Ибн аль-Мукаффа: Персидский переводчик и основоположник арабской прозы

Persian translator and author
the Egyptian writer

Abū Muhammad ʿAbd Allāh Rūzbih ibn Dādūya (ابو محمد عبدالله روزبه ابن دادويه), born Rōzbih pūr i Dādōē (روزبه پور دادویه), more commonly known as Ibn al Muqaffaʿ (ابن المقفع; ), was an Arab. "Ebn al Moqaffaʿ was of noble Iraqi stock and bore the name Rōzbeh/Rūzbeh before his comparatively late conversion to Islam from Mani chaeism. "</ref> translator, philosopher, author and thinker who wrote in the Arabic language.

Ibn al Muqaffa, though a resident of Basra, was originally from the town of Goor (or Gur, Firuzabad, Fars) in the Iranian province of Fars and was born into a family Persian stock.

Ibn al Muqaffa's translation of the Kalīla wa Dimna from Middle Persian is considered the first masterpiece of Arabic literary prose. "Ibn al Muqaffa' was a pioneer in the introduction of literary prose narrative to Arabic literature. He paved the way for later innovators such as al Hamadani and al Saraqusti, who brought literary fiction to Arabic literature by adapting traditionally accepted modes of oral narrative transmission into literary prose." Ibn al Muqaffa was also an accomplished scholar of Middle Persian, and was the author of several moral fables.

Isāghūjī: His translation from a Syriac version of Porphyry's Isagoge (Introduction), became the standard introductory logic text in the Arabic and broader Muslim world. Kalīla wa Dimna : His translation of a Middle Persian collection of animal fables, mostly of Indian origin, involving two jackals, Kalīla and Demna. The Middle Persian original, now lost but thought have been entitled Karīrak ud Damanak was written by one Borzōē/Borzūya, a Persian physician attached to the Sasanian court in the 6th century. Prefaced by a putative autobiography of Borzūya and an account of his voyage to India, the full work was done into Arabic by Ibn al Muqaffa', who introduced it with a prologue of his own and may have been responsible for four added stories. From Ibn al Moqaffaʿ's Arabic rendering of Borzūya's work are descended not only all later Arabic versions of Kalīla wa Dimna, but also one of two Syriac versions (the other one is pre Islamic ) and the medieval Greek, Persian (6th/12th century), Hebrew, Latin, and Castilian versions. Though there are many Arabic manuscripts of Kalīla wa Dimna, Ibn al Muqaffa'’s version is not among them, and the oldest dated copy was written almost five centuries after his death. That he aimed at an idiomatic rather than a slavishly literal rendering is generally agreed, and all indications are that he achieved clarity of expression by simplicity of diction and plain syntactical structures. As no medieval Arab critic seems to have impugned his style, it was evidently pleasing and well suited to the taste of his Arab readers. Ibn al Muqaffa'’s translation of Kalīla wa Dimna was not a conscious attempt to start a new literary trend; it was clearly just one of several works of old Sasanian court literature which Ibn al Muqaffa' introduced to an exclusive readership within court circles, its function being to illustrate what should or should not be done by those aiming at political and social success. Kalīla wa Dimna, nonetheless, served as a stimulus to the development of Arabic prose literature and inspired imitators, artists, and poets. A prose Persian translation of the Arabic text was available as early as the 10th century, of which a versified version was made by Rudaki (d.941 42). Both versions are lost except for a few lines of Rūdakī’s poem preserved in other sources. A later prose translation was rendered by Abu’l Maʿālī Nasr Allāh Ibn Mohammad Shirazi and dedicated to the Ghaznavid Bahramshah. Khwaday Namag: Ibn al Muqaffa' is thought to have produced an Arabic adaptation of the late Sasanian Khwaday Namag, a chronicle of pre Islamic Persian kings, princes, and warriors. A mixture of legend, myth, and fact, it served as a quasi national history inspired by a vision of kingship as a well ordered autocracy with a sacred duty to rule and to regulate its subjects’ conduct within a rigid class system. Interspersed with maxims characteristic of andarz literature, the narrative also offered practical advice on civil and military matters. Ibn al Muqaffa' is known to have modified certain parts of the original and excluded others, possibly to make it intelligible to his Arab Muslim readers. He is thought to have inserted an account of Mazdak, from which later Perso Arab historians derived much of their knowledge of the Mazdakite movement. Like its Middle Persian original, Ibn al Muqaffa'’s Arabic version is not extant. The Oyun al akhbar and the Ketab al maʿaref of Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) may preserve fragments of it; certainly the Sīar al ʿAjam, quoted by Ibn Qutayba without ascription, renders the Khwaday Namag.