Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature Part 1

Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature.

by M. Inostranzev, et al.

PREFACE

The facile notion is still prevalent even among Musalmans of learning that the past of Iran is beyond recall, that the period of its history preceding the extinction of the House of Sasan cannot be adequately investigated and that the still anterior dynasties which ruled vaster areas have left no traces in stone or parchment in sufficient quant.i.ty for a tolerable record reflecting the story of Iran from the Iranian's standpoint. This fallacy is particularly hugged by the Parsis among whom it was originally lent by fanaticism to indolent ignorance. It has been credited with uncritical alacrity, congenial to self-complacency, that the Arabs so utterly and ruthlessly annihilated the civilization of Iran in its mental and material aspects that no source whatever is left from which to wring reliable information about Zoroastrian Iran. The following limited pages are devoted to a disproof of this age-long error.

For a connected story of Persia prior to the battle of Kadisiya, beside the Byzantine writers there is abundant material in Armenian and Chinese histories. These mines remain yet all but unexplored for the Moslem and Parsi, although much has been done to extract from them a chronicle of early Christianity. The archaeology of Iran, as I have shown elsewhere, can provide vital clue to an authentic resuscitation of Sasanian past.

Pre-Moslem epigraphy of Persia is yet in little more than an inchoate condition. Not only all Central Asia but the territories marching with the Indian and Persian frontiers, where persecution of the elder faith could not have been relatively mild, the population professing Islam have been unable to abjure in their entirety rites and practices akin to those of Zoroastrianism. Within living memory the inhabitants of Pamir would not blow out a candle or otherwise desecrate fire. While science cannot recognise the claims of any individual professing to have studied esoteric Zoroastrianism hidden in the hill tracts of Rawalpindi, the myth has a value in that it indicates the direction in which humbler and uninspired scholars may work. These regions and far beyond, teem with pure Iranian place-names to this day; and you meet in and around even the Peshawar district individuals bearing names of old Iranian heroes which, if the theory of persecution-mongers be correct, would be an anathema to the bigoted followers of Muhammad.

It is, above all, Arabic literature which upsets the easy fiction of total destruction of Iranian culture by the Arabs. In its various departments of history, geography and general science Arabic works incorporate extensive material for a history of Iranian civilization, while Arabic poetry abounds in references to Zoroastrian Iran. The former is ill.u.s.trated by Professor Inostranzev's pioneer Russian essay of which the main body of this book is a translation. The Appendices are intended to be supplementary and to be at once a continuation and a possible key--continuation of the researches of the Russian scholar and key to the contemned store-house of Arabic letters.

Professor Inostranzev is in little need of introduction to English scholars. He has already been made known in India by the indefatigable Shams-ul-Ulma Dr. Jivanji Modi, Ph.D., C.I.E., who got translated, and commented on, his Russian paper on the curious _Astodans_ or receptacles for human bones discovered in the Persian Gulf region. He shares with Professor Browne of Cambridge and the great M. Blochet a unique scholarly position: he combines an intimate knowledge of Avesta civilization with a familiarity with cla.s.sical Arabic. It is not wilfully to ignore the claims of Goldziher, Brockelmann or Sachau or the Dutch savants de Goeje and Van Vloten. Deeply as they investigated Arabic writings, it was M. Inostranzev who first revealed to us the worth of Arabic: he unearthed chapters embedded in Arabic books which are paraphrase or translation of Pahlavi originals. He had but one predecessor and that was a countryman of his, Baron Rosen.

In preparing the Appendices, which are there to testify to the value of Arabic literature especially the annals and the branch of it called Adab, I have availed myself of the courtesy of various inst.i.tutions and individuals. Bombay, perhaps the wealthiest town in the East where prosperous Musalmans form a most important factor of its population, has not one public library containing any tolerable collection of Arabic books edited in Europe. Time after time wealthy Parsis whose interest I enlisted have received from me lists of books to form the nucleus of an Arabic library but apparently they need some further stimulus to appreciate how indispensable Arabic is for research into Iranian antiquities. The Bombay Government have expended enormous sums in collecting Sanskrit ma.n.u.scripts--a most laudable pursuit--and have published a series of admirable texts edited by some of the eminent Sanskrit scholars, Western and Indian. But the numerous Moslem Anjumans do not appear to have demonstrated to the greatest Moslem Power in the world, or its representative in Bombay, the necessity of a corresponding solicitude for Arabic and Persian treasures which undoubtedly exist, though to a lesser extent, in the Presidency. And what holds true of Bombay holds good in case of the rest of India. Some of the libraries in Upper India in Hyderabad, Rampur, Patna, Calcutta possess along with ma.n.u.script material cheap mutilated Egyptian reprints of magnificent texts brought out in Leiden, Paris and Leipzig. Nowhere in India is available to a research scholar a complete set of European publications in Arabic, which a few thousand rupees can purchase. The state of affairs is due to Moslem apathy, politics claiming a disproportionate share of their civic energy, to Government indifference and to some extent Parsi supineness and prejudice which, despite the community's vaunted advancement, has failed to estimate at its proper worth their history as enshrined in the language of the pre-judged Arab.

Moulvi Muhammad Ghulam Rasul Surti, of Bombay, himself a scholar, lent me from his bookshop expensive works which few private students could afford to buy. No western book-seller could have conceived a purer love of learning or a gaze less rigidly fixed on "business". Sir John Marshall, Director General of Archaeology in India, continued very kindly to permit me use of books after I had severed official connection with his library at Simla. Dr. Spooner who acted for him obligingly saw that as far as he was concerned no facilities were incontinently withdrawn from me at Benmore. I have particularly to thank the Librarian of the Imperial Library, Calcutta, who not only posted me books in his charge but went out of his way to procure me others. Mrs. Besant and her wealthy adherents have created at Adyar the atmosphere a.s.sociated with the Ashramas and the seats of learning in ancient India so finely described by Chinese travellers. The Oriental Library there is unsurpa.s.sed by any inst.i.tution in British or Indian ruled India. It is to be wished in the interests of pure scholars.h.i.+p that some one succeeds--I did not--in prevailing on the President of the Theosophical Society to lend books to scholars who may not be equal to the exertion of daily travelling seven miles from Madras to Adyar. Her insistence on a rigid imitation of British Museum rules in India, mainly because so many of the Theosophical fraternity cut out pages and chapters from books once allowed to be borrowed by them, inflicts indiscriminate penalty on honest research and seals up against legitimate use books nowhere else to be found in India.

I reserve for the Second Part of this book some observations on the Russian language with reference to Orientalism, and Arabic and Persian literatures in particular. Only after the outbreak of the War some interest has been aroused in England in matters Russian generally and a number of grammars and dictionaries and other aids to the study of this most difficult language have recently been placed on the market for the use of students who only a brief three years ago had to depend mainly on German for acquisition of Russian. This neglect of Russian is wholly undeserved. It is doubtful if the researches into Oriental histories and literatures by the Russians have been yet adequately appreciated in England, the tireless efforts of Dr. Pollen and the Anglo-Russian Literary Society notwithstanding. It is apparently still presumed that ripe scholars.h.i.+p in Arabic and Sanskrit is inconceivable except through the medium of the languages of Western Europe. No unworthy disparagement of French labours is at all suggested. But it is only fair to Russia to remember in India that the absence of a Serg d'Oldenberg would leave a lacuna which must be felt in Buddhist Sanskrit; without Tzerbatski the Jain literature both Magadhi and Sanskrit would be appreciably poorer; and that the Continent has produced nothing to exceed the series of Buddhist Sanskrit texts of Petrograd, where was published the still largest Sanskrit lexicon. Naturally in the province of Chinese and j.a.panese the Russian Academy at Vladivostock stood _facile princeps_ till only the other day its magnificent rival was established in London under the direction of Dr. Denison Ross. An individual scholar like Khanikoff, who like most of his countrymen in the last century preferred to write in French, and a Zukovski has done more signal service to Persian antiquities than could be honestly attributed to many a German name familiar to Indian scholars. The distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of the Russian investigator, devoted to the past of Persia, is his uncommon equipment. The Russian bring to their task a mature study of Semitic languages and acquaintance with Avesta philology. Arabic literature teems with allusions to the religions, dogma, customs and the court of Sasanian Iran. Once intended for contemporaries equally at home in the Arabic and Persian idioms these references have in course of time grown obscure to copyists who have mutilated Iranian names of persons and places and specific Zoroastrian terms which had become naturalised in the language of the ruling Arabs. It is scholars like Baron Rosen and Rosenberg who have adequately appreciated the value of Arabic texts in which are interwoven verbal translations of celebrated Pahlavi treatises. Two such have been disinterred by the industry and erudition of Inostranzev.

This is the first book to be translated from Russian into English by an Indian and the obvious difficulties of the task may be pleaded to excuse some of the shortcomings of a pioneer undertaking. I look for my reward in on awakened interest in Arabic books which hold in solution more information on Persia than any set work on the history of Iran.

It would not be in place to advert to the present state of hapless chaos in Persia. The most sympathetic outsider, however, cannot help observing that her misfortunes are less due to her neighbours and their mutual relations than to her too rapid political strides and adoption of exotic administrative machinery repugnant to the genius of the ancient nation.

Whatever the att.i.tude of individual Mullas towards non-Moslems in the past the central authority and the people as a whole are actuated to-day with a spirit of patriotism which is still the keynote of the character of Persia's n.o.ble manhood and womanhood. It declines to make religion the criterion of kins.h.i.+p.

The inconsistency in the spelling of Arabic words has not altogether been avoidable being due partly to a desire to adhere to the orthography adopted by authors whom I have consulted.

SIMLA, G.K. NARIMAN.

September, 1917.

CHAPTER I

Iranian literary tradition in the opening centuries of Islam 1

The character of the Persian history during the Sasanian epoch 6

Importance of this epoch according to the Arab writers of the first centuries of Islam 10

The position of the Parsi community and the centres of the preservation of Persian tradition during the period of the Khalifat in Tabaristan, Khorasan and Fars 15

The castle of s.h.i.+z in the district of Arrajan in the province of Fars described by Istakhri, p. 118, 2-4; 150, 14-7; Ibn Hauqal, p. 189, 1-2; cf. the translator of the _Khoday Nameh_, Behram, son of Mardanshah of the city of Shapur in the province of Fars 19

This castle was the residence of those acquainted with the Iranian tradition (the _badhgozar_) and here their archives were lodged 20

_ARABIC WRITERS AS SOURCES OF SASANIAN CULTURE_.

To the Iranian element belongs a very rich role in the external as well as the internal history of Islam. Its influence is obvious and constant in the history of the Moslem nations' spread over centuries. Whenever the circ.u.mstances have been favourable it has been clearly manifest; when the conditions have been hostile it is not noticeable at the first glance but in reality has been of great consequence. The causes of this are very complicated. And it is necessary on account of its universal value to examine a wide concatenation of facts. But from a general point of view there is no doubt that it has its roots princ.i.p.ally in the continuity of the historical and cultural traditions. Particular significance attaches to the circ.u.mstance that just in the epoch preceding the Arab conquest Persia had experienced a period of national revival after the horrors that its sovereignty had undergone, at the hands, for instance, of Alexander the Great.[1] Therefore for the study of Iranian tradition in Islam the period of the Sasanian dynasty preceding the Arab conquest has a special significance.

[Footnote 1: This is explained by the hatred given expression to in the Parsi tradition regarding Alexander. Comp. J. Darmesteter _La Legende de Alexandre chez les Pa.r.s.es. Essais Orientaux_, Paris 1883, pp. 227-251.]

The Sasanian dynasty issuing from a small princ.i.p.ality in the south of Persia--a princ.i.p.ality which, properly speaking bears the t.i.tle of the "kernel of the Persian nation"--occupies a considerable position in Persian history. Wide imperial aims were united with a plenitude of solid organisation of government so perfect that it pa.s.sed into a proverb among the Arabs. In this last connection the Sasanian tradition survived for a long time a number of Moslem dynasties. The powerful influence which Iranian tradition exercised was felt by the Abbaside Khahlifs and after them by the Turkish Seljuks. But not only the science of government, a good deal of other matters of cultural and historical importance in the latter times have their explanation in the Sasanian epoch. Placed on the confines of the Greco-Roman world on the one hand, and China and India on the other, Sasanian Persia served during the course of a long time as a central mart of exchange of a mental as well as of a material nature. As against the Achaemenides, emulating the high Semitic culture of the West and the h.e.l.lenistic endeavours preceding the Parthian dynasty, the Sasanians pre-eminently were the promulgators of the Iranian principles. Alongside of this, however, although in a subordinate position, the development of the h.e.l.lenistic movement and the ancient Irano-Semitic syncretism continued to proceed.

Simultaneously an ethical amalgamation proceeded especially in Western Persia where Semiticism was powerful for a lengthened period, Nevertheless, the Sasanians continued the unification of the Iranian inhabitants of central and western Persia. The political system of the Sasanian emperors[1] was based on this fusion. Before it pales the importance of the other facts regarding the political organisation of the Sasanians,--centralisation of government in a manner so that the elements of feudal const.i.tution made themselves felt throughout the existence of the empire and even after the Arab conquest, when it left traces in circles representing Iranian traditions.

[Footnote 1: On the const.i.tution of the Sasanian government, see A.

Christensen, _L'empire des Sasanides, le peuple, l'etat, la cour_, 1907.]

The Iranophile tendencies which dominated the Sasanian epoch developed in intimate cooperation with the State religion (Mazdaism) and the Parsi priesthood. Among the latter continued the production of literary works.

Besides, the redaction of the sacred books was completed in these times.

Among them were conserved and propagated Persian ethical ideals, which found expression in literary forms, in ethico-didactic tracts, like those which we notice just in the same circles in later times. To the same end were preserved national traditions and ritual, some of which had nothing to do with Mazdaism. The ethical ideals of the church found strong support in the feudalistic circles comprising the larger and the smaller landholders, the _dehkans_ who, with particular zeal, preserved ancient heroic traditions.

Alongside of these national currents in the Sasanian empire there operated in full force those factors of cultural exchange of which we spoke above. Of those factors the most important that deserve our attention are questions regarding education and instruction. In this connection, Sasanian Persia found itself under powerful influences from the West. There are sufficient reminiscences of neo-Platonic exiles from Greece at the Sasanian Court and of the school of medicine in which the leading part belonged to h.e.l.lenic physicians. At the same time in the same field we have to examine other influences. For Sasanian Persia did not remain stranger to the sciences of India. We have information regarding the renascence of the activity of the translators of scientific works into the Persian language and the tradition of this activity survived down to the Moslem times. In connection with this theoretical scientific activity stood high perfection in exterior culture issuing to a considerable degree from exchange of materials. And even here the Sasanian tradition has survived the dynasties; in the study of the commerce and industry as well as the art of the Moslem epoch we have necessarily to refer back to the preceding times of the Persian history.

In pre-Moslem Arabia the high development of the civilisation of Sasanian Persia was well known. Among the subjects of the great Persian sovereigns in the western provinces of their empire there were a large number of Arabs who in commercial intercourse carried, to tribes of the Syrian desert and further south to the Arabian peninsula, reports regarding the great _Iran Shahar_. Not only legends of the heroic figures of the Iranian epic--Rustam and Isfandiar--but religious views and persuasions of the Persians found a place and were spread among the Arab clans. Thus we know that "fire-wors.h.i.+ppers" were settled among the Arab tribe of the Temim.[1]

[Footnote 1: _See_ for example Ibn Rustah (B.G.A. VII, p. 217, 6-9).]

As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of Arabia a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch. As is well-known, thanks mainly to the Persian influence, there was a small Arab kingdom of the Lekhmides in the South-Western portion of the Sasanian empire[1]. It played its part, most beneficial for Persia, holding back on the one hand Roman-Byzantine onrush from the West, and on the other restraining the perpetual attempts at irruption into Persian territory by Arab nomadic tribes. Not long before the appearance of Islam, Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as well as Yemen pa.s.sed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and his Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and luxury.

[Footnote 1: _Die Dynastie der Lekhmiden in al-Hira, Ein Versuch zur arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sasaniden Berlin_, 1899.]

The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete catastrophe to the Sasanian empire. But Persian culture was not to be extirpated by the success of Arab arms. Persia was overwhelmed only externally and the Arabs were compelled to preserve a considerable deal of the past. Having lost the position of rulers, the Persian priesthood preserved intact its control of the indigenous populace in the eyes of the latter as well as of the foreign Government. The same remark holds good of the cla.s.s of landed proprietors.[1] Iranian tradition continued to live In and with them. Not only what was preserved but all that was destroyed for long left vestiges in the memory of the conquerors.

[Footnote 1: Regarding the part played by this cla.s.s in the times of the Khalifs, see A. Von Kramer _Culturgeschiche des orients unter den Chalifen_ II. pp, 150, 62.]

Many years after the Arab conquest the ruins that covered Persia excited the admiration of the Arabs. Their geographers of the ninth and tenth centuries considered it their duty to enumerate the princ.i.p.al buildings of the Sasanians reminding the reader that here Khus...o...b..ilt in his time in bye-gone days a castle, there a mountain fastness, again at a third place, a bridge.[1] Regarding various ancient structures which had survived the Sasanian times, we refer, _inter alia_, to Istakhri, (ibid I), pp. 124; Ibn Hauqal (ibid II) 195; Ibn Khordadbeh (ibid VI) p. 43, (text); Ibn Rusteh (ibid VII), 153, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 189; Yakubi (ibid VII), 270, 271, 273, &c.

[Footnote 1: _See_ the enumeration of the noteworthy buildings of ancient Persia as given in Makdisi (B.G.A. III), p. 399, and Ibn-ul-Fakih (_ibid_ V), p. 267.]

The remains of the structures, monuments of art from the Sasanian times and the ages preceding them attracted the attention of the Arabs and they have left descriptions of the same in more or less detail.[1] From the information of the same Musalman writers we possess accurate accounts of the inhabitants of Persia and their religions. Thus, for instance, Yakubi indicates that the inhabitants of Isfahan, Merv, and Herat, consisted mainly of high-born Dehkans.[2] Makdisi notices a considerable number of fire-wors.h.i.+ppers in several provinces of Persia, for instance, Irak and Jibal.[3]

[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 203, Ibn Hauqal, p, 266, 256, Makdisi pp. 396 and 445, Ibn Rusteh, p. 166.]

[Footnote 2: Yakubi, pp. 274, 279-280.]

[Footnote 3: Makdisi, pp. 126, 194.]

ISTAKHRI AND IBN HAUQAL[1]

_Relate that the inhabitants of several localities of Kerman during the entire Umayyad period openly professed Mazdaism._