history as literature

International Society for Iranian Studies

History as LiteratureAuthor(s): Julie Scott MeisamiSource: Iranian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 2000), pp. 15-30Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311332Accessed: 20/04/2010 10:47

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Iranian Studies, Volume 33, number 1-2, Winter/Spring 2000

Julie Scott Meisami

History as Literature

CONFRONTED WITH THE TASK OF WRITING A CHAPTER ON "HISTORY AS Litera- ture" for the volume on Persian historiography in the new History of Persian Literature, I found myself asking, "What does this title mean? And what might it imply?"' In medieval Islamicate societies, "history" (Arabic ta3rikh, Persian tiirtkh) referred both to a specific discipline and to works dealing with the objects of that discipline.2 If, as written works, histories may be broadly classed as "literature" (for which neither Arabic or Persian had a corresponding term until the modem period), this might suggest that historians placed style over substance, or/and that history is "imaginative writing" and may, as such, contain an element of "fiction." Indeed, as I shall note below, recent research on Arabic historiography (which poses somewhat different problems, in the main, than does Persian) has argued that many of the "historical" accounts which appear therein are, in fact, "fiction" passed off as history.

If Persian writers had no word for "literature," they had a consummate interest in matters of eloquence and style; and since history was, for them, less a dry record of events than an elucidation of the meaning of those events, historians employed such "literary" devices-narrative structure, direct discourse, rhetorical embellishment, and so on-as would effectively convey that meaning.3 Studies on pre-modern Western historiography have shown that attention to its literary and rhetorical aspects provides valuable insights into the histo-

Julie Scott Meisami is Lecturer in Persian at Oxford University.

1. The paper on which this article is based was originally presented in a panel on pre- modem Persian historiography at the 2nd International Conference on Medieval Chroni- cles, Utrecht/Driebergen, Holland, in July 1999. The panel's four speakers (Charles Mel- ville, Sholeh Quinn, Ernest Tucker, and myself) are among the contributors to the volume on Persian historiography in the new History of Persian Literature (general editor: Ehsan Yarshater), which is being edited by Charles Melville.

2. Ta'rrkh originally referred to the study of chronology (see F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography, 2nd rev. ed. [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968], 11-15) but soon came to be applied to any type of historical writing. Other terms for "history" include akhbar (sg. khabar), "accounts," and sira (pl. siyar), "life/lives," applied in the first instance to the life and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad but also, in particular, to the history of the pre- Islamic Persian kings (siyar muliuk al-Furs). See R. S. Humphreys, "Ta'rikh. II. Histori- cal Writing," EI2 10: 271-76; Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, 67-98.

3. See J. S. Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edin- burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), especially 289-98.

16 Meisami

nan's method and ultimate intent;4 but only recently have "literary-critical" methods been applied to the study of Islamicate historiography, often by scholars whose primary concern is to separate "fact" from "fiction." Most such studies have focused on the problematic field of early Islamic history, as written by historians who lived much later, who utilized accounts transmitted from earlier authorities but had their own political and/or polemic agendas. The seminal work in this respect is Albrecht Noth's Quellenkritische Studien zu Themen, Formen und Tendenzen fruhislamischer Geschichtsuberlieferung (first published in 1973), a revised version of which, in collaboration with Lawrence Conrad, appeared in English translation in 1994.5 The authors come to the conclusion that (for example) the presence of identifiable "topics" and "schemes" in an

6 account is an indicator of its historical unreliability. A slightly more "literary" approach has been taken by Stefan Leder, who has argued, in one study, that while the use of isnad (chain of transmission) would seem to exclude "narrative creativity . . . inasmuch as the factual value of the information is maintained," when we find that "essential parts of [the] plot" of an account originate from "narrative invention" we are faced with "falsification" on the part of the historian/compiler utilizing that account.7 Such arguments hark back to the old view-voiced notably by Gibb and von Grunebaum-that the virtual takeover of the writing of history in the 4th/lOth century by court secretaries and officials, and the increasing "literarization" of style which resulted, led to a decline in that "once noble" discipline.8

In a recent seminar talk I discussed the possible implications of such research for the study of Persian historiography,9 focusing on Stefan Leder's lead article in a volume of conference proceedings,'0 titled "Conventions of Fic-

4. The relevant literature, which encompasses historical writing from the classical to the early modern period, is far too abundant to cite here. For particularly relevant essays on historiography in the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance see Emest Breisach ed., Classical Rhetoric and Medieval History (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 1985).

5. Albrecht Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Traditions: A Source-Critical Study, in collaboration with Lawrence I. Conrad, trans. Michael Bonner (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1994).

6. Noth, Studien, 109-10; see also Meisami, Persian Historiography, 283-84.

7. S. Leder, "Features of the Novel in Early Historiography: The Downfall of Xalid al- Qasri," Oriens 32 (1990): 74.

8. See Meisami, Persian Historiography, 1-2, and the references cited. Gibb also commented on the "unfavorable" influence of the Persian historical tradition on Arabic- Islamic historiography; see H.A.R. Gibb, "Tarikh," in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, ed. Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 116-17 (originally published in the Supplement to the first edition of the Encyclo- paedia of Islam in 1938).

9. Seminar on the Medieval Mediterranean, c.400-c.1300, St. Hilda's College, Oxford, 25 November 1999.

10. Stefan Leder ed., Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Litera- ture (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998).

History as Literature 17

tional Narration in Learned Literature." This title is somewhat surprising, as Leder begins by citing various scholarly opinions to the effect that "Arabic literary theory does not provide for fiction" and that "there was a reluctance to accept fiction in medieval learned literature." Nevertheless, he insists, "the existence of fictive contents in many narratives," including historical accounts, "cannot be seriously contested;"" and he sets out to prove this in his article, in which, after noting that "fictional narration" is always "imbedded in a main- stream of factual, or allegedly factual, narration," producing an ambiguity which "often obstructs any attempt to decide which text, or which part of a text, should be regarded as fiction," he attempts to "clarify the criteria which allow to identify fiction in pre-modern Arabic literature."'12

After many convoluted arguments-which involve, in particular, identify- ing those elements which "betray literary composition, authorial intentions and fictitious contents")13 (note how the three are equated; and note that telling word, "betray")-and after asserting that the use of various types of embellishment (direct discourse, insertion of appropriate verses, and so on), which serves to present the characters in a certain moral light, "is intentional and thus indicates [the historian's] perception of decreasing factuality,"'14 at the end of this lengthy article (which I have, perhaps unjustly, only barely summarized here) Leder seems to waffle, when he states that

Our conclusion that a narrative is created according to the invention and narrative skills of a story-telling mind does not offer ample proof for [its] fictional status . . . i.e., that it is conventionally reckoned as fiction. The status of our examples . . . cannot be established on the ground of an analytical reading of the plot, as long as the intended reception of the text is not considered ...

which, to all intents and purposes, it is not.'5 Without going into details, I think that Leder has, basically, missed the boat: he has failed, first, to perceive the

11. Leder, "Conventions of Fictional Narration in Learned Literature," in Storytelling, 34.

12. Ibid., 34-35.

13. Ibid., 46. 14. Ibid., 55.

15. Ibid., 59. Leder's concluding statement gives the game away, as he states that "Narrative texts often oscillate between factual and fictive . .. because fiction has not won general acceptance as a mode of literary expression in its own right .... Story-telling is an essential component of learned literature. At instances, fictional narration is deliberately chosen as a mode of expression. As a rule, however, narration retains the guise of factuality and thus establishes its ambigious [sic] character typical of this literature. This convention seems to generate a constant play engaging narrator and recipient: The exposure of the fictional character of narration is avoided, and this mode of expression is thus integrated into the confines of refined literature. The fact that fiction did not unfold in this literature in a way comparable to the European tradition must not blur the perception of the existing range of expression" (Leder, "Conventions," 60; emphasis mine). What we have here, it appears, is an apologia for why Arabic literature never

18 Meisami

difference between "fiction" and "invention" and, second, to recognize that products of the "story-telling mind" do not necessarily equate with the "deliberate use of fiction."

What has this to do with Persian historiography? Nearly twenty years ago the late Marilyn Waldman, in her pioneering study of Abu'l-Fazl Bayhaqi, argued that the adoption of a literary-critical approach to historical texts could reveal an "unconscious patterning . .. which has meaning beyond the deliberate intention of the author.",16 She posited that "historical narrative is . . . problematic . . . because it is neither ordinary discourse nor is it literary or poetic discourse in today's usage," but is presumed to be "a special kind of language whose determining characteristic is its aim to be truthful" and "to be free from fictivity to the extent that it is good history."'17 Adapting "speech-act" theory, especially as developed by Mary Louise Pratt, and Pratt's distinction "between the assertible, i.e, true and informative, and the tellable, i.e., the not obviously true," she argued that in terms of this theory Bayhaqi's history constitutes a "display text" whose emphasis is on "tellability" rather than on "factuality." 18 In other words, if it's a good story, tell it, even though the "facts" may go by the board.

It surprises me that, while writers on Islamicate historiography often invoke a rather heterogeneous selection of Western "literary theory," they seldom have recourse to studies on pre-modern Western historiography that might provide useful comparative insights. In particular, the concept of "ethical-rhetorical" historiography, which is widely accepted in Western scholarship, has not yet penetrated our field, and I seem to be the only person to have made use of it.19 Yet this concept is crucial to the present discussion. For from the beginning the writers of histories in Persian were, almost without exception, court secretaries or officials, who were both schooled in the strategies and subtleties of rhetoric (both Arabic and Persian) and supremely conscious of the ethical lessons history had to offer, and who utilized their rhetorical skills to convey those lessons. And, as I shall argue here, if the style of the early historians was relatively unembellished (in the conventional understanding of "rhetoric"), it was, none- theless, rhetorical.

One of the earliest surviving Persian histories is the "translation" of Muhammad ibn Jarir Tabari's (d. 314/926) Ta-rrkh al-rusul wa-al-muluik, "His- tory of Prophets and Kings," commissioned in 352/963 by the Samanid ruler of Transoxania and Khurasan, Mansur ibn Nuh, and carried out, on his order, by his vizier, Abu cAli Balcami. As Balcami took abundant liberties with his origi-

developed "fiction" as "we" (that is, we Westerners) know it and, more importantly, define it.

16. M. R. Waldman, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso- Islamicate Historiography (Columbus: Ohio State University Press), 7.

17. Ibid., 17.

18. Ibid., 18-19.

19. See for example the essays in Breisach, Classical Rhetoric; also J. S. Meisami, "The Past in Service of the Present," Poetics Today 14 (1993): 247-75, and Meisami, Persian Historiography.


nal, the result was less a "translation" than an adaptation.20 While Balcamis style is often considered representative of the "simple, unadorned" prose of the early period of Persian prose, it is also highly rhetorical, although the deliberate use of rhetorical techniques is reserved for certain crucial episodes, "high points" in the narrative. One such "high point" concerns the fall of the Bar- makids, that powerful Persian family of viziers and officials, in 187/803, in the reign of Harun al-Rashid. This catastrophe provided a "set piece" for many Ara- bic and Persian historians, who saw in it an opportunity for comment on the danger of acquiring too much power, influence, and wealth, on the fickleness of rulers, and (especially in Balcami's case) on the moral decline of the Abbasid caliphate.2' While the historians disagree about the reasons for this catastrophe, most concur that its immediate cause was the caliph's discovery of the affair between his sister, cAbbasa, and the Barmakid Jacfar, which resulted in Jacfar's execution and the destruction of the entire Barmakid family.

Balcami's account of the Barmakids' fall constitutes an independent chapter 22 in which the events leading up to Jacfar's death form the climax. The chapter

may be briefly summarized as follows. The Barmakid vizier, Yahya, had four sons (Fadl, Jacfar, Musa, and Muhammad); they were powerful officials, possessed great wealth, and were close to the caliph. (Balcami's comment on the caliph's habit of drinking in the company of his womenfolk, female slaves, and musicians is a detail which will prove relevant later.) Various reasons are given for the Barmakids' downfall. When Yahya sought to retire, the vizierate alter- nated between Fadl (whom Yahya preferred) and Jacfar (whom the caliph preferred), until Yahya finally resumed his duties. Inevitably, his lengthy service (some 17 years) made him many enemies, one of whom accused the Barmakids of heresy (that is, of secretly practicing Zoroastrianism). In the past, Jacfar had freed a rebel who had been in his custody; the caliph pardoned him, but remained displeased. Last (but not least), in order to enjoy the company of both Jacfar and cAbbasa in the same gatherings without Jacfar feeling uncomfortable, the caliph arranged a marriage between the two. This was to be a marriage in name only; but nature took its course, and cAbbasa bore a child, who was sent away to Mecca to be hidden. Eventually, Harun learned about the child's existence from a disgruntled slave. In 187/803 Harun went on the pilgrimage; on the return journey he had Jacfar executed, and destroyed the entire Barmakid family. A translation of the relevant part of the account follows.

20. See Meisami, Persian Historiography, 28-37, and the references cited.

21. There is an extensive literature on the Barmakid catastrophe and its historical and literary treatments. See, for example, J. S. Meisami, "Masctidi on Love and the Fall of the Barmakids," JRAS 1989: 252-77; and, more recently, A. Hamori, "Going Down in Style: the Pseudo-Ibn Qutayba's Story of the Fall of the Barmakis," Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 3 (1994): 89-125; J. Sadan, "Death of a Princess: Episodes of the Bar- makid Legend in Its Late Evolution," in Stefan Leder, ed., Story-Telling, 130- 57.

22. Abu cAli Balcami, Tdrikhndmah-i Tabart, bakhsh-i chap-nashudah, ed. Muhammad Rawshan (Tehran: Nashr-i Alburz, 1994), 1: 1193-1200.

20 Meisami

That year [the caliph] determined to go on the pilgrimage. He took Yahya and the [other] Barmakids with him, and completed the pilgrimage. Then he summoned cAbbasa's son, and found that he was extremely beautiful, and resembled both cAbbasa and Jacfar. He wanted to kill him; then he thought, "What sin has he committed?" When he returned [from the pilgrimage] and reached Anbar [a station on the pilgrimage route], he stayed there three days. On the third day he summoned Jacfar, Fadl and Musa, Yahya's sons, and bestowed robes of honor upon them, along with other honors, as he did upon Yahya too, so that all were happy and felt secure. At the time of the noonday prayer he said: "Tonight I will drink wine with my slave-girls; other- wise I would not let you go." Then he said to Jacfar: "Tonight you, too, make merry and drink with your slave-girls." Jacfar went out.

Rashid entered the slave-girls' tent and sat down to drink. Some time passed. He sent someone to Jacfar to see if he was drinking; he was not. Rashid sent someone (else) to him, to say: "By my life and soul! Organize a drinking party, and drink and make merry tonight, because wine is not pleasing to me unless I know that you too are drinking!" Jacfar was distressed and frightened; against his will he organized a party, and withdrew. He had a blind singer called Bu Zak- kar. When they had drunk some wine, Jacfar said to Bu Zakkar: "I am fearful tonight, and feel very unwell." Bu Zakkar replied: "O vizier, the caliph has never honored you and your family as much as he has done on this day and night; you should be happy." Jacfar said: "Bu Zakkar, my heart is ever fearful, and I am very anxious." "Such thoughts are suggestions (of the devil); put them out of your mind, and make merry tonight."

At the time of the evening prayer a messenger came to Jacfar from Rashid bearing sweetmeats and fragrant incense which (the caliph) had collected from his own party and sent to him; and the same happened at the time of the late-night prayer. Three times that night Rashid sent a messenger to Jacfar with sweetmeats and incense. When the night was half-gone, Rashid went from the women's tent to his own, summoned Masrur al-Khadim [the royal executioner] and said: "Go now, take Yahya's son Jacfar to your tent, cut off his head and bring it to me." When Masrur entered (Jacfar's tent) Bu Zakkar was singing this verse of poetry:

Do not go far away! For to every noble youth will come death, whether he travel by night or by morning.

Masrur went in and stood over Jacfar. When Jacfar saw him he was afraid. Masrur said: "The caliph summons you." (Jacfar) asked: "Where is the caliph?" - "He was (drinking) with the women, but now he has gone to his own (tent)." Jacfar asked: "Give me enough time to go to my women's tent and make my testament." Masrur replied: "You cannot go there; whatever testament you wish to make, make it here." So


Jacfar made his testament in that same place; (then) Masrur took him to his own tent and drew his sword. Jacfar asked: "What has he [the caliph] commanded?" (Masrur replied): "He has commanded that I take him your head."-"Beware; he said this while drunk, and will repent of it. You must go once more [and ask him]." He swore an oath (to Mas- rur), and reminded him of the obligations and friendships of the past.

Masrur went to Rashid, who was in the place of prayer, waiting for Masrur. He said: "So, where is Jacfar's head?" (Masrur) answered: "O caliph, I have brought Jacfar.'' "I did not ask for Jacfar; I asked for his head!" Masrur went back, cut off (Jacfar's) head and brought it to Rashid. He said, "Keep his head and his body until I ask you for them; now, at once, take Yahya and his three sons, Fadl and Muhammad and Musa, and his brother Muhammad . . . to your tent and put them in chains, and seize whatever belongings you find with them." Masrur did so. When it was day, Rashid sent Jacfar's head to Baghdad to be exhibited on a cross.23

Following this account, Balcami moves to the consequences of the Bar- makid affair. People blamed the caliph for having made a private matter public; Rashid's affairs began to decline, and he was unable to put down the rebellions which broke out against him. He repented his actions publicly, and was criticized for having done so and for revealing his dependence on the Barmakids.24

Balcami's narrative, which is, in the main, clear and concise, moves forward rapidly. The climax of the story of Jacfar's fate is adorned by the singer's verses (in Arabic) and by direct discourse, both of which enhance the dramatic effect. Balcami conveys both criticism (which he attributes to others) and moral and political comment: the caliph's actions ultimately brought about his own political collapse. One striking feature of this account is its depiction of the combina- tion of duplicity and arbitrariness which characterized the caliph's actions. This is worth bearing in mind.

At the end of the 4th/10th century the Samanids collapsed. They were replaced by the Ghaznavids, whose greatest ruler, Mahmud (338-421/998-1030), acquired a large empire. The decline of Ghaznavid power during the reign of Mahmud's son Mascud I (421-32/1030-41) culminated in the latter's defeat by the Saljuq steppe Turks in 431/1040. Around 450/1058, Abu'l-Fazl Bayhaqi was completing his lengthy history of the dynasty, of which only those parts dealing with Mascud's reign survive. Part of his project was to reaffirm Ghaznavid legitimacy; part was to show how, and why, Mascud had managed to lose half their empire.

The late Allin Luther argued that Bayhaqi's style exemplified the plain, unembellished prose employed by the Ghaznavid chancery.25 Waldman thought

23. Balcami, Tarikhndmah, 1: 1197-99.

24. Balcami, Telrrkhnelmah, 1: 1199-2000.

25. K. A. Luther, "Bayhaqi and the Later Saljuq Historians: Some Comparative Remarks;" in Yadnamah-i Abu al-Fazl Bayhaqi (Meshed: Danishgah-i Mashhad, 1971), 14-33. Luther's argument is, however, circular, since he relies on Bayhaqi's own copies

22 Meisami

that his characteristic use of digressions functioned to dissimulate views which might have been unpopular or offensive26 (although Bayhaqi seems to have had little difficulty in calling a spade a spade); E. A. Poliakova considered that his primary intention was "to depict reality."27 Such conflicting views reflect the complexity of Bayhaqi's work, a complexity which may be seen in the chapter devoted to the events surrounding the execution of Mahmud's former vizier Hasanak in 422/1031, the first year of Mascud's reign.28

Relying on his audience to recall events mentioned earlier-how Hasanak had incurred the enmity both of Mascud and of his crony Bu Sahl Zawzani, and how, when Mascud had wrested the throne from his half-brother Muhammad (Mahmud's designated heir, whom Hasanak had supported), Bu Sahl had had Hasanak arrested-Bayhaqi begins this separate chapter on Hasanak's end with a declaration of his intent and an abjuration that he should not be accused of prejudice (specifically, against Bu Sahl). He then comments both on Bu Sahl's vindictive nature and on Hasanak's arrogance (he is compared to the equally arrogant Barmakid, Jacfar): servants should mind their tongues when speaking to their superiors, he states.29 Bayhaqi recalls how Hasanak, when criticized for his support of Muhammad, had sent a message to Mascud via the latter's confi- dant, saying: "Tell your master: Whatever I do is in accordance with my master's [i.e. Mahmud's] orders; if you [Mascud] should gain the throne, (then) you must execute me."30 We also learn that during his vizierate, Hasanak's cham- berlain (pardah-dar) had insulted Bu Sahl, who was, thenceforth, Hasanak's deadly enemy.3'

Bu Sahl prevailed upon Mascud to revive an old charge of heresy against Hasanak, incurred in Mahmud's reign when, as leader of the pilgrimage, he had brought the pilgrims back from Arabia through Fatimid Egypt and Syria, had bypassed Baghdad and the caliphal court, and had accepted a robe of honor from the Fatimid caliph. The Abbasid caliph, al-Qadir, had ordered Mahmud to execute Hasanak for heresy; Mahmud (with some forthrightness) declined to obey.32 Bayhaqi relates the opinions of various officials about this affair-largely favor- able towards Hasanak, and shocked at Bu Sahl's vindictive campaign against

of chancery documents, inserted into his history, to establish the parameters of Ghaznavid chancery style. For an illuminating insight into how official letters ought (or ought not) to be written, see Abu'l-Fazl Bayhaqi, Tiirrkh-i Bayhaqt, ed. cAli Akbar Fayyaz (Mashhad: Danishgah-i Mashhad, 1971), 844 46.

26. Waldman, Theory, 72-73.

27. E. A. Poliakova, "The Development of a Literary Canon on Medieval Persian Chronicles: the Triumph of Etiquette," Iranian Studies 17 (1984), 241.

28. Bayhaqi, Thrikh, 221-46. On this portion of Bayhaqi's history see also J. S. Mei- sami, "Exemplary Lives, Exemplary Deaths: The Execution of Hasanak," in Actas XVI Congreso UEAI (Salamanca: AECI, 1995), 357-64.

29. Bayhaqi, Tarlrkh, 221-23.

30. Ibid., 223.

31. Ibid., 225.

32. Ibid., 227.


him-and tells of Mascud's initial vacillation and his final decision to proceed. After a lengthy account of how Hasanak was tried, condemned, and his property confiscated,33 Bayhaqi moves to the scene of his public execution in Balkh, which stands at the exact midpoint of this chapter.

All that day and night they made preparations for Hasanak's execution. They had got up two men in messengers' dress, as if (they had come) from Baghdad with the caliph's letter, commanding that Hasanak the Carmathian be crucified and stoned, so that never again would anyone, in despite of the caliph, don an Egyptian robe of honor, or lead the pilgrims through that land. When all had been prepared, the next day . .. Amir Mascud mounted up and went off to hunt and make merry for three days, along with his boon companions, familiars, and minstrels. He commanded his deputy in the city to erect a scaffold next to the Balkh musalla, at the bottom of the city, and everyone set out for that place. Bu Sahl [Zawzani] mounted up, came near the scaffold and halted on a high place. Cavalry and foot soldiers had gone to bring Hasanak; when they brought him out of the Bazar-i cAshiqan [one of the markets of Balkh], and he reached the city, Mika'il [an old enemy of Hasanak], who had halted his horse there, came to meet him, called him a traitor, and cursed him foully. Hasanak paid no attention to him, and did not reply. The common people cursed him, and what the elite said about this Mika'il cannot be told ....

They brought Hasanak to the foot of the scaffold-may God preserve us from an evil Fate!-where they had placed the two messengers, [got up] as if they had come from Baghdad. They summoned the Koran-readers, and ordered Hasanak to remove his clothing. He put his hand beneath his garments, tightened the belt of his undertrousers and closed their ankle-strings; then he took off his cloak and shirt and cast them aside, along with his turban. He stood there naked, in his trousers, his hands folded; his body was like white silver, his face like a hundred thousand beautiful idols. The people all wept in anguish. They had brought an iron-banded helmet-deliberately, one that was too small, so that it did not cover his head and face-and cried out, "Cover his face, that it may not be ruined by the stones, for we are going to send his head to the Caliph in Baghdad." They kept Hasanak there in that state-his lips moving, reciting something under his breath-until a larger helmet was brought. In the meanwhile Ahmad, the Keeper of the Robes, came up on horseback, looked at Hasanak and gave him this message: "Our lord the sultan says: This is what you wished for when you said, 'When you become sultan, then execute me.' We wished to be merciful to you; but the Caliph has written that you have become a heretic; it is by his order that we execute you." Hasanak made no reply at all.

33. Ibid., 228-32.

24 Meisami

Then, when they had brought a larger helmet, they covered his head and face with it. Then they shouted to him, "Run!" He did not move, and paid no attention; some people cried out, "Aren't you ashamed to make a man you're going to kill run to the scaffold?" A riot nearly broke out; the horsemen rode at the people and put down the disturbance. They brought Hasanak to the scaffold and placed him there; they set him on a mount he had never ridden. The executioner bound him fast, and brought down the noose. They shouted, "Stone him!" But no one touched a stone, and all wept bitterly .... Then they gave money to a bunch of ruffians to stone him; but he himself was dead, since the executioner had put a cord around his neck and stran- gled him. Such was Hasanak and his fate .... And if he had wrongly seized the land and water of Muslims, neither land nor water remained; all those slaves, properties, possessions, gold and silver and luxuries were of no profit to him. He departed, and those who plotted (against him) have departed, may God have mercy on them! And this story is a great admonition: for they left behind them all those causes of conflict and strife for the sake of worldly rubbish. How stupid is the man who fixes his heart on this world! For it gives blessings, but takes [them] back in an evil way.

By thy life! this world is no place of sojourning, when its covering falls from the eyes of those with vision. How should people survive in it, when its survival is gained through the means of destruction?

Rudaki says:

The guest cannot fix his heart forever on this transient abode. You must sleep deep in its earth, even though now you sleep in

silken brocades. What use is it to keep company with others, when you will enter

the grave alone? Your companions beneath the earth will be ants and flies, instead

of the one who dressed your curling locks. And the one who dressed your curling locks-though his fee be

gold and silver coins: When he sees you have grown yellow and wan, his heart will grow

cold-he is not blind!

And when they were finished with all this, Bu Sahl and his people left the foot of the scaffold, and Hasanak remained alone, just as he had emerged alone from his mother's womb.?4

34. Ibid., 232-34.


After this meditation on the transience of worldly power, Bayhaqi tells how, after the execution, Bu Sahl, drinking and feasting with his friends, had Hasanak's head brought in to them on a covered platter, to the disgust and hor- ror of the gathering. Hasanak's body was left to rot on the cross for nearly seven years, until Mascud commanded that it be taken down and buried. When she learned of her son's death, Hasanak's mother did not grieve "as women do," but wept bitterly, and then said: "What a great man was this son of mine, to whom a king like Mahmud gave this world, and a king like Mascud the next."35

"Such a thing has happened (before) in the world," says Bayhaqi, launching into one of his characteristic digressions, which takes up nearly half the chapter and includes four stories (two fairly lengthy, two so short as to be merely allu- sive) about two sets of individuals: first, two first/seventh-century rebels against Umayyad authority, who were killed and their bodies hung on crosses; and second, two viziers-Jacfar the Barmakid and the Buyid vizier Ibn Baqiyya-who met similar fates because of their arrogance and inability to hold their tongues.36 The story about Jacfar is worth noting, for purposes of comparison with Balcami. After Jacfar's execution Harun al-Rashid ordered his body quartered and exhibited on four crosses, and forbade expressions of pity for the Barmakids under threat of punishment. Later he regretted his actions; and when a man caught reciting sympathetic verses beneath one of the crosses was brought before the caliph, and explained to him that he had been discharging his obligations of loyalty towards the Barmakids and was ready to accept punishment, the caliph wept and pardoned him. Bayhaqi tells these stories, he says, to show that "Hasanak had companions in this world greater than he; if what happened to him happened to them, it should not be marvelled at."37

Hasanak's execution stands at the midpoint of this chapter, which is clearly meant to be taken as a whole; but commentators usually ignore the digression and concentrate on the historical account. R. S. Humphreys (for example) sees here evidence of Bayhaqi's "political realism," his acknowledgement that the ruler had "the right to do whatever he wished with his servants." The "complex charade" of Hasanak's trial, in which Mascud exhibits a "punctilious concern for form and due process," demonstrates that "in order for the state to maintain itself, there must appear to be law even when there is no law."38 But Bayhaqi's "literary" treatment of Hasanak's trial and execution-his appearance on the scaffold, the reaction of the onlookers-presents him as a martyr to royal injus- tice, and exposes Mascud's (and Bu Sahl's) manipulation of the "law" for their own vindictive purposes; while the digression, which juxtaposes Hasanak with two viziers who suffered for their arrogance and two martyrs to Umayyad tyr- anny, raises a number of questions. Bayhaqi's style is thus not as "straightfor-

35. Ibid., 236.

36. Ibn Baqiyya's execution was the subject of a famous poem which Bayhaqi quotes at length. (See "Ibn al-Anbari", in J. S. Meisami and Paul Starkey, eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature [London: Routledge, 19981, 1: 31 1).

37. Bayhaqi, Tdrtkh: 242-43.

38. R. S. Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Enquiry, revised ed. (Prince- ton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 144.

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ward" as has been imagined; nor does it lack for "embellishment" (we may note that the verses in Arabic and Persian which follow the account of Hasanak's execution form a transition to the remainder of the chapter). Moreover, the structure of the entire chapter is extremely precise: the preliminary material (the supposed charge against Hasanak, background material, the trial etc.) precedes the central section (the execution), which is followed by the digression (suitably introduced by an appropriate topical reference, to Hasanak's mother). The orga- nization of the chapter follows the rhetorical principles of fasl u vasl, and demonstrates that the "rules" of rhetoric are not-pace Luther9-so much "constraints" upon the writer as internalized principles of composition.

From the mid-5th/l Ith century we jump to the late 6thIl2th, when (as Luther argued) the figured, rhetorical style became the norm for Saljuq chanceries.40 Luther was perhaps not aware that the credit for this was assigned, not to a Saljuq secretary, but to Rashid al-Din Vatvat, secretary and important official at the court of the Khwarazmshah Atsiz.41 Luther, contrasting the plain style of the Ghaznavid chancery (as exemplifed by Bayhaqi) with the figured style of late Saljuq chanceries, argued that the difference reflected a change in the ruler's involvement in the preparation of official correspondence (in which Ghaznavid rulers participated directly, but which the often illiterate Saljuq sultans left to their officials), and that writers of other prose genres were constrained to "follow the rules" laid down in the manuals of style.42 But if it is true that this style was popularized by Rashid-i Vatvat, this would seem to invalidate Luther's argument. It is also noteworthy that the authors of "manuals of style" (most of which were written in the East) routinely caution against the use of an exces- sively ornamental style, as it both impedes communication of the matter at hand and leads to unnecessary prolixity. And while the development of the figured style may be seen as a manifestation of the "literarization" of Persian prose, individual styles continued to vary according to both the writer's taste and that of his intended audience.

It is in such a spirit that we should approach Muhammad cAli Ravandi's Raihat al-sudu4r, completed around 601/1204-5, which deals with the history of the Saljuqs from their semi-legendary origins to the collapse of the dynasty in

39. K. Allin Luther, "Chancery Writing as a Source of Constraints on History Writing in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries of the Hijra," unpublished seminar paper, University of Michigan, 1977.

40. See Luther, "Chancery Writing" and K. Allin Luther, "Islamic Rhetoric and the Persian Historians, 1000-1300 A.D.," in Studies in Near Eastern Culture and History in Memory of Ernest T. Abdel-Massih, ed. James A. Bellamy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, 1990), 90-98.

41. Baha' al-Din Baghdadi credits Rashid-i Vatvat with having introduced rhymed prose and the ornate, figured style into Persian tarassul, "partly to reflect glory on his royal patron and partly to demonstrate [his] own erudition and refined style." F.-A. Mojtabd'i, "Correspondence. II. Islamic Persia," EIr 6: 292; Baha' al-Din Baghdadi, al- Tawassul ila al-tarassul, ed. Ahmad Bahmanyar (Tehran, 1936), 9. Baghdadi notes that this innovation was "not approved by the masters of style."

42. Luther, "Chancery Writing."


590/1194. While Ravandi's accounts of the early Saljuqs are based on the earlier Saljuqnaimah of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri, he has taken many liberties with his model, not least in his addition of rhetorical embellishment. For this he has been judged harshly, accused of plagiarism and of ignorance of both the art of history and that of literature, and criticized for his use of such devices as rhyming prose and interpolations, which are considered tedious, inapt, and unrelated to the narrative. While Luther disagreed with this judgement, he did not (in my view) go far enough in attempting to evaluate the function of Ravandi' s ornate style.43

A concise example of this style is seen in Ravandi's account of the murder of the former vizier Abu Nasr Kunduri in 456/1064, which appears at the beginning of his chapter on the reign of the second Saljuq sultan Alp Arslan (455-65/1063-73). The highly schematic nature of this chapter establishes a pattern that Ravandi repeats (and expands upon) in those on later rulers. It may be divided into seven major sections: (1) Alp Arslan's accession, the duration of his reign, his age at death and his date of birth; the names of his vizier and his chamberlains; his seal; his moral qualities and physical appearance; his skill with the bow ("his arrow never missed its mark"); a capsule description of his reign as "tranquil;'44 (2) the murder of Kunduri at the instigation of Alp Arslan's vizier Nizam al-Mulk (see below); (3) Alp Arslan's campaigns, battles, and peaceful achievements, culminating in the battle of Malazgird/Manzikert (463/1071) and the capture of the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes; (4) amplification of (3): the story of the Greek slave who captured Romanus; the fixing of tribute; (5) Alp Arslan's murder, avenged by the officer Jamic (we might note, 'a propos of the earlier reference to Alp Arslan's skill as an archer, that his assassin succeeded because the arrow the sultan loosed at him did miss its mark; this motif links the beginning and end of his reign); (6) amplification of (5): how Jamic gained requital for his son's murder from Alp Arslan's son and successor, Malikshah, by reminding him of his previous action; (7) praise of the book's dedicatee (the Saljuq sultan of Konya, Ghiyas al-Din Kaykhusraw), followed by a panegyric poem.

The style of the first part of the preliminary section is terse and summary. The second part begins with a long sentence in rhyming prose, and concludes with an Arabic proverb and a Persian verse paraphrase.

Sultan Alp Arslan was a ruler who possessed dignity and severity, who was merciful, fortunate, and vigilant, who vanquished foes and cast adversaries low, one without match who the whole world grasped, the throne's adorner, a universal conqueror. He was mighty in stature, with mustaches so long that when he shot his bow he would tie them in a knot. His arrow never missed its mark. He wore a high turban, and seated on the throne on audience days, he was extremely formidable and majestic. They say that from the tips of his mustaches to the top of

43. Luther, "Islamic Rhetoric," 95. See also J. S. Meisami, "Ravandi's Rahat al-sudar: History or Hybrid?", Edebiyat, n.s., 5 (1995): 187-88.

44. Muhammad Ali Ravandi, The Rahat-us-sudur wa-ayat-as-suruir, ed. Muhammad Iqbal (Leiden: E. J. Brill; London: Luzac, 1921), 117.

28 Meisami

his crown was two cubits' length. Every envoy who came into his presence was terrified. He had a tranquil reign. [Proverb] For the man of good endeavor, his pastures will be pleasant ever.

The man whose life and deeds in good abound: his fields will furnish a good hunting ground.

These verses constitute the transition to the next section, the account of Kunduri's murder.

Following the death of his uncle Tughril Beg, [Alp Arslan] seized cAmid al-Mulk [Kunduri], who had been his uncle's vizier, and gave the vizierate to Nizam al-Mulk, who had served Alp Arslan before he became sultan. He took Bu Nasr Kunduri with him wherever he went for a year. [Proverb] The greatest of afflictions is the violation of pro- tection .... In 456 [1064], in the city of Nasa, he ordered that cAmid al-Mulk be killed; and Nizam al-Mulk was complicit in this. [Proverb] When you seek counsel from the unwise, he will choose for you only lies ....

I heard that when the assassin came into his presence, [Kunduri] asked for a brief respite. He performed his ablutions, completed two prostrations of prayer, and then made [the assassin] swear, "When you have carried out the king's command, take a message from me to the Sultan, and another to the vizier. Tell the Sultan: What an auspicious service was my service to you [the Saljuqs]: your uncle gave me this world, so that I governed it, and you have given me the next world, and provided me with martyrdom. Thus through serving you I have gained both this world and the next. And tell the vizier: You have introduced an evil innovation and a foul principle into this world by killing a vizier; I hope you will see this custom once again with respect to your- self and your descendants." [Proverb] He who loves himself will avoid sins; and he who loves his son will be merciful to orphans.

Thus has it been, long as the sphere has rolled: sometimes it's filled with hate, sometimes with love. If you are wise, then count it not your friend; for when it can, your flesh 'twill surely rend. Although the lofty sphere extends afar, the veil of mysteries still stands before. Thus, while you can, in joy pass through this world; think on the fateful turning of the sphere. It elevates one to the lofty heavens, and makes him safe from sickness and from pain; Thence to the earth he's carried by the sphere, where all is sickness and regret and fear. That same one that it raised with love it casts, bewildered, down again into a pit. It brings one from the pit onto the throne,


and places on his head a jewelled crown; But in the end both lie in earth; the vine gives way unto the clasping of the thorn.45

In this account, the interpolated proverbs serve to provide comment (by heeding the bad advice of an unwise counselor the sultan has violated his moral obligation to protect a loyal servant); the dramatic account of the murder concludes with Kunduri's message to the sultan (in which is clearly echoed the words of Hasanak's mother), and his prophetic words to the vizier (who, as Ravandi's audience well knew, had met his death at the hands of an assassin).46 The section concludes with a proverb and a lengthy quotation from Firdawsi's Shahnamah on the transience of worldly power.

These three passages show that the rhetorical bases of the so-called "ornate style" of the 6th/12th century-concern for overall structure and for establishing stylistic and thematic links and transitions; the positioning of a crucial episode at a critical point in the account or chapter; the use of direct discourse for dramatic effect-were already in place in the 4th/lOth; all that has been added is a more liberal use of ornament. Moreover, the "ornate style" made its way not only into historiography, but also into other types of writing, and notably into story-col- lections employing mixed prose and verse.47 The result, as far as the writing of history was concerned, was an explictly ethical-rhetorical historiography, which is perhaps best exemplified by Ravandi's Riahat al-sudur; but the pervasiveness of this style was by no means universal, and it continued to co-exist with "simpler" and less embellished prose (exemplified, for example, by Nishapuri's Saljuqniamah, as well as by numerous other works).

Are the accounts we have discussed, or the works in which they occur, to be classified as "literature"? Insofar as they possess decidedly aesthetic character- istics, the answer must be yes. But should the fact that they feature recognizable narrative strategies, conscious emplotment, direct discourse, recurrent topoi and so on lead us to view them as "fiction"? Our own, modern standards-which are colored by the fact that the novel has for some two centuries been the dominant genre in Western literature-might tempt us to do so. But none of our authors set out to write "fiction" (as Leder might have it); nor would their audiences have received their accounts as such. For one thing, the events depicted were a matter of historical record; their outcome was already known to their audiences, but their meaning was geared both to contemporary and to general concerns. The fact of telling them is part and parcel of the historian's task.48 It is the pur-

45. Ravandi, Raihat-us-sudar, 117-18.

46. Unlike Nishapuri, Ravandi shows no interest in Nizam al-Mulk's personal motives; the event is, for him, paradigmatic, as it foreshadows the moral decline of the Saljuqs which culminated in their collapse in 590/1194.

47. For an overview see J. S. Meisami, "Mixed Prose and Verse in Medieval Persian Literature," in Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl, eds., Prosimetrum: Cross-Cultural Per- spectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), 295-319.

48. Perhaps this should be modified: historians obviously do not include "all the facts", that is, everything that might be said; but events as momentous as (for example) the kill-

30 Meisami

pose, and hence the manner, of their telling that is important for our historians and for their audiences. Were these accounts not "true," the purpose behind their telling would, arguably, be lost; but were they not told in the most effective manner, their meaning-and their message-might not be clearly grasped. This is the function of rhetoric: to convey, and to persuade audiences of, the event's political and ethical significance. Perhaps, in the end, it would be better to call my chapter "History as Rhetoric"? But that, too, might be misleading ...

ing of a vizier cannot be passed over in silence. It is the historian who decides what, and how much, to make of them, to suit his own purpose. Thus, for example, Bayhaqi's contemporary, CAbd al-Hayy Gardizi, reports Hasanak's execution briefly and without comment, in the more general context of Mascud's vindictive campaign against both his father's former officials and those who had supported Muhammad (Gardizi, Zayn al- akhbair, ed. CAbd al-Hayy Habibi [Tehran: Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1347/1968], 196-97).

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