Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I

by Konstantin Aleksandrovich Inostrantzev

CHAPTER IV

The Persian, sources of the compilation of Ibn Miskawaihi 54

Preponderance of the Persian element in the evolution of the Musalman morals 57

The "Book of Adab" by Ibn al Muqaffa and other similar Arabic works 59

IRANIAN COMPONENTS OF ADAB LITERATURE IN ARABIC

At the head of works under the title of ethico didactic writings, which have come down to us stands a group most characteristically denominated Adab ul Arab val Furs belonging to the pen of a writer of the 10th and 11th centuries, Ibn Miskawaihi whose name is pronounced in Persian Ibn Mushkuya. At the basis of this collection lies the ancient Persian pseudepigraphical book Javidan khired, or "Eternal wisdom." But in the body of it there is a series of literary monuments of Sasanian literature and its descendants.[1] The author is known, besides, by his philosophical works, as a historian[2] and as such he is particularly important for the history of the Buides.[3] And his Persian origin would point to his sympathy for Persian literary tradition. As a matter of fact, his ethico-didactic collection is based on a book of the Sasanian epoch. It would appear that this circumstance has undoubted significance for the determination of the influence in the compilation of Moslem ethical ideals. However, in contradiction to this basal fact and notwithstanding that in the province of the development of Islam as a religion, Persian element played an important part,[4] the development of the Moslem ethical tracts in contemporary literature, for the most part, is dependent upon more antique, specially Greek, tradition. J. Goldziher recognizing the importance of the influence of Parsism on Islam says the exact demonstration of the dependence of these phenomena on the culture historical facts, whose consequences they are, would be the most interesting task which those studying Islam in its present position can place before themselves. Many of the dominating views regarding the original spirit of Islam would receive the needed correction by such investigation.

[Footnote 1: On this work and its manuscripts see my Material from Arab sources 68-69.]

[Footnote 2: For Miskawaihi as a philosopher see Boer 116-119.]

[Footnote 3:—He was the treasurer and a close friend of the Buide
Adudad-Daula.]

[Footnote 4: For a general sketch of Moslem ethics in ancient times see Carra de Vaux, Gazali, 129-142, and Encyclopaedia of Islam 4, 244-246.]

Let us examine three points regarding the influence on Moslem morals and general conduct. In the first place stand the moral writings of ecclesiastical character. The morality is rooted in and based on the moral of the Bible and then on the developed Moslem law and has absorbed in itself some of the elements of the ethics of Christianity. In the second place, there is a series of ethical documents of a most valued nature in the shape of proverbs, dicta, maxims, fables, constituting a kind of moral philosophy, often independent of each other, varied in their character, and different as to time and the place of their compositions. Here we may separate a certain stratum of Persian element, and an analysis of them may reveal partly contemporary knowledge and partly elements of foreign religious ethics. The third but not the last place in importance is occupied by the Greek ethical tradition in which latterly are discernible important Christian constituents. Recent studies have yielded us as their result, this structure of Musalman ethics. But it is to be noted that the theoretical deductions at first sight do not find confirmation in facts. For we do not know which Greek books on ethics were translated in the beginning of the period of the scientific development of Islam, and for the support of our thesis we have to point to the possibility of oral transmission of Hellenic ethical tradition through Syriac scholars, although this circumstance does not militate against our hypothesis. Besides a small amount of translations from Greek ethical works, especially the books of Aristotle, there are observed among the works embodied in this tradition a series of pseudographs which, however, can have only an external relation with the Greek sciences and which would rather lead to the second group of the influences on Musalman ethical monuments namely, the group of monuments of "Oriental wisdom." The most typical of the pseudographical wisaya, or "Testaments" are ascribed to Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others. To our mind, they are derived from Persian tradition to the same extent, if not in a larger extent than from the Christian. Actual studies demonstrate that the basal work for this epoch was the book above-mentioned of Ibn Miskawaihi which as we saw above, issued from Persian literary tradition. And the character of that tradition can be explained from exterior circumstances without an analysis of its contents. The fact is that Ibn Miskawaihi worked upon that class of Persian material, for instance the Pand Nameh or Andarz, which had nothing to do with the province of the indefinite gnomic literature but which had the character of a catechism and therefore expresses a definite system of religious morals, the morals of Parsism.[1] The appreciation of the influence of Parsism on Islam has only just commenced. But we are already in a position to emphasise the great influence, which Parsi ethics have exercised on Islam and this influence has been attested by a number of Greek and Christian witnesses. So far, for an acknowledgment of this influence serves a purely external fact, namely, a glance at the bibliography of the ancient ethico-didactic tracts in the Musalman literature and an examination of the contents of the book of Ibn Muskawaihi. A number of additional facts confirm this hypothesis.

[Footnote 1: For a general review of the morals of Parsism see A.V.W.
Jackson's G. I. Ph. Vol. II, 678-683.]

Well-known is the importance enjoyed in the beginning of the epoch of the development of the Arabic Musalman literature, by the activities of the Parsi Ibn al Muqaffa.[1] He is famous as the first commentator of the Greek books on logic in Arabic literature, but he is particularly renowned as the efficient supporter of the Persian literary tradition and its translator into the Arabic literature. His rendering of Kalila and Dimma is well-known. It enjoys a prime role in the migration of this collection of stories to the West. Well-known also is his translation of the Persian book of Khoday Nameh,—that is, the official chronicle of the Sasanian times and of the Ain Nameh, the Institutes of the time. We shall have occasion to speak about these books later on. To him also belong the books closely connected with the Sasanian epoch, namely, the Book of Mazdak the Book of Taj to which we shall refer further on. It is interesting that he is also the reputed author of two books on Adab, perhaps among the most ancient ones in Arabic literature.[2] One of these books called the Smaller was probably contained in the other which is called the Larger and has the purely Persian title of Mah farra Jushnas. (This is how the title is to be read according to Hoffmann and Justi).[3] Since the interest of Muqaffa was concentrated in the province of Persian culture it is indisputable that his activity was not confined in this direction to one book and the contents of the book have vestiges in a high degree of dependence on Persian motifs. This is proved by a variety of circumstances. We have descended to us his book called Al Yatima, a tract on that aspect of morals which was especially diffused in the Sasanian epoch and was devoted to politics and in form represented the species of writings called Furstenspiegel.[4] A tradition of this kind of literature for long continued to live in the Musalman writers and the typical representative of the species seems to be the famous Siyasat Nameh, of Nizam-ulmulk, the Saljuk Wazir. On some occasions it directly serves as a source for the internal history of the Sasanian domination. It bears particularly on didactic literature though it has been as yet very ill studied from the comparative standpoint. The Sasanian influence is perfectly obvious. Some portions of Al Yatima of Ibn Muqaffa may be parallelled to corresponding remnants from Pahlavi literature in the Kabus Nameh and the Siasat Nameh.[5] We know further that books under the title of Persian Adab were spread among those who sympathised with Mazdaism and Manichism in the circle of Moslem society.[6] These books by their character were comparable to books on Mazdak but also to Kalila wa Dimna.

[Footnote 1: Fihrist, 118, 18-29, and Ibn al Qifti's Tarkh al hukama edited by Lippert, page 220, 1-10.]

[Footnote 2: Brockelmann, On the rhetorical writings of Ibn all Mukaffa,
Z.D.M.G. 53, 231-32.]

[Footnote 3: Hoffmann "Extracts from Syrian acts of Persian martyrs", 1880 page 289 note, and Justi, Namenbuch 186.]

[Footnote 4: Precise information regarding its contents is rather to be found in Ibn al Qifti than in the Fihrist. In the former the heading is Fi taat us Sultan, in the latter Fi rasail. See La perle incomparable ou l'art du parfait courtisane de Abdallah ibn al-Muqaffa, 1906. See the French translation from the Dutch rendering of this tract.]

[Footnote 5: On the political ideas of the latter see Pizzi, Le idee politiche di Nizam-ul-Mulk G.S.A. 1., 131-141.]

[Footnote 6: Tabari "Annales" Vol. 3, 1309, 9-15, and Browne A literary
History of Persia, 1, 332.]

Besides Muqaffa a number of writers of the epoch of the development of Arabic Musalman literature interested themselves in themes connected with Persian antiquities. One of them, Aban Ibn Abdul Humiad ar Rakashi otherwise known as Aban al-Lahiki chose a number of themes from ancient Persian literature and according to the Fihrist versified them (119, 1-6-163, 7-10). Such subjects were—Kalila and Dimna, the Book of Barlaam and Yuasef, the Book of Sindbad, the Book of Mazdak and finally books on two popular representative of the Sasanian dynasty, namely, the Book of the acts of Ardasher and the Book of the acts of Anushirvan.[1]

[Footnote 1: Versification of the history of Anushirvan is also to be met with in later Parsi literature, see, Sachau, Contribution to the knowledge of the Parsi literature, J.R.A.S. 1870 page 258.]

Another author, Ahmed Ibn Tahir Taifur, wrote according the Fihrist (146, 21) a special Book of Hormuz son of Kisra Anushirvan.[1] No doubt, further more, writers of Persian origin followed in their books on Adab Persian models. Such probably was the book of Adab by an author whose name has been mutilated in the Fihrist (139, 15, 18). There is another class of writings which bears relation to this one and which is mentioned in the Fihrist. It is quite possible that on this literary Persian tradition, were based also some of the tracts under the title of "Books on counsels" a considerable number of which we meet with in the Fihrist.[2]

[Footnote 1: See the essay of Baron Rosen on the anthology of Ahmed Ibn
Abi Tahir.]

[Footnote 2: 78, 15; 105, 10; 293, 12; 204, 17-18; 204, 29; 207, 21; 210, 23; 212, 22-23; 217, 4-5; 220, 25; 222, 14; 234, 23; 281, 20; 282, 5.]

Ethico-didactical treatises in the form of counsels, maxima or testaments, constitute a singular group of literary mementos the genesis of which in the Musalman literature maybe established only after an examination of similar books in the Persian writings of the Sasanian times. Examples of a like class of testaments, literary compilations under the title, for the most part, of pseudo-graphs going up to pre-Moslem period we have already noticed in the Book of the counsels of Ardasher and the Pand Nameh of Kisra Anushirvan.