INTRODUCTIONoversimplifying. Readers have a right to examine and evaluate the
evidence on which arguments and conclusions are based so they can
judge whether or not the generalizations and conclusions are justified.
To this end, the method will be to present the evidence and to discuss
what it means in terms of continuity or change. The arguments and
conclusions derived from evidence will emerge in the course of the
discussion and the reader will be allowed to share in the process of
induction. However, many of the controversial issues in modern schol-
arship that are specific to particular subjects, often textual in nature,
and only tangential to questions of continuity and change will be
sidestepped unless they are directly important to the discussion. Al-
though the argument is based on primary sources in several languages
and on early Arabic literature, a rather large body of modern schol-
arship and some translations of sources into European languages will
be cited for the convenience of the reader. Since some scholars oc-
casionally misquote their sources, cite passages for nonexistent infor-
mation, or argue on the basis of inaccurate translations, such second-
ary works and translations will be cited as far as possible, only if their
statements have been verified in the original texts themselves. The
reliability of modern works and the relative value of primary and
secondary sources will be discussed in the section on Resources.
What, then, constitutes evidence? Interpretations of Sasanian and
early Islamic history normally rely heavily on a rather extensive body
of Arabic literature that was compiled from older materials during the
ninth and tenth centuries. Whether or not the information contained
in this literature is reliable for circumstances before the ninth century
is the subject of a controversy that has been going on for thirty years.
Although the material in these compilations has been colored by anach-
ronism and partisanship, it would be just as arbitrary to assume that
they are unusable for earlier history on the basis of their time of
compilation alone, as it would to use them uncritically.
One way to deal with this material is internal: by subjecting it to
extensive textual criticism to determine the probable origin and relative
reliability of specific accounts. For instance, one of the major sources
of information about the Sasanians is their Book of Kings, which was
first compiled in the Middle Persian language durjng the reign of
Khusraw Anushirvan and then completed until the end of the reign
of Khusraw Parvlz during the reign of Yazdagerd III (632-51). In 731
it was translated into Arabic by a Persian bureaucrat, Ruz-
bihl'Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa', in the Islamic administration, but an