History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c39.s3.2

v3.c39.s3.2

The Persians have been rightly called the Frenchmen of Asia. Their country has been the spring-head of the culture thought and fashion of the entire Islamic world. Persian influence has moulded the poetry of all Muslim lands, and Persian manners and taste have been laboriously, if sometimes clumsily, imitated by all Muhammadan Courts from Cordova and Constantinople to Delhi and Seringapatam. To gain a word of praise from the countrymen of Firdausi and Hafiz has been the dream of all writers in the predominant literary language of Asia, and every historian and letter-writer in Persian has trembled in fear till his work has received the seal of approbation from the fastidious judges of Iran. Kings have dreaded the sharpness of a Persian satirist's pen more than their enemies' swords.