The ‘superior culture’ explanation for Iran’s survival fails on direction of borrowing

Evidence

Some have seen this difference as due to the possession by the Persians of a superior culture. A higher culture absorbs a lower culture. They quote as a parallel the famous Latin dictum: “conquered Greece conquers its fierce conquerors”—in other words the Romans adopt Greek culture. It is a tempting but not convincing parallel. The Romans conquered and ruled Greece, as the Arabs conquered and ruled Iran, but the Romans learned Greek, they admired Greek civilization, they read, translated, imitated Greek books. The Arabs did not learn Persian, the Persians learned Arabic. And the direct Persian literary influence on Arabic is minimal and came only through Persian converts. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 281

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the graft-and-transfer directionality question from ‘Grafting & Growth’ — which culture adopts which, and the asymmetry of borrowing — the Romans absorbed Greek while the Persians absorbed Arabic, reversing the expected direction.
• ADDENDUM: The direction-of-borrowing asymmetry here parallels how the immodesty panics in ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ track who borrows what from whom as a power signal.