Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I | Page 5

to a considerable degree from exchange of
materials. And even here the Sasanian tradition has survived the
dynasties; in the study of the commerce and industry as well as the art
of the Moslem epoch we have necessarily to refer back to the preceding
times of the Persian history.
In pre-Moslem Arabia the high development of the civilisation of
Sasanian Persia was well known. Among the subjects of the great
Persian sovereigns in the western provinces of their empire there were a
large number of Arabs who in commercial intercourse carried, to tribes
of the Syrian desert and further south to the Arabian peninsula, reports
regarding the great Iran Shahar. Not only legends of the heroic figures
of the Iranian epic--Rustam and Isfandiar--but religious views and
persuasions of the Persians found a place and were spread among the
Arab clans. Thus we know that "fire-worshippers" were settled among
the Arab tribe of the Temim.[1]
[Footnote 1: See for example Ibn Rustah (B.G.A. VII, p. 217, 6-9).]
As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of Arabia
a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch. As is well-known,
thanks mainly to the Persian influence, there was a small Arab kingdom
of the Lekhmides in the South-Western portion of the Sasanian
empire[1]. It played its part, most beneficial for Persia, holding back on
the one hand Roman-Byzantine onrush from the West, and on the other
restraining the perpetual attempts at irruption into Persian territory by

Arab nomadic tribes. Not long before the appearance of Islam,
Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as well as
Yemen passed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and his
Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and
luxury.
[Footnote 1: Die Dynastie der Lekhmiden in al-Hira, Ein Versuch zur
arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sasaniden Berlin, 1899.]
The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete
catastrophe to the Sasanian empire. But Persian culture was not to be
extirpated by the success of Arab arms. Persia was overwhelmed only
externally and the Arabs were compelled to preserve a considerable
deal of the past. Having lost the position of rulers, the Persian
priesthood preserved intact its control of the indigenous populace in the
eyes of the latter as well as of the foreign Government. The same
remark holds good of the class of landed proprietors.[1] Iranian
tradition continued to live In and with them. Not only what was
preserved but all that was destroyed for long left vestiges in the
memory of the conquerors.
[Footnote 1: Regarding the part played by this class in the times of the
Khalifs, see A. Von Kramer Culturgeschiche des orients unter den
Chalifen II. pp, 150, 62.]
Many years after the Arab conquest the ruins that covered Persia
excited the admiration of the Arabs. Their geographers of the ninth and
tenth centuries considered it their duty to enumerate the principal
buildings of the Sasanians reminding the reader that here Khusro built
in his time in bye-gone days a castle, there a mountain fastness, again
at a third place, a bridge.[1] Regarding various ancient structures which
had survived the Sasanian times, we refer, inter alia, to Istakhri, (ibid I),
pp. 124; Ibn Hauqal (ibid II) 195; Ibn Khordadbeh (ibid VI) p. 43,
(text); Ibn Rusteh (ibid VII), 153, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 189; Yakubi
(ibid VII), 270, 271, 273, &c.
[Footnote 1: See the enumeration of the noteworthy buildings of
ancient Persia as given in Makdisi (B.G.A. III), p. 399, and

Ibn-ul-Fakih (ibid V), p. 267.]
The remains of the structures, monuments of art from the Sasanian
times and the ages preceding them attracted the attention of the Arabs
and they have left descriptions of the same in more or less detail.[1]
From the information of the same Musalman writers we possess
accurate accounts of the inhabitants of Persia and their religions. Thus,
for instance, Yakubi indicates that the inhabitants of Isfahan, Merv, and
Herat, consisted mainly of high-born Dehkans.[2] Makdisi notices a
considerable number of fire-worshippers in several provinces of Persia,
for instance, Irak and Jibal.[3]
[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 203, Ibn Hauqal, p, 266, 256, Makdisi pp. 396
and 445, Ibn Rusteh, p. 166.]
[Footnote 2: Yakubi, pp. 274, 279-280.]
[Footnote 3: Makdisi, pp. 126, 194.]
ISTAKHRI AND IBN HAUQAL[1]
Relate that the inhabitants of several localities of Kerman during the
entire Umayyad period openly professed Mazdaism.
In a more detailed fashion, however, the Arab writers notice the
Mazdian dwellers of Fars, the heart of the Persian dominion. Makdisi
says that in Fars existed the customs of fire-worshippers but that the
fire-worshipping inhabitants of the capital of the province of Shiraz had
no distinguishing mark on their clothes; from which it follows that in
that age