Professional Storytelling (Naqqālī) in Qājār Iran 271 Ulrich Marzolph

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Orality and Textuality in the Iranian World Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture

Editors

Guy Stroumsa (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) David Shulman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

VOLUME 19

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jsrc Orality and Textuality in the Iranian World

Patterns of Interaction across the Centuries

Edited by

Julia Rubanovich

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

Acknowledgments ix List of Illustrations x Notes on Transliteration and Abbreviations xii Notes on Contributors xiii

Introduction: New Perspectives on Orality in Iranian Studies 1 Julia Rubanovich

Part 1 Approaching Orality

1 Memory and Textuality in the Orality-Literacy Continuum 19 Karl Reichl

2 Orality and Esotericism Reflections on Modes of Transmission in Late Antiquity 43 Shaul Shaked

Part 2 Sacred Traditions and Oral History

3 Irano-Talmudica III Giant Mythological Creatures in Transition from the Avesta to the Babylonian Talmud 65 Reuven Kiperwasser and Dan D.Y. Shapira

4 The Islamic Ascension Narrative in the Context of Conversion in Medieval Iran An Apocalypse at the Intersection of Orality and Textuality 93 Maria E. Subtelny

5 The Motif of the Cave and the Funerary Narratives of Nāṣir-i Khusrau 130 Jo-Ann Gross vi contents

Part 3 Iranian Epic Tradition

6 ʻThe Ground Well Trodden But the Shah Not Found . . .ʼ Orality and Textuality in the ʻBook of Kingsʼ and the Zoroastrian Mythoepic Tradition 169 Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

7 ʻThe Book of the Black Demon,ʼ or Shabrang-nāma, and the Black Demon in Oral Tradition 191 Gabrielle R. van den Berg

8 Why So Many Stories? Untangling the Versions of Iskandar’s Birth and Upbringing 202 Julia Rubanovich

9 Some Comments on the Probable Sources of Ibn Ḥusām’s Khāvarān- nāma and the Oral Transmission of Epic Materials 241 Raya Shani

10 Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) in Qājār Iran 271 Ulrich Marzolph

Part 4 Oral and Literary Traditions as Channels of Cultural Transformation

11 The Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 289 Mohsen Zakeri

12 Classical Poetry as Cultural Capital in the Proverbs of Jews from Iran Transformations of Intertextuality 307 Galit Hasan-Rokem

13 Gashtak: Oral/Literary Intertextuality, Performance and Identity in Contemporary Tajikistan 316 Margaret Mills and Ravshan Rahmoni contents vii

14 The Tale of ʻThe Old Woman on the Mountainʼ A Jewish Folktale from Afghanistan 342 Tsila Zan-Bar Tsur

Part 5 Performative Aspects of Orality in Visual Artefacts

15 Aramaic Incantation Texts between Orality and Textuality 365 Charles G. Häberl

16 Between Demons and Kings The Art of Babylonian Incantation Bowls 400 Naama Vilozny

17 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances and Mural Paintings Illustrated Scrolls in Pre-Islamic Central Asia 422 Frantz Grenet

Index 447

Acknowledgments

The present volume is based on the international workshop ‘Orality and Textuality in the Iranian World: Patterns of interaction across the centuries,’ convened in December 2008 by the editor of this volume in collaboration with Shaul Shaked at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Generously funded by Dr. May and Rolando Schinasi, the workshop inaugurated the establishment of the May and Rolando Schinasi Foundation for Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the Hebrew University. May, an important scholar of Afghan history and culture, and Rolando, a notable collector of Islamic metalwork, believe in the importance of dialogue about the history and cultural heritage of the Persianate world between Israeli scholars and their counterparts overseas. I would like to express my gratitude to these two inspiring personalities for promoting such dialogue. I wish to thank the contributors to this volume for their fine scholarship, but also for the immense patience and courtesy with which they have borne the lengthy and fastidious editing process. I am grateful to David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa for accepting this work in their series Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture. Thanks go to my dear friends and colleagues, especially to Shaul Shaked for his support and readiness to share his knowledge and advice during the preparation of this book, Donna Shalev and Geoffrey Hermann for their invaluable help with specific articles. My daughters Esther and Aya bring great joy into my life every day. I am grateful for their genuine interest in my work and their delicate understanding and loving support.

Julia Rubanovich List of Illustrations

5.1 ‘Alexander/Iskandar and the Hermit in the Cave.’ 133 5.2 Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh and His Sons, Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad (left) and Muhammad Sherzodshoh (right). Porshnev, Badakhshān 139 5.3 Boulder and shrine of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Yumgān 147 5.4 Interior view of the mazār of Nāṣir-i Khusrau 155 5.5 ‘The Aṣḥāb al-Kahf in Their Cave.’ 157 6.1 ‘The Paladins of Kay Khusrau Perish in a Snowstorm.’ Firdausī 174 9.1 ‘ʿAlī Lifting the Gate of Khāvarān.’ 248 9.2 ‘ʿAlī and His Companions Crossing a Trench on Napkins.’ 254 9.3 ‘Muḥammad and Jabrāʾīl Watching the Miraculous Deeds of ʿAlī in Khāvarān.’ 254 9.4 ‘Ibn Ḥusām Meets Firdausī in His Garden.’ 264 9.5 ‘ʿAlī and His Mount Duldul, Encountering a Marauding Lion.’ 264 16.1 and 16.1a Incantation bowls. Schøyen Collection 2053–198, 2056–12 402 16.2 and 16.2a Hybrid creatures on the bowls. Schøyen Collection 2056–10, 1911–1 403 16.3 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053–182 406 16.4 A Sasanian amulet 406 16.5 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053–250 408 16.6 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053–198 408 16.7 An amulet from Emmaus, Palestine 409 16.8 Frontal position of the images on the bowls. Schøyen Collection 2053–237 409 16.9 Decorated limbs on the bowls. Schøyen Collection 1911–3 411 16.10 Parthian costumes 412 16.11 A Sasanian silver bowl 412 16.12 An incantation bowl. Moussaieff Collection 414 16.13 A Sasanian golden coin 414 16.14 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053–217 415 16.15 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 1928–2 417 16.16 and 16.16a An incantation bowl. Moussaieff Collection 418 17.1 Panjikent, Rustam Tale (second register from the bottom), western and northern walls, scenes 1 to 5 424 17.2 Rustam Tale, scenes 1 and 2 426 17.3 Rustam Tale, northern and eastern walls 426 17.4 Rustam Tale, scene 7 (the battle with the demons), detail 428 list of illustrations xi

17.5 Engraved wooden boards: Tepsey cemetery, Tashtyk culture, Southern Siberia, 3rd–5th c. CE 428 17.6 Panjikent, The Merchant and the Spirit (or Beauty and the Beast?) 430 17.7 Panjikent, The Monkeys, the Elephants and the Woman Playing with the Ram 431 17.8 Panjikent, The Bull, the Lion and the Jackal 432 17.9 Panjikent, Pairs of Lovers 433 17.10 Dalʾverzintepe, wall painting from a private house, 2nd c. CE 434 17.11 Detail of Leda, with comparative material: left, Leda seated on the swan; right, Leda stroking the swan’s neck 435 17.12 Detail of Iphigenia’s Sacrifice, with comparative material (Attic oenochoe, 430–420 BCE) 435 17.13 Turfan scroll 437 17.14 Detail: Nirṛti 438 17.15 Detail: Virgo (legends in Tokharian: mot ‘alcoholic drink’; ṣipāṅkiñc ‘abacus’) 439 17.16 Detail: Aquarius (legend in Sanskrit: kumbha ‘jar, Aquarius’) 439 17.17 Detail: Gemini 439 Notes on Transliteration and Abbreviations

The transliteration for Persian and Arabic follows the system adopted in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES), with the following modifications: no difference between Persian and Arabic is made in translit-    erating ‚ ‚ , tāʾ marbūṭa and the nisba ending and they are rendered according to the transliteration for Arabic. For modern colloquial Persian and Dari and modern Tajik, the transliteration guidelines are explained separately in the relevant articles.

Abbreviations

BAI Bulletin of the Asia Institute BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies EI2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al. New edition. EIr Encyclopædia Iranica, ed. E. Yarshater EQ Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān JAF Journal of American Folklore JAL Journal of Arabic Literature JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society JSQ Jewish Studies Quarterly JSAI Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Notes on Contributors

Gabrielle van den Berg studied Persian language and literature at the University of Leiden (Ph.D. 1997) and at the University of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Her research focuses on Tajik oral tradition, in particular on the poetic traditions of the Ismāʿīlīs of Tajik Badakhshan and on classical Persian literature. From 1998 to 2001 she was E.G. Browne lecturer in Persian at the University of Cambridge and in the years following she was affiliated with the Cambridge Shāh-nāma Project. In 2005 she was awarded a ‘VIDI’ grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to establish a research project on the Persian epic cycle and the Shāh-nāma of Firdausī. At present she is lecturer in Persian and Middle Eastern Studies at the Institute for Area Studies, University of Leiden. Among her publications ‘Perceptions of Poetry. Some Examples of Late 20th Century Tajik Poetry,’ Oriente moderno 22/1 (2003); Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains. A Study on the Songs and Poems of the Ismâ‘îlîs of Tajik Badakhshan (Wiesbaden, 2004); ‘The Barzunama in the Berlin Shahnama manuscripts,’ in Shahnama Studies I, ed. Charles Melville (Cambridge, 2006); an edited volume of Shahnama Studies II. The Reception of Firdausi’s Shahnama (with Charles Melville; Leiden and Boston, 2012).

Frantz Grenet is Professor at the Collège de France, Paris (Chair; ‘History and cultures of pre- Islamic Central Asia’). He serves as President of the European Society for Studies of Central Asia and Himalayan Regions and as Director of the French- Uzbek Archaeological Mission in Sogdiana. His research interests cover the history and archaeology of Central Asia; history of Zoroastrianism. Main publications include Les pratiques funéraires dans l’Asie centrale sédentaire de la conquête grecque à l’islamisation (Paris, 1984); La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag (Die, 2003); A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. III, in collaboration with Mary Boyce (Leiden, 1991); vol. IV, in collaboration with Mary Boyce and Albert de Jong (forthcoming). For the complete bibliography, see http://frantz.grenet .free.fr.

Jo-Ann Gross is Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Eurasian History at The College of New Jersey. Her research focuses on early modern Iran and Central Asia, with an emphasis on the social history of Sufism and Islamic shrines, and xiv notes on contributors

hagiographic narrative traditions. She has published widely on aspects of Sufism in Central Asia and the role of the Naqshbandī ṭarīqa. She currently serves as Vice-President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS), Director of the Central Eurasia Research Fund, and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Persianate Studies, and she is an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan. Her publications include The Letters of Khwājah ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār and His Associates, co- authored with Asom Urunbaev (Brill, 2002); her edited book Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change (1992), and most recently, a guest- edited volume of the Journal of Persianate Studies on ‘The Pamir’ (2012) and ‘Foundational Legends, Shrines, and Ismāʿīlī Identity in Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan,’ in Muslims and Others in Sacred Space, ed. Margaret Cormack (Oxford UP, 2013). She is currently completing a monograph entitled Muslim Shrines and Spiritual Culture in the Perso-Islamic World, under contract with I.B. Taurus, International Library of Iranian Studies.

Charles G. Häberl Ph.D., Harvard University, 2006. He is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL), at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is also serving as Near East Regional Director for the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), produced by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and The Institute for Language Information and Technology (The Linguist List) at Eastern Michigan University. His primary focus is on the languages of the Middle East, both ancient and modern, and ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities from the region. He has conducted field work with speakers of several different Semitic and Iranian languages, which has resulted in a monograph The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr (Wiesbaden, 2009). His recent publications also include ‘Neo-Mandaic in Fin de siècle Baghdad,’ JAOS 130/4 (2010); ‘Neo-Mandaic,’ in Semitic Languages: An International Handbook/Ein internationales Handbuch, ed. Stefan Weninger et al. (Berlin, 2011); ‘Predicate Nominals and Related Constructions in Neo-Mandaic,’ in Papers Presented to John Huehnergard on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (Chicago, 2012). He received two grants (in 2010 and in 2012, together with James McGrath of Butler University) from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a critical edition and translation of the Mandaean Book of John. notes on contributors xv

Galit Hasan-Rokem is Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore and Professor (Emerita) of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She studies folk, literary and ethnographic aspects of classical late antique Rabbinic literature and its inter-cultural and inter-religious aspects; folklore and literary theory; the proverb genre; Jewish motifs in European folklore, especially the traditions on the Wandering Jew. Her books include Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature (Stanford, 2000); Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2003) and the edited volumes The Wandering Jew – Essays in the Interpretation of a Christian Legend, with A. Dundes (Bloomington, 1986); Untying the Knot – On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes, with D. Shulman (Oxford UP, 1996); and A Companion to Folklore, with Regina F. Bendix (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

Reuven Kiperwasser received his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University, Israel (2005). The subject of his dissertation was ‘The Midrashim on Kohelet: Studies in their Formation and Redaction’. His research interests include Talmudic literature, and the interrelationship of Iranian mythology, Syriac Christian storytelling, and Talmudic narrative. Among his recent publications are ‘Body of the Whore, Body of the Story and Metaphor of the Body,’ in Introduction to Seder Qodashim, ed. Tal Ilan, Monika Brockhaus and Tanja Hidde (Tübingen, 2012); ‘Irano-Talmudica II: Leviathan, Behemoth and the ‘Domestication’ of Iranian Mythological Creatures in Eschatological Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud,’ with Dan D.Y. Shapira, in Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman, ed. Shai Secunda and Steven Fine (Leiden, 2012); ‘The Immersion of Baallei Qerain,’ Jewish Studies Quarterly 19/4 (2012).

Ulrich Marzolph is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen, Germany, and a senior member of the editorial committee of the Enzyklopädie des Märchens, a comprehensive handbook of historical and comparative folk narrative research prepared at the Academy of Sciences at Göttingen. His research specializes in the narrative culture of the Near East, with particular emphasis on Arabic and Persian folk narrative and popular literature. His recent English language publications include Narrative Illustration in Persian Lithographed Books (Leiden, 2001); ‘The Migration of Didactic Narratives across xvi notes on contributors

Religious Boundaries,’ in Didaktisches Erzählen. Formen literarischer Belehrung in Orient und Okzident, ed. Regula Forster and Romy Günthart (Peter Lang, 2010) and edited volumes The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, with Richard van Leeuwen (2004); The Arabian Nights Reader (2006), and The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective (2007).

Margaret A. Mills is Professor Emerita at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Center for Folklore Studies and Mershon Center for International Strategic Studies, Ohio State University. Her research interests embrace oral traditions of Persianate societies, orality and literacy generally, and gender studies in folklore. Her recent writings concern Afghan discourses of wartime (proverbs, memoirs), and a larger project on trickster theory and gender in Persian folktales.

Ravshan Rahmoni (Ravshan Qahhorovich Rahmonov) is Professor of Philology at the Tajik State University of Dushanbe. He specializes in folklore, literature and ethnography of the Persianate world. He has authored more than 30 books and 400 articles in Tajik, Persian, Russian, and English, and has collected a valuable and extensive personal archive of manuscripts and folklore materials in Tajik, Persian and other languages. His recent publications include The Problems of Oral Poetry and Prose Among the Persian-speaking Peoples (Moscow, 2000; in Russian); Collecting and Studying Persian Folktales (Dushanbe, 2001; Tehran 1380/2001; in Tajik/ Persian); Tajik Women as Folktale Tellers: Tales in tradition (with video-records) (Budapest, 2002); Nauruz Among the Tajiks (Dushanbe, 2013; in Tajik); The Story of Barzu: As Told by Two Storytellers From Boysun, Uzbekistan, with Gabrielle van den Berg (Amsterdam, 2013).

Karl Reichl is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Bonn, Germany. He is Honorary Professor of the University of Nukus (Uzbekistan) and a member of the Northrhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences. As a medievalist his special research interest is in oral epic poetry. His book publications include Turkic Oral Epic Poetry: traditions, forms, poetic structure (NY: Garland, 1992); Singing the Past: Turkic and medieval heroic poetry (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000); Edige: a Karakalpak Heroic Epic, as performed by Jumabay Bazarov, ed. and trans. (Helsinki, 2007) and, as editor and contributor, Prosimetrum: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, with Joseph Harris (Cambridge 1997) and Medieval Oral Literature (Berlin, Boston, 2012). notes on contributors xvii

Julia Rubanovich is Senior Lecturer in Persian Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on medieval Persian literature with an emphasis on epic poetry, including Judeo-Persian, and on folk literature, notably prose dāstāns; on the Alexander-Romance in the Islamic domain; and more recently on the concepts of authorship in connection with the notion of literary canon. Among her publications are ‘Literary Canon and Patterns of Evaluation in Persian Prose on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion,’ Studia Iranica 32/1 (2003); ‘Aspects of Medieval Intertextuality: verse insertions in Persian prose dāstāns,’ Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32 (2006); ‘Metaphors of Authorship in Medieval Persian Prose: a preliminary study,’ Middle Eastern Literatures incorporating Edebiyât 12/2 (2009); ‘Orality in Medieval Persian Literature,’ in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. Karl Reichl (De Gruyter, 2012); ‘Tracking the Shahnama Tradition in Medieval Persian Folk Prose,’ Shahnama Studies II, ed. Charles Melville and G.R. van den Berg (Brill, 2012); ‘Re-Writing the Episode of Alexander and Candace in Medieval Persian Literature,’ in Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages: Transnational Perspectives, ed. Markus Stock (Toronto UP, forthcoming).

Shaul Shaked is Professor Emeritus of Iranian and Religious Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He works on Zoroastrian history, Aramaic magic bowls, Aramaic texts of the Achaemenian period, and Early Judeo-Persian. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Honorary President of Union Académique Internationale (UAI). In 2000 he received the Israel Prize in Linguistics. His recent publications include the six edited volumes of Irano- Judaica, mostly with Amnon Netzer (Jerusalem); Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza, 3 vols., with Peter Schäfer (Tübingen, 1994–99); From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam (Aldershot, 1995); Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria, with Joseph Naveh (London, 2012); Aramaic Bowl Spells, vol. 1, with J.N. Ford and S. Bhayro (Leiden, 2013).

Raya Shani has been teaching Islamic Art and Architecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and The School of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem since 1997, with a two-year break as visiting professor at UC Berkeley, departments of Art History and Near Eastern Studies. Her main fields of interest are Muslim archaeology and Persian miniature painting with an emphasis on the iconographic representation of ʿAlī. Recent publications include: ‘ʿAli b. Abi Talib – The Lion of God: Iconographical Study of the Lion xviii notes on contributors

Image in Shiʿi-inspired Miʿraj Paintings,’ in Survey of Persian Art 18, ed. Abbas Daneshvari (Mazda Publishers, 2004); ‘A Pictorial Representation of the Hadith al-thaqalayn in the Ilkhanid copy of Balʿami’s Tarjumah-yi tarikh-i Tabari in the Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.,’ in The Iconography of Islamic Art, Studies in Honour of Robert Hillenbrand, ed. Bernard O’Kane (Edinburgh, 2005); ‘Illustrations of the parable of the Ship of Faith in Firdausi’s prologue to the Shahnama,’ in Shahnama Studies I, ed. Charles Melville (Cambridge, 2006); ‘Calligraphic Lions Symbolising the Esoteric Dimension of ’Ali’s Nature,’ in The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shiʿism, ed. Pedram Khosronejad (London, 2012). She is currently working on a book project on the illustrative tradition of the Khāvarān-nāma manuscripts.

Dan Shapira is Professor of Ottoman Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Feldman Professor of the History and Culture of Eastern European Jewry at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His main interests are Ottoman history, language and literature; Khazars; Karaites in Constantinople, the Crimea and the Eastern Europe; and Zoroastrianism and its textual tradition. Among his recent publications are edited volumes The Tombstones of the Cemetery of the Karaite Jews in Çufut-Qalʿa (the Crimea). Report of the Ben-Zvi Institute Expedition (Jerusalem, 2008; in Hebrew) and Eastern European Karaites in the Last Generations, with Daniel J. Lasker (Jerusalem, 2011; English & Hebrew). He is currently working on his book Hunting, Forgeries, Khazars and Karaites in the Ninth-Century Ottoman and Russian Empires (in Hebrew), and on the joint book project Tombstone Inscriptions from the Jewish-Karaite Cemetery of Çufut-Qalʿa, the Crimea, to be published in four volumes during 2014–17 by Brill.

Maria E. Subtelny is Professor of Persian and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Her books and recent publications include Le monde est un jardin: Aspects de l’histoire culturelle de l’Iran médiéval (Paris, 2002); Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden, Boston, 2007); ‘Tamerlane and His Descendants: From Paladins to Patrons,’ in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 3, chap. 5; gen. ed. Michael Cook (Cambridge, 2010); ‘The Binding Pledge (möchälgä): A Chinggisid Practice and Its Survival in Safavid Iran,’ in New Perspectives on Safavid Iran: Empire and Society, ed. Colin P. Mitchell (Oxford, 2011); ‘The Jews at the Edge of the World in a Timurid-era Mi‘rājnāma: The Islamic Ascension Narrative as Missionary Text,’ in The Prophet’s Ascension: notes on contributors xix

Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic Miʿrāj Tales, ed. Christiane Gruber and Frederick Colby (Bloomington, 2010). Her current research project is an edition and translation of Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī, a Timurid-era treatise on political ethics by the Persian polymath Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī.

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina is a Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University where he served as a Postdoctoral Fellow and the Lecturer on Old Iranian from 2007–2009. He was a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities from the National Council for the Humanities in 2010. He is currently working on a book project on Zoroastrian scriptural interpretation in Late Antiquity, and he is a co-editor of the forthcoming The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Zoroastrianism (Wiley- Blackwell, Oxford, U.K.).

Naama Vilozny has received her Ph.D. from the Department of Arts, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2010) on the subject of ‘Figure and Image on Magic and Popular Art: Between Babylonia and Palestine, during the Roman and Byzantine Periods’. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London (2011) and at The Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, Jerusalem (2012). Her most recent publication is ‘The Art of the Incantation Bowls,’ in Aramaic Bowl Spells, Jewish Aramaic Babylonian Bowls, ed. Shaul Shaked (Brill, 2013). She is currently working on two monographs: Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art: Between Babylonia and Palestine (Brill) and Lilith’s Hair and Ashmedai’s Horns: The Visual Aspects of Magic and Popular Art Among the Jews of Palestine and Babylonia in Late Antiquity (The Ben-Zvi Institute; in Hebrew).

Mohsen Zakeri received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern History at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (1987). The expanded version of his dissertation Sasanian Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: the Origins of the ʿAyyārān and Futuwwa was published in 1995 (Wiesbaden). He taught medieval and Islamic history at the University of Utah, and the Persian language, literature and history at the Universities of Halle and Jena, Germany. At present he is affiliated with the Department of Arabistik/Islamwissenschaft at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen, Germany. His main research interest is focused on early translators’ activities xx notes on contributors from Middle Persian into Arabic. His two-volume book Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb: ʿAlī b. ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʾid al-ḥikam (Brill, 2007) was awarded the International Book Prize of Iran for the year 2009. He is currently preparing for publication a monograph on the life and work of Muḥammad b. Khalaf b. al-Marzubān (d. 309/921), who was a prolific author and was credited with having translated more than fifty works from Middle Persian into Arabic. Zakeri also continues working on his DFG-Project on the notion of a wise king in the early mirrors for princes.

Tsila Zan-Bar Tsur received her Ph.D. in the Department of Folklore Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2012; the subject of her dissertation was ‘Femininity and Its Folk-Expressions in the Lives of Afghan-born Jewish Women in Israel’; in Hebrew). Her research interest focuses on exploring the woman’s place in Jewish society in Afghanistan during the first half of the twentieth century from folkloristic, ethnographic, anthropological, and gender-study perspectives. Among her articles are ‘Between Culture and Gender Conception: Male Metaphors in the World of Jewish Female Storytellers from Afghanistan,’ in Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 2008; in Hebrew); ‘ “Anyone the midwife brings – the washer of the dead takes away”: Birth and Death in the Life Cycle of Afghan Jews’, in Peʿamim: Studies in Oriental Jewry 36 (2013; in Hebrew) and ‘ “A Woman is like a Stew, Warm and Nourishing”: Kitchen and Femininity in the Folk Culture of the Afghan Jews,’ in Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore (2014; in Hebrew). Introduction: New Perspectives on Orality in Iranian Studies

Julia Rubanovich

With the development of a variety of theoretical approaches towards the study of orality and folklore during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, exploring the oral in a certain culture has opened up new directions for discussing the oral-literate nexus. The judicious revisiting of the premises postulated by the pioneering Oral Formulaic Theory of Milman Parry and Albert Lord and their followers expanded our understanding of what is oral beyond the rigid boundaries of traditional formulae and harnessed the polarization of the oral and the written/literate as oppositional or competing cultural forces.1 The current tendency of contemporary scholarship to avoid couching the oral and the written/literate in evolutionary terms has given rise to new paths of research revealing the complexities of the interaction between orality and literacy, orality and textuality/textualization, orality and memory/memorization, and so on.2 The interrelationship and cross-fertilization between orality and textuality emerged as a cornerstone in the study of literary traditions – ancient, medieval and contemporary – embracing such fundamental aspects of the oral-literate nexus as a work’s composition; its transmission (performance often being the main channel of delivery); aural reception; oral poetics etc. The current exploration of orality in its diverse manifestations pays attention to the idiosyncrasies of specific cultures, historical periods and literary genres, encompassing most noticeably Jewish, Greek and Roman worlds,3 medieval

1 For the most up to date analytical review of the evolvement of the Oral Formulaic Theory in the context of the study of medieval literature, see Foley and Ramey 2012. 2 An incisive introduction into various aspects of the interplay of orality/literacy, textualization, oral literature and genre, accompanied by an extensive bibliography is given by Reichl 2012a; of related interest are Harris and Reichl 2012 on medieval performance and performers, and DuBois 2012 on the linguistics and stylistics of orality. 3 For the recent scholarly engagement with orality in the ancient and medieval Jewish tradition, see, e.g., Elman and Gershoni 2000; Yassif 2012; for the ancient Greek and Roman domain, see, e.g., Watson 2001; Mackie 2004; Amodio 2005: 15–148; Rimell 2007; Mackay 2008; Minchin 2012.

European vernacular cultural realms,4 Slavic, mostly epic, literary tradition,5 as well as Arabic literature.6 At the same time, in sharp contrast to recent research into the orality of the above-mentioned traditions, the Iranian domain has remained a backwater. While not altogether neglected, discussions of oral tradition and orality in the Iranian world have been limited in scope, focusing on two distinct kinds of material: (a) the pre-Islamic religious and literary Zoroastrian tradition, specifically aspects of the oral composition and transmission-in-performance of the Avestan texts, and their writing down, notably in connection with manuscript studies;7 (b) folklore and contemporary popular literature in Persian, Tajik and Dari as well as in those Iranian languages which, compared with Persian, developed into a vehicle of literary written expression only relatively recently, such as Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi and Ossetic.8 As far as medieval Persian literature is concerned, besides a controversial attempt to apply the Oral Formulaic

4 For Older Germanic poetry and medieval German literature, see recently, e.g., Harris 2012 and Müller 2012 respectively; for Old English and Middle English literature, see, e.g., Amodio 2004; O’Brien O’Keeffe 2012; Amodio 2005: 149–305; Putter 2012. 5 See, e.g., Foley 1991; idem 1995, ch. 4; Reichl 2012a: 33–38; Azbelev 2012. 6 The study of orality in Arabic literature has taken a number of different directions. The pioneering research of Gregor Schoeler (2006; 2009) forcefully brings out the complexity of the relationship between the oral and the written in early Arabic literature, exploring the evolution of its transmission from the oral to the written and from the aural to the read and focusing on the interplay of various modes of dissemination of knowledge by Muslim scholars from the late first/seventh to the fourth/tenth centuries (in this vein see also Cook 1997 and to a certain extent Toorawa 2005). Considerable attention has been given to the genre of the folk heroic epic (al-sīra al-shaʿbiyya), both in medieval and living tradition, with a special emphasis on its formal and thematic characteristics rooted in oral delivery through performance (for the most recent overview including relevant bibliography, see Herzog 2012). Classical Arabic poetry has been studied from the viewpoint of the theory of Oral Formulaic composition (see Monroe 1972; Zwettler 1978), an attempt met with intense critical rebuttal (see, e.g., Scholer 2006: 87–110). 7 See recently Cantera 2012, especially the contributions by P.O. Skjærvø, A. Panaino and the editor’s preface surveying the state of the arts in the field. 8 For succinct surveys of Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi and Ossetic oral traditions and their interrelation with the written ones, see, e.g., Allison 2010; Heston 2010; Elfenbein 2010; Thordarson 2010 respectively. For the most recent surveys of Persian, Dari and Tajik popular literature and folklore, including up to date bibliographies, see Marzolph 2010; Rahmoni 2010; Mills 2010 respectively. Among the study of specific folk genres, folktales have won the most scholarly attention, being widely collected and systematized according to the international Aarne/Thompson system of tale-types (for Iranian folktales, see bibliography in Marzolph 2010: 352–64). Introduction 3

Theory to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma,9 the so-called dāstāns of Persian folk prose literature have been assessed from the orality viewpoint, notably aspects of their production, delivery through performance and their oral traditional aesthetics rooted in the storytelling tradition of qiṣṣa-khvānī and naqqālī.10 Two important reasons for the lack of scholarly interest in the role of orality in Iranian cultural history, especially during the medieval and early modern periods, can be mentioned here: (a) the evaluative conceptualization of cultural phenomena and processes as a hierarchical construct of binary oppositions, such as ‘written–oral,’ ‘elite–popular,’ ‘high–low,’ ‘literary–folk,’ with a noticeable bias towards the first constituent of each pair and as a result, the marginalization of hierarchically ‘inferior’ phenomena; (b) a strong disinclina- tion to apply to Iranian material methodological and theoretical approaches in the field of orality that derived from studying Western cultures.11 Conceived as a response to the marginalization of orality and oral traditions, the present volume circumvents rigid traditional scholarly discourse and attempts to demonstrate the cultural centrality of the oral tradition for Iranian studies. It contains contributions from scholars from various areas of Iranian and comparative studies, among which are the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian tradition with its wide network of influences in late antique Mesopotamia, notably among the Jewish milieu; classical Persian literature in its manifold genres; medieval Persian history; oral history; folklore and more. The essays in this collection embrace both pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, both verbal and visual media, as well as various language communities (Middle Persian, Persian, Tajik, Dari) and geographical spaces (Greater Iran in pre-Islamic and Islamic medieval periods; Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan of modern times). Taken as a whole, the essays are rooted in the understanding that orality and

9 See Davidson 1988; 1994; 1998; 2000; for the most recent critical survey of this attempt and the controversy surrounding it, see Rubanovich 2013. 10 Muḥammad Jaʿfar Maḥjūb was the first to associate the dāstān genre with the oral strain within Persian literature and to study it from the oral tradition perspective; see now the collection of his articles on the subject in Maḥjūb 1382/2003: 267–950. On various aspects of the dāstān production, transmission and traditional aesthetics, see Hanaway 1970; idem 1971; Salimov 1971; Rubanovich 2012: 660–75; for discussion of specific dāstāns in connection with orality and oral tradition, see Gaillard 1987; Ismāʿīlī 2001: I, 25–154; idem 1386/2007: I, 18–47; Marzolph 1999. For the evolution and characteristics of the storytelling tradition of qiṣṣa-khvānī and naqqālī, as well as that of the shāh-nāma-khvānī related to them, see Maḥjūb 1382/2003: 1079–1113; Page 1979; Omidsalar 1984; Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999; Yamamoto 2003; eadem 2010. See also U. Marzolph’s article in this volume. 11 Cf. Rubanovich 2012: 653; also Kreyenbroek 2010 for reasons for the lack of interest in studying oral and popular literature in the field of Iranian studies. 4 Rubanovich its patterns of intersection and interaction with the written word do not have a single form and do not act according to a single set of rules, either from epoch to epoch, from one culture to another or from one genre to another. The essays seek to reveal the unique blending of oral and literate poetics in the texts or visual artefacts each author focuses upon, conceptualizing their interrelationship and function. Methodologically, the volume is informed by a wide range of theoretical approaches: alongside a more traditional source-centred comparative historical-philological approach, judicious use is made of theoretical findings derived from structuralism, narratology, hermeneutics, intertextuality, the theory of illocutionary acts etc. … The seventeen articles in the present volume are grouped into five sections, entitled ‘Approaching Orality,’ ‘Sacred Traditions and Oral History,’ ‘Iranian Epic Tradition,’ ‘Oral and Literary Traditions as Channels of Cultural Transformation,’ ‘Performative Aspects of Orality in Artefacts’. The collection opens with two essays which address the functions of orality in the oral-literate continuum. In ‘Memory and Textuality in the Orality- Literacy Continuum,’ Karl Reichl considers several assumptions anchored in the perception of orality and literacy as dichotomic entities, as a Great Divide rather than a continuum. Drawing mainly on comparative material from the Serbo-Croatian heroic epic tradition and Kirghiz and Karakalpak oral epic poetry, but also from the ancient Greek and the Anglo-Saxon traditions, Reichl emphasizes the perfect compatibility between the processes of memorizing and remembering and the oral teaching or oral transmission, from which the written text is excluded. In oral traditions the degree of fluidity or stability of the oral ‘text’ can modulate considerably, depending on the transmitter’s memory including his/her command of mnemonic techniques and devices, but also according to the genre, length of a text and the audience. While the popular quatrains on account of their concise form display a greater textual stability, longer epic poetry is more fluid and variable. As far as audience control over the degree of variation is concerned, some audiences would insist on conformity of the transmitted text to a tradition, while others would encourage change and elaboration. Some oral traditions, such as Russian, Kazakh, Turkmen and Uzbek, for example, introduce an emic distinction between the two types of transmitter, i.e. between those who present a memorial oral transmission and those who opt for the ‘composition-in-performance’ type of transmission assisted by the use of formulas, metrical lines, themes, story-patterns Introduction 5 as these are set forth in the Oral Formulaic Theory. Examining samples from the Kirghiz epic of Semetey and from the Karakalpak versions of the epic of Edige, Reichl demonstrates that morphological patterns and lexically archaic items may function as ‘memorable words,’ which fact calls for refining the concept of the formula as it is traditionally perceived in the Lord-Parry paradigm. Reichl compellingly advocates the necessity of arcing across the notions of orality and literacy in terms of continuum, notwithstanding their theoretically different approaches to conceptualization and expression in language. As the essays in this volume amply demonstrate, many combinations of the oral and the written modes are manifest in composition and transmission. In ‘Orality and Esotericism: Reflections on Modes of Transmission in Late Antiquity,’ Shaul Shaked appraises the ramifications of the transmission mode of religious teachings at the oral-written interface in a variety of religious traditions, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity and Islam, paying special attention to the interplay between open teaching and esotericism in relation to the modes of transmission. In the first part of the article, Shaked cautions against a simplistic presentation of the sacred scriptures’ transmission in terms of two distinct paradigms: the one, exemplified by the Avesta and the Rig Veda, allegedly promotes the oral communication of the texts, giving rise to what can be termed an ‘oral book’; the other, embodied by the Jewish-Christian tradition, seems to acknowledge the primacy of the written text. Viewed from a historical perspective, however, the patterns of relationship with regard to the written and the oral in these religious systems reveal a more subtle picture. The predilection for a certain transmission may have originated in the historical availability of an appropriate writing technology or in the lack thereof: a prominent example would be the belated setting down in writing of the Avesta after the invention of a proper script under the Sasanians. The choice of media may also have been determined by the forces of canonicity. In Judaism, Rabbinic literature was predominantly orally transmitted in order to demarcate the written Bible from the humanly composed Mishna and Talmud. The primary case of the authoritative weight of the written scripture would be the sacred book of the Manichaeans, the Arzhang, composed and written down by the founder of Manichaeism himself. In the second part of his paper, Shaked reflects on the ‘written orality’ and on the role of what he terms the ‘midrashic’ approach to sacred texts, which are characteristic of some esoteric and mystical trends and movements in the religions of Late Antiquity. One of the chief examples of the ‘written orality’ are Aramaic magic spells, usually performed on bowls. In the present volume the issue of spells and their ‘liminal’ position on the orality-textuality interface is further discussed by Ch. Häberl in his contribution on Aramaic incantation texts, while 6 Rubanovich the relationship of the textual aspects of incantations to their pictorial representation is taken up in N. Vilozny’s article ‘Between Demons and Kings’. As for the ‘midrashic’ approach, Shaked elucidates its paradoxical nature, when as a result of a diligent study of the sacred texts, accepted as canonical by their students, new eschatological or messianic interpretations emerge that might have had an influence on mystical movements, including early Islamic mysticism. The essays in Part Two focus upon the variety of ways in which the oral intersects with the textual in the religious domains of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Islam. In their joint article, Reuven Kiperwasser and Dan D.Y. Shapira explore the concept of cultural diffusion in transmitting certain themes and motifs from Zoroastrianism to Judaism, a field of study which has developed significantly over the past decade.12 Focusing on specific parts of the Avesta, the Bundahišn and the Babylonian Talmud, all of which witnessed a transition from oral to written mode, the authors employ a comparative approach when examining Avestan, Pahlavi and Jewish textual traditions on giant mythological creatures. The comparison reveals parallels in the structure, order and composition of the Talmudic and Pahlavi texts which originate in various patterns of interconnection – from direct and indirect borrowing, when some mythic creatures in the Babylonian Talmud are based on Iranian models, to a possible mythological substratum common to both traditions and transmitted orally in Mesopotamia. In ‘The Islamic Ascension Narrative in the Context of Conversion in Medieval Iran: An Apocalypse at the Intersection of Orality and Textuality,’ Maria E. Subtelny offers an innovative reading of the Islamic ascension tale – Muḥammad’s miʿrāj, opting for its interpretation as an apocalyptic narrative and punctuating its function as a conversion tool in a specific historical environment of Iran. Arguing against a common view of the ascension narrative as coherent and ‘complete’ and pointing to the existence of disparate variants of the miʿrāj tale, Subtelny articulates its fluid and hence non-canonical form when the multiplicity of versions points to the oral mode of transmission with a possible performative dimension. Each and every variant of the narrative may testify to a variety of performative contexts. Drawing on the paradigm of the literary genre of apocalypse as formulated in the seminal article of John J. Collins (1979), as well as on the narratological approach towards literary composition, the author delves into the three narremes present in the Islamic ascension narrative – those of the four drinks, of the cosmic cock and of the Jews on the edge of the world, with the purpose of demonstrating their goal- directed orientation towards a concrete audience in a missionary context. A

12 See, e.g., Secunda and Fine 2012; Secunda 2014; Gabbay and Secunda 2014. Introduction 7 richly referenced comparative examination of certain Zoroastrian and Jewish traditions and motifs at the crossroads with early Islam posits the three narremes as instrumental in creating variants on the ascension narrative which can be perceived as conversion strategies in proselytizing initiatives in the Iranian world after the Islamic conquests. Thus, for example, the narreme of Muḥammad drinking milk at his ascension seems to echo the motif of the initiatic drink consumed by the apocalyptic hero in the Zoroastrian tradition, while the Prophet’s encounter with the cosmic cock, or rooster angel, retains vestiges of the symbolic representation of the Zoroastrian deity Srōš, whose appearance in the ascension narrative would reverberate for the Zoroastrian audience with a cluster of symbolic meanings, first and foremost relating the five gāhs of the Zoroastrian ritual with the five prayers in Islam. As for the narreme which describes the Prophet’s visit to a ‘righteous people’ at the edge of the world, Subtelny masterfully shows how, through the permutations of similar motifs from a Judaeo-Hellenistic version of the Alexander Romance and from the Jewish tale of Bulūqiyā, the narreme could have functioned as a conversion catalyst for a Jewish audience which would identify with the righteous Children of Israel, awaiting the true Prophet promised in their Scripture. Subtelny’s article grasps the flexibility of the Islamic ascension narrative, whose anchoring in oral transmission with its praxis of performance permitted Muslim missionaries to graft onto it religio-cultural motifs that spoke to the target audience of Zoroastrian or Jewish prospective converts, stressing shared truths and embedding their particular religious beliefs within an Islamic context. In ‘The Motif of the Cave and the Funerary Narratives of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’ Jo-Ann Gross pursues the transformation of a particular motif in a specific genre of funeral narrative in the context of the historical reception of the figure of a fifth/eleventh-century writer and an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī Nāṣir-i Khusrau. Addressing the issue of the scarcity of research into Pamiri indigenous narratives about Nāṣir-i Khusrau, Jo-Ann Gross points to modern scholarship’s preference for standard literary and historical written texts over oral, hagiographic traditions, despite Badakhshān Ismāʿīlī community’s primarily oral transmit- tion of religious, social, and cultural knowledge. Her contribution offers an important corrective to the present state of affairs. The author examines two sources located at seemingly different junctures along the oral-literate continuum: on the one hand, an extended funerary narrative originating in the textual source dating probably to the tenth/sixteenth century, while on the other hand, oral traditions collected during the author’s field research in Tajik Badakhshān, as well as those recorded by other scholars. Her examination testifies to a marriage between the oral traditions of Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān 8 Rubanovich and the Persian textual accounts concerning Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s exile, death and burial. Both are imbued with Ismāʿīlī and Islamic elements that resonate with Mithraic, Zoroastrian and Ṣūfī parallels and forge the popular perception of this figure. Methodologically Jo-Ann Gross’ contribution lies in the theoretical framework of oral history which, although widely used in the research of modern, mainly post-revolutionary Iranian history, has scarcely been applied to the study of living sacred traditions. Part Three of the collection is devoted to the Iranian epic tradition, highlighting different aspects of its development at the interface of the oral and the written in pre-Islamic and Islamic periods with special emphasis on the cultural agents involved. It opens with Yuhan Vevaina’s article on orality and textuality in The Book of Kings in relation to the Zoroastrian mythoepic tradition. The author views Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts as dynamic and social projects produced in the Islamic period as bulwarks against a loss of cultural capital and increasing apostasy to Islam. Vevaina underscores the main difficulties in studying the relationship of late antique Zoroastrian texts with their early Islamic Persian counterparts, which is rooted in the extreme scarcity of extant comparative material and in the late provenance of the Zoroastrian Middle Persian interpretative corpus as a body of written sources. The examination of a range of eschatological tropes associated with the figure of Kay Khusrau highlights the intertextual connections between the Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts and Firdausī’s epic, encompassing Avestan, Middle Persian, Arabic and Neo-Persian material from myth to epic and fluctuating on the oral-written scale of transmission. Vevaina’s contribution belies the fallacy – all too often voiced in Iranian studies – of the divide between the orality of Zoroastrianism as opposed to the textuality of the Islamic world, and presents instead a complex picture of a cross-generic intertextual relationship in a wide range of Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts. Gabrielle R. van den Berg and Julia Rubanovich turn their attention to the multiformity of narratives typical of the Iranian epic tradition through the centuries. In ‘ “The Book of the Black Demon,” or Shabrang-nāma, and the Black Demon in Oral Tradition,’ Van den Berg focuses on the story of Shabrang, the White Dīv’s son, which forms part of the Persian Epic Cycle. This is a common denominator for a range of tales which either bridge the narrative gaps in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma or further develop various narrative lines arising from it. The story of Shabrang exists in both the manuscript and the oral tradition: the former is represented by the anonymous versified Shabrang-nāma; the latter by a number of prose stories found in ṭūmārs, the direct product of the popular storytellers’ activity. Notwithstanding the fact that they both tap the popular storytelling tradition and deploy common patterns of elaborating on the seem- Introduction 9 ingly closed storyline from the Shāh-nāma, the comparison reveals widely differing treatment of the story of Shabrang. In addition to the different location in relation to the parts of the Epic Cycle, the oral versions are more entangled and amplified; they foreground and emphasize the trickster elements of the story. Moreover, they tie up any loose ends in the narrative, while the manuscript tradition leaves them unresolved. Julia Rubanovich’s article traces the transposition of a specific theme, that of Alexander’s/Iskandar’s birth and upbringing, between the oral and the textual, mapping the mechanisms of the interaction between the two through the centuries. Examination of versions spreading over various text genres from the fourth/tenth to the eleventh/seventeenth centuries demonstrates how the motif of the hero’s birth was transformed to serve different cultural-historical agendas, the oral tradition being both the major channel and the reservoir for modification processes. The amalgamation of strands cutting across literary and oral traditions and thus contributing to the creation of idiosyncratic narratives may be considered a distinctive feature of the Alexander subject-matter in the Perso-Arabic domain. Raya Shani addresses the circulation of orally transmitted epic materials and their integration within the written literary tradition in medieval Iran in connection with a religious pro-ʿAlid epic poem Khāvarān-nāma (the early ninth/fifteenth century) by Ibn Ḥusām. While heavily indebted to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, the Khāvarān-nāma also exhibits thematic parallels to various descriptions of ʿAlī’s expeditions as found in a range of early Arabic sources pertaining to the maghāzī literature, Shīʿī exegesis, Ismāʿīlī narratives circulating in the Fatimid period, as well as to the medieval Persian manāqib-khvānī tradition and to the Turkish narrative Ṣalṣāl-nāma. Shani tracks the interrelatedness of motifs which cut across different languages, genres and modes of transmission. She argues for the crucial role of the Ismāʿīlī missionaries in Iran, possibly through the mediation of the Persian-speaking manāqib-khvāns, in facilitating the oral dissemination of the types of legendary tales on which Ibn Ḥusām based his work. Ulrich Marzolph rounds out the essays on Iranian epic tradition with ‘Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) in Qājār Iran,’ an essay that considers the activities of professional storytellers during the Qājār period as attested in the testimonies of European travellers to Iran. Describing the role of the naqqālī in the oral and written/literary tradition, Marzolph highlights its development from the medieval period to present-day Iran. He offers a succinct survey of the etic evidence for the Qājār period – and slightly beyond – which ranges chronologically from John Malcolm’s last visit in 1810 to Vita Sackville-West’s encounter with an Iṣfahānī storyteller in 1925. The picture emerging from the 10 Rubanovich testimonies reveals the ambivalent attitude to the indigenous storytelling and storytellers of the European observers: while judging the local storytelling as alien and inferior to European types of theatrical entertainment, most travellers express, either explicitly or implicitly, their admiration for the storytellers’ exceptional dramatic and artistic skills. Their first-hand descriptions of the local audience response to the storytellers’ performance provide valuable information on the modes of reception and the ways of interaction between the storyteller and his addressees. Significantly, the testimonies of the European travellers to Iran point to a high degree of continuity of the naqqālī tradition between the Safavid and Qājār periods. Once flourishing, by the twentieth century professional storytelling had become almost extinct. Only at the turn of this century were conscious efforts made on the part of governmental institutions to revive the tradition of naqqālī as part of the Iranian national heritage. Part Four of the volume concentrates on oral and literary traditions specifically as channels of cultural transformation. The articles by Mohsen Zakeri and Galit Hasan-Rokem address the genre of proverb, which is by definition one of the most concise and representative genres of folk literature. The flexibility, intertextuality and context-dependency inherent to the proverb enables it to cut across the boundaries of oral and written, folk and literate, and emerge as a multifunctional and cross-cultural entity. In his study of the literary use of proverbs and aphorisms by Nāṣir-i Khusrau (d. 481/1088–9), Zakeri points to the remarkably rich repertoire of proverbs and aphorisms in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān and explores their function in the context of Persian wisdom (andarz) literature. Although aware of the need to use proverbial expressions as an essential feature of poetical rhetoric to enhance the poet’s creativity, Nāṣir-i Khusrau goes beyond the constraints of style; for him, as an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī, they become the medium for delivering and reinforcing his moral advice and religious message. Zakeri shows that while tapping both classical and folk traditions, the poet skilfully modifies and re-contextualizes established proverbs in order to explain, validate and sanction his own belief system. While Zakeri discusses the use of proverbs in the literary, textual setting of classical Persian poetry, Galit Hasan-Rokem in ‘Classical Poetry as Cultural Capital in the Proverbs of Jews from Iran: Transformations of Intertextuality’ looks at a reverse development, namely a ‘poetry as proverb’ phenomenon, when literary quotations from classical Persian poetry are used in proverbial form, as it emerges from interviews with Iranian Jews who emigrated to Israel. Approaching the field-work data from the perspective of intertextuality and Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’ concept reveals that Iranian Jews differentiate between the allegedly ‘high’ proverbs borrowed from classical Persian poetry and attributed to renowned Persian poets, and the allegedly ‘low’ proverbs, Introduction 11 which circulate in Judeo-Persian and are employed within the community, often in humorous contexts. Hasan-Rokem’s contribution highlights the theoretical ramifications of applying literary quotations in a proverbial context, reinforcing the status of proverbs as a mediating genre between written and oral traditions. The last two articles of the section cover contemporary oral storytelling with an emphasis on its performative aspects and the creation of complex cultural meanings as a result of specific storytelling events. In ‘Gashtak: Oral/ Literary Intertextuality, Performance and Identity in Contemporary Tajikistan,’ Margaret Mills and Ravshan Rahmoni offer a case-study of the gashtak, a social institution still current in contemporary Tajikistan. Drawing on selections from two gatherings of a concrete gashtak which took place in February and April 2005 in Dushanbe, the authors demonstrate how members of the particular gashtak infuse their gatherings with oral and literary verbal art genres – legend, memorate, oral history narrative, witty joke, didactic anecdote, poetry, – and performance styles and thus create self-conscious, integrated performances of their oral and literary heritage. In the post-Soviet tangled reality in Tajikistan, the gashtak emerges as the ideal setting and medium for articulating and preserving its members’ Tajik ethno-linguistic identity and for educating the young through shared historical consciousness and local/regional self-identification, of which classical Persian literature and culture form a substantial part. The essay uncovers the intricate social dynamics among members of the gatherings, which, although generally characterized by group solidarity and shared identity, are also coloured by socio-historical tensions reflective of the turbu- lent history of Tajikistan, which gives rise to a gamut of allegiances to different historical narratives – the pre-Soviet era of the Bukharan Amirs, Soviet idealism, post-Soviet nationalist politics, and finally the local, regional – Pasurkhee – identity of the group’s members.13 Tsila Zan-Bar Tsur’s article takes us to the storytelling environment of the Afghan Jewish community of Herat and focuses on a close reading of a single folktale, the Tale of the Old Woman on the Mountain. Operating within the structural template of binary oppositions and drawing on relevant anthropological studies concerning rites of sacrifice and nutrition, as well as rites of initiation and passage, the author suggests interpreting the tale from the viewpoint of subversive male perceptions of women in the traditional Jewish

13 With regard to M. Mill’s and R. Rahmoni’s article, the recent volume Remembering the Past in Iranian Societies, which is devoted to various forms and expressions of national, communal and family memory in Iranian societies is worth of mention; see Allison and Kreyenbroek 2013. 12 Rubanovich

community of Afghanistan. The examination of the symbolic value of the culinary, ritual and cosmogonic systems as reflected in the folktale attest to the intolerant attitude prevalent among the Afghan male Jewish milieu notably towards the role exercised by women in their postmenopausal phase as ‘guardians of the newborn.’ The last section of the book includes the essays which deal with the concept of orality as expressed in artefacts. The contributions by Charles G. Häberl and Naama Vilozny discuss enigmatic Mesopotamian incantation bowls. Häberl examines the corpus of incantations inscribed on terracotta bowls, primarily known from the region of southern Mesopotamia during Late Antiquity. He focuses on the existence of multiple versions of each text and the significant variation between each version as hallmarks of their fundamental orality. The author also addresses the frequent use of speech acts within these incantations, in order to illustrate their essentially performative nature. Distinguishing between the aspects of production, transmission and reception, he shows that the incantations were composed and transmitted orally, and only secondarily written down. Our interpretation of these texts can be much refined by approaching them as transcriptions of ritual utterances, and therefore the actual speech of the magician. N. Vilozny’s article ‘Between Demons and Kings: The Art of Babylonian Incantation Bowls’ treats Mesopotamian incantation bowls for their visual interpretation of Jewish magic influenced by Iranian, mainly Sasanian, artistic and iconographic patterns. Pointing to a variety of interrelationships between the painting and the text, Vilozny emphasizes the function of the paintings as unambiguous transmitters of specific cultural-symbolic messages. As such, they serve as clear codes which allow the addressee to comprehend and identify painted images. The essay that closes the collection – Frantz Grenet’s ‘Between Written Texts, Oral Performances and Mural Paintings: Illustrated Scrolls in Pre-Islamic Central Asia’ – stretches the boundaries of the field of Iranian art history by addressing pre-Islamic narrative wall painting in the entirety of its functions. In his discussion Grenet offers illuminating parallels and interpretations of several scenes from the Sogdian murals in Panjikent and of a wall painting from the Kushan period in Dalʾverzintepe. He points to the elliptic style of the paintings which suggests their function as a support for oral presentation or props for performances by professional narrators, probably accompanied by music. The artistic execution of the paintings themselves implies the prior use of painted scrolls or of miniatures in books, from which they were transposed on the walls. Resituating the paintings along the oral-textual continuum articulates the complex interrelatedness of the oral and written media as it finds Introduction 13 expression in pre-Islamic Central Asian visual art: drawing on and illustrating written texts, the paintings at the same time facilitate oral performance by a storyteller who taps written and oral traditions to fill visual lacunae. The volume thus explores the largely uncharted territory of orality in the Iranian world, mapping out new areas and foci of research. Each of the contributions provides important evidence of textual culture’s intimate, extensive, and ongoing interaction with the realm of orality. As such, they refute the exclusivity of the oral and the literate worlds, suggesting instead a profoundly interdependent relationship.

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———. 2012a. ‘Plotting the Map of Medieval Oral Literature.’ In Reichl 2012, pp. 3–67. Rimmel, Victoria, ed. 2007. Seeing Tongues, Hearing Scripts: Orality and Representation in the Ancient Novel. ANS 7. Groningen: Barkhuis and Groningen University Library. Rubanovich, Julia. 2012. ‘Orality in Medieval Persian Literature.’ In Reichl 2012, pp. 653–79. ———. 2013. ‘The Shāh-nāma and Medieval Orality: Critical Remarks on the “Oral Poetics” Approach and New Perspectives.’ Middle Eastern Literatures: incorporating Edebiyât 16.2, pp. 217–26. Salimov, Yuriy. 1971. Nasri rivoyatii forsu tojik. Dushanbe: Donesh. Schoeler, Gregor. 2006. The Oral and the Written in Early Islam. Trans. Uwe Vagelpohl; ed. James E. Montgomery. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures 13. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 2009. The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the aural to the read. Revised edition. In collaboration with and trans. by Shawkat M. Toorawa. The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP. [Or. Écrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l’islam, 2002.] Secunda, Shai, and Steven Fine, eds. 2012. Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 35. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Secunda, Shai. 2014. The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in Its Sasanian Context. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press. Thodarson, Fridrik. 2010. ‘Ossetic Literature.’ In Kreyenbroek and Marzolph 2010, pp. 199–207. Toorawa, Shawkat M. 2005. Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr and Arabic Writerly Culture: A Ninth- Century Bookman in Baghdad. RoutledgeCurzon Studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures 7. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Watson, Janet, ed. 2001. Speaking Volumes: Orality and literacy in the Greek and Roman world. Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Yamamoto, Kumiko. 2003. The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literature. Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature 26. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ———. 2010. ‘Naqqâli: Professional Iranian Storytelling.’ In Kreyenbroek and Marzolph 2010, pp. 240–57. Yassif, Eli. 2012. ‘Oral Traditions in Literate Society: The Hebrew Literature of the Middle Ages.’ In Reichl 2012, pp. 499–519. Zwettler, Michael J. 1978. The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry: Its Character and Implication. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP. part 1 Approaching Orality

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CHAPTER 1 Memory and Textuality in the Orality-Literacy Continuum

Karl Reichl

In Xenophon’s Symposium, Socrates asks the participants in the banquet to tell the company what they believe to be their most valuable accomplishment or possession. One of the guests is Niceratus, the son of Nicias, a general in the Peloponnesian War. He boasts of knowing the Homeric epics by heart:

‘My father was anxious to see me develop into a good man,’ said Niceratus, ‘and as a means to this end he compelled me to memorize all of Homer; and so even now I can repeat the whole Iliad and the Odyssey by heart.’1

The Iliad and the Odyssey, as they have come down to us, comprise together about 28,000 verse lines (hexameters). Niceratus must have had a remarkably good memory, if he was able to know so many lines ‘by heart,’ or, as the Greek text puts it, ‘by mouth’ (apo stomatos). The Greek expression apo stomatos is noteworthy; it stresses the close connection between orality and memory. In the Suda, a tenth-century Byzantine lexicographic work, apo stomatos is explained as speaking without the use of writing (aneu grammatôn), speaking from memory (mnêmê).2 When Niceratus says that he knows the Iliad and the Odyssey ‘by mouth’ he is not only referring to his memory but also to his ability to recite the epics. In his case, however, there is a further dimension to oral delivery and memorizing. When Niceratus has made his assertion, he is challenged by Antisthenes:

‘But have you failed to observe,’ questioned Antisthenes, ‘that the rhapsodes, too, all know these poems?’ ‘How could I,’ he replied, ‘when I [had to] listen to their recitations nearly every day?’3

1 Xenophon, Symposium, 3.5; translation from Brownson and Todd 1911: 405 (Greek text on p. 404); see also Huß 1999: 186–87. 2 Adler 1928–38: I, 322, s.v. apostomatizein (Alpha, no. 3561). 3 Xenophon, Symposium, 3.6; Brownson and Todd 1911: 405; akroômenon in the Greek text (p. 404) is translated by Todd as ‘when I listen’; although grammatically correct, the participle

In learning the epics, Niceratus was apparently coached by the rhapsodes, or at least helped by listening to their recital of the Homeric poems. The rhapsodes performed the Greek epics from memory. They were not considered oral singers of epics like the aoidoi of earlier times, when Greek epic tradition was entirely oral; they were reciters whose craft had come into existence only after the introduction of writing in Greece, probably at the end of the sixth century BCE. Classicists assume that the rhapsodes learned the Homeric poems from written texts rather than through oral transmission. They memorized a fixed text and did not ‘compose in performance,’ to use the terminology of the oral- formulaic school.4 If texts from which the rhapsodes learned the epics were available, one might ask why Niceratus needed the rhapsodes. Could he not have learned the epics like they did, i.e. from a written text, rather than via the intermediary of singers who themselves based their knowledge on a fixed text? One explanation of this puzzling fact could be that Niceratus was illiterate. This, however, is unlikely. Niceratus lived in the last quarter of the fifth century BCE.5 His father was anxious for him to become well educated, and there is no doubt that he conformed to the educational programme as outlined in Plato’s dialogue Protagoras:

[. . .] and the children, when they have learnt their letters [grammata] and are getting to understand the written word [gegrammena] as before they did only the spoken (tên phônên), are furnished with works of good poets to read as they sit in class, and are made to learn them off by heart [ekmanthanein] [. . .] (Protagoras 325E; Lamb 1924: 143; Greek text on p. 142).

If Niceratus had learned the works of the great poets in the way it is described in Protagoras, he would have memorized extracts from the Homeric epics as a boy and could as an adult continue on his own with a text. Although no texts

akroômenon can also be translated as ‘when I had to listen’. The latter seems more plausible and is preferred by some translators. 4 In the Homeric epics the singer is called aoidos (as, for instance, Phemius or Demodocus in the Odyssey). ‘Homer’ himself must have been an aoidos. W. Burkert (2001: 205) voices the common view when he states that at the end of the sixth century ‘rhapsodes had replaced singers, aoidoi, a momentous change indeed. Creative improvisation had given way to the reproduction of a fixed text, learned by heart and available also in book form’. The term ‘rhap- sode’ has had a number of different interpretations; see Graziosi 2002: 18ff. 5 He died a premature death by execution in 404 at the end of the Peloponnesian War under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 21 of the Iliad or Odyssey from such an early period survive, it can be assumed that by the late fifth century texts were in circulation and accessible to the son of such an important figure as Nicias.6 What then was the use of rhapsodes? There can be no doubt that despite the availability of writing and written texts, Greek civilization was predominantly oral. However widespread literacy might have been in the Age of Pericles, poetry was meant to be performed and to be heard, independent of genre distinctions.7 Dramas were to be acted, lyrics to be sung and epics to be chanted, to the accompaniment of the phorminx or kitharis, but also declaimed without the accompaniment of an instrument (see West 1981). Orality pervaded also other areas of Greek civilization. Socrates was an oral teacher; it is to Plato, his pupil, that we owe the written transmission of his ideas (in their Platonic interpretation, of course). If knowing the Homeric poems is knowing them ‘by mouth,’ there is no reason why Niceratus should not have employed rhapsodes to ease his memorizing feat. The case of Niceratus memorizing the Homeric epics directs our attention to the questionable nature of several assumptions that are often taken for granted. One is the opinion that memorization requires a written text and excludes mechanisms of oral teaching or oral transmission. A second assumption is that the presence of a written text suggests a fixed and stable entity which is at odds with the multiforms of orally transmitted works of verbal art. And there is thirdly the supposition that orality and literacy belong to two different worlds, as regards poetic creation and reception as well as cultural values and mentalities, a dichotomy aptly dubbed ‘the Great Divide’ (Foley 2002: 26). These three assumptions cover a widely ramified and complex set of problems, of which I would like to discuss only one or two that are of relevance in the present context.

Remembering vs. Memorization

When Milman Parry determined to exclude from his recordings in former Yugoslavia all singers who had learned their repertoire from printed or manuscript texts, he did so in order to make sure that the recorded heroic songs were firmly based on oral tradition and could therefore also be analysed as representatives of oral poetry. As it turned out, this clear separation between

6 ‘It was only toward the end of the fifth century that wealthy and educated people began to acquire private books, and Homer began to reach the third and final stage of a classic: the classic on a shelf’ (Burkert 2001: 217). 7 On the role of orality in ancient Greece, see Havelock 1963; Thomas 1992. 22 Reichl poems transmitted orally and transmitted in writing was not always easy to make. As an example, I would like take a brief look at one of these epics, the Song of Bagdad as performed by Salih Ugljanin in Novi Pazar on November 15, 1934. Written versions of the Song of Bagdad exist, but we can be reasonably certain that Salih did not base his knowledge of the song on a written source (Parry and Lord 1953–54: I, 332–33). There are two questions we would like to ask with reference to the singer’s ability to perform this poem: how did the singer come to know this poem and how did he store it in his memory? How Salih Ugljanin learned this song can be partly reconstructed from the conversations he had with Parry’s assistant Nikola Vujnović, but the historical truth is beyond our grasp as Salih’s information is somewhat contradictory (ibid.: I, 332). It is perhaps more helpful to imagine several scenarios. One such scenario is that another singer, a ‘master-singer,’ taught this specific song to Salih. This is basically what seems to have happened: on one occasion Salih named the fabled singer Ćor Huso Husović of Kolašin as his source for the song. Theoretically it is possible that this master-singer performed the heroic song on all occasions in an identical way, using the same words. In such a case, the master- singer might have insisted that his pupil also learn the song with exactly these words. Clearly, such a teaching method presupposes a ‘fixed text’ in the master- singer’s mind. In such a case the text can be transmitted verbatim and it can be memorized by rote learning. The success of this endeavour depends entirely on the excellence of the pupil’s memory. Whether in the absence of writing it is possible for a text to be fixed in a person’s mind is a question difficult to answer. We have a great number of asser- tions of verbatim oral transmission, but if no written text exists it is impossible to verify these claims. Paul Kiparsky has pointed to the oral transmission of the Vedas and stressed ‘the absolute fidelity with which the text has been preserved, down to the smallest phonetic details’ (Kiparsky 1976: 99).8 As Kiparsky further shows, several memorizing techniques were developed to ensure verbatim recitation and preservation of the holy texts. There is agreement among Indologists that the Vedas were orally transmitted over a period of two mille- nia, and it is clear that written texts arose only late in the transmission chain. Their role in the memorization process is thought to be negligeable. Murray Emeneau, one of the editors of the three-volumed Vedic Variants, notes that ‘the whole immense corpus of Vedic literature was both composed and transmitted without any recourse to writing’ (Emeneau 1958: 314). But he adds, somewhat wistfully: ‘Oral transmission down to the present day by memoriza-

8 See his argumentation (against Lord) on the following pages of his essay. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 23 tion is undoubted – but at the same time suspect, since it is clear that there has at times been recourse to good old manuscripts to correct corrupted oral tradition’ (ibid.). When we look at the three versions of the Song of Bagdad recorded at different times from Salih Ugljanin and published in the second volume of Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs, we can immediately see a number of differences between these three texts.9 Two conclusions can be drawn from this: either Salih’s memory was not good enough to retain the poem in its exact wording or he never learned the poem in a fixed form by rote. From what is known about the South Slavic tradition of epic poetry, we must assume that the latter alternative is correct. We can therefore postulate a second scenario for the learning process: the ‘master-singer’ sings the poem and the pupil tries to retain the poem in his memory as well as he can. Every time the master sings the poem, there will be variations. The more often the pupil listens to the master and the better his memory is, the greater will be the learning success. But just as the master will vary the poem at different performances, so the pupil will only approximate the master’s version (or versions) and he will himself vary the poem every time he sings or recites it. The mechanics of this type of learning process are well-known through the work of Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord. The singer, according to the oral- formulaic theory, does not so much learn a specific poem than a technique – formulas, themes, story-patterns, in connection with a firm grasp of metre and skills in singing and playing an accompanying instrument – which enables him to retain a poem when he has only heard it a few times or even only once. Salih said he learned ten heroic poems from Ćor Huso in the course of one month. According to this paradigm, the second question – ‘How does the singer store the poem in his memory?’ – can also be answered. There is no fixed text, but rather a story, a plot, a combination of narrative units, which, on different structural levels, are verbalized as formulas, metrical lines, themes, narrative moves or narrative patterns. This ‘verbalization’ is fluid and varies from performance to performance. The singer does not recite a memorized text, but remembers what he has learned and knows; he ‘composes in performance’. The Parry-Lord paradigm is too familiar to need further explanation or elaboration here. An enormous body of literature has arisen, not so much in connection with the South Slavic material in the Parry collection as with the

9 Versions 2 and 3 are not translated; version 2 was sung on July 24, 1934, and version 3 was dictated on July 23, 1934 (see Parry and Lord 1953–54: I, 338–39). On the versions of this song by Sulejman Fortić and Lord’s later recordings, see Lord 1951 and also his discussion in The Singer of Tales (Lord 1960: 117–18). 24 Reichl application of the theory to poetry in other traditions. It is typical of the poetry the ‘oral-formulaic theory’ has been applied to that, although supposed to have been cultivated in an oral milieu, it has generally been transmitted only in writing. Examples are the Homeric epics, which actually kindled Parry’s interest in oral epic poetry, but also medieval poetry like the Old English Beowulf or the Old French Chanson de Roland, and even occasionally poetry in Arabic or Persian.10

Fixed vs. Fluid Texts

There can be little doubt that memorization (in the sense of aiming at verbatim reproduction) presupposes a fixed text. Fixed texts are in the first instance written texts. However, as every medievalist knows, texts transmitted in manuscripts can show an extraordinary degree of variation. Variation and ‘fluidity’ are not excluded by writing. Variants can arise from many causes: • sheer textual corruption; • the carelessness of scribes; • the authority scribes exert over the texts they copy, feeling free to change and alter the texts according to their ideas; • the contamination of manuscripts; • and other causes. In some cases variation might be due to the influence of orality. This influence can have many forms: • the partially oral transmission of a text; • the existence of oral versions of a text, side by side with written versions; • the written text itself might be a ‘transcript’ of an oral text and hence show marks of orality, such as ‘fluidity’.

10 For an introduction to the oral-formulaic theory, see Foley 1988; for a comprehensive bibliography, see Foley 1985, with updates by Tyler 1988 and Quick 1997. For Arabic, see, e.g., Monroe 1972 and Zwettler 1978; for Persian, see Davidson 1994 and (critical of the theory) Yamamoto 2003; Rubanovich 2012: 654–60; eadem 2013. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 25

While we can say that written texts, which are generally fixed, can be ‘fluid’ in certain ways and from certain causes, can we also say that oral texts, which as a rule are unstable and variable, can be fixed in certain cases? Variability and stability in written as well as oral literature depend also on additional criteria. One of these is genre. The manuscript transmission of a Middle English popular verse romance shows more variation than that of a medieval Latin philosophical text.11 Another is length. The variants of popular quatrains like, for instance, the popular Uyghur qošaq or the Persian du-baytī or rubāʿī, are on the whole minimal in comparison to those found in longer epic poetry. Of the two complete versions of the Song of Bagdad taken down from Salih Ugljanin (versions 1 and 3, version 2 is fragmentary), one comprises 1,620 and the other 1,368 lines; Lord lists twelve plot elements in which the two versions differ. At the same time, where the two texts agree with one another, they generally also agree in their wording. The lines are highly formulaic, and both agreement and variation can be described within the framework of formulaic analysis. On closer scrutiny one can clearly discern that the Song of Bagdad in its different versions as recorded from Salih Ugljanin shows a surprising amount of textual stability. It is not just any formulas or any themes that are used in its composition, but quite specific formulas and specific themes. These might also be found in other epics, but they define in their combination this particular epic song as it is realised in the various versions recorded from the same singer. This seems to me an important aspect. The oral-formulaic school has often been interpreted as almost negating the existence of an epic poem: all there is to learn are formulas, themes and story-patterns, and hence the learning process consists entirely in learning a technique. The technique, however, is not learned in the abstract but in connection with specific poems. First the poems are learned, then the technique follows as a matter of course. And when learning a poem, the goal must be to reproduce faithfully what has been heard. This is also true when what is heard varies: as the variations heard will be confined within certain limits so must the reproduction. A good memory is oblig- atory for this task, and it is difficult to see this process as anything radically different from memorizing. Using the verb ‘to remember’ instead of ‘to memorize’ in this case underlines the difference between learning a fixed written

11 This is a bold statement, for which many counter-examples can be found. Nevertheless, there are genres (such as philosophical texts) for which adherence to the copy-text was felt to be mandatory, while for others (such as popular romances) the scribes apparently felt less bound to execute an exact copy. See Machan 1991. 26 Reichl text and a more fluid (but not randomly variable) oral ‘text,’ but at the cost of obscuring the similarity between the two learning processes, namely that a text has to be actively retained in one’s memory for reproduction. There is a further aspect that controls variation in oral traditions. Pëtr Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson talk of the ‘Präventivzensur der Gemeinschaft’ (‘the preventive censorship of the community’), meaning by this term that the audience plays a crucial role in oral tradition in determining the performance by their taste and the values they place on particular forms of oral poetry (Bogatyrev and Jakobson 1929: 903). As regards variation, cases have been recorded where the audience insists on accuracy and conformity to the tradition and also cases where the audience appreciates elaborations and changes. In some traditions different types of singers are distinguished on the basis of their closeness (or distance) to the orally transmitted texts. Alois Schmaus notes that among the bylina singers two types can be distinguished, the ‘intensive singer’ who keeps to the tradition faithfully and the ‘extensive singer’ who is more creative and innovative. Both types of singers introduce changes, but there is a pronounced conservatism to be noted in the case of the ‘intensive singer’.12 Esmagambet Ismailov makes a similar distinction for Kazakh epic singers. He classifies the Kazakh singers into ‘improvising akïns’ (акыны- импровизаторы) and jïršïs (жыршы). While the former pride themselves on their ability to improvise – especially when singing contest songs (aytïs), – the latter are said to transmit their texts word-for-word.13 In Turkmen and Uzbek, the baxšï, the traditional singer, is set apart from the shāir (Arabic shāʿir), the creative singer. Great Uzbek performers of oral epics, who have also composed works of their own, have been given the title shāir (Ergash-shāir, Fāzil-shāir etc.). Both types are oral singers and they differ in turn from a third type, the qissači or qissakhān, the reader-reciter of popular epics and narratives (Arabic qiṣṣa), a performer who uses a written text (see below).14

12 Schmaus 1958: 119. Schmaus’ examples are Trofim Ryabinin (type ‘intensif’) and Stsegolenok (type ‘extensif’). See also Chicherov 1982 on singer types and singer schools. 13 Ismailov 1957: 33–35 (statements by aqïns regarding their improvising skills); among žïršïs Ismailov mentions Sadïbek Musrepov: ‘He maintains the texts literally and transmits them without any changes’ (Он придерживается текстов буквально и передает их без всяких изменений; ibid.: 52). 14 ‘Among the Turkmen the singer-musician who sings memorized songs and poems is called baxšï, in distinction from the shair (shagyr), the narrator-poet’ (У туркмен бахшы называется певец-музыкант, поющий заученные песни и поэмы, в отличие от шагыра – сказителя-поэта; Borovkov 1958: 69). For the different types of epic singers found among the Turkic-speaking peoples, see Reichl 1992: 57–91. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 27

From my own research among the Turkic people of Central Asia I can cite examples of a clearly memorial (but oral) transmission and of the ‘composition-in-performance’ type of transmission similar to the epics recorded by Parry and Lord.15 The whole question of variability and stability is, of course, an extremely involved one. It is intimately connected to the question whether or not written texts also exist. In some traditions this is the case; but here, too, different effects are possible. While, for instance, the existence of a written version of the epic of Edige (a so-called qiṣṣa) has had no influence on the oral epics as performed by the Karakalpak epic singers ( jïraws),16 the circulation of manuscripts and printed versions (‘chap-books’) of Kazakh epics has certainly ‘stabilized’ their transmission, at least in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Without wanting to deny the insights of the ‘oral-formulaic school’ into the mechanics of transmission and performance, I would like to stress the need of a good memory for the tradition-bearer and hence also the role of an active effort on the part of the apprentice singer to store what is heard in his memory. A number of scholars have postulated a memorial transmission of oral poetry, where the goal is textual stability if not verbatim reproduction, as for instance Paul Kiparsky with reference to the oral tradition of Finland (the runos on which Lönnroth based his Kalevala) (Kiparsky 1976: 95–98). Niceratus, if he was speaking the truth, is not the only known case of a person with a good memory. ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī boasts in his Dialogue of the Two Languages (Muḥākamat al-lughatayn) that he ‘memorized more than 50,000 couplets from the delicate poems and verses of many enchanting and captivating Persian poets . . .’ (Devereux 1966: 36). This would have been considerably more than the Iliad and Odyssey taken together.17

Text and Textuality

From my short discussion of memory – remembering and memorizing – it emerges that in an oral context what is transmitted is not only a technique but also a specific piece of poetry (‘poetry’ in its widest sense, including verse and

15 For examples and discussion, see Reichl 2001. 16 On the transmission of the epic of Edige (an epic based on the history of the Golden Horde in the period of emir Edige’s rule, 1395 to 1419), see Reichl 2007: 73–97. 17 In the Islamic world, the prime example of verbatim memory is of course the ḥāfiẓ, the person who has memorized the Qurʾān. 28 Reichl prose). What the narrator or singer acquires is the knowledge of a particular item of verbal art. But is this piece of poetry a text? One school of thought in modern literary theory would actually deny the existence of texts in the way the word is understood in normal speech. ‘Is there a text in this class?’ is the provocative title of a book by Stanley Fish. What he questions is not the existence of physical objects such as sheets of paper with hand-written or printed words on them. The argument is rather that every reader reads a work of literature differently, brings a different ‘horizon of expectation’ to it, understands the words differently according to his or her experiences, has different associations when reading the words and constructs a different ‘text’. Words become meaningful only when used, and texts ‘come to life’ only when read, heard or otherwise experienced. There is no one ‘text’ of a work of literature (Fish 1980: 303–21). This kind of approach is, of course, not limited to written texts and to fixed texts. In fact, what Fish and other literary critics tell us about written literature, is even more true of oral poetry as it only ‘exists’ when performed, told and heard. Nevertheless, when an audience gathers to hear a Bosnian guslar perform The Song of Bagdad or a Karakalpak bard the epic of Edige, they will come with certain expectations and if they have ever heard the epic performed before, will be able to tell whether they are listening to the same work or not. Leaving literary theory aside, we can probably agree to call the work of verbal art that the singer knows a text, a ‘series of words’ with a definite shape, though with different degrees of stability depending on the singer’s memory and on the tradition to which he belongs. Various methods and techniques of ensuring accuracy and stability in oral transmission have been employed. In classical antiquity, the art of memory was part of the training of an orator. Cicero, in his De Oratore (55 BCE), has a long passage on the ‘pigeon-hole method’ of remembering, said to have been invented by Simonides of Ceos (c. 556–468 BCE), according to which words and concepts are associated with visual impressions and spatial dispositions.18 In the Middle Ages both the classical tradition was continued and new methods of remembering were developed, some rhetorical, others philosophical in their orientation, and the ‘Art of Memory,’ as Frances Yates has shown, continued in Europe at least into the seventeenth century (Yates 1966).19 In fact, the modern ‘memory trainer’ still uses the pigeon-hole method of Simonides of Ceos. Some of these techniques apply also to oral traditions. Listing items, in particular names as in genealogies, is a common device. The Africanist Jack

18 Text and translation in Sutton and Rackham 1948: I, 465–73. 19 For medieval literature, see also Carruthers 1990. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 29

Goody has drawn attention to the use of lists in African oral traditions;20 but lists can also be found in originally oral poetry that has reached us only in written form, for instance in the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ in the Iliad (Book II) or in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith (‘The Widely Travelled Bard’), which consists of the names of tribes and places useful for the performance of Germanic heroic poetry.21 In Somali oral poetry, poets and memorizers are distinguished, but both perform orally. John W. Johnson maintains ‘that the degree of complexity in the prosody of Somali genres is directly proportional to the degree of memorization that is characteristic in such poetry’ (Johnson 2002: 187). What Johnson is saying is not that all performances of the same text are identical, but that the goal of both poet and memorizer is verbatim reproduction. And one of the guiding principles enabling correct remembrance is metre (ibid.). Both short-term and long-term memory has also been studied by psycholo- gists, and their studies leave no doubt that the endeavour to fix something in one’s mind can be helped by mnemonic devices (Bartlett 1932). With reference to oral poetry, David C. Rubin, a psychologist, has summarized the relevant research and stressed the role of sound patterns and images in the oral transmission of poetry (Rubin 1995). It is a characteristic of oral poetry that these mnemonic devices are, as it were, part of the poetry. Just as formulaic diction helps to remember, sound patterns, metrical constraints or ‘memorable words’ guarantee a certain textual stability in the course of transmission. ‘Memorable words,’ together with metrico-rhythmic patterns and parallel- istic structures, also play an important role in Turkic oral traditions. Kirghiz oral tradition has been famous for its rich oral epic poetry ever since Wilhelm Radloff published his collection of texts and translations in 1885. In his preface, Radloff compares the Kirghiz bard to the Greek aoidos and stresses the ‘oral-formulaic’ character of Kirghiz epic poetry when he talks of the bard’s free combination of ‘Vortragstheile’ or ‘Bildtheilchen’ in performance:

Every singer with some ability always improvises his songs according to the inspiration of the moment, so that he is incapable of reciting his poem twice in an absolutely identical manner. One should not believe,

20 Goody 1977: 74–111. On verbatim learning in an oral culture, see also Goody (1987: 174–82), who stresses the context-dependent process of learning. On ‘oral memorization,’ see also Ong 1982: 57–68. 21 The ‘Catalogue of Ships’ and other catalogues in the second book of the Iliad have been much discussed; a useful survey is found in Kirk 1985: 168–263. The Old English Widsith is edited and discussed in Malone 1962; see also Howe 1985 and Niles 2007: 73–109; on Germanic memorial poetry (Merkdichtung in German), see Heusler 1943: 79–97. 30 Reichl

however, that this improvising means a new composing every time. The improvising singer is in a similar position to the improvising piano player. Just as the latter puts various runs, transitions and motifs, which he knows, together to form a musical impression according to the inspiration of the moment and thus links the new with the old and familiar, so the epic singer also proceeds. Because of his extensive experience in performing he has, if I may say so, a number of narrative units (Vortragstheile) at his disposal, which he puts together in a manner appropriate to the course of the narrative. Such units are descriptions of certain events and situations, as for instance the birth of the hero, the growing-up of the hero, the praise of arms, the preparations for battle, the dialogue of the heroes before battle, the description of persons and horses, the characteristics of famous heroes, the praise of the bride’s beauty, the description of the place of abode, of the yurt, of a feast, the invitation to a feast, the death of a hero, the lament for a hero, the description of a landscape, the nightfall and the break of day and many other things. The art of the singer consists merely in stringing these finished pictorial elements (Bildtheilchen) together in such a way as is demanded by the course of events and to link them together by the means of newly composed verse lines. The singer is able to use the elements listed above in different ways. He can sketch one and the same picture with a few short strokes, he can give a fuller description or he can, in epic breadth, paint a very detailed picture. The more different narrative units at a singer’s disposal, the more varied will be his song and the longer he will be able to recite without tiring his audience by the monotony of his descriptions. The number of units a singer knows and the skill with which he can put them together are the measure of his artistry (Radloff 1885: xvi–xxvii; my translation).

Kirghiz epics can be extremely long, and it is obvious that two quantitatively highly unequal versions of the same epic must differ in many details. And yet a surprising amount of textual stability can also be detected. During my first trip to Xinjiang in 1985 I was able to record a mini-version of an episode (‘Semetey and Ayčürök’) from the epic Semetey (of the Manas cycle) (from Abdurahman Düney in Gäz in the Pamirs). When later comparing this text with the versions of the great Kirghiz bard Sayaqbay Qaralaev (1894–1971) and the Kirghiz singer- collector Jüsüp Mamay from Xinjiang (1918–2014), I noticed a surprisingly clear textual core, in particular in typical scenes such as the hero’s departure or descriptions like that of the hero’s whip. In Sayaqbay’s version Semetey’s whip is described with the following words: Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 31

Semeteydin buldursun, Čapsa qulaq tundursun, Qayaša qïlġan qatïndï Qayqalatkan buldursun. 5 Kečee bïštï noopas terisin Özögünö kerdirgen, Qïsïr taydïn terisin Qïzïq tilip jiberip, Šïqap jatïp ördürgön. 10 Opol-Toonun tüp ïrġay Tübü menen juldurġan, Qamčï sapka burdurġan, Bil terisin qaptatqan, Bölökbayġa saptatqan, 15 Alaqanï aynektüü, Büldürgösü bargektüü Qara jaak buldursun . . .

Semetey’s whip, when you swing it, your ears become deaf: it is a whip which makes a chiding woman cringe. 5 Earlier the hide of a four-year old ox had been stretched round its handle, the hide of a foal, sucking for a long time, had been cut into thin stripes and firmly plaited. 10 He (Semetey) had an ïrġa bush at the foot of Opol-Too dug out with its root, and had it made into the handle, had it covered with elephant hide, commanded Bölökbay to fix the handle, 15 had its alaqan decorated with glass, had its loop decorated with metal ornaments, a whip with a black alaqan . . .22

22 Quoted from Aytmatov, Abdïlaev et al. 1987–89: II, 14–15. The alaqan (l. 15) is the leather- strap by which the lash of the whip is fastened to the handle. For a more detailed analysis of this motif, see Reichl 1995. 32 Reichl

All descriptions in the different versions of this epic dwell on the way in which the material of the whip is prepared and worked into the finished product. We find the following words:

in Sayakbay’s version: kerdirgen (stretched), ördürgön (plaited), juldurġan (dug out), burdurġan (turned into), qaptatqan (covered), saptatqan (fixed with a handle); in Jüsüp Mamay’s version: kerdirgen (stretched), berdirgen (made to be given), terdirgen (made to be collected), ördürüp (plaited), keltirgen (made to be brought), dedirgen (made to be called); and in Abdurahman Düney’s version: saptatqan (fixed with a handle), qaptatqan (covered), sïndïrġan (made to be slaughtered).

What is typical of these words is not so much that they overlap in the various versions (symbolized by bold type), but that they are all causative verbs (‘to cause to do’), built with the help of the causative morphemes -dir-/ -dür- / -dur-/ -dīr-/ -tir- and -t- . The verbs are with one exception put into the past participle, expressed by the suffix -gen/ -gön/ -qan/ -ġan. The formulaic nature of the diction is here combined with certain morphological mechanisms that help generate a distinctive set of lexical items. These items are all somewhat unusual and in their combination produce a striking sequence of images. Clearly, the concept of the formula has to be redefined for this type of ‘composition-in-performance’. This example is not unique. Morphological patterns are also found in other Turkic traditions. In Uzbek oral poetry, an element of the description of the hero’s ride on his horse, for instance, is the use of onomatopoeic words (with the suffix -illa-) expressing sound, movement and visual impressions (Reichl 1992: 213–17). Sometimes these ‘memorable words’ seem to go back a long time. In the Karakalpak versions of the epic of Edige the following lines occur:23

Ġodalaq arba jürmestey, Qaġawïy medi eliñiz? Telegen arba jürmestey, Tergewli medi eliñiz?

23 See Reichl 2007: 203 (text Jumabay), 316 (translation), 440–41, 466–67; the text quoted above is from the singer Erpolat’s version (see ibid.: 466–67). Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 33

Is your place perhaps so forbidden that the ġodalaq arba cannot drive? Is your place perhaps so unsteady that the telegen arba cannot drive?

The arba is a wooden cart with two large wheels; the telegen arba is in Karakalpak a four-wheeled cart or waggon, and the ġodalaq arba or qodalaq arba is unknown in Karakalpak. It is also unknown in Kazakh, a language closely related to Karakalpak. The word is, however, found in Noghay, a Turkic language spoken in the northern Caucasus, and designates a two-wheeled cart. The Noghay and Karakalpaks are both linguistically and historically related. The Karakalpaks see their tribal origin in the Noghay Horde of the fifteenth century, one of the successors of the Golden Horde. As the epic of Edige refers to a hero of the Golden Horde from around 1400, it is tempting to speculate that this ‘memorable word’ actually goes back to an earlier Noghay epic tradition. In addition to formulas, themes and narrative patterning, these mnemonic devices are part of a singer’s ‘mental text’ (a term coined by Lauri Honko; Honko 1998: 92–99). They are also found in works that are only extant in writing and can be used as pointers toward the oral milieu from which they have come. The question of how to find evidence in a written text for its oral background is complex; it has been discussed extensively and would have to be the topic of a separate paper.24 I will only briefly touch on the notion of ‘textuality’ as it has been defined with reference to the written representations of what must have been a predominantly oral culture, as for instance that of Anglo- Saxon England. By ‘written representations’ basically two things can be understood, Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung, to use two German terms. Verschriftung means the process of putting something orally performed into writing, a process which comprises various possibilities, from a close phonetic transcription to the fixation in a standardized language with little or no regard to the actual sound (dialectal or otherwise) of the performance.25 Verschriftlichung, on the other hand, means the process of writing down a work of oral verbal art by using the conventions of written literature. Here too the term covers various forms, ranging from an edited oral text to a re-writing and even re-inventing of an oral tradition, as in F. Reinhold Kreutzwald’s Kalevipoeg (1857–61) or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha (1855). Medieval texts closest

24 See, e.g., Oesterreicher 1997; Bakker 1999. 25 On Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung, see Oesterreicher 1993; on the textualization of oral epics, see the collection of articles in Honko 2000; on the ‘folklore text’, see Fine 1984. 34 Reichl to an oral tradition (as far as we know) can be placed in an area intermediary between Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung. It is doubtful whether any texts are the result of Verschriftung in its most basic form, i.e. transcripts of oral performances. On the other hand, some texts are closer to being written down from the mouth of a performer than others. James Orchard Halliwell surmised long ago in his edition of a Middle English romance that the text was so corrupt ‘that it may be conjectured with great probability to have been written down from oral recitation’ (Halliwell 1842: v).26 Similar cases can be found across medieval Europe and no doubt also the Middle East. Other texts, of course, have to be placed further up on the scale towards Verschriftlichung. The Old English Beowulf or the Middle High German Nibelungenlied, but also the Ottoman Book of Dede Korkut are such cases. The textuality of ‘written representations’ of poetry in a basically oral culture like that of the Anglo-Saxons is, as Carol Braun Pasternack has argued, neither that of oral nor of written literature. She proposes we call these texts ‘inscribed’ rather than written:

I would use the term ‘inscribed’ to discuss these texts, since they inherit significant elements of vocality from their oral forebears and yet address the reader from the pages of manuscripts (Pasternack 1995: 2).

Pasternack bases her approach on the work of a number of medievalists and Anglo-Saxonists, among them Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘who argues “that early readers of Old English verse read by applying oral techniques for the reception of a message to the decoding of a written text” and that scribes drew on their familiarity with oral-formulaic methods of composition, recomposing the verse as they copied it’ (Pasternack 1995: 5).27 The ‘inscribed text’ is therefore some kind of hybrid: neither completely oral nor completely written, but closer to the former than to the latter. While in oral traditions that are still alive one can still study how a tradition-bearer acquired his or her repertoire, how this repertoire is stored and performed, this is not possible with traditions only accessible in the written record they have left behind. While the ethnographer and folklorist might be able to investigate the interplay of orality and literacy in the field, the scholar of past traditions, whether Classicist, medievalist or Orientalist, has to search for clues to evaluate the written evidence. Both the ethnographer and the phi- lologist are dealing with texts, with ‘word-and-sound structures’ of a definite,

26 The romance in question is Sir Torrent of Portyngale. 27 Pasternack’s quotation is from O’Brien O’Keeffe 1990: 21. Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 35 albeit variable, shape. Concepts such as ‘mental text’ or ‘inscribed text’ point to differences in the kinds of texts with which we are dealing. They do not, however, automatically solve the problem of placing an oral-derived text correctly on the scale ranging from Verschriftung to Verschriftlichung.

Conclusion

In concluding, I would like to briefly take up the third concept in the title of my paper, ‘the orality-literacy continuum’. From a theoretical point of view, there is a ‘great divide’ between orality and literacy. Philosophers, linguists and anthropologists have drawn attention to the fact that the world of orality and literacy represent two quite different approaches to conceptualization and expression in language.28 The use of abstract terms is one of many marks said to distinguish a written from an oral culture (e.g., Malinowski 1949; Snell 1953: 1–22). When it comes to studying oral traditions, be it living oral traditions in the field, be it obsolete oral traditions preserved in written texts, the clear dichotomy will in many cases soon become blurred. Even the distinction into orally composed, orally transmitted and orally performed, proposed by Ruth Finnegan (1977: 17), will not cover all cases. As to oral composition, a text might be orally composed, but not, as it were, in performance, but by pondering over the poem to be performed beforehand. We have descriptions of this ‘composing in one’s head’ previous to public performance from a number of medieval sources. An incident from the second half of the seventh century related by the Venerable Bede in his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum concerns a man named Caedmon, who had miraculously acquired the gift of composing poetry. He was illiterate and the biblical narratives had to be told and explained before he could put them into verse:

He learned all he could by listening to them [his literate teachers] and then, memorizing it and ruminating over it, like some clean animal chewing the cud, he turned it into the most melodious verse; and it sounded so sweet as he recited it that his teachers became in turn his audience.29

28 See, inter alia, Goody and Watt 1963; Havelock 1986; for the discussion of characteristics of ‘orally based thought and expression,’ see Ong 1982: 36–68. 29 ‘Et ipsa cuncta, quae audiendo discere poterat, rememorando secum et quasi mundum animal ruminando, in carmen dulcissimum conuertebat, suauiusque resonando doctores 36 Reichl

Clearly, Caedmon ‘chewed over,’ ‘mulled over’ what he had heard and learned before he ‘burst into song’. Similarly in the Old Norse Egil’s Saga, the skald Egil, when he was in danger of being executed and could save himself only by composing a praise-poem for the King Eirik Blood-Axe of York, spent the night putting the words together in his head before reciting the poem on the next day.30 In some cases texts were actually composed in writing but intended for oral performance. It is thought that a number of Middle English popular romances, for instance, were composed by ‘hack writers’ for minstrels; the details of this cooperation between hack and minstrel are, however, unclear and the whole issue of the role of minstrels in the composition of popular romances remains controversial.31 For the transmission process many combinations of oral and written ways of transmitting poetry and narratives are possible and have no doubt occurred. Oral and written transmission have repeatedly crossed paths in the history of medieval literature, and the interaction of orality and literacy characterizes most traditional poetries. Albert Lord, who had denied the existence of ‘transitional texts’ in his Singer of Tales, admits later the possibility of transitional or ‘mixed’ texts in a situation where orality and literacy co-exist:

It is certainly correct to say that in the oral epic traditions with which I am acquainted singers do not lose their ability to compose in the oral traditional manner when they learn to read and write. There has been some misunderstanding on that point. I discovered years ago [. . .] that a text may be partly memorized from the published collection and partly composed in the traditional manner. In my article on “Perspectives” I called these “mixed texts,” because sections of them are fixed, word- for-word memorized text, and sections are “composed in performance” (Lord 1987: 337–38).32

Finally, a text might be orally performed, but with the help of a manuscript. This is, for instance, typical of the oral epic singers of Khorezm in Uzbekistan.33

suos uicissim auditores sui facieba’; Colgrave and Mynors 1969: 418 (text), 419 (translation). On the Caedmon story, see also Fry 1975. 30 See chapters 59 and 60 of the Egil’s Saga; Pálsson and Edwards 1976: 151–62. 31 For Middle English romances, see Reichl 2009. 32 The article ‘Perspectives’ referred to is Lord 1975. 33 ‘It is well-known that in Khorezm the influence of the feudal urban centres, with which the life of the rural population of the small oasis was intimately connected, was particularly strong. Here singers who can read and write are not rare. They do not improvise Memory And Textuality In The Orality-literacy Continuum 37

Manuscripts or chap-books are also used by the ‘reader of tales,’ the qiṣṣa-khvān, found in a number of traditions. The Uzbek qiṣṣa-khvān is characterised by V. Zhirmunskiy and X. Zarifov as follows:

In the towns and the villages around towns there were also professional readers (the so-called qissa-khān), who read popular books aloud to an illiterate audience, performing in the bazaars or, by invitation, in private homes. On these occasions an experienced reader could re-tell a text from memory, with corresponding individual deviations. The folk singers (ašulači) had in their musical-poetic repertory works of Classical Uzbek poetry and music. Through these routes the influence of written literature has long since penetrated into Uzbek oral epic poetry.34

Zhirmunskiy and Zarifov mention the ašulači as the purveyor of classical Uzbek poetry. A number of epic tales in oral tradition are borrowed from written literature, while the authors of Uzbek (Chaghatay) and Persian classical narrative poetry have also been influenced by popular and oral traditions. The Uzbek oral epic (dāstān) Farhad and Shirin, for instance, which has been written down from the performance of Fāzil Yoldāš-oġli (1872–1955), has been influenced by the narrative poem Farhād-u Shīrīn by ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī (fifteenth century), who in turn imitated the works of Niẓāmī (twelfth century), but was also inspired by oral legends and poetry.35 There is a whole group of Turkmen,

the verse-parts of their dastans, but learn them by heart, holding sometimes the manuscript of the poem in their hands as a help for their recitation’. (С другой стороны, в Хорезме заметно было особенно сильное влияние феодальных городских центров, с которыми была тесно связана жизнь кишлачного населения маленького оазиса. Здесь чаще встречаются грамотные сказители. Стихотворные партии своих дастанов они не импровизируют, а выучивают наизусть, иногда имея в своих руках рукописный текст поэмы, которого и придерживаются при исполнении; Zhirmunskiy and Zarifov 1947: 55). 34 ‘В городах и в пригородных кишлаках существовали профессиональные чтецы (так называемые кисса-хан), которые читали вслух народные книги неграмотному населению, выступая на базарах или, по приглашению, в частных домах, причем нередко опытный чтец воспроизводил текст по памяти, с соответствующими индивидуальными отклонениями. Народные певцы (ашулачи) в своем музыкально- поэтическом репертуаре имели произведения классической узбекской поэзии и музыки. Такими путями в народную узбекскую эпическую поэзию издавна проникало влияние письменной литературы’. (Zhirmunskiy and Zarifov 1947: 28–29). 35 On Farhād-u Shīrīn in Persian literature, see Duda 1933. On the influence of classical literature on Uzbek epics (including Fāzil’s Farhad and Shirin), see Zhirmunskiy and Zarifov 1947: 279–301. 38 Reichl

Uzbek, Azeri, Turkish, Uyghur, Karakalpak, and Kazakh oral narrative poems (or works in a mixture of verse and prose) with close connections to the respective classical literatures. In practice, we have to reckon with an orality-literacy continuum, on which individual cases will have to be placed, sometimes closer to one end of the scale and sometimes closer to the other. My introductory example is a case in point: Niceratus is memorizing a fixed text, there is a written text available, but he uses rhapsodes as his teachers, learns the text from the recited word rather than from the written text. And the rhapsodes? They are said to have memorized a written text. Did they really? Or were there other rhapsodes who taught them? And where did they get their knowledge from? One’s mind begins to reel at the thought that a written text is supposed to be memorized and yet doesn’t seem to be used in the learning process. ‘Orality’ and ‘textuality,’ it seems, are contrasting terms and at the same time complementary terms. In the orality- literacy continuum tensions and combinations in many shades and hues are conceivable.

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Shaul Shaked

The beginning of the common era is a period of high literacy. Most affairs of any importance were concluded and sealed in writing. This includes most affairs of state, royal and provincial correspondence, and royal chronicles. Ceremonial inscriptions were put up for political propaganda purposes, recounting victories and other great deeds done by the kings, and royal proclamations in matters of social justice and faith in the gods. It was felt that these matters had to be put down in writing, partly in order to impress people with the prestige of literacy that the king had at his command, and partly in order to allow them long-lasting impact. Such public literacy – that is to say, literacy in the service of public and judicial causes – had already been part of the scene in the Middle East for about a millennium before the beginning of the common era. Its status was being confirmed again and again, with new compositions being produced in writing and new documents being redacted all over the vast area with which we are concerned in a wide variety of languages: Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and more. A similar situation, with some differences in the distribution of the literary products, was in force further east, in the Indian sub- continent and in the Chinese world. If we say that this is a period of high literacy, it does not mean, of course, that literacy was a skill that most people possessed. This is not the case in some parts of the world even today, when literacy has reached its highest point in human history. The claim that a society was highly literate implies little more than that the use of reading and writing was considered to be a necessary skill for certain social functions and that it was an essential prerequisite for con- ducting the affairs of state.

* An earlier version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at a conference of the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, on the theme Book cultures and religious literacies in the eastern Mediterranean, in March 2011. My thanks go to the organizers, Eduard Iricinschi, Guy Stroumsa and the Institute director, Gabriel Motzkin.

Religious teachings, which were part of the public domain, also made extensive use of written communication as part of their transmission. But in the religious sphere, surprisingly, not everything was considered to be fit for writing. Many fundamental texts continued to exist orally, and some new compositions kept coming into being in an exclusively oral form. Some sacred texts were being produced initially as oral compositions, but were turned at a given moment into written books. In some cases a book descended from heaven, but this was not a book in the normal sense of the term. It was an oral revelation that was called a book. We may use the designation ‘oral book’ for such phenomena. The two terms ‘oral’ and ‘book’ retain their full, though contradictory, value, and represent an entity that is not properly speaking either a book or an oral teaching. In the following, we shall try to explore the mode of disseminating religious teachings along the line that runs between oral and written transmission. It will be useful to look also at the interplay between open teaching and esotericism in the religious market-place and its possible relationship to the modes of transmission. The prime example for an oral book revelation is the Qurʾān, the foundation text of Islam. It was brought down in a series of revelations given to the Prophet, and these successive messages stretched over the whole period of his ministry. The Qurʾān refers to itself as a book (kitāb), even though it consisted exclusively of verbal communications delivered orally to a prophet who did not make a claim to literacy. The book was only assembled in writing some time after the death of the Prophet. For the revelation to assume its full dignity, it had to vie with the authority of a number of antecedent books, chief among them the Torah of Judaism and the Gospels of Christianity, books that carried authority, but whose transmission was declared to be flawed. The fact that this oral revelation of prophecies was called a book is a tribute to the extreme prestige enjoyed by book culture. The Qurʾān is only one example of an oral book. A whole range of earlier examples can be mentioned. The sacred book of Zoroastrianism, the Avesta, circulated as an oral book for many centuries before being written down. Its date of composition is unknown, but it is widely believed nowadays that the Gathas, the oldest portions of the Avesta, were composed sometime around the year 1,000 BCE, give or take two centuries. It was however not written down before the sixth century CE, which means that its history as an oral book may have stretched over a period of more than a millennium and a half. Literacy was known in Iran for most of this period. Books were published and inscriptions were put up, and yet it does not seem to have crossed people’s mind that the text of the Avesta should be written down. A somewhat similar story applies also to the ancient texts of India, the Vedas, and especially the Rig Veda. Orality And Esotericism 45

Another prominent case goes in the opposite direction. The Torah is known to us exclusively as a book, even though it must have circulated for a long period in its early history as a bundle of oral traditions. Certain portions of the Torah and of the ancient chronicles were put together from earlier versions that had already existed in written form. The Bible as we know it emerged into the collective consciousness as a written book, and earned its name in the west as the book par excellence. It was not uncommon for the prophets to dictate their prophecies to a scribe who wrote them down on a scroll (Jeremiah 36:6), or else for a prophet to write them down himself on a sheet of leather (Isiah 8:1), or even symbolically to eat and thus absorb the divine revelation that was inscribed on such a sheet (Ezekiel 1:1–3). We seem to have two paradigms for the transmission of sacred scriptures, based on the presence or absence of an acknowledged period of orality. One side (the Iranian and the Indian) gives absolute precedence to the oral communication of the texts; the other (the Jewish-Christian) regards only a written text to be valid. The Qurʾān is somehow a case apart: it came down orally, but was always regarded as a written book. But is this an acceptable presentation of the two cultural attitudes? As an alternative presentation of the data we may try a historical approach. The Indian and Iranian texts were composed in a language which had no script to represent them. Transmitters had no other choice but to rely on their memory. Once started, this mode of transmission prevailed and acquired an aura of sanctity. Changing over from orality to reliance on a book must have been a difficult decision, but we are in the dark as to the circumstances of this change. The Jewish scriptures, either by virtue of being relatively young, or through the fact that the society was open to innovation, made use of the available writing technology, and this mode of transmission became the rule. The first appearance of the Torah is marked by the stone tablets brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. From that moment on there is no more turning away from a written scripture in Judaism. This is however not the whole story, and the development was certainly not linear. There are frequent cases of backtracking, of lapses into orality, for a variety of reasons and in different circumstances. When the redactors of the Hebrew Bible put a seal on the canon, this did not put a stop to the composition of scriptures. Books left out of the canon kept circulating, and new extra-canonical books were constantly composed. All of these were books in the full sense of the term, just like the books of the Bible. They were written texts, read from a scroll, often read in public. The closing of the canon made it necessary for some of the new books to masquerade as books composed by spurious ancient authors, with the hope that this would facilitate their acceptance into the canon. 46 Shaked

The literary activity of the group that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls was conducted at the same time as the composition of the extra-canonical works. These authors were engaged in producing commentaries to the Bible, midrashim, and sectarian compositions. Some of these books contained esoteric material. The Gospels making up the New Testament are part of a similar trend. They derive however from another type of Jewish composition: the hagiography of outstanding men, a new literary genre which assembles anecdotes from the lives of holy men. We have analogies for this genre of literature not in the Bible but in rabbinic literature. Other parts of the New Testament consist mainly of epistles, another new genre in Jewish literature. As far as their literary shape is concerned, the compositions making up the New Testament are definitely oriented towards the new world. Unlike the pseudepigrapha, they do not aspire to be like the Bible, but are part of the world in which the rabbis were active. Rabbinic literature started with the Mishna, composed in Hebrew, to which later the Talmud, composed in Aramaic, was added. These are unashamedly oral compositions, never meant to be distributed in writing. The idea of writing them down was unacceptable to their authors. One obvious reason for this objection is the desire not to establish a new scripture that would vie in authority with the Bible. The idea was to create a sharp demarcation line to separate the divine revelation of the Bible from the human speculation of the rabbis. This new composition would not be inspired by divine manifestation, but would be based on the study of the sacred scripture and its traditional interpretation. The rabbinical composition, however, could not escape a certain unintended rivalry with the Bible. The tension between this new text and the biblical canon is highlighted by the very name given early on to the new composition. It was called, with all humility, Tora shebbeʿal-pe, ‘oral Torah,’ in contrast to Tora shebbikhtav, ‘the written Torah’. The lexical differentiation between written and oral is meant to give a higher status to the written teachings. In practice, however, the authority of the oral Torah in rabbinical Judaism grew to such an extent that it almost overshadows the Torah proper. The reliance on the written text is generally made through the lens of oral law, and the ancillary role of the rabbinical Torah became an essential tool for approaching the Mosaic Torah. In contrast to the superiority of a written text, the oral law presents a new type of composition. It does not use a solemn archaic text. Its language is the plain style of Hebrew and Aramaic, closer to the colloquial vernaculars. And yet, paradoxically, it is less accessible outside the circle of the learned. The Talmud, which evolved out of this intellectual activity, holds up a banner of orality as a sign of humility in face of the written Bible. It demonstrates, how- Orality And Esotericism 47 ever, some haughty pride with regard to groups that are continuing to produce quasi-biblical books in a period when the biblical canon had been declared officially closed. The Talmud soon acquired a status of sanctity of its own. The prohibition to put it down in writing (which may not have always been observed) endowed it with a special degree of apartness from mundane existence. The fact that it was transmitted in memory rather than on parchment endowed it with a degree of spirituality. The theory that a written book is superior to an oral text, combined with the paradoxical fact that oral teaching is more vibrant and powerful than the pale words of a book, reflects an uneasy ambivalence with regard to the two modes of transmission. This appears to be a fair description of the balance of power in classical rabbinic Judaism. There have been several attempts in Jewish history to do away with this ambiguity and tip the balance in one direction or the other. The rise of the Karaite movement is one symptom for this phenomenon in Judaism, and, in an opposite direction, the rise of various visionary and ecstatic trends in Judaism of the fourth to the tenth centuries, and also of later Jewish movements with a similar drive. The ultimate victory of the written book was won in an unlikely corner among the many cults and sects of late antiquity. The very idea of oral transmission was criticized in sharp terms by Mānī, the third-century founder of the religion that bears his name. According to him, this form of transmission opens the gate wide to a distortion of the truth and to a falsification of the original message. Mānī believed that this was the worst failure of his predecessors, the religious leaders of the past. A religious founder’s mission, according to Mānī, is to compose books. He should make it his business to disseminate them in the world, to oversee their translation into several languages, and to crown his achievement by a composition that can exist in no other form but as a book: one that presents not a text, but pictures. This book, the Arzhang, is the earliest, and so far as I know, still the only example of a cartoon strip serving as a sacred scripture. Some remote analogies may be mentioned: one of them is the late medieval Biblia Pauperum, which is however addressed at the illiterate. The Coptic and Ethiopic illustrated magic scrolls are another analogy, but they belong to a different genre. This book of Mānī was considered lost, but recently a medieval picture, done in China, was identified by Yutaka Yoshida as depicting the Manichaean cosmology. It is possibly derived from Mānī’s book.1

1 Yoshida 2009. On the Arzhang, see Asmussen 1987. A preliminary report on the discovery of the Manichaean painting was published in Archaeology and History of the Silk Road, Sunday, 3 October 2010 (accessible on the web). [See also F. Grenet’s article in this volume.] 48 Shaked

The importance of the book to Manichaeans is underlined by the image of Manichaean missionaries roaming the countryside armed with books. The Manichaeans were thus the heirs of Jews (whom they despised) and Christians (whom they criticized). They claimed to have outdone the Christians, Zoroastrians and Buddhists, not only by having pure and unadulterated scriptures, but by the fact that these were compositions written by the prophet himself. It is likely that Mānī even devised the script used for Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian, which he appears to have adapted from the Syriac alphabet of his native province. Muḥammad was an heir to Mānī in the sense that he too considered his revelation to be embodied right from the start in a book which would supersede the older books of revelation. We have so far given only scant attention to Zoroastrianism, the other old religion of the eastern Mediterranean area alongside Judaism. When Islam conquered the vast Sasanian empire, it had to decide whether to recognize Zoroastrianism as one of the communities labelled ‘people of the book,’ in which case it might be tolerated by Muslims, or else declared an idolatrous religion and have its adherents forced to conversion. One may want to stop for a moment and ponder about the equation between scripture and religious valid- ity. Is there a reason to regard a book as guaranteeing an authentic religion? In the sixth century this could be a valid claim. This is essentially a tribute to the overwhelming prestige of book transmission. Although it did not meet the test of monotheism in the eyes of the Muslim doctors, Zoroastrianism was accepted into the club of religions of the book. But the Christian trinity was also found lacking as regards monotheism. From the point of view of its holy books, Zoroastrianism presents a structure somewhat similar to that of the binary Torah, written and oral, in Judaism. Throughout most of its recorded history, the believers approached the Avesta by using the intermediary of zand, the exegesis of the Avestan texts in the Middle Persian vernacular. It may be noted that the gap between the language of the scripture and the common literary language is markedly broader in Zoroastrianism than in Judaism. The text of the Avesta is composed in an Old Iranian language that is markedly different from Persian, and to this we must add the chronological gap between the date of composition of the Avesta and the historical period at which the zand exegesis came into being, a gap which can be estimated as close to a millennium and a half. The Avestan text needs to be translated before it can be comprehended even on a most elementary level. This is of course not the case when the sages of the Talmud approached the Torah, even though certain expressions in the Torah may have been opaque and required exegesis. Orality And Esotericism 49

The Zoroastrian exegetical tradition shows evidence of school debates and oral discussions quite similar to the situation prevalent in Judaism. In the case of the Zoroastrians, just as in the Talmud, the school debates were assembled together by later redactors. The only marked difference here is the fact that the Zoroastrians lost a large portion of their sacred literature as a result of their diminishing numbers under Islam and their exile to India; the internal tradition imputes some of the losses already to the period of Alexander’s conquest. No explicit prohibition to write down the Pahlavi commentaries in book form is known to us, but orality was certainly the rule concerning the transmission of the zand during the Sasanian period, just as it was with regard to the Avesta. In this sense the split between the two corpora of texts did not affect their mode of transmission. Orality may have been simply a reflection of conservatism. At one point, perhaps in the sixth century CE, a decision was taken to commit the Avesta to writing, and this decision may have applied at the same time also to the traditional exegesis of the scriptures. We have no information as to who took that decision. It may be surmised that this was the result of a decline in priestly schools, where the scriptures were memorized, and a fear that the contents of these oral scriptures would be lost. The decision, which heralded a break with a long tradition, may not have been easy to take. For the Avestan text, it required the invention of a new script, a task that was accomplished by adding a large number of symbols to those existing in Pahlavi in order to indicate the vowels, short and long, as well as distinctive symbols for several consonants. The existing Pahlavi script relied on the priests and scribes knowing how to pronounce the words simply by keeping in memory the shapes of the words. Turning the Zoroastrian tradition from an orally transmitted text to a scripture was surely nothing less than a revolution, although not in the sense that it opened up the scriptures, Avesta and zand, to the masses of Zoroastrian believers. Access to the texts, we may take it, was rather restricted, partly because of the difficulties in approaching the texts and not least by the fact that a deliber- ate effort was made to keep it restricted. One reason why Zoroastrian sages may not have been too much troubled by the danger that zand teachings should be put into writing is the fact that the Pahlavi script was not as accessible among Zoroastrians as was the Hebrew script among Jews. A striking evidence for this can be adduced from the propagation of the magical bowls in Sasanian Babylonia. Aramaic bowls written in the Hebrew alphabet by far outnumber those written in the other types of Aramaic script, namely Mandaic and Syriac. There are some bowls written in a script resembling Pahlavi, but no magic bowl written in this script could 50 Shaked so far be deciphered, and there is a strong likelihood that these bowls carry no intelligible text. On the other hand, despite the great difficulty of making sense of the cursive Pahlavi script, we know of a considerable number of economic documents written in this script and further documents keep coming to light from the Sasanian and post-Sasanian period, a fact that shows that this script was in fairly wide use for pragmatic correspondence and was very much alive for some time after the fall of the Sasanian empire to the Arabs. The rigid hierarchy that characterised Sasanian society set those who were called ‘scribes’ (dibīr) as a class apart.2 This was not the case in the Jewish society of Sasanian Babylonia or of Roman Palestine, and also not in the Christian and Manichaean communities. Literacy was part of the complex of phenomena at the heart of Sasanian society. We have no information as to the distribution of reading and writing skills, but there are indications to show that the great interest shown by both Judaism and Christianity in making the scriptures available to a wide audience entailed also a widespread effort at instruction. Despite the fact that the Manichaeans had a more pronounced religious hierarchy than either Jews or Christians (and in this they resembled the Zoroastrians), they also based their instruction of the faith on the use of the sacred books. Jews, Christians and Manichaeans, with all the differences between them, had a number of characteristics in common, which set them apart from the Zoroastrians. They all shared a perception of human equality, in the sense that they believed that every person can achieve, if they make the necessary effort, the highest stage in religious matters. In Judaism the distinction between priests (kohen), levites and common people was still maintained, but it lost much of its social force after the destruction of the Temple and hardly affected a person’s social or religious standing as regards most aspects of religious life. The study of the Torah, in particular, was open to all, according to one’s natural apti- tude. This was in contrast with the social theory prevalent under the Sasanians, where most people were theoretically tied to their professions and to the status held in society by their forbears. This view of the proper order of society was re-introduced in the sixth century after the overthrow of the Mazdakite movement, with its attempt to implement some measure of egalitarianism. The hierarchical order of society was essentially an adaptation of the ancient Indo-Iranian idea, which envisaged three classes. The Sasanians recognized four social classes, where scribes, who constituted the learned section, were recognized as a class apart. The Sasanian practice may not have been as rigid as it is sometimes described in the sources, but the theory must have had some

2 A rich discussion of the term and its use can be found in Tafazzoli 2000: 18–37. Orality And Esotericism 51 impact on the reality of social life, as can be deduced from the emergence of a protest movement such as Mazdakism.3 Jews, Christians and Manichaeans did not share this view, and their perception of society certainly allowed more flexibility and mobility. The easy propagation among Zoroastrians of Christianity, Manichaeism and later on of Islam, may have been symptomatic of the desire to break down the inhibiting divisions of Sasanian society. Judaism, an ‘old’ religion that reinvented itself after the destruction of the Temple, thus became part of the new wave of religious movements that changed the face of society. Zoroastrianism appears to have found it more difficult to adapt to the social flexibility that was gaining ground. Judaism was not itself actively engaged in recruiting proselytes, but it radiated a certain appeal to others, and religious seekers qualified as ‘god-fearers’ flocked to the syna- gogues without converting to Judaism. The term ‘god-fearers’ (phoboumenoi in Greek, tarsāg in Middle Persian) came later to designate those who took the further step of embracing Christianity (Pines 1967). A late vestige of this Jewish usage is found in the Jewish tomb-stones of Jām in Afghanistan (twelfth and thirteenth centuries), where a Hebrew laudatory term used for the deceased was hayyare, ‘the fearer,’ indicating a pious Jew (Shaked 1981: 79, n. 33). The more common Jewish appellation for a pious man in other communities is yere shamayim or yere elohim. This, in very broad terms, was the situation in the Sasanian period when viewed horizontally, across the barriers separating the various communities. Each of the religious groups had its own internal vertical structure, its own hierarchy. Let us look at some of these hierarchies more closely, although we cannot discuss this theme fully within the scope of this article. At one pole there are the groups who make a distinction between those who possess the highest internal truths and those to whom access to these truths is denied. The main role of those who are not admitted into the circle of the elect is to serve those who know. Manichaeism had the most sharply pronounced structure of this kind, and so did the Mandaean religion, as well as several splinter groups of Islam, such as the Druze. This hierarchical structure is based on individual accomplishment, not on class structure perpetuated by birth. A certain portion of the religious doctrine is withheld from the larger circles of the community, to be shared only by priests or the elect. The doctrine of the Manichaean faith in all its complexity may have been reserved to be expounded only in closed circles.

3 On Mazdakism, which comprised more than one group, see Klíma 1957; Shaki 1978; idem 1985; Yarshater 1983, and more recently, Crone 1991; Sundermann 1993 and Shaked 1994: 124–31. 52 Shaked

The impact of mysteries in a religion does not necessarily derive from their profound contents. It is most frequently an outcome of the awe inspired by the prohibition to make them public. In some cases, when the contents of a secret are divulged, we are struck by its banality while being gratified by the fact that we have overcome a hurdle. The religious views of mainstream Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism are clearly explained in their scriptures and commentaries. There seems to be no need to look for hidden teachings tucked away in some dark corner. And yet, there are certain indications to show that not everything is as transparent as it may seem. In Judaism, the Talmud is regarded as a text governed by a spirit of sobriety and rationality. This is indeed mostly the case, but there are hints suggesting that some individuals sought a different path. One often-quoted passage contains an allusion to four sages who entered the pardes, a mystical orchard. Three of them ended up badly, and only one managed to emerge unscathed. The passage is replete with allusions that are not made explicit, but which have given rise to several different interpretations (Tosefta Hagiga 2: 3; yTalmud, Hagiga 2, fol. 77, col. 2, 1). Whether this was a hint at an ecstatic form of religion, one based on mysterious experiences fraught with danger, which only few people can undertake without suffering terrible damage, is not entirely clear. This metaphor developed eventually into an intellectual movement that sought to describe the human encounter with the divine in terms that can be described as visionary mysticism. There is no historical information concerning this movement. All we know about it is derived from a number of anonymous or pseudonymous writings preserved in medieval manuscripts. These compositions deal with exhilarating and partly scary experiences of mystics who visited several hierarchical grades of celestial chambers, where they encountered agents of the divine, and acquired in the process mystical and magical powers. A typical outcome of their quest was the acquisition of certain texts that contain long lists of divine and angel names. The movement was massive enough to have its roots placed in both main Jewish centres of the period, Palestine and Babylonia.4 It left its mark on the regular Jewish liturgy as well as in the field of Jewish magical formulae. The Hekhalot circles possess characteristics of a mystical movement: the aim of the practitioner is to get close to the deity; this is done by visiting the heavenly abodes, and by watching and conversing with the angels. The main sensory perception is that of vision, although other senses, such as audi- tion, are also involved. The vision of God himself is not granted, but the way leading to the highest palace is marked by the sight of angelic entities. The

4 The evidence for Hekhalot activity in Babylonia derives from the magic bowls; cf. Shaked 1995b. It was initially assumed that the Hekhalot practitioners were active only in Palestine. Orality And Esotericism 53 texts refer to teachings that are kept under a cloak of secrecy. It is interesting to note that writing down the texts was apparently not regarded as compro- mising the esoteric character of their teachings or their mode of practice and ritual. A similar phenomenon is observable in some of the scrolls of the Dead Sea group: they often refer to certain mysteries, and seem to expound them in writing. Some passages from the Jewish Hekhalot texts are embedded in the Aramaic magic texts from Babylonia, written on clay bowls and formulated in the Jewish Babylonian variety of Aramaic. We thus have a movement with apparently esoteric leanings and with a strong interest in the practice of magic which ensues from their brand of mysticism. The Aramaic magic bowls are essentially amulets. They use written language as their main instrument in order to protect their owner from disease or other adversities, but some bowls carry texts aimed aggressively at certain named opponents. There are Jewish, Christian, Mandaean as well as pagan texts on the bowls, written in a variety of Aramaic idioms and scripts. It is noteworthy that Middle Persian, presumably the language of a sizable section of population, is absent.5 Many of the bowl customers could not read or write, and were in no position to distinguish between genuine and arbitrarily invented script. The practitioners who wrote the bowls were not always proficient in the art of writing. And yet it is striking that cases of fraudulent scripts are not very common. Not a few of the scribes were quite meticulous and skilful, their work demonstrating familiarity with complex texts. The number of copying errors is not markedly higher than what is normally found in literary texts. We are faced with a body of writings of some sophistication which makes up an impressive collection of texts. Having said this, shouldn’t we ask ourselves: is this really literature? Or is it something different? Despite the fact that these texts reached us in written form, they do not always make an impression of proper textual compositions. In contrast to the paradoxical phenomenon of oral scriptures, the bowls can be described as ‘written orality’. They are comparable to oral compositions in the sense that, although they often contain passages of striking poetical beauty, their arrangement is often extremely sloppy. It appears that the scribe carries in his memory, or perhaps in a model notebook, a number of kernel texts that he can use at will. He puts them together with other materials, such as segments that serve as a bridge between the kernel texts, or references to the customers at whose order the bowl is made, or biblical verses. The order of these passages

5 See above, pp. 49–50. 54 Shaked is quite arbitrary, apart from some general guidelines for opening and closing phrases. I tend to call the kernel texts in a bowl ‘spells,’ and the whole ensuing text as presented on the bowl, an ‘incantation’. An incantation may consist of several spells, with various segments that serve to stitch them together. The spells are more or less stable compositions. They are the bricks out of which the incantation is constructed, while much of the surrounding text is fluid and changeable.6 This procedure acts somewhat like the retelling of folktales, where the core plot is more or less permanent, but it is usually accompanied by introductory phrases and digressions, quotations or references, all of which can be inserted by the narrator at will. From another point of view, spells hover somewhere on the borderline between magic acts and liturgy. Magic acts, whether verbal or based on ges- tures, tend to be strictly private. Liturgical texts are usually fixed and meant to be used for public performance; individuals can, of course, use the texts for private prayer. The texts of the bowls maintain intimate communication with the powers beyond, but they also serve as a vehicle of human discourse between practitioner, client, and the invisible powers. This is a genre of literature with a structure of its own, sometimes shared by the liturgical texts, but essentially kept private. In Late Antiquity, people from all walks of life seem to make some use of spells, but it is rare to have them admit that they do. The bowls are a form of private communication. This is symbolized by the fact that they are found in excavations usually turned downwards towards the earth. In late antique Judaism, some sages express reservations as to the effectiveness of magical practices, as to their propriety or admissibility. One gets the impression that no one would openly defend this practice. It comes therefore as a slight shock to discover that people identified as ‘Rav’ or ‘Rabbi’ were owners of magic bowls.7 The title ‘Rabbi’ is not a commonplace designation in Late Antiquity. Some of the people who carry this title are called by names that are identical with those of well-known sages of the Talmud. One bowl was made for Rav Ashi; a man with the same name is known to have been the final redactor of the Babylonian Talmud. We cannot be sure that the owner of the bowl is the same person as the Talmudic sage, because the names of people on bowls – this is the general practice in the period under consideration – are never accompanied by their father’s name, but by the name of the mother. In formal usage, and particularly in judicial contexts, it is the name of the person and his patronym that serves

6 An analysis of the structure of an incantation on bowls as a template is attempted in Shaked 2011. [On incantation bowls, see also the articles by Ch. Häberl and N. Vilozny in this volume.] 7 The material on this subject will be published in a forthcoming article. Orality And Esotericism 55 to identify a person. The mother’s name follows the person’s name only in the context of magic and in prayers for healing. All cultures of the period – Jewish, Christian and Mandaic – use the same conventions in matters of magic. We have very little by way of Manichaean magic. This practice must have been held in common. We said that magic tends to be a private affair, and yet there was much that was shared in this field across cultural boundaries, although they were jealously guarded away from the eyes of strangers, and access to them, as far as we can tell, was restricted. If the spells were thus borrowed among practitioners who belonged to different religious communities, it demonstrates that colleagues in the trade shared their secrets. Part of the esoteric character of these texts probably derives from the feeling that considerable power, hence also danger, is vested in them. One of the indications for this is the insistence on a high level of purity and chastity.8 There is perhaps also a fear of social recrimination when the magical practices are sometimes deemed to be too close to witchcraft, strongly condemned by all established religions and regarded as beyond the pale of decent behaviour (regardless of whether it is benevolent or aggressive). The reluctance to divulge the contents of the texts may also be tied to the wish to keep this power, which is the source of material gain, in the hands of the professional practitioners. As is apt to happen in the spheres of religious behaviour, the prestige and income that are associated with an occupation that aspires to dialogue with the upper powers pull in the opposite direction from sheer piety. The paradox of magic, just like that of mysticism, is that the greater the sanctity and power attached to it, the greater the temptation to fake those powers. The fascinating ambiguity of magic as a cultural phenomenon is that it is related both to the mystical expressions, and to the market-place activities of people who have an interest in claiming power and efficacy to magic. Thus we have in the magical texts, on the one hand, descriptions of soaring visionary experiences, and, on the other hand, attempts to force the angels on high to heal the client from such ailments as headache (cf. Shaked 2011: 199–200). Another phenomenon of interest in the period under consideration is the literary explication of the scriptures under what I should like to call a ‘midrashic’ approach. This practice involves an assiduous study of the sacred texts, as a result of which new ideas are sometimes introduced under the guise of expounding the ancient scriptures. Moral and pious teachings, religious

8 This is frequent in the handbooks of magic formulae, for example in Sefer ha-razim, cf. Margalioth 1966: 71, l. 83: ‘. . . (Act) in this manner in everything (you wish). Act in purity and .’(עשה בטהרה ואז תצליח) then you will succeed 56 Shaked principles, and a sense of direction are brought in by the aid of this instrument. The same procedure was used not only by the religious teachers, but also in the philosophical schools and in sectarian groups like those who produced the Dead Sea scrolls. While in principle accepting the canon as final, sealed and immutable, the ‘midrashic’ approach reads into it the latest intellectual inno- vations and often finds in it a divine statement concerning the most recent events. This was the method used in the Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian traditions to derive eschatological or messianic insights from a reading of the scriptures. The original scripture texts, which may have had at the outset little to do with the end of time, an idea that was introduced in the post-biblical period, are reinterpreted in this direction. This was also a way of reading into the texts such mystical notions as love between man and the divine. In Islam too, under the term of ta‌ʾwīl, mystics and sectarian used this technique to propagate their ideas. A similar phenomenon can be identified in Zoroastrianism. The exegetical approach was often used by Zoroastrians to implant notions of spirituality or eschatology in the Avestan text, where the plain meaning does not seem to support such notions, and may appear to address, for example, ritual matters. I discussed this usage under the heading ‘esoteric trends’ in an earlier publication (Shaked 1969; see also idem 1996), but am not sure whether this has been accepted by most specialists. It is true that we cannot identify specific esoteric groups or movements in the Sasanian period, nor do we know much about an outright mystical approach to religion in Sasanian Zoroastrianism. And yet the recurrent ‘midrashic’ type of discussion of religious practices in compositions such as the sixth book of the Dēnkard, suggests that there was a group of Zoroastrian scholars in the Sasanian period who were not content with just expounding the rules governing the performance of the rituals, but sought to present them as symbols for deeper religious experience. I should like to quote just one brief example that illustrates the type of religious devotion represented by the sages in the sixth book of the Dēnkard:

Whoever is a friend of the gods9 never removes his thought from the friendship of the gods (Dk VI, 20).

9 At a certain time that is difficult to determine, the use of the plural yazdān ‘gods’ (lit., ‘those deserving worship’), came to be understood as a singular for ‘god, deity.’ This may have occurred under Islamic influence, but could have started somewhat earlier, under the impact of the monotheistic faiths. Even when the term was understood to indicate a plurality of entities, the Zoroastrian religion is not easily classifiable as a polytheistic religion. Orality And Esotericism 57

There will indeed be a marvelous thing to one who provides protection to a deity, who worships him and is reverent towards him. Then he (= the deity) saves him from evil. It was said with regard to that deity: it is his own soul (Dk VI, 237).10

The type of piety that is described here and in similar passages is one in which the believer attaches himself to the deity, carries the deity constantly in mind, and, one discovers in a riddle-like twist, this deity is his own soul. It is not an outside person to which one becomes attached, for the human soul (ruvān) is indeed a Zoroastrian deity, although it does not have a place in the official list of deities. In a playful anecdote that is recounted in an Arabic source, a Zoroastrian courtier of al-Maʾmūn,‌ the third/ninth-century Abbasid caliph, is reported as saying to him: ‘I have (never) done good to anyone. Nor have I (ever) done evil (to anyone)’. When questioned about this strange assertion, he explains: ‘If I ever do good, it is to myself; likewise with evil,’ and the caliph is reported to have been very pleased with this clever retort. The observation made by the Zoroastrian priest may, perhaps, be clever, but is not original. It is simply a reflection of the Zoroastrian sentiment that we have discussed. In Arabic, ‘to myself’ is expressed by the phrase li-nafsī, which literally means ‘to my soul’. The Zoroastrian courtier expressed the idea quoted above, but used an Arabic phrase that carries an ambiguity: it can superficially be understood as meaning that he was only doing things to please himself, but for those in the know it implies that he was doing things to enhance his soul, an object of veneration in the Zoroastrian faith, and a symbol of piety. It is not the soul of any particular person, but the spiritual entity that symbolizes dedication and charity. Donations made for a religious purpose are known in Middle Persian as ruvānagān, actions done for the benefit of the soul. To do something for the soul means that the speaker strives to achieve the highest degree of piety (Shaked 1990). The type of religion which can be glimpsed through such expressions lays much store by selfless reflection. A play on words and ideas such as we have seen in this anecdote demonstrates how the Zoroastrian authors sometimes impart deep truths by a seemingly facetious external shell. It presents a hide- and-seek game which only the initiate can penetrate. This manner of expression can be paired together with a recurrent admonition not to share with others certain mysteries, unless they are of the same ‘religion’ (hamdēn), or share the same religious goals as oneself.

10 Quoted and discussed in Shaked 1969: 195–98; the full text is in Shaked 1979. 58 Shaked

Zoroastrianism of the Sasanian period, a strongly ritualistic religion, har- bours within it an attitude of inward-looking piety, in which the deity is not some outside agent, but an essential part of the human person. It would be wrong to say that this type of religion stands in opposition to ‘official’ Zoroastrianism. It would be better described as a pietistic trend within Zoroastrian society, just as Judaism had within it at the same period its own circles who strove to get close to the deity. The inward-looking Zoroastrian piety is perfectly orthodox, but represents an attitude of reserve with regard to the ritualistic religion that is usually regarded as Zoroastrianism. It appears likely that this inward-looking way of life was not an organized phenomenon but was mostly pursued by individuals or small groups, and that these people never aspired to establish a sect or a faith apart. The crisis that one notices towards the end of the Sasanian period by the rise of dissident movements such as Mazdakism is a symptom of a certain unease prevalent in that period with regard to the practice of the religion and the structure of Sasanian society.11 One cannot help noticing a similarity between the devotional way of life in Zoroastrianism and that of the early Muslim pietists, those who pursued the way of zuhd, a movement whose adherents are sometimes referred to erroneously as ‘ascetics’. While the emergence of such movements in Zoroastrianism is perhaps a sign that sensitive people may have become tired with a religion of rituals, in Islam the appearance of the pietistic movement marks a young religion that would like to come to an awareness of its religious potential on a deeper level. The Christian hermits did not have much in common with the Zoroastrian devotees. Zoroastrians did not practice sexual abstinence or other forms of pri- vation, although they preached simplicity of life, avoidance of luxuries, and a rejection of extremes. The early Muslim pietists might have felt attracted to these features of the Zoroastrian way of life possibly because some of the most engaging voices among the early Ṣūfī movement had their origins in Persian culture. The Sasanian pietists were addicted, as we have seen, to religious visions. Some of these visions, particularly those concerned with the hereafter, were put down in writing, in books such as Ardā Vīrāz nāmag (Gignoux 1984) and the rock inscriptions of the high Zoroastrian priest Kirdēr (MacKenzie 1989; Gignoux 1991). It is perhaps not an accident that some of the mystics in the early Islamic period, who grew up in the east Iranian regions, such as al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī, declared themselves to be deeply identified with the divine essence, and that they often recounted their experiences

11 On Mazdakism, see n. 3 above. Orality And Esotericism 59 in the form of visions and dreams. This style of mystical devotion was developed at a later date by Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī, the great Spanish Ṣūfī. The emergence of Muslim mysticism cannot of course be simply ascribed to the impact of a preceding Zoroastrian phenomenon, but it is possible to argue that the particular flavour of the Khurāsān brand of mysticism owes something to the Zoroastrian background of the area. Hidden teachings, as well as oral teachings, can reach us across a distance of many centuries only through written channels. The paradox that lies in this situation is that the written compositions are open to anyone who has been taught the art of reading. Had orality and secrecy been properly observed, we would not have known about these teachings or their contents. Other teachings of this type are no doubt irretrievably lost. It needs hardly be pointed out that orality is not the same as esotericism. One may almost claim the opposite: written media have their own way of concealing things, for example by the use of ambiguous or allusive language, while orally transmitted texts are often transparent. By carefully sifting disciples, it is possible to limit the dissemination of doctrines. There are of course exceptions. The Druze are one example, the Dönme, i.e. the Sabbateans who led a secret Jewish life under Muslim guise, constitute another. The Ismāʿīlīs have also maintained a veil of secrecy over their teachings, and so have the heretical Gnostic-type sects in medieval Europe like Cathars, Albigensians and Paulicians. In many cases, as in the last examples, secrecy was imposed by fear of persecution or of public recrimination. To this category belongs the highly literate dissimulation exercised by some medieval philosophers, as in the case of Maimonides. Shīʿa followers in medieval Islam were allowed and even enjoined to hide their true faith as a protection from the harsh tyranny of the Sunni authorities. The esotericism required by the pious Sasanian sages, like the one adopted by the great Ṣūfī thinkers, or the one that is demanded by the Hekhalot practitioners, is of a different type. It recognizes a particular virtue in restricting knowledge to a limited group of people. This is often based on a perception of human inequality: only a few select people are capable of attaining to the most profound truths, and even those have to make a special effort, by undertaking a long and arduous journey (metaphorically as well as factually) in search of the truth. A salient feature of the Sasanian religious and political situation was that new teachings, such as subversive views of the cosmos and of religion, were often spread through an exegesis of the Zoroastrian scriptures. This can be deduced from the utterances of the Sasanian religious and secular leaders. They seem to be obsessed by the possibility of new doctrines being propagated under the guise of zand, the translation and explanation of the Avesta in the 60 Shaked common language. Since the scriptures were not easily accessible to laymen, who could not understand their ancient Iranian language, zand became a vehicle of religious education. It could however also be used as a means of subversive and heretical indoctrination by independent preachers. The authorities struggled to limit this dangerous phenomenon, but were not always successful. This is possibly the method that was used initially by the followers of Mānī and almost certainly afterwards by those of Mazdak when they tried to bring about a change in religion and social structure. In the Islamic period, a similar system of disseminating minority views was employed, for example by the early Shiʿites. In the political field this was the method that ultimately brought the Abbasids to power. The centuries preceding the Islamic conquests in Iran were very rich in religious movements and imaginative creativity, but also in the codification and canonization of religious scriptures and the fixation of the religious norms of the great religions. The standards adopted and the exchanges that took place in the period before Islam were influential in shaping the newly established religion. Scriptures, exegesis and covert doctrines served different groups in first maintaining and ultimately undermining a system upheld by the Sasanians for several centuries. When this system ultimately collapsed, it did not disappear entirely, but handed over the battle to new powers. With the destruction of its political power, the Zoroastrian religion lost some of its colourful variety. It is possible, however, to reconstruct from the scant traces in the literature some of the internal conflicts that were part of its history and form an idea of the rich tapestry that it once possessed.

Bibliography

Asmussen, Jes Peter. 1987. ‘Aržang.’ EIr II, pp. 689–90. Crone, Patricia. 1991. ‘Kavād’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt.’ Iran 29, pp. 21–42. Gignoux, Philippe, ed. and trans. 1984. Le livre d’Ardā Vīrāz. Institut français d’iranologie de Téhéran. Bibliothèque iranienne 30; Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, Cahier No. 14. Paris: Institut français d’iranologie de Téhéran. ———. 1991. Les quatre inscriptions du mage Kirdîr. Textes et concordances. Collection des sources pour l’histoire de l’Asie Centrale pré-islamique, série II, vol. 1. Studia Iranica 9. Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes. Klíma, Otakar. 1957. Mazdak. Geschichte einer sozialen Bewegung im sassanidischen Persien. Prague: Československá Akademie Véd. Orality And Esotericism 61

MacKenzie, D.N. 1989. ‘Kerdir’s inscription.’ In The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam. Ed. Georgina Herrmann, D.N. MacKenzie and Rosalind Howell Caldecott. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, pp. 35–72. Margalioth, Mordecai, ed. 1966. Sepher ha-razim. A newly recovered book of magic from the Talmudic period. Jerusalem: Yediot Achronot; The Louis M. and Minnie Epstein Fund of the American Academy for Jewish Research. [in Hebrew] Pines, Shlomo. 1967. ‘The Iranian name for Christians and the “god-fearers”.’ Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 2, pp. 143–52. Shaked, Shaul. 1969. ‘Esoteric Trends in Zoroastrianism.’ Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 3/7, pp. 175–221. [Rpt. in Shaked 1995a, I.] ———, trans. 1979. The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages (Dēnkard VI), by Aturpāt ī Ēmētān. Persian Heritage Series 34. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ———. 1981. ‘Epigraphica Judaeo-Iranica.’ In Studies in Judaism and Islam. Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Ed. Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben-Ami and Norman A. Stillman. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, pp. 65–82. ———. 1990. ‘ “For the sake of the soul”: a Zoroastrian idea in transmission into Islam.’ JSAI 13, pp. 15–32. [Rpt. in Shaked 1995a, XI.] ———. 1994. ‘Two Parthian ostraca from Nippur.’ BSOAS 57, pp. 208–12. ———. 1995a. From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam. Studies in Religious History and Intercultural Contacts. Variorum Collected Studies Series; CS505. Aldershot: VARIORUM. [Trans. into Persian: Az Īrān-i zardushtī tā islām. Muṭāliʿāt-ī dar-bāra-yi tārīkh-i dīn va tamāshā-yi miyān-farhangī. Trans. Murtaḍā Thāqib-farr. Tehran: Intishārāt-i quqnūs, 1381/2002.] ———. 1995b. ‘ “Peace be Upon You, Exalted Angels”: on Hekhalot, Liturgy and Incantation Bowls.’ JSQ 2, pp. 197–219. ———. 1996. ‘The traditional commentary on the Avesta (Zand): Translation, interpretation, distortion?’ In Convegno internazionale sul tema: La Persia e l’Asia centrale da Alessandro al X secolo (Rome, 1994). Atti dei convegni Lincei 127. Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, pp. 641–56. ———. 2011. ‘Transmission and Transformation of Spells: The Case of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls.’ In Continuity and Innovation in the Magical Tradition. Ed. Gideon Bohak, Yuval Harari and Shaul Shaked. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 15. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 187–217. Shaki, Mansour. 1978. ‘The Social Doctrine of Mazdak in the Light of Middle Persian Evidence.’ Archív Orientální 46, pp. 289–306. ———. 1985. ‘The cosmogonical and cosmological teachings of Mazdak.’ In Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce. Acta Iranica 25. Hommages et Opera Minora XI, pp. 527–43. 62 Shaked

Sundermann, Werner. 1993. ‘Cosmogony and cosmology. iv. In the Mazdakite Religion.’ EIr VI, pp. 315–17. Tafazzoli, Ahmad. 2000. Sasanian Society: warriors, scribes, dehqāns. Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. Ehsan Yarshater Distinguished Lectures in Iranian Studies 1. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press. Yarshater, Ehsan. 1983. ‘Mazdakism.’ In The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3 (2): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Ed. Ehsan Yarshater. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 991–1024. Yoshida, Yutaka. 2009. ‘A Newly Recognized Manichaean Painting: Manichaean Daēna from Japan.’ In Pensée grecque et sagesse d’Orient. Hommage à Michel Tardieu. Ed. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Jean-Daniel Dubois, Christelle Jullien and Florence Jullien. Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études – Sciences religieuses 142. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 697–714. part 2 Sacred Traditions and Oral History

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CHAPTER 3 Irano-Talmudica III Giant Mythological Creatures in Transition from the Avesta to the Babylonian Talmud

Reuven Kiperwasser and Dan D.Y. Shapira

For about a thousand years Zoroastrian Iranian culture thrived alongside its Jewish Babylonian counterpart. In the course of this period, these two cultures were engaged in an inter-cultural discourse whereby new texts were constantly being created, and at the same time retaining traces of an earlier discourse. The present paper undertakes a comparative examination of textual traditions. These traditions were composed in various languages and dialects that reflect a diverse cultural landscape. In many cases, they witnessed a transition from an oral to a written form. This paper will begin by tracing the movement of textual traditions from the Avestan Yasna to the Pahlavi Bundahišn. It will then follow their reception in the Babylonian Talmud. Finally this paper will study the Babylonian Talmud’s interpretation of certain Psalms. The two Zoroastrian sources under discussion are a short chapter from the Yasna, an oral composition in Avestan, and a chapter from the Bundahišn, a Pahlavi work on cosmology. The first half of the chapter from the Bundahišn is based on a lost commentary on the Yasna. The two Jewish sources to be considered are excerpts from Baḇa Bathra, a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, and a couple of Psalms in Biblical Hebrew. The Talmudic text was originally an oral composition. Its typical combination of Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew reflects rabbinical diglossia. The Avesta, as well as the chapters from the Pahlavi Bundahišn and the Talmud to be discussed here, must have been put down in writing centuries after their oral text had become relatively fixed. Thus, the text of the Babylonian Talmud, being a product of the pervasive oral culture of the Babylonian rabbis, still retains its oral character. This is reflected, among other things, in its diverse stories. The same holds true, to some degree, for the Pahlavi text. It, too, contains abridged retellings of oral commentaries on the Avesta. It may be assumed that the politically dominant Iranian culture, whether Arsacid or Sasanian, exercised a prevalent influence on the world of the rabbis. Our aim here is to demonstrate how the interaction worked, and to try to understand the mechanisms of intercultural dialogue. In our discussion we shall attempt to demonstrate how the Iranian mythological bestiarium current in the Sasanian period came to be reflected in the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_005 66 Kiperwasser and Shapira mythological bestiarium found in the Babylonian Talmud. For this purpose we will examine the bestiarium iranicum, supplementing the examination with a discussion of a chapter from the Bundahišn. We will then analyse the bestiarium rabbinicum in a comparative perspective.

Bestiarium Iranicum a The Avestan Source The Avestan Yasna Haptaŋhāitī, or Yasna of Seven Chapters (Yasna 35–41) appears in the liturgy between the first (Yasna 28–34) and second (Yasna 43–46) Gāθās.1 While it was transmitted orally as one unit at an early stage in the development of Zoroastrianism, it is certainly rather late. Thus while the Gāθās, composed by a single author, apparently Zoroaster, are versified in an archaic dialect, the Yasna of Seven Chapters, in the same Gathic dialect, is, in fact, a prose composition. Nevertheless, it seems that the Yasna of Seven Chapters was once the core of the historical Zoroastrian Yasna liturgy. Yasna 42 is a very short chapter invoking the elements of the material world and other entities. Zoroastrian tradition considers it a supplement to the Yasna of Seven Chapters. Western scholars, however, regard it as a later addition, mostly on the basis of its having been composed in a younger dialect. Hence, this particular Yasna is not included, as a rule, in Western scholarly editions of the Gathic texts.2 Below is the English translation of the Avestan text:3

1. We worship You, O Ye Bountiful Immortals! And we worship the fountains of the waters, and the fordings of the rivers, the forkings of the highways, and the meetings of the roads. 2. And we worship the hills that run with torrents, and the lakes that brim with waters! and the corn that fills the corn-fields; and we worship both the protector and the Creator, both Zarathustra and the Lord’s Wisdom.

1 The order of the Gāθās is as follows: Yasna 28–34 (Ahunauuaitī Gāθā), Yasna 43–46 (Utauuaitī Gāθā), Yasna 47–50 (Spəntā Mainiiu Gāθā), Yasna 51 (Vohuxšaθrā Gāθā), Yasna 52 (which is a later addition, with a part of it in Younger Avestan), and Yasna 53 (Vahitōiti Gāθā). 2 See Mills 1905; Narten 1986; Hintze 2004. 3 The translation is adopted, with minor changes, from Mills 1887: 290–91. Boldfaced are the passages commented upon or referred to – both directly and indirectly – in the Bundahišn chapter (see below). Irano-talmudica Iii 67

3. And we worship both earth and heaven, and the stormy wind that Mazdā made, and the peak of high Haraiti, and the land, and all things good. 4. And we worship the Good Mind (in the living) and the spirits of the saints. And we worship the fish of fifty-fins, and that sacred beast the Ass which stands in Vouru-kaša, and we worship that sea of Vouru-kaša, 5. and the Haoma,4 golden-flowered, growing on the heights; yea, the Haoma that restores us, and aids this world’s advance. We worship Haoma that driveth death afar, 6. and the flood-streams of the waters, and the great flights of the birds, and the approaches of the Fire-priests, as they approach us from afar, and seek to gain the provinces, and spread the ritual lore. And we worship the Bountiful Immortals all!

Yasna 42 is expanded upon in chapter 24 of the Bundahišn,5 which draws upon older sources from the late Sasanian period.6 b From the Avesta to the Bundahišn The Bundahišn bestiarium is much enlarged when compared with Yasna 42.7 It is also arranged in symmetrical hierarchy, in such a way that the good creatures of Ohrmazd appear in opposition to the evil creatures of Ahriman. While Ahriman does not actually feature in the original Yasna, it was clearly the Yasna (henceforth Y) that produced the frame for the Bundahišn (henceforth Bnd) bestiary, as can be seen from the following: Y 42:5 is introduced in Bnd 24:1 as an Avestan quote (gōwēd pad Dēn), while the ‘white haoma’ (hōm ī spēd), called Gōkarn-Draxt, corresponds to the Avestan haomǝmcā zāirīm bǝrǝzaṇtǝm. It is stated that the white haoma8 is a prerequisite for bringing about the Restoration ( frašgird), for immortality (anōšīh),

4 Cf. Taillieu and Boyce 2003. 5 For editions, see Justi 1868; Anklesaria 1908; Anklesaria 1956; Anklesaria 1970a and 1970b. The text of the Bundahišn became known to Western scholars in the nineteenth century. It was the ‘Indian’ version of this Zoroastrian work, which is considerably shorter than the so-called Iranian Bundahišn, that was first known. The Indian Bundahišn is not, however, an abridgment of the Iranian Bundahišn – the texts go back to different recensions. 6 It is generally accepted that the sources used to compose it must have included the now lost nasks of the so-called ‘Sasanian Avesta,’ namely the Dāmdād (‘Creation of the World’) and the Čihrdād (‘Creation of the Race’) nasks. 7 The relevant Bundahišn text is brought in the Appendix. 8 Not the ‘golden’ as in Gathic! 68 Kiperwasser and Shapira which corresponds to the Avestan haomǝm frāšmīm frādat̰.gaēθǝm . . . haomǝm dūraošǝm (Y 42:5), will be restored from it. ‘The sea of Vouru-kaša’ (Y 42:4)/ zrēh ī Frāxwkard (Bnd 24:1, 3, 22–23) is mentioned at the beginning of Bnd 24. The ‘sacred beast the Ass’ (Bnd 24:10–19) stands there according to Y 42:4. According to Bnd 24:2–3:

The Stinking Ghost, to oppose it (the Haoma), has molded in this deep water a Frog, so that it may damage the Haoma. In order to hold back this Frog Ohrmazd created two Kar fishes, which constantly swim around that Frog.

There are no sources in Y 42 for the Frog and the Kar-fish. However, the Vāsi pancāsadwarām fish of Bnd 24:4, 6, 7 is uuāsīmcā yąm paṇcā.saduuarąm (‘the fish of fifty-fins’) of Y 42:4. It seems that other aquatic creatures were drawn into the lost commentary by the mention of uuāsīmcā yąm paṇcā.saduuarąm.9 The Vāsi pancāsadwarām fish of Bnd 24:4, 6, 7 is referred to in two quotes (Bnd 24:6, 7) from a lost commentary to Y 42:4. The Kar-fish appears in the Late (or Young) Avestan text, the Wahrām Yašt (Yašt 14:29), where we read:

Verethraghna, made by Ahura, gave him the fountains of manliness, the strength of the arms, the health of the whole body, the sturdiness of the whole body, and the eye-sight of the Kara-fish, that lives beneath the waters and can measure a rippling of the water, not thicker than a hair, in the Rangha whose ends lie afar, whose depth is a thousand times the height of a man.10

The passage referred to in Bnd 24:5 demonstrates, therefore, that the original composition to which Bnd 24 alludes had also drawn upon sources other than Y 42. The ‘sea of Vouru-kaša’ is a lake, probably Lake Balkhash, rather than a

9 The Pahlavi translation of this Avestan statement is as follows: māhīg kē hast Vās ī panjāh, (a fish who is Vās of the fifty). See Bartholomae 1904: 846, 1413. According to Boyce and Grenet (1991: 89), this appears to be a kind of leviathan. 10 The translation is adopted, with minor changes, from Darmesteter 1882: 238–39. The Young Avesta reads: ahmāi daθat̰ uuərəθraxnō ahuraδātō ərəzōiš xå bāzuuå aojō tanuuō uuīspaiiå druuatātəm tanuuō uuīspaiiå uuazduuare aomca sūkəm yim baraiti karō masiiō upāpō yō raŋhaiiå dūraēpārayå jafrayå hazaŋ́ rō-uuīrayå uuaresō-stauuaŋhəm āpō uruuaēsəm māraiieite; almost the same wording is found in Dēn Yašt (Yašt 16: 7, where Čista, not Verethraghna, is invoked). This passage is quoted in an even younger Avestan text, possibly from the first centuries CE. Cf. Vidēvdād 19: 42 (Darmesteter 1880: 217): ‘I invoke the Kara fish, who lives beneath waters in the bottom of the deep lakes.’ Irano-talmudica Iii 69 real sea, since the ancient Iranians were a land-bound people, as evidenced by the Y’s allusions. Y 42 speaks of ‘the fountains of the waters, and the fordings of the rivers, the forkings of the highways’ and ‘the flood-streams of the waters’. The maritime elements were absorbed from the cultures the Iranians encountered on the shores of the Persian Gulf. One such element appears to be the Kar-fish itself, the name of which is not Iranian.11 Bnd 24:8 (and possibly also 24:9) would seem to be a part of a lost Pahlavi commentary on Y 42:1, 5. It represents, however, a tradition that has undergone a transformation in which the Haoma has become the Tree of Many Seeds (Wan ī was-tōhmag), and its description has acquired three glosses – frārōn bizešk (a righteous healer), tuxšag bizešk (a diligent healer), and hamāg- bizešk (a healer of all), which might refer to the Avestan haomǝm bǝrǝzaṇtǝm, haomǝm frāšmīm frādat̰.gaēθǝm . . . haomǝm12 dūraošǝm. Bnd 24:10–19 is a part of a lost and elaborate commentary on Y 42:4 about the Sacred Ass (xarəmcā yąm ašauuanəm).13 Bnd 24:19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 are quotes taken from an Avestan commentary to Y 42:4, 6.14 Bnd 24:20 might be interpreted as an echo of Y 42:1, with its references to waters, however the reference to Yašt 8:20–26 is more obvious. Bnd 24:22 has no equivalent in Y 42 and might be an import from another Avestan tradition.15 Bnd 24:32, 34, 42, 47, 49, 50–52 are also citations from Avestan texts other than Y 42.16 To sum up the Bundahišn bestiarium: the quotations from, and the references to Y 42 are located in the first part of Bnd 24:1–20. In the second part, no traces of the references to Y 42 can be found. The references there are to

11 Akkadian kamāru- < Sumerian kimara; the correct reading in Babylonian Aramaic seems to be *kəwārā (see Morgenstern 2009: 52; cf. Sokoloff 2002: 556). On the identification of the fish, see above, n. 9; cf. n. 66 below. It has a parallel in Babylonian Aramaic in our .(kwwrʾ) כוורא Babylonian Talmud text in the form of 12 haoməm > Middle Persian text hamāg? 13 See Kiperwasser and Shapira 2008: 109. 14 On the creatures involved there, see Boyce and Grenet 1991: 89–90. 15 The mention of Srisōk might have been triggered by Y 42:6, with its references to the fire-priests and to movement to other countries; however, the beverage of immortality mentioned there might derive from haomǝm dūraošǝm of Y 42:5 (cf. Bnd 24: 1). 16 Bnd 24:47 – Yašt 14:31, see also Yašt 15:10; Bnd 24:49 – Vidēvdād 18:14–16 (Darmesteter 1880: 192–93); Bnd 24:50–52 – Vidēvdād 13:8 et passim; Darmesteter 1880: 153–54. 70 Kiperwasser and Shapira

Vidēvdād 19:42, 18:14–16, 50–52; 13:8,17 and to Yašts 8, 14 and 15. In fact, the references and quotations traced in the second part of Bnd 24 may derive from the complete text of the now lost Dāmdād Nask, as is evident from the following comparison with the fragments which we have boldfaced below:

The Dāmdād Nask contains details about the act of creation and creation of the best creation, 2. first in mēnōg (spiritual form) and how it was kept in mēnōg, its change from it into the gētīg (material form), formed and made for the battle against the Assault, its endurance and organiza- tion and continual worthiness until the End. 3. And the duration of the Assault, the classes and sorts of the creation and their being and seed and parts, nature and task, and on the same subject. 4. And the reason for their creation and their final fate. 5. And about the adversary of that creation, and the harm and evil caused by its mark, and the manner and means of overcoming and destroying it, and saving and freeing the creation from it.18

Classifying the creatures which would be needed for the Last Battle (šāyistan ī ō frajām) against Evil (andar ēbgadīg ko[x]šišn), as well as the emphasis on the salvation of the Good Creation of Ohrmazd as a whole (bōxtan ud abēcihrēnīdan ī dām) were the major themes of the Dāmdād Nask. Indeed, these themes are easily traceable in Bnd 24. In sum, the tradition of Iranian mythological bestiary known to us from the Bundahišn is heterogeneous and composed of fragments of older textual traditions. The nucleus of the ancient prototypical tradition is, presumably, in the Yasna, and remnants of commentaries on this ancient tradition were the building blocks for the text of the Bundahišn.

Bestiarium Rabbinicum

The list of the fabulous creatures in the first part of Bnd 24 and the structural characteristics of the text possess a number of striking analogies with a portion of the Babylonian Talmud. Notable for its receptivity towards the assimi-

17 It is noteworthy that the Bull Hāδayans/š/Hadayōš, whose name is Avestan, and the Bull Srisōk, whose name is a Pahlevicized unattested Avesticism (*θri-saoka-, ‘of three blazes’ or ‘of three fires’ or ‘of three horns’) and which is apparently identical with the former, are mentioned nowhere in extant Avestan texts. See Darmesteter 1880: 192–93; 198–99; 153–54 respectively. 18 Cf. Shapira 1998: II, 15–16. Irano-talmudica Iii 71 lation of Iranian materials, the Babylonian Talmud was edited in Sasanian Babylonia in the late or immediate post-Sasanian era.19 The ‘pervasive orality’ characteristic of Jewish Babylonia can be contrasted with the prevalence of a written transmission in the Graeco-Roman cultural sphere, including the Land of Israel.20 Having been composed in part as an oral exegesis on the written Bible, the Babylonian Talmud was orally transmitted for generations.21 Indeed different mediaeval manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud reveal traits of oral transmission. The fifth chapter of tractate Baḇa Bathra (henceforth BB), entitled after its opening Mishnaic citation, ‘One who sells a ship’ (hmwkr ʾt hspynh), after a short halakhic discussion, contains a lengthy section of aggadic material. 22 Being stylistically and linguistically homogeneous, this section has been described by Abraham Weiss as ‘the tractate of wonders and visions’.23 Weiss divided this aggadic block into six units, as follows:24

1. Two stories about the force of sea waves (73a–b; ʾmr rbʾ yštʾy ly nḥwty ymʾ); 2. Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah’s journeys (73b); 3. Sea voyages of the sages (74a; r. ywḥnn mštʿy zymnʾ ḥdʾ); 4. Stories on Behemoth and Leviathan at the eschatological feast (74b; ʾmrʾ yhwdh ʾmr rb kl mh šbrʾ); 5. The preparation of an eschatological feast (74b–75a; ky ʾtʾ rb dymy); 6. An epilogue comprising of eschatological stories (75b).

In addition to the Babylonian aggadic material, this section contains traditions from the Land of Israel which have been transformed by the Babylonian redac-

19 The date of the redaction is the focus of considerable scholarly debate. The tendency, inspired by David Halivni, is to prefer the later date (see Halivni 2009: 48–79; also, e.g., Hauptman 1988: 213–18; Rubenstein 2003: 1–5; Kraemer 1990). For a different methodological approach, see Kalmin 1989. For a critique of the popular approach, see Brody 2008. 20 See Elman 1999; idem 2007; Brody 1998: 156–61; Rubenstein 2003: 62–63. 21 The earliest clear evidence for the existence of such texts goes back approximately to the middle of the eighth century. For an up-to-date discussion of rabbinic orality, see Shanks Alexander 2007; on the oral nature of the versions of the Talmud, see Epstein 1962: 140–41; Rosental 1957. The Babylonian Talmud was transmitted orally as late as the Gaonic period (see Brody 1990). 22 On the Aggada in the Babylonian Talmud, see Rubenstein 1999: 1–33; idem 2003. 23 See Weiss 1962–63: 273. For a summary of Weiss’s method, which he developed in nine books devoted to Talmudic source criticism, see Feldblum 1964. See also Stemberger 1989. On this title see further below. 24 Cf. Kiperwasser 2008. 72 Kiperwasser and Shapira tors. The appearance of sailors’ yarns in a Talmudic chapter named ‘One who sells a ship’ can be understood, prima facie, by bearing in mind the associative principles of Talmudic composition. Sailors’ yarns, or fantastic stories about sea voyages, were known throughout the ancient middle east and in Babylonia in particular where stories of this kind had been circulating for millennia. In the first two units – according to Weiss’s division – we encounter the figure of Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah, generally regarded as a third generation Amora.25 This Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah, called R. Abba bar Bar Ḥanah in Palestinian Rabbinic sources, was of Babylonian extraction but also spent some time in the Land of Israel. It is only in the Babylonian Talmud, however, where he is a teller of fantastic stories. Here, he claims to have travelled to places associated with biblical antiquities and to have seen mythological or magical sites and entities.26 Considered one of the most important transmitters of Iranian lore in the corpus that constitutes the Babylonian Talmud as we know it today, Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah is also known, inter alia, for his acquaintance with the Iranian mythological beasts which appear in a Jewish Aramaicized disguise. However, alongside the evidence of Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah regarding the Iranian bestiarium, a number of mythological beasts appear in the third section of the aforesaid aggadic section (BB 74a) without any explicit attribution to Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah.27 The tales of Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah’s journeys typically begin with the formula ‘I personally have seen’ (lədīdī ḥəzī lī), this being reminiscent of a common Jewish oath formula. All in all, seventeen lədīdī ḥəzī lī narratives in the Babylonian Talmud are attributed to Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah, who is the hero of these stories, ten of which are in BB 73a–74b, and seven in other Talmudic tractates.28 Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah thus introduces himself as a witness narrator, seeking to facilitate the acceptance of information that might have been perceived by his addressees as highly unusual.29 The tales attributed to Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah in BB explore, at a most fundamental level, the complicated

25 The third generation corresponds approximately to 290–320 CE. On the Amora‌ʾim, see Gafni 1987: 24–33. 26 See Albeck 1987: 305–306; Stemberger 1996: 92; for a more detailed discussion regarding the Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah stories, see Kiperwasser 2008: 224–26. For a full bibliography on the Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah tales, see ibid.: 215–16, n. 2; Ben-Amos 1976; Yassif 1999: 183–89; Stemberger 1989; Gershenson 1994; Stein 1999; Thrope 2006. 27 See Rubin 1909–1910: 45–54; Kiperwasser and Shapira 2008: 103–105; idem 2012. 28 See Shabbat 21a; Erubin 55b; Yoma 75b; Gittin 4a; Yevamot 120b; Zevahim 113b = BB 73a. 29 Not every lədīdī ḥəzī lī seems to have included fantastic content and there are stories with uncertain hyperbolic mechanisms, such as a story about a Bedouin capable of immense Irano-talmudica Iii 73 relationship between civilizations from the Rabbinic perspective: between Babylonian Rabbis, Western Iranians, and Babylonian Aramaeans. These tales can be seen as ‘narratives in dialogue,’30 i.e., they explore the process of incorporation of the values of the Other by Rabbinic culture. A number of mythological beasts appear in the stories under consideration, most of which are taken directly from Iranian mythology: the baškuč,31 the Serpent, the Frog, the giant Kar-fish. Others reveal some Iranian cultural influ- אורזילא >דרימא< בר) ence: HWRMYZ bar Liliāthā,32 the giant newborn aurochs and a creature named Ridyā.34 33,(יומיה Moreover, all of the creatures mentioned in the first part of Bnd 24 have their exact parallels in Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah’s stories in BB. They appear in the Babylonian Talmud after the story of HWRMYZ bar Liliāthā35 in the following order: a) Aurochs ʿUrzila as big as Mt. Tabor; b) A frog as large as the HGRWNYʾ fortress; c) The fish Kwwrʾ/Kəwārā;36 d) Tnynʾ and his adversary, the giant bird pyšqnṣʾ. This giant bird, which reappears twice in the course of the chapter, is identified as the baškuč, a topic of special interest for Iranists interested in the Babylonian Talmud (see below); e) Leviathan and other tnynym, Leviathans and sea-gazelles; f) Leviathan and Behemoth.37

defecation (see Shabbat 82a, 155b). For this formula as a means of verifying the truth, cf. Sanhedrin 97b; Megillah 6a. 30 On this term, see Hasan-Rokem 1998. 31 On this creature, see Schmidt 1980; Gershenson 1994; Buyaner 2005. 32 See Kiperwasser 2008. 33 For the translation of this animal’s name, cf. Sokoloff 2002: 93–94. 34 See Kiperwasser and Shapira 2008; idem 2012. 35 For the parodical usage of this name to designate demonic creatures in the Babylonian Talmud narrative, see Kiperwasser 2008: 230–31. For another example of this kind regarding the symbolic application of Ohrmazd’s name, see M. Schwartz’s discussion of Arabic demonological texts drawing from Middle Persian and Jewish sources (Schwartz 2002); see also Thrope 2006, n. 49. 36 On this reading, see Morgenstern 2009: 52; cf. note 11 above. 37 For details, see Kiperwasser and Shapira 2012. 74 Kiperwasser and Shapira

After the text of the Indian Bundahišn was published and translated in the middle of the nineteenth century, scholars of Jewish studies began to recognize striking similarities between some of the fabulous creatures of Jewish tradition, that appear, inter alia, in BB, and their Iranian counterparts in the Indian Bundahišn 18–19, translated by West.38 For example, the fabulous creature of Jewish tradition, the Šōr haBbār (‘the Dry Land Bull’/Behemoth) was identified with the Zoroastrian Bull Srisōk;39 the Kar-fish was identified with the Leviathan, as this creature was understood in the post-biblical literature, especially on account of the Kar-fish’s circular movements around the World- Tree;40 and the bird Čamrūš, the chief of the birds, which lives on the summit of Mount Alburz, was identified with the post-Biblical Zīz Śāday.41 While the description of the mythological bestiary in Bnd 24 contributes towards a better understanding of BB 74a–75a as a textual unit, the fish, animals and birds of Bnd 24 cannot be direct ‘sources’ for the Jewish-Babylonian bestiary in the BB. The significance of Bnd 24 for understanding the Talmudic passage lies rather in the paradigmatic similarities of the order of the creatures’ appearance. The Iranian proto-text was apparently transmitted as oral tradition and influenced the structure of the Talmudic narrative and Bnd 24. We now turn to our Talmudic stories. We shall read these stories in light of the corresponding Iranian texts. These sailors’ tall tales appear after a legal discussion on the Mishnah passage and after the elucidation of a few linguistic points. The extent and significance of the exegetical move and carefully crafted structure has hitherto not been fully appreciated. This ‘tractate of (divine) deeds and wonders’ is loosely structured around Psalms 104 and 107, which serve as a kind of counterpoint to the sailors’ yarns, although it quotes but one verse explicitly. And yet the Talmudic source actually constitutes an exegetical structure of sorts, built on Psalms 104 and 107.

38 West 1880, esp. pp. 65–74; this corresponds to the Iranian Bundahišn 24, which has retained a better text. 39 Note the alliteration Šōr/Sris-. 40 ‘Leviathan’ in Hebrew is derived from the root indicating ringelnde, kreisende Bewegung (the Hebrew and Arabic words for ‘snake’ are formed from the same root). Cf. Windischmann 1863: 91–93; Kohut 1867, esp. pp. 588–90. 41 See Schorr 1865; Wolff 1872: 174, 181; and recently, Kiperwasser and Shapira 2008; idem 2012. On the possible visual presentation of Čamrūš in Sogdian art, see Grenet 1995/96: fig. 1; cf. Boyce 2001: 254. We thank Dr. Michael Shenkar for drawing our attention to this point. Irano-talmudica Iii 75

These two psalms form part of a larger unit where the entire Biblical history is rehearsed, starting from the Creation and bringing us to the End of Time. In earlier studies we have surmised that a possible connection between the two groups of the stories in the ‘tractate,’ namely the sailors’ tall tales and the eschatological stories, can be made on the assumption that it is in the sea depths that some creatures and entities that would be indispensable for the eschaton and the resurrection, are hiding.42 After the closer investigation presented here, however, we believe that the Rabbis of the Talmud had deliberately woven the allegedly simple tall tales, modelled on Zoroastrian eschatological tradition, along the verses of Psalms 104 and 107, thus creating an intertextual axis with these psalms. The reason for the Rabbis’ usage of the sailors’ stories becomes evident in the broader context of the eschatological ending of the whole Talmudic chapter ‘One who sells a ship,’ in which the themes of the Resurrection, the Messianic Feast and the New Heavenly Jerusalem follow each other in sequence.43 In the desert the remains of the Biblical past are still preserved; in the sea there are hidden features essential to the future. For the psalmist as interpreted by the Rabbis, then, the mythological past and the mythological future represent a linear course of sacred meta- history complementing one another. The verses, which mention plants and animals such as ‘the cattle, and herb for the service of man’ (104: 1), ‘birds . . ., wild goats . . ., things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts’ (104: 17–25) and finally ‘Leviathan’ (104:26), must have triggered the imagination of the authors of our Talmudic tall tales. In order to show the striking structural analogy between the texts, we register in the Table below the similarities and analogies in wording and structure of the three texts: Bnd 24 in a very short schematic English paraphrase, the BB texts in English, and Psalms 107 and 104 in an abbreviated form in both Hebrew and English. We have arranged the excerpts from Psalm 107 according to the principles found in the Talmudic text: Psalm 107:30 (‘So he brought them (wynḥm)44 to the port they desired (ʿl mḥwz ḥpṣm)’) and Psalm 107:36 (‘There he settles the hungry, they build a place to settle in (wyšb šm rʾbym wykwnnw ʾyr mwšb)’) as inspiring the collision between the frightening world of seafarers and the peaceful settled world (eucumene).

42 Kiperwasser 2008: 235–36; also Kiperwasser and Shapira 2012. 43 See Shapira 2013. 44 This could be understood as ‘He shall comfort them by bringing the Messiah,’ the option not followed by the Sages. 76 Kiperwasser and Shapira

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107 Psalm 107

Others go down 23 23 יורדי הים באניות Rabbah said: Seafarers ,to the sea in ships עשי מלאכה במים told me: ‘The wave ply their trade in רבים Possibly Bnd 24:1 that sinks a ship (the White appears with a white the mighty waters. Haoma) fringe of fire at its head,45 and have the works of the ונפלאותיו במצולה branches on which it is engraved, “I am that Lord, and His I am, Yah, the Lord of wonders in the Hosts, Amen, Amen, deep; By His word He 25 25 ויאמר ויעמד רוח Selah,”46 and we beat -raised the storm סערה ותרומם גליו (it and (the wave subsides’. wind, that made the waves surge Rabbah said: ‘Seafarers told me: There is a distance of three hundred parasangs They reeled and 27 27 יחוגו וינועו כשכור between one wave and staggered like a וכל חכמתם תתבלע the other, and the height of the wave is drunken man, all [also] three hundred their skill to no parasangs. Once we avail; were on a voyage and Mounting up 26 26 יעלו שמים ירדו the wave lifted us up ,to the heaven תהומות נפשם ברעה to three hundred plunging down תתמוגג parasangs that we saw the resting place of to the depths; disgorging in their misery;

.(ṣwṣytʾ dnwrʾ ḥywwrtʾ) צוציתא דנורא חיוורתא 45 46 A magical formula based on Exod 3:14. Irano-talmudica Iii 77

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107 Psalm 107

In their adversity 28 28 ויצעקו אל ייי בצר the smallest star, and they cried to the להם וממצוקתיהם there was a flash as if Lord, and He saved יוציאם one shot forty arrows of iron/it was an area them from their that one can throw troubles. forty sacks of mustard grains;47 and if it had He reduced the 29 29 יקם סערה לדממה ,lifted us up still higher ;storm to a whisper ויחשו גליהם we would have been burnt by its heat. And the waves were one wave called to the stilled. other: “My friend, have you left anything in Psalm 105:8–9 Psalm 105:8–9 They go up by the 8 8–9 יעלו הרים ירדו the world that you did mountains; they go בקעות אל מקום זה not destroy? I will go down by the valleys יסדת להם גבול שמת and destroy it”. The unto the place בל יעברון בל ישובון other replied: “Go and which you have לכסות הארץ see the power of the master [by whose founded for them. command] I cannot 9 You have set a pass even a full line of bound that they sand, as it is written: may not pass over; Fear you not Me? says that they turn not the Lord; Will you not again to cover the tremble at My earth. presence? Who has Psalm 107 Psalm 107 Then were they 30 30 וישמחו כי ישתקו placed the sand for the glad because they וינחם אל מחוז חפצם bound of the sea, an everlasting ordinance, were quiet, and He which it cannot pass”.48 led them unto their desired haven (meḥōz ḥep̲h̲ṣam).

47 Two translations are possible, for there is a textual problem here: gyry (‘arrows’) or grywy (‘containers’). 48 Jeremiah 5:22. 78 Kiperwasser and Shapira

(cont.)

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107 Psalm 107

Rabba said: ‘I saw how Let them give 31 31 יודו ליהוה חסדו Hormiz,49 the son of thanks unto ונפלאותיו לבני אדם Liliath̲ ̲a, was running on the parapet50 of the Lord for His the wall of Maḥoze,51 mercy, and for His and a rider galloping wonderful works to below on horseback the children of could not overtake men! him. Once they saddled for him two mules which stood on two bridges of the Rognag;52 and he jumped from one to the other, backward and forward, holding in his hands two cups of wine53 , and not a drop fell to the ground; it was [a stormy] day [such as that on which] they

49 Here one encounters an old textual problem. Since there is a difference in one letter ,are extremely similar ן and ז HWRMYZ and HWRMYN) and the Hebrew characters) the reading and interpretation might be *Ohrmazd or *Ahriman. See Kiperwasser and Shapira 2014. 50 While comparing the variants, it can be assumed that he was leaping between the domes that formed the city wall. 51 This is the Jewish name for Ctesiphon-Seleucia; lit., ‘the ports’. The word is used in Psalm 107:30. 52 We were unable to identify this river/canal. 53 For ‘wine’ the Iranian word māzag is used. See. Kiperwasser and Shapira 2012; idem 2014. Irano-talmudica Iii 79

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107 Psalm 107

They mounted 26 26 יעלו שמים ירדו that go down to the] ,up to the heaven תהומות נפשם ברעה sea in ships] mounted they went down to תתמוגג up to the heaven; they went down to the the deeps; their deeps.54 When the soul melted away government heard [of because of trouble this] they put him to death’. Rabbah said: ‘I saw Psalm 104:11–12, Psalm 104:11–12, an *antelope one day 16–17 16–17 They give drink to ישקו כל חיתו שדי אורזילא) old/aurochs ;all the wild beasts ישברו פראים צמאם 55,(>דרימא< בר יומיה the wild asses slake עליהם עוף השמים that was as big as .their thirst ישכון מבין עפאים Cf. Bnd 24:12 Mount Tabor – How The birds of the sky יתנו קול ישבעו עצי – ?Mt. Xwanwand) big is Mount Tabor) dwell beside them ייי ארזי לבנון אשר Four parasangs – the and sing among the נטע אשר שם צפרים length of its neck . . . foliage יקננו חסידה ברושים was three parasangs The trees of the ביתה and the resting place of its head was one Lord drink their parasang and a half. fill; the cedars of It cast a ball of excre- Lebanon, His ment and blocked up own planting the Jordan’. Where the birds make their nests: the stork has here home in the junipers. Rabbah b. Bar Ḥanah Psalm 104:25 Psalm 104:25 There is the sea, vast זה הים גדול ורחב further stated: ‘I saw and wide, whith its ידים שם רמש ואין the (אקרוקתא) Bnd 24:3 (Frog) a frog creatures beyond מספר חיות קטנות עם (אקרא) size of the Fort ,number, living things גדלות of Hagronia.56 – What is the size of the small and great.

54 Psalm 107:26. 55 For the translation of this animal’s name, cf. Sokoloff 2002: 93–94. 56 We are still unable to identify this fort; however, its name probably contains the well- known element arg. Note also the alliteration: ʾqroqta /ʾaqra /Hagronia. 80 Kiperwasser and Shapira

(cont.)

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107:35–36, Psalm 107:35–36, 38 38

Fort of Hagronia? – Sixty houses. There came a *snake/ dragon/sea-monster and swallowed (תנינא) the frog. Then came Bnd 24:27 a *pašqanṣa (baškuč/ -and swal (פושקנצא ,Sīmurgh and) possibly, lowed the snake, and *baškuč) perched on a tree. Bnd 24:8ff. Imagine how strong (the Tree) that tree was’. R. Papa b. Samuel said: ‘Had I not been there I would not have believed it’. Rabbah b. Bar Ḥanah further stated: ‘Once we were travelling on board a ship and saw a Bnd 24:3–4 fish (kwwrʾ),58 into Psalm 107:35–36, Psalm 107:35–36, (Kar-fish) whose nostrils a 38 38 He turns the 35 35 ישם מדבר לאגם .parasite59 had entered wilderness into מים וארץ ציה למצאי Thereupon, the water pools, parched land מים cast up the fish and threw it upon the into watersprings. There He settles 36 36 ויושב שם רעבים shore. Sixty towns the hungry, they ויכוננו עיר מושב were destroyed

57 The name Papa can be traced to an Iranian *Pābag. One of R. Papa b. Samuel’s sons bore the Iranian name of *Suxrāb; another son of his, Ḥaninah, is mentioned further on in the Babylonian Talmud chapter under discussion. 58 Read Kəwārā; see notes 11 and 36 above. eater of clay’). Cf. remeš, ‘a creeping creature,’ of the‘) אכלה דטינא We prefer to read here 59 Psalm’s verse. See also notes 9 and 11 above: the Persian Gulf shark, identified as a filter feeder, can be indeed described as ‘an eater of clay’. Irano-talmudica Iii 81

Bnd parallels BB Psalm 107:35–36, Psalm 107:35–36, 38 38

thereby, sixty towns build a place to ate therefrom, and settle in; sixty towns salted [the remnants] thereof, and from one of its eyeballs three hundred kegs of He blesses them 38 38 ויברכם וירבו מאד oil were filled. On and they increase ובהמתם לא ימעיט returning after twelve calendar months we greatly, and He does saw that they were not let their cattle cutting rafters from its decrease. skeleton and proceed- ing to rebuild those towns.

To sum up this table, the story about the miraculous treatment of waves that sinks ships is alluded to in Psalm 107:23–24; the next story about the dialogue between the chatting waves is alluded to in Psalms 107:25–28 and 105:8–9; a story about the jumping demon who caused terrible storms has a direct quotation of Psalm 107:26, and is a parodical interpretation of the figure of Tištrya אורזילא >דרימא<) ’from Bnd 24:20 and 21: 7; the story about ‘the day-old aurochs that was as big as Mount Tabor, and the story about the gigantic frog 60(בר יומיה and the winged creature in the shadow of the tree alludes to Psalm 104:11–12, 16–17 and resembles Bnd 24:12 (Mt. Xwanwand), Bnd 24:3 (Frog), Bnd 24:27 (Sīmurgh) and, possibly, Bnd 24:8ff. (the Tree). The Iranian elements common to Bnd 24 and to our Talmudic text are concentrated in one place, namely in the first ten Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah’s stories in BB. In addition, a direct correspondence between them and the above mentioned psalm is evident. In our BB chapter we observe, therefore, an example of the sort of syncretism so typical of Late Antiquity: aside from interpreted Biblical verses, the rabbinical mythopoesis also includes elements from the Iranian mythological bestiary. Moreover, the following story from the BB retells an episode from the exploits of the Avestan hero Kərəsāspa (boldfaced are references to Iranian myths):

60 See n. 55 above. 82 Kiperwasser and Shapira

Rabbah b. Bar Ḥanah further stated: ‘Once we were travelling on board a ship and saw a fish (kwwrʾ) whose back was covered with sand out of which a plant sprouted.61 Thinking that it was a dry land we went up and baked, and cooked, upon its back. When, however, its back was heated, it turned, and had not the ship been nearby we would have drowned’.

This story is reminiscent of the adventures of the Avestan dragon-slaying hero Kərəsāspa, who decided one day to cook his meal on what he thought to be a hill, but which, in fact was the back of the dragon, Aži Sruvara. The dragon woke up from the heat of Kərəsāspa’s kettle and overturned it. Kərəsāspa fled, but returned later to slay the dragon.62 According to the Avestan and Pahlavi texts, it was ‘the horned dragon, the horse-eater, the man-eater, and his teeth were as large as my (Kərəsāspa’s) arms and its ears were as large as 14 felts, and its eye was as great as a chariot, and its horn was as great as a branch in height’. The dragon was so long that Kərəsāspa could run along its back for half a day before he reached its head, prior to killing it. ‘When I (Kərəsāspa) looked into the teeth of [the dragon] Gandarw, *I *saw dead men hanging on the teeth . . . and for nine days and nights we fought in the sea’. This Avestan story, or revised versions of it, were widely known and might be the direct source of both the Talmudic tall tale and the first voyage of Sindbād, where the latter, too, found himself on what he believed to be an island. Upon kindling fire, this ‘island’ turned out to be an enormous fish, or, possibly, a walrus, which now dived into the depths.63 There is mention of a kettle in the next Talmudic story as well, probably introduced by way of association. Another tall tale in the same Talmudic chapter introduces *pašqanṣā, a mighty bird for the second time:

Rabbi Judah the Indian tells: ‘Once we were travelling on a ship and we saw a precious stone that was surrounded by a sea-monster (tnynʾ). A diver descended to bring it up. The sea-monster was about to swallow the ship (when) a *pašqanṣā came and killed him. The water turned to blood’.

was ציה Cf. Psalm 107:35. The word .כוורא דיתבא ליה חלתא אגביה וקדח אגמא עילויה 61 probably interpreted here as ‘a sea monster,’ and not as ‘wilderness’; cf. Psalm 74:14. 62 The Avestan sources are Yašt/Yasna 9:11 and Yašt 19:38–40. See also Williams 1990: II, 40–41; cf. also Shapira 1998: II, 60–70. On this literary motif, cf. Watkins 1995: 439–68; Thrope 2006. 63 See Jacobs 1991: 80. Irano-talmudica Iii 83

Conclusion

We have demonstrated that there are salient parallels in the structure, order and composition of the Talmudic and Pahlavi texts, which involve an inventory of mythical creatures. While some of the creatures in the Talmudic chapter are clearly modelled on the Iranian ones, at least one creature, the Kar-fish, belongs to a pre-Jewish and pre-Iranian substratum. This substratum is apparently Mesopotamian, and common to both cultures. We therefore suggest a connection between the Pahlavi Bundahišn chapter – or its prototype – and the Talmudic chapter, both stemming from a common mythological pattern of knowledge that was transmitted orally in Mesopotamia. The most striking trait of the Talmudic chapter is, nevertheless, the fact that while demonstrating affinities, parallels and even possible direct or indirect borrowings from the (proto-?) text of the Bundahišn, our chapter is the first known Talmudic text to allude to the Avesta. The close reading of the text of the Talmudic passages demonstrates that it was coordinated with Psalms 104 and 107, around which our Talmudic chapter was structured. This implies a latent intertextual strategy. Composed as though it were a Babylonian-Sasanian Jewish legal text, but including fantastic stories about mythological creatures and sailors’ tall tales, our Talmudic chapter in fact elaborates the margins of its own culture using the materials of the neighbouring culture.

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Appendix

Below is the English translation of Bnd 24.64 Roman numbers in bold mark the passages which go back to the lost Pahlavi commentaries on Y 42.

About various things, in what manner they have been created, and about what opposition came upon them.

1. (Ohrmazd/the Text) says in the Avesta/Religion: The White Hōma/Haoma (hōm ī spēd) which they call the Tree of Gōkarn, is growing in the deep lake in the middle of the Sea of Frāxwkard. It is requisite for bringing about the Restoration (Frašgird), for from it (the White Haoma) they will restore/prepare the Immortality.65 2. The Stinking Ghost, to oppose it (the Haoma), has molded in this deep water a Frog, so that it may damage the Haoma. I 3. In order to hold back this Frog Ohrmazd created two Kar fishes66 there, which are constantly going around that Frog; and these fishes are also eaters of mēnōg,67 which means that they need no food, and they remain fighting until the Restoration; in one place those fishes are written of as the ‘aquatic Ar[i/az]’.68 4. As He/It (Ohrmazd/the Text) says: ‘The greatest of the creatures of Ohrmazd are these fishes, and the greatest of the creatures of the Stinking Ghost, in body and strength, is that Frog; whoever (comes) between them, as long as it is of

64 The translation is ours. 65 See also Dhabhar 1932: 98 (the original text in note 2): Shapur Bharuchi: – The Omniscient Ormazd has created the tree Hom for this reason that at the time of resurrection He may give, to all men, the Water of Life with the leaves of Hom, so that all men may become immortal by eating it. It is for this reason that the Water of Life and the Tree of Hom are created. 66 According to Riḍā Bihzādī’s Persian edition-cum-translation of the Indian Bundahišn, this is the species of fish known in the Persian Gulf as ‘Rhincodon Typus Smith (Big Sleepy Fish)’. This is the biggest fish known, reportedly reaching 20 meters; it is a filter feeder, which explains why Bundahišn, calls it ‘an eater of spiritual food’; this fish, indeed, does not pose danger to humans and sometimes allows swimmers to catch a ride (Bihzādī 1368/1989: 248, n. 18). Cf. notes 9 and 11 above. 67 See Shaked 1971. 68 Cf. Gignoux and Tafazzoli 1993: 82–83: az panǰ ēwēnag gōspand kē gētīg daxšag hēnd ī Wahman panǰ ō ham-pursīh mad hēnd pad +ān gar <ī> Usind ud pad an rōz pēüiz az madan ī-šan be ō ham-pursīh uzwān be wišāyīhist mardōm-saxwanīhā guft [. . .] ud az +ābīgān māhīg ē sardag-ē arzuh (?) nām . . . (‘parmi les cinq espèces d’animaux qui sont les signes matériels de Wahman, cinq sont venues à l’entretien, sur la montagne Usind. Ce jour-là avant même leur arrivée à l’entretien, leur langues se délièrent, ils parlèrent en discours humain. Parmi les poissons aquatiques, une espèce nommée ‘arzuh’ . . .’). Irano-talmudica Iii 89

the two creations, they cleave into two, except that one fish which is the Wāsi pancāsadwarām (V. of 500 war)’. 5. And He/It says this, too: ‘These (Kar) fishes are so sensitive that they perceive, in the deep[est] water, of the rubbing of a needle [on the surface] whereby the water increases or decreases’. 6. About Wāsi pancāsadwarām this is revealed: ‘He goes about in the sea of Frāxwkard and his length is so great that when he races at full speed (“as quick as a sword”), having set off at dawn and until the sun sets down, he could not have gone as much as his own length’. 7. He/It says, too: ‘Mostly the aquatic creatures live under his authority’. Ii 8. The Tree of Many Seeds that grows in the middle of the sea of Frāxwkard and that has in it all the seeds of all the plants – there are some who call it ‘Righteous Healer,’ and there are some who call it ‘Diligent Healer,’ and there are some who call it ‘All-healer’. 9. In its trunk nine mountains have been formed; these mountains are holed by 9,999 myriad streams; in these mountains the reservoir of waters has been created, so that the water goes forth from there by the passage of those streams to all seven climes of the earth, as the sources of all the waters of the lakes of the whole world are from there. Iii 10. About the Three-Legged Ass, He/It says: ‘He stands in the midst of the Sea of Frāxwkard and has three legs and six eyes and nine testicles and two ears and one horn and his head is bluish-greenish, and his body is white-shining, and his food is ‘spiritual’ and he is righteous. 11. And of his six eyes, two are in the eye-sockets and two on the top of his head and two on his hump, and with these six eyes he overcomes and smites the worst dangers and troublesome harm.69 12. And of those nine testicles three are in his head, and three are in his hump, and three are on the middle/inside of his ribs, and each testicle is as big as a house, and he (himself) is as big as Mt. Xwanwand. 13. And of those three legs each one, when which one is placed, it takes as much ground as a thousand sheep when they all settle down together in a circle;70 the pastern of his leg is as such that a thousand men with horses and a thousand chariots could pass through it. 14. Those two ears turn over the provinces of Māzandarān. 15. As this one horn is golden and holed, and thousand other horns have grown from it, some the size of camels, some the size of horses, some the size of bulls,

69 MacKenzie has here ‘the worst +visible danger’ (an unpublished translation; MacKenzie [n.d.]). 70 Cf. MacKenzie [n.d.]: ‘huddle’. 90 Kiperwasser and Shapira

some the size of asses, some of them greater and some smaller; with this horn he strikes and overcomes all the warlike *xrafstras of worst danger. 16. When that Ass holds his neck in the sea and bends his ears down, all the water of the Sea of Frāxwkard quake and split the coast of Wanāwad[?].71 17. And when he brays, all the aquatic female creatures of Ohrmazd become pregnant, and all the aquatic [female] noxious creatures, which are pregnant, when they hear this sound, cast out their young. 18. And when he urinates into the sea all the water of the seas becomes purified – [all the water] which is in the seven climes of the earth. And for that reason all asses when they see water urinate into it’. 19. As one/He/Avesta says: ‘If the Three-Legged Ass had not given purification to the water, all waters would have been destroyed and the defilement of the Stinking Ghost would have been brought upon the water, to the death of all the creation of Ohrmazd’. 20. And Tištr/Sirius takes the water from the seas (of *Frāxwkard) mostly because of the assistance of the Three-Legged Ass. 21. And it is revealed about ambergris that it is the dung of the Three-Legged Ass, for even though it is a mostly spiritually-eating (creature), still, the moisture and nutrition of the water enters its body through pores and it casts them away as urine and dung. Iv 22. Of the Ox Hāδayans/š/Hadayōš whom they call also Srisōk, He/It says: ‘At the primal creation he transported men from continent to continent, and at the Renovation they will prepare from it (the beverage) of immortality’. 23. And He/It says in the Avesta/Religion: ‘Living under the auspice of *Gōbedāh the son of *Agrērath/Agrē-Man72 in the third of the earth, and a fortress has been made around him until the Restoration when he will be needed’. v 24. About the bird Čamrūš He/It says: ‘It (sits) on the peak of Mt. Harburz, and every three years many people from the non-Iranian lands assemble together to go to the Iranian lands and to bring damage and raze and ruin the world; then Burz Yazēd comes up from the deep lake Arang and sends the bird Čamrūš to the peaks of all the high mountains; and it picks (the people from) all those non- Iranian lands as a bird picks grain’. vi 25. And He/It says about the bird Karšift: ‘It can speak with words/knows how to speak, and it was it who carried the Avesta/Religion to the Yima-built protective

71 Cf. MacKenzie [n.d.]: ‘is hurled to the sides’; Anklesaria 1956: 196–97: ‘trickles (*šiwēd) in the direction of Vanāwat’. Cf. Y 42:2. 72 Cf. Ankesaria 1956: 197: ‘it is living by the light of that superman, who has prepared a forti- fication around it, over one-third of this earth . . .,’ etc.; MacKenzie ([n.d.]): ‘+Gōpedāh son of Ağrerath looks after it in one third of this earth’. Irano-talmudica Iii 91

Wara-, and propagated it (the Avesta/Religion); and there they recite the Avesta in the language of birds’. vii 26. And about the aquatic Bull He/It says: ‘It is found in all seas and when he makes sounds, all the fishes become pregnant, and all the pregnant noxious creatures cast out their young’. vIii 27. Sīmurgh and bat are detailed in another chapter.73 Ix 28. And about the bird Ašōzušt, whom they called Zōrbarag, the bird of Wahman, the bird Ašo[k],74 He/It says: ‘An Avesta has been given to it in its own language, and when it recites it (the Avesta), the demons flee from it and do not have their camps there; for this reason it (the bird) is camping in the desert and is dwelling in the desolated75 lands, in order that the demons shall not camp there. 29. And when the finger-nail parings have not been enchanted upon/not protected by a manthra, the demons and sorcerers seize them and shoot them like arrows at that bird and kill it’. 30. For this reason, when the finger-nail parings have not been enchanted upon/ not protected by a manthra, this bird seizes them and eats them, so that the demons and sorcerers cannot use them; when (the finger-nail parings) have been enchanted upon/protected by a manthra, it does not eat them, and the demons cannot do any sinful harm with them’. 31–32. The other wild animals and birds also have been created to oppose the demons and noxious creatures, as (He/It) says: ‘Who (are) the birds and the wild animals all in opposition to the noxious creatures and the sorcerers?’ 33. He/It also says that all birds are clever, the crow being the cleverest. 34. (He/It) says that the white falcon kills the snakes with his wings.76 35. The magpie kills the locust – it has been created for that opposition. 36. The vulture ‘thinking of old age,’ who is griffon, has been created to eat corpses. 37. Likewise the crow and the buzzard and the mountain ox, and the mountain goat/ibex, and the gazelle and the wild ass/onager, and other wild animal shall eat dead matter; and likewise other noxious creatures.77 38. Dogs are created in opposition to wolf species and for the protection of cattle.

73 In TD2 and TD1 the reading is š’wb’k; however, one would expect not just a ‘bat’ (šawāg) described together with Sīmurgh/Sēnmurw, the mythological bird of Iran. This is the reason to seek here a distorted form of *baškuč. 74 Cf. MacKenzie [n.d.]: ‘the . . . ++owl’. 75 This reading is better than ‘non-Iranian,’ which does not make much sense. 76 Gignoux (1994: 39) has it: ‘kills the winged serpent’. 77 For the identification of some of the animals mentioned, see Gignoux 1994: 39, n. 88; Tavadia 1930: 32 (apud Gignoux). 92 Kiperwasser and Shapira

39. The fox was created in opposition to the demon *Xa(ša)bag.78 40. The weasel was created in opposition to the snake. 41. Likewise the large rat was created in opposition to the snake. 42. The hedgehog was created in opposition to the grain-carrying ant, as He/ It says: ‘The hedgehog, every time that it urinates into an ant-nest, it kills 1,000 ants’. 43. When the grain-carrier goes over the earth, it makes holes; when the hedgehog goes over, the holes become [level] again because of it.79 44. The water beaver has been created in opposition to the leech which is in the water, it goes where there (is heard) the voice of the partridge and takes the partridge’s eggs; it *dams water. 45. In short, all the wild animals, birds and fishes, each one, have been created in opposition to the noxious creatures. 46. He/It says of the eagle/griffon-vulture that even from the highest flight, when there is the size of a fist on the ground, it sees it; the scent of musk has been created under its wing, so that if it smells the stench of the dead matter, while eating it, it puts its head back under his wing and is refreshed again. 47. About the Arab horse He/It says that even if on a dark night a single hair is lying on the ground, it sees it. 48–49. The cock has been created in opposition to the demons and sorcerers, as a collaborator with the dog, as It/He says in the Avesta: ‘Of the creatures of the world the assistance of Srōš in smiting the lie/demons are the dog and the cock’.80 50–52. He/It says this, too: ‘The house would not have prospered,81 if I had not created the shepherd’s dog and the watchdog for protecting the men of the world;82 it (the dog) is as much a smiter of demons and pain as the hog (created) for protection of the cattle of the world; *the dog smites every pollution with its eyes; the hog, when it *grunts, smites demons, and its meat and fat is curative for expelling suffering and pain from men’. 53. Again, Ohrmazd has not created even these useless, for everything has been created for an advantage, and if you know not the reason, you should ask the religious authorities (dastūrs), for the hog’s snout has been created in that manner so that it smites demons.

78 A demon of strangling? 79 The English translation is tentative; it is omitted in Gignoux 1994: 39. The Pahlavi text seems to be a word for word rendering of a lost Avestan original. 80 Cf. Kreyenbroek 1985: 118, 136, 172. However, this ‘Avestan’ quotation cannot be supported by the existing evidence. 81 Cf. Gignoux 1994: 40: ‘would not be arranged’. 82 See Vidēvdād 13: 8 et passim (Darmesteter 1880: 153–54). CHAPTER 4 The Islamic Ascension Narrative in the Context of Conversion in Medieval Iran An Apocalypse at the Intersection of Orality and Textuality

Maria E. Subtelny

The Islamic Ascension Narrative and the Literary Genre of Apocalypse

Although it is not normally referred to as such in the scholarly literature, the narrative account of the prophet Muḥammad’s heavenly ascension, or mi ʿrāj, fits the paradigm of the literary genre of apocalypse as formulated by John J. Collins, in terms of both its framework and content.1 According to Collins’s comprehensive definition, apocalypse is ‘a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world’ (Collins 1979: 9). The Islamic ascension narrative conforms to this definition and exhibits virtually all of the paradigmatic features that define the manner of revelation, the temporal and spatial axes of the contents of the narrative, the narrative itself, and the specific instructions given to the recipient of the revelation. Even the concluding features, which involve the hero’s return to the world, his communication of his revelatory experience, and his persecution on account of having revealed it, are present in the Islamic ascension narrative in which Muḥammad figures as the apocalyptic hero.

1 Although challenged from time to time, the paradigm is still unsurpassed. For its characteristic features, see Collins 1979: 5–8. It will be clear from my discussion that by ‘apocalypse’ I do not intend the notion of the end of time and the cataclysmic events associated with it, but rather the literary genre. For an exhaustive discussion of the most significant textual versions of the Islamic ascension narrative and the differences between them, see Colby 2008, upon which this study draws frequently while at the same time diverging from it in significant ways. I am indebted to Frederick Colby for generously sharing with me his ideas and criticisms.

The account relates how, awakened one night by the angel Gabriel, the angel of Revelation in Islam, Muḥammad is transported on the back of a fabulous winged mount named Burāq from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he leads the founders of the monotheistic religions – Abraham, Moses, and Jesus – in prayer.2 From there he is taken on an other-worldly journey through the seven heavenly spheres to the Throne of God in the highest heavenly sphere, or sphere of spheres. In most versions of the narrative, Muḥammad is carried on the back of Burāq. In some versions he is also shown a ladder by which he ascends and is then carried by Burāq; in other versions, the angel Gabriel carries him on his shoulders. At the gate of each heaven, Muḥammad is introduced to its angelic guardian by Gabriel, who functions as his guide. Gabriel presents him to the Biblical and Qurʾanic prophets whose abode is in that particular heaven and explains to him the assorted wonders (ʿajāʾib) he sees along the way. All the prophets Muḥammad encounters, including Adam, Jesus, Solomon, Moses, and Abraham, among others, acclaim him as a prophet and confirm him in his prophetic mission.3 When he reaches the divine Throne (ʿarsh), Muḥammad is accorded a vision of God, which is described as an ocular vision or as a vision of the heart, or both. In his profoundly intimate encounter with the Divine, to which even the angel Gabriel is not a party, Muḥammad speaks with God, who imparts esoteric knowledge to him (sometimes through the touch of his hand) and mandates fifty daily prayers for the Muslim community. Following the Throne vision, Muḥammad is taken on tours of Paradise and Hell where he witnesses their respective delights and punishments. On his descent back down to earth Muḥammad again meets Moses who advises him to renegotiate the number of prayers God had imposed on the Muslim community until he succeeds in having them reduced to the five that constitute the daily Muslim ritual prayers (ṣalāt). Muḥammad is then returned to his bed, which according to some interpretations he had never left, having journeyed in spirit only, while the mainstream Muslim interpretation was that his ascension was a corporeal one, a feature shared by other Near Eastern religious traditions.4 After making

2 This is properly speaking the isrāʾ, or nocturnal journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem, as distinct from the miʿrāj, or heavenly ascension proper (lit., the ‘ladder’ of ascension), but the two are often conflated in the ascension narratives, the isrāʾ portion being presented simply as a prelude to the latter. 3 The prophet Zoroaster does not figure in the ascension narrative, as he was never included in the Islamic prophetic pantheon. 4 On this point, see Schrieke and Horovitz 1993: 98; al-Ṭabarī 1388/1968: XV, 16–17 (for the passage, see Renard 1998: 353–55 [trans. Reuven Firestone]). Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 95 public his revelatory experience, Muḥammad became the object of ridicule on the part of his detractors, but he was able to prove the veracity of his account. This skeletal summary, which does not begin to do justice to the particular details, motifs, and narremes that occur in the various versions of the ascension narrative, nevertheless demonstrates the close affinity of the miʿrāj account with other Near Eastern apocalypses that describe religiously- motivated other-worldly journeys. Particular mention may be made of the Hebrew Book of Enoch (referred to in the scholarly literature as 3 Enoch), to which some of the more elaborate, cosmologically-inspired versions of the miʿrāj account bear an uncanny resemblance; the Christian Book of Revelation, better known as the Apocalypse of St. John, or simply the Book of the Apocalypse; and Zoroastrian apocalyptic texts such as the Ardā Vīrāz nāmag, or Book of the Righteous Vīrāz.5 Despite the obvious homology of genre, however, Collins’s paradigm (which has served scholars of Christianity and Judaism well for the past three decades) has never been applied to the miʿrāj narrative by scholars of the Islamic religious tradition, nor has the Islamic ascension narrative ever been referred to in the scholarly literature as the Apocalypse of Muḥammad.6 Without dis- counting the possibility that religio-cultural sensitivity may account for this oversight, suffice it to say that objective scholarly investigation of the Islamic ascension literature lags far behind the sophisticated studies of apocalyptic and pseudepigraphical literature in the Jewish and Christian traditions.7

5 For the Hebrew Book of Enoch, see Alexander 1983: 255–315. For the Iranian apocalyptic tradition, see Vahman 1986: 194–95; Hultgård 2000: 60–78. The similarities in the descriptions of the punishments in Hell for various types of transgressions, particularly those involving women, has long been noted by scholars. See most recently Scherberger 2003: 126; Vahman 1986: 202ff. 6 In fairness, the same charge could be levelled against the scholarship on such Zoroastrian texts as Ardā Vīrāz nāmag, Zand ī Vahman yasn, and the inscriptions of the high priest Kirdēr. In his Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, David Cook mentions the miʿrāj account only in passing, referring to it as a form of ‘moral apocalypse’ (see Cook 2002: 230–31). Todd Lawson (2008: 23–41) and a number of others (see, for example, Brown 1983–84: 166, citing Louis Massignon) have argued that the Qurʾān itself should be viewed as an apocalyptic text. While Islamic Scripture exhibits certain apocalyptic elements relating primarily to eschatology and the notion of the end-time, it does not fulfill all the requirements of Collins’s paradigm for the literary genre of apocalypse, which focuses on the narrative account of the experiences of an apocalyptic hero. 7 The importance of studying the Jewish apocalyptical literature in connection with the Islamic ascension narrative has most recently been acknowledged by Colby 2008: 91 (although unfortunately he did not pursue the example he provides from Hekhalot literature). To my knowledge, the only scholar to have compared the Islamic ascension narrative with Jewish 96 Subtelny

The Narrative Framework and the Oral-Textual Continuum

The most important aspect of the literary genre of apocalypse is its narrative framework (Collins 1979: 9). Although this is perhaps self-evident, it is nevertheless necessary to keep in mind that the Islamic ascension narrative is first and foremost a story that has held the attention of believers and non- believers alike for centuries. Related in the first person by the prophet Muḥammad, the narrative is generally cast in the form of a question and answer dialogue between Muḥammad and his angelic guide Gabriel, as well as between Muḥammad and the angelic guardians of the gates of the heavenly spheres he passes through, the prophets he meets there, and God himself.8 Although it took its cue from several cryptic Qurʾanic verses (chiefly Q 17:1), or at least was interpreted as having been inspired by them, the account was based primarily on prophetic Traditions (ḥadīth) that were related on the authority of such early transmitters as Ibn ʿAbbās, Anas b. Mālik, Abū Hurayra, and Mālik b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa.9 These ḥadīth-based accounts were incorporated into the biographies of the Prophet and into Qurʾān commentaries, both Sunni and

ascension texts, including the Hekhalot literature, was David J. Halperin, although he focused on a very late, seventeenth-century Shiʿite version of the narrative. See Halperin 1995. 8 For this characteristic feature of the apocalyptic genre, see Collins 1979: 6. 9 The main Qurʾanic verse cited in this connection is Q 17: 1, which refers to a nocturnal journey (isrāʾ) on which Muḥammad was taken by God from Mecca to Jerusalem: ‘Glory to the One who took His slave on a nocturnal journey from the mosque of the sacred Precinct (i.e., the Kaʿba in Mecca) to the Furthest mosque (i.e., al-Aqṣā in Jerusalem), whose surroundings We have blessed, in order that We might show him some of Our signs’. Other Qurʾanic verses that were interpreted as containing references to Muḥammad’s vision and/or heavenly ascension are: Q 53:1–18 (al-Najm, ‘The Star’): ‘He was taught by One mighty in power, endowed with wisdom. And he came into view when he was in the highest part of the horizon. Then he approached and came closer till he was at a distance of but two bow-lengths or even nearer. So did He reveal to His slave that which He revealed. The [prophet’s] heart in no way falsified what it saw [ . . . ]. For indeed he saw him at a second descent by the Lote-tree of the Limit, nearby the Garden of Abode. When the Lote-tree was shrouded with what shrouds. His sight never turned aside nor was it mistaken. For verily did he see one of the greatest signs of his Lord’. Also Q 81:23–25: ‘And without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon. Neither did he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the unseen’. For a discussion of these and other Qurʾanic verses in connection with the Prophet’s visionary ascension, see Colby 2008: 13–27. For a discussion of the prophetic Traditions that refer to the isrāʾ and the miʿrāj in the compendia of al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), Muslim (d. 261/874), and others, see ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 1400/1980: 11–49 and Colby 2008: 81–92. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 97

Shiʿite, in which they assumed the form of coherent narratives.10 For example, the Qurʾān commentary by al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) contains versions of the account related on the authority of the traditionists Abū Hurayra and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī,11 as does the commentary by Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Qummī who relates it on the authority of the Shiʿite imām and esoteric Qurʾān exegete Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765) (Colby 2008: 105–108). Independent textual versions of the ascension narrative appear to have been circulating in Arabic already by the turn of the third/ninth century (Colby 2008: 49). Josef van Ess expressed the opinion that the earliest Kitāb al-miʿrāj was compiled by the Shiʿite (or proto-Shiʿite) scholar Hishām b. Sālim al-Jawālīqī (d. after 148/765), which is not extant (van Ess 1991–97: I, 345; IV, 388).12 While Shiʿite or proto-Shiʿite scholars may have played a role in the development of the textual narrative,13 Frederick S. Colby has demonstrated that, for the most part, the independent versions that circulated in the Islamic world during the pre-Mongol period emanated from a Sunni milieu, with many being ascribed pseudepigraphically to Ibn ʿAbbās (d. ca. 68/687–88), an authoritative early Qurʾān exegete and transmitter of prophetic Traditions.14 Other versions were compiled by Ṣūfī authors, most notably al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), a Persian author writing in Arabic, whose Kitāb al-miʿrāj represented a further elaboration of the narrative, particularly with respect to the presentation of cosmological features.15

10 For the accounts of the ascension in the life of Muḥammad by Ibn Isḥāq (d. ca. 150/767), which has survived only in the third/ninth-century recensions of Ibn Bukayr (d. 199/814), Ibn Hishām (d. 218/833), and in the biographical account by Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845), see Colby 2008: 51–63. For the account in the Qurʾān commentaries of al-Ṭabarī, al-Qummī (d. ca. 307/919), al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035), and others, see ibid.: 93–111. 11 See al-Ṭabarī 1388/1968: XV, 6–10 (Sūrat al-Isrāʾ). For translations or summaries, see Renaud 1987: 273–88; Renard 1998: 336–45; Colby 2008: 96–104. 12 It might possibly be preserved in the Biḥār al-anvār of the Shiʿite theologian Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1110/1699 or 1111/1700); see al-Majlisī 1376–92/1956–72: XVIII, 319–31. 13 See Amir-Moezzi 1996b: 100ff.; Colby 2010: 141–56. 14 For the Ibn ʿAbbās narratives, see Colby 2002: 80–87; idem 2008: 29–49. Colby has argued that there was a ‘Primitive Version’ of the Ibn ʿAbbās narrative and a ‘reshaped version’ of the pseudo-Ibn ʿAbbās narrative, transmitted in the name of a traditionist named Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī, which he dates to the sixth/twelfth or seventh/thirteenth century, for which see below. 15 For al-Qushayrī’s Kitāb al-miʿrāj, see Colby 2008: 116–21. 98 Subtelny

In the Iranian cultural sphere, Persian versions of the ascension narrative were included in the expanded translation of al-Ṭabarī’s Qurʾān commentary (commissioned during the rule of the Samanid dynasty in eastern Iran in 352/963);16 in the earliest Persian Qurʾān commentary by Abū al-Futūḥ al-Rāzī (d. before ca. 552/1157),17 and even in Persian literary works written in a mystical register, such as the Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa of Sanāʾī (d. 525/1131) and the Makhzan al-asrār of Niẓāmī (d. 605/1209).18 One of the earliest independent Persian versions to survive in textual form may be an Ilkhanid-era Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma dated to 685/1286.19 Some of these independent Persian versions were translations from Arabic versions of the narrative, and some of these translations were in turn translated into such Turkic languages as Khorazmian and Chaghatay (Subtelny 2010: 51–54). The translations of the ascension narrative into various Islamic languages, not to mention into Latin and European languages like Old French, present their own set of problems, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of this article.20 It is clear from the foregoing that, unlike Qurʾanic scripture or even the prophetic Traditions, the Islamic ascension narrative never assumed a fixed or canonical form, either in Arabic or in any other Islamic language.21 Aside from the prophetic Traditions cited in it (many of which do not belong to the ‘sound,’ or verifiable, category), the account of Muḥammad’s ascension came to be related in many versions that differed from each other not only in terms of specific details but also with regard to entire narremes, or narrative fragments, that formed part of the narrative. The existence of many different, yet essentially similar, versions of the narrative suggests that orality played an

16 See Yaghmāʾī 1340–67/1961–88: I, 182–87; IV, 909–18; VII, 1767–70; de Fouchécour 2009: 159–61. Interestingly enough, the Persian ‘translation’ goes beyond al-Ṭabarī’s original and includes references to the early Shiʿite versions of the narrative. 17 Yāḥaqqī and Nāṣiḥ 1378/1999: XII, 129–58; Piemontese 1987: 301–18 (summary only). 18 See de Fouchécour 1989: 100–107; Mudarris Riḍavī 1377/1998: 195–97; Würsch 2005: 172–74. 19 Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441. I am grateful to Frederick Colby for providing me with a photocopy of the manuscript. See Gruber 2010: 3, 17–18. An alternative reading of the date in the colophon, however, is 805/1402, which would place it in the early Timurid period; thus also Colby 2002: 306. 20 For the translation of an Arabic version of the miʿrāj narrative into Castilian, and subsequently into Latin and Old French, see my forthcoming article ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’: The Book of Mohammad’s Ladder as Missionary Text among Christians in Muslim Spain, forthcoming. 21 This is generally the case with apocalyptic and pseudepigraphical literature. The only canonical apocalyptic text in the Christian scriptural tradition is the Apocalypse of St. John, or Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 99 important role in its transmission and that the type of audience addressed must have been a consideration in the formulation of a particular version. On account of their ephemeral nature, these oral versions of the narrative disappeared along with the particular circumstances in which they had been related. At some point in time, however, a particular version was recorded tex- tually and added to the existing manuscript tradition.22 The textual transcripts of orally transmitted versions of the narrative must in turn have influenced the ongoing oral tradition, as popular preachers and professional storytellers used the text as an aide-mémoire, while at the same time continuing to elaborate the narrative extemporaneously, just as naqqāls have used ṭūmārs, or scrolls, in the transmission of the Persian epic, Shāh-nāma, in Iran (Yamamoto 2003: 20ff.). Supporting this contention is the fact that the Islamic ascension narrative continues to have a strong oral and performative dimension in many modern Muslim societies, as Julian Millie has demonstrated in the case of contemporary Malay culture (see Millie 2004). The transmission of the Islamic ascension narrative can thus be characterized as representing an oral-textual continuum that is based on a dialectical relationship between the stability of the essentials of the account and the variability of its details.23 As in any living tradition, the textual recording of an orally transmitted version of the narrative represents only a snapshot in time of a much larger body of oral tradition. Hence, it is virtually impossible – not to mention pointless – to try to retrieve the Urtext of any particular version of the narrative that has been recorded in textual form, as all versions are intrinsically valid. In his rich studies on the Islamic hagiographical literature produced in medieval Iran and Central Asia, Devin DeWeese provides the

22 Although this hypothesis needs to be verified, it appears that the recording of independent narrative versions was connected with royal courts and court patronage. For example, some of the extant manuscripts dating from the seventh/thirteenth century were done for the Rasulid rulers of Yemen. Others appear to have emanated from Ilkhanid, Timurid, and Ottoman courts. This appears to be the case particularly with illustrated versions of the narrative that were intended for elite consumption. 23 In her study of the transmission of the Shāh-nāma narratives, Kumiko Yamamoto rejects the oral-formulaic theory that saw the oral and written as being mutually exclusive and argues for what she calls an oral performance model, which is not without relevance to the study of the Islamic ascension narrative; see Yamamoto 2003: xxi–xxiii. Although most theories of oral transmission have focused on metrical production, i.e., poetry, it seems to me that the same principles can apply to prose production. For the problem of the interplay between the literate and oral modes of production in the medieval Persian dāstān tradition, see Rubanovich 2012: 658–64. 100 Subtelny following assessment of the problem of working with textual recordings of genres that have a tradition of oral transmission:

With many hagiographical sources . . . and with other genres filled with what we might classify as ‘folkloric’ material (such as popular local histories, historical dāstāns or heroic and romantic epics), we are typically faced with textual recordings and adaptations of ‘content’ that continued to develop in oral venues, separately from the written tradition – sometimes parallel to it, sometimes divergent from it, and sometimes, it would seem, repeatedly intersecting with it. With such material, we risk not only significant errors in the editorial interpretation of manuscript versions of a given narrative, but often serious misunderstandings of the essential meaning, purpose, and ‘reading’ of a narrative, if we approach the text solely on the basis of the manuscript tradition (DeWeese 2007: 147).

DeWeese argues that it is not possible with these kinds of texts to produce an edition of what is presumed to be the ‘original’ text on the basis of an exhaustive analysis of all the extant manuscript copies, as each variant is in itself significant and needs to be analysed in the context of the entire tradition, both written and oral (DeWeese 2007: 148, 168–69). A similar view has recently been expressed by M. Amin Mahdavi with respect to the Shāh-nāma of Firdausī, another narrative that appears to represent an oral-textual continuum. Mahdavi states that the Shāh-nāma should be regarded as a dynamic entity and he innovatively compares the differences between various textual versions of it to the process of DNA replication that results in the alteration of the textual ‘code’ of the work. Hence, in his opinion, the traditional practice of using a base text to produce a critical edition should be abandoned, and new multi-text editions of the work should be undertaken instead that preserve the sequence of variants (Mahdavi 2003).24 This is in fact the strategy employed by Peter Schäfer and his collaborators in their synoptic edition of the Hekhalot texts of Jewish apocalyptic literature, in which all manuscripts of a given textual version are presented side by side, thereby allowing scholars to study and interpret all variants of it within the manuscript tradition (Schäfer 1981; idem 1988).

24 For a similar idea expressed by Olga Davidson regarding multi-variant editions of the text, see Davidson 1994: 65–72. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 101

Most scholars of the Islamic ascension narrative, on the other hand, have opted to view the various versions of the miʿrāj account as tending ultimately toward a ‘complete’ version of the narrative, in which contradictory elements are resolved or conflated, and even entire narremes are incorporated from other versions in order to fill lacunae.25 In all fairness, it ought to be mentioned that, faced with a bewildering variety of versions, medieval compilers were themselves guilty of textual tampering in the interests of providing a seam- less and coherent version of the narrative. It is in this light that the ‘total and complete’ recension of the narrative in Arabic ascribed to yet another supposedly early traditionist by the name of al-Bakrī is to be understood.26 But such a methodology, whether employed by medieval editors or modern scholars, destroys the integrity of a given version of the account that in all probability was addressed to a specific audience under particular circumstances at a particular point in time. On a related note, since by definition the literary genre of apocalypse does not have an ‘author’ apart from the apocalyptic hero who relates his visionary experiences in the first person, it is often difficult to identify who compiled a given version of the narrative.27 If they identified themselves at all, medieval compilers of textual versions of the narrative usually identified themselves pseudonymously, invariably ascribing the transmission of a particular version to some authoritative early Islamic figure like Ibn ʿAbbās. On the other hand, those who commented on the narrative or who added what would today

25 This was the method employed by Abel Pavet de Courteille, who believed that the absence of the description of the fourth heaven in the Timurid-era miʿrāj-nāma was a lacuna in the manuscript, which he filled with the description of the fourth heaven from the Turkish translation of the Persian Maʿārij al-nubuvva fī madārij al-futuvva by the Timurid traditionist Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Amīn al-Farāhī, known as Miskīn (d. 907/1501–2), as well as from a tenth/sixteenth-century Ottoman Turkish version of the miʿrāj account. See Pavet de Courteille 1975: xxi–xxii, 42–43, 51–53. The French Islamicist Jamel Eddine Bencheikh went even further, producing a composite text of the ascension narrative in French, in which he conflated a number of Arabic versions dating from various periods and including the Latin Book of Muḥammad’s ladder (see Bencheikh 1988: 233–34 and 238, where he describes his method). 26 It is unclear whether this individual was actually a historical personage or not. For al-Bakrī’s recension, the earliest manuscripts of which date from the seventh/thirteenth century, see Colby 2008: 127–48, 195–234. See also the tenth/sixteenth-century recension by al-Ghayṭī which also represents a synthesis of various versions (Colby 2002: 375–98). 27 See my comments regarding the authorship of a Timurid-era miʿrāj-nāma in Chaghatay Turkish translation, in Subtelny 2010: 52. 102 Subtelny be termed ‘talking points’ in the form of ‘lessons’ or ‘wisdoms’ in connection with the interpretation of particular aspects of the narrative often did identify themselves.28 The fact that such commented versions often contain specific instructions on how to respond to sceptics who might have questioned the veracity of certain details occurring in the account or who may have demanded an explanation for the way in which certain aspects of the account are presented lends further credence to the contention that the ascension narrative was used in a missionary context.29 In the great majority of cases, however, the precise history and provenance of a given textual version of the narrative remain a mystery.

Functions of the Islamic Ascension Narrative

Judging from its contents, the Islamic ascension narrative appears to have served a number of functions, both theological and mythical. First, it provided the kind of sign of the veracity of Muḥammad’s prophetic mission that the Qurʾān itself alludes to.30 Second, it demonstrated Muḥammad’s superiority over his Jewish and Christian predecessors as the last prophet in an unbroken

28 Thus, for example, the Arabic Kitāb al-tāj fī al-miʿrāj by a certain al-Shaykh Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Wāʿiẓ, a professional preacher judging by his occupational sobriquet wāʿiẓ, included fifteen chapters of commentary dealing with the ‘wisdom’ (ḥikma) of various aspects of the narrative, some of these being reminiscent of al-Qushayrī’s Kitāb al-miʿrāj. See MS, Tashkent, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 3154/III, copied in 646/1248 in Central Asia (?) (see Semenov 1952–87: IV, no. 2803). See also Gruber 2010: 38–39, 60–61, 74–76 for the enumeration of the same kind of ‘wisdoms’ (ḥikmat). 29 See, for example, Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fol. 36r (‘If a sceptic [havādār-ī] asks, “How is this possible?” respond by saying that . . .’); Gruber 2010: 57. 30 The Qurʾān contains several allusions to Muḥammad’s critics calling for a miraculous sign, such as a heavenly ascension or a book, to prove the truth of his prophecy. For example, Q 17:90–93 states: ‘They say, “We shall not believe in you until you . . . mount [a ladder] to the sky. And we will not even believe in your mounting until you send down to us a book (kitāban) that we may read”.’ The divine response to calls for such prophetic miracles is that all miracles come from God, and if God wanted to, He could make believers of the sceptics without the aid of any signs. Thus Q 6:35 states, ‘If their spurning is hard on you, yet even if you were able to seek . . . a ladder (sullaman) to the sky and bring them a sign, [what would it mean]? If God wills, He could bring them all to true guidance. So do not be among those who are swayed by ignorance’. Compare this function of apocalypse in Zoroastrianism: in Ardā Vīrāz nāmag and in the case of the inscriptions of the high priest Kirdēr (see Hultgård 2000: 60–63). Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 103 chain of prophetic history. Third, it underscored the favoured eschatological status of the Muslim community. And fourth, it provided a mythical explanation for the number of daily prayers in Islam, which came to be fixed at five. Arguably, this last function may be regarded as the single most important and innovative aspect of the narrative, as it served to authorize what was in effect a post-Qurʾanic development in Islamic ritual practice.31 As I will argue, the Islamic ascension narrative may also have played an important historical role in proselytizing initiatives in the Iranian world after the Islamic conquests.32 This highly dramatic account, related in the first person by the prophet Muḥammad himself, would have served as an effective means of capturing the spiritual imagination of prospective converts to Islam, far more effective than dogmatic disputation or polemical engagement. A number of scholars have remarked on the widespread popularity of apocalyptic and pseudepigraphical literature in the Near East and West Asia, and the inter- connectedness of this literature in the various religious traditions is becoming more and more evident.33 The apocalyptic genre was familiar to Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, and Manichaeans, all of whom were represented in the populations of post-conquest Iran. In the case of Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature, there is little reason to doubt that works like the Zand ī Vahman yasn emerged from an oral tradition and continued to have a performative dimension after the Arab conquest of Iran, until they were finally fixed in writing in the third/ ninth century.34 Contrary to the notion that it was only related to periods or groups in a state of crisis, the genre of apocalyptic literature was a potentially useful vehicle for the promotion of the doctrinal beliefs of the given religious tradition it emanated from. The immediacy of the first-person narrative, which was often

31 According to Colby, this is the main function of what he calls the ‘official’ accounts of the ascension (see Colby 2008: 167). But here is no reason why this function should not extend to all versions of the narrative, as it is virtually a constant feature in all of them. For the problem of the number of ritual prayers in Islam, see Günther 1998: 56–57. 32 The possibility that the ascension narrative was used as a missionary text has not been discounted by scholars recently working on the topic (see, e.g., Colby 2008: 172–73; Gruber and Colby 2010, pt. 1). I have explored the idea in a series of articles: ‘The Jews at the Edge of the World in a Timurid-era Miʿrājnāma’ (see Subtelny 2010); ‘Zoroastrian Elements in the Islamic Ascension Narrative: The Case of the Cosmic Cock’ (see Subtelny 2011), and “ ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’: The Book of Mohammad’s Ladder as Missionary Text among Christians in Muslim Spain” (see Subtelny, forthcoming). 33 See, e.g., Reeves 1994b: 173ff.; Wasserstrom 1994: 93ff. 34 See Boyce 1984: 72–75, and more recently, on the basis of textual analysis, Josephson 2012: 242–60. 104 Subtelny peppered with emotional reactions on the part of the apocalyptic hero, the description of his journeys to other-worldly regions, where he encountered angelic and other divine beings, and the stress on eschatological features, especially the description of the various punishments that awaited sinners in Hell, exerted psychological pressures on prospective proselytes, women in particular.35 John Collins has observed that ‘all apocalypses seek to influence the lives of their readers and many imply exhortation to a specific course of action’ (Collins 1979: 9). There is no reason why the apocalypse of Muḥammad could not have had a similar proactive function. But to assess properly the possible role of the ascension narrative in missionary activity we must first establish the significance of Muḥammad’s miʿrāj in Islamic doctrinal belief, as it is sometimes regarded merely as a pious legend or even dismissed as a mythological tale. In point of fact, the account of the Prophet’s heavenly ascension embodies a theologoumenon that became a touchstone of the faith: those who believed in it were considered to have accepted Muḥammad’s prophetic mission, and those who did not were regarded as having rejected Islam itself.36 The model of the former was Muḥammad’s faithful companion Abū Bakr, who became the first caliph of Islam, while the representatives of the latter were by and large members of Muḥammad’s own tribe of Quraysh, represented by Abū Jahl, who became the symbol of the obstinate unbeliever.37 The biography of the Prophet by Ibn Isḥāq, in the third/ninth-century recension of Ibn Hishām, which was based on Muḥammad’s own words as reported by his Companions and relatives, depicts the account of his ascension as a ‘trial and a test’ for believers and at the same time as a ‘confirmation’ of their belief (al-Saqqā, al-Abyārī and Shalabī [n.d.]: II, 37; Guillaume 1955: 181). The introduction to some versions of the ascension narrative includes an explicit statement to this effect. For example, a Persian version attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās states that ‘whoever denies the Prophet’s ascension is an infidel (kāfir) because

35 Roberto Tottoli has drawn attention to the emphasis on eschatological details in certain versions of the narrative dating from the third/ninth–fourth/tenth centuries that involve the punishment of various categories of female sinners (see Tottoli 2010: 15–18, 21–22). 36 See van Ess 1996: 55–56; idem 1991–97: IV, 387–88; Amir-Moezzi 1996b: 99. The Prophet’s ascension was and continues to be celebrated in most Islamic cultures, usually on the eve of the 27th of the lunar month of Rajab (although other dates, such as the 17th of Ramaḍān, are also attested in the literature). 37 For a statement to this effect in a version of the ascension narrative, see Kitāb-i Miʿrāj- nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fol. 7v. Abū Bakr received the epithet al-Ṣiddīq (‘the one who testifies to the truth’) on account of his belief in the Prophet’s ascension (see also Guillaume 1955: 183). Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 105 he [thereby] rejects the text of the Qurʾān which states “Glory to the One who took His servant on a night journey from the mosque of to the sacred Precinct to the Furthest mosque, whose surroundings We have blessed”,’ a reference to the Qurʾanic pericope (Q 17:1) mentioned earlier (Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 2v–3r; Gruber 2010: 34). An Arabic version warns that whoever believes in Muḥammad’s ascension will enter Paradise and whoever calls him a liar will go to Hell (for this version, see Colby 2008: 132). Another Arabic recension of the narrative addresses the audience at the end of the account with the words: ‘O brethren, beware that you not be like the infidels who harbour doubt in their hearts and deny the Prophet’s ascension! Because to deny the ascension is to deny God’s power and the Prophet’s honour. To deny the ascension is one of the greatest forms of unbelief’ (Özdemir 1986: 163). The fact that the ascension narrative had no fixed textual or canonical form meant that it could be adapted to appeal to the religious sensibilities of a particular faith community. The susceptibility of the narrative to manipulation was already evident in early Shiʿite versions of the narrative which contained narremes promoting the cause of ʿAlī and the imāms (Colby 2010: 141–47). This narrational flexibility would have permitted Muslim missionaries to embed religio-cultural motifs in the narrative that spoke to the target audience to which it was addressed. In this way, many culturally specific elements drawn from the belief systems of the various religious communities targetted for conversion were appropriated into the narrative and tended to remain standard features even as their original meaning became obscured. This function of the Islamic ascension narrative in the history of the spread of Islam, particularly in the Persianate world, and its use by Muslim missionaries and popular preachers in proselytizing among non-Muslims (or, to use the Islamic euphemism, in ‘inviting’ them to Islam) has remained virtually unexplored.38 Supporting the contention that the ascension narrative had a missionary function is the proselytizing tone that is established right from the outset in most of its versions. In a narreme, or narrative fragment, that usually occurs in the isrāʾ segment of his nocturnal journey, that is, as he is travelling from Mecca toward the Temple in Jerusalem, just before his ascension through the heavenly spheres, Muḥammad is described as hearing two, three, or sometimes four voices calling to him in quick succession and asking him to stop. He pays no attention to them, and the angel Gabriel later informs him that they represented the various religions. Had Muḥammad responded to any one of them, his community would have become Jewish, Zoroastrian, Christian, or

38 The technical term for missionary activity in Islam is daʿwā, meaning ‘call’ or ‘invitation’. 106 Subtelny even polytheist, as the case may be.39 In some versions of the narreme, the voices are actually identified as being those of Jewish and Christian missionaries (dāʿī).40 In other versions of the narreme, Muḥammad sees a beautiful adorned woman (in still other versions, an ugly adorned woman) who asks him to stop. This turns out to be ‘the world,’ and according to Gabriel had Muḥammad responded to her invitation, his community would have been seduced by the materialism of this world instead of devoting itself to the eternal realm of the spirit (see, e.g., Yaghmāʾī 1340–67/1961–88: IV, 911–12). Thus, although admitting of the potential attractiveness of other religions historically encountered by Islam, the narreme in question subtly dismisses each one in turn in favour of the ‘correct decision’ made by the prophet of Islam.

The Progress of Conversion in Iran

We know precious little about the life of the Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian communities of Iran and Persianate Central Asia after the Arab conquests. While the numbers of Jews and Christians were not inconsiderable, the bulk of the pre-conquest population adhered to some form of Zoroastrianism. The conversion of the population of greater Iran to Islam was an extremely complex historical process in which political and social pressures and pragmatic economic considerations played no less a role than did psychological factors and personal convictions.41 According to Elton L. Daniel, the great mid second/ eighth-century rebellion in Khurāsān that ushered in the ʿAbbasid revolution greatly facilitated conversion by eliminating the distinctions that had existed between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, thereby opening up administrative opportunities for Iranian elites (Daniel 2008: 72–74). If we accept the model proposed by Richard Bulliet concerning the rate and degree of the historical process of conversion in Iran, we may assume that the process began in the mid second/eighth century, peaked during the third/ninth and early fourth/

39 Thus, for example, Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 11v–12r (where the voices are those of Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians, and polytheists) and Özdemir 1986: 40 (where the voices are those of Jews, Christians, and ‘the world’). See also Colby 2002: 444; Vuckovic 2005: 29. 40 See Colby 2008: 102 (for the version attributed to Abū Saʿīd Khudrī in al-Ṭabarī’s Qurʾān commentary). 41 For the many problems associated with the study of the process of conversion in Iran, see Daniel 1993. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 107 tenth centuries, and was largely completed by the mid to late seventh/thirteenth century (Bulliet 1979b: 44–52; idem 1979: 35, 47).42 But this by no means meant that conversion was universal or that the indigenous populations of greater Iran did not offer resistance in the form of widespread religio-social movements, especially those identified as Khurramism (see Crone 2012: 27ff.). But we are not concerned here with the history of the conversion of Iranian communities, only with some of the strategies that may have been employed by Muslim missionaries in addressing specific religious communities in Iran and Central Asia, a topic about which virtually nothing is known.43 Jamsheed Choksy, who has surveyed the patterns of conversion and resistance among Zoroastrians in Iran in the third–fourth/ninth–tenth centuries, opines that intellectual persuasion had the most lasting effect in the case of voluntary acceptance of Islam and suggests that popular preachers and Ṣūfī missionaries operating on the oral level played an important role in presenting Islam as being compatible in many respects with Zoroastrian beliefs and rituals (Choksy 1977: 76–93).44 Professional preachers (vāʿiẓ) and storytellers (qāṣṣ, qiṣṣa-khvān), who recounted religious legends and entertaining tales and were skilled in gauging the receptivity of their audiences, must have been instrumental in the success of such initiatives.45 The Muslim attitude toward conversion is summed up in the Qurʾanic dictum lā ikrāha fī al-dīni (‘There is no compulsion in religion’; Q 2:256), the locus classicus for discussions of the Islamic view on interfaith relations.46 Acknowledging the truism that forced conversion played an insignificant role

42 For a critique of Bulliet’s methodology, see Morony 1990: 135–50. 43 See Bulliet 1979b. For a discussion of approaches to the history of conversion in Islam, see Humphreys 1991: 273–83; DeWeese 1994: 17–27. 44 Choksy provides only indirect evidence for this assertion; see Choksy 1977: 88. 45 For the role of popular preachers and storytellers in the transmission of the ascension narrative, see Hartmann 1928–29: 46–49; Pellat 1978. According to a description of his qualifications, the professional storyteller (qiṣṣa-khvān) should be endowed not only with knowledge (dānish) but also with insight (bīnish) which enables him to judge his audience and what it is capable of understanding (see Maḥjūb 1350/1971: 303–304). 46 On the controversial exegetical history of this verse, see Paret 1975: 307; Lewis 1987: 13; Friedmann 2003: 94–106; Crone 2009: 132–43. It seems, however, that the popular, non-theological, and non-apologetical understanding of the verse in medieval Iran, as reflected in such works as the Marzubān-nāma, a collection of sententious anecdotes and animal fables compiled by Varāvīnī in the seventh/thirteenth century, was that a person could not be forced to accept a statement even if it was true (see Raushan 1367/1988–89: I, 34; Levy 1959: 18). 108 Subtelny in the spread of Islam, we may posit that the strategy employed by Muslim missionaries, preachers, and professional storytellers was one of positive argument rather than one of confrontation or polemical engagement, that stressed shared truths and reinforced the religious beliefs of the target audience, imbed- ding them within an Islamic context.

Setting the Scene: The Narreme of the Drinks

I now propose to dwell on a narreme that occurs in practically all versions of the Islamic ascension narrative in order to illustrate how certain details can vary within a single narreme and what these differences might tell us about the audience to whom they were addressed. This narreme provides further support for my contention that the ascension narrative was used as a vehicle for proselytizing. Just as he begins his heavenly ascension from the Temple in Jerusalem after having led the founders of the other two monotheistic religions, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, in prayer, Muḥammad is offered two, three, and sometimes even four cups containing different liquids to drink: milk, wine, water, and honey. He invariably chooses milk, for which he is praised by the angel Gabriel as being ‘rightly guided’.47 Had he chosen any one of the others, Gabriel informs him that he and his community would either have gone astray or drowned or fallen into error.48 While conceding the possibility that the drinks may simply be replicating the four rivers of the Islamic paradise (as described in Q 47:15), I am nevertheless inclined to interpret them as symbolical representations of the various religions rejected by Muḥammad in favour of Islam. Zoroastrianism must be represented by water, regarded as a pure element in Zoroastrian religious thought, and more important, considered to be the symbol of esoteric wisdom (Boyce 1985). The most striking instantiation of this symbolism occurs in the Zoroastrian apocalyptic text Zand ī Vahman yasn, according to which Ohrmazd temporarily granted Zoroaster the power of omniscience which he delivered

47 See, for example, Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 18r–18v, which gives two variants, one with three cups and another with four. An interesting detail in this version is that Muḥammad does not drink all of the milk but leaves a portion behind, which Gabriel explains represents the portion of enemies that Muḥammad will have. In some versions he also drinks the water. See Colby 2008: 96, 236 (for a summary of the motif). 48 For the narreme in al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr, see al-Ṭabarī 1388/1968: XV, 8; Renaud 1987: 280. See also Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 18r–18v. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 109 to him in the form of a drink of water.49 Similarly, in medieval Jewish texts honey was often regarded as the symbol of wisdom or esoteric knowledge, so the drink of honey could represent Judaism.50 Christianity is obviously represented by wine, the liturgical symbol of the transmuted blood of Jesus Christ. As for milk, it was universally recognized in Islam as representing knowledge, usually of the esoteric kind. This interpretation was provided by the prophet Muḥammad himself.51 According to a canonical ḥadīth, Muḥammad dreamt that he had been handed a cup of milk, which he drank until he was sated with it, to a point where milk began to flow from his fingertips. He then gave the remainder to his Companion ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb. When asked to interpret the meaning of the milk, Muḥammad responded: ‘Knowledge’ (al-ʿilm).52 The seventh/thirteenth-century theosopher Ibn ʿArabī utilized this prophetic Tradition to illustrate the difference between the superficial, or formalist, understanding of most people and the visionary imagination of the Prophet who was able to grasp the spiritual significance of the symbolism of the milk, and he summed up his discussion by stating that ‘whenever milk appears [in a vision], it is the representation of knowledge (ṣūrat al-ʿilm). It is knowledge represented in the form of milk (ṣūrat al-laban), just as [the angel] Gabriel was represented to Mary in the form of a handsome man’ (ʿAfīfī 1409/1989: 159, 86). A remarkable aspect of this narreme is the way it parallels Zoroastrian apocalypses that describe the apocalyptic hero as consuming a drink or narcotic that induces a trance-like state, often compared to a deep sleep, in order to prepare him for the revelatory visions he will experience in the course of an other-worldly journey (see Widengren 1968: 91–92). In the case of the Zand ī Vahman yasn mentioned above, the drink enables Zoroaster to see everything that exists in the seven climes of the earth, or according to other Pahlavi texts, all that lies beyond the earth, including Paradise and Hell (Hultgård 1995: 143–44). In another Zoroastrian apocalypse, Ardā Vīrāz nāmag, the hero, Vīrāz, is handed three cups of wine mixed with a narcotic drug, which are given to

49 Cereti 1995: 134, ll. 6–8 (transcription), 150–51 (translation). For other instances of the use of the symbolism of water, see Hultgård 1995: 139–48. 50 As, for example, in Maimonides’s interpretation of the Talmudic tale of the four sages who entered the pardes (see Subtelny 2004: 39, n. 146; see also Wheeler 2003: 204–205). 51 The symbolical significance of milk in Islam may be connected to the pastoral nomadic background of the ancient Arabs. Or, it may simply be that other possibilities were already accounted for. 52 See, for example, al-Bukhārī 1412/1992: V–VI, 607 (Kitāb al-taʿbīr, nos. 7006–7) and Ibn Ḥanbal 1949–53: XI, 83, 154. The tradition is reminiscent of the Talmudic account about R. Joseph who drank a cup of wine whose effects he felt right down to his toe nails; see The Babylonian Talmud (Shabbath) 1938, fol. 140a (p. 707). 110 Subtelny him accompanied by the recitation of the Zoroastrian mantric formula, humat, hūkht, huwarsht (‘good thoughts, good words, good deeds’). Only after Vīrāz has consumed the three cups and fallen into a trance does his soul leave his body and embark on its other-worldly journey (Vahman 1986: 193). In the same way, the drink of milk consumed by Muḥammad inaugurates his heavenly ascension, during which he is able to ‘see’ the Divinity not only as a vision of the heart but, according to the mainstream Islamic tradition, also by means of ocular vision. This motif of the initiatic drink or narcotic consumed by the apocalyptic hero, which serves as the immediate catalyst for his visionary experiences is shared by the Zoroastrian and Islamic traditions.53 If the intended audience for the Islamic ascension narrative was a Zoroastrian one, it could not but have related the motif of the initiatic drink to its own apocalyptic tradition.

The Cosmic Cock: Targetting a Zoroastrian Audience

A narreme that occurs in some versions of the Islamic ascension narrative and that would have had special meaning for a Zoroastrian audience is that of the Prophet’s encounter with the cosmic cock, or rooster angel (Subtelny 2011: 199–207). Right after his meeting with the prophet Adam in the first heavenly sphere, the Prophet sees a rooster (khurūs) that is described as white in colour and of huge proportions, with his feet on the earth, his head in the highest heavenly sphere (or: below the Throne of God), and his wings extending from east to west. His function is to keep track of the times of prayer and to crow when the time comes for the morning prayer. His crowing gives the signal for all the roosters on earth to start crowing. Engaged in constant glorification of God, he is often described as uttering the liturgical formula, ‘Praise be to God, the Great, the Most High. There is no god but God, the Living (al-Ḥayy), the Self-subsistent (al-Qayyūm)’.54 The narreme about the cosmic cock is not attested in the Life of Muḥammad or in al-Ṭabarī’s general history or Qurʾān commentary.55 But it does occur in

53 Apart from the characteristic feature of the ‘medium by which the revelation is communicated,’ this motif does not appear in the master-paradigm of the apocalyptic genre assembled by Collins (see Collins 1979: 5–8). 54 An allusion to the famous Throne verse, Q 2: 255. For versions of the narrative in which it appears, see Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nama, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 20v–21r; Thackston 1994: 269. 55 For the account of Muḥammad’s ascension in al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr, see al-Ṭabarī 1388/1968: XV, 1–18; Renaud 1987: 273–88. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 111 sources that emanate from the Persian cultural sphere, such as the Qurʾān commentary of the foundational Shiʿite exegete al-Qummī (see Colby 2008: 105– 106); the Persian translation of al-Ṭabarī’s Qurʾān commentary (ca. 352/963) (Yaghmāʾī 1340–67/1961–88: IV, 913);56 the Qurʾān commentary of al-Thaʿlabī of Nīshāpūr (ʿĀshūr 1422/2002: VI, 60), and the independent versions of the ascension narrative attributed pseudepigraphically to Ibn ʿAbbās.57 By way of illustration it would be worthwhile to provide a translation of the passage from the account of the Prophet’s ascension in the Persian Qurʾān commentary of Abū al-Futūḥ al-Rāzī, which follows al-Thaʿlabī’s Arabic commentary almost verbatim:

“[When] I, [Muḥammad], arrived at the lowest heaven (āsmān-i dunyā) (i.e., the first heavenly sphere of the moon), I saw a rooster, the feathers of whose neck were green and whose head and body were white. Never have I seen a more beautiful green or white. His feet were on the seventh (i.e., lowest) level of the earth and his head reached up to the highest celestial sphere (ʿarsh) (or: the divine Throne). When he craned his neck and stretched out his wings, they extended from east to west. When the night came to an end, he would flap his wings and praise God, saying [in Arabic]: ‘Praise be to the Holy King, the Great, the Most High. There is no god but God, the Living (al-Ḥayy), the Self-subsistent (al-Qayyūm)’.58 When they hear his crowing, all the roosters on earth start crowing and praising God while flapping their wings. When he falls silent, they too fall silent. When he is again moved and crows in praise [of God], the roosters of the world do the same in conformity and in response to him”. The Prophet (Peace by upon him) said: ‘Ever since I saw him, I have had the desire to see him again’ (Yāḥaqqī and Nāṣiḥ 1378/1999: XII, 139).

Described in some versions of the ascension narrative as an angel, the rooster was in fact the symbolical representation of Srōš, the Zoroastrian deity

56 According to this account, Muḥammad encounters the rooster angel in the fourth heavenly sphere, always identified in Persian culture with the sun, the rooster often being regarded as the symbol of the sun (see Cumont 1942: 292; Meier 1992: 1020). 57 For example, al-Ṭuʿmī 1994: 143. For the motif, see also Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 20v–21r; Gruber 2010: 46. It also occurs in a Timurid-era miʿrāj-nāma (see Thackston 1994: 269). Christiane Gruber’s recent study of this manuscript ignores the possibility of a Zoroastrian provenance for the symbolism of the rooster (see Gruber [2008]: 314, 322). 58 An allusion to Q 2:255. 112 Subtelny associated with religious obedience and ritual prayer (Kreyenbroek 1985: 7–13, 30; Boyce 1996: 60). Srōš (Avestan Sraosha) was no minor deity in Zoroastrianism. He was regarded as Ohrmazd’s vicegerent, the embodiment of the Sacred Word, and the angelic mediator between God and man.59 There are more prayers and hymns devoted to him in Zoroastrian liturgical practice than to any other deity, with the sole exception of Ohrmazd himself (Kreyenbroek 1985: 142–63).60 As the deity of prayer, he presided over the prayer performed in the second part of the night, called Ušahin gāh, the period from midnight to dawn that ushers in the new day (Boyce 1996: 259; Kreyenbroek 1985: 117). This was considered to be a particularly dangerous time, when his protection was needed most against the powers of evil and pollution; hence, the value of prayer was believed to be greatest at this time (Kreyenbroek 1985: 115, 150). Srōš’s symbolical association with the rooster stems from this nocturnal protective function, for according to Zoroastrian belief, the crowing of the rooster, like the barking of the dog – another of Srōš’s collaborators – serves to repel demons, especially from the home (ibid.: 118).61 As the mediator between the divine and human worlds, Srōš’s role is that of angelic guide and interpreter of the Unseen. The only Zoroastrian deity to have survived into the Islamic period, Surūsh (as he is known in New Persian) is the Iranian counterpart of the Semitic angel Gabriel, the divine messenger and bringer of Revelation (Boyce 1996: 60; Kreyenbroek 1985: 181). Combining the roles of mediator, protector, and guide, Srōš was responsible for watching over the soul of the deceased for three days after death and on the fourth day helping it to cross the Čīnvad bridge that leads to the other world (Kreyenbroek 1985: 133). The Zoroastrian funerary rites and prayers performed for the soul of the deceased are largely addressed to him (Modi 1979: 434–44; Boyce 1996: 328–30). Srōš’s mediating role, his association with ritual prayer, and his concern for correct liturgical practice were replicated in the role and functions of the Zoroastrian priesthood. He was worshipped during priestly initiation ceremonies and often even referred to as dastvar (NP dastūr), that is, as a priestly authority and overseer of Zoroastrian orthopraxy (Kreyenbroek 1985: 120–23, 159, 161–63, 169).

59 In the dualistic system of Zoroastrianism, Srōš, the beneficent deity, was traditionally countered by Xēšm, the demon of Anger; see Shaked 1979: 29. 60 For the hymns addressed to him, see Kreyenbroek 1985: 34ff. 61 Cumont notes that this belief was maintained throughout the medieval history of Iran. See Cumont 1942: 288–89. See also Balʿamī’s expanded translation of al-Ṭabarī’s history in which Gayūmarth, the first man according to Zoroastrian tradition, instructs his daughter to keep a white rooster in the house together with a hen in order to prevent demons from harming her son Siyāmak (see Bahār and Gunābādī 1385/2006: 83). Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 113

While the Zoroastrian symbolism of the rooster angel in the Islamic ascension narrative has been noted by a number of Iranists (Russell 2002: 211; Skjærvø 2005: 248), the particular relevance of the symbolism within the Islamic religious context has never been explained. If we accept the idea that the ascension narrative served as a missionary text and that versions containing the motif of the cosmic rooster were originally addressed to a Zoroastrian audience, we can readily discern the role the motif played in the narrative. As already noted, Muḥammad encounters the rooster angel in the first or lowest heaven, the point of contact between heaven and earth. This alludes to Srōš’s role as mediator between the heavenly and earthly realms, symbolically represented by the fact that his feet are on the earth while his head touches the divine Throne. The rooster’s appearance right after Muḥammad’s meeting with Adam points to Srōš’s role as man’s nocturnal guardian, since it will be recalled that Muḥammad’s heavenly ascension takes place at night. Finally, the Zoroastrian rooster angel’s presence alongside the angel Gabriel, his Islamic counterpart, may be interpreted as homologizing their roles. The most important symbolical function of the rooster in the Islamic ascension narrative is its association with ritual prayer. Since in virtually all of its versions, the ascension narrative provides a mythic explanation for the number of daily prayers in Islam (which, as noted earlier, was a post-Qurʾanic development), a Zoroastrian audience would probably have related the five daily prayers in Islam to the five gāhs, or times of ritual prayer in Zoroastrianism.62 Moreover, they would also have recognized the motif of the rooster angel as representing Srōš, their angelic protector and beloved deity of prayer and immediately grasped its religious significance and liturgical associations, now set in an Islamic context.

The Jews at the Edge of the World: Targetting a Jewish Audience

To focus on versions of the ascension narrative that appear to have been addressed to a Jewish audience, I will examine a narreme that describes Muḥammad’s visit to a ‘righteous people’ who can arguably be interpreted as representing Jews.63

62 Scholars have long recognized the parallel between the number of ritual prayers in the two religions. See Goldziher 1967–73: IV, 246; Osztern 1934: 348; Yarshater 1998: 33; Daniel 2008: 74. 63 For the narreme, see Kitab-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 57v–58r, and Gruber 2010: 72–73. The Chaghatay Turkish translation of a Persian version is in Thackston 1994: 284–85 and Scherberger 2003: 79–80, Tafel 58A–58B (transliterated Turkic text), 114–115 114 Subtelny

After ascending through the seven heavenly spheres and having completed his tours of Paradise and Hell, Muḥammad is taken by the angel Gabriel to the edge of the world where he visits a people who live in the mythical cities of Jābalqā and Jābalsā. When Muḥammad inquires about their identity, Gabriel informs him that they belong to the people of Moses. These cities, traditionally described in medieval Islamic cosmographical works as situated on the eastern and western sides of the cosmic mountain Qāf, are described as being of monumental proportions.64 The houses of the Jews are described as all being of the same height and located far from their places of worship, whereas their cemeteries are situated close by.65 When he is introduced to the Jews who live there, Muḥammad asks them a series of questions. In response to his question why their houses are all the same height, they reply: ‘Because among us there is neither envy nor pride’. In response to his question why their places of worship are far from their homes while their cemeteries are close by, the Jews answer it is so that, by exerting themselves to reach their places of worship, their reward will be greater, and they will always be mindful of death.66 Assuring Muḥammad that they perform their prayers, fast, honour their parents, and so on, they then ask him for some words of ‘advice’ (naṣīḥat).67 Muḥammad

(German trans.), 152–153 (facsimile ed.). For an Arabic version by al-Izniqī, see Özdemir 1986: 148ff. For a discussion of it, see Subtelny 2010: 59–66. 64 The ancient Iranian mythological motif of the cosmic mountain at the edge of the world was incorporated early on into medieval Islamic cosmology. Known as Mount Qāf, it was described as an inaccessible place, situated at the point where the earth meets the first heavenly sphere of the moon. Believed to have been fashioned by God out of green emer- ald, Mount Qāf was the abode of such fabulous creatures as the jinn and the mythical bird Sīmurgh, and since it contained the ‘tree of all seeds’ and the spring of eternal life, it was reckoned to be the source of all plant and animal life on earth. See Yāḥaqqī 1386/2007: 643–46; Brinner 2002: 9; Heinen 1982: 171. 65 The reference to the size or height of the Jews’ houses is unclear. My translation of the phrase to mean that all the houses were of the same height is corroborated by other sources, which provide the Jews’ own explanation that they did not build their houses higher than their neighbours so as not to deprive them of sunlight or prevent the breeze from reaching everyone at night. See, e.g., Özdemir 1986: 151; Wheeler 2003: 207, 209 (based on al-Qazwīnī); Boeschoten 1995: II, 616. 66 The explanation that walking the distance to their places of worship is a meritorious act is reminiscent of the variations on the cycle of prophetic Traditions that recommend walking to the mosque from a distant place of habitation as one of the expiatory actions (kaffārāt); see Gimaret 1996: 77–78. 67 The Jews’ assurances that they fulfill these obligations would seem to be in response to Q 2:83, which was addressed to the Children of Israel (Banū Isrāʾīl) regarding their failure to fulfill their covenantal obligations, except for a small number among them. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 115 complies by saying: ‘Fear God, do not be prideful, and obey the commandments!’ The Jews accept Muḥammad’s words, thereby expressing their belief in him as a prophet. That they also accept the religion of Islam is indicated by the final comment made by Muḥammad in one version of the narrative:

‘They all accepted [what I said] . . . They all expressed their belief (īmān) [in Islam]. May God, who is exalted, grant them all success in [the performance of] good deeds and in obedience [to the faith and practice of Islam]. May He deliver them from the torments of Hell and grant them the reward of Paradise. Amen, o Lord of the Worlds!’ (Thackston 1994: 284–85; Scherberger 2003: 80, Tafel 58B, ll. 13–17).

The narreme about the Jews at the edge of the world is attested in the versions ascribed pseudepigraphically to Ibn ʿAbbās in a number of different variants. In a Persian version dating from the seventh/thirteenth century, Muḥammad is described as visiting a ‘righteous people’ (qaum-i ṣāliḥ) who live in the cities of Jābalqā and Jābalsā (Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma, MS, Aya Sofya 3441, fols. 57v–58r; Gruber 2010: 72–73).68 The inhabitants of the latter are identified as those Jewish proto-Muslims mentioned in Qurʾān 7:159 who were believed to have separated from the general (i.e., Rabbanite) community of Jews. According to the narrative, after Muḥammad instructs them in the fundamen- tals of the Islamic faith, they all convert to Islam. Linked exegetically to the Qurʾanic verse, ‘Among the people of Moses (min qawm Mūsā) there is a [separate] community (umma) who guide with truth and exercise justice thereby’ (Q 7:159), the motif of the righteous Jews who live at the edge of the world is attested in medieval Qurʾān commentaries, Islamic legends of the prophets, and historical and cosmological works, most of which appear to have been of Iranian provenance.69

68 In this version, which was transmitted by a certain Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Balkhī, the Jews are not the only ones who are referred to as ‘righteous,’ as Muḥammad visits them after having visited another ‘righteous people’ who inhabit the city of Jābalqā in the east and who might be identified as Christians, seeing as the narrative makes frequent reference to Christians and the Gospel. These people never lie, eat unlawful food, or even get sick, since illness is interpreted as a punishment for sin. Muḥammad invites them to accept Islam and they too become members of his community. For al-Balkhī, see Colby 2002: 306. 69 For Qurʾān commentaries, see ʿĀshūr 1422/2002: IV, 293–94. For references in legends of the prophets, see the Middle Turkic compilation by Rabghūzī (d. 710/1310), which was based on the fifth/eleventh-century Persian work by Nīshāpūrī (see Boeschoten 1995: I, 492–93 (Turkic text); II, pp. 615–17 (translation). For cosmographical works, see 116 Subtelny

The earliest textual reference to the narreme about Muḥammad’s visit to the mythic cities of Jābalqā and Jābalsā during the course of his heavenly ascension appears to be in al-Ṭabarī’s account of the Creation in his general history. Al-Ṭabarī states that God created the cities of Jābalq and Jābars in the east and the west and he identifies their inhabitants as belonging to the ‘remnant’ of the ancient peoples of ʿĀd and Thamūd, who are mentioned in the Qurʾān as having been believers in the pre-Islamic prophets (Rosenthal 1989: 237–38).70 Al-Ṭabarī’s description of the prophet Muḥammad’s assessment of these people as representing a ‘remnant’ permits us to identify them with the separate community of Jewish proto-Muslims alluded to in Qurʾān 7:159:

‘Gabriel then took me to the inhabitants of the two cities. I called on them to follow the religion of God (i.e., Islam) and to worship Him. They agreed and repented (i.e., converted). They are our brothers in the [true] religion. Those of them who do good are together with those of you (i.e., Muslims) who do good, and those among them who do evil are together with those of you who do evil’ (Rosenthal 1989: 238).71

Citing Jewish sources, the Persian cosmographer Yāqūt (d. 627/1229) identifies the inhabitants of the city of Jābars, which he locates in the far east, with the descendants of Moses (awlād Mūsā), who were deposited there by God during the wars of Saul (Ṭālūt) or Nebuchadnezzar (Bukht-Naṣṣar). They live by themselves in this unattainable place, keeping the true faith that their co-religion- ists had allegedly corrupted, and even going so far as killing those Jews who try to join them there. Yāqūt calls them ‘the remnant of the Muslims’ (baqāyā al-muslimīn), by which he means the Jewish proto-Muslims mentioned in Qurʾān (7:159), who recognized the prophecy of Muḥammad’s coming in the Torah and separated themselves from the Rabbanites in order to remain faithful to their belief in him (Yāqūt 1995: II, 90–91, s.v. Jābars).72

al-Qazwīnī 1380/1960: 27–28, s.v. Jābarsā; Wheeler 2003: 207–208 (for a translation of the passage). 70 Jābalq and Jābars are variant spellings of Jābalqā and Jābarsā or Jābalsā. Interestingly enough, al-Thaʿlabī purports to provide a Hebrew equivalent for Jābars (Jāyir Sāniyūt), for which see Brinner 2002: 34. For the ʿĀd and Thamūd, see Wheeler 2002: 102ff. 71 See also al-Ṭabarī 1388/1968: VIII, 87 (where al-Ṭabarī states that they are separated from the rest of humanity by a river of sand (or honey) and that they are ḥunafāʾ muslimūn (Muslim monotheists); cf. ʿĀshūr 1422/2002: IV, 293–94. 72 See also Wheeler 2002: 93ff. for a partial translation and discussion of the passage. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 117

Mount Qāf and its mythical cities were most closely associated in the Perso- Islamic literary tradition with the epic of Alexander, whose wanderings to the ends of the earth in search of the spring of eternal life and his meeting there with an angel caused him to be equated with the Dhū al-Qarnayn mentioned in the Qurʾān (18:83–98).73 The figure of Alexander was well known to the Jews of medieval times, as he is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Midrashic literature, and a Judaeo-Hellenistic version of the Alexander Romance was translated into Hebrew.74 Muḥammad’s line of questioning in these versions of the ascension narrative ultimately has its origins in the episode of Alexander’s encounter with the gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, of India whom Alexander tests in their philosophical knowledge.75 In the Islamicized versions of the episode discussed here, Alexander’s role is assumed by the prophet Muḥammad, while the gymnosophists become the Jews who live at the edge of the world, are ascetic, God-fearing, strictly vegetarian, and never quarrel among themselves (see, e.g., Wheeler 2003: 207). It will be recalled that, in response to Muḥammad’s question why their houses are all the same height, the Jews explain that this is because they possess neither envy (ḥasad) nor pride (takabbur). These character traits, which were popularly ascribed to Jews in medieval Islam, are refuted in the positive portrayal of the Jews in the narreme.76 The responses of the Jews to Muḥammad echo those given to Alexander by the naked philosophers in the medieval Hebrew translations of the Alexander Romance.77 Likewise, the motif of the cemeteries that are located close to the Jews’ houses is borrowed from

73 See Brinner 2002: 605–21; Wheeler 2003: 181ff.; idem 2002: 26ff. 74 These date from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries (see van Bekkum 1992: 137–39; idem 1994: 99; Rothschild 2000, esp. p. 30). Alexander is also mentioned in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature, as well as in such works as the Sefer Yosippon (comp. 953); see van Bekkum 1992: 2–13, 16–17; Tamani 1997: 222–27. 75 For the episode in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes version, dating from ca. 300 CE, see Stoneman 1991: 131–33; in the Syriac version, see Budge 1889: 92–94. For a discussion of the episode, which he interprets as representing the ‘moral heart’ of the Alexander Romance, see Stoneman 2008: 91ff. The episode is also found in the anonymous Arabic and Persian ‘Advices of Alexander’ (see de Fouchécour 1986: 32; Southgate 1978: 180–81). 76 One is reminded of the negative depiction of Jews in the well-known tale in the Mathnavī of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī about the Jewish king who persecuted Christians and his devious vizier who, motivated by envy, or ḥasad, feigned conversion to Christianity in order to subvert the Christians’ beliefs. See Nicholson 1985: Book I, ll. 429–39. 77 See van Bekkum 1992: 151: ‘Envy and rivalry have been turned away from us, and not one of us rises up against another, nor does any one of us desire or covet anything, because his property is enough for him’. 118 Subtelny the Alexander Romance and attested in its Hebrew translations, and the Jews’ response to the question regarding the reasons for this is the same or similar.78 Often conflated with the Alexander Romance was the legend of Bulūqiyā, a Jewish figure whose journey takes him across the seven seas to the ends of the earth where he visits the cosmic mountain and encounters angelic beings who provide him with a glimpse of the world beyond. Although the earliest textual evidence dates only from the tenth century, the tale of Bulūqiyā is much older, occurring not only in the Thousand and One Nights, but also in Islamic prophetic legends, cosmological works, and works of mirabilia.79 The tale is sometimes referred to as an apocalypse, and Bulūqiyā is regarded as a typical apocalyptic hero.80 In the Islamic tradition, the Jewish tale of Bulūqiyā was refocused in order to illustrate the theological doctrine of taḥrīf, which held that the original text of the Torah, which allegedly became corrupted in the hands of the Rabbinic Jews, contained the prophecy of the coming of Muḥammad (Dalley 1994: 248; Wasserstrom 2000: 240).81 Bulūqiyā is described as an ancient Israelite, sometimes as a Jewish king of Egypt, who gained foreknowledge of the coming of Muḥammad thanks to a book left behind by his father who had recognized the prophecy in the Torah but concealed it from his son.82 According to the version of the tale in the prophetic legends compiled by al-Thaʿlabī, Bulūqiyā was overcome by a desire to find Muḥammad and he set out on a quest for

78 See Stoneman 1991: 131–33; Genequand 2001: 142; van Bekkum 1992: 139 (where the sages reply that their bodies are their graves). 79 See Horovitz 1901: 522; Abel 1969: 191; Dalley 1994: 243–47, 261; eadem 1991: 7–8; Wasserstrom 2000: 246–47. The current scholarly consensus is that the tale of Bulūqiyā represents a further adaptation of the ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh which, through some sort of Jewish mediation, also found its way into the Alexander Romance. Beside al-Ṭabarī’s general history, the earliest Arabic textual reference to Bulūqiyā appears to be Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī’s Kitāb sini mulūk al-arḍ wa al-anbiyāʾ (ca. 350/961). For the tale in the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ literature, see Brinner 2002: 593–604. An abbreviated version of the tale of Bulūqiyā and the sage ʿAffān is recounted by ʿAṭṭār in Ilāhī-nāma (see Rūḥānī 1381/2002: 225–26). 80 See Dalley 1991: 12–13, where she compares the tale to the Book of Enoch; eadem 1994: 239–69; Abel 1969: 192–98, which contains a comparison with the quest of Alexander. 81 For the concept of taḥrīf, that is, the alleged corruption of the original text of the Scriptures by Jews and Christians, see Adang 1996: 223. The allusion was believed to be to Deut. 18:15 (addressed to Moses), ‘The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken’. 82 He is sometimes identified historically with the son of the king Josiah or with the prophet Jeremiah, who lived during the reign of the king Josiah, known for instituting a religious reform based on the discovery of the lost books of the law by the high priest Ḥilqiyahu. See Abel 1969: 191; Dalley 1994: 243–47; Horovitz 1901: 522; Wasserstrom 2000: 246–47. Islamic Ascension Narrative and Conversion in Medieval Iran 119 him. After crossing the seven seas, he reached Mount Qāf at the edge of the world where he met an angel with the Hebrew theophoric name Khazqīyāʾīl, who was the custodian of the mountain.83 Bulūqiyā wished to know what lay beyond Mount Qāf, a region where, according to Islamic legend, there are created beings that only God knows about. He saw a locked gate, which the angel Gabriel opened for him, beyond which he saw many marvels and fabulous creatures. He asked the angels about Muḥammad, but since he had not yet made his appearance in history, they responded that they had not seen him and asked Bulūqiyā to convey their greetings to him should he meet up with him himself (Brinner 2002: 593–604).84 In short, the tale of the Jewish apocalyptic hero Bulūqiyā, which has many features in common with the epic of Alexander, would have been sufficiently well known to a Jewish audience for it to interpret Muḥammad’s journey to the mythic cities of Mount Qāf in terms of the epic quests of both Alexander and Bulūqiyā, and to see themselves as the righteous, albeit socially marginal, Children of Israel who had been patiently waiting for the prophet of Islam promised to them in their own Scripture. Most telling from the point of view of conversion strategy is the advice (naṣīḥat) Muḥammad gives the Jews. The term naṣīḥat had a religio-ethical connotation in medieval Islam, denoting the good counsel a Muslim was morally obliged to give a co-religionist regarding Islamic beliefs and practices.85 By providing the Jews with such advice, Muḥammad is in effect regarding them as Muslims. What has not been noticed before in the scholarly discussions of the narreme is that Muḥammad’s words represent an interpolation of the well-known verse with which the Book of Ecclesiastes ends: ‘Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man’ (Eccles. 12:13).86 With its characteristic Jewish themes of fear of God and

83 Probably Hebrew Hizqiel, who in Jewish angelology is the angel who serves as the chief aide to Gabriel (see Davidson 1967: 141). According to an Islamic legend, Khazqīyāʾīl was a proto-monotheist who concealed his beliefs from Pharaoh until Moses’s triumph over Pharaoh’s sorcerers. He is the true believer alluded to in Q 40:28 (see Brinner 2002: 311). 84 For al-Thaʿlabī’s Jewish sources and their significance, see Wasserstrom 2000: 244–45. According to Wasserstrom (2000: 240–47), the Apocalypse of Abraham may have served as a source for the version in al-Thaʿlabī. 85 For the moral imperative of naṣīḥa in Islam, see van Ess 1991–97: I, 194. 86 The use of Scriptural interpolations is also attested in versions of the ascension narrative that were aimed at a Christian audience. The Book of Muhammad’s Ladder, which preserves an original Arabic version of the ascension narrative in Latin and Old French translations dating from thirteenth-century Spain, contains slightly paraphrased citations from the New Testament Book of Revelation (4:6–8), better known as the Apocalypse of St. John. See Besson and Brossard-Dandré 1991: 158, 160; Hyatte 1997: 127; Subtelny, forthcoming. 120 Subtelny obedience to the commandments, Muḥammad’s ‘advice’ could not but have resonated with a Jewish audience. In fact, it serves as the immediate catalyst for their conversion to Islam.

The Interface between Orality and Textuality

I have attempted to demonstrate in a limited way how specific narremes inserted into the Islamic ascension narrative may have been used to embed particular religio-cultural messages that would have appealed to Zoroastrian or Jewish audiences, as the case may be, during the historical period of conversion in Iran and Persianate Central Asia. The instability of the narrative would have contributed to the elaboration of motifs and the substitution of narremes, particularly in the course of oral performance. The apocalyptic genre, with its emphasis on visionary imagination and personal experience, would have appealed to members of both religious communities who, already familiar with the literary genre in their own religious traditions, would have been led to believe that, by accepting Islam, they would not be abandoning their own beliefs and practices, but rather preserving them in an ‘updated’ Islamic form. The recent surge of interest in the Islamic ascension narrative has contributed much new information about the textual tradition of the work, thereby helping to illuminate the development of the narrative itself in medieval Islamic cultures. But little is known about the influence of the oral dimension on the transmission of the narrative, an aspect which admittedly is difficult to document. However, the textual tradition betrays signs of oral transmission, and even though the evidence for the interface between orality and textuality is only internal, we need to remain open to the probability that the textual tradition that has come down to us in the form of scattered manuscripts does not tell the whole story.

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Yarshater, Ehsan. 1998. ‘The Persian Presence in the Islamic World.’ In The Persian Presence in the Islamic World. Ed. Richard G. Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh. Thirteenth Georgio Levi Della Vida Biennial Conference. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 4–125. CHAPTER 5 The Motif of the Cave and the Funerary Narratives of Nāṣir-i Khusrau

Jo-Ann Gross

Though this Cave of the World (ghār-i jahān) is truly a tenement dark and dire, If my ‘Friend of the Cave’ (yār-i ghār) be Reason (ʿaql), what more can my heart desire? Deem not the world, O my son, a thing to hate and to flee, For a hundred thousand blessings it has yielded even to me.1

The above verse, from the Dīvān of the celebrated Ismāʿīlī poet-philosopher and ḥujjat (chief dāʿī) of Khurāsān, Nāṣir-i Khusrau (394/1004–ca. 470/1077), was written during his years of exile in the remote valley of Yumgān in present- day Afghan Badakhshān, where, according to local tradition, he lived in a cave. In his poem, Nāṣir-i Khusrau associates the cave with the two coexisting worlds, the exoteric (ẓāhir) and esoteric (bāṭin), and with the intellect (ʿaql). For Nāṣir-i Khusrau, the creation of the material world flows from God through the Intellect and the Soul. ‘Just as batin cannot exist without zahir, or creator without creature, so too knowledge without action is vain’ (Hunsberger 2000: 84). The dark ‘cave of the world’ is thus the ẓāhir, the physical world in which Nāṣir-i Khusrau is confined in exile, and the locus of his tomb after death. The ‘friend of the cave’ ( yār-i ghār), recalls the tradition of Muḥammad and his companion, Abū Bakr, during their migration (hijra) to Mecca when they hid together in a cave at Mount Thaur, but in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s poem the ‘friend of the cave’ is the intellect (ʿaql).2 ‘When one advances, acting on true knowl-

1 Mīnuvī and Muḥaqqiq 1353/1974: 126, v. 56, ll. 30–32. Trans. Browne 1906: 240. See also Browne 1905. In local Pamiri tradition, yārān-i ghār (‘friends of the cave’) refers to those who joined Nāṣir-i Khusrau in his mission in Yumgān. Yār-i ghār is also mentioned in the Qandīl-nāma of the Chirāgh-nāma, an Ismāʿīlī work from Badakhshān that preserves religious practices associated with the sanctity of light and, in the words of Wladimir Ivanow, reflects a ‘Sufic- Ismāʿīlī mentality’ (see Ivanow 1338/1959: 21 [Persian text]). 2 Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī begins ghazal no. 4 in the Dīvān-i Shams-i Tabrīzī with ‘I have this friend / I have this cave (yār ma-rā ghār ma-rā) // I am gutted by love/ you are that friend // you are

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_007 The Motif Of The Cave 131 edge, and when knowledge drives and directs one’s actions, free of doubt and falsehood, one experiences a portion of Heaven on earth. When this primacy of knowledge is combined with the notion of zahir and batin, the search for knowledge becomes the search for the inner meaning of things . . .’ (Hunsberger 2000: 80). The notion of the cave as a sacred place of protective enclosure, revelation, spiritual retreat, burial, and symbolic passage is a universal motif in traditions from ancient times to the present. Caves are associated with the birthplace of religious progenitors, such as Mithras, Abraham, and Jesus, among others.3 Subterranean rock-cut caves were commonplace forms of internment in the ancient Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, East Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia. A prevalent feature in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cave narratives is the theme of protective enclosure as a means of escaping religious persecution and as a sign of God’s omnipotence. A number of biblical narratives concerns those who retreat into caves to hide: David hid from Saul in caves (1 Samuel 24:1–3); Obadiah hid a hundred prophets in two caves to escape death at the hands of Jezebel (1 Kings 18:4); the Israelites hid from the oppression of the Midianites by constructing dens in the mountains and hiding in caves (Judges 6:2). In the Islamic context, in Q 18: 9–26, Sūrat al-kahf (The Cave), the aṣḥāb al-kahf (Men of the Cave) fled to a cave to seek refuge from persecution due to their monotheistic beliefs and God caused them and their dog to fall asleep for 309 years under His protection.4

that cave / my lord, don’t cast me off’ (translation in Lewis 2000: 340). Here Rūmī refers to his beloved, Shams, as his companion as well as the locus of spiritual retreat. 3 On the birth of Mithras, see Vermaseren 1952: 285–301. For Jewish legends concerning the birth of Abraham, see Ginzburg 2003: I, 186–89; Graves and Patai 1963 [1964]: 134–39. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was constructed over the cave in which Jesus is said to have been born. 4 Q 18:10–14: ‘Behold, the youths betook themselves to the Cave: they said, “Our Lord! Bestow on us mercy from Thyself, and dispose of our affair for us in the right way!” Then we drew (a veil) over their ears for a number of years in the Cave (so that they heard not): Then We roused them, in order to test which of the two parties was best at calculating the term of years they had tarried! We related to thee their story in truth: they were youths who believed in their Lord, and We advanced them in guidance’. The story of the aṣḥāb al-kahf follows the earlier Christian tale of the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus’. See Tottoli 2003; Campo 2001; Paret 1960. Q 18:83–98 contains the popular story of Dhū al-Qarnayn (‘The Two-Horned One,’ usually referring to the Islamic Alexander/Iskandar) and the Wall of Gog and Magog. I recently visited the Mausoleum of the aṣḥāb al-kahf in Tuyukhojam, Turfan, China, where Uyghur Muslims believe the cave is located. For more on this shrine and its tradition, see Shinmen 2004. 132 Gross

The cave is also a place in which to receive knowledge through contempla- tion, revelation, or the mediation of a sage or spiritual advisor.5 The Islamic paradigm is the prophet Muḥammad, who received his first revelations in a cave on Mount Ḥirāʾ (Q 96:1–5). In Sufism, the 40-day retreat (chilla) in the secluded space of the chilla-khāna is often located in a subterranean chamber.6 In Islamic narratives of epic heroes and kings seeking counsel from ascetics, sages or philosophers often meet in caves or on mountains, as depicted in the meeting of Alexander/Iskandar and the Hermit in the Sharaf- nāma of Niẓāmī (Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 330–33, ll. 52–99). In this study, I examine the motif of the cave as it relates specifically to the oral and written traditions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s death and burial in Yumgān, and reflect upon the parallel Islamic and related traditions they evoke. My analysis is based on two primary sources: (1) oral traditions collected during field research in Tajik Badakhshān and those recorded by Louis Dupree and Marcus Schadl; (2) the funerary narrative contained in a Risāla written in the voice of Nāṣir-i Khusrau and his brother, Abū Saʿīd, which can be traced to the tenth/sixteenth century and was published in a series of renditions, including the most recent one in Tajik/Cyrillic script published in Khorog in 1992 and

5 Plato’s famous Parable of the Cave in Book VII of The Republic is an interesting transposition in which the cave is the imprisoned world of the unenlightened, who are forced to live in the darkness of ignorance. For an analysis of the link between Platonic ideas about the Philosopher King and Nizārī Ismāʿīlī conceptions of the Imām, see Hajjar and Brezinki. There are numerous legends about Alexander/Iskandar in the Islamic world, including in Central Asia. See, e.g., Frank 2000; DeWeese 1994: 288–90. The traditions of Alexander/Iskandar in the Persianate literary tradition include Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, Niẓāmī’s Iskandar-nāma and the Āʾīna-yi Sikandarī by Amīr Khusrau Dihlavī, among many others. On the Alexandrian legends in the Persian tradition, see, e.g., Stoneman 2008: 27–48; see also J. Rubanovich’s article in this volume. 6 In Shiʿite exegesis, the Seven Sleepers are associated with the notion of ghayba, or occultation (see Brown 1983–84: 165). Brown refers to Massignon’s work on the role of Khiḍr in the Islamic tradition, specifically the relationship between Khiḍr and the Seven Sleepers and Dhū al-Qarnayn’s Wall. He writes: ‘The interpenetration works both ways: Khidr is assimilated to the Seven Sleepers: he is an anchorite who has to flee from persecution and lives exempt from death, having found the Fountain of Life, concealed in a remote island. The melting or merging – “confusion” – of Khidr and the Seven Sleepers generates mystical, i.e., non-literal, interpretations of that sleep. [. . .] The literalists, Christian or Islamic, cite the story as “proof” of the resurrection, literally understood as life after death. Seen with the inward eye, to be immured alive in a cave is an image of saintly or eremite withdrawal from the world, taking refuge with Allah; and sleep the image of that extinction of self, that condition of being lost in God which characterizes the saint (wali) as distinct from the Prophet (nabi) . . .’ (ibid.). See also Massignon 1969a; idem 1969b. The Motif Of The Cave 133

figure 5.1 ʻAlexander/Iskandar and the Hermit in the Cave.ʼ Khamsa of Niẓāmī, 1535–1540 British Library, Add. 25 900, f. 250 entitled Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Kuddusi Sara (Pers. Safar- nāma-yi Ḥaḍrat-i Sayyid Nāṣir-i Khusrau-i Quddūs-i Sara).

Orality and Textuality and the Problem of Authenticity

The fruits of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s knowledge and actions may be seen in the significant body of written work that he left, which includes his well-known travelogue, Safar-nāma, poetry, and prose works on Ismāʿīlī doctrine, all of which were written in the Persian language.7 However, although his works have been

7 Five Persian lithographed editions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān were published, the first by Ibn al-Ḥusayn ʿAskar Urdūbādī in Tabrīz in 1280/1864 (see Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864). Two printed editions of the Dīvān were published in Iran, see Taqavī 1304–1307/1925–28, and more recently, Mīnuvī and Muḥaqqiq 1353/1974. For a review of the lithographed and printed editions of the works of Nāṣir-i Khusrau, see Daftary 2004: 134–40. Also available are three publications of English translations of selected poems from the Dīvān; see Wilson and Aavani 134 Gross the subject of detailed analysis, scant attention has been paid to the rich body of indigenous narrative traditions from Badakhshān about Nāṣir-i Khusrau, where he is considered to be the Pīr-i quddūs, or sacred pīr, and where his legacy informs an essential aspect of contemporary Ismāʿīlī spiritual identity and ethical behaviour.8 This lack of attention is due to two main factors: (1) the preference of scholars for standard literary and historical texts over oral, hagiographic traditions; (2) the lack of access to the region of Badakhshān during the Soviet period and the subsequent civil war in Tajikistan, and the enduring years of war in Afghanistan. Recent research in post-Soviet Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān is beginning to shift our perspective to a localized understanding of Pamiri politics, society, and culture, including religious traditions, and to make previously unknown sources available for the first time.9 Nineteenth and twentieth-century scholars of Ismaʿilism have considered biographical and autobiographical narratives of Nāṣir-i Khusrau to be suspect due to the often hostile and distorted views presented by contemporary and later historians and biographers.10 In his study of Nāṣir-i Khusrau, published in 1905, the British Orientalist Edward G. Browne writes:

1977; Schimmel 1993, and Hunzai 1996. The most recent English/Persian edition of the Safar-nāma is Thackston 2001; for the Persian edition, see Dabīr-Siyāqī 1354/1975. For a discussion of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s philosophical works, see Poonawala 1977: 123–25 and Hunsberger 2000: 10–16. For an excellent bibliography of his works, see Anṣārī 1382/2004. Six of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s philosophical works have been published, four of which are available in translation. They include an edition of Gushāyish va rahāyish (Nafīsī 1340/1961; for a recent English translation, see Hunzai 1998); an English translation of Shish faṣl by Wladimir Ivanow (Ivanow 1949); an edition of Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn (Corbin and Muʿīn 1332/1953), and a French translation by Isabelle de Gastines (de Gastines 1990); an edition of Khvān al-ikhvān (al-Khashshāb 1940); two editions of Vajh-i dīn (Ghanīzāda and Qazvīnī 1343/1924; Āvanī (= Aavani) 2536/1977) and of Zād al-musāfirīn (Badhl al-Raḥmān 1341/1923; Ḥāʾirī and Ḥāʾirī 1384/2005). 8 See, for example, Browne 1905; Elʾchibekov 2005b; Ethé 1885; Haravī 2535/1976; Hunsberger 2000; eadem 1993; Ivanow 1948; idem 1956; Nanji 1993; Sharma 2005. 9 For scholarship in Tajikistan, see, for example, Elʾchibekov 2005a; idem 2005b; Hajjibikoff 2006; Iloliev 2008a; idem 2008b; Kalandarov 2004; idem 2006a; idem 2006b; Jonboboev and Shohzodamuhammad 1992; Iskandarov 1995; Qurbonshoev 2009; Mamadsherzodshoev [= Shohzodamuhammad] 2009; Shohzodamuhammad [= Mamadsherzodshoev] 2006; Shakarmamadov and Jonboboev 2003; Shakarmamadov 2005. For Western scholarship, see Gross 2013; Jacquesson 2005; Kassam 2009; idem 2010; Van den Berg 2003; Mock 1998; idem, forthcoming, Schadl 2009. 10 For a critical analysis of the sources on Nāṣir-i Khusrau, see Bertelʾs 1959 and Hunsberger 2000: 17–32. The Motif Of The Cave 135

Ignored by most historians and biographers on account of his heretical doctrines, and credited with all manner of magical powers and strange adventures by a fearful and credulous posterity, a mass of legend has grown up around him, and obscured a personality of extraordinary interest and originality, which only his own works, to wit, his Safar-náma, or Book of Travel, and his Díwán of poems and other poetical works, really reveal. Already in al-Qazwíní’s Átháru’l-Bilád, or “Monuments of the Lands” [. . .], composed in the first half of the thirteenth century, only about a hundred and fifty years after Náṣir-i Khusrau’s death, he is represented as a King of Balkh, driven by his rebellious subjects to take refuge in the strongly fortified town of Yumgán [. . .], and there surrounding himself with marvellous buildings, strange automata which it was dangerous to look on for fear of losing one’s reason, and all manner of awful talismans and magical contrivances. Two or three centuries later, so far as can be judged, was produced the still more wonderful pseudo-autobiography, which in the East still passes current as the most authentic account of Náṣir-i Khusraw (Browne 1905: 325–26).

Ivanow comments in his introduction to the Pamiri text entitled Kalami Pir. A Treatise on Ismaili Doctrine, also (wrongly) called Haft-Babi Shah Sayyid Nasir, published in 1935:

The accounts of the earlier historians and heresiologists are usually of very limited value. Rarely are their opinions based on genuine original documents; and even when such documents were available, the author’s religious prejudices or political animosity invariably prevented him from taking an impartial attitude. For this very reason one of the most important problems of research in the Mediaeval culture of Persia is to discover, and, when discovered, to make easily accessible, genuine original works dealing with the doctrine of Persian Ismailism (Ivanow 1935: v).11

Most recently, Alice Hunsberger, in her book chapter entitled ‘Heretic, Magician or King?’ writes:

Over the centuries, accounts of Nasir Khusraw’s life assert that he was variously a king, a heretic, a reincarnationist, the leader of a sect named

11 Although Ivanow concludes that Nāṣir-i Khusrau is not the author of the treatise, he does not consider it to be fictitious and presents its value as ‘a genuine document concerning the evolution of Ismailism’ (Ivanow 1935: xv). On this see also below, n. 28. 136 Gross

after himself, that he built palaces and gardens by magic, that he lived on the top of a mountain eating only once every twenty-five days, that he lived to be more than 100-years-old, and that he subsisted solely on the smell of food (Hunsberger 2000: 17–18).12

My intention is not to deny the imaginary elements in the funerary narrative contained in the Risāla. Rather, it is to recognize its value for the study of Pamiri Ismāʿīlī culture and of the paradigmatic figure of Nāṣir-i Khusrau, and to acknowledge the implicit interrelationship between orality and textuality in the Pamiri narrative tradition about him, as well as the role that such accounts play in the construction of Pamiri Ismāʿīlī memory and religious identity.13 As will be shown, oral legends concerning the death of Nāṣir-i Khusrau that are prevalent in Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān resonate with those legends that have been codified in written texts dating from the tenth/sixteenth century through the 1990s. Historically, the primary method of communicating the religious, social and cultural traditions of the Ismāʿīlī community in Badakhshān is oral, through teaching, singing, ritual, and prayer.14 Pīrs, as the local representatives of the Imām, and the khalīfas who were appointed by them, were also known to record the traditions in written form, often elaborating upon them. Pīrs, khalīfas, and their descendants preserved these and other texts, including copies of the Qurʾān, tafsīr, and works on philosophy, science, law, Sufism, and literature. They also preserved family genealogies, local histories, guides for Ismāʿīlī ritual practices and invocations, biographies, and poetic works, although many such texts were lost during the Soviet period, when religious practice was forbidden and official expeditions were sent to the villages to collect Islamic manuscripts for newly established state archives.15 The study of this body of indigenous

12 In addition to al-Qazwīnī’s account on Nāṣir-i Khusrau, see Daulatshāh’s Tadhkirat al-shuʿarā (Browne 1901: 61–64). Hunsberger (2000: 21–25) also notes accounts in al-Bayḍāvī’s Niẓām al-tavārīkh and Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh. 13 As Devin DeWeese states in his study of the master-discipline relationship in Iran and Central Asia: ‘The history of Sufism offers abundant examples of the interplay and jux- taposition of oral and written modes of marking or legitimizing religious authority and of transmitting religious “knowledge” or proficiency, and even more so of the interplay of verbal and non-verbal modes of communicating religious meaning and authority’ (DeWeese 2008: 293). 14 See, e.g., Van den Berg and Van Belle 1993–95. 15 During my field research, I heard many stories from elders about how their family’s personal collections (books, documents, and manuscripts) had been lost during the Soviet period. Some managed to hide and preserve them; some buried them only to find they The Motif Of The Cave 137 oral traditions, and the extant texts that codified and elaborated upon them, is therefore essential to grasp a firm understanding of the religious conceptions of Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān.16 My first exposure to a written narrative concerning the burial of Nāṣir-i Khusrau was the Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Kuddusi Sara (Pers. Safar-nāma-yi Ḥaḍrat-i Sayyid Nāṣir-i Khusrau-i Quddūs-i Sara; not to be confused with Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s famous travelogue by the same name), a fifteen- page Tajik/Cyrillic transcription of a Persian text from Shughnān, Badakhshān, which was published in Khorog in 1992 together with another legendary Risāla about Nāṣir-i Khusrau entitled Bahr ul-akhbor: Silsilai hikoyatho doir ba hayoti Nosiri Khusrav va sayohati u dar Badakhshonzamin (Pers. Baḥr al-akhbār).17 According to the editor, the handwriting of the Persian text on which the Tajik translation of the Bahr ul-akhbor is based, is that of Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh (1869/70–1935), a well-known scholar, teacher, and callig- rapher from the qishlāq of Porshnev in Shughnān and the author of Tārīkh-i Shāhān-i Shughnān (‘The History of the Shāhs of Shughnān’).18 His present- day descendants believe that he collected the narratives contained in it from a

had disappeared or been destroyed; others recalled visits by officials who gathered such materials and never returned them. 16 The current work of Daniel Beben, University of Indiana, who is writing his doctoral dissertation about the traditions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Badakhshān, is particularly promising in this regard. 17 The title used by Rahim Rahmonkulov for publication is Bahr ul-akhbor (see Mirzojalolov 1992). I am grateful to Abdulmamad Iloliev for providing me with a copy of this Tajik edition. Umed Mamadsherzodshoev graciously shared his knowledge about these sources and provided me with one section of the 60-page Persian manuscript written in the handwriting of Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh. At the end of the manuscript, which is dated 1336/1917, Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh writes that it is named Jāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va baḥr al-akhbār. According to Umed Mamadsherzodshoev, the manuscript, which I have not seen, is divided into three parts: Safar-nāma-yi Nāṣir-i Khusrau va zindagānī-yi ū; Āmadān-i Sayyid Suhrābī Valī va Bābā Ḥaydar, and Āmadan-i Malik Jahān Shāh. The Tajik text published in 1992, Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Quddusi Sara, will hereafter be cited as Safarnoma. 18 Rahim Rahmonkulov notes in his introduction to the Bahr ul-akhbor (Mirzojalolov 1992: 3–4) that he first concluded that Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh was the author, since his signature is written in each section of the text. However, after discussing the text with a poet named Shohzamoniddin Adim (= Shāhzamān al-Dīn Adīm), he decided that Saidjaloli Munji (= Sayyid Jalāl-i Badakhshānī) is the author, since there are episodes in the text about Munjon in Afghanistan. This conclusion, however, is dubious since the latter name is unknown in Badakhshān and never mentioned in the manuscript. Moreover, it is not accepted by the family of Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid 138 Gross combination of oral traditions and written texts in order to preserve the local history of Nāṣir-i Khusrau. Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh’s paternal ancestor was the Ismāʿīlī foundational figure, Shāh Malang, who is believed to have come to Badakhshān from the city of Sabzavār in Khurāsān in the tenth/sixteenth century.19 Shāhzādamuḥammad’s grandfather, Sayyid ibn Shāhpartāvī, was one of the leading scholars of his time, and his brother, Sayyid Yūsuf ʿAlī Shāh, was Pīr-i rūḥānī-yi mardum-i Shughnān.20 Many Pamiris came to study with Shāhzādamuḥammad and he had numerous followers. He knew Latin, Hindi, Arabic, Tajik, Shughnī, and Russian, and a number of prominent Russian scholars worked with him during their expeditions to the Pamir to study the folklore, ethnography, and languages of the region, including A.A. Semenov, A. Andreev, and I.I. Zarubin. The handwriting of the second manuscript published together with Bahr ul-akhbor, Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Kuddusi Sara, the subject of this paper, is unknown.21 Written in the voice of Nāṣir-i Khusrau and his brother, Abū Saʿīd, the first eight pages describe Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s religious education, accusations against him of heresy, time spent in Cairo and Baghdad, various miraculous actions and use of magic, and fleeing from Nīshāpūr to Badakhshān, where he settled in Yumgān. In the next four pages, Nāṣir-i Khusrau describes his deathbed scene and, in testimonial style, gives instructions to his brother, Abū Saʿīd, to carry out his funeral. The final three pages contain his brother’s own first-hand description of the burial itself.22 Further study reveals the existence of multiple narrative versions of the so-called ‘pseudo-autobiography,’ the earliest of which is contained in Risālat al-nadāma fī yaum al-qiyāma (‘A Repentant Treatise for the Day of Judgment’) in Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad Kāshānī’s tenth/sixteenth-century compendium of

Farukhshāh. For the life and works of Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh, see Shohzodamuhammad [= Mamadsherzodshoev] 1993. 19 For discussion of Shāh Malang and other Ismāʿīlī foundational figures and their shrines in Badakhshān, see Gross 2013. Other traditions place Shāh Malang in the sixth/twelfth century. 20 The Russian scholar Aleksey Bobrinskoy came to study the customs of the Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān and interviewed Yūsuf ʿAlī Shāh (see Bobrinskoy 1908). 21 Personal communication with Umed Mamadsherzodshoev. I have not seen the original Persian text from Shughnān upon which the Tajik edition is based. 22 The Safarnoma begins with the simple statement that the truth regarding the writing of the Risāla is that ‘Nāṣir b. Khusrau b. Ḥārith b. ʿĪsā b. Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Mūsā b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riḍā’ wrote about the events and circumstances of his life. Cf. also Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 106b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1227/1860: 187; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336– 40/1957–60: III, 1010. The Motif Of The Cave 139

figure 5.2 Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh and His Sons, Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad (left) and Muhammad Sherzodshoh (right). Porshnev, Badakhshān Private collection of Umed Mamadsherzodshoev poets, Khulāṣat al-ashʿār va zubdat al-afkār (completed 985/1577–78).23 Other renditions are included in the Haft iqlīm (‘The Seven Climes’) of Amīn Aḥmad Rāzī (completed 1002/1594; see Ṭāhirī 1378/1999: II, 895–99), in the Ātashkada-yi ādhar (‘The Fire Temple’; completed in 1193/1779) of Ḥājjī Luṭf ʿAlī Big Ādhar (d. 1195/1781),24 and in the introduction to the 1280/1864 Tabrīz lithograph

23 Two volumes of the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār va zubdat al-āfkār have been published, but not the one containing the Risāla. For this paper MS 4146 of the Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī Library, Tehran, has been consulted (see Kāshānī). In his introduction to Sefer Nameh [Safar- nāma]: Relation du Voyage de Nassiri Khosrau, Charles Schefer (1881: vii–viii) notes: ‘A shi- ite author, Taqy ed Din Mohammed Kachy translated an autobiography written by Nassiri Khosrau in Arabic entitled Rissalet en Nedameh fi zad il qiameh [= Risālat al-nadāma fī yaum al-qiyāma]’. After describing it as ‘full of fabulous details’ he includes excerpts in French translation (ibid.: viii–xvii). 24 Ādhar Baygdilī 1812; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60. On Hājjī Luṭf ʿAlī Big and his Ātashkada-yi ādhar, see Bland 1843. 140 Gross edition of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān.25 Charles Schefer also includes passages from it in the introduction to his French translation of the Safar-nāma.26 Kāshānī’s text and Luṭf ʿAlī Big’s recension were apparently unknown to the editor of the 1992 Tajik edition of the Safarnoma, highlighting the local roots of the tradition of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Badakhshān as well as his unfamiliarity with the textual tradition. Although it is impossible to trace the origins of the so-called Arabic text, it is not inconceivable to consider that parts of the tradition, including the funerary narrative, were compiled from indigenous Pamiri oral traditions that had been collected, circulated, and recorded over time, including those preserved by learned men of Badakhshān. Moreover, the portion devoted to the funerary narrative stands apart from the earlier portion of the text, which reveals Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s life history and exploits. Further evidence of such a compilatory process involving the interplay between the oral and the written may be found in the above-mentioned Kalām-i Pīr, an Ismāʿīlī philosophical treatise from Badakhshān falsely attributed to Nāṣir-i Khusrau.27 This text contains autobiographical passages at the beginning of the work that Ivanow found to be identical to the Ātashkada of Luṭf ʿAlī Ādhar, and which he concludes as ‘purely fictitious’.28 It is plausible that Shāhzādamuḥammad

25 See Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864. Alice Hunsberger (2000: 260, n. 2, and 263, n. 29) notes the Risāla which appeared in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār as well as in the Ātashkada and the Tabrīz edition of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān. Hunsberger apparently did not see a manuscript copy of the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār since she includes no references to it. She was unaware of the Tajik language edition of the Safarnoma. 26 See n. 23 above. Except for minor narrative differences and the use of some terminology, there is little variation between the Ātashkada and the Safarnoma, while there are more substantive differences in the Risāla in Khulāṣat al-ashʿār. Whenever possible, when making references to specific passages we will cite all three texts (Khulāṣat al-ashʿār va zubdat al-afkār, Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Kuddusi Sara and the introduction to the Tabrīz Dīvān). The version found in the Haft iqlīm, which is not complete, will not be used here. 27 See n. 11 above. 28 Ivanow 1935: xxi. In his introduction to his English translation, Ivanow explains why the work could not have been written by Nāṣir-i Khusrau himself, and notes that the known copies of the Kalām-i Pīr at that time, were ‘all identical in their contents, and even contain no real variants’ (ibid.: xiv). He considers the first autobiographical chapter of the work to be ‘purely fictitious, from beginning to end . . .’ (ibid.: xxi). As to why the work was believed to be written by Nāṣir-i Khusrau, Ivanow states: ‘Quite probably, this work, originally composed in Persia, was taken by a pilgrim to Badakhshān, or other Central Asian district where the cult of Nâṣiri Khusraw was very strong. Noticing that the work contained references to Imam Mustanṣir bi’l-lâh, someone “guessed” that the treatise, written in the time of Mawlâ-nâ Mustanṣir, in which the name of the author was not given, must The Motif Of The Cave 141 ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh, the writer of the Safarnoma, came across the Risāla in one form or another, i.e., the one included in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār va zubdat al-afkār, although more likely, in the Tabrīz Dīvān, or Ātashkada, through his travels to India, Afghanistan, or Iran, which was common for Ismāʿīlī religious figures and intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He could also become acquainted with it through his work with Russian scholars such as A.A. Semenov, or in Bombay where he spent seven years studying in a madrasa. Until now, the narrative contained in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār va zubdat al-afkār (and the later recensions) has been considered to be a ‘pseudo- autobiography’ of Nāṣir-i Khusrau written to malign him, since it describes his study and performance of magic and sorcery, and includes factual errors and miraculous occurrences. In the words of Edward Browne:

Two or three centuries later [after al-Qazwīnī’s Athār al-bilād], so far as can be judged, was produced the still more wonderful pseudo-autobiography, which in the East still passes current as the most authentic account of Náṣir-i Khusraw. This pseudo-autobiography, which has been analysed and criticized by Schefer, Ethé, and other eminent Persian scholars, occurs in at least three different recensions of varying length [. . .]. In it, besides the wildest anachronisms and confusion of persons, we find yet more extraordinary legends, in which astrology and demonology play a large part; and the pseudo-autobiography does not even stop at Náṣir’s death but describes how his funeral obsequies are conducted by the jin- nís. Some of the incidents narrated are evidently garbled accounts, greatly embellished by legends and fairy-tales, of events which really happened to other persons, with whom, on account of a similarity in names, or for some other reason, Náṣir-i Khusraw has been confused (Browne 1905: 326).

Browne continues: ‘Though historically worthless, the Pseudo-Autobiography has a certain literary merit which has secured and maintained its popularity, and has rendered the imaginary Náṣir-i Khusraw a much more familiar figure than the real one’ (Browne 1905: 327). The position in this paper is that the funerary

surely have been the work of the famous contemporary of that Imam the “Shâh Sayyid Nâṣir”. Once such a conjecture was made and accepted by others, it is quite possible that the same person, or someone else, who knew the pseudo-autobiography of Nâṣir (which probably was written about the end of the X/XVIth c.), added an extract from it, in the form of the first chapter, which is quite irrelevant in this work’ (ibid.: xv). 142 Gross narrative contained in the Risāla is an autobiographical and testimonial tract with hagiographic elements that records popular perceptions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau, and that contains funerary themes that parallel those expressed in oral traditions from Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān.29 Regarding the text as a ‘pseudo-autobiography,’ as claimed by Edward Browne and others, assumes that the author’s intention was to pretend to be Nāṣir-i Khusrau, and in the process, to cast dispersions on him. The key distinction I wish to make concerns the legitimacy of the text, not as historical fact, but as a reflection of certain cultural aspects of the tradition of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Badakhshān.

The Spread of Ismaʿilism to Badakhshān

The earliest propagation of Ismaʿilism to Badakhshān is commonly ascribed to Nāṣir-i Khusrau and, secondarily, to a series of travelling missionaries and local foundational figures.30 Ismāʿīlīs belong to the Shīʿa branch of Islam and recognize seven Imāms or spiritual leaders as rightful successors to the prophet Muḥammad, based on descent from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Muḥammad’s cousin and son-in-law and the fourth caliph in Sunni Islam, and Fāṭima, Muḥammad’s daughter and ʿAlī’s wife. Following the death in 148/765 of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the fifth Ismāʿīlī Imām, a dispute developed over the succession since Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s son, Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar, died before he did. Ismāʿīlīs accept Jaʿfar al-Sādiq’s son as his successor, whereas Twelver Shīʿīs reject him and instead

29 Ivanow and others have discussed the question of the relationship, indeed the coalescence between Ismaʿilism and Sufism, a rich subject of research that is particularly relevant to the Badakhshān context and requires further study. Iloliev’s work on Ṣūfī Mubārak and on saints and shrines in the Vākhān region of Tajikistan demonstrates that the concept of sainthood (vilāyat or imāmat) was prevalent in Pamiri Ismaʿilism in the post-Alamūt period in Badakhshān. See Ivanow 1975; idem 1932; Daftary 1999; Pourjavady and Wilson 1975: 118–25; Jamal 2002: 84–107. 30 Nāṣir-i Khusrau was born in Qubādiyān in 394/1004, near the city of Marv in Khurāsān, in the district of Balkh. For a review of his early years, see Hunsberger 2000: 3–6. The standard Western source for the history of Ismaʿilism is Daftary 1990. Nāṣir-i Khusrau is a highly venerated figure in Tajik Badakhshān. The momentous first visit of the Āghā Khān to Badakhshān, Tajikistan, took place in 1995. In 2003 the Institute of Ismāʿīlī Studies (IIS) and the Ismāʿīlī Religious Education Committee in Tajikistan (ITREC) organized a 3-day international conference in Khorog to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s birth. See Niyozov 2005 for a collection of articles devoted to the millennium commemoration; see also Steinberg 2006: 151–57. The Motif Of The Cave 143 accept Ismāʿīl’s younger brother, Mūsā al-Kāẓim, as the true Imām. Ismāʿīlīs believe in the concept of ongoing revelation through the guidance of the imām al-qāʾim (Imām of the Time). The authority to interpret the inner meaning (bāṭin) of the Qurʾān lies solely with the Imām as the direct descendant of ʿAlī.31 Henry Corbin describes three periods of Ismāʿīlī history: ‘(1) A primitive period of fermentation and incubation, continuing until the accession of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt (297/909). (2) The Fatimid period itself, until the death of al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh in 487/1094. (3) The period after the great schism caused, on the death of al-Mustanṣir, by the brutal dethronement of the prince Nizār, legitimate heir to the Imāmate, in favor of the prince al-Mustaʿlī’ (Corbin 1975: 522). Subsequently, the Ismāʿīlī religion split into two branches – the Western branch of the Fatimid tradition (the mustaʿliyān), and the Eastern Ismāʿīlīs, or Nizārī tradition of the ‘reformed Ismāʿīlism of Alamūt,’ which is dominant among Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān today (ibid.).32 Regarding the development of Ismaʿilism in Badakhshān, Abdulmamad Iloliev identifies two periods: that of the daʿvat-i Nāṣir (Mission of Nāṣir[-i Khusrau]), which combined ‘Ismāʿīlī theology and elements of pre-Islamic traditions and customs’ (Iloliev 2008b: 64) and that of the panj-tanī, the five purified ones of the ahl-i bayt, namely the Prophet Muḥammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (Iloliev 2008a: 6). Prior to the arrival of Ismaʿilism, the peoples inhabiting the mountainous Pamir regions practiced a variety of traditions, including aspects of Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Buddhism and forms of polytheism.33 Indeed, as Iloliev argues: ‘It is possible to argue that the daʿwa served to absorb local traditions and to bring them into the realm of Ismāʿīlism’ (Iloliev 2008a: 64). He notes:

31 For a discussion of the concept of qiyāma and the imām al-qāʾim in Nizārī Ismaʿilism of the Alamūt period, see Daftary 1990: 388–412. 32 The split occurred after the death of Nāṣir-i Khusrau. The Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān belong to the Nizārī community, whose members follow the Āghā Khān; the present and 49th Imām is Prince Karīm al-Ḥussaynī Āghā Khān IV. 33 Many ancient fortresses associated with pre-Islamic rulers dot the landscape in Vākhān. The famous Qah-Qaha fortress is located in the village of Namadgūt, and local legend is that the fire-worshipping ruler, Qah-Qaha was conquered by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib himself. The imaginary shrine of Shāh-i Mardān (King of the Men, referring to ʿAlī), is located opposite the fortress. Shrines and sacred places where Imām ʿAlī or his camel or horse are believed to have passed are found throughout Central Asia, including in Afghan and Tajik Badakhshān. The ruins of Buddhist temples are also found in Vākhān as well. See Iloliev 2010. 144 Gross

Although some elements of Islam or Ismāʿīlī faith may have existed in the Pamir principalities prior to Nāsir-i Khusraw’s trip, his mission (Daʿwat-i Nāsir) was a significant point in the long process of shifting ideas and identities in the region. It remarkably shaped the collective memory of the indigenous people and their application of the Ismāʿīlī and other Islamic ideas (e.g. Sufi and the Twelver Shīʿī) in the local cultural context (ibid.: 63).34

It was during the Fatimid period that Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s reputation blossomed. After his conversion to Ismaʿilism in the Fatimid capital of Cairo, Nāṣir-i Khusrau established close relations with the Fatimid caliph, al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh (d. 487/1094), who appointed him to the position of ḥujjat as the Imām’s representative in Khurāsān (Corbin 1975: 536–37). Nāṣir-i Khusrau returned to Balkh in 444/1052 to spread the faith. He was forced to flee from Khurāsān in 453/1060–61 due to his controversial writings and missionary activities, and settled in the remote valley of Yumgān in present-day Afghan Badakhshān, under the protection of a local Ismāʿīlī prince named ʿAlī b. al-Asad, Amīr of Badakhshān,35 where he remained until his death some twenty to twenty-five years later.36

The Motif of the Cave: Oral Traditions from Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān

In 2004 when I first met with Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad (b. 1921), son of Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Farukhshāh and a prominent pīr and resident of the village of Porshnev in Shughnān district, we discussed the Ismāʿīlī shrines in Shughnān and Vākhān and the oral traditions related to those who are buried there. He recalled a story concerning the sacred spring at the shrine of ‘Piri Shoh Nosir,’ which is located in the hamlet of Midenshor in his village

34 Thus, according to Iloliev (2008a: 7): ‘. . . the Panj-Tanī faith is understood as a combination of certain elements of the pre-Islamic rituals, imbued with Islamic meanings, the Fāṭimid daʿwa (Naṣir-i Khusraw’s teachings) and post-Alamut taqiyya ideas’. 35 Nāṣir-i Khusrau mentions ʿAlī b. Asad numerous times in his Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn, which was commissioned by the prince. See Corbin and Moʿīn 1984: 46–48; 15, 17–18, 314 [the Persian text]. For more on ʿAlī b. al-Asad, see ibid.: 46–48. 36 Daftary (1990: 217–18) bases the date of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s exile on when he completed his philosophical treatise, Zād al-musāfirīn. See also Khalīlī 1354/1935–6. The Motif Of The Cave 145 of Porshnev.37 The legend echoes a common Ṣūfī topos concerning the miraculous emergence of water due to the saint’s action of hitting the ground with a stick, in this case Nāṣir-i Khusrau. Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad then related the story of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s burial in Yumgān:

From here [Porshnev] Nosir Khusrav went to Yumgon and moved into a cave (ghor) where he lived for twenty-four years and died. He died in that cave. Before his death he said to his brother: ‘Don’t worry about my funeral. Angels ( fereshteho) will come to my funeral’. And it happened accordingly. Before his death he said to his brother: ‘After the angels carry out my funeral, you take this qorura [glass] and go out from this cave and hit it on the stone’.38 After that, Nosir left this world. His brother went and hit the qorura on the stone, and suddenly a mountain came and shut the door of the cave. No one knows where that cave is. After that, the people came and made a gunbaz [domed structure], but it wasn’t true because he was in that cave. He gave books to his brother and said: ‘Take this book to Iran, this one to Arab countries, this one to Afghanistan, this one to India, this one to Badakhshān’. So he distributed his books. This was his job.39

In Afghanistan in 1975, anthropologist Louis Dupree travelled with his wife, Nancy Dupree, and an Afghan scholar named Abdul Wahub Tarzi to visit

37 Porshnev is located on the Panj River, approximately ten kilometers north of the capital of Khorog. The spring of Nāṣir-i Khusrau is located in Porshnev. For the tradition of the chashma (spring) of Piri Shoh Nosir, see Jonboboev and Shohzodamuhammad 1992: 15. Note that Tajik, rather than Persian, forms of proper names, terms and place names will be used while quoting direct speech from cultural informants. 38 People ascribe to Nāṣir-i Khusrau the Pamiri practice of breaking a glass (qārūra) on the grave after the burial. The term is also applied for a large glass jar used to store vinegar, juice or extract from flowers. See Dihkhudā 1372–73/1993–94: X, 15264. 39 Interview with Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad in Porshnev, June 2004. He did not mention the existence of the Safarnoma, although he must have been aware of it since it passed into his hands after the death of his father. Another cave tradition concerning Nāṣir-i Khusrau exists in Chitral, Pakistan. According to the narrative, reported by Rahmat Karim Baig, Nāṣir-i Khusrau ‘visited Chitral and sojourned at Garum Chashma where he left his relics before his sudden disappearance into a cave after preaching his faith. His departure was not expected by his followers and his disappearance into a cave is regarded to be one of his miracles that he went into a cave in a steep cliff at Garum Chashma and came out at Munjan of Afghanistan without harm. His relics were preserved by his followers in a room known as Ziratʾ (shrine) in the Izh village of Lutkoh valley’ (Baig 1997: 140). 146 Gross the shrines of Nāṣir-i Khusrau and his brother, Abū Saʿīd, known as Sulṭān Sayyid, and he published a report of the oral narratives they recorded (Dupree 1976).40 When they visited the ziyārat-gāh of Sulṭān Sayyid in Kishm, Mr. Tarzi collected legends concerning the shrine there as well as those concerning Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s shrine in Yumgān.41 Dupree reported a tradition similar to Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad’s story concerning Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s burial, only this narrative includes Abū Saʿīd’s martyrdom:

The relations between Nasir-i-Khusrau and his brother were very close, and as Nasir-i-Khusrau lay dying, he called his brother to Yamgan. He asked Abu Saʿid to see his proper burial in a solid rock tomb he had chosen for himself but cautioned his brother not to look back as he departed the tomb (compare with the injunction to the wife of Lot). Abu Saʿid, however, did look back and saw the rock sepulcher closing. The martyrdom of Abu Saʿid followed shortly thereafter, possibly in retribution for the violation of his brother’s last injunction (Dupree 1976: 13).

Dupree reported a second narrative communicated to Mr. Tarzi by a villager from the Darvāz district on the Panj River, which locates Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s burial in Darvāz rather than in Yumgān. According to this tradition, which echoes a theme of symbolic passage, Nāṣir-i Khusrau ‘. . . walked through a tunnel to Darwaz after his supposed rock tomb at Yamgan had sealed itself. The fact that Nasir-i Khusrau was not dead and had risen to walk to Darwaz was what Abu Saʿid was not supposed to see’ (Dupree 1976: 13).42 Dupree reported a related narrative from the village of Ḥaḍrat Sayyid, where Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s shrine is located (ibid.).43 The local legend explains the high conglomerate

40 At the time, Abdul Wahub Tarzi was writing a book on the life, works, and religious philosophy of Nāṣir-i Khusrau. 41 In contrast to the Kishm narrative, the undecorated grave of Abū Saʿīd (as well as the Indian servant of Nāṣir-i Khusrau) are believed to be located to the south of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s grave in the mazār. See Schadl 2009: 69. 42 In a related story, Marcus Schadl reports: ‘A hole at the base of the wall behind Nasir Khusraw’s tomb is revered as the entrance to the tunnel through which Nasir’s soul is said to have left the material world after the burial. It is marked with a pole onto which pieces of cloth and an iron ‘hand of Fatima’ are attached, and the iron grille that screens off the pilgrims from the tomb has a miniature gate opening to the crack in the floor’ (Schadl 2009: 91, n. 18). 43 Schadl also includes this and the following two narratives in his study (Schadl 2009: 70–71). He traces the fascinating historical development of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s shrine, based on the building, inscriptions, and oral traditions collected from interviews he conducted The Motif Of The Cave 147

Figure 5.3 Boulder and shrine of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Yumgān Marcus Schadl rock upon which Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s shrine is perched and, following a common Ṣūfī topos, it also demonstrates his miraculous ability. As the story goes, after choosing the location of his tomb, Nāṣir-i Khusrau tried to purchase the land from the farmer who owned it. However, with each step in the negotiation process the farmer’s greedy wife demanded more and more gold. When Nāṣir-i Khusrau gave the farmer a sack of dust that turned to gold when the wife opened it, she demanded even more. Finally losing his patience, Nāṣir-i Khusrau caused the gold to return to dust, and then ‘caused the outcrop of boulder conglomerate to fly from the other side of the Kokcha River to its present site’ (Dupree 1976: 14). The pīr of the shrine at the time told Mr. Tarzi: ‘You can see bits of the mung which dropped from the sky along the way’ (ibid.). The local story of the burial from Yumgān reported by Dupree is as follows:

Tradition has it that the body of Nasir-i Khusrau is buried near the bottom of the conglomerate outcrop, or about 25 meters from the top of the shrine. The local story of the burial varies slightly from the Kishm version.

in 2003 and demonstrates evidence of close relations between Ismāʿīlīs and Ṣūfīs in the post-Alamūt period, when the ziyārat was reconstructed ‘as a ṭarīqat mausoleum with an attached khānaqāh’ (ibid.: 78). 148 Gross

Nasir-i Khusrau did call his brother to his deathbed, asked him to place his body in an opening prepared at the bottom of the mung, and then instructed him to break a bottle of holy water over the opening. When Abu Saʿid broke the bottle, the crevasse closed, concealing and protecting the body of the saint for all time (ibid.).

The Motif of the Cave: The ‘Textual’ Account of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Death and Funeral

As Nāṣir-i Khusrau tells the story in the Risāla, at the age of 140 when his speech trembled and his intellect and body had become weak, the angel of death appeared to inform him of his time.44 It was after awakening from a deep sleep and thinking about his situation that he decided to write his Risāla, and he asked his brother, Abū Saʿīd, to inform everyone about it after his death. He gives Abū Saʿīd detailed instructions about how to carry out his funeral, after which Abū Saʿīd describes the deathbed scene and burial, as it occurs:

Oh Saʿīd, when my soul (rūḥ) is going to leave my body do not tell anyone.45 You should wash my body yourself and dig my grave (qabr) in this rock boulder (sang-i khāra)46 in the middle of this cave (ghār). As you begin to dig the grave, two people from the most learned of the jinns (du nafar az ʿulamā-yi jinn)47 who are the greatest and wisest of their time will appear near you and help you. Do not be concerned about their state of being. Talk to them as they assist you in this hard work and when you are finished with my grave go to gather the king (pādshāh) and the ʿulamā and learned men ( fuḍalā)48 and say: ‘My great brother has

44 Azorabek 1992: 64; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 7–8; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 108a; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 190; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60, III: 1025; Kāshānī: fol. 362. 45 In the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 369) the text reads: ‘. . . do not tell anyone other than the ʿulamā’. 46 Instead of sang-i khāra, the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 369) reads qabr-i ma-rā dar īn ghār kun. 47 This phrase reads as du nafar az ʿulamāʾ-i ḥaqq in the 1860 Bombay edition of the Ātashkada (Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 191). Ḥasan Sādat Nāṣirī notes this in his edition of the Ātashkada (Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1026, n. 6). In the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 369) the phrase reads as du kas az ʿulamā-yi jinn. 48 The Khulāṣat al-ashʿār reads simply: ‘go to the ʿulamā’ (Kāshānī: fol. 369). The Motif Of The Cave 149

departed to God (Ḥaqq-i Islām)49 and the hereafter (ākhirat-u īmān) so that you have lost him’. After they finish praying for me and return, lift my dead body ( janāza) and those two jinns will help you. Climb into the grave and say: ‘Oh God, I have brought your sinner servant. Forgive his sins’. When you are finished with the burial (madfan), bring that book on Graeco-Arabic medicine (ʿilm-i yūnānī) and the other one on magic (siḥriyyāt) and burn them even though they are quite well known.50 And give my Qānūn-i aʿẓam to my son Manṣūr and give the other book of mine named Zād al-musāfirīn to Sayyid Ḥukamā Aīsā, son of Asad Alavī, and give my next book, which is about law ( fiqh) and is called Dastūr-i aʿẓam, to Nuṣrat-Allāh Qāḍī of Badakhshān.51 And give my book of poetry (kitāb-i ashʿār) to Jānshāh,52 son of Gavī Yumgānī, and whatever books are left are yours.53

Nāṣir-i Khusrau thus instructs his brother to bury him in the rock boulder inside the cave and after his death, to destroy his books on Graeco-Arabic medicine and magic and distribute the other named works. The passage reflects the dichotomous image drawn throughout the funerary narrative of Nāṣir-i Khusrau as a pious man of wisdom (ḥakīm) and a man suspected of heresy. On the one hand, are Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s books on fiqh and Ismāʿīlī philosophy, on the other hand, are his books on magic and Graeco-Arabic medicine. Most

49 In Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 369): Ḥaqq-i ikhvat-i Islām. 50 According to Alice Hunsberger (2000: 24), al-Qazwīnī’s Athār al-bilād wa akhbār al-ʿibād is the first text to mention Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s use of magic, ‘whereby his powers of persuasion (acknowledged by his contemporaries) have been transformed into mythic proportions’. Nāṣir-i Khusrau mentions his study of magic in the beginning of the Risāla (see Azorabek 1992: 56; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 106b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1227/1860: 187; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336– 40/1957–60: III, 1016; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 2; Kāshānī: fol. 357). There is no evidence that Nāṣir-i Khusrau wrote works on magic or Graeco-Arabic medicine. 51 Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 369) refers to the latter as Faqīh Naṣr-Allāh. His name is spelled correctly as Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī later in the Tajik text (see Azorabek 1992: 69). The Qānūn-i aʿẓam and Dastūr-i aʿẓam are listed by Ismail Poonawala in his Biobliography of Ismaʿili Literature (see Poonawala 1977: 123–25); however there are no extant manuscript copies. This is also noted by Hunsberger 2000: 13. Hunsberger also notes (2000: 30) that Riḍa Qulī Khān Hidāyat (1215–1289/1800–1872) mentions Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dastūr-i aʿẓam in his Majmaʿ al-fuṣaḥā. 52 This is likely an error of the copyist. The name is Jahānshāh. See Kāshānī: fol. 369. 53 Azorabek 1992: 65–66; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 9; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 108b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 191; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1026–27; Kāshānī: fol. 369. 150 Gross curious is the use of the term du nafar az ʿulamā-yi jinn. These two54 knowledgeable jinns are depicted throughout the burial narrative as benevolent helpers rather than fearsome and malevolent creatures, in line with the more common reference to the appearance of angels such as Munkar and Nakīr who conduct the ‘inquisition in the grave’ ( fitnat al-qabr).55 The jinns mourn Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s death, cut the rock to make his tomb, and help Abū Saʿīd to wash his body and bury him.56 There are numerous examples of jinns as knowledgeable or obedient helpers in the Persianate and Islamic tradition.57 For example, in the Qurʾanic narrative of Solomon, king of humans, angels and jinns, God makes the jinns subservient to Solomon, and they work for him in servitude, including the building of the Temple.58 According to the Shiʿite narrative of Zaʿfar Jinnī, known as the Sulṭān of the Shīʿa Jinn, on the day of

54 The reference to ‘two’ helpers or hosts is a common motif in the Islamic, Persianate, and Turkic milieu. In the hagiographical account of the Central Asian Ṣūfī, Aḥmad Yasavī, for example, Ilyās and Khiḍr help him to enter a subterranean chamber that contained a tunnel to Mecca, in order to emulate the Prophet’s death. See DeWeese 2000: 359–62. Also cited by Renard 2008: 137, n. 48. 55 For a discussion of death rites and funerary rituals, see Halevi 2007: 197–233. In his interview, Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad interestingly used the term fereshta (angel) rather than jinn. The association of Nāṣir-i Khusrau with jinn would be highly unusual and disrespectful, despite the core Islamic belief in good and bad jinns. Nāṣir-i Khusrau uses the Persian word parī for jinn in his chapter on angelology Andar firishta-vu dīv-u parī in the Kitāb-i Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn (see Corbin and Moʿīn 1984: 135–44; for the French translation, see de Gastines 1990: 155–63). Nāṣir writes: ‘There are two groups among God’s creatures: men (mard) and parīs, and there are two kinds of parīs, firishta (angels) and dīv (demons)’ (Corbin and Moʿīn 1984: 140). 56 Leor Halevi cites Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s (d. 281/894) tradition in which God instructs the angel of death about how to convey a person to his grave: ‘Race along, angel of death, to my friend (walī) [. . .] and bring him to me so that I may relieve him from the concerns of this world and its afflictions [. . .]. So the angel of death rushed to him, and with him were five hundred of the angels, [bringing] with them shrouds, and a balm [for corpses] from the balm of the Garden [ḥanūṭ min ḥanūṭ al-janna], and bundles of sweet-smelling basil [. . .] and white silk laced with pungent musk’ (Halevi 2007: 197). 57 For a study of the role of jinn in Muslim culture and religion, see El-Zein 2009. 58 Q 34:12–14. Also Q 27:17: ‘And before Solomon were marshaled his hosts of Jinns and men and birds and they were all kept in order and ranks’. In epistle no. 22 (The Case of the Animals Versus Man Before the King of the Jinn) of the legendary Rasāʾil al-ikhvān (‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity’), jinns take the position of judges. They are fabulous creatures; however, their actions may also be interpreted in the context of Neo-Platonic ideas about how God rules nature; see Goodman and McGregor 2010. The Motif Of The Cave 151

ʿĀshūrāʾ, Jinnī went to Karbalāʾ with about 90,000 ( jinn) troops to seek permission from Imām Ḥusayn to destroy his enemies. However, Imām Ḥusayn refused since it would reflect badly upon him and his companions as models of loyalty to the faith.59 In the story of Qamar al-Zamān in the Thousand and One Nights ‘the jinniya Maymunah is the daughter of King Dimirat, a renowned monarch of the jinn’ who ‘has giant jinn at her service, like the marid (giant jinni) Qashqash’ (El-Zein 2009: 16). Nāṣir-i Khusrau then instructs his brother to take a glass bottle (qārūra) after coming out of the cave and to use what is inside it to mark the form of the cave opening to be 13x13.60 He tells him to throw the bottle on the place he marked so it breaks and ‘wait for Allāh’s power to appear with His magnanim- ity, and then cover me’.61 In Shughnān and Rushan today, there is a tradition practiced whose origin is ascribed to Nāṣir-i Khusrau in which a traditional tea cup (piyāla) is first filled with water and then poured on top of the grave. The piyāla is then broken and left on the grave. In this case, the piyāla stands for the human body and the water for the human soul. When the water is poured, the drops of water join the divine ocean or Universal Soul.62 In the Risāla, the unspecified ingredient inside the bottle is used to mark the outline of the cave opening. Following this, Nāṣir-i Khusrau thanks God for removing him from darkness, disciplining him, blessing him with knowledge and righteousness, and guiding him on the Straight Path, and he asks for forgiveness and prays, with his brother at his side. The narrative continues. Abū Saʿīd sits at Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s side as he is dying and reciting his prayers, which his brother repeats after him. Finally, Nāṣir-i Khusrau says his last words, tells his brother that his soul ( jān) is close to leaving his body. Abū Saʿīd takes his brother’s hand and recites the shahāda, and his brother repeats his words. As Nāṣir-i Khusrau became restless Abū Saʿīd became worried, and then saw his eyes disappear and the sweat on his forehead was dripping like pearls. At this moment, Nāṣir-i Khusrau begins to laugh, which makes his brother happy, and Abū Saʿīd says: ‘Oh brother, you

59 On the tradition of Zaʿfar Jinnī, see al-Bihbūdī 1393/1973: 330–31; Dihkhudā 1372–73/1993– 94: VIII, 11332. 60 The text in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār adds that his brother should not watch at that moment, recalling the later legend recorded by Dupree 1976: 13. 61 Azorabek 1992: 66; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 9; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 108b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 191; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1026–27; Kāshānī: fol. 369. 62 I am grateful to Abdulmamad Iloliev for information about this tradition. 152 Gross are alone; say something. The soul is close to departing’. Abū Saʿīd then reports: ‘Then he looked at me and his look resembled a lover’s look to his beloved, and he recited the shahāda and tears flowed from his eyes’.63 After Abū Saʿīd sees that his brother passed away, he departs for Yumgān to find the material for his brother’s shroud and burial and bring them to the cave. As Abū Saʿīd was thinking about digging the qabr in the rock, ‘suddenly two people from the wisest of the jinns (du nafar az ʿulamā-yi jinn) greeted me as Nāṣir-i Khusrau said they would, and they were mourning and weeping so much that I forgot myself for a moment and began to effortlessly dig the grave in the rock. And they said to me: “Oh, brother of the Ḥakīm-i Zamān, now you are alone and destitute, since your brother chose to join the final journey (safar-i ākhirat). Do not be sad since everyone’s final destiny is this”.’64 Abū Saʿīd continues:

When they finished with the grave, one of those two jinns brought water and we washed my brother’s body, made him a shroud and wrapped him in the Egyptian cloth that he had with him two or three times when making the pilgrimage (ziyārat). Then I went to inform the scholars and learned men (ʿulamā va fuḍalā) and Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī and the kings (mulūk) and ordinary people (ahālī) and the rest of the people of that area.65 Some people said it is good that this depraved unbeliever (kāfir-i gumrāh) died, and others said it is such a pity that this kind of wise and righteous believer is dead. And I was hearing different sayings from people, but I kept silent and tried to be calm. And Malik Jahānshāh, who was the pādshāh of that region (vilāyat), jumped up from his place and embraced me and was weeping.66 People of the city all gathered and wanted to wash the Ḥakīm’s body. I said: ‘This has already been done; please recite your prayers’. The head of the ʿulamāʾ of that city then said:

63 Azorabek 1992: 67; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 10; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 109a; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 192; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1027–28; Kāshānī: fol. 270. 64 In the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370), the text reads: ‘And the blessing of God and made the qabr of humanity, and from watching him tears flowed from my eyes and when the qabr was finished, one of them brought water so I washed him and I wrapped him in the Egyptian cloth that was with him while on the ḥajj ’. 65 The text in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370) reads: ‘After that I informed the ʿulamāʾ and Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī and the ordinary people (ahālī) and the officials (mavālī)’. 66 In the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370) the narrative includes Sayyid Murtaḍī ʿAlavī as well as Malik Jahānshāh. The Motif Of The Cave 153

‘Oh, Ḥakīm-i Zamān, like the Messenger of God (rasūl-i khudā)67 you lived in the cave (ghār), but he came out of the cave and you did not’.68

The last phrase resonates directly with the theme of protective enclosure in the Islamic tradition of Muḥammad, who hid in a cave with Abū Bakr as he fled to Medina in the hijra.69 Unlike Muḥammad, however, Nāṣir-i Khusrau was unable to leave the seclusion of his cave, where he remained until his death. After that they recited prayers and the people who gathered there asked how Abū Saʿīd would bury his brother. He responded that his brother ordered that he should be buried in the cave which was his place of worship (maqām-i ṭāʿat). Some of them approved, and some were astonished that someone could be buried in such a rocky place. After they left,70 the jinns helped Abū Saʿīd lift the coffin into the grave. Abū Saʿīd speaks:

I said: ‘Oh God, I have brought your sinner slave. Please forgive his sins!’ When I buried him I took his books out of the cave as he willed me. And I delivered the books to the king (malik) and to Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī and he asked me to give to Jahānshāh and Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī and the other people and others, and then said goodbye to them.71 After, I returned to the cave and embraced his grave and mourned a lot, and those two jinns accompanied me everywhere and were friendly to me. Then I took the glass bottle (qārūra) that the Ḥakīm had pointed out. I didn’t know what was in it but I knew that the Ḥakīm’s agreement would not be in vain. . . . I did as I was told to do and said goodbye to him and left the cave. Then I came out of that cave and measured 365 dharāʿ [42.1 inches]72 and due to the Ḥakīm’s

67 In the Khulāsat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370), the text reads: ‘Sayyid Murtaḍī said, “Oh, Nāṣir, like Ḥaḍrat-i Murtaḍī” . . .’. 68 Azorabek 1992: 68; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 10; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 109b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 192; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60, III: 1028; Kāshānī: fol. 370. 69 Given the Sunni association of this tradition, it may be surprising to find it linked with Nāṣir-i Khusrau. However, as pointed out earlier in this paper, the theme strongly resonates with Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s own seclusion in the cave in Yumgān. The reference might also be linked to Muḥammad’s meditation in the cave at Mt. Ḥirāʾ, where he received his first revelations, which has no sectarian content. 70 According to the text in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370), Sayyid Murtaḍī remained with Abū Saʿīd. 71 Only the king (malik-i makān) is mentioned in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār (Kāshānī: fol. 370). 72 Ādhar Baygdilī states that he measures 165 dharāʿ rather than 365 (see Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1280) and the text in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār states that he measured a depth of 65 gaz (Kāshānī: fol. 371). 154 Gross

magic (ṭilism),73 the inside of the cave was as bright as daylight. I made a 13x13 opening to the cave as he told me to do, and afterward I threw the glass (qārūra) and broke it, and at that moment the opening to the cave closed and the remaining part of the mountain became uniform.74

Two symbolic themes resonate in this final passage: that of the sealing of the cave and that of light. The closing of the cave recalls the parallel image of the aṣḥāb al-kahf, in which the cave serves as the sanctuary for the faithful and the place where the companions enjoyed God’s mercy. It also evokes the theme of concealment, long associated with taqiyya practices of Ismāʿīlīs. The cave also may be seen to represent the spiritual retreat for the worldly body awaiting illumination from the divine spirit, in this case symbolized by the light inside the cave.75 The theme of light is, of course, a major element in Ismaʿilism, as it is in other religious traditions of the Iranian world, including Mithraism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Sufism. In Ismaʿilism, the nature of God is Light; the Prophet and ʿAlī are two Lights before God, and the Light of the Truth is the Imām of the Time. As stated in Kalām-i Pīr:

And in another ḥadîth the Prophet says: ‘I and ʿAlî both are from one and the same Light’. And it is stated in the Coran (XXIV, 35): ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth; His light is as a niche in which is a lamp’. Thus as God is the light of the heavens and of the earth, and as all lights are rays from the light of Muḥammad, thus ʿAlî is the source of that light, because the Prophet is the real True Light (Nûri Ḥaqq), whose source is ʿAlî: ʿAlî it was who made the morning of Prophethood to dawn, Muḥammad is the seal-ring, and ʿAlî is the design on its jewel (Ivanow 1935: 79).76

73 The text in the Khulāṣat al-ashʿār does not mention Nāsir-i Khusrau and simply reads: ‘. . . the inside of the cave became as bright as daylight due to magic (ṭilism)’. 74 Azorabek 1992: 69; Nāṣir-i Khusrau 1280/1864: 10–11; Ādhar Baygdilī 1812: fol. 109b; Luṭf ʿAlī Big 1277/1860: 192; Ādhar Baygdilī 1336–40/1957–60: III, 1028; Kāshānī: fols. 370–371. 75 For a discussion of Ismāʿīlī gnosis and the Imamate as the Pillar of Light in the Iranian tradition, see Corbin 1983: 110–17. 76 The sanctity of light is central to the Chirāgh-Raushan (Luminous Lamp), a three-day funeral ritual with Zoroastrian roots, attributed to Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Pamiri tradition and performed by Ismāʿīlīs in Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān and northern Pakistan following the death of a family member. The chirāgh (lamp) is the symbol of the Light of the Imamate, and special prayers and maddohs (Pers. maddāḥas; ‘songs of praise’) are performed during the ceremony. The maddohs include classical Persian mystical poetry (often of Rūmī and Ḥāfiẓ), as well as modern poetry expressing devotion to the Ismāʿīlī The Motif Of The Cave 155

Figure 5.4 Interior view of the mazār of Nāṣir-i Khusrau Marcus Schadl 156 Gross

Also from the same composition:

This is also said about the true Imams (XXIV, 35): ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth; His light is like a niche, in which is a lantern, and in the lantern is a lamp’. This means that the Light of the Truth of the Most High is the Imam of the time; it shines in the heavens and the earth, filling them with light. It shines from the niche of the Prophet, by whose light mankind is guided (Ivanow 1935: 95; Persian text on p. 99).

The sealing of the cave also recalls the Christian legendary account of the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus,’ in which seven young Christians flee to a cave in Ephesus due to religious persecution from the Roman Emperor Decius, who orders the opening of the cave to be sealed. When the Seven Sleepers awaken, during the rule of the first Christian Emperor, Theodosius II, they are discovered before they die, and the community orders a procession of the bodies along with a church to be built.77 The sealing of the cave in the written account recalls Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad’s assertion that the true location of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s burial place is unknown, since the miraculous sealing of the cave makes it impossible to identify his burial place. In conclusion, the motif of the cave is a central feature in both the oral traditions of Badakhshān and the written accounts concerning Nāṣir-i Khusrau and his exile and death in Yumgān, suggesting the interplay between the two. Oral legends concerning the death of Nāṣir-i Khusrau that are prevalent in Tajik and Afghan Badakhshān resonate with those legends that have been codified in written texts dating from the tenth/sixteenth century through the 1990s. The accounts in the funerary narrative, including the dual nature of Nāṣir-i Khusrau as wise man and as a miracle-working saint and the references to magic and the performances of various local ritual customs, draw attention to three issues. First, both genres feature Ismāʿīlī and Islamic elements that recall parallel Mithraic, Zoroastrian, and Ṣūfī traditions:78 the cave as a

Imāms. For a recent and important study of the Chirāgh-Raushan, including a review of available sources, see Mamadsherzodshoev [= Shohzodamuhammad] 2009. See also Shohumorov 2003; Hūnzāʾī and Hūnzāʾī 1993; Ivanow 1338/1959. 77 There are many variations of the legend in Christian and Muslim literature. As mentioned above, the Qurʾanic version is related in Sūra 18, Al-Kahf (The Cave). For an analysis of themes of enclosure and communal sacralization in the conversion narrative of Ötemish Ḥājjī, which includes a discussion of parallel themes of enclosure and emergence in the Turkic and Islamic contexts, see DeWeese 1994: 268–90. 78 It is not my intention, though, to put forward the problematic and all-too-common argument of pre-Islamic survivals in Pamiri Ismaʿilism. The Motif Of The Cave 157

figure 5.5 ʻThe Aṣḥāb al-Kahf in Their Cave.ʼ 989/1581 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, persan 54 158 Gross protective enclosure, symbol of the ẓāhir, place to receive knowledge, and passage from this world to the hereafter. Second, the narrative tradition in both oral and written form reflects how Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s death and burial came to be remembered and understood over time. As Gholam-Reza Aavani states in his introduction to Forty Poems from the Divan:

Almost without exception those thinkers who become known as miraculous figures are those whose involvement in spiritual matters is more than a merely intellectual participation. That Nasir-i Khusraw, who at first might appear much more staid than many another figure in Islamic literature, should be thought to have lived to the age 140 in a cave protected by talismans – this reveals something about his own spiritual practice as well as his influence on the imaginal history of the Persian world. It tells us that whatever he may actually have written, or even been and done, he was and is in some sense a figure of the miraculous to those who have inherited him (Wilson and Aavani 1977: 18).

Third, past scholarship on the early recensions of the Risāla has relegated it to the category of ‘pseudo-autobiography’ and thus lessened its value for understanding the popular perceptions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in the Pamir. I have argued in this paper for an interpretation that recognizes the inherent relationship between orality and textuality in the narrative traditions of Badakhshān as they have developed; I have put forth the hypothesis that in Badakhshān itself, the text was recorded with the intention of preserving the indigenous traditions from Badakhshān about Nāṣir-i Khusrau, whom Badakhshānīs hold in great reverence and consider to be one of their spiritual guides. The publication of the Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi Kuddusi Sara, moreover, may be seen as a further attempt to preserve the communal identity of Ismāʿīlīs in Tajik Badakhshān in the face of rapid socio-economic and cultural change in the post-Soviet period. The rich and largely untapped oral and written traditions of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in Badakhshān remain to be fully studied. It is hoped that this paper is a step in that direction.

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Part 3 Iranian Epic Tradition

⸪

CHAPTER 6 ‘The Ground Well Trodden But the Shah Not Found . . .’ Orality and Textuality in the ‘Book of Kings’ and the Zoroastrian Mythoepic Tradition

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

They [the Persians] use as teachers of science their wisest men, who also interweave their teachings with the mythical element, thus reducing that element to a useful purpose, and rehearse both with song and without song the deeds both of the gods and of the noblest men. Strabo, Geography XV.3.18

In this article I examine certain Pahlavi (Zoroastrian Middle Persian) texts from Late Antiquity and early Islamic Iran that share striking parallels with Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma. These lesser-known texts also offer us unparalleled opportunities to examine Iranian literary traditions that flourished both centuries before and during the time of Firdausī and which ultimately were adapted by him to produce Iran’s national epic. What is far less well known, however, is the earlier Pahlavi literary tradition that shares many of the same figures and narratives with Firdausī as well as with the early Islamic historians such as al-Ṭabarī, al-Masʿūdī, al-Thaʿālibī, Ḥamza Iṣfahānī, and others. It is worth pointing out that Pahlavi literature should be appreciated as an important pivot or transitional corpus between the largely oral pre-Islamic period and the highly literate Islamic period in Iran. My use of the term ‘mythoepic’ in the title is designed to capture the transitional nature of the Pahlavi corpus, inhabiting an intermediate position between the mythic domain of the Avesta and the fully realized epic world of the Shāh-nāma. Any discussion of the complex relationship between the Pahlavi corpus of Late Antiquity and the fourth/tenth–fifth/eleventh century Shāh-nāma tends to provoke strong feelings. The last twenty years or so have seen quite an ascerbic debate between some of the leading Shāh-nāma scholars in America, in particular on the topic of Firdausī’s putative Middle Persian sources and the related

* The writing of this paper was made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2010.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_008 170 Vevaina questions of orality and textuality in the composition of the 50,000 lines of poetry. Olga Davidson, the major proponent of a dynamic oral tradition which Firdausī supposedly drew upon (Davidson 1988; 1994; 2000; 2009), has been aggressively criticized by a number of Persianists who find her use of Classical and Western Medieval examples of oral traditions to be wholly inappropriate for the eastern, highly literate Islamic milieu that extolled not just the people of the Book but the book itself.1 Davidson has been most prominently cri- tiqued by Mahmoud Omidsalar who derisively refers to her work as being part of ‘Harvard [University]’s tribal religion of “Oral Formulaicism” ’ (Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999: 326). Omidsalar has gone so far as to end his rather hostile and dismissive review of Kumiko Yamamoto’s The Oral Background of Persian Epics (Yamamoto 2003) by flatly stating: ‘The Shāh-nāma is no more “a little oral” than a woman can be “a little pregnant” ’ (Omidsalar 2005: 192).2 Much of the debate centers on the veracity of the Old Prose Preface to the Shāh-nāma, which explicitly states that the governor of Ṭūs, Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 350/961), had decided to emulate Naṣr b. Aḥmad (d. 331/943) who had sponsored the translation from Middle Persian into Arabic of the Kalīla va Dimna, a collection of didactic fables of Indian origin. Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq supposedly had the official compendium of the legendary and semi-legendary history of Iran, known as the Khvadāy-nāmag or the ‘Book of Lords,’ known in Arabic as the Siyar al-mulūk to be translated into Persian in 346/957 and compiled by his vizier Abū Manṣūr al-Maʿmarī.3 This translation was supposedly carried out by four men bearing Zoroastrian names, who are believed to have contributed material from lost Middle Persian written sources (de Blois 2009: 338–39). This lost work along with other no longer extant Middle Persian works are therefore believed to be the written sources for Firdausī’s retelling in verse.4 It is also worth mentioning that prior to Firdausī, a number of earlier Arabic and Persian poets had undertaken similar projects relating to the Book of Kings. Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī (d. after 442/1050) claimed to know six Books of Kings in Arabic, none of which now survive.5 In the first half of the

1 For critiques of Olga Davidson’s work, see, e.g., Omidsalar 1996 and de Blois 1998; for a more balanced exposition of the controversy, see Rubanovich 2013. 2 See also Omidsalar 2002 for his critique of oral theory as it applies to Firdausī. 3 For the Old Prose Preface, see Minorsky 1964. See also Nöldeke 1930: 26–31. 4 Dick Davis, for example, accepts the existence of written sources for the Sasanian portions of the work, but suggests that for the legendary portions of the Shāh-nāma Firdausī relied upon versified oral sources (Davis 1996). 5 See Fischer 2004: 71. Omidsalar states (1998: 344, n. 4): ‘For reasons the exposition of which will take us far afield, I do not believe that the Khudâynâmag was a single text. The evidence supports a genre of epic literature by that name’. The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 171 fourth/tenth century al-Masʿūdī of Marv had compiled a version of the Book of Kings in Persian rhymed couplets (de Blois 2009: 339) and in the second half of the fourth/tenth century, the poet Daqīqī, a resident of Firdausī’s hometown of Ṭūs, first attempted to versify the entire Book of Kings in Persian. He did not live to finish his work, but a thousand verses relating to the reign of king Gushtāsp were incorporated by Firdausī into his monumental epic (Nöldeke 1930: 31–37). The challenge for scholars of pre- and early-Islamic Iran who want to work on the question of the relationship of late antique Zoroastrian texts with their early Islamic Persian counterparts can quite simply be stated. Virtually none of the Middle Persian literary traditions that the Perso-Arabic poets and historians so commonly cited, survive today. This includes such important texts and their accompanying genres as the Sindbād-nāma, tales about Sindbad the Sailor, or Bilauhar-u Būdhāsaf, the Central Asian and Middle Eastern versions of the life of the Buddha, or the love story of Vīs-u Rāmīn immortalized by the poet Fakhr al-Dīn Gurgānī in 447/1055 or shortly thereafter. While there is no doubt that the vast bulk of the literary output of pre-Islamic Iran was lost in the transition from Zoroastrian to Islamic times, there can also be no doubt that the little that does survive is worth its weight in gold, especially when it provides us with similar materials to the Shāh-nāma but found in different genres and mobilized for different rhetorical, cultural, and religious sensibilities. In this article I would like to specifically focus on some eschatological tropes associated with the figure of Kay Khusrau – the legendary king in the Shāh- nāma, who ruled Iran for sixty years (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: III, 1–397; IV, 3–374). Kay Khusrau, whose name means ‘one having good fame,’ is justifiably named, as he is one of the most famous figures in Iranian literary history. He boasts an impressive pedigree: his paternal grandfather was Kay Kāvūs, his predecessor as the Shah of Iran, and his maternal grandfather was Afrāsiyāb, the king of the Turanians – the traditional enemies of the Iranians in the Shāh-nāma. Besides finally defeating his grandfather Afrāsiyāb and his grandfather’s brother Garsīvaz in revenge for the killing of his own father Siyāvash, Kay Khusrau is probably most celebrated for renouncing his throne and eventually disappearing into the mountains during a snowstorm (ibid.: IV, 367–68). Kay Khusrau’s occultation is a dramatic narratological moment in the Shāh- nāma and as such, also serves as a highly productive nexus for us to activate the numerous intertextual connections between the Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts and Firdausī’s epic. It might strike some as counterintuitive to suggest that we read Middle Persian and Classical Persian texts synchronically but that is precisely what the older scholars failed to do in spite of the overwhelming 172 Vevaina evidence from the Pahlavi colophons that our Zoroastrian Middle Persian (Pahlavi) literary sources – and here I do not include papyri, inscriptions, coins, seals, bullae, etc. – were in fact produced in the Islamic period. The fourth/ tenth century Arabic geographer of Persian origin Iṣṭakhrī testifies to just such a scenario when he says about the Persians of Fārs:

They have three languages: Persian (al-fārisiyya), which they speak [. . .]; a language called Pahlavi (al-fahlaviyya), in which are written books about the Persians of old and their exploits, and in which the Zoroastrians write, and which (ordinary) Persians cannot understand without it being interpreted; and Arabic, for official, administrative, and general written use . . . (De Goeje 1870: 137).6

While much of the contents of the Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts is undoubtedly of late antique and even ancient provenance, it is worth noting that our earliest Pahlavi colophon – from the Dēnkard (see below) – is from Baghdad in 1020.7 That is a full 370 years after the fall of the Sasanian empire and more than two hundred years after Peter Brown demarcated the end of ‘Late Antiquity’ in the West (Brown 1971). My basic claim is that Zoroastrian Middle Persian was far more productive for far longer into the Islamic period than is generally acknowledged. This is a matter of us philologists being conditioned to focus on the seemingly more archaic, ‘original’ contents from the Sasanian era rather than us reading these texts as dynamic literary and social projects produced in the Islamic period as bulwarks against a loss of cultural capital and increasing apostasy to Islam (see Vevaina 2011).

The Occultation of Kay Khusrau

Having attempted to provide a little historical context and chronology, let me turn to the specific event in the Shāh-nāma that constitutes the centrepiece of this article. Tired of the world and fearful of becoming corrupted by absolute power, Kay Khusrau, having ruled for 60 years, abdicates and sets off for the mountains with a small retinue. After following him to the mountains the most loyal of his heroes – Ṭūs, Farīburz, Gīv, Bīzhan, and Gustaham – all remonstrate with him to reconsider his decision to abdicate but he refuses:

6 All translations are mine unless otherwise stated. 7 For the Dēnkard colophons, see Sanjana and Sanjana 1928: 95–108, in particular pp. 95–100. The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 173

As night advanced the famous Kaian went before his God, Bathed, head and body, in the limpid stream, Reciting to himself the Zandavasta, And thus addressed those famous men of lore: – ‘Farewell for ever! When the sky shall bring The sun again ye shall not look on me Henceforth save in your dreams . . .’

The chieftains’ heads were heavy at the news, The warriors slept in pain, and when the sun Rose o’er the hills the Sháh had disappeared. They roamed thence seeking him and set their faces Towards the sands and waste. They saw no trace Of Kai Khusrau and turned back from the way Like men insane, heart-straitened all and anguished, The ground well trodden but the Sháh not found . . .

Thereafter they partook of what there was, And, having eaten, quickly went to sleep. Meanwhile there came up storm and cloud, the sky Became as ’twere a lion’s hide, and when The snow had hoisted sail upon the earth The lances of the nobles disappeared! They tarried in the snow, I know not why, And under it they struggled for a while, And made a hollow space, but at the last Strength failed them and they yielded up sweet life.8

This tragic display of fealty resulted in the deaths of several of the great champions of Iran with no explanation or follow up. Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) described the same event by stating:

After Kaykhusraw avenged himself and felt secure in his realm, he renounced his kingship and became an ascetic. He announced to the notables of his people and to the nation at large that he was going to relinquish power. They were overcome with anxiety, and their estrange- ment from him grew. They appealed to him, beseeched and implored

8 Warner and Warner 1905–25: IV, 309–10; Persian text in Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: IV, 367, ll. 3044–3056; IV, 369, ll. 3070–3075. 174 Vevaina

figure 6.1 ʻThe Paladins of Kay Khusrau Perish in a Snowstorm.ʼ Firdausī. Shāh- nāma. 741/1341, Shīrāz, Iran The Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/ toah/works-of-art/36.113.2

him, and sought to persuade him to continue to direct their kingdom. But their effort was in vain [. . .] Kaykhusraw disappeared. Some say that Kaykhusraw absented himself for acts of devotion, and it is not known where or how he died. Some tell other stories [. . .] (Perlmann 1987: 19).

It is precisely these other stories that are deserving of greater attention. The Middle Persian text that is the centrepiece of this article is found in Dēnkard Book 9. The Dēnkard, meaning ‘Acts of the Religion,’ is the largest extant Middle The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 175

Persian compilation at approximately 169,000 words.9 It once had nine books of which the first two were lost by the early fifth/eleventh century. Dēnkard Book 9 appears to be a Middle Persian résumé of a ‘lost’ Middle Persian translation of a ‘lost’ Young Avestan commentary of the 2nd millennium BCE Old Avesta.10 We are therefore dealing with approximately two thousand years of what we believe was a primarily oral transmission, and interpretive literature three degrees removed from the text being interpreted with the two textual strata in the middle, largely no longer extant.11 While all this might sound like a hopeless proposition to many, we in Zoroastrian studies have to make do with the meagre clues we can glean from the fragmentary data. All is not lost since we do have some Middle Persian texts that provide us with a glimpse into the wider world of pre-Islamic Zoroastrian literature. Dēnkard Book 8 is particularly intriguing as it is a ‘Table of Contents’ of the dēn – the Zoroastrian sacred corpus in Avestan with its Middle Persian translation-cum-commentary, or zand – as it was prior to the ninth century when the Dēnkard was believed to have been first written down. Comparing its contents to our surviving Avestan texts and their Middle Persian zand, we arrive at the inescapable conclusion that just a fraction of pre-Islamic literature has survived till today, just 20% by some estimations (see, e.g., Duchesne- Guillemin 1973: 22). As I mentioned above, our losses are especially acute with regard to non-religious subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, mathematics, and the sciences. It appears that the Zoroastrian priests chose to privilege their doctrinal and liturgical texts over more ‘secular’ genres of literature and other fields of knowledge when preserving the pre-Islamic literary heritage of Iran. What we do know from Dēnkard Book 8 is that the Middle Persian theologians divided their sacred texts into 21 nasks, or ‘bundles,’ based on a tripartite textual taxonomy which they mystically homologized with the three verse lines and 21 words of the Ahuna vairiia or Yaθā ahū vairiiō (see Vevaina 2010b), the opening strophe of the Old Avesta and the most sacred prayer in Zoroastrianism, even today:

9 For the Dēnkard, see de Menasce 1958; Gignoux 1996. 10 The Avesta falls into two chronological layers: Old Avestan and Young(er) Avestan. The Old Avesta, occupying a ritually central position in the Yasna (‘Sacrifice,’ cognate with Sanskrit yajña-) liturgy, comprises three prayers: the Ahuna vairiia or Yaθā ahū vairiiō (Yasna 27.13), the Aṣ̌əm vohū (Y. 27.14), and the Yeŋ́hē hātąm (Y. 27.15); the five Gāθās, (Y. 28–34, 43–46, 47–50, 51, and 53); the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (Y. 35–41); and a fourth prayer at the end of the fifth Gāθā, the Ā airiiə̄mā išiiō or Airiiaman (Y. 54.1). For a description of the Avestan corpus, see Kellens 1989; for the Old Avesta, see Hintze 2002; Skjærvø 2003– 2004. See also most recently Hintze 2009. 11 For the Avestan Vorlage for one section of Dēnkard Book 9, see Vevaina 2005 [2009]. 176 Vevaina

yaθā ahū vairiiō # aθā ratuš ašātcīt hacā ᷑ ᷑ vaŋhǝ̄uš dazdā manaŋhō # šiiaoθǝnanąḿ aŋhǝ̄uš mazdāi xšaθrǝmcā ahurāi.ā # yim drigubiiō dadat vāstārǝm ᷑ In as much as (a new Existence) is a worthy reward (by the example of the first new) Existence, thus (its) Model (is) just in accordance with (Ahura Mazdā’s) Order. (The Model) of good thought (and) of the actions of the (new) Existence is (always) established for ‘Mazdā,’ and the (royal) command for (him as) ‘Ahura,’ whom one shall (thereby) establish as pas- tor for the poor (after Skjærvø 2008b: 122).

Just as they understood the Ahuna vairiia prayer – the opening strophe of the Old Avesta – as being the fountainhead of the Zoroastrian tradition and as encoding cosmogony, they also understood the Airiiaman prayer – the closing strophe of the Old Avesta – as representing eschatology, that is, the final events at the end of the world when Good triumphs over Evil and humanity is saved:

ā airiiǝ̄mā išiiō rafǝδrāi jaṇtū nǝrəbiiascā nāiribiiascā zaraθuštrahē vaŋhǝ̄uš rafǝδrāi manaŋhō yā daēnā vairīm hanāt̰ mīždǝm aṣ̌ahiiā yāsā aṣ̌īm yąm išiiąm ahurō masatā mazdå.

Let speedy Airiiaman come here for support, for men/heroes and women/heroines, for the support of Zarathustra’s good thought, by which his vision-soul [daēnā-] may gain a worthy fee [mižda-]. I am now asking for the reward of Order [aṣ̌a-], which Ahura Mazdā shall deem worthy of being sped hither (after Skjærvø 2003: 186).

Essentially, the ritual recitation of the Old Avesta was equated and correlated by the Zoroastrian priests with the unfolding history of the world.12 Zoroastrian cosmology is predicated on the fact of evil being defeated permanently at the end of time. Death, being the temporary triumph of evil over good, will, consequently, no longer occur at the end of time, and humanity will return to a state of existence that existed prior to the onslaught of Evil upon the material

12 See Molé 1963, in particular pp. 139–47; Vevaina 2007: 137–201; idem 2005 [2009]: 218–19. The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 177 world. To contextualize the eschatological passage featuring Kay Khusrau, let me briefly summarize the basics of Zoroastrian eschatology as found in the Middle Persian texts which speak of the three millennia of three Revitalizers: Ušēdar, Ušēdarmāh, and Sōšāns. In the Middle Persian texts these three figures are the offspring of Zarathustra himself, each miraculously conceived by virgins from his semen preserved in a lake at the end of each millennium before the end of the world. The major event of universal eschatology in Zoroastrianism is the Resurrection of the bodies of humanity (rist-āxēz), effected by Sōšāns, the final Revitalizer with the aid of his helpers. The dead will arise in hierarchical order: first the heroes of the past, and at their head the First Man, Gayōmart, and some time afterwards, Zarathustra and his patron, King Wištāsp (NP Gushtāsp). The whole process lasts for 57 years (Vevaina 2005 [2009]: 218–19). The souls of people are reunited with their excarnated bodies and finally a great assembly of humanity of all eras is brought together, where kinfolk meet, recognize each other in their ideal forms, and get reacquainted. In the future existence there will be no hunger or thirst or death, in fact, no suffering of any kind. The supreme God, Ohrmazd, will become victorious over the Foul Spirit, Ahriman in a final battle, and each member of Ohrmazd’s divine retinue will defeat their opposite number in the camp of Ahriman, with many texts suggesting that the bodies of the demons will be smashed or destroyed once and for all. The passage in Dēnkard Book 9 (9.23.1–8) that tells us about Kay Khusrau’s future activities takes place in the millennium of Sōšāns, just prior to the Renovation ( frašgird). Kay Khusrau having been in occultation for several millennia, converses with Wāy, Lord of Long Rule – the God of the Atmosphere – who is the only deity in Zoroastrianism who has an ambiguous status, being both good and evil. Unlike in the Avestan corpus where he has a dual nature, the Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts actually make him into two different figures: a good Wāy and an evil Wāy, though this separation is still ambiguous in certain contexts. In our Dēnkard 9 text, Kay Khusrau grabs Wāy and turns him into a camel, mounts him and then goes around to the various assemblies of Iran to awaken his fellow heroes who are still asleep after so many millennia:

wīst ud dōwom fragard ēr(ya)man abar ham-rasīd ī Kay Husraw ud wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy nazd ō frašgird pursīd ī Kay Husraw ō [ for ōy] wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy abar zadan ī-š čand az pēšēnīgān kē pad warz ud xwarrah abardom būd hēnd az mardōmān (9.23.2) ud passox ī wāy ī dagrand- xwadāy abar zadan ī-š awēšān ud pad ān passox grift ī Kay Husraw wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy ud frāz wardēnīdan ī ō ān ī uštar-kirb ud abar nišast ud šud ī abāg ērān hanjamanīgān ō anōh kū nibāyēd pad xwēy haōišt ī 178 Vevaina

gəuruuąn ī a-marg ud hangēzēnīdan ī-š ōy ud hammis ōy-iz šud ī ō anōh kū nibāyēd pad xwēy tūs ī ardīg-rānēnīdār ud hangēzēnīdan ī-š ōy-iz ud hammis ōy-iz šud ī-š ō anōh kū nibāyēd kay-abiweh ud hangēzēnīdan ī-š ōy-iz (9.23.3) ud raft ī-š hammis awēšān ud awērag rāh ō ham-rasīd ī ōy ī sūdōmand ī pērōzgar sōšāns ud pursīd ī az ōy sūdōmand ī pērōzgar kū kē mard hē kē nišīnē pad wāy abar ī dagrand-xwadāy kū wāzēnē wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy frāz wašt ō ān ī uštar-kirb (9.23.4) ud guftan ī Kay Husraw pad passox ō sōšāns kū an ham Kay Husraw (9.23.5) ud burzīdan ī sōšāns ō Kay Husraw abar kand ī-š ān ī *uzdēs-zār ī abar bār ī war ī čēčast ud zadan ī-š ǰādūg frāsāsp (9.23.6) ud stāyīdan ī Kay Husraw dēn-mazdēsn ud madan ī *ast tuwānīg kirsāsp gad-dast ō awēšān padīrag abar [ī] ōy gay ǰādūg mān bē ēstād ī ardīg-rānēnīdār tūs ud xwānd ī-š kirsāsp ō āstawānīgīh ī abar gāhānīgīh ud hamīh ī abāg awēšān ud stāyīdan ī kirsāsp ahlāyīh ud abgand ī-š ān ī arm-zadār (9.23.7) pad ēn-iz gōwēd kū ēdōn awēšān mard ō ham rasēnd <ī> frašgird-kerdār ī pad ēn fragard ud ān-iz ī abārīg gyāg guft ēstēd harwist arwand hēnd abar-kār ud harwist tagīg hēnd nēw ud awēšān kunēnd frašgird pad kāmag andar axwān a-zarmān ud a-marg ud a-suyišn ud a-puyišn tā hamē ud hamē rawišnīh (9.23.8) ast pahlom ābādīh ahlāyīh.

The twenty second fragard, the Airiiaman, is about how Kay Husraw (NP Kay Khusrau) and Wāy of Long Rule came together close to the Renovation,13 (and) how Kay Husraw asked Wāy of Long Rule about why he struck down (so) many of those before him who were the highest of mankind in miraculous power and fortune. (9.23.2) And how Wāy of Long Rule replied about why he struck them down. And how Kay Husraw, at that reply, grabbed Wāy of Long Rule and changed him into a camel and mounted (him). How he went with members of the (various) assemblies of Iran to there where the immortal Haōišt Gəuruuąn lies asleep and how he roused him and, together with him, too, went to where the Battle-fighting Tūs14 [NP Ṭūs] lies asleep, and how he roused him, too, and, together with him, too, went to where Kay Abiweh lies and how he roused him, too. (9.23.3) And how he went about with them (on) desolate roads to the meeting with the one who will bring benefit and victory, the

13 Cf. Y. 62.3: darǝγəmcit̰ aipi zruuānǝm upa sūrąm frašō.kǝrǝitīm (‘. . . for a long time afterward indeed until the making of the Renovation rich in life-giving strength’); Pahl. tā ō ān ī dagrand zamān ān ī abzār frašgird-kerdārīh (‘A long time until the instrument (i.e., Kay Khusrau) of the making of the Renovation’). 14 Cf. Yt. 5.53: taxmō tusō raθaēštārō (‘. . . the strong Tusa, the charioteer . . .’). The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 179

Sōšāns,15 and how he asked him: ‘Who are you, O man,16 who sits on Wāy of Long Rule? Where are you flying Wāy of Long Rule changed into a camel?’ (9.23.4) And how Kay Husraw said in reply to Sōšans: ‘I am Kay Husraw.’ (9.23.5) And how Sōšāns praised Kay Husraw that he razed those idol-temples on the shores of Lake Čēčast and struck down the sorcerer Frāsāsp. (9.23.6) And how Kay Husraw praised the Mazdayasnian dēn, and the coming of he who is the able one, Kirsāsp [NP Garshāsp], club in hand, to meet them. And how the Battle-fighting Tūs took a stand at the dwelling of that robber sorcerer. And how he called Kirsāsp to profess himself a follower of the Gāθās and make common cause with them. And how Kirsāsp praised Righteousness and how he cast down that arm- striker. (9.23.7) Regarding this, it [the nask] also says: In this way, those men who shall produce the Renovation,17 will come together, both those mentioned in this fragard and those mentioned in other places [i.e., other texts]. (And) all are valiant, their work up above, and all are fleet (and) brave.18 And they will make the Renovation as they wish in the (two) worlds: without old age and death, without hunger and thirst, for- ever and eternity.19 (9.23.8) Righteousness is the Best Prosperity! (Vevaina forthcoming)

These various mythoepic heroes are not found in the Old Avestan Airiiaman prayer, which this section is nominally commenting upon, but rather they are found in the Young Avestan hymnic literature, the yašts.20 Two questions regarding this narrative have puzzled me greatly: Why are Kay Khusrau and

15 Cf. Dk. 7.1.54: u-š ān az rasišn ī sūdōmand pērōzgar abd frašgird tan ī pasēn ǰud ǰud nihang-ēw ī az-iš (‘And the wonders which will happen after the arrival of the victorious profit-bringer – the Renovation (and) the Final Body – the individual chapters about them’). 16 Cf. Y. 9.1.2: kō narə ahī, Pahl. kē mard hē (‘Who are you, O man?’). 17 Cf. Y. 24.5 (also Yt. 13.17, Yt. 19.22): yåsca narąm azātanąm frašō.carǝθrąm saošiiaṇtąm (‘. . . and those of the unborn men, the Revitalizers who will make make the Renovation’), Pahl. kē-iz mardān azādān ī frašgird-kerdārān ī sūdōmandān (‘. . . those unborn men who are Revitalizers who will make the Renovation’). 18 Cf. Yt. 19.72 (about the kauuis): yat̰ bāun vīspe auruua vīspe taxma (‘all are fleet, all are brave’). 19 Cf. Yt. 19.11: yat̰ kǝrǝnauuąn frašǝm ahūm azaršǝṇtǝm amarš́ǝṇtǝm afriθiiaṇtǝm apuiiaṇtəm yauuaējim yauuaēsum vasō.xšaθrǝm (‘. . . so that they would make the Renovation, incorruptible, indestructible, undecaying, unrotting, ever-living, ever-vitalizing, having command at will . . .’). 20 For the yašts, see Skjærvø 1994. 180 Vevaina

Wāy found in a commentary on the Airiiaman prayer at all since that prayer does not refer to them in any obvious way? And what is the significance of Kay Khusrau turning Wāy of Long Rule into a camel and riding him around the provinces of Iran? What I believe we have here is the idea of an undying hero as Kay Khusrau is referred to in a variety of other Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Avestan texts, subduing Wāy, the Lord of Long Rule. Kay Khusrau’s not dying is alluded to by al-Ṭabarī’s statement: ‘. . . it is not known where or how he died. Some tell other stories . . .’ (Perlmann 1987: 19). It is tempting to speculate that this text is precisely one of those ‘other stories’ excised from the Islamic-era Persian and Arabic sources for its blatantly Zoroastrian contents and implications. Since Kay Khusrau never died, he is immune to the ravages of Time: disease, aging, and death. This is seen most clearly in a Young Avestan text, the Āfrīnagān ī Zardušt (7), where the most salient characteristics of the great deities and heroes of the Zoroastrian tradition are extolled:

arš.t̰kaēšǝm bauuāhi yaθa rašnuš dušmainiiū.janaṇtǝm bauuāhi yaθa vǝrǝθraγnǝm ahuraδātǝm pouru.xvāθrǝm bauuāhi yaθa rāmanō xvāstrahe aiiaskǝm amahrkǝm bauuāhi yaθa kauua husrauua.

May your teaching be straight, like Rašnu, may you be a smasher of enemies, like Vərəθraγna, established by Ahura Mazdā, may you provide much good breathing space, like Rāman Xvāstra, may you be free from disease and destruction, like Kauui Husrauuah (after Skjærvø, unpublished).

Here, Kauui Husrauuah or Haosrauuah as he is called in the Avestan texts, is described as being ‘free from disease and destruction’. As a result, he is the perfect candidate to oppose Wāy, who is associated with Finite Time21 in the Avesta and by extension, with aging and death. Kay Khusrau’s riding Wāy and his pivotal role in Zoroastrian eschatology is referenced in other Middle Persian texts like the Dādestān ī dēnīg, a compilation made by Manūščihr, son of Juwān-Jam, the Zoroastrian high priest of Kirmān sometime in the late ninth century. Manūščihr enumerates the chief protagonists in Zoroastrian eschatology as follows:

21 Cf. Niyāyišn 1.8: zruuānǝm darəγō.xvaδātǝm yazamaide (‘We sacrifice to Time of Long Rule’). Cf. also Yašt 2.16 where boundless time is paired with time of long rule: zruuānahe akaranahe zruuānahe darǝγō.xvaδātahe (‘of boundless time, of time of long rule’). The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 181

pad-iz ān ī frašgird nazdīkīh sāmān kirsāsp kē dahāg wānēd ud Kay Husraw kē wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy widārēnēd ud tūs ud wēw abāg ān abārīg čand wuzurg kunišnān ayār hēnd frašgird-kerdārīh.

Likewise, near the time of the Renovation, Kirsāsp, of the family of Sām, who conquers Dahāg [NP Ḍaḥḥāk], and Kay Husraw, who is transported by Wāy of Long Rule, and Tūs and Wēw [NP Gīv], with many other doers of great deeds, will help to make the Renovation (cf. Jaafari-Dehaghi 1998: 106–107).

My line of reasoning for this opposition between Kay Khusrau and Wāy finds strong support in the Pahlavi texts. In Dēnkard Book 7 (7.1.39–40), Kay Khusrau is referred to as an instrument (abzārīh) of the Renovation:

mad ō Kay Husraw ī siyāwaxšān padiš wānīd ud zad frangrāsyāb tūr ī ǰādūg u-š ham-wišūdag wigēragān kiriswazd ud ān was gēhān marnǰēnīdār wattar ud āyuxt ō ān uzdēsčār ī abar bār ī war čēčast zad škast ān ī škeft druzīh. zad škast ān ī škeft druzīh. (40) abāyišnīgīh ī pad frašgird abzārīh rāy pad *nimēz ī az ān waxš ēwarzīd ō rāzīg gyāg kū padiš a-marg dāštār tan tā frašgird pad dādār kām.

(The Xwarrah [NP farr]) came to Kay Husraw, son of Siyāwaxš [NP Siyāvash], who with it conquered Frangrāsyāb [NP Afrāsiyāb], the Turanian sorcerer and his brat sibling Wigēragān Kiriswazd, and many other world-destroyers. He attacked the idol-temple(s) on the shore of Lake Čēčast. He broke and smashed that harsh Lie. Because he was needed as an instrument for the Renovation, by the *order of that Word, he moved on to a secret place for his body to be kept there undying until the Renovation, as willed by the Creator (cf. Molé 1967: 10–11).

Conversely, in the first chapter (1.45) of the Bundahišn or ‘Creation,’ God created Wāy of Long Rule to serve as an instrument (abzār) for the Creation:

az stī ī ān mēnōy kē petyārag ī andar har dō dām ā-š bē barēd ast tuwān ast zamān ā-š kirb ī wāy-wēh frāz brēhēnīd čiyōn wāy abāyist ast kē wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy gōwēd u-š dām pad ayārīh wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy frāz brēhēnīd (46) čē ka-š dām-iz dād wāy-iz abzār-ē(w) ī-š pad kār andar abāyišt.

From the essence of that Spirit who will remove misfortune in the two creations: he is Power, he is Time; he then fashioned forth the Form of the 182 Vevaina

good Wāy because he needed Wāy; some call him Wāy of Long Rule; and with the help of Wāy of Long Rule he fashioned forth the Creation. (46) For when he created the Creation, Wāy was an instrument, which he needed for his work (cf. Hultgård 2002: 94–95).

Here presumably is a reference to the Good Wāy, though the epithet is shared with his evil counterpart. Thus, Wāy and Kay Khusrau oppose each other as ‘instruments’ of cosmogony and eschatology, respectively, thus bookending Finite Time. Wāy of Long Rule, the Evil one in this case, representing limited time and as such being associated with death is opposed by Kay Khusrau who is an exemplar of the final state of existence. He is immortal and while in occultation he is immune to the ravages of time: disease, aging, and death. As such, he is capable of dominating Wāy of Long Rule and harnessing him in his quest to wake his fellow helpers who are lying in slumber. Only when Time is harnessed and therefore controlled, can his companions awaken and aid him in supporting Sōšāns to rid the world of evil and to resurrect humanity. I believe this answers the question of why Kay Khusrau and Wāy in particular are opponents, but we are still left to wonder why they are found in a commentary on the Airiiaman prayer in which neither appears. The interpretive key to unlocking this hermeneutic curiosity was first suggested by Edward William West as early as 1892. West was the world’s expert on Pahlavi literature at the end of the nineteenth century and the first translator of Dēnkard Books 8 and 9 in the Sacred Books of the East Series edited by Friedrich Max Müller. He stated: ‘Possibly the legend about Vâê in our text may have been suggested by the words vayû-beredubyô and vayôi in Yas. LIII, 6, 7; in which case this fargard must be considered, to some extent, as a continuation of the preceding one’ (West 1892: 224, n. 7). So, for example, we find in Yasna 53.6:

drūjō hacā rāθǝmō # yǝ̄mə spašuθā frāidīm # drūjō āiiesē hōiš.piθā # tanuuō parā # vaiiū.bǝrǝdubiiō duš.xvarəθǝ̄m # nąsat̰ xvāθrǝm # drǝguuō. dǝbiiō dǝ̄jīt̰.arǝtaēibiiō # anāiš āmanahīm # ahūm mǝrǝṇgduiiē.

In this way (mark) them (well as) true, O heroes/men! In that way (mark them well as true), O women/heroines! The ‘composition’ in accordance with the Lie – which you, (O you possessed by the lie) *regard (as) *worthy of furthering, (but on which?) in the glorification / web of the Lie you *monstrously fattened (your) bodies *of old – (it is) foul food for you *riding through the intermediate space [vaiiu]. Comfort has been lost for (you) possessed The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 183

by the Lie (and) who use a crippled Order. Through those (actions / utterances) of yours you are destroying (here and now) the state of thought (after Skjærvø 2002: 54).22

Assuming West’s conjecture is on the mark, which I believe it is, the compound vaiiu.bǝrǝdubiiō23 in the Gathic passage, just prior to the Airiiaman prayer, would have been interpreted by the Zoroastrian interpreters as ‘to ride Vaiiu’. This entire eschatological narrative appears to have been read out of a single compound in the Old Avesta. Such a fantastic explanation might strike some as far-fetched, but a hero riding a malevolent figure is closely paralleled in the Young Avestan yašt literature. The riding of Wāy is perhaps meant to be reminiscent of the hero Taxma Urupi, the Avestan form of Ṭahmūrath, the son of Hūshang in the Shāh-nāma. In the Zamyād Yašt (19.28–29) in the Avesta, Taxma Urupi changes the Evil Spirit into a horse and rides him around the earth for several years; 30 years in some manuscripts and 300 years in others:

yat̰ upaŋhacat̰ taxmǝm urupi azinauuaṇtǝm yat̰ xšaiiata paiti būmīm haptaiθiiąm daēuuanąm maṣ̌iiānąmca yā θβąm pairikanąmca sāθrąm kaoiiąm karafnąmca (29) yat̰ bauuat̰ aiβi.vaniiå vīspe daēuua maṣ̌iiāca vīspe yātauuō pairikåsca yat̰ barata aŋrǝm mainiūm framitǝm aspahe kǝhrpa θrisatǝm aiβi.gāmanąm uua pairi zǝmō karana.

(The Xvarənah) which followed Taxma Urupi with the fox-hide, so that he ruled on the sevenfold earth over demons and men, sorcerers and witches, tyrants, poetasters, and mumblers, so that he was able to subdue all demons and men, all sorcerers and witches, so that he rode the Evil Spirit changed into the form of a horse for three hundred years around both borders of the earth (after Skjærvø, unpublished).24

22 Cf. Humbach et al. 1991: I, 193 who, contra Geldner (1886–96: 189), has the form vaiiū. bǝrǝdbiiō. 23 Skjærvø, in his discussion of this fifth Gāθā, explains this form as being ‘from *°b(h)ṛd-bhiiah with b(h)ṛt from bhar – in its middle meaning of “to ride, drive” ’ (Skjærvø 2002: 57). 24 We have θrisatǝm in F1, E1, R115 and Geldner 1886–95; θristǝm in N107, B27; and θrištǝm in J18 (Hintze 1994: 169). 184 Vevaina

In the Dēnkard 9 narrative we have a Pahlavi eschatological counterpart to the Avestan Taxma Urupi myth with Kay Khusrau instead, a camel substituted for a horse, and Wāy, in this context representing death, time, and aging substituted for the Evil Spirit who is ultimately responsible for all these bad things. It is worth noting that in the Shāh-nāma Ṭahmūrath, one of the mythical Pishdadian kings, uses magic to subdue Ahriman. He makes the Evil Spirit his slave and also rides him like a horse. The demons then rebel against Ṭahmūrath, and he subsequently uses magic to bind two-thirds of them; the remaining third he crushes with his mace. They then become Ṭahmūrath’s slaves, and he coerces them into teaching him the art of writing in almost thirty different scripts, including Persian, Arabic, Sogdian, Chinese, and last but not least, Pahlavi (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: I, 35–38). We have finally come full circle, back to the question of the writing down of scripts and the con- comitant role of orality in the composition, transmission, and performance of these Iranian texts in both the Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Perso-Arabic traditions. Rather than draw unsubstantiated conclusions from one meagre example, I would like to conclude with a few salient points regarding the orality versus textuality dichotomy; questions of chronology and the periodization of Zoroastrian Middle Persian literature; and finally, questions of definitions and intended and/or expected audiences that need to be raised. There are no easy answers to be had here, just difficult questions. Since Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750 (Brown 1971) the last forty years have seen a dramatic shift in the way we view the post-Classical West. As part of his historio- graphical critique of Gibbon’s decline and fall, Brown also had the intellectual open-mindedness to view the East and the Iranian world as being a participant in the development of Late Antiquity. Most scholars of Late Antiquity in the West tend to date the end of this periodization to the time of the reorganiza- tion of the Eastern Roman Empire under Heraclius and the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. Many historians are now more open to including the first century of Islam within the confines of the period. In Michael Morony’s article, ‘Should Sasanian Iran be Included in Late Antiquity?’ he concludes by suggesting:

Finally, neither the Late Roman nor the Sasanian Empire was monolithic, and both underwent historical development from the third to the seventh century. In any case Late Antiquity has no intrinsic identity; it is an intellectual construct that we create for our own purposes. But if we include the Sasanian Empire it might broaden our understanding of Late Antiquity and help to redefine it (Morony 2010: 9). The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 185

We in the religious, philological, and literary side of Iranian Studies are still left with an intractable problem. For the most part, Iranists treat the Pahlavi corpus as if it is a reflection of Sasanian society and yet seemingly all the extant Pahlavi texts are in fact Islamic-era literary products. Since Harold W. Bailey’s Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books (Bailey 1943), we have used the ninth century as the time when this material was first written down after a two-millennia old oral tradition was finally showing its age.25 Manūščihr, the high priest of Kirmān in the late ninth century, whom I cited earlier, described the Zoroastrian communities of his time as ‘scattered jewels’ (wehān gohrān- ēwēnag wistarīd) due to the jizya, the onerous poll tax paid to the Muslim authorities (see Kreyenbroek 1995: 174). He lamented the increasing levels of apostasy, the consequent glut of priests undercutting each other’s rates to corner the market with dwindling numbers of lay clients, and a corresponding lack of knowledge amongst the young priests of his time who did not have the texts as well memorized as the earlier generations of the Zoroastrian priesthood. Most of our Pahlavi materials appear to have been put into writing in this socio-economic climate. Simply put, the literary output of Zoroastrians writing manuscripts in Pahlavi is actually contemporaneous with the output of early Classical Persian of the first four centuries of Islam.26 It is also important to recognize that while the Avestan script appears to have been a product of the fifth-sixth centuries CE, our earliest extant Avestan manuscript dates from 1288. In a nutshell, our Middle Persian commentaries might well have preceded the Avestan texts they interpreted.27 Any scholarship regarding Zoroastrian literature in Middle Persian must, in my opinion, contend with this stepchild of orality and recognize that a term such as a ‘late manuscript’ is often judged against a putative standard that privileges archaic content over contemporary form.

25 A point made more than fifty years ago by Mary Boyce: ‘To postulate the existence in Iran of a secular oral literature of entertainment that flourished in unbroken continuity for about a thousand years is not to strain credulity’ (Boyce 1954: 52). See more recently, Skjærvø 2005–2006. 26 The one notable counter-example is believed to be the Mādayān ī hazār dādestān which was compiled during or after the reign of Khusrau II (r. 590–628) and whose contents have been described as being ‘purely Sasanian’ by Maria Macuch (2009, in particular p. 188). In the introduction to her edition Macuch states: ‘Im Rechtsbuch finden sich überdies weder Hinweise auf den Islam noch irgendwelche Namen von Persönlichkeiten, die eine spätere als die oben genannte Datierung zwingend vorsch- reiben würden’ (eadem 1993: 10). 27 See, e.g., Skjærvø 1991. For the Pahlavi translations of the Avesta, see the groundbreaking work of Cantera 2004 and Skjærvø’s review (2008a). 186 Vevaina

Let me briefly turn to the question of definitions. We need to understand our key terms such as ‘myth,’ ‘epic,’ ‘genre,’ etc as heuristic tools for further intellectual exploration, which are in need of constant re-evaluation rather than as inviolable, often under-theorized or atheorized givens, ‘natural’ categories, so to speak. We also need to recognize not just their contingent nature as intellectual constructs but we need to also acknowledge and examine their cross-cultural applications. In this regard, I very much agree with some of Olga Davidson’s critics who feel that the intellectual model being imported whole- sale from the Classical West has little resonance with lived realities in the highly literate Persianate world. That being said, I would like to share a definition for ‘genre,’ suggested by a Classicist, Richard Martin, that I find appealing. I have found ‘genre’ in particular to be a slippery concept, most often used and least often defined. In the context of the present paper where one finds familiar epic characters in unfamiliar eschatological roles and hermeneutical contexts, some definition of ‘genre’ is undoubtedly called for. Richard Martin defines ‘genre’ as ‘a set of allowable intertexts (oral or written), embracing all those compositions that communicate through consistent mutual allusivity’ (Martin 2005: 14). It is this ‘consistent mutual allusivity’ which I see as the hallmark of the type of interpretive literatures showcased above, which are activated by a host of cross-generic intertextual activation points in a wide range of Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts.28 Several questions are worth asking here: Which audiences respond to which allusions? Would recently converted Muslim readers and audiences in the time of Firdausī have known the eschatological character of Kay Khusrau? Were these overlapping traditions and overlapping genres known but not always recorded or perhaps consciously excised by the Perso- Arabic writers? Or, were certain strands of the inherited Iranian mythoepic tradition the exclusive intellectual property of certain communities? These are just some of the questions that are in need of further exploration. Turning to hermeneutics, given that the colophon of the Dēnkard is dated to 1020 in Baghdad, just ten years after the completion of the Shāh-nāma in Ṭūs, in the year of Firdausī’s death, we cannot treat this eschatological passage with Kay Khusrau as simply being a pre-Islamic text and read it purely to extract an ‘old’ myth from it. Instead, we must appreciate the exegetical- eisegetical narrative at play that serves to read the mythoepic world of the Iranian culture heroes and great sacrificers of the past into the ritual world of the Gāθās. With this paper I hope to have showcased the power and plasticity of inherited mythoepic forms and devices being constantly re-animated and re-tasked to serve a number of inter-related hermeneutic goals and functions

28 For the application of ‘intertextuality’ to Pahlavi interpretive literature, see Vevaina 2010a. The Ground Well Trodden But The Shah Not Found 187 which, when placed beside the fully realized epic world of the Shāh-nāma we are then confronted with a more complex picture of the divide between the oral past of Zoroastrianism and the written present of the Islamic world. Only by unpacking the rhetorical and hermeneutical capabilities of these Pahlavi texts can we start to gain a greater appreciation of what contemporary audiences – both Zoroastrians and Muslims – in Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period in Iran might have taken away from this rich and fascinating shared literary heritage.

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———. 2003–2004. ‘The Antiquity of Old Avestan.’ Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies 3/2, pp. 15–41. ———. 2005–2006. ‘The Importance of Orality for the Study of Old Iranian Literature and Myth.’ Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies 5/1–2, pp. 9–31. ———. 2008a. Review of Cantera 2004 in Kratylos 53, pp. 1–20. ———. 2008b. ‘The Gāθās and the Kusti.’ In One for the Earth: Prof. Dr. Y. Mahyar Nawabi Memorial Volume. Ed. Mahmoud Jaafari-Dehaghi. Ancient Iranian Studies Series 4. Tehran: Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, pp. 117–33. Vevaina, Yuhan S.-D. 2007. Studies in Zoroastrian Exegesis and Hermeneutics with a Critical Edition of the Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9. Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University. ———. [2005] 2009. ‘Resurrecting the Resurrection: Eschatology and Exegesis in Late Antique Zoroastrianism.’ BAI 19. Iranian and Zoroastrian Studies in Honor of Prods Oktor Skjærvø, pp. 215–23. ———. 2010a. ‘Relentless Allusion: Intertextuality and the Reading of Zoroastrian Interpretive Literature.’ In The Talmud in Its Iranian Context. Ed. Carol Bakhos and M. Rahim Shayegan. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 135. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 206–32. ———. 2010b. ‘“Enumerating the Dēn”: Textual Taxonomies, Cosmological Deixis, and Numerological Speculations in Zoroastrianism.’ History of Religions 50/2, pp. 111–43. ———. 2011. ‘Miscegenation, “Mixture,” and “Mixed Iron”: The Hermeneutics, Historiography, and Cultural Poesis of the “Four Ages” in Zoroastrianism.’ In Revelation, Literature and Community in Antiquity. Ed. Philippa Townsend and Moulie Vidas. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 237–69. ———. forthcoming. Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity: The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9. Text, Translation, and Commentary. Iranica Series. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Warner, Arthur George, and Edmond Warner, trans. 1905–25. The Shahnama of Firdausi. London: Kegan Paul. 9 vols. West, Edward William. 1892. Pahlavi Texts IV: Contents of the Nasks. Sacred Books of the East 37. Oxford. Yamamoto, Kumiko. 2003. The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature 26. Leiden and Boston: Brill. CHAPTER 7 ‘The Book of the Black Demon,’ or Shabrang-nāma, and the Black Demon in Oral Tradition

Gabrielle R. van den Berg

This paper will focus on the son of the White Dīv, a black demon named Shabrang, ‘the night-coloured one’. The story of Rustam and the White Dīv is one of the most popular stories of the Shāh-nāma, which is probably why a descendent was invented to elaborate on the White Dīv. The son of the White Dīv is black – as the White Dīv himself probably was1 – and he seeks revenge for the murder of his father. He fights a number of battles with Rustam, who killed his father, and with other Iranian heroes, in particular with Farāmarz, son of Rustam. In the Persian Epic Cycle tradition a separate story devoted to Shabrang’s battles with the Iranian heroes exists.2 This story can be found as a separate manuscript in the Academy Collection of the Leiden University Library, under the title Shabrang-nāma.3 Other, similar versions of this story are present in a small number of relatively late Shāh-nāma manuscripts; in those cases the story is one of the numerous interpolations present in the manuscripts. In the oral tradition the son of the White Dīv also occurs under the name Siyahrang or Siyahdīv, as is testified by a number of stories and references to stories which can be found in two published ṭūmārs or collections of ṭūmār texts, i.e., the Ṭūmār-i kuhan-i Shāh-nāma-yi Firdausī (Ṣadāqat-nizhād 1374/1995–96: 161) and the Haft lashkar (Afshārī and Madāyinī 1377/1998: 292– 308). This paper aims to examine the nature of these stories, their position in the Shāh-nāma tradition and the way they interrelate.

1 For a discussion of the colour of the White Dīv, see Clinton and Simpson 2006: 183–84. 2 The Persian Epic Cycle consists of epic poems composed in relation to the heroic tales found in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma or supplementing the Shāh-nāma, such as the Garshāsp-nāma and the Barzū-nāma. These epic poems are often referred to by the terms ‘secondary epics’ or ‘later epics’. For a discussion of these epics, see Ṣafā 1333/1954–55: 283–342; de Blois 1994: 562–84; Molé 1953. 3 See note 6 below.

From White Dīv to Black Dīv: How the War of Māzandarān Led to the Shabrang-nāma

One of the most famous episodes of Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma is the Haft khvān-i Rustam, or the Seven Labours of Rustam, which takes place in the framework of the large episode on the War of Māzandarān (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 3–65). The land called Māzandarān in the Shāh-nāma is a land traditionally ruled by demons and their consorts. It is not identical to the present-day province of Iran situated on the coast of the Caspian sea, but an enigmatic land which is situated east of Iran and may be located in India, though, in the course of history it has also been identified with other areas such as Yemen.4 In the episode of the War of Māzandarān, Kay Kāvūs, just proclaimed king of Iran, unwisely plans to conquer the King of Māzandarān and his land, against the advice of Zāl, who warns the king about the land of wizard-demons. This is a land, in the words of Zāl, that is protected by magic and by the power of sorcerers, a land that cannot be defeated by the sword and cannot be obtained by treasure or knowledge, a land no one deems auspicious to visit (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 10, ll. 115–118). Kay Kāvūs does not heed to warning, and ends up as a captive of the King of Māzandarān, who blinds him and his warriors. Kay Kāvūs succeeds in sending a message to Zāl, who sends Rustam to rescue the king. Rustam sets out towards Māzandarān, taking a short cut and performing his famous Haft khvān. Rustam’s fifth labour is the capture of Aulād, who will serve him as a guide during his last two labours, namely the killing of the demons Arzhang and the White Dīv. As a reward for his help, Aulād is given rule over Māzandarān as a vassal of King Kay Kāvūs. This is the end of the War of Māzandarān episode in the Shāh-nāma of Firdausī. The episode is followed by the War of Hāmāvarān (ibid.: II, 67–101). In a limited number of Shāh-nāma manuscripts we find a continuation of the Haft khvān in the form of an interpolation.5 The same work is also

4 See Monchi-zadeh 1975: 48: ‘Trotz mancher Bemuehungen ist die Identifizierung des Landes Mazindaran im Shn [= Shāh-nāma] bis jetzt nicht gelungen’; also p. 49: ‘Die sog. Küste des Kaspischen Meeres wurde bei Firdausi niemals als Mazindaran bezeichnet. .’; and p. 142: ‘Mazindaran ist im Shn [= Shāh-nāma] ein Land östlich von Iran und gehört zum indischen Raum’. 5 See British Library, London, Or. 2926, dated 1246–49/1830–33: ‘Zādan-i Shabrang pisar- i Sipīd Dīv az mādar va pursīdan-i nizhād-i khvad az-ū va guftan-i mādar ki tu pisar-i Dīv-i Sipīd-ī va āmadan ba-Māzandarān,’ ff. 146r–167v; British Library, London, I.O. 3263, undated: ‘Dāstān-i Shabrangdīv dar Māzandarān,’ ff. 397r–405v, continued on ff. 415r–434r; The Book Of The Black Demon 193 available as a separate manuscript in the Leiden University Library under the title Shabrang-nāma.6 The manuscript versions of the story on Shabrang run between 2,650 to 2,775 verses. The text of the Shabrang-nāmas as found in the manuscript tradition coincides to a large extent.7 The story of the son of the White Dīv is only rarely found in Shāh-nāma manuscripts, and the Leiden Shabrang-nāma is the only instance of a separate manuscript containing this story. The story is, however, listed in Ṣafā’s Ḥamāsa-sarāʾī dar Īrān, under the title Dāstān-i Shabrang (Ṣafā 1333/1954–55: 323). According to Ṣafā, the story was composed before the Mongol era, perhaps in the sixth/twelfth century (ibid.). He describes the story in the following manner:

There exists another story about Rustam named Dāstān-i Shabrang and this is a story about the battle of Rustam with Shabrang, the son of the White Dīv, and with all the demons of Māzandarān and about his defeating them. The origin of this story is attributed to the famous Āzādsarv, about whom Firdausī spoke in the introduction to his story of Rustam’s murder, saying: ‘He knew many of the battles of Rustam by heart’. We can trace back the origin of this story to him [i.e., Āzādsarv], since besides his stories which Firdausī has put into verse, there existed other stories of his as well.8 Although Firdausī has taken into account many of the stories about ancient Iran, he assumed that this story was of no particular importance. The first two verses of the story of Shabrang are the following: ‘Listen now to the sayings of Zādsarv, / the light of the lines of the commander of Māhān in Marv. // How the son of Zāl went into Māzandarān, / how he crushed all the demons’ (Ṣafā 1333/1954–55: 323).9

Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍavī Library, Mashhad, MS. 4248, dated 1212/1797, title unknown, between ff. 231–278. 6 See University Library, Leiden, Acad. 150, undated, probably early or mid-seventeenth century, ff. 1v–85v. 7 There is, however, quite a difference in the title headings in the story. The Acad. 150 Shabrang- nāma has 47 headings, while the Or. 2926 Shabrang-nāma has 27 headings, i.e., twenty headings less. 8 The story of Rustam and Shaghād, which comprises a part of the Shāh-nāma, as well as the Farāmarz-nāma, are also attributed to an author named Āzādsarv. See Khaleghi-Motlagh 1989. 9 Unless otherwise stated, the translation is mine. 194 van den Berg

The story of Shabrang is also mentioned by François de Blois in his Persian Literature, as a part of the Farāmarz-nāma, which is a more frequently occurring Persian Epic Cycle poem on Farāmarz, one of Rustam’s sons (de Blois 1994: 571–74).

Synopsis of the Shabrang-nāma in the Manuscript Tradition

The Shabrang-nāma opens with a very brief recapitulation of the concluding part of the Haft khvān, after the usual prelude of moral advice (andarz) against greed (āz), consisting of about fifteen verses. The story that develops can be summarized as follows: In the harem of the White Dīv there was a lady named Māhyār, a relative of the kings of Māzandarān. When her husband, the White Dīv, was killed by Rustam, she was a few months pregnant. Aulād, the new ruler of Māzandarān, is aware of her existence and tries to find her. Māhyār does not want to be found and flees through a dark cave. Soon after, she gives birth to a hideous black demon with long tusks. The son, named Shabrang, soon learns more of his background and swears to take revenge on the prince of Iran who according to his mother killed his father, the White Dīv. Shabrang proceeds to Māzandarān and manages to kill Aulād. Shabrang’s mother, Māhyār, is then made queen of Māzandarān. This, however, is not enough for Shabrang; encouraged by his mother, he prepares an army of demons to attack Iran. When Kāvūs hears of Shabrang’s threat, he summons Rustam, who goes to bring an end to the rule of demons and sorcerers in Māzandarān, supported by his brother Zavāra and his son Farāmarz. This is the beginning of a long fight between the army of Rustam and the army of Shabrang. Part of the battle takes place near the city of Ṭīsfūn (Ctesiphon/Baghdad). Many champions and demons appear in the story, until in the end Shabrang is almost defeated. As a last resort, Shabrang tries a night attack and summons the help of the great sorcerer Jalīvār, who buries Rustam and his men in snow. When this has no effect, Shabrang flees. Farāmarz follows him, but is unable to catch the cunning demon. The Iranians give up on Shabrang and try to negotiate with his mother Māhyār, the queen of Māzandarān. She acts in a treacherous manner, and is taken to Kāvūs as a prisoner of war, together with many defeated demons from Shabrang’s army. Since Māhyār is not a demon and moreover is of royal descent, she is treated kindly at Kāvūs’s court. During the victory feast, one of Rustam’s champions, Bahrām, falls in love with Māhyār. The story ends with the union between Bahrām and Māhyār. No more mention is made of Shabrang, who seems to have vanished for good. The Book Of The Black Demon 195

The Story of Shabrang in the Oral Tradition

In the oral tradition, an entirely different story about the son of the White Dīv appears. The oral tradition is elusive by nature, and we have to rely on a variety of materials, collected from storytellers. The materials consist of the ṭūmārs, the storytellers’ versions of the Shāh-nāma and associated stories, some of which seem to be barely related to Firdausī’s epic in the form we know it. In ṭūmārs we come across sons and daughters of heroes from the Shāh-nāma; these sons and daughters in their turn have sons and daughters as well, and these also have offspring: in short, one could almost regard these stories as a kind of extensive genealogy of the heroes who occur in the Shāh-nāma. Almost all the heroes bear some kind of relationship to Rustam and his ancestry – not surprisingly so, as Rustam is the pillar of the Shāh-nāma tradition. Before looking into the role of Shabrang in the oral tradition, I would like to dwell briefly on another figure, namely the hero Barzū (or Burzū), in order to clarify his connection to Shabrang. Barzū has a prominent role in both the oral and the manuscript tradition: amongst all the heroes mentioned as descen- dents of Rustam, Barzū stands out, because he seems to be a central figure in the majority of epic stories – with the exception of the Shāh-nāma of Firdausī, where he does not figure at all. Indeed, according to the Shāh-nāma, the tragic hero Suhrāb, recognized as Barzū’s father in the oral tradition, dies young and childless. It is evident, however, that many who held the Shāh-nāma dear, could not stomach the tragic death of Suhrāb, and therefore invented Barzū, son of Suhrāb and grandson of Rustam. It cannot be ruled out that stories of the hero Barzū already existed prior to the composition of Firdausī’s Shāh- nāma and that for some reason Firdausī chose to leave out this story – but that goes beyond the subject of the paper. In any case, the name Barzū seems to have been in circulation for a long time, if only judging from the names of archeological sites in both Iran and Central Asia, where there are places which are called ‘Tall-i Barzūʾī’ (the Hill of Barzū), or ‘Qalʿa-yi Barzū’ (the Fortress of Barzū) (Anjavī Shīrāzī 1369/1991: 70). At the same time, it remains unclear how and when these sites obtained their names. However that may be, the history of the hero Barzū in the epic tradition cannot be traced clearly beyond the post-Shāh-nāma epics. In the manuscript tradition, the story of Barzū seems to stand fully apart from the story of Shabrang. As mentioned above, the Shabrang-nāma is found in a few manuscripts at the most, and only in one manuscript can the position of the Shabrang-nāma as an interpolated text be clearly ascertained. The manuscript in question is the British Library manuscript Or. 2926, where 196 van den Berg the prelude of the Shabrang-nāma begins on folio 146v. The prelude, consisting of a piece of conventional advice, is preceded by the story of Rustam and his battle against the warrior Alkūs. In the Shāh-nāma this is the very last part of the episode describing the War of Hāmāvarān (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 106–15). In most Shāh-nāma editions and in the majority of Shāh-nāma manuscripts, this part is followed by the story of Rustam and Suhrāb. In Or. 2926, however, we find a Shabrang-nāma at this point.10 In line with the position of the interpolated Shabrang-nāma in Or. 2926, the king of Iran is Kāvūs: that is also the case in the other manuscript versions of the Shabrang-nāma. But although the Shabrang-nāma is placed in Or. 2926 after the episode of the War of Hāmāvarān, it is quite obvious that it is in fact a continuation of the preceding episode, the Jang-i Māzandarān, the War of Māzandarān, and its expected position would have been before, rather than after, the War of Hāmāvarān. Interpolated stories tend to be placed where they do not seem to be appropriate – this is perhaps inherent to the phenomenon of interpolations. If one examines the Barzū-nāma which is much more often found as an interpolation in Shāh-nāma manuscripts than the Shabrang-nāma,11 one discovers that the story of Suhrāb’s son is seldom placed immediately after the story of Rustam and Suhrāb, its rightful place, one might argue. Instead, when interpolated, the Barzū-nāma is usually placed after the story of Bīzhan and Manīzha. However, both the story of Bīzhan and Manīzha and the story of Rustam and Suhrāb form digressions from the main storyline of the Shah-nāma, and as such provide suitable places for interpolations, such as the Barzū-nāma and the Shabrang-nāma.12

10 The last verse to be found in the Shāh-nāma before the beginning of the Shabrang-nāma in Or. 2926 is: sukhanhā bar-īn dāsitān shud ba-kan / chunān chun āmad zi-bālā sukhan (the second half line is metrically defective; ‘The words of this story have come to an end, / since words came down from above’). The line is also included in Khāliqī-Muṭlaq’s edition (sakhunhā bar-īn dāsitān shud ba-bun / chunān k-andar āmad zi-bālā sakhun), functioning as a transition verse, but instead of the rhyme-word kan the editor prefers bun, allowing for the correct archaic reading sakhun instead of sukhan in the second half line. Besides, Khāliqī-Muṭlaq has the metrically correct k-andar instead of chun in the second half line (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 115, l. 163). This verse is followed in Or. 2926 by another transition verse: chi pardākhta gashtam az īn dāsitān / ki bishnīdam az gufta-yi bāsitān (‘Since I have done with this story / which I heard from ancient tale’.) 11 The Barzū-nāma seems to be the most frequently found interpolation in the Shāh-nāma manuscript tradition, especially from the tenth/sixteenth century onwards. See Van den Berg 2009. 12 On the point of digressions, see Yamamoto 2003: 83. The Book Of The Black Demon 197

In the manuscript tradition the Barzū-nāma has different versions, seemingly dependent on its position as an interpolated text in the manuscript. The longest versions of the Barzū-nāma can be found in two Barzū-nāma manuscripts in Paris, which are probably closely related to the story of Barzū as we find it in the oral tradition.13 In the oral tradition, the story of Barzū is very extensive. Thus, many different stories about Barzū and about his offspring can be found, for example, in the Haft lashkar, reflecting the naqqālī tradition in Iran;14 at the same time, the story of Barzū is also told by storytellers in the region of Boysun in present-day Uzbekistan (Rahmoni 2007; Rahmoni and Van den Berg 2013). It is impossible here to examine the many different versions of the Barzū-nāma, both in the oral and in the written tradition. Here I would like to go into the version of Barzū in the Haft lashkar, for in this collection we find, rather surprisingly, that Barzū and the son of the White Dīv, now named Siyahrang, appear in the same story.

Synopsis of the Story of Barzū and Siyahrang in the Haft lashkar

In the long story of Barzū as found in the Haft lashkar, there is an episode in which Barzū has been captured by a Qaṭrān-i Zangī who puts him into a prison on an island (Afshārī and Madāyinī 1377/1998: 245–452). At this point we meet a peculiar hero nicknamed Yakdast, ‘the one-handed one,’ whose real name is Shumkūr bin Shamīlān (ibid.: 281).15 Yakdast rescues Barzū from the island, and as a reward Barzū’s grandfather, Rustam, gives him a new name: Rustam-i Yakdast, literally ‘the one-handed Rustam’. Probably in order not to confuse him with the legendary Rustam, in the course of the story he is usually named simply Yakdast, or Yakdast-i ḥarām-zāda, ‘the bastard Yakdast,’ which might be a way of revealing in guarded terms his dubious background, as well as his rather uncivilized nature.

13 Bibliothèque Nationale, Supplément Persan 499 and 499a, copied in 1760. In these manuscripts, the son of Barzū, Timūr, also plays an extensive role, as is not usually the case in the Barzū-nāmas found as interpolations in the Shāh-nāma. 14 [On the naqqālī tradition, see Ulrich Marzolph’s article in this volume.] 15 The vocalization of the name is mine, on the basis of the variant of this name given in the footnote (Afshārī and Madāyinī 1377/1998: 281, n. 6), as the editor has found it in Anjavī Shīrāzī’s Mardum va Shāh-nāma. This variant is Shumkūs bin Shamīlān (see Anjavī Shīrāzī 1369/1991: 30, 57). 198 van den Berg

Very soon Yakdast’s dark side comes to the fore. Barzū falls in love with Fihr-i Sīmīn-ʿidhār, the daughter of Garsīvaz, the brother of Afrāsiyāb – the arch-enemy of Iran in the Shāh-nāma – and is determined to have her. Barzū threatens to commit suicide if he is not allowed to go to her, and Rustam, his grandfather, despite his objections, has no choice but to let him go. Yakdast offers to accompany Barzū, but as soon as he sees the lady in question, he falls in love himself. Nevertheless, he steals her from her family and brings her to Barzū. As soon as Afrāsiyāb and Garsīvaz discover Fihr-i Sīmīn-ʿidhār’s disappearance, they become enraged, and a fierce battle begins. In the battle Barzū has to fight the demon Fūlādvand, and while he is fighting, Yakdast secretly takes the lady away from the harem; he promises her in Barzū’s name that he will bring her to Sīstān. In reality, however, he takes her away to Māzandarān. Barzū is desperate and again wants to kill himself, but is held back by Bīzhan. He then decides to follow Yakdast with a large army to Māzandarān. In Māzandarān, we meet the son of the White Dīv, named Siyahrang in this story, who is now the ruler of Māzandarān. Yakdast is received well by Siyahrang, although his counselors try to discourage him from welcoming Yakdast at his court, fearing the revenge of Barzū, whose grandfather, the mighty Rustam, had inflicted sufferings on Siyahrang and on Māzandarān. Besides, so the counselors say, Barzū is even stronger than Rustam, for he was the one who succeeded in wounding Rustam in his shoulder, when the grandson and the grandfather had not yet found out about their family relationship – an episode present in almost all the versions of Barzū’s story. Barzū decides to write a letter to Siyahrang, threatening the demon with war if Siyahrang chooses to support Yakdast. It appears, however, that the war cannot be avoided. Accordingly, two camps are set up outside the city, one filled with the army of demons led by Siyahrang, while the other is full of the champions led by Barzū. When the battle breaks out, things do not go well for the champions; one by one they are defeated by Yakdast who is assisted by horrible demons, such as the terrible Afghāndīv. Yakdast captures Bīzhan, Ruhhām, Ṭūs and Gīv and delivers them to Siyahrang. Barzū is the next hero to step into the arena to fight Yakdast. However, Yakdast is afraid of Barzū, because he is stronger than Rustam and because he has flattened the demon Fūlādvand by handling an elephant as a weapon. It is only by a treacherous trick that Yakdast is able to capture Barzū, helped by Siyahrang and three hundred demons. This is the end of the Iranian army – the rest of it flees back to Zābul, to Zāl and Rustam, both of whom weep over Barzū and decide to send Falāmarz (= Farāmarz), Rustam’s son, to Māzandarān. The Book Of The Black Demon 199

Despite their bravery and prowess, Falāmarz and his warriors also fall victim to the ruses of Yakdast and Siyahrang, and both Falāmarz and his son Sām are made prisoners. The Iranian army has to flee back to Zābul for a second time. This time Zāl tells Rustam to go to Māzandarān himself and to put an end to the empire of the demons once and for all. The news shocks Siyahrang and his demons, but Yakdast is confident. Siyahrang then sends three thousand sorcerer-demons (dīv-i jādūgar) to meet Rustam. Although Yakdast has promised Siyahrang and the demons to fight Rustam, he persuades Siyahrang that he should deal Rustam a few blows before he steps in, to get his revenge for his father, the White Dīv. Siyahrang accepts the deceitful plan, but as soon as he stands before Rustam he is unable to fight and trembles with fear from top to toe. Halfheartedly and full of regret, he challenges Rustam and swears to avenge his father. Rustam laughs at him, calls him ‘little demon’ (dīvak), and it takes him one attack only to end Siyahrang’s life. The demons now turn angrily upon Yakdast and force him to fight Rustam instead. Rustam reproaches Yakdast for his treachery; Yakdast in turn blames the omnipotence of love. Yakdast fights Rustam, and in the end he manages to injure the hero, by throwing stones at him. It is now Rustam’s turn to play a trick. He acts as if he is fleeing, and Yakdast is taken by surprise. At that moment Rustam throws his lasso over Yakdast and ties him to his steed Rakhsh, who drags the traitor over the ground until he is wounded. Then Rustam places him under the care of a few guardians, so that he can meet the demons. The demons want to end the war and plead to be forgiven. Rustam agrees in return for the champions who are held captive. Accordingly, the demons show Rustam the way to the cave where the heroes are imprisoned. Immediately after freeing the prisoners, arrangements are made for marriage between Barzū and Fihr-i Sīmīn-ʿidhār, who was the immediate cause of the fight. A great wedding banquet is held in the city. However, at this moment Afrāsiyāb finds out that the Iranian champions are all in Māzandarān. He grasps the opportunity to attack Iran; in the confusion that follows Yakdast manages to escape. This is the end of the story of Barzū in Māzandarān: Siyahrang is dead and only mentioned in the remainder of the story as the one who supported Yakdast. So here we have, in the framework of yet another epic, what may be seen as the continuation of the Shabrang-nāma as found in the manuscripts. In the manuscript versions of the Shabrang-nāma, Shabrang might have been defeated, but he is not killed. In the version examined above, Rustam annihilates Shabrang (named Siyahrang); the dominion of the demons in Māzandarān, however, continues to exist, facilitating the composition of new 200 van den Berg stories in which dynasties of demons form the backdrop of the heroic deeds of Rustam and his ever growing dynasty. The demons, though, are doomed to be defeated again and again.16

Conclusion

It is evident that the stories about Shabrang in the manuscript tradition and about his alter ego Siyahrang in the reflections of the oral tradition differ widely. In the manuscript tradition, the Shabrang-nāma seems to be connected to the Farāmarz-nāma; thus, in both Acad. 150 and in Or. 2926 the Farāmarz-nāma immediately follows the Shabrang-nāma. The Shabrang-nāma may even be perceived as a kind of prelude to the Farāmarz-nāma, for in the Shabrang- nāma Farāmarz’s importance gradually grows in the battle against Shabrang, though his role cannot be compared to that of his father, Rustam. In the Farāmarz-nāma, however, he is the main hero. In the Haft lashkar, Shabrang, named Siyahrang, plays a significant part in the extensive story of Barzū, in which also Farāmarz has a role. All the heroes are interconnected, especially in the oral tradition, in which it is difficult to distinguish who is the main hero in which story. Both in the manuscript tradition and in the oral tradition, the poems of the Persian Epic Cycle follow a clear pattern: a seemingly closed storyline from the Shāh-nāma re-opens and a sequel is composed, which often may lead to another sequel, thus forming a never-ending story of Shāh-nāma ‘clones,’ in which Rustam and his family never fail to symbolize and embody the infallible supremacy of Iran.

Bibliography

Afshārī, Mihrān, and Mahdī Madāyinī, eds. 1377/1998. Haft lashkar (Ṭumār-i jāmiʿ-i naqqālān) az Kayūmarth tā Bahman. Tehran: Pazhūhishgāh-i ʿulūm-i insānī va muṭāliʿāt-i farhangī. Anjavī Shīrāzī, Abū al-Qāsim. 1369/1991. Firdausī-nāma. Mardum va Shāh-nāma. Tehran: Intishārāt-i ʿilmī.

16 In a version of the Ādharbarzīn-nāma (Ādharbarzīn being the son of Farāmarz), preserved in the Ṭumār-i kuhan-i Shāh-nāma-yi Firdausī (Ṣadāqat-nizhād 1374/1995–96: 846–959), it is related, however, that as soon as Rustam died, demons appeared from everywhere to take over Māzandarān again. Bahman was a powerful king, but he had no power over Māzandarān. The Book Of The Black Demon 201

Clinton, Jerome W., and Marianna S. Simpson. 2006. ‘How Rustam Killed White Div: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry.’ Iranian Studies 39/2, pp. 171–97. De Blois, François. 1994. Persian Literature. A Bio-Bibliographical Survey Begun by the Late C.A. Storey. Vol. V, part 2: Poetry ca A.D. 1100 to 1225. London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Khāliqī-Muṭlaq, Jalāl, et al., eds. 1988–2008. Firdausī, Abū al-Qāsim. Shāh-nāma. Persian Text Series, n.s. 1. Costa Mesa, California and New York: Mazda Publishers in Association with Bibliotheca Persica. 8 vols. Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. 1989. ‘Āzādsarv.’ EIr III, p. 179. Molé, Marijan. 1953. ‘L’épopée iranienne après Firdōsī.’ La Nouvelle Clio 5, pp. 377–93. Monchi-zadeh, Davoud. 1975. Topographisch-historische Studien zum Iranischen Nationalepos. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes XLI, 2. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Rahmoni, Ravshan, ed. 2007. Dostoni Barzu. Dushanbe: Donishgohi davlatii millii Tojikiston, Pazhuhishkadai mardumshinosi. ———, and Gabrielle van den Berg, ed. and trans. 2013. The Story of Barzu as Told by Two Storytellers from Boysun, Uzbekistan. Leiden: Leiden UP. Ṣadāqat-nizhād, Jamshīd. 1374/1995–96. Ṭūmār-i kuhan-i Shāh-nāma-yi Firdausī. Tehran: Dunyā-yi kitāb. Ṣafā, Dhabīḥ-Allāh. 1333/1954–55. Ḥamāsa-sarāʾī dar Īrān. Tehran: Amīr Kabīr. Van den Berg, Gabrielle. 2009. ‘Borzunāma.’ EIr at www.iranica.com. Yamamoto, Kumiko. 2003. The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature 26. Leiden: Brill. CHAPTER 8 Why So Many Stories? Untangling the Versions of Iskandar’s Birth and Upbringing

Julia Rubanovich

The tales of Alexander the Great originate in the Greek Alexander Romance, or Pseudo-Callisthenes, and represent an impressive instance of dynamic cultural exchange.1 They wander from one national literature to another, finding their way into almost every medieval literary genre; they readily split into separate motifs and themes, reassembled with acquisition of new meanings and emphases.2 In the Perso-Arabic domain, where Alexander the Great became known as Iskandar-i Rūmī/al-Iskandar al-Rūmī respectively, ‘high’ literature, represented by historical compositions, epic poems and ethical-philosophical treatises, produced primarily for learned reception, as well as folk tradition, appear to share an immense curiosity regarding the figure of Iskandar.3 Examination of a specific theme, that of the hero’s birth and upbringing, offers an engaging opportunity to trace the transference of motifs and themes

1 I use both titles interchangeably throughout the paper. The Pseudo-Callisthenes was compiled in about the third century CE in Alexandria by an anonymous author and was spu- riously attributed – in several fifteenth-century manuscripts of European provenance – to Alexander’s historian Callisthenes (executed in 327 BCE). There is an immense scholarly literature concerning the Greek Alexander Romance, its emergence, constituents and various branches. For a bibliography of studies, some of which have become classical, see Conte 2001: 35–45. Among early groundbreaking authoritative works in the field are Nöldeke 1890; Pfister 1913; Merkelbach 1954; Cary 1956. For recent contributions discussing various recensions of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, which provide a relatively established picture of the state of the art, see Stoneman 2011; Jouanno 2002. For a useful and illuminating excursus showing the distribution of the Greek Alexander Romance and its permutations in medieval literary traditions – from Syriac and Hebrew through Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopic to European vernacular literature, including the Scandinavian, – see Zuwiyya 2011a. See also n. 9 below. 2 For instances of modification and revision of episodes stemming from the Greek Alexander Romance along the ideological, cultural, and religious lines of national and religious traditions, see Stoneman 2008; Rubanovich 2015. 3 For most recent general surveys on the Alexander Romance in the medieval Arabic tradition, see Zuwiyya 2011b; Doufikar-Aerts 2010: 3–91; in the medieval Persian tradition: Wiesehöfer 2011; Piemontese 1995. Though not recent, but still a very useful reference is Ṣafavī 1364/1985. See also n. 9 below.

A Greek, an Egyptian, an Iranian – and the ‘Two-Horned’: Appropriating the Conqueror

The historical version of Alexander’s descent from Philip of Macedon and his wife Olympias was well-known in Perso-Arabic historiography. According to al-Ṭabarī (d. 311/923), ‘As for the Greeks and many genealogists, they say that Alexander was the son of Philip . . .’ .4 However, as early as the third/ninth – fourth/tenth centuries the historical version became overshadowed by the account of Iskandar’s Iranian parentage, epitomized by Firdausī in his Shāh- nāma (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: V, 517–25, ll. 43–125). According to the gist of this narrative, Iskandar was born of the abruptly-ended marriage of Darius/Dārāb with the daughter of the Qayṣar of Rūm, Philip/Faylaqūs (also Faylafūs, Fīlqūs, Fīlqūz, etc.), commonly named Nāhīd. During the nuptials Dārāb sensed bad breath coming from the newly-wed’s mouth, which made her instantly repugnant to him. Even after remedy by means of a curative herb, known as al-sandar or al-iskandarūs – a name manipulated in various sources to create a folk etymology for the Arabic ‘al-Iskandar,’5 – the ill-fated girl, already pregnant with Dārāb’s offspring, was sent back to her father. To avoid disgrace for himself and for his daughter, Faylaqūs adopts the new-born as his own son. Dārāb gets married to another woman, of whom Dārā is born. Iskandar’s half-Iranian lineage is revealed only later, during the strife with this same half-brother. The Iranian account of Iskandar’s conception most probably appeared already in some versions of the Pahlavi Khvadāy-nāmag, now lost, and from

4 Perlmann 1987: 93; see also ibid.: 88–90. In addition to al-Ṭabarī, examples of the unequivocal claim for Iskandar’s Greek ancestry are found in Muṭahhar b. Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī’s (d. after 355/966) Kitāb al-badʾ wa al-ta‍ʾrīkh (Huart 1899–1919: III, 152 [Arabic text]; 157 [French translation]); Bīrūnī’s (d. after 442/1050) al-Athār al-bāqīya (see Adhkāʾī 1380/2001: 34, 44, 104); in the Murūj al-dhahab by al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956; Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille 1861–77: II, 247–48); in Ibn al-Jawzī’s (d. 597/1200) al-Muntaẓam (ʿAṭā and ʿAṭā 1412/1992: I, 424); Ibn al-Athīr’s (d. 630/1232) al-Kāmil fī al-taʾrīkh‍ (Tornberg 1385/1965: I, 282, 284); Abū al-Fidā’s (d. 732/1331) al-Mukhtaṣar (Dayyūb 1417/1997: I, 78, 98), etc. For an idiosyncratic identification of Iskandar with Hermes, see n. 42 below. 5 See, e.g., Perlmann 1987: 90–91; Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: V, 523, l. 101; 524, l. 109; Zotenberg 1963: 400; for a learned discussion of the versions of the name in different sources, see Grignaschi 1973: 97–98, 100–101. 204 Rubanovich then on in its Arabic and Neo-Persian derivatives; it seems to have evolved into an authoritative, official narrative.6 The authoritative nature of the account is well reflected in its overwhelming popularity among early Arabic and Persian historians and men of letters: besides Firdausī, Iskandar’s Iranian parentage is prominent in al-Dīnawarī’s (d. between 281/894 and 290/903) al-Akhbār al-ṭiwāl (ʿĀmir and al-Shayyāl 1960: 29–30), in the Ta‍ʾrīkh ghurar akhbār mulūk al-Furs wa siyyarihim of al-Thaʿālibī (d. 412/1021; Zotenberg 1963: 399–400), the anonymous Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ (completed 520/1126; Afshār and Umīdsālār 1379/2001: f. 12v) and other sources. Those authors who cite both Greek and Iranian versions of Iskandar’s origin, such as al-Ṭabarī (Perlmann 1987: 90–91), for example, provide a much more explicit account of the latter than of the former, without adopting a judgmental stand as to their veracity. The Iranian descent version struck roots in medieval folk tradition as well, of which situation two dāstāns, the anonymous Iskandar-nāma and the Dārāb- nāma ascribed to Abū Ṭāhir-i Ṭarsūsī (or Ṭarṭūsī, according to a variant of his nisba), both written down probably sometime during the sixth/twelfth century, provide clear evidence.7 The endeavour to Iranicize the conqueror and thus – at least partially – legitimize the conquest must have arisen from the need to introduce Alexander into the official cycle of Iranian national history, thus ensuring its continuity.8 The attempt might have been encouraged by – or even modelled on – a much earlier endevour to mobilize Alexander for a national cause, as in the Pseudo-Callisthenes and its Syriac derivative(s) which are believed to have served as a channel of transmission of the Alexander Romance into the Perso- Arabic domain.9 The Pseudo-Callisthenes was compiled most probably by a Hellenized Egyptian, who concocted Alexander’s descent from Nectanebo

6 For the nature of the Khvadāy-nāmag and the probable process of its compilation, see a succinct survey with bibliography by Wiesehöfer 2011: 117–24; for the existence of several recensions of the Khvadāy-nāmag and a number of Neo-Persian renditions, see de Blois 1992: 120–21; Gaillard 2005: 16. 7 See respectively: Afshār 1343/1964: 3–5; Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 388–491. For the definition of the dāstān genre and its peculiarities, see Rubanovich 2012: 660–75. For more discussion on the story of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing in the Dārāb-nāma, see below. 8 On this, see, e.g., Hanaway 1970: 86–97; Southgate 1977: 279–80; Gaillard 2005: 25. 9 Due to the heavily deficient chain of transmission, the reconstruction of the ways by which the Pseudo-Callisthenes entered the Islamic domain, remains rather hypothetical. The crux of the problem concerns the interrelation of the Pahlavi (lost) and the Syriac (extant) translations. While the classical hypothesis introduced by Nöldeke (1890) suggests that the Pahlavi translation was made from Greek and served as a prototype for the Syriac rendition, a more recent view by Ciancaglini (1998; 2001) advocates the primacy of the Syriac translation Why So Many Stories 205

(= Nectanebus), an Egyptian king and magician,10 and Queen Olympias, Philip’s wife (Stoneman 1991: 35–44), thus compensating for the national defeat and recuperating the conqueror’s deeds into the national history.11 The fortunes of the Egyptian version on Islamic soil are rather peculiar and worth looking at. It seems that early sources, i.e., till the second half of the sixth/twelfth century, were either unacquainted with it or ignored it. I was able to trace only one account of Iskandar’s Egyptian descent, offered by the anonymous author of the Persian Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ:

It is told in the Sikandar-nāma that [B]akh[t]iyanūsh, the king of Egypt, was a sorcerer. When he became deprived of the kingship, he went – estranged – to the land of Greece and used all kind of trickery till he got ف .(ا �ل��م��ی��د) himself by sourcery to Fīlqūs’s daughter [sic], named Almufīd From her Iskandar was born. More implausible stories of sorts are told (va chand rivāyat-i dīgar-i nā-maʿqūl gūyand).12 [But] there is no doubt as for the fact that his mother was Fīlqūs’s daughter (Afshār and Umīdsālār 1379/2001: fol. 12v).13

The Sikandar-nāma, mentioned in the above quotation from the Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ, although it cannot be identified with any certainty, most likely belongs to a branch of the Arabic Pseudo-Callisthenes which derives from the Syriac tradition retaining the Egyptian version of Alexander’s nativity. The idiosyncratic designation of Olympias as Philip’s daughter – instead of his spouse – seems to indicate the lack of proper acquaintance on the part of the Mujmal’s author with the Egyptian account, which he conflates with a more familiar Iranian one. This piece of evidence suggests that the version of Iskandar’s Egyptian descent did circulate in the Islamic world, albeit on the

executed directly from Greek and later rendered into Middle Persian. On this, see also Wiesehöfer 2011: 128 and n. 48 there. 10 Nectanebo is historically identifiable with the last Pharaoh Nectanebo II (r. 360– 343 BCE), who fled from Egypt during the attacks of the Achaemenian king Artaxerxes III Ochus (r. 359–58 to 338–37 BCE). 11 See Budge 2005: vi–vii, x; Macuch 1989: 504, 510. 12 Indeed, the accounts concerning Iskandar’s descent are not limited to the three versions. Some genealogies connect him to Ibrāhīm through al-ʿĪṣ b. Isḥāq (as in al-Ṭabarī’s Ta‍ʾrīkh, see Perlmann 1987: 93–94, and in the Murūj al-dhahab, see Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille 1861–77: II, 248). Rather oddly, Balʿamī in his Tarjuma-yi Tārīkh-i Ṭabarī claims the Iranian king Bahman as Iskandar’s father (Zotenberg 1867–74: I, 512; see also n. 28 below). 13 If not indicated otherwise, the translations are mine. 206 Rubanovich very ‘periphery’ of the Alexander-material.14 This seems to have two principal causes: (a) the irrelevance of the Egyptian origin to Iranian national history which became an integral part of the Islamic historical narrative; and (b) the general uneasiness of Muslims regarding the profuse and conspicuously semi-mythical, polytheistic and magic elements of the Nectanebo story (cf. Macuch 1989: 508). At the same time, the narrative survived unhindered in the Christian Arabic milieu, for the Oriental Christians seem to have shown more tolerance for the polytheistic Egyptian legend (ibid.). It is found, for instance, in the Ta‍ʾrīkh Mukhtaṣar al-duwal by Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Bar Hebraeus; d. 1286), and is recounted in a section dealing with Arṭaḥshasht al-Thālith15 as follows:

. . . He (i.e., Artaxerxes III) reconquered the Kingdom of Egypt (mulk Miṣr) نق � (sic]). (The latter] ��ط�ا ب��ی�و�س ;and defeated its king Nectanebo (Niqṭābiyūs travelled to the country of the Greeks in the guise of astrologer, for he was skilled in astronomy (ʿilm al-falak) and in the mysteries of celestial movements. It is said that he had an intercourse with Olympias (Ulūmfīdhā), the wife of Philip (Fīlīfūs), King of Macedonia, with the help of his astrological prediction to her ( fī tanjīmihi lahā). As a result, she became pregnant from him with al-Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn (Ṣāliḥānī 1890: 89).

Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s Ta‍ʾrīkh represents the abbreviated translation of the first part of his Syriac Chronography (Segal 1971: 805). It is probable, therefore, that the author borrowed the Nectanebo story from the Syriac version of the Pseudo- Callisthenes, not sharing the scruples of his Muslim counterparts.16 Muslim authors’ uneasiness with the Egyptian version of Iskandar’s birth was further implicitly linked to the interpretative process, going on in the first centuries of Islam that revolved around the mysterious character of Dhū al- Qarnayn (‘The Two-Horned’), who makes an appearance in the 18th sūra of the Qurʾān (Q 18: 83–100). The figure of Dhū al-Qarnayn gave rise to intense

14 Nonetheless, as I shall demonstrate below, vague traces of the Egyptian version start resurfacing from the end of the sixth/twelfth century onwards, reshuffled and reinte- grated into various sources pertaining to Iskandar. 15 I.e., the Achaemenian Artaxerxes III; see n. 10 above. 16 Another piece of evidence for the circulation of the episode in Arab(ic) Christian circles is its survival in the Ethiopic Alexander Romance which was in all likelihood translated from an Arabic Christian version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes sometime between the 14th– 16th centuries (see Weymann 1901: 4–5; 70–71; 83; Anderson 1931: 440–41). In view of Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s testimony, the common assumption that an ‘ “Egyptian” variant has not been passed down by historians’ (Doufikar-Aerts 2010: 19; cf. Grignaschi 1993: 228) deserves rectification. Why So Many Stories 207 polemics among Qurʾān exegetes.17 According to an interpretation ultimately accepted as authoritative, Dhū al-Qarnayn was associated with Alexander – al-Iskandar al-Rūmī – who was sent by God to subdue the peoples of the world, calling them to the monotheistic faith.18 The status of Dhū al-Qarnayn, however, always remained controversial: while some exegetes conceded his being a prophet, albeit sent ‘without a revelation’ (ghayr mursal), others restricted his position to that of ‘a pious servant [of God]’ (al-ʿabd al-ṣāliḥ) and a virtuous ruler.19 The many versions of Iskandar’s birth coupled with the acquired Islamic identity, created an idiosyncratic blend of features – at once harmonious and controversial – which informed the character of Iskandar. To decipher the constituents of the blend, and to grasp its significance, it is necessary to examine the possible constellations generated in relation to the image of Iskandar in specific historical periods and milieux.

What is This Smell? The Motif of Bad Breath

One of the key motifs of the Iranian account of Iskandar’s nativity concerns the abrupt expulsion of the already pregnant Greek princess by Dārāb due to her

17 To illustrate the controversies concerning the Dhū al-Qarnayn personage, I may cite his identification as the Ḥimyarite king al-Ṣaʿb b. Dhī al-Marāthid (Ibn Hishām 1347/1928: 81–82); as the only son of an old woman from Rūm (al-Ṭabarī 1373–77/1954–57: XV, 17); as the Lakhmid al-Mundhir al-Akbar (Montgomery Watt 1978). For a summary of other contentions, see Ṣafavī 1364/1985: 279–97. For a detailed discussion of the Qurʾanic story of Dhū al-Qarnayn from a historical perspective of its formation, its reflection in Arabic and Persian sources, as well as a variety of explanations of the appellation, see Ṣafavī 1364/1985: 269–305; Wheeler 1998; Abel 1951; Montgomery Watt 1978. In an attempt to settle chronological discrepancies, medieval exegetes and historians suggested the existence of two Dhū al-Qarnayns in various time-periods: Dhū al-Qarnayn al-Akbar (Persian: Dhū al-Qarnayn-i Akbar) and Dhū al-Qarnayn al-Aṣghar (Persian: Dhū al-Qarnayn-i Aṣghar). The former is the one mentioned in the Qurʾān; he lived after the Prophet Ṣāliḥ and before the Prophet Ibrāhīm and is famous for erecting the Wall against Gog and Magog. The latter is identified with Iskandar-i Rūmī, who conquered Iran and whose counsellor was Aristotle. For exhaustive descriptions of the deeds ascribed to both figures, see Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 91–95; 640–69; also Brinner 1987: 23; Perlmann 1987: 87. 18 See, e.g., al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921–22: 251; Zotenberg 1867–74: I, 518; idem 1963: 400, 442; Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 86, 104ff. 19 See, e.g., al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921–22: 252–53; Zotenberg 1867–74: I, 519; Yaghmāyī 1340/1961: 324–25 and n. 6 there; Ḥikmat 1331–39/1953–60: V, 735. However, see also below, on Niẓāmī’s sublimation of Iskandar’s character to the status of the prophet. 208 Rubanovich bad breath, resulting in the concealment of Iskandar’s real parentage. True, the expulsion is required to move the plot forward, creating suspense and explaining the later strife of Iskandar and his half-brother, Dārā, who is unaware – till the very end – of their kinship. However, while the expulsion is conditioned by narrative logic, the grounds on which it is enforced, are highly unusual, if not altogether odd. Notwithstanding the queerness of the ‘bad breath’ motif and its peculiarity to Perso-Arabic versions of the Alexander Romance,20 it has not attracted the attention of scholars dealing with the Islamic Alexander-matter. An attempt at interpreting the motif was made by William L. Hanaway in his unpublished dissertation on Persian popular romances before the Safavid period. Hanaway suggested a non-Persian source for the ‘bad breath’ motif, connecting it with the motif of the poison-damsel, found, albeit not often, in the Sanskrit literature (Hanaway 1970: 57). According to Hanaway, the motif reflects the actual practice of Indian kings of keeping poison-damsels to dispose of their enemies (ibid.). A poison-damsel was a girl who from birth had been reared on poison and had become extremely venomous. Possessing such a valuable quality, she could be sent to a rival king as a gift and would kill him by kissing, touching, mingling of perspiration, or intercourse (ibid.: 57–58). As for the route of the motif’s penetration into the Alexander subject-matter, Hanaway refers to the twelfth-century Latin Secretum Secretorum, probably translated from the Arabic Sirr al-asrār, which allegedly comprises the correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander. There, one of Aristotle’s counsels to Alexander is to protect himself from a poison-damsel (ibid.: 59). Hanaway says that the story of Alexander and the poison-damsel entered medieval European literature, namely the Latin Gesta Romanorum (compiled ca. 1400), and became a widespread story, connected not only to Alexander but also to other figures (ibid.: 59–60). Although attractive, the connection of the ‘bad breath’ motif with the motif of the poison-damsel seems to me rather questionable. The story of

20 I am aware of only two other medieval Persian sources, not connected with the Alexander Romance, that contain a similar motif. The first is Niẓāmī’s poem Khusrau va Shīrīn, where Khusrau Parvīz is given one year by the beautiful Shakkar to get rid of his malodorous breath (Tharvatiyān 1386/2007: 352, ll. 74–88). The cure suggested by Shakkar is eating garlic (sīr; ibid.: 352, l. 76). Curiously, though not mentioned in any source pertaining to Alexander/Iskandar, the Greek word skandix, to which the name of Iskandar bears a remarkable similarity, means ‘garlic’ (Stoneman 2008: 25). The second composition is the dāstān Fīrūzshāh-nāma by Muḥammad-i Bīghamī, in which the foul odour is one of the characteristics of a witch by the name of Zarda (Ṣafā 1339–41/1960–63: I, 210, 222; cf. Hanaway 1970: 56). Why So Many Stories 209 the poison-damsel (or ‘the poison maiden’)21 sent to Iskandar by an Indian king’s mother, indeed figures in the Arabic pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār, which comprises Aristotle’s admonishments to Alexander in various fields of rulership.22 However, according to that story, the girl is capable of poisoning during sexual intercourse, either through penetration or sweating, and there is no mention of her bad breath. One may consider a motif transformation. However, the work’s terminus ad quem is not later than 330/941 (Manzalaoui 1974: 157–58), i.e., more or less contemporaneous with the earliest accounts of Iskandar’s birth that propose this ‘bad breath’ motif, such as al-Ṭabarī’s or al-Dīnawarī’s. From the point of view of motif transmission and transformation, it is hardly possible that the story of the poison-damsel would have been stripped of all its peculiarities in such a short period, to reappear as a distant echo in compositions similarly dated. Further, it is hard to explain the virtual absence of this story in Arabic and Persian sources other than the Sirr al-asrār, whereas it abounds in the European tradition, whether related or not to the Alexander-matter.23 Moreover, as Hanaway himself notices, the ‘bad breath’ motif figures only in the versions based heavily on Iranian sources (Hanaway 1970: 62) and thus its derivation from an Arabic source is even more unlikely. Without entirely refusing Hanaway’s proposition as a possible hypothesis, I would like to suggest a domestic – Zoroastrian – connection of the ‘bad breath’ motif, attempting to establish its significance in the context of the Iranian account of Iskandar’s descent. The importance of the olfactory sense is a characteristic feature of Zoroastrian cult and theology, including eschatology, and is well attested in Pahlavi texts. The name of Ahrīman is frequently replaced by a negative epithet Gan(n)āk Mēnōg, ‘the Stinking Spirit,’ as opposed to the sweet-smelling Ohrmazd (Duchesne-Guillemin 1985: 672). The bad smell is connected to death, illness, filth and foul food (ibid.). The eschatological descriptions in the Ardā Vīrāz nāmag, Dādestān ī mēnōg ī khrad and other texts are replete with references to the respective olfactory qualities of paradise and hell: the

21 See Wikander 1968 apud Manzalaoui 1974: 211. 22 For the Arabic text, see Badawī 1954: 84–85. For the Indian influence on the Sirr al-asrār, see Manzalaoui 1974: 210–13. 23 For the motif in European literature, see Cary 1956: 231, 301. This is not to deny altogether the impact of the Sirr al-asrār on Persian didactical writing of the ‘Mirror for Princes’ kind. Manzalaoui traces its influence on al-Ghazālī’s Naṣīḥat al-mulūk (compiled ca. 503/1109; see Manzalaoui 1974: 220–21; 239–41). At the same time, the compilation and transmission of the Sirr al-asrār present such a convoluted issue as to make any passing judgment on its influence highly debatable (cf. Doufikar-Aerts 2010: 103, n. 42). 210 Rubanovich former is fragrant and aromatically scented (Chunakova 2001: 100–101, 104; eadem 1997: 85), the latter is foul-smelling, fetid and malodorous (Chunakova 2001: 108–109, 117, 121); one of the prevalent torments that the wicked souls suf- fer in hell is devouring filth and their own excrement (ibid.: 110, 113–14, 119, 120, 122, 128). Significantly, the dēn, a believer’s faith, is personified as a woman; the dēn of the righteous appears to him as a beautiful, perfume-spreading maiden, but the wicked soul is greeted by a naked, filthy, stinking and lecherous hag with crooked knees and bulging buttocks (ibid.: 108).24 In the Zoroastrian context the malodour of the Macedonian princess may implicitly signify her alienated, impure status vis-à-vis her Iranian husband; it is not incidental that in one version of the story, after having sensed his wife’s rotten breath Dārāb performs an act of self-purification.25 The denun- ciation of Iskandar’s non-Iranian mother by means of an evocative motif of bad breath may be perceived as a vestige of the hostile Zoroastrian attitude towards Alexander/Iskandar, that emphatically depicts him as Ahrīman’s tool, a gizistag (‘accursed’), the destroyer of the faith and the undoer of the empire.26 The ‘shift of guilt’ from his figure on to that of his mother reveals the reticence inherent in incorporating Iskandar into the Iranian tradition: he is to be integrated into the national history not as a conqueror, but as a legitimate ruler, a possessor of farr; nevertheless, the pre-Islamic national-religious sentiment remonstrates against an unequivocal appropriation – hence the ambiguity underlying Iskandar’s character in early Muslim sources, heavily influenced by pre-Islamic Iranian concepts, such as Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma or the Dārāb- nāma ascribed to Abū Ṭāhir-i Ṭarsūsī.27 Although thanks to his paternal lineage, Iskandar was ultimately accepted as Iranian, he still remains an alien on account of his mother’s foreign and, therefore, impure origin.

24 On the concept of dēn, see Shaki 1996; Vahman 1985. For an insightful treatment of the olfactory perception in general and of the rose scent in particular in pre-Islamic Iran and medieval Persian culture, including mystic poetry, see Subtelny 2007. 25 Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 389; for the quotation, see below, p. 211. 26 Cf. Manteghi 2012: 166; the author suggests considering the ‘ “bad breath” as a “sign of Ahrīman”,’ without undertaking a coherent discussion in favour of her suggestion. The disparity between the two traditions concerning Alexander/Iskandar – the Zoroastrian and the Islamic – has long been noticed and discussed. For a succinct appraisal of the pre- Islamic hostile view of Alexander as arch-enemy of Iran, main ‘accusations,’ found in the Zoroastrian writings, and their possible historical grounds, see recently Wiesehöfer 2011: 124–28. For traces of the Zoroastrian tradition in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, see Yamanaka 1993; eadem 1999. 27 Cf. Gaillard 2005: 54–68; see also the previous note. Why So Many Stories 211

The significance of the ‘bad breath’ motif becomes even clearer in comparison with the account of the descent of Iskandar’s father, Dārāb, which in most sources forms an integral part of the Iskandar story.28 He is the prog- eny of the king Bahman and his daughter Humāy/Humānī, a favoured type of matrimonial union according to the Zoroastrian religion. Counterbalanced to their pure – in Zoroastrian terms – marriage, the wedlock of Dārāb and Nāhīd ominously imperils the continuation of the Iranian empire: the malodour of the Rūmī spouse, already pregnant with Iskandar, correlates with the fall of the Iranian dynasty through the impending death of Dārā. In this respect, a passage from the Dārāb-nāma deserves quotation:

[After having united with Nāhīd], Dārāb fell asleep. With the approach of the morning, he woke up, came to Nāhīd and placed his mouth on hers. An unpleasant smell (bū-yi nā-khvash) invaded his nostrils. Dārāb turned his head away, stood up, made an ablution (sar-u tan bishust), put on his clothes and sat on his throne. He called [his vizier] Jānūsiyār and told him about the matter. Jānūsiyār said: ‘Beware and don’t mention it.’ Dārāb replied: ‘I don’t want and don’t need her.[. . .] When a child is born from her, he will become an enemy to my son and will ask me to favour Greeks more [than Iranians] (chun az vay farzand-ī shavad dushman-i bachcha-yi mā buvad va havā-yi rūmiyān bihtar khvāhad az man). Besides, I have a son, Dārāb [sic] by name [. . .]. It is not proper that a quarrel should spring up between them, and I will be cursed after my death. I can not endure God’s reproach. I don’t need her, send her to her father!’ When Dārāb said that, all the Iranians listened and answered: ‘O King, we obey your order.’ (Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 389–90).

It seems, therefore, that notwithstanding the desire to appropriate the conqueror for the sake of Iranian national history, the episode of Iskandar’s birth as represented in early Perso-Arabic sources, betrays the undercurrents of the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian aversion to Alexander/Iskandar. To what extent the authors and their contemporary audiences were mindful of these undercurrents is hard to gauge. However, one can observe that from the second half of the sixth/twelfth century onwards the story of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing

28 The most eloquent confirmation of the fact that the stories of Bahman, Humāy, Dārāb and the birth of Iskandar were closely related and perceived as a single literary unit is the confusion found in Balʿamī’s Tarjuma-yi Tārīkh-i Ṭabarī, according to which the Greek princess is wedded to and expelled by Bahman, the latter thus emerging as Iskandar’s father (for reference, see n. 12 above). Cf. Gaillard 2005: 24. 212 Rubanovich underwent considerable alterations, the causes of which lie both in historical events and in the interplay of folk and literary traditions.

Alternative Versions of Iskandar’s Birth and Upbringing; the Second Half of the Sixth/Twelfth Century until the Safavid Period

The second half of the sixth/twelfth century was a focal point in the evolution of legendary Alexander material in the Persian domain. The period witnessed two main developments: the historical version of Alexander’s/Iskandar’s descent from Philip/Fīlqūs gained a firmer hold with epic poets and historians, and there emerged a range of alternative or complementary accounts concerning Iskandar’s birth and upbringing, arising in the oral tradition undergoing during this period an active process of fixation in writing. a The Historical Stance: The Iskandar-nāma of Niẓāmī The first tendency, the historical, is well articulated in the Iskandar-nāma of Niẓāmī-yi Ganjavī.29 The poet appears to be acquainted with a range of opinions regarding Iskandar’s descent: ‘there are a lot of controversies concerning this story’ (dar īn dāsitān dāvarīhā bas-ī-st).30 Three of the versions are summarized in the first book of the poem, usually known as the Sharaf- nāma (Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 117–19, ll. 17–60). The first version is cited on the authority of the Greeks; its singularity calls for translation in extenso:

So it became known from the wise men of Greece (chunīn āmad az hūshiyārān-i Rūm), / that there was a virtuous woman (zāhid zan-ī) from that country. While pregnant, she became miserable one day, / she became separated from her homeplace and her husband (zi-shahr-u zi-shū-yi khvad āvāra gasht). When the time of her parturition approached, / and she started experiencing the pain of delivery, She delivered in a ruin (vīrāna-yī) and died. / She was anxious about the infant[’s fate] and giving her last breath [. . .].

29 The dating of the poem is problematic. The first part seems to have been composed after 584/1188, the whole being completed probably in 590/1194. For a detailed discussion, see de Blois 1994: 441–46; idem 1998: 612–13. 30 Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 117, l. 17. Cf. the statement of the anonymous compiler of the Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ on the matter (see above, p. 205). Why So Many Stories 213

[. . .] When the woman died and the infant became an orphan, / thus arranged the Relation of the orphans (kas-i bī-kasān; i.e., God), That [the infant], due to his upbringing and [good] judgment, / would become the master of the worldly realm, from Qāf to Qāf. King Fīlqūs came across the woman, / while he was hunting and enjoying the plain. He saw a dead woman on his way / and an infant near her head: In the absence of milk, he was sucking his finger, / he was biting his finger (i.e., grieving) for his mother. [Fīlqūs] ordered his servants to ride forth / and arrange the business of the dead woman. He picked up the infant from the road dust, / amazed by the command of Fate. He took him, raised him and treated him well. / He made him his heir (Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 117–18, ll. 18–32).

The above version of Iskandar’s birth is peculiar to Niẓāmī; its singularity seems consciously emphasized by the carefully detailed telling, in contrast to the brief reporting of the usual Iranian narrative (see below). Whatever the singularity, an inquiry into its possible origins shows that the central motif of the version, Iskandar’s descent from a pious woman of Rūmī origin, can be traced to the exegetical polemics concerning Dhū al-Qarnayn’s identity, as it appears, for instance, in al-Ṭabarī’s Jāmiʿ al-bayān: ‘Dhū al-Qarnayn is a man of Rūm (rajul min al-Rūm), son of an aged woman of theirs (ibn ʿajūz min ʿajāʾizihim), and she doesn’t [sic] have a child except for him, and his name was al-Iskandar’.31 Moreover, besides a likely connection with the exegetical literature of the tafsīr and qiṣaṣ al-anbīyāʾ genres,32 Niẓāmī’s version reveals a certain link to the story of Iskandar as a foundling, traceable to oral folk tradition (detailed discussion below). The amalgamation of strands cutting across genres and traditions and contributing to the creation of idiosyncratic narratives may be considered – more than anything else – a distinctive feature of

31 al-Ṭabarī 1373–77/1954–57: XV, 17. See also al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921–22: 253; Ḥikmat 1331– 39/1953–60: V, 735. This version is transmitted mostly on the authority of Wahb b. Munabbih. 32 Niẓāmī’s indebtedness to the tafsīr genre in the Alexander-matter is patent, for instance, in his treatment of the episode of Iskandar’s encounter with the Amazon Queen Nūshāba (the motif of the ‘precious stones repast’), echoing the handling of the same episode in al-Maybudī’s tafsīr Kashf al-asrār va ʿuddat al-abrār (compiled in the sixth/twelfth century; Ḥikmat 1331–39/1953–60: IV, 437); for details, see Rubanovich 2015. 214 Rubanovich the Persian Alexander subject-matter. The Niẓāmī version of Iskandar’s birth, although not at all agreeable to the poet’s own taste, reveals the compelling urge for thematic synthesis as the main tendency in the reworking and reception of Alexander-material in the Perso-Arabic domain. A second version, which Niẓāmī cites briefly, concerns Iskandar’s Iranian descent from Dārā (= Dārāb): ‘Or else, the fire-working dihqān / traces his origin to Dārā’ (digar-gūna dihqān-i ādhar-parast / ba-Dārā kunad kisht-i ū bāz pas; Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 118, l. 33), thus hinting at Firdausī’s ancient Iranian source. Whereas Niẓāmī expressly declares that as far as Iskandar’s descent is concerned his ‘ears are open to everybody’s opinion’ ( . . . gūsh bar gufta-yi har kas-ī-st; ibid.: 117, l. 17), his comparison of historical sources and of the Shāh- nāma (zi-tārīkhhā chun giriftam qiyās / ham az nāma-yi mard-i īzad-shinās; ibid.: 118, l. 34) leads him to reject these two versions in favour of the third, the historical one, labelling all the rest ‘nonsensical talk’ (gazāfa sakhun; ibid.: 118, l. 35):

Out of the stories of each and every country it turned out as truthful / that the Prince (i.e. Iskandar) descended from Fīlqūs. Since other versions didn’t withstand a probe, / the narrator did not choose them (durust ān shud az gufta-yi har diyār / ki az Fīliqūs āmad ān shahriyār// digar gufta-hā chun ʿiyār-ī nadāsht / sakhun-gū bar-ān ikhtiyār-ī nadāsht; Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 118, ll. 36–37).

Niẓāmī then goes on to depict the feast during which Fīlqūs courts his lovely and pure bride (pākīza-vu nau-ʿarūs); she gets pregnant that very night and bears him a son who according to astrological charts will ascend to power (ibid.: 118–20, ll. 38–64). Niẓāmī ascribes this version to ‘the venerable man [who] relates the history of ancient kings’ (chunīn gūyad ān pīr-i dīrīna-sāl / zi-tārīkh-i shāhān-i pīshīna ḥāl . . .; ibid.: 118, l. 38). It doesn’t contain any details about the bride’s ethnic origin, Iskandar thus being tacitly represented as purely Greek (rūmī) and the legitimate heir of his non-Iranian father. For Niẓāmī, therefore, the traditional Iranian origin of Iskandar is a fictitious and superfluous folly, non-essential for the poet’s vision of the character.33 With Niẓāmī, the Iranian national element cedes to a religious, Islamic outlook. Niẓāmī dwells on the triple concept of the hero, depicting his gradual development from a world

33 Niẓāmī’s predilection for the historical version tallies with his general concern for separating ‘lie’ from ‘truth’ in a work of fiction: ‘Any account that is separated from reason, / I did not erect my poetry upon it’ (apud Bürgel 2010: 25; for a discussion of this theme, see ibid.: 24–26). Why So Many Stories 215 conqueror to a philosopher-king guided by sages, and ultimately, a prophet spreading the message of monotheism.34 b On the Trace of Oral Tradition: Iskandar as a Foundling The second line of development in the Alexander subject-matter in the latter half of the sixth/twelfth century concerns the writing down of complementary accounts of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing. Having circulated orally, such accounts were distinguished by typical folkloric features. This line of development may be illustrated by a version found in two works of different genres: one is the dāstān Dārāb-nāma ascribed to Abū Ṭāhir-i Ṭarsūsī (Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 387–422), the other is the ʿAjāʾib-nāma, a kind of encyclopaedic compendium bordering on the mirabilia genre, probably compiled by Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd-i Hamadānī (Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 238).35 Since the Dārāb-nāma contains a more elaborate and detailed account, I shall take it as a base of my discussion, with reference to the other text. As the story goes, after being expelled by the finicky Dārāb, Fīlqūs’s daughter Nāhīd returned home to her mother. The two did not dare tell anybody about the girl’s pregnancy. When the time of delivery approached, the mother launched her plan. Nāhīd is sent together with her own former wet-nurse to set up a tent at the foot of a mountain where a sage, Aristotle by name, dwells in his hut. The girl gives birth to a beautiful boy, breast-feeds him till he becomes strong enough, and then, heart-broken, departs, leaving the boy in the tent with a bundle of rich clothes and a signet-ring (Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 390–91).

34 For discussions of Iskandar’s image in the Iskandar-nāma of Niẓāmī-yi Ganjavī along these lines, see Bertel’s 1962: 342–59; idem 1965: 318–35; Abel 1966; Bürgel 1995; idem 1999; Piemontese 1995: 179–80; Hanaway 1998: 610–11; de Blois 1998: 613–14; Casari 1999: 36–43; Saccone 2011. For comparative treatments of Iskandar’s character in Firdausī and Niẓāmī, see Bertel’s 1962: 370–93; Ṣafavī 1364/1985: 67–243; Ṣafā 1369/1991. Niẓāmī’s preference of Iskandar’s historical descent influenced later poets, such as Amīr Khusrau Dihlavī (d. 625/1325) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān-i Jāmī (d. 898/1492) who composed poems on Iskandar’s deeds as javāb to Niẓāmī’s Iskandar-nāma. 35 The ʿAjāʾib-nāma is dedicated to the last Great Saljūq Sulṭān Ṭughril b. Arslān (r. 571– 590/1175–94) and is variously ascribed to Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd-i Hamadānī or Aḥmad-i Ṭūsī (Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: introduction, 21). It contains at least two different versions of Iskandar’s birth, on which see below. Significantly, various aspects of the Dārāb-nāma and the ʿAjāʾib-nāma demonstrate an essential degree of thematic affinity (see Piemontese 2000a; idem 2000b: 137, n. 1). The presence of a similar birth story in both compositions may have resulted either from a direct influence or from resort to the same reservoir of traditions. 216 Rubanovich

In a nearby town there lived an old woman who had a she-goat. For several days her goat came back from pasture without a drop to be milked. One day the perplexed woman decided to put an end to the mystery: she followed the goat, who led her to a tent guarded by a lion. As soon as the lion saw the goat, he left. Entering the tent, the woman saw her goat suckling a baby boy. Taken aback, she goes to the sage Aristotle for advice. At first he bids the woman to take care of the boy; however, discerning the divine radiance ( farr-i īzadī) emanating from the child, he realizes that the child must be a royal offspring. Aristotle then nurtures and educates Iskandar, teaches him all the sciences, fortune-telling and astrology among them, till the boy reaches his tenth year (ibid.: I, 392–93). Iskandar’s dexterity in fortune-telling and dream- interpretation, as well as his secretarial skills (dabīrī) make him the talk of the town, but at the same time bring upon him troubles of every sort. After a long period of wanderings, adventures and hardships Iskandar chances on his mother, is recognized by her and at last becomes the heir apparent of his grandfather Fīlqūs, the ruler of Rūm (ibid.: I, 394–422). The folk origin of the narrative can hardly be ignored. The motifs comprising the story are easily identifiable and can be defined according to Thompson’s Motif Index of Folk Literature, Aarne-Thompson’s The Types of the Folktale (Aarne-Thompson 1973) and El-Shamy’s Guide to Motif Classification (El-Shamy 1995): ‘An abandoned child saved’ (Aa-Th R 131); ‘An old shepherdess saves an abandoned child’ (El-Shamy, R 131.3.5§); ‘Animal as guard’ (Th B576); ‘The Boy Adopted by Tigers (Animals)’ (Type 535); ‘A dreamer-interpreter is punished for an unwanted prophecy. The prophecy comes true’ (El-Shamy, J 815.5.1§). A somewhat condensed but similar version of the narrative in the ʿAjāʾib- nāma contains further features characteristic of the oral traditional mode. Thus, for instance, a toponym ʿAmmūriya (= Amorium; see Canard 1960) which in other sources designates the town from which Iskandar’s mother originated (cf. Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: V, 519–20, ll. 47, 49, 55, 61), in the ʿAjāʾib-nāma turns into her given name (Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 238). Another oral feature is the disregard for the historical, diachronic, aspect of events: Iskandar is said to be born in al-Iskandariyya (ibid.), i.e. Alexandria, – a detail which makes the historian al-Nuwayrī (d. 733/1333) emphatically wonder how such an ascription can be true: most historians say that it was Iskandar who founded and built al-Iskandariyya (al-Nuwayrī 1923–97: XIV, 299)! Besides this anachronism, the version of Iskandar’s birth in the ʿAjāʾib-nāma is distinguished by a conflation of motifs: before abandoning her baby son, his mother ties two pearls to his arm, by which she proposed to identify him when adult Why So Many Stories 217

(Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 238), – the well-known motif transferred, with modification, from the episodes of Rustam and Suhrāb, and Humāy and Dārāb in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma.36 The versions of the Dārāb-nāma and the ʿAjāʾib-nāma, while retaining the skeleton of the Iranian narrative, represent an alternative sequel to Iskandar’s birth. From a young prince brought up at court and educated in a courtly spirit,37 Iskandar is transformed into a foundling suckled by an animal and reared by a sage who teaches him most non-courtly skills – fortune-telling instead of polo-playing (gūy-u chaugān) and dream-interpretation in place of martial arts; and it is only after going through perilous adventures and humili- ations that Iskandar ascends to the throne. If we place the alternative narrative of Iskandar’s upbringing in a wider perspective of Iranian mythology, as reflected above all in the Shāh-nāma, a set of significant relationships emerges. Farīdūn was suckled by the brindled cow Barmāya, and spent his childhood in the hut of a pious man who dwelt on Mount Alburz (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: I, 63, ll. 123–134; 64, ll. 141– 147); the abandoned Zāl was reared by Sīmurgh (ibid.: I, 166–68, ll. 67–90); Kay Khusrau spent his childhood among the shepherds in the mountains (ibid.: II, 368–70, ll. 2415–2447); Dārāb, rejected by his mother Humāy and set adrift in a chest on the waters of the Euphrates, was recovered and raised by a laundry- washer (gāzur) and his wife (ibid.: V, 489–97, ll. 22–125; cf. Ṣafā 1344–46/1965– 68: I, 11–26). Leaving aside the importance of this motif cluster in propelling the narrative action forward, these accounts form part of the foundation legend or myth in the spirit of oral tradition: a royal offspring – either a foundling or kept in concealment – undergoes hardships and trials and only after having emerged from ordeals, does he win the throne. According to the mindset of the oral tradition, the hero’s efforts in overcoming the obstacles on his path from the low to the high grant him the legitimacy which had been denied him in childhood. The alternative sequel to Iskandar’s birth in our sources marks, therefore, a kind of watershed in the perception of the figure in the Persian-speaking realm. Emphasis came to be shifted to Iskandar’s religious activity in proselytizing

36 See respectively Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: II, 124, ll. 84–87; 187, ll. 872–877, and ibid.: V, 489, l. 27. 37 As Firdausī puts it: hunarhā ki bāshad kayān-rā ba-kār / Sikandar biyāmūkht az āmūzigār (‘Iskandar learnt from [his] tutor / [all] the crafts which were appropriate to kings’; Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: V, 525, l. 124; cf. Afshār 1343/1964: 5; Tharvatiyān 1368/1989: 120, ll. 65–69). 218 Rubanovich

Islam, and his identification with the Qurʾanic figure of Dhū al-Qarnayn was hardly ever questioned.38 The conclusive association of Iskandar with Dhū al- Qarnayn and the prominence of the Islamic religious aspect of his character in Persian writings together with the indifference towards an ethnic component of his origin prompted Muslim literati to reorient his image, ameliorating and enriching it with alternative accounts from the reservoir of oral tradition. I shall go on to illustrate these developments from the early eighth/fourteenth century onwards, examining the versions of Iskandar’s birth as they appear in the historical composition Rauḍat ūlī al-albāb fī maʿrifat al-tavārīkh va al-ansāb (completed 717/1317) by Abū Sulaymān Banākatī (d. 730/1329–30), better known as Tārīkh-i Banākatī. I shall supplement my discussion with references to the Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh (completed 700–710/1300–1310) by Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl-Allāh39 and to the works of two later historians, Mīrkhvānd’s Rauḍat al-ṣafā (second half of the ninth/fifteenth century) and Khvāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-siyar (compiled between 927–930/1520–23). c ‘Iranianness’ on the Wane: Curious Choices and Idiosyncratic Results In the second sub-chapter (ṭabaqa-yi duvvum) of the second part (qism) of nine in his universal history, in the section that deals with the Kayanids, Abū Sulaymān Banākatī cites four versions of Iskandar’s origin:40

38 Cf. Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1384/2005: introduction, 16, n. 3. 39 A methodological comment is in order here regarding my preference of Banākatī’s version over the earlier Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh as the primary point of reference in this discussion. Notwithstanding the common scholarly opinion that supports the notion of Banākatī’s heavy reliance on Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, including direct textual borrowing (see., e.g., Jackson 1989), my examination of the parts pertaining to Iskandar’s genealogy and birth in Rashīd al-Dīn’s work brings me to conclusion that rather than having borrowed from the Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, Banākatī relied on a common source/sources. Thus, whereas Banākatī provides an extensive account of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing, rich in peculiar details and probably originating in oral tradition, Rashīd al-Dīn presents a substantially abridged and condensed version, which is essentially stripped of particu- lars, possibly on account of his aspiration to historicity. 40 Shiʿār 1348/1969: 31–45. Banākatī’s insistence on four versions seems rather curious considering that he first introduces this Kayanid king under the heading ‘Iskandar b. Fīlāqūs,’ which should have spared him any further inquiry into Iskandar’s parentage. Similarly, Rashīd al-Dīn mentions the Iranian version of Iskandar’s birth in the chapter devoted to Dārāb (Raushan 1392/2013: I, 565). Why So Many Stories 219

– Version One: This is the shortest of the four and is cited on the authority of a certain Dīvān al-nasab.41 In this version, Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn is Hirmis, son (pisar) of Rūmī, son of Lanṭī, son of Yūnān, son of Tārikh, son of Yāfith, son of Nūḥ (Shiʿār 1348/1969: 41). His life spanned one thousand and six-hundred years, hence the name Dhū al-Qarnayn: at that time (dar ān zamān) a century (qarn) lasted one thousand years (ibid.). This genealogy is found, with modification, in Rashīd al-Dīn (Raushan 1392/2013: I, 574), but not in Mīrkhvānd or Kvāndamīr, and seems to be a distant echo of a version cited by early historians and exegetes, such as al-Ṭabarī.42 However, unlike al-Ṭabarī and Rashīd al-Dīn, Banākatī’s version of Iskandar’s family tree is incomplete and incoherent; it suffers from significant gaps in the chain of ancestors. Moreover, it confounds the genealogy of the two Dhū al-Qarnayns:43 Dhū al-Qarnayn al-Akbar, the builder of the Wall, is typically traced to Yāfith, son of Nūḥ, whereas Dhū al-Qarnayn al-Aṣghar, identified with Iskandar, has ʿĪṣ b. Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm as his ultimate ancestors (cf. Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 91). Banākatī seems to be making an attempt at complying with the spirit of the exegetical tradition, represented by earlier tafsīrs; however, his lack of precision betrays either a lack of adequate knowledge or of real interest in this version, perhaps both.

41 Cf. Raushan 1392/2013: I, 574. The name of this composition appears in Ḥājī Khalīfa’s Kashf al-ẓunūn without any clarification (Yaltkaya and Bilge 1360–62/1941–43: I, 817). However, it might be identified with the lost Dīwān al-nasab by Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā (fl. early 7th/13th century), a book in the library of the Shiʿite scholar Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/ 1266) (see Kohlberg 1992: 147–48, no. 114). Ibn Ṭāwūs made several references to the Dīwān al-nasab in his Kitāb al-mahmūm fī maʿrifat (nahj or manhaj) al-ḥalāl wa al-ḥarām min ʿilm al-nujūm (for this work, see ibid.: 32–33, no. 10). I am grateful for Michael Lecker’s assistance in my efforts to identify the composition. 42 See Perlmann 1987: 93–94: ‘It is (also) said (that he was the) son of Maṣrīm b. Hermes b. Hardas b. Mīṭūn b. Rūmī b. Lantī b. Yunān b. Japhet b. Thūbah b. Sarḥūn b. Rūmyah b. Barbat b. Jubal b. Rūfī b. al-Aṣfar b. Eliphaz b. Esau b. Isaac b. Abraham, God’s friend’. As the editor remarks, this genealogical list combines elements from Jewish biblical sources with others originating in Greek mythology (ibid.: 94, n. 263). Cf. also al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921– 22: 251. The association of Iskandar with Hirmis/Hermes is not surprising in view of the connection in Arabic tradition regarding Iskandar’s transmission of Hermetical writings (see Plessner 1971: 463). 43 See n. 17 above. 220 Rubanovich

– Version Two: The second version cited by Banākatī is by far the most elaborate and richest one of the four; it is introduced (without mentioning any particular source) by the expression ‘they say’ (gūyand).44 Here Iskandar’s parentage is ascribed to an Egyptian ruler of Iskandariyya (again, the anachronism that stirred al-Nuwayrī’s indignation mentioned above), named Bāzar [Bāzur?], son of ز ن ن In order to bring to an end his protracted strife with 45.(ب��ا �ر ب�� ا ��لب��ا �) Albān Aflīsūn b. Fūqā (sic; Rashīd al-Dīn has Fīlfūs; Mīrkhvānd and Khvāndamīr both have Fīlqūs), Bāzar marries Aflīsūn’s unnamed daughter. Slandered by servants and driven away by her husband (khuddām-i ū kayd-ī sākhtand va dukhtar-rā az naẓar-i malik biyandākhtand), she gives birth to Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn in the middle of nowhere.46 By God’s grace, the infant was found by a she-goat (buz; Rashīd al-Dīn speaks alternatively of a gazelle, āhū, and a sheep, mīsh; the latter is mentioned by Mīrkhvānd and Khvāndamīr as well) and reared by an old woman (pīr-zan), the goat’s owner (Shiʿār 1348/1969: 41), who named the child Iskandar (ibid.: 42). Having reached adolescence and having been taught some life skills, Iskandar served as an official’s dabīr; falsely accused of a misdeed, he flees the realm and after many hardships, chances upon his mother’s town. With her motherly perspicacity she recognizes him, relates the whole story to her father, who appoints his grandson as his heir. After Aflīsūn’s (Fīlqūs’s) death, Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn is crowned, takes revenge upon the town where he had been humiliated and embarks on his world conquests with Arasṭāṭālīs as his vizier and Ḥiḍr (= Khiḍr) as his commander in chief (sipahsālār). In this version, Banākatī gives Dhū al-Qarnayn’s life-span as sixty- eight years.47 The similarities of this version with those of the Dārāb-nāma and the ʿAjāʾib-nāma are evident. Its oral provenance is emphasized by the generalized ‘they say’ as its source, along with the orally-derived motifs of a child suckled by an animal, a motherly instinctive recognition of the abandoned son, a hero rising to power through hardships, a motif of revenge, etc. Moreover, the episode of Iskandar being employed as dabīr, the plotting against him, his fleeing to his mother’s town, and the consequent recognition, are all present in the

44 Rashīd al-Dīn has it: baʿḍ-ī gufta-and (Raushan 1392/2013: I, 575). آ ز – (Khvāndamīr (Humāʾī 1333/1954: I, 209 ,( ��ر) Mīrkhvānd (1338–51/1960–72: I, 641) has Āzar 45 Bāzar [Bāzur?] without the patronymic. 46 Rashīd al-Dīn abstains from stating explicitly the reason of the girl’s banishment. However, from his wording (‘for some reason their relationship came to the point when . . .’; bāz sabab-ī bāʿith shud kih miyān-i īshān ba-d-ān rasīd kih . . . ; Raushan 1392/2013: I, 575) it appears that the story, as cited by Banākatī, was known to him. 47 Shiʿār 1348/1969: 42; cf. Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 641–42; Humāʾī 1333/1954: I, 209–10. Why So Many Stories 221

Dārāb-nāma (Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 399–422) and thus designate these two versions as source-related.48 At the same time, whatever the similarities, Banākatī’s (and for that matter, Rashīd al-Dīn’s) version unprecedentedly treats Iskandar as the offspring of some (unidentifiable) Egyptian ruler named Bāzar [Bāzur?] (or Āzar). This detail may be a vestige of the narrative of Alexander’s Egyptian descent, resurfacing in popular garb through the intermediary of oral tradition. Unlike the original story of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, which, due to its semi-mythical and frivolous contents, could not be taken over as it stood into the Islamic milieu, in Banākatī’s version the mother of Iskandar falls victim to court conspiracies and is not disgraced by an adulterous union with an imposter.

– Version Three: The third version is cited on the authority of Jāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va badāyiʿ al-rivāyāt and gives the well-known Iranian variant of Iskandar’s birth, including the bad breath motif, and the detailed story of Iskandar’s witty correspondence with the help of riddles with his half-brother Dārā (Shiʿār 1348/1969: 42–43). As the editor remarks (ibid.: 42, n. 4), the correct title of the source should be Javāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va lavāmiʿ al-rivāyāt, a voluminous collection of stories in prose by Sadīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ʿAufī (d. not before 630/1232–33). Indeed, this version of Banākatī’s is a faithful abridgment of ʿAufī’s much more extensive narrative that contains Iskandar’s deeds and is probably based on parts of the Ghurar akhbār mulūk al-Furs wa siyarihim by Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038) and also of the Shāh-nāma of Firdausī.49

– Version Four: The fourth version is almost as brief as the first one and is based on historical premises, even if introduced by the general ‘they say’ (gūyand). It attributes

48 Significant for our understanding of Rashīd al-Dīn’s selective approach is the fact that the motifs of Iskandar’s hardships and persecution, as well as his taking revenge on the treacherous ruler, – all of which are typical of oral tradition, – are absent from his account. Rashīd al-Dīn’s acquaintance with these motifs, however, is beyond doubt (see Raushan 1392/2013: I, 575–76). 49 For ʿAufī’s original, see Shiʿār 1374/1995: 105–106; the narrative concerning Iskandar is on pp. 105–12; for ʿAufī’s use of the two sources mentioned above, see Nizamuddin 1929: 89–90. Javāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va lavāmiʿ al-rivāyāt is rich in Alexander-material, comprising eighteen stories relating to Iskandar (see ibid.: 140–260, nos. 151–154, 450, 530, 637, 690, 1025, 1057, 1064, 1171, 1241, 1282, 1524, 1548, 1560, 2025 in the Table). Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh nar- rates the strife between the brothers in a chapter devoted to Dārā b. Dārāb, without mentioning the authority of the Javāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt (see Raushan 1392/2013: I, 547–48). 222 Rubanovich

Iskandar’s origin to Fīlqūs and gives his life-span as the historical thirty-six years, of which fourteen were spent in conquests. Here Iskandar is notable for his building activities, as the constructor of the cities of Marv, Harāt and Iṣfahān, as well as the Wall against Gog and Magog (Shiʿār 1348/1969: 43). To sum up the representation of Iskandar’s genealogy and birth-story in the Tārīkh-i Banākatī: the four versions seem to indicate a purportedly unbiased, nonjudgmental stance. The author delivers as much information on the subject as he could assemble, from books and from oral sources. What is interesting, though, is that Banākatī’s treatment of the section on Iskandar differs rather strikingly from his handling of the sections on other Kayanid kings: while for the latter he provides detailed and elaborate narratives of their deeds, in the former he is concerned only with Iskandar’s birth-story, disregarding the rich narrative canvass which the Alexander story usually supplies.50 This discrepancy becomes even more obvious in view of Rashīd al-Dīn’s treatment of the matter in his Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh and of Banākatī’s reliance, established above, on the Javāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va lavāmiʿ al-rivāyāt of ʿAufī: both sources incorporate a wealth of Iskandar stories.51 It would seem that at the beginning of the eighth/fourteenth century Iskandar’s descent was a topic of not an inconsiderable import for historians and their audiences, in some cases overshadowing the description of the conqueror’s adventures per se. In this regard, the emergence/re-appearance of the ‘Egyptian’ version, particularly articulated and elaborate in the Tārīkh-i Banākatī, might suggest a shift in per- ceiving the figure of Iskandar, as far as modes of imperial legitimation are concerned. The narrative of Iskandar as a foundling plays down, if not altogether replaces, the legitimizing mode that was fundamental to the conceptual world of the Shāh-nāma and its offshoots, that is the underscoring of the Iranian ethnic origin of a ruler as the essential prerequisite for his possession of farr, and hence, his legitimacy. Banākatī’s four versions bespeak the fading out of the ethnic Iranian element in the reception of the Iskandar figure, a process taken up and firmly positioned by later Islamic authors.52

50 Good examples are the sub-sections on Luhrāsp, Gushtāsp and Humāy (see Shiʿār 1348/1969: 32–33; 33–39; 39–40 respectively). 51 Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, for example, comprises the well-known episode of Iskandar’s visit to the Indian king Kayd (Raushan 1392/2013: I, 579–84); his encounter with the Khāqān of Chīn (ibid.: I, 584–87); the erection of the Wall against Gog and Magog (ibid.: I, 587–91) and some other; for ʿAufī, see above, n. 49. 52 Eloquent evidence in this respect is offered by the encyclopaedic work of al-Nuwayrī Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (compiled between 714/1314 and 731/1331). Al-Nuwayrī dif- ferentiates between the Qurʾanic Dhū al-Qarnayn of Sūrat al-Kahf, a companion of Khiḍr, identified by some authorities with al-Iskandar (al-Nuwayrī 1923–97: XIV, 299–300), and Why So Many Stories 223

This waning of the ‘Iranianness,’ inversely correlated with the growing emphasis on Dhū al-Qarnayn’s prophetic mission, is further manifested in Muslim authors’ uneasiness towards the remnants of the alien Zoroastrian practices diffused in Iskandar subject-matter. The Zoroastrian – and Iranian – overtones of the legends thus began gradually to be identified and eradicated. Symptomatic in this regard is an apologetic endeavour on behalf of Muslim historians to offset the famous account of Iskandar’s marriage to Raushanak, the daughter of his half-brother Dārā and hence – union abominable in Muslim eyes – his niece. Mīrkhvānd and following him, Khvāndamīr launch an ardent vindication of Iskandar:

It seems extremely condemnable and implausible (ba-ghāyat mustankar- u mustabʿad mīnumāyad) to ascribe to this God-fearing and pious ruler (pādshāh-i khudā-tars-i dīndār) a matrimonial union with his brother’s daughter, his niece; even if they say that in earlier creeds such a matter was lawful, still such a claim is not devoid of outlandishness (va īn daʿvī khālī az gharābat-ī nīst; Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 641; cf. Humāʾī 1333/1954: I, 209).

The sources’ treatment of the ‘bad breath’ motif would seem to be another indication of the same process: it is either misconstrued or disappears altogether. Although Mīrkhvānd and Kvāndamīr mention the motif in the section on the story of Dārāb in connection with Iskandar’s birth,53 they abstain from referring to it in the subdivision dealing with Iskandar-i Rūmī proper, where he is equated with the Qurʾanic Dhū al-Qarnayn. Thus, Kvāndamīr recounts that Fīlqūs’s daughter Rūqiyā (sic; i.e., even the Persian name of the princess is changed)54 was treated by an old woman (ʿajūza-yī) for her bad breath (bū-yi dahan) with a sandar herb, but without giving this as a reason for her expulsion (Humāʾī 1333/1954: I, 209). Furthermore, according to the version in the ʿAjāʾib-nāma, Dārāb expels Philip’s daughter because of a libel brought against

al-Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn, the conqueror of Iran. He deals with the latter in the section on Greek rulers, identifying al-Iskandar as Philip’s son (ibid.: XV, 235). At the end of this section, he turns to the Iranian version, introducing it with wa-min ʿajīb mā qīla fī nasab al- Iskandar (‘. . . and from the extraordinary [versions] regarding al-Iskandar’s genealogy . . .; ibid.: XV, 242), which seems to indicate the rarity, if not the outlandishness of this version, in eighth/fourteenth century Muslim writings. See also discussion below. 53 Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 637; Humāʾī 1333/1954: I, 207 respectively. 54 This is yet another appellation for Iskandar’s mother Olympias, which appears mostly in Arabic sources, with Rūfiyā and Urfiyā as variants. The etymology of this name is unclear. For a range of appellations in the Arabic sources, see Doufikar-Aerts 2010. 224 Rubanovich her by envious individuals who circulate a rumour about her low descent from a ḥajjām, a blood-letting barber (Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 238).55 It seems, however, that the transformations which befell the theme of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing over the centuries, can not be ascribed solely to an urge to purify the figure of the Islamicized Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn of any possible flaw, such as consanguineous marriage. By the seventh/thirteenth century and beyond the Persian-speaking realm had come to be ruled by dynasties of non-Iranian origin, often with no illustrious pedigree in the eyes of their Iranian subjects. The figure of Iskandar did not lose its attraction and became readily adaptable to suit the purposes of various Turkish and Mongol rulers. This development is finely illustrated by Iskandar’s reception under the Ilkhanids. d Iskandar’s Reception under the Ilkhanids A range of evidence points to the intense interest in Iskandar’s figure on the part of the Īl-Khān rulers. Along with somewhat clichéd comparisons of some of the Īl-Khāns to Iskandar,56 – a practice fully exploited by earlier dynasties as

55 Yet another testimony to the tendency of later Muslim Persian historians to distance themselves from an Iranian component in the Iskandar narrative while drawing on the reservoir of narratives extraneous to the conventional Iskandar stock in the Persian tradition, can be seen in Mīrkhvānd’s presentation in his History of an extensive story, rather romantic in nature, telling how Iskandar defended his Greek mother from the ignominious slurs on her honour uttered by one of the Greek nobles, a certain Fulūs/ Falūs (Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: I, 644–46). The story is told on the authority of the Nuzhat al-arwāḥ [wa rawḍāt al-afraḥ] of Imām Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Shahrazūrī (d. after 687/1288) and seems to originate in Greek sources which Shahrazūrī used through the intermediary of earlier Arabic compositions (on his sources in the parts concerning Iskandar, see Doufikar-Aerts 2010: 101–102; 102–30). A similar story occurs in the Pseudo-Callisthenes (Stoneman 1991: 55–56, Book I.24), where the name of the accuser is Pausanias. To the best of my knowledge, Mīrkhvānd’s Rauḍat al-ṣafā is chronologically the first source in Persian to contain the story. 56 Thus, Ūljāytū is titled ‘Second Iskandar’ (Combe et al. 1954: 80–81 apud Hillenbrand 1996: 215), ‘Alexander-like in judgment’. In the poetic Ghāzān-nāma by Nūrī-yi Azhdarī (compiled between 758/1357 and 763/1362) Ghāzān is named Sikandar-manish (‘Iskandar- natured’; see Mudabbirī [1380]1381/2001–2002: 139, l. 3024; 236, l. 5364), and allusion is repeatedly made in a comparative context to Iskandar’s deeds and conquests; thus, e.g., an ascetic (identified with Shaykh Zāhid-i Gīlānī; see Melville [2002]2003: 138, n. 18) instructs Ghāzān on the proper conduct, using as exemplars the tale of Iskandar and the Ruler of Chīn (Mudabbirī [1380]1381/2001–2002: 172–73) or the tale of Iskandar’s search for immortality (ibid.: 163); Ghāzān demands gifts, mentioning the miraculous wine-cup Why So Many Stories 225 well, – the making of the so-called Great Mongol Shāh-nāma in the 1330s offers compelling testimony of more particular significance to Iskandar’s image for the Mongol rulers.57 Contrary to other illustrated Shāh-nāmas produced between 1300 and 1650, which, if at all, contain only a few illustrations to the Iskandar cycle, the Mongol manuscript is the only profusely illustrated account of the Iskandar story – seventeen illuminations in fifteen folios (Grabar and Blair 1980: 11 and Appendix I), – as against other tales from the same manuscript and in contrast to the prevailing illustrative tradition of Shāh-nāma manuscripts (Hillenbrand 1996: 207–208; 212). Analysis of the ideological programme of the Great Mongol Shāh-nāma suggests a particular interest in the themes of legitimacy of rule and imperial glory, expressed above all through the cycles of foreign or usurping kings such as Iskandar and Ardashīr (Grabar and Blair 1980: 24; cf. Hillenbrand 1996: 213).58 The great appeal of the Iskandar figure to the Mongols was his being the foreign conqueror par excellence in Iranian history, thus providing the Mongol rulers the perfect role model (ibid.: 213; 218–19). In the new historical discourse of the Mongol ideal of world dominion the emphasis on Iskandar’s Iranian descent on the paternal side, essential to the national-historical stance of Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, must have lost its significance. Looming large against all other ethnic kings of Iran throughout the Great Mongol Shāh-nāma, Iskandar provides the Mongols with a model of world-conqueror of non-Iranian origin who by his very conquest of Iran wins the imperial legitimation previously based wholly on the ethnic component, and is incorporated into the chain of legitimate rulers of Iran. In Hillenbrand’s expression, ‘a primordial, innate and conveniently undefined legitimacy – not a narrowly legal one – takes precedence over the rights conferred by birth and family’ (ibid.: 217). Such a perception of Iskandar under the Īl-Khāns is far from fortuitous and appears to be buttressed by the local Mongolian version of the Alexander

which Iskandar received from the King of Hind (ibid.: 371, l. 8495). For further uses of Iskandar’s figure under the Ilkhanids, see Hillenbrand 1996: 213–16, who to a great extent relies on the relevant studies of Melikian-Chirvani (see bibliography in Hillenbrand 1996). 57 The manuscript was produced most probably under the patronage of the last Ilkhanid ruler, Abū Saʿīd (r. 717–36/1317–35), although the patronage of Ghiyāth al-Dīn (d. 736/ 1336), Rashīd al-Dīn’s son, can not be excluded (see Hillenbrand 1996: 206, esp. n. 8). For the most recent survey of the findings concerning the Great Mongol Shāh-nāma, see Blair 2004. 58 This is only one theme in a wider range; for further interpretation and suggestions, see Grabar and Blair 1980: 20–27; Hillenbrand 1996: 219–21. I omit the discussion of other interpretations as immaterial for the present subject. 226 Rubanovich

Romance.59 Probably a translation from an Uyghur Turkish version (Cleaves 1959: 27; Boyle 1979: 131) dating from the early fourteenth century (Poppe 1957: 105; Boyle 1979: 131), the Mongolian version tells of a man by the name of Sulqarnai (= Dhū al-Qarnayn)60 who lived in ancient times in the city named Misir and was favoured by Heaven (Cleaves 1959: 56). He desires to live three thousand years and embarks on a journey. In his peregrination Sulqarnai ascends Mount Sumur, surveying the whole world from the peak and meeting the talking bird (ibid.); he then descends to the bottom of the sea in the qaraba (probably, a glass vessel; ibid.: 78, n. 160), regardless of his noyads’ admonitions (ibid.: 57–58). He enters further into the darkness in his quest for immortality, but, dissuaded by a wise old man, he pours out the water and remains mor- tal (ibid.: 58–60). The version ends with Sulqarnai’s return to Misir, where he recounts his adventures to his fellows and specifies his testamentary requirements (ibid.: 60–61). As can be seen from this synopsis, although it shows features in common with a variety of other versions of the Alexander Romance,61 the early Mongolian version does not contain Sulqarnai’s (Dhū al-Qarnayn’s) genealogy, of any kind, focusing on his world-encompassing endeavours.62 Sulqarnai’s proud boast on his return to Misir: ‘Now I, on this earth, only I have become qan. On this very earth there hath not been born a qan who hath joyed as I’ (Cleaves 1959: 61), equates Sulqarnai with a Mongol khān and encapsulates the

59 This version was transliterated, translated and commented on in detail by Nikolaus Poppe (1957); it was further studied by Francis W. Cleaves (1959), who refined Poppe’s readings and translation. 60 How and when the appellation Dhū al-Qarnayn penetrated the Turco-Mongol domain and ousted Iskandar’s proper name calls for separate inquiry, beyond our present scope. It seems that in Turkic circles the appellation was well-established by late eleventh century, for Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, the compiler of the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (compiled 1072–74), used it throughout his dictionary without feeling any need to explain it, and never mentions the name of Iskandar (see Dankoff 1982–85: III, 245; idem 1973; also Boyle: 1976; idem 1979: 129). The corrupt form Sulqarnai may indicate the oral provenance of the version. 61 For the relation of various thematic elements to their counterparts in Syriac, Ethiopian, Arabic and Persian recensions of the Alexander Romance, as well as to the Latin version of Leo of Napoli, see Poppe 1957: 106–10; Cleaves 1959: 9–26. 62 The indication of Misir as Sulqarnai’s place of origin, though, might suggest the Egyptian variant of Iskandar’s birth. Why So Many Stories 227 gist of the Mongol imperial programme for universal dominion with Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn as its emblematic figure.63 In addition to his emblematic role as a non-Iranian world-conqueror, Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn’s appeal for the Īl-Khān rulers may depend on more specific elements concerning his birth and upbringing, which could sound familiar to Mongol ears. The process of Iskandar’s initiation through hardships before he reaches the Iranian throne, brings to mind the story of Temüjin’s difficult rise to power, as related, for example, in the Secret History of the Mongols (de Rachewiltz 2004: I, 17–27) or, more forcefully, in Mīrkhvānd’s Rauḍat al-ṣafā (Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: V, 34–36).64 Notably, according to those narratives, the adolescence of both Iskandar and the future Chinggis Khan was marked by fatherlessness, albeit for different reasons. Is it possible that the story of Iskandar the foundling, the narrative which became dominant from the late seventh/thirteenth century onwards, addressed the cultural mythology of the new Mongol rulers? Temüjin’s childhood dream as told by both Mīrkhvānd (1338–51/1960–72: V, 33–34) and Kvāndamīr (Humāʾī 1333/1954: III, 16–17) is again a point of resemblance with the Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn stories. Temüjin dreams of holding a sword in each hand, the points reaching East and West. In the morning his mother interprets the dream as signifying her son’s sway over the world’s extremities. A similar dream comes to Iskandar in the Dārāb-nāma, but there it is Arasṭāṭālīs who interprets it (Ṣafā 1344–46/1965–68: I, 435).65 A further curious point of correspondence is an idiosyncratic version occurring in the

63 The equation of Dhū al-Qarnayn with a Mongol khān appears reinforced by his testamentary wish: ‘When I die, . . . cause to offer a thousand fine maidens, filling a thousand natur of gold with big pearls, little pearls, and gold . . .’; Cleaves 1959: 61). Boyle takes this as a reference to the human victims and grave goods deposited in the tombs of the Mongol khāns (Boyle 1979: 132). 64 Cf. the terse remark of the Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh: ‘He was thirteen years old when his father died, and most of his relatives and followers abandoned him (az vay bar-gashtand). For twenty-eight years he was in distress (parīshān-ḥāl būd) . . .’ (Thackston 1998–99: I, 139 [English translation]; Karīmī 1338/1959: I, 211 [Persian text]). 65 In addition to the Dārāb-nāma, variants of this dream in connection with Dhū al-Qarnayn appear in various Islamic works, e.g., the Kitāb al-tījān of Ibn Hishām (d. 218/ 833 or 213/828; see Ibn Hishām 1347/1928: 82–83) or in the Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ by al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035; see al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921–22: 251 and English translation in Brinner 2002: 606). They are transmitted mostly on the authority of Wahb b. Munabbih (34–114/654–732), and probably pertain to the Isrāʾīliyyāt tradition. Interestingly, the dream is not found in the Secret History of the Mongols. 228 Rubanovich

ʿAjāʾib-nāma that tells of Dhū al-Qarnayn’s immaculate conception by the breath of an angel (nafkha-yi firīshta; Mudarris Ṣādiqī 1375/1996: 206, 208).66 In the Mongol context this version is reminiscent of the foundational myth of the widowed Alan Qoʾa (Ālān Quvā) who conceived from a light (nūr-u raushanāyī) that ‘entered through the vent of the tent and went into her belly’ (az rauzan-i khargāh nūr-ī dar-āmad va ba-shikam-i ū furū-raft),67 as narrated, among other Muslim sources, in Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh,68 Mīrkhvānd’s Rauḍat al-ṣafā (Mīrkhvānd 1338–51/1960–72: V, 21–22) and, most extensively, in the epic poem Ẓafar-nāma of Ḥamd-Allāh Mustaufī (d. ca. 744/1344; ʿAlāqa 1389/2011: VII, 28–31). The Secret History of the Mongols tells of a ‘resplendent yellow man,’ whose ‘radiance’ penetrates Alan Qoʾa’s womb (de Rachewiltz 2004: I, 3–5).69 It seems therefore that the approach to Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn in the Ilkhanid period positioned him as a mediatory figure. On the one hand, he was adopted by the new Mongol rulers to create a link with the Iranian historical past of which he was an integral part. On the other hand, his Iranianness is essentially transformed in order to promote his universality, which would facilitate Mongol acculturation without demanding a break with indigenous Turco-Mongol practices.

66 Could the genial relationship between Iskandar Dhū al-Qarnayn and his friend (khalīl), the angel Raphāʾīl, in al-Thaʿlabī’s Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (al-Thaʿlabī 1340/1921–22: 257 and English translation in Brinner 2002: 616–17) be a vestige of Iskandar’s very peculiar mode of conception? 67 Thackston 1998–99: I, 116 [English translation]; Karīmī 1338/1959: I, 171 [Persian text]. 68 See Karīmī 1338/1959: I, 170–71 [Persian text]; Thackston 1998–99: I, 116–17 [English translation]. 69 Ernst Herzfeld’s conjecture (Herzfeld 1916), followed by Hillenbrand (1996: 222), to the effect that Ālān Quvā (Herzfeld has Alongoa) is none other than Olympias, however tempting for our discussion, must be rejected. The etymological evidence and motif examination proposed by Herzfeld, are too slender and speculative to support the claim. If there were any sensible likelihood of a conflation of Iskandar’s historical mother with the female forbear of the Chinggizid line, we would have found traces of it in some medieval historians. For the significance of the story of Alan Qoʾa in medieval Muslim sources in connection with their attempt to amalgamate monotheistic and shamanistic elements in Chinggis’s genealogy, as well as comparing the story with the legend of Maryam, see Biran 2007: 116–18. Why So Many Stories 229

The Pinnacle of Syncretism under the Safavids

From the eleventh/seventeenth century onwards the Alexander tradition became supplemented by additional voluminous romances in prose. One of them became known as the Safavid Iskandar-nāma, or Iskandar-nāma-yi haft jildī, or else Kulliyāt-i haft jildī. It was ascribed to a certain Manūchihr Khān Ḥakīm, or, alternatively, to Manūchihr-i Shaṣt-kalla.70 This Iskandar-nāma seems to be the latest and last version of the Alexander saga in Persian, the earliest manuscript dated from 1106/1694–95 (Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004: 10). The story of Iskandar in the Safavid Iskandar-nāma is treated in picaresque fashion and, unlike other compositions, the prominent role is given to figures of ʿayyārs and acts of ʿayyārī. I shall summarize the first parts of the romance, as relevant to our discussion.71 Once upon a time, so tell the rāvīyān-i akhbār va nāqilān-i āthār, there lived in the land of Egypt (diyār-i Miṣr) a pious sage (ʿābid), reputed for his vigils, his uncompromising fasts and his unsurpassed knowledge of sciences, both religious and magical. One day, when he was walking across a cemetery, the sage stumbled upon a human skull (kalla); enigmatic words were carved on its forehead: ‘I shall live sixty years and shall shed the blood of another four people’ (man shaṣt sāl zindagānī kunam va chahār khūn az man ṣādir shavad; fol. 1). The sage was a brave man; he took the ‘artefact’ to his hut, crushed it into

70 Due to the sheer volume of the work, it has not been edited in full. An abbreviated version was made by Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004; the parts pertaining to Iskandar’s adventures in Khatā and India were edited by the same scholar (see Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1384/2005; idem 1388/2009). Brief discussions of the Iskandar-nāma-yi haft jildī are Maḥjūb 1382/2003: I, 350–59; Yamanaka 2002 and Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū’s prefaces to his editions. A late version dated 1256/1840, which differs from the Iskandar-nāma-yi haft jildī, is preserved in the collection of the Oriental Institute of St. Petersburg under MS C 127 (see Miklukho-Maklay 1964: 46, no. 114); it is the same as MS 614 dated 1244/1829, in the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan (see Mirzoev and Bertel’s 1974: 271, no. 1746) and MS 10993, dated 1342/1923–24, in the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan (see Voronovskiy 1975: 95, no. 6844). For a catalogue of the illustrated lithographed Safavid Iskandar-nāmas ranging from 1273–74/1856–57 to 1357/1938, see Marzolph 2001: 239–40 and figs. 42; 51; 93.1; 104; 121.1; 126.4; 141; 149.1. For a description of two popular printings of the work, titled Kulliyāt-i haft jildī-yi Iskandar-nāma, see idem 1994: 41–42, nos. 28, 29. 71 The summary is based on MS Petermann 405–407 and Petermann 708 in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (see Pertsch 1888: 989–91, nos. 1033–1036) and on Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū’s (1383/2004: 17–19) abridged version. 230 Rubanovich white grain-like pieces, collected the bits in a glass jar, sealed the jar with wax, and fastened it to the ceiling (fol. 1; cf. Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004: 18–19). The sage had a daughter, as beautiful as she was inquisitive. So it happened that she entered the hut and saw the jar hanging from the ceiling. ‘Hmm,’ – thought the daughter, – ‘look at my Dad, he has ground so much sugar and doesn’t give me any’. She sprinkled some of the white powder (gard) on her hand and licked it. The taste was disgusting; it was decidedly not sugar. The jar was returned to its place, and the incident forgotten, until the first signs of pregnancy appeared in the enterprising girl. After examination, it became clear that she had remained virgin and that it was the ground white powder – once a sinister skull – that had impregnated her: the omen written on its forehead thus began to fulfill itself. In due course the girl gave birth to a boy, who was named Philip/Fīlqūz, for he was born with a hunch (qūz) on his back (fols. 1–2; Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004: 19) – a nice instance of folk etymology. The sage took care of his grandchild so devotedly that by the age of twelve Fīlqūz had become the most learned person among the Egyptians in all the occult sciences. He earned his living by fortune-telling and dream- interpretation. Thanks to his cleverness and his mastery at plotting, Fīlqūz became the ruler of Miṣr and later the Qayṣar of Rūm. However, his good fortune changed when he decided to wage war against Iran: he was defeated by Dārāb and forced to pay tribute. From there on the story continues along a familiar path: Fīlqūz marries his daughter to Dārāb, the latter spends a night with her, but sends her back to her father shortly after the nuptials because her bad breath makes her repugnant to him. Of this short-lived union Iskandar is born (Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004: 19–28). At first sight, the narrative appears strikingly bizarre. Unlike all other versions of the Alexander Romance, here Philip the Macedonian receives a birth story of his own; in this story Miṣr and Rūm, a magical conception, a sage, a virgin, an unprivileged childhood with a final attainment of greatness and power are all mixed together in a kind of arbitrary, kaleidoscopic movement, making one wonder what might have been the storyteller’s intention and whether he ever had one. However, to grasp the meaning behind this ostensible hodgepodge of uncanny tales, one should look at the whole conglomeration of motifs pertaining to the episodes of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing discussed above. The section relating the nativity and childhood of Fīlqūz, Iskandar’s grand father, seems to betray a certain bewilderment of the Safavid storyteller; having inherited a host of versions, he seems to have asked himself a question rather like the one formulated as the title of this paper: why so many stories? The Safavid storyteller settles the issue by separating the versions of the tale of Why So Many Stories 231

Iskandar’s birth and upbringing, thus adding a further thematic stratum to the Alexander saga. Most of the motifs I have been trying to untangle are transported to the tale of Fīlqūz. Among them are Iskandar’s Egyptian descent, his rearing by a sage, his extraordinary abilities in fortune-telling and dream-interpretation, as well as the hardships he experienced before rising to power. The rather outlandish description of impregnation by the white powder of a ground skull echoes (inversely) Iskandar’s conception from the breath of an angel, a holy spirit of sorts, as in the ʿAjāʾib-nāma. Furthermore, in the true spirit of Volksliteratur, the Safavid narrator reworks and includes widely-known folk motifs, familiar from tales of magic and novelles.72 Thus, for example, the motif ‘conception from tasting or licking bonedust or powdered skull’ (T532.1.4.2§; see El-Shamy 2004: 286) belongs to the motif-spectrum of the tale-type 0517A§ in El-Shamy’s classification.73 So also the motif of ‘skull has words miraculously written on it’ (F559.4.1; ibid.), and the motif of ‘prodigious child has supernatural knowledge’ (D1810.0.3.3§; El-Shamy 2004: 286). Significantly, the folklore motifs and tale-types comprising the Fīlqūz story in the Safavid dāstān, surface mostly in folktales of oriental provenance. Thus, for example, they have been gathered from an Egyptian informant,74 in Sudan and Iraq,75 in various geographical areas of Turkey76 and Iran.77 At least two versions are found in the collection of Moroccan Jewish tales,78 with more parallels from Morocco, Yemen, and Iraq (Noy 1966: 210). Additional versions are preserved in the IFA and were recorded from Jewish emigrants to Israel from Iran, Central Asia (specifically among Bukharan Jews) and Afghanistan.79

72 I am grateful to Ulrich Marzolph and Karl Reichl who drew my attention to these widespread motifs. Prof. Marzolph has kindly provided me with scans of publications in the field of motif classification, which were inaccessible to me. 73 El-Shamy (2004: 285–88) summarizes this tale-type as ‘Enigmatic Apparition (Dream, Laughing Fish, Speaking Skull, etc.) Leads to Detection of Adultery’. 74 El-Shamy 2004: 287, no. 27; with a curious addition of the informant: ‘. . . the baby grew to be hero’. 75 See Nowak 1969: 250–51, Type 261 ‘Der Totenschädel’; eadem: 380, Type 478 ‘Die Lachenden Fische’. 76 See Eberhard and Boratav 1953: 116–17, Type 100 ‘Der Zauberschädel’. 77 See Marzolph 1984: 157, Type 875 D1 ‘Das Lachen des Fisches’; Loeffler-Friedl 2007: 95–98; 247–48, ‘The Dried Skull’. 78 Noy 1966: 112–14, no. 42; 124–28, no. 48; both are Type AT* 895 (IFA). IFA stands for the Israel Folktale Archives (University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel). The second folktale is especially close to the Safavid version. 79 See Soroudi 2008: 136, Type *895 ‘The Miraculous Child’. 232 Rubanovich

Conclusion

The discussion of various versions of Iskandar’s birth and upbringing in the Islamic, mainly Persian, sources from the fourth/tenth to the eleventh/ seventeenth centuries demonstrates an extremely high degree of fluctuation and flow in themes, motifs, and meanings between and within the ‘compound retorts’ of orality and textuality. To isolate a specific tale in order to reach a convincing interpretation, a delicate work of disentangling thread after thread on the preliminary level of careful text-reading needs to be undertaken. In the attempt to trace the historical permutations of the materials located on the interface of orality and textuality and to determine their gist in particular historical periods, a scholar is akin to a sharp-sighted eagle, able to observe from the height of the bird’s flight how the threads go on interlacing across the centuries, to create lively, re-accentuated and interlocked narratives that remain viable in the domains of both orality and textuality as inseparable entities.

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Yaghmāyī, Ḥabīb, ed. 1340/1961. Abū Isḥāq al-Naysābūrī. Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ. Tehran: Bungāh-i tarjuma va nashr-i kitāb. Yaltkaya, Ş., and R. Bilge, eds. 1360–62/1941–43. Ḥājī Khalīfa. Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa al-funūn. Istanbul: Maarif Matbaasi. 2 vols. Yamanaka, Yuriko. 1993. ‘From Evil Destroyer to Islamic Hero: The Transformation of Alexander the Great’s Image in Iran.’ Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies 8, pp. 55–87. ———. 1999. ‘Ambiguïté de l’image d’Alexandre chez Firdawsī: les traces des traditions sassanides dans le Livre des Rois.’ In Alexandre le Grand dans littérature occidentales et proche-orientales. Actes du Colloque de Paris, 27–29 novembre 1997. Ed. Laurence Harf-Lancner, Claire Kappler and François Suard. Nanterre: Université Paris X, Centre des Sciences de la Littérature, pp. 341–53. ———. 2002. ‘The Eskandarnāme of Manūchehr Khān Ḥakīm: a 19th century Persian popular romance on Alexander.’ In Iran. Questions et connaissances. Vol. II: Périodes médiévale et moderne. Ed. Maria Szuppe. Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes, pp. 181–89. Zotenberg, Hermann, trans. 1867–74. Chronique de Abou-Djafar-Moʿhammed-ben- Djarir-ben-Yezid Tabari, traduite sur la version persane d’Abou-ʿAlī Moʿhammed Belʿami. Paris. 4 vols. ———, ed. and trans. 1963. Abū al-Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī. Ta‍ʾrīkh ghurar akhbār mulūk al-Furs wa siyyarihim. Tehran: Maktabat al-Asadī. [Or. publ. Paris, 1900.] Zuwiyya, Z. David, ed. 2011a. A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 29. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ———. 2011b. ‘The Alexander Romance in the Arabic Tradition.’ In Zuwiyya 2011a, pp. 73–112. CHAPTER 9 Some Comments on the Probable Sources of Ibn Ḥusām’s Khāvarān-nāma and the Oral Transmission of Epic Materials

Raya Shani

The Outline of the Story

The Khāvarān-nāma by Ibn Ḥusām, an epic poem in the mutaqārib metre completed ca. 830/1427, celebrates the heroic deeds of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his four companions in the far-off land of Khāvarān, which gives the poem its title. The frame-story of Ibn Ḥusām’s narrative starts at Medina: the Prophet, seated in the mosque surrounded by his companions, announces his desire to go on pilgrimage to the tombs of those who fell in battle. A heated discussion about who is the most valued of all heroes erupts between four of Muḥammad’s companions; at the height of the quarrel, two of them, Saʿd-i Vaqqāṣ and Abū al-Miḥjan, leave Medina in anger. The Prophet, anxious about the two missing heroes, sends ʿAlī to look for them and, after a few days without any news, he dispatches Mālik-i Azhdar and ʿAmr-i Umayya to aid in the search.1 Thus begins an adventurous voyage of the five, whose goal soon changes from that of a search party to that of obliterating paganism in the far-off land of Khāvarān and replacing it by Islam. The narrative, which started in Medina, now moves to the lands of Khāvarān, where it evolves in the dominions of the allied pagan kings, through a series of battles interspersed with sub-plots of alternating mischief and bravery involving the various participants. Although certain events recall those experienced by ʿAlī and his four companions during

1 Murādī 1382/2003: 68–72, 79ff. The four companions of ʿAlī are all historically recognizable: Saʿd-i Vaqqāṣ is identified with Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, the Muslim commander at the battle of al-Qādisiyya (Calasso 1973–74: 161, n. 1); ʿAbd Allāh Abū al-Miḥjan was an Arab poet of the Thaqīf tribe, who converted in 10–11/631–2 and took part in the same battle (ibid.); Mālik-i Azhdar is the distorted name of Mālik al-Ashtar (ibid.); ʿAmr-i Umayya is ʿAmr b. Umayya al-Ḍamrī, traditionally considered a companion of the Prophet (which cannot be backed historically), but in legendary materials is closely associated with ʿAlī. In the story, he represents the true ʿayyār; he is a faithful helper of ʿAlī, and especially an astute deceiver, often disguising his identity (ibid.: 161–62, n. 4). For a careful examination of the roles of each of the characters in the narrative, see Calasso 1973–74: 160–62; eadem 1979: 437–55.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_011 242 Shani the early battles of Islam, many fictional elements have crept into them, embel- lishing the epic with fantastic fairy-tale motifs, describing ʿAlī’s extraordinary feats of courage in the face of wicked wizards, lions, dragons, and a whole troop of dīvs, jinns, and other legendary creatures. In this way, most of the narrative is entirely removed from historic fact and is a complete fabrication. The adventure element assumes prime importance so that we find ourselves in a whirlpool of extraordinary battles and combats with mythical creatures in a clearly binary world of Good and Evil. The heroic deeds of ʿAlī and his companions lead to the conquest of all the cities and fortresses of the pagan kings and their citizens; some pagans are slain in battle, some are converted to Islam. The conquered fortresses, seven in number, are all described as made of metals of various sorts. The main characters among the pagan rulers are Jamshīd, the king of Khāvar-zamīn; Tahmās, the king of Sāḥil-zamīn, and Ṣalṣāl, the king of Qām, who also controls the approach to the Golden City, or Shahr-i zarrīn. The Golden City is in fact the conceptual focus of the poem. It is here that a narrative of a cyclic kind of kingship is revealed to ʿAlī. The revelation is voiced by Shamāma, the widowed queen of the Golden City, who tells ʿAlī about the original cycle of Justice that governed the city during the reign of her late husband, king Dāl, of a Kayanid (i.e., Iranian) origin, and how it was replaced by the present cycle of unjust rule under Ṣalṣāl, Dāl’s brother. Ṣalṣāl’s sudden passion for Shamāma led to his murdering his brother, and violently destroyed the state of perfection. As one would expect, ʿAlī’s mission is to re-establish justice in the Golden City. This involves, first, the very complicated task of decoding charms and breaking the spells of powerful talismans which Dāl had planted along the road in order to render the Golden City inaccessible to others; then, his killing of Dāl’s usurper, Ṣalṣāl, and finally, his establishing a new cycle of Justice under Islam (Calasso 1973–74: 163–64; eadem 1979: 466, 480–81). The conquest of the Golden City is thus the climax of the story, representing the ultimate triumph over the Land of Khāvarān.2 After the conquest of the Golden City, the heroes begin their way back to Medina. Every fortress or city conquered on their outward journey is now bestowed by ʿAlī on a Muslim ruler who will govern justly and in accordance

2 Earlier, the Fortress of Steel was taken by Abū al-Miḥjan; the Fortress of Minerals – by Saʿd-i Vaqqāṣ, and the Fortresses of Magnet, Silver, Copper and Gems were all subdued by ʿAlī, sometimes with the help of others (see Murādī 1382/2003: 89–92, 154–62, 172–74, 242–50). Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 243 with Muslim law and religion (dād-u dīn).3 The poem concludes with the tri- umphal return of the Muslim champions to Medina (Murādī 1382/2003: 312–13). The main purpose of the adventurous voyage of ʿAlī and his companions is thus to eradicate paganism in the far-off land of Khāvarān and replace it by Islam. The fact that the rulers of the Golden City belong to the Kayanid/Iranian dynasty and that almost all the pagan kings and courtiers carry Persian names (e.g., Qubād, Dārā, Jamshīd-shāh, Ardashīr, Shāpūr, etc.), may further imply that they are probably meant to represent pre-Islamic Iranian characters. If this is the case, the author of the Khāvarān-nāma may have wished to exem- plify the early Islamization of the Iranians during the first Islamic conquests. One may argue that Khāvarān refers to Dasht-i khāvarān, a geographical location in the northeastern region of Khurāsān,4 i.e., to the east of Arabia from whence the Muslim heroes set out on their journey. A probable confirmation for the conflation of the pre-Islamic Iranian and Muslim Arab worlds in the actual making of the Khāvarān-nāma is perhaps best articulated by the theme of the cyclic kingship in the Golden City as this is revealed to ʿAlī by an inscription left on a stone in the so-called ‘Fortress of Dāl’s Talismans’ (ḥisn-i ṭilismāt-i Dāl). The inscription reads as follows:

This fortress is the work of Dāl, who has placed a multitude of talismans here. He was king of the world, his head and his crown reached to the sky; . . . his heart was full of goodness and mercy. He was endowed with the farr of Farīdūn . . . But finally he was taken by death. He left a memorial written when he built this fortress: a valorous man of Arab race, who will establish justice and religion [. . .], will come to this place with the glory of a hero; his name is ʿAlī, the prince of heroes (shāh-i mardān); he shall conquer the world with his sword . . . from the Khāvar-zamīn to the Sāḥil-zamīn all will acclaim him. He shall liberate this fortress from my talismans and decipher my obscure words. For him I have built this

3 Thus, the converted king Jamshīd was granted a mandate over his former region, Khāvar- zamīn, while Queen Shamāma became sovereign of the City of Qām, which had formerly belonged to Ṣalṣāl, and also of the region of Sāḥil-zamīn, whose former king, her brother Tahmās, had been killed for refusing to convert to Islam. 4 For Dasht-i khāvarān, see Dihkhudā 1373/1993–94: VII, 9588. For the definition of khāvar as ‘east,’ see, e.g., Calasso 1973–74: 155–56, n. 2; eadem 1979: 415–16. At the same time, Calasso comments that khāvar can also mean both east and west (eadem 1973–74: 155, n. 2). Indeed, Mohl translates the Khāvarān-nāma as ‘The Book of the West’ (Mohl 1876–78: I, xc, n. 1). According to Molé, however, khāvar does not mean either west or east, but in fact refers to a legendary country (apud Calasso 1973–74: 155, n. 2). 244 Shani

fortress, placing many talismans in it. When he will have broken them, he shall then go without an army to the Golden City (Calasso 1979: 467).5

The conflation of the pre-Islamic Iranian and the Muslim Arab worlds is consistently echoed throughout the epic. Most telling are the frequent comparisons made by the author between ʿAlī and Rustam, the former being the warrior of Islam, and the latter – the hero of the pre-Islamic Kayanid kings. Their intersection can best be demonstrated by the episode in which ʿAlī climbs the Crystal Mountain which appears sparkling like a sun. Amazed at the spectacle, ʿAlī asks God:

‘O Lord, has anyone ascended this mountain before?’ And an angel replies to him: ‘Rustam came here, and while he was here he asked the divinity: “O Lord, will anyone ascend this mountain other than me?” and an invisible voice replied to him: “In another epoch a great man will appear amongst the Arabs, his name will be ʿAlī. He will conquer this entire region with his sword . . . None other than he shall climb this mountain . . . and the demons of the mountain shall be chased away by him”.’ (Calasso 1979: 464; cf. Murādī 1382/2003: 190).

In what follows, I will discuss probable sources which Ibn Ḥusām may have used for each of the above-mentioned intersecting worlds – the one, Arab/ Muslim, and the other, pre-Islamic Iranian.

The Arab Background of Ibn Ḥusām’s Work

The Arab background of the Khāvarān-nāma seems to be confirmed by what Ibn Ḥusām himself says about his work. The author declares that his book originally derives from an Arabic work which he rendered into Persian in 830/1427, entitling it the Khāvarān-nāma, for it was completed in the lands of the east, namely, in his homeland, Quhistān, a region in greater Khurāsān in Eastern Iran.6 At the same time, Ibn Ḥusām’s statement, that his ultimate source was

5 If not stated otherwise, the translated texts are taken from Calasso 1979 and rendered from Italian into English. Calasso based her research on a manuscript of the Khāvarān-nāma at the British Library, Cat. Ethé, n. 898, dated Jumāda al-avval 965/February–March 1558, and copied by a scribe named Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. 6 ‘When thirty years were added to eight-hundred, / this book of the Arabs was turned into Persian. // I have called this book Khāvarān-nāma, / as it was completed in the lands of the east’ (Murādī 1382/2003: 315, ll. 4904–4905; [trans. by ed.]). Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 245 originally a book of the Arabs, might be considered a convention, or topos, representing a literary consensus to the effect that any versified narrative text worthy of attention must derive from an ancient book.7 Firdausī’s references to the ‘ancient book’ in his Shāh-nāma effectively illustrate this convention.8 An Arab background for Ibn Ḥusām’s work is nevertheless indicated by the geographically identifiable site of Medina and by the historically identifiable names of the protagonists.9 Another element drawn from the Arab milieu is the swearing by the infidels to the pagan goddesses al-Lāt and Manāt, as well as the frequent descriptions of desert scenery, recalling the Bedouin poetic tradition of the jāhiliyya period. Moreover, ʿAlī’s deeds and exploits against the allied kings of Khāvarān are reminiscent of the Shiʿi-oriented versions of the maghāzī genre in Arabic literature,10 and hence the connection of the Khāvarān-nāma sources with the maghāzī genre is worth exploring.11 a ʿAlī in Early Arabic Shiʿi-oriented Literature: the maghāzī Genre The earliest extant documents of the Shiʿi-oriented maghāzī genre are the fourth/tenth-century papyrus fragments of the Sīra of Wahb b. Munabbih.12 These fragments present a version of a Shiʿi tradition regarding ʿAlī’s expedition to the Syrian fortress of Khathʿam called Dhāt al-salāsil, where he fights bravely and courageously against his enemies and defeats them.13 ʿAlī’s expedition to Dhāt al-salāsil can be traced to other early Shiʿi sources as well; one is the early fourth/tenth-century commentary on sūra 100 by Furāt b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī (d. 310/922), followed by later Shiʿi commentators, such as al-Ṭabarsī (sixth/twelfth century) and al-Majlisī (tenth/sixteenth century). In all the tafsīr versions, ʿAlī’s victory is linked to his deep piety and to the

7 Cf. Calasso 1973–74: 159; Melville 2006: 225. 8 It is generally agreed that the ‘ancient book’ Firdausī refers to was not available to Firdausī himself but rather to those who compiled the prose text(s) from which he worked (see, e.g., Hanaway 1971: 149; Rubanovich 2012: 655). 9 See n. 1 above. 10 For this particular genre, see, e.g., Paret 1930. 11 The possibility of the maghāzī connection is already raised by Calasso in her reference to the ‘hagiographic’ dimension of the Khāvarān-nāma (Calasso 1979: 421–24). 12 Khoury 1972: 117–81. For a thorough analysis of these fragments, see Kister 1974. As claimed by Kister (1974: 563): ‘It is evident that the legendary sīra with its miraculous stories and wealth of popular verses was already fully developed at the end of the first century [of hijra]’. 13 According to certain Shiʿi versions, the Dhāt al-salāsil was not the name of a place, but that of an expedition. It was thus named because the captives were chained (Kister 1974: 563, n. 33). In some versions, though, the tradition is stripped of all notions of place and time and becomes a typical Shiʿi heroic tale with legendary features (ibid.: 563). 246 Shani interference of Divine Providence on his behalf. Thus, according to Furāt and his followers, ʿAlī’s victory was followed by Jabrāʾīl’s descent to the Prophet, bringing him the good tidings in the following verses of the Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt (‘The Assaulters’), Q 100:1–5: ‘By the snorting courses, striking sparks of fire and scouring to the raid at dawn, then, therewith, with their trail of dust, cleaving, as one, the centre (of the foe)’. The connection of the Dhāt al-salāsil episode to sūra 100 is explained by Furāt and the others as follows: when ʿAlī and his troop went astray in the darkness, ʿAlī’s prayers to God were answered by a miracle – the horses began to strike fire from the stones with their hoofs and the army was able to find its way by the light of this fire. It was in connection with this miraculous incident, then, that sūra 100 was revealed to the Prophet the next morning (Kister 1974: 561–62 and n. 28). As shown by Kister (1974: 560–63), Furāt’s Tafsīr records four versions of the narrative, of which both the third and the fourth are already of the type of the heroic tales with legendary features that had become part of the popular Shiʿi biography of ʿAlī. Thus, according to the tafsīrs of Furāt and his followers, ʿAlī was sent by the Prophet to Dhāt al-salāsil after Abū Bakr and ʿUmar had failed, turning away from battle; he fought bravely, killing every adversary that came forth to fight him, and finally launched his victorious attack, returning with captives and spoils. As some of the versions read: ‘Never had spoils and booty been taken in such quantity, except in the expedition of Khaybar’ (apud Kister 1974: 561). A similar comparison with Khaybar is made in the Khāvarān-nāma in connection with ʿAlī’s victory over the fortress of Khāvar: ʿAlī’s arm is called bāzū-yi Khaybar-gushāy (‘the arm that opens Khaybar’).14 This may infer a certain Arab maghāzī model inspiring Ibn Ḥusām’s comparison of ʿAlī’s victory over the fortress of Khāvar with that of Khaybar. In fact, the details of the Khāvar episode in the Khāvarān-nāma also recall what one reads in Arabic literature about ʿAlī’s expedition to Khaybar. Two examples are the ḥadīth compilations in Arabic found in al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 311/923) Ta‍ʾrīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk (Fishbein 1997: 119–22) and in the early fifth/eleventh century Kitāb al-irshād by the Shiʿi scholar al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022; Howard 1981:

14 Anvarī 1381/2002: 61 (the edition has double pagination; throughout the paper the Persian one is used); for similar formulaic comparisons, see Murādī 1382/2003: 80, l. 565; 241, l. 3509; 248, l. 3666; 289, l. 4398; 304, l. 4700. The copy reproduced in Anvarī 1381/2002 is partly preserved in an arbitrarily bound volume, containing 650 pages with 115 illustrations; about 40 more of its original illustrated pages are scattered in various collections in Europe and the U.S.A. I am presently preparing a monograph on the paintings of this manuscript. For the illustrative tradition of the Khāvarān-nāma, see also Shani, forthcoming. Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 247

83–88), whose description bears a decidedly Shiʿi character. In both texts, ʿAlī is described picking up the Fortress Gate, which normally could only be lifted by seven (variant: seventy) other men straining to turn it over. Some traditions speak about ʿAlī’s using the gate as a shield after his own shield was broken; others about his using it as a bridge over the trench so that his forces might go across and conquer the fortress. The above two examples bear clear evidence, then, of the wide dissemination in the Arab world of the Shiʿi-oriented legendary stories regarding ʿAlī’s feats during the conquest of Khaybar. The same stories soon reached Iran, where they were rendered in Persian. One example is the Tarjuma-yi Tārīkh-i Ṭabarī by Balʿamī (d. 386/996), a Persian translation-cum-reworking of al-Ṭabarī’s Ta‍ʾrīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk,15 where the story of ʿAlī picking up the gate of the Khaybar Fortress is reiterated (Zotenberg 1867–74: III, 99–101). Another, later instance is the History by Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū, composed in Harāt in about 818–19/1415–16, which contains a similar description of ʿAlī lifting the Gate of Khaybar.16 A correspondent miraculous deed of ʿAlī is depicted in the earliest extant illustrated copy of the Khāvarān- nāma, found at the Gulistān Palace Library in Tehran (Ms. 5750), produced during the last quarter of the ninth/fifteenth century, probably in the Shīrāz region which by then was dominated by the Aq-Quyūnlū Turkmans (see Fig. 9.1). It is notable, though, that whereas in the Arabic and Persian histories the legendary motif of ʿAlī lifting the Gate is specifically connected with the conquest of the city of Khaybar, the Khāvarān-nāma relates similar adventures as taking place in far-off countries where most of the infidels have Iranian rather than Arabic names. The author of the Khāvarān-nāma thus took up the same theme, but ‘Persianized’ it; he changed the location of the event from the Arabian Peninsula to the imaginary regions of Khāvarān, where the enemy was no longer the Jewish tribe of Khaybar, but the king of Khāvar.17 From the time that the aforementioned, originally Arab, tales penetrated Iran, the memories of ʿAlī’s heroic feats continued to capture the imagination of the Persian people as well. In this context it might be worthwhile examining the medieval Persian genre of manāqib-khvānī, comprising popular eulogies that laud the merits and virtues (manqabat, pl. manāqib) of ʿAlī and his kin.

15 On the discrepancies between the two texts and the complex problem of Balʿamī’s sources, see Elton 1990. 16 See, e.g., fol. 169a of an early ninth/fifteenth century manuscript at the Topkapı Sarai Library, Bagdat 282. 17 At the same time, Ibn Ḥusām did emphasize the outstanding success of ʿAlī’s feat at Khāvarān by comparing it to that of Khaybar, thus articulating the event for a reader acquainted with the semi-historical episode from the past. 248 Shani

figure 9.1 ʻʿAlī Lifting the Gate of Khāvarānʼ. Ibn Ḥusām. Khāvarān-nāma Gulistān Palace Library in Tehran, Ms. 5750 (after Anvarī 1381/2002: 61) b ʿAlī’s Military Feats in the manāqib-khvānī Genre The oldest testimony to the existence of the genre is found in the mid-sixth/ twelfth century Kitāb al-naqḍ by ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Rāzī. Al-Rāzī refers to a special group of popular narrators, manāqib-khvānān, who recite manāqib in market- places or in religious assemblies (apud Mahdjoub 1988: 55–57). Thus, one episode related by the manāqib-khvānān concerns ʿAlī’s delegation to Khaybar:

. . . ʿAlī tore open with one hand the city gates of Khaybar, which a hundred men had not been able to budge, and held it so that the Prophet’s army could walk over it into the city. [. . .] Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and the other Companions walked to and fro on the gate as ʿAlī held it, in order to tire him and force him to show weakness (apud Mahdjoub 1988: 58–59).

That the Khaybar episode continued circulating among storytellers in Iran can be further confirmed by a Persian eulogy in the manāqib-khvānī style that has survived in an early eighteenth-century Indian copy of the popular romance in prose, or dāstān, titled Abū Muslim-nāma (Mahdjoub 1988: 60). This copy, preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Suppl. pers. 843), contains an epic retelling of the various exploits of Abū Muslim and his friends, including Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 249 three manāqib-like odes encouraging the partisans of Abū Muslim to greater efforts. The third and longest ode comprises 49 lines and is recited by Abū Muslim himself (Mahdjoub: 62–64). In it Abū Muslim refers to Muḥammad and his Companions, elaborating in particular on ʿAlī’s extraordinary merits and praising him as the King of Saints (ibid.: 63).18 Special emphasis is given to ʿAlī’s ability to perform miracles, among them his lifting of the gate of Khaybar, thus recalling the miracles described in the Arab maghāzī genre. Another of ʿAlī’s miraculous deeds mentioned in the ode concerns the capture of the fortress of Dhāt al-salāsil, with the hero described as sitting in the sling of a bal- lista, then landing in the fortress from mid-air (ibid.: 64). Another tale relates that while campaigning, ʿAlī was able to hear a call from Muḥammad at a distance of a forty-day march (ibid.) – a theme which appears in the Khāvarān- nāma as well.19 What role did the written and oral traditions play in transmitting Arab tales glorifying ʿAlī into the Persian domain, and what was their impact, if at all, on Ibn Ḥusām’s Khāvarān-nāma? In the case of the Khaybar episode, it is impossible to give a definite answer, since it appears in both written and oral traditions. More intriguing, though, are the fairy-tale episodes recounted as part of the manāqib-khvānī genre, in which ʿAlī confronts dragons, dīvs, and other monstrous creatures. Unlike in the early Arabic maghāzī texts and their Persian versions, based mostly on ʿAlī’s semi-historical exploits against human unbelievers,20 in these stories, like in Ibn Ḥusām’s work, ʿAlī has been turned into a legendary hero of fairy-tales, one who is fighting against monstrous creatures symbolizing evil. As related in Kitāb al-naqḍ: ‘. . . ʿAlī went down a well and fought with jinn, felled many of them with his sword and returned with the blade bloody, announcing that he had slain so many jinns and devils’.21 The Persian versions of the manāqib-khvānī genre thus comprise the fairy- tale features, almost unknown from the originally semi-historical maghāzī stories about ʿAlī. To trace a possible origin of these features, I would like to examine a unique group of Arabic maghāzī-like narratives which abound in magical tales and which might have inspired popular Persian narrators, including the manāqib-khvānān, thus in the long run possibly influencing the making of the Khāvarān-nāma as well.

18 Composers and reciters of the manāqib in ʿAlī’s praise were not necessarily formal adherents of the Shiʿi sect. The author of the Kitāb al-naqḍ states that Sunni Muslims also com- memorated the events of Karbalāʾ with weeping, wailing, and rioting; see Mahdjoub 1988: 65, 68. 19 See below, p. 252, n. 33. 20 See above, pp. 245–47. 21 Apud Mahdjoub 1988: 59; for the episode in the Khāvarān-nāma, cf. Anvarī 1381/2002: 64. 250 Shani c The Supposedly Fatimid Narratives as a Possible Source of the Khāvarān-nāma This specific group of narratives is considered to have been developed and circulated in Ismāʿīlī circles in Egypt and North Africa during the Fatimid period (fourth/tenth–fifth/eleventh centuries) (Basset 1893). I shall dwell on three examples which, although extant in relatively modern recensions, may represent, according to Basset, the kind of narratives which the Fatimids used to propagate Ismāʿīlī doctrine (ibid.: 5). These three are: 1) Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab (‘The Conquest of the Fortress of Gold’), in which Wahb b. al- Munabbih is referred to;22 2) Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (‘The Story of al-Muhallib, the Dragon and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib’);23 3) Rāʾs al-ghūl (‘The Ogre’s Head’).24 The Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab relates the story of ʿAlī’s expedition to Yemen on his mission to convert the Banū Riyāḥ. On his way ʿAlī meets ʿAmmār, an old man from the Riyāḥ tribe, who tells him about a terrifying dragon that has occupied the Fortress of Gold of his tribe. ʿAlī defeats the dragon and the troops of jinns serving it. After converting the Banū Riyāḥ and re-establishing them in the fortress under the law of Islam, ʿAlī returns with his troops to Medina. In the Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the purpose of ʿAlī’s expedition is presented in mythical terms from the very beginning: he is sent by Muḥammad to vanquish a dragon that has conquered the territories of the Banū Duwās al-Badjalī. In the Rāʾs al-ghūl, the evil force is represented by Mukhāriq, a person nicknamed rāʾs al-ghūl, meaning ‘the head of an ogre,’ thus associating him with the monstrous dragon controlling the Fortress of Gold in the second Fatimid text (Basset 1893: 73–81). Probably stemming from a tradition of public storytelling, these compositions are based on repetitions of phrases and individual events, offering numerous examples of legendary themes.

22 The MS is kept at the Bibliothèque-Musée d’Alger, no. 1103. For the text and translation, see Basset 1893: 8–33. Basset’s suggestion that it might have served the Fatimids is based on the fact that the enemies of the true faith in this particular story are the Banū Riyāḥ, who under the Fatimids were considered heretics and were eventually forced to flee from Egypt to the Maghreb (see ibid.: 4–5). 23 The MS is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Supp. ar. no. 519. For the text and translation, see Basset 1893: 33–59. 24 The MS is kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Supp. ar. nos. 968 and 769. For the text and translation, see Basset 1893: 73–81. Basset compares this narrative to Zirqūm- shāh, another work in Arabic of the same genre, where ʿAlī’s exploits against the heathens, followed by their conversion to Islam, occur in Iraq (ibid.: 4). Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 251

The fact that the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab partly follows Wahb b. al- Munabbih (Basset 1893: 8 [Arabic text], 20 [French translation]) may indicate that this narrative, if not all three, was a direct offshoot of Shiʿi maghāzī stories of the kind found in Wahb b. al-Munabbih’s Sīra and in Furāt’s Tafsīr. Yet, unlike the latter, in which the semi-legendary features of ʿAlī’s military exploits derive from historical events, in all the supposedly Fatimid offshoots of that genre, ʿAlī’s opponents are often mythical creatures like lions, dragons and dīvs. Similarly to the Persian Khāvarān-nāma, the Fatimid narratives are rich in fantastic fairy-tale motifs about ʿAlī’s repeated confrontation with jinns dwelling deep inside wells. Possibly, with the passage of time and under the influence of popular storytelling, the originally Shiʿi-oriented maghāzī stories were gradually transformed into an outright myth in the imaginative minds of their narrators. Significant for our discussion is the fact that many of the above-noted aspects of the Fatimid maghāzī literature in Arabic persist in the Khāvarān- nāma as well. Thus, they share a common framework: in all of them a particular expedition against the infidels is set in the time of the Prophet; each starts and concludes in Medina, with the entire narration forming a symmetrical and closed cycle, and the narration includes a multiplicity of events, all of them glorifying ʿAlī as a super-human hero. ʿAlī’s mission is the same in all of the texts: he is sent by the Prophet to conquer and convert polytheists in far-off regions, where he is often confronted by mythical creatures. Thus, a seemingly historical event relating ʿAlī’s expedition to the dār al-kufr is soon turned, in every case, into an entirely legendary narrative.25 Besides the structural likeness, among the many legendary elements common to the Fatimid narratives and the Khāvarān-nāma is a notable resemblance in the description of the fabulous Fortress of Gold in the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab and of the City of Gold in the Persian epic.26 Typical of all the texts is also the imagery used to depict the dragon. It is described as an enormous, horrifying creature, with a head tossing and turning while hurling fire out of a mouth that resembles a cave, and with teeth like trees of iron; its eyes are like flame-throwers, the sound of its roar as loud as that of a thunderbolt, and the

25 Cf. Calasso 1979: 417; 468, n. 49. Calasso refers in particular to the first of the Fatimid stories, mentioned here, which resembles in content some of the episodes found in the Khāvarān-nāma (ibid.: 468, n. 49). This narrative, as recalled, relates ʿAlī’s fighting against a dragon which had taken over the Fortress of Gold, chasing out the inhabitants. As in the Khāvarān-nāma, the supernatural obstacles are defeated by Qurʾanic verses and by the pronouncing of invocation formulas. 26 Cf. respectively Basset 1893: 9 [Arabic text], 21 [French translation] and Calasso 1979: 471. 252 Shani flames of the fire that it spews out are as high as a mountain, consuming every tree in the surroundings.27 The narrative significance of the dragon is particularly emphasized in the Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib: it is described as a huge creature, measuring 370 cubits in length; it has a mane like that of a horse and horns like those of a bull.28 Also impressive are the long and detailed descriptions of the troops of jinns serving the dragon. As in the Khāvarān-nāma (Calasso 1979: 464), though in different contexts, they all represent a mythical horde of evil forces that ʿAlī vanquishes single-handedly, occasionally converting some of them.29 In describing the jinns, the Arab narrator of the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab employs images that strikingly resemble those in the Khāvarān-nāma; like in the latter, the jinns are described in the form of animals, such as monkeys, dogs, and other hybrids.30 These descriptions could have been influenced by the travel literature available at the time, for instance, the fourth/tenth century Kitāb ʿajāʾib al-Hind (‘The Book of the Marvels of India’).31 Also common to both the Fatimid texts and the Khāvarān-nāma are various miraculous motifs, such as hearing voices from the unseen world (the motif of a hātif );32 experiencing revelations and prophecies in dreams;33 divine intervention through angels and natural forces such as sudden sand and sea storms

27 Basset 1893: 9, 16 [Arabic text]; 20, 29 [French translation]; cf. Calasso 1979: 464–65; Anvarī 1381/2002: 98, 108, 126. 28 Basset 1893: 34 [Arabic text]; 47 [French translation]. 29 Cf. Basset 1893: 42–44 [Arabic text], 55–58 [French translation]. 30 Basset 1893: 12 [Arabic text], 24 [French translation]. Cf. the illustrations in Anvarī 1381/2002: 71, 101, 107. 31 Cf. Hanaway 1971: 145; 149–50, nos. 12–13. According to Hanaway, such travel books provided ‘an abundant supply of exotic information easily worked out into the romances to increase the reputation of the storyteller and the interest of his story’ (ibid.: 145). 32 Thus, for instance, in the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab the warriors who enter the place where ʿAlī killed the dragon, suddenly hear a voice saying to their leader: ‘ʿAlī, you have vanquished 14,000 demons, satans, and jinns, God gave you your victory’ (Basset 1893: 19 [Arabic text], 32 [French translation]). For similar examples in the Khāvarān-nāma, see Calasso 1979: 464–65 and 432. 33 Thus, in the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab ʿAlī tells his warriors that before killing the dragon he had seen the Prophet in a vision (Basset 1893: 18 [Arabic text], 31–32 [French translation]). In Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ʿAlī could hear a call from Muḥammad at a distance of a forty-day march. For more examples from the Fatimid group, see Basset 1893: 12 [Arabic text], 24–25 [French translation]; 17–18 [Arabic text], 30–31 [French translation]; 74. For examples in the Khāvarān-nāma, see mainly the ‘spontaneous’ conversions of infidels following an appearance of the Prophet in a dream, as happened to the daughter of Kāmkār and to King Samak (Calasso 1979: 461, n. 22). More frequent, though, are the apparitions of the Prophet to ʿAlī; thus, for example, after the Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 253 or rain in the desert, in order to assist the warriors.34 Particularly notable is the episode in which ʿAlī and his companions cross a trench full of water on napkins, a miracle which is performed by Muḥammad in the Ra‍ʾs al-ghūl (Basset 1893: 77), and by Khiḍr in the Khāvarān-nāma (see Fig. 9.2). In all cases the religious aspect is enhanced by ʿAlī’s recitation of particular Qurʾanic verses, and of prayers, or by his invoking of God, all meant to emphasize his piety and confidence in God’s help before entering battle.35 It is also reinforced by the significant role given to God’s messenger, Jabrāʾīl.36 One outstanding episode in the Khāvarān-nāma is that of Jabrāʾīl intervening in a vision of ʿAlī’s feats in the far-off lands of Khāvarān, seen by Muḥammad while standing on a roof-top in Medina (Murādī 1382/2003: 146–47, ll. 1734–1751; see also Fig. 9.3). A strikingly similar vision appears in the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab, in which Muḥammad is told by Jabrāʾīl to climb a roof-top in Medina from whence the Prophet may present ʿAlī’s feats to the latter’s wife and two sons.37 Other themes shared by the Fatimid narratives and the Khāvarān-nāma are occasional encounters of the protagonists with a mysterious old man who provides them with useful information.38 The thematic resemblance is further reinforced by additional common characters. Among them, ʿAmr-i Umayya/ ʿUmar b. Umayya plays a considerable role, his adventures repeatedly forming long sub-plots. This is most evident in the Ra‍ʾs al-ghūl, where ʿUmar b. Umayya is shown as a talented trickster, disguising himself in many ways (Basset 1893: 75, 78). In the Khāvarān-nāma he is indeed bluntly titled dastān-numāy, ‘a trick-maker’.39

completion of the conquest of Khāvar-zamīn, an apparition of the Prophet in a dream sends ʿAli to the Crystal Mountain (ibid.: 464). 34 For example, in the Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab the jinns finally surrender and convert to Islam, but not before the angels have intervened, killing many more of them (Basset 1893: 18 [Arabic text], 32 [French translation]; cf. Anvarī 1381/2002: 107). For more on divine intervention through angels, see Shani 2010. For intervention of natural forces, see, e.g., Basset 1893: 18 [Arabic text], 32 [French translation]; 76–78. 35 The examples abound in particular in the Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (see Basset 1893: 42–43 [Arabic text], 56–57 [French translation]). In the Khāvarān- nāma, the following is one of many other examples: when ʿAlī sees that the city is on water, he loosens the reins pronouncing a prayer – and lo, the water disappears and the earth appears (Calasso 1979: 461). 36 Basset 1893: 12, 17 [Arabic text], 24–25, 30 [French translation]. 37 Ibid.: 17–18 [Arabic text], 30–31 [French translation]. 38 Ibid.: 16, 37–39, 40 [Arabic text], 29–30, 49–51, 53 [French translation]; Calasso 1979: 427. 39 Calasso 1973–74: 161–62, n. 4; eadem 1979: 442–55, esp. 445–46; 463. For ʿAmr-i Umayya and his role in the narrative of the Khāvarān-nāma, see Calasso 1973–74: 161–62, n. 4; eadem 1979: 442–55. As described by Calasso (ibid.: 453), ʿAmr is in the first place an exceptional runner and a messenger, a go-between; moreover, he is a thief, but is different from an 254 Shani

Figure 9.2 ʻʿAlī and His Companions Crossing a Trench on Napkins.ʼ Ibn Ḥusām. Khāvarān-nāma Gulistān Palace Library in Tehran, Ms. 5750 (after Anvarī 1381/2002: 103)

figure 9.3 ʻMuḥammad and Jabrāʾīl Watching the Miraculous Deeds of ʿAlī in Khāvarān.ʼ Ibn Ḥusām. Khāvarān-nāma Gulistān Palace Library in Tehran, Ms. 5750 (after Anvarī 1381/2002: 86) Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 255

Most striking, however, is the shared theme of cyclic kingship that appears in specific episodes in the Ra‍ʾs al-ghūl and in the Khāvarān-nāma. Both the Ismāʿīlī narrative and the episode of the Golden City in the Khāvarān-nāma start with the story of a king who was a just ruler murdered by a usurper; they continue with a period of tyrannic rule under the wrongdoer and end with ʿAlī killing the bad ruler and reinstalling justice. In the Fatimid narrative the good sovereign is al-Sawām of the Banū Yarbūʿ; his usurper is Mukhāriq, nick-named Ra‍ʾs al-ghūl. In the Khāvarān-nāma the just king is Dāl, while the usurper is his brother Ṣalṣāl, who weds by force his brother’s widow Shamāma. The paral- lelism of the narratives is seen also in the role given to women: in the Fatimid narrative al-Wafīra, the daughter of the deposed king, helps ʿAlī in overcoming Mukhāriq; in the Khāvarān-nāma it is Shamāma who is entrusted with the same decisive mission, assisting ʿAlī in finding the way to the City of Gold, where he may finally kill the usurper, reestablishing justice under Muslim law. Considering the numerous thematic similarities between the Khāvarān- nāma and the Ra‍ʾs al-ghūl, one might be tempted to accept, at least partly, Ibn Ḥusām’s declaration that he was inspired by a certain Arabic book which he turned into Persian verse. However, even if he did not work directly from a book, he may have heard Shiʿi-oriented maghāzī stories of the Fatimid kind from Ismāʿīlī storytellers entering Iran with their missionaries (dāʿī). The latter propagated their faith also in the peripheral province of Quhistān where Ibn Ḥusām was born, and where, during his period of activity, Ismaʿilism retained a distinct presence, invoking strong pro-ʿAlid sentiment at the popular level.40 The conclusion that Ibn Ḥusām could have been influenced by storytellers can be supported by the technique of storytelling used by the poet throughout his epic. The elements of oral technique employed in the Khāvarān-nāma include:

ʿayyār in not holding any weapons characteristic of this figure – pincers, lassos, daggers, etc. Indeed, ʿAmr is dressed more like a dervish than an ʿayyār and is equipped only with a knotty cudgel. ʿAmr is active at night, sometimes as a guard. His figure contrasts with the rest of the Muslims and his belonging to the Islamic community is not emphasized; there are no descriptions of his recitation of prayers or fulfillment of other religious duties. 40 For Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs in Iran arriving from Iraq and Egypt between the third/ninth and the eighth/fourteenth centuries, see Stern 1960; Subtenly and Khalidov 1995: 210–11; Crone and Treadwell 2003; Bernheimer 2005: 57, n. 58. See also Qutbuddin 1999: 20–23; Reynolds et al. 2001: 132–44; Howes 2011, all three referring to the Ismāʿīlī dāʿī al-Muʾayyad fī-’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1077), an accomplished rhetorician, bilingual in Arabic and Persian, who was active in Shīrāz under the last Buyid ruler, Abū Kālījār. For the cultural context in which Ibn Ḥusām was writing, see in particular Aubin 1967; Calasso 1980; eadem 1979: 468, n. 49. 256 Shani

– the summing up of previously related events at the beginnings of chapters, e.g.: ‘You have just heard what ʿAlī did when he went out of the river . . .’; ‘Now you have to listen to the story of Mālik’s battle . . .’; ‘You have thus seen and heard the story of Mālik’s adventures . . .’; etc. (Calasso 1973–74: 159); – authorial comments of a storyteller addressing his audience or interact- ing with it in the openings/endings of episodes, e.g.: ‘. . . and so I ended this story, with the sword of words I conquered the city of Qām . . .’; ‘. . . now I go to the City of Gold, mounting the saddle of the warhorse of words . . .’; ‘Come, o noble storyteller, what can you tell us of ʿAmr-i Umayya?’; ‘Have you heard what happened to ʿAlī in the sea?’; ‘Now you will hear of the fight of Mālik . . . ,’ etc. (Calasso 1979: 409 and n. 96; 419, n. 29; 442); – the use of the ‘story within the story’ device, the framed story being told by different persons (Calasso 1979: 465 and n. 36).

However, even if influenced by Shiʿi-oriented maghāzī stories of the Fatimid type, Ibn Ḥusām nevertheless chose to replace the location and names with the ones that were native to his homeland: instead of al-Sawām, Mukhāriq and al-Wafīra, in the Khāvarān-nāma appear Dāl, Ṣalṣāl and Shamāma. The King Dāl turns out to be of the Persian Kayanid lineage, probably in order to establish a continuous link of legitimacy between the Iranian pre-Islamic sovereignty and the new Islamic one (cf. Calasso 1979: 475–76).

The Khāvarān-nāma’s Relation to the Ṣalṣāl-nāma

In the context of Shiʿi-oriented maghāzī stories of the Fatimid kind, I shall draw attention to the Turkish Ṣalṣāl-nāma, also entitled Hikāyet-i Ṣalṣāl – Ghazavāt-i ʿAlī (Gallotta 1991: 177). Although presently known only from the eighteenth-century Turkish copy by Ibn Yūsuf at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Berthier 1981: 86; cf. Gallotta 1991: 176), it is generally agreed by scholars of Turkish literature that this is a late revised and versified version by Ibn Yūsuf of an earlier Turkish prose text, interspersed with verse. The earlier text had been composed about 643/1243 by a certain Sayyid ʿĪsā living in Anatolia, who took the narrative from either an Arabic or a Persian source (Gallotta 1991: 176–81). The term ghazavāt-i ʿAlī, used by the narrator to describe his work, may imply that its antecedents can be traced to the Arab maghāzī-like genre.41 Another possible indication of the Arab background of the Ṣalṣāl-

41 The Turkish genre of ghazavāt-nāma consists of religious epics concerning the war-like adventures of a ghāzī; legends about ʿAlī as hero of this genre were widely diffused among the Turks of Anatolia. Cf. Gallotta 1991: 177. Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 257 nāma is the reference to Ibn ʿAbbās, who was an intimate friend of ʿAlī and whose account was the basis for some of the episodes of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma (ibid.: 180). The ‘Arab connection’ of the narrative is particularly apparent when it is compared with the Rāʾs al-ghūl, defined above as a supposedly Fatimid offshoot of the Arab maghāzī-like genre. As in the Rāʾs al-ghūl and, for that matter in the Khāvarān-nāma, the leitmotif of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma is a cyclic form of kingship related to the City of Gold. Moreover, the Turkish narrative contains the same series of events as the other two: it relates the story of an infidel king in the City of Gold who usurps the throne of a just ruler loved by his people and murders him, leaving alive the ruler’s woman and wedding her. She eventually becomes ʿAlī’s guide and assistant in finding the culprit in the Golden City. ʿAlī kills the usurper, re-establishing justice, this time under Muslim law, and he and his troops return to Medina (ibid.: 181–90). Among the similarities shared by the above three narratives, one should mention occasional encounters between the protagonists and a mysterious old man who gives them useful information,42 and the significant role played by ʿAmr-i Umayya. The latter appears in all the texts with common characteristics: he is as quick as wind and cunning, often assuming a disguise in order to penetrate the lines of the enemy (Gallotta 1991: 183–86). Finally, in all three cases the tyrant ruler engages in a duel with ʿAlī who, with one stroke of his sword, cuts him in two (ibid.: 189; Basset 1893: 81; Calasso 1979: 488). The Persian origin of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma seems to be confirmed by the Persianized names which appear in it. Thus, the deposed king is named Dāl Adem and belongs to the pre-Islamic Kayanid dynasty, while the bad king’s name is Ṣalṣāl ibn Dāl, and his wife, Dāl Adem’s widow, is named Dirshamāma, in close parallel to the protagonists of the Khāvarān-nāma. Consequently, the mythical theme of the cyclic kingship is represented in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma by Dāl Adem/Ṣalṣāl/ʿAlī and in the Khāvarān-nāma by the almost identical trio of Dāl/Ṣalṣāl/ʿAlī.43 Both narratives start similarly with a just king of the Kayanid dynasty who is sacrificed; then continue with an evil usurper who commits the murder/sacrifice; and end with the Muslim hero of the epic, the avenger, who restores justice to the kingdom under Muslim law.44 In both cases the wife of

42 See Gallotta 1991: 185, 187 and p. 253 above. 43 Cf. Calasso 1973–74: 165. As noted by Calasso (1973–74: 165; eadem 1979: 470–73) with regard to the Khāvarān-nāma, these trios may have had an archetypal form in the ancient rites of Mihrajān and other mythological sources rooted in pre-Islamic Iran. 44 The two differ, however, in their place in the outer framework of the epic. Unlike in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma, in the Khāvarān-nāma the story of the cyclic kingship runs parallel to the Muslim one told in the outer framework, the latter consisting of the following stages: (1) a unified Muslim umma at Medina (the initial situation); (2) an internal breakup of 258 Shani the deceased king, Dirshamāma/Shamāma, is the personage who makes possible the contact between Islam, in the person of ʿAlī, and the ‘mythical’ Iranian world, in the person of the just Kayanid king, Dāl Adem/Dāl. Analogies between the two texts can be found in additional details which are missing in the Fatimid/Arab narrative. Thus, the arrival of ʿAlī as avenger of the misdeeds caused by Ṣalṣāl is predicted in both stories by mysterious voices, as well as by an inscription left by the former king (Dāl Adem/Dāl) somewhere along ʿAlī’s way to the Golden City.45 Moreover, as in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma (Gallotta 1991: 187), the written message left by Dāl contains a reflection on the ancient leitmotif of human transience, speaking about the vanity of every human effort to achieve greatness in this world because of the inevitability of death.46

the umma (a fitna, characterized by a discord among the great champions of Islam); (3) the departure of the hero and his companions for a long series of tests, peregrinations and battles, crowned by victories over and conversions of the adversaries of Islam; (4) the undoing of the talismans and spells in the City of Gold by ʿAlī and the killing of Ṣalṣāl; (5) complete legal acquisition of the conquered territories by Islam; (6) re-composition of the unity of the umma, now far wider than that represented in the initial situation. See Calasso 1973–74: 164; eadem 1979: 476–77. Calasso elaborates on the parallel stages in those two distinct narrative trajectories. According to her, the first identifiable narrative trajectory in the Khāvarān-nāma is based on the decidedly ‘Islamic geography’ of the story, expressing the moral intentions, while the second narrative trajectory, which appears only in the final stages of the narrative, is that evoked by queen Shamāma in the story which she tells ʿAlī about the City of Gold. The fundamental shared points of the two narrative trajectories relate to the first two stages: (1) the Kingdom of Dāl, the legitimate Kayanid sovereign who introduces the rule of law; (2) the violent break-up of the state of perfection in the form of a passion which suddenly bursts out in the heart of Ṣalṣāl and induces him to kill his brother Dāl (which can be seen as parallel to the emergence of fitna in the first trajectory). See Calasso 1979: 476–80. 45 In the Ṣalṣāl-nāma the mysterious voice comes from the dome-like summit on Mount Hurūsh, which ʿAlī passes on his way to meet Ṣalṣāl; it says that no-one can escape this legendary place except ʿAlī, the lion of God, who, after breaking the spells, will enter the mausoleum of Dāl Adem and confront Ṣalṣāl whom he will kill (Gallotta 1991: 186–87). The prophesizing inscription is then found by ʿAlī on the door of Dāl Adem’s mausoleum, at the centre of a fabulous garden in the City of Gold; it speaks of the inevitability of death (ibid.). In the Khāvarān-nāma, the mysterious voice (hātif ) comes to ʿAlī at the Fortress of Talismans that precedes the Golden City; it says that this fortress was built by the ancients and it was the king Dāl ibn Dāl who filled it with powerful talismans which should make the City of Gold inaccessible until ‘in another epoch,’ the Arab hero ʿAlī will come and break them and bring back justice. In the inscription found by ʿAlī, King Dāl, who had strewn in it magic obstacles, ordains that ʿAlī will overcome them. 46 As it reads in the Khāvarān-nāma: ‘For a long time I was king of the world, on my head shone a crown like the half-moon and I was the sovereign of all the earth. I adorned the world with my wisdom and everything I desired was mine. I passed a long time at Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 259

The Ṣalṣāl-nāma and the Khāvarān-nāma share several other mythological aspects. Those include: the description of the marvellous garden resembling Paradise, located at the palace in the City of Gold; everything inside this palace is made of gold and other precious metals, including trees, thrones, kings, and other figures who inhabit the garden (Gallotta 1991: 187; Murādī 1382/2003: 253, ll. 3759–3764; Calasso 1979: 471); the wall surrounding the fortress has no entrance, but the hero succeeds in entering by pronouncing the name of God or other formulas and Qurʾanic verses; the recurring descriptions of jinns and dragons (Gallotta 1991: 183, 188; Calasso 1979: 464–65) and of talismans – the latter being known in the Fatimid maghāzī genre as well, though they are more significant by far in both the Ṣalṣāl-nāma and the Khāvarān-nāma.47 A striking example of a talisman-motif shared by the two texts is the episode in which ʿAlī has a hole dug in the earth, where an iron wheel is found which, when broken up, makes the talismans break into a thousand pieces (Gallotta 1991: 185; Calasso 1979: 467).48 In a historical context, the Persianization of the Arab/Ismāʿīlī model in the case of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma could be related to the search for a ‘reply’ to the violent external aggression of the Mongol conquerors, threatening proper order in the country. Indeed, the story contains certain messianic ideas which may have been adopted by the author/transmitter of the suggested Persian version of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma, with the earlier, pre-Mongol, order of justice being pro- jected into the future. If so, my next contention would be that the ‘Persianized’

the peak of my powers . . . The army of the world was under my orders and the vault of heaven leant over to seek my protection. I had an army of seven hundred thousand horse- men; [. . .] every day a hundred thousand paraded before me [. . .]; on Saturday they were in armour, on Sunday they were dressed in yellow, on Monday in red, on Tuesday in blue, on Wednesday in gold, on Thursday a hundred thousand were in decorated costumes, on Friday with coats of many colours. [. . .] But when death set foot in this place, I gained no advantage from my fortune and my arts. The cruel Ṣalṣāl shed my blood; it is not possible to escape the calamity of death’ (Calasso 1979: 480–81, nos. 97–98). 47 See respectively Gallotta 1991: 185, 187 and Murādī 1382/2003: 112, ll. 1194–1199; 252, ll. 3735– 3750; 257–58, ll. 3750–3865; Calasso 1979: 425–27, 462, 466–67. 48 Notable in this respect is the appearance of a similar episode in the Garshāsp-nāma of Asadī-yi Ṭūsī, completed in 468/1066. The epic also contains other episodes and themes similar to those appearing in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma (for examples, see Calasso 1979: 467). Similarly, in contrast to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, where the roles of the individuals are limited to the prescribed successive periods that follow Persian history, in both the Ṣalṣāl- nāma and the Garshāsp-nāma (as in all the post-Firdausī ‘secondary epics’), the story deals with an individual hero and is organized according to the deeds and events related to that individual. This change in taste, apparent among the authors of the ‘secondary epics,’ might be a reason for the growing popularity of religious epics like the Ṣalṣāl-nāma and the Khāvarān-nāma, both centered on ʿAlī (cf. Yamamoto 2003: 113–14). 260 Shani version was spread throughout the country by the manāqib-khvānān and that Ibn Ḥusām’s work, completed about two centuries later than the Ṣalṣāl-nāma, may have been at least partially influenced by an earlier Persian version of the kind represented by the Ṣalṣāl-nāma. In light of the above, I wish to suggest the reconstruction of the route of transmission along the following lines: a. The oral storytelling by Ismāʿīlī missionaries in Iran facilitated the spread of legendary stories of the kind found in the supposedly Fatimid narratives; b. The Persian-speaking manāqib-khvānān could have picked up those originally Arab maghāzī-like stories as they heard them told by the Ismāʿīlīs in Iran, transforming them into a versified epic in the Persian language. The existence of a Persian versified epic about ʿAlī, titled alternatively Qiṣṣa-yi dīv-u shīr (‘The Story of a Demon and a Lion’) or Manqabat-nāma (‘The Book of Merits’), with the latter title implying an original connection with the manāqib-khvānī genre, supports this possibility. A single extant copy of the text, almost contemporary with the Khāvarān-nāma, appears on fols. 3b-16a of a small illustrated Turkman manuscript dated 867/1462–3 and preserved in the British Library, Or. 8755 (Meredith- Owens 1970: 172–81; Titley 1977: 24–25, no. 64). This mathnavī in the mutaqārib metre was composed by a certain Buzar, otherwise unknown. It is notable that the frame-story of this text strongly recalls the Arab, supposedly Fatimid, examples. Thus, it starts and ends in Medina, with ʿAlī being sent by the Prophet to a far-off land, Syria, governed at the time by the infidel Shāh Sayf ibn Ardavān. ʿAlī’s mission is to rescue the Syrian king and his subjects from troublesome lions menacing the realm, and to cause its people to convert to Islam. During his journey to Syria, ʿAlī is confronted by dīvs, some of which he vanquishes, while others are converted by him to Islam, as is the King of the Lions at the end of the story. Possibly derived from an earlier version in Arabic, the Persian text in this case still retains the location and characters of the original Arabic source;49 c. The ‘Persianization’ of the Golden City narrative in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma, presumably composed and performed by Persian manāqib-khvānān in response to the Mongol conquests, was intended for creating a link between the legitimate Kayanid sovereignty in pre-Islamic Iran and the

49 The present author is currently preparing a study on the illustrated copy of Qiṣṣa-yi dīv-u shīr. Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 261

legitimate Islamic sovereignty which historically replaced it, interpreted here as the restoration of the primordial condition; d. The proposed dating of a Persian version of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma to the mid seventh/thirteenth century, that is, about two centuries earlier than the Khāvarān-nāma, may suggest that the narrative of the Golden City in its ‘Persianized’ form was known to Ibn Ḥusām either in oral or in written form. This could mean that Ibn Ḥusām may have been inspired by the concept of the cyclic kingship as it appears in the Ṣalṣāl-nāma. If so, one may further conjecture that the Persian repertoire of ʿAlī’s military exploits was significantly enriched with fantastic fairy-tale motifs derived from Arabic sources through the mediation of the manāqib-khvānī genre, hereby represented by the aforementioned Qiṣṣa-yi dīv-u shīr and the supposedly Persian version of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma.50

One may conclude that rather than being taken directly from an Arabic book, the apparently Arab motifs included in the Khāvarān-nāma were in fact drawn from intermediate sources in the Persian language, some represented by written texts (e.g., al-Balʿamī, Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū), and others by public storytelling of the manāqib-khvānī. The cultural context for Ibn Ḥusām’s writing, in the peripheral province of Quhistān, was characterized by a long-term interplay between strong popular pro-ʿAlid sentiments and the conservative attachment to the ancient Iranian past at the Timurid court, to which the re-edition of the Shāh-nāma by Bāysanghur Mīrzā in 833/1430 bears witness.51 It thus seems that our Quhistānī author may have adapted the originally Arabic maghāzī-

50 Yet another possible source of the manāqib-khvānī genre could have been popular epic romances in prose. An example of the genre would be the Ḥamza-nāma, which is also referred to in the beginning of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma (Gallotta 1991: 184). Another is the popular epic romance about ʿAlī’s chivalry, titled Qiṣṣa-yi Shāh-i mardān ʿAlī, presently extant in a single copy at the British Library, India Office, no. 897 (see Ethé 1896–1904: II, 318–19; Cejpek 1968: 633). In this particular prose epic, ʿAlī’s exploits in the battle-field are fused with legendary tales celebrating him as a super-human phenomenon, repeatedly encountering dragons, dīvs, snakes, ferocious lions, and many other mythic creatures, all obvious emissaries of Evil. Undoubtedly, such adventurous legends would have appealed to the imaginative nature of the manāqib-khvānān and other narrators, who in turn may have had their impact on versified epics about ʿAlī of the kind found in the Qiṣṣa-yi dīv-u shīr, the Khāvarān-nāma and perhaps also in a supposedly Persian version of the Ṣalṣāl-nāma. For the moment, though, these shared legendary aspects may be seen as hypothetical and requiring research, which is beyond the scope of knowledge of the present author. 51 For pro-ʿAlid sentiments spread by Ismāʿīlī missionaries, see n. 40 above. For the influence of the Shāh-nāma during the period under discussion, see Babayan 2002: 179–84; Calmard 2003: 332–33. 262 Shani like narratives, or their Persian versions, into a new literary form imitating the ultimate national epic, i.e., Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, as we will see below.

Ibn Ḥusām’s Debt to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma

Ibn Ḥusām’s debt to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma is most evident in his following of Firdausī’s style, using the form of the mathnavī and the mutaqārib metre; he also integrates some of Firdausī’s verses into his text (Melville 2006: 232– 33). Furthermore, he signs his work with the nom de plume Firdausī al-thānī (‘the second Firdausī’; Calasso 1979: 399), and there is at least one Khāvarān- nāma’s manuscript that bears the name Shāh-nāma as its title (the colophon of a 965/1558 copy of the Khāvarān-nāma in the British Library, India Office, Ms. 2557). Ibn Ḥusām consistently refers to Firdausī and the Shāh-nāma; he declares that it was his wish to perpetuate his memory after death that initiated his composition of the Khāvarān-nāma just as Firdausī did through his Shāh-nāma.52 Other, less outspoken expressions comparing his work with Firdausī’s are found at the beginning of the epilogue, where Ibn Ḥusām first compares his own work to a paradise ( firdaus) with flowers and tulips, colours and smells, and then states that he wishes to bring freshness into his garden

52 ‘One is pampered on the throne of kingdom, / another is suffering on a wooden bed with a hundred needs. The end is nothing but death and dirt. / The world is unabashed regarding its manner. Thus, the best thing for me to do / is to compose a tale, containing the deeds of the righteous. So, when I have departed from this world, / there is left behind a memorial from me. One that would rejuvenate the old / and bestow new life upon the intellect. One that would perfume the mind of wisdom / and light up the torch of reason. One that would bring serenity to the wise / and quench the thirsting heart. One that would raise my name aloft / and make a dwelling in the city of fortune. So that when every particle of my body has turned into dust, / there would remain a memory of me in the world. Like Firdausī of the noble birth, / may his soil be blessed, Who composed that famous epistle, / which he left behind as an eternal memorial. Contained within are good and lucid words / about heroes and kings. Speech is lifted aloft by his words, / within his poems are laid the mores of speech. His was the last word in mathnavī composition. / No one has uttered a better Pahlavi than him’ (after Anvarī 1381/2000: 15; for Persian text, see Murādī 1382/2003: 64–65, ll. 323–335 [ed.]). Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 263

(i.e., his epic work) like Firdausī did to his.53 Ibn Ḥusām expresses his wish that if Firdausī should happen to come to this garden of his, he will serve him as a guide, showing the beauty of his own composition (Murādī 1382/2003: 314, ll. 4899–4900). Ibn Ḥusām’s debt to his predecessor is perhaps best exemplified by the episode of his intimate encounter with Firdausī in a dream. In his dream, Ibn Ḥusām sees Firdausī in the rose garden of a paradise-like palace, ‘wearing a woolen cloak like the Ṣūfīs and a mantle of silk hanging down, a turban on his head and a staff in his hand, of middling height’.54 Ibn Ḥusām rushes to greet Firdausī and hugs him tightly before showering praise upon him and his epic. He clings to Firdausī for some time, chest to chest and shoulder to shoulder, his mind rejoicing at his words. When he awakes, Ibn Ḥusām forgets what Firdausī actually said; nevertheless, his heart ‘becomes a storehouse of secrets (makhzan-i ganj-i asrār) . . .’ .55 The wealth of characters and episodes in Firdausī’s work could indeed have served our author as a treasure-trove of inspiration and motifs. This is especially notable when comparing the episodes of ʿAlī’s heroic deeds in the Khāvarān-nāma with those of Rustam’s in the Shāh-nāma (cf. Cejpek 1968: 633). The dramatic encounter between ʿAlī’s celebrated mount, Duldul, and a fierce lion (see Fig. 9.5) clearly imitates the Shāh-nāma episode at the start of Rustam’s Haft khvān (‘Seven Trials’), in which the lion is attacked by Rakhsh, Rustam’s famed stallion (see Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: II, 22–23, ll. 288–298). Moreover, throughout the Khāvarān-nāma, ʿAlī is not once lik- ened to Rustam (e.g., Murādī 1382/2003: 190, l. 2548; 315, l. 4916). At the same time, the Khāvarān-nāma transcends its literary model by putting the emphasis on ʿAlī’s religious values and his role as a propagator of the Islamic faith. ʿAlī wields his sword for a different cause and within a different narrative context: unlike Rustam, who is prompted by secular kings, ʿAlī’s is a religious mission initiated by Muḥammad, and its goal is to convert to Islam all sorts of infidels he encounters. Thus, various heroic episodes in the Khāvarān- nāma, although often imitating the imagery of the Shāh-nāma and its

53 ‘I brought this story to an end; / I completed this ancient tale. I have planted a fresh flower in the garden of words. / Thanks to it, the nostrils of words became perfumed. If you happen to pass through my garden, / you will notice flowers and tulips in my garden. [It resembles] the spring garden of Iram, full of freshness; / it is similar to Firdausī’s paradise ( firdaus) full of colours and smells’ (Murādī 1382/2003: 314, ll. 4895–4898; [trans. by ed.]). 54 Melville 2006: 226; for Persian text, see Murādī 1382/2003: 199–200. 55 Melville 2006: 226; for Persian text, see Murādī 1382/2003: 200, l. 2751; see also Fig. 9.4. 264 Shani

Figure 9.4 ‘Ibn Ḥusām Meets Firdausī in His Garden.ʼ Ibn Ḥusām. Khāvarān-nāma Detached leaf, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1955 55.184.1 (after Canby 2011: 185–86, no. 125A)

figure 9.5 ʻʿAlī and His Mount Duldul, Encountering a Marauding Lion.ʼ Ibn Ḥusām. Khāvarān-nāma Gulistān Palace Library in Tehran, Ms. 5750 (after Anvarī 1381/2002: 106) Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 265 iconography in pictorial representations, were nonetheless transformed and adapted by Ibn Ḥusām for a specifically religious purpose. The perfect example of this phenomenon is the episode in which ʿAlī is treacherously trapped with his horse in a ditch dug by his enemy. The story goes as follows: A courtier of Jamshīd-shāh, the king of Khāvar, in his efforts to encourage his king after repeated defeats of his forces by ʿAlī, tells him the tale of King Bahman, who, while unable to defeat Rustam, lured him under the false pretext of making peace; in fact, the king has ordered the digging of a deep pit containing sharp swords, and, while on his way to Bahman’s palace, Rustam falls into the pit and dies together with his horse Rakhsh.56 Encouraged by the story, Jamshīd-shāh orders a deep pit to be dug, into which ʿAlī would fall and die. He lures ʿAlī to his court on the pretext of wishing to convert to Islam; ʿAlī arrives and duly falls into the pit, after having urged the suspicious Duldul forward. However, in contrast to Rustam, who died in the pit together with Rakhsh, ʿAlī and his mount succeed in extricating themselves from the pit, because of ʿAlī’s divinely-ordained role as a propagator of the Islamic faith, which makes him invulnerable.57

56 For the episode in the Khāvarān-nāma, see Calasso 1979: 434–35. The allusion there to the story of Rustam’s death at the hands of king Bahman in revenge for the death of his father, Isfandiyār, appears to be an idiosyncratic mixture of epic traditions concerning the fate of the Sistanian heroes, Rustam and his father Zāl. Whereas according to Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, Rustam is lured into the pit by Shaghād, the King of Kābul and Rustam’s half-brother (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1366–86/1988–2008: V, 448–53, ll. 122–173), the Khāvarān- nāma ascribes the notorious deed to Bahman: the latter version may echo the story of Bahman’s enmity with Zāl, Rustam’s father, as described in the epic of Bahman-nāma (see ʿAfīfī 1370/1991: 321–22, ll. 5362–5380) [ed.]. Moreover, the Arab historiographer al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) mentions the Kitāb al-Sakisarān (‘The Book of the Chiefs of the Sakas’), which contained, among other accounts, the story of Rustam being killed by Bahman (Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille 1861–77: II, 118–19). It seems, therefore, that Ibn Ḥusām could have been acquainted with ancient Iranian national legends originating in sources other than those used by Firdausī for his Shāh-nāma, which might have reached him through oral tradition. One may recall in this context that the Rustam cycle, also called the Sīstānī tradition (according to the place of origin of Rustam’s family), developed in the region of Sīstān in various versions, some of which clearly differed from the epic tradition used by Firdausī, and were transmitted orally (cf. Dodge 1970: II, 716). Al-Masʿūdī’s account might come from the Iranian national tradition, while that of Firdausī derived from a local Sistanian tradition, with Rustam being killed by the Sīstānī figure of Shaghād rather than by King Bahman (Davidson 1985: 72–73). 57 The scene, as illustrated in Melville 2006: fig. 3, is taken from an Indian copy at the British Library Ms. I.O. Islamic 3443, fol. 150a. It is notable that ʿAlī appears here in Rustam’s 266 Shani

Rustam thus serves Ibn Ḥusām as a point of reference for his readers, who would surely have been acquainted with that figure in the Shāh-nāma. The readers would then naturally have drawn a comparison between the two. In such a comparison ʿAlī has the upper hand: he is the perfect hero, surpass- ing Rustam in military prowess, uprightness, wisdom, morality, and piety. Ibn Ḥusām expresses this point clearly toward the end of his epilogue as follows:

Whereas Ṭūsī created the Shāh-nāma / to glorify Rustam, Whereas he brought his words to such a loftiness / that the mind would fail to perceive it, My book is in the name of ʿAlī, / my pure wine [comes] from ʿAlī’s goblet.58

Considering the general atmosphere of mysticism in Iran during the ninth/ fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries, one may explain the Khāvarān-nāma from a mystical standpoint as well. A probable Ṣūfī-oriented quality of the Khāvarān-nāma seems to come forth in the following passage:

But in [this] time javānmardī is no more; / nothing remains of manliness (muruvvat) except the name; Just as there’s no generosity (karam) beneath the heavens. / At least, if it exists, it is not here. In this dangerous district, the name of munificence –/ I don’t know if it doesn’t now exist, or never did.59

Ibn Ḥusām seems to have been interested in ʿAlī’s role as a javānmard, or fatā, thus placing his hero as the ultimate model of chivalry, which he was indeed considered in contemporary Ṣūfī fraternities, or futuvvat (see Cahen 1965). The gradual growth of veneration for ʿAlī’s exploits in the battlefield thus resulted in regarding him as fatā par excellence,60 moved by his religious sentiments against the pagans. ʿAlī’s fighting against the dark forces of wickedness, represented by dīvs and other creatures, can thus be perceived as a battle between

characteristic tiger hat rather than with his distinctive attributes of a flaming halo and a double-pointed sword. 58 Murādī 1382/2003: 315, ll. 4916–4918; [trans. by ed.]. 59 Melville 2006: 227; Persian text: Murādī 1382/2003: 317, ll. 4962–4964. 60 In ancient Arabian society, the semi-legendary models for the fatā were Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī and the poet ʿAntar ibn Shaddād, the latter becoming the hero of the Sīrat ʿAntar (see Norris 1980) For more on ʿAlī as fatā, see my forthcoming article ʻLā Fatā illā ʿAlī wa lā Sayf illā Dhū al-Faqārʼ (see Shani, forthcoming1). Sources of Khāvarān-nāma and Transmission of Epic Materials 267 divine, absolute devotion, and daily temptation, instigated by evil. The heroic exploits of ʿAlī seem to have been interpreted by the poet as representing the ‘greater jihād,’ which signifies the spiritual struggle of the self against baser ten- dencies and proclivities. In Ṣūfī terms, the enemies confronted by ʿAlī, whether human or mythological, can be regarded as symbolizing the forces of Evil, which are finally overcome by the Perfect Man. The Khāvarān-nāma is thus imbued with a strong feeling of Islamic piety and a deep devotion to ʿAlī, whose acts of utmost bravery and supernatural powers derive from divine inspiration. The poet has made use of the Shāh-nāma as a model to create an Islamic heroic narrative, and as such, the Khāvarān-nāma can be categorized as a specifically Iranian epic-religious poem (Calmard 2003: esp. 325).

Conclusion

According to Molé, the Khāvarān-nāma belongs to the genre of post-Firdausī epics, being the last Persian epic written in the old manner (Molé 1953: 391–92). At the same time, in its Islamic character, it differs from the epics based on the Sistanian cycle (ibid.). Despite its reliance on early sources, the Khāvarān- nāma seems to be a spontaneous invention composed against the religio-social background of the author’s homeland. It may be viewed as a carefully crafted original work which makes resourceful use of heterogeneous groups of narratives and episodes. Topics often treated in distinct genres are here brought together, a method that allowed Ibn Ḥusām to create a unified composition. Whatever were the direct sources available to the author, the legendary adventures described in the Khāvarān-nāma obviously appealed to the imaginative nature of artists, the fortunate result being the creation of voluminous copies of manuscripts which are profusely illustrated with legendary scenes breathing a magical atmosphere.

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Ulrich Marzolph

Whatever the Qājār period is considered to have been in terms of political events, from the perspective of the discipline of folk narrative research it was a golden age of storytelling (Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999; Marzolph 2001b).1 Stories of all kinds were told in Iran since times of old and certainly are still told today,2 but for no other period of Iranian history do we command such a wealth of information on professional storytelling, the storytellers and their stories as for the Qājār period. The art of professional storytelling in Iran relies on a long tradition, probably arching back as far as Parthian times (Boyce 1957). Several of the great narrative collections of world literature owe their genesis or at least their mediation into world literature to pre-Islamic and early Islamic Iran – such as Kalīla va Dimna (de Blois 1990), the Sindbād-nāma, and the Thousand and One Nights (Marzolph 2007). Besides contributing to the international dissemination of numerous narratives of ‘Oriental’ origin (Marzolph 2010), these collections prove that the art of narrating was held in high esteem in Iran as in various other Oriental cultures. In the Islamic period, fables and other didactic tales were employed to illustrate points of a moral, didactic or mystical intent in numerous works of Persian literature, such as – to name but the most famous – those by ʿAṭṭār, Niẓāmī, Rūmī, and Saʿdī.3 The Iranian national epic, Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma, is a pivotal narrative of Iranian identity drawing on a wide array of stories that focus on mythical rulers and heroes.4 And finally, in addition to the stories told in works of elite or popular literature, folktales and fairy tales are still told orally today (Marzolph 1984; 1994a; 1994b).

1 Of particular interest is Floor 2005, to which the present essay is heavily indebted. 2 See, e.g., Page 1977; eadem 1979; Hanaway 1996; Jaʿfariyān 1999; Yamamoto 2003: 20–28. 3 See, e.g., de Bruijn 1997; Boyle 1978; Sanʿatī-niyā 1369/1990; Marzolph 1999b; idem 2004; Furūzānfar 1370/1991. 4 For a new prose rendition, see Davis 2007; among numerous studies on the epic, see especially Yarshater 1983; Marzolph 2002; Yamamoto 2003.

While storytelling thus can rightfully be considered a traditional constituent of Iranian culture, it goes without saying that all kinds of storytelling have developed and changed under the influence of contemporary conditions. Whereas more specialized discussions of naqqālī have been published,5 my aim in the following is to sketch the major characteristics of this traditional Persian form of verbal art as described in the contemporary testimonies of European travellers to Iran. The Persian art of naqqālī is posited somewhere in between the various strands of oral and (written) literary tradition, thus constituting the ideal subject for considerations on orality and textuality in the Iranian world (Page 1977; Floor 2005: 82–106; Yamamoto 2010). Naqqālī, a term that I take in the following as a general denomination for professional storytelling, is the verbal art of telling stories of a historical nature, whether relating to events that actually did happen or those that learned or popular tradition would imagine to have happened. As in the field of Oriental historiography in general, naqqālī rather than representing a faithful and ‘authentic’ depiction, relies on plausibility and likeliness to construct and present an appealing image of how things might have been. Naqqālī is an oral performance that is presented by a professional storyteller, the naqqāl, and that takes place in a public or semi-public context. The texts performed in naqqālī usually relate to heroic adventures of secular as well as religious heroes. While being performed orally, naqqālī to a certain extent relies on sources laid down in writing that include both manuscript and printed versions of the performed text. The specific genre of manuscript texts related to their work is the ṭūmār, a text that is best described as a booklet constituting a mnemonic aid for the storyteller’s performance (Maḥjūb 1381– 82/2003b: 1099–1113; Yamamoto 2003: 29–52). Storytellers might retell a more or less fixed narrative, whether in prose or verse or, at times, in prose interspersed with verbatim quotations in poetry as taken from the original source (cf. Gaillard 1987: 99–100; Rubanovich 2006). The more the storytellers would deviate from their source text, the more they would employ techniques of oral composition. In particular, they would apply a large set of narrative formulas structuring the text as well as describing certain repetitive events, such as sun- sets or scenes of combat.6 While the techniques of oral composition have not been studied for an actual oral performance, with the exception of Kumiko Yamamoto’s attempt (Yamamoto 2003), they are prominently visible in the published versions of

5 See, e.g., Page 1977; eadem 1979; Maḥjūb 1381–82/2003a; idem 1381–82/2003b: 1079–99. 6 See, e.g., Gaillard 1987: 85–97; Yamamoto 2003: 34–42; Rubanovich 2012: 666–71. Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) In Qājār Iran 273 the more recent romances (dāstāns) that in their wording and structure are closely related to oral performance (Rubanovich 2012: 660–75). To mention but one example in some detail, the romance of Ḥusayn-i Kurd, whose published text (Afshār and Afshārī 1385/2006) has most probably been compiled shortly before the Qājār period, has been studied as a ‘treasury of formulaic narrative’ (Marzolph 1999a). The story of Ḥusayn-i Kurd is a romance of chivalry focusing on the actions of its eponymous hero, a valiant Kurdish shepherd and warrior who is portrayed as living (and loving) during the reign of Savafid emperor Shāh ʿAbbās. The romance, a relatively short prose text, is a rich source for formulas that can usually be attributed to one of two kinds. General formulas would structure the text by summing up the previous events – such as the fairly unspecific al-qiṣṣa . . . (‘in short . . .’) or by introducing a change of perspective and thus of protagonist, action, and scenery. The previous scene is closed before the narrative turns to a different scene with a formula such as ammā chand kalima az . . . bishnau (‘now listen to some words about . . .’) or īnhā-rā dāshta bāsh, chand kalima az . . . bishnau (‘leave them [here] and listen to some words about . . .’). This type of interior formula has also been richly documented from the oral performance of Mashdi Galin Khānum, the only Persian storyteller whose repertoire has been documented with some degree of comprehensiveness (Marzolph 1994a: 25–26). Besides the general formulas structuring the text, the romance of Ḥusayn-i Kurd abounds in formulas that condense a complex action into a few words. Examples of this kind are the formulaic expressions ātash raushan namūdan (lit., ‘to light a fire’) that serves as the stereotype expression of destruction, and rīsh-u sabīl tarāshīdan (lit., ‘to shave [the vanquished opponent’s] beard and mustache’), implying victory and subsequent dominance exerted by humiliation. In particular, the hero’s preparation for any of the numerous battles and scenes of single combat are described by a stereotype chain of actions including the donning of armor, the beating of the battle drum, the opponents mutually addressing each other as well as bragging about the prowess, and finally the actual armed clash (Marzolph 1999: 293–94). Non-religious (‘secular’) epic naqqālī in today’s Iran is almost exclusively restricted to the performance of episodes from Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma. The present situation is, however, not representative of the historical range of works performed, since the propagation of naqqālī as exclusively constituting shāh-nāma-khvānī was only enforced by the Pahlavi regime sometime around 1930, as a further step towards emphasizing national (Iranian) identity in contrast to religious (Shiʿite) identity (Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999: 332–33). Historically, naqqālī would encompass other epics amplifying Iranian history 274 Marzolph beyond the events depicted in the Shāh-nāma, such as the Garshāsp-nāma, the Farāmarz-nāma, the Barzū-nāma, the Rustam-nāma and some other.7 In addition, it would deal with a wide array of epic romances such as various versions of the Alexander Romance, the Iskandar-nāmas,8 or that of his Islamicized equivalent Ḥamza (ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib), the Rumūz-i Ḥamza.9 The romance of Amīr Arsalān, probably one of the internationally best-known works of naqqālī today, was created by Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh’s (r. 1848–96) story teller (naqqāl-bāshī) Naqīb al-Mamālik (d. 1891); its text was written down by the ruler’s daughter Fakhr al-Daula who listened to the storyteller’s oral (and presumably spontaneous) performance from behind a curtain (Maḥjūb 1345/1966; Gelpke 1965; see also Hanaway 1985). Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh, notably, is known for his avid attachment to fantastic stories, above all the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, and the manuscript of this work’s Persian translation illustrated at his orders by the studio of the renowned artist Ṣanīʿ al-Mulk is – as art historians unanimously agree – the last outstanding specimen of the art of the book in Iran (Marzolph 2007: 231). Contrasting with non-religious epic naqqālī, the genre of religious storytelling relates to early Islamic, and particular early Shiʿite history, predominantly the legendary adventures of ʿAlī and the tragic experience (muṣībat) of Ḥusayn and his followers at Karbalāʾ.10 This branch is closely connected to the dramatic performance known as taʿziya. It is often denoted as rauḍa-khvānī, a term originally relating to the performance of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī Vāʿiẓ-i Kāshifī’s ninth/ fifteenth-century religious epic Rauḍat al-shuhadāʾ (‘The Garden of the Martyrs’). This work, the content of which is of pivotal importance for Shiʿite identity, was succeeded by numerous works of a similar nature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the most important of which are Asrār al-shahādat (‘The Secrets of Martyrdom’) by Sarbāz Burūjirdī, Ḥamla-yi ḥaydariyya (‘The Lion’s [viz ʿAlī’s] Attack’) by Mullā Bamun-ʿAlī, and Ṭūfān al-bukāʾ (‘The Deluge of Tears’) by Jauharī (see Marzolph 2001a: 25–26; Būdharī 2011).

7 For a concise presentation of stories, once included in the traditional naqqālī repertoire, see Yamamoto 2003: 25–28, esp. Tables 2 and 3. For the 'secondary' epics, see now Van Zutphen 2014. [On the Barzū-nāma, see Gabrielle R. van den Berg’s article in this volume.] 8 Afshār 1343/1964; Dhakāvatī Qarāguzlū 1383/2004; see also Hanaway 1970; Southgate 1978; Yamanaka 2002; Gaillard 2005: 9–87. 9 See, e.g., Marzolph 1990; Hanaway 2003; Sabri 2014. 10 Elwell-Sutton 1979; Floor 2005: 124–212; see also Newid 2006: 94–128; Chelkowski 2010. [For a specimen of early religious epics, see Raya Shani’s article in this volume.] Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) In Qājār Iran 275

Professional storytellers would often accompany their performance by parda-dārī.11 In presenting large scale images (parda) related to the captivating stories they told, they would add a visual experience (Flaskerud 2010), a phenomenon that is roughly comparable to the performance of the European ballad-monger or Bänkelsänger. A particular Iranian art-form arising from this practice is the so-called naqqāshī-yi qahva-khāna‍ʾī (‘coffee-house painting’), denoting large paintings on canvas that are somewhat reminiscent of Western naive art (Sayf 1369/1990). Historically, these paintings would most often depict a conglomerate of the tragedy of Karbalāʾ. The depiction of scenes from the Shāh-nāma appears to be a fairly recent phenomenon. Storytellers performing in the streets or other open spaces, such as the bazaar (maʿraka- gīrī), might also present additional attractions such as a tame monkey or a serpent kept in a box. Until well after the middle of the twentieth century, naqqālī continued to be a living, though fading, tradition, and even just before the revolution of 1978/79 I was able to tape part of a storyteller’s performance who entertained his audience in the open space of the newly constructed bazaar at Kirmān. The story he told dealt with the tragic death of Abū al-Faḍl, Ḥusayn’s standard bearer at Karbalāʾ, who was brutally mutilated by the enemies when attempting to fetch water for his thirsty men. One of the last conscious eye-witness accounts of the once vibrant profession is given by Danish scholar Arthur Christensen. In 1924, Christensen wrote about the storyteller as an almost extinct species who twenty or thirty years earlier, i.e., at the turn of the twentieth century, could still be seen arranging himself at the side of a street,

where he would attach to the wall colourful hideous images of men, devils and giants, and princesses held captive in the tower of a castle. A crowd of passers-by would stop and sit down encircling him listening to the most fantastic adventures. When the storyteller started, he would present his tales rapidly and with vivid expression, pointing with his staff to those images that illustrated the situation he was just narrating. And when he reached the most captivating point of his tale, he would pause and circulate a plate to collect some coins (Christensen 1958: 283–85).12

11 See Floor 2005: 85, 119, 125, 146; for modern performers of religious stories, see Ardalān 1386/2007. 12 Unless otherwise stated, the translation is mine. 276 Marzolph

Already the oldest Persian romance of chivalry preserved, the sixth/twelfth- century Samak-i ʿAyyār, documents the fact that storytellers would interrupt their performance to ask for blessings or material compensation for their effort (Khānlarī 1364/1985: 66–67; Gaillard 1987: 165–66; Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999: 336–37; Rubanovich 2012: 670–71; Zenhari 2014: 43–44.). There is an admirable collection of quotes relating to naqqālī in Iran from the publications of Western travellers or residents in Iran as compiled in Juliet Radhayrapetian’s survey of Iranian folk narrative (Radhayrapetian 1990) and Willem Floor’s book on the history of theater in Iran (Floor 2005). For the Qājār period, these quotes range chronologically from John Malcolm (1769–1833), who last visited Iran in 1810, to Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962), who described her experience of a storyteller in Iṣfahān in 1925. Malcolm’s account in his History of Persia deserves to be quoted extensively, as it mentions some of the important characteristics of the traditional naqqāl:

. . . The Persians, though passionately fond of public exhibition, have none that merit the name of theatrical entertainments: but, though strangers to the regular drama, the frames of their stories are often dramatic; and those whose occupation is to tell them, sometimes display so extraordinary a skill, and such varied powers, that we can hardly believe, while we look upon their altered countenances, and listen to their changed tones, that it is the same person, who at one moment relates, in his natural voice, a plain narrative, then speaks in the hoarse and angry tone of offended authority, and next subdues the passions he had excited by the softest sounds of feminine tenderness. But the art of relating stories is, in Persia, attended both with profit and reputation. Great numbers attempt it, but few succeed. It requires considerable talent, and great study. None can arrive at eminence in this line except men of cultivated taste and retentive memory. They must not only be acquainted with the best ancient and modern stories, but be able to vary them by the relation of new incidents, which they have heard or invented. They must also rec- ollect the finest passages of the most popular poets, that they may aid the impression of their narrative by appropriate quotation . . . (Malcolm 1820: II, 552–54 apud Floor 2005: 92–93).

This quote bespeaks the typical mixture of fascination and cultural arrogance indicative of the contemporary attitude towards Iran (and Orientals in general) that had been in vogue ever since French scholar of Oriental studies Antoine Galland (1646–1715) had introduced ‘Oriental’ storytelling to the Western Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) In Qājār Iran 277 public with his adapted translation of the Thousand and One Nights in 1704. Nevertheless, Malcolm gives due credit to the storyteller’s professional capacity that is constituted by a combination of natural talent and acquired skill. Even more explicitly, in his Sketches of Persia, he states that ‘there is no country in the world where more value is placed upon such talents [implying the recitation of poetry and the telling of tales]; he who possesses them in an eminent degree is as certain of fortune and fame as the first doctors in Europe’ (Malcolm 1827: I, 176). The ambivalent foreign approach to indigenous storytellers is also evident in an essay published by British consul Douglas Craven Phillot (1860–1930) at the beginning of the twentieth century (Phillot 1906). While Phillot conceived both the stories and their tellers as alien, his appreciation ranged between the (implicit) admiration for a living oral tradition, the knowledge of which would help to understand (and in extension: to govern) the people concerned, and an (outspoken) discontent for moral standards and modes of behaviour (or, in this case, performance) that he conceived as incongruous with his own and, hence, as inferior. Discussing the storyteller’s actual performance, Phillot admired the stories as being ‘highly dramatic’ and ‘often adorned by fine quotations from [the] most esteemed writers,’ but warned his readers that they ‘generally contain many passages that are, according to European ideas, indecent or immoral’ (Phillot 1906: 375). And while Phillot admitted ‘great flu- ency and rapidity’ to the storytellers’ performance, he immediately went on to criticize them for not being able to ‘dictate slowly: if interrupted they miss the point and become incoherent: Hence the same story has to be repeated many times before the recorder can accurately fill in all the numerous blanks that occur after a first narration’ (ibid.). Most of the professional storytellers in the Qājār period were dervishes; in particular they belonged to the Khāksar dervishes and their affiliated off-shoot of ʿAjam dervishes. As Eugène Aubin (1875–1919) observed in 1907:

The ʿAjam dervish Hoseyn is the nakkal [. . .]; he is currently touring the neighboring villages that he amuses with his engaging stories, before edifying them with a short sermon about the martyred Imams. [. . .] His apprentice dervish Darab [. . .] was studying with his morshed [i.e., his master] Qashqul Ali Shah of Golpaygan and timidly tried his hand at the art. His master has not yet taught him how to detail the episodes, contained in a certain famous book; his memory classes the tales by category: virtue recompensed, vice punished, vengeance, marriage, death (Aubin 1908: 307–308 apud Floor 2005: 94). 278 Marzolph

Charles James Wills (1842–1912) remarked in his Sketches of Modern Persian Life in 1886, that some of these dervishes have ‘real genius, marvellous memories, and the art of the ventriloquist and mimic at command’ (Wills 1886: 95). Sir Arnold Wilson (1894–1940), who published his Letters and Diary of a Young Political Officer 1907–1914, was almost moved to tears by the two-hour performance that a blind storyteller gave of the story of Rustam and Suhrāb: ‘Speaking nearly in the dark as we sat around the small charcoal fire he relied entirely on modulations of his voice to give dramatic effect to the successive speeches of the boy Sohrab and his father Rustam’ (Wilson 1942: 63 apud Radhayrapetian 2005: 149). Around 1909, Benjamin Moore witnessed a dervish in Isfahan, ‘telling tales beside a tea-house below. His audience is smoking, seated on their heels on platforms with low railings, placed in rows along the walls and beside the conduit running round the square. . . . He recites with a dramatic and highly inflected voice, and a profusion of gesture not unworthy of an actor’ (Moore 1915: 287 apud Floor 2005: 95). And James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855) described his encounter with a ‘professed story-teller’ on the Maydān-i Naqsh-i Jahān in Iṣfahān in 1828, around whom a ‘party of nearly three hundred people had collected’ (Buckingham 1829: 203 apud Floor 2005: 96). He was, says Buckingham:

disclaiming with all the dignity and warmth of the most eloquent and finished orator. We halted here without a murmur from any of our party, as they seemed to enjoy this species of exhibition as much as Englishmen would do the pleasures of the drama. It might itself, indeed, be called a dramatic representation; for although but one person appeared on the stage, there were as great a variety of characters personated by this one, as appears in any of our best plays. [. . .] He breathed forth the haughty fury of the conquering warrior; trembled in the supplicating tone of the captive; allured by the female voice of love and desire; and dictated in the firmer strain of remonstrance and reproach (ibid.: 96–97).

Still in 1925, Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) described a dervish in Iṣfahān who

was sitting on the ground telling a story to the crowd; they sat around him in a circle with lips parted and eyes popping nearly out of their heads as the holy man worked himself into a state of frenzy over the exploits of his hero. [. . .] He seemed indeed wild and inspired, as though he had been spinning his tale for the last five hundred years and was only now working up to the climax (Sackville-West 1926: 110, 155 apud Floor 2005: 98). Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) In Qājār Iran 279

Without presuming an unbroken permanence of tradition or adhering to a nostalgic lament of times gone by, the above quotes suggest that professional storytelling in Qājār Iran was more or less what it had been at least since early in the Safavid period. Storytellers still appear to have followed the rules of their profession as laid down in the eleventh/seventeenth century by authors such as ʿAbd al-Nabī Fakhr al-Zamānī in his Ṭarāz al-akhbār (‘The Proper Manners of Recitation’), a manual focusing on the performance of the Rumūz-i Ḥamza (Maḥjūb 1381–82/2003b: 1084–93; Shafīʿī Kadkanī 1381/2002). Even earlier, Vāʿiẓ-i Kāshifī in his ninth/fifteenth-century Futuvvat-nāma-yi sulṭānī (‘The Royal Book of Chivalry’) had outlined the following eight rules for storytelling:

. . . First, if he is a beginner, the storyteller must have studied the tale that he wants to tell with a master; and if he is experienced, he must have practiced it beforehand, so that he may not get stuck in telling it. Second, he must begin with eloquence, speak in an exciting manner, and not be plain or boring in his discourse. Third, one must know what kind of narration is fitting for what kind of assembly, and how much to simplify, and so on. The storyteller should narrate more of what his audience likes. Fourth, one should occasionally embellish one’s prose by verse. However, one should be careful not to bore people with it [. . .]. Fifth, one should not utter impossible statements, nor should one hyperbolize lest he should appear silly to the audience. Sixth, one should not make sarcastic or critical remarks lest he become an object of dislike. Seventh, one should not demand payment forcefully, nor should one pester the audience for it. Eighth, one must neither stop too soon, nor go on too late; but must always keep to the path of moderation (apud Omidsalar and Omidsalar 1999: 335).

However widespread and popular the profession of naqqāl might have been in Qājār Iran, one should probably not succumb to the ‘romantic fancy’ that epic tales were narrated in every coffeehouse by professional storytellers. In fact, even though early in the twentieth century Eugène Aubin still estimated some 5,000 to 10,000 dervishes engaged in various forms of oral tradition, including naqqālī (apud Floor 2005: 94), American scholar Mary Ellen Page in her field- work conducted in Iran in 1974–75 managed to locate only four professional storytellers in Shīrāz (Page 1979: 196). She was able to profit from the detailed information supplied by two of them, both of whom were born towards the end of the Qājār period. The first, ʿAlī Thanākhān, was a man in his mid- sixties, who had worked as a storyteller for about thirty years; and the second, 280 Marzolph

Ḥabīb-Allāh Īzadkhāstī, was in his mid-fifties and had been a storyteller for about twenty years. The data Page gained from these two informants were later corroborated and amplified by Japanese researcher Kumiko Yamamoto, who in the late 1980s studied with murshid Valī-Allāh Turābī, one of the last professional storytellers, who was still practicing in 2008 and who meanwhile has actually gained international renown (Yamamoto 2003, esp. pp. 23–28). The work published by these scholars and others (see Oliaei 2010) leaves no doubt that naqqālī was a serious profession. It could be practised by men of every trade, but its full capacity was only acquired through a lasting apprenticeship requiring detailed instruction by an experienced storyteller. The technical aspects of the profession and its performance not only entailed learning from oral tradition but also implied the use of written material that, once memorized, supplied a mental frame to the tale embellished by the storyteller in oral performance. This written material had usually been laid down in manuscript ṭūmārs. It is probably to be regarded as the major innovation of naqqālī during the Qājār period that printed books were introduced to the profession. This new development affected tradition in various ways. On the one hand, it worked towards the permanence of oral performance in print, as it can be discerned in the lithographed copies of the Iskandar-nāma and the Rumūz-i Ḥamza that made the originally oral performance available to a large audience of readers. On the other hand, it furthered a growing dependence of the naqqāl on the printed text, above all the readily available numerous Indian and Iranian printings of Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma. What remains of the Qājār profession of naqqālī in our present days is but a faint memory of the once flourishing verbal art. The modern media, changing ways of life, and various political agendas have contributed each in their own right to the almost complete disappearance of active naqqālī. In recent years, conscious efforts have been undertaken in Iran to revive the traditional coffee- house as a place for social gatherings, now – in contrast to previous custom when the audiences were purely male – for the whole family, women and children included (Bulūkbāshī 1375/1996). The advertising brochure for the traditional ‘tea-house’ Azeri, reconstructed and reopened for business in November 1993, mentions the ‘tea-house’ as an Iranian ‘socio-cultural institution’ that ‘has an outstanding role in preserving the ancient ethnic, national and religious culture of the Iranians’. As part of the folkloristic agenda including an interior decoration of dervish utensils and coffee-house paintings, this tea-house, whose reconstruction was officially supported by the Anthropology Division of the Cultural Research Bureau (daftar-i pazhūhishhā-yi mardum-shināsī), used to offer short nocturnal performances of professional storytellers. Given the traditional perspective of present-day cultural politics in Iran, it appears Professional Storytelling (naqqālī) In Qājār Iran 281 to be a matter of time until the first state-subsidized courses in naqqālī will be offered to the younger generation. As a final point, I will mention a new dimension of naqqālī in contemporary Iran. While the art of naqqālī used to be an exclusively male domain, since several years now Iran has known the first female performer (see, e.g., Vāṣifī and Muʿtamidī 2007). Fāṭima Ḥusaynī-zād, an Iranian student of museology born in 1976, has studied the art of naqqālī with famous masters all over Iran, particularly with murshid Valī-Allāh Turābī, for many years. She has taken her stage name of Gurd-āfarīd from a character of Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma: the female warrior Gurd-āfarīd who, disguised as a man, challenged Suhrāb when he was attacking the White Fortress (dizh-i sipīd). Though facing a number of difficulties in practising her profession, this modern Gurd-āfarīd is well known in today’s Iran and beyond. She has performed on numerous occasions and meanwhile has also acquired international acclaim. Gurd-āfarīd is motivated by a strong urge to preserve naqqālī as a traditional form of verbal art, an urge that has also led her to educate young Iranians – both male and female – to appreciate the art of naqqālī as part of their national heritage.13 Her career is just one of the fascinating recent developments in the practical appreciation of naqqālī in present-day Iran and under circumstances that, to say the least, have not been favorable to preserving this part of the national heritage. To what extent the younger generation will approve of the traditional art of naqqālī and thus contribute to its lasting existence is a question only time can answer.

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Sanʿatī-niyā, Fāṭima. 1369/1990. Ma‍ʾākhiz-i qiṣaṣ va tamthīlāt-i mathnavīhā-yi ʿAṭṭār-i Naysābūrī. Tehran: Zavvār. Sayf, Hādī. 1369/1990. Naqqāshī-yi qahva-khāna. Tehran: Mūza-yi Riḍā ʿAbbāsī. Shafīʿī Kadkanī, Muḥammad-Riḍā. 1381/2002. ‘Nigāh-ī ba-Ṭarāz al-akhbār.’ Nāma-yi Bahāristān 3/5, pp. 109–22. Southgate, Minoo S., trans. 1978. Iskandarnamah. A Persian Medieval Alexander Romance. Persian Heritage Series 31. New York: Columbia UP. Van Zutphen, Marjolijn. 2014. Farāmarz, the Sistāni Hero: Texts and Traditions of the Farāmarznāme and the Persian Epic Cycle. Studies in Persian Cultural History 6. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Vāṣifī, ʿAlī-Riḍā, and Nāzanīn Muʿtamidī. 2007. ‘Gord-āfarīd, the First Woman Storyteller’ at: http://www.jadidonline.com/images/stories/flash_multimedia/ gordafaridtestEng/gordafarid_high.html (June 6, 2014). Wills, Charles James. 1886. Persia as It Is: Being Sketches of Modern Persian Life and Character. London. Wilson, Arnold. 1942. Persia: Letters and Diary of a Young Political Officer. 1907–1914. London: Readers Union. Yamamoto, Kumiko. 2003. The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature 26. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2010. ‘Naqqâli: Professional Iranian Storytelling.’ In A History of Persian Literature. Gen. ed. Ehsan Yarshater. Vol. XVIII: Oral Literature of Iranian Languages. Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik. Companion Volume II to A History of Persian Literature. Ed. Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Ulrich Marzolph. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 240–57. Yamanaka, Yuriko. 2002. ‘The Eskandarnāme of Manūchehr Khān Ḥakīm: a 19th century Persian popular romance on Alexander.’ In Iran: Questions et connaissances. Actes du IVe Congrès Européen des Etudes Iraniennes organisé par la Societas Iranologica Europaea (6–10 September, 1999). Vol. II: Périodes médiévale et moderne. Ed. Maria Szuppe. Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, pp. 181–89. Yarshater, Ehsan. 1983. ‘Iranian National History.’ In The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Ed. Ehsan Yarshater. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 359–477. Zenhari, Roxana. 2014. The Persian Romance Samak-e ʿayyār. Beiträge zur Kultur geschichte des islamischen Orients 42. Dortmund: Verlag für Orientkunde.

Part 4 Oral and Literary Traditions as Channels of Cultural Transformation

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CHAPTER 11 The Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān

Mohsen Zakeri

ز ز فق ن ف ن ژ ن ا �ش��ا ه � ��ه �ن��ا� � د ��ت�� ك�ز ب�� م د د �ه�ن ا د �ه�ا �ش��د� � �ى ي چ بو ر م � يم ور ر � � م My taking refuge from the shāh to the faqīh was like fleeing from an ant into the mouth of the dragon!1 Taqavī 1335/1956: 273, l. 3

Abū Mūʿīn Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s lifespan (394–ca. 481/1003/4–1088/9) covers the greater part of the fifth/eleventh century. He was a theologian, philosopher, and above all, a propagandist, but his name has also entered the pantheon of the great classical Persian poets. The literary historian Daulatshāh-i Samarqandī (d. ca. 900/1494) estimated, in a clearly exaggerated manner, that Nāṣir’s Dīvān contained 30,000 verses, most of them ḥikmat-u mauʿiẓat (Browne 1319/1901: 63). From the published edition of the Dīvān, which covers approximately 11,000 verses, ʿAlī Akbar Dihkhudā (ca. 1879–1956) extracted about one thousand proverbial phrases and memorable sayings for his book Amthāl-u ḥikam (Dihkhudā 1352/1973). Mahdī Muḥaqqiq mined some 250 aphorisms (ḥikam) and 250 proverbs (amthāl) from the Dīvān (Muḥaqqiq 1344/1965: 29–118; 283–316). However, a systematic survey of the Dīvān reveals that the number of the amthāl-u ḥikam in it could easily exceed two thousand items, that is to say, roughly one-fifth of the extant volume. This large sample of proverbs and aphorisms, many of which are recasts of fixed concepts, offers an ample and sufficiently varied corpus for many kinds of studies, but above all for the purposes of paremiography and paremiology. The sheer density of gnomic material subjected to a poetic structure by one hand is a unique source and is of extreme importance for the neglected field of the collection and study of Persian gnomic wisdom. Needless to say, simply listing them alphabetically, as done by Dihkhudā and Muḥaqqiq, though necessary at first, means treating them out of context and so reducing their intended impact and significance.2

1 The translations are mine, unless otherwise stated. 2 Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s proverbs convey cultural data related to animals (over hundred animals are named), plants, medicine, stellar lore (saws dealing with heavenly bodies), music, and a

Nāṣir-i Khusrau was a religious zealot, keen to propagate Ismāʿīlī doctrine.3 Infatuated with Ismāʿīlī cosmogony, he dedicated a great many of his long poems and several of his philosophical treatises to its articulation and elaboration. He constantly reformulates the tenets of his particular vision of cosmogony by adopting ancient Iranian creation myths, and Jewish, Christian and Muslim prophetic tales (qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ). As a result of this predilection, the predominant feature of his poetry is a profusion of allusions to myths and legends which he regularly juxtaposes with proverbs and aphorisms. A modern reader, unfamiliar with these mythic allusions and the symbolism involved in the proverbial expressions attached to them, would find many of his odes (qaṣīdas) mysterious and enigmatic. Focusing on Nāṣir-i Khusrau here as a gnomic poet, I will survey the function of proverbs in his Dīvān, treating him as an individual who applies proverbs not to ordinary life situations, but rather within the context of his moral and religious preaching. Proverbs comprise the most significant category of discourse in Nāṣir’s Dīvān. He is a didactic poet fond of sententious phrases and idioms. Irsāl al- mathal, or the application of proverbs in poetry and prose, a branch of the art of metaphor and good style (ʿilm-i badīʿ) in Perso-Arabic poetics (Ateş 1949: 83–85 [Persian text]; cf. also 118–25), is a prominent feature of his poetic creativity. For him a verse (shiʿr) is almost synonymous with a wisdom sentence, and he refers to his Dīvān as ‘the book of maxims’ (daftar-i ḥikmat), ‘the mine of wisdom’ (maʿdan-i ḥikam), comparable to Psalms in axioms, or a veritable pand-nāma (Taqavī 1335/1956: 89, l. 23; 116, l. 6; 153, l. 1; 212, l. 2, etc.). He was fully conscious that his Dīvān was embellished with a good number of wise sentences and lauded their excellence in his poems (ibid.: 90, l. 21). Well aware that ‘a proverb is worth a thousand words,’ he applied it extensively as a medium to strengthen his moral advice and religious message.4 As it is to be expected, in a work full of proverbs and aphoristic phrases one naturally encounters a rich assortment of technical terms related to the field of wisdom literature and paremiology. A combination of Persian, mixed Persian-Arabic, and Persianized Arabic jargon is applied often as synonyms or as designations for subcategories of wisdom lore. Purely Arabic borrowings include: mathal (pl. amthāl, ‘maxims,’ ‘proverbs,’ ‘parables’),5 mawʿiẓa

variety of character types. Their state of transmission hints at relations with Arabic proverb collections, the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, Pahlavi literature, as well as the biblical Book of Proverbs. 3 [On this aspect of his activities, see Jo-Ann Gross’ article in this volume.] 4 Muḥammad Mahdī Ruknī calls him shāʿir-i andarz-gū (‘the wisdom-telling poet’; Ruknī 1355/1976). 5 Taqavī 1335/1956: 10, l. 9; 192, l. 6; 326, l. 26, etc. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 291

(waʿẓ, pl. mawāʿiẓ, ‘sermon,’ ‘harangue,’ ‘admonition’; Taqavī 1335/1956: 517, l. 13), waṣiyya (pl. waṣāyāʾ, ‘testaments,’ ‘precept, exhortation’), waʿd (‘precept’), waʿīd (‘admonition,’ ‘warning,’ ‘reproof’), naṣīḥa/nuṣḥ (pl. naṣāʾiḥ, ‘sin- cere advice,’ ‘friendly admonition,’ ‘good counsel’),6 and ḥikmat (‘aphorism,’ ‘wisdom’).7 These and other originally Arabic terms are used either alone or in combination with Persian verbs and nouns: samar shudan/samar gashtan/ samar būdan (‘to become or to be proverbial’);8 Naṣīḥat-nāma (‘Book of Good Counsel’; ibid.: 517, l. 2), ʿAhd-nāma (‘Book of Admonitions’; ibid.: 185, l. 6), Tawqīʿāt (pl. of tawqīʿ, ‘apophthegms,’ in Persian: dastīnak/dastīna; ibid.: 185, l. 6; see also Zakeri 2002). Taking recourse to this originally foreign terminology was certainly not out of necessity, for Persian itself is full of analogous terms, but rather a product of the cultural milieu of Islamic Iran. The commonest terms for aphoristic moral advice and admonition in Persian are pand and andarz, both of Parthian origin. Whatever distinction existed initially between the two was lost in the course of time and they are used indiscriminately. The Middle Persian wisdom texts translated into Arabic, bore titles such as Andarz-nāma or Pand-nāma. Whereas Nāṣir-i Khusrau has pand almost on every other page,9 strangely enough, he does not apply andarz even once. So instead of giving him the nickname shāʿir-i andarz-gū (see n. 4), it would have been more appropriate perhaps to call him shāʿir-i pand-gū! Explaining the term andarz within the context of Middle Persian wisdom literature, Mary Boyce recognized three classes of gnomes: (1) the gnome of observation (‘there is no cure for age’); (2) the gnome of prudence or advis- ability (‘make a friend of that man who will be most useful to you’); (3) the moral gnome (‘the best protector is one’s duty’) (Boyce 1968: 51). The last two types merge readily into precept, and the Middle Persian name for this class of composition is in fact ‘precept’ (andarz; ibid.). In his article on andarz in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Shaul Shaked points out the semantic affinity between andarz, frahang (‘upbringing, education; civilized behaviour’) and hunar (Shaked 1987: 11). In addition, andarz has a sense similar to the Greek diatheke,

6 Ibid.: 415, l. 21; 514, l. 19. 7 Ibid.: 110, ll. 14–15, 17–20; 166, l. 17; 193, l. 1; 198, l. 1; 313, l. 13; 318, l. 13; 323, ll. 15, 23; 327, ll. 1, 2; 328, l. 14; 392, ll. 7, 9; 399, ll. 8–9; 415, l. 22; 423, l. 41; 429, ll. 6, 9; 443, l. 19; 450, l. 2; 541, l. 6; 542, l. 6. 8 Ibid.: 64, l. 5; 88, l. 7; 100, l. 22; 111, l. 2; 187, l. 2; 198, l. 15; 301, l. 6; 308, l. 4; 450, l. 17. 9 Cf. Taqavī 1335/1956: 66, l. 7; 81, l. 13; 82, ll. 3, 12; 90, ll. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 21; 110, ll. 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24; 116, ll. 6, 15, 15; 122, l. 19; 123, l. 5; 129, l. 19; 155, l. 25; 158, l. 8; 166, l. 17; 192, l. 10; 193, l. 25; 198, l. 2; 223, ll. 23, 24; 224, l. 1; 247, l. 23; 292, l. 3; 300, l. 1; 307, l. 18; 323, ll. 15, 23, 24, 25; 328, ll. 12, 14; 344, l. 12; 364, l. 14; 380, l. 24; 381, ll. 5, 8; 392, ll. 9, 11; 423, l. 41; 438, l. 11; 450, l. 1; 493, ll. 9, 10; 517, l. 11; 526, l. 16; 538, l. 13. 292 Zakeri variously translated as ‘covenant’ or ‘testament,’ and paraggelia ‘announcement, command’ (both from the Greek Bible). The idea of ‘covenant,’ however, is generally expressed in Persian with ʿahd or paymān (<= patmān <= AV. patīmān, ‘contract, pact’), the idea of ‘testament’ with vaṣiyya, and that of ‘command’ with farmān. Nāṣir treats ʿahd as a synonym to paymān several times (Taqavī 1335/1956: 8, l. 13; 216, l. 15; 472, l. 11). The colophon of a manuscript of Ādurbād’s Vāzag ēchand, a collection of wisdom sentences in Pahlavi, comprises the words andarz and farmān (Blochet 1934: IV, 219). The latter word has the sense of manshūr (‘decree, edict’), but it clearly belongs to the field of proverbs also. The combination pand-u farmān (‘advice and precept’) appears in Parinirvana-hymn m 725.10 Other related terms to note are sukhan/sakhun (‘dictum, sentence, advice’);11 sukhan/ sakhun-i khūb = pand-i khūb;12 guftār (Taqavī 1335/1956: 356, l. 16), gufta,13 and qaul (pl. aqvāl),14 the latter three signifying ‘saying, dictum’. A point of importance for the study of gnomes and paremiology in Persian literature is that next to mathal, the most widespread word for proverb, Nāṣir-i Khusrau uses dāstān. Dāstān, or its contracted form dastān, is the Persian technical term for a proverb both in a restricted sense and as an aphorism. Rustam-i Dastān not only means Rustam, son of Dastān (dastān being an attribute of his father Zāl), but also ‘the proverbial Rustam,’ with a parallel in Sām-i Dastān (Taqavī 1335/1956: 306, l. 25; mentioned frequently in the Shāh-nāma). Dastān is a multifaceted term and means many things. Its commonest usage is a ‘story, tale, or fable’ (Hanaway 1996; de Bruijn 1999). The entry on dastān in the Encyclopaedia Iranica deals with it only within the context of Persian music theory where it signifies melody, narrative composition, and musical fingering system (During 1996).15 Other applications of the word have partially escaped the older dictionaries. Nāṣir-i Khusrau employs dastān/dāstān in all its varied denotations as: (a) story, tale (Taqavī 1335/1956: 36, l. 5, etc.); (b) song, melody;16 (c) cunningness, craftiness (makr-u farīb),17 and (d) proverb. Examples:18

10 Cf. Herzfeld 1938: 144–50 (‘Framānā’); 150–54 (‘Framātar-’). 11 Taqavī 1335/1956: 7, l. 19; 61, l. 7; 251, ll. 13, 14, 16, 18; 309, ll. 6, 7, 8; 318, ll. 16–18; 395, ll. 1–4; 427, l. 20; 438, l. 11; 453, l. 11; 497, l. 18, etc. 12 Ibid.: 3, l. 1; 223, l. 23; 399, l. 7; 413, l. 9; 438, l. 11, etc. 13 Ibid.: 309, l. 9; 324, l. 14; 399, l. 4, etc. 14 Ibid.: 16, l. 21; 22, l. 4; 61, l. 7; 251, l. 15; 395, l. 5; 512, l. 7; 533, l. 16, etc. 15 On dastān, see further Elçin 1967. 16 Taqavī 1335/1956: 89, l. 15; 332, l. 9; 352, l. 19, etc. 17 Ibid.: 20, l. 8; 62, l. 18; 325, l. 9; 361, l. 6, etc. 18 The Persian text of the examples is given in the Appendix. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 293

1) ‘How aptly the old mūbad applied the proverb (dāstān); / listen to those words: // “He who is led by an owl will see nothing but ruins” ’ (chi khush zad dāstān ān mūbad-i pīr / sakhunhā-yi chunān dar gūsh mīgīr // har ān kas-rā ki bāshad rāhbar būm / nabīnad juzʾ ki vīrānī bar-u būm; Taqavī 1335/1956: 530, l. 16). 2) ‘If you observe a learned man closely, / you would notice that everything he says is pand and dastān’ (ba-dānā gar nikū-tar bingarī nīst / ba-dast- ash band bal pand-ast-u dastān; ibid.: 325, l. 21). 3) ‘To friends and strangers you have become proverbial / in greediness just like Ashʿab the Greedy!’ (ba-dūstān-u ba-bīgānagān ba-bāb-i ṭamaʿ / ba-sān-i Ashʿab-i Ṭammāʿ dāstān shuda-yī; ibid.: 392, l. 13).19

The use of dastān in the meaning of proverb is documented from the time of Rūdakī (d. 329/940–1) onwards, and it resurfaces in the compound verbs dastān būdan (‘to be famous, to be proverbial’), dastān kardan (‘to make one renowned’) or dastān zadan (‘to cite a proverb’). Dastān zadan is the same as mathal zadan (‘resorting to a proverb, to chisel a proverb’) and corresponds to the Arabic ḍaraba mathal. Since the explanations offered by lexicographers and the early collectors of amthāl for the Qurʾanic verb ḍaraba in this context are not fully convincing, the comparison with Persian may lead to clarification. Dastān has a synonym in afsāna or fasāna (afsāna shudan; ‘to become a legend’; Taqavī 1335/1956: 381, l. 11), which shares with it also the meaning ‘story, fable’ (ibid.: 272, l. 3; 427, l. 12; 431, l. 3). In his treatise on Persian poetics Tarjumān al-balāgha, Rādūyānī defines afsāna as mathal-i sāʾir, a ‘current proverb,’ and considers its application in poetry as a desired figure of speech (Ateş 1949: 121–25). For him, to say afsānahā-yi ʿajam is to say amthāl-i ʿajam (ibid.: 121). He cites several older New Persian afsānas and compares them the- matically with proverbial verses from the Qurʾān: ‘Iron is cut only with iron’ (ibid.: 122); ‘An oily speech does not leak oil’ (ibid.); ‘There is hope in the midst of hopelessness’ (ibid.). Writing about the origins of the Alf layla wa layla, the tenth-century historian of literature Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 380/990) introduces a Persian story-book called Hazār afsān (‘Thousand Tales’), said to have been composed during the time of the Arsacid Parthians (Tajaddud 1971: 363). Hazār afsān is referred to also by Ibn al-Nadīm’s contemporary Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī as a book of khurāfāt (‘entertaining fiction, fairy-tales’; Amīn and al-Zayn 1939–44: I, 23). More than a century prior to these authors, ʿAbdallāh al-Baghdādī (d. 254/868) had cited

19 This example makes use of the Arab saying: aṭmaʿu min Ashʿab (‘Greedier than Ashʿab’); see al-Maydānī 1955: I, 439, no. 2333; Rosenthal 1960. 294 Zakeri

Hazār afsān next to Kalīla va Dimna (a collection of fables), ʿAhd Ardashīr (a book of political wisdom), and Murvak (a collection of andarz), and ascribed their translations from (Middle) Persian into Arabic to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ca. 139/756) (Sourdel 1952–54: 152, 140). From al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) we learn that when Hazār afsāna was first translated, it was called Alf khurāfa, for, he says, afsāna in Persian is khurāfa in Arabic, but it became popular among the people as Alf layla wa layla (Pellat 1965–79: II, 406). Al-Masʿūdī does not specify when, how or why this alleged change of the title took place. An interesting hint in the direction of solving this problem is offered by al-Yamanī (d. ca. 400/1009) in comments he makes on Abū ʿUbayd’s (d. 224/838) Kitāb al-amthāl. Today this book contains 1,386 proverbs in the edition of ʿAbd al-Majīd Quṭāmish (1400/1980), but according to al-Yamanī it had originally included exactly one thousand and one proverbs (alf mathal wa mathal), so chosen in simulation of the Alf layla wa layla or Hazār afsān (al-Yamanī 1961: 3). This heretofore unno- ticed unique reference should help in settling the issue that the Thousand and One Nights was known by its full title already in the third/ninth century.20 While the above evidence does not leave any doubt about the relation between Hazār afsān and the Thousand and One Nights, al-Yamanī’s comments may have been caused by his confusing this with another title. What he meant was perhaps a lost Persian book known to Ibn al-Nadīm as Hazār dastān (Tajaddud 1971: 364), which probably contained a thousand (and one) ‘proverbs,’ including the alleged stories behind their genesis. In any case, the Hazār afsān should not be mistaken for Hazār dastān. Ibn al-Nadīm listed them in separate sections of his chapter on the Persian ‘night-stories’. A wide range of Persian and Arabic resources were available to Nāṣir-i Khusrau from which to derive his maxims (Zakeri 2012). The best way to determine a wise saying as a proverb is to rely on the user’s designating it as one. This is done in several ways: occasionally Nāṣir announces that he is versifying a common mathal.21 Examples:

4) ‘An apt proverb says: “An empty place / is better than a meadow full of wolves” ’ (nīkū mathal-ast īn ki jā-yi khālī / bihtar ki pur az gurg marghzār-ī; Taqavī 1335/1956: 407, l. 23). 4a) ‘ “An empty house is better than a house full of lions and wolves”. / Daniel [the Judean] has related this to the wise’ (khāna-yi khālī bihtar az pur shīr-u gurg / Dāniyāl īn kard bar dānā yala; ibid.: 384, l. 17), that is, better to be alone than with a bad companion.

20 For a discussion of this issue, see Elisséeff 1949: 25–27; Zakeri 2007: I, 126–31. 21 Taqavī 1335/1956: 336, l. 2; 407, l. 23; 478, l. 14; 507, l. 22; Introduction, p. fā. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 295

5) ‘There is a proverb: When the mice have nothing to do, / they become excited and gather to scratch the head of the cat’ (mathal-ast īn ki chu mūshān hama bīkār bimānand / dana-shān gīrad-u āyand sar-i gurba bikhārand; ibid.: 105, l. 1). 6) ‘O, my son, there is an old proverb / which I now put in verse for you: // The old woman spilt the broth, so she said: / “I was wishing for bread only anyway!” ’ (ān mathal k-az pīsh guftand ay pisar / man ba-shiʿr āram kunūn az bahr-i tu // ganda pīr-ī guft k-ash khurd-ī birīkht / mar ma-rā nān-i tuhī būd ārizū; ibid.: 507, l. 23). This example, still current today, is productive and appears in numerous forms: 6a) ‘The old woman cooked some food that turned out inedible; she said: “I have great appetite for dried bread!” ’ (ganda pīr khurd-ī badh pukht guft ma-rā nān-i khushk ārizū-st). 6b) ‘The cat could not reach the meat, so it said: “It stinks!” ’ (gurba dast-ash ba-gūsht namīrasīd mīguft bū mīdih). 6c) ‘He could not reach the grape, so he said: “It is still not ripe (it is sour)” ’ (dast-ash ba-angūr namīrasīd mīguft ghūra-st). 6d) ‘The fox could not reach the sour plum, so he said: “Pickles are not good for my health!” ’ (rūbāh ba-ālū narasīd guft ma-rā turshī nasāzad; Ateş 1949: 124).

At times Nāṣir-i Khusrau attributes his sayings to individuals: Persian kings or heroes (Taqavī 1335/1956: 228, l. 12; 263, l. 13; 317, ll. 10–14), an old mūbad (ibid.: 530, l. 15), a sarhang (ibid.: 238, ll. 12–13), Buzurgmihr (ibid.: 455, l. 6), Sām-i Narīmān (ibid.: 348, ll. 12–13), Zoroaster (ibid.: 90, l. 1; 143, l. 16), the Prophet Daniel (ibid.: 384, l. 17), Jesus (ibid.: 16, l. 21), Yūshaʿ b. Nūn (ibid.: 66, l. 7), or to wise ḥakīms (ibid.: 250, l. 20), as great founts of wisdom (ibid.: 122, l. 20; 89, l. 26; 90, l.1; 143, l. 16).22 Example:

7) ‘I remember this adage from the teacher: / “God has created nothing better than justice” ’ (khūb yak-ī nukta yād-am-ast az ustād / guft nakisht āfarīda chīz bih az dād; Taqavī 1335/1956: 116, l. 9).

He also assigns proverbs to localities such as Khurāsān (ibid.: 369, l. 14), signifying their currency in that region; or to common people. Proverbs offer a fascinating look at the folk wisdom of the past. However, the occurrence of a certain topos in proverbs hardly proves that it belongs only to

22 Other poets, e.g., Labībī (end of the fourth/tenth–fifth/eleventh centuries), make similar references to these sources. 296 Zakeri folk wisdom. Nāṣir only rarely makes a distinction between high literature and popular culture. A few examples are specified as a saying of the folk (ʿāmma/ ʿāmmiyyān):

8) ‘You don’t know, so what shall I say to you other than / what the folk says: “You are unaware of the price of cowpeas!” ’ (nīstī āgah chi gūyam mar- tu-rā man juz hamānk / ʿāmma gūyad: nīstī āgah zi-nirkh-i lūbiyā; Taqavī 1335/1956: 25, l. 3).23 9) ‘Do not act like the one about whom the folk says: / “When the bald man shows his scalp, he fights to the end” ’ (makun chunān-ki dar īn bāb ʿāmmiyyān gūyand / chu sar barahna kunad tā ba-jān bikūshad kal; ibid.: 249, l. 3), that is, do not approach a situation in a reckless manner, using all your energy.24 10) ‘Haven’t you heard the proverb the folk uses? / “Better to die than let the enemy win!” ’ (nashnūdī ān mathal ki zanad ʿāmma / murda bih ba-kām-i ʿaduv rasta; ibid.: 393, l. 7), or: ‘Better to die in honour than to live in disgrace’.25 11) ‘As the folk proverb goes: “One cannot keep the money and the goat”. / One path takes you to Hell, the other to Paradise’ (zar-u buz har du nabāshad mathal-i ʿāmm-ast īn / yak rah-at sū-yi jaḥīm-ast-u digar sū-yi naʿīm; ibid.: 300, l. 14)’.26

Many other proverbs belong to folk literature without having been singled out as such by the poet. Examples:

12) ‘If the meat rots, it is cured by salt. / What can be done with it if the salt rots?’ (gūsht ar ganda shavad ū-rā namak darmān buvad / chun namak ganda shavad ū-rā ba-chi darmān kunand?; Taqavī 1335/1956: 106, l. 11).27 An older Arabic version of this reads: ‘The learned are salt for the people; if they rot, the people will rot, for everything is good by salt, but if the salt rots what can make it good?’ (Zakeri 2007: I, 76). The original concept may be traced to the New Testament: ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if

ن ت آگ ن ز ز ن خ ز .��ي��س�� ه �ه��و� ا�ى ��سر ا� �ر پ��ا� :Cf. also Taqavī 1335/1956: 505, l. 12 23 گ پآ گ � ي ت ن ش �ن ن ن � ت ش ش ف ت . ك�ه ��ا ج��ا� ب��كو��د ب ج�� ا��د رو� / چ�و د��س��ار�� ه �ردي��د ك�ل :Cf. also Taqavī 1335/1956: 505, l. 12 24 25 Cf. the Arabic al-maniyya wa-lā al-daniyya (‘Better death than disgrace’; al-Maydānī 1955: II, 303, no. 4032). 26 For this the English would say: ‘You cannot have your cake and eat it!’ 27 Cf. Haïm 1956: 407. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 297

the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?’ (Matthew 5:13).28

The common proverb ‘The sun cannot be hidden by mud’ (āftāb ba-gil natavān andūd) has been employed by Nāṣir-i Khusrau in many variations:

13) ‘He who challenges me in learning and wisdom, is like / the one who wants to hide moonlight with mud’ (kas-ī k-ū bā man andar ʿilm-u ḥikmat hamsarī jūyad / hamī khvāhad ki gil bar āftāb-i raushan andāyad; Taqavī 1335/1956: 93, l. 11). 13a) ‘When does a rebel deserve compassion? /[It is as if] you want to smear the sun with mud’ (ʿāṣī sazā-yi raḥmat kay bāshad / khūrshīd-rā ba-gil andāyī; ibid.: 401, l. 19). 13b) ‘Seeking salvation without cleansing the soul / is like uselessly trying to smear the sun’ (vu-gar-ash nīst māya bar khīra / āsimān-rā ba-gil nayandāyad; ibid.: 139, l. 2).

The above proverbs are said of a person who tries to cover up an obvious fact, or wants to achieve something without having its proper means (to hide an obvious truth with falsehood; to plaster the sun’s fount of light with mud, i.e., to try to conceal the truth). This is comparable with ‘The sunrise cannot remain under the mat’ (āftāb zīr-i ḥaṣīr namīmānad; Haïm 1956: 11; cf. 139, 383), that is, the truth will come out. Nāṣir-i Khusrau uses established proverbs, modifies them, and invents new ones. He creates contexts for using proverbs. As Wolfgang Mieder observes: ‘Earlier scholars have overstated the fixity of proverbs. In actual use, especially in the case of intentional speech play, proverbs are quite often manipulated’ (Mieder 2004: 7). Nāṣir continually varies or adapts the form of the proverbs he employs. He treats fixed maxims as raw material and remodels them in different ways to fit them into the measure, rhyme and context of his poems, at times obscuring the originals to some extent. Thus the old metaphorical phrase murvārīd bar gardan-i khūkān āvīkhtan (‘to hang pearls on swines’ necks’) which is the Biblical proverb ‘Do not throw pearls to swine’ (Speake and Simpson 1998: 212), or ‘Do not throw your pearls to pigs’ (Matthew 7:6) has been figuratively applied as:

28 Cf. Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34. See also Joosse 1997: 95–97. 298 Zakeri

14) ‘I am he who is not going to throw to the swine / the precious pearls of the Persian language’ (man ān-am ki dar pā-yi khūkān narīzam / mar-īn qaymatī durr-i lafẓ-i darī-rā; Taqavī 1335/1956: 14, l. 12). 14a) ‘When the undeserved are praised, the intellect laughs; / no one hangs jewels on the neck of a donkey’ (khirad bar madḥ-i nā-ahlān bikhandad / kas-ī bar gardan-i khar dur nabandad; ibid.: 538, l. 16). 14b) ‘Do not vainly throw the wise words of wisdom to the ignorant; / the farmer does not sow in sand and salt-marsh’ (ba-pīsh-i jāhilān mafkan gazāfa pand-i nīkū-rā / ki dihqān tukhm har-giz nafkanad dar rīg-u shūristān; ibid.: 345, l. 15). 14c) ‘Do not give your words of wisdom to the ignorant, for it is not the part of reason / to give to the swine neither manna nor salvā’ (darīgh dār zi-nādān sukhan ki nīst ṣavāb / ba-pīsh-i khūk nihādan na mann-u na salvā; ibid.: 455, l. 7).

The pearl thus becomes the Persian language to be guarded (14); the heavenly food to be cherished (14c); the pig is replaced by a donkey as a symbol of stu- pidity (14a), or made equal to a wasteland (14b).29 Nāṣir’s propensity for improvisation is astonishing. Very few of his proverbs are repeated verbatim. The texts display a variety of renditions of a basic thought. Again and again he conveys the same truth by using different analogies, some international in distribution, others platitudes. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult, if not virtually impossible, to determine to what extent the author himself coined a particular phrase or appropriated adages already in circulation. In any event, the Persian language is indebted to Nāṣir-i Khusrau for a great many of its current proverbs. Thus, the proverb zi-jau jau rūyad-u gandum zi-gandum (‘Barley yields barley, wheat yields wheat’; Taqavī 1335/1956: 518, l. 13), which is again the Biblical maxim ‘A man reaps what he sows’ (Galatians 6:7), reappears in ever new forms:

15) ‘The harvest is like the son, and its seed is like his father. / Barley yields barley, pepper [yields] pepper’ (bār chu farzand-u tukhm-i au pidar-i au-st / az jau jau zāyad [v]az pilpil pilpil; Taqavī 1335/1956: 243, l. 14). 15a) ‘Any seed that a farmer plants / the sky and the earth move to ripen it. // One cannot sow barley / and expect wheat’ (har ān tukhm-ī ki dihqān-ī

29 The oldest version of this proverbial phrase comes from the Pahlavi Drakht ī āsūrīg, a poem of Parthian origin or even older, hence probably predating the Bible itself, as pīsh-i gurāz murvārīd afshāndan. See Sarkārātī 1378/1999: 51–64. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 299

bikārad / zamīn-u āsimān ārad shakhīdan // kas-ī gar tukhm-i jau dar kār ārad / zi-jau gandum nayābad bidravīdan; ibid.: 365, l. 14). 15b) ‘Creatures are a field sown by God, and His sickle is death. / O, my brother, such a sickle befits such a field. // He has sown you and He will doubtless harvest you. / He who has sown, will reap, so why do you quarrel?’ (kisht- zār-i īzad-ast īn khalq-u dās-i ū-st marg / dās-i īn kisht ay barādar hamchunīn bāshad sazā // har ki kārad bidravad pas chun kunī chandīn mirā; ibid.: 24, l. 15). 15c) ‘Seeds not sown bore no fruits’ (nā-kishta tukhm har-giz nāvard bar; ibid.: 396, l. 4).30 15d) ‘Beware of what you sow, for its fruit you shall eat, / as Jam reaped what he had sown’ (nigar chiprākanī [= chi parākanī] z-ān khurd bāyad-at / ki Jam khurd-ast az ān k-ū khud parākand; ibid.: 111, l. 1).

The latter saying, simple at first sight, makes an allusion to the mythic king Jam (= Jamshīd) who according to the tradition claimed the unification of political and religious rule in his person. In consequence of this declaration, which was against established law, he was attacked by Ḍaḥḥāk and symbolically cut into two halves. He did something illegal and received the proper punishment for it. ‘Kingship and Religion are twins’ (al-mulk wa al-dīn tawʾamān), albeit not identical. These two fundamental principles complement one another, but one cannot be replaced by the other. At the beginning of Jam’s reign, due to his righteousness, which means observation of the laws, all the dīvs (demons) had been submissive to him:

16) ‘Due to the magnanimous Jam’s good deeds / the vicious demons became powerless’ (ba-fiʿl-i nikū jumla ʿājiz shudand / furū-māya dīvān zi-pur- māya Jam; Taqavī 1335/1956: 262, l. 25). 16a) ‘Demons, the people and the beasts have become obedient to you, / for you are of the same caliber as Jamshīd and Farīdūn’ (dīv-u dām-u dad gashtand ba-farmān-at / z-ān-ki tu hambar-i Jamshīd-u Firaydūn-ī; ibid.: 496, l. 17).

Allusion to ancient myths, folktales and stories of prophets, apparently part of the living tradition and well-known to the general audience, was a common practice by poets at the time. Often referring to one crucial recognizable phrase serves to call forth the entire myth: Hārūt in Babylon, Sulaymān’s genie,

30 For variants of the same idea, see Taqavī 1335/1956: 112, ll. 8, 20; 152, l. 14; 167, l. 24; 287, l. 22; 407, l. 1; 462, l. 13; 494, l. 16. 300 Zakeri

Mūsā’s Rod, Yūnus in the fish, Jesus’ Needle (sūzan-i ʿĪsā), etc. Nāṣir-i Khusrau is amongst the most creative in reshaping and integrating vestiges of classical cultural heritage into his poems. This attractive style flourished further and became a characteristic of the following generations of Iranian poets, starting with Sanāʾī, ʿAṭṭār, Khāqānī, and others. Talmīḥ (Arab. pl. talāmīḥ, Pers. pl. talmīḥāt), as the employment of mythic references in poetry is called, is a powerful device by which poets appear to refer to a precise idea, but since the classical myths themselves are variable and prone to diverse interpretations, open new vistas for the appreciation of the poems.31 The poet draws on proverbs to rid complex situations of ambiguity; however, they are of a vexing and paradoxical ambiguity themselves.32 Every reader can comprehend and enjoy the text according to the level of his understanding. This is true as long as the primitive myths continue to live in the active memory of the educated population. The richness and sophistication of some of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s proverbial injunctions become evident when we look closer at their variants. Thus, example 11 above echoes another folk proverb employed by the poet: ‘One cannot have the money and the goat. One must choose between the way to Hell or to Paradise!’ (Taqavī 1335/1956: 300, l. 14), while the idea expressed in the second half of the verse is copiously repeated in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s poetic corpus:

17) ‘Choose the best from one of the two ways open to you: / either the way that leads to salvation, or the way that leads to ruin’ (bihtarīn rāh guzīn kun ki du rah dar pīsh-i tu-st / yak rah-at sū-yi naʿīm-ast-u digar sū-yi balā-st; Taqavī 1335/1956: 46, l. 16). 17a) ‘Your path is open towards goodness and wickedness; / turn towards this or that as you will’ (rāh-i tu zī khayr-u sharr har du gushād-ast / khvāhī īdūn garāy-u khvāhī īdūn; ibid.: 308, l. 6).

This has a parallel in:

17b) ‘Two messengers have been sent to you / from the Heavens by the Time. // One calls you towards Hell, / the other towards honour and heavenly delight” (sū-yi tu navīdgar firistādand / bar dast-i zamāna z-āfarīnish du // yak-ī sū-yi dūzakh-at hamīkhvānad / yak-ī sū-yi ʿizz-u niʿmat-i mīnū;

31 For the use of the rhetorical device of talmīḥ in medieval Persian poetry, see Ashrafzāda 1357/1977; Khushnavīs 1358/1978; Pūrkhāliqī Chatrūdī 1364/1985; Shamīsā 1369/1990; Yāḥaqqī 1369/1990. 32 Cf. Lieber 1994: 99–126. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 301

ibid.: 380, ll. 12–13). Behind this advice are hidden Zurvān, Spenta Mainyu, Angra Mainyu, i.e., concepts well developed in the Yasna and other Zoro- astrian holy texts (Raḍī 1379/2000: 252).

Complaints about the world (dunyā, jahān, falak, rūzgār, dahr, gētīg), or Mother Earth devouring her children which is a common motif in classical Persian poetry, alludes to the Wheel of Time, Zurvān of the long duration. It evokes the cyclical nature of things, the eternal return, which philosophers of the past graphically depict as the ouroboros, ‘the dragon eating its tail’. Nāṣir-i Khusrau says:

18) ‘My poor body is wrapped up constantly, day and night / by two tyrannical and blood-thirsty serpents. // O, you, [my] body, beware that at the end / you, who is wrapped up by two serpents, will be destroyed’ (pīchīda ba-miskīn tan-i man-dar ba-shab-u rūz / hamvāra sitamkāra-vu khūnkhvāra du mār-ast // ay tan ba-yaqīn dān ki tu-rā ʿāqibat-i kār / chun gird-i tu pīchīda du mār-ast damār-ast; Taqavī 1335/1956: 55, ll. 5–6). And: 18a) ‘[Time] is like a serpent, one half white / on the side of [its] head, and one half black and ugly on the side of [its] tail’ (mānanda-yi mār-ī-st ki nīmī-sh sapīd-ast / az sū-yi sar-u zisht-u siyāh-ast ba-dunbāl; ibid.: 245, l. 13).

On the one hand, this is a clear image of the ouroboros, a serpent that surrounds the earth and has its tail in its mouth; the creature shares numerous traits with the Leviathan (from Hebrew livyatan, roughly meaning ‘twisted’ or ‘coiled’), the monstrous sea creature symbolizing evil in the Old Testament; on the other hand, it is very much reminiscent of the snake that encircles the lion- headed figure in the Mithras mysteries. Gnostic systems made use of the symbol of a serpent wrapped around the outside of the universe: according to the Pistis Sophia, ‘The outer darkness is a great dragon, whose tail is in his mouth, outside the whole world and surrounding the whole world’ (Mead 1963: 265). The snake (serpent, viper, dragon) is the mythic symbol of the earth. Ahrīman creates his image as a snake and Ahura Mazdā creates fire to counter it. The mythic Persian king Hūshang, while searching for the Source of Life in a mountain region, encounters a huge snake. He throws a stone at the snake, but it strikes another stone, and from this fire is born. In the fight against Ahrīman (= mār, ‘snake,’ from the same root as marg, ‘death’), the light of life burning in man’s heart is discovered.33 Nāṣir-i Khusrau compares the passage of time, or

33 Cf. Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1388/2009: I, 30. 302 Zakeri the movement of the planets, to a windmill (charkh-i āsiyā) that grinds human beings,34 to a snake (mār),35 to an alligator or crocodile (nahang),36 or to a dragon (izhdahā).37 In ancient Persian cosmology, the firmament (spihr) ‘was set above the “cloud sphere” and was itself divided into two levels: the sphere of the constellations and above it that of the “unmixed stars,” which had the task of ward- ing off Ahriman’s attacks on the higher reaches of the cosmos’ (Kreyenbroek 1993: 306). This ancient vision of the skies must be kept in mind while explaining a large number of Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s verses, such as the following one, for example:

19) ‘The Pleiades in Gabriel’s hand / is like an arrow of light chasing Ahrīman’ (v-ān thurayyā chun zi-dast-i Jabraʾīl / mānanda-yi nūr-ī bar qafā-yi Ahra- man; Taqavī 1335/1956: 333, l. 10). The shooting stars are described as arrows thrown at the roaming Ahrīman to stop him from breaking through the ḥijāb, that separates his realm from the realm of Light.

Nāṣir-i Khusrau uses proverb as a witty unit of discourse. Proverbs, aphoristic phrases and myths, with which he speaks, are intimately related to his world view explaining, validating, and sanctioning his belief system.

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34 Taqavī 1335/1956: 181, l. 21; 459, l. 19. 35 Ibid.: 28, l. 19; 407, ll. 19–20; 443, l. 14. 36 Ibid.: 145, l. 13; 232, l. 12; 237, l. 18; 316, l. 25, etc. 37 Ibid.: 81, ll. 1–2; 317, l. 8; 460, l. 10. Avestan azhi dahāka (‘biting snake’) is azhdahā in Middle Persian, izhdahā in Persian; from aji = mār ‘snake’ and dahāk ‘biting’. Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 303

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Appendix: Persian Text of the Proverbs آ گ گ خ� �ش� ز ت ن ن ��سخ ن �ن ن � �ش� 1 چ��ه �و � �د د ا��س��ا� �� موب��د پ��ي�ر ��ه�ا �ى چ��ا� د ر �و � مى ��ي�ر آ ن �ه �ن��ك�� ا ك�ه ��ا�ش��د ا�ه�� ن��ن��د �ز ك�ه � ا � � � ر س ر ب ر بر بوم بي ج � وير ى برو بوم ن گ ن ت نگ ن ت تش ن ن ت ت ن 2 ب��ه د ا�� ا �ر � ک�و�ر ب�� ر�ی ��ي��س�� ب��ه د��س�� ب��د ب��ل پ��د ا��س�� و د��س��ا� ن گ گ ن ن ن 3 ��ه د ��ست��ا ��ه �� ان� ��ا ��ه ��ا � ط��م ��ه ��س�ا ا�ش��ع� ط��م�ا د ا��ست��ا �ش��د ها� ب و � و ب بي � ب ب ب ع ب � ب� ع � ی Literary Use of Proverbs and Myths in Nāṣir-i Khusrau’s Dīvān 305 ن ث ت ن خ ت زگگ غ ز 4 ��ي��كو �م��ل��س�� اي�� ك�ه ج��ا �ى ��ا لى ب��ه�� ر ك�ه پ�ر ا � �ر� �مر��ار�ى خ ن خ ت ز ش گگ ن ن ن 4a ��ا��ه ��ا لى ب��ه��ر ا� �ر ��ي��ر و �ر� د ا��ي��ال اي� � ك�رد ب�ر د ا��ا ي��ل�ه پ گ آ گ ث ت ن � ش ن �ه نن ن ش ن ن �خ ن 5 �م��ل��س�� اي� � ك�ه چ�و �مو��ا� �م�ه ب��ي� ك�ار ب�م�ا��د د ��ه ��ا� ��ي�رد و �ي��د ��س ر �ر�ب�ه ب��ار��د آ ن گف آ ن ن ز ت 6 � �ثم�� ك�ز ��ش� ��ت�ن��د ا� ��س �م� ن ��ه �ش��ع � �ك�� ا ��ه � � ل � پي � ى پ ر � ب ر رم و� � ب�ر و گن گف ت ش خ خ ت ن ن ت آ ز ��د ه ��ر� ى �� ك�� ورد�ى �ر�� مر�مرا ��ا� ��ه ب�ود �ر�و گن پي � ب ي گ ى آ � خ� ذ �خ ت �ف ت ن ن خ� ش ز ت 6a ��د پ��ي�ر �ورد�ى ب�� پ�� مرا ��ا� ��ك �ر�و��س�� گ گ گ تش � ش ت ن �ف ت 6b �ر�ب�ه د��س�� ب��ه �و�� مى ر��سي��د م ى �� ب�و �يم��د ه! گ گ تش ن ن ف ت غ� 6c د��س�� ب��ه ا��ور �مى ر��سي��د م ى �� وره ا��س� ت�! آ گ ُ ن ذ ف ت ت �ش ن ز ذ 6d روب��ا ه ب��لو �ر��سي��، �� مرا �ر��ى ��س�ا�� خ ت ز گف آف ز 7 � � � ک� ن��ک��ه ��اد ا��س� ت ا��ست��اد �� ت ن� ک��ش�� ت �� د ه ��ز ��ه ا د اد و ب ي ی ي م � � � � ري چي� ب � آ گ گ ت گ آ گ ز 8 ن��ست � �ه ��ه �� م � ا �م� ن �ز �ه�م�ان ع�ا�م�ه �� د ن��ست � �ه ن� خ �ل ��ا ��ي �ى �� چ ويم ر و ر � ج � ��ك و��ي ��ي �ى �� ر� وبي ! ن گ ن ن 9 � ن �ن ن � � ن � � ��ن � ��س � � ن �ك� ت � �ش� م�ك�� چ��ا� ك�ه د ري� ب��ا ب� ع�ا يم��ا� �وي��د چو ر بر ه��ه ��د ��ا ب ج��ا� ب��كو ��د �کل! نش ن آ ن ث ز ن ت 10 ��ود�ى �� م�� ل ك�ه ��د ع�ا�م�ه �مرده ب��ه ب� ك�ا ع�د و ر��س��ه ز م گ ن 11 �ز �ه د ن��ا�ش��د �ثم�� ع�ا�م��س� ت� ا� ن ��ك �ه� ت� ��س � ��ح��م��س� ت� د � ��س � ��ع� �ر و ب� ر و ب ل ي� ي ر وى ج ي و ر وى يم گ ش ت گن ش ن ن ن ن گن ش ن نن 12 ��و�� ا ر ��د ه ��ود او را �م�ك د ر�م�ا� ب�ود چ�و� �م�ك ��د ه ��ود او را ب��ه چ��ه د ر�م�ا� �ك��د؟ گ آف 13 � � ن ن ك ت �ه � �ه خ� � � �ت ش ن ن �ك��س ى كو ب��ا �م�� ا��د ر ع��ل وح�م�� م��سر�ى ج�و��يد �مى �وا�ه�د ك�ه �ل بر ��ا ب� رو�� ا��د اي��د م گ ز ح ت ش خ� ش �ه ن 13a ع�ا�صى ��س�ا�ى ر �م�� كى ب��ا��د �ور��ي��د را �مى ب� ��ل ا��د اي�ى گ ش ن ت خ آ ن گ ن ن 13b و � �� س�� م�ا��ه �ر ��ره ��سما� را � �� ي��د ا��د رآ ي ي ب ي ق ب ل ي ن ن� خ� ن ن ز � ن � ت ف ظ 14 �م�� ك�ه د ر پ��ا �ى �وك�ا� �ري�� مر اي� ي�م�ى د ر �ل�� د ر�ى را م ن م گ ن 14a خ� د � �م�د ناا�ه� ا �خ�ن��د د �ك�� د خ� د ن��ن��د د ر بر ح �� ل � ب سى برر � ر ر ب ن ف گ ف ق ن ت گ ن ف گ 14b ��ه ��ش� ��ا�ه� ا �م��ك� ن �زا��ه ��ن��د ن��ك ا ك�ه د �ه��ا �خ�� ه �ز ��کن��د د �� ب پي � ج ل � � � پ ي و ر � م ر� ر ري و ش ت ن ��ور��س��ا� ز ن خ ن ن ّ َ 14c د �غ د ا ن��اد ا ��س�خ� ن ك�ه ن��س� ت �ص ا� ��ه ��ش� � ك ��ه�اد ن��ه �م� ن ن��ه ��س��ل � ري� ر � � � ي � و ب ب پي � و � � � و وى ف ز ن تخ ت ز ز ز 15 ��ار �و � ��د و �� او ��د ر او��س�� ا� ج�و ج�و �ا��د و� ��ل � ��ل � ب آچ تر م پ آ يآ پ پل پ پل ن �خ ق ن ز ن ن �ش��خ ن 15a �هر �� م ى ك�ه د �ه��ا �ى ب� ك�ارد ��يم�� و��سما� �رد �ي��د � گ ت ز گن ن �ك��س � �خ�� د ك�ا د ا د � ��د ن��ا��د ��د ��د ى ر م ج و ر ر ر � ج و م ي ب ب روي � 306 Zakeri

ش ت ز ز ت ن خ ق ن ش ت �ه ن ن ش 15b �ک�� ار اي��د ا��س�� اي�� ل� و د ا��س د ا��س اي� � �ک��، ا�ی ب�راد ر، �م��چ��ي�� ب��ا��د ت گ ز او��س�� مر� ��س�ا ن گ ن ن ن ا ت �ک��ش�� ت ا ت خ� ا�ه�د �ه د د �� ه �ه د د د �� ک� �ن��د� ن �م ا و� � و و� و م رو � بی م�ا� ر ک� �کار ب�� رو ، پ �س چو� �ی چ ي� ر؟ ن ش ت تخ گز ن 15c �� ا �ك��ه �� هر�� اورد ب�ر گ نم ن ز ن خ خ ز آ ن خ ن 15d ن� � �� ا ك�� )= ��ه � اك�� ( ا � د ��ا��د ت� ك�ه �� د ا��س� ت� ا � ك� � د � ا�ك��د ر چپر ى چ پر ى � � ور ب ي ج م ور � � و و پر ف ز ن ف ن ز 16 ��ه ��ع� ن��ك ج�م��ل�ه ع�ا� �ش��د ��د � �م�ا��ه د� ا� � �م�ا��ه �� ب ل و گ ج � رو ي يو �پر ي ج م �ش تن ف� ن ت ز ن ت �ه � ش ف� ن 16a د�يو و د ا و دد ��د ب��ه �ر�م�ا�� ا� �ك�ه �و �مب��ر ج�م��ي��د و �ر��يد و�ى م گ ت ن گ 17 ت � ن ه�ز� ن �ن � ه ش � � ت � ت ��س � ت � ��س � ا � ت ب��ه��ري� را ��ي � ك� � ك�ه د و ر د ر پ��ي�� وا ��س�� ي� ك�ر�ه�� وى ��ع�ي��م��س�� و د �ر وى ب��ل ��س�� ت ز خ ش گش ت خ ن گ خ ن 17a راه �و ��ى �ي��ر و ��ر �هر د و ��اد��س�� وا�هى اي��د و � �را�ى و �وا�هى اي��د و� گ ف آف ن 17b � ت ن � � ت ن � ت ز ن ز � ش �سو�ى �و �و��يد �ر �ر��س��اد ��د بر د��س�� م�ا��ه ��ر��ي�� د و ز خ ت �ه خ� ن ز ن ت ن ي� ك�ى ��سو�ى د و�� مى �وا��د ي� ك�ى ��سو�ى �ع� و ��ع��م�� م�ي��و ت ز ت خ ن 18 ��د ه ��ه �م��س �ک�� ن � ن �م� ن د ��ه �ش�� ه�م ا ه ��س�م ک�ا ه � �خ� ا ه د �م�ا ا��س� ت� پيچي ب ي� � � ر ب ب و رو� ور ر و و ور و ر ت ن ق ن ن ت ق ت ن گ ت �� ت ت ا�ی �� ب��ه �ي��ي�� د ا� ک�ه �و را ع�ا��ب�� کار چ�و � �رد �و پي�ي��د ه د و �م�ار ا��س�� د �م�ارا��س�� ن ز چ ز 18a �م�ان��ن��د ه� �م�ا � ا��س� ت� ک�ه ��م��ش� ��س��د ا��س� ت� ا ��س � ��س �ش�� ت� ��س��ا ه ا��س� ت� ��ه دن��ال آ ی ری ي ي � پي � وی رو � و ي ب ب ن ث � ن ز ت ئ نن ن �قف ن 19 و�� ر�ي�ا چ�و� �د��س�� ج�ب��ر��ي�ل �م�ا��د ه �ور�ى ب�ر��ا �ى ا�هر�م�� CHAPTER 12 Classical Poetry as Cultural Capital in the Proverbs of Jews from Iran Transformations of Intertextuality

Galit Hasan-Rokem

In the Proverb Indexing Project of the Folklore Research Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem there is a cluster of approximately eighty proverbs that were collected in Israel in the early nineteen-eighties in field-work interviews with Jews who had immigrated to Israel from Iran. Based on contemporary ideas about the ways that meaning is created in proverbs and rooted in theoretical work in which proverbs have been shown to gain meaning not only from their linguistic components but from pragmatic and contextual factors as well, our proverb collection also includes contextual materials based on oral interviews with the transmitters of the proverbs, documenting, if possible, the source from which the person had learnt the proverb, in what situation she or he heard it, in what kind of situations could he or she imagine using them, and if known by the interviewee, narratives associated with the particular proverb.1 From the contextual information as well as from the proverbs themselves we learn that a considerable group of these proverbs, more exactly twenty- eight or a good third, are either attributed by name or otherwise identifiable as belonging to or associated with the corpus of classical Persian poetry. This fact has for a long time struck me as culturally specific for Iranian Jews,

* The following persons’ assistance has been crucial for writing this article and the conference paper that preceded it: Dr. Julia Rubanovich for her long-time sharing of common research interests and friendship and in this case particularly for important bibliographical assistance; Pavel Kats for energizing the digitization of the proverb collection; Orly Rahimiyan for lending her expertise to the project at a critically urgent moment; and last but not least, Lital Belinko for outstandingly intelligent and trustworthy research assistance. The proverb collection of the Proverb Indexing Project is at the present in an experimental stage of digitization and is at this stage partially and fragmentarily presented on the Wiki-proverbs website. In the article, two systems of transliteration are adopted: one for classical Persian as explained in Note on Transliteration, the other for modern colloquial Persian reflecting its pronunciation. 1 See Hasan-Rokem 1982; Jason 1971; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1973; Krikmann 1974.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_014 308 Hasan-Rokem possibly for Iranians in general, and in any case demands an attempt at cultural interpretation. This article will address the following points:

– quotations as a proverbial subgenre and their function as ‘cultural capital’; – textual analyses of some of the twenty-eight Iranian proverbs originating in classical Persian poetry; – attempting a socio-cultural interpretation of the use of the classical poetry of Iran in proverbs by Iranian Jews in Israel.

Quotations as a Proverbial Subgenre and Their Function as ‘Cultural Capital’

The use of quotations from prestigious and canonical texts in proverbial forms is a well-known phenomenon, although relatively few paremiologists have attempted to theorize it. In earlier work I have addressed especially the proverbial usage of verses from the Hebrew Bible in Jewish folklore,2 delineating a model based on the concept of intertextuality.3 The observation of intertextuality in general, and in proverbs in particular, may be described as a five level operation:

1. recognition; 2. identification of the former context; 3. interpretation of the new combination; 4. interpretation of the relationship between the contexts; 5. interpretation of the new text in its context (Hasan-Rokem 1982: 55).

Although it is relatively easy to ascertain that recognition must necessarily be the first stage in the operation, determining whether the other stages occur in a given linear order or whether they shift and/or occur synchronously must be left to cognitive scientists.

2 Hasan-Rokem 1982: 54–69. The same phenomenon is discernible, although at least seemingly less widely distributed, among Georgians. This has been established in our research as the application (or attribution) of verses from Shota Rustaveli’s Georgian Renaissance epic Vepxist'q'aosani (‘The Man in the Tiger Fell’) in proverbs recorded among immigrants from Georgia in Israel. See Hasan-Rokem 1993: 50, 89–90, 113. 3 This central concept in contemporary study of poetics stems from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and was elaborated by Julia Kristeva and by Ziva Ben-Porat. See Bakhtin 1965; idem 1973; Kristeva 1980; eadem 1986, esp. p. 111; Ben-Porat 1985. Classical Poetry As Cultural Capital 309

Unlike quotations, in which all of the above mentioned five operations seem necessary, when a quotation is conceptualized as a proverb and loses its attribution to a known source, such as the biblical verse whose application in folktales I have analysed (‘the bird of the heaven carries the voice,’ based on Ecclesiastes 10:20),4 only two of the above mentioned five stages are absolutely necessary, namely the interpretation of the new combination and the interpretation of the new text in its context. Based on the specific levels of recognition that actually do take place in a specific instance of proverb usage, there will be variations in the earlier contexts that are actualized in the minds of the speaker and the audience. Whereas in proper quotations the former context is specific and given or assumed as known, in proverbs the former contexts are individually varying and not necessarily specific, but rather belong to the paradigmatic linguistic and cultural system that Roman Jakobson termed ‘langue’ – an individually, as well as collectively, accumulated pool of significa- tions and frames of reference (Jakobson 1960). Although elicited by the interview question ‘What proverbs do you know and/or use?’ the status of the texts in our study varies with regard to their level of proverbiality (Arora 1984), in the sense that many are quoted explicitly as verses from a given poet. Consequently, Stefan Morawski’s observations regarding the function of quotations are useful here. He identifies: (a) the stim- ulative-amplificatory function, changing the overall structure and meaning of the new combination; (b) the authoritative function, granting the speech act and its performer the credence of the quoted source; (c) the ornamental function, adorning the text of the new combination with the poetical qualities of the quoted source; (d) the erudite function, establishing the status of the performer as a cultural expert (Morawski 1970: 692–96). Since all of these functions may be observed in the ‘poetry as proverb’ phenomenon and they are clearly defined as concrete advantages for the speaker in his or her social milieu, it is with these functions in mind that we may define the proverbial application of classical poetry as ‘cultural capital’ in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms (Bourdieu 1993; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). The concept of cultural capital refers to the ownership of sources of knowledge due to social affiliation that enable access to further gratifying opportunities in the social and the cultural arena. Cultural capital is in general derived from one’s habitus, that is the social location where one is culturally formed, a dominant habitus being the home and the family. To add yet another concept from cultural theory to illuminate our discussion of proverb usage in general and the proverbial application of verses of classical poetry in particular, the four basically rhetorical

4 See Hasan-Rokem 1982: 57–64. 310 Hasan-Rokem functions suggested by Morawski may be seen as especially well informed ‘tactics,’ in the coinage of Michel de Certeau, for attaining respect, status, and possibly even power (de Certeau 1984).

Sample Textual Analyses of Persian Proverbs from Classical Poetry

The materials quoted from the Proverb Indexing Project of the Hebrew University include a spoken language version of the proverb transcribed into Hebrew characters, as well as into the International Phonetic Alphabet. A Hebrew translation as produced by the interviewees, as well as contextual and interpretative materials provided by them, are translated into English. My first example was provided by the cultural expert5 Mr. Shlomo Nuriel, born in Yazd in 1922. He was interviewed by his son-in-law, the student Mr. Avi Gadiyan, and provided the proverb as a straightforward quotation:

סעדי: ִאַסְ לֶ ה בּאד נִיקוּ נֶגָארְדָ אד צ'וֹן כֶּ ה בונְיָאדָ אש בָ אדָ ס (1

[Saʿdi: Asl-e bad niku nagardad chon ke bonyād-ash bad-as (= bad-ast)]

What is basically bad cannot be good, for its roots are evil.

Cf. Haїm 1956: 30: ‘One of a bad origin will not become good, as his very foundation is bad.’ Haїm attributes the proverb to Saʿdī and translates its continuation as follows: ‘The training of the unworthy is water on the duck’s head (lit., is like walnuts on a dome)’ (ibid.).6 Mr. Nuriel, who immigrated to Israel in 1952, provided the context of use as a general reflection on someone evil who will never change, and as the source of his knowledge he explicitly articulated ‘the study of classical poetry in the Iranian school.’ Mr. Nuriel reported having studied seven years in an Alliance Israélite Universelle school, and then a couple of months in a Zoroastrian school that he felt necessary to leave because it involved studying on the Sabbath; in the meantime he also needed to support his family after his father’s death.

5 This is our present correction to the earlier, somewhat impolite, term ‘informant’ used for human sources of ethnographic information. 6 Dihkhudā in his Amthāl-u ḥikam cites the same proverb (Dihkhudā 1352/1973: I, 180) and refers to its numerous parallels under the main entry: az mār nazāyad juz mār bachcha (‘From a snake nothing will be born but a snake [child]’; see ibid.: I, 146). Classical Poetry As Cultural Capital 311

Another example was also quoted as a Saʿdī poem:

סעדי רָ אס רָ אוואן, גוְּ יַה, סֶ אדָ את בּורדָּ אן / רָ אסְ טי – כּוֹן, כֶּ ה בֶּ א – מאנזֶ ל נא (2 רַ אסָן כּאג' רַ פְתָ אר

[Saʿdi, rās(t)-ravān guyā saʿādat bordan(d) / rāsti kon ke be-manzel narasan(d) kaj-raftār]

Those walking on the right path, he says, have taken happiness. Keep your path right, for those walking on the crooked path, will not reach their goal.7

Mr. Nuriel again provided school as the source of his knowledge and also suggested that a pertinent situation of use would be to display one’s knowledge of classical Persian poetry. He added, however, that the proverb was sometimes used to reprimand a disobedient son, in which case a more quotidian linguistic form would be applied. An interesting case of intertextuality was provided by the following example:

ח'וֹדָא חָ'רא שֶ נַאחְ 'ת / כֶה שַאחֶ 'ש נַדָ אד (3

[Khodā khar-o shenākht / ke shākh-ash nadād]

God knew the ass / when He didn’t give it horns.8

7 The verse does not appear as a proverb either in Haїm’s or in Dihkhudā’s collections of proverbs and represents a single bayt from a qaṣīda by Saʿdī. The verse is altered, either by the cultural expert or by the interviewer who might have transcribed it erroneously into Hebrew; hence the translation. The original is as follows: Saʿdīyā, rāst-ravān gū-yi saʿādat burdand / rāstī kun ki ba-manzil naravad kaj-raftār (Furūghī 1342/1963: 467; ‘O, Saʿdī, those walking the path of righteousness, won the ball of happiness. / Behave straightly (= justly), since those who walk the bent road (lit., who behave crookedly) will not arrive at a destination.’) [ed.] 8 Cf. Haїm 1956: 165 and Dihkhudā 1352/1973: II, 717: ‘God knew (the nature of) the ass; therefore, He wouldn’t give it horns.’ Both Haїm and Dihkhudā refer to a proverbial verse by Saʿdī with a similar meaning, however, with a variant reading: ān du shākh-i gāv agar khar dāshtī / ādamī-rā nazd-i khud nagudhāshtī (‘If the ass had the two horns of the ox, he would not have allowed human beings to approach him’; see Haїm 1956: 14). In the second miṣrāʿ Dihkhudā has: yak shikam dar ādamī nagudhāshtī (‘. . . he would not have left a single belly [uncut] in human beings’; Dihkhudā 1352/1973: I, 53) [ed.] 312 Hasan-Rokem

The proverb was spontaneously performed by Mr. Nuriel in a discussion between him and the interviewer about the creation of the world, into which a joke about a donkey (regrettably not recorded in the collection) was thrown. The source of this proverb was by Mr. Nuriel idiomatically articulated as ‘my father’s house’ (Heb. bet abba). Incidentally, the proverb has a close parallel – or in other words an intertext – in the canonical Jewish text of the Babylonian Talmud: ‘The camel went and asked for horns and its ears were cut off’ (Aramaic, bSanhedrin 106a). For Mr. Nuriel – who passed away in 2008 so we cannot return to interview him further – the Persian proverb was associated less with the formalized Iranian educational institution than other proverbs that he quoted, and especially those he explicitly quoted as belonging to classical poetry, but was not identified as part of Jewish learning as some other proverbs were. The following proverb recited by his brother, Mr. Joseph Nuriel, is an example in which the Jewish canonical context is explicitly expressed:

כי תישא – סָ ארמָה פִּיסָ ה (4

[ki tissa – sarmā pis-a (= ast)]

Ki Tissa (the name of the Bible portion encompassing most of Exodus 30–34) – the cold rots [and disappears].

This proverb was, according to Mr. Joseph Nuriel, told by one of the participants in the Sabbath prayers on the Sabbath preceding the reading of Ki Tissa, when the portion Ve-ata Tetsave (encompassing most of Exodus 27 and a bit into 30) was read, which usually occurs in the month of March. Mr. Nuriel added that the proverb was said with some humour due to its popular language (possibly meaning the Judaeo-Persian adaptation of the adjective in order for it to rhyme with the Hebrew quotation). Whereas the quotations from classical poetry were evidently cited seriously and with great pride, the report on the popular and ethnic Jewish proverb was somewhat embarrassedly framed as humorous, although in its contents there is nothing in particular that invites amusement.

Toward a Socio-Cultural Interpretation of the Use of Persian Classical Poetry in Proverbs by Iranian Jews in Israel

From the general perspective of the study of proverbs, the use of classical Persian poetry in the proverbs of Iranian Jews in general, and in Israel in particular, may teach us some important lessons, especially with regard to the Classical Poetry As Cultural Capital 313 concept of cultural capital presented above. Even the rather limited sample of examples presented in this article fully supports a total refutation of Archer Taylor’s claim in his – for the study of proverbs, foundational – monograph The Proverb, when he argued that with regard to proverbs the distinction between ‘learned’ and ‘popular’ is meaningless (Taylor 1931: 5). The few examples that have been presented above show clearly the difference in attitude to the ‘high’ proverbs in the classical Persian language, attributed to one of the great poets of Iran, and the ‘low’ and possibly intimate proverbs in the ethnic language of Iranian Jews. The ‘exchange rate’ of the written pan-Iranian corpus seems clearly to surpass the orally conceptualized Jewish one, albeit the proverb refers directly to the most sacred of all Hebrew texts, i.e., the Torah. This may conceivably also serve as a tacit comment on secularization as a mark of mod- ernization, reflecting a tendency that was more obvious in the early nineteen- eighties than nowadays. The brief survey presented here further reinforces the status of proverbs as a mediating genre between written and oral traditions, that I have earlier investi- gated in a very different corpus, namely the proverbs of Cervantes’s Don Quijote in the Hebrew translations of the novel (Hasan-Rokem 2007; eadem 2008). While the Talmudic proverb appears in our period as a quote from the written and canonized text of the Talmud, in the ancient text itself it is introduced by the formula haynu de-amrei inashe (‘this is what people say’), repeated over a hundred and fifty times in the Talmudic-Midrashic corpus and signalling a real, imagined or contrived oral source. At the same time, Mr. Nuriel carefully and emphatically referred to the Iranian school system and the curricular status of classical poetry in it when he recited texts in response to the invitation to perform the proverbs that he used in speech. We may conclude that the proportionally frequent inclusion of lines of classical poetry in oral proverbs expresses the particular identity of Iranian Jews in Israel.9 The educational establishment of the Hebrew University, into which the interviewer Mr. Gadiyan wished to transport his father-in-law Mr. Nuriel’s proverb knowledge, embodied for the cultural expert an imagined Israeli audience to whom he signalled the Iranianness of his cultural capital. This opens, however, another perspective: it is by stressing the adherence to a written classical corpus that a high exchange value was produced for the cultural capital at hand, especially emphasizing the dissimilation of Iranian Jews from other Middle Eastern, Arabic-speaking Jews. This may be the opening for another

9 On the traditional manifestations of referring to canonical literature in medieval Persian prose, see Rubanovich 2003. 314 Hasan-Rokem discussion whose full details and implications must be postponed to another occasion.10

Bibliography

Arora, Shirley L. 1984. ‘The Perception of Proverbiality.’ Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 1, pp. 1–38. [Rpt. in Wise Words. Essays on the Proverb. Ed. Wolfgang Mieder. New York: Garland, 1994.] Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1965. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helen Iswolsky. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press. ———. 1973. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Trans. R.W. Rotsel. Ann Arbor: Ardis. Ben-Porat, Ziva. 1985. ‘Beyn-tekstualiyut.’ Ha-sifrut 34/2, pp. 170–78. [in Hebrew] Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Ed. and introduced by Randal Johnson. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1990. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Trans. Richard Nice with a foreword by Tom Bottomore; preface by Pierre Bourdieu. London: Sage Publications. De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: U of California Press. Dihkhudā, ʿAlī Akbar. 1352/1973. Amthāl-u ḥikam. Tehran: Amīr Kabīr. 4 vols. [with running pagination] Furūghī, Muḥammad ʿAlī, ed. 1342/1963. Kulliyāt-i Saʿdī. Tehran: Intishārāt-i jāvīdān. Haїm, Sulayman. 1956. Persian-English Proverbs. Tehran: B. & D. Beroukhim. Hasan-Rokem, Galit. 1982. Proverbs in Israeli Folk Narratives: A Structural Semantic Analysis. FFC 232. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. ———. 1993. Adam le-Adam Gesher (The Proverbs of Georgian Jews in Israel). Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute. [in Hebrew] ———. 2007. ‘Literary Forms of Orality: Proverbs in the Hebrew Translations of Don Quijote.’ Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 24, pp. 189–206. ———. 2008. ‘Formas literarias de oralidad: los refranes en las traducciones al hebreo del Quijote.’ In Cervantes y las religiones. Actas del coloquio internacional de la aso- ciación de Cervantistas (Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén, Israel, 19–21 de Diciembre de 2005). Ed. Ruth Fine and Santiago López Navia. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica 51. Madrid: Iberoamericana; and Frankfurt: Vervuert, pp. 453–72.

10 For a seminal discussion of Judaeo-Persian folklore in the context of Iranian folklore, see Soroudi 1990. On the relatively isolated situation of Iranian Jews with regard to other Jewish communities in the Middle East, see Shaked 1985: 31. Classical Poetry As Cultural Capital 315

Jakobson, Roman. 1960. ‘Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics.’ In Style in Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, pp. 350–77. Jason, Heda. 1971. ‘Proverbs in Society: The Problem of Meaning and Function.’ Proverbium (old series) 17, pp. 617–23. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1973. ‘Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning.’ Proverbium (old series) 22, pp. 821–27. Krikmann, Arvo. 1974. ‘Some Difficulties Arising at Semantic Classifying of Proverbs.’ Proverbium (old series) 23, pp. 865–79. Kristeva, Julia. 1980. ‘Word, Dialogue, and Novel.’ In Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. Leon S. Roudiez. Trans. Thomas Gora, A. Jardine and L.S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, pp. 64–91. [Rpt. in Kristeva 1986, pp. 34–61.] ———. 1986. ‘Revolution in Poetic Language.’ In The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. New York: Columbia UP, pp. 89–136. Morawski, Stefan. 1970. ‘The Basic Functions of Quotation.’ In Sign, Language, Culture. Ed. Algirdas J. Greimas et al. Janua Linguarum. Studia Memoriae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata. Series maior 1. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, pp. 690–705. Rubanovich, Julia. 2003. ‘Literary Canon and Patterns of Evaluation in Persian Prose on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion.’ Studia Iranica 32, pp. 47–76. Shaked, Shaul. 1985. ‘On the Early Heritage of the Jews of Persia.’ Peʿamim 23, pp. 22–37. [in Hebrew] Soroudi, Sorour S. 1990. ‘Judeo-Persian Religious Oath Formulas as Compared with Non-Jewish Iranian Traditions.’ In Irano-Judaica II. Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture Throughout the Ages. Ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, pp. 167–83. Taylor, Archer. 1931. The Proverb. Cambridge: Harvard UP. CHAPTER 13 Gashtak: Oral/Literary Intertextuality, Performance and Identity in Contemporary Tajikistan

Margaret Mills and Ravshan Rahmoni

Dedicated to the Memory of Aziz Rahimov (1932–2009)

The gashtak1 (Tajik; daura in Iranian Persian) is a voluntary group that gathers periodically to enjoy social conversation, food and drink, perhaps to pursue or reinforce a social agenda, activity or set of interests shared by the group. The institution is known under a variety of names across Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with a history going well back before the Soviet era. The eminent Tajik writer of the twentieth century, Sadruddin Aini, wrote: ‘Gashtak indicates a gathering of individuals, once per week, with each member hosting a meal in turn. Insofar as the meal is rotated (gardesh karda) from turn to turn, to each individual, it is called gashtak’ (Aini 1963: 15). One or two people may take the lead to organize a gashtak. Admission is by invitation, with additional invitations by consensus

* Joint research and authorship are always a complex operation, and an enriching one. Ravshan Rahmoni, acting as a participant observer, recorded all or parts of several different meetings of one gashtak group in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, during 2003–2005, from which these and other portions were selected and translated by Ravshan Rahmoni, Margaret Mills, and Hafiz Boboyorov. Some of the participant observation and all the initial transcription and translation activities for this article were supported by a US Dept. of State Title VIII Special Initiatives Grant for 2005–2006, gratefully acknowledged here. The overall project title was ‘Everyday Ethical Speech in Post-Soviet Tajikistan,’ collaborative research for which M. Mills was grant author and Principal Investigator with five Tajik colleagues. Dr. Rahmoni provided additional background information on the gashtak participants and the community of Pasurkhee village, District Boysun, Uzbekistan, and other matters mentioned in these conversations, which supports the current detailed interpretation of particular conversational exchanges. Any errors of emphasis, translation and interpretation in the current presentation are the responsibility of Mills. 1 Note on transliteration: both in the body of this article and in the transliterated texts in the Appendices, we have used – except for poetry – a simplified transliteration system representing spoken Tajik which generally reflects Cyrillic orthography and minimizes diacritics. For a few proper names, e.g. ‘Pasurkhee,’ the transliteration retains previously established and published practice. Likewise, alternative transcriptions for proper names and titles of publications in Persian in Arabic script supplement the Tajik spelling in the notes.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_015 Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 317 of the members. From our interviews it seems that gashtak groups in general meet more regularly in winter, and are fairly ephemeral, lasting for a season, or a year or two with breaks. Gashtak groups were and are formed for a variety of reasons, and are usually single-sex, male but sometimes female. Quite recently, mixed groups are also reported. Gashtaks may be formed by groups of age-mates, friends, classmates, co-villagers, co-workers, neighbours, even men who have completed the ḥajj. The particular male gashtak under discussion here, due to its specific agenda, provides a window on a rich mix of oral and literary narrative and poetic performances, in an informal group organized for the explicit purpose of performing and sustaining a group identity. With this stated purpose, it may also be unusual for its longevity, having continued for several years. This gashtak, of which co-author Ravshan Rahmoni is a charter member, was formed to address very specific socio-political conditions in Dushanbe in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union, as interest in national cultural identities intensified throughout the region, following the Tajik civil war and the closing in the 1990s of the formerly open borders between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The closed borders on top of severe economic crisis cut off regular travel for this group of Tajik-speaking, Dushanbe-resident male professionals (including writers, journalists, academicians, doctors, military officers, and a musician2) who were all but one native to the village of Pasurkhee, Boysun district, in Uzbekistan less than four hours by road from Dushanbe itself. During the Soviet period they were able to travel home weekly if they wished, keeping tabs on their parents and taking part in extended family gatherings and customary life cycle and calendrical rituals. In the two decades since, years might pass between visits. In Dushanbe during the economic crisis that followed the demise of the Soviet Union and the ensuing civil war in Tajikistan, people were so occupied with the logistics of living that they might not even see their village fellow-immigrants in Dushanbe itself for a year or more. Maintaining connections with historical roots and sustaining customs practiced by previous generations, as basic social identity work, became the focus for the group described here, who are almost exclusively from the one village. They created a gashtak for themselves to make a social space for the citation and performance of a combination of oral and literary verbal art in various named genres and approved performance styles, and for memory work in the form of local oral history narratives and discussions about their place of origin. Selections from two gatherings of this gashtak, in February and April, 2005, will serve to

2 The list of members as of 2005 is provided in Appendix A. 318 Mills and Rahmoni illustrate the group’s highly self-conscious, integrated performance of oral and literary heritage. The toast (nushbod), a speech genre borrowed from Russian culture, is sys- tematically performed by participants taking turns, in this and other gashtak gatherings. Toasts regularly include short or long segments of narrative of various kinds, to establish and support an admonition or wish expressed in the toast itself. In the first example (Text A), Inoyat Nasriddin, a well-known Tajik writer, embeds within a toast the traditional rivoyat (legend) oral speech genre to make a point about the group’s identity, with a certain ironic humour. Text A:3

INOYAT: (toast) A man wanted to gain significant wealth and power but his efforts would not progress. Whenever he would go to a person who prayed for blessings (duo dehanda), he was always asked: ‘What is your [family] profession?’ ‘Eh, don’t ask that, just bless me’, he said. ‘Unless you tell me your profession, I will not bless [you]. Who was [your] father?’ He asked, you see. Again he wouldn’t say. Finally he still wouldn’t speak [aloud], but he leaned over and whispered in his ear: ‘He was a thief’. Then he said: ‘Unless you [also] steal, there can be no improvement in your life. Even if you would become the leader of a country a thousand times over, you must not leave your [hereditary] profession (i.e., thiev- ing)’. I am grateful to God that the people of Pasurkhee – they are [their ancestral clans were] Mirsobir, Mirhaydar (actually Mirmukhtor: R.R.), Miryodgor and Miryoqub – and in stories about them they have no other skills besides being cultured, living with great noblesse (ashrofzodagi), and being devoted, for instance, to all cultural matters and the arts. May God grant that this thing (or: quality) would spread, increase, developing in the countenance of each of you. (All raise the toast with their glasses and drink their vodka, following with more jokes and songs).

Inoyat employs the legend (rivoyat) of ‘The Prior Profession’ to support his assertion of the importance of identity defined through ancestry. With it he also invokes the role of the institution and speech genre of ‘blessing by prayer’ (duo dodan) performed by saintly persons. He then attaches the concept of identity from the first legend to a local Pasurkhee legend stipulating the honourable ethnic origins of this gashtak group’s common home village and its four named lineages. The ‘even if’ clause of the first legend reinforces the

3 Cassette RR003 (B467–644), February 27, 2005. For Tajik text, see Appendix B. Here and below the bold font denotes an intonational stress. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 319 urgency of maintaining their inherited social identity even under social pres- sure or against everyday logic. Istad Qosim (b. 1936) is one of the eldest members of this gashtak, attending intermittently. Politically, he is somewhat at odds with others in the group, being more admiring of the Bukharan emirate and other pre-Soviet institutions. In the following, somewhat testy exchange, he performs an oral history narrative that reinforces the idea of Pasurkhee’s distinguished lineages (all Sayyids, descendants of the Prophet), while it honours the Bukharan Amir for recognizing them even during his flight into exile in 1920. Istad Qosim clinches his argument by quoting a line of poetry from the Soviet-era Tajik poet Lohutī,4 creating a bridge of social values linking: (a) Pasurkhee identity; (b) the oral history of the pre-Soviet elite (not supported by official Soviet-era history); (c) Soviet-era values expressed in literary tradition. Avaz, a younger man of Pasurkhee lineage born and raised in Dushanbe, who has dismissed the Amir with an epithet, counters with a piece of historically deft and cutting improvi- sational wit (the genre called askiya in Tajik). Text B:5

ISTAD: Amir Abdul Ahad was asked: ‘Why do you call yourself Sayyid Abdul Ahad, you’re not called “Amir” first, but “Sayyid”?’ The Amir said: ‘If I am the Amir today, I will not be Amir tomorrow, but I am always Sayyid. Therefore, I say “Sayyid” first, then I say “Amir Abdul Ahad Khon”.’ These points make sense. This is part of habit and custom. It is said that when Amir Olim Khon was exiled [heading from Bukhara to Afghanistan] and came down from Sakirtma (a hill south of Pasurkhee) - AVAZ: He was called Olimi gov (Olim the Cow/Bull). ISTAD (offendedly): Is that so? AVAZ: Well, he was just a damned Manghiti6 . . . ISTAD: Anyway, he had a great government. AVAZ: What was so great about it?

4 Abulqosim Lohutī (= Abū al-Qāsim Lāhūtī-yi Kirmānshāhī; 1887–1957), a Perso-Tajik nationalist poet of socialist leanings actively publishing during the Iranian Constitutionalist period. Condemned to death in 1920, he fled to Istanbul, returned to Iran during the February Rising of 1922, and on its defeat took refuge in the Soviet Union, where he became the foremost poet of Soviet Tajikistan. See Kubíčková 1968: 376; Bečka 1968: 564–66. 5 Cassette RR015, April 24, 2005. For Tajik text, see Appendix C. 6 Padarlaʿnat, lit.,‘of a damned father’ or ‘damn his father’. The Manghits were a major Uzbek tribe, one lineage of which ruled Bukhara in 1753–1920. 320 Mills and Rahmoni

ISTAD (continues, with offense): On the bulul (a small bridge) as he came closer to Nizomkhuja he walked on foot, seven steps. He ordered his army: ‘As you come down the slope to this village, walk on foot’. He [then remounted and] rode his horse to the house of my uncle Nuʿmonov. There his servants asked: ‘Sir, why did you order us [to walk on foot?]’ [Olimkhon said:] ‘People say that great khujas (sayyids) live here, sohib- khujas are in this village’. This is a legend. Maybe it isn’t true, but we heard it. This person (he is offended and indicates Avaz) came originally from great khujas. May God give you health. Lohutī has an aphorism:7

Har shab zi khudat bipurs agar tu mardī Imrūz chi khizmate ba mardum kardī (Each night ask yourself, if you are a man, How have you served the people today?)

(Reprovingly, addressing Avaz) You serve the people. Be respectful of the dead. INOYAT: How can a Manghit be a Sayyid? AVAZ: My uncle just said that one should respect dead persons. So should we say: ‘Hitler – God rest his soul!’? (laughter)

Istad hedges a little: ‘This is a legend. Maybe it isn’t true,’ but in the same breath he invokes the community memory: ‘But we heard it’. He admonishes Avaz: ‘Be respectful of the dead,’ concatenating respect for Avaz’s own deceased Pasurkhee khuja (sayyid) ancestors who told ‘us’ the story, with respect for the departed Amirs, which in turn he represents as a form of ethical ‘service to the people,’ as commanded by Lohutī. Avaz’s witty reference to the equally dead Hitler allows the group to abandon the argument and change the subject with laughter, but it also seriously undermines Istad’s attempt to weave layers of textuality (oral and literary, local and dynastic, pre-Soviet and Soviet) into one value-laden narrative. Istad Qosim is not alone in seeking value in pre-Soviet social categories and lineages, however. Inoyat Nasriddin himself, a novelist and journalist who tends to dominate gashtak literary discussions, at the February 27, 2005 gashtak had drawn paradoxically on the ‘Legend of the Prior Profession’ to praise his own and the others’ ‘noble’ Pasurkhee identity and cultural practices, as described above. Yet he avoided explicit religious reference, not using the term khuja (sayyid) to describe them. In the conversation on April 24, 2005

7 On Lohutī, see n. 4 above. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 321 just quoted, he questions whether the Bukharan Amirs themselves, vilified by the Soviets, as Manghits by lineage, could in fact also be sayyids. The very fact that the lineage profession that must be claimed in the legend he tells, is thievery may continue to tinge with ambivalence the gashtak group’s own claim to Prophetic descent in Islam, such claims being so recently grounds for persecution under the Soviet regime. By such routes the participants enter political critique and ambivalence indirectly if not directly: they may criticize past politics and discuss historical figures’ faults with some specificity, while the routes of their self-identification with the historical subjects remain intricate and somewhat unsettled. In these oral history dialogues the behaviour and politics of Manghits are debated as positive or negative for society, with potential relevance to recent or current events. The Amir is said to respect sayyids (of whom this group are representatives) as important persons, even as he claims that status for himself: a lesson for today, positive or negative depending on your point of view. ‘Manghit’ as an ethnic identifier also logically precludes any claim to sayyid descent, as Inoyat’s query suggests. The Soviets purged sayyids whereas the (Uzbek Manghit) Amir honoured them. Furthermore, current Uzbek post-Soviet nationalist politics were and are a problem for these and other Tajiks. Besides physical obstacles such as the border closure and visa requirements, the suppression of Tajik as a language of everyday use, instruction and scholarship in Uzbekistan culturally marginalizes the large segment of Uzbekistan’s citizenry who are, like this group, ethnically Tajik-Persian. Istad Qosim himself was by 2005 no longer a permanent resident of Dushanbe or a regular at the gashtak, having relocated back to Uzbekistan. His nostalgic admiration for pre-Soviet Bukharan elites may also be tinged with the new and troubling Uzbek nationalism from the viewpoint of his listeners. Aziz Rahimov in 2005 was the most senior member of the group.8 He was its original organizer, specifically for the purpose of maintaining Pasurkhee identity, solidarity, and cultural knowledge. For a while Aziz Rahimov was silent after the above exchange, but toward the end of this gashtak he told a tale about Nushiravon ‘the Just,’ the pre-Islamic Sasanian king legendary for his justice.9 Aziz’s status in the group is such that he could tell this relatively long and complex tale to the whole group without interruption. Furthermore, the teller of a tale about the legendary Nushiravon needs to make no explicit comparison to any ethical shortcomings of current political culture and leadership,

8 We sadly note his passing in November, 2009. 9 Nushiravon is Khusrau I Anūshīravān (r. 531–579), a Sasanian king, celebrated in the medieval Persian literature for his wisdom and justice. 322 Mills and Rahmoni because such comparison is both expected in the performance of such ‘most just king’-themed tales, and unavoidable. Perhaps the tension in the above discussion after Istad Qosim’s story led Aziz to demand performance time for this tale of ideal kingly (and youthful) behaviour to help end this gashtak on a harmonious note. In that established intertextual context, its ethical significance was central, as Aziz Rahimov himself reflected. The tale also champions personal ethical qualities over lineage claims (and nurture over nature). Everyone has been well fortified with vodka and many kinds of food, and engaged in boisterous general conversation for several hours when Aziz Rahimov repeatedly calls the whole group to attend to what he wants to say, interrupting a number of sidebar conversations. Rustam pours a round of vodka for the toast in which such a tale was expected to be embedded;10 Aziz begins with a philosophically inclined peroration (the first few sentences of which are omitted here) on a watchful mind as the thing that rules and holds the human organism together, then proceeds to his narrative illustrating the quality called farosot (lit., farosat, insight bestowed, or not, by God): Text C:11

AZIZ: The closest support of mind/intellect (aql) is a quality (gavhar) – this thing is very rare – not everyone can ‘do farosot’ ( farosot kardan), it is farosot. Farosot resolves everything into the intellect, sifts and sends it to the intellect. This means that farosot is the guardian of the intellect . . . Humans resolve all problems and difficulties in life only by [these] two things: by intellect (aql) and farosot. This is confirmed by [a tale about] Nushiravon from our ancestors . . . RAUF: Nushiravon the Just. AZIZ: The world king . . . So, he went on tour with his amirs, with minis- ters and others and – a number of Pasurkhee’s young boys were on top of Sakirtma [Hill], waiting for the cows to return [from pasture], and they had made themselves a mushak12 and were playing with it in the dust. Just then the king appeared. He approached and commanded [his entourage]: ‘Halt!’ When the king stopped, everyone stopped and drew up in a line. They see the boys playing in the dirt and stones . . .; there

10 In fact, no explicit toast was offered by Aziz at the end of this performance, Inoyat having initiated another line of discussion related to the story’s literary genre and attribution, and andarz (wisdom) literature in general. Aziz does manage to insert an encomium on Tajik traditional pedagogy through storytelling. 11 Cassette RR015, April 24, 2005. For Tajik text, see Appendix D. 12 Mushak is a ball made out of wadded or felted hair shed by cows, goats or sheep. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 323

was cow manure, all mixed up there, and they were rough-housing there. They knock one of them down and snatch the mushak from his hand. Then the king raises his hand and the youngsters draw up in a line, he says: ‘Stop!’ Then he threw to the gathered boys a golden, jewelled signet from his own hand. Nushiravon said: ‘Here, get it!’ he said, ‘But return it to its owner’. The youngsters are pulling each other’s ears, shouting, hitting each other, and bringing it to the king, the strongest one brought it to give back to him. So he puffed himself up tall (Aziz puffs out his chest) as if to say: ‘I’m the strongest,’ and brought it. The king takes it. Again he throws it down. Three times he threw the signet, and whoever was strongest brought it out of the group. The king looked over by Nizom’s wall. (INOYAT: Pug-nosed Nizom;13 AVAZ: The dead man, say: ‘God rest his soul!’). One boy was standing up straight like this, looking pale,14 and he does not join the group. He does not get into the kicking and punch- ing. He just stands there all alone. This time, the king takes the signet and throws it, sends it toward that boy. The boy picks up the signet, cleans it with his fingers, then cleans it again with the hem of his shirt, then taking it with all proper farosot, bowing to the king, bowing with his left hand and with his right hand, bending his head, he gives it to the king. Three times he bows low to the king. The king says: ‘O-o-o-kay’. Then the boys go off, the king is ready to leave, and gives them a prize, those boys – not to all of them, just the first three who’d gotten [the ring]. Then he took his minister aside and said: ‘Domullo,15 Mr. Minister, in this boy,’ he said, ‘did you notice any culture? Did you see any distinctive feature [in him]?’ [The minister] said: ‘I’, he said, ‘didn’t see anything’. [The king] said: ‘Go find out who this boy’s father is, who the mother is, what environment he is being raised in. You,’ he said, ‘don’t go on with this tour,’ he said, ‘you work on this while we go on’. [The king] goes on his tour and comes back. His first question, on returning to the palace, he calls the minister and says: ‘Come here, did you resolve that matter?’ The minister said: ‘Oh King of Kings, the matter is fully resolved’. ‘So who was that boy?’ [The minister] said: ‘He has no father, no mother, hardly survives, he has just an old grandmother. (RUSTAM: So!) He has nobody else’.16 [The king] said: ‘Go back, persuade his grandmother who is his

13 ‘Pug-nosed’ Nizom is Nizom Manqa, a former resident of Pasurkhee identified by his comical nickname. 14 Lit., ‘yellowish’; whether from embarrassment or fear is not immediately apparent. 15 Term of respect for a learned or authoritative man. 16 Lit., ‘There’s no one else on his carpet,’ i.e., no one else in the household. 324 Mills and Rahmoni

mother – the boy has courage, the boy is civilized, the boy has culture, the boy has a future. We should not leave this boy with nowhere to go. He’s fit for the palace, this boy. Persuade his mother, get him and bring him. Do whatever is necessary to persuade his mother, his adopted mother’. After that [the minister] goes with his own qozī and muftī and his ulamo,17 to the mother. He said: ‘The king’s order is this: We are to take this boy to court, you must agree to it’. She said: ‘Let not just one boy but a hundred boys be an offering to the king!18 The boy is the property of the king’. [They] brought the boy. The judge and all the others were boasting: ‘We brought the boy,’ they said. [The king] said: ‘No, you aren’t so great, go and write the order,’ he told the judge. He told the muftī: ‘Proclaim the fatvo,19 that this young man, starting from today, is a dependent of our court! Say that his mother will receive a pension from our court for life’. Nushiravon was ordering this kind of thing. The king affirmed it, gave [the money] and said: ‘Take it [to her], starting today, cover the old woman’s expenses for the next ten years’. The king Nushiravon, had only one son in his entire life. He had a wife beautiful as a pari,20 the most beautiful woman in Central Asia. After Juraev’s wife. (laughter) And he has the one son. So the king assigns the two of them a teacher. He assigns them the same education. The king’s love and affection for the foster son got to be more than for his own son. His wife notices it. She said: ‘Eh, King of the World, you haven’t got ten sons, after all! You have one son, one heir, but,’ she said . . . [It was] the night for “that” (sex). The king’s “peak” is coming on. His wife grabbed and held her underpants band tight. ‘Stop, now,’ she said, ‘answer my question. You,’ she said, ‘why,’ she said, ‘him,’ she said, ‘why do you prefer [him to] your own son? He,’ she said, ‘a foster son,’ she said, ‘raised by an old woman. You, why,’ she said, ‘don’t you pay attention to your own son,’ she said, ‘yet you pay so much attention to him?’, she said. Then [the king] said: ‘First,’ he said, ‘do the job. Let’s “resolve the matter”. After that,’ he said, ‘I’ll answer your question’. So he did it, then said: ‘You know, I see in this boy,’ he said, ‘a talent given by God. I see something in his countenance that I do not see in my son’s. I’ve seen the future of my country,’

17 Qozī – religious judge; muftī – senior jurisprudent; ulamo – traditional religious scholars. 18 Sadqai podsho, sadqa being voluntary alms or charity. 19 Fatvo is a written legal opinion by a competent religious law expert, taken as a general decree if offered by a sufficiently high authority. 20 Pari (also: parichehra) are the magical and beautiful ‘other people,’ known already in pre- Islamic Iran. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 325

he said, ‘in this boy’s face.’ ‘So, eheee,’ she said, ‘it can’t be,’ she said, ‘that we’ve become nothing [to you],’ she said, ‘you,’ she said, ‘brought a foster son and you give him such high status,’ she said. The wife was jeal- ous. Then he said: ‘That won’t happen,’ he said, ‘wait and see. You and I,’ he said, ‘will not [decide] this. Come on,’ he said, ‘you yourself,’ he said, ‘organize a committee to test the future of these boys,’ he said. ‘It will be revealed’. The queen selects two of her best ladies in waiting. The king says to his treasurer: ‘Give a key to these two serving women. To my treasury. To the Lady’s servant women. And these two boys,’ he said, ‘[follow] after you. Don’t you say a thing. You just open the door of the treasury. Both of them,’ he said, ‘should come back to me and the mother of my son,’ he said, ‘and tell what things they took from the treasury. I will not say a thing. Is this OK?’ ‘Yes, it’s OK’. ‘Do you agree?’ ‘I agree’. ‘Good luck’. The servants unlock the treasury. The servants bring the two of them into the king’s treasury. They said: ‘Take anything you wish,’ they said, ‘from the king’s treasury’. So this was the king’s order and they just carried it out. They say to the boys: ‘Go, open the treasury,’ they said, ‘take what you need’. The king’s natural son takes seven rubies, seven sapphires, seven other jewels, the king’s own son. He opened the boxes, selected the best ones. The foster son takes a sword first, takes a horse’s bridle second, takes a mace third. They line them up, the things the two of them chose are brought to the king by the ‘referees’. The king and queen sat at the top [of the room].21 So they22 test their own son, saying: ‘My son, what did you take from the treasury?’ ‘I took seven rubies.’ ‘What will you do with them?’ He said: ‘I will hang them around the necks of my doves and as they fly, everyone will marvel [at them]’. ‘Uuuu, very good. Then what did you take?’ ‘I took seven sapphires’. ‘What will you do with them?’ ‘I will hang them around the necks of my seven dogs,’ he said, ‘as they wander,’ he said, ‘people will envy them, [my dogs] will be different from other dogs’. ‘OK, what else did you take?’ ‘I took seven other jewels’. ‘What will you do with them?’ ‘Oh, I’ll do something else [like that] . . .’. [The king says:] ‘Did you understand, madam?’ [Asking the foster son:] ‘Why did you take the sword? Why did you take the bridle? Why did you take the mace?’ ‘I took all these in order

21 I.e., the most prestigious seat; in this case, the presiding seat. 22 There is no gender on personal pronouns, so the actor/speaker in this sequence is unclear, either king or queen. The verb is in the singular. 326 Mills and Rahmoni

to protect the kingdom of my King of Kings. I took the sword in order to cut off the heads of his enemies. I took a bridle that was fit for a horse, to have a horse to ride. I took the lance [sic] to strike the enemies of the king in the liver, so I can keep his kingdom safe’. ‘OK, that’s your answer’. And then [the king] says to his wife: ‘This person (i.e., the king’s son) sets out to pillage and waste my kingdom. This [other] person intends to protect my borders and keep my kingdom safe, so,’ he said, ‘[not] in the countenance of my natural son,’ he said, ‘but in the countenance of this person,’ he said, ‘I saw governance (siyosat; also ‘statecraft, politics’). (RUSTAM: Protect, protector). It’s for that, that I loved this boy, I need this boy’. INOYAT: This is from a book. AZIZ: This is in a book! I didn’t ‘weave’ this myself. INOYAT: This is from Nizom ul-Mulk, from the Siyosatnoma.23 RUSTAM: But didn’t it take place in Boysun? AZIZ: It did take place in Boysun. (askiya, laughter) RUSTAM: You mentioned these places. This person (Istad) named some [of the same] places, I thought it was in Boysun. AZIZ: No, but this [story] is not in the Siyosatnoma. RAUF: The point is, it’s about the younger generation. AZIZ: Of course! It’s about how to nurture. A little something for everyone. We all have children. ISTAD: You can use it in Varzob also . . .24 RUSTAM: It fits everywhere. AZIZ: We all have grandchildren, children. If you tell a little of this, just a little, it’s complete advice. With this, there’s no need for Krupskaya.25 ISTAD: No need for Makarenko26 . . . AZIZ: No need for your Makarenko. There is no need for studying pedagogy and psychology for two or three hours. This is both pedagogy and psychology. This thing, if you tell just a bit of it and analyse it in a lesson, it will reach the child here (points to his head with his finger), it’s enough. INOYAT: Yeah!

23 Siyosatnoma (= Siyāsat-nāma), ‘The Book of Government,’ compiled in Persian in 484/1091–92, by the famous Saljūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk. See Rypka 1968b: 221. 24 A joke on Rustam, the only member of the gashtak who is not from Pasurkhee. Varzob is his home place. 25 See below, n. 26. 26 N.K. Krupskaya (1869–1939), Lenin’s wife, and A.S. Makarenko (1888–1939) were the foundational theorists and planners of Soviet pedagogy in the 20s–30s of the twentieth century. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 327

AZIZ: There is nooooo need for another thing, [the child] understands. Now look, I’ve told [you] this [even] though I’ve had half a liter of vodka . . . INOYAT: And I understand it! Let’s hope that those who haven’t drunk vodka, will understand it!27 (askiya, laughter) AZIZ: So!!! Our pedagogy! Look how [good] our pedagogy was! The methods we’ve used since the time of Nushiravon to educate people! INOYAT: Just so . . . AZIZ: They didn’t just tell a story, this was the style of [practical] education at that time! INOYAT: Nushiravon has a lot of things [to tell]. AZIZ: If he saw a loyal boy like that, he took him under his protection. Now look at today when [somebody] brings his cousin [to get him a job] and he’s a pustak.28 RUSTAM: Today nobody asks the damn’ kid, who his mother is (askiya, laughter) . . . No, what you say is right, but . . . (Inoyat interrupts to start another train of thought about andarz (advice) literature in general.)

Aziz, in support of the story’s authority, stresses that it is literary, not something that he made up. Though both Aziz, the teller, and Inoyat, this gathering’s most distinguished writer, agree that the story is from a literary source, Inoyat attributes it to Niẓām al-Mulk’s eleventh-century Siyāsat-nāma, while Aziz says it is not from that source. In any case, the group unites in their assumption of its literary origins and their admiration for several things: (a) Nushiravon’s approach to character assessment in the young; (b) the very nature of good character in the young (including farosot, the gift of instinctive good judgment or insight), which is not necessarily linked to elite birth; and (c) the pedagogical value of orally telling traditional stories for the young, because even without interpretation such tales have ‘something for everyone,’ as Aziz says. Krupskaya and Makarenko are of course the visionary pedagogues of the early Soviet era, creating the mass education that was supposed to produce the ideal Soviet citizen. For this group, especially the elders who dominate this sequence and lead gashtak conversations generally, the ancient, pre-Islamic ‘Iranian’ (Sasanian) Nushiravon ‘the Just,’ and/or contemporary competence in appro- priately performing and interpreting tales about his deeds (which they claim as their own ancient legacy) obviate Soviet moral education itself. Paradoxically, the literary attribution of the tale adds to its authority for these tellers, but the

27 Lit., ‘Let it not be that those who haven’t drunk vodka, won’t understand it!’ Part of the wit is in Inoyat’s elaborate triple negative construction. 28 Pustak is a leather floor mat, here meaning ‘brainless’. 328 Mills and Rahmoni educational moments it celebrates are oral and ‘practical,’ nothing to do with studying the pedagogy and psychology books of Krupskaya and Makarenko. Aziz starts his tale with a framing peroration defining farosot, somewhat longer and more repetitive than the portion of it included here, showing the effects, as he acknowledges, of a good deal of vodka. Normally, such a tale would end with an explicit ‘toast’ statement. With his opening peroration on farosot he both claims the conversational floor unequivocally from all the other speakers, and sets a serious ethical tone for the solo performance to follow. Yet the tone of the narrative as he unfolds it is more playful. The link Aziz makes to the group’s oral history interests and identity themes, by setting the meeting between Nushiravon and the virtuous orphan on Sakirtma Hill in their own Pasurkhee in Boysun region, is comically tenuous but engaging. His development of the scene of Nushiravon’s arrival continues as Istad’s earlier narrative about the Amir of Bukhara did, into the very same local geography. ‘The king looked over by Nizom’s wall . . .’ closely parallels the detail in the Bukharan Amir’s arrival, in Istad Qosim’s oral history: ‘On the bulul (a small bridge) as he came closer to Nizomkhuja he walked on foot, seven steps . . . He [then remounted and] rode his horse to the house of my uncle Nuʿmonov . . .’.29 The joke implicit in this scene-setting may cast some humorous light on Istad Qosim’s earlier solemn oral history of the Amir approaching the named Pasurkhee residents’ houses so respectfully on foot. Inoyat and Avaz pick up the joke implicit in Aziz’s anachronistic naming not of a distinguished resident but one with a comical nickname, ‘Pug-nosed Nizom,’ as Inoyat recalls him. Avaz, who has already identified the Amir Olimkhon with the equally demeaning nickname ‘Gov’ (cow/bull) and been sharply criticized by Istad for not respecting the dead Manghit Amirs, now takes a witty potshot (askiya) at both his elders, the nickname-invoking Inoyat and Istad, reiterating Istad’s admonishment for respect: ‘The dead man, say “God rest his soul!”.’ The listeners joke with Rustam, the one non-Pasurkhee person in the group, who seems to believe for a moment that the literary tale of Nushiravon was actually set in Pasurkhee. Istad himself joins the joke, reassuring Rustam (who is in any case the well-loved brother-in-law of another of the Pasurkhee participants) that the story could equally well be applied to his own home town of Varzob, and amid laughter they applaud the universal relevance of the story. Aziz as the eldest, and as founder of the gashtak, would receive deference for his verbal performances in any case. But in telling this complex tale, attributed to a literary source, he skillfully combines a carefully articulated, highly

29 See above, p. 320. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 329 serious ethical theme ( farosot) with comical details like Nushiravon’s breath- less bedtime negotiations with his beautiful wife. His use of local colour not only in setting the story in Boysun and Pasurkhee, but also in his gently teasing reference to the beauty of the absent Juraev’s actual wife, also helps secure him the group’s attention for a protracted monologue performance. There are very few interjections, even though this performance takes place toward the end of this gashtak session which has lasted several hours, leaving the group quite well lubricated by numerous vodka toasts and multiple, diverse courses of food. One further example, from the February 27, 2005 gashtak, illustrates another way members of the group value text and performance. Jurabek Rasulov, in his 20s, is the youngest member of the group, Dushanbe-born but the great grandson of an extremely famous ‘big man,’ a wealthy merchant and community notable of old Pasurkhee. Jurabek is a recent graduate of Dushanbe’s music con- servatory and an able singer and dutor player, welcomed into the group where he contributes his refined musical skills, playing and singing classical Persian ghazal. On other occasions his presence has inspired prolonged oral historical debates and recall-contests about the exploits of his great grandfather (‘The man who gave the 40-day circumcision party’). In this February gashtak, it inspired nostalgic recollections of traditional songs sung in Pasurkhee during a particular group exploit, a self-organized, voluntary, team agricultural work project, in the difficult time of the return (or non-return) of WW II soldiers when the most senior members of this group were young students, but with no chance such as he has had for formal music education. Jurabek took part in the gashtaks of February, March and April 2005 and pleased the participants with his songs. His performances led to talk about the styles of performance of the well-known performers of Tajikistan and their artistic schools and trends. In February Inoyat Nasriddin told a story about the prominent dutarist and singer Maʿrufkhuja Bahodurov (b. 1920). While the other gashtak attendees tended just to applaud Jurabek’s performances of ghazal, Inoyat, the well-published writer, had a tendency to comment more extensively on Jurabek’s performances, reflecting on the social and moral positions of performers and writers (including the eminent Lohutī). He stressed their traditional behaviour and values as a lesson for emulation (darsi ibrat), together with themes of national identity, in the presence of this young and talented performer. Repeated in the wake of one of Jurabek’s enthusiastically received performances, Inoyat’s version of a personal experience narrative of the famous Tajik singer Bahodurov pointedly suggests the writer Inoyat’s own views on the relative positions of text (and poet) vis-à-vis performance (and singer). 330 Mills and Rahmoni

Text D:30

INOYAT: The late Maʿrufkhuja Bahodurov used to say: ‘It was during the days when [performances of] literature and arts of Tajikistan were being prepared for Moscow. Every “boss” (star performer) came and sang, the young performers like me could just “get lost”. Then,’ he said, ‘Aka-Sharif sang. Barno sang, all the famous people sang, then it was my turn. So,’ he said, ‘I came to the stage trembling with fear . . . The program’, he said, ‘was evaluated by Lohutī. He sat in a corner, in the dark,’ he said. ‘Then [I sang] the ghazal of [the poet] Qassob:

Zi gulshani rūyat gule nachida murdam, charo, Bas ki panjai Qassob khunin astu khunin astu khunin.

(I died without picking a single flower from the garden of your face, and why? Enough that the hand of Qassob is bloody, is bloody, is bloody).31

I sang this ghazal and Lohutī from the corner said: “Bravo to you! Bravo to you!” I was in a panic that a man like Lohutī evaluated me in such a way. (Speaking loudly) He didn’t say this to anybody!! Once it was over, I was embarrassed, but I decided: ‘He’ll think it’s shameful if I don’t express my gratitude, I should be modest,’ he said. ‘So after the program was finished I approached Lohutī and said: “Teacher, the ghazal itself was great”. And Lohutī said: “Son, I, too, was saying ‘bravo’ for the ghazal”.’ (laughter) I used this in a novel that I’ve written.

This anecdote is set in the 1940s. In part it recalls how the literature and arts of different nationalities were staged in the Soviet-period State project to control and channel local cultural identity politics. It also recalls how the arts were financially sponsored, a problematical recollection in the 2005 context of the post-Soviet collapse of state support for Tajik arts, letters and scholarly work. Formerly fully supported by State salaries, artists and writers by 2005 might receive token salaries equivalent to $20–$40 monthly, while being ‘authorized’

30 Cassette RR003 (A060–065), February 27, 2005. Tajik text is in Appendix E. 31 The speakers pointed to the poet’s proletarian nom de plume ‘Qassob’ meaning ‘butcher,’ hence the word-play. In fact, the poet in question is probably Saʿīd Qaṣṣāb-i Kāshānī, who lived and created during the Safavid period (d. before 1165/1751–52). See Khayyāmpūr 1368–72/1990–94: I, 456. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 331 by the State to enter the new, barely existing capitalist economy as free-lance artists and performers. On the one hand, the listeners understand through this recollection aspects of the constrained cultural politics of the 1940s. On the other hand, they imagine the moral dignity and modesty of a traditional Tajik man and the problem of national identity in the Soviet context. Furthermore, especially in this particular context, there is an assertion of the primacy of the poet and the text over the singer and his performance. In this anecdote the elder Inoyat likewise claims authorial status himself for memorializing this oral anecdote in his own published fiction, at the same time cautioning the admired young musician Jurabek against pride in performance or the appearance of it. In this gashtak group, literature and arts are central topics for discussion, but they are not beyond contestation: they are at the heart of negotiations over memory, identity, heritage, and moral and spiritual authority, the one register flowing into and ratifying the others. In other sessions, participants discussed Ḥāfiẓ (d. 792/1390), Bīdil (d. 1133/1721), Ṭughral (d. 1919) and other authors and topics of classical and contemporary literature. Speakers provided verses from the poets as evidence for their argument or recalled moments of poets’ life experience and their writings. As in this example, oral performances of avowedly literary texts are anchored to and interpreted as present-day issues by the use of framing oral history and anecdote. Attitudes and behaviours are contested, monitored and shaped in these complex multivocal performances. Yet despite or within contestations of intellectual authority, the prevailing spirit of the interaction is in favour of group solidarity and shared identity. Aziz Rahimov, the group’s founder, epitomized the social and ethical values of the group: social continuity down the generations through shared historical consciousness and local/regional identity, as well as strongly articulated claims to classical Persian cultural and literary heritage. All this he invoked in a comparatively succinct toast toward the beginning of the February gashtak gathering. He quotes the classical Persian poet Rūdakī (d. 329/940–1), esteemed as the founding poet of classical Persian language (Rypka 1968b: 144–45), the pre-eminent court poet of the Samanid dynasty (r. 204–395/819–1005), which the post-Soviet Tajik state claims as their founding dynasty. Text E:32

AZIZ (toast): This meeting that we have organized has a humanistic character. On such days as these, when we meet each other, we share information about our lives and work. When we see each other with open

32 Cassette RR003 (A035–040), February 27, 2005. Tajik text is in Appendix F. 332 Mills and Rahmoni

faces and heads held high, our hearts will be stronger. When we talk to each other, by our faithfulness to our ancestors, by living our and your life according to the admonitions, we seriously influence the new generation. How excellently the great Rudakī spoke 1400 years ago [sic]:

Hech shodī nest andar in jahon Bartar az didori rūyi dūston. Hech talkhī nest dar dil talkhtar, Kaz firoqi dūstoni purhunar.

(There is no joy in this world Greater than seeing the faces of our friends. There is no bitterness in the heart more bitter Than separation from our accomplished friends.)

Now, every month we actively reconfirm these verses of our ancestors. There are doctors of sciences here. Let these titles not be a source of pridefulness, but be under your control, for the people’s sake, for the development of our homeland, for the education of the next generation. That should be the exercise of everyone concerned with this place. If not, this knowledge will be in vain, without effect, useless. Many such title- holders have passed away, and their [honourable] titles have been oblit- erated as well, because their titles were accidental. They came out of the air and they went the same way. Said Jamoljon (the host), I wish you all prosperity. (Inoyat Nasriddin arrives, met by jokes and laughter, then Aziz Rahimov completes his speech.) As for any illness or deficiency that is suffered by any member of the group sitting here, we pray to the Creator, who created this deficiency, to relieve it. May you all be honoured by your children and by all your relations.

The oral performance of texts and themes from Persian classical literature, as well as memorates and legends of literary figures together with more local oral history, is a mainstay of this gashtak of intellectuals dedicated to the preservation of their Persian cultural and Tajik ethno-linguistic identity. They weave together ethical values of humanistic social service, a legacy of Soviet idealism, with the goals of group and individual cultural identity preservation. Memory culture is omnipresent in human societies in various forms with a wide variety of emphases. At this moment in Tajik history, the population realign- ments of the Soviet era have new, and in some ways frightening, consequences Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 333 for Central Asian citizens in the emergence of Central Asian republican ethno-nationalism. Aziz Rahimov’s toast invokes the most venerated Persian literary tradition in support of very contemporary social values and needs, of solidarity, prosperity, and social justice embodied in the deeds and loyalties of individuals. Aziz Rahimov’s toast and the other samples presented here, of the group members’ selection and deployment of literary and para-literary texts, illustrate that the goals of the group include not only the preservation of their own knowledge and performance of identity through their own memories, but also the education of the young. What exactly the rising generation will make of these memories remains to be seen. As the gashtak membership list (Appendix A) reveals, virtually the entire group is of two pre-Perestroika generations, educated in the Soviet era when educational and cultural activities as understood in Soviet policy were reliably supported, and ‘intellectual’ was a valued category within a meritocracy. The near collapse of Tajikistan’s educational system and cultural institutions after the demise of the Soviet Union put the continuity of this knowledge base and its holders’ very survival in jeopardy even as it opened possibilities for different cultural ideologies and economic resources. Though peace had returned to Tajikistan by the late 1990s, peace and security in the region are not now to be taken for granted, while cultural priorities, social ethics and economic arrangements are in great flux. The passing in 2009 of Aziz Rahimov, the founder who envisioned and set the agenda for this gashtak, epitomizes the inevitable fragility of such a group. The durability of its memorial goals and strategies, whether in the informal gashtak or in more formal institutions, remains to be seen.

Bibliography

Aini, Sadruddin. 1963. Kulliyot. Vol. 7: Yoddoshtho. Dushanbe: [Tajik Government Press]. Bečka, Jiří. 1968. ‘Tajik Literature from the 16th Century to the Present.’ In Rypka 1968a, pp. 483–605. Khayyāmpūr, ʿAbd al-Rasūl. 1368–72/1990–94. Farhang-i sukhanvarān. Tehran: Ṭalāya. 2 vols. Kubíčkova, Věra. 1968. ‘Persian Literature of the 20th Century.’ In Rypka 1968a, pp. 353–418. Rypka, Jan. 1968a. History of Iranian Literature. In collaboration with Otakar Klíma et al. Ed. Karl Jahn. J. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company. ———. 1968b. ‘History of Persian Literature to the Beginning of the 20th Century.’ In Rypka 1968a, pp. 69–351. 334 Mills and Rahmoni

Appendix A

Gashtak Members as of 2005 (those present at February 2005 meeting are marked by asterisk; arranged in the alphabetical order of the last name).33

Name Birthdate Profession

*Masrur Abdulloev 07.06.1966 Orientalist, writer and editor of radio programs *Abdujabbor Hakimov 01.06.1939 Surgeon *Rustam Izzatulloev 25.09.1954 Building contractor Bahrom Jabborov 15.05.1965 Building contractor, architect *Inoyat Nasriddin 15.02.1946 Journalist, literary critic and fiction writer *Mansur Norqulov 03.02.1969 Building contractor Istad Qosimov 23.08.1936 Journalist, translator, writer *Aziz Rahimov 23.08.1932 Retired teacher of Tajik language and literature *Shavkat Rahimov 16.03.1975 Military (colonel) *Shukhrat Rahimov 21.06.1970 Military (colonel) *Ravshan Rahmoni 28.11.1954 University professor, folklorist *Rauf Rahmonov 02.05.1959 University professor, Physics *Jurabek Rasulov 14.11.1979 Singer *Saidjamol Saidov 25.06.1963 University professor, Agriculture *Kholmahmad Turaev 04.10.1962 Merchant, builder Sattor Turun 15.02.1946 Tajik national author Avaz Yuldoshev 29.01.1962 Military, journalist Khairullo Yuldoshev 01.05.1938 Kolkhoz director (Hissar District)

*Guest attending February 2005 meeting only: Margaret Mills, folklorist

33 Gashtak members authorized their being credited by name for speeches and comments in these gashtak proceedings. Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 335

Appendix B: Toast by Inoyat Nasriddin

Cassette No. RR003 (B467–644)34

INOYAT: Yak mardak davlatu savlati bisyoreba sohib shudani shudastu korash ravnaq nadorad. Baʿd hamun nazdi shakhse ki duote (duo dihanda) ravad agar, dam be dam mepursidast ki “Kasbat chi?” “E, moned-e yak duo ted (dihed),” meguftast. Baʿd meguftast ki “To kasbata naguyi duo nemeteyam (namediham). Padar ki budand?” Vay mepursad-de. Baʿd meguftast, naguftast baʿd okhiron, kham shuda gushashba guftast ki “Duzd budan.” Baʿd guftast ki “To hamin kora nakuni dar zindaget behbudi nameshavad. Hazor sarvari mamlakat shavi ham, hamon kasbata mekuni”. Shukri Khudovand ki mardumi Pasurkhee hamun agar Mirsobiru, Mirhaydaru [aslan Mirmukhtor – R.R.], Miryodgoru Miryoqub boshand, dar rivoyati onho ba juz farhangu ba juz dar sathi balandi ashrofzodagi zindagi kardanu nisbati tamomi masalan, farhangu sanʿat naqshe guzoshtan digar hunare nadorand. Khudo kunad ki dar shakhsiyati har nafaraton hamin chiz gusturdataru farokhnamotar boshad. [Hama qadahhoro ba ham jang andokhta nushidand, boz shukhi, surud.]

Appendix C

Cassette No. RR015 [B020–030], April 24, 2005

ISTAD: Az Amir Abd ul-Ahad pursidaand ki “Baroi chi shumo khudatona ‘Said Abd ul-Ahad,’ meguyed, avval ‘Amir’ nameguedu avval ‘Said’ meguyed?” Amir meguyad ki “Agar imruz man amir bosham paga amir nestam, lekin man hamesha Said hastam. Binobar in man avval ‘Said’ megum, baʿd meguyam ki ‘Amir Abd ul-Ahad Khon.’ ” In gapo jon dorad. In vobasta ast ba urfu odat. Meguyand ki Amir Olim Khon vaqte ki gureza shuda az Sakirtma [nomi balandi dar samti janubii Pasurkhee] furomad . . . AVAZ: Olimi Gov meguften-de. ISTAD: [ranjida] Hamtumi? AVAZ: Khay, yak Manghiti padarlaʿnat bud-de . . . ISTAD: Ba har hol yak davlati buzurg dosht. AVAZ: Chi khel buzurg? ISTAD: [ranjidakhotir ba gapi khud idoma dod] Boloi bululi (kupruki khurdi doi- rashakl) Nizomkhujaba mebiyodu haft qadam piyoda megardad. Lashkarasha megud ki, “To az hamin qishloq [nisheb] faromadan piyoda meraved”. Khudash aspba savor

34 For the system of transliteration in Appendices B, C, D, E, see n. 1 above. The texts reflect oral vs. literary register interplay in the speech. 336 Mills and Rahmoni meshavadu to khudi havlii taghom Nuʿmonov mebiyod. Hamunjaba nadimosh mepur- san ki “Taqsir charo shumo, in kora ba mo gufted?” (Olim Khon) “Meguyam ki dar in deha khojahoi buzurg zindagi mekunand, sohibkhojaho”. In rivoyat ast. Mumkin nashuda boshad, lekin mo shunidagi hastem. In kas [ranjida, ishora ba Avaz] zoti khu- jahoi buzurg hastand. Ilohim salomat bashed. Lohutīya yak gapash hast ki

Har shab zi khudat bipurs agar tu mardī Imrūz chi khizmate ba mardum kardī

Shumo [murojiat ba Avaz] dar khidmati mardum hasted. Murdagihoya ehtirom kuned. [Istad Qosim kame ranjidakhotir gap mezanad]. INOYAT: Nakhod Manghit Said boshad?! AVAZ: Amakam guftan ki “Murdagihoya ehtirom kuned”. Chi khudorahmati Gitler guyem-mi? [Askiya; khanda]

Appendix D

Cassette RR015, April 24, 2005

AZIZ: . . . Yordamchii nazdiktarini aql, yak gavhar ast, in chiz nihoyat chizi kamyob va onro har kas farosot karda nametavonad, in farosat ast. Farosot ba aql har yak chizi shuda istodaro mahlul karda, az ghalber guzaronida ba aql mefursonad. Yaʿne farosot in darboni aql ast. Az in jihat uzvi har duyi in ba ham payvast ast. Agar munosibati hamin du chiz dar badani odam, makhsusan dar sari odam az gardan bolo vayron karda shaved, vay odam umri naghz namebinad, zindagii naghz namebinad. Tanho, tamomi mushkilotu dushvorihoi zindagiro odam bo vositai du chiz hal mekunad. Bo vositai aql, farosot. Ina baroi isbot kardan az guzashtagonamon Nushiravon . . . RAUF: Odili Nushiravon . . . AZIZ: Podshohi abad ud-dahr – hamta bo umaroyi khudash, bo vazoratu hamash ba sayohat sayqal kardastu . . . Yak guruh bachahoi Pasurkhee dar sari Sakirtma baroi peshvoz girtani poda, hamin ba hamdigar yakta mushaka kardenu hamin partofta khokbozi karda istoden. Podsho hamta omad. Rubaru hamta baromadu manʿ kard, “Isted,” guft. Podsho ki istodan hama istodan, saf kashidagi. Mebinan ki bachaho khok- boziyu sangboziyu – unja hamun murdori gavam hastu aralash, zasoden. Yaktesha mekhobonan az dasti vay kashida megiran, mushaka. Baʿd podsho dastasha baland mekunad bachoho saf mekashand, megud ki “Isted!” Baʿd az hamin dastash nigini tillo, gavhar kardagi, mobayni hamun maʿrakaba mepartod, Nushiravon. Ka “Ani – “megut – “gired! Ammo ba sohibash bargardoned!” Bachaho hamin gushi yakdigaresha mekashan, urra mekunan, mezanan, mebaran ba podsho, Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 337 hamun zurash burda meteyad-da. Mana hamta qomata baland mekunad [bo harakat sari sinaro pesh kashida, tarzi qomatro baland kardanro nishon medihad]. “Man zur,” megud, burda meteyad. Podsho megirad. Boz gashta meghaltad. Se marotiba niginro mepartod bachai zur az maʿraka meburod. [Podsho] into nigo mekunad ki dar tagi hamin devoli Nizom [INOYAT: Nizom Manqa – AZIZ: “Khudorahmati” guyed!] yak bacha hamta rost istodast, rango zardu ba in maʿraka hamroh nameshad. Ba in zado khurd nazdik namebiyod. Yak khudash tanho istodast. In dafʿa podsho megiradu hamin niginro ba nazdi hamun bacha havola mekunad, mepartoyad. Bacha nigina megirad, bo hamin panjohoyash pok mekunad, baʿd bo okhiri domanash hamun nigina pok mekunad, baʿd burda tamomi farosoti insoni kati burda, ba podsho taʿzim karda, bo dasti chapash taʿzim karda, bo dasti rostash, sara kham karda, ba podsho meteyad. Dar nazdi podsho rafta se bor tuof mekunad. Podsho meguyad ki “Shu-u-u-d”. Baʿd bacheho parokanda meshavand, podsho meguzarad merad, mukofot meteyad vayba, un bachahoba. Khay az aqib omsodagihoba mukofot nest, maʿlum yakum, duyum joyi seyuma girtagi. Baʿd ba vazirash urutar rafta megut ki, “Domullo, janobi vazir, dar hamin bacha,” megut, “Shumo yagon farhangro his karded-mi? Yagon farqiyatro shumo donisted- mi?” Megut ki “Man,” megut, “hij chiz nadonistam”. Megut ki “Raved, tahqiq kuned ki in pisara padarash ki? Modarash ki? Dar kadom muhit in bacha tarbiya meyobad? Shumo,” megut, “ba sahoyat nameraved, shumo,” megut, “az payi hamin kor meshed, mo raftim”. Merad, sayohata mekunad mebeyad. Avvalin savole ki dar qasr raftan pas, vazira jegh mezanad, megut ki “In ja be, masʾalaya hal kardima?” Vazir megut “Shahanshoh, hama masʾala hal shud”. “Ki budast vay, bacha?” Megut ki “Na padar dorad, na modar dorad, bazur zindagi mekunad, yak bibii pir dorad. [RUSTAM: Ana!] Digar yagon kas dar bisotash nest”. Megut ki “Bori duyum raved, hamun bibiash ki modari vay ast, rozi kuned. Dar pisar jasorat hast, dar pisar madaniyat hast, dar pisar farhang hast, dar pisar oyanda hast. Mo boyad in farzandro betaraf namonem. In loiqi qasr ast, in pisar. Modarasha rozi kuned, gired, biyoyed. Bo kadom roh naboshad boyad modarash, hamon modarshavandaash rozigi teyad”. Baʿd in hamun qoziyu muftiyu ulamohoi be khudash khos kati ba nazdi modari hamun meren, meguyen ki “Hukmi podsho hamin: In pisarro mo be darbor meba- rem, shumo rozi shaved”. Megut ki “Yak pisar ne, sad pisar sadqai posho ast. Pisar azoni posho”. Mebiyoran pisara. Qoziyu hamohoshon kaloni karda megun,“Mo pisar ovardem,” gufta. Vay [posho] megut, “Ne shumo kalon ne, raved shumo hukm navised,” qoziba. Muftiba megut ki “Fatvoyasha burored, in pisar az hamin ruz sar karda, ba darbori mo taalluq dorad! Modari vay yak umr az darbori mo, masalan, nafaqa megirad,” Nushiravon hamin khel hukm kardagi. Podsho tasdiq mekunad, meteyad, megut ki “Burda moned, az hamin ruz sar karda dahsola kharju kharojoti kampira ted”. 338 Mills and Rahmoni

Podsho, dar hayoti umrash, Nushiravon, yak pisar dosht. Zane dosht ki parichehra, zebotarin zani Osiyoi Khurd bud. Baʿd as Juraeva zanash . . . Inam yak pisar dorad. Baʿd podsho har duyashba yak muallim taʿin mekunad. Yak tarbiya taʿin mekunad. Mehru muhabbati podsho ba hamun farzandi sahoba nazar ba farzandi az khudash shudagi ziyod. Zan ina his mekunad megut ki “E podshoi olam, tu,” megut “dah pisar nadori-ku! Yak pisar, yak meroskhur dori, lekin,” megut . . . Shabi akun [muoshirat]. Ayni avji podsho mebeyad-de. Kamarbandi ezora mahkam karda meqapad zanaku: “Holi isto,” megut, “In savoli manba javob te! Tu,” megut, “Chiba,” megut, “vaya,” megut, “ziyod mebini az in pisari khudat?” Vay,” megut, “Yak savoba,” megut, “yak kampir tarbiya kardagi. Tu baroi chi,” megut, “pisari khudata,” megut, “eʿtibor nameteyi, vayba in qadar eʿtibor doda istodi,” megut. Baʿd megut ki “Avval,” megut, “kora shavem. Masalaya [jimoʿro] hal kunem. Baʿd,” megut, “in savoli tuba man javob meteyam”. Khay masalaya [jimoʿro] hal mekunad, megut ki “Medoni chi, man ba in pisar,” megut, “yak isteʿdodi khudododro mebinam. On chizero dar shaʾni in pisar mebinam ki dar shaʾni pisari khudam namebinam. Oyandai mulkamro,” megut, “dar nazari in pisar man dida istodaam”. “Aku, eee –,” megut, “naboshad, mo,” megut, “nomaqul karda gashta budem,” megut, “Tu,” megut, “yak pisari sahobaya ovarda in qadar martabai baland meteyi!” megut. Zan rashk mekunad. Baʿd [posho] megut, “Naboshad,” megut, “sabr kun, isto. Manu tu,” megut, “Ba in kor dakhl namekunem. Biyo,” megut, “khudat,” megut, “komissiya tashkil kun, baroi sanjishi oyandai hamin pisarho,” megut, “khudash maʿlum meshad”. Du kanizaki behtarinasha zani podsho intikhob mekunad. Podsho khazinabonro meguyad, “Kalidro ba dasti hamin du kanizak meteyi. Ana in khazinai man. Hamin du kanizaki bonu. Ana in du pisar,” megut, “az aqibi shumo. Yagon chiz nameguyed. Dari khazinaya mekushoyed. Har duyi ino,” megut, “omda dar nazdi manu modari hamin pisaram,” megut, “megun ki chi chiz hamino az khazina giriftan. Digar yagon gap namezanam. Shud-mi?” “Ha, shud”. “Rozi-mi?” “Rozi.” “Rohi safed”. Kanizako khazinaya mekushoyad. Kanizako har dusha khazinai poshoba dokhil mekunad. Megut ki “Chize ki khohed,” megut, “az hamin khazinai podsho gired,” megut. Tamom hamqata suporishi podsho bud hamina inro mekunan. Ba pisaro megun, “Raved, khazinaya kushoyed,” megut, “chize ki darkor boshad gired”. Pisari aslii podsho haft laʿl megirad, haft yoqut megirad, haft gavhar megirad, pisari aslii podsho. Sanduqoya kushoda, chinda, intikhob karda. Pisari sahoba yakum sham- sher megirad, duyum lajomi aspro megirad, seyum gurz megirad. Stroy (qatar, radif) mekunan, har dusha chizi girtagesha ba nazdi podsho bo vositai sudiyaho (dovaron) mebiyoran. Zanu podsho bolo shishten. Baʿd pisari khudashro imtihon mekunad, megut ki “Shumo, pisaram, az khazina chi girifted?” Megut ki “Haft laʿl giriftam”. “Khub, in laʿhoro baroi chi girifted, shumo?” Megut ki “Ba gardani kabutarom mendozamu par- voz mekunan, hama dar hayrat memonan”. “Uuu, bisyor naghz. Boz chi girifted?” “Haft yoqut giriftam”. “Chi mekuned?” “Be gardani haft sagam mebandam,” megut, “odamo Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 339 havas mekunan, az digar sagho farq mekunad”. “Khub, boz chi girifted?” “Haft gavhar giriftam”. “Ina chi mekunid?” “Ha, ina falon mekunam”. “Fahmidedmi, khonum?” [Az un pisar mepursad]. “Shumo shamsherro baroi chi girifted? Lajomro baroi chi girifted? Gurzro baroi chi girifted?” “Hamai inro baroi himoyai mulki shahanshoham giriftam. Shamsherro giriftam ki sari dushmanonashro buram. Lajomro giriftam ki ba asp muvofiq biyodu ba asp savor shavam. Nayzaro giriftam ki be jigari dushmanoni podsho zanam, mulki podshoro sihat salomat nigoh doram”. Megut ki “Shud, javob ba shumo”. Baʿd ba khonum meguyad ki “In kas baroi talavu toroj kardani mulki man kushish kardan. In kas baroi nigah doshtani sarhadi mulki manu baroi mulki man kushish kardand, ana,” megut, “az pisari aslem,” megut, “Dar simoi hamin odam,” megut, “hamin siyosata didam, [RUSTAM: Himoy, himoyagar] ana baroi hamin man pisarro dust doshtam, in pisar ba man darkor”. INOYAT: In kitob dorad. AZIZ: In dar kitob! Man az khudam naboftam, in hast. INOYAT: In az Nizomulmulk ast, az “Siyosatnoma” ast. RUSTAM: In dar Boysun shudagi ne-mi? AZIZ: In dar Boysun shudagi! [askiya, khanda] RUSTAM: Shumo az un joyho nom girifted. In kas (Istad) chand joya nom giriftand man fikr kardom ki da Boysun ast. AZIZ: Ne, “Siyosatnoma” . . . ba in nest. RAUF: Khulosa nisbati javonon bud. AZIZ: Baleee! In yak tarbiya. Ba hama yak shingil (pora, andake). Hamamon farzand dorem. ISTAD: Ina dar Varzob ham istifoda kuned meshad. [Shukhi ba Rustam]. RUSTAM: Hamejoba meshad. AZIZ: Hama nabera dorem, farzand dorem. Az in chiz yak shingil yak shingil guyed agar, in tamoman pand ast. Inba na Kurupiskaya darkor . . . ISTAD: Na Makarenko darkor . . . AZIZ: Na Makarenkoton darkor. Inba na yak se soat masalan, pedogogika khondanu psikhologiya khondan darkor. Khudi hamin ham pedagogika, ham psikhologiya. In chiza faqat, mayda karda yak shingilasha dar yak dars tahlil kuned agar, vay bacha to haminja [bo dast bo kalla ishorat mekunad, yaʿne ziyod pand megirad] bas meshad. INOYAT: Hoo! AZIZ: Inba yagoooon chiz lozim nest, mefahmad. Mana hamina man nim litr araq khurda guftam . . . INOYAT: Fahmidam! Nakhod araq nakhurdagiho namefahmad! [Askiya, khanda] AZIZ: Ana!! Pedagogikai mo! Pedagogikai mo chi qadar bud. Az zamoni Nushiravon in jonib mo bo kadom usul odamhoro tarbiya mekardem. INOYAT: Aku hamin . . . AZIZ: Ina vay hikoya nakard! In usuli tarbiyai hamun vaqt, hamin bud! 340 Mills and Rahmoni

INOYAT: Anushervon (= Nushiravon) bisyor chizo dorad. AZIZ: Bachai hamin eʿtiqodnokro ki didan, ba himoyai khud megiriftan. Mana hozira ne ki amakbachaashro ovarda monadu vay pustak boshad! (bemaghz boshad) RUSTAM: Hamun lahnati bachaya napursan, ochasha. [askiya, khanda]. Ne gapatun maʿqulu . . .

Appendix E

Cassette RR003 (A060–065), February 27, 2005

INOYAT: Rahmati Maʿrufkhuja Bahodurov meguftand, “Ruzhoi adabiyot va sanʿati Tojikistona baroi Maskav tayyor karda istodaand. Har ‘bose’ omada surud khonsodast ki mani, bacha ba khayr. Baʿd,” meguyad, “Aka-Sharif khond, Barno khond, mashuro hama khondanu aku navbati man rasid. Baʿd,” megut, “sahna buromadamu yak larza giriftamu . . . Barnomaya,” megut, “Lohutī qabul karda istodaast. Dar yak gusha shishtagi dar toriki,” meguyand. “Baʿd ghazali Qassoba

Zi gulshani rūyat gule nachida murdam, charo, Bas ki panjai Qassob khunin astu khunin astu khunin, hamin ghazala khondam ki az hamun gusha,” megut, “Lohutī, ‘Ahsan ba tu! Ahsan ba tu!’ guft. Vohima giriftama ki Lohutī barin odam ba man hamin khel baho dod. [Bo sadoyi bolandtar] Yak nafarbayam in gapa naguft! Baʿdi tamom shudan khijolat kashida istodamu, baʿd guftam ki ‘Miguyad ayb meshad ki hamin yak uzru maʿni nakunam, yak khoksori kardanam darkor,’ gufta baʿdi barnoma nazdi Lohutī omadamu,‘Ustod khudi ghazal ham buzurg bud-de,’ guftam,” megut. “Lohutī guft ki, ‘Pisar, man ham ba hamun ghazal, ahsani ahsani guftam.’,” megut. [Khanda]. Hamina dar romane ki navishtam istifoda kardam.

Appendix F

Cassette RR003 (A035–040), February 27, 2005

AZIZ [toast]: In maʿramaye ki mo tashkil kardem kharakteri insondusti dorad. Ba in khel ruzho ki hamai mo ba didori hamdigar musharraf meshavem, az vazʿi zindagoni, az rafti koru bor shinos meshavem, vaqto ki hamaamonro bo chehrai kushod bo sari baland mebinem, diamon hamon qadar mustahkam meshavad. Vaqte ki bo hamdigar mahsuhbat meshavem, eʿtiqodamon be guzashtagonamon va avlodamon, ba naslhoi Gashtak: Intertextuality, Performance AND Identity in Tajikistan 341 oyanda, az hayoti inruzai movu shumo ibrat girand taʾsiri jiddi merasonad. Chi khub guftaast 1400 sol pesh [aslan 1100 sol pesh – R.R.] Rudakii buzurg:

Hech shodī nest andar in jahon Bartar az didori rūyi dūston. Hech talkhī nest dar dil talkhtar, Kaz firoqi dūstoni purhunar.

Mo ana hamin baythoi bobokalonamonro dar har yak moh amalan isbot mekunem. Dar in jo doktorhoi ilm hastand, khubash on ast ki az unvon fakhr nakarda, on unvon tobeʿi shumo shaved, on unvon baroi khalqash, baroi obodonii vatanash, tarbiyai nasli navras shiori hamai on kasone boshad ki dar in joda saru kor dorand. Agar hamin tavr nashavad on ilm bebaqo, betaʾsir, bemanfiat memonad. Bisyor unvondorho guzashtand, barobari khudashon unvonhoshon ham az bain raftand, chunki onho unvonhoi tasodufi budand. Az havo omadu hamin khel raft. Said Jamoljon (sohibi khona) ba shumo burdboriho mekhoham . . . [Inoyat Nasriddin omad, shukhi, khanda, va idomai sukhani Aziz Rahimov]. Har nuqsu marize ki dar badani ahli nishasti haminjo hast, az parvardigori olam iltijo mekunem ki khudash in nuqsro ofaridast, ba in nuqs shifo bakhshad. Hamaaton dar sari farzandhoyaton, dar nazdi kheshu taborho hamesha sarbaland boshed. CHAPTER 14 The Tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ A Jewish Folktale from Afghanistan

Tsila Zan-Bar Tsur

The Background

The Jews of Afghanistan form a unique community with a rich cultural ecology. For many generations this community influenced its surroundings and was influenced by them, adopting rituals, folk beliefs, cosmological views and cultural codes anchored in ancient as well as modern religions and religious movements, such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Sufism. Among other things the cultural echoes can be revealed in the oral storytelling tradition of the community, through proverbs and folktales. The Jewish presence in Afghanistan dates back to antiquity, when the first settlements of Jews were erected along the Silk Road used by merchants travelling from West to China.1 Archeological finds, discovered in Tang-i Azao (Henning 1957) and in Fīrūzkūh,2 bear witness to the existence of the settlements. Jewish interaction with Iranian civilization began as early as the sixth century BCE, during the period of Cyrus the Great, to whom the return of the Babylonian Jewish Diaspora to their homeland and the permission for rebuild- ing the Temple was ascribed (Ezra 1:1–4). The connection between Judaism and Zoroastrianism was also fortified under the auspices of the subsequent Iranian dynasties, the Parthians and the Sasanians.3 North Afghanistan known as Bactria in antiquity was at one time part of the Achaemenian empire, until conquered by Alexander the Great. In Afghan lore, Bactria was the seat of Zoroaster, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion, who came to be called ‘the wise man from Bactria’ (Yehoshua-Raz 1992: 9). Another important historical region for our purpose is Khurāsān located to the

1 Shaked 1999. For information on the Silk Road routes in Central Asia, see, e.g., Dupree 1973: 296–311. 2 Fīrūzkūh, nowadays called Jām, is situated some fifty miles to the east of the city of Herat in Western Afghanistan. In the 50s of the twentieth century the remains of a Jewish graveyard were discovered there, dating from 1012 to 1249, i.e., some twenty-seven years following the Mongol invasion (see, e.g., Yehoshua-Raz 1992: 35–73). 3 On historical contacts between the Jews and the Zoroastrians, see, e.g., Shaked 2002.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_016 The Old Woman On The Mountain 343 west of the present-day Afghanistan, nowadays straddling Northeast Iran and Northwest Afghanistan on the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Afghan Jews were historically concentrated in cities of Khurāsān such as Marv and Balkh, with the majority settled in Herat. Census information from the beginning of the nineteenth century until 1950 reveals that the Jewish communities numbered no more than ten thousand people altogether. Following the foundation of the State of Israel, most members of the community immigrated to Israel in 1951. The last of the Afghan Jews immigrated to Israel and the United States as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.4 In this article I will examine the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain,’ as told by the Jews of Afghanistan.5 Through the character of the old woman as reflected in the narrative context of this folktale, I will explore a range of folklore elements as well as the import of the story for the Afghan Jewish community.

The Story

Yak-i bud, yak-i nabud, gheyr az khodā hich kas nabud.6

One was, one was not, there was nobody except for God.

In a place far away from here, in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan there dwelled a tribe whose members used to live to a ripe old age. As the tale goes, once there was a very old woman in this tribe. So old was she that even when her great grandchildren died of old age, she continued to live. Generations came and went, and the Angel of Death did not dare to take the old woman. Her old age caused her to shrivel up, ‘she became dry like a quince’ (mess-e beh khoshk shod). Her eyes were age-dimmed, her long white hair reached the ground and her voice screeched so that she frightened all those who approached her. The old woman would shout at her family with which she lived: ‘Bring me food! . . . What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you bring me food?! Khorāk-am

4 On the Jewish community in Afghanistan and its distribution, see Bezalel 1999. 5 This tale is a version of tale-type ‘Die Alte auf dem Dach’ Aa-Th 1479*. For its background from a folkloristic perspective, see Masing 1977. The tale, as it is presented and examined here, was told by the Herat-born Akiva Zan-Bar in Hebrew with occasional usage of Dari phrases, and translated into English by the author. 6 In the article I use a transliteration system minimizing diacritics and representing the spoken Dari, as reflected in the speech of my informants. 344 Zan-Bar Tsur kojā-s? [Where is my food?] Man mikhām āsh-e reshta [I want āsh-e reshta]. Ey khodā! [O, God!].’ Her family came together to discuss the fate of the old woman and after the meeting they decided that her fate will be like the fate of the old tribesmen that had lived thousands of years ago. ‘What was the fate of the tribe’s elders?’ – asked a young man, and an old man answered: ‘According to our ancient laws, a person who grew old was led high up to the mountain and was left there to become food for birds; afterward his old soul would rise to heaven’. The rest of the household members wholeheartedly accepted the ancient law of the tribe. They said: ‘Let’s get rid of the old woman and lead her up the mountain. After all, doesn’t her soul have the right to reach heaven?’ The family went to the old woman and told her: ‘Come, there is a wedding, would you like to join us?’ ‘Sure I want! Am I getting married today?’ – she asks. ‘Yes, you are getting married!’ ‘To whom?’ – she asks. ‘That is of no importance; what matters is that you are getting married today’. The old woman has no patience, she asks for her red silk dress, her lapis lazuli jewels, she requires that her hands and feet be painted with henna, now she really loses her patience and shouts at her family: ‘Bring me my husband! How long do I have to be without my husband, shame on you! Will you please bring me my husband? Shohar-am-o mikhām! [I want my husband!] Why doesn’t he come?’ – asks the old woman. ‘Because his legs hurt; come, we will take you!’ ‘Take me! Take me! But first clean my feet! Pluck my eyebrows, sprinkle me with perfume, burn espanj incense,7 bring me nabāt [sugar crystals]. Hurry now! . . .’. Reluctantly the family fulfills all her demands. They tie her to a wooden plank, lift her up on the camel and climb to the top of the mountain. They climb and climb until they reach the pinnacle of the mountain. They place a bowl of āsh-e kheyrat [charity stew], nān [bread] and a little water next to her. ‘Where is my husband?’ – shouts the old woman. ‘He will soon come!’ – they answer her. The members of her family light a fire and then quickly take off. She dozes off and says: ‘Ey vey . . such a bad husband’. She calls: ‘Shohar [husband], come, my husband!’ Suddenly an eagle arrives, its eyes shining in the sun as it comes closer. The old woman, however, sees two torches only dimly, she gets excited and sings: pānus āverdan, domod āverdan, bulbul band-bulbul band [‘They brought torches, they brought my bridegroom; let us rejoice and feast.’] The eagle comes closer and starts pecking at her. ‘Ho, God Almighty!’ – she calls: māch-et nabud, nāz-et nabud, dandān gorāz-et ke chi bud? [‘Kisses there

7 On this, see n. 20 below. The Old Woman On The Mountain 345 were none [from] you, caresses there were none [from] you; your boar-[like; i.e., biting] teeth, what were they for?’]. More eagles arrive and eat her flesh. After many years her descendants come, collect the bones that have been purified by the sun, and bury them in the earth of the Pamir Mountains.

Possible Ways of Interpretation

The tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ can be read and interpreted from several viewpoints: as a psycho-poetic tale, a socio-economic story or as a religious polemic. I will attempt to examine the story as a tale of subversion, whereas folklore elements would provide me with clues for decipher- ing the cultural and subversive codes of men’s behaviour towards women in the Jewish community of Afghanistan. I shall also focus on women in their postmenopausal phase, when they start functioning as ‘guardians of the newborns’ (becha-baghal-kon).8 I will closely examine the episode in which the old woman is led to the top of the mountain to meet her ‘groom,’ the eagle, tackling it from the following perspectives: the culinary perspective, namely the rites of sacrifice and nutrition; from the perspective of rites of passage, i.e., wedding and death rituals; and the cosmological perspective that comprises the earth-sky axis, the pure and impure space, the chronotopes of dakhma, a tower of silence, and of zir-zamin, a dark cellar. a The Culinary Perspective The cultural tradition of Afghan Jews included foods intended specifically for nutrition, for medication and for offerings. These foods were distinguishable by the way they were packed and served. Thus, when women went to ḥammām (‘a bathhouse’), where the impure demons were ordinarily believed to dwell,9 they used to bring a stew made of rice, dried fruits, carrot and lamb meat. The stew, called ‘woman’s stew’ (āsh-e zan), used to be carried in a pot, wrapped

8 Becha-baghal-kon literally means ‘the one who embraces the newborn’. In the interviews that I conducted with immigrants from Afghanistan in Israel, they interpreted the term to mean the ‘guardian of the newborn,’ a translation that I will henceforth adhere to. It was the duty of the becha-baghal-kon to examine newborns for signs of impurity and purity during the first forty days from their birth and then to decide which baby would live and which would be removed from the house to zir-zamin, to the cellar, and inevitably, to his or her death. 9 For demonic beings that are a common feature of the Islamic culture in Iran, and for their Jewish equivalents in Afghanistan, see respectively Donaldson 1938: 35–47 and Yehoshua-Raz 1992: 367–71; 411–13. 346 Zan-Bar Tsur in a tablecloth (sofra), and was meant to be eaten by women after bathing. Another kind of stew, called ‘the stew of the ones who are better than us’ (āsh-e az mā behtarān) – an euphemistic appellation for demons, – was brought in uncovered on a tray (khāncha) and was visible to all. It was placed near the entrance to the ḥammām as an offering to fiendish creatures. The stew (āsh) is a key symbol in the culture of Afghan Jews, for it defines distinct stages in the life-cycle of women.10 The ‘red stew’ (āsh-e sorkh) used to be cooked for young girls on the occasion of their first menstruation which was celebrated by all the female members of the family.11 After eating the ‘red stew’ the girls were acknowledged as women (zan) and from that moment a match could be made for them. The ‘white stew’ (āsh-e sefid) used to be cooked for women entering menopause and served at a ritual celebrated by the women of the community in the bathhouse.12 After having consumed the ‘white stew,’ the women were marked as ‘possessors of knowledge and experience’ and referred to as sar-gozasht. They were endowed with a senior function in the community, such as healer, pharmacist, midwife, guardian of the mother in childbed, guardian of the newborn, washer of the dead, storyteller, bathhouse attendant, servant in the synagogue, etc. A special kind of stew, called ‘the stew for the barren woman’ (āsh-e aghara; aghara coming from the Hebrew ʿaqara, ‘a barren woman’), was prepared for infertile women and contained medicinal herbs and ingredients perceived as magical to improve sexual potency.13 Yet another kind of stew was the ‘stew for the new mother’ (āsh-e zou), or the

10 A key symbol is a symbol that forms a fixed element in several different ritual appearances in a certain culture, while members of a same group attribute a different meaning to it in each of the appearances. See Ortner 1973. 11 The ‘red stew’ consists of red lentils, slices of beetroot, pomegranate juice and red spices. In the Afghan culture the red colour symbolizes sexuality, female beauty and magic protection. For the significance of red in Jewish folklore, see Teman 2008. 12 The ingredients of the ‘white stew’ are white rice, almond milk, rose water and nabāt sugar. The white colour in the culture of Afghanistan symbolizes both fortune and purity, and sorrow and impurity. On the one hand, a common blessing for girls prior to their marriage is sefid-bakht shi (lit., ‘[let you] turn into white-fortuned!’). On the other hand, at mourning rituals of both Afghan Jews and Muslims the shroud for the dead is made of white linen, the mourning clothes are white and the first food that the Jewish mourners eat upon their return from the funeral is a white cooked chicken egg. White, as well as red, are dominant colours in Afghan culture, being imbued with special meanings and present at every ceremony of a life-cycle. Cf. Turner 1977. 13 One of such ingredients is a circumcised foreskin of an eight-day old male baby. Jewish women in Afghanistan believed this medicament to have improved fertility and brought about the birth of male children. The vegetative ingredient of the āsh-e aghara is qors-e kamar (lit., ‘pill of the back’), comprising the seeds of Entada scandens (a sword bean The Old Woman On The Mountain 347

‘stew of forty days’ (āsh-e chehel), ‘forty’ referring to the period of ‘childbed,’ which was thought to be impure. During the forty days when the mother was confined to her bed, she had to eat the stew for replenishing her reproduc- tive organs.14 Two additional stews expressing the social relations in the community were the ‘charity stew’ (āsh-e kheyrat) for the poor of the community and the āsh-e reshta that symbolized the status of women and men within the community. Both stews are mentioned in the tale and I will refer to them in more detail below. The Afghans consider a stew to be a symbol of femininity, as the saying goes: ‘Women are like stew – warm and nutritious’ (zan mess-e āsh garm ve qovvat mide). Just as the stew warms and feeds the hungry, the woman is warm and nourishing (in the sense of giving strength – qovvat).15 In a sexual context, the husband ‘eats’ the flesh of his wife and thereby charges himself with virility. However, from a hierarchical point of view, the mother-in-law, the husband’s mother who is designated as ‘the one who became a man’ (mard shod), ‘nib- bles’ at the status of the bride, her son’s wife, charging herself with the power to command. The woman, like the stew, is warm, whereas the man is cold, as is expressed in the saying: ‘Women and men are like heat and cold’ (zan ve mard mess-e garm ve sard). The saying expresses two kinds of relationships, conforming to the following scheme:

woman a woman in her postmenopausal phase man ↕ ↕ warm hybridism cold a. a woman and a man = warm and cold: the comparison describes the relationship between men and women as a thermal relationship between warm and cold. The starting point on the thermal axis is the point at which the heat unit and the cold unit lose their thermal value. They meet on the axis while losing their thermal character. The question that arises in this connection is where the inter-sexual, inter-gender starting point is situated. In the life-cycle

tree climber) which look like flattened chestnuts and belong to the Mimosoideae family. These seeds serve as a component in all popular formulas for sexual potency. 14 The āsh-e zou consists of rice, greens, chicken meat and medicinal herbs and is slow- cooked for many hours. 15 The Afghans believe that food ‘gives strength’ from the points of view of nutrition, medicine, magic and religion. For concepts of food amongst the Pashtun tribes in Northeast Afghanistan, see Tapper and Tapper 1986. 348 Zan-Bar Tsur of women the starting point seems to be the postmenopausal phase, when a woman becomes ‘a man’ and gender-wise turns into a hybrid, i.e., genotypi- cally she is a woman, while phenotypically she is a man: she starts developing a moustache and a beard and wearing men’s clothes, and therefore takes over male functions in the community;16 b. woman = warm, man = cold (with a reservation regarding the sexual organs): woman man uterus testicles

warm & dry cold & moist

warm cold

The Afghan and Iranian Jews tended to attribute healthy influences to the foods they consumed, both on a nutritional plane and on a moral one. According to the theories of the famous physician and philosopher of the Islamic world Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna; d. 428/1037), different kinds of nutrients are sorted into different categories, conforming to the four humors of the body: blood (warm and moist), phlegm (cold and moist), red bile (warm and dry), and black bile (cold and dry). Although four causes are related to each humour – heat, cold, moisture and dryness, – they can actually be reduced to two causes: cold (sardi) and heat (garmi). Cold nutrients were thought to slow down the metabolism, while warm food was thought to accelerate it. A proper combination of cold and warm foods was perceived to create a balanced body temperature. The Afghan Jews were familiar with the above categorization: both men and women made use of food to balance their health, while women also subversively manipulated this knowledge against men. A woman was in general warm (except for the uterus which was cold and moist), whereas a man in general was cold (except for his testicles that were defined as warm and dry), as can be seen

16 Even though the laws of purity and impurity apply to both women and men, women are considered a weak link in society until they reach menopause. Thereafter they gain strength by presiding over ceremonies and by creating an exchange between the ‘permitted’ and the ‘forbidden,’ the ‘pure’ and the ‘impure’. According to Mary Douglas, the weak links in a society, those that are perceived to be lacking in power, are the ones to direct social events, or to take an active and leading part in rites of passage and in all transitional situations, between the ‘permitted’ and the ‘forbidden’ in the society they belong to (see Douglas 1970: 83–88). The Old Woman On The Mountain 349 from the following pairs of opposition, which express a double inter-sexual and inter-gender dichotomy:

woman = warm uterus = cold and moist man = cold testicles = warm and dry

The dietary methods of the Afghan Jews prescribed women to prepare food that would possess chilling metabolic values in order to calm their warm tem- per, while men should consume food with heating metabolic values to increase their vitality. Both sexes should eat food that produces heat in order to improve their sexual potency and fertility.17 The culinary systems of various ethnic groups in Afghanistan, including the Jews, is thus of primary importance. Different types of food possess both nutritious and transformational qualities. Women reveal their attitude towards their husbands and the male members of their families through food. The colours, textures, tastes and smells of food, as well as the way it is served, indicate women’s emotions: love, flirtatiousness, anger, disappointment, and sad- ness. Food functions to represent the relationship between men and women, between brides and mothers-in-law. In the course of the fertile phase of her life, the woman is responsible for the preparation of food in her pure days. In the tradition of the Afghan Jews menstruating women were removed from the living space of the house and the court, being considered asure (Heb., ʾasura), ‘forbidden to a touch’. They were prohibited to come in contact with either regular food or dishes and kitchenware; moreover, they had to eat from specially marked tableware in a separate section of the house and wear tattered clothes, or robes that they themselves had sewn. Seven days after their menstruation ended, they had to immerse themselves in a mikve (ritual bath) for the sake of physical and spiritual purification. In her fertile days, however, food – its types and the ways of its serving – could be used by a young woman to express her resistance against the hierarchy in her husband’s household. The culinary theme in the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ reflects different phases in the life-cycle of the Jewish women of Afghanistan, echoing certain culinary practices of Zoroastrian communities. In the story, the old woman asks her family to prepare her a dish of āsh-e reshta, thus expressing her wish for female solidarity. The āsh-e reshta in the Zoroastrian culture of

17 This contradiction is solved by the consumption of cold nutrients by women when they are menstruating, to chill their hot tempers, and by the consumption of warm foods during their period of purity (the two weeks between the ovulation and the first day of their period, when the sexual intercourse is allowed), to enhance their fertility. 350 Zan-Bar Tsur

Yazd is prepared by women together, in case the man of the house is doing well economically (Simmons 2002: 514–15). The women sit around the sofra – a white table cloth in the centre of which a copper tray is placed. Each woman sprinkles a handful of white flour on the tray that symbolizes the ritual of sefid- bakht shi, mentioned above. The eldest of the women prepares the dough, she kneads it, rolls it out, and shapes the noodles. Each woman then picks up one noodle, makes a wish and drops the noodle into the āsh-e reshta pot, that consists of pulse (beans), meat and vegetables (ibid.: 515). Besides the communities of Afghan Jews and the Zoroastrians of Yazd, a similar female ceremony has equivalents in the local cultures of Afghanistan and Iran.18 The āsh-e bibi morād, the ‘soup for the lady of wishes,’ is a ritual held by Muslim women in Afghanistan, who come together in a mosque to hold a ‘wishes’ ceremony, revolving around sacrificial soup. It is an integral part of the rites of passage in the life-cycle of Muslim women – the passage from the status of an unmarried woman to that of a married one (Mills 1985: 201–203).19 In the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain,’ the old woman receives an āsh-e kheyrati, a ‘charity meal,’ instead of the āsh-e reshta, that she wishes for, with all its implicit cultural connotations. The āsh-e kheyrati reflects a common culinary practice in Jewish, Zoroastrian and Muslim cultures, according to which the women prepare a rich and nourishing dish for the poor of the community. Among the Jews of Afghanistan the women used to bring their pots on Mondays and Thursdays to a corner of the synagogue’s courtyard so that the poor could take the food unobserved. In the Zoroastrian villages in Yazd area a large cauldron is placed on burning embers at the entrance to the

18 A similar version of a female fertility ceremony celebrated by the Jews of Iran is the sofre- ye eliyahu hanavi, in which a meal for the prophet Eliyahu is prepared. It is believed that the prophet is able to open a woman’s womb. The ceremony includes an ancient ritual in which the women set down bowls with white flour, white salt and white sugar. At the end of the ceremony priestesses come to see if the prophet Eliyahu left an imprint of his fingers on the offerings. If so, this is interpreted as a sign that the wish of the barren woman would be fulfilled. See Soroudi 2005: 219. 19 In addition to the above-mentioned usage, the Afghan Jewish women would prepare the āsh-e reshta dish for their fathers, sons and husbands before the latter were about to embark on a long journey. The āsh-e reshta symbolizes the hardships the men encounter on the roads, as well as the human capacity for solving problems. Just as the traveller picks with his fingers one noodle that is entangled with the rest of the noodles and slowly manages to untangle it and to feed himself, he would succeed in solving every problem he encounters on his way, and the feeling of nourishment and satiation will accompany him on his journey. In both āsh-e reshta rituals it is the old women that prepare the noodle dish and through it they communicate a sense of unity, strength and success. The Old Woman On The Mountain 351 village, and the poor of the village come every afternoon during all seasons. They all carry a bowl and a spoon and help themselves to a portion of the āsh-e kheyrati. This dish is prepared with the intention of giving it to the poor, thus alleviating their shame (Simmons 2002: 514). The culinary perspective of the story reflects the liminal position of the old woman. While she sees herself as a bride who is about to meet her bridegroom and expects to be given an āsh-e reshta, i.e., the stew that feeds women both on the physical, fertile level, and on the spiritual level (by fulfilling their heart’s wishes), her family actualizes her liminal state as an old woman on the edge of death, who is taken to the mountain in order that the flesh of her body be eaten by the birds of heaven. She is then offered one last charity meal – the stew that signifies her physical and spiritual poverty, for, according to the story, her body increasingly shrivels up (as a dried quince) and she is busy in making inappropriate demands to satisfy her earthly unspiritual desires. Although sending her to death, her family nevertheless takes consolation in the belief that her soul will ultimately reach paradise. Just as the stew symbolizes the emotional and social state of women, incense symbolizes the protection of women against the evil eye and demonic forces. The substance that mediates between life and death, between a powerless old woman and the group of virile men, between a human being and the bird of the sky, between the culture of plains and the wildness of the mountains, is espanj, the first aroma to appear in the story.20 The old woman asks her family to burn espanj incense before taking her to her bridegroom. Both the Jews and the Muslims of Afghanistan used to believe that the smoke of the incense warded off the evil eye and the ghouls. Espanj is mentioned in ancient medical treatises and was an important component in various medical formulas. It is used to purify the body and to improve fertility. Espanj incense is burnt at life-cycle rituals, such as initiation rites, births, weddings, and funerals.

20 Espanj (= esfand or sefand) is the seeds of the peganum harmala, or wild rue. The seeds of espanj were known among the tribes of Central Asia since antiquity. Two species of this plant are mentioned in ancient writings: the black species (black rue) and the white species (white rue). Espanj is sometimes identified with haoma, the sacred beverage used in Zoroastrian rituals (Omidsalar 1998: 584; cf. Taillieu 2003: 660). Nomadic tribes in Afghanistan used the seeds to heal infertile women, to alleviate period pains and head- aches, and served them as a potion to women in childbed and as a diuretic. The seeds were also a component in medicines against various diseases. Nowadays, the internal use of the seeds is no longer made; however the seeds are known to be still used as an incense against the evil eye and the influence of demonic beings, and as an amulet kept in the pouches of children, ill people and pregnant women. For further properties of espanj, see Donaldson 1938: 20–23; 146. 352 Zan-Bar Tsur

Amongst the Jews of Afghanistan, the old woman who functions as the ‘guardian of the newborns’ burns espanj incense for a period of forty days so that demonic beings would not enter the baby’s body and blemish it.21 The Old Woman on the Mountain asks to burn the incense because she thinks she is about to get married, while actually she is on her way to her death. In the story, espanj underlines the liminality of the old woman’s life. The smoke of espanj that defines an unresolved conflict, can be taken as the first expression of subversion on the part of the storytellers regarding the tale. The storytellers who are the male members of the community, portrait the character of the ‘guardian of the newborn’ by means of the old woman in the story as a tyrannical character who tries to impose her own order on their society. Indeed, the ‘guardian of the newborn’ determines a social order by examining the newborns: the pure ones will become part of the society, whereas the impure ones will be excluded from it. Likewise, the Old Woman on the Mountain seeks to upset the existing social order and urges her family to find her a husband, but her society is based on the idea that marriage is meant for the young and the fertile. In their menopausal phase Afghan women, whether Jewish or Muslim, did not get married, not even as second or third wives to older men. This would contradict the values of ‘honour’.22 An old woman and a widow in an Afghan society lives under one roof with her son or her son-in-law, and it is considered inappropriate for her family to ‘give’ her in marriage to another man. Furthermore, the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ depicts the old woman as a withered quince, thus reflecting the symbolic function of fruits and vegetables representing different biological stages in the life-cycle of men and women in the tradition of the Afghan Jews. The carrot (zardak) is a symbol of the phallus, whereas the turnip (shalgham) suggests the female genitalia. A purple carrot represents the sexual organ of a young man, while a yellow carrot stands for the sexual organ of an old man. Raw turnips indicate the sexual organ of an unmarried woman, while cooked turnips symbolize

21 During the forty days following the birth, two women functioned as guardians. One was the ‘guardian of the new mother’ (zou-jān-kon), while the other was the ‘guardian of the newborn’ (becha-baghal-kon). The one that guarded the mother washed her with warm, wet towels, massaged her womb, fed her healing and strengthening dishes, lightened the ‘mother’s candle’ (cherāgh-e zou) and burnt espanj incense during the first seven days following the birth. The ‘guardian of the newborn’ rocked the baby’s cradle and protected it against demonic beings by burning espanj incense and by making magic offerings. 22 For different aspects of the triangle ‘woman – honour – love’ among the Pashtun women in Eastern Afghanistan, see Boesen 1980. The Old Woman On The Mountain 353 the organ of a married woman who, according to the Jewish religion, should have sexual intercourse. Peaches (shaftālu) imply the genitalia of whores, while the quince (beh) symbolizes the charm of a fertile woman. It is in this context that the Jews of Afghanistan use the proverb in zeneke khoshk shod; mess-e beh pir shod (‘This woman dried up; she aged like a quince’). The expression khoshk shodan (‘to dry up’), similarly to the expression mard shodan (‘to become a man’), mentioned above, indicates a woman in the menopausal phase. She is seen – by women – as someone who has turned into a man and who possesses a kind of hybrid gender identity that encompasses both female and male characteristics. According to the male perception, a woman who has reached the menopause dries up; her body dries up in the absence of the red menstruation liquid, as does her fertility. The expression ‘a dry woman’ also refers to a barren woman, as well as to a woman that lacks charisma. Thus, through the culinary perspective we discover elements that define the liminal state of the Old Woman on the Mountain, such as folk dishes, espanj incense, and the quince. Whereas the Old Woman considers her liminal state to be pre-marital, her family views it as a pre-death one. In the story the liminality of the Old Woman is manipulated. A subversive reading of the story reveals that the family challenges the manipulations of the ‘guardian of the newborn,’ in relation to the liminality between life and death. Her post-menopausal state does allow her to fulfill public functions, however it does not allow her to decide which newborn would stay alive and which would be taken to the cellar. The ‘guardian of the newborn’ is sentenced to become a dried quince; her charisma and gift of prophecy must be taken from her. b The Ritual Perspective: Marriage and Death The rituals of marriage and death are essentially transformational ceremonies in the life-cycle of the Jews of Afghanistan. According to Arnold van Gennep, rites of passage include three phases indicating the limits of the identity and conscience of the subject of the ritual and of its participants: separation, transition, and re-incorporation (van Gennep 1975: 11). In the wedding and death ceremonies of the Afghan Jews the female body was the focal point of purifying and beautifying rituals, the bride (arus) meaning both bride and doll (cf. Mohammed 1969: 42–43). Women appointed to the task of preparing the bride were divided into two teams. One team, led by ‘the washer of the bride’ (arus-shur), washed her hair with perfumed resin (katira) and rubbed her body with cosmetic oils (lakhlakha). The second team, led by the ‘pluckers of threads’ (nakh-konān) and the haircomber (mashāda), removed the hairs of her body and her facial hair to lighten her face, which caused the bride to look like a doll. They also adorned her forehead with shiny 354 Zan-Bar Tsur discs and hung amulets on her for protection and beauty. After having been washed, the bride was dressed in a green gown and red pants. A veil (pulaki) embroidered with the stars of David, with the images of hands, birds, and the tree of life was placed on her head (cf. Barʿam-Ben Yossef 1997: 61–66). As for the death ritual, the body of a dead woman is called morda (‘a corpse’). The expression also signifies physical and mental exhaustion. A woman appointed to the task of preparing the dead for burial, ‘the washer of the dead’ (morda-shur), would first sprinkle salt crystals on the washing sheet (khesht; lit., ‘brick’), then wash the hair of the dead with perfumed resin (katira) and her body with ‘clove water’ (āb-e mikhak). Finally she would rub it with cosmetic oils (lakhlakha). The dead woman’s hair was braided, and she was dressed in a shroud of white linen (kefan) in which bundles of myrtle (murd) were inserted and on which rose water (āb-e golāb) was sprinkled. The shrouded body was then covered with a ritual cloth, embroidered with the stars of David, birds, and the tree of life. The liminal phase of the woman, both during the wedding preparation and the ritual in which she was prepared for the funeral, was therefore characterized by a set of similar symbols emphasizing her lack of identity, whether she was a bride who no longer held the status of an unmarried woman (but would not attain the status of a married woman until she was wed to her husband and had received his name), or whether she was a corpse during the mourning period, the period between the announcement of her death and her burial.23 The analogy between the preparation of the woman’s body during wedding rites and its preparation during death rites can be seen from the following table:

23 The liminal phase is the focal point of Victor Turner’s research based on Arnold van Gennep’s model (see Turner 2008: 94–96). This phase is potentially destructive to the existing social order because it is characterized by the lack of status or identity of the subject of the ritual. In order to impose order on the existing space, the liminal phase should be dominated by authority, order and organisation. It is not surprising, therefore, that the liminal phase of the rituals of marriage and death (as well as birth) in the life- cycle of Afghan women contains similar elements. These define the space and the liminal significance, at the same time specifying clear limits of the wedding or death ritual. The Old Woman On The Mountain 355

Kinds of Ceremonial Wedding Rites Funeral Rites Preparation

The ceremonial space In summer: the courtyard In summer: a washing tent erected and its purification in the courtyard In winter: the central sitting In winter: bālā-manzar, a room on room in the house the top floor of the house The space is purified by means of The space is purified by means of espanj seeds. Only women are espanj seeds. Only women are present in the ceremonial space. present in the ceremonial space. Women who prepare nakh-kon (a plucker of threads) morda-shur (a corpse-washer) the woman for the mashāda (a comber) ceremony Bathing accessories āb-e golāb (rose water), katira (melted āb-e golāb (rose water), katira (melted and cosmetics tree resin), lakhlakha (cosmetic oils, tree resin), lakhlakha (cosmetic oils), cooked with resin, almond oil, and murd (myrtle), namak (salt crystals), jasmin), murd (myrtle) āb-e mikhak (clove water) Hair-do The comber combs the bride’s The corpse-washer combs the hair locks and braids them into thin of the deceased and braids it into tresses. one or two braids. Clothes, cover and A green gown and red pants; A shroud of white linen and a ritual symbols a veil embroidered with the stars curtain, embroidered with the stars of David, with the images of of David, birds, and the tree of life hands and birds; the tree of life is placed on the head of the bride Marking of the hand Colouring the hands and feet Colouring the hands and feet with palms with red henna24 yellow saffron Ceremonial chanting Wedding songs sung by female Lamentations sung by lamenters members of the family Ceremonial A procession of men and women A procession of men only; they procession that leads the bride from her mourn and bear the deceased on a house to her husband’s house stretcher to the graveyard. Registration of the Writing the woman’s name in the Rarely and depending on the status woman Ketuba (marriage contract) and of the deceased woman, her name the registration of the Hebrew and date of death were engraved on date of the ceremony her tombstone.

24 In Afghanistan red henna symbolizes the bride’s fertility. Afghan brides used to paint their hands and feet during a henna ceremony that was celebrated the day before the wedding. A red mark on the 356 Zan-Bar Tsur MAY DAYA FNT. 24 Judging by the data presented in the table, it becomes apparent that the preparation of women for wedding and burial ceremonies was similar from ritual and symbolic perspectives. Such similarities can also be found in birth and death rituals of the Jews of Afghanistan. In the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ this similarity constitutes a basic element of the story: when the Old Woman prepares herself for a wedding ceremony, she wants her hands and feet to be painted with henna, but is taken by her family to her burial ceremony instead. In the story, the old ‘bride’ waits for her groom. However, instead of a groom, an eagle arrives. The eagle possesses important symbolic characteristics in Jewish, Zoroas trian and Muslim cultures, which became reflected in the tale. In the Jewish culture, the eagle signifies the divine and mystical power of the Universe: in the Book of Ezekiel (1:10), the eagle is one of the four beings surrounding the chariot symbolizing mysticism and electedness.25 The Zoroastrian tradition tells about the saēna bird which is the Sunbird that perches on the top of the gaokarena, the prototype of all the seeds in the Universe and, in fact, the Tree of Life. This tree has been identified with the haoma plant that produces the nectar of the gods – a beverage that is also known to stimulate fertility and longevity (Cammann 1957: 7–10). In Iranian art the bird is depicted as an eagle, or a vulture, that symbolizes royalty, and in Iranian ancient myths as a rooster signifying the connection to the sun by announcing the sunrise. The bird motif is related to various coronation ceremonies, as well as to the decoration of royal accessories, such as crowns, scepters and canopies. These were embellished with pictures of eagles or doves. Archeological finds, such as coins, depict the Sasanian ruler Hormizd II (r. 303–309), wearing a royal crown enhanced with the picture of an eagle that holds a pearl in its beak (Nariman 2002: 125, fig. 17). The saēna is the prototype of the fabulous Simorgh, that stands for constant renewal, for death and rebirth (Cammann 1957: 7; de Blois 1997). Cammann (1957: 18) also makes mention of the talismanic value of the bird: when Pashtuni women in Afghanistan get married, they tattoo a picture of the bird on their foreheads to mark their status as married women.26 At the same time, Jewish women who are forbidden to tattoo their skin, wear a decoration on their

palms indicates fertility and is a symbol of life, as opposed to the yellow mark, derived from saffron, on the hand of a woman mourning her mother, her sister, or her daughter (see Yehoshua-Raz 1992: 408–409). 25 Ezekiel 17:1–3 relates the fable of the eagle, that according to the Midrash symbolizes the cruelty of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. 26 However, see also Dupree 1973: 246 [ed.] The Old Woman On The Mountain 357 forehead that is called tite and denotes their fertile body (Barʿam-Ben Yosef 1997: 114, n. 16). Images of the bird also adorn the bride’s and groom’s outfits, as well as the ritual utensils in the synagogue.27 Alfred Janata (1981: 33–37) mentions that the jewelry and talismans from various tribes in Afghanistan are decorated with the pictures of Simorgh, which embodies dichotomous views related to good versus evil, creation versus destruction, and life versus death. Nomad tribal people in Afghanistan attribute healing powers, fertility of the womb, good fortune and a mystical understanding of the universe to Simorgh.28 In the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ the shining eyes of the eagle seem like torches to the Old Woman. In both the Jewish and Muslim cultures of Afghanistan torches and lights mark the coming of the groom to the bride’s house in order to take her to his house for the wedding ceremony, thus symbolizing joy and happiness (Yehoshua-Raz 1992: 414–17; Bezalel 2009: 95–96). The groom marks the bride by tearing up her virginity, whereas the eagle marks the Old Woman by tearing her flesh. Afghan women use the expression shohar bokhor (‘eat [your] husband’), meaning to have sexual intercourse with him. In the story the groom-eagle eats the flesh of the Old Woman, thus establishing intimacy with her. The physical contact between the Old Woman and the eagle is reminiscent of the first sexual contact between the groom and the bride and parallels the widespread belief that sexual intercourse contains elements of impurity and death. The subversive reading of the story presents the fate of the Old Woman as parallel to the fate of the ‘guardian of the newborn’. According to one of my informants, Daniel, who immigrated to Israel in the fifties and who witnessed the taking of a baby from the courtyard where he lived to the cellar:

As much as my heart shrinks when I think of it, I understand that this custom was not done out of wickedness. It was a very primitive period. There were no medical doctors. With every problem that occurred they said it were ghosts, the evil eye, and all kinds of superstitions of the old women. But keep in mind that all those who placed their babies in the zir-zamin to die, are awaited by their punishment up there.

27 Barʿam-Ben Yosef 1997: 105–109; cf. Hanegbi and Yaniv 1991: 171, no. 72; 172, no. 73; 173, no. 74. 28 Janata (1981: 34–35) also refers to the Ṭūṭī-nāma (‘The Book of the Parrot’), a collection of stories from Iran from the eight/fourteenth century, that tells about a seven-coloured bird nesting on the wishing tree and shedding gemstones from its feathers. Barren women believing that spotting the bird would make them fertile, used to visit the wishing tree. 358 Zan-Bar Tsur

Daniel’s story reveals a tradition of reward and punishment, one in which the ‘guardian of the newborn’ will meet her punishment in heaven, even if she did not sin willfully. c The Cosmological Perspective In the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ the Old Woman asks to be dressed in a red silk dress, to wear jewelry and to perfume herself like a young bride before her wedding. The first indication that the Old Woman is however taken to her death ceremony is expressed in the fact that she is tied to a stretcher. She is actually being sacrificed alive and is taken – both in a metaphorical and in a real sense – to her funeral. She is carried to the top of the mountain, where she meets her ‘groom,’ the eagle that will eat her flesh. The motif of the eagle eating the flesh of the Old Woman who looks to him like a dead body from high up, is reminiscent of a Zoroastrian burial ceremony, according to which the dead are not buried in the ground, burnt or thrown into a river, due to the impurity of the human corpse. The deceased is taken to a roof structure called dakhma and the birds come to eat the dead meat. The bones of the dead are purified by the sun during half a year, after which it is permitted to bury them in the ground.29 Similarly, in the story the descendants of the Old Woman return after many years to collect the bones, purified by the sun, and bury them. Contrary to the described in the tale, in the Jewish funeral culture of Afghanistan the deceased was placed in a tent erected in the courtyard of her home; the morda-shur would wash her and dress her in a shroud (kefan). She was then taken to the Jewish graveyard outside the city. The tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ brings up two cultural contexts: the one is of the tower of silence, the other is of the cellar of the house. Dakhma, a flat-roofed cylinder-shaped tower, rises up from the earth into the sky, to the kingdom of the birds of heaven. The upper part of the world is where the dead dwell until their purified bones are buried in the earth. By contrast, zir-zamin, built as a polygonal room, is a basement, a dark and chilly place; it existed in every courtyard in Afghanistan and mainly cheeses and wines were kept there. The cellar was also the place to which the babies that were thought to have been contaminated by ghosts, were sent. When a baby was found to be impure, the ‘guardian of the newborns’ took it from its mother and placed it in a sabad, a bell-shaped basket, that was used in ordinary times as a chicken coop. She then placed the basket with the baby in the zir-zamin. One of the maidens who lived in the courtyard and did not yet menstruate was given the task of feeding the baby some sugared water every couple of hours.

29 Kotwal and Mistree 2002: 355–65. For additional details on the rites of corpse disposal in Zoroastrianism, including the role of dakhma, see Boyce 1993; Wadia 2002. [ed.] The Old Woman On The Mountain 359

Just as the birds of pray eat the flesh of the deceased on the dakhmas, the impure ghosts eat the flesh and the life of the babies in the zir-zamin. The Afghan Jews believe that the axis mundi, the centre of the world for the creation of the impure ghosts, is situated in Balkh,30 and therefore one must be constantly on guard against the harm that those ghosts are liable to cause. From a cosmological viewpoint, the distinction is made in the story between the earthly realm, i.e., the living space of the Old Woman, where she lived for the whole of her life, and the upper realm, i.e., the top of the mountain, where the Woman’s life comes to an end in one moment. The living space of the Jews of Herat includes the house and the courtyard and is supposed to function as a potential space for raising babies, as long as they are pure. The moment a baby is found to be contaminated by ghosts, it is taken to the basement, to the lower realm, where death and impurity dwell and where the contaminated baby will usually not survive.

Conclusion

Having examined the tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ from the culinary, ritual, and cosmological perspectives, I came up with a number of binary categories, to which multiple meanings are attached in Jewish and Zoroastrian cultures: death – life (marg – zendegi), groom – bride (dāmād – arus), tower-of-silence – cellar (dakhma – zir-zamin), pure – impure (pāk – nāpāk), young – old ( javān – pir), fertile – barren (zan-e bārvar – zan-e aqim). At the same time, I have attempted to show that the tale brings forth the subversive perceptions of Jewish men in Afghanistan regarding female customs in general and the role of the ‘guardian of the newborn’ in particular. As one of my informants remarked:

Look, I was raised to respect the elderly, I myself am an old man today, but I want to tell you that looking back I would throw that old woman out, for she took my baby brother because she said he was shab-kheyri, can you believe it? A baby with ghosts? How did they allow such cruelty? How could my mother agree? The more I think about it, the less I understand it!

30 According to the following informants: (1) Tsiyon Raz, born in 1932 in Herat; the information was delivered in the interview dated July 6, 2005; (2) Daniel Zamburi, born in 1939 in Herat; the information was delivered in the interview dated January 2, 1998. Cf. also Mishael 1980: 58. 360 Zan-Bar Tsur

An increasing number of Jewish men from Afghanistan urge me to investigate the custom of the removal of ghosts accepted within the community of the Jews of Herat, when the contaminated babies were removed from the house to the cellar. At the same time, the leaders of the community warn me not to slander the group. In between those two, there are women who witnessed the practice and remained silent. They do not want me to record their painful stories. Most of the babies were male and only few survived. The babies that did make it were the ones that were examined close to the date of circumcision, which is considered a purifying ceremony, and following which the baby could be re-introduced into the society to form an integral part of it. Alternatively, some babies were saved by their mothers or other women who thus risked to be called impure and consequently excommunicated.31 The tale of ‘The Old Woman on the Mountain’ is a cultural narrative containing hidden meanings that can be unravelled in the narrative context of the story. It tells the story of an ancient Jewish community that created a unique cultural ecology and encoded its values and perceptions in oral tales and ceremonial practices.

Bibliography

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31 I have in my possession recordings of women who saved babies, banished to the cellar. These were usually married, breastfeeding women who opposed the tradition. When I confront male members of the community with this information, they confirm that some babies were saved, however not due to any female intervention but thanks to the guiding hand of men. Such an attitude of men and women to the exclusion of babies demands further investigation in the light of the statement made by a man: ‘This is a great disgrace being a father to a son who is contaminated by ghosts’. The Old Woman On The Mountain 361

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CHAPTER 15 Aramaic Incantation Texts between Orality and Textuality

Charles G. Häberl

The subject of this paper is a corpus of texts composed within a relatively narrow timeframe, during the late Sasanian and early Islamic period. These texts were inscribed upon terracotta bowls and buried in courtyards and under thresholds. Thus far, most attempts to interpret these texts have been narrowly philological, and the primary focus of these attempts has been their relationship to other written texts, particularly those from the canons of religious literature. The philological approach has yielded impressive results towards the interpretation of these texts, but much about them still remains a mystery. In this paper, I discuss a common feature of this genre – namely, the illocutionary act – in order to illustrate its fundamentally performative nature. I submit that our interpretation of these texts can be much refined by approaching them not only as written texts, but also as transcriptions of ritual utterances, and therefore the actual speech of the magician. While the inscriptions on the bowls were obviously the final product of the ritual, and the texts are clearly products of the literate cultures of late antique Mesopotamia, they nonetheless bear all of the hallmarks of oral composition. As such, no treatment of these texts can be considered comprehensive unless it attempts to address issues of their composition, transmission, and reception.

Introduction

For over sixteen decades, ever since Austen Henry Layard began discover- ing Aramaic incantation texts inscribed upon terracotta bowls during the course of his excavations1 and convinced the British Museum to acquire a collection of them, scholars have examined these texts in the hope of answering the age-old question: ‘What possessed these people to do something like this?’

1 Layard 1853. The bowls (sometimes designated ‘Ellis 1–7’ after Layard’s consultant Thomas Ellis) are discussed on pp. 509–26.

Written upon unglazed plain-ware bowls drawn from the repertoire of ordinary Sasanian household pottery, the texts seem to betray our high expectations of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the birthplace of literacy. The handwriting of their authors is almost always sloppy to the point of illeg- ibility, their language variously characterized as ‘corrupt,’ ‘debased,’ or ‘full of mistakes,’ and their content often described as ‘formulaic,’ ‘repetitive and stilted.’2 Henri Pognon, who published the first corpus of Mandaic incantation texts in 1898, warned his readers:

Not all of the Mandaic inscriptions of Khouabir are interesting: they are filled with mistakes and inaccuracies, and some, composed of scraps of sentences borrowed from different formulas and written by ignorant scribes, do not, so to speak, make any sense. Others contain so many mistakes that they would be nearly untranslatable if the formulae which are read in them were not found written more correctly in other inscriptions (Pognon 1898: 15).3

Furthermore, many of them (perhaps as many as one in five) appear at first glance to have been ‘written’ by complete illiterates, consisting of a series of repeated squiggles, dots, and lines not resembling any known alphabet – not even Pahlavi.4 Pognon was of the opinion that these were created by ‘charlatans’ in imitation of legitimate scribes in the hopes of duping the predominantly unlettered and therefore presumably gullible public.5 It was for these reasons (among others) that Rudolf Macuch and Ethel Drower refused to dignify the Mandaic texts among them by incorporating their contents into their dictionary of Mandaic, except where they ‘grudgingly

2 Segal 2000: 29. Bowls from this volume are henceforth designated as ‘Segal 001A–075A’ and ‘Segal 076M–116M.’ 3 The translations, if not stated otherwise, are mine. Bowls from this volume are henceforth designated as ‘Pognon 1898 1–31.’ 4 Twenty-two out of the 120 in the collections of the British Museum. Erica C.D. Hunter esti- mates that these ‘pseudoscript’ bowls comprise some 20% of the known corpus of incantation bowls (personal communication, December 2, 2008). 5 Pognon 1898: 15. Pognon’s explanation for the pseudo-script bowls was adopted by those who followed him; see, for example, Montgomery 1913: 27–28: ‘. . . but many were written by careless scribes, and many by illiterate ones, probably often by laymen, who affected to write their own prescriptions,’ and Rossell 1953: 13, n. 1: ‘Few of the clients for which the bowls were inscribed could read. The many “fakes” unearthed show that this fact was made use of by some unscrupulous “scribes”.’ To my knowledge, this explanation has never been seriously challenged. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 367 quoted examples worth an entry or a reference and have omitted much that is doubtful or obviously corrupt’ (Drower and Macuch 1963: vi). In the introduction to his Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic, Macuch expressed his opinion as follows:

Magic bowls and rolls usually contain a mass of hardly decipherable or completely incomprehensible nonsense. They were written against the demons who were supposed to understand their magic language. Their defective and often careless writing makes their reading difficult and their interpretation doubtful. The picture of the language they give us is very incomplete (Macuch 1965: lix).

Macuch’s explanation, that language of the bowls was a kind of glossolalia intended for demons and not humans, is certainly original, and there is some evidence that incomprehensible phrases (voces magicae) were a component of the incantation ritual. This explanation has not been followed by any other scholars for the obvious reason that most of the bowl texts are composed in comprehensible, if non-standard, forms of Aramaic, and that it is not necessarily the language in which they were composed but rather the circumstances of their composition and preservation which have rendered them difficult to read. Most scholars who have examined the language of these texts have done so explicitly in comparison with the standardized, written forms of Aramaic used by the communities who created them, occasionally allowing some degree of latitude for the ‘vernacular’ nature of the texts.6 The comparison is almost always to the detriment of the incantation texts, as indicated by words such as ‘mistaken,’ ‘inaccurate,’ ‘corrupt’ and ‘defective,’ which were frequently deployed by these scholars.7 Pognon and Macuch, among other scholars of the bowl texts, have also oper- ated under the assumption that the primary focus of the incantation ritual was the writing of the text, which has often given them occasion to deplore the careless, sloppy, inconsistent, and otherwise lamentable state of this writing. It cannot be said that most scholars of the incantation texts have attempted to examine the texts and the language in which they are composed in their own

6 See, e.g., Segal 2000. J.B. Segal remarks: ‘The incantation texts are written in popular language. We should not, then, expect them to conform to the standard norms of grammar’ (ibid.: 30). 7 In addition to the scholars and works mentioned above, see also Yamauchi 2005: 72: ‘Few of the magician’s clients are literate enough to criticize what the magician has written for them [. . .]. Therefore, it should not surprise us to meet numerous errors in our texts.’ Yamauchi does acknowledge that ‘some of the variations are probably dialectal forms’ (ibid.: 73). 368 Häberl right and according to their own merits. It is undeniable that these texts are formulaic and repetitive; far from reducing their value as sources for study of the region, its languages and literatures, however, this observation provides the key to understanding these texts and refining their interpretation.

The Praxis of the Incantation Ritual

To what extent is the ritual that produced these texts reflected within the texts themselves? We know virtually nothing about the praxis, and the texts only rarely offer clues.8 These clues do suggest that the act of writing the text, described as taking place while seated upon a stone, was an integral part of the ritual; the action is usually described with the imperfect (Example 1 below), suggesting that the writing occurred during the course of the ritual, but the action is occasionally rendered by the perfect as well (Example 2 below):

1. ʾetteḇ w-ʾeḵtoḇennen ʾel-kāsā haḏṯā I sit and write them [i.e., all the curses] upon a new bowl . . .9 2. yaṯḇiṯ u-ḵṯaḇtennen [. . .] ʾel-kāsā haḏṯā I sat and wrote them [. . .] upon a new bowl . . .10

‘By the ban of Buḡdānā,’11 an incantation which is uniquely attested both in the bowls written in the square Aramaic script and those written in the Mandaic script, includes the expression ‘I have written (or perhaps prescribed) this against you . . .’ (Aramaic: hā kəṯaḇiṯ liḵ; Mandaic: hāzen kəṯaḇteleḵ),12 referring explicitly to the text of the incantation that was still in the process of being written. Furthermore, in addition to this quite literal reference to writing, the text also makes a figurative reference to the writing of a deed of divorce (Aramaic geṭ) as a metaphor for banishing the liliths that are plaguing the client. This particular incantation text demonstrates the centrality of writing to

8 These clues are confined largely to the corpus of bowls in the Mandaic script, as the bowls in other scripts are generally mute about praxis (Erica C.D. Hunter, personal communication, 2 December 2008). 9 Found in eight bowls: Pognon 1898 18, Texts I–III in Lidzbarski 1902, and Segal 094–097M. 10 Found in three bowls: Pognon 1898 15 and 24, and Text M in Gordon 1937: 95–100. 11 ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā’ (ʿal-ʾissur Buḡdānā) is the first line of the incantation proper, appearing either at the very beginning of the text or following a short introductory formula. 12 These two phrases are taken from Montgomery 1913, 11, and Louvre AO 2629, a.k.a. Lidzbarski 1902 V, respectively. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 369 the incantation ritual to a greater degree than any other attested in the corpus, identifying it as the product of an environment steeped in literacy. Intriguingly, two texts indicate that the object of the incantation was ‘thoroughly bound, sealed, tied, and charmed with whispers’ (ʾăsure ʾăsirin wa-ḥṯume ḥăṯimin wi-qṭure qiṭrin u-lḥuše ləḥišin),13 and a single text appears to include the instructions ‘you murmur and you whisper’ (tirtəʿim wə-lāḥəšittum).14 Thus, in addition to the written component of the ritual, there was also likely an oral component. This is not at all unexpected; in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, the verb describing the act of reading is not distinguished from that of reciting a text aloud, suggesting that those who composed these texts, like others the world around, spoke their compositions aloud while reading them. How, then, were these texts transmitted from magician to magician?15 Were they primarily compositions in writing that happened to be recited, or primarily oral compositions that happened to be written down? The evidence, I contend, overwhelmingly suggests the latter.

The Transmission of the Incantation Text

It is worth noting that the belief in the magical power of words, and particularly names, is near universal across preliterate cultures. But what, exactly, is intended by the term ‘magic’? Since Frazer, it has been customary to speak of ‘magic’ in opposition to other abstract concepts such as ‘religion’ and ‘science’. As the classical and ancient Near Eastern sources attest to a distinction between what we might deem magical practices and religious ones, this approach has enjoyed a certain degree of legitimacy, even if it has been subject to much criticism.16 Unfortunately, by defining ‘magic’ not independently

13 Naveh and Shaked 1993, Bowl 14, which is parallel to Montgomery 1913 5. Note that the Aramaic root l-ḥ-š can refer both to the act of whispering and charming; cf. the Qurʾanic ʾaʿūd̲h̲u [. . .] min sh̲ ̲arri ʾl-waswāsi ʾl-khannāsi (‘I seek refuge [. . .] from the evil of the retreating whisperer’; Q 114: 1–4). 14 Segal 033A: 10–11. See also Segal 2000: 27 for a fuller discussion on whispering in the incantation texts. Yamauchi also addresses the oral component of the ritual in Yamauchi 2005: 54–55, and explicitly compares it to magical rituals as performed in oral cultures today. 15 The question of the transmission of these texts was first addressed in the literature by Naveh and Shaked, who submit that ‘. . . the mechanism of the transmission of magical formulae [. . .] is not entirely that of a scribal tradition, but is akin in some respects to oral transmission’ (Naveh and Shaked 1998: 27). 16 For a history of the discussion, see Graf 1997: 8–19. In the context of the ancient Near East, note the numerous prohibitions contained within the text of the Hebrew Bible against ritual practices that we would consider ‘magical,’ such as Deut. 18:10–12 and Is. 8:19–22. 370 Häberl according to its own distinctive features but rather in opposition to these other categories, we neglect to explain precisely what it entails. Furthermore, the contrived nature of these categories is apparent from the lack of precise boundaries between them, which have never been fixed and probably never will be. Any attempt to define the term ‘magic’ either within the context of late antique Mesopotamia or even according to its use in recent scholarship would fall well beyond the ambit of this paper, so for the sake of brevity I shall restrict the discussion to the bowl incantation rituals, which may be considered as ‘magical’ insofar as they do not bear the hallmarks of contemporary religious rituals,17 but nonetheless represent an important element of the ancient Near Eastern relationship between the human and the supernatural.18 While rituals are a universal feature of human societies, it has long been acknowledged that magical rituals (strictly defined) are more typical of preliterate cultures than literate ones. The incantation texts in particular bear many of the hallmarks of oral compositions rather than of literary compositions: they were composed in the popular language rather than any literary standard, and most are attested in multiple variants, similar to one another in their content and formulaic structure, but nevertheless differing in some way from one another as well. Additionally, although these texts are obviously only attested in written form, they are wholly absent from the canons of the contemporary religions that have survived to the present date, perhaps because magical rituals such as these were generally anathematized by the normative religious traditions of the region. As a result, it is likely that they were transmitted from person to person, and the evidence of the bowls, which preserve multiple attestations of many incantations, suggests that the same incantations were performed repeatedly over time. For these reasons, they are best classified with other artistic forms of communication conventionally described as folklore.19

17 Note, for example, that the bowl texts are, as a rule, composed in the profane language of the people rather than the sacred language of scripture; for more on the distinction between sacred and profane language in the context of magical and religious rituals, see Tambiah 1968: 179–82. 18 Following the model established by Graf: ‘. . . it will be necessary for us to consider and analyze the ancient use of the term magic as it constitutes an element of the indigenous discourse on the relationship between the human and the supernatural’ (Graf 1997: 19). [For an attempt to interpret Mesopotamian incantation bowl paintings in the context of Jewish magic, see N. Vilozny’s article in this volume.] 19 Cf. Dundes 1999: 2: ‘. . . the basic distinctive criteria of folklore: namely, multiple existence and variation.’ For a more recent definition of folklore, with specific reference to folklore from the region of the Middle East, see Reynolds 2007: 25–28. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 371

Much like folklore, many of the attested texts can be found written in the scripts of different religious communities, indicating that these texts traversed sectarian boundaries. ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā’ is usually described as a Jewish incantation on the basis of its content, which employs the common Jewish trope of the divorce document as a model to dismiss demons, and makes reference to the ‘great ineffable name’. This same device also appears in several bowls20 that specifically attribute it to R. Joshua b. Peraḥya, whom Jewish tradition dates to the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE) (Montgomery 1913: 226). Apart from the ‘smoking gun’ provided by this explicit attribution, the tradition of issuing divorce documents does not exist among the Mandaeans and the faith makes no accommodation for divorce in the present date (Drower 2000: 62). Consequently, the hypothesis of a Jewish origin for these particular formulae would appear to be well-grounded. The fact that the texts transcend sectarian boundaries is of no small relevance to the question of their transmission. It suggests that these formulas were transmitted in the manner that folklore the world around has been transmitted, from person to person and by word of mouth rather than written sources. This is further supported by the orthography of the texts, which devi- ates from the standard orthography in a way that suggests vernacular influ- ence21 or even unfamiliarity with the standard. A particularly glaring example of this phenomenon, a Hebrew formula (Num. 10:35) embedded within an incantation text, was published by Naveh and Shaked, as in Example 3 below:

3. AMB Bowl 3: Masoretic Text: Wa-yhi bi-nsoaʿ hā-ʾāron, way-yomer Moše: ‘Qumā YHWH, wə-yāp̄uṣu ʾoyḇeḵā, wə-yānusu məśanʾeḵā mip-pāneḵā’ And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said: ‘Rise up, O LORD, and let Thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee’.22

Scarcely a single word within this formula has been spelled according to the standard orthography, and the reinterpretation of the preposition bə- with the infinitive construct nəsoaʿ (indicating an adverbial clause ‘when it set out’) as

20 Montgomery 1913 8, 9, 17 [in Mandaic], as well as 32 and 33 [in Syriac]; AMB Bowl 5. 21 Rossell argues that the ‘. . . the unlearned style with its many variations of spelling frequently reflects actual speech, thus throwing new light on the phonetics and other linguistic features [of the language]’ (Rossell 1953: 13). 22 Translation from the 1917 Jewish Publication Society edition. 372 Häberl the preposition ben ‘between’ and the active participle noseaʿ ‘setting out’ suggests rote learning rather than any in-depth familiarity with Hebrew grammar. If we then assume that these texts were transmitted by word of mouth rather than through written sources, what relevance does this bear upon our understanding and interpretation of these texts? In his work on the psychodynamics of orality, Walter Ong uses the term ‘oral universe of communication’ when discussing the difference between the ‘mentalities’ of primarily oral and primarily literate cultures (Ong 2002: 2). One of the fundamental theses of Ong’s work is that it is difficult for people who have been steeped in a literary tradition to comprehend the context within which oral compositions are created and the roles that they play in a primarily oral society. With reference to the bowl incantations, we may naturally enough interpret these texts purely as epigraphic data, divorced from this context, but for the composers of these texts, it would be just as natural to feel there is little if any existence to them apart from it.23 The key to understanding the nature of these texts, the contexts in which they are created and the roles that they play in late antique Mesopotamian society, lies within one of the most common features of the text themselves: the illocutionary act.

Illocutionary Acts within the Incantation Texts

Bearing in mind that sound is dynamic in comparison to the static nature of printed material – as it is being produced, an utterance is immediately gone, and cannot be captured or frozen (although it can obviously be recorded with the proper technology). While speech, like writing, is a vehicle for the communication of thoughts, it differs in that it consists of a series of utterances, which are transient actions, as opposed to the static and enduring physical signs that are the components of writing. Speech serves as an action most transparently in the form of illocutionary acts, according to which real actions are accomplished by certain performative utterances (such as ‘I hereby pronounce you man and wife,’ ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’ or ‘I name this ship Generalissimo Stalin’).24 In English, these utterances are grammatically expressed in the first person (singular or plural) and in the

23 For a possible parallel in the composition of folk songs, see Herzog 1965: 174. 24 The term ‘performative utterance’ was first applied to this phenomenon by John L. Austin in his 1955 William James lecture series delivered at Harvard University; see Austin 1962; idem 1979: 233–52. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 373 present tense. In Aramaic as well as in other related Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, they are regularly expressed in the perfect instead, as in Examples 4–5 below:

4. ṭallaqtuki (Arabic) I (hereby) divorce you. 5. b-i nišbaʿ-ti [. . .] ki-l-ḥorbā yi-hye ha-bbayiṯ ha-zze (Hebrew) I (hereby) swear by myself [. . .] that this house shall become a ruin (Jer. 22:5).25

Returning now to the act of writing as described in the incantations themselves, recall that it appears both frequently in the imperfect (‘I write’) and also occasionally in the perfect, which might seem anomalous with reference to an action which has not yet been completed were not for the fact that the Semitic perfect also designates illocutionary acts. Additional evidence supporting the interpretation of the phrase ‘I write’ as an assertion and therefore an implicit performative (i.e., ‘[I assert that] I write’) is provided by other explicit performative utterances that occur in the course of the incantation texts, such as ‘I adjure you,’ ‘I bid you swear,’ and ‘I invoke’. In the British Museum collection of incantation bowls, the phrase ‘I adjure you’ occurs 17 times in the participial present tense, 19 times in the perfect, and once in the imperfect, often in the same exact context, such as in the formula from ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā,’ ‘I adjure you that you be smitten in the membrane of your heart . . .’.26 The occurrences of these performative utterances in the British Museum collection are documented in Table 1 below.

25 The above examples are taken from W. Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language II §1(d), and W. Gesenius, E. Kautzsch, and A.E. Cowley, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar §106 2(b), which deal with the use of the perfect in performative speech acts. 26 This exact formula is found in at least twelve bowls: three in the participial present (Segal 013A, Montgomery 1913 11, and Text A in Geller 1997), and nine in the perfect (Montgomery 1913 18, Iraq Museum 5497 published as Text G in Gordon 1934a, Iraq Museum 9737 published as Gordon 1934b, Iraq Museum 11113 published in Gordon 1941: 350–52, Iraq Museum 18N18 published in Hunter 1995, Schøyen MS 1928/47 published in Shaked 1999: 193–94, Louvre AO 2629, Segal 098M, and Segal 099M). 374 Häberl table 1 Performative utterances in the incantation texts

I bid (you) swear omiṯā perfect (x1: 079M: 3) momenā participial present (x5: 027A: 6, 031A: 5, 039A: 9, 056A: 4, 057A: 13) mominā participial present (x12: 078M: 6,12; 094M: 14; 095M: 16, 096M: 14, 097M: 8, 098M: 3,6, 099M: 7, 100M: 7, 103M: 20, 105M: 9) I adjure (you) ʾašbaʿiṯ perfect (x10: 019A: 9, 027A: 4, 028A: 15, 040A: 2, 041A: 3, 045A: 1, 048A: 1,12, 059A: 6, 069A: 4) ašbiṯā perfect (x9: 078M: 5,12, 094M: 13, 096M: 13, 098M: 6, 099M: 4,7, 105M: 5,9) ʾašbaʿ imperfect (x1: 048A: 26) mašbaʿnā participial present (x15: 013A: 4,5, 019A: 8,9, 027A: 6, 030A: 3,5, 031A: 5, 042A: 1, 044A: 5, 045A: 3,4,5, 046A: 1, 055A: 4) mašbānā participial present (x2: 098M: 4, 100M: 8) I invoke qəreṯ perfect (x1: 034A: 4) qəriṯ perfect (x4: 082M: 7,8,9,10) qārenā participial present (x3: 019A: 3, 029A: 5, 043A: 1)

Each phrase appears either equally in the perfect and the participial present (denoting either the present progressive or immediate future) or predominantly in the participial present. One might also add other inexplicit illocutionary acts, especially the passive participial forms məzammənā ‘designated [is . . .],’ hăp̄iḵā ‘overturned [is . . .],’ kəḇišā ‘subdued,’ ʾăsirā wa-ḥṯimā ‘bound and sealed,’ and šərir wə-qim ‘confirmed and established,’ which are among the most characteristic phrases of these texts and belong to the same category of performative utterances as passives in the English language, such as ‘this meeting is now adjourned,’ ‘you are hereby authorized,’ ‘war is declared,’ and so on. The frequent occurrence of these explicit and/or inexplicit illocutionary acts throughout the corpus indicates the fundamentally performative nature of the incantation texts, which has thus far escaped the attention of all scholars of these texts save Shaul Shaked.27 Shaked explicitly compares the incantations with the formulaic language of legal documents which creates, by its mere utterance, a new legal situation, and cites J.L. Austin on performativity

27 Shaul Shaked explicitly identified the performative nature of these texts in Shaked 1999. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 375 in this regard. Although Shaked does not feel that much more could be gained by applying Austin’s work to the incantation texts, he does acknowledge that ‘. . . the legal framework in these spells is a make-believe, it is based on a literary (as well as on a magical) convention, and needs to be supplemented by a whole range of other devices to make it effective’ (Shaked 1999: 174) or, to use Austin’s terminology, felicitous. Readers familiar with Austin’s work will undoubtedly recognize ‘I name this ship Generalissimo Stalin’ as a banner example of an ‘infelicitous’ act, one which is unsuccessful due to the circumstances under which it was performed and its reception by its audience. Austin writes:

Suppose that you are just about to name the ship, you have been appointed to name it, and you are just about to bang the bottle against the stem; but at that very moment some low type comes up, snatches the bottle out of your hand, breaks it on the stem, shouts out, “I name this ship Generalissimo Stalin,” and then for good measure kicks away the chocks. We agree that the ship certainly isn’t now named the Generalissimo Stalin, and we agree that it’s an infernal shame (Austin 1979: 239).

Just as the success of a given illocutionary act depends upon the details of its production and reception, so too must it be noted that courses of action and even basic attitudes towards a given issue depend upon the effective use of words, or rhetoric, particularly in pre-literate cultures. For most literate Westerners, such rhetoric is reserved exclusively for certain rare ritual occasions such as a legal case, a political debate, or the oral defense of a doctoral dissertation, but something of the role that rhetoric can play in even the most mundane interac- tions can be ascertained by comparing business in an American supermarket and in a Middle Eastern souq.28 In the former, the prices of the products are fixed for all customers, and the process has been entirely automated; indeed, often no direct interaction between the customer and any other human being is necessary. In the latter case, ‘business’ is not simply business; it is a ritual in which the effective use of rhetoric can make the difference between making a great deal or losing the shirt off one’s back. Likewise, all parties to such a ritual perceive the circumstances under which it is performed, the effective use of rhetoric in its articulation, and its reception at the moment of utterance as integral to its success. For this reason, the potential for shenanigans of the sort suggested by Pognon and Rossell is extremely limited if not completely absent; anyone attempting to reproduce the incantation ritual would need to

28 I have borrowed this metaphor from Ong 2002: 67–68. 376 Häberl be well-versed in all of its performative components in order for the potential clients to be convinced of its felicity.

The Production of the Incantation

Let us now return to the production of each text. Ong notes that the act of writing remained entirely subordinate to speech throughout much of recorded history. It was only through gradual stages that written compositions become compositions in writing, rather than a verbatim mimicry of speech. In fact, even today many cultures have adopted writing without having internalized it, with the result that their written literature mirrors their speech, following the same principles of composition (Ong 2002: 36–57). Of relevance to the incantation texts, Ong notes that certain literary compositions, particularly those from cultures that have not yet fully internalized literacy, betray certain hallmarks of oral composition, among which the most salient is an extensive use of formulaic expressions. He defines the formula in a more general context as phrases or set expressions (such as proverbs) that are more or less exactly repeated, and that have a function in oral culture more crucial and pervasive than any they may have in literate societies (ibid.: 25–26). Ritual and magical texts differ from other oral compositions in that their recitation tends to be more fixed and that greater efforts are made at reproducing the formulae verbatim, although the rate of success varies, as is obvious from the study of the incantation texts, particularly those that reproduce the same material. While scholars have been aware of the formulaic nature of the incantation texts from the very inception of their study, few went beyond simply acknowledging the existence of ‘duplicate’ inscriptions, and marshaling them, where needed, to reconstruct any text that might be missing or ‘corrupt’. These recon- structions were generally motivated by a belief in an Urtext that might be recovered by comparison of the imperfect copies that had survived, a model imported from the field of manuscript studies. Montgomery established a schema for the comparison of several texts, including all the versions of ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā’ that were then known (Montgomery 1913: 167–73), by placing each text in a parallel column to economize space and highlight the corre- spondences between them. Naveh and Shaked employed a similar schema for their Bowl 12 in Amulets and Magic Bowls, comparing its text with an unpublished bowl in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and an amulet in the Israel Museum (Naveh and Shaked 1998, Amulet 15; ibid.: 188–97). Shaked also employed such an analysis in developing his typology of the divorce formula in his article on the ‘Poetics of Spells’ (Shaked 1999), which includes a previously published version of the ban of Buḡdānā incantation (from the Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 377

Schøyen Collection, MS 1928/47). Likewise, Müller-Kessler has frequently applied a structural analysis to incantations across a variety of corpora,29 but the most comprehensive attempt to analyse the bowl incantations structurally has been Segal’s Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum. In this work, Segal identifies recurring formulae and four distinct incantation types, which he labels ‘Refrains’. Building upon this typology, Hunter has collected and discussed all of the attested variants of the first of Segal’s four Refrains (Hunter 2002). While the structural analysis developed by these scholars and others working within the field has served extremely well for the purpose of reconstructing these texts, particularly in the areas where they are most unclear, it does not address the significance of the variation within the text or attempt to identify the principles motivating this variation, beyond ascribing any variation to ‘corruption’ from a putative pristine original. Considering that each version represents the product of a performative ritual rather than the scholastic reproduction of a manuscript, and is the instantiation not of a written Urtext but of a fluid oral tradition, this approach neglects a potentially important source of significant data for the interpretation of these texts. As these texts are clearly vernacular compositions rather than formal works of literature, the modes of structural analysis pioneered by folklorists throughout the last century offer more appropriate models for their analysis.30 Such an analysis requires that all the attested variants of a given type of incantation be gathered and the nodes of variation within that type be identified. Once these nodes have been identified, the principles governing the selection of each variable can then be considered (Propp 1968: 9). Ultimately, this analysis will arrive at a description of the incantation type according to its component parts and the relationship of these components to each other and to the whole (ibid.: 19). As in other frequently repeated compositions, the most distinct nodes of variation can often be found at the margins of the incantation, which are structured not unlike a letter with introductory (‘To whom it may concern . . .’) and concluding formulae (‘Sincerely . . .’). These marginal elements are sometimes optional, and vary considerably, as represented in Tables 2 and 3.31

29 See, e.g., Müller-Kessler 1996; 1998; 1999a; 1999b; Müller-Kessler and Kwasman 2000. 30 The primary reference for this sort of analysis remains Thompson 1955–58, although the original Aarne-Thompson classificatory system has subsequently been expanded by other scholars to accommodate the exigencies of the folkloric material in which they work. 31 Cf. Herzog 1965: 173. In his article, Herzog refers specifically to the margins of folksongs that are repeated multiple times in the course of a performance. The initial rendition and the final rendition often have special features that mark these elements off as marginal. See Herzog 1965: 173–74. 378 Häberl table 2 Introductory Formulae

Health [and guarding and sealing] from heaven for . . . ʾasuṯā [u-nṭurṯā wa-ḥṯimṯā] min šəmayyā lə Sealed and doubly sealed be the body and bones/house and threshold of- ḥăṯimā wi-mḥattam pagreh wə-ḡarmohi / bayṯeh wi-squbteh [sic] This deed of divorce / counter-charm / amulet is [designated] for . . . [məzamman / məzammənā] hāḏen giṭṭā / qiḇlā / qəmeʿā ḏənā lə-32

table 3 Concluding Formulae

Amen, Amen [Selah, Hallelujah]. āmen āmen [selā halləluyāh] Confirmed and established. šərir wə-qim Peace be upon you, may you have peace. šəlāmā ʿəlāḵ šəlāmā nihyelāḵ

Apart from the introductory and concluding formulae at the margins of the texts, the texts are invariably composed in formulaic language as well, and the internal formulae themselves are often the nodes of considerable variation. While these phrases generally appear in binary pairs, they can be reduced to simply one term or extended to multiple terms; for example, the common formula ʾăsirā wa-ḥṯimā (‘bound and sealed’) is extended to ʾăsure ʾăsirin wa-ḥṯume ḥăṯimin wi-qṭure qiṭrin u-lḥuše ləḥišin (‘thoroughly bound and sealed and tied and charmed with whispers’) in a variant attested in two bowls (Naveh and Shaked 1993, Bowl 14; Montgomery 1913 5). This variation, which is the signature of oral composition, is amply demonstrated by the attested versions of the aforementioned ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā,’ which is one of the more frequently reproduced incantation texts. Of the bowls currently in the possession of the British Museum, fully three (two in the Mandaic script and one in the square script) contain this

32 Harviainen (1995: 56) notes that this is the sole introductory formula which appears in bowls of more than a single script, but it had not yet been attested in the Mandaic-script bowls. An incantation beginning with this same introductory formula was subsequently published by Segal 2000 as Bowl 091M. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 379 incantation, and it is attested elsewhere in at least nine other published variants.33 Of the twelve attested variants of this incantation, Segal 013A has the distinction of being the very first incantation bowl to receive scholarly treatment, in Austen Henry Layard’s Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (Layard 1853: 512–14). After the optional introductory formula, the text of ‘By the ban of Buḡdānā’ is composed of as many as four discrete sections, all of which offer opportunities for improvisation (and therefore variation). These sections can be fruit- fully compared to the parts of a contract:

I. Introductory Formula (Example 6 below) II. Preamble/Recitals (Examples 7–9 below) III. Body (Examples 10–17 below) a. Divorce/Expulsion Formula (Examples 10–15 below) b. Injunctions (Example 16 and Table 5 below) c. Restraining Orders (Examples 16–17 below) IV. Voces Magicae (Table 6 and Examples 18–20 below) V. Ending (Examples 21–25 below) VI. Concluding Formula (Example 26 below)

The Preamble identifies the contract by name and indicates the primary parties to it, typically the enchanter’s client or clients and the lilith. Recitals provide some background to the contract (in this case, the activities of the lilith that have necessitated it) and any third parties, such as those beings to whose authority the enchanter appeals. The Body contains the heart of the contract, including the formula which divorces or expels the lilith, injunctions demanding that the lilith leave, and orders restraining her from troubling the clients and their property in the future. The Body is typically followed by some voces magicae, mysterious words or phrases that have no apparent meaning. The contract concludes with an Ending which formally seals the document, and optionally a concluding formula. These parts of the contract always appear in the same order, although they are not always reproduced in full, and one of the Mandaic versions interpolates some additional material into the body of the incantation that is not found in any of the other variants. Likewise, of those versions which are framed with introductory and/or concluding formulae, no two agree. An analysis of version Segal 013A follows:

33 In order of publication: Segal 013A, Louvre AO 2629, Montgomery 1913 11 and 18, Iraq Museum 5479, 9737, 11113, Iraq 18N18, Geller 1997 A, Schøyen MS 1928/47, Segal 098M and 099M. 380 Häberl

I. Introductory Formula

6. Haḏen giṭṭā lə-šeḏā u-l-[. . .] u-l-Sāṭānā u-l-Neriḵ u-l-Ḏaḵyā u-l-ʾAḇiṭur This deed of divorce is for the demon and for [. . .], Satan, Nerig, Dakyā, Abiṭur wə-li-ḏnā liliṯā ḏi-yiḇṭəlun min Bahrānduḵ baṯ Newānduḵ and for this lilith so that they may withdraw from Wahrāmduxt, daughter of Nēwānduxt, wə-min Māhdāḏ bar Iṣpandārmuḏ wə-min-bayṯah kulleh and from Māhdād, son of Spandārmad (Esfandārmoz), and from her entire household.

Segal 013A opens with a fairly conventional introductory formula of the type that is also found elsewhere in the British Museum collection in five other bowls in the square script (Segal 014A, 039A, 040A, 041A, and 066A), one incantation in the Mandaic script (091M), and two bowls in the Syriac script (119ES and 120SY), without any apparent connection to the formulae that follow. The various maleficent influences against which the geṭ is intended to protect are drawn from a variety of backgrounds. The šeḏā is ultimately of Mesopotamian origin, but also known from the Bible (Deut. 32:17; Psalm 106:37). Sāṭānā is, of course, the infamous Adversary. Neriḵ resembles the Mandaic Neriḡ, whose name is ultimately derived from Nirgallu, the Babylonian god of war and pestilence; in the Mandaean tradition, this being is usually identified with the planet Mars. Daḵyā is an otherwise unattested being whose name would appear to mean ‘the pure,’34 and ʾAḇiṭur superficially resembles the Mandaean Aḇaṯur, guardian of the final purgatory through which the souls of Mandaeans must pass and be weighed before they may enter the world of light. Liliths, who are the focus of this particular incantation, are a special class of female demons who prey upon women and small children. Note that the names of the clients are typically followed by the names of their mothers rather than their fathers, possibly on the grounds that mater certa, pater incertus. All four names are unmistakably Iranian. This suggests that the clients were Zoroastrian, rather than Jewish or members of any of the other ethno-religious communities of late antique Mesopotamia, but in the absence of further evidence one cannot necessarily assume this to be the case (Segal 2000: 24).

34 Shaked amends to Danaḥiš, a name of Iranian origin attested in other incantation texts (Shaked 1999: 184 and n. 45; for an etymology of this name and its other attestations, see idem 1985: 520–22). Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 381

II. Preamble/Recitals

7. ʾal-ʾissur Buḡdānā malḵəhon d-šeḏe u-d-diwe wə-šalliṭā rabbā ḏ-lilyāṯā By the ban of Buḡdānā, king of demons and devils, and great ruler of liliths, mašbaʿnā ʿălaḵi Ḥəḇalus liliṯā baṯ bəraṯah də-Zarnay liliṯā I adjure you, Ḥbsls the lilith, daughter of Zrny the lilith’s daughter . . . ʾim dəḵar ʾim nəqeḇā . . . whether male or female.

Since Lidzbarski’s publication of his variant of this text,35 it has been customary to interpret the first word of this formula as a non-standard form of the preposition ʿal ‘on, upon’ but also ‘by; on the grounds of,’ making the first of the two lines above an adverbial clause modifying the second.36 This is the form found in one of the remaining variants in the square script (Iraq 9737), and its cognate (ʾəl) is found in two of the Mandaic variants.37 The term ʾissur, much like the term geṭ, is borrowed from the vocabulary of Halakhic jurisprudence,38 and means a ban or interdict, although the construct phrase of which it constitutes the nomen regens is ambivalent as to whether Buḡdānā is the intended recipient of the ban or its author. In the context of the incantation, the former seems much more likely. The rectum of this construct phrase, Buḡdānā, is reasonably well known from many other inscriptions, including an especially detailed text published by Naveh and Shaked.39 In most versions, the title malkā ‘king’ appears in apposition to Buḡdānā. Further evidence for this supposition is provided by Naveh and Shaked (1998, Bowl 13), which identifies Buḡdānā as malkā rišā ḏ-šitte malḵəwāṯā (‘the king,

35 Lidzbarski 1902 (Louvre AO 2629). 36 Shaked (1999: 185) dissents, suggesting instead that the enchanters interpreted both this word and the following one as names. It certainly does appear to have been treated as such in some versions, but this does not necessarily rule out an alternate interpretation for other versions. 37 Louvre AO 2629 and Segal 098M. It must be noted that the voiced pharyngeal fricative ʿ has either merged with the glottal stop ʾ in Mandaic or has been deleted entirely. 38 Perhaps because the Mandaeans have no precise parallel to the ʾissur, the Mandaic versions begin with the passive participle ʾəsirā ‘bound’. 39 Naveh and Shaked 1998 (Bowl 13). Shaked (1985: 516–19) suggests that this name derives from a reconstructed Iranian *bagadāna- ‘temple,’ which came to refer to the god therein worshipped by synecdoche, much as the term ‘the White House’ might refer to the President of the United States. The referent was then demonized by those who inscribed the bowls. 382 Häberl head of sixty kingdoms’). What would at first glance appear to be the most logical interpretation is complicated by some of the other attested versions. Iraq 9737 offers us ‘Buḡdānā and the kings of the devils’; Iraq 5497 offers us ‘Buḡbānā of the king of kings of demons and devils’; Louvre AO 2629 offers ‘Aḇuḡdānā to the kings of the devils,’ and Segal 098M inexplicably suggests ‘Buḡdānā, I swear I am the angels (malāḵawn, presumably a syncopated form of malāḵay-hon ‘their angels’ with a proleptic possessive suffix) of the devils!’ The last variant is suggestive of oral transmission, given the similarity between the words malḵay-hon ‘their kings’ and malāḵay-hon ‘their angels’. In most versions of the text, the name of the lilith is followed by a detailed description of her location and activities, although there is a considerable degree of latitude in the way that these things are expressed. In Segal 013A, this entire description is reduced to the four words ‘either male or female,’ possibly indicating that the enchanter has skipped over part of the formula in the course of committing it to writing, leaving a lacuna.

8. mašbaʿnā ʿălaḵi ḏə-ṯimməḥan bə-ṭerpəsā lə-libbəḵon I adjure you that you (f.sg.) be struck in the pericardium of your (m.pl.) heart u-ḇ-morāniṯeh də-Tyqs gibbārā ḏ-hu šalliṭ ʿal-šede wə-ʿal-lilyāṯā and with the lance of the hero Tyqs, who has control over demons and liliths.

Where Montgomery 1913 11, Geller 1997 A, and Louvre AO 2629 have tiṯməḥan ‘you are struck,’ Segal 013A has a more colloquial form timməḥan with assimi- lation of the ‘reflexive’ t- affix. Strangely, the form of the verb (f.sg.) does not agree with the possessive pronoun on the phrase which follows (‘your [m.pl.] heart’). This confusion in agreement can be found throughout most versions of the incantation. Montgomery noted that many of the enchanters who used this text must also have had difficulties with the technical term ṭarpəšā or ṭarpəsā ‘pericardium,’ as evidenced by the variation in the rendering of this word.40 Technical terms like ʾissur and ṭarpəsā appear to have been imper- fectly transmitted in most versions of this text, as one would expect if they were transmitted orally.

40 Montgomery 1913 11 ṭwrps, 18 ṭrps; Iraq 5497 ṭwpry, 9737 ṭprs, 11113 ṭpsy; Geller 1997 A ṭprs; Schøyen MS 1928/47 ṭrpsy; Segal 013A ṭyrpsʾ; Louvre AO 2629 ṭarpus; Segal 098M ṭarabus, and 099M tras. The most extreme example of this confusion is represented by Segal 099M: də-ʾeṯməhi ḇ-eh bə-ṯəras gibbārā ‘that he was struck by it in the peri . . . pera . . . peri- whatsis of a hero’. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 383

For the most part, the names of the major dramatis personae are fairly stable throughout the variants of the incantation. The name Buḡdānā in particular does not vary significantly from version to version, apart from two of the three versions in the Iraq Museum that were published by Gordon. The names of the liliths are likewise fairly consistent, despite some minor confusion over the name of the object of the incantation.41 There is, however, a surprising lack of agreement among the names given for the protective genius, as demonstrated by Table 4 below:

table 4 Variation in Names

Text Bugdānā Lilith(s) Grandmother Hero

Montgomery 1913 11 bgdnʾ ḥlbs zrny qyl. .s Montgomery 1913 18 bgdnʾ bḥlbs zrny sq . . . Iraq 5497 bwgbnʾ ḥbls zrnʾy qtrws Iraq 9737 bgdynʾ ḥbls zrny qtrws Iraq 11113 bgdnʾ ḥbls zrnʾy — Iraq 18N18 — — — sqrwṭ Geller 1997 A — — — ʾytqdš Schøyen MS 1928/47 bgdnʾ ḥbls zrny ḥwnrws Segal 013A bgdnʾ ḥbsls zrny tyqs Louvre AO 2629 abugdana hldas and taklat zarnia qaṭriauis Segal 098M bugdana hlabus zarnik ʿqarus Segal 099M bugdana hlbus — —

The only two versions which agree are Iraq 5497 and 9737, which both contain the name qtrws. Segal (2000: 56) interprets this name as a loan from Greek Καθαρός ‘pure,’ citing the name Daḵyā ‘pure’ which appears above in the introductory formula to Segal 013A. A fourth version from the Iraqi Museum, Iraq 18N18, contains what appears to be a near anagram of the same name, sqrwṭ, apart from the final voiceless velar plosive. While such direct influence from

41 The form cited by Lidzbarski, hldas, may well be the result of the similarity between the two characters b and d in the Mandaic script. After controlling for other common lapsi calumi, the attested forms appear to reduce to either Ḥbls (x5) or Ḥlbs (x5), but the name cannot be further reconstructed with any certainty. 384 Häberl

Greek would not normally be expected in a Mesopotamian text of this period, it is perhaps significant that all of the analogous names from the remaining attested versions end in a sibilant. Given the fairly consistent rendering of Buḡdānā’s name and the names of the lilith and her grandmother, it seems unlikely that the extreme variation in the name of the protective genius is due to corruption. What could possibly condition the enchanters to substitute a different name for each version of the bowl? One possible explanation for this variation is avoidance of a taboo name, of which the most obvious example is the Jewish taboo against pronouncing the name of God (illustrated below in section V. Ending). Crossculturally, avoidance of this sort is generally restricted to the names of evil spirits, certain animals, certain body parts, and deceased ancestors, but it is not unknown for the names of protective beings to be avoided as taboo, as the example of the ineffable name of God demonstrates.

III. Body

Segal 099M interpolates a few lines at this point not found in any other version, including the other Mandaic versions:

9. u-np̄aq kulhon qəryāṯā min bayṯah də-māraṯ Miryām paṯ Mādanoš and all mishaps hereby leave from the house of Lady Miryām daughter of Mādanōš. Həze ḏə-ḇaṭṭelteḵ min bayṯeh də-Yohānān hā həze See that I hereby suspend you from the house of Yoḥānān. Look, see ḏi-ḵraḵteḵ min zireh wə-min bazireh wə-min bəneh that I hereby circumvent you from the semen and seed,42 and from the sons wə-min bənāṯeh də-Yohānān wə-min māraṯ Miryām paṯ Mādanoš and from the daughters of Yoḥānān and from Lady Miryam daughter of Mādanōš.

In all versions, the following lines refer explicitly to the writing of the incantation, which was then taking place; some of the versions even specify that the enchanter is in the process of writing a geṭ (Montgomery 1913 18, Iraq 5497, Iraq 11113, Iraq 18N18, Geller 1997 A, and Schøyen MS 1928/47).

42 Cf. JB 202: from his ‘night seed’ (=semen) and from his ‘day seed’ (=seeds of grain). Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 385

10. hā ḵəṯaḇiṯ bə-ḵon hā hā ḇaṭṭəliṯ yāṯəḵon Look, I hereby write concerning you.43 Look, look, I hereby suspend you minnah wə-min bayṯah də-Ḇahrānduḵ baṯ Newānduḵ wə-min bərah from her and from the house of Wahrāmduxt, daughter of Nēwānduxt, and from her son.

The presentative particle hā (here translated ‘look’) serves to the attention of the addressee (in this case, the evil spirits) to new information, further demonstrating the performativity of the text. The new information consists of the actions which are accomplished through the utterance of the verbs that follow it. The second of the two verbs is another minor locus of variation. Only the present version and Segal 099M have baṭṭəliṯ or its Mandaic equivalent baṭṭelteḵ ‘I suspend you’. While the characters b and p or l and r are not generally confused with one another in either script, baṭṭəlit and paṭṭərit are phonet- ically similar, suggesting that these forms were transmitted orally rather than through the medium of text. Four of the attested versions have paṭṭəriṯ44 and two have tarrəḵiṯ (Iraq 9737 and Schøyen MS 1928/47), both of which mean ‘I (hereby) divorce’ in this context. Two of the bowls from the Iraq Museum, Iraq 5497 and 11113, have a tripartite divorce formula incorporating both those synonyms and a third synonym as well, reminiscent of the irrevocable ṭalāqu bi-θ-θalāθati, or so-called ‘triple divorce’ of Islamic tradition:

11. hā paṭṭəriṯ yāṯəḵi wə-hā šabbəqiṯ yāṯəḵi wə-hā ṯarrəḵiṯ Look, I hereby divorce you! Look, I hereby divorce you! Look, I hereby divorce yāṯəḵi bə-ḡeṭ piṭṭurin you with a deed of divorce! (Iraq 5497) 12. paṭṭəriṯ wə-šabbəqiṯ wə-ṯarrəḵiṯ yāṯəḵi I hereby divorce, divorce, and divorce you! (Iraq 11113)

Most versions in the square script continue with a simile, comparing the client’s act of divorcing the lilith to the parallel institution of divorces between demons:

דִּ י לָא-תִשְׁ נֵ א צְ בוּ ,בְּדָ נִיֵּאל :For the use of bə- here in place of the expected ʿal, cf. Daniel 6:18 43 di lā-ṯišne ṣəḇu bə-ḏāniyyel (‘that nothing concerning Daniel might be changed’). 44 Montgomery 1913 11, 18; Iraq 18N18, and Geller 1997 A. Additionally, Louvre AO 2629 and Segal 098M have the form ʾap̄ṭarteḵ ‘I (hereby) cause you to leave; discharge you,’ which derives from the same root as paṭṭərit. 386 Häberl

13. kəmā ḏə-ḵāṯḇin šedin giṭṭin wə-yāhḇin li-nšayhon wə-ṯuḇ Just as demons write deeds of divorce, give them to their wives,45 and never lā-ḥāḏrin ʿălayhon šəqulu giṭṭayḵon wə-qabbəlu mawmāṯḵon swarm over them again,46 take your deeds of divorce and accept your oaths.47 (Segal 013A)

Two of the Mandaic versions, Segal 098M and 099M, dispense with this simile, at least explicitly:

14. hā ʾekkəṯiḇyān wə-həzen ʾap̄ṭartəḵen min Bā-ḏə-ros paṯ Qāqāy Look, they are written,48 and see, I hereby make you leave Bā ḏə-Ros, daughter of Qāqāy, kəmā ḏi-ḵṯiḇ šəmeḵ šəqul giṭṭeḵ wə-gabbil ʾumāmāṯḵen [. . .] just as your name is written. Take your deed of divorce and receive your oaths! (Segal 098M) 15. həze ḏə-ḵṯaḇleḵ giṭṭā kəmā hāzen giṭṭā See, he (or: they) hereby writes a deed of divorce for you like this deed [that]

45 Montgomery 1913 11 and 18, Iraq 9737, Geller 1997 A, Schøyen MS 1928/47, and Louvre AO 2629 simply have ‘just as demons write deeds of divorce for their wives’; Louvre AO 2629 also adds a typically Mandaean touch, bə-ḵušṭā (‘in truth’). Iraq 5497 has ‘just as demons (šede) and devils (diwe) write and give deeds of divorce to their wives’. This portion is missing from Iraq 11113 and Segal 099M. 46 Most versions have the expected hāḏrin ‘they return’ here, but Montgomery 1913 11, Iraq 9737, Iraq 11113, Geller 1997 A, and Segal 013A have ḥāḏrin ‘they swarm around’ instead. Iraq 5497 interpolates ʾap̄ ʾanti liliṯā bištā lili ḏiḵrā lili nəqeḇṯā wə-ḥānqəṯā u-ḇraṯā wə-š . . . (‘you are also an evil lilith, a male lilith and a female lilith, a strangler, a daughter, and . . .’). 47 So Montgomery 1913 18, Iraq 9737, Iraq 18N18, Iraq 11113, Geller 1997 A, Schøyen MS 1928/47, Segal 013A, Louvre AO 2629, and Segal 098M. Montgomery 1913 11 simply summarizes this part and the following with ‘take your deed of divorce from Nēwānduxt daughter of Kafni,’ and Iraq 5497 extends ‘deed of divorce’ to giṭṭəḵi u-sp̄ar tiruḵayḵi wə-ʾiggəraṯ šibbuqayḵi (‘your deed of divorce, your document of divorce, and your letter of divorce’). 48 Against Segal 2000: 129 I interpret this form as a Gt perfect 3rd fem. pl. form. The initial glottal stop has become elided after hā, and the t- prefix has assimilated to the first root letter, as in the Gt participle mekkəṯiḇ ‘written’ and the Dt participle meqqəbar ‘buried’ from Example 15. In the text, the stem is followed by the 3rd fem. sing. suffix -aṯ, and then subsequently by the (conspicuously Neo-Mandaic) 3rd fem. pl. suffix -yān, as if the enchanter had originally written the singular form and then changed his or her mind. After using the 2nd fem. pl. suffix for the next few verbs, s/he then returns back to the singular in the following line. Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 387

kəṯaḇiṯ ḏə-həḇile lə-Yoḇhānān u-l-ḵol mān də-hāzen puḡdāmā I hereby write to destroy her49 for Yoḥānān and for all for whom this command mekkəṯiḇleh wə-meqqəbarleh bə-ḇāḇeh is written and buried at his gate. (Segal 099M)

Once the deed of divorce has been written and served, the enchanter follows with a series of injunctions to leave, often specifically enumerating the people, places, and things from which the lilith is barred:

16. wə-p̄uqu u-qḏuḥu wə-ʿiruqu wə-ʾizelu And go out, flee, scram, and depart min bayṯah də-Ḇahrānduḵ baṯ Newānduḵ from the house of Wahrāmduxt, daughter of Nēwānduxt. (Segal 013A)

Some versions50 also include an admonition against appearing to the client ever again in any form:

17. wə-lā-ṯiṯḥăzin ləhon lā-ḇ-ḥezwe ḏ-imāmā wə-lā-ḇ-harhure lelyā And do not appear to them either in daytime visions or in nighttime fancies wə-lā-ḇi-ḏmuṯ gaḇrā wə-ʾittəṯā and not in the form of a man or woman. (Iraq 5497)

The extreme degree of variation within the sequence of the different injunctions is strongly suggestive of oral transmission, as Table 5 below demonstrates. Note that no two of the texts preserve the same commands in the same order, and that in place of the expected ʿiruqi ‘flee,’ which is synonymous with the other commands, several versions offer ʿiqiri ‘uproot’. Another interesting feature of this sequence of commands is the fact that the majority of versions use the feminine singular form of the imperative (e.g., qəḏuḥi ‘flee’), whereas Montgomery 1913 18 and Segal 013A use the plural form (e.g., qəḏuḥu ‘flee’).

49 Lit., ‘that she be destroyed’ həbil-e < *həḇil-ay <3rd f.sg. pass. ptc. həḇil-a +3rd f.sg. pron. hi. Cf. JB 46 li-hḇilennon ‘to destroy them’. 50 In addition to Iraq 5497, Montgomery 1913 11 has ‘do not appear to her either in the night or the daytime, do not sleep with her (lā ṯiškəḇin ʿimmah) and do not kill her sons or daughters (lā ṯiqṭəlin yāṯ bənah u-ḇnāṯah)’. Montgomery 1913 18 simply has ‘do not appear to him any more (ʿoḏ)’ and Louvre AO 2629 has ‘do not appear to them either in their nighttime dreams (bə-helmayyon d-lelyā) or their daytime visions’. 388 Häberl

The one text that addresses two liliths, Louvre AO 2629, uses the epicene singular form of the imperative (e.g., qəḏā ‘flee’). Just as the location and activities of the lilith represent a significant locus for variation, so too does the extent of the incantation’s coverage. If we consider the incantation to be something like an ‘insurance policy,’51 and the named clients to be the ‘policyholders,’ then the extent of the coverage beyond the initial policyholders, such as property and dependents, differs from version to version.

table 5 Variation in sequence of injunctions

Text 1st injunction 2nd injunction 3rd injunction 4th injunction

Montgomery 1913 11 — — — — Montgomery 1913 18 qəḏuḥu ‘flee’ ʿiriqu ‘flee’ — — Iraq 5497 ʿiqiri ‘uproot’ qəḏuḥi ‘flee’ puqi ‘go out’ ʾiṯʿaqqəri ‘be uprooted’ Iraq 9737 qəḏuḥi ‘flee’ ʿiqiri ‘uproot’ puqi ‘go out’ — Iraq 11113 — — — — Iraq 18N1852 ʿiqiri ‘uproot’ qəḏuḥi ‘flee’ puqi ‘go out’ ʾiṯraḥḥəqi ‘depart’ Geller 1997 A qəḏuḥi ‘flee’ zuʿi ‘move’ puqi ‘go out’ ʿiruqi ‘flee’ Schøyen MS 1928/47 puqi ‘go out’ qəḏuḥi ‘flee’ pəṭuri ‘abandon’ ʿiruqi ‘flee’ Segal 013A puqu ‘go out’ qəḏuḥu ‘flee’ ʿiruqu ‘flee’ ʾizilu ‘go (pl.)’ Louvre AO 2629 qəḏā ‘flee’ puq ‘go out’ ʾəruq ‘flee’ ʾeṯrahhaq ‘depart’ Segal 098M qəḏā ‘flee’ ʾəqir ‘uproot’ puq ‘go out’ ʾeṯrahhaq ‘depart’ Segal 099M ʾəqar ‘uproot’ puq ‘go out’ zəhā ‘flee’ ʾeṯrahhaq ‘depart’

51 A metaphor first suggested to me by Erica C.D. Hunter (personal communication). 52 Iraq 18N18 has ʿiqiri mādorəḵi wə-šannu malḵuṯəḵi qəḏuḥi ʾiṯbəʾiri p̄uqi wə-ʾiṯraḥḥəqi (‘uproot your dwelling, change your kingdom, flee, dispose of yourself (Gt *b-ʿ-r), go out, and depart’). Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 389

IV. Voces Magicae

Several variants of this text incorporate some unintelligible voces magicae53 introduced by the phrase bə šum in the penultimate formulae of six variants of the incantation:

table 6 Variation in Voces Magicae

Text Vox Magica

Montgomery 1913 11 MMYNTŠ ŠMR DY HBNZYG YW YDYD YṬ YṬ YṬ Montgomery 1913 18 MTHMN YʾBNBYG DYD ṬDṬ Iraq 5497 — Iraq 9737 RT MHṢ MHṢ MHṢ Iraq 11113 — Iraq 18N18 — Geller 1997 A — Schøyen MS 1928/47 — Segal 013A HYGYH DYH TṬM Louvre AO 2629 — Segal 098M TMAHṢ ABD HYGUT AID AUD ṬṬUZ Segal 099M MATHIMIṢ

The phrase bə-šum is usually translated literally as ‘in the name of . . .’, parallel in some respects to the legal formula ‘by the authority granted to/vested in me by . . .’. This would logically require that the following refers to some being or beings, even though this interpretation is not always tenable, as the examples above indicate. Segal notes that this same phrase is used to introduce entire formulae in two other bowls from the British Museum:

18. bə-šum kəḇišin dišin dariḵin In the name of: ‘Suppressed, trampled, and trodden . . .’. (Segal 043A: 3–4)

53 Voces magicae are enigmatic phrases lacking recognizable semantic content, at least to the enchanter and his or her intended audience; see Bohak 2008: 258–64. 390 Häberl

19. bə-šum ʾiṭṭer yamin ḥayyāḇā bayṯā min šəmayyā In the name of: ‘The left-handed is condemned, the house from heaven [is] . . .’. (Segal 044A: 10) 20. bə-šum haškəḥit məšoḇədāyṯ (<*məšaʿbədāʾiṯ) In the name of: ‘Submissively, I have found/attained . . .’. (Segal 044A: 11)

These strangely truncated examples resemble the initial lines of incantation formulae, which (as noted above), can stand in place of the entire composition. This suggests that bə-šum might be employed to introduce quotations in some contexts, and perhaps even direct speech, as in the case of the voces magicae. It is entirely possible that the text which follows might be meaningful in some language other than Aramaic, though not necessarily to the magician or his intended audience,54 thus to some extent vindicating Macuch’s observation.

V. Ending

The Ending ‘seals the deal,’ so to speak. Seven of the versions (including two of the Mandaic ones) make this metaphor explicit by employing the rhetorical device of a ‘signet ring upon which is engraved the great ineffable name’ of God, a device clearly borrowed from the lore of Judaism. This section contains more explicitly Jewish content than any of the other sections, and perhaps not surprisingly this content does not always survive intact in every attested instantiation of the text.

21. ḥăṯimṯā bə-ʿizqəṯeh də-Tyqs gibbārā u-ḇ-ʿizqəṯeh Sealed with the signet ring of Tyqs the Hero and with the signet ring of də-ṣurgəli ḏə-ʿălohi šem məp̄oraš rabbā Ṣurgəli (“Drawngrave”) upon which is the great ineffable name. (Segal 013A)55

54 Versnel (2002: 137) gives an example of a very common medieval charm against worms, sisim hemma mulahos usmonim pilagrim velamos einmisspar, which was revealed in the 19th century to be a Latinized version of Song of Solomon 6:8 (‘There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number’). 55 This section is entirely missing from Iraq 11113, Iraq 18N18, and Segal 099M. Montgomery 1913 11 simply has ‘with the signet ring upon which is drawn (ṣir) and engraved (u-ḡlip̄) the ineffable name’; Montgomery 1913 18 preserves only the last four letters of ‘ineffable’; Iraq 5497 has ‘sealed upon your deed of divorce’; Iraq 9737 includes only the phrase ‘ineffable name’ immediately after the voces magicae; Geller 1997 A has: ‘this . . . that was sealed [ʾiṯḥattəmaṯ] in the name of Ṣurgəlip̄ upon which’, whereupon the enchanter switches Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 391

The syntax and vocalization of the last phrase (bounded by the letter H in superscript) indicates that it is an obvious loan from Hebrew. The Aramaic cognate of məp̄oraš is məp̄āršā ‘separated,’ in which the vowel ā of the second syllable has not undergone the shift to o that is typical of ‘Canaanite’ languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician, an important isogloss distinguishing these languages from Aramaic. The presence of this phrase in most versions of the text, including two of the Mandaic ones, lends credence to the thesis that it originated in Jewish circles. Five of the attested versions continue where Segal 013A leaves off, adding the following phrase, presumably in reference to the ineffable name:

22. siddur ʿālmā mi-ššešeṯ yəme ḇəreʾšiṯ the natural order since the six days of creation. (Schøyen MS 1928/47)56

Bəreʾšiṯ (lit., ‘in the beginning’) is, of course, the phrase which begins the first of the five books of the Pentateuch. The title of this work has become a byword for the creation in the Jewish tradition. The content of this section, which is rather specific to Judaism and even partially composed in a separate language, obviously did not lend itself well to transmission. One of the Mandaic versions, Segal 098M, illustrates some of the difficulties the enchanter faced when confronted with phrases like gəlip̄ ʿălohi ‘engraved upon it,’ which has become Gəlip̄ ʾalāhā ‘the god Gəlip̄,’ and šem məp̄oraš ‘the ineffable name,’ which has here become šəmā ḏə-p̄ārušā ‘name of the discerner’.

23. hā ʾəsirā u-hṯimā ḏə-Ḇā-ḏə-ros paṯ Qāqāy Look, the (geṭ?) of Bā ḏə-Ros, daughter of Qāqāy, is bound and sealed bə-ʾezqəṯon ḏi-ḡlip̄ ʾalāhā bə-šəmā ḏə-p̄ārušā with the signet ring of the god Gəlip̄ (‘Engraved’) in the name of the discerner ḏə-ḇeh ʾəmareh u-ḇ-ʾešmeh kulləhon ʾalāme with which he said it and in whose name are all things. (Segal 098M)

Louvre AO 2629 introduces another element of Jewish origin, the Ring of Solomon, which is surprisingly not found in any other version, Mandaic or otherwise:

to ‘with the signet-ring upon which is drawn the name . . .’, and Schøyen MS 1928/47 has ‘bound and sealed by the signet-ring on which the ineffable name is engraved and incised’. 56 Montgomery 1913 11, Montgomery 1913 18, Iraq 9737, Schøyen MS 1928/47, and Louvre AO 2629 contain variations on the phrase ‘since the six days of creation’. 392 Häberl

24. ʾəsirāṯe u-həṯimāṯe lilyāṯā ziḵre wə-nuqbāṯā bə-ʾezqəṯeh Liliths both male and female are bound and sealed57 with the signet ring of di-Šlemon malkā bar Dāwiḏ də-ṣirgəlip̄ ʾalāhā šəmeh rabbā wə-yaqqirā King Solomon son of David, of the god Ṣirgəlip̄, his name is great and honorable. (Louvre AO 2629)

Serendipitously, this very same ring makes an appearance in that section of the Babylonian Talmud dedicated explicitly to divorce documents, Tractate Giṭṭin. The seventh chapter of this tractate contains an aggadah in which Solomon sends his trusted official Benayahu bar Yehohada to entrap the demon Asmodeus with a ring on which was engraved the name of God (da-ḥqiq ʿălah šem), and with a chain that was likewise engraved (BT Gittin 68a–b). It is interesting to note that the somewhat enigmatic phrase which appears in Montgomery 1913 11 as ‘drawn and engraved upon it’ (ṣir u-ḡlip̄ ʿălohi) has clearly been reanalysed as a name in several versions of this text, and in the two Mandaic versions cited above has even been deified, thus making a mock- ery of the ineffable name (Montgomery 1913: 179).58 Perhaps not unexpectedly, the Hebrew phrases at the very end have become garbled in the version published by Lidzbarski:

25. gəlip̄ ʾalāhā šəmeh məp̄āršā The god Gəlip̄, his name is held separate mirešešaṯ šeṯ yawme bərešiṯ from the beginning, the six days of creation. (Louvre AO 2629)

Mirešešaṯ appears to be a blend of the Hebrew words mi- ‘from’, reʾšiṯ ‘beginning’ and šeš ‘six’ or possibly the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic middə- ‘from (the fact that)’ and Hebrew šḗšeṯ ‘six’.59 Having made a hash of the phrase, the enchanter then attempted to convey its sense in Mandaic.

57 Both passive participles are marked with both masculine and feminine plural suffixes, which is ungrammatical but certainly in keeping with the content of the text. 58 Note that the initial words of our incantation ʾal-ʾissur may also have been interpreted as a proper name by some enchanters. 59 I owe the latter suggestion to an anonymous reviewer, who posited a scenario in which a Jewish mediator misread the dalet for a resh and transmitted it thus to the Mandaean practitioner. As these two characters are not infrequently conflated in writing, this would appear to be a point in favour of a textual rather than oral transmission. Although I Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 393

VI. Concluding Formula

26. ʾāmen ʾāmen ʾāmen selā Amen, amen, amen, selah. (Segal 013A)

This is one of the more popular concluding formulae to be found in the incantations. ʾĀmen ‘truly’ typically concludes doxologies and other hymns. The word selā ‘selah’ is particularly associated with the Psalms, where it concludes certain psalms or divides one strophe from the next, and appears to serve as a choral direction to the worshippers (Snaith 1952). It is unlikely that it continued to serve that purpose at the time this text was composed, but it nonetheless served to indicate the end of the composition in this and other bowls. Having compared all of the versions of this incantation currently available to scholarship, isolated the variants, and identified a few possible factors con- ditioning the selection of these variants, I can now tender a few tentative conclusions about the production of each version of this incantation. While it is clear that each follows an established model and maintains a certain unity, it is equally clear that each performance of the text also offered ample opportunities for improvisation. The most obvious opportunities are offered by the selection of the framing formulae, the name of the protective genius, and the voces magicae introduced by bə-šum, which clearly differ from version to version. Less immediately obvious are the multiple nodes of variation contained within the text, such as the description of the lilith in the Recitals, the sequence and number of injunctions against her, and the sequence and number of people, places, and objects from which the lilith is restrained. These should be distinguished from the variation caused by miscommunication in the transmission of the incantation, such as the way in which various technical terms are rendered, or the various ways in which the Hebrew text and other specifically Jewish content in the Ending have been garbled. The latter are clearly mistakes of the sort noted by Pognon and his successors when they discuss how one version might be written ‘more correctly’ than another, whereas the former represent the individual initiative of each enchanter in performing the incantation. Both nonetheless represent the unmistakable signatures of oral transmission.

have my doubts that the conjunction middə- is appropriate for this context, I would like to suggest that the intervocalic environment of the d could result in it surfacing as an alveolar flap /ɾ/, a common enough phenomenon across many languages, e.g. Neapolitan madonna [maɾonnə] ‘the Virgin Mary,’ or (North American) English riding [ɹaɪɾɪŋ], without assuming a textual intermediary. 394 Häberl

The Reception of the Incantation

Our analysis should not conclude with the production of the text. One of Ong’s personal contributions to the study of oral compositions was a major shift of focus from their production, which had been the primary concern of previous scholars, to their reception, for the simple reason that oral compositions are necessarily addressed directly to a specific audience, which explains many of the distinctive characteristics that separate them from written compositions. For example, Ong notes that oral compositions more commonly use coordinating conjunctions than subordinating conjunctions. He explains this phenomenon by noting that written compositions lack the full context of the oral utterance, including non-verbal ‘paralinguistic’ cues such as intonation and body language, and are therefore much more dependent upon linguistic structure and a much more elaborate syntax to impart meaning (Ong 2002: 37–38). To eyes accustomed to this elaborate syntax, such as ours, the repeated use of the coordinating conjunction wə- in these texts must seem excessive and simplistic, but in the context of an oral recitation, elaborate syntax is not only unnecessary but might even hamper comprehension. Within the context of medieval Persian epic prose narratives, Rubanovich (2012: 668) notes coordinating conjunctions such as these perform an important pragmatic function in structuring the content of the discourse, and facilitate the audience’s aural reception of the text by punctuating shifts in the story line. Additionally, oral expressions tend to rely more heavily upon parallel terms, phrases, or even entire clauses, as well as epithets. Ong (2002: 38–39) relates this tendency to the oral reliance upon formulae to implement memory. To the literate eye, these appear to be cumbersome, tiresomely redundant, and in a word ‘clichéd’. Oral compositions prefer not merely the son, but ‘the masculine son,’ not merely the daughter, but ‘the feminine daughter,’ and not merely the animals, but ‘the animals with the cloven hoof and the animals without cloven feet’. The angels and demons in these texts are generally identified as such, given names like Buḡdānā the king, Ḥabsalas the lilith, Tiqos the hero, and Gəlip̄ the god. Oral compositions tend to be redundant. Ong explains this redundancy by noting that it serves several purposes – it helps to preserve continuity when there is no model to follow such as a written text, by forcing the speaker to consider simultaneously what he is saying, what he has already said, and what follows in the series, keeping him on track, and the repetition of information allows larger audiences to keep track of what is being said even when they have difficulty hearing all of the information (Ong 2002: 39–41). Oral compositions also tend to be somewhat conservative vis-à-vis written compositions. As knowledge in an oral culture tends to disappear unless Aramaic Incantation Texts Between Orality And Textuality 395 it is frequently repeated, oral cultures must invest great energy in repeating knowledge that has been acquired over and over again. This need encour- ages and even demands a highly traditionalist or conservative mindset that shuns intellectual experimentation, and for good reason (Ong 2002: 41–42). I do not intend to suggest that oral cultures are bereft of creativity or originality, but merely that this creativity consists chiefly of variations upon established themes, as in the example of the incantation above.60 Finally, knowledge is rarely presented in the abstract, but almost always in reference to situations derived from the human experience. As a corollary, oral compositions are always directed towards a particular audience, as it would be pointless to deliver them while alone. In fact, one of the most common situations that occasion an oral composition is that of a competition. Poems and proverbs are used not merely for storing knowledge, but also to engage others in verbal and intellectual combat. Likewise, conflict is one of the most common topics of oral compositions – including, for obvious reasons, the incantation texts.

Conclusion

In the article that opens this volume, Karl Reichl observed that there is a kind of continuum between orality and textuality, particularly with reference to oral compositions for which we possess only written attestations. The bowl incantations are comfortably situated within this continuum. They are obviously not entirely oral, given the fact that they survive only in written form, and furthermore contain rather explicit references to the act of writing and other characteristics of a literate culture. Nevertheless, they are not entirely textual either, given the degree of variation between each attested version and the explicit opportunities for improvisation within the text. The surviving versions of our incantation and the conditioned variation between each suggest that they were composed and transmitted orally, and only secondarily written down. Internal evidence, such as the use of illocutionary acts within the text, indicate that they were the products of a performative ritual rather than the scholastic and mechanical reproduction of a manuscript, and that they were the instantiations not of a written Urtext but of a fluid oral tradition. Therein lies the answer to the puzzle posed by the poor quality of

60 Hunter (2002: 273) notes: ‘[Refrain A] shows the degree of improvisation that took place during the transcription of incantations. Within the conventions of the genre, the writing process was flexible and innovative, and the copyists expressed their individuality accordingly’. 396 Häberl the writing (not to mention the large number of bowls covered not with actual writing but with a crude imitation or ‘pseudo-script’). In a primarily oral milieu such as that of the Middle East in antiquity, compositions of this kind were likely composed not to be recited alone but rather in the presence of others, as a variety of performance. Returning to the Generalissimo Stalin, it is clear that the other components of this performance – the whispered incantations, the construction of a magical circle, the inscribing of a new bowl, and finally the burial of that bowl – would have to be done properly in order to satisfy this audience of the felicity and efficacy of the ritual. The writing which was a reflection of the oral composition, ‘trapped’ as it were within the bounds of the circle formed by the rim of the bowl, was quite possibly of secondary importance, and the circumstances of its execution (on an unglazed plain-ware bowl during the course of a ritual) certainly did not lend themselves to great feats of calligraphy, in any case. Given these circumstances, and the fact that writing is typically much slower than speech (being typically about one tenth its speed), it is not surprising that some magi- cians may have merely mimicked the act of writing during the course of the ritual, thereby producing the so-called ‘pseudo-script texts’. We therefore need not dismiss their creators as charlatans, as they would also need to be completely versed in the other components of the ritual in order to satisfy their clients. In addition to illuminating much about the thought world of the people of late antique Mesopotamia, these bowl texts also have great potential to teach us much about the language they spoke, provided that they are not confused or conflated with the standard versions of this language represented by other literary traditions. In fact, as hastily scrawled transcriptions of the actual speech of the magician, presumably recorded more or less verbatim, they offer us insight into aspects of the spoken language that are not provided by the more prestigious literary texts.

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Thompson, Stith. 1955–58. Motif-Index of Folk Literature. A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest – Books and Local Legends. Bloomington: Indiana UP. 6 vols. Versnel, Henk S. 2002. ‘The Poetics of the Magical Charm: An Essay on the Power of Words.’ In Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World. Ed. Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 141. Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 105–58. Yamauchi, Edwin M. 2005. Mandaic Incantation Texts. Rev. ed. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press. CHAPTER 16 Between Demons and Kings The Art of Babylonian Incantation Bowls

Naama Vilozny

From different types of evidence, both textual and material, we learn that the Jews, like their neighbours, believed that the world was populated by supernatural entities, some of which might harm people, while others had the power to protect them. They believed that man could control these entities, mobi- lizing them for their own benefit, either by certain activities that had to be thoroughly learnt and implemented with care and precision, or by seeking the assistance of professional practitioners or sorcerers. It seems that during the first four centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple, belief in magic, like other belief systems, underwent an essential transformation among the Jews. This change was characterized by the increasingly popular use of magic, as evidenced by artefacts dated from the fourth century CE to the Islamic period and discovered in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Scholars of ancient Jewish history have claimed that the Judaism of Late Antiquity reflected inner processes of change which had already begun at the end of the Second Temple period, some of which resulted from external influences. Certain changes in Jewish thought already exist in the books of the Pseudoepigrapha and Apocrypha, parts of which were written at the end of the Second Temple period (Shaked 1982). This change took place partly as a result of the infiltration of new ideas into Jewish thinking, among them the idea of struggle between the opposing forces of God and the devil and the alignment of good and evil angels alongside (or against) God, who till then had been regarded as a single authority (ibid.: 245). The origins of these concepts are deeply rooted in Iranian Zoroastrian culture, mainly of the Sasanian period. Iranian influences on the Jewish cultural-religious milieu of the time also comprised magic elements, as reflected, for example, in the Book of Tobit (ibid.: 247). In their work on incantation bowls Shaked and Naveh, using textual evidence, have shown that the Iranian influence on Judaism continued into late antiquity, as demonstrated by linguistic allusions in the bowls, which bear witness to the merging of the Aramaic and Middle Persian, including Persian names of demons and humans (Naveh and Shaked 1985; idem 1993). In this

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_018 Between Demons And Kings 401 article I attempt to present a visual interpretation of Jewish magic and its link with Iranian influences as reflected in the bowl paintings, focusing in particular on figures and inscriptions found on Mesopotamian incantation bowls.1 I deal with their artistic and iconographic significance as well as with their function in the culture from which they emerged. I attempt to trace Iranian artistic influences on the bowl paintings, hopefully reinforcing the findings of the philological research which point to definite influences on the Jews of Mesopotamia. The incantation bowls were found in archaeological excavations throughout Mesopotamia, many of them being made available for research due to antique dealers.2 The bowls are simple in design, inscribed for the most part with ink in a spiral pattern and sometimes featuring a figurative painting on the inner or outer surface (Figs. 16.1 and 16.1a). We know today of around two thousand bowls; approximately two-thirds of them are inscribed in Jewish Aramaic and reflect a profound knowledge of Jewish sources. Hence, only a community member who was well versed in Jewish writings and holy books could have inscribed them, even if they were not intended for Jewish customers.3 Similar incantation bowls with Syriac, Middle Persian or Mandaean inscriptions have also been found, and these seem to have been inscribed by members of neighbouring communities in Mesopotamia.4 In general, the essence of the decorations is linked to the demonic world to which the incantation is addressed, apart from a few depictions of the sorcerer. However, only rarely is the text on the bowl directly connected to the picture on it, thus hindering our optimal interpretation of the material. Most of the paintings present various types of male and female demons, hybrid creatures and humans; most of them possess a range of identifying features, such as bestial anatomical elements (horns, claws, or tails), wild hair or naked bodies (Figs. 16.2 and 16.2a). Almost all the demons are figured bound in chains or shackles, which to an extent defines their demonic nature. Indeed, most

1 Most of the bowls belong to the Schøyen Collection. I am grateful to Shaul Shaked who read and interpreted the texts for facilitating their study. 2 On this, see McCown 1967. Among the first publications on the subject are Montgomery 1913; Gordon 1934; idem 1937; Yamauchi 1965. 3 Shaked 2005. [On incantation texts within the orality-textuality continuum, see Ch. Häberl’s article in this volume.] 4 See McCullough 1967; Yamauchi 1967. 402 Vilozny

figure 16.1

figure 16.1a Incantation bowls. Schøyen Collection 2053-198, 2056-12 photograph by Shaul Shaked Between Demons And Kings 403

figure 16.2

figure 16.2a Hybrid creatures on the bowls. Schøyen Collection 2056-10, 1911-1 drawings by Naama Vilozny 404 Vilozny scholars accept this view; however, no research has yet attempted to discern the artistic or cultural sources of such images.5 Scholars have drawn attention to the mutual influences of the Jewish communities in Mesopotamia, the local populations among whom they lived, and of neighbouring Iran as well.6 Belief in entire systems of demons and spirits was widespread throughout the Near East: Mesopotamia had an ancient culture of magic, which began with the Sumerians and was passed on to the Assyrians and Babylonians. This tradition was rich and varied, and extensive evidence for its vitality has been found in magic texts, including incantations directed at a variety of demons and accompanied by their visual-artistic depictions. Among the most popular are the male demon Pazuzu and the female demon Lamashtu, whose images decorate amulet pendants and tablets dating from the end of the first millennium BCE.7 The Zoroastrian religion features an inventory of demons, originating as gods in the ancient Indo-Iranian religious tradition. Some of the demons from the Zoroastrian ‘demonic pantheon’ play a prominent role in the Babylonian Talmud (Mallowan 1966: I, 117–18, fig. 60) and are also mentioned on the incantation bowls. Traces of ancient Mesopotamian magic appear here and there in the bowl paintings and bear witness to the longevity of its elements, although it seems that the bowl paintings demonstrate an affinity of the Mesopotamian Jewish community to artistic forms which they inherited from the ancient Persian world, as well as to the characteristics of contemporaneous Persian culture as expressed in the images. The features of the bowls’ design which demonstrate diverse influences, especially those of Iranian culture, can be summarized as follows: a. The incantation bowls are usually of a uniform design, including the incantation text that appears in spirals around the bowl with a space left for a painting at the centre (Fig. 16.3). Alternatively, the bowl might feature an image at the centre, with text arranged later around it. The painting at the centre of the bowl is usually framed by a circle separating it from the text. A circle also frames the outer edge of the text, close to the bowl’s rim. Sometimes, there

5 Erica Hunter has carried out some research on the iconography of the bowls paintings. See, e.g., Hunter 1998; Segal 2000. Her studies, however, do not benefit from the background of an art-historian and are therefore incomplete. 6 See, e.g., Elman 2007. 7 Lamashtu is a dreaded Babylonian she-demon, the daughter of the great god Anu, who harms pregnant women and steals babies from their mothers. Pazuzu is a son of Harpu, king of the evil spirits of the air. See Budge 1961: 104–17. Between Demons And Kings 405 are paintings on both inner and outer surfaces, although this is unusual. The composition of a central painting with text spiralling around it, sometimes separated from it by a circular line, appears on other magic artefacts as well, notably on amulets, examples of which can be found in the Sasanian world (Paruck 1924: V: 5, 10; XXI: 60.). Both the bowls and the amulets reveal some decidedly Iranian features, such as the names of the clients, both men and women, although these might not necessarily be Zoroastrians themselves. The painting of an image at the centre with an inscription around it was apparently usual among artists in Mesopotamia and the Near East as part of a general design of coins and seals which were not necessarily magical. Numerous Sasanian coins and seals are designed in the same way, with a single figure at the centre and usually one line of spiral text around it. Sometimes they feature more texts, occupying two lines or more around the figure, or else there might be a pattern of spiral or concentric decoration around the figure.8 A Sasanian amulet, inscribed in Middle Persian, shows a similar composition: at its centre a single front-facing human image is depicted, with long hair sprouting from its large head (Fig. 16.4).9 The figure is surrounded by a rectangular frame, around and within which there is a spiral inscription. The text hails from the same literary tradition of magic as is found in inscriptions on incantation bowls and on rolled metal amulets (Shaked 1993). The figure on the amulet has many parallels with those painted on the bowls. As on the bowls, it faces front, the body is stylized and linear, and the hair is long and wild. The hands stretching straight out to the sides, and the legs, which emerge directly from the head, are also seen in many of the images painted on the incantation bowls (Fig. 16.5). b. According to Iranian tradition, serpents guarded sources of water and were thought to be life-affirming. This led to the creation of a snake with a lion’s head bearing horns, to signify the chief Iranian god in the second millennium BCE (Porada 1987: 2). The ouroboros, a serpent with its tail in its mouth, also reveals a link with the Iranian world. The ouroboros originated in Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty and represents a variation on the widely-spread idea of the guardian serpent. The latter can take a grip of the enemies of the god and bind them within itself. The trapping creature came to be visualized in reliefs, papyri and gem stones, first among the Phoenicians, later among the Greeks and Romans (Deonna 1952; Kákosy 1986; Ritner 1984: 219). The ouroboros motif became common in Gnostic religions, as well as among the Mandaeans, as a

8 See Herzfeld 1924: I, 82, fig. 37; Gignoux 1978: pl. V: 3.4. 9 See Harper 1992; Spier 2007: 153, pl. 116: 895. 406 Vilozny

figure 16.3 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053-182 photograph by Shaul Shaked

figure 16.4 A Sasanian amulet Spier 2007, pl. 116: 895 Between Demons And Kings 407 symbol of the eternal cycle of life.10 A serpent surrounding an entire composition appears on an ancient border stone, one of several border stones found in Iran, which commonly appear from the twelfth century BCE onwards (Collon 1995: 120, fig. 99). This stone exhibits various symbols, surrounded by a large, fat serpent, whose body is decorated with a net pattern. The serpent has a single round eye and two short horns sprouting from its head. A bowl from the Schøyen Collection contains a depiction of two snakes around and inside the rim (Fig. 16.6). Each snake has the tail of the other in its mouth, thus forming together a circular frame which surrounds and closes off the text and the painting at the centre of the bowl. The serpents’ bodies are clearly visible and decorated with a net pattern along their entire length apart from the ends. The tails are ornamented with circles, and the necks – with short dashes. Their heads are also identical, both round, possessing a large round eye with a pupil at its centre, two horns rising from the head and an open mouth attempting to swallow the other serpent’s tail. One of the serpents’ necks is drawn at an angle facing straight upwards, apparently in order to make it fit the structure of the text and to juxtapose it with the last line, which would seem to indicate that in this case the text preceded the decoration. This design seems to indicate the influence of the Persian border stones, as well as reflecting the magic function of the ouroboros. The motif of a serpent biting its own tail appears in various forms on numerous amulet pendants and tablets.11 An amulet from Emmaus in Palestine, republished by Josef Naveh and Shaul Shaked, is yet another example (Naveh and Shaked 1985: 60–63). Although the amulet is incomplete, i.e., only the head and tail of the serpent can be seen, I believe it to be an ouroboros (Fig. 16.7). An amulet from Emesa in Syria, inscribed in Greek, includes text surrounded by an ouroboros, whose head and tail meet at the top centre of the amulet (Kotansky 1994: 248–56, pl. XVII). Given its widespread representation on amulets, it seems probable that the ouroboros does in fact carry magic import, rooted deeply in the consciousness of the decorators and inscribers of the incantation bowls. The circular outline on the bowls may also derive from the ouroboros, albeit in a simplified and stylized form. Like the ouroboros, it may convey protection and entrapment at one and the same time. Despite the simplification, the tradition of outlining the text with a magic circular symbol is preserved.

10 Rudolph 1980: 247; Drower 1962: 36–38, fig. I. [For the continuity of the ouroboros-snake theme in medieval Iran, notably in medieval Persian poetry, see M. Zakeri’s article in this volume.] 11 See., e.g., Bonner 1950: 274, figs. 133–140; pl. VII, figs. 141, 142, 145–147, 152–153. 408 Vilozny

figure 16.5 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053-250 photograph by Shaul Shaked

figure 16.6 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053-198 photograph by Shaul Shaked Between Demons And Kings 409

figure 16.7 An amulet from Emmaus, figure 16.8 Frontal position of the Palestine images on the bowls. Naveh and Shaked 1985, Schøyen Collection fig.5 2053-237 drawing by Naama Vilozny c. Most of the figures on the bowls are depicted facing front and are utterly static, thus allowing a full depiction of the body (Fig. 16.8). This was the prevailing trend in various Eastern cultures, from Mesopotamia via Syria and Palestine to Egypt (Avi-Yonah 1981: 8–35). The frontal depiction of static figures continued into the Parthian period as demonstrated in reliefs, especially in those where the composition is made up of several figures whose static, frontal depiction implies a lack of communication among them.12 These Parthian trends continue into the Sasanian period, as evidenced by various artefacts combining Eastern, Parthian, traditions and Western motifs, including the partial breaking of frontal depictions (Azarpay 2000). Thus, alongside with totally

12 See, e.g., Colledge 1977: 80–121, pls. 29, 30a, 47a. 410 Vilozny frontal depictions, the Sasanian kings are shown with their body facing front and their head seen in profile (Ghirshman 1962: 161, fig. 205; 208, fig. 248). On the one hand, the frontal depiction on the incantation bowl paintings recalls the artistic tradition of the Iranian culture within which they were produced; on the other hand, they reflect the well known, universal artistic depiction – apparent in both Eastern and Western art – of heads and bodies of monsters and demons in frontal presentation (the legs might be depicted frontally or in profile). This universal depiction is attested in Mesopotamian, Assyrian and Babylonian seals and small artefacts (Lambert 1987: pl. VII, 2–4, 5; pl. VIII, 7–11), as well as in Parthian art. Similarly, frontal depictions of monsters are found in Greece, apparently as a result of Eastern influence: particularly suggestive is the image of the Gorgon in the Orientalization period of the seventh century BCE,13 which continues into the Classical Period (Goldman 1961: pls. I–IX). This trait is prominent on the incantation bowls and can even be employed for identifying the demon figure. d. On the bowls there are figures that are portrayed as naked, or alternatively, with clothes painted so vaguely that individual garments are barely distinguishable. Nevertheless, in some cases one can discern various kinds of dress, including short or long tunics, with or without sleeves; long, wide, Eastern-style trousers; a sort of head covering – a crown or a hat; and high-heeled, pointed- toed shoes, typically Eastern. By identifying items of clothing and pursuing their sources, one might gain insight into the identity of the figures, possibly retracing the circumstances that could have led to their depiction on the bowls. The hands and feet of a considerable number of the figures on the bowls – both human and human-beast hybrids – are decorated with horizontal lines all along their length (Fig. 16.9). Unlike other elements in the design of the figures, whose origins can be traced to ancient periods, the design of the limbs seems to originate in traditional Persian dress, popular in the Parthian period and largely in the Sasanian period as well. Earlier depictions of Mesopotamian demons do not include this type of linear decoration of the limbs. Parthian dress included long, wide trousers, with folds of cloth falling above the ankle, with a long-sleeved tunic covering the trousers to the thighs. A narrow belt clinched the tunic at the waist, creating folds of cloth over the lower part of the torso (Fig. 16.10). The feet might be shod with flat shoes or san- dals, although for the most part, the figures are barefooted. Figures dressed this way appear in various artistic forms, from huge Parthian sculptures cut

13 For an example on the pediment of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu, see Biers 1980: 150, fig. 7.1. Between Demons And Kings 411

figure 16.9 Decorated limbs on the bowls. Schøyen Collection 1911-3 drawing by Naama Vilozny in rock, dated to the third century CE (Ghirshman 1962: 56, 86), to the delicate decoration of the reliefs and engravings on silver Sasanian bowls from the sixth century (Harper 1981: 236). A beautiful depiction of a warrior on horseback appears in a wall painting at Dura Europos (Ghirshman 1962: 51–52, fig. 63). The painting shows the horseman’s hands and feet decorated with stripes along their whole length to the shoulders, and a thigh-length tunic. In the Sasanian period we note the persistent appearance of Parthian dress, with minor changes and additions. The trousers and the tunic still have transverse stripes. In the case of warriors, the stripes over the upper torso represent a kind of armor (Ghirshman 1962: 125–30). Sasanian art portrays mainly warriors and kings, with additional items of dress, such as splendid, high, crown- like headdresses, occasionally in the form of a globe (ibid.: 126; 132, fig. 168), from which two wide straps hang down the back. During the entire period, these straps are depicted on a variety of artefacts, decorated with transverse stripes (Fig. 16.11). On small artefacts such as coins and seals, the costume has short lines all along the limbs (Paruck 1924: XXI, XXII). Presumably, these stripes represent an attempt by the artist to depict the folds of garments. On small, everyday objects, such as coins and seals, the folds become somewhat stylized, appearing as straight lines across the width of the garment. I believe that the bowl makers, for whom these depictions were part of their everyday lives, borrowed this style from their contemporary local culture. The painting on a bowl in the Moussaieff collection is a fine example of the Sasanian style (Fig. 16.12). The figure of a man is dressed in a short tunic, decorated with short transverse stripes, and worn over a close fitting shirt which also has transverse stripes all down the sleeves. He is wearing wide trousers, narrowing at the ankles; they too are decorated with short transverse stripes. 412 Vilozny

figure 16.10 Parthian costumes Ghirshman 1962: 103, fig. 123

figure 16.11 A Sasanian silver bowl Collon 1995: 206, fig. 172 Between Demons And Kings 413

His high crown is made up of three rows of vertical stripes, with a row of short lines pointing upwards above it. Four ribbons are attached to the sides of the crown, two on each side. The figure’s feet are bound, and his hands are crossed on his chest. The costume is utterly Sasanian, as attested in many artistic depictions. The stripes on the arms match the entire costume, striped arms being the most stylized feature of the local, Persian dress. This figure has much in common with the portrayal of a Sasanian king on a gold coin of the period (Fig. 16.13; Harper 1981: 44, fig. 13). The representation of striped limbs is often interpreted by scholars as bonds on the demon’s body. For instance, the body of the figure painted at the centre of the incantation bowl published by Cyrus H. Gordon is covered with short transverse lines, while on the chest and hips there are longer, vertical lines (Gordon 1984: 241, fig. 14). Gordon interprets these lines as bonds, and the stripes around the neck may also be understood as such (ibid.: 238). However, I suggest that the body design should be interpreted as a schematic representation of dress. Fig. 16.14 shows a bound figure wearing a tall crown made up of a horizontal base with two volutes pointing upwards, with a narrow, tall pole between them, bearing a round decoration. The figure has horizontal ears at the sides of the head, resembling goats’ ears, and four long ribbons, two on each side, reaching the hips. The tall crown seems to be borrowed from a range of Sasanian royal crowns. These characteristically have a tall, usually round, decorative element at the centre, emerging from the base of the crown, with oblong crenelations, like those seen in the figure on the bowl. Sasanian art represents consistent types, peculiar to important figures, and the Sasanian kings typically wear unique crowns, by which they can be identified (Herzfeld 1924: I, 8–9; Paruck 1924: XXI, XXII). Given the stylized nature of the bowl painting, the long curls of the image could be a hint at the curly hair of the Sasanian kings, which is portrayed as unruly, emerging from the crown on both sides of the head (Ghirshman 1962: 135, fig. 171; 172, fig. 214), or as broad ribbons flapping behind the crown. When the head is depicted in profile, these ribbons are seen flying behind the head; while pictured from the front, as on the incantation bowl, the ribbons, deriving from the Sasanian reliefs, appear on both sides of the head. A similar depiction of flapping ribbons at the sides of a frontal view of a head is found on the bowl that I examined above (Fig. 16.12). The prominent goat- type ears on the sides of the image’s head are typical of demons; descriptions of demons as possessing anatomical features of goats occur in magic literature since ancient times (Porada 1995: 31–32, figs. 9a, 9b). There is also a range of Jewish evidence found in protection prayers from Qumran (Lichtenberger 414 Vilozny

figure 16.12 An incantation bowl. Moussaieff Collection drawing by Naama Vilozny

figure 16.13 A Sasanian golden coin Harper 1981: 44, fig. 13 Between Demons And Kings 415

figure 16.14 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 2053-217 drawing by Naama Vilozny

2009: 271–72; Bohak 2012) and in the Babylonian Talmud (bPesaḥim 111b), as well as on incantation bowls, all testifying to horns being a demonic feature.14 If my supposition that iconographic elements such as the crown, ribbons and long garments should be identified as typical of Sasanian kings, is correct, then, coupled with the demonic features, the image on the incantation bowl may be identified as a male demonic figure, perhaps a symbolic representation of a prince of demons. Samael, who is mentioned in the text on the bowl,15 was an important angel in Jewish demonology, where he is believed to be the Angel of Death (Thompson 1971: 86), the supreme ruler of the fifth heaven and one of the seven tyrants of the world, served by two million angels. He is the prince of demons and is a major figure in the Talmud as well as in post-Talmu- dic literature.

14 Thus, a bowl in the Schøyen Collection (no. 2053–236), translated by Shaul Shaked, includes the description of a demon, as follows: ‘. . . your countenance is that of a cruel man, your horn is that of a wild animal’ (personal communication). 15 According to Shaked’s translation (personal communication). 416 Vilozny

Finally, I shall address the question of a connection between the texts and the paintings on the bowl, aiming to reveal a reference or some clue to the visual form of the demonic figures. Having examined the paintings and the texts on the incantation bowls, it appears to me that in most cases there is no relation between the two. The majority of the incantations against demons and other harmful elements are consistent and articulated a priori. Nevertheless, one can distinguish three main types of text in association with the paintings. First, a small number of incantations includes sentences which might cast light on the painting. Although the text is general, describing the main features of a demon or a devil as it appears on other bowls as well, a demonic figure is nevertheless identified by name and sex, and occasionally a description of various visual attributes are added: hair, bestial or monstrous elements, or objects it holds in its hands. There might be a clear description of how the demon is bound, reflecting the depiction in the bowl painting. Second, the text may specifically refer to the painting as representing a particular demon, in which case the text might begin with the formula ‘this is the image of’. Third, the text may be part of the iconography of the painting itself. It can constitute the texture of a garment or appear as a bubble of text, which the figure holds in its hand. Even in these cases, however, there is not always a direct connection between the import of the text and the painting itself. I shall illustrate the above discussion with three examples. The first example concerns the painting that depicts two figures bound together at the neck and ankles (Fig. 16.15). The figure facing front possesses monstrous male features, while the figure seen in profile is identifiable as a female. The text on the bowl contains a description of a demonic union: ‘By the mercy of heaven. Meḥuš Šeda (the Demon of Pain) from Šeda came from heaven and took (for wife?) the woman 16.(ברחמי שמיא מחוש שידא מישידא מישמיא נחית ונסיבא ליה איתתא מותתא . . .) ’death Presumably, this rare appearance of two demons bound together is connected to the text. The horns and feet (which are also referred to in the text) identify the front-facing figure as a male, a demon whose name, Meḥuš Šeda, is mentioned in the text. The woman may be identified as such by the form of her body which is narrow at the waist, and by her headgear that has Sasanian parallels, as in a silver Sasanian bowl, on which a dancing figure is depicted sideways.17

16 The translation is by Shaul Shaked (personal communication). 17 Cf. Ghirshman 1962: 217, fig. 258. Between Demons And Kings 417

figure 16.15 An incantation bowl. Schøyen Collection 1928-2 drawing by Naama Vilozny

My second example comes from the two bowls published by Gordon (1937). At their centre is a figure bound hand and foot. The text on both bowls begins: ‘This is the figure of the curse and of the lilith, and of the . . . and of the evil blow and of the evil eye . . .’ (Gordon 1937: 91). The text on either bowl does not explicitly identify the evil spirit, the figure therefore embodying Evil generi- cally; we can assume that the painting was done before the text. In the third example (Figs. 16.16 and 16.16a), the text is an intrinsic part of the bowl painting. It includes the description of the procedure and the inscription of the client’s and the figures’ names made on the images themselves as part of the decoration of their garments. I have compared a number of Mesopotamian incantation bowls with some other artefacts in an attempt to discover a degree of compositional consistency or similarity either in the form of the figures or in their dress and accessories. The comparison has demonstrated that the paintings on the bowls are by no means fruits of the imagination of a particular artist, but rather reflect the cultural milieu in which they were produced, so that the symbolism of their artistic language must have been well comprehended and accessible to the artist’s clients. This finding dovetails with the view that the incantation bowls were unique magical artefacts, inspired both by local magic and religious literature, as well as by more general magical trends. Schematic as they are, the paintings on the incantation bowls comprise clear and easily understandable codes which enable us – similarly to the users in antiquity – to identify the figures. Like iconic art, magic artefacts are meant to serve as ready and unambiguous transmitters of specific cultural-symbolic messages. The attention of the transmitter and the receiver, therefore, was not focused on the aesthetic but rather on the functional representation of distinct iconographic features, that were necessary to perceive the message implied by the painted scene with accuracy. 418 Vilozny

figure 16.16

figure 16.16a An incantation bowl. Moussaieff Collection photograph by matthew morgenstern, drawing by Naama Vilozny Between Demons And Kings 419

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———. 1937. ‘Aramaic and Mandaic Magical Bowls.’ Archiv Orientální 9, pp. 84–106. ———. 1984. ‘Magic Bowls in the Moriah Collection.’ Orientalia 53, pp. 220–41. Harper, Prudence O. 1981. Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period. Vol. I: Royal Imagery. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton UP. ———, Prods Oktor Skjaervø, L. Gorelick and A.J. Gwinnett. 1992. ‘A Seal-Amulet of the Sasanian Era: Imagery and Typology, the Inscription, and Technical Comments.’ BAI 6, pp. 43–58. Herzfeld, Ernst. 1924. Paikuli, Monument and Inscription of the Early History of the Sasanian Empire. Forschungen zur islamischen Kunst 3. Berlin: D. Reimer. 2 vols. Hunter, Erica C.D. 1998. ‘Who Are the Demons? The Iconography of Incantation Bowls.’ Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico. Vol. 15: Magic in the Ancient Near East, pp. 95–115. Kákosy, Lászlo. 1986. ‘Uroboros.’ Lexikon der Ägyptologie. Ed. Wolfgang Helck and Wolfhart Westendorf. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, vol. 6, pp. 886–93. Kotansky, Roy. 1994. Greek Magical Amulets: the inscribed gold, silver, copper and bronze lamellae. Papyrologica Coloniensia 22. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Lambert, Wilfred G. 1987. ‘Gilgamesh in Literature and Art: the Second and First Millennia.’ In Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada. Ed. Ann E. Farkas, Prudence O. Harper and Evelyn B. Harrison. Mainz on Rhine: Philipp von Zabern, pp. 37–52. Lichtenberger, Hermann. 2009. ‘Demonology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.’ In Text, Thought, and Practice in Qumran and Early Christianity. Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, Jointly Sponsored by the Hebrew University Center for the Study of Christianity, 11–13 January, 2004. Ed. Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 84. Leiden and Boston: E.J. Brill, pp. 267–80. Mallowan, M.E.L. 1966. Nimrud and Its Remains. London: Collins. 2 vols. McCown, Donald E., and Richard C. Haines. 1967. Nippur I: Temple of Enil, Scribal Quarter and Soundings. Oriental Institute Publications 78. Chicago: Chicago UP. McCullough, William S. 1967. Jewish and Mandaean Incantation Bowls in the Royal Ontario Museum. Near and Middle East Series 5. Toronto: U of Toronto Press. Montgomery, James A. 1913. Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, University Museum. Naveh, Joseph, and Shaul Shaked. 1985. Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University; Leiden: E.J. Brill. ———. 1993. Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University. Paruck, Furdoonjee D.J. 1924. Sasanian Coins. Bombay: The Times Press. Between Demons And Kings 421

Porada, Edith. 1987. ‘Introduction. Monsters and Demons: Death and Life in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds.’ In Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada. Ed. Ann E. Farkas, Prudence O. Harper and Evelyn B. Harrison. Mainz on Rhine: Philipp von Zabern, pp. 1–11. ———. 1995. Man and Images in the Ancient Near East. Anshen Transdisciplinary Lectureships in Art, Science and the Philosophy of Culture 4. Wakefield, Rhode Island: Moyer Bell. Ritner, Robert K. 1984. ‘A Uterine Amulet in the Oriental Institute Collection.’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43/3, pp. 209–21. Rudolph, Kurt. 1980. Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism. San Francisco: Harper. Segal, Judah B. 2000. Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum. With a contribution by Erica C.D. Hunter. London: British Museum Press. Shaked, Shaul. 1982. ‘The Influence of the Iranian Religion on Judaism.’ In The World History of the Jewish People. Vol. 6: The Restoration – The Persian Period. Ed. Hayim Tadmor. Jerusalem: Am Oved, pp. 236–50. [in Hebrew] ———. 1993. ‘Notes on the Pahlavi Amulet and Sasanian Courts of Law.’ BAI 7. Iranian Studies in Honor of A.D.H. Bivar. Ed. Carol A. Bromberg, pp. 165–72. ———. 2005. ‘Magical Bowls and Incantation Texts: How to Get Rid of Demons and Pests.’ Qadmoniot 38/129, pp. 2–13. [in Hebrew] Spier, Jeffrey. 2007. Late Antique and Early Christian Gems. Spätantike, frühes Christentum, Byzans. Reihe B, Studien und Perspektiven 20. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Thompson, R. Campbell. 1971. Semitic Magic. Its Origins and Development. New York: Ktav Publishing House. Yamauchi, Edwin M. 1965. ‘Aramaic Magic Bowls.’ JAOS 85, pp. 511–23. ———. 1967. ‘A Mandaic Magic Bowl from the Babylonian Collection.’ Berytus 17, pp. 49–63. CHAPTER 17 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances and Mural Paintings Illustrated Scrolls in Pre-Islamic Central Asia

Frantz Grenet

The genre of belles-lettres is scantily represented in what has survived from the written records of Central Asia.1 Buddhist tales form a rich repertoire, but the Buddhist texts found in Central Asia were either transmitted in languages foreign to the region (Sanskrit, Middle Indian, Chinese, Tibetan), or translated from them into local Iranian languages (Khotanese and Sogdian). No example of a Bactrian Buddhist tale has come down to us, but several are known in Sogdian. Only one of these, the Vessantara Jātaka (Benveniste 1946), can be considered as an original composition, as shown for example by the names and descriptions of some gods who are syncretized with Zoroastrian gods of the Sogdians. All the other Buddhist Sogdian texts, except for a handful of magical spells, were translated from Chinese. Manichaean and Christian Sogdian literature also includes parables and edifying stories, taken from the general stock of both religions. But Sogdian literature also contains pieces of a distinctly narrative character and with various degrees of originality. Most of them were transmitted in Manichean manuscripts found in Turfan; all were published by Walter Bruno Henning in his masterly article ‘Sogdian Tales’ (Henning 1945). These manuscripts are on the whole datable to the ninth and tenth centuries, therefore post-dating the Islamic conquest of Sogdiana itself, and some texts actually show the influence of the Pahlavi language, but in general they obviously reflect far older models. As shown by Henning, these tales were freely reworked from extremely varied sources: most of them are based on the Pañcatantra (either on variants of the Indian original, or on Burzōy’s Pahlavi rendering Kalīlag ud Dimnag known to us through its Arabic translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ), others

1 For a recent overview, see Emmerick and Macuch 2009 (contributions by W. Sundermann, ‘Manichaean literature in Iranian languages,’ pp. 197–265; N. Sims-Williams, ‘Christian literature in Middle Iranian languages,’ pp. 266–87 (on Sogdian, see pp. 271–87); Y. Yoshida, ‘Buddhist literature in Sogdian,’ pp. 288–329; M. Maggi, ‘Khotanese literature,’ pp. 330–417).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004291973_019 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 423 come from Aesop;2 one is from the Bible, one from an unidentified Buddhist source, one from the Zoroastrian story of the journey to Paradise and the encounter with the maiden who embodies the religious conscience of the wandering soul. One burlesque tale, ‘The Caesar and the Thieves,’ is entirely original, and as I have tried to show in a recent article (Grenet 2009: 289–91), it embroiders one episode of Manichaean missionary history: the approach to the ‘Caesar’ Odeinath, master of Palmyra, and his diplomatic contacts with Shāpūr I.

The Sogdian Rustam Text and Its Illustration at Panjikent

One long fragment in Sogdian stands apart, namely the episode of Rustam fighting against the demons of Māzandarān (text given in the Appendix). It belongs to the epic genre and was transmitted not in a Manichean manuscript but in a Zoroastrian one, also from the ninth or tenth centuries (Sims-Williams 1976: 54–61). The same episode is told in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma but with important variations (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 12–45). The story is also documented in Sogdian painting and will be considered in detail below. At the present stage of the argument it is important to note that the Sogdian literate class had access to an abundant and diversified written literature of fiction. However, were written records the only channel of access to these compositions and to others of a similar character? The answer is clearly no, as demonstrated by the paintings which decorated the rich houses of Panjikent, a middle-sized Sogdian city sixty kilometers to the east of Samarkand. The narrative paintings in Panjikent begin in the sixth century, but most of them date from the first half of the eighth century. Subsequently the town turned to Islam and such subjects fell from favour. All these paintings have been splendidly described and commented upon in his last book by Boris Marshak (Marshak 2002), who died in 2006 on his excavations at Panjikent. The two genres attested in narrative Sogdian literature are present in the Panjikent murals: on one side the epic, on the other – popular tales. They are also clearly hierarchized by their location on the walls (Fig. 17.1):3 scenes belonging to epic stories are stretched in long bands all along the back and side

2 For an improved edition of one of the Aesopian fables (‘The monkey and the fox’), see Sims- Williams 2010. Fragments from other tales in the Berlin collection, including the Aesopian ‘The wild cat and the bird,’ have been published by Morano 2009. 3 All illustrations showing Panjikent paintings have been adapted by François Ory from documents kindly supplied by Boris Marshak. 424 Grenet Heritage Museum, Saint-Petersburg Heritage Panjikent, Rustam Tale (second register from the bottom), western and northern walls, scenes 1 to 5 1 to scenes and northern walls, western the bottom), from register (second Tale Rustam Panjikent, figure 17.1 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 425 walls of the room, while popular tales are confined to the lower register and each of them is assigned one panel only. By a remarkable coincidence, the only epic cycle with identifiable subjects is related to the hero Rustam, and one of its episodes deals precisely with Rustam’s war against the demons of Māzandarān, which the Sogdian fragment is part of. This provides an ideal opportunity to confront the respective conventions of the writer and the painter. The painting was executed in the 40s of the eighth century, i.e., during the last period when the town flourished and the Arab occupation had not yet influenced the local culture. The Rustam story, almost entirely preserved, occupies the lower of the three registers devoted to epic stories, with an additional register below, divided into panels illustrating the tales. The story of Rustam runs from left to right, while an unidentified story above runs from right to left. In the first episode (Fig. 17.2, left), Rustam, followed by three companions, enters the mountainous country of the demons.4 Rustam is recognizable by his caftan made of leopard’s skin (Firdausī’s babr-i bayān), better preserved in other scenes, and by his unique profile inspired by those of Hephtalite rulers of the previous centuries.5 In this first scene various symbols of an ominous character are sparingly but carefully distributed. Towards Rustam’s head a winged creature flies, with the head and foreparts of a lion and a fish tail appearing only in scenes where Rustam has the upper hand: it is Sīmurgh, protector of Rustam’s family, or perhaps rather Rustam’s specific farr, manifestation of Fortune (see Compareti, forthcoming). On the top of the mountain, the chief of the demons, the White Demon mentioned by Firdausī (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 15ff.), raises his arms in a gesture of despair. Under Rustam’s horse a dog is chewing a bone, an allusion to the Zoroastrian funerary ritual and, consequently, to the threat of death. The second episode (Fig. 17.2, middle) is the fight between Rustam and Aulād, a knight living in the demons’ country. Here, for once, the scenography is identical with the Shāh-nāma, with Rustam using a lasso (cf. Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 34, ll. 460–462). Immediately afterward (Fig. 17.2, right; Fig. 17.3, scene 2) comes the apparition of a pretty maiden from behind a mountain, who greets Rustam. Marshak considers this figure as an elliptic allusion to an episode otherwise unattested, Rustam delivering a captive princess (Marshak 2002: 40). However, to my mind

4 Except for a few cases which will be explicitly mentioned, my commentaries on this painted cycle follow Marshak 2002: 25–54. 5 The most precise analogy is with one particular series of coins of Meham or Aduman (previously identified as Khingil), c. 460–500, issued in Gandhara. See Grenet 2002: 218, pl. 8. 426 Grenet Rustam Tale, scenes 1 and 2 scenes Tale, Rustam walls northern and eastern Tale, Rustam figure 17.2 figure 17.3 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 427 the maiden is the witch who appears as a female dragon with hanging breasts in the two following scenes (Fig. 17.3, scenes 3, 4), first nearly swallowing Rustam, then killed by him. In the Shāh-nāma Rustam is seduced by a beautiful witch who eventually reveals herself as a horrible black hag after he praises God (Khāliqī-Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 30–31, ll. 403–416). The Sogdian pictorial version shows more imagination in the mutability of the bodily shape. After the victory over the witch, Sīmurgh – or rather the farr – reappears near Rustam’s head (Fig. 17.3, scene 5), showing that luck is again on his side. Then (scene 6) comes a mounted single combat between Rustam and an adversary who, if one follows Firdausī (Khāliqī- Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 38, ll. 510–518), is probably Arzhang, the commander of the demons’ army. At the same time Rustam’s companions are fighting the demonic army (Fig. 17.4, scene 7), and here one can compare the painting with the narration in the Sogdian written fragment. There are several common features: some demons are on a chariot, here fitted with wings; others are foot archers; some appear as vultures. On the whole, the pictorial rendering is more sober and synthetic than the written one, which in its exuberance has been qualified as ‘Rabelaisian’ (Skjærvø 1998: 167). Another fundamental difference which sets the Panjikent painting apart from both the Sogdian text and the Shāh-nāma, is that Rustam has companions, while in the written versions he fights alone with his horse Rakhsh. In the following sequences one can see Rustam fighting another rider (the king of Māzandarān (?)), probably at night as suggested by the presence of an owl (Fig. 17.3, scene 8);6 then the death of a giant lion-headed monster is depicted, who, according to Firdausī, should be the White Demon (though he is painted in yellow). Eventually, Rustam and his companions proceed to another feat. The end of the composition is not preserved; however, as all epic cycles painted in Panjikent end up with a banquet scene, it must have contained the release of King Kay Kāvūs, who had been captured by the demons, and the subsequent rejoicing (cf. Khāliqī- Muṭlaq 1988–2008: II, 62–65, ll. 852–885). The somewhat elliptic style of this painting as well as of other epic paintings found at Panjikent, suggests that it functioned as a support for oral presentation, perhaps just commentaries by learned visitors, or props for the performances by professional narrators, accompanied by music.7 These performers might have sat on the platforms protruding from the bench at the back end of all the parade halls in private houses. Some characteristics pointed out by Marshak demonstrate that the Rustam cycle was transposed from a painted scroll (Marshak 2002: 30). The painter

6 The scene is not commented on by Marshak. 7 For literary references regarding minstrel-musicians in pre-Islamic Iran, see Boyce 1957. 428 Grenet

figure 17.4 Rustam Tale, scene 7 (the battle with the demons), detail

figure 17.5 Engraved wooden boards: Tepsey cemetery, Tashtyk culture, Southern Siberia, 3rd–5th c. CE Vadetskaya 1992, pl. 100: 13–15 Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 429 must have found the length of the walls not long enough and therefore had to compress the last scenes and also to split one episode (the fight with Aulād) between two different walls (Fig. 17.1). Besides, a scene on the northern wall, to the left of its axis, that shows Rustam’s companions trampling on the dragon (Fig. 17.3, scene 4), appears as the pivot of a symmetrical composition: on both sides one can see first Rustam alone on his horse (scenes 3 and 5), then Rustam in single combat on horseback (scenes 2 and 6), moving in opposite directions. This suggests that the original scroll was rolled on both sides up to that point, the symmetrical composition being progressively unravelled as it was unrolled. Such illustrated rolls are known from Byzantium to Japan, and are still used in Nepal and Rajasthan.8 An actual specimen which I shall discuss later, has been found in Turfan. Wooden boards provided with handles (Fig. 17.5) and engraved with hunting and war scenes have been discovered in a late Xiongnu or early Kirghiz grave in the Yenisei valley, dating from the third to the fifth centuries CE. Despite the difference in medium and more rudimen- tary contents, they are worth mentioning in the present context, as they were obviously intended for a small group of people who were listening to the narrative and looking at the pictures at the same time (Gryaznov 1979: 144–45; Vadetskaya 1992: 243, 450 (pl. 100: 13–15); Marshak 2002: 31).9

Other Tales Illustrated at Panjikent

On the first photograph reproduced as Fig. 17.1, one can see that the lower register occupied by the epic scenes – the story of Rustam – surmounts a narrower register divided into thirty small square or rectangular panels. These panels show a different repertoire: edifying tales, fables, and folk stories. The conventions are also different from those followed in the continuous epic cycles: a story is never distributed on more than one panel, the elements of the narration are concentrated, sometimes to the extreme. The same distribution between epic and popular stories can be observed in all rich houses of Panjikent. The question arises: are any of these stories also known in Sogdian writings? Surprisingly, there is only one such case, and even this case is not certain (Fig. 17.6). On the right side of the painting, an old man looking like an Indian ascetic is shown; he gives a jug to a young girl who has five plaits, of the type

8 For a specific development of this tradition, namely the use of painted scrolls in Buddhist teaching in China and Japan, see Mair 1988; Kaminishi 2006. 9 Such small wooden boards carrying drawings were used in the Turkish rain-making ritual described in the Sogdian text P.3, recently reedited by Azarnouche and Grenet 2010. 430 Grenet

figure 17.6 Panjikent, The Merchant and the Spirit (or Beauty and the Beast?) still used to single out unmarried girls in the mountains of Tajikistan today. On the left hand of the painting, the same girl draws water from a pond, while an ugly, half-naked character emerges, who is obviously a demon. Marshak has proposed interpreting these scenes as the end of the story ‘The Merchant and the Spirit,’ one of the Manichean Sogdian tales published by Henning, ultimately derived from the Greek story of Idomeneus sacrificing his daughter to Poseidon after having been caught in a storm (Henning 1945: 471–72; cf. Marshak 2002: 62–64, fig. 31). In the Sogdian tale a merchant taken by a storm promises to sacrifice the first person he meets on the shore to the Spirit of the Ocean if he comes back alive; it happens to be his own daughter. The difficult point is that the girl in the painting draws drinkable water from a pond, not from the sea. Grigori Semenov proposed recognizing here a hitherto unattested prototype of the story ‘The Beauty and the Beast,’ of which many versions are known in far later periods. According to his interpretation, the three flowers in the middle of the painting are those which the old man picked up while intruding into the demon’s property, who in retaliation forced him to surrender his daughter.10 If indeed no tale illustrated at Panjikent corresponds to those known in the Sogdian written literature, does it mean that they came from a different cultural milieu? Probably not. When the subjects at Panjikent can be identified, which is not always the case, they come from exactly the same general stock as the Manichean tales, that is the Pañcatantra both in its original Indian and in Pahlavi versions, and the Aesop literature. The mere richness of the repertoire is enough to explain the apparent absence of any overlap. Forty-two stories

10 Semenov 1996: 97–104, fig. 34, referring to Swahn 1955, sub-type C. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 431

figure 17.7 Panjikent, The Monkeys, the Elephants and the Woman Playing with the Ram

altogether are illustrated in Panjikent, but only two were found in different houses. Let us now examine two further examples in order to show the stylistic features and the possible models of the paintings. The first story (Fig. 17.7) comes from the Pañcatantra (Lancereau 1965: 332–34), with some specific details found in the Persian Sindbād-nāma derived from a parallel Indian cycle.11 The king of the monkeys notices from afar a girl activating a fire with a poker next to a ram (on the right side of the painting). He foresees bad consequences and warns his people to flee away, which they refuse laughingly. The girl acciden- tally sets ablaze the hair of the ram (the flames are visible) and it runs to the elephants’ stables which in turn catch fire. The physician advises the king to heal the burns of the elephants with monkey fat, so the monkeys are captured and boiled. At the top left of the painting, the king of the monkeys and his wife bid their foolish subjects farewell. Though the sequence of the events follows a consistent order from the right to the left side of the painting, the composition bears the character of a puzzle: it could not be understood without an oral commentary. As suggested by Marshak, these panels could also be used as a social game to check the astuteness and culture of guests who were seated on the sofas along the walls. The following example (Fig. 17.8) is even more elliptic: on the right side of the painting one can see a jackal speaking to a lion, on its left side the same animal is speaking to a bull, and in the middle, badly preserved, one can observe the lion and the bull fighting. The depicted story is found both in the Pañcatantra and in the Kalīla va Dimna and can be summarized as follows:

11 Ateş 1948: 80–83; Bogdanović 1975: 67–69; see also Marshak 2002: 93–97, 133, figs. 49, 83. 432 Grenet

figure 17.8 Panjikent, The Bull, the Lion and the Jackal in order to destroy the most powerful animals, the jackal warns them against each other; consequently they fight.12 A parallel in later Arab miniatures can be adduced for this story: a painting, executed in Syria in the early thirteenth century, shows the first scene.13 The painting belongs to a tradition inaugurated by the first manuscript of the Arabic version of the Kalīla va Dimna, executed in about 760, only twenty years after the Panjikent painting. Another interesting detail is the shape of the panel, which suggests a model taken from very long books of a type known in medieval India. In fact, all, or most of these anecdotic panels were obviously copied from miniatures in books, none of which has come down to us. A handful of paintings shows pairs of lovers (Fig. 17.9; cf. Marshak 2002: 99, fig. 51): on the left side of the painting, they are shown in an embrace, in the middle part the girl refuses a cup of wine presented to her by the young man, on the right side the girl reproaches him. Such scenes might have been taken from illustrated books of elegiac poetry. In the Sogdian language only one specimen of this type of poetry has been discovered. This is a praise to wine, incised on the rim of a wine jar found in a Sogdian colony (in today’s Kyrgyzstan), which reads: ‘Who did not take any harm into account, will not see his own wealth as well. [Therefore], o man, drink [wine]!’ (Livshits 2008: 356–58).

12 Lancereau 1965: 53–160; Miquel 1980: 49–104 (§105–248), with numerous digressions (see Marshak 2002: 85–86, figs. 36–38). 13 Ettinghausen 1977: 61, fig. on p. 63; BNF, Paris, ms. Arabe 3465, fol. 49v. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 433

figure 17.9 Panjikent, Pairs of Lovers

The Lacedaemonian Family Cycle at Dalʾverzintepe

Having examined in detail the evidence from Panjikent, one should wonder whether Central Asian narrative wall paintings from other regions and other periods provide evidence for the use of painted scrolls as well. To my knowledge, there is only one example, not fully certain but worth examining. This is a wall painting from the Kushan period, more precisely from the second century CE, found forty years ago in a rich house in the town of Dalʾverzintepe in northern Bactria. The drawing, hypothetically completed with dotted lines and reproduced in Figure 17.10, comes from the original publication by Pugachenkova and Rtveladze (1978: 80–82, 88–89, figs. 53–55). Some details of the drawing can be corrected with the help of colour photographs published later (see Pugachenkova 1991: figs. 100–102). In addition, I have been able to examine the original fragments at the Institute of Art History in Tashkent and in the Termez museum. Until now this painting has defied interpretation. The scene on its right side has been variously identified as Heracles killing his children in a fit of madness,14 or as a priest and a priestess of a Bactrian goddess presenting children.15 Alternatively, it was suggested that they might be puppets,16 or Athena surging from Zeus’ head (Mode 1988). In my opinion, the key to

14 Lazarʾ Rempelʾ, quoted in Pugachenkova and Rtveladze 1978: 88. 15 Rtveladze in Pugachenkova and Rtveladze 1978: 89. 16 Boris Marshak, personal communication. 434 Grenet

figure 17.10 Dalʾverzintepe, wall painting from a private house, 2nd c. CE Pugachenkova and Rtveladze 1978, fig. 53

the interpretation lies in the central scene that depicts a bare-headed lady, obviously of lower status than the one on the left, holding two identical babies with pointed caps. I identify her as a nurse holding the twins Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri. The noble lady on the left side of the drawing is seated on a large bird with curved feathers, though the drawing is not fully accurate (the detail is restored rather as a cornucopia); her left hand with an upright forefinger holds a cylindrical object. She is Leda, seated on the swan into which Zeus has transformed himself in order to seduce her. Though no general model for the Dalʾverzintepe composition as a whole can be discovered in the products of Greek and Roman art which have come down to us, close parallels can nevertheless be found for some details of the drawing, including the gesture of Leda stroking the swan’s neck (Fig. 17.11). The feathers depicted below the nurse and completed in the wrong direction on the drawing probably also belong to the swan. The nurse holds the Dioscuri, the outcome of the act of seduction. As for the third episode (Fig. 17.12), the child is an adolescent girl (the breasts are visible). She can be no other than Iphigenia brought to be sacrificed by her father, King Agamemnon, or by the seer Calchas; both the king and the priest can be identified by the white ribbon tying their hair. On some Greek vases the fainting girl is similarly depicted with outstretched arms (Fig. 17.12, right). Some works from the Roman period show her with a veil covering her nape (Lexicon 1981–99: ‘Iphigeneia,’ nos. 42–45, 47). On the painting under discussion such a veil, rather than a ribbon, seems discernible on both sides of the girl’s head (not indicated on the drawing, but visible on the original and on the photograph, see Fig. 17.12, left). Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 435

Figure 17.11 Detail of Leda, with comparative material: left, Leda seated on the swan (terracotta statue from Naucratis, Cairo, Egyptian Museum, JE 33562, no date); right, Leda stroking the swan’s neck (marble table foot, Cyrene Museum, 14.387, c. 240 CE) F. Ory

figure 17.12 Detail of Iphigenia’s sacrifice (Pugachenkova 1991, fig. 102), with comparative material (Attic oenochoe, 430–420 BCE: Kiel, Univ. B 538) F. Ory 436 Grenet

An imported Roman dish from around the Augustean period with added Bactrian inscriptions from the third century,17 depicts the prologue of Iphigenia’s sacrifice; though Iphigenia is not yet present, the identification seems safe, with Calchas transmitting the order of the gods and Achilleus, Iphigenia’s fiancé, trying to prevent Agamemnon from drawing his sword to sacrifice his daughter. This particular story was therefore known in Bactria, at least through imported objects. In the Greek period, the Dioscuri with their pointed caps had been often illustrated on coins of the Greco-Bactrian kings. In addition, in the same period or slightly later, they were painted on both sides of the entrance to the temple at Dilʾberdzhin near Bactra. They are also present on some Greco-Buddhist reliefs from Gandhara. In the context of the Dalʾverzintepe painting discussed here, the link of Iphigenia’s sacrifice with the two preceding scenes is obvious: since Iphigenia is the Dioscuri’s niece, they belong to the same family cycle (considered as the Lacaedemonian dynasty in the post-Homeric tradition). There is, however, a gap in the sequence of events, for one generation is missing, namely Clytemnestra, the Dioscuri’s sister and Iphigenia’s mother. It is possible that the general cycle was not understood anymore and the scenes were interpreted individually; alternatively, the painting could have provided a loose support for the storyteller who was able to fill up the lacunae, a peculiarity often noticed as regards the Panjikent paintings.

A Painted Scroll from Turfan

Let me now deal with the question of the material existence of painted narrative scrolls. Such objects are very unlikely to have survived in the acid soils of Sogdiana or Bactria, and for the pre-Islamic period only one specimen has been safely identified (Fig. 17.13): a paper document from Turfan, dating from the eighth or ninth century and now kept in the Museum of Indian Art in Berlin. Originally it formed one continuous scroll, beginning with what is now presented as the upper section and finishing with what is now the lower one. Boris Marshak mentioned this document in his book (Marshak 2002: 31), unaware of the fact that the subject had been identified a few years earlier by Georges Pinault and myself (Grenet and Pinault 1997).

17 See Sims-Williams 2013: 192–95 and fig. 17.5. I thank Paul Bernard for his comments on the subject. As this dish was dedicated to a temple by a local satrap in 265–266, during the period of direct Sasanian rule in Bactria, the possibility should be considered that it was brought as booty from Shāpūr I’s western campaign in 260. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 437 Turfan scroll Turfan Berlin of Museum Indian Art, courtesy figure 17.13 438 Grenet

figure 17.14 Detail: Nirṛti

The upper section and the end of the lower section show the karaņa, the directions of space in the Indian astrological system, personified by various deities (e.g. Nirṛti, god of Death and guardian of the south-west, can be seen in Fig. 17.14) and completed by two astral deities, Sūrya and possibly Sirius personified as the armoured Tishtrya according to the Iranian system. The other sections carry the zodiacal sequence in reverse chronological order, while Gemini and Cancer are mutually transposed. One possible explanation of the peculiarity would be that the figures were copied from a codex assembled according to the Semitic or Pahlavi order, with the new page on the left hand side. Such a codex could be mistakenly opened first at its end, as the Brahmi script used in Turfan – to record the local Tokharian language – goes from left to right. Each zodiacal sign is completed by one or two figures or anecdotes illustrating some of the Indian or Persian decans associated with this sign, according to conventions very close to those found in the astrological treatise of Abū Maʿshar (d. 272/886), contemporary or nearly contemporary with the scroll.18 The following examples will demonstrate the similarities:

18 Text and translation in Boll 1903: 491–539. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 439

Fig. 17.15: Virgo carrying the ear of corn, facing a money changer who symbolizes one of her decans. This is the earliest known depiction (and a very realistic one) of a Chinese abacus, identified by an inscription which gives its Chinese name transcribed in Tokharian. figure 17.15 Detail: Virgo (legends in Tokharian: mot ʻalcoholic drinkʼ; ṣipāṅkiñc ʻabacusʼ

Fig. 17.16: Aquarius is symbolized by a jar, identified by an inscription. The man on the left side is the second Indian decan, described by Abū Maʿshar as ‘a man (. . .) holding a sack containing jacinths, pearls, gold, topazes and other precious stones’ (Boll 1903: 535) (here depicted over the jar); the copper-smith to the right is the third Indian decan. figure 17.16 Detail: Aquarius (legend in Sanskrit: kumbha ʻjar, Aquariusʼ)

Fig. 17.17: Gemini, symbolized by a pregnant woman. Here the symbol for the sign is conflated with that for the first Indian decan, namely ‘a woman (. . .) who longs for children’ (Boll 1903: 505). figure 17.17 Detail: Gemini 440 Grenet

Though the style of the images indicates a source in Western Central Asia, possibly in Bactria, the inscriptions are all in Tokharian. At the top there is a longer inscription, fragmentarily preserved, which indicates that the images were used to supplement formal teaching ultimately derived from Indian astrological literature, and probably delivered at the royal court of the Uighurs at Turfan.

The Problem of Mānī’s ‘Image’

At a conference held at Saint-Petersburg in memory of Boris Marshak, Stefano Pellò has shown that a distant echo of astrological scrolls similar to the one described above, is preserved in the Persian dictionary Farhang-i Rashīdī, composed in India in the seventeenth century (ʿAbbāsī 1337/1958: I, 449–51; Pellò 2013). In it, a painted book, the Book of Tang, ‘a book of the paintings of Greece,’ is mentioned. The name Tang is shortened from Tangalus (ʿAbbāsī 1337/1958: I, 450–51), which is the Arab transcription of Teucros, a Greek of Babylon known to have first compiled the system of the decans. In the same category as the Book of Tang, the Farhang-i Rashīdī mentions also the Arzhang (Artang), the book allegedly painted by Mānī, described by the lexicographer as ‘a book with many figures’ (ʿAbbāsī 1337/1958: I, 90). Considerable attention has recently been paid to this legendary book, the most praised of all the paintings ever produced by the Iranian culture, and to the question of its possible existence. Werner Sundermann has argued that the name Ārzhang (philologically the most likely variant) originally did not apply to Mānī’s ‘Image’ (Eikôn in Coptic), the genuine Iranian name of which might have been *Nigār, but to another of his treatises, presumably the one known in Greek as Pragmateia, which in its turn might have contained explanatory illuminations (Sundermann 2005). The ‘Image’ itself, which was only a collection of paintings illustrating Mānī’s teachings on cosmology and individual eschatology, is said to have been originally on silk. In any case, such were the copies referred to by medieval authors; in addition, one silk fragment from Turfan illustrating the vessel of Sun or Moon has been tentatively identified as stemming from it.19 Until now the question remains open concerning the material shape of the ‘Image,’ i.e., did it represent a narrative sequence, possibly a scroll, showing the actors of the cosmic drama in their successive actions or was it a series of self-contained, mandala-type complex images? Sensational discoveries made by Yutaka Yoshida in Japanese collections now seem to strike the balance in favour of the second option. Yoshida has man-

19 Photograph in Gulácsi 2001: 174–75, no. 79; identified by Yoshida 2009, n. 26, and 2010. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 441 aged to identify one cumulative image of the cosmos from Hell to Heaven as visualized by Mānī (Yoshida 2010) and a separate image of the judgment of the individual soul (idem 2009), and has convincingly proposed their close derivation from the original ‘Image’. Both compositions are painted on pieces of silk of similar format (ca. 150 × 60 cm), meant to be displayed vertically and were executed in Southern China during the Sung and Yuan periods, the impression (based in particular on the treatment of the clothes) being that they derive ultimately from the models in Turfan.20

Bibliography

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Appendix

The Sogdian Rustam Text (Sims-Williams 1976: 54–61; revised by the editor)

[. . .] – lacuna in the original * – a reconstructed word [ ] – possible reconstruction ( ) – the translator’s additions to facilitate the text’s comprehension

‘. . . magic. [The demons] immediately fled towards [the city]. Rustam went in pursuit right up to the city gates. Many (demons) died from being trampled; (only) a thousand managed to reach and enter the city. They shut the gates. Rustam returned with great renown. He went to a good pasture, stopped, took off the saddle (and) let (his) horse loose on the grass. He himself rested, ate a meal, was satisfied, spread a rug, lay down (and) began to sleep. The demons stood in malevolent consultation. They said to one another: It was a great evil, a great shame on our part, that we thus took refuge in the city from a single horseman. Why should we not go out? Either let us all die (and) be annihilated or let us exact vengeance for our lords! The demons who were left a meagre remnant of (their) former (strength), began to prepare great heavy equipment with strong armour (and) with great [. . .]. They opened the city gates. Many archers, many charioteers, many riding elephants, many riding *monsters, many riding pigs, many riding foxes, many riding dogs, many riding on snakes (and) on lizards, many on foot, many who went flying like vultures and [. . .], many upside-down, the head downwards and the feet upwards – (all of them) bellowed out a roar, for a great while they raised rain, snow, hail, [lightning] (and) thunder, they opened their (evil) mouths (and) emitted fire, flame (and) smoke. They departed in search of the valiant Rustam. Then also came the perceptive Rakhsh (and) woke Rustam. Rustam arose from (his) sleep, quickly donned (his) leopard-skin garment, tied on (his) bow-case, mounted Rakhsh (and) hastened towards the demons. When Rustam saw from afar the army of the demons, he said to Rakhsh: Come, sir, run away little [by little]; let us perform [a trick] so that the demons [pursue us] to the flat [plain] [. . .]. Rakhsh agreed. Between Written Texts, Oral Performances And Mural Paintings 445

Immediately Rustam turned back. When the demons saw, at once both the cavalry and the infantry quickly hurled themselves forward. They said to one another: Now the chief’s hope has been crushed; he is no longer prepared (to do) battle with us. By no means let him escape! Do not kill him either, but take (him) alive so that we may show him evil punishment (and) harsh torture! The demons encouraged one another greatly; they all howled (and) departed in pursuit of Rustam. Then Rustam turned round (and) attacked the demons like a fierce lion (attacking) a deer or a hyena (attacking) a flock (or) herd, like a falcon (attacking) a [hare(?) or] a porcupine (attacking) a snake, and began [to destroy] them . . .’

Index

ʿAbdallāh al-Baghdādī 293 ʿAjāʾib-nāma 215, 215n35, 216, 217, 220, 223, ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-naqḍ 248, 249 228, 231 ʿAbd al-Nabī Fakhr al-Zamānī, Ṭarāz Alan Qoʾa (also Ālān Quvā) 228, 228n69 al-akhbār 279 Alburz, Mt. 74, 90, 217 Abraham, prophet, in Islam 94, 108, 131 Alexander (the Great) (see also Iskandar; Abū Bakr, caliph 104, 130, 153, 246, 248 Dhū al-Qarnayn) 9, 47, 117, 119, 202, 203, Abū al-Futūḥ al-Rāzī 98, 111 204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 215, 221, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī 293 342 Abū Hurayra 96, 97 Alexander Romance (see also Pseudo- Abū Jahl 104 Callisthenes) 7, 117, 118, 202, 204, 208, Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq 170 225–26, 230, 274 Abū Manṣūr al-Maʿmarī 170 Mongolian version of 225–27 Abū Maʿshar 438, 439 Alexandria (see also Iskandariyya) 202n1, Abū al-Miḥjan, hero in religious epic 241 216 Abū Muslim, hero in religious epic 248–49 Alf layla wa layla, see Thousand and One Abū Muslim-nāma 248 Nights Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī 170 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 9, 105, 142, 143, 154, 241–66 Abū Saʿīd (see also Sulṭān Sayyid) 132, 138, passim, 274 146, 148, 150–54 as javānmard 266 Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī 97 in manāqib-khvānī tradition 9, 248–49 Abū Ṭāhir-i Ṭarsūsī 204, 210, 215 in religious storytelling 274–75 Abū ʿUbayd, Kitāb al-amthāl 294 maghāzī narratives about 9, 245–47, Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī 58 250–51 Achilleus 436 ʿAlī b. al-Asad, Amīr of Badakhshān 144, Adam, prophet, in Islam 94, 110, 113 144n35 Aesop 423 ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī 27 Afghāndīv, demon in epic tradition 198 Farhād-u Shīrīn 37 Afghanistan 3, 12, 51, 134, 141, 145, 231, 319, Muḥākamat al-lughatayn 27 342, 343, 345, 349–53 passim, 356–60 ʿAlī Thanākhān, professional storyteller 279 passim Alkūs, epic hero 196 Jewish community of 342–43 Almufīd (see also Olympias) 205 Aflīsūn (see also Fīlqūs) 220 Amīn Aḥmad Rāzī, Haft iqlīm 139 Afrāsiyāb (also Frangrāsyāb), mythical Amīr Arsalān 274 king 171, 181, 198, 199 Amirs, of Bukhara 11, 319, 320, 321, 328 Āfrīnagān ī Zardušt 180 ʿAmmūriya 216 afsāna/fasāna 293, 294 ʿAmr-i Umayya (see also ʿUmar b. Umayya), Agamemnon 434, 436 hero in religious epic 241, 253, 253n39, ʿAhd Ardashīr 294 256, 257 Ahriman (also Ahrīman; see also Gan(n)āk Anas b. Mālik 96 Mēnōg) 67, 78n49, 177, 184, 209, 210, andarz 10, 194, 291, 292, 294, 322n10, 327 301, 302 Antisthenes 19 Ahura Mazdā (see also Mazdā; aoidos/aoidoi 20, 20n4, 29 Ohrmazd) 68, 176, 180, 301 apocalypse, as literary genre 6, 93, 95, 96, Aini, Sadruddin 316 101, 103–104, 110n53, 120 448 Index

Apocalypse of St. John (Book of Revelation) al-Bakrī 101 95, 98n21 Balʿamī, Tarjuma-yi Tārīkh-i Ṭabarī 205n12, apo stomatos (ʻby mouthʼ) 19, 21 211n28, 247, 261 Arasṭāṭālīs (see also Aristotle) 220, 227 Balkh 135, 144, 343, 359 Ardashīr, king in epic tradition 225 Banākatī (Abū Sulaymān) 218, 219, 220, 221, Ardā Vīrāz nāmag 58, 95, 102n30, 109, 209 222 Aristotle (see also Arasṭāṭālīs) 208, 209, 215, Tārīkh-i Banākatī 218, 218n39, 222 216 Barmāya 217 Arzhang 5, 47, 440 Barzū (also Burzū), epic hero 195, 197–99 Arzhang, demon in epic tradition 192, 427 passim, 200 ascension narrative, Islamic (see also Barzū-nāma 196, 197, 274 miʿrāj) 6, 7, 93, 95–99 passim, 101–105 as interpolation in Shāh-nāma passim, 108, 110, 111, 113, 117, 120 manuscripts 195–96 as apocalypse 93–95 baškuč/*pašqanṣa (see also Sīmurgh) 73, 80, as missionary text 103–104, 108–19 82 development of 96–98 Bāzar, son of Albān 220, 221 variability and oral transmission Behemoth, in Babylonian Talmud 71, 73, 74 of 98–100, 120 Beowulf 24, 34 āsh (ʻstewʼ), types and functions of, among Bīdil 331 Afghan Jews 344, 345–51 Bilauhar-u Būdhāsaf 171 aṣḥāb al-kahf 131, 154, 157 Bīzhan, epic hero 172, 196, 198 askiya 319, 326, 327, 328 Book of Dede Korkut 34 Asrār al-shahādat 274 Book of Enoch 95 Athena 433 Book of Kings (see also Khvadāy-nāmag; ʿAṭṭār 118n79, 271, 300 Shāh-nāma) 170, 171 Aubin, Eugène 277, 279 Book of Tang 440 ʿAufī (Sadīd al-Dīn Muḥammad) 221, 222 Bourdieu, Pierre 10, 309 Javāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt va lavāmiʿ Boysun, district 197, 317, 326, 328, 329 al-rivāyāt 221, 221n49, 222 Brown, Peter 172, 184 Aulād, epic hero 192, 194, 425 Buckingham, James Silk 278 Austin, John L. 372n24, 374, 375 Bulūqiyā, legend of 7, 118–19 Avesta 5, 6, 44, 48, 49, 56, 59, 65, 67, 83, 88, Bundahišn 6, 65, 66, 67–70 passim, 74, 83, 90, 91, 169, 175n10, 176, 180, 183 181 transmission of 2, 44, 175 mythological bestiarium in 67–70 Avicenna (see Ibn Sīnā) Burāq 94 ʿayyār/ʿayyārī 229, 241n1, 254n39 Burzōy 422 Āzādsarv 193, 193n8 Buzurgmihr 295 Aži Sruvara 82 bylina 26

Baḇa Bathra 65, 71–82 passim Caedmon 35–36 babr-i bayān 425 Cairo 138, 144, 435 Bactria 342, 433, 436, 440 Calchas, the seer 434, 436 Badakhshān 7, 130, 132, 134, 136–40 passim, Čamrūš 74, 74n41, 90 142, 143, 144, 145, 156, 158 Cervantes, Don Quijote 313 Bahman, king in epic tradition 205n12, 211, Chanson de Roland 24 265, 265n56 chilla-khāna 132 Bahodurov, Maʿrufkhuja 329, 330 Chinggis Khan (see also Temüjin) 227, Bahrām, epic hero 194 228n69 Baghdad 138, 172, 186, 194 Christensen, Arthur 275 Index 449

Cicero, De Oratore 28 Dīvān al-nasab 219, 219n41 Činvad 112 dīvs (see also demons; jinns) 242, 249, 250, Clytemnestra 436 260, 266, 299 Collins, John J. 6, 93, 95, 104 Duldul 263, 264, 265 composition-in-performance 23, 27, 32 conversion, to Islam 103, 106–108, 186 Edige, epic 5, 27, 28, 32–33 as represented in Khāvarān-nāma 243 Egil’s Saga 36 Cyrus the Great 342 Egypt (see also Miṣr) 118, 143, 205, 206, 229, 250, 405, 409 Dādestān ī dēnīg 180 espanj 344, 351, 351n20, 352, 353, 355 Dādestān ī mēnōg ī khrad 209 Ḍaḥḥāk (also Dahāg) 181, 299 Fakhr al-Dīn Gurgānī, Vīs-u Rāmīn 171 dāʿī 7, 10, 106, 130, 255 Farāmarz (also Falāmarz), epic hero 191, dakhma 345, 358, 359 194, 198, 199, 200 Dāl, king in religious epic 242, 243, 255, 256, Farāmarz-nāma 194, 200, 274 257, 258, 258n44, 258n45 farasot, quality of 322, 323, 327, 328 Dalʾverzintepe 12, 433, 434, 436 Farhang-i Rashīdī 440 Dāmdād nask 67n6, 70 Farīburz, epic hero 172 Daniel, prophet 294, 295 Farīdūn, mythical king 217, 243, 299 Daqīqī 171 farr (also Xwarrah) 181, 210, 216, 222, 243, Dārā, king in epic tradition 203, 208, 211, 221, 425, 427 223, 243 Fāṭima 142, 143, 146n42 Dārāb, king in epic tradition 203, 207, 210, Faylaqūs, see Fīlqūs 211, 214, 215, 217, 223, 230 Fihr-i Sīmīn-ʿidhār, princess in epic Dārāb-nāma 204, 210, 211, 215, 217, 220, 221, tradition 198, 199 227 Fīlqūs (see also Philip II of Macedonia; Darius, see Dārāb Aflīsūn; Fīlqūz) 203, 205, 211, 213, 214, 215, Darvāz (also Darwaz) 146 216, 220, 222, 223 dāstān 3, 3n10, 100, 204, 215, 231, 248, 273 Fīlqūz (see also Fīlqūs) 230, 231 dāstān, also dastān, as proverb 291–93 Firdausī (see also Shāh-nāma) 8, 9, 100, 169, Daulatshāh-i Samarqandī 289 170, 171, 186, 192, 193, 203, 204, 210, 217, daura (see also gashtak) 316 221, 225, 245, 262, 262n52, 263, 265n56, Decius, emperor 156 271, 273, 280, 281, 423, 425, 427 demons (see also dīvs; jinns) 81, 91, 92, 112, Fīrūzkūh 342, 342n2 177, 183, 184, 191–94 passim, 198, 199, Fish, Stanley 28 200, 244, 299, 345, 346, 367, 371, 380, folktale 2n8, 54, 216, 231, 271, 299, 309, 342 381, 382, 385, 386, 392, 394, 400, 401, motifs and tale-types 2n8, 216, 231, 343, 404, 410, 413, 415, 416, 423, 425, 427, 428, 343n5 430, 444–45 of the Old Woman on the Mountain, Dēnkard 56–57, 172, 174–75, 177, 181, 182, 184, Jewish Afghan 11, 12, 342, 343–45, 186 349, 350, 352, 356, 357–60 passim; Dhāt al-salāsil, fortress of 245, 246, 249 and gender roles 347–49, 352–53, Dhū al-Qarnayn (see also Iskandar; 357–58; and women’s life-cycle Sulqarnai) 117, 206, 207, 207n17, 213, 218, 353–56 219, 220, 222n52, 223, 224, 226, 227, 228 folklore 1, 3, 138, 307, 308, 370, 371 dihqān 214 Frāxwkard, sea of 68, 88, 89, 90 al-Dīnawarī, al-Akhbār al-ṭiwāl 204, 209 Fūlādvand, demon in epic tradition 198 Dioscuri, the 434, 436 Furāt b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī 245, 246, 251 450 Index

Gabriel (also Jabrāʾīl), angel, in Islam 94, 96, haoma/Haoma 67, 68, 69, 76, 88, 351n20, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 116, 119, 356 246, 253, 254, 302 Harāt (also Herat) 222, 247, 343 gāh, in Zoroastrianism 7, 112, 113 Jewish community of 11, 343, 359, 360 Galland, Antoine 276–77 Harburz, Mt., see Alburz Gandarw 82 Hazār afsān 293, 294 Gan(n)āk Mēnōg (also ʻStinking Spirit/Ghostʼ; Hazār dastān 294 see also Ahriman) 68, 88, 90, 209 Hekhalot 52–53, 59, 95n7, 100 gaokarena (see also Gōkarn, Tree of) 356 Heracles 433 Garshāsp (also Kirsāsp, Kərəsāspa), mythical hermeneutics 4, 186–87 and epic hero 81, 82, 179, 181 Hermes (also Hirmis) 219, 219n42 Garshāsp-nāma 259n48, 274 Ḥirāʾ, Mt. 132, 153n69 Garsīvaz, mythical and epic hero 171, 198 Hishām b. Sālim al-Jawālīqī 97 gashtak (see also daura) 11, 316–22 passim, Homer 19, 20, 20n4 327–29 passim, 331, 332, 333, 334 Iliad 19, 21, 27, 29, 29n21 Gāθās (also Gathas) 44, 66, 179, 186 Odyssey 19, 20n4, 21, 27 Gayōmart (also Gayūmarth), mythical king ḥujjat, among Ismāʿīlīs 130, 144 112n61, 177 Humāy (also Humānī), queen in epic Gesta Romanorum 208 tradition 211, 217 gētīg 70, 301 Ḥusayn, imam 143, 151, 275 ghazal 329, 330 and Karbalā, battle of, in religious Ghazwat qaṣr al-dhahab 250–53 passim storytelling 274, 275 Gīv (also Wēw), mythical and epic hero 172, Ḥusayn-i Kurd, romance of 273 181, 198 Ḥusaynī-zād, Fāṭima (also Gurd-āfarīd) 281 Gōkarn, Tree of (see also gaokarena) 67, 81, Hūshang, mythical king 183, 301 88 ʻguardian of the newborn,ʼ in Afghan Jewish Ibn ʿAbbās 96, 97, 101, 104, 111, 115, 257 community 12, 345, 345n8, 346, 352, Ibn ʿArabī (Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī) 59, 352n21, 353, 357, 358, 359 109 Gushtāsp (also Wištāsp), mythical king 171, Ibn Hishām 104 177 Ibn Ḥusām (see also Khāvarān-nāma) 9, Gustaham, epic hero 172 241, 244–46 passim, 248, 249, 254, 255, 256, 260–67 passim habitus 309 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Taʾrīkh Mukhtaṣar al-duwal 206 ḥadīth 96, 109, 154, 246 Ibn Isḥāq 104 Ḥadīth al-Muhallib wa al-thaʿbān wa ʿAlī ibn Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ 294, 422 Abī Ṭālib 250, 252 Ibn al-Nadīm 293, 294 Ḥāfiẓ 331 Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) 348 Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū, History 247, 261 Idomeneus, Greek story of 430 Haft khvān-i Rustam (also Haft khvān) 192, Īl-Khāns (also Ilkhanids) 224, 225, 227, 228 194, 263 imām al-qāʾim 143 Haft lashkar 191, 197, 200 incantation bowls 365–66, 371, 396, 401 al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī 58 design of 396, 401, 404–405 Hāmāvarān, War of, in epic tradition 192, paintings on 6, 401, 404–405, 407, 196 409–11, 413–15 Ḥamd-Allāh Mustaufī, Ẓafar-nāma 228 incantation texts 5, 49–50, 365, 367–68, Ḥamla-yi ḥaydariyya 274 416–17 ḥammām 345, 346 composition/production of 53–54, Ḥamza Iṣfahānī 169 369–70, 376, 393 Index 451

formulaic nature of 368, 376–78, 393 Jamshīd/Jamshīd-shāh, king in religious illocutionary acts within 365, 372–74 epic 242, 243, 265 interrelatedness of texts and Jānshāh, see Jahānshāh paintings 416–17 Jerusalem 75, 94, 105, 108 magic in 53–54, 367, 369–70, 400–401, Jesus 94, 108, 109, 131, 295, 300 404, 405, 407, 413 jinns (see also demons; dīvs) 141, 148–53 variability of 378–93 passim, 242, 249, 250, 251, 252, 259 writing of, as ritual 368–69 Joshua b. Peraḥya, Rabbi 371 India 44, 49, 117, 141, 145, 192, 252, 432 Inoyat Nasriddin 318, 320, 321, 323, 326–32 Kalevala 27 passim, 334 Kalīla va Dimna (also Kalīlag ud intertext/intertextuality 4, 10, 75, 83, 171, 186, Dimnag) 170, 271, 294, 422, 431, 432 307, 308, 311, 312, 316, 322 Kar-fish 68, 69, 73, 74, 80, 83, 88, 89 Iphigenia 434, 435, 436 Kāshānī (Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad), Khulāṣat irsāl al-mathal 290 al-ashʿār va zubdat al-afkār 138–39, Iṣfahān 222, 276, 278 140, 141 Iskandar (see also Alexander; Dhū Kayanids 218, 222, 243, 244, 257, 258, 260 al-Qarnayn) 9, 132, 133, 202–29 passim Kay Kāvūs (also Kāvūs), king in epic as foundling 215–17, 220–21, 222 tradition 171, 192, 194, 196, 427 Egyptian descent, version of 204–206, Kay Khusrau (also Kaykhusraw; Kay Husraw), 221–22, 226n62, 231 king in epic tradition 8, 171–74 passim, immaculate conception of 227–28, 231 177, 178–82, 184, 186, 217 Iranian descent, version of 203–205, 221 Khāqānī 300 Greek descent, version of 203, 214–15, Khāvarān, legendary lands of 241, 242, 243, 221–22 247, 253 Iskandariyya, city of (see also Alexandria) Khāvarān-nāma (see also Ibn Ḥusām) 9, 216, 220 241, 243–67 passim Iskandar-nāma, anonymous 204 illustrated manuscripts of 246n14, 247 Iskandar-nāma, Safavid (see also Iskandar- influenced by a version of nāma-yi haft jildī) 229, 229n70, 280 Ṣalṣāl-nāma 257–61 Iskandar-nāma-yi haft jildī (see also Iskandar- Khaybar, conquest of 246, 247, 248, 249 nāma, Safavid) 229, 229n70 Khazqīyāʾīl, angel 119, 119n83 Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar 142 Khiḍr 132n6, 220, 253 Ismaʿilism 134, 142–43, 144, 154, 255 Khurāsān 59, 106, 130, 138, 144, 243, 244, 295, isrāʾ 94n2, 96n9, 105 342, 343 Istad Qosim 319–22 passim, 326, 328 Khvadāy-nāmag (also Siyar al-mulūk; see also Iṣṭakhrī 172 Book of Kings) 170, 203 Īzadkhāstī, Ḥabīb-Allāh, professional Khvāndamīr 218, 219, 220, 223, 227 storyteller 280 Ḥabīb al-siyar 218 Kirdēr 58, 102n30 Jābalq/Jābalqā, mythical city of 114, 115, Kirmān 180, 185, 275 115n68, 116 Kitāb ʿajāʾib al-Hind 252 Jābalsā (also Jābars), mythical city of 114, Kitāb-i Miʿrāj-nāma 98 115, 116 Krupskaya, N.K. 326, 327, 328 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, imam 97, 142 Jahānshāh, ruler 149, 149n52, 152, 153 Layard, Austen Henry 365, 379 Jalīvār, sorcerer in epic tradition 194 Leda 434, 435 Jām, tomb-stones of 51, 342n2 Leviathan 71, 73, 74, 74n40, 75, 301 Jam/Jamshīd, mythical king 299 Lohutī, Abulqosim 319, 320, 329, 330 452 Index

Lord, Albert B. 1, 5, 23, 25, 27, 36 Mīrkhvānd 218, 219, 220, 223, 224n55, 227, Luṭf ʿAlī Big Ādhar, Ḥājjī, Ātashkada-yi 228 ādhar 139, 140, 141 Rauḍat al-ṣafā 218, 224n55, 227, 228 Misir (see also Miṣr) 226 Māhyār, queen in epic tradition 194 Miṣr (see also Egypt; Misir) 206, 229, 230 al-Majlisī 245 Mithras 131, 301 maghāzī, narrative genre of (see also ʿAlī b. mnemonic (see also memory/ Abī Ṭālib) 245, 246, 249, 251, 255, 256, memorization) 4, 29, 33, 272 257, 259, 260, 261–62 Moore, Benjamin 278 Makarenko, A.S. 326, 327, 328 Moses 45, 94, 108, 114, 115, 116, 371 Malcolm, John, Sketches of Persia 9, 276, 277 al-Mufīd, Kitāb al-irshād 246 Mālik b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa 96 Muḥammad (also Prophet) 6, 7, 44, 48, Mālik-i Azhdar, hero in religious epic 241, 93–95, 96, 98, 102–106 passim, 108–20 256 passim, 130, 132, 142, 143, 153, 154, 156, manāqib/manāqib-khvānī, genre of (see also 241, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib) 9, 247, 248, 249, 260, 261 260, 263, 319 Manas 30 Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ 204, 205 Mandaeans 371, 381n38, 392n59, 405 Murvak 294 Manghits 319, 320, 321, 328 Mūsā al-Kāẓim, imam, 143 Mānī 47, 48, 60, 440, 441 al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh, Fatimid caliph 143, 144 Manīzha, princess in epic tradition 196 Manqabat-nāma 260 Nāhīd, princess in epic tradition 203, 211, Manūchihr Khān Ḥakīm 229 215 maʿraka-gīrī 275 and ʻbad breathʼ motif 207–11, 223 Marshak, Boris 423, 430, 431, 440 naqqāl/naqqālī (see also qiṣṣa-khvān/ Marv 171, 193, 222, 343 qiṣṣa-khvānī; oral performance; Mashdi Galin Khānum 273 storytelling, traditional) 3, 3n10, 9, 10, 99, al-Masʿūdī 169, 171, 265n56, 294 197, 271–76 passim, 279, 280, 281 mathal 290, 292, 294 and Khāksar and ʿAjam dervishes 277, Māzandarān, mythical land of 89, 192, 193, 278, 279 194, 198, 199, 423, 425, 427 and naqqāshī-yi qahva-khānaʾī Māzandarān, War of, in epic tradition 192, (ʻcoffee-house paintingʼ) 275 196 in accounts of European travellers to Mazdā (see also Ahura Mazdā; Iran 275–78 Ohrmazd) 67 in present-day Iran 280–81 Mazdak 60 naṣīḥat 114, 119 movement of 50–51, 58 Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh, Qājār 274 Mecca 94, 105, 130 Nāṣir-i Khusrau (also Nosir Khusrav) 7, 8, Medina 153, 241, 242, 243, 245, 250, 251, 253, 10, 130, 132–58 passim, 289–92 passim, 257, 260 294–302 passim memory/memorization (see also mnemonic) as Pīr-i quddūs 134 1, 4, 19, 20, 21–24, 25, 26n14, 27–33, 35, 36, Dastūr-i aʿẓam 149, 149n51 37, 38, 45, 47, 49, 53, 277, 394 Dīvān 10, 130, 133n7, 140, 141, 158, 289, and memorizing techniques 5, 22, 28–33 290 mēnōg 70, 88 funerary narrative about 7, 132, 136–37, Mesopotamia 3, 6, 12, 83, 365, 366, 370, 380, 144–56 396, 400, 401, 404, 405, 409 Qānūn-i aʿẓam 149, 149n51 miʿrāj (see also ascension narrative, Risāla 132, 136, 137, 141, 142, 148, 151, 158 Islamic) 6, 93, 94n2, 95, 101, 104 Safar-nāma 133, 135, 140 Index 453

Safarnomai Hazrati Sayyid Nosiri Khusravi as means of preserving cultural and Kuddusi Sara 132–33, 137, 138, 140, 141, ethno-linguistic identity 318, 320–21, 158 331–33 Zād al-musāfirīn 144n36, 149 by gashtak members 318, 319–20, Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī 149, 152, 153 322–27, 329, 330, 331–32 Naṣr b. Aḥmad, Samanid 170 by Greek rhapsodes 19–20, 20n4, 21, 38 Nectanebo/Nectanebus 204–205, 206 by Kazakh, Turkmen and Uzbek epic Nibelungenlied 34 singers 26, 29–32 Niceratus 19, 20, 21, 27, 38 by Uzbek qiṣṣakhvāns 36–37 Nicias 19, 21 using paintings as props 427 Nirṛti 438 ouroboros 301, 405, 407 Nīshāpūr 111, 138 Niẓāmī-yi Ganjavī 37, 98, 132, 133, 212, 213, Pamir 30, 138, 143, 144, 158, 343, 345 214, 271 Pañcatantra 422, 430, 431 Iskandar-nāma 212 pand 291, 293, 298 Khusrau va Shīrīn 208n20 Panjikent 423, 427, 429, 433 Makhzan al-asrār 98 Sogdian painting in 12, 423, 424, 427, Sharaf-nāma 132, 212 429–32, 436 Nizom ul-Mulk, Siyosatnoma (= Niẓām Papa b. Samuel, Rabbi 80, 80n57 al-Mulk, Siyāsat-nāma) 326, 327 parda-dārī 275 Nushiravon (Khusrau I Anūshīravān) 321, Parry, Milman 1, 5, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27 322–25 passim, 327, 328, 329 Pasurkhee, village of 11, 317–22 passim, 328, Nuṣrat-Allāh Qāḍī, see Naṣr-Allāh Qāḍī 329 al-Nuwayrī 216, 220, 222n52 Philip II of Macedon (see also Fīlqūs) 203, 205, 206, 212, 223, 230 Odeinath, ruler of Palmyra 423 Phillot, Douglas Craven 277 Ohrmazd (see also Ahura Mazdā; Mazdā) Plato 20, 21 67, 68, 70, 73n35, 78n49, 88, 90, 92, 108, Protagoras 20 112, 177, 209 popular literature/folk literature 2, 2n8, 10, Olympias, queen (see also Almufīd) 203, 216, 271, 295 205, 206, 223n54, 228n69 Porshnev, qishlāq of 137, 139, 144, 145, Ong, Walter 372, 376, 394 145n37 oral composition 35 proverbs 10–11, 289–98 passim, 300, 302, formulas in 273 307–13 passim, 342, 353, 376, 395 in naqqālī 272–73 originating in classical Persian of incantation texts 365, 370, 378, poetry 308, 310–12 394–95, 396 Perso-Arabic terms for, in Nāṣir-i oral formulaic theory/school 1, 5, 20, 23, 24, Khusrau’s Dīvān 290–93 24n10, 27, 34 Psalms 65, 74, 75, 76–81 passim, 83, 290, applied to Classical Arabic poetry 2n6 393 applied to Shāh-nāma 2–3, 25, 27, 99n23, Pseudo-Callisthenes (see also Alexander 170 Romance) 202, 202n1, 204, 204n9, 205, oral history 3, 8, 11, 317, 319, 321, 328, 331, 332 206, 221 orality-literacy continuum/oral-textual continuum 4, 5, 7, 12, 35–38, 96, 99, 100, Qāf 114, 114n64, 117, 119, 213 395 Qassob 330, 330n31 oral performance (see also storytelling, Qaṭrān-i Zangī, character in epic tradition traditional; naqqāl/naqqālī; qiṣṣa-khvān/ 197 qiṣṣa-khvānī ) 9, 23, 26, 29, 34, 36, 37, 316, qiṣaṣ al-anbīyāʾ, genre of (also prophetic 317, 318, 322, 328, 329, 331, 427 legends) 118, 213, 290 454 Index qissači (see also qiṣṣa-khvān/qiṣṣa-khvānī) Saʿdī 271, 310, 311, 311n7, 311n8 26 Saʿd-i Vaqqāṣ, hero in religious epic 241 qiṣṣa-khvān/qiṣṣa-khvānī (see also naqqāl/ Ṣalṣāl, king in religious epic 242, 255, 256, naqqālī; oral performance; storytelling, 257 traditional) 3, 3n10, 37, 107 Ṣalṣāl-nāma 9, 256–61 passim Qiṣṣa-yi dīv-u shīr 260, 261 Sām, epic hero 181, 199, 292, 295 Quhistān 244, 255, 261 Samael, Angel of Death 415 al-Qummī (Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī) 97, 111 Samak-i ʿAyyār 276 Qurʾān 44, 45, 95n6, 97, 102, 105, 116, 136, 143, Samarkand 423 206, 293 Sanāʾī 98, 300 commentaries of (see also tafsīr) 96–97, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa 98 111, 115 Ṣanīʿ al-Mulk 274 Quraysh, tribe of 104 Sayyid ibn Shāhpartāvī 138 al-Qushayrī, Kitāb al-miʿrāj 97, 102n28 Sayyid Yūsuf ʿAlī Shāh 138 Secret History of the Mongols 227, 228 Rabbah bar Bar Ḥanah (also R. Abba bar Bar Secretum Secretorum (see also Sirr Ḥanah) 71–73, 76–80 passim, 81, 82 al-asrār) 208 Rabbi Judah the Indian 82 Semetey, epic 5, 30–32 Rādūyānī, Tarjumān al-balāgha 293 Shabrang (see also Siyahrang), hero in epic Rahimov, Aziz 316, 321, 322, 323, 326–28 tradition 8, 9, 191, 193, 194, 195, 199, passim, 331, 332, 333 200 Rakhsh 199, 263, 265, 427 Shabrang-nāma (also Dāstān-i Shabrang) 8, Rāʾs al-ghūl 250, 253, 255, 257 191–96 passim, 199, 200 Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl-Allāh 218, 219, 220, 221, Shāh ʿAbbās, the Safavid 273 221n48, 222, 228 Shāh Malang 138 Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh 218, 218n39, 222, 228 Shāh-nāma (see also Firdausī; Book of Kings) rauḍa-khvānī 274 8, 9, 99, 99n23, 100, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, Raushanak 223 183, 184, 186, 187, 191–93 passim, 195, Rav Ashi 54 196, 198, 200, 203, 210, 217, 221, 222, 225, Ridyā 73 245, 261, 262, 263, 266, 267, 271, 273, 274, Rig Veda (see also Vedas) 5, 44 275, 280, 281, 292, 423, 425, 427 Risālat al-nadāma fī yaum al-qiyāma 138 and Persian Epic Cycle 8, 9, 191, 194, 200 rivoyat, genre of 318 and shāh-nāma-khvānī 3n10, 273 Rūdakī 293, 331, 332 Great Mongol, illustrations of 225 Ruhhām, epic hero 198 of Bāysanghur Mīrzā 261 Rūm 203, 207n17, 212, 213, 216, 230 Shāhzādamuḥammad ibn Sayyid Rūmī (Jalāl al-Dīn) 130n2, 154n76, 271 Farukhshāh 137, 137n18, 138, 139, 140–41, Mathnavī 117n76 144 Rumūz-i Ḥamza 274, 279, 280 Shamāma, queen in religious epic 242, 255, Rūqiyā 223 256, 258, 258n44 Rushan 151 Shāpūr I, Sasanian ruler 423, 436n17 Rustam, epic hero 191–200 passim, 217, 244, Shīrāz 174, 247, 279 263, 265, 265n56, 266, 278, 292, 423–29 Shohikalon ebn Shohzodamuhammad 139, passim, 444–45 144, 145, 146, 156 Rustam-nāma 274 Shughnān 137, 138, 144, 151 Simonides of Ceos 28 Sabzavār 138 Sīmurgh (also Simorgh) 80, 81, 91, 114n64, Sackville-West, Vita 9, 276, 278 217, 356, 357, 425, 427 Index 455

Sindbād 82, 171 Tahmās, king in religious epic 242 Sindbād-nāma 171, 271, 431 Ṭahmūrath (also Taxma Urupi), mythical Sirius (see also Tištrya) 90, 438 king 183, 184 Sirr al-asrār (see also Secretum taḥrīf, doctrine of 118 Secretorum) 208, 209, 209n23 Tajikistan 3, 11, 134, 316, 317, 329, 330, 333, Siyahrang (see also Shabrang), hero in epic 430 tradition 191, 197–99 passim, 200 talmīḥ 300 Siyāvash (also Siyāwaxš), mythical and epic Talmud, Babylonian 6, 54, 65, 66, 70–83 hero 171, 181 passim, 117, 312, 392, 404, 415 Socrates 19, 21 oral transmission of 71, 71n21, Sogdiana 422, 436 mythological bestiarium in 65, 71–83 Solomon (also Sulaymān) 94, 150, 299, 391, Tang-i Azao 342 392 taqiyya 154 Song of Bagdad, epic 22, 23, 25, 28 taʾwīl 56 Sōšāns 177, 178–79, 182 taʿziya 274 Šōr haBbār 74 Temüjin (see also Chinggis Khan) 227 Srisōk 69n15, 70n17, 74, 90 al-Thaʿālibī, Taʾrīkh ghurar akhbār mulūk Srōš (see also Surūsh) 7, 92, 111–12, 113 al-Furs wa siyyarihim 169, 204, 221 storytelling, traditional (see also oral al-Thaʿlabī 111, 118 performance; naqqāl/naqqālī; Thaur, Mt. 130 qiṣṣa-khvān/qiṣṣa-khvānī ) Theodosius II, emperor 156 among Afghan Jewish community 343 Thousand and One Nights 118, 151, 271, 274, and Fatimid legendary narratives 277, 293, 294 250–51, 255 Tištrya (also Tishtrya; see also Sirius) 81, 90, and memorate 329–31, 332 438 and oral history 319–20, 328 transmission, oral/written 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, by Ismāʿīlī missionaries in Iran 255, 260 27–29, 36–37 by manāqib-khvānān 248–49, 261 and variability 25–26 in present-day Iran 280–81 of Islamic ascension narrative 98–99 pedagogical value of 327–28 of Ismāʿīlī narratives in Suda 19 Badakhshān 136–37 Suhrāb (also Sohrab), epic hero 195, 196, 217, of Mesopotamian incantation texts 278, 281 371–72, 387, 393, 395 Sulqarnai (see also Dhū al-Qarnayn) 226, of sacred scriptures 5, 22–23, 44–49, 226n60 175 Sulṭān Sayyid (see also Abū Saʿīd) 146 Ṭūfān al-bukāʾ 274 Sumur, Mt. 226 Ṭughral 331 Surūsh (see also Srōš) 112 ṭūmār 8, 99, 191, 195, 272, 280 Turābī, Valī-Allāh, professional al-Ṭabarī 97, 98, 110, 111, 116, 169, 173, 180, 203, storyteller 280, 281 204, 209, 213, 219, 246, 247 Turfan 422, 429, 436, 437, 438, 440, 441 Jāmiʿ al-bayān (also Qurʾān commentary) Turkmenistan 343 97, 98, 98n16, 110, 111, 213 Ṭūs, town 170, 171, 186 Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk 246, 247 Ṭūs (also Tūs), epic hero 172, 178, 179, 181, 198 al-Ṭabarsī 245 Tabor, Mt. 73, 79, 81 ʿUmar (b. al-Khaṭṭāb), caliph 109, 246, 248 tafsīr, genre of (see also Qurʾān, ʿUmar b. Umayya (see also ʿAmr-i Umayya), commentaries of) 136, 213, 219, 245, 246 hero in religious epic 253 456 Index

Ušēdar 177 Xenophon, Symposium 19 Ušēdarmāh 177 Xwanwand, Mt. 79, 81, 89 ʿUthmān, caliph 248 Uzbekistan 36, 197, 316, 317, 321, 343 Yakdast (also Shumkūr bin Shamīlān), character in epic tradition 197–99 Vāʿiẓ-i Kāshifī (Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī) 274, 279 al-Yamanī 294 Futuvvat-nāma-yi sulṭānī 279 Yāqūt 116 Rauḍat al-shuhadāʾ 274 Yasna 65, 66–70, 301 Vākhān 142n29, 143n33, 144 Yazd 310, 350 Varzob, town 326, 328 Zoroastrian community of 349–51 Vedas (see also Rig Veda) 22, 44 Yumgān (also Yumgon) 130, 132, 135, 138, Verethraghna 68, 180 144–47 passim, 152, 156 Verschriftung vs. Verschriftlichung 33–34, 35 Vessantara Jātaka 422 Zābul, in epic tradition 198, 199 Vīrāz 109, 110 Zaʿfar Jinnī 150–51 voces magicae 367, 379, 389–90, 393 ẓāhir 130, 158 Vouru-kaša, sea of 67, 68 Zāl, epic hero 192, 193, 198, 199, 217, 264n56, 292 Wahb b. Munabbih 213n31, 227n65, 245, 250, Zamyād Yašt 183 251 zand 48–49, 59–60, 175 Wāy (also Vaiiu) 177–84 Zand ī Vahman yasn 103, 108, 109 West, Edward William 182, 183 Zavāra, epic hero 194 White Dīv (also White Demon) 191–95 Zeus 433, 434 passim, 197, 198, 199, 425, 427 zir-zamin 345, 357, 358, 359 Widsith 29, 29n21 Zīz Śāday 74 Wills, Charles James, Sketches of Modern Zoroaster (also Zarathustra) 66, 94n3, 108, Persian Life 278 109, 176, 177, 295, 342 Wilson, Sir Arnold, Letters and Diary of a zuhd 58 Young Political Officer 1907–1914 278 Zurvān 301