Page:The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910).djvu/20

xiv of that strange and original creed which for many centuries so profoundly affected both Christianity and Islám, and of which recent excavations in the sand-buried cities of Chinese Turkistán have revealed such wonderful literary remains; Mazdak, the earliest philosophical Communist; Bábak called al-Khurramí, who for so many years defied the armies of the ‘Abbásid Caliphs; al-Muqanna‘,“the Veiled Prophet of Khurásán,” made familiar to English readers by Thomas Moore and a host of others, whose very heresies and extravagances testify to the fertile mind of the nation which produced them. What Islám, both orthodox and heterodox, owed to Persia it is almost impossible to exaggerate; Ṣúfís, Ismaílís, the Shí‘a, the Ḥurúfís, the Bábís, all alike reflect the subtle metaphysics of the Persian mind. Throughout the wide lands of Islám we are met, almost at every turn, by something which has its roots in Persian history, whether in Tunis, where the now decaying port of al-Mahdiyya recalls the dream of ‘Abu’lláh ibn Maymún of the ruin of the Arabian and the restoration of the Persian power; or in Cairo, where the thousand-year-old University of al-Azhar reminds us of the fulfilment of that wild dream; or in Syria, where the ancient fastnesses of the “Old Man of the Mountain” still hold a remnant of his followers, while hard by Acre sends forth the eager missionaries of a new Persian faith to the New World. In Turkey, and thence eastwards to India and Turkistán, the signs of Persian influence increase, and alike the language, the thought and the culture of the Turkish and Indian Muslim are redolent of Persia.

On the value of Persian art and Persian literature it is hardly necessary to insist, for the beautiful carpets, tiles, pottery and paintings of Persia are esteemed by all who value such things, and though the vast realms of Persian literature have been systematically explored by only a few in Europe, the names of some of her poets at least, Firdawsí, Sa‘dí, Ḥáfiẓ, and in these latter days, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, ‘Umar Khayyám, are known to all educated people, and are reckoned amongst the great poets of the world. Nor, in considering what literature owes to Persia; must we limit our attention to Persian literature, for Arabic literature too, if deprived of the con-