1 Introductory Notes
What follows is an unabridged, fairly literal English translation of the preface that Abū l-Maʿālī Naṣr Allāh Munshī added to his adaptation of Kalīla and Dimna, written ca. 540/1146.1 Naṣr Allāh was a secretary (munshī) at the Ghaznavid court, serving the sultan Bahrāmshāh (r. 511–52/1117–57), and he made the fateful decision to write a Persian translation2 of Kalīla and Dimna from a copy of the Arabic version attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ca. 139/756–57), which a friend had given to him. The result is a text nearly as idiosyncratic as it is historically significant.
Naṣr Allāh’s Kalīla and Dimna is one of the few most important works of Persian belletristic prose from the pre-Timurid period. The author accomplished several feats at once. First, he produced a complete Persian translation of the content of the Arabic Kalīla and Dimna. Second, he forged a new prose style during what was still a relatively early period in the development of New Persian literature (though the poetic tradition was well underway). Naṣr Allāh is credited with inaugurating a style that has variously been called “artistic prose” (naṡr-i fannī) and “ornamented prose” (naṡr-i maṣnūʿ). This can be understood in part as a persianization of Arabic adab literature, in which prose is peppered with poetry (i.e., prosimetrum); references to scripture and other texts are incorporated for aesthetic effect or to strengthen the author’s argument; and the reader is enchanted by a mixture of seriousness and jest (al-jidd wa-l-hazl), edification and entertainment.3 It is noteworthy that Naṣr Allāh’s “persianized,” adab-inflected version of Kalīla and Dimna is still almost a bilingual text: The amount of Arabic included is substantial. These introductory remarks are not the place for a detailed analysis of Naṣr Allāh’s style, which would need also to address his use of Persian syntactic patterns, rhetorical devices, etc.4 Suffice it to say that his bold, original approach to writing Persian prose has been recognized as a key influence in the literary tradition.5 Only a handful of medieval Persian books—for instance, the Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī (470/1077)—hold a comparable status.
Third, Naṣr Allāh added a great deal of material to Kalīla and Dimna in crafting his translation. The text is replete with quotes from the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth, selections of poetry in both Persian and Arabic—some of it self-composed, some taken from the Dīwān al-Ḥamāsa of Abū Tammām (d. ca. 231/845) or from famous poets such as al-Mutanabbī (d. 354/965)—wisdom sayings (amthāl and ḥikam), and beyond. Apart from these insertions, the largest change that Naṣr Allāh made to Kalīla and Dimna was his addition of an original prefatory chapter, i.e., the section whose full translation is presented below. There was precedent for attaching new prefaces to this book. Anyone who has studied Kalīla and Dimna will have noticed that, while the “real” first chapter is that which tells the story of the Lion and the Ox, this comes after a series of prefatory chapters, including (depending on the version or manuscript) some or all of the following: an introduction attributed to one ʿAlī ibn al-Shāh al-Fārisī;6 an introduction attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; the story of the voyage of the Iranian physician Burzūya (i.e., Burzoy) to India, in which he retrieves this book of wisdom; and the (auto)biography of Burzūya. Naṣr Allāh Munshī was thus far from the first individual to leave his mark on Kalīla and Dimna through translation and appending a new preface. And he would not be the last. (The subsequent Persian rewriting by Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī, d. 910/1504–05, for example, comes with a large introductory chapter of its own.) What makes Naṣr Allāh’s preface remarkable is that it was the first, in any language or translation context, to argue explicitly and systematically for a certain interpretation of the book’s value.
In particular, Naṣr Allāh advances the idea that kingship is necessary for the flourishing of the Islamic religion; that justice is necessary in kingship; and that Kalīla and Dimna as a book of wisdom is uniquely well-suited to the task of instructing readers—including, but not limited to, rulers—in justice and the sound management of their affairs. As we will see, substantial parts of the preface are also given over to praise of the Ghaznavid dynasty (especially Bahrāmshāh), and to anecdotes from the history of the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75), effective founder of the Abbasid caliphate and supposed patron of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.7 But the main argument, to which Naṣr Allāh returns continually, is in linking Kalīla and Dimna to moral and political instruction, to worldly rulers, to the fortunes of Islam as a religion and a community. It should be understood that the preface of this version serves to provide the rationale for the interweaving of quotes from the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth that we find throughout all the chapters. Naṣr Allāh is not merely showcasing his erudition and skill as an adab composer; he is applying an interpretive framework. It will thus be useful for us to have an unabridged English translation of the preface to accompany any translation of the main narrative content of this book—which we now also have, thanks to Wheeler Thackston.8 Furthermore, any study of Naṣr Allāh’s Kalīla and Dimna must reckon with the preface as an integral part of the text.
2 An Overview of the Preface
Naṣr Allāh’s preface can be divided roughly into ten sections. This division is not entirely arbitrary—it follows the author’s transitions from one topic to the next, and (as can be seen in the text below) he gives clear indications. The subsections are set apart with headings in my translation, which is obviously not the case in the original Persian. The overall length of the preface is comparable to that of some of the substantial body chapters in the book. In the edition of Mujtabā Mīnuvī—the standard critical edition that serves as the basis for this translation, and whose pagination is referred to throughout— the preface takes up twenty-six pages. This is longer than the preface attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (six pages), the account of Burzūya’s Voyage (eleven pages), or the Life of Burzūya (fifteen pages). That is to say, what Naṣr Allāh has added becomes the single largest prefatory chapter. Of similar length are the body chapters of the Trial of Dimna and the Lion and the Jackal—not of the magnitude of the Lion and the Ox, but not short by any means.
The opening passage of the preface (pp. 2–3) is given to praise of God and the Prophet Muḥammad.9 Much of this is conventional, but Naṣr Allāh turns eventually to the issue of people who rejected the message of Islam and the need for them to be subdued in order that the true religion could be brought to the corners of the world. This allows for a neat transition into the first argumentative section (pp. 4–6), in which the author explains that worldly rule is necessary for the flourishing of Islam. The pithiest expression of this claim comes in the form of an Arabic saying, which Naṣr Allāh introduces as a ḥadīth: “Kingship and religion are twins” (al-mulk wa-l-dīn tawʾamān; p. 4). This passage also contains an interpretation of the eponymous verse (i.e., verse 25) of Sūrat al-Ḥadīd. The idea is that God sent down scripture (al-kitāb); the balance (al-mīzān, which Naṣr Allāh takes as a reference to the Day of Judgment); and iron (al-ḥadīd, representing the sword). Worldly rule without religion would lack a legitimate basis, but, at the same time, it would not be feasible to build a large and robust religious community without joining it to political power.
From this point, Naṣr Allāh transitions into a discussion of the importance of justice in kingship (pp. 6–8). He continues to insert a variety of references, including part of the story of the Prophet David; an anecdote involving an unbeliever at the dawn of Islam, who converted after hearing a particular Qurʾānic verse; and a wise saying by Ardashīr-i Bābakān (d. 242 CE), founder of the Sasanian Empire. The quote from Ardashīr is perhaps the clearest distillation of Naṣr Allāh’s argument in this section: “There is no kingship except through men, and there are no men except through money, and there is no money except through building, and there is no building except through justice and governance” (p. 7). From the practice of justice flows everything else that a ruler will need.
The question that would naturally follow this tying of Islam to kingship, and of kingship to justice, is how a ruler might be instructed to follow the correct path. Naṣr Allāh will address this in due course—the answer, unsurprisingly, is to study a book like Kalīla and Dimna—but first he takes a long detour. The next two sections contain praise of the Ghaznavid dynasty (pp. 8–14) and a bit of autobiographical discussion (pp. 15–18), in which the author explains, among other things, how he decided to take on this translation project. The pro-Ghaznavid material is of less general relevance than the rest of the preface. Naṣr Allāh goes on at great length extolling the virtues of the ruling family that he serves, which cannot come as a surprise. As for the autobiographical notes, one of the most interesting points that Naṣr Allāh mentions (p. 18) is that he had access to multiple copies of Kalīla and Dimna, but it was when he received a certain manuscript as a gift that he took a liking to the book and resolved to produce a translation. This opens the possibility—though it is difficult to be certain—that there were textual variations among the copies that Naṣr Allāh saw, such that one of them presented a version that he found particularly appealing. In any case, although the flow of the argument in the preface is, to a certain extent, interrupted by these passages, there is a logic to their inclusion.
After Naṣr Allāh has explained the circumstances in which he became interested in translating Kalīla and Dimna, he moves on to praise the qualities of the book (pp. 18–20). He begins by focusing on two of its virtues. First, the ethical and practical messages of these fables are applicable, in different ways, to all segments of society. Whether one is a ruler or, say, the owner of a business, one will benefit from reading this. Naṣr Allāh also mentions the significance of the entertaining quality of Kalīla and Dimna: “Just as the elite of the people will incline toward that [book] for the discernment of experiences, common folk will also read [it] because of its playfulness, and gradually those points of wisdom will become fixed in their disposition” (p. 18; this echoes a line from the preface of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, which Naṣr Allāh also includes in his translation, while partially reattributing it to Buzurgmihr). The second key point in this passage is that Kalīla and Dimna has been carried from one religious community to another, and from nation to nation, without ever being rejected. Naṣr Allāh emphasizes the role of Kisrā (Khusraw) Anūshirwān, who had the book brought from India to Iran and translated into Middle Persian; and even more so that of the caliph al-Manṣūr, under whose auspices, we are told, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ authored an Arabic translation.
From here, Naṣr Allāh digresses to describe the blessed status of Baghdad, the capital founded by al-Manṣūr, and he continues with a whole section (pp. 20–23) devoted to anecdotes about the wisdom and sound rule of that caliph. As with the earlier passages focusing on the Ghaznavids and on the author’s life story, the discussion of al-Manṣūr has less relevance to the central arguments of the preface.10 Naṣr Allāh freely admits that he has strayed far from his main topic, and he returns (pp. 23–25) to the question of the transmission of Kalīla and Dimna. After the retrieval of the book from India and its translation into Arabic in the age of Islam, the next important stage occurs in the Samanid period. The ruler Naṣr II b. Aḥmad (r. 301–31/914–43) asked the poet Rūdakī (d. ca. 329/940–41) to compose a versification of Kalīla and Dimna. This would become the first well-known rendering of the fables in New Persian. One of the points to which Naṣr Allāh returns repeatedly is that, throughout history, the strongest rulers have tended to be those who recognized the value of this book: Kisrā Anūshirwān, al-Manṣūr, Naṣr b. Aḥmad, and now (conveniently) the Ghaznavid Bahrāmshāh.
The penultimate section (pp. 25–27) describes a bit of Naṣr Allāh’s approach to translating Kalīla and Dimna. He notes that people in the Persianate sphere have become less interested in reading Arabic books. This provides a motivation for a new version in Persian prose. Of course, as anyone who studies Naṣr Allāh’s text will notice, there is still a great deal of Arabic here, and the reader needs to be functionally biliterate. This is due to the frequent quoting of Qurʾānic verses, Ḥadīth, lines of poetry, proverbs, and so forth. Naṣr Allāh defends the addition of these references to other sources by arguing that they will help people to recognize the extensive benefits of Kalīla and Dimna. He then describes how he completed a portion of his translation and shared it with Bahrāmshāh, who approved of the work and encouraged its completion. This leads into the final passage of the preface (pp. 27–28), which consists of a few paragraphs of effusive praise for Bahrāmshāh. Again, the Ghaznavid sultan is linked to a series of great rulers who have invested in the transmission of Kalīla and Dimna.
3 Notes on This Translation
As has been noted above, the standard critical edition of Naṣr Allāh Munshī’s Kalīla and Dimna is that of Mujtabā Mīnuvī, published in Tehran in 1964. This edition serves as both the reference point for most research on the text and the basis of the recent English translation by Thackston—in which the preface has been heavily abridged. In the full translation of the preface that follows, the corresponding page numbers in Mīnuvī’s edition are indicated in brackets. It should be easy for a reader who is interested in following both the original text and the translation to do so.11
Another aspect of this translation that will facilitate its use in conjunction with the Persian is that it has been carried out in a fairly literal, sentence-by-sentence manner. I have not been wholly dogmatic in this: There are compromises to be made between precision and readability. And of course, the division of a medieval Persian text into paragraphs and sentences involves some arbitrariness. The limited punctuation found in the edition of Mīnuvī is not present in the original manuscripts. Likewise, the sentence division that I have applied in translation goes well beyond what is found in Mīnuvī. The English needs to be readable, and the benchmark of technical quality for this translation is that it should render the meaning of the text accurately and maintain a clear correspondence with the Persian, ideally down to the level of a clause.
On occasion, a word or short phrase that is absent in the original text is added in translation to promote clarity. One common example is the need to restate the subject of a sentence after it has been interrupted by one of Naṣr Allāh’s characteristic long parenthetical statements. These insertions are indicated with square brackets. At points where it seemed relevant to highlight the Persian word(s) that gave rise to certain translations, I have used parentheses. Finally, there is a modest number of footnotes, which offer comments, questions, and extra details. The goal is not for this translation to be accompanied by a proper commentary. Rather, I have sought to produce a full, accurate rendering of Naṣr Allāh’s preface to Kalīla and Dimna, so that it might serve as a basis for future analytical work.
4 Translation
4.1 Introductory Praise of God and the Prophet12
Thanks and praise be unto God—may He be exalted—the signs of whose power shine upon the face of the bright day; the lights of whose wisdom glow in the heart of the dark night; the bestower of mercy who made a spider-thread a barrier to protect friends; the almighty one who made a mosquito-bite a sword to subdue enemies.13 In bringing entities into being, He did not require a minister or advisor, nor assistance or support; and He made the marvels of creation manifest in the realm of generation and decay; and He distinguished humankind over other living things with excellence of speech and superiority of intellect.
And for guidance and direction He sent apostles, that they might rescue people from the darkness of ignorance and waywardness through divine proof and adorn the surface of the earth with the light of learning and knowledge. He selected the last of them by turn and first by rank, the sky of rightness and sun of truth, lord of the apostles and seal of the prophets, leader of the exceptional, Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf al-ʿArabī—may God bless him and his pure family—for the strengthening of prophethood and the completion of bearing the divine message. And He singled him out with manifest miracles [3] and clear proofs.
In order to compel proof [on humankind], and to furnish indisputable evidence, He called [people to the faith] with kindness and courtesy and commanded that signs (āyāt) be revealed—until the obstinacy and recalcitrance of the deniers became obvious, and it was clear to the wise people of the world that [the deniers] would not pay heed to logical proofs or perceptible miracles. At that time, the verses (āyāt) relating to jihād came down, and the obligation of holy struggle—in accordance with both religious law and wisdom (khirad)—was established. And heavenly support and the firm resolve of the master of sharīʿa were joined to that [effort], and the good fortune of divine guidance showed the right path to the champions of truth. The reinforcement of success adorned the beauty of their condition, until they turned toward the subdual of the deniers, and purified the face of the earth from the wickedness of their idolatry, and carried the true religion (millat-i ḥanīfī) to the corners and horizons of the world, and situated the truth in the center of their being.
May divine salutation, greeting, benediction, and blessings be upon the sublime essence and holy spirit of the chosen one (muṣṭafā),15 and upon his companions, followers, friends, and partisans—a salutation whose moments of utterance should continue until the end of time, and whose breath should clear the dust from the perfume-shop: God and His angels bless the Prophet. O believers, do you also bless him, and pray him peace.16
4.2 On the Need for Rulers in Upholding Islam
[4] Since it was necessary that this nation (millat) last eternally, and that the kingdom of this religious community (ummat) reach the horizons and corners of the earth, and that the truth of this prophetic saying, which is among the living miracles, become clear to the people of the world—The earth was shown to me, and I saw its east and its west, and the kingdom of my community will reach what was shown to me—God empowered the successors (khulafāʾ) of the Prophet—may God bless him, and may He be happy with them—in commanding and forbidding and binding and unbinding. And He bestowed [upon them] absolute authority, and connected obedience to them to obedience to Himself and the Prophet, insofar as He, the mighty and exalted, said: O believers, obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you.17 That is, the effectuation of the prescriptions of religious law and the performance of the rites of truth will not stay everlasting in the pages of history without the governance of pious kings; nor will the duration of that [flourishing of religion] be joined to the end of the life of this world.
The indication of this [fact] by the master of prophethood is as follows: Kingship and religion are twins.18 And in truth, it must be recognized that the kings of Islam are the shadow of the Creator—may His name be glorified—in that the face of the earth gains beauty by the light of their justice, and the civilization of the world and the taming of passions are linked to their fearsomeness and grandeur—since the sweetness of worship cannot in any sense have the same effect as fear of the sword. Were it not for this expediency in compelling the masses, the order of things would have been broken, and difference of creed would have appeared in the religious community; and, given that there is variation in temperament, each person would have intervened in the affairs of Islam with their own opinion, and the legitimate principles and religious laws would have become disordered and neglected. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb says: The sulṭān restrains more than the Qurʾān.19
And the source of this meaning [5] is from the sublime Qurʾān: Why, you arouse greater fear in their hearts than God; that is because they are a people who understand not.20 This is because the ignorant one is not held back from sins except through the immediacy of punishment, and he will not understand the totality of the greatness and majesty of the Creator—may His splendor be exalted.
As for the person who seeks repose in the shadow of the banner of the scholars until she nears the sun of revelation (kashf): with knowledge alone, that grandeur and awe will appear in her mind, whose extent cannot be grasped through fancies, whose core cannot be reached through idle thoughts.22 [God’s] word, may He be exalted: Only those of His servants fear God who have knowledge.23
By virtue of these introductory remarks, it becomes clear that religion without rule will go to waste, and rule without religion is baseless. And the Lord (khudāy) says—may His names be hallowed, may His favor be all-encompassing: Indeed, We sent Our Messengers with the clear signs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance so that men might uphold justice. And We sent down iron, wherein is great might, and many uses for men.24 The composition of this verse, before deduction and careful consideration, gives the appearance of disconnect—since scripture and the balance and iron do not have a great relation to one another. But, after contemplation, the dust-cloud of obscurity and the veil of doubt lift away, and it becomes clear that these terms could not be more related to one another, and that each word has quite a distinct wondrousness—in that the explanation of religious laws can [only] be through scripture; the presentation of the gates of justice and equity through the balance and the reckoning; and the effectuation of these concepts through the sword.
And because it was determined that the interests of the religion would not be observed without the greatness of the kings of Islam, and the quenching of the fire of discord (fitna) would be infeasible without the fear of the gleaming sword, [6] the obligation to obey rulers—to which are bound the advantages of the religion and the world—is also recognized. It becomes clear that whoever has purer faith and more unadulterated belief will express more emphatically the imperative of glorifying the side of rulers and extolling the commands of kings, and will count loyalty, obedience, devotion, and sincerity of intentions toward them among the pillars of the faith; and, in serving them, will consider the external (ẓāhir) and internal (bāṭin) to be of equal importance.
It must be acknowledged without hesitation that, if a person thinks about opposing the great leader (imām-i aʿẓam) or permits the damage of treason, small or large, to spread to the borders of his realm and the edges of his kingdom, [that person] will be blameworthy in this world and punished in the next. For the harm of that [treason] is tied also to the judgments of religious law, and both the elite and the common folk of the community will fall into pain and hardship.
4.3 On the Need for Justice in Kingship
This part of the virtues of rulership—that it is entailed by religion—has been established. Now let a few of the merits of justice—which is a highly valuable adornment and a priceless gift for kings—be mentioned. On that [topic] as well, the approach (jānib) of brevity and conciseness will be followed, with the assistance and facilitation of God.
[God] said, may He be exalted: David, behold, We have appointed thee a viceroy in the earth; therefore judge between men justly.25 God selected David—may God’s blessings be upon him—who had the distinction of prophethood, for this direction and guidance—not because the way of prophets is to do only good deeds, but rather [because] mildness in governance (khilāfat) is connected to the beauty of equity and justice.
And in the recited stories it has come down that one of the deniers (munkirān) of the prophethood of the master of sharīʿa heard the following verse: Surely God bids to justice and good-doing and giving to kinsmen; and He forbids indecency, dishonor, and insolence, admonishing you, so that haply you will remember.26 [The denier] was stunned, and he said, “Everything on earth that would be of use for the civilization of the world, and [all that] ordinary people would need in order to govern themselves and their households and their subordinates—[7] for example, the work of a landholder (dihqān) will not be possible without it—has come down in this verse.”
What inimitability could be greater than this, that, if a mortal wished to express these ideas, many pages would be filled, and the truth of the message would not be achieved in all that [space]? [The denier] accepted the faith at once, and he attained a position of eminence in the religion. A clear command that is limited to adherence to three praiseworthy qualities, and a negation that encompasses avoidance of three blameworthy actions: It will not be misunderstood, and there is no need for explanation or clarification.
In the account of the words of Ardashīr-i Bābak—may God comfort him—they have brought down that, There is no kingship except through men, and there are no men except through money, and there is no money except through building, and there is no building except through justice and governance. The meaning [i.e., translation]27 is as follows: Kingship will not remain under control without men, and men will not serve steadfastly without money, and money will not be obtained without building, and building will not be possible without justice and governance.
Based on this saying, one can recognize that the instrument of world- seizing is money, and that the alchemy of money is justice and governance. The benefit in singling out justice and governance, and recommending those above other virtues of kings, is that the types of generous acts and varieties of favors definitely have a limit, and the extension of that [munificence] to [both] elite and commoner is clearly infeasible. But the profits of these two qualities [i.e., justice and sound governance] apply to all people. And there will be a share of those [profits] for the far and near of the world, since building in the environs [of the kingdom], and the increase in prosperity, the succession of revenues, the reviving of wastelands, the comforting of the poor, the provision of the necessities of life, the acquisition of the masters of professions, and the likes and kin of those [things], are connected to justice. And the security of roads, the subduing of evildoers [i.e., brigands], the control of routes, the protection of lands, and the driving-off of transgressors, are dependent on governance.
Nothing is more powerful than these two matters for the preservation of the world. Also, which good conduct could have this distinction, that reformers are soothed [by it], and corrupters are ground down? Any time that these two aspects come to be observed as obligatory, complete power will follow. The hearts of the elite, the commoner, the soldier, [8] and the peasant will become settled on the basis of affection and friendship. Friend and foe will come together under the yoke of obedience and service, and vexation will not take shape in the minds of the weak. The disobedient will no longer be capable of recalcitrance. And news of this will spread to the horizons; and the robe of kingship will be ornamented; and the pledge of permanence in this regard will be obtained.
These few words have been related as a summary of the properties of kingship and royal fortune, and of the virtues of justice and governance. Now we will turn to other purposes. God is the one who will grant success in completing [this work], through His grace and the vastness of His generosity.
4.4 Praise of the Ghaznavid Dynasty
Let thanks and praise be unto God—may His name be glorified—who has adorned the abode of Islam and the pearl of the world with the beauty of the justice, mercy, total majesty, and governance of the lord of the world, the great ruler, possessor of the necks of the nations, king of Islam, supporter of the Imam [i.e., the Abbasid caliph], protector of humankind, right hand of the state,28 guardian of the religious community, eminence of the Islamic nation (umma), king of the lands of God, ruler of the servants of God, helper of the friends of God (awliyāʾ), subjugator of the enemies of God, master of the kings of the Arabs and the Persians (ʿArab va ʿAjam), pride of the sultans in the world, exalted of the mortal realm and the religion, vanquisher of kings and sultans, conqueror by the order of God, upholder of God’s proof, strengthener of Islam and Muslims, subduer of deniers and unbelievers, refuge of human and jinn, shadow of God on the two horizons, supported [by God to triumph] over enemies, helped [to victory] by the heavens, shooting star of the heavens of vicegerency, origin-point of justice and mercy, dispenser of security in the two lands, spreader of beneficence in the two worlds, ruler of the people (khalq), proof of the truth (ḥaqq; i.e., God), winner of the lands of the mortal realm, manifester of the sublime word of God, patron of favors (waliyy al-niʿam), Abū l-Muẓaffar Bahrāmshāh, son of the noble ruler, exalted of the state, brilliance of the religious community (milla), light of the nation (umma), Abū Saʿd Masʿūd, son of the contented ruler, supporter of the state, helper of the religious community, protector of the nation, Abū l-Muẓaffar Ibrāhīm, son of the martyred ruler, defender of the religion of God, supporter of the vicegerent of God, [9] Abū Saʿīd Masʿūd, son of the former ruler, right hand of the state, guardian of the religious community, order of the religion, refuge of Muslims, Abū l-Qāsim Maḥmūd, son of the just commander, supporter of the religion and imperial fortune, Abū Manṣūr Sabuktagīn, pillar of the vicegerent of God, commander of the faithful—may God strengthen his [i.e., Bahrāmshāh’s] supporters and double his power.29
[God] has spread the wing of [Bahrāmshāh’s] benevolence and favor over the world and the mortals. And He has given the turn of world-rule to him on the basis of merit, both in terms of inheritance and by way of attainment. He has brought the peoples of the climes into the fold of his protection and stewardship; and He has given rest to the weak ones of the religious community and nation in the shadow of his justice and the refuge of his mercy.
And He has consigned the reins of power and the halter of empire to [Bahrāmshāh’s] governance and management; and He has fortified his kingly resolutions with the support of manifest victory and the persistence of the help of the Almighty—so that on every side that he commands a movement [of his army], triumph and victory will deem it obligatory that his banner and his standard be welcomed and accepted. The kingly glories that [Bahrāmshāh] has accomplished in the spring of youth and the dawn of his lifetime, in terms of the acquisition of territories, have now become the model of the kings of the world.30
On this account, if the demon of discord settled in the heads of the Bū Ḥalīm until they placed their feet outside the bounds of servitude,33 [10] in the handling of their affair, [Bahrāmshāh] carried out the customs of mobilizing and outfitting the army34 in such a way that the gazette of felicity was marked with the name and fame of that [episode], and the register of imperial fortune gained beauty by the listing of its virtues.
With these two renowned victories, which were made possible by the grace of God and the aura of triumphant imperial fortune—may it remain firmly rooted, immovably anchored—the order of affairs of the center and periphery returned to its established stability and familiar custom. And based on a solid foundation and correct traditions, [the kingdom] achieved good progress and continuation. All the malefactors of the borderlands drew in their breath and bowed their heads,36 and the hearts of elites and commoners and soldier and peasant were at peace in obedience and servitude. Royal commands were followed in all respects, and the majesty of kingship and the awesomeness of empire were fixed in the minds of friends and enemies. And mention of that [success] became generally known and widespread in the horizons and quarters of the world.
If, in the relation of the merits of the reign of this pious king and absolute monarch—may he be in power durably, and triumphant over enemies—a thorough and rightful discussion were pursued, and [if] the excellent qualities of his great self and the virtues of the blessed royal family were given a detailed and broad explanation, then the goal of translating this book [i.e., Kalīla and Dimna] would slip away. And how could it be the place of this servant37 to utter praise of the victorious state? Since …
This servant-nurturing emperor—may he always be emperor, and always servant-nurturing—has, in world-rulership, accepted and followed the example of the virtues of his blessed family. And he has recognized the grandeur of the qualities of the ancestor kings—may God illuminate their proofs—as the qibla of auspicious undertakings.
He found his father with that great attainment39
[i.e.,] the numerous praiseworthy and agreeable signs which, in the presentation of the principles of justice and governance, belong to the former ruler,40 right hand of the state41 and guardian of the Islamic nation, order of the religion, refuge of Muslims, Abū l-Qāsim Maḥmūd—may God illuminate his proof and weigh his balance with good deeds. Furthermore, in reviving the precedents of the just commander, helper of the religion42 and the state [i.e., Sabuktagīn]—may God illuminate his grave and whiten his forehead—[Maḥmūd] endeavored to adorn those [prior accomplishments] with his own additions.43
[Maḥmūd] rendered his [i.e., Sabuktagīn’s] laudable customs fresh and alive, and he at once erased the blameworthy habits that oppressors and irresponsible people had put in place, [12] until [all] the creatures on the face of the earth, at peace and contented, set their backs against the wall of security and leisure. Friend and foe [alike] acknowledged the exaltation of ambition and the perfection of governance of that pious ruler—may God envelop him in the cloak of His forgiveness. And his orders were absolutely obeyed throughout the kingdoms. The proud ones of the age sought refuge in the safety of his sanctuary, and they recognized their nobility and prosperity in obedience and submission to him.
All the kingdoms of Ghaznīn, Zābulistān, Nīmrūz, Khurāsān, Khwārazm, Chaghāniyān, Gurgān, Ṭabaristān, Qūmis, Dāmghān, Ray, Iṣfahān, and the lands of Hindūstān and Mūltān came under the control of the command of that great44 emperor—may God shelter him with His grace—such that, occasionally, he would state in a blessed voice, “One edge of my kingdom is Iṣfahān, and another is Tirmiẕ, and a third is Khwārazm, and the fourth is the course of the Ganges river.” Anyone who has read the Book of Routes and Realms,45 and who has learned the length and breadth of these countries, will understand the extent to which [Maḥmūd’s] kingdom reached.
At that point, he restricted his ambition to the glorification of the word of God (kalima-yi ḥaqq), and he focused his peerless self on assisting the religion of Islam and attending to the interests of the people. From the gate of Kābul to the bank of the river of Qannawj and the borders of Kālinjar and Bānūsī; and from the side of Mūltān to Nahrvāla, Manṣūra, Sūmnāt [i.e., Somnath], Sarandīb, and the shores of the ocean and the environs of Egypt; and from the side of Quṣdār, all the surroundings of Yemen, Sibapūra, Sind, Sīvastān [i.e., Sīstān], Sila-yi ʿUmar,46 and Yawẕiya, and the environs of Kirmān and the coasts of Tīz and Mukrān—[Maḥmūd] added on the order of two thousand farsangs [13] to the territory of Islam.
The sun of the Aḥmadī [i.e., Muslim] religious community shone on those countries from the reflection of the moon of the Maḥmūdī banner.47 And the rays of the heavens of Islam, in the shade of the parasol of the line of Nāṣir al-Dīn [Sabuktagīn], were spread over those regions. Mosques were built in place of idol-temples. In those places where, in the age of the emperors of the past, they were saying inappropriately of the king of kings, “May his names be exalted, and may his favor be all-encompassing,” today they are continuously engaging in worship and reading the glorious Qurʾān. More than a thousand pulpits have been installed, at which, on Fridays and holidays, they speak praise of the Creator—may His name be respected. And they carry out the divine obligations.
Over the period of one hundred and seventy years, which represents the days of the imperial fortune of this blessed family—may God the Exalted extend that to one thousand and seven hundred—in [each] year, they have brought approximately fifty thousand [wearers of] the mantle of the infidel from the abode of war to the abode of Islam. They accept the faith, and until the time of resurrection,48 male and female believers will be born from their begetting and procreation. And all of them acknowledge the unity of their Creator and Sustainer. Blessings and rewards and merits are being amassed for that king of kings, conqueror [in the name of the religion], Maḥmūd, and [for] all the kings of this family.
The other rulers of the august polity—may the [current] lord of the mortal realm, king of the age, khusraw of the world, the conquering emperor Bahrāmshāh, be the inheritor of their kingship and longevity—have many virtues and good qualities, since each one of them has been, in governance, administration, justice, and mercy, a religious community unto himself.
But the explanation and analysis of that [greatness] is not possible, since speaking about it insufficiently would be blameworthy;50 and if a broad treatment [of the subject] were given, the goal of translating this book [i.e., Kalīla and Dimna] would be eclipsed.
Necessarily, through the blessings of those good intentions and pure convictions, the emblem of kingship and the qualities of world-rulership [14] have become eternal, permanent, lasting, and perpetual in this great family. The conduct of the emperors of this polity—may God strengthen it—has become the model of the virtues of the world and the beauty of the glories of the children of Adam. And the age has been guided by might and nobility; and mention of this has been written with the pen of Mercury on the body of the sun.
Let there be praise unto God the Sublime, that the signs of this superabundance of power and the indications of this excess of capability are as clear as possible. The hopes of the loyal servants—that the other climes of the world will be added to the territory of the fortunate kingdom, and [that] the hereditary possessions and [newly] acquired [lands] will be joined together therein—are as firm as possible. And this servant and son of a servant has an ode (qaṣīda) in praise of the exalted, conquering assembly—may God double its radiance—which has been set in the blessed voice of the king of kings. Two lines from that [ode], which are appropriate to this topic, are recorded [here]:
May God the Sublime and Sacred always adorn the face of the earth with the beauty of the justice and mercy of the lord of the world, the just and supreme king of kings, the patron of favors. May He convey [the king] to the limit of his ambition and the extremity of his desire in religious and worldly [pursuits]. May He ornament the pulpits of Islam, in the east and west, with the aura and precious value of the august epithets, and [with] the beauty of the blessed name of the king of kings. May He render the ground of the royal court the prostration-place of the kings of the world. And may God have mercy on a servant who said Amen.
4.5 Autobiographical Notes
[15] So says the servant and son of a servant, Naṣr Allāh [b.] Muḥammad [b.] ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Abū l-Maʿālī—may God the Generous take care of him with His grace:52
Since, by the aura of favor and the felicity of the good fortune of the conquering assembly of the king of kings—may God perpetuate its splendor—the house of this servant’s master—may God prolong his life and make permanent his days and his benefaction, and may God bless him with happiness in the two realms—became the qibla of noble and learned people, and the kaʿba of scholars and of the peers of this great man—may the surroundings of [the house] remain guarded, and its inner walls and enclosures protected;
And [since] everyone knew refuge and asylum at his side, and in the matters of their supervision and care, he took it as an obligation [to engage in] various kinds of exertion and fastidiousness;
And [since] he would furthermore accept the petitions of each one with excitement and rejoicing—[conduct] the like of which cannot cross the minds of the people of the age—and the mention of this fact is too widespread for an excess of verbosity to be needed [in describing it]—
Consequently, everyone had attained tranquility and contentment at his side, and they were placing footsteps of sincerity in the arena of friendship and affection.54
A group of the famous among them, of whom each one had abundant excellence and wide renown, were in the position of residents of the house and [members of] the inner circle of the assembly. [They included] Qāżī Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Isḥāq, Burhān al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rashīd b. Naṣr, and the imāms: ʿAlī Khayyāṭ (“the Tailor”), Ṣāʿid Mayhanī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bustī, Muḥammad Sayfī, Muḥammad Nīshāpūrī, Muḥammad b. ʿUṡmān Bustī, Mubashshir Rażavī Adīb (“the Littérateur”), ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Iskāfī, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Zāhidī (“the Ascetic”), Maḥmūd Sagzī, Fākhir b. Nāṣir, and Saʿīd Bākharzī; and at times the imāms Muḥammad Khabbāzī (“the Baker”) and Maḥmūd Nīshāpūrī—may God have mercy on those of them who have passed away, and may He prolong the lives of those who remain.
And for me the servant, in their assembly and meeting and conferring and conversation, there had become such a fresh familiarity, and there had occurred [such] an inclination toward seeking and persevering in the acquisition of knowledge, that I had a total determination to commence activities and to participate in works. I was restricting the limit of my keen desire to [the goal] [17] that I might get to know one of them, and [that] I could seek fellowship through an hour in conversation with him. And I would recognize that as the capital of felicity and prosperity and good fortune.
It is possible that this speech may pass upon the minds [of readers] in the garb of boasting, and it may come before their intellects in the context of self-promotion. But when the imperative of fairness lifts the veil of the evil eye from the beauty of oneself, and [when] the signs of proficiency and miracles of craft—several of which this book mentions and portrays—are given appropriate consideration, it will be recognized that, so long as [one’s] determination in educational attainment is not high, and the burden of learning is not borne as completely as possible, [then] in speech—in which lies the nobility of a human being over other living things—[one] cannot achieve this status.56
Noble qualities are allocated in proportion to hard work.57
Since the world, by the decree of its own custom in the requisitioning of talents, scattered that assembly, and the order of this situation became broken, I did not know myself [to be] guided except by studying books.
The best table-companion of the age is a book.58
In the proverbs it is [told], “What an excellent conversation partner is the notebook.” And by the precept of that which they have said—
Seriousness all year eats away the life of people59
—from time to time, jocularity would occur [in me], and there would be an inclination toward histories and evening tales.
During this period, a learned jurisprudent, [18] ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl—may God perpetuate his success—who, among the young legal scholars of His Illustrious Majesty, is exceptional in the superiority of his skill and intellect—and at this time he attained the prosperity of good faith, but his temperament admitted little change as far as the overturning of his inner state—brought as a gift a copy of Kalīla and Dimna.60 Although several other copies of it were among [my] books, this was taken as a good omen, and [ʿAlī’s] rights were brought to observance in sincere friendship. The mention of his discharging an obligation and of his liberality was thereby made permanent—may God reward him with the best recompense and grant him his wishes in his first [life] and his next.61 In short, an attachment to that copy [of Kalīla and Dimna] occurred [on my part], and, with consideration and contemplation, the merits of the book better showed their beauty.
4.6 Praise of Kalīla and Dimna (and of Baghdad)
[My] desire in perusing it increased, since, after the books of religious law, in the span of the life of the world, they have not made a book more beneficial than [Kalīla and Dimna]. The foundation of its subject matter is upon wisdom and admonition, and at the same time, it has exhibited that [material] in the outward form of jest—so that, just as the elite of the people will incline toward that [book] for the discernment of experiences, common folk will also read [it] because of its playfulness, and gradually those points of wisdom will become fixed in their disposition. In truth, it is a mine of understanding and sound judgment and a treasury of experiential wisdom and practice. For the governance of kings, in controlling the kingdom, there could be assistance in hearing that [material]; and for the middling ones of the people, in taking care of their property, profit could be attained by reading it.
They [once] asked one of the Brahmins of India, “They say that toward India there are mountains, and in those grow medicinal [plants], by which a dead person becomes alive. What would be the way of obtaining those [medicines]?” [The Brahmin] answered: “‘You have preserved one thing, and [other] things have slipped away from you.’ This saying belongs to the allusion and hinting of the ancients, and by ‘mountains’ they intended ‘scholars’; and by ‘medicinal plants,’ ‘the speech of [the scholars]’; and by ‘dead people,’ ‘ignorant ones,’ [19] who, by hearing that [speech], are revived and achieve eternal life on the path of knowledge. There is a collection of these words [of wisdom] that they call Kalīla and Dimna, and it is in the treasuries of the kings of India. If you can obtain it, this desire will be achieved.”62
The benefits of this book are endless. What excellence could be higher than this, that [the book] passed from religious community to religious community, and from nation to nation, and was not rejected?
When emperorship reached Kisrā Nūshirwān [i.e., Anūshirwān]—may God grant him comfort—the renown of whose justice and mercy remains on the face (vajh) of time, and the mention of whose strength and [sound] governance is established in the hearts (ṣudūr) of the chronicles, to such an extent that they liken the rulers of Islam to him in benevolent conduct—and what felicity [could be] greater than this, that the Prophet has bestowed upon him this honor [in saying], “I was born in the time of the just king”—Anūshirwān ordered that [his servants] bring that [book] from the lands of India to the kingdom of Persia by stratagems,63 and he [had it] translated into the Pahlavī language. He laid the foundation of the affairs of his kingdom in accordance with that [book]; and he recognized its suggestions and exhortations as the register of the interests of the religion and the world, and as the model of governance for the elite and the common folk. He counted it a valuable gift and a precious treasure in his vaults; and it remained on this basis until the end of the days of Yazdijird-i Shahriyār, who was the last of the kings of Iran (ʿAjam).
When the countries of Iraq and Persia were conquered at the hands of the armies of Islam, and the dawn of the religion of truth broke over that region, mention of this book reached the ears of the caliphs. And they had an inclination and a desperate desire for it, until, during the reign of Commander of the Faithful Abū Jaʿfar Manṣūr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās— may God be pleased with them—who was the second caliph from the family of the uncle of the Prophet—may God’s prayers be upon him, and may He be pleased with his uncle—Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ translated that [book] from the Pahlavi language into the Arabic language (lughat-i tāzī). And that ruler [i.e., al-Manṣūr] accepted [the book] completely, and the other great ones of the religious community followed that example.
The condition of [al-Manṣūr’s] exaltation of ambition and capability in kingship is too widely known for there to be a need to go into detail in explaining it. One of the remaining signs of that great emperor is the majestic abode of Baghdad, which, today, is absolutely the center of the caliphate, [20] the dwelling-place of the imamate, the source of kingship, and the City of Peace. Not [elsewhere] in the lands of Islam do they display such a city, nor in the lands of unbelief.
Among the special traits of that abode—may God lengthen its shade—is that the death of caliphs does not occur there. Commander of the Faithful Abū Jaʿfar Manṣūr—may God be pleased with him—passed from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of the hereafter at Biʾr Maymūn, one caravan-stop from Mecca—may God protect it. Commander of the Faithful Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Manṣūr, whose epithet was al-Mahdī (“the Rightly Guided”)—may God be pleased with him—[died] at the stopping-place of Māsabaẕān on the road to Gurgān. Commander of the Faithful Abū Muḥammad Mūsā b. al-Mahdī, whose epithet was al-Hādī (“the Guide”), [died] at ʿĪsā-Ābād. Commander of the Faithful Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn b. al-Mahdī, whose epithet was al-Rashīd (“the Rightly Guided”), [died] in Ṭūs. And Commander of the Faithful Abū l-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh b. Hārūn, whose epithet was al-Maʾmūn (“the Trusted”), [died] at Ṭarsūs.64
Muḥammad al-Amīn was killed at Baghdad, but in that situation he was not caliph, and a majority of the religious community had agreed upon his deposition. In this recent age, Commander of the Faithful Abū Manṣūr al-Faḍl, whose epithet was al-Mustarshid bi-Llāh (“the Seeker of Guidance from God”), was martyred within the borders of Iraq. And they [i.e., geographical authorities] indicate a full day’s journey between that site and the majestic abode of Baghdad. The merits of this city are many, and every person among the historians has delved into this [topic], and they have brought to completion its explanation and description.
4.7 Anecdotes about the Caliph al-Manṣūr
Now a few points from the words of Commander of the Faithful Manṣūr will be cited,65 although this is not the place for it—but it is possible that, for readers, there may be a benefit from it.
One day, [al-Manṣūr] was saying to his companions, “How badly I need for there to be at my door four [people] as I desire them!” [The companions] said, “Who are they?” [Al-Manṣūr] said, “Those without whom my kingdom will not remain standing, just as a throne will not stand without its four legs. As for the first of them, it is a judge whom the censure of a critic does not make deviate [from the path of] God.66 As for the second, it is a chief of police who sees that justice is done for the weak in the face of the powerful. As for the third, it is a master of taxation who investigates and who does not oppress the subjects—for I can do without oppressing them.”67 Then he bit his index finger and said, [21] “Ah, ah!” And they said to him, “Who is the fourth, O commander of the faithful?” He said, “A postmaster who transmits the news with authenticity and does not overstep the bounds of truth.”
The meaning [i.e., translation] is thus: “How I need four men who would stand at the door of my court!” The attendants said, “What are the details of their titles (asāmī)?” He said, “The people without whom the affairs of kingship cannot be right, just as the throne does not stand upright without its four legs. One of them is a judge who does not stray from the path of piety and the matter of faithfulness in issuing rulings of religious law, and whom the reproach of the people does not hinder from the way of truth. Second is a lieutenant (khalīfat) who claims justice for the weak oppressed ones from the powerful oppressors. Third is a competent, sincere [individual] who demands taxes and the rights of the treasury in a thorough manner, and [who] does not allow a burden upon the subjects, since I am averse to his being oppressive.” Then he bit his finger and said, “Ah, ah!” They said, “Who is the fourth, O commander of the faithful?” He said, “A postmaster who transmits the news correctly and rightly and does not cross the boundary of truth.”
Among [al-Manṣūr’s] commands, he decreed, “Entice your enemy to flee by abandoning eagerness in pursuing him if he is routed, and know that each one who is in your army [represents] an eye on you.” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “Make flight appealing in the heart of your enemy by not going in pursuit of him when he flees, and know that each one who is in your army [22] is spying on you.”
And he [once] summoned an official to the court, [and that official] made an excuse and stood back and refrained [from appearing]. [Al-Manṣūr] signed the order of [the official] with the following statement: “If it is burdensome for him to come before us in his entirety, then we will be content with part of him and lessen his trouble; so let his head be carried to the court (al-bāb) without his body.” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “If it is burdensome for him to come toward our court (ḥażrat) with all of his body, we will satisfy ourselves with part of him to lighten his load. Let them bring his head to the court (dargāh) without the body.”
During tutelage, [al-Manṣūr] said to his son, Commander of the Faithful Mahdī—may God be pleased with both of them—“O my son, do not be open-handed with your army, for they will no longer need you; and do not be restrictive with them, for they will run away from you. Give them a gift in moderation, and restrain them graciously, and enrich them with hope, and do not be [overly] generous with them in gifts.” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “O son, do not make your giving to the army plentiful, for they will no longer need you; and do not handle affairs too tightly, for they will scatter in fear. Give gifts to the extent of moderation, and order restrictions kindly, without ill temper. Make the field of hope open for them, and hold tightly the reins of giving.”
And he was always saying, “Fear is something without which no one can have integrity. [One can] either [be] pious, and fear [divine] punishment; or noble, and fear dishonor; or intelligent, and fear consequences.” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “Fear and fright is a matter without which no person can have integrity. [One can] either [be] pious, and fear [divine] punishment; or noble, and have fear of dishonor; or intelligent, and be cautious about the consequences of negligence.”
One day he said to Rabīʿ,68 “I see people accusing me of avarice. By God, I am no miser, but I saw that they are slaves to the dirham and the dīnār, so I deprived them of those things so that they would serve me because of them. Indeed, he was honest who said, ‘Make your dog hungry and it will follow you.’” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “I see people who label me avaricious. I am not a miser, but I see that everyone is a slave to the dirham and the dīnār, [so] I withhold those things from them so that they will serve me for them. And that sage has spoken truly, ‘Keep the dog hungry so that it will run after you.’”
[23] One day they said to [al-Manṣūr], “Such-and-such prominent individual (fulān muqaddam) has been called to his maker, and from him many estates are left behind, and his children have not reached the point of independence. If there were an order for the tax agents to take some [of those estates] under control and bring them into possession, there would be a windfall for the treasury.” [Al-Manṣūr] replied, “Whoever is not satisfied with the vicegerency of God on His earth, will not be satisfied by the estates of orphans and poor people.” The meaning [i.e., translation] is as follows: “Whomever the vicegerency of God on the face of the earth does not satiate, will not be satiated by the estates of orphans, either.”
The virtues of this emperor [i.e., al-Manṣūr] are without end, and the histories of the ancients speak to that. In particular, the Ghurar al-siyar of Thaʿālibī—may God have mercy on him—contains discussion of it. And that which was put forward from his side in the establishment of the caliphate and the strengthening of the kingdom and imperial fortune, rendered the pillars and borders (arkān va ḥudūd)69 solid and fortified with firmness of resolve and realization of will, in such a way that four hundred years passed, and the turning of the heavenly sphere and the vicissitudes of time could not weaken the foundations of that [polity], and could not give way to any harm to its mid- and lower-ranking people.
Any edifice that gains stability on the foundation of justice and benevolence, and whose sides and margins are reinforced by the help of the religion of truth and the observance of the orders of humankind—if the changing of conditions has no clear effect on it, and the hand of time is impotent in the arena of its felicity, it should not appear as a marvel.70 This amount of the excellent qualities of this emperor—may God be pleased with him—has been recorded, and now we will turn toward our purpose.
4.8 Further Praise of Kalīla and Dimna
In sum, the intention of the course of this discussion was [to show] that this kind of emperor took an interest in this book. When the rule of Khurāsān passed to the stalwart commander Abū l-Ḥasan Naṣr b. Aḥmad71 the Samanid—may God envelop him in His mercy—he ordered the poet Rūdakī to bring that [book] into verse, since the inclination of [human] natures toward versified speech is greater. [24] That ruler—may God’s favor be upon him—was distinguished among the kings of the line of Sāmān by an abundance of capability. During his reign, Kirmān and Gurgān and Ṭabaristān, up to the borders of Ray and Sipāhān [i.e., Iṣfahān], were added to the territory of the Samanid kingdom. [His rule] lasted thirty years, and various kinds of pleasure and enjoyment were associated with it. If a small selection of his affairs were recorded, it would become long. And he rightly considered this book precious and took pains in studying it.
Dābshalīm, the raja of India, at whose command they made this collection [of stories]—Bīdpāy the Brahmin, the original author, was among his circle—[also] had the mark of emperorship, and in this book the perfection of his wisdom and judgment can be recognized. The sorceries that Bīdpāy the Brahmin has performed in bringing together this collection, and the strange, beautiful fabrications and odd, rare compositions that have occurred to him, are too manifest for any [normal] effort to have the ability to construct [such things]. For anyone who has a share of wisdom, the excellence of that [book] will not be concealed; and the one who is obstructed from the beauty of intellect may be excused next to the people of understanding.
And if, in recording the virtues of this book, [many] volumes were completed, still its right would not be discharged according to the obligation. But confirmation [of this idea] has crossed all boundaries,73 and from the point at which we reached the mention of Anūshirwān up to here, it is all stuffing; and of course it has no relation to the topic of the book.74 The intention was [25] for it to be recognized that wisdom has always been prized, especially among kings and nobles. In truth, if effort is made in that [cause], and if trouble is borne, it will not have been wasted or fruitless, since knowledge of the laws of governance is fundamentally valued in world-rule, and the survival of the mention [of one’s name] to the limit of time is a precious treasure. Whatever the price at which it is bought, it is [as if it were] free.
4.9 On Translating Kalīla and Dimna
After the translation of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and the versification of Rūdakī, [others] have made translations of this book, and each person has left a footprint in the field of discourse according to the measure of their ability. But it seems that their goal has been the recording of evening chat and the writing of tales, not the instruction of wisdom and admonition, since they have cut short good speech and limited [themselves] to presenting the stories.
In sum, since the desire of the people in studying Arabic books has become limited, and those bits of wisdom and admonition have been abandoned—if not obliterated—it crossed my mind that [Kalīla and Dimna] should be translated, and that, in the explanation of its speech and the unveiling of its allusions, a sufficient measure75 should be reached. It should be reinforced with Qurʾānic verses (āyāt) and reports (akhbār; i.e., Ḥadīth) and lines of poetry and proverbs, so that this book, which is the choice extract of a few thousand years, might be revived, and that people not be deprived of its uses and benefits. In this way, [the project] was begun, and the conditions of speech-adornment were carried out through the insertion of proverbs, the interweaving of verses of poetry, and the explanation of symbols and allusions. And the translation and praise of [the book] were accomplished.
One chapter, which is restricted to discussion of the doctor Burzūya and attributed to Buzurjmihr [i.e., Buzurgmihr], has been rendered as concise as possible, since its foundation is on [mere] storytelling. Any expression (maʿnā) which is devoid of the ornament of universal governance and the jewel of fundamental wisdom—if a person tries to adorn that with a borrowed garment, it will not attain beauty by any means. Whenever it passes before the wise appraisers and superior masters, they will not incline toward its ornamentation, and it will undoubtedly fall into a position of disgrace. The [aforementioned] verbosity and exaggeration, tied to the gracefulness of shared purpose,76 has its beginning with the story of the Lion and the Ox, [26] which is the original [beginning of Kalīla and Dimna];77 and the gate of the garden of knowledge and wisdom will be opened for the readers of this book from that point.
When part of this [translation] was completed, mention of it reached the blessed, exalted, victorious ears of the king of kings—may God let him hear words that are pleasing and to his liking—and a few sections were granted the honor of his sublime attention. [With his] perfect knowledge of speech and kingly discernment,78 he was pleased by that [writing], and he granted the honor of praise and approval. He issued a command, based on the principles of beneficence and cultivating hope, and limited to various kinds of servant-nurturing and benevolence, that: “Let [the translation] be completed in this same way, and let the preface be embroidered with the epithets of my court.” And this servant attained through that [command] strength of heart, support, eminence, and pride, and he [i.e., Naṣr Allāh] dove into this act of service with an anxiety all the more complete—since for servants there is no escape from carrying out an order.
In any case (va illā), for the people of the world it is well established that the extemporization of the mind and the first thought of the king of kings of the world—may God exalt his affair and perpetuate his kingship and rule—is the model of the active intellect and the guide to the sacred spirit. Neither from contemplation of the allusions and experiential wisdom (tajārib) of this book could a sharpening of his [i.e., Bahrāmshāh’s] illuminated, victorious mind take shape; nor from studying these expressions could his shining kingly enunciations be reinforced.
[27] With this order [to finish translating Kalīla and Dimna], this servant and servant’s son was honored as greatly as possible and nurtured as completely as possible; and my glories and pride increased as abundantly as possible. The reward for that was saved for the age of the exalted emperor.
4.10 Concluding praise of Bahrāmshāh
Likewise, if the kings of the past, whose names have been brought forth in the introduction of this chapter, achieved this kind of success; and if they held dearly the words of the sages, so that mention of them in that connection would remain on the face of the earth; [then] today, when the age has come into obedience to, and the heavens into the following of, the mind and banner of the lord of the world, the just and great ruler, king of kings of the children of Adam, patron of favors, possessor of the necks of the nations—may God exalt his intelligence and his banner and grant help to his army and his standards—and the reins of power and the halter of world-rule have been deposited to his kingly justice, mercy, strength, and governance; and the excellence and superiority of this pious emperor over the rulers of the [current] age and the kings of times past and present, in the noble qualities of his blessed family and the virtues of his peerless essence, is too obvious for there to be a need for servants to engage in verbosity and long-windedness about it—
—[Bahrāmshāh] gave this same order [to have Kalīla and Dimna translated],82 and he rendered permanent and eternal the name and reputation of his fortunate reign, which is the golden age83 of virtue and excellence.
May God the blessed and exalted make the utmost ambition of the kings of the world the ascendancy of the imperial fortune and celebration of the prosperity and felicity of this servant-nurturing emperor.84 And may He grant him all manner of enjoyment and happiness from the season of youth and the fruits of kingship, in His grace and His mercy and His power and His strength.
The Kalīla and Dimna—AnonymClassic project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC), under the European Union’s H2020-EU.1.1.—Excellent Science program, Advanced Grant no. 742635. I am grateful to my AnonymClassic colleagues for their ongoing support of my research on the Persian Kalīla and Dimna tradition. Isabel Toral deserves special recognition for her patient and fastidious editorial work on our collected volume. I would also like to thank Devin Stewart for reading a draft of this translation. His comments allowed me to fix numerous errors. Any that remain—and there are bound to be some—are my fault alone.
I use the term “translation” broadly, rather than refusing to apply it where it seems not to fit perfectly—as in this case. Translation can involve a range of approaches. For Naṣr Allāh, it meant rendering his Arabic source into Persian while adding a profusion of new material.
On prosimetrum, see Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature,” in Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997, 249–75. On al-jidd wa-l-hazl, see Geert Jan van Gelder, “Mixtures of Jest and Earnest in Classical Arabic Literature,” pts. 1 and 2, Journal of Arabic Literature 23/2 (1992): 83–108; 23/3 (1992): 169–90.
I have discussed some of these points in a recent article, “Scripture as Frame in Naṣr Allāh Munshī’s Kalīla and Dimna,” in Johannes Stephan and Beatrice Gruendler, eds., Framing Narratives in Premodern Literature: Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, themed issue, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 24/1 (2024): 131–51, https://journals.uio.no/JAIS/issue/view/836.
See, for example, Mahmoud Omidsalar, “Kalila wa Demna ii. The translation by Abu’l-Maʿālī Naṣr-Allāh Monši,” in Encyclopædia Iranica, online version.
See A.F.L. Beeston, “The ‘ʿAlī ibn Shāh’ Preface to Kalīlah wa Dimnah,” Oriens 7/ 1 (1954): 81–84.
Naṣr Allāh claims that it was during the reign of al-Manṣūr that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ translated Kalīla and Dimna into Arabic (see section 4.6 below), and he strongly implies that this was done under caliphal patronage—that al-Manṣūr deserves some credit for the endeavor. According to the traditional biography of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, however, he was never in al-Manṣūr’s entourage. In fact, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ is said to have offended al-Manṣūr shortly after he assumed the caliphate, and to have been put to death as a result (ca. 139/756–57). In any case, it is understandable that Naṣr Allāh wishes to associate the translation of Kalīla and Dimna with al-Manṣūr, given the ruler’s towering legacy. For a concise overview of the career of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, see Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice, ed. Michael Fishbein, trans. Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery, New York: New York University Press, 2021, xiii–xvi.
See Naṣr Allāh Munshī, Kalila and Dimna, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2019. Thackston has striven to make his translation accessible to a general readership. He therefore omits the many lines of poetry quoted by Naṣr Allāh, and he has greatly abridged the preface, which he labels “excessively long-winded.” There is also a German translation of Naṣr Allāh’s text, by Seyfeddin Najmabadi and Siegfried Weber, in which such abridgments have not been made. See Naṣr Allāh Munshī, Kalila und Dimna: Fabeln aus dem klassischen Persien, trans. Seyfeddin Najmabadi and Siegfried Weber, Munich: C.H. Beck, 1996. Naṣr Allāh’s preface occurs on pp. 359–86. (The introductory chapters have been moved to the end of the book.) For discussion of the critical edition of the Persian, see section 3.
Page numbers cited parenthetically here—and in square brackets in the translation—refer to Naṣr Allāh Munshī, Kalīla va Dimna, ed. Mujtabā Mīnuvī (Tehran: University of Tehran Press, 1964).
In fact, this distinction between the core argument and more digressive passages is reflected in the Siyar al-mulūk, an Arabic retranslation of Naṣr Allāh’s version of Kalīla and Dimna from the late seventh/thirteenth century. The author of that adaptation has translated much of Naṣr Allāh’s preface, but only the sections that deal with Islam, kingship, justice, and Kalīla and Dimna in universal terms. I have a recently published article on the Siyar al-mulūk, coauthored with my colleague, Khouloud Khalfallah. See Theodore S. Beers and Khouloud Khalfallah, “The Siyar al-mulūk of ʿUmar b. Dāwūd al-Fārisī: A Quasi-Plagiaristic Translation of Kalīla and Dimna,” Journal of Abbasid Studies 9 (2022): 72–104.
While the Mīnuvī edition provides a good reference text, I have occasionally needed to check a manuscript for the reading of a troublesome passage. For this purpose, I have consulted Persian MS 68 at the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester. It is one of the earliest extant copies of Naṣr Allāh’s work, with a colophon date of 616/1219, and it was not among the manuscripts used by Mīnuvī.
Again, section headings have been added in translation. They are not present in the original Persian and serve here only to make the text more easily navigable.
As Mīnuvī has noted in the Persian, the spider-thread refers to a story in which the Prophet Muḥammad and his companion Abū Bakr spent a night in a cave, hiding from the Quraysh, who were pursuing them. By the time that the Quraysh reached the cave, a spider had woven a web across the entrance, which gave the impression that it had not been disturbed recently. The pursuers therefore passed by the cave, with Muḥammad and Abū Bakr safe inside. As for the mosquito-bite, Mīnuvī suggests that it refers to a version of the story of Nimrod, in which the evil king and his army are defeated by a swarm of mosquitoes (or gnats) summoned by Abraham. I do not know whether it was common to combine the two images, as Naṣr Allāh has done, to demonstrate God’s working of great miracles through humble vessels.
Three lines of Arabic poetry in the wāfir meter. I have not been able to find another source for this, and it may be the author’s.
Naṣr Allāh often refers to the Prophet by this epithet.
Sūrat al-Aḥzāb (Q 33), verse 56. All translations of Qurʾānic verses are by Arberry. See Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted: A Translation, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Q 4), verse 59.
This is presented as a ḥadīth. Mīnuvī notes that it should be attributed instead to Ardashīr-i Bābakān. My impression is that this was a popular saying with multiple attributions. It occurs, for example, in the Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn of al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). See al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, ed. Badawī Aḥmad Ṭabāna, 4 vols., Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, n.d., 1:18.
This quote has more often been attributed to ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān. See, for example, Ibn Shabba, Tārīkh al-Madīna, ed. Fahīm Muḥammad Shaltūt, 4 vols., Mecca: H.M. Aḥmad, n.d., 3:988. ʿUmar b. Shabba (d. ca. 264/877) uses the following wording: la-mā yazaʿu l-sulṭānu l-nāsa ashaddu mimmā yazaʿuhumu l-qurʾān (“the restraint of the sultan over the people is stronger than the restraint of the Qurʾān over them”).
Sūrat al-Ḥashr (Q 59), verse 13.
One line of Persian poetry in the khafīf meter. I have not been able to find another source for this, and it may be the author’s.
The gender of the person referred to in this sentence is unspecified in the Persian and arbitrary in my translation. I have tried to follow a gender-neutral approach, except for a few cases in which choosing a singular pronoun helps the clarity of the text.
Sūrat Fāṭir (Q 35), verse 28.
Sūrat al-Ḥadīd (Q 57), verse 25. The sūra is named for this verse.
Sūrat Ṣād (Q 38), verse 26.
Sūrat al-Naḥl (Q 16), verse 90.
This is the first of several instances in which Naṣr Allāh follows an Arabic quote with its Persian translation. I have added notes in brackets to make this clearer.
With apologies to my mentors at the University of Chicago, who insisted on the avoidance of anachronistic translation, I do occasionally render dawlat as “state” in this text. I consider this acceptable, so long as one does not read too much into the term.
Here Naṣr Allāh has traced the whole Ghaznavid line from Bahrāmshāh, his patron, back to Sabuktagīn (d. 387/997), founder of the dynasty.
This last phrase is repeated in equivalent form using Arabic, then Persian words: qudva-yi mulūk-i dunyā and dastūr-i pādshāhān-i gītī. I have usually kept Naṣr Allāh’s pleonastic phrases in translation, since they represent an important component of his style, and of classical Persian prose style in general. But sometimes the only sensible approach is to translate as though the pleonasm were not present.
Two lines of Arabic poetry in the kāmil meter. This is attributed to an Umayyad-era poet of Persian origin, Ziyād al-Aʿjam (fl. second/eighth century).
One line of Persian poetry in the ramal meter. This may be the author’s.
The Bū Ḥalīm were a family of military commanders who served the later Ghaznavid sultans. They rebelled against Bahrāmshāh and were duly struck down. See C.E. Bosworth, “Bu Ḥalim Šaybāni Family,” in Encyclopædia Iranica, online version.
Here I have reduced a bit of the wordiness of the Persian: rusūm-i lashkar-kashī va ādāb-i sipāh-ārāʾī.
One line of Arabic poetry in the basīṭ meter. I have not been able to find an attribution, and this line may well be the author’s.
This compound verb, sar bi-khaṭṭ āvardan, is listed in Dehkhoda, with another example cited from the Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī.
Man banda; lit. “I, the servant.”
Eight lines of Persian poetry in the mutaqārib meter (i.e., the meter of the Shāhnāma). This is probably the author’s.
One hemistich of Arabic poetry in the basīṭ meter. This is attributed to Dhū l-Rumma d. ca. 117/735.
In Mīnuvī’s edition, the word khudāvand occurs here in a way that I was unable to parse. I checked the Manchester manuscript, to which Mīnuvī did not have access, and the word is absent there (fol. 8r). I have chosen to omit it for purposes of translation.
This title, Yamīn al-Dawla, was the standard honorific, or laqab, of Sultan Maḥmūd.
This title, Nāṣir al-Dīn, was the standard laqab of Sabuktagīn, founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty.
This paragraph represents one of the more difficult passages in the Persian. The syntax becomes rather obscure.
I have read this as muḥtasham, though Mīnuvī has it voweled muḥtashim—which would mean “modest.”
I.e., the Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik of Iṣṭakhrī (d. after 340/951–52). The order of words in the title is inverted in Mīnuvī’s edition, but the Manchester manuscript has it correct (fol. 8r).
This is not clear to me at all. Some of the place names in this list have come out differently in the Manchester manuscript (fol. 8v), but not in ways that are easier to interpret. There are points at which the copyist seems to have been hesitant.
As difficult as it is to track the preceding few paragraphs, this at least confirms that the discussion has remained centered on Sultan Maḥmūd.
Dāman-i qiyāmat; lit. “skirt of resurrection.”
One line of Arabic poetry in the kāmil meter. I have not been able to find an attribution.
At a few points in this preface, Naṣr Allāh uses the term ishbāʿ (or a derivative thereof), whose literal meaning is “satiation,” in the sense of treating a topic in the manner that it deserves. (Here ishbāʿ is used with negation, to mean “insufficiently.”)
Two lines of Arabic poetry in the basīṭ meter. This is apparently the author’s.
In the Persian, the patronymics here would be indicated by way of iżāfa.
One line of Arabic poetry in the ṭawīl meter. This is probably original.
Despite this effusive praise, Naṣr Allāh never names his master (khwāja).
One line of Arabic poetry in the basīṭ meter. This is attributed to Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Khwārazmī, a fourth/tenth century Iranian littérateur (writing in Arabic) and court secretary, whose best-known work is a monumental encyclopædia titled Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm (Keys to the Sciences).
This is one of the more convoluted sentences in the chapter, with Naṣr Allāh delicately expressing modesty while describing the quality of his education.
One hemistich of Arabic poetry in the wāfir meter. This seems to be popularly attributed to Imam al-Shāfiʿī, often with the verb tuktasab in place of tanqasim (with no real change in the meaning).
One hemistich of Arabic poetry in the ṭawīl meter. This is from al-Mutanabbī. For the full text of the qaṣīda containing this line, see Abū Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī, Dīwān, ed. Muṣṭafā al-Saqqā, Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ Shalabī (4 vols., Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1936), 1:188–201. The same line is quoted in the preface of the aforementioned Siyar al-mulūk of ʿUmar b. Dāwūd al-Fārisī. See note 10 above, and Beers and Khalfallah, “The Siyar al-mulūk,” 94.
One hemistich of Persian poetry in the hazaj meter. I have not seen any other attribution for this.
This is another complex sentence that is somewhat difficult to interpret. I believe the idea is that ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm, despite having reached a high station, did not lose his good nature.
What Naṣr Allāh means here, I think, is that he has demonstrated his gratitude to ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm in a lasting way by using the gifted manuscript of Kalīla and Dimna as the basis for a translation—although he owned other copies. Naṣr Allāh’s text, however, gives the impression of a combination of Vorlagen, and it deserves further analysis for its exact Arabic models. See Chapter 2 by Beatrice Gruendler, 25, note 25.
The Brahmin’s speech begins with a hemistich from a poem by Abū Nuwās (d. ca. 198/813–14; this quote is also retained in the Siyar al-mulūk): hafiẓta shayʾan wa-ghābat ʿanka ashyāʾu. The hemistich preceding the quoted one mentions philosophy: fa-qul li-man yaddaʿī fi l-ʿilmi falsafatan. It is interesting that Naṣr Allāh has a Brahmin quoting an Arabic saying and then explaining its meaning.
I.e., by any means necessary.
Here I have translated mahdī and rashīd identically. There are differences between these words—in particular when mahdī is used in an eschatological context—but as caliphal epithets, they are roughly equivalent.
This is perhaps a loose translation of the compound verb used in the Persian, īrād karda āmad.
Lā yaʾkhudhuhū fī Llāh; this is a bit terse, and my translation is based partly on the way that Naṣr Allāh has rendered it into Persian below.
I prefer this reading of fa-innī ghaniyy ʿan ẓulmihā, but note that it differs slightly from Naṣr Allāh’s Persian translation.
This presumably refers to al-Rabīʿ b. Yūnus (d. ca. 168/785), a freedman who became a senior official at the Abbasid court during al-Manṣūr’s reign.
This phrase may refer metaphorically to the nobles.
I.e., it should come as no surprise.
I.e., Naṣr II, r. 301–31/914–43.
One line of Persian poetry in the khafīf meter. This is sometimes attributed to Nāṣir Khusraw (d. after 462/1070), including in the entry for the word kūr (“blind”) in the Dehkhoda dictionary; but I have not found a secure source.
The word translated here as “confirmation,” ibrām, could alternatively mean “insistence”—i.e., the insistence of Naṣr Allāh on praising Kalīla and Dimna from many angles.
I.e., Naṣr Allāh is apologizing for having digressed.
Ishbāʿ; lit. “satiation.” See note 50 regarding this term.
Laṭāfat-i muvāradat: This is a puzzling construction. It occurs consistently across the manuscripts that I have checked—see, for example, fol. 15r in the Manchester copy—and Mīnuvī, in his edition, has added a footnote indicating that he also found this unclear.
However obscure parts of this sentence may be, its overall meaning comes across: Naṣr Allāh’s adornment of the text of Kalīla and Dimna will begin not with the biography of Burzūya but with the chapter of the Lion and the Ox.
Az ānjā kih kamāl-i sukhan-shināsī … ast; lit. “from that place which is the perfection of speech-knowledge …”
The term āb-i ḥayāt may refer to some kind of drink, as eau de vie refers to distilled spirits in French.
Two lines of Persian poetry. The meter is difficult to scan—especially in the second hemistich—but it seems to be a variant of mużāriʿ. This poetry may be by Naṣr Allāh.
One line of Persian poetry in the mużāriʿ meter. I have not seen any other attribution for this, and it may well be the author’s.
The preceding paragraph is simply a circumlocutory comparison between the care that earlier kings have shown for Kalīla and Dimna, and Bahrāmshāh’s continuation of that legacy in sponsoring Naṣr Allāh’s translation.
Rūz-i bāzār; lit. “market day.”
I.e., may God make it so that the aspiration of other, inferior rulers is to honor Bahrāmshāh.