ABSTRACT
To grasp the import of Khusraw’s literary acts, it helps to envision Islamic civilization as a glacial wave that expanded in all directions from the Arabian Peninsula beginning almost from the founding of Islam in the seventh century.1 As it worked its way across lands steeped in far different cultures – Greek, Syrian, Persian, Indian – the wave invariably picked up things in its path and incorporated them, becoming shaded and colored by the qualities of each region, rather than those with which it first began. And as this occurred, questions arose for Muslims who cared about their faith’s traditions and its authenticity. They wondered, which elements of the wave are truly Islamic and which are not? Which things on the ground are acceptable to incorporate and which are not? Is the wave improving or is it being corrupted by the ways it is changing?
