Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa

From Free net encyclopedia

Abdullah Ibn Dhadawayh, also known as Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 760) was a Persian author and translator in Baghdad.

In The Golden Age of Persia, Richard Nelson Frye writes that Muqaffa was the founder of Arabic prose, even though he was a Persian former Zoroastrian by the name of Roozbeh.

His father was a state official who was in charge of taxes, and after being accused and convicted of embezzling some of the money entrusted to him, he was punished by the ruler by being beaten on his palms, hence the name Muqaffa. He was executed on the orders of Al-Mansur the Abbasid Caliph, for heresy, specifically attempting to import Zoroastrian ideas into Islam.

He translated Kalilag and Demnag from Pahlavi to Arabic. He was an accomplished Pahlavi scholar.

Not to be confused with Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa, the Egyptian Coptic historian.

[edit]

References used

E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998. ISBN 0-700-70406-X
Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K
Richard Nelson Frye. Golden Age of Persia. 2000. ISBN 1-842-12011-5

[edit]