Linguistic Shubya and Early Neo-Persian Prose

Author(s): Lutz Richter-Bernburg

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1974), pp. 55-64
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/599730
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LINGUISTIC SHU'UBIYA AND EARLY NEO-PERSIAN PROSE
LUTZ RICHTER-BERNBURG
SEMINAR FUR
ARABISTIK, UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN
The fourth and fifth centuries A.H. saw the
emergence
of the Neo-Persian
language as
a
literary
medium within the framework of Islam. Thus the debate over
linguistic shu'Cbiya
was sustained for two more centuries. The
place
of Persian was most contested in the
areas of adab and official
correspondence,
of
scholarly writing,
and of the
liturgy
and books
on
religious subjects.
The
development
of Persian
prose
in these
fields,
and the discussion
of the
respective
merits of Arabic and
Persian,
are examined here in their mutual
depend-
ence. Neither can be
fully
understood without
accounting
for the other. The
argument
was twofold: first it concerned the
acceptability
of Persian as
such;
and
second, among
authors who did write in
Persian,
the
question
remained of how
freely
Arabic elements
should be borrowed. Toward the end of the fifth
century
a new balance was reached:
Arabic retained its
predominance
as the
tongue
of a true
adib, 'alim,
and
Muslim; Persian,
though
at the cost of an ever
increasing Arabicization,
held its own as the
language
of Iran.
To Albert Dietrich
on the occasion
of
his 60th
birthday,
November 2, 1972
I. AS GOLDZIHER REMARKS IN HIS TREATISE Die
Shu'iubijja
und ihre
Bekundung
in der
Wissenschaft,1
the debate over the
respective
merits of Arabic
and other
languages, mainly Persian,
continued
for two more
centuries,
after the heated
disputes
of the second and third centuries A.H. had cooled
off.2 That this
linguistic shu'lUbiya,3
to use Gold-
ziher's
term,
should have lasted so much
longer,
is not
surprising.
In the
preceding
two hundred
years,
the central issue of the
controversy
had
been how far the non-Arab Muslims'
pre-Islamic
past
should be allowed to influence the
develop-
ment of
Islam,4
and this debate had been con-
ducted in Arabic. Now the issue of how Arabic
Islam had to be to remain true to
itself,
or in
other
words,
what role the non-Arabic
part
of non-
Arab Muslims'
identity
could
legitimately play
within the framework of
Islam,
took on a new
aspect.
The
argument
was no
longer
over their
pre-Islamic achievements and values and the
Arabs'
counter-accusation of
zandaqa,5
but over
1
In Muhammedanische Studien
I,
Halle
1889, p.
208f.
2
Goldziher
quotes az-Zamakhshari as latest evidence
(ibid.).
3
Ibid., p.
209.
4
H. A. R.
Gibb, "The Social
Significance
of the Shuubi-
ya,"
in Studies on the Civilization
of Islam, Boston, 1968,
pp. 62-73, esp. 62, 66.
the non-Arab Muslims' native
languages,
Persian
in
particular.
Was Islam to remain a
monolingual
religion
and civilization or could other
languages
become Muslim
tongues
of
equal
rank?6
What holds true for the
struggles
of the second
and third
centuries,
is also true for the
following
two hundred
years:
the Arabicist defense can be
traced much more
easily
in the sources than
Persianist claims.7 But there is no defense without
attack,
and an attack was now launched not
only
on the theoretical
level, by espousing
the cause
of Persian versus Arabic in Arabic,8 but
quite
materially by
the
emergence
of an Islamic9 liter-
5
Ibid., pp. 62, 66,
69f.
6
Cf. R. N.
Frye, Bokhara,
The Medieval
Achievement,
Norman, Okla., 1965, pp. 84, 100-104, and esp. 109f.
7
Goldziher,
Die Shu'tbijja, p. 209.
8
As did Hamza al-Isfahani, cf. ibid., pp. 209-213, and
El2
III, 156, s.v. Hamza al-Isfahfni
(F. Rosenthal).
9
Cf. R. N.
Frye, "The New Persian Renaissance in
Western
Iran,"
in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor
of
Hamilton A. R.
Gibb, Leiden, 1965, pp. 255-31, esp.
229. Even the celebration of the
pre-Islamic
national
past,
such as in the heroic
epics
of Ferdowsi and his
epi-
gones,
was
possible only
in an ambience where Iranian
and Islamic traditions had become
inseparable
and fused
into a new
whole, and at a time when the remembrance
of
past glory
had lost its anti-Islamic
sting
because the
55
Journal
of
the American Oriental
Society
94.1
(1974)
ature in Persian that was to embrace the whole
scope
of
contemporary writing
in Arabic and so
to free the Iranian Muslim
wishing
to share in
the intellectual
pursuits
of the
age
from the need
to take
up
Arabic first.
This was
exactly
the bone of contention with
the
champions
of the Arabic cause:
they
held it
impossible
to be an adib or
'ilim,
let alone a true
Muslim,
without the
knowledge
of Arabic. The
argument
centered around the use of Persian in
elegant writing, e.g.,
in official
correspondence,
in
books on
scholarly subjects,
and in
religious
works
and the
liturgy.
Since Persian
poetry
was
ap-
parently
accorded acclaim much more
readily,
it
remains outside the
scope
of this
paper.10
After two
centuries,
at about the time of az-
Zamakhshari, linguistic shu'fbiya
subsided. A
new balance was reached: Islam had become a
bilingual-and
was to become a
multilingual-
civilization because Persian held its own as Iran's
language
and
eventually
even
expanded
its terri-
tory along
with
Islam;
but its bid for
equality
as
a Muslim
language ultimately
failed. While ear-
lier the shuuiibite debate had been
paralleled by
an
argument among
Persian writers over how
freely
Arabic
borrowings
should be
admitted,
from
now on Arabic exerted its lexical and
stylistic
in-
fluence on Persian in full
force,
and its dominance
persisted
in the
disputed
areas of
religion,
of
theology
and
philosophy,
and to a lesser
extent,
of
scholarship
and adab in
general.
In this
paper
the discussions of the fourth and
fifth centuries A.H. about the
place
of Arabic and
Persian in Islam
and,
on the other
side,
the emer-
gence
of Persian
prose during
the same
period,
are examined in their mutual
dependence.
It is
impossible
to reach a full
understanding
of the
meaning
of either without
taking
into account the
other.
present
could match it. (Cf. G. E. von Grunebaum,
"Firdausi's
Concept
of
History,"
in Islam, Essays
in the
Nature and Growth
of
a Cultural Tradition, London,
1961, pp. 168-185, esp. 168).
10
But cf. Abu Hatim ar-Rlizi who dismissed out of
hand the Persian
poetry
of his time that did follow Arabic
models in
metrics, style,
and contents (K. az-zina,
ed.
Husain ... al-Hamdani,
Cairo 1957, pp. 60-71, quoted
by
G. Lazard, "Pahlavi, Parsi,
Dari ...," in Iran and
Islam,
in
memory
of the late Vladimir
Minorsky,
ed.
C. E. Bosworth, Edinburgh 1971, p. 371).
II. In the first three centuries of
Islam,
Arabic
had been the Muslim
language.
To
compose
books
in a different
tongue
called for
express justifica-
tion,l
for
instance,
that the work was written for
the
'imm,
or in al-Bairiini's words,
for
people
not
guided
to the
knowledge
of Arabic.12 For their
benefit the Samanid Nuh II. b. Mansuir
(365-87/
976-97)
ordered an
expose
of Hanafi
fiqh,
com-
posed
on behalf of
orthodoxy against
Ismai'lism
in the time of the amir Isma'il
(279-95/892-907),13
translated into Persian because it had been ac-
cessible as
yet only
to the khciss: ta 5onanke khiss-
ra bud 'amm-rd
niz bovad
va-manfa'at
konad.l4
If the
knowledge
of Arabic is taken as a cri-
terion, however,
a
large segment
of
people
that
might
otherwise be counted among
the khass,
namely
the rulers and their
entourage, belonged
to the 'amm as well.15 In a time when intellectual
activity depended largely
on
encouragement by
wealthy supporters,
their
patronage greatly
fur-
thered the
development
of neo-Persian letters.16
11
Cf. G. Lazard,
La
langue
des
plus
anciens monuments
de la
prose persane,
Paris 1963, p. 60,
note 11.
12
al-Bairlni,
K.
al-jamahir fi ma'rifat al-jawuhir,
ed.
Krenkow, Haidarabbd, 1355, p. 32, 1.3f: 'amalahd bi-l-
fdrisiyati
li-man lam
yahtadi li-ghairih
..
13
as-Sawad al-a'zam, by
Abui -Qasim Ishaq
as-Samar-
qandi;
cf. 'Abdo
l-Hayy Htabibi,
"Yak ketab-e
gomshodi-
ye qadim-e
nasr-e farsi
peyda shod,"
in
Yaghmd, 16, 5,
Tehran, 1342, pp.
193-200, esp. 193, 198,
1. 9
(Earlier:
Mahdi
Bayani,
"Yak nomuina-ye
nasr-e farsi ...,"
in
RFL Teheran, 6, 1338/1959, III-IV, pp. 57-69).
14
Ibid., p. 197,
1. 22.
15
One need not think about the
highwayman
turned
ruler
Ya'qfib
b. Laith who protested against.
Arabic
panegyrics
because he could not understand them: cizi
ke man andar
naydbam
cerd
bayad goft (Tdrikh-e Sistdn,
ed. Moh.
Taqi Bahar, Tehran, 1314, p. 209,
1.
17).
Even
the cultivated Samanids had difficulties with scholarly
Arabic,
as mentions the introduction to the Persian
version of at-Tabari's Tafsir
about Mansuir b. Nfih:
pas doshkhwar
dmadh bar
vey khwrndan-e
in ketdb va-
'ebdrat kardan-e an be-zabdn-e tdzi ua-condn
khwdst ke
mar in-rd tarjomd
konand be-zabdn-e
pdrsi (Bahlr,
Sabk-
shendsi,2 II, 13f).
The courtier Bal'ami in the introduc-
tion to his version of at-Tabari's History
is
polite enough
not to use
quite
these words
(Tarjomi-ye
Tarikh-e
Taba-
ri
...,
ed. Moh. Javad Mashkir, Tehran, 1337, pp. 2,
1.
11-3,
1.
2).
The
Kakuyid
'Ala'o d-dowli
openly
admit-
ted to his
ignorance
of Arabic
(cf.
infra
p.
61 and notes
69-70),
and these were
certainly
not the
exceptions.
16
Cf. notes 15 and
69;
other
examples, poetry
left
56
RICHTER-BERNBURG:
Linguistic
Shu'
biya
Unwilling
to
study Arabic,17
but at least
by pre-
tension18
eager
to be well versed in the fields of
contemporary
intellectual
endeavor, they
com-
missioned works on various
subjects
in
Persian,
and within two
centuries,
to take the
year
300
A.H. as a convenient
point
of
departure,
the whole
syllabus
of
contemporary learning
had found its
way
into the new medium.19
Among
the most
famous works
owing
their existence to the desire
to catch
up
with Arabic literature20 are the
adap-
tations of at-Tabari's two
major
books21 and Avi-
cenna's
Daneshnamd-ye
'Al 'i.22
The choice of
language
is
nearly always
based
on
practical grounds only:
to further circulation
and reach the widest
possible
audience.23 Of course,
inasmuch as the Iranian audience
only
a
genera-
tion or two earlier would have had the sole alter-
native of either
learning
Arabic or not
being
able
to
indulge
its interests at
all,
even these utilitarian
considerations take on some
importance,
but
rarely
is there an
express
allusion to a
feeling
of Iranian
aside,
are the
anonymous
Hodido l-'dlam,
dedicated to
the
Farighfinid
a. 1-Hares
Mob.
b. Ahmad
(cf. Lazard,
La
langue ..., p.
53f),
circum- and
post-Avicennian
writ-
ings
like
Qorcaz-ye tabi'iydt (cf. M. T. Bahar, Sabkshe-
ndsi2, II, p. 38),
and the translation and
commentary
of
Hayy
b.
Yaqzan (Lazard,
La
langue, p. 66f;
ed.
Corbin,
Teheran/Paris, 1954),
both dedicated to the
Kakuiyid
'Ala'o d-dowld Moh. b.
Doshmanziar,
and Esma'il Jor-
jani's
Persian works on medicine
(for bibliography
cf.
EI2, II, 603,
s. v.
al-Djurdjani,
Isma'il
[J. Schacht]),
the
Siasatndmd,
etc.
17
Cf. from the end of the
period
we are
dealing
with
here: ba'z az ftzi
be-pdrsi tarjomi
kardan ke 'ddat-e
notq-e
vaqt-ast (Mojmalo t-tavdrikh,
ed. M.
Ramazani, Tehran,
1318, p. 8, 1. 11f).
18
Cf. infra
p.
61 and notes 69 and 70.
19 For a list of
prose
works of this time cf. T. Sadiqi
in the introduction to his edition of
Ps.-Avicenna, Qordzd-
ye tabi'iydt, Tehran, 1332/1952, pp.
34-59.
20
Openly expressed, e.g.,
in Shahmardan b. a. l-Khair's
Rowzato
l-monajjemin (Quoted
in G.
Lazard,
"Un ama-
teur de sciences au Veme siecle . .
.,"
in AIMlanges Henri
AMasse, T6h6ran,
1963, p. 223, top)
and in 'Omar b. Moh.
Raduyasnl's
Tarjomdno l-baldghd,
ed. A.
Ates, Istanbul,
1949, p. 2,
11. 1-8.
21
Cf. note 15.
22
Cf. p. 61 and note 69.
23
E.g. Maisarl's Ddneshndmd
(cf. following note),
Zar-
rindast's Nuro
l-'oyun (cf.
note
27),
Shahmardan's Row-
zat
(cf.
note
20),
Esma'il Jorjani's Zakhira
(Univ.
of
California,
Los
Angeles,
MS Pers. Med.
1,
fol.
3b,
1.
-8f).
nationality.
In his Ddneshnamd,24 included here
despite
its metric form because of its
prosaic
subject-medicine-the author, Maisari, ponders
the choice of
language
and decides in favor of
Persian25 because zamin-e ma-st-e Irin/ke bish az
mardomanash
pdresiddn:
"our land is Iran the
majority
of whose
population
knows Persian"-
but not Arabic. Practical and national reasons
are combined here. In Abui Rowh Mansuir b.
Mohammad Zarrindast's treatise on
ophthalmo-
logy
Nuro
l-'oyUn,26
utilitarian and
political-his-
torical considerations interact in a similar
way.
In the course of
history, knowledge
and scholar-
ship
were transmitted in the
language
of the
people
most
powerful
at a
given
time: before the
coming
of Muhammad that was Greek and
Syriac;
with
him Arabic
gained prominence,
and the
Caliphs,
arabophone
as
well,
ordered all
knowledge
to be
rendered into
Arabic; now, says
the
author,
most
people speak Persian,
and so does the
king (pad-
shah-e
vaqt).27
To have
composed
the book in
Arabic would have restricted its use to those able
to read Arabic or
imposed
the
necessity
of learn-
ing
it
first,
and thus would have run counter to
the author's intention of
giving everybody easy
access to it.28
III. The factual
development
of Persian
prose
in the fourth and fifth centuries did
not, however,
lead to a
ready acceptance
of Persian as a
proper
vehicle of
scholarship,
as will be shown further
on,
nor did it
easily
win favor as a
language
of adab.
Notwithstanding
the Samanids'
patronage
of Bal-
'ami and Persian
poets, they
continued to con-
duct their
chancery
in Arabic. This had obvious
political reasons,29
but it was also in
keeping
with
the sentiment of the educated and the udabi'
24
Composed
between 367 and 370
(978-980)
for the
Simjfrid governor
of Khorasan Abii l-Hasan Moh. b.
Ebrahim
(G. Lazard,
Les
premiers poetes persans, Paris/
Teheran, 1964, I, 36-40).
25
Ibid.
II, 182,
vss.
80-86, esp.
83.
26
The first work of its kind in
Persian,
written for the
Seljuk
sultan Malekshah in
480/1087-8.
27
UCLA,
MS Pers. Med. 74
I,
fol.
2b,
11. 3-7.
Possibly
in conscious
flattery
Malekshah is
implicitly styled
here
successor to the
caliphs,
if
only
in his role as
patron
of
scholarship.
28
Ibid.,
fol.
2b,
11. 11-15.
29
Serving
to underline their
allegiance
to the
caliphs
in
Baghdad,
cf. B.
Spuler,
Iran in
friihislamischer Zeit,
Wiesbaden
1952, pp. 245f,
81.
57
Journal
of
the American Oriental Society 94.1
(1974)
par
excellence-the secretarial caste30-as can be
gathered
from the reaction met with
by
Mahmiud
Ghaznavi's first
vizier,
Abui l-Abbas al-Fazlo 1-
Esfara'ini,
when he
changed
the
language
of the
divan from Arabic to Persian.31 His action earned
him the hatred of those secretaries who were train-
ed in the florid
style
of Arabic
epistolography
and
whose skill was
suddenly
out of
demand,32
and he
was denounced as an uncultured boor.33 It was
a
scandal,
in the words of
al-'Utbi,
that there was
no
longer
a difference between the learned and
the
ignorant,
the refined and the crude.34 It is
most indicative of the times that even Abii l-Fazl
Baihaqi,
who
composed
his work in Persian but
30
Cf. Hamdollah Qazvini's paragraph
on the Samanid
Ahmad b.
Esma'il,
where his love of
knowledge
and esteem
of scholars,
the
estrangement
of his
pages
from him
(that
eventually
led to his
murder)
and his
change
of
diplomas
and edicts from dari to Arabic are
closely
associated (va-
i mandshir va-ahkam az dari bd 'arabi
naql
kard
[Tdrikh-e
Gozidd,
ed. 'Abdo 1-Hosain Nava'i, Tehran, 1339, p. 378,
11. -9 to
-6]).
It is
very unlikely
that Ahmad b. Esma'il
should have sent official communications to the caliphs
in Persian before the
change,
but
apparently
Persian
had been used in the
chancery
for documents issued to
people
not
knowing Arabic,
and that was now discontin-
ued.
(Spuler
understands Hamdollah's
passage
as re-
garding
the
chancery
in
general,
Iran in
friih
. . .
p. 245,
while
Frye
thinks
only
about the
reading
out of Arabic
documents either in Persian or in Arabic, Bokhara,
The Medieval .... p. 50f).
31
'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, Tarjomii-ye
Tdrikh-e Yamini,
ed. Ja'far She'ar, 1345, p. 345,
1. 13 and Nasero d-din
Monshi Kermani,
Nasd'emo l-ashdr, ed. Jalilo d-din
Hosaini Ormavi, Tehran,
s.
d., pp. 41,
1. -1-42,
1. 1
(the
latter from a different source?).
32 Bdzdr-e
fail
kdsed shod va-arbdb-e
baldghat
va-bari'at-
rd
rownaqi
namdnd
('Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 345,1.14),
and
ibid.,
1.
16f,
when Ahmad Maimandi restitutes Arabic:
kowkab-e ketdb
(or kottdb)
az
mahdvi-lte hobit be-owj-e
sharaf rasid,
etc.
33
'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 345,
1. 12f and even more
sweeping
Abu 1-Fail
Baihaqi,
if Khwandmir names his
source
correctly: Baihaqi,
Tdrikh-e Yamini,
in Nasd'em,
p. 40,
1.
4,
Saifo d-din
Hajji 'Oqaili,
Asdro l-vozard',
ed. Jalalo d-din
.Iosaini Ormavi, Tehran, 1337, p. 150,
1.
6f,
and Ghiaso d-din b. Homamo d-din Khwandmir,
Dastliro l-vozard', ed. Sa'id Nafisi, Tehran, 1317, pp. 137,
1. -1
-
138,
1.
1);
in the formulation of Asdr: az zivar-e
fall
va-adab va-tabahhor dar
loghat-e
'arab 'dri va-'dtel
bud.
34
'Utbi-Jarbadhqani,
p. 345, 1. 14f.
without
implying any popular appeal,
should have
passed
such
judgment
on him.35
Unfortunately
we can
only guess
about Esfara'in's motives in
changing
the
language
of the
chancery.
Given
his own career as
secretary
and
superintendent
of
intelligence,
sdheb-barid,36 it is
highly unlikely
that
he was not
sufficiently
well versed in Arabic him-
self.37 The sources describe him as an energetic
and
efficient,
not to
say unscrupulous,
adminis-
trator,38
so to him it
might
have been
simply
a
matter of
practical expedience
to do
away
with
an obsolescent tradition,
rather than a demon-
stration of Iranian national
feeling,39
since most
of the
people
addressed
certainly
did not have
an
adequate
command of Arabic.40
Even where court
correspondence
in Persian
was not a
priori
ruled
out,
it had to be embroidered
upon
with Arabic and was not to be
purely
Persian
because that would have been
disagreeable (na-
khwosh),
nor under
any
circumstance could it be in
35
Cf. note 33.
36
Ibid., p. 337,
1. 5.
37
Cf. note 33.
38
ath-Tha'alibi,
Yatimat ad-dahr,
ed. Maktabat al-
Hus.
at-tijariya,
Cairo, s.d., IV, 437,
11.
-6-paenult.;
Baihaqi
in Nasd'em, p. 40,1. 4f; Asdr, p. 150,
1.
7; Dasitr,
p.
138,
1.
If; 'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 338,
11. 9-20;
cf. C.
E. Bosworth,
The
Empire of
the Ghaznavids, Edinburgh,
1963, pp.
71-2,
86-7.
39
On the other hand,
he was Ferdowsi's
patron
at
Mahmud's court,
and in fact, may
even have introduced
him there (Shahndmd 13g,
vss. 27-31 Mohl
=
III, 1273,
11. 27-31 Vullers).
It cannot be ruled out that he did have
some interest in Persian language
and literature and in
the Iranian heritage:
if the
hypothesis
of note 40 could
be
proved
correct that he made Persian the sole
language
of the chancery,
his
patronage
of Ferdowsi would also
take on a new meaning.
Cf. El2 II,
730 s.v. al-Fadl b.
Ahmad
(M. Nazim) (skimpy)
and ibid. 919 s.v. Firdawsi
(Cl.
Huart-H. Masse).
40
Even his successor, Ahmad al-Maimandi,
who
put
things
back into order and reverted to Arabic,
had to
allow Persian documents to be issued to
people
who could
not read Arabic ('Utbi-Jarbadhqani,
pp. 345,
1. 18-346,
1.
1; Nasd'em, p. 42,
1.
If).
If this was
practiced
even
before Esfara'ini's change,
as is not unlikely,
his "offence"
in the scribes'
eyes
would have been to establish
Persian
as the sole
language
of the chancery
and consequently
even to address the
caliphs
in Persian. This was not a
nationalist demonstration,
but a demonstration
of the
supranationality
of Islam.
58
RICHTER-BERNBURG:
Linguistic Shu
'ibiya
parsi-ye dari,
the latter
having
fallen out of use.41
Certainly Kai Ka'is b. Eskandar did not warn
his son
against
this
usage
of Persian without
reason;
that
is,
there must have been
people
who
advocated the use of un-Arabicized Persian. Un-
fortunately nothing
remains of their
works, if
they
ever did
put
their ideas to
practice.
In an-
other
respect, however,
Kai Ka'us upholds the
autonomy
of
Persian;
he advises
against
em-
ploying
saj' in Persian while
recognizing
its merits
in Arabic.42
Again
this is not mere
theory,
if we
may
be
permitted
to look for evidence also outside
of kitaba in the strict sense.43 One need not think
about 'Abdollah Ansari's
consistently rhymed
prose44
to find
examples
of this device in Persian
even before the time of Kai
Ka'is;
Naser-e Khos-
row
employs it, e.g.,
in his Jame'o l-hekmatain,
where,
in addition to exact
rhymes,
he makes use
of assonances as well:45
dghdz-e
sokhan az
sepas-e khoddy
konim/
afridgar-e
dsmdn
va-zaminll
va-padid drandd-ye
makdn
va-makinll
bar-moqtazi-ye talqin-el
u sobhdnohu ke
ferestdd-ketdb-e karim-el
khwishll
be-sefdrat-e rasil-e
khwishll
Mohammado
1-aminll
va-gostardnandd-ye
besdt-e
dinll
This in turn lends more
support
to the view that
Kai Ka'us'
opinion
on
purely
Persian
writing
was
also
given
with
respect
to some actual
examples.
Literary
taste
changed
so fast that
already
in
the
early sixth/twelfth century
the
relatively
un-
mixed Persian
style
of about a hundred
years
before was considered
antiquated
and fit for a
modernizing
redaction. Bal'ami's version of at-
Tabari's
history
underwent a review which besides
smoothing
out the
syntactic
structure
exchanged
many plain
Persian turns for Arabic
expressions
thought
more
elegant.
A short
paragraph
in both
editions
may
illustrate the difference:46
41
Ka Ka'fis b. Eskandar,
Qabuisndmd,
ed. R.
Levy,
London, 1951, p. 119,
11. 14ff.
42
Ibid., p. 119,
1. 17f.
43
The documents included into
Baihaqi's history
show
Arabic lexical
influence,
but their
style
is
quite plain
and unadorned.
44
Cf. his
mondjdt
in S. de
Laugier
de
Beaurecueil,
Khwddja 'Abdullah
Ansdri, Beyrouth, 1965, pp.
287-301.
45
Ed. H.
Corbin/M. Mo'in, Paris/Teheran, 1953, p. 2,
11. 3ff.
46
Here
quoted
from A. J.
Arberry,
Classical Persian
in
tdrikhndmd-ye bozorg-ast gerd dvardd-ye Abi Ja'far-
e Mohammad-e bn-e Jarir-e Yazido t-Tabari-rahimahu
llah-ke malek-e Khordsdn Abi Sdleh-e Mansuir-e bn-e
Nuh
farmdn
dad dastur-e khwish-rd Abu 'Ali-ye Mo-
hammad-e bn-e Mohammado l-Bal'ami-rd ke in tdrikh-
namd-rd ke az dn-e
pesar-e
Jarir ast
pdrsi garddn harge
nikutar condnke andar
vey noqasni nayof
tad . . .-as
against
in tdrikhi-st mo'tabar ke
Ja'far-e
Mohammad-e bn-e
Jarir-e Yazid-e Tabari
fardham
nomud va-Abu Sdleh-e
Mansur-e bn-e Nuh AbC
'Ali-ye
Mohammad-e bn-e
Mohammad-e
Bal'ami-ye
vazir-e khwod-rd
farman dad
ke dar zabdn-e
pdrsi
be-kamdl-e saldmat
tarjomd sdzad
be-now'-i ke dar asl-e matdleb
noqsdni
rah
naydbad
. . .
IV. In the case of
scholarly writing,
the
polemic
against
Persian was even
sharper
than in the area
of
epistolography,
or adab as such. Toward the
end of his
life,
al-Bairini wanted to
relegate
Persian as a means of communication to fables
and
entertaining
stories told at
nightly gath-
erings-asmar lailiya-and
to
epics
of the ancient
kings-akhbar kisrawiya.47
In their dual
purpose
of
entertaining
and
moralizing,48 they represented
what was
recognized
as the Iranians'
particular
contribution to the intellectual
heritage
of the
great pre-Islamic nations;
that
is,
addb.49 At al-
Bairfini's
time,
of
course, they
had
long
found
Literature, London, 1958, p.
39 bottom. There are
prob-
ably manuscripts
of both redactions
offering
a better
text
(cf. Lazard, La
langue, pp. 38-41).
M. J. Mashkiir's
edition
(cf. supra
note
15)
does not
help
here.
47
idh Id tasluhu hddhihi
l-lughatu (ya'ni l-farislyata)
illd li-l-akhbdri
l-kisrawlyati
wa-l-asmdri l-lailiyati (M.
Meyerhof,
"Das Vorwort zur
Drogenkunde
des
Beruni,"
in
Quellen
und Studien zur Geschichte der Naturwissen-
schaften
und der
Medizin, III, 3, 1933, 39f, p.
arab. 2f =
Fadil at-Ta'i, "Ma'a 1-Bairfini fl K. as-saidana" in Ma-
jallat al-Majma' al-'Ilml
al-'Irdqi, 18, 1969, p. 27,
11.
-5ff).
48
Following, e.g.,
Ibn an-Nadim's
interpretation
of
khurdfa
and samar, fable and
entertaining story (Fihrist,
ed.
Flugel, I, 304,1. 7f)
and a. Mansur al-Ma'mari's intro-
duction to his Shdhndmd (in Qazvini,
Bist
Maqdld,
Tehran, 21332, II, 39,
1.
8-41,
1.
2).
49
Among foreign literary
works translated into
Arabic,
al-Jahiz lists dddb
al-furs (Hayawdn,
ed. 'A. M.
Haruin,
2Cairo,
s.d.
[1960], I, 75,
1.
lOf), following
the notion that
there were certain fields of
knowledge particular
to each
of the
great pre-Islamic
nations
(similar:
'All b. Zaid
Ebn-e
Fondoq al-Baihaqi,
Tdrikh-e
Baihaq,
ed. A. Bah-
manyar, 2Tehran, 1965, p. 4,
11.
2-11).
59
Journal
of
the American Oriental
Society
94.1
(1974)
their
way
into Arabic and had thus been Islam-
ized50 so that even on this field Persian was no
longer
the
necessary
vehicle. If one were to
spell
out the
implications
of al-Bairfni's
statement,
the historic mission of Iranian lore to contribute
useful
knowledge
to
young
Islam had been fulfilled
and there was now no reason left for a Muslim
to know the Persian
language;
it had become
super-
fluous. Al-Bairfini
flatly
denied its ability to give
clear, concise,
and
elegant expression
to com-
plex reasoning.51
The
assumption
that he was
actuated
by
what he deemed
unjustified
claims
for the
opposite point
of view,52 wins
support
from the detached manner in which he
reports
a
Persianist view
of,
and
disregard for,
Arabic in
an earlier
work;
without
any polemic
he
simply
states,
it
may
be true for those
holding
this
opinion,
but it is not true in the abstract.53
Some
sixty years
later al-Bairuni's
scathing
re-
marks were taken
up by
Esma'il
Jorjani.54
He
translated his medical
encyclopedia Zakhira-ye
Khwdrezmshjhi55 from Persian into Arabic at the
insistence of
people
who
complained
that the
material was not
being presented
to its
greatest
possible advantage.
His view of the
inadequacy
of Persian reads like an echo of al-Bairuini;
not
even in
long
and involved
phrases
is it
possible
to formulate advanced
reasoning
in Persian sat-
isfactorily.
There are
concepts
that in Arabic
by
their beautiful taste and delicate lustre attract the
student's mind and
keep
his attention awake,
but
when translated into
Persian, they
lose their
sheen,
their
meaning
is
diminished,
and
they
no
longer
appeal
to the mind.56 Esmi'il
certainly
would not
50
Cf. El,
s. vv.
Adab, A'in,
Hamza al-Isfahani, Ibn
al-Muqaffa',
Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari,
al-Tha'alibi.
51
... man ta'ammala kitdba 'ilmin
qad nuqila
ild
I-fa-
risiyi kaifa
dhahaba
raunaquhui wa-kasafa
bdltuhii
ua-stwad-
da wa-zdla
ntifd'uha
bihi
(v.
note
47).
52
G.
Lazard,
La
langue, p. 60,
note 11.
53
Tahdid
nihdydl al-amdkin,
ed. M.
at-Tanji, Ankara,
1962, p. 11,
11. lff:
fa-yaqulu lahi:
md
manfa'atu rtifd'i
l-fCtili
wa-ntisdbi l-mafl'uli
bihi
wa-sd'iri
ma
mill
'ilali
wa-ghard'ibi l-lughati?
Fa-lastu muhtdian
ild l-'arabi-
yati
aslan.
Wa-yakunu
dhalika l-khitdbu
haqqan
bi-l-
iddfati
ilaihi Id
bi-l-itldqi.
54
On him v. El2
II, 603,
s. v.
DjurdjanI,
Isma'il (J.
Schacht),
with
bibliography.
55
So far two volumes
published,
ed. Jalilo d-din
Mostafavi,
Tehran 1345-9.
56
... anna kathiran mina
l-aghrddi l-'ilmiyati ld yafi
l-lughatu l-'ajamiyatu bi-ifd'i haqqiha
. . . illd bi-t-takal-
have
gone
to such
lengths
in
expounding
the
super-
iority
of Arabic
except
in an
argument
with those
who
thought
otherwise. In the Persian
original
of his Zakhird, he found it
necessary
to
say
that
although
the book was written in
Persian,
he left
untranslated some terms
generally
understood and
easier to
express
in Arabic.57
Esma'il Jorjani's arguments
represent
two levels
of
opposition
to Persian as a
literary medium,
analogous
to those observed in connection with
kitdba. In
Arabic,
on the
principal
level,
Persian
is dismissed
entirely,
and even in Persian letters,
where it is
implicitly accepted,
it is
only
on con-
dition of its
being
made more malleable,
as it
were, by borrowings
from Arabic. The other
party
that
upheld
the
appropriateness
of Persian re-
mains in the
background
and inferences about
them can
only
be drawn from the thrust of al-
Bairfini's and
Jorjani's arguments.
One of the
latter's
approximate contemporaries,
however,
was
obliging enough
to name his
opponents:
Shahmar-
dan b. Abi 1-Khair.58
Whether his
general
view
of Persian was
equally
unfavorable as
Jorjain's
cannot be
ascertained,
since his Arabic writings
are lost59 and
only
two of his Persian works have
been preserved60;
but his
objections
to a
purely
Persian
style
render it
very likely.
In the
preface
to his Rowzato
l-monajjemin61
he
agrees
with Jor-
jani
that Persian technical terms are more difficult
than their Arabic
equivalents.
He formulates his
argument
as a
critique
of his
predecessors
who
lufi
wa-itdlati l-kalmini ma'a
t-taqsiri fihi fa-inna
mina
I-kalimi md
lahi fi l-lughati l-'arabiyati dhauqun
hasanun
wa-raunaqun latif[un yatayaqqazL lahii
(dhihnu l-mrnstami'i
wa-l-muta'allimi wa-idha
nurqila
dhalika ild
l-'ajamiyati
dhahaba
raunaquhii
wa-lam
yakmal
ma'ndhu
wa-yab'udu
ani f-tibd'i
(Fehrest-e Kotobkhdna-ye ehdd'i-ye
. . . Mol.
Meshkat, Tehran, 1953/1332, III, 2, p. 761,
11.
6-9).
57
UCLA,
MS Pers. Med.
1,
fol.
4a,
11. 11-13:
va-agar
ce in khedmat
be-parsi
sdkhti ammada ast, lafzhd-ye tazi
ke
ma'riif-ast be-tariqi
ke mardomdn ma'ni-ye
dn ddnand
va-be-tdzi
goftan
saboktar bashad an
lafz
ham be-ldzi
ydd
amad td
az-lakallof
dur bdshad va-bar
zafdcn
raviantar
dtad.
38 On him v. G. Lazard,
La
laingue, pp. 103-5;
id. in
lMlanges Masse, T6ehran, 1963, pp.
219-28.
59
Ibid.,
pp. 220,
224.
60
Row:ato l-monajjemin,
dated 466/1073-4,
and Nozhat-
iinmd-ye 'Ald'i, composed shortly
before 513/1119-20
for the Kakfiyid
'Ala'o d-dowlii
Garshasp
of Yazd
(488-
513/1095-1120).
61
G. Lazard, Mel. Massd, p. 222;
La
langue, p.
105.
60
RICHTER-BERNBURG:
Linguistic Shu 'ibiya
had used words of pure dari under the
pretext of
writing for readers
ignorant of Arabic:
sokhanha'i
hami
gFuyand dari-ye vizhd-ye motlaq
ke az
tdzi
doshkhwdrtar ast.62 His
closing
statement
leaves
room for
doubt, though,
whether he
really
had
his
audience's interest in mind or was not rather
motivated
by
a
prejudice;
while he declared
that
he would
employ only
the
current,
and therefore
Arabic,
terms that
anybody
could learn
within
five
days,63
he
implicitly
admitted that these terms
would be new to his readers. One could
ask, of
course, whether these terms could not have
been
learnt
by
the reader in his own
tongue just as
easily,
since he had to
get
used to them first
any-
way.64
Shahmardan's basic
predilection
for Arabic
expresses
itself here once
again.
Which of his
predecessors
were the
goal
of his
criticism? In his
days
the
Ddneshniizm-ye 'Ald'i
represented
the most
prominent attempt
to deal
with
philosophical
and scientific
subjects
in
a
genuinely
Persian
idiom,65
and
consequently
Avi-
cenna's name
suggests itself,66 especially
since in
his
Nozhatnimd-ye
'Al 'i67 Shahmardan himself
gives an account of 'Ala'o d-dowld Mohammad
b. Doshmanziar
ordering
him to
compose
a book
on 'olim-e
avayel
in Persian.68 But if 'Ala'o
d-dowla ever did wish to
study
them in his own
language,69 Avicenna's answer to his command
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
Jorjani slips
into a similar turn in his
argument:
after
declaring
he would use Arabic terms
(vide
note
57),
he ends
by saying
that he will translate most of them to
remove all
ambiguity (ibid.
fol.
4a,
1.
14).
65
Cf. Moh.
Mo'in, "Loghat-e farsi-ye
Ebn-e Sina ...
RFL
Tehdran, II, 2, 1333/1954, pp.
1-38.
66
In his succession the works of
Juzjani
deserve
mention, too; among
them
probably
the translation and
commentary
of Avicenna's
Hayy
b.
Yaqzan (cf. Corbin,
Avicenne et le rlcit
visionnaire, Thb6ran/Paris 1953).
67
In all
probability
a conscious allusion to Avicenna's
Ddneshndmd-ye 'Ald'i, especially
in view of the
following
(cf.
also infra note
70).
68
In
Avicenna, Ddneshndmd-ye 'Ald'i, Eldhiydt,
ed.
M.
Mo'in, Tehran, 1952, p. hd', 11. 2-4
(=
RFL
Tdheran,
II, 2, p. 5, 11.
6-9).
69
Shahmardan
gives
this as reason for his order to Avi-
cenna:
agar 'oliim-e avadel be-'ebarat-e
parsi budi,
man
tovanestami danestan
(ibid.
1.
4);
Avicenna himself
says
he was ordered to write it for the attendants of 'Alii'o
d-dowlii's court
(mar
khddemdn-e
majles-e vey-rd,
D.
'A.,
Manteq, p. 2,
1.
4f).
certainly
did not
satisfy
him: he did not under-
stand a word of the book dedicated to him.70
Shahmardan accused his
predecessors of
using
the
pretext
of
writing
for
people
not conversant
with Arabic in order to
adopt
a
purely
Persian
prose style,
and
argued
that this made it even
more difficult to understand their works. Cer-
tainly
it would be
underrating
Avicenna's
insight
into the
problem
to
suggest
that he
thought
that
a
highly
technical idiom fashioned on the model
of a
language
not accessible to his readers would
be
easy.71
But the
difficulty
was not in
learning
new words in Persian or
Arabic,
but in under-
standing
unfamiliar
concepts.
The
question
of
what Shahmardan's
predecessors' reasons were
in
coining
Persian terms can be
answered,
at least
in
part;
in order to achieve the
necessary adapta-
tation of Persian to
requirements
of
scholarly
writing
in fields not hitherto dealt with in this
medium, they
did not want
simply
to draw on
Arabic; rather
they
made use of what Persian
terminologies
were at
hand,72
and
expanded
them
by exploiting
the resources of the
language;73 only
then did
they
resort to Arabic elements.
In their criticism of the first
attempts
to
forge
Persian into as fine a tool as
Arabic, al-Bairuni,
Shahmardan,
and
Jorjani overlooked the fact that
Arabic had
already
been used for two hundred
70 az an
hic
dar natovdnest
ydflan (D. 'A., E., p. ha',
1.
6). Shahmardan
might imply
here that it is to be
prefer-
red to aim less
high-cf. Nozhatnamd with
Daneshnamd-
and be understandable due to clear Arabic
expressions
than to fail on an ambitious course because of a
forbidding
newly
coined
terminology.
71 In this context it is
interesting
to note that Shah-
mardan took
exception
to the
technique
of loan trans-
lation,
while Arabic
purists
were
very touchy
in their
reaction to
foreign sounding
terms and names in books
on science and
philosophy;
it has to be
admitted,
though,
that
religious reasons also
played
a role in
this;
cf. al-
Bairfini, Tahdid
nihdydt, p.
9. With mild
irony,
he
adds,
if words like
isdghuji were translated into innocuous
Arabic words like
mudkhal, the same
people
would
readily
accept them (cf.
b. Faris in
Goldziher, "Die
Shu'fibijja,"
p. 214).
72
A certain Zoroastrian influence
may
have to be
reckoned with. The differences from
Shkand-Gumdnik
Vicar, however, are marked
enough
not to
emphasize
this strand of tradition too much
(cf.
P. J. de
Menasce,
Une
apologetique mazdeenne du IXe siMcle . ..,
Fribourg,
1945, e.g., p. 295).
73
Vide note 65.
61
Journal
of
the American Oriental
Society
94.1
(1974)
years by generations
of translators and scholars.
By
now its
prestige
was too
deeply
rooted in the
consciousness of the time to be
successfully
chal-
lenged,
and the avenues
opened by
works such as
Avicenna's Daneshnamd were not traveled
by
many
of his successors.
Instead,
Shahmardan
marks the line future authors on
scholarly
sub-
jects
were to take: if
they
did write in
Persian,
they
were content to borrow
stylistic
devices and
ready
made
terminologies
from Arabic. An
early
example
is 'Omar b. Mohammad
Radfiyaini's
book
on
poetics,74
which
freely employs saj'
and follows
the Arabic
terminology
to a word.
V.
Religion
and
theology
were the fields where
Arabicist claims asserted themselves most force-
fully,
and in the
long run,
most
successfully.
When
spokesmen
of
shu'ibiya
adduced
literary
productions
in
languages
other than Arabic75 to
support
their
point
of
view,
their
opponents
drew
decisive
arguments
from the fact that Arabic was
the
language
of Allah's ultimate revelation to
mankind-the
Qur'an.
Abu Hatim ar-Razi,
him-
self an Iranian
by
birth and of Persian
tongue,76
assessed the
respective
rank of the different human
languages according
to wether or not a book of
divine revelation was committed to them. Among
the four
outstanding prophetic tongues
he named-
Hebrew, Syriac,
Persian,
and Arabic-Arabic nat-
urally
took the first
place.77
It was not
merely
hallowed, however,
as the outward
garb
of divine
truth,
but this truth
proved
itself,
as it
were, by
being expressed
in inimitable terms of utmost
clarity
and conciseness,
at the same time
imparting
divine
quality
on them
by
its
depths
of unfathom-
able
meaning.78
In the
Qur'an
Arabic
partook
of
divine
essence,
and
consequently
it was considered
superior
to all other
tongues
even on the level of
mere human
speech.
74 K.
tarjomano l-balagha,
ed. Ate?, Istanbul, 1949,
cf. id. in Oriens, I, 1948, pp.
45-62.
75
Cf. al-Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-t-tabyin,
ed. 'Abd as-S.
liarfn, 3Kairo, 1388/1968, III, 14, 11. 1-10. Even when
Arabic was
given linguistic preference,
the contents of
non-Arabic-here
Persian-literature were highly
ad-
mired: wa-hali l-madani ilia fi
kutubi l-'ajami
wa-bala-
ghatu l-lughati
land wa-l-ma'dni lahum (Ahmad b. Abi
Tahir Taifir, K. Baghdad, ed. Keller, Leipzig, 1908, I,
158,
11. 3-5;
cf. C. E. Bosworth,
"The Tahirids and Persian
Literature,"
in Iran, VII, 1969, pp. 103-6).
76
Vide
supra
note 10.
77
Ibid., p. 61,
11. 6-10.
78
Ibid., p. 62, esp.
11. -5-ult.
Az-Zamakhshari carries the
argument, expressly
against shufibites,79
a little
further;
the
high
rank
God has bestowed on Arabic is
clearly
underlined
by
the fact that its knowledge is essential to the
eminent Islamic sciences of
tafsir, hadith, kaldm,
and
fiqh.80
What is stated as fact
here,
is
ques-
tioned in Nezamo 1-molk's
Siasatndmd,
where fol-
lowing opinion
is attributed to Hasan al-Basri:81
To be learned does not mean to master Arabic,
but to master a field of
knowledge
in whichever
language.
The command of sharica and
tafsir,
be
it in
torki, parsi,
or
rimi,
even without
knowing
Arabic,
makes a man learned. But here the
speaker
shied
away
from the
consequences
im-
plied,
such as translations of
major
works in the
fields
mentioned,
or a more conservative mind took
exception
to such an audacious
pronouncement,
at
any
rate the
argument
ends in a
twist;
to know
Arabic as
well,
is even
better,
since God has sent
the
Qur'an
in Arabic words and Muhammad
spoke
Arabic.
However,
the context-the
chapter
on the
king's religious
duties82-radicalizes the issue so as
to bear on the
position
of Arabic in
religion
as
such,
not
just
in religious sciences,
even
though
the
ques-
tion of whether or not it is a
religious duty
to
learn
Arabic,
is left undecided here. An
implicit
answer is
given by
the number of Persian
tafsir
works written in the fourth and fifth centuries,83
and in one of
them,
even a
programmatic
state-
ment is found. When the Samanid Mansir b. Niih
ordered at-Tabarl's
commentary
on the
Qur'an
to be translated into Persian,84
because he was
unable to read it in
Arabic,
he asked his 'ulama'
for a
fatwa
on the lawfulness of the
undertaking,
for it was
obviously
considered
daring
to render
Qur'anic exegesis
into another
language.
But not
only
did the
jurisconsults
come out in favor of
it, they
did not even
imply
a theoretical
preference
for Arabic in the
study
of the Koran and its ex-
79
Mufassal,
ed. Broch, Christiania, 1859, p. 2,
11. 9-11.
80
Ibid., 11. 13-5 and Pishrav-e adab
ya Muqaddimal
al-
adab,
ed. Mohammad Kfaem Emam, Tehran, 1342/1963,
I, 1 (57),
11. 6-10.
81
Ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris, 1891, p. pers. 55,
11. -6-
ult.
82
Ibid., p. pers.
54.
83
Vide Lazard,
La
langue, pp.
41-5 on the Persian
version of at-Tabari, pp.
56-8 on the
Cambridge Tafsir,
pp.
91-4 on Surabadhi's, pp.
94-6 on Esfara'ini's com-
mentaries,
and
pp.
119-21 on several works of the
early
sixth
century (cf. Storey, I,
1-5 and
1189-92).
84
In Bahar, Sabkshenasi, 2II, p.
13f.
62
RICHTER-BERNBURG:
Linguistic Shu'ibiya
egesis. Very shrewdly,
one is
tempted
to
say, they
based their
opinion
on the verse of the
Qur'an:
md arsalna min
rasiilin illa bi-lisani
qaumihi,85
and made their
reasoning very
clear
by translating
...
magar be-zaban-e
qowm-e
u va-Sn zabdn ke
ishan ddnestand. If Muhammad was thus to be
prophet
not
only
to the
Arabs,
but to all
mankind,
it was not
just permissible,
but
necessary,
to
translate his
message
into different
tongues.
From
this
point
of
view,
it was not so much divine choice
but historical chance that Muhammad was an
Arab and delivered his
message
in
Arabic, es-
pecially
since Persian had
prophetic seniority
as the
language
of all
prophets
and
kings
from
Adam to Ishmael.86 Such
thinking ran,
of
course,
counter to the cherished ideas of the Arabicists.
In an
oblique riposte,
without
naming
his
op-
ponents, ath-Tha'alibi,
an
exponent
of traditional
Arabic
learning
in a milieu that witnessed the first
flowering
of Neo-Persian
letters,87
went so far as
to write: Love of Allah and his
messenger
neces-
sitates love of the Arabic
language;
he whom
Allah
guides
to Islam believes that Muhammad is
the best
prophet
and Arabic the best
language;
to learn Arabic is a
religious duty.88
It was al-Bairfini who formulated the Arabicists'
position
with utmost succinctness and
clarity:
dinund wa-d-daulatu
'arabiycini
wa-tau'amdni.89
Any attempt
at
greater independence
on the
polit-
ical and
linguistic
levels was thus
conveniently
placed
in the
neighbourhood
of
heresy.
The Hana-
85
Sirat Ibrdhim
(14),
v. 4.
86
goftand
ravd bdshadh khwdndan wa-nebeshtan-e
tafsir-
e Qor'dn mar an kasi-rd ke u tdzi naddnadh az
qowl-e
khoday-e
'azza
wa-jalla
ke
goft:
md arsalna ...
goft
man
hi5
peyghdmbari-rd naferestddham magar
.. .
va-digar
dn
bovadh ke in zabdn-e
pdrsi
az
qadim bdz ddnestand az
ruzgdr-e
Adam
tf ruzgdr-e
Esmd'il
wa-hamd-ye peyghdm-
bardn va-molukdn-e zamin
be-pdrsi
sokhan
goftandi
va-
avval kasi ke sokhan
goft
be-zabdn-e tdzi Esmd'il-e
pey-
ghambar badh
va-peyghdmbar-e md-salld lldhu 'alaihi-
az 'Arab birin dmadh va-in
Qor'dn
be-zabdn-e 'Arab bar
u
ferestddhand
va-in bedh-in nahiat zabdn-e
pdrsi
ast va-
molukdn-e in
janeb
moluk-e 'Ajam-and. Most
probably
this
legal opinion
is of Hanafi
observance,
cf.
infra
and note 92.
87
C. E.
Bosworth,
The Book
of
Curious and Enter-
taining Information-The Lata'if al-ma'drif of Tha'alibi,
Edinburgh, 1968, pp.
11-12.
88
Fiqh al-lugha
..
.,
ed. Maktaba
at-tijariya al-kubra,
Cairo s. d.
[1964], pp. 2-3,
1. 1.
89 In M.
Meyerhof,
"Das Vorwort
...," vide
supra
note 47.
fiya
who alone
among
the four schools of
law, al-
lowed the use of Persian in
worship,
were
subject
to the same
accusation, as is shown
by
a Shafi'i
polemicist's90 caricature of a saldt of two
rak'a
"according
to what
Abii
Hanifa holds
permissi-
ble."91 It is
represented
as a series of
outrages
among
which the use of Persian for the takbir and
recitation from the Koran92 figures prominently.
The
attempt
to establish Persian as a
legitimate
language
for the invocation of Allah and his
proph-
et is also discernible in some texts of the time on
subjects
other than
theology.
In several manu-
scripts
of the fifth and sixth
centuries,
the initial
basmala is
given
in a Persian
rendering: be-ndm-e
izdd-e
bakhshdyandd-ye bakhshdyeshgar.93
The Ar-
abic
paronomasia ar-rahman ar-rahim is
exactly
reproduced
here
by skillfully using
the resources
of the Persian
language. Unfortunately,
the use
of this translated basmala is attested
only
in a
few
cases,
but in most later
manuscripts
the ir-
regularity
would
certainly
have been eliminated.
A number of
books, though,
exhibit an almost
exclusively
Persian
terminology
in their initial
doxologies
to Allah and Muhammad. This is not
limited to works such as Ma'mari's
Shdihndmd,94
which
by
virtue of their
subject
matter
might
be
90
Abu l-Ma'ali 'Abd al-Malik
al-Juwaini, quoted
by
Ibn Khallikan from
Mughith al-khalq fi khtiydr
al-
ahlaqq (Wafaydt,
ed. Muh.
Muhyl
d-din 'Abd
al-Hamid,
Cairo, 1948, IV, 267, 1.
5f).
91
'ald md
yajazu
abu
Hanifa, ibid. 1. -8.
92
wa-kabbara
bi-l-farisiyati
thumma
qara'a dyatan
bi-
l-fdrisiyati:
dow
bargak-e
sabz
(ibid.,
1.
-5f): al-Juwaini
intends to cast twofold doubt on the
orthodoxy
of those
reciting
it:
first, it is about the shortest
possible verse
of the
Koran, Surat 55
(ar-Rahmdn)
v.
65, second,
to
translate mudhdmmatdni 'two dark
green gardens' by
dow
bargak-e
sabz 'two little
green leaves,' only compounds
the
mockery implied.
93
E.g., 1)
Abfi Mansiir
Movaffaq Haravi,
K. al-abnia
'an
haqdyeqo l-advid, copied by
Asadi Tisi in A.H. 448
(M. Qazvini,
Bist
Maqdld,2 [Tehran] 1332, I, 66); 2)
'Omar
b.
Mobammad
Raduiyni,
K.
tarjomdn, copied by
Arda-
shir b.
Deylamsepar
in A. H. 507
(Oriens, I, 1948, Taf.
II, between
pp.
62 and
63); 3)
Hobaish-e
Teflisi, Vojuh-e
Qor'dn, purportedly
author's
autograph
of A. H.
558,
certainly
no later than
early
7th cent. A. H. (ed. Mahdi
Mobaqqeq, Tehran, 1340, plate
at
end); 4) "Majhiil,"
Homdyndmd,
in
manuscript first-torn-leaf
replaced
in
7th cent. A. H.
(ed. Arberry, London, 1963, p. i).
94
In
Qazvini,
Bist
Maqald, II,
20 (and Mahdi
Bayani,
Nomund-ye sokhan-e
frrst, I, 1, Tehran, 1317, p. 2).
63
Journal
of
the American Oriental
Society
94.1
(1974)
expected
to be
relatively
free of Arabic
vocabulary,
but occurs also in fields like
history,95 geography,96
materia
medica,97
and
philosophy,98
which were
much more
subject
to Arabic lexical
influence,
and
where Arabic
terminology
did
play
an
important
role.
Given, moreover,
the status of Arabic as
the Muslim
tongue,
doxologies
in
nearly
unmixed
Persian have to be understood as a demonstration.
This
interpretation
is corroborated
by
other ex-
amples employing
a rather
large
number of Arabic
words,99
and
by
a third
group
of texts
having
bas-
mala and
doxologies
in
pure
Arabic.100 A
very
good representative
of the
first,
the most Persi-
anist, group
is to be found in Bal'am 's
adaptation
of
at-Tabarl's
History. Although aiming
at a
precise
rendition of
specifically Qur'anic concepts, proper
names left
aside,
he resorts to Arabic
only rarely
:101
sepas va-afrin
mar
khoddy-e kdmgdr
va-kdmrdn va-
dfrinandd-ye
zamin va-dsmdn va-dn kas ke na hamtd
va-nd dastur va-na zan va-na
farzand
hamishd bud va-
hamisha bdshad va-bar
hasti-ye
0
neshdnhd-ye dfrinesh
peydd-st
va-asman va-zamin va-ruz ua-dnce bed-u andar-
ast va-cwon be-khwod
negah
koni beddni ke dfrinesh-e
u bar
hasti-ye
0
gowa-st
va-'ebadat-e vey
bar
bandegan-e
uey vajeb va-peyda-st va-ne'matha-ye
u bar
bandegdn
gostarida ast-sepds
ddrim mar
khoddy-rd
bed-in nik'-
ihd ke bd
bandegan-e
khwish kardd ast-va-doruid
bad
Mohammad-e-salla llahu 'alaihi wa-alihi wa-sallam-
peyghdmbar
ke behtarin-e
jahdnian va-gozidd-ye pey-
ghdmbaran
va-ndzesh va-ndz-e
hama-ye farzanddn-e
Adam
va-shef a'atkhwdh-e bandegdn
ruz-e bozorg-dor0d-e
izad
bad bar
vey
va-bar khdnddn-e vey
ke an
gozidegnl ua-
pasandidegdn.
The second
group may
be
represented
here
by
the Pseudo-Avicennian
Qordii-ye tabi'iyi1t:102
95
Vide infra on Bal'ail.
96
Hodudo l-'dlam,
ed. Manucehr Sotuida, Tehran,
1340.
97
Abfi Mansfir Movaffaq Haravi, K. al-abnia (in Bahar,
Sabkshendsi, II, 25),
cf. infra note 99.
98
E.g. 1)Avicenna,
Ddneshnamd-ye 'Ala'i, Manteq, edd.
M. Mo'in et S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1952; 2) Persian translation
of Avicenna's Hayy
b.
Yaqdzn (cf. supra note 66).
99
E.g. 1) Naier-e Khosrow, K. vajh-e din, ed.
"KIavl-
ani," Berlin, s.d.; 2) id., Jdme'o l-hekmatain, vide supra,
note 45; 3)
Ps.-Avicenna, Qordad-ye tabi'iydt, vide infra.
In Haravi's K. al-abnia the doxology
on Allah is in pure
Persian,
whereas the
eulogies
on Muhammad and the other
prophets
and saints are
freely interspersed with Arabic.
100
E.g.
Tarikh-e Sistan
and
al-Hojvirl's Kashfo 1-
mahjub (ed.
V. Zhukowsky, reprint
Tehran, 1336).
101
Ed. Mashkfir, p.
2.
102
In Bahar, Sabkshenasi, II,
37.
sepds dfridgar-e
hama-ye cizha-ra va-makhsis konan-
da-ye now'-e mardom-rd
az-jomla-ye jdnvaran
be-kherad
td bed-an bar ba'ii az dfrinesh-e u
vaqef gardand.
What was said before about the
development
of Persian
scholarly writing, applies here,
too.
From the
beginning
of the sixth
century on,
most
Persian authors
adopted
a
style
of Arabicized
Persian
representing,
as it
were,
an intermediate
between Arabic and unmixed Persian. In Ebno
l-Balkhi's
Fdrsnmad,
written at about the time
when Bal'amI's version of
at-Tabari's
History
was
modernized,
the initial
doxology
reads:103
sepds va-dfrin
mar
khoddy-rd
ke
badaye'-e
son'-e u-rd
ghayat nistl
ua-hasti-ye
u-rd
bedayat va-nehayat nistl
dfrinandd-ye
zamin
va-zamanl
va-sane'-e kown
va-makan/
...
There is a
large proportion
of Arabic
words,
saj',
a conscious
play
with
coupled
terms-ba-
ddye': ghayat,
beddhat:
nehdyat,
etc. and
parallel
expressions
of a Persian turn
answering
to an
Arabic one and vice versa. Ebno l-Balkhi even
treats the Persian words zamin and zamcin as
though they
followed the Arabic
system
of word-
formation and were two
morphemes
derived from
the same
root,
as are kown and makdn in the next
colon. On the
following pages,104
he sets out to
extoll the land of
Fars,
its
inhabitants,
and their
language,
and in order to
give
them a
proper
Islamic
standing,
even resorts to
shaky
evidence
from the traditions of the
Prophet
and hazardous
etymological explanations
of a
supposedly
Persian
word in the
Qur'an.105 Nothing
could serve
better,
however,
to illustrate the
stylistic
models
prev-
alent in his
time,
than the
very
first lines of his
work,
where the
general
trend toward Arabiciza-
tion of the Persian
tongue
undermines his inten-
tions from the outset.
103
Edd. G. Le
Strange
et R. A.
Nicholson, London,
1921,
p.
1.
104
Ibid., pp.
4-7.
105
sijjil
ya'ni
sang-ow gel-e
be-ham dmikhtd
(ibid.,
p. 7,
1.
9f); al-Jawaliqi quotes
the same
etymology
from
b.
Qutaiba
(K. al-mu'arrab,
ed.
Sachau, Leipzig, 1887,
p. 81,
1.
7f),
but J. Horovitz declares it
unsatisfactory
(Koranische Untersuchungen, Berlin/Leipzig, 1926, p. 11,
but cf. A.
Jeffery,
The
Foreign Vocabulary of the
Qur'an,
Baroda, 1938, p. 164f., s.v.,
with
sources).
At
any rate,
it is not without
irony
that Ebno l-Balkhi did
not, instead,
choose one of the
unequivocally
Iranian loan words in the
Koran to
prove
his
point (e.g., istabraq, zanjabil,
cf. Jef-
fery, Vocabulary, s.vv.).
64