Ibn al-Muqaffa’

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Ibn al-Muqaffa' bigraphy, stories - Persian writer

Ibn al-Muqaffa’ : biography

Abū Muhammad ʿAbd Allāh Rūzbih ibn Dādūya (), known as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (), (original Persian name Rōzbih pūr-i Dādōē ) (), was a Persian thinker and a Zoroastrian.

Works

Translations and adaptations

Kalīla wa Dimna :his translation of a Middle Persian collection of animal fables, mostly of Indian origin, involving two jackals, Kalīla and Demna. The Middle Persian original, now lost but thought have been entitled Karīrak ud Damanak was written by one Borzōē/Borzūya, a Persian physician attached to the Sasanian court in the 6th century. Prefaced by a putative autobiography of Borzūya and an account of his voyage to India, the full work was done into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa’, who introduced it with a prologue of his own and may have been responsible for four added stories. From Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s Arabic rendering of Borzūya’s work are descended not only all later Arabic versions of Kalīla wa Demna, but also one of two Syriac versions (the other one is pre-Islamic ) and the medieval Greek, Persian (6th/12th century), Hebrew, Latin, and Castilian versions. Though there are many Arabic manuscripts of Kalīla wa Demna, Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s version is not among them, and the oldest dated copy was written almost five centuries after his death. That he aimed at an idiomatic rather than a slavishly literal rendering is generally agreed, and all indications are that he achieved clarity of expression by simplicity of diction and plain syntactical structures. As no medieval Arab critic seems to have impugned his style, it was evidently pleasing and well suited to the taste of his Arab readers.

Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s translation of Kalīla wa Demna was not a conscious attempt to start a new literary trend; it was clearly just one of several works of old Sasanian court literature which Ibn al-Muqaffa’ introduced to an exclusive readership within court circles, its function being to illustrate what should or should not be done by those aiming at political and social success. Kalīla wa Demna, nonetheless, served as a stimulus to the development of Arabic prose literature and inspired imitators, artists, and poets. A prose Persian translation of the Arabic text was available as early as the 10th century, of which a versified version was made by Rudaki (d.941-42). Both versions are lost except for a few lines of Rūdakī’s poem preserved in other sources. A later prose translation was rendered by Abu’l-Maʿālī Nasr-Allāh Ibn Mohammad Shirazi and dedicated to the Ghaznavid Bahramshah.

Khwaday-Namag :Ibn al-Muqaffa’ is thought to have produced an Arabic adaptation of the late Sasanian Khwaday-Namag, a chronicle of pre-Islamic Persian kings, princes, and warriors. A mixture of legend, myth, and fact, it served as a quasi-national history inspired by a vision of kingship as a well-ordered autocracy with a sacred duty to rule and to regulate its subjects’ conduct within a rigid class system. Interspersed with maxims characteristic of andarz literature, the narrative also offered practical advice on civil and military matters. Ibn al-Muqaffa’ is known to have modified certain parts of the original and excluded others, possibly to make it intelligible to his Arab Muslim readers. He is thought to have inserted an account of Mazdak, from which later Perso-Arab historians derived much of their knowledge of the Mazdakite movement. Like its Middle Persian original, Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s Arabic version is not extant. The Oyun al-akhbar and the Ketab al-maʿaref of Ebn Qotayba (d.889) may preserve fragments of it; certainly the Sīar al-ʿAjam, quoted by Ebn Qotayba without ascription, renders the Khwaday-Namag.

Other books :Ibn al-Nadim attributes several other Arabic translations of Middle Persian works to Ibn al-Muqaffa’, namely Āʾīn-nāma, Ketāb al-tāj, and Ketāb Mazdak. Ebn Qotayba is thought to have preserved parts of the Āʾīn-nāma, for in his Oyun a number of passages are quoted, albeit without ascription, with the opening words I have read in the Aiin (or Ketāb al-āʾīn). The quotations bear on topics such as court manners and customs, military tactics, divination and physiognomy, archery, and polo, subjects typical of various works on Sasanian institutions, protocol, entertainment, general savoir faire, and so on. Also in the Oyun are extracts from a Ketāb al-tāj . Ebn al-Nadim describes this book as a biography of Khosrau I (Anoshirvan), but Ebn Qotayba’s extracts mostly pertain to Khosrau II (Parviz) and suggest a mirror for princes. The subject of the Ketab Mazdak was, as its title implies, the leader of the revolutionary religious movement whose activities led to his execution in 531.A better product of Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s translation activities is the Nāma-ye Tansar, a political work taking its name from its putative author Tansar , the Zoroastrian priestly adviser to the first Sasanian monarch, Ardashir I . Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s Arabic version is lost, but Ibn Esfandiar’s Persian rendering of it, made in the early 13th century and embodied in his Tarikh-e Tabarestan (History of Tabarestan), reveals its content . Apart from adding various illustrative verses, some…in elegant Persian, Ibn al-Muqaffa evidently inserted Quranic and Biblical quotations, presumably as a concession to Muslims. Be that as it may, his Sasanian text is still Iranocentric: …we are the best of Persians, and there is no quality or trait of excellence or nobility which we hold dearer than the fact that we have ever showed humility and lowliness…in the service of kings, and have chosen obedience and loyalty, devotion and fidelity. Through this quality…we came to be the head and neck of all the climes…