dream, about four men pulling at a fine piece of cloth, each
towards himself, without tearing it, is thus explained by him:

"Know that the piece of cloth is the religion divine end that the four
men who pull at it have come to preserve it. One of the religions is
that of the Dihkans, the fire-worshippers, who may not take in hand the
Barsom without pronouncing the prayer formula.

"[The Dihkans were properly speaking the small landed nobility of the
Sasanian times and as such were representatives of the ancient Persian
religion; _barsom_ and the prayer formula or _baz_ are well-known
components of their ritual.]

"Another religion is that of Moses, which is called the Jewish religion,
maintaining that none besides itself is worthy of praise; the third
religion is of Greece, belongs to men of piety and brings equity to the
heart of princes (this is Christianity). The fourth is the pure faith of
the Arab which raises the head of the intelligent out of dust. Thus they
struggle for the preservation of their religion and pull the cloth
towards the four sides away from each other and become enemies for the
sake of religion."

[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa no sincere Muslim]

This passage the basic principle of which accords with the reflections
on religion in our chapter I would now with greater positiveness than
before trace to Ibn Moqaffa (ZDMG 59, 803). It did not find a place in
the old Pehlevi "_Book of Kings_" because the latter could recognise
only the national religion as the right one and could not have taken
into consideration Islam, even supposing that the last redaction of the
official Sasanian history took place at a time when Muhammadanism had
already come into existence. But Firdausi did not at all invent the
material of his narrative. He merely compiled it and the major portion
of the compilation goes back to the shape which Ibn Moqaffa had given to
the ancient tradition (see what I have to say on this in my National
Epic of Iran, _Grundriss der iran philogie_). In actuality Ibn Moqaffa
was not believed to be a sincere Muslim. He is frequently stigmatised as
Zindik or heretic (See _Aghani_ 13.81, 18 ff. 18, 200, 25 ff. Ibn
Qotaiba, _Uyun_ 71, 9; further Ibn Khallikan 186, p. 125.)

[The term zindiq probably originally denoted a certain rank among the
Manichaeians or a similar religion and was then applied to suit a
variety of infidels. The etemology, Aramaic Zaddiqy, has been recognised
by Bevan.]

Again th