A literary history of Persia

8 INTRODUCTORYto be used on the coins of the early Caliphs and the independentSpahpats or Ispahbadhs of Tabaristan for more than a centuryafter the Arab conquest ;and for at least as long additionscontinued to be made by the Zoroastrians of Persia to thePahlawi literature, but the latest of them hardly extend beyondthe ninth century of our era. 1 Practically speaking thenatural use of what we understand as Pahlawi ceased abouta thousand years ago.III. The Muhammadan Period (from about A.D. 900 untilthe present day).When we talk of " Modern Persian," wemean simply the Persian language as it reappearsModps?anNe ' after the Arab Conquest, and after the adoptionof the Muhammadan religion by the vast majorityof the inhabitants of Persia. The difference between latePahlawi and the earliest form of Modern Persian was, savefor the Arabic element generally contained in the latter,merely a difference of script, and script in this case was, atthis transition period (the ninth century of our era), mainlya question of religion. In the East, even at theDislike of . .written charac- present day, there is a tendency to associateters associated . .with other written characters much more than language withreligion.There are Syrian Christians whoselanguage is Arabic, but who prefer to write their Arabic inthe Syriaccharacter ;and these Karshuni writings (forso they are called) form a considerable literature. So alsoTurkish-speaking Armenians and Greeks often employ the1West places the compilation of the Dinkart, Bundahish, and ArdaViraf Ndmak in the ninth century of our era (loc. cit., pp. 433, 436, 437),and regardsit as " unlikely that any of the commentators quoted in thePahlawi translations of the Avesta could have written later than the sixthcentury." The compilation of the Bahman Yasht, however, is placed byProfessor Darmesteter as late as A.D. 1099-1350 (Etudes Iraniennes, vol. ii,p. 69). The interesting Gujastak Abdlish (edited and translated byA. Barthelemy, Paris, 1887) describes a controversy between a Zoroastrianpriest and the heretic Abalish held in the presence of theCaliph al-Ma'mun (A.D. 813-833), and therefore obviously cannot havebeen composed earlier than the ninth century.