CHAPTER II. Parsi Clergy Preserve Tradition 25
CHAPTER III. Ethico-didactic Books of Arabs Exclusively
of Iranian Origin 38
CHAPTER IV. Iranian Components of Arabic _Adab_ Literature 53
CHAPTER V. Pahlavi Books Studied by Arab Authors 65
CHAPTER VI. Arab Translators from Pahlavi 76
CHAPTER VII. Pahlavi Rushnar Nameh 89
APPENDICES
(By the Translator).
APPENDIX I. Independent Zoroastrian Princes of Tabaristan
after Arab Conquest 93
APPENDIX II. Iranian Material in Mahasin wal Masawi and
Mahasin wal Azdad 101
APPENDIX III. Burzoe's Introduction 105
APPENDIX IV. The Trial of Afshin,
a Disguised Zoroastrian General 135
APPENDIX V. Noeldeke's Introduction to Tabari 142
APPENDIX VI. Letter of Tansar to the King of Tabaristan 159
APPENDIX VII. Some Arab Authors and the Iranian Material
they preserve:--
The Uyunal Akhbar of Ibn Qotaiba 163
Jahiz: Kitab-al-Bayan wal Tabayyin 168
Hamza Ispahani 171
Tabari 174
Dinawari 177
Ibn al Athir 179
Masudi 182
Shahrastani 187
Ibn Hazm 192
Ibn Haukal 195
APPENDIX VIII.
Ibn Khallikan 199
Mustawfi 203
Muqadasi 204
Thaalibi 205
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 quantity
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 illustrated 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 classical 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 institutions 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 manuscripts--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
manuscript 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 associated with
the Ashramas and the seats of learning in ancient India so finely
described by Chinese travellers. The Oriental Library there is
unsurpassed by any institution in British or Indian ruled India. It is
to be wished in the interests of pure scholarship 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 scholarship 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
Japanese 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 distinguishing 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 attitude 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 noble manhood and womanhood. It declines to make religion
the criterion of kinship.
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 Shiz 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 rôle 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 circumstances 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 principally in the
continuity of the historical and cultural traditions. Particular
significance attaches to the circumstance 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 Parses. Essais Orientaux_, Paris 1883, pp. 227-251.]
The Sasanian dynasty issuing from a small principality in the south of
Persia--a principality which, properly speaking bears the title 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 passed 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 Hellenistic 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 Hellenistic 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 constitution 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 constitution 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 Hellenic 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-worshippers" 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 passed 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 class 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 class 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 principal buildings
of the Sasanians reminding the reader that here Khusro built 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-worshippers 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._
In a more detailed fashion, however, the Arab writers notice the Mazdian
dwellers of Fars, the heart of the Persian dominion. Makdisi says that
in Fars existed the customs of fire-worshippers but that the
fire-worshipping inhabitants of the capital of the province of Shiraz
had no distinguishing mark on their clothes; from which it follows that
in that age these people were in no way differentiated from the Musalman
subjects.[2] Istakhri[3] and Ibn Hauqal[4] relate that the bulk of the
inhabitants of Fars consisted of fire-worshippers and they were there in
larger number than anywhere else, Fars being the centre of sacerdotal
and cultural life of the empire in the days of Persian independence.
Very minute information is supplied us by these writers[5] regarding the
ancient castles and fire-temples scattered over the whole of Fars in
abundance. The latter is of capital importance since here was the
residence of those two classes of Persian society, noblemen and priests,
who were the staunchest conservators of the ancient national tradition.
[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 164; _Ibn_ Hauqal, p. 221.]
[Footnote 2: _See_ Makdisi, pp. 421, 429.]
[Footnote 3: P. 130.]
[Footnote 4: P. 207.]
[Footnote 5: Istakhri, pp. 116-119; also p. 100. Ibn Hauqal, 187-190;
also p. 181.]
It is undoubted that the position of the Parsi community after the
Moslem conquest was comparatively comfortable. Still sometimes it was
darkened by excessive fanaticism and the intrigues of the followers of
other faiths. Although sometimes the Parsis could push themselves
forward to positions of officials and instructors and played an
important part in the history of the Khalifate, generally speaking, this
community was a close one leading a more or less exclusive life, a
circumstance enabling the conservation of national peculiarities and
attachment to antiquity. As time went on, however, the condition of
their existence necessarily became worse and the consequence was the
gradual emigration of a portion of the community from the motherland to
Western India.
In the entire Parsi literature we come across only one historical
composition which recounts this emigration. But the narrative is so
obscure that of the main occurrence in it there must have remained only
a general memory.[1] This book is called the "Kisseh-Sanjan" and was
written at a very late date at the very close of the 16th century, so
that the data given in it have to be looked upon as a reverberation of
ancient tradition.[2]
[Footnote 1: The modern historian and Parsi scholar Karaka, in analysing
the events subsequent to the Arab conquest follows the views of the old
School of writers regarding this epoch as a complete destruction of all
the previous organisation and the triumph of fanaticism of the new
faith. See D.F. Karaka, _History of the Parsis_, Vol I; on the history
of the Parsis subsequent to the Arab invasion _see_ page 22 ff.]
[Footnote 2: E.B. Easrwick, Translation from the Persian of the
"_Kisseh-Sanjan_" or "History of the arrival and settlement of the Parsis
in India." J.B.B.R.A.S., I. 1844, pp. 167-191. (_See_ also Vol. 21,
extra number, 1005, pp. 197-99).]
From the circumstances detailed in this book it appears that the
emigrators after the establishment of Musalman domination passed a
hundred years in a mountainous locality and only after the lapse of
these long years migrated to Hormuz, from where they proceeded to the
peninsula of Gujarat and finally after negotiations with the local chief
settled in Sanjan. Subsequently fresh refugees joined them from
Khorasan. From this last we can infer that the emigration was gradual
and this is confirmed by the fact that in case of migration in a mass
the diaspora of the Parsis would have left some traces in the Arabic
literature. Further there is no doubt that considerable number of Parsis
remained behind in their country and their descendants are the modern
Persian Guebres who, together with the Parsis of India, may be called
the only preservers of ancient Iranian tradition to the present times.
Thus, throughout Persia in the first centuries of Islam national
elements with, changed fortunes persisted in their existence. It is,
however, to be remarked that their success was not uniform in, every
quarter of the country, that their fate depended to a considerable
extent upon the geographical position and the historical life of the
various provinces of the land. Western provinces owing to their
proximity to the centre of the Arab ruling life had more than the rest
to mingle with, the Arab stream, and to participate in the cycle of
events in the Arabic period of the history of the Musalman East. Central
Persia, owing to its geographical position, could not constitute the
point _d'appue_ of the Persian element. For the latter the most
favourably situated provinces were those in the North, East, and South,
Tabaristan, Khorasan, and Fars.
TABARISTAN.
As is well-known throughout the floruit of the Arab empire this province
found itself in almost entire independence of the central power. Local
dynasts called the Ispahbeds enjoyed practical independence and in those
times Arabo-Moslem influences simply did not exist. Local
rulers,--Bavendids, Baduspans, Karenides--appeared successively or
simultaneously following the traditions left to them by the Marzbans or
the land holders and partly the successors of the great King who were
independent from the times of the Arsacide dynasty.[1] Subsequently as
Aliides and Ziyarids, they were closely attached to Shiaism with its
definite expression of Persian sympathy. Nevertheless, this province was
not favourable for a particularly successful national evolution. The
fact was that even in the Sasanian epoch Tabaristan remained a distant
and obscure frontier division and did not take part in the progress of
civilisation of the times. Therefore it could not form the centre of
gravity of Persian life although there is no doubt that in several
respects in this province there were preserved typical features of
Sasanian antiquity.
[Footnote 1: For a general conspectus of the history of the provinces
with regard to their independence during the Sasanian and Arab
domination, _see, e.g._ F. Justi, G.I. Ph., II, pp. 547-49--"History of
Iran from the earliest to the end of the Sasanides" in German--Appendix
I.]
KHORASAN.
It was otherwise with the Eastern provinces of Khorasan, too far distant
from the territary occupied by the Arab settlers, and too densely
inhabited by Iranians to rapidly lose its previous characteristics. On
the contrary, we know from the historians that in this province Iranian
elements remained steadfast throughout the Umayyad dynasty and it was
exclusively due to the support given by Khorasanians to the Abbasides
that the latter succeeded in overthrowing the previous dynasty and
commenced the era of powerful Iranian influences in the history of the
Musalman Orient.[1] Khorasan played a vital part in the development of
the modern Persian literature and especially its chief department,
poetry. The entire early period of the history of modern Persian poetry,
from Abbas welcoming with an ode Khalif Mamun into Merv down to
Firdausi, may be labelled Khorasanian. There flourished the activity of
Rudaki, Kisai, Dakiki, and other less notable representatives of the
early period of modern Persian bards.[2] The culture of poetry was
favoured not only by the geographical position of the province of
Khorasan but by its political conditions. Already in the beginning of
the ninth century in Khorasan there had arisen national Persian
dynasties and under their patronage began the renascence of the Persian
nation (Taherides, Saffarides, Samanides).
[Footnote 1: On the history of Khorasan in the Umayyad period _see_ J.
Wellhausen _Das Arabische Reich und Sein Sturz,_ p, 247 f. and p. 306
f.]
[Footnote 2: _See_ the general survey of this period in J, Darmesteter,
"The Origins of the Persian Poesy", in French and E.G. Browne "Literary
History of Persia", I, p, 350 ff.]
FARS.
Under different circumstances but with considerable significance for the
Persian national ideals lay the Southern province of Fars. Here with
tenacious insistence survived not only national but also political
traditions of ancient Sasanian Persia. Here was the centre of a
government and from here started fresh dynasties. After the Arab
conquest this province came into much more intimate connection with the
Khalifate, than, for instance, Khorasan. But Persian elements were
favoured by its geographical position,--the mountainous character of its
situation and the consequent difficulty of access by the invaders. We
already produced above the information of the Arab geographers of the
tenth century regarding the abundance of fire-temples and castles in
Fars. They relate that there was no village or hamlet of this province
in which there was no fire-temple. Residence was taken up in strong
castles by the native aristocrats whose ideals were rooted in the
Sasanian epoch. Just in these geographers, Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal, is
to be found information of unusual importance, so far as we can judge,
regarding the conservation of the Parsi tradition in Fars These authors
have been up to now not only not appreciated but their significance for
our question has not yet been adequately recognised.
Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal enumerating the castles of Fars declare as
follows regarding the castle of Shiz:[1]
"The castle of Shiz is situated in the district of Arrajana. There live
fire-worshippers[2] who know Persia and her past. Here they study. This
castle is very strong."
[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 118, 2-4; Ibn Hauqal, p, 180, 1-2.]
[Footnote 2: In the text occurs the Persian word _badgozar_, that is to
say, the rhapsodists, the relators of the national traditions; on this
word see B.G.A. III, pp. 182-83, and Vuller's _Lexicon Persico-Latinum_
S.V. For a parallel to the archives of the Achamenide empire _see_ F.
Justi, _Ein Tag aus den Leben des konigs Darius._]
Further we read the following in Istakhri (page 150, 14-17):--
"In the district of Sabur on the mountain there are likenesses of all
the noteworthy Persian kings and grandees, of illustrious preservers of
fire, high _mobeds_ and others. Their portraits, their acts and
narratives about them are successively recorded in volumes. With
particular care are preserved these volumes by the people living in a
locality in the district of Arrajan called the castle of Shiz."
From this information we learn that in one of the castles of Fars down
to the tenth century there were preserved manuscripts written probably
in the Pahlavi language containing narratives from Persian history and
illustrated with, portraits after the style of the Sasanian reliefs to
be found in the rocks in the district of Sabur.[1] This strong mountain
fastness was probably little accessible to the Arabs and afforded an
asylum to the _mobeds, dehkans_ and others interested in the past of
their country.
[Footnote 1: That is after the style of the Sasanian bass-reliefs which
were preserved in his time on the rocks in the vicinity of Shapur and
the most famous type of which are the bass-reliefs representing the
triumphs of the Sasanian Shapur I, over the emperor Valentine].
These facts generally important for the history of the preservation of
the epic, historic and artistic traditions of Iran, are particularly
important for the investigation of the sources of the Arabic
translations of the Sasanian chronicles and of the epopee of Firdausi.
As we know, the translators of these chronicles were Persian
"fire-worshippers" or Musalmans who had adopted Islam only externally
and had remained true to the ancient Persian religion. Among them the
foremost is called _Mobed_ belonging to the city of Sabur in the
province of Fars. He is important as a worker in the Iranian historical
tradition and about him we shall have occasion to speak later on. This
_Mobed_ probably made Arabic translations of Sasanian chronicles from
materials in the archives in the castle of Shiz. Further, the
information adduced by us above regarding the castle refers to times a
little previous to the age of Firdausi and undoubtedly among the
materials in these archives were the sources of the Shah Nameh which
were available to Firdausi through intermediate versions. Finally, we
see that these Sasanian histories were illustrated, a fact which is
confirmed by the statement of other Arab writers as we shall see later
on. Generally the district of Arrajan enjoyed its ancient glory with
reference to its cultural connections. Yakut[1] has preserved for us the
information that at Raishahar in the district of Arrajan there lived in
the Sasanian times men, versed in a peculiar species of syllabary who
wrote medical, astronomical and logical works.
[Footnote 1: "_Muajjam ul Buldan_", ed. Wustenfeld, II, p. 887. This
passage has been translated by Barbier de Maynard in his "Geographical,
Historical and Literary Dictionary of Persia", in French, pp. 270-271.
_See_ also Fihrist II, p, 105.]
What we have studied above establishes the existence of Persian literary
tradition in its national form for several centuries after the Arab
invasion. Now we have to survey wherein lie the characteristic features
of this tradition and what were its main contents. And we pass on to
their consideration.