Talk:Book of the Knight Zifar

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Five Kings

There are clear evidence of plagiarization within this book. Much elements were taken from Muslim works such as The Meadows of Gold written by al-Masudi (896-956 CE) which a Chinese king speaks of Five Great Kings:

"We count five great kings: the most powerful of them is he who is in possession of al-ʿIraq; for this country is in the middle of the world, and is surrounded by all other kingdoms. We give him, since ancient times, the title of king of kings. After him ranks this our king (of China; al-Ṣīn in Arabic), to whom we give the title of king of men. No government is better than ours, no monarch more absolute and firm in his power than our king, nor do the subjects of any other monarch yield such strict obedience as we to our king. We are the kings of men. After ourselves follows the king of the lions; this is the king of the Turks, our neighbor. They are men-lions. Next to them ranks the king of the elephants; that is to say, the king of India, which has with us the name of the kingdom of wisdom; for the Indians have invented philosophy. Then follows the Roman king (Byzantine), whom we call the king of men; for no men on earth have better constitutions or finer countenances than the Romans. These five stand at the head of kings: all others are beneath them."

Whereas the Zifar text likewise mentions the Five Kings in similar fashion:

"The kings of Sind say there are five kings in the world and that the others follow in their footsteps: these are the kings of Sind, the kings of India, the kings of the Turks, the Persian kings, and the Christian kings. They say that the king of Sind is king of men, because the men of Sind are more obedient and more submissive than other men are to their kings and masters. They say that the king of India is the king of knowledge, for the Indians have always studied and striven for knowledge. They call the king of the Turks, the king of the lions, because they are very strong men of great prowess and daring in war. The king of the Persians is called the king of kings because they were always very great, of lordly demeanor, and had great power. With their power, their knowledge, and their great intelligence they populated half the world, and none could oppose them, although they did not share their heritage or faith. The king of the Christians is called the king of courtiers because they are more courtly than all the others, of great prowess, more genteel, and more elegant on horseback than other men."

The author of Knight Zifar must have confused al-Ṣīn (China) with Sindh. --MuslimKnight786 (talk) 22:17, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]