Culturally, the Tahirids shared to the full in the Arab-Islamic civilization of their time. They acted as patrons to many of the great figures of contemporary Arabic literature and music, such as 'All b. Jahm, Ishaq al-Mausill and Ibn al-Rumi. The poet and author Abu'l- 'Amaithal al-A'rabi served both Tahir b. al-Husain and then 'Abd Allah, becoming tutor to the latter's son. Almost all the major figures in the Tahirid family achieved some fame as scholars or poets themselves, from Tahir b. al-Husain onwards. Tahir's epistle to al-Ma'mun on the capture of Baghdad and his moralising charge to his son 'Abd-Allah on his taking over the governorship at Raqqa became especially famed; al-Ma'mun ordered copies of the latter to be sent to all his other governors. According to the Kitab al-aghdni, both 'Abd Allah and his son 'Ubaid-Allah composed numerous melodies to which poetry could be sung, but did not like their names to be connected with the unstatesman-like business of composing, so they let them be attributed to their slavegirls. Moreover, Abd-Allah, together with Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi, held contests in singing at his court. The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadlm even has a special section devoted to the Tahirids as scholars and litterateurs. 'Abd-Allah's nephew Mansur b. Talha, governor in northern Khurasan and Khwarazm, wrote books on philosophy, music, astronomy and mathematics, and was known as "the wisdom of the Tahirids". 'Ubaid- Allah b. 'Abd-Allah is described in the Kitab al-aghdni as "pre-eminent in literature and all its varied aspects, in the transmission and reciting of poetry, in grammar, and in knowledge of the ancient philosophers and authorities on music, geometry, etc., to an extent which is too wide for adequate description and too lengthy to be enumerated". 'Ubaid-Allah further wrote a history of the poets and a treatise on government, and his epistles to Ibn al-Mu'tazz and his divdn of poetry were collected together. The Tahirids' attitude towards Persian culture is more difficult to evaluate. 'Aufi and Daulatshah, both writing several centuries later, allege that they were hostile to Persian lore and literature. Daulatshah says that ' Abd-Allah b. Tahir once ordered a copy of the Persian romance of Vamiq-u 'Adhra to be destroyed, and all other Persian and Zoroastrian books in his territories to be burnt. This is almost certainly untrue. It is unlikely that the Persian literature appearing in eastern Iran under the first Saffarids did not have precursors in the Tahirid period, and indeed, al-Ma'mun is said to have been greeted by an ode in Persian when he first entered Marv.
Mohammad Ibn Abdallah and End of a Half Century of Tahirid Rule
