به
نام خداوند
جان و خرد
کزین
اندیشه برتر
برنگذرد
A Study about the Persian Cultural Legacy and Background of the
Sufi Mystics Shams Tabrizi and Jalal al-Din Rumi
By Rahgozari Minutalab
October 2009, Open Source. The author is not associated with any modification
of the current article but any author is free to use the materials within this
article.
Note PDF version is recommended here:
http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/PersianPoetRumi.pdf
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منگر به هر
گدایی که تو
خاص از
آن مایی |
مفروش خویش
ارزان که تو
بس گران
بهایی |
|
|
به عصا شکاف
دریا که تو
موسی زمانی |
بدران قبای
مه را که ز نور مصطفایی |
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|
بشکن سبوی
خوبان که تو یوسف جمالی |
چو مسیح دم
روان کن که تو نیز
از آن هوایی |
|
|
به صف اندرآی
تنها که سفندیار
وقتی |
در خیبر است
برکن که علی مرتضایی |
|
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بستان ز دیو
خاتم که تویی
به جان سلیمان |
بشکن سپاه
اختر که تو
آفتاب رایی |
|
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چو خلیل رو
در آتش که تو خالصی
و دلخوش |
چو خضر خور
آب حیوان که
تو جوهر
بقایی |
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بسکل ز بیاصولان
مشنو فریب غولان |
که تو از شریف
اصلی که تو از بلند
جایی |
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|
تو به روح بیزوالی
ز درونه باجمالی |
تو از آن
ذوالجلالی
تو ز پرتو
خدایی |
|
|
تو هنوز
ناپدیدی ز
جمال خود چه
دیدی |
سحری چو
آفتابی ز
درون خود برآیی |
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|
تو چنین
نهان دریغی
که مهی به
زیر میغی |
بدران تو میغ
تن را که مهی و خوش
لقایی |
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چو تو لعل
کان ندارد چو
تو جان
جهان ندارد |
که جهان
کاهش است این
و تو جان جان
فزایی |
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تو چو تیغ
ذوالفقاری
تن تو غلاف
چوبین |
اگر این
غلاف بشکست
تو شکسته دل
چرایی |
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تو چو باز پای
بسته تن تو چو کنده
بر پا |
تو به چنگ خویش
باید که گره ز
پا گشایی |
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چه خوش است
زر خالص چو به آتش
اندرآید |
چو کند درون
آتش هنر و گهرنمایی |
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مگریز ای
برادر تو ز شعلههای
آذر |
ز برای
امتحان را چه
شود اگر درآیی |
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به خدا تو را
نسوزد رخ تو
چو زر
فروزد |
که خلیل
زادهای تو ز
قدیم آشنایی |
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تو ز خاک سر
برآور که
درخت سربلندی |
تو بپر به
قاف قربت که شریفتر
همایی |
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ز غلاف خود
برون آ که تو تیغ آبداری |
ز کمین کان
برون آ که تو
نقد بس روایی |
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شکری
شکرفشان کن
که تو قند نوشقندی |
بنواز نای
دولت که عظیم
خوش نوایی (دیوان
شمس) |
TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
and reason for this article
Some
distortions due to nationalistic reasons
Shams
Tabrizi and his background
Tabriz
in the pre-Mongol and Ilkhanid era
The
Tabrizi Iranian language as a special case
Example of
Shams Tabrizi speaking the North West Iranic dialect of Tabriz
On
the importance of Safinaye Tabriz
On
the name of Tabriz and its districts
Shams
Tabrizi of Ismaili origin? Conclusion
Hesam
al-Din Chelebi and other Rumi companions
Baha
al-Din Walad and Rumi’s parents.
On
Vakhsh and Balkh and the languages of these areas
Contribution to Persian culture and Baha
al-Din Walad’s native language.
Conclusion on Baha al-Din Walad
The
Persian lectures, letters and sermons of Rumi and his everyday language
Response
to an invalid arguments with regards to the Diwan
Invalid Argument: “Rumi was a Turk because he has some
verses in Turkish”
Invalid Argument:
Rumi uses some Turkish words in his poetry
Invalid argument: Rumi has traces of Central Asia
Turkish in his poetry
Invalid argument: Rumi’s usage of the word Turk shows
he was a Turk
Persian
poetry images and symbols: Turk, Hindu, Rum, Zang/Habash
Which
Turks are described in Persian Poetry?
Views
on ethnicity in the Mathnawi
Sultan
Walad’s admits he does not know Turkish and Greek well
Sultan
Valad’s view on the Turks
The
Origin of Sama and a response to a false claim
On Rumi’s
cultural predecessor and The Mawlawiya’s Spiritual lineage
Appendix
A: Nick Nicholas: Greek Verses of Rumi & Sultan Walad
" If the Turk, the Roman, and the Arab are in love,
They all know the same language, the beautiful tune of Rabab "
Recently, UNESCO in the year 2007 declared the Persian poet Rumi as one of the world’s universal cultural icon. The Afghanistani, Iranian, Turkish governments all laid claim to Rumi’s heritage and tried to maximize their association with the Persian poet Rumi. Obviously such an association brings about a national prestige despite the fact that Rumi is a universal figure. Also recently, especially with the demise of the USSR, there has been an increase in pan-Turkist nationalist activism in various Altaic-phone regions and a many Persian cultural figures like Avicenna, Biruni, Nasir al-Din Tusi, Eyn al-Qodat Hamadani, Bayazid Bistami, Suhrawardi, Nizami Ganjavi and etc. have been falsely claimed to be Turkic without any serious argument. Many of these like Biruni and Nezami lived in an era when the area they were born in was Iranian. Due to penetration and incursions of Turkic nomads, eventually some of these Iranian speaking regions like Khwarizmia, Arran and Sherwan, Sogdiana, Marv and etc. became Turkified in speech the same as the Greek and Armenian languages gaveaway to Turkic speakers in Anatolia, and Egypt gave away to Arabic. At the time of the mentioned figures, which are claimed today for nationalistic reasons by some of the new countries, all of these men were of Iranian ancestry but more importantly, they all contributed to Iranian culture and have important Persian works. Some of these extravagant claims are impossible (like Eyn ol-Qodat Hamadani, Suhrawardi, Bistami who was of Zoroastrian descent and Nasir al-Din Tusi) that there is no need to respond to them.
On the other hand, figures like Nizami Ganjavi and Biruni were born in areas that are today Turkified or Turcophone. This was not the case during the time of these authors, but many people who study these figures do not have correct information and background on the chronology of the linguistic Turkification in Central Asia, Caucasus and Azerbaijan region of Iran.
For example, during the time of Biruni, the area of Khwarizm spoke the Iranian Chorasmian language.
I refer to the short but very significant contribution of the late French Orientalist to the al-Biruni Commemoration Volume published in India(L. Massignon, "Al-Biruni et la valuer internationale de la science arabe" in Al-Biruni Commemoration Volume, (Calcutta, 1951). pp 217-219.):
In a celebrated preface to the book of Drugs, Biruni states:
'' And if it is true that in all nations one likes to adorn oneself by using the language to which one has remained loyal, having become accustomed to using it with friends and companions according to need, I must judge for myself that in my native Chorasmian, science has as much as chance of becoming perpetuated as a camel has of facing Ka’aba. “
Indeed al-Biruni has recorded months and other names in the Iranian Chorasmian, Soghdian and Dari-Persian languages and he states equivalently:
و أما أهل خوارزم، و إن کانوا غصنا ً من دوحة الفُرس
Translation: And the people of Khwarizm, they are a branch of the
Persian tree
(Abu Rahyan Biruni, "Athar al-Baqqiya 'an al-Qurun al-Xaliyyah"(Vestiges of the past : the chronology of ancient nations), Tehran, Miras-e-Maktub, 2001)
The late eminent philologist Professor David Mackenzie on
the old Iranian Chorasmian Language(Encyclopedia Iranica, "The Chorasmian
Language", D.N.Mackenzie) states:
“The earliest examples have been left by the great Chorasmian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni. In his works on chronology and astronomy (ca. 390-418/1000-28) he recorded such calendrical and astronomical terms as some of the traditional names of days, months, feasts, and signs of the zodiac.”
While showing perfect knowledge of the native Chorasmian calendar, as well as other Iranian calendars (Persian, Sogdian) and also Hebrew, Arabic, Greek calendars, Biruni is clear for example that he does not other calendars(like those of the Turks) as well:
"As to the months of other nations, Hindus, Chinese, Tibetians, Turks, Khazars, Ethiopians and Zangids, we do not intend, although we have managed to learn the names of some of them, to mention them here, postponing it till a time when we shall know them all, as it does not agree with the method which we have followed hitherto, to connect that which is doubtful and unknown with that which is certain and known "(Athar)
Biruni collected the months and calendars of many nations, which are recorded in his book.
On the order of the old-Turkic (old Uighur, which he calls
toquz-oghuz) month names, which are just ordinals (readily recognizable in any
variety) jumbled, he adds a note that:
“I have not been able to learn how long these months are, nor what they mean, nor of what kind they are”(Athar, pg 83).
However, a modern Western scholar whom we rather not name did not know about the East Chorasmian Iranian language and just based on modern geography, has mistaken Biruni’s Iranian Chorasmian language for Turkic. She did not for example read about this Iranian language in the Encyclopedia of Islam, Encyclopedia Iranica, Iranian language sources or other linguistic sources. That is sometimes negligence of the history of the region produces mistakes and this is due to the fact that many scholars of literature do not have a grasp of the history of the region (Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia) during the medieval era. So that mentioned Western author for example mistakenly thought that the Chorasmian Iranian language at the time of Biruni must be the same as the language spoken in Chorasmia (in modern Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan) today.
Another example is Avicenna. For example, Avicenna whose father was a native of Balkh (the same place where Rumi’s father was possibly born) and his mother was from Bukhara (her name was Sitareh which is Persian for star and even today the majority of inhabitants of Bukhara are Iranian Persians(Tajiks)).
Avicenna in the book
of “The Healing: (Ash-Shifa) in Chapter 5 (Concerning the caliph and Imam:
the necessity of obeying them.
Remarks on politics, transactions and morals) states:
“…As for the enemies of those who oppose his laws, the legislator must decree waging war against them and destroying them, after calling on them to accept the truth. Their property and women must be declared free for the spoil. For when such property and women are not administered according to the constitution of the virtuous city, they will not bring about the good for which the property and women are sought. Rather, these would contribute to corruption and evil. Since some men have to serve others, such people must be forced to serve the people of the just city. The same applies to people not very capable of acquiring virtue. For these are slaves by nature as, for example, the Turks and Zinjis and in general those who do not grow up in noble climes where the condition for the most part are such that nations of good temperament, innate intelligence and sound minds thrive”(Chris Brown, Terry Nardin, Nicholas J. Rengger, “International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War”, Published by Cambridge University Press, 2002, pg 156-157).
Let us look at the original Arabic of this sentence as well:
و انه لابد من ناس یخدمون الناس، فیجب ان یك.ن هؤلا یجبرون علی خدمه اهل المدینه الفاضله، و كذلك من كان من الناس بعیداً عن تلقی الفاضیله فهم عبید‘’ بالطبع، نثل الترك والزنح، و بالجمله الذین نشأوا فی غیر اقالیم الشریفه التی اكثر احوالها ان ینشأفیها حسنه الامزجه صحیحه القرایح و العقول
In another phrase, Ibn Sina states: “In the languages we
know…” and then he brings an example of Persian and Arabic. Had he known any other languages, then he
would have given examples as well. Thus
he did not even speak Turkish and all his works are in Persian and Arabic.
The statement of Avicenna with this regard is given here from his book Ishaarat (Dehkhoda dictionary):
لكن اللغات التى نعرفها قد خلت فى عاداتها عن استعمال النفى على هذه الصورة.... فیقولون بالعربیة لاشىء من ح ب... و كذلك ما یقال فى فصیح لغةالفرس هیچ ح ب نیست
As per Nizami Ganjavi, there exists a detailed article on
how USSR nation building and modern ethno-nationalism have forged the most
baseless arguments (even false verses) in order to deprive of his Iranian
heritage:
Doostzadeh, Ali.
“Politicization of the background of Nizami Ganjavi: Attempted de-Iranization
of a historical Iranian figure by the USSR", June 2008 (Updated
2009).
http://sites.google.com/site/rakhshesh/articles-related-to-iranian-history
(see PDF file)
http://www.archive.org/details/PoliticizationOfTheBackgroundOfNizamiGanjaviAttemptedDe-iranizationOf
Sufficient to say, his mother was Iranic Kurdish(Iranic speaking), he was raised by a Kurdish uncle and his father-line goes back before the coming of the Seljuqs and is of Iranian Anyhow, there is no doubt that culturally, mythological relics, poetry (he considered himself a successor of Ferdowsi) he was Iranian and his stories are rooted in Iranic/Persian folklore. An important manuscript that shows the Iranian culture of the Caucasus before its Turkification in language has come down to us by the Persian poet Jamal Khalil Shirvani:
Mohammad Amin Riyahi. “Nozhat al-Majales” in Encyclopedia Iranica
This article attempts to address the background of Rumi as well as the fact that people have tried to deprive him of his Iranian heritage. Note when we say Iranian, we mean it in the ethno-cultural-linguistic sense rather than citizenship of modern Iran. Thus this term covers the totality of Iranian speaking civilizations and those that have been greatly affected by it enough to be absorbed and melted in to it.
We start by quoting a Turkish scholar with this regard.
Even according to the Turkish scholar Talat. S. Halman:
“Baha ad-din (Rumi’s Father) and his family eventually settled in Konya, ancient Iconium, in central Anatolia. They brought with them their traditional Persian cultural and linguistic background and found in Konya a firmly entrenched penchant for Persian culture. In terms of Rumi’s cultural orientation – including language, literary heritage, mythology, philosophy, and Sufi legacy –the Iranians have indeed a strongly justifiable claim. All of these are more than sufficient to characterize Rumi as a prominent figure of Persian cultural history”(Rapture and Revolution, page 266).
Although Professor Talat S. Halman does not delve into ethnic genealogy of Rumi, he remarks:
“The available documentary evidence is so flimsy that no nation(Iranian/Persian, Arabic, Turkish) can invoke jus sanguinis regarding the Rumi genealogy” and he also mentions: “Rumi is patently Persian on the basis of jus et norma loquendi”.
Thus there is no dispute about Rumi’s culture, literary heritage. And even his native language as mentioned was Persian. However some people try to point to genealogy and we shall look at this issue in this article. The problem with that approach is that the genealogies of many people are not known in the 13th century. And if it is known, up to what ancestor is this genealogy known? We will explore the genealogy issue in this article as well, but if genealogy was a concern, than majority of Anatolian Turks are not of Turkic genealogy but resemble Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and other natives of Anatolia. DNA evidence thus far has established:
“Another important replacement occurred in
Turkey at the end of the eleventh century, when Turks began attacking the
Byzantine Empire. They finally conquered
Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 1453.
The replacement of Greek with Turkish was especially significant because
this language belongs to a different family—Altaic. Again the genetic effects of invasion were
modest in Turkey. Their armies had few
soldiers and even if they sometimes traveled with their families, the invading
populations would be small relative to the subject populations that had along civilization and history of economic
development. After many generations
of protection by the Roman Empire, however, the old settles had become
complacent and lost their ability to resist the dangerous invaders”(Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza , in “Genes, People and
Languages”, 2000, pg 152).
So when speaks about the 13th century, one is clearly speaking about culture and native language. If a person’s native language is Persian and their father’s native language is Persian, then that is sufficient to say they were genealogically Iranian. The genealogy of Rumi is not really known well beyond his great grandfather (Ahmad Khatibi) , although some later sources had claimed it went back to the Caliph Abu Bakr. This point is discussed later on this article and we show that this is not accepted by modern scholars.
This study is concerned with the cultural identity and ethnic background of Jalal al-Din Rumi. Although there is no disagreement among serious Rumi scholars about his Persian cultural identity, there have been some groups within nationalist pan-Turkist circles trying to downplay his Persian cultural identity, language and ethnicity. Their politicized theory rests on three or four invalid and false arguments which we shall respond to in detail in this article:
A) Rumi wrote Persian because it was more
poetic or common.
B) Rumi was genealogically Turkish
C) Rumi has a few scattered
Mual’ammas in Turkish and uses archaic Central Asian Turkish words so he was
Turkish
D) Sama’ was Turkish phenomenon
Thus there have been some people from Turkey or Turkic language background who advocate a Turkic genealogy for Rumi. We will show there is no proof of this and all indicators is that Rumi had an Iranic(Persian or other Iranian language group) background. Note, as it is well known, cultural identity, ethnicity (defined by native language and culture) and genealogy are different issues. For example many people in the non-Arabic Muslim world claim descent from the Prophet of Islam (SAW) but culturally they are no different than those who do not have such a background. On the other hand, most Egyptians are descendant of ancient Egyptians rather than Arabs of Arabian peninsula, however culturally they identify themselves as Arabs. Most Turkish speakers of Anatolia are closer genetically to their Greek neighbors than to the Turkic people of Central Asia. In other words, their cultural identity defines their ethnicity and not their 20th ancestor. Given there is hardly if any pure backgrounds in the Middle East, then cultural identity will supersede genealogy when assigning a poet to a particular civilization. Thus repeating for emphasis what the Turkish professor Talat Halman has stated: “Baha ad-din (Rumi’s Father) and his family eventually settled in Konya, ancient Iconium, in central Anatolia. They brought with them their traditional Persian cultural and linguistic background and found in Konya a firmly entrenched penchant for Persian culture. In terms of Rumi’s cultural orientation – including language, literary heritage, mythology, philosophy, and Sufi legacy –the Iranians have indeed a strongly justifiable claim. All of these are more than sufficient to characterize Rumi as a prominent figure of Persian cultural history”(Rapture and Revolution, page 266) and d he also mentions: “Rumi is patently Persian on the basis of jus et norma loquendi”.
As per modern scholars, virtually all the Western sources we have looked at identify Rumi as a Persian poet and a native Persian speaker. Few scholars however have taken the legendary claim that his father’s lineage goes back to the first Caliph Abu Bakr and we shall discuss this issue later. However if this legendary claim was correct, Rumi would still be considered a native Persian since he was a native Persian speaker and of Iranian cultural orientation.
Among the Western scholars, one can quote Franklin who clearly states:
Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, 2000.:
“How is it that a Persian boy
born almost eight hundred years ago in Khorasan, the northeastern province of
greater Iran, in a region that we identify today as Central Asia, but was
considered in those days as part of the greater Persian cultural sphere, wound
up in Central Anatolia on the receding edge of the Byzantine cultural sphere,
in which is now Turkey, some 1500 miles to the west?” (p. 9)
Annemarie Schimmel also remarks on Rumi’s native tongue in the “ The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi”, SUNY Press, 1993, p. 193:
"Rumi's mother tongue was
Persian, but he had learned during his stay in Konya, enough Turkish and Greek
to use it, now and then, in his verse"
And even Halman agrees although he tries to provide justifications for Western scholars although Western scholars have looked at other reasons besides culture and background (for example sedentary population of Vakhsh or the Balkhi language and Aflaki’s Manaqib and its clear references to various ethnic groups and etc.). Halman states(pg 266):
“In the West
scholars have always accepted Rumi as a Persian on the basis of his exclusive
use of the Persian language and because he remained in the mainstream of
Persian cultural heritage. No account
seems to have been taken of the Turkish and Afghan claims, except some
occasional references such as the one by William Hastie in his introduction to The
Festival of Spring, featuring his translations from Rumi’s Divan:
The Turks claim Jelaleddin as
their own, although a Persian of royal race, born of Balkh, old Bactra, on the
ground of his having sung and died in Qoniya, in Asia Minor…Whence he was
called Rumi “the Romans,” usually rendered “the Greek,” as wonning wihin the
confies of old Oriental Rome.
“
Obviously the native language, exclusive use of Persian language and also mainstream Persian cultural heritage are sufficient to describe Rumi as a Persian poet. This author (writer of this article) claims Iranian ethnicity and speaks Persian as a native language and lnows his ancestors up to three generations back who spoke Fahlavi-type Iranian dialect. However we do not know our 20th ancestor. Thus if genealogy is of concern, then it can have bearing on ethnicity only to the point where such a genealogy is known consciously to that person and that genealogy is different from the culture and language of the person who knows that genealogy. In the case of Rumi, his father was a native Persian speaker (as shown later in the article) and one concludes that genealogically he is Persian up to the ancestors we know. However as mentioned, ethnicity is defined by culture, mythological orientation and native language.
We should make a point on the Afghan claim here. Rumi according to most up to date scholarly sources was born in Vakhsh Tajikistan, although Vakhsh itself was part of the greater province of Balkh at that time. However, when we talk about Persian/Iranian in this article, we are not talking about modern nation-states or citizenships. Rather we are taking the viewpoint of Persian culture, Persian native language and Persian background (which is mainly defined by native Persian language since today most Anatolian Turks are not genetically related to the Turkic groups of Central Asia and are closer genetically to Greeks and many native Persian speakers might not be descendants of the Achaemenids but rather various groups who adopted the Persian language and culture).
In this sense, the term Iranian/Iranic/Persian covers the main groups of Afghanistan (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Nuristanis, and Baluchs) and the term “Turk” covers Oghuz Turks, Kipchak Turks and etc. That is generally, despite the shared Islamic civilization, we can state that several majors groups existed (although by no means an exhaustive list):
1) Iranians (‘Ajam, Tajiks, Tats, Persians, Kurds) which covers all Iranic speakers. 2) Turkic groups (to which we should add Islamicized Mongols who became Turcophones). We should note some sources have mistaken the Soghdians and other Iranic speakers for Turks due to geographical proximity 3) Arab speaking Muslims, most of these whom lived in territories that was not Arabic speaking before Islam and hence many scholars consider them Arabicized 4) Indian Muslims covering all Indic languages 5) Berbers of Africa. 6) Caucasian groups such as Daghestanis, Lezgins and etc. 7) (and other groups of course in East Asia, Africa, China and etc.)
So to say Rumi was an Afghan or Turkish based on where he lived is actually retroactively misplacing history and an anachronistic usage of modern boundaries for a time when such boundaries did not exist and there was no concept of nation-state or citizenship based on set borders. At that time even, there was no Ottoman empire and so Rumi cannot be an Ottoman. So from a geographic point of view, Rumi as shown by his culture was part of the Iranian zone of Islamicate culture.
In this article, we examine more than cultural, linguistic, heritage and genealogical background of Rumi. We also examine the background of close friends of Rumi, mainly Shams Tabrizi and Hesam al-Din Chelebi. We provide an overview of the usage of the term “Turk” in three majors: Diwan Shams Tabrizi (where misinterpretations have taken place), the Mathnawi and finally the Manaqib al-‘Arifin. We also overview Rumi ‘s father (Baha al-Din Walad) and Sultan Walad’s (Rumi’s son) literally output. The study shows that Rumi’s everyday language (not just poetic language) was Persian and thus his native language was Persian. His cultural heritage was Persian. His genealogy is also discussed and based on the work of his father, we also show that his father’s native language was Persian and hence Rumi’s genealogy is also Persian. On his particular genealogy, there have been some that have claimed he was a descendant of the Caliph Abu Bakr and we examine this claim as well. However from our point of view since Rumi’s native language was Persian and his literary output was in Persian, then he is an Iranian cultural icon and eventually the genealogy of most figures in the 13th century Islamic world cannot be traced back to more than their great grandfather (Ahmad Khatibi in the case of Rumi). And going back further, the genealogy of all humans go back to caveman and possibly a single man and women in Africa and the only firm statement is that the genealogy of Rumi which is through his father was Persian as they were native speakers of Persian and Persian was their mothertongue.
The Seljuqs and the Seljuqs of Rum (1077 to 1307) were the dynasty that controlled Konya at the time of Rumi. While the Seljuq’s father-line was Turkish (in the sense of Altaic tribes of Central Asia and specifically the Oghuz tribes), they were completely Persianized after they rose to power. From the point of view of culture, identity and administration, the Seljuqs are Persian and one can see that Sultan Walad disparages Turks in one of his poems (see the section on Sultan Walad) while he praises the Seljuq ruler Sultan Mas’ud. Similarly, Rumi disparages the Oghuz tribes but at the same time he was in favor with the Seljuqs. Thus the Seljuqs despite their Altaic father-line were completely Persianized in language and culture by the time of Rumi and the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum.
With this regard, the eminent historian Rene Grousset states:
"It is to be noted that the Seljuks, those Turkomans who became sultans of Persia, did not Turkify Persia-no doubt because they did not wish to do so. On the contrary, it was they who voluntarily became Persians and who, in the manner of the great old Sassanid kings, strove to protect the Iranian populations from the plundering of Ghuzz bands and save Iranian culture from the Turkoman menace"(Rene Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161,164)
And many other authors and historians agree.
Stephen P. Blake, "Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739". Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 123:
"For the Seljuks and Il-Khanids in Iran it was the rulers rather than the conquered who were "Persianized and Islamicized".
Even their lineage was slowly changed according to some sources.
M.A. Amir-Moezzi, "Shahrbanu", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition:
"... here one might bear in mind that turco-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs and Ilkhanids were rapidly to adopt the Persian language and have their origins traced back to the ancient kings of Persia rather than to Turkish heroes or Muslim saints ..."
John Perry states:
“We should distinguish two
complementary ways in which the advent of the Turks affected the language map
of Iran. First, since the Turkish-speaking rulers of most Iranian polities from
the Ghaznavids and Seljuks onward were already Iranized and patronized
Persian literature in their domains, the expansion of Turk-ruled empires served
to expand the territorial domain of written Persian into the conquered areas,
notably Anatolia and Central and South Asia.
Secondly, the influx of massive Turkish-speaking populations
(culminating with the rank and file of the Mongol armies) and their settlement
in large areas of Iran (particularly in Azerbaijan and the northwest),
progressively turkicized local speakers of Persian, Kurdish and other Iranian
languages. Although it is mainly the
results of this latter process which will be illustrated here, it should be remembered
that these developments were contemporaneous and complementary.
…
Both these processes peaked with the accession of the Safavid Shah Esma'il in
1501 CE. He and his successors were
Turkish-speakers, probably descended from Turkicized Iranian inhabitants of the
northwest marches. While they accepted and promoted written Persian as the
established language of bureaucracy and literature, the fact that they and
their tribal supporters habitually spoke Turkish in court and camp lent this
vernacular an unprecedented prestige.”(John Perry. Iran & the
Caucasus, Vol. 5, (2001), pp. 193-200. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF TURKISH IN
RELATION TO PERSIAN OF IRAN)
According to Professor Ehsan Yarshater (“Iran” in Encyclopedia Iranica):
A Turkic nomadic
people called Oghuz (Ghozz in Arabic and Persian sources) began to penetrate
into the regions south of Oxus during the early Ghaznavid period. Their
settlement in Khorasan led to confrontation with the Ghaznavid Masud, who could
not stop their advance. They were led by the brothers Tögrel, Čaghri, and
Yinal, the grandsons of Saljuq, whose clan had assumed the leadership of the
incomers.
Tögrel, an able
general, who proclaimed himself Sultan in 1038, began a systematic conquest of the
various provinces of Persia and Transoxiana, wrenching Chorasmia from its
Ghaznavid governor and securing the submission of the Ziyarids in Gorgan. The
Saljuqids, who had championed the cause of Sunnite Islam, thereby ingratiating
themselves with the orthodox Muslims, were able to defeat the Deylamite
Kakuyids, capturing Ray, Qazvin, and Hamadan, and bringing down the Kurdish
rulers of the Jebal and advancing as far west as Holwan and Kanaqayn. A series
of back and forth battles with the Buyids and rulers of Kurdistan, Azerbaijan,
and Armenia ensued; and, although the Saljuqids occasionally suffered reverses,
in the end their ambition, tenacity, and ruthlessness secured for them all of
Persia and Caucasus. By the time Tögrel triumphantly entered Baghdad on 18
December 1055, he was the master of nearly all of the lands of Sasanian Iran.
He had his title of Sultan confirmed by the caliph, and he now became the
caliph’s protector, freeing the caliphate from the bond of Shiite Buyids.
After nearly 200
years since the rise of the Saffarids in 861, this was the first time that all
of Persia and its dependencies came under a single and powerful rule which did
not dissipate and disband after a single generation. Tögrel (1040-63) was
followed by his nephew Alp Arslan (q.v.; 1063-73). He was a warrior king. In
his lifetime the realm of the Saljuqids was extended from the Jaxartes in the
east to the shores of the Black Sea in the west. He captured Kottalan in the
upper Oxus valley, conquered Abkhazia, and made Georgia a tributary, and he
secured Tokharestan and Čaghanian in the east. In 1069 he crowned his
triumphs with his defeat of the eastern Roman emperor, Romanos Diogenes, by
sheer bravery and skillful planning; after extracting a huge tribute of
1,500,000 dinars he signed a peace treaty with the emperor for 50 years. This
victory ended the influence of Byzantine emperors in Armenia and the rest of
Caucasus and Azerbaijan, and spread the fame of the Saljuqid king in the Muslim
world.
Alp Arslan was
succeeded by his son Malekšah (1073-92). Both were capable rulers who were
served by the illustrious vizier Nezam-al-Molk (d. 1092). Their rule brought
peace and prosperity to a country torn for more than two centuries by the
ravages of military claimants of different stripes. Military commands remained
in the hands of the Turkish generals, while administration was carried out by
Persians, a pattern that continued for many centuries. Under Malekšah the
Saljuqid power was honored, through a number of successful campaigns, as far
north as Kashgar and Khotan in eastern Central Asia, and as far west as Syria,
Anatolia, and even the Yemen, with the caliph in Baghdad subservient to the
wishes of the great Saljuqid sultans.
The ascent of
the Saljuqids also put an end to a period which Minorsky has called “the
Persian intermezzo”(see Minorsky, 1932, p. 21), when Iranian dynasties,
consisting mainly of the Saffarids, the Samanids, the Ziyarids, the Buyids, the
Kakuyids, and the Bavandids of Tabarestan and Gilan, ruled most of Iran. By all
accounts, weary of the miseries and devastations of never-ending conflicts and
wars, Persians seemed to have sighed with relief and to have welcomed the
stability of the Saljuqid rule, all the more so since the Saljuqids mitigated
the effect of their foreignness, quickly adopting the Persian culture and court
customs and procedures and leaving the civil administration in the hand of
Persian personnel, headed by such capable and learned viziers as ‘Amid-al-Molk
Kondori and Nezam-al-Molk.
After Malekšah’s
death, however, internal strife began to set in, and the Turkish tribal
chiefs’tendencies to claim a share of the power, and the practice of the
Saljuqid sultans to appoint the tutors (atabaks) of their children as
provincial governors, who often became enamored of their power and
independence, tended to create multiple power centers. Several Saljuqid lines
gradually developed, including the Saljuqids of Kerman (1048-1188) and the
Saljuqids of Rum in Anatolia (1081-1307); the latter survived the great Saljuqs
by more than a century and were instrumental in spreading the Persian culture
and language in Anatolia prior to the Ottoman conquest of the region.
According
to the Encyclopedia of Islam:
“Culturally,
the constituting of the Seljuq Empire marked a further step in the dethronement
of Arabic from being the sole lingua franca of educated and polite society in
the Middle East. Coming as they did through a Transoxania which was still
substantially Iranian and into Persia proper, the Seljuqs with no high-level
Turkish cultural or literary heritage of their own – took over that of Persia,
so that the Persian language became the administration and culture in their
land of Persia and Anatolia. The Persian culture of the Rum Seljuqs was
particularly splendid, and it was only gradually that Turkish emerged there as
a parallel language in the field of government and adab; the Persian imprint in
Ottoman civilization was to remain strong until the 19th century.”(“Saljuqids”in
the Encyclopedia of Islam).
Jonathan Dewald, "Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World", Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004, p. 24:
"Turcoman armies coming from the East had driven the Byzantines out of much of Asia Minor and established the Persianized sultanate of the Seljuks."
C.E. Bosworth, "Turkish Expansion towards the west" in UNESCO HISTORY OF HUMANITY, Volume IV, titled "From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century", UNESCO Publishing / Routledge, 2000. p. 391:
"While the Arabic language retained its primacy in such spheres as law, theology and science, the culture of the Seljuk court and secular literature within the sultanate became largely Persianized; this is seen in the early adoption of Persian epic names by the Seljuk rulers (Qubād, Kay Khusraw and so on) and in the use of Persian as a literary language (Turkish must have been essentially a vehicle for everyday speech at this time). The process of Persianization accelerated in the thirteenth century with the presence in Konya of two of the most distinguished refugees fleeing before the Mongols, Bahā' al-Dīn Walad and his son Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, whose Mathnawī, composed in Konya, constitutes one of the crowning glories of classical Persian literature."
The Turkish scholar Halman also states:
“Bahaddin and his family eventually settled in Konya, ancient, Iconium, in central Anatolia. They brought with them their traditional Persian cultural and linguistic background and found in Konya a firmly entrenched penchant for Persian culture. “ (Halman, 264)
Koprulu mentions:
Meanwhile, the Mongol invasion, which caused a great number of scholars and artisans to flee from Turkistan, Iran, and Khwarazm and settle within the Empire of the Seljuks of Anatolia, resulted in a reinforcing of Persian influence on the Anatolian Turks. Indeed, despite all claims to the contrary, there is no question that Persian influence was paramount among the Seljuks of Anatolia. This is clearly revealed by the fact that the sultans who ascended the throne after Ghiyath al-Din Kai-Khusraw I assumed titles taken from ancient Persian mythology, like Kai-Khusraw, Kai-Ka us, and Kai-Qubad; and that. Ala’al-Din Kai-Qubad I had some passages from the Shahname inscribed on the walls of Konya and Sivas. When we take into consideration domestic life in the Konya courts and the sincerity of the favor and attachment of the rulers to Persian poets and Persian literature, then this fact {i.e. the importance of Persian influence} is undeniable. (Mehmed Fuad Koprulu , Early Mystics in Turkish Literature, Translated by Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff , Routledge, 2006, pg 149)
In our opinion, to claim that Rumi grew up in a Turkish environment or in a Turkish state is a nationalistic point of view and is baseless. What matters in the medieval Islamic period is that the concept of nation states did not exist. So the concept of culture and self-identity is paramount. Even Turkish scholars do agree that the Seljuqs lacked Turkish identity (how else can someone like Sultan Walad call Turks as world-burners and thank Sultan Masu’d for defeating them? Or in another poem ask Sultan Masu’d to fight against the Turks?) and were Persianized.
Without a doubt Konya and the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum was diverse and from numerical point of view, Iranian refugees were probably a minority relative to Armenians, Greeks, Turks, and etc. However from a cultural point of view, Iranian culture and literature predominated and the Seljuqs themselves lacked a Turkish identity. So Iranian culture was predominant in the Seljuq Sultanate and this was due to such refugees as Rumi’s father and the Persianization of the Seljuks. In modern Turkey, Iran and etc. the majority of the population cannot trace their lineage more than their grand-father or great grand-father. Of course DNA might help, but overall, it is culture that makes identity. For example many “Turks” in Anatolia are descendants of Greeks, Albanians, Slavs and other diverse people of the Ottoman empire who have adopted Turkish identity. The same can be said about other countries of the region. With this regard, the Seljuqs from an ethnicity and identity point of view should be considered a Persianized group despite their Altaic lineage. And the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum should be considered as a Persianate state and most of the administrators of this state were Persians and Persianized muslims.
According to C.E. Bosworth:“Similarly
such great figures as al-Farabi, al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina have been attached by
over enthusiastic Turkish scholars to their race”. ) Clifford Edmond Bosworth, "Barbarian
Incursions: The Coming of the Turks into the Islamic World." In Islamic
Civilization, Edited by D. S. Richards. Oxford, 1973. Pg 2(
and he references specifically :”See, for instance
the arguments of A.Z. V. Togan regarding the putative Turkishness of al-Biruni,
in his Umumi Turk Tarihine Giris (Istanbul, 1946), pp 88-9. “ (pg
2)
We
should note that Farabi although described as a Persian(By Ibn Abi ‘Sayba and
Al-Shahruz in the 13th century)
or Turk by Ibn Khalikan (13th century) was in all likelihood
an Iranian Soghdian from central Asia and his usage of Soghdian words and even
modified Soghdian-Arabic Alphabet in the Kitab al-Horuf provides an elegant proof.
An
article on his probable Sogdian origin can be found here:
G. Lohrasp,” Some remarks on Farabi's background: Iranic (Soghdian/Persian) or
(Altaic)?” (2009)
http://www.archive.org/details/SomeRemarksOnFarabisBackgroundIranicsoghdianpersianOraltaic
The
other two scholars, Abu Rayhan Biruni and Avicenna were Iranians and their native
language was Chorasmian and Persian respectively.
Unfortunately,
one scholar which we would rather not
mention has based his knowledge on Rumi on the same author (Zekki Velid
Togan) and has claimed “Rumi was
presumably” Turkish without writing a single article on Rumi himself. It should be noted that the term “Turk”
itself was a generic term and did not specifically refer to Altaic speakers of
today. However other scholars like C.E.
Bosworth are erudite enough not to reference just any Turkish source and
Togan’s viewpoint on Biruni shows that he is not unbiased when it comes to
claiming medieval figures.
Here we
provide examples of actual distortions in texts.
Example 1)
Mohammad Hossein Zadeyeh Sadiq (an advocate of pan-Turkist historiography who even claims that 70% of the Avesta language is Turkish and the ancient Sumerians, Elamites, Urartu, Iranian Medes were Turks and etc. and received his degree in Turkey) states in his book: “Torki Saraayaan Maktab Shams o Mowlana” (Publisher: Nedaayeh Shams, 1386 (Solar Calendar) (pg 122):
"
مولوی
علاقهی خاصی
به فرزندش
داشت و همه جا
او را به
همراه خود به محافل
و مجالس میبرد
و او را فعل
خود میدانست. افلاکی
درباره او میگوید:«حضرت
ولد از نقل
والد خود، سالهای
بسیار به صفای
تمام عمر میراند
و سه مجلد
مثنویات و یک
جلد دیوان ترکی انشاء
فرموده از
معارف و حقایق
و غرایب اسرار
عالم را پر
کرد»(حسین
محمدزاده صدیق،
"ترکیسرایان
مکتب شمس و
مولوی"، ندای
شمس، تبریز، 1386.
صفحه 122). “
Translation of
the distortion:
“Mowlana had a
special likeness for his son Sultan Walad and took him to all gatherings and
places of discourse and considered him his “action”. Aflaki says about Sultan Walad: “Meanwhile,
after his father’s death Valad lived on in tranquility for many years and he composed
three books of mathnaviyyat and one volume of Turkish collected poetry
(Divan)”
We noted that on
page 119, the author refers to the Manaqib Aflaki the Yazichi edition.
We looked at the
same book:
(شمس الدین
احمد افلاکی
العارفی،
مناقب العارفین،
سال 1362، به همت
تحسین یزیچی،
دنیانی کتاب)
And it said:
:«حضرت ولد از نقل والد خود، سالهای بسیار به صفای تمام عمر میراند و سه مجلد مثنویات و یک جلد دیوان انشاء فرموده از معارف و حقایق و غرایب اسرار عالم را پر کرد»
Thus Mohammad Zadeh Sadiq has taken the liberty to distort the
word of Aflaki and add the highlighted red word “Torki”
(Turkish) to the above phrase!!
We looked at a recent English translation as well(Shams al-Din Aflaki, "The feats of the knower’s of God: Manāqeb al-ʻārefīn", translated by John O'Kane, Brill, 2002.)
[18] “Mowlana had a
special likeness for his son Sultan Walad and took him to all gatherings and
places of discourse and considered him his “action”. Aflaki says about Sultan Walad: “Meanwhile,
after his father’s death Valad lived on in tranqullity for many years and he
composed three books of mathnaviyyat and one volume of collected poetry
” (pg 561)
So Hossein Mohammadzadeyeh Sadiq has brought a distortion to the work of Aflaki. Aflaki does not use the term “Turkish Divan” but simply “Divan”. Hence the words of Aflaki are distorted and the word “Turkish” was added as an adjective to the Divan in the book written by Hossein Mohammadzadeyeh Sadiq. Such distortion of primary sources is unacceptable in academia and scholars should be careful when looking at Turkish sources (even by scholars as such as Togan who has some good works as well).
Example 2)
According to Dr. Firuz Mansuri, another distortion has occurred by Fereydun Nafiz Ozluk. We will just list this distortion here (although we are reporting it and have not seen the original text of Nafiz Ozluk like the above example of distortion).
According to Dr. Mansuri:
از آثار
مولانا و
سلطان ولد و
تمامی نویسندگان
طریقت مولوی
در نیمهی اول
قرن چهاردم میلادی
(مثلاً افلاکی)
چنین برمیآید
که آنان کلاً
مخالف عصیان
ترکمنهای
آناطولی علیه
سلجوقیان
بودند.
در مکتوبات
مولانا و دیوان
سلطان ولد و
مناقب افلاکی،
پیروان مولویه
نسبت به
ترکمنان
قرامان اغلو و
اشرف اغلو دشمنی
نشان داده و
آثار مختلف به
جای گذاشتهاند.
بعد از مرگ
محمدبیک
قرامانلو و
شکست
ترکمنان،
سلطان غیاث
الدین مسعود
دوم به قونیه
آمد و برخت
نشست.
سلطان ولد سه
منظومه دربارهی
جلوس و تهنیت
او سروده و
اضهار وجد و
سرور کرده
است. او
در یکی از
منظومهها از
سلطان
درخواست میکند
که نسبت به
ترکانی که پیش
سلطان فرار
کرده و
از ترس جان به
کوهها و
غارها پناه
بردهاند،
ترحم نکند و
جمله را به
قصاص رسانیده
و زنده
نگذارند.
قسمتهایی
از تهنیتنامهی
سلطان ولد نقل
میشود:
به دولت
شاه شاهانی به
صولت شیر شیرانی
همه ترکان
ز بیم جان شده
در غار و کُه
پنهان
چو نبود شیر
در بیشه رود
از گرگ اندیشه
پلنگ اکنون
بشد موشی، چو
آمد شیر حق
غٌران
چو ماران
رفته در کُهها
در آن بیشه به
اندهها
همه چون
روز میدانند
که خواهی کوفت
سرهاشان
همه در گریۀ
ناله، بخون در
غرق چون لاله
گهی بر موت
خود گریان، گهی
بر خوف خان و
مان
چو رنجوران
بیدرمان بشسته
دستها از جان
به اومیدی
طمع کرده که
بوک از شه رسد غفران
گذشت از حداین
زحمت مکن شاها
توشان رحمت
حیات خلق
اگر خواهی بکن
آن جمله را
قربان
لکم اندر
قصاص خلق حیات
و این شنو از
حق
قصاص چشم
چشم آمد به
دندان هم بود
دندان
حیات اندر
قصاص آمد جهان
ازاین خلاص
آمد
نبودی هیچکس
زنده برین گرد
نامدی فرمان
خوارج را
مهل زنده اگر
میرست اگر
بنده
که خونی
کشتنی باشد سه
شرع آیت قرآن
ولد کردست
نفرین ها برون
از چرخ و پروین-ها
که یارب زین
سگان بد ببر
هم جان و هم ایمان
در
آن تاریخ نه
تنها این قصیده،
بلکه مندرجات
سایر منابع
تاریخی و ادبی
هم دلالت بر این
دارند که
شهرنشینان،
به ویژه اهالی
قونیه، از
ترکان کوچ رو
که مُخل آسایش
عمومی و مخالف
نظامی اداری
حکومت بودند،
دل خوشی
نداشتند و
نسبت به آنها
اظهار کینه و
نفرت میکردند. فریدون
نافذ اوزلوک
مترجم دیوان
سلطان ولد به
ترکی، در نخستین
بیت منظومهی
فوق، به جای
کلمهی «همه
ترکان» لغت
خوارج را
گمارده است. ایشان
با این اقدام
بیمورد و تحریف
آشکار، حس کینه
و نفرت سلطان
ولد را نسبت
به ترکان پردهپوشی
کرده و از چشم
خوانندگانی
که فارسی نمیدانند،
پنهان داشته
است.
سلطان ولد در
منظومهی دیگر
که از پیروزی
سلطان مسعود
بر ترکان سخن
رانده آورده
است.
ترکان
عالمسوز را
از غار و کوه بیشهها
آورده
در طاعت خدا
چون شاه ما
مسعود شد
(cited in Firuz Mansuri, “Mot’aleaati Darbaareyeh Tarkh, Zaban o Farhang Azarbaijan”, Nashr Hezar, Tehran, 1387 (Solar Hejri Calendar), volume 1. Pp 71-72).
According to Dr. Firuz
Mansur, “It should be noted that Fereydun Nafidh
‘Ozluk, the translator of the Diwan of Sultan Walad, has changed the word “Hameh Torkaan” to
“Khawarij” in the poem above”.
Of course the reason for this mistranslation and omission would be because the poem beseeches Sultan Masud Seljuqi who defeated the Qaramanlou (we shall described this episode in the Sultan Walad) to not let one Turk who had fled into mountains and caves escape alive. Seeing the severity of the poem and the justice sought by Sultan Walad from Sultan Masu’d, the Turkish translator Fereydun Nafidh ‘Ozluk changed the word “Hameh Torkaan” (All the Turks) to Khwarij (an Islamic sect that developed during the time of Imam Ali (AS) which became disdained for its political miscalculations, cursing of the caliphate of Ali and political and literalist beliefs). Since this author has not seen the translation of Fereydun Nafidh ‘Ozluk, we have just quoted Dr. Mansuri. However, we doubt Dr. Mansuri would make such a thing up and it is unfortunate that such a mistranslation due to nationalistic reasons can occur. The severity of this distortion is the same as the first distortion. Especially since the Qaramanlou actually banned Persian from the Divan and employed Turkish and are seen in a positive light by Turkish nationalist and of course such a severe condemnation from Sultan Walad would not go well with nationalist type translators like Fereydun Nafidh ‘Ozluk.
Example 3)
We demonstrated two episodes about Mehmet Onder quoted in Franklin. Obviously the site of the graveyard of Shams brings prestige and various places have been assumed. However no sufficient evidence exists with this regard.
Let us quote Franklin here:
“One would not usually pose the
question: “who is buried in Gowhartash’s tomb?”
Yet Mehmet Onder, the director of the Mevlana Museum in Konya, has done
precisely this (see Chapter 13 below for example of this Turkish patriot’s
polemical and uncritical evaluation of evidence.) While repairs to the so-called ”Shrine of
Shams” (torbat-e Shams), a site in Konya, were underway, Onder summoned
Golpinarli to the shrine. Onder had
discovered a small wooden door raised up a few steps above the main
structure. This trapdoor led to a stone
staircase, at the bottom of which Onder found a small crypt housing a single
plaster-inlaid sarcophagus along the edge of the left wall, directly under the
decorative wooden sarcophagus/cenotaph on the floor above.
Though there was no inscription
on this hidden sarcophagus, Onder won Golpinarli over to the opinion that I
must be the grave of Shams. Across from
this shrine traditionally associated with the name of Shams al-Din is a well,
supposedly dug in the Seljuk era.
Somewhere nearby this site, Onder claims to have found a stone
inscription from the madrase of Gowhartash. Of course, this slab has been used in the
rebuilding of a later minaret and therefore might not originally have been
associated with this site. Far more
troubling, however, is the fact that there is only one sarcophagus in the crypt
of the mausoleum. Golpinarli assumes
with Onder that the tomb belongs to Shams, leaving Gowhartash with no grave of
his own.
Naturally, we
might just as well reach one of several other conclusions: (a) this is the
grave of Gowhartash and Aflaki is wrong about Shams being buried next to him;
(b) this is not the site mentioned in Aflaki’s anecdote – Shams and Gowhartash
are buried side by side at some other unknown locations; or (c) the account of
Aflaki is entirely baseless from beginning to end. Nevertheless, Schimmel has ratified the
conclusions of Golpinarli and Onder, triumphantly concluding that “the truth of
Aflaki’s statement has been proved” (ScT 22).
She even offers an imaginary reenactment of the crime. Professor Mikail Bayram at the Seljuq
University in Konya shares this opinion, even indicating that the bones of
Shams have been found (personal interview with the author in Konya, May 15,
1999).”(Franklin, pg 189-190)
On the Turkish scholar Onder, Professor Franklin also mentions:
“Mevlana Jelaleddin Rumi(Ankara:
Ministry of Culture, 1990), a translation by P.M. Butler of a Turkish work by
Mehmet Onder of the same name (1986), was printed by a typesetter with an
imperfect knowledge of English, as the many mistakes reflect.
…
This rather unsophisticated work
has two principal goals – to assist tourists who want to know something more
about Rumi than can be gleaned from the museum brochures, and to aggrandize
Turkish culture.
..
This book published by the
Turkish Ministry of Culture, displays an extremely exuberant ignorance, or an
ethnocentric agenda. In the
introduction, Onder refers to Rumi as “the great Turkish mystic” and “a great
Turkish intellectual.”. He then turns
Rumi into a Turkish prophet, calling Mevelana “the eternal gift of the Turkish
people to all humanity” (210). In fact,
there is no reference to the minor detail that language spoken by Baha al-Din
was Persian or ‘Attar wrote his Asrar Name in Persian, nor do we learn
that Rumi composed the Masnavi in Persian until page 138, three pages after
learning that the prose preface to each book are in Arabic (but then the book
[101] even insinuates that the Koran is in Turkish!). Throughout Onder deliberately leaves us to
assume that Rumi’s other works are in Turkish, and indeed when he can no longer
contain his misplaced patriotism, bursts out with the utterly ludicrous
statement that “There is no doubt that Mevlana’s mother tongue was
Turkish, since Balkh, from which he
migrated with his father, was the cultural centre of Turkestan and
Khorasan, both regions of predominantly
Turkish population” (207). Though
Onder begrudgingly allows that Rumi was probably taught Arabic and Persian at a
very early stage in his education (208), he insists that Rumi spoke Turkish
throughout his life (whether the Kipchak or Oghuz dialect, Onder cannot tell),
not only with his family, but also “when addressing people and in his
sermons.”. Rumi chose to write “most
of his works in Persian and some in Arabic” only because it was the
convention of the day (208).
Onder’s “evidence” for
this unsupported and insupportable theory consists of the assertion that Rumi
uses an Anatolian Persian dialect (whatever that might be, it would still be
Turkish, which is from an altogether different language family, and that his Divan
and Masnavi are interspersed with “particularly high percentage” of
couplets and passages in Turkish. This
is a very creative use of statistics, since a couple of dozen at most of the
35,000 lines of the Divan Shams are in Turkish and almost all of these
lines occur in poems that are predominantly in Persian”(pg 548-549)
Note Baha al-Din Walad is Rumi’s father whom we have devoted a section to in this article. We note that not even 0.1% of all the literary output (prose and poetry) of Rumi are in Greek/Turkish combined. Furthermore, all the lectures and sermons of Rumi are in Persian not in Turkish (which negates the argument that Rumi composed in Persian because it was the convention) and the sermons/lectures/letters (Majales-i Sabe’, Maktubat and Fihi Ma Fih) are replete with Persian poetry of Attar, Sanai and etc. The sermons and lectures, in an informal yet elegant tone were recorded by Rumi’s students and again provide a sufficient proof of his everyday language being Persian. We shall examine these in another section. Unlike what Onder claims, there is not a single sermon and lecture of Rumi in Turkish. Thus “when addressing people and his sermon”, Rumi’s work is overwhelmingly Persian with the exception of two Arabic sermons in the Fihi ma Fihi (among the 69 Persian sermons). This is an elegant proof of everyday language of Rumi and a self-evident refutation of Onder. However, as shown Mehmet Onder has tried to downplay Rumi’s Persian heritage for tourists who visit Konya and has falsely claimed that Rumi’s sermons and letters are in Turkish (where-as none of them are in Turkish and they are overwhelmingly Persian with the exception of few in Arabic ).
D)
Another outright falsification is seen in a recent manuscript circulating in the internet called “Soroodhaayeh Torki Mowlana” by Mehran Bahari (2005) which was updated in 2008. The author trying to downplay Rumi’s Persian work claims on page 65:
با اینهمه در کنار آثار مولانا و فرزندش سلطان ولد به تاجیکی-فارسی، آثاری از ایشان به زبانهای عربی ادبی (فیه ما فیه)
The Turkish nationalist author tries to give the impression that Fihi Ma Fihi is in Arabic. However out of the 71 discourses, only two are in Arabic and both the Persian and Arabic are vernacular everyday spoken language rather than formal and literary. The reason this is not mentioned is of course due to the fact that it shows Rumi’s and the Mowlavi order’s everyday language was in Persian and these discourses were written down by his students of Rumi while Rumi was lecturing in Persian. There is not a single discourse in Turkish. The fact that there is not a single sermon or lecture of Rumi in Turkish has made some of these authors to downplay the overwhelming number of lectures, letters and sermons of Rumi which are in Persian. Obviously, this provides an elegant proof of Rumi’s everyday interaction with his followers and also the native language of Rumi.
Elsewhere the Turkish nationalist author tries to claim that in the 12th century, the language of Balkh was Turkish (page 70) and this is responded to later when we discuss Baha al-Din Walad. We demonstrate for example that actual works from Balkh at that time use the term “Zaban-i Balkhi” which means the language of Balkh and this “zaban-i bakhli” is shown to be a Persian dialect. There is a section in this article that proves this point conclusively. However, the Turkish nationalist author quotes a certain website (on page 70) to claim otherwise:
و مدتها قبل
از آن صاحب
فارسنامه
ناصری در توجیه
فارسی نویسی
خود مینویسد:
بنده را تربیت
پارسی است اگر
چه بلخی نژاد
است
(فارسنامه، ص ۲،
چاپ جلال الدین
تهرانی، ۱۳۱۲،
تهران).
The Turkish nationalist writer is trying to reference the
book Farsnaameyeh Nasseri written
in the Qajar era between 1821-1898! In
order to explain why the author of the Farsnaameyeh Nasseri wrote in Persian
(the actual author of Farsnaameyeh Nasseri gives no such reason and the Turkish
nationalist authors tries to put words in mouth and formulate a reason!), tThe
Turkish nationalist writer claims that the author of Nasseri explains this by:”My upbringing is
Persian though I am Balkhi”.
But in actuality, no where does the author of Farsnameyeh Nasseri explains why he wrote in Persian. Rather the correct reading of the sentence in the context of the book is “My upbringing is from Fars province although I am from Balkh”. The book is called “Fars-nameh” because it is about Ostan-e-Fars (Far province in SW Iran) but the author of Farsnama is referencing that he is originality is from Balkh. No where does the author of the Farsnama even explain in this work about why he is writing Persian (since it is obvious) and the addition “explanation of why the author wrote in Persian” has nothing to do with “Tarbiyat Parsi” (upbringing in Fars as opposed to Balkh). Thus the nationalist writer tries to use such a sentence (without correct understanding) and then claim that the language of Balkh is not Persian!
Furthermore, we doubt Farsnaameyeh Nasseri has such a quote since the author of Farsnama claims Seyyed ancestry and according to Iranica:
“The Fārs-nāma-ye
nāṣerī is itself
the main source for the biography of Ḥajj Mīrzā Ḥasan Ḥosaynī Fasāʾī and the history of his ancestors (ed.
Rastgār, pp. 924-35, 1035-58).
Fasāʾī belonged to the thirty-seventh generation of a family of sayyeds (claiming descent from the
prophet Moḥammad). Members of the family, named Daštakī (q.v.)
after the quarter of Shiraz (which later on became part of the quarter Sar-e
Dezak) where they owned houses, were prominent scholars and civil servants,
with branches in Persia (Shiraz and Fasā), Mecca, and Hyderabad (Deccan).”(AHMAD
ASHRAF and ALI BANUAZIZI, “Fars-nameyeh Nasseri” in Encyclopedia Iranica)
Rather the Turkish nationalist author probably misplaced the Farsnaameh of Ibn Balkhi (written during the Seljuq era) with the Farsnaameh of Nasser! And again the Farsnaameh of Ibn Balkhi is clear, because Ibn Balkhi himself was from Balkh but the family took residence in Fars province during the time of his grandfather. (C. EDMUND BOSWORTH, “Ebn al-Bakhli” in Encyclopedia Iranica).
The Turkish nationalist author is trying to limit the word “Persian” to the province of Fars in Iran and this is a clear distortion. So he is looking for a text that distinguishes Fars province from Balkh in order to separate these two Iranian cultural regions of that time.
It is true that Fars province means Persian/Persia, but the Persian(Iranian) people and the Persian language is prominent in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and other parts of Central Asia and Caucasus at that time. But the nationalistic author tries to limit the Persian language to “Fars province” and anyone that has said “I am from Fars not say province X” he tries to portray it as if the person is not Persian! For example if the someone said: “My upbringing is from Fars not Khorasan”, the nationalistic author would claim that means the person is not Persian (for example Ferdowsi or Asadi Tusi among countless others)!
Then the nationalist author quotes Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) that “the city of Balkh was the capital of Turkish kingdom” and reaches the conclusion that Persians arrived there after Turks (since there is no Turkish Kingdom that had Balkh as its capital unlike the Samanids or Kiyanids but it was a major city under Turkish dynasties like Seljuqs and Khwarizmshahids). This is like saying “Qonya was the capital of the Turkish Seljuqs”, so the Greeks came to Qonya after Turks!
Also anyone that looks at the book of Ibn Khaldun knows that Ibn Khaldun has counted Sogdians (mistakenly) as Turks.
در
رابطه با سرزمین
سغد و حتی
بلخ، جایی ابن
خلدون آن را
از ممالک ترک
میداند.« بلاد سغد
در ممالک
ترکان و
ماوراءالنهر»(صفحه
18، مقدمه،
گنابادی)
«در
کرانهی
خاوری رود در
اینجا سرزمین
سغد و اسروشنه
در ممالک
ترکان دیده میشود»(صفحه
118، مقدمه ابن
خلدن، گنابادی)
And a look at Biruni states that Balkh
was the capital of Keyanian Iranian dynasty (which is taken as equivalent of
Achaemenids). Also modern historians
uniformly agree that the language of Balkh early in the Sassanid era was the Bacrtian
Iranian language. However, during the
late Sassanid era and after Islam, it was only the capital of the Arabs and
Samanids and Balkh is actually called the cradle of the Khorasani
Parsi-Dari(Persian) language by classical sources. Also many sources indicate Balkh was Persian
speaking during the time of Rumi (as we shall see in the section of Baha al-Din
Walad). There is no doubt that the area
of Balkh (today its major urban center Mazar-i Sharif is still Tajik speaking)
was Iranian long before the Turks entered the region of Central Asia and the
best proof of this is the Bactrian language (before the area switched to
Parsi-Dari)
Strabo (1st
century B.C.) states (Geography, 15.2.1-15.2.8):
The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia, and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations.:
And
even after the Arabs, according C.E. Bosworth, "The
Appearance of the Arabs in Central Asia under the Umayyads and the
establishment of Islam", in History of Civilizations of Central Asia,
Vol. IV: The Age of Achievement: AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century,
Part One: The Historical, Social and Economic Setting, edited by M. S. Asimov
and C. E. Bosworth. 1999. Excerpt from page 23: "Central
Asia in the early seventh century was ethnically, still largely an Iranian land
whose people used various Middle Iranian languages.
C. Edmund Bosworth: "In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Shahnama of Ferdowsi is regarded as the land allotted to Fereydun's son Tur. The denizens of Turan were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, "Turan"). Turan thus became both an ethnic and a geographical term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians."( C.E. Bosworth, “Central Asia: The Islamic period up to the Mongols” in Encyclopedia Iranica).
We shall discuss more about Balkh later, however as shown, the Turkish national author has presented the Farsnama of Ibn Balkhi in a distorted fashion and has ignored many sources in order to claim that Balkh was inhabited by Turks before Iranians. Where-as the name Balkh itself has an Iranian etymology and its old language was Iranian Bactrian. We should also make clear by the term Turk, what is meant today is not necessarily the same as that of some Arabic writings. Today it refers to Altaic speakers but in Islamic times especially the Abbasid era, the term was used for variety of Iranian groups as well. Referring to the “Turkish” troops in Baghdad, M.A. Shaban states:
“These new troops were the so-called “Turks”. It must be said without hesitation that this
is the most misleading misnomer which has led some scholars to harp ad
nauseam on utterly unfounded interpretation of the following era, during
which they unreasonably ascribe all events to Turkish domination. In fact the great majority of these troops
were not Turks. It has been frequently
pointed out that Arabic sources use the term Turk in a very loose manner. The Hephthalites are referred to as Turks, so
are the peoples of Gurgan, Khwarizm and Sistan.
Indeed, with the exception of the Soghdians, Arabic sources refer to all
peoples not subjects of the Sassanian empire as Turks. In Samarra separate quarters were provided
for new recruits from every locality.
The group from Farghana were called after their district, and the name
continued in usage because it was easy to pronounce. But such groups as the
Ishtakhanjiyya, the Isbijabbiya and groups from similar localities who were in
small numbers at first, were lumped together under the general term Turks,
because of the obvious difficulties the Arabs had in pronouncing such foreign
names. The Khazars who also came
from small localities which could not even be identified, as they were mostly
nomads, were perhaps the only group that deserved to be called Turks on the ground
of racial affinity. However, other
groups from Transcaucasia were classed together with the Khazars under the
general description.”(M.A.
Shaban, “Islamic History”, Cambridge University Press, v.2 1978. Page 63)
However, even adding to what M.A. Shaban
has stated, some further Arabic sources have mistaken even Soghdians with
Turks. And Ibn Khaldun’s mistake of
Sogdians with Turks is exactly of this nature.
In Islamic sources, such groups as
Sogdians, Khwarizmians, Hephtalites, Alans, and even Tibetians, Mongols and
etc. have been called “Turk”, while none of these groups are Turkic
speaking(except for the Mongols who according to some linguist speak a language
that is part of the Altaic languages and can be said to be close to Turks
according to those linguists). Even the
Avesta Turanians are today seen as an Iranian people. However, the nationalist author thinks that
just because someone lived under a Turkish kingdom, then they must be
Turkish. Like for example since
Anatolian Greeks lived under the Seljuqs, then they must be Turks!
As per the etymology of Balkh, Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, "The New international encyclopædia, Volume 2",Dodd, Mead and Company, 1902. pg 341: "The name of province or country appears in Old Persian inscriptions (B.h.i 16; Dar Pers e.16; Nr. a.23) as Bāxtri, i.e. Bakhtri. It is written in the Avesta Bāxδi. From this latter came the intermediate form Bāxli, Sanskrit Bahlīka, Balhika ‘Bactrian,’, Armenian Bahl, and by transposition, the modern Persian Balx, i.e. Balkh"
Although today the inhabitants of Tabriz speak Azeri-Turkish and follow twelve Imami Shi’ism, this was not the case during the time of Shams Tabrizi (as shown below by many direct evidences). In the time of Shams Tabrizi, the language was a Persian based language and the people were primarily Shafi’I Muslims (the sect followed today by Western Iranians such as the Sunni Kurds and Talysh). Despite this wide difference of language and religion, some sources are not aware of this historical fact and have misplaced time/space in order to retroactively Turkify the background of Shams Tabrizi. It is a shame that some scholars who write about literature do not take the time to research the area they are writing about during that era!
The process of Turkification of Azerbaijan as mentioned was long and complex and there are still remnants of Tati and other Iranian languages in Caucasia and NW Iran. The language of Azerbaijan at the time of Shams Tabrizi was what scholars called “Fahlavi-Azari” (“Azerbaijanian Pahlavi”), which is an Iranian language.
Ebn al-Moqaffa’(d. 142/759) is quoted by Ibn Al-Nadim in his famous Al-Fihrist that the language of Azerbaijan is Fahlavi and Azerbaijan is part of the region of Fahlah (alongside Esfahan, Rayy, Hamadan and Maah-Nahavand):
ابن ندیم در الفهرست مینویسد:
فأما
الفهلویة
فمنسوب إلى
فهله اسم یقع
على خمسة
بلدان وهی
أصفهان والری
وهمدان وماه
نهاوند وأذربیجان
وأما الدریة فلغة
مدن المدائن
وبها كان یتكلم
من بباب الملك
وهی منسوبة
إلى حاضرة
الباب
والغالب علیها
من لغة أهل
خراسان
والمشرق و
اللغة أهل بلخ
وأما الفارسیة
فتكلم بها
الموابدة
والعلماء
وأشباههم وهی
لغة أهل فارس
وأما الخوزیة
فبها كان یتكلم
الملوك
والأشراف فی
الخلوة
ومواضع اللعب
واللذة ومع
الحاشیة وأما
السریانیة
فكان یتكلم
بها أهل
السواد
والمكاتبة فی
نوع من اللغة
بالسریانی
فارسی
(=اما
فهلوی منسوب
است به فهله
كه نام نهاده
شده است بر پنج
شهر: اصفهان و
ری و همدان و
ماه نهاوند و
آذربایجان. و
دری لغت شهرهای
مداین است و
درباریان
پادشاه بدان
زبان سخن میگفتند
و منسوب است
به مردم دربار
و لغت اهل خراسان
و مشرق و لغت
مردم بلخ بر
آن زبان غالب
است. اما فارسی
كلامی است كه
موبدان و علما
و مانند ایشان
بدان سخن گویند
و آن زبان
مردم اهل فارس
باشد. اما خوزی
زبانی است كه
ملوك و اشراف
در خلوت و
مواضع لعب و
لذت با ندیمان
و حاشیت خود
گفتوگو كنند.
اما سریانی آن
است كه مردم
سواد بدان سخن
رانند).
Source:
ابن
ندیم، محمد بن
اسحاق:
«فهرست»، ترجمهی
رضا تجدد،
انتشارات ابن
سینا، 1346
Ibn Nadeem, “Fihrist”, Translated by Reza Tajaddod, Ibn Sina
publishers, 1967.
A very similar explanation is given by the medieval
historian Hamzeh Isfahani when talking about Sassanid Iran. Hamzeh Isfahani
writes in the book Al-Tanbih ‘ala Hoduth al-Tashif that five “tongues”or
dialects, were common in Sassanian Iran: Fahlavi, Dari, Farsi (Persian), Khuzi
and Soryani. Hamzeh (893-961 A.D.) explains these dialects in the following
way:
Fahlavi was a dialect which kings spoke in their assemblies and it is related to Fahleh. This name is used to designate five cities of Iran, Esfahan, Rey, Hamadan, Maah Nahavand, and Azerbaijan. Farsi (Persian) is a dialect which was spoken by the clergy (Zoroastrian) and those who associated with them and is the language of the cities of Fars. Dari is the dialect of the cities of Ctesiphon and was spoken in the kings’/darbariyan/ ‘courts’. The root of its name is related to its use; /darbar/ ‘court* is implied in /dar/. The vocabulary of the natives of Balkh was dominant in this language, which includes the dialects of the eastern peoples. Khuzi is associated with the cities of Khuzistan where kings and dignitaries used it in private conversation and during leisure time, in the bath houses for instance.
(Mehdi Marashi, Mohammad Ali Jazayery, Persian Studies in North America: Studies in Honor of Mohammad Ali Jazayery, Ibex Publishers, Inc, 1994. pg 255)
Ibn Hawqal, another 10th century Muslim traveller states:
“the language of the people of Azerbaijan and most of the people of Armenia (sic; he probably means the Iranian Armenia) is Iranian (al-faressya), which binds them together, while Arabic is also used among them; among those who speak al-faressya (here he seemingly means Persian, spoken by the elite of the urban population), there are few who do not understand Arabic; and some merchants and landowners are even adept in it”.
(E. Yarshater, “Azeri: Iranian language of Azerbaijan”in Encyclopedia Iranica)
It should be noted that Ibn Hawqal mentions that some areas of Armenia are controlled by Muslims and others by Christians. Of course the land denoted as Armenia was much bigger than present Armenia.
Reference: Ibn Hawqal, Surat al-Ardh. Translation and comments by: J. Shoar, Amir Kabir Publishers, Iran. 1981.
Al-Muqaddasi (d. late 4th/10th cent.) considers Azerbaijan and Arran as part of the 8th division of lands. He states:
“The language of the 8th division is Iranian (al-’ajamyya). It is partly Dari and partly convoluted (monqaleq) and all of them are named Persian”
Al-Moqaddasi, Shams ad-Din Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad, Ahsan al-Taqasi fi Ma’rifa al-Aqalim, Translated by Ali Naqi Vaziri, Volume One, First Edition, Mu’alifan and Mutarjiman Publishers, Iran, 1981, pg 377
المقدسی، شمسالدین ابوعبدالله محمدبن احمد، احسن التقاسیم فی معرفه الاقالیم، ترجمه دكتر علینقی وزیری، جلد 1، چاپ اول، انتشارات مؤلفان و مترجمان ایران، 1361، ص 377.
Al-Muqaddasi also writes on the general region of Armenia,
Arran and Azerbaijan and states:
“They have big
beards, their speech is not attractive. In Arminya they speak Armenian, in
al-Ran, Ranian (Aranian); Their Persian is understandable, and is close to
Khurasanian (Dari Persian) in sound”
(Al-Muqaddasi, ‘The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions’, a translation of his Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma’rifat al-Aqalim by B.A. Collins, Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, Garnet Publishing Limited,1994. pg 334).
Al-Mas’udi the Arab Historian States:
“The Persians are a people whose borders are the Mahat Mountains and Azarbaijan up to Armenia and Arran, and Bayleqan and Darband, and Ray and Tabaristan and Masqat and Shabaran and Jorjan and Abarshahr, and that is Nishabur, and Herat and Marv and other places in land of Khorasan, and Sejistan and Kerman and Fars and Ahvaz...All these lands were once one kingdom with one sovereign and one language...although the language differed slightly. The language, however, is one, in that its letters are written the same way and used the same way in composition. There are, then, different languages such as Pahlavi, Dari, Azari, as well as other Persian languages.”
Source:
Al -Mas’udi, Kitab al-Tanbih wa-l-Ishraf, De Goeje, M.J. (ed.), Leiden, Brill, 1894, pp. 77-8.
Thus Al-Masu’di testifies to the Iranian presence in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan during the 10th century and even names a local Iranian dialect called Azari. This Azari was an Iranian language and should not be confused with the Turkish language which is called Azeri or Azerbaijani Turkish. Both names are derived from the geographical location Azerbaijan, however Azeri Turkish came in much later into the area and most likely became the predominant language of Azerbaijan in the Safavid era.
Original Arabic of al-Masudi from www.alwaraq.net:
فالفرس
أمة حد بلادها
الجبال من
الماهات و غیرها
و آذربیجان
إلى ما یلی
بلاد أرمینیة
و أران و البیلقان
إلى دربند و
هو الباب
والأبواب و
الری و طبرستن
و المسقط و
الشابران و
جرجان و ابرشهر،
و هی نیسابور،
و هراة و مرو و
غیر ذلك من
بلاد خراسان و
سجستان و
كرمان و فارس و
الأهواز، و ما
اتصل بذلك من
أرض الأعاجم فی
هذا الوقت و
كل هذه البلاد
كانت مملكة
واحدة ملكها
ملك واحد و
لسانها واحد،
إلا أنهم كانوا
یتباینون فی شیء
یسیر من
اللغات و ذلك
أن اللغة إنما
تكون واحدة بأن
تكون حروفها
التی تكتب
واحدة و تألیف
حروفها تألیف
واحد، و إن
اختلفت بعد
ذلك فی سائر
الأشیاء
الأخر كالفهلویة
و الدریة و
الآذریة و غیرها
من لغات
الفرس.
Ahmad ibn Yaqubi mentions that the
People of Azerbaijan are a mixture of ‘Ajam-i Azari (Ajam is a term that developed to mean Iranian) of Azaris and old Javedanis (followers of Javidan the son of Shahrak who was the leader of Khurramites and succeeded by Babak Khorramdin).
Source:
Yaqubi, Ahmad ibn Abi, Tarikh-i Yaqubi tarjamah-i Muhammad Ibrahim Ayati, Intisharat Bungah-i Tarjomah o Nashr-i Kitab, 1969.
Finally a source on Tabriz itself:
“Zakarrya b. Mohammad Qazvini’s report in Athar al-Bilad, composed in 674/1275, that “no town has escaped being taken over by the Turks except Tabriz”(Beirut ed., 1960, p. 339) one may infer that at least Tabriz had remained aloof from the influence of Turkish until the time”.
(“Azari: The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan”in Encyclopedia Iranica by E. Yarshater http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v3f3/v3f2a88b.html])
The linguistic Turkification of Iranian Azerbaijan was a complex multi-state process:
From the time of the Mongol invasion, most of whose
armies were composed of Turkic tribes, the influence of Turkish increased in
the region. On the other hand, the old Iranian dialects remained prevalent in
major cities.
“Hamdallah Mostowafi writing in the 1340s calls the language of Maraqa as “modified Pahlavi”(Pahlavi-ye Mughayyar). Mostowafi calls the language of Zanjan (Pahlavi-ye Raast). The language of Gushtaspi covering the Caspian border region between Gilan to Shirvan is called a Pahlavi language close to the language of Gilan”.
Source:
(“Azari: The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan”in Encyclopedia Iranica by E. Yarshater http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v3f3/v3f2a88b.html])
Professor. John Perry states:
“We should distinguish two
complementary ways in which the advent of the Turks affected the language map
of Iran. First, since the Turkish-speaking rulers of most Iranian polities from
the Ghaznavids and Seljuks onward were already Iranized and patronized Persian
literature in their domains, the expansion of Turk-ruled empires served to
expand the territorial domain of written Persian into the conquered areas, notably
Anatolia and Central and South Asia. Secondly, the influx of massive
Turkish-speaking populations (culminating with the rank and file of the Mongol
armies) and their settlement in large areas of Iran (particularly in Azerbaijan
and the northwest), progressively Turkicized local speakers of Persian, Kurdish
and other Iranian languages. Although it is mainly the results of this latter
process which will be illustrated here, it should be remembered that these
developments were contemporaneous and complementary.
2. General Effects of the Safavid Accession
Both these processes peaked with the accession of the Safavid Shah Esma'il in
1501 CE He and his successors were Turkish-speakers, probably descended from
turkicized Iranian inhabitants of the northwest marches. While they accepted
and promoted written Persian as the established language of bureaucracy and
literature, the fact that they and their tribal supporters habitually spoke
Turkish in court and camp lent this vernacular an unprecedented prestige.”(John
Perry. Iran & the Caucasus, Vol. 5, (2001), pp. 193-200. THE HISTORICAL
ROLE OF TURKISH IN RELATION TO PERSIAN OF IRAN)
According to Xavier Planhol, a well known scholar of historical geography (a branch that studies both history and geography and their interaction) and specialist on cultural history of Islam as well nomadicization of Iran, Central Asia and Turkey:“This unique aspect of Azerbaijan, the only area to have been almost entirely "Turkicized" within Iranian territory, is the result of a complex, progressive cultural and historical process, in which factors accumulated successively (Sümer; Planhol, 1995, pp. 510 -- 12) The process merits deeper analysis of the extent to which it illustrates the great resilience of the land of Iran. The first phase was the amassing of nomads, initially at the time of the Turkish invasions, following the route of penetration along the piedmont south of the Alborz, facing the Byzantine borders, then those of the Greek empire of Trebizond and Christian Georgia. The Mongol invasion in the 13th century led to an extensive renewal of tribal stock, and the Turkic groups of the region during this period had not yet become stable. In the 15th century, the assimilation of the indigenous Iranian population was far from being completed. The decisive episode, at the beginning of the 16th century, was the adoption of Shi ʿ ite Islam as the religion of the state by the Iran of the Safavids, whereas the Ottoman empire remained faithful to Sunnite orthodoxy. Shi ʿ ite propaganda spread among the nomadic Turkoman tribes of Anatolia, far from urban centers of orthodoxy. These Shi ʿ ite nomads returned en masse along their migratory route back to Safavid Iran. This movement was to extend up to southwest Anatolia, from where the Tekelu, originally from the Lycian peninsula, returned to Iran with 15,000 camels. These nomads returning from Ottoman territory naturally settled en masse in regions near the border, and it was from this period that the definitive "Turkicization" of Azerbaijan dates, along with the establishment of the present-day Azeri-Persian linguistic border-not far from Qazvin, only some 150 kilometers from Tehran. (in the 15 st century assimilation was still far from complete, has been the adoption of a decisive Shiism in the 16 st Century)”http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/unicode/v13f2/v13f2024i.html
The famous Sunni Shafi’I Muslims of the area like Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Shams Tabrizi, Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari and etc. lived in a time when Azerbaijan was far from Turkicized. Indeed Shaf’ism today is followed by the Sunni Iranian speaking Kurds and Talysh (remnants of the once wider Iranian/Persian speakers) of the area where-as the new incoming Turks were uniformly Hanafite Muslims until the region became Shi’ite. As shown below, direct evidence clearly demonstrates Tabriz still had an Iranian language during the time of the Ilkhanids and words from the Old Fahlavi-Azari Iranian dialect are recorded by Rumi through the mouth of Shams. The reader can learn more about the complex processes of Turkicization of the historical area of Arran, Sherwan and Azerbaijan in the article below:
Ali Doostzadeh,
“Politicization of the background of Nizami Ganjavi: Attempted de-Iranization
of a historical Iranian figure by the USSR", June 2008 (Updated
2009).
http://sites.google.com/site/rakhshesh/articles-related-to-iranian-history or here:
http://www.archive.org/details/PoliticizationOfTheBackgroundOfNizamiGanjaviAttemptedDe-iranizationOf accessed October 2009.
As noted, even after the Mongol invasion (the bulk of its troop being Turkish),
“Zakarrya b. Mohammad Qazvini’s report in Athar al-Bilad, composed in 674/1275, that “no town has escaped being taken over by the Turks except Tabriz”(Beirut ed., 1960, p. 339) one may infer that at least Tabriz had remained aloof from the influence of Turkish until the time”.(“Azari: The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan”in Encyclopedia Iranica by E. Yarshater http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v3f3/v3f2a88b.html])
The language of Tabriz, being an Iranian language, was not the standard Khurasani Dari. Qatran Tabrizi has an interesting verse mentioning this in a couplet:
بلبل
به سان مطرب بیدل
فراز گل
گه
پارسی نوازد،
گاهی زند دری
Translation:
The
nightingale is on top of the flower like a minstrel who has lost it heart
It
bemoans sometimes in Parsi (Persian) and sometimes in Dari (Khurasani Persian)
Source:
ریاحی خویی، محمدامین، «ملاحظاتی دربارهی زبان
كهن آذربایجان»: اطلاعات سیاسی - اقتصادی، شمارهی
182-181
(Riyahi
Khoi, Mohammad Amin. “Molehezati darbaareyeh Zabaan-i Kohan
This
comprehensive article is also available below:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/Azari/26.pdf
There are extant words, phrases and sentences attested in the old Iranic dialect of Tabriz in a variety of books and manuscripts. Here are some examples:
1)
Hamdullah Mostowafi mentions a sentence in the language of Tabriz:
انگور خلوقی بی
چه در، درّ سوه
اندرین
یک جمله از زبان تبریزیان
در نزهةالقلوب
حمدالله مستوفی:" تبارزه
اگر صاحب
حُسنی را با
لباس ناسزا یابند،
گویند “انگور
خلوقی بی چه
در، درّ سوه
اندرین”؛ یعنی
انگور خلوقی(انگوری
مرغوب) است در
سبد دریده "pg 98
Translation:
“The Tabrizians if
they see a fortunate man in an uncouth clothes say: He is like a fresh grape in
a ripped fruit basket.”
Source:
مستوفی،
حمدالله:
«نزهةالقلوب»،
به كوشش محمد
دبیرسیاقی،
انتشارات
طهوری، 1336
Mostowafi, Hamdallah. Nozhat al-Qolub. Edit by Muhammad Dabir Sayyaqi. Tahuri Publishing, 1957.
2)
A mulama’poem (meaning ‘colourful’, which is popular in Persian poetry where some verses are in one language and others in another language) from Homam Tabrizi where some verses are in Khorasani (Dari) Persian and others are in the dialect of Tabriz:
بدیذم
چشم مستت
رفتم اژ دست
كوام و آذر
دلی كویا بتی
مست
دلام خود
رفت و میدانم كه
روژی
به مهرت
هم بشی خوش كیانم
اژ دست
به
آب زندگی ای
خوش عبارت
لوانت لاود
جمن دیل و كیان
بست
دمی بر عاشق
خود مهربان
شو
كزی
سر مهرورزی
كست و نی كست
به عشقات گر
همام از جان
برآیذ
مواژش
كان بوان
بمرت وارست
كرم
خا و ابری بشم
بوینی
به بویت
خته بام ژاهنام
Source:
انصافپور، غلامرضا: “تاریخ
تبار و زبان آذربایجان”، انتشارات
فكر روز، 1377
Gholam Reza Ensafpur, “Tarikh o Tabar Zaban-i
Azarbaijan”(The history and roots of the language of Azarbaijan), Fekr-I Rooz
Publishers, 1998 (1377).
3)
Another ghazal from Homam Tabrizi where all the couplets
except the last couplet is in Persian, the last couplet reads:
«وهار و ول و دیم
یار خوش بی //
اوی یاران مه
ول بی مه وهاران»
Transliteration:
Wahar o wol o Dim yaar khwash Bi
Awi Yaaraan, mah wul Bi, Mah Wahaaraan
Translation:
The
Spring and Flowers and the face of the friend are all pleaseant
But
without the friend, there are no flowers or any spring.
Source:
كارنگ، عبدالعلی: «تاتی
و هرزنی، دو لهجه
از زبان باستان آذربایجان»، تبریز،
1333
Karang,
Abdul Ali. “Tati, Harzani, two dialects from the ancient language of
4)
Another recent discovery by the name of Safina-yi Tabriz has given sentences from native of Tabriz in their peculiar Iranic dialect. A sample expression of from the mystic Baba Faraj Tabrizi in the Safina:
انانک
قدهی فرجشون
فعالم آندره
اووارادا
چاشمش نه پیف
قدم کینستا نه
پیف حدوث
Standard Persian (translated by the author of Safina himself):
چندانک
فرج را در
عالم آوردهاند
چشم او نه بر
قدم افتاده
است نه بر
حدوث
Modern English:
They brought Faraj in this world in such a way that his eye is neither towards pre-eternity nor upon createdness.
Source:
منوچهر
مرتضوی، زبان
دیرین آذربایجان،
بنیاد
موقوفات دکتر
افشار، 1384.
Mortazavi, Manuchehr. Zaban-e-Dirin Azerbaijan (On the Old language of Azerbaijan). Bonyad Moqufaat Dr. Afshar. 2005(1384).
Indeed the Safina is a bible of the culture of Tabriz which was compiled in the Il-khanid era and clearly shows the region at its height. It is also a clear proof that the language of the people was Iranian at the time and had not transformed Turkic.
A sample poem in which the author of the Safina writes “Zaban Tabrizi”(Language of Tabriz):
دَچَان
چوچرخ نکویت
مو ایر رهشه
مهر دورش
چَو
ِش دَ کارده
شکویت ولَول
ودَارد سَر ِ یَوه
پَری
بقهر اره میر
دون جو پور
زون هنرمند
پروکری
اَنزوتون منی
که آن هزیوه
اکیژ
بحتَ ورامرو کی
چرخ هانزمَویتی
ژژور
منشی چو بخت
اهون قدریوه
نه
چرخ استه نبوتی
نه روزو ورو
فوتی
زو
ِم چو واش خللیوه
زمم حو بورضی
ربوه
Sadeqi, Ali Ashraf. “Chand She’r beh Zaban-e Karaji, Tabrizi wa Ghayreh”(Some poems in the language of Karaji and Tabrizi and others), Majalla-ye Zabanshenasi, 9, 1379./2000, pp.14-17.
http://www.archive.org/details/LocalPoemsInIranicDialectsOfTabrizHamadanMazandaranQazvinInThe
6)
A sentence in the dialect of Tabriz (the author calls Zaban-I Tabriz (dialect/language of Tabriz) recorded and also translated by Ibn Bazzaz Ardabili in the Safvat al-Safa:
«علیشاه
چو در آمد
گستاخ وار شیخ
را در کنار
گرفت و گفت
حاضر باش
بزبان تبریزی
گو حریفر ژاته
یعنی سخن بصرف
بگو حریفت رسیده
است. در این
گفتن دست بر
کتف مبارک شیخ
زد شیخ را غیرت
سر بر کرد»
The sentence “Gu Harif(a/e)r Zhaatah”is mentioned in
Tabrizi dialect.
Source:
Rezazadeh, Rahim Malak. “The Azari Dialect”(Guyesh-I
Azari), Anjuman Farhang Iran Bastan publishers, 1352(1973).
7)
A sentence in the dialect of Tabriz by Pir Hassan Zehtab
Tabrizi addressing the Qara-Qoyunlu ruler Eskandar:
یك جمله از
«پیر حسن
زهتاب تبریزی»
خطاب به
اسكندر قراقویونلو:
«اسكندر! رودم
كشتی، رودت
كشاد!» (= اسكندر!
فرزندم را كشتی.
خدا فرزندت را
بكشد) (ریاحی
خویی، ص 31)
“Eskandar! Roodam Koshti, Roodat Koshaad”
(Eskandar! You killed my son, may your son perish”)
Source:
ریاحی خویی، محمدامین، «ملاحظاتی دربارهی زبان
كهن آذربایجان»: اطلاعات سیاسی - اقتصادی، شمارهی
182-181
Riyahi, Mohammad Amin. “Molahezati darbaareyeh Zabaan-I
Kohan Azerbaijan”(Some comments on the ancient language of
Also Available at:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/Azari/26.pdf
The word Rood for son is still used in some Iranian
dialects, specially the Larestani dialect and other dialects around Fars.
8)
Four quatrains titled Fahlaviyat from Khwaja Muhammad
Kojjani (d. 677/1278-79); born in Kojjan or Korjan, a village near
(Fahlaviyat in Encyclopedia Iranica by Dr. Ahmad Taffazoli, http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v9f2/v9f232.html)
(Dr. A. A. Sadeqi, “Ash’ar-e mahalli-e
Jame’al-Alhaann,”Majalla-ye zaban-shenasi 9, 1371./1992, pp. 54-64)
The actual quatrains are available here:
http://www.archive.org/details/LocalPoemsInIranicDialectsOfTabrizHamadanMazandaranQazvinInThe
A sample of one of the four quatrains from Khwaja Muhammad
Kojjani
همه کیژی
نَهَند خُشتی
بَخُشتی
بَنا اج چو
کَه دستِ گیژی
وَنیژه
همه پیغمبران
خُو بی و چو کِی
محمدمصطفی
کیژی وَنیژه
9)
Two qet’as (poems) quoted by Abd-al-Qader Maraghi in the
dialect of Tabriz (d. 838 A.H./1434-35 C.E.; II, p. 142)
(Fahlaviyat in Encyclopedia Iranica by Ahmad Taffazoli, http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v9f2/v9f232.html)
(A. A. Sadeqi, “Ash’ar-e
mahalli-e Jame’al-Alhaann,”Majalla-ye zaban-shenasi 9, 1371./1992, pp. 54-64.
http://www.archive.org/details/LocalPoemsInIranicDialectsOfTabrizHamadanMazandaranQazvinInThe )
رُورُم
پَری بجولان
نو
کُو بَمَن
وُرارده
وی
خَد شدیم
بدامش
هیزا
اَوُو
وُرارده
10)
A ghazal and fourteen quatrains under the title of Fahlaviyat
by the poet Maghrebi Tabrizi (d. 809/1406-
(Fahlaviyat in Encyclopedia Iranica by Dr. Ahmad Taffazoli,
http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v9f2/v9f232.html)
(M.-A. Adib Tusi
“Fahlavyat-e Magrebi Tabrizi,”NDA Tabriz 8, 1335/1956
Also available at:
11)
A text probably by Mama Esmat Tabrizi, a mystical woman-poet of Tabriz (d. 9th/15th cent.), which occurs in a manuscript, preserved in Turkey, concerning the shrines of saints in Tabriz.
M.- A. Adib Tusi, “Fahlawiyat-e- Mama Esmat wa Kashfi be-zaban Azari estelaah-e raayi yaa shahri”, NDA, Tabriz 8/3, 1335/1957, pp 242-57.
Also availale at:
12)
An interesting phrase “Buri Buri”(which in Persian means “Biya Biya”or in English “Come! Come!”) is mentioned by Rumi from the mouth of Shams Tabrizi in this poem:
«ولی ترجیع پنجم در نیایم جز به دستوری
که
شمس الدین تبریزی
بفرماید مرا بوری
مرا
گوید بیا، بوری
که من باغم تو
زنبوری
که تا
خونت عسل گردد
که تا مومت
شود نوری»
The word “Buri”is mentioned by Hussain Tabrizi Karbalai with
regards to the Shaykh Khwajah Abdul-Rahim Azh-Abaadi:
«مرقد و مزار...خواجه عبدالرحیم اژابادی...در سرخاب مشخص و معین است...وی تبریزی اند منسوب به کوچۀ اچاباد(اژآباد) که کوچۀ معینی است در تبریز در حوالی درب اعلی...و از او چنین استماع افتاده که حضرت خواجه در اوایل به صنعت بافندگی ابریشم مشعوری می نموده اند و خالی از جمعیتی و ثروتی نبوده و بسیار اخلاص به درویشان داشته، روزی حضرت بابا مزید وی را دیده و به نظر حقیقت شناخته که درر معرف الهی در صدف سینه اش مختفی است، گفته: عبدالرحیم بوری بوری یعنی بیا بیا، که دیگران را نان از بازار است و تو را از خانه یعنی کلام تو از الهامات ربانی باشد.»
حافظ
حسین کربلائی
تبریزی،
«روضات
الجنان»،
بنگاه ترجمه و
نشر کتاب، 1344-1349 1965-1970.
Karbalai Tabrizi, Hussein. “Rawdat al-Jinan va Jannat
al-Janan”, Bungah-I Tarjumah o Nashr-i Kitab, 1344-49 (1965-1970), 2 volumes.