Among books that all know and none has seen, the Middle Persian KhwadÄynÄmag presents a towering figure. Not only has this âofficial history of the Sasanidsâ been lost so that not one sentence in Middle Persian can safely be attributed to it, but its Arabic translation(s) have also vanished into air almost as thin.
Yet every scholar in the field seems to know the book. For some, FirdawsÄ«âs ShÄhnÄme virtually equals the KhwadÄynÄmag, to others some existing Arabic work, or a combination of quotations from existing sources, can with little hesitation be used as indicative of the contents of the KhwadÄynÄmag. Most do not even stop to ask themselves what relation a certain text may actually have to the KhwadÄynÄmag, but speak summarily of âthe KhwadÄynÄmag traditionâ with, or usually without, defining the term.
The lack of critical discussion about the KhwadÄynÄmag is surprising, granted its importance for Late Antique and Early Islamic historiography. Not only is it important as part of the rather scanty non-religious Pahlavi literature, it is also crucial for the reconstruction of the historical events of the Sasanid period and for understanding the genesis of Arabic historical writing and the relation of FirdawsÄ« to his sources. All are major questions in their various fields.
Let us take but two examples, one on the Arabic and the other on the Persian side. The question of the genesis of the Arabic historiographical tradition is almost without exception addressed from an Islamic viewpoint, through hÌ£adÄ«ths and akhbÄr, and it has become commonplace to claim that historical books started being written by Ibn IshÌ£Äq and his generation on the basis of information preserved orally or in brief notes concerning the Prophet MuhÌ£ammad and the birth of Islam. Such comments ignore the fact that the KhwadÄynÄmag was translated into Arabic as a complete book some decades before the death of Ibn IshÌ£Äq. As the text was well known to early historians who wrote in Arabic, it cannot be separated from the main tradition of Arabic historiography or implied to have been influential only within the sphere of the translation movement, but not among historians themselves. For the Persian parts of their works, Ibn Qutayba, al-DÄ«nawarÄ«, and al-TÌ£abarÄ« are to a large extent ultimately dependent on Middle Persian material, and they must unavoidably have been influenced by Middle Persian ways of writing history.
On the Persian side, the question of FirdawsÄ«âs sources may be taken as an example of the range of KhwadÄynÄmag studies. In her book The Oral Background of Persian Epics (2003), Kumiko Yamamoto opines (p. xix) that the study of the sources of FirdawsÄ«âs ShÄhnÄme has come to a dead end and other viewpoints are needed. While most certainly right when it comes to a need for fresh viewpoints, Yamamoto does not quite do justice to source studies. It is true that there have been tedious repetitions in the field of FirdawsÄ«âs source studies, but this is not due to the question itself, but to the restricted use of source material for such studies. A fuller analysis of the KhwadÄynÄmag and the Arabic and Persian literature dependent on it helps to settle this key text to its rightful place, after which we will be able to approach FirdawsÄ«âs ShÄhnÄme from a fresh viewpoint.
This book, however, is neither about Arabic historiography nor FirdawsÄ«âs ShÄhnÄme. Its focus is on the lost Middle Persian KhwadÄynÄmag and its translations and reverberations in later literature. However, while trying to clear the ground by showing what there was between the eighth to tenth centuries and what the relations of individual texts were I also hope to be able to offer some freshness to both these fields.
I discuss the KhwadÄynÄmag from various viewpoints. Chapter 1 clarifies the terminology and introduces the pre-Islamic sources that are relevant for the study of the KhwadÄynÄmag. Some of the Pahlavi texts analysed in this chapter are from the Islamic period but they tap older sources. Chapter 2 describes the translation culture in the centuries when the KhwadÄynÄmag was translated into Arabic and gives an overview of what was, in general, translated from Middle Persian into Arabic.
Chapter 3 moves on to the Arabic translations of the KhwadÄynÄmag, and Chapter 4 discusses the various narratives of Persian national history (Books of Kings, ShÄhnÄmes) in Persian until FirdawsÄ« and even slightly later. Chapter 5 consists of two case studies, where the potential content of the KhwadÄynÄmag is studied through an analysis of the works that, in one way or another, have a relation to the KhwadÄynÄmag.
Chapter 6 comes back to the questions laid out in the first chapter and sums up the discussion in this book, which is concluded by Chapter 7, where the most important passages from Arabic and Persian sources are translated for the benefit of a reader who does not readily have at hand the various editions from which they have been culled or has not enough fluency in either Arabic or Persian.
Technical Notes
This book uses materials in mainly three languages, Pahlavi, Arabic, and Classical Persian, most of them coming from a range of 700 years (500â1200
The case of Arabic and Persian is slightly more complicated. As many terms, personal names, and book titles are used in both Arabic and Persian sources, it would be confusing to use transliterations separately for the two languages. The majority of the material comes from Arabic sources, and I have adopted the standard transliteration of Arabic for both languages (
However, I have made some exceptions, mainly to comply with the prevailing usages in the field. Thus, the ezafet is transliterated as -e (or -ye), the final vowel written in the Persian script with -H as -e, and the conjunction as o-. Likewise, I write mÅbad and hÄrbad (even in transliterated Arabic passages), instead of mÅ«bad and hÄ«rbad, as they are used as technical terms in scholarly literature. Persian verses are transliterated grammatically, i.e., without taking into account the changes in vowel lengths and other metrical exigencies.
The names of characters playing a role in Persian national history have usually been given in the form in which they appear in each source. Thus, IsfandiyÄr and IsfandiyÄd refer to the same person, as do WishtÄsp, BishtÄsf, GushtÄsp, GushtÄsb, and GushtÄsf. Usually, the variants should be understandable in the context, and when not they have been explained. The reason for keeping the name forms as they are attested in the texts is that they may be helpful in understanding the relations of the texts and detecting an authorâs sources.
The term Classical Persian is used when there is a possibility of confusion between Middle and Classical Persian. The term Archaic Persian is not normally used. The term Pahlavi specifically refers to the so-called Book Pahlavi of Zoroastrian literature, whereas Middle Persian is a larger term, covering also other forms of contemporary language. Both are used in this book.
When referring to the Islamic period, I usually give both Hijri and
In the case of certain important books which are available in two critical editions and/or a commonly used translation, I give references to both editions (and the translation) to help the reader find the passage in his copy. The editions are separated by a slash, and the translation is separated by a double slash. The following works are referenced in this way:
Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist: ed. Tajaddud/ed. Flügel//trans. Dodge (1970).
al-BÄ«rÅ«nÄ«, ÄthÄr: ed. AdhkÄʾī/ed. Sachau//trans. Sachau (1923).
al-Masʿūdī, Tanbīh: ed. de Goeje//trans. Carra de Vaux (1896).
Mujmal al-tawÄrÄ«kh: ed. NajmabadiâWeber/ed. BahÄr.
al-TÌ£abarÄ«, Taâ ʾrÄ«kh: ed. de Goeje et al.//trans. Rosenthal et al. (1987â2007).
Thus, quoting, e.g., the Fihrist, I will primarily use the Tajaddud edition, in more important cases also supplying references to Flügelâs edition and Dodgeâs translation. Thus, e.g., Fihrist, p. 305/245//589 refers to ed. Tajaddud, p. 305, ed. Flügel, p. 245, and trans. Dodge (1970): 589. (The edition of FuʾÄd Sayyid seriously suffers from unindicated emendations and will not be used in this study, except on rare occasions. Dodgeâs translation is often faulty. Both should be used with care.)
If not otherwise indicated, all translations are mine, even in the cases where I give a reference to the standard translation.
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I am grateful to the publishers for permission to reuse materials that have previously been published in the following articles:
âal-MaqdisÄ« and His Sources,â Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 207 (2012): 151â163; âal-KisrawÄ« and the Arabic translations of the KhwadÄynÄmag,â Studia Orientalia 114 (2013): 65â92; âArmÄyÄ«l and GarmÄyÄ«l: the Formation of an Episode in FirdawsÄ«âs ShÄhnÄme,â
wzkm 104 (2014): 87â103; âIbn al-MuqaffaÊ¿ and the Middle Persian Book of Kings,â Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 254 (2017): 171â184; âRustam in Arabic Literature and the Middle Persian KhwadÄynÄmag,âwzkm 107 (2017).
I am also grateful to Dr Ilkka Lindstedt (Helsinki), who kindly read through a draft of this book and gave many valuable suggestions that I have been able to make use of in the final version.