III. THE ARAB CONQUESTS

When the caliph Omar declared that God had promised Persia to the Muslims, Abu ʿObayd b. Masʿud volunteered to lead the attack. After defeating a small force led by one Jālinus, he crossed the Euphrates on a floating bridge built for him by dahāqin. Against the advice of his fellow commanders, he cut the lines holding the bridge to the shore. When the Persians appeared with their elephants, the Arabs fled back to the Tigris, where many drowned. The Muslims then counterattacked, holding off the Persians long enough to reconnect the bridge and flee across it. The Persian commander was Jāḏawayh; some 6,000 of his troops were killed (Moruj III, secs. 1529-31).

A force commanded by Jarir b. ʿAbd-Allāh Bajali advanced to Maḏār, where the marzobān, with a force of 10,000 cavalrymen, awaited him on the far side of the Tigris. Having learned from the Battle of the Bridge, Jarir waited for the Persians to cross first. When they did, he fell upon them and routed them, killing the marzobān. He then joined forces with Moṯannā b. Ḥāreṯa Sahibāni at Noḵayla, where they defeated a Persian force led by Mehrān. They then retreated at the approach of a Persian army led by Rostam (Moruj III, secs. 1535-37).

At Qādesiya, the main Arab force of 38,000 men, led by Saʿd b. Abi Waqqāṣ, met Rostam’s army of 60,000. The battle began with single combat between champions. Among those who fought for the Persians was a crowned Caucasian king named Hormoz. The Arabs captured a splendidly attired servant who turned out to be a pastry cook. The Persians charged with their armored elephants, causing many casualties. On the second day of the battle, Arab reinforcements arrived from Syria. Qaʿqāʿ b. ʿAmr defeated the Persian champions Bahman b. Jāḏawayh and Bozorjmehr. The battle continued into the night, with Abu Meḥjan Ṯaqafi fighting bravely for the Arab side. On the third day, the Arabs buried their dead and tended the wounded. On the fourth day, battle was again joined and two Persian commanders, Hormozān and Birzān, were the first to retreat. According to one report, Rostam was killed by Helāl b. ʿOllafa while trying to retrieve a sunshade which the wind had blown into the river. Disheartened, the Persians were routed. Thirty (or thirty thousand) of them lashed theselves together with ropes and chains, “swearing by light and fire temple to hold their ground until they prevailed or were killed.”  They were killed, and the banner of Kāviān was captured. The chroniclers disagree about whether the battle at Qādesiya took place in 14/635-36, 15/636-37, or 16/637-38 (Moruj III, secs. 1538-57; see also ARAB ii).

Asked how the Muslims should proceed with the conquest of Iran, Hormozān, a former Persian military leader living in captivity in Medina, replied that they should attack Isfahan. ʿOmar appointed Noʿmān b. Moqarren to command the Muslim forces. Noʿmān in turn sent Moḡira b. Šoʿba to meet with the Persian king, called “the winged one” (Ḏu’l-janāḥayn). The king received the messenger seated on his throne and wearing a crown, with princes dressed in silk and gold sitting on carpets before him. Unimpressed, Moḡira slashed at the carpets to provoke the Persians. When the king, speaking through an interpreter, offered to supply the Arabs with food, Moḡira replied that his people had indeed been wretched and starving, but now had a prophet who had promised them that they would conquer what lay before them. On a sudden impulse, he leaped up onto the king’s throne, trying to unseat him, and was rebuffed. The Muslims then launched their attack against the Persians, who chained themselves together in groups of five to seven men. The Muslims crossed the river at Nehāvand and began to suffer losses from Persian projectiles. Following the practice of the prophet, Noʿmān waited until sunset to charge. During the attack, the Persian king fell off his mule and was killed, and his forces were routed (Moruj III, secs. 1564-66).

IV. PERSIAN FIGURES OF THE EARLY CALIPHAL PERIOD

The governor of Madāʾen under ʿOmar was the ascetic Salmān Fāresi, who wore wool and ate barley bread. On his deathbed, he expressed his fear that he would be punished for owning too much, even though his house contained nothing but a few utensils (Moruj III, sec. 1527).

‘Omar forbade non-Arabs (‘ajam) to enter Medina, but made an exception for Abu Loʾloʾa, a Zoroastrian carpenter, painter, and blacksmith from Nehāvand recommended by Moḡira b. Šoʿba. Abu Loʾloʾa asked ʿOmar to reduce his tax assessment (ḵarāj) of two dirhams a day, but the caliph refused. Infuriated, Abu Loʾloʾa stabbed him to death and then killed himself (Moruj III, secs. 1559-60).

During the struggle between ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb and Moʿāwia, three Ḵāreji dissidents swore to execute the two contenders, along with ʿAmr b. ʿĀṣ, governor of Egypt. According to one account, the assassin sent against ʿAmr was Zādawayh, a mawlā of the Banu ʿAnbar. He killed Ḵāreja, judge of Egypt, mistaking him for ʿAmr, and was executed (Moruj III, secs. 1730, 1740).

The Barmaki family of viziers was descended from a custodian of the fire-temple in Balkh (see BARMAKIDS). The family had some connection with the king of the Turks, and with the Umayyad caliph Hešām. Yaḥyā b. Ḵāledb. Barmak and his sons Jaʿfar and Fażl managed the government under Rashid. Yaḥyā convened scholars and sectarians to discuss such matters as “latency and manifestation, eternity and createdness, negation and affirmation, motion and rest, contiguity and separation, existence and non-existence, particles and the ṭafra (the “leap” postulated to solve Zeno’s paradox), bodies and accidents, the confirmation and denial of reliability (of transmitters), denial and affirmation of (divine) attributes, capacity to act and responsibility for actions, essence, quantity, quiddity, attribution, generation and corruption, whether the imamate is conferred by decree or by election, and all the rest of the topics covered in dialectical theology” (Moruj IV, sec. 2564). In 187/803, Rašid deposed the Barmakis, executing Jaʿfar and imprisoning Yaḥyā and Fażl. One account has it that they denied him access to money, another that they secretly released an Alid prisoner, and yet another that Jaʿfar consummated his marriage to Rašid’s sister ʿAbbāsa against the caliph’s orders (Moruj IV, secs. 2559-618).

Two ʿAbbasid caliphs were born to slave mothers identified as coming from regions associated with Iran: al-Maʾmun (r. 198-218/813-33), born to Marājel, from Bādḡis; and al-Motawakkel (r. 232-47/847-61) born to Šojāʿ, from Ṭoḵārestān (Masʿudi, 1894, pp. 349, 361). Other caliphal mothers may have been Iranian but are not identified as such.

Several Persian physicians were active at the caliphal court. Jebril b. Boḵtišuʿ, physician to al-Rašid, conducted an experiment to demonstrate the effect of eating a certain fish along with wine and cold water (Moruj IV, sec. 2511). A “Persian practitioner” (motaṭabbeb fāresi) from Ṭus predicted Rašid’s death on the basis of a urine sample (Moruj IV, sec. 2554). Ebn Māsawayh or Māsuya attended al-Maʾmun on his deathbed and advised al-Mo‘taṣem on a sauce for fish (Moruj IV, secs. 2783, 2789-90). The physicians Boḵtišuʿ, Ebn Māsawayh, and Miḵāʾil participated in a discussion with the caliph al-Wāṯeq on “how medical knowledge is attained and its principles acquired, whether by sense perception, inference, first principles, or tradition” (Moruj IV, secs 2857-869).

In a jocular speech, the buffoon ʿAli b. Jonayd Eskāfi compared caliphal protocol with “the conditions set by Jassās Šāši and Ḵalawayh the Mimic” (Moruj IV, secs. 2791-92).

V. THE HISTORY OF IRAN IN ISLAMIC TIMES

During the caliphate of Walid I (r. 86-96/705-15), the governor of Iraq, Ḥajjāj b. Yusof, appointed one of his rustic bedouin uncles to the governorship of Isfahan, where taxes were two years in arrears. When the Isfahanis complained that previous governors had oppressed them, the bedouin agreed to give them eight months to collect the money. When they failed to pay on time, he began to execute the guarantors they had named. Seeing this, the Isfahanis paid their taxes (Moruj III, secs. 2146-47).

In late 125/742-43 or early 126/743-44, during the reign of Walid b. Yazid (r. 125-26/743-44), the Alid Yaḥyā b. Zayd led an uprising in Khorasan, where the people “resented the oppression and mistreatment that had afflicted everyone.”  Yaḥyā was defeated and killed in Arḡuna and his body displayed in Juzajān. Every boy born in Khorasan that year was named either Yaḥyā or Zayd. The corpse remained in place until taken down by Abu Moslem, the leader of the ʿAbbasid revolution (Moruj IV, sec 2237).

The ʿAbbasid revolution began in Khorasan, where Abu Moslem worked to undermine the authority of the Umayyad governor, Naṣr b. Sayyār, who warned the caliph Marwān of the threat to “the Arabs and to Islam.”  The pro-ʿAbbasid party was called the Rāwandiya. Its adherents believed that the prophet’s uncle ʿAbbās had inherited the imamate, though some sectarians believed that Abu Moslem himself was the true imam. The first town to adopt the black standards of the Abbasids was Nishapur. The movement spread through Khorasan and from there to Fars. Naṣr fled to Ray and then to Sāva, near Hamadan, where he died (Moruj IV, secs. 2279, 2284, 2286, 2291).

After the second ʿAbbasid caliph, al-Manṣur (r. 136-58/754-75), executed Abu Moslem, the believers in his imamate rose in Khorasan under the leadership of a man named Sonfād (Sonbād). These sectarians, called Ḵorramiya, Moslemiya, or Baṭeniya, believed either that Abu Moslem was alive and would return, or that the imamate had passed to his daughter Faṭema. Sonfād captured Ray and Qumes before being defeated in battle by the caliph’s forces between Ray and Hamadan. Bābak Ḵhorrami, who would later rise against the caliph al-Maʾmun, belonged to the sect. In Masʿudi’s time, adherents were still to be found in Khorasan, Ray, Isfahan, Azarbaijan, and several other places (Moruj IV, secs. 2398-400).

In 145/762, al-Manṣur founded a new capital at Baghdad. The name derives from bāg “garden” referring to a monastery garden on the site, or from the name of a pre-Zoroastrian idol worshipped on the site (Tanbih, p. 360).

When the caliph al-Amin (r. 19398/809-13) decided to remove his brother Maʾmun from the succession, he sent an army commanded by ʿAli b. ‘Isā b. Māhān toward Khorasan. Maʾmun’s Khorasani forces, commanded by Ṭāher b. Ḥosayn, routed the caliph’s army at Ray after a valiant charge by the cavalrymen of Ḵ^vārazm (Chorasmia). Ṭāher’s horsemen are described as equipped with spears or lances, Tibetan shields, coats of mail, lamellar armor (jawāvšen), vambraces (to protect the forearms), and horse-armor. Ṭāher and his allies advanced to Baghdad. After a long and destructive siege, the Khorasanis prevailed. The caliph al-Amin was captured and later killed by a group of non-Arabs (qawm men al-ʿajam), one of whom cried out in Persian (ṣāḥ bi al-fāresiya) during the fight (Moruj IV, secs. 2626-27, 2657, 2676).

In 200/815, the caliph al-Maʾmun announced that he had examined all the eligible members of the Alid and ʿAbbasid families and found no one worthier of the caliphate than the Alid ʿAli b. Musā al-Reżā. He ordered Reżā brought to Marv and proclaimed heir apparent. He also married his daughter to Reżā’s son, struck coins in his name, and substituted green for black in court dresses and banners. When the scandalized ʿAbbasids of Baghdad nominated a counter-caliph, al-Maʾmun left Marv for Iraq. In Saraḵs, the vizier Fażl b. Sahl was murdered, possibly at the caliph’s behest; and in Ṭus, the heir apparent Reżā died, either from a surfeit of grapes or by poison (Moruj IV, secs. 2695-96, 2746-47).

Maʾmun reportedly ordered the arrest of “ten zendiqs from Basra who followed the teachings of Māni and the creed of light and darkness.”  With them was a party-crasher (ṭofayli) who had joined the group believing that they were going to a banquet. The Manicheans explained that they would be asked to renounce their creed by spitting on an image of Māni and slaughtering a pheasant (tadroj). When the party reached Baghdad, the Manicheans refused to accept Islam and were executed (Moruj IV, secs. 2705-707).

In 204/819-20, the district of Baḏḏ(ayn) in Azarbaijan came under the leadership of Bābak Ḵorrami, who took over the followers of Jāviḏān b. Šahrak (Moruj IV, sec. 2749). After causing great destruction and defeating the armies sent against them, Bābak’s forces were eventually routed by the caliph’s commander Afšin. Bābak, who considered himself a king, behaved haughtily toward an Armenian patricius (beṭriq), Sahl b. Sonbāṭ, at whose estate he had taken refuge. Sahl then turned him over to Afšin. Bābak and his brother were conveyed to Samarra (Sāmarrāʾ) with great pomp and splendor, then tortured and executed (Moruj IV, secs. 2806-14).

In 219/834, the Kufan Alid Moḥammad b. Qāsem, threatened by the caliph al-Moʿtaṣem, fled to Khorasan. Marv, Saraḵs, Ṭālaqān, and Nasā rallied around his claim to the imamate. He was eventually captured and imprisoned in Samarra. Some claim he was poisoned there, while others say that a group of his followers disguised themselves as gardeners and smuggled him out of prison. Sectarians in Kufa, Ṭabarestān, Daylam, and parts of Khorasan regarded him as the last imam and the mahdi (Moruj IV, secs. 2799-800).

In 225/839-40, Māzyār b. Qāren b. Bandār Hormos (Bondār Hormoz), who had rebelled in the mountains of Ṭabarestān, was captured and sent to Samarra. There he blamed the commander Afšin for leading him astray with “a dualist, Magian creed they had agreed upon between them.”  This allegation was confirmed by a scribe named Sābur. Māzyār was flogged to death and his corpse exposed on a cross next to that of Bābak. Afšin died in prison and a number of “idols” found in his possession were burned (Moruj IV, secs. 2819-22).

In 262/876, Yaʿqub b. Layṯ invaded Iraq but was routed by the caliph al-Moʿtamed. Masʿudi’s now-lost Aḵbār al-zamān contained an account of his early career. He was a coppersmith (ṣaffār) from Sejestān, who joined the army of Derham b. Naṣr and then led his own forces into Zābolestān, Herat, Balkh, Nishapur, and Ṭabarestān. The account resumes in the Moruj, which describes the Ṣaffārid army’s unusually high standards of discipline and obedience.  When ordered to break camp, his troops would rush to obey, to the point that one soldier even pulled the fodder from his camel’s mouth, saying to the beast in Persian: “The Caliph commands all beasts to stop grazing” (Amir al-moʾmenin dawāb-rā az tar boridand.)  Yaʿqub himself spent most of the time either training boys to fight or sitting alone in his tent, which contained nothing but a haircloth mat, a shield to recline on, and a banner he used as a pillow. He died in Jondišābur and was succeeded by his brother ʿAmr (Moruj V, secs. 3158-76; Tanbih, pp. 367-368).

In 317/929, Ḥasan b. Qāsem Ḥasani Dāʿi, with the help of the Daylami warrior Mākān b. Kāki, seized control of Ray, Qazvin, Zanjān, Qom, and Abhar. The revolt was put down by Asfār b. Širuya, a pagan or possibly an apostate, who “wanted to put a crown on his head and set up a throne of gold for himself in Ray.” After defeating an army sent by the caliph al-Moqtader, he seized the fortress of Qazvin (originally Kašvin), which had been built by the Persians as a defense against the Daylamis. Many of the Daylamis and Jilis had converted to Islam at the hands of the Alid ʿAli Oṭruš, but most now reverted to paganism. Asfār was eventually overthrown by one of his commanders, Mardāvij, who sacked the towns of Hamadan and Dinavar and massacred their inhabitants. Mardāvij settled in Isfahan, where, according to some members of his entourage, a new kingdom and a new religion would be founded. After “inquiring about the crowns and accoutrements of the Persians and having models of them constructed for him” (sec. 3600), he chose a crown similar to that of Anušervān. In 323/935, he was assassinated by members of his Turkish guard (Moruj V, secs. 3577-601).

VI. OTHER REFERENCES TO IRANIAN CULTURE

A. Cosmology and geography. Plato, Themistius, and the Stoics believed that the celestial spheres were composed of fire or of some combination of fire, water, and air, without earth; but Aristotle and certain Persian, Indian, and Chaldean thinkers (ḥokamāʾ) believed that they were composed of a unique fifth element (Tanbih, p. 7). A celestial sphere (falak) was called esbehr in ancient Persian and ḥāydān in modern Persian (Tanbih, pp. 33-34).

On ancient Iranian doctrines of light, darkness, and fire, see II.A. above. Masʿudi refers the reader to a discussion, in works now lost, of the concept of “the five originary (principles)’ (al-ḵamsa al-qodamāʾ): Ormazd “God” (Allāh), Ahreman “the evil satan,” Kāh “time,” Jāy “place,” and Hum, “good thing (to eat or smell) and anything brewed or leavened” (al-ṭayyeba wa’l-ḵamir). Muslim heresiographers falsely accuse the Zoroastrians of believing that God produced evil by his own thoughts (tafakkara fa-ḥadaṯa men fekreheh šarr) and then allowed it to exist, in the form of Satan (Šayṭān), for a predetermined time. Masʿudi suggests that some ordinary believers may hold this view, which has been erroneously attributed to all Zoroastrians. He also reports that his other (now lost) works covered what the Zoroastrians believe regarding “the return of kingship to them and to other ancient nations, the beginning and end of the world, those who believe that it will last forever, and those who believe that it has no beginning or end” (ibid, Tanbih, pp. 93-94; Moruj II, sec. 1437; on the return of kingship, see further Tanbih, pp. 108, 110).

The Persians and Nabateans or Syrians divided the inhabited world into regions. The east was called Khorasan, “place where the sun rises,” derived from ḵor “sun.”  The west was called Ḳorbarān“place where the sun sets.”  The north was called Bāḵtar and the south Nimruz (Tanbih, p. 31). The Greek geographers divided the earth into climes corresponding to the planets, for which Masʿudi gives the Persian names:  Kayvān “Jupiter,” Urmazd “Saturn,” Bahrām “Mars,” Ḵoršād or Āftāb “the sun,” Anāhid “Venus,” Tir “Mercury,” and Māh “the moon.”  In Persian, a clime (eqlim) is called kešvar (Tanbih, pp. 33-34).

The fourth clime is called Bābel, which some Persians and Nabateans believe is derived from Bil or Bail “Saturn” in their ancient language. It is the best of all climes. It includes Irānšahr, the region ruled by the Persian kings, who would spend the summer in the mountains and the winters in Iraq. The name Irānšahr is derived from that of Iraj (see II.A. above) or from ir, which in ancient Persian is “a term that means both goodness and virtue” (esm jāmeʿ le’l-ḵayr wa’l-fażl) and appears also in the word irbaḏ, “leader of good men” (raʾis al-ḵiār), which the Arabs pronounce as herbed (see HĒRBED). According to the Nabateans, the Persians inhabited only Fars, Māhāt, and “other Pahlavi regions” (ḡairehā men belād al-Fahlawiyin); the region was eventually named after them, but its original name was Aryānšahr “land of lions” from aryā “lion” in Aramaic (nabaṭiya), because of their strength and courage (Tanbih, pp. 35-38).

The Sawād (central Iraq) was once divided into 12 estāns or districts (kuras) and sixty subdistricts (ṭassuj). As the Tigris changed course and southern Mesopotamia turned into swampland, this division broke down. The Persians call Iraq and Syria Surestān, “land of the Syrians,” that is, the Chaldeans, who in Arabic are called the Nabaṭ (Tanbih, pp. 40, 176-77).

B. Calendar and festivals. The Persian calendar consists of twelve months of thirty days each. Masʿudi lists the names of the months, which appear to differ only slightly, or not at all, from those used today. Each day of the month also has a name; Masʿudi lists them all. He also cites a poem suggesting that Arabic speakers considered Rām, the twenty-first day of the month, a good day to drink wine (Masʿudi, 1894, Moruj II, secs. 1281, 1298-300; Tanbih, pp. 215). Masʿudi occasionally dates events by the Persian calendar (e.g., Tanbih, pp. 48-49, 401).

The sixteenth day of the seventh month (Mehr) is the festival of Mehragān (Moruj II, sec. 1298). The Persians explain that the festival commemorates the death of an oppressive king called Mehr; the name Mehr jān means “the spirit of Mehr is gone.”  Masʿudi, who appears to accept this folk etymology at face value, cites the phrase as evidence that the Pahlavi language (al-Fahlawiyah, wa hya al-fāresiya al-ula), unlike Arabic, places the subject before the verb. People of standing (ahl al-morowwāt) in Iraq celebrate the holiday by replacing their old furniture and buying new clothes (Moruj II, sec. 1287).

A tutor of the caliph al-Rāżi (r. 322-29/934-40) describes the celebration of Mehrajān along the banks of the Tigris as a day of “uproariousness, music, games, joy, and delight, unlike anything I had ever seen before.” To distract the caliph, who had political worries on his mind, the tutor regaled him with tales of the caliphs and the Persian kings. He eventually persuaded him to drink by citing a poem by the caliph al-Maʾmun in praise of drinking wine on Mehragān (Moruj V, secs. 2502-503).

The eighth month (Ābān) brings the festival of Ābānruz or Ābāngāh. At the end of the month come the five days required to complete the year. Each of these days has a name in Persian and Arabic. Every 120 years, the Persians would intercalate an entire month. They could have achieved the same result by inserting one day every four years, but chose not to because doing so would cause auspicious and inauspicious days to change places, or because the days were named after their angels (malāʾeka) and they did not want to add days that did not belong. When their empire collapsed, the intercalation was neglected, with the result that their festivals began to move around the calendar. In 282/895-86, the caliph al-Mo‘tamed moved Nowruz back two months to June 11, to correct the problem for tax purposes (Moruj II, secs. 1298-301; Tanbih, pp. 215-16).

In Iraq and Fars, the first day of the ninth month (Āḏar) brings festivities intended to ward off the cold. A buffoon (kawsaj) rides out on a mule and eats walnuts, garlic, fatty meats, and other foods and drinks classified as hot. Thus fortified, he submits to having cold water poured over him and professes to feel no discomfort. He cries out garmā garmā “heat, heat” (ḥarr). This is a time of great joy (sorur) and excitement (ṭarab). Similar festivals occur at other times of the year (Moruj II, secs. 1298-99; see also CALENDARS, FESTIVALS).

C. Temples.

1. Astral temples. The world contains seven great temples originally dedicated to one of the heavenly bodies. Four of these temples are associated with Iran:

a. Mārbin, on a mountain near Isfahan, originally a pagan sanctuary but consecrated to fire by Bostāsaf or Yostāsaf. It was still being used in Masʿudi’s time.

b. Nowbahār, built in Balkh byManušahr, originally dedicated to the moon. Its guardians, who were persons of great power, were called Barmaks; the Barmaki family of viziers was descended from one of them. The building was famous for its solid construction. It reportedly bore an inscription in Persian:  “Said Budasf: ‘[Entering] the gates of kings requires self-restraint, patience, and money’” (ʿaql o ṣabr o māl).

c. Kāvusān, in Farḡāna, built by Kāvus in honor of the sun, and destroyed by the caliph al-Moʿtaṣem (r. 218-27/833-42).

d. Ḡomdān, at Ṣanʿāʾ in Yemen, reportedly built by Żaḥḥāk to honor Venus. It was razed by Oṯmān b. ʿAffān (Moruj II, secs. 1370-81, IV, sec. 2618).

2. Pre-Zoroastrian fire temples (boyut al-nirān).

a. One in Ṭus, built by Afridun (see II.C. above).

b. Barazesavaza, in Bukhara, also built by Afridun (see II.C. above).

c. Karkukān, in Sejestān, built by Bahman b. Esfandiār.

d. A temple in “the land of al-Šiz wa’l-Rān.” According to one report it was originally built for idols but appropriated by Anušervān. Another report claims that Anušervān found fire already there.

e. K*ws*ja or K*visah, built by Kay Ḵosrow.

f. J*riš, in Qumes, left unmolested by Alexander.

g. Kanjara, built by Siāvaḵš.

h. A temple in Arrajān built by Bostāsf or Qobāḏ.

i. The Palace of Candles in Fostat (Meṣr al-qadima), built by Lohrāsf, now a mosque.

j. A temple in Fars, built by Lohrāsf (Moruj II, secs. 1400-401).

3. Zoroastrian fire temples. There are fire temples in Iraq, Fars, Kerman, Sejestān, Khorasan, Ṭabarestān, Jebāl, Azarbaijan, Rān, Sind, India, and China. The most famous are:

a. A temple in Nisābur founded by Zoroaster.

b. A temple in Nasā wa’l-Bayżāʾ, also founded by Zoroaster.

c. A temple in Dārābjerd, in Fars, containing a particularly precious flame brought from Ḵ^vārazm (Chorasmia) by Yustasf at the behest of Zoroaster. In Masʿudi’s time the sanctuary was called Āḏorjuy “River Fire.”  It is apparently the same as the temple in Kāriān reportedly founded by Anušervān. When Islam appeared, the Zoroastrians, fearing that the invaders would extinguish the flame, used it to kindle a new one in Nasā wa’l-Bayżāʾ (see VI.C.3.b. above).

d. A temple one parsang from Eṣṭaḵr. Originally a sanctuary for idols, it was dedicated as a fire temple by Ḥomāy, who later removed the fire and let the building fall into ruin. Masʿudi visited the site, seeing there “a great structure, with stone columns topped with unusual stone figures of horses and other animals, of enormous proportions; surrounded by a vast enclosure and a protective wall of stone, on which were skillful depictions of figures.”  The site, which is evidently Persepolis, was called the mosque of Solomon, who is said to have imprisoned the wind there.

e. A temple in Madinat Sābur (Bišāpur), in Fars, built by Dārā b. Dārā.

f. A temple one hour outside Jur (present-dy Firuzābād), a town in Fars famous for its rose water. It was built by Ardašir over a spring. It is a place for excursions and has a festival. The town of itself contains Ṭerbāl, a great building venerated by the Persians but razed by the Muslims. There are many tales about the region, which includes Shiraz, the capital of Fars; these tales have been written down by the Persians (qad dawwanathā al-Fors; Moruj II, secs. 1402-404).

g. Bārnavā, built by Ardašir two days after his accession.

h. A temple built on the Sea of Marmara by the Byzantines at the request of Sābur I.

i. A temple in Astiniyā, near Baghdad, built by Burān, the daughter of Abarviz (Moruj II, secs. 1402-406, 1412).

D. Reliefs and paintings. Masʿudi was impressed by the reliefs at Persepolis (Moruj II, sec. 1403; see VI. B.3.d., above), and by the representations of the heavens, the earth, plants, animals, and the like left by the Ašḡāniyun (Parthians) in their summer residences in Azarbaijan (Tanbih, p. 95; see II.B. above).

In Eṣṭaḵr, he was shown a book (see I.B.5. above) containing the history of the Sasanian dynasty containing vividly colored portraits of the dynasty’s twenty-five emperors and two empresses. Each had been painted on the day the sovereign died and stored in the treasury “so the living would not forget the image of the dead.”  Ardaṣir I was depicted “standing with a spear in his hand, dressed in a red tabby (modannar) mantle, sky-blue trousers, and a green and gold crown.”  Yazdajerd III was depicted “in a figured green mantle, figured sky-blue trousers, and a crimson crown, holding a lance and leaning on a sword.”  The colors used in the paintings included solutions of gold, silver, and copper, all of a kind no longer extant in Masʿudi’s time. The sheets were of a violet (ferfiri) hue, and so expertly crafted that he could not tell if they were paper or parchment (Tanbih, pp. 106-7).

E. Literature. Masʿudi mentions tales about the Isfahan region put into writing by the Persians (Moruj II, secs. 1402-404) and Persian poems about Zaranrud (Zāyandarud), the river of Isfahan (Tanbih, p. 74). He also provides evidence for the written and oral transmission of Persian historical narratives in Arabic. He reports that the caliph al-Hešām (r. 105-25/724-43) had a work of Sasanian history translated for him into Arabic (Tanbih, pp. 106-7; see also above, I.B.5. and below, VI.D.). The caliph al-Marwān II (r. 127-32/744-50) was an avid reader of royal biographies from the Persian and other traditions (Moruj IV, sec. 2288). The boon companion Abu Bakr Hoḏali described Anušervān’s campaigns in the east for the caliph al-Saffāḥ (Moruj IV, sec. 2335).

In addition to religious and historical works (see I.A., B., and C. above), Masʿudi knew of tales and fables translated from Persian and other languages. In a discussion of the history of Damascus, he compares the legends invented by storytellers to “the stories transmitted to us, or translated, from Persian, Sanskrit, and Byzantine Greek.” These include Hazār afsāna, which means “A thousand tales” (alf ḵorāfa), also known as “A thousand and one nights” (Alf layla wa layla) which is the story of “the king, the vizier, his daughter, and her maidservant, these last being Širāzād and Dināzād.”  There are also Ketāb Farza wa Simās (The Book of Farza and Simas), which contains tales about the kings and viziers of India; Ketāb al-Sendbād; and “other books of this kind” (Moruj II, secs. 1415-16).

F. Music. In a discussion of music held at the behest of the caliph al-Moʿtamed (r. 256-79/870-92), Ebn Khorradāḏbeh declared that the Persians were the first to pair the nāy (a rim-blown flute or a double-reed woodwind) with the lute (ʿud); the zonāmi (a reed-pipe of uncertain type) with the pandore (ṭonbur); the shawm (sornāi) with the drum (ṭabl); and the mostaj (the Chinese sheng, a mouth-blown free reed instrument) with the harp (ṣanj). The people of Fars accompanied song (ḡenāʾ) with lutes (ʿidān) and harps (or cymbals, ṣonuj), which they invented (wa hia lahom). The people of Ray, Ṭabarestān, and Daylam also favored the pandore, while the people of Khorasan and the surrounding regions sang to the accompaniment of the wanaj or zanaj, a seven-stringed lyre. Iranian kings (moluk al-aʿājem) insisted on being sung to sleep (3213-5; 130 = Moruj V, secs. 3213-15, 3222).

Persian music has distinctive nagham (melodies?), iqā‘āt (rhythms), maqaṭeʿ (sections?), and ṭoruq moloukiya (royal modes?). Masʿudi’s report, which has clearly been garbled in transmission, here diverges from the account that Ebn Khorradāḏbeh himself gives in al-Lahw wa al-malāhi, where eight modes are listed; Masʿudi’s report says there are seven modes but lists only six. Morever, the names of the modes do not coincide. Those given by Masʿudi alone are s*kāf; ’*m*r*s*h; dārus*nān; sāy*kād, sāy*kāh, or sāb*kād; šis*m; and jub*ʿ*rān, ḥub*rān, or juyʿrān (Moruj V, sec. 3214). A more complete recension of Ebn Khorradāḏbeh’s brief comments on each mode except for the first may be found in the published edition of his al-Lahw wa al-malāhi (Ebn Khorradāḏbeh, pp. 15-19). His further remarks on musicianship, audition, rhythm, melody, and related technical matters (Moruj V, secs. 3223-26) mention a style called māḵuri, the ‘bordello’ style, associated with Ebrāhim b. Maymun Mawṣeli, identified as a Persian (men abnāʾ Fāres).

G. Food and drink. A well-known wit named Šorāʿa b. Zandabuḏ advised the caliph al-Walid II (r. 125-26/743-44) to drink wine made of grapes rather than dates or raisins. On one occasion, al-Walid II exclaimed la-aṣṭabeḥanna haft hafta, a mix of Arabic and Persian meaning ‘I will drink every morning for seven weeks’ (Moruj IV, secs. 2240, 2247).

A courtier advised the caliph al-Wāṯeq (r. 227-32/842-47) to eat ḵošknānj mosayyar, perhaps a snack prepared from dry bread, as an accompaniment to wine (Moruj IV, sec.2854).

The caliph al-Mostakfi (r. 333-34/944-46) once asked his companions to recite poems describing various dishes. Among the items described are several with Persian names or otherwise associated with Iran. These include:

1. bāḏenjān Burān: “Buran’s eggplant,” a dish named after the wife of the caliph al-Maʾmun (Firuzābādi, s.v. bur).

2. dastija: unknown; described only as being cooked.

3. harisa, which according to the anonymous poet was a Sasanian invention and a particular favorite of Anušervān. It contains poultry, lamb, sheep’s tail, white wheat [?], bitter vetch, almonds, and galingale.

4. jardaqa: a loaf of bread; used in the preparation of wasaṭ or wasṭ (see below).

5. juḏābā:  a dish of rice, saffron, sugar, and meat or fat. Poets describe it as yellow, reddish, or orange in color, and as jiggling or forming circles when blown on (because it is gelatinous). A version made with chicken is used in wasaṭ or wasṭ (see below).

6. lowzinaj or lowzinaja (also described in verse in Moruj V, sec. 3389):  a sweet containing almonds, sugar, and syrup.

7. marzanjuš: marjoram, used as the basis of a condiment (kāmeḵ).

8. saljam: turnips, eaten pickled.

9. sanbusaj, for which Esḥāq b. Ebrāhim Mawṣeli gives a recipe in verse. A mixture of meat, onions, cabbage, rue, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, ginger, pepper, cumin, salt, and morri (a fermented condiment) is pounded together, boiled until dry, wrapped in a thin flat loaf, fried, and served with spicy mustard.

10. sakārej:  plates, in this case for serving condiments (kawāmeḵ).

11. ṭayhuj:  see-see (a bird of the pheasant family), eaten fried or stewed.

12. wasaṭ or wasṭ, for which Ebn al-Rumi (d. 283/896?) gives a hard-to-follow recipe in verse, involving two loaves (jardaqa) of semolina bread, portions of two chicken juḏābas (see above), almonds, walnuts, cheese, olives, mint, tarragon, boiled eggs, and salt (Moruj V, secs. 3553-66).

H. Games. Ardašir was reportedly the first to play backgammon (nard). He set the number of points (boyut) at twelve, corresponding to the months, and the number of checkers (kelāb) at 30, corresponding to the days in each month. The dice symbolize the arbitrary character of prosperity and the abrupt reversal of fortune. Masʿudi notes that although different styles of play have developed, the number of points has remained constant. He adds that although the action of the dice is arbitrary, there is nevertheless room for skill and strategy. He cites three Arabic poems about backgammon and cites a claim that chess must have been invented by a believer in free will and backgammon by a determinist (Moruj I, sec. 161, V, secs. 3477-81).

VII.  THE PSEUDO-AḴBĀR AL-ZAMĀN

Masʿudi’s major work on history was called Aḵbār al-zamān. A work under this title has been published, but it is far too abbreviated and far too divergent in style from the Moruj and the Tanbih to be considered authentic. Its author may nevertheless have had access to now-lost works by Masʿudi. The brief section on the Persians repeats the usual claims about their origin and mentions the major dynasties and kings. It makes a now-garbled reference to “the kings of Khorasan, such as the Sogdians, and others defeated by the Ašrusaniya and the B*rjān [?], namely the people of Daylam, Jabāl, L*d, the Kurds, the Š*mās, and Transoxania,” saying that most of these peoples were ruled by patricii (baṭāreqa), that they worshipped fire, and that they became Magians (majus). The Magian religion began when a demon appeared to Ardašir and promised to teach him useful knowledge if he would marry his own mother, which he did. Persians also allow sibling marriage, which dates back to Adam. In fire temples, kings would scatter sulphur and orpiment (zarniḵ) to cause spontaneous combustion. Worshippers would sit on a chair while holding a pestle (dastaj) and a stone mortar (hāwan) filled with water; they would churn the water violently, “as if punishing it,” to show their fealty to the fire. Despite making these odd claims, the complier of the pseudo-Aḵbār al-zamān declares that people everywhere concede the superiority of the Persians in “statecraft, hegemony, the arts of war, fine cuisine (or subtle colors, daqiq al-alwān; see VI.D. above) and the composition of dishes, medicine, clothing, public works, savoir-vivre (ważʿ al-ašyāʾ mawāżahā), chanting (tartil), oratory (ḵeṭābh, intelligence, perfect cleanliness and appearance, and royal gravitas, in all of which the precedence is theirs” (pseudo-Aḵbār al-zamān, pp. 100-102).