A literary history of Persia

DOWN TO A.D. 1000 455(6) Abb 'Abdfllah Muhammad b. Musa al-Faralawl T was acontemporary of the above-mentioned Shahid, with whom heis " bracketed " by the later and greater Rudagf,of whom weshall speak directly, in a verse cited by 'Awff. The followingfragment alone survives of his poems :" What greater claim on me than him to greet,To whom I ne'er can render service meet fFor service poorly rendered none I needSave his great charity to intercede."(7)Abu Abdullah Ja'farb. Muhammad ar-Rawdhakl,*commonly called Rudakl or Rudagf is generally reckoned thefirst really great poet of Muhammadan Persia ;and Bal'amf,the Prime Minister of Isma'il b. Ahmad the Samanid (A.D.892-907), and father of the translator into Persian of TabarPsGreat Chronicle,3 even went so far as to declare that he was" peerless amongst the Arabs and the Persians." 4Amongstcontemporary poets also he appears to have enjoyed a highreputation. Shahfd of Balkh saysin a verse cited by 4 Awf{that " l 'Bravo ! and c 'Well done ! are praise to other poets,but it would be c 'satire to say Bravo ! and ' 'Well done ! toRudagf." By Ma'ruff of Balkh he is called " the King ofpoets" (Sultan-i-shd ( and -'irdn}y from the words ascribed to him," Incline to no one in the world but to the Fatimid,"it wouldappear as though he was in sympathy with the Isma'Ilfs, which1Ethe, using only the Berlin Codex of 'Avvfi, reads Fardlddi, but thebetter Elliott Codex, as well as the Majma'u'l-Fusahd, has clearly d, not w,and this reading is confirmed by the verse of Kudagi cited by 'Awfi inwhich the name rhymes with rdwi.* In a passage from an Arabic work entitled Ghydtu'l-Wasd'il ilaMa'rifati'l-awd'il, which Ihave cited at pp. 125-6 of my Handlist of theMuhamtnadan MSS. in the Library of the University of Cambridge tRudagi's pedigree is carried three generations further back (b. Muhammadb. Hakim b. 'Abdu'r-Rahmdn b.Adam), and he is described as "the firstto produce fine poetry in Persian " (see p. 356 supra).3 A French translation of the younger Bal'ami's version by Zotenbgerwas published in Paris in 1867-1874 in four volumes.Handlist, p. 126, 11. 3-4.