Free Iran: Empire of the Mind by Michael Axworthy Page A

their cultural identity from Arab chauvinism through the so-called shu’ubiyya movement, the title of which refers to a verse from the forty-ninth Sura of the Qor’an, where Allah demands mutual respect between different peoples ( shu’ub ). It was primarily a movement among Persian scribes and officials; their opponents (including some Persians) tended to be the scholars and philologians. But the shu’ubiyya sometimes went beyond asserting equality or parity, in favour of the superiority of Persian culture, and especially literature. Given the religious history of Persia and the lingering attachment of many Persians to Mazdaean or sub-Mazdaean beliefs, shu’ubiyya also implied a challenge to Islam, or at least to the form of Islam practised by the Arabs. A satirical contemporary recorded the attitude of a typical young scribe, steeped in the texts that recorded the history and the procedures of the Sassanid monarchy:
… His first task is to attack the composition of the Qor’an and denounce its inconsistencies… If anyone in his presence acknowledges the pre-eminence of the Companions of the Prophet he pulls a grimace, and turns his back when their merits are extolled… And then he straight away interrupts the conversation to speak of the policies of Ardashir Papagan, the administration of Anushirvan, and the admirable way the country was run under the Sasanians … 12
    In time, as elsewhere, the solution to such conflicts was assimilation and synthesis, but the shu’ubiyya gave the Persians in Baghdad a collective self-confidence and helped to ensure the survival of a strong element of pre-Islamic Persian culture as part of that synthesis. 13 Like the religious controversies about free will and the nature of the Qor’an that were going on at the same time, like other conflicts in other times and places, the shu’ubiyya was a sign of conflict, change and creative energy.
    Boosted by the creativity of the Persians, the Abbasid regime set a standard, and was looked back on later as a golden age. Baghdad grew to be the largest city in the world outside China, with a population ofaround 400,000 by the ninth century. The Abbasids endeavoured to evade the tensions between piety and government and to cement their support among all Muslims by abandoning the Umayyad principle of Arab supremacy, and by establishing the principle of equality between all Muslims. The same inclusive principle extended even to taking supporters of the descendants of Ali, Christians and Jews into some parts of the government, provided they proved loyal to the regime. The integration of the huge area of the Arab conquests under the peaceful and orderly rule of the Abbasid caliphate brought new and dynamic patterns of trade, and a great release of economic energy. The caliphs encouraged improvements in agriculture, particularly through irrigation, which created new prosperity especially in Mesopotamia, but also on the Iranian plateau, where the following centuries saw the widespread introduction of rice cultivation, groves of citrus fruits, and other novelties. 14 The region of Khorasan and Transoxiana profited hugely from revitalised trade along the ancient Silk Route to China, from the agricultural improvements, from the mixing of old and new, Arab and Iranian; and entered an economic and intellectual golden age of its own.
    The Abbasid system relied first on the local networks of control set up by provincial governors across the vast territories of the empire, and second on the bureaucracy that tied those governors to the centre in Baghdad. The governors collected tax locally, deducted for their expenses (including military outgoings), and remitted the remainder to the Abbasid court. The hand of central government was relatively light, but these arrangements put considerable power in the hands of the governors, which in the long run was to erode the authority of the Caliphate.
    The Abbasid court became rich, but it also became very learned. The