Farabi Soghdian Origin
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به نام ایزد دانا و توانا بر همه چیز
Some remarks on Farabi’s
background: Iranic (Soghdian/Persian) or Turkic(Altaic)?
Goshtasp Lohraspi
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This article
discusses the background of Abu Nasr Farabi (872-950/951 A.D.), one of
the most famous Muslim Polymaths who contributed to many fields
including philosophy, music theory, logics, sociology and others.
Farabi is one of the greatest figures of humanity and his
background is irrelevant in terms of the heritage he left behind.
Yet there has been some dispute with this regard and the most
common opinion given is Iranic or Turkic. The
earliest texts discussing his background were written 300+ years after
Farabi (The first one mentioning him as Persian, the second as a Turk
and the third one as a Persian). Due to earlier Western
translation of Ibn Khalikhan (the second source describing his
background), there have been some Encyclopedias and books who have not
critically examined the matter.
Based on
analyzing all the early evidences, we believe that Farabi was of Iranic
Soghdian origin and later on when Iranic Soghdians were almost or
completely erased as an ethnic group, the claim of Turkic origins and
Iranic Persian origins were made.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Preliminary Remarks
According to
Professor. Dimitri Gutias of Yale University:
“The sources for the life of Farabi are
such as to make the reconstruction of his biography beyond a mere
outline nearly impossible. The
earliest and more reliable sources, i. e., those composed before the
6th/12th century, that are extant today are so few as to indicate that
no one among Farabi’s successors and their followers, or even unrelated
scholars, undertook to write his full biography, a neglect that has to
be taken into consideration in assessing his immediate impact. His fame,
however, began to grow, apparently in association with and as a result
of the renown of Avicenna (q.v.) who, through his explicit
recommendation and endorsement of Farabi in his writings, presented
himself as Farabi’s successor in philosophy. When major Arabic
biographers came to write comprehensive entries on Farabi in the
6th-7th/12th-13th centuries, the period of the greatest expansion of
philosophical studies in Islamic lands, there was very little specific
information on hand; this allowed for their acceptance of invented
stories about his life which range from benign extrapolation on the
basis of some known details to tendentious reconstructions and legends. Most modern biographies of the philosopher present various
combinations of elements drawn at will from this concocted material
..
We
thus hear for the first time, from Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa,
that Fārābī’s father was a commander of the army and of Persian (fāresī)
descent, to which Ebn Ḵallekān responded as
described above. Ultimately pointless as the quest for
Fārābī’s ethnic origins might be, the fact remains that we do not have
sufficient evidence to decide the matter..”( D. Gutias “Farabi” in Encyclopedia Iranica)
In this article,
we try to elucidate some details about Farabi’s background based on
three different periods of writings as well as examining names
associated with him. The first period is Farabi’s writing
himself. The second period is the writings of Ibn Nadeem,
and Farabi’s most important admirer, the Persian scientist Avicenna.
The third period is those of three 13th century
writers. Although D. Gutias does mention Ibn Nadeem and
the 13th century biographers, there are important clues from
Farabi’s own writing and that of his successor, the person who was
responsible for popularizing him, the Persian scientist Abu Ali ibn
Sina. These
Our overall
conclusion is that Farabi was likely of Iranic (Sogdian/Persian) rather
than Turkic origin which are claimed by some Western sources based on
the more popularized work of Ibn Khalikhan in the West. Although
the author of this short article does not claim to have read all of
Farabi’s writing (and those that are ascribed to him), but from what is
available in print and we were able to obtain, we believe it points to
an Iranian background. It is important to note that we may
definitely never know the answer 100%. However there have
not been any critical articles on this issue except the detailed
article of D. Gutias.
Evidences from Farabi’s own writing
The conclusion from Farabi’s own writing is that he knew
Soghdian, considered Turks to be part of the ignorant city and finally
the names of most of the music modes and tones are in Persian, with the
rest being Arabic (which are loan words into Persians). Farabi
uses Persian words and Soghdian words in his writing, but does not use
any Turkish. Given that Farabi is believed to have come to
Baghdad at an early age, Soghdian would be a peculiar language that he
was familiar with. Although it is possible that he could
have learned Soghdian from a Soghdian migrant in Baghdad, nevertheless
what is more likely is that Soghdian was the language of his own family.
Indeed he is one of the very few Islamic writers that have
mentioned Soghdian and Soghdian words. Thus from Farabi’s
own writing, an Iranic Soghdian origin is likely.
Kitab al-Horuf, Soghdian word and alphabet and other Languages used by Farabi
According to Professor. Gutias:
“As
is well known, in his incessant efforts to differentiate between
universal logical structures of thought and particular grammatical
structures, Farabi has in a number of his works references and glosses
in Persian, Sogdian, and Greek (but no Turkish; cf.
Walzer, 1985, p. 3)” ( “Farabi” in Encyclopedia Iranica
by D. Gutias)
Thus Farabi uses Persian, Greek and
Soghdian words and no Turkish words. Soghdian is the most peculiar of
all the languages, since Farabi could not have learned Soghdian in
Baghdad where he was said to have been raised up.
In his book the Kitab-al-Horuf, Farabi uses terms from
Persian, Soghdian, Syriac and Greek. For example he compares Arabic
grammar with Persian and them mentions the word “is” which in Persian is
“ast”, in Soghdian is “asti” and in Greek is “astin”. Or he says in
Arabic they add “yat” Inasaniyat” while in Persian they add “y” like
the word Mardomiمردمی . Thus
in a book that is written about languages and words, Farabi mentions
Soghdian and Persian, but no mention of Turkish is made.
The most interesting example of Soghdian is actually the
word mentioned “ḇ iryd”. In the critical edition the word
is shown as:
The first letter of the following word is not present in
either Arabic or Persian alphabets. Farabi mentions “Fi
Soghdiyya” (In Soghdian) and then mentions the above word.
Farabi, “Kitab al-Horuf”
critical edition by Muhsin Mahdi. Beirutd Institut de
letters orientales, recherché. Vol. 46, Beirut (1970). Pg 111.
According to the Encyclopedia Iranica, the Chorasmian
language (an Iranian language which was the closest relative of
Soghdian):
“Orthography and phonology. Apart
from the Arabic emphatics ṭ, ḍ, ż, ṣ, ẓ and the postvelars q, ḥ, ʿ, the pronunciation of which
is unknown, it can be assumed that Chorasmian had the following
consonant phonemes: p, t, c (= ts), k;
f, θ (= ṯ), č, x; b, d, j (= dz),
g; β (= ḇ), ’ (= ḏ), ǰ, γ (= ḡ); m, n; s,
š, z, `; r, l; w, y. Beside
the normal Persian additions to the Arabic alphabet, β was
written as a three-pointed f.”
The same information is mentioned in Encyclopedia of
Islam under Chorasmia and the native Iranic Chorasmian scholar Biruni
also uses this same three-pointed f. In the Encyclopedia
of Islam, we read:
““Ḳutayba's
invasions may have ended the old scribal tradition, but the language
itself persisted, now written in the Arabic alphabet but with several
characters modified to render the characteristic sounds of Ḵh̲wārazmian,
e.g. for the labiodental fricative v or β”
Thus besides the usage of Soghdian words, Farabi knew how
to pronounce sounds that are peculiar to Eastern Iranian languages.
It may very be possible that Farabi himself modified the Arabic
alphabet for Soghdian. Either way, the above word “βird”
is probably the oldest existing word in Soghdian that is written in the
Arabic alphabet and it is fitting to be written in a book called “Kitab
al-Horuf” (Book of Letters).
As per the Greek and Syriac languages, Farabi learned it
from his Christian cleric teacher, Yohanna b. Khaylan. They
studied the works of Aristotle together. As per Persian,
this was becoming a major language in Central Asia and a common lingua
franca. However it is Soghdian that stands out. Given
that the above sound does not exist in Arabic or Persian or Turkic, it
is very interesting that Farabi creates a specific character for it.
Farabi and the Turks place in the base city"Alfarabi …counts the Turks among the pleasure-seekers and citizens of the base city. ".(Arthur Hyman, “Maimonidean Studies”, Published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1992.)
In the
philosophy of Farabi there is the virtuous city which ranks the highest
and then there are cities of ignorance. Farabi mentions
several states including the: Excellent State/Virtuous City (Madinah
al-Fadilah), the ignorant state (Madinah al-Jahiliya), the immoral state
(Madinah al-Fasiqah), the misguided state (Madinah al-Dallah) and the
transformed state (Madinah al-Mutabaddalah).
The cities
of ignorance have several types, including the indispensable city, the
progressing to the vile city, the base city and so on.
According
to Farabi, the base city is:
"The base city or the base association is that in which citizens cooperate to enjoy sensual pleasure or imaginary pleasure (play and amusement) or both. They enjoy the pleasure of food, drink, and copulation, and strive after what is more pleasant of these, in the pursuit of pleasure alone, rather than what sustains, or is any way useful to, the body; and they do same as regards play and amusement. This city is one regarded by the citizens of the ignorant city as happy and admirable city; for they can attain the goal of this city after having acquired bare necessities and acquired wealth, and only by means of much expenditure. They regard whoever posses more resources for play and the pleasure as the best, the happiest and most enviable man". (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).
It is sort of odd for Farabi to
place Turks in the “base city” if he was a Turk. Rather,
Soghdians were a cultured people who build walls around Bukhara (see the
History of Bukhara edited by R.N. Frye) to keep away Turkish nomads
from the major cities.
Iranian Music modes mentioned by Farabi
The modes of music(Muqam) mentioned
by Farabi have mainly Persian names with some Arabic names.
Modes of Music mentions by Farabi
include:
Persian: Rahavi, Raast,
Zirguleh/Zanguleh, Esfahan, Navan, Bozorg, Zir-Afkand, ‘Araaq (some
sources claim Persian etymology for this word while others claim Arabic)
Arabic names: Hosseyni, ‘ushaaq,
Hejaz, Bu-Sulayk(Abu-Sulayk), ‘Araaq (some sources claim Persian
etymology for this word while others claim Arabic)
The names of tones used by Farabi
are also Iranian: Yek Gah, do Gah, Seh Gah, Chahar Gah, etc.
We do not see any Turkish names
with regards to musical names used by Farabi.
According to S.H. Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi:
“Morever, he was a master of music
theory; his Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir (The Great book on Music), known
in the West as a book on Arabic music, is in reality a study of the
theory of Persian music of his day as well as presenting certain
great philosophical principle about music, its cosmic qualities, and its
influence on the soul”
( Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Professor Mehdi Aminrazavi. “An
Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 1: From Zoroaster to ‘Umar
Khayyam”, I.B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili
Studies, 2007.)
Farabi and opinions of Avicenna and Ibn al-Nadeem
A
glance at the works of Avicenna and Ibn al-Nadeem from the 10th
and 11th centuries shows that there is no mention of
Farabi’s ethnicity. However, Avicenna has an important quote mentioning
in one sentence the word (Madinah
al-Fadilah=Virtuous City), which is a phrase borrowed from Farabi while
mentioning that Turks were not able to acquire virtue and are destined
to be slaves by nature. Qazi Andalusi also mentions
something along the same line. While Ibn Nadeem mentions
that Farabi was from a city Faryab (modern Afghanistan) in Khorasan.
The information these two authors provide is close to Farabi’s
time and has more weight.
Avicenna
A good deal of the fame of Farabi is due to the Persian
scientist Avicenna(980-1037) who studied his works and expounded upon
them.
According to D. Gutias:
“His fame, however, began to grow, apparently in
association with and as a result of the renown of Avicenna (q.v.) who,
through his explicit recommendation and endorsement of Farabi in his
writings, presented himself as Farabī’s successor in philosophy.” ( D. Gutias, “Farabi” in Encyclopedia Iranica)
And
“Furthermore,
this report indicates two additional things: first, that there was no
interest in his works in Khorasan, and perhaps in the East generally,
right after his death and until the appearance of Avicenna; and second,
that when Avicenna’s work made philosophy a popular subject in the East,
Fārābī’s works were overshadowed by those of Avicenna, at least until
Bayhaqī’s time.” ( D. Gutias, “Farabi” in
Encyclopedia Iranica)
And
“Within
Islam, Farabī’s system was taken up by Avicenna, who further developed
and refined it to create a philosophy that was to remain dominant in the
East.” ( D. Gutias, “Farabi” in
Encyclopedia Iranica)
Thus Avicenna was very familiar with Farabi. Avicenna’s
father was from Balkh, a Persian speaking region (the peculiar Persian
Balkhi dialect also called Zaban-e-Balkhi is recorded in Zakhira
Khwarizmshahi under the name “Zaban-e-Balkh” (Balkhi tongue)) and
his mother’s was from Bukhara, which was Soghdian/Persian speaking at
the time. His mother’s name is recorded as
Setareh(Persian for Star) and his father was a follower of the Ismaili
sect which was popular among Iranians.
Curiously enough, just like Farabi who brings examples
from other languages in his Kitab al-Horuf, there is a statement from
Avicenna about the languages he knows and he only mentions Arabic and
Persian. Thus unlike Farabi, it seems Avicenna did not
know Soghdian but only knew Persian and Arabic according to his own
testimony. The statement of Avicenna with this regard is
given here from his book Ishaarat:
لكن اللغات التى نعرفها قد خلت فى عاداتها
عن استعمال النفى على هذه الصورة.... فيقولون بالعربية لاشىء
من ح ب... و كذلك ما يقال فى فصيح لغةالفرس هيچ ح ب نيست.
Thus Ibn Sina states: “In the languages we know … in
Arabic it is La-shayy .. and in Persian it is Hich Nist”. This sort of
giving examples from other languages in order to come up with precise
philosophical concepts is exactly modeled after the Kitab
al-Horuf of Farabi. (Dehkhoda dictionary under Abu Ali Sina)
Avicenna not only used Persian words, but he also wrote
important works in Persian, the most important of them is Encyclopedic
Danshenaameyeh ‘Alai, where he coins many pure Persian terms and shows
that Persian is also a capable language for the expression
of logic, philosophy, medicine and science.
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 يخدمون الناس، فيجب ان يك.ن
هؤلا يجبرون علي خدمه اهل المدينه الفاضله، و كذلك من كان من الناس بعيداً
عن تلقي الفاضيله فهم عبيد‘’ بالطبع، نثل الترك والزنح، و بالجمله الذين
نشأوا في غير اقاليم الشريفه التي اكثر احوالها ان ينشأفيها حسنه الامزجه
صحيحه القرايح و العقول
)J. Mashkur, Farabi
and Farabi,Tehran,1972(
Avicenna was born in Bukhara (Central Asia) which is
from the same general area of Farabi (either Faryab in Afghanistan or
Paryab(Farab) in modern Kazakhistan). What is interesting
is that he borrows the term virtuous city from Farabi and at the same
time mentions that Turks are by nature slaves and are not capable of
acquiring virtue. Obviously if Farabi was a Turk, his
follower Avicenna who lived only one generation after the passing away
of Farabi and who was born in the area of Central Asia, and claimed to
be his successor would not have made such a statement. Also
as Avicenna is clear when he expresses in his book of Ishaarat, then
one can also surmise that Farabi also gave examples from the languages
he knew : Persian, Greek, Arabic, Syriac and Soghdian.
Among these, Soghdian would have to be Farabi’s native
language since Soghdian was not a major language of Baghdad like Persian
and Arabic. Also his usage of a peculiar Soghdian sound
shows that he was a native speaker. Soghdian would not
have importance in Baghdad as did Arabic, Syrianc, Greek, and
Persian. Greek and Syriac were already known as scientific
languages in Baghdad and were known by Farabi’s Christian teacher
Yuhanna b. Khaylan. Arabic and Persian were widely
spoken, especially Persian in Central. But Soghdian, an
Old Iranian language, was a language in urban centers of Central Asia
and thus logically one would believe Farabi’s native language.
Ibn al-Nadeem
Ibn al-Nadeem has a Paragraph on
Farabi where he states:
أبو نصر محمد بن محمد بن محمد بن طرخان أصله من الفارياب من أرض خراسان
الكتاب : الفهرست
المؤلف : محمد بن إسحاق أبو الفرج النديم الناشر : دار المعرفة - بيروت ، 1398 – 1978
Translation: Abu Nasr Mohammad ibn
Mohammad ibn Mohammad ibn TarxAn, originally from Faryaab from the land
of Khorasan”.
Note it is very possible that there
is scribal error between Faryab and Farab by later scribes.
D. Gutias states: On the other
hand, D. Gutias states:
“The nesba, universally given as al-Fārābī, would
indicate a place of ultimate origin in the district of Fārāb (the older
Persian form Pārāb is given in Ḥodūd al-ʿālam) on the middle Syr Darya (Jaxartes). This is
corroborated by the geographer Ebn Ḥawqal, a younger contemporary of Fārābī who was
also somehow associated, like Fārābī later in his life, with the
Hamdanid Sayf-al-Dawla, since the first edition of his famous Ṣūrat
al-arzµ was dedicated to that prince. Ebn Ḥawqal
notes from his travels in Transoxania that Fārābī was “from” (men) the
town of Vasīj in Fārāb (Esṭakkhrī does not mention Fārābī in association
with Vasīj). This has been taken to mean that Fārābī himself was born
there, but this need not be necessarily the case. Ebn Ḥawqal is
contradicted by no less an authority than Ebn al-Nadīm, who was also a
younger contemporary of Fārābī and had close personal contacts with Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī,
Fārābī’s most successful student, from whom he received a significant
amount of his information about philosophical studies for his Fehrest.
Ebn al-Nadīm states (ed. Flügel p. 263 l. 9) that Fārābī’s origins (aṣloho) lie
in Fāryāb in Khorasan (men al-Fāryāb men arż Ḵorāsān),
that is, the town half way down the road from Marv-al-rūḏ to Balḵ. Bayhaqī
in his Tatemmat Ṣewān al-ḥekma (p. 16.7) conflates the two traditions and
says that Fārābī was “from Fāryāb in Turkestan.”
The etymology of Farab and Faryabi
however are well known and are clearly Iranian. We shall show that the
name Tarxan has been used by Soghdian people and its etymology is
uncertain according to linguistics. However a Turkish origin for the
word has been discounted by many modern Turkologists while many modern
Iranian philologists claim it as Iranian. Although the title has also
been used by different groups including Iranians, Tibetians, Turkish and
other peoples.
Earliest mention of Farabi according to three 13th century writers
Three 13th century
writers have given conflicting account on Farabi’s background in the 13th
century. By now, reliable information on Farabi was most likely lost
and his figure was mixed with fairy tales and myths. However the issue
of Farabi’s background might have become a matter of dispute in the 13th
century and thus we see three different writers from the 13th
century giving explicit opinions. From the perspective of Western
orientalism, the book of Ibn Khalikhan became very much popularized in
the West where-as the books of Ibn Abi’ Osayba and al-Shahruzi did not
get the same fame and coverage.
Ibn Abi ‘Osayba is the earliest of
these biographers and states in his Tabaqat al-Atibba 1268):
محمد بن محمد
بن اوزلغ بن طرخان مدينته فاراب و هي مدينه من بلاد الترك في ارض خراسان و
كان ابوه قائد جيش و هو فارسی
Thus Ibn Abi ‘ OSayba Ibn Abi
‘Osayba is the earliest of these biographers and states that Farabi is
Persian.
The next tradition is by that of
Ibn al-Khalikhan who claims a Turkish origin for Farabi:
«ابونصر
محمدبن طرخان بن اوزلغالفارابي التركي الحكيم توفي في سنه 339 سيفالدوله
في اربعه من خواصه و قدناهز ثمانين سنه و دفن بظاهر دمشق خارج الباب الصغير
رحمهالله تعالي و الفارابي هذهالنسبه الي فاراب و تسمي هذاالزمان اطرار و
قد غلب عليه هذالاسم و هي مدينه فوقالشاش قيبه من مدينه بلاساغون و جيع
اهلها علي مذهبالامام الشافعي و هي قاعده من قواعد الترك»
Finally, there is the tradition of
Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Shahrazuri in his Tarikh al-Hukama’(history
of sages) who lived in the same century (13th century) and
states that Farabi was Persian:
«و كان من سلاله فارسيه»
According to D. Gutias:
“The
sources from the 6th/12th century and later consist essentially of three
biographical entries, all other extant reports on Fārābī being either
dependent on them or even later fabrications: (1) the Syrian tradition
or collection of biographical narratives on Fārābī represented by the
entry by Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa (II, pp. 134-40), and to a lesser extent by Ebn al-Qefṭī (pp. 277-80); (2) the
pro-Turkish tradition, compiled and composed as a continuous narrative
by Ebn Ḵallekān with the purpose of documenting a Turkish ethnic
origin for Fārābī (ed. ʿAbbās, V, pp. 153-57; tr. de Slane, III, pp. 307-11);
and (c) the scanty and legendary Eastern tradition, represented by Ẓahīr-al-Dīn Bayhaqī (pp.
16-20, no. 17). Of these, the Eastern tradition of Bayhaqī (q.v.; d.
565/1169) can be discounted: the few accurate data derive from the
earlier sources, whereas the added material is obviously fabricated. Ebn
al-Qefṭī (or the extant epitome of Zawzanī, compiled in
647/1249) actually offers a combination of the Andalusian and Syrian
traditions, for he copies Ṣāʿed for the most part and has additional material only on Fārābī’s association with Sayf-al-Dawla. This
leaves the Syrian and pro-Turkish traditions of the biographical entries
in Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa’s ʿOyūn (final recension completed in
667/1268) and in Ebn Ḵallekān’s Wafayāt (completed in 669/1271)
respectively. These present themselves as our most
extensive and detailed sources though they date a good three centuries
after Fārābī’s death. Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa’s entry, which is the
earlier one, consists of a collection
and patching together of all the diverse pieces of information that were
available to him in Syria at that time. It includes much legendary
material, but Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa also quotes Fārābī where he can. Ebn Ḵallekān’s entry, by contrast, is a response to that of
Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa: the latter had mentioned at
the beginning of his entry, and for the first time by any extant
biographer, that Fārābī’s father was of Persian descent; Ebn Ḵallekān’s entry is completely
animated by the effort to prove that Fārābī was ethnically Turkish. To this end,
Ebn Ḵallekān first gave Fārābī an additional nesba, one
he never had, al-Torkī. Abu’l-Fedāʾ, who copied Ebn Ḵallekān, corrected this, and changed the word, al-Torkī
“the Turk,” which reads like a nesba, to the descriptive
statement, wa-kāna rajolan torkīyan “he was a Turkish man” (Moḵtaṣar II, p. 104). Second, at the
end of his entry, Ebn Ḵallekān spent considerable time giving the correct
spelling and vocalization of all the names which he says are Turkish and
are associated with Fārābī: the names of his alleged grand- and
great-grandfather, Ṭarḵān and Awzalaḡ (adding explicitly, wa-homā men asmāʾ al-tork, “these are Turkish names”), and the toponymics of
his origins, Fārāb, Oṭrār, Balāsaḡūn, and Kāšḡar (the information on the toponymics is derived from
Samʿānī, under the nesba al-Fārābī, though Samʿānī does not refer to the
philosopher).
Since
almost every detail of Fārābī’s life found in one source is contradicted
by that in another, it will be helpful to list first those items from
the documentary and earlier narrative sources which are certain and to
present the dubious and legendary material on the later sources in the
next section. His name was Abū Naṣr Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Fārābī, as all sources, and especially the
earliest and most reliable, Masʿūdī, agree. In the famous passage about the appearance of philosophy preserved
and reported by Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa (II, p. 135 ll. 20-21), he is quoted as having
said that he had studied logic with Yūḥannā b. Ḥaylān up to and including Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics, i.e., according to the order of the books studied in the
curriculum, Fārābī said that he studied Porphyry’s Eisagoge and
Aristotle’s Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior
Analytics. His teacher, Yūḥannā b. Ḥaylān, was a Christian cleric who abandoned lay
interests and engaged in his ecclesiastical duties, as Fārābī reports.
His studies of Aristotelian logic with Yūḥannā in all probability took place in Baghdad,
where Masʿūdī tells us
Yūḥannā died during the caliphate of al-Moqtader
(295-320/908-32). This is further indicated by the entire approach and
contents of his logical work, which is imbued with the thought world of
Alexandrian Aristotelianism as resuscitated in Baghdad by Abū Bešr Mattā
and his teachers (Zimmermann, pp. lxviii-cxxxix; see also below,
section on Fārābī and Greek philosophy). Fārābī apparently stayed on and
worked in Baghdad. Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, a resident of Baghdad according to Ebn
al-Qefṭī (p. 361 ll. 9-10), was among his students, and he
composed at least two of his works for Baghdad personalities: a treatise
on the validity of astrology for the Christian scholar and translator
Abū Esḥāq Ebrāhīm b. ʿAbd-Allāh Baḡdādī (Mahdi, 1975-76, p. 265) and his great book
on music for the vizier of the caliph al-Rāżī, Abū Jaʿfar Moḥammad b. Qāsem Karḵī (Ketāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr, pp. 30 and
35, n.1). We know that he was definitely in Baghdad until the end of the
year 330/September 942. As we learn from notes in some manuscripts of
his Mabādeʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāżela,
he had started to compose the book in Baghdad at that time and then left
and went to Syria. He took the book with him, and he finished it in
Damascus the following year (331), i.e., by September 943 (cited in
Fārābī’s Ketāb al-mella, p. 79 and by Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa II, pp. 138-39; tr. in Mahdi 1990, pp. 721-22). In Syria
Fārābī also lived and taught for some time in Aleppo; Ebn al-Qefṭī mentions that
he went to Aleppo to Sayf-al-Dawla, a report that is corroborated by
another manuscript note, copied by Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa (II, p. 139 ll. 19-20), which
says that he had dictated a commentary on the Posterior Analytics to Ebrāhīm b. ʿAdī, a student of his in Aleppo (and Yaḥyā’s brother). Later on Fārābī visited Egypt;
the note in the manuscripts of the Mabādeʾ also informs us that
he wrote the six sections (foṣūl)
summarizing the book in Egypt in 337/July 948-June 949. He must have
returned to Syria, however, soon thereafter, for we are certain of his
place and date of death: Masʿūdī, writing barely five years after the fact (955-6, the date of the
composition of the Tanbīh), says that he died in Damascus in
Rajab 339 (between 14 December 950 and 12 January 951). His stay in
Syria was somehow associated with Sayf-al-Dawla, though we do not know
precisely how, how long, and in what capacity. Sāʿed al-Andalosī, the first to
report this connection,
simply says (p. 54 l. 19) that Fārābī “died in Damascus in 339 under the
protection (fī kanaf)” of Sayf-al-Dawla. Later biographers
greatly embellish this association.
STORIES
AND LEGENDS
The above
is all that can be said with certainty about Fārābī’s biography. The
remaining reports in the later sources are dubious at best and legendary
at worst, beginning with his pedigree and origins. There is confusion
and uncertainty, first of all, about the names of his grandfather and
great-grandfather, which are given variously by the sources. The
consensus in secondary literature is to list Ṭarḵān as the grandfather’s
name, but this is not supported by the sources, some of which do not
have it at all (most of the earliest sources), while others have it as
the name of the great-grandfather (Fehrest; Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa),
and Ebn Ḵallekān has it as the name of the father (a discrepancy which
was remarked upon by the careful Ṣafadī, I, p. 106).
Actually,
it would seem none of them is right. In some manuscripts of Fārābī’s
works, which must reflect the reading of their ultimate archetypes from
his time, his full name appears as Abū Naṣr Moḥammad b. Moḥammad
al-Ṭarḵānī, i.e., the element Ṭarḵān appears in a nesba (Fārābī, Ketāb
al-mūsīqī p. 35, note 1; Aḥkām al-nojūm, p. 46). This
indicates that Ṭarḵān was not necessarily the name of Fārābī’s
grandfather but rather that of a more distant relative from whom his
family claimed descent (cf. Samʿānī, ed. Yamānī, IX, p. 63, s.v. the nesba
al-Ṭarḵānī). Moreover, if the name of Fārābī’s grandfather was not
known among his contemporaries and immediately succeeding generations,
it is all the more surprising to see in the later sources the appearance
of yet another name from his pedigree, Awzalaḡ. This appears as the
name of the grandfather in Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa and of the great-grandfather
in Ebn Ḵallekān. Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa is the first source to list this name
which, as Ebn Ḵallekān explicitly specifies later, is so to be
pronounced. In modern Turkish scholarship the pronunciation is given as
Uzluḡ (İA V, p. 451), without any explanation. The first
appearance of this distinctly Turkish sounding name in the later sources
in the context of attempts to claim a Turkish ethnic background for
Fārābī is accordingly questionable.
The nesba,
universally given as al-Fārābī, would indicate a place of ultimate
origin in the district of Fārāb (the older Persian form Pārāb is given
in Ḥodūd al-ʿālam) on the middle Syr Darya (Jaxartes). This is
corroborated by the geographer Ebn Ḥawqal, a younger contemporary of
Fārābī who was also somehow associated, like Fārābī later in his life,
with the Hamdanid Sayf-al-Dawla, since the first edition of his famous Ṣūrat
al-arzµ was dedicated to that prince. Ebn Ḥawqal notes from his
travels in Transoxania that Fārābī was “from” (men) the town of
Vasīj in Fārāb (Esṭakhrī does not mention Fārābī in association with
Vasīj). This has been taken to mean that Fārābī himself was born there,
but this need not be necessarily the case. Ebn Ḥawqal is contradicted by
no less an authority than Ebn al-Nadīm, who was also a younger
contemporary of Fārābī and had close personal contacts with Yaḥyā b.
ʿAdī, Fārābī’s most successful student, from whom he received a
significant amount of his information about philosophical studies for
his Fehrest. Ebn al-Nadīm states (ed. Flügel p. 263 l. 9) that
Fārābī’s origins (aṣloho) lie in Fāryāb in Khorasan (men
al-Fāryāb men arż Ḵorāsān), that is, the town half way down the road
from Marv-al-rūḏ to Balḵ. Bayhaqī in his Tatemmat Ṣewān al-ḥekma
(p. 16.7) conflates the two traditions and says that Fārābī was “from
Fāryāb in Turkestan.”
These
variants in the basic facts about Fārābī’s origins and pedigree indicate
that they were not recorded during his lifetime or soon thereafter by
anyone with concrete information, but were rather based on hearsay or
probable guesses. When in the 7th/13th century Fārābī’s ethnic origin
was made into an issue by the biographers, dogmatic statements without
acknowledgment of source begin to appear. We thus hear for the first
time, from Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa, that Fārābī’s father was a commander of the
army and of Persian (fāresī) descent, to which Ebn Ḵallekān
responded as described above. Ultimately pointless as the quest for
Fārābī’s ethnic origins might be, the fact remains that we do not have
sufficient evidence to decide the matter.
(D. Gutias, “Farabi” in
Encyclopedia Iranica)
As mentioned the oldest source on
his ethnicity mentions him as Persian, the second as Turkish and the
third as Persian. Thus what we can gain little from this is that the 13th
century sources contradict each other and contain many legends.
However Farabi’s name is Muhammad ibn Muhammad also known as Abu Nasr
Al-Farabi and the Nesba (title )of his grandfather was possibly
Al-Tarkhani. This matches the information of Ibn Nadeem and the books
that have his name.
Etymology of Wasij, Tarkhan and Farab, Awzalagh
Farab/Faryab
The etymology of Farab is fairly
well known. According to D. Gutias:
“The nesba, universally given as al-Fārābī, would indicate a
place of ultimate origin in the district of Fārāb (the older Persian
form Pārāb is given in Ḥodūd al-ʿālam)
on the middle Syr Darya (Jaxartes)”
The word has to do with water (Ab):
ĀBĪ, Persian term for those agricultural
lands which are irrigated; unirrigated (i.e., rain-fed) fields are
called daymī (see discussion s.v. Agriculture). Cf. also the more
specialized term fāyrāb/pāyrāb, applied to lands irrigated by
diversion of river water.
(E. Ehlers, “ĀBĪ” in Encyclopedia Iranica)
It is interesting to know that
after the Turkification of Farab, the name of the place was changed to
Otrar (a Turkish word). This indicates that Farabi lived before the
Turkification of the area.
OTRĀR, a medieval town of Transoxania, in a
rural district (rostāq) of the middle Jaxartes River (Syr Darya),
apparently known in early Islamic times as Fārāb/Pārāb/Bārāb. The
latter two forms are found in the 10th-century geographers (e.g.,
Moqaddasi [Maqdesi], pp. 263, 273; Ebn Ḥawqal, pp. 510-11, tr. Kramers and Wiet, II,
p. 488; Ḥodud al-ʿālam, ed.
Sotuda, pp. 117-18, tr. Minorsky, pp. 118-19.) It was notable as the
place of origin of the famous philosopher Abu Naṣr Moḥammad Fārābi (d. 950, q.v.).
(C.E. Bosworth, “Otrar” in Encyclopedia Iranica)
Wasij
The name Wasij is Iranian since
the sound “W” does not exist in Turkish but it is present in Persian
(Tajiki, Afghani and most varities), Kurdish and Soghdian. The word is
probably the same root as Persian/Pahlavi Pasij/Basij which means
already built, ready. Specially, it is user as a term in warface and
given the possible military background of Farabi’s family, this could
have been a military town of the Samanids in order to stop nomadic
incursions by Altaic tribes.
Awzalagh
The etymology of Farab is fairly
well known. According to D. Gutias:
“Moreover, if
the name of Fārābī’s grandfather was not known among his contemporaries
and immediately succeeding generations, it is all the more surprising to
see in the later sources the appearance of yet another name from his
pedigree, Awzalaḡ. This appears as the name of the grandfather in Ebn
Abī Oṣaybeʿa and of the great-grandfather in Ebn Ḵallekān. Ebn Abī
Oṣaybeʿa is the first source to list this name which, as Ebn Ḵallekān
explicitly specifies later, is so to be pronounced. In modern Turkish
scholarship the pronunciation is given as Uzluḡ (İA V, p. 451),
without any explanation. The first appearance of this distinctly Turkish
sounding name in the later sources in the context of attempts to claim a
Turkish ethnic background for Fārābī is accordingly questionable. “
Thus the name Awzalagh does not appear in any manuscript
or work of Farabi or even succeeding generations. Thus it is not
important on what type of etymology it may have. However, the reason
modern Turkish scholarship has changed it to “Uzluḡ” is due to the fact that the sound “Aw” which is
present in Persian, Soghdian and Iranian languages is not present in
Turkish. For example, the word “Awrang”(throne) in
Persian. However, the words (l ӕg man). Ossetian Iron ævzag mean “man” in Ossetian, a
language descendant of Alans which itself is in the same family of
Soghdian and other Eastern Iranian languages. Since this author is not a
philologist but only refers to linguistic material, it would take a
linguist well aware of Iranian languages to look at this word. However
such an attempt is not needed since “Awzalagh” is a later invention in Farabi’s genealogy and there is
no need for explaining its meaning with regards to Farabi.
Tarxan
Tarxan is an old title and we will
first bring an article from a Turkish scholar describing this term and
then bring opinions of well known Iranologists and Turcologists on this
term. Finally we make a brief comment.
Prominent Iranologist such as
Harold W. Baily, George E. Morgensteirne and Vasily Abaev consider the
word to be Iranian and they note that it lacks an Altaic etymology.
Harold. W. Bailey,
Indo-Scythian Studies: being Khotanese Texts, VII, Cambridge, 1985, pp.
25-41. states:
Vasily Abaev also states:
“Abaev considers this word
(lacking in a Turco-Mongolian etymology), as well Old Hungarian tarchan
“olim judex”, borrowing from Scythians (Alans) *tarxan “judge” ->
Ossetian. Taerxon “argument, trial”; cf. the Ossete idioms taerxon
kaenyn “to judge” (+ kӕnyn “to do”) and tӕrxon lӕg “judge” (+l lӕg man). Iron
ævzag”(Agustí Alemany, Sources on
the Alans, Brill Academic Publishers, 2000. Excerpt from page 328)
Another well known Iranologist and
linguist talks about “plausible Iranian origin” for words such as Xatun
(which is generally taken to be Soghdian) and Tarxan in (Monumentum Georg Morgenstierne, 1892-1978, Tome I.(Textes et
Memoires, Tome X). (ACTA Iranica) (Vol 1), Peeters Publishers (January
1, 1981).)
Among Turkologist, the Anatolian
Turkish scholar Bilge Umar attempts to connect it with the Luvian
divinity Tarkhun and makes some interesting points from Biruni, Mahmud
Kashgari and Farabi:
From a letter which was written in A.D.
718 or 719 to Cerrah (sic! Jerrah), the governor of the Arab province of
Khorasan (sic! Author means Caliphate province) and son of Abdallah,
and according to the work of certain Arab historians, someone called
Tarkhun had dominated Sogdiana at the beginning of the 8th
century. It is not very clear who was this Tarkhun.
Here his name was confused with Tarkhan. Most
probably, however, there was a connection between these two names.
As far it is understood, Tarkhan was a title but
could have been used as a name as well. In the same way,
the grandfather of Farabi, the famous scholar who claimed to be both
Turkish and Iranian, was called Tarkhan (sic! We believe
the author means “who is claimed to be rather than who claimed to be,
since such a direct claim from Farabi does not exist).
It is clear the word Tarkhan was not pure
Turkish and that it was adopted into Turkish from the old language of
Soghdiana. This was proved in the Turkish dictionary Divan
u Lugat it-Turk written by Kashgarli Mahmut (sic! Turkish way of
saying Mahmud Kashghari) in the 11th century(1985: 436-471).
Kashgarli Mahmut explained the word
Tarkhan in the following way:
“It is a name given before the Islamic
religion. It means prince (Bey, Umar) in Arghu language”
The Arghu people were the Turkish
inhabitants of the Sogdiana region or in other words some of the
Turkicized Sogdiana people. Kashgarli Mahmut also referred
to the Sogdians who were not of Turkish origin but were Turkicized
later
“Sogdak was a name of a nation who
settled in Balasagun. These were of the Sogd race. Sogd
lay between Bukhara and Samarqand. These people had
atoped the Turkish appearance and the Turkish traditions”
The Arabic historians called Tarkhun the
ruler of Samarkand or the King of Sogd (in other words Sogdiana).
In the Hastun Destani (quoted by Frye op.cit) which
concerned the capture of Bukhara by the Arabs, Tarkhun appears to be a
half epic character. The epic (destan) says that he fought
the Arabic commander Kuteybe (sic! Qutayba). After the
Arabs left the region, he was dethroned by the Turks (or Turkicized
Sogdians) who were the enemies of Arab Islam and he later killed him in
prison. Only Yakubi (Yaqubi) says that he
was killed by Gurek, who replaced him. Gurek dominated the
region 27 years and died in A.D. 737 or 738. During his
reign, Gurek had something friendly, sometimes hostile relations with
the Arabs. In AD 711, during his rule, the Arab commander,
Kuteybe, announced that he had promised himself to take revenge on
Tarkhun. He did this no doubt, in order to restore good
relations and to get the support of Tarkhun’s followers. Later,
the letter that was written to Cerrah (sic! Jarrah), the governor of
the Arab province of Horasan (sic! Khorasan) and son of Abdullah,
mentioned two sons of Tarkhuns.
Elbiruni says that Tarkhun was not a pure
name. It was a title and had the same meaning as Tarkhan.
It was however, in a different form. Welhausen
(1902:270), who may be called a contemporary historian, also accepted
this opinion. Here the most important view is that of Frye
who agreed with the Russian scholar Smirnova (quoted by Frye op.cit).
They say that the name written as Tarkhun and read as Tarkhan by
the Arabic historians should be Turkhun of the local language of
Sogdiana.
What the Turkish scholar Bilge Umar has
pointed out can be summarized as this. The name
Tarkhun/Tarkhan was the title of the ruler of Samarqand as Biruni has
noted. He also suggests that the name is not pure Turkish
but came via intermediary of Soghdian. However he believes
the original word could be from Luvian, which is much harder to prove.
L. Ligeti, a linguistics mentions it as a borrowed word
and states: “tarxan and
tegin [prince] form the wholly un-Turkish plurals tarxat and tegit”(L. Ligeti, Researches in Altaic languages, e.
A. Kiadó, 1975, University of Michigan, p. 48)
G. Clauson in his famous Etymological
Dictionary of Pre-13th century Turkish goes
with the idea of Pulleyblank that it is a
title which Chinese sources attribute to the nomadic Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu)
people.
The Turkologist Gerhard Doerfer has
denied any possibility of a relationship between the Xiongnu language
and any other known language and rejected in the strongest terms any
connection with Turkish or Mongolian. (Nicola Di Cosmo, "Ancient China
and Its Enemies". Published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. pg
164:"Bailey on the other
hand, viewed the Xiongnu as Iranian speakers, while Doerfer denied the
possibility of a relationship between the Xiongnu language and any other
known language and rejected in the strongest terms any connection with
Turkish or Mongolian")
Janos Harmmata believes that the Xiongnu confederation
consisted of 24 tribes, controlling a nomadic empire with a strong
military organization, and that "their loyal tibes and kings(shan-yu) bore Iranian names
and all the Hsiung-nu words noted by the Chinese can be explained from
an Iranian language of the Saka type." He concludes that "it is therefore clear that the
majority of Hsiung-nu tribes spoke an Eastern Iranian language"
This is also mentioned by Henryk Jankowsi (2006) who
states that "the Asian Hsiung-nu were of Iranian origin and spoke an
Iranian language of the Saka type”
There are other sources also that
consider Altaic etymology for this word also. For example:
Richard Nelson Frye,
"Tarxun-Turxun and Central Asian History", Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1/2 pp. 105-129 (1951).
We asked a prominent young linguist
Prof. Ilya Yakubovich who states that like most titles Tegin, Xaghan
and etc., the etymology of Tarxan is unclear and is possibly linked to
the Xiongnu. However they are not Altaic. Some significant number of
scholars believe that the Xiongnu was a Yenisian language.
Thus it seems there is a consensus
of philologists that the term Tarxan is a loan word in Turkish much like
other titles such as Xatun, Tegin, Khaqan and etc. It is notable that
the oldest Turkish form of the word is “Tarqan” where-as in Soghdian and
Iranian languages, it has always been Tarxan.
We also looked at the Dehkhoda
dictionary and it states that “Tarxan was a title for the local rulers
of Khorasan” and it means “noble”.
What is certain is that a title, no
matter what its etymology, can be used for a variety of people. For
example the Arabic title Sultan was used by hosts of rulers like the
Turkic Seljuqids. The same for the title of “Shah” being used across
the Islamic world. “Melik” was used by Armenian notable. Khan is
popular among Pashtuns and Punjabis and also Iranian Kurds and
Bakhtiaris.
In the case of Tarxan, the title,
if not of Iranian root, has been used by Iranians before and around the
time of Farabi as well.
For three early attestations one
can look at an early Iranian poet with this name:
“ABU’L-YANBAḠĪ ʿABBĀS B. TARḴĀN,
Iranian poet, d. 230/844. He has occasionally been identified with
Abu’l-ʿAbbās Marvazī (q.v.; d. 200/815-16; see W. Barthold, “To the
Question of Early Persian Poetry,” BSOS II , 1923, pp. 836-38).
However his usual nesba is Samarqandī. His father’s laqab,
Tarḵān, indicates a princely descent. Abu’l-Yanbaḡī was one of those
poets, called ḏu’l-lesānayn, who composed in both Arabic and
Persian; and he contributed importantly to the birth of classical
Persian poetry.”
(Y.
Richard, “ABU’L-YANBAḠĪ ʿABBĀS
B. TARḴĀN”, Encyclopedia Iranica)
In actuality, the oldest poet
credited with Persian poetry is Abu Hafs Soghdi and is mentioned by
Farabi:
“ABŪ ḤAFṢ SOḠDĪ, one of the
so-called “first poets” in New Persian. The concept of “first poet,”
however, is simplistic; since poetry, like any stage of a language,
evolves continuously and is rooted in its immediate past. The idea of
“first poet” may have evolved from the lack of distinction in taḏkeras between the term
earliest (qadīmtarīn) and first (awwal). Nor was Abū Ḥafs the first poet
who used Arabic meter in his poetry. Others had already done so, and his
extant one-line fragment does not strictly conform to the norms of
Arabic prosody.
Little
is known about Abū Ḥafs’s life; according to Fārābī (d. 329/940),
quoted in al-Moʿjam (see bibliog.), Abū Ḥafs was a master
musician who flourished in 300/912 and who developed a musical
instrument called Šahrūḏ. “(Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Abu Hafs Sogdi” in Encyclopedia
Iranica)
Indeed
Farabi himself knew both Persian and Soghdian as discussed in the Kitab
al-Horuf. It was during this era that large part of
Central Asia was adopting Persian besides the local Iranian languages
such as Soghdian and Chorasmian.
“Another
factor in the evolution of Middle Persian to Persian was the
geographical spread of this language in the wake of the Arab conquest.
Following the path of the Arab invasion, Persian spread from its own
heartlands to Central Asia (Transoxania). For their conquests, the Arabs
enlisted indigenous peoples in their armies. These local populations
did not speak a standardized Persian and in many cases did not even use
Persian among themselves. Nevertheless, the Persian of the time served
as a lingua franca for these enlisted men. They were to spread
this new version in the conquered provinces, from Azerbaijan to Central
Asia, to the detriment of other Iranian languages or other dialects of
Persian. Such was the case of Sogdian, a language belonging to an
age-old culture that was largely engulfed by Persian. Thus Persian
became, in due course, the court language of the first semi-independent
Muslim principalities, most notably those founded in the Greater
Khorasan.”(CHARLES-HENRI DE
FOUCHÉCOUR, “Iran: Classical Persian literature” in Encyclopedia
Iranica)
Thus it
is not surprising that one of the first poets in new Persian is Abu Hafs
Soghdi who is also known by Farabi. Tarxun is also
mentioned as the title of the ruler of Samarqand by Biruni. It
is also mentioned as a ruler of Sughd al-Narshakhi’s “The History of
Bukhara”.
The
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi also mentions the Iranian ruler of the Samarqand
by the Iranian name of “Bijan” and of Tarxan descent. Tarxan
thus here would have to be taken as in Biruni’s Tarxun, which is the
title of the ruler of Samarqand.
یکی پهلوان بود گسترده کام
نژادش ز طرخان و بیژن بنام
نشستش به شهر سمرقند بود
بران مرز چندیش پیوند بود
However, Ibn Khalikhan did not have
the history or philological knowledge we have today and had wrongly
assumed that due to the title (Nesba) Al-Tarxani that Farabi was
Turkish. However as shown, the title’s origin is not etymologically
known, there is an Iranian theory for the title and in the end, a title
by itself is not sufficient to decide the matter.
Arab authors and mistaking of Iranian and Turks
It should be also noted that the
term Turk was applied more as a geographical connotations for various
inhabitants of Central Asia among Arab and Arabic writers. That is the
term Turk at the time did not have the strict meaning of Turkic
speakers today. Mongols, Tibetians, Chinese and Iranians such as Alans,
Soghdians, Chorasmians, Hephtalites (the consensus now moving towards
Eastern Iranian origin) have been mistaken for Turks in Arabic and even
sometime Persian literature. The word “Turk” itself has not a clear
etymology.
Obviously, this same mistake was
not made by Iranians of Central Asia, who knew the difference well.
For example, the native Iranian-Chorasmian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni who
attests that his native language is Iranian Chorasmian also states:
“The people of Chorasmia are a branch of the Persian tree”. And we
already mentioned Avicenna who states that the Turks came from far away
lands that did not produce innate intelligence and virtue. We should
note that unlike Farabi which various accounts have been given in the 13th
century, there is no ambiguity about the Iranian origin of Biruni and
Avicenna.
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.(
With this regard, some of
these scholars might have overlooked the
fact that Biruni clearly states the people of Khwarizm are of the
Persian tree and he explicitly states his native language is Iranian
Chorasmian. He has provided personal names and names of
months and dates in the Chorasmian Iranian language and the language has
been sufficiently studied.
However,
where-as Biruni and Avicenna are from Central Asia, the same was not
true of Arabic writers or writers born in other areas of the Islamic
world who mistook Iranians and Turks. At that time, the term Turk was
not clearly defined. For example Ibn Nadeem has mentioned the Alans and
Tibetians as Turks in his Al-Fihrist. Even an erudite scholar like Ibn
Khaldun while disclaiming the historical validity of Yemenese-Himyar
mythology states about one of the Himyar (Old Yemenese people) kings: “After that, he is said to have sent three of his
sons on raids, (one) against the country of Fars, one against the
country of Soghdians, one of the Turkish nations of Transoxania, and
one against the country of Rum (Byzantines).”(The Muqaddimah)
According to one modern source with regards to military
personal in Baghdad (some sources have stated Farabi’s background was as
such):
“The name Turk was given to all these
troops, despite the inclusion amongst them of some elements of Iranian
origin, Ferghana, Ushrusana, and Shash – places were in fact the centers
were the slave material was collected together”(ʻUthmān
Sayyid Aḥmad Ismāʻīl Bīlī, "Prelude
to the Generals", Published by Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2001.)
M. A. Shaban goes further:
“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)
Note unlike what M.A. Shaban
states, someone like Ibn Khaldun has stated the Soghdians as a “Turkish”
group.
“In reference to the first two
centuries of Islam, the term “Turk” as used by Arabic and Persian
sources presents difficulties. The Muslim authors mean different things
by the term, depending on their era, proximity to Inner Asia and
knowledge of the region. It can overlap with other ethnic names (e.g.
“Soghdian, Khazar, Farghanian”). (D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2,
85—96.)
One Soghdian(Iranian) in particular
who was mistaken for a Turk was the general Afshin. That is while two old
Arabic sources mention Afshin as a Turk, it is clear to modern scholars
he was a Soghdian and other sources have mentioned him as such.
Daniel Pipes states:"Although two
classical sources claim him a Turk, he came from Farghana, an Iranian
cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish"( D. Pipes. Turks in Early Muslim Service — JTS, 1978, 2,
85—96.)
Bernard Lewis also states: "Babak's Iranianizing Rebellion in Azerbaijan gave
occasion for sentiments at the capital to harden against men who were
sympathetic to the more explicitly Iranian tradition. Victor (837) over
Babak was al-Afshin, who was the hereditary Persian ruler of a district
beyond the Oxus, but also a masterful general for the caliph.”( Bernard Lewis, "The Political Language of Islam",
Published by University of Chicago Press, 1991. Pg 482)
And J.H. Kramer states about Oshrusana:
“Under Mamun, the country had to be
conquered again and a new expedition was necessary in 207/822. On this
last occasion, the Muslim army was guided by Haydar (Khedar), the son of
the Afshīn Kāwūs, who on account of dynastic troubles had sought refuge
in Baghdād. This time the submission was complete; Kāwūs abdicated and
Haydar succeeded him, later to become one of the great nobles of the
court of Baghdād under al-Mutasim, where he was known as al-Afshīn. His
dynasty continued to reign until 280/893 (coin of the last ruler Sayr b.
Abdallāh of 279 [892] in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg); after this
date, the country became a province of the Sāmānids and ceased to have
an independent existence, while the Iranian element was eventually
almost entirely replaced by the Turkic.”(
J.H. Kramers "Usrūshana." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited
by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P.
Heinrichs. Brill, 2007)
Thus modern scholars affirm Afshin was Iranian. However
to Arab authors at the time, the term “Turk” did not specifically mean
Altaic speakers as much as a person from the far away regions of Central
Asia.
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.
Multiple History Series. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998. 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).
Thus one should be careful in looking at Arabic sources
that were written by authors far away from Central Asia. With
regards to the language and culture of the region, the work of Biruni
is clear and he differentiates clearly between Iranian(Chorasmians,
Persians, Soghdians) and Turks. Due to Farabi’s Central
Asian origin and the fact that by 13th century, a large
portion of Soghdians and Chorasmians were absorbed, the 13th
century writers did not know much about these ancient Iranian peoples.
Conclusion:
It was noted that the earliest biography mentioning the
ethnicity of Farabi were written 300 years after him. The
first biography mentions Persian, the second Turkic and the third as
Persian. These biographies cannot be deemed reliable and
contain fanciful episodes attributed to him. Looking
closer at Farabi’s work and that of his successor and probably the
greatest figure of the Medieval Islamic era (Avicenna), the following
points were mentioned:
1)
The etymology of
Tarxan is unknown by has been used by various groups. A
strong consensus exists that the term is not of Altaic origin. Whatever
its origin, since it was used by many different groups, it cannot be
used as an ethnic identifier as done by Ibn Khalikhan. The
etymology of Farab however is clearly Iranian and that of Wasij also.
As per “Awzalagh” although the “Aw” does not exist in Turkish,
the actual term “Awzalagh” does not appear in any manuscript. Thus Farabi’s full name is Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad
al-Tarxani based on reliable sources.
2)
Farabi uses Soghdian,
Persian, Syriac, Greek and Arabic expressions and lexicons but does not
have any in Turkic. He even uses
characters for special sounds in Soghdian that did not exist in Turkish
and Arabic and modern Persian.
3)
Farabi has the name
of all music modes and overwhelming majority of them is Persian and none
of them are Turkic. His book on music has been mistakenly
attributed as a book on Arabic music. It is actually a
book on Persian music of his time as mentioned by S.H. Nasr. Furthermore,
S.H.Nasr and Aminrazavi while not taking sides and mentioning various
conflicting sources on Farabi’s background do make the point that Farabi
came from a “Persianate” Environment. The Encyclopedia of Islam makes this point about the Iranian
Chorasmian language and its native speaker Biruni: “The Ḵh̲wārazmian language survived for several
centuries to come, and so must some at least of the culture and lore of
ancient Ḵh̲wārazm, for it is hard to see the commanding figure of Bīrūnī, a
repository of so much knowledge, appearing in a cultural vacuum”.
One would have to
agree that the same is true with Farabi. The Soghdians
unlike the Turks (see history of Bukhara) were settled people and had a
long history of urban Civilization.
4)
Farabi counts the
Turks as pleasure-seekers and inhabitants of the base-city and not the
virtuous city. His student, Avicenna in a direct statement
borrows the word “Virtuous city” from Farabi and states: “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”
It is obviously clear that Avicenna who expresses the opinion
that Turks lack good temperament, innate intelligence and sound minds
due to their climate was well aware of Farabi’s book. He
even borrowed the term virtuous city from Farabi’s famous book in the
statement above. Out of all the authors we mentioned, he
was the closest to Farabi’s period and the only one that had complete
mastery over Farabi’s book. Thus if Farabi was a Turk,
then Avicenna would not count Turks
as a people who were not very capable of acquiring virtue and a people
who lacked good temperament, innate intelligence and sound minds.
5)
Farabi came from a
time when Iranian settled people such as Persians, Soghdians and
Chorasmians were much more numerous. Due to their
sedentary nature, large numbers of these people were displaced by
nomadic incursions of Turkic tribes and today probably a large number of
Turkic speakers are a mixture of these Iranians and Turco-Mongolian
tribes. However at the time of Farabi, the sedentary
culture of Central Asia was overwhelmingly Iranian. Unfortunately
not too many authors today study history and just look at present
Central Asia and make conclusions without knowing the history of
Soghdians, Chorasmians and other Iranian peoples of the region. Indeed the major names like Bukhara, Samarqand, Shash (chaach)
(Tashqand today) and even the word “kent” are all Iranian.
6)
Based on these
points, we believe Farabi was an Iranic Soghdian and the mixture of
terminology in Baghdad where Central Asian inhabitants were called Turks
as well as the assimilation of Soghdians into primarily Turkic speakers
and Iranic Persian speakers was the main reason that 300
years later, Farabi’s Iranian-Soghdian origin was forgotten. Thus
some modern references have not done their critical research and have
just mixed legends with facts based on the popularized account of Ibn
Khalikhan. It is hope that this
small article is one step in correcting this situation.
Bibliography:
Persian and Arabic works:
عيون الانباء في طبقات الاطباء، طبع بيروت 1965 ص
603.
ابن خلكان، طبع ايران 1284 ه، ج 2 ص
191-193.
الفهرست، طبع طهران ص 321.
کتاب الحروف طبع بیروت
مشكور، محمدجواد. “فاراب و فارابي“.
دوره14، ش161 (اسفند 54): 15-20
لغتنامه دهخدا – مدخل: ابو علی ابن سینا - طرخان
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