![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
The Gizistag Abāliš is a ninth- or tenth-century Pahlavi text, recording a debate which took place at the court of al-Maʾmūn between a Zoroastrian priest and a heretical dualist. This article, the first in-depth study of this important work, examines the text in its broader Islamicate environment. It argues that the narrative itself is probably fictional, but reflects a real historical phenomenon, namely the interreligious debates which took place among Zoroastrians, Muslims, Christians, and Jews during the ʿAbbasid period. It argues that the text is a unique Zoroastrian example of a literary genre that was common among Christians at the time, namely, “the monk in the emir’s majlis.” By comparing the Gizistag Abāliš to these Christian texts, it explores why Zoroastrians generally did not launch explicit polemics against Islam, comparable to those of other non-Muslim communities. It seems that Zoroastrian authors were more concerned with explaining their own doctrines than critiquing the beliefs of others. This is curious considering the large numbers of Zoroastrians who were converting to Islam at the time. Finally, the article proposes new ways of refining the way we read Pahlavi texts, by analyzing them alongside the literatures of other religious communities in the early Islamic empire.
Notes
1 Griffith, “Monk in the Emir’s Majlis”; see also Bertaina, Christian and Muslim Dialogues.
2 For an overview, with further bibliography, see CMR, 1: 522‒6 (Heimgartner).
3 On the Jewish side, see Tanenbaum, “Polemics Real and Imagined,” among other examples. I thank Liran Yadgar for his help here.
4 Goldhill, End of Dialogue; Cameron, Dialoguing in Late Antiquity.
5 For orientation, see Tafażżolī, “Abāliš,” EIr; Boyce, “Middle Persian Literature,” 44; Cereti, Letteratura Pahlavi, 185‒9; Macuch, “Pahlavi Literature,” 136; Andrés-Toledo, “Avestan and Pahlavi,” 526.
6 On the Islamic side, notably Spuler, Iran in the Early Islamic Period, 128 n. 24 (who links the text with reports about debates in the majlis of the Shīʿī imam ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Ridā, under the patronage of al-Maʾmūn); van Ess, Theology and Society, 3: 219 (who links the text with reports about a debate between al-Maʾmūn and a dualist named Abū ʿAlī). For more on both, see below.
7 Two exceptions include de Jong, “Zoroastrian Self-Definition”; and de Jong, “The Dēnkard and the Zoroastrians of Baghdad,” 230‒31, which remarks in passing: “[The Gizistag Abāliš] shows the adaptation for a Zoroastrian audience of a meaningful and well-known narrative from an Islamic, mostly likely Iraqi context.”
8 For overviews of Zoroastrianism in the early Islamic period, see Morony, “Madjūs,” EI2; Boyce, Zoroastrians, 145‒62; Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation; Stausberg, Religion Zarathustras, 1: 263‒51; Daryaee, “Zoroastrianism under Islamic Rule”; Shaked, “Islam”; Rose, Zoroastrianism, 159‒88; Crone, Nativist Prophets; Savant, New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran.
9 Exceptions include de Menasce, “Zoroastrian Literature” (which singles out texts of the Islamic period, but does not strongly situate them in a wider Islamicate context); Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 241‒3, 321‒30, 511‒12 (which takes a generally pessimistic view of the sources for the study of early Islamic history); Daryaee, “Middle Iranian Sources” (which is more encouraging); and de Jong, “The Dēnkard and the Zoroastrians of Baghdad” (a superb article, the only one to my knowledge which discusses the problems facing the study of Zoroastrian literature in the Islamic period in comparison with sources from other communities); many articles by Shaked follow this line of inquiry; see his collected essays in From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam.
10 Scholars have attempted to develop techniques for distinguishing Sasanian from post-Sasanian Pahlavi, notably using linguistic criteria, as in Cantera, Studien zur Pahlavi-Übersetzung. Such techniques have great potential for matters of language, but they are less useful when it comes to matters of content, where “Sasanian” and “Islamic” layers in the texts remain difficult to distinguish from one another.
11 A recent example is Payne, State of Mixture, esp. 16‒58. Despite its rich and provocative ideas, the book uncritically treats various Islamic-era texts as reflecting the views of Zoroastrians in the Sasanian period. This is in marked contrast to the (appropriately) critical handling of the Christian material, mainly hagiographical texts in Syriac.
12 For successful examples of this method, see various studies in Shaked, From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam; along with Vevaina, “Miscegenation, ‘Mixture,’ and ‘Mixed Iron,’” esp. 252‒66; Rezania, “Denkard Against Its Islamic Discourse”; Terribili, “Dēnkard III.”
13 A facsimile of the manuscript is reproduced in Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 148r‒152r.
14 Barthélemy, Gujastak Abalish; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 243‒7. Citations of the Gizistag Abāliš will henceforth refer to the manuscript K20 (as reproduced in Christensen’s facsimile), Cacha’s edition, and Skjærvø’s translation.
15 For a recent effort to analyze Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature alongside Islamic, Christian, and Jewish texts of the same genre, see Shoemaker, Apocalypse of Empire; building on Daryaee, “Apocalypse Now”; and Hoyland, Seeing Islam (per n. 9 above), among others.
16 For instance, the court of al-Maʾmūn was the setting for quasi-hagiographic accounts of debates between the sixth Shīʿī imām ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Ridā and various religious opponents: Wasserstein, “The Majlis of al-Riḍā” (and more below). For an overview of intellectual and theological culture during the reign of al-Maʾmūn, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 3: 214‒550.
17 CMR, 1: 556‒64 (Bertaina), more on Theodore Abū Qurra below.
18 Unvala, Dârâb Hormazyâr’s Rivâyat, 2: 244‒59; also printed in Asha, Dastūr dīnyār va payāmbar-i dumdār, 59‒115; and brief summary in Dhabhar, Persian Rivayats, 586‒9. I thank Dan Sheffield for drawing this text to my attention.
19 De Jong, “The Dēnkard and the Zoroastrians of Baghdad,” esp. 232‒3.
20 According to the geographers al-Istakhrī and Ibn Hawqal (both fl. fourth/tenth century), Zoroastrians were the single largest non-Muslim community in Fars, ahead of Christians and Jews. See al-Istakhrī, al-Masālik wa-ʾl-mamālik, 139; Ibn Hawqal, Surat al-ard, 2: 292 (both associate the large number of Zoroastrians in Fars with the fact that it was the seat of the ancient Persian kings, and thus the center of the Zoroastrian faith; Zoroastrians were reportedly more numerous in Fars than anywhere else). I owe these references to Peter Verkinderen. More broadly, Daryaee, “Zoroastrianism under Islamic Rule,” 110; for a particularly vivid anecdote about the Zoroastrians of Shiraz in the following century, see Yavari, “Abū Isḥāq Kāzarūnī.”
21 Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, “Alexander the Great ii. In Zoroastrian Tradition,” EIr; more broadly Yamanaka, “From Evil Destroyer to Islamic Hero.” For the term gizistag in Book 3 of the Dēnkard, where it is applied to non-Iranian invaders who threaten Iran, see de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 57‒8.
22 De Blois, “Zindīḳ,” EI2, 11: 510‒13; van Ess, Theology and Society, 1: 488‒535; and for the term’s appearance in Book 3 of the Dēnkard, see de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 117, 144‒5, 273‒4.
23 Van Ess, Theology and Society, 3: 219.
24 Asmussen, “Aēšma,” EIr. The demon Wrath was closely associated with several legendary tyrants, including the dragon Dahāk, whom Islamic-era authors regarded as the progenitor of the Arabs (Skjærvø, “Aždaha i: In Old and Middle Iranian,” EIr). In a later Zoroastrian New Persian text, Wrath is associated with the Banū Hāshim specifically, and Muslims generally (Dhabhar, Persian Rivayats, 457ff., 481ff.). For Wrath in contemporary Pahlavi sources, see de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 329; Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 1:186‒7, 2: 86; Jaafari-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 142‒3. More broadly, de Jong, “Fate of Demons.”
25 For the foregoing, see Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 148v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 11‒12; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 243.
26 Baghdad also appears in a short Pahlavi geographical treatise and is named in connection with its founder, the caliph Abū Jaʿfar al-Mansūr (ca. 145/762): Daryaee, Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, 23, 28, 74. For a parallel rendering of the title amīr al-muʾminīn (ameroumnēs) in a Greek Christian text of roughly the same period, see Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam, 107.
27 For the foregoing, see Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 148v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 12‒13; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 243.
28 On the office, see Kreyenbroek, “Zoroastrian Priesthood,” esp. 163; also Boyce, Zoroastrians, 153; Chosky, Conflict and Cooperation, 98, 122; Stausberg, Religion Zarathustras, 1: 279, 474; Rose, Zoroastrianism, 163; with further references in Book 3 of the Dēnkard: de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 147 (Ādurfarnbag), also 38, 157 (just pēšōbāy); and the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār: de Menasce, Škand-Gumānīk Viċār, 116‒17; Taillieu, “Zoroastrian Polemic Against Manichaeism,” 1: 80‒81 (Ādurfarnbag).
29 Tafażżolī, “Ādurfarnbag ī Farroxzādān,” EIr. For his rivāyat, see Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag and Farnbag-Srōš; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay.
30 Indeed, Rezania (“Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse,” 342) goes so far as to state, “[Ādurfarnbag may] definitely be called the greatest Zoroastrian philosopher in the whole history of the religion.”
31 For the concluding section, see Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 151v‒152r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 25‒6; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 247.
32 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 148v‒149r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 13‒14; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 243‒4.
33 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 149r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 14‒15; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 244.
34 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 149r‒149v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 15‒17; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 244.
35 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 149v‒150r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 17‒-19; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 245.
36 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 150r‒150v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 19‒21; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 245‒6.
37 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 150v‒151r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 21‒3; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 246.
38 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 151r‒151v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 23‒5; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 246‒7.
39 Kristó Nagy, Pensée d’Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.
40 Pingree, “Abū Sahl Nawbakt,” EIr; Massignon, “Nawbakht,” EI2; for the conversion scene, see al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, 5: 211.
41 Cooperson, “An Early Arabic Conversion Story”; for al-Fadl’s conversion scene, see al-Jahshiyārī, Wuzarāʾ wa-ʾl-kuttāb, 229‒31.
42 Rekaya, “Mazyar, résistance ou intégration”; Haug, “Ṭabaristān and the Early Empire” (and see below, n. 71).
43 De Blois, “Persian Calendar,” 45‒6; for the passage in Book 3 of the Dēnkard, see de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 380. On this event and others leading to the final redaction of the text, see now Rezania, “Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse.”
44 Al-Tabarī, Annales, Part 3, 1309‒10; on the trial, see now Turner, “Heretic, Rebel or Rival?”
45 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, 4: 236‒43, esp. 241 (concerning the presence of an unnamed “mūbadh … and qādī of the Zoroastrians”); cited in Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation, 31, 153 n. 49.
46 Al-Humaydī, Jadhwat al-muqtabis, 161‒2; translation adapted from Griffith, “Monk in the Emir’s Majlis,” 62; with further discussion in Cook, “Ibn Saʿdī on Truth Blindness.”
47 For more on this work, see Wasserstein, “The Majlis of al-Riḍā”; Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography, 70‒106. Many years ago Spuler (Iran in the Early Islamic Period, 128 n. 24, for the recent English translation) remarked on the similarity between Ibn Bābawayh’s account and the Gizistag Abāliš (along with another text written by the Christian bishop Theodore Abū Qurra; see below, n. 58). That being said, he wrongly assumed that the texts described the same historical incident, whereas they simply make use of the same literary motif.
48 Ibn Bābawayh, ʿUyūn akhbār al-ridā, 191‒5 (esp. 192).
49 Ibid., 154‒78 (esp. 167‒8).
50 Al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī, Muhādarāt, 2: 243; cited in van Gelder, Close Relationships, 61.
51 Ibn Abī Tāhir Tayfūr, Kitāb baghdād, 52.
52 Abū ʾl-Maʿālī, Bayān al-adyān, 43; cited in Mashkūr, Dīnkard, 25‒7; noted in passing in Rezania, “Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse,” 324 n. 20.
53 Al-Jāhiz, Hayawān, 4: 442‒3 (with lots about the zanādiqa in the surrounding pages); Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-akhbār, 2: 152‒3 (followed by an account of a dispute between Hishām b. al-Hakam—a prominent Imāmī Shīʿī theologian, known for his associations with dualists and his participation in disputes [see Madelung, “Hishām b. al-Ḥakam,” EI2]—and an unnamed Zoroastrian mowbed, 153; and a dispute between al-Maʾmūn and “an apostate to Christianity,” 154‒5); Ibn Abī Tāhir Tayfūr, Kitāb baghdād, 51 (followed by the aforementioned speech of the mowbed, see above, n. 51); Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, 2: 196‒7 (followed by an account of a dispute between al-Maʾmūn and an “apostate from Khurasan, who converted under his watch, whom he brought with him to Iraq, and apostatized from Islam,” similar to the aforementioned dispute between al-Maʾmūn and the Christian, 197‒8).
54 Van Ess, Theology and Society, 3: 219 (for previous speculation on the meaning of the origin of the name “Abāliš,” see n. 31); with praise from de Jong, “Zoroastrians of Baghdad,” 230‒31.
55 Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, 2: 793, 801, 805.
56 For background on the caliph’s reign, especially his role in promoting philosophy, theology, literature, and science, see Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography. Around the same time, Christian authors were transforming al-Maʾmūn into a very different kind of literary character, one so sympathetic to the church that he is said to have converted to Christianity! See Swanson, “Christian al-Maʾmūn Tradition.”
57 Al-Maʾmūn’s mother, known as Marājīl, seems to have entered the harem of Hārūn al-Rashīd, al-Maʾmūn’s father, as a prisoner of war following Ustādhsīs’s defeat in 151/768, though scholars have debated whether the sources are trustworthy in this respect; see Madelung, “Was the Caliph al-Maʾmūn a Grandson”; Crone, Nativist Prophets, 151‒7.
58 For example, The Disputation of the Monk Ibrāhīm al-Tabarānī, a Melkite Arabic text set in the ninth century, features a majlis made up of Muslims, Christians from different denominations, recent Christian converts to Islam, and Jews. In the final scene, impressed by the monk’s skill in debate (and miraculous resistance to poison and fire), the converts and the Jews go over to Christianity; overview in CMR, 1: 876‒81 (Swanson).
59 For an overview, with extensive bibliography, see CMR, 1: 556‒64 (Bertaina). A separate treatise—written by Abū Qurra himself and concerning the nine principal religions of his day—attacks Zoroastrians (particularly adherents of Zurvan) for practicing next-of-kin marriage and for believing that God had created man chiefly to enjoy worldly pleasures; see Theodore Abū Qurra, Wujūd al-khāliq wa-ʾl-dīn al-qawīm, 201‒2; with emendations in the translation of Lamoreaux, Theodore Abū Qurrah, 1‒2; overview in CMR, 1: 448‒50 (Lamoreaux).
60 For an overview, with extensive bibliography, see CMR, 1: 585‒94 (Bottini). Note that “al-Kindī” refers to the Kinda, one of the most important Arab Christian tribes of the pre- and early Islamic periods, while “al-Hāshimī” refers to the Banū Hāshim, the clan of the Prophet Muhammad and of the ʿAbbasid family. The two correspondents are thus meant to represent “ideal types” (equivalent to a modern American dispute text which might feature two characters named “Fr. O’Connell” the Catholic and “Rabbi Schwartzman” the Jew).
61 For the Islamic section of the text, see de Menasce, Škand-Gumānīk Viċār, 122‒73; Taillieu, “Zoroastrian Polemic against Manichaeism,” 1: 84‒117. Remarkably little has been written about this fascinating and important section.
62 This is another subject which merits more thorough investigation. Along with the overviews listed above (n. 8), see Ridwān, Ahkām al-majūs fī ʾl-islām; Bürgel, “Zoroastrianism as Viewed in Medieval Islamic Sources”; Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion, 72‒6; van Gelder, Close Relationships; Magnusson, “Muslim-Zoroastrian Relations.”
63 Rezania, “Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse,” 342.
64 There are numerous examples of this across Pahlavi literature; for instance in Book 3 of the Dēnkard: de Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 38, 77, 134‒5, 136‒8, 145‒6, 190, 202‒3.
65 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 148v‒149r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 13‒14; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 243‒4.
66 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 149r‒149v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 15‒17; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 244.
67 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 150r‒150v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 19‒21; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 245‒6.
68 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 150v‒151r; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 21‒3; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 246.
69 Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag and Farnbag-Srōš, 21‒2, 50‒51, 60‒61; Rezai Baghbidi, Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay, 27‒8, 72, 89‒90.
70 Christensen, Codices Avestici et Pahlavici, 1: 151r‒151v; Chacha, Gajastak Abâlish, 23‒5; Skjærvø, Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 246‒7.
71 On the kustīg and conversion, see Kiel and Skjærvø, “Apostasy and Repentance,” esp. 224‒7, 238. On the parallels with the Christian zunnār, see Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam, 57‒9, 71, 103, 202. Upon returning to Iran in ca. 825, the Qārinid prince Māzyār apostatized from Islam and refastened his kustīg as a Zoroastrian (Ibn Isfandiyār, History of Ṭabaristán, 150). Later, the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim persuaded his nephew Qārin to convert to Islam by removing his kustīg (Ibn Isfandiyār, History of Ṭabaristán, 157); cited in Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation, 41 (155 n. 76), 91 (166 n. 47).
72 Junker and Tavadia, Kustīk; Asha, Sacred Girdle; along with this, see Anklesaria, Pahlavi Rivāyat of Āturfarnbag and Farnbag-Srōš, 70‒71; Jaafar-Dehaghi, Dādestān ī Dēnīg, 152‒65 (which underlines the dangers of removing the kustīg, perhaps reflecting the threat of apostasy: “Since the decision of having no sacred cord is so severe (i.e. in its consequences), when that decision is accepted, it is observed that danger is strengthened. To not wearing [sic] this girdle … is the first sign of the destructive danger,” 160‒61). On the kustīg more broadly, see Stausberg, “Significance of the Kusti.”
73 Van Ess, Theology and Society, 1: 492.
74 De Menasce, Troisième livre du Dēnkart, 47, 117 (zandīks), 153, 209‒10; de Menasce, Škand-Gumānīk Viċār, 226‒61; Taillieu, “Zoroastrian Polemic Against Manichaeism,” 1: 142‒9.
75 Taillieu, “Zoroastrian Polemic Against Manichaeism,” 1: 361‒445; on Zoroastrians and Manicheans more broadly, see Hutter, “Manichaeism in Iran” (arguing that the Gizistag Abāliš reflects Zoroastrians’ concerns—not for doctrinal Manichaeism—but a looser “Gnostic-Manichaean esotericism” which was ascendant at the time, see 486‒7).
76 De Blois, “Zindīḳ,” EI2; van Ess, Theology and Society, 1: 493 (which downplays the extent of the violence); for the intellectual milieu in which the alleged crackdown occurred, Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, 61‒74.
77 Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Cinquième livre du Dēnkard.
78 Unvala, Dârâb Hormazyâr's Rivâyat, 2: 72‒86; with comment in de Blois, “ʿUlamā i Islām”; Sheffield, “New Persian,” 535‒6 (for a brief description of other Zoroastrian New Persian dispute texts).
79 For a broad overview of this tendency among Christians, see Griffith, Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, esp. 45‒105.
80 See above, n. 8 for literature on the state of Zoroastrianism in the early Islamic period.
81 As noted above, the great exception to this rule are the sections against Islam in the later Škand-Gumānīg Wizār: de Menasce, Škand-Gumānīk Viċār, 122‒73; Taillieu, “Zoroastrian Polemic against Manichaeism,” 1: 84‒117.