A literary history of Persia

THE SHU'tfBIYYAThe Sku'ubiyya controversy extended itself, asfy**&^also shows, to the regions of Genealogy and Philology,lay the special pride of the Arabs, who valued nothing morehighly than nobility of descent and purity of speech. Eveninto these fields the " "Iranophiles carried their attacks, usingtheir knowledge in the first to rake upall the scandals connectedwith the different Arab tribes and the pedigrees oftheir favourite heroes and warriors scandals which wereembodied in a whole series of incriminating poemscalledMathalib and in the second to vindicate the superiority ofother languages, notably the Persian and the Greek, overArabic. To one of the most accomplished of these " Iranophile"scholars, Abu 'Ubayda Ma'mar b. al-Muthanna (t circ.A.D. 824), Goldziher devotes a long notice. 1This most learned philologist, notorious as a Shu'ubf, wasalways eager to point out how much, even of what they mostprized, and esteemed most national and original,the Arabsreally owed to other nations ;how much, for example, theirpoetry and rhetoric owed to Persian models, how many oftheir stories were drawn from Persian sources, and the like.The superior attractions of the Persian legends had, indeed,as we learn from Ibn Hisham (ed. Wiistenfeld, pp. 235-6),already caused the greatest vexation to the Prophet, whofound his audiences melt away when an-Nadr b. al-Harithal-'Abdari appeared on the scene to tell them tales of Rustamand Isfandiyar and the ancient kings of Persia.As regards Philology proper, Goldziher specially mentionsas champions of the Arab cause the great commentatoraz-Zamakhshari (alsoa Persian: t A.D. 1143-4), who in hispreface thanks God for his learning in, and enthusiasm for, theArabic language, and his exemption from Shu'iibi tendencies ;Ibn Durayd (t A.D. 933) and ; Abu'l-Husaynb. Faris (earlyeleventh century). Amongst their most notable opponents hereckons Hamza of Isfahan, who "was enthusiastic for the*Goldziher, op. cit., pp. 195-206,