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Bulgarians Mentioned in Egyptian Papyri from Fayoum
What was Ordinary in the Antiquity looks Odd today, due to the Greco-centric Fallacy of the Biased European Colonial 'Academics'
A while back, I received a brief email from a Bulgarian friend, who urgently asked me to watch a video and comment on the topic. The video offered links to a blog in Bulgarian and to an Austrian site of academic publications. The upsetting affair was the mention of a Bulgarian, or to put it rather correctly of a Bulgarian item or product which was imported in Coptic Egypt. As I understand Bulgarian to some extent, due to my Russian, I read the long presentation of the informative blog, and then replied to my friend. The video was actually a most abridged form of the article posted on the blog of a non-conventional Bulgarian blogger.
Contents
Introduction
I. Fayoum, Al Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus), and Ancient Egyptian Papyri
II. Karl Wessely and his groundbreaking research and publications
III. Papyrus fragment 1224 of Karl Wessely's SPP VIII
IV. Βουλγαρικ- (Vulgarik-)
V. Eastern Roman Emperor Maurice's Strategicon and the Bulgarian cloaks
VI. Historical context and the Ancient History of Bulgars
VII. Historical context, the Silk Roads, and Bulgarian exports to Egypt
VIII. Academic context and the Western falsehood of a Euro-centric World History
i- the conceptualization of World History
ii- the contextualization of every single document newly found here and there
iii- the stages of historical falsification that were undertaken over the past 500 years
iv- the forgers themselves and their antiquity
v- and last but not least, several points of
a) governance of modern states
b) international alliances, and
c) the ensuing captivity of all the targeted nations, each one well-adjusted into the preconceived role that the forgers invented for it
Introduction
What follows is my response on the topic; although it concerns an undeniably very specific affair, it helps greatly in making general readership aware of how deeply interconnected the Ancient World was, of how different it was than it is presented in conventional publications, and of how many layers of fact distortion, source concealment, systematic forgery, academic misinterpretation, and intellectual falsification have been adjusted to what average people worldwide think of as 'World History'. In brief, the modern Western colonial presentation of World History, which was dictatorially imposed worldwide, is nothing more than a choice-supportive bias and a racist construct. You can also describe it as 'Hellenism', Greco-centrism or Euro-centrism.
----- Response to an inquisitive Bulgarian friend -----
My dear friend,
Your question and the associated topic are quite complex.
The video that you sent me is extremely brief and almost introductory.
Папирусът от Фаюм
However, in the description, it offers two links.
I read the article in the blog; I noticed that it was published before 12-13 years (13.10.2011). Папирусът (който щеше да бъде) с истинското име на българите?
The author seems to have been taken by surprise due to the Fayoum text, but as you will see, there is no reason for that.
The second link included in the video description offers access to Tyche, an academic annual (Fachzeitschrift) published by the Austrian Institut für Alte Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Papyrologie und Epigraphik der Universität Wien. But this is an introductory web page (https://tyche.univie.ac.at/index.php/tyche) that has links to many publications, which you can download in PDF.
You must not be surprised by such findings; they are old and known to the specialists; there are many Bulgarian professors specializing in Ancient Greek. Some of them surely know about the text. But it is in the nature of the Western sciences that scholars do not write for the general public; it is very different from what happened in the Soviet Union and the other countries of the Socialist bloc. Reversely, all the average bloggers, who find every now and then a historical document known but not publicized, think that they discovered something incredible, but in most of the cases, we don't have anything to do with an extraordinary discovery. Simply, History has been very different from what average people have been left to believe.
I. Fayoum, Al Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus), and Ancient Egyptian Papyri
Fayoum by the way is an enormous oasis. It has cities, towns and villages. In our times, it was one of the strongholds of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Former president Muhammad Morsi got ca. 90% of the votes locally. About:
The discoveries of papyri in Egypt started mainly in the 19th c.; excavators unearthed tons of valuable documentation, unfortunately in fragmentary situation most of them; indicatively:
Such is the vastness of the documentation that either Egyptologists or Coptologists or Hellenists, there are many scholars of those disciplines who specialize in papyri only: the Papyrologists.
Fayoum map with Ancient Greek names
Fayoum Lake (above) - Wadi El Rayan waterfalls (below)
Temple of Soknopaios at Soknopaiou Nesos (Island), Fayoum (viewed from the SE)
Fayoum: a tourist destination
Another major site of papyri discovery is Oxyrhynchus (Ancient Greek name of the Egyptian site Per medjed / Oxyrhynchus is merely the Ancient Greek translation of Per medjed), i.e. the modern city of Al Bahnasa. Indicatively:
To get a minimal idea of the vastness of this field of research, go through the following introductory readings:
Cairo Fayum Papyri: http://ipap.csad.ox.ac.uk/Fayum.html
II. Karl Wessely and his groundbreaking research and publications
The fragment of papyrus that mentions in Ancient Greek an adjective, which means «Bulgarian» in English, was found in the Fayoum (you can write the word with -u or -ou). It was first published by a great scholar C. (Carl or Karl) Wessely (1860-1931).
He was one of the 10 most prominent scholars and philologists of the 2nd half of the 19th and the 1st half of the 20th c. He published a voluminous series of firsthand publications of discoveries, which was named Studien zur Paleographie und Papyruskunde (SPP). As you can guess, this took decades to be progressively materialized. Here you have an online list:
Unfortunately, the volume VIII (Leipzig 1908), which is mentioned in the article of the blog, is missing in the wikisource list!
No problem! You can find the PDF in the Internet Archives site. Here is the link:
You will find the text’s first publication on page 189 of the book; this is the page 63 of 186 of the PDF. This means that you will find this indication at the bottom of the PDF: 189 (63 / 186).
This volume, as stated on p. 7, contains «Griechische Papyrusurkunden kleineren Formats», i.e. Greek papyri documents of smaller format. If you find it strange that on the first page of the main text (137 (11 / 186) as per the PDF), the first text has the number 702, please remember that this is an enormous documentation published in the series of volumes (SPP) published by Wessely between 1900 and 1920.
III. Papyrus fragment 1224 of Karl Wessely's SPP VIII
As you will see, the text slightly differs from what is shown in either the blog article or the video. It is indeed the 1224 papyrus fragment as per the enumeration of the publication. Similarly to many other cases, most of the text is lost; this is quite common. Few things are easy to assess, if you through the entire volume; apparently the background reflects Coptic Egypt, which means that all the texts date between the early 4th and 7th c. CE. This is clearly visible because the dating system is based on indiction, which was a Roman system of periodic taxation and then chronology. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiction
This Latin word was accepted in Greek: ινδικτιών,
We can also understand that the person, who wrote this specific document, was following (not the Julian calendar but) the Coptic calendar, because on the 8th line the remaining letters αρμουθί (armouthi) help us reconstitute the well-known Coptic month of Pharmouthi (or Parmouti) which corresponds to end March-beginning April (in the Julian calendar) or April and early May in the Gregorian calendar. In Arabic, it is pronounced 'Bermouda' (unrelated to the Bermuda islands).
About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmouti
It has to be noted that the pagan Greek calendar was abolished, and that the use of 'Greek' ('Alexandrine Koine, to be correct) in the Fayum papyri texts and elsewhere does not imply 'ethnic' membership but rather religious affiliation (in this case, in contrast to Coptic).
About the Coptic calendar:
In addition, you can see the first letter of the word «indiction» ι (ι) after Pharmouthi.
Apparently, this papyrus documented a transaction effectuated by a certain Cyril (Cyrillus / Κύριλλος). Only the letters «rill» (ριλλ) are saved, as you can see, but the high frequency of the name among the Copts makes of this word the first choice of any philologist. By the way, the name is still widely used among today’s Copts as «Krulos».
I fully support Wessely’s reconstitution of the document on lines 7, 10 and 11.
Line 7 (εγράφη out of εγρα-), i.e. «it was written»
Line 10 (απείληφα out of -ειλ-), i.e. «I received from»
Line 11 (και παρών απέλυσα out of -αρω-), i.e. «I set free by paying a ransom or I disengaged or I released». Details:
Now comes a thorny issue, because on line 6, Wessely wrote «λαμιο(υ)» (: lamio reconstituted as lamiu), and went on suggesting a unique term «χαρτα-λαμίου» (charta-lamiou). This is not attested in any other source. Λάμιον (lamium) is a genus of several species of plants, whereas Lamios (Λάμιος) is a personal name. About:
Also: (ἡμι-λάμιον) https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dh(mila%2Fmion
But «χαρτα-λαμίου» (in Genitive declension) is a hapax. Still the opinion of the first explorer and publisher is always crucial; but as in many other cases, these people publish such an enormous volume of documentation that they do not have enough time to explain their suggestions and reason about their choices. To them, publishing hitherto unpublished material is undisputedly no 1 priority.
Other scholars attempted a different approach; they hypothetically added «υιός» (yios), i.e. «son», before λαμίου (Lamiou)
Personally, I find it highly unlikely. First, I most of the times support the first explorer’s / publisher’s approach.
Second, I believe that those, who add «υιός» (yios), i.e. «son» on line 6, are forced to reconstitute Βουλγαρικ̣[ὸς on line 5. This is most probably wrong.
But Wessely did not attempt something like that, preferring to leave the only saved word on line 5 as it is «Βουλγαρικ̣».
Now, what stands on lines 1 to 4 is really too minimal to allow any specialist to postulate or speculate anything. Perhaps there was something «big» mentioned on line 3 («-μεγ-»/«-meg-»), but this is only an assumption. Also, on line 4, we read that something (or someone) was (or was sent or was bought) from somewhere, because of the words «από της» (apo tis), i.e. «from the» (in this case, «the» being the feminine form of the article in Genitive declension).
IV. Βουλγαρικ- (Vulgarik-)
Now, and this is the most important statement that can be made as regards this fragment of papyrus, the word that stands on line 5 is undoubtedly an adjective, not a substantive! This is very clear. This means that the word is not an ethnonym. In English, you use the word «Bulgarian», either you mean a Bulgarian man (in this case, it is a noun) or a Bulgarian wine (on this occasion, it is an adjective). Bulgarian is at the same time a proper noun and an adjective in English.
However, in Greek, there is a difference when it comes to names of countries and nations. When it is a proper noun (substantive), you say «Anglos» (Άγγλος), «Sikelos» (Σικελός), «Aigyptios» (Αιγύπτιος), etc. for Englishman, Sicilian man, Egyptian man, etc. But you say «anglikos» (αγγλικός), «sikelikos» (σικελικός), «aigyptiakos» (αιγυπτιακός), etc. for adjectives of masculine gender.
Discussing the word attested on line 5 of the papyrus fragment 1224 of Karl Wessely's SPP VIII, I have to point out that in Ancient 'Greek' and in Alexandrine Koine, there is a vast difference between Βούλγαρος (Vulgaros) and βουλγαρικός (vulgarikos).
The first denotes a Bulgarian national, someone belonging to the ethnic group / nation of Bulgars and/or Bulgarians. At this point, I have to also add that these two words in English are a modern academic convention to distinguish Proto-Bulgarians (Bulgars) from the Bulgarians, who settled in the Balkan Peninsula. However, this distinction did not exist in Late Antiquity Greek texts and in Eastern Roman texts.
The second is merely an adjective: βουλγαρικός (vulgarikos), βουλγαρική (vulgariki), βουλγαρικόν (vulgarikon) are the three gender forms of the adjective: masculine, feminine and neutral.
So, as the preserved part of the word being «βουλγαρικ-» (vulgarik-), we can be absolutely sure that the papyrus text mentioned a Bulgarian item (a product typical of Bulgars or an imported object manufactured by Bulgars) — not a Bulgarian man.
All the same, it makes sure the following points:
a. in 4th-7th c. CE Egypt, people imported products that were manufactured by Bulgars in their own land (Bulgaria).
b. since the products were known, imported and listed as «Bulgar/Bulgarian», people knew the nation, which manufactured them, and its location.
c. considering the magnitude of the documentation that went lost, we can safely claim that there was nothing extraordinary in the arrival of Bulgar/Bulgarian products in in 4th-7th c. CE Egypt.
d. the papyrus in question presents the transaction in terms of «business as usual».
This is all that can be said about the papyrus text, but here ends the approach of the philologist and starts the viewpoint of the historian. However, before presenting the historical context of the transaction recorded in the fragmentarily saved papyrus from Fayoum, I have to also discuss another issue, which was mentioned in the blogger's interesting discussion.
V. Eastern Roman Emperor Maurice's Strategicon and the Bulgarian cloaks
Of course, as anyone could expect, several historians and philologists would try to find parallels to the mention of Bulgarian imports made in this papyrus fragment.
And they did. In his presentation, the blogger already mentioned several academic efforts. So, the following paragraphs, which are to be found almost in the middle of the article (immediately after the picture), refer to two scholarly efforts to establish parallels:
«Публикуван е за пръв път от SPP VIII 1124, Wessely, C., Leipzig 1908 и по - късно препубликуван от Diethart, в публикация с многозначителното заглавие „Bulgaren“ und „Hunnen“, S. 11 - 1921. Въпреки това папирусът не стига много бързо до родна публика.
"По пътя" един учен, Моравчик, стига и по - далеч при превода. Той разчита в откъсите и думата "Пояс" и включва в теорията ново сведение(Mauricii Artis mllltaris libri duodecim, Xll (ed. Scheffer), p. 303) , където се казва, че пехотинците трябвало да носят "ζωναρία bм λιτά, xal βουλγαρική cay ία" - т.е. смята, че става дума за носен в Египет от военните "български пояс"(сведенията за публикациите дотук са по Иван Костадинов).
Вдясно виждате лична снимка. Коптска носия от 4-ти век н.е. Пази се в етнографския музей на александрийската библиотека. По необходимост за пустинния климат е от лен. Оттам вече аналогиите оставям изцяло на вас.
Папирусът "идва в България" късно. По спомени казвам ,че мисля, че първият публикувал го е доста уважаваният Иван Дуриданов, който с радост представя на българската публика вече 4 деситилетия предъвкваният от западната лингвистика български папирус. Той публикува радостна статия, с която приветства откритието».
Certainly, Gyula Moravcsik (1892-1972) and Johannes Diethart (born in 1942) proved to be great scholars indeed. About:
The adjective Vulgarikos, -i, -on («Bulgarian» in three genders) is attested in a famous Eastern Roman text, which is rather known under the title «Maurice’s Strategicon»; this was a handbook of military sciences and a guide to techniques, methods and practices employed by the Eastern Roman army. It was written by Emperor Maurice (Μαυρίκιος- Mauricius /reigned: 582-602) or composed according to his orders. About:
I did not read Moravcsik’s article, but I read the Strategicon; it does not speak of «Bulgarian belts», but of «Bulgarian cloaks». In this regard, the blogger mentions a very old edition of the text, namely Mauricii Artis mllltaris libri duodecim, Xll (ed. Scheffer), p. 303). This dates back to 1664:
At those days, all Western European editions of Ancient Greek texts involved Latin translations. Scheffer's edition of the Strategicon can be found here:
https://books.google.ru/books?id=77NODQEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (page 303)
George T. Dennis' translation (1984) makes the text accessible to English readers:
In the 12th chapter, which is the last of the Strategicon, under the title "Mixed Formations, Infantry, Camps and Hunting", in part I (Clothing to be Worn by the Infantry), on page 138 (University of Pennsylvania Press), the word σαγίον (sagion) is very correctly translated as "cloak". The author refers to "βουλγαρικά σαγία" (Latin: sagia Bulgarica) in plural; this is rendered in English "Bulgarian cloaks", which are thought to be very heavy. Already, the word σαγίον (sagion) is of Latin etymology. About:
and https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100436640
Also: https://greek_greek.en-academic.com/151302/σαγίον
In that period and for more than 1000 years, what people now erroneously call «Medieval Greek» or «Byzantine Greek» (which in reality is «Eastern Roman») was an amalgamation of Alexandrine Koine and Latin. There were an enormous number of Latin words written in Greek characters and in Alexandrine Koine form. Indicatively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek
At this point, I complete my philological commentary on the topic. I read the Strategicon of Emperor Maurice when I was student in Athens in the middle 1970s.
I did not remember the mention of Bulgarian cloaks, but I know however that the Bulgars, who founded the Old Great Bulgaria, appear in Eastern Roman texts at least 100 years before the purported establishment and growth of that state (632–668). The academic chronology for the First Bulgarian Empire may be correct (681–1018), but the dates given for the Old Great Bulgaria and the Volga Bulgaria (late 7th c.–1240s) are deliberately false. General info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Great_Bulgaria and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bulgarian_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Bulgaria and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars#Etymology_and_origin
VI. Historical context and the Ancient History of Bulgars
It is now time for me to briefly discuss the historical context within which the aforementioned topics took place. Let’s first ask some questions:
Is it strange that a Fayoum papyrus of the 3rd-7th c. CE mentions Bulgarian products that arrived in Egypt?
Is it odd that in Emperor Maurice’s Strategicon we find a mention of Bulgarian cloaks used or not used by the Eastern Roman army?
In both cases, the response is «no»!
From where did these Bulgarian products come?
Where did Bulgars (or Bulgarians) live at the time?
My personal response is somehow vague: they came from some regions of today’s Russia’s European soil, either in the southern confines (the Azov Sea, the northern coast of the Black Sea, and the North Caucasus region) or in the area of today’s Tatarstan and other lands north-northeast of the Caspian Sea.
It is not easy to designate one specific location in this regard, and this is so for one extra reason: it seems that there were several tribes named with the same name, and they were distinguished among themselves on the basis of earlier tribal affiliations, which may go back to the Rouran Khaganate (330-555 CE). There are actually plenty of names associated with the early Bulgars, notably the Onogurs, the Kutrigurs, etc. About:
Many readers may be taken by surprise because I go back easily from the time of the Old Great Bulgaria (630-668 CE) to that of the Rouran Khaganate and the Huns. All the same, there is no surprise involved in this regard. Western European historians deliberately, systematically and customarily underestimate across the board the value of Oral History and attempt to dissociate Ethnography from History; these approaches are wrong. It is quite possible that, from the very beginning of the establishment of Rouran Khaganate, many tribes, clans or families (which later became nations) started migrating. The very first Bulgars (Bulgarians) may have reached areas north of the Iranian borders in Central Asia or in Northern Caucasus much earlier than it is generally thought among Western scholars. See indicatively:
Now, the reasons for which I intentionally date the first potential interaction of Bulgars/Bulgarians with other tribes (or nations) in earlier periods are not a matter of personal preference or obstinacy. There is an important historical text named «Nominalia of the Bulgarian Khans». It has not been duly comprehended let alone interpreted thus far. About:
Three Russian copies of the text have been saved (in Church Slavonic); they date back to the 15th and 16th c. They are generally viewed as later copies of a potential Old Bulgarian text of the 9th c. Other specialists also pretend that there may/might have been an even earlier text, in either Eastern Roman («Medieval Greek») or Bulgar, which was eventually a stone inscription.
In this document, the highly honorific title «Knyaz» (Князь) is given to Asparuh (ca. 640-700) and to his five predecessors. I must add that the said document was always an intriguing historical source for me due to two bizarre particularities to which I don't think that any scholar or specialist gave due attention, deep investigation, and persuasive interpretation.
First, the antiquity of the document is underscored by the fact that the early Bulgar calendar, which is attested in this text, appears to be an adaptation of the Chinese calendar. This fact means that the primeval Bulgars, when located somewhere in Eastern Siberia or Mongolia, must have had dense contacts with the Chinese scribal and imperial establishment; perhaps this fact displeased other Turanian-Mongolian tribes of the Rouran Khaganate and contributed to the emigration of those «Ur-Bulgaren». The next point is however more impactful on our approach to the very early phase of the Bulgars.
Second, although for most of the rulers immortalized in the historical document, the duration of their lifetimes or tenures are of entirely historical nature (involving brief or long periods of 5 up to 60 years of reign or lifetime), the two first names of rulers are credited with incredibly long lifetimes. This is not common; actually, it does not look sensible; but it is meaningful.
More specifically, Avitohol is said to have lived 300 years, whereas Irnik is credited with 150 years. But we know who Irnik was! Irnik or Ernak was the 3rd son of Attila and he is said to have been his most beloved offspring. Scholars fix the beginning of his reign in 437 CE, but this is still not the important point. The crucial issue with the partly «mythical» and partly historical nature of the text «Nominalia of the Bulgarian Khans» is the fact that the two early rulers, whom the Bulgarians considered as their original ancestors, are credited with extraordinarily long and physically impossible lives. General reading:
This can therefore imply only one thing: at a later period, when the earlier memories were partly lost for various reasons, eventually because of the new environment namely the Balkan Peninsula, in which the then Bulgars were finding themselves, Avitohol and Irnik were retained as the leading figures of ruling families, and not as independent rulers. Consequently, the dates given for their lives were in fact those of their respective dynasties. It was then that the very early period of Bulgar History was mythicized for statecraft purposes, mystified to all, and sanctified in the national consciousness.
Many Western scholars attempted to identify Avitohol with Attila, but in vain; I don’t think that this attempt can be maintained. So, I believe that the Bulgars were one of the noble families of the Huns (evidently involving intermarriage with Attila himself), and that before Attila, the very earliest Bulgars were ruled by another dynasty which had lasted 300 years. But if it is so, we go back to the times of the Roman Emperor Trajan (reign: 98-117 CE), Vologases III of Arsacid Parthia (110–147 CE) and the illustrious Chinese general, explorer and diplomat Ban Chao (32-102 CE) of the Eastern Han dynasty. About:
The latter fought for 30 years against the Xiongnu (Hiung-nu/匈奴, i.e. the earliest tribes of the Huns, consolidated the Chinese control throughout the Tarim Basin region (today's Eastern Turkestan or Xinjiang), and was appointed Protector General of the Western Regions. He is very famous for having dispatched Gan Ying, an envoy, to the West in 97 CE. According to the Book of the Later Han (Hou Hanshu/後漢書), which was compiled in the 5th c. CE by Fan Ye, Gan Ying reached Parthia (Arsacid Iran; in Chinese: Anxi, 安息) and gave the first Chinese account of the Western confines of Asia and of the Roman Empire. About:
It is n this historical environment that we have to place the very early ancestors of the Bulgars.
VII. Historical context, the Silk Roads, and Bulgarian exports to Egypt
Consequently, I believe that it is more probable that the Bulgarian products of those days were first appreciated by the Iranians and later sold to Aramaeans, Armenians, Iberians and other nations settled in the western confines of the Arsacid (250 BCE-224 CE) and the Sassanid (224-651 CE) empires, i.e. in Mesopotamia and Syria, and thence they became finally known in Egypt as well.
The incessant migrations from NE Asia to Central Europe and to Africa, as a major historical event, were not separate from the 'Silk Roads'; they were part, consequence or side-effect of that, older and wider, phenomenon. Actually, the term 'Silk Roads' is at the same time inaccurate and partly; the magnificent phenomenon of commercial, cultural and spiritual inter-exchanges, which took place due to the establishment (by the Achaemenid Shah Darius I the Great) of a comprehensive network of numerous older regional trade routes, is to be properly described as 'silk-, spice-, and perfume-trade routes across lands, deserts and seas'. About: https://silkroadtexts.wordpress.com/
It has to be said that, after the Achaemenid Iranian invasion, annexation and occupation of Egypt, Sudan and NE Libya (525-404 BCE and 343-332 BCE), Iranian settlers remained in Egypt; they were known to and mentioned by the Macedonian settlers, who manned the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies (323-30 BCE). General info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Achaemenid_conquest_of_Egypt
Those Iranian settlers were called 'Persai (ek) tis epigonis' (Πέρσαι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς), lit. 'Iranian settlers' descendants'. About:
Pieter W. Pestman, A proposito dei documenti di Pathyris II Πέρσαι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς
Xin Dai, Ethnicity Designation in Ptolemaic Egypt https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329265278_Ethnicity_Designation_in_Ptolemaic_Egypt
See a text from the time of the Roman Emperor Domitian (reign: 81-96) here: https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.athen;;23
See another text from the time of the Roman Emperor Nerva (reign: 96-98) here:
There were also in Egypt Jewish Aramaean descendants of the early Iranian settlers: "οἱ τρ(ε)ῖς | Ἰουδαῖοι Πέρσαι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς τῶν [ἀ]πὸ Σύρων κώ- | μης" (lit. Jewish Iranians, who were the descendants of an Aramaean town) - From: Database of Military Inscriptions and Papyri of Early Roman Palestine https://armyofromanpalestine.com/0140-2
Please note in this regard that the title given to the web page and the document is very wrong and extremely biased: "§140 Loan between Jews and Lucius Vettius"; the three persons who received the loan were not ethnic Jews. Their religion was surely Judaism, as it was the case of the renowned Samaritan woman with whom Jesus spoke according to the Gospels. Several other nations accepted Judaism, notably Aramaeans in Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia (they were called 'Syrians' by the Macedonians and the Romans). It is well known that there were many clashes and strives between them and the ethnic Jews. The latter were few and lived either in Jerusalem (and its suburbs) or in Egypt (in Alexandria and many other locations) or in the centers of Talmudic academies in Mesopotamia (namely Nehardea, Pumbedita and Mahoze / Ctesiphon). About:
If I expanded on this topic, it is precisely because the merchants, who were most active across the Silk Roads, were the Aramaeans, and that is why Aramaic became almost an official language in the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, whereas at the same time it turned out to be the lingua franca alongside the trade routes. Furthermore, a great number of writing systems in Central Asia, Iran, India, and Western Asia were developed on the basis of the Aramaic alphabet. Last but not least, Arabic originates from Syriac, which is a late form of Aramaic. About:
It is therefore essential to state that the Bulgarian products, which (either from North Caucasus and the northern coastlands of the Black Sea or from the regions around the north-northeastern shores of the Caspian Sea) reached Egypt (via most probably North Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine), were transported on camels owned by Aramaean merchants and due to caravans organized and directed by Aramaeans.
It is also noteworthy that, during the Arsacid times, several buffer-states were formed between the eastern borders of the Roman Empire and the western frontiers of Parthia: Osrhoene, Sophene, Zabdicene, Adiabene, Hatra, Characene, Elymais, Gerrha (the illustrious port of call and major trade center of the Persian Gulf that rivaled with Alexandria in the Mediterranean), the Nabataean kingdom, and the short-lived but most formidable Tadmor (Palmyra). This situation favored the world trade between East and West, as well as North and South. General info:
The great rivalry and ferocious antagonism between the Romans (and later the Eastern Romans) and the Iranians after the rise of the Sassanid dynasty (224 CE) did not affect in anything the good relations and the trade among Egyptians, Aramaeans, and Iranians; there were numerous Aramaean populations in both empires, so, we feel safe to conclude that any products from lands north of Caucasus mountains and north of Iran were transported by Aramaeans via Palestine or Nabataea to Egypt.
There have been additional reasons for the good feelings of the Egyptians toward the Iranians, and they were of religious nature. The Christological disputes generated enmity and great animosity between
a) the Copts (: Egyptians) and the Aramaeans, who adopted Miaphysitism (also known as Monophysitism), and
b) the Eastern Romans and the Western Romans, who thought they preserved the correct faith (Orthodoxy).
One has to bear always in mind, that in order to define themselves, the so-called Monophysites (also known more recently as 'Miaphysites') used exactly the same term (i.e. 'Orthodox'), which means that they considered the Eastern Romans and the Western Romans as heretics. The patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem were split. Atop of it, other Aramaeans (mostly in Mesopotamia and Iran) accepted the preaching of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was also deposed as a heretic (in August 431). For the aforementioned religious reasons, the Eastern Roman armies were most loathed in Syria, Palestine, North Mesopotamia (today's SE Turkey), and Egypt as oppressors. About:
In addition, one has to take into consideration the fact that the Jews, who inhabited the eastern provinces of the Roman (and later the Eastern Roman) Empire, were also pro-Iranian and they expected that the Iranians would liberate them one day from the Roman yoke pretty much like the Achaemenid Iranian Emperor Cyrus delivered their exiled ancestors from the tyranny of Nabonid Babylonia (539 BCE).
The Axumite Abyssinian invasion of Yemen (ca. 530 CE; in coordination with the Roman Emperor Justinian I), the ensued Iranian-Axumite wars, the Iranian invasion of Yemen (570 CE; known as the Year of the Elephant among the Arabs of Hejaz), and the incessant battles and wars between the Eastern Roman and the Sassanid Iranian armies were closely watched by all populations in Egypt. The third Iranian conquest of Egypt (618 CE) was a matter of great jubilation for Copts and Jews; Egypt was annexed to Iran for ten (10 years), before being under Eastern Roman control again for fourteen years (628-642 CE) and then invaded by the Islamic armies. General info:
Indicative of the good Egyptian feelings for the Sassanid emperors and Iran is a tapestry weave found by Albert Gayet in his 1908 excavations in Antinoe (also known as Antinoöpolis, i.e. the town of Sheikh Ibada in today's Egypt); this is a textile fragment of legging that dates back to the late 6th and early 7th c. (Musée des Tissus, in Lyon-France; MT 28928). It features the scene of an unequal battle that has been identified as one of the engagements between the Sassanid and the Axumite armies in Yemen; Iranian horse-archers are depicted at the moment of their triumph over Abyssinian infantry opponents, who appear to be armed with stones. In the very center of the scene, an enthroned figure was often identified with the great Iranian Emperor Khosrow (Chosroes) I Anushirvan (Middle Persian: Anoshag ruwan: 'with Immortal Soul'), who was for Sassanid Iran as historically important as Justinian I, his early rival and subsequent peace partner, for the Roman Empire. About:
This was the wider historical context at the time of the arrival of the first Bulgarian exports to the Sassanid Empire of Iran, the Eastern Roman Empire, and Egypt more specifically. And the Bulgarian cloaks, as mentioned in Maurice’s Strategicon, make every researcher rather think of heavy winter cloaks, which were apparently not necessary for the Eastern Roman soldiers, who had to usually fight in less harsh climatological conditions. It is possible that those heavy cloaks were eventually used by the Iranian army when engaged in the Caucasus region, and thence they were noticed by the Eastern Romans.
With these points, I complete my philological and historical comments on the topic. However, the entire issue has to be also contextualized at the academic-educational level, so that you don't find it bizarre that not one average Bulgarian knew about the topic before the inquisitive blogger wrote his article and the YouTuber uploaded his brief video.
VIII. Academic context and the Western falsehood of a Euro-centric World History
This part does not concern the Fayoum papyri and the Strategicon of Emperor Maurice; it has to do with what non-specialists, the average public, and various unspecialized explorers do not know at all.
This issue pertains to
i- the conceptualization of World History;
ii- the contextualization of every single document newly found here and there;
iii- the stages of historical falsification that were undertaken over the past 500 years;
iv- the forgers themselves and their antiquity, and last but not least; and
v- several points of
a) governance of modern states,
b) international alliances, and
c) the ensuing captivity of all the targeted nations, each one well-adjusted into the preconceived role that the forgers invented for it.
As you can guess, one can write an encyclopedia on these topics, so I will be very brief. Attention: only at the end, you will understand that all these parameters fully precondition the topic that we already discussed, and any other that we have not yet discussed, because simply it does not exist as a standalone entity but as a fact entirely conditioned by what I herewith describe in short.
What I want to say is this: if tomorrow another Fayoum discovery brings to light a 3rd c. BCE papyrus with the mention of something Bulgarian (Voulgarikon), this will not affect in anything the prevailing conditions of the so-called academic scholarship. In other words, do not imagine that with tiny shreds of truth unveiled here and there, you are going to change anything in the excruciatingly false manner World History was written.
i- the conceptualization of World History
It may come as a nasty surprise to you, but what we know now about History is not the conclusion or the outcome of additional discoveries made one after the other over the past 400-500 years. Contrarily, it was first preconceived, when people had truly minimal knowledge of the past, and after they had forged thousands of documents and manuscripts for at least 500-600 years, long before the early historiographical efforts were undertaken during the Renaissance.
After they destroyed, concealed and rewrote tons of manuscripts of Ancient Greek and Roman historiography from ca. 750 CE until 1500 CE, Western European monks and editors, philosophers and intellectuals, popes, scientists and alchemists started propagating their world view about the assumingly glorious past of their supposedly Greek and Roman ancestors – a nonexistent past that the Renaissance people were deliberately fooled enough to believe that they had lost and they had to rediscover it. In fact, all the discoveries made afterwards, all the decipherments of numerous ancient writings, and all the studies of original material from Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, Caucasus, Central Asia, China and India was duly processed and adjusted in a way not to damage or challenge in anything the preconceived scheme which was named 'World History' by the vicious and criminal Western European forgers.
This means that you should never expect 'new discoveries' to challenge the officially established dogma of the Western academia; it is not about Bulgars and the past of today's Bulgarians, Thracians, Macedonians, etc., etc., etc. It is about all. What type of position the Bulgarians, the Russians, the Turks, the Iranians, the Egyptians and all the rest occupy in today's distorted historiography had been decided upon long before the establishment of the modern states that bear those names.
ii- the contextualization of every single document newly found here and there
Any finding unearthed by anyone anytime anywhere means nothing in itself; this concerns every historiographer, truthful or dishonest. What truly matters for all is contextualization. It so did for the original forgers. Theirs was an arbitrary attempt; they contextualized the so-called 'Ancient Greece' in a way that would have been fully unacceptable, blasphemous and abominable for the outright majority of all the South Balkan populations during the 23 centuries prior to the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great.
It was peremptory, partial and biased; according to the fallacious narratives of the forgers, centuries were shrunk and shortened in order to fit into few lines; moreover the schemers stretched geographical terms at will; they did not use various terms, which were widely employed in the Antiquity; they passed important persons under silence, while exaggerating the presentation of unimportant ones. This is what contextualization was for the forgers: they applied a Latin recapitulative name (Graeci) to a variety of nations, which never used this Latin term or any other recapitulative term for them; they applied a non-Ionian, non-Achaean, and non-Aeolian term (Hellenes) to them and to others; and after the decipherment of many Oriental languages, they did not rectify their preposterous mistakes, although they learned quite well that the two fake terms about those populations (Graecus and Hellene) did not exist in any other language of highly civilized nations (Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hittite, Hurrian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Old Achaemenid Iranian).
Consequently, every other information, data and documentation pertaining to any elements of the said context was concealed, distorted or misinterpreted in order to be duly adjusted to the biased context that had been elaborated first.
iii- the stages of historical falsification that were undertaken over the past 500 years
Following the aforementioned situation, many dimensions of historical falsification were carried out and can actually be noticed by researchers, explorers, investigators and astute observers. The 'barbarian invasions' (or Migration Period) is only one of them; I mention it first because it concerns the Bulgars. Long before distorting the History of Great Old Bulgaria and that of Volga Bulgaria systematically, Western historical forgers portrayed Bulgars and many other highly civilized nations as barbarians. Why?
Because the historical forgers of the Western World hate nomads! This is an irrevocable trait of them; that's why they fabricated the fake term 'civilization' in their absurd manner: originating from the Latin word 'civitas', the worthless and racist term 'civilization' implies that you cannot be 'civilized' unless you are urban. This monstrous and unacceptable fact reveals the rotten roots of the hideous, vulgar, sick and villainous Western world and colonial academia.
In the Orient, there was never a cultural divide between urban populations and nomads; some nomadic tribes were considered as barbarians; that's true. But also settled populations and urban inhabitants were also considered as barbarians (like the Elamites, who were considered as inhuman by the Assyrians). The rule was that the settled nations were nomads in earlier periods. But the status of a society was irrelevant of the consideration and the esteem (or lack thereof) that others had about a certain nation. This started with the Romans and their interpretation of the South Balkan, Anatolian, and Cretan past. It was then re-utilized and modified by Western Europeans. To some extent, the papal approval was tantamount to acquisition of credentials and to promotion to 'civilized nation status'. Actually, this is today the nucleus of the whole problem concerning Ukraine.
That is why the so-called Migration Period was so terribly distorted by Western historians. Western historians deliberately preferred to stay blind and not to study the Ancient Mongol chronicles (notably the Secret History of The Mongols) in order to avoid assessing the Mongol-Turanian standards and principles of civilization. Had they proceeded in the opposite way, they would have discovered that, for the nomads, it is the settled people and the urban populations, who are barbarians, decayed and shameful.
The truth about the fallacious term 'Migration Period' is simple: there was never a migration period before 1500 CE (and certainly none afterwards), because every century was actually a migration period. Human History is a history of migrations.
The distorted linguistic-ethnographic division of the migrant nations helped forgers to dramatically increase the confusion level; as a matter of fact, there was no proper ethnic division (in the modern sense of the term) among Mongols, Turanians, Slavs and several other migrant nations. The languages change when people migrate and settle, resettle, move again, and end up in faraway places. For Muslim historians, the khan of the Saqaliba (: Slavs) was the strongest of all Turanian rulers. The arbitrary distinction of the migrant nations into two groups, namely Indo-European and Ural-Altaic/Turco-Mongolian nations was done deliberately in order to intentionally transform the face of the world and adjust it to the so-called Table of Nations, a forged text that made its way into the biblical book of Genesis in later periods (6th–4th c. BCE). General reading:
The Western academic tyranny is so deeply rooted that, irrespective of your political, ideological or philosophical affiliation (fascist, Nazi, communist, conservative, social-democrat, liberal, atheist, evolutionist, creationist, anarchist, etc.), you always have to adjust your seminars, courses, lectures, contributions, books and publications to the fallacy of Genesis chapter 10. The absurd logic of this system is the following: "since no Bulgars are mentioned in the Table of Nations, they must be a later tribe". Then, believe it or not, whatever documentation may be found in Aramaic, Middle Persian, Pahlavi, Brahmi, Kharosthi, Avestan, Sogdian, Tocharian, Chinese or other texts about the Bulgars will be deliberately presented as irrelevant to Bulgars. If a new Sogdian document is found in Central Asia (dating back to the middle Arsacid times: 1st c. CE) and there is a certain mention of Bulgars in the text, the criminal gangsters and the systematic fraudsters of the Western universities and museums will write an enormous amount of articles to stupidly discredit the document or attribute the word to anything or anyone else.
iv- the forgers themselves and their antiquity
The above makes it clear that the foundations of today's Western academic life, historiographical research, sector of Humanities, and all the associated fields of study were laid by the Western European Catholic monks and only after the end of the Eastern Roman imperial control, appointment and approval of the Roman popes (752 CE).
This changes totally the idea that you and the entire world have of the History of Mankind because it means that the Benedictine-Papal-Roman opposition to and clash with the Eastern Roman Empire (and the subsequent schisms of 867 and 1054) were entirely due to the resolute papal attempt to forge the World History, to substitute it with a fake History, and to diffuse all the Anti-Christian schemes that brought the world to today's chaos. As the Muslims were totally unaware of the confrontation, the Crusades were undertaken against (not the Caliphate but) Constantinople. All the Christian Orthodox monasteries and libraries were controlled by Catholic monks, scribes, copyists and priests who had the time (from 1204 until 1261) to rob whatever manuscripts they had to rob, destroy whatever manuscripts they had to destroy, and leave all the rest as 'useless' to their enterprise.
That is why modern scholars are ordered to jubilate every time a papyrus fragment is found in Egypt with few lines of verses from Homer, Hesiod and the Ancient 'Greek' tragedians, historians or philosophers! They publicize these discoveries in order to make every naïve guy believe that the bulk of their forged documentation is genuine. But it is not.
v- and last but not least, several points of
a) governance of modern states
The consolidation of the historical forgery was top concern for the colonial puppets of the Western European powers and for the powers hidden behind the scenes. I still remember the blogger's comments about the late 19th and early 20th c. Bulgarian statesmen, politicians and academics, who were not so enthusiastic about the Fayoum papyrus! He made me laugh at; of course, he was very correct in writing what he did. Absolutely pertinent! But also very naïve!
He failed to remember that the top Ottoman military officer in Salonica during the First Balkan War, lieutenant general Hasan Tahsin Pasha (also known as Hasan Tahsin Mesarea; 1845-1918), as soon as he learned that the 7th Bulgarian Division was coming from the northeast, decided on his own to surrender the Salonica fortress and 26000 men to the Greek crown prince Constantine, being thus deemed a traitor and sentenced to death by a martial court.
No Bulgarian (or other) official had ever the authority to go beyond the limits specified as regards either borderlines or historical approaches and conclusions.
b) international alliances, and
The same is valid today; it would be bizarre for Bulgarian professors of universities and academics to teach, diffuse, publish and propagate ideas, concepts and interpretations that contravene the worldwide norm that the Western colonials imposed across the Earth. It is as simple as that: Bulgaria, as EU member state, participates in many academic projects like Erasmus, etc. The professor, who would challenge the lies and the falsehood, which are at the basis of the so-called European values, principles and standards, would automatically become a problem for his rector, who would be receiving most unpleasant if not threatening calls from every corner of the Earth, as well as demands to fire the uncooperative, 'controversial' professor.
c) the ensuing captivity of all the targeted nations, each one well-adjusted into the preconceived role that the forgers invented for it
Actually, it is not a matter of Bulgaria and how the true History of Bulgaria is hidden from the Bulgarians; the same is valid in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Sudan, Israel, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, etc. As I lived in all these countries, I have personal experience and deep knowledge as regards their pedagogical systems and the contents of their manuals. In Egypt, schoolchildren study the History of Ancient Egypt down to Ramses III only (ca. 1200 BCE) and next year, they start with the beginning of Islam (642 CE). Why?
Because during the falsely called Roman times, Egyptian mysticisms, religions, spirituality, cults, sciences, arts, wisdom, cosmogony, cosmology, and eschatology flooded Greece, Rome, the Roman Empire, and even Europe beyond the Roman borders. The Egyptian pupil must not learn that the Greeks, the Romans, and the Europeans were dramatically inferior to his own cultural heritage. That's why stupid and illiterate sheikhs, ignorant imams, and evil theologians intoxicate the average Egyptians with today's fake Islam, which is not a religion anymore but a theological-ideological-political system at the antipodes of the true historical Islam. It cuts the average Egyptian from his own cultural heritage, thus making him stupidly care about the wives and the prematurely dead children of prophet Muhammad, as well as other matters of no importance for the spiritual-cultural-intellectual phenomenon of Islam.
Best regards,
Shamsaddin
Σμικρογραφίες Χειρογράφων του Χαφτ Πεϋκάρ: ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ και οι Επτά Ομορφιές (Πριγκίπισσες)
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ενώπιον των απεικονίσεων των επτά πριγκιπισσών
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Ρωμιάς πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα ανοικτό καφέ.
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Ινδής πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα μαύρο.
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Βέρβερης πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα τυρκουάζ .
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Βέρβερης πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα τυρκουάζ (από άλλο χειρόγραφο)
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της πριγκίπισσας της Χωρασμίας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα πράσινο.
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Τουρανής πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα κίτρινο.
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Ιρανής πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα λευκό.
Ο Μπαχράμ Γκουρ ακούει την αφήγηση της Ρωσσίδας (ή Σλαύας) πριγκίπισσας που είναι ντυμένη σε χρώμα κόκκινο .
The Good and Bountiful Genies of Bet Pas'el Khirbet Farwan, Syria c. 191 CE
Iran 2022: Typical Freemasonic-Zionist Proxy War between Ayatollahs and Protestors at the Detriment of the Average Iranians
There is nothing Islamic in the Islamic Republic of Iran except the popular religion (attested in non-Westernized people) and the historical monuments. In Iranian provinces, the Muslim faith is alive, although this is not tantamount to direct support of the Qom / Tehran-based, absurd theological regime, which wastes the national resources in counter-productive manners.
The supporters of the Ayatollahs are mainly concentrated in major cities whereby the advanced technological Westernization produces a terrible ideological clash at the detriment of all Muslims. In the same social environment live also the 'pro-Western' opponents of the Ayatollahs.
Among these three categories of people, the cultural differences are enormous, the diverse purposes are centrifugal, and the socio-behavioral systems are opposite.
I. Traditional believers in Iranian provinces
The majority of the people in the provinces, living either in the villages, the towns and the cities or as nomads, live Islam as a popular religion; they cherish the related moral values, respect their traditions, and experience spirituality as traditional component of their culture. As they are distant from the capital, governance is not their concern. They may well observe the various wrongdoings of the government, but politics is not their affair, and they cannot see a trustworthy opponent anywhere in the horizon. Their attitude is therefore clearly neutral, anything between passive acceptance and passive resistance. I would also add that they are too innocent, too naïve and too benevolent to possibly fathom how their government and regime have been maneuvered by evil foreign forces without even knowing or sensing it. All the same, these people are the true, average Iranians. I would say that they represent ca. 50% of the population.
II. 'Religious' supporters of the Ayatollahs
The people in the cities and the big cities live in great tension; the supporters of the government are very fervent, but they confuse 'theology' with 'religion' and 'politics' with 'governance'. They have lost much of the Iranian culture to the benefit of the technological modernization. They cannot experience the popular religion in the way people customarily do in villages; to them 'religion' means 'rejection of the West' and celebrating the Mawlid un-Nabi today is for them an opportunity to reject the true, existing, evil plans of several Western countries against Iran. This is absurd. Religion is all about a person's contact with God; evil governments, regimes and secret organizations have no place in Faith. You cannot possibly believe a religion only to reject somebody else – however evil he/they may truly be; such an attitude is by all means sheer madness and utter disbelief. But these people cannot see that the hate of the other cannot be possibly associated with one's faith or with an entire nation's religion. Losing their popular religion and traditional culture, they get radicalized, they mistake theology and political ideology for religion, and they become appalling to the 'Westernized' Iranians. These people make big noise, but they do not constitute more than 25% of the entire population. Their success is that they appear to have the support of the silent majority (see previous unit) and they control the totality of the dictatorial mechanisms of the state (this is not typically Iranian: anywhere the state mechanisms are dictatorial).
III. 'Pro-Western' or 'Westernized' Iranians
This population, contrarily to the aforementioned two groups, is not homogeneous. This is critically calamitous to all foreign schemes and plans of utilizing them. This very fact consists also in a major stumbling block in their path to power. However, this situation is nothing new; it became crystal clear in the last years of Reza Pahlavi's reign and in the first years of the Khomeini oligarchical rule. At the time, a sizeable part of this population allied themselves with the supporters of Khomeini. Now they don't make the same mistake again! Leftist Iranians, who studied in Paris only to become Marxist-Leninist or social democrat of ideology, royalists who wish Reza Pahlavi's son to come back and reign, Iranians who lived abroad only to be impacted enough to become anything An-Iranian (the non-Iran is a historical term that goes back to pre-Islamic times), conservative people of the old upper middle class who desire to simply look like Westerners without truly being so, and few truly marginal groups of homosexuals and atheists, materialists and nationalists can be categorized as anti-Ayatollah opposition.
When it comes to this segment of Iranian society, their only chance is to sensitize the silent majority (see Unit I) in case the radicalization of the 'religious' supporters of the regime turns out to appear like brutalization of the rest. This can bring results and this is known to all the enemies of Iran: those who appear 'friendly' nowadays (England) and those who hate the Iranian Civilization that shaped the Western world against their will (Israel) and up to the point that they need to hide it (Vatican, France).
To close this brief introduction, I must say that the fragmentation of this part of the Iranian society is not the major problem that they have. There is a very serious issue, which is not known to most of these people, and still affects them terribly. This fact has to do with their own self-identification and description as 'Pro-Western' or 'Westernized'. Although these people think that they are so, in reality they are not.
Certainly they want to remove their hijab, but they don't want homosexual marriages in Iran.
Certainly they want to have a parliamentarian political system, which looks like that of a European country; but they don't want to pass lawless laws according to which the school teachers will demand from a 'court of Justice' to separate the children from their parents because the latter did not 'explain' to them at the age of 7 that they can change their gender.
Certainly they want to have free alcohol in Iran, but they don't want prostitution, fornication, and adultery, as well as premarital and extramarital relations to be considered as 'legal' activities in Iran.
Certainly they don't want a sectarian decision-making in Iran; but this is only due to their ignorance and lack of understanding of the Western world. What difference at this point would it make to abolish a pseudo-Islamist sectarian decision-making in Iran only to replace it by a Zionist sectarian decision-making?
Who said that Iran must be governed by filthy and criminal dictators, who would 'conclude' (only because they were heavily bribed) that "Iran does not need nuclear weapons", "Russia and China are a threat", "NATO is necessary for regional security" and "UK, France, Canada, Australia, US, New Zealand, and Israel" are 'normal' states?
No one needs beasts like that in Iran!
My simple and straightforward conclusion is that, in spite of all drawbacks and serious mistakes, oversights, and wrongdoings, Iranians do not need, do not want, do not deserve, and will not approve of a regime change geared -not out of love for the (deliberately misrepresented in, and concealed from, the Western world) Iranian nation and civilization but- because of an inhuman, vicious hatred for the holy land of Iran, which proved throughout the ages to be definitely more important than the Roman Empire, let alone South Canaan (fake Israel) and South Balkans (fake Greece).
I have an advice for all Iranian protestors: go to China!
Forget UK and US! These countries are impermissible to exist and they will cease to exist.
It is on this background that I received a comment about one of my articles on Iran, which was first published in 2007. I herewith publish the comment and my response. The old article concerned the Ayatollah regime of Iran and how it functioned to the benefit of Western colonial powers; it can be found here:
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IV. A reader's comment on Western foreign involvement in Iran
Dear Shamsaddin,
With the ongoing social revolution in Iran, I also discovered the historic links between Freemasons and the Shiite clergy. I shall read your document with keen interest.
Best regards
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V. Response about the manifestations in Iran and evil agendas
Thank you for your interest and comment! Unfortunately, this article is an old publication which was first published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles back in 2007, immediately reproduced in Fravahr, and later republished here. Of course, I did not change my mind over the past 15 years, but the presentation is very brief.
People did/do not understand the nature of Western colonialism and that is why great empires have been decomposed by the Western criminals. The Western world is a composite tyrannical regime ruled by elites that, while expanding worldwide and exploiting the rest of the world, fight against one another: Jesuits, Freemasons and Zionists utilize every resource (i.e. every state) available, and in the process, other countries get destroyed, dismembered and ruined.
What various establishments, empires and kingdoms outside the Western world failed to understand is the following observation. When France became the ally of the Ottoman Empire and England supported Iran, the French and the English interests were protected, whereas Iran and the Ottoman Empire got dissolved. Why? Because both alliances were a scheme and a lie!
When a secret organization like the CIA places an ignorant and worthless soldier atop of a country (like Gamal Abdel Nasser), they also manage to put next to him a driver and a cook who are their own pawns (but the worthless soldier does not know it) and they can kill the 'important person' any time they receive the order to do this.
When Napoleon sent a special envoy to the Qajar Shah to ask permission that French soldiers cross Iran to attack the English criminals in India (and prevent the then forthcoming collapse of the Mughal), the English sent their own agent who managed to poison the French envoy in a public restaurant in Esfahan.
After the English made of a soldier (Reza Khan) the king of Iran (to turn an Oriental Empire into a weak and worthless nationalistic kingdom), they
- first, gave him his ... name (the poor guy did not have a clue what Pahlevi meant),
- second, prepared the opponent of his son {Khomeini was guided by English stooges as to what to study, what to write in his thesis, and what vision of possible 'Islamic' state to compose (the ridiculous Wilayat al Faqih serves only English interests in Islamic countries)}, and
- third, corrupted his son (when he was 'studying' in Switzerland in the 1930s) so that finally he deposed the idiotic Reza Khan, and he ruled until he was deposed too.
Look at this picture! Notice the position of the legs of both persons! It is quite telling - about who the teacher/master and who the pupil/student are!
So, what you call 'social revolution in Iran' is not a social revolution, but a well-prepared (by the Zionists) operation against the pathetic gang of the Ayatollahs who operated (without knowing it) as local stooges of the English Freemasonry. In other words, it is a proxy war between the secret services of England from one side (the silly Iranian government) and from the other side (fake manifestations organized by tele-guided protestors) the secret services of Israel (anti-Netanyahu side) and one part of the US establishment (anti-Trump side).
Today's stupid Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia fail to understand that, after the abolition of the caliphate, there is no Islam. To set up an empire, Muslims do not need the Hadith and the various Madhhab. They need the Art of the Empire. Timur (Tamerlane) is far more important than prophet Muhammad today. Not in order to start fighting stupidly and idiotically (like the idiotic Islamists here and there), but to make sense of Timur's mental skills, faculties, perceptual powers and instantaneous reflexes / reactions. That's why Sharaf al Din Ali Yazdi and his Zafarnameh are more important than the Quran - not as just a reading, but to first study and understand Timur's unmatched strategic capacities and later to reproduce them within the present context against all the enemies of the Islamic world.
The war is imperial, not religious. The Western enemies of the Muslims want to
a) divert all Muslims to fake theologies that have been deliberately and systematically presented to them as 'religion' (i.e. Islam),
b) engulf them in this idiocy, and
c) utilize them for their calamitous agendas.
A fake Mahdi and a fake prophet Jesus have been produced (with microchips in their stupid heads and without knowing it) and they may 'appear' in public, if some evil agendas are successfully advanced.
Who are today's best Muslims?
Putin and Xi Jinping!
The only who block the advance of the evil Western agendas.
Extra readings:
Published before 5 years:
Published before 11 years:
Notice the Al Qaeda Homunculi, the "front office" and the "back office"!
Best wishes for Mawlid un-Nabi,
Best regards,
Shamsaddin
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Download the text in Word doc.:
January 26 1988 - Burnum Burnum plants the Aboriginal flag at the cliffs of Dover, claiming England for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, exactly 200 years after Arthur Phillip claimed Australia for the British. [video] The full Burnum Burnum Declaration:
I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people. In claiming this colonial outpost, we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo - ‘a fresh start’. Henceforth, an Aboriginal face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovereignty over this domain. For the more advanced, we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjajara; we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.
We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your flour with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. Based on our 50,000 year heritage, we acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilize your women, nor to separate your children from their families. We give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality. At the end of two hundred years, we will make a treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.
Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.
Burnum Burnum
Gur-e-Amir by markepchteine.
Russia, Ukraine and the World-II by Megalommatis
Μπαμπούρ (1483-1530): Στρατηλάτης, Φιλόσοφος, Ποιητής, Ιστορικός, Αυτοκράτορας, Απόγονος του Ταμερλάνου, Θεμελιωτής της Δυναστείας των Γκορκανιάν από την Κεντρική Ασία στην Ινδία
Babur (1483-1530): Military Genius, Philosopher, Poet, Historian, Emperor, Descendant of Tamerlane, Founder of the Gorkanian Dynasty from Central Asia to Hindustan, Bengal and the Dekkan
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 18η Σεπτεμβρίου 2019.
Ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης χρησιμοποιεί τμήμα ομιλίας μου, την οποία έδωσα στο Πεκίνο τον Ιανουάριο του 2019 με θέμα τους παράλληλους βίους μεγάλων στρατηλατών και αυτοκρατόρων των Ακκάδων, των Χιττιτών, των Ασσυρίων, των Ιρανών, των Ρωμαίων, των Τουρανών-Μογγόλων, και των Κινέζων.
-------------------
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/09/18/μπαμπούρ-1483-1530-στρατηλάτης-φιλόσοφος-πο/ =================
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Αρκετοί φίλοι με ρώτησαν τελευταία για το Τατζ Μαχάλ, για την Ισλαμική Αυτοκρατορία των Μεγάλων Μογγόλων (Γκορκανιάν / Μουγάλ-Mughal) της Ινδίας, και τις σχέσεις των Σουνιτών Γκορκανιάν με τους Σιίτες Σαφεβίδες του Ιράν και τους Σουνίτες Οθωμανούς. Με δεδομένη την ιρανο-οθωμανική αντιπαλότητα (στην οποία αναφέρθηκα στα κείμενά μου σχετικά με την Μάχη του Τσαλντιράν το 1514), ένας φίλος με ρώτησε πως και δεν συμφώνησαν Οθωμανοί και Γκορκανιάν να μοιράσουν το Ιράν ανάμεσα στην Σταμπούλ και την Άγκρα.
Η απάντηση είναι απλή: σε μια εποχή που δεν υπήρχαν εθνικισμοί και που η Πίστη αποτελούσε τον βασικό (αλλά όχι τον μόνο) δείκτη ταυτότητας, οι φυλετικές διαφορές βάραιναν σημαντικά. Αν ανάμεσα σε δυο κλάδους της ίδιας φυλής είχε χυθεί αίμα, αυτό θα ήταν πολύ δύσκολο να ξεχαστεί ακόμη και εκατό χρόνια αργότερα.
Οθωμανοί, Σαφεβίδες του Ιράν, και Γκορκανιάν της Νότιας Ασίας (όχι μόνον ‘Ινδίας’) ήταν όλοι τουρκομογγολικής καταγωγής.
Οθωμανοί και Γκορκανιάν ήταν Σουνίτες, ενώ οι Σαφεβίδες ήταν Σιίτες.
Αλλά ο Ταμερλάνος, πρόγονος των Γκορκανιάν, είχε χύσει οθωμανικό αίμα το 1402 στην Μάχη της Άγκυρας. Αυτό ξεπεράστηκε σε κάποιο βαθμό αλλά δεν ξεχάστηκε ποτέ.
Η Ιστορία της Μογγολικής Αυτοκρατορίας της Νότιας Ασίας είναι γεμάτη από πλούτο, τέχνες, γράμματα, εντυπωσιακά μνημεία και μυστικισμό. Νομίζω ότι ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να την προσεγγίσει κάποιος είναι να μάθει μερικά βασικά στοιχεία για τον εντελώς ξεχωριστό άνθρωπο που ήταν ο ιδρυτής αυτής της δυναστείας. Παρά την μεταγενέστερη επέκταση των Γκορκανιάν, κανένας απόγονος του Μπαμπούρ δεν τον ξεπέρασε στην στρατιωτική τέχνη.
Έφηβος οδηγούσε εμπειροπόλεμα στρατεύματα στις μάχες. Για σχεδόν τρεις δεκαετίες διέσχισε όλα τα κακοτράχαλα βουνά ανάμεσα στο ιρανικό οροπέδιο, τις στέππες της Σιβηρίας, την Τάκλα Μακάν και τις κοιλάδες του Ινδού και του Γάγγη. Πριν κατακτήσει το Χιντουστάν (: σημερινή βόρεια Ινδία), άλλαζε βασίλεια σχεδόν σαν τα πουκάμισα. Παράλληλα, συνέγραφε ιστορικά κείμενα και ποιήματα, έπινε, χαιρόταν την ζωή, και διερχόταν περιόδους ασκητισμού.
Παρά το ότι ο μεγάλος θρίαμβος ήλθε στο τέλος, ο Μπαμπούρ δεν ξέχασε ποτέ την γη που του συμπαραστάθηκε στα χρόνια των δοκιμασιών: την Καμπούλ του σημερινού Αφγανιστάν. Έτσι, αν και πέθανε στην Άγκρα της Ινδίας, θέλησε να ταφεί στην Καμπούλ. Ένας τεράστιος κήπος περιβάλλει το μαυσωλείο του Μπαμπούρ και μπορείτε να το δείτε σε δυο βίντεο, στις εισαγωγές των οποίων δίνω ένα γενικό σχεδιάγραμμα της ζωής και των ενδιαφερόντων, των κατορθωμάτων και των μαχών του Τίγρη (Μπαμπούρ σημαίνει Τίγρης στα τσαγατάι τουρκικά που ήταν η μητρική του γλώσσα κι αυτή των στρατιωτών του).
Κήποι και Μαυσωλείο του Μπαμπούρ στην Καμπούλ του Αφγανιστάν
Στο θέμα θα επανέλθω για να επεκταθώ στο Μπαμπούρ Ναμέ, το ‘Βιβλίο του Μπαμπούρ’ το οποίο συνέγραψε ο ίδιος ο στρατηλάτης και αυτοκράτορας. Το αντίστοιχο θα υπήρχε, αν συγχωνεύονταν σε ένα πρόσωπο ο Μέγας Αλέξανδρος και ο Αρριανός, ή ο Ιουστινιανός και ο Προκόπιος.
Μπορείτε να δείτε και αλλοιώς: το Μπαμπούρ Ναμέ είναι το ανατολικό, ασιατικό De Bello Civili και De Bello Gallico. Ή, πιο απλά, ο Μπαμπούρ είναι ο Μογγόλος Καίσαρ. Αλλά ο Καίσαρ είχε μόνιμο σημείο αναφοράς την Ρώμη. Ο Μπαμπούρ μετεκινείτο ως βασιλιάς από την Φεργάνα στην Σαμαρκάνδη, από κει στην Καμπούλ και τελικά στην Άγκρα. Δεν όριζε το στέμμα του το σπαθί του, αλλά το σπαθί του το στέμμα του.
Νόμισμα που έκοψε ο Μπαμπούρ το 1507-1508
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Кабул: Сады и Мавзолей Бабура, Могольского Императора (Горкани) Индии
https://www.ok.ru/video/1509854481005
Περισσότερα:
Баги Бабур (пушту باغ بابر, перс. باغ بابر; также встречаются названия сад Бабура и сады Бабура) — парковый комплекс в Афганистане, расположен неподалеку от города Кабула. Назван в честь своего владельца Бабура, основателя империи Великих Моголов. Бабур, помимо этого, увлекался разведением садов. Баги Бабур является одной из достопримечательностей страны. Отличается тщательной продуманностью посадок; в прошлом в нём выращивались многие уникальные растения. Среди них были различные сорта фруктов, бахчевых и многое другое, что ранее вовсе не встречалось на данной территории.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Баги_Бабур
The Garden of Babur (locally called Bagh-e Babur, Persian: باغ بابر/ bāġ-e bābur) is a historic park in Kabul, Afghanistan, and also the last resting-place of the first Mughal emperor Babur. The garden are thought to have been developed around 1528 AD (935 AH) when Babur gave orders for the construction of an “avenue garden” in Kabul, described in some detail in his memoirs, the Baburnama.
The original construction date of the gardens (Persian: باغ – bāġ) is unknown. When Babur captured Kabul in 1504 from the Arguns he re-developed the site and used it as a guest house for special occasions, especially during the summer seasons. Since Babur had such a high rank, he would have been buried in a site that befitted him. The garden where it is believed Babur requested to be buried in is known as Bagh-e Babur. Mughul rulers saw this site as significant and aided in further development of the site and other tombs in Kabul. In an article written by the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme, describes the marble screen built around tombs by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1638 with the following inscription:
“only this mosque of beauty, this temple of nobility, constructed for the prayer of saints and the epiphany of cherubs, was fit to stand in so venerable a sanctuary as this highway of archangels, this theatre of heaven, the light garden of the god forgiven angel king whose rest is in the garden of heaven, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur the Conqueror.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Babur
Ένα από τα πιο ενδιαφέροντα μνημεία της Καμπούλ είναι οι τεράστιοι κήποι και το μαυσωλείο του απογόνου του Ταμερλάνου βασιλιά της Φεργκάνα (σήμερα στο Ουζμπεκιστάν), ο οποίος αφού κατέκτησε την Σαμαρκάνδη, το σημερινό ανατολικό Ιράν και την Καμπούλ, κατέλαβε την Κοιλάδα του Ινδού και όλη την Ινδία (Χιντουστάν: σημερινή βόρεια Ινδία).
Εκεί κατέλυσε το ισλαμικό Σουλτανάτο του Δελχίου, θεμελίωσε την Αυτοκρατορία των Μεγάλων Μογγόλων (Μουγάλ – Mughal, όπως είναι γνωστοί στις δυτικές γλώσσες) την οποία οι ίδιοι αποκαλούσαν Γκορκανιάν.
Η λέξη αυτή (گورکانیان, Gūrkāniyān) είναι περσική και σημαίνει ‘Γαμπροί’. Έτσι ονόμαζαν τους Μεγάλους Μογγόλους της Νότιας Ασίας οι Ιρανοί στα φαρσί (περσικά) επειδή οι Μεγάλοι Μογγόλοι διατήρησαν την μογγολική παράδοση να ανεβαίνει στον θρόνο και γενικώτερα στην ιεραρχία της αυτοκρατορίας ένας ταπεινής καταγωγής αλλά γενναίος στρατιωτικός μετά από τον γάμο του με μια από τις κόρες ενός ευγενή ή ενός αυτοκράτορα.
Ο Μπαμπούρ ήταν μια στρατιωτική μεγαλοφυία, ένας πολυμαθής φιλόσοφος, ένας ποιητής και ιστορικός που άφησε ένα τεράστιο βιογραφικό ιστορικό έργο γραμμένο σε τσαγατάι τουρκικά με αρκετούς περσισμούς που λέγεται Μπαμπούρ Ναμέ (το Βιβλίο του Μπαμπούρ).
Η Ισλαμική (Σουνιτική) Αυτοκρατορία των Μεγάλων Μογγόλων ήταν συχνά ισχυρώτερη και πλουσιώτερη από την Σαφεβιδική (Σιιτική) Αυτοκρατορία του Ιράν και την Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, συνένωσε εκτάσεις από την Κεντρική Ασία μέχρι την Ινδονησία, προξένησε μια μεγάλη μετανάστευση τουρκομογγολικών πληθυσμών στην Ινδία και στο Ντεκάν, κι αποτελεί την περίοδο της μεγαλύτερης ανάπτυξης Γραμμάτων, Τεχνών και Πολιτισμού στην Ινδία, το Ντεκάν, και γενικώτερα στην Νότια Ασία.
Ωστόσο, οι Γκορκανιάν είχαν έντονα επηρεαστεί από τον ιρανικό πολιτισμό.
Στην αυτοκρατορία τους, τα περσικά ήταν η γλώσσα της τέχνης και της λογοτεχνίας, τα αραβικά η γλώσσα των επιστημών, και τα ουρντού η γλώσσα του στρατού.
Τα ουρντού είναι στη βάση τους μια τουρκική γλώσσα (σήμερα στα τουρκικά της Τουρκίας ordu σημαίνει ‘στρατός’) μεικτή με ινδοευρωπαϊκό λεξιλόγιο.
Αν και πέθανε και τάφηκε στην βόρεια Ινδία ο Μπαμπούρ (στα τουρκικά το όνομά του σημαίνει ‘Τίγρης’), ζήτησε να ταφεί σε μια πόλη που του χρησίμευσε ως βάση για την κατάκτηση της βόρειας Ινδίας.
Γενικό σχεδιάγραμμα της πορείας του Μπαμπούρ από την Κεντρική Ασία προς την Ινδία
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Kabul: Gardens and Mausoleum of Babur, Mughal Emperor (Gorkani) of India
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240305
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Καμπούλ: Κήποι και Μαυσωλείο του Μπαμπούρ, Μεγάλου Μογγόλου (Γκορκανιάν) Αυτοκράτορα της Ινδίας
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Бабур (1483-1530): военный гений, поэт, историк и император, основатель Горканской династии (Великих Моголов) Индии
https://www.ok.ru/video/1510072388205
Περισσότερα:
Захир-ад-дин Мухаммад Бабу́р (узб. Zahiriddin Muhammad Bobur; араб. ﻇَﻬﻴﺮْ ﺍَﻟَﺪّﻳﻦ مُحَمَّدْ بَابُرْ, «Бабур» означает «лев, полководец, барс» и происходит от персидского слова ْبَبْر (babr) — «тигр», 14 февраля 1483 — 26 декабря 1530) — среднеазиатский и тимуридский правитель Индии и Афганистана, полководец, основатель династии и империи Бабуридов, в некоторых источниках — как империи Великих Моголов (1526). Известен также как узбекский поэт и писатель.
Полная тронная титулатура: ас-Султан аль-Азам ва-л-Хакан аль-Мукаррам Захир ад-дин Мухаммад Джалал ад-дин Бабур, Падшах-и-Гази.
Бабур — основатель династии, выходец из города Андижан. Родным языком Бабура был турки (староузбекский). Писал в своих мемуарах: “Жители Андижана — все тюрки; в городе и на базаре нет человека, который бы не знал по-тюркски. Говор народа сходен с литературным”. “Мемуары Бабура написаны на той разновидности тюркского языка, которая известна под названием турки, являющегося родным языком Бабура”, — писал английский востоковед Е. Дениссон Росс.
За свою 47-летнюю жизнь Захириддин Мухаммад Бабур оставил богатое литературное и научное наследие. Его перу принадлежит знаменитое «Бабур-наме», снискавшая мировое признание, оригинальные и прекрасные лирические произведения (газели, рубаи), трактаты по мусульманскому законоведению («Мубайин»), поэтике («Аруз рисоласи»), музыке, военному делу, а также специальный алфавит «Хатт-и Бабури».
Бабур переписывался с Алишером Навои. Стихи Бабура, написанные на тюркском, отличаются чеканностью образов и афористичностью. Главный труд Бабура — автобиография «Бабур-наме», первый образец этого жанра в исторической литературе, излагает события с 1493 по 1529 годы, живо воссоздаёт детали быта знати, нравы и обычаи эпохи. Французский востоковед Луи Базан в своём введении к французскому переводу (1980 г.) писал, что «автобиография (Бабура) представляет собой чрезвычайно редкий жанр в исламской литературе».
В последние годы жизни тема потери Родины стала одной из центральных тем лирики Бабура. Заслуга Бабура как историка, географа, этнографа, прозаика и поэта в настоящее время признана мировой востоковедческой наукой. Его наследие изучается почти во всех крупных востоковедческих центрах мира.
Можно сказать, что стихи Бабура — автобиография поэта, в которых поэтическим языком, трогательно излагаются глубокие чувства, мастерски рассказывается о переживаниях, порожденных в результате столкновения с жизненными обстоятельствами, о чём красноречиво говорит сам поэт:
Каких страданий не терпел и тяжких бед, Бабур?
Каких не знал измен, обид, каких клевет, Бабур?
Но кто прочтет «Бабур-наме», увидит, сколько мук
И сколько горя перенес царь и поэт Бабур.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бабур
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Babur (1483-1530): Military Genius, Poet, Historian and Emperor, the Founder of the Gorkanian Dynasty (Great Mughal) of India
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240306
Περισσότερα:
Babur (Persian: بابر, romanized: Bābur, lit. ‘tiger’] 14 February 1483 – 26 December 1530), born Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad, was the founder and first Emperor of the Mughal dynasty in South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Emperor Timur (Tamerlane) from what is now Uzbekistan.
The difficulty of pronouncing the name for his Central Asian Turco-Mongol army may have been responsible for the greater popularity of his nickname Babur, also variously spelled Baber, Babar, and Bābor The name is generally taken in reference to the Persian babr, meaning “tiger”. The word repeatedly appears in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and was borrowed into the Turkic languages of Central Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur#Ruler_of_Central_Asia
Захир-ад-дин Мухаммад Бабу́р (узб. Zahiriddin Muhammad Bobur; араб. ﻇَﻬﻴﺮْ ﺍَﻟَﺪّﻳﻦ مُحَمَّدْ بَابُرْ, «Бабур» означает «лев, полководец, барс» и происходит от персидского слова ْبَبْر (babr) — «тигр», 14 февраля 1483 — 26 декабря 1530) — среднеазиатский и тимуридский правитель Индии и Афганистана, полководец, основатель династии и империи Бабуридов, в некоторых источниках — как империи Великих Моголов (1526). Известен также как узбекский поэт и писатель. Полная тронная титулатура: ас-Султан аль-Азам ва-л-Хакан аль-Мукаррам Захир ад-дин Мухаммад Джалал ад-дин Бабур, Падшах-и-Гази.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бабур
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Μπαμπούρ (1483-1530): Στρατηλάτης, Ποιητής, Ιστορικός, Πρώτος Αυτοκράτορας των Γκορκανιάν της Ινδίας
Περισσότερα:
Ένας από τους μεγαλύτερους στρατηλάτες όλων των εποχών, ένας από τους ελάχιστους ηγεμόνες που δεν έχασαν ποτέ μάχη, ένας στρατιωτικός με μεγάλη μάθηση, γνώση και σοφία, συγγραφέας ενός μεγαλειώδους ιστορικού έργου (Μπαμπούρ Ναμέ: ‘το Βιβλίο του Μπαμπούρ’), ποιητής και μυστικιστής, με ενδιαφέρον για την καλοζωΐα σε σύντομα όμως χρονικά διαστήματα αλλά και με ασκητικές τάσεις, ήταν ο θεμελιωτής της μεγάλης μογγολικής δυναστείας της Νότιας Ασίας που οι δυτικοί αποκαλούν Μουγάλ (Μεγάλους Μογγόλους).
Όταν ο Μπαμπούρ γεννήθηκε στο Αντιτζάν της Κοιλάδας Φεργάνα της Κεντρικής Ασίας (σήμερα στο Ουζμπεκιστάν), τίποτα δεν έδειχνε ότι θα γινόταν ό ίδιος ο ιδρυτής μιας τεράστιας αυτοκρατορίας.
Απόγονος του Ταμερλάνου, ήταν γιος του ηγεμόνα ενός μικρού από τα πολλά τιμουριδικά βασίλεια των χρόνων του.
Έμεινε ορφανός και συνεπώς ηγεμόνας ενός μικρού βασιλείου στα 11 του χρόνια. Ακολούθησαν τρεις τρομερές δεκαετίες στην διάρκεια των οποίων ο Μπαμπούρ άλλαξε τον χάρτη της Κεντρικής και της Νότιας Ασίας.
Ήταν μια σειρά πολέμων, κατακτήσεων και διαδοχικών βασιλείων από τα οποία ο ίδιος με τους στρατιώτες του μετεκινούνταν, συχνά εν μέσω φονικών μαχών, τρομερών κακουχιών και φυσικών αντιξοοτήτων.
Μόνον στα 43 του, το 1526, κατάφερε ο Μπαμπούρ επιτέλους να επιβληθεί στην βόρεια Ινδία και να θεμελιώσει την δυναστεία – θρύλο της Νότιας Ασίας.
Έτσι, ο Μπαμπούρ διαδοχικά χρημάτισε:
1494-1497: βασιλιάς της Φεργάνα
1497-1498: βασιλιάς της Σαμαρκάνδης
1498-1500: βασιλιάς της Φεργάνα
1500-1501: βασιλιάς της Σαμαρκάνδης
1504-1530: βασιλιάς της Καμπούλ
1511-1512: βασιλιάς της Σαμαρκάνδης
1526-1530: αυτοκράτορας του Χιντουστάν (πρωτεύουσα: Άγκρα)
Οι μάχες του Πανιπάτ (1526), της Χάνουα (1527), και του Τσαντερί (1528) στερέωσαν την κυριαρχία του στην βόρεια Ινδία (Χιντουστάν).
Μέχρι τότε, αν και σουνίτης μουσουλμάνος, δεν δίστασε να συνεργαστεί με τους Κιζιλμπάσηδες (όταν ο Οθωμανός Σουλτάνος Σελίμ Α’ προτίμησε να συνεργαστεί με τους Ουζμπέκους εχθρούς του), με τον Σάχη Ισμαήλ Α’ (βασ. 1501-1524), και στην συνέχεια (μετά το 1513) με τον Σελίμ Α’ (βασ. 1512-1520), ο οποίος νωρίς κατάλαβε ότι ο Μπαμπούρ θα μπορούσε να στήσει ό,τι χρειαζόταν η Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία: μια μεγάλη σουνιτική ισλαμική αυτοκρατορία από την άλλη, ανατολική, πλευρά των συνόρων της σιιτικής ισλαμικής ιρανικής αυτοκρατορίας των Σαφεβιδών.
Αυτό ήταν μεγάλος ρεαλισμός: το 1402 (ένα αιώνα νωρίτερα) ο Βαγιαζίτ Α’, πρόγονος του Σελίμ Α’, είχε συλληφθεί αιχμάλωτος από τον Ταμερλάνο (πρόγονο του Μπαμπούρ), ο οποίος είχε χύσει άφθονο οθωμανικό αίμα στην Μάχη της Άγκυρας.
Ωστόσο, οι Γκορκανιάν (όπως αποκαλούνταν οι Μεγάλοι Μογγόλοι οι ίδιοι στα περσικά) κράτησαν μια ισορροπία στις σχέσεις τους ανάμεσα σε Σαφεβίδες και Οθωμανούς.
Πριν από 500 χρόνια, ο Σουλτάνος Σελίμ Α’ (1470-1520), ο Σάχης Ισμαήλ Α’ (1487-1524), και ο Μπαμπούρ (1483-1530) ήταν οι τρεις ισχυρώτεροι αυτοκράτορες του κόσμου.
Και ήταν, ασχέτως θρησκευτικών διαφορών, και οι τρεις τουρκομογγολικής καταγωγής.
Με περισσότερη κλίση στην θεολογία και στην στρατιωτική πειθαρχία ο πρώτος, με έντονη τάση στην ποίηση και την συγγραφή οι άλλοι δύο που επίσης διέπρεπαν και στον έκλυτο βίο – ο Ισμαήλ Α’ συνεχώς κι ο Μπαμπούρ περιστασιακά.
Ο Μπαμπούρ θυμίζει τον Μεγάλο Αλέξανδρο: αλλού γεννήθηκε (Φεργάνα), αλλού πέθανε (Χιντουστάν), αλλού τάφηκε (Καμπούλ).
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Διαβάστε:
Bābor, Ẓahīr-al-dīn Moḥammad
(6 Moḥarram 886-6 Jomādā I 937/14 February 1483-26 December 1530) Timurid prince, military genius, and literary craftsman who escaped the bloody political arena of his Central Asian birthplace to found the Mughal Empire in India
His origin, milieu, training, and education were steeped in Persian culture and so Bābor was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, the Mughals of India, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results.
Bābor’s father, ʿOmar Šayḵ Mīrzā (d. 899/1494), ruled the kingdom of Farḡāna along the headwaters of the Syr Darya, but as one of four brothers, direct fifth-generation descendants from the great Tīmūr, he entertained larger ambitions. The lack of a succession law and the presence of many Timurid males perpetuated an atmosphere of constant intrigue, often erupting into open warfare, between the descendants who vied for mastery in Khorasan and Central Asia, but they finally lost their patrimony when they proved incapable of cooperating to defend it against a common enemy.
It was against that same enemy, namely, the Uzbeks under the brilliant Šaybānī Khan (d. 916/1510), that Bābor himself learned his trade as a military leader in a long series of losing encounters. Bābor’s mother, Qotlūk Negār Ḵanūm, was the daughter of Yūnos Khan of Tashkent and a direct descendant of Jengiz Khan. She and her mother, Aysān-Dawlat Bēgam, had great influence on Bābor during his early career. It was his grandmother, for instance, who taught Bābor many of his political and diplomatic skills (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 43), thus initiating the long series of contributions by strong and intelligent women in the history of the Mughal Empire.
Ο Μπαμπούρ (δεξιά) με τον γιο και διάδοχό του Χουμαγιούν
Bābor presumed that his descent from Tīmūr legitimized his claim to rule anywhere that Tīmūr had conquered, but like his father, the first prize he sought was Samarqand. He was plunged into the maelstrom of Timurid politics by his father’s death in Ramażān, 899/June, 1494, when he was only eleven. Somehow he managed to survive the turbulent years that followed. Wars with his kinsmen, with the Mughals under Tanbal who ousted him from Andijan, the capital city of Farḡāna, and especially with Šaybānī Khan Uzbek mostly went against him, but from the beginning he showed an ability to reach decisions quickly, to act firmly and to remain calm and collected in battle. He also tended to take people at their word and to view most situations optimistically rather than critically.
In Moḥarram, 910/June-July, 1504, at the age of twenty-one, Bābor, alone among the Timurids of his generation, opted to leave the Central Asian arena, in which he had lost everything, to seek a power base elsewhere, perhaps with the intention of returning to his homeland at a later date.
Accompanied by his younger brothers, Jahāngīr and Nāṣer, he set out for Khorasan, but changed his plans and seized the kingdom of Kabul instead.
In this campaign he began to think more seriously of his role as ruler of a state, shocking his troops by ordering plunderers beaten to death (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 197).
The mountain tribesmen in and around Farḡāna with whom Bābor had frequently found shelter had come to accept him as their legitimate king.
He had no such claims upon the loyalty of the Afghan tribes in Kabul, but he had learned much about human nature and the nomad mentality in his three prolonged periods of wandering among the shepherd tribes of Central Asia (during 903/1497-98, 907/1501-02, and 909/1503-04).
He crushed all military opposition, even reviving the old Mongol shock tactic of putting up towers of the heads of slain foes, but he also made strenuous efforts to be fair and just, admitting, for instance, that his early estimates of food production and hence the levy of tributary taxes were excessive (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 228).
At this point Bābor still saw Kabul as only a temporary base for re-entry to his ancestral domain, and he made several attempts to return in the period 912-18/1506-12. In 911/1505 his uncle Sultan Ḥosayn Mīrzā of Herat, the only remaining Timurid ruler besides Bābor, requested his aid against the Uzbeks—even though he himself had refused to aid Bābor on several previous occasions.
His uncle died before Bābor arrived in Herat, but Bābor remained there till he became convinced that his cousins were incapable of offering effective resistance to Šaybānī Khan’s Uzbeks.
While in Herat he sampled the sophistication of a brilliant court culture, acquiring a taste for wine, and also developing an appreciation for the refinements of urban culture, especially as exemplified in the literary works of Mīr ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾī.
During his stay in Herat Bābor occupied Navāʾī’s former residence, prayed at Navāʾī’s tomb, and recorded his admiration for the poet’s vast corpus of Torkī verses, though he found most of the Persian verses to be “flat and poor” (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 272).
Navāʾī’s pioneering literary work in Torkī, much of it based, of course, on Persian models, must have reinforced Bābor’s own efforts to write in that medium.
In Rajab, 912/December, 1506, Bābor returned to Kabul in a terrible trek over snow-choked passes, during which several of his men lost hands or feet through frostbite. The event has been vividly described in his diary (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 307-11). As he had foreseen, the Uzbeks easily took Herat in the following summer’s campaign, and Bābor indulged in one of his rare slips from objectivity when he recorded the campaign in his diary with some unfair vilification of Šaybānī Khan, his long-standing nemesis (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 328-29).
Bābor next consolidated his base in Kabul, and added to it Qandahār. He dramatically put down a revolt by defeating, one by one in personal combat, five of the ringleaders—an event which his admiring young cousin Mīrzā Moḥammad Ḥaydar Doḡlat believed to be his greatest feat of arms (Tārīḵ-erašīdī, tr., p. 204).
Here again it seems that Bābor acted impetuously, but saved himself by his courage and strength; and such legend-making deeds solidified his charismatic hold on the men whom he had to lead in battle. Uncharacteristically, Bābor withdrew from Qandahār and Kabul at the rumor that Šaybānī Khan was coming.
It was apparently the only time in his life when he lost confidence in himself. In fact, the Uzbek leader was defeated and killed by Shah Esmāʿīl Ṣafawī in 916/1510, and this opened the way for Bābor’s last bid for a throne in Samarqand.
From Rajab, 917 to Ṣafar, 918/October, 1511 to May, 1512, he held the city for the third time, but as a client of Shah Esmāʿīl, a condition that required him to make an outward profession of the Shiʿite faith and to adopt the Turkman costume of the Safavid troops.
Bābor’s kinsmen and erstwhile subjects did not concur with his doctrinal realignment, however much it had been dictated by political circumstances. Moḥammad-Ḥaydar, a young man indebted to Bābor for both refuge and support, exulted at the Uzbek defeat of Bābor, thus demonstrating how unusual in that time and place were Bābor’s breadth of vision and tolerance, qualities that became crucial to his later success in India. Breaking away from his Safavid allies, Bābor dallied in the Qunduz area, but he must have sensed that his chance to regain Samarqand was irretrievably lost.
It was only at this stage that he began to think of India as a serious goal, though after the conquest he wrote that his desire for Hindustan had been constant from 910/1504 (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 478). With four raids beginning in 926/1519, he probed the Indian scene and discovered that dissension and mismanagement were rife in the Lodi Sultanate. In the winter of 932/1525-26 he brought all his experience to bear on the great enterprise of the conquest of India. With the proverb “Ten friends are better than nine” in mind, he waited for all his allies before pressing his attack on Lahore (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 433).
His great skills at organization enabled him to move his 12,000 troops from 16 to 22 miles a day once he had crossed the Indus, and with brilliant leadership he defeated three much larger forces in the breathtaking campaigns that made him master of North India. First he maneuvered Sultan Ebrāhīm Lōdī into attacking his prepared position at the village of Panipat north of Delhi on 8 Rajab 932/20 April 1526. Although the Indian forces (he estimated them at 100,000; Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 480) heavily outnumbered Bābor’s small army, they fought as a relatively inflexible and undisciplined mass and quickly disintegrated.
Bābor considered Ebrāhīm to be an incompetent general, unworthy of comparison with the Uzbek khans, and a petty king, driven only by greed to pile up his treasure while leaving his army untrained and his great nobles disaffected (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 470). Yet Bābor ordered a tomb to be built for him.
He then swiftly occupied Delhi and Agra, first visiting the tombs of famous Sufi saints and previous Turkish kings, and characteristically laying out a garden.
The garden provided him with such satisfaction that he later wrote: “to have grapes and melons grown in this way in Hindustan filled my measure of content” (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 686).
His new kingdom was a different story. Bābor first had to solve the problem of disaffection among his troops.
Like Alexander’s army, they felt that they were a long way from home in a strange and unpleasant land.
Bābor had planned the conquest intending to make India the base of his empire since Kabul’s resources proved too limited to support his nobles and troops.
He himself never returned to live in Kabul.
But, since he had permitted his troops to think that this was simply another raid for wealth and booty, he had to persuade them otherwise, which was no easy chore (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 522-35).
The infant Mughal state also had to fight for its life against a formidable confederation of the Rajput chiefs led by Mahārānā Sangā of Mewar.
After a dramatic episode in which Bābor publicly foreswore alcohol (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 551-56), Bābor defeated the Rajputs at Khanwah on 13 Jomādā I 933/17 March 1527 with virtually the same tactics he had used at Panipat, but in this case the battle was far more closely contested.
Bābor next campaigned down the Ganges River to Bengal against the Afghan lords, many of whom had refused to support Ebrāhīm Lōdī but also had no desire to surrender their autonomy to Bābor.
Even while rival powers threatened him on all sides—Rajputs and Afghans in India, Uzbeks at his rear in Kabul—Bābor’s mind was turned to consolidation and government.
He employed hundreds of stone masons to build up his new capital cities, while winning over much of the Indian nobility with his fair and conciliatory policies.
He was anxiously grooming his sons to succeed him, not without some clashes of personality, when his eldest son Homāyūn (b. 913/1506) fell seriously ill in 937/1530.
Another young son had already died in the unaccustomed Indian climate, and at this family crisis his daughter Golbadan wrote that Bābor offered his own life in place of his son’s, walking seven times around the sickbed to confirm the vow (Bābor-nāma, translator’s note, pp. 701-2).
Bābor did not leave Agra again, and died there later that year on 6 Jomādā I 937/26 December 1530.
Bābor’s diary, which has become one of the classic autobiographies of world literature, would be a major literary achievement even if the life it illuminates were not so remarkable. He wrote not only the Bābor-nāma but works on Sufism, law and prosody as well as a fine collection of poems in Čaḡatay Torkī. In all, he produced the most significant body of literature in that language after Navāʾī, and every piece reveals a clear, cultivated intelligence as well as an enormous breadth of interests.
His Dīvān includes a score or more of poems in Persian, and with the long connection between the Mughals and the Safavid court begun by Bābor himself, the Persian language became not only the language of record but also the literary vehicle for his successors. It was his grandson Akbar who had the Bābor-nāma translated into Persian in order that his nobles and officers could have access to this dramatic account of the dynasty’s founder.
Bābor did not introduce artillery into India—the Portuguese had done that—and he himself noted that the Bengal armies had gunners (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 667-74). But his use of new technology was characteristic of his enquiring mind and enthusiasm for improvement. His Ottoman experts had only two cannons at Panipat, and Bābor personally witnessed the casting of another, probably the first to be cast in India, by Ostād ʿAlīqolī on 22 October 1526 (Bābor-nāma, tr., pp. 536-37).
The piece did not become ready for test firing till 10 February 1527 when it shot stones about 1,600 yards, and during the subsequent campaigns against the Afghans down the Ganges, Bābor specifically mentions Ostād ʿAlīqolī getting off eight shots on the first day of the battle and sixteen on the next (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 599). Quite obviously then it was not some technical superiority in weaponry, but Bābor’s genius in using the discipline and mobility which he had created in his troops that won the crucial battles for him in India.
Bābor, however, was generally interested in improving technology, not only for warfare but also for agriculture. He tried to introduce new crops to the Indian terrain and to spread the use of improved water-lifting devices for irrigation (Bābor-nāma, tr., p. 531). His interest in improvement and change was facilitated by his generous nature. Though he had faults, they were outweighed by his attractive personality, cheerful in the direst adversity, and faithful to his friends.
The loyalties he inspired enabled the Mughal Empire in India to survive his own early death and the fifteen-year exile of his son and successor, Homāyūn. The liberal traditions of the Mughal dynasty were Bābor’s enduring legacy to his country by conquest.
Τις βιβλιογαφικές παραπομπές του κειμένου θα βρείτε εδώ:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/babor-zahir-al-din
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Επιπλέον:
Μπαμπούρ και Γκορκανιάν (Μεγάλοι Μογγόλοι):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бабур
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Империя_Великих_Моголов
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Babur
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Баги_Бабур
Οικογενειακό υπόβαθρο:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Shaikh_Mirza_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutlugh_Nigar_Khanum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Sa%27id_Mirza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timurid_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagatai_Khanate
Τοπογραφικά για την καταγωγή του Μπαμπούρ:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergana_Valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhsikath
Ιστορικό υπόβαθρο:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarazmian_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilkhanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Ilkhanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalairid_Sultanate
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Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε Word doc.:
https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/14831530
https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/babur.docx
https://vk.com/doc429864789_622328060
https://www.docdroid.net/JWgxJAd/mpampour-1483-1530-stratilatis-filosofos-poiitis-istorikos-autokratoras-apoghonos-toy-tamerlanoy-docx
Φερντοουσί, ο Παραδεισένιος: Εθνικός Ποιητής Ιρανών και Τουρανών, Θεμελιωτής του Νεώτερου Ευρασιατικού Πολιτισμού
Ferdowsi, the Paradisiacal: National Poet of all Iranians and Turanians, Founder of Modern Eurasiatic Civilization
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 28η Αυγούστου 2019.
Στο κείμενό του αυτό ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης παραθέτει στοιχεία από ημερήσιο σεμινάριο στο οποίο παρουσίασα (Πεκίνο, Ιανουάριος 2018) τα θεμέλια της ισλαμικής και νεώτερης παιδείας και πολιτισμού όλων των Τουρανών, Ιρανών και πολλών άλλων, μουσουλμάνων και μη, Ασιατών.
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https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/08/28/φερντοουσί-ο-παραδεισένιος-εθνικός-π/ ============
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Πολύ λίγοι αντιλαμαβάνονται ότι, αν ο γνωστός Αλβανός χριστιανός και μετέπειτα μουσουλμάνος ηγεμόνας Γεώργιος Καστριώτης επονομάσθηκε από τους Οθωμανούς Σκεντέρμπεης (1405-1468), αυτό οφείλεται στον Πέρση Φερντοουσί, τον εθνικό ποιητή Ιρανών και Τουρανών που αφιέρωσε κάποιες από τις ιστορίες που αφηγήθηκε στον Μεγάλο Αλέξανδρο – ή μάλλον στο τι από τον Αλέξανδρο (ποια πλευρά του χαρακτήρα του βασιλιά) παρουσίασε μέσα στο έπος του.
Αυτές οι ιστορίες έτυχαν περαιτέρω επεξεργασίας και αναπτύχθηκαν περισσότερο μέσα σε έπη μεταγενεστέρων ποιητών, όπως ο Αζέρος Νεζαμί Γκαντζεβί, για να διαδοθούν απ’ άκρου εις άκρον του ευρασιατικού χώρου.
Αυτή ήταν η αξία του μύθου: επηρέασε μακρινούς λαούς και μεταγενέστερες περιόδους, μέσω των ηθικών προτύπων και των συμβολισμών, πολύ περισσότερο από όσο η θρησκεία και η ιστορία.
Μέσω του Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί, το οποίο είναι το μακροσκελέστερο έπος όλων των εποχών (μεγαλύτερο από όσο η Ιλιάδα κι η Οδύσσεια μαζί), οι Οθωμανοί αλλά και πολλοί άλλοι, Γεωργιανοί, Μογγόλοι, Ινδοί, Αρμένιοι, Κινέζοι, Τουρανοί (Turkic) και Πέρσες, Τάταροι και Ρώσσοι, όπως και πολλοί βαλκανικοί λαοί έμαθαν ένα πλήθος από ηρωϊκά πρότυπα των οποίων φέρουν οι ίδιοι τα ονόματα ως προσωπικά και τα ανδραγαθήματα ως πρότυπο ζωής.
Οι ιστορίες του Σαχναμέ έγιναν παραμύθια για τα μικρά παιδιά, διδακτικές ιστορίες για τα σχολεία, και παραδείγματα για τους προετοιμαζόμενους στρατιώτες, έτσι διαπερνώντας την λαϊκή παιδεία σχεδόν όλων των εθνών της Ασίας, μουσουλμάνων και μη.
Τα ονόματα των ηρώων του Φερντοουσί που είναι τουρανικά κι ιρανικά βρίσκονται σήμερα ως προσωπικά ονόματα ανάμεσα σε Βόσνιους κι Ινδονήσιους, Μογγόλους της Ανατολικής Σιβηρίας κι Ινδούς, Τατάρους της Ρωσσίας και Πέρσες, κοκ.
Το να γνωρίζεις τις ιστορίες του Φερντοουσί είναι απόδειξη ανώτερης παιδείας είτε βρίσκεσαι στο Αζερμπαϊτζάν, είτε είσαι στο Μπάνγκλα Ντες, είτε ζεις στο Καζάν, είτε μένεις στην Ανατολική Σιβηρία.
Πόσες είναι οι ιστορίες του έπους; Σχεδόν 1000!
Η παραπάνω αναφορά στον Σκεντέρμπεη είναι ένα μόνον από τα πάμπολλα παραδείγματα της απέραντης, υστερογενούς επίδρασης του Φερντοουσί η οποία εξικνείται σε πολύ μακρινά σημεία της γης και ανάμεσα σε λαούς που δεν είχαν καν διαβάσει το τεράστιο έπος.
Αλλά οι αναγνώστες του έπους είχαν επηρεαστεί πολύ περισσότερο όσο υψηλά και αν ευρίσκονταν.
Γράφοντας στον Σάχη Ισμαήλ Α’ στις παραμονές της μάχης του Τσαλντιράν (1514), δηλαδή σχεδόν 500 χρόνια μετά τον θάνατο του Φερντοουσί, ο Σουλτάνος Σελίμ Α’ περιέγραψε τον εαυτό του ως ‘θριαμβεύοντα Φερεϊντούν’, κάνοντας έτσι μια αναφορά σε ένα από τους πιο σημαντικούς και πιο θετικούς ήρωες του Σαχναμέ.
.Το δείπνο που παρέθεσε στον γιο του Φερεϊντούν ο βασιλιάς της Υεμένης. Από σμικρογραφία χειρογράφου
Για να αναφερθεί στον αντίπαλό του, Ιρανό Σάχη, ο Σουλτάνος Σελίμ Α’ έκανε περαιτέρω χρήση των ιστοριών του ιρανικού – τουρανικού έπους:
απεκάλεσε τον θεμελιωτή της δυναστείας των Σαφεβιδών “σφετεριστή της εξουσίας Δαρείο των καιρών μας” και “κακόβουλο Ζαχάκ της εποχής μας”.
Και αυτοί οι όροι παραπέμπουν σε κεντρικά πρόσωπα των ιστοριών του Σαχναμέ, έπος στο οποίο ο Φερντοουσί αναμόχλευσε και ανασυνέθεσε την Παγκόσμια Ιστορία κάνοντάς την να περιστρέφεται όχι γύρω από περιστασιακά ιστορικά πρόσωπα (όπως αυτά έχουν μείνει γνωστά) αλλά γύρω από διηνεκείς χαρακτήρες οι οποίοι, καθώς επαναλαμβάνονται από το ένα ιστορικό πρόσωπο στο άλλο και ενόσω κυλάνε οι αιώνες, αποκτούν πολύ μεγαλύτερη σημασία ως ηθικοί παράγοντες ενός αέναου παρόντος
Ο Φερεϊντούν συντρίβει τον Ζαχάκ.
Θα αναφερθώ στον Φερντοουσί και στο Σαχναμέ σε πολλά επόμενα κείμενα. Εδώ όμως παρουσιάζω ένα βίντεο – εκλαϊκευτική συζήτηση (στα αγγλικά) ειδικών για το έπος Σαχναμέ (ανεβασμένο σε τρία σάιτ με εισαγωγικό σημείωμα σε αγγλικά, ρωσσικά κι ελληνικά) και μια βασική ενημέρωση (στα αγγλικά) για την ζωή του Φερντοουσί, του οποίου το έργο απετέλεσε την κοινή ιστορική δεξαμενή αξιών και ηθικών αρχών της ευρασιατικής παράδοσης και την πολιτισμική βάση πάνω στην οποία βρίσκονται όλα τα έθνη κατά μήκος των ιστορικών Δρόμων του Μεταξιού.
Ο σφετεριστής της εξουσίας Δαρείος κάθεται στον θρόνο και από τα χέρια ενός αυλικού δέχεται το στέμμα που του εξασφάλισε η μητέρα του.
Σχετικά με τις σμικρογραφίες ενός χειρογράφου του Σαχναμέ, διαβάστε:
Το Σαχναμέ του Σάχη Ταχμάσπ (1524-1576): οι πιο Όμορφες Σμικρογραφίες Χειρογράφου στον Κόσμο
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/το-σαχναμέ-του-σάχη-ταχμάσπ-1524-1576-οι-πιο-όμ/
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Ferdowsi, the National Poet of Iran and Turan – Shahnameh, the Book of the Kings
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240281
Ferdowsi was a Persian Iranian. I make this clarification here because there has never been an Iranian nation; Iran, both in pre-Islamic and Islamic times was composed of many different nations. And so it is today. As a matter of fact, the Azeris and the Persians are the most populous nations currently living in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ferdowsi was born around 940, just over 300 years after Mohammed’s death in Medina (632) and some 200 years after the rise of the Abbasid dynasty, the foundation of Baghdad, and the transfer of the Islamic Caliphate’s capital from Damascus to Baghdad (750). About 100 years before Ferdowsi was born, the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) had reached its historical peak, and then a slow decline began.
Ferdowsi’s real name is Abu ‘l Qassem Tusi, since he was born in Tus, northeastern Iran. He was often called “hakim” (‘philosopher’ or more correctly ‘the wise man’). ‘Ferdowsi’ is what we today would call ‘pen-name’ or ‘nickname’ (Farsi and Arabic. ‘lakab’). It literally means ‘Paradisiacal’ (the word ‘Ferdows’ in Farsi comes from the ancient Iranian word ‘paradizah’ which, like the corresponding ancient Greek word, comes from the Assyrian Babylonian word ‘paradizu’ which means ‘paradise’). Ferdowsi completed the writing of Shahnameh on March 8, 1010.
The composition of Shahnameh (the Book of the Kings), the greatest epic poem of all time, lasted 33 years (977-1010) and was Ferdowsi’s main occupation in life. As per one tradition, the Sultan Mahmud of Gazni (the Gaznevid dynasty controlled lands in today’s Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and northern India) promised Ferdowsi as many gold coins as the verses he would deliver.
The payment of 60,000 gold coins was opposed by the sultan’s top courtier (who considered Ferdowsi a heretical Muslim or even a Parsi), and so 60,000 silver coins were sent instead – unbeknownst to the sultan. Ferdowsi refused to receive them, and this reaction enraged the sultan, who did not know what exactly had happened. Then, the poet went into exile to escape. When the sultan finally found out what the courtier had done, he executed him and sent 60,000 gold coins to Ferdowsi, who had just returned to his hometown, Tusi. However, the caravan carrying the sum reached the city gate when the funeral procession headed for the cemetery because the poet had just died (1020).
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Δείτε το βίντεο:
Фирдоуси, Национальный поэт Ирана и Турана – Шахнаме, Книга Царей
https://www.ok.ru/video/1490059004525
Фирдоуси был персом из Ирана. Я делаю это разъяснение здесь, потому что никогда не было иранской нации; Иран, как в доисламский, так и в исламский период, состоял из множества разных народов. И так сегодня. На самом деле, азербайджанцы и персы – самые густонаселенные народы, в настоящее время живущие в Исламской Республике Иран.
Фирдоуси родился около 940 года, немногим более 300 лет после смерти Мухаммеда в Медине (632 год) и примерно через 200 лет после подъема династии Аббасидов, основания Багдада и переноса столицы Исламского халифата из Дамаска в Багдад (750). , Приблизительно за 100 лет до того, как Фирдоуси родился, Халифат Аббасидов (750-1258) достиг своего исторического пика, и затем начался медленный спад.
Настоящее имя Фирдоуси – Абу Кассем Туси, так как он родился в Тусе на северо-востоке Ирана. Его часто называли «хаким» («философ» или, точнее, «мудрец»). «Ferdowsi» – это то, что мы сегодня называем «псевдоним» (фарси и арабский. «Лакаб»). Это буквально означает «райский» (слово «Фердоус» на фарси происходит от древнего иранского слова «парадизах», которое, как и соответствующее древнегреческое слово, происходит от ассирийского вавилонского слова «парадизу», что означает «рай»). Фирдоуси завершил написание Шахнаме 8 марта 1010 года.
Шахнаме (Книга Царей) – величайшая эпическая поэма всех времен. Написание эпопеи длилось 33 года (977-1010) и было главным занятием Фирдоуси в жизни. Согласно одной из традиций, султан Махмуд Газни (династия Газневидов контролировала земли в сегодняшнем Афганистане, Таджикистане, Кыргызстане, Пакистане и северной Индии) обещал Фирдоуси столько золотых монет, сколько стихов, которые он напишет.
Оплате 60 000 золотых монет воспротивился высший придворный султана (который считал Фирдоуси еретиком-мусульманином или даже парсом), и поэтому вместо этого было отправлено 60 000 серебряных монет – без ведома султана. Фирдоуси отказался их принимать, и эта реакция разозлила султана, который не знал, что именно произошло. Затем поэт отправился в изгнание, чтобы сбежать. Когда султан наконец узнал, что сделал придворный, он казнил его и отправил 60 000 золотых монет Фирдоуси, который только что вернулся в свой родной город Туси. Однако караван с суммой достиг городских ворот, когда похоронная процессия направилась на кладбище, потому что поэт только что умер (1020).
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Δείτε το βίντεο:
Φερντοουσί / Ferdowsi, Εθνικός Ποιητής του Ιράν & Τουράν – Σαχναμέ / Shahnameh, Βιβλίο των Βασιλέων
Ο Φερντοουσί ήταν Πέρσης Ιρανός. Σημειώνω εδώ ότι δεν υπήρξε ποτέ ιρανικό έθνος κι ότι το Ιράν, και στα προϊσλαμικά και στα ισλαμικά χρόνια, όπως άλλωστε και σήμερα, απετελείτο κι αποτελείται από πολλά και διαφορετικά έθνη.
Σήμερα, οι Αζέροι κι οι Πέρσες είναι τα πολυπληθέστερα έθνη που κατοικούν την Ισλαμική Δημοκρατία του Ιράν.
Ο Φερντοουσί γεννήθηκε γύρω στο 940, δηλαδή λίγο περισσότερο από 300 χρόνια μετά τον θάνατο του Μωάμεθ στην Μεδίνα (632) και περίπου 200 χρόνια μετά την άνοδο της δυναστείας των Αβασιδών στο Ισλαμικό Χαλιφάτο, την θεμελίωση της Βαγδάτης και τη μεταφορά της πρωτεύουσας του χαλιφάτου από την Δαμασκό στην Βαγδάτη (750).
Περίπου 100 χρόνια πριν γεννηθεί ο Φερντοουσί, τοποθετείται ιστορικά ο κολοφώνας της ισχύος του Αβασιδικού Χαλιφάτου (750-1258), κι έκτοτε αρχίζει μια αργή αποδυνάμωση και παρακμή.
Το πραγματικό όνομα του Φερντοουσί είναι Αμπού ‘λ Κάσεμ Τουσί, δεδομένου ότι είχε γεννηθεί στο Τους του βορειοανατολικού Ιράν.
Συχνά απεκαλείτο και Χακίμ, δηλαδή ‘φιλόσοφος’ (ή πιο σωστά ‘σοφός’). ‘Φερντοουσί’ είναι αυτό που θα λέγαμε σήμερα ‘καλλιτεχνικό ψευδώνυμο’ ή ‘παρατσούκλι’ (φαρσί και αραβ. ‘λακάμπ’).
Σημαίνει κυριολεκτικά ‘Παραδεισένιος’ (η λέξη ‘φερντόους’ στα φαρσί προέρχεται από την αρχαία ιρανική λέξη ‘παραντιζά’ η οποία, όπως και η αντίστοιχη αρχαία ελληνική λέξη, προέρχεται από την ασσυροβαβυλωνιακή λέξη ‘παραντιζού’ που σημαίνει ‘παράδεισος’).
Ο Φερντοουσί ολοκλήρωσε την συγγραφή του Σαχναμέ ακριβώς στις 8 Μαρτίου 1010.
Η συγγραφή του Σαχναμέ, του μεγαλύτερου επικού ποιήματος όλων των εποχών, διήρκεσε 33 χρόνια (977-1010) και ήταν η κύρια απασχόληση του Φερντοουσί κατά την ζωή του.
Κατά μία παράδοση, ο Σουλτάνος Μαχμούντ του Γαζνί (η δυναστεία Γαζνεβιδών έλεγχε εκτάσεις στα σημερινά κράτη Αφγανιστάν, Τατζικιστάν, Κιργιζία, Πακιστάν και βόρεια Ινδία) του υποσχέθηκε κατά την παράδοση τόσα χρυσά νομίσματα όσα κι οι στίχοι.
Στην καταβολή 60000 χρυσών νομισμάτων αντιτάχθηκε ο κορυφαίος αυλικός του σουλτάνου (που θεωρούσε τον Φερντοουσί αιρετικό μουσουλμάνο ή ακόμη και παρσιστή), οπότε απεστάλησαν 60000 αργυρά νομίσματα – εν αγνοία του σουλτάνου.
Ο Φερντοουσί αρνήθηκε να τα παραλάβει, αυτό εξαγρίωσε τον σουλτάνο (που δεν ήξερε τι ακριβώς συνέβη), κι ο ποιητής έφυγε στην εξορία για να γλυτώσει.
Όταν τελικά ο σουλτάνος έμαθε τι έκανε εν αγνοία του ο αυλικός, τον εσκότωσε, και απέστειλε 60000 χρυσά νομίσματα στον Φερντοουσί, ο οποίος είχε μόλις επιστρέψει στην γενέτειρά του, Τους.
Όμως, το καραβάνι που μετέφερε το ποσό έφθασε στην πύλη της πόλης, όταν έβγαινε η νεκρώσιμη πομπή με κατεύθυνση το νεκροταφείο, επειδή ο ποιητής είχε μόλις πεθάνει (1020).
Σημειώνω εδώ ότι αποδόσεις του ονόματος στα ελληνικά ως Φερδούσι ή Φιρδούσι είναι λαθεμένες, οφείλονται σε άγνοια των φαρσί (συγχρόνων περσικών), και δείχνουν επιφανειακό κι επιπόλαιο διάβασμα αγγλικών κειμένων για το θέμα.
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Οι πολλές ιστορίες του Εσκαντέρ (Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου) στο Σαχναμέ του Φερντοουσί
Ο Εσκαντέρ (Μέγας Αλέξανδρος) και το Ομιλούν Δένδρον
Ο Εσκαντέρ (Μέγας Αλέξανδρος) και το Ομιλούν Δένδρον
Δείχνουν στον Εσκαντέρ (Μεγάλο Αλέξανδρο) το πορτρέτο του.
Ο Εσκαντέρ (Μεγάλος Αλέξανδρος) στο νεκρικό κρεβάτι του
Ο Εσκαντέρ (Μεγάλος Αλέξανδρος) επισκέπτεται το ιερό Κααμπά στην Μέκκα φορώντας ενδύματα προσκυνητή (χατζή).
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Διαβάστε:
Ferdowsi Abu’l-Qāsem (حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی)
Life
Apart from his patronymic (konya), Abu’l-Qāsem, and his pen name (taḵallosá), Ferdowsī, nothing is known with any certainty about his names or the identity of his family. In various sources, and in the introduction to some manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma, his name is given as Manṣūr, Ḥasan, or Aḥmad, his father’s as Ḥasan, Aḥmad, or ʿAlī, and his grandfather’s as Šarafšāh (Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 458-59). Of these various statements, that of Fatḥ b. ʿAlī Bondārī, who translated the Šāh-nāma into Arabic in 620/1223, should be considered the most creditable. He referred to Ferdowsī as “al-Amīr al-Ḥakīm Abu’l-Qāsem Manṣūr b. al-Ḥasan al-Ferdowsī al-Ṭūsī” (Bondārī, p. 3).
It is not known why the poet chose the pen name Ferdowsī, which is mentioned only once in text and twice in the satire (ed. Khaleghi, V, p. 275, v. 3, ed. Mohl, I, p. lxxxix, vv. 4, 6). According to a legend recorded in the introduction to the Florence manuscript, during the poet’s visit to the court of the Ghaznavid Sultan Maḥmūd, the latter, pleased with his poetry, called him Ferdowsī “[man] from paradise” (Khaleghi, 1988, p. 92), which became his sobriquet. According to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, p. 75, comm., p. 234) his birthplace was a large village named Bāž (or Pāz, Arabicized as Fāz), in the district of Ṭābarān (or Ṭabarān) near the city of Ṭūs in Khorasan.
All sources agree on his being from Ṭūs, the present-day Mašhad. The precise date of his birth was not recorded, but three important points emerge from the information the poet gives on his own age. First, in the introduction to the story of Kay Ḵosrow’s great war Ferdowsī says about himself that he became a poor man at the age of 65, and he twice repeats this date; he then states that when he was 58 and his youth was over Maḥmūd became king (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleqi, IV, p. 172, vv. 40-46).
This statement is a more reliable guide than the three occasions on which the poet refers to himself as 65 or 68 years old; and since Maḥmūd succeeded to the throne in 387/997, the poet’s birth date was 329/940. Second, a point occurs in the story of the reign of Bahrām III (q.v.), when the poet refers to himself as being 63, and approximately 730 lines later repeats this reference to his age as 63, adding that Hormazd-e Bahman (the first of the month of Bahman) fell on a Friday (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VII, p. 213, v. 9, p. 256, vv. 657-59).
According to the research of Shapur Shahbazi (1991, pp. 27-29), during the years which concern us, only in the Yazdegerdi year 371, that is 1003 C.E., did the first of Bahman fall on a Friday. If we subtract 63 from this date, we arrive at 329/940 as the poet’s birth date. The third point occurs at the end of the book when the poet refers to his own age as being 71, and to the date of the Šāh-nāma’s completion as the day of Ard (i.e., 25th) of Esfand in the year 378 Š. (400 Lunar)/8 March 1010 (see calendar), which again establishes his birth date as 329/940 (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, IX, pp. 381-82; see further Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 459-62; idem, Ḥamāsa, p. 172, n. 1; Shahbazi, pp. 23-30).
We have little information on the poet until he began writing the Šāh-nāma in approximately 367/977, apart from the fact that he had a son who was born in 359/970 (see below). Therefore the poet must have married in the year 358/969 or earlier. No information concerning his wife has come down to us. Some commentators, e.g., Ḥabīb Yāḡmāʾī (p. 30), Moḥammad-Taqī Bahār (p. 39), and Ḏabīḥ-Allāh Ṣafā (Ḥamāsa, p. 178), have considered the woman referred to in the introduction to the story of Bēžan/Bīžan and Manēža /Manīža (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, IV, pp. 303-6) to be the poet’s wife.
If this conjecture is correct, it is probable that his wife was both literate and able to play the harp, that is, she, like the poet himself, was from a landed noble family (dehqān; q.v.) and had benefited from the education given to girls by such families, including learning to read and write and the acquisition of certain of the fine arts (cf. the story of the daughters of the dehqān Borzēn, Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VII, pp. 343-44; Khaleghi, 1971, pp. 102-3, 129, 200-2; Bayat-Sarmadi, pp. 188-89).
Another point which emerges from the introduction to the story of Bēžan and Manēža is that in his youth the poet was relatively wealthy. Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, p. 75) also confirms this detail. Not only the content of this introduction, but also the diction and the less skillful poetry of the story itself, as compared to the rest of the Šāh-nāma, clearly indicate that it was a product of the poet’s youth, which he later included in the Šāh-nāma (Mīnovī, 1967, pp. 68-70; Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 462-64; idem, Ḥamāsa, pp. 177-79). This story, however, cannot have been the only literary work produced by the poet before 367/977, when he was thirty-eight years years old. Up to this time the poet must have produced poetry which has since been lost.
The poems (in the qaṣīda, qeṭʿa, and robāʿī forms) attributed to him in biographical dictionaries (taḏkeras), some of which may well not be by him, are probably from this period. Hermann Ethé (q.v.) collected these poems in the last century and printed them with a German translation (see also Taqīzāda, pp. 133-34; Šērānī, pp. 130-35). The narrative poem Yūsof o Zolayḵā is certainly not by Ferdowsī (Qarīb; Šērānī, pp. 184-276; Mīnovī, 1946; idem, 1967, pp. 95-125; Nafīsī, 1978, pp. 4-5; Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 488-92; idem, Ḥamāsa, pp. 175-76; Storey/de Blois, V, 576-84). According to legends found in the introductions to a number of Šāh-nāma manuscripts, the poet had a younger brother, whose name was Masʿūd or Ḥosayn (see Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, editor’s Intro., p. xxxiii).
At all events, according to his own statement, the poet began work on the composition of the Šāh-nāma after 365/975 (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, IX, p. 381, v. 843), and since Ferdowsī specified in the exordium to the poem that he began this task after the death of Abū Manṣūr Daqīqī (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 13) the composition of the poem must have begun in 366-67/976-77.
At first the poet intended to travel to the Samanid capital Bokhara (q.v.; ibid., I, p. 13, vv. 135-36) in order to continue Daqīqī’s work, using the copy of the prose Šāh-nāma of Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq (q.v.), which had been used by Daqīqī (qq.v.), and which probably belonged to the court library; but since a friend (identified as Moḥammad Laškarī in the introduction to Bāysonḡorī Šāh-nāma, q.v.) from his own city placed a manuscript of this work at his disposal (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 14, vv. 140-45), he gave up this idea and started work in his own town, where he also benefited from the support of Manṣūr the son of Abū Manṣūr Moḥammad.
According to the poet himself, this man was extremely generous, magnanimous, and loyal; he had a high opinion of the poet and gave him considerable financial help (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 14-15; khaleghi-Motlagh, 1967, pp. 332-58; idem, 1977, pp. 197-215; also, after the death of Īraj [ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 121, vv. 513-14], where Ferdowsī moralizes and reproaches the killer of an innocent king, it is probably that by such a king he means Manṣūr). In the whole of the Šāh-nāma this is the only moment at which the poet speaks explicitly of having received financial help from anyone, and since he wrote this after the death of Manṣūr, there is no reason to believe that it was written in order to please the object of his praise.
Further, that he did not remove his praise of Manṣūr from the Šāh-nāma even after he added that of Sultan Maḥmūd to the poem’s introduction indicates the extent of his attachment to Manṣūr (and before him to his father Abū Manṣūr), as well as his sympathy for the political and cultural tendencies of Abū Manṣūr (Khaleghi, 1977, pp. 207-11). The year 377/987, in which Manṣūr was arrested in Nīšāpūr and taken to Bokhara, where he was then executed, was a turning point in Ferdowsī’s life; in the Šāh-nāma from this moment onward there is no mention of anything to indicate either physical comfort or peace of mind, rather we find frequent complaints concerning his old age, poverty, and anxiety.
Nevertheless, Ferdowsī was able to complete the first version of the Šāh-nāma by the year 384/994, three years before the accession of Maḥmūd (tr. Bondārī, II, p. 276; khaleghi-Motlagh, 1985, pp. 378-406; idem, 1986, pp. 12-31). The poet, however, continued to work. In 387/997, when he was 58 or a little older, composed the story of Sīāvaḵš (ed. Khaleghi, II, p. 202, v. 12) and a year later wrote a continuation of the former narrative, the “Revenge for Sīāvaḵš” (“Kīn-e Sīāvaḵš”; ibid., ed. Khaleghi, II, p. 379, v. 7).
He was then a quite different poet from the pleasure-loving and wealthy young man depicted in the introduction to the story of Bēžan and Manēža. He complained of poverty, old-age, failing sight, and pains in his legs and looked back on his youth with regret. Even so, he hoped to live long enough to bring the Šāh-nāma to its conclusion. In 389/999, he started work on the reign of Anōšīravān (q.v.) and once again complained of old age, pains in his legs, failing sight, and the loss of his teeth and looked back to his youth with regret (Moscow, VIII, p. 52). The poet was, nevertheless, very active during this year.
By the time he was 61, in 390/1000, he had composed almost 4,300 of the almost 4,500 verses of the story of Anōšīravān. The poet complained that at his age drinking wine gave no pleasure and he prayed that God would grant him sufficient life to finish the Šāh-nāma (Moscow, VIII, pp. 303-4, vv. 4277-86). Two years later, in 392/1002, the poet was busy writing the narrative of the reigns from Bahrām III to Šāpūr II (four reigns in all, covering 76 years in little more than 700 verses). It is not clear what occurred during this year to make the poet more content, as both at the opening of the first reign and also at the end of the fourth reign he expresses the desire to drink wine (Moscow, VII, p. 213, v. 9, p. 256, vv. 657-59; in the first of these verses the word rūzbeh is used, which can be interpreted as either “fortunate” or as a person’s name, and which appears in the Šāh-nāma with both meanings. In the second case Rūzbeh is probably the name of Ferdowsī’s servant). This period of happiness passed quickly.
Two years later, in 394/1004, at the beginning of the story of Kay Ḵosrow’s great war, during the course of a panegyric on Maḥmūd, he complains in accents of despair of his poverty and weakness; he points out the value of his work to Maḥmūd and asks Maḥmūd’s vizier, Fażl b. Aḥmad Esfarāyenī (q.v.), to intercede on his behalf so that some help may be forthcoming from Maḥmūd (ed. Khaleghi, IV, pp. 169-74).
The year 396/1006, when the poet was 67, was the worst period of his life. In this year his 37-year-old son died. The poet describes his grief in extremely simple and personal language, complaining to his son that he has gone on ahead and left his father alone, and asks God’s forgiveness for him (Moscow, IX, pp. 138-39, vv. 2,167-84). What is most striking in this elegy is the hemistich: hamī būd hamvāra bā man dorošt (“He was always rude to me”; ibid., v. 2,175). Was there a disagreement between father and son? And if so over what? No answer to this question can now be given.
The poet inserts this elegy into the narrative of the reign of Ḵosrow Parvēz. Approximately 1,500 lines further on, at the end of this reign, he writes that he has now completed his sixty-sixth year (Moscow, p. 230, v. 3681). This does not seem to accord with his previous statement, but if one takes into account the exigencies of rhyme and the fact that the poet was not always 100 percent accurate over figures, even in such a case, one can draw the conclusion that the reign of Ḵosrow Parvēz (a little more than four thousand verses) was written during the years 395-96/1005-6, when the poet was 66 or 67 years old. This obvious contradiction over the exact age of the poet, however, is not found in the variant “I was sixty five and he was thirty-seven” (marā šast o banj o verā sī o haft) found in certain manuscripts.
In the course of the history of Ḵosrow Parvēz, the poet complains that, due to the calumny of rivals, Maḥmūd has not given his attention to the stories of the Šāh-nāma, and the poet asks the king’s sālār (general), Maḥmūd’s younger brother Naṣr, to intercede for him and turn Maḥmūd’s attention toward the poet (Moscow, IX, p. 210, vv. 3,373-78). From this it is clear firstly that no payment from Maḥmūd had ever reached Ferdowsī, and secondly that Ferdowsī had sent some of the narratives of the Šāh-nāma separately, before he either took or sent the whole poem to Ḡazna (q.v.).
The poet mentions his poverty many times during the course of the Šāh-nāma, and frequently praises Maḥmūd, his brother Naṣr, and his governor of Ṭūs, who would seem to have been Abu’l-Ḥāreṯ Arslān Jāḏeb (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 25-27; Eqbāl), but there is nowhere any suggestion that he had ever received any assistance from these individuals.
On the contrary, as has been indicated, he everywhere complains of the king’s indifference to his work. At the end of the Šāh-nāma (Moscow, IX, p. 381) he also writes that the powerful came and copied out his poetry for themselves, and the sole profit to the poet from them was their saying “well done” (aḥsant). He only mentions two individuals, ʿAlī Deylam Bū Dolaf and Ḥoyayy b. Qotayba, who helped him. In certain manuscripts, ʿAlī Deylam and Bū Dolaf are mentionedd as the names of two people, which agrees with the statement of Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, pp. 77-78, comm. pp. 465-66) that the first was a copyist of the Šāh-nāma and the second its reciter (rāwī).
If this statement of Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s is correct, then these two individuals did not give the poet any monetary assistance. Instead, as a copyist and reciter of sections of the Šāh-nāma for the nobility of the town of Ṭūs, they each profited from the poet’s work. In this case line 849 (Moscow, IX, p. 381) of the Moscow edition is incorrect and should be mended according to the variant readings of the line and the reference in the Čahār Maqāla. Ḥoyayy b. Qotayba, in his capacity as financial controller of Ṭūs, sometimes remitted the poet’s taxes.
Finally, in his seventy-first year, on 25 Esfand 400/8 March 1010, Ferdowsī finished the Šāh-nāma (Moscow, IX, pp. 381-82). According to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, pp. 75) and Farīd-al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (Elāhī-nāma, p. 367; Asrār-nāma, p. 189, v. 3,204), the total time spent on the composition of the Šāh-nāma was twenty-five years. In the satire, however, there is thrice mention of thirty years and once of thirty-five years (ed. Mohl, Intro., p. lxxxix, v. 11, p. xc, vv. 11, 20, p. xci, v. 4).
If we place the beginning of work on the Šāh-nāma in 367 and its completion in 400 the time spent on its composition is thirty-three years, and if we extend the poet’s work to the period before 367—the composition of Bēžan and Manēža—and add to this time spent on revision after 400, the figure of thirty-five years is closer to the truth.
There are lines in the Šāh-nāma which, according to some scholars, refer to events of the year 401/1011 (Moscow, VII, p. 114, vv. 18-20; Taqīzāda, 1983, p. 100, n. 3; Mīnovī, 1967, p. 40). Aḥmad Ateş has gone even further than this and claims that since Ferdowsī, during the course of his praise of Maḥmūd in the introduction to the Šāh-nāma, mentions Kašmīr and Qannūj among his territories, and since Maḥmūd first conquered these regions in 406/1015 and 409/1018, Ferdowsī must have made the final revision of the Šāh-nāma and sent it to Ḡazna in 409/1018 or 410/1019.
He also draws the conclusion that Maḥmūd sent the poet a financial reward but that this reached Ṭūs in 411/1020, after the poet’s death (Ateş, 159-68). The names Kašmīr and Qannūj, which appear in this panegyric beside other names such as Rūm (the West), Hend (India), Čīn (China), etc. and which occur many more times throughout the Šāh-nāma, is no indication of a conquest by Maḥmūd of these two areas. Their occurance in the panegyric is simply due to poetic license and leads to no historical conclusions.
Our information on the poet’s life after 400/1010 is limited to the matters reported by Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, pp. 75-83). According to him, after the completion of the Šāh-nāma, ʿAlī Deylam prepared a manuscript of it in seven volumes and Ferdowsī went to Ḡazna with his professional reciter Abū Dolaf. There, with the help of Maḥmūd’s vizier Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Meymandī he presented the book to Maḥmūd, but because of the calumny of those who envied him, and the poet’s religious orientation, it was not favorably received by the king. Instead of 60,000 dinars (q.v.), payment was fixed at 50,000 dirhams (q.v.), and finally at 20,000 dirhams.
Ferdowsī was extremely upset by this and went to a bathhouse; upon leaving the bathhouse he drank some beer and divided the king’s present between the beer seller and the bath attendant. Then, fearing punishment by Maḥmūd, he fled from Ḡazna by night. At first he hid for six months in Herāt in the shop of Esmāʿīl Warrāq, father of the poet Azraqī (q.v.), and then he took refuge in Ṭabarestān with Espahbad Šahrīār, a member of the Bavandid dynasty (the report of the poet’s journey to Baghdad, which appears in the introductions to the a number of manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma, is merely a legend; similarly, the story of the poet’s journey to Isfahan is based on interpolated passages; see Ṣafā, Adabīyāt, pp. 474-76; Mīnovī, 1967, pp. 96-98; khaleghi-Motlagh, 1985, pp. 233-36).
While in Ṭabarestān, the poet composed 100 lines satirizing Maḥmūd, but the amir of Ṭabarestān bought the satire for 100,000 dirhams and destroyed it, so that only six lines survived by word of mouth, and these Neẓāmī ʿArūżī recorded. Later, due to events described by Neẓāmī ʿArūżī, Maḥmūd regretted his behavior toward the poet and on the recommendation of the above mentioned vizier had camel loads of indigo to the value of 20,000 dinars sent to Ferdowsī, but as the camels were entering Ṭūs by the Rūdbār gate Ferdowsī’s corpse was being borne out of the city by the Razān gate.
In the cemetery the preacher of Ṭābarān prevented his being buried in the Muslim cemetery on the grounds that Ferdowsī was a Shiʿite, and so there was no choice but to bury the poet in his own orchard. Neẓāmī ʿArūżī tells how he visited the poet’s tomb in 510/1116 (on this site, see Taqīzāda, 1983, pp. 120-21). According to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (pp. 47-51), Ferdowsī left only one daughter, and the poet had wanted the king’s payment as a dowry for her.
But after the poet’s death, his daughter would not accept the payment and, on Maḥmūd’s orders, the money was used to build the Čāha caravansary near Ṭūs, on the road which goes from Nīšāpūr to Marv. The year of the poet’s death is given by Dawlatšāh Samarqandī (ed. Browne, p. 54) as 411/1020, and by Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfī (p. 743) and Faṣīḥ Ḵᵛāfī (p. 129) as 416/1025. According to the first date, Ferdowsī was eighty-two years old when he died, and according to the second report he was eighty-seven.
Many details of Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s account are inaccurate or even merely legendary (see, e.g., Qazvīnī’s introducton to Čahār maqāla, pp. xiv ff.). For example, he claims that only six lines survived of the satire, but in some manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma the number of lines is as many as 160. Some scholars considered the satire to be genuine (Nöldeke, pp. 29-31; Taqīzāda, pp. 114-16).
But Maḥmūd Šērānī established that many of the lines are spurious or are taken from the Šāh-nāma itself, and he therefore rejected the authenticity of the satire. The spuriousness of many lines in the satire, however, does not establish that the satire never existed at all. Besides, there are excellent lines in the satire which are not taken from the Šāh-nāma. Generally, it appears that in his article Šērānī was mainly seeking to vindicate Maḥmūd (Khaleghi, 1984, p. 121; Shahbazi, 1991, pp. 97-103).
There is a line in the satire (Mohl’s edition, Intro., p. lxxxix, v. 10) in which the poet refers to his age as being almost eighty. According to this line, the poet composed the satire before 409/1018. But it is very probable that the vizier who was Ferdowsī’s benefactor was Abu’l-ʿAbbās Fażl b. Aḥmad Esfarāyenī, whom Ferdowsī praised in the Šāh-nāma, and not, as Neẓāmī ʿArūżī writes (p. 78), Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Meymandī.
The latter, although holding an important position at Maḥmūd’s court, is never mentioned in the Šāh-nāma. In the legends written in some of the introductions to Šāh-nāma’s manuscripts, Meymandī has been mentioned among Ferdowsī’s adversaries at Maḥmūd’s court. This vizier was a fanatical Sunni, strongly opposed to heretics and the Qarmaṭīs, and it is possible that he was influential in the removal of Esfarāyenī from office in 401/1011 and his murder in 404/1014, and also in the execution of Ḥasanak Mīkāl in 422/1031, who was accused of harboring qarmaṭī tendencies.
In like fashion, after he became vizier in Esfarāyenī’s place in 401/1011, he directed that the language of the court records, which Esfarāyenī had caused to be kept in Persian, be changed back to Arabic. Meymandī was vizier until 412/1025. He was then removed from office and imprisoned, and the vizierate was transferred to Ḥasanak Mīkāl. Thus the vizier who is said to have caused Maḥmūd to regret his treatment of Ferdowsī, if the story is to be believed, was probably Ḥasanak and not Meymandī. If Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s story is true, 416/1025 is therefore the more probable date of Ferdowsī’s death (see Taqīzāda, 1983, pp. 111-13).
Certain other details of Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s version of events are confirmed by various sources. For example, the author of the Tārīḵ-e Sīstān (ed. Bahār, pp. 7-8) also gives a report of Ferdowsī’s journey to Ḡazna and his encounter with Maḥmūd. Similarly, Neẓāmī Ganjavī (Haft Peykar, p. 15, v. 47; idem, Eqbāl-nāma, p. 22, v. 14; idem, Ḵosrow o Šīrīn, pp. 24-25, vv. 21-22) and ʿAṭṭār (Elāhī-nāma, p. 367, vv. 11-13; Asrār-nāma, pp. 188-190, vv. 3,203-26; Moṣībat-nāma, p. 367, v. 8) frequently refer to the differences between the poet and the king, to Maḥmūd’s ingratitude toward Ferdowsī, and even to the incident of the poet’s drinking beer and giving the king’s gift away.
ʿAṭṭār also refers to the preacher’s refusing to say prayers over the body of Ferdowsī. Further, in the introduction to the Bāysonḡorī Šāh-nāma, a statement in Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow’s Safar-nāma is quoted to the effect that in 437/1045 on the road from Saraḵs to Ṭūs, in the village of Čāha, Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow saw a large caravansary and was told that this had been built with the money from the gift that Maḥmūd had sent to the poet, which, since he had already died, his heir refused to accept.
This report is absent from extant manuscripts of the Safar-nāma, but Sayyed Ḥasan Taqīzāda (1983, pp., 120-21) is of the opinion that it is probably genuine. Theodore Nöldeke (1920, p. 33) at first considered it spurious but later changed his mind (1983, p. 63, n. 1). Although it is possible to doubt some of the details in Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s account, we do not at the moment have any absolute reasons to reject all the particulars in his narrative.
Social background
In the introductions to various manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma, Ferdowsī’s father is referred to as a dehqān (q.v.) who was a victim of oppression by the financial controller of Ṭūs. Even though this account may be no more than a legend, there is no doubt that Ferdowsī belonged to the landed nobility, or dehqāns. According to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (p. 75), Ferdowsī was one of the dehqāns of Ṭūs and in his own village “had considerable possessions, such that with the income from his properties he was able to live independently of others help.”
According to the same account (p. 83), “within the city gate there was an orchard belonging to Ferdowsī,” where he was buried (see further, Bahār, pp. 148-49). The dehqāns were preservers of traditional civilization, customs, and culture, including the national legends (see Mohl’s introduction to the Šāh-nāma, p. vii; Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 440; Ṣafā, Ḥamāsa, pp. 62-64).
On the one hand, in the Šāh-nāma dehqān appears along with the āzāda (freeborn) with the meaning of “Iranian,” and, on the other, beside mōbad (Zoroastrian priest), with the meaning of “preserver and narrator of the ancient lore.” In the Šāh-nāma, a legend concerning a dehqān by the name of Borzēn (Moscow, VII, pp. 341-46) gives us an opportunity to glimpse, to some extent, the nature of the life of this class. By comparing this with the story of a farmer’s wife in the same reign (ibid., pp. 380-84), the difference between the life of a dehqān and that of a simple farmer is apparent.
At all events, Ferdowsī belonged to one of these reasonably wealthy dehqān families, which in the second and third centuries of the Islamic era accepted Islam mainly as a way of preserving their own social position, and for this reason, contrary to what is usually the case with new converts, not only did they not turn their backs on the culture of their forefathers but made its preservation and transmission the chief goal of their lives.
The basis of Ferdowsī’s character and the national spirit of his work were founded in the first place on this class consciousness of the poet and the milieu in which his genius was nurtured. Khorasan had been a center of political, religious, national, and cultural movements at least since the rise of Abū Moslem (q.v.; killed in.137/755).
With the compilation and translation of the prose Šāh-nāma known as the Šāh-nāma-ye abū manṣūrī, which later became Ferdowsī’s major source, on the orders of Abū Manṣūr Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq in 346/957, the national language and culture, which had been lacking in previous movements in Khorasan, found a special place in Abū Manṣūr’s political ambition (Mīnovī, 1967, pp. 52-55).
The young Ferdowsī, who was no more than seventeen years old when the Šāh-nāma of Abū Manṣūr was completed, must have been profoundly affected by this national and cultural movement. It was in these years that the education of a dehqān together with the poet’s national sentiment were able to mature in a congenial environment and to take shape, and thus become the foundation of the whole of his poem, so that, as Nöldeke put it (1920, pp. 36, 40-41), the poet’s attachment to Iran is clear in every line of the Šāh-nāma.
The effects of Ferdowsī’s love for Iran must be considered not only in the transmission of the culture, mores, customs, and literature of ancient Iran to Islamic Persia but also in the spread of Persian as the national language. In this way the struggle for the preservation of Iranian identity while Persia was in danger of being Arabized in the name of the Islamic community—although the movement had begun before Ferdowsī’s time with the Šoʿūbīya movement—finally bore fruit through Ferdowsī’s efforts. In this way Persia is deeply indebted to Ferdowsī, both as regards its historical continuity and its national and cultural identity.
Education
Since Ferdowsī, unlike many other poets, did not make his work a showcase for his own erudition, discussion of his education is a difficult matter. On the other hand, the intellectual quality of the Šāh-nāma shows that we do not deal simply with a great poet but with someone who judges many of the vicissitudes of life with wisdom and understanding, and this would not have been possible if he had not been in possession of a knowledge of the sciences of his time.
However, Nöldeke (1920, p. 40) thought that Ferdowsī had not received formal education in the sciences of his time, especially in scholastic theology, but considered him simply to be a reasonably educated person in such matters (for Ferdowsī’s world view, see Ḵāleḡī Moṭlaq, 1991, pp. 55-70).
Nöldeke also believed that Ferdowsī did not know Pahlavi (1920, p. 19, n. 1). Taqīzāda (p. 126) and Šērānī (pp. 170-71), on the other hand, believe that Ferdowsī was completely conversant with the sciences of his own time. Badīʿ-al-Zamān Forūzānfar (q.v.; pp. 47-49) and Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmˊḡānī (p. 42) believe that Ferdowsī even had a thorough knowledge of Arabic prose and verse.
Similarly, Saʿīd Nafīsī (1978, pp. 9-10), Ḥabīb Yāḡmāʾī (p. 6), and Lazard (pp. 25-41) believe that Ferdowsī knew Pahlavi. However, Moḥammad-Taqī Bahār (pp. 96-135) and Shapur Shahbazi (pp. 39-41) agree with Nöldeke on the matter of Ferdowsī’s knowledge of Pahlavi.
In a later article on Ferdowsī, Nöldeke, following Taqīzāda, wrote that he had previously underestimated the poet’s knowledge of Arabic (1983, p. 63), but it appears that he did this mainly to satisfy the amour-propre of Persians. Certainly, it is probable that Ferdowsī learnt Arabic in school. The problem of Pahlavi in his time and for a person like him lay mainly in the difficulty of its script; thus if a person read a text in this language to the poet, he could probably understand it in the main. But in the Šāh-nāma there is nowhere any direct indication that Ferdowsī knew either Arabic or Pahlavi. In the exordium to the story of Bēžan and Manēža, he says that his “loving consort” (mehrbān yār) read a “Pahlavī book” (daftar-e pahlavī; ed. Khaleghi, III, p. 305, v. 19, p. 306, v. 22). But Ferdowsī refers to Šāh-nāma-yeabū manṣūrī as being in Pahlavi (ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 14, v. 143), and thus it could be interpreted as meaning “Pahlavānī” or “eloquent/heroic Persian.” There is, however, no evidence in the Šāh-nāma to indicate that Ferdowsī could read Pahlavi.
Religion
Ferdowsī was a Shiʿite Muslim, which is apparent from the Šāh-nāma itself (ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 1o-11) and confirmed by early accounts (Neẓāmī ʿArūżī, text, pp. 80, 83; Naṣīr-al-Dīn Qazvīnī, pp. 251-52). In recent times, however, some have cast doubt on his religion and his Shiʿism. Some have simply called him a “Shiʿite” (Yāḡmāʾī, pp. 23, 28); others, such as Bahār (p. 149), have raised the question of whether Ferdowsī was an adherent of Zaydī Shiʿism, Ismaiʿli Shiʿism, or Twelver Shiʿism. Nöldeke (1920, p. 40) believed that he was a Shiʿite but did not consider him to be a member of any of the extremist Shiʿites (ḡolāt; q.v.). Šērānī (pp. 111-26) called Ferdowsī a Sunni or Zaydī Shiʿite, but Šērānī was mainly concerned with defending Maḥmūd’s Sunnism. Moḥīṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾī (pp. 233-40) also considered Ferdowsī to be a Zaydī Shiʿite. ʿAbbās Zaryāb Ḵoʾī (pp. 14-23) argued that he was an Ismaʿili Shiʿite, while Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmˊḡānī (pp., 20-53) believed him to be a Twelver Shiʿite (see also, Shahbazi, pp. 49-53).
The basic supporting evidence for the view that Ferdowsī was a Sunni or Zaydī Shiʿite has been the lines that appear in many manuscripts of the Šāh-nāma, in the exordium to the book, in praise of Abū Bakr, ʿOmar, and ʿOṯmān, but these lines are later additions, as is apparent for lexicographic and stylistic reasons, and also because they interrupt the flow of the narrative (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 39; Yāḡmāʾī, p. 27; khaleghi-Motlagh, 1986, pp. 28-31); with the excision of these lines no doubt remains as to Ferdowsī’s Shiʿism.
One must also take into account the fact that Ṭūs had long been a center of Shiʿism (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 39) and that the family of Abū Manṣūr Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq were also apparently Shiʿites (Ebn Bābawayh, II, p. 285). On the one hand, Ferdowsī was lenient as regards religion. As Nöldeke remarks, Ferdowsī remembered the religion of his forbears with respect, and, at the same time, nowhere did he show any signs of a deep Islamic faith.
Indeed, to the contrary, here and there are moments in the Šāh-nāma (e.g., Moscow, IX, p. 315, v. 56) which, even if they were present in his sources, should not strictly have been given currency by the pen of a committed Muslim (Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 38-39). On the other hand, however, Ferdowsī showed a prejudice in favor of his own sect and, as is apparent from the exordium to the Šāh-nāma, considered his own sect to be the only true Islamic one.
The explanation for this contradiction, in the present writer’s opinion, lies in the fact that during the first centuries of Islam, in Persia, Shiʿism went hand in hand with the national struggle in Khorasan, or very nearly so, such that the caliphate in Baghdad and its political supporters in Persia never made any serious distinction between the “Majūs” (i.e., Zoroastrians), “Zandīq” (i.e., Manicheans), “Qarmaṭīs” (i.e., adherents of Ismaʿili Shiʿism), and Rāfeẓīs (i.e., Shiʿites in general; see Baḡdādī, tr. pp. 307 ff.).
Ferdowsī was, as Nöldeke remarks, above all a deist and monotheist who at the same time kept faith with his forbears (Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 36-40; Taqīzāda, 1983, pp. 124-25). Ferdowsī attacks philosophy and those who attempt to prove the reality of the Creator, believing that God can be found neither by the eye of wisdom, nor of the heart, nor of reason, but that His existence, unity, and might are confessed only by the existence of His creation; thus he worshipped Him, remaining silent as to the whys and wherefores of faith (khaleghi-Motlagh, 1975, pp. 66-70; idem, 1991, pp. 55-57).
According to his beliefs, everything, good or evil, happens to an individual only through the will of God, and every kind of belief in the benign or evil influence of the stars is a derogation of the reality, unicity, and might of God. This absolute faith in the unicity and might of God is disturbed in the Šāh-nāma by a fatalism that is possibly the result of Zurvanite influences from the Sasanian period, and this, here and there, has produced a self-contradictory effect (Khaleghi, 1983, 2/1, pp. 107-14; idem, 1991, pp. 55-68; 1983, 2/1, pp. 107-14; Banani, pp. 96-119; Shahbazi, pp. 49-59).
Due to his upbringing as a dehqān, Ferdowsī was acquainted with the ancient culture and customs of Iran, and he deepened this knowledge by his study of ancient lore so that they became part of his poetic world view. There are many instances of this in the Šāh-nāma, and here as an example one can mention the custom of drinking wine. According to the poet, in accordance with Iran’s ancient beliefs, wine shows the essence of a man as he really is (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, V, pp. 3-4); one must drink at times of happiness (ibid., Moscow, VII, p. 192, vv. 658-59), but it is happiness that is to be sought in drinking wine, not drunkenness (ibid., Moscow, VIII, p. 109, vv. 964-65), and he reproaches the Arabs who are strangers to the custom of drinking wine (ibid., Moscow, IX, p. 320, v. 113).
The most important of the poet’s ethical attitudes include maintaining a chastity of diction (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 55, n. 2), honesty (ed. Khaleqi, III, p. 285, vv. 2,879-80; Moscow, VIII, p. 206, vv. 2,626-27; Ṣafā, Ḥamāsa, p. 203; Yāḡmāʾī, pp. 14-15), gratitude toward his predecessor Daqīqī and, at the same time, frank criticism of his poetry (ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 13, V, pp. 75-76, 175-76). With the same kind of frankness the poet admonishes kings to act justly (Moscow, VII, p. 114, vv. 29-31; VIII, p. 62, vv. 161-66). His belief in the permanence of a good reputation (ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 156-57, vv. 1,061-62), in fine speech (ibid., II, p. 164, vv. 574-76), and in fairness toward enemies (ed. Khaleghi, III, p. 163, vv. 937-38, IV, p. 64, v. 1,014) in so far as this is compatible with the heroic code of behavior, are all apparent.
But when it comes to the domination of Iran by her enemies, especially at the end of the Šāh-nāma, he is violently opposed to both Arabs and Turks (Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 37, 41). Certainly, these attitudes were in the poet’s sources, but he incorporated them into his work with complete conviction. Generally, it seems as though the ethical values of the poet’s sources and of the poet himself reciprocally acted on one another.
In this way, certain ethical values of the Šāh-nāma, such as praise for effort, condemnation of laziness, recommendation of moderation, condemnation of greed, praise for knowledge, encouragement of justice and tolerance, kindness towards women and children, patriotism, racial loyalty, the condemnation of haste and the recommendation of deliberation in one’s actions, praise for truthfulness and condemnation of falsehood, the condemnation of anger and jealousy, belief in the unstableness of the world, which is everywhere evident throughout the Šāh-nāma especially at the ends of the stories, and so forth, are considered also to be values held by the poet himself (see adab; Eslāmī, pp. 64-73).
Other opinions of the poet are his belief in the genuineness of the narratives in his sources (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 12, vv. 113-14) and his strong belief in the lasting values of his own work, a subject referred to frequently in the Šāh-nāma (e.g., ed. Khaleghi, IV, pp. 173-74, vv. 66-68; for other examples, see Yaḡmāʾī, pp. 15-17; Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 34-35).
Finally it seems as though he was a man who was fond of pleasantries and witticisms (e.g., concerning Rūdāba, see ed. Khaleghi, p. 243, v. 1,158; Manūčehr’s joking with Zāl, ibid., p. 253, vv. 1,283-88; Sām’s and Sīndoḵt’s joking with each other, ibid., p. 262, vv. 1,407-9; the joking of the young shoemaker’s mother before the king, Moscow, VII, p. 325, vv. 336-46). The sum of such heartfelt, mature, and eloquently expressed views and ethical precepts regarding the world and mankind have led to his being referred to, from an early period, as ḥakīm (philosopher), dānā (sage), and farzāna (learned); that is, he was considered a philosopher, though he was not attached to any specific philosophical school nor possessed a complete knowledge of the various philosophical and scientific views of his time.
Ferdowsī and Sultan Maḥmūd
In various places in his work the poet devoted in all some 250 lines—some of which are very hyperbolic—to the praise of Maḥmūd, and the name Maḥmūd and his patronymic Abu’l-Qāsem are mentioned almost thirty times; but that sincerity which is apparent in the ten lines Ferdowsī wrote in praise of Manṣūr in his introduction to the Šāh-nāma is never visible in the lines on Maḥmūd, though in many places he either directly or by implication offers Maḥmūd moral advice (e.g., Moscow, VII, pp. 114-15, vv. 29-40; VIII, pp. 153-54, vv. 1,700-04, p. 292, vv. 4,080-81).
The climactic point of these allusions addressed to Maḥmūd must be considered to occur at the end of the Šāh-nāma in the letter of Rostam, the Sasanian general, to his brother on the eve of the battle of Qādesīya. In particular, the line in which it is prophesied that a talentless slave will become king (Moscow, IX, p. 319, v. 103) is like a bridge that takes us from the hyperbolic praise of Maḥmūd in the Šāh-nāma to the hyperbolic contempt for him of the satire.
The poet’s hopes of a monetary reward from Maḥmūd must be considered one reason for his praise of Maḥmūd (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 34), but, as indicated above, there is no sign anywhere in the Šāh-nāma that any assistance from Maḥmūd ever reached the poet (Nöldeke, pp. 27-29). The praise of Maḥmūd must be considered an entirely calculated gesture, forced on the poet by his poverty (Eslāmī, pp. 59-60). With Maḥmūd’s assumption of power in Khorasan, the Shiʿite Ferdowsī had, at the least, until he had finished work on the Šāh-nāma, to include him in the poem.
This being the case he could not, according to the usual custom in Persian narrative poems, wait until the end of the poem and then write a single panegyric to be used in the preface, but was forced to compose separate passages of praise, or to place them at the head of a story that was then sent to Ḡazna. Other passages of praise may well have been placed at the beginning of sections of the seven-volume Šāh-nāma. But the closer he got to the end of the Šāh-nāma, with there still being no sign of Maḥmūd’s paying him any attention, the more pointed his sarcastic allusions to Maḥmūd became, until finally in the satire he took back virtually all his praise.
In the satire the poet frequently speaks “of this book” (az in nāma) and this led Nöldeke (1920, p. 29) to conclude that the satire was composed as a supplement to the Šāh-nāma and that the poet’s intention was to take back his praise of Maḥmūd with this satire, that is, the Šāh-nāma was no longer dedicated to Maḥmūd, as the poet himself states in the satire (Mohl’s Intro., p. lxxxix, vv. 3-4). Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (text, pp. 49-50), also makes the same statement (see also Shahbazi, 1991, pp. 83-105)
Ferdowsī the poet and storyteller
The Šāh-nāma has not received its rightful attention in works written in Persian on the art of poetry (e.g., al-Moʿjam of Šams-al-Dīn Rāzī), which works consider eloquence and poetic style largely as a matter of particular figures of speech. So far there has been little serious work on Ferdowsī’s poetic artistry, and our discussion of this subject will not therefore go beyond general principles.
In discussing Ferdowsī’s achievement one must consider, on the one hand, the totality of the Šāh-nāma as a whole and, on the other, his artistry as a storyteller. Throughout the entire Šāh-nāma, a balance is masterfully maintained between words and meaning, on the one hand, and passion and thought, on the other. Ferdowsī’s poetic genius in creating a lofty, dynamic epic language that is brief but to the point and free from complexity greatly contributes to the strength of his style.
The most important figures of speech in the Šāh-nāma include: hyperbole, paronomasia, repetition, comparisons (similes and metaphors), representative images, proverbial expressions, parables, and moral advice. Hyperbole, which is the most important principle of epic language, is present in order to increase the reader’s emotional response. Some kinds of paronomasia are used to create a verbal rhythm that is to increase linguistic tension by acoustic means.
The most commonly used kinds of paronomasia include those that involve a complete identity of two words (be čang ār čang o may āḡāz kon “Bring in your hand [čang] a harp [čang] and set out the wine”; Moscow, V, p. 7, v. 19) and those that involve alliteration (šod az raḵš raḵšān o az šāh šād “He became radiant [raḵšān] because of Raḵš [the name of Rostam’s horse] and happy [šād] because of the king [šāh]”; ed. Khaleghi, II , p. 125, v. 93; kolāh o kamān o kamand o kamar “Cap and bow and lariat and belt”; ed. Khaleghi, III, p. 147, v. 676).
This effect is sometimes achieved by the repetition of one word (bed-ū goft narm ay javānmard, narm! “He said to him: Gently o young man, gently!”; ed. Khaleghi, II, p. 222, v. 683; makon šahrīārā javānī, makon! “Do not, o prince, do not act childishly!; ed. Khaleghi, p. 363, v. 846).
There are also comparisons used to render the language representational, that is, to construct an image visually. Among the kinds of comparison used in the Šāh-nāma one must mention short comparisons which do not use words that indicate a comparison is being made (brief metaphors) and explicit comparisons (i.e., similes; For other examples, see Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 69-71; Ṣafā, Ḥamāsa, pp. 267-77).
Sometimes Ferdowsī uses personification as an image (be bāzīgar-ī mānad īn čarḵ-e mast “This drunken wheel [i.e., of the firmament] is like a juggler; ed. Khaleghi, III, p. 56, v. 474), sometimes proverbial expressions (hamān bar ke kārīd ḵod bedravīd “As you sow so shall you reap!”; ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 114, v. 383), and sometimes parables, that is, the explanation of a situation by another exemplary situation (e.g., ibid., p. 216, vv. 770-73). In each of these three figures of speech, the image is constructed by reason.
Another example of this is the elaboration of language as moral maxims (tavānā bovad har ke dānā bovad! “knowledge is power”; ibid., p. 4, v. 14). On the other hand, Ferdowsī avoids those figures of speech which involve complex language or which take language far from the intended meaning. For this reason, complex metaphors, ambiguities of grammatical construction, riddles, and academic phraseology are rarely found in his work (Nöldeke, 1920, pp. 64-65). Metaphors such as “dragon” for a “sword”; “narcissus” and “magician” for “eyes”; “coral,” “garnet,” and “ruby” for “lips”; “tulip” for “a face”; “pearls” for “tears,” “teeth,” and “speech”; “cypress” for “stature”; and so on, that have since been parts of the conventional themes, motives, and images used in Persian poetry.
The most important descriptive passages of the Šāh-nāma are descriptions of war, the beauty of people, and the beauty of nature. Although Ferdowsī himself had probably never taken part in a battle and the descriptions of scenes of warfare are in the main imaginary, as Nöldeke says (1920, p. 59), they are described so variously, with such liveliness and to so stirring an effect that, despite their brevity, the reader seems to see them pass before his eyes. The story of Davāzdah Roḵ (q.v.; ed. Khaleghi, IV, pp. 3-166) is particularly a case in point (Nöldeke, ibid). Ferdowsī does not simply introduce his heroes, he lives with them and shares their sorrows and joys.
He grieves at the death of Iranian heroes, but he does not rejoice at the demise of Iran’s enemies; his sincerity conveys his own emotions to the reader. When he describes the beauty of people, he is at his best when the subject is a women (see, e.g., ed. Khaleghi, I, pp. 183-84, vv. 287-93). As a dehqān, Ferdowsī lived in close contact with nature; for this reason the descriptions of nature in his poetry have the lively coloring of nature itself, not the coloring of decorative effects as in the poetry of Neẓāmī.
Of his descriptions of nature particularly noticeable are those concerned with the rising and setting of the sun and moon, placed at the opening of many sections of individual stories, and of the seasons of the year, in particular of spring, situated in the introductions to stories (see, e.g., ed. Khaleghi, V, pp. 219-20, vv. 1-9).
Ferdowsī’s poetic artistry go hand in hand with his skill as a storyteller. Major stories usually begin with a preamble (ḵoṭba) which includes moral advice, a description of nature, or an account of the poet himself. In the examples that involve moral advice there is normally a connection between the contents of the preamble and the subject of the story that follows, as in the introductions to the stories of Rostam and Sohrāb, of Kāvūs’ expedition to Māzandarān, and of Forūd (q.v.), the son of Sīāvaḵš.
Such a connection is sometimes also found in introductions containing descriptions of nature (Ḵāleqī Moṭlaq, 1975, pp. 61-72; idem, 1990, pp. 123-41). Thereafter begins the story and proceeds quickly. In the important stories of the Šāh-nāma, events are neither given in so direct a manner as to join the opening of the story to its conclusion in the shortest possible manner, nor with such ramifications that the main story line is lost.
But the attention of the poet to certain details of the incidents described, without the story ever straying from its main path, fills the narrative with action and variety (e.g., see the quarrel between the gatekeeper of Mehrāb’s castle and Rūdāba’s maids in Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 196, vv. 468-77; Nöldeke, 1920, p. 17).
Many of the narrative poets who followed Ferdowsī were more interested in the construction of individual lines than of their stories as a whole.
In such narrative poems, the poet himself speaks much more than the characters of his poem, and even where there is dialogue, there is little difference between the attitudes of the various characters of the story, so that the speaker is still the author, who at one moment speaks in the role of one character and the next moment speaks in the role of another.
The result is that in such poems, with the exception of Faḵr-al-Dīn Gorgānī’s Vīs o Rāmīn and to some extent the poems of Neẓāmī, the characters in the story are less individuals than types.
In contrast, the dialogues in the Šāh-nāma are realistic and frequently argumentative, and the poet uses them to good effect as a means of portraying the inner life of his characters.
This is so to such an extent that it is as if many of the characters of the Šāh-nāma lived among us and we knew them well.
Since these characters are developed as distinct, genuine individuals, it is inevitable that sometimes differences between them should lead to conflicts that make each episode extremely dynamic and dramatic.
An instance is the conflict in the story of Rostam and Esfandīār (q.v.), which has been described as “the deepest psychological struggle in the whole of the Šāh-nāma, and one of the deepest examples of its kind in the whole of world epic” (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 59).
Ferdowsī is also very skillful in creation of tragic and dramatic moments, such as the dialogue between Sohrāb and his father, Rostam, when Sohrāb is on the point of death (ed. Khaleghi, II, pp. 185-86, vv. 856-65), Sām’s reaction upon receiving Zāl’s letter (ibid., I, p. 208, vv. 656-66), the disobedience of Rostam’s loyal horse, Raḵš, and his risking his life for Rostam (ibid., II, pp. 26-27, v. 345-46, the anger of the natural world when Sīāvaḵš’s blood is spilled (ibid., II, pp. 357-58, vv. 2,284-87), the minstrel Bārbad’s cutting off his fingers and burning his instruments while mourning for Ḵosrow II Parvēz (Moscow, IX, pp. p. 280, vv. 414-18), and so on.
The final part of Ferdowsī’s elegy for his son and the Bārbad’s elegy on the death of Ḵosrow II Parvēz together with certain of the preambles to various stories and other descriptive passages show that Ferdowsī was also a master as a lyric poet (Nöldeke, 1920, p. 64).
Such moments in the Šāh-nāma distinguish it from other epics of the world (ibid., p. 63); due to their simplicity and brevity, however, they do not harm the epic spirit of the poem, rather they give it a certain musicality and tenderness; in particular, due to the descriptions of love in the poem, these lyric moments take it beyond the world of primary epic (ibid., p. 54, n. 2).
Since the greater part of the epic poetry before Ferdowsī’s time, and even his own main source, the Šāh-nāma-ye abū manṣūrī, have disappeared, it is difficult to judge how far Ferdowsī’s artistry is indebted to his predecessors.
From the thousand lines of Daqīqī in the Šāh-nāma, from certain other scattered lines by poets who had preceded him, and also from the Arabic translation of Ṯaʿālebī, it can be seen that Ferdowsī was not an innovator but rather someone who continued an extant tradition, both in his epic style and in his narrative method.
At the same time, as Nöldeke has said (1920, pp. 22-23, 41-44), it can be shown by reference to these same works that Ferdowsī not only succeeded in preserving his poetic independence, but also that Persian epic poetry is indebted to him for its finest flowering.
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Model of a Multi-Storied Tower, Chinese, 1st century. Earthenware with unfired pigments.
Courtesy Alain Truong
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