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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part
I, by M. Inostranzev, et al, Translated by G. K. Nariman

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Title: Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I
Author: M. Inostranzev
Release Date: July 16, 2004 [eBook #12918]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRANIAN INFLUENCE ON MOSLEM
LITERATURE, PART I***
E-text prepared by Larry Bergey and Project Gutenberg Distributed
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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

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