APPENDICES

(By the Translator).

Appendix I. Independent Zoroastrian Princes of Tabaristan
              after Arab Conquest 93

Appendix II.  Iranian Material in Mahasin wal Masawi and
              Mahasin wal Azdad 101

Appendix III.  Burzoe’s Introduction 105

Appendix IV.  The Trial of Afshin,
              a Disguised Zoroastrian General 135

Appendix V. Noeldeke’s Introduction to Tabari 142

Appendix VI.  Letter of Tansar to the King of Tabaristan 159

Appendix VII.  Some Arab Authors and the Iranian Material
              they preserve:—­

The Uyunal Akhbar of Ibn Qotaiba     163
Jahiz:  Kitab-al-Bayan wal Tabayyin   168
Hamza Ispahani                       171
Tabari                               174
Dinawari                             177
Ibn al Athir                         179
Masudi                               182
Shahrastani                          187
Ibn Hazm                             192
Ibn Haukal                           195

APPENDIX VIII.

Ibn Khallikan                        199
Mustawfi                             203
Muqadasi                             204
Thaalibi                             205

PREFACE

The facile notion is still prevalent even among Musalmans of learning that the past of Iran is beyond recall, that the period of its history preceding the extinction of the House of Sasan cannot be adequately investigated and that the still anterior dynasties which ruled vaster areas have left no traces in stone or parchment in sufficient quantity for a tolerable record reflecting the story of Iran from the Iranian’s standpoint.  This fallacy is particularly hugged by the Parsis among whom it was originally lent by fanaticism to indolent ignorance.  It has been credited with uncritical alacrity, congenial to self-complacency, that the Arabs so utterly and ruthlessly annihilated the civilization of Iran in its mental and material aspects that no source whatever is left from which to wring reliable information about Zoroastrian Iran.  The following limited pages are devoted to a disproof of this age-long error.

For a connected story of Persia prior to the battle of Kadisiya, beside the Byzantine writers there is abundant material in Armenian and Chinese histories.  These mines remain yet all but unexplored for the Moslem and Parsi, although much has been done to extract from them a chronicle of early Christianity.  The archaeology of Iran, as I have shown elsewhere, can provide vital clue to an authentic resuscitation of Sasanian past.  Pre-Moslem epigraphy of Persia