Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/784

 PERSIA

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PERSIA

and literature. The earliest writer of this period was a poet, AbbSs by name, who composed in a. d. SOS) a poem in honour of the Abbsisid Caliph, Ma miln. Abbas 's first poetical effort was improved upon by men like Hanzalah, Hakim Firuz, and Abu-.Salik, who began to imitate the Arabic qasMah form of poetical composition. These were soon followed by a dozen other poets who wrote some beautiful lyric- and elegiac poetry. The earliest Persian prose writer was Hal- ami who, by order of Shah Mansur 1, translated into Persian, in 936, the Arabic uni\crsal hislor\' of T;ibari (224-310 A. H.). Others translated Tah'ari's great "Commentary" on the Koran from Arabic into Persian. This wjia followed by Abu Mansilr Wu- wafTak's book on medicine and by the great phi- losopher, Avicenna (d. 1037), himself a Persian by birth, who wrote some of his works in Persian and some in Arabic. But the greatest of all Modern Persian poets, the forerunner and father of Modern Persian poetry, and the Homer of Persian epic — equal indeed in power of imagination, wealth of poet- ical descriptions, and elevated style to any old or modern poet — is Firdilsi (a. d. 940-1020), the author of the "Shahnameh" or "Book of Kings", on which the author laboured for thirty-five years. It is about eight times as long as the Iliad and contains a lengthy detailed description of all the historical and legendary wars, conquests, heroes, traditions, and customs of ancient and Sassanian Iran. Firdflsi had many imita- tors, such as the author of the "Garshaspniima", 'Ali ibn Ahmad Asadi (about 1066), written in 9000 dis- tichs; of the "Sdmndma", in which the heroic deeds of Rustem's grandfather are celebrated, and which equals in length the "Shahnameh" itself; the "Sa- "hanhirndma", the "Fanimurznjima", the "Bilnu- Gushashpndma", the "Barsundma", the "Shahriyar- ndma", the "Bahmannama", the various "Iskandar- ndmas", the " Bustani-Kliayal" (a romance in fifteen volumes), the " Anbiyaiiania" and many other epopees, all written within the period a.d. 106G-11.50.

During the last four or five centuries, several other epic writers flourished in Persia such as Mu'in Almis- kin (d. 1501), who wrote in prose the epic of Hatim Tay,the celebrated Arabian chief; Hatifi (d. 1521), the author of "Timurndma", or the epic of Tamerlane; Kasimi (d. about 1561), Kamali of Sabawar, Ishrafl, and the authors of the " Shahinshahndma " and the "Georgendma". Romantic fiction was also culti- vated with success by such writers as Nizami of Ganja (1141-1203), 'Am'ak of Bokhara (d. 1149), author of the romance of Yusuf and Zuleikha, Jam'i (d. 1492), Mauji Kasim Khan (d. 1571), Nazim of Herat (d. 1670), and Shaukat, Governor of Shiraz, who flour- ished towards the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. The best known Persian writers of encomium and satire are: Abul-Faraj Runi, Mas' (id ibn Sa'd ibn Salman (about 1085), Adib Sabir (about 1145), Jau- hari. Amir Mu'izzi (d. 1147), Rashid Watwat (d. 1172), Abd-Alwasi Jabali, Hasan Ghaznawi (d. 1169), Auhad-Uddin Anwari (d. about 1196), Suzani of Samarkand (d. 1174) and his contemporaries, Abu-Ali Shatranji, Lamf of Bokhara, KhakAni (d. 1199), the greatest rival of Anwari, Ubaid Zakani (d. 1370), Mujir-Uddin Bailakani (d. 1198), Zahir Fairabi (d. 1202), Athir Akhsikati (d. 1211), Kamal-uddin Isfahan! (d. 1237), and Saif-uddin Isfarangi (d. 1267).

Didactic and my.stic poetry was very successfully cultivated by several Persian poets, principal among whom are Sheikh Abu Said ibn Abu-1-Khair of Khorasan (968-1049), the contemporary of Firdtlsi and the inventor of the ruba'i, or quatrain, form of poetical composition; Omar Khayydm, the famous astronomer and tlic celebrated author of the Rubd- iydt, made famous by Fitzgerald's translation, Xfdal- uddin Kashi (d. 1307), Nd^ir ibn Kho.srau (d. about 1325), 'All ibn 'UthmSn al-juUabi (d. about 1342),

Hakim Sana'i of Ghanza (about 1130), .Telal-uddin Rumi (1207-73), "the most uncompromising Sufic follower, and the greatest pantheistic writer of all ages", Farld-uddin 'Attar (d. 1230), and many others. But the greatest and most moderate of all Persian Sufic poets was Sa'di (d. about 1292), "wliose two best- known works, the 'Bustan', or 'Fruit-garden', and the 'GulistAn', or 'Rose-garden', owe their great popularity both in tlie Fast and the We.st to the purity of their spiritual thoughts, their sparkling wit, charming style, antl t lie very moderate use of mystic theories". Later ditlactic and my.stic poets are Nizari (d. 1320), Kafibi (d. 1434), Hairati (d. 15,')4), lami' (d. 1 ts7), Saiia'i, Iraki (d. about 1.309), Husaini (d. 1318), Malimud Shabistari (d. 1320), Auhadi (d. 1338), Kasim Anvar (d. 1434), Ahli of Shiraz (d. 1489), Hilali (d. 1532), Baha'-uddin 'Amili (d. 1621), and many others. Like the Arabs, the Persians cul- tivated with immense success Ij'ric poetry and tlie description and idealization of the pleasures of love, of women, of wine, and of the beauties of nature. The prince of these lyric poets is Hafiz (d. 1389). He had many imitators, such as Salmdn of Sdwa (d. about 1377), Kamal Khujandi, Muhammcd Shirin Maghribi (d. 1406), Ni'mat-ullah Wall (d. 1431), Kasimi- Anwar, Amir Shahi (14.53), Banna'i (d. 1512), Baba Fighani of Shiraz (d. 1519), Nargisi (d. 1531), Lisani (d. 1.534), Ahlt of Shiraz (d. 1535), Nau'i (d. 1610), and innumerable others who strove, more or less suc- cessfully, to imitate Hafiz as well as lami and Nizami. To more recent date belong the poets ZuJali (d. 1592), Sa'ib (d. 1677), and Hatif of Isfahan (d. about 1785).

Persian literature is not very rich in historical and theological works, and even the comparatively small number of these is generally based on Arabic Mo- hammedan historical and theological productions. Finall}', it must not be forgotten that from about the eighth or ninth century a. d. till about the fifteenth some of the greatest Mohammedan theologians, his- torians, philosophers, grammarians, lexicographers, and pliilologists, who wrote in Arabic, were of Persian origin. It must also be noted that owing to the con- stant and intimate social, political, literary, and reli- gious intercourse between Arabs and Persians, espe- cially during the Abbasid dynasty, Modern Persian, especially in its vocabulary, has been very extensively affected by Arabic, so much so that a perfect knowl- edge of Modern Persian is impossible without the knowledge of Arabic. Persian, also, in its turn, es- pecially during the last four or five centuries, has very perceptibly affected the Turkish language.

III. Christianity IN Persia. — A. Fromlhe Apostolic Age to the Thirteenth Centurt/. — The beginning of Chris- tianity in Persia may well be connected with what we read in Acts (eh. ii, v. 9) viz., that on the Day of Pentecost there were at Jerusalem "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and inhabitants of Meso- potamia". These, doubtless, on their return home, announced to their countrymen the appearance of the new religion. Early ecclesiastical traditions, fur- thermore, both foreign and local, tenaciously main- tain that Peter and Thomas preached the Gospel to the Parthians; that Thadda>us, Bartholomew, and Addeus, of the Seventy, evangelized the races of Meso- potamia and Persia, and that Mari, a noble Persian convert,, succeeded Addai (Addeus) in the govern- ment of the Persian Chri.sfi.an communities. He is said to have been succeeded by the bishops Abres, Abraham, Jacob, Ahadabuhi, Tomarsa, Shahlufa, arid Papa, which brings us down to the end of the third century. When we read in later Syriac documents that towards the beginning of the third century the Christians in the Persian empire had some three hundred and sixty churches, and many martyrs, it is not difficult to imagine even if we discount the many legendary elements in these traditions, how vigorous