Linguistic Shuʿūbīya and Early Neo-Persian Prose

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Linguistic Shubya and Early Neo-Persian Prose

Author(s): Lutz Richter-BernburgSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1974), pp. 55Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/599730

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LINGUISTIC SHU'UBIYA AND EARLY NEO-PERSIAN PROSELUTZ RICHTER-BERNBURG

SEMINAR FUR ARABISTIK, UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN

The fourth and fifth centuries A.H. saw the emergence of the Neo-Persian language asa literary medium within the framework of Islam. Thus the debate over linguistic shu'Cbiyawas sustained for two more centuries. The place of Persian was most contested in theareas of adab and official correspondence, of scholarly writing, and of the liturgy and bookson religious subjects. The development of Persian prose in these fields, and the discussionof the respective merits of Arabic and Persian, are examined here in their mutual depend-ence. Neither can be fully understood without accounting for the other. The argumentwas twofold: first it concerned the acceptability of Persian as such; and second, amongauthors who did write in Persian, the question remained of how freely Arabic elementsshould be borrowed. Toward the end of the fifth century a new balance was reached:Arabic retained its predominance as the tongue of a true adib, 'alim, and Muslim; Persian,though at the cost of an ever increasing Arabicization, held its own as the language of Iran.

To Albert Dietrichon the occasion of his 60th birthday,November 2, 1972

I. AS GOLDZIHER REMARKS IN HIS TREATISE DieShu'iubijja und ihre Bekundung in der Wissenschaft,1the debate over the respective merits of Arabicand other languages, mainly Persian, continuedfor two more centuries, after the heated disputesof the second and third centuries A.H. had cooledoff.2 That this linguistic shu'lUbiya,3 to use Gold-ziher's term, should have lasted so much longer,is not surprising. In the preceding two hundredyears, the central issue of the controversy hadbeen how far the non-Arab Muslims' pre-Islamicpast should be allowed to influence the develop-ment of Islam,4 and this debate had been con-ducted in Arabic. Now the issue of how ArabicIslam had to be to remain true to itself, or inother words, what role the non-Arabic part of non-Arab Muslims' identity could legitimately playwithin the framework of Islam, took on a newaspect. The argument was no longer over theirpre-Islamic achievements and values and theArabs' counter-accusation of zandaqa,5 but over

1 In Muhammedanische Studien I, Halle 1889, p. 208f.2 Goldziherquotes az-Zamakhsharias latest evidence(ibid.).3 Ibid., p. 209.4 H. A. R. Gibb, TheSocialSignificanceof the Shuubi-ya, in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, Boston, 1968,pp. 62-73, esp. 62, 66.

the non-Arab Muslims' native languages, Persianin particular. Was Islam to remain a monolingualreligion and civilization or could other languagesbecome Muslim tongues of equal rank?6What holds true for the struggles of the secondand third centuries, is also true for the followingtwo hundred years: the Arabicist defense can betraced much more easily in the sources thanPersianist claims.7 But there is no defense withoutattack, and an attack was now launched not onlyon the theoretical level, by espousing the causeof Persian versus Arabic in Arabic,8 but quitematerially by the emergence of an Islamic9 liter-

5 Ibid., pp. 62, 66, 69f.6 Cf. R. N. Frye, Bokhara, The Medieval Achievement,Norman, Okla., 1965, pp. 84, 100-104, and esp. 109f.7 Goldziher, Die Shu'tbijja, p. 209.8 As did Hamza al-Isfahani,cf. ibid., pp. 209-213, andEl2 III, 156, s.v. Hamza al-Isfahfni (F. Rosenthal).9 Cf. R. N. Frye, The New Persian Renaissance inWestern Iran, in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honorof Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Leiden, 1965, pp. 255-31, esp.229. Even the celebrationof the pre-Islamicnationalpast,such as in the heroic epics of Ferdowsi and his epi-gones, was possible only in an ambience where Iranianand Islamic traditions had become inseparable and fusedinto a new whole, and at a time when the remembranceof past glory had lost its anti-Islamic sting because the

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.1 (1974)ature in Persian that was to embrace the wholescope of contemporary writing in Arabic and soto free the Iranian Muslim wishing to share inthe intellectual pursuits of the age from the needto take up Arabic first.

This was exactly the bone of contention withthe champions of the Arabic cause: they held itimpossible to be an adib or 'ilim, let alone a trueMuslim, without the knowledge of Arabic. Theargument centered around the use of Persian inelegant writing, e.g., in official correspondence, inbooks on scholarly subjects, and in religious worksand the liturgy. Since Persian poetry was ap-parently accorded acclaim much more readily, itremains outside the scope of this paper.10After two centuries, at about the time of az-Zamakhshari, linguistic shu'fbiya subsided. Anew balance was reached: Islam had become abilingual-and was to become a multilingual-civilization because Persian held its own as Iran'slanguage and eventually even expanded its terri-tory along with Islam; but its bid for equality asa Muslim language ultimately failed. While ear-lier the shuuiibite debate had been paralleled byan argument among Persian writers over howfreely Arabic borrowings should be admitted, fromnow on Arabic exerted its lexical and stylistic in-fluence on Persian in full force, and its dominancepersisted in the disputed areas of religion, oftheology and philosophy, and to a lesser extent,of scholarship and adab in general.In this paper the discussions of the fourth andfifth centuries A.H. about the place of Arabic andPersian in Islam and, on the other side, the emer-gence of Persian prose during the same period,are examined in their mutual dependence. It isimpossible to reach a full understanding of themeaning of either without taking into account theother.

present could match it. (Cf. G. E. von Grunebaum,Firdausi's Concept of History, in Islam, Essays in theNature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, London,1961, pp. 168-185, esp. 168).10 But cf. Abu Hatim ar-Rlizi who dismissed out ofhand the Persian poetry of his time that did follow Arabicmodels in metrics, style, and contents (K. az-zina, ed.Husain ... al-Hamdani, Cairo 1957, pp. 60-71, quotedby G. Lazard, Pahlavi, Parsi, Dari ..., in Iran andIslam, in memory of the late Vladimir Minorsky, ed.C. E. Bosworth, Edinburgh 1971, p. 371).

II. In the first three centuries of Islam, Arabichad been the Muslim language. To compose booksin a different tongue called for express justifica-tion,l for instance, that the work was written forthe 'imm, or in al-Bairiini's words, for people notguided to the knowledge of Arabic.12 For theirbenefit the Samanid Nuh II. b. Mansuir (365-87/976-97) ordered an expose of Hanafi fiqh, com-posed on behalf of orthodoxy against Ismai'lismin the time of the amir Isma'il (279-95/892-907),13translated into Persian because it had been ac-cessible as yet only to the khciss: ta 5onanke khiss-ra bud 'amm-rd niz bovad va-manfa'at konad.l4If the knowledge of Arabic is taken as a cri-terion, however, a large segment of people thatmight otherwise be counted among the khass,namely the rulers and their entourage, belongedto the 'amm as well.15 In a time when intellectualactivity depended largely on encouragement bywealthy supporters, their patronage greatly fur-thered the development of neo-Persian letters.16

11 Cf. G. Lazard, La langue des plus anciens monumentsde la prose persane, Paris 1963, p. 60, note 11.12 al-Bairlni, K. al-jamahir fi ma'rifat al-jawuhir, ed.Krenkow, Haidarabbd, 1355, p. 32, 1.3f: 'amalahd bi-l-fdrisiyati li-man lam yahtadi li-ghairih ..13 as-Sawad al-a'zam, by Abui -Qasim Ishaq as-Samar-qandi; cf. 'Abdo l-Hayy Htabibi, Yak ketab-e gomshodi-ye qadim-e nasr-e farsi peyda shod, in Yaghmd, 16, 5,Tehran, 1342, pp. 193-200, esp. 193, 198, 1. 9 (Earlier:Mahdi Bayani, Yak nomuina-ye nasr-e farsi ..., inRFL Teheran, 6, 1338/1959, III-IV, pp. 57-69).14 Ibid., p. 197, 1. 22.15 One need not think about the highwayman turnedruler Ya'qfib b. Laith who protested against. Arabicpanegyrics because he could not understand them: cizike man andar naydbam cerd bayad goft (Tdrikh-e Sistdn,ed. Moh. Taqi Bahar, Tehran, 1314, p. 209, 1. 17). Eventhe cultivated Samanids had difficulties with scholarlyArabic, as mentions the introduction to the Persianversion of at-Tabari's Tafsir about Mansuir b. Nfih:pas doshkhwar dmadh bar vey khwrndan-e in ketdb va-'ebdrat kardan-e an be-zabdn-e tdzi ua-condn khwdst kemar in-rd tarjomd konand be-zabdn-e pdrsi (Bahlr, Sabk-shendsi,2 II, 13f). The courtier Bal'ami in the introduc-tion to his version of at-Tabari's History is polite enoughnot to use quite these words (Tarjomi-ye Tarikh-e Taba-ri ..., ed. Moh. Javad Mashkir, Tehran, 1337, pp. 2, 1.11-3, 1. 2). The Kakuyid 'Ala'o d-dowli openly admit-ted to his ignorance of Arabic (cf. infra p. 61 and notes69-70), and these were certainly not the exceptions.16 Cf. notes 15 and 69; other examples, poetry left

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RICHTER-BERNBURG: Linguistic Shu' biyaUnwilling to study Arabic,17 but at least by pre-tension18 eager to be well versed in the fields ofcontemporary intellectual endeavor, they com-missioned works on various subjects in Persian,and within two centuries, to take the year 300A.H. as a convenient point of departure, the wholesyllabus of contemporary learning had found itsway into the new medium.19 Among the mostfamous works owing their existence to the desireto catch up with Arabic literature20 are the adap-tations of at-Tabari's two major books21 and Avi-cenna's Daneshnamd-ye 'Al 'i.22The choice of language is nearly always basedon practical grounds only: to further circulationand reach the widest possible audience.23 Of course,inasmuch as the Iranian audience only a genera-tion or two earlier would have had the sole alter-native of either learning Arabic or not being ableto indulge its interests at all, even these utilitarianconsiderations take on some importance, but rarelyis there an express allusion to a feeling of Iranianaside, are the anonymous Hodido l-'dlam, dedicated tothe Farighfinid a. 1-Hares Mob. b. Ahmad (cf. Lazard,La langue ..., p. 53f), circum- and post-Avicennian writ-ings like Qorcaz-ye tabi'iydt (cf. M. T. Bahar, Sabkshe-ndsi2, II, p. 38), and the translation and commentaryof Hayy b. Yaqzan (Lazard, La langue, p. 66f; ed. Corbin,Teheran/Paris, 1954), both dedicated to the Kakuiyid'Ala'o d-dowld Moh. b. Doshmanziar, and Esma'il Jor-jani's Persian works on medicine (for bibliography cf.EI2, II, 603, s. v. al-Djurdjani, Isma'il [J. Schacht]),the Siasatndmd, etc.17 Cf. from the end of the period we are dealing withhere: ba'z az ftzi be-pdrsi tarjomi kardan ke 'ddat-e notq-evaqt-ast (Mojmalo t-tavdrikh, ed. M. Ramazani, Tehran,1318, p. 8, 1. 11f).18 Cf. infra p. 61 and notes 69 and 70.19 For a list of prose works of this time cf. T. Sadiqiin the introduction to his edition of Ps.-Avicenna, Qordzd-ye tabi'iydt, Tehran, 1332/1952, pp. 34-59.20 Openly expressed, e.g., in Shahmardan b. a. l-Khair'sRowzato l-monajjemin (Quoted in G. Lazard, Un ama-teur de sciences au Veme siecle . . ., in AIMlangesHenriAMasse,T6h6ran, 1963, p. 223, top) and in 'Omar b. Moh.Raduyasnl's Tarjomdno l-baldghd, ed. A. Ates, Istanbul,1949, p. 2, 11. 1-8.21 Cf. note 15.22 Cf. p. 61 and note 69.23 E.g. Maisarl's Ddneshndmd (cf. following note), Zar-rindast's Nuro l-'oyun (cf. note 27), Shahmardan's Row-zat (cf. note 20), Esma'il Jorjani's Zakhira (Univ. ofCalifornia, Los Angeles, MS Pers. Med. 1, fol. 3b, 1. -8f).

nationality. In his Ddneshnamd,24 included heredespite its metric form because of its prosaicsubject-medicine-the author, Maisari, pondersthe choice of language and decides in favor ofPersian25 because zamin-e ma-st-e Irin/ke bish azmardomanash pdresiddn: our land is Iran themajority of whose population knows Persian -but not Arabic. Practical and national reasonsare combined here. In Abui Rowh Mansuir b.Mohammad Zarrindast's treatise on ophthalmo-logy Nuro l-'oyUn,26 utilitarian and political-his-torical considerations interact in a similar way.In the course of history, knowledge and scholar-ship were transmitted in the language of the peoplemost powerful at a given time: before the comingof Muhammad that was Greek and Syriac; withhim Arabic gained prominence, and the Caliphs,arabophone as well, ordered all knowledge to berendered into Arabic; now, says the author, mostpeople speak Persian, and so does the king (pad-shah-e vaqt).27 To have composed the book inArabic would have restricted its use to those ableto read Arabic or imposed the necessity of learn-ing it first, and thus would have run counter tothe author's intention of giving everybody easyaccess to it.28

III. The factual development of Persian prosein the fourth and fifth centuries did not, however,lead to a ready acceptance of Persian as a propervehicle of scholarship, as will be shown further on,nor did it easily win favor as a language of adab.Notwithstanding the Samanids' patronage of Bal-'ami and Persian poets, they continued to con-duct their chancery in Arabic. This had obviouspolitical reasons,29 but it was also in keeping withthe sentiment of the educated and the udabi'

24 Composedbetween 367 and 370 (978-980) for theSimjfrid governor of Khorasan Abii l-Hasan Moh. b.Ebrahim (G. Lazard,Les premierspoetespersans, Paris/Teheran, 1964, I, 36-40).25 Ibid. II, 182, vss. 80-86, esp. 83.26 The first work of its kind in Persian, written for theSeljuk sultan Malekshah n 480/1087-8.27 UCLA,MS Pers. Med. 74 I, fol. 2b, 11.3-7. Possiblyin conscious flattery Malekshah is implicitly styled heresuccessor to the caliphs, if only in his role as patron ofscholarship.28 Ibid., fol. 2b, 11. 11-15.29 Serving to underline their allegiance to the caliphsin Baghdad, cf. B. Spuler, Iran in friihislamischer Zeit,Wiesbaden 1952, pp. 245f, 81.

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par excellence-the secretarial caste30-as can begathered from the reaction met with by MahmiudGhaznavi's first vizier, Abui l-Abbas al-Fazlo 1-Esfara'ini, when he changed the language of thedivan from Arabic to Persian.31 His action earnedhim the hatred of those secretaries who were train-ed in the florid style of Arabic epistolography andwhose skill was suddenly out of demand,32 and hewas denounced as an uncultured boor.33 It wasa scandal, in the words of al-'Utbi, that there wasno longer a difference between the learned andthe ignorant, the refined and the crude.34 It ismost indicative of the times that even Abii l-FazlBaihaqi, who composed his work in Persian but

30 Cf. Hamdollah Qazvini's paragraph on the SamanidAhmad b. Esma'il, where his love of knowledge and esteemof scholars, the estrangement of his pages from him (thateventually led to his murder) and his change of diplomasand edicts from dari to Arabic are closely associated (va-i mandshir va-ahkam az dari bd 'arabi naql kard [Tdrikh-eGozidd,ed. 'Abdo 1-HosainNava'i, Tehran,1339, p. 378,11. 9 to -6]). It is very unlikely that Ahmad b. Esma'ilshould have sent official communicationsto the caliphsin Persian before the change, but apparently Persianhad been used in the chancery for documents issued topeople not knowing Arabic, and that was now discontin-ued. (Spuler understands Hamdollah's passage as re-garding the chancery in general, Iran in friih . . . p. 245,while Frye thinks only about the reading out of Arabicdocuments either in Persian or in Arabic, Bokhara,The Medieval .... p. 50f).31 'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, Tarjomii-ye Tdrikh-e Yamini,ed. Ja'far She'ar, 1345, p. 345, 1. 13 and Nasero d-dinMonshi Kermani, Nasd'emo l-ashdr, ed. Jalilo d-dinHosaini Ormavi, Tehran, s. d., pp. 41, 1. -1-42, 1. 1 (thelatter from a different source?).

32 Bdzdr-e fail kdsedshod va-arbdb-ebaldghat va-bari'at-rd rownaqi namdnd ('Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 345,1.14), andibid., 1. 16f, when Ahmad Maimandi restitutes Arabic:kowkab-e ketdb (or kottdb) az mahdvi-lte hobit be-owj-esharaf rasid, etc.33 'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 345, 1. 12f and even moresweeping Abu 1-Fail Baihaqi, if Khwandmir names hissource correctly: Baihaqi, Tdrikh-e Yamini, in Nasd'em,p. 40, 1. 4, Saifo d-din Hajji 'Oqaili, Asdro l-vozard',ed. Jalalo d-din .Iosaini Ormavi, Tehran, 1337, p. 150,1. 6f, and Ghiaso d-din b. Homamo d-din Khwandmir,Dastliro l-vozard', ed. Sa'id Nafisi, Tehran, 1317, pp. 137,1. -1 - 138, 1. 1); in the formulation of Asdr: az zivar-efall va-adab va-tabahhor dar loghat-e 'arab 'dri va-'dtelbud.

34 'Utbi-Jarbadhqani,p. 345, 1. 14f.

without implying any popular appeal, should havepassed such judgment on him.35 Unfortunatelywe can only guess about Esfara'in's motives inchanging the language of the chancery. Givenhis own career as secretary and superintendent ofintelligence, sdheb-barid,36 it is highly unlikely thathe was not sufficiently well versed in Arabic him-self.37 The sources describe him as an energeticand efficient, not to say unscrupulous, adminis-trator,38 so to him it might have been simply amatter of practical expedience to do away withan obsolescent tradition, rather than a demon-stration of Iranian national feeling,39 since mostof the people addressed certainly did not havean adequate command of Arabic.40Even where court correspondence in Persianwas not a priori ruled out, it had to be embroideredupon with Arabic and was not to be purely Persianbecause that would have been disagreeable (na-khwosh), nor under any circumstance could it be in

35 Cf. note 33.36 Ibid., p. 337, 1. 5.37 Cf. note 33.38 ath-Tha'alibi, Yatimat ad-dahr, ed. Maktabat al-Hus. at-tijariya, Cairo, s.d., IV, 437, 11.-6-paenult.;

Baihaqi in Nasd'em, p. 40,1. 4f; Asdr, p. 150, 1.7; Dasitr,p. 138, 1. If; 'Utbi-Jarbadhqani, p. 338, 11. 9-20; cf. C.E. Bosworth, The Empire of the Ghaznavids, Edinburgh,1963, pp. 71-2, 86-7.

39 On the other hand, he was Ferdowsi's patron atMahmud's court, and in fact, may even have introducedhim there (Shahndmd 13g, vss. 27-31 Mohl = III, 1273,11.27-31 Vullers). It cannot be ruled out that he did havesome interest in Persian language and literature and inthe Iranian heritage: if the hypothesis of note 40 couldbe proved correct that he made Persian the sole languageof the chancery, his patronage of Ferdowsi would alsotake on a new meaning. Cf. El2 II, 730 s.v. al-Fadl b.Ahmad (M. Nazim) (skimpy) and ibid. 919 s.v. Firdawsi(Cl. Huart-H. Masse).40 Even his successor, Ahmad al-Maimandi, who putthings back into order and reverted to Arabic, had toallow Persian documents to be issued to people who couldnot read Arabic ('Utbi-Jarbadhqani, pp. 345, 1. 18-346,1. 1; Nasd'em, p. 42, 1. If). If this was practiced evenbefore Esfara'ini's change, as is not unlikely, his offencein the scribes' eyes would have been to establish Persianas the sole language of the chancery and consequentlyeven to address the caliphs in Persian. This was not anationalist demonstration, but a demonstration of thesupranationality of Islam.

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RICHTER-BERNBURG: Linguistic Shu 'ibiyaparsi-ye dari, the latter having fallen out of use.41Certainly Kai Ka'is b. Eskandar did not warnhis son against this usage of Persian withoutreason; that is, there must have been people whoadvocated the use of un-Arabicized Persian. Un-fortunately nothing remains of their works, ifthey ever did put their ideas to practice. In an-other respect, however, Kai Ka'us upholds theautonomy of Persian; he advises against em-ploying saj' in Persian while recognizing its meritsin Arabic.42 Again this is not mere theory, if wemay be permitted to look for evidence also outsideof kitaba in the strict sense.43 One need not thinkabout 'Abdollah Ansari's consistently rhymedprose44 to find examples of this device in Persianeven before the time of Kai Ka'is; Naser-e Khos-row employs it, e.g., in his Jame'o l-hekmatain,where, in addition to exact rhymes, he makes useof assonances as well:45dghdz-e sokhan az sepas-e khoddy konim/

afridgar-e dsmdn va-zaminllva-padid drandd-ye makdn va-makinllbar-moqtazi-ye talqin-elu sobhdnohu ke ferestdd-ketdb-e karim-el

khwishllbe-sefdrat-e rasil-e khwishllMohammado 1-aminllva-gostardnandd-ye besdt-e dinll

This in turn lends more support to the view thatKai Ka'us' opinion on purely Persian writing wasalso given with respect to some actual examples.Literary taste changed so fast that already inthe early sixth/twelfth century the relatively un-mixed Persian style of about a hundred yearsbefore was considered antiquated and fit for amodernizing redaction. Bal'ami's version of at-Tabari's history underwent a review which besidessmoothing out the syntactic structure exchangedmany plain Persian turns for Arabic expressionsthought more elegant. A short paragraph in botheditions may illustrate the difference:4641 Ka Ka'fis b. Eskandar, Qabuisndmd, ed. R. Levy,London, 1951, p. 119, 11. 14ff.42

Ibid., p. 119, 1. 17f.43 The documents included into Baihaqi's history showArabic lexical influence, but their style is quite plainand unadorned.44 Cf. his mondjdt in S. de Laugier de Beaurecueil,Khwddja 'Abdullah Ansdri, Beyrouth, 1965, pp. 287-301.45 Ed. H. Corbin/M. Mo'in, Paris/Teheran, 1953, p. 2,11. 3ff.46 Here quoted from A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian

in tdrikhndmd-ye bozorg-ast gerd dvardd-ye Abi Ja'far-e Mohammad-e bn-e Jarir-e Yazido t-Tabari-rahimahullah-ke malek-e Khordsdn Abi Sdleh-e Mansuir-e bn-eNuh farmdn dad dastur-e khwish-rd Abu 'Ali-ye Mo-hammad-e bn-e Mohammado l-Bal'ami-rd ke in tdrikh-namd-rd ke az dn-e pesar-e Jarir ast pdrsi garddn hargenikutar condnke andar vey noqasni nayof tad . . .-asagainstin tdrikhi-st mo'tabar ke Ja'far-e Mohammad-e bn-eJarir-e Yazid-e Tabari fardham nomud va-Abu Sdleh-eMansur-e bn-e Nuh AbC 'Ali-ye Mohammad-e bn-eMohammad-e Bal'ami-ye vazir-e khwod-rd farman dadke dar zabdn-e pdrsi be-kamdl-e saldmat tarjomd sdzadbe-now'-i ke dar asl-e matdleb noqsdni rah naydbad . . .IV. In the case of scholarly writing, the polemicagainst Persian was even sharper than in the areaof epistolography, or adab as such. Toward the

end of his life, al-Bairini wanted to relegatePersian as a means of communication to fablesand entertaining stories told at nightly gath-erings-asmar lailiya-and to epics of the ancientkings-akhbar kisrawiya.47 In their dual purposeof entertaining and moralizing,48 they representedwhat was recognized as the Iranians' particularcontribution to the intellectual heritage of thegreat pre-Islamic nations; that is, addb.49 At al-Bairfini's time, of course, they had long foundLiterature, London, 1958, p. 39 bottom. There are prob-ably manuscripts of both redactions offering a bettertext (cf. Lazard, La langue, pp. 38-41). M. J. Mashkiir'sedition (cf. supra note 15) does not help here.47 idh Id tasluhu hddhihi l-lughatu (ya'ni l-farislyata)illd li-l-akhbdri l-kisrawlyati wa-l-asmdri l-lailiyati (M.Meyerhof, Das Vorwort zur Drogenkundedes Beruni,in Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Naturwissen-schaften und der Medizin, III, 3, 1933, 39f, p. arab. 2f =Fadil at-Ta'i, Ma'a 1-Bairfini l K. as-saidana in Ma-jallat al-Majma' al-'Ilml al-'Irdqi, 18, 1969, p. 27,11.-5ff).48 Following, e.g., Ibn an-Nadim's interpretation ofkhurdfaand samar,fable and entertainingstory (Fihrist,ed. Flugel, I, 304,1. 7f) and a. Mansural-Ma'mari'sntro-duction to his Shdhndmd(in Qazvini, Bist Maqdld,Tehran, 21332, II, 39, 1. 8-41, 1. 2).49 Among foreign literary works translated into Arabic,al-Jahiz lists dddb al-furs (Hayawdn, ed. 'A. M. Haruin,2Cairo, s.d. [1960], I, 75, 1. lOf), following the notion thatthere were certain fields of knowledge particular to eachof the great pre-Islamic nations (similar: 'All b. ZaidEbn-e Fondoqal-Baihaqi, Tdrikh-eBaihaq, ed. A. Bah-manyar, 2Tehran, 1965, p. 4, 11.2-11).

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.1 (1974)their way into Arabic and had thus been Islam-ized50 so that even on this field Persian was nolonger the necessary vehicle. If one were to spellout the implications of al-Bairfni's statement,the historic mission of Iranian lore to contributeuseful knowledge to young Islam had been fulfilledand there was now no reason left for a Muslimto know the Persian language; it had become super-fluous. Al-Bairfini flatly denied its ability to giveclear, concise, and elegant expression to com-plex reasoning.51 The assumption that he wasactuated by what he deemed unjustified claimsfor the opposite point of view,52 wins supportfrom the detached manner in which he reports aPersianist view of, and disregard for, Arabic inan earlier work; without any polemic he simplystates, it may be true for those holding thisopinion, but it is not true in the abstract.53

Some sixty years later al-Bairuni's scathing re-marks were taken up by Esma'il Jorjani.54 Hetranslated his medical encyclopedia Zakhira-yeKhwdrezmshjhi55 from Persian into Arabic at theinsistence of people who complained that thematerial was not being presented to its greatestpossible advantage. His view of the inadequacyof Persian reads like an echo of al-Bairuini; noteven in long and involved phrases is it possibleto formulate advanced reasoning in Persian sat-isfactorily. There are concepts that in Arabic bytheir beautiful taste and delicate lustre attract thestudent's mind and keep his attention awake, butwhen translated into Persian, they lose their sheen,their meaning is diminished, and they no longerappeal to the mind.56 Esmi'il certainly would not

50 Cf. El, s. vv. Adab, A'in, Hamza al-Isfahani, Ibnal-Muqaffa', Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, al-Tha'alibi.51 ... man ta'ammala kitdba 'ilmin qad nuqila ild I-fa-risiyi kaifa dhahaba raunaquhuiwa-kasafa bdltuhiiua-stwad-da wa-zdla ntifd'uha bihi (v. note 47).52 G. Lazard, La langue, p. 60, note 11.53 Tahdid nihdydl al-amdkin, ed. M. at-Tanji, Ankara,1962, p. 11, 11. lff: fa-yaqulu lahi: md manfa'atu rtifd'il-fCtili wa-ntisdbi l-mafl'uli bihi wa-sd'iri ma mill 'ilaliwa-ghard'ibi l-lughati? Fa-lastu muhtdian ild l-'arabi-yati aslan. Wa-yakunu dhalika l-khitdbu haqqan bi-l-iddfati ilaihi Id bi-l-itldqi.54 On him v. El2 II, 603, s. v. DjurdjanI,Isma'il (J.Schacht), with bibliography.55 So far two volumes published, ed. Jalilo d-dinMostafavi,Tehran 1345-9.56 ... anna kathiran mina l-aghrddi l-'ilmiyati ld yafil-lughatu l-'ajamiyatu bi-ifd'i haqqiha . . . illd bi-t-takal-

have gone to such lengths in expounding the super-iority of Arabic except in an argument with thosewho thought otherwise. In the Persian originalof his Zakhird, he found it necessary to say thatalthough the book was written in Persian, he leftuntranslated some terms generally understood andeasier to express in Arabic.57Esma'il Jorjani's arguments represent two levelsof opposition to Persian as a literary medium,analogous to those observed in connection withkitdba. In Arabic, on the principal level, Persianis dismissed entirely, and even in Persian letters,where it is implicitly accepted, it is only on con-dition of its being made more malleable, as itwere, by borrowings from Arabic. The other partythat upheld the appropriateness of Persian re-mains in the background and inferences aboutthem can only be drawn from the thrust of al-Bairfini's and Jorjani's arguments. One of thelatter's approximate contemporaries, however, wasobliging enough to name his opponents: Shahmar-dan b. Abi 1-Khair.58 Whether his general viewof Persian was equally unfavorable as Jorjain'scannot be ascertained, since his Arabic writingsare lost59 and only two of his Persian works havebeen preserved60; but his objections to a purelyPersian style render it very likely. In the prefaceto his Rowzato l-monajjemin61 he agrees with Jor-jani that Persian technical terms are more difficultthan their Arabic equivalents. He formulates hisargument as a critique of his predecessors wholufi wa-itdlati l-kalmini ma'a t-taqsiri fihi fa-inna minaI-kalimi md lahi fi l-lughati l-'arabiyati dhauqun hasanunwa-raunaqun latif[un yatayaqqazL lahii (dhihnu l-mrnstami'iwa-l-muta'allimi wa-idha nurqila dhalika ild l-'ajamiyatidhahaba raunaquhii wa-lam yakmal ma'ndhu wa-yab'uduani f-tibd'i (Fehrest-e Kotobkhdna-ye ehdd'i-ye . . . Mol.Meshkat, Tehran, 1953/1332, III, 2, p. 761, 11. 6-9).57 UCLA, MS Pers. Med. 1, fol. 4a, 11. 11-13: va-agarce in khedmat be-parsi sdkhti ammada st, lafzhd-ye tazike ma'riif-ast be-tariqi ke mardomdn ma'ni-ye dn ddnandva-be-tdzi goftan saboktar bashad an lafz ham be-ldzi yddamad td az-lakallof dur bdshad va-bar zafdcn raviantardtad.38 On him v. G. Lazard, La laingue, pp. 103-5; id. inlMlanges Masse, T6ehran, 1963, pp. 219-28.59 Ibid., pp. 220, 224.60 Row:ato l-monajjemin, dated 466/1073-4, and Nozhat-iinmd-ye 'Ald'i, composed shortly before 513/1119-20for the Kakfiyid 'Ala'o d-dowlii Garshasp of Yazd (488-513/1095-1120).61 G. Lazard, Mel. Massd, p. 222; La langue, p. 105.

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RICHTER-BERNBURG: Linguistic Shu 'ibiyahad used words of pure dari under the pretext ofwriting for readers ignorant of Arabic: sokhanha'ihami gFuyand dari-ye vizhd-ye motlaq ke az tdzidoshkhwdrtar ast.62 His closing statement leavesroom for doubt, though, whether he really had hisaudience's interest in mind or was not rathermotivated by a prejudice; while he declared thathe would employ only the current, and thereforeArabic, terms that anybody could learn withinfive days,63he implicitly admitted that these termswould be new to his readers. One could ask, ofcourse, whether these terms could not have beenlearnt by the reader in his own tongue just aseasily, since he had to get used to them first any-way.64 Shahmardan's basic predilection for Arabicexpresses itself here once again.Which of his predecessors were the goal of hiscriticism? In his days the Ddneshniizm-ye 'Ald'irepresented the most prominent attempt to dealwith philosophical and scientific subjects in agenuinely Persian idiom,65 and consequently Avi-cenna's name suggests itself,66 especially since inhis Nozhatnimd-ye 'Al 'i67 Shahmardan himselfgives an account of 'Ala'o d-dowld Mohammadb. Doshmanziar ordering him to compose a bookon 'olim-e avayel in Persian.68 But if 'Ala'od-dowla ever did wish to study them in his ownlanguage,69 Avicenna's answer to his command

62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 Jorjani slips into a similar turn in his argument:after declaringhe would use Arabicterms (videnote 57),he ends by saying that he will translate most of them toremove all ambiguity (ibid. fol. 4a, 1. 14).65 Cf. Moh. Mo'in, Loghat-e farsi-ye Ebn-e Sina ...RFL Tehdran, I, 2, 1333/1954,pp. 1-38.66 In his succession the works of Juzjani deservemention, too; among them probably the translation andcommentary of Avicenna's Hayy b. Yaqzan (cf. Corbin,Avicenne et le rlcit visionnaire, Thb6ran/Paris 1953).67 In all probabilitya consciousallusionto Avicenna'sDdneshndmd-ye 'Ald'i, especially in view of the following(cf. also infra note 70).68 In Avicenna, Ddneshndmd-ye 'Ald'i, Eldhiydt, ed.M. Mo'in, Tehran, 1952, p. hd', 11. 2-4 (= RFL Tdheran,II, 2, p. 5, 11.6-9).69 Shahmardan gives this as reason for his order to Avi-cenna: agar 'oliim-e avadel be-'ebarat-e parsi budi, mantovanestami danestan (ibid. 1. 4); Avicenna himself sayshe was ordered to write it for the attendants of 'Alii'od-dowlii's court (mar khddemdn-e majles-e vey-rd, D. 'A.,Manteq, p. 2, 1. 4f).

certainly did not satisfy him: he did not under-stand a word of the book dedicated to him.70Shahmardan accused his predecessors of usingthe pretext of writing for people not conversantwith Arabic in order to adopt a purely Persianprose style, and argued that this made it evenmore difficult to understand their works. Cer-tainly it would be underrating Avicenna's insightinto the problem to suggest that he thought thata highly technical idiom fashioned on the modelof a language not accessible to his readers wouldbe easy.71 But the difficulty was not in learningnew words in Persian or Arabic, but in under-standing unfamiliar concepts. The question ofwhat Shahmardan's predecessors' reasons werein coining Persian terms can be answered, at leastin part; in order to achieve the necessary adapta-tation of Persian to requirements of scholarlywriting in fields not hitherto dealt with in thismedium, they did not want simply to draw onArabic; rather they made use of what Persianterminologies were at hand,72 and expanded themby exploiting the resources of the language;73 onlythen did they resort to Arabic elements.In their criticism of the first attempts to forgePersian into as fine a tool as Arabic, al-Bairuni,Shahmardan, and Jorjani overlooked the fact thatArabic had already been used for two hundred

70 az an hic dar natovdnest ydflan (D. 'A., E., p. ha',1.6). Shahmardan might imply here that it is to be prefer-red to aim less high-cf. Nozhatnamd with Daneshnamd-and be understandable due to clear Arabic expressionsthan to fail on an ambitious course because of a forbiddingnewly coined terminology.71 In this context it is interesting to note that Shah-mardan took exception to the technique of loan trans-lation, while Arabic purists were very touchy in theirreaction to foreign sounding terms and names in bookson science and philosophy; it has to be admitted, though,that religious reasons also played a role in this; cf. al-Bairfini, Tahdid nihdydt, p. 9. With mild irony, he adds,if words like isdghuji were translated into innocuousArabic words like mudkhal, the same people would readilyaccept them (cf. b. Faris in Goldziher, Die Shu'fibijja,p. 214).72 A certain Zoroastrian influence may have to bereckoned with. The differences from Shkand-GumdnikVicar, however, are marked enough not to emphasizethis strand of tradition too much (cf. P. J. de Menasce,Une apologetique mazdeenne du IXe siMcle. .., Fribourg,1945, e.g., p. 295).73 Vide note 65.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.1 (1974)years by generations of translators and scholars.By now its prestige was too deeply rooted in theconsciousness of the time to be successfully chal-lenged, and the avenues opened by works such asAvicenna's Daneshnamd were not traveled bymany of his successors. Instead, Shahmardanmarks the line future authors on scholarly sub-jects were to take: if they did write in Persian,they were content to borrow stylistic devices andready made terminologies from Arabic. An earlyexample is 'Omar b. Mohammad Radfiyaini's bookon poetics,74 which freely employs saj' and followsthe Arabic terminology to a word.

V. Religion and theology were the fields whereArabicist claims asserted themselves most force-fully, and in the long run, most successfully.When spokesmen of shu'ibiya adduced literaryproductions in languages other than Arabic75 tosupport their point of view, their opponents drewdecisive arguments from the fact that Arabic wasthe language of Allah's ultimate revelation tomankind-the Qur'an. Abu Hatim ar-Razi, him-self an Iranian by birth and of Persian tongue,76assessed the respective rank of the different humanlanguages according to wether or not a book ofdivine revelation was committed to them. Amongthe four outstanding prophetic tongues he named-Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic-Arabic nat-urally took the first place.77 It was not merelyhallowed, however, as the outward garb of divinetruth, but this truth proved itself, as it were, bybeing expressed in inimitable terms of utmostclarity and conciseness, at the same time impartingdivine quality on them by its depths of unfathom-able meaning.78 In the Qur'an Arabic partook ofdivine essence, and consequently it was consideredsuperior to all other tongues even on the level ofmere human speech.

74 K. tarjomano l-balagha, ed. Ate?, Istanbul, 1949,cf. id. in Oriens, I, 1948, pp. 45-62.75 Cf. al-Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-t-tabyin, ed. 'Abd as-S.liarfn, 3Kairo, 1388/1968, III, 14, 11.1-10. Even whenArabic was given linguistic preference,the contents ofnon-Arabic-here Persian-literature were highly ad-mired: wa-hali l-madani ilia fi kutubi l-'ajami wa-bala-ghatu l-lughati land wa-l-ma'dni lahum (Ahmad b. AbiTahir Taifir, K. Baghdad,ed. Keller, Leipzig, 1908, I,158, 11.3-5; cf. C. E. Bosworth, The Tahirids and PersianLiterature, in Iran, VII, 1969, pp. 103-6).76 Vide supra note 10.77 Ibid., p. 61, 11.6-10.78 Ibid., p. 62, esp. 11.-5-ult.

Az-Zamakhshari carries the argument, expresslyagainst shufibites,79 a little further; the high rankGod has bestowed on Arabic is clearly underlinedby the fact that its knowledge is essential to theeminent Islamic sciences of tafsir, hadith, kaldm,and fiqh.80 What is stated as fact here, is ques-tioned in Nezamo 1-molk's Siasatndmd, where fol-lowing opinion is attributed to Hasan al-Basri:81To be learned does not mean to master Arabic,but to master a field of knowledge in whicheverlanguage. The command of sharica and tafsir, beit in torki, parsi, or rimi, even without knowingArabic, makes a man learned. But here thespeaker shied away from the consequences im-plied, such as translations of major works in thefields mentioned, or a more conservative mind tookexception to such an audacious pronouncement,at any rate the argument ends in a twist; to knowArabic as well, is even better, since God has sentthe Qur'an in Arabic words and Muhammad spokeArabic. However, the context-the chapter on theking's religious duties82-radicalizes the issue so asto bear on the position of Arabic in religion as such,not just in religious sciences, even though the ques-tion of whether or not it is a religious duty tolearn Arabic, is left undecided here. An implicitanswer is given by the number of Persian tafsirworks written in the fourth and fifth centuries,83and in one of them, even a programmatic state-ment is found. When the Samanid Mansir b. Niihordered at-Tabarl's commentary on the Qur'anto be translated into Persian,84 because he wasunable to read it in Arabic, he asked his 'ulama'for a fatwa on the lawfulness of the undertaking,for it was obviously considered daring to renderQur'anic exegesis into another language. But notonly did the jurisconsults come out in favor ofit, they did not even imply a theoretical preferencefor Arabic in the study of the Koran and its ex-

79 Mufassal, ed. Broch, Christiania, 1859, p. 2, 11.9-11.80 Ibid., 11.13-5 and Pishrav-e adab ya Muqaddimal al-adab, ed. Mohammad Kfaem Emam, Tehran, 1342/1963,I, 1 (57), 11.6-10.81 Ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris, 1891, p. pers. 55, 11. -6-ult.82 Ibid., p. pers. 54.83 Vide Lazard, La langue, pp. 41-5 on the Persianversion of at-Tabari, pp. 56-8 on the Cambridge Tafsir,pp. 91-4 on Surabadhi's,pp. 94-6 on Esfara'ini's com-mentaries, and pp. 119-21 on several works of the earlysixth century (cf. Storey, I, 1-5 and 1189-92).84 In Bahar, Sabkshenasi, 2II, p. 13f.

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RICHTER-BERNBURG: Linguistic Shu'ibiyaegesis. Very shrewdly, one is tempted to say, theybased their opinion on the verse of the Qur'an:md arsalna min rasiilin illa bi-lisani qaumihi,85and made their reasoning very clear by translating... magar be-zaban-e qowm-e u va-Sn zabdn keishan ddnestand. If Muhammad was thus to beprophet not only to the Arabs, but to all mankind,it was not just permissible, but necessary, totranslate his message into different tongues. Fromthis point of view, it was not so much divine choicebut historical chance that Muhammad was anArab and delivered his message in Arabic, es-pecially since Persian had prophetic seniorityas the language of all prophets and kings fromAdam to Ishmael.86 Such thinking ran, of course,counter to the cherished ideas of the Arabicists.In an oblique riposte, without naming his op-ponents, ath-Tha'alibi, an exponent of traditionalArabic learning in a milieu that witnessed the firstflowering of Neo-Persian letters,87 went so far asto write: Love of Allah and his messenger neces-sitates love of the Arabic language; he whomAllah guides to Islam believes that Muhammad isthe best prophet and Arabic the best language;to learn Arabic is a religious duty.88It was al-Bairfini who formulated the Arabicists'position with utmost succinctness and clarity:dinund wa-d-daulatu 'arabiycini wa-tau'amdni.89Any attempt at greater independence on the polit-ical and linguistic levels was thus convenientlyplaced in the neighbourhood of heresy. The Hana-

85 Sirat Ibrdhim (14), v. 4.86 goftand ravd bdshadh khwdndan wa-nebeshtan-e tafsir-e Qor'dn mar an kasi-rd ke u tdzi naddnadh az qowl-ekhoday-e 'azza wa-jalla ke goft: md arsalna ... goft manhi5 peyghdmbari-rd naferestddham magar .. . va-digar dnbovadh ke in zabdn-e pdrsi az qadim bdz ddnestand azruzgdr-e Adam tf ruzgdr-e Esmd'il wa-hamd-ye peyghdm-bardn va-molukdn-e zamin be-pdrsi sokhan goftandi va-avval kasi ke sokhan goft be-zabdn-e tdzi Esmd'il-e pey-ghambar badh va-peyghdmbar-e md-salld lldhu 'alaihi-az 'Arab birin dmadh va-in Qor'dn be-zabdn-e 'Arab baru ferestddhand va-in bedh-in nahiat zabdn-e pdrsi ast va-molukdn-e injaneb moluk-e 'Ajam-and. Most probably thislegalopinion s ofHanafi observance,cf. infraand note 92.87 C. E. Bosworth, The Book of Curious and Enter-taining Information-The Lata'if al-ma'drif of Tha'alibi,Edinburgh,1968, pp. 11-12.88 Fiqh al-lugha .. ., ed. Maktaba at-tijariya al-kubra,Cairos. d. [1964],pp. 2-3, 1.1.89 In M. Meyerhof, Das Vorwort ..., vide supranote 47.

fiya who alone among the four schools of law, al-lowed the use of Persian in worship, were subjectto the same accusation, as is shown by a Shafi'ipolemicist's90 caricature of a saldt of two rak'aaccording to what Abii Hanifa holds permissi-ble. 91 It is represented as a series of outragesamong which the use of Persian for the takbir andrecitation from the Koran92 figures prominently.The attempt to establish Persian as a legitimatelanguage for the invocation of Allah and his proph-et is also discernible in some texts of the time onsubjects other than theology. In several manu-scripts of the fifth and sixth centuries, the initialbasmala is given in a Persian rendering: be-ndm-eizdd-e bakhshdyandd-ye bakhshdyeshgar.93 The Ar-abic paronomasia ar-rahman ar-rahim is exactlyreproduced here by skillfully using the resourcesof the Persian language. Unfortunately, the useof this translated basmala is attested only in afew cases, but in most later manuscripts the ir-regularity would certainly have been eliminated.A number of books, though, exhibit an almostexclusively Persian terminology in their initialdoxologies to Allah and Muhammad. This is notlimited to works such as Ma'mari's Shdihndmd,94which by virtue of their subject matter might be

90Abu l-Ma'ali 'Abd al-Malikal-Juwaini, quoted byIbn Khallikan from Mughith al-khalq fi khtiydr al-ahlaqqWafaydt, ed. Muh. Muhyl d-din 'Abd al-Hamid,Cairo,1948, IV, 267, 1. 5f).91 'ald md yajazu abu Hanifa, ibid. 1. -8.92 wa-kabbara bi-l-farisiyati thumma qara'a dyatan bi-l-fdrisiyati: dow bargak-e sabz (ibid., 1. -5f): al-Juwainiintends to cast twofold doubt on the orthodoxy of thosereciting it: first, it is about the shortest possible verseof the Koran, Surat 55 (ar-Rahmdn) v. 65, second, totranslate mudhdmmatdni two dark green gardens' bydowbargak-eabz'two little green eaves,' onlycompoundsthe mockeryimplied.93 E.g., 1) Abfi MansiirMovaffaqHaravi, K. al-abnia'an haqdyeqo l-advid, copied by Asadi Tisi in A.H. 448(M. Qazvini,Bist Maqdld,2Tehran]1332, I, 66); 2) 'Omarb. MobammadRaduiyni, K. tarjomdn,copied by Arda-shir b. Deylamsepar in A. H. 507 (Oriens,I, 1948, Taf.II, between pp. 62 and 63); 3) Hobaish-eTeflisi, Vojuh-eQor'dn, purportedly author's autograph of A. H. 558,certainly no later than early 7th cent. A. H. (ed. MahdiMobaqqeq, Tehran, 1340, plate at end); 4) Majhiil,Homdyndmd,n manuscriptfirst-torn-leaf replacedin7th cent. A. H. (ed. Arberry, London, 1963, p. i).94 In Qazvini, Bist Maqald, II, 20 (and Mahdi Bayani,Nomund-ye sokhan-e frrst, I, 1, Tehran, 1317, p. 2).

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.1 (1974)expected to be relatively free of Arabic vocabulary,but occurs also in fields like history,95 geography,96materia medica,97 and philosophy,98 which weremuch more subject to Arabic lexical influence, andwhere Arabic terminology did play an importantrole. Given, moreover, the status of Arabic asthe Muslim tongue, doxologies in nearly unmixedPersian have to be understood as a demonstration.This interpretation is corroborated by other ex-amples employing a rather large number of Arabicwords,99 and by a third group of texts having bas-mala and doxologies in pure Arabic.100 A verygood representative of the first, the most Persi-anist, group is to be found in Bal'am 's adaptation ofat-Tabarl's History. Although aiming at a preciserendition of specifically Qur'anic concepts, propernames left aside, he resorts to Arabic only rarely :101

sepas va-afrin mar khoddy-e kdmgdr va-kdmrdn va-dfrinandd-ye zamin va-dsmdn va-dn kas ke na hamtdva-nd dastur va-na zan va-na farzand hamishd bud va-hamisha bdshad va-bar hasti-ye 0 neshdnhd-ye dfrineshpeydd-st va-asman va-zamin va-ruz ua-dnce bed-u andar-ast va-cwon be-khwod negah koni beddni ke dfrinesh-eu bar hasti-ye 0 gowa-st va-'ebadat-e vey bar bandegan-euey vajeb va-peyda-st va-ne'matha-ye u bar bandegdngostarida ast-sepds ddrim mar khoddy-rd bed-in nik'-ihd ke bd bandegan-e khwish kardd ast-va-doruid badMohammad-e-salla llahu 'alaihi wa-alihi wa-sallam-peyghdmbar ke behtarin-e jahdnian va-gozidd-ye pey-ghdmbaran va-ndzesh va-ndz-e hama-ye farzanddn-e Adamva-shef a'atkhwdh-e bandegdn ruz-e bozorg-dor0d-e izadbad bar vey va-bar khdnddn-e vey ke an gozidegnl ua-pasandidegdn.The second group may be represented here bythe Pseudo-Avicennian Qordii-ye tabi'iyi1t:102

95 Vide infra on Bal'ail.96 Hodudo l-'dlam, ed. Manucehr Sotuida, Tehran, 1340.97 Abfi Mansfir Movaffaq Haravi, K. al-abnia (in Bahar,Sabkshendsi, II, 25), cf. infra note 99.98 E.g. 1)Avicenna, Ddneshnamd-ye 'Ala'i, Manteq, edd.M. Mo'in et S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1952; 2) Persian translationof Avicenna's Hayy b. Yaqdzn (cf. supra note 66).99 E.g. 1) Naier-e Khosrow, K. vajh-e din, ed. KIavl-ani, Berlin, s.d.; 2) id., Jdme'o l-hekmatain, vide supra,note 45; 3) Ps.-Avicenna, Qordad-ye tabi'iydt, vide infra.In Haravi's K. al-abnia the doxology on Allah is in purePersian, whereas the eulogies on Muhammad and the otherprophets and saints are freely interspersed with Arabic.100 E.g. Tarikh-e Sistan and al-Hojvirl's Kashfo 1-mahjub (ed. V. Zhukowsky, reprint Tehran, 1336).101 Ed. Mashkfir, p. 2.

102 In Bahar, Sabkshenasi, II, 37.

sepds dfridgar-e hama-ye cizha-ra va-makhsis konan-da-ye now'-e mardom-rdaz-jomla-ye jdnvaran be-kheradtd bed-an bar ba'ii az dfrinesh-e uvaqef gardand.What was said before about the developmentof Persian scholarly writing, applies here, too.From the beginning of the sixth century on, mostPersian authors adopted a style of ArabicizedPersian representing, as it were, an intermediatebetween Arabic and unmixed Persian. In Ebnol-Balkhi's Fdrsnmad, written at about the timewhen Bal'amI's version of at-Tabari's History wasmodernized, the initial doxology reads:103

sepds va-dfrin mar khoddy-rd kebadaye'-e son'-e u-rd ghayat nistl

ua-hasti-ye u-rd bedayat va-nehayat nistldfrinandd-ye zamin va-zamanlva-sane'-e kown va-makan/ ...There is a large proportion of Arabic words,saj', a conscious play with coupled terms-ba-

ddye': ghayat, beddhat: nehdyat, etc. and parallelexpressions of a Persian turn answering to anArabic one and vice versa. Ebno l-Balkhi eventreats the Persian words zamin and zamcin asthough they followed the Arabic system of word-formation and were two morphemes derived fromthe same root, as are kown and makdn in the nextcolon. On the following pages,104 he sets out toextoll the land of Fars, its inhabitants, and theirlanguage, and in order to give them a properIslamic standing, even resorts to shaky evidencefrom the traditions of the Prophet and hazardousetymological explanations of a supposedly Persianword in the Qur'an.105 Nothing could serve better,however, to illustrate the stylistic models prev-alent in his time, than the very first lines of hiswork, where the general trend toward Arabiciza-tion of the Persian tongue undermines his inten-tions from the outset.

103 Edd. G. Le Strange et R. A. Nicholson, London,1921, p. 1.104 Ibid., pp. 4-7.105 sijjil ya'ni sang-ow gel-e be-ham dmikhtd (ibid.,p. 7, 1. 9f); al-Jawaliqi quotes the same etymology fromb. Qutaiba (K. al-mu'arrab, ed. Sachau, Leipzig, 1887,p. 81, 1. 7f), but J. Horovitz declares it unsatisfactory(Koranische Untersuchungen, Berlin/Leipzig, 1926, p. 11,but cf. A. Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an,Baroda, 1938, p. 164f., s.v., with sources). At any rate,it is not without irony that Ebno l-Balkhi did not, instead,choose one of the unequivocally Iranian loan words in theKoran to prove his point (e.g., istabraq, zanjabil, cf. Jef-fery, Vocabulary, s.vv.).

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Linguistic Shuʿūbīya and Early Neo-Persian Prose

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