A literary history of Persia

compare the Commander of the Faithful with these barbarous"Arabs ?Of these ShiSubiyya each one vaunted particularly the claimsto distinction of his own nationality, whether Syrian, Nabathaean,Egyptian, Greek, Spanish, or Persian ;but the lastnamed were at once the most vehement and the mostnumerous. In Umayyad times Isma'il b. YAsar was, byorder of the Caliph HishAm (A.D. 72443), thrown into atank of water because he had boasted his Persian descent inverses amongst which occur the following : 2" Princes were my ancestors, noble satraps, of high breeding, generous,hospitable,Comparable to Khusraw or Shdpur,and consideration ;and to Hurmuzdn in renownLions of the war-hosts, when they rushed forth on the day ojbattle.They disheartened the Kings of the Turks and Greeks, they stalkedin heavy coats of mailAs ravenous lions stalk forth.Then, if thou askest, wilt thou learn that we are descended froma race which excels all others"Such boasts on the part of the Persian Mawall were galland wormwood to the Arab party, who would fain haveenjoyed a monopoly of this sort of self-glorification ; and,when they could do no more, they replied by such verses asthese : 3" God so ordained it that I knew you ere Fortune smiled upon you,when yestill sat in the Haymarket,But not a year had elapsed ere I saiv you strutting about in silkand brocade and samite.Then your women sat in the sun and moaned under the waterwheelsin harmony with the turtle-doves :Now they trail skirts of flowered silk from the looms of 'Iraq, andall kinds of silk stuffs from Dakn and Tdriin.'Goldziher, op. cit., p. 148. Von Kremer, Streifziige, p. 303 Strcifzfige, pp. 31-32 and 69-70.