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The origin of this tradition is confused and obscure. The Arabs have never been creative artists, nor are the Berbers known to have been so. As investigations proceed in Syria and Mesopotamia it seems more and more probable that the sources of inspiration of pre-Moslem art in North Africa are to be found in Egypt, Persia, and India.
Not only legends of the heroic figures of the Iranian epic Rustam and Isfandiar but religious views and persuasions of the Persians found a place and were spread among the Arab clans. Thus we know that "fire-worshippers" were settled among the Arab tribe of the Temim. As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of Arabia a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch.
Noeldeke translated in 1879, the portion relating to the Sasanians into German, and added footnotes to his translation, which are a mine of information on pre-Moslem Persia. The introduction which he wrote to his translation is equally valuable especially for the light it throws on the sources of Firdausi. The following is a translation of that German introduction by Noeldeke.
And even here the Sasanian tradition has survived the dynasties; in the study of the commerce and industry as well as the art of the Moslem epoch we have necessarily to refer back to the preceding times of the Persian history. In pre-Moslem Arabia the high development of the civilisation of Sasanian Persia was well known.
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