Balāḏurī and Ḥamza Iṣfahānī on the Migration of the Parsees

Extract

In my examination of the tradition relating to the migration of the Parsees to India, in connection with the condition of the Muslim world in the middle of the seventh century, I have noted the account given by Balāḏurī (ed. De Goeje, 392), who states in his narrative of the conquest of Kirmān by the Arabs that a number of the Parsees sailed away in ships over the sea, i.e. in the direction of India. My point of view on this subject, as generally on all the materials which we possess relative to this question, I have formulated before: here I would merely reiterate that this account consists of two words only, unaccompanied by further explanations, of which one may be said to be obscure. Similar accounts in an expanded form exist in Arabic literature, and I think that it may be useful to give the following extract from an Arabic writer of recognized authority, albeit of later date—Yāqūt, who, in his famous Geographical Dictionary (ed. Wüstenfeld, iii, 31), has the following under Subuḏān:—

“Subuḏān. Ḥamza ibn al-Ḥasan relates the following. Four farsakhs from Baṣra is the town Ubulla on the shore of the Crooked Tigris (sc. Shaṭṭ al-'Arab); the inhabitants of this town were Persians, labouring on the sea. When the Arabs came near them, they loaded 400 ships with as much of their possessions as possible, and with provisions, and sailed away.