A literary history of Persia

QOLITERATURES OF ANCIENT PERSIAsubject by such artificial and unnatural circumscription. Ibegan my Oriental studies with Turkish, and was soon drivento Persian, since from the Persians the Turks borrowed theirculture and literary forms. Soon I found that without aknowledge of the Arabic language and literature and of theArabian civilisation and culture one could never hope to bemore than a smatterer in Persian. Still I thought of the Arabconquest of Persia and the conversion of the bulk of thePersians to the religion of Islam as a definite and satisfactorystarting-point, as an event of such magnitude and of sorevolutionary a character that it might fairly be regarded ascreating practically a tabula rasa, from which all earlier writinghad been expunged. But graduallyit became apparent thatthis conception was very far from the truth ;thatmanyphenomena of the complex 'Abbasid civilisation, of the earlyreligious history of Islam, of the Book and Teaching of theArabian Prophet himself, could only be understood in thelight of earlier history. 1 Inevitably one is carried back fromMuhammadan to Sdsdnian times, from Sasdnian to Parthian,Achaemenian, Medic, Assyrian, primitive Aryan, and I knownot what besides,until one is fain to exclaim with the Persianpoet :Mard-i khiradmand-i-hunar-pisha-rd' Umr du bdyast dar-in nizgdr,Td bi-yaki tajriba dmukhti,Dar digari tajriba burdi bi-kdr !"The man of parts who after wisdom strivesShould have on earth at least a brace ofIn one experience he then might learn,"And in the next that same to profit turn !lives;Therefore, unwilling on the one hand to speak much ofmatters wherein I have but little skill,and on the other to1On the influence of pre-Muhammadan systems, both political andreligious, on the civilisation of al-Islam, von Kremer's writings aremost suggestive, especially his little work entitled Streifzuge auf demGcbicte dc& Mams,