Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I | Page 9

by an exaggerated Parsi partiality where the penchant of these circles is clearly manifest. And these are intimately connected with certain questions of daily life,--the struggle for power between the Arab and the Iranian element in the Khalifate. Enthusiastic partisans of the Persian element, these circles as a counterblast to the poverty of civilizing factors of the pre-Islamic Arab nation, turned to the glories of Persia, principally of the Sasanian past. Iranophile writers had no need for inventions, since historical truth was on their side. The effectiveness of their method was indisputable. In this connection Iranian tradition among the Musalmans as transmitted by Arab writers must take precedence of a similar transmission, the Christian literature of the East, where all possibility was excluded of polemics such as obtained under the Moslem domination between the pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian parties. It is, therefore, to be regretted that the literary activities of the Musalman circles sympathising with Persian culture have descended to us only in occasional extracts and are sometimes confined only to the titles of books written by them.
[Footnote 1: For details, Goldziher. Muhammedanische Studien, I, 147-310.]
We noticed above the revival of scientific activities in Sasanian Persia. This activity for the most part has its significance in its quality of being a connecting link, in the first place, as the transmitter of Greek knowledge to the East, and secondly, as the unifier of this knowledge with the heritage which Sasanian Persia had received from scientific works belonging to Semitic culture, as well as from the science of India. The principal representatives of this activity were not Persians, but Christians, mainly the Syrian Nestorians, and Monophysites from the school of Edessa.[1]
[Footnote 1: For a general account of the character of this activity see T.J. de Boer, History of Philosophy in Islam, 17-20.]
What was the share in these operations of the Persians themselves it is hard to tell. But at all events, it was not considerable.[1] The general character of this activity does not leave particular room for wide creative science, since it has expressed itself pre-eminently in compilations, translations of philosophical, astronomical, astrological, medical, mathematical and ethical commentaries on Greek and some Indian authors. It was not in this field that the activity of the Persian sacerdotal community in the Sasanian epoch was concentrated. And latterly in the period of the development of analogous scientific work dining the eastern Khalifate under the Abbasides the principal role belonged just to the same class of scholars, Christian Syrians, with just this difference that the activity of the latter continued among the Musalman alumni of various nationalities whilst in Sasanian Persia their operations were cut short by the unfortunate circumstances of the Arab inroads. It is interesting that in the Abbaside period the translations made from the Persian authors or authors belonging to Persia appertain to a certain special genre of works of a technical nature, books on warfare[2], on divination, on horse-breaking[3], on the training of other animals, and on birds[4] trained to hunting. These special treatises were of no abstract scientific contents but referred to the practical demands of life.
[Footnote 1: As regards philosophical traditions of Sasanian Persia in the Musalman epoch principally we may refer to the influence of the system of "Zervanism" on the adherents of the system of "Dahar", de Boer 15 and 76.]
[Footnote 2: See my studies on the Ain-Nameh.]
[Footnote 3: See my book on Materials from Arabic Sources for Culture History of Sasanian Persia.]
[Footnote 4: Fihrist 315.]
A different kind of importance attaches to histories devoted to government and national life of the Sasanian period and to the epic and literary tradition of Persia. Their value as history has been acknowledged and appreciated by the progressive circles of the Musalman community. Contemporary researches directing the greatest attention to this aspect of Iranian movement appreciated its value and thanks to their works, we are enabled to speak with some clearness regarding books of exceeding importance. Traces of ancient Iranian epic tradition are observable in some Greek writers, Ktesias, Herodotus, Elian, Charen of Mytelene and Atheneus. But it has survived in a considerable quantity in the Avesta.[1]
[Footnote 1: The principal works for investigating the Persian historical and literary tradition are, besides the introduction to his edition and translation of the Shah-Nameh by Mohl, Noeldeke's German History of the Persians, and Arabs at the time of the Sasanians, his introduction, and his Iranian national epic G.I.Ph. II, 130--212; Baron Rosen, On the question of the Arabic translations of the Khudai Nameh (Paraphrase by Kirst in W.Z.K.M.X, 1896); H. Zotenberg, History of the Kings of Persia by Al-Thalibi, Arabic text with translation, especially Preface, XLI-XLIV. A number of profound ideas and ingenious suggestions are made in the various articles and reviews by Gutschmid. (See Appendix V, p. 141).]
The most recent and pregnant exposition is