself irreconcilably hostile. The orthodox doctrine that the Qur'án was uncreate they held in particular detestation. In the year A.H. 211 (A.D. 826: Ṭabarí iii, p. 1099) al-Ma'mún, having nearly provoked a civil war by his Shí'ite proclivities, and especially by his nomination of the Eighth Imám of the Shí'ites, 'Alí ar-Riḍá, as his successor to the throne (a difficulty whence, with singular inconsistency, he extricated himself by secretly poisoning the Imám and instigating the assassination of the too zealous minister, Faḍl b. Sahl, who had counselled this step), proclaimed the doctrine that the Qur'án was created, not uncreate, as an indisputable truth; and seven years later, in the last year of his Caliphate, he compelled seven eminent men of learning (amongst whom was Ibn Sa'd, the secretary of the great historian al-Wáqidí) to declare their adhesion to this doctrine, after which he wrote a long letter to Isḥáq b. Ibráhím bidding him question such theologians as he suspected of holding the prohibited belief, and punish such as refused to declare the Qur'án to be created. Some two dozen eminent and highly esteemed Muslims, the most notable of whom was Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, the founder of one of the four orthodox schools of the Sunnites, were haled before this tribunal, and, by threats and imprisonment, most of them were induced to subscribe to the Caliph's declaration that the Qur'án was created, save Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, who stood firm, and, but for the sudden death of al-Ma'mún, which happened shortly afterwards, would have been in grave peril of his life.284a Al-Wáthiq followed his father's example, and thereby provoked in the year A.H. 231 (A.D. 845-6) a dangerous conspiracy headed by Aḥmad b. Naṣr al-Khuzá'í, which was, however, revealed by the indiscretion of several of the conspirators who had been indulging to an unwise extent in nabídh, or date-wine. 285a Notwithstanding this, in the exchange of prisoners effected in the same year285b al-Wáthiq caused each released Muslim captive to be questioned as to his belief on this burning question, and such as declared their belief that the Qur'án was uncreate he refused to receive (deeming them, as it would seem, outside the pale of Islám), but sent them back to their captivity. According to another account also given by Ṭabarí,285c the released captives were likewise called upon to deny that God on the Last Day would be visible to men's eyes, this doctrine, like that of the uncreate Qur'án, being held by the orthodox, who in all things followed the very letter of God's Word, and utterly refused to exercise that process of ta'wíl, or Allegorical Interpretation, affected by their antagonists. In this point again the Shí'ites of to-day are at one with the Mu'tazilites, and Muḥammad Dárábí, in the Apology for Ḥáfidh already cited (p. 283, n. 1 supra) gives the following verse of that poet as one which has brought him under the suspicion of inclining to the revived orthodoxy associated with the name of al-Ash'arí:—
Ín ján-i-'áriyát ki bi Ḥáfidh sipurd Dúst—
Rúzí rukh-ash bi-bínam, u taslím-i-way kunam.
“This borrowed soul which the Friend [i.e., God] entrusted to
Ḥáfidh—
One day I shall see His Face and shall yield it up to him.”
It would not be just that our admiration for the Mu'tazilites, whose liberal views so greatly conduced to the splendour of this wonderful epoch, should tempt us to overlook their unusual and regrettable harshness towards those doctrines which are now generally prevalent and accounted orthodox in all Sunnite countries. Yet perhaps there was a reason for their harshness. They may have been conscious that doctrines of extreme Calvinism—or Fatalism, if the word be preferred—must in the long run (at least in Asia, which is more logical than Europe in its applications of theory to daily life) destroy effort and prevent progress; they may have foreseen that the literal interpretation of an inspired Scripture which followed naturally from a belief in its Eternity, not only in the future but in the past, would inevitably stereotype and narrow the religious outlook in such a way that all flexibility, all power of adapting itself to new conditions or carrying conviction to the minds of intelligent men, would be lost; and they may have felt that the belief that God could be seen by men must tend to an anthropomorphic and debased conception of the Deity. Whether or no they realised these results of the victory of orthodoxy, such were in reality its effects, and the retrograde movement of Islám, inaugurated by the triumph of al-Ash'arí (of which we shall speak in a later chapter), was but accelerated and accentuated by the overthrow of the Caliphate and the sack of Baghdad by the vandals of Mongolia in the middle of the thirteenth century. Changíz and Hulágú on the one hand, and al-Ash'arí on the other, probably contributed as much as any three individuals to the destruction of the material and intellectual glories of the Golden Age of the early 'Abbásid Caliphs.
The further development of the Mu'tazilite doctrine is admirably summed up by Dozy (Chauvin's French translation, pp. 205-207):—
“This doctrine was subsequently remodelled and propagated Further development of the Mu'tazilite doctrine. under the influence of the Philosophy of Aristotle. The sect, as was in the nature of things, subdivided. All the Mu'tazilites, however, agreed in certain points. They denied the existence of the Attributes in God, and contested everything which could prejudice the dogma of the Divine Unity. To remove from God all idea of injustice, they recognised man's entire freedom of action. They taught that all the truths necessary for salvation belong to the domain of reason, and that they may be acquired solely by the light of reason, no less before than after Revelation, in such wise that man, at all times and in all places, ought to possess these truths. But to these primary propositions the different sects added others peculiar to themselves. Most of them have treated theology with much profundity; others, on the contrary, became involved in hair-splittings, or even diverged widely from the spirit of Islám. Some there were, for example, who believed in Metempsychosis, and who imagined that the animals of each species form a community which has as a prophet an animal like unto themselves; strange to say they based this last doctrine on two verses of the Qur'án. And there were many other follies of the same kind. But it would be unjust to render all the Mu'tazilites responsible for the errors of some, and, when all is said and done, they deserve to be spoken of with respect. In meditating on what religion bade them believe, they became the rationalists of Islám. Thus it came about that one of their principal affirmations was that the Qur'án was really created, although the Prophet had asserted the contrary. ‘Were the Qur'án uncreate,’ they said, ‘it would be necessary to admit the existence of two Eternal Beings.’ From the moment when the Qur'án, or Word of God, was held as something created, it could no longer, having regard to the immutability of the Deity, be considered as belonging to His essence. Thereby the whole dogma of revelation was little by little seriously shaken, and many Mu'tazilites frankly declared that it was not impossible to write something as good as, or even better than, the Qur'án. They therefore protested against the dogma of the divine origin of the Qur'án and against Inspiration. The idea which they entertained of God was purer and more exalted than that of the orthodox. They would not listen to any corporeal conception of the Divinity. Mahomet had said, ‘One day ye shall see your Lord as you saw the full moon at the Battle of Badr,’ and these words, which the orthodox took literally, were for them an ever new stumbling-block. They therefore explained them away by saying that man, after his death, would know God by the eyes of the spirit, that is to say, by the reason. They equally refused to countenance the pretension that God created the unbeliever,287a and showed themselves but little pleased with the consecrated formula which says of God that ‘He hurteth and He advantageth.’ They could not admit the miracles related in the Qur'án, and so denied that the sea was dried up to yield a passage for the Israelites led by Moses, that Moses' rod was changed into a serpent, and that Jesus raised the dead to life. Mahomet himself did not escape their attacks. There was one sect which maintained that the Prophet married too many wives, and that his contemporary Abú Dharr al-Ghifárí had much more self-restraint and piety than him, which also was perfectly true.”
The best European accounts of the Mu'tazilites with which I am acquainted, besides Dozy's, are those of Steiner288a The Mu'tazilite and Greek Philosophy. and von Kremer, but I must content myself here with briefly indicating the results of their investigations as to the progress, influence, relations, and final decline of this interesting movement. As to its origin these two scholars differ, the former regarding it, at least in its primary form, as “arising in Islám independently of all external influences,” while the latter, as we have seen, considers that it was influenced even in its inception by Christian theology. Be this as it may, at a very early date it was profoundly influenced by Greek Philosophy.
“We may venture to assert,” says Steiner (p. 5), “that the Mu'tazilites were the first who not only read the translations of the Greek Naturalists and Philosophers prepared under the auspices of al-Manṣúr and al-Ma'mún (A.D. 754-775 and 813-833), and evolved therefrom all sorts of useful knowledge, but likewise exerted themselves to divert into new channels their entire thoughts, which had hitherto moved only in the narrow circle of ideas of the Qur'án, to assimilate to their own uses the Greek culture, and to combine it with their Muhammadan conscience. The Philosophers proper, al-Fárábí († A.D. 950), Ibn Síná (Avicenna, † A.D. 1037), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes, † A.D. 1198), belong first to a later age. Al-Kindí († circ. A.D. 864) was the earliest, and lived somewhat before them, but seems to have devoted his special attention to precisely those problems raised by the Mu'tazilites. His followers, however, avoided theological questions. Without directly assailing the Faith, they avoided all conflict with it, so far as possible. Theology and Natural Science, including Philosophy,289a were treated as separate territories, with the harmonising of which no further trouble was taken. Ibn Síná appears to have been a pious Muslim; yet Shah-ristání includes him amongst those who properly belonged to no definite confession, but, standing outside Positive Religion, evolved their ideas out of their own heads (Ahlu'l-ahwá). Ibn Rushd also is accounted a good Muslim. He endeavoured to show that philosophical research was not only allowed, but was a duty, and one enjoined even by the Qur'án; but, for the rest, he goes his own way, and his writings are, with few exceptions, of philosophic and scientific contents. Thus was the breach between Philosophy and Dogma already fully established with Ibn Síná. The Mu'tazilite party had exhausted its strength in the subtle controversies of the schools of Baṣra and Baghdád. Abu'l-Ḥusayn of Baṣra, a contemporary of Ibn Síná, was the last who gave independent treatment to their teaching, and in some points completed it. Zamakhsharí († A.D. 1143-4), the famous and extraordinarily learned author of the Kashsháf, reduced the moderate ideas of his predecessors to a pleasant and artistic form, and applied them consistently and adroitly to the whole region of Qur'ánic exegesis, but gave to the teaching itself no further development.”
The political power of the Mu'tazilites ceased soon after the accession of al-Mutawakkil, the tenth 'Abbásid Caliph (A.D. 847), but the school, as we have seen, was powerfully represented nearly three centuries later by Zamakhsharí, the great commentator of the Qur'án. The subsequent fate of the views which they represented will be discussed to some extent in later chapters, but, for the convenience of the reader, and for the sake of continuity, we may here briefly summarise the chief stages which preceded the final “Destruction of the Philosophers” by al-Ghazzálí and his successors, and the triumph of orthodox Islám in the form wherein it now prevails in all Sunnite countries.
(1) The Period of Orthodox Reaction began with al-Muta-wakkil (A.D. 847-861), the brother and successor of al-Wáthiq. Dozy, after describing some of the acts of barbarity and ingratitude committed by this “cruel and ungrateful tyrant,”290a continues: “Notwithstanding all this, al-Muta-wakkil was extremely orthodox, and consequently the clerical party judged him quite otherwise than we should do. A well-known Muslim historian (Abu'l-Fidá) is of opinion that he went a little too far in his hatred for 'Alí, for the orthodox also held this prince, in his capacity of cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, in high esteem; ‘but for the rest,’ says he, ‘he was of the number of the most excellent Caliphs, for he forbade man to believe that the Qur'án was created.’ He was orthodox; what matter then if he was a drunkard, a voluptuary, a perfidious scoundrel, a monster of cruelty? But he was even more than orthodox: animated by a burning zeal for the purity of doctrine, he applied himself to the persecution of all those who thought otherwise, torturing and exterminating them as far as possible. The prescriptions relative to the Christians and Jews, which during the preceding reigns had almost fallen into oblivion, were renewed and aggravated.”290b Towards 'Alí and his descendants this wicked Caliph entertained a particular hatred: it pleased him that his Court jester should pad himself with a great paunch (for 'Alí had grown corpulent in later life) and, in the assumed character of the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, should dance before him with all manner of grotesque buffooneries. A celebrated philologist who, in reply to his interrogations, ventured to prefer the sons of 'Alí to those of the tyrant Caliph, was trampled to death by the Turkish guards. The tomb of al-Ḥusayn, the Martyr of Kerbelá, was destroyed by his order, and its site ploughed and sown, and the visitation thereof forbidden. Even the most eminent and honourable theologians, such as al-Bukhárí, the great traditionist, were exposed to charges of heresy.
(2) The Teaching of al-Ash'arí.291a So far, as Dozy points out, the triumph of the orthodox was merely material; intellectually, and in methods of dialectic, they retained the same inferiority as before in respect to their opponents the Mu'tazilites. Not till twelve years had elapsed after al-Mutawakkil's death was born (in A.H. 260 = A.D. 873-4) the man who, having been trained in the Mu'tazilite school, renounced their doctrines in his fortieth year, and, armed with the logical weapons with which they themselves had supplied him, deserted to the hostile camp, and, for the remainder of his life, carried on an energetic and successful campaign against their views. This was Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arí, a descendant of that foolish Abú Músá al-Ash'arí to whose ineptitude Mu'áwiya owed so much in the arbitration of Dawmatu'l-Jandal. His literary activity was enormous, and after he had broken with his teacher, the Mu'tazilite doctor al-Jubbá'í,291b he produced polemical works on all manner of theological topics to the number of two or three hundred, of which Spitta291c enumerates the titles of one hundred. So distrustful of philosophy were the orthodox that many of them, especially the fanatical followers of Ibn Ḥanbal, unwilling to believe that an alliance with it could result in aught but evil, continued to regard al-Ash'arí with the deepest suspicion; but in the end his services to orthodoxy were fully recognised.
“In course of time,” says Dozy, after speaking of the growing influence of al-Ash'arí's teaching, “the influence of the Mu'tazilites continued to diminish more and more. The loss of temporal power was the first misfortune which befel them; the defection of al-Ash'arí was the second. ‘The Mu'tazilites,’ says a Musulmán author, ‘formerly carried their heads high, but their dominion ended when God sent al-Ash'arí.’ Nevertheless they did not disappear all at once, and perhaps they exist even at the present day, but they had no longer any power. Since the eleventh century292a they have had no doctor who has achieved renown, while the system of al-Ash'arí, on the contrary, has been more and more elaborated, so that, in its ultimate form, it includes not only religious dogma, but also embraces matters purely philosophic, such as ontology, cosmology, &c.”
292b(3) The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá). For our knowledge of this remarkable society or fraternity of Ency-clopædists and Philosophers we are chiefly indebted to Flügel292c and Dieterici,292d especially the latter, who has summarised and elucidated their teachings in a series of masterly monographs. Favoured by the liberal ideas of the Persian and Shí'ite House of Buwayh, who, displacing for a time the Turkish element, became practically supreme at Baghdad about the middle of the tenth century (A.D. 945), this somewhat mysterious society carried on the work of the Mu'tazilites, aiming especially at the reconciliation of Science and Religion, the harmonising of the Law of Islám with Greek Philosophy, and the synthesis of all knowledge in encyclopædic form. The results of their labours, comprising some fifty separate treatises,292e were published, according to Flügel, about A.D. 970, and supply us with an admirable mirror of the ideas which prevailed at this time in the most enlightened circles of the metropolis of the 'Abbásid Caliphs. As authors of these tracts five men of learning are named by Shahrazúrí, viz., Abú Sulaymán Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Bustí, called also al-Muqaddasí (or al-Maqdasí), Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. Hárún az-Zinjání, Abú Aḥmad an-Nahrajúrí (or Mihrajání), al-'Awfí, and Zayd b. Rifá'a; of whom, having regard to their nisbas, the first three at any rate would seem to have been Persians. So too was Ibn Síná (Avicenna), the great physician and philosopher with whose death (A.D. 1037), according to Dieterici,293a “the development of philosophy in the East came to an end.”
(4) Al-Ghazzálí, “the Proof of Islam” and Champion of Orthodoxy. This eminent theologian, who was professor at the Nidhámiyya College of Baghdad from A.D. 1091 to 1095, and died in A.D. 1111, who had explored all realms of speculation accessible to him, and had at last found refuge in the mysticism of the more moderate Ṣúfís, “felt himself called,” as Steiner says,293b “to stand forth as the scientific apologist or Islám, and to restore the threatened faith to surer ground.” Tholuck (Bibl. Sacra, vi, 233), cited by H. A. Homes at pp. 7-8 of his translation of the Turkish version of the Alchemy of Happiness (Albany, N.Y., 1873) appraises him very highly. “Ghazzálí,” says he, “if ever any man has deserved the name, was truly a divine, and he may justly be placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skilful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is good, worthy, and sublime which his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Muhammadanism; and he adorned the doctrines of the Qur'án with so much piety and learning that, in the form given them by him, they seem, in my opinion, worthy the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Ṣúfí mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the Muhammadan theology. From every school he sought the means of shedding light and honour upon religion, while his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first of Muhammadan divines.” Dieterici, on the other hand, judges him harshly. “As a despairing sceptic,” says he,294a “he springs suicidally into the All-God [i.e., the all-pervading Deity of the Pantheists] to kill all scientific reflexion.”
The teachings of the “Brethren of Purity” were carried to the West by a Spanish Arab of Madrid, Muslim b. Muḥammad Abu'l-Qásim al-Majríṭí al-Andalusi, who died in A.D. 1004-1005. Thanks to them, and later to the great Moorish philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Spain became a centre of philosophical learning, whence, during the Middle Ages, Europe derived such light as it possessed on these great questions. “The strife between Nominalism and Realism,” says Dieterici,294b “which for centuries stirred the learned world, is a product of this development, and had already, during the ninth and tenth centuries, set in motion all the minds of the East.”
Of the Sunnites little need here be said, since, though numerous in Persia under the various Turkish or half Turkish dynasties which generally prevailed there until the rise of the Ṣafawís in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and counting amongst their numbers Persians so eminent as Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, Sa'dí, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, and many others, they were never really in harmony with Persian tendencies and aspirations, and are at the present day almost extinct save at Lár and in a few other districts. It should be mentioned, however, that the founders of the four orthodox schools, those of the Ḥanafites, Málikites, Sháfi'ites, and Ḥanbalites, all flourished during this period of Mu'tazilite domination. Of these the eldest, Abú Ḥanífa, was born in A.D. 700 and died in 767. He was of Persian descent.295a Málik was born at Madína in A.D. 713 or 714, and died in 795. He was cruelly flogged by al-Manṣúr for suspected disaffection towards the 'Abbásid dynasty; “from which time,” says Ibn Khallikán,295b “he rose higher and higher in public estimation, so that the punishment he underwent seemed as if it had been an honour conferred upon him.” Ash-Sháfi'í was an Arab of the tribe of Quraysh, was born in the year (some say295c on the very day) of Abú Ḥanífa's decease, and died at Cairo in A.D. 820. Lastly, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, a native of Merv, but apparently of Arab race, was born in A.D. 780, and died at Baghdad in 855. He was the favourite pupil of ash-Sháfi'í, who said, on setting out for Egypt, “I went forth from Baghdad leaving behind me no more pious man and no better jurisconsult than Ibn Ḥanbal.”295d To his steadfast courage in refusing to admit that the Qur'án was created allusion has already been made.
These are the four “Imáms” of the orthodox Sunnites, and the schools which they founded differ but in minor points, and The four orthodox schools of the Sunnís. are on good terms with one another. The Ḥana-fite school prevails in Turkey, the Málikite in Morocco, the Sháfi'ite in Egypt and Arabia, and the Ḥanbalite in some parts of Africa. All are held in equal contempt by the Shí'ites; and Náṣir-i-Khusraw, the great Isma'ílí poet and propagandist of the eleventh century of our era, goes so far as to accuse them of sanctioning the most detestable vices295e —a charge which, save in so far as concerns the alleged crudely anthropomorphic tendencies of the Ḥanbalites, merits no serious consideration.
Of the Shí'ites it will be more convenient to speak at length The Shí'ites. in a subsequent chapter, but it may be noted that the great schism which divided them into the “Sect of the Seven” (Sab'iyya) or Isma'ílís, and the “Sect of the Twelve” (Ithná 'ashariyya) which prevails in Persia at the Origin of the “Sect of the Seven” and the “Sect of the Twelve.” present day, had its origin in this period which we are considering. In the doctrine of the Imá-mate, the belief that the supreme spiritual authority must be vested in one of the descendants of 'Alí, designated in each case by his predecessor, and endowed with supernatural or even divine attributes, both sects are agreed, and they are also agreed as to the succession of Imáms as far as the sixth, Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, who died A.D. 765. Here, however, the difference begins. Ja'far had in the first instance designated his eldest son Ismá'íl to succeed him, but later (owing, it is generally said, to his discovery that Isma'íl had indulged in the forbidden juice of the grape) he took the Imámate from him and conferred it on his younger brother Músá, called al-Kádhim. Soon afterwards Ismá'íl died, and his body was publicly shown ere its interment, in order that there might be no doubt as to the fact of his death. Yet, though most of the Shí'ites transferred their allegiance to Músá, some remained faithful to Ismá'íl, either refusing to believe that he was dead (for he was reported by some to have been seen subsequently to the date of his alleged death at Baṣra),296a or maintaining that the Imámate had been transmitted through him (since he had predeceased his father, and had therefore, in their view, never actually assumed the Imám's functions) to his son Muḥammad; in either case fixing the total number of Imáms at seven, and repudiating the claims of Músá and his five successors. Further discussion of the developments of these two sects may be conveniently deferred to a subsequent chapter.
Lastly, a few words must be said here of the earlier Ṣúfís,
or Mystics, whose fully developed system of Spiritualistic
The early Ṣúfís.
Pantheism will be described in another place.
Their name, as is now generally admitted, has
nothing at all to do with the Greek
“Know that after the death of the Apostle of God the most excellent of the Muslims were not at the time distinguished by any distinctive name save in regard to their companionship with the Apostle, seeing that there existed no greater distinction than this; wherefore they were called ‘the Companions.’ And when those of the second period came in contact with them, such of these as had held converse with the ‘Companions’ were named the ‘Followers,’ a title which they regarded as of the noblest. Then those who succeeded them were called ‘Followers of the Followers.’ Thereafter men differed, and diverse degrees became distinguished, and the elect of mankind, who were vehemently concerned with matters of religion, were called ‘Ascetics’ and ‘Devotees.’ Then heresies arose, and there ensued disputes between the different sects, each one claiming to possess ‘Ascetics,’ and the elect of the people of the Sunna (the Sunnites), whose souls were set on God, and who guarded their hearts from the disasters of heedlessness, became known by the name of Ṣúfís; and this name became generally applied to these great men a little before the end of the second century of the Flight” (A.H. 200 = A.D. 815-816).
A little further on (op. cit., p. 34) Jámí explicitly states that the term “Ṣúfí” was first applied to Abú Háshim, who was born at Kúfa, but passed most of his life in Syria, and died in A.D. 777-8; and (p. 36) that the Ṣúfí doctrines were first explained and expressed by Dhu'n-Nún of Egypt, a pupil of Málik (the founder of the Málikite school mentioned above), who died in A.D. 860, that they were expanded, systematised, and reduced to writing by Junayd of Baghdad (d. A.D. 910), and openly preached in the pulpit by Shiblí (d. A.D. 945). Very few of the great Ṣúfí teachers lived before the close of the second century of the Flight (A.D. 815-816): Ibráhím b. Adham († A.D. 777), Dá'úd of Ṭayy († A.D. 781), Fuḍayl b. 'Iyáḍ († A.D. 803), and Ma'rúf of Karkh († A.D. 815), were, I think, the only ones of note except the above-mentioned Abú Háshim. Ḥasan of Baṣra († A.D. 728), who has been already spoken of in connection with the Mu'tazilites, is sometimes reckoned amongst them; but, as Dozy has pointed out,298a his sombre religion, chiefly inspired by fear, contrasts sharply with the religion of love proper to the mystics. The saintly woman Rábi'a al-'Adawiyya299a († 752-753) is a far better type of the true mystic, and many of her sayings strongly recall those of Saint Theresa. It is in allusion to her that Jámí says in his Nafaḥát (ed. Nassau Lees, p. 716):—
Wa law kána 'n-nisá'u ka-má dhakarná
La faḍḍaltu 'n-nisá'a 'ala'r-rijáli;
Fa la't-ta'níthu li'smi 'sh-shamsi 'aybun,
Wa la 't-tadhkíru fakhrun li'l-hiláli.“Were women all like those whom here I name,
Woman to man I surely would prefer;
The Sun is feminine,299b nor deems it shame;
The Moon, though masculine,299c depends on her.”
The following anecdote told by Dozy299d is typical of her attitude: One day, being ill, she was visited by Ḥasan of Baṣra and Shaqíq of Balkh. The former said, “That one is not sincere in faith who does not patiently endure the chastening of the Lord.” Shaqíq, desiring to improve upon this, said, “That one is not sincere in faith who does not find pleasure in the chastening of the Lord.” But Rábi'a replied, “That one is not sincere in faith who, in the contemplation of the Lord, does not forget the chastening.”
It is related in the Memoirs of the Saints compiled by Shaykh Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, a great Persian mystic of the thirteenth century, that she was once asked, “Dost thou hate the Devil?” “No,” she replied. They asked, “Why not?” “Because,” said she, “my love for God leaves me no time to hate him.” “I saw the Prophet of God,” she continued, “in a dream, and he asked me, ‘O Rábi'a, dost thou love me?’ ‘O Apostle of God,’ I replied, ‘who is there who loveth thee not? But the love of God hath so taken possession of every particle of my being that there is no room left me to love or hate any one else.’”
These sayings, which might be indefinitely multiplied, will indicate the character of this early mysticism of Islám. The wild pantheistic character which is later assumed, especially in Persia, was, as I think, superadded to it at a much later date. The philosophy—so far as it can be called a philosophy— which it gradually developed is, in my opinion, mainly of Neo-Platonist origin,300a and, contrary to a view which, though losing ground, is still very prevalent, was very little, if at all, influenced by Indian speculations.300b Von Kremer differentiates the earlier Arabian quietist Ṣúfíism from the later Persian pantheistic development, expressing the opinion300c “that Ṣúfíism proper, as it finds expression in the different Dervish orders (which I sharply distinguish from the simple ascetic aim which already appeared in the earliest Christianity, whence it passed over into Islám) arose essentially from Indian ideas, and in particular from that school of Indian philosophy known by the name of Vedánta.”
In another place300d he says:—
“It appears, indeed, that Ṣúfíism took into itself two different elements, an older Christian-ascetic, which came strongly to the front even in the beginning of Islám, and then later a Buddhist-contemplative, which soon, in consequence of the increasing influence of the Persians on Islám, obtained the upper hand, and called into being the Mystics proper of Islám. The former aim expressed more the Arabian character, the latter the Persian.”
Fully admitting the force and value of this distinction, I am not convinced that the existence of Indian influence has been satisfactorily proved. Persian studies have suffered much at the hands of Indianists and Comparative Mythologists and Philologists, e.g., in the attempts made to explain the Avesta solely from the Vedas without regard to the Zoroastrian tradition on the one hand, and in the favour accorded, particularly in England and Germany, to the hideous Indian pronunciation of the modern language on the other, not to mention the exaggerated admiration often expressed for the Persian compositions of Indian writers, and the concurrent neglect of all Persian literature produced in Persia during the last four centuries;301a and we have good reason to be on our guard against the tendency of Indianists to trace everything, so far as possible, to an Indian origin, or to generalise about “the Aryan genius.” Long before Neo-Platonism came to the Arabs it was, as has been already observed (p. 167 supra) brought to Persia in the days of Núshírwán (sixth century of our era), and I confess that, so far as I can judge, Ṣúfí pantheism presents far more striking analogies with Neo-Platonism than with either Vedántism or Buddhism, while historically it is much more likely that it borrowed from the first than from either of the two last. To the later developments of Ṣúfíism, to which alone those remarks apply, we shall recur in a subsequent chapter.
Before leaving the religious manifestations of this epoch, it is proper to remind the reader what religions, besides Judaism, The Mandæans or Mughtasila. Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, and what philosophies, besides those of the Greeks, were still active and potent forces in Western Asia. Apart from Manichæanism, of which we shall have a few more words to say, elements of the old Babylonian civilisation were represented by the Mandæans or true Sabæans (Ṣábiyún) of the marshes between Wásiṭ and Baṣra (the ancient Chaldæa), also named by the Arabs from their frequent ceremonial ablutions al-Mughtasila, which term, misapprehended by the Portuguese navigators of the seventeenth century, gave rise in Europe to the absurd misnomer “Christians of St. John the Baptist.”
302aFrom these true Sabæans the pseudo-Sabæans of Ḥarrán (the ancient Carrhæ) must be carefully distinguished. The learned The PseudoSabæans of Ḥarrán. Chwolson was the first to explain in his great work Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1856) the apparently hopeless confusion which till that time had surrounded the term “Sabæan.” Here we must confine ourselves to stating the curious fact which he brought to light, viz., that since about A.D. 830 two perfectly distinct peoples have been confounded together under this name, to wit, the above-mentioned Mandæans or Mughtasila of Chaldæa, and the Syrian heathens who flourished at Ḥarrán (about half-way between Aleppo and Márdín) until the eleventh century of our era,302b and that this confusion was brought about in the following ways.302c When the Caliph al-Ma'mún passed through the district of Ḥarrán on his last campaign against the Byzantines, he remarked amongst the people who came out to meet him and wish him God-speed certain persons of strange and unfamiliar appearance, wearing their hair extremely long, and clad in tightly-fitting coats (qabá). Al-Ma'mún, astonished at their appearance, inquired who and what they were, to which they replied, “Ḥarránians.” Being further questioned, they said that they were neither Christians, Jews, nor Magians; while to the Caliph's inquiry “whether they had a Holy Book or a Prophet,” they returned “a confused reply.” Convinced at last that they were heathens (“Zindíqs and worshippers of idols”), the Caliph ordered them, under pain of death, either to embrace Islám, or to adopt “one of the religions which God Almighty hath mentioned in His Book,” giving them respite for their decision till his return from the war. Terrified by these threats, the Ḥarránians cut their long hair and discarded their peculiar garments, while many became Christians or Muhammadans; but a small remnant would not forsake their own religion, and were greatly perplexed and troubled until a Muhammadan jurist offered, for a consideration, to show them a way out of their difficulty. So they brought him much fine gold from their treasuries, and he counselled them to call themselves Sabæans when al-Ma'mún returned to question them, since the Sabæans were mentioned in the Qur'án, yet, since little was known of them, the change of name would involve no change of beliefs or customs. But al-Ma'mún returned not, for death overtook him on that march; and most of the Ḥarránians who had declared themselves Christians at once openly apostatised, and returned to their old beliefs, which their brethren who had adopted Islám dared not do, since apostasy is punished with death in the Muhammadan law. And “since that time,” says the narrator, “they have kept this name (of Sabæans); for previously there were in Ḥarrán and the surrounding district no people who bore the name of Sabæans.”
Now these pseudo-Sabæans of Ḥarrán, a remnant of the
ancient Syrian pagans of Mesopotamia, included “une élite
d'hommes fort instruits, un corps d'aristocrates d'esprit, qui se
sont distingués dans les sciences, et qui ont enrichi les littératures
syrienne et arabe d'un grand nombre d'ouvrages traitant de
diverses matières.”304a
Ḥarrán, since the time of Alexander the
Great, had been deeply under the influence of Greece, so that
it was surnamed
The Syrians, both heathen and Christian, were, indeed, the great transmitters of Greek learning to the East, whence it was brought back by the Arabs to the West. The matter is so important that I subjoin a translation of Carl Brockel-mann's excellent remarks:—
305a“Syria and Mesopotamia were, from the time of Alexander the Great and his followers, exposed to the influences of Greek civilisation. The supremacy of the Romans and their successors the Byzantines in Syria furthered in every way the diffusion of Hellenic culture, which made special progress from the time when, associated with Christianity, it began to react on the religious sense of the people. The Syrians were, indeed, but feebly disposed for original production, but they were extraordinarily inclined and fitted to assimilate to themselves the results of foreign intellectual endeavour. Thus there arose in the Syrian monasteries numerous translations, not only of the spiritual literature most widely current in the Greek Church, but also of nearly all the profane authors (notably of Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen) who dominated the secular learning of that epoch.
“Already in the Persian Empire under the rule of the Sásánians the Syrians were the transmitters of Greek culture. Naturally it was only secular learning which was there promoted by the Court and Government. About the year A.D. 550 Khusraw Anúshirwán founded at Jundí-Shápúr in Khuzistán a university for the pursuit of philosophical and medical studies, and this plant of Græco-Syrian culture continued to flourish even into 'Abbásid times.
“Greek learning found a third home in the Mesopotamian city of Ḥarrán, whose inhabitants, surrounded by a wholly Christianised population, had retained their ancient Semitic heathenism. With them, as formerly in Babylon, the disposition for mathematical and astronomical studies was closely united therewith. But with them also, notwithstanding the fairly high level which they had already attained through the Assyrian-Babylonian civilisation, these studies did not remain uninfluenced by the Greek spirit.
“From all these three sources, now, was Greek learning brought to the Arabs in translations. Already at the Court of al-Manṣúr we meet with a physician from Jundí-Shápúr, who is supposed to have translated medical works into Arabic, while under Hárún flourished the translator Yuḥanná b. Másawayhi. But it was the Caliph al-Ma'mún, himself filled with understanding of, and a lively interest in, all scientific endeavours, who gave the greatest impulse to this activity. The Baytu' l-Ḥikma (‘House of Wisdom’), with its attached library and astronomical observatory, founded by him in Baghdad, was the culminating point of an active endeavour to promote learning. The translations produced under him and his immediate successors have entirely overshadowed those of the older school, and are alone preserved to us.”
Amongst the most eminent translators whose names here follow are the Christians, Qusṭá b. Lúqá of Ba'labakk (Baalbek); Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq of Ḥíra, his son Isḥáq, and his nephew Ḥubaysh.
Thus did the civilisation of 'Abbásid Baghdad become the inheritor of the ancient wisdom of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, India, and Greece; and for this it was chiefly indebted to heathens like Thábit b. Qurra, Christians like Ḥunayn and Qusṭá, Magians, converted or unconverted, like Ibnu 'l-Muqaffa', 306a or Mu'tazilite “heretics” like 'Amr b. Baḥr al-Jáḥi dh, besides sundry Jews and Nabathæans. To this splendid synthesis the Arabs, though, as it has been said, “one of the acutest peoples that have ever existed,” lent little save their wonderful and admirable language; but the functions of assimilation, elucidation, and transmission they performed in a manner which has made mankind, and especially Europe, their debtors. That they were sensible of their own indebtedness to these non-Muslims, who bestowed upon them the wisdom of the ancients, appears, amongst other things, from the elegy composed in praise of Thábit b. Qurra, the Sabæan physician and mathematician, by the poet Sarí ar-Raffá,306b wherein he says: “Philosophy was dead, and he revived it amongst us; the traces of medicine were effaced, and he restored them to light.”
Strange and heterogeneous were the elements which made up the intellectual atmosphere of Baghdad during the first century of 'Abbásid rule. The pious Muslims of Mecca and Madína who came thither were scandalised to find unbelievers invested with the highest offices at Court, and learned men of every religion holding friendly debate as to high questions of ontology and philosophy, in which, by common consent, all appeal to revealed Scripture was forbidden. Yet was there one religious community which seemed wholly excluded from the general toleration of that latitudinarian Court: to wit, the Manichæans, or Zindíqs as they were generally called. Persecutions of the Zindíqs are mentioned by Ṭabarí as occurring in the reign of al-Mahdí (A.D. 780, 782) and al-Hádí (A.D. 786-7). In the reign of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd a special Inquisitor (Ṣáḥibu 'z-Zanádiqa) was appointed to detect and punish Manichæans,307a amongst whom not only Persians and other foreigners, but even pure Arabs, like the poets Ṣáliḥ b. 'Abdu' l-Quddús and Mutí' b. Ayás, were numbered. In the reign of al-Ma'mún, whose truly Persian passion for religious speculation earned him the title of Amíru'l-Káfirín, “Commander of the Unfaithful,”307b the lot of the Zindíqs was less hard; nay, according to von Kremer307c it was fashionable to pose as a heretic, and we find a poet remonstrating in the following lines with one of these sheep dressed in wolf's clothing:—
“O Ibn Ziyád, father of Ja'far!
Thou professest outwardly another creed than that which thou
hidest in thy heart.
Outwardly, according to thy words, thou art a Zindíq,
But inwardly thou art a respectable Muslim.
Thou art no Zindíq, but thou desirest to be regarded as in the
fashion!”
THE active life of the pre-Muslim creeds of Persia, as opposed to outwardly Muhammadan heresies embodying and reviving Bih-áfarídh. in new forms pre-Muslim and non-Muslim ideas, finds its latest expression in the Pseudo-Prophet Bih-áfarídh the son of Máhfurúdhín, of whom scanty Al-Bírúní's account of him. accounts are preserved to us in the Fihrist (p. 344) and in al-Bírúní's Chronology of Ancient Nations (Sachau's transl., pp. 193-4), whereof the latter is as follows:—
“In the days of Abú Muslim, the founder of the 'Abbásid dynasty, came forward a man called Bih-áfarídh the son of Máhfurúdhín in Khwáf, one of the districts of Níshápúr, in a place called Sírá-wand, he being a native of Zawzan. In the beginning of his career he disappeared and betook himself to China308a for seven years. Then he returned, bringing with him amongst other Chinese curiosities a green shirt, which, when folded up, could be held in the grasp of a man's hand, so thin and flexible it was. He went up to a temple during the night, and on descending thence in the morning was observed by a peasant who was ploughing part of his field. He told this man that he had been in heaven during his absence from them, that heaven and hell had been shown unto him, that God had inspired him, had clothed him in that shirt, and had sent him down to earth in that same hour. The peasant believed his words, and told people that he had beheld him descending from heaven. So he found many adherents amongst the Magians when he came forward as a prophet and preached his new doctrine.
“He differed from the Magians in most rites, but believed in Zoroaster and claimed for his followers all the institutes of Zoroaster. He maintained that he secretly received divine revelations, and established seven prayers for his followers, one in praise of the one God, one relating to the creation of heaven and earth, one relating to the creation of the animals and their nourishment, one relating to death, one relating to the Resurrection and Last Judgment, one relating to those in heaven and hell and what is prepared for them, and one in praise of the people of Paradise.
“He composed for them a book in Persian. He ordered them to worship the substance of the Sun, kneeling on one knee, and in praying always to turn towards the Sun wherever it might be; to let their hair and locks grow; to give up the zamzama309a at dinner; not to sacrifice small cattle unless they were already enfeebled; not to drink wine; not to eat the flesh of animals that have died a sudden death, as not having been killed according to prescription; not to marry their mothers, daughters, sisters, or nieces,309b and not to exceed the sum of four hundred dirhams as dowry. Further, he ordered them to keep roads and bridges in good condition by means of the seventh part of their property and of the produce of their labour.
“When Abú Muslim came to Níshápúr, the múbadhs and herbadhs309c assembled before him, telling him that this man had infected Islám as well as their own religion. So he sent 'Abdu'lláh b. Shu'ba to fetch him. He caught him in the mountains of Bádghís and brought him before Abú Muslim, who put him to death, together with such of his followers as he could capture.
“His followers, called Bih-áfarídhiyya, still keep the institutes of their founder, and strongly oppose the Zamzamís amongst the Magians. They maintain that the servant of their prophet had told them that the prophet had ascended into heaven on a common dark-brown horse, and that he will again descend unto them in the same way as he ascended, and will take vengeance on his enemies.”
309dAccording to the short account in the Fihrist (p. 344), Bih-áfarídh accepted Islám at the hands of two of Abú The Fihrist. Muslim's dá'ís named Shabíb b. Dáḥ and 'Ab du'lláh b. Sa'íd, and adopted the black raiment of the 'Abbásids; but afterwards apostatised and was slain. This account, which rests on the authority of Ibráhím b. al-'Abbás aṣ-Ṣúlí († A.D. 857-8), adds that “there are to this day in Khurásán a number of people who hold his doctrine.” The sect is also mentioned, with the alternative name of Saysániyya, by Shahristání (p. 187), who describes them as “the most hostile of God's creatures to the Zamzamí Magians,” adding that “they recognise the prophetic mission of Zoroaster, and honour those kings whom Zoroaster honours.”
The meagre information which we possess concerning Bih-áfarídh does not permit us to form a clear idea as to the Bih-áfarídh's doctrine. essential nature of his doctrine, of which the two most important features, perhaps, are the prominence accorded to the number seven, and the belief in the “occultation” and “return” of the founder. Of the importance attached to certain numbers (7, 12, 19, &c.) by various sects deriving from the extreme Shí'ites (Ghulát), and of the persistent recurrence of the belief in the “Return” (rij'at) of their heroes, we shall come across numerous examples from this epoch down to our own days. Concerning these Ghulát or extreme Shí'ites Shahristání says (p. 132):—
“They are such as hold extreme views (ghalaw) in respect to their Imáms, so that they raise them above the limits of created beings, The Ghulát or extreme Shí'ites. and ascribe to them Divine virtues, so that often they liken one of the Imáms to God, and often they liken God to mankind, thus falling into the two extremes of excess (ghuluww) and defect (taqṣír). These anthropomorphic tendencies of theirs are derived from the sects of the Ḥulúliyya [who believe that the Deity can pass into a human form], the Tanásukhiyya [who hold the doctrine of Metempsychosis], the Jews, and the Christians. For the Jews liken the Creator to the creature, while the Christians liken the creature to the Creator. And these anthropomorphic tendencies have so infected the minds of these ultra-Shí'ites that they ascribe Divine virtues to some of their Imáms. This anthropomorphism belongs primarily and essentially to the Shí'a, and only subsequently was adopted by certain of the Sunnís… The heretical doctrines of the ultra-Shí'ites are four:— Anthropomorphism (tashbíh), change of [Divine] Purpose (badá), return [of the Imám; rij'at], and Metempsychosis (tanásukh). In every land they bear different names; in Isfahán they are called Khurramiyya and Kúdiyya, in Ray Mazdakiyya and Sinbádiyya, in Ádharbayján Dhaqúliyya, in some places Muḥammira (wearing red as their badge), and in Transoxiana Mubayyiḍa (wearing white as their badge).”
These ultra-Shí'ite sects, then, which we have now to consider, and which, under the leadership of Sinbádh the Magian, al-Muqanna' “the Veiled Prophet of Khurásán,” Bábak, and others, caused such commotion in Persia during this period, do but reassert, like the later Isma'ílís, Báṭinís, Carmathians, Assassins, and Ḥurúfís, the same essential doctrines of Anthropomorphism, Incarnation, Re-incarnation or “Return,” and Metempsychosis; which doctrines appear to be endemic in Persia, and always ready to become epidemic under a suitable stimulus. In our own days they appeared again in the Bábí movement, of which, especially in its earlier form (A.D. 1844-1852), they constituted the essential kernel; though in later time, under the guidance of Bahá'u'lláh († A.D. 1892) and now of his son 'Abbás Efendí “the Most Great Branch” (who appears to be regarded by his followers as a “Return” of Jesus Christ, and is so considered by the now fairly numerous adherents of this doctrine in America), they have been relegated to a subordinate, or at least a less conspicuous, position. The resemblance between these numerous sects, whose history can be clearly traced through the last eleven centuries and a half, is most remarkable, and extends even to minute details of terminology, and to the choice of particular colours (especially red and white) as badges. Thus the early Bábís, like the Mubayyiḍa of the period now under discussion, wore white apparel,312a while they imitated the Muḥammira in their fondness for red by their choice of ink of that colour in transcribing their books. An interesting question, for the final solution of which material is still wanting, is the extent to which these ideas prevailed in other forms in pre-Muhammadan Persia. The various ultra-Shí'ite risings of which we shall have to speak are commonly regarded, alike by the oldest and the most modern Muhammadan historians, as recrudescences of the doctrines of Mazdak, of whom we have already spoken in the chapter on the Sásánians (pp. 168-172 supra). This is probable enough, but unfortunately our knowledge of the principles on which the system of Mazdak reposed is too meagre to enable us to prove it. It is, however, the view of well-informed writers like the author of the Fihrist (pp. 342-345), who wrote in A.D. 987; Shahristání (pp. 193-194), who wrote in A.D. 1127; the celebrated minister of the Seljúqs, Nidhamu'l-Mulk (Siyásat-náma , ed. Schefer, pp. 182-183), who was assassinated in A.D. 1092 by an emissary of those very Isma'ílís whom he so fiercely denounced in his book as the renovators of the heresy of Mazdak, and others; while the modern Bábís have been similarly affiliated both by the historians Lisánu'l-Mulk and Riḍá-qulí Khán in Persia, and by Lady Sheil312b and Professor Nöldeke312c in Europe. In the Fihrist the section dealing with the movements of which we are about to speak is entitled (p. 342) “the Sect of the Khurramiyya and Mazdakiyya,” these being regarded as identical with one another, and with the Muḥammira (“those who made red their badge”), the followers of Bábak “al-Khurramí,” and, apparently, the Muslimiyya, or sects who believed that Abú Muslim was the Imám, or even an incarnation of the Deity, amongst whom Sinbádh the Magian and Isḥáq “the Turk” (so called, we are told, not because he was of Turkish race, but because “he entered the lands of the Turks and summoned them to believe in the Apostolic Mission of Abú Muslim”) are included. Similarly of al-Muqanna' al-Bírúní says (op. laud., p. 194) that “he made obligatory for them (i.e., his followers) all the laws and institutes which Mazhdak had established,” while Shahristání, as we have already seen, regards the terms Mazdakí, Sinbádí, Khurramí, Mubayyiḍa, and Muḥammira as synonymous. The Nidhámu'l-Mulk, in chap. xlv of his Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, pp. 182-183, French translation, pp. 265-268)313a is more explicit. According to him, after Mazdak's execution his wife, named Khurrama, fled from Ctesiphon to Ray with two of her husband's adherents, and continued to carry on a successful propaganda in that province. The converts to her doctrine were called either Mazdakites (after her husband) or Khurramites (Khurram-dínán or Khurramiyya) after her. The sect continued to flourish in Ázarbayján, Armenia, Daylam, Hamadán, Dínawar, Isfahán, and Ahwáz—in other words, throughout the north and west of Persia (Fihrist, p. 342)—until the days of Abú Muslim, and was amongst the disaffected elements whose support and sympathy he succeeded in enlisting in his successful attempt to overthrow the Umayyad Caliphate.
To the reverence and even adoration with which Abú Rebellion of Sinbádh the Magian (A.D. 755-756). Muslim was regarded by his followers we have already alluded (p. 243 supra), and his murder by the Caliph al-Manṣúr was almost immediately followed by the rebellion of Sinbádh the Magian,314a who had been Abú Muslim's friend and partisan—a significant fact, as showing that the great propagandist's religious views were not sufficiently intolerant to alienate from his cause even “guebres.” Starting from Níshápúr, his native place, with the avowed intention of avenging Abú Muslim, he soon collected a numerous following, occupied Qúmis and Ray (where he took possession of the treasures which Abú Muslim had deposited in that city), and declared his intention of advancing on the Arabian province of the Ḥijáz and destroying the Ka'ba. He soon attracted to him hosts of Magians from Ṭabaristán and elsewhere, Mazdakites, Ráfiḍis (Shí'ites), and “Anthropomorphists” (Mushabbiha), whom he told that Abú Muslim was not dead, but that, being threatened with death by al-Manṣúr, he had recited the “Most Great Name” of God, and turned himself into a white dove,314b which flew away. His armed followers are said to have numbered some 100,000 men, and if, as stated by al-Fakhrí, 60,000 of these were left dead on the field when he was finally, after many successes, defeated and slain by the 'Abbásid general Jahwar b. Marrár, this can be no exaggeration. This insurrection, though formidable, was short-lived, only lasting seventy days, according to the most trustworthy accounts, though the Nidhámu'l-Mulk says seven years, which is certainly an error.
Isḥáq “the Turk,” whom we have already mentioned, was another of Abú Muslim's dá'is or propagandists, who, on the Isḥáq “the Turk.” death of his master, fled into Transoxiana, and taught that Abú Muslim was not dead, but concealed in the mountains near Ray, whence he would issue forth in the fulness of time. According to the Fihrist (p. 345) he was a descendant of Zayd the 'Alid, and therefore presumably claimed himself to be the Imám, though he took advantage of Abú Muslim's popularity to recommend himself to his followers; but according to another authority cited in the same work as “well informed as to the affairs of the Muslimiyya,” he was a common and illiterate man of Transoxiana who had a familiar spirit which he used to consult, and who declared that Abú Muslim was a prophet sent by Zoroaster, and that Zoroaster was alive and had never died, but would reappear in due season to restore his religion. “Al-Balkhí,” adds our author, “and some others call the Muslimiyya (or followers of Abú Muslim) Khurram-díniyya”; “and,” adds he, “there are amongst us in Balkh a number of them at a village called …,315a but they conceal themselves.”
The next manifestation of these anthropomorphic ultra- The Ráwandiyya. Shí'ites took place a year or two later (A.D. 758-9),315b and is thus described by Dozy:315c —
“Still more foolish were those fanatics who, inspired by Indo-Persian ideas, named their prince ‘God.’ So long as the victory remained doubtful the 'Abbásids had been able to tolerate this species of cult, but since they had gained the mastery they could do so no longer, for they would have aroused against themselves not only the orthodox but the whole Arab race. On the other hand they alienated the sympathy of the Persians by refusing to be God for them; but they had to choose, and the poor Persians, who all the while meant so well, were sacrificed to the Arabs. The Ráwandís (of Ráwand near Isfahán)315d learned this to their cost when they came to present their homage to al-Manṣur; they called him their God, and believed that they saw in the governor of Mecca the Angel Gabriel, and in the captain of the bodyguards him into whom the soul of Adam had migrated.316a Not only was their homage rejected, but their chiefs were cast into prison.316b From this moment al-Manṣúr ceased in the eyes of the Ráwandís to be Caliph. The ideas of legitimate prince and of God were for them two inseparable things, and if the sovereign declared himself not to be God, he could be nothing but a usurper, and ought to be deposed. This project they immediately prepared to carry out. They proceeded to the prison, but to avoid exciting attention they took with them an empty bier, which they caused to be carried before them, as though they were about to bury some one. On arriving at the prison they broke down its doors, released their chiefs, and then attacked the Caliph's palace. There was an extremely critical moment, but at length troops hastened up in sufficient numbers, and the Ráwandís fell beneath the blows of their swords. None the less there were thousands of people in Persia who thought as they did, and for whom the 'Abbásids were no longer Caliphs since they had refused to be God. Hence the reason why such as had fewer scruples in this matter found in this country a soil wherein the seed of revolt bore fruit with vigour.”
The total number of these Ráwandís who walked round the Caliph's palace at Háshimiyya (for Baghdad was not yet built) Doctrines of the Ráwandís. crying, “This is the Palace of our Lord!” was only about six hundred,316c yet the sect, as Ṭabarí tells us (iii, 418), continued to exist till his own time—that is, until the beginning of the tenth century. Besides the doctrines of Incarnation and Metempsychosis, they seem to have held Mazdak's views as to the community of wives, and to have believed themselves to be possessed of miraculous powers. Some of them, we learn, cast themselves from high places, believing that they could fly, and were dashed to pieces. They were certainly, as Dínawarí says (p. 380), connected with Abú Muslim, whose death it was one of their objects to avenge. The peril in which for a short while the life of the Caliph al-Manṣúr was placed for lack of a good horse led to The Farasu'nnawba. the institution of the farasu'n-nawba (Persian, asp-i-nawbatí) or “sentry-horse,” a good horse, saddled, bridled, and equipped, which was henceforth always in readiness at the Caliph's palace in case of emergency. The same institution prevailed till much later times at the Courts of local rulers—e.g., with the Sámánid kings in the tenth century of our era.
317aIn the years A.D. 766-768, still in the reign of al-Manṣúr, another Persian pseudo-prophet named Ustádhsís, rose in revolt Ustádhsís (A.D. 766-8.) in the districts of Herát, Bádghís, and Sístán,317b collected a following of 300,000 men, and caused much trouble to the Government ere he was finally defeated by Kházim b. Khuzayma. Seventy thousand of his followers were slain, and fourteen thousand more, taken captive, were beheaded immediately after the battle. Ustádhsís shortly afterwards surrendered, was sent in chains to Baghdad, and was there put to death. Thirty thousand of his followers who surrendered with him were set at liberty. Al-Khayzurán, the wife of al-Mahdí and mother of al-Hádí and Hárúnu'r-Rashíd, was, according to Sir William Muir (who, however, does not give his authority), the daughter of Ustádhsís.317c She is mentioned by ath-Tha'álibí in his Laṭá'ifu'l-Ma'árif (ed. de Jong, p. 54) as one of the three women who gave birth to two Caliphs. One of the two others was likewise a Persian, namely, Sháh-Parand, the grand-daughter of Yazdigird the last Sásánian king, who was married to Walíd b. 'Abdu'l-Malik, the Umayyad Caliph, and bore him Yazíd III and Ibráhím.
About ten years later (A.D. 777-780), at the beginning of the reign of al-Mahdí, took place the much more serious rising of Al-Muqanna', “the Veiled Prophet of Khurásán,” and Yúsufu'l-Barm (A.D. 777-780). al-Muqanna', the “Veiled Prophet of Khurásán” celebrated by Moore in Lalla Rookh, by the side of which the less known and more obscure insurrection of Yúsufu'l-Barm, “whose object was naught else than to exhort men to good and turn them aside from evil,”318a sinks into insignificance. Of this celebrated heresiarch al-Bírúní gives the following account in his Chronology of Ancient Nations (Sachau's translation, p. 194; text, p. 211):—
“Thereupon came forward Háshim b. Ḥakím, known by the name of al-Muqanna', in Merv, in a village called Kâwakîmardân. He Al-Bírúní's account of al-Muqanna'. used to veil himself in green silk, because he had only one eye. He maintained that he was God, and that he had incarnated himself, since before incarnation nobody could see God. He crossed the river Oxus and went to the districts of Kash and Nasaf (Nakhshab). He entered into correspondence with the Kháqán, and solicited his help. The sect of the Mubayyiḍa318b and the Turks gathered round him, and the property and women (of his enemies), he delivered up to them, killing everybody who opposed him. He made obligatory for them all the laws and institutes which Mazhdak had established. He scattered the armies of al-Mahdí, and ruled during fourteen years, but finally he was besieged and killed in A.H. 169 (A.D. 785-786). Being surrounded on all sides he burned himself, that his body might be annihilated, and that, in consequence, his followers might see therein a confirmation of his claim to be God. He did not, however, succeed in annihilating his body; it was found in the oven, and his head was cut off and sent to the Caliph al-Mahdí, who was then in Aleppo. There is still a sect in Transoxiana who practise his religion, but only secretly, while in public they profess Islám. The history of al-Muqanna' I have translated from the Persian into Arabic, and the subject has been exhaustively treated in my history of the Mubayyiḍa and Carmathians.”
319aThe three things connected with al-Muqanna' which are best known and most widely celebrated are the mask of gold (or veil of green silk, according to some accounts) which he continually wore, to spare his followers the dazzling and insupportable effulgence of his countenance, as he asserted, or, as his opponents said, to conceal from them his deformed and hideous aspect; the false moon which he caused, night after night, to rise from a well at Nakhshab (whence he is often called by the Persians Máh-sázanda, “the moon-maker”); and the final suicide of himself and his followers, by which, as it would appear, he desired not only to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies, but to make his partisans believe that he had disappeared and would return again, with which object he Al-Qazwíni's account of al-Muqanna'. endeavoured to destroy his own body and those of his companions. Of the false moon al-Qazwíní (who wrote during the first half of the thirteenth century of our era) speaks as follows in his Átháru'l-Bilád (ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 312), under the heading Nakhshab:—
“Nakhshab. A famous city in the land of Khurásán, from which have arisen many saints and sages. With it was connected al-Ḥakím al-Muqanna',319b who made a well at Nakhshab whence there rose up a moon which men saw like the [real] moon. This thing became noised abroad through the horizons, and people flocked to Nakhshab to see it, and wondered greatly at it. The common folk supposed it to be magic, but it was only effected by [a knowledge of] mathematics and the reflection of the rays of the moon; for they [afterwards] found at the bottom of the well a great bowl filled with quicksilver. Yet withal he achieved a wonderful success, which was disseminated through the horizons and noised abroad until men mentioned him in their poems and proverbs, and his memory abode amongst mankind.”
Ibn Khallikán in his celebrated Biographies (translation of Baron MacGuckin de Slane, vol. ii, pp. 205-206) thus speaks of him:320a —
“Al-Muqanna' al-Khurásání, whose real name was 'Aṭá, but whose father's name is unknown to me (though it is said to have been Ibn Khallikán's account of al-Muqanna'. Ḥakím), began his life as a fuller at Merv. Having acquired some knowledge of Magic and Incantations, he pretended to be an Incarnation of the Deity, which had passed into him by Metempsychosis, and he said to his partisans and followers: ‘Almighty God entered into the figure of Adam; for which reason He bade the angels adore Adam, “and they adored Him, except Iblís, who proudly refused,”320b whereby he justly merited the Divine Wrath. Then from Adam He passed into the form of Noah, and from Noah into the forms of each of the prophets and sages successively, until He appeared in the form of Abú Muslim al-Khurásání (already mentioned), from whom He passed into me.’ His pretensions having obtained credence with some people, they adored him and took up arms in his defence, notwithstanding what they beheld as to the extravagance of his claims and the hideousness of his aspect; for he was ill-made, one-eyed, short in stature [and a stutterer], and never uncovered his face, but veiled it with a mask of gold, from which circumstance he received his appellation of ‘the Veiled’ (al-Muqanna'). The influence which he exercised over the minds of his followers was acquired by the delusive miracles which he wrought in their sight by means of magic and incantations. One of the deceptions which he exhibited to them was the image of a moon, which rose so as to be visible to the distance of a two months' journey, after which it set; whereby their belief in him was greatly increased. It is to this moon that Abu'l-'Alá al-Ma'arrí alludes in the following line:—
“‘Awake [from the delusions of love]! That full moon320c
whose head
is shrouded in a veil
Is only a snare and a delusion, like the Moon of al-Muqanna'!’
“This verse forms part of a long qaṣída. To it also alludes Abu'l-Qásim Hibatu'lláh b. Siná'u'l-Mulk (a poet of whom we shall speak presently) in the course of a qaṣída wherein he says:—
“‘Beware! For the Moon of al-Muqanna' does not rise
321a
More fraught with magic than my turbaned moon!’
“When the doings of al-Muqanna' became notorious, and his fame was spread abroad, the people rose up against him and attacked him in his castle wherein he had taken refuge, and besieged him there. Perceiving that death was inevitable, he assembled his women and gave them a poisoned drink, whereby they died; after which he swallowed a draught of the same liquor and expired. On entering the castle, the Muslims put all his partisans and followers to the sword. This happened in the year A.H. 163 (A.D. 779-780): may God's curse rest upon him, and with God do we take refuge from such deceptions!—I never found the name or the situation of this castle mentioned by any person, that I might record it, until at last I read it in the Kitábu'sh-Shubuhát of Yáqútu'l-Ḥamawí (who will be mentioned presently, if God please), which he wrote to differentiate those places which participate in the same name.321b He there says, in the section devoted to Sanám, that there are four places of this name, whereof the fourth is the Castle of Sanám constructed by al-Muqanna' the Khárijite [i.e., the heretic rebel] in Transoxiana. God knows best, but it would appear that this is the castle in question.—I have since found in the History of Khurásán that it is the very one, and that it is situated in the district of Kashsh;321c but God knows best!”
Ibnu'l-Athír in his great chronicle (Cairo ed., vol. vi, pp. 13-14 and 17-18, under the years A.H. 159 and 161) confirms most of the above particulars. According to him al-Muqanna' was named Ḥakím, and only made known his pretensions to Ibnu'l-Athír's narrative. be a Divine Incarnation to a select circle of his followers, declaring that from Abú Muslim the Divinity had passed into Háshim, by which name he intended himself, so that the war-cry of his followers was, “O Háshim, help us!” (“Yá Ḥáshim, a'in-ná!”). He was supported by the Mubayyiḍa, or “White-clad” heretics, in Sughd and Bukhárá, and also by many of the pagan Turks. He held Abú Muslim to be superior to the Prophet, and one of his avowed objects was to avenge the death of Yaḥyá b. Zayd, a great-grandson of al-Ḥusayn, who was killed in A.D. 742-3. The number of his followers who deserted him at the last, on a promise of quarter from Sa'íd al-Ḥarashí, the general in command of the beleaguering forces, is stated at 30,000, while those who remained with him were about 2,000.
“When he saw that death was inevitable,” says Ibnu'l-Athír (who is followed by al-Fakhrí), “he assembled his women and his family, and gave them poison to drink, and commanded that his own body should be burned with fire, that none [of his enemies] might obtain possession of it. Others say that he burned all that was in his castle, including beasts and clothing and the like, after which he said, ‘Let him who desires to ascend with me into heaven cast himself with me into this fire.’ So he cast himself into it, with his family, and his women, and his chosen companions, and they were burned, so that when the army entered the Castle, they found it empty and void. This was one of the circumstances which added to the delusion of such as remained of his followers, of whom are they who are called the Mubayyiḍa in Transoxiana, save that they conceal their belief. But some say that he, too, drank poison and died, and that al-Ḥarashí sent his head to al-Mahdí, and that it reached him when he was at Duration of the sect. Aleppo on one of his campaigns in A.H. 163 (= A.D. 779-780).” These Mubayyiḍa, or followers of al-Muqanna', seem to have continued to exist until the eleventh century.322a Abu'l-Faraj (Bar-Hebræus),322b who flourished in the thirteenth century of our era (A.D. 1226-1286), adds that al-Muqanna' Additional particulars given by Bar-Hebræus. “had promised his followers that his spirit would pass into the form of a grizzle-headed man riding on a grey horse,323a and that he would return unto them after so many years, and cause them to possess the earth.”
Our information as to the details of the doctrines held by the heresiarchs mentioned above is lamentably defective, but all Bábak the Khurramí. that we know confirms the statement of Shah-ristání (already cited)323b as to the essential identity of the sects which were called after Mazdak, Sinbádh, and al-Muqanna', and which were also denoted by the name Khurramiyya, Mubayyiḍa, and Muḥammira. Under one of these names (or the Persian equivalent of the last, Surkh 'Alam, “Red Standards”) we find risings of these schismatics chronicled in A.D. 778-9 (Ṭab. iii, 493; Dín. 382; Siyásat-náma pp. 199-200); in A.D. 796-7 (Ṭab. iii, 645); and in A.D. 808 (Ṭab. iii, 732; Dín. 387). The next great heresiarch, however, appeared in the reign of al-Ma'mún. This was Bábak, called al-Khurramí, who is first mentioned by Ṭabarí under the year A.H. 201 (A.D. 816-817), and who for more than twenty years (till A.D. 838) was the terror of Western and North-Western Persia, defeating in turn Yaḥyá b. Ma'ádh, 'Ísá b. Muḥammad, Muḥammad b. Ḥumayd of Ṭús, and other generals sent against him, and was only at last conquered and captured with much difficulty, through cunning stratagems, by the celebrated Afshín. Of these wars full accounts are given by all the principal Muhammadan historians, especially Ṭabarí;323c but of Bábak's private life, character and doctrine the most detailed information is contained in the following passage of the Fihrist (pp. 342-344), the author of which wrote about A.D. 987, a hundred and fifty years after Bábak's death. After speaking of the Khurramís and Mazdakís, this writer passes to the Bábakí Khurramís, concerning whom he says:—
“Now as for the Bábakí Khurramís, their founder was Bábak al-Khurramí, who used to say to such as he desired to lead into Account of Bábak in the Fihrist. error that he was God, and who introduced into the Khurramí sects murder, rapine, wars and cruel punishments, hitherto unknown to them.
his execution.
“Says Wáqid b. 'Amr at-Tamímí, who compiled the history of Bábak: ‘His father was an oil-seller of al-Madá'in (Ctesiphon) who emigrated to the frontiers of Ádharbayján and settled in a village called Bilál-ábádh, in the district of Maymadh.324a He used to carry his oil in a vessel on his back, and wander through the villages in the district. He conceived a passion for a one-eyed woman, who afterwards became the mother of Bábak, and with her he cohabited for a long while. And while she and he were [on one occasion] away from the village, enjoying one another's company in a glade, and devoting themselves to wine which they had with them, behold, there came women from the village to draw water from a fountain in that glade, and they heard the sound of a voice singing in the Nabathæan tongue. They made in that direction and fell upon the two of them. 'Abdu'lláh fled, but they seized Bábak's mother by the hair, brought her to the village, and exposed her to contumely there.’
“Says Wáqid: ‘Then this oil-seller petitioned her father, and he gave her to him in marriage, and she bore him Bábak. Then he went forth in one of his journeys to the Mountain of Sabalán,325a where there fell upon him one who smote him from behind and wounded him so that he died after a little while. And Bábak's mother began to act as a professional wet-nurse for wages till such time as he reached the age of ten years. It is said that she went forth one day to seek Bábak, who was pasturing the cattle of a certain tribe, and found him lying naked under a tree, taking his noontide sleep; and that she saw under each hair on his breast and head a drop of blood. Then he woke up suddenly from his sleep, and stood erect, and the blood which she had seen passed away and she found it not. “Then,” said she, “I knew that my son was destined for some glorious mission.”’
“Says Wáqid: ‘And again Bábak was with ash-Shibl ibnu'l-Mu-naqqá al-Azdí in the district of Sará,325b looking after his cattle, and from his hirelings he learned to play the drum. Then he went to Tabríz in Ádharbayján, where he was for about two years in the service of Muḥammad ibnu'r-Rawwád al-Azdí. Then he returned to his mother, being at that time about eighteen years of age, and abode with her.’
“Says Wáqid b. 'Amr: ‘Now there were in the mountain of al-Badhdh325c and the hills connected therewith two men of the barbarians 325d holding the Khurramí doctrine, possessed of wealth and riches, who disputed as to which should hold sway over the Khurramís inhabiting these hills, that the supremacy might belong exclusively to one of them. One was named Jáwídán the son of Suhrak,325e while the other was better known by his kunya of Abú 'Imrán; and there was continual war between them during the summer, while in winter-time the snow kept them apart by closing the passes. Now Jáwídán, who was Bábak's master, went forth from his city with two thousand sheep, which he intended to bring into the town of Zanján, one of the towns in the marches of Qazwín. So he entered it, sold his sheep, and turned back to the mountain of al-Badhdh, where, being overtaken by the snow and the night in the district of Mímad,325f he turned aside to the village of Bilálábádh, where he sought hospitality from the jazír326a of the place, who, holding Jáwídán in light esteem, passed him on to the mother of Bábak, bidding her entertain him. And she, by reason of poverty and straitened means, had no food [to set before him], wherefore she rose up and kindled a fire, being unable to do more than this [for his entertainment], while Bábak waited upon his servants and beasts, and tended them, and gave them water to drink. And Jáwídán sent him out to buy for him food and wine and fodder, and when he brought him these things, he conversed and talked with him, and found him, nothwithstanding his detestable character, and though his tongue was cramped by outlandish speech, of good understanding, and saw him to be a cunning rogue. So he said to Bábak's mother, “Oh woman, I am a man from the mountain of al-Badhdh, where I enjoy consideration and opulence, and I need [the services of] this thy son, wherefore give him to me, that I may take him with me, and make him my agent over my farms and estates, and I will send thee his wages, fifty dirhams every month.” She replied, “Thou seemest well-intentioned, and the signs of opulence are apparent in thee, and my heart feels confidence in thee; take him with thee, therefore, when thou departest.”
“‘Then Abú 'Imrán came down from his mountain against Jáwí-dán, and fought with him, but was routed and slain by him. And Jáwí-dán returned unto his mountain, bearing a wound which caused him anxiety, and abode in his house three days, and then died. Now his wife had conceived a passion for Bábak, who had yielded to her guilty desires, and so, when Jáwídán died, she said to him, “Verily thou art strong and cunning; Jáwídán is dead, and I have not mentioned this to any one of his followers. Prepare thyself for to-morrow, when I will assemble them before thee, and will inform them that Jáwídán said: ‘I desire to die this night, and that my spirit should go forth from my body, and enter into the body of Bábak, and associate itself with his spirit. Verily he will accomplish for himself and for you a thing which none hath heretofore accomplished and which none shall hereafter accomplish; for verily he shall take poses-sion of the earth, and shall slay the tyrants, and shall restore the Mazdakites, and by him shall the lowest of you become mighty, and the meanest of you be exalted.’” And Bábak's ambition was aroused by what she said, and he rejoiced thereat, and prepared himself to undertake it.
“‘So when it was morning, she assembled before her the army of Jáwídán, and they said, “How is it that he doth not summon us and give us his instructions?” She answered, “Naught prevented him from so doing save that ye were scattered abroad in your homes in the villages, and that, had he sent to assemble you, tidings of this would have been spread abroad; wherefore he, fearing the malice of the Arabs towards you, laid upon me that which I now convey to you, if ye will accept it and act in accordance with it.” “Tell us,” they answered, “what were the wishes he expressed to thee, for verily we never opposed his commands during his life, nor will we oppose them now that he is dead.” “He said to me,” she replied, “‘Verily I shall die this night, and my spirit will go forth from my body, and will enter into the body of this lad, my servant, and I purpose to set him in authority over my followers, wherefore, when I am dead, make known to them this thing, and that there is no true religion in him who opposeth me herein, or who chooseth for himself the contrary of what I have chosen.’” They answered, “We accept his testament to thee in respect to this lad.”
“‘Then she called for a cow, and commanded that it should be
slain and flayed, and that its skin should be spread out, and on the
skin she placed a bowl filled with wine, and into it she broke bread,
which she placed round about the bowl. Then she called them,
man by man, and bade each of them tread the skin with his foot,
and take a piece of bread, plunge it in the wine, and eat it, saying,
“I believe in thee, O Spirit of Bábak, as I believe in the spirit of
Jáwídán;” and that each should then take the hand of Bábak, and
do obeisance before it, and kiss it. And they did so, until such time
as food was made ready for her; then she brought forth food and
wine to them, and seated Bábak on her bed, and sat beside him
publicly before them. And when they had drunk three draughts
each, she took a sprig of basil and offered it to Bábak, and he took
it from her hand, and this was their marriage. Then [their followers]
came forth and did obeisance to the two of them, acknowledging
the marriage…’”
Doctrines of
Bábak.
The most important statements contained in the above narrative as to Bábak's doctrines are:—
(1) That he declared himself to be God, or at least a Divine Theophany.
(2) That he declared that the soul of his master Jáwídán had passed into him.327a He thus held two at least, and probably three, of the four doctrines (ḥulul, or the passing of God into human form; tanásukh, or the passing of the soul from one body to another; and rij'at, or the return of a departed soul in a new tabernacle of flesh) regarded by Shahristání (see p. 311 supra) as characteristic of all sects of the Ghulát or “immoderate” Shí'ites. Whether Bábak was of pure Persian extraction is doubtful, for the Fihrist represents his father as singing songs in the Nabathæan language, while Dínawarí (p. 397) expresses the opinion328a that he was one of the sons of Muṭahhar the son of Fáṭima the daughter of Abú Muslim. The Nidhámu'l-Mulk mentions in his Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, p. 204) that the Khurramís in their secret gatherings used first to call down blessings on Abú Muslim, the Mahdí, and Fírúz, the son of the above-mentioned Fáṭima, whom they called “the Wise Child” (Kúdak-i-Dáná), and who may perhaps be identical with Bábak's father Muṭahhar. It also appears that Bábak in the main merely perpetuated doctrines already taught by his master Jáwídán (whose followers are called by Ṭabarí, iii, 1015, al-Jáwídániyya), only adding to them, in the words of the Fihrist above cited, “murder, rapine, wars, and cruel punishments, hitherto unknown to them.” He certainly seems to have been of a bloodthirsty disposition, for according to Ṭabarí (iii, p. 1233) he slew in twenty years 255,500 persons, while Mas'údí (Kitábu't-tanbíh, p. 353) estimates the number of his victims as “500,000 at the lowest computation.” As regards his relation to the other sects which we have mentioned, he was, as the Fihrist tells us, “to restore the doctrines of the Mazdakites;” and we find (Siyásat-náma, p. 201) one of his generals bearing the name of 'Alí Mazdak. He is generally called al-Khurramí, a title which the Fihrist also applies to Jáwídán and his rival Abú 'Imrán, and which, according to the Siyásat-náma (p. 182) was simply synonymous with Mazdakite. His followers are commonly spoken of as the Khurramís, but sometimes (e.g., Ṭabarí, iii, 1235, where they are described as fighting for Theophilus against the Muslims) as al-Muḥammira, “the Wearers of Red.”
It is unnecessary for our purpose to recount the long wars of Bábak against the Muslims, or to enumerate his many and Execution of Bábak and his brother 'Abdu'lláh. brilliant successes. Suffice it to say that, after enjoying complete impunity for twenty-two years (A.H. 201-222 or 223, A.D. 816-838), he was ultimately defeated and taken captive by Afshín, sent to Surra-man-ra'a, and there put to death before the Caliph al-Mu'taṣim. His body was crucified there on a spot called al-'Aqaba (“the Hill”), still famous for this in Ṭabarí's time (iii, 1231), while his head was sent to Khurásán. His brother 'Abdu'lláh was sent in the custody of Ibn Sharwín aṭ-Ṭabarí to Baghdad, where he suffered a like fate. On the way thither the prisoner was lodged in the Castle of Baradán. “Who art thou?” he inquired of his custodian. “The son of Sharwín, Prince of Ṭabaristán,” replied the other. “Praise be to God!” exclaimed Bábak's brother, “that He hath vouchsafed to me one of the dihqáns (Persian landed gentry) to superintend my execution!” Ibn Sharwín pointed to Núdnúd, Bábak's executioner, and said, “It is he only who will superintend thy execution.” “Thou art my man,” said 'Abdu'lláh, turning towards him, “and this other is only a barbarian. Tell me now, wert thou bidden to give me anything to eat, or not?” “Tell me what you would like,” replied the executioner. “Make for me,” said 'Abdu'lláh, “some sweet wheaten porridge (fálúdhaj).” Having eaten heartily of this nocturnal meal, he said, “O So-and-so, to-morrow thou shalt know that I am a dihqán (i.e., a Persian gentleman of the old stock), if it please God.” Then he asked for some date-wine, which was also given to him, and which he drank slowly and deliberately, till it was near morning, when the journey was continued to Baghdad. When they reached the head of the Bridge, the Governor, Isḥáq b. Ibráhím, ordered 'Abdu'llah's hands and feet to be cut off, during which he uttered no sound and spoke no word. Then he was crucified on the eastern side of the river, between the two bridges. Yet was he not mocked to the same degree as Bábak, who was brought forth mounted on an elephant, clad in a robe of brocade, and crowned with a round qalansuwa, or Persian cap, of marten-skin.
About a year later (September, A.D. 840) the body of Execution of Mázyár, who is gibbeted beside Bábak. Mázyár, the rebel prince of Ṭabaristán, was gibbeted beside that of Bábak, concerning which pitiable spectacle the poet Abú Tammám († A.D. 845-6) has the following verses:330a —
“The fever of my heart was cooled when Bábak became the neigh-
bour of Mázyár;
He now makes the second with him under the vault of heaven;
but he was not like, ‘the second of two, when they were
both in the Cave.’330b
They seem to stand aside that they may conceal some news from
the curious inquirer.
Their raiment is black, and the hands of the Samúm330c
might be
supposed to have woven for them a vest of pitch.
Morning and evening they ride on slender steeds, brought out for
them from the stables of the carpenters.
They stir not from their place, and yet the spectator might suppose
them to be always on a journey.”
With them was soon associated a third, no less than Afshín himself, the conqueror of Bábak, the secret abettor of Mázyár Execution of Afshín. in his revolt against 'Abdu'lláh b. Ṭáhir, the Caliph's governor of Khurásán. He too, though formerly one of the Caliph's chief generals and favourite courtiers, was not less Persian by birth and sympathy than the two others who bore him company at that grim trysting-place.331a Of his trial a very interesting account is given by Ṭabarí (iii, pp. 1308-1313), which is significant as showing how thin a veneer of Islám sufficed for a high officer of the Commander of the Faithful (until he fell into disgrace for purely political reasons) at this period. The substance of this narrative, which is on the authority of an eye-witness, Hárún b. 'Ísá b. Manṣúr, is as follows:—
Amongst those present at the trial were Ahmad b. Abí Du'ád, Isḥáq b. Ibráhím b. Muṣ'ab, Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'l- Trial of Afshín. Malik az-Zayyát, who acted as prosecutor, Mázyár (who had turned “King's evidence,” but, as we have already seen, with no benefit to himself), the Múbadh, or high-priest of the Magians, a prince of Sughd, and two men from the same province clad in tatters. These two last were first examined. They uncovered their backs, which First charge: the scourging of Muslims for iconoclasm. were seen to be raw from scourging. “Knowest thou these men?” inquired Ibnu'z-Zayyát of Afshín. “Yes,” replied he: “this one is a mu'adhdhin, and that one an imám; they built a mosque at Ushrúsna, and I inflicted on each of them a thousand stripes, because I had covenanted with the princes of Sughd that I would leave all men unmolested in the religion which they professed, and these two fell upon a temple wherein were idols worshipped by some of the people of Ushrúsna, cast them forth, and made the place into a mosque; wherefore I punished each of them with a thousand stripes, because they had acted aggressively and hindered the people in their worship.”
Ibnu'z-Zayyát then passed to another count. “What,” inquired he, “is a book in thy possession which thou hast Second charge: the possession of heathen books. adorned with gold, jewels and brocade, and which contains blasphemies against God?” “It is a book,” replied Afshín, “which I inherited from my father, and which contains some of the wisdom of the Persians; and as for its alleged blasphemies, I profit by its literary merit and ignore the rest. And I received it thus sumptuously adorned, nor did need arise to compel me to strip it of its ornaments, so I left it as it was, just as you have the Book of Kalíla and Dimna and the Book of Mazdak332a in your house, nor did I deem this incompatible with my profession of Islám.”
Then the Magian priest came forward and said, “This man was in the habit of eating the flesh of animals killed by Third charge: the eating of the flesh of strangled animals, and the refusal of circumcision. strangulation, and used to persuade me to eat it, pretending that it was more tender than the flesh of beasts slain with the knife. Moreover, he used every Wednesday to slay a black sheep, cutting it in two with his sword, and then passing between the two pieces, and afterwards eating its flesh. And one day he said to me, ‘I have become one of these people [i.e., the Arabs] in everything which I detest, even unto the eating of oil, and the riding of camels, and the wearing of sandals, but to this day not a hair hath fallen from me,’ meaning that he had never used depilatories, nor submitted to circumcision.” “Tell me,” said Afshín, “whether this fellow, who speaketh in this fashion, is worthy of credence in his religion.” Now the Múbad was a Magian who afterwards embraced Islám in the reign of al-Mutawakkil, one of whose intimates he became; so they answered, “No.” “Then,” said Afshín, “what means your acceptance of the testimony of one in whom you have no reliance, and whom you do not regard as trustworthy?” Then he turned to the Múbad and said, “Was there a door or a window between my house and thine through which thou could'st observe me and have knowledge of my doings?” “No,” answered the Múbad. “Was I not wont,” continued Afshín, “to bring thee in unto myself, and to tell thee my secrets, and to talk with thee on Persian matters, and of my love for the things and the people of Persia?” “Yes,” replied the Múbad. “Then,” said Afshín, “thou art neither true in thy religious professions, nor generous in thy friendship, since thou hast brought up against me in public matters which I confided to thee in secret.”
The Marzubán of Sughd was next brought forward, and Afshín was asked if he knew him, to which he replied in the Fourth charge: the accepting from the people of divine honours. negative. Then they asked the Marzubán whether he knew Afshín, to which he answered that he did, and, turning to the accused, cried, “O trickster, how long wilt thou defend thyself and strive to gloss over the truth?” “What sayest thou, O long-beard?” answered Afshín. “How do thy subjects write to thee?” continued the other. “As they used to write to my father and grandfather,” replied Afshín. “Tell us how they address you,” pursued the Marzubán. “I will not,” said Afshín. “Do they not in their letters address thee as So-and-so and So-and-so in the language of Ushrúsna?” demanded the other, “and does this not signify in Arabic, ‘to the God of gods, from his servant So-and-so the son of So-and-so?’” “Yes, they do,” answered Afshín. “Do Muslims suffer themselves to be addressed thus?” cried Ibnu'z-Zayyát; “what, then, hast thou left for Pharaoh, when he said to his people, ‘I am your Lord the Supreme?’”333a “This,” said Afshín, “was the custom of the people in respect to my father, my grandfather and myself, ere I adopted Islám; and I was unwilling to lower myself in their eyes, lest their allegiance to me should be weakened.” “Out upon thee, O Ḥaydar!” exclaimed Isḥáq b. Ibráhím b. Muṣ'ab; “how dost thou swear to us by God, and we give thee credence, and accept thine oath, and treat thee as a Muslim, whilst thou makest such pretensions as Pharaoh made?” “O Abu'l-Ḥusayn!” replied Afshín, “this passage was cited by 'Ujayf against 'Alí b. Hishám, and now thou citest it against me! See who will cite it against thee to-morrow!”
Then Mázyár, the Ispahbad of Ṭabaristán, was brought forward, and Afshín was asked, “Knowest thou this man?” Fifth charge: of secretly inciting Mázyár to revolt, and encouraging him in his rebellion. “No,” he answered. Then Mázyár was asked whether he knew Afshín, to which he replied in the affirmative. “This,” said they to Afshín, “is Mázyár.” “Yes,” said Afshín, “I recognise him now.” “Hast thou corresponded with him?” they inquired. “No,” said Afshín. “Has he written to you?” they demanded of Mázyár. “Yes,” he replied, “his brother Khásh wrote to my brother Qúhyár, saying, ‘None can cause this Most Luminous Religion334a to prevail save I, and thou, and Bábak. As for Bábak, he hath caused his own death by his folly, and, though I strove to avert death from him, his own folly would not brook intervention until it cast him into the catastrophe which befell him. If thou dost revolt, the people [i.e., the Arabs] have none but me to send against thee, and with me are the knights, and the valiant and brave; so that if I be sent against thee, there remain to do battle with us only three sorts of men, the Arabs, the Moors,334b and the Turks. The Arab is like a dog; I will throw him a crust, and then smash his head with a mace. And these flies’ (meaning the Moors) ‘are but few in numbers;335a while as for these sons of devils’ (meaning the Turks), ‘it needs but a short while to exhaust their arrows, after which the cavalry will surround them in a single charge and destroy them all, and religion will return to what it ever was in the days of the Persians.’”
335bTo this Afshín replied, “This man brings against his brother and my brother charges which do not affect me. And even had I written this letter to him, that I might incline him to myself, and that he might regard my approach with equanimity, there would be nothing objectionable therein; for since I helped the Caliph with my hands, I had the better right to help him by my wits, that I might take his enemy unawares and bring him before him, that I might thereby be honoured in my master's eyes even as 'Abdu'lláh b. Ṭáhir thus won honour.”
Some further details of the trial are given, especially Afshín's attempt to defend himself for his neglect to undergo the rite of circumcision (“wherein,” said Ibn Abí Du'ád, “is the whole of Islám and of legal purity”), on the ground that he feared harm to his health from the operation. His excuses were scouted: was it possible that a soldier, constantly exposed to lance-thrust and sword-blow, should be afraid of this? Afshín saw that he was doomed, and, in the bitterness of his heart, exclaimed to Ibn Abí Du'ád, “O Abú 'Abdi'lláh, thou raisest up thy hood (ṭaylasán) with thy hand, and dost not suffer it to fall on thy shoulder until thou hast slain thereby a multitude.”335c “It hath become apparent to you,” said Ibn Abí Du'ád, addressing the audience, “what he is”; then to Bughá the Turk (called “the Elder”), “Away with him!” Thereupon Bughá seized Afshín by the girdle, and, as he cried out, “This is what I expected from you!” cast the skirt of his robe over his head, and, half throttling him, dragged him back to his prison. The Caliph al-Mu'taṣim, disregarding his piteous appeal for clemency, caused him to be slowly starved to death, after attempting, as it would appear, to poison him in some fruit which he sent to him by the hand of his son Hárún, who afterwards succeeded to the Caliphate under the title al-Wáthiq bi'lláh.336a The body, crucified for a while between Bábak and Mázyár, as already described, was afterwards burned, and its ashes cast into the Tigris. In Afshín's house were found, besides sundry idols set with jewels, many books of the religion to which he was secretly attached, including a “Magian book” called Zaráwa. His death took place in June, A.D. 841, so that he must have languished in prison for nine months after his trial and the execution of Mázyár.
It was the policy of the early 'Abbásids, and of al-Ma'mún in particular,336b to exalt the Persians at the expense of the Arabs; and in this chapter we have examined some of the more open and undisguised manifestations of the old Persian racial and religious spirit—actual attempts to destroy the supremacy of the Arabs and of Islám, and to restore the power of the ancient rulers and teachers of Persia.336c Such aspirations after an irrevocable past may be said, in a certain sense, to have been crucified on the three gibbets at Surra man-ra'a; and yet so strongly did these Persianising ideas, which they represented in their different ways, continue to work, that, in the words of Abú Tammám already quoted (p. 330 supra), “the spectator might suppose them to be always on a journey.”
THE CALIPHATE, FROM THE ACCESSION
OF AL-MUTAWAKKIL TO THE ACCES-
SION OF SULṬÁN MAḤMÚD
OF GHAZNA
THE GENERAL PHENOMENA OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE DECLINE OF THE CALIPHATE (A.D. 847-1000), FROM THE ACCESSION OF AL-MUTAWAKKIL TO THE ACCESSION OF MAḤMÚD OF GHAZNA.
THE period which we have now to consider is one which, though politically far less brilliant than the last, is in many General characteristics. respects quite as interesting. The sudden reversion from the broad and tolerant spirit of al-Ma'mún and his successors to a narrow and bigoted orthodoxy seems to have encouraged rather than repressed the development of several most remarkable religious and philosophical movements, notably amongst the former the Car-mathian or Isma'ílí propaganda which culminated in the establishment of the Fáṭimide Anti-Caliphate of North Africa and Egypt, and amongst the latter the philosophical fraternity known as the Ikhwánu'ṣ Ṣafá or “Brethren of Purity.” The growing paralysis of the Court of Baghdad, primarily caused by the ever-increasing lawlessness and tyranny of the Turkish “Prætorian Guard,” wherewith, in an evil moment, the Caliphs had surrounded themselves, led directly to the formation in most parts of the Muhammadan Empire, notably in Persia, of practically independent or semi-independent dynasties, whose courts often became foci for learning and literature, more apt in many ways to discover and stimulate local talent than a distant and unsympathetic metropolis. And withal the disadvantages of the greater decentralisation which characterises later epochs were not yet apparent: Arabic still remained the language of diplomacy, science, and culture throughout the vast domains of which Baghdad was still the intellectual, and, to a large extent, the political centre; and communications, both material and spiritual, were sufficiently unimpeded to allow of the free interchange of ideas, so that men of learning passed readily from one centre of culture to another, and theories propounded in Spain and Morocco were soon discussed in Khurásán and Transoxiana.
From our special point of view, moreover, this period is of particular interest, since it gave birth to what we ordinarily Rise of Persian literature during this period. understand by Persian literature, that is the post-Muhammadan literature of Persia. We have already spoken in an earlier chapter (pp. 11-18 supra) of the slender evidences which can be adduced of the existence of neo-Persian (as opposed to Pahlawí) writings of an earlier date, and have seen that while it is likely enough that occasional memoranda, or even small manuals, may have existed before the middle of the ninth century, it is very doubtful if we possess the text of even a line of Persian which was composed before the middle of the ninth century; since the Persian poem alleged by 'Awfí to have been composed in A.D. 809 by a certain 'Abbás of Merv340a on the occasion of the visit paid by al-Ma'mún to that city is, as Kazimirski has pointed out,340b of very suspicious authenticity. Yet no sooner had Khurásán, the province of Persia most remote from Baghdad, begun to shake itself free from the direct control of the Caliphs, than Persian poetry began to flourish, at first sporadically under the Ṭáhirid (A.D. 820-872) and Ṣaffárid (A.D. 868-903) dynasties, and then copiously under the dynasty, at once more national than the former and more noble than the latter, of the Sámánids (A.D. 874-999), while in the Ghaznawí epoch, which immediately follows that which we are about to discuss, it may be said to have attained its full development, if not its zenith.
To this subject we shall return in another chapter, but it will be well first of all to treat more broadly of the general history of this period of the Caliphate, alike in its political, its religious, and its literary aspects. We shall therefore divide this Book, like the preceding ones, into three chapters, in the first of which we shall endeavour to present the reader with a conspectus of the whole period with which we are now dealing, while in the second we shall discuss more fully certain aspects of the religious and philosophical movements of the time, reserving for the last an account of the earliest period of Persian literature. And should the reader be tempted to complain of so much space being still devoted to phenomena which centre round Baghdad and appear more closely connected with Arabic than with Persian literature, he must remember that this is an essential part of the scheme on which this history is constructed, it being the author's profound conviction that the study of Persian, to prove fruitful, cannot be divorced from that of Arabic, even in its purely literary aspects, still less in the domains of religion and philosophy into which anything beyond the most superficial reading of the belles lettres of Persia must inevitably lead us. To those whose horizon of Persian literature is bounded by the Gulistán, the Bustán, the Anwár-i-Suhaylí, the Díwán of Ḥáfidh, and the Quatrains of 'Umar Khayyám, this book is not addressed.
Our period opens with the comparatively long and wholly deplorable reign of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (A.D. 847-861), which is characterised politically by the ascendancy of the Turkish party and the repression of the Arabs, and, to a less extent, of the Persians; and intellectually by the reaction against Caliphate of al-Mutawakkil. the liberal Mu'tazilite doctrines and philosophical tendencies of the previous Caliphs, and a fanatical hatred of 'Alí and his Shí'a or faction. The place of the Barmecides and other noble Persians is taken by Turkish soldiers of fortune (originally, as a rule, slaves captured in the religious wars waged on the frontiers of Khurásán against heathen Turkish tribes), whose barbarous names well accord with their savage acts. The pages of the chronicles are filled with such: Boghá (“the Bull”), an older and a younger; Bághir, Utámish (who became Prime Minister two or three years after al-Mutawakkil's murder), Báyabák, Kalbatakín, and the like. The names of these Turkish mercenaries, even when they are in Arabic, denote their origin; Waṣíf, for instance, one of the chief regicides who compassed al-Mutawakkil's death, stands revealed by his name as originally a slave.342a It was an evil day for the Caliphs when, ceasing to trust or sympathise with their own people, they surrounded themselves with these savage and self-seeking men of violence, and transferred their residence from Baghdad to Surra-man-ra'a (or Sámarra), which, being interpreted, means “gladdened is he who hath beheld it,” “from the beauty of its site,” as Muir observes,342b “or, as was wittily said, ‘Whoever saw it with the Turks settled there, rejoiced at Baghdad being well rid of them.’” And though this had happened already in the reign of al-Mu'taṣim, the bitter fruits thereof first matured in the days of al-Mutawakkil.
The latter, it is true, had thought in the latter part of his Bigotry of alMutawakkil. reign (A.D. 858) of moving his capital, but it is characteristic of his admiration for the Umayyads and his anti-Shí'ite prejudices that it was Damascus, not Baghdad, which he had in mind. His religious bigotry, which was especially directed against the Shí'a, but which also found its expression in vexatious enactments directed against the Jews and Christians, was, indeed, in complete keeping with his Turkish proclivities, and makes us liken him rather to a gloomy and fanatical Ottoman sultan than to the heir of al-Manṣúr and al-Ma'mún. As regards his attitude towards the Shí'a, it was not enough that he should on occasions shed their blood, as he did in the case of the tutor of his sons, Ibnu's-Sikkít, the celebrated grammarian343a (A.D. 857), and, for more reason, of 'Ísá b. Ja'far, who was, by his command, beaten to death in A.D. 855 for speaking ill of Abú Bakr, 'Umar, 'Á'isha, and Ḥafṣa, and his body refused burial and cast into the Tigris “as a warning to every heretic in the Faith who dissented from the body of believers”;343b his hatred extended itself to the great Imáms of the Shí'a, 'Alí and al-Ḥusayn, whom all good Muslims, be they of the Sunna or the Shí'a, revere. Thus in A.D. 851 he caused the holy shrine of Kerbelá, built to commemorate the martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn, to be destroyed, and forbade men to visit the spot,343c which was ploughed over and sown with crops; and he suffered, and apparently approved, a buffoon who, padded with pillows to give him an artificial paunch, used to hold up 'Alí to ridicule before him and his courtiers.
As regards the Jews and Christians, many of whom, as we have seen, stood high in honour with his predecessors, his first Enactments against the Jews and Christians. enactment against them was issued early in his reign (A.D. 850), and the second three or four years later. They were thereby compelled to wear “honey-coloured gowns (ṭaylasán),343d parti-coloured badges, and caps and girdles of certain ignoble patterns; to ride only on mules and asses, with wooden stirrups and saddles of strange construction; and to have placed over the doors of their houses effigies of devils. Such of their churches and temples as were of recent construction were destroyed, or converted into mosques; their tombs were to be level with the ground; and they were forbidden to gather in the streets or to exhibit the sign of the cross, while their children might not learn to write Arabic or receive instruction from a Muhammadan tutor.
344aAḥmad b. Ḥanbal († A.D. 855), the founder of the narrowest and least spiritual of the four orthodox schools of Sunní Thinkers and writers of this period. doctrine, was now the dominating religious influence, and was able to pay back with interest the harsh treatment which he had suffered at the hands of the Mu'tazilites. These, needless to say, fared but ill under the new régime, which was, indeed, generally unfavourable to men of science and philosophers. Thus the physician Bôkht-Yishú',344b the grandson of him who was Director of the Hospital and Medical School at Jundê-Shâpûr in the Caliphate of al-Manṣúr, was deprived of all his possessions and banished to Baḥrayn (A.D. 858) for some trifling cause, and it is not surprising to find how comparatively small is the number of writers and scholars of eminence who flourished in al-Mutawakkil's time. Ibn Khurdádhbih wrote the first edition of his “Book of Itineraries” (Kitábu'l-Masálik wa'l-Mamálik)344c about the beginning of this period: 'Abdu'lláh b. Sallám al-Jumahí, the author of a Memoir of the Poets (Ṭabaqátu-sh-Shu'ará); al-Wáqidí's secretary, Ibn Sa'd the historian; the Christian mathematician and man of science, Qusṭá b. Lúqá; and the Syrian Shí'ite and Shu'úbí poet, Díku'l-Jinn, who flourished about the same time or a little earlier, have been already mentioned, as have the unfortunate Ibnu's-Sikkít and Bôkht-Yishú', and the now triumphant Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal († A.D. 855). Apart from some other writers of note who flourished at this time, but whose names will be recorded according to the dates of their decease, almost the only men of letters who need be mentioned are the physician and translator from the Greek Yaḥyá b. Másawayh (d. A.D. 856), the historian of Mecca, al-Azraqí († A.D. 858), and the poet Di'bil, who was also a Shí'ite († A.D. 860). To these might be added the Egyptian mystic Dhu'n-Nún and his earlier congener al-Muḥásibí; the ill-fated poet 'Alí b. Jahm as-Sámí, one of whose panegyrics on al-Mutawakkil is still extant; the poetess Faḍl of Yamáma; the musician Isḥáq, son of the celebrated minstrel of Hárún's Court, Ibráhím al-Mawṣilí, and a few others.
At the end of the year A.D. 861 al-Mutawakkil, while overcome with drink, was murdered by his Turkish guards, Al-Mutawakkil's four successors. who were instigated thereto by his son al-Mun-taṣir; but the parricide did not survive his victim a year. He and his three successors, al-Musta'ín, al-Mu'tazz, and al-Muhtadí, reigned in all only about nine years, and the three last were all in turn done to death, generally with circumstances of great brutality, by the Turks, who were now paramount. Al Muhtadí showed the greater spirit. “Earlier,” says Muir (p. 535), “and supported by the Arabs, he might have restored life to the Caliphate. But now, both as regards number and discipline, foreigners had the upper hand.” Yet he made a brave attempt to repress the growing presumption, arrogance, and violence of these bloodthirsty mercenaries, of which attempt his successor at any rate reaped the benefit.
It was during this turbulent epoch that Persian independence may be said to have been revived by the remarkable Beginnings of Persian independence. achievements of Ya'qúb the son of Layth “the Coppersmith” (aṣ-Ṣaffár), who, notwithstanding his humble origin, succeeded in founding a dynasty which, though short-lived, made its power felt not merely in Sístán, the place of its origin, but throughout the greater part of Persia and almost to the walls of Baghdad. The Ṭáhirids are, it is true, generally reckoned an earlier Persian dynasty, and in a certain sense they were so. Their ancestor, Ṭáhir “the Ambidexter” (Dhu'l-Yamínayn), was rewarded by al-Ma'mún for his signal services in the field with the government of Khurásán (A.D. 820), and the continuance of this dignity to his heirs unto the third generation gave to the family a local authority and position which previous governors, appointed only for a term of years and removable at the Caliph's pleasure, had never enjoyed. It is a matter of common observation that settlers in a country, often after a comparatively brief residence, outdo those native to the soil in patriotic feeling, a fact of which the history of Ireland in particular affords plentiful examples; for what proportion of the foremost leaders of Irish struggles against English authority —the Fitzgeralds, Emmetts, Wolfe Tones, and Napper Tandys of the '98—could claim to be of purely Irish extraction? And so it would not be a surprising phenomenon if the Ṭáhirids, notwithstanding their Arab extraction, had become wholly Persianised. But though the earliest Persian poet, whose verses have been preserved to us—Ḥandhala of Bádghís—appears to have lived more or less under their patronage, it is doubtful whether they really sought, as did their successors, the Ṣaffárids and Sámánids, to foster the renaissance of the Persian language and literature. Dawlatsháh,346a discussing the origins of Persian poetry, relates that on one occasion a man came to the Court of 'Abdu'lláh b. Ṭáhir (A.D. 828-844) at Níshápúr and offered him an ancient Persian book. To his inquiry as to its nature the man replied, “It is the Romance of Wámiq and 'Adhrá, a pleasing tale which was compiled by wise men and dedicated to King Núshírwán.” The Amír replied, “We are men who read the Qur'án, and need not such books, but only the Scripture and Tradition. This book, moreover, was composed by Magians, and is accursed in our eyes.” He then ordered the volume to be cast into the water, and issued instructions that wherever in his territories any Persian book of Magian authorship might be discovered it should be destroyed. Without attaching too much historical importance to this story, we may yet take it as representing more or less correctly the attitude of the Ṭáhirids to things Persian; and an anecdote related by Dawlatsháh immediately after this, in which the little son of Ya'qúb the Coppersmith is represented as spontaneously producing, in an access of childish glee, the first rude Persian verse of Muhammadan times, may at least be taken as indicating a general conviction that to the Ṣaffárids Persia owed in no small measure the recovery of her national life.
It was in the very year of al-Mutawakkil's death that this Ya'qúb first appears on the scene, emerging from his native Sístán and advancing on Herát.347a Some eight years later (A.D. 869) we find him in possession of Kirmán, and sending gifts to the Caliph al-Mu'tazz. From this time onwards until his death (A.D. 876) we find him steadily enlarging his domains, to which Balkh, Ṭukháristán, Sind, Níshápúr, part of Ṭabaristán, Párs, Rám-Hurmuz, and Ahwáz were successively added. A full account of his career, based on the best authorities, has been given by Professor Nöldeke of Strassburg in his admirable Sketches from Eastern History (J. Sutherland Black's translation, pp. 176-206), to which the reader is referred for fuller particulars. The dynasty founded by Ya'qúb practically ceased with the defeat of his brother and successor 'Amr at Balkh by Ismá'íl b. Aḥmad the Sámánid in A.D. 900, but it had at least succeeded in reviving the national life of Persia, and in detaching its history definitely from that of the 'Abbásid metropolis.
About the same time (A.D. 865) another province of Persia, Ṭabaristán, the strip of fen and forest land lying The 'Alid dynasty of Ṭabaristán. between the Elburz Mountains and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, gained a precarious independence under a scion of the House of 'Alí named Ḥasan b. Zayd, called “the Stone-lifter” (Jálibu'l-ḥijára ) because of his great strength. He was succeeded by several other Sayyids of his house, whose virtues, princely generosity, charities and encouragement of learning, form a favourite theme of Ibn Isfandiyár348a (who wrote early in the thirteenth century) and other historians of this province. Needless to say that they were all ardent supporters of the Shí'ite doctrine and cause. Some of them were not only patrons of letters and founders of colleges, but poets as well, and Ibn Isfandiyár cites in his work a number of Arabic verses composed by them, including a polemic in verse against the Sunní Ibn Sukkara by Sayyid Abu'l-Ḥusayn al-Mu'ayyad bi'lláh. It is not unlikely that verses in the dialect of Ṭabaristán (from which are descended the modern Mázan-darání and Gílakí idioms) may also have been composed at this epoch, though the earliest which I have met date from the Seljúq period only, or at most (e.g., Pindár of Ray, who flourished early in the eleventh century) from a slightly earlier epoch.
Persia, then, at the epoch of which we are now speaking, was beginning to struggle into a new national life, and to give fresh expression to its marked preference for the Shí'ite doctrine. For Ya'qúb b. Layth, if we are to credit the long account of his successful revolt against the Caliphate (for such, in effect, it was) given by the Nidhámu'l-Mulk in his “Treatise on the Art of Government” (Siyásat-náma, ed. Schefer, pp. 11-17) had strong Shí'ite leanings; though of course what is there said about his relations with the Fáṭimid Caliph (who only began to establish his power some thirty-five years after Ya'qúb's death) is an absurd anachronism. And in the Biography of eminent Shí'ites lithographed at Tihrán in A.H. 1268 (A.D. 1851-2) under the title of Majálisu'l-Múminín349a (“Assemblies of True Believers”) the Ṣaffárids are included amongst the adherents of the Shí'a cause. The evidence there adduced for Ya'qúb's religious standpoint is rather quaint. Information was communicated to him that a certain Abú Yúsuf had spoken slightingly of 'Uthmán b. 'Affán; and Ya'qúb, thinking that a Sístání noble of this name was intended, ordered him to be punished. But when he was informed that it was the third Caliph, the successor of 'Umar, who had been thus reviled, he countermanded the punishment at once, saying, “I have nothing to do with the ‘Companions.’”
A third great event belonging to this period was the formidable rebellion of negro slaves (Zanj = Æthiopian) The Zanj rebellion. which for nearly fourteen years (A.D. 869-883) caused the utmost alarm and anxiety to the metropolis of Islám. The scene of this stubborn and, for a long while, successful revolt was the marshes lying between Baṣra and Wásiṭ, and the leader of these African slaves was a Persian, 'Alí b. Muḥammad of Warzanín (near Ray), who, though boasting descent from 'Alí and Fáṭima, proclaimed the doctrines not of the Shí'ites but of the Khá-rijites. The explanation of this curious fact is given by Professor Nöldeke in the excellent account of this “Servile War in the East” given in his Sketches from Eastern History (chap. v, pp. 146-175): the rebel leader knew his clientèle too well to tempt them with a bait which, though efficacious enough with his own countrymen, would have entirely failed to appeal to minds far more ready to absorb the democratic views of the Khárijites than the sentimental legitimist aspirations of the Shí'a. And so, as Nöldeke has pointed out (op. cit., p. 152)—
“It is abundantly clear why Karmat, one of the founders of the Karmatians, an extreme Shíite sect which was destined soon after this to fill the whole Mohammedan world with fear and dismay, should, on religious grounds, have decided not to connect himself with the negro leader, however useful this association might otherwise have been to him.”
The year A.H. 260 (= A.D. 873-4) was in several respects an important epoch in Muhammadan, especially in Shí'ite, Men of letters who died between A.D. 863 and 873. history; but, before speaking of it, we may briefly mention the chief men of letters who died during the decade which preceded it, which includes the first four years of al-Mu'tamid's Caliphate.
Abú Ḥáṭim of Sajistán (Sístán), who died about A.D. 864, was the pupil of al-Aṣma'í and the teacher of the celebrated Abú Hátim of Sístán. al-Mubarrad. Some thirty-two of his works are enumerated in the Fihrist, but the only one preserved to us in its entirety (and that only in the unique Cambridge manuscript, which formerly belonged to the traveller Burckhardt) is the Kitábu'l-Mu'ammarín (“Book of the Long-lived”), published with introduction and notes by the learned Goldziher (Leyden, 1899).
Much more important was 'Amr b. Baḥr, surnamed “al-Jáḥi dh” because of his prominent eyes, a man of great Al-Jáḥidh. erudition and remarkable literary activity (†A.D. 869). He was a staunch adherent of the Mu'tazi-lite doctrine, of which one school bears his name. Of his works, which chiefly belong to the class of belles lettres (adab) several have been published: the Kitábu'l-Bayán wa't-tibyán in Cairo; and the Kitábu'l-Bukhalá (“Book of Misers”) in Leyden by Van Vloten. He also wrote a tract “on the Virtues of the Turks,” which exists in several manuscripts. He stood in high favour under al-Ma'mún and his two successors, but narrowly escaped death on the fall and execution of his patron, the wazír Ibnu'z-Zayyát. His writings are equally remarkable for style and contents, and entitle him to be placed in the foremost rank of early Arabic prose writers.
A year later than al-Jáḥidh (A.D. 870) died the great traditionist al-Bukhárí, the author of the celebrated Collec- Al-Bukhárí, Muslim, atTirmidhí and an-Nasá'í. tion of Traditions called the Ṣaḥíḥ, which, amongst all Sunní Muhammadans, ranks as the highest authority on this subject. Another work on the same subject, and bearing the same title, was compiled by Muslim of Níshápúr, who died a few years later (A.D. 875); another by at-Tirmidhí († A.D. 892), and a fourth by an-Nasá'í († A.D. 914). These four great traditionists were all natives of Khurásán, and were probably of Persian extraction.
The only other writers of this period who need be mentioned are the poetess Faḍl of Yamáma († A.D. 873), who in her earlier life professed Shí'ite views, and the Christian physician and translator Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq, who poisoned himself in A.D. 873 on account of the vexation caused him by his excommunication by his bishop Theodosius.
We now come to the year A.H. 260 (= A.D. 873-4), a year memorable for the following important events: (1) the “Occultation” or Disappearance of the Twelfth Imám of the Shí'ite “Sect of the Twelve;” (2) the beginning of the Pro- The year A.H. 260. paganda of the Shí'ite “Sect of the Seven,” or Isma'ílis, which led directly to the rise of the Carmathians (Qarmaṭí, pl. Qarámiṭa) and the foundation of the Fáṭimid Anti-Caliphate of North Africa and Egypt; and (3) the establishment of the Sámánid dynasty in Khurásán. In this year also the great Ṣúfí saint Báyazíd of Bisṭám died, and the theologian Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arí was born; he who was destined to give the coup de grâce to the Mu'tazilite ascendancy in Islám, and to give currency and form to that narrower and more illiberal doctrine which has given to the Muhammadan religion its rigid and stereotyped character. The religious phenomena of this critical period will be more fully discussed in the following chapter, and here we shall continue to speak chiefly of external and political events.
The rise of the Sámánid dynasty coincided with, and indeed brought about, the fall of the short-lived power of the Copper- The Sámánid Dynasty. smith's sons Ya'qúb and 'Amr, and marks the really active beginning of the Persian Renaissance. Sámán, after whom the dynasty is called, claimed descent from Bahrám Chúbín (see p. 181 supra), and the genuineness of this pedigree is admitted by the learned and exact Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní.352a He was converted from the Zoroastrian faith to Islám by Asad b. 'Abdu'lláh, the governor of Khurásán, after whom he named his son. His four grandsons all had provincial governments in Khurásán in the Caliphate of al-Ma'mún (about A.D. 819), but Aḥmad, the second of them, was most successful in extending and consolidating his dominions, and his two sons, Naṣr I and Isma'íl, succeeded in overthrowing the Ṣaffárid power, taking 'Amr b. Layth (who succeeded his brother Ya'qúb in A.D. 876) captive in A.D. 900, and establishing a dynasty which flourished for nearly 125 years ere it was in turn overthrown by the rising might of the House of Ghazna.
Two anecdotes concerning the Ṣaffárids, both to be found in the Nidhámu'l-Mulk's Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, pp. 13-16), Anecdote concerning the death of Ya'qúb b. Layth. are too typical and too celebrated amongst the Persians to be omitted here. The first concerns the elder brother Ya'qúb. When, after his defeat by the troops of the Caliph al-Mu'tamid on the occasion of his persistent attempt to enter Baghdad, he lay dying of colic, the Caliph, still fearing him, sent him a conciliatory letter, wherein, while reproaching him for his disobedience, he held out conditional promises of forgiveness and compensation.
“When Ya'qúb had read the Caliph's letter,” says the narrator, “his heart was in no way softened, neither did he experience any remorse for his action; but he bade them put some cress and fish and a few onions on a wooden platter, and set them before him. Then he bade them introduce the Caliph's ambassador, and caused him to be seated. Then he turned his face to the ambassador and said, ‘Go, tell the Caliph that I am the son of a coppersmith, and learned from my father the coppersmith's craft. My food has been barley bread, fish, cress and onions. This dominion and gear and treasure and goods I won by cunning and courage; I neither inherited them from my father nor received them from thee. I will not rest until I send thy head to Mahdiyya353a and destroy thy House: I will either do this which I say, or I will return to my barley bread and fish and cress. Behold, I have opened the doors of my treasure-houses, and have again called out my troops, and I come on the heels of this message.’”
353bThis anecdote well illustrates the character of the doughty coppersmith.
The second anecdote, which is even more celebrated, concerns the final defeat of 'Amr b. Layth, Ya'qúb's brother Anecdote concerning 'Amr b. Layth's defeat by Isma'íl the Sámánid. and successor, who, having been declared a rebel by the Caliph al-Mu'tamid in A.D. 884, was restored to favour for a brief period in A.D. 890, then again disavowed, until in May, A.D. 895, he was utterly routed near Balkh by Isma'íl b. Aḥmad the Sámánid, whom the Caliph had incited to attack him. Of the seventy thousand horsemen whom he had reviewed before the battle, all were scattered, though, it is said, not one was even wounded; and evening saw the fallen prince a captive in the enemy's camp, and in want of a supper. A farrásh, who had formerly been in his employment, happened to pass by, and took pity on him. He bought some meat, borrowed a frying-pan from one of the soldiers, made a fire of camel-dung, and set the pan over it, supported on a few clods of earth. Then he went off to get some salt, and while he was gone a hungry dog, attracted by the savoury smell, came up and thrust its nose into the frying-pan to pick out a bone. The hot frying-pan burned its nose, and as it drew back its head the ring-like handle of the pan fell on its neck, and when it took to its heels in terror it carried the frying-pan and the supper with it. When 'Amr saw this, he turned to the soldiers and sentinels who stood by and said, “Be warned by me! I am he whose kitchen it needed four hundred camels to carry this morning, and to-night it has been carried off by a dog!” Abú Manṣúr ath-Tha'álibí remarks in his Laṭá'ifu'l-Ma'árif (ed. de Jong, p. 88) that two of the most extraordinary battles were this one, which put an end to the Ṣaffárid power, when an army of fifty thousand escaped, though utterly routed, only the leader being taken captive; and the battle between al-'Abbás b. 'Amr and the Carmathians at Hajar, wherein the ten thousand soldiers of the former perished to a man, and only their leader escaped.
About the year A.D. 880 there rose to brief but considerable power a certain Aḥmad of Khujistán (near Herát) who deserves a passing mention because of the manner in which, according to Aḥmad alKhujistání. the author of the Chahár Maqála (who wrote about the middle of the twelfth century),355a his ambition was first stirred by two Persian verses of the poet Ḥandhala of Bádghís. He was asked, “How did'st thou, who wert originally an ass-herd, become Amír of Khurásán?” “One day,” he answered, “I was reading the Díwán of Ḥandhala of Bádghís in Bádghís of Khujistán when I chanced on these two couplets:—
‘If lordship lies within the lion's jaws,
Go, risk it, and from those dread portals seize
Such straight-confronting death as men desire,
Or riches, greatness, rank and lasting ease.’”
At this time the Ṣaffárids were at the zenith of their power, and al-Khujistání, moved by a new ambition, sold his asses, bought a horse, and entered the service of 'Amr b. Layth. Later he renounced his allegiance to them, and took Khwáf, Bayhaq, and Níshápúr. “My affairs prospered and improved,” says he, “until all Khurásán lay open to me, and I took possession of it for myself. Of all this, these two verses of poetry were the cause.” This story, told by an old and generally accurate authority, is to my mind the best proof of the existence of a considerable amount of Persian poetry even before the time of the Sámánids; though of poets who flourished under the Ṭáhirids and Ṣaffárids the names of only some half-dozen at most—the above Ḥandhala, Maḥmúd the bookseller (Warráq), Fírúz-i-Mashriqí, Abú Salík of Gurgán and one or two more—are preserved to us.
Under the Sámánids (A.D. 874-999) the case was different, Poetry under the Sámánids. and we find Persian verse, and to a lesser extent Persian prose, flourishing in full vigour, the most celebrated poet of this period being Rúdagí (or Rawdhakí), who flourished in the first half of the tenth century. Indeed his fame so far outshone that of his predecessors that he is often reckoned the first Persian poet: thus in an Arabic “Book of Origins” written early in the thirteenth century356a occurs the following passage:—
“The first to compose good poetry in Persian was Abú 'Ab-di'lláh Ja'far b. Muḥammad b. Ḥakím b. 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán b. Ádam ar-Rawdhakí,356b that poet so piquant in expression, so fluent in verse, whose Díwán is famous amongst the Persians, and who was the leader in Persian poetry in his time beyond all his contemporaries. The minister Abu'l-Faḍl al-Bal'amí used to say, ‘Rawdhakí has no equal amongst the Arabs or the Persians.’”
The minister above cited was wazír to Isma'íl b. Aḥmad, and died in 940; he is not to be confounded with his son The two Bal'amís. Abú 'Alí al-Bal'amí, who was wazír to the Amír Manṣúr b. Núḥ, translated Ṭabarí's great chronicle into Persian, and died in A.D. 996.
Turning once more to Baghdad, and to the metropolitan, as opposed to the provincial, writers of al-Mu'tamid's Caliphate Arabic writers of A.D. 874-893. (A.D. 870-893), we need notice only, amongst events of general importance, the suppression of the Zanj insurrection in A.D. 883, and the increasing activity of the Carmathians, whose history and doctrines will be more fully discussed in the next chapter. The chief writers and thinkers who died between A.D. 874 and 900 were the following: The “Philosopher of the Arabs,” Abú Yúsuf Ya'qúb b. Isḥáq al-Kindí, whose literary activity chiefly belongs to an earlier and more liberal period, is supposed to have died about A.D. 874. He is notable as one of the few pure Arabs who were really distinguished in the domain of thought and letters. Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq, the physician and translator, who died about the same time, has been already mentioned. Ibnu'l-Waḥshiyya, the author of the celebrated “Book of Nabathæan Agriculture,” wherein he sought to demonstrate the superiority of the old Babylonians to the Arabs in point of civilisation, flourished about this period. Dá'úd b. 'Alí, the founder of the Dháhirí (or Ẓáhirite)357a school, who held strongly to the literal meaning of the Qur'án and Traditions, and discountenanced all allegorical interpretations,357b died in A.D. 883. Abú Ma'shar, the great astronomer, one of al-Kindí's pupils, died in A.D. 885, about which time al-Fákihí, the historian of Mecca, wrote. Ibn Mája († A.D. 885) should have been mentioned in connection with al-Bukhárí and his successors in the Science of Tradition. Sahl b. 'Abdu'lláh of Shushtar, mystic and Qur'án-reader, was a pupil of the earlier mystic Dhu'n-Nún, and died about A.D. 886. As a collector and critical editor of old Arabic poems (e.g., the Díwán of the poets of the tribe of Hudhayl) as-Sukkarí, one of al-Aṣma'í's pupils, deserves a passing mention († A.D. 888). The erotic and satirical poet Ibnu'r-Rúmí owed his death (A.D. 889 or 896) to his bitter tongue. Ibn Abi'd-Dunyá (d. A.D. 894), tutor to the Caliph al-Muktafí in his youth, was the author of several collections of stories and anecdotes. Al-Buḥturí the poet (A.D. 897) and al-Mubarrad the philologist († A.D. 899) ought also to be mentioned. Much more important, however, from our point of view are the four historians Ibn Qutayba († A.D. 889), al-Baládhurí († A.D. 892), ad-Dínawarí († A.D. 895), and Ibn Wáḍiḥ al-Ya'qúbí, who wrote about this time.357c Of these, the first three were Persians, while the last was an ardent Shí'ite, which gives his admirable history a special interest, since he speaks at greater length of the Imáms, and cites many of their sayings. Indeed Goldziher and Brockel-mann, two of the greatest living authorities on Arabic literature in its widest sense, agree in the opinion “that the historical sense was entirely lacking in the ancient Arabs,” and that “the idea of historiography was first inspired in them by Persian culture.”358a To the writers above enumerated we may add the celebrated mathematician Thábit b. Qurra the Ḥarránian, and the geographer Ibnu'l-Faqíh al-Hamadhání, both of whom died about the beginning of the tenth century of our era.
On the death of the Caliph al-Mu'taḍid and the accession of his son al-Muktafí the Sámánids were practically supreme Caliphate of al-Muktafí (A.D. 902-908). in Persia, while around Baghdad and Baṣra, in Syria and in Yaman the terrible Carmathians, under their able leader Zikrawayh, inspired the utmost terror—a terror which cannot be regarded as ill-founded when we remember that on the occasion of one of their attacks on the pilgrim-caravans returning from Mecca 20,000 persons are said to have been left dead on the field. Only two writers of note who died during this period need be mentioned: the Shí'ite divine al-Qummí († A.D. 903), and the royal poet Ibnu'l-Mu'tazz, who is notable as having produced one of the nearest approximations to an epic poem to be found in Arabic literature,358b and also one of the “Memoirs of the Poets” (Ṭabaqát), which served as a model to ath-Tha'álibí, al-Bákharzí, and other compilers of such biographical anthologies.
We next come to the comparatively long reign of al-Muqtadir (A.D. 908-932), of which the most important political event was the establishment of the Fáṭimid, or Isma'ílí, Anti-Caliphate in North Africa (A.D. 909), with Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (A.D. 908-932). Mahdiyya (“the City of the Mahdí,” i.e., of 'Ubadu'lláh, the first Caliph of this dynasty) as its capital. The activity of the Carmathians continued unabated, in spite of the deaths of their leaders Zikrawayh and al-Jannábí the Elder: in A.D. 924 they entered Baṣra; in the following year they again attacked the Pilgrim-caravan; in A.D. 929 they invaded Mecca itself, and, to the unspeakable horror of all pious Muslims, carried off the Sacred Black Stone, which they kept for twenty years; while, in the closing years of al-Muqtadir's reign, they entered Kúfa and took possession of 'Ummán. About this time, however, their activity was checked, not so much by any external force, as by the scandals connected with the appearance of the false Mahdí Ibn Abí Zakariyyá,359a whose abominable teachings are summarised by al-Bírúní in his Chronology of Ancient Nations.359b Yet some years later, in A.D. 939, we find them still levying blackmail (khifára) on the pilgrims to Mecca.
359cTo turn now to Persian affairs at this period, we may notice first the final suppression, even in Sístán, of the House of Layth Persian affairs at this period. (the Ṣaffárids) about A.D. 910, when Ṭáhir and Ya'qúb, the grandsons of 'Amr, were taken prisoners and sent captive to Baghdad. In A.D. 913 Naṣr II succeeded to the Sámánid throne, and in his long reign (he died in A.D. 942) the power and splendour of that illustrious House reached their zenith,359d and Rúdagí, the first great Persian poet, was at the height of his renown and popularity. Yet Ṭabaristán was wrested from him by the 'Alawí Sayyid Ḥasan b. 'Alí Uṭrúsh, whose family maintained their footing there till A.D. 928, when Mardáwíj b. Ziyár succeeded in seizing the province and establishing there a dynasty (known as the Ziyárids) which endured, and played an honourable part in the promotion of learning and the protection of letters, for more than a century, ere it was extinguished by the Ghaznawís. And in yet another way Mardáwíj played an important part in Persian history, for to him the great House of Buwayh, which by the middle of the tenth century was practically supreme throughout Southern Persia and in Baghdad itself, owed its first fortunes; and from him 'Alí b. Buwayh, who afterwards, with the title of 'Imádu'd-Dawla, ruled over Fárs, or Persis proper, received his first appointment as governor of Karach.
Amongst the men of learning who flourished at this epoch the first place must without doubt be assigned to the historian Writers and men of learning of this epoch.—Ṭabarí. Abú Ja'far Muḥammad b. Jarír aṭ-Ṭabarí († A.D. 923),360a whose great Chronicle ends ten years earlier (A.H. 300 = A.D. 912-913), thus depriving us of one of our best sources of information, though the Supplement of 'Aríb b. Sa'd of Cordova carries us down to the end of al-Muqtadir's Caliphate (A.H. 320 = A.D. 932), after which we have to depend chiefly for general history on Ibnu'l-Athír († A.D. 1232-3), the author of the great Kámilu't-Tawáríkh.
360b“In this year” (A.H. 310), says the latter, “died at Baghdad Mu-ḥammad b. Jarír aṭ-Ṭabarí, the historian, who was born in A.H. 224 (= A.D. 838-9). He was buried by night in his house, because the mob assembled and prevented him from being buried by day, declaring that he was a Ráfiḍí (Shí'ite) and even a heretic. And 'Alí b. 'Isá used to say, ‘By Alláh, were these people to be questioned as to what was meant by a Ráfiḍí or a heretic, they would neither know nor be capable of understanding!’ Thus Ibn Miskawayh, the author of the Tajáribu'l-umam, who defends this great leader of thought (Imám) from these charges. Now as to what he says concerning the fanaticism of the mob, the matter was not so; only some of the Ḥanbalites, inspired with a fanatical hatred of him, attacked him, and they were followed by others. And for this there was a reason, which was that Ṭabarí compiled a book, the like of which had never been composed, wherein he mentioned the differences of opinion of the theologians, but omitted all reference to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. And when he was taken to task about this, he said, ‘He was not a theologian, but only a traditionist;’ and this annoyed the Ḥanbalites, who were innumerable in Baghdad; so they stirred up mischief against him, and said what they pleased.”
Of an utterly different character to this sober and erudite historian was another Persian of this period, whose reputation Al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj. —somewhat transfigured, it is true, by pious hagiologists—is at least as enduring amongst his countrymen, and to whom admiring references are frequently made by the Persian Ṣúfí poets, such as Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, Ḥáfidh and the like. This was al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr “the Wool-carder” (al-Ḥalláj), who was arrested for preaching heretical doctrines in Baghdad and the neighbourhood in A.D. 913 (Ṭabarí, iii, p. 2289), and put to death with circumstances of great cruelty in A.D. 921. The charge against him which is chiefly remembered is that in a state of ecstasy he cried, “Ana'l-Ḥaqq” (“I am the True One,” or “the Fact,” i.e. God), and the Ṣúfís regard this utterance as the outcome of a state of exaltation wherein the Seer was so lost in rapture at the contemplation of the Beatific Vision of the Deity that he lost all cognisance and consciousness of himself, and indeed of all Phenomenal Being. At most, say they, his crime was only that he revealed the secret; and generally he is regarded as a saint and a martyr. Thus Ḥáfidh says (ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, p. 364):—
Chu Manṣúrán murád ánán ki bar dárand bar dár-and,
Ki bá ín dard agar dar band-i-darmán-and, dar mánand.
“Those who attain their desire are, like Manṣúrs, crucified,
For if, [being afflicted] with this grief, they hope for a remedy,
they fail [to find it].”
And again in another poem (not given in the above edition) he says:—
Kashad naqsh-i- ‘ANA'L-ḤAQQ’ bar zamín khún,
Chu Manṣúr ar kashí bar dár-am imshab!
“My blood would write ‘I am the True One’ on the ground,
If thou wert to hang me, like Manṣúr, on the cross to-night.’
The later Ṣúfí conception of this man may be found in such works as the Tadhkiratu'l-Awliyá of Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, or the Nafaḥátu'l-Uns of Jámí, or, for European readers, in Tholuck's Ssufismus (Berlin, 1821), pp. 68, 152, &c. but the older and better authorities, Ṭabarí (iii, p. 2289), Ibn Mis-kawayh and the Kitábu'l- 'Uyún (cited on pp. 86-108 of de Goeje's ed. of 'Aríb), and the Fihrist (pp. 190-192), present him in a different light as “a wily conjuror,” “bedecking his doctrines in the phraseology of the Ṣúfís,” “an ignorant and forward pretender to all the sciences,” “a dabbler in Alchemy,” a dangerous and impudent political intriguer, claiming to be an Incarnation of the Deity and outwardly professing the Shí'ite doctrine, but actually in league with the Carmathians and Isma'ilís. Some forty-five books composed by him are enumerated by the Fihrist (p. 192), and what we learn ('Aríb, p. 90) as to the sumptuous manner in which they are written out, sometimes with gold ink, on Chinese paper, brocade, silk, and the like, and magnificently bound, reminds us strongly of the Manichæans. In short, as to the extreme unorthodoxy of this Persian, whose near ancestors had held the Magian faith, there can be little doubt, though the great al-Ghazzálí himself undertook his defence in the Mishkátu'l-Anwár ('Aríb, p. 108); he certainly held all the cardinal doctrines of the Ghulát or extreme Shí'ites; to wit, Ḥulúl (Incarnation), Rij'at (Return to the life of the world in another body), and the like. But he is a remarkable figure, and has created a deep impression on the minds of his countrymen, while some of his Arabic verses are really strong and original, as, for instance, the following ('Aríb, p. 106):—
“My Friend is unrelated to aught of ruth:
He gave me to drink of the Cup which He quaffs, as doth host
with guest.
And when the Cup had gone round, He called for the sword
and the headsman's carpet:
Thus fares it with him who drinks Wine with the Dragon in
Summer.”
His master and teacher Junayd (also, as it would appear, Junayd of Baghdad. a Persian), who died in A.D. 910, was only a little less celebrated, and not much more orthodox.
Amongst other eminent men who died during the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir were Isḥáq b. Ḥunayn, like his father a physician Other eminent men of alMuqtadir's Caliphate. and translator into Arabic of works on Greek Philosophy († A.D. 911); an-Nasá'í, the traditionist († A.D. 914); Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakariyyá ar-Rází, the eminent physician known to mediæval Europe as Rhazes († A.D. 923 or 932), whose most celebrated work, the Manṣúrí, was dedicated to the Sámánid Prince Manṣúr b. Isḥáq; the historian al-A'tham of Kúfa, whose History of the Early Caliphs is remarkable for its strong Shí'ite bias, and is only known to us through its much later Persian translation (lithographed at Bombay A.H. 1305); Muḥammad b. Jábir b. Sinán al-Baṭṭání, the astronomer, known to mediæval Europe as Albategnius († A.D. 929); and the poet Ibnu'l-'Alláf († A.D. 930), a friend of Ibnu'l-Mu'tazz, whose cruel death, which could not be openly deplored, is supposed to form the real subject of the celebrated poem professedly written on the death of a favourite cat killed by a pigeon-fancier on account of its depredations.363a Lastly we may mention Ibn Muqla, the famous calligraphist, who was wazír to al-Muqtadir and his two immediate successors.
The short reigns of the next four Caliphs, al-Qáhir, ar-Ráḍí, al-Muttaqí and al-Mustakfí (A.D. 932-946), were chiefly A.D. 932-946.— Rise of the Buwayhid power. remarkable for the rise of the Buwayhid power, of which the first beginnings have been already mentioned. With the help of their Daylamí and Gílání troops, the three sons of Buwayh, 'Alí 'Imádu'd-Dawla, Ḥasan Ruknu'd-Dawla and Aḥmad Mu'izzu'd-Dawla, having successively subdued Iṣfahán, Arraján, Nawbandaján, Kázarún, Shíráz, Kirmán and Ahwáz, obtained effective control of Baghdad itself during the short reign of al-Mustakfí, who, besides the honorific titles given above in italics, conferred on the third brother the style and rank of Amíru'l-Umará, or Chief Noble.364a These Buwayhids were Persians and Shí'ites: they claimed (though, as al-Bírúní holds,364b on insufficient grounds) descent from the Sásánian King Bahrám Gúr; and they were generous patrons of literature and science. Their beneficent influence. Philosophy especially, which had been stifled by Turkish ascendancy and Ḥanbalite fanaticism, as well as by the growing strength of al-Ash'arí's doctrines, once more revived, and soon found expression in the formation of that remarkable fraternity of encyclopædists known as the Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá, or “Brethren of Purity,” who The Ikhwánu'ṣṢafá. summed up the physical and metaphysical sciences of their time in a series of fifty-one tracts, the contents of which have been largely rendered accessible to European readers by Professor F. Dieterici's numerous publications on this subject. In the Caspian The Ziyárids in Ṭabaristán. provinces the House of Ziyár maintained an authority curtailed in other directions by their own protégés, the Buwayhids; which authority was wielded for thirty-two years (A.D. 935-957) by Washmgír, the son of Ziyár and brother of Mardáwíj.
In the north-east of Persia, Khurásán and Transoxiana the Sámánid power, represented by Naṣr II and his son Núḥ, was The Sámánids. still at its height, and the literary revival of which their Court was the centre continued in full vigour. But it must not be supposed, as has sometimes been done, that the encouragement of Persian literature for which these princes are so remarkable indicated any tendency or desire on their part to repress or restrict the use of the Arabic language. Abundant evidence of their liberal patronage of Arabic letters is afforded by the entire fourth volume of the Yatímatu'd Dahr, the celebrated Arabic anthology of Abú Manṣúr 'Abdu'l-Malik ath-Tha'álibí of Níshápúr (b. A.D. 961, d. A.D. 1038). The substance of this portion of his work has been rendered accessible to the European reader by M. A. C. Barbier de Meynard in two articles published in the Journal Asiatique for Feb.-March, 1853 (pp. 169-239), and March-April, 1854 (pp. 291-361), under the title “Tableau littéraire du Khorassan et de la Transoxiane au quatrième siècle de l'Hégire”; but one passage of the original work (Damascus ed., vol. iv, pp. 33-4) so strongly emphasises this point that it is here given in translation:—
“Bukhára was, under the Sámánid rule, the Focus of Splendour, the Shrine of Empire, the Meeting-place of the most unique Literary splendour of Bukhárá under the Sámánids. intellects of the Age, the Horizon of the literary stars of the World, and the Fair of the greatest scholars of the Period. Abú Ja'far Muḥammad b. Músá al-Músawí related to me as follows. ‘My father Abu'l-Ḥasan received an invitation to Bukhárá in the days of the Amír-i-Sa'íd [Naṣr II b. Aḥmad, reigned A.D. 913-942], and there were gathered together the most remarkable of its men of letters, such as Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Laḥḥám, Abú Muḥammad b. Maṭrán, Abú Ja'far b. al-'Abbás b. al-Ḥasan, Abú Muḥammad b. Abu 'th-Thiyáb, Abu'n-Naṣr al-Harthamí, Abú Naṣr adh-Dharífí, Rijá b. al-Walíd al-Isbahání, 'Alí b. Hárún ash-Shaybání, Abú Isḥáq al-Fársí, Abu'l-Qásim ad-Dínawarí, Abú 'Alí az-Zawzaní, and others belonging to the same class.366a And when these were settled in familiar conversation one would engage with another in plucking the fringes of some discussion, each offering to the other fragrant flowers of dialectic, and pursuing the perfumes of Culture, and letting fall in succession necklaces of pearls, and blowing on magical knots.366b And my father said to me, “O my son, this is a notable and red-letter day: make it an epoch as regards the assembling of the standards of talent and the most incomparable scholars of the age, and remember it, when I am gone, amongst the great occasions of the period and the notable moments of thy life. For I scarcely think that in the lapse of the years thou wilt see the like of these met together.” And so it was, for never again was my eye brightened with the sight of such a gathering.’”
Amongst the men of learning and letters who died during these fourteen years were the following: Abu'l-Ḥasan Necrology of the years A.D. 932- 946. al-Ash'arí († A.D. 935), the chief promoter of the orthodox reaction, to whom most justly might the Mu'tazilites to whom he owed his education apply the words of the poet:—
U'allimuhu'r- rimáyata kulla yawmin,
Fa-lamma 'shtadda sá'iduhu, ramá-ní!“I taught him daily how to use the bow,
And when his arm grew strong he laid me low!”
Ibn Durayd, the philologist († A.D. 934), author of the Arabic lexicon entitled the Jamhara. Sa'íd b. al-Baṭríq, better known as Eutychius († A.D. 929), the Christian patriarch of Alexandria, author of a well-known history. Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi of Cordova († A.D. 940), poet and historian. Al-Kulíní (or Kulayní, † A.D. 939), a celebrated theologian of the Shí'a, author of the Káfí. The physicians Sinán b. Thábit b. Qurra († A.D. 942), his son Ibráhím († A.D. 947), and 'Ubaydu'lláh b. Jibríl b. Bôkht-Yishú' († A.D. 941). The theologian al-Máturídí († A.D. 944); Ibn Serapion († circ. A.D. 945), the author of the very interesting description of Baghdad published and translated in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society by Mr. Guy le Strange in 1895; the historian as-Ṣúlí († A.D. 946), a converted Magian of Gurgán; and the Ṣúfí saint ash-Shiblí (d. A.D. 946) of Khurásán, the disciple of Junayd of Baghdad, and fellow-student of Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj. For religious manifestations this period was not remarkable: the Carmathians, as has been already noted, discouraged by the scandals connected with their false Mahdí Ibn Abí Zakariyyá, were remarkably quiet: their eminent general Abú Ṭáhir al-Jannábí died in A.D. 944: the power of the Fáṭimid Caliphs was seriously checked in North Africa;367a and a few years later (A.D. 950) we find the Black Stone restored to Mecca and Carmathian soldiers in the service of the Buwayhid prince Mu'izzu'd-Dawla.
We now come to the long reign of al-Muṭí' (A.D. 946-974), during which the general political conditions in Caliphate of al-Mutí' (A.D. 946-974). Persia underwent little change, the Sámánids still holding the north and north-east, the Ziyárids the Caspian provinces, and the House of Buwayh the south and (save in name) Baghdad, where, under the title of Amíru'l-Umará, they were practically supreme. During the last decade of this period the Fáṭimid anti-Caliph al-Mu'izz Abú Tamím Ma'add obtained possession of Egypt, and transferred his capital from Mahdiyya to Cairo, which thenceforward till the extinction of the dynasty in A.D. 1171 remained the centre of their power. About the same time a quarrel arose between them and their former allies the Carmathians, who about A.D. 971 even allied themselves with the 'Abbásids.
368aTurning once more to the world of literature and science, we may note the following events. In A.D. 950 died Abú Literary manifestations of this period. Naṣr al-Fárábí, the greatest philosopher of Islám before Avicenna, and, curiously enough, of Turkish origin.368b About the same time al-Iṣtakhrí the geographer produced his recension of al-Balkhí's work, and the Persian sea-captain Buzurg b. Shahriyár of Rámhurmuz wrote in Arabic, from his own recollections and information derived from other travellers, his curious work on the Marvels of India. The death of Rúdagí, generally regarded as the father of Persian poetry, and the birth of another Persian poet, Kisá'í, also happened at this time. About A.D. 956 died the great historian al-Mas'údí, of Arab extraction and alleged Mu'ta- Al-Mas'udi. zilite leanings, of whose voluminous writings the Kitábu't-Tanbíh wa'l-Ishráf is accessible to students in the original Arabic, and the better known Murúju 'dh-Dhahab both in the original and in the French translation of MM. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille. Narshakhí, the historian of Bukhárá (preserved to us only in the later Persian translation of al-Qúbáwí made about A.D. 1128) died in A.D. 959. Gúshyár, the astronomer of Gílán, flourished about the same time; as did also the Christian physician 'Ísá b. 'Alí, who compiled a Biography of Oculists. In A.D. 961 was born Abú Manṣúr 'Abdu'l-Malik ath-Tha'álibí, the author of the Yatímatu'd-Dahr Al-Bal'amí's Persian version of aṭ-Ṭabarí's history. cited above, as well as of many other important and interesting works, at Níshápúr. About three years later the minister of Manṣúr I the Sámá-nid, Abú 'Alí Muḥammad al-Bal'amí, at the command of his royal master, translated into Persian in an abridged form the great history of Ṭabarí, which is one of the earliest important prose works in Persian which have come down to us. This version has been published in a French translation by Dubeux and Zotenberg (Paris, 1867-1874), and the number of excellent and carefully written old MSS. of it which exist in our public libraries show in what high esteem it was held.
A few years later (A.D. 965) died al-Mutanabbí, who, though disparaged by some European scholars, is generally Al-Mutanabbí. regarded by all Arabic-speaking people as the greatest poet of their race. Von Hammer calls him, in the translation of his poems which he published at Vienna in 1823, “der grösste Arabische Dichter”; and Jules Mohl (Journal Asiatique for 1859, series v, vol. 14, pp. 36-7) has the following most sensible remarks on him:—
“Quant au rang que chaque poëte doit occuper dans sa littérature nationale, il n'appartient qu'à sa propre nation de le lui assigner, et s'il le garde pendant des siècles, comme Motanabbi l'a gardé, il ne nous reste qu'à accepter l'opinion de ses juges naturels, dont la décision, après les discussions prolongées et passionnées, parâit être que Motanabbi, malgré ses défauts et son inégalité, est le meilleur représentant du gôut et des sentiments des Arabes musulmans, comme les auteurs des Moallakat sont les représentants les plus fidèles des sentiments des Arabes du désert.”
The influence of al-Mutanabbí and one or two other Arabic poets on the early developments of Persian poetry was also, as has been pointed out by Kazimirski in his edition and translation of the Díwán of Minúchihrí (Paris, 1886, pp. 143 and 316), very great, and for this reason alone his works ought to be read by every serious student of the origins of Persian poetry. The far-fetched conceits and rhetorical figures which abound in his verses will hardly appeal to many European readers as they do to the poet's countrymen, and at times he gives expression to ideas which to our taste are grossly unpoetical;
369aothers of his verses, however, breathe the old Bedouin spirit, amongst these being the verse which, as Ibn Khallikán says,370a “caused his death.” For, as he was returning from Persia with a large sum of money which had been bestowed on him by the Buwayhid prince 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla, he was attacked near Kúfa by Arabs of the tribe of Asad. Being worsted in the combat, he was preparing to take to flight when his slave cried to him: “Let it never be said that you fled from the combat, you who are the author of this verse:—
‘I am known to the horse-troop, the night and the desert's expanse,
Not more to the paper and pen than the sword and the lance!’”
So al-Mutanabbí turned again to the combat and met his death like a true son of the desert. The Arab pride of race which animated him is shown by the following incident. One day a number of learned men370b were conversing in the presence of that illustrious prince Sayfu'd-Dawla, and the grammarian Ibn Khálawayh was expressing his views on some point of Arabic philology, when al-Mutanabbí interrupted him, saying, “Silence, fellow! What hast thou to do with Arabic, thou who art a Persian of Khuzistán?”
More admirable, according to Western taste, than al-Mutanabbí, though less celebrated, was his contemporary Abu Abú Firás alḤamdámí. Firás, the cousin of the above-mentioned prince Sayfu'd-Dawla, to whose “circle” also (along with a galaxy of less famous poets like an-Námí, an-Náshí, az-Záhí, ar-Raffá' and al-Babbaghá) he belonged. Von Kremer370c esteems him very highly, and concludes his notice of him in these words:—
“Thus is Abu Firás the picture of the stirring times in which he lived: in him once again the old, proud, warlike spirit of antiquity was re-incarnated, only the finer feelings being the outcome of the later culture. The inner history of Arabic poetry ought, indeed, to conclude with him, had not a greater and more lofty genius371a stepped forth, who independently gave a new and important development to the philosophical and speculative turn of thought first introduced by Abu'l-'Aṭáhiya.”
Abu Firás was killed in battle in A.D. 968, a year remarkable also for the birth of one of the great mystical poets of Persia, Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr. Abu Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr, the author of a celebrated collection of quatrains. About the same time died Abu'l-Faraj of Iṣfahan, the compiler of that vast thesaurus of Arabic verse known as the Kitábu'l- Abu'l-Faraj alIṣfahání. Aghání or “Book of Songs,” a work which in the Cairo edition comprises twenty volumes. He also was of Arab, and, as it is asserted, of Umayyad descent, and belonged to the “circle” of Sayfu'd-Dawla. About Ibu Kushájim A.D. 971 died the poet Ibn Kushájim, remarkable for his Indian descent and the high position which he held in the Carmathian government;371b and in the same year Abu'l-Fath al-Bustí. was born the poet Abu'l-Fatḥ al-Bustí, one of the earliest literary protégés of the Ghaznawí dynasty. Finally, the last year of the Caliphate of al-Muṭí' is notable for the birth of two very eminent men, the poet Abu'l-'Alá al-Ma'arrí and al-Bírúní.
We come now to the Caliphate of at-Ṭá'í (A.D. 974-991), whose contemporaries were the Sámánid Nuḥ II b. Manṣúr Caliphate of al-Ṭá'í (A.D. 974- 991).—Political condition of Persia at this time. (A.D. 976-997) in Khurásán, Qábús b. Washmgír the Ziyárid (A.D. 976-1012) in Ṭabaristán, 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla in Fárs, Kirmán, Ahwáz, and Southern Persia, and in Egypt the Fáṭimid Anti-Caliph al-'Azíz Abu Manṣúr Nazár (A.D. 975-996). About the same time there rose into prominence Sabuktagín (A.D. 976-997), “the true founder of the Ghaz-nawí dynasty,” as Stanley Lane-Poole says, whose son Maḥmúd achieved so mighty a renown as a warrior and champion of Islám. This Sabuktagín was originally one of the Turkish slaves of Alptagín, himself in turn one of the Turkish slaves and favourites of 'Abdu'l-Malik the Sámánid; and he enlarged the little kingdom founded by his predecessors Alptagín and his two sons Isḥáq and Balkátagín in the fastnesses of the Sulaymán Mountains by the capture of Písháwar from the Rájpúts, and by the acquisition of the government of Khurásán in A.D. 994 under the nominal suzerainty of the Sámánids.
In the literary history of this period we have to notice first the death of the Persian poet Daqíqí (A.D. 975), who began the Literary history of this period.— Daqíqí. composition of the Sháhnáma which was afterwards so gloriously completed by Firdawsí. About a year later was composed a very important Arabic work, now rendered accessible to all scholars in the excellent edition of Van Vloten (Leyden, 1895) named “the Keys of the Sciences” (Mafátíḥu'l-'Ulúm), by Abu 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad The Mafátíḥu'l'Ulúm. b. Aḥmad b. Yúsuf al-Khwárazmí, which, in a small compass, gives a conspectus of the sciences, both indigenous and foreign, known to the Muslims of that time, together with their terminology. About Ibn-Ḥawqal. the same time Ibn Ḥawqal372a re-edited al-Iṣtakhrí's recension of the geography composed by Abu Zayd al-Balkhí, a pupil of the philosopher al-Kindí. About Aṣ Ṣírafí. a year later (A.D. 978) died the Arabic grammarian aṣ-Ṣírafí, who was not only a Persian but the son of a Zoroastrian named Bihzád. In A.D. 980, was Avicenna. born the great philosopher and physician Abú 'Alí b. Síná (Avicenna), also a Persian. A year later died a mystic of some note, Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. Khafíf of Shíráz. In A.D. 982 died Ibráhím b. Hilál aṣ-Ṣábí, Ibn Khafíf the mystic.—Aṣ-Ṣábí. one of the heathen of Ḥarárn, whose great history of the Buwayhids, entitled Kitábu't-Táj (“the Book of the Crown”), has unfortunately not come down to us. This work was written in the highly artificial and rhetorical style which was now coming into fashion, and replacing the simple, unvarnished narratives of the earlier historians, and which, as Brockelmann points out, had a great influence on the formation of the prose style of the more ambitious Persian writers. Another writer of the same Ibn Nubáta. type, Ibn Nubáta the Syrian, Court preacher to Sayfu'd-Dawla, who died in A.D. 984, is still read in the East, where some of his writings have been Tamím b. alMu'izz. printed. The Fáṭimid poet Tamím b. al-Mu'izz († A.D. 984), brother of the Anti-Caliph al-'Azíz, in whose honour he composed panegyrics, deserves mention. The traveller and geographer al-Maqdisí, or Al-Muqaddasí. al-Muqaddasí, composed his important work, entitled Aḥsanu't-Taqásím fí ma'rifati'l-Aqálím373a in A.D. 985, a work which has received the highest tributes of praise from several eminent Orientalists.373b A year later was Al-Qushayrí. born al-Qushayrí, the author of an important treatise on Ṣúfíism. About A.D. 988 was composed the The Fihrist. Fihrist,373c or “Index,” one of the most important sources of knowledge for the literary and religious history of the early Muslim period, and even for the more ancient times which preceded it, whereof the author, Abu'l Faraj Mu-ḥammad b. Isḥáq an-Nadím al-Warráq al-Baghdádí, died some six years later. Of his valuable work Brockelmann speaks as follows:373d “His book, which he named simply the Fihrist, i.e., ‘Index,’was intended to include all books in the Arabic language available in his time, whether original compositions or translations. After an introduction on the different kinds of scripts, he deals with the revealed books of the different religions, then with each individual branch of Literature, from the Qur'án and the writings connected therewith down to the Occult Sciences. In each section he groups the individual writers in approximately chronological order, and communicates what is known to him of their lives and works. To this book we owe many valuable data for the history of the civilisation and literature, not only of the Arabs, but generally of the whole of the Nearer History of Qum. East.” About the same time (A.D. 988) was composed one of the earliest local histories of Persia, a monograph on the city of Qum, which is preserved in a Persian translation (made in A.D. 1128),374a though the Arabic original is lost. The work was dedicated to that great The Ṣáḥib Is-ma'íl b. 'Abbád. patron of literature the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád (b. A.D. 936, d. 995), who was minister to the two Buwayhid rulers Mu'ayyidu'd-Dawla and Fakhru'd-Dawla, and who was himself the author of a copious Arabic dictionary called the Muḥíṭ (“Comprehensive”), still partly preserved, and of a treatise on Prosody called the Iqná' (“Satisfaction”), of which a fine MS., dated A.H. 559 (= A.D. 1164), formerly in the possession of M. Schefer, is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Of the crowd of poets and men of letters whom the Ṣáḥib's generosity drew round him we read in ath-Tha'álibí's Yatímatu'd-Dahr (vol. iii, pp. 31 et seqq.); to his unparalleled generosity all writers bear testimony, so that the contemporary poet Abú Sa'íd ar-Rustamí exclaims in a threnody which he composed on his patron's death:374b “God hath willed that the hopes of the needy and the gifts of the generous should perish by the death of Ibn 'Abbád, and that they should never meet again till the day of resurrection.” His love of books was such that, being invited by the Sámánid King Núḥ II b. Manṣúr to become his prime minister, he excused himself on this ground, amongst others, that four hundred camels would be required for the transport of his library alone.375a Poet, philologist, patron of letters, statesman and wit, the Ṣáḥib stands out as one of the brightest ornaments of that liberal and enlightened Buwayhid dynasty of which, unfortunately, our knowledge is so much less complete than we could desire.
Amongst other men of letters and science belonging to this period, we can only mention the great Shí'ite theologian Ibn Ibn Bábawayh. Bábawayh († A.D. 991),375b whose work on jurisprudence called Kitábu man la yaḥḍuruhu'l-faqíh (“the Book of him who hath no lawyer at hand”) is still of high authority in Persia; the physician 'Alí b. 'Abbás al-Majúsí Al-Majúsí. († A.D. 994),375c whose father was, as his name implies, an adherent of the Zoroastrian faith; the philologist al-Mubarrad, author of the celebrated Kámil;375d and Avicenna. last, but not least, the great Avicenna (Abú 'Alí b. Síná), philosopher, physician, and statesman († A.D. 1037), who at this time, being only about seventeen years of age, established his medical reputation by curing the Sámánid ruler Núḥ II b. Manṣúr, whose favour and protection he thus secured. Of this great man we shall have more to say in a subsequent chapter.
We have now brought our history to the end of the tenth century of our era, at which point we may pause to survey, Review of this period. before proceeding further, the scientific and literary achievements of this period, its religious and philosophical movements, and more particularly the earliest developments of that revival of the Persian national literature which now, having once been inaugurated, goes forwards with ever-increasing force. This period which we are discussing began, as we have seen, with a Turkish ascendancy fraught with peril alike to the Caliphate and to the civilisation of Islám, and ended with the sudden rise to almost unlimited power of another Turk, Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna (succeeded Maḥmúd of Ghazna. to the throne, A.D. 998; died A.D. 1030), who, beginning with the small kingdom inherited from his father Sabuktagín, overthrew the tottering House of Sámán; invaded India in twelve separate campaigns (A.D. 1001-1024), wherein he slew innumerable “idolators,” destroyed many idol-temples, and permanently annexed the Panjáb; reduced Ghúr (A.D. 1012); annexed Transoxiana (A.D. 1016), and struck a death-blow at the House of Buwayh, from whom he wrested Isfahán. But between these two extremes we see Persia, ever more detached from the direct control of the Caliph, divided between several noble and enlightened dynasties of Persian extraction, the Houses of Sámán, Buwayh, and Ziyár, free once more to develop on its own lines and to produce in its native tongue a splendid and extensive literature.
BEGINNING OF THE GHAZNAWÍ PERIOD
IT seems desirable that at this point, standing, as it were, on the threshold of modern Persian literature, we should consider in somewhat greater detail the state of development attained by the Science and Literature of the Muslims, which were the common heritage of all those nations who had embraced Islám. Persian is often spoken of as a very easy language, and this is true, so far as the language itself is concerned; but to be a good Persian scholar is very difficult, since it involves a thorough familiarity, not only with the Qu'rán, the Traditions of the Prophet, and the ancient Persian legends, but with the whole scientific and literary point of view which prevailed in the Muhammadan East. This applies more particularly to those writers who lived before the terrible devastation wrought by the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century, for never after this did the literature and science of the Muslims reach their old level, owing to the wholesale massacres and acts of incendiarism perpetrated by these hateful savages. The scientific outlook of the later writers is much more circumscribed; the Arabic language ceased to be generally used throughout the realms of Islám; and, owing to the destruction of Baghdad and the Caliphate, there was no longer a metropolis of Culture and Learning to co-ordinate, concentrate, and combine the intellectual efforts of the Muslim world.
We possess fortunately three admirable sources of information on the range and scope of the literature and science of Islám at the period (i.e., the end of the tenth century of our era) of which we are speaking, viz.:—
(1) The Treatises of the Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá, or “Brethren of Purity,” that society of encyclopædists and philosophers of which we have already spoken in the last chapter.
(2) The Mafátíḥu'l-'Ulúm, or “Keys of the Sciences,” composed in A.D. 976 by Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. Yúsuf al-Kátib (“the Scribe”) of Khwárazm, and recently edited (Leyden, 1895) by Van Vloten.
(3) The Fihrist, or “Index,” of Abu'l-Faraj Muḥammad b. Isḥáq al-Warráq (“the Bookseller” or “Copyist”) of Baghdad, better known as Ibn Abí Ya'qúb an-Nadím, composed in A.D. 988, and edited by Flügel in 1871-2.
All these works are written in Arabic, and are of an essentially encyclopædic character. The two first deal more particularly with Philosophy and Science, and the third with Literature and “Culturgeschichte.” I propose to discuss them in the order given above, and to give some account of their scope and contents.
This society of encyclopædists flourished at Baṣra in the latter half of the tenth century of our era, and included, amongst the five or six of its members whose names have come down to us, men from Bust in the far east of Persia, Zanján in the north-west of the same country, and Jerusalem; while, of the remaining three, one was certainly Persian, and the other two were probably of Arab extraction.378a This society summed up the philosophical and scientific learning of the time in a series of fifty-one anonymous tracts, written in a popular style, of which a complete edition was printed at Bombay in four volumes, comprising some 1,134 pages, in A.H. 1305-6 (A.D. 1887-9). Complete or partial translations of these tracts (Rasá'il) exist in several other Eastern languages, viz., Persian (lith. Bombay, A.D. 1884), Hindustání, and Turkish. For a knowledge of their contents and an exposition of their teachings we are indebted chiefly to the learned and indefatigable Dr. Friedrich Dieterici of Berlin, who published between 1858 and 1895 seventeen valuable monographs (including six texts) on Arabian Philosophy in the ninth and tenth centuries of our era, with especial reference to the Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá. The fifty-one tracts published by this fraternity covered the whole ground of Philosophy, as understood by its members, pretty exhaustively. But of course the aspirant after philosophical knowledge was supposed to be already well grounded in the ordinary subjects of study, which are thus enumerated by Dieterici:379a —
1. Reading and Writing.
2. Lexicography and Grammar.
3. Calculation and Computation.
4. Prosody and the Poetic Art.
5. The Science of Omens and Portents.
6. The Science of Magic, Amulets, Alchemy, and Legerdemain.
7. Trades and Crafts.
8. Buying and Selling, Commerce, Agriculture, and Cattle-farming.
9. Biography and Narrative.
1. Knowledge of the Scripture (i.e., the Qur'án).
2. Exegesis of the Scripture.
3. The Science of Tradition.
4. Jurisprudence.
5. The Commemoration of God, Admonition, the Ascetic Life, Mysticism (Ṣúfíism), and the Ecstatic or Beatific Vision.
The philosophic studies properly so called include—
(i) Mathematics, Logic, &c. (ar-Riyáḍiyyát wa'l-Mantiqiyyát =
(ii) Natural Science and Anthropology (aṭ-Ṭabí'iyyát wa'l-Insániyyát
=
(iii) Pyschology (an-Nafsániyyát =
(iv) Theology (al-Iláhiyyát =
The Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá were essentially synthetical and en-cyclopædic, seeking, as Dieterici says (Makrokosmos, p. iv), “to correlate all the materials of knowledge, so far as these had reached them; and to construct a synthetic view of the material and spiritual worlds which would guarantee an answer to all questions, conformable to the standpoint of the Culture of that time.” In general the topics discussed by them may be divided, according to Dieterici's plan, into—
(i) The Macrocosm, or the Development of the Universe as the Evolution of Plurality out of Unity, an Evolution by Emanation from God through Intelligence, Soul, Primal Matter, Secondary Matter, the World, Nature, and the Elements to the final Products, or “Threefold Progeny,” i.e., the Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Kingdoms.
(ii) The Microcosm (Man), or the Return (“Remanatio”) from Plurality to Unity.
The general character of their system was a “combination of Semitic Monotheism with Neo-Platonism,” so that in a sense Philo-Judæus may, I suppose, be regarded as their prototype. To this synthesis they were impelled, as Dieterici implies (Makrokosmos, pp. 86-88), by a conviction of the unity of all truth, religious, philosophical, and scientific. Co-ordinating all the sciences known to them with this view and for this object, they studied each not only for its own sake, but in its relation to Truth as a whole, and endeavoured to embody their conceptions in an intelligible, attractive, and even popular form, to which end they made extensive use (as in their celebrated apologue of the Beasts and Man) of simile, allegory, and parable. In their prehistoric and scientific conceptions they were most influenced by Aristotle as regards Logic and Natural Science, by the Neo-Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists in their theories of Numbers and Emanations, by Ptolemy in their ideas of Natural Hïstory, and by Galen in Anthropology and Medicine, the whole synthesis being informed by a strong Pantheistic Idealism.381a They believed that perfection was to be reached by a combination of the Greek Philosophy with the Arabian Religious Law.381b They were the successors of al-Kindí and al-Fárábí, and the predecessors of the Great Avicenna, with whom, as Dieterici observes,381c “the development of Philosophy in the East came to an end.” From the East this system, the so-called “Arabian Philosophy,” passed to the Moors in Spain; whence, after undergoing further development at the hands of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, † A.D. 1135), it became diffused in Europe, and gave rise to the Christian Scholastic Philosophy, to which, according to Dieterici,381d it rendered the greatest service in restoring the Aristotelian element, which, in the earlier systems of Christian philosophy, had been almost ousted by the Neo-Platonist element.
Turning now to the Mafátíhu'l-'Ulúm, we find the sciences primarily divided into two great groups, the indigenous or Arabian, and the exotic, which are for the most part Greek or Persian.
1. Jurisprudence (fiqh), discussed in 11 sections, including First Principles (uṣúl), and Applications (furú'), such as Legal Purity; Prayer; Fasting; Alms; Pilgrimage; Buying and Selling; Marriage; Homicide, Wounding, Retaliation, Compensation, and Blood-wit, &c.
2. Scholastic Philosophy (kalám), discussed in 7 sections, including its subject-matter; the various schools and sects of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Gentiles (Persians, Indians, Chaldæans, Manichæans, Marcionites, Bardesanians, Mazdakites, Sophists, &c.); Arabian heathenism, and the First Principles of Religion discussed and established by this science.
3. Grammar (naḥw), discussed in 12 sections.
4. The Secretarial Art (kitábat), discussed in 8 sections; including explanations of all the technical terms employed in the various Government offices.
5. Prosody ('arúḍ) and the Poetic Art (shi'r), discussed in 5 sections.
6. History (akhbár), discussed in 9 sections; especially the history of Ancient Persia, Muhammadan history, pre-Muhammadan history of Arabia, especially Yaman, and the history of Greece and Rome.
7. Philosophy (falsafa), discussed in 3 sections, including its subdivisions and terminology; the derivation of the word (correctly explained from the Greek); and the proper position in relation to it of Logic (manṭiq), the Natural Sciences (Medicine, Meteorology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, and Alchemy), and the Mathematical Sciences, Geometry, Astronomy, Music, &c.).
8. Logic (manṭiq), discussed in 9 sections.
9. Medicine (ṭibb), discussed in 8 sections, including Anatomy, Pathology, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Diet, Weights and Measures, &c.
10. Arithmetic (arithmátíqí, 'ilmu'l-'adad, ḥisáb), discussed in 5 sections, including the elements of Algebra.
11. Geometry (handasa, júmetriya), discussed in 4 sections.
12. Astronomy ('ilmu'n-nujúm), discussed in 4 sections, treating of the names of the Planets and Fixed Stars; the composition of the Universe according to the Ptolemaic system; Judicial Astrology; and the instruments and apparatus used by astronomers.
13. Music (músíqí), discussed in 3 sections; including an account of the various musical instruments and their names, and musical notation and terminology.
14. Mechanics ('ilmu'l-ḥiyal; “the Science of Devices”), in 2 sections, including Hydrostatics.
15. Alchemy (kímiyá), in 3 sections, including an account of the apparatus, the substances, and the processes used by those who practice it.
The Fihrist, or “Index,” of Muḥammad b. Isḥáq an-Nadím is one of the most remarkable and valuable works in the Arabic language which has survived to our days. Manuscripts of it are rare, and more or less defective. Flügel's edition is based on two Paris MSS. (of which the more ancient codex contains the first four of the ten Maqálát or “Discourses” into which the book is divided, and the more modern, transcribed for de Slane in Constantinople, presumably from the MSS. numbered 1134 and 1135 in the Küprülü-zádé Library, the latter portion of the work, from the fifth section of the fifth discourse onwards); two Vienna MSS., both incorrect and incomplete; the Leyden MS., which contains only Maqálas vii-x; and two Leyden fragments.383a Sprenger hazarded a conjecture that the work was in reality a Catalogue raisonné of some large library, but this view is rejected by Brockelmann.
383bBe this as it may, I know of no Arabic book which inspires me at once with so much admiration for the author's enormous erudition, and so much sadness that sources of knowledge at once so numerous and so precious as were available when he wrote should, for the most part, have entirely perished. Of authors who are known to us only by a few small fragments, he enumerates dozens or scores of works, but even these are the fortunate few, for the majority are known to us only or chiefly by his notices. His preface is such a model of conciseness, such a pleasing contrast to the empty rhetoric which disfigures, as a rule, at any rate the opening pages of most later Arabic and Persian works, that I cannot forbear translating it here.
“Lord, help man by Thy Mercy to reach upwards beyond preliminaries to conclusions, and to win to the aim in view without Translation of Preface to the Fihrist. prolixity of words! And therefore have we limited ourselves to these words at the beginning of this our Book, seeing that they sufficiently indicate our object in compiling it, if it please God. Therefore we say (and in God do we seek help, and of Him do we pray a blessing on all His Prophets and His servants who are single-hearted in their allegiance to Him: and there is no strength and no power save in God, the Supreme, the Mighty):—This is the Index of the books of all peoples of the Arabs and non-Arabs whereof somewhat exists in the language and script of the Arabs, on all branches of knowledge; together with accounts of their compilers and the classes of their authors, and the genealogies of these, the dates of their births, the extent of their lives, the times of their deaths, the location of their countries, and their virtues and vices, from the time when each science was first discovered until this our age, to wit the year three hundred and seventy-seven of the Flight (= A.D. 987-8).”
The author then immediately proceeds to summarise the contents of his book in the following epitome:—
First Discourse, in three Sections.
Section i. Describing the languages of the different peoples, Contents of the Fihrist.
Arab and non-Arab, the characteristics of their writings, the varieties of their scripts, and the forms of their written character.
Section ii. On the names of the Books of the Law (i.e., the Scriptures) revealed to the different sects of Muslims (i.e., Jews, Christians, and Sabeans)384a and the different sects of those who follow them.Section iii. Describing the Book “which falsehood approacheth not from before nor from behind, a Revelation from One Wise and Laudable”;385a and the names of the books composed on the sciences connected therewith, with notices of the Readers, and the names of those who handed down their traditions, and the anomalies of their readings.
Second Discourse, in three Sections, on the Grammarians and Philologists.
Section i. On the Origin of Grammar, with accounts of the grammarians of the School of Baṣra, and the Stylists of the Arabs, and the names of their books.
Section ii. Account of the Grammarians and Philologists of the School of Kúfa, and the names of their books.
Section iii. Account of a school of Grammarians who strove to combine the views of the two schools (above mentioned), and the names of their books.
Third Discourse, in three sections, on History, Belles Lettres, Biography, and Genealogies.
Section i. Account of the Historians, Narrators, Genealogists, Biographers, and Chroniclers, and the names of their books.
Section ii. Account of the Kings, Secretaries, Preachers, Ambassadors, Chancellors, and Government Officials (who composed books), and the names of their books.
Section iii. Account of the Courtiers, Favourites, Minstrels, Jesters, and Buffoons (who composed books), and the names of their books.
Fourth Discourse, in two sections, on Poetry and Poets.
Section i. On the groups of the Heathen Poets, and such of the Muslim poets as reached back to the Pagan Period (of the Arabs), and of those who collected their díwáns, and the names of those who handed down their poems (till they were collected and edited).
Section ii. On the groups of the Muslim Poets, including the modern poets down to this our time.
Fifth Discourse, in five sections, on the Scholastic Philosophy and the School-men.
Section i. On the origin of the Scholastic Philosophy, and of the School-men of the Mu'tazilites and Murjites, and the names of their books.
Section ii. Account of the School-men of the Shí'ites, whether Imámís, Zaydís, or other of the Extremists (Ghulát) and Isma'ílís, and the names of their books.
Section iii. On the School-men of the Predestinarians and the Ḥashwiyya, and the names of their books.
Section iv. Account of the School-men of the Khárijites, their classes, and the names of their books.
Section v. Account of the wandering mendicants, recluses, devotees, and Ṣúfís, who taught a scholastic philosophy based on their fancies and reveries, and the names of their books.
Sixth Discourse, in eight sections, on Jurisprudence, and the Jurisconsults and Traditionists.
Section i. Account of Málik and his disciples, and the names of their books.
Section ii. Account of Abú Ḥanífa an-Nu'mán and his disciples, and the names of their books.
Section iii. Account of the Imám ash-Sháfi'í and his disciples, and the names of their books.
Section iv. Account of Dá'úd b. 'Alí . . b. Khalaf al-Iṣfahání and his disciples, and the names of their books.
Section v. Account of the Shí'ite Jurisconsults, and the names of their books.
Section vi. Account of the Jurisconsults who were at the same time Traditionists and transmitters of Tradition, and the names of their books.
Section vii. Account of Abú Ja'far aṭ-Ṭabarí, and his disciples, and the names of their books.
Section viii. Account of the Khárijite Jurisconsults, and the names of their books.
Seventh Discourse, in three sections, on Philosophy and the Ancient Sciences.
Section i. Account of the Materialist Philosophers and the Logicians, and the names of their books and the versions and commentaries of these, alike such as still exist, and such as are mentioned but are no longer extant, and such as were extant but are now lost.
Section ii. Account of the Mathematicians, Geometricians, Arithmeticians, Musicians, Accountants, and Astronomers, and the makers of [scientific] instruments, and the Mechanics and Engineers.
Section iii. On the origins of Medicine, with accounts of the physicians amongst the Ancients and the Moderns, and the names of their books, with their versions and commentaries.
Eighth Discourse, in three sections, on Legends, Fables, Charms, Magic, and Conjuring.
Section i. Account of the Story-tellers, Saga-men and Artists, and the names of the books composed on Legends and Fables.
Section ii. Account of the Charm-mongers, Conjurors and Magicians, and the names of their books.
Section iii. On books composed on divers other topics, whereof the authors and compilers are unknown.
Ninth Discourse, in two sections, on Sects and Creeds.
Section i. Describing the Sects of the Ḥarránian Chaldæans, called in our time Sabæans, and the Sects of Dualists, whether Manichæans, Bardesanians, Khurramís, Mar-cionites, Mazdakites, and others, and the names of their books.
Section ii. Describing sundry strange and curious sects, such as those of India and China, and others of other like peoples.
Tenth Discourse, containing accounts of the Alchemists and seekers after the Philosopher's Stone amongst the Ancient and Modern Philosophers, and the names of their books.
Besides these three books there is another and earlier work, the Kitábu'l-Ma'árif of Ibn Qutayba († circ. A.D. 889), of which the text was published at Göttingen by the indefatigable Wüstenfeld in 1850, which gives us a good idea of the historical and biographical knowledge deemed necessary for all who had any pretensions to be fairly well read. In this book the author treats of the following subjects: the Creation (pp. 6-10); Sacred History, giving a brief account of the Patriarchs and Prophets (including not only those mentioned in the Old Testament, but others, such as Húd and Ṣáliḥ, mentioned in the Qur'án), and Christ (pp. 10-27); Profane History, including the chronology and racial divisions of mankind, the names of the true believers amongst the Arabs before the Mission of the Prophet, the Genealogies of the Arabs (pp. 28-56); the Genealogy and Kinsfolk of the Prophet, including his wives, children, clients, and horses, the history of his Mission, wars, triumph, and death (pp. 56-83); the History of the Four Orthodox Caliphs (pp. 83-106), of 'Alí's sons, of Zubayr, Ṭalḥa, 'Abdu'r-Rahmán b. 'Awf, Sa'd b. Abí Waqqáṣ and other eminent Muslims of early times, concluding with a brief list of “the Hypocrites” (pp. 106-174); History of the Umayyads, and of the 'Abbásid Caliphs down to al-Mu'tamid, in whose time the author wrote (pp. 175-200); biographies of famous statesmen, officers, and governors of the Muhammadan Empire, and of notable rebels (pp. 201-215); biographies of the Tábi'ún or successors of the “Companions” of the Prophet (pp. 216-248); biographies of the chief doctors and teachers of Islám, of the founders of its principal schools of thought, of the traditionists, “readers” of the Qur'án, genealogists and historians, grammarians and transmitters of verse, &c., of the principal mosques, of the early conquests of the Muslims and other matters concerning them, and of the chief outbreaks of plague and pestilence (pp. 248-293); account of the great “Days” (i.e., the famous battles) of the Arabs, of those amongst them whose names became a proverb, of their religions before the time of Islám, of the chief sects in Islám, and of the manner in which certain peoples (e.g., the Kurds and Jews) came by their names (pp. 293-304); and histories of the Kings of Yaman, Syria (Ghassánids), Ḥíra, and Persia, from the time of Jamshíd to the end of the Sásánian dynasty (pp. 304-330).
It will be seen from what has been said above how wide a range of knowledge is required to enable the student of Muhammadan literature fully to understand and appreciate all the allusions which he will meet with even in the poets, especially those who lived in the palmy days of the Caliphate. And apart from this general knowledge, and a thorough understanding of the language (whether Persian or Arabic) which constitutes the vehicle of utterance, he must, in order to derive the fullest pleasure from the poetry of these nations, possess a considerable amount of technical knowledge, not only of Prosody and Grammar, but of the various branches of Rhetoric ('Ilmu'l-Ma'ání wa'l-Bayán, “the Science of Ideas and their Expression”) and Euphuism ('Ilmu'l-Badáyi'), so that he may at once recognise and appreciate the various tropes, similes, metaphors, inuendos, hyperboles, antitheses, quotations, ætiologies, amphibologies, homonomies, anagrams, and the like, which he will come across at every turn, especially in the qaṣídas, or panegyrics, to which most of the older Persian poets devoted so large a portion of their energies and talents, for the reason that they were for the most part Court poets, and wrote not for the general public but for their patrons, on whose liberality they depended for their livelihood. This is why many of those poets, such as 'Unṣurí, Farrukhí, Kháqání, Anwarí, Dhahír of Fáryáb, and the like, whom the Persians reckon amongst their greatest, could never, no matter with what skill they might be translated, appeal to the European reader, whose sympathies will rather be won by the epic, lyric, didactic, mystic, satiric or pessimist poets, such as Firdawsí, Ḥáfidh, Sa'dí, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, 'Aṭṭár, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, 'Ubayd-i-Zákání, and 'Umar Khayyám, each of whom, in a different way, appeals to some ground common to all mankind.
In spite of the excellent works on the Prosody and Rhetoric of the Persians by Gladwin, Rückert, Blochmann, and other scholars, I might perhaps have thought it desirable to speak at greater length on these subjects had it not been for the masterly Prolegomena prefixed by my lamented friend Mr. E. J. W. Gibb (whose death on December 5, 1901, after a short illness, at the early age of forty-four, has inflicted an incalculable loss on Oriental scholarship) to the first volume of his great History of Ottoman Poetry (London: Luzac & Co., 1900). Nearly twenty years ago we spent several weeks together in London, studying Persian and Turkish, and cultivating the society of various educated and intelligent Muslims, chiefly Persians, who happened at that time to be resident in the metropolis. Of these the late Mírza Muḥammad Báqir of Bawánát in Fárs, whose personality I attempted to depict in the Introductory Chapter of my Year amongst the Persians (London: A. and C. Black, 1893), was beyond question the most talented and original. From that time till his death Gibb and I were in frequent communication, and the hours which I was able from time to time to spend with him in his study in London were amongst the happiest and most profitable of my life. Within the last few months it has been my sad duty to examine his books, manuscripts, and papers, to catalogue the rare and precious volumes which he had so sedulously sought out from the East, and to set in order the unpublished portions of the great work to which his life was devoted. High as was the opinion I had already formed of the first volume of his book, which alone has yet been published, I should never have realised the labour it had cost him, or the extent of his reading, his fine scholarship and his critical judgment, had I not obtained the insight into his work which this examination gave me; and I should be happy to think that I could ever produce half so fine a work on Persian poetry as he has done on Turkish. The Prolegomena at least of this great book should be read by every student of Muhammadan Literature.
THE SEVEN.”
THE religious and political position assumed by the Shí'a, or “Faction” of 'Alí ibn Abí Ṭálib, has been already discussed at some length, together with the causes which rendered it specially attractive to the Persians. In this chapter we shall have to examine one of the developments of this school of thought, which, though at the present day of comparatively little importance, played a great part in the history of the Muhammadan world down to the Mongol Invasion in the thirteenth century, and to which, therefore, we shall have to refer repeatedly in the subsequent portion of this work.
The Shí'a agree generally in their veneration for 'Alí and their rejection of his three predecessors, Abú Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthmán, and in their recognition of the Imáms of the House of 'Alí as the chosen representatives of God, supernaturally gifted and divinely appointed leaders, whose right to the allegiance of the faithful is derived directly from Heaven, not from any election or agreement of the Church (Ijmá'-i-sunnat). Briefly they may be described as the supporters of the principle of Divine Right as opposed to the principle of Democratic Election.
Further, as we have already seen, most of the Shí'ites (especially those of Persia) attached great importance to the fact that all their Imáms subsequent to 'Alí (who was the Prophet's cousin) were descended also from Fáṭima (the Prophet's daughter), and hence were the direct and lineal descendants of the Prophet himself; and to the alleged fact (see pp. 130-134 and 229 supra) that all the Imáms subsequent to al-Ḥusayn (the third) were also the lineal descendants of the Sásánians, the old Royal Family of Persia.
There were, however, other sects of the Shí'a (Kaysániyya and Zaydiyya) who recognised as Imáms descendants not only of al-Ḥusayn's brother al-Ḥasan (Imáms, that is to say, who made no claim of descent from the House of Sásán) but of his half-brother Muḥammad Ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya (“the son of the Ḥanafite woman”), who were not children of Fáṭima,392a and hence were not the direct descendants of the Prophet. These sects, however, seem, as a rule, to have had comparatively little hold in Persia save in Ṭabaristán (where, as we have seen, a dynasty of “Zaydite” Imáms flourished from A.D. 864 to 928), and need not further claim our attention, which must rather be concentrated on the Imámiyya, or Imámites proper, and its two great branches, the “Sect of the Twelve” (Ithná-'ashariyya ), which prevails in Persia to-day, and the “Sect of the Seven” (Sab'iyya) or Isma'ílís, with its various branches, including the notorious Assassins (Maláḥida, or “heretics” par excellence, as they were generally called by their opponents in Persia), who will form the subject of a later chapter. The fourth and subsequent Imáms of both these important branches of the Shí'a were descendants of al-Ḥusayn, and, as has been already emphasised, enjoyed in the eyes of their followers the double prestige of representing at the same time the Prophetic House of Arabia and the Royal House of Persia.
As far as the sixth Imám, Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq (“the Veridical”), the great-grandson of al-Ḥusayn, who died in A.H. 148 (A.D. 765), the Sects of the Seven and of the Twelve agree concerning the succession of their pontiffs, but here the agreement ceases. Ja'far originally nominated as his successor his eldest son Ismá'íl, but afterwards, being displeased with him (because, as some assert, he was detected indulging himself in wine),393a he revoked this nomination and designated another of his sons, Músa al-Kádhim (the seventh Imám of the Sect of the Twelve) as the next Imám. Ismá'íl, as is generally asserted, died during his father's lifetime; and, that no doubt might exist on this point, his body was publicly shown. But some of the Shí'a refused to withdraw their allegiance from him, alleging that the nomination could not be revoked, and that even if he did drink wine this was done deliberately and with a high purpose, to show that the “wine” forbidden by the Prophet's teaching was to be understood in an allegorical sense as spiritual pride, or the like—a view containing the germ of that extensive system of ta'wíl, or Allegorical Interpretation, which was afterwards so greatly developed by the Sect of the Seven. Nor did Ismá'íl's death put an end to the sect which took its name from him, though differences arose amongst them; some asserting that he was not really dead, or that he would return; others, that since he died during his father's lifetime he never actually became Imám, but that the nomination was made in order that the Imámate might be transmitted through him to his son Muḥammad, whom, consequently, they regarded as the Seventh, Last, and Perfect Imám; while others apparently regarded Ismá'íl and his son Mu-ḥammad as identical, the latter being a return or re-incarnation of the former. Be this as it may, de Sacy is probably right in conjecturing393b that until the appearance of 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ (of whom we shall speak presently) about A.H. 260394a (A.D. 873-4), “the sect of the Ismá'ílís had been merely an ordinary sect of the Shí'ites, distinguished from others by its recognition of Muḥammad b. Ismá'íl as the last Imám, and by its profession of that allegorical doctrine of which this Muḥammad, or perhaps his grandfather Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, had been the author.
The genius which gave to this comparatively insignificant sect the first impulse towards that might and influence which it enjoyed for nearly four centuries came, as usual, from Persia, and in describing it I cannot do better than cite the words of those great Dutch scholars de Goeje and Dozy.
“It was,” says the former,394b “an inveterate hatred against the Arabs and Islám which, towards the middle of the third century of the hijra, suggested to a certain 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún, an oculist (Qaddáḥ) by profession and a Persian by race, a project as amazing for the boldness and genius with which it was conceived as for the assurance and vigour with which it was carried out.”
“To bind together394c in one association the conquered and the conquerors; to combine in one secret society, wherein there should be several grades of initiation, the free-thinkers, who saw in religion only a curb for the common people, and the bigots of all sects; to make use of the believers to bring about a reign of the unbelievers, and of the conquerors to overthrow the empire which themselves had founded; to form for himself, in short, a party, numerous, compact, and schooled to obedience, which, when the moment was come, would give the throne, if not to himself, at least to his descendants; such was the dominant idea of 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún; an idea which, grotesque and audacious though it was, he realised with astonishing tact, incomparable skill, and a profound knowledge of the human heart.”
394d“To attain this end a conjunction of means was devised which may fairly be described as Satanic; human weakness was attacked on every side; devoutness was offered to the believing; liberty, not to say licence, to the reckless; philosophy to the strong-minded; mystical hopes to the fanatical, and marvels to the common folk. So also a Messiah was presented to the Jews, a Paraclete to the Christians, a Mahdí to the Mussulmáns, and, lastly, a philosophical system of theology to the votaries of Persian and Syrian paganism. And this system was put in movement with a calm resolve which excites our astonishment, and which, if we could forget the object, would merit our liveliest admiration.”
The only criticism I would make on this luminous description of the Ismá'ílí propaganda is that it hardly does justice to those, at any rate, by whose efforts the doctrines were taught, amidst a thousand dangers and difficulties; to that host of missionaries (dá'í, plural du'át) whose sincerity and self-abnegation at least are wholly admirable. And here I cannot refrain from quoting a passage from the recently published Histoire et Religion des Nosairis (Paris, 1900) of René Dussaud, one of the very few Europeans who have, as I think, appreciated the good points of this remarkable sect.
“Certain excessess,” he says (p. 49), “rendered these doctrines hateful to orthodox Musulmáns, and led them definitely to condemn them. It must be recognised that many Ismá'ílí precepts were borrowed from the Mu'tazilites, who, amongst other things, repudiated the Attributes of God and proclaimed the doctrine of Free Will. Notwithstanding this lack of originality, it appears that the judgments pronounced by Western scholars are marked by an excessive severity. It is certainly wrong to confound, as do the Musulmán doctors, all these sects in one common reprobation. Thus, the disappearance of the Fáṭimids, who brought about the triumph of the Ismá'ílí religion in Egypt, concludes an era of prosperity, splendour, and toleration such as the East will never again enjoy.”
And in a note at the foot of the page the same scholar remarks with justice that even that branch of the Ismá'ílís from whom was derived the word “Assassin,” and to whom it was originally applied, were by no means the first community to make use of this weapon of a persecuted minority against their oppressors, and that “the Old Man of the Mountain” himself was not so black as it is the custom to paint him.
396aLet us return, however, to 'Abdu'llah b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ, to whom is generally ascribed the origin of the Isma'ílí power and organisation and the real parentage of the Fáṭimid Caliphs of Egypt and the West; and let us take the account of him given in the Fihrist in preference to the assertions of more modern and less accurate writers. He was, according to this work, a native of Ahwáz; and his father Maymún the Oculist was the founder of the Maymúniyya sect, a branch of the Khaṭṭábiyya, which belonged to the Ghulát or Extreme Shí'ites, teaching that the Imáms, and in particular the sixth Imám Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, the father of Ismá'íl, were Divine incarnations.396b 'Abdu'lláh claimed to be a Prophet, and performed prodigies which his followers regarded as miracles, pretending to traverse the earth in the twinkling of an eye and thus to obtain knowledge of things happening at a distance; an achievement really effected, as the author of the Fihrist asserts, by means of carrier-pigeons despatched by his confederates.396c From his native village he transferred his residence after a time to 'Askar Mukram, whence he was compelled to flee in succession to Sábáṭ Abí Núḥ, Baṣra, and finally Salamiyya near Ḥims (Emessa) in Syria. There he bought land, and thence he sent his dá'ís into the country about Kúfa, where his doctrines were espoused by a certain Ḥamdán b. al-Ash'ath, of Quss Bahrám, nicknamed Qarmaṭ on account of his short body and legs, who became one of the chief propagandists of the sect, besides giving its members one of the names (Carmathians; Ar. Qirmaṭí or Qirmiṭí, pl. Qarámiṭa) by which they were subsequently known.397a One of Ḥamdán's chief lieutenants was his brother-in-law 'Abdán, the author of a number of (presumably controversial) books, who organised the propaganda in Chaldæa, while Ḥamdán resided at Kalwádha, maintaining a correspondence with one of the sons of 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ who abode at Ṭáliqán in Khurásán.
About this time 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún died (A.H. 261 = A.D. 874-5) and was succeeded first by his son Muḥammad, secondly by a certain Aḥmed (variously described as the son or the brother of him last named) called Abú Shala'la', and thirdly by Sa'íd b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ, who was born in A.H. 260 at Salamiyya in Syria, a year before the death of his grandfather. To him at length was it granted to reap the fruits of the ambitious schemes devised and matured by his predecessors. In A.H. 297 (A.D. 909), learning from his dá'í Abú 'Abdi'lláh that the Berbers in North Africa were impregnated with the Ismá'ílí doctrines and were eagerly expecting the coming of the Imám, he crossed over thither, declared himself to be the great-grandson of Muḥammad b. Isma'íl and the promised Mahdí, took the name of Abú Muḥammad 'Ubaydu'llah, placed himself at the head of his enthusiastic partisans, overthrew the Aghlabid dynasty, conquered the greater portion of North Africa, and, with the newly-founded city of Mahdiyya for his capital, established the dynasty which, because of the claim which it maintained of descent from Fáṭima, the Prophet's daughter, is known as the Fáṭimid. Sixty years later (A.H. 356 = A.D. 969) Egypt was wrested by them from the House of Ikhshíd, and at the end of the tenth century of our era most of Syria was in their hands. This great Shí'ite power was represented by fourteen Anti-Caliphs, and was finally extinguished by Saladin (Ṣaláḥu'd Dín) in A.H. 567 (A.D. 1171).
The genuineness of the pedigree claimed by the Fáṭimids has been much discussed, and the balance of evidence appears to weigh strongly against it: there is little doubt that not 'Alí and Fáṭima, but 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ was their real ancestor. The matter is discussed at length by de Goeje398a with his usual learning and acumen. Amongst the many arguments that he adduces against their legitimacy it is sufficient to cite here one or two of the strongest. Their descent from Fáṭima was denied alike by the 'Abbásid Caliphs (who made no attempt to contest the pedigrees of the numerous 'Alid pretenders, some of them dangerous and formidable enough, who were continually raising the standard of rebellion against them); by the Umayyads of Cordova; and, on two separate occasions (A.H. 402 and 444 = A.D. 1011-1012 and 1052-3), by the recognised representatives of the House of 'Alí at Baghdad. Moreover, the Buwayhid 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla, in spite of his strong Shí'ite proclivities, was so far from satisfied with the results of an inquiry into their pedigree which he instituted in A.H. 370 (A.D. 980-1) that he threatened to invade their territories, and ordered all their writings to be burned. And on the other hand it is frankly admitted in the sacred books of the Druzes, a sect (still active and numerous in Syria) which regards al-Ḥákim, the sixth Fáṭimid Caliph, as the last and most perfect Manifestation or Incarnation of the Deity, that 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ was the ancestor of their hero.398b When we reflect on the inward essence of the Ismá'ílí doctrine, and its philosophical and cosmopolitan character, we might well imagine that to the fully-initiated members of the sect at any rate it would be a matter of comparative indifference whether their spiritual and temporal rulers were or were not descended from the Prophet through his daughter Fáṭima. But, as we shall see in a later chapter, one of their most talented missionaries in Persia, the poet and traveller Náṣir-i-Khusraw, who held the high title of Ḥujjat, or “Proof,” of Khurásán—a man of fiery zeal and transparent sincerity—certainly believed in the genuineness of the Fáṭimid pedigree.
As regards the rule of the Fáṭimids, it was on the whole, despite occasional acts of cruelty and violence inevitable in that time and place, liberal, beneficent, and favourable to learning.
“The (Isma'ílí) doctrines,” says Guyard,399a “were publicly taught at Cairo in universities richly endowed and provided with libraries, where crowds assembled to listen to the most distinguished professors. The principle of the sect being that men must be converted by persuasion, the greatest tolerance was shown towards other creeds. Mu'izz (the fourth Fáṭimid Caliph, reigned A.D. 952-975) permitted Christians to dispute openly with his doctors, a thing hitherto unheard of; and Severus, the celebrated bishop of Ushmúnayn, availed himself of this authorisation. Out of the funds of the Treasury Mu'izz rebuilt the ruined church of St. Mercurius at Fusṭáṭ, which the Christians had never hitherto been permitted to restore. Certain Musulmán fanatics endeavoured to prevent this, and on the day when the first stone was laid a Shaykh, leaping down amongst the foundations, swore that he would die rather than suffer the church to be rebuilt. Mu'izz, being informed of what was taking place, caused this man to be buried under the stones, and only spared his life at the instance of the Patriarch Ephrem.399b Had the Isma'ílí doctrine been able to maintain itself in Egypt in its integrity, it would have involved the civilisation of the Muslim world. Unfortunately, as an actual consequence of this doctrine, a serious change was about to take place in the sect;
399cwhile, on the other hand, the excesses of the Isma'ílís of Persia and Syria armed against Egypt, the focus of the sect, the pious and orthodox Núru'd-Dín (the Atábek of Syria, A.D. 1146-1173), who succeeded in overthrowing the Fáṭimid dynasty.”
Náṣir-i-Khusraw, who was at Cairo in the middle of the eleventh century of our era, during the reign of al-Mustansir, the eighth Fáṭimid Caliph, gives an equally favourable picture.
“Every one,” says he,400a “has perfect confidence in the Sultan, and no one stands in fear of myrmidons or spies, relying on the Sultan to oppress no one and to covet no one's possessions. There I saw wealth belonging to private individuals such that if I should speak of it or describe it the people of Persia would refuse to credit my statements. I could neither limit nor define their wealth, and nowhere have I seen such prosperity as I saw there. There I saw a Christian who was one of the richest men in Egypt, so that it was said that his ships, his wealth, and his estates surpassed computation. My object in mentioning him is that one year the water of the Nile fell short and corn became dear. The Sultan's wazír summoned this Christian and said, ‘The year is not good, and the Sultan's heart is weighed down with anxiety for his people. How much corn could you supply, either for a price or as a loan?’ The Christian answered, ‘Thanks to the fortunate auspices of the Sultan and the wazír, I have in store so much corn that I could supply all Egypt with bread for six years.’400b Now the population of Egypt at this time was certainly, at the lowest computation, five times that of Níshápúr; and any one versed in statistics will readily understand what vast wealth one must possess to hold corn to such an amount, and what security of property and good government a people must enjoy amongst whom such things are possible, and what great riches; and withal neither did the Sultan oppress or wrong any one, nor did his subjects keep anything hidden or concealed.”
It does not appear that Náṣir-i- Khusraw had embraced the Isma'ílí doctrine before he made his journey to Egypt and the West, and we may fairly assume that the admirable example presented to other governments of that period by the Fáṭimids had no inconsiderable effect in his conversion to those views of which, till the end of his long life, he was so faithful an adherent and so earnest an exponent. That he was familiar with the Gospels is proved by several passages in his poems; and no doubt he held that men cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, and that a doctrine capable of producing results which contrasted so favourably with the conditions prevalent under any other contemporary government had at any rate a strong primâ facie claim to serious and attentive consideration.
Before we proceed to speak of this doctrine, however, it is necessary to say something of a less orderly and well-conducted branch of the Ismá'ílís, whose relation to the Fáṭimid Caliphs still remains, in spite of the investigations of many eminent scholars, notably de Goeje, somewhat of a mystery. Mention has already been made of Ḥamdán Qarmaṭ, from whom the Carmathians (Qarámiṭa) derive their name. These Car-mathians, the followers of the above-named Qarmaṭ and his disciple 'Abdán (the most prolific writer of the early Ismá'ílís),401a are much less intimately connected with Persian history than the Fáṭimid Ismá'ílís, and their power was of much shorter duration; but for about a hundred years (A.D. 890-990) they spread terror through the realms of the 'Abbásid Caliphs. Already, while the Zanj insurrection was in progress, we find Qarmaṭ interviewing the insurgent leader and endeavouring to arrive at an understanding with him, which, however, proved to be impossible.401b Very shortly after this (A.D. 892) the increasing power of the Carmathians began to cause a lively anxiety at Baghdad.402a About five years later they first rose in arms, but this insurrection, as well as those of A.D. 900, 901, and 902, was suppressed. Yet already we find them active, not only in Mesopotamia and Khuzistán, but in Baḥrayn, Yaman, and Syria; on the one hand we hear of them in the prison and on the scaffold; and on the other, led by their dá'ís Zikrawayh and Abú Sa'íd Ḥasan b. Bahrám al-Jannábí (both Persians, to judge by their names), we find them widely extending their power and obtaining absolute control of vast tracts of country. In A.D. 900 the Caliph's troops were utterly routed outside Baṣra, and only the general, al-'Abbás b. 'Amr al-Ghanawí, returned to tell the tale at Baghdad;402b while a year or two later “the Master of the Camel” (Ṣáḥibu'n-náqa), and after his death his brother, “the Man with the Mole” (Ṣáḥibu'sh-Sháma, or Ṣáḥibu'l-Khál), were ravaging Syria up to the very gates of Damascus. The success of this last was, however, short-lived, for he was taken captive and put to death in December, A.D. 903, and the death of Zikrawayh in the defeat inflicted on him three or four years later saved Syria for the time being from further ravages. His last and most signal achievement was his attack on the pilgrim-caravan returning from Mecca, in which fearful catastrophe no less than twenty thousand victims are said to have perished.
The Fáṭimid dynasty had been firmly established in North Africa for some years before we hear much more of the Carmathians;402c but in A.D. 924 Abú Ṭáhir al-Jannábí (the son and successor of the Abú Sa'íd al-Jannábí mentioned above) raided Baṣra and carried off a rich booty; a few months later another pilgrim-caravan was attacked (2,200 men and 300 women were slain, and a somewhat greater number taken captive, together with a vast booty);403a and soon afterwards Kúfa was looted for six days, during which the Carmathian leader quartered his guard in the great mosque. In the early spring of A.D. 926 the pilgrim-caravan was allowed to proceed on its way after payment of a heavy ransom, but during the three following years passage was absolutely barred to the pilgrims. But it was in January, 930, that the Carmathians performed their greatest exploit, for in the early days of that month Abú Ṭáhir, with an army of some six hundred horsemen and nine hundred unmounted soldiers, entered the sacred city of Mecca itself, slew, plundered, and took captive in the usual fashion, and—the greatest horror of all in the eyes of pious Muslims—carried off the Black Stone and other sacred relics. In this culminating catastrophe 30,000 Muslims are said to have been slain, of whom 1,900 met their death in the very precincts of the Ka'ba; the booty carried off was immense; and the scenes which accompanied these sacrilegious acts baffle description.
403bIt is unnecessary to follow in detail the further achievements of the Carmathians, who continued to raid, plunder, massacre, and levy taxes on the pilgrims until the death of Abú Ṭáhir in A.D. 944. Six years later the Black Stone, having been kept by the Carmathians of al-Aḥsá for nearly twenty-two years, was voluntarily restored by them to its place in the Ka'ba of Mecca. “We took it by formal command (of our Imám), and we will only restore it by a command (from him)” had been their unvarying reply to all the attempts of the Muslims to persuade them to yield it up in return for enormous ransoms; but at length the order was issued by the Fáṭimid Caliph al-Qá'im or al-Manṣúr,403c and the stone was once more set in its place, to the infinite joy and relief of all pious Muhammadans. Very soon after the Fáṭimids had obtained possession of Egypt (A.D. 969) a quarrel arose between them and their Carmathian co-religionists,404a and a year or two later we actually find some of the latter fighting on the side of the 'Abbásids against their ancient masters.
The exact relations which existed between the apparently antinomian, democratic, and predatory Carmathians and the theocratic Fáṭimids, whose just and beneficent rule has been already described,404b are, as has been said, somewhat obscure. But de Goeje has conclusively proved, in the able and learned treatise so frequently quoted in this chapter, that these relations were of the closest; that the Carmathians recognised to the full (save in some exceptional cases) the authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Fáṭimid Caliphs, even though it often seemed expedient to the latter to deny or veil the connection;404c and that the doctrines of both were the same, due allowance being made for the ruder and grosser understandings of the Bedouin Arabs from whom were chiefly recruited404d the ranks of the Carmathians, who were, as de Goeje observes, “as was only natural, absolute strangers to the highest grade of initiation in which the return of Muḥammad b. Isma'íl was spiritually explained.”
Of what is known concerning the internal organisation of the Carmathians; of their Supreme Council, the white-robed 'Iqdániyya, to whom was given power to loose and to bind; of their disregard of the ritual and formal prescriptions of Islám, their contempt for the “asses” who offered adoration to shrines and stones, and their indulgence in meats held unlawful by the orthodox; and of their revenues, commerce, and treatment of strangers, full details will be found in de Goeje's monograph. Of the many interesting passages cited in that little volume (a model of scholarly research and clear exposition) the reader's attention is specially directed to the narrative of a woman who visited the Carmathian camp in search of her son (pp. 51-56); the poems composed by Abú Ṭáhir al-Jannábí after the sack of Mecca (p. 110) and Kúfa (pp. 113-115); the scathing satire composed in Yaman agaisnt the Carmathian chief (pp. 160-161); the narrative of a traditionist who was for a time a captive and a slave in the hands of the Carmathians (pp. 175-6); and the replies made by a Carmathian prisoner to the Caliph al-Mu'taḍid (pp. 25-6). That morally they were by no means so black as their Muslim foes have painted them is certainly true, but of the terrible bloodshed heralded by their ominous and oft-repeated formula “Purify them” (by the sword) there is unfortunately no doubt whatever.
We must now pass to an examination of the Isma'ílí doctrine —a doctrine typically Persian, typically Shí'ité, and possessed of an extraordinary charm for minds of a certain type, and that by no means an ignoble or ignorant one.405a And here I will cite first of all the concluding paragraphs of an article which I contributed in January, 1898, to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfí Sect (pp. 88-9):—
“The truth is, that there is a profound difference between the Persian idea of Religion and that which obtains in the West. Here it is the ideas of Faith and Righteousness (in different proportions, it is true) which are regarded as the essentials of Religion; there it is Knowledge and Mystery. Here Religion is regarded as a rule by which to live and a hope wherein to die; there as a Key to unlock the Secrets of the Spiritual and Material Universe. Here it is associated with Work and Charity; there with Rest and Wisdom. Here a creed is admired for its simplicity; there for its complexity. To Europeans these speculations about ‘Names’ and ‘Numbers’ and ‘Letters’; this talk of Essences, Quiddities, and Theophanies; these far-fetched analogies and wondrous hair-splittings, appear, as a rule, not merely barren and unattractive, but absurd and incomprehensible; and consequently, when great self-devotion and fearlessness of death and torture are witnessed amongst the adherents of such a creed, attempts are instinctively made by Europeans to attribute to that creed some ethical or political aim. Such aim may or may not exist, but, even if it does, it is, I believe, as a rule, of quite secondary and subordinate importance in the eyes of those who have evolved and those who have accepted the doctrine…
“The same difference of ideal exists as to the quality and nature of Scripture, the Revealed Word of God. Provided the ethical teaching be sublime, and there be peace for the troubled and comfort for the sorrowful, we care little, comparatively, for the outward form. But in the eyes of the Musulmáns (including, of course, the followers of all those sects, even the most heretical, which have arisen in the bosom of Islám) this outward form is a matter of the very first importance. Every letter and line of the Qur'án (which always remains the model and prototype of a Revealed Book, even amongst those sects who claim that it has been abrogated by a newer Revelation) is supposed to be fraught with unutterable mystery and filled with unfathomable truth. Generations of acute minds expend their energies in attempts to fathom these depths and penetrate these mysteries. What wonder if the same discoveries are made quite independently by different minds in different ages, working with the same bent on the same material? In studying the religious history of the East, and especially of Persia, let us therefore be on our guard against attaching too much importance to resemblances which may be the natural outcome of similar minds working on similar lines, rather than the result of any historical filiation or connection.”
The Isma'ílí doctrine was, as we have seen, mainly devised and elaborated (though largely from ideas and conceptions already ancient, and, as has been remarked, almost endemic in Persia) by 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ. Great stress is generally laid, both by Oriental and European writers, on the primarily political motive which is supposed to have inspired him, the desire, namely, to destroy the power of the Arabs, and the religion of Islám whence that power was derived, and to restore to Persia the dominant position which she had previously held, and to which, in his opinion, she was entitled.407a I myself am inclined to think that, to judge by the Persian character, in which the sentiment of what we understand by patriotism is not a conspicuous feature, and by what I have myself observed in the analogous case of the Bábís, this quasi-political motive has been unduly exaggerated; and that 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún and his ally, the wealthy astrologer Dandán (or Zaydán)407b exerted themselves as they did to propagate the system of doctrine about to be described not because it was Persian, but because, being Persian, it strongly appealed to their Persian minds.
407cThe doctrine which we are about to describe is, it must be repeated, the doctrine evolved by 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ. “The sect of the Isma'ílís,” says Guyard in his Fragments relatifs à la Doctrine des Ismaílis (Paris, 1874, p. 8), “was primarily a mere subdivision of the Shí'ites, or partisans of 'Alí; but, from the time of 'Abdu'lláh, surnamed Qaddáḥ, the son of Maymún Qaddáḥ, and chief of the sect, towards the year A.H. 250 (A.D. 864), it so greatly diverged from its point of departure that it met with the reprehension of the Shí'ites themselves, who denounced as impious such as would embrace it.” The chief thing which it derived from Ismá'íl the seventh Imám was its name Ismá'ílí; but it bore several other names, such as Sab'í (“the Sect of the Seven”); Báṭiní (“the Esoteric Sect”); Ta'límí (“doctrinaire”), because, according to its tenets, the true “teaching” or “doctrine” (ta'lím) could only be obtained from the Imám of the time; Fáṭimí (“owing allegiance to the descendants of Fáṭima,” the Prophet's daughter and 'Alí's wife); Qirmaṭí or Carmathian, after the dà'í Ḥamdan Qarmaṭ already mentioned. By their foes, especially in Persia, they were very commonly called simply Maláḥida (“impious heretics”), and later, after the New Propaganda of Ḥasan-i-Sabbáḥ (of whom we shall speak in a later chapter), Ḥashíshí (“hashish-eaters”).
Their doctrine, as already indicated, and as will shortly appear more plainly, hinges to a large extent on the number seven, and, to a less degree, on the number twelve; numbers which are written plain in the universe and in the body of man. Thus there are seven Planets and twelve Zodiacal Signs; seven days in the week and twelve months in the year; seven cervical vertebræ and twelve dorsal, and so on: while the number seven appears in the Heavens, the Earths, the Climes, and the apertures of the face and head (two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and the mouth).
Intermediate between God and Man are the Five Principles or Emanations (the Universal Reason, the Universal Soul, Primal Matter, Pleroma or Space, and Kenoma or Time),408a making in all Seven Grades of Existence.
Man cannot attain to the Truth by his unaided endeavours, but stands in need of the teaching (ta'lím) of the Universal Reason, which from time to time becomes incarnate in the form of a Prophet or “Speaker” (Náṭiq), and teaches, more fully and completely in each successive Manifestation, according to the evolution of the Human Understanding, the spiritual truths necessary for his guidance. Six great Prophetic cycles have passed (those of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad), and the last and seventh cycle, in which for the first time the Esoteric Doctrine, the true inwardness of the Law and the Prophets, is made clear, was inaugurated by Muḥammad b. Isma'íl, the Qá'im (“He who ariseth”) or Ṣáḥibu'z-Zamán (“Lord of the Time”). Each Prophet or “Speaker” (Náṭiq) is succeeded by seven Imáms (called Ṣámit, “Silent”), of whom the first (called Asás, “Foundation,” or Sús, “Root,” “Origin”) is always the intimate companion of the Náṭiq, and the repository of his esoteric teaching. The series in detail is as follows:—
| Nátiq. | Asás, who is the first of the Seven Ṣámits or Imáms. |
| 1. Adam. | Seth. (Each Ṣámit, or Imám, has twelve Ḥujjats, “Proofs,” or Chief Dá'ís.) |
| 2. Noah. | Shem. |
| 3. Abraham. | Ishmael. |
| 4. Moses. | Aaron. John the Baptist was the last Ṣámit of this series, and the immediate precursor of Jesus, the next Náṭiq. |
| 5. Jesus. | Simon Peter. |
| 6. Muḥammad. | 'Alí, followed by al-Hasan, al-Ḥusayn, 'Alí Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, Muḥammad al-Báqir, Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, and Isma'íl. |
| 7. Muḥammad b. Isma'íl. | 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ, followed by two of his sons, Aḥmad and Muḥammad, and his grandson Sa'íd, later known as 'Ubaydu'lláh-al-Mahdí (who pretended to be the grandson of Muḥammad b. Isma'íl), the founder of the Fáṭimid Dynasty. |
In the correspondence established between the Grades of Being and the Isma'ílí hierarchy there seems to be a lacuna, since God, the Primal Unknowable Essence, is represented by no class in the latter. As to the last term also I am in doubt. The other correspondences are as follows:—
1. God.
2. The Universal Reason ('Aql-i-Kullí), manifested in the Náṭiq or Prophet.
3. The Universal Soul (Nafs-i-Kullí), manifested in the Asás or first Imám.
4. Primal Matter (Hayyúla,
), manifested in the Ṣámits or Imáms. 5. Space, or Pleroma (al-Malá), manifested in the Ḥujjat or “Proof.”
6. Time, or Kenoma (al-Khalá), manifested in the Dá'í or Missionary.
7. ? The Material Universe, manifested in ? The Believer.
Corresponding still with the dominant number are the degrees of initiation through which, according to his capacity and aptitude, the proselyte is successively lead by the dá'í; though these were afterwards raised to nine (perhaps to agree with the nine celestial spheres, i.e., the seven planetary spheres, the Sphere of the Fixed Stars, and the Empyrean). These degrees are very fully described by de Sacy (Exposé, vol. i, pp. lxii-cxxxviii), who follows in the main the account of the historian an-Nuwayrí († A.D. 1332). Before speaking of them, however, a few words must be said about the dá'í or propagandist.
The type of this characteristically Persian figure seems scarcely to have varied from the time of Abú Muslim to the present day, when the dá'í of the Bábís still goes forth on his perilous missions between Persia, his native land, and Syria, where his spiritual leaders dwell in exile. These men I have described from personal knowledge in another book,410a and I have often pleased myself with the thought that, thanks to these experiences, it is almost as though I had seen with my own eyes Abú Muslim, 'Abdu'lláh b. Maymún al-Qaddáḥ, Ḥamdán Qarmaṭ, and other heroes of the 'Abbásid and Ismá'ílí propaganda. But if the type of dá'í is, so far as we can judge, almost unvarying in Western Asia, it differs very greatly from that of the European missionary, whose learning, knowledge of character and adaptability to circumstances fall short by as much as his material needs and national idiosyncrasies exceed those of the dá'í.
The dá'í commonly adopted some ostensible profession, such as that of a merchant, physician, oculist, or the like, and, in this guise, arrived at the place where he proposed to begin operations.411a In the first instance his aim was to impress his neighbours with a high idea of his piety and benevolence. To this end he was constant in alms-giving and prayer, until he had established a high reputation for devout living, and had gathered round him a circle of admirers. To these, especially to such as appeared most apt to receive them, he began gradually and cautiously to propound his doctrines, striving especially to arouse the curiosity of his hearers, to awaken in them a spirit of inquiry, and to impress them with a high opinion of his wisdom, but prepared at any moment to draw back if they showed signs of restiveness or suspicion. Thus he speaks of Religion as a Hidden Science, insists on the symbolic character of its prescriptions, and hints that the outward observance of Prayer, the Fast, the Pilgrimage, and Alms-giving is of little value if their spiritual significance be not understood. If curiosity and an eagerness to learn more are manifested by his hearer, the dá'í begins an explanation, but breaks it off in the middle, hinting that such divine mysteries may only be disclosed to one who has taken the oath of allegiance to the Imám of the age, the chosen representative of God on earth, and the sole repository of this Hidden Science, which he confides only to such as prove themselves worthy to receive it. The primary aim of the dá'í is, indeed, mainly to secure from the proselyte this allegiance, ratified by a binding oath and expressed by the periodical payment of a tribute of money. Of the questions whereby he seeks to excite the neophyte's curiosity the following are specimens:—
“Why did God take seven days to create the universe, when He could just as easily have created it in a single moment?”
“What in reality are the torments of Hell? How can it be true that the skins of the damned will be changed into other skins, in order that these, which have not participated in their sins, may be submitted to the Torment of the Fire?”
“What are the Seven Gates of Hell-Fire and the Eight Gates of Paradise?”
“Why were the heavens created according to the number Seven, and the Earths likewise? And why, also, is the first chapter of the Qur'án composed of seven verses?”
“What means this axiom of the philosophers, that man is a little world (Microcosm) and the World a magnified man? Why does man, contrary to all other animals, carry himself erect? Why has he ten digits on the hands, and as many on the feet; and why are four digits of the hand divided each into three phalanges, while the thumb has only two? Why has the face alone seven apertures,412a while in all the rest of the body there are but two? Why has he twelve dorsal and seven cervical vertebræ? Why has his head the form of the letter mím, his two hands that of a ḥá, his belly that of a mím, and his two legs that of a dál, in such wise that he forms, as it were, a written book, of which the interpretation is the name of Muḥammad (M.Ḥ.M.D.)? Why does his stature, when erect, resemble the letter alif, while when he kneels it resembles the letter lám, and when he is prostrate412b the letter há, in such wise that he forms, as it were, an inscription of which the reading is Iláh (I. L. H.), God?”
“Then,” says de Sacy,412c “addressing themselves to those who listen to them, they say: ‘Will you not reflect on your own state? Will you not meditate attentively on it, and recognise that He who has created you is wise, that He does not act by chance, that He has acted in all this with wisdom, and that it is for secret and mysterious reasons that He has united what He has united, and divided what He has divided? How can you imagine that it is permissible for you to turn aside your attention from all these things, when you hear these words of God (Qur'án, li, 20-21): “There are signs on the earth to those who believe with a firm faith; and in your own selves; will ye not then consider?” And again (Qur'án, xiv, 30), “And God propounds unto mankind parables, that perchance they may reflect thereon.” And again (Qur'án, xli, 53), “We will show them our signs in the horizons and in themselves, that it may become clear unto them that this is the Truth.” … And again (Qur'án, xvii, 74), “Whosoever is blind in respect to [the things of] this life is also blind in respect to [the things of] the other life, and follows a misleading path.”’”
Finally, by some or all of these means, the dá'í prevails upon the neophyte to take the oath of allegiance, saying413a —
“Bind yourself, then, by placing thy right hand in mine, and promise me, with the most inviolable oaths and assurances, that you will never divulge our secret, that you will not lend assistance to any one, be it who it may, against us, that you will set no snare for us, that you will not speak to us aught but the truth, and that you will not league yourself with any of our enemies against us.”
The full form of the oath will be found, by such as are curious as to its details, at pp. cxxxviii-cxlvii of de Sacy's Exposé.
The further degrees of initiation are briefly as follows:—
Second Degree. The neophyte is taught to believe that God's approval cannot be won by observing the prescriptions of Islám, unless the Inner Doctrine, of which they are mere symbols, be received from the Imám to whom its guardianship has been entrusted.
Third Degree. The neophyte is instructed as to the nature and number of the Imáms, and is taught to recognise the significance in the spiritual and material worlds of the number Seven which they also represent. He is thus definitely detached from the Imámiyya of the Sect of the Twelve, and is taught to regard the last six of their Imáms as persons devoid of spiritual knowledge and unworthy of reverence.
Fourth Degree. The neophyte is now taught the doctrine of the Seven Prophetic Periods, of the nature of the Náṭiq, the Sús or Asás and the remaining six Ṣámits (“Silent” Imáms)413b who succeed the latter, and of the abrogation by each Náṭiq of the religion of his predecessor. This teaching involves the admission (which definitely places the proselyte outside the pale of Islám) that Muḥammad was not the last of the Prophets, and that the Qur'án is not God's final revelation to man. With Muḥammad b. Ismá'íl, the Seventh and Last Náṭiq, the Qá'im (“He who ariseth”), the Ṣáḥibu'l-Amr (“Master of the Matter”), an end is put to the “Sciences of the Ancients” ('Ulúmu'l-awwalín), and the Esoteric (Báṭiní) Doctrine, the Science of Allegorical Interpretation (ta'wíl), is inaugurated.
Fifth Degree. Here the proselyte is further instructed in the Science of the Numbers and in the applications of the ta'wíl, so that he discards many of the traditions, learns to speak contemptuously of the state of Religion, pays less and less heed to the letter of Scripture, and looks forward to the abolition of all the outward observances of Islám. He is also taught the significance of the number Twelve, and the recognition of the twelve Ḥujjas or “Proofs,” who primarily conduct the propaganda of each Imám. These are typified in man's body by the twelve dorsal vertebræ, while the seven cervical vertebræ represent the Seven Prophets and the Seven Imáms of each.
Sixth Degree.—Here the proselyte is taught the allegorical meaning of the rites and obligations of Islám, such as prayer, alms, pilgrimage, fasting, and the like, and is then persuaded that their outward observance is a matter of no importance, and may be abandoned, since they were only instituted by wise and philosophical lawgivers as a check to restrain the vulgar and unenlightened herd.
Seventh Degree. To this and the following degrees only the leading dá'ís, who fully comprehend the real nature and aim of their doctrine, can initiate. At this point is introduced the dualistic doctrine of the Pre-existent (al-Mufíd, as-Sábiq) and the Subsequent (al-Mustafíd, at-Tálí, al-Láḥiq), which is destined ultimately to undermine the proselyte's belief in the Doctrine of the Divine Unity.
Eighth Degree. Here the doctrine last mentioned is developed and applied, and the proselyte is taught that above the Pre-existent and the Subsequent is a Being who has neither name, nor attribute, of whom nothing can be predicated, and to whom no worship can be rendered. This Nameless Being seems to represent the Zerwán Akarana (“Boundless Time”) of the Zoroastrian system, but, as may be seen by referring to de Sacy's Exposé (pp. cxxi-cxxx) some confusion exists here, and different teachings were current amongst the Ismá'ílís, which, however, agreed in this, that, to quote Nuwayrí's expression, “those who adopted them could no longer be reckoned otherwise than amongst the Dualists and Materialists.” The proselyte is also taught that a Prophet is known as such not by miracles, but by his ability to construct and impose on mankind a system at once political, social, religious, and philosophical—a doctrine which I myself have heard enunciated amongst the Bábís in Persia, one of whom said to me that just as the architect proved himself to be such by building a house, or the physician by healing sickness, so the prophet proved his mission by founding a durable religion.415a He is further taught to understand allegorically the end of the world, the Resurrection, Future Rewards and Punishments, and other eschatological doctrines.
Ninth Degree. In this, the last degree of initiation, every vestige of dogmatic religion has been practically cast aside, and the initiate is become a philosopher pure and simple, free to adopt such system or admixture of systems as may be most to his taste. “Often,” says Nuwayrí, “he embraces the views of Manes or Bardesanes; sometimes he adopts the Magian system, sometimes that of Plato or Aristotle: most frequently he borrows from each of these systems certain notions which he combines together, as commonly happens to these men, who, abandoning the Truth, fall into a sort of bewilderment.”
Space does not permit us to cite the pledge or covenant whereby the proselyte bound himself to obey the dá'í, nor to enlarge on the methods whereby the latter sought to approach the adherents of different sects and creeds in order to gain their allegiance. For these and other most interesting matters we must refer the reader to de Sacy's Exposé, vol. i, pp. cxxxviii-clxiii et passim, Guyard's Fragments relatifs à la Doctrine des Ismaélîs and Un Grand maître des Assassins, and other monographs alluded to in the notes to this chapter. The further developments of this sect will be discussed in another portion of this work.
ALTHOUGH the full development of that system of pantheistic, idealistic, and theosophic mysticism known amongst Muham-madans as taṣawwuf, and in Europe as Ṣúfíism belongs to a rather later period than that which we are now considering, it was already when the Fihrist was composed (A.D. 987) a recognised school of thought, and may therefore conveniently be considered in this place, more particularly as some knowledge of its nature and teachings is essential for the understanding of a certain proportion of even the older Persian poets who lived before the time of Saná'í (circ. A.D. 1131), 'Aṭṭár († A.D. 1230) and Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí († A.D. 1273). Shaykh Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr († A.D. 1049), whose mystical quatrains form the subject of one of Dr. Ethé's excellent monographs,416a and for whose biography we possess, thanks to Professor Zhukovski, unusually copious materials,416b was perhaps the first purely mystical Persian poet whose works have survived to our time, but Ṣúfí influences may be traced in the writings of some of his contemporaries if not of his predecessors.
A number of derivations have been proposed at different
times for the term Ṣúfí, but it is now quite certain that it is
Meaning and
derivation of the
term Ṣúfí.
derived from the word ṣúf, “wool,” which view is
confirmed by the equivalent pashmína-púsh, “wool-wearer,”
applied to these mystics in Persian.
From the earliest times woollen raiment was regarded as
typical of that simplicity of life and avoidance of ostentation
and luxury enjoined by the Prophet and his immediate
successors, as clearly appears from Mas'údí's account of the
“Orthodox Caliphs” in the Murúju'dh-Dhahab.417a
The
term Ṣúfí was therefore in later times applied to those
ascetic and pious devotees who, like the early Quakers in
England, made the simplicity of their apparel a silent protest
against the growing luxury of the worldly. It does not
appear to have come into use till about the middle of the
second century of the Flight (end of the eighth century of our
era), for Jámí expressly states in his Nafaḥátu'l-Uns (ed.
Nassau-Lees, p. 34) that it was first applied to Abú Háshim
the Syrian, a contemporary of Sufyán ath-Thawrí, who died in
A.D. 777. This derivation may be regarded as quite certain,
and it is sufficient merely to mention the attempts made to
connect the word with the Greek
The views which have been advanced as to the nature, Theories as to the origin of Ṣúfíism. origin, and source of the Ṣúfí doctrine are as divergent as the etymologies by which it is proposed to explain its name. Briefly they may be described as follows:—
(1) The theory that it really represents the Esoteric Doctrine of the Prophet. This is the prevalent view of the Ṣúfís themselves, 1. The “Esoteric Islám” theory. and of those Muhammadans who are more or less in sympathy with them; and though it can hardly commend itself to European scholars, it is by no means so absurd or untenable a hypothesis as is often assumed in Europe. Without insisting too much on the (probably spurious) traditions constantly cited by the Ṣúfís as the basis of their doctrine, such as God's alleged declaration, “I was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known, therefore I created Creation that I might be known;” or, “God was, and there was naught beside Him;” or, “Whosoever knoweth himself knoweth his Lord;” there are in the Qur'án itself a few texts which lend themselves to a mystical interpretation, as, for instance, the words addressed to the Prophet concerning his victory over the heathen at the battle of Badr (Qur'án, viii, 17): “Thou didst not shoot when thou didst shoot, but God shot.” This on the face of it means no more than that God strengthened the arms of the Muslims against their foes; but it involves no great straining of the words to deduce therefrom that God is the Absolute Agent (Fa“ál-i-Muṭlaq ) and man but “as the pen between the fingers of the scribe, who turns it as he will.” However little a critical examination of the oldest and most authentic records of the Prophet's life and teachings would warrant us in regarding him as a mystic or ascribing to him an esoteric doctrine, it must be avowed without reserve that such is the view taken by the more moderate Ṣúfís, and even of such philosophically minded theologians as al-Ghazzálí († A.D. 1111-2).
(2) The theory that it must be regarded as the reaction of the Aryan mind against a Semitic religion imposed upon it by force. 2. The “Aryan Reaction” theory. This theory has two forms, which may be briefly described as the Indian and the Persian. The former, taking note of certain obvious resemblances which exist between the Ṣúfí doctrines in their more advanced forms and some of the Indian systems, notably the Vedanta Sara, assumes that this similarity (which has, in my opinion, been exaggerated, and is rather superficial than fundamental) shows that these systems have a common origin, which must be sought in India. The strongest objection to this view is the historical fact that though in Sásánian times, notably in the sixth century of our era, during the reign of Núshírwán, a certain exchange of ideas took place between Persia and India, no influence can be shown to have been exerted by the latter country on the former (still less on other of the lands of Islám) during Muhammadan times till after the full development of the Ṣúfí system, which was practically completed when al-Bírúní, one of the first Musulmáns who studied the Sanskrit language and the geography, history, literature, and thoughts of India, wrote his famous Memoir on these subjects. In much later times it is likely enough, as shown by von Kremer,419a that considerable influence was exerted by Indian ideas on the development of Ṣúfíism. The other, or Persian, form of the “Aryan Reaction theory” would regard Ṣúfíism as an essentially Persian product. Our comparative ignorance of the undercurrents of thought in Sásánian times makes it very difficult to test this theory by the only safe method, the historical; but, as we have already seen, by no means all the early Ṣúfís were of Persian nationality, and some of the most notable and influential mystics of later times, such as Shaykh Muḥyiyyu'd-Dín ibnu'l 'Arabí († A.D. 1240-1), and Ibnu'l Fáriḍ († A.D. 1234-5), were men of Arabic speech in whose veins there was not a drop of Persian blood. Yet the first of these exerted an enormous influence over many of the most typical Persian Ṣúfís, such as 'Iráqí († A.D. 1287), whose Lama'át was wholly inspired by his writings, Awḥadu'd-Dín Kirmání († A.D. 1297-8), and indirectly on the much later Jámí († A.D. 1492-3), while even at the present day his works (especially the Fuṣúṣu'l-ḥikam) are widely read and diligently studied by Persian mystics.
(3) The theory of Neo-Platonist influence. So far as Ṣúfíism was not an independent manifestation of that mysticism which, because 3. Theory of Neo-Platonist origin. it meets the requirements and satisfies the cravings of a certain class of minds existing in all ages and in most civilised communities, must be regarded as a spontaneous phenomenon, recurring in many similar but unconnected forms wherever the human mind continues to concern itself with the problems of the Wherefore, the Whence, and the Whither of the Spirit, it is probable that it has been more indebted to Neo-Platonism than to any other system. This view, which I have long held, has been very admirably worked out by my friend and pupil Mr. R. A. Nicholson in his Selected Poems from the Díván-i-Shams-i-Tabríz (Cambridge, 1898), pp. xxx-xxxvi; but he is mistaken in stating (p. xxx) that “the name of Plotinus was unknown in the East,” for this philosopher is explicitly mentioned by name in the Fihrist (p. 255), though he is more generally referred to (e.g., by Shahristání, in his Kitábu'l-Milal) as “the Greek Teacher” (ash-Shaykhu'l-Yúnání).420a Porphyry, however, was much better known to the Muslims, and seven or eight of his writings are enumerated in the Fihrist (p. 253). But even admitting the connection between Neo-Platonism and Ṣúfíism, there remain several subsidiary questions to which it is not possible, in the present state of our knowledge, to give a definite answer: such as—(1) “What elements of their philosophy did the Neo-Platonists originally borrow from the East, and especially from Persia,420b which country Plotinus visited, as we learn from his biographer Porphyry, expressly to study the systems of philosophy there taught?”420c (2) “To what extent did the seven Neo-Platonist philosophers who, driven from their homes by the intolerance of Justinian, took refuge at the Persian court in the reign of Núshírwán (about A.D. 532) found a school or propagate their ideas in that country?”421a In the ninth century of our era, in the Golden Age of Islám, the Neo-Platonist philosophy was certainly pretty well known to thinking Muslims, but till the two questions posed above have received a definite answer we cannot exclude the possibility that its main doctrines were familiar to, if not derived from, the East at a very much earlier date.
(4) The theory of independent origin. As has been already hinted, there remains the possibility that the Ṣúfí mysticism may be an entirely independent and spontaneous growth. “The identity of two beliefs,” as Mr. Nicholson well remarks (op. cit., p. xxx), “does not prove that one is generated by the other: they may be results of a like cause.” Any one who has read that charming work, Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, will easily recall to mind some of the many striking resemblances, both in substance and form, in the utterances of mystics of the most various creeds, countries, and epochs, between whom it is practically certain that no external relation whatever can have existed; and I would venture to assert that many of the utterances of Eckart, Tauler, or Santa Teresa would, if translated into Persian, easily pass current as the words of Ṣúfí Shaykhs.
Now we must not fall into the error of regarding Ṣúfíism as a doctrine equally definite and systematised with that, for example, of the Isma'ílís, which was considered in the last chapter. The Ṣúfí is essentially an eclectic, and generally a latitudinarian: “the ways of God,” says one of his favourite aphorisms, “are as the number of the souls of men;” while the tradition, “Seek knowledge, were it even in China,” is constantly on his tongue. No one, perhaps, did more to gain for Ṣúfíism a good repute and to give it a philosophical form than the great theologian al-Ghazzálí, “The Proof of Islám” († A.D. 1111-1112), and this is how he describes his eagerness to understand every point of view in his treatise entitled al-Munqidh mina'ḍ-Ḍalál (“The Deliverer from Error”):—
“In the prime of my youth, since I was come to full understanding and ere I reached my twentieth year, until this present time, when my age exceedeth two score and ten, I have never ceased to explore the depths of this deep sea, or to plunge into its expanse as plunges the bold, not the timorous and cautious diver, penetrating into every dark recess, attacking every difficulty, braving every whirlpool, investigating the creed of every sect and unravelling the mysteries of every school, in order that I might learn to distinguish between the true and the false, the observer of authorised practices and the heretical innovator. Wherefore I never meet a Báṭiní (“Esoteric,” i.e., Isma'ílí) without desiring to inform myself of his Esotericism (Báṭiniyyat), nor a Dháhirí (“Externalist,” “Litteralist”) without wishing to know the outcome of his Externalism (Dháhiriyyat), nor a philosopher without endeavouring to understand the essence of his philosophy, nor a schoolman (Mutakallim) without striving to comprehend the result of his scholasticism (Kalám) and his controversial method, nor a Ṣúfí without longing to divine the secret of his mysticism, nor a devout believer without wishing to ascertain what he hath gained by his devotion, nor a heretic (Zindíq) nor an atheist without endeavouring to discover behind him an admonition as to the causes which have emboldened him to profess his atheistical or heretical doctrine. A thirst to comprehend the essential natures of all things was, indeed, my idiosyncrasy and distinctive characteristic from the beginning of my career and prime of my life: a natural gift and temperament bestowed on me by God, and implanted by Him in my nature by no choice or device of mine own, till at length the bond of blind conformity was loosed from me, and the beliefs which I had inherited were broken away when I was yet little more than a boy.”
Ṣúfíism, then, by reason of that quietism, eclecticism and latitudinarianism which are amongst its most characteristic features, is the very antithesis, in many ways, to such definite doctrines as the Manichæan, the Isma'ílí, and others, and would be more justly described as an indefinite immobility than as a definite movement. This point is often overlooked, and even scholars—especially such as have never visited the East— often speak of such sects as the Isma'ílís or the Bábís of to-day as though they were akin to the Ṣúfís, whereas a great hostility usually exists between them, the natural antagonism between dogmatism and eclecticism. The Bábís in particular equal their Shí'ite foes in their hatred of the Ṣúfís, whose point of view is quite incompatible with the exclusive claims of a positive and dogmatic creed, and this same abhorrence of the Ṣúfí latitudinarianism is very noticeable in the writings of the Christian missionary Henry Martyn. As for the Shí'ite mullás, their general attitude towards the Ṣúfís is admirably depicted by Morier in the twentieth chapter of his incomparable Hajji Baba. Yet Ṣúfíism has at various times, more especially, perhaps, in Sunní countries, stood the orthodox in good stead, and any one who is familiar with the Mathnawí of that greatest of all the Ṣúfí poets, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, will recall passages directed against the Mu'tazilites, philosophers, and other free-thinkers. And many of those who suffered death for their religious opinions, though subsequently canonised by the Ṣúfís, were in reality the exponents of various heretical doctrines; as was the case, for instance, with Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj (of whom something will be said later in this chapter), who appears to have been a dangerous and able intriguer, in close touch with the Carmathians; with Shaykh Shihábu'd-Dín Yaḥyá Suhrawardí “the Martyr” (al-Maqtúl, put to death in A.D. 1191), the author of the Ḥikmatu'l-Ishráq (“Philosophy of Illumination,”)423a who, as Jámí tells us (Nafaḥát, pp. 683-4) was charged with atheism, heresy, and believing in the ancient philosophers; with Faḍlu'lláh the inventor of the Ḥurúfí doctrine,423b who was put to death by Tímúr in A.D. 1401-2, and his follower Nasímí, the Turkish poet, who was flayed alive at Aleppo in A.D. 1417-8. The garb of a Ṣúfí dervish or religious mendicant was one of the most obvious disguises for a heretical propagandist to assume, and in fact it was on numerous occasions adopted by the fidá'ís of the Assassins.
But even the genuine Ṣúfís differed considerably one from another, for their system was essentially individualistic and little disposed towards propagandism. The fully developed 'Árif, “Gnostic” or Adept, had passed through many grades and a long course of discipline under various pírs, murshids, or spiritual directors, ere he had attained to the Gnosis ('Irfán) which viewed all existing religions as more or less faint utterances of that great underlying Truth with which he had finally entered into communion; and he neither conceived it as possible nor desirable to impart his conceptions of this Truth to any save those few who, by a similar training, were prepared to receive it. The three great classes into which Vaughan divides all mystics, the theosophic, the theopathetic, and the theurgic, are all represented amongst the Ṣúfís; but it is the second which most prevails in the earlier time which we are chiefly considering in this chapter. If we read what is recorded in the hagiologies of al-Qushayrí, al-Yáfi'í, Farídu 'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, Jámí, and others, concerning the earlier Ṣúfís, such as Ibráhím Adham († A.D. 777-8), and his contemporaries Sufyán ath-Thawrí, Dá'úd of Ṭayy, Abú Hashim and the woman Rábi'a al-'Adawiyya, or of Fuḍayl 'Iyáḍ († A.D. 803), Ma'rúf of Karkh († A.D. 815-6), Bishr b. al-Ḥárith († A.D. 841-2), Aḥmad b. Khidrawayh († A.D. 854-5), al-Muḥásibí († A.D. 857-8), Dhu'n-Nún of Egypt († A.D. 859-860), Sirrí as-Saqatí († A.D. 867) and the like, we find their utterances reflecting little more than a devout quietism, an earnest desire for something deeper and more satisfying to ardent souls than the formalism generally prevalent in Islám, and a passionate love of God for His own sake, not for the sake of the rewards or punishments which He may bestow. The following sayings, taken almost at random from the biographies of some of the abovementioned devotees given by 'Aṭṭár in his Tadhkiratu'l-Awliyá and by Jámí in his Nafaḥát and Baháristán will sufficiently serve to illustrate this point.
Sayings of Ibráhím Adham. “O God, Thou knowest that in mine eyes the Eight Paradises weigh no more than the wing of a gnat compared with that honour which Thou hast shown me in giving me Thy love, or that familiarity which Thou hast given to me by the commemoration of Thy Name, or that freedom from all else which Thou hast vouchsafed to me when I meditate on the Greatness of Thy Glory.” ('Aṭṭár.)
Being once asked why he had abandoned his kingdom of Balkh, he replied—
“One day I was seated on the throne when a mirror was presented to me. I looked therein, and perceived that my destination was the tomb, wherein I should have no friend to cheer me, and that I had before me a long journey for which I had made no provision. I saw a Just Judge, and myself equipped with no proof, and my kingdom grew distasteful to my heart.” ('Aṭṭár.)
A man offered him ten thousand dirhams, but he refused them, saying—
“Wouldst thou for such a sum of money erase my name from the register of Dervishes?” ('Aṭṭár.)
“Three veils must be removed from before the Pilgrim's heart ere the Door of Happiness is opened to him. First, that should the dominion of both worlds be offered to him as an Eternal Gift, he should not rejoice, since whosoever rejoiceth on account of any created thing is still covetous, and ‘the covetous man is debarred’ (from the knowledge of God). The second veil is this, that should he possess the dominion of both worlds, and should it be taken from him, he should not sorrow for his empoverishment, for this is the sign of wrath, and ‘he who is in wrath is tormented.’ The third is that he should not be beguiled by any praise or favour, for whoever is so beguiled is of mean spirit, and such an one is veiled (from the Truth): the Pilgrim must be high-minded.” ('Aṭtár.)
Sayings of Sufyán ath-Thawrí. “When the dervish frequents the rich, know that he is a hypocrite; but when he frequents kings, know that he is a thief.” (Aṭṭár.)
“Glory be to that God who slays our children, and takes away our wealth, and whom withal we love.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“If thou art better pleased when one saith unto thee, ‘Thou art a fine fellow,’ than when one saith unto thee, ‘Thou art a rascal,’ then know that thou art still a bad man.” ('Aṭṭár.)
Sayings of Rábi'a al-'Adawiyya. “The fruit of Wisdom is to turn one's face towards God.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“O God! Give to Thine enemies whatever Thou hast assigned to me of this world's goods, and to Thy friends whatever Thou hast assigned to me in the Life of the Hereafter, for Thou Thyself art sufficient for me.” (Aṭṭár.)
“I ask God's forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness in asking His forgiveness.” (Jámí.)
“O God! If I worship Thee for fear of Hell, send me to Hell; and if I worship Thee in hopes of Paradise, withhold Paradise from me; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me the Eternal Beauty.” (Aṭṭár.)
Sayings of Fuḍayl b. 'Iyáḍ. “I worship God in love, because I cannot refrain from worshipping Him.” (Jámí.)
“I would that I were ill, so that I need not attend congregational prayers, for ‘there is safety in solitude.’” ('Aṭṭár.)
“Whoever fears to be alone and craves for men's society is far from salvation.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“All things fear him who fears God, while he who fears aught else but God is in fear of all things.” ('Aṭṭár.)
It would be easy to multiply these aphorisms of the early Ṣúfís a hundredfold, but they are sufficient to illustrate the main characteristics of Muhammadan mysticism in its earliest stage: to wit, asceticism, quietism, intimate and personal love of God, and disparagement of mere lip-service or formal worship. This ascetic Ṣúfíism is regarded by von Kremer as the early Arabian type, which, if influenced at all from without, was influenced rather by Christian monasticism than by Persian, Greek or Indian ideas.
It is with Ṣúfís like Abú Yazíd (Báyazíd) of Bisṭám, a Persian, and the great-grandson of a Magian (his grandfather Ádam being the first of the family to embrace Islám), and Junayd of Baghdad (also, according to Jámí, a Persian), called Sayyidu'ṭ-Ṭá'ifa, “the Chief of the Community” that, in the latter part of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries of our era, the pantheistic element first makes its definite appearance. The former is said427a to have declared that he was “an unfathomable ocean, without beginning and without end;” that he was the Throne ('arsh) of God, the “Preserved Tablet” (lawḥ-i-maḥfúdh), the “Pen” or Creative Word of God, the prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and the Archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Isráfíl; “for,” added he, “whatever attains to True Being is absorbed into God and becomes God.” “Praise be to Me,” he is reported to have said on another occasion; “I am the Truth; I am the True God; I must be celebrated by Divine Praises.” 'Aṭṭár also reports him as saying, “Verily I am God: there is no God but me, therefore worship me;” and adds that “when his words waxed great, so that the formalists could not stomach them, seven times in succession they thrust him forth from Bisṭám.” Yet he remarked on one occasion, “Should I speak of my greater experiences, you could not bear to hear them; therefore I tell you only somewhat of the lesser ones.”
Junayd spoke much in the same fashion. “For thirty years,” said he, “God spoke with mankind by the tongue of Junayd, though Junayd was no longer there, and men knew it not.” “The supreme degree of the Doctrine of the Divine Unity is the denial of the Divine Unity.” In short, with these men, whom the Ṣúfís reckon amongst their greatest teachers, a very thorough-going pantheism is superadded to the quietism of the older mystics. The transition is in reality a natural one: from regarding God as the only proper object of love and subject of meditation; man as a mere instrument under His controlling Power, “like the pen in the hands of the scribe;” and the Spiritual Life alone as important, to regarding God as the One Reality and the Phenomenal World as a mere Mirage or Shadow of Being, is but a short step. It is noteworthy that both Báyazíd and Junayd were Persians, and may very likely have imported into the mysticism which they so ardently embraced ideas long endemic in their country, for it was certainly the Persian Ṣúfís who went to the greatest lengths in developing the Pantheistic aspect of Ṣúfíism; yet we must bear in mind that, as appears from a study of other forms of Mysticism, the step from Quietism to Pantheism is neither long nor difficult.
Here it behoves us to say something of the celebrated Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, who, as has been already hinted, was probably, to judge by the oldest and most credible records, a much less innocuous teacher than even the more advanced Ṣúfís, though by the later mystics, such as Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, Ḥáfidh, and the like, he is regarded as a hero, whose only fault, if fault he had, was “that he divulged the secret.” Of this man, who flourished at the beginning of the tenth century, and was put to death for heterodoxy during the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir in A.D. 922, chiefly, as commonly asserted, because in one of his ecstasies he had cried out, “I am the Truth!” (i.e., God), the most circumstantial of the older accounts are given in the Fihrist (pp. 190-192), and in 'Aríb's Supplement to Ṭabarí's History (ed. de Goeje, pp. 86-108), to which Ibn Miskawayh's narrative is appended by the learned editor. According to the Fihrist he was a Persian, but whether of Níshápúr, Merv, Ṭáliqán, Ray, or Kúhistán is uncertain. He is there described as “a wily fellow, expert in conjuring, affecting the doctrines of the Ṣúfís, adorning his discourse with their expressions, and claiming acquaintance with every science, though in fact devoid of all. He knew something of Alchemy, and was an ignorant, pushing, headstrong fellow, over-bold against authorities, meddling in high matters, eager to subvert governments, claiming divinity amongst his disciples, preaching the Doctrine of Incarnation, pretending to kings that he was of the Shí'a, and to the common folk that he held the opinions of the Ṣúfís … claiming that the Deity had become incarnate in him, and that he was God (Mighty and Holy is He, and far above what such as these assert!).” Being arrested in the course of his wanderings (in A.D. 913, according to Ṭabarí, iii, p. 2289), he was examined by Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. 'Ísá, the wazír of the Caliph al-Muqtadir, who found him “totally ignorant of the Qur'án and its ancillary sciences of Jurisprudence, Tradition, &c., and of Poetry and Arabic philology,” and told him that “it would be better for him to study how to purify himself and observe the obligations of Religion than to compose treatises in which he knew not what he said, uttering such wild rhapsodies as, ‘There descendeth the effulgent Lord of Light, who flasheth after His shining,’429a and the like.” After being affixed for a while (apparently with cords, not nails) to a cross or gibbet first on one and then on the other side of the Tigris in the presence of the soldiers of the guard, he was committed to prison, where he strove to win favour by conforming in some measure to the Sunnite ritual. He was originally one of the missionaries or propagandists of 'Alí ar-Riḍá, the Eighth Imám of the Shí'a of the “Sect of the Twelve,” in which capacity he was arrested and punished by scourging in Kúhistán, in Persia. He attempted to win over Abú Sahl Naw-Bakhtí, who offered to believe in him, together with many others, if he would produce from the air not an ordinary dirham, but one inscribed with his name and that of his father; but this al-Ḥalláj declined to attempt. He pretended to perform miracles, such as stretching forth his hand into the air and withdrawing it filled with musk or coins, which he scattered amongst the spectators. The titles of forty-six of his books and treatises are enumerated in the Fihrist (p. 192), and in one of them, it is said, occurred the words, “I am He who drowned the people of Noah and destroyed 'Ád and Thamúd.”
430aThe first appearance of al-Ḥalláj, according to the same authority, was in A.D. 911-2, ten years before his cruel execution in A.D. 922. He was betrayed at Sús by a woman who had observed from her house the assemblies which frequented his domicile, and, though he strove to deny his identity, he was recognised by one of his former disciples by a certain scar resulting from a wound on his head. After he had been scourged with a thousand stripes, and his hands and feet cut off, he was put to death, and his body burnt with fire.
According to 'Aríb, al-Ḥalláj pretended to be all things to all men—a Sunní to the Sunnís, a Shí'í to the Shí'a, and a Mu'tazi- 'Aríb's account of al-Ḥalláj. lite to the Mu'tazilites. Medicine, as well as Alchemy and Conjuring, is numbered amongst his accomplishments. He claimed to be an Incarnation of God, “and grievous were his calumnies against God and His apostles.” To his disciples he would say, to one, “Thou art Noah;” to another, “Thou art Moses;” to another, “Thou art Muḥammad;” adding, “I have caused their spirits to return to your bodies.” The historian aṣ-Ṣúlí, who had himself repeatedly met al-Ḥalláj, described him as “an ignorant fellow who pretended to be clever, an unready speaker who would pass as eloquent, and a rogue who clothed himself in woollen raiment (ṣúf) and made a parade of piety.”
430bTo what has been said about him, Ibn Miskawayh and the Kitábu'l-'Uyún (cited by de Goeje at the foot of 'Aríb's less detailed notice) add the following particulars. The attention of Ḥámid the wazír was directed to al-Ḥalláj by rumours of the influence which he was obtaining over the lower grades of officials and the common folk, who believed that he raised the dead to life, compelled the jinn to serve him and to bring Accounts of Ibn Miskawayh and the Kitábu'l-'Uyún. him whatever he pleased, and performed such miracles of the former prophets as he pleased. Three persons, one as-Simarí, a scribe and a Há-shimite, were indicated as his “prophets” (nabí), he himself claiming to be God; and these, being arrested and interrogated by Ḥámid, admitted that they were his missionaries and regarded him as God, able to raise the dead to life. All this was strenuously denied by al-Ḥalláj, who was at this time confined in prison, but allowed to receive whom he would, and who, besides his proper name, was known by the alias of Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fárisí. A daughter of his “prophet” as-Simarí gave a detailed and most damaging statement of his sayings and practices, and in the houses of as-Simarí, Ḥaydara, and al-Qunná'í the Háshimite were found many of his writings, some inscribed with gold on Chinese paper,431a brocade and silk, and richly bound in morocco. Then two of his missionaries in Khurásán, named Ibn Bishr and Shákir, were arrested, and the instructions which al-Ḥalláj had issued to them and his other agents were found, whereby the case was made heavier against him. Other of his pretended miracles are related, as, for instance, how he could expand his body so as to fill the whole room where he was, and how he restored a dead parrot to life for the Caliph al-Muqtadir, who was so far impressed by his achievements that he was very unwilling to consent to his death. Al-Ḥalláj was a great traveller, and visited India in order to see the celebrated Rope Trick, in which a rope is thrown up into the air and the performer (in this case a woman) climbs up it and disappears. Another of the heresies discovered by Hámid in his books consisted in elaborate instructions whereby the ceremony of the Pilgrimage could be performed anywhere, in a room specially prepared for the purpose; which heresy, along with others, he pretended to have derived from the writings of Ḥasan of Baṣra. On this he was condemned to the cruel death above mentioned (scourging, amputation, decapitation and cremation), and the execution thereof was entrusted to the Captain of the Guard (Ṣáḥibu' sh-Shurṭa) Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'ṣ-Ṣamad, who was specially cautioned not to give ear or pay heed to anything that he might say. After his head had been exposed for a while on the bridge over the Tigris, it was sent to Khurásán; but his disciples there maintained (as did the Gnostics, and after them the Muhammadans, concerning Christ)432a that not he, but one of his foes transformed into his likeness, suffered death and mutilation; and some of them even pretended to have seen and conversed with him since his reported death. The booksellers were made to take an oath that they would neither buy nor sell any of his writings. The period of his captivity from his first arrest till his execution was eight years seven months and eight days.
The following further particulars from al-Hamadhání are added by de Goeje at the foot of his edition of 'Aríb (pp. 96-101). Al-Ḥalláj's disciple as-Simarí, examined by Ḥámid, stated that his master had in mid-winter, when travelling with him near Iṣṭakhr in Fárs, produced a fresh cucumber for him out of the snow, and that he had actually eaten it; whereupon Ḥámid cursed him for a liar and commanded those who were present to smite him on the mouth. Another witness stated that the fruits apparently produced from nothing by al-Ḥalláj turned to dung as soon as men took them in their hands. There was a great flood in the Tigris shortly after his execution, and his followers declared that this was because the ashes of his burnt body had been cast into the river; while some of them pretended to have seen him on the road to Nahruwán riding on an ass, and to have heard him say that a beast transformed into his likeness had undergone the punishment destined for him. Amongst the Arabic verses of al-Ḥalláj cited are the following (p. 97):—
“Ne'er for my heart did I comfort or pleasure or peace obtain:
Wherefore, indeed, should I seek them, prepared as I was for
pain?
I mounted the steed of a perilous quest, and wonder is mine
At him who hopeth in hazardous pathways safety to gain.'Tis as though I were caught in waves which toss me about,
Now up, now down, now down, now up in the perilous main.
There burns a fire in my vitals, there dwells a grief in my
heart;
Summon my eyes to witness, for my tears bear witness plain.”
Some of the Ṣúfís, adds al-Hamadhání, claim that to al-Ḥalláj was revealed the Mystery, yea the Mystery of all Mysteries. He is reported to have said, “O God, Thou lovest even such as vex Thee: how then shalt Thou not love such as are afflicted for Thy sake?” On one occasion Ibn Naṣr al-Qushúrí was sick, and desired to eat an apple, but none were to be obtained, till al-Ḥalláj stretched forth his hand and drew it back with an apple which he claimed to have gathered from the gardens of Paradise. “But,” objected a bystander, “the fruit of Paradise is incorruptible, and in this apple there is a maggot.” “This,” answered al-Ḥalláj, “is because it hath come forth from the Mansion of Eternity to the Abode of Decay: therefore to its heart hath corruption found its way!” The author adds that those present applauded his answer more than his achievement; and, after reporting a conversation between him and ash-Shiblí, states that the name al-Ḥalláj (“the wool-carder”) was metaphorical, and was given to him because he could read man's most secret thoughts, and extract from their hearts the kernel of their imaginings as the wool-carder separates the cotton-grains from the cotton. Others, however, say that the name was given to him by a wool-carder at Wásiṭ whom he had miraculously assisted in his work. The Súfís differ as to whether he was of them or not. During his execution a woman named Fáṭima of Níshápúr was sent to him by ash-Shiblí (a recognised saint of the Ṣúfís) to ask him, amongst other things, what Ṣúfíism was; to which he replied: “That which is mine, for by God I never distinguished for a moment between pleasure and pain!”
The following additional particulars from Ibnu'l-Jawzí are also given by de Goeje at the foot of 'Aríb's text (pp. 101-8). On Wednesday and Thursday, December 1-2, A.D. 912, al-Ḥalláj was crucified alive on the east shore of the Tigris, and on the two following days on the west side.434a In the following year (having, it would appear, been released after this first severe punishment) he was arrested again at Sús with one of his followers, and brought into Baghdad on a camel as a public spectacle, while a herald proclaimed before him, “This is one of the dá'ís of the Carmathians: take note of him!” His subsequent examination before the wazír 'Alí b. 'Ísá is described as on p. 429 supra, and his second crucifixion and imprisonment. Again, under the year A.H. 309 (A.D. 921-2), in recording his death, the same author adds some further details. Al-Ḥalláj, whose grandfather is said to have been a Magian of Bayḍá (“the White Castle,” Dizh-i-Sapía) in Fárs, was brought up in Wásiṭ or Shushtar. Later he came to Baghdad, and associated with the Ṣúfís, including their great Shaykhs al-Junayd and Sufyán ath-Thawrí. Then he travelled widely in India, Khurásán, Transoxiana, and Turkistán. Men differ concerning him, some regarding him as a magician, others as a saint able to work wonders, and others as an impostor. The opinion of Abú Bakr aṣ-Ṣúlí concerning him, recorded on p. 430 supra, is cited again in nearly the same words. His professed object in visiting India was, according to a contemporary traveller who sailed in the same ship with him, to study magic; and he declared himself able to compose verses equal to those of the Qur'án—rank blasphemy worthy of death in the eyes of all good Muslims! Ibnu'l-Jawzi then mentions that he had composed a monograph on the sayings and doings of al-Ḥalláj, to which he refers the reader for further information. The same heresies (Incarnation, “Return” or Re-incarnation, and Anthropomorphism) are charged against al-Ḥalláj as by the authors already cited. His execution is stated to have taken place on Tuesday, March 26, A.D. 922. He walked fearlessly and even exultingly to the place of execution, reciting the following verses (see p. 363 supra):—
“My Friend doth unrelated stand to aught of ruth or clemency:
From His own cup He bade me sup, for such is hospitality!
But when the Wine had circled round, for sword and carpet435a
called He.
Who with the Dragon drinketh Wine in Summer, such his fate
shall be!”
Just before his head was struck off, he bade his disciples be of good cheer, for he would return to earth again in thirty days. Three years later three of his disciples, Ḥaydara, ash-Sha'rání, and Ibn Manṣúr, who refused to renounce their belief in him, were decapitated and crucified by Názúk, the Captain of the Guard.
Adh-Dhahabí also wrote a monograph (probably no longer extant) on al-Ḥalláj, and in his Annals he speaks briefly of him as consorting with al-Junayd, 'Amr b. 'Uthmán al-Makkí and other Ṣúfí Shaykhs, and feigning an ascetic life, but being led astray by his megalomania and love of power until he “quitted the circle of the Faith.” Nevertheless, says this author, many of the later Ṣúfís almost deify him, and even the great “Proof of Islám” al-Ghazzálí in his Mishkátu'l-Anwár makes excuses for him, “explaining away his sayings in a sense admirable enough, but far removed from the obvious meaning of the Arabic language. He is also mentioned by Abú Sa'íd an-Naqqásh in his History of the Ṣúfís as accused by some of magical practices and by others of heresy (zindiqa), and indeed the general view of some half-dozen other writers of authority cited by adh-Dhahabí is to the effect that al-Ḥalláj was “a detestable infidel” (Káfir khabíth).
I have dwelt thus fully on the oldest and most authentic accounts of this remarkable man because he became one of the favourite heroes and saints of most of the later Ṣúfís, the Persian mystical poets in particular constantly referring to him with approval and even enthusiasm. Moreover, he may probably be credited with introducing to a large extent the more avowedly pantheistic and thaumaturgic forms of Ṣúfíism with which henceforth we constantly meet. Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár speaks of him in his Memoirs of the Saints as “that Martyr of God in the Way of God, that Lion of the Thicket of the Search after Truth … that Diver in the Tempestuous Sea,” &c., praises his character and attainments, celebrates his miracles, and adds that “some charge him with practising magic, while some externalists denounce him as an infidel.” “I am astonished,” he remarks a little lower, alluding to Moses and the Burning Bush, “at those who consider it proper that the words, ‘Verily I am God,’ should come from a Tree which was as though non-existent, and who yet regard it as improper that the words, ‘I am the Truth,’ should come from the Tree of Ḥusayn b. Manṣur's being when Ḥusayn was no longer there.”437a Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr, the earliest Persian mystical poet, declared that al-Ḥalláj was unequalled in his time, either in the East or the West, in the exaltation of his ecstasies;437b and Jámí, who cites this opinion, as well as Ḥáfidh and most of the later mystics, speak in similar terms of admiration.
It was at a later period, probably during the latter part of the eleventh century, that Ṣúfíism was gradually moulded by al-Ghazzálí and others into a more or less philosophical system, and was also, to a considerable extent, brought into alliance with orthodoxy. In this connection it is a notable fact that Saná'í, 'Aṭṭár, and Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, the three greatest of the older Persian mystical poets, were all Sunnís; their poems abound with laudatory mentions of Abú Bakr and 'Umar, and they are the declared foes of the Mu'tazilites and Philosophers; while the greatest Shí'ite poets of Persia in early times, Firdawsí and Náṣir-i-Khusraw the Isma'ílí, had little of the Ṣúfí about them. Besides Firdawsí we find mentioned in that section of the Majálisu'l-Múminín, or “Assemblies of [Shí'ite] Believers,” which deals with Persian poets claimed as their own by the Shí'a, the following names: Asadí, Ghaḍá'irí of Ray, Pindár (or Bundár) of Ray, Abu'l-Mafákhir of Ray, Qiwámí of Ray, Kháqání of Shírwán, Anwarí, Salmán of Sáwa, Yamínu'd-Dín of Faryúmad, and practically no other early poets of any eminence. Even the great Sa'dí's grave at Shíráz is neglected, and has been insulted, by his later compatriots because he is known to have been a Sunní.437c The immense popularity enjoyed by Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí in Turkey, where his Mathnawí is the object of the most affectionate and careful study, especially amongst the Mevleví (or so-called “Dancing”) Dervishes, who take their name from him, their great “Master” (Mevla, the Turkish pronunciation of Mawlá), is no doubt due in great measure to the fact that, apart from his transcendental rhapsodies, he is “orthodox.” And here it may be added that all dervishes or faqírs (both words meaning “poor,” i.e., religious mendicants who have embraced a life of voluntary poverty for God's sake) are professedly more or less Ṣúfís, though many of them are, of course, ignorant fellows, who, notwithstanding their glib talk of “ecstasies,” “stations,” and “Annihilation in God,” have very little comprehension of the real scope and purport of the Ṣúfí doctrine.
Of this doctrine it is necessary in conclusion to give a brief sketch, premising that in the form in which it is here presented it is to some extent the product of a later age, and is to be found most fully elaborated in the works of poets like 'Iráqí and Jámí. In Arabic the poems of 'Umar ibnu'l-Fáriḍ and the voluminous writings of the great mystic of the West Shaykh Muḥyiyyu'd-Dín ibnu'l-'Arabí have not yet received the attention they merit from students of Ṣúfíism who choose to regard it as essentially and exclusively Persian in its origin, and who consequently confine their attention to its Persian manifestations.
The Ṣúfí system starts from the conception that not only True Being, but Beauty and Goodness, belong exclusively to The Ṣúfí system. God alone really exists. God, though they are manifested in a thousand mirrors in the Phenomenal World. “God was,” says one of their favourite aphorisms, “and there was naught beside Him;” to which are sometimes added the words, “and it is now even as it was then.” God, in short, is Pure Being, and what is “other than God” (má siwá'u'lláh) only exists in so far as His Being is infused into it, or mirrored in it. He is also Pure Good (Khayr-i-maḥḍ) and Absolute Beauty: whence He is often called by the mystics in their pseudo-erotic poems, “the Real Beloved,” “the Eternal Darling,” and the like. Thus Jámí says, in a passage of which I have published a full translation in another place:439a —
“Whatever heart
Doth yield to Love, He charms it. In His love
The heart hath life. Longing for Him, the soul
Hath victory. That heart which seems to love
The fair ones of this world loves Him alone.
Beware! Say not, ‘He is All-Beautiful,
And we His lovers!’ Thou art but the glass,
And He the Face confronting it which casts
Its image in the mirror. He alone
Is manifest, and thou in truth art hid.
Pure Love, like Beauty, coming but from Him,
Reveals itself in thee. If steadfastly
Thou canst regard, thou wilt at length perceive
He is the Mirror also; He alike
The Treasure and the Casket. ‘I’ and ‘Thou’
Have here no place, and are but phantasies
Vain and unreal.”
This, then, is how the Ṣúfís understand the Doctrine of the Divine Unity (Tawḥíd): not merely is there “no god but Being, NotBeing, and Phenomenal or Contingent Being. God,” as the Muhammadan profession of Faith declares, but there is nothing but God. The World of Phenomena and of the Senses is a mere Mirage—a reflection of Being on Not-Being, manifesting the Attributes of Being as the reflection manifests its original, but not really participating in its nature. An illustration commonly employed by the Ṣúfís is that of the Sun (which typifies Being) reflected in a pool of water (Not-Being). The reflection of the Sun (the Phenomenal World) is entirely “contingent”: it may be blotted out instantly by a passing cloud, or marred by a sudden gust of wind; it is entirely dependent on the Sun, while the Sun is absolutely independent of it; yet, while it lasts, it more or less faithfully reveals the Nature and Attributes of its Unchanging Prototype. This idea is finely expressed in one of the odes of Shams-i-Tabríz, rendered into English verse by my friend Mr. R. A. Nicholson (op. cit., p. 343):—
“Poor copies out of heaven's original,
Pale earthly pictures mouldering to decay,
What care although your beauties break and fall,
When that which gave them life endures for aye?”
It is the essential nature of Beauty to desire to reveal and manifest itself, which quality it derives from the Eternal Cause of Creation. Beauty. “I was a Hidden Treasure,” God is described by the Ṣúfís as saying to David, “and I wished to be known, so I created creation that I might be known.” Now a thing can only be known through its opposite—Light by Darkness, Good by Evil, Health by Sick- The Nature of Evil. ness, and so on; hence Being could only reveal itself through Not Being, and through the product of this admixture (to use a not very accurate expression), namely, the Phenomenal World. Thus Eternal Beauty manifests itself, as it were, by a sort of self-negation; and what we call “Evil” is a necessary consequence of this manifestation, so that the Mystery of Evil is really identical with the Mystery of Creation, and inseparable therefrom. But Evil must not be regarded as a separate and independent entity: just as Darkness is the mere negation of Light, so Evil is merely the Not-Good, or, in other words, the Non-Existent. All Phenomenal Being, on the other hand, necessarily contains some elements of Good, just as the scattered rays of the pure, dazzling white light which has passed through the prism are still light, their light more or less “coloured” and weakened. It is from this fall from the “World of Colourlessness” ('álam-i-bí-rangí) that all the strife and conflict apparent in this world result, as it is said in the Mathnawí:—
“When Colourlessness became the captive of Colour,
441a
A Moses was at war with a Moses.”
And so speaks Jámí:—
“Thou art Absolute Being; all else is naught but a Phantasm,
For in Thy universe all things are one.
Thy world-captivating Beauty, to display its perfections,
Appears in thousands of mirrors, but it is one.
Although Thy Beauty accompanies all the beautiful,
In truth the Unique and Incomparable Heart-enslaver is one.
All this turmoil and strife in the world is from love of Him:
It hath now become known that the Ultimate Source of the Mischief
is one.”
From another aspect, which harmonises better with the Neo-Platonist doctrine (to which, as we have already seen, Ṣúfíism was apparently so much indebted for its later more philosophical form), the Grades of Being may be conceived of as a series of Emanations, which become weaker, more unreal, more material and less luminous as they recede further from the Pure Light of Absolute Being.
So far we have spoken chiefly of the “Arc of Descent,” but there is also the “Arc of Ascent,” whereby Man, the final product of this evolutionary chain, returns to his original home, and, by “Annihilation in God” (Faná fi'lláh), is once more merged in the Divine Essence which is the only True Being: as it is said, “Everything returns to its Source.” Here it is that the Ethics, as opposed to the Metaphysics, of Ṣúfíism begin. Evil is, as we have seen, illusion; its cure is to get rid of the ignorance which causes us to take the Phantasms of the World of Sense for Realities. All sinful desire, all sorrow and pain, have their root in the idea of Self, and Self is an illusion. The first and greatest step in the Ṣúfí “Path” (Ṭaríqat) is, then, to escape from self, and even an earthly love may, to some extent, effect this deliverance. It is here especially that the emotional character of Ṣúfíism, so different from the cold and bloodless theories of the Indian philosophies, is apparent. Love here, as with so many of the Mystics in all ages and all countries, is the Sovereign Alchemy, transmuting the base metal of humanity into the Divine Gold. Once more let Jámí speak:—
442a“Though in this world a hundred tasks thou tryest,
'Tis Love alone which from thyself will save thee.
Even from earthly love thy face avert not,
Since to the Real it may serve to raise thee.
Ere A, B, C, are rightly apprehended,
How canst thou con the pages of the Qur'án?
A sage (so heard I) unto whom a scholar
Came craving counsel on the course before him,
Said, ‘If thy steps be strangers to Love's pathways,
Depart, learn love, and then return before me!
For, should'st thou fear to drink wine from Form's flagon,
Thou canst not drain the draughts of the Ideal.
But yet beware! Be not by Form belated;
Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse.
If to the bourn thou fain would'st bear thy baggage
Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger.’”
Hence the Ṣúfís say: “Al-majázu qanṭaratu'l-Ḥaqíqat” (“The Phantasmal is the Bridge to the Real”): by the typal love the Pilgrim (sálik) learns to forget self and to see only the beloved, until he at length realises that what he loves in his beloved is a mere dim reflection of the Eternal Beauty, which “appears in thousands of mirrors, yet is but One.” Of this rather than of the cold metaphysics of Buddhism might Sir Edwin Arnold have been writing where he says:442b —
“For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close,
For glory to be Lord of self, for pleasure
To live beyond the gods; for countless wealth
To lay up lasting treasureOf perfect service rendered, duties done
In charity, soft speech, and stainless days:
These riches shall not fade away in life,
Nor any death dispraise.
While his equally beautiful definition of Nirvâna443a admirably describes the Ṣúfí idea of “Annihilation in God”:—
“Seeking nothing, he gains all;
Foregoing self, the Universe grows ‘I’:
If any teach Nirvâna is to cease,
Say unto such they lie.If any teach Nirvâna is to live,
Say unto such they err, not knowing this,
Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps,
Nor lifeless, timeless bliss.”
Ṣúfíism has been discussed by other writers so much more fully than most of the topics mentioned in these pages that I do not propose to devote more space to it in this volume. As already remarked, it essentially differs from most of the creeds hitherto described in its latitudinarian and non-proselytising character. It seeks not so much to convert those of other faiths as to understand what particular aspect of Truth each of these creeds represents. How it understands the Muhammadan doctrine of the Divine Unity we have already seen. In the Dualism of the Magians and the Manichæans it sees typified the interaction of Being and Not Being wherefrom the Phenomenal World results. The Christian Trinity typifies the Light of Being, the Mirror of the purified human soul, and the Rays of the Divine Outpouring. Even from Idolatry there are lessons to be learned.444a How far removed is this attitude of mind from that of the dogmatic and exclusive creeds which have hitherto occupied our attention!
444bAs has been already observed, Arabic continued during the whole of the period which we are now discussing to be the chief literary medium in Persia, not only for prose but for verse. Nevertheless Persian again begins, under those semi-independent dynasties, the Ṣaffárids and Sámánids, and even under the earlier Ṭáhirids, to be employed as a literary language: more, indeed, for verse than prose, but to some extent for both. In this chapter we shall have to consider chiefly the poets of Persian nationality, first those who used their mother-tongue, and secondly those who employed the Arabic language.
Our authorities for the latter are fuller, though, with one exception, not much more accessible, than for the former; and Authorities for the Arabicwriting poets. (i) The Yatíma of ath-Tha'álibí. the chief one is the Yatímatu'd-Dahr (or “Unique Pearl of the Age”) of Abú Manṣúr 'Abdu'l-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Isma'íl ath-Tha'álibí445a of Níshá-púr in Khurásán, who, according to Ibn Khallikán, was born in A.D. 961 and died in A.D. 1038. This valuable anthology of Arabic verse was published at Damascus in A.D. 1885 and following years in four volumes; of which the first deals in ten chapters (pp. 536) with the poets of Syria (including the “Circle of Sayfu'd-Dawla,” Abú Firás, the House of Ḥamdán and al-Mutanabbí), Egypt, the Maghrib and Mosul; the second, in ten chapters (pp. 316), with the poets of Baghdad and Arabian 'Iráq who flourished under the patronage of the noble House of Buwayh; the third, in ten chapters (pp. 290), with the poets of Persia (except Khurásán), who were patronised by the Buwayhids of Persia and their ministers (notably the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbad), and the rulers of Ṭabar-istán, especially the Ziyárid Qábús b. Washmgír, a glowing encomium of whose virtues and talents concludes the volume; and the fourth and last, also in ten chapters (pp. 332), with the poets of Khurásán and Khwárazm, who flourished under the protection of the House of Sámán. This work is a perfect treasury of information as to the literary condition of Persia in this period (circ. A.H. 350-403 = A.D. 961-1012), and gives us an extraordinary idea of the extent to which the Arabic language was cultivated throughout Persia, even as far as Khwárazm, at this time; for here we find Persian poets addressing their Persian patrons in excellent Arabic verse, occasionally extemporised on the spur of the moment; so that it would seem that at this epoch Arabic must have been as well understood in Persia by persons of education as English is in Wales at the present time; and that there were eloquent Persians then who could wield the Arabic language as skilfully and successfully as several Welsh orators can the English language in this our day. This is certainly a far closer analogy than that afforded by the Greek and Latin verses now produced in England by classical scholars, which, however good they may be, are the outcome of much thought and labour, and lack, I imagine, the quality of spontaneity. In order to ascertain the effect produced by these Arabic verses composed by Persian poets on one whose native language was Arabic, and who knew no Persian, though deeply learned in his own tongue and its literature, I seized the occasion of a visit paid to me at Cambridge two or three summers ago by Shaykh Abu'n-Naṣr, formerly répétiteur of Arabic at the admirably organised École des Langues Orientales Vivantes of Paris, to read with him some thirty pages of the last volume of the Yatíma, dealing with the poets of Khurásán; and he assured me that the verses were excellent Arabic, and, as a rule, so far as the language went, showed no trace of foreign origin. The lack of Persian verse produced at this epoch does not, then, arise from any lack either of talent or of literary ability, but simply from the fact that it was still the fashion to use Arabic instead of the native speech for literary purposes; and I cannot help feeling astonished that those who concern themselves with Persian literature (unless they regard literature as merely expressing the speech and not at all the genius of a people) should have hitherto ignored almost entirely this rich field of study, with which those scholars whose interest lies primarily with the Arabs and other Semitic peoples are more naturally disinclined to trouble themselves. Indeed the only considerable study of the Yatíma (in so far as it concerns Persia) with which I am acquainted is M. Barbier de Meynard's interesting series of articles in the Journal Asiatique for 1853 (pp. 169-239), and 1854 (pp. 291-361), entitled Tableau Littéraire du Khorassan et de la Transoxiane au IVe siècle de l'Hégire, which contains a translation of pp. 2-114 or the fourth volume of the Yatíma. If we are entitled to look for the Celtic genius in the poems of Moore, Yeats, or Lewis Morris, surely we may expect to discover some characteristics of the Persian mind in these poets, who, though Arabic in speech (at least for literary purposes), were Íránian by race.
With the precursors of the Yatíma (such as the Ḥamásas; the “Classes,” or Ṭabaqát, of Ibn Qutayba and Abú 'Abdi'lláh Supplement to the Yatíma. Muḥammad b. Sallám al-Jumaḥí; the Kitábu'l-Aghání , &c.),447a we need not here further concern ourselves, but a few words must be said concerning its supplements, which, unfortunately, since they exist only in rare manuscripts, I have not been able at present to read or examine at leisure. Two only need be mentioned, of which The Dumyatu 'l-Qaṣr. the first and most important is the Dumyatu 'l-Qaṣr of al-Ḥusayn b. 'Alí al-Bákharzí († A.D. 1074-5). Of this work the British Museum possesses at least two manuscripts (Add. 9994 and Add. 22,374), and its contents are fully described at pp. 265-271 of the old Arabic Catalogue. It comprises seven chapters, of which the first treats of the poets of the Arabian Desert and Ḥijáz (27 notices); the second of the poets of Syria, Diyár Bakr, Mesopotamia, Ádharbayján, and other lands west of Persia proper (70 notices); the third of the poets of 'Iráq (64 notices); the fourth of the poets of Ray, al-Jibál, Isfahán, Párs, and Kirmán (72 notices); the fifth of the poets of Jurján, Astarábád, Qúmis, Dihistán, and Khwárazm (55 notices); the sixth of the poets of Khurásán, Kúhistán Bust, Sístán, and Ghazna (225 notices); and the seventh of eminent literary men who were not poets (20 notices). In this work one is struck not only by the very large number of natives of Persia who appear as the authors of Arabic verse, but by the essentially Persian names or titles of many of them. Some were recent converts from Zoroastrianism (perhaps in some cases actual Zoroastrians), such as Ibn Mahabzud (i.e., Máh-afzúd) “the Magian” (al-Majúsí), and Mahyár b. Marzúya of Daylam, who was converted to Islám in A.D. 1003-4 by the Sharíf ar-Raḍí, a much more famous poet than himself;448a others have names, such as Khusraw Fírúz, Durustúya, and Faná-Khusraw (for Panáh-Khusraw), or titles, such as Dihkhudá, Dív-dádí, so essentially Persian that no doubt as to their origin is possible. Other later works of the same class are the Zaynatu'z-Zamán of Shamsu'd-Dín Muḥammad of Andakhúd, the Kharídatu'l-Qaṣr of 'Imádu'd-Dín al-Kátib al-Iṣfahání, &c.
For the Persian-writing poets of Persia the chief primary authorities now extant are the Chahár Maqála, or “Four Primary sources for Persianwriting poets of this period. Discourses” of the Ghúrid court-poet Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí of Samarqand (written about A.D. 1155), and the Lubábu'l Albáb of Muḥammad 'Awfí (written in the first half of the thirteenth century). Of the former I published in the J. R. A. S. for 1899 The Chahár Maqála. a complete translation (obtainable also as a tirage-à-part ), based on the Tihrán lithographed edition (A.H. 1305 = A.D. 1887-8) and the two British Museum manuscripts (Or. 2,956 and Or. 3507); while 'Awfí's Lubáb. the latter, based on the Elliot Codex described by N. Bland in the J. R. A. S., vol. ix, pp. 112 et seqq., and the Berlin Codex (Sprenger 318 = No. 637 of Pertsch's Catalogue), will form the next volume of my Persian Historical Text Series.449a Another important work (unfor- Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní. tunately, as it would appear, no longer extant) was the Manáqibu'sh-Shu'ará (“Traits of the Poets”) of Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní,449b a well-known poet and writer of the Seljúq period. All these authorities were used directly and indirectly by Dawlatsháh (wrote in A.D. 1487), and by the later compilers of Tadhkiras (“Memoirs”) of the Persian poets; and 'Awfí in particular is extensively cited by Riḍa-qulí Khán, the author of one of the most modern and most complete works of this Asadí's Lughat-iFurs. nature, the Majma'u'l-Fuṣahá (2 vols., lith. Tihrán, A.H. 1295 = A.D. 1878). Another ancient though somewhat scanty source of information, which at least serves to show us how many Persian-writing poets flourished before the middle of the eleventh century of our era, is the Lughat-i-Furs, or Persian Lexicon, of Asadí of Ṭús, composed about A.D. 1060, and edited from the old Vatican MS. (Pers. XXII), transcribed in A.D. 1332, by Dr. Paul Horn (Strassburg, 1897).450a In this most valuable work verses of some seventy-eight poets, many of them otherwise unknown or scarcely known even by name, are cited.
Having now considered the sources available to us for a study of the literary phenomena presented by Persia at this period, we shall consider first the Persian- and then the Arabic-writing poets who flourished under the Ṭáhirid, Ṣaffárid, Sámánid, and other contemporary dynasties, deriving our information concerning the former chiefly from 'Awfí's Lubáb, and for the latter from Tha'álibí's Yatíma. The latter work has been already sufficiently described, but, pending the publication of my edition of the latter, some account of its contents is here given.
Of the author of this work, Muḥammad 'Awfí, nearly all that is known will be found on pp. 749-750 of Rieu's Description of 'Awfí's Lubábu'l-Albáb. Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. He claimed descent from 'Abdu'r Raḥ-mán b. 'Awf, one of the six Companions of the Prophet who were appointed by the dying Caliph 'Umar to choose his successor from their midst. His repeated references to poets whom he had met at different dates and in different towns in Persia show that he had travelled widely in Khurásán and the neighbouring lands about the beginning of the seventh century of the hijra (circ. A.D. 1200). He subsequently resided in India, first at the Court of Náṣiru'd Dín Qúbacha, and then at that of Shamsu'd-Dín Íltatmish, after the overthrow of his former patron by the latter in A.H. 625 (= A.D. 1228). Besides the Lubáb he was the author of a vast collection of stories entitled the Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát, consisting of four books, each comprising twenty-five chapters.
The Lubáb, notwithstanding its age, is in some ways a disappointing book, owing to the undue prominence which it gives to the poets of Khurásán, and the almost complete lack of biographical particulars. Indeed, it is rather to be regarded as a vast anthology than as a biography. It is divided as follows into twelve chapters, of which the first seven make up vol. i, and the last five the larger and more interesting vol. ii:—
| Chapter | I. | On the Excellence of Poetry. |
| Chapter | II. | Etymology of the word shi'r (Poetry). |
| Chapter | III. | Who first composed poetry. |
| Chapter | IV. | Who first composed poetry in Persian. |
| Chapter | V. | Kings and nobles who wrote verse. |
| Chapter | VI. | Ministers and officials who wrote verse. |
| Chapter | VII. | Theologians, doctors, and scholars who wrote verse. |
| Chapter | VIII. | Poets of the Ṭáhirí, Ṣaffárí, and Sámání dynasties. |
| Chapter | IX. | Poets of the Ghaznawí dynasty. |
| Chapter | X. | Poets of the Seljúq dynasty. |
| Chapter | XI. | Poets contemporary with the Author. |
| Chapter | XII. | Courtiers contemporary with the Author who wrote verses. |
The first volume, which deals with those who were not poets by profession, contains about 122 notices; and the second, dealing with poets by profession, about 164 notices: in all, about 286 notices of poets who lived before A.H. 625 (A.D. 1228). The credit of making known to European scholars the contents of this valuable compilation belongs primarily to Nathaniel Bland, who, under the title of The Most Ancient Persian Biography of Poets, described at considerable length the manuscript which belonged successively to J. B. Elliott (A.D. 1825) and Lord Crawford (1866-1901), and which has lately (August, 1901) been bought by Mrs. Rylands for the John Rylands Library at Manchester, in vol. ix (pp. 112 et seqq.) of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal; and the other known manuscript (now at Berlin) was described by Dr. Sprenger at pp. 1-6 of his Catalogue of the … Manuscripts of the Library of the King of Oudh (Calcutta, 1854).452a Since then Dr. Ethé, of Aberystwyth, has made great use of it in a series of admirable monographs on the earlier Persian poets452b which he has published in various German periodicals; and now I hope that the text will soon be available to all Persian scholars in the edition which I am about to publish. Here it will only be possible to notice a few of the most notable poets of the earliest period.
452c(1) Ḥandhala of Bádghís is the only Persian poet belonging to the Ṭáhirid period (A.D. 820-872) mentioned by 'Awfí, who cites only the two following couplets:452d —
“Though rue-seed in the fire my sweetheart threw
452e
Lest hurt should from the Evil Eye accrue,
I fear nor fire nor rue can aught avail
That face like fire and beauty-spot like rue!”
(2) Fírúz al-Mashriqí, whom 'Awfí next mentions, lived in the time of 'Amr b. Layth the Ṣaffárid (A.D. 878-900). Of his verses likewise only two couplets are handed down:—
“A bird the Arrow is—strange bird of doom!
Souls are its prey, the quarry of its quest:
It borrows for its use the eagle's plume,
Thereby to claim the eaglet as its guest.”
(3) Abú Salík of Gurgán concludes the short list of Ṭáhirid and Sámánid poets. Two separate fragments of his verse, each consisting of two couplets, are cited by 'Awfí.
The remaining twenty-eight poets mentioned in this chapter all belong to the Sámánid period, but some of them were under the patronage of the House of Buwayh (e.g., Manṣúr b. 'Alí al-Manṭiqí ar-Rází and Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. 'Alí Khusrawí of Sarakhs, both of whom were patronised by that generous minister the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád), others (e.g., the last-mentioned poet, and Abu'l-Qásim Ziyád b. Muḥammad Qumrí of Gurgán) sung the praises of the Ziyárids of Ṭabaristán, others (e.g., Daqíqí and Manjik) of the Chaghání or Faríghúní rulers, and others of the early Kings of Ghazna; while some half-dozen seem to have had no special patron. Most of them are mentioned, and their extant verses cited, by Ethé453a in his already cited article (published in Professor Fleischer's Festschrift, entitled Mor-genländische Forschungen, Leipzig, 1875, pp. 35-68), and only a few of the most notable need detain us here. Three or four are described as Dhu'l-Lisánayn (“Masters of the two languages”), or bilingual poets, composing verses both in Arabic and Persian: of these are Shaykh Abu'l-Ḥasan Shahíd of Balkh, Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. 'Alí Khusrawí of Sarakhs, and Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'lláh Junaydí, who is stated by 'Awfí to be mentioned in the Yatíma, though I have hitherto been unable to find any notice of him in that work.
(4) Shahíd of Balkh. Of this poet seven pieces of Persian verse, comprising fifteen couplets, and three couplets of Arabic are recorded by 'Awfí, as well as some verses composed on his death by Rúdagí, who says that though, according to the reckoning of the eyes, one man has passed away, in the estimate of wisdom it is as though more than a thousand had died. The following translations are given as specimens of his work:—
“The cloud doth weep as weeps the Lover, while
Like the Belovèd doth the Garden smile;
Afar the thunder, like myself, doth groan,
When with the dawn I raise my piteous moan.”“Had sorrow smoke like fire, I do protest
The world would e'er remain in darkness dresst;
Search the world through and through: thou wilt not find
One man of wit who's not by grief oppresst.”
Some of his Arabic verses are said to be given in an anthology (otherwise unknown) entitled Ḥamásatu'dh-Dhurafá, compiled by Abú Muḥammad 'Abdu'l-Káfí-i-Zawzaní.
(5) Abú Shu'ayb Ṣáliḥ b. Muḥammad of Herát is chiefly known as the author of five couplets in praise of a pretty Christian child, of which the first three are to the following effect:—
“Face and figure meet for Heaven, holding doctrines doomed to hell,
Chain-like ringlets, cheek like tulips, eyes that shame the sweet
gazelle,
Mouth as though some Chinese painter with his brush had drawn
a line
Of vermilion on a ground of musk to form those lips of thine.
'Midst the swarthy Æthiopians could his grace divided be,
Each would have wherewith to stir the Turkish beauties' jealousy.”
(6) Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muhammad b. Musá al-Faráláwí455a was a contemporary of the above-mentioned Shahíd, with whom he is “bracketed” by the later and greater Rúdagí, of whom we shall speak directly, in a verse cited by 'Awfí. The following fragment alone survives of his poems:—
“What greater claim on me than him to greet,
To whom I ne'er can render service meet?
For service poorly rendered none I need
Save his great charity to intercede.”
(7) Abú 'Abdi'lláh Ja'far b. Muḥammad ar-Rawdhakí,455b commonly called Rúdakí or Rúdagí, is generally reckoned the first really great poet of Muhammadan Persia; and Bal'amí, the Prime Minister of Isma'íl b. Aḥmad the Sámánid (A.D. 892-907), and father of the translator into Persian of Ṭabarí's Great Chronicle,455c even went so far as to declare that he was “peerless amongst the Arabs and the Persians.”455d Amongst contemporary poets also he appears to have enjoyed a high reputation. Shahíd of Balkh says in a verse cited by 'Awfí that “‘Bravo!’ and ‘Well done!’ are praise to other poets, but it would be satire to say ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Well done!’ to Rúdagí.” By Ma'rúfí of Balkh he is called “the King of poets” (Sulṭán-i-shá'irán), and from the words ascribed to him, “Incline to no one in the world but to the Fáṭimid,” it would appear as though he was in sympathy with the Isma'ílís, which agrees very well with the Isma'ílí proclivities ascribed to his master and patron, the Sámánid Prince Naṣr II b. Aḥmad (A.D. 913-942), by the Nidhámu'l-Mulk in his Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, pp. 188-193). Daqíqí also, the predecessor of Firdawsí, says that for him to praise one who had been the object of Rúdagí's panegyrics would be “to bring dates to Hajar” (or, as we say in English, “to bring coals to Newcastle”). Even 'Unṣurí, the Poet Laureate of Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna, admits that in the ghazal, or ode, he cannot rival Rúdagí.
Rúdagí was born in a village near Samarqand, and is stated by 'Awfí (though Dr. Ethé doubts the truth of this statement) to have been blind from his birth. He was not only a graceful poet but a sweet singer, and withal skilful in the use of the harp and lute; and he stood in high favour with his royal patron Naṣr II. Indeed the most celebrated of his achievements (mentioned in almost every biography of Persian poets) is connected with an improvisation of which the circumstances have been already mentioned in the first chapter of this book (pp. 14-16 supra), and which was, apparently, sung by him before the King to the accompaniment of the harp.456a Towards the end of his life456b (possibly for reasons connected with his religious beliefs, to which allusion has already been made) he fell from favour and was overtaken by poverty, but in the heyday of his popularity he is said by 'Awfí to have possessed two hundred slaves, while a hundred camels456c were required to carry his baggage. His verses, according to the same authority, filled a hundred volumes; while Jámí in his Baháristán states, on the alleged authority of the Kitáb-i-Yamíní (i.e. Utbí's history of Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna), that they amounted to one million and three hundred couplets.457a Of these only a very small proportion have come down to our time, though many more than was formerly supposed. Thus Dr. Horn has pointed out in his excellent edition of Asadí's Lughatu'l-Furs (pp. 18-21) that Rúdagí is cited in that work more often than any other old poet, and he gives some sixteen couplets from his lost mathnawí of Kalíla and Dimna alone, and there are a good many inedited anthologies and similar works in the British Museum and other large libraries of Europe which would yield a very considerable quantity of his work. Dr. Ethé in his admirable monograph on Rúdagí457b has collected together from such sources fifty-two fragments of greater or less length, amounting in all to 242 couplets, and from the additional sources of information rendered available within the last thirty years, there is no doubt that this number could now be largely increased. As Dr. Ethé has appended German verse-translations to all the fragments of Rúdagí which he has collected in the above-mentioned monograph, it appears unnecessary to give here any further specimens of his poetry for the European reader, save the two following fragments translated by my dear old teacher, Professor Cowell (= Ethé, Nos. 20 and 41):—
“Bring me yon wine which thou might'st call a melted ruby in its cup,
Or like a scimetar unsheathed, in the sun's noon-tide light held up.
'Tis the rose-water, thou might'st say, yea thence distilled for purity;
Its sweetness falls as sleep's own balm steals o'er the vigil-wearied eye.
Thou mightest call the cup the cloud, the wine the raindrop
from it cast,
Or say the joy that fills the heart whose prayer long looked-for
comes at last.
Were there no wine all hearts would be a desert waste, forlorn
and black,
But were our last life-breath extinct, the sight of wine would
bring it back.
O if an eagle would but swoop, and bear the wine up to the sky,
Far out of reach of all the base, who would not shout ‘Well
done!’ as I?”
“When I am dead, my last breath sighed away,
And spent my latest wish with no return,
Come by my bed and whisper o'er my clay,
‘I killed thee, and 'tis I who now must mourn.’”
(8) Shaykh Abu'l-'Abbás, Faḍl b. 'Abbás, a contemporary of Rúdagí, mourned the patron of the latter, Naṣr II, and at the same time hailed his successor in the following lines:—
“From us is snatched a King of noble race,
Another, brave and high-born, takes his place.
For him who's gone Time sorrows with one voice,
For him now crowned the World's heart doth rejoice.
Look with the eye of Wisdom, now, and say,
‘God giveth, even when He takes away!’
The Lamp which shines He may extinguish, yet
Again another in its place doth set.
Unlucky Saturn heavy blows may deal,
Yet Jupiter transmutes the woe to weal.”
(9) Shaykh Abú Zurá'a al-Mu'ammarí (or Mi'márí, or Mi'márí) of Gurgán, on being bidden by a noble of Khurásán to compose verse like Rúdagí's, replied thus:—
“Though I have not Rúdagí's fortune, let that not amaze
Nor cause you to think me behind him in sonnets and lays.
He amassed, at the price of his eyesight, great treasure, we're told,
But ne'er would I barter my eyesight for silver or gold!
Of what princes gave him as gifts give one thousandth to me,
And a thousand times sweeter than his shall my melody be.”
From the following fragment it would appear that he considered his military talents to be equal to his literary skill:—
“Where there is giving afoot, for silver gold do I fling,
And where there is speaking, hard steel to the softness of wax
I bring:
Where there are winds a-whirling, there like the wind I pass,
Now with the lute and the goblet, now with the mailed cuirass!”
Passing over Abú Isḥáq Ibráhím b. Muḥammad al-Bukhárí al-Júybárí, of whose life and date 'Awfí says nothing save that he was by profession a goldsmith, but of whose verse he cites five couplets, we come to another really important poet, Firdawsí's predecessor—
(10) Abú Manṣúr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad ad-Daqíqí of Ṭús. In spite of the essentially and almost aggressively Muhammadan name of this poet, it has been contended by Ethé,459a Nöldeke,459b and, less decidedly, by Horn,459c that he was a Zoroastrian, this opinion being based on the following verses with which one of his poems concludes:459d —
“Of all that's good or evil in the world
Four things suffice to meet Daqíqí's need:
The ruby-coloured lip, the harp's lament,
The blood-red wine, and Zoroaster's creed.”
Though these verses, notwithstanding what is said by Ethé (who only had at his disposal the Berlin manuscript of 'Awfí, which has a lacuna at this point), are not given by 'Awfí, I am not disposed to doubt their genuineness, but I think too much has been based upon them, and that Daqíqí's admiration for “Zoroaster's creed” was probably confined to one single point —its sanction of wine-drinking; which, as I have elsewhere remarked,460a is still a very prominent feature in the daily life of the Persian Zoroastrian.
Daqíqí's chief claim to fame is that he was first entrusted with the versification of the Persian Epic, but when he had completed about one thousand couplets of that portion which deals with the appearance of Zoroaster and the establishment of his religion, he was stabbed by a Turkish boy who was his favourite slave.460b Firdawsí, in consequence of a vision (which, probably enough, is a mere poetic figment) incorporated Daqíqí's work in his own, but not without passing a somewhat severe and ungenerous criticism on its merits—a criticism which Professor Nöldeke, who has carefully compared this portion of the Sháhnáma with Firdawsí's work, very properly condemns as unfounded.460c That Daqíqí stood high in the esteem of his contemporaries is shown by the words with which As'ad the 'Amíd presented Farrukhí to the Amír Abu'l-Mu dhaffar, “O Sire, I bring thee a poet the like of whom the Eye of Time hath not seen since Daqíqí's face was veiled in death;”460d as well as by al-'Utbí's brief remarks460e on the most eminent poets of the reign of Núh II b. Manṣúr the Sámánid (A.D. 976-997).
Of Daqíqí's lyric verse, 'Awfí gives ten fragments comprising in all twenty-seven couplets, and Ethé gives three additional fragments (Nos. 1, 4, and 6), comprising thirteen couplets, which are not to be found in 'Awfí. The following verses form part of a qaṣída in praise of the Amír Abú Sa'íd Muḥammad [b.] Mudhaffar [b.] Muḥtáj-i-Chighání:—
“Thy sword to guard the Empire hath God as sentry set,
Bounty its chosen agent hath made that hand of thine:
The Ear of Fate from Heaven is strained for thy command,
And gold to reach thy hand-hold emergeth from the mine.”
In another qaṣída addressed to the Sámánid ruler Manṣúr I (A.D. 961-976) he says:—
“O King recalling Dárá's noble line,
Who dost in Sámán's sky like Pole-star shine!
Should Satan see him when his wrath is stirred,
Fearing his sword, he would accept God's Word.
Náhíd and Hurmuz461a guide his soldier's feet,
While Mars and Saturn are his vanguard fleet.”
In another qaṣida addressed to Núḥ II (A.D. 976-997), the successor of the king last mentioned, he says:—
“The circling Heaven lends an eager ear
That what the King commands it swift may hear.
For fear of him Saturn, most sorely tried,
Scarce dares survey the Sky's expanses wide.”
The following lines are from one of his love-poems:—
“O would that in the world 'twere endless day,
That from those lips I ne'er need 'bide away!
But for those scorpion curls461b my Love doth wear
No smart like scorpion-sting my heart need bear.But for the stars462a which 'neath those lips do play,
I need not count night's stars till dawn of day.462b
Were she not formed of all that is most fair
Some thought beyond her love my soul might share.
If I must pass my life without my Friend,
O God, I would my life were at an end!”
In another verse he says:—
“Long tarrying, I'm lightly held: away!
Even an honoured guest too long may stay:
Waters which in the well too long repose
Lose all their flavour, and their sweetness goes.”
The following verse is descriptive of wine:—
“Wrung from the Grape which shines as shines the Light,
Yet Fire consuming is its soul and sprite:
Compounded from a Star whose setting-place
Is in the Mouth, yet rises in the Face.”
This is descriptive of a bowl of iced water:—
“Water and ice in crystal bowl combine:
Behold these three, which like a bright lamp shine.
Two deliquescent, one hard-frozen see,
Yet all alike of hue and bright of blee.”
Of the remaining poets of this earliest epoch cited by 'Awfí (and, for the most part, by Ethé also) is Manjík, who was patronised by the Chighání amírs, and whose verses seem often to have contained rare, archaic, and dialectal expressions, since in the following century we find the poet Qaṭrán of Tabríz asking Náṣir-i-Khusraw to explain and elucidate them.
462cThen comes Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. Muḥammad al-Ghazzálí al-Lúkarí , who has some very pretty verses describing a beautiful Kurdish boy, and other lines in praise of Núḥ II b. Manṣúr the Sámánid Prince (A.D. 976-997), and of the wazír Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Ubaydu'lláh b. Aḥmad al-'Utbí. Next comes Ma'rúfí of Balkh, who has the following lines in praise of the Sámánid 'Abdu'l-Malik I (A.D. 954-961):—
“O Colocynth and Aloes to thy foes,
But to thy friends like sugar, honey-sweet!
The use of foresight no one better knows,
Nor how to strike the first when blows are meet.”
Next follows Manṣúr b. 'Alí al-Manṭiqí of Ray, one of the panegyrists of the great Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád, the wazír of the House of Daylam (see p. 453 supra), to whom he alludes in the following lines:—
“Methinks the Moon of Heav'n is stricken sore,
And nightly grieveth as it wasteth more.
What late appeared a great, round, silver shield
Now like a mall-bat463a enters heaven's field.
The Ṣáḥib's horse, you'd think, had galloped by,
And cast one golden horse-shoe in the sky.”
The following verse, apart from the pretty hyperbole which it contains, has a certain adventitious interest:—
“One hair I stole from out thy raven locks
463b
When thou, O sweetheart, didst thy tresses comb;
With anxious toil I bore it to my house,
As bears the ant the wheat-grain to its home.
My father when he saw me cried amain,
'Which is my son, I pray thee, of these twain?”
According to 'Awfí's narrative, when Badí'u'z-Zamán of Hamadán, Ḥaríri's great rival in the writing of Maqámát, came to visit the Ṣáḥib at the age of twelve, the Ṣáḥib, wishing to test his skill, bade him translate these lines into Arabic verse. The youthful scholar asked what rhyme and metre he should employ, and was told to make the rhyme in ṭá and to use the metre called Sarí' (“the Swift,” in the variety here used:), whereupon he at once extemporised a very close translation in Arabic, to the following effect:—
“I stole from his tresses a hair
When he combed them with care in the morn;
Then, labouring, bore it away
As the ant staggers off with the corn.
Quoth my father, ‘Since either would go
Through the eye of a needle, I trow,
Inform me, I pray thee, which one
Of the twain is my son?’”
Such translations of Arabic into Persian verse, and vice versâ, seem to have been a very favourite exercise with scholars and wits from this period onwards into Seljúq times, though unfortunately it is not always possible to compare the version and the original, one or other having been lost. Thus we find in two of al-Bundárí's works, his abridged Arabic translation of the Sháhnáma of Firdawsí, and his History of the Seljúqs, numerous verse-renderings in Arabic of Persian poems,464a which in the former instance can be compared with their originals, but in the latter, as a rule, not. And it is interesting to note that the translators considered themselves under no obligation to preserve the form, metre, or rhyme of the original, but only the meaning, and this though they were practically bilingual (dhu'l-lisánayn), and though the metrical system of the Arabs and Persians is substantially identical. On this ground alone I consider, contrary to the view of many eminent Orientalists, notably my deeply lamented friend, Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, whose great History of Ottoman Poetry has been already mentioned in several places, that he who seeks to render the poetry of the East into a Western tongue may most justly claim the same indulgence as these old masters of Arabic and Persian took when translating in verse from the one language into the other; and indeed, having regard to the wide differences which separate our verse-forms and laws of prosody from those of the Muhammadan nations, we are doubly justified in demanding the right to take equal liberties with the forms, though not with the substance of our originals.
With Manṭiqí we notice a more artificial style, and a greater fondness for rhetorical devices, than is the case with the early poets hitherto mentioned: in particular, a fondness for the figure known as “poetical ætiology” (ḥusn-i-ta'líl), as, for instance, when he ascribes the “pallor” or “sallowness” of the sun to its fear of trespassing on the realms of his patron in its passage across the sky, and that of the gold dínár to its dread of his lavish and prodigal hands; or the “trembling” (or twinkling) of the stars to their dread of his far-reaching sword. This characteristic is due, I think, not so much to personal idiosyncrasy as to the fact that the Buwayhid Court of 'Iráq was, owing to its greater proximity to, and closer connection with, the metropolis of Baghdad, more directly subject to the literary influences and tendencies of Arabic-speaking and Arabic-writing men of letters than the Sámánid Court of far Khurásán. For this very reason, perhaps, Khurásán is regarded (and justly so) as the cradle of the Persian Renaissance; yet that it was considered far behind 'Iráq in literary culture clearly appears from the following verses (cited in the Yatíma, vol. iv, p. 3) of Abú Aḥmad b. Abú Bakr al-Kátib (the secretary), whose father was secretary to the Sámánid Prince Isma'íl b. Aḥmad (A.D. 892-907) and wazír to his son and successor Aḥmad b. Isma'íl (A.D. 907-913):—
“Wonder not at a man of 'Iráq in whom thou seest an ocean of
learning and a treasure of culture;
Wonder rather at one whose home is in the lands of ignorance if
he be able to distinguish head from tail!”
These lines were, of course, written before that brilliant epoch described in another passage of the Yatíma (vol. iv, pp. 33-4: see pp. 365-6 supra), but it shows that the flow of Muhammadan culture was, as we should expect, centrifugal, from Baghdad towards the periphery of the Lands of Islám.
The next poet mentioned by 'Awfí, Abú Bakr Muḥammaa b. 'Alí al-Khusrawí as-Sarakhsí, was attached neither to the Sámánid nor to the Buwayhid Court, but to that eminent prince of the Ziyárid dynasty of Ṭabaristán, Amír Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír (A.D. 976-1012), of whose own literary achievements we shall shortly have to speak. He too was a bilingual poet, and apparently wandered from court to court, praising now his proper patron Qábús, now the Ṣáḥib, and again the grandson of Símjúr, Abu'l Ḥasan Muḥammad. Another poet who sang the praises of Qábús was Abu'l-Qásim Ziyád b. Muḥammad al-Qumrí of Gurgán, whose few surviving verses shew taste and ingenuity, and something also of that artificiality which we have already remarked in Manṭiqí. Abú Ṭáhir al-Khusrawání was another Sámánid poet, who has some bitter verses against “four sorts of men from whom not one atom of good accrued” to him, viz., physicians, devotees, astrologers, and charm-mongers. Somewhat better known is Abú Shukúr of Balkh, who, in A.H. 336 (= A.D. 947-8) completed a work (now lost) called the Áfarín-náma, and who is also the author of the following lines:—
“I ventured to glance from afar at thy face, and Behold!
'Twas sufficient a wound to inflict on thy countenance sweet;
By thy glance in return was my heart smitten sore, for of old
'Tis the Law of Atonement that ‘wounding for wounding is
meet.’”
This verse was put into Arabic by the bilingual poet, Abu'l-Fatḥ of Bust, while another Persian verse by the poet Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. Ṣáliḥ al-Walwálají was similarly Arabicised by Abu'l-Qásim, the son of the wazír Abu'l-'Abbás. Abú Muḥammad al-Badí' of Balkh composed verses in praise of the Chighání Amír Abú Yaḥyá Ṭáhir b. Faḍl of the kind known as mulamma' or “patch-work,” i.e., half Persian, half Arabic. Abu'l-Mudhaffar Naṣr al-Istighná'í of Níshápúr is known to us now only by the two following couplets:—
“Like to the Moon would she be, were it not for her raven locks;
Like unto Venus, save for her beauty-spot, fragrant as musk:
Her cheeks to the Sun I would liken, save that, unlike the Sun,
She needs not to fear an eclipse, she needs not to shrink from the
dusk.”
Abu 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad al-Junaydí was another of the Ṣáḥib's bilingual poets. Abú Mansúr 'Umára of Merv flourished under the last king of the House of Sámán and the first of the House of Ghazna, and excelled in brief and picturesque descriptions of the spring season, wine, and the like. His is the following admonition to those who seek worldly success:—
“Though the world should hold thee in honour, let that not fill thee
with pride:—
Many the world hath honoured and soon hath cast aside.
For the world is a venomous serpent: its seeker a charmer of
snakes:
And one day on the serpent-charmer the serpent its vengeance
takes.”
Seven more poets whose patrons are unknown conclude 'Awfí's list of these early pre-Ghaznawí singers, of whom in all thirty-one are noticed. These seven are: Íláqí; Abu'l-Mathal of Bukhárá; Abu'l-Mu'ayyad of Balkh; his namesake of Bukhárá, also called Rawnaqí; Ma'nawí of Bukhárá; Khabbázi of Níshápúr, and Sipíhrí of Transoxiana.
Leaving these poets by profession, we turn now to two royal poets of this period.
The first of these was the Sámánid King Manṣúr II b. Núḥ (A.D. 997-9), whom 'Awfí calls the last of his line, though his brother, 'Abdu'l-Malik is generally reckoned to have succeeded him. “Though he was young,” says 'Awfí, “yet the dynasty had grown old, and no order (sámán) was left in the affairs of the House of Sámán, while the life of the Royal House had sunk to a mere spark. He lived at the beginning of the reign of Sulṭán Maḥmúd Yamínu'd-Dawla. Many times did he fall a captive into the hands of his enemies, and again recovered his freedom: greatly did he strive to recover his father's kingdom, but human effort avails naught against the Decree of Heaven and the Fate preordained by God, as saith God Almighty, “None can avert His Decree and none can postpone His command; God doth what He pleaseth and ordereth as He will.” Of him alone amongst the Kings of the House of Sámán is any verse recorded. His verses are both spontaneous and kingly. Whilst he sat on the throne of sovereignty in Bukhárá, enemies rose up against him on all sides, and all his nobles were disaffected, so that night and day he was on horseback, clad in a Zandaníjí468a coat, while most of his life was passed in flight and fight. One day some of his companions said to him, “O King, why dost thou not get thyself fine clothes, or amuse thyself with those distractions which are one of the perquisites of royalty?” Thereupon he composed this fragment, in the sentiments of which the signs of manly courage are apparent and evident:—
“They ask me why fine robes I do not wear,
Nor covet stately tent with carpets rare.
'Midst clash of arms, what boots the minstrel's power?
'Midst rush of steeds, what place for rose-girt bower?
Nor wine nor sweet-lipped Sáqí aught avail
Where blood is spattered o'er the coats of mail.
Arms, horse for me banquet and bower enow,
Tulip and lily mine the dart and bow.”
The following quatrain reproaching Heaven for its unkindness is also ascribed to him:—
“O blue to look on, not in essence blue,
A Fire art thou, though like a Smoke to view.
E'en from thy birth thine ears were deaf to prayer,
Nor wrath nor protest aught avail with you.”
More important as a patron of letters, if not as a poet, was the Ziyárid prince of Ṭabaristán, Qábús b. Washmgír, entitled Shamsu'l-Ma'álí (“the Sun of the Heights” reigned A.D. 976-1012). To him al-Bírúní dedicated his “Chronology of Ancient Nations” (al-Átháru'l-báqiya mina'l-Qurúni'l-kháliya , edited and translated into English by Dr. Sachau), in the preface of which work he thus speaks of him (Sachau's translation, p. 2):—
“How wonderfully hath He whose Name is to be exalted and extolled combined with the glory of his noble extraction469a the graces of his generous character, with his valiant soul all laudable qualities, such as piety and righteousness, carefulness in defending and observing the rites of religion, justice and equity, humility and beneficence, firmness and determination, liberality and gentleness, the talent for ruling and governing, for managing and deciding, and other qualities which no fancy could comprehend and no mortal enumerate!”
Ath-Tha'álibí, in the tenth and last chapter of the third volume of his Yatíma, is equally enthusiastic in “crowning his book with some of the shining fruits of his eloquence, which is the least of his many virtues and characteristics.”470a The great Avicenna (Abú 'Alí ibn Síná) was another of the eminent men of learning whom Qábús protected and aided, as is fully narrated in the Chahár Maqála, or “Four Discourses” (pp. 121-4 of my translation), by Nidhámí of Samarqand, who calls Qábús “a great and accomplished man, and a friend to men of learning.” His unhappy and violent end is well known,470b and ampler details of his life are to be found in Ibn Isfandiyár's History of Ṭabaristán, of which I am now preparing an abridged translation. He composed verses both in Arabic and Persian. Amongst the former is the following:—
“Say to him who fain would taunt us with vicissitudes of Fate,
‘Warreth Fate or fighteth Fortune save against the high and great?
Seest thou not the putrid corpse which Ocean to its surface flings,
While within its deep abysses lie the pearls desired of Kings?’
Though the hands of Fate attack us, though her buffets us disarm,
Though her long-continued malice bring upon us hurt and harm,
In the sky are constellations none can count, yet of them all
On the Sun and Moon alone the dark Eclipse's shadows fall!”
And again:—
“My love is enkindled in thinking of thee,
And passionate thrills through my being do dart:
No limb of my body but speaks of thy love,
Each limb, thou would'st think, was created a heart!”
Amongst his Persian verses 'Awfí records the following:—
“The things of this world from end to end are the goal of desire
and greed,
And I set before this heart of mine the things which I most do
need,
But a score of things I have chosen out of the world's unnumbered
throng,
That in quest of these I my soul may please and speed my life
along.
Verse, and song, and minstrelsy, and wine full-flavoured and
sweet,
Backgammon, and chess, and the hunting-ground, and the falcon
and cheetah fleet;
Field, and ball, and audience-hall, and battle, and banquet rare,
Horse, and arms, and a generous hand, and praise of my Lord
and prayer.”
And again:—
“Six things there be which have their home in the midst of thy
raven hair;
Twist and tangle, curl and knot, ringlet and love-lock fair;
Six things there be, as you may see which in my heart do reign;
Grief and desire and sorrow dire: longing and passion and
pain!”
The following quatrain is also his:—
“Mirth's King the Rose is, Wine Joy's Herald eke;
Hence from these two do I my pleasure seek:
Would'st thou, O Moon, inquire the cause of this?
Wine's taste thy lips recalls, the Rose thy cheek!”
Amongst other royal and noble poets of this early period 'Awfí mentions Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna (whose Court will Other royal and noble poets. be described at the beginning of the next volume), and his son Amír Abú Muḥammad b. Yamínu'd-Dawla; Abu'l-Mudhaffar Ṭáhir b. al-Faḍl b. Muḥammad Muḥtáj aṣ-Ṣaghání (i.e., of Chaghán); Amír General characteristics of the poetry of this period. Kayká'ús the Ziyárid, son of the talented and unfortunate Qábús whom we have just been discussing, and others who need not detain us, since we have examined a sufficient amount of the poetry of this period to be able to characterise it in general terms. The metrical system which underlies it is, as we have already observed, identical with that of the Arabs; though certain Arabic and Persian metrical systems. metres (e.g., Kámil, Basít, and Ṭawíl) which are common in Arabic are but rarely used in Persian, while some new metres were introduced in the latter language which were not used in the former. Dr. Forbes at pp. 132-3 of his Persian Grammar (4th ed. London, 1869), cites the opinion of Herr Geitlin, a German writer on the Persian language, who remarks that “the Persians and Arabs, like the Greeks and Romans, rejoice in a great variety of metres, but the Asiatic metres differ mainly in this, that the long syllables far exceed the short, which is quite in conformity with the character of the Oriental people, who are distinguished by a certain degree of gravity and sobriety in their conversation and gestures, combined with dignity and stateliness in all their movements;” and, á propos of this, remarks, in speaking of the five purely Arabian metres comprised in the “First Circle,” that in them “the short syllables are more nearly on a par with the long; whereby we are to infer, according to Herr Geitlin's theory, that the roving Arabs are less grave and sober in their conversation and gestures than their neighbours of Persia.”
As regards verse-forms, it is the qaṣída, or elegy, alone which occupies a prominent place in both languages, and Verse-forms most favoured by the Persians in early times. which (chiefly, as it would appear, from the influence of the great Arab poet al-Mutanabbí, A.D. 905-965) attained so great a development in Persia under the Ghaznawí and succeeding dynasties, as will appear in a subsequent chapter. But at the period of which we are now speaking such long and elaborate monorhymes appear to have enjoyed little favour in Persia; and even the ghazal, or ode, seems to have been less popular The quatrain. in these early days than the qiṭ'a, or fragment, and the rubá'í, dú-baytí, or quatrain. This last, indeed, was almost certainly the earliest product of the Persian poetical genius. Allusion has already been made to one of the stock anecdotes given by the biographers as to the first occasion on which Persian verse was composed in Muhammadan times; the anecdote, namely, which ascribes a single miṣrá' to the chance utterance of a gleeful child. In Dawlatsháh's Memoirs (pp. 30-31 of my edition) this child is said to have been the son of Amír Ya'qúb b. Layth the Ṣaffárid; but lately I have come across a much older version of the story in the British Museum manuscript Or. 2814 of a very rare work on Persian Prosody and Rhetoric entitled al-Mu'jam fí ma'ábíri ash'ári'l-'Ajam, composed about A.H. 617 (= A.D. 1220-1221) by Shams-i-Qays. In this version (ff. 49b-50b of the above-mentioned manuscript) the verse (“ghalatán ghalatán hamí rawad tá bun-i-kú”) and the anecdote are nearly the same, but the child is unnamed and not represented as of royal patronage, while it is not the Amír Ya'qúb but the poet Rúdagí “or some other of the ancient poets of Persia” who is the auditor and admirer. He, according to the author, after an examination of the hemistich in question, “evolved out of the akhrab and akhram varieties of the hazaj metre a measure which they call the ‘Quatrain measure,’473a and which is indeed a graceful measure and a pleasant and agreeable form of verse; in consequence of which most persons of taste and most cultivated natures have a strong inclination and leaning towards it.” The quatrain, then, may safely be regarded as the most ancient essentially The Mathnawí. Persian verse-form, while next to this comes the mathnawí, or poem in “doublets,” which is generally narrative, and where the rhyme changes in each couplet. The portion of the Sháhnáma composed by Daqíqí is probably the oldest Persian mathnawí poem of which any considerable portion has been preserved to us, though fragments of Rúdagí's Kalíla and Dimna and other old mathnawís have been discovered by Dr. Paul Horn of Strassburg amongst the citations adduced by Asadí in his lexicon in proof of the meanings of rare and archaic words.
Coming now to the monorhymes, that is the qaṣída, its “fragment” (qiṭ'a), and the ghazal, we notice a far greater simplicity in this than in the next period. The qaṣídas of 'Unṣurí, Farrukhí, Asadí, Manúchihrí, and other Ghaznawí poets are often nearly as artificial, and nearly as full of farfetched conceits, as those of the Seljúq and other later periods; but the earlier fragments which we have just been examining are, as a rule, simple, natural, spontaneous and often original. The same applies to the ghazal, so far as this had yet come into existence, though here the contrast is less marked, because the ghazal never assumed so purely artificial and rhetorical a form as did the qaṣída.
Although we have not space to consider at any great length the Arabic poetry produced in Persia at this transition period, Arabic poetry produced in Persia at this period. something must needs be said as to its general characteristics and peculiarities. We have already seen that, as regards language and idiom, it closely approached, if it did not actually reach, the level of the poetry produced in those countries where Arabic was the spoken language, but notwithstanding this it presents several peculiarities, some of which will now be enumerated. These peculiarities are naturally more conspicuous in the remoter and more purely Persian Courts of the Sámánid and other Eastern dynasties than in the environment of the Buwayhid Princes and Amírs (notably the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád), who were in closer touch with the metropolis of Baghdad, and we shall therefore confine ourselves almost entirely to a consideration of the form, as depicted in the fourth and last volume of ath-Tha'álibí's Yatíma.
In the first place, then, we often find presupposed a know- Knowledge of Persian language often assumed in the Arabic verses produced in Persia. ledge of the Persian language which a non-Persian could not be expected to possess. Thus Abú 'Alí as-Sájí praises the city of Merv in the following lines (Yatíma, iii 16):—
“Earth which in fragrance ambergris excels,
A country fair, where cool, sweet waters flow:
And when the traveller seeks its bounds to quit
Its very name commands him not to go!”
The last line alludes to the fact that the letters M. R. W. which spells the name of the town in question can also be read as ma-raw, which in Persian signifies “do not go!” To an Arab, of course, unless he knew Persian, the point of the verse would be entirely lost.475a Similar verses, of which the point lies in a “popular etymology,” were composed about other towns, like Bukhárá (Yatíma iii, 8, 9), but in the epigram on Bukhárá the sense is uncomplimentary, and the etymology Arabic, not Persian.
Secondly, we meet with numerous verses composed on the occasion of one of the great Persian festivals, Nawrúz and Allusions to Persian festivals and customs. Mihragán (which correspond respectively with the Spring and Autumn equinoxes), whereof the last is also called the “Day of Rám”; the twenty-first day of every Persian month, but most particularly the 21st day of the month of Mihr (i.e., Mihragán) being so named.475b Concerning this Rám-rúz we find in the Yatíma (iii, 10) two pairs of verses, each containing a Persian expression which (whether because the text is corrupt or the words obsolete) is, unfortunately, unintelligible to me. Numerous similar introductions of Persian words and sentences into the Arabic verses produced in Persia at this period might no doubt be found by a more careful examination of the still somewhat inaccessible sources of information on this subject.
Thirdly, we find occasional use made by Persian poets who wrote in Arabic of verse-forms essentially Persian, notably the Employment of Persian verseforms, such as mathnawí and ghazal. mathnawí and the ghazal. A good instance of the former (called in Arabic muzdawija) is to be found at p. 23 of vol. iii of the Yatíma, in the notice of Abu'l-Faḍl as-Sukkarí (?) al-Marwazí, who, we are told, “was very fond of translating Persian proverbs into Arabic. These proverbs are here strung together into a genuine mathnawí poem, such as I do not remember to have seen elsewhere in Arabic, and the original of many of the paraphrases can be easily recognised, e.g., “Al-laylu ḥublá; laysa yudrá má yalid” (“The night is pregnant: it is not known what it will bring forth) = “Shab ábistan-ast: fardá chi záyad?” And again:—
Idha 'l-má'u fawqa gharíqin ṭamá
Fa-qábu qanátin wa alfun siwá.
(“When the water surges over the drowning man, then a fathom [lit. the cast of a javelin] and a thousand are alike”) = “Chú áb az sar dar guzasht, chi yak níza, chi sad níza.” As instances of Arabic ghazals or pseudo-ghazals, it is sufficient to refer to two short poems occupying the upper part of p. 23 of the third volume of the Yatíma, of which the second especially is quite in the Persian style as regards sentiments; and another on p. 113 of the same volume. Of the existence of true quatrains composed in Arabic I am less certain; but two pieces of verse by Abu' l-'Alá as-Sarwí, describing the narcissus and the apple respectively (Yatíma, vol. iii, p. 281), at least closely resemble this essentially Persian form of composition, and more particularly accord with a fashion prevalent amongst the Persian poets of this period of describing in a quatrain or short “fragment” some particular fruit, flower, or other natural object.
This large and interesting question as to the characteristics of the Arabic verse produced in Persia cannot be further discussed here, but it well merits a systematic examination by some scholar who has a thoroughly competent knowledge, not only of both languages, but of both literatures. Unfortunately it is but very rarely that a scholar arises whose chief interest is in Persian literature, and who yet has a complete mastery of the Arabic language. The Arabist, as a rule, slights this branch of Arabic literature as exotic, even when he does not condemn it as post-classical; while the student of Persian seldom realises till too late that for literary and historical purposes the point of view of the comparative philologist is entirely misleading, and that he need not so much to concern himself with Sanskrit and other Aryan languages as with Arabic.
Of the Persian prose literature of this period, which must have been of some extent, few specimens, unfortunately, Persian prose literature. remain to us; while even of what has been preserved the greater part is translated from the Arabic. Four works of importance, one historical, one medical, and two exegetical, all composed probably during the reign of the Sámánid King Manṣúr I b. Núḥ (A.D. 961-976), have come down to us. Two of them are abridged translations of the great history and the great commentary of Ṭabarí; the third is the Pharmacology of Abú Manṣúr Muwaffaq of Herát; the last is the now celebrated old Persian commentary on the Qur'án, of which the second volume is preserved in a unique and ancient MS. in the Cambridge University Library. All these are written in a simple, straightforward and archaic language, of which I have discussed the peculiarities at some length in the article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1894 (pp. 417-524) where I first made known the existence of the Cambridge Codex of the old Persian Commentary, which bears a date equivalent to February 12, A.D. 1231. The Pharmacology (Kitábu'l-Abniya 'an Ḥaqá'iqi'l-Adwiya) is preserved in the unique Vienna Codex, a The oldest extant Persian MS. still more ancient MS. (in fact the oldest extant Persian MS.) dated Shawwál, A.H. 447 (= January, A.D. 1056), which derives a special interest from the fact that it was transcribed by the poet 'Alí b. Aḥmad of Ṭús, better known by his pen-name Asadí, the nephew of the great Firdawsí. This work has been beautifully printed in its entirety, with a preface, notes, and facsimiles of three leaves, by Dr. Seligmann (Vienna, 1859), while a German translation of it has been published with notes by Abdul-Chalig Achundow (i.e., 'Abdu 'l-Kháliq, son of the Ákhund or schoolmaster) of Baku. Bal'amí's Persian translation of Ṭabarí's history exists in many fine old MSS., of which several are enumerated in the preface (pp. v-vii) to the first volume of M. Hermann Zoten-berg's Chronique de Abou-Djafar Mohammed ben Djarir ben Yezid Tabari, traduite sur la version persane d'Abou 'Ali Mohammed Bel'ami d'après les manuscrits de Paris, de Gotha, de Londres et de Canterbury (Paris, 4 vols., 1867-1874). Of the Persian translation of Ṭabarí's Commentary, made about the same time as Bal'amí's translation of the same great scholar's History, there is a manuscript (ADD. 7601) dated A.H. 883 (A.D. 1478) in the British Museum.
There exists a rare Persian work known as the Marzubán-náma , of which extracts have been published by the late The Marzubánnáma. M. Charles Schefer in his Chrestomathie Persane (Paris, 1885; vol. ii, pp. 194-211 of the Notes, and pp. 172-199 of the texts). This is a translation made by Sa'd of Waráwín towards the end of the twelfth century of our era from an original composed in the Mázan-darání dialect by the Ispahbad Marzubán somewhere about A.H. 400 (= A.D. 1009-1010). To the same writer is ascribed a poem entitled Níkí-náma; and it is interesting to note the considerable use made in literature (of which there is a good deal of scattered evidence) of this and other cognate dialects, and to compare the similar state of things which prevailed in England after the Norman Conquest before victory was assured to the Mercian dialect, and while the other dialects were still contending for the position of literary idioms.
There is another branch of Persian literature (that of the Persian Jews, written in the Persian language but in the Judæo-Persian literature. Hebrew character) of which one (and that the most interesting) monument may possibly go back to the ninth or tenth century of our era, though Darmesteter and other authorities place it in the Mongol period (thirteenth century of our era), while Munk puts it a century earlier. To this literature (represented by a considerable number of MSS., of which some twenty are in the Biblio-thèque Nationale at Paris) attention was first called by Munk in the Bible de Cahn (ix, pp. 134-159), and it has since been discussed pretty fully by Zotenberg (Merx's Archiv, vol. i, Halle, 1870, pp. 385-427), who there published and translated the Apocrypha of Daniel, concerning which we are about to speak; Paul de Lagarde (Persische Studien, Göttingen, 1884); Dar-mesteter (Revue Critique for June, 1882: new series, vol. xiii, pp. 450-454; and Mélanges Rénier, Paris, 1887, pp. 405-420); Salemann, and other scholars. Most of this Judæo-Persian literature is, except from the philological point of view, of little value, consisting merely of vocabularies of Hebrew words explained in Persian, translations of the Pentateuch and other The Apocrypha of Daniel. Hebrew books, and some poems; but the Apocrypha of Daniel (No. 128 of the Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale), which, if not itself original, yet represents a lost Chaldæan original, is of an altogether different order. This Apocrypha is divided by Darmesteter into three parts, viz.: (1) A series of legends relating to Daniel, some biblical, some rabbinical; (2) a pseudo-prophetic sketch of historical events, in which the first definitely recognisable figure is the Prophet Muḥammad and the last the Caliph al-Ma'mún († A.D. 833); (3) one of those fanciful descriptions of Messianic times which are so frequent in Jewish works.
To those who believed in the prophetic inspiration of this document the last portion was no doubt the most interesting, but to such as judge by the ordinary standards of criticism it is the second—containing what Darmesteter happily terms, “l'his-toire prophétisée”—which most appeals. The Apocrypha purports to contain the vision of things to come until the advent of the Messiah shown by God to the Prophet Daniel, and this vision or Apocalypse is introduced by the words, “O Daniel, I show thee how many kings there shall be in each nation and religion; I will inform thee how it shall be.” Then follow several rather vague references, doubtfully interpreted by Darmesteter as applying to Ahasuerus, the Seleucidæ, and the Sásánians; then a prophetic description of an ungodly king who shall call himself “Bihishtí” (“Celestial”), and by whom, as Darmesteter thinks, Núshírwán (= Anûshak-rûbân = “of Immortal Soul”) is intended; and then is described “a short, red-complexioned king, who regards not God's Word, and claims to be a prophet, having been a camel driver; and who shall come forth from the south riding on a camel, greatly persecute the Jews, and die after a reign of eleven years. This personage is evidently intended for Muḥammad, and from this point onwards until the death of al-Ma'mún (i.e., from A.H. 1 to 218 = A.D. 622-833) the succession of Muhammadan rulers can be quite clearly traced. At this point, as Darmesteter admits, the chronological sequence of events ceases; but in the succeeding paragraphs he thinks that allusion is made to the Crusades, and in particular to Godefroy de Bouillon and his Red Cross Knights; and that is why he places the composition of the Pseudo-Apocalypse not in the tenth but in the thirteenth century of our era. Personally, I am disposed to regard these supposed references to the Crusades and the red-garbed warriors who shall come from Rúm even to Damascus as too indefinite to preclude the possibility that they have no connection with real history, in which case this curious Apocrypha may well belong to the period we have been considering, if not to that previous period which we have called “the Golden Age.”
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS WHICH DEAL WITH THE VARIOUS MATTERS TREATED OF IN THIS VOLUME
Only such Oriental works as have been translated into some European language are, as a rule, mentioned in this place; but the names of all those mentioned in the text are entered in the Index in italics, those actually cited being further marked by an asterisk. Many of them exist only in manuscript; and the extent to which these manuscripts can be consulted depends on the rules governing the various Libraries where they are preserved. Nearly all the great Continental Libraries are extremely generous in this matter, and freely lend their treasures to other Libraries, or even to individual scholars. Of English public Libraries, those of the India Office and the Royal Asiatic Society are the most liberal; next comes the University Library of Cambridge, then the Bodleian. The British Museum absolutely refuses, to the great detriment of scholarship, to lend manuscripts under any conditions whatever; and one or two English libraries possessing valuable collections of Oriental manuscripts even put difficulties ín the way of scholars who wish to consult the manuscripts on the spot. Of private collectors it would be unjust not to mention especially the extraordinary liberality of Lord Crawford, to whom the author of this book is under great obligations. Most unfortunately his fine collection of Oriental manuscripts has now passed into other and less generous hands. The books enumerated below are arranged according to subjects and periods, and only a selection of those deemed most important are mentioned, those adjudged most valuable being marked with an asterisk. The terms “Ancient” and “Modern” signify pre-Muhammadan and post-Muhammadan respectively. As a further guide I would also refer the reader to two excellent bibliographies, the first chiefly of works of Geography and Travel, given by Lord Curzon in vol. i of his great book on “Persia” (pp. 16-18); the second of works on Literature, History, and Philology in Salemann and Zhukovskí's “Persische Grammatik” (pp. 105-118). Very complete bibliographies of the subjects dealt with in Geiger and Kuhn's “Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie” will also be found prefixed to the various sections into which that great work is divided. A very useful list of works connected with Zoroastrianism is also prefixed to Professor A. V. Williams Jackson's excellent monograph on Zoroaster (New York, 1899).
*1. Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, unter Mitwirkung von Chr. Bartholomæ, C. H. Ethé, K. F. Geldner, P. Horn, H. Hübschmann, A. V. W. Jackson, F. Justi, Th. Nöldeke, C. Salemann, A. Socin, F. H. Weissbach, und E. W. West, herausgegeben von Wílhelm Geiger und Ernst Kuhn (Strasburg, 1895 —). This invaluable work—a veritable Encyclopædia of Persian philology—comprises three volumes; of which the first treats of the early history of the Iranian languages, especially the language of the Avesta, Old Persian, and Middle Persian or Pahlawí; the second of the literatures of those languages and of Modern Persian, with a special section on the National Epic by Professor Nöldeke; and the third of the Geography, Ethnography, History (down to modern times), Religion, Coins, and Scripts of Írán.
*2. Iranisches Namenbuch, von Ferdinand Justi (Marburg, 1895). An invaluable “Dictionary of National Biography,” so far as Persians bearing Íránian (as opposed to Arabic Muhammadan) names are concerned.
3. Dictionnaire géographique, historique et littéraire de la Perse et des Contrées adjacentes, extrait du Mo'djem el-Bouldan de Yaqout … par C. Barbier de Meynard (Paris, 1861).
*4. Chronique de … Tabarí, traduite sur la version persane de … Bel'ami …, par M. Hermann Zotenberg, 4 vols., Paris, 1867-74. This book will give the European reader the best idea of Universal History, including the History of Persia, as understood by the early Muhammadan historians.
5. Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia from the Most Early Period to the Present Time … (2 vols., London, 1815).
482a6. Clement Markham's General Sketch of the History of Persia (1 vol., London, 1874).
482b*7. Darmesteter's Études Iraniennes (2 vols., Paris, 1883). The first volume contains Études sur la Grammaire historique de la Langue persane; the second, Études sur la Langue, la Líttérature, les Croyances de la Perse ancienne.
8. Dr. C. E. Sachau's English translation of al-Bírúní's al-Átháru'l-báqiya , or Chronology of Ancient Nations (London, 1879), a work of great value and interest, containing an immense amount of varied information.
9. The Murúju'dh-Dhahab of -Mas'údí, text and French translation in nine vols. (Paris, 1861-1877), entitled Maçoudi: Les Prairies d'Or, texte et traduction par C. Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille.
*10. Erânische Alterthumskunde, von Fr. Spiegel (3 vols., Leipzig, 1871-1878). This excellent work treats of the History, Religions, and Antiquities of Persia from the earliest times down to the fall of the Sásánian Dynasty.
11. Geschichte des alten Persiens, von Dr. Ferdinand Justi (Berlin, 1879). This covers the same period as the work last mentioned, but is smaller and more popular, and contains numerous illustrations and a map.
12. Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte, von Th. Nöldeke (Leipzig, 1887). This is essentially an enlarged and revised German version of the article on the Ancient History of Persia (till the end of the Sásánian period) contributed by this great scholar to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
13. Le Peuple et la Langue des Mèdes, par Jules Oppert (Paris, 1879).
14. G. Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, or the History, Geography, and Antiquities of Chaldæa, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia. The first edition (London, 1862) comprises four, the second (1871) three volumes, and the two last volumes in both cases deal with Media and [Achæmenian] Persia.
15. G. Rawlinson's Sixth Great Oríental Monarchy, or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of Parthia (London, 1873).
16. G. Rawlinson's Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, or the Geography, &c., of the Sásánian or New Persian Empire (London, 1876).
17. G. Rawlinson's Parthia, in the Story of the Nations Series (London, 1893).
*18. Professor Th. Nöldeke's Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt, und mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen versehn (Leyden, 1879). This is by far the best work on the Sásánian Period.
19. Professor Thomas Hyde's Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum Religionis Historia (first ed., Oxford, 1700; second edition, 1760). Though obsolete, this work is still interesting and suggestive.
20. W. Geiger's Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum (1882); English translation of the same by Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana: Civilization of the Eastern Iranians in Ancient Times (London, 1885).
21. F. Stolze's Persepolis (Berlin, 1882), with an Introduction by Nöldeke, and many beautiful photographs of the ruins and inscriptions.
22. M. Dieulafoy: L'Art antique de la Perse (Paris, 1884).
*23. Fr. Spiegel: Die Altpersischen Keilinscriften im Grundtexte, mit Uebersetzung, Grammatik und Glossar (Leipzig, 1862: second and enlarged edition, 1881).
*24. Dr. C. Kossowicz: Inscriptiones Palæo-Persicæ Achæmeni-darum (St. Petersburg, 1872). The Inscriptions are here printed in the appropriate Cuneiform type.
25. Eugène Burnouf: Vendidad Sadé, l'un des livres de Zoroastre, lithographié d'après le Manuscrit Zend de la Bibliothèque Royale … (Paris, 1829-1843).
26. H. Brockhaus: Vendidad sade, die heiligen Schriften Zoroaster's Yaçna, Vispered und Vendidad, nach den lithographirten Ausgaben von Paris und Bombay, mit Index und Glossar herausgegeben (Leipzig, 1850).
27. N. L. Westergaard: Zendavesta … vol. i, the Zend texts (Copenhagen, 1852-54).
28. Fr. Spiegel: Avesta … im Grundtexte sammt der Huz-vāresch-Uebersetzung (2 vols., Vienna, 1853-58).
29. K. F. Geldner: Avesta … (3 parts, Stuttgart, 1886-95).
30. Mills and Darmesteter's English translation of the Zend Avesta in vols. iv, xxiii, and xxxi of Professor Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1877, 1880, 1883, and second ed. of vol. iv in 1895).
*31. Darmesteter: Le Zend Avesta: traduction nouvelle avec com-mentaire historique et philologique (3 vols., Paris, 1892-93: vols. xxi, xxii, and xxiv of the Annales du Musée Guimet).
32. C. de Harlez: Avesta … traduit du Texte zend (3 vols., Liége, 1875-1877; second edition, Paris, 1881).
33. Fr. Spiegel: Avesta … uebersetzt (3 vols., Leipzig, 1852-63). There is an English translation of this by A. Bleeck (Hertford, 1864).
34. L. H. Mills: A Study of the Five Zoroastrian Gâthâs (Erlangen, 1894).
35. Ferdinand Justi: Handbuch der Zendsprache (Leipzig, 1864).
*36. C. de Harlez: Manuel de la Langue de l'Avesta (Paris, 1882).
37. A. V. W. Jackson: An Avesta Grammar … (Stuttgart, 1892); Idem, An Avesta Reader (1893).
38. Fr. Spiegel: Grammatik der altbaktrischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1867).
*39. Martin Haug's Introductory Essay on the Pahlaví Language (pp. 152), prefixed to Dastur Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa's Old Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary (Bombay and London, 1870).
40. C. de Harlez: Manuel du Pehlevi des livres religieux et historiques de la Perse: Grammaire, Anthologie, Lexique (Paris, 1880).
*41. C. Salemann, Mittelpersische Studien in the Bulletins de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg for 1887, pp. 417, et seqq = Mélanges Asiatiques, vol. ix, pp. 207 et seqq. Also the same scholar's article Mittelpersisch in vol. i of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss, pp. 249-332.
*42. West, Haug, and Dastur Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa: The Book of Arda Viraf: Pahlavi text … with an English translation and Introduction … (Bombay and London, 1872); Glossary and Index of the same (1874).
43. West: The Mainyo-i-Khard (or “Spirit of Wisdom”) Pazand and Sanskrit Texts (in Roman characters) … with an English translation… Sketch of Pazand Grammar and Introduction (Stuttgart and London, 1871).
*44. F. C. Andreas: Pahlawí text of the above, a facsimile of a MS. brought from Persia by Westergaard and preserved at Copenhagen (Kiel, 1882).
45. Prof. Th. Nöldeke: Persische Studien I and II in vols. cxvi and cxxvi of the Sitzb. d. K. Ak. d. Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Class. (Vienna, 1888 and 1892).
46. A. Barthelemy: Gujastak Abalish, relation d'une Conférence théologique presideé par le Calife Mâmoun: texte pehlvi … avec traduction, commentaire et lexique (Paris, 1887).
47. P. Horn: Grundriss der Neupersischen Etymologie (Strassburg, 1893).
48. H. Hübschmann: Persische Studien (Strassburg, 1895). Idem, Armenische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1897).
49. Paul de Lagarde: Persische Studien (Göttingen, 1884).
50. Fr. Spiegel: Gramm. der Pârsisprache nebst Sprachproben (Leipzig, 1851). Idem, Die Traditionelle Literatur der Parsen in ihrem Zusammenhange mit den angränzenden Literaturen (Vienna, 1860).
*51. E. W. West: On the extent, language, and age of Pahlavi literature, in the Sitzb. d. philos-philol. Classe der K. Akad. d. Wissenschaften vom 5 Mai, 1888 (pp. 396-443: Berlin).
*52. Professor A. V. Williams Jackson: Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (New York, 1899). The reader's attention is again especially called to the excellent List of Works connected with the Subject, which occupies pp. xi-xv of this admirable work.
53. A Hovelacque: L'Avesta, Zoroastre et le Mazdéisme (Paris, 1880).
54. E. W. West: Pahlavi Texts translated, in vols. v, xviii, xxiv, xxxvii and xlvii of the Sacred Books of the East.
55. Professor C. P. Tiele: Geschichte der Religion im Altertum bis auf Alexander den Grossen: deutsche autorisierte Ausgabe von G. Gehrich: vol. xi; Die Religion bei den iranischen Völkern: erste Hälfte, pp. 1-187 (Gotha, 1898).
56. John Wilson: The Pārsī Religion as contained in the Zand-Avastá (Bombay, 1843).
57. Martin Haug: Essays on the Parsis, 3rd ed., edited and enlarged by E. W. West (London, 1884).
58. Dosabhai Framji Karaka: History of the Parsis (2 vols., London, 1884).
59. Mademoiselle D. Menant: Les Parsis, Histoire des Commu-nautés Zoroastriennes de l'Inde: Annales du Musée Guimet, Biblio-thèque d'Études, vol. vii (Paris, 1898).
60. A Houtum-Schindler: Die Parsen in Persien, ihre Sprache und einige ihrer Gebräuche, in vol. xxxvi (1882: pp. 54-88) of the Zeit-schrift d. deutsch. Morgenländ. Gesellsch.
*61. Georg Hoffmann: Auszüge aus Syrischen Akten persischer Märtyrer … (Leipzig, 1880).
62. Dr. W. Wright: The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, composed in Syriac, A.D. 507, with a translation and notes (Cambridge, 1882).
*63 Gustav Flügel: Mani, seine Lehre und seine Schriften (Leipzig, 1862).
64. Dr. Konrad Kessler: Mani: Forschungen über die Manichäische Religion (Berlin, 1889).
65. Professor A. A. Bevan: The Hymn of the Soul, contained in the Syriac Acts of St. Thomas: re-edited with an English translation … (Cambridge, 1897). Also the same Hymn of Bardaisan rendered (more freely) into English, by F. C. Burkitt (London, Essex House Press, 1899).
*66. Dr. D. Chwolson: Die Ssabier und Ssabismus (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1856).
67. E. Rochat: Mani et sa Doctrine (Geneva, 1897).
*68. Professor Th. Nöldeke: Das Iranische Nationalepos: beson-derer Abdruck aus dem Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (Strassburg, 1896).
69. Fr. Windischmann: Zoroastrische Studien: Abhandlungen zur Mythologie und Sagengeschichte des alten Iran (edited by Fr. Spiegel: Berlin, 1863).
*70. The Sháhnáma of Firdawsí. There are three editions by Europeans; that of *Turner Macan (4 vols., Calcutta, 1829); that of *Jules Mohl (7 large folio vols., Paris, 1838-78), which is accompanied by a French translation and commentary; and that of Vüllers and Landauer (3 vols., Leyden, 1877-84). The last is incomplete, being only carried down to Alexander, and omitting the whole Sásánian period. Mohl's translation has also been published without the text by Madame Mohl (7 vols., Paris, 1876-78). There is also a German translation by Rückert (edited by Bayer, 3 vols., Berlin, 1890-95). Of abridged translations, mention may be made of A. F. von Schack's Heldensagen des Firdusi, in deutscher Nachbildung nebst einer Einleitung (Stuttgart, 1877), and of the English abridgments of J. Atkinson and Helen Zimmermann.
*71. Nöldeke: Gesch. des Artachshîr-i-Pâpakân, aus dem Pehlewi übersetzt (Göttingen, 1879).
72. Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana: The Kârnâmê-î-Artakhshîr-î-Pâpakân … Pahlavi text with transliteration … translations into English and Gujerati, &c. (Bombay, 1896).
*73. W. Geiger: Das Yâtkâr-i-Zarîrân und sein Verhältniss zum Shâh-nāme in the Sitzb. d. philos. philol. und histor. Cl. d. K. bayer. Ak. d. Wiss. for 1890, vol. ii, part i, pp. 43-84 (Munich, 1890). The Pahlawí text of this was published (Bombay, 1897), by Jamaspji Dastur Minocheherji Jamasp Asana, and translations into English and Gujerati (Bombay, 1899) by Jivanji Jamshedji Modi.
74. The Desatir, or Sacred Writings of the Ancient Persian Prophets, &c., published by Mulla Firuz bin Kaus, with an English translation, in 2 vols. (Bombay, 1818).
75. The Dabistán … translated from the original Persian by Shea and Troyer (3 vols., Paris, 1843).
*76. Histoire des Rois de Perse par … al-Tha'álibí: texte arabe, publié et traduit par H. Zotenberg (1 large folio vol., Paris, 1900).
*77. Ibn Hishám's (the oldest extant) Biography of the Prophet Muḥammad (Síratu'n-Nabí), edited in the original Arabic by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858-60); translated into German (Das Leben Muhammeds …: Stuttgart, 1864) by Gustav Weil.
*78. The Qur'án (Coran, Alcoran): editions by Flügel, Redslob, &c. English translations by G. Sale (1774, and numerous later editions), J. M. Rodwell (2nd ed., London, 1876), and Professor E. H. Palmer in vols. vi and ix of the Sacred Books of the East; French by Kazimirski (Paris, 1854); German by Ullmann (fourth ed., Bielefeld, 1857); Concordance (Arabic) by Flügel (Leipzig, 1842); Extracts in the original, with English translation, compiled by Sir W. Muir (London, 1880). *Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorâns is invaluable (Göttingen, 1860). A useful little book for the general reader on The Corân was published by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge.
79. Sprenger's Leben und Lehre Mohammeds (3 vols., Berlin, 1869).
*80. Wellhausen's Muhammed in Medina; an abridged translation of al-Wáqidí's Kitábu'l-Maghází (Berlin, 1882).
*81. Nöldeke's Das Leben Muhammed's, nach den Quellen populär dargestellt (Hannover, 1863).
82. Sir William Muir: Life of Mahomet and History of Islam (4 vols., London, 1858-61; 3rd ed., 1895).
83. Idem, Annals of the Early Caliphate (London, 1883).
*84. Idem, The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline, and Fall (2nd ed., London, 1892).
85. Ludolf Krehl: Das Leben und die Lehre des Muhammed (Leipzig, 1884).
*86. Gustav Weil: Geschichte der Chalifen (4 vols., Mannheim and Stuttgart, 1846-62: vol. iv, which is divided into 2 parts, treats of the 'Abbásid Caliphate in Egypt after the Mongol Invasion).
*87. Syed Ameer Ali: The Life and Teachings of Mohammed and the Spirit of Islâm (London, 1891); Idem, A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed, published some eighteen years earlier.
88. G. Flügel: Geschichte der Araber bis auf den Sturz des Chalifats von Bagdad (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1864).
89. G. Weil: Geschichte der islamitischen Völker von Mohammed bis zur Zeit des Sultan Selim übersichtlich dargestellt (Stuttgart, 1866).
*90. Dozy: Het Islamisme (Leyden, 1863: Haarlem, 1880); French translation of the same by Victor Chauvin, entitled, Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Islamisme (Leyden-Paris, 1879).
*91. Alfred von Kremer: Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams; der Gottesbegriff, die Prophetie und Staatsidee (Leipzig, 1868).
*92. Idem, Cultergeschichtliche Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete des Islams (Leipzig, 1873).
*93. Idem, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen (2 vols., Vienna, 1875-77).
*94. Dr. Ignaz Goldziher: Muhammedanische Studien (2 vols., Halle, 1889-90).
*95. T. W. Arnold: The Preaching of Islam, a History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith (London, 1896).
*96. Shahristani's Kitábu'l-Milal wa'n-Niḥal, or Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects, edited by W. Cureton (London, 1846); translated into German, with Notes, by Th. Haarbrücker (Halle, 1850-51).
*97. Ibn Khaldún's Prolegomena (or Muqaddamát) to his great history. Complete ed. in 7 vols. (Buláq, A.H. 1284); separate ed. of the Prolegomena (Beyrout, 1879); text and French translation of the Prolegomena (the former edited by Quatremère, the latter by MacGuckin de Slane) in vols. xvi-xxi of Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale.
*98. T. P. Hughes: Notes on Muhammadanism (London, 1877 and 1878): Idem, A Dictionary of Islam, being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies and Customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan Religion (2nd ed., London, 1896).
*99. H. Steiner: Die Mu'taziliten oder die Freidenker im Islam, and Die Mu'taziliten als Vorlaüfer der islamischen Dogmatiker und Philosophen …, both published in Leipzig in 1865.
*100. Brünnow: Die Charidschiten … (Leyden, 1884).
101. W. Spitta: Zur Geschichte Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arî's (Leipzig, 1876).
102. Goldziher: Die Schule der Zahiriten, ihr Ursprung, ihr System und ihre Geschichte (Leipzig, 1884).
103. S. Guyard: Fragments relatifs a la Doctrine des Ismaélîs … avec traduction et notes (Paris, 1874): Idem, Un grand Maître des Assassins (extrait du Journal Asiatique, Paris, 1877).
*104. S. de Sacy: Exposé de la Religion des Druzes (Paris, 1838: 2 vols.).
105. Von Hammer: Histoire de l'Ordre des Assassins … traduit de l'allemand … par J. J. Hellert et P. A. de la Nourais (Paris, 1833).
106. Tholuck's Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum Pantheistica (Berlin, 1821); Idem, Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländischen Mystik (Berlin, 1825).
*107. Dr. Fr. Dieterici: Die Philosophie der Araber im ix u. x Jahr. n. Chr., aus der Theologie des Aristoteles, den Abhandlungen Alfārābīs und den Schriften der lautern Brüder … 16 Bücher (Berlin, Leipzig, Leyden, 1858-94).
108. Professor de Goeje: Mémoires sur les Carmathes du Bahraïn et les Fatimides (Leyden, 1886).
RHETORIC, ETC.
*109. Ibn Khallikán's Wafayátu'l-A'yán, Biographical Dictionary of eminent and famous Muslims: Arabic text, edited by Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1837; 2 vols.); English translation, with Notes, by the Baron MacGuckin de Slane (4 vols., Paris and London, 1842-71).
*110. Hajji Khalfa (Khalífa)'s Bibliographical Dictionary, the Kashfu'dh-Dhunún 'an Asami'l-Kutub wa'l-Funún, Arabic text with Latin translation, by Gustav Flügel (7 vols., Leipzig, 1835-58). This work is indispensable for the identification of Muhammadan books, and as the author died as late as A.D. 1658, it includes all but the most modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature. Flügel's edition contains full and excellent Indices.
*111. Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (vol. i, 1897-98; vol. ii, part 1, 1899: Weimar). Not to be confounded with this is a more popular work by the same author and bearing the same title, which forms half of vol. vi of a series now in process of publication at Leipzig (C. F. Amelangs Verlag) entitled Die Literaturen des Ostens in Einzeldarstellungen. The other half of this volume (published in 1901) is formed by—
*112. Dr. Paul Horn's Geschichte der Persischen Literatur.
113. Pizzi, besides his Manuale della lingua persiana (1883), has published (in Italian) an excellent little sketch of Persian Literature from the earliest times.
114. Professor Th. Nöldeke: Beiträge zur Kentniss der Poesie der alten Araber (Hannover, 1864).
*115. F. Wüstenfeld: Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber und ihre Werke (Göttingen, 1882).
116. I. Guidi: Tables alphabétiques du Kitábu'l-Aghání, comprenant (i) Index des poètes dont le “Kitáb” cite des vers; (ii) Index des rimes; (iii) Index historique; (iv) Index géographique; rédigées avec la collaboration de MM. R. E. Brünnow, S. Fraenkel, H. D. Van Gelder, W. Guirgass, E. Hélouis, H. G. Kleyn, Fr. Seybold et G. Van Vloten. (Leyden, 1895-1900). One large, stout volume of 769 + xi pp., invaluable for such as can use the vast stores of verse and anecdote contained in the 20 volumes of the great Arabic anthology to which it forms the guide and key.
117. Darmesteter: Les origines de la Poesie persane (Paris, 1887).
*118. Ethé: numerous monographs on the early Persian poets (see n. 2 on p. 452 supra, but this list is by no means complete); article on Persian Literature in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; and *article in vol. ii (pp 212-368) of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss (No. 1 supra).
119. Sir Gore Ouseley's Biographical Notices of Persian Poets (London, 1846). An entertaining and instructive, though in some respects obsolete, book.
120. A. de Biberstein Kazimirski's Introduction to his Díwán of Minúchihrí (“Menoutchehri”), Paris, 1886.
*121. F. Wüstenfeld: Die Academien der Araber und ihre Lehrer (Göttingen, 1837); Geschichte der Arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher (1840).
*122. Francis Gladwin: Dissertations on the Rhetoric, Prosody, and Rhyme of the Persians (Calcutta: reprinted in London, 1801).
*123. H. Blochmann: The Prosody of the Persians (Calcutta, 1872).
*124. Friedrich Rückert: Grammatik, Poetik, und Rhetorik der Perser … neu herausgegeben von W. Pertsch (Gotha, 1874).
125. Cl. Huart's French translation (Paris, 1875) of the Anísu'l-'Ushsháq (“Lover's Companion”) of Sharafu'd-Dín Rámí is a valuable guide to Persian lyric verse.
126. Th. Nöldeke: Sketches from Eastern History, translated by John Sutherland Black (London and Edinburgh, 1892).
*127. Wüstenfeld's Vergleichungs-Tabellen der Muhammedanischen und Christlichen Zeitrechnung (Leipzig, 1854), with Supplement (Fortsetzung) by Dr. Ed. Mahler (Leipzig, 1887) continuing the reckoning from A.H. 1300 (A.D. 1883), where Wüstenfeld concluded his tables, to A.H. 1500 (A.D. 2077). This book is indispensable for all who have occasion to convert Muhammadan into Christian dates, or vice versâ.
As before said, Arabic and Persian works which have not been translated into some European language are excluded from the above list, since their inclusion would have greatly increased the size of the Bibliography without advantage to the majority of readers, who are ignorant of these languages. Some readers of this class may, perhaps, desire to begin the study of one or both of these languages, and for their benefit I will add a few words as to suitable grammars, dictionaries, and other text-books; a subject on which I constantly receive inquiries, even from complete strangers.
Excellent small grammars of both languages are included in the Porta Linguarum Orientalium Series published by H. Reuther (Carlsruhe and Leipzig). All the volumes in this series are originally in German, but some (including the Arabic Grammar of Socin) exist also in English. The Persian Grammar, by Salemann and Zhukovski (1889), is only published in German. The earlier (1885) edition of Socin's Grammar contains a much better Chrestomathy than the later one, from which the best Arabic extracts were removed to form part of a separate Arabic Chrestomathy, by Brünnow (1895) in the same series. The student who wishes to get some idea of Arabic will find the 1885 edition sufficient by itself; but if he cannot obtain it, and has to be content with the later edition, he must get the Chrestomathy as well.
Both of these Grammars, the Arabic and the Persian, contain excellent Bibliographies of the most important and useful books for students of the respective languages, and it is not necessary for me to repeat here the ample information on this subject which can be found in these small and inexpensive but most meritorious volumes.
For the study of Arabic the best grammar is Wright's (3rd ed., revised by W. Robertson Smith and M. J. de Goeje: 2 vols., Cambridge, 1896-98); Palmer's (London, 1874), though neither so full nor so accurate, is easier and pleasanter reading. Of Dictionaries the only small, inexpensive, and yet fairly complete one is Belot's Vocabulaire Arabe-Français à l'usage des Étudiants (4th ed., Beyrout, 1896: pp. 1,001: price about ten shillings). There are also a Dictionnaire Français-Arabe (Beyrout, 1890: pp. 1,609) and a Cours pratique de la Langue Arabe (Beyrout, 1896), by the same author. Fuller, larger, and even better, but about four or five times as costly, is A. de Biberstein Kazimirski's Dictionnaire Arabe-Français (2 vols., pp. 1,392 and 1,638: Paris, 1846-60). Dozy's Supplément aux Dictionnaires Arabes (Leyden, 1881; 2 vols., pp. 864 and 856) is invaluable for later Arabic writers. Lane's great Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863 —), is a magnificent torso. There are also Arabic-English Dictionaries by Steingass (London, 1884), and Salmoné (London, 1890).
For Persian the number of dictionaries and grammars is legion, but it is much harder to name the best than in the case of Arabic. Persian is so simple a language that almost any decent grammar will serve the purpose, and a really scientific grammar of first-class merit yet remains to be written. In England the grammars of Forbes (4th ed., London, 1869), Mírzá Ibráhím (Haileybury and London, 1843: Fleischer's German version of the same, Leipzig, 1847 and 1875) and Platts (Part i: Accidence: London, 1894) are most used, with Rosen (English translation by Dr. E. Denison Ross) for more colloquial purposes. In French there is the truly admirable work of A. de Biberstein Kazimirski, Dialogues français-persans, précédés d'un précis de la Grammaire persane, et suivis d'un Vocabulaire français-persan (Paris, 1883), as well as the Grammars of Chodzko (1852 and 1883), Guyard (1880) and Huart (1899), with the Dialogues persan-français (1857), and the Dictionnaire français-persan (1885-1887) of J. B. Nicolas. In German, besides the two already mentioned, there is Wahrmund (Giessen, 1875); in Italian, Pizzi's Manuale (see above, No. 113); and in Latin Vullers' Grammatica Linguæ Persicæ (Giessen, 1870), written chiefly from the point of view of the Comparative Philologist.
In English the best small dictionaries (Persian-Engl. and Engl.-Persian) are by E. H. Palmer; larger ones are the Persian-Engl. Dictionary of Steingass (1,539 pp.; London, 1892) and the two English-Persian Dictionaries (a larger and a smaller, London, 1882 and 1889) of Wollaston, who was assisted by Mírzá Muḥammad Báqir of Bawánát (see p. 390 of this book). Vullers' Lexicon Persico- Latinum Etymologicum (2 large vols., Bonn, 1855-67), though cumbrous and badly arranged, is on the whole indispensable until the student has learned enough Persian to use the native dictionaries (Burhán-i-Qáṭi', Farhang-i-Rashídí, &c.) from which it is chiefly compiled. As a reading-book nothing on the whole excels the Gulistán of Sa'dí, of which there are good editions (furnished with full vocabularies) and translations by Eastwick and Platts.
In the following Index, where a large number of references occur under one heading, the more important are, as a rule, printed in thicker type. The prefixes Abu (“Father of …”), Ibn (“Son of …”) are disregarded in the arrangement of Muhammadan names into which they enter: thus, for example, such names as Abu Tahir and Ibn Sina are to be sought under T and S respectively. A hyphen prefixed to a name indicates that it is properly preceded by the Arabic definite article al-; the letter b. between two names stands for ibn, “son of …” Names of books, both Oriental and European, are printed in italics, and an asterisk is prefixed to those from which citations of any considerable length occur in the text. Names of authors and other persons whose words are cited are similarly distinguished.
For typographical reasons it has been found necessary to omit in the Index the accents indicating the long vowels and the dots and dashes distinguishing the hard letters in the Arabic and Persian names and words which it comprises. The correct transliteration of such words must therefore be sought in the text.
Aaron, 409
Ababil (birds), 178
Abalish “the Accursed,” 104,
105, 107
Aban al-Lahiqi, 332
Abarsam, 138
-'Abbas, 195, 214
'Abbas Efendi, 311
-'Abbas b. -Ahnaf (poet), 277
-'Abbas b. 'Amr - Ghanawi
(general), 354, 402
-'Abbas b. -Walid (Umayyad
prince), 242
'Abbas of Merv (alleged
author of oldest Persian
poem), 13, 340, 452
Abu'l-'Abbas -Saffah, q.v. (first
'Abbasid Caliph), 237, 240,
241, 243, 251, 254, 257
*Abu'l-'Abbas Fadl b. -'Abbas
(Persian poet), 458
'Abbasid Caliphs, 6, 90, 159,
168, 208, 209, 210, 214, 236-
247 (rise to power), 251-
253 (character of dynasty),
thence onwards passim
'Abdan (Carmathian), 397,
401
'Abdu'llah b. 'Ali (great-
grandson of -'Abbas), 254
'Abdu'llah b. 'Abdu'l-Muttalib
(the Prophet's father), 214
'Abdu'llah b. 'Amr b. -'As
-Zuhri (scholar), 272
'Abdu'llah (brother of Babak),
329, 330
'Abdu'llah b. Marwan (Umay-
yad prince), 244
'Abdu'llah b. Maymun -Qad-
dah, 393, 394, 396-398, 406,
407, 409, 410
'Abdu'llah b. Saba (first to
teach Divinity of 'Ali), 220
'Abdu'llah b. Sa'id ('Abbasid
propagandist), 310
'Abdu'llah b. Shu'ba (officer
of Abu Muslim), 309
'Abdu'llah b. Tahir (Tahirid
prince), 12, 278, 330, 335, 346
'Abdu'llah b. Wahb -Rasibi
(Kharijite Anti-Caliph), 222
'Abdu'llah b. Zubayr, 228-231
Abu Abdi'llah (Carmathian
da'i), 397
Abu Abdi'llah Muhammad b.
Khafif of Shiraz (Sufi), 372
'Abdu'l-'Aziz (Umayyad), 215
'Abdu'l-Khaliq (Abdul Chalig)
“Achundow,” 478
'Abdu'l - Malik (Umayyad
Caliph), 103, 206, 215, 228,
230, 238, 263, 273, 283, 317,
318
'Abdu'l-Malik I (Samanid),
372, 463
'Abdu'l-Malik II (Samanid),
468
'Abd Manaf (Qurayshite), 214
*'Abdu'l-Masih (soothsayer),
173, 182
'Abdu'l-Muttalib (grandfather
of the Prophet), 177, 214
Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi (historian,
of Cordova), 15, 268, 366
'Abdu'r-Rahman (founder of
Umayyad dynasty of Cor-
dova), 215, 245
'Abdu'r-Rahman b. -Ash'ath,
Rebellion of —, 234
'Abdu'r-Rahman b. 'Awf, 195,
202, 388, 450
'Abdu'r-Rahman b. Harmala
-Aslami (traditionist), 273
'Abd Shams (Qurayshite),
214
'Abd Zohar (coins of —), 80
Abel, 14, 162
Aberystwyth, 452
Abhar (Persian town), 86
'Abid b. Shariya of San'a
(early Arab writer), 273
Abraha (Abyssinian King),
175-178
Abraham, 385, 408, 409, 427;
— identified with Zoroaster,
113
Abtin (father of Feridun), 115
Abyssinians, 118, 175, 178-181,
186-188
Achæmenes (= Hakhaman-
ish), 92, 121
Achæmenian dynasty, 4, 5, 7,
11, 18, 19, 24, 28, 30, 36, 37,
39, 56, 60, 65, 67, 70, 79, 82,
88, 90, 94, 96, 103, 121, 127,
151, 212. See also Old
Persian
Acts of Archelaus, 155
Acts of the Persian Martyrs,
134
'Ad (ancient tribe), 430
Adam, 14, 27, 162, 316, 320,
408, 409
Adam (grandfather of Baya-
zid of Bistam), 427
Adams, Sir Thomas —, 41
Adhar- (Atur-) Farnbag, son
of Farrukh-zad, 104, 105
Adhar Gushasp (Sacred Fire),
139, 140
Adharpadh Mahraspand
(Zoroastrian priest), 101
Adabu'l-Katib (of Ibn Qu-
tayba), 277
'Adudu'd-Dawla (Buwayhid),
12, 370, 371, 398
Æschylus, 91
Æthiopians, 271, 349, 454.
See also Zanj.
Ætiology, Poetical (Husn-i-
ta'lil), 465
Afarin (minstrel), 18
Afarin-nama (of Abu Shu-
kur), 466
'Affan (father of the Caliph
'Uthman), 215
Afghanistan, Afghans, 4, 28,
83
Afrasiyab, 116
Africa, 189, 251, 339, 349, 352,
359, 367, 397, 402
Afrinagan (Zoroastrian dox-
ologies), 101
Afshin (general), 252, 323, 329-
336
Agathias, 122, 421
Agesilaus (of Xenophon), 91
Agha Muhammad Khan
(Qajar), 207
Ahasuerus, 20, 480
*Ahli of Shiraz (poet), 225
Ahlu'l-ahwa, 289
Ahlu'l-'adl wa't-tawhid, 281.
See also Mu'tazilites
Ahlu's-suffa, 297
Ahmad b. Abi Du'ad (one of
Afshin's judges), 331, 335,
336
Ahmad b. Hanbal (Sunnite
Imam), 273, 284, 291, 295,
344, 345, 361
Ahmad b. Isma'il (Samanid),
352, 466
Ahmad b. Khidrawayh (Sufi),
424
Ahmad-Khujistani, 355
Ahmad b. Nasr -Khuza'i (con-
spirator), 285
Ahmad (successor of Abdu'l-
lah b. Maymun -Qaddah),
397, 409
*Abu Ahmad b. Abu Bakr
-Katib (poet), 465-466
Ahriman, 35, 52, 56, 114, 146.
See also Anra Mainyush
-Ahsa, 403
Ahsanu't-taqasim fi ma'ri-
fati'l-aqalim (of -Muqad-
dasi), 373
Ahuna - vairya (verse of
Avesta), 98
Ahura Mazda, 25, 32, 34, 35,
64, 65, 72, 93, 94, 95, 114, 160:
—(name of the planet
Jupiter), 461
Ahwaz, 313, 347, 364, 371, 396
Airan (= Iran, q.v.), 4
Airyana (= Airan), 4
Airyana Vaeja, 25, 35, 36
'A'isha (wife of Prophet), 214,
217, 343
'Ajá'ibu'l-Hind, 368
'Ajam, 265, 268. See also
Persian
Ajari (name of Manichæans),
164
Akasira (plural of Kisra), 127.
See Sasanians
Akbar, Emperor of India, 166
*-Akhbaru't-tiwal, 357. See
-Dinawari
-Akhfash (grammarian), 278
Akhshunwar (Turkish Kha-
qan), 121
-Akhtal (Arab poet), 280
Akhu Muhsin, 411
Akkadian language, 65, 66, 74
Abu'l-'Ala. See -Ma'arri
Albategnius, 363. See -Bat-
tani
Albertus Magnus, 40
Albigenses, 154, 160
Alchemy, 274, 362, 379, 428,
430
Alchemy of Happiness (of
-Ghazzali), 293
Aleppo, 218, 302, 322, 423
Alexander “the Great,” 5, 21,
37, 60, 79, 91, 96, 97, 106,
111, 118-121, 139, 304, 305
Alexander Romance, 118, 150
Alexandria, 366
Alexandrian School, 96, 97.
See Neo-Platonism.
'Ali b. Abi Talib (cousin of
the Prophet and First
Imam of the Shi'ites), 98,
130, 133, 189, 194, 203, 210,
212, 214-224 226-228, 231,
235, 239, 246, 252, 258, 261,
276, 283, 290, 296, 342, 343,
348, 350, 388, 391, 392, 398,
407, 408, 409. See also
Ghulat, Shi'ites.
'Ali b. -Husayn b. 'Ali. See
Zaynu'l-'Abidin.
'Ali Akbar, 131
'Ali Asghar, 131
'Ali -Rida. See Rida, Imam—.
'Ali b. -'Abbas -Majusi (phy-
sician), 375
'Ali b. 'Abdu'llah b. -'Abbas,
254
'Ali b. Buwayh, 360. See
'Imadu'd-Dawla.
'Ali b. Hamza-Kisa'i (gram-
marian), 276
'Ali b. Harun-Shaybani (Sa-
manid poet), 365
'Ali b. Hisham, 334
'Ali b. 'Isa (Wazir of -Muq-
tadir), 360, 429, 434
'Ali b. Jahm -Sami (poet),
345
'Ali b. Muhammad -Warza-
nini (leader of Zanj re-
bellion), 350
'Ali Mazdak, 247, 328
Abu 'Ali -Bal'ami, 356, 368,
478
'Alids('Alawiyya, descendants
of 'Ali b. Abu Talib), 239.
See Imams, Shi'ites.
Aligarh, 202
Ibnu'l-'Allaf (poet), 363
Allah Ta'ala (God), how re-
garded by heathen Arabs,
190
Allegorical Interpretation,
285. See Ta'wil.
Alptagin (founder of Ghaz-
nawi dynasty), 372
Alpuxarras Mountains, 9
Alvand, Mount —, 63
Amadana, 20. See Hamadan.
Ameer Ali, Sayyid —, 188
America, Babiism in—, 311
Amid (Diyar Bakr), 134
Amin ('Abbasid Caliph), 252,
254, 256
Aminu Ali Muhammad (title
of Abu Muslim, q.v.), 256
'Amiri, Muhammad b. 'Ab-
du'r-Rahman — (jurist), 273
Ibn 'Amir ('Uthman's cousin),
216
Amir Pazawari (Mazandarani
poet), 83
Amiru'l - Kafirin, -Ma'mun
called —, 307
Amir-i Sa'id (title of Nasr II
the Samanid), 365
Amiru'l Umara (title of Bu-
wayhids), 364, 367
Ammianus Marcellinus, 66,
75
Ammonius, 421
'Amr b. -'As, 218, 219
'Amr b. Bahr. See -Jahidh.
'Amr b. Layth (Saffarid), 348,
352, 354, 355, 359, 453
'Amr b. Sa'd, 228
'Amr b. 'Uthman - Makki
(Sufi), 436
'A. M. S (Nusayri Trinity),
203
Amshaspands, 100, 101, 160
Anabasis of Xenophon, 91
Anahita (Nahid, the planet
Venus), 95, 461
“Ana'l-Haqq,” 361, 362
-Andakhudi, Shamsu'd-Din
Muhammad (biographer of
poets), 448
Andalusia, 263. See Cordova,
Spain
Andreas, F. C. —, 70, 78, 82,
106
Angels, 160
Angles, 5
Anglo-Saxon language, 82, 95;
teaching of — introduced at
Cambridge, 41
Annihilation in God (= Fana
fi'llah, q.v.), 443
Anoshak-rubano. See Nushir-
wan
Anquetil du Perron, 42, 43,
45-53, 56-58, 61, 62, 67, 97
Anra Mainyush (= Ahriman,
q.v.), 35, 52, 56, 99, 114, 160
Ansab. See Genealogy
Ansar, 213, 215, 230, 231. See
Companions
Antioch, 421
Antiochus, 21
Anthropomorphism, 310, 311,
314, 315-316, 435
Anusha-zadh, 136, 168, 181
Anushirwan. See Nushirwan
Anwari (Persian poet), 389,
437
Anwar-i-Suhayli, 341
Aogemadaeca, 102
Aoj- (root), 27
Apocrypha of Daniel, 479, 480
Apollodorus, 21
-'Aqaba (in Surra-man-ra'a),
329
Arab heathenism (= Jahi-
liyyat, q.v.), 186-194, 212,
231, 261, 274
Arabian Nights, 254, 277
Arabian Science, 204
Arabic character, 9, 10, 82;
Spanish in —, 9
Arabic language the vehicle
of Muslim Science till
Mongol Invasion, 340, 377;
— in Persia, and Arabic
literature produced by
Persians, 3, 4, 211, 278, 348,
365, 445-447, 474-477; —
preserved in siyaq notation
in Persia, 67; importance
of — for study of Persian,
89, 90; elements of — in
Persian, 73; study of — in
Europe, 39-41; — reduced
to writing by command of
Jamshid, 80; translations
into — from Pahlawi, 76,
110, 118, 123; — written
in Syriac character (Kar-
shuni), 8, 9
Arabic script, 10, 82
Arabs, character of —, 189-
194, 252, 404, 472; — men-
tioned in Behistun Inscrip-
tion, 94; — learn their
power, 184; influence of —
on Persia, 6, 36, 37, 66;
antipathy between — and
Persians, 114, 130, 242, 327,
331-332, 334; pride of —,
213, 229; decline of zeal
and power of —, 244, 251-
252, 342, 345; minor refer-
ences, 4, 63, 173, 174, 181,
357, 369, 388. See also
Conquest, Arab —, Racial
feeling, Subject races,
Shu'ubiyya, Mawálí
Ibnu'l-'Arabi, Shaykh Muh-
yiyyu'd-Din — (Sufi), 419,
420, 438
Ibnu'l-A'rabi (grammarian),
278
Arachosia, 35, 94
Arakadris, 31
Aramaic, 36, 37, 66, 73, 74, 75,
77, 80, 81, 89. See also
Chaldæan, Syriac
Araxes, River —, 25, 35
Arbil, 33
Arbitration of Dawmatu'l-
Jandal, 219, 221
Archelaus, Acts of —, 155
Arcs of Ascent and Descent,
441
Ardabil, 324, 325
Ardashir-i-Babakan (founder
of Sasanian Dynasty), 9, 58,
70, 97, 103, 108, 112, 117, 119-
120, 121, 122, 136-151, 153,
158. See also Artakhshatr-
i-Papakano
Ardashir III (Sasanian), 174,
182
Ardashir, Dastur —, 47
Arda Viraf, Book of—, 43, 96,
106, 118, 157
Ardawan, 136, 137-139, 140-
145, 154
*'Arib. b. Sa'd of Cordova
(historian), 360, 362, 363,
428, 430, 432, 434
Aries, Sign of —, 114, 259
'Arif (“Gnostic”), 424
'Arifu'z-Zanadiqa, 159
Aristotle (Aristu, Aristatalis),
39, 40, 119, 277, 286, 293,
305, 381
Aristotelians, Arabian —, 289
Ariyaramna (Achæmenian),
63, 92
Arjasp, 460
Armegand of Montpellier, 40
Armenians, 8, 41, 94, 127, 201,
313
*Arnold, Sir Edwin —, 442
*Arnold, T. W. —, 202, 206,
207, 212, 448
Arphaxad (Arfakhshad), 114
Arrajan, 324, 364
Arrows, shooting of — to
determine site, 152, 153
Arshama (Achæmenian), 63,
92, 93
'Arsh (Throne of God), 427
Artabanus. See Ardawan
Artai (wind), 143
Artakhshatr-i-Papakano, 70,
71, 93, 106, 108, 117, 122,
136-151, 153
Artaxerxes Longimanus, 117
Artaxerxes Mnemon, 20, 120
“Aryan genius,” 301
Aryans (Ariya, Airiya), 4, 29,
33, 56, 80, 90, 94, 114, 419
Aryat (Abyssinian general),
175, 176
Arzhang (Artang) of Mani
(Manes), 166
Abu'l-'As b. Umayya, 215
Asad (tribe), 370
Asad b. 'Abdu'llah (Governor
of Khurasan), 207, 352
Asad-'Amid, 460
Asad b. Musa b. Ibrahim,
274
Asadi (poet), 437; (lexico-
grapher), 86, 450, 457, 474,
478
Ibn 'Asakir, 264
'Asal-i-dukhta (“sewn honey,”
the yellow garments worn
by the Guebres), 343
Asas (term of Isma'ilis), 409,
413
Ascetics (Zuhhad), 298
Ashab. See Companions.
Ash'ari, Abu Musa —, 219;
Abu'l-Hasan —, 212, 283,
285, 286, 291-292, 352, 364,
366
Ashemaogha (heretic), Maz-
dak so styled, 169, 171
Ashghaniyan, Ashkaniyan,
111, 118, 158. See also
Parthians.
Ibnu'l-Ashtar (General of
-Mukhtar), 238
'Askar Mukram (place), 396
-Asma'i (philologist), 277, 350,
357
Asman (27th day of month),
146
Asp - i - nawbati (“sentry
horse”), 317
“Ass,” Marwan II so called.
See Marwan II
Assassins, 54, 172, 311, 392,
395, 396, 408, 424
Assyrians, 20, 21, 23, 36, 37,
55, 65, 66, 67, 74, 75, 81, 89,
90, 94, 109, 305, 306
Astarabad, 448
Astronomy, 289, 304
Astyages, 21
Asura (demon) in Sanskrit =
Ahura (God) in Avesta, 34
'Ata (name of -Muqanna',
q.v.), 320
Abu'l-'Atahiya (poet), 276, 277.
370
'Ata -Ghazzal (father of
Wasil), 281
A'tham -Kufi (historian), 363
*-Atharu'l-baqiya (of -Biruni,
q.v.), 154, 469
*Atharu'l-bilad (of -Qazwini),
15, 157, 257, 319, 324
Athenaeus, 121
Athenians, 94
-Athim (= Pers. Baza-gar,
“the Sinner”), 135. See
Yazdigird I.
*Ibnu'l-Athir (historian), 169,
321-323, 360
Athravan (Fire-priest), 31
Atropatene, 19, 25, 28, 29, 30,
36, 78. See also Azarbayjan
*'Attar, Shaykh Faridu'd-Din
— (poet and mystic), 294,
299, 361, 362, 389, 416, 424-
428, 436, 437, 444
Augustine, St. —, 155
Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 40,
288-289, 294, 381
Avesta, 4, 22-31, 34, 37, 42-
44, 50, 53, 56-59, 63, 67-
70, 88, 91, 95-102, 105, 108,
111-114, 116, 120, 143, 169,
206, 301; — meaning of
term, 78; — identified with
Abraham's Revealed Book
(Suhuf), 113
Avestic language (so-called
“Zend” or “Old Bactrian”),
27, 39, 43, 44, 60, 62, 67, 78,
81, 89
Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 40, 288,
289, 293, 368, 372, 375, 381,
470
*'Awfi, Muhammad — (author
of Lubabu'l - Albab and
Jawami'u'l-hikayat), 13, 15,
262, 283, 340, 449, 450, 452-
455, 462, 463, 466, 468, 470
471
Awhadu'd-Din Kirmani(poet),
420
Abu 'Awn, 245
'Ayn b. 'Ayn b. 'Ayn, 241
'Aynu'l-Kamal. Ṣee Evil Eye.
Aywan - i - Kisra (Palace of
Chosroes), 258
Ayyam (“days,” i.e., notable
battles, of the Arabs), 270,
388
Abu Ayyub-Muriyani, 258
Az (in Talish dialect = azem,
“I” in Avestic), 27
Azarbayjan (Adharbadhagan),
19, 28, 35, 78, 79, 313, 325,
448. See Atropatene.
Azhi-Dahaka, 114. See Dahak.
-Azraqi (historian of Mecca),
345
-'Aziz, Abu Mansur Nazar
(Fatimid Caliph), 373
Babak (Papak), the father of
Ardashir Babakan (q.v.),
122, 137-142
Babak (heresiarch), 247, 311,
323-331, 334, 336
*Baba Tahir (dialect poet),
26, 27, 83
Ibn Babawayh (Shi'ite divine),
375
-Babbagha (poet), 370
Babis, 86, 98, 99, 100, 101, 130,
165, 170, 172, 311, 312, 407,
410, 415, 423
Babylon, Babylonia, 21, 94,
128, 154, 158, 163, 164, 282,
301, 305, 306, 357
Bacon, Roger —, 40
Bactria, 4, 25, 28 — 31, 34, 35,
78, 94, 95
-Bada (heretical tenet), 311
Badaraya, 158
Badghis, 309, 317, 346, 452
Badhan (Persian satrap of
-Yaman), 181, 183
-Badhdh, Mountain of —, 325,
326
Badi', Abu Muhammad — of
Balkh, 467
Badi'u'z-Zaman -Hamadhani,
463, 464
Badr, Battle of —, 216
Bagayadish (Old Persian
month), 32
Baghdad, 6, 163, 164, 197-
198, 209, 210, 254, 258, 259,
274, 286, 289, 292, 293, 295,
306, 307, 316, 317, 329, 339-
342, 346, 353, 356, 358-361,
364, 367, 377, 398, 402, 434,
446, 465, 466, 474
Baghir (Turkish general), 342
Baharistan (of Jami), 417,
425, 456
Baha'u'llah, 311
Bahlabad (minstrel of Khus-
raw Parwiz). See Barbad
Bahman, 97, 117, 118, 137, 142.
See also Vohumano
Bahman Yasht, 169
Bahram I. (Sasanian), 154,
157-159, 163
Bahram II. (Sasanian), 154
Bahram V. (Sasanian), called
“Gur,” “the Wild Ass,” 12,
262, 364
Bahram Chubin, 109, 129, 181,
267, 352
Bahrayn, 201, 344, 402
Balahbad. See Barbad
Bakan Yasht, 98
-Bakharzi, -Husayn b. 'Ali
(biographer of poets), 358,
448
Bakhtiyari dialect, 87
Bako Yasht, 97
Abu Bakr (Caliph), 194, 195,
205, 209, 210, 214, 217, 330,
343, 391, 437
-Bakuratu's - Sulaymaniyya,
203
Bakusaya (in Babylonia),
158
Ba'labakk (Baalbeck), 278,
306
-Baladhuri (historian), 110,
152, 197, 199, 201, 202, 203,
205, 261, 263, 268, 323, 357
-Balaghatu's-sab'a (Isma'ili
book), 401
-Bal'ami, Abu'l-Fadl —, 356;
Abu 'Ali — (son of the
preceding), 11, 110, 356,
368-369, 455, 478
Balfour of Burleigh, 221
Balkatagin b. Alptagin, 372
Balkh, 4, 35, 36, 163, 207, 244,
252, 257, 315, 347, 348, 354,
425. See also Bactria
-Balkhi, Abu Zayd — (geo-
grapher), 315, 368, 372
Ballad poetry, 16, 17, 18
Baluchistan, 4, 83
Bamdadh (father of Mazdak,
q.v.), 169
Bang, W. —, 64
Banu'l-Ahrar (Persian settlers
in -Yaman), 181, 262
Barbad (minstrel and poet of
Khusraw Parwiz), 14-18
Barbier de Meynard, 132, 365,
368, 447
Bardesanes, 160
Bardesanians, 382, 387, 415
Bardiya (Smerdes), 31, 32
Barfaryad, 162
Bar Hebræus (Abu'l-Faraj)
322, 323
Barmak (ancestor of Barme-
cides, q.v.), 257, 258
Barmecides, 164, 252, 254, 257,
258, 276, 342
Barsom, 52
Barthélemy, Paul de St. —, 59
Barthélemy, 107
Bartholomæ, 64
Barton, Dr. — (of Oxford), 50
Barzaentes (satrap of Darius),
91
Bas-farúj = Abu Sufra, 263
Bashshar b. Burd (poet and
sceptic), 267, 276
122
Basra, 184, 216, 219, 223, 245,
263, 270, 289, 296, 302, 349,
358, 359, 378, 385, 396, 402
Batinis, 311, 407, 414, 422.
See Isma'ilis, Carmathians,
Sect of the Seven, &c.
-Battani, Muhammad b. Jabir
b. Sinan (Albategnius), 363
Baur, 155, 191
Bayabak (Turkish officer), 342
Bayan (of Babis), 101
Bayazid of Bistam (Sufi), 352,
426-428
Bayda (= Dizh-i-sapid, “the
White Castle,” in Fars), 434
Bayhaq, 355
Bayhaqi (historian of Ghaz-
nawi Dynasty), 331
-Bayhaqi (author of Kitabu'l-
Mahasin, q.v.), 15, 18
Baynun (castle in -Yaman),
175
Baysunghar, 122
Baytu'l - Hikma (“House of
Wisdom” of the Caliph
-Ma'mun), 306
Baza - gar (= -Athim, “the
Sinner,” a term applied to
Yazdigird I, q.v.), 135, 166
Bazanes (Bishop), 172
Beatific Vision, 285, 287, 361
Beausobre, 155
Bedouin, 271. See Arabs.
Beer, 64
Behbehan, 87
Behistun (Bagastana, Bi-si-
tun), 5, 31, 63, 66, 70, 78, 92,
93
Bel, 10
Benfey, Prof. —, 9, 68
Berbers, 397
Beresine, 27, 83
Berlin Library, 262, 449, 452,
464
Bermann, 153
Berosus, 21
Bessus (satrap of Darius), 91
Bevan, Prof. A. A. —, 159,
160, 165
Bibi Shahrbanu. See Shahr-
banu
Bible, 37
Bibliothèque du Roi, —
Nationale (Paris), 45, 67,
374, 479
Bigthan, 20
Bih-afaridh (Persian heresi-
arch), 308-310, 323
Bihishti (title of apocryphal
king), 480
Bihzad (father of -Sirafi), 372
Bilal-abadh, 324, 325
Bilqis (Queen of Sheba), 175,
385
Bindu'e (uncle of Khusraw
Parwiz), 181
Biographies of Persian Poets.
See -Andakhudi, 'Awfi,
-Bakharzi, Chahar Maqala,
Dawlatshah, -Tha'alibi,
Tabaqat, Tadhkira, Yati-
matu'd-Dahr
Birku'l-Jumad, 272
*-Biruni, Abu Rayhan (his-
torian and astronomer),
110, 123, 136, 154, 155, 158-
159, 169, 247, 259, 268, 270,
308-309, 313, 318-319, 352,
359, 371, 419, 469, 475
Bishr (disciple of Husayn b.
Mansur -Hallaj, q.v.), 431
Bishr b. -Harith, 424
Bi-situn, 5. See also Behis-
tun, Old Persian Inscrip-
tions
Bismi'llah, Analogy between
— and Ahuna vairya
formula, 98
Bisra (meat) read as “gusht”
in Pahlawi, 66, 76
Bistam (uncle of Khusraw
Parwiz), 181
Bistam (town in Persia), 427
Bit Dayaukku, 21
Biward (Abiward), 242
Black, J. Sutherland —, 347
Black, colour of 'Abbasids,
242, 243, 244, 310
Black Stone, 359, 367, 403, 404
Bland, Nathaniel —, 13, 449,
451
Blochmann, 389, 473
Blowing on knots as magic
rite, 366
Bodleian Library, 41, 42, 44,
45
Bogha (“the Bull,” Turkish
name), 342
Bokht (“hath delivered”) in
Persian names, 145-146
Bokht Yishu' (physician), 146,
344, 345, 367
Bollensen, 64
Bologna, 40
Bombay, 48, 103, 206
Book of Origins (Ghayatu'l-
wasa'il ila marifati'l-
awa'il), 356, 455
Book of Nabathæan Agricul-
ture, 357
Bopp, 68
Boswell Smith, 188
Bourchier (Bowcher), G. —,
44
Brahmins, 56
Brandt, Dr. A. J. H. W. —,
302
“Brethren of Purity.” See
Ikhwanu's-Safa
Brisson, Barnaby de —, 42
British Museum Library, 374,
448, 457, 473
*Brockelmann, Carl —, 253,
267, 268, 273, 274, 276, 277,
278, 305-306, 343, 357, 358,
373-374, 375, 378, 383
Brünnow, 212, 220, 221, 222,
232
Buddha, Buddhism, 103, 154,
162, 163, 300, 301, 442
Bugha (or Bogha, q.v.), 336,
342
-Buhturi (poet), 357
Bukhara, 16, 17, 35, 322, 365-
366, 368, 468, 475
-Bukhari (traditionist), 351,
357
Bundahishn, 48, 96, 105
Bundar (or Pindar) of Ray,
85, 86
-Bundari (historian of Sel-
juqs), 43, 115, 464
Burjak and Burjatur, 146, 147
Burjin-Mihr (Sacred Fire),
139
Burnouf, Eugène —, 63, 67, 68
Burns, Baba Tahir compared
to —, 83
Buruna (suburb of Herat), 17
Bushanj, 244
Bushaq (Abu Ishaq, poet, of
Shiraz), 85
Bushkast (grammarian), 262
Bust (town), 378, 448
Bustan of Sa'di, 145, 341, 423
Buwayb, Battle of —, 6
Buwayhid Dynasty, 6, 12,
292, 360, 364-365, 367, 370,
372, 374, 375, 376, 398, 446,
453, 465, 466, 474
Buzurg b. Shahriyar (Persian
sea-captain), 368
Byron, 107
Byzantines, 127, 151, 167, 168,
174, 179, 181, 182, 185, 206,
224, 302, 305
Cadmus, 51
Cain, 162
Cairo, 295, 367, 399, 400
Calendar, Zoroastrian — com-
pared with Babi —, 100-101
Caliphate, Caliph (Khilafat,
Khalifa), 209, et seqq. See
Orthodox Caliphs, Umay-
yads, 'Abbasids, Fatimids
Calligraphy prized by Mani-
chæans, 165, 362; — by
Husayn b. Mansur-Hallaj,
362, 431
Calvinism, Effects of —, 286.
See Predestination.
Cambridge, 41, 183, 356, 446,
449, 464, 477
Cambyses (Kambujiya), 31,
32, 55, 92
Camel, Battle of the —, 217
Camphor mistaken for Salt,
199
Cappadocia, 94
Caracalla, Emperor —, 304
Carmathians (Qarmati, pl.
Qaramita), 212, 311, 319,
339, 350, 352, 354, 356, 358-
359, 362, 367, 368, 371, 391-
415, 423, 434; etymology of
title, 397. See also Fatimid
Caliphs, Ghulat, Isma'ilis,
Sect of the Seven, Shi'ites
Carra de Vaux, 356, 368
Carrhæ (Harran, q.v.), 302
Cashmere, 54
Caspian Sea, 203, 207, 348,
364, 367
Caste - system amongst an-
cient Persians, 114
Cathares. See
bigenses
Catholics, 168
Cayumers (properly Gayu-
marth), 55, 56
“Celestial” as royal epithet
in Sasanian times, 153
Celtic genius, 447
Chaghani dynasty, 453, 462,
467, 471
Chahar - bokht (“the Four
have delivered,” Persian
name), 146
*Chahar-Maqala, 15, 317, 348,
355, 359, 396, 449, 456, 460,
470
Chaishpish (Teispes) the Ach-
æmenian, 63, 92
Chakhra (place mentioned in
Vendidad), 35
Chaldæa (Sawad), 132, 205,
302, 382, 397
Chaldæan language, 40, 44, 56,
58, 70 (Chaldæan-Pahlawi),
73, 89, 128, 479
Changiz Khan, 6, 286. See
also Mongol Invasion.
Charas of Mitylene, 121
Chardin, 42, 57, 59
Charles VI., 153
Chatrang-namak (“Book of
Chess”), 109
Chauvin, Victor —, 211. See
under Dozy.
Chess, 109, 110
Chetak (chedak), 153
China, 48, 85, 421;—and Mani-
chæanism, 159, 164;—and
Balkh, 258; visited by Bih-
afarid, 308
Chinese language, 60, 65, 80;—
paper, 431;—painting, 454
de Chinon, Gabriel —, 42
Chinvat Bridge, 106
Chithratakhma (rebel against
Darius), 33
Chosroes (Khusraw, Kisra),
127, 128
Christ. See Jesus Christ.
Christians under Sasanian
rule, 106, 134, 135, 136, 151,
168; despised by Nushir-
wan, 136, 181;—Salman the
Persian joins the —, 203;—
of Najran, 175;—of Abys-
sinia, 175; — under early
Muhammadan rulers, 200,
201, 232, 234, 280; — under
-Mutawakkil, 290, 343-344;
—under Fatimid Caliphs,
399-400;—native — in In-
dia, 264-265; — Syrian —
and heathens, 304; Chris-
tian names in -bokht, 145;
—and Muhammadan stan-
dards, 188;—malahim (Apo-
cryphal Books), 241;—scho-
lars in Islam, 278, 306, 345,
351, 366;—influence on Mu-
hammadan Theology, 288,
311, 426;—child addressed
in verse, 454; minor refer-
ences, 170, 172, 173, 261, 274,
293, 303, 382, 384
“Christians of St. John the
Baptist,” 302. See Mandæ-
ans, Mughtasila, Sabæans
Christianity, 154, 162, 186, 203,
300, 301, 305;—as under-
stood by Sufis, 443
Chronology falsified, 119, 120
*Chronology of Ancient Na-
tions (-Biruni's -Atharu'l-
baqiya, q.v., translated by
Sachau), 154
Churchill, Sidney —, 283
Chwolson, 303, 304
Çikathauvatish (fortress in
Media), 32
Circumcision, 333, 335
“Cities of Iran,” (Pahlawi
book), 109
Classics, 37
“Clients.” See Mawali
Clement V., Pope —, 40
Cobbe, Richard —, 44
Coinage, Arabic — first used,
230
Coins, Pahlawi —, 8, 71
Collège de France, 40, 41
Colourlessness, World of —,
440, 441
“Column of Praise” of Mani-
chæans, 161
“Commander of the Unfaith-
ful,” -Ma'mun so called, 307
Commentary, Old Persian —
(Cambridge Codex), 12, 477
Communism, 170. See Maz-
dak.
“Companions” (Ashab), 228,
231, 271, 298, 349
Conquest, Arab — of Persia,
3, 4, 6, 8, 30, 90, 109, 114, 136,
163, 173-174, 181, 185-208,
212, 275; Greek — of Persia,
5; see also Alexander the
Great; Norman — of Eng-
land, 95, 479
Constantine, Emperor —, 185
Constantinople libraries, 383
Continuity of National His-
tory, 89
Conversions to Islam, how
effected, 202, 203, 207
Converts to Islam, 207, 233-
235, 246, 252, 352, 367
Coppersmith. See Saffarid
Dynasty, Ya'qub b. Layth,
'Amr b. Layth
Cordova, 245, 279, 366, 398
“Counting the Stars,” 462
de Courteille, Pavet —, 368
Covenanters, Scottish —, 37,
221
Cow, Chapter of the —
(Suratu'l-baqara), 191
Cowell, Professor —, 94, 457
Crawford and Balcarres, Lord
—, 262, 449, 452
Creasy, Sir Edward —, 209
Cross, Wood of the True —,
182
de la Croix, Petits —, 42
Crusades, 480
Ctesias, 20, 21, 23, 91, 120
Ctesiphon, 132, 136, 182, 183,
199, 222, 313, 324
Cuneiform, Persian —, 7, 43,
44, 56, 59-65, 67, 78, 80, 89,
91-95 See also Old Persian
language
Cureton, 169. See -Shahris-
tani, Kitabu'l-Milal
Curzon, Lord —, 151
Cyaxares (Huvakhshatara),
21, 33
Cyropædia, 91
Cyrus, 5, 22, 31, 32, 55, 60, 91,
92, 95, 96, 113, 121
Dabil (Armenian prince), 201
Dabistan, 54-56, 270
Daevas (devas), 25, 34, 160
Dahak (Azhidahaka, Zohak),
114-115, 150
Da'i (pl. du'at, propagandist),
236, 240, 247, 310, 314, 395-
397, 402, 407, 409, 410, 411-
415, 434. See also Da'wa
Daitya, The Good — (river,
identified with Araxes), 25,
35
Dakhma (“Tower of
Silence”), 48
Dakn, silks of —, 266
Damascius (Neo - Platonist
philosopher), 421
Damascus, 210, 219, 224, 233,
245, 280, 282, 283, 342, 445,
480
Damawand, Mount —, 115
Dandan (Zaydan), 407
Daniel, Apocrypha of —, 479,
480
Daniel, Book of —, 61
Danishwar the, dihqan, 122
Dapir (scribe) 9; Dapirih
(secretarial art), 262
Daqiqi (Persian poet), 123,
372, 453, 456, 459-462
Dara, 117, 118, 119, 139, 140,
461
Darab, Dastur —, 47, 58
Abu'd - Darda (traditionist),
272
Dari (Deri) dialect, 26
Darius, 5, 31, 32, 33, 61-64, 78,
79, 91-94, 96, 119, 121
Darmesteter, Professor James
—, 18, 22, 24-26, 28, 29, 31,
33, 50, 57-59, 68-70, 78, 81,
95-97, 141, 146, 161, 167, 255,
348, 479, 480
Dasatir (Desatir), 53, 56
Dastobar (Dastur), 9, 47, 58.
See also Zoroastrian Priests
Datik (legal portion of
Avesta), 97
Datistan-i-Dinik, 105
Da'ud b. 'Ali -Dhahiri (theolo-
gian), 357
Da'ud b. 'Ali b. Khalaf
-Isfahani (jurist), 386
Da'ud -Ta'i (Sufi), 298, 418,
424
“Daughter of Desire”
(Ibnatu'l-Hirs) in Mani-
chæan system, 162
David, 113, 440
Da'wa (Propaganda) of
'Abbasids, 236, 238-247,
410; — of Isma'ilis, 395;
Organisation of —, 240
Dawidar (“Keeper of the
Seals”), 197
Dawlatshah, 12, 14, 15, 16,
346, 347; Sources of —,
447, 449, 456, 470, 473
Dawmatu'l-Jandal, Arbitra-
tion of —, 219, 291
Dayaukku (
Daylam, 203, 207, 276, 313,
364, 448, 463. See also
Buwayhids
Dd = nd, 160
Deioces, 21
Democracy of Arabs, 130
Demons, 112, 114. See Daevas,
Div-band, Jinn.
Dervishes, 300; “Dancing” —
438
Destruction of Philosophers
(Tahafutu'l. - Falasifa) of
-Ghazzali, 289
Devil tempts Dahak, 115;
verses ascribed to —, 14.
See also Daevas, Demons
Devil-worshippers (Yazidis),
304
Devotees (-'ubbad), 298
-Dhahabi (historian), 436
Dhahiriyya (externalists”),
212, 357, 422
Dhahir (Zahir) of Faryab, 389
-Dharifi, Abu Nasr — (Sama-
nid poet), 365
Dhaquliyya (sect), 311
Abu Dhárr -Ghifari, 217, 288
Dhu Jadan (Himyarite poet),
175-176
Dhu'l-lisanayn (bilingual
poets), 453, 465
Dhu'n-Nun (Sufi), 298, 345,
357, 424
Dhu Nuwas (poet), 174-176
Dhu Qar, Battle of —, 6, 184,
186
Dhu'l-Qarnayn (“the Two-
horned”), 119
Dhu'r-Rumma (poet), 261
Dhu Shanatir (Himyarite
King), 174
Dhu'l- Yaminayn (“Ambi-
dexter”), 346
Dialects, Persian —, 26, 27,
43, 83-87, 348, 478, 479
Di'bil (poet), 345
Dieterici, 292, 293, 294, 364,
369, 379, 380, 381
Dieulafoy, 64
Dihistan, 448
Dih-khuda, 448
Dihqans, 150, 233, 246, 267,
329
Diki (digi) in Shapur's inscrip-
tion, 153
Diku'l-Jinn (poet), 278, 345
Dilaram (mistress of Bahram
Gur), 12
Dinawar (town), 313
*-Dinawari (historian), 103,
109, 113, 114, 129, 136, 152,
169, 203, 229, 236, 237, 238,
241, 242, 315, 317, 323, 328,
357
Dinkard (Pahlawi book), 97,
105, 157
Diogenes (Neo-Platonist phi-
losopher), 421
Dirakht-i-Asurig (“'Tree of
Assyria”), 109
Diraz-dast, 117, 137, 142. See
Longimanus.
Div-band (“Binder of De-
mons,” title of the mythical
Persian King Tahmurath),
80, 112
Divine Right, Theory of — in
Persia, 128-130, 391
Diwans, Organisation of
the —, 204-205
Diyar Bakr, 134
Dizh-i-sapid (= -Bayda, “the
White Castle”), 434
Dorn, 83, 86, 314
Dove, Form of White —
assumed, 314
Dozy's *Islamisme (Chau-
vin's transl.), 185-186, 190,
204, 211, 220, 224, 231, 234-
235, 252, 282, 286-288, 290,
291-292, 298, 299, 300, 315-
316; — Supplément, 342; —
Histoire des Musulmans
de l'Espagne, 394
“Dragon” (in mystical
poem), 363
Drangiana, 94
Druj (demon), 160
Druzes, 393, 398, 400
Ibn Abi Du'ad(one of Afshin's
judges), 331, 335, 336
Dualism, 157, 160, 186, 387, 414.
See also Manichæanism
Du bayti. See Ruba'i
Dubeux, 369
Dugat, 39, 41, 212
Dukha (diki, q.v.), 153
Abu Dulama (court jester), 276
Dumyatu'l-Qasr (of -Bakh-
arzi), 448
Dunbawand (Damawand) 115
Duncker, 96
Ibn Abi'd-Dunya (author), 357
Ibn Durayd (philologist), 269,
366
-Duruzi (after whom are
named the Druzes, q.v.), 400
Dussaud, René —, 395
Duvitataranam, 92
Eagle in Persian legend, 121
Ecbatana (Hagmatana, Ha-
madan), 19, 32, 78
Eckhart, 297, 421
Eclipses, 470
École des Langues Orientales
Vivantes (Paris), 447
Edessa, 134
Edward (King of England), 33
Egypt, 71, 94, 209, 218, 220
223, 224, 227, 234, 245, 263,
266, 272, 298, 339, 352, 367,
371, 395, 396, 397, 400, 401,
404
Egyptian hieroglyphics, 65;
— version of Alexander-
legend, 118
Eight Gates of Paradise, 412
Elburz Mountains, 35, 348
Elephant, People of the —
(Ashabu'l-Fil), 178
Elephant, Year of the —, 173,
174, 178
Elliott, J. B. —, 13, 449, 452
Emesa (Hims, in Syria), 218,
396
Emmanuel College, Cam-
bridge, 43
Emmett (Irish patriot), 346
Encyclopædia Britannica, 10
Encyclopædists. See Ikh-
wanu's-Safa.
England, 4, 5, 37, 245, 301,
446, 479
English people, 50, 118;—
and Irish, 346; — and
Scotch, 33; — in India, 264
English language, 4, 5
Enneads (of Plotinus), 420
Ephrem, Patriarch, 399
Epistles, Forms of — (Pahlawi
book), 109
Epos, Persian —, 91, 110-123.
See Shah-nama
Eran, 4. See Iran, Persia
Eran-vej, 25
Eran-shahr, 115
Erskine, 48, 54
Esar-Haddon, 20
Escorial, 272
Esoteric Doctrine. See Ba-
tinis, Ta'limis, Ta'wil.
Esther, Book of —, 20
Ethé, Dr. H. —, 13, 301, 340,
349, 416, 450, 452, 453, 456,
457, 459, 460, 462
Etymologies, Persian popular
—, 270
Euagrius, 168
Eulalius (Neo-Platonist philo-
sopher), 421
Euphuism ('Ilmu'l-Badayi'),
389
Europe, 185
Eusebius, 21
Eutychius (Sa'id b. -Batriq),
169, 366
Eve, 162
Evil Eye, 452
Evil, Mystery of —, 440, 441
Ezra, 61
Fa“al - i - Mutlaq (“Absolute
Agent,” i.e., God), 419
Fadlu'llah -Hurufi, 423
Fadl b. Sahl, 255, 276, 284
Fadl b. Yahya (the Barme-
cide), 257
Fadl (poetess of Yamama),
345, 351
Abu'l-Fadl -Bal'ami, 356
Abu'l-Fadl -Sukkari, 476
Fahlabad (Pahlapat), 15. See
Barbad.
Fahlaviyyat (Persian dialect
verses), 80, 85
*-Fakhri (historian). 188-189,
194-200, 204-205, 217, 219,
221-223, 226, 227-228, 230,
231, 235, 241, 242, 243, 252-
253, 256, 258, 314, 315, 316,
322-323
Fakhru'd-Dawla (Buwayhid),
374
-Fakihi (historian of Mecca),
357
Falaku'd-Din Muhammad b.
Aydamir, 197
Faludhaj (= Paludak), a kind
of porridge, 329
Fana fi'llah (“Annihilation in
God”), 441, 443
Fana- (= Panah-) Khusraw,
448
Fani, Muhsin-i, —, 54
*Ibnu'l - Faqih -Hamadhani
(geographer), 14, 15, 358,
432-433
Faqirs, 438. See Dervishes
-Farabi (philosopher) 40, 288,
368, 381
Abu'l-Faraj (Barhebræus, q.v.),
322
Abu'l-Faraj -Isfahani (author
of Kitabu'l-Aghani), 15, 371
Abu'l-Faraj (Harranian), 304
-Faralawi, Abu 'Abdi'llah Mu-
hammad b. Musa —, 455
Farasu'n-nawba (“Sentry-
horse”), 317
Fargard (chapters of Vendi-
dad, so named), 99
Farhang-i-Pahlavik (Pahlawi
glossary), 109
Ibnu'l-Farid (mystic poet),
419, 438
Faridu'd-Din 'Attar, Shaykh
— (Persian mystic and
Poet). See 'Attar.
Farighuni Dynasty, 453
Farr-i-Kayani (“Royal Splen-
dour”), 128, 143, 144
-Farra (grammarian), 277
Farrash (“carpet-spreader”),
354
Farrukh Hurmazd (Ispah-
badh of Khurasan), 182
Farrukhi (Persian poet), 389,
460, 474
Farrukh-zad, 104
Farrukh-zadh-Khusraw (Sa-
sanian King), 174
Fars (Parsa, Persis, q.v.), 4, 5,
19, 200, 360, 371, 432, 434,
448
Fasa (near Shiraz), 170
Abu'l-Fath -Busti, 371, 467
Abu'l-Fath Mahmud, 253, 371.
See Ibn Kushajim
-Fatiha (opening chapter of
-Quran), 98
Fatima (daughter of the
Prophet and wife of 'Ali),
130, 131, 132, 214, 224, 229,
239, 350, 392, 397, 398, 399,
408
Fatima (daughter of Abu
Muslim), 247, 328
Fatima of Nishapur, 434
Fatimi (= Isma'ili, q.v.), 407
Fatimid Caliphs, 214, 339, 349,
352, 359, 367, 371, 373, 395,
396, 397, 398 (their pedigree
discussed), 399, 400, 401,
402, 404, 409, 455. See also
Carmathians, Isma'ilis, Sect
of the Seven
Fawkes, Guy —, 203
-Fayyum, 71, 104
Feridun, 115, 116, 268
Abu'l-Fida (historian), 169,
290
Fida'is (Assassins), 424
*Fihrist, 76, 109, 110, 123, 155,
156, 157, 159, 163-164, 165,
247, 268, 278, 302, 308, 310,
312-313, 315, 323, 324, 327,
328, 332, 350, 362, 373, 374,
378, 383-387, 394, 396, 401,
407, 416, 418, 420, 428-
429
Finance department of early
Caliphs modelled on Per-
sian lines, 205
Fiorillo, 60
Abu Firas (poet), 370, 371, 446
*Firdawsi, 15, 79, 80, 110, 111,
114, 118, 122, 123, 136, 138,
140-142, 143, 144-145, 146,
147-150, 169, 348, 372, 389,
437, 452, 456, 460. See also
Shahnama
Fires, Sacred —, 139. See
also Adhar Gushasp, Frobag
or Farnbag Fire (Kharrad),
and Burjin-Mihr
Fire-temples, 206
Fire-worshippers. See Gue-
bres, Zoroastrians
Firuz-Daylami, 262
Firuz (son of Abu Muslim's
daughter Fatima), called
Kudak-i-dana (“the Wise
Child”), 328
Firuz - i - Mashriqi (Persian
poet), 355, 453
Firuz, Mulla —, 53
Fitzgerald, Lord Edward —,
346
Five Principles of the
Isma'ilis, 408
Fleischer, 169, 453
Flower, Samuel —, 42, 59
Flügel, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164,
292, 373, 378, 383
Forbes, Dr. —, 472
Foy, 64
Francis V of France, 40
Frank, Hermann —, 417
Fravartish (Phraortes), 21, 32
Frazer, 44
French East India Company,
45
Frobag Fire, 139
Fudayl b. 'Iyad (or 'Ayyad),
298, 418, 424, 426
Fuqaym (Arab tribe), 176
Furat (general), 238
“Furs-i-qadim,” 80
Fustat, 399
Fususu'l-Hikam (by Shaykh
Muhyiyyu'd-Din b. al-
'Arabi), 420
Futtaq (Patecius), father of
Manes, 157
*Futuhu'l-Buldan. See -Ba-
ladhuri
Gabra (=mard), 74
Gabri dialect (Yazd and Kir-
man), 43, 86, 109. See also
Dialects
Gabriel, Archangel —, 316,
427
Gahs (Zoroastrian), 5, 52
Galen (Jalinus), 305, 381
Gandara (country), 94
Ganneau, Charles —, 76
Garmapada (Old Persian
month), 32
Gasanik (liturgical portion of
Avesta), 97
Gathas (Avesta), 28, 30, 78, 88,
95, 97;—(days added to
year), 100
Gaub- (Old Persian root), 27
Gaumata the Magian, 31, 32
Gava (the blacksmith), 115
Gayumarth (Gayo Mareta,
“Cayumers”), 55, 56, 112,
122
“Gazelle” (name given by
-Husayn to his wife the
daughter of Yazdigird III),
131, 229
Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss,
25, 31, 35, 57, 59, 63, 68, 69.
83, 88, 96, 108, 111, 138
Geitlin, Herr —, 472
Geldner, 57, 69, 95, 96, 97, 98,
99
Genealogy (Ansab), 267, 269,
270
Geography, 271
Gerard of Cremona, 40
Germans, 185, 301; —Mystics
of xiv cent., 297
Ghada'iri of Ray (Persian
poet), 437
Ghassan, 173, 174, 388
*Ghayatu'l-wasa'il ila ma'ri-
fati'l-awa'il, 455
Ghaylan the Qadari, 283
Ghazal form of poetry, 472,
474, 476
Ghazala (“Gazelle,” q.v.), 131,
229
Ghazna, 448
Ghaznawi Dynasty, 341, 353,
360, 371, 377, 467, 468, 472,
474
*-Ghazzali (Divine and Philo-
sopher), 40, 289, 293-294,
362, 419, 422, 436, 437
-Ghulat (plural of Ghali: the
“extremists” of the Shi'a
party), 240, 279, 310-311,
328, 362, 386, 396
Ghumdan (castle), 176
Ghur, 376; Dynasty of —, 449
Gibb, E. J. W. —, 389, 390,
423, 444, 465
Gibbon's Decline and Fall,
154, 167, 168, 421
Gibraltar, 204
Gilaki dialect, 348
Gilan, 83, 86, 364, 368
Ginza (Book of the Man-
dæans), 302
Gladwin, 389
Glover (Persianized as Gul-
avar), 270
Gnosis, 424
Gnosticism, 96, 159, 161, 202,
432
Gobineau, 64, 130
God, Persian Kings regarded
as —, 128
Godefrey de Bouillon, 480
*de Goeje, Professor —, 10,
119, 270, 272, 276, 360, 367,
372, 373, 394, 396, 397, 398,
399, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405,
407, 432, 434
*Goldziher, 190, 212, 260-265,
267-270, 272, 273, 336, 350,
357, 358
Gordian, Emperor —, 420, 421
Gospels, 113, 401
Goupil (commandant at Pon-
dichery), 46
Gozan, River —, 20
Graf, 423
Grammarians, Early Arab —,
275-278. See also Sibawayhi
Gravesend, 49
Greece, Greeks, 4, 5, 8, 9, 20,
37, 39, 58, 61, 70, 79, 80, 91,
117, 127, 128, 129, 140, 167,
169, 261, 262, 266, 269, 271,
277, 284, 288, 292, 301, 304,
305, 306, 325, 345, 363, 382,
426, 446, 472
Grotefend, 59, 60, 62, 63, 70
Guebres (Gabrs), 27, 86. See
Magians, Zoroastrians
Guftan (“to say”), 27
Guirgass, 169. See -Dinawari
Gujastak Abalish namak, 104,
107
Gujerati, 9
Gular, Castle —, 146
Gulistan (of Sa'di), 341
Gulnar, 143
*Gulshan-i-Raz (of Mahmud
Shabistari), 282, 444
Gunde-Shapur, 10, 158, 167.
See also Junde-Shapur
Gurgan, 16, 35, 367, 458, 470
Gushasp, Adhar — (Sacred
Fire), 139
Gushnaspdeh, 174
Gushtasp (Vishtaspa), 25, 28,
61, 95, 116, 118, 123, 142,
460; Shahnama-i- — (=
Pahlawi Yatkar-i-Zariran),
108
Gushyar (astronomer), 368
Gutschmid, 96, 178
Guyard, Stanislas —, 54, 396,
399, 407, 408
H (Persian) = S (Sanskrit), 34
Ha (or haiti, the name given
to the divisions of the
Yasna), 99
Ha (= 5 = Bab), 100
Haarbrucker (translator of
Shahristani, q.v.), 169
Habib b. Maslama -Fihri, 201,
272
Habor, 20
-Hadi ('Abbasid Caliph), 254,
259, 307, 317
Hadith (tradition of the Pro-
phet), 80, 85, 225, 283, 285,
341, 361, 389, 428, 437, 444
Hadramawt, 180
Haetumant, 35
*Hafidh (Hafiz, the poet), 80,
85, 225, 283, 285, 341, 361,
389, 428, 437, 444
Hafsa, 214, 343
Haftan - bokht (Haftawad),
137, 145, 146
Haft Iqlim, 452
Hagmatana, 19, 78. See
Ecbatana, Hamadan
Hajar (in Bahrayn), 201, 354;
“to carry dates to —” (=
“to carry coals to New-
castle”), 456
Haji-abad, Shapur's inscrip-
tion at —, 93, 151-153
Hajjaj b. Yusuf, 205, 206, 230,
234, 283
Hajji Baba (by Morier), 423
Hakam b. Abi'l-'As b.
Umayya, 215
Hakhamanish (Achæmenes),
63, 92
Hakimatu'd - Dahr (“the
World-Wise”), 162
-Hakim bi-amri'llah (Fatimid
Caliph and Deity of Druze
sect), 398-400
Halah, 20
Halani-stones, 267
Halévy, 29, 64
-Hallaj, Husayn b. Mansur
(Sufi heretic), 361, 433. See
Husayn b. Mansur
Ham (son of Noah), 116
Hamadan, 19, 20, 22, 78, 79,
83 (dialect), 158, 313. See
also Ecbatana, Hagmatana
-Hamadhani (geographer), 14,
15, 432, 433
-Hamadhani, Badi'u'z-Zaman
— (author of Maqamat),
463-464
Hamasa, 278, 447
Hamasatu'dh-Dhurafa, 454
Hamdan, House of —, 446
Hamdan b. -Ash'ath-Qarmat,
396, 397, 401, 408, 410. See
Carmathians
Hamdu'llah Mustawfi -Qaz-
wini (Persian historian and
geographer), 15, 27, 80, 85
Hamdun b. Isma'il, 336
Hamid (wazir of -Muq-
tadir), 430-432
Hammad (father of Manes),
155
Hammad b. Sabur -Rawiya
(editor of Mu'allaqat), 276
von Hammer, 369, 407
Hamza (minister of -Hakim
bi-amri'llah), 400
Hamza of Isfahan (historian),
110, 123, 169, 269
Abu Hamza (Kharijite rebel),
263
Hanafi sect or school, 276,
294, 295
-Hanafiyya (wife of 'Ali), 214
Ibnu'l-Hanafiyya (son of
above), 214, 228, 229, 239,
392
Ibn Hanbal (founder of Han-
balite school), 273, 284, 291,
295, 344, 345, 361
Hanbali sect or school, 294,
295, 361, 364
*Handhala of Badghis (Per-
sian poet), 346, 355, 452
Abu Hanifa -Nu'man(founder
of Hanafi sect, 276, 280,
294-295, 386
Hapta - Hendu (“Seven
Rivers”), 35
Harahwaiti (Arachosia), 35
Haraiva (Herat), 94
Harar (daughter of Yazdigird
III), 229. See “Gazelle”
Harb b. Umayya, 215
-Hariri (author of Maqamat),
464
-Harith b. 'Abdu'llah -Ja'di
(poet), 242
de Harlez, 22, 28, 68
Haroyu (Herat), 35
Harpers, 16, 17, 18
Harran (Carrhæ), 302-306,
358, 372, 387
-Harthami, Abu Nasr —
(Samanid poet), 365
Harun b. 'Isa b. -Mansur, 331
Harun -Rashid ('Abbasid
Caliph), 13, 163, 168, 210,
252-254, 259, 276, 277, 305,
307, 317
Harura, 222
-Hasan b. 'Ali (second Imam
of the Shi'a), 132, 133, 214,
224, 228, 229, 392, 409
-Hasan b. 'Ali -Utrush (Say-
yid of Tabaristan), 207, 359'
-Hasan -Basri, 272, 281, 298
299, 432
Hasan -Sabbah (founder of
Assassins), 408
-Hasan b. Sahl (father-in-law
of -Ma'mun), 255
-Hasan b. Zayd (called Jali-
bu'l-hijara, Sayyid of
Tabaristan), 348
Abu'l-Hasan -Ash'ari, 283.
See -Ash'ari
Abu'l - Hasan Muhammad
(grandson of Simjur), 466
Abu'l-Hasan -Musawi, 365
Hashim, 214, 239
Hashim, b. Hakim, 318. See
-Muqanna'
Abu Hashim the Sufi, 298, 417
Abu Hashim (son of Ibnu'l-
Hanafiyya), 239
Hashimi (Hashimite), 213, 214,
216, 218, 221, 246, 431
Hashimiyya (sect), 239
Hashimiyya (town), 316
Hashishi (Assassin), 408
Hashwiyya (sect), 386
Hastings, Battle of —, 95
Hatak Mansarik (philoso-
phical portion of Avesta),
97, 108
Hatim-Ta'i, 265
Abu Hatim -Sijistani, 350
Hatokht-nosk, 97, 102
Haug, Dr. Martin —, 57, 59,
68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 77, 81, 103,
109, 151, 152, 153, 157
Haumavarka, 94
Ibn Hawqal (geographer), 372
Haydar (= Afshin, q.v.), 334
Haydara (disciple of -Hallaj),
431, 435
-Haytham b. Mu'awiya, 316
Hayyan the druggist('Abbasid
propagandist), 236, 239
Ibn Hazm, 279
Hebrew character, 9, 37, 103,
479
Hebrew language, 40, 41, 42,
479
Hellenism, Influence on Per-
sia of —, 6
Hellenopolis (
304
Helmand River, 35
Henry III of France, 41
Herat, 16, 35, 94, 123, 242, 244,
317, 347, 355
Herbads (order of Zoroastrian
priests), 309
Herodotus, 20, 21, 23, 26, 33,
78, 91, 92
Hezekiah, 66
Hieroglyphics, 65
-Hijaz, 184, 196, 243, 272, 314,
448
Hikmatu'l-Ishraq (by -Suhra-
wardi), 423
Himalayas, 185
Hims (Emesa), 218, 396
-Himyari, -Sayyid —, 276
Himyarites, 175, 178, 179, 181,
271
Hindus, 34, 114
Hippocrates, 305
Hira, 174, 179, 262, 264, 306,
388
Hisham (Umayyad Caliph),
164, 240, 245, 266, 283
Hisham b. -Kalbi (historian),
275, 277
*Ibn Hisham (biographer of
Prophet), 128-129, 186-188,
193, 203, 262, 269, 272, 276,
277
Historical science, Origin of
— amongst Arabs, 270-273
Hitzig, 64
Hoffmann, Georg —, 134
Homes, H. A. —, 293
Horn, Dr. Paul —, 86, 340, 450,
457, 459, 474
Hoshang, Dastur —, 109
Hoshea, 20
Houris, 107
Houtsma, 169, 464
Houtum-Schindler, 83, 206,
207
Huart, Clement —, 26, 27,
83
Hubaysh, 306
Hübschmann, 64
Hud (prophet), 387
Hudhayl (Arab tribe), 192,
193; Diwan of —, 357
Hughes, Dictionary of Islam,
427, 444
Hujjat (“Proof,” a title used
by Isma'ilis), 409, 410, 414
Hujjat-i-Khurasan (title of
Nasir-i-Khusraw, q.v.), 399
Hulagu Khan (Mongol), 6, 209,
210, 286
Hulul (Incarnation, q.v.), 279,
310-311, 328
Huma (mythical bird), 121
Humay (or Khumani), Queen
—, 117
Humayma (place in Syria),
236, 243
Hunayn b. Ishaq of Hira,
306, 351, 356
Hunt, Dr. — (of Oxford), 50,
51
Abu Hurayra, 272
Hurmazd(Hurmuzd, Hurmuz,
Hurmizd), name of the
Planet Jupiter, 461
Hurmazd I, 138, 154, 157, 158,
161
Hurmazd IV, 174, 181
Hurmazd V, 174
Hurmuzan, 215, 266
Hurufi, Sect, 26, 43, 86, 405,
423
-Husayn b. 'Ali (third Imam),
130-133, 214, 224, 226-228,
229, 239, 290, 322, 343, 392,
393, 409
-Husayn b. Mansur -Hallaj,
361-363, 367, 423, 428-437
Abu'l-Husayn-Basri (Mu'tazi-
lite), 289
Abu'l-Husayn b. Faris (philo-
logist), 269
Abu'l - Husayn -Mu'ayyad
bi'llah, Sayyid —, 348
Hushang (legendary King of
Persia), 54, 112,
Hushangji, Dastur —, 81
Husn-i-ta'lil (poetical ætio-
logy), 465
Husparam-yasht, 98, 99
Hukht, Huvarsht, Humat
(“Good Words,” “Good
Deeds,” “Good Thoughts”),
165
Huvakhshatara (Cyaxares),
21, 33
Huzvaresh, 7, 66, 71, 73, 75,
77, 80, 81, 103
Hyde, Dr. —, 19, 41, 42, 43, 52,
59, 60
Hyrcania (Vehrkana, Gurgan),
26, 35
Hystaspes (Vishtaspa, Gush-
tasp), 61, 92, 95, 96, 121
sinian King of Yaman), 178
Iblis, 320. See Devil.
Ibnatu'l-Hirs (“Daughter of
Desire”), 162
Ibrahim (Patriarch). See
Abraham.
Ibrahim (Umayyad Caliph),
215, 318
Ibrahim ('Abbasid Imam),
240, 242, 243, 254
Ibrahim-Mawsili (minstrel),
345
Ibrahim b. Adham (Sufi), 298,
418, 424, 425
Ibrahim b. Hilal -Sabi (his-
torian), 372
Ibrahim b. -Mahdi ('Abbasid
prince), 254
Ibrahim b. Sinan b. Thabit
b. Qurra, 304, 367
Ibrahim -Sindi, 165
Ideograms, 65-67. See also
Huzvaresh
Idolatry, Sufi explanation of
—, 443-444
-Iji, 279
Ijma'u's-Sunnat, 391
Ikhshid, House of —, 397
Ikhwanu's-Safa (“Brethren
of Purity”), 292-294, 339,
364, 378-381
Abu 'Ikrima the Saddler
('Abbasid da'i), 236, 239
Ilah (God), Attitudes of wor-
shippers in Prayer spell —,
412
Ilaqi (poet), 468
Iliad, 153
Iltatmish, Shamsu'd-Din —,
450
'Imadu'd-Dawla (Buwayhid),
360, 364
'Imadu'd-Din -Katib -Isfa-
hani (historian), 448
Imamate, Doctrine of —, 296.
See Shi'ites, Sect of the
Seven, Sect of the Twelve,
Ghulat, &c.
Imamiyya (sect), 386. See
Shi'ites, &c.
Imams, 130, 134, 214, 224,
229, 238-239, 246, 252, 284,
296, 310-311, 313, 315, 358,
391-415; — of 'Abbasids,
237; — of Sunnis, 276, 277,
295; — of History, 361
Imperialism, 232, 235, 328
Abu 'Imran (Jawidan b.
Suhrak), 325, 326, 328
Incarnation (hulul, q.v.), 279,
313, 316, 318, 320, 322, 327,
362, 363, 396, 398, 399, 428,
429, 435
India, Persian literature of
—, 3; — and Zoroaster, 34;
Influence of — in forma-
tion of Sufi doctrines, 300-
301, 419, 426, 442; Marvels
of —, 368; Natives of —
who contributed to Arabic
literature, 306, 371; —
invaded by Mahmud, 376;
— visited by Manes, 158,
159, 163; — — by -Hallaj,
431, 434, 435; — Office
Library, 450; minor refer-
ences, 42, 45, 46, 54, 79, 94,
102, 110, 138, 140, 179, 227,
258, 278, 306, 382, 387
Indianists, 300, 301, 419
Indians and Iranians, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 56, 111, 113
Injil. See Gospel
Inquisition against Mani-
chæans, 163
Ionians, 94
Iqna' (work on Prosody
by the Sahib Isma'il b.
'Abbad), 374
'Iqdaniyya (Council of Car-
mathians), 404
Iraj (son of Feridun), 115, 116
Iran, 4, 5, 115, 139; — (proper
name = Arphaxad), 114, 128.
See also Persia
Iranophiles, 269
'Iraq, 19, 131, 163, 195, 196,
199, 219, 233, 239, 251, 266,
272, 282, 446, 448, 465, 466
'Iraqi (Persian poet), 420
'Irfan (Gnosis), 424
Irish patriots, 346
'Isa b. Musa ('Abbasid Prince),
254
'Isa b. 'Ali (Christian phy-
sician), 368
'Isa b. Ja'far (Shi'ite), 343
'Isa b. Muhammad (general),
323
'Isa b. 'Umar -Thaqafi (gram-
marian), 275
Isfahan (Ispahan), 4, 19, 79,
83, 139, 203, 311, 313, 315,
364, 376, 448
Isfandiyar (Isfandiyadh), 116,
117, 142, 147, 150, 269
Ibn Isfandiyar, 348, 470
Isfara'ini, Shaykh Abu'l-Mud-
haffar Tahir —, 322
Ishaq b. Alptagin, 372
Ishaq (great - grandson of
Thabit b. Qurra), 304
Ishaq b. Hassan-Khurrami
(Persian Shu'ubi), 268
Ishaq b. Hunayn, 306, 363
Ishaq b. Ibrahim (governor
of Baghdad), 284, 330, 334
Ishaq b. Ibrahim -Mawsili
(musician), 345
Ishaq “the Turk,” 247, 313,
314
Abu Ishaq (biographer of the
Prophet), 263, 272, 276, 277
Abu Ishaq - Farsi (Samanid
poet), 365
Abu Ishaq (of Shiraz, gastro-
nomic poet), 85
Ishmael, 409
Isidore (Neo-Platonist philo-
sopher), 421
Islam, Introduction into Per-
sia of —, 8, 11, 36, 90, 181,
194-208: attitude of — to-
wards Magians, 113; Mani-
chæans in —, 159, 162, 163;
— contrasted with Arab
paganism, 185-194, 212-213;
meaning of —, 384
Isma'ilis, 86, 101, 130, 159, 172,
268, 295, 311, 312, 339, 352,
359, 362, 386, 391-415, 421-
423, 437, 455, 456. See also
Carmathians, Fatimids,
Ghulat, Sect of the Seven,
&c.
Isma'il, Imam —, 296, 393,
396, 407, 409
Isma'il b. 'Abbad. See -Sahib
Isma'il b. Ahmad (Samanid),
348, 354, 466
Isma'il b. Yasar, 266
Isnad (of Traditions), 271
Ispa (dialect-word for dog),
26
Ispahbads of Tabaristan, 8,
200, 334
Israfil (Angel), 427
Istakhr (Stakhar Papakan),
19, 432
-Istakhri (geographer), 368,
372
Istighna'i, Abu'l- Mudhaffar
Nasr —, 467
Istikhraj (“squeezing” dis-
missed governors), 233
Ithna-'ashariyya. See Sect of
the Twelve
Izads (Angels), 100, 101
'Izzu'd- Din of Hamadan
(dialect poet), 86
Jabalqa, 246
Jabir b. Hayyan, 274, 276
Jackson, Professor A. V. W.
—, 30, 31
Jacquet, 64
Ja'd b. Dirham, 164
-Ja'di, -Harith b. 'Abdu'llah
—, 242
Ja'far b. Abi Talib, 187
Ja'far -Barmaki (the Barme-
cide), 254, 257
Ja'far -Sadiq, Imam —, 296,
393, 394, 396, 409
Abu Ja'far ('Abbasid Imam),
240, 243
Abu Ja'far b. -'Abbas b.
-Hasan, 365
Abu Ja'far Muhammad b.
Musa -Musawi, 365
-Jahidh, 'Amr b. Bahr —, 15,
110, 165, 260, 267, 268, 306,
351
-Jahiliyyat, 190, 261. See also
Arabian Heathenism
Abu'l- Jahm (Wazír), 257
Jahwar b. Marrar (general),
314
Jalalu'd- Din Rumi, 294, 389,
416, 423, 434, 437, 441, 444
Jalibu'l-hijara, Hasan b. Zayd
(Sayyid of Tabaristan), 348
Jalinus. See Galen
Jalula, 199, 203, 204
Jamasp (brother of Kawadh),
171
Jamasp-namak (Pahlawi
work), 107
Jamhara (of Ibn Durayd),
366
*Jami (Persian poet and mys-
tic), 298, 299, 362, 417, 418,
420, 423-426, 437-439, 441-
442, 444, 456, 457
Jami'u't- Tawarikh (of
Rashidu'd- Din Fadlu'llah),
392, 393
Jamshid (= Yima of Avesta),
56, 80, 112-114, 268, 388
Janashk, 470
-Jannabi (Carmathian leader),
359, 367, 402, 403, 405
Japhet, 116
Jargh (place), 35
-Jarrah, Abu 'Ubayda —, 297
Ibnu'l-Jarrah, 261
Jawami'u'l- Hikayat (of
'Awfi), 283
Jawidan-i-Kabir (Hurufi
book), 26, 27, 86
Jawidan (master of Babak),
325-328
*Ibnu'l-Jawzi (historian), 434,
435
Jaxartes (river), 204
Jazir (in sense of mihman-
dar), 326
Jerusalem, 378
Jesus Christ, 113, 154, 162,
163, 288, 311, 387, 408, 409,
427, 432, 434
“Jesus Patabilis” (of Gnos-
tics), 161
Jewish-Persian, 9, 277, 479-
480
Jews, 4, 20, 29, 39, 106, 113,
127, 151, 288, 303, 382, 384,
388, 395; religion of —
hated by Manes, 158, 162;
— in Yemen, 175; — under
Islam, 200-201, 232, 290,
311, 343-344; apocryphal
books of —, 241; — and
heathen Arabs, 261, 274;
— in Arabic and Persian
literature, 276, 306, 479-480
Jibril b. Bokht-Yishu', 367
Jinn (genies), 112, 431
Jizya (poll-tax), 164, 201, 234
John the Baptist, 409
John of Damascus, 282
John Malalas, 169, 172
Jones, Sir William —, 49-58,
113
de Jong. See Lata'ifu'l-
Ma'arif
Joseph II., 153
Jubba (garment), 297
-Jubba'i (Mu'tazilite doctor),
291
Judaism, 162, 301
“Juden-hasse,” 29
Julaha of Abhar (dialect poet),
86
Julian the Apostate, 304
-Jumahi, Abu 'Abdi'llah
Muhammad b. Sallam, 278,
344, 447
Junayd of Baghdad (Sufi),
298, 363, 367, 427, 428, 434,
436
Junaydi, Abu 'Abdi'llah
Muhammad b. Abdu'llah
(bi-lingual poet), 453, 467
Junde-Shapur, 10, 158, 167,
305, 344. See also Gunde-
Shapur
Jupiter (planet), 458, 461
Jurjan, 448. See Gurgan
“Just King,” 166. See
Nushirwan
Justi, 68, 91, 314, 325
Justinian, 167, 421
Jutes, 5
-Juybari, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim
b. Muhammad -Bukhari —
(Persian poet), 459
Ju-yi-Muliyan, 16
Ka', Amir —, 86
Ka'ba, 177, 226, 231, 314, 403
Kabul, 35
Kafar (for Kafir), 244
Kafi of Karaj (dialect poet),
86
Kafi of -Kulayni (Shi'ite theo-
logical work), 367
Kafir-kubat, 244
Kaikobad Adarbad Nosher-
wan, 9, 108
Kalam. See Scholastic Philo-
sophy.
Kalbatakin (Turkish officer),
342
Ibnu'l-Kalbi (historian and
genealogist), 272, 275, 277
Kalila and Dimna, Book
of —, 76, 110, 275, 332;
Rudagi's Persian version,
457, 474
-Kalini (-Kulayni: Shi'ite
divine), 367
Kalwadha, 397
Kam-baksh, Cambyses ex-
plained as —, 55
Kambujiya, (Cambyses), 31
55, 92
Kamil of -Mubarrad, 221
*Kamilu't-Tawarikh (of
Ibnu'l-Athir), 360-361, 375
Kanheri Buddhist Caves, 103
Kanzu'l - Ihya (Manichæan
book), 156
Kar- (Persian root), 27
Karach, 360
Karde (divisions of Vispered
so called), 99
Karim b. Shahriyar, 207
Karkas, 94
*Kar-namak-i-Artakhshatr-i-
Papakano, 9, 106, 108, 122,
136, 137-151
Karshuni (Arabic written in
Syriac character), 8
Kashan, 26, 27, 80, 83, 86, 315
Kashifi, Husayn Wa'idh —,
52
Kashsh (in Transoxiana), 244,
321
-Kashshaf (of -Zamakhshari),
289
*Katibi of Nishapur (Persian
poet), 225
Ka'us, Dastur —, 47; Mulla
—, 53
Ka'us, Kay—(mythical king),
116
Kawad, 134, 169, 171. See
also Qubad.
Kawaem Hwareno (= Farr-
i-Kayani, or “Royal Splen-
dour”), 143
Kawa Husrawa, 55. See Kay
Khusraw.
Kawakimardan (near Merv),
318
Kawatan, Khusraw-i- —, 107.
See Nushirwan.
Kayani Dynasty, 115-117, 119,
121, 128
Kay Ka'us (legendary king),
116
Kay Ka'us (Ziyarid prince),
471
Kay Qubad, 116
Kayt (or Kayd), King of
India), 138
Kazarun, 364
Kazimirski, A. de Biberstein
—, 331, 340, 369, 452
Kaysaniyya (Shi'a sect), 392
Kenoma, 408, 410
Kerbela, 226-228, 231, 291,
343
Kern, 64
Keshe (dialect of —), 27
Kessler, 155
Ketzer (=
*“Keys of the Sciences,” 372
Khabbazi of Nishapur (Per-
sian poet), 468
-Khala. See Kenoma
Ibn Khalawayh (gramma-
rian), 370
Ibn Khaldun, 76, 275
Khalid b. 'Abdu'llah - Qasri,
163, 233, 239
Khalid b. Barmak, 258
Khalid b. Fayyad (Arab poet),
14, 17
Khalid b. Yazid (Umayyad
Prince), 274
Khalifa, Khilafat. See Caliph,
Caliphate
Khalil b. Ahmad (gramma-
rian), 275, 276
*Ibn Khallikan (biographer,
cited generally in de Slane's
translation), 208, 267, 279,
295, 299, 316, 320-321, 324,
330, 331, 363, 370, 374, 445,
448, 470
Khanikoff, 206
Khaqan of Turks, 163, 268,
318
Khaqani (Persian poet), 389,
437
Kharidatu'd-Dahr (antho-
logy), 448
Kharijites (Khawarij), 212,
220-224, 228, 231-232, 240,
263, 279, 280, 350, 386
Kharrad (= Frobag) Fire, 140
Khartum, 245
Khash (brother of Afshin), 334
Khatt-i-badi' (Babi writing),
165
Khattabiyya sect, 396
Khayr - i - Mahd (“Absolute
Good”), 438
Khayyam. See 'Umar Khay-
yam
-Khayzuran (wife of Caliph-
Mahdi), 317
Khazim b. Khuzayma
(general), 317
Khifara (blackmail levied by
Carmathians), 359
Khorda Avesta, 101
Khouabir, Cups with Man-
dæan inscriptions found
at —, 302
Khrafstar (unclean animals so
called), 160
Khshaeta (= -shid), 113
Khshayarsha, 56, 92. See
Xerxes
Khshayathiya Khshayathiya-
nam (= Shahanshah, “King
of Kings”), 66
Khudhay - namak, 107, 123.
See also Shahnama and
Kings, Book of —
Khujistan, 355
Khumani (Humay, Queen —),
117
Khurasan, 13, 35, 146, 148, 164,
189, 200, 207, 237, 239-244,
247, 252, 258, 263, 265, 276,
278, 310, 316, 319, 321, 329,
340, 342, 346, 351, 352, 355,
365, 367, 371, 372, 397, 399,
432, 434, 445-448, 450, 451,
458, 465
Ibn Khurdadhbih (geo-
grapher), 35, 344
Khurra-i-Khuda'ih. See Farr-
i-Kayani
Khurra - Khusraw (satrap of
Yemen), 262
Khurrama (wife of Mazdak),
313
Khurrami sect, 240, 246, 247,
311-313, 315, 323-325, 328,
387
Khurram-abad, 315
Khurra-zadh Khusraw, 174
Khusrawani (minstrel), 18
*Khusrawani, Abu Tahir —
(Samanid poet), 466-467
Khusrawi of Sarakhs, Abu
Bakr Muhammad b. 'Ali —
(poet of Qabus b. Washm-
gir) 453, 466
Khusraw Firuz, 448
Khusraw Kawadhan and his
Page, Story of —, 9
Khusraw - i - Mihr - Gushnasp
(Sasanian king), 174
Khusraw Parwiz (Sasanian
king), 6. See Parwiz
Khutba, 244
Khuttal (in Transoxiana),
244
Khuzayna (Governor of Khu-
rasan), 237
Khuzistan, 19, 305, 370, 402
Khvetu - das (next - of - kin
marriages), 117 309
Khwaf, 308, 355
Khwarazm, 94, 446, 448
-Khwarazmi, Abu 'Abdi'llah
Muhammad b. Ahmad b.
Yusuf — (author of Ma-
fatihu'l-'ulum, q.v.), 372,
378
Kimiya-i-Sa'adat (of -Ghaz-
zali), 293
-Kindi (Arab philosopher),
278, 288, 356, 357, 372, 381
“King of the Paradises of
Light,” 162, 165
Kings, Book of —, 135. See
Shahnama
Kirman, 27, 83, 87, 105, 109,
138, 145, 207, 343, 347, 364,
371, 448
-Kisa'i (grammarian), 276, 277
Kisa'i (Persian poet), 368,
452
Kisra (= Khusraw, Chosroes),
127-129. See also Nushir-
wan
Kisra (Khusraw) son of Hur-
mazd, 268
-Kisrawi (historian), 110
Kitabu'l-abniya 'an haqa'iqi'l-
adwiya, 478
—— 'l-Aghani, 15, 245, 262,
371, 447
—— 'l-Awa'il, 356
—— 'l-Bayan wa't-Tibyan,
260, 351
—— 'l-Bukhala, 267, 351
—— 'l-Buldan (of Ya'qubi,
q.v.), 314, 321
—— 'l-Futuh, 152, 357. See
-Baladhuri
—— 'l-Hayawan (of -Jahidh,
q.v.), 15
—— 'l-Huda wa't-Tadbir, 156
—— 'l-Ishara bi - 'ilmi'l-
'Ibara, 274
—— 'l-Jawami', 274
—— 'l-Ma'arif (of Ibn Qu-
tayba, q.v.), 169, 277, 324,
357, 387-388
—— 'l-Mahasin wa'l-Addad,
15, 18
—— man la yahdurnhu'l-
Faqih, 375
—— 'l-Masalik wa'l-Mamalik,
344
—— 'l-Milal (of -Shahristani,
q.v.), 169, 220, 396, 420
—— 'l-Mu'ammarin, 350
—— 'l-Mushtarik (of Yaqut,
q.v.), 321
—— Rahati's-Sudur, 85
—— 'sh-Shubuhat (of Yaqut),
321
—— 't-Taj, 372
—— 't-Tanbih wa'l-Ishraf
(of -Mas'udi, q.v.), 119, 127,
328, 368
—— 'l-'Uyun (of Ibn Miska-
wayhi), 362, 428, 430
—— -'l-Yamini, 457
—— 'z-Zuhd, 274
Kitchener, Lord —, 245
Kleuker, 57
Knots, Blowing on —, 366
Knowledge, Travel in search
of —, 271, 272
Krehl, 188
*von Kremer, 90, 201, 203,
206, 211, 213, 220, 221, 234,
247, 255, 259, 261, 267, 278,
279, 280, 282, 288, 300, 307,
370-371, 373, 419, 426
Kudak-i-dana (“the Wise
Child”), 328
Kudiyya sect, 311
Kufa, 196, 199, 203, 210, 216,
218, 219, 222, 224, 230, 234,
243, 244, 263, 298, 359, 363,
370, 385, 396, 403, 405
Kufic character, 103
Kuh-i-Bibi Shahr-banu, 131
Kuhistan, 428, 429, 448
Kun- (Persian root), 27
Kunik, 304
Kurdistan, 19, 83, 87
Kurds, 137, 139, 388, 463
Kurush, 92. See Cyrus
Ibn Kushajim (poet), 253, 371
Kushiya, 94
Kushti (sacred girdle), 99
Kuthayyir (poet), 235
Kyuprulu-zade Library (Con-
stantinople), 276, 383
La (in Pahlawi), 58
de Lagarde, Paul —, 19, 260,
479
-Lahham, Abu'l-Hasan —
(Samanid poet), 365
Lahiq (“the Subsequent” in
Isma'ili system), 414
Lahma (= nan, “bread,” in
Pahlawi), 66, 76
La hukma illa li'llah (Khari-
jite war-cry), 222
Lakhi'a Dhu Shanatir (King
of Yaman), 174
Lalla Rookh (of Moore), 318
Lama'at (of 'Iraqi), 420
Lane-Poole, Stanley —, 214,
254, 364, 371
Lar (town in Persia), 294
Lassen (of Bonn), 63, 64, 67
Lata'ifu'l-Ma'arif (of -Tha'a-
libi), 255, 317, 354
Latifa-i-ghaybiyya, 283
Latin verses, 446
Laud, Archbishop —, 41
Laudian Professor of Arabic,
19, 41
Lawh-i-Mahfudh (“Preserved
Tablet”), 427
Layla (wife of -Husayn,
mother of 'Ali Akbar), 131
Layla (the beloved of Maj-
nun), 84
Layth, House of —. See
Saffarids
Legend, National — of Persia,
111. See Shahnama, &c.
Le Strange, Guy —, 367
Levy (of Breslau), 103
Leyden library, 383
*Light of Asia, 442-443
Lingam, 52
Lisanu'l-Ghayb, 225. See
Hafidh
Lisanu'l-Mulk, 170, 312
Literatures, Arabic and Per-
sian, comparative value of
—, 211
Loftus, 64
Longimanus, 137, 142. See
Artaxerxes, Bahman, Diraz-
dast,
Lord, Henry —, 42
L'Orient, 46
Love, typal and real —, 442
*Lubabu'l-albab (of 'Awfi,
q.v.), 13, 262, 449-451
Lughat-i-Furs (of Asadi, q.v.),
86, 450, 457
Lukari, Abu'l-Hasan 'Ali b.
Muhammad - Ghazzali —
(Persian poet), 463
Abu Lulu'a (assassin of the
Caliph 'Umar), 203, 215
Lull, Raymond —, 40
Luri dialect, 83
Luristan, 19, 87
Lydians, 21
-Ma'arri, Abu'l-'Ala — (philo-
sophical poet), 320, 321, 371
Ma'bad -Juhani, 282
Macedon, 119
Machiya (people), 94
Mada, 77. See Media, Mah-
Mada'in, 132, 199, 222, 311,
324. See Ctesiphon
-Mada'ini, 278
-Madina, 36, 132, 133, 183,
189, 195, 196, 199, 203, 205,
210, 213, 218, 224, 226, 228,
230, 245, 271, 274, 277, 295,
299-300, 307
Madrid, 294
Abu'l-Mafakhir of Ray, 437
*Mafatihu'l-'ulum (“Keys of
the Sciences”), 372, 378,
382-383
Magi (tribe of —), 30
Magians (Magush, Majus), 12,
22, 23, 28, 31, 282, 309, 314,
347, 362, 367, 372, 426, 434,
443, 448. See Guebres,
Zoroastrians
Magic, 320, 379, 436; “Law-
ful —,” 366
Magopat (Mubad), 9. See
Zoroastrian priests
Mahabadian Dynasty, 55
Mahabeli, 55
Ibn Mahabzud (Mah-afzud),
448
Mahafarid (wife of Iraj), 116
Mahan (= Maymun), 263
Mah- (as prefix, in Mah-
Basra, Mah - Nahawand,
&c.), 19, 42, 77
Mahbul, 55
Mahdi, 241, 395, 397; -Saffah
so considered, 244; — of
Sudan, 245; Abu Muslim
so considered, 246; Fatimid
—, 397. See also Messianic
Idea
-Mahdi (/Abbasid Caliph),
159, 162, 207, 254, 267, 276,
307, 317, 318, 322, 328
Mahdiyya (city of —), 353,
359, 397
Mahfurudhin, 308
Mahmud of Ghazna, 111, 337,
339, 371, 376, 456, 457, 468, 471
Mahmud Shabistari (poet and
mystic), 282, 444
Mahmud Warraq (Persian
poet), 355
Mahmud (elephant), 177
Mah-Sazanda (“Moon-
maker”), 319. See -Mu-
qanna'
Mahyar b. Marzuya-Daylami,
448
Mainyo-i-Khirad, 82, 106, 159
Ibn Maja, 357
Majalisu'l-Mu'minin (of Say-
yid Nuru'llah -Shushtari),
349, 437
Majaz (“the Metaphorical”),
442
Abu'l-Majid Rayagani (dialect
poet), 86
Majma'u'l-Fusaha, 449, 455
Majnun, 84
-Majusi, 'Ali b. -'Abbas
(physician), 375
Makhul (traditionist), 272
manus
-Mala. See Pleroma
Malabar Coast, 103
Malahida, 408. See Assassins
Malahim (Apocryphal books),
241
Malalas, John —, 169, 172
Malcolm, Sir John —, 212
Malik b. Anas, 274, 276, 277,
295, 298, 386
Malikite sect, 294, 295, 298
Malka, Malkan-malka, 58, 66,
71, 76
-Ma'mari, Abu Mansur —
(author of Persian prose
version of Book of Kings),
123
Mamelukes, 209
-Ma'mun ('Abbasid Caliph),
13, 104, 105, 164, 166, 168,
252, 254, 255, 259, 267, 276,
283, 284, 288, 302-303, 307,
323, 336, 339, 340, 343, 346,
351, 352, 452, 479, 480
Manaqibu'sh-Shu'ara, 449
Ma'nawi of Bukhara (Persian
poet), 468
Manchester Library, 452
Mandæans, 158, 302
Manes (Mani), 136, 137, 154-
159, 308, 415, 422; Gate of
—, 158
Manichæans, 43, 104, 106, 154-
166, 170, 172, 202, 207, 301,
307, 362, 382, 387, 431, 443.
See also Zindiq
-Manini (commentator of
-'Utbi), 456
Manjak (dialect poet), 453,
462
-Mansur ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 257, 258, 265, 276,
288, 295, 305, 313-317, 343,
344
-Mansur (Fatimid Caliph), 403
Mansur-i-Hallaj. See Husayn
b. Mansur
Mansur b. Ishaq (Samanid),
363
Mansur b. -Mahdi ('Abbasid),
254
Mansur I b. Nuh (Samanid),
11, 356, 368, 455, 461, 477
Mansur II b. Nuh (Samanid),
468
Abu Mansur of Aba (Persian
poet), 464
Abu Mansur 'Abdu'l-Malik.
See Tha'alibi
Abu Mansur b. 'Abdu'r-
Razzaq, 123
Abu Mansur-Ma'mari, 123
Ibn Mansur (disciple of
-Hallaj), 435
Mansuri (of -Razi), 363
*Mantiqi of Ray, Mansur b.
'Ali — (Buwayhid poet),453,
463, 465, 466
Mantiqu't-Tayr (of 'Attar,
q.v.), 444
Manuchihr (legendary Per-
sian King), 116
Manuchihri, Dastur —, 47
Manushchihar (author of
Datistan-i-Dinik, 105
Manuchihri (poet). See
Minuchihri
Manuscript, Oldest Post-
Muhammadan Persian —,
11
Maqamat (of Hariri), 464
-Maqdisi (geographer), 293
Mara-bokht (name), 145
Marcion, 160
Marcionites, 382, 387
Mardanshah (Persian gene-
ral), 200
Mardanshah - i - Zadan-i-Far-
rukh (Persian accountant),
205
Mardan-Sina, 129
Mardawij b. Ziyar, 359, 360,
365
Mardin, 302
Marianus (alchemist), 274
Maria Theresa, 153
Markham, Clements —, 212
Marriage Contract, Form of
—, 109
Mars (Planet), 461
Martyn, Henry —, 423
Ma'ruf -Karkhi (Sufi), 298, 424
*Ma'rufi of Balkh (Samanid
poet), 463
Marv, Marw. See Merv
Marv-Dasht, 70
Marvels of India ('Aja'ibu'l-
Hind), 368
Marwan I. (Umayyad), 215,
263
Marwan II. (Umayyad), “the
Ass,” 215, 240-245, 265
Marwan b. Abi Hafsa (poet),
276
Marwarudh, 242, 244
Maryam, Suratu — (ch. xix
of Qu'ran), 187
Maryam Utakhim (mother of
Manes), 158
Marzuban (Ispahbad), 478
Marzuban b. Rustam (Ispah-
bad), 159
Marzuban-nama, 478
Abu Ma'shar (astronomer),
357
Ma siwa'a'llah (“What is
beside God”), 438
Masjid - i - Madar-i-Sulayman,
113
Masruq (Abyssinian King),
178
Masrur (executioner), 254
Ibn Mas'ud (Companion), 217
*-Mas'udi (historian), 14, 109,
110, 119-120, 127-128, 169,
217, 218, 230, 257, 267, 297,
314, 324, 328, 368, 417
Abu'l-Mathal of Bukhara
(Persian poet), 468
Mathalib (satires), 269
Mathematics, 380, 382, 386
Mathnawi form of verse, 18,
473-474, 476
Mathnawi (of Jalalu'd-Din
Rumi), 423, 434, 437, 440,
441, 444
Matn (text of a tradition), 271
Ibn Matran, Abu Muhammad
— (Samanid poet), 365
-Maturidi (theologian), 367
Mawali (“Clients,” pl. of
Mawla), 229, 230, 232-235,
242, 247, 260, 263, 264, 266.
See Racial Prejudice, Sub-
ject Races
Ma wara'u'n - Nahr. See
Transoxiana
Max Müller, 33-34, 57
Maymadh (or Mimad), 324
Maymuniyya (sect), 396
Mays (mother of Manes), 158
Maysara -'Abdi ('Abbasid
da'i), 236
Mazamir (Psalms of David,
q.v.), 113
Mazandaran, 19, 26, 83, 86;
Dialect of —, 348, 478
Mazda. See Ahura Mazda,
Hurmazd
Mazdak, 135, 136, 137, 166-
172, 202, 247, 312-313, 316,
318, 323, 324, 326, 328, 382,
387
Mazdak-nama, 169, 332
Mazyar, 330-331, 334-336
Mecca, 173, 174, 176-178, 186,
189, 213, 216, 224, 228, 230,
231, 245, 261, 270, 307, 316,
345, 357, 358, 359, 367, 402,
403, 405
Medes, 19-24, 26, 28, 30, 31,
33, 37, 41, 65, 90, 121;
Language of —, 22-24, 77-78
Media, 5, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 31, 32, 42, 94, 96
Medicine, 289, 304, 305, 307,
381, 382, 430
Meiners, 57
Menant, Professor J. —, 64;
Mademoiselle —, 102
Mercia, 5; Dialect of —, 479
Mercurius, St. —, Church of
—, 399
Merv, 13, 35, 237, 242, 244,
295, 318, 320, 340, 428, 452,
467, 475
Mesopotamia, 305, 402, 421,
448
Messiah, 162, 395, 480. See
also Jesus Christ
Messianic Idea, 232, 241, 479
Metempsychosis, 279, 311, 316.
See Tanasukh
Metrical system of Persians
and Arabs, 472
Meyer, W. —, 59
de Meynard, Barbier —, 365,
368, 447
Michael, Archangel —, 427
Microcosm, 412
Middle Persian, 7, 80, 82. See
Pahlawi
Mihriyya (sect of Mani-
chæans), 165
Mihrgan, Festival of —, 259,
475
Mihrjani, Abu Ahmad —, 293
Mihyar, Abu'l-Hasan —, 207
Abu Mikhnaf Lut b. Yahya,
-Azdi, 273
Milky Way, 161
Milton, 37
Mim b. Mim b. Mim, 241
Mimad (or Maymad), 325
*-Mi'mari (or -Mu'ammari),
Shaykh Abu Zura'a —
(Persian poet), 458-459
Mino (“celestial,” meaning
“Royal”), 153
Minuchihri (Persian poet), 12,
13, 331, 340, 369, 474. (The
allusions are all to A. de
Biberstein Kazimirski's
Preface to his edition of
the Diwan)
Miqlasiyya (sect of Mani-
chæans), 165
Mishkatu'l-Anwar (of -Ghaz-
zali), 362, 436
Mission. See Da'wa
Missionary driven from Persia
by name, 270; Missionary's
dislike of Sufis, 423; Reason
of Missionaries' failure in
Asia, 265
Mithr (Mihr) Fire, 139, 140
Mithra, Zoroastrian worship
of —, 95, 101
Mithrak (Mihrak), adversary
of Ardashir Babakan, 138
“Modern Medic” (of M. Cl.
Huart), 27
Modern (i.e., Post-Muhamma-
dan), Persian, 5, 8, 11, 39,
89; — defined, 82
Mogul, Great —, 209
Mogutbish (“Magicide”), 31
Mohl, Jules —, 369
Mohsan (Muhsin) Fani, 54
Molten Brass Ordeal, 157
Mongol Invasion, 6, 82, 197-
198, 209-211, 274, 275, 286,
377, 391, 479
Monophysites, 168
Moody, 43
Moon (Beauty), 320, 321
“Moon-maker” (Mah-sazan-
da), 319. See Muqanna'
Moore, Thomas — (Irish
poet), 318, 447
Moors, 9, 39, 275, 334, 335.
See also Spain, Africa,
Umayyads of Cordova, &c.
Morality at 'Abbasid Court,
251-252
Mordecai, 21
Morier, 423
Morocco, 340. See also Moors
Morris, Lewis —, 447
Moses, 29, 113, 119, 188, 288,
408, 409, 427, 430, 436, 440
Moses of Khorene, 117
Mosheim, 155
“Most Great Name,” 314
“Mother of Nine Imams,”
131, 132
Mu'allaqat, 276, 369-370
Mu'allimun (grade of Mani-
chæans), 164
Mu'awiya I (Umayyad
Caliph), 212, 215, 217-219,
221, 223-225, 261, 291
Mu'awiya II (Umayyad
Caliph), 215
Mu'awiya b. Hisham, 215
Mu'ayyidu'd-Dawla (Buway-
hid), 374
Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk (Persian
poet), 464
Abu'l-Mu'ayyad of Balkh
(Persian poet), 468
Abu'l-Mu'ayyad of Bukhara
(Persian poet), 468
Mubad (Magopat), 309, 331.
See Zoroastrian Priests
-Mubarrad, 221, 350, 357, 375
Mubayyida (= Sapid-Jama-
gan, the “White-clad”
heretics), 311-313, 318, 319,
322, 323
Abu'l-Mudhaffar, Amir —, 460
*Abu'l - Mudhaffar Nasr
-Istighna'i(Persian poet),467
Abu'l-Mudhaffar Tahir b.
Fadl b. Muhammad Muhtaj
-Saghani (Chaghani), 471
-Mufaddal -Dabbi, 276, 278
-Mufaddaliyyat, 276
-Mufid (the ‘Pre-existent” in
the Isma'ili system), 414
Mughammas (place near
Mecca), 177
Mughtasila, 158, 303. See
also Mandæans, Sabæans
Muhajirun, 186, 213, 220
Muhammadan Religion. See
Islam
Muhammad (the Prophet),
birth of —, 173, 214; —
threatened by Khusraw
Parwiz, 183; aim and
achievement of —, 186-190,
194, 212-213, 234; — and
Abu Talib, 193; — and
Magians, 201-202, 206; —
and spoils of war, 205;
dislike of — for Persian
legends, 269; — in Isma'ili
system, 408 409, 412-414;
— and Sufiism, 418; — in
Apocrypha of Daniel, 479-
480; minor references, 113,
130, 132, 166, 177, 181, 200,
203, 209, 210, 216, 229, 275,
276, 287, 297, 299, 408, 409,
430
Muhammad b. 'Abdu'llah b.
… 'Abbas, 254
—— b. —— -Azdi, 276
—— b. —— b. Maymun, 397,
409
—— b. 'Abdu'l - Malik. See
Ibnu'z-Zayyat
—— b. 'Abdu'r - Rahman
-'Amiri, 273
—— b. 'Abdu's-Samad (Sahi-
bu'sh-Shurta), 432
—— b. Ahmad -Farsi (=
Hallaj, q.v.), 431
—— b. 'Ali b. 'Abdu'llah b.
'Abbas, 236, 237, 240
——b. —— b. 'Umar -Salimi,
274
—— Baqir, Imam —, 409
—— ——, Mirza, of Bawanat,
390
——Darabi, 283, 285
—— b. Hasan -Shaybani, 276
—— b. Humayd, 323
—— Husayn, Mir, 54
—— b. Ishaq (author of
Fihrist, q.v.), 76, 110
—— b. Isma'il, 296, 393, 394,
397, 404 408, 409, 414. See
also Isma'ilis, &c.
—— b. Khalid b. Barmak, 164
—— b. Khunays ('Abbasid
da'i), 236
—— b. Marwan (Umayyad
Prince), 215
—— b. -Mu'tasim ('Abbasid
Prince), 254
—— b. -Rawwad -Azdi, 325
—— b. Sa'ib -Kalbi, 275
—— b. Shirin, 274
—— b. -Zayyat. See Ibnu'z-
Zayyat
Abu Muhammad b. Yaminu'd-
Dawla -Ghaznawi, 471
Muhammira (“those who
wear Red as their badge”),
311-313, 323, 329
Muharram, 227
-Muhasibi (Sufi), 345, 424
-Muhit (of the Sahib Isma'il
b. Abbad, q.v.), 374
Muhitu'l-Muhit (Arabic Dic-
tionary), 326
-Muhtadi ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 345
*Muir, Sir William —, 188,
191, 192, 210, 211, 219, 220,
222, 224, 226, 227, 229, 240,
251, 317, 342 345
Mu'izzu'd-Dawla (Buwayhid),
164, 364, 367
-Mu'izz (Fatimid Caliph), 367,
399
Mujallidi, Sharif — of Gurgan,
15, 16
-Mu'jam fi Ma'abiri Ash'ari
'Ajam, 473
Mujmalu't-Tawarikh, 110
-Mukhtar, 228, 229, 231, 233,
234, 238
-Muktafi ('Abbasid Caliph),
357, 358
Mulamma' poetry, 467
Ibn Muljam, 224
Müller, Friedrich —, 64, 153
Müller, Joseph —, 64, 72
Muluku't-Tawa'if, 79, 111, 118.
See also Parthians
Mundhir (King of Hira), 179,
262
Munk, 479
*-Munqidh mina'd-Dalal (of
-Ghazzali), 422
-Muntasir ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 345
Münter, 60
-Muqaddasi (geographer), 293
Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', 76, 110, 113,
123, 169, 207-208, 275, 306,
319, 332
-Muqanna' (“Veiled Prophet
of Khurasan”), 247, 309, 311,
313, 318-323
Ibn Muqla, 76, 275, 364
-Muqtadir ('Abbasid Caliph),
164, 358-360, 363, 364, 428,
429, 431
Murghab, 113
-Muriyani, Abu Ayyub —,
258
-Murjiya (sect), 279-281, 386
Abu Murra, b. 'Urwa-Thaqafi,
131
Murshid (spiritual director),
424
*Muruju'dh-Dhahab(of -Mas-
'udi, q.v.), 169, 230, 257,
267, 297, 324, 368, 417
Muruwwa (“Virtue,” as con-
ceived by Pagan Arabs),
190, 193
Musa b. 'Ali … b. 'Abbas,
254
Musa -Kádhm (Seventh Imam
of “Sect of the Twelve”),
296, 393
Abu Musa -Ash'ari, 216, 219
Abu Musa b. Nusayr, 263
Mus'ab b.-Zubayr, 228, 229
Musawwida (“Those who
wear Black as their badge,”
i.e., the partisans of the
'Abbasids), 242, 243
Mushabbiha. See Anthropo-
morphism.
Mushammasun (grade of
Manichæans), 164
Music, 380, 382, 383
Muslim -Nishaburi (tradi-
tionist), 351
Muslim b. -Walid (poet), 276
Abu Muslim, 240-244, 246,
247, 256, 308-310, 313-315,
317, 320, 322, 328, 392, 410.
Muslimiyya (the Sect of Abu
Muslim), 313, 315
-Mustafid (“the Subsequent”
in the Isma'ili system), 414
-Musta'in ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 345
Mustakfi ('Abbasid Caliph),
364
-Mustansir (Fátimid Caliph),
400
-Musta'sim bi'llah (last
'Abbasid Caliph of Bagh-
dad), 6, 164, 209, 210
-Mu'tadid ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 358, 405
Mutahhar b. Fatima (the
grandson of Abu Muslim),
328
-Mu'tamid ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 350, 353, 354, 356, 388
-Mutanabbi (the poet), 369,
446, 472
-Mu'tasim ('Abbasid Caliph),
252, 254, 278, 329 336, 342.
Mutawakkil('Abbasid Caliph),
253, 254, 259, 289-291, 332,
337, 339, 341-345, 347
Mu'tazilite sect, 254-255, 279,
281-289, 291-292, 294, 298,
306, 342, 344, 351, 352, 366,
386, 395, 423, 430, 437
-Mu'tazz ('Abbasid Caliph),
254, 345, 347
Ibnu'l-Mu'tazz (son of the
above), 254, 358, 363
Muthanna b. Haritha (one of
the “Companions” and
early conquerors of Persia),
195
-Muti' ('Abbasid Caliph), 367,
371
Muti' b. Ayas (poet and Mani-
chæan), 307
-Muttaqí('Abbasid Caliph),364
-Muwaffaq ('Abbasid prince),
254
Muwaffaq, Abu Mansur —
(author of old Persian phar-
macology), 11, 450
-Muwatta (title of two works
on Law), 273-274
Muzdawija (= Mathnawi
poetry), 476
Mystics, 296-301. See Sufis.
Mystics, Vaughan's classifi-
cation of —, 424
Nabathæans, 247, 266, 306,
324, 328
Nabidh (Date-wine), 285, 329
Nadr b. -Harith -'Abdari, 269
-Nadim -Warraq -Baghdadi
(author of -Fihrist, q.v.),
373, 378, 383
*Nafahatu'l-Uns (of Jami).
299, 362, 417, 418, 423, 425,
437
Nahawand, 79; Battle of —,
200, 247
Nahid (Venus), 461
-Nahrajuri, Abu Ahmad —
(one of the Ikhwann's-Safa,
q.v.), 293
Nahr Bashir, 197
Nahruwan, 222, 432
Na'ila('Uthman's wife), 217
Na'in (dialect), 86
-Najashi (Negush, the ruler
of Abyssinia), 175, 186-188
Najda the Kharijite, 228
Najmu'd-Din-Rawandi, 85
Najran, Christians of —, 175
Nakhshab, 244, 318, 319
-Nami (poet), 370
Napper Tandy (Irish patriot),
346
Naqibs (in 'Abbasid propa-
ganda), 240
Naqsh-i-Rajab, 44, 151
Naqsh-i-Rustam, 5, 70, 150,
151
Nariman, 116
Narshakhi (historian of Buk-
hara), 368
Nasa, 35, 242
-Nasa'-i (traditionist), 351,
363
Nasaf, 244. See also Nakh-
shab
-Nashi (poet), 370
Nasikhu't-Tawarikh, 170
Nasimi (Turkish poet and
Ḥurufi), 423-424
Nasir-i-Khusraw, 86, 268, 278,
295, 389, 399, 400, 401, 437,
462
Nasiru'd-Din Qubacha, 450
Nasiru'd-Din Shah Qajar, 172
Nasiru'l-Haqq (Sayyid ruler
of Tabaristan), 207
Nasr I b. Ahmad (Samanid),
352
Nasr II b. Ahmad (Samanid),
13, 16, 359, 365, 456, 458
Nasr b. Sayyar (Umayyad
governor of Khurasan),
232, 241-244, 265
Ibn Nasr -Qushuri, 433
Abu Nasr -Farabi, 368
Abu Nasr -Dharifi (Samanid
poet), 365
Abu Nasr, Shaykh —, 446
Nassau Lees, Capt. —, 299
Nat' (executioner's carpet),
435
Natanz, 26
Natiq (in Isma'ili system),
408, 409, 413, 414
Natural Science, 289
Nawbahar (in Balkh), 257
Nawbandajan, 364
Naw-ruz, 114, 259, 475
Nazar, -'Aziz Abu Mansur —
(Fatimid Caliph), 371
Nazuk (Captain of the Guard),
435
Nehemiah, 61
-Nejashi (= -Najashi, q. v.),
175, 186-188.
Nejran (= Najran, q. v.), 175
Neo-Platonists, 96, 167, 300,
301, 304, 381, 420-421, 441
Neo-Pythagoreans, 381
Neriosengh, 63, 67, 68, 106
Newcastle, Coals to —, 456
Niçaya, 32, 35
Nicholson, R. A. —, 167, 299,
420, 421, 440
Nidhami -'Arudi -Samarqandi
(author of Chahar Maqala,
q.v.), 15-17, 317, 449, 456,
470
Nidhami of Ganja, 15, 18, 52,
119
Nidhamiyya College, 293
Nidhamu'l-Mulk, 169, 171, 172,
312-314, 328, 349, 353, 401,
456
Niebuhr, 59, 62
*Nihayatu'l-Irabfi Akhbari'l-
Furs wa'l-'Arab, 183
Niki-nama (poem in Tabari
dialect), 478
Nile, 400
Nine (number), 410
Nineteen (number), 98, 100,
101
Nineveh, 21
Nirangistan, 99, 102
Nirvana, 443
Nishapur, 12, 244, 308, 309,
314, 347, 351, 355, 368, 400,
428, 445
Noah, 114, 320, 408, 409, 430
Noble, Sons of the — (Banu'l-
Ahrar), 181,
*Nöldeke, Prof. Th. —, 6, 9,
10, 22, 24, 70, 75, 106, 108,
109, 111, 115, 117, 120-123,
129, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140,
141, 145, 146, 150, 152, 154,
166, 168, 170, 180, 183, 188,
221, 241, 262, 302, 312, 332,
347, 349, 350, 353, 459, 460
Nominalism, 294
Normans, 95
Northumbria, 5
Nosks (of Avesta), 21, 97-99,
108
“Nouer l'aiguilette,” 366
Ibn Nubata, 373
Nudhar, 121
Nudnud (Babak's execu-
tioner), 329
Nufayl, 177
Nuh. See Noah
Nuh I b. Nasr II (Samanid),
365
Nuh II b. Mansur (Samanid),
123, 371, 374, 375, 460, 463
Nu'man, King of Hira, 264
Numbers, Signification of —,
310, 408. See also Seven,
Twelve, Nine, Nineteen
Nuru'd-Din (Atabek of Syria),
400
Nuru'llah … Mar'ashi-
Shushtari, 349
Nusayri Sect, 203, 304, 395
Nushirwan (Anushak-rubano,
Khusraw-i-Kawatan), 12,
107, 108, 110, 128-129, 131,
132, 135 (why so entitled),
136-137, 166-172, 173, 174,
179, 181-182, 194, 301, 305,
347, 419, 421
Abu Nuwas (poet), 277
-Nuwayri (historian), 410, 411
Nuwikath, 164
Nyayish(Zoroastrian prayers),
101
Oath of Allegiance, Isma'ili
—, 413
Occultation (Ghaybat) of
Imam, 310, 352
Occult Sciences, 274, 276, 374
Oculists, Biography of —, 368
Odatis, 121
“Old Bactrian” (or “Zend”)
language, 25, 78. See
Avestic
“Old Man of the Mountain”
(Shaykhu'l-Jabal), 396
Old Persian language and
inscriptions, 7, 23, 24, 39, 43,
44, 56, 59-65, 67, 78-80, 82,
88, 89, 91-95
Olearius, 42
Olshausen, 19, 79
Omar. See 'Umar
Oneiromancy, 274
Oppert, 23, 24, 64, 65, 78
Oracles, 190
Oral tradition, 251
Oriental Studies in Europe,
History of —, 39 et seqq.
Origen, 293
Ormazd, 25. See Ahura
Mazda, Hurmazd
“Orthodox Caliphs” (al-
Khulafa'u'r-Rashidun),
188-189, 194, 210, 212, 224,
388, 417
Orthodox Reaction, 255, 290-
291. See also Ash'ari
Oshederbami (Oshederma),
Zoroastrian Messiah, 246
Ossetic, 83
Ostend, 49
Ottoman, Poetry, History of
—, by E. J. W. Gibb, 390,
465
Ottoman Sultans' claim to
Caliphate, 209, 343
Oudh, Catalogue of MSS. of
King of —, 452
Ouseley, 71
Oxford, 40, 41, 48-50
Oxus, 16, 189, 318
Pahlapat, 15. See Barbad
Pahlawi inscriptions, 7, 44,
57, 58, 60-61, 70-72, 91, 93,
151-153; language, 7, 10-11,
37, 56, 69, 79-81, 205-206;
— literature, 7-8, 9, 68, 81-
82, 89, 91, 103-110, 117, 118,
121-123, 165, 168, 169, 340;
“Modern —” (“Pehlevi-
Musulman” of Huart), 26-
28, 80-81, 86-87; — script,
7-10, 66-67, 72-77, 80, 81-82,
152, 165, 205-206
Palestine, 245
Palmer, Professor E. H. —,
254, 255
Pamirs, 25, 35
Panah-Khusraw (Fana-Khus-
raw), 448
Panjab, 33, 35, 376
Pantheism, 297, 300, 427, 428,
436, 438-444
Papak (father of Artakhshatr-
i-Papakan or Ardashir
Babakan, q.v.), 70, 71, 93
122, 137, 139-142, 153
Paraclete, 395
“Paradise of Light” (Mani-
chæan), 161
Paris, 40, 41, 45, 447, 464
Parsa, 4, 26, 32, 105, 128, 137,
139, 143, 170, 200, 264, 347,
360. See also Fars, Persis
Parsi (Parsee), 4, 25, 42, 69,
72, 96, 102, 206. See Guebre,
Magian, Zoroastrian
“Parsi language,” 81, 82
Parthia (Parthava, Pahlava,
Fahla), 5, 36, 79, 94
Parthians, 5, 41, 79, 81, 90, 96,,
103, 111, 119, 121, 136, 137,
154, 158
Parwiz, Khusraw —, 6, 12, 15,
17, 107, 122, 129, 174, 181,
182, 183, 194, 218, 266, 269
Pashmina-push(“Wool-clad”
= Sufi), 297, 417
Pashto (Pakhto), 28
“Passing of Shahr-banu,” 131
Pataka, Patecius,
Patricius, 157
“Path” (Tariqat) of the
Sufis, 441
Paulus, H. E. G. —, 54
Payne, John —, 444
Pazend, 69, 77, 81, 82, 101,
106, 107
Pazawari, Amir — (Mazan-
darani poet), 83
“Pehlevi - Musulman” (of
Huart), 26, 27. See also
Pahlawi, Modern —
Pentateuch, 29, 113, 479
de Perceval, Caussin —, 212
Persæ (of Æschylus), 91
Persepolis, 5, 56, 62, 64, 66, 70
93, 112-113, 118, 153
Persian contributions to
Arabic Literature and
Science, 3-4, 204, 275, 278,
445-448
Persian influence on Arabs,
251, 252, 255, 260, 278, 300
Persian language, 5-7, and
passim
Persian literature, Birth of
modern —, 11-14, 340-341
Persian Martyrs, Acts of the
—. See Acts
“Persian,” Meaning of the
term —, 4-5
Persian scholar, Qualifi-
cations of —, 377
Persis (= Parsa, Fars, q.v.),
4, 5, 25, 30, 79, 105
Pertsch, 449, 452
Petermann, 302
Pharaoh, 333, 334, 440
Pharmacology. See Muwaffaq
Phatecius, 157
“Phil-Hellenes,” 79
Philip III of France, 40
Philip of Macedon, 119
Philo-Judæus, 97, 381
Philology, Arabic —, 260, 269,
270, 275
Philology, Dangers of —, 36-
37
“Philosopher of the Arabs,”
356. See al-Kindi
Philosophers, Neo-Platonist
— in Persia, 167
Philosophy, 284, 288-289, 292-
294, 304-307, 363, 364, 378-
381, 437
Photius, 21
Phraortes (Fravartish), 21
Pigeons, Carrier —, 396
Pindar (or Bundar) of Ray,
85, 86, 348, 437
Pir (spiritual director), 424
Piruz (Peroz, Firuz), 75, 121,
158
Piruz - i - Gushnaspdeh, 174,
182
Pishawar, 372
Pishdadi Dynasty, 55, 111-
115, 119
Pisiyauvada, 31
Pits, People of the —, 175
Plato, 167
Pleroma, 408, 410
Plotinus, 420
Pluto, 114
Pococke, 41
Poetry, Origins of Persian —,
12-15, 18, 110
Pognon, M. —, 302
“Point” (Nuqta), 98
Polak, 26, 27, 172
Poll-tax, 201. See Jizya
Polo, 138; — -bat, crescent
moon compared to —, 463
Polygamy, 186, 288
Polyhistor, 21
“Polyphony,” 72
Polytheists (Mushrikun),
Mu'tazilites call their oppo-
nents —, 281
Pondichery, 46
Porphyry, 420
Portents of Fall of Persian
Empire, 173
Portsmouth, 48
Portuguese, 302
Postel, William —, 40
Predestination, 281-283, 285-
286, 386
“Pre-existent” (in Isma'ili
system), 414
Primal Matter (Hayyula),
408-409
Priscian (Neo-Platonist Philo-
sopher), 421
Procopius, 169
Profanation of Tombs, 245
Proper names Arabicized, 263
Prosody, 275, 389, 471-474
Psalms of David, 113
Pseudo-Callisthenes, 118
Pseudo-Sabæans of Harran
(q.v.), 301-306
Ptolemy, 381
Pulwar River, 70
Puran - Dukht (Sasanian
Queen), 174, 182
Puran, daughter of Hasan b.
Sahl, and wife of al-
Ma'mun, 255
Puritans, 37
Putiya, 94
Qaba'il = “Arabs” (as op-
posed to Shu'ub, “Gen-
tiles”), 265
Qabus b. Washmgir, 371, 446,
466, 469, 470-471
Qabusiyya Dynasty, 207
Qadariyya sect, 279, 281-283
-Qaddah. See 'Abdu'llah b.
Maymun
Qadisiyya, Battle of —, 6, 117,
174, 182, 195-197, 200, 202,
221, 247
-Qahir ('Abbasid Caliph), 364
-Qahira. See Cairo
Qahtaba, 244
-Qa'im (= -Mahdi, q.v.), 408,
414
-Qa'im (Fatimid Caliph), 403
Qajar, 207
Qalansuwa (Persian hat, pl.
Qalanis), 259, 330
Qaren, 121
Qarmat, Hamdan —, 396
Qarmati, Qirmati, 408. See
Carmathians, Isma'ilis, Sect
of the Seven
Qasida, 472, 474
-Qasim b. Burhan, 208
Abu'l-Qasim b. Abu'l-'Abbas,
467
Abu'l-Qasim -Dinawari, 365
Abu'l-Qasim Hibatu'llah b.
Sina'u'l-Mulk, 321
Qasr-i-Shirin, 12
Qatran of Tabriz (Persian
poet), 86, 462
Qazwin, 80, 86, 325
*-Qazwini (geographer), 14,
157, 257-258, 319-320, 323
Qissisun (class of Mani-
chæans), 164
Qit'a, 472, 474
Qiwami of Ray (Persian poet),
437
Qiyam (the upright position
in Prayer), 412
Qohrud (dialect), 26, 27, 80, 86
Quakers, 297, 417
Quatrain, 18. See Ruba'i
Quatremère, 76, 399
Qubad (or Kawad, q.v.), 134
-Qubawi (translator of Nar-
shakhi), 368
Quhyar (brother of Mazyar,
q.v.), 334
Quietism, 297, 300, 427, 428
Qum, History of —, 374
Qumis, 314, 448
Qumri of Gurgan, Abu'l-
Qasim Ziyad b. Muhammad
— (Persian poet), 453, 466
-Qunna'i (disciple of -Hallaj),
431
*Qur'an, 12, 98, 102, 113, 119,*
166, 175,* 178,* 187, 191*,
200, 201,* 206, 213,* 217, 219,
220, 221, 228, 230*, 231, 236,
242, 260, 261, 265, 270, 271,
272, 274, 288, 289, 293, 303,
320,* 333,* 347, 357, 366, 374,
377, 379, 385, 387, 388, 406,
412-414,* 418, 432, 435, 442,
467, 477; —, created or un-
create, 284-285, 287, 290,
295
Quraysh, 177, 213, 214, 216,
221, 260, 261, 264, 267, 295
Qurratu'l-'Ayn (the Babi
heroine), 172
-Qushayri, 297
Qushuri, Ibn Nasr —, 433
Quss Bahram, 396
Qussu'n-Natif, Battle of —
200
Qusta b. Luqa, 278, 306, 345
Ibn Qutayba, 15, 110, 169, 262,
268, 277, 324, 357, 387-388,
447
Qutrub, 277
Rabi'a (Tribe of), 242
Rabi'a-Adawiyya, 299, 300,
418, 424, 426
Rabshekeh, 66
Racial feeling, 114, 232-233,
242, 264-265 See also Sub-
ject Races
-Radi ('Abbasid Caliph), 364
-Radi, -Sharif —(poet), 448
-Raffa' (poet), 370
Rafidi (pl. Rawafid), 314, 360-
361. See Ghulat, Sect of the
Seven, Sect of the Twelve,
Shi'ites, &c.
Rafsinjan, 87.
Rajaz (form of verse), 173
Rajputs, 372
Rakhsh, 316, 317
Ram (typifying the Farr-i-
Kayani, or “Royal Splen-
dour”), 137
Ram (Festival of —), 259, 475
Ram-Hurmuz (or -Hurmazd),
157, 347, 368
Ranha, 26, 35. See Ray.
Raqqa, 276
Rashidi of Samarqand (Per-
sian poet), 457
Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah
(Persian historian), 392
Rashidu'd-Din Sinan (grand-
master of the Syrian
Assassins), 396
“Ravens” (Blacks), 179
Rawand (place), 315
Rawandiyya or Rawandis,
240, 315-316
Rawfaryad, 162
Rawlinson, 63, 91, 92
Rawnaqi (Persian poet), 468
Rawdatu's-Safa (Persian his-
tory), 170
Ray, 23, 32, 35, 79, 85, 86, 109,
131, 132, 137, 143, 145, 247,
313, 314, 350, 428, 448
Abu Rayhan. See -Biruni
-Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad
b. Zakariyya (physician),
known in Europe as Rhazes,
363
“Readers” (Qurra), 228
Realism, 294
Recurrence of Ideas in Persia,
98-99, 100-101
Red as a badge, 311, 312. See
Muhammira
Red Cross Knights, 480
Reid (missionary so named),
270
Re-incarnation, 311. See
Return, Rij'at, Metempsy-
chosis
Religion, Eastern and West-
ern conceptions of—, 405-
406
Religious Systems of the World
(work of reference), 439,
442, 444
Remanatio, 380
Renaissance, Persian —, 352,
375-376, 465
“Renegades” (Ahlu'r-Ridda),
194
“Return” (Rij'at), 310-311,
323, 327-328, 363, 435
Rhagæ, 26. See Ray
Rhazes, 363. See -Razi
Rhetoric, 389, 473
Rich, Claude J. —, 64
Richardson (Persian lexico-
grapher), 57
Rida, Imam 'Ali —, 284, 429
Rida-quli Khan (Persian his-
torian and writer), 170, 312,
449
Rida-quli Khan of Behbehan
(dialect poet), 87
-Rida, -Sharif —, 207. See
-Radi
Rieu, 54, 450
Rija b. -Walid -Isfahani
(Samanid poet), 365
Rij'at. See Return, Metem-
psychosis.
Risala-i-Hawraiyya, 416
Risala-i-Qushayriyya, 417
Rivayats (Zoroastrian), 48,
105
Roman, Alexander the —, 118,
139. See also Alexander
the Great.
Romans, 305
Rome, 40, 382, 472
Rope-trick, 431
Rosen, Baron Victor —, 15
Rosenzweig, 444
Rosenzweig-Schwannau, 361
Roth, 68
“Royal Splendour” (Farr-i-
Kayani), 128, 137, 143, 144
Ruba'i, 472-473, 476. See
Quatrain
Ruckert, 389
*Rudagi (Persian poet), 13,
15-17, 82, 340, 355-356, 359,
368, 452, 454, 455-458, 473
Rue (sipand), used as a fumi-
gation against the Evil Eye,
452
Ru'in Dizh (“the Brazen
Fortress”), 147
Ru'in-tan (epithet of Isfan-
diyar), 150
Ruknu' d-Dawla (Buwayhid),
364
Ruku' (position in prayer),
412
Rum, 480
Rumi. See Jalálu'd-Din
Ibnu'r-Rumi (poet), 357
Ruqayya (daughter of the
Prophet), 214
Ibn Rushd, 40. See Averroes
Rustam (mythical hero), 116,
117, 269; — (general), 117,
182, 194-195, 197-198
-Rustami, Abu Sa'id — (poet),
268, 374
Rylands Library, 449, 452
S (Sanskrit) = H, Persian),
34
Sabæans, 302-306, 384, 387
Sabalan (mountain), 325
Sabat Abi Nuh (place), 396
Sabbath = Shanbadh, 160
-Sabi (“the Sabæan”), Ibra-
him b. Hilal —, 372
Sab'i, Sab'iyya, 407. See
Isma'ilis, Sect of the Seven,
&c.
-Sabiq (“the Pre-Existent”),
414
Sabuktagin, 371, 372, 376
Sachau, Dr. E. —, 123, 154,
158, 163 169, 247, 308, 318,
352, 469
Sacrament of Babak, 327
de Sacy, Silvestre —, 53, 57,
58, 59, 61, 63, 70, 71, 393,
407, 410-415
Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas, 194, 196-
199, 388
Sa'd of Warawin, 478
Ibn Sa'd (secretary of
-Waqidi), 284, 345
Sadah (Festival of), 112
Sadaqat (Alms), 201
Sad Dar (Zoroastrian Cate-
chism), 43, 109
*Sa'di (Persian writer), 52, 85,
135, 145, 294, 343, 389, 423,
437
*Safar-nama of Nasir-i-
Khusraw, 86, 400
Safawi Dynasty, 294
-Saffah, 210. See Abu'l-
'Abbas.
Saffari Dynasty, 6, 13, 341,
346-349, 352-355, 359, 445,
450, 451, 453, 473
Sag (dog), 26
Sagartia, 33
Saghani (Chaghani) Dynasty,
244
Sagistan (Sistan), Wonders
of —, 109. See also Sistan
Sahibu'l-Amr, 414. See also
Mahdi
-Sahib Isma'il b. 'Abbad, 374,
375, 446, 453, 463, 464, 466,
467, 474
Sahibu'l-Khal, 402
Sahibu'n-Naqa, 402
Sahibu'sh-Shama, 402
Sahibu'sh-Shurta (Captain of
the Guard), 432
Sahibu'z-Zaman, 408. See
also Mahdi
Sahibu'z-Zanadiqa (Inquisi-
tor appointed to detect
Manichæans), 158, 307
-Sahih (of -Bukhari), 351
Sahl b. 'Abdu'llah of Shushtar
(mystic), 357
Sahl b. Harun (-Ma'mun's
librarian), 267
Ibn Sahl. See Hasan b. Sahl
and Fadl b. Sahl
Abu Sahl -Nawbakhti, 429
Said [b. 'Abdu'l-'Aziz …],
governor of Khurasan, 237
-Sa'id, -Amir —. See Nasr
II b. Ahmad
Sa'id b. -'As, 216
Sa'id b. Batriq, 366. See
Eutychius
Said, grandson of -Qaddah,
409. See 'Ubaydu'llah
-Mahdi
Sa'id -Harashi (general), 322
Sa'id b. -Musayyib (tra-
ditionist), 273
Abu Sa'id b. Abu'l- Khayr
(Persian mystic and poet),
371, 416, 437
Abu Sa'id Hasan b. Bahram,
402. See -Jannabi.
Abu Sa'id Muhammad b.
Mudhaffar b. Muhtaj -Sa-
ghani (Chaghani), 461
Abu Sa'id -Naqqash (author
of a History of the Sufis),
436
Abu Sa'id -Rustami (poet),
268, 374
Saint-Martin, 63
-Saji, Abu 'Ali — (poet), 475
-Sajjad. See Zaynu'l-'Abidin
Saka, 94
Sakisa (harper), 18
Sal'a, 192
Saladin (Salahu'd-Din), 54,
398
Salamanca, 40
Salamiyya (in Syria), 40
Sale's Alcoran, 187, 188
Salemann, 70, 83, 107, 479
Salih (prophet), 387
Salih (Persian accountant),
205
Salih b. 'Abdu'l-Quddus(poet),
307
Abu Salik of Gurgan (Persian
poet), 355, 453
Salisbury, E. —, 203
Salm, 115, 116, 128
Abu Salma (Abbasid propa-
gandist), 243, 246, 257
Salman the Persian, 203, 204,
297
Salman Sawaji (Persian poet),
437
Salmonassar-Sargon, 20
Salsette, 103
Sam. See Shem
Sam (the son of Nariman),
116
Saman, 207, 352, 461, 467, 468
Samani, Dynasty, 6, 15, 16,
123, 207, 317, 341, 346, 348,
352, 354, 355, 358, 359, 363,
365, 367, 368, 371, 372, 374-
376, 396, 445, 446, 450, 451,
453, 455, 456, 460, 461, 463,
465, 467, 474, 477
-Sam'ani, 456
Samaria, 20
Samarqand, 164, 456,
Samarra, 342. See Surra-
man-ra'a
Samawa, Vale of —, 174
Samit (in Isma'ili system),
409, 413
Samma' (“Listener,” “Audi-
tor,” a grade of the Mani-
chæans), 159, 165
Samnan, 86
San'a (in -Yaman), 176, 273
Sana'i (Persian mystical poet),
416, 437
Sanam (stronghold of -Mu-
qanna', q.v.), 321
Sani'a (a governor's follow-
ing), 233
Sanjan, Story of —, 47, 109
Sanskrit, 34, 37, 56, 59, 63, 64,
67-69, 89, 106, 167, 419, 477
Sapid-Jamagan (“the White-
clad”), 318. See -Mubay-
yida.
Sara, Saraw (in Azarbayjan),
325
Sarakhs, 35, 244
Sargon, 21
Abu Sarh, 216
Sari -Raffa (poet), 306-307.
Sarv (or Surv), 115
-Sarvi (or -Sarwi), Abu'l-'Ala—
(poet), 476
Sasan, 117, 118, 122, 137, 139-
142, 268
Sasanian Dynasty, 4-7, 9-12,
14-18, 31, 36, 37, 39, 57-58,
61, 67, 70-71, 78, 79, 89, 91,
93, 96, 97, 103, 104, 108, 111,
117-122, 127-184, 212, 229,
255, 259, 262, 305, 364, 388,
392, 419, 480
Satagydæ, 94
Satih (soothsayer), 173-174
Saturn (planet), 458, 461
Savary de Brèves, 41
Sawa, Lake of —, 173-174;
— Town, 244
Sawad, 196. See Chaldæa
Sawad b. 'Amr, 192
Saxons, 5
Sayce, Professor —, 64
Sayf b. Dhu Yazan, 178-181,
262
Sayfu'd-Dawla, 370-372, 446
Saysaniyya (Bih-afaridh's
followers so called), 310
-Sayyid-Himyari, 276
Sayyidu't-Ta'ifa (Junayd so
called), 427
Sayyids, 101
Schefer, 85, 86, 169, 171, 312,
313, 353, 374, 400, 456, 478
Schmidt, C. —, 160
Schmölders, 212
Scholastic Philosophy, 381,
382, 386, 422
Schultz, 63
Sciences, Classification of —,
379-383
Scorpion, Tresses compared
to —, 461
Scot, Michael —, 40
Scotch and English, 33
Script and creed associated
in East, 8-9
Sebeos, 168
“Sect of the Seven,” 130, 229,
296, 352, 391-415. See also
Carmathians, Ghulat, Is-
ma'ilis,Fatimid Caliphs, &c.
“Sect of the Twelve,” 130,
229, 246, 283, 296, 392, 393,
413, 429 See Shi'ites.
Sects of Islam, 279. See also
Ibn Hazm, -Shahristani
Seleucidæ, 480
Seligmann, 12, 450, 478
Selim I (Ottoman Sultan), 209
Seljuqi Dynasty, 6, 312, 348,
449, 451, 464, 474
Semitic influences on Per-
sians, 36, 37
Sennacharib, 20
Ibn Serapion, 367
Serpent, World compared to
—, 467
Seth, 162
Seven, The Number —, 146,
310, 408-412
Severus, Bishop —, 399
Shabdiz (horse of Khusraw
Parwiz), 17, 18
Shabib b. Dah (one of Abu
Muslim's da'is), 310
Shabib b. Yazid-Shaybani, 232
Shabistari, Mahmud—(author
of the Gulshan-i-Raz), 444
Shaburqan (book of Manes
composed for Shapur), 154,
156, 158, 163, 165
-Shafi'i, -Imam —, 277, 295, 386
Shafi'ite school, 294-295
Shahan-shah, Title of —, 66,
71, 75, 76
*Shahid of Balkh (Persian
poet), 453, 454, 455
Shah-i-Zanan, 131. See
Shahrbanu.
*Shahnama (“Book of
Kings”) of Firdawsi, 15, 69,
79, 88, 108, 110-123, 136-
138, 140-142, 144-145, 147-
150, 151, 166, 169, 372, 460,
464; Arabic translation of
— by -Bundari, 43, 115, 464;
of Daqiqi, 372, 460, 473;
other Persian versions of
—, 123; — of Gushtasp
(= Yatkar-i-Zariran, q.v.),
108. See also Khuday-nama
Shah-Parand (grand-daughter
of Yazdigird III), 317-318
-Shahrazuri (biographer of
Philosophers), 293
Shahr-banu, Bibi — (daughter
of Yazdigird III, said to
have been married to -Hu-
sayn b. 'Ali, the Third
Imam, and therefore called
“Mother of Nine Imans”),
130-133
Shahr-baraz (usurper), 129,
174, 182
Shahr-gir, 147, 150
*Shahristani (author of the
Kitabu'l-Milalwa'n-Nihal),
155, 169, 220, 221, 279, 289,
296, 310-311, 312, 313, 314,
322, 323, 328, 396, 420
Shahriyar (father of Yazdi-
gird III), 195
Shakespear, 13, 82
Shakir (da'i of -Hallaj, q.v.),
431
Ibn Shakir, 331
Abu Shala'la, 397
Shamanists, 163
Shamsa (in Pahlawi), 58
Shams-i-Qays (Persian writer
on Prosody and Rhyme),
473
Shams-i-Tabriz (Persian mys-
tic and poet), 167, 420, 440
Shamsu'd - Din - Andakhudi
(author of an Anthology of
“post-classical” Arabic
poets), 448
Shamsu'd-Din Iltatmish, 450
Shamsu'l-Ma'ali. See Qabus
b. Washmgir
Shanbadh (= Sabbath), 160
Shapur (place in Fars), 123,151
Shapur I, 10, 93, 103, 138, 150-
159, 266
Shapur II, 75, 96, 97, 101
Shaqiq of Balkh (mystic), 299
-Sha'rani (da'i of -Hallaj,
q.v.), 435
Shargh (or Jargh ? = Chakhra
of Vendidad), 35
*Sharif-i-Mujallidi (Persian
poet), 15, 16
Ibn Sharwin (Prince of Taba-
ristan), 329
Shathil (Seth), 162
-Shaybani, 'Ali b. Harun —
(Samanid poet), 365
-Shaykhu'l-Yunani, Plotinus
so called by the Muslims,
420
Shea, 54
Sheba, Queen of —, 385. See
Bilqis.
Sheil, Lady —, 312
Shekina, 128
Shem, 114, 116, 409
-Shibli (Sufi), 298, 367, 433, 434
Shibl b. -Munaqqa-Azdi, 325
Shid (= Khshaeta), 113
Shihabu'd-Din Suhrawardi,
423
Shi'ites, 98, 100, 101, 130, 131,
203, 214, 220, 226-229, 231,
232, 236, 238-240, 243, 246-
247, 252, 276, 278, 279-280,
283-285, 292, 295-296, 310-
311, 314, 315, 328, 342-343,
345, 348, 349, 350, 352, 358,
360, 362-363, 364, 367, 375,
386, 391-415 passim, 429, 430,
437. See also Carmathians,
Fatimid Caliphs, Ghulat,
Isma'ilis, “Sect of the Seven,”
“Sect of the Twelve”
Shikand-gumanik-vijar (Pah-
lawi book), 106, 157
Shimr, 225, 226, 228, 230
Shi'r (Poetry), Etymology of
the word, 451
Shiraz, 19, 70, 85, 364, 437
Shirin (mistress of Khusraw
Parwiz), 17
Shirin (Sirin), one of the
captives of Jalula and his
sons, 204, 263
Shiru'è, 56, 113, 174, 181
*Abu Shu'ayb Salih b. Mu-
hammad of Herat (Persian
poet), 454
*Abu Shukur of Balkh (Per-
sian poet), 466-467
Shurat (“Sellers” of their
lives), 221. See Kharijites
Shushtar, 434
Shu'ubiyya, 265-269, 277 278,
336, 345, 357
Sibawayhi (grammarian),
261, 276-278
Si-bokht, 146
Siddhanta (=Sindhind), 160
-Siddiq (name of a class of
Manichæans and origin of
name Zindiq, q.v.), 160, 165
Sidra Rabba (book of Man-
dæans), 302
Sifatiyya (sect), 279
Siffin, Battle of —, 218-219,
221
Sifru'l-Asfar (Manichæan
book), 156
Sifru'l-Jababira (Manichæan
book), 156
Signacula oris, manuum et
sinus, 165
Sikandar- (or Iskandar-)
Nama of Nidhami of
Ganja, 119
Ibnu's- Sikkit (grammarian
and Shi'ite), 343, 345
Silhin (fortress in -Yaman),
175
-Simari (disciple of -Hallaj),
431-432
Simjur, 466
Simplicius (Neo-Platonist),421
Simurgh (mythical bird), 121
Ibn Sina, 40. See Avicenna
Sinan, Abu Sa'id — -Harrani,
304
Sinan b. Thabit b. Qurra, 367
Sinbadh the Magian, 311, 313,
314, 323
Sind (= Hind), 34, 347
Sindhind (=Siddhanta), 160
Sinimmar (Sinnimar), 175
Sipand (=Rue, q.v.), 452
Sipihri (Persian poet), 468
Siqadanj (near Merv), 242
-Sirafi (grammarian), 372
-Sirat, Bridge of —, 107
Sirawand (near Nishapur), 308
Sirri -Saqati (Sufi), 424
Si-ruza (Zoroastrian), 48, 101
Sistan (Sagistan, Sajistan), 87,
109, 116, 117, 123, 205, 317,
346, 347, 350, 359, 448.
Siwand (dialect of —), 26-27,
87
Siyamak, 112
Siyaq (form of cypher), 67
*Siyasat-nama (“Treatise on
Government”) of the Nidh-
amu'l-Mulk, 169, 171-172,
312, 313, 323, 324, 328, 349,
353, 401, 456
Skudra, 94
de Slane, Baron McGuckin—,
208, 320. See Ibn Khallikan
Slavery, 186
Smerdes (= Bardiya), 31, 32
Social Code of Zoroastrians,
108
Socialism, 170
Socin, 83
Solomon, 112-114, 385
Sol-takin, 263
“Sons of Tenderness,” 164;
“— of Knowledge,” 164;
“— of Understanding,”
164-165; “— of the Un-
seen,” 165; “— of Intelli-
gence,” 165. See also Mani-
chæans, who are divided
into these five grades
“Sons of the Nobles”
(Banu'l-Ahrar), Persian
Settlers in -Yaman so
named, 181
Sophists, 382
Spain, 9, 215, 245, 251, 266,
279, 294, 340, 381
“dog”), 26
Span (Avestic word for
“dog”), 26
Spada, 64, 94
Spencer, Mr. —, 47, 50
Spendedat (Isfandiyadh, Is-
fandiyar), 116
Spiegel, 33, 36, 62, 63, 66, 68,
91, 116, 155, 161, 162
Spitta, 290, 291
Sprenger, 188, 452
Ssufismus (by Tholuck), 362
Stakhar Papakano(= Istakhr),
97, 118, 139
Stanley Lane-Poole, 214, 254.
See also Lane-Poole
Steiner, 279, 281, 282, 288, 289,
293
Steinschneider, 368
Stolze, 64, 153
Stot-yasht, 97
Strabo, 5
Stylite, Joshua the —, 134
Subject Races, 235 237, 241,
247. See also Mawali,
Racial Feeling
“Sub-Parthian,” coins, 80
“Subsequent” (in Isma'ili
System), 414
Suf (“wool”), 297
Sufi System, Brief outline of
—, 438-444
Sufis, 167-168, 282, 293, 296-
301, 352, 361-363, 367, 373,
386, 416-444
Sufis, History of —, by Abu
Sa'id-Naqqash, 436
Sufyan-Thawri (Sufi), 417,
418, 424-426, 434
Abu Sufyan, 215, 261
Sughd, 35, 94, 164, 268, 322,
331, 333
Suhrab (Rustam's son), 116
Suhrak, 325
Suhuf (of Abraham), 113
Sujud (position in Prayer),
412
Ibn Sukkara, 348
-Sukkari (philologist), 357
-Sukkari, Abu'l-Fadl—(poet),
476
-Sulafa (one of the names
given to Shahr-banu, q.v.),
131
Sulayman Mountains, 372
Sulayman. See Solomon
Sulayman (Umayyad Caliph),
215
Sulayman b. 'Ali (uncle of
-Saffah, the first 'Abbasid
Caliph), 254
Abu Sulayman Muhammad
b. Nasr -Busti -Muqaddasi
(one of the Ikhwanu's-Safa,
q.v.), 293
-Suli, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim—
(poet), 263, 310
-Suli (historian), 367, 430, 435
Sumerian, 23
Sunnis 224, 276-277, 280,
284, 286, 290, 294-295, 298,
311, 343, 348, 351, 423, 429,
430, 437
Surat, 44, 46-48, 206
Surkh'alam (“Red-Stan-
dards”), 323. See-Muham-
mira, Red as a Badge
Surrạ-man-ra'a (=Samarra),
329, 336, 342
Sus (place), 430, 434
Sus (in Isma'ili System), 409,
413
Susa, Susiana, 19, 64, 94
Syncellus, 21
Syria, 128, 218, 223, 224, 236,
238, 243, 251, 263, 272, 276,
278, 283, 298, 305, 358, 388,
396, 398, 400, 402, 410, 445,
448
Syriac, 14, 21, 41, 42, 73, 78, 89,
117, 118, 127, 134, 135, 160,
163, 165, 304
Syrian Desert, 173
Syrian heathens, 395. See
Harran, Sabæans
Syrians, 4, 8, 103, 134, 266,
305, 345, 373, 396; —as par-
tisans of Umayyads, 217,
218, 221, 238
Swinton, Dr. —, 50
Ta'abbata Sharran (heathen
Arab poet), 191-193
Tabaqatu'l-Kabir (of Ibn
Sa'd), 278
Tabaqatu'sh-Shu'ara (Bio-
graphies of Poets), 278, 345,
358, 447, 449
*-Tabari (the historian), 10,
14, 110, 114, 121, 138, 152,
158, 169, 175, 183, 233, 258,
270, 284, 285, 290, 307, 314,
315, 316, 317, 318, 321, 323,
327, 328, 329, 336, 343, 360-
361, 386, 428, 429, 455, 477,
478; Persian translation of
—'s History, 11, 110, 356,
369, 455, 477-478; —'s Com-
mentary on the Qur'an, 478
Tabaristan, 8, 10, 103, 200, 207,
314, 330, 334, 347, 348, 359,
371, 392, 446, 453, 466, 469,
470. See also Gilan, Mazan-
daran.
Tabi'un. See Followers
Tableau littéraire du Khor-
assan …, 365
Tabriz, 86, 98, 325
-Tabrizi (commentator of
-Hamasa), 278
Tadhkíratu'l-Awliya (of
'Attar), 362
Tadhkiras (Memoirs) of Per-
sian poets, 449
-Taff, 131
Taghazghaz, 164
Tahirid Dynasty, 6, 12, 278,
341, 346-347, 355, 450, 452,
453
Tahir “Dhu'l Yaminayn”
(founder of Tahirid
Dynasty), 346
Tahir (grandson of 'Amr b.
Layth the Saffarid), 359
Tahir, Baba —, 26. See Baba
Tahir
Abu Tahir -Jannabi, 402, 403.
See -Jannabi
Abu Tahir -Khatuni, 12, 449,
464
Ibn Abi Tahir, 246
Tahmurath (legendary Per-
sian king), 80, 112, 115
Takht-i-Jamshid, 113. See
Persepolis
Takht-i-Sulayman, 113
Talaqan, 244, 397, 428
Talha, 217, 261, 388
-Ta'i ('Abbasid Caliph) 371
Tali (“the Subsequent” in the
Isma'ili system), 414
Tajaribu'l-Umam (of Ibn
Miskawayh), 361
Abu Talib, 193, 214
Ta'lim (“Teaching” in
Isma'ili system), 408
Ta'limi,407. See Carmathians,
Isma'ilis, Sect of the Seven
Tahish (dialect), 27, 86
Talmud, 256
Tamerlane (Timur-i-lang, i.e.,
Lame Timur), 86, 122, 423
Tamil character, 103
Tamim (tribe of —), 221
Tamim b. Mu'izz (Fatimid
poet), 373
Abu Tammam (poet), 265, 278,
330, 336
Tanasukh-i-arwah (Transmi-
gration of Souls), 279, 287,
311, 320, 327, 328. See also
Metempsychosis, Return,
Rij'at, Re-incarnation
Ta'rikh-i-Bayhaqi, 331
Ta'rikh-i-Guzida, 157
Tariqat (“the Path” of the
Sufis), 441
Tartar (Tatar more correctly),
197. See Mongol
Tarun, 266
Tasawwuf. See Sufiism
Tashbih. See Anthropomor-
phism
Tasnifs (Ballads), 17
de Tassy Garcin —, 444
Tauler, 297, 421
Tavernier, 42
Tawhid (Sufi), 439
Ta'wil (Allegorical Interpre-
tation of Isma'ilis), 159, 285,
393, 394, 414
Tawm (Angel), 158
Tawrat. See Pentateuch
Taylasan, 335, 343
Tayy, Tribe of —, 265
Ta'ziyas, 131, 132, 227
Teispes, 92. See Chaishpish
Ten, Number —, 412
Tennyson, Lord Alfred —, 210
Teresh, 20
Texeira, 42
*-Tha'alibi, 14, 255, 317, 354,
358, 365-366, 368, 374, 445,
450, 470, 474
Thabit, Abu'l-Hasan —,
(grandson of Thabit b.
Qurra), 304
Thabit b. Qurra, 304, 306, 358,
367
Thamud (tribe), 430
Thatagush (Satagydæ), 94
Thawr, Cave of —, 330
Theodore Abucara, 282
Theodosius, Bishop —, 351
Theophanes, 169, 172
Theophilus, 329
Theresa, Santa —, 299, 421
Thevenot, 42
Thibet, 159
Ibn Abi Thiyab, Abu Muham-
mad —, 365
Tholuck, 362, 444
Thomas (Pahlawi numis-
matologist), 151, 152
Thousand and One Nights
(“Arabian Nights”), 254,
277
Thrætaona (Traitana, Feri-
dun), 115
Thucydides, 94
Thumb, 64
Tiglath Pileser, 20
Tigrakhuda, 94
Tigris, 173, 184, 197, 199, 336,
343, 429, 432, 434
Tihran, 19, 26, 35, 115, 131
Timotheus the Persian, 172
Timur-i-lang. See Tamerlane
-Tirmidhi (traditionist), 351
Toledo, 40
Tornberg, 360
Traditions, 12. See Hadith.
Transoxiana, 163, 247, 252,
314, 315, 321, 322, 335, 340,
365, 376, 434
Trinity, how understood by
Sufis, 443
Troyer, 54
Trumpp, 300
Truthfulness of Persians, 167
Tubba's (Kings of -Yaman),
174
Tuj, 128. See also Tur
Tukharistan, 244, 347
Tur (son of Feridun), 115, 116.
See also Tuj
Turanian, 23, 24, 25, 74, 79,
116, 121
Turkey, 227, 437
Turkish guards, slaves, and
vassals, 6, 291, 339, 342, 345,
372, 460
Turkish influence on Islam,
251, 254-255, 263, 292, 294,
318, 322, 342, 351, 364, 368,
375-376, 424, 454
Turkish language, 41, 42, 90,
379; — written in Arme-
nian and Greek character,
8, 9
Turkish peoples, Persian
literature produced by —,
3; antipathy between —
and Persians, 116, 128, 266,
334-335
Turkistan, 434
Tus (town in Khurasan), 123;
— identified with Urva of
the Avesta, 35
Twelve Gospels (Manichæan),
156
Twelve, The Number —, 408,
414
Tychsen, 57, 58, 60, 61, 71
Typal Love, 442
Typography, Oriental —, 41
'Ubayd-i-Zakani. (Persian
satirical poet), 389
Abu 'Ubayda -Jarrah, 297
Abu' 'Ubayda Ma'mar b.
-Muthanna (Iranophile
scholar), 269, 277
'Ubaydu'llah the [Fatimid]
Mahdi, 359, 409
'Ubaydu'llah b. Jibril b.
Bokht-Yishu' (physician),
367
'Ubaydu'llah b. 'Umar, 215
'Ujayf, 334
'Ulama-i-Islam (Zoroastrian
work), 109
Ultra-Shi'ites. See Ghulat
'Ulumu'l-Awwalin (“Sciences
of the Ancients”), 414
'Uman, 201, 359
'Umar b. -Khattab (Orthodox
Caliph), 51, 130, 133, 174, 194,
195, 196, 199, 202, 203, 205,
210, 213, 214, 215, 229, 235,
261, 297, 343, 349, 391, 437,
450
'Umar b. 'Abdu'l-Aziz (Umay-
yad Caliph), 215, 219, 234-
236
*'Umara, Abu Mansur — of
Merv (Persian poet), 467
'Umayr (officer of 'Abdu'l-
Malik), 238
Umayya, 214
Umayyad Caliphs, 103, 163,
208, 209-247, 251, 263, 265,
266, 273, 274, 279, 281, 283,
313; — of Spain, 215, 245,
251, 398
Umm Kulthum, 214
Unity (Wahid = 19 in Babi
system), 98
Universal Reason, Universal
Soul, 408, 409
'Unsuri (Persian poet), 389,
456, 474
Uqba, 216
Ibn 'Uqba (biographer of
Prophet), 275
'Urfa, 134
Urva (of Vendidad identified
with Tus), 35
Ushhanj, 112. See Hushang
Ushmunayn, Bishopric of —,
399
Ustadhsis (heresiarch), 247,
317
Usrushna, 252, 331, 333
Utamish, 342
Utanj Rayhani (or Zanjani),
dialect poet, 86
-'Utbi (historian of Ghaznawi
Dynasty), 456, 457, 460, 463
'Uthman (Orthodox Caliph),
194, 195, 210, 212-218, 220,
222, 258, 261, 262, 349, 391
'Uthman b. Nahik, 316
Abu 'Uthman Sa'id b.
Humayd b. Bakhtagan
(Shu'ubi writer), 268
-Utrush, Sayyid — of Tabaris-
tan, 359, 475
'Uyunu'l - Akhbar (of Ibn
Qutayba), 15, 277
Vach- (root), 27
Vaekereta (of Vendidad, iden-
tified with Kabul), 35
Valerian (Emperor), 151
Van, 63
Vanishun (dialect of —), 27
*Van Vloten, 212, 230, 232,
233, 235, 239-243, 245, 246,
267, 318, 351, 372, 378
Varena, The “Four-cornered”
—, 26, 35, 114
Vatican (Library), 450
Vaughan's Hours with the
Mystics, 421, 424, 444
Vedanta philosophy, 300, 301,
419
Vedas, 34, 69, 301
Vedic period, 28
Vegetarianism amongst
ancient Persians, 115
Vehrkana (Hyrcania, Gurgan),
26, 35
“Veiled Prophet of Khura-
san,” 247, 318-323. See
-Muqanna'.
Vendidad, 25, 26, 28, 34, 44,
45, 47, 48, 97-99, 141, 169
Venus (Anahita, Nahid), 95,
461, 467
Verse-forms of Persians and
Arabs, 471-474
Verse-translations fromArabic
into Persian and vice versâ,
463-465, 467
Vicar of Bray, 280
Vienna (Library), 383, 450,
478
Villon Society, 444
Virtues of the Turks, Treatise
by -Jahidh on —, 351
Vishtaspa (= Gushtasp, Hystas-
pes, q.v.), 28, 61, 62, 92-95,
116, 142
Vispered, 48, 99
Vivanha, Vivanjhan, 114
Viyakhna (month), 31
Vizier. See Wazir.
Vohu-mano, 97, 117. See also
Bahman
Vologeses (Balash), 96, 97
Vullers, 460, 468
Ibn Wadih, 150. See -Ya'qubi.
Wahb b. Munabbih, 273
Wahhabi sect, 221
Wahid (Babi “Unity” of 19),
98
Wahriz (Persian general), 152,
180, 181
Ibnu'l- Wahshiyya, 357
Wales, 446
-Walid (Umayyad Caliph),
163, 215, 231, 317
Walid b. 'Uqba, 216, 218
-Walwalaji, Abu 'Abdi'llah
Muhammad b. Salih —
(Persian poet), 467
Wamiq and 'Adhra, Romance
of —, 12, 347
Waqid b. 'Amr-Tamimi, 324-
325
-Waqidi (historian), 261, 277,
278, 284, 345
“War of the Methods” (Philo-
logical and Traditional), 68
Warzanin, 350
Washmgir, 365
Wasif (Turkish officer), 342
Wasil b 'Ata-Ghazzal (founder
of Mu'tazilite sect), 281
-Wasit (town), 302, 349, 433,
434
-Wathiq ('Abbasid Caliph),
251, 254, 284, 285, 290, 336
Wayak (in Haji-abad inscrip-
tion), 153
Wazir, Office of —, 255-257
Weil, Dr. Gustav —, 211, 272
Wessex, 5
West, Dr. E. W. —, 57, 59, 68,
70, 81, 98, 103-106, 109, 151,
159, 169
Westergaard, 43, 64, 68
Wheelock, Abraham —, 19, 41
Whinfield, 282, 441, 444
White as a colour-badge, 311,
312. See Mubayyida, Sapid-
Jamagan
Wickham (place), 48, 49
“Widow,” “Son of the—” (in
Manichæan System), 162
William the Conqueror, 118
Wind, Selling the —, 366
Windischmann, 68
Wine-drinking, 459-460
Wine, Poetical description of
—, 462
“Wise Child” (Kudak-i-dana),
328
Wives, Community of —. See
Mazdak
Wizards, 366
Wolfe Tone (Irish patriot),
346
Wool typifying renunciation,
297, 417, 430. See Pashmina-
push, Sufi
World compared to snake,
467
“World-wise” (Hakimatu'd-
Dahr in Manichæan sys-
tem), 162
Worm of Kirman, 138, 145-
150
Wright, Dr. W. —, 134, 169,
191, 221, 375
Writing, Art of —amongst
ancient Arabs, 261; —
amongst ancient Persians,
9; — highly valued by
Manichæans, 165; cf. 431
Wüstenfeld, 169, 272, 273, 321,
387
Xenophon, 91
Xerxes, 56, 61, 79, 92, 113
-Yafi'i, 424
Yahya-Barmaki (“the Barme-
cide”), 259, 277
Yahya b. Bitriq, 277
Yahya b. Ma'adh of Ray
(mystic), 323, 418
Yahya b. Masawayh, 345
Yahya b. Zayd (great-grand-
son of -Husayn), 322
Abu Yahya Tahir b. -Fadl
-Saghani (Chaghani), Amir
—, 467
Yaksum (Abyssinian King),
178
Yama (in Hindu mythology),
56, 80, 113
-Yaman (-Yemen), 152, 173-
176, 178, 180, 181, 183, 192,
201, 244, 262, 263, 358, 382,
388, 402, 405
Yaminu'd -Dawla. See Mah-
mud of Ghazna
Yaminu'd - Din Faryumadi
(Persian poet), 437
Ya'qub b. Layth -Saffari, 13,
346-348, 349, 352-354, 473
Ya'qub (grandson of 'Amr b.
Layth -Saffari), 359
*-Ya'qubi (historian), 110,
131, 150-151, 155-157, 158,
169, 229, 230, 231, 239, 241,
244, 246, 307, 314, 317, 318,
321, 323, 357-358
Yaqut (geographer), 14, 15,
321
Yasar (Persian captive), 263,
266
Yashts, 97, 100
Yasna, 44, 48, 63, 67, 68, 99
104
Yathrib (ancient name of
-Madina, q.v.), 132
*Yatimatu'd-Dahr (of-Tha'-
alibi), 365-366, 368, 374, 375,
445-447, 450, 453, 465-466,
470, 474, 475, 476
Yatkar-i-Zariran (Pahlawi
romance), 9, 108, 121, 138
Yazd, 26, 27, 83, 86, 109, 343
Yazdan-Gushnasp, 129
Yazdigird I, 135, 166
Yazdigird III, 6, 120, 122, 130-
132, 168, 174, 182, 195, 200,
229, 317
Yazid I (Umayyad Caliph),
215, 224-226, 228, 230
Yazid II (Umayyad Caliph),
215, 283
Yazid III (Umayyad Caliph),
215, 318
Yazid b. -Muhallab (general),
263
Yazidi sect (“Devil-worship-
pers”), 304
“Year of the Ass,” 241
“Year of the Elephant,” 173,
174
Yeats (Irish poet), 447
Yellow garments prescribed
for unbelievers, 343. See
also 'Asal-i dukhta
Yima (=Yama, Jamshid,
q.v.), 56, 80, 113
Yishu'-bokht, 145
Yudan - Yim (Zoroastrian
priest), 105
Yuhanna b. Masawayhi
(translator), 305
Yusuf-Barm (heresiarch), 247,
318
Yusuf b. 'Umar (Governor of
'Iraq), 233
*Yusuf u Zulaykha (of Jami),
439, 442, 444
Abu Yusuf, 349
Abu Yusuf Ya'qub-Ansari
(Hanafite doctor), 276
Abu Yusuf Ya'qub b. Ishaq
-Kindi, 356. See -Kindi
Abu Yusuf-Qati'i, 302
Zab (river), 245, 247
Ibn Zabala (historian of
-Madina), 277
Zabulistan, 116
Zadan, son of Farrukh
(Persian accountant), 205
Zagros Mountains, 19
-Zahi (poet), 370
Zahir (Dhahir) of Faryab
(Persian poet), 389
Zahiri (or Zahirite) school,
357. See also Dhahiri
Zahra (“the Bright,” i.e.,
Fatima, q.v.), 131, 132
Ibn Abi Zakariyya (heretic),
359, 367
Zal (father of Rustam), 116,
121
Zamakhshari (commentator),
269, 289, 292
Zamzama (“mumbling” of
Magians), 309, 310
Zandakih, 159. See also
Zindiq, Manichæans
Zandaniji (or Zand-pichi),
468
Zanj Rebellion, 349-350, 356,
401
Zanjan (town), 325, 378
- Zanjani (-Zinjani), Abu'l-
Hasan 'Ali b. Harun —
(one of the Ikhwanu 's-
Safa, q.v.), 293
Zaradusht. See Zoroaster
Zaradushtakan, Sect of —,
169. See Mazdak
Zaratusht. See Zoroaster
Zaratusht-Khurragan (master
of Mazdak, q.v.), 169, 170
Zaratusht-nama, 43, 109
Zarawa (old Persian book),
336
Zargun (near Persepolis), 70
Zariadras, Romance of —,
121
Zarir, Romance of —, 9,
108, 121, 138
Zarwan Akarana (“Bound-
less Time”), 414
Zawzan, 308
- Zawzani, Abu 'Ali — (Sama-
nid poet), 365
- Zawzani, Abu Muhammad
'Abdu'l-Kafi — (author of
Hamasatu 'dh - Dhurafa),
454
Zayd-'Alawi, 315
Zayd b. Rifa'a (one of the
Ikhwanu 's-Safa), 293
Abu Zayd (Governor of
'Uman), 201
Abu Zayd - Balkhi (geo-
grapher), 372
Zaydan (or Dandan), 407
Zaydi sect (of Shi'ites), 392
Zaynu'l 'A'bidin (fourth Imam
of the Shi'ites), 229, 239,
409
Zaynatu'z Zaman (Biography
of poets by -Andakhudi),
448
Ibnu'z -Zayyat, 164, 253, 331-
333, 351
Zefre (dialect of —), 27
Zend, 22-25, 43-44, 56, 58,
78, 79, 81. See Avesta,
Avestic
Zhukovski, Valentin —, 27,
83, 416
Zikrawayhi (Carmathian
leader), 358, 359, 402
Zindiq (pl. Zanadiqa), 155,
159, 303, 307, 422, 436;
Meaning and etymology
of the term —, 159. See
also Manichæans
Ziyad b. Jariya-Tamimi, 272
Ziyad b. Labid, 215
Ibn Ziyad, 'Ubaydu'llah —,
225, 226, 228, 230
Ibn Ziyad, father of Ja'far,
307
Ziyarid Dynasty, 359, 360,
364-365, 367, 371, 376, 446,
453, 466, 469, 471
Zohak, Zuhak, Zahhak. See
Dahak
Zopyrus, 121
Zoroaster, 4, 25, 28-31, 34, 49-
54, 56, 58, 88, 95, 96, 102,
116, 118, 120, 123, 127, 154,
159, 162, 163, 173, 200, 201,
206, 246, 247, 263, 309, 310,
315, 334; — identífied with
Abraham, 113; name of —
changed to Muhammad on
conversion to Islam, 263
Zoroastrian Literature, 7, 8,
43, 44, 46, 118
Zoroastrian Priests, 135, 166,
169, 202, 206
Zoroastrian Religion, 6, 9, 23,
24, 30, 34, 36, 42, 45-47,
127, 161, 165, 167, 170, 171,
202, 203, 206, 301, 414, 459-
460
Zoroastrians, 200-202, 206-
207, 232, 303, 343, 352, 375,
448, 459. See also Guebres
Magians
Zoroastrian sympathies im-
puted to Barmecides, 259
Zotenberg, H. —, 369, 455, 478,
479
-Zubayr, 217, 388
Ibn-Zubayr, 228-231
Zubur. See Psalms of David
-Zuhri (theologian), 263, 272,
273
Zuwarishn, 7, 73. See
Huzvaresh
Írán, Êrân, Airân, the Airiyana of the Avesta, is the land of the Aryans (Ariya, Airiya of the Avesta, Sanskrit Árya), and had therefore a wider signification than the term Persia, which is equivalent to Írán in the modern sense, has now. Bactria (Balkh), Sogdiana (Sughd), and Khwárazm were Íránian lands, and the Afghans and Kurds are Íránian peoples.
↩The p-sound does not exist in Arabic, and is replaced by f. Fárs, Isfahán, &c., are simply the arabicised forms of Párs, Ispahán. The adjective Fársí (or Pársi) denotes the official language of Persia (which is at the same time the mother-tongue of the great majority of its inhabitants, and the national language in as full a sense as English is the national language of Great Britain and Ireland), and in this application is equivalent to Írání. As applied to a man, however, Fársí means a native of the province of Fárs. In India Pársí (Parsee) means of the Persian (i.e., the ancient Persian, or Zoroastrian) religion, and the term has been re-imported in this sense into Persia. To call the province of Fárs “Fársistán,” as is sometimes done by European writers, is quite incorrect, for the termination -istán (“place of,” “land of”) is added to the name of a people to denote the country which they inhabit (e.g., Afghánistán, Balúchistán), but not to the name of a country or province.
↩Strabo, xv, 724.
↩Notably by the Battle of Dhú Qár in the reign of Khusraw Parwíz (A.D. 604-610).
↩Darmesteter, Études Iraniennes, vol. i, p. 7.
↩The best editions of these inscriptions are those of Kossowicz (St. Petersburg, 1872) and Spiegel (Leipsic, 1862). In the former the texts are given both in the cuneiform and in the Roman character and the translation in Latin. In the latter the texts are transliterated and the translation is in German.
↩West, “On the Extent, Language, and Age of Pahlawi Literature,” p. 402; also the excellent account of Pahlawi Literature by the same writer in Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, vol. ii, pp. 75-129. West divides the Pahlawí literature into translations of Avesta texts (141,000 words), texts on religious subjects (446,000 words), and texts on non-religious subjects (41,000 words): total, about 628,000 words.
↩West places the compilation of the Dînkart, Bundahish, and Arda Virâf Nâmak in the ninth century of our era (loc. cit., pp. 433, 436, 437), and regards it as “unlikely that any of the commentators quoted in the Pahlawí translations of the Avesta could have written later than the sixth century.” The compilation of the Bahman Yasht, however, is placed by Professor Darmesteter as late as A.D. 1099-1350 (Études Iraniennes, vol. ii, p. 69). The interesting Gujastak Abálish (edited and translated by A. Barthélemy, Paris, 1887) describes a controversy between a Zoroastrian priest and the heretic Abálish held in the presence of the Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833), and therefore obviously cannot have been composed earlier than the ninth century.
↩It is even said that a debased Arabic script is still used by the peasants inhabiting the valleys of the Alpuxarras mountains in their love-letters.
↩Translated into German by Professor Nöldeke of Strassburg, and published in vol. iv of the Beiträge zur Kunde des Indogermanischen Sprachen on the occasion of Professor Benfey's attainment of the fiftieth year of his Doctorate, as well as in the form of the tirage à part (Göttingen, 1879) here cited (pp. 38-9, and n. 3 on former). The Pahlawí text in the original and in the Roman characters, with Gujarátí translation, edited by Kaikobâd Âdarbâd Nosherwân, was published at Bombay in 1896.
↩The others are the Book of Zarír and the Story of Khusraw Kawádhán and his Page. The former has been translated by Geiger in the Sitzungs-berichte d. philos.-philolog. u. histor. Class, 1890, and reviewed by Nöldeke in vol. xlvi (1892) of the Zeitschrift d. D. Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, pp. 136-145. See also Nöldeke's Persische Studien, II, in vol. cxxvi of the Sitzungsber. d. K. Akad. in Wien, philos.-histor. Class. pp. 1-12.
↩See the excellent article on Ṭabarí (Abú Ja'far Muḥammad b. Jarír of Ámul in Ṭabaristán, b. A.D. 839, d. A.D. 923) in the ninth edition of the Encyclopœdia Britannica. The publication of the text of this immense and most precious chronicle by Professor de Goeje of Leyden and other distinguished Arabic scholars is one of the greatest recent achievements of Oriental learning. A German translation of the portion of this chronicle which deals with the history of the Sásánian period, accompanied by a most valuable Introduction and copious notes and appendices, has been published by Professor Nöldeke (Leyden, 1879) under the title Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. The story here cited will be found in its entirety at p. 41 of the last-named work.
↩See my Description of an Old Persian Commentary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for July, 1894, pp. 417-524; and my Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the Cambridge University Library, pp. 13-37.
↩Dawlatsháh (ed. Browne), pp. 28-29. See also Blochmann's Prosody of the Persians, p. 2; Darmesteter's Origines de la Poésie Persane, first paragraph.
↩See A. de Biberstein Kazimirski's Divan de Menoutchehri (Paris, 1886), p. 7, and Dawlatsháh, p. 29.
↩Kazimirski, pp. 6-7. Dawlatsháh, p. 30.
↩See A. de Biberstein Kazimirski's Menoutchehri (Paris, 1886), pp. 7-8, and Dawlatsháh (ed. Browne), pp. 30-31.
↩The Lubábu'l-Albáb, a very rare book, represented, so far as is known, only by two MSS., one (Sprenger 318; No. 637 of Pertsch's Catalogue) in the Berlin Library, the other in the possession of Lord Crawford and Balcarres, whose generosity has entrusted to my hands this priceless treasure, which I propose to publish in my series of Persian historical texts. This MS. formerly belonged to John Bardoe Elliot, by whom it was lent to Nathaniel Bland, who described its contents and scope in vol. ix of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1846), pp. 111-126. See also Sprenger's Catalogue of the Libraries of the King of Oude, pp. 1-6.
↩E.g., Dr. Ethé: Rûdagî's Vorläufer und Zeitgenossen (in the Morgen-ländische Forschungen for 1873), pp. 36-38; also the article on Modern Persian Literature by the same scholar in vol. ii of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, p. 218.
↩E.g., A. de Biberstein Kazimirski, Menoutchehri, pp. 8-9.
↩Ṭabarí, vol. i, p. 146; Mas'údí, Murúju'dh-Dhahab (ed. Barbier de Meynard), vol. i, pp. 65-67; Tha'álibí, Qiṣaṣu'l-Anbiyá (ed. Cairo, A.H. 1306), pp. 29-30; Dawlatsháh (ed. Browne), p. 20.
↩Amongst Arabic writers, the earliest mention of Bahlabad which I have found is made in a poem by Khálid b. Fayyáḍ (circ. A.D. 718), cited by Hamadhání, Yáqút and Qazwíní, and translated at pp. 59-60 of the J. R. A. S. for January, 1899. Accounts, more or less detailed, are given of him by Ibn Qutayba (†A.D. 889) in his 'Uyúnu'l-akhbár (MS. of St. Petersburg Asiatic Museum, No. 691); al-Jāhidh (†A.D. 869) in his Kitábu'l-Hayawán (Cambridge MS., Qq. 224); Hamadhání (circ. A.D. 903), ed. de Goeje; the author of the Kitábu'l-Maḥásin wa'l-Aḍdad (ed. Van Vloten, pp. 363-64), probably al-Bayhaqí (circ. A.D. 925); Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi (†A.D. 940), vol. i, p. 192 or 188 of another edition; Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahání (†A.D. 957), in the Kitábu'l-Aghání; Yáqút (†A.D. 1229), vol. iii, pp. 250 et seqq.; and al-Qazwíní (†A.D. 1283), in his Átháru'l-Bilád (pp. 154-55, 230-231, 295-297). Of Persian writers who allude to him we may mention Sharíf-i-Mujallidí (date uncertain: cited by Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí-i-Samarqandí in the Chahár Maqála); Firdawsí (†circ. A.D. 415), in the Sháhnáma; Nidhámí of Ganja († circ. A.D. 1203) in his Khusraw wa Shírín, and the other Nidhámí above cited († circ. A.D. 1160); Muḥammad 'Awfí (circ. A.D. 1228); and Ḥamdu'lláh Mustawfí of Qazwín (circ. A.D. 1340) in the Táríkh-i-Guzída. I am indebted to Baron V. Rosen, of St. Petersburg, for calling my attention to several of the above references, which I had overlooked when writing the article referred to in the next note.
↩See my article in the J. R. A. S. for January, 1899 (pp. 37-69), on The Sources of Dawlatsháh; with some remarks on the Materials available for a Literary History of Persia, and an Excursus on Bárbad and Rúdagí.
↩Al-Bayhaqí's Kitábu'l-Maḥásin (ed. Van Vloten), p. 363.
↩Nidhámí of Ganja's Khusraw wa Shírín.
↩Darmesteter's Origines de la Poésie Persane (Paris, 1887), p. 2.
↩Already, however, in A.D. 1700, the celebrated Cambridge scholar and pupil of Abraham Wheelock, Dr. Hyde, who in later life became attached to the University of Oxford as Professor of Hebrew, Laudian Professor of Arabic, and Keeper of the Bodleian Library, had recognised the identity of Máh with Máda (see Vet. Pers. Relig. Hist., ed. 1760, p. 424).
↩Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, ii, 246.
↩Nöldeke, Aufsätze zur Persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887), p. 5.
↩Aufsätze zur Persisch. Gesch. (Leipzig, 1887), p. 12.
↩Darmesteter, Études Iraniennes, vol. i, pp. 12, 13. M. de Harlez (Manuel de la Langue de l'Avesta, 1882, pp. xi, and Introduction à l'étude de l'Avesta et de la religion Mazdéene, 1881, pp. xlv. et seqq.) takes the same view. “Nous croyons avoir démontré que l'Avesta doit être attribué à la Médie, que sa langue était celle des Mages. Toutefois, comme cette opinion n'est point encore universellement admise, nous préférons employer, à l'exemple des Parses, le terme ‘Avestique’ exempt certainement de tout erreur. Le mot ‘Zend’ même est préférable à ‘Vieux-Bactrien,’ parce que c'est un terme de convention dont l'emploi ne préjuge rien.”
↩Études Iraniennes, ii, p. 14; reprinted from the Revue Critique for June 21, 1880.
↩Études Iraniennes, vol. i, pp. 10-12.
↩This view is by no means universally admitted. Geiger, for instance, places the Airyâna Vaêja, or Êrân-Vêj, in the region of the Pamirs. According to his interpretation of the data contained in ch. i of the Vendidâd, the most western regions known to the Avesta are Vehrkána (Hyrcania, the modern Gurgán or Jurján), Rangha (Rhagæ, or Ray, near Tihrán, the modern capital), and Varena “the four-cornered,” corresponding, according to his view, to the eastern portion of Mázan-darán.
↩Loc. cit., p. 13.
↩Cf. my Year amongst the Persians, p. 189; Polak's Persien, vol. i, p. 265.
↩J.A. for 1885, vol. vi, pp. 502-545, les Quatrains de Bábá Ṭáhir; ibid. for 1888, vol. xi, pp. 298-302, Note sur le prétendu Dérî des Pársís des Yezd; ibid. 1889, xiv, pp. 238-270, Notice d'un manuscrit Pehlevi-Musulman; ibid. 1893, vol. i, pp. 241-265, Le Dialecte Persan de Sîwénd.
↩See my article on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfí Sect in the J.R.A.S. for January, 1898, pp. 61-94.
↩They are, in fact, commonly called Pahlawí by the Persians, and were so as early as the fourteenth century of our era—c.g., by Ḥamdu'lláh Mus-tawfí of Qazwín. Cf. Polak, loc. cit.
↩Recherches sur les Dialectes Persans, Kazan, 1853, pp. 31, et seqq.
↩Materialy dlá izuchenia Persidskikh Narêchij, part i (Dialects of Káshán, Váníshún, Qohrúd, Keshe, and Zefre), St. Petersburg, 1888.
↩Translation of the Avesta (vol. i, pp. li-lii) in the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1880).
↩See Max Müller's Selected Essays (London, 1881), vol. ii, pp. 132-134.
↩Ed. de Goeje (vol. vi of Bibl. Geog. Arab.), pp. 25, 203.
↩Erânische Alterthumskunde, vol. i, pp. 446-485, “Beginn der erânischen Selbständigkeit. Die ältesten Berührungen mit den Semiten.”
↩Or even earlier. See p. 20, supra.
↩A great deal of interesting information concerning the early Oriental-ists is contained in the Gallia Orientalis of Paul Colomès (Opera, Hamburg, 1709, pp. 1-272), and also in the excellent Esquisse Historique prefixed by Gustave Dugat to his useful Histoire des Orientalistes de l'Europe du XII au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1868), to which I am largely indebted in this portion of my subject. See also M. Jourdain's Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines d'Aristote et sur les commentaries grecs ou arabes employés par les docteurs scholastiques.
↩This is the first biography given in the Gallia Orientalis. “Gallorum primus,” says the author, “quod sciam, qui Linguas Orientales ab anno millesimo ducentesimo excoluerit, fuit Armegandus Blasii, Doctor Medicus, regnante Philippo, Ludovici cognomine Sancti filio.”
↩He died in 1581 at the age of 95 or 96. See Gallia Orientalis, pp. 59-66.
↩He died on February 18, 1702, having resigned the Librarianship of the Bodleian in April, 1701. The second edition of his Veterum Persarum … Religionis Historia, published in 1760, is that to which reference is here made.
↩The full title of this tract (for it comprises but 53 pages) is The Religion of the Persees, as it was Compiled from a Booke of theirs, con-tayning the Forme of their Worshippe, written in the Persian Character, and by them called their Zundavastaw, wherein is shewed the Superstitious Ceremonies used amongst them, more especially their Idolatrous Worshippe of Fire. The author's information was derived from a Pársí of Surat “whose long employment, in the Companies service, had brought him to a mediocrity in the English tongue.” The book contains but meagre information concerning the Zoroastrian tenets, and indicates not even an indirect knowledge of the contents of the Avesta.
↩It would appear from a remark of Sir W. Jones in the Lettre à Monsieur A … du P … hereafter cited (p. 602), that Dr. Hyde caused the “Zend” characters employed in his book to be cast for his own use. The fount is an excellent one—much more artistic than that used in the latest edition of the Avesta (Geldner's).
↩See Hyde, op. laud., p. 344 ad calc. The Emmanuel MS. now bears the class-mark 3. 2. 6., and contains the following inscription in English: “This Booke is called Ejessney, written in the language Jenwista, and containes ye Religion of ye Antient Parsyes.” A note in German on a loose sheet of paper describes it as a copy of the Yasna, not quite complete, ending ch. l. 2 (Westergaard), and lacking the last quarter; not dated; probably middle of the seventeenth century. Though not old, it is accurately written from a good MS. It agrees with the best MSS., but not entirely with any; most closely with K. 11. The orthography is very consistent, and it is important for critical purposes, being an independent codex.
↩For an example, see Haug's Essays on the Pársís, edited by West (third edition, London, 1884), p. 24.
↩He was at this time about twenty-five years of age, a Fellow of University College, and a B.A. of three years' standing. He died in 1794, at the age of forty-eight.
↩Its full title is: The Desatir or Sacred Writings of the Ancient Persian Prophets; in the Original Tongue; together with the Ancient Persian Version and Commentary of the Fifth Sasan; carefully published by Mulla Firuz bin Kaus, who has subjoined a copious Glossary of the Obsolete and Technical Persian Terms: to which is added an English Translation of the Desatir and Commentary. In two volumes. (Bombay, 1818.) Particulars concerning the unique manuscript will be found at p. vii of the Preface to the second volume. The Desátír was examined, and the futility of its pretensions exposed, by de Sacy in the Journal des Savants (pp. 16-31 and 67-79) for January-February, 1821. See also Nos. 6, 12, 13, 18, and 20 of the Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Litteratur for 1823 (vol. i), by H. E. G. Paulus; and Erskine in vol. ii. of the Transactions of the Bombay Literary Society. The most probable theory of its origin is that suggested by Stanislas Guyard on pp. 61-62 of the separate reprint of his admirable article Un Grand Mâitre des Assassins au temps de Saladin, published in the Journal Asiatique for 1877, viz., that it was the work, and contains the doctrines, of the Isma'ílís.
↩See pp. 141-142 of Rieu's Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. There are several Oriental editions of the text, and an English translation by Shea and Troyer, printed at Paris in 1843 for the Oriental Translation Fund.
↩In his Sixth Anniversary Discourse on the Persians, delivered at a meeting of the Asiatic Society, in Calcutta, on February 19, 1789 (Works, vol. i, pp. 73-94).
↩See West's third edition of Haug's Essays on the Pársís, pp. 16-53, and Darmesteter's Introduction to his translation of the Avesta in Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1880), vol. iv, pp. xiii-xxv, to both of which I have been greatly indebted in this portion of my subject.
↩Lettre à Monsieur A … du P …, p. 610: “Lorsque nous voyons les mots Arabes corrumpus … donnés pour des mots Zendes et Pehlevis, nous disons hardiment que ce charlatan [le révérend Docteur Darab] vous à trompé, et que vous avez tâché de tromper vos lecteurs.”
↩Sir W. Jones's Works, vol. i, p. 81.
↩Cited by Darmesteter in his Introduction (pp. xix-xx) to the Translation of the Vendidâd (see n. 1 on the previous page).
↩See West's account of the Sásánian Inscriptions in his article on Pahlawí Literature in Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss d. Iranischen Philologie, vol. ii, pp. 76-79; and also Haug's Essay on Pahlawí (Bombay and London, 1870), which begins with a very full account of the progress of Pahlawí studies in Europe.
↩Darmesteter (op. cit.), p. xxi. The same conception, now universally accepted (viz., that the Avestic language and Sanskrit were sister-tongues), was very clearly formulated by de Sacy in the Journal des Savants for March, 1821, p. 136.
↩The fact that the inscriptions of the first class were in the language of the Achæmenian kings—in other words, in an Old Persian language—was suggested to Grotefend by the position of honour always occupied by them in the trilingual tablets.
↩For further details and references as to the progress of the decipher ment, see Spiegel's Kurze Geschichte der Entzifferung at pp. 119-132, of the already-cited edition of his Keilinschriften; also Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, vol. ii, pp. 64-74, Geschichte d. Entzifferung und Erklärung d. Inschriften.
↩Commentaire sur le Yaçna, l'un des livres religieux des Parses: ouvrage contenant le texte zend expliqué pour la première fois, les variantes des quatre manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale et la version sanscrite inédité de Neriosengh (Paris, 1833-1835).
↩Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions cunéiformes (Paris, 1836.)
↩See Geldner's excellent article (Geschichte der Awestaforschung) in vol. ii of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, pp. 40-46, where full particulars and references concerning the study of the Avesta will be found.
↩Op. laud., p. 45.
↩I have taken the texts from Haug's Essay on Pahlawí (Stuttgart, 1870), pp. 4-5, and have followed his method of representing the obliterated letters of the Greek inscription by using small type instead of capitals. When I saw and examined the inscription in March, 1888, when on my way from the north to Shíráz, it had suffered still further defacement.
↩The words printed in italics are Huzvárish (a term which will be explained presently), and, in reading, the Persian would replace the Aramaic equivalent. Thus zaná (“that”) would be read án; Malkán-malká (King of kings”), Sháhán-sháh; min (“from”), az; bará (“son”), púr or púhar; and malká, sháh.
↩See Haug's Essay on Pahlawí, pp. 37 et seqq.; Journal Asiatique for 1835 (p. 256) and 1866 (p. 430); Fihrist, ed. Flügel, p. 14. I differ from Haug's rendering in several particulars, especially as regards the sense of mutashábihát, which he translates “[words] which have the same meaning,” whereas I take it to mean “Persian words which would be ambiguous if written in the Pahlawí character,” but of which the Huzvárish equivalents are not so ambiguous. Any one who will write nán in Pahlawí script, and then consider in how many different ways it can be read, will easily see where the “ambiguity” lies.
↩Sháhnáma, ed. Macan, vol. i, p. 18.
↩See Haug's Essay, pp. 30-31, and West's article on Pahlawí Literature in vol. ii of the Grundriss d. Iran. Philolog., p. 75.
↩A facsimile of the Pahlawí text of the Mainyo-i-Khirad has been lithographed by Andreas (Kiel, 1882); the Pázend transcription has been printed in the Roman character with the Sanskrit version and an English translation and glossary by West (Stuttgart, 1871).
↩See my Cat. of the Persian MSS. in the Cambridge University Library, pp. 69-86; and my article in the J. R. A. S. for Jan., 1898 (pp. 61-94), on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfí Sect.
↩On the influence of pre-Muhammadan systems, both political and religious, on the civilisation of al-Islám, von Kremer's writings are most suggestive, especially his little work entitled Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete des Islams.
↩ This explanation is, I believe, now challenged. Professor Cowell
used to teach that it referred to the
See Geldner in the Grundriss, vol. ii, pp. 18, 20.
↩See Mademoiselle D. Menant's Les Parsis (Paris, 1898), pp. 52-56.
↩Z.D.M.G., xxi, pp. 421-465.
↩See the Arab historians—e.g., Dínawarí (ed. Guirgass, 1888), p. 322.
↩See Haug's Essay on Pahlawí, pp. 80-82; West's article on Pahlawí Literature in the Grundriss, vol. ii, p. 79, and the references there given.
↩The full enumeration of these and the following will be found in West's article in the Grundriss already referred to.
↩A very full ??alysis of its contents is given by West, op. cit., pp. 91-98.
↩For tran??on see West's Pahlawí texts in vol. v of the Sacred Books of the East, pp. 1-151 (Oxford, 1880). For analysis of contents see West's article in the Grundriss, pp. 100-102.
↩Translated by West in vol. xxiv of the Sacred Books of the East series (Oxford, 1885), pp. 115-251; and published in Pázend by the same scholar in conjunction with the Pársí Hoshang in 1887.
↩This work is placed by Nöldeke about the year A.D. 500, and is described by him as “wohl die älteste eigentliche Heldensage, die uns in iranischer Sprache erhalten ist.”
↩The date of its composition is placed by Nöldeke about A.D. 600.
↩See Macan's ed. of the Sháhnáma, p. 18.
↩Cambridge MS. QQ. 46, a fine old fourteenth century MS. of this important compilation, concerning which see Nöldeke's Das Iranische Nationalepos, p. 77 and n. 2.
↩Arische Studien, p. 126.
↩Das Iranische Nationalepos, p. 9.
↩Ibid., p. 11 and n. 2 ad calc.
↩Ibid., p. 12, and n. 3 ad. calc.
↩Dínawarí, p. 29.
↩See Budge's Book of Alexander.
↩Ed. Haug and West, pp. 4 and 141.
↩Mas'údí's Kitábu't-Tanbíh, p. 91.
↩See the excellent edition published by de Goeje in his Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum (vol. viii, pp. 97-9, Leyden, 1893).
↩See al-Bírúní's Chronology of Ancient Nations, Sachau's translation, pp. 119 and 45; Nöldeke's Dan Iranische Nationalepos, pp. 14-15.
↩Gesch. d. Sasaniden, pp. 388 and n. 7, and 477 and n. 2 ad calc.
↩That portion of Arabia which borders on the cultivated lands of 'Iráq.
↩Other names ascribed by other writers are, besides Shahr-bánú (universal amongst the modern Persians), as-Suláfa and Sháh-i-Zanán.
↩Madína in Arabia means “the city,” and Madá'in is its plural. The ancient Yathrib, when honoured by the flight thither of the Prophet Muḥammad, was called Madínatu'n-Nabí, “the City of the Prophet,” or simply al-Madína, “the City.” By Madá'in Ctesiphon, the ancient Sásánian capital in Chaldæa, is meant. It is said by the Arabian geographers to have been so called because it was formed by the fusion and coalescence of seven cities (madá'in). See Barbier de Meynard's Dict. de la Perse, p. 519. The confusion between Ray (the ancient Rhagae, near the modern Tihrán) and Ctesiphon is merely one indication of the essentially popular and unscientific character of these ta'ziyas, which makes their testimony to the national feeling the more significant. The sentiments embodied by them are not those of pedants, but of the nation.
↩Text and translation published at Cambridge (1882) by the late Dr. W. Wright.
↩Auszüge aus Syrischen Akten Persischer Märtyrer … von Georg Hoffmann (Leipzig, 1880).
↩See Nöldeke's Gesch. d. Sasaniden, p. 74, n. 3 ad calc.
↩See al-Bírúní's Chronology of Ancient Nations, translated by Sachau (London, 1879), p. 121.
↩See the Sitzungsberichte d. K. b. Akademie d. Wiss. zu München for 1890, vol. i, pp. 43-84: Das Yâtkâr-i Zarîrân und sein Verhältniss zum Shâh-nâma by Geiger; and Nöldeke's Persische Studien, II: Das Buch von Zarêr, in the Sitzungsberichte d. phil. hist. Classe der K. Akad. d. Wissen-schaften for 1892 (Vienna), vol. cxxvi, Abhandlung 12.
↩On these three most sacred Fires, see Nöldeke's note in his translation of the Kár-námak (p. 37, n. 3 ad calc.). Kharrád in Firdawsí stands for Frobâ, Frôbag, or Farnbag.
↩Nöldeke (loc. cit., p. 26) notices this especially as one of the graphic touches whereby Firdawsí strove to give life and colour to the curt, dry narrative of the Pahlawí original.
↩Concerning the “hand-contract” see the Vendidâd, Fargard iv, v. 2 Darmesteter's English transl. in S. B. E., vol i, p. 35).
↩The tracing of the Sásánian pedigree to Gushtásp (Víshtáspa), the protector of Zoroaster, and the first “Defender of the Faith” is part of the general plan which aims at representing them as the direct and legitimate heirs of the ancient Persian kings, and the hereditary champions of “the Good Religion.”
↩Seven sons are ascribed to him also in the Kárnámak, p. 51.
↩Nöldeke's ingenious view is, however, rejected by Darmesteter (Études Iraniennes, vol. ii, pp. 82-83).
↩The 27th of the month.
↩The allusion is to the capture of the Brazen Fortress (Rú'ín Dizh), which Isfandiyár entered as a merchant. See Sháhnáma, ed. Macan, vol. iii, pp. 1143 et seqq.
↩At Naqsh-i-Rustam. See Ker-Porter, i, pl. xxiii, p. 548; Flandin, iv, pl. 182.
↩Isfandiyár, called Rú'ín-tan, “having a body of brass,” is probably intended.
↩Dahák is here meant.
↩Curzon's Persia, vol. ii, pp. 120 and 211.
↩That the practice of determining a site by shooting an arrow continued into Muhammadan times, and was used by the Arabs as well as the Persians, is shown by a passage in al-Baládhurí's Kitábu futúḥi'l-buldán (ed. de Goeje, p. 276). Compare II Kings xiii, 14-19.
↩More probably “in this place,” for Nöldeke (Stoltze's Persepolis, vol. ii, Introduction) reads the word hitherto supposed to be dígí or díkí as dúkí = Aramaic dúkhá, “place.”
↩Hormuzd, Bahrám I or Bahrám II (see Nöldeke's Gesch. d. Sasan., p. 47, n. 5 ad calc.).
↩Fihrist (composed A.D. 987), ed. Flügel, pp. 328-338, and the same with German translation, introduction, and notes, also by Flügel (1862); al-Bírúní's Chronology, translated by Sachau, pp. 27, 80, 121, 189, 191, 225, 329; Ibn Wáḍiḥ, ed. Houtsma, vol. i, pp. 180-182; Shahristání, translated into German by Haarbrucker, i, pp. 285-291. See also, besides Beausobre (1734) and Mosheim, Baur, Kessler, and Spiegel's Erânische Alterthumskunde, vol. ii, pp. 195-232.
↩ See Flügel's Mani, n. 324,
See Flügel, op. cit., pp. 102-103, where the contents of this book are briefly stated from the Fihrist. It contained eighteen chapters.
↩This “molten brass ordeal” is repeatedly mentioned both in the Pahlawí and Arabic books. Amongst the former, see Haug's ed. and translation of the Arda Víráf Námak, p. 144, especially the passages from the Dínkard cited in the note; and also the Shikand Gúmáník Víjár (ed. West), p. xii. Amongst the latter, see al-Qazwíní's Átháru'l-Bilád, p. 267. The test is also said to have been proposed to Manes in the Persian Táríkh-i-Guzída (Cambridge MS. marked Dd. 3. 23, f. 45a).
↩The term Zandíkíh occurs in the Mainyó-i-Khard (ed. West, 1871, ch. xxxvi, p. 37), and is explained as “thinking well of the devils” (pp. 22-23).
↩Cf. C. Schmidt's Hist. et doctrine de la Secte des Cathares ou Albigeois (Paris, 1849).
↩Cf. Darmesteter's English translation of the Avesta, in S. B. E., vol. i, p. 46, and n. 1 ad calc. on Fargard iv, 47.
↩See Flügel's Mání, p. 231; Spiegel's Erân. Alterthumskunde, vol. ii, p. 217.
↩A powerful protector of the Manichæans, put to death by the Caliph al-Walíd in A.D. 743. See Flügel's Mání, pp. 320-322.
↩See Flügel's Mání, pp. 294-299. The meaning is uncertain.
↩Cf. Sháhnáma, ed. Macan, vol. iii, pp. 1453-1454.
↩See the excellent account o?? Núshírwán given by Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ed. 1813, vol. vii, pp. 298-307).
↩See Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Sasaniden, p. 162 ad calc.
↩Gibbon, op. cit., p. 305, n. 52 ad calc.
↩See Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Sasaniden, p. 162 ad calc.
↩See also a more popular account by the same scholar in the Deutsche Rundschau for February, 1879, pp. 284 etseqq.
The most ancient and authentic notices of, or references to, Mazdak are as follows:—
(i) In the Pahlawí translation of the Vendidâd, Fargard iv, v. 49, the words of the Avesta text, “it is this man who can strive against the ungodly Sources of information: 1. Pahlawí. Ashemaogha” (i.e., “fiend” or “heretic”) “who does not eat,” are illustrated by the gloss “like Mazdak, son of Bámdádh;” while other references to the “accursed Mazdak” occur in the Bahman Yasht, which, however, is one of the latest products of Pahlawí literature, and is, in its extant form, referred by West to about the twelfth century of our era. There also existed a Pahlawí Mazdak-námak, or “Book of Mazdak,” which was one of the numerous Pahlawí works translated into Arabic by Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', but this, unfortunately, is lost, though its contents are to some extent preserved by other Arabic writers. 2. Greek.
(ii) In Greek references to Mazdak occur in the works of Procopius, Theophanes, and John Malalas.
(iii) In Syriac, in the Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite (Wright's ed. and 3. Syriac. transl., § xx), who speaks of King Kawád's “evil conduct” in re-establishing “the abominable sect of the Magi which is called that of the Zarádushtakán, which teaches that women should be in common…”
(iv) In Arabic, accounts of Mazdak are given by al-Ya'qúbí (c. A.H. 260; ed. Houtsma, vol. 1, p. 186), who mentions that he and his master Zarátusht 4. Arabic. Khurragán were put to death by Anúshírwán; Ibn Qutayba († A.H. 270-276; Kitábu'l-Ma'árif, ed. Wüstenfeld, 1850, p. 328); Dínawarí († A.H. 282-290; ed. Guirgass, p. 69); Ṭabarí (†A.H. 310; ed. de Goeje, Series I, vol. ii, pp. 885-886 = Nöldeke's transl., pp. 140-144; pp. 893-894 = Nöldeke, pp. 154-155); Ḥamza of Iṣfahán (early fourth century of Hijra); Eutychius († A.H. 328); Mas'údí († A.H. 346; Murúju' dh-Dhahab, ed. B. de Meynard, vol. ii, pp. 195-196); al-Bírúní († A.H. 440; Sachau's translation, p. 192); Shahristání († A.H. 548; Kitábu'l-milal , ed. Cureton, pp. 192-194 = Haarbrücker's transl., pp. 291-293); Ibnu-'l-Athír († A.H. 630); Abu'l-Fidá († A.H. 732; ed. Fleischer, pp. 88-91), and other historians.
(v) In Persian, the narratives in the Sháhnáma of Firdawsí (ed. Macan, vol. iii, pp. 1611-1616), and the Siyásat-náma of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk (ed. Schefer, pp. 166-181) deserve especial mention.
↩I.e., the Caliph 'Umar, in whose reign (A.D. 634-644) the conquest of Persia was chiefly effected.
↩A place near Ḥíra, in the neighbourhood of which was fought the fateful battle of Qádisiyya.
↩I.e., the fourteen turrets or battlements which, in Nushírwán's dream, fell from the palace. Nushírwán's fourteen successors are presumably to be reckoned as follows: (1) Hurmazd IV; (2) Khusraw Parwíz; (3) Shírú'é; (4) Ardashír III; (5) Shahrbaráz; (6) Púrán-dukht; (7) Gushnaspdeh? (8) Ázarmí-dukht; (9) Khusraw, son of Mihr-Gushnasp; (10) Khurrazádh-Khusraw; (11) Pírúz, son of Gushnaspdeh; (12) Farrukhzádh-Khusraw; (13) Hurmazd V; (14) Yazdigird III.
↩The names of two ancient castles, said to have been built by the Jinn for Queen Bilqís by command of Solomon.
↩Another celebrated edifice, built by the architect Sinnimár, who was on the completion of his task slain by his employer lest he should produce some yet more wonderful monument of his skill.
↩ One of his coins, figured by Rüppell, bears, according to Gutschmid,
the legend
Concerning the origin of this curious detail, which occurs again in another connection, see Nöldeke's Sasaniden, p. 226, n 1.
↩Shírú'è succeeded to the throne on February 25, A.D. 628; Yazdigird III, the last king of the House of Sásán, at the end of A.D. 632 or the beginning of A.D. 633.
↩See Nöldeke's Sasaniden, pp. 303-345.
↩The text is taken from the rare Niháyatu'l-Irab, Cambridge MS. See the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for April, 1900, p. 251.
↩See the article mentioned in the last note, p. 251.
↩Translated into French by Victor Chauvin under the title of Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Islamisme (Leyden and Paris, 1879).
↩Edited by Wüstenfeld, 1859; German translation by Weil, Stuttgart, 1864.
↩Muhájirún (“Fugitives”) is the name given to the disciples of Muḥammad who were compelled by persecution to flee from Mecca and seek a refuge in Abyssinia and elsewhere.
↩Chap. xix of the Qur'án, better known as the Súratu Maryam, or “Chapter of Mary.” Concerning the mysterious letters prefixed to this and twenty-eight other Súras of the Qur'án, see Sale's Preliminary Dicourses, § iii.
↩Cited in Sir William Muir's excellent little volume entitled Extracts from the Coran (London, 1880).
↩The text of this poem will be found at pp. 187-188 of Wright's Arabic Reading-Book (London, 1870). A spirited German translation in verse is included in an article on the poet by Baur in vol. x. (for 1856; pp. 74-109) of the Zeitschrift d. Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.
↩Ibn Hishám (ed. Wüstenfeld), p. 160.
↩Cf. al-Baládhurí (ed. de Goeje, pp. 259-260), where one who fought on the Persian side at Qádisiyya relates how they derided the Arab lances, calling them dúk, which is the Persian for a spindle.
↩A Persian title meaning “Keeper of the inkstand” (dawít- or dawátdar), or, as it may be paraphrased “Keeper of the seals.” Al-Fakhrí wrote his charming history at the beginning of the fourteenth century of our era, at a time when the events of the Mongol invasion were still fresh in men's minds.
↩So the Mongols are generally called by the Arab historians. The European spelling “Tartar” arose from a desire to establish an etymological connection between this formidable people and the infernal regions of Tartarus.
↩See pp. 130 et seqq. supra.
↩See n. 1 on p. 132 supra.
↩Cf. al-Baládhurí, p. 264.
↩A similar anecdote occurs in al-Baládhurí's Kitábu'l-Futúḥ (ed. de Goeje, p. 244).
↩Al-Baládhurí died in A.H. 279 (A.D. 892). His work has been edited by de Goeje (Leyden, 1866).
↩Qur'án, v, 104. Concerning the acceptance of the poll-tax from Zoroastrians, as well as from Jews and Christians, cf. A. von Kremer's Culturgeschichte d. Orients, vol. i, p. 59.
↩Baládhurí, p. 280; A. von Kremer's Culturgeschichte, vol i, p. 207.
↩See the confessions of a Nuṣayrí renegade entitled al-Bákúratu's-Sulaymániyya , published at Beyrout without date, and an English translation of the same by E. Salisbury in the Journal of the American Oriental Society for 1866 (vol. viii, pp. 227-308). Also the Journal Asiatique for 1879, pp. 192 et seqq.
↩Dozy (l'Islamisme, p. 156) says: “Mais la conversion la plus impor-tante de toutes fut celle des Perses; ce sont eux, et non les Arabes, qui ont donné de la fermeté et de la force à l'islamisme, et, en même temps, c'est de leur sein que sont sorties les sectes les plus remarquables.”
↩See A. von Kremer's Culturgeschichte d. Orients, vol. i, pp. 166-183.
↩Ibid., vol. i, p. 183.
↩Cf. Arnold's Preaching of Islám, p. 179.
↩Die Parsen in Persien, in the Z. D. M. G. for 1882, vol. xxxvi, pp. 54-88. The actual number of fire-temples he gives as twenty-three.
↩Like another yet more notable convert from Zoroastrianism, the celebrated Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', Mihyár appears to have been a bad Muslim. Of the former the Caliph al-Mahdí used to say, “I never found a book on Zindiqa (i.e., heresy, especially of Manichæan character) which did not owe its origin to Ibnu'l-Muqaffa'.” To the latter al-Qásim ibn Burhán remarked, on hearing of his conversion, “By becoming a Musulmán you have merely passed from one corner of hell to another” (Ibn Khallikán, de Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 432; vol. iii, p. 517).
↩History of the Ottoman Turks, London, 1877, p. 150.
↩Cf. Sir William Muir's very just remarks at p. 594 of his Caliphate: its Rise, Decline, and Fall.
↩Annals of the Early Caliphate (1883); the Caliphate, its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1891 and 1892); also the Life of Mahomet, Mahomet and Islam, &c.
↩See von Kremer's Streifzüge, p. 22.
↩Muir's Caliphate, p. 205.
↩The verses will be found in de Goeje's ed. of Ṭabarí, Ser. I, vol. v, p. 2796.
↩Muir's Caliphate, p. 217.
↩For a full account of this transaction, see Mas'údí's Murúju'dh-Dhahab , ed. Barbier de Meynard, vol. iv, pp. 268-274.
↩Al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), p. 110.
↩Mas'údí, op. cit., p. 286.
↩See Muir's Caliphate, pp. 280-282; al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), pp. 111-114.
↩See Muir, op. laud., pp. 225-226; Shahristání's Kitábu'l-Milal (ed. Cureton), pp. 132-133.
↩Brünnow, however (op. laud., p. 28), considers that this title was originally assumed by these sectaries themselves, not given to them by their enemies, and that it does not imply rebellion and secession, but, like Muhájirún (another name assumed by the Khárijites, means simply exiles from their homes for God's sake. He refers especially to Qur'án, iv, 101 in support of this view.
↩At a later date these two cardinal tenets were further expanded by the more fanatical Khárijites by the substitution in this formula of “good Muslim” for “free Arab,” and the addition of the words “and if necessary slain” after deposed. On the Khárijites consult especially Brünnow's excellent monograph, Die Charidschiten, &c. (Leyden, 1884); von Kremer's Herrschenden Ideen, &c., pp. 359-360; Dozy's Histoire de l'Islamisme, pp. 211-219.
↩And also Qur'án, ix, 112. See Brünnow (op. laud.), p. 29.
↩The richest collection of such poems is contained in the Kámil of al-Mubarrad (composed in the ninth century of our era, edited by Wright, 1864-1882), chaps. xlix, li, liv. A selection of them is contained in Nöldeke's Delectus Vet. Carm. Arab. (Berlin, 1890), pp. 88-94. See also von Kremer's Culturgeschichte, vol. ii, pp. 360-362.
↩I follow the account given by al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), pp. 114 et seqq.
↩Muir, op. laud, p. 284.
↩Brünnow, op. laud. p. 18.
↩Al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), p. 115.
↩Ibid., p. 117.
↩Muir, op. cit., p. 292.
↩One of these died in infancy. The other was al-Ḥusayn.
↩Muir, op. cit., p. 316.
↩Some very pretty verses by him are given by al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), pp. 137-138.
↩Al-Fakhrí, p. 67.
↩Pp. 138 et seqq.
↩P. 324.
↩Muir, op. cit., p. 332.
↩See al-Ya'qúbí, ed. Houtsma, vol. ii, p. 308.
↩See pp. 130 et seqq. supra, and al-Ya'qúbí's excellent history (ed. Houtsma), vol. ii, pp. 293, and 363. “His mother,” says this historian (who died in the latter half of the ninth century of our era), “was Ḥarár [name uncertain] the daughter of Yazdigird the Persian King; and this was because when 'Umar b. al-Khaṭṭáb brought in the two daughters of Yazdigird, he gave one of them to al-Ḥusayn the son of 'Alí, who named her ‘the Gazelle.’ And when 'Alí the son of al-Ḥusayn [and this Persian princess] was mentioned, some of the noblest used to say, ‘All men would be glad if their mothers were [such] slaves!’”
↩Muir, op. cit., p. 336. “It is instructive to observe,” says this historian, “the distinctive value at this period placed on the life of Arabs, when it was calmly proposed to set the Arab prisoners free and slay the ‘clients’ of foreign blood.” All, however, were, after much discussion, put to death. Dínawarí (p. 296) also mentions that there were many Persians amongst Mukhtar's followers.
↩Al-Ya'qúbí, vol. ii, p. 318.
↩See Mas'údí's Murúju'dh-Dhabab, ed. B. de Meynard, vol. 5, pp. 294-300.
↩Al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), pp. 146-147.
↩Qur'án, xviii, 77.
↩Vol. ii, p. 300.
↩L'Islamisme (Chauvin's translation), p. 179.
↩See al-Fakhrí, p. 159, where a pair of verses addressed by him to the misused Qur'án are cited.
↩The death of Shabíb b. Yazíd ash-Shaybání, about A.D. 699, is considered by Brünnow (op. cit., p. 49) to mark the end of the more serious Khárijite insurrections.
↩Van Vloten, op. cit., pp. 3 and 14-15.
↩Idem, pp. 4-7.
↩Van Vloten, op. cit., pp. 9-11.
↩Idem, pp. 11-12.
↩Van Vloten, op. cit., p. 16.
↩Ibid., pp. 17 and 26-27.
↩Streifzüge, p. 24.
↩L'Islamisme (Chauvin's translation), pp. 180-181.
↩Cf. Van Vloten, op. cit., pp. 22-23.
↩Cited by al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt), pp. 154-155.
↩Ed. Guirgass, pp. 334 et seqq.
↩See the table on p. 214 supra.
↩Qur'án ii, 261.
↩Called Khuzayna on account of his effeminate manners. See Muir, op. laud., pp. 384-386.
↩Afterwards called aṣ-Ṣaffáḥ (“the Shedder of blood”), who was the first Caliph of the House of 'Abbás.
↩See Dínawarí, pp. 300-302, 306, 310, and 315.
↩Recherches sur la Domination arabe, pp. 44-45.
↩Al-Ya'qúbí (ed. Houtsma), vol. ii, p. 356.
↩Ibid., p. 363.
↩Dínawarí, pp. 336-338.
↩Muir, op. laud., pp. 391-392.
↩Dínawarí, p. 338.
↩Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 47.
↩See Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 57.
↩See al-Fakhrí, p. 170; Dínawarí, p. 356; al-Ya'qúbi, vol. ii, p. 408; Nöldeke's Delectus carminum arabicorum, pp. 87-88, &c.
↩Nöldeke, op. laud., p. 88.
↩I.e., the other towns of Khurásán.
↩See the gloomy but forcible verses of the poet Ḥárith b. 'Abdu'lláh al-Ja'dí and of the Umayyad prince 'Abbás b. al-Walíd cited by Van Vloten (op. laud., pp. 62-63); also Dínawarí, pp. 358 and 359.
↩Concerning the significance of the black standards and apparel adopted by the 'Abbásids (hence called al-Musawwida), see Van Vloten, op. laud., pp. 63-65, and references there given.
↩Al-Fakhrí, pp. 170-171.
↩Pp. 171-172.
↩Van Vloten, op. laud., pp. 65-68.
↩Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 67; Dínawarí, p. 360.
↩Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 67; Dínawarí, p. 360.
↩It is noticeable that Dínawarí reads káfar-kúbát. Though káfir is the correct form, káfar is the recognised Persian pronunciation, as is shown by the words (sar, bar, &c.) with which it is made to rhyme in Persian verses even of the earliest period.
↩Muir, op. laud., pp. 435-436.
↩Aghání, xvi, p. 84, cited by Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 69.
↩Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 69.
↩All the Imáms of the Shí'ite “Sect of the Twelve” who lived in 'Abbásid times are believed by their followers to have been put to death (generally secretly, by poison) by these Caliphs, with the exception of the twelfth, the Imám Mahdí, whom they believe to have been miraculously preserved till our own time in the mysterious City of Jábalqá, whence he will come forth in the “Trouble of the Last Time.”
↩Al-Ya'qúbí, vol. ii, p. 439.
↩Muir, op. laud., p. 446 ad calc.
↩Ibn Abí Ṭáhir, cited by Van Vloten, op. laud., p. 67, and n. 4 ad calc.
↩Op. laud., p. 68.
↩As explained in the Fihrist (p. 345) he was called “the Turk” only because he carried on his propaganda in the Turkish lands.
↩Chronology of Ancient Nations, Sachau's transl., p. 197.
↩See the text (pp. 69-70) and translation (pp. 31-32) of the remarkable poem given by Von Kremer in his Streifzüge. The Arab poet bitterly complains of the haughty arrogance assumed by the Persian and Naba-thean mawlás, or “clients,” who were formerly so humble.
↩Hist. de l'Islamisme translated by Victor Chauvin, pp. 228-229.
↩See Ṭabarí's Annals, iii, 1142.
↩Ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 176-177.
↩Abu'l-Fatḥ Maḥmúd b. al-Ḥusayn b. Shâhaq, called as-Sindí, because of his Indian descent, died 961 or 971. See Brockelmann's Arab. Literaturgesch., p. 85, and p. 371 infra.
↩New Plutarch series, Haroun Alraschid, London, 1881.
↩“Much,” says von Kremer (Cult. Streifzüge, p. 41 ad calc.), “is explained by the circumstance that Ma'mún's mother was a Persian, a statement which is found in an ancient and well-informed author (de Goeje, Fragm. Hist. Arab., I, 350).”
↩Púrán, the daughter of Ḥasan b. Sahl, and niece of the celebrated Faḍl b. Sahl, al-Ma'mún's wazír. The gorgeous ceremonies observed in connection with her marriage are detailed by Ibn Khallikán (de Slane's translation, vol. i, pp. 268-270), and in the Laṭá'ifu'l-Ma'árif of ath-Tha'álibí (ed. de Jong, pp. 73-74).
↩Études iraniennes, vol. i, p. 58, and n. 3 ad. calc.
↩Ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 179-181.
↩I.e., No heed is paid to the views or statements of one who has been proved a liar.
↩Al-Fakhrí (ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 183-4).
↩Al-Fakhrí, pp. 185, 186; Ṭabarí, ser. iii, p. 320.
↩Chronology of Ancient Nations (Sachau's trans.), p. 37.
↩The abolition of the old system of intercalation having caused it to recede, so that it fell at a time before the crops were ripe, thus causing much loss to the farmers, since the taxes had to be paid at this time.
↩Streifzüge, pp. 32-33.
↩Culturgesch. Streifzüge, p. 16.
↩Gesammelte Abhandl., p. 8, n. 4.
↩Cited from the Kitábu'l-Bayán wa't-Tabyín of al-Jáḥidh. This work has now been printed at Cairo (A.H. 1313 = A.D. 1895-6), but Goldziher used it in manuscript, as he wrote in or before 1889. He also refers to the similar narratives from other sources given by von Kremer in vol. ii of his Culturgeschichte, p. 159.
↩This celebrated Persian grammarian died about A.D. 795. His work —“the oldest systematic representation of Arabian Grammar”—is called “The Book” (al-Kitáb) par excellence.
↩Goldziher, Muham. Stud., vol. i, p. 112.
↩Nöldeke's Gesch. des Artachshír-i-Pápakán, p. 38, and n. 3 ad calc.
↩Nöldeke's Gesch. d. Sasaniden, pp. 86-88; Dínawarí, p. 53.
↩Of the two MSS. of this rare work known to exist, one is in the Berlin Library, while the other till lately belonged to Lord Crawford, who most generously allowed the writer to borrow it for a protracted period. In August, 1901, it was sold with his other Oriental MSS. to Mrs. Rylands of Manchester, and is now in the John Rylands Library.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., p. 113. In a footnote he adds, “Fírúz ad-Daylamí (died in the Caliphate of 'Uthmán), who belonged to the Prophet's time, is also to be mentioned. Cf. Ibn Qutayba (ed. Wüstenfeld), p. 170.”
↩Goldziher, loc. cit., n. 2 ad calc. Concerning these Banu'l-Aḥrár (“Sons of the Nobles”), he refers to the Kitábu 'l-Aghání, xvi, p. 76; Ibn Hishám's Life of the Prophet, pp. 44-46; and Nöldeke's Gesch. d. Sasaniden, p. 223.
↩Al-Baládhurí (p. 247), as Goldziher remarks, gives a list of such men, conspicuous amongst whom are the four sons of Shírín.
↩On the Arabic forms given to Persian proper names, see Goldziher, op. cit., p. 133, n. 2 ad calc. Thus Máhán becomes Maymún; and Basfarúj, Abú Ṣufra, while in one case the name of the Persian Prophet Zoroaster is replaced by that of the Arabian Prophet Muḥammad.
↩Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 114, 115.
↩Goldziher regards this tradition, cited on the authority of Ibn 'Asákir (A.D. 1106-1169), as of late fabrication, but as embodying an idea undoubtedly prevalent in earlier times.
↩Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 117-146.
↩That this already existed in pre-Islámic times is shown by the refusal of Nu'mán, King of Ḥíra, and his courtiers to give one of their daughters in marriage even to their powerful suzerain, the King of Persia.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., i. p. 148. Cf. p. 247 supra.
↩To this party Goldziher devotes two chapters of his remarkable book (vol. i, pp. 147-216 and 272). The word shu'úb (pl. of sha'b) is used for the “nations” of the Gentiles ('Ajam) as opposed to the “tribes” (qabá'il) of the Arabs, in reference to Qur'án, xlix, 13: “O men! verily We have created you from a male and a female, and have made you nations and tribes, that ye might recognise that the noblest of you in God's sight is he amongst you who most fears God: verily God is All-knowing and Informed.”
↩Goldziher, op. cit., p. 148.
↩Von Kremer, Streifzüge, p. 30.
↩Streifzüge, pp. 31-32 and 69-70.
↩Murúju 'dh. Dhahab (ed. B. de Meynard), ii, 241, cited by Goldziher, op. cit., p. 161.
↩Loc. cit.
↩A work of the same kind, the Kitábu'l-Bukhalá, or “Book of Misers,’ composed by the celebrated al-Jáḥidh (another Ṣhu'úbí: cf. Goldziher, op. cit., p. 157), has been recently published at Leyden by Dr. Van Vloten.
↩See de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán, vol. i, pp. 254-257; Brockel-mann's Gesch. d. Arab Lit., vol. i, pp. 73, 74; and von Kremer's Streifzüge, pp. 34 et seqq.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., p. 163.
↩Fihrist, p. 123.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., p. 166.
↩Brockelmann, Gesch. d. Arab. Lit., vol. i, pp. 120 and 141.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., pp. 195-206.
↩Al-Bírúní's Chronology, ed. Sachau, p. 52, cited by Goldziher, op. cit., i, 209. The expression is “ta'aṣṣaba li'l-Furs.”
↩An English resident in Persia named Glover was metamorphosed into Gul-ávar (“Bringer of Roses”); less fortunate was a compatriot named Reid, a missionary, whose name ultimately necessitated a retreat from this field of activity.
↩Goldziher, op cit., vol. ii, p. 177; and on these journeys fí ṭalabi'l-'ilm generally, pp. 32-33 and 175 et seqq.
↩Idem, p. 33.
↩Idem, pp. 176-177.
↩Edited by W:ustenfeld (1858-60), and translated into German by Weil (1864).
↩These and the following particulars are chiefly drawn from de Goeje's excellent article in the Encyclopœdia Britannica to which I have already referred.
↩Goldziher, op. cit., pp. 195-196.
↩De Goeje, loc. cit.
↩Op. cit., ii, pp. 196, et seqq.
↩Ibid., p. 199.
↩Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., i, pp. 64-67.
↩See Wüstenfeld's Geschichtschreiber der Araber, p. 4, No. 16.
↩Gesch. d. Herrschenden Ideen d. Islams, pp. 15 et seqq.
↩Ibid., pp. 10 and 124. Ibn Ḥazm, a Spanish Arab of Cordova, died about A.D. 1054, and is the author of the oldest extant work on the Sects of Islám. MSS. of this work (which has never been printed) are very rare. See Flügel's Vienna Catalogue, vol. ii, pp. 197-199, and, for Ibn Ḥazm's biography, de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khallikán, vol. ii, pp. 267-272.
↩Shahristani, who also reckons four, substitutes the Ṣifátiyya for the Murjiya, while al-Íjí (A.D. 1355) enumerates seven principal heterodox sects. See Dr. H. Steiner's Mu'taziliten, pp. 2-3.
↩Culturgesch. Streifzüge, pp. 1-9.
↩See Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, Bk. i, p. 1033.
↩Gesch. d. Herrsch. Ideen, p. 25.
↩Streifzüge p. 2. The Court-poet al-Akhṭal was a Christian.
↩Ibid., p. 6, and cf. Herrsch. Ideen, p. 26.
↩Ibid., p. 3.
↩Mu'taziliten, p. 4.
↩See Steiner's Mu'taziliten, pp. 24-26, and Dozy's Hist. de l'Islamisme, p. 204.
↩Dozy, op. cit., p. 201.
↩Streifzüge, pp. 7-9.
↩On the quite opposite senses in which the word qadar is used, see Steiner, op. cit., pp. 26-28.
↩Ed. Whinfield, l. 538, pp. 32 and 54.
↩P. 5 of an excellent little pamphlet entitled Laṭífa-i-Ghaybiyya, lithographed in Tihrán in A.H. 1304 (A.D. 1887), to which my attention was directed by my friend Mr. Sidney Churchill, one of the finest Persian scholars I have ever met.
↩Díwán of Háfidh, ed. Rosenzweig-Schwannau, vol. i, p. 16.
↩See Ṭabarí, iii, pp. 1112-1131, where this transaction is very fully reported.
↩Ṭabarí, iii, pp. 1343-1350. See also Dozy's l'Islamisme, pp. 238-239.
↩Ibid., p. 1351.
↩Ibid., pp. 1533-4.
↩Meaning, of course, that every man was created a potential believer, and that the unbelievers only became so by their own frowardness, not by God's will.
↩Two pamphlets, both published in 1865. One is entitled Die Mu'tazi-liten oder die Freidenker im Islam; the other, Die Mu'taziliten als Vorlaüfer der islamischen Dogmatiker und Philosophen, nebst Anhang, enthaltend kritische Anmerkungen zu Gazzáli's Munqidh.
↩“The Arabian Aristotelians,” says Steiner, “were properly rather Natural Scientists than Philosophers; their most signal achievements belong to the region of observation of natural phenomena, above all Medicine and Astronomy.”
↩Dozy's l'Islamisme (Chauvin's translation), pp. 248 et seqq.
↩See Ṭabarí, iii, pp. 1389 et seqq., and 1419.
↩See Spitta's excellent monograph, Zur Geschichte Abu'l-Ḥasan Al-Ash'arî's (Leipzig, 1876).
↩Dozy, pp. 252-256.
↩Op. cit., pp. 62-81.
↩Since Zamakhsharí lived till A.D. 1144, it would seem better to substitute “twelfth” for “eleventh.”
↩Dozy, pp. 255-256.
↩Z. D. M. G., vol. xiii, pp. 1-43.
↩In some dozen publications (texts, translations, and dissertations), published between the years 1858 and 1886.
↩Published in four vols. at Bombay, A.H. 1305-6; a Persian version of the same, comprising fifty tracts (pp. 167), was lithographed at Bombay in A.H. 1301 = A.D. 1884. For the contents of these tracts see Dieterici's Die Philosophie der Araber im x Jahrhundert nach Christ., erster Theil, Einleitung u. Makrokosmos (Leipzig, 1876), pp. 131-137.
↩Die Philosophie der Araber im x Jahrhundert nach Christ., erster Theil, Einleitung u. Makrokosmos (Leipzig, 1876), p. 158.
↩Mu'taziliten, p. 12.
↩Op. cit., p. 157.
↩Op. cit., p. 161.
↩See de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán, vol. iii, p. 555.
↩Ibid., vol. ii, p. 547. This probably occurred in A.D. 764-5.
↩Ibid., vol. ii, p. 571.
↩Ibid., vol. i, p. 44.
↩See his Díwán, lithographed at Tabríz in A.H. 1280, pp. 115 and 209. Cf. Dozy's Islamisme, pp. 441-443.
↩Shahristání, ed. Cureton, p. 146.
↩Murúju'dh-Dhahab, ed. Barbier de Meynard, vol. iv, p. 193.
↩Ibid., p. 195.
↩Ibid., p. 196.
↩Cited at p. 31 of Jámí's Nafaḥátu'l-Uns, ed. Nassau Lees, Calcutta, 1858.
↩L'Islamisme (Chauvin's French translation), pp. 319-320. Cf. also pp. 201-202, where Ḥasan's character is well depicted.
↩See de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán, vol. i, pp. 515-517.
↩In Arabic grammar.
↩In Arabic grammar.
↩Op. cit., p. 319.
↩This point has been very admirably worked out by my friend and former pupil, Mr. R. A. Nicholson, in his Selected Poems from the Díván-i. Shams-i-Tabríz (Cambridge, 1898), especially pp. xxx-xxxvi. Cf. von Kremer, Gesch.-Streifzüge, p. 45.
↩This is, for example, Dozy's view (l'Islamisme, p. 317), and he cites Trumpp (Z. D. M. G., xvi, p. 244) as saying “Dass der Sufismus ein indisches Produkt ist, darüber kann kein Zweifel obwalten, und noch näher bestimmt ist der Sufismus ein speciell Buddhistisches Erzeugniss.”
↩Gesch.-Streifzüge, p. 46.
↩Herrsch. Id., p. 67.
↩See, for example, the article on Persian Literature in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Dr. Ethé does more justice to the modern poets of Persia in his article Neupersische Litteratur (pp. 311-316) in vol. ii of Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie (Strassburg, 1897).
↩See Chwolson's Ssabicr und Ssabismus, vol. i, p. 100. The most important works on the Mandæans are: Dr. A. J. H. Wilhelm Brandt, Die Mandäische Religion (1889); Idem, Mandäische Schriften (1893); Mand. Grammatik by Th. Nöldeke, 1875; H. Pognon, Consul de France à Alep, Inscr. Mand. des coupes de Khouabir (1898). Of the book of the Mandæans, the Sidrâ Rabbâ or Ginzâ, there are two editions, Norberg's, in three vols. (1815-1816), and Petermann's, in two vols., (1867). Nöldeke describes their literature as “eine Literatur, welche voll des grössten Widersinns ist, geschrieben in eine Mundart von der ein Kenner des Syrisches zunächst den Eindruck starker Entartung erhält.”
↩Chwolson, op. cit., i, pp. 669, 671.
↩Ibid., ii, pp. 14-19. The facts are recorded in the Fihrist (ed. Flügel, pp. 320-321) on the authority of an almost contemporary Christian writer, Abú Yúsuf al-Qaṭí'í.
↩Kunik's compte-rendu of Chwolson's work, Mélanges Asiatiques, vol. i, p. 663.
↩Several sects existing in Western Asia at the present day, such as the Nuṣayrís, the Yezídís (or so-called “Devil-worshippers,”) &c., are, as Chwolson and others have pointed out, almost certainly survivals of ancient pagan communities; though, to secure a doubtful tolerance from their Muhammadan governors, they have been careful to conceal their real beliefs and practices, and to vindicate their right to be regarded and treated as “People of the Book,” by a liberal, though not always skilful use of names regarded by the Muslims as holy.
↩Gesch. d. Arabische Litteratur, vol. i, pp. 201 et seqq.
↩Amongst translators from Pahlawí into Arabic are mentioned in the Fihrist (ed. Flügel, pp. 244-245), besides Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', the family of Naw-Bakht (see also op. cit., pp. 177 and 274), who were ardent Shí'ites, Bah-rám, the son of Mardán-sháh, múbad of Níshápúr, and a dozen others. Mention is also made of two learned Indians who made translations from the Sanskrit, and of the celebrated Ibnu'l-Waḥshiyya who translated the Book of Nabathæan Agriculture.
↩Ibn Khallikán, Wüstenfeld's text, vol. i, No. 127; de Slane's transl., vol. i, pp. 288-289.
↩Von Kremer's Streifzüge, pp. 210 et seqq.
↩Al-Ya'qúbí, ed. Houtsma, p. 546.
↩Op. cit., pp. 41-42.
↩Perhaps influenced by the legend of Mání (Manes).
↩That is, the mumbling of prayers and graces chararacteristic of the Zoroastrian practice.
↩These marriages (called khvêtu-das) were not only sanctioned but approved by Zoroastrianism.
↩The priests of the second and third grades of the Zoroastrian religion. The chief priests are called dastúr.
↩Compare the expectations entertained by the followers of al-Muqanna' as to his “Return” in the section devoted to him a few pages further on. Al-Balkhí, writing about A.H. 350 (A.D. 960), speaks of the Bih-áfarídhís as existing in his time from personal knowledge. See vol. i of Cl. Huart's ed. and transl. of the Kitábu'l- Bad' wa't-Ta'ríkh, p. 164 of the translation.
↩See my translation of the New History of … the Báb (Cambridge, 1893), pp. 70, 283.
↩Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (1856), p. 180.
↩In an article entitled Orientalischer Socialismus, in vol. xviii, pp. 284-291 of the Deutsche Rundschau (1879).
↩From chap. xl of this work onwards the numbers of the chapters in the translation are one ahead of those they bear in the text, two successive sections in the text (pp. 125 and 131) being called “fortieth.”
↩Some account of this is found in al-Fakhrí (p. 203); Ṭabarí iii, 119-120; Mas'udí's Murúju'dh Dhahab, vi, 188-189; al-Ya'qúbí, ii, 441-442; Idem, Kitabu'l-Buldán (de Goeje's Bibl. Geogr. Arab., vol. vii), p. 303; Dorn's Gesch. von Tabaristán, &c., p. 47; Idem, Auszüge … betreffend die Gesch… der Südl. Küstenländer des Kaspischen Meeres, pp. 442-444; Justi's Iranisches Namenbuch, pp. 314-315, article Sumbát (Sunfádh), § 19.
↩Cf. Shahristání, op. cit., p. 111, and al-Ya'qúbí, ii, p. 313.
↩Name uncertain; perhaps Khurramábád, a common name of Persian villages.
↩Ṭabarí (iii, 129 et seqq. and 418) mentions the incident first recorded under the year A.H. 141 (A.D. 758-9), but adds that some place it in A.H. 136 or 137 (A.D. 753-5), while he records a similar narrative under A.H. 158 (A.D. 774-5). The last two dates are those of the accession and decease of al-Manṣúr, and the narrative may simply have been recorded there by one of his authorities as a piece of undated general information about that Caliph. See also Dínawarí, p. 380, and al-Fakhrí, p. 188.
↩L'Islamisme (transl. of V. Chauvin), pp. 241-243.
↩There were two places called Ráwand, one near Káshán and Isfahán, the other near Níshápúr (see de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán's Biographical Dictionary, vol. i, p. 77). Dozy seems to be mistaken in supposing that the former is here meant, since Ṭabarí (iii, 129), al-Fakhrí (188), &c., speak of these Ráwandís as “from Khurásán.”
↩Al-Fakhrí only says “a certain other man.” Ṭabarí (iii, 129) says that they supposed 'Uthmán b. Nahík and al-Haytham b. Mu'áwiya to be incarnations of Adam and Gabriel respectively.
↩Two hundred of them were so imprisoned.
↩Ṭabarí, iii, p. 130.
↩Cf. my translation of the Chahár Máqála of Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí-i-Samar-qandí in the J. R. A. S. for 1899, p. 55 of the tirage-à-part.
↩Ṭabarí, iii, 354-8; al-Ya'qúbí, ii, 457-8. The latter writer distinctly states that he claimed to be a Prophet.
↩Op. cit., p. 459.
↩See van Vloten's Recherches sur la Domination Arabe, p. 59; Ṭabarí, iii, 470; al-Ya'qúbí, ii, pp. 478-479.
↩So called, as already explained, because of their white raiment, which won for them amongst the Persians the title, Sapíd-Jámagán.
↩These works of al-Bírúní are unfortunately lost to us.
↩Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' in the text is, of course, an error for al-Muqanna'. From al-Bírúní's account (cited above) it would appear that his own name was Háshim, and his father's name Ḥakím, but al-Qazwíní seems to have taken the latter as a common noun in the sense of “The Sage.”
↩For the text of this passage, see Wüstenfeld's ed., Biography No. 431.
↩Qur'an ii. 31.
↩For the text of this passage, see Wüstenfeld's ed., Biography No. 431.
↩I.e., the beautiful face, surmounted by a turban, of my beloved.
↩This work, properly entitled Kitábu'l-Mushtarik, or “Lexicon of geographical homonyms,” was published by Wüstenfeld at Göttingen in 1846. The passage to which allusion is here made occurs on p. 254. Shaykh Shihábu 'd Dín Abu 'Abdi'lláh Yáqút al-Ḥamawí, the last great Muslim geographer, was of Greek origin. He was born about A.D. 1178, and died about 1229.
↩This is confirmed by al-Ya'qúbí in his Kitábu'l-Buldán (Bibl. Geogr. Arab., vol. vii, p. 304). It is there stated that al-Muqanna' and his followers, when hard pressed by the besiegers, “drank poison, and all died together.” See also Ṭabarí, iii, 484 and 494.
↩They are spoken of by Shaykh Abu'l-Mudhaffar Ṭáhir al-Isfará'iní († A.D. 1078-9) as existing in his time. See Haarbrücker's translation of Shahristání's Kitábu'l-Milal, pp. 378 and 409.
↩Beyrout ed. of 1890, pp. 217-218.
↩Cf. what is said on p. 309 supra as to the expected return of Bih-áfarídh.
↩See Haarbrücker's translation, p. 200; Cureton's text, p. 132; Schefer's Chrestomathie Persane, vol i, p. 177; the Nidhámu'l-Mulk's Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer), p. 199.
↩See particularly Ṭabarí, iii, pp. 1015, 1039, 1044, 1045, 1099, 1101, 1165, 1170-1179, 1186-1235, and, for Afshín's fall and death, 1308-1314; Dínawarí, pp. 397-401; Baládhurí, pp. 329-330 and 340; Ya'qúbí, pp. 563-565, 575, 577-579, and for Afshín, 582-584; the Fihrist, pp. 342-344; Qazwíní's Átháru'l-Bilád, 213, 344; Siyásat-náma, pp. 200-203; Ibn Khallikán (de Slane's translation), vol. iii, p. 276; Ibn Qutayba's Kitábu'l-Ma'árif, p. 198; de Goeje's Bibl. Geogr. Arab. i, 203; vi, 121; v, 52, 284-285, 307, 309; vii, 259, 272; viii, 88, 170, 352-353; Mas'údi's Murúju'dh-Dhahab (ed. B. de Meynard), vi, 187; vii, 62, 123-132, 138-139, &c.
↩In the district of Ardabíl and Arraján. See B. de Meynard's Dict. de la Perse, p. 557.
↩A high mountain, covered with perpetual snow, near Ardabíl. See Dict. de la Perse, p. 300.
↩Or Saráw, in Ádharbayján. See Bibl. Geogr. Arab., vii, 271, last line.
↩This was, till the last, Bábak's great and chiefest stronghold.
↩Probably Persians. The arrogance of the Arabs impelled them, like the Greeks, to regard all foreigners as barbarous folk.
↩Concerning this name, see Justi's Iranisches Namenbuch, p. 292.
↩See Barbier de Meynard's Dict. de la Perse, p. 557.
↩According to the Muḥíṭu'l-Muḥíṭ this word has in 'Iráq the special signification of one chosen by his fellow-villagers to entertain official guests quartered on the village.
↩This is confirmed by Ṭabarí, iii, 1015.
↩Bábak's pedigree was, however, very uncertain. Cf. Ṭabarí, iii, p. 1232.
↩Cited by Ibn Khallikán, ed. Wüstenfeld, No. 709; de Slane's trans., vol. iii, p. 276, which version is here given.
↩Allusion is made to the prophet and Abú Bakr in the Cave of Thawr. See Qur'án ix, 40.
↩The burning poisonous wind of the desert, commonly called Simoom.
↩See especially, as illustrating his hatred of the Arabs, pp. 199-207 of the Táríkh-i-Bayhaqí (Calcutta, 1862), and the translation of this remarkable passage given by Kazimirski at pp. 149-154 of his edition of the Díwán of Manuchihrí (Paris, 1886), and cf. de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán, vol. i, p. 63, and p. 72, n. 9, where, on the authority of Ibn Shákir, Afshín is said to have been descended from the old Persian kings, an assertion confirmed by Bayhaqí (op. cit., p. 203, ll. 1-2 = Kazimirski, op. cit., p. 151, last five lines).
↩This book, as Nöldeke has remarked (Gesch. d. Sasaniden, p. 461, n. 2 ad calc.), “which Ibnu'-l-Muqaffa' translated [into Arabic], and Abán al-Láḥiqí re-edited, no doubt in metrical form (Fihrist, pp. 118 and 163), was not religious, but was a work designed merely to amuse, classed with the Book of Kalíla and Dimna, and regarded as harmless for a Muslim.”
↩Qur'án, lxxix, 24.
↩I presume that the religion of Zoroaster is intended, or else the doctrine of Mazdak as revived by Bábak.
↩Or Maghribís (pl. Magháriba), i.e., Arabs and Berbers from N. and N.W. Africa.
↩Literally, “are eaters of a head,” meaning, “they are few; one head satisfying their stomachs.” See Lane's Arabic Lexicon, Bk. i, Part 1, p. 73.
↩It seems quite clear from all this that Afshín, though from Trans-oxiana, was not, as has been sometimes alleged, a Turk, but wholly Persian in feeling and sympathy.
↩Meaning that he was what we should call “a hanging judge.” The ṭaylasán, says Lane in his Lexicon (Bk. i, Part 5, p. 1867, s.v.), “seems to have resembled our academic hood, of which it was perhaps the original.” It was worn by men of learning, doctors of Theology, Law, Medicine, and the like.
↩See the interesting narrative of Ḥamdún b. Isma'íl given by Ṭabarí (iii, pp. 1314-1318).
↩His reasons for mistrusting the Arabs are clearly set forth in Ṭabarí, iii, p. 1142.
↩Cf. Goldziher's luminous chapter on the Shu'úbiyya, or “Gentile Faction,” in his Muhammedanische Studien, pp. 147 et seqq., especially p. 150.
↩See Ethé's tract entitled Rûdagî's Vorläufer und Zeitgenossen, ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der ältesten Denkmäler neupersischer Poesie, pp. 36-8, and Horn's Geschichte der persischen Litteratur (Leipzig, 1901), pp. 47-8.
↩Menoutchehri, pp. 8-9 of the Introduction.
↩See Dozy's Supplément aux Dictionnaires Arabes, vol. ii, p. 810, s.v.
↩The Caliphate, 2nd ed. (1892), p. 509 ad calc.
↩Muir, op. cit., p. 525; Brockelmann, Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., i, p. 117.
↩Ṭabarí's Annals, Ser. iii, pp. 1424-1426.
↩Ibid., Ser. iii, p. 1407.
↩The dull yellow garments which the Zoroastrians of Persia (Yazd and Kirmán) are still compelled to wear are the last remnant of these old disabilities. Sa'dí, writing in the thirteenth century, still spoke of them as “'asal-i-dúkhta,” “sewed [i.e. made up] honey.” See n. 3 on p. 335 supra.
↩Muir's Caliphate, pp. 521-2; Ṭabarí's Annals, Ser. iii, pp. 1389, et seqq. and 1419.
↩The meaning of this name is “Jesus hath delivered”: the first part of it is from an old Persian verb bôkhtan, “to save,” “deliver,” and has nothing to do with bakht, “fortune.” See an interesting note in Nöldeke's Gesch. b. Artachšir-i-Pâpakân, p. 49, n. 4, ad calc.
↩Published, with French translation, in the Journal Asiatique for 1865 (Ser. vi, vol. 5, pp. 1-127 and 227-295 and 446-527), and in vol. vi of de Goeje's Bibl. Geogr. Arab.
↩See p. 30 of my edition of Dawlatsháh.
↩Ṭabarí's Annals, Ser. iii, p. 1500.
↩This valuable work exists only in manuscript. Copies of it are preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the India Office, the Biblio-thèque Nationale, and St. Petersburg. A long extract from it relating to early Sásánian times was published with a French translation by the late Professor James Darmesteter in the Journal Asiatique for 1894, pp. 185-250 and 502-555. The account of the poet Firdawsí cited in it from the Chahár Maqála was also used (before the latter work was rendered generally accessible by my translation of it in the J. R. A. S. for 1899) by Dr. Ethé and Professor Nöldeke.
↩The utility of this valuable work, written about A.D. 1585, by Sayyid Núru'lláh b. Sayyid Sharíf al-Mar'ashí of Shushtar, is, unfortunately, greatly marred by the fact that in the lithographed edition the pages are not numbered, and there are no indices.
↩See p. 48 of Sachau's translation of his Chronology of Ancient Nations. Al-Bírúní died in A.D. 1048.
↩The genuineness of this speech is disproved by this anachronism. Mahdiyya, the first capital of the Fáṭimid Caliphs, was not founded for more than thirty years after Ya'qúb's death, which happened in June, A.D. 879.
↩Cf. Nöldeke's Sketches, English translation, p. 193, and also Ibnu'l-Athír , Cairo ed., vol. vii, p. 107.
↩See pp. 43-44 of the separate reprint of the translation which I published in the J. R. A. S. for 1899.
↩See my Hand-list of the Muḥammadan MSS. in the Cambridge University Library, pp. 125-6.
↩See Carra de Vaux, Avicenne, pp. 80-88.
↩See a monograph on this school by Dr. Ignaz Goldziher, Die Zâhiriten Leipzig, 1884.
↩See Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., vol. i, pp. 120, 123, and 141.
↩The works of these writers, which have been published and are easily accessible, and which should be read by all students of Persian history, are: the Kitábu'l-Ma'árif of Ibn Qutayba (ed. Wüstenfeld, Göttingen, 1850); the Futúḥu'l-Buldán (ed. de Goeje, Leyden, 1855); the Akhbáru'ṭ-Ṭiwál of Dínawarí (ed. Guirgass, Leyden, 1888); and al-Ya'qúbí's History (ed. Houtsma, Leyden, 1883, 2 vols.).
↩Brockelmann, op. cit., p. 134.
↩See pp. 83-86 of Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Litt. (in vol. vi of Amelang's monographs, Leipzig, 1901; not to be confounded with the more scientific work by the same author, and with almost the same title, published at Weimar in 1897- ).
↩See de Goeje's Carmathes du Bahraïn, p. 131.
↩Sachau's translation, pp. 196-7.
↩De Goeje, op. cit., p. 140.
↩Chahár Maqála, separate reprint, p. 51.
↩The edition of this great work by Professor de Goeje and a small body of the most distinguished Arabic scholars must be regarded as the greatest achievement of Oriental scholarship in Europe in recent times. This edition comprises 13 vols. of text and 2 vols. of Indices and Apparatus Criticus; the publication was begun at Leyden in A.D. 1879, and completed in 1901. 'Aríb's Ṭabarî continuatus, edited by de Goeje, was published in 1897.
↩Tornberg's edition (Leyden, 1851-1876) in 14 vols. is the best, as it has an index, which the Cairo edition of A.H. 1303 (the text which I have used throughout) has not.
↩See de Slane's Ibn Khallikán, vol. i, pp. 400-401.
↩Lane's Muhammadan Dynasties, pp. 139-144.
↩Al-Bírúní's Chronology of Ancient Nations (Sachau's translation), pp. 45-46.
↩Literally, “and such as were strung on their string,” the simile being derived from a necklace of pearls.
↩Eloquence is called by the Muslims “siḥr-i-ḥalál,” “lawful Magic.” Concerning “blowing on knots,” see the commentaries on Súra cxiii of the Qur'án. “This” (blowing on knots as a magical practice), says Sale, “was a common practice in former days: what they call in France nouër l'aiguillette, and the knots which the wizards in the northern parts tie, when they sell mariners a wind (if the stories told of them be true), are also relics of the same superstition.”
↩See de Goeje's Mémoire sur les Carmathes, &c. (Leyden, 1886), pp. 142-3.
↩De Goeje, op. laud., pp. 176 and 183 et seqq.
↩See Moritz Steinschneider's Al-Farabi des arabischen Philosophen Leben und Schriften in vol. xiii of the Mém. de l'Acad. de St. P.; Carra de Vaux's Avicenne, pp. 91 et seqq, &c.
↩For a striking instance of this see Dieterici's edition of his Díwán (Berlin, 1861), p. 8, verse 7.
↩See de Slane's translation, vol. i, pp. 105-6.
↩Ibid., p. 109.
↩Culturgeschichte, vol. ii, pp. 381-6.
↩I.e., Abu'l-'Alá al-Ma'arri, b. A.D. 973.
↩See de Goeje's Carmathes, pp. 151-2.
↩This forms the second volume of de Goeje's Bibliothcca Geographorum Arabicorum (Leyden, 1873).
↩This forms the third volume of de Goeje's Bibl. Geogr. Arab. (Leyden, 1877).
↩See Von Kremer's Culturgeschichte, vol. ii, pp. 429-433, where a long extract from his Preface is translated.
↩Edited with copious notes by Flügel (Leipzig, 1871).
↩Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., p. 111.
↩The MS. is in the British Museum, OR. 3391.
↩See the interesting notice of the Ṣáḥib given by Ibn Khallikán (de Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 216).
↩Ibid., p. 215, and the Yatíma, vol. iii, pp. 35-6.
↩Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., vol. i, p. 187.
↩Ibid., p. 236.
↩Edited by Dr. W. Wright, Leipzig, 1864.
↩For their names, see Brockelmann's Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., vol. i, pp. 213-214.
↩Einleitung und Makrokosmos (Leipzig, 1876), pp. 124 et seqq., and the preface to the text of the Abhandlungen der Ichwán es Safá (Leipzig, 1886), pp. vi-vii.
↩Dieterici, Makrokosmos, pp. 138-140.
↩Ibid., p. 146.
↩Ibid., p. 159.
↩Ibid., p. 159.
↩See pp. xvi-xix of the Preface to Flügel's edition.
↩Gesch. d. arab. Litt., vol. i, p. 147.
↩Islám means the submitting or resigning of one's self to God's will, and in the wider sense the term Muslim includes the faithful followers of each prophet recognised by the Muhammadans down to the close of his dispensation. Thus Abraham taught the faith of Islám, and Bilqís, Queen of Sheba, on her conversion, “becomes a Muslim with Solomon the son of David.”
↩i.e., the Qur'án, whence (xli, 42) this phrase is taken.
↩Rashídu'd-Dín Faḍlu'lláh says in the section of his great history (the Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh), which deals with the Isma'ílís, that in Abú Muslim's time the descendants of 'Alí based their claim to the Caliphate “on the nobility of their descent from Fáṭima.”
↩This is stated, for example, in the Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh mentioned in the last note.
↩Exposé de la Religion des Druzes, vol. i, p. lxxii.
↩Fihrist, p. 187.
↩Mémoire sur les Carmathes, Leyden, 1886.
↩Here speaks Dozy (Histoire des Musulmans de l'Espagne, vol. iii, pp. 8 et seqq.), whom de Goeje cites in this place.
↩Here the citation from Dozy ends, and what follows is in the words of de Goeje.
↩See my remarks on the “Ethics of Assassination,” on pp. 371-3 of the second volume of The Episode of the Báb (Cambridge, 1891).
↩See Shahristání's Kitábu'l-Milal, pp. 136-138.
↩Cf. de Goeje's Carmathes, p. 23. A similar use was made of carrier-pigeons by Ráshidu'd-Dín Sinán, one of the Grand Masters of the Syrian Assassins in the twelfth century of our era. See Stanilas Guyard's charming monograph in the Journal Asiatique for 1877, pp. 39 and 41 of the tirage-à-part. The employment of carrier-pigeons was apparently common in Persia in Sámánid times (tenth century). See my translation of the Chahár Maqála, pp. 29-30 of the tirage-à-part.
↩See de Goeje's learned note on this much-debated etymology at pp. 199-203 of his Mémoire sur les Carmathes. For a full account of the conversion of Ḥamdán, see de Sacy's Exposé, vol. i, pp. clxvi-clxxi.
↩Carmathes de Bahrain, pp. 4-11.
↩De Goeje, loc. cit., p. 10; de Sacy's Exposé, pp. lxvii, 35 and 84-87.
↩Un grand mâitre des Assassins, pp. 14-15 of the tirage-à-part.
↩Guyard refers here to Quatremère's Vie du khalife fâtimite Moezz li-din-Alláh (extract from the Journal Asiatique), pp. 118 et. seqq., and to an article by Defrémery (Nouvelles Recherches sur les Ismaíliens) in the same Journal, Ser. V, vol. iii, p. 404.
↩Allusion is here made to the monstrous pretensions advanced by al-Ḥákim, the grandson of al- Mu'izz, who claimed to be an Incarnation of God, and was accepted as such by the sect of Ismá'ílís still known as the Druzes, after al-Ḥákim's minister and abettor the Persian Ḥamza ad-Duruzí.
↩Safar-náma, edited in the original Persian, with a French translation, by the late M. Ch. Schefer (Paris, 1881), pp. 155-6 of the translation, pp. 56-7 of the text.
↩Or perhaps “Cairo,” which, as well as the country of which it is the capital, is commonly called Miṣr by the Muslims.
↩Fihrist, p. 189, where eight of his works are mentioned as having been seen and read by the author. Another work mentioned in this place (al-Balághátu 's-sab'a, in the sense, apparently of “the Seven Initiations”) was known, by name at least, to the Nidhámu'l-Mulk. See his Siyásat-náma , ed. Schefer, p. 196.
↩De Goeje's Carmathes, p. 26; and p. 350 supra.
↩De Goeje's Carmathes, pp. 31-2.
↩His own narrative is given in translation by de Goeje, op. cit., pp. 40-43. See also p. 354 supra.
↩De Goeje (op. cit., p. 75) speaks of “the almost complete inactivity of the Carmathians during the six years which immediately followed the death of Abú Sa'íd” (who was assassinated in A.D. 913-914).
↩De Goeje, op. cit., p. 85.
↩See de Goeje's graphic account, op. cit., pp. 104-113.
↩Ibid., op. cit., p. 144.
↩Concerning the very obscure causes of this incomprehensible event, cf. de Goeje, op. cit., pp. 183 et seqq.
↩See pp. 399-401 supra; and also de Goeje, op. cit., pp. 177-8.
↩Op. cit., pp. 81-83.
↩Op. cit., pp. 161-165 and 173.
↩Cf. de Goeje, op. cit., p. 172.
↩See, for instance, the Fihrist, p. 188, where the same design is ascribed to Abú Muslim; Guyard, Un Grand Maître des Assassins, pp. 4-5 and 10-13; de Goeje's Carmathes, pp. 1-2; von Hammer's Histoire de l'Ordre des Assassins (Paris, 1833), p. 44, &c.
↩See de Goeje, op. cit., p. 15 and note 2 ad calc.
↩No doubt Persian national feeling was appealed to, when it could serve the purpose of the dá'í, but he was just as ready to appeal to similar sentiments in the Arabs and other peoples. See de Sacy's Exposé, p. cxii.
↩See the footnote on p. 11 of Guyard's Grand Maître des Assassins.
↩A Year amongst the Persians, pp. 210-212, 271, 301 et seqq., 331 et seqq., 481-3, &c.
↩The particulars which follow are almost entirely drawn from de Sacy (Exposé, pp. lxxiv-cxxxviii), who cites the account of Akhú Muḥsin given by Nuwayrí.
↩See p. 408 supra.
↩These are the three positions in prayer named qiyám, rukú', and sujúd.
↩Op. cit., pp. lxxxvii-lxxxix.
↩De Sacy (op. cit., p. xciii).
↩They are called “silent” because, unlike the Prophet who introduces each Period, they utter no new doctrine, but merely teach and develop that which they have received from the Náṭiq.
↩Cf. my Year amongst the Persians, pp. 303-306, 367-8, &c.
↩Published in the Sitzungsberichte der Königl-bayer. Akad. d. Wissen-schaften for 1875, Phil. hist. Cl., pp. 145-168.
↩These texts were published in St. Petersburg in 1899, and comprise the Life and Sayings of the Saint (pp. 78), and the Mysteries of the Divine Unity with the Risála-i-Ḥawrá'iyya (pp. 493).
↩See the extract at the end of Socin's Arabic Grammar (English edition of 1885), pp. 72-3, 75, 76, and 77.
↩See Herman Frank's Beitrag zur Erkenntniss des Sufismus (Leipzig, 1884), pp. 8-10.
↩'Abdu'l-Karím b. Hawázin al-Qushayrí († A.D. 1046-7), the author of the well-known Ṣúfí treatise entitled ar-Risálatu'l-Qushayriyya, which was printed at Buláq in A.H. 1284 (A.D. 1867). The passage in question is cited by Jámí at p. 31 of Nassau-Lees's edition of the Nafaḥát.
↩Jámí, however, gives A.H. 258 (A.D. 872) as the date of his death (Nafaḥát, p. 62).
↩Culturgeschichtliche Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete des Isláms (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 45-55.
↩See Haarbrucker's translation of Shahristání, vol. ii, pp. 192 et seqq, and 429-430.
↩Bouillet in his translation of the Enneads of Plotinus (Paris, 1857) speaks (p. xiii.) of “la filiation qui existe entre certaines idées de Plotin et les doctrines mystiques de l'Orient;” and again (p. xxvii) of “la trace des doctrines théologiques tirées de l'Orient.”
↩Idem, p. 41: “Il prit un si grand goût pour la philosophie qu'il se proposa d'étudier celle qui était enseignée chez les Perses et celle qui prévalait chez les Indiens. Lorsque l'empereur Gordien se prépara a faire son expédition contre les Perses, Plotin, alors âgé de trente-neuf ans, se mit à la suite de l'armée. Il avait passé dix à onze années entières près d'Ammonius. Gordien ayant été tué en Mésopotamie, Plotin eut assez de peine à se sauver à Antioche.”
↩See ch. xl of Gibbon's Decline and Fall (ed. 1813, vol. vii, pp. 149-152). Agathius is the chief authority for this curious episode. The philosophers in question were Diogenes, Hermias, Eulalius, Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and Simplicius.
↩Not to be confounded with Shaykh Shihábu'd-Dín 'Umar Suhrawardí, with whom Sa'dí was acquainted (Bustán. ed. Graf, p. 150), and who died in A.D. 1234-5.
↩See my article on this sect in the J. R. A. S. for January, 1898, pp. 61-94; and Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i, pp. 336-388.
↩See the article Ṣúfí in Hughes's Dictionary of Islám.
↩The Arabic MS. Add. 9692 in the British Museum (ff. 317 to end) contains a considerable quantity of his rhapsodies, which, so far as I have examined them, are very much in the style of this citation.
↩Two idolatrous tribes of the ancient Arabs to whom were sent respectively the Prophets Húd and Ṣáliḥ, and who for their obstinate unbelief were destroyed, the one by a violent tempest, the other by a terrible noise from heaven. See Qur'án, Súra vii.
↩See what is said as to the derivation of the word Ṣúfí on p. 417 supra.
↩Compare what is said of the books of the Manichæans on p. 165 supra.
↩See Qur'án, iv, 156.
↩The later Ṣúfís generally imply that he was put to death by crucifixion, being possibly influenced by a desire of establishing a resemblance between him and Christ. In A.H. 1305 (A.D. 1887-8) there was actually published at Bombay a collection of Persian poems purporting to be by Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, and to this impudent forgery is prefixed a rude woodcut of Christ on the Cross (evidently taken from some Christian book), surmounted by a well-known verse from the Mathnawí of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí to this effect:—
↩“Whene'er the unjust judge controls the pen, Some Manṣúr dies upon the gibbet then.”
The naṭ', or executioner's carpet, is a large circular piece of skin or leather, round the margin of which are holes or eyes through which a cord is run. By tightening this cord the carpet is made concave, so as to catch the blood; and when the victim's head has been struck off the cord is drawn quite tight, so that a bag is formed in which the remains are removed.
↩He means that the Being of both these veils of Theophany was overshadowed and absorbed, as it were, by the Divine Effulgence which was manifested in them.
↩Jámí's Nafaḥát, p. 169.
↩See my Year amongst the Persians, pp. 281-2.
↩Religious Sytems of the World (Swan Sonnenschein, 1892), pp. 314-332: an article on Ṣúfíism originally delivered as a lecture at the South Place Ethical Institute.
↩I.e., with Pharaoh, who is conceived of by Jalálu'd-Dín as “walking in the right way” with Moses, though seemingly opposed to him, and yet bitterly lamenting this apparent antagonism. See Whinfield's Masnaví (abridged translation, Trübner, 1898, second ed.), pp. 37-38.
↩The passage is more fully given on p. 326 of Religious Systems of the World (Swan Sonnenschein, 1892).
↩Light of Asia (ed. 1882, Trübner), pp. 226.
↩Light of Asia, p. 231.
↩See Religious Systems of the World, p. 325.
↩As this subject is of great importance for the understanding of much that is best in Persian literature, I here enumerate some of the best books and treatises on it to which the European reader can refer. I. Translations .—'Aṭṭár's Mantiqu'ṭ-Ṭayr (“Language of Birds”), French translation by Garcin de Tassy, Paris, 1864; Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí's Mathnawí, abridged translation by E. Whinfield (2nd ed., London, Trübner, 1898); Shabistarí's Gulshan-i-Ráz (“Rose-garden of Mystery”), ed. and transl. by Whinfield, Trübner, 1880, one of the best Oriental manuals, with excellent Introduction and illuminating comments; Jámí's Yúsuf-u-Zulaykhá, ed. and German transl. by V. von Rosenzweig (Vienna, 1824); Ḥáfidh, Díwán, ed. and German translation by Rosenzweig-Schwannau (Vienna, 1858-1864), and John Payne's English verse transl. published for the Villon Society. II. Original Works.—Tholuck's Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum Panthe-istica (Berlin, 1821); Ibid., Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländischen Mystik (Berlin, 1825); Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, Book vill; Hughes' Dictionary of Islám, sub voc.; my own article in Religious Systems of the World, pp. 314-332; Gibb's History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. i (London, Luzac; 1900), pp. 53-67. These books will suffice to give the general reader an adequate and correct notion of the Ṣúfí system.
↩He was called Tha'álibí (from tha'lab, a fox, pl. tha'álib) because he was by trade a furrier and dealt in the skins of that animal.
↩See the separate reprint of my article on The Sources of Dawlatsháh in the J. R. A. S. for January, 1899, pp. 47-48.
↩See de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khallikán, vol. iii, p. 517; and T. W. Arnold's Preaching of Islám (London, 1896), p. 180.
↩The first Codex is now in the possession of the John Rylands Library at Manchester, having been bought in August, 1901, by Mrs. Rylands from Lord Crawford and Balcarres, for whose library it was purchased at the sale of Bland's MSS. To Lord Crawford and to the Berlin Library I am deeply indebted for the liberality with which they placed these rare manuscripts at my disposal in Cambridge.
↩See J. R. A. S. for January, 1899, pp. 42-3.
↩Another MS. was discovered by Dr. Ethé amongst the India Office Persian MSS. (No. 2516 = No. 2455 of the forthcoming Catalogue, cols. 1321-1335). This Asadí was the transcriber of the oldest extant Persian MS., the Vienna Codex of Abú Manṣúr al-Muwaffaq's Pharmacology, edited by Seligmann (Vienna, 1859). This Codex is dated A.H. 447 (= A.D. 1055-6).
↩This MS. is also described by Pertsch on pp. 596-7 of the Berlin Catalogue of Persian MSS. (1888).
↩These are: Rûdagî, der Sâmânidendichter (1873); Rûdagî's Vorläufer und Zeitgenossen (1875); Firdûsî (sic) als Lyriker (1872); Die Lieder des Kisâ'î (1874), &c.
↩For reasons already given (p. 13, n. 3 supra), I exclude the verses alleged by 'Awfí to have been composed by a certain 'Abbás of Merv, in A.D. 809, in honour of the Caliph al-Ma'mún, since I agree with A. de Biberstein Kazimirski in regarding them as spurious.
↩The other two couplets ascribed to him in the Haft Iqlím (see Ethé, Rûdagî's Vorläufer, p. 40) are really by a different poet. See p. 355 supra.
↩The seed of the wild rue (sipand) is burned as a fumigation against the Evil Eye or “Eye of Perfection” ('Aynu'l Kamál), so called because whatever is perfect of its kind is especially subject to its malevolent influence. The poet compares his sweetheart's bright face and dark beauty-spot to the fire and the rue-seed, and implies that they are too perfect to be so easily protected against the Evil Eye.
↩Of the thirty-one poets included by 'Awfí in this chapter, Ethé mentions about twenty, and adds two or three more.
↩Ethé, using only the Berlin Codex of 'Awfí, reads Faráládí, but the better Elliott Codex, as well as the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, has clearly d, not w, and this reading is confirmed by the verse of Rúdagí cited by 'Awfí in which the name rhymes with ráwí.
↩In a passage from an Arabic work entitled Ghyátu'l-Wasá'il ila Ma'rifati'l-awá'il, which I have cited at pp. 125-6 of my Handlist of the Muḥammadan MSS. in the Library of the University of Cambridge, Rúdagí's pedigree is carried three generations further back (b. Muḥammad b. Ḥakím b. 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán b. Ádam), and he is described as “the first to produce fine poetry in Persian” (see p. 356 supra).
↩A French translation of the younger Bal'amí's version by Zotenberg was published in Paris in 1867-1874 in four volumes.
↩Handlist, p. 126, ll. 3-4.
↩The oldest, fullest and most authentic version of this story occurs in the Chahár Maqála of Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí of Samarqand. See my translation of that work (Luzac, 1899), pp. 51-56; and also my article on the Sources of Dawlatsháh in the J. R. A. S. for January, 1899, pp. 61-69.
↩He died, according to as-Sam'ání (cited by al-Maníní in his commentary on the Ta'ríkhu'l-'Utbí, Cairo ed. of A.H. 1286, vol. i, p. 52) in A.H. 329 = A.D. 940-1.
↩Jámí exaggerates this number to four hundred.
↩The poet Rashídí of Samarqand in one of his poems says that he counted Rúdagí's verses, and found that they amounted to thirteen times 100,000 (i.e., one million and three hundred thousand), which is probably what Jámí was thinking of.
↩Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenchaften u. der G. A. Universität zu Göttingen, No. 25, November 12, 1873, pp. 663-742.
↩Rûdagî's Vorläufer und Zeitgenossen, p. 59.
↩Das Iranische Nationalepos, p. 18 (Separätabdruck from the Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, Strassburg, 1896).
↩Gesch. d. Persische Litteratur, p. 81 (Leipzig, 1901).
↩Ethé, op. cit., p. 59.
↩A Year amongst the Persians, pp. 375-6.
↩See Turner Macan's edition of the Sháhnáma, at the beginning of vol. iii (p. 1065, l. 11), where Daqíqí is made to say to Firdawsí in the vision: “I composed a thousand couplets about Gushtásp and Arjásp, when my life came to an end.” The portion of the poem ascribed to Daqíqí extends from p. 1065 to p. 1103. In Vüllers's edition this is equivalent to vol. iii, pp. 1495-1553; or 1001 couplets minus the prologue of 13 couplets = 988 couplets.
↩Op. cit., p. 20. The criticism in question occurs in Macan's ed. on p. 1104.
↩See the tirage-à-part of my translation of the Chahár Maqála, p. 65.
↩Ta'ríkhu'l-'Utbí, ed. Cairo, A.H. 1286, vol. ii, p. 22.
↩Náhíd (the ancient Anáhíta) is the planet Venus, and Hurmuz (Ahura-Mazda) is Jupiter, these being the two fortunate planets, as Saturn and Mars are the unlucky ones.
↩The locks (zulf) of the Beloved, by reason of their shape, their blackness, and their power to wound, are often compared to a scorpion.
↩This, I suppose, is a metaphor for the dimples which flash and flicker round the mouth of the Beloved.
↩“To count the stars,” is, both with the Persian poets and their Turkish imitators, a common expression for passing sleepless nights.
↩Safar-náma (ed. Schefer, Paris, 1881), p. 6 of the text = pp. 18-19 of the French translation.
↩The crescent moon is here compared to the curved head of a polo-bat.
↩Meaning that his son, Manṣúr, was so wasted with love that he could scarce be distinguished from a hair.
↩This Arabic version of the Sháhnáma exists only in manuscript, and is rare, but there is a fine old copy in the Cambridge University Library, and others at Paris and Berlin (see pp. 43-4 of my Handlist of Muhammadan MSS.) The Seljúq History has been edited in the most scholarly way by Houtsma (Brill, Leyden, 1889). Arabic verse-translations of Persian originals occur on p. 85 (verses of Abú Manṣúr of Ába), p. 86 (verses of the Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk), p. 105 (verses of Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní), &c.
↩Qur'án, v, 49.
↩Zandaníjí or Zand-píchí (see Vüllers's Lexicon, vol. iii, p. 151) is a loose white garment made of very thick and strong material, probably to afford some protection against sword-cuts.
↩This pedigree, given in full by al-Bírúní (p. 47 of Sachau's translation), traces his lineage to the Sásánian King Qubádh, the father of Anúshírwán.
↩Other passages of this encomium will be found on pp. 507-8 of the second volume of de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán.
↩He was murdered, with his son's connivance, in the Castle of Janáshk in Gurgán, where he had been imprisoned. See my edition of Dawlatsháh, pp. 48-9, and de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikán, vol. ii, p. 509.
↩See Blochmann's Prosody of the Persians, p. 68, where the twenty-four rubá'í metres, of which half are derived from each of these two varieties of the hazaj metre, are given in full.
↩Another similar word-play on dih-khudhá (the Persian word for a landowner or squire) will be found in a verse by Abu' l-Qásim al-'Alawí al-Utrúsh cited at the top of p. 280 of vol. iii of the Yatíma.
↩See Sachau's translation of al-Bírúní's Chronology of Ancient Nations, p. 209.
↩Both these books confuse Legend with History in their accounts of the earlier period, and are more or less obsolete.
↩Both these books confuse Legend with History in their accounts of the earlier period, and are more or less obsolete.
↩