The learned from among the people knew those things at that time and recorded them in their books and explained the contents of those books. They described, as well, the conditions of the surrounding universe in all its majesty and the causes of its foundation and its stars. They also knew the conditions of the drugs, medications and talismans, and such things that people used in their affairs that lead them to good and evil. They persisted as such for a while until the time of al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qayy. [From words other than those of Abū Sahclass="underline" dāh āk, means ten afflictions that the Arabs have transformed into al-Ḍaḥḥāk — we now return to the statement of Abū Sahl]. Ibn Qayy ruled during the time when the reign, allotment, sovereignty and governorship of Jupiter ruled over the years, in the land of Sawād [i.e. ancient Babylonia]. There he built a city whose name was derived from the name of Jupiter. He gathered in it the sciences and the scientists, and built in it twelve palaces, the same number as that of the zodiacal signs, and named (the palaces) according to the names (of the signs). There he stored the books of the learned and made the scientists live in those (palaces).
[From words other than those of Abū Sahclass="underline" he built seven houses, the same number as that of the seven planets and gave each of those houses to one man, thus giving the house of Mercury to Hermes, the house of Jupiter to Tīnkalūs,[83] the house of Mars to Ṭīnqarūs (Teukreus?).]
We return to the statement of Abū Sahl.
People obeyed them and followed their direction, since they knew how much more advanced they were from them in matters of knowledge and means of securing their wellbeing, until a prophet was then sent to them. As soon as the prophet appeared among them and once they knew about him, they forgot their sciences, and their minds became confused. As a result they became all dispersed and their opinions diversified according to their lusts and parties, so much so that each one of those learned men departed to a city in order to inhabit it and rule over its population.
Among them was a learned man called Hermes. He was the most perfect of all in terms of his intellect, and most precise in knowledge and most subtle in discerning. He came to the land of Egypt. He ruled over its population, enriched its land and improved the conditions of its residents, and manifested his learning in it.
But most of that learning and the best of it remained in Babylon, until the time when Alexander the king of the Greeks invaded the land of Persia, from a city the Greeks call Macedonia. That was at the time when [the Persian king Darius] denied the tribute that was imposed on Babylonia and Persia, and thus [Alexander] killed the king Dara the son of Dara and took over his dominion. He destroyed the cities and the towers that were built by devils and giants and demolished all the buildings with all the sciences that were engraved on their stones and woods. He shattered and burnt all that and scattered their contents everywhere. He copied what was gathered in the libraries and government offices of the city of Istakhr. He translated all that into Greek and Coptic. And after he had finished copying what he needed from it all, he burnt all that which had remained written in Persian, including a book called al-Kushtaj. He took all that he needed of the books of the science of the stars, of medicine, and of the natural sciences and sent them together with what he had gathered of the other sciences, treasures, and scientists to Egypt.
There remained few things that were sent by the kings of Persia for safekeeping to India and China at the time of their prophet Zaradasht (Zoroaster) and the Wise Jāmāsp. [This took place] when they were warned by that prophet and by Jāmāsp of the deeds of Alexander and his conquest of their land, his destruction of their books and sciences, and his transporting them to his own country.
At that time, learning in Iraq disappeared, was torn apart, and the scientists, few as they were, disputed among themselves and differed greatly. People split along partisan lines and scattered into schisms, so much so that each group of them took a king to itself, and were thus called mulūk al-ṭawā'if (kings of the sects).
Then the Greeks came under one dominion during the time of Alexander; and after having been all dispersed and engaged in war with one another, they were finally united with one hand. While the dominion of Babylonia remained weak, corrupt and fragmented, and its people were oppressed, and defeated, so much so that they could not defend their honor nor dispel any harm. [These conditions prevailed], until there came the reign of Ardashīr, the son of Bābak, of the dynasty of Sāsān. He healed their divisions, united their various sects, and conquered their enemy and took control of their country. He united them under his rule, cured their partisanship and assumed full reign over them. He then sent to India and China as well as to Greece for the books they had in their possession. He copied all that had fallen into their hands, and pursued the very few remaining sciences that had survived in Iraq. He gathered together all that had been dispersed, and collected all that which was scattered.
His son Shāpūr, who succeeded him, persisted in this policy, until all those books were copied into Persian: among them the books of Hermes the Babylonian who ruled over Egypt, Dorotheus the Syrian, Phaedrus the Greek from the city of Athens which was famous for its learning, Ptolemy the Alexandrian, Fārmasp the Indian. They then explained those books and taught them to the people, just as they have learned from those books, which were originally from Babylon.
Then Chosroes Anūshirvān succeeded those two |meaning Ardashīr and Shāpūr] and did his own gathering and collecting of books, and employed them on account of his love and passion for knowledge.
And so is the case of every people who had had such events befall them at times and their lots had changed. They would acquire new sciences in accordance with the decree that was meted to them by the planets and the zodiacal signs that control this world by the order of the almighty God. Here ends the speech of Abū Sahl.[84]
This story indeed exhibits the stuff of legends. But it is easy to detect its intent and the reason why Abū Sahl recounted it in the first place. Besides taking a jab at the possible conflicts between kings and prophets, Abū Sahl obviously sought to highlight two main issues: 1) the antiquity of the science of the stars, that is, astrology, which was his profession, and 2) he wished to relate the origins of all sciences to Babylonia, and by extension to Persia which ruled over Babylonia for long periods of time. He may have done that in order to boast of his Persian origins—and here one may detect a subtle racial boasting that formed part of the shu'ūbīya (anti-Arab) sentiment of the time—or of his control of his discipline of astrology, or both.
The shu'ūbīya sentiment, which may be lurking in Abū Sahl's account, does not preclude his attempt to explain other cultural phenomena at the same time, and to assert a special place for Persian culture to which he definitely belonged. By starting with the sciences originating in Babylonia, he followed that by taking a swing at Alexander the Great, the traditional enemy of Persia, for burning the Persian sciences. To Abū Sahl that could explain the disappearance of those sciences and the need to reclaim them later at the time of Shāpūr and Chosroes. In this manner Abū Sahl was in all likelihood also participating in the general literary traditions of his time as welclass="underline" traditions best exemplified a few years later in the works of Jahiz (d. 869), who devoted special treatises to the virtues of various nations. Abū Sahl's insistence that the sciences were all gathered back into Persian under Shāpūr and Chosroes is almost a transparent attempt to glorify the Persian role in the preservation and transmission of science. But we only have his word for that, despite the fact that it is admittedly true that some of the Greek and Indian sciences, especially the elementary astrological sciences, were in fact translated into Persian during that time. But to generalize that account to include all the sciences pushes the story into the realm of legend.