The complex ethnic relations arising in the rapid movement of peoples in the early expansion of the Muslim world had important effects on the cultural and political history of Islam, but this subject is often glossed over by historians of Islam because most Islamic teachings prohibit ethnic chauvinism. There are few integrative studies of ethnic interactions in the classical Muslim world, particularly from the perspective of the Türks, although important work has been done on small ethnic communities within Islam, and much has been written on the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims within and outside the Islamic world.(1)
The texts I discuss in the following two chapters have been discussed by others, and the ethnic ideas analyzed. However, these discussions have considered historical and cultural facts, rather than examining how literary form interacts with ideological intentions. In this chapter I begin with an overview of Muslim discourses and contests about the character and identity of Türks, Arabs, Hindus and Iranians, and then I concentrate on the eleventh century Turkic lexicographer Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî. His canonical presentation of Türk culture reflects a strong sense of Türk ethnic identity, and he attempts to displace dominant Arab and Iranian discourses about Türks as noble but uncultured warriors and slaves. In Chapter Four I discuss the way two other Muslim Turkic authors tried to shape Turkic literary tradition through their works.
The encounter of Türks with Muslims began early but did not
lead to major conversions of nomadic Türks until the tenth
century. Already in the late seventh century, Arab campaigns in
Central Asia brought Arabs into contact with Türks who served as
soldiers for Iranian rulers and with the Second Türk Empire and
its successor states. Because the social position of the Türks
was radically different from that of the Iranians, their
experience in the Muslim empires is not well reflected in early
literary remains. Iranians rapidly became important as
intellectuals within the Islamic world, expressing their sense of
collective identity, while the Türks can be seen largely through
writings about them.
Ethnic relations among Arabs, Iranians, and Türks in early and classical Muslim societies involved a variety of genealogical and racial ideologies and chauvinisms, political alliances, and religious values. Official Islamic teachings sought equal rights and treatment for all Muslims, regardless of ethnic or racial identity, and opposed Arab tribal chauvinism and prejudices. But the religious equality of the person did not necessarily lead to social equality of the person or the culture. In the eighth century Iranians and other non-Arabs (known as `Ajam) who argued that their culture was equal or even superior to that of the Arabs, and those who praised pre-Islamic cultural and literary traditions, faced powerful political opposition.
The debate over cultural worth was widespread in scholarship concerning the pre-Islamic past: Arab scholars tended to glorify the Arab past, while some Iranian scholars suggested that Arabs had been uncultured nomads, and contrasted this to the long Iranian history of civilized achievements. This movement of non-Arabs was called Shu`ûbîyya from the term shu`ûb 'peoples' used in the Qur'ânic verse that states that all peoples are equal. Iranian Shu`ûbîyya scholars depicted their great past and accused the Arabs of being late-comers to civilized culture.(2) H.A.R. Gibb's article "The Social Significance of the Shuubiya [sic]" makes many generalizations, arguing that the Shu`ûbîyya debate was a struggle over the destiny of Islamic culture as a whole.(3) In contrast, Roy Mottahedeh carefully analyzes the different ideologies of collective identity and their relation to political entities during the integration of the Muslim world. He argues that it "was primarily a literary controversy" that had only rare ethnic and political uses, and that rather than legitimate their identity through genealogy as the Arabs did, Iranians relied on a "group feeling" that included expectations about the cultural activities of whomever ruled over Irân-zamîn.(4) But ethnic ideas were more complex than Mottahedeh allows, although the historical record makes it difficult to see beyond the ideas of the literate classes. This "literary controversy" reflected social tensions: many of the writings in this controversy are ideological interpretations of cultural and political interactions among different ethnic groups. It is some of these socially engaged writings that I consider here.
The extensive literary remains and prominence of Iranian culture has encouraged broader analysis of Iranian ethnic ideas, while Türks tended to be an object of Muslim ethnic discourses rather than producers of them.(5) But even in Persian literary history there are conflicting accounts of continuity with the past. Umar Muhammad Daudpota emphasizes that many Arabic poets were actually Iranians, and discusses the pride Iranians show in the Iranian language and literary forms even when writing poetry in Arabic.(6) But Iranians carried little of their literary traditions into Arabic. Mary Boyce has shown that Persian poetry underwent a radical change after the Arab conquest: it had been an unrhymed oral minstrel genre with syllabic meter, but under Arab influence it became written, quantitative and rhymed.(7) Rather than attempting to create a separate tradition, Iranians used the Arabic alphabet and drew heavily on Arabic literary forms and styles, while trying to preserve their own language as a vehicle for Islamic learning.(8)
In early Islamic courts, opponents of Persian language and culture often associated them with resistance to Islamic rule. In the eighth century under the `Abbâsid Caliphate, Iranians gained political power and some acceptance as cultural equals, but it was not until later that Persian was accepted for prose and bureaucratic writings.(9)
In the Turkic case, ideas about identities and stereotypes had cultural, genealogical, and political expressions. Because Türks entered the Muslim world either as soldiers and mercenaries or as prisoners of war who were made into slaves, they had a peculiar position within early Muslim society.(10)
Within the rather fluid system of slavery and servitude, Türks rapidly came to dominate the military structure of the `Abbâsid Caliphate, whence they were able to rise to important political positions at the Islamic courts. Their literary and historical image as excellent horsemen and powerful warriors displaced that of the Arabs during the `Abbâsid period. Nonetheless, it remains through images presented by Arab and Iranian writers that we see the Türks of the Muslim world during this period. Only the writings of Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî and Yûsuf Khâss Hâjib allow us to explore more distinctively Turkic points of view on their encounter with the Muslim world.
Since the Qur'ân was defined as the sacred words of Allah as told to the Prophet, the language in which they were spoken, Arabic, was considered sacred as well, and in early Islam, important literature had to be in Arabic. Hence the first Iranian and Turkic scholars and poets made a name for themselves using Arabic. Eventually it became a commonplace that the Iranians were better than the Arabs at writing Arabic, although the Arabs retained their claim to being better orators. Arab poets in the early Islamic period in fact showed great scorn for written poetry, likening it to the burned out fires of old camps after nomads had moved on.
In a wonderfully detailed essay, the famous Arab writer `Amr ibn-Bahr al-Jâhiz (ca. 776-868), portrays interactions of Türks with Iranians and Arabs in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the `Abbâsid capital at Baghdad and later at Samarra. He addressed his essay entitled "The Virtues of the Turks" to the Turkic official al-Fath ibn Khâqân who held several important posts, including commander of the Turkic soldiers recruited by Caliph al-Mu`tasim. Ibn Khâqân (literally 'son of the Qaghan') was from the Turkic ruling family of Ferghana and died in 861.(11)
Al-Jâhiz begins his essay with a recapitulation of a debate
over the racial composition of the army that had taken place
between Ibn Khâqân and another member of the court not long
before. Ibn Khâqân had argued that the army should not be
considered to be composed of five immutably different races, and
that Khurasani (Iranians) and Türks were in fact brothers from
the same region. Ibn Khâqân compared their relationship to that
of a resident of Mecca and one of Medina, or of "the Bedouin and
the cultivator, the plainsman and the mountaineer." He used a
quote from the Prophet to argue that alliance and client
relationships have importance similar to kinship, and thus the
Türks "became Arabs [through confederation] and because of their
excellent characteristics and noble qualities."(12)
But Ibn Khâqân's Arab opponent argued that the ideas of the separate races were very different, and illustrated his argument by explaining the Arab understanding of the intimate connection between genealogy and oratory. According to him, the Arabs hold that
close relationship is established by sound origins, linked blood lines, seniority, obedience to fathers and paternal kin, effective thanks and suitable panegyic in poetry (which will endure for all time shining as long as the stars, . . .) and in prose and oral traditions, that describe . . . the origin of the state, . . . and record brilliant actions.
Arabs put this in verse and bring it to illiterates. They compete in boasting and contend for honor. They claim "we preserve our genealogies best and shepherd our rights most carefully." And referring to the ease with which mere writing can lose its meaning, they say, "we remind the people of things whose traces have disappeared and marks been effaced."(13)
Here al-Jâhiz picks up the argument himself, ostensibly in defense of Ibn Khâqân, but presenting arguments that suggest that the Türks are indeed a distinctive race. He describes the martial superiority of the Türks, their excellent horses and training, their endurance and hunting skills, and predilection for eating meat. "The Türk is a herdsmen, groom, trainer, trader, veterinarian, and rider. A single Türk is a nation unto himself." Furthermore, "the Turk does not enjoy food unless it is game or booty" (193-97). He continues:
The Turks are a people who do not know flattery, coaxing, hypocrisy, backbiting, affectation, slander, pretence, haughtiness with companions, or injustice with partners. They do not know the heresies. The sects do not corrupt them, nor do they take possession of wealth and make it lawful through clever interpretations (of religious law). The only defect which makes them wild is longing for the homeland, love for rambling across the land, great enjoyment of raids, passionate desire for plunder, deep appreciation of custom, and their constant reminding each other of the pleasure of repeated victories and the sweetness of great booty. (203)
Al-Jâhiz mostly describes the ways that Türks differ from others, but he does it in such positive terms that one could argue that this is simply to show that they are equal in nobility to the Arabs. Al-Jâhiz appears to be following Ibn Khâqân's emphasis on the excellence of the Türks, rather than their ease of assimilation. But since he is known as a humorist, there is also the possibility that he is poking fun at some of these character traits. He cites Qutaiba ibn Muslim's claim that the Türks long for their homeland more than camels do, and says that this is because the Türks of Farghana are so similar to one another. Al-Jâhiz says that the Türks do not like to be under non-Türk commanders, or put amidst the common rabble of soldiers. They need to be cultivated to develop their innate skills as all great peoples have been: "the Chinese in crafts, the Greeks in wisdom and letters . . . the Sasanians in kingship, the Turks in wars."
The Greeks who investigated causes were not merchants, artisans, planters, or farmers. . . . The kings gave them leisure and provided them with what they needed. They investigated with collected souls, abundant faculties, and free minds and so were able to invent implements, tools, and musical instruments. . . .
The Greeks were thinkers rather than doers, and did not use tools well. They pointed to things without touching. In contrast, "the inhabitants of China are masters of melting and molding, casting and smelting, of marvelous dyes, carving, sculpting, painting, book copying and calligraphy."
And the Arabs themselves do not know farming or trading with scales. However, through much cultivation they excel in "reciting poetry, making eloquent speeches, analyzing language and etymology, reading tracks, remembering lineages, taking guidance from the stars . . . ."
The Turks are the Bedouins of the non-Arabs.(14) They do not know about farming, but are skilled at riding, raiding, hunting, and duels. The Türk makes his whole sword from beginning to end, without the specializations of the artisan. He does not depend on help nor occupy himself with the business of trading craft products.(15)
Al-Jâhiz cites a hadith enjoining people not to give the Türks trouble, and quotes Alexander saying "have no truck with them" (utrukuhum) as the source of the name Türk.(16) Al-Jâhiz describes encounters between a Türk Khâqân (Qaghan) and an Arab commander that shows the Khâqân to have harsher laws that create a more orderly kingdom. The Türk is also more dignified, since he sits motionlessness while the Arab fidgets in his saddle during their meeting (212). Al-Jâhiz's theory of racial types is one of several current among Arabs at the time, in which human character is created by culture, genealogy and geographic origin as much as determined or reflected by physical type or skin color.(17)
After al-Jâhiz, the changes in the Arab image of the Türk were complex, linked to the growing political and military power of the Türks, and to the rise of Persian to literary stature equaling Arabic. In the ninth century there was growing interest in pre-Islamic Middle Persian literature in the original language among Muslim scholars and poets--some Middle Persian texts had already been translated into Arabic in the seventh and eight centuries--as part of the appreciation of Iranian accomplishments in literature and historiography.(18) But Persian had begun to be written in the Arabic alphabet, and while many Pahlavi texts survived, the difficult script made them increasingly inaccessible without special training. Not until the tenth century did a significant tradition of Islamic Persian poetry begin.
Since there were few urban centers of Turkic culture and little in the way of written Turkic literature before this time, the Türks had no interest in reviving an older tradition in the same way as the Iranians. The writings of Türks who became successful scholars within Islamic institutions reveal little concern for their cultural and ethnic origins.
Yet, as al-Jâhiz describes, with Türks such as Ibn Khâqân in positions of power in the Islamic world, debates over cultural and racial characteristics and the roles they could play in the Islamic world were inevitable. Some of the Turkic elite tried to move beyond a military identity and claim a cultural position comparable to that of the Iranians and Arabs. The earliest extant Muslim Turkic literature, composed in the latter half of the eleventh century, seems to reflect these Türks' project of creating a literary tradition that was autonomous from the Iranians, and showing that Turkic culture was as good or better than that of the Iranians.
But before considering Muslim Turkic literature, I will
discuss the image of the Türks found in Persian Islamic
literature.
With the rise of Muslim Persian poetry, the image of the Türk was romanticized from the soldier to that of the cruel lover. Already in the lyrics of the eleventh century Persian poet Manûchihrî Dâmghânî we find the image of the Türk as a "tyrant lover" as well as the somewhat wild nomad and warrior both inside and outside the state. Manûchihrî praises the Ghaznavid ruler for controlling these unruly Türks.(19)
This image parallels the growth of the Türks from a powerful ruling class in the political and military structure in the ninth century `Abbâsid Caliphate, and the founders of the Ghaznavid empire in Afghanistan and Khurasan in the tenth century, to the overlords of the Caliphate under the Seljuqs in the eleventh century. The effect these changes in the political power and status of the Türks had on Arabic views of them is analyzed in terms of racial stereotypes and prejudice in an excellent study by Ulrich Haarmann. Although not specifically addressing Bosworth, Haarmann refutes the generalizing conclusions in Bosworth's "Barbarian Incursions" cited above. Haarmann shows that despite Ibn Khaldun and others who praised Türks as bastions against the infidels and as sources of moral renewal that prevented luxury and lassitude from overwhelming Islamic social order, animosity towards Türks was much more common among the Arab elite, while popular feeling may have been less negative.(20)
Arabs who interpreted Turkic rule positively are discussed by O. Turan(21) and Bernard Lewis.(22) E. G. Browne gives a strongly Irano-philic version of decline of the Caliphate and its cultured traditions beginning in the latter half of ninth century due to the `Abbâsid change from reliance on the Barmakids "and other noble Persians" to the "Turkish soldiers of fortune . . . whose barbarous names well accord with their savage acts."(23) This bias towards Iranian civilization, and against the "barbarian" Turkic and Mongol nomadic conquerors remained a leitmotif even in V. V. Bartol'd's excellent studies. At one point he even says that the Eastern Türkistanis should be happy to be under the rule of the Chinese, since nothing of European culture has filtered in to them.(24)
Despite the Turkic role as rulers of much of the Islamic world until the twentieth century, they were still the objects of prejudice and scorn within certain social contexts. And Türks still were often slaves as well as rulers. Descriptions of social life are very limited, so it is hard to get a sense of how the Türks in these vastly differing roles interacted with non-Türks and with each other. Instead we have mostly the play of objectified images of Türks.
The eleventh century Iranian Kai Kâ'ûs wrote the Qabus Nama, a book of advice on how to rule and manage courtly affairs, after he retired as ruler of the Ziyarid domain on the southern Caspian. In one part he offers suggestions on the buying of slaves, describing how Türks differed when used as slaves.
You must understand that Turks are not all of one race and each has its own nature and essential character. Amongst them the most ill-tempered are the Ghuzz [Oghuz] and the Qipchaqs; the best-tempered and most willing are the Khotanese, the Khallukhs [Qarluqs] and the Tibetans. The boldest and most courageous are the Turghay, the most inured to toil and hardship and the most active are the Tatars and the Yaghma, whereas the laziest of all are the Chigil.
After this consideration of the useful aspects of Turkic slaves, Kai Kâ'ûs gives a complex aesthetic analysis of the physical features of the Türks and compares them to those of the Hindu. He concludes that despite shortcomings, "for the (domestic) establishment there is no better race" than the Türks. In addition, he implies that both Hindus and Türks were used as palace guards, although they saw one another as enemies.(25)
Kai Kâ'ûs expresses a common idea among non-Türks when he conflates ethnic and geographic origins and includes Tibetans and Khotanese among the tribes of the Türks, but his treatment of both Hindus and Türks only as slaves stands somewhat at odds with the literary and historical image of the Türks as members of the military and ruling class by this period. Annemarie Schimmel shows that in Persian poetry at least, the images of the ruling and later drunken and heart-robbing Türk chevalier and the lowly, black and slave Hindu became standard images.(26)
Ethnic images and discourses in the Islamic world were
plentiful and flexible, varying from author to author. They
changed according to the context and genre of writing, and also
according to the political and social ideologies of the writers.
Other images became conventions in oral culture, arising from
experience and beliefs, and serving as resources for people to
contest their status within Islamic society.
One of the most important pieces of literature arising from the pre-Islamic Persian tradition, but given new form in the version of Firdausî, is the Shâhnâma. Finished about 1010, it is an epic history of the pre-Islamic Iranian kings, centered on the conflict of Iran with the Turan, and providing a written foundation for discourses about Iranian identity. Already in the early Islamic period, the Türks were identified with the Turan people in the Shâhnâma. Ehsan Yarshater says that the identification of Turan and Türk may have first been made in the early seventh century, not long after the Türks' first contacts with the Iranians in the sixth century.(27) When Firdausî composed his epic he gave the Turanians many of the attributes of the Türks with whom he was familiar, including their nomadic lifestyle and shamans who could call down rain storms.(28)
Firdausî's Shâhnâma presents one of several ethnic and
genealogical models that Turkic elites used to create an
historical and cultural identity for themselves within an Islamic
world dominated by the culture and writings of Arabs and
Iranians.(29) Schimmel mentions that the Türks ruling North India
took names based in Firdausî's identification of Türks with the
Turan.(30) In contrast, the Oghuz Türkmen who moved into Anatolia
and founded the Seljuk and Ottoman empires used Iranian names
from the Shâhnâma such as Rustam, which fits with their stronger
Iranian orientation pointed out by Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî (see
below).(31) By the eleventh century, when the Turkic lexicographer
Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî identified the major Turan hero of the
Shâhnâma, Afrâsiyâb, with the well-known Turkic epic hero Alp Er
Tonga, he expressed an idea widely held among the Türks.
Kâshgharî's dictionary is a rich source for Turkic views of their position within Islamic history and society. Based in broad fieldwork among Central Asian Turkic peoples and written in Arabic, Kâshgharî's work is a key source for Turkic linguistic and cultural history. He makes his dictionary a canon or "container" for Turkic culture, assessing words, practices, oral tradition and beliefs in terms of his own carefully worked out ethnic ideology. Amidst the complex ethnic interactions of the Islamic world, Kâshgharî makes his dictionary into a vehicle for defining what it is to be Türk, and explaining why it matters. He is a Türk nationalist from a Qarakhanid ruling family, and directs his definitional statement at an audience of Arab scholars and officials. His methods of collection and presentation fit within an accepted school of Arabic lexicography, but he uses this scholarly form to pursue highly politicized goals.
Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî was trained in Arabic scholarship in Baghdad in the eleventh century, but spent many years living among the Türks of the Eastern and Western Qarakhanid empires in Central Asia. As his name indicates, he was from Kashghar, although he may have been born in Barsghan, on the southern shores of Issiq Köl.(32) He based the structure of his large work The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dîwân lughât al-turk) on the structure devised by a fellow Central Asian Türk, Abû Ibrâhîm Ishâq ibn Ibrâhîm al-Fârâbî (d. 961) for his dictionary of Arabic.(33)
Kâshgharî's dictionary was completed in 1077, and dedicated to the `Abbâsid Caliph al-Muqtadî.(34) This rich source on the language and customs of the Turkic tribes of Central Asia appears after the rise of a native Turkic Muslim dynasty ruling over Muslim Türks, rather than over Iranian and Arab Muslims as did the Seljuqs and Ghaznavids. Kâshgharî was a member of a ruling family of this so-called Qarakhanid dynasty, which was founded by Qarluq, Chigil and Yaghma tribes ca. 840, and controlled much of the region to the north and east of the Sir Darya (Oxus River), including the regions of Kashghar, the Yeti Su, and north of the Tian Shan. These tribes probably were the 200,000 tents of the Türks who are reported to have converted to Islam in 960, thus being the first large scale Islamic conversion of Türks.(35)
Kâshgharî worked at a time when the Türks of the Islamic world had begun to lay claims to cultural traditions that were equal to their military and political accomplishments. He was vehemently opposed to most things Iranian, especially the influence of urban Iranian culture on the Türks, and what he perceived as the Iranization of Turkic territory through this urban culture: Qilich tatiqsa ish yunchir,
är tatiqsa ät
tinchir.
"When a sword rusts the affairs suffer,
when a man becomes like a Iranian his flesh will stink."This is used "to advise a person to be steadfast and to live among his own kind."(36) Kâshgharî scorns the Iranians and their culture, and feels it contaminates the Türks. On the other hand, in order to claim the comparability of Turkic and Arabic languages and cultures, he cites literally hundreds of parallels between them "in order to show that the Turkic dialects keep pace with Arabic like two horses in a race."(37)
Kâshgharî particularly emphasizes the semantics and processes of ethnic labelling. He explains
Turks call anyone not knowing Turkic somlin, just as the Arabs call anyone not knowing Arabic `ajamî. This is the root meaning. But when he later comes to know Arabic this name still does not leave him. As for Turkic, when he learns their language he then leaves the definition of somlin. (DLT 437)
This detailed semantic analysis of ethnic categories reflects Kâshgharî's interest in the construction and recognition of identity boundaries. He intended his dictionary to make explicit and reinforce these distinctions.
Kâshgharî gives the Türks a high place in the Muslim moral cosmos. He writes that the Türks are Allah's own army, named by him, and settled "in the most exalted spot and in the finest air on Earth. . . . [with virtues] such as beauty, elegance, refinement, politeness, reverence, respect for elders, loyalty, modesty, dignity and courage. . . ." (DLT 1 and 177). He writes that Muhammad said to his followers, "Learn the language of the Turks, because their rule will last a long time" (DLT 2). Kâshgharî does not personally attest to the validity of this hadith, but he says that if it is sound, "then learning [the language of the Türks] is a religious duty; and if it is not sound, still wisdom demands it" (DLT 3).
By collecting and recontextualizing the verbal materials of daily life Kâshgharî creates a monumental canon of Turkic culture organized according to his ethnic ideology and political program. Whereas al-Jâhiz emphasized the characteristics of Türks as independent and resourceful warriors, and Kai Kâ'ûs described how to judge their characteristics as slaves or servants, Kâshgharî uses the broadest possible description of Turkic oral and material culture to display the Türks' excellence and comparability to the Arabs in all aspects of cultural life. For his Arab audience to have a comprehensive understanding of who the Türks are, they must be given the fullest possible description of what Türks do and say, what these practices mean and how they reflect on Türk character.
Kâshgharî shows very little interest in history: his
dictionary describes the contemporary cultural characteristics of
the pure Türk tribes, showing what they share with each other,
and what distinguishes them from people who are not pure Türks.
History only enters in the form of religious and secular legends
widely believed among the Türks, and he mentions very few
political and social events.
One of the purposes Kâshgharî sets for himself is to classify the dialects of Turkic and to give examples of the daily speech of the different peoples, their "words of wisdom and elegant speech, proverbs, verses of poetry, and sentences of prose", but he also wants to define the proper speech and speakers among the Türks in order to identify the true Türks. According to his analysis there are two ideal forms of Turkic: the nomadic Chigil, Yaghma and Tukhsi Türks, who live in the regions of the Irtish, Ili, Yamar and Volga rivers and stretch as far as the land of the Uighurs, speak the most correct Turkic, while the Khâqânî--language of that Qaghan--spoken in Kashghar is the most elegant Turkic.(38)
But Kâshgharî says that in most towns and cities the Türks have mixed extensively with the Khotanese, Tibetan, Tangut and Sogdian peoples. "We do not consider [those who have mixed to be] among the Turks, since they insert into the speech of the Turks what does not belong to it." He argues that the most elegant dialects are spoken by those who only know one language (DLT 24-26).
Kashgari further separates pure and genuine Turkic from that spoken by those who make the consistent sound changes which characterize what could be considered in his day Turkic dialects, but have since become separate Turkic languages. He expends much space on describing these changes as systematically as possible, both in the introductory section on the dialects, and in his discussion of verbal forms in the different dialects. It is clear that he a priori excludes the Oghuz, Qipchaq and Arghu from those who speak the pure Türk language.(39) These are the Türks who are most distant from Kâshgharî's idealized homeland and culture, and he wants to show his Arab readers why they are not true Türks, but contaminated by urban and foreign influences. Through his dictionary, he hopes to teach his readers to be sensitive to ethnic differences so they do not loosely apply the term Türk to those who do not deserve it.
Kâshgharî is far more tolerant of the sound changes among the non-urban Turkic dialects of those who live according to his idealized culture. Even though he says that Yaghma, Tukhsi and Chigil are the most correct dialects, he distinguishes them from each other as well. He points out that among the Yaghma, Tukhsi, Qipchaq, Oghuz and other dialects that he elsewhere refers to as outside the realm of pure Turkic, the dh in Chigil speech is changed to y, so "when the Türks say qadhin" these others say qayin (DLT 26, TTD 43). This contradiction over whether the Chigil or the Yaghma and Tukhsi dialects are the most correct indicates that the sounds are not as important as the political and cultural boundaries that he uses to distinguish ethnicity. More than with any other group, he works to clarify and emphasize the differences between the Türks and the Oghuz. Only occasionally does he use a broader definition of Türk that includes the Oghuz, Qipchaq, and Arghu.
The rising political power of the Oghuz within the Muslim world through their establishment of both the Ghaznavid and Seljuq empires set them into frequent conflict with the Qarakhanids.(40) Kâshgharî wishes to clearly distinguish them from the pure Türks, and exclude them from claiming the authority and legitimacy Türks have established in the Islamic world. Not only does Kâshgharî present his dictionary in Arabic to teach the increasingly politically important language of the Türks,(41) but he also seeks to establish a hierarchy of cultural purity which gives the increasingly marginal Yaghma, Tukhsi and Chigil precedence over the dominant Oghuz. In packaging true Turkic culture Kâshgharî's dictionary is not simply an impartial record of words and phrases, but an ideological textualization of selected cultural activities, recontextualized within a discourse on the politics of culture in Islamic society.
Nonetheless his dictionary has little effect on the world he
lives in. While it registers a myriad of Türk concerns for later
readers, no one seems to have used it as a standard for Turkic
culture. Since the Türks Kâshgharî celebrates are at the edge of
the Arab world, it is not very useful in most Arabs' experience,
and perhaps for this reason it survives in only a single copy,
made in 1266. This copy is fortunately in excellent condition,
but this fact also indicates a certain lack of interest.(42)
Kâshgharî follows carefully thought out standards for content, collection, organization, presentation, and explanation. These standards come from the Arabic lexicographic tradition as it was shaped by other Turkic scholars. Kâshgharî's lexical entries include most of the categories of Turkic words, from proper nouns to particles and ideophones. He includes 230 individual couplets and quatrains, extracted from several genres of oral poetry, apparently written down and collected by himself as well as others. He includes nearly 300 proverbs as examples of word usage and to demonstrate Turkic wisdom. Some of the proverbs are very similar in form to the poetry, distinguishable only by his choice of label for them. Finally he recounts many legends to explain the names of tribes, places, foods, calendrical units and so on.
A typical definition gives the Arabic equivalents for a word, and in roughly half of his ten thousand entries Kâshgharî gives examples of the usage of the word or information about the object or action it refers to and why it is culturally important. His examples of usage are either typical phrases from daily life, or proverbs, poems, and legends that contain or explain the word. He gives enough historical, linguistic and cultural explanation to understand the general significance of these cultural texts, but through typification and generalization rather than by describing an actual utterance or action. This is in keeping with his goal of characterizing patterns of cultural action, rather than specific performances.
His dictionary has two systems for organizing the disparate information he includes within it: lists of lexical items, and two lengthy grammatical discussions. Almost all of the cultural texts appear as examples within the lexical entries, and are highly decontextualized. In particular, his couplets and quatrains seem to be parts of roughly fifty longer songs, but he uses separately according at importance to explaining the practical skills of daily living. He particularly emphasizes the details of preparing foods,(43)
while he tends to simply translate into Arabic the terms for medicine, clothing, housewares, tools, and weapons, and describe them in more general functional terms. He seems to give cooking skills a special place in Türk culture, or he feels foods are the most difficult cultural terms to translate accurately into Arabic. But the details given for at least twenty dishes, with roughly another forty food items described, suggest a great deal of pride in the care and effort that goes into this cultural focus. It seems to be reflected as well in his many proverbs stressing the values of hospitality and the feeding of guests.
In addition to food, Kâshgharî describes a few children's games in sufficient detail to actually play them. Boys are said to play a word game in which the leader names animals with horns and they are repeated by the other players until the leader slips in the name of an animal without horns and defeats those who repeat it after him (DLT 603, 609-610).
Kâshgharî's dictionary clearly manifests his theory that the
substance of Türk culture distinguishes it from other cultures.
He stresses the ordinary activities of daily life, and completely
neglects history except as it is represented in shared cultural
knowledge such as legends and songs. The dictionary enables him
to present a cultural canon of typical Türk behavior and everyday
beliefs framed around the medium of the most commonplace of all
shared daily social activity, talk. He frames this collection of
words, cultural texts and practices within a statement of
cultural identity: these are all the cultural practices that
distinguish Türks from surrounding peoples, and make them worthy
of great respect. In the body of his collection, he makes
repeated clarifications of the cultural identity of the users of
each practice or word.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the dictionary is the literally hundreds of verses and proverbs given as examples of usage. I have to rely on secondary sources on Arabic lexicography, but these indicate that songs and poetry were not usually collected in dictionaries, but in adab collections that were directed at fairly specific uses. Arabic dictionaries usually served as resources for understanding the erudite and arcane expressions of poetry and religious literature, for learning the literary language needed as a scribe, and so on, and hence used citations, especially of famous phrases by known authors or speakers, rarely giving proverbs and poems without known authors.(44) Lexicographers were concerned with classical Arabic and its rarities (nawâdir, gharîbat), not the commonplaces of contemporary speech, and the scholarly approach to classical Arabic proverbs was to seek out historical figures who coined them and to identify the events to which they referred. There was little scholarly interest in proverbs validated by general currency. Arabic literature was oral, but emphasized the status of the speaker as well as his skill, ignoring the speech of women and men who were not recognized as excellent speakers. Both the content and the origin of speech has to be elevated from mundane concerns for Arab literati to show interest in it: even in the Bedouin proverb collection of al-Maydâni there are few proverbs relating to the daily life of the nomads, their animals, cooking, and so on.(45)
My conclusions are limited by the lack of studies that detail the contents of Arabic dictionaries: the interest in most studies appears to be the analysis of the kind of words and the reason for their compilation, the arrangement of the words--such as is seen in Kâshgharî's borrowing of a complex order based in end rhyme from Fârâbî--and the grammatical commentaries included.(46)
However, the importance proverbs had for the tenth century lexicographer Fârâbî can be seen in his description of the types of sources that he uses for his Diwân al-adab. He lists the religious texts--Qur'ân, Sunna, Hadît--and the literary forms of poetry, rajaz (a metric composition but not in a poetic meter), and hikma (maxim, wise saying). He says poetry "is the counterpart of proverbs . . . because the only distinction between the two is that one is in verse while the other is in prose." But in describing the several forms of hikma, he makes a basic sociological distinction of the mathal (proverb) from all the other literary forms.
The mathal is something about whose form and content both the masses and the elite reached mutual agreement to the point that they use it as a cliché in their affairs, and utter it in good or bad days. By means of the mathal they draw eloquence from what does not allow for eloquence, they gain [verbal] access to remote things they wish to express, and they relieve themselves of oppressing worries. A mathal is a most eloquent hikma because the people would not [all] agree upon anything deficient or remiss in prefection, or something that does not reach the utmost extent of refinement.
In contrast,
a nâdira [a poem that parallels another's composition] is a true hikma which indicates the same thing as a mathal, except that it is not current among the general public but only treasured by the elite few. The only difference between it and mathal is the extent of their respective circulation.(47)
Gutas cites this passage in full because he says it is the only explicit statement he has found of how mathal and hikma fit within the system of literary forms. In addition to the unusualness of this description of proverbs and other wisdom sayings in Arabic, it seems to depart from the traditional Arabic stress on known origins and elite usage. Fârâbî defines mathal in populist and functionalist terms, in order to distinguish them from the more exclusive hikma with their known authors and limited circulation. Fârâbî's populist proverbs seem to have been excluded from Arabic educated tradition by the tenth century, and his argument for including them as items of literate culture based on widespread use probably was not accepted much by Arab literati of his day.
Fârâbî eloquently characterizes the rhetorical and cognitive usefulness of proverbs: having a proverb to summarize a situation gives control and comfort. Proverbs give one the power to define a situation and express it in commonly accepted ways through metaphors that offer "access to remote things."(48)
By the time Kâshgharî was writing, Arab scholars had lost interest in oral and folk cultural forms and the stress on oratorical skills in Arabic had long had anti-populist overtones. The appreciation of Arabic oral tradition decreased as stress was placed on developing a literary language and as Qur'ânic language became more remote from contemporary speech.(49)
It would appear that in both the form and content of his
dictionary, Kâshgharî represents a "Turkic" school of Arabic
lexicography. Although he uses lexicographical methods based in
traditional Arab ideas about the tribal peoples as repositories
of the pure language, he also seems motivated by a much more
Turkic appreciation for the rhetoric and poetics of contemporary
and commonplace spoken proverbs and poetry, rather than the
archaic and complex language favored by Arabic and Iranian
literati under the `Abbâsids and after. Where Arabic and Iranian
interest in sayings tended towards elitism, seeking exceptional,
individual aphorisms attributed to known authors, Türks such as
Kâshgharî drew on the rhetorical power of proverbs seen as
anonymous shared wisdom.
Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî's method of citing and describing the usage of proverbs and other speech forms takes several different forms. For heroic narrative poems, he tells specifically what legendary event is being narrated and then cites the poem that contains the word being defined, and explains the poem's meaning in Arabic, as in the following:
Calling the Khâqân to help in battle with the Yabâqu:
"They write a pact
and take a firm oath [to support the Khan],
and then seek aid from the Khan,
for now the Basmil and ömül line up [for battle]"
Then the Khâqân overtook them and took them captive.(50)
In citations of wisdom poetry, love poetry, and descriptions of nature Kâshgharî seems to feel the context is obvious and unnecessary to elaborate upon by specifying who would or did perform the poem and why. He merely gives the text and its translation. But when Kâshgharî uses a proverb, he almost always situates it in terms of what the speaker would typically be trying to say with it, rather than narrating how it was said at a definite time in the past, as he does with heroic poetry. For example, in explaining Ärngänkä ällig qari bözün üm tükämäs, he writes in Arabic "'Fifty cubits of cloth are not enough for the trousers of an unmarried man,' since a stranger will not sew it for him. This is coined to advise someone to marry."(51)
Kâshgharî's understanding of these genres clearly includes an implied time frame. The proverb is destined for use in a hypothetical situation in the future, while most poems describe specific events in legendary history or a regularly occurring event such as a season. These poems come after the events they describe and are not meant to affect them, while proverbs should be involved in events as ways to define situations and affect decisions. Kâshgharî thinks of proverbs as language that accomplishes social action: with his examples, potential users will better understand what to do with it, the judgements or suggestions it can make. He seems to be following Fârâbî's sense that the proverb is a way to clearly express difficult things in language that is commonly understood. But he leaves little room for creative variation: proverbs have fixed meanings and appropriate contexts of use. Like cooking, games, and words that name ethnic groups, Kâshgharî feels proverbs must come with instructions in order to be done right. A translation is not enough.
In contrast, even for love and wisdom poetry, which appears
to have a potential for social effects, Kâshgharî does not
describe a performance context such as singing to a beloved,
although the poems themselves sometimes address a particular
listener. For example: Alghil ögüt mindin
oghul ärdäm tilä
Take counsel from me, son, and seek
virtue,
boyda ulugh bilgä bolup
bilging ülä.
Among the people
become great in
wisdom and share it.
(DLT 37) or
Iklädi mänig adhaq
körmädip oghri tuzaq
iglädim andin uzaq
ämlägil amdi tuzaq.
I trampled with my foot
I did not see the hidden snare
I have been suffering a long time
Charmer, heal me now. (DLT 191).
Kâshgharî seems to feel such verses are self-evident once translated, and he does not try to explain when these might be used.
Another oral genre that Kâshgharî includes is the etiological legend. These largely recount the naming of places, tribes, and things. He seems to restrict himself to a few of the many he says could be told, pleading the length of the stories in some cases (DLT 71, 513, 542). These legends are generally based in stories from the Shâhnâma, although it clearly differs from the Persian national epic that Firdausî tells. Dhû-l Qarnayn (Iskandar, Alexander of Macedon) and Afrâsiyâb are the major figures that appear in these legends. It is here that we see the great importance that these figures had come to have for the Türks. Dhû-l Qarnayn created the staple noodles that Türks later named tutmach when his Turkic troops complained Tutma ach! "Do not keep us hungry!" (DLT 227-8, EDPT 457). In this instance, Dhû-l Qarnayn only makes the object which is then named by Türks. In other cases he creates the names himself but does so unintentionally: words he speaks in Persian are misconstrued and through various transformations become the names 'Uighur,' 'Chigil,' and 'Türkmen.'(52)
Robert Dankoff's article "The Alexander romance in the Dîwân Lughât at-Turk,"(53) discusses the references to Dhû-l Qarnayn in the dictionary, and concludes that they differ so much from the episodes in the Shâhnâma that a Turkic version of the Alexander tradition must have been independent and long-established. While Dankoff concludes that the Turkic version was not necessarily Iranian in origin, J. A. Boyle in a very similar article concludes that Kâshgharî must have drawn on a lost Persian version of the Alexander Romance.(54) Boyle's interpretation seems more plausible, since Kâshgharî describes Alexander speaking Persian, which strongly suggests that Persian narrators had already given Alexander an Achaemenid genealogy to explain his conquest of the Persian Empire.(55)
In mythical history Afrâsiyâb plays a somewhat more recent
role than Dhû-l Qarnayn, and Kâshgharî's narratives about him are
more numerous. As discussed above, the Türks identify themselves
with the Turan in the Shâhnâma, and the Turan hero Afrâsiyâb from
that epic is identified with Tonga Alp Är, the hero of the Turkic
narrative songs that Kâshgharî records (DLT 605). For many of
the heroic poems Kâshgharî's annotations specify that it is
Afrâsiyâb who is being described or eulogized. The Qarakhanid
ruling lineage is known to Kâshgharî, as to many other Muslim
historians, as al-i Afrâsiyâb "The house of Afrâsiyâb" (DLT 199,
206, 509, 513.) Afrâsiyâb and his descendants found and name
specific places, towns, and buildings. They do not name cultural
practices or tribes as did Dhû-l Qarnayn, but the dwelling places
of Afrâsiyâb's descendants.(56)
Kâshgharî's accounts of legendary origins give very little importance to the role of Arab and Iranian culture. Those who created the Turkic world, named it and founded its cities have little to do with Islam. Islam was a powerful ideological framework for his contemporary understanding of the world, but it gave social and moral order to things as they were, rather than explaining the origins of things. Nor does Kâshgharî seem interested in the conversion narratives that explain the origins of Turkic Muslims, although they later are an important genre of Turkic traditional history. He mentions Satoq Bughra Khan, the Qarakhanid Khan who according to later legends converted the Türks to Islam, but he makes no mention of the conversion (DLT 206 and 211).
Kâshgharî does make reference to the idea of Türks descending from a son of Noah named Türk, but even here diverges from the version of this descent usually given by later authors, since he does not say that Türk is a son of Yafes (Japhet). In fact, he does not mention Noah's other sons at all, although it was a common Islamic historical trope to explain the position of different ethnic groups in the dar al-Islam, the Islamic oikumene, in terms of their descent from Japhet, Shem, and Ham. Instead Kâshgharî explains how the Türks get their name from their ancestor with an analogy to other eponymous ancestors in Islamic tradition: Kâshgharî explains that Türk was Noah's son's name and was applied to all his sons just as Adam's name is applied to all his descendants (since the Arabic word for 'human' is âdam). And "likewise Rûm [Byzantium] is the name of Rûm son of Esau son of Isaac, God's blessings be upon him, and also his sons were called by that name" (DLT 176-77).
Kâshgharî refers to these Islamic narratives as common knowledge of true history, not as foreign borrowings. As sacred truths, they do not have to be acknowledged as debts or gifts.
In general, although Kâshgharî invokes the name of Allah to guard against error when he reports on some pagan customs and beliefs, he mentions few things that come from the Islamic world to the Türks: in addition to drawing extensive parallels to show the equality of the Arabs and the Türks, he seems to feel that the Turkic world created its own culture and traditions, and is more likely to impose itself on the rest of the Islamic world than to be imposed upon.
Where he does acknowledge the cultural results of Islamization, he rejects them as not authentic Turkic:
The Türks do not have names for the seven days, since the week became known with Islam. Also, the names of the months, in the cities, are given in Arabic. The nomads and the heathen infidels give them names according to four seasons (DLT 175).
Here we see the conflict between his cultural and religious ideologies. Islam tended to be more closely associated with urban culture, which he wants to reject. Pure Türk culture such as the traditional names for the seasons is shared by Muslim and infidel nomads, and forgotten by those most familiar with the cultural influences that accompanied Islamization.
Although Kâshgharî embraces Islam, he does not accept the cultural influences that it brought. In order to accept Islam, he must naturalize it as sacred truth outside history, forget its introduction by foreigners, and try to correct the cultural marginality of the Türks in the Muslim world, which was all the more irritating due to the dominance Persianized Oghuz Türks in the central Islamic lands.
It appears that since the Shâhnâma narratives used to
explain Turkic genealogies were already so widely known in the
Turkic world, Kâshgharî did not feel he was drawing on Iranian
culture when he reports many legends based in its narrative. As
historical tradition, describing the roles of Dhû-l Qarnayn and
Afrâsiyâb in founding and naming the Turkic world, he felt the
stories of the Shâhnâma belonged to Türks as much as to Iranians.
Recording these stories in books did not establish Iranians' sole
rights to claiming this heritage or cultural property. Shared
belief and practice and widespread tradition also authenticated
the traditions. The Shâhnâma was not a Persian national epic but
was rather an international epic of Central Asian history.
Clearly the versions of the Shâhnâma that Kâshgharî is familiar
with have less distinct Persian nationalist orientation than that
of Firdausî's version.
Kâshgharî used three basic arguments to promote an important cultural position for the Türks within the Muslim world. The first is his constant comparison of Arabs and Türks to suggest their similarity and equality in cultural terms. The second is that he denied the value or criticized the effect of cultural borrowings (in several places he argues against Iranian or Arabic origins for things and their names, and claims they originated among the Türks.)(57) The third is the use of hadith to argue that the Türks are attaining political power according to Allah's and Muhammad's words, and through political prominence they will become significant donors of culture to the Islamic world.
But the packaging and presentation of Turkic oral genres to show what makes the Türks distinct is more important than these arguments. With his detailed canon and commentary of Türk culture he establishes the bounds for variation within a rich, compact, totalizing monument that organizes and gives coherent meaning to Türk practice.
As James Fernandez says, a "mission of metaphor" is to objectify and stabilize ambiguous and inchoate pronouns (1986: 35). Similarly, written texts are fixed cultural representations that offer ways to fix the fluidity of social life into contained, static and manipulable forms. Obviously they are open to multiple interpretations and recontextualizations, but the operation of creating meaningful objects distinct from social activity reifies and congeals culture and history as something happening outside of people.(58) Although people themselves are active in creating and choosing that which represents them, such objectified, past, and fixed symbols deny or suppress their involvement, naturalizing origins and essentializing the association of people with practices, names, or beliefs. The acts of creation and commitment are inverted so that the monument or symbol defines the people rather than the other way around.
Kâshgharî intended his dictionary to reflect the permanent
and enduring of Türk culture, and serve as a foundation for
criticizing processes of cultural change and social mixing. Only
in his proverbs does he court the possibility of creativity and
change, although he tries to contain them as well.
Bilgä ärän sawlarin
alghil ögüt,
ädhgü sawigh ädhläsä
özkä singär.
Take the speech of wise men as
admonition;
if good speech is nourished, it takes
root in oneself (DLT 512).
Proverbs are useful poetry, cultural tools for thought and persuasion, and instances of authoritative language. In appreciating them, Kâshgharî is caught in a paradox. He wants to preserve them as characteristic instances of Türk culture, and yet he shows that they vary greatly in form and use. He does not describe how variation and creative application are essential to using proverbs, but he demonstrates it through his own selection and interpretation of them.
It is through controlling interpretation and defining contextual connections that proverbs are objectified and used as symbols of the collective past or collective thought and experience. Proverbs have a complex relationship to culture history, because they can shape change while simultaneously suggesting continuity. This chapter will explore strategic uses of proverbs in context, as they are used to define situations and shape history.
Comparison of Kâshgharî's proverbs with those in the eight-century runic Turkic inscriptions from the Second Türk Empire suggests only a tenuous historical continuity, but closer connections can be found to proverbs in Uighur writings.(59) The proverb used by the Counselor Tonyuquq in his early eighth-century runic Turkic monument when describing how he decided to support a young candidate for Qaghan, "if you try to distinguish a lean ox from a fat ox from behind, you cannot tell which is which,"(60) and Kâshgharî's proverb "A calf that is expected to become a bull stands out among the oxen"(61) reveal very similar use of metaphors based in distinguishing animals in a herd. These proverbs suggest a shared cultural focus on herd animals and concern with their development that makes them a ready source for metaphorical images of knowing (the calf that will become a bull), or not knowing (the distinctions of fat and lean bulls, from behind, or from far away, depending on one's reading of the proverb) the future.
A Chinese source suggests greater continuity from eighth-century Türk proverbs to those Kâshgharî collected in the eleventh century. According to the Tang dynastic histories, in 752 animosity arose between two Türks serving as Tang Military Commanders: An Lushan, son of a Sogdian father and Turkic mother, who was later famous for his rebellion which almost destroyed the Tang Dynasty, was insulted by Geshu Han, son of a Turkic father and Khotanese mother. An Lushan sought the latter's friendship but Geshu Han criticized his character, saying they could not be friends because "as the ancients say 'It is a bad omen if a wild fox barks at his [own] lair, for he has forgotten his origins.'"(62) Kâshgharî twice cites a very similar proverb tilkü öz yinkä ürsä udhuz bolur, translating it as "When the fox yelps at his own lair he becomes mangy." He explains that this is used to rebuke a person who finds fault with his own people (DLT 39, 446).
Still more directly connected to al-Kâshgharî's proverbs is a fragmentary collection written in the runic script during the time of the Uighur Idiqut kingdom. It can be dated because it is written on the back of a piece of paper that had been used for a letter in Chinese dated 925, and it is thus one of the last examples of the use of the runic script for Turkic. It was found in a cave that appears to have been sealed at the end of the tenth century. James Hamilton and Louis Bazin, in their edition and reconstruction of the eleven surviving proverbs, rely on the similarity of these Uighur proverbs with those in the Dîwân Lughât al-Turk to reconstruct the first proverb to read "One will take a lion with a ruse, one will not take (a scarecrow through force)," a proverb that occurs three times in Kâshgharî's dictionary.(63)
Following this proverb the Uighur runic collection lists five proverbs all pertaining to the idea of error in travel, politics, and writing. I list the texts found in this Uighur runic collection and those given by al-Kâshgharî one hundred and fifty years later, to examine the similarities.
Uighur runic script texts:
Azmazun tip, yerchi
yaratti;
yangilmazun tip,
bilgä urti.
In order not to get lost, he created
the guide;
in order not to err, he created the
counselor.
Azmaz yerchi,
yangilmaz bilgä,
unitmaz ötügchi,
yangilmaz bitkâchi.
A guide that does not get lost,
a counselor that does not err,
an advocate that does not forget,
a scribe that does not err.
Bilgälig yangilmaz,
yerchilig azmaz.
With a counselor one
will not err,
with a guide one
will not get lost.
Yangilmasar bilgä
bol(maz);
azmasar yerchi
bolmaz.
If one did not err there would be no
counselors;
If one did not lose the way there
would be no guides. (This could also
be translated "If he does not make
mistakes, he will not become a sage.
If he does not get lost, he will not
become a guide.")
(Yangil)ma(z
b)itikächi yoq.
A(zmaz yerchi) yoq.
There is no scribe who does not err;
there is no guide that does not get
lost.
Kâshgharî's Turkic texts:
Yazmas atim bolmas,
yangilmas bilgä
bolmas.
There is no marksman who does not
miss,
there is no counselor who does not
err (DLT 470. I would suggest
"Without missing one will not became
a marksman, without error one will
not become wise").
Yazmas atim yaghmur,
yangilmas bilgä yangqu.
The shot that does not miss is the
rain,
the counselor who does not err is an echo. (DLT 610, EDPT
951.)
Ula bolsa yol azmas,
bilig bolsa söz
yazmas.
If there is a marker, one will not
lose the road,
if there is wisdom, words will not
err (DLT 58, TTD 123).
Clearly, Kâshgharî was not the first to concern himself with the collection of Turkic proverbs: even though this Uighur collection is a brief fragment written on a single piece of paper, it reveals the enduring interest that Turkic intellectuals had in such lists of traditional wisdom. That they are collected as wisdom sayings is clear from the emphasis on analogies between wise thought and skills in other domains of activity. The proverbs suggest ways to think about the relationship between knowledge, experience, guidance, and action.
While the similarity of structure and sense suggest closely related cultures, the differences between the particular images used point to important differences in the cultural context within which these two collections originated. The images of the Uighur proverbs suggest currency in elite urban scribal culture, in which counselors and scribes both serve the ruling class, and their abstract functions are clarified by comparison with the more concrete tasks of the guides (yerchi) that urban merchants would employ to lead their trading caravans. On the other hand, the Türks among whom Kâshgharî has collected his proverbs seem more familiar with using markers themselves to follow the road, and they compare them to wisdom that keeps words on the correct path. The sage or counselor (bilgä) is compared to arrow shots, archers, and echoes, rather than to scribes and guides. Kâshgharî's disdain for urban Türks, whether Uighurs or Oghuz, apparently leads him to prefer metaphors for guidance and wisdom drawn from self-sufficient nomadic life of the steppe and mountain.
Kâshgharî himself offers evidence for the value Uighurs placed on proverbs when he explains that the Uighurs "have a public crier who cries out everyday and teaches wise sayings," and gives as an example:
Uyghur, yighach uzun
käs,
tämür qisgha käs.
Uighurs, cut wood long,
cut iron short (DLT 269).
By including the initial ethnonym Uighur in his quotation of the
proverb, Kâshgharî stresses the ethnic specificity of this
proverbial reference to urban crafts. Among Kâshgharî's other
proverbs none refer to urban crafts, while the skills and tools
involved in hunting, animal husbandry, butchering, farming, and
household crafts such as sewing and cooking are common sources of
imagery. He avoids urban, Oghuz and Uighur songs and proverbs,
although he includes their dialect words and grammatical forms as
useful shibboleths for distinguishing ethnic cultures. Proverbs,
poems, and legends reflect cultural knowledge and wisdom, of
which he records little that is not from the "pure Turks."
My discussion of Kâshgharî's proverbs is part of my presentation of the literary history that leads up to the muqams songs. As many folklorists have pointed out genres such as proverbs interact with other cultural practices, and should not be studied in isolation. The material that is used in one genre has different significance and expression in other genres. Generic bounds are always going to be leaky if they are productive parts of culture, because they are not created through repetition, but creative reinvention of materials from on-going and changing social experience.
While Turkic proverbs do not conform to a formal poetic system or structure, they are intimately related to Turkic poetry. Here I examine the connections of the proverbs and poetry in Kâshgharî's dictionary, and in the next chapter, I suggest that the first Muslim Turkic literary authors used a proverbial style to compose wisdom poetry in an effort to challenge the importance of Persian and Arabic literature in the Islamic world.
While Kâshgharî thought that recording oral expressive culture was a sufficient demonstration of the value of the Türks, early Muslim poets in Turkic sought to create a written literary tradition based in oral proverbial style. Only when Turkic poetry adopted a thoroughly Persianate style after the Mongol conquest did Turkic poets abandon proverbial style and the effort to compose distinctively Turkic written literature.(64) And even when Persianate poetry was the dominant literary form among Türks, there are indications that proverbial style remained an important oral form among Turkic Sufi teachers, as I will discuss in Chapter Five.
Kâshgharî includes several examples of verse in different variants of the same stanza that show differences much like those found among the repeated poverbs. Many verses convey moral messages similar to those of proverbs. Kâshgharî identitifes the lines
Bardi ärän qonuq
körüp qutqa saqar,
Qaldi yawuz oyuq
körüp äwni yiqar.
Gone are men who consider it a
blessing when they see a guest,
remain only vile ones who move their
tents when they see a scarecrow. (DLT
55)
and the variation
Bardi ärän qonuq
bulup qutqa saqar,
Qaldi aligh oyuq
körüp äwni yiqar.
Gone are men who consider it a
blessing when they find a guest,
remain only weak [evil, deceitful?]
ones who move their tents when they
see a scarecrow. (DLT 193)
as examples of verses, despite the strong moral judgement they offer.(65)
Although Kâshgharî makes a clear distinction between the proverbs and the verses that he cites by labelling each example that he gives, there are many overlaps in form and theme. Exchanges among proverb and verse can be seen in the proverb
Yazidaqi süwlin
edärgäli
äwdäki taqaghu
ichghinma.
When you hunt pheasant in the field,
do not let the hens in the house
escape, (DLT 224)and the verse
Qoldash bilä
yarashghil,
qarship adhin
üdhürmä,
bäk tut yawash
taqaghu,
süwlin yazin
edhärmä.
Agree with a friend,
do not oppose him and choose another;
guard the domestic hens,
do not chase pheasants in the field
(DLT 449, EDPT 68).A similar interchange occurs between the proverb
Tay atitsa at tinur,
oghul ärädhsa ata
tinur.
When the colt is considered a horse,
the horse rests,
when the boy is considered a man the
father rests (DLT 112).
and the verse
Tägür mänig sawimni
bilgäläkä ay,
tinur qali atitsa
qisraq sani tay.
Convey my words
say to the wise ones
"(the mare) rests if it becomes a
horse,
(if) the colt is among the young
mares." (DLT 112 and
514)
Obviously proverb ideas and forms can be used as reported or direct speech in verse. But the transformation of proverb to verse is not the same as that between different versions of a proverb or a verse. A proverb or verse can vary by simply changing lexical items within it, while a verse that incorporates a proverb reorganizes it according to the generic patterns of verse.
When Kâshgharî uses the same verse or proverb twice in his dictionary, he is consistent in labelling the genre, despite lexical and structural changes. Single line proverbs are as short and pithy as possible. Multi-line proverbs are internally structured to maximize syntactic and sound parallelism between the parts. Verse, on the other hand, subordinates such compact organization to its own dominant structuring principles of rhyme, consistent line length and rhythm. Hence, although the first proverb given above has little sound parallelism, its line is structured according to logical contrasts:
yazi-daqi süwlin edärgäli
field-in pheasant hunting-while
äw-däki taqaghu ichghin-ma,
house-in hen let escape-not
while the verse use of this idea rearranges the lexical elements to form consistent rhyming seven syllable lines, grouped as 2+2+3, in an ABCB rhyme. The logical contrast of hunting wild pheasants and guarding domestic hens is still prominent but the syntactic parallelism is sacrified. In inter-generic transformation, it is the idea that is preserved, while the form changes. This further supports the idea that proverbs should be thought of a genre in which cognitive structure dominates, while verbal structure is the most effective and memorable expression of that cognitive form.
The second proverb is highly parallel on both sound and syntactic levels, but the verse violates syntactic parallelism to match the framing verb ay 'say' and the noun tay 'colt,' as well as the second person singular imperative verb tägür 'make them reach, convey' with the third person singular future verb tinur 'will rest.' By paralleling the line that introduces the proverb with the proverb itself, the poem fractures the proverb's syntactic parallelism and the proverb is no longer readily decontextualized, but becomes bound to its poetic context.
The interaction of the two genres in these verses that
transform proverb structure but leave the ideas recognizeable
makes each one more meaningful and useful. The cultural options
and strategies available in one generic form depends on those in
all other forms, including obviously material culture, political
speech, religious beliefs, and historical narratives.
The contents of Kâshgharî's collection of Turkic culture reflects dynamic cultural interactions, but in framing these contents he creates a representation of static culture and meaning, denying change and performance. For Kâshgharî in his historical predicament, change is the threat of Oghuz Türk culture mixing with Iranian culture, and the only certain defense against such contamination is what Malcolm Chapman has described as "freezing the frame": making culture into a bulwark against history.(66) Although as events or actions, culture and history are co-extensive, the patterns of activity and expectations that people abstract from history can be reified into a static culture when history seems to be threatening one's power to determine one's own future. This is Kâshgharî's concern.
Kâshgharî relies on the culture of practical daily life and language, rather than shared religion or genealogy to define the people who are pure Türks. He rejects the culture of Türks who are too close to Iranians, and points out that some Türk infidels are pure Türks. He generally uses nomadic tribal identities to indicate which groups of Türks have preserved pure Türk culture, but even there he recognizes that tribal genealogies are flexible: he describes the Yemäk as a tribe of Türks, 'considered by us to be Qipchaq, but the Qipchaq Türks reckon themselves a different party' (DLT 456). His dominant concern is cultural identity, marked by behavior. Kâshgharî participates in a tradition of inter-cultural and inter-ethnic disputes and objectifications that, while disapproved of by official Islam, seems to have been an important concern among Türks, Arabs and Iranians at least as early as the `Abbâsid Caliphate.
Although Kâshgharî's collection techniques are not very clear, it is known that he probably spent seven years compiling his dictionary. His material was very selective: he rejected terms and ideas that were associated with foreign and urban educated culture. He avoids religious and political history, courtly topics, urban crafts, and literary activities. Instead of recent history of the Turkic peoples diverging, he discusses the shared pre-Islamic history of the Türks as descendants of Afrâsiyâb in the narratives taken from the Shahnâma and as descendants of Tonga Alp Er in the heroic songs.
In addition to avoiding a history of cultural change, Kâshgharî avoids dynamic genres. Although one of his definitions for term küg is "a joke that is current among the people of a city in a given year and that tongues wag about," and even gives an example of its use in a sentence, bu yil bu küg käldi "This year this joke came in" (DLT 500), Kâshgharî does not report a single joke in the entire dictionary. And he denies the dynamism of proverbs and verses, not acknowledging the creation of new forms and meanings.
Kâshgharî assumes that culture is static and shared within a community, so that it should be learned as characteristic items rather than patterned creativity. The cultural content he presents in his bounded text are shibboleths for distinguishing pure Türks and those who have mixed and changed. In his quest to describe the permanent cultural forms that characterizes the behavior and speech of the pure rural Türks, he finds that the most important genres are proverbs, songs, and from all the possible aspects of material culture, cooking.(67)
The songs and legends present shared ideas about the past and the natural and social world, while the proverbs are shared ways to think about the present and shape the future: they are guides to behavior, standards for dealing with situations that might come up. They are not given in terms of what was done with them in the past, but what can and should be done with them in the future. They are generative ways to creatively apply Türk culture to preserve the Türk essence of behavior.
Kâshgharî felt that recording pure Türk culture was the best
way to preserve and protect it, creating standards for
distinguishing genuine Turkic tradition from spurious. His
contemporary, Yûsuf Khâss Hâjib, was the first of a series of
Turkic authors who used Turkic oral cultural resources to create
a tradition of written literature that was like Iranian and
Arabic literature in form, while maintaining distinctively Turkic
style and content. Turkic authors after Kâshgharî created
literature that combined Turkic language and its concepts and
poetic principles of proverbial composition with Arabo-Persian
rhyme schemes and generic frame and an Islamic orientation.
1. 1 Unfortunately recent major overviews of the expansion of Islam such as Ira Lapidus's A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) and Marshall Hodgson's The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) do not consider ethnic and cultural interactions in the early Muslim world, while earlier synthetic histories do. G. E. Von Grunebaum's Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation (Second edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953) gives an excellent general discussion of the social structure of Islam, with a section considering ethnic ideas and relations, 199-210. In many ways, I. Goldziher's late nineteenth-century work on the politics of cultural and historical identity in Islam has yet to be superseded. I discuss his work below.
2. 2 Qur'ân 49:13. See I. Goldziher's Muslim Studies, C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, ed. and trans. Vol I. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1966 [1889], for the best study of the Shu`ûbîyya and the `Ajam. He discusses anti-Arab rhetoric on pp. 145-55.
3. 3 In Studies on the Civilization of Islam, Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk, eds., Boston: Beacon Press, 1962, pp. 62-73.
4. 4 "The Shu`ûbîyyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran" IJMES 7 (1976) 161-182, at 162.
5. 5 For a discussion of the political uses of literature and ethnic ideologies in Iran, see S.M. Stern's analysis of the political reasons for creating Islamic Persian literature in the mid-ninth century under the Saffârîds in "Ya`qûb the Coppersmith and Persian National Sentiment" in Iran and Islam, C. E. Bosworth, ed. 1971, 535-. More generally on the social and political contexts of Iranian languages and literature, see G. Lazard "Pahlavi, Pâhlavi, Dari: les langues de l'Iran d'après Ibn al-Muqaffa`" in ibid., pp. 361-391 as well as Lazard's Les premiers poètes persans, 1964, 2 vols.
6. 6 The Influence of Arabic Poetry on the Development of Persian Poetry. Bombay: The Fort Printing Press, 1934. (Reprint, Karachi: Ilmi Printers, 1988.)
7. 7 "The Parthian Gôsân and Iranian Minstrel Tradition" JRAS (April 1957) 10-45. I thank Jason BeDuhn for this citation.
8. 8 In the introduction to his translation of The Nasirean Ethics of Nasir ad-Din Tusi, G.M. Wickens says that Ibn Sînâ (Avicenna) tried to introduce many Persian terms into Arabic philosophical vocabulary. London: G. Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1964: 16.
9. 9 Stages in the acceptance of Persian for various types of Muslim literature are discussed in Lutz Richter-Bernburg, "Linguistic Shu`ûbîya in Early Persian Prose," JAOS 94:1 (1974) 55-64. Goldziher discusses the political and cultural issues involved in this transition.
10. 10 See Daniel Pipes "Turks in Early Muslim Service" JTS 2 (1978) 85-96. C.E. Bosworth in "Barbarian Incursions: The Coming of the Turks into the Islamic World" in Islamic Civilisation 950-1150, D.S. Richards, ed., Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973, pp. 1-16.
11. 11 For a discussion of the political context of this essay see Jacob Lassner, The Shaping of `Abbasid Rule, Princeton UP, 1980, Chapter Five. On al-Jâhiz's life see Charles Pellat, Le Milieu basrien et la formation de Jahiz, Paris, 1953, and Pellat's article "al-Jâhiz" in EI2.
12. 12 In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun offers a similar analysis. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Franz Rosenthal, trans. New York: Bollingen Foundation. 1967. 2nd ed. 3 vols.
13. 13 `Amr ibn-Bahr al-Jâhiz. Nine Essays of al-Jâhiz. William M. Hutchins, trans. American University Studies, series VII, vol. 53. New York: Peter Lang, 1989, 178-183. Translation modified.
14. 14 For Arabs, the Bedouins were and continue to be the idealized, romanticized Arab nomads: self-reliant, tough, living outside of cities, and good orators.
15. 15 ibid., 206-209. Again this is similar to the comments that Ibn Khaldun makes later about the independence of the Bedouins.
16. 16 210. This suggests a role that we will find Alexander playing later in Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî's dictionary: people misunderstand his words and use them as names.
17. 17 See A. Miquel La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu'au milieu du 11e siècle (Paris: 1967-80), II: 82 and 100-103, for a discussion of the racial ideas of the Arabs.
18. 18 Even now in Iran the benefits and drawbacks of the Arab conquest are debated. Many associate the Arab conquest with destruction and loss of Iranian culture. A musican interviewed by ethnomusicologist Jean During links the supposed burning of books with the theft of culture. He argues that the Arabs took everything from the Iranians. "It was when they attacked Iran that they took all our music and our maqam and changed the intervals according to their tastes . . . . The Arabs destroyed all the Persian manuscripts at Sava. For six months they heated the hammân with our books." Jean During, "Musique, Nation et Territoire en Asie Interieure" in Central Asian Literature, Culture and Art. Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 25 (1993) 29-42. For literary descriptions of the effects of the Arab conquest see Joya Blondel Saad, The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature, New York: University Press of America, 1996, pp. 38-40, 44.
19. 19 Jerome W. Clinton, The Divan of Manûchihrî Dâmghânî; A critical Study, Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures, #1. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1972, pp. 54, 83, 122-23, 133, 137-140.
20. 20 "Ideology and History, Identity and Alterity: The Arab Image of the Turk from the `Abbâsids to Modern Egypt" IJMES 20 (1988) 175-196.
21. 21 "The Ideal of World Domination among the Medieval Turks," SI 4 (1955) 84-5.
22. 22 "The Mongols, the Turks and the Muslim Polity," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser., vol. 18 (1968) 64.
23. 23 A Literary History of Persia, I:342, 345, 364, and passim. He draws on Sir William Muir, The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline and Fall, 2nd ed., 1892, for many of his anti-Turkic interpretations.
24. 24 V. V. Bartol'd, Dvenadtsat' lektsii po istorii turetskikh narodov Srednei Azii in Sochinenie, vol. 5, p. 192. The debate over colonialism has a long history between Central Eurasians and their Russian and Chinese "civilizers." On the disputes between Russian and Central Asian scholars about the effects of Russian conquest and colonization on Central Asian cultures see Yuri Bregel "Bartold and Modern Oriental Studies" IJMES 12 (1980) 385-403, and Eli Weinerman's meticulously documented study of "The Polemics between Moscow and Central Asians on the Decline of Central Asia and Tsartist Russia's Role in the History of the Region" in Slavonic and East European Review, 71:3 (July 1993) 428-481. Stevan Harrell (see note in Chapter Six) discusses the "civilizing projects" that the Han Chinese directed at the ethnic minorities. The theory of unilinear cultural evolution legitimates Russian and Chinese colonization by explaining what they do as civilizing the colonized.
See also Mostafa Vaziri, Iran As Imagined Nation: the construction of national identity (New York: Paragon House, 1993; "Symposium: Iranian Cultural Identity" in Iranian Studies, 26:1-2 (1993); Gherardo Gnoli, The Idea of Iran: an essay on its origin. Rome: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1989.
25. 25 Kai Kâ'ûs ibn Iskandar, Prince of Gurgan. A Mirror for Princes; The Qâbûs Nâma. Reuben Levy, trans. New York: Dutton, 1951, 102-3 and 230. Nizâm al-Mulk in his Siyâsat-nâma amplifies on the reasons for having several races as troops: the competition among them for honor will make them all perform better. The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, Hubert Darke, trans. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, 100-101.
26. 26 "Turk and Hindu: A poetical image and its application to historical fact." Islam and Cultural Change in the Middle Ages. S. Vryonis, ed. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1975, 107-126.
27. 27 "Afrâsîâb" EIr vol. 1, 576. He mentions that Mas`ûdî wrote in his Murûj para. 540 in the mid-tenth century that this identification was incorrect.
28. 28 The Epic of the Kings. Reuben Levy, trans. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967, 130 and passim. Tadeusz Kowalski, "Les Turcs dans le Shâh-nâme," RO 15 (1939-40) 84-99. The topos of Turan was applied to Türks just as in China, among historians and politicians seeking order and meaning through historical analogies, the topos of Xiongnu was applied to many later nomadic tribes. But where the Chinese are using the historical image of the Xiongnu to understand and deal with nomads in the present, Firdausî uses his present experience of nomads to inform his descriptions of those in the past. This may be compared to urban Arabs who already in the first few centuries of Islam began to believe that nomadic Bedouins retained the lost culture and values of the Arabs. Arab lexicographers researched the meanings of archaic literary words among Bedouins, and thus established the fieldwork methods that Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî used to compile his Turkic dictionary.
29. 29 See C.E. Bosworth "The Heritage of Rulership in Early Islamic Iran and the Search for Dynastic Connections with the Past," Iran 11 (1973) 51-62, for a discussion of the many links Iranian as well as Turkic and even Arabic dynasties made with the pre-Islamic Iranian Sasanids and epic dynasties from the Shahnama.
30. 30 Schimmel "Turk and Hindu. . .," 119.
31. 31 Even the seventeenth century Türkmen ruler and historian, Abû'l-Ghâzî Khân, recognized that this was a useful, rather than factual, identification for the eleventh century Seljuqs: "Before [the Seljuqs] became rulers, they said 'We are from the Turkmen [Oghuz] lineage [urugh] of Qiniq.' But after they became rulers, they said 'A son of Afrâsiyâb fled from Kay usrau and joined the Türkmen tribe of the Qiniq. There he grew up and remained. We are his descendants, we are of the stock [nasl] of Afrâsiyâb.' When accounting their forefathers, they reached Afrâsiyâb after thirty-five [generations]." Rodoslovnaia Turkmen, A. N. Kononov, ed. Moscow-Leningrad: 1958, lines 1151-1156.
32. 32 O. Pritsak "Mahmûd Kâshgarî kimdir?" Türkiyat Mecmuasi 10 (1953) 243-6.
33. 33 On Kâshgharî's "almost compulsive reliance on Fârâbî" probably arising from the fact that Fârâbî also was a Türk, see James Kelly "A Closer Look at the Dîwân al-Adab" Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3/4 (1979/80), pt. II, 497-506. See also A. B. Khalidov "'Divan Lugat it-Tiurk' v sravnitel'nom osveshchenii s ego arabskom prototipom" ST 4 (1984) 85-90. Khalidov extends the structural comparison somewhat, and argues that al-Kâshgharî used 'alsinat, the plural of lîsân for dialects, and hence the lughât of the title simply means 'words, language,' rather than 'dialects' as it is usually translated.
Abû Ibrâhîm al-Fârâbî should not be confused with the great philosopher and scholar Abû Nasr Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Tarkhân b. Uzlugh al-Fârâbî (ca. 870-950), who was also of Turkic extraction though he wrote in Arabic. See EI2, Suppl. 289-90, and my discussion below of his musical analyses.
34. 34 For a comprehensive discussion of the context in which the dictionary was composed, and the dating, see the translation by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. Türk Shiveleri Lügati (Dîvânü Lughât-it-Türk). Compendium of Turkic Dialects. Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures. Turkish Sources, 7. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Printing Office, 1982, 3 volumes, I:6-25. I cite Dankoff and Kelly's translation as DLT followed by the original manuscript pages 1-638, and their critical apparatus as DLTa with the volume and page. The other source I use here is the excellent modern Uyghur translation by Ibrahim Muti'i, Imin Tursun, et al., Türki Tillar Divani, Ürümchi: Shinjang Khälq Näshriyati, 1981-1984, 3 volumes, cited as TTD.
35. 35 As discussed in the last chapter the history of the Qarakhanids is poorly understood. Omeljan Pritsak's fundamental articles are widely scattered but good summaries and critiques of his findings, with some additional data, can be found in C. E. Bosworth "Ilek-Khâns or Karakhânids" EI2 v. 4, 1113-1117, "Karluk" EI2 v. 5, 658-659, and Peter Golden "The Karakhanids and Early Islam" in CHEIA 343-370, and his IHTP pp. 201, 214-215. The conversion to Islam is recorded in many legendary sources that establish Satoq Boghra Khan as an important culture hero, but do not offer much historical precision.
36. 36 DLT 407. Similarly, Tatig közrä tikänig tüprä. "Strike the Iranian in the eye, the thorn at its root." Kâshgharî says this proverb can also be applied to the Uighur and Tawghach (Chinese), DLT 406. Despite the claims by modern Uyghur historians that the Qarakhanid Empire was founded by Uighurs, Kâshgharî rejects any sense of ethnic connection with Uighurs because they are not Muslims. He admits that they speak a language similar to the Türks and even gives examples of their script, but his texts about Uighurs are uniformly negative. He does call their writing Türki script, distinct from the Arabic script he uses (TTD I:526 at kälin).
A variety of Turkic documents from Yarkand near Kashghar show that some Muslims used the Uighur script in writing contracts at about the time that Kâshgharî was writing. Marcel Erdal summarizes the chronology of script use in these texts: in two texts from A.H. 473-83 (1080-1091 C.E.) "neither scribe nor witnesses wrote in Arabic" while in a text from 489 A.H. (1096 C.E.) no Uighur signatures are found. In two texts from A.H. 505-508 (1111-15 C.E.), "a few of the witnesses still signed in Uighur" and in A.H. 515 (1121 C.E.) a document has two witnesses signing in Uighur script. "The Turkish Yarkand Documents" BSOAS 47:2 (1984) 260-301 at 287. Kâshgharî valued the Türki script as a native accomplishment and recognized that it was only going to endure among Uighurs, but he did not overtly comment on the borrowing of the Arabic script as a loss in native Turkic cultural skills.
37. 37 DLT 5, and compare DLT 595. See DLTa I:41-42 for discussion of some of the many examples.
38. 38 DLT 1 and 25. In finding the most correct speakers among nomadic tribes, Kâshgharî seems to rely on Arab lexicographic theory, in which scholars would seek the meanings of archaic terms and nomadic customs and tribal names among the Bedouin tribes, on the principle that they were more purely Arab in genealogy and culture. Although John Haywood argues that this lexicographic fieldwork was not as widespread as other scholars have claimed, he describes lexicographers such as al-Jawharî who discussed meanings "with the true Arabs in their homelands." Arabic Lexicography, its History and its Place in the General History of Lexicography, Second edition, (Leiden: Brill, 1965) pp. 17, 71. In his article on Jawharî, L. Kopf says that he seems to be the last lexicographer to maintain the tradition of linguistic investigations among desert Arabs. Jawharî is also of Turkic extraction, and studied under his maternal uncle Abû Ibrâhîm al-Fârâbî, and like Kâshgharî also used his method of dictionary arrangement ("al-Djawharî" EI2, 2:495-497).
39. 39 He clearly distinguishes the Oghuz language from that of the Türks when he says that Oghuz is more refined because they use words alone which Türks only use in combination, and describes Oghuz as more mixed with Persian (DLT 217). He states that the vowels used in past tense endings by the Oghuz, Qipchaq, Arghu and Känchäk are all incorrect, not the same as those used by Türks (DLT 504, TTD 3:190). And he spells out many other sound changes made by the Oghuz and those near them, by specifying the differences from the words of the Türks (DLT 24-25, TTD I:42-43). However, at another place he specifies that "the Oghuz are a tribe of the Türks, they are Türkmen (TTD 1:77-80). The Arghu Türks stretch from Ispijab to Balasaghun, but they all make mistakes (DLT 25). 'Mistakes' is my translation for the Ar. rikka which Dankoff and Kelly give as 'slurring.' This seems too vague for a word that means 'error,' 'palatalization,' and 'voiced' in some of its uses (see DLTa I:47n62, I:54-6).
40. 40 The Seljuqs use the name Chigil to refer to the Qarakhanids, thus sustaining their own claim to Türk identity.
41. 41 "Every man of reason must attach himself to [the Türks], or else expose himself to their falling arrows. And there is no better way to approach them than by speaking their own tongue . . ." (DLT 2).
42. 42 Dankoff and Kelly describe the few mentions of the work that occur in historical sources, and the many emendations and comments updating the dictionary since it was copied, DLTa I:10-26. Pritsak in PhTF I:75-6 claims that the Qipchaq dictionaries from Egypt and Syria under Mamluk rule in 14th-15th centuries used Kâshgharî's work as a model.
43. 43 For instance, in one of the more detailed accounts, he tells how to make the drink ughut: herbs are mixed with flour made from sprouted barley, kneaded together, cut into portions the size of hazelnuts and dried. This is then "crumbled and sprinkled over wheat that has been cooked together with barley, in the ratio of one hazelnut of leaven to one mann of cooked wheat. The wheat is then wrapped in something clean and left to ferment for three days, after which it is taken out and put into a vat and left to ferment for ten more days. Finally water in poured on top and it is strained. This is wheat wine" (DLT 37).
44. 44 The only instance of Kâshgharî following the Arabic method in describing the origins of proverbs is found in the case of qiz birlä küräshmä qiraq birlä yarishma, "Do not wrestle with a virgin nor race a young mare," which he explains as follows: 'this is one of the proverbs of the Khâqâniyya which pertain to the wedding night of Sultan Mas`ûd, when she tripped him with her foot and brought him down' (DLT 238).
45. 45 Régis Blachère, Histoire de la littérature Arabe; des origines à la fin du XVe siècle de J.-C. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1966, vol. III, pp. 554-8 and 764-6.
46. 46 See John Haywood's article "Kamus" in EI2, 4:524-525. The same author's Arabic Lexicography only mentions proverbs occurring in the encyclopedic Lisan al-Arab of Ibn Manzur (630-711 A.H.), and tribal folk poetry in the work of Abû `Amr al-Shaybânî of the Kufan school of "lexical fieldwork," who is reported to have called his work al-lughat, just as Kâshgharî did (77, 92). An-Nadim's Fihrist gives a description of his poetic collection among the tribes (150-51). R. Sellheim's comprehensive article on proverbs describes eighteen pre-sixteenth century collections of proverbs, but makes no mention of dictionaries as sources. "Mathal," EI2, 6:815-825.
47. 47 Dimitri Gutas, "Classical Arabic Wisdom Literature: Nature and Scope" JAOS 101:1 (1981) 49-86, at 63, citing the Dîwân al-adab Ahmad Mutâr `Umar and Ibrâhîm Anîs, eds. Cairo, 1974, I:73-4.
48. 48 Ibn Tabâtabâ also discusses the use of amthâl (proverbs) to bring "the distant closer, and distance what is close for fear of repetition engendering boredom." Quoted by K. abu Deeb, "Literary Criticism," in `Abbâsid Belles-Lettres, Julia Ashtiany, et al, eds. Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 367. Kenneth Burke's ideas about proverbs have prompted several folklorists and anthropologists to consider the ways that proverbs name and clarify ambiguous social situations. "Literature as Equipment for Living," in The Philosophy of Literary Form, Third Edition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, pp. 293-304. James Fernandez describes the first "mission of metaphor" as the provision of identity for inchoate subjects. "The Mission of Metaphor in Expressive Culture" in Persuasions and Performances, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986, pp. 28-70, at 35.
49. 49 For instance, in Die klassisch-Arabischen Sprichwörtersammlungen, R. Sellheim gives many examples of the increasing orientation of Arab scholars of proverbs towards classical Arabic forms. Brockelmann writing on the original link of Kâshgharî's dictionary and the Divan al-adab and in his article in EI1 on proverbs also describes the increasingly elitist literary attitude. The `Abbâsid literary critic Ibn al-Mu`tazz cites an earlier critic who says that Sâlih b. `Abd al-Quddûs used too many amthâl (proverbs) in his poetry. S. A. Bonebakker, "Ibn al-Mu`tazz and Kitâb al-Badî`" in `Abbâsid Belles-Lettres, 1990, 393. Andre Miquel points out that only Muqaddasî pays attention to proverbs in his writings on local cultures. La géographie humaine, IV: 305-307. In the Chahâr Maqâla, Nizâmî `Arûzî also stresses that poets and poetry should be above the practical world, and "bear the stamp of eternity." Four Discourses, Gibb Series, 11/2, 1921, pp. 19-25.
50. 50 DLT 231. The actual Turkic poem is in single quote marks, with the bracketed material supplied to clarify the translation. Dankoff and Kelly give the Turkic in transcription, and Kâshgharî's Arabic translation they put into English. Here and elsewhere I modify the translations to render the Turkic more accurately, and use Dankoff and Kelly's translation for the Arabic commentary.
51. 51 DLT 71, TTD I:158. Dankoff and Kelly use 'coin' for the Ar. daraba l-mathal, DLT 374 and 574, which should mean 'to be used' (Wehr 275).
It should be pointed out that Kâshgharî characterizes his proverbs with the Arabic word mathal, but nonetheless applies it according to the Türk idea of a saw or 'proverb.' The Turkic word saw has many meanings: "proverb, story, report, message, speech, news" [DLT 512], but when characterized by words denoting a language or fixed texts, it consistently refers to the genre I am translating as 'proverb.' The flexibility of the word does not seem to mean that the genre itself had leaky boundaries. The collection of edited and translated Uighur documents by James Hamilton contains several other examples of collections and comments on proverbs, also termed saw and Türk saw. One of these is a short list of proverbs unrelated to the document it is written on, like the example I discuss in the next chapter. Collecting proverbs seems to have been a pastime of some Uighur scribes. Manuscrits Ouïgours du IXe-Xe siècle de Touen-Houang. Paris: Peeters, 1986. 2 vols. pp. 67-68 and 97-100.
52. 52 DLT 68, 198, 622-625. Dhû-l Qarnayn is also involved in origins at 57 and 179.
53. 53 Humaniora Islamica I (1973) 233-244.
54. 54 "Alexander and the Turcs [sic]" in Tractata Altaica . . . Denis Sinor, 1990, pp. 107-117.
55. 55 See Robert Hillenbrand "The Iskandar Cycle in the Great Mongol Shâhnâma" in M. Bridges and J. Ch. Bürgel, eds. The Problematics of Power; Eastern and Western Representations of Alexander the Great. Bern: Peter Lang, 1996, pp. 209-230.
56. 56 DLT 173, 192, 234, 509, 625. In contrast, Hillenbrand mentions that Alexander is known as founder of many cities, and A. Miquel's article "al-Iskandariyya" in EI2, IV:131-132, discusses the many towns and cities named after Iskandar. This is another distinction between Kâshgharî's depiction of Iskander and Afrâsiyâb, and that found in other sources.
57. 57 In defining yalma, 'a padded raincoat,' Kâshgharî explains that the Iranians borrowed this from the Türks, and the Arabs from them. "No one can say that the Türks took this word from the Iranians, because I heard it from crude Türks on the farthest frontiers; also, they have a greater need for raincoats than other people, since rain and snow are more plentiful in their lands," DLT 459. The Iranians took diz 'fortress, castle' (DLT 435 and 496), and dagh 'brand' from Turkic: "It should not be said that [dagh] is a word of the Iranians since, compared with the Türks, they have no animals at all, let along names for their brands. Besides, I have heard this word as far as the frontiers of Islam" (DLT 511).
He accepts that the Oghuz have borrowed many words from the Iranians, but in the language of the pure Türks he only accepts ivriq 'pitcher' as a borrowing from the Arabs. See DLTa for discussion of the origins he attributes to various words.
58. 58 One explanation for the origin of the name Uyghur is suggestive of this process of ethnic solidification around collective symbols and names. Abû'l-Ghâzî argues that it comes from uyu- meaning 'to clot, congeal.' He explains it thus: "'Uyghur' is a Türk word. The meaning is known to all. It means yapishghur ['to stick together']. They say 'sut uydi' [the milk coagulated.]" Rodoslovnaia Turkmen, A. N. Kononov, ed. Moscow-Leningrad: 1958, ll. 237-238.
59. 59 Thus suggesting that the Uighurs and the Qarakhanids are culturally closer than would be so if the Qarakhanids were primarily Qarluq in origin.
60. 60 turuq buqali sämiz buqali arqada bölsär, sämiz buqa turuq buqa teyin bilmäz armish. Tonyuquq W5-6, EDPT 813. This perhaps should be translated "if you try to distinguish lean bulls from fat from a distance," but in both cases the metaphorical application is to distinguishing who will be a successful Qaghan in advance.
61. 61 TTD I:684, DLT 263. The original Türk version in the dictionary manuscript is boldachi buzaghu öküz ara belgülüg. The logic and sense seem flawed, since this would translate as "the future calf is evident among the oxen." The Arabic translation offers "A calf that is expected to become a bull is evident among the bulls." I suggest it makes more sense to correct the reading to buqa boldachi buzaghu öküz ara belgülüg and translate it as I have above, although this is an emendation of both the Turkic and the Arabic.
62. 62 Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan, Oxford University Press, 1955, 10-11. It is not clear in this source why Geshu Han criticized An Lushan.
63. 63 Alin arslan tut(ar, küchin küsgük) tutmaz, where the parenthetical parts are the reconstructed elements. James Hamilton and Louis Bazin, "Un Manuscrit Chinois et Turc Runiforme de Touen-Houang," Turcica, 4(1972) 25-42. The manuscript is British Museum Or. 8212 (78-9). Kâshgharî has this proverb with oyuq 'mirage,' küsgük 'scarecrow,' and sichghan 'mouse' as the object of the second clause. EDPT 120, 270, 750. DLT 53, 410, 622. EDPT does not accept 'scarecrow' for oyuq, but in TTD (I: 111) uyuq [oyuq] is read as Modern Uyghur qaranchuq 'scarecrow.'
64. 64 Robert Dankoff cites Gandjeï, Gabain, and Tekin as scholars on Turkic verse who point out that the assonance, syntactic parallelism, and initial rhyme that is characteristic of "primitive Turkic verse" are also characteristic of Turkic proverbs, riddles, and oracular sayings, leading to the conclusion that verse has its origins in these other kinds of highly charged speech. He gives examples from Kâshgharî of four verses based on proverbs, and three examples of verses that demonstrate the contextual use of proverbs. He suggests that this method becomes the compositional principle of the Qutadhghu Bilig, and argues that Yûsuf used the Qutadhghu Bilig, "to establish a Turkic wisdom tradition alongside the Arab and Iranian traditions within the larger frame of Islamic culture." "Inner Asian Wisdom Traditions in the Pre-Mongol Period," JAOS, 101 (1981) 1, pp. 87-95. Further evidence for the continuity of interaction between verse and proverbs, and especially the focus on bilig 'wisdom' and ärdäm 'virtue' that becomes important in the Qutadhghu Bilig can be found in the Uighur-script verses edited and translated by W. Bang and G.R. Rachmati in "Lieder aus Alt-Turfan," Asia Major, 9 (1933), 129-40.
65. 65 Clauson translates the Arabic for the second part as "those who, when they see a mirage, strike their tents" (EDPT 135, 270-71). As was noted above for the proverb "take a lion through a ploy, not a scarecrow through force," the Arabic given for oyuq can mean both 'scarecrow' and 'mirage.' Clauson does not make clear why both the Arabic and Turkic mean 'mirage' and 'scarecrow.' Instead of oyuq in this proverb sichqan 'mouse' is also used. Clearly the verse, like the proverbs, are based in a structure of ideas as well as particular images, and certain closely related words or expressions of similar ideas can be substituted for each other.
66. 66 "'Freezing the Frame': Dress and Ethnicity in Brittany and Gaelic Scotland" in Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Joanne Eicher, ed. Oxford: Berg, 1995, pp. 8-28.
67. 67 Interestingly, Kâshgharî's choice to describe food in detail contrasts with its near absence from the songs and proverbs he cites. Animal meats, butter, salt, and medicines are the only foods mentioned in the proverbs. In contrast Kâshgharî includes many songs that mention martial subjects and translates the names of pieces of armor and weapons into Arabic, but he gives no details of their construction or use.