Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:25:03.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - The Persian impact on Arabic literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2012

C. E. Bosworth
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Get access

Summary

The roots of Islamic, essentially Arabic, self-expression in the early medieval period lie in the three great literary traditions of the Arabs themselves and of the two peoples whose world-empires had for centuries contended for mastery in the Near East, the Persians and the Greeks. This assertion does not invalidate the subordinate contributions to the rich fabric of Arabic literature from such traditions as the Syriac Christian one – at least for the Syro-Mesopotamian heartlands – and yet others on the peripheries, such as the Coptic one in Egypt and even, at a later date, the Indian one. But in their less culturally xenophobic frames of mind, it was essentially the empires of the Kisrās (Persia) and Qaysars (Byzantium) which the Arabs regarded as their external cultural mentors, albeit with the qualification that these traditions had all lacked the vital transformatory power of Muhammad's revelation and the Islamic faith, the indispensable unifying bond of all Islamic civilization.

In Iraq and Persia, the Arabs made themselves heirs of the Sasanids, at first only in a military and political sense, but gradually as the cultural, literary and artistic heirs also. The process of acculturation was in many ways easier than in (say) Syria or Egypt, and certainly easier than in Andalus (Spain), for in these latter three lands the indigenous Christian culture retained its spiritual and intellectual vitality and its hold on the souls of a substantial proportion of the population; although Christian confidence was temporarily shaken by the successes of Islam, a teleological view of human history and a trust in the ultimate carrying through of God's plan for the redemption of His people allowed for a dark period during which…

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×