Dramatis Personae •
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Dramatis Personae • Note: all dates are approximate. ALEXANDER THE GREAT (356– 323 bc). Macedonian ruler who, af- ter invading Central Asia in 329 bc, spent three years in the region, establishing or renaming nine cities and leaving behind the Bactrian Greek state, headquartered at Balkh, which eventually ruled territo- ries extending into India. Awhad al- Din ANVARI (1126– 1189). Poet and boon companion of Sultan Sanjar at Merv who, boasting of his vast knowledge, wrote that, “If you don’t believe me, come and test me. I am ready.” Nizami ARUDI. Twelfth- century Samarkand- born poet and courtier of the rulers of Khwarazm and of Ghor, and author of Four Discourses, in which he argued that a good ruler’s intellectual stable should include secretaries, poets, astrologers, and physicians. Abu Mansur Ali ASADI. Eleventh- century poet from Tus and follower of Ferdowsi. Working at a court in Azerbaijan, Asadi versified The Epic of Garshasp (Garshaspnameh), which ranks second only to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh among Persian epic poems. Farid al- Din ATTAR (1145– 1221). Pharmacist and Sufi poet from Nishapur, who combined mysticism with the magic of the story- teller’s art. His Conference of the Birds is an allegory in which the birds of the world take wing in search of Truth, only to find it within themselves. Yusuf BALASAGUNI (Yusuf of Balasagun). Author in 1069 of the Wisdom of Royal Glory, a guide for rulers and an essay on ethics. Written in a Turkic dialect, Yusuf’s volume for the first time brought a Turkic language into the mainstream of Mediterranean civilization and thought. A native of Balasagun in present- day Kyrgyzstan, he died near Kashgar in Xinjiang, China. xxii • Dramatis Personae BANU MUSA. The brothers Jafar, Ahmad, and Hasan ibn Musa from Merv, known as the “Sons of Musa” (Banu Musa). In ninth- century Baghdad they dominated the scientific scene under Caliph Mamun and his successors. Besides their work in geometry and astronomy, Ahmad wrote a pioneering work in practical mechanics, Book of Ingenious Devices. BARMAKIDS. Members of a Buddhist dynasty from Balkh, now Afghanistan, who, converting to Islam, became prime ministers (viziers) of several Abbasid caliphs. Fabulously rich, they sponsored translations of Greek and Sanskrit works into Arabic. Caliph Harun al- Rashid wiped them out in 803. Abolfazi BEYHAQI (995– 1077). Independent- minded court historian at Ghazni, Afghanistan. Author of a thirty- volume study of the reigns of Mahmud and Masud of Ghazni, only three volumes of which survive. Kamoliddin BIHZAD (1450– 1537). Herat- based Timurid artist who was supported by the official and poet Navai. His book illustrations, separate scenes, and portraits of high officials redefined the artistic ideal throughout the Muslim world. Abu Rayhan al- BIRUNI (973– 1048). Polymath from Khwarazm who flourished first at the court of the Khwarazmshahs in Gurganj (now Turkmenistan) and then at the court of Mahmud of Ghazni in Af- ghanistan. His works on astronomy, geodesy, history, and the social sciences established him as arguably the greatest scientific thinker between antiquity and the European Renaissance. BOZORGHMER (531– 578). Native of Merv and the best- known Central Asian thinker of the pre- Islamic era. A Zoroastrian dualist, Bozorghmer propounded ideas on ethics that influenced thinkers deep into the Muslim age. He also served as vizier and invented the game of backgammon. Muhammad al- BUKHARI (810– 870). Bukhara- born compiler and editor of An Abridged Collection of Authentic Hadiths with Connected Chains [of Transmission] Regarding Matters Pertaining to the Prophet, His Prac- tices, and His Times, the most revered book in Islam after the Quran. Dramatis Personae • xxiii Abul- Wafa BUZJANI (940– 998). Afghan- born pioneering researcher at Baghdad and Gurganj. His method of developing sine and tan- gent tables produced results accurate to the eighth decimal point. By applying sine theorems to spherical triangles, Buzjani opened the way to new methods of navigating on open water. Abu Mansur Muhammad DAQIQI. An ardent patriot from Balkh, champion of the Zoroastrian past, and author of versified sections of the Persian epics that Ferdowsi incorporated into his Shahnameh. At Daqiqi’s death in 976, Ferdowsi took over the project. DEWASHTICH (r. 721– 722). The last pre- Islamic ruler of Panjikent in present Tajikistan; fleeing before Arab armies in the early eighth century, he hid a collection of official documents in a large pot and buried them at Mount Mug. Rediscovered by a shepherd in 1933, the Mug documents enabled scholars to reconstruct details of Sog- dian government and society. Abu Nasr Muhammad al- FARABI (870– 950). A native of Otrar in modern Kazakhstan; known in the West as Alfarabius and revered in the East as “The Second Teacher,” after Aristotle. A great ex- pounder of logic, Farabi set out the foundations of every sphere of knowledge. Ahmad al- FARGHANI (ca. 797– 860). An astronomer who hailed from the Ferghana Valley in present- day Uzbekistan. Farghani’s The Elements was among the earliest works on astronomy to be written in Arabic. In the West “Alfraganus,” as he was known, became the “Arab” astronomer with the widest readership; among his readers was Columbus. Abul Hasan ibn Julugh FARUKHI. Eleventh- century poet and musi- cian from Sistan at the court of Mahmud of Ghazni and the author of lucid but complex poems built around the symbolic image of the garden. His verse on the death of Mahmud is one of the finest ele- gies in Persian. Abolqasem FERDOWSI (ca. 934– 1020). Author from Tus in Khurasan (now Iran) who toiled for thirty years— happily under the patronage of the Samanids of Bukhara and unhappily under xxiv • Dramatis Personae the patronage of Mahmud of Ghazni— to produce the Persian epic Shahnameh. Combining legend with historical fact and spanning fifty reigns, his epic was a ringing affirmation of Persian values after the Arab conquest. Abu Hamid Muhammad al- GHAZALI (1058– 1111). Theologian and philosopher from Tus in what is now Iranian Khurasan, and author of The Incoherence of the Philosophers, which threw down the gaunt- let to rationalism. After undergoing a nervous breakdown following the death of his chief patrons, he adopted Sufism and, in a series of brilliant works, integrated his views on faith into the mainstream of Islam, eventually influencing Christianity as well. GHOSAKA. A deeply respected Buddhist theologian and author from Balkh who played an important role in the deliberations at the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir in the first century ad. HABASH al- Marwazi (769– 869). Astronomer and mathematician from Merv who led a team at Baghdad to calculate a degree of ter- restrial meridian and hence Earth’s circumference, and whose tables plotted planetary motion. Ahmad ibn HANBAL (780– 855). An Arab collector of Hadiths from Merv who refused to succumb to Caliph Mamun’s rationalist in- quisition, thereby establishing himself as an early martyr of Sharia- based traditionalism in Islam. HIWI al- Balkhi. Late ninth- century skeptic and polemicist from Khura- san who launched blistering assaults on the Old Testament but spared neither Christian nor Islamic holy writ from his scathing criticism. Abu Ali al- Husayn IBN SINA (980– 1037). Philosopher, theologian, polymath, and author of the Canon of Medicine, which remained for half a millennium the classic medical text throughout the Muslim world and Europe. The impact of his Book of Healing and Book of Deliverance on theology in the Muslim world and Christian Europe was equally powerful owing to his intricate affirmation of both rea- son and faith. Ghazali frontally challenged his legacy in theology. Dramatis Personae • xxv Abu Nasr Mansur IRAQ (960–1036). A prince of the Khwarazm royal house, mathematician, and astronomer who did pioneering work in spherical geometry and applied it to finding solutions to problems of astronomy. Nuradin JAMI (1414– 1492). Leader of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi order in Timurid Herat, poet, and author of complex mystical allegories that are rich with Sufi symbolism. Abu Abdallah al- JAYHANI. Geographer and Samanid vizier from 914 to 918; author of a massive Book of Roads and Kingdoms that was prized for its scope and detail. Zayn al- Din JURJANI (1040– 1136). Author in Gurganj of a massive compendium of medical knowledge, the Khwarazm Shah’s Treasure, which focused on the needs of the practicing doctor. KANISHKA I. Powerful second- century ad Kushan ruler of much of Central Asia whose synthesis of Buddhism, the Greek pantheon, and Zoroastrianism was manifest at his capital at Begram and other sites in Afghanistan. Mahmud al- KASHGARI. Eleventh- century author of A Compen- dium of the Turkic Dialects, a comprehensive guide to the Turkic languages and their oral literature. A masterful treasure of linguis- tic, anthropological, and social information, Kashgari’s work was designed to claim for Turkic culture the same status as Arabic and Persian in the Muslim world. CHINGGIS KHAN. Mongol ruler whose devastation of Central Asia between 1218 and 1221 has been called an “attempted genocide,” but who opened both China and Persia to new waves of intellectual influence from Central Asia. Omar KHAYYAM (1048– 1131). Mathematician, astronomer, philoso- pher, engineer, and poet from Nishapur whose landmark Treatise on the Demonstration of Problems of Algebra first conceived a general theory of cubic equations. His new solar calendar was introduced in 1079. xxvi • Dramatis Personae Abu al- Rahman al- KHAZINI (d. ca. 1130). Astronomer and polymath whose Book of the Balance of Wisdom, written in Merv, has been called “the most comprehensive work on [weighing] in the Middle Ages, from any cultural area.” Abu Mahmud KHUJANDI (945– 1000). A native of Khujand, Ta- jikistan, and designer of astronomical instruments who reached conclusions on Earth’s axial tilt that were more precise than those of anyone before him.