The fall of the `Umayyads brought an end to the tyranny of the Arab minority, as it now was, and placed the preponderance for a clear century (A.H. 132-232) in Persian hands. The government was remodelled on Persian lines, and to Persian influence was due the institution of the wazir or responsible minister at the head of the executive. The title is probably identical with the Old Persian vi-chir or “overseer” (thus Darmesteter: Etudes Iraniennes i. p. 58. note 3.); before this the chief minister was simply clerk (kàtib) or adviser (mushir) and was simply one of the Khalif’s attendants who was employed to conduct correspondence, or to give advice when occasion required. In 135 the noble Persian family of Barmecides began to supply wazirs, and these controlled the policy of the Khalifate until 189. From the time of al-Mansur (A.H. 136-158) onwards the Persians began to assert their pre-eminence and a party was formed known as the Shu`ubiyya or “anti-Arab party” of those who held, not only that the alien converts were equal to the Arabs, but that the Arabs were a half savage and inferior race in all respects, contrasting unfavourably with the Persians, Syrians, and Copts. This party produced considerable mass of controversial literature in which free course was given to the general dislike felt towards the Arabs and which reveals the intensity of the contempt and hatred felt towards these parvenus. The Arabs had boasted of their racial descent and had devoted much attention to the keeping of their genealogies, at least in the century immediately preceding the rise of Islam; as they had then only just commenced to count descent in the father’s line these genealogies were purely fictitious in so far as they dealt with pre-Islamic ancestors. The Arabs were in fact a parvenu people only just emerging out of barbarism (cf. Lammens: Le berceau de l’islam. p. 117). But the Persians, no less careful about genealogical records, to which their caste system had caused them to pay considerable attention, boasted authentic genealogies of much greater antiquity. In literature, in science, in Muslim canon law, in theology, and even in the scientific treatment of Arabic grammar, the Persians very rapidly surpassed the Arabs, so that we must be careful always to refer to Arabic philosophy, Arabic science, etc., in the history of Muslim culture, rather than to Arab philosophy, etc., remembering that, though expressed in the Arabic language, the common medium of all the Muslim world, only in a very few cases was it the work of Arabs: for the most part the Arabic philosophers and scientists, historians, grammarians, theologians, and jurists were Persians, Turks, or Berbers by birth, though using the Arabic language. The fall of the `Umayyads and the replacing of the Arabs by the Persians commences the golden age of Arabic literature and scholarship. The older Arabic literature, that namely which was written by Arabs as yet untouched by external influences, consists entirely of poetry, the work of professional bards who sing of desert life and warfare, lament over the deserted camping grounds, boast of their tribe, and abuse their enemies. It forms a distinct class of poetic composition, which has developed its own literary standards, and attained a high standard of excellence in its way. In many respects this older Arab poetry makes a special appeal to us, it shows an observation of nature which is very striking, it has an undercurrent of melancholy which seems an echo of the desert, and an emotional side which seems convincing in its reality. At the same time it has very distinct limitations in its range of interest and subject matter. Undoubtedly a careful study of this early Arab poetry is a necessary preparation for a proper appreciation of the literary forms of Arabic and of its oldest vocabulary and syntax, and of recent years much attention has been given to it. But this older Arabic poetry, apparently a native production, but possibly influenced in pre-Islamic times by some external contacts as yet undefined, comes to an end soon after the fall of the `Umayyads, save in Spain, where, under the exiled and fugitive remnant of the `Umayyad dynasty, the production of such poetry survived. But this type of poetry is really outside our present enquiry, save to note that it was a Persian scholar, Hammad b. Sabur ar-Rawiya (d. circ. 156-159) who collected and edited the seven ancient Arabic poems known as the Mu`allaqat or “suspended,” i.e., the catena or series, and thus set what may be called the classical standard of the ancient poetry and vocabulary. At the accession of the Abbasids the old Arab type passes away and the intellectual guidance of the Muslim community passes into the hands of the Persians.
CHAPTER IV
THE TRANSLATORS
One of the first and most significant indications of the new orientation of Muslim thought was the extensive production of Arabic translations of works dealing with philosophical and scientific subjects, with the result that eighty years after the fall of the `Umayyads the Arabic speaking world possessed Arabic translations of the greater part of the works of Aristotle, of the leading neo-Platonic commentators, of some of the works of Plato, of the greater part of the works of Galen, and portions of other medical writers and their commentators, as well as of other Greek scientific works and of various Indian and Persian writings. This period of activity in translating falls into two stages, the first from the accession of the Abbasids to the accession of al-Ma´mun (A.H. 132-198), when a large amount of work was done by various independent translators, largely Christians, Jews, and recent converts from non-Islamic religions; the second under al-Ma´mun and his immediate successors, when the work of translation mainly centered in the academy newly founded at Baghdad, and a consistent effort was made to render the material necessary for philosophical and scientific research available for the Arabic speaking student.
The earlier translation work is especially associated with `Abdullah b. al-Muqaffa`, a native of Fars and originally a Zoroastrian, who made his profession of faith before a brother of Muhammad b. `Ali, the father of as-Saffah, and became his secretary. Presuming on his employer’s protection he ventured to make derisive and impertinent remarks to Arab dignitaries and especially to Sufyan, the governor of Basra, whom he used to salute with a lewd jest against his mother’s chastity. It seems that men of Arab birth who held political office under the early `Abbasids often had to put up with such insults from the ex-serfs. After an unsuccessful attempt at revolt by another of the Khalif’s uncles Ibn al-Muqaffa` was directed to prepare a draft letter of pardon to be presented to the Khalif al-Mansur, who succeeded his brother as-Saffah, for his official seal, but he drew up the letter in such terms as to arouse the Khalif’s indignation; amongst other things the letter said, “if at any time the Commander of the Faithful act perfidiously towards his uncle `Abdullah b. `Ali, his wives shall be divorced from him, his horses shall be confiscated for the service of God (in war), his slaves shall become free, and the Muslims loosed from their allegiance to him.” The Khalif enquired who had prepared this letter and on being informed directed Sufyan to put him to death. Pleased thus to gratify his personal rancour the governor of Basra executed Ibn al-Muqaffa` with great cruelty, though the details differ in different accounts, in A.H. 142 or 143.
Although conforming to Islam, Ibn al-Muqaffa` was generally regarded as a Zindiq, a term properly signifying a Manichæan but used loosely by the Arabic writers to denote a member of one of the Persian religions who professed outward conformity to Islam, but secretly adhered to his own creed, or as a term of abuse to denote a heretic of any sort. The word itself is a Persian rendering of siddiq or “initiate,” a title assumed by full members of the Manichæan sect. It implies the possession of esoteric knowledge and from this idea rose the practice common amongst the Shi`ite sects of concealing their real beliefs from general profession and assuming the external appearance of orthodoxy. Masudi (viii. 293) states that “many heresies arose after the publication of the works of Mani, Ibn Daysan, and Marcion translated from Persian and Pahlawi into Arabic by `Abdullah b. al-Muqaffa` and others.” Under al-Mansur and by his orders, translations were made from Greek, Syriac, and Persian, the Syriac and Persian books being themselves translations from Greek or Sanskrit. The best known work of Ibn Muqaffa, was the translation of the Kalila wa-Dimna or “Fables of Bidpai” from the Old Persian which was itself a translation from the Sanskrit. Ibn al-Muqaffa’s translation into Arabic is generally regarded as a standard model of Arabic prose. The Persian original is lost, but a version in Syriac made from it by the Nestorian missionary Budh, about A.D. 570, is extant and has been published (ed. Bickell and Benfey. 1876); the Sanskrit original also is lost in what was presumably its earlier form, but we find its material in a much expanded form in two Sanskrit books, (i) in the Panchatantra, which contains the stories which appear as 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, of de Sacy’s Arabic text, and (ii) the Mahabharata, which contains chapters 11, 12, 13. Evidently the old Syriac of Budh, a translation of the Persian translation of the original, is the best representative of the older form of the text. The Arabic version of Ibn al-Muqaffa` shows a number of interpolations and additions which all, of course, appear in the derived versions, in the later Syriac, the several mediæval Persian translations which are made from the Arabic and not from the old Persian, and in the numerous Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, Persian, and Greek versions. It was this Arabic translation which gave to the book a wider circulation than possessed before or than it could ever have had, and introduced it to the western world. The case was exactly parallel with Aristotle and similar material: Arabic became a medium of extremely wide transmission and the additions made as material passed through Arabic received a wide circulation also.