Shu'ubiyya (Arabic:الشعوبية) was a social, cultural, literary, and political movement within theMuslim world that sought to oppose the privileged status ofArabs and theArabization of non-Arab civilizations amidst theearly Muslim conquests, particularly under theUmayyad Caliphate.[1] The vast majority of theShu'ubis werePersian.[2][3] It was first seriously studied by Hungarian scholarIgnaz Goldziher in the first volume of his workMuslim Studies.[4]
The name of the movement is derived from the use ofšuʿūb for "nations" or "peoples" in theQuran:[5]
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْشُعُوباً وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ
transl. "O mankind! Indeed, We have created youfrom male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight ofAllah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted."
— Quran49:13, (Sahih International)
Islamic scholars andQuranic exegetes interpret this verse as a declaration of the fundamental equality of all human beings against ethnic, racial, social, cultural, or linguistic differences, with onlyfaith in God serving as a valid measure of a person's value.
When used as a reference to a specific movement, the term refers to a response byPersianMuslims to the failed attempt ofArabization ofIran in the 9th and 10th centuries. It was primarily concerned with preserving Persian culture and protecting Persian identity.[6]
In the late 8th and early 9th centuries, there was a resurgence of Persian national identity. This came mainly through the patronage of the IranianSamanid dynasty. The movement left substantial records in the form of Persian literature and new forms of poetry. Most of those behind the movement were Persian, but references toEgyptians,Berbers andArameans are attested.[7]
Two centuries after the end of the Shu'ubiyyah movement in the east, another form of the movement came about in IslamicIberia and was controlled byMuwallad (mixed Arab and Iberian Muslims). It was fueled mainly by theBerbers, but included many European cultural groups as well includingGalicians,Catalans (known by that time asFranks),Cantabrians, andBasques. A notable example ofShu'ubi literature is the epistle (risala) of the Andalusian poetIbn Gharsiya (García).[8][9]
Ibn Qutaybah (aPersian scholar) and theArab writer and scholarAl-Jahiz are known to have written works denouncing Shu'ubist thoughts.
In 1966, Sami Hanna and G.H. Gardner wrote an article "Al-Shu‘ubiyah Updated" in the Middle East Journal.[10] The Dutch university professor Leonard C. Biegel, in his 1972 bookMinorities in the Middle East: Their significance as political factor in the Arab World, coined from the article of Hanna and Gardner the termNeo-Shu'ubiyah to name the modern attempts of alternative non-Arab and often non-Muslim nationalisms in the Middle East, e.g.,Assyrian nationalism,Kurdish nationalism,Berberism,Coptic nationalism,Pharaonism,Phoenicianism.[11] In a 1984 article, Daniel Dishon and Bruce Maddi-Weitzmann use the same neologism,Neo-Shu'ubiyya.[12]