Introduction
One of the most important genres of Christian literature from the Islamic Middle East is a group of texts known as “the monk in the emir’s majlis.” These works, studied by Griffith and others, record alleged disputes between high-ranking Christian clergy and powerful Muslim rulers.Footnote 1 The most famous example is The Disputation of Timothy and al-Mahdī, a stylized account of a debate between the East Syrian patriarch and the ʿAbbasid caliph, written in Syriac.Footnote 2 The debate hinges on several classic points of controversy between Christians and Muslims, including the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, Muhammad’s standing as a prophet, and the Qurʾanic revelation. The Disputation of Timothy and al-Mahdī is also typical of the genre in that it transforms real historical figures into literary characters who are used to convey punchy theological arguments. Islamic and Jewish variations on the genre also exist.Footnote 3 Collectively, these build on a tradition of literary dialogue and debate stretching back centuries in the Mediterranean and Middle East.Footnote 4
Christians and Muslims, however, were not the only ones to write within the genre during the early Islamic period. We also possess a unique Zoroastrian Middle Persian text known as Mādayān ī Gizistag Abāliš (Pahl. The Book of the Accursed Abāliš), which instead of featuring a learned monk or bishop, tells the story of a debate between a Zoroastrian priest and a heretical dualist (Pahl. zandīk) at the court of the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198‒218/813‒33).Footnote 5 To my knowledge, specialists in the Christian and Islamic literatures of the period have not recognized the similarity; indeed, with few exceptions (notably Spuler and van Ess), they have not taken notice of the text at all.Footnote 6 For their part, specialists in Zoroastrian literature—who know the Gizistag Abāliš well, but tend to be less familiar with Christian or Islamic sources—have failed to realize that it belongs to a wider genre of apologetic writing.Footnote 7
In light of this, the present paper seeks to accomplish the following: to summarize the contents of the Gizistag Abāliš; to contextualize it within the majlis culture of the early ʿAbbasid period; to compare its contents to those of related Christian texts; and, through these, to better understand its purpose. In many ways, the greatest question surrounding the Gizistag Abāliš is why the text seems so unconcerned with Islam—this despite its resemblance to “the monk in the emir’s majlis,” a genre which at its core is deeply concerned with the challenges of the ruling religion. By broaching an answer to this question, I hope to shed light on the bigger puzzle surrounding why, with few exceptions, Zoroastrians failed to launch a targeted apologetic response to Islam in the post-conquest period, comparable to that of Christians. This, in turn, will help us better understand the fate of the community in the early centuries of Islamic rule.Footnote 8
Finally, this article represents an experiment in refining ways of reading Zoroastrian texts more broadly. Much of what scholars regard as classical Pahlavi literature was written or redacted in the ʿAbbasid period (ca. ninth to tenth century AD). Yet these sources are rarely interpreted in their Islamicate context.Footnote 9 Instead, they are often read for insights into the state of Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian period and earlier. This is presumably because many specialists regard the Sasanian period as the “golden age” of Zoroastrian history, before the ancient Persian Empire disappeared and Iranian society began converting. There is indeed Sasanian material in the Pahlavi texts, but scholars have no surefire way of distinguishing it from the post-Islamic content.Footnote 10 Thus, to uncritically use texts of the ʿAbbasid period to retrieve insights about Zoroastrianism centuries earlier is methodologically risky.Footnote 11 In the meantime, the most immediate—and methodologically defensible—way of reading the sources is rarely undertaken, namely to analyze them in the early medieval environment in which they were written.Footnote 12 This article aims to show what scholars can gain by putting Zoroastrian texts in conversation with the literatures of their non-Zoroastrian contemporaries, especially Muslims and Christians. By engaging in such comparisons—particularly when texts belong to the same genres—we can begin to understand what made Zoroastrians unique among the religious communities of the medieval Middle East. It can also help us remove the aura of exceptionalism which sometimes surrounds Zoroastrians by showing what made them so similar.
The Text and Dating
The oldest copy of the Gizistag Abāliš comes from a manuscript called K20, now housed at the University Library in Copenhagen.Footnote 13 The manuscript is dated to 1322 to 1371 AD on the basis of its Middle and New Persian colophons, and contains a miscellany of Zoroastrian texts. The Gizistag Abāliš itself is relatively short, filling only ten folios, and is written in a clear, legible hand. Along with the Pahlavi, there also exist versions in Pāzand (Middle Persian written in Avestan script) and Parsi (Middle Persian written in New Persian script). Together, these three versions hint at the text’s enduring appeal to later readers. The Gizistag Abāliš was first edited and translated by Barthélemy in 1887, then by Chacha in 1936. More recently, Skjærvø has produced an updated English translation, though the text awaits a modern critical edition.Footnote 14
Of course, the date of the oldest manuscript tells us nothing about when the Gizistag Abāliš was originally written. Most scholars regard it as a product of the world in which it is set, that is to say, the ninth or tenth centuries AD. Though rarely spelled out explicitly, this theory seems to rest on the assumption that if the Gizistag Abāliš has a basis in historical fact, then it must have been composed shortly after the events it describes (ca. 819‒33). Otherwise, it would have failed to engage the interests of its immediate audience. A further argument in favor of an early date is the idea that the Gizistag Abāliš appeared around the same time that Christians were writing their earliest versions of dispute texts during the ninth and tenth centuries (some of which also feature al-Maʾmūn, as we shall see below). If this is the case, the Gizistag Abāliš is a powerful example of how certain genres of apologetic literature were shared across religious communities in the early Islamic Middle East (apocalyptic responses to the rise of Islam being another).Footnote 15
That being said, such arguments are conjectural, as there was nothing stopping a later Zoroastrian writer from using the reign of al-Maʾmūn as a dramatic setting for a composition like the Gizistag Abāliš. Indeed, the reign of al-Maʾmūn was considered paradigmatic for later Muslims too, as we shall see.Footnote 16 We witness something similar with Christian texts, in which figures from the ʿAbbasid period such as Theodore Abū Qurra (d. post-816) appear in dispute texts from slightly later periods.Footnote 17 We also have an example of this on the Zoroastrian side in a little-known New Persian text of the thirteenth century known as the Hikāyat-i shāhzāda-i īrānzamīn bā ʿumar-i khattāb (The Tale of Shāhzāda of the Land of Iran with ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb). Despite its late date, the composition revolves around an alleged conversation between a captured son of the last Sasanian king Yazdgerd III and the second caliph ʿUmar (r. 13‒23/634‒44) on the topic of just rule.Footnote 18
Ultimately, it is impossible to say precisely when the Gizistag Abāliš was written. As a text, it is shorn of the kind of contextual information that could help us date it precisely. The narrative features a Zoroastrian priest and an ʿAbbasid caliph who are well known from outside sources. But these function as literary characters, not as anchors to the author’s own period, whenever that may have been. Personally, I would favor a ninth or tenth century date primarily on the basis of the parallels with the Christian material. These similarities also recommend placing the author in ʿAbbasid Iraq—as opposed to other centers of Zoroastrian literary production further east, such as Fars or Kirman. In this sense, the Gizistag Abāliš may belong to the same efflorescence of Zoroastrian literature which also gave us the Dēnkard, dated securely by its colophon to Baghdad ca. 1020 AD.Footnote 19 In such a setting, it is easy to imagine how a Zoroastrian author, exposed to the writings of Christians and Muslims, might have tried his hand at this “ecumenical” genre of apologetics, but customized it for a Zoroastrian audience.
The Story
The text revolves around a figure named Abāliš, who is said to have come from the city of Stakhr in Fars province, the first capital of the Sasanian kings, where Zoroastrianism continued to thrive long after the Arab conquest.Footnote 20 Throughout the work, this Abāliš is given the epithet gizistag, meaning “accursed,” which Zoroastrian authors elsewhere affixed to Alexander the Great and other notorious evildoers.Footnote 21 Abāliš is also described as a zandīk, an opaque term meaning “apostate” or “heretic,” but often used in connection with Manicheans specifically (e.g. Ar. zindīq).Footnote 22 In this sense, we might see Abāliš as an errant dualist, and indeed, the text states he was a believing Zoroastrian who eventually lost his way (though not to Islam, at least explicitly, contra the view of van Ess).Footnote 23
Abāliš’ fall from grace occurred during a visit to a fire temple called “Pušt.” The text tells us that he came there seeking to take the wāj—the priest’s blessing before the meal—but no one was available to help him. Therefore, he left the temple and bumped into a man who was possessed by Wrath (Pahl. xešm), one of the most powerful demons, sometimes associated in Zoroastrian lore with Arabs and Islam.Footnote 24 This man convinced Abāliš that he had been turned away from the temple because he was perceived as “lazy and lowly,” and this incited him to abandon his faith altogether. Now under the influence of Wrath as well, Abāliš ceased sacrificing to the gods and engaged in disputes with the learned men of Fars, including Zoroastrians, Arabs (Pahl. tāzīgān, meaning Muslims), Jews, and Christians.Footnote 25
Eventually Abāliš’ disputing brought him to Baghdad (Pahl. bakdād) and the court of al-Maʾmūn, whom the text refers to using the title “commander of the faithful” (Pahl. amīr ī mūminīn, from Ar. amīr al-muʾminīn).Footnote 26 Along with the qādī of Baghdad (Pahl. kadīg), the caliph assembled a motley crew of debaters to challenge Abāliš, including Muslims, Jews, and Christians.Footnote 27 The key debater, however, was the priest Ādurfarnbag, son of Farroxzād, whom the text refers to as the hudēnān pēšōbāy.Footnote 28 This probably means he was the leader of the Zoroastrians of Baghdad, an office analogous to that of the East Syrian catholicos or the Jewish exilarch. All three were heads of semi-autonomous non-Muslim communities, bound by ties of tax and investiture to the ʿAbbasid court. We know from outside sources that this Ādurfarnbag was among the most famous priest-scholars of the classical Islamic period.Footnote 29 He is remembered as the first compiler of the Dēnkard, the great compendium of Zoroastrian religious knowledge; the author of a large collection of legal responsa, many of which address the challenges of living under Islamic rule; and he is quoted as an authority in later texts such as the Dādestān ī Dēnīg and the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār. As a dramatis persona, therefore, Ādurfarnbag was meant to impress the reader as an exemplary Zoroastrian and a top-notch debater.Footnote 30
The remainder of the text is structured around seven questions which Abāliš poses to Ādurfarnbag. Ādurfarnbag then responds, and at the end of each, al-Maʾmūn sides with the priest. By the conclusion of the text, having failed to persuade the caliph, Abāliš is expelled from the court.Footnote 31 In general, Abāliš’s questions are pointed but civil in tone. Ādurfarnbag’s answers are in turn detailed, often relying on imaginative and colorful analogies to make their point. We shall revisit these questions at the end of the paper when we consider the purpose of the text. For now, suffice it to say, the Gizistag Abāliš features what at first glance strikes the reader as a semi-random collection of topics. What is more, they seem to have little explicit connection to Islam, Manichaeism, or any other religion implied by the frame story:
Question 1: Water and fire as sacred substancesFootnote 32
Question 2: Dead matter (Pahl. nasā) and pollutionFootnote 33
Question 3: Theodicy and Ohrmazd’s responsibility for evil in the worldFootnote 34
Question 4: Washing with bull’s urine (Pahl. gōmēz) and ritual purityFootnote 35
Question 5: The reasons for fire worshipFootnote 36
Question 6: Why the corpses of Zoroastrians are more polluted than the corpses of non-Zoroastrians (Pahl. anērān)Footnote 37
Question 7: The sacred girdle (Pahl. kustīg).Footnote 38
The Historical Context
Is there any historical reality behind the narrative? As with “the monk in the emir’s majlis,” we must be sensitive to the fine distinction between actual events and their representation in literary form. This applies especially to the main characters—Ādurfarnbag and al-Maʾmūn—but also the mysterious Abāliš, whose true identity remains unclear (if it can ever actually be ascertained).
What we can say with certainty is that the Gizistag Abāliš portrays a historical reality in which it was common to find high-ranking Zoroastrians or Zoroastrian converts at the ʿAbbasid court. One famous example is Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 139/756), the famed Persian translator and Arabic belle-lettrist, who served the caliph al-Mansūr (r. 136‒58/754‒75) and was a convert from Zoroastrianism or another Iranian faith.Footnote 39 A similar figure was the astrologer Nawbakht al-Fārisī (fl. mid-second/mid-eighth century), a Zoroastrian convert who predicted al-Mansūr’s rise to power and whose descendants became prominent administrators, intellectuals, and Shīʿī partisans.Footnote 40 Al-Maʾmūn, the star of the Gizistag Abāliš, knew his fair share of Zoroastrians as well. Two of his most famous viziers were the brothers al-Fadl b. Sahl and al-Hasan b. Sahl, who came from a family of Sasanian petty nobles (Ar. dahāqīn) near Kufa. According to Islamic sources, the brothers converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam under the patronage of the powerful Barmakid family before eventually entering the orbit of al-Maʾmūn. Later in life, al-Fadl’s enemies unsuccessfully tried to ruin his career by claiming that he was still a Zoroastrian.Footnote 41 Another example from the reign of al-Maʾmūn is Māzyār, the Qārinid prince of Tabaristan, who was deposed by a local rival and came to Baghdad seeking the caliph’s help. Al-Maʾmūn agreed to support him, but on the condition that Māzyār abandon Zoroastrianism and become a Muslim. Māzyār initially consented, but upon returning to Iran, rejected Islam, resumed practicing Zoroastrianism, and reportedly harassed local Muslims.Footnote 42
The caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232‒47/847‒61) also kept company with Zoroastrian converts, including a boon companion who had once been a high-ranking priest (Ar. mawbadh, from Pahl. mowbed). This individual, known by various names in the Arabic sources—including Zardusht b. Ādhurkhwarra and Muhammad al-Mawbadh al-Mutawakkilī—may be none other than the son of the chief disputant in the Gizistag Abāliš, Ādurfarnbag. As de Blois has argued, Zoroastrian sources hint that the early recension of the Dēnkard, which Ādurfarnbag had a hand in compiling, was lost due to a mysterious misfortune which befell the man’s son, Zardušt. One possibility is that the misfortune refers to Zardušt’s conversion.Footnote 43 If this is true, then one of Zardušt’s notable deeds before embracing Islam was to have taken part in al-Muʿtasim’s interrogation of the Iranian general al-Afshīn (d. 226/841), who was accused of harboring secret Zoroastrianism (or Buddhism?) after allegedly becoming Muslim.Footnote 44
Zoroastrians also played a prominent role in the majlis culture of the ʿAbbasid court, which is represented in stylized form in the Gizistag Abāliš. Al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956), for example, describes a majlis convened by the Barmakid vizier Yahyā b. Khālid (r. 170‒87/786‒803), which featured a motley crew of Shīʿīs, Khārijīs, Muʿtazilīs, Sunnīs, and Zoroastrians.Footnote 45 We gain a similar picture from an oft-quoted passage by al-Humaydī (d. 488/1095), who describes the visit of an Andalusī Muslim to Baghdad in the late tenth century. The visitor, Ibn Saʿdī, was appalled by what he witnessed in the majālis of the Muslim theologians, which included “every kind of group, Sunnī Muslims and heretics, and all kinds of infidels, Zoroastrians, materialists, atheists, Jews, and Christians.”Footnote 46
Along with these anecdotes, we possess several specific stories about Zoroastrian priests disputing in the presence of al-Maʾmūn, much as we see in the Gizistag Abāliš. For obvious reasons, these are potentially important for establishing a historical setting for the text. One of the most interesting comes from the ʿUyūn akhbār al-ridā of Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī (d. 381/991‒92), an account of the life and works of the eighth Shīʿī imam, ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Ridā (d. 203/818).Footnote 47 Al-Ridā was famously summoned to Marw in 201/816 to become al-Maʾmūn’s heir, and for the next two years resided with him, taking part in disputes sponsored by the caliph. Ibn Bābawayh records two such sessions which involved Zoroastrians. One, on the topic of the sinlessness of the prophets (Ar. ʿismat al-anbiyāʾ), is very short and states only that al-Ridā disputed with people of various faiths, including Zoroastrians.Footnote 48 The other, however, on the topic of monotheism (tawhīd) and convened by the aforementioned vizier (and Zoroastrian convert) al-Fadl b. Sahl, is longer and more detailed.Footnote 49 Interestingly, Ibn Bābawayh commits much less space—no more than a paragraph—to the exchange between al-Ridā and the unnamed Zoroastrian priest (al-hirbidh al-akbar, from Pahl. hērbedān hērbed, presumably). This is in contrast to his lengthy exchanges with the Christian catholicos (al-jāthlīq), the Jewish exilarch (raʾs al-jālūt), and a prominent Sabian named ʿImrān.
According to Ibn Bābawayh’s transcript, al-Ridā invited the priest to explain what proof he had that Zarathustra had been a prophet. The priest stated that Zarathustra had performed things which no prophet before him had done. He also permitted the Zoroastrians to do things which no one had permitted them to do in the past, and for these reasons, they chose to follow him. Al-Ridā then challenged the priest, asking why, if the Zoroastrians had followed Zarathustra, they had not heeded (still greater) prophets such as Moses, Jesus, or Muḥammad. The priest could not provide an excuse, and al-Ridā prevailed.
A similar scene unfolds in a bawdy anecdote concerning al-Maʾmūn, a Christian catholicos (al-jāthlīq), and a Zoroastrian priest (al-mawbadh), as recorded by the litterateur al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī (d. early fifth/ eleventh century) and discussed by van Gelder.Footnote 50 According to the story, al-Maʾmūn was surrounded by theologians and religious leaders in his majlis when the catholicos asked him whether he wished to have a laugh at the Zoroastrian’s expense. Turning to the priest, the catholicos said, “This man claims that Paradise is in his mother’s vagina, and that the more he copulates with her, the closer he gets to the Gate of Paradise”—playing on the well-known invective against Zoroastrian next-of-kin marriage. The priest then returned the insult, saying, “We used to do that, until we were told that your god came out of such a place.” Al-Maʾmūn bent over with laughter, while the catholicos fell silent. The anecdote is so unusual that one wonders whether there is a ring of truth to it.
A gentler report comes from the historian Ibn Abī Tāhir Tayfūr (d. 313/925‒26), who records a short speech by a mowbed in the presence of al-Maʾmūn, who asked the priest to explain “the fruits of the rational intellect” (thamarat al-ʿaql).Footnote 51 Finally, in his chapter on Zoroastrians (NP. mughān), the New Persian heresiographer Abū ʾl-Maʿālī (fl. 485/1092) mentions how a dualist (thanavī) debater appeared in the majlis of al-Maʾmūn and announced his beliefs to the assembled theologians and jurists. Repulsed by these, the Muslims told al-Maʾmūn that the only way to dispute with him was by the sword. The caliph paused, then launched into the debate himself, pointing out the contradiction inherent in believing that a Good Creator could both be all-powerful and co-exist with an Evil Creator. The dualist relented, and al-Maʾmūn then had him executed.Footnote 52
Of course, the Gizistag Abāliš is not strictly speaking an account of a dispute between Zoroastrians and Muslims. Rather, it is a dispute between a Zoroastrian and an errant dualist, Abāliš, whom the text refers to as a zandīk. Islamic sources also preserve accounts of debates between al-Maʾmūn and dualists which may help contextualize our story. One such figure was Abū ʿAlī the zindīq, whom al-Maʾmūn is said to have personally debated. The story is preserved in the writings of al-Jāhiz (d. 255/868f.), along with Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), Ibn Abī Tāhir Tayfūr, and Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (d. 329/940).Footnote 53 Van Ess has gone so far as to argue that the Gizistag Abāliš “looks like a response to—or indeed the original of—the Muslim tradition.” As evidence of this, he cites the similarity between the names “Abāliš” and “Abū ʿAlī,” as well as a general correspondence between al-Maʾmūn’s arguments and the subject of Question 3 in the Gizistag Abāliš, on the matter of who is responsible for good and evil in the world.Footnote 54
Another important anecdote comes from the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 385/995), who describes how al-Maʾmūn summoned the Manichean leader Ibn Yazdānbukht from Rayy in order to take part in a disputation in Baghdad. The man was reportedly vanquished in the debate, prompting al-Maʾmūn to order him to convert. Ibn Yazdānbukht, however, reminded al-Maʾmūn that he was not in the habit of making men abandon their faiths—a point with which the liberally minded caliph readily agreed (strange, considering the caliph’s rather intolerant actions during the mihna). Al-Maʾmūn then settled the Manichean in the Mukharrim Quarter of Baghdad on the east bank of the Round City. There, he lived under the protection of guards—much as he had debated the Muslim scholars only after receiving a promise of protection—in a sign of just how repellent his ideas may have been among Muslims of his day.Footnote 55
Does any of the foregoing get us closer to the historical reality behind the Gizistag Abāliš? In my view, none of these anecdotes represents a smoking gun. No single story combines all three figures from the Pahlavi text—the Zoroastrian priest, the dualist, and the caliph—and no story remotely mirrors the variety of topics contained in it either. The brief debate from the writing of Ibn Bābawayh, for example, is concerned with Zarathustra’s standing as a prophet, which is not addressed in the Gizistag Abāliš. The dualist debate from the work of al-Jāhiz, meanwhile, touches on evil like one part of the Gizistag Abāliš, but in an oblique manner that makes no reference to specifically Zoroastrian ideas, such as belief in the deities Ohrmazd and Ahrimen.
Instead of trying to peg the Gizistag Abāliš to a specific event, as Spuler and van Ess proposed doing, I would argue that it is better to see the text as a literary prototype reflecting a general historical context. The author of the Gizistag Abāliš probably turned to the figure of Ādurfarnbag because he could serve as an exemplary mouthpiece for the Zoroastrian tradition as a whole—much as contemporary Christians wrote dispute texts featuring the famous Arabophone bishop and theologian Theodore Abū Qurra. The author also turned to the figure of al-Maʾmūn given his reputation for sponsoring majālis and for his broad intellectual interests, which brought him into contact with Muslims and non-Muslims alike.Footnote 56 He may also have been perceived as sympathetic to Persian and Zoroastrian interests, since his mother reportedly came from Bādghīs and was the daughter of the quasi-Zoroastrian rebel Ustādhsīs (though this is a matter of dispute).Footnote 57 As such, al-Maʾmūn could be portrayed as an effective, high-status referee. In my view, Abāliš is probably fictional, a Zoroastrian manifestation of a kind of character who pops up frequently in Christian texts of the period. Like Abāliš, these Jewish and Muslim disputants were inserted into Christian works so as to quarrel with their Christian protagonists, and in so doing, make the Christians’ arguments shine more brightly.Footnote 58
The Purpose of the Text
Having identified a historical context for the Gizistag Abāliš, what more can we say about the genre to which it belongs? Reading the text alongside examples of “the monk in the emir’s majlis,” one is struck by their obvious similarities in form, but their profound differences in content. This is attributable not only to the Zoroastrian and Christian beliefs of their respective authors, but also to these writers’ polemical aims. In short, Christian majlis literature of the early Middle Ages is deeply concerned with Islam, both in terms of defending Christianity against Muslim critiques and in going on the offensive against Muslim doctrines. By contrast, the Gizistag Abāliš shows no explicit concern with Islam. What accounts for the difference?
Let us briefly consider two famous examples of Christian dispute texts set during the reign of al-Maʾmūn. The first of these, The Debate of Theodore Abū Qurra, is based loosely on an actual encounter between the caliph and the famous Melkite bishop of Ḥarrān in 829. Despite its grounding in historical reality, however, the encounter quickly transforms into a literary dialogue which became one of the most famous works of Christian Arabic literature in the medieval period. Today, thirty-one manuscripts of the debate survive in both Melkite and Syrian Orthodox recensions, the oldest of which (MS. Vat. Borg. Ar. 135) dates to 1308, making it roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving copy of the Gizistag Abāliš. The Disputation of Theodore Abū Qurra addresses a number of issues pertaining explicitly to Islam: circumcision, the maidens of paradise (Ar. hūrīs, e.g. Q. al-Tūr 52:20, al-Wāqiʿa 56:36‒7, al-Naba 78:33, etc.), the humanity and divinity of Jesus, Jesus’ identity as the “Word and Spirit of God” (e.g. Q. al-Nisāʾ 4:171), the identity of the Qurʾanic pagans, the status of Christians in the Qurʾan, the Trinity, the death of Jesus, and the crucifixion, among other topics.Footnote 59
Another Christian dispute text set during the reign of al-Maʾmūn is The Apology of al-Kindī, an alleged debate between a Christian and a Muslim (ʿAbd al-Masīh al-Kindī and ʿAbdallāh b. Ismāʿīl al-Hāshimī, both probably pseudonyms, if they were real people at all), under the patronage of the caliph. Structured as a series of letters between the disputants, the Muslim initially invites the Christian to convert, calling on him to renounce the cross, the Trinity, and other Christian beliefs. The Christian then responds in an unusually vituperative tone, discussing several issues of direct concern to Christian‒Muslim rivalry: Islam’s claim to the heritage of Abraham, the Trinity, Muhammad’s instruction by the monk Bahīrā, Muhammad’s affair with Zaynab, Muhammad’s status as a prophet, and the Qurʾan’s status as divine revelation, among others.Footnote 60
In sharp contrast, the Gizistag Abāliš shows no concern with explicitly Islamic themes. In a way, this is unsurprising, since Zoroastrians were extremely slow to mobilize a targeted critique of Islam in the first centuries after the Arab conquests. Indeed, the only sustained and explicit attack against Islam in Pahlavi literature comes from the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār (The Doubt-Dispelling Disquisition), often described as a “kalām-style” defense of Zoroastrianism, which was written by the layman and one-time Manichean Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād, in the tenth or eleventh centuries, but possibly even later.Footnote 61 Despite the silence of the Middle Persian sources, Muslims were leveling their own targeted critiques of Zoroastrianism at the time. These critiques focused on themes such as dualism and monotheism, Zoroaster’s contested status as prophet, the Avesta’s contested status as a divine revelation, the Zoroastrians’ contested status as “People of the Book” (vs. “People of the Covenant”; Ar. ahl al-kitāb vs. ahl al-dhimma), and controversial Zoroastrian customs such as next-of-kin marriage (Pahl. xwēdōdah).Footnote 62 A text like the Gizistag Abāliš would seem to be the ideal place to rebut at least some of these points, but with the exception of dualism, it addresses none of them. In fact, as Rezania has recently pointed out, the Gizistag Abāliš and other priestly texts of the ninth century mostly center around “ritual effectiveness and efficiency,” not “theological or philosophical debate,” which is striking.Footnote 63 Is there any logic to the particular basket of issues the Gizistag Abāliš chooses to discuss? Even if it does not address Islam explicitly, is there a way to read certain passages as addressing Islam implicitly?
The major themes of the Gizistag Abāliš may be described as follows: creation (Question 1), purity and pollution (Questions 2, 4), the problem of evil (Question 3), fire worship (Question 5), and boundary maintenance (Question 6, possibly 7). Seen in such bare-bones terms, the Gizistag Abāliš actually deals with a range of predictable themes that would have mattered to any Zoroastrian in the medieval period, indeed at any time before or after. To my knowledge, however, they do not correspond to a specific catechetical or doctrinal program. If anything, they seem to mirror the well-known practice in Pahlavi literature of including lists of “things,” sometimes numbering four, five, six, seven or more items, wide-ranging in their content and semi-random in their order.Footnote 64
As we have seen, dualism was a major focus of debates between Muslims and Zoroastrians, and if there is an Islamic concern in the background of the text, this is it. In Question 1, for example, Abāliš asks Ādurfarnbag why water and fire are mutually antagonistic if both were created by Ohrmazd and both are holy substances.Footnote 65 The question concerns the mechanics of creation, but also Ohrmazd’s ability to control creation, and thus Ahrimen’s power over it too. In Question 3, Abāliš asks Ādurfarnbag who is responsible for the “wounding and punishment of humans”: when “lords” order men to be “struck, wounded, or killed” in retaliation for their sins, who commands this, Ohrmazd or Ahrimen?Footnote 66 If it is Ohrmazd, can we rightly believe he is all good, and if so, does this mean Ahrimen is not actually responsible for causing suffering? Ādurfarnbag replies by explaining that punishment in this world saves souls in the next, for “priests, teachers, and judges” (Pahl. mowbedān ud dastwarān ud dādwarān) who chastise sinners now spare them from the tortures of demons later.
Along with theodicy, there are several other themes which could be read as addressing the Islamic environment. Question 5 provides the rationale for fire worship, and in so doing, seems to answer a timeless critique about this strange practice (at least to non-Zoroastrians): why ask the fire for “wealth … instant comfort, protection, and good living” if the fire is also “so weak, powerless, and poor?”Footnote 67 Question 6 discusses a curious distinction between the polluting power of Zoroastrian (Pahl. tan ī ahlawān) and non-Zoroastrian (ān ī druwandān, and later, anērān) corpses.Footnote 68 Contrary to what one might expect, the former are explained to be much more impure than the latter, since the Amahrspands accompany the souls of the righteous to paradise after death, abandoning their bodies to the demons down below. Meanwhile, when the wicked die, the demons automatically escort their souls to Hell, leaving their bodies untouched on earth. Could this reflect anxieties about how to handle the corpses of non-Zoroastrians (especially Muslims) or Zoroastrians who live in non-Zoroastrian areas—a theme that also surfaces in the rivāyat of Ādurfarnbag?Footnote 69
Finally, Question 7 concerns the kustīg, the girdle worn by Zoroastrians.Footnote 70 This is the most polemical section in the entire text, as Abāliš asks Ādurfarnbag whether asses, camels, and horses will make it to heaven before him since their belts are tied around their waists seven times (that is, the harnesses of their saddles, as opposed to just once, for a man’s belt). Therefore, they must be more virtuous. One wonders if the question reflects actual Muslim (or Manichean) mockery of the practice. Here, it is important to note that the kustīg took on added importance for Zoroastrians after the rise of Islam. It came to be considered a totem of Zoroastrianism as a whole, and indeed, Zoroastrian and Muslim sources speak of the removal of the belt as the supreme gesture of conversion to Islam (much as Christians spoke about this in connection with the zunnār). For the same reason, the refastening of the belt was considered the supreme gesture of conversion back to Zoroastrianism.Footnote 71 Along with this passage in the Gizistag Abāliš, we also possess a treatise on the topic, entitled Čim ī Kustīg (The Significance of the Sacred Girdle), which may date from the same period and reflect similar concerns from the Islamic environment.Footnote 72
What does the foregoing suggest about the purpose of the text? Even if there are echoes of debates with Muslims in some parts of the Gizistag Abāliš, there is no concrete engagement with Islamic ideas. It is thus not an anti-Muslim polemical work like its Christian counterparts. But could it be an anti-Manichean work? After all, the main antagonist is not the Muslim al-Maʾmūn, but the zandīk Abāliš. We might consider the possibility that the Zoroastrian author wrote the work to differentiate his beliefs from those of the Manicheans. Such a task would have been pressing for two reasons: Zoroastrians and Manicheans shared the same broadly dualist worldview, and thus there was a risk the Muslim authorities would confuse and conflate them. At the same time, as van Ess speculates, the Muslim authorities—perhaps recognizing the similarity between the two groups—may have played Manicheans and Zoroastrians off each other, especially in competitions for bureaucratic power in a place like Iraq.Footnote 73 Thus, could the Gizistag Abāliš represent an internal Zoroastrian effort to differentiate themselves from their Manichean rivals (an impulse which is also evident in Book 3 of the Dēnkard and the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār, which contain extensive anti-Manichean polemics)?Footnote 74 If so, could it be that the Zoroastrian author turned to the caliph’s court as a setting to assign value to competing systems, based on the principle that an imaginary majlis was the ideal place to weigh Zoroastrian claims against those of its dualist competitors?
Along these lines, the text highlights a few Zoroastrian-specific doctrines which the Manicheans did not accept. These include the use of bull’s urine for purification, fire worship, and the sacred girdle. Could these be interpreted as points of dispute between two otherwise similar dualist religions? But if this is so, why does the Gizistag Abāliš not treat more serious areas of disagreement between them, beginning with the status of their respective prophets, Zoroaster and Mani? Or why does it not explore the ethical, theological, and cosmological critiques of Manichaeism found in a later work like the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār?Footnote 75 Furthermore, if the text is concerned with discrediting Manichaeism, why is the frame story set during the reign of al-Maʾmūn and not that of his predecessor al-Mahdī (r. 158‒69/775‒85), who was famous for persecuting the zanādiqa?Footnote 76 Ultimately, despite the presence of the zandīk Abāliš, I do not regard the Manicheans as any more plausible a target of the work than Muslims.
In light of this, I would prefer to see the Gizistag Abāliš as an internal catechetical work written primarily for a priestly audience, but possibly including educated lay people, too. The topics it addresses, while somewhat random, would have been useful for basic educational purposes, as each one provides the author with an opportunity to plainly and succinctly describe core Zoroastrian doctrines, especially on ritual matters, which was typical of texts from the ninth and tenth centuries. This would have been useful in the new Islamic environment of the ʿAbbasid period, when the Zoroastrian flock was beginning to shrink and the remaining faithful (including clergy) needed basic instruction about religious matters. The Gizistag Abāliš must have been somewhat successful in this respect, for between its brevity and simple style (at least in contrast to complex analytical works like the Dēnkard or the Škand-Gumānīg Wizār), it could be easily digested by such an audience.
Conclusion
Even if the Gizistag Abāliš is a unique example of “the monk in the emir’s majlis” on the Zoroastrian side, it is not unique as an example of Zoroastrian debate literature more broadly. Other prominent examples include the exchanges between Ādurfarnbag—the same priest in the Gizistag Abāliš—and the Christian Bōxt-Mārē and the Jew Yaʿqūb Xaledān in Book 5 of the Dēnkard.Footnote 77 Later Zoroastrian authors in New Persian returned to the genre with slightly different characters and narratives. Along with the aforementioned Hikāyat-i Shāhzāda-i Īrānzamīn bā ʿUmar-i Khattāb, the most famous examples are two texts both bearing the title ʿUlamāʾ-yi islām (The Scholars of Islam).Footnote 78 Both are structured around questions posed by Muslim scholars to Zoroastrian priests, and both concern Zoroastrian takes on bigger themes, such as the creation of the world, the origins of evil, and cosmology. This follows a pattern evident across many Zoroastrian debate texts from the late medieval and early modern periods, which, despite featuring Muslim characters, almost never go on the offensive against Islam. Like the Gizistag Abāliš, they are much more concerned with explaining Zoroastrian doctrines than critiquing the beliefs of others.
Herein lies a profound distinction between Zoroastrians and other religious communities in the medieval Middle East, especially Christians. Such groups confronted the threat of Islam with finely tailored arguments, sometimes by drawing on the sacred texts of their opponents, sometimes by universalizing their own beliefs and arguing for them on the basis of first principles of Aristotelian logic.Footnote 79 By and large, the Zoroastrians did not do this, even in settings and genres in which one assumes they could have done, such as the Gizistag Abāliš. If there was an apologetic response to the rise of Islam, it was to systematize and codify Zoroastrian knowledge—as one sees most obviously in the case of the Dēnkard—not to write texts that attacked the ruling religion. One assumes that if this was a conscious choice, it was based on the assumption that the best way to conserve the Zoroastrian flock was to educate its members about what they did believe, rather than warning them against what they should not believe.
Considering that Zoroastrianism seems to have disappeared faster and more thoroughly than other religions across the Islamic Middle East (at least in the view of most historians), one wonders if this tactic backfired in the long term.Footnote 80 There were numerous factors which handicapped the Zoroastrians as they confronted the new challenge of Islam. These included their preoccupation with purity and pollution, which posed major problems in an Iranian world now ruled by infidels; and their tradition of transmitting religious knowledge orally, which risked the complete loss of this knowledge when learned elites apostatized (as we saw earlier in the case of the Zardušt son of Ādurfarnbag, the mowbed convert to Islam). But the absence of a targeted, specific, and explicit critique of Islam—on the scale of what one finds on the Christian side, for instance—is surely one of the most striking examples of how Zoroastrians were caught somewhat flat-footed after the Arab conquests.Footnote 81
