''Shu'ubiyya'' ( ar, الشعوبية) was a literary-political movement which opposed the privileged status of
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
within the
Muslim community
' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history.
It is a synonym for ' ...
. The vast majority of the Shu'ubis were Persian.
Terminology
The name of the movement is derived from the Qur'anic use of the word for "nations" or "peoples", ''šuʿūb''.
The verse (49:13)
O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.(translated by Saheeh International
The Saheeh International translation is an English-language translation of the Quran that has been used by Islam's most conservative adherents. Published by the Publishing House (dar), ''dar Abul Qasim'', Saudi Arabia, it is one of the world's mos ...
)
In Iran
When used as a reference to a specific movement, the term refers to a response by
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s to the growing
Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation ( ar, تعريب, ') describes both the process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by the latter's gradual adoption of the Arabic language and incorporation of Arab culture, aft ...
of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
in the 9th and 10th centuries. It was primarily concerned with preserving Persian culture and protecting Persian identity. The most notable effect of the movement was the survival of
Persian language
Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...
, the language of the Persians, to the present day. However, the movement never moved into apostasy and had its basis in the Islamic thought of equality of races and nations.
In the late 8th and early 9th centuries, there was a resurgence of Persian national identity. This came mainly through the patronage of the Sunni Iranian
Samanid
The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in Kho ...
dynasty. The movement left substantial records in the form of Persian literature and new forms of poetry. Most of those behind the movement were Persian, but references to
Egyptians
Egyptians ( arz, المَصرِيُون, translit=al-Maṣriyyūn, ; arz, المَصرِيِين, translit=al-Maṣriyyīn, ; cop, ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, remenkhēmi) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian ...
,
Berbers
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 = Morocco
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
, pop2 ...
and
Arameans
The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
are attested.
In Al-Andalus
Two centuries after the end of the Shu'ubiyyah movement in the east, another form of the movement came about in Islamic Spain and was controlled by
Muwallad (Iberian Muslims). It was fueled mainly by the
Berbers
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 = Morocco
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
, pop2 ...
, but included many European cultural groups as well including
Galicians
Galicians ( gl, galegos, es, gallegos, link=no) are a Celtic-Romance ethnic group from Spain that is closely related to the Portuguese people and has its historic homeland is Galicia, in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. Two Romance l ...
,
Catalans
Catalans (Catalan language, Catalan, French language, French and Occitan language, Occitan: ''catalans''; es, catalanes, Italian language, Italian: ''catalani'', sc, cadelanos) are a Romance languages, Romance ethnic group native to Cataloni ...
(known by that time as
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
),
Calabria
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
ns, and
Basques
The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Bas ...
. A notable example of ''Shu'ubi'' literature is the epistle (''
risala'') of the Andalusian poet
Ibn Gharsiya
Abū ‘Āmir Ibn Gharsīyah al-Bashkunsī ( ar, أبو عامر بن غرسية البشكنسي ) (died 1084), popularly known as Ibn Gharsiya or Ibn García, was a Muwallad poet and ''katib'' (writer) in the Taifa court in Denia.
Ibn Ghar ...
(Garcia). According to the ''Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature'', however, this epistle was merely of minor importance, and its few exponents tended to repeat clichés adopted from the earlier Islamic East, e.g., Iran.
Opposition
Ibn Qutaybah
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī al-Marwazī better known simply as Ibn Qutaybah ( ar-at, ابن قتيبة, Ibn Qutaybah; c. 828 – 13 November 889 CE / 213 – 15 Rajab 276 AH) was an Islamic scholar of Persian ...
(a Persian scholar) and
Al-Jahiz
Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī ( ar, أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ ( ar, links=no, الجاحظ, ''The Bug Eyed'', born 776 – died December 868/Jan ...
(an
Afro-Arab
Afro-Arabs are Arabs of full or partial Black African descent. These include populations within mainly the Sudanese Arabs, Sudanese, Emiratis, Al-Akhdam, Yemenis, Afro-Saudis, Saudis, Afro-Omanis, Omanis, Sahrawis, Mauritanians, Algerians, Egyp ...
) are known to have written works denouncing Shu'ubist thoughts.
Neo-Shu'ubiyya
In 1966, Sami Hanna and G.H. Gardner wrote an article "Al-Shu‘ubiyah Updated" in the Middle East Journal. The Dutch university professor Leonard C. Biegel, in his 1972 book ''Minorities in the Middle East: Their significance as political factor in the Arab World'', coined from the article of Hanna and Gardner the term ''Neo-Shu'ubiyah'' to name the modern attempts of alternative non-Arab and often non-Muslim nationalisms in the Middle East, e.g.
Assyrian nationalism
Assyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for Assyrian independence movement, independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. ...
,
Kurdish nationalism
Kurdish nationalism (, ) is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
Early Kurdish nationalism had its roots in the Ottoman ...
,
Berberism
Berberism or Amazighism is a Berber political-cultural movement of ethnic, geographic, or cultural nationalism, started mainly in Kabylia (Algeria) and in Morocco, later spreading to the rest of the Berber communities in the Maghreb region of ...
,
Coptic nationalism
Coptic nationalism refers to the nationalism of Copts ( cop, ⲚⲓⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ ̀ⲛ̀Ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲓ̀ⲁⲛⲟⲥ ', ar, أقباط '), an ethnic group that primarily inhabit the area of modern Egypt. Most ethnic Copts are Co ...
,
Pharaonism
The Pharaonist movement, or Pharaonism, is an ideology that rose to prominence in Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s. It looked to Egypt's pre- Islamic past and argued that Egypt was part of a larger Mediterranean civilization. This ideology stressed ...
,
Phoenicianism
Phoenicianism is a form of Lebanese nationalism adopted by many Lebanese people, at the time of the creation of Greater Lebanon. It constitutes identification of the Lebanese people with the ancient Phoenicians.
Position
Proponents claim that ...
,
Syrian nationalism
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism (or pan-Syrianism), refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as "Greater Syria".
It should not be confused with the Arab nationalism that is ...
. In a 1984 article, Daniel Dishon and Bruce Maddi-Weitzmann use the same neologism, ''Neo-Shu'ubiyya''.
[Daniel Dishon and Bruce Maddi-Weitzmann, "Inter-Arab issues", in: e.g. p.279]
Some of these groups, more particularly the
Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...
,
Assyrians,
Yezidis
Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majo ...
and
Mandaeans
Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...
have been shown to have upheld a distinct identity both before and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
.
See also
*
Islamization of Iran
The Islamization of Iran occurred as a result of the Muslim conquest of Persia in 633–654 AD. It was a long process by which Islam, though initially rejected, eventually spread among the population. Iranians have maintained certain pre-Islamic ...
*
Ajam
''Ajam'' ( ar, عجم, ʿajam) is an Arabic word meaning mute, which today refers to someone whose mother tongue is not Arabic. During the Arab conquest of Persia, the term became a racial pejorative. In many languages, including Persian, Tur ...
*
Mawali
Mawlā ( ar, مَوْلَى, plural ''mawālī'' ()), is a polysemous Arabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.A.J. Wensinck, Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed, Brill. "Mawlā", vol. 6, p. 874.
Before the Islamic prophet ...
*
Islamistan, movement of non-Arab Islamic unity
*
Bashar ibn Burd
Bashār ibn Burd ( ar, بشار بن برد; 714–783), nicknamed al-Mura'ath, meaning "the wattled", was a Persian poet of the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods who wrote in Arabic. Bashar was of Persian ethnicity; his grandfather was taken ...
, famous Shu'ubi poet
*
Islam Nusantara
Islam Nusantara or Indonesian (Islamic) model is a term used to refer to the empirical form of Islam that was developed in the Nusantara (Indonesian archipelago). This term was introduced and promoted by the Indonesian Islamic organization Nahdlat ...
References
Sources
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*
*
*
*
*
* {{cite journal, last=Mottahedeh, first=Roy, date=April 1976, title=The Shu'ubiyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran, url=https://www.academia.edu/3838976/The_Shuubiyah_Controversy, journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume=7, issue= 2, pages=161–182, access-date=August 4, 2016
Arabization
Ethnic groups in the Arab world
Islam in Iran
Islamic terminology
Religion and race
Culture of the Abbasid Caliphate