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

SOME NOTES ON THE IMPACT OF THE SHI/" O

BIYYA romanticism.

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1 In Abbasid times, when the conflict between the old Arab aristocracy and the upstart mawäli class for political and economic control was a very momentous issue, a light-hearted ridiculing of this "noble savage" image of ancient Bedouins would inevitably have political overtones and instantly land any man of letters among those reputed to be shufiibis, as the case of Abu Nuwäs, this determinedly frivolous and uncommitted man, shows. An ironic, solemn declaration of the poet's cowardice and ignorance of combat, or his hypothesis that Muraqqish (a celebrated pre-Islamic master of love poetry), had he been still alive in Abbasid times, would certainly have gone for boys rather than girls'

', appear to have nothing to do with politics, yet such frivolous ridiculing of the old Arabic tradition, which would have been unthinkable under the Omayyads, must have sounded both scandalous and hostile to the disaffected Arab élite who gradually had to give way to a rising new aristocracy under the Abbasids. One is justified to conclude that while people truly antagonistic to the Arabs and intent on blemishing the Arabic cultural heritage tout entier may actually have existed within shufibiyya circles, the majority of the people accused of shufiibi leanings would certainly not go to such lengths.

1

2 Instead, it appears that a scholar who dared voice the remotest reservations or sarcastic remarks about just any aspect of the sacrosanct Bedouin heritage, or about an Arab dignitary's origins, would soon end up having acquired a notoriety as a slui'iibi author, no matter if he should be engaged in a largely bona fide collection and study of that heritage. A feature shared by many intellectuals reputed to be shufibis might be their humorous and flippant attitudes, a measure of frivolity, as it were, towards Arab aristocrats as well as the sanctified concepts of Arabian antiquity, rather than any conscious political stand or attack against Arabic culture as a whole. We might cite here a cheeky riposte of Abü cUbayda to an inquiry about his own descent (nasab

), whose evident irreverence and Cf. Ibn Khaldün, Muqaddima II, 472-73, 474-81. [Fierce and wild, the nomads are nevertheless more likely to be pure of soul and good than are sedentary folks.] Also cf. Ibn Qutayba, Fadl 63. An account in the Murüj al-dhahab even attributes the Bedouins' migratory lifestyle to a conscious and circumspect decision by their ancestors to keep distance from the corrupting influences of sedentary life. See al-Mas

cüdí, Murüj I, 433. 1

1 Abü Nuwäs, Diwan 46, 339. 7

2 In the domain of genealogy, there seem to have been real Persian nationalists, who utterly refused to accommodate old Persian traditions about Gayömarth, Faridün. Manüchihr, Höshang, etc., to Arabic cilm al-nasab

, and dismiss even such well-known myths as that of the Flood. Most genealogists, however, concentrated their efforts on establishing whether Persians belong to the most prestigious third of mankind (the descendants of Shem), or another one. See Ihn cAbd al-Barr, Qusd 9-10, 30-31; al-Mas

cüdí, Tanbih 37, 85, 88; al-Mas'üdí, Murüj I, 189, 205-6. 265