Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

CHAPTER I: PERSIA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

The age of Avicenna differed from that of Kindi and Farabi. When the Umayyad Caliphate was succeeded by the Abbasid, this meant a continuation of Arab rule; and when literature and learning deserted Damascus to flourish as never before in Baghdad, they were developed in the language of the conquerors and of the new Faith. But tenth-century Persia was to witness a change in the political scene and the re-emergence of prose and poetry in its own tongue. Kindi and Farabi were the products of the golden era of Arabic; and Avicenna belonged, in time if not in sentiment, to an historical period and a national phenomenon known as the Persian Renaissance. Nevertheless the fundamental problems of Islamic philosophy persisted - the needs and purposes having remained the same.

Decline had set in over the Abbasid caliphate; and the weakening of central control was encouraging the rise of local dynasties in regions that had indeed never been very submissive. The Persians, who had suffered a stunning defeat at the hand of the Arab conquerors, were gradually recovering and the time seemed auspicious. The awakening of the new spirit was not at first widespread and sustained; and the original impulse may have come from the personal ambition of local commanders who found it expedient to exploit the sense of frustration of a people who, though devoutly Muslims, had never forgotten their ancient heroic history.

The first to establish their authority, preserving only a nominal allegiance to the Caliph, were the Tahirids in Khurasan who reigned some sixty-five years, from 809 to 873 (194-259 AH). They were of Arab extraction, but in time had become thoroughly Persianized. It is a matter of common observation that settlers in a country, often after comparatively brief residence, outdo those native to the soil in patriotic feeling. From their capital at Nishapur, and with two other provinces annexed, their rule extended eastward as far as the frontiers of India.

During this period there was a revolt against the Caliph in Tabaristan. This region which, as the name implies, is the Mountain Land along the south coast of the Caspian, was under Zoroastrian ispahbuds long after the conquest of Persia and the extinction of the Sasanians. The last Persian rulers there were the Qarinids who claimed descent from the national hero, the Blacksmith. The first Qarinid had successfully raised a combined army of local chiefs against the army of the Caliphs, and had then been defeated and carried to Baghdad; but on his return he had resumed his independent attitude. Now his grandson, Mazyar, was raising the standard of revolt both against the Caliph and against his personal enemies, the Tahirids. Attacked from two directions, and betrayed by his supporters, he was captured, carried to Baghdad, and died in Samarra in 839 (224 AH).

It was left to a humble coppersmith, to revive the true spirit of independence among the Persians. Yaqub the son of Laith, known to his people as al-Saffar (the Coppersmith), a man of unknown antecedents, founded a dynasty which, though short-lived, extended its rule over the greater part of Persia and almost as far as Baghdad. From Sistan, his place of origin, Yaqub marched triumphantly from one province to another, and in the year 873 took captive the last of the Tahirids, thereby becoming master of a vast realm. His conquests gave him confidence, and he began openly to defy the Caliph. At the head of an army he marched towards Baghdad with the intention of deposing him and installing another Caliph in his place. But his camp was flooded with the waters of the Tigris; a considerable part of his army perished helplessly; and he had to retreat to Gundishapur, where he died, unrepentant, in 879. When his brother and successor was finally defeated by the Samanids in 900, the dynasty practically ceased to exist. It had nevertheless succeeded in reviving the national feeling that had languished for so long; and had helped to detach permanently the history of Persia from that of the Abbasids of Baghdad.

The Persian Renaissance, however, was more closely connected with the court of the Samanids, who rose rapidly to power in Transoxiana, and made Bukhara their capital. The dynasty was founded .by a certain Saman Kudat, a Persian Zoroastrian converted to Islam by the Arab governor. It was soon able to defeat the Saffarids and to extend the frontiers of its rule from the Jaxartes almost to Baghdad, and from the Caspian to the borders of India. This dynasty reigned for a period of over a hundred years, and its members were distinguished by a liberality that made them famous throughout Central Asia. The name of the father of the dynasty is usually interpreted as” lord of the village of Saman”, but samanalso means frontier; and so their ancestor may well have been the warden of that frontier region between Persia and Chinese Turkistan which produced some of the most celebrated poets, theologians and philosophers, including Avicenna himself. This explains why some have called them the Wardens of the Marches.

Late in the tenth century, which is the period in which Avicenna was born, there were besides the Samanid rulers three other local dynasties in and on the eastern borders of Persia proper which were to determine many of the events of his life. In the region around the Caspian, including the rather restless Tabaristan, which had been one of the last strongholds of Persian nationalism and culture, the Ziyarids had seized power in 928 and established a local dynasty that endured for more than a century. Some of them were men of accomplishment and literary taste who played a notable part in the promotion of learning. To their west were the Buyids who were also of Persian stock and claimed descent from a renowned family; and who also reigned for over a hundred years. These grew far more powerful, conquered and controlled the whole of western Persia, and eventually took Baghdad itself in 945. The dynasty reached the height of its power under Ala el-Dowleh, the great patron of scholars and poets who helped the progress of the Persian Renaissance, though along somewhat different lines from the Samanids at whose court creative literature and poetry were most highly appreciated. Under 'Ala 'el-Dowleh theology and jurisprudence were more in favor.

The Ghaznavid dynasty which appeared on the eastern borders of Persia and eventually succeeded in pushing back the Buyids, absorbing the Ziyarids and overthrowing the Samanids, was of very humble origin. It was founded by one of the Turkish slaves of the Samanids who had fled from Khurasan to Ghazna and established himself there in defiance of his old masters. On his death another Turkish slave who had married his daughter was elected Emir. And it was Mahmud, the son of this second slave, who conquered practically the whole of Persia, and some parts of India, and proclaimed himself Sultan. The rise of this dynasty of Turkish origin may be seen as part of the struggle that lasted many years between the Iranian and Turkish races for the mastery of that important border-land already referred to. Yet Sultan Mahmud, either out of vanity or from genuine appreciation of the arts, rendered a great service to Persian literature by gathering around him at his court most of the famous poets and scholars of the time, and generously spending some four hundred thousand dinars every year upon them. To this noble gesture he sometimes added force, and a modern author has called him, not without justification, “the kidnapper of literary men”. His powerful dynasty reigned ruthlessly for about a hundred and fifty years until, as with all the others, rapid decay set in. One of the important effects of this dynasty upon literature was that it carried the use of the Persian language far towards the East, and was for many years its sole patron.

Baghdad continued to be the centre of Islamic culture in the tenth century, but the enthusiasm for the new learning - tor such indeed was Greek science and philosophy - was waning. The period of the translators had come to an end long before; and the general attitude of mind had become more sober and reserved, with even a tendency to be critical of all that was of foreign origin. There developed a violent reaction towards orthodoxy, and the Mutazelites were persecuted at the urgent instigation of the Caliphs. In Baghdad intellectual activity seems eventually to have come to a complete standstill; and what remained was shifting eastward, particularly in the direction of Persia and Transoxiana.

There is no reason to believe that force had been employed in the conversion of the Persians to Islam, and they had always maintained some freedom of thought. It was for that reason that there had been numerous semi-social, semi-religious movements during the first three centuries after the conquest by the Arabs of that country - a sign of continuous unrest. As to literature, the Persians were using the Arabic language for all forms of literary composition - perhaps to the total exclusion of Persian. There were some Pahlawi writings that continued down to the ninth century, but in the form of religious tractates, only for the use of those who had remained in the Zoroastrian fold.

The history of the Persian language and the different stages through which it has passed has yet to be written. It is not clear how and when it accepted defeat and left the literary field almost entirely to Arabic. And the accounts of its revival in its post-Islamic form are fragmentary and obscure. When the two languages came face to face after the Arab conquest of the country, Persian had an extensive literature not only in prose but, as has been lately shown, in poetry also. Arabic, on the other hand, in spite of the fact that its valuable pre-Islamic poetry was not extensive, and not all the poems that have survived from that period are authentic, and although there are hardly any traces of the early prose in whose existence some scholars believe, was the language of the conquerors and eventually became that of the administration throughout the Islamic Empire. It reflected the remarkable élan which was the distinguishing mark of the early Arabs, and which the Persians had long since lost. And above all it was the language of the new Faith and compulsory for all forms of prayer. It was enshrined in the Qu’ran the like of which - even considered in its purely literary aspect Zoroastrian religious literature did not possess. Admittedly there was some Christian Arabic poetry of a high order, particularly at the court of the Umayyads in Damascus; but in style it did not differ from the Islamic and reflected the same spirit. Persian as a medium of literary expression was therefore easily suppressed. It persisted only in the seclusion of the countryside and the intimacy of the home. Consequently all the literature produced by the Persians, the value and influence of which can hardly be exaggerated, was almost entirely in Arabic - a situation analogous to the use of Latin in mediaeval Europe. And just as the Reformation and the rise of European nationalism brought about the gradual disuse of Latin and the rapid development of the vernaculars, so now changes in the political situation were creating a suitable atmosphere for the revival of Persian. Although the literati must have been writing in Arabic for generations, their aims and sentiments were undergoing a change, and they were inclined to make more use of their mother-tongue. But when the Persian language finally emerged from this long period of virtual suppression - some early historians have insisted that this was done by force - some 80 per cent of its vocabulary remained Arabic, and a whole series of compound words were formed one part of which was Arabic and the other Persian. It is a distinctive feature of this literature that the proportion of Arabic words seems to increse or decrease according to the taste of the patron and the political situation in the country; and also according to the subject-matter. There was always a greater use of Arabic words in prose than in poetry, and in theological and philosophical works than in pure belles-lettres.

The few available source-books dealing with this period have not much to say on the subject of language. The revival of Persian seems to have begun in Khurasan, the province most distant from Baghdad. From the middle of the ninth century onwards, it gathers strength in proportion to the degree of Persian emancipation and self-assertion. And it is finally assured of success by the triumph of Firdowsi, who gives the movement its seal and-justification.

The Tahirids, we are told, “had no faith in Persian and the dialect of dari” which was to become the cultivated language of the country and which corresponds in name to “King's English”. But this is not strange when it is remembered that they were of Arab extraction and their patriotism was confined to political supremacy. The Saffarids, on the other hand, being of Persian origin were more attached to the language of their forefathers. And under them there was a poet who like gentle rain cleansed the Persian tongue of chaff and corruption. Evidently in the early stages of its emergence, the vernacular that had suffered such long and rigid suppression was not in a very happy state.

The cradle of this vigorous national rebirth was in fact the court of the Samanids; and its rapid growth owes much to their tender care and encouragement. It should not be supposed that under this dynasty, which maintained correct relations with the Caliphs of Baghdad, all prose and poetry was written in Persian. Corresponding to a similar development in western Europe, there is a distinct period of bilingualism in the history of the Persian people and their literature. Political, religious and social considerations induced them to continue writing for long in both Arabic and their mother-tongue. But under the Samanids the movement gained consciousness and determination, enlisting the support of men of learning. Later under the capricious eye of Sultan Mahmud the Chaznavid, it reached its full maturity. The Ziyarids of Tabaristan also took an active part in this literary revival. They extended a happy welcome within the limits of their restricted domain to scholars and poets, who in those days were often itinerants in search of fortune and fame. One of the rulers has himself left a good specimen of early Persian prose; and some of them wrote prose and poetry in Arabic, illustrating thereby the bilingual stage.

Under the Buyids, though they were themselves of Persian stock, practically all that was written was in Arabic. The reason for that was their close proximity to Baghdad which, as we have said, continued to maintain its position as the directing centre of Islamic culture. And an additional reason was that the subjects that occupied them most were theology, jurisprudence and philosophy, which could be more easily treated in Arabic, and were addressed to a class usually well-versed in it. The anthologies covering the period show the extent to which Arabic continued to be used throughout Persia. They also illustrate the change in theme and in sentiment, and the decline in merit from those Baghdad poets who, though of Persian extraction, delighted the most fastidious of Arab critics, and who were wholly devoted to that inter-racial Islamic culture which the early Abbasid Caliphate promised and only partially fulfilled.

For those who had put their faith in the rebirth of a distinctive Persian literature, one important development was a growing interest in the pre-Islamic history of the country; and in the ancient traditions and festivals of the Iranian people. Such chronicles as had become by then rare, began to be translated into the gradually emerging new idiom, rather than into Arabic as had been the case in Abbasid days. And when they were put into verse, they took the form of epic poetry which incorporated oral tradition and folklore into what survived of the semi-legendary semi-historical accounts. Among the first authors in this genre was Daqiqi (d. 975), who may have been a Zoroastrian by faith, and who was eventually murdered by his Turkish slave. At the request of one of the Samanid kings, he composed at least one thousand verses dealing with King Gushtasp and the advent of Zoroaster. But the man to produce what by common consent is one of the great epics of world-literature, was Firdowsi (d. 1020). A country squire born near Tus - the modern Mashhad - living on the rent of his land with a daughter as sole companion, he labored for some twenty-five or perhaps thirty-five years to write the Book of Kings (Shah-Nameh), his only authentic work. Sure of riches and renown, he sought the court of Sultan Mahmud the Ghaznavid; but he fell victim to the intrigues of the courtiers and was denied the reward that he felt was his due. Thereupon he ridiculed the king and his slave-ancestry in a merciless satire, and died a fugitive from that enraged monarch.

The Shah-Nameh is a part-historical part-legendary story of the kings of Persia from the beginning of time to the Arab conquest. Reflecting a Sasanian civilization with a feudal form of society that was rapidly disappearing, the work as a whole merits comparison with the best European epics, in particular with the Iliad and the Odyssey. It might be thought that judged by the standards of Aristotle’s Poetics it fails because it is episodic; but that is not a universal principle. Firdowsi, like Homer, may occasionally nod, but he too has his purple patches. In that literary movement of which he was the culmination in the field of poetry, his contribution was twofold. By reviving the lays of ancient Iran, based on prose works in the old Pahlawi tongue, he succeeded as none other had done in reanimating the national of a people already some three hundred under foreign domination. And by making a deliberate attempt to use as few Arabic words as possible, he gave new life and vigour to a language that had been declining with alarming rapidity. More than any other single work, the Shah-Nameh made Firdowsi’s country men conscious of their destiny; and fortified their resolve at a critical time in their history. The sad reflections in which the work abounds, expressed with a felicity rare in those days, were a reminder of the hard times they had all passed through.

More important for the purposes of the present inquiry was Firdowsi’s incomparable service to the Persian language in its post-Islamic form. Like Daqiqi, whose one thousand verses he had incorporated in his Shah-Nameh, he chose for his epic a strictly Persian metre, the mutuqarib; and he reduced the use of Arabic words to the barest minimum. In a modern study, there is a highly instructive analysis of the Arabic terms occurring in theShah-Nameh, based on the exhaustive glossary of Wolff. It shows that in some fitty thousand lines of poetry, the poet has been able to use no more than 984 Arabic expressions. When one realizes the extent to which Arabic had penetrated Persian, this remarkable achievement can be better appreciated. Its social and cultural consequences were of great importance and proved far-reaching. It constitutes the first major breach in the linguistic unity of the Islamic Empire from south of the Pyrenees to Transoxiana; and from the Caspian to the basin of the Indus river. In the accomplishment of this task Firdowsi was indeed not alone; but the Shah-Nameh is a monumental work that in subject-matter and artistic merit stands far above the rest.

This Persian revival corresponds to the supersession of Latin, the language of the Church until the Renaissance, by the tide of national literature in the vernaculars which gradually over whelmed it. In Italy as early as the year 1434, Alberti writes, “I confess that the ancient Latin language is very copious and highly adorned; but I do not see why our Tuscan of today should be held in so little esteem that whatever is written in it, however excellent, should be displeasing to us”. These words and this sentiment could be the expression of the feelings of Firdowsi and his associates with regard to Arabic and Persian. In France in 1549 Du Bellay wrote his Defence et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse. And in England a Headmaster of the Merchant Taylors’ School says: 'for is it not indede a mervellous bondage, to become servants to one tung for learning sake.... I love Rome but London better I honor the Latin, but worship the English”. In this same spirit Firdowsi deliberately tried to replace Arabic terms by others of Persian root.

The unexpected feature of this rebirth of letters was its wide influence. Although soon after the period under review the whole land was overrun, first by hordes of Turkish origin and then by Mongols, with a devastation rarely equaled in the annals of history, the Persian tongue became the official language at the court of the new conquerors; and also that of diplomacy and belles-lettres far beyond the borders of the country proper. This has caused a modern scholar to remark, “cela symbolise le fait que le rôle proprement dit de l’Iran s'exerça moins sur le plan politique et militaire que sur celui de la culture et de l’esprit”.Firdowsi himself was not unaware of the significance and the far-reaching results of his contributions, and we find him saying:

“Henceforth I shall not die, alive I shall remain,

For I was he who spread the seeds of speech again”

It will later be seen how Avicenna after him also made a special effort, with notable results, to contribute to this linguistic revival, though not indeed to the same extent.

Daqiqi and Firdowsi had an illustrious predecessor in the person of Rudaki (d. 940), reckoned the first really great poet of post-Islamic Persia; and sometimes called the Chaucer of Iran. Among the creative artists who founded the renaissance in Europe, the poets were the chief among those who initiated and fostered the new spirit of awakening after years of torpor. And in Persia this mission was ably fulfilled by Rudaki, the most celebrated poet of the Samanid period. Little of his poetry has survived; but the few remaining fragments are sufficient to show the simplicity of his style and the limpid purity of his language.

In the field of science and scholarship, Beruni (d. 1048) occupies the foremost position. Traveler, historiographer, mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and teacher of Greek learning, he is considered one of the greatest scientists “of all time”. Born of Persian stock in Khiva, then called Khawarizm, which is the Chorasmia of antiquity, he joined the council of state of the local prince. And when Sultan Mahmud conquered the principality, or perhaps even before, he was induced to go to Ghazna, the capital of the now powerful monarch. Shortly afterwards he left for India, just opened to the Muslim world, where he transmitted to Indian scholars Greek thought in its Islamic form. He also wrote an admirable work on the religion and philosophy of India. On his return he dedicated to the reigning king, Sultan Masud, his Canon Masudicus on astronomy, which is his greatest work. In astronomy he seems by his Canon Masudicus to represent the height, and at the same time, the end of the independent development of this science among the Arabs.

Beruni, a contemporary of Avicenna who entered into correspondence with him and was closely connected with his associates and fellow-philosophers, like most other men of learning, had no very easy life. According to an anecdote, Sultan Mahmud twice commanded him to prophesy; and because in both cases his predictions turned out correct, he was cast into prison. The incensed Sultan explained that kings are like little children in order to receive rewards from them, one should speak in accordance with their opinion. It would have been far better for him on that day if one of those two predictions had been wrong.

Beruni was a man of scholarly spirit and outlook, refusing to accept any belief blindly or on the strength of tradition; always trying to reason, to understand, and above all to criticize. He reproaches the early invaders for having destroyed the civilization of Iran, and his accounts of Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism are such as to win him the gratitude and admiration of modern students of these faiths. Using the comparative method so rare in his time, he delights in comparing the different religious beliefs; and he regrets that the conquerors killed off the priests of his own dear Khawarizm and its learned men and burned their books. It is rare before modern times to find so fair and unprejudiced a statement of the views of other religions, so earnest an attempt to study them in the best sources, and such care to find a method which for this branch of study would be both rigorous and just.

The intellectual background of Beruni, who in the words of an early author, had “no equal except in Avicenna” and of whom some twenty-seven works have survived, reflects the state of knowledge and the various intellectual trends towards the end of the tenth century in Persia and Transoxiana. Basically Islamic, it was deeply colored by Greek learning in its Arabic form. The violent orthodox reaction that had set in in Baghdad, had driven away, mainly towards the east, the Mutazila and the adherents of the different heterodoxies. Included among them were Christian physicians versed in Syriac and trained in Greek philosophy. The period of the translators was past, and no new translations directly from the Greek are heard of till modern times - indeed the knowledge of that language must have become extremely rare. Yet both Beruni and, to a less extent, Avicenna, betray some familiarity with it, possibly acquired through association with certain Christian physicians who kept their company and shared their fate, and because of their Syriac antecedents and their training in Baghdad, it may be presumed that they already knew at least some Greek. Some have claimed that Beruni could read Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac and Hebrew. All that he himself tells us is that he used to go to a Greek to learn the names of the plants, and that he had in his possession a philosophical lexicon giving the names in Greek, Syriac, Arabic and Persian.

Greek learning in its Arabic version constituted one of the mainsprings of Beruni’s thought. In his writings he quotes frequently from Plato’s Phaedo, Timaeus and Laws; from Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus; from Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics; from Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, Ammonius, Galen, Hippocrates, Aratos, Eudoxos and even Homer. But, as has been shown, there is no question of his having read these in the original, or translated any of them into Arabic. On the question of languages suitable for translation, he is characteristically objective. His mother-tongue had been Chorasmian, an Iranian dialect, with a strong Turkish admixture, specimens of which have lately been found. He ridicules the possibility of discussing the sciences in that dialect; and as between Persian and Arabic, in both of which he admits to being an intruder, he gives his unqualified support to Arabic, adding that the books were in Greek and Syriac, no one having access to them except the Christians, and they were then translated into Arabic so that the Muslims could benefit from them. While admitting that his patron Sultan Mahmud hated Arabic, he himself was not prejudiced. But he wrote books in Persian also, and Avicenna was to follow the same practice. He had the initiative to study Sanskrit, and translate Indian books into Arabic and some works, such as those of Euclid and Ptolemy, from Arabic into Sanskrit. Of the two outstanding intellectual figures at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century, Beruni chose science and scholarship and Avicenna medicine and philosophy. They shared an almost total lack of racial prejudice, a broad humanity, a fearless devotion to truth, an insatiable intellectual curiosity, as well as a physical restlessness that kept them continuously on the move.

Another contemporary of whom, we are told, Avicenna was rather scornful and with whom he had some sharp exchanges, was Miskawaih (d. 1030). He was of Persian stock, and his grand father, or possibly his father, was a Zoroastrian. Miskawaih was, like the others, bilingual, and he left books in both languages. In his youth in Baghdad he attended the lectures of Sajistani and befriended Tawhidi, who is the only person to tell us much about him. Mean, worldly, and not particularly intelligent, he spent most of his life at the court of the Buyids in western Persia; and so Tawhidi insists, was incapable of understanding philosophy. His historical works are voluminous, but he is known chiefly for his ethics based on Aristotle and certain Persian traditions. Inhi Eternal Wisdom he gives an expose of the concept of wisdom severally according to the Persians, the Arabs, the Greeks and the Indians. In his book on ethics, in which he quotes Aristotle, Galen and the Stoics, he discusses happiness, justice, virtue and sophrosyné, as well as the problem of the Good. It is however in his exchange of ideas with Tawhidi, as recorded by the latter, that the personality of both is best revealed. Tawhidi with all his accomplishments and wide interests finds himself neglected and almost destitute; and Miskawaih, far less gifted, but in a secure and lucrative post, is able to talk patronizingly to him, chide him for self-pity and recommend forgiveness as a cure. Tawhidi asks why those who preach contentment are so greedy themselves; why jealousy is far worse among the learned than among simple people; why the ignorant pretend to greater knowledge; and why slim men and women are usually more virtuous than the fat. The whole volume is enchanting, reminiscent of the essays of Montaigne.

Many were the Greeks who combined medicine with philosophy; and the tradition persisted among the Islamic peoples. It is known that Razi made notable contributions to medical literature; and there were others in Persia from some of whom important medical works have survived. There were also compilations on pharmaceutical preparations. The languages employed in these manuals was usually Arabic, but when for some particular reason Persian was preferred, the difficulties involved did not prove insurmountable. In fact Persian names of drugs and diseases had entered Arabic from very early days, partly because many of the physicians practising were of Persian and Syriac origin - and the Syriacs of Baghdad were very much Persianized through their religious centres in that country. The Persian names may also be explained by the influence of the medico-philosophical school of Gundishapur, whence some celebrated teachers were deliberately transferred to the new capital of Baghdad by the Caliphs. There were many drugs and diseases that retained their Geek names, so that medical terminology really consisted of Arabic with a large admixture of Greek, Syriac and Persian.

These physician-philosophers, for whom medicine was a profession and philosophy an intellectual pastime, were numerous and scattered all over the Islamic world, a number of them in Persia and Transoxiana. Usually trained in Baghdad, they were held everywhere in high esteem, and treated with great respect by rulers and kings even when of foreign extraction or of a different faith. Ibn al-Khammar (the son of Khammar), so called either because he was the son of a wine-merchant, or after the name of the suburb in which he lived and practised, was a Christian educated in Baghdad. He visited the court of the prince of Khawarizm, and stayed there until he was carried off together with Beruni to adorn the entourage of Sultan Mahmud in Ghazna. There he gained his living by his profession, and taught philosophy to a small circle, and as the author of many medical works became known as the second Hippocrates. He lived to a good old age; and became a Muslim towards the end of his life. Avicenna had a high opinion of him, and in one place says, “may God grant us to meet him, either to benefit from him or to benefit him”. Another physician-philosopher was Abu Sahl al-Masihi (the Christian), born in Gurgan, and brought up and educated in Baghdad. He returned to his native country and was welcomed by the prince of Khawarizm who was then at the height of his power. In addition to carrying on his medical practice he wrote books, twelve of which are mentioned by Berumi. Among them was a compendium called The Hundred which became a manual of medicine used all over Persia. He soon became very intimate with Avicenna, and may possibly have been his teacher in some of the subjects that were of interest to both. When Sultan Mahmud ordered the prince of Khawarizm to send him the celebrities who had gathered at his court, Masihi joined Avicenna in his night, and, as will be told later, died in a sandstorm.

Some mention may also be made here of a much younger contemporary who in his way was quite a remarkable figure. Nasir Khosrow (d. 1061) was born in Balkh, and was thus a countryman of Avicenna, if not from exactly the same district. A gifted poet, his extensive travels took him as far as Egypt where he was converted to the Ismaili heterodoxy. He returned to his native land as a propagandist wrote a delightful book of travel, and shares with Avicenna the credit of being one of the creators of Persian philosophical prose. His terminology is even more rich than that of his predecessor; and he coined certain terms from pure Persian roots that can be profitably used today. (The time has now come when the Persians must develop a philosophical language of their own. In that necessary task they will find him very helpful.)

No account of this creative period is complete without a reference to the chief ministers at the court of the various rulers who competed with one another in literary accomplishment, and in their patronage of men of letters. Of these Ibn Abbad was a distinguished poet, philologist and wit at the court 01 the Buyids in western Persia. He was such a lover of books that when the Samanid king invited him to become his vizier, one of his excuses for declining was that four hundred camels would be required to transport his library alone. Ibn al-Amid too was a writer of note and a stylist imitated by many authors. We are indebted to him for his wise measure of having the works of Razi collected and copied by his pupils, though much from the collection has since perished, for reasons that are not hard to guess. Balami, the minister of the Samanids, rendered an invaluable service to the emerging language by translating the voluminous history of Tabari, specimens of which are still extant.

Thus the Persian renaissance had its roots in both Islamic culture and the ancient civilization of Iran; and its issue was a combination of both. Its hybrid nature is especially marked in its literature and philosophy, and with a conspicuous constancy has persisted down to modern times. Sometimes one, sometimes the other element predominates, depending on the circumstances, but both are always present. This has often caused a dichotomy in ideas that can be explained only with reference to the history of the country. It is to be noticed in Sufism and such religious movements as the Ismaili heterodoxy. All this goes to show that Avicenna was not a lone star. A galaxy of poets and men of learning were already contributing their share to this brilliant epoch in the history of Persia and Transoxiana. But he rose, destined to shed an abiding light far beyond his own horizon.