SINCE ABDURRAHMAN IS SO HOT OF ZOROASTARIANISM, HERE IS A LENGTHY ARTICLE ON ZOROASTRIANISM IN ISLAM
THE ORIGINAL SOURCES
OF THE QUR'AN
CHAPTER V.
ZOROASTRIAN ELEMENTS IN THE QUR'AN AND TRADITIONS OF ISLAM
THE political influence which the Persians exercised over certain parts of the Arabian Peninsula and the neighbouring countries in and before Muhammad's time was very considerable; as we learn from Arabian and Greek writers alike. Abu'l Fida, for example, informs us that, early in the seventh century of the Christian era, Khusrau (or, as the Arabs called him, Kisra') Anushiravan, the great Persian conqueror, invaded the kingdom of Hirah on the banks of the Euphrates, dethroned the king Hirah, and placed upon the throne in his stead a creature of his own, named Mundhir Mai's Sama. Not long afterwards Anushiravan sent an army into Yaman, under a general called Vahraz, to expel the Abyssinians who had taken possession of the country, and to restore the Yamanite prince Abu's Saif to the throne of his ancestors1. But the Persian force remained in the country, and its general ultimately himself ascended the throne and handed it down to his descendants2. Abu'l Fida tells us3 that the princes of the family of Mundhir who succeeded him in Hirah, and ruled also over the Arabian 'Iraq, were merely governors under the kings of Persia. He says with reference to Yaman that four Abyssinian rulers and eight Persian princes held sway there before it acknowledged Muhammad's4 sovereignty. But even earlier than Muhammad's time there was much intercourse between the North-West and West of Arabia and the Persian dominions. We are informed that Naufal and Muttalab (who were the brothers of Muhammad's great-grandfather), when they were the leading chiefs of the Quraish, made a treaty with the Persians, by which the merchants of Mecca were permitted to trade with 'Iraq and Fars (the ancient Persia). In the year 606, or about that time, a party of merchants headed by Abu Sufyan reached the Persian capital and were received into the king's presence5.
When Muhammad laid claim to the prophetic office in 612 A.D., the Persians had overrun and held possession for a time of Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor. At the time of the Hijrah in A.D. 622, the Emperor Heraclius had began to retrieve the fortunes of the Byzantine Empire, and not long after the Persians were obliged to sue for peace. In consequence of this, Badzan, the Persian governor of Yaman, deprived of the hope of support from home, was obliged to submit to Muhammad and agree to pay tribute (A.D. 628). Within a few years of the Prophet's death the armies of Islam had overrun Persia and converted the great mass of its people by the sword.
Whenever two nations, the one highly advanced in civilization and the other in a state of comparative ignorance, are brought into close intercourse with one another, the former always exercises a very considerable influence over the other. All history teaches us this lesson. Now in Muhammad's time the Arabs were in a very unenlightened condition; in fact their own writers speak of pre-Islamic ages as "The Times of Ignorance." The Persians, on the other hand, as we learn from the Avesta, from the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes, from the still existing ruins of Persepolis, and from the evidence of Greek writers, had from at least very early times been highly civilized. It was but natural therefore that intercourse with them should leave its impress upon the Arabs. From Arabian historians and from the statements of the Qur'an and its commentators it is evident that the romantic legends and the poetry of the Persians had in Muhammad's time obtained a very considerable degree of popularity among the Arabs. So widely were some of these tales known among the Quraish that Muhammad was accused by his enemies of having borrowed or imitated them in the Qur'an. Ibn Hisham, for instance, says that one day when Muhammad "had gathered an assembly, then he summoned them to God Most High and read the Qur'an there, and warned them what would befall the nations that remained destitute of faith. Then Nadr bin Al Harith, who had followed him into his assembly, rose up and told them about Rustam the strong and about Isfandiyar and the kings of Persia. Then He said, ‘By God! Muhammad is not a better story-teller than I am, and his discourse is nothing but the Tales of the Ancients. He has composed them just as I have composed them.’ On his account therefore did God send down the verse: ‘And6 they have said, Tales of the Ancients hath he written down, and they are recited to him morning and evening. Say thou, He who knoweth what is secret in the heavens and the earth hath sent it down: verily He is forgiving, merciful.’ And on his account this also came down: ‘When7 our verses are recited to him, he hath said, Tales of the Ancients!’ And this also descended for his benefit: ‘Woe8 unto every sinful liar that heareth God's verses read to him; then he persisteth in being proud, as if he did not hear them! Therefore give him good news of a sore punishment9.’"
Muhammad's answer to the charge thus brought against him cannot have been altogether satisfactory to his audience, nor can we deem it sufficient to deter us from inquiring whether an examination of certain passages of the Qur'an does not bear out the assertion thus made by his early opponents.
The stories of "Rustam and Isfandiyar and the Kings of Persia" which were referred to by Nadr are doubtless among those which, some generations later, Firdausi, the most celebrated of the epic poets of Persia, learnt from the collection which he tells us a Persian villager had made, and which Firdausi has left us in poetic form in the Shahnameh. Doubtless all these tales are very ancient in some form, but we need not depend upon the Shahnameh for those which we should have to quote or refer to; and this is well, because the authority of a work, which, in its present poetical form, is later than Muhammad's time, might not be deemed sufficient. Fortunately in the Avesta and other books of the Parsis or Zoroastrians we have information which cannot be called in question on the ground of antiquity, and it is to these we shall appeal.
It may be safely concluded that, since the tales of the kings of Persia were of interest to the Arabs and they had heard of Rustam and Isfandiyar, they are unlikely to have been quite ignorant of the story of Jamshid. Nor is it probable that the Persian fables regarding the ascension to heaven of Arta Viraf and of Zoroaster before him, their descriptions of Paradise and the Bridge of Chinvat and tile tree Hvapah, the legend of Ahriman's coming up out of primaeval darkness, and many other such marvellous tales, had remained entirely unknown to the Arabs. If they were known, it was natural that Muhammad should have made some use of them, as he did of Christian and Jewish legends. We must therefore inquire whether such fancies have left any trace upon the Qur'an and the Traditions current among the Muslims. We shall see that not only is this the case, but that in some instances these Persian tales are so indubitably of Aryan and not of Semitic origin that they are found in slightly modified forms in India also. In fact some of them were, so to speak, part of the religious and intellectual heritage of both nations; and when the Persians and the Hindus separated from one another, and, leaving their ancient common home — the Airyanem Vaejo10 — near Herat, migrated to Persia and India respectively, were carried away in the minds of both peoples. Others of these ideas may very possibly have originated in Persia somewhat later, and have spread to India in process of time. We shall see that they had certainly reached Muhammad's ears, and they have not been without influence upon the Qur'an and the Traditions, which claim to have been handed down by his devoted followers, relating what they assert that they heard from his lips.