Ibn al-Muqaffa'
Abū Muhammad ʿAbd Allāh Rūzbih ibn Dādūya (Arabic: ابو محمد عبدالله روزبه ابن دادويه), born Rōzbih pūr-i Dādōē (Persian: روزبه پور دادویه), more commonly known as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (Arabic: ابن المقفع; died c. 756/759), was a Persian translator, philosopher, author and thinker who wrote in the Arabic language. He bore the name Rōzbeh/Rūzbeh before his comparatively late conversion to Islam from Manichaeism.[1][2][3]
For the Egyptian writer, see Severus ibn al-Muqaffa.
Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa
AH 139 (756/757) or AH 142 (759/760)
Author and translator
Biography[edit]
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.[4][2] His father had been a state official in charge of taxes under the Umayyads, and after being accused and convicted of embezzling some of the money entrusted to him, was punished by the ruler by having his hand crushed, hence the name Muqaffa (shrivelled hand).
Ibn al-Muqaffa served in sectarian posts under the Umayyad governors of Shapur and Kirman. Unlike his other colleagues, he escaped persecution at the hands of Abbasids after their overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty. He later returned to Basra and served as a secretary under Isa ibn Ali and Sulayman ibn Ali, the uncles of the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur.
After their brother Abdallah ibn Ali made an abortive bid for the throne, they asked Ibn al-Muqaffa to write a letter to the Caliph to not retaliate against his uncle and pardon him. The language of the letter offended al-Mansur, who wished to get rid of Ibn al-Muqaffa. He was reportedly executed in Basra in 757 AD for heresy by al-Mansur.[5][6]
A defense of dualism and a few lines of prose written in imitation of the Quran have been ascribed to him. Whether authentic or not, and despite his conversion to Islam, these texts contributed to his posthumous reputation as a Zoroastrian heretic.[7][8][9][10]
Literary career[edit]
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."[11] Ibn al-Muqaffa was also an accomplished scholar of Middle Persian, and was the author of several moral fables.
Legacy and commemoration[edit]
The Bosnian poet Dzevad Karahasan wrote a play about al-Muqaffa. The world premiere was performed in 1994 during the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina by the Bosnian actors Zijah Sokolović and Selma Alispahić from the National Theatre of Sarajevo under the direction of Herbert Gantschacher in a production of the Austrian theatre ARBOS – Company for Music and Theatre in Vienna[13]