Dārāb-nāma

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The Dārāb-nāma ( Persian داراب نامه, DMG Dārāb-nāma , '“Book” of Darab') is a work of Persian folk literature from the 12th century by the storyteller Abū Tāhir Tarsūsī . About a third of the written work deals with the adventures of the legendary Iranian king Dārāb, the greater part deals with his son Iskandar, who is identified in Persian tradition with Alexander the Great . Many of those in Dārāb-nāmaThe adventures described, especially the Alexander story, have been told for centuries by professional storytellers, who each gave the story its own shape and character. Tarsūsī's text is one of many different versions that circulated in Iran. The author draws on well-known sources such as the Pseudo-Callisthenes and the Shāhnāme of Firdausi , but also draws on old Iranian traditions that are not shāhnāmebelong. Various geographical and historiographical Persian and Arabic works, some translations from Greek, can also be verified. The work consists of 36 chapters, which are divided into two books (Chapters 1–19 and Chapters 20–36).

Dārāb-nāma , BL Or. 4615, fol.3v: Bahman's death.

Content of the Dārāb-nāma

Abū Tāhir ties in with the story of Bahman, best known from the Shāh-nāma , whose father, the Kayanid prince Isfandiyār , lost his life in the fight against the mythical Iranian hero Rustam . After the death of his father, Bahman, also known as Ardashir, ascends the throne of Iran. In the first chapter of Dārāb-nāma it is told that Bahman marries the princess Humāy, the daughter of an Egyptian king, but is killed by a dragon before their child is born. Humāy is now ruler of the Persian Empire. In contradiction to this, the second chapter begins by pointing out that Humāy is the daughter of Ardashir, whose child she is expecting. This representation corresponds to the version of the Shāh-nāma , which Abū Tāhir also follows insofar as he reports of the later abandonment of the child, a boy, on the Euphrates and its discovery by a washer. Because he found him in the water (Persian dar āb ), he calls him "Dārāb". As the story progresses, however, the Dārāb-nāma and the Shāh-nāma differ considerably.

Dārāb's youth

Abū Tāhir relates that from the age of ten, Dārāb refuses to continue working as a washer. Since he is surrounded by the splendor of royalty (Persian farr ) from birth , it is easy for him to train himself in the art of war and to demonstrate his outstanding skills. This gives him access to the court of Humāys in Baghdad , who recognizes him as her son and wants to make him king. However, he refuses to accept kingship because he found out in a dream that he is not ready for it yet. He leaves the capital and vows to return at an appropriate time (Chapter 3).

Dārāb's journey

Dārāb, now around 18 years old, is now going to look for the washer and his wife who raised him. That takes him on a long journey by sea and by land. In the Oman area he meets Queen Tamrūsīya, whose husband was killed in the fight against him. She falls in love with Dārāb and follows him on his journey, but is separated from him after all kinds of adventures, whereby her experiences and later those of her brother Mihrāsb are also further developed. The heroes meet cannibals, cyclops, monsters, water people, sun worshipers or are kidnapped by slave traders. Ultimately, the main characters in the story manage to free themselves from their predicament again and again. When the situation is too hopeless, Dārāb will be saved through divine intervention.

Darab-nama, BM Or. 4615, fol. 100v: Dārāb pulls up a tree.

Since Dārāb has falsely reported about Tamrūsīya's death, he takes Princess Zankalīsā, the daughter of the king of sun worshipers, as his wife (chap. 5). Without knowing about this connection, Mihrāsb married Zankalīsā's sister some time later on the island of the one-eyed (chap. 7). The two women of Dārābs learn about each other on winding paths, and after Tamrūsīyas reunites with her lover, Zankalīsā murdered her on a boat trip and threw her into the water. The son who was born immediately before can be saved by the rushed Dārāb and gives him the name "Dārāb" because he found him in the water . Zankalīsā and her father die a little later from snake bites (chap. 9). Dārāb is now on the adventurous way back to Iran, on the way meets the rich washer who once found him in the water, and at the end of the journey he ascends the throne. (Chapter 12)

Dārāb as king of Rūm and the birth of Iskandar

As King of Iran, Dārāb initially fends off attacks by the Arabs and Byzantines. He asks the defeated ruler of Rūm (Byzantium), Faylaqūs, to give his daughter Nāhīd to his wife. However, he sends her back after the wedding night because of her bad breath. Nāhīd secretly gives birth to their child, who is named Iskandar. An old woman takes care of him first, who brings him to Aristotle at the age of four . This instructs him in various sciences such as philosophy, medicine and geometry, but above all in astrology and dream interpretation. At the age of ten, Iskandar came to the royal court of Rūm and a few years later was declared his successor by Faylaqūs, his grandfather. After all sorts of battles for the throne, Iskandar finally becomes king, while his half-brother Dārāb II, the son of Dārāb I and Tamrūsīya, becomes ruler of Iran. (Chapter 15)

Iskandar ascends the throne and loses his knowledge

Iskandar received the best training from Aristotle, but in no way can he fall back on it for his rule: In a dispute with his teacher, Iskandar gets angry, has Aristotle chained and imprisoned. Annoyed by the ungrateful pupil, Aristotle prays to God that he will deprive Iskandar of all knowledge that he has taught him. “Iskandar began to regret what he had done, and the sweat flowed down from him, so that all his clothes got wet [...] And it is said that just as the sweat flowed down from him, all the knowledge that he possessed , ran out of him, and that Iskandar could no longer read a letter from the sheet or interpret a single dream, because he had become like the ignorant people. ”Even if he frees his teacher again and he forgives him, the loss can be lost of knowing not to undo it.

Iskandar's campaign in Iran

Iskandar first goes on a campaign in Iran to take possession of his inheritance as the son of Dārāb I, which Dārāb II does not want to give him voluntarily. After a first day of fighting, Iskandar receives an offer from two officers of the opposing army to kill the Persian king. Iskandar agrees, but when the two actually carry out the assassination the next day and then flee to him, he is seized with remorse and has both of them taken prisoner. He rushes to the dying Dārāb, to whom he promises to grant three last wishes, namely to execute his murderer, to marry his daughter Burān-wick, and to be kind to the creatures of God. Soon after Dārāb's death, Iskandar is crowned King of Iran. (Chapter 16)

Iskandar and Buran wick

Būrān wick, which according to Abū Tāhir bears the name Rauschanak according to another tradition, is far from marrying Iskandar. She is 18 years old and is described as beautiful, but looks very masculine because of her “light down on her upper lip”. She was raised like a prince by her father, so she is trained in the use of weapons and knows how to command an army. It also has the luster of royalty ( farr ), which enables its bearer to rule. (Chap. 17) Buran-Wick knows about Iskandar's involvement in the murder of her father and swears vengeance on him. She raises an army and fights him in several battles, but eventually gives up her resistance after he surprises her while taking a bath in the river. Since he saw her undressed, she no longer wanted to fight him. She agrees to a marriage and both now rule over Iran. (Chapter 22).

Iskandar's campaigns of conquest for the spread of Islam

After months of partying, Iskandar decides to check out the wonders of the world. He cedes the throne of Iran and Rūms to Burān-Wick and sets off with an army of 100,000 soldiers to the east. In fact, it is more of a conquest, and as he writes Kaydāwar, King of India, it is not about the accumulation of treasures, but about the spread of Islam '. On the way, Iskandar has to ask his wife several times for reinforcements, who finally rushes over personally with an army to save him. She accompanies him for most of the subsequent journey, during which she sees wonderful trees, animal-headed people, wizards, cannibals, demons and the mythical bird Simurgh . In the further course of the story, Iskandar has to rely on Burān-wick's help several times. You will visit India and Sarandib ( Sri Lanka ), Zanzibar , Yemen and Mecca . You also get to a city of women, an island of the hermaphrodites and all kinds of enchanted places. At the mythical mountain Qāf Iskandar meets the mysterious saint Chidr and the prophet Ilyās. After nine years of traveling, Iskandar sends Būrān-Wick from Baghdad back to Iran with a large part of the army (Chapter 33), while he himself travels to Egypt with Chidr, Ilyās and the sage Luqman . There he subjugates the king and converts him to Islam, like most other rulers and peoples he has met. Then the journey continues to the Green Sea, where Iskandar undertakes a multi-day dive into the underwater world in a large glass chest. Tarsūsī also mentions Iskandar's construction of a wall of iron, copper and zinc to prevent the incursion of the savage peoples Yā'jūdj and Mājūdj . The conqueror is explicitly identified with the Qur'anic Dhū l-Qarnain , the "two-horned one" mentioned in Sura 18. (Chapter 35).

Iskandar and the source of life

With a small army of 6,000 men, Iskandar is now going to the land of darkness in the far north. Chidr, who has a shining stone, is to guide them so that they can find the water of life. In the immediate vicinity of the source, however, Iskandar is separated from Chidr. He falls asleep while riding and his horse carries him again to Mount Qāf, where he is allowed to visit various angels in ten heavenly spheres. When he returns, Chidr and Ilyās have already drunk from the source of life. The place remains hidden to him even after further searches. An angel explains to him that the water of life cannot be reached through your own efforts. God alone grant this grace, and for him, Iskandar, the water of life is not intended. As if to comfort gets Iskandar but by God dominion over the elements of water, fire, air and over the beasts of the wilderness that he thus "may entrust to kill all those who do not obey." So Iskandar rises to a second Suleiman on . A little later, when the army was already moving towards Jerusalem, Iskandar fell ill. He orders the construction of a coffin with two recesses on the sides for the hands. In this way everyone should see that even the greatest ruler leaves everything behind with his death and leaves the world empty-handed. Iskandar is buried in Jerusalem. Būrān-wick dies a year later in Persia.

Manuscripts of the Dārāb-nāma

The Persian text of Dārāb-nāma was edited in two volumes from 1965-68 by the Iranian professor Zabihollah Safa . More than forty years later, the Iranist Mahmoud Omidsalar published a compilation of typographical errors in the edition with corrections and further information on understanding the Persian text.

The most important basis for the edition of Safa was a manuscript from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Suppl. Persan 837. In the colophon of the text, a Parse named Kaiqubād b. Mahyār Pārsī that he had made a copy of Dārāb-nāma at the request of the very old Nuschirwan ibn Bahman-Shah Pārsī from Navsari. He was allowed to copy this text, which is rare in India and elsewhere, in the library of the Mughal ruler Akbar I in the capital Fatehpur Sikri near Agra . The manuscript was, however, very sketchy and poorly written, so that he had to create a coherent version of the Dārāb-nāma with great difficulty . In Rabi 'al-awwal of the year 992h (March / April 1584) he finished the work on it. The revised text, including the colophon from Kaiqubād, was apparently copied by a professional calligrapher, who at the end of the same manuscript identified himself as Muhammad b. Ismā'īl Mūsawī introduces.

An incomplete manuscript of Dārāb-nāma is kept in the British Library under the shelf number Or. 4615 , which was illustrated by painters at Akbar's court in the 1580s and 90s. It may be the manuscript that Kaiqobad copied in 1584. Another illustrated manuscript, estimated to date from the beginning of the 18th century, is in the Berlin State Library and bears the signature Ms. or. fol. 3350. The volume comes from India without a doubt, the exact location is not known.

In addition to the above, there are a number of other manuscripts in various libraries worldwide, some of them in Turkish translation. A modern translation of the Dārāb-nāma is currently only available in French, the latter only comprising the Alexander story in the second part of the book. A Russian translation by Natalja Kondyrewa is said to have appeared in 2000, but it cannot be found in Western libraries.

Iskandar and Anahita

Tarsusi provides an unusual Alexander story, because Iskandar appears as a weak conqueror who does not have the usual qualities of a military leader. Not only did he lose all of his knowledge after an argument with Aristotle, he also often shows himself undecided, rhetorically awkward and without foresight. Many a success is due to the courageous intervention of his wife Būrān-wick or the good advice of wise men. According to William Hanaway and Marina Gaillard, this unfavorable presentation of Iskandar is influenced by Tarsūsī's recourse to Zoroastrian sources. In it, Alexander is cursed as a ruthless destroyer of sacred texts and a cruel murderer of religious dignitaries. On the other hand, Iskandar appears as a champion for Islam and thus becomes a hero for Muslim listeners. Abū Tāhir thus combines two different narrative traditions in Dārāb-nāma , namely one Iranian-Zoroastrian and one Islamic, which are actually mutually exclusive and thus paint an unusually changing image of the conqueror.

Burān wick, on the other hand, appears to be Iskandar's alter ego and is the real heroine of the story. Mainly because of her striking connection with water and her portrayal as a powerful warrior, William Hanaway assumes that she should be a popular personification of the Iranian water goddess Anahita.

literature

  • Abū Ṭāhir aṭ-Ṭarsūsī: Dārāb-nāma-yi Ṭarsūsī. Ed. Zabīḥollāh Ṣafā, 2 vols., Šerkat-e entešārāt-e ʿelmī o farhangī, Tehran 1344–46hš / 1965–68, Repr. 1374hš / 1996. Digitized
  • Edgar Blochet: Catalog des manuscrits persans de la Bibliothèque Nationale. 3: Nos 1161-2017. Impr. Nationale, Leroux, Paris 1928. Nos. 1201, 1202, Suppl., Nos. 837, 838.
  • Hermann Ethé: New Persian literature. Verlag Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg 1897. ( Outline of Iranian Philology. Vol. 2.)
  • Abolqasem Ferdowsi: Shahnameh. The Persian Book of Kings. A New Translation by Dick Davis. Penguin Books, London 2007.
  • Marina Gaillard (translation and notes): Alexandre le Grand en Iran. Le Dârâb Nâmeh d'Abu Tâher Tarsusī. De Boccard, Paris 2005. Persika 5.
  • Marina Gaillard: Abū Ṭāhir Ṭarsūsī , in Encyclopaedia of Islam, three (EI³). Edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, D. Matringe u. a. Published online in 2007. First print version: ISBN 9789004161641 , 2007. Accessed February 12, 2018.
  • Marina Gaillard: Hero or anti-hero: The Alexander Figure in the Dārāb-nāma of Ṭarsūsī. In Oriente Moderno Nuova series , 89/2 (2009) 319–331.
  • William Lippincott Hanaway: Persian Popular Romances Before the Safavid Period. Ph.D.diss., Columbia University 1970. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms UMI, 1972.
  • William L. Hanaway: Anāhitā and Alexander , in Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS) 102/2 (1982), pp. 285-95.
  • William L. Hanaway: Dārāb-nāma , in Ihsan Yarshatir (ed.): Encyclopaedia Iranica (EIr), Vol. VII, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1994. pp. 8-9. Digitized
  • William L. Hanaway: Eskandar-nāme , in Ihsan Yarshatir (ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , (EIr), Vol. VIII, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1998. pp. 609-612. Published online on December 15, 1998. Last updated on January 19, 2012. Digitized
  • Martin Haug and Edward William West (eds.): The Book of Arda Viraf. Oriental Press, Amsterdam 1971. (1st edition 1872)
  • FM Kotwal and PG Kreyenbroek: Alexander the Great ii. In Zoroastrian Tradition , in Ihsan Yarshatir (Ed.): Encyclopaedia of Iran (EIr), Vol. I, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1985. Online edition 1982. Digitized
  • Gilbert Lazard: La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane. Librairie C. Klinckensieck, Paris 1963. pp. 125f. (No. 70)
  • Bernard Lewis: Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford University Press, Oxford u. a. 1990, p. 97.
  • Mahmud Omidsalar: Dārābnāma-ye Ṭarsusī: barrasī-ye tasḥīḥ-e ostād Ṣafā wa bāz-nigarī dar tārīḫ-e tā'līf-e kitāb , in ders .: Sī-o-do maqāla dar na-ḥd-o taṣḥī e adabī. Bunyād-e Mawqūfāt-e Doctor Maḥmūd Afšār, Tehran 1389hš / 2010. Pp. 317-340.
  • Angelo Michele Piemontese: Alexandre "le circumnavigateur" dans le roman persan de Tarsusi , in: François de Polignac (ed.): Alexandre le Grand, figure de L'incomplétude. Actes de la Table Ronde de la Fondation Hugot du Collège de France (May 31, 1997). Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome - Moyen Âge, 112/1 (2000), pp. 97-112.
  • Angelo Michele Piemontese: Anciens monuments sur l'eau, selon Tarsusi , in: Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Center 1-2 (Rome 1997-99), pp. 137-143.
  • Charles Rieu: Supplement to the Catalog of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum. British Museum, London 1895. No. 385. Digitized
  • Julia Rubanovich: Tracking the Shahnama tradition in Medieval Persian Folk Prose , in: Charles Melville and Gabrielle van den Berg (eds.): Shahnama Studies II: The Reception of Firdausi's Shahnama. Brill, Leiden 2011. pp. 11-33.
  • Julia Rubanovich: Orality in medieval Persian literature , in: Karl Reichl (Hrsg.): Medieval Oral Literature. De Gruyter, Berlin and Boston 2012. pp. 653–79.
  • Minoo Southgate: The negative images of blacks in some medieval Iranian writings , in: Iranian Studies 17, no. 1 (1984), pp. 3-36.
  • Richard Stoneman: Persian Aspects of the Romance Tradition , in: Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, Ian Netton (Eds.): The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East. Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library, Groningen 2012. pp. 3-18. ( Ancient Narrative , Supplementum 15)

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Hanaway, Dārāb-nāma, EIr ; Rubanovich, Orality in medieval Persian literature, 2012, pp. 660f.
  2. ↑ Rubanovich, Tracking the Shahnama tradition , 2011, p 31f.
  3. ↑ Piemontese, Anciens monuments , 2000, pp. 137-43; Piemontese, Alexandre le circumnavigateur , 2000, pp. 97-112.
  4. ↑ Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, Vol. 1, p. 6
  5. ↑ Ferdowsi: Shahnameh , 2007, pp. 440-450
  6. ↑ Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, vol. 1, chap. 16, p. 447
  7. ↑ Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, vol. 2, chap. 23, p. 100
  8. ↑ Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, vol. 2, chap. 35, p. 579f.
  9. ↑ See also Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, vol. 2, chap. 28, p. 299.
  10. ↑ Dārāb-nāma , Ed. Safa 1996, vol. 2, chap. 36, p. 594.
  11. ^ Dārāb-nāma-yi Ṭarsūsī. Ed. Zabīḥollāh Ṣafā.
  12. ↑ Mahmud Omidsalar: Dārābnāma-ye Ṭarsusī , Tehran 2010.
  13. ↑ The whole colophon in the original wording in Safa (ed.), Dārāb-nāma , foreword, p. 18 f. and Vol. 2, pp. 597 f.
  14. ↑ Cf. also Blochet, Bibliothèque nationale No. 1201 and Ethè, Neupersische Litteratur , p. 318.
  15. ↑ Rieu, Supplement , No. 385.
  16. ↑ digitized version
  17. ↑ At the end of the book there is a note about the work, cf. Digitized .
  18. ↑ digitized version
  19. ↑ Hanaway, Dārāb-nāma , EIr ; Ethè, Neupersische Litteratur , p. 318.
  20. ^ Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand 2005, p. 420.
  21. ↑ Hanaway, Persian Popular Romances , 1970, pp. 40-42
  22. ↑ Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Alexander the Great ii , EIr ; Hanaway, Popular Romances , 1970, pp. 45-47; Haug, The Book of Arda-Viraf , pp. 141f .; Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand , pp. 17-22 and pp. 60-64; Gaillard, Hero or anti-hero , pp. 319-320.
  23. ^ Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand , p. 58.
  24. ↑ Hanaway, Persian Popular Romances , p. 47.
  25. ↑ Hanaway, Anāhitā and Alexander , pp. 285-95; Hanaway, Eskandar-nāma , EIr ; Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand , pp. 44f.