É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

SZOMBATHY, Zoltán: Some Notes on the Impact of the Shu übiyya on Arabic Genealogy

ZOLTÁN SZOMBATI IY would not raise any doubts that Persians, together with Arabs, also belonged to the most prestigious third of mankind, the offspring of Shem (Säm), who were thought to compose the most harmonious (mutadil) and developed part of the human race.

21 There was not, then, so great a cleavage between authors perceived as shu

cübi and their opponents regarding the basic hierarchy of peoples, nor was the image of preIslamic Arabian culture as one of the few noteworthy civilizations on Earth ever seriously jeopardized. *** Any twentieth-century reader will probably appreciate that this image of preIslamic Arabian folklore as amounting to "science" is a prima facie absurdity. There are reasonably clear indications that quite a few mediaeval intellectuals also had certain reservations about it. And, I dare say, it is the context in which one might detect what views would earn a mediaeval Muslim author the reputation of being a shu'übi. I take the immensely popular poet known under the sobriquet Abü Nuwäs as an example to illustrate my point.

2

2 His verse collection, or diwän, may be seen as an important exception to the general rule of there remaining scarcely any reliable sources that reflect the views and attitudes of shu'übi intellectuals. Usually considered to have been a decided follower of the shuübiyya

, Abü Nuwäs introduced into his poems, with obvious gusto, a varied and inventive mockery of pre-Islamic Bedouin poetry, especially its hackneyed topoi like the poet's solitary 2

1 al-Maqdist, Bad' II (3), 31. A highly allegorical (and tendentious) story in the Kitäb altiján even tells of how the ancient Persians and Arabs, after some fighting between them, quickly recognized each other as natural allies against all the inferior peoples descended from Ham and Japhet. See Ibn Hishäm, Tijän 233-38. 2

2 Abü Nuwäs was on friendly terms with Abü cUbayda, one of his teachers, and formed an extremely high opinion of the latter's scholarly virtues, describing him as "skin wrapped around knowledge" (adim tuwiya calä 'ihn), and opined that "if Abü "Ubayda is allowed to use his books, he will not stop short of reading out the stories of all generations, past and present..." (ammä Abü '

Ubayda fa-innahurn in amkanühu min sifrihi qara'a calayhim akhbär al-awwalin wa-l-äkhirin). See al-Suyüti, Bughya 295; al-Qifti, Inbäh II, 201; alSarriänl, Ansäb II, 242. Their characteristic irreverence for all the time-honoured values of the Arabs is demonstrated well by Abü Nuwäs's oft-quoted rude practical joke with a line of poetry which he is said to have written on the interior walls of a mosque high enough for the scholar hardly to be able to reach it: "May God bless the people of Lot; by God, oh Abü cUbayda, do say Amen!" (Sallä l-Ilähu calä Lütin wash?

átihi: Abä cUbaydata, qui bi-llähi äminä\). See Abü Nuwäs, Diwän 657; al-Bayhaqi, Mahäsin 66869; al-Isfahänl, Aghäni XX, 247. (Needless to say, both mocker and mocked were infamous for their penchant for boys.) Abü TJbayda's close association with such a disreputable shu'übi as Abü Nuwäs may well have been instrumental in blackening his own image. 262