Give to Afghans Their Own Literature

Our Parthian Shot – Give to Afghans Their Own Literature

-by John Paul Maynard, Harvard University

Fast-moving nomadic armies in the East specialized in the Parthian shot. The army pretends to retreat, the enemy gives chase, while the mounted bowmen turn completely around in their saddles, to deliver accurate fire while leading the foe into ambush.

It is the same tactic we entertain here: that the Americans quietly purchase and deliver, as our final act of war, a kit of books, famous Sufi poetry, beloved above all else, by the Persian, Pashto and Turkic-Mongol peoples of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan can claim several literary traditions of great attainment; but they have lost them. The country is so poor, books are very rare, and kept hidden. We have given the Afghans everything but the one thing they would most appreciate - a chance to read their own great poets.

True, most are illiterate, but every village has its readers, and if there were some books around, people might learn to read. And what better way is there to pull the rug out from under the Taliban, than provide Sufi poetry?

The poets I speak of are world-famous. The Mathnawi tradition began with Sana'i of Ghazna and runs via Fariddun 'Attar to Jalal ad Din Balkhi – the one called Rumi in the West. Other poets include Rabi'a of Balkh (a woman), Daqiqi, and Rudaki. Hafiz-e-shirazi should also be included.

Turkic-reading Afghans – Turcomen, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uzbek (Chagatai)- deserve to read the classics of Turkic literature: Yunus Emre, Dedi Korkut, Manas and some eight or ten others. The Pashtuns have their own tradition, and the Pashto Sufi poets include Amir Kror Suri (through Shah Hussein Hotaki) Babu Jan, Khushal Khan Khattack, and others. Persian texts can be translated into Pashto (Pashto means Persian).

Most of the Persian texts are published in Iran - and here's where it gets interesting. How will the Iranians feel, respond, when the US government places an order for 100,000 copies of, say, Hafiz of Shirazi? Or 30,000 copies of Rumi's Mathnawi? Or 40,000 copies of Attar's Conference of the Birds (Mantiq ul Ta'ir)? How will they react?

Some Iranian leaders will respond, at first, cynically. “The Americans are leading us into a trap.” But how can they refuse the propagation of their own classical literature? The Sufis are tolerant intelligent folks, long suppressed by the Wahhabis and the Taleban and al Qaida.

Why not drop packages of books by colored parachute onto select remote villages in Afghanistan. As for urban neighborhoods, distribution of these venerable texts can be done by truck, or on foot.

This is the very best present we can give to the Afghan people. It will restore them to their own traditions, cultivate tolerance, undermine the authority and ethics of the Taliban, and help everyone learn to read. Afghans treasure books, even as they listens to others read.

A Persian/Arabic comparative grammar and dictionary might be included in each package, again mass-ordered from Tehran. We might even commission Iran to make special editions of their (shared) poets. And maybe perhaps, let us deliver, with them, these books to the Afghans. The Iranians hate Taliban ideology, lies, drug-dealing, and arrogance just like we do.

How do we wish to be remembered by the Afghans? How should we go out? What more can we give them? Let us give the Persians our own Parthian shot.

The author is the moderator/instructor for the online discussion group 'Islamic Civilization' hosted by the Graduate Alumni Office, Harvard University. His translations from the Persian are to be found at http//:www.hafizshirazi.blogspot.com.