Dear Friends,
When the now-defunct International Society for Iranian Culture (ISIC) commissioned me in the early 2000s to produce literary translations of selections from five masterpieces of classical Persian literature, we were knee-deep in President George W. Bush’s 2002 state-of-the-union rhetoric about the Axis of Evil, which included North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. I will tell a more complete version of the story of that commission later in this series. For now, what matters is that ISIC’s goal was for those translations to open a window onto Iran’s history and culture that more Americans at the time had never had a chance to look through. The importance of this goal was then underscored some years later when John McCain sang the parody “Bomb Iran” during his 2008 presidential campaign. That context gave the work I was doing a kind of urgency I’d never before experienced. Then, just a year or so later, the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran added a layer to that urgency, since inviting people to look through the window my translations provided became not only an attempt to break down stereotypes, but also, in a very small way, an act of support for that movement. That was also the year that ISIC’s commission effectively came to an end and my work as a translator of classical Persian literature receded far into the background of my writing career. The recent civil unrest in Iran, however, coupled with the horrors that have been revealed afterwards, brought to mind the story I want to tell in this series about a historical and cultural connection not just between Iran and the United States, but between Islam and the Christian west that few people know about. Given that Iran, its people, and its culture are once again hotly contested territories, this feels like a good moment to tell this tale.
Richard
Imagine yourself in 1760s London sitting around a table with a group of friends that includes William Strahan, the king’s printer, and Benjamin Franklin, who is visiting from America. When the conversation turns to the subject of religious persecution, Franklin argues in favor of tolerance and asks someone to bring him a Bible so he can make his point. Turning to the book of Genesis, he begins, he announces, to read aloud from chapter twenty-seven:
And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. And behold a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, “Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy Way.”
And the man said, “Nay, for I will abide under this tree.”
But Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent; and Abraham baked unleavend bread, and they did eat. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, “Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, creator of heaven and earth?”
And the man answered and said, “I do not worship the God thou speakest of; neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a God, which abideth always in mine house, and provideth me with all things.”
And Abraham’s zeal was kindled against the man; and he arose, and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness. And at midnight, God called unto Abraham, saying, “Abraham, where is the stranger?”
And Abraham answered and said, “Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness.”
And God said, “Have I born with him these hundred ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me, and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?”
And Abraham said, “Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot against his servant. Lo, I have sinned; forgive me, I pray Thee.” And Abraham arose and went forth into the Wilderness, and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned with him to his tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts.
And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, “For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land. But for thy repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance.”
We know that this event took place because someone with the initials W. S.—most probably Strahan—published a letter about it, along with a copy of the story that he’d obtained from Franklin, in a periodical dated April 16, 1764. I have not been able to locate that periodical, but I know it existed because Duncan Forbes, who found it reproduced in the Notes and Queries of July 29, 1854, cited it in an appendix to his 1862 A Grammar of the Persian Language. If you know your Bible, or even if you’ve gone, as Strahan did, to check what Franklin “read” against the Biblical text, then you are almost certainly wondering two things. First, since that narrative appears nowhere in the book of Genesis, where did it come from; and, second, what does the text Franklin must have recited from memory have to do with the study of Persian grammar?
The answer to the first question is easy. Franklin wrote it, though he did not originally intend it for publication. Instead, as Joseph Priestley attested in a footnote in his Observations on the Increase of Infidelity, Franklin committed the text to memory and used it both to argue for tolerance, like he did in Strahan’s company, and, as Priestley reported, to fool people who fancied themselves especially learned into believing that something was part of the Bible when it wasn’t. There’s also reason to believe he kept a copy tucked into the pages of his Bible in order to make his ruse seem more real. Either way, as Franklin wrote to Strahan after he became aware that the text had been published, “I was always unwilling to give a Copy [to anyone] for fear it should be printed, and by that means I should be depriv’d of the Pleasure I often had in amusing People with it.”
The full bibliographical history of what became known as the Parable Against Persecution is quite complicated, though you can find a summary that’s not too difficult to follow here. Had Franklin gotten his wish, however, and the Parable remained unpublished, neither its origin in the work of the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi of Shiraz nor the story I am telling you would have become known, at least not in the way we know them now. Before I continue, though, here is my version of Saadi’s original, which is based on the translation that G. M. Wickens published in 1974:
I’ve heard that once a week went by
when no one wandering the world
stopped at the tents of Allah’s Friend,
whose practice was to eat his meals
only at the proper time
unless a poor or homeless person
came to his door. So he stood outside
his tent and looked around. At the edge
of the valley he saw a man whose hair
age had powdered white, sitting
bent and lonely in the desert
like a willow. Abraham
called out his warmest welcome,
“Light of my eyes! Come! Share with us
the salt and bread of my table!”
Recognizing Abraham at once,
the old man sprang to his feet,
eager to obey the summons.
Abraham’s attendants gave
the lowly guest a seat of honor,
called for the table to be set,
and took their own seats; but when
they said together “In God’s Name…”
no words escaped the old man’s mouth.
Abraham spoke, “I do not see in you
the passion and sincerity of faith
that men of your age usually express.
Aren’t we obliged each time we eat
to thank the One who filled our plates?”
The old man answered, “I will not speak
of God except as I have learned to do
from my teachers. I am Zoroastrian.”
Once God’s favored messenger found out
the destitute old man was just a gabr[^A derogatory term for Zoroastrian],
he chased him like a stray dog from the tent.
(The pure of heart cannot abide such filth!)
But then, from Heaven, the voice of God’s reproof
came down, “Dear Friend! I have fed this man,
and given him his life these hundred years,
but you, in a single moment, were filled with hate.
Why refuse him hospitality
just because he bows before a fire?”
Don’t knot the rope of generosity
just because you find, in this one, fraud
and deceit; in that one, trickery and cunning.
A religious scholar bargains poorly when he sells
wisdom and exegesis for mere bread.
Neither reason nor God’s holy law
approves the exchange of faith for worldly things.
But you, if you are wise, will gladly pay.
When someone sells so cheaply, you have to buy.
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