THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMOUR AND SATIRE IN PERSIA WITH SPECIAL REFER NCE `_"0 CUBAID ZýXÄNI PRE*SEMED B Y' ALI ASGHAR HALABI THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH FOR THE DEGREE-OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS JUNE 80 , 19 DUN/ý, Fa m xz N 3`ýý ABSTRACT 'Ubaid-i Zäkäni (d. 771/1369) was the most eminent humorist and satirist in Persian literature. However, despite his great contribution to Persian satire, his position has not yet been evaluated properly. He has been unjustly libelled as an "infernal" (3ahannami) and indecent satirist. The aim of this thesis is to expose some of his ideas by a systematic analysis of his thoughts as they are presented in his own major treatises, and it has been thought necessary to preface this work with some general remarks on satire as a literary genre and some of its early exponents. Hence, this thesis presents two introductory chapters on Persian satire, its motives, techniques, and dwells on the other branches of satirical literature (Chapter I), and then proceeds to some brief information on Arabic and Persian humorists and satirists: both legendary (or semi-historical) and historical (Chapter II). Chapter III consists of a survey of the historical evidence concerning 'Ubaid's life, education and the conditions of the society in which he lived, and Chapter IP presents a survey of his satirical writings. In Chapter V there is offered an analysis of the topics of 'IIbaid's satire which is divided into three sections: religious, political and ethical. In Chapter VI9 the sources of "Ubaid's satirical anecdotes are discussed. i ACX&OWLEDGEENTS I would like to acknowledge my debt to my supervisor, Professor L. P. Elwell-Sutton, who gave generously of his time and offered invaluable advice throughout the preparation of this thesis. Moreover, he was kind enough to grant me permission to use his own private library. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Christopher Ferrard and Mr. Robert Wells, who advised me on the English style. My thanks are due to my friends, the celebrated Persian writer, Mr. Mu1ammad 'Ali Jamalzidah, and Mr. Näsih Nätiq, a devoted man of letters, for the encouragement and the help, both financial and psychological, which they offered throughout my period of study at Edinburgh University. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Dr. M. A. H. Kätouziän.. who enabled me to obtain a scholarship from the Tihereh Centre in London, thus providing financial support for the last year of my studies. Without this-timely aid from that charitable centre, all my efforts would have been frustrated. My thanks also to Dr. D. Straley for typing this thesis, and to Miss I. Crawford, secretary of the Department, for her kindness and help throughout my stay in Edinburgh, ii INTRODUCTION literature that It was while working on another aspect of Islamic this thesis, I was drawn, not without some misgivings, to the topic of I which still bears some of the marks of the reluctance with which embarked on this study. My reluctance comes from the consideration that while satire, facetiae and witticism in general are common to all peoples, including those of Islam, and their literature, too, is full of examples of this genre, in Iran, however, there exists a powerful body of opinion which has attempted, throughout history, to oppose this particular literary trend regarding it as contrary to religion and conventional morality. Hence this type of literature has often been dismissed out of hand. While I myself entertained, to some degree, a distaste for many aspects of this genre, my study of Islamic adab, in general, and the diwäns of the Persian poets, in particular, confirmed an impression that there are only a few literary works which do not contain some examples of facetious, humorous or satirical prose or verse. This single fact encouraged me, for by reading these texts I realised that all of their authors, with few exceptions, were moral and religious enaugh, but they nevertheless have included these types of literature in their books or diwins in order to entertain their readers, or rid themselves of vexation. Furthermore, in order to avoid confrontation with principles held sacrosanct by the authorities, they quoted verses from Koran and the Traditions which lent weight to the legality of their actions. The second point which encouraged me in air task was the fact that for a long time I had come to the conclusion that all Persian poetry, iii iv with the possible exception of the mystical and epic, contain, for the larger part, insipid and unattractive verses written in praise of nobles, kings, local suzerains, ministers and such like. An uncritical reading of this type of poetry would lead the reader to conclude that Iran has been blessed by unending generations of wise and compassionate rulers under whose blessed government all elements of society prospered in an unbroken period of peace and harmony. In the many books of ethics, history and poetry we are given an impression of Iranian history that (c. ), from the reign of Darius the Achaemenian 550-485 B. C. up to our own time, all kings, ministers and nobility were, by and large, honest, compassionate, wise and meritorious, and at no time do we find a ruler in whose reign the sheep and the wolves did not drink from the very same spring, and the cat did not live at peace with the mice. However, every man of sense knows that this was not the case. The main literary source which enables us to understand this bare fact is the satirical, humorous, and to a great degree, the indecent literature of this nation. It is clear that the satirists and those who played the fool, were neither fools, nor bitter by nature. They were often sensitive, quick feeling and sophisticated people who, observing their disordered the immorality society and of the authorities, poured out their anger and indignation in their writings. My third motive for dwelling on this topic is that for a long time, while reading 'Ubaid's works along with the d%wän of Hifizr, I books used to read of Arabic a_, and from time to time I would come across many anecdotes common to these separate works. I was struck by the fact that 'Ubaid had borrowed many of them, changing only the unfamiliar Arabic names to the better-known Persian ones in order to popularize them, thus giving them greater appeal to his Persian V readership. I was therefore encouraged to collect and note the similarity between them. The result of this attempt is included in this thesis (Chapter VI). For such a study, however, I required an authentic text of $Ubaid's complete satirical writing3to supplement a published version edited by the late 'Abbis Igbäl. For this purpose I have used two MSS of his writings, the first is an undated MS in the British Museum (Or. 6303), (Suppl. the second in Paris Persan 824, Bibliothbque Nationale) was (Sept. copied in Muharram 834 -Oct. 1430). The former MS is not, however, very helpful, for, besides being copied at a later date, the copyist seems to have been particularly inept or careless. Many of the Arabic anecdotes, and especially the nawädir a1-amthäl, are full of mistakes, and in the Persian anecdotes he has arbitrarily changed many of the phrases and words to suit a more modern taste. The latter, however, is a very much older copy and'seems authentic, having been copied only 64 years after 'Ubaid's death. The chief purpose of this thesis is to discuss 'Ubaid's humorous and critical satires with special reference to its origins as far as it is possible, in the hope of reconstructing 'Ubaid's personal career and character and to throw light upon that important period of Persian history and to study the-general conditions of that age. 'Ubaid was the greatest of the Persian satirist-poets who lived in the eighth century A. H. This much we know, but hardly anything else about him is certain. 'While most satirists reveal something of their personality in their works, 'IIbaid, however, draws a veil across his persona. Neither do contemporary authors throw any light upon his (d. character save Hamdalläh Mustawfi ca. 750/1349), who speaks of him as being "from a noble family and has written peerless treatises. " vi That is all. The external life of a satirist seems to have been considered less important thän the views he held; what matters is the record of his intellect and this is clearly registered in his critical satires. The topics of his satire have, for the purposes of this present thesis, been divided into three parts: religious, political and ethical. In ' baid's writings, there is no regularity of the kind which one finds in philosophical works, and his ideas are scattered here and there throughout his treatises. This is particularly true bout his religious and political satires, but we can observe some attempt at order in his ethical satires. In the last case, he first describes the Four Capital Virtues according to the peripatetic philosophers, then he launches his own attacks on the morality of the age, and ridicules the attitude of the nobility of the period towards these virtues. These critical attacks are partly amusing and partly indecent to the extent that they are virtually untranslatable. This, however, is merely their superficial aspect, for they contain an inner meaning and in this we have a veritable tour'de force in the history of Persian literature.