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von Jost Gippert (2000).
Sie sollte nicht zitiert werden. Zitate sind der Originalausgabe in
Ludwig Paul (ed.),Persian Origins – Early Judaeo-Persian and the Emergence of New Persian.
Collected Papers of the Symposium, Göttingen 1999,
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2003, 31–47 zu entnehmen.
Attention!
This is a special internet edition of the article“Early New Persian as A Medium of Spreading Islam”
by Jost Gippert (2000).
It should not be quoted as such. For quotations, please refer to the original edition in
Ludwig Paul (ed.),Persian Origins – Early Judaeo-Persian and the Emergence of New Persian.
Collected Papers of the Symposium, Göttingen 1999,
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2003, 31–47.

Alle Rechte vorbehalten / All rights reserved:
Jost Gippert, Frankfurt 2011

Early New Persian as A Medium of Spreading IslamJ OST G IPPERT

It is a well established fact that the Persian language played an important role as ameans of communication when Islam spread into the countries surrounding Iran,and results of this influence have been detected in most languages that are spoken
west, north, or east of the Persian speaking area proper.1 It is less known, however,that the same kind of influence can also be traced in regions south of Iran, in languages that are spoken around the Indian ocean. One of these languages is Divehi,2
the vernacular of the Maldive Islands which are scattered about the sea south-westof the Indian subcontinent, extending over more than 1,000 km in north-south
direction.
The Republic of Maldives is a purely Islamic country today and has been so,with only a short period of interruption, as a kingdom for about nine centuries.
The exact date of Islamization, which in the case of the Maldives meant conversion
from Buddhism to Islam, and its circumstances have not been established with certainty though. As a matter of fact, there are two controversal theories prevailing in
Maldivian historiography as to the date of the adaptation of Islam by a 12th century
king who was named Dharmavān or, after conversion, Muḥammad al-ʿĀdil. The
traditional view according to which the conversion took place in 1153 A.D. and was
carried out by a certain “Yūsuf Šams ud-dīn at-Tabrīzī” has recently been argued
against by the Maldivian historician Hassan Ahmad Maniku who stated that“the Maldivian king accepted Islam in 1147–48 AD instead of the hitherto accepted
date” and who claimed that “it was Abul-Barakath from Barbarin in Sri Lanka (inother words from Beruwala) who was responsible for the conversion of the Maldivian King, Sultan Muhammad al-Adil,” instead.3 In his argumentation, H. MANIKU
had to deal with the main source available for Maldivian history, viz. the so-called“Tarikh” which was compiled in Arabic by a certain Ḥassan Tāj ud-dīn in theearly 18th century. Here, the person who converted al-sulṭān muḥammad is indeed
1
2

3

Cf. B. FRAGNER’s recent treatise Die “Persophonie”: Regionalität, Identität und Sprachkontakt in der Geschichte Asiens. Berlin 1999.
The name of the language is sometimes written Dhivehi, with dh denoting a dental, non-retroflex voiced stop, not an aspirate as one might suggest. The indological transcription
with plain d is preferred here, retroflex sounds being marked with a dot below.
H.A. MANIKU: “Conversion of Maldives to Islam.” In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, Sri Lanka Branch, N.S. 31, 1986/87, pp. 72-81 (here: p. 80).

32

JOST GIPPERTFig. 1: Maldivian Tārīḫ, ms. A, p. 33 (excerpt)

named šaiḫ yūsuf šams ul-dīn al-tabrīzī (cp. Fig. 1 showing the lines in question
as contained in p. 33 of ms. A of the “Tarikh”).4 Arguing against the chronicler’s
reliability, however, MANIKU stresses that “in referring to this name he mentions
it in a mystic and an extraordinary reverentious manner”, and he concludes that
“if Thajuddeen was putting forward the name of the famous Persian literary figure,then there are chronological differences which are hard to reconcile”.5
The sources MANIKU prefers are written in Arabic as well. They comprise
an inscription on a teak board from the Friday mosque of the islands’ capital,
Māle, datable between AD 1340 and 1348, which mentions the conversion in
the context of the erection of a former mosque at the site, and the account of
the famous Maghrebinian traveller Ibn Baṭṭūta who sojourned in the Maldivesduring one of his travels in the Indian ocean area at quite the same time (ca. AD
1344) and who was officially invited by the Sultan to act as a qāḍī in Māle. Ibn
Baṭṭūta, referring to an inscription which may be identical with the one described above, claimed that the conversion was undertaken by a certain abū albarakāt al-barbarī who “knew the Qurʾān by heart” and who was a maġribī.6
In H. MANIKU’s view, this report is more reliable than the traditional one except
for the fact that the epithet al-barbarī must not be understood as meaning “theBerber”, a misinterpretation which in the case of Ibn Baṭṭūta, a Maghrebinian
himself, is obvious, but as referring to Beruwala, a center of Islamic faith on thewest coast of Sri Lanka.
In this way, we are confronted with two possible converters and three possible regions of provenance, North-West Iran, North-West Africa, and Sri Lanka.
Considering the influence Persian exerted on many neighbouring languages in
the course of Islamization, we should expect offhand to find traces of it in theMaldivian language if it was a man from Iran who carried out the conversion of
the Maldivian king and his people. And it is just this what we find in the oldest
4

5
6

The excerpt is taken from the facsimile edition of ms. A printed in: The Islamic Historyof The Maldive Islands by Ḥasan Tāj al-Dīn, Muḥammad Muḥibb al-Dīn, Ibrāhīm Sirāj
al-Dīn, Vol. 1: Arabic Text, ed. H. YAJIMA, Tōkyō 1982 (Studia Culturae Islamicae, 16).
H.A. MANIKU, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 76.
Cf. Voyages d’Ibn Battûta, texte arabe, accompagné d’une traduction par C. DEFREMERY et B.R SANGUINETTI, vol. 4, Paris 1979 (réimpr. de l’éd. 1854), p. 127, l. 3.

33

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

written documents of the Maldives, which have hardly everbeen taken seriously as historical sources so far.
Although Arabic writing has been omnipresent in theMaldives for many centuries now, the oldest sources fromthe islands that are available to us are in Divehi, written inso-called evēla akuru, i.e., “script of yore”, a variety of asouthern Brāhmī-type script which is very similar to theone used for medieval Sinhalese; a fact which is hardly surprising if we consider the close relationship of Divehi withthe latter Indo-Aryan language.7 The documents in question are, for the most part, copper-plate grants issued by
the Maldivian sultans on behalf of the bestowal of land forthe building of mosques; the Maldivian name for this typeof waqf decrees is lōmāfanu, i.e., “great leaf of copper”. All
in all, eight lōmāfanus, datable between AD 1186 and 1362,
are known to have existed so far but only four of them, eachconsisting of more than seven plates, are still available forinvestigation today.8
Both by the script and by the language they are writtenin, the lōmāfanu plates are clearly distinguishable fromthe second layer of historical documents we find on theMaldives. Written in a later variant of the same Brāhmī
script, the so-called dives akuru (“Islanders’ script”), thesesources comprise sultans’ decrees, among them waqf bestowals, too, but now written on paper (fatkoḷu, i.e. “paper
leaf documents”) or wooden boards, as well as inscriptions,mostly engraved on tomb stones; the oldest of them dateback as far as the middle of the 16th century, i.e. the timeafter the short period of Portuguese domination. The thirdlayer of Maldivian literacy begins by the end of the 18th
century when the inherited left-to-right Brāhmī script was
78

Fig. 2: Atolls

For this relationship now cf. S. FRITZ: The Dhivehi Language. A Descriptive and Historical Grammar of Maldivian and Its Dialects. Heidelberg / Würzburg 2002 (Beiträge zur
Südasienforschung 191).
For surveys and former treatises of lōmāfanu documents cf. H.C.P. BELL: The Máldive
Islands: Monograph on the History, Archæology, and Epigraphy, Colombo 1940 [repr. Māle1985] and the same author’s “Excerpta Maldiviana” 1-14, in: Journal of the Ceylon Branchof the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 / Nr. 75 to Vol. 33 / Nr. 88, 1922–1935. The two mostvoluminous lōmāfanus have been edited recently by scholars from the Maldives and Sri
Lanka; cf. Loamaafaanu: Transliteration, Translation and notes on Palaeography, Vol. 1,
Māle: National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research 1982; and H.A. MANIKU/G.D.
WIJAYAWARDHANA, Isdhoo Loamaafaanu, Colombo 1986. A complete edition of lōmāfanu
documents will soon be published via the internet on the TITUS server of the University ofFrankfurt (cf. http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de).

34

JOST GIPPERTsubstituted by right-to-left Tāna, an ingenious amalgam of elements from both
Arabic script and dives akuru.9 Tāna has remained the official script of the Maldives until the present day.
Examining the lōmāfanu grants as the oldest coherent Maldivian sources wehave access to, we will at once notice that they still show remarkable traits of Buddhist thoughts and traditions albeit they are decidedly Islamic both by their objective and by their contents. The Islamic attitude is, e.g., clearly indicated by thedating formulae contained in them. In the oldest lōmāfanu available, the topic ofwhich is the foundation of a mosque on the island of Gamu in Haddummati atoll10(cf. Fig. 2), the dating is contained on the second plate. Although the document has
been badly damaged,11 the essential parts of it can be reestablished with confidence.
They read (pl. 2 = “F1”, l. 1-3; cp. Fig. 3):[śrī]mat gaḍanādītya māras[un ... vaḍa]na tinvana av[u]ro[d]un“In the third year of the [reig]n of [His Maj]esty Gaḍanāditya, the Mahārāja, (and)”śrī [ma]ham[m]adu petāmbarun svar̀ gga vaḍai gat pasuṣattha bayāsi [avurodun ...]
“in the 582(th [year] after the Great Muḥammad the Prophet attained heaven [...]”
mraggasīra nakṣattra ...
“in the (time of the) lunar mansion (named) Mṛgaśira ...”12

There are at least two items that remain unclear in this dating. The one is the nameof the Maldivian king, traditionally read as Gaḍanāditya, only the second part ofwhich has a clear Indic, i.e. Sanskrit, basis; as a matter of fact, names containing the
Skt. element āditya- “sun” abound in Maldivian history,13 and ādītta is the normal
denotation of “Sunday” in modern Divehi still.12 The other uncertain element is thedating itself. Taking it as it stands, it could mean either 582 (lunar) years afterMuḥammad’s death (AD 632), yielding AD 1196 as a possible result; or 582 (lunar)
years after the prophet’s Miʿrāǧ (AD 621) resulting in AD 1185; and if we could takeit as an unusual denotation of the Hiǧra (AD 622), we would arrive at (582 [lunar]
years after it =) AD 1186.
9
10

11

12

13

Cf. J. GIPPERT: Ogam – eine frühe keltische Schrifterfindung. Prag 1992 [1993], p. 31 f.
The official name of Haddummati, lit. “surface of the seven islands” ≈ Skt. *saptadvīpa-mastaka-, is Lāmu today, the Maldivian atolls having been renamed according to
the letters of the Tāna alphabet.
This lōmāfanu has hitherto remained unedited. A first short description is given in H.C.P.
BELL’s Monograph (cf. n. 8), p. 180 (“Haddummati Atol: Lomafanu, No. 1”). A “roughtranslation” prepared by the same author is preserved as no. 907 (86/82) in BELL’s bequest
in the Government Archives, Colombo, Sri Lanka; my thanks are due to the Archiveadministration who made this material available to me in 1993. – In the following pages,
quotations from Old Divehi texts are represented in a narrow transliteration.
For the names of the lunar mansions and the days of the week now cf. S. FRITZ / J.
GIPPERT: “Towards a Historical Phonology of Maldivian.” In: M. OFITSCH / Chr. ZINKO(eds.): 125 Jahre Indogermanistik in Graz, Graz 2000, 139–52.
Most probably, the name has to be read as gaghanādītta instead which could be the Maldivian rendering of a Sanskrit compound gaganāditya- with gagana- “sky” as its firstmember; cp. the Mahābhārata verse 13,110,76b where gagana- and āditya- appear side byside. For the unexpected spelling with a (hitherto unknown) -gha- akṣara cf. n. 17 below.

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

35

Fig. 3: “Gamu” lōmāfanu, pl. F 1

Leaving these problems aside for a moment, we may note a first linguistic element which is relevant to the question we started from, viz. the word petāmbarun
denoting the “prophet”. It is obvious that this word must be a borrowing of its
Persian equivalent, payġambar < older payġāmbar, although we would hardly
expect a -t- in this case.
This cannot be regarded as a scribal error, however. Both the other lōmāfanu
records and later Maldivian sources prove that the spelling petāmbar-un represents the actual shape of the word in Maldivian, the -t- being “sprachwirklich”.14
The same holds true for the unusual dating formula which reappears, e.g., in another lōmāfanu issued by the same king, Gaḍanāditya, viz. the so-called “Isdū”
lōmāfanu which is the most voluminous and best preserved copper plate grant wepossess today.15 In this document, many more circumstances of the date in question are given (pl. 2, l. 3 – pl. 3, l. 4; cp. Fig. 4):16
śrīmat gaḍanādītya mārasun tinvana avurodun“In the third year of His Majesty Gaḍanāditya, the Mahārāja, (at the time when,)”pūrbbhe kāpuru rasun isudhuvu keruvī verumāna bide“after destroying the monastery erected by the former infidel kings on Isdū,”budu upurai“after uprooting the Buddha (statue),”budāi mi budu ve[r]e [ga]nna kulasagumāṇunāi mi emmen māle gen aisu
“after taking the Buddha and the members of the congregation that was hosted inthis Buddhist monastery all together to Māle,”bhujāi veraṭa mudala din tak māpansod[ā]i rāja baṇḍāra aṭa balai gene“after conspecting and taking the Buddha (statue) and all the tributes that had been
given as taxes to the monastery, to the royal government,”sādhat nu kī khāpurun maram evie vidārai“after declaring: `I kill all infidels that do not proclaim confession’,”
14
15
16

-un is a plural suffix, the word being treated as a plurale tantum in the sense of a pluralismaiestatis in Divehi; cf. S. FRITZ, op. cit. (n. 7), p. 106 for similar cases.
This lōmāfānu was edited in 1986; cf. n. 8. – Isdū is another island in Haddummati(Lāmu) atoll.
For the sake of clarity, the Old Divehi texts are hereafter arranged according to syntactical units (phrases) depending on finite or infinite verbal forms.

36

JOST GIPPERTFig. 4: “Isdū” lōmāfānu, pl. 2mahammadu petāmbarunge daruṣaṇa-aṭa vadumā-vī tak kāpurun nu marai“(but) not killing all infidels that have declared ‘we enter into the faith ofMuḥammad the Prophet’,”ṣādat kiyavai“causing (them) to proclaim confession”
sunnat koṭu vīdelai“(and) ordering (them) to obey Sunna,”
śrī mahammadu petāmubarun dunien svargga vaḍai gat pāsuṣattha bayāsi
avurodu vī side“(when) the 582(th) year had begun after the Great Muḥammad the Prophet had
attained heaven from (this) world,”
śrī gaḍanādītya mārasu
“(his) Excellence Gaḍanāditya the Mahārāja,
devatāinaṭa krana aḷukamak sintā koṭu ...
thinking (about) a service to be done towards God ...”

Besides the Persian word meaning “prophet”, which appears in an allographic
form, as petāmubarun, here, this account provides us with attestations of several other Islamic terms that must be regarded as loans. This is true for at least
four words that might have been borrowed directly from Arabic, viz. kāpuru, pl.
khāpurun17 “infidel” < Ar. kāfir, pl. kāfirūn; ṣādat and sādhat18 “confession offaith” < Ar. šahādat; sunnat “(religious) custom” < Ar. sunnat; and dunie “(this)world” < Ar. dunyā, as opposed to the Sanskritism svargga “heaven”.
Some more such terms are found in a third decree issued by king Gaḍanāditya,viz. the so-called Dam̆ bidū-lōmāfānu19 which according to its dating must have been
written a year later than the two preceding ones (pl. 2/1, l. 2 – pl. 2/2, l. 1; cp. XXX):
śrīmat gaḍanādītya mārasun ekarādya vuṇa da setaruvana avurodun“In the fourth year of the time after (His) Majesty Gaḍanāditya, the Mahārāja, had
become Great King,”
dhabuduvu matye pūr̀ bbhe kāpuru rasun keruvī verumāna bide“after destroying the monastery erected by the former infidel kings on Dam̆ bidū,”
17
18
19

There being no phonological distinction of aspirates and plain stops, kh- is a normal spelling variant of k- in Old Divehi. The same holds true for pairs such as th vs. t, dh vs. d, etc.
There being but one sibilant in Old Divehi, the letters ṣ, ś, and s vary freely in this language.
Dam̆ bidū is another island of Haddummati-atoll; its name is the equivalent of Skt.
jambudvīpa-, lit. “rose apple island”. – The “Dam̆ bidū” lōmāfanu was first edited in1982 (cf. n. 8 above).

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

37

Fig. 5: “Dam̆ bidū” lōmāfānu, pl. 2/2
budu upurai“after uprooting the Buddha (statue),”kāpurun ṣādat kiyavai“after causing the infidels to proclaim confession,”sunnat koṭu“by obeying Sunna,”petāmbarunge ṣeriyā tibī alikun roda sipai“by keeping the fasts according to the regulations as present in the Prophet’s Šarīʿa,”namādu koṭu“by doing the prayer(s)”devatāinaṭa aḷikamu kranaṭa vīdelai“(and) by ordering to do a service to God,”śrī mahammadu petāmbarun dunie vīdelai svar̀ gga vaḍai gat pāsuṣattha teāsiavurodun ...
“in the 583th year after The Great Muḥammad the Prophet departed (from) earth
and attained heaven ...”

Besides petāmbarun, kāpuru / pl. kāpurun, ṣādat, sunnat, and dunie, we here noteone more Arabic word, ṣeriyā “(Islamic) law” < Ar. šarīʿa (?), but also two further
Persian terms which are typically met with in those societies that received Islamfrom Iran, viz. roda “fasting” and namādu “prayer” which reflect Pers. rōza andnamāz.20 In both these cases, we have to presuppose that the Persian -z- was substituted by Old Divehi -d-. In this way, the two terms are opposed to another layerof loans where a substitution of -z- by its voiceless counterpart, -s-, seems to havebeen normal. A first example of this effect can possibly be found in the “Gamu”
lōmāfanu again where a verbose account of the emergence of Islamic faith is told.
Even if many items of this remain uncertain because of the bad state of the plates,
its basic lines seem clear (pl. F2, l. 1 – pl. D2, l. 6):”(After God had created)... ran risi [māṇikkatu]n ṣe[duṇu ra]ṭu [utthra svargga loka...
... the uppermost heavenly place which is a land made from gold, silver, jewels ...,”
20

Cf. B. FRAGNER, op. cit. (n. 1), 28: (Das Persische) “hat aber auch eine ganze Reihe von‘islamischen’ Begriffen transformiert und in genuin persischer Form eingemeindet, denken wir an Wörter wie namāz (arab. ṣalāt), rōza (arab. ṣaum), oder die Benennungen fürdie Gebetszeiten: sie sind in Mittelasien bis heute nur unter ihren persischen Namen bekannt, im Tadschikischen wie auch auf Usbekisch.”

38

JOST GIPPERTerāk eviana raṭu“the country named Ērāq (?),”
bābhil ev[i...
”[the country na]med Babylon,”...riṣ eviyana] raṭu“the country named [Fā]rs (???),”
dadhīrā [e]vi[ya]na ra[ṭu“the country named Ǧazīra (Mesopotamia? the Arabic peninsula?),”sind eviyana] raṭu“the country named Sind,”[dabuduv evi]yana raṭu“the country named Jambudvīpa (India)”
mitak ra[...
“all these coun[tries ... (and)]”prāna dī mīn [ardha an]gain [śauā u]paduvai“after (God) had given (Adam) breath (and) created Ḥawwā from this one’s half body”
mi de ma[pi]rīn svar̀ gga vaṣai ...
“after (He) had lodged this human couple in heaven ...”
ādamu petāmbarun suktra bīdain ṣauā baḍun upan genīn dari ve“the children that were born from the noble loins (?) of Adam the Prophet by the womb ofḤawwā”
duni[e] mīsun ve vī“became men on earth.”“(Of Muḥammad the Prophet who was born)”mi ādamu petā[m]barun ādi koṭu paṭai
“after, beginning with this Adam the Prophet as the first,”
eklakka ṣauvīsu cāśra petāmbarun upede“124,000 prophets had been created”
dhunien nivana gat pase“(and these prophets) had disappeared from (this) earth,”upan mahammadu petāmubarun [sau]vi[s avu]rodun“in the 24th year (?) of (this) Muḥammad the Prophet,”mi petāmbarun kraṭa dabarīlu aisu“Ǧabrīl having come near to this prophet,”buṇe gosu“having spoken (to him) (and) having gone (away again),”mi dabarailāi mīkailai mi de malāi[katun peṇe“this Ǧabrīl as well as Mīkāʾīl, these two angels having appeared (again),”burak eviana] asu puṭe mahammadu petāmbarun aruvai“having caused Muḥammad the Prophet to climb up the back of the horse named
Burāq”
bait alu magadeṣaṭa gene gosu“(and) having taken him away to Bait-al Maqdis (Jerusalem),”de pia ran risi sarak puṭe petāmbarun aruvai gene ...
“having taken the prophet to climb up the rock covered (?) with gold and silver on bothwings,”

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

39”(this prophet),”tak [malaika]tun deke
“having seen all the angels (there)”ṣalāmu dī buṇe“(and) having talked (with them) by saying (lit. giving) Salām,”mi ettre ti[bi tak] śevu nu [sevu] deke
“having seen all the happy and unhappy (people) in there (?)”,
devatāinge veḍe in maṇḍala mi puṭe aneka [nava]ratnain seduṇu sat kaḍattrain ekkaḍattraak māttra tibai vede
“having entered the sphere where God resides, which was above that rock, having
the measure of one sphere of the seven spheres (?) made from another nine
jewels (?),”
dhevatāinge buṇī subaganda basu asai
“having listened to the brilliantly smelling speech spoken by God (who said):”“‘(Those who)”ṣādat kiyai“by proclaiming confession,”musilimān ve“by becoming Muslims,”
ekmas roda sipai“by keeping the fast of one month”
pasu namādu koṭu“(and) by committing the five prayers”
vuṇu mahammadu petāmubarunge darivarun svar̀ gga vaṣam
“have become the children of Muḥammad the Prophet, them I lodge inheaven’,”evie svar̀ gga ḷoka mahammadu petāmbarun dakavai“with these words (God) having shewn the heavenly abodes to Muḥammad theProphet(, and by saying:”“`Those who)”ṣādat nu kkai“by not proclaiming confession,”musilimān nu ve“(and) not becoming Muslims”
vuḷe kāprun
“remain infidels (and those who)”
budu paḷḷi nagai“by building Buddhist temples,”budu ṣadai
“by erecting Buddha (statues),”mi budu devatāina-ve sitai vede gene kūpurikamu koṭu“by committing infidelity by persisting in the opinion that this Buddha(statue) is a deity,”rāsikaru boi“(and) by drinking palm wine,”devatāi timan svāmīn bavu nu dene vuṇu upeduvī aḷun naraka vasam“do not acknowledge me, God, as a divine being, those servants created (by me) I
lodge in hell’,”40

JOST GIPPERTevie mi petāmbarun naraka {va}su dakvai“with these words (God) having shewn this Prophet the creatures of hell,”petāmbārun adamutulaṭ bāilī side“(and finally,) when the prophet had ... ... (?)”
mi mahammadu petāmubarun“this Muḥammad the Prophet,”buṇī apūr̀ bbha asai
“having listened to the unparalleled (words) spoken (as aforesaid)”
mi petāmbarun kiyaman gene“(and) this Prophet, by receiving resurrection”
ekadevatāin tedu bavu dene“(and) by acknowledging the One God as (being) the true divine being,”musilimān vī”became a Muslim.”
timange ummatnāi gene“Taking with him his own community as well (and)”kāpurun makā misukitu ...
“... the infidels ... the mosque in Makkā ...”In this account, we not only realize in which way the prophet’s miʿrāǧ21 was regarded as a primary event of Islamic history on the Maldives but we are also provided with quite a lot of further Islamic terms, both proper names and common
nouns, that have to be considered as borrowings. For common nouns cp., e.g.,ṣalāmu “greeting” < Ar. salām but also the plural forms musilimān “Muslim(s)”< Ar. muslimūn (via Pers. muslimān?), malaikatun “angels” < Ar. malāʾikat, andummatnāi “with the community”, a comitative plural form with the suffix -āi,< Ar. ʾummat. Among proper names, we may note ṣauā “Eve” < Ar. Ḥawwā;22makā “Mekka” < Ar. Makkā; burak, the name of Muḥammad’s fabulous steed< Ar. Burāq; dabarīlu / dabarail- “Gabriel” < Ar. Ǧibrīl; Mīkail- “Michael” < Ar.
Mīkāʾīl; and bait alu magadeṣaṭa “to Jerusalem”, a dative (directional) form withthe ending -aṭa, < Ar. Bait-al Maqdis. The substitution of a foreign -z- by Old
Divehi -s- which we were looking for might be presupposed for the fourth toponym
mentioned in the passage if this means “Mesopotamia” or the Arabic peninsula andreflects Ar. Ǧazīra; the reading with -s- is rather improbable though, dadhīra(with “usual” substitution of -z- by a -d-akṣara) remaining conceivable.
The latter name shows another interesting feature which has a bearing on thequestion we are dealing with. This is the substitution of Arabic ǧ by Old Divehi d.
21

22

The present account obviously starts with an allusion to the prophet’s revelation (by Gabriel) on Mt. Hira which would explain the unexpected dating (“in the 40th year”). The storyof the Miʿrāǧ proper then begins with both Gabriel and Michael taking Muḥammad to his
fabulous ride. Cp. Muḥammads wunderbare Reise durch Himmel und Hölle, hrsg.v. M.-R.
SÉGUY, München 1977, p. 34 for similar contents of the Uyghur Miʿrāǧ-nāme.
The rendering of foreign h-sounds by letters denoting sibilants (s, ś, ṣ) is a usual feature of theoldest Divehi documents. It reflects the fact that in Old Divehi, there was a similar oscillation
between s and h in the pronounciation of inherited s sounds (< Old Indic s, ś, ṣ, c, ch) as in(medieval and modern) Sinhalese. This oscillation led to s letters being pronounceable as h.

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

41

The same substitution is also met with in the name of the archangel, Gabriel, whichappears two times here, written as dabarīlu and dabarail- (in a comitative form,
dabarailai, lit. “with Gabriel”). In another word appearing in the text, Arabic -ǧseems to be treated quite differently though. This is the word misukitu which denotes the mosque as an equivalent of Arabic masǧid. While misukitu together with
its allographic variant miskitu is the only representative of the term we meet in the“Gamu” lōmāfanu, the two other copper plate grants issued by king Gaḍanāditya
use a different word which is phonetically much closer to its Arabic counterpart,viz. masdidu, also occurring in allographic spellings such as masudidu, masudidhu,
and the like. Cf., e.g., the prescriptions for the building of the mosque contained in
the “Isdū” lōmāfanu (pl. 3, l. 4 – pl. 4, l. 2):
śrī isuduvu veruvatye .. masudidhu karuvai“by having a mosque built on Great Isdū,”kāba gasai”by constructing (its) Kaʿba,”
mum[bar]u suṭvai
“by erecting (its) pulpit,”
pan [g]esāi“by thatching (its) roof,”
nialu koṭu“by (thus) completing (it),”dumāt evya namu di”by giving it the name of Friday (Mosque),”masudidhu eḷi tana pre tibi sui sime ṣataru mūṇu pavuru doruveṭi lāge“by constructing doorways (in) the walls of (all) four faces of the boundaries of the area
through which to enter the mosque ...”

It must be stated, though, that the use of masdidu seems to have been confined tothe two lōmāfanus named above; at least there is no further attestation available
in the written documents we know of. Note, by the way, that there is one more
Arabic word in the text passage quoted here which shows the “normal” substitution of ǧ by d, viz. the name of the mosque to be built, dumāt, reflecting Ar. ǧumʿat“Friday”; this word, too, seems to have become obsolete after king Gaḍanāditya’s
reign, “Friday” being denoted by the inherited word hukuru instead.23
Considering the existence of doublets such as miskitu and masdidu, several
solutions suggest themselves. One solution might consist in assuming two chronological layers of Arabic loans here, miskitu representing an older pronounciation of
the same etymon, with -g- preserved as a velar stop instead of the affricate ǧ. Thissolution can hardly be approved, however, given that there is no evidence for a stop
articulation of ǧ in the Arabic peninsula persisting into Islamic times. As against
this, another explanation seems more probable, viz. the assumption that masdidu
and miskitu reflect two different strata of linguistic interference, one Arabic and
23

The word reflects Skt. śukra-, the name of Venus; cf. FRITZ/GIPPERT, op. cit. (n. 12), p. 140.

42

JOST GIPPERTone Persian. As for the latter, a possible source of borrowing can be found in theword mazgit attested in Early New Persian (besides plain “Arabic” masǧid) as wellas late Middle Persian,24 in a phonetic shape which comes closer to Syriac masgidthan Arabic masǧid.
A similar coexistence of synonymous Arabic and Persian terms in the Islamicterminology of Old Divehi can be seen in the words meaning “prophet”. In the
lōmāfanus, it is not Arabic rasūl, however, what we find besides petāmbarun; asa matter of fact, rasūl is not attested earlier than the 17th century fatkoḷus, where it
is mostly written in Arabic letters. What we do find in the “Isdū” lōmāfanu, isArabic nabīy, used alongside petāmbarun as an epithet of Muḥammad. From thesyntax of the passage in question, it is clear that nabī has to be considered as a partof the prophet’s proper name here, rather than a common noun denoting his function; cf. pl. 33, l. 5 – pl. 34, l. 1:nabī mahammadu petāmbarunge ṣeriātu thibī alikun roda sipai“by keeping the fast in the way described (lit. being) in the laws of Nabī Muḥammad
the Prophet ...”

And indeed, nabī does not re-occur in the Old Divehi sources we have access tobefore the 17th century either.
Thus, we can state a striking coincidence concerning the doublets miskitu –masdidu and petāmbarun – nabī. In both pairs, it is the “Persian” member whichprevails in Old Divehi, by early attestation as well as continuity. If we further consider the impact of Persian terms such as namādu “prayer” and roda “fasting”, theArabic equivalents of which (ṣalāt, ṣaum) have never achieved a similar state in the
Divehi language, the conclusion that loans from early New Persian represent theoldest stratum of Islamic terms in Maldivian seems well founded.25
There is one open question that has to be dealt with in the given context, viz.
the unexpected shape of the word meaning “prophet”, petāmbar-un, as opposed
to Persian payġā ̆ mbar. There can be no doubt that its -t- is anything but a usual
substitution of the velar fricative, -ġ-, we find in the Persian word; what we would
expect is a velar stop, -k- or -g-, instead. The question then is whether we canassume a variant of the same Persian word that might have had a dental stop in
the given position. Such a solution is immediately suggested by the spelling of
the Middle Persian equivalent, <pgtʾm>, which was interpreted as paitāmbar by
H.S. NYBERG in accordance with its Pāzend counterpart, pēdąbar.26 Whether we
can assume a similar pronounciation to have existed in a certain, maybe dialectal,
24

25

For Middle Persian <mzgt>, cf. the plural form mazgitīhā which appears in the prophetical text about the Coming of Šāh-Wahrām-ī Warzāwand in speaking about the tāzīgān,i.e. Arabs, to be expelled from Iran (p. 161, l. 5 in the edition by JAMASPJI DASTUR MINOCHERJI JAMASP-ASANA, Pahlavi Texts, [reedited with] Transcription [and] Translation[by] SAID ORIAN, Tehran 1992). For the text in question cf. Grundriss der Iranischen
Philologie, ed. W. GEIGER / E. KUHN. 2. Bd. Strassburg 1896–1904, p. 114, § 83.
To the latter stratum we may perhaps add musilimān appearing in the “Gamu” lōmāfanu
if this represents, as a plural form, not Ar. muslimūn but its Persian adaptation muslimān.

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

43

stratum of early New Persian, must remain open, however, until some further evidence has been brought about.26
In the light of these observations, we may now return to the question whenand by whom the Maldives were converted to Islam. There is at least one accountavailable in Maldivian tradition that has hitherto been neglected in the discussion,
viz. the dating mentioned in the so-called “Gan” filā fatkoḷu, an inscription on awooden board from the island of Gan, located in the southernmost atoll of theMaldives which is traditionally named Aḍḍū atoll.27 The inscription, which is obviously the copy of a normal fatkoḷu grant, concerns the foundation of a mosqueon the island and is dated 23rd Muḥarram 1062 A.H. (≈ 5th January AD 1652). In it,
the conversion of the Maldives is clearly indicated as an event of the 548th year afterHiǧra, i.e. AD 1153 (ll. 1–5; cp. Fig. 6):28“(After our Lord,)”puramāt itur[ā] boḍu kaṭadāna kaukamun tima(n) svāmīṅge kaukan ẓāhir kuravvai“revealing his, the Lord’s, own power by (exerting his) utmost extreme great overt
power,”[muḥammad] rasūl nu hedhvvi nama
“when Muḥammad the Prophet was not yet created”ḫalqaku nu heṅdhevumaṭu ihumve“(and) before any people were created,”rasūlullāhuge nū́ ru haṅdhvai“by creating light as God’s Prophet”
qāimu kuravvaigen“(and) confirming it”
ei pahu ḫalqaku hadhvai“(and) by creating people thereafter”
my urenaṭu timaṅ svāmīṅge kaukan aṅgai
“(and) by proclaiming to these people his, the Lord’s, power,”dhīnaṭu uḷe magu uganñai“by teaching them the way how to live according to religion”
e magaṭa uḷuvvān rasūlu beikaluṅ poṇuvvai“(and) by sending out noble Prophets to live in this way,”e rasūlu beikalaku pilā nimuṇu dhvasutakakun anek rasūlu beikalakupoṇuvvai“
by sending another noble Prophet in the days when the life time of that (former)
noble Prophet had ended,”ihu [dhīna]ṭu kanu kurani kuravvai“by causing (him) to ignore (?) former religion(s),”
26

27
28

H.S. NYBERG: Manual of Pahlavi. Vol. II, p. 150. My thanks are due to Bo UTAS who ina private communication about the problem of petāmbarun in 1993 drew my attention to
NYBERG’s interpretation.
The official name today is Sīnu atoll. The board is at present preserved in the National
Museum of Māle.
Words written in Arabic script in the original text are printed in bold letters here.

44

JOST GIPPERTFig. 6: The “Gan” filā fatkoḷu
emve dhīnaṭu vure pahu dhīṅ ituru kuravvai“(and) by making the later religion more magnificent than all religions”
qiyāmatu vā dheṅ mi dhīnaṭu me uḷeni kuravvai“by causing him then to live upright (?) according to this religion,”sva kīriti kattiri māt qur‛ānāi dī“and by bestowing (upon him) the heroic great Qurʾān, in its own splendour,”apureṅge kau muḥammad – ṣallāllāhu ʿalaihi wa sallam – evana nabīy kaloge
emve taketya ituru kuravvai hadhvavai“by creating His Lordship, the Prophet, named our lord Muḥammad – ṣ.a.w.s. –making him more eminent than any other being,”
ehen emve dhīnaṭu kanu kurani kuravvai“(and) by causing (him) to ignore (?) all other religions”
poṇuvvi hidhu“had sent out (Muḥammad the Prophet),”“(and after this Prophet,)”dhevatāiṅgoṭu biru huravatai“having grasped fearful respect towards God,”ehen etyakaṭu tihumeṅ nu lai“not leaving any substance to other things (??),”
kufurukam uvai
“by destroying infidelity”islāṅ kura[v]vai“(and) making (the infidels) Islamic,”budhu paḷvi muguruvai“by destroying Buddhist temples”
kaʿbatullāhuge imārātu kuravvai“(and) erecting the building of Kaʿbat-ullāh,”Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam45

my a[li]tek sakkura bvana medhu redhali kurin ahvahva kuravamun“by (thus) disturbing (?) those that were ruling within this unlightened earthenly
dominion (?)”
pura uttara makkāin hubahiryā madīnayaṭu vaḍai gat“had journeyed from eminent Makkā to sun-bright Madīna,”pāṅsatta aṭusāḷīsuvana averudhu“in the 548th year (after this, at the time when,)”[mi dhive]hi rādh[a]kamu ôt tan kufuru vegen mei“as the place where this Islanders’ kingdom is located was still infidel,”šaiḫ ǧalāl yūsuf altabriz[īge ???]“(his) Lordship, Šaiḫ Ǧalāl Yūsuf Al-Tabrizī ...,”[timan kale]ge karā māt paoḷu koṭu dakkhai“by showing [his own] great power (?) by exerting great effects (??),”
šahādatu kyavvai“(and) by causing (these people) to proclaim confession,”isulā(n) kurevvi hidhu“made (them) Islamic,”
al-sulṭān dharumaṣa kyuṇu darumavaṅta rasuge“(then) king Dharmavān, named As-Sulṭān Dharmašāh,”ihu isulān nu ve tibīn balai“by conspecting those who had not become Islam(ic people) before”
isulān kuravai“(and) by making (them) Islamic ...”

Unfortunately, the line in which the name of the converter is mentioned has been
severely damaged on the board so that we cannot take the reading of al-tabrīzī
for granted as it stands. A comparison of a present day photograph with the reproduction published by H.C.P. BELL in the 1940s29 makes it clear, however, that wehave a mixed spelling here, šaiḫ ǧalāl yūsuf al-tabrī- being written in Arabic, andFig. 7: The “Gan” filā fatkoḷu, l. 5, present state (photograph J.G.)

Fig. 8: The “Gan” filā fatkoḷu, l. 5, as reproduced in H.C.P. Bell, Monograph, pl. J

29

Monograph (cf. n. 8), plates J and K. The photographic reproduction is not as reliable as
it seems because the letters were obviously re-drawn with chalk or paint in order to support the reading when it was produced.

46

JOST GIPPERTFigs. 9 and 10: Inscription of ca. AD 1340–1348 (excerpt)

the final syllable of the name, -zī-, together with the genitive ending, -ge, being
added in Dives akuru.30
The decisive point in this reading is the akṣara zī, of course, for it alone canprove that we have no barbarī here, given that there are no punctuation marks
visible in the Arabic part of the word. Reading the akṣara in question as zī presupposes, of course, that by the middle of the 17th century, Divehi had adapted itself
to an integration of the foreign phoneme -z-, no longer substituting it by -d-, andthat Dives akuru had developed a special character for denoting this. The characterin question, which is obviously derived from a ligature containing -s-, possibly -sy(thus reminding of Khotanese where -ys- was used to denote -z-), occurs but one
more time on the “Gan” board, in a word zauhara which obviously reflects Arabicǧauharat “jewel(lery)” (l. 9); besides, we possibly find syā- written for ziyā- in acontemporary inscription,31 in the word syārad- if this represents Arabic ziyārat“monument of reverence”.
What remains unclear in the given context is the word following the genitive
form, tabrīzī-ge. This was read as eá(fánun) by BELL, which might mean something like “his excellence”. The photographic reproduction rather seems to indicate something like do[n] instead, a Portuguese title meaning “Sir” which mighthere be anachronistically used for a Persian man; and finally, abū would also be apossible reading.
We must admit, of course, that the “Gan” filā fatkoḷu cannot be regarded as anauthentic source as far as the circumstances of the conversion are concerned. It
can only be taken as a witness of the tradition about al-tabrīzī prevailing in the
17th century. The main source of this tradition may well have been the Arabic inscription that was referred to by H.A. MANIKU and, possibly, Ibn Baṭṭūta himself.
30

31

Another example of such a mixed spelling, which was quite common in the times ofdives akuru, is the form qur‛ānāi, lit. “with the Qurʾān”, in l. 3 where only qur- is
written in Arabic letters.
This is the donatory inscription engraved on four sides of a pillar in the central part of the
Friday Mosque of Māle, the so-called Medu Miskiy. A reproduction of the inscription isprinted in the book Mālē Hukuru Miskit, Divehi Bahāi Tārīḫaś ḫidmat kurā qaumī markazu,
Māle 1984, p. 173–80. The present passage is contained in l. 3 of the “South-Eastern” part.

Early New Persian as a Medium of Spreading Islam

47

Fig. 11: Arabic inscription of about AD 1656 (excerpt)

Given that in this inscription, there are no punctuation marks in the word in question either, al-tabrīzī and al-barbarī may well be two different interpretationsof the same spelling; cf. Figs. 9 and 10 where the context the name appears in
is reproduced (note that both wāf and sīn in yūsuf are damaged). And indeed,in another Arabic inscription of the Friday Mosque in Māle which is likely todate from the reconstruction of the mosque undertaken in the middle of the 17th
century and which re-tells the story about the conversion, a reading al-tabrīzī ismuch more probable than al-barbarī; cf. Fig. 11 where the context in question isreproduced.
Considering our observations about the priority of Persian Islamic terms in Old
Divehi, we may then wholeheartedly agree with H. YAJIMA who stated with regard
to the teak board inscription:“In Ibn Baṭṭūta’s stay in Male, he actually examined this board. However, he misread some personal names engraved in its illegible writing. The first saint who visited Male and preached Islam to the Maldive king Kalaminja should be read Abu’l
Barakāt Yūsuf al-Tabrīzī, but not al-Barbarī (the Maghribian)”.32

32

H. YAJIMA, op. cit. (n. 4), p. 4. – For a good reproduction of the two Arabic inscriptions
mentioned here, cf. Male’ Hukuru Miskiy, National Centre for Linguistic and Historical
Research, Māle 1986, p. 22–23.

Jost Gippert

Digital unterschrieben von Jost Gippert
DN: cn=Jost Gippert, o=Universität Frankfurt, ou=Vergleichende
Sprachwissenschaft, email=gippert@em.uni-frankfurt.de, c=DE
Datum: 2011.12.28 01:23:29 +01'00'