Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I M. Inostranzev The Project Gutenberg eBook, Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I, by M. Inostranzev, et al, Translated by G. K. Nariman This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I Author: M. Inostranzev Release Date: July 16, 2004 [eBook #12918] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRANIAN INFLUENCE ON MOSLEM LITERATURE, PART I*** E-text prepared by Larry Bergey and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original have been retained in this e-text. IRANIAN INFLUENCE ON MOSLEM LITERATURE, PART I by M. INOSTRANZEV TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN, WITH SUPPLEMENTARY APPENDICES FROM ARABIC SOURCES BY G. K. NARIMAN 1918 GENERAL CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Arabic Writers as Sources of Sasanian Culture 3 CHAPTER II. Parsi Clergy Preserve Tradition 25 CHAPTER III. Ethico-didactic Books of Arabs Exclusively of Iranian Origin 38 CHAPTER IV. Iranian Components of Arabic _Adab_ Literature 53 CHAPTER V. Pahlavi Books Studied by Arab Authors 65 CHAPTER VI. Arab Translators from Pahlavi 76 CHAPTER VII. Pahlavi Rushnar Nameh 89 APPENDICES (By the Translator). APPENDIX I. Independent Zoroastrian Princes of Tabaristan after Arab Conquest 93 APPENDIX II. Iranian Material in Mahasin wal Masawi and Mahasin wal Azdad 101 APPENDIX III. Burzoe's Introduction 105 APPENDIX IV. The Trial of Afshin, a Disguised Zoroastrian General 135 APPENDIX V. Noeldeke's Introduction to Tabari 142 APPENDIX VI. Letter of Tansar to the King of Tabaristan 159 APPENDIX VII. Some Arab Authors and the Iranian Material they preserve:-- The Uyunal Akhbar of Ibn Qotaiba 163 Jahiz: Kitab-al-Bayan wal Tabayyin 168 Hamza Ispahani 171 Tabari 174 Dinawari 177 Ibn al Athir 179 Masudi 182 Shahrastani 187 Ibn Hazm 192 Ibn Haukal 195 APPENDIX VIII. Ibn Khallikan 199 Mustawfi 203 Muqadasi 204 Thaalibi 205 PREFACE The facile notion is still prevalent even among Musalmans of learning that the past of Iran is beyond recall, that the period of its history preceding the extinction of the House of Sasan cannot be adequately investigated and that the still anterior dynasties which ruled vaster areas have left no traces in stone or parchment in sufficient quantity for a tolerable record reflecting the story of Iran from the Iranian's standpoint. This fallacy is particularly hugged by the Parsis among whom it was originally lent by fanaticism to indolent ignorance. It has been credited with uncritical alacrity, congenial to self-complacency, that the Arabs so utterly and ruthlessly annihilated the civilization of Iran in its mental and material aspects that no source whatever is left from which to wring reliable information about Zoroastrian Iran. The following limited pages are devoted to a disproof of this age-long error. For a connected story of Persia prior to the battle of Kadisiya, beside the Byzantine writers there is abundant material in Armenian and Chinese histories. These mines remain yet all but unexplored for the Moslem and Parsi, although much has been done to extract from them a chronicle of early Christianity. The archaeology of Iran, as I have shown elsewhere, can provide vital clue to an authentic resuscitation of Sasanian past. Pre-Moslem epigraphy of Persia is yet in little more than an inchoate condition. Not only all Central Asia but the territories marching with the Indian and Persian frontiers, where persecution of the elder faith could not have been relatively mild, the population professing Islam have been unable to abjure in their entirety rites and practices akin to those of Zoroastrianism. Within living memory the inhabitants of Pamir would not blow out a candle or otherwise desecrate fire. While science cannot recognise the claims of any individual professing to have studied esoteric Zoroastrianism hidden in the hill tracts of Rawalpindi, the myth has a value in that it indicates the direction in which humbler and uninspired scholars may work. These regions and far beyond, teem with pure Iranian place-names to this day; and you meet in and around even the Peshawar district individuals bearing names of old Iranian heroes which, if the theory of persecution-mongers be correct, would be an anathema to the bigoted followers of Muhammad. * * * * * It is, above all, Arabic literature which upsets the easy fiction of total destruction of Iranian culture by the Arabs. In its various departments of history, geography and general science Arabic works incorporate extensive material for a history of Iranian civilization, while Arabic poetry abounds in references to Zoroastrian Iran. The former is illustrated by Professor Inostranzev's pioneer Russian essay of which the main body of this book is a translation. The Appendices are intended to be supplementary and to be at once a continuation and a possible key--continuation of the researches of the Russian scholar and key to the contemned store-house of Arabic letters. Professor Inostranzev is in little need of introduction to English scholars. He has already been made known in India by the indefatigable Shams-ul-Ulma Dr. Jivanji Modi, Ph.D., C.I.E., who got translated, and commented on, his Russian paper on the curious _Astodans_ or receptacles for human bones discovered in the Persian Gulf region. He shares with Professor Browne of Cambridge and the great M. Blochet a unique scholarly position: he combines an intimate knowledge of Avesta civilization with a familiarity with classical Arabic. It is not wilfully to ignore the claims of Goldziher, Brockelmann or Sachau or the Dutch savants de Goeje and Van Vloten. Deeply as they investigated Arabic writings, it was M. Inostranzev who first revealed to us the worth of Arabic: he unearthed chapters embedded in Arabic books which are paraphrase or translation of Pahlavi originals. He had but one predecessor and that was a countryman of his, Baron Rosen. * * * * * In preparing the Appendices, which are there to testify to the value of Arabic literature especially the annals and the branch of it called Adab, I have availed myself of the courtesy of various institutions and individuals. Bombay, perhaps the wealthiest town in the East where prosperous Musalmans form a most important factor of its population, has not one public library containing any tolerable collection of Arabic books edited in Europe. Time after time wealthy Parsis whose interest I enlisted have received from me lists of books to form the nucleus of an Arabic library but apparently they need some further stimulus to appreciate how indispensable Arabic is for research into Iranian antiquities. The Bombay Government have expended enormous sums in collecting Sanskrit manuscripts--a most laudable pursuit--and have published a series of admirable texts edited by some of the eminent Sanskrit scholars, Western and Indian. But the numerous Moslem Anjumans do not appear to have demonstrated to the greatest Moslem Power in the world, or its representative in Bombay, the necessity of a corresponding solicitude for Arabic and Persian treasures which undoubtedly exist, though to a lesser extent, in the Presidency. And what holds true of Bombay holds good in case of the rest of India. Some of the libraries in Upper India in Hyderabad, Rampur, Patna, Calcutta possess along with manuscript material cheap mutilated Egyptian reprints of magnificent texts brought out in Leiden, Paris and Leipzig. Nowhere in India is available to a research scholar a complete set of European publications in Arabic, which a few thousand rupees can purchase. The state of affairs is due to Moslem apathy, politics claiming a disproportionate share of their civic energy, to Government indifference and to some extent Parsi supineness and prejudice which, despite the community's vaunted advancement, has failed to estimate at its proper worth their history as enshrined in the language of the pre-judged Arab. Moulvi Muhammad Ghulam Rasul Surti, of Bombay, himself a scholar, lent me from his bookshop expensive works which few private students could afford to buy. No western book-seller could have conceived a purer love of learning or a gaze less rigidly fixed on "business". Sir John Marshall, Director General of Archaeology in India, continued very kindly to permit me use of books after I had severed official connection with his library at Simla. Dr. Spooner who acted for him obligingly saw that as far as he was concerned no facilities were incontinently withdrawn from me at Benmore. I have particularly to thank the Librarian of the Imperial Library, Calcutta, who not only posted me books in his charge but went out of his way to procure me others. Mrs. Besant and her wealthy adherents have created at Adyar the atmosphere associated with the Ashramas and the seats of learning in ancient India so finely described by Chinese travellers. The Oriental Library there is unsurpassed by any institution in British or Indian ruled India. It is to be wished in the interests of pure scholarship that some one succeeds--I did not--in prevailing on the President of the Theosophical Society to lend books to scholars who may not be equal to the exertion of daily travelling seven miles from Madras to Adyar. Her insistence on a rigid imitation of British Museum rules in India, mainly because so many of the Theosophical fraternity cut out pages and chapters from books once allowed to be borrowed by them, inflicts indiscriminate penalty on honest research and seals up against legitimate use books nowhere else to be found in India.