Volume 2 — CHAPTER IV.

From the book the Dabistán, a short account of the religion of the Yahuds, contained in two sections.

Section the first, the information received from the tongue of Mohammed Sâíd Sarmed.

Section the second, upon the translation of the page of Adam, which is the beginning of the book of Moses (the Pentateuch).

Section the First.—The author of this book never happened to have intercourse with learned and distinguished men among the Yahuds; and he set no value upon what he found in the books of foreigners about their religion: because envy is a corrosion and a fire, which attacks the enemy. But in the year of the Hejira 1057 (A. D. 1647), when I came to Hyder abad, I contracted friendship with Mohammed Sâid Sarmed, who was originally from a family of learned Yahuds, of a class whom they call Rabánián (Rabbins); after an investigation into the faith of the Rabbins and the perusal of the Mosaic books, he became a Muselman; he read the scientific works of the wise men of Iran, such as Mulla Sader, and Mír Abu-’l Kásem, of Kazer sak, and many others: at last, for the sake of commerce, he undertook by 294 sea the voyage to Hindustan. When he arrived in the town Tata,[484] he fell in love with a Hindu boy, called Abhi Chand, and, abandoning all other things, like a Sanyási, naked as he came from his mother, he sat down before the door of his beloved. The father of the object of his love, after having found by investigation the purity of the attachment manifested for his son, admitted Sarmed into his house, and the young man too met him with an equal affection, so that he could no more separate from him, and he read the book of Moses, the psalms of David, and other books with Sarmed. The following verses are the composition of this young Hindu:

The learned rabbis say, according to their belief, among the sons of Israel it was not required that women should wear a dress, and Sarmed said that Ishâiá, the prophet, himself used to go naked in his last days. Sarmeda was a good master of poetry. Here follow some of his verses:

RABAAI, QUATRAIN:

In the praise of the prophet, we find what follows:

QUATRAIN:

ANOTHER QUATRAIN:

ANOTHER QUATRAIN:

A DISTICH.

ANOTHER DISTICH.

296 In the eulogy of Shaikh Mohammed Khan, who was the chief minister of the illustrious Dara, Sultan Abed Ullah Kat´eb, we find the following quatrain:

The Shaikh desired the society of Sarmed. The author of this book was one day among the persons present; he said to one called Jerán, who made the eulogy of the Shaikh: “In a short time the Shaikh will, with whatever he may have acquired, turn towards the voyage of the other world, and Mîr Mohammed Sâid Mîr will take complete possession of the dignity of government;” and the same year the Shaikh undertook to set out for Mecca from Hyderabad. In the year of the Hejira 1059 (A. D. 1649), in the harbor of Fahardanish, he passed from this bodily ark to the circle of freedom. Hafiz says:

Sarmed gave the information that, according to 297 the Yahuds, God, the Almighty, is corporeal; and that his body is after the image of mankind, and similar to it; that, during the course of time, he is dispersed in the same manner as splendor is dissipated. Sarmed moreover said, that it is mentioned in the Mosaic book and in the holy writings, that the spirit of the divine body is beauty itself, and manifests itself under a human form; that punishment and recompense of the other world are already experienced in this state; that life lasts one hundred and twenty years; after that, man’s whole life may be considered as one day, which, when he dies, is followed by night; that his body assumes partly the form of a mineral, partly that of a vegetable, and partly that of an animal, and the like; when one hundred and twenty years have elapsed, night comes to an end, and the morning appears again; if an atom of his bodily dust be in the east and another atom in the west, they unite in one place, and life is renewed to last again one hundred years, as we have said, when night returns. Punishment and recompense are solely for this world. They maintain that whatever is, bears eternally the form of mankind, composed of water and earth.

The Yahuds agree in denying the appearance of Aisia (Jesus) as a prophet; they say that he was a deceiver; and they reject what the Aisuyan, “Christians,” adduce from the Old Testament about the 298 appearance of Aísya; they maintain that the prophet Ishâía spoke of himself the words[487] which have been applied to Aísya. They assert that Ibrâhím was no prophet, but a holy man, and they esteem a holy man higher than a prophet. They say that, in the Mosaic book, no mention is made of Pharâún’s pretensions to be a god; but they relate that this king was a tyrant who oppressed the children of Israel, wherefore Musiâ (Moses) rose, and protested against his tyranny. As Pharâún did not attend to his words, he met with his fate. They also say that it is not to be found in the sacred book that Harun (Aaron) was joined to Musiâ in the divine mission, although he acted as his substitute. They agree in saying that Dáúdâ (David) sent Urîa to be killed, because the king coveted the possession of that man’s wife, whom he took afterwards, and hence Solíman was begotten. They further insist that Aísia was no prophet, as the Nazaréans believe. Dáudâ said: “My hands and feet will fall, and my bones have been counted;” all this was fulfilled at the time when Aísia suffered death; but they 299 assert that Dáúda spoke those words of himself, and in such manner all things which the Nazáréans set forth about Aísia, the Yahuds interpret clearly in another sense. It is besides written in their sacred book that, when the children of Isráîl shall perform iniquitous acts, Muhammad will appear. About this, Sarmed said that, although the name of the prophet is in the sacred book, yet another meaning may more evidently be attached to it; but if even the prophet’s very name be insisted upon, it has no other import but that it exhorts the children of Isrâíl to convert themselves to his religion, and, in such an endeavour, carried beyond all bounds, he said many other things.

The Yahuds receive no stranger into their community; circumcision is the law of their prophet, not that of others. They say also that a prophet is always living and present, to be the propagator of the law which is contained in the sacred book. Abhî Chand, having translated a part of the Mosaic book, the author of this work revised it with Sarmad; they corrected it completely, affixed their mark to it, so that it became a correct copy, from which is the following:

Section the Second: on the Book of Adam.

The Dabistan gives here a Persian translation of the Genesis, 300 from the beginning to chapter VI, verse 8; at the end of which the author says that this is the only portion of the sacred book of the Jews which he had an opportunity of examining. According to Eichhorn (see Einleitung in das alte Testament, 4th edit., vol. II. p. 329) the five books of Moses were translated into Persian by the rabbi Jacob, son of Joseph, after the ninth century; the translation contained in the Dabistan is said to have been executed by Abhi Chand; we cannot say whether it was made from the Hebrew original, or from the Arabic, or any other language. We are informed by the baron Hammer-Purgstall (see Gemaldesaal moslimisher Herrsher, p. 57) that Werka ben Nafil, a cousin of Khadija, Muhammed’s wife, and a Christian priest, translated the Old and New Testament from the Hebrew into Arabic; this translation appears however to have been but little known. Eichhorn says (loco citato, p. 231), that the first certain traces of a translation of the Hebrew sacred books into Arabic are to be found in the tenth century. Pocock mentions (pp. 34, 361) Sâadias, a learned Jew, who lived from 892 to 941 A. D., as translator of all the books of the Old Testament into Arabic; and another Jew (not named) who made a version of the book of Kings into the same language.

The Persian translation of the fragment under our consideration was revised by the author of the Dabistan, and by Sarmed, who was a Jew and a Rabbin, converted to Muhammedism, most probably in the first half of the seventeenth century. As it was undoubtedly executed from another original copy than that which had served to the translators in Europe, it appeared interesting enough to examine whether the Persian version of the Dabistan differs in any material point from the translations known in Europe. For that purpose I have consulted the following copies of the Bible:

301 I. The polyglot Bible, printed at Paris, 1645, in which I chiefly compared the Arabic translation.

II. The Persian translation, published by the Bible Society in 1825.

III. The German Bible, translated by Martin Luther.

IV. The English Bible, appointed to be read in Churches, 1837.

V. The English translation from the original Hebrew, by John Bellamy, 1818.

VI. The French translation from the original Hebrew, by S. Cahen, 1831.

VII. The French translation, by Messrs. Glaire and M. Frank, 1835.

Here follow some variations which I have remarked in the Persian translation compared with the text of the versions just enumerated. (References are made to the respective copies, by repeating the Roman numbers prefixed to each.)

GENESIS, Chap. I.

V. 2. II. III. IV. V. VI. read: “the spirit of God;” I. the Arabic translation has “the winds of God;” VI. “un vent violent (divin) agitait la surface des eaux;” the Dabistan,

وباد خدا مى وزيد بہ روي آب

“And the wind of God blew upon the face of the water.”

VV. 6. 7. 8. I. the Arabic translation has جلد, jeld, “a skin, a volume;” II. پرده, perdah, “veil, curtain, fence;” both Arabic and Persian, only figuratively “heaven;” III. German, “veste;” IV. English, and VI. French, “firmament;” V. English, “expanse;” VII. French, “étendue” (atmosphere); the Dabistan رفيعه, “an elevation.”

302 V. 26. V. Mr. Bellamy objects to the translation of this verse by the words: “Let us make man in our image” (in which all the other versions agree), and he substitutes for it: “We will make man;” in the Dabistan we find, in support of Mr. Bellamy, بكنم آدم, “I will make man.”

Chap. II.

V. 6. All the translations have: “a vapor watered the face of the earth;” the Dabistan says: “covered, decked.”

V. 7. All the copies agree in: “he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;” the Dabistan translates: “into his body.”

V. 8. Every where we read: “God planted a garden eastward in Eden;” in the Dabistan: “from old times in Eden;” Mr. Cahen remarks that Onkelos (a Hebrew commentator before our era) interprets in the same manner: “in former times.”

V. 11. We read generally: “Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;” Messrs. Glaire and Frank add: “l’or de ce nom;” in the Dabistan:

زمين حوملارا کہ آنجاست بلور و سذك يشب

“The land Havemla, where there is the beryl (also crystal) and the stone jasper (especially a whitish kind found on mount Imaus).”

V. 12. is not in the Dabistan.

V. 13. In the Dabistan are omitted, after the name of Gihon, the words: “the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.”

V. 14. The Dabistan reads, after the name of the river Hîdîkel, رونده پيش طايفه يشراو, “running towards the 303 people of Ashur;” other versions have “towards the east of Assyria.”

V. 23. VII. Messrs. Glaire and Frank translate: “qu’elle soit nommée Ischâ (femme), parce qu’elle a été tirée de Ish” (homme). This analogous derivation for man and woman does not exist in other languages; we find however, in the old Latin, vir and vira, which words are used in the Latin translation of the Samaritan text; in the Arabic version we find امرعه for “virago,” and امريه for “virilitas;” the translator, in the Dabistan, endeavored to reproduce the same derivation, by ânsán and ânsn:

از ابراي همين كَفته ميشود انسان كه كرفته شده است ار اسن

V. 24. The version in the Dabistan deviates from the other translations by the word

ميخسپند بزنش

“he will sleep with his wife,” instead of “cleave unto, or adhere to, his wife.”

Chap. III.

Offers no variation to be pointed out.

Chap. IV.

V. 13. The translation in the Dabistan deviates from IV. VI. VII. which have: “my punishment is greater than I can bear;” it agrees with I. II. III. and V. which say: “great is my iniquity to be forgiven;”

بزرك است كناه من از برداشتن

“Great is my crime to be overlooked” (disregarded).

V. 16. There is coincidence between I. II. III. IV. VI. and VII. which have: “he dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” V. Mr. Bellamy translates: “he 304 dwelt in the land wandering eastward of Eden;” in the Dabistan:

نشيست در زمين اواركي ييش عدن

“He dwelt in the land of vagrancy, before Eden.”

Chap. V.

V. 25. All translations have: “Methuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech;” in the Dabistan we read only “eighty-seven years.”

V. 27. All versions agree in the words: “All the days of Mathuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years;” in the Dabistan we find: “the whole life of Manusalah was eight hundred and fifty-nine years” (according to its own text it ought to be 869).

V. 30. According to all versions: “Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years;” according to the Dabistan, only “five hundred years.”

V. 31. Pursuant to all translations: “the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years;” pursuant to the Dabistan: “six hundred eighty and two years.”

Chap. VI.

V. 3. In the Dabistan we read: “My spirit shall not always take patience with man;” other versions have: “shall not always remain,” or “strive with man.”

V. 5. is omitted in the Dabistan.

The notice given in the Dabistan of the opinions of the Jews will be found very incomplete and inaccurate, inasmuch as it is exhibited without a due distinction of the different Jewish sects, to which they may be attributed. For a far better account of the Jews, see that of Makrisi, given in the “Chrestomathie arabe” of Silvestre de Sacy (vol. I. pp. 284-369), with the various explanatory notes of that celebrated orientalist.

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