CHAPTER VII

POETRY, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE IN THE ‘ABBÁSID PERIOD

[Sidenote: The Pre-islamic poets regarded as classical.]

Pre-Islamic poetry was the natural expression of nomad life. We might therefore have expected that the new conditions and ideas introduced by Islam would rapidly work a corresponding revolution in the poetical literature of the following century. Such, however, was far from being the case. The Umayyad poets clung tenaciously to the great models of the Heroic Age and even took credit for their skilful imitation of the antique odes. The early Muḥammadan critics, who were philologists by profession, held fast to the principle that Poetry in Pre-islamic times had reached a perfection which no modern bard could hope to emulate, and which only the lost ideals of chivalry could inspire.[517] To have been born after Islam was in itself a proof of poetical inferiority.[518] Linguistic considerations, of course, entered largely into this prejudice. The old poems were studied as repositories of the pure classical tongue and were estimated mainly from a grammarian's standpoint.

[Sidenote: Abú Nuwás as a critic.]

These ideas gained wide acceptance in literary circles and gradually biassed the popular taste to such an extent that learned pedants could boast, like Khalíl b. Ahmad, the inventor of Arabic prosody, that it lay in their power to make or mar the reputation of a rising poet as they deemed fit. Originality being condemned in advance, those who desired the approval of this self-constituted Academy were obliged to waste their time and talents upon elaborate reproduction of the ancient masterpieces, and to entertain courtiers and citizens with borrowed pictures of Bedouin life in which neither they nor their audience took the slightest interest. Some, it is true, recognised the absurdity of the thing. Abú Nuwás († _circa_ 810 A.D.) often ridicules the custom, to which reference has been made elsewhere, of apostrophising the deserted encampment (_aṭlál_ or _ṭulúl_) in the opening lines of an ode, and pours contempt on the fashionable glorification of antiquity. In the passage translated below he gives a description of the desert and its people which recalls some of Dr. Johnson's sallies at the expense of Scotland and Scotsmen:--

"Let the south-wind moisten with rain the desolate scene And Time efface what once was so fresh and green! Make the camel-rider free of a desert space Where high-bred camels trot with unwearied pace; Where only mimosas and thistles flourish, and where, For hunting, wolves and hyenas are nowise rare! Amongst the Bedouins seek not enjoyment out: What do they enjoy? They live in hunger and drought. Let them drink their bowls of milk and leave them alone, To whom life's finer pleasures are all unknown."[519]

Ibn Qutayba, who died towards the end of the ninth century A.D., was the first critic of importance to declare that ancients and moderns should be judged on their merits without regard to their age. He writes as follows in the Introduction to his 'Book of Poetry and Poets' (_Kitábu ’l-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará_):--[520]

[Sidenote: Ibn Qutayba on ancient and modern poets.]

"In citing extracts from the works of the poets I have been guided by my own choice and have refused to admire anything merely because others thought it admirable. I have not regarded any ancient with veneration on account of his antiquity nor any modern with contempt on account of his being modern, but I have taken an impartial view of both sides, giving every one his due and amply acknowledging his merit. Some of our scholars, as I am aware, pronounce a feeble poem to be good, because its author was an ancient, and include it among their chosen pieces, while they call a sterling poem bad though its only fault is that it was composed in their own time or that they have seen its author. God, however, did not restrict learning and poetry and rhetoric to a particular age nor appropriate them to a particular class, but has always distributed them in common amongst His servants, and has caused everything old to be new in its own day and every classic work to be an upstart on its first appearance."

[Sidenote: Revolt against classicism.]

The inevitable reaction in favour of the new poetry and of contemporary literature in general was hastened by various circumstances which combined to overthrow the prevalent theory that Arabian heathendom and the characteristic pagan virtues--honour, courage, liberality, &c.--were alone capable of producing poetical genius. Among the chief currents of thought tending in this direction, which are lucidly set forth in Goldziher's essay, pp. 148 sqq., we may note (_a_) the pietistic and theological spirit fostered by the ‘Abbásid Government, and (_b_) the influence of foreign, pre-eminently Persian, culture. As to the former, it is manifest that devout Moslems would not be at all disposed to admit the exclusive pretensions made on behalf of the _Jáhiliyya_ or to agree with those who exalted chivalry (_muruwwa_) above religion (_dín_). Were not the language and style of the Koran incomparably excellent? Surely the Holy Book was a more proper subject for study than heathen verses. But if Moslems began to call Pre-islamic ideals in question, it was especially the Persian ascendancy resulting from the triumph of the ‘Abbásid House that shook the old arrogant belief of the Arabs in the intellectual supremacy of their race. So far from glorying in the traditions of paganism, many people thought it grossly insulting to mention an ‘Abbásid Caliph in the same breath with heroes of the past like Ḥátim of Ṭayyi’ and Harim b. Sinán. The philosopher al-Kindí († about 850 A.D.) rebuked a poet for venturing on such odious comparisons. "Who are these Arabian vagabonds" (_ṣa‘álíku ’l-‘Arab_), he asked, "and what worth have they?"[521]

[Sidenote: Critics in favour of the modern school.]

While Ibn Qutayba was content to urge that the modern poets should get a fair hearing, and should be judged not chronologically or philologically, but _æsthetically_, some of the greatest literary critics who came after him do not conceal their opinion that the new poetry is superior to the old. Tha‘álibí († 1038 A.D.) asserts that in tenderness and elegance the Pre-islamic bards are surpassed by their successors, and that both alike have been eclipsed by his contemporaries. Ibn Rashíq († _circa_ 1070 A.D.), whose _‘Umda_ on the Art of Poetry is described by Ibn Khaldún as an epoch-making work, thought that the superiority of the moderns would be acknowledged if they discarded the obsolete conventions of the Ode. European readers cannot but sympathise with him when he bids the poets draw inspiration from nature and truth instead of relating imaginary journeys on a camel which they never owned, through deserts which they never saw, to a patron residing in the same city as themselves. This seems to us a very reasonable and necessary protest, but it must be remembered that the Bedouin _qaṣída_ was not easily adaptable to the conditions of urban life, and needed complete remoulding rather than modification in detail.[522]

[Sidenote: Popularity of the modern poets.]

"In the fifth century," says Goldziher--_i.e._, from about 1000 A.D.--"the dogma of the unattainable perfection of the heathen poets may be regarded as utterly demolished." Henceforth popular taste ran strongly in the other direction, as is shown by the immense preponderance of modern pieces in the anthologies--a favourite and characteristic branch of Arabic literature--which were compiled during the ‘Abbásid period and afterwards, and by frequent complaints of the neglect into which the ancient poetry had fallen. But although, for Moslems generally, Imru’u ’l-Qays and his fellows came to be more or less what Chaucer is to the average Englishman, the views first enunciated by Ibn Qutayba met with bitter opposition from the learned class, many of whom clung obstinately to the old philological principles of criticism, and even declined to recognise the writings of Mutanabbí and Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí as poetry, on the ground that those authors did not observe the classical 'types' (_asálíb_).[523] The result of such pedantry may be seen at the present day in thousands of _qaṣídas_, abounding in archaisms and allusions to forgotten far-off things of merely antiquarian interest, but possessing no more claim to consideration here than the Greek and Latin verses of British scholars in a literary history of the Victorian Age.

[Sidenote: Characteristics of the new poetry.]

Passing now to the characteristics of the new poetry which followed the accession of the ‘Abbásids, we have to bear in mind that from first to last (with very few exceptions) it flourished under the patronage of the court. There was no organised book trade, no wealthy publishers, so that poets were usually dependent for their livelihood on the capricious bounty of the Caliphs and his favourites whom they belauded. Huge sums were paid for a successful panegyric, and the bards vied with each other in flattery of the most extravagant description. Even in writers of real genius this prostitution of their art gave rise to a great deal of the false glitter and empty bombast which are often erroneously attributed to Oriental poetry as a whole.[524] These qualities, however, are absolutely foreign to Arabian poetry of the best period. The old Bedouins who praised a man only for that which was in him, and drew their images directly from nature, stand at the opposite pole to Tha‘álibí's contemporaries. Under the Umayyads, as we have seen, little change took place. It is not until after the enthronement of the ‘Abbásids, when Persians filled the chief offices at court, and when a goodly number of poets and eminent men of learning had Persian blood in their veins, that an unmistakably new note makes itself heard. One might be tempted to surmise that the high-flown, bombastic, and ornate style of which Mutanabbí is the most illustrious exponent, and which is so marked a feature in later Muḥammadan poetry, was first introduced by the Persians and Perso-Arabs who gathered round the Caliph in Baghdád and celebrated the triumph of their own race in the person of a noble Barmecide; but this would scarcely be true. The style in question is not specially Persian; the earliest Arabic-writing poets of Íránian descent, like Bashshár b. Burd and Abú Nuwás, are (so far as I can see) without a trace of it. What the Persians brought into Arabian poetry was not a grandiose style, but a lively and graceful fancy, elegance of diction, depth and tenderness of feeling, and a rich store of ideas.

The process of transformation was aided by other causes besides the influx of Persian and Hellenistic culture: for example, by the growing importance of Islam in public life and the diffusion of a strong religious spirit among the community at large--a spirit which attained its most perfect expression in the reflective and didactic poetry of Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya. Every change of many-coloured life is depicted in the brilliant pages of these modern poets, where the reader may find, according to his mood, the maddest gaiety and the shamefullest frivolity; strains of lofty meditation mingled with a world-weary pessimism; delicate sentiment, unforced pathos, and glowing rhetoric; but seldom the manly self-reliance, the wild, invigorating freedom and inimitable freshness of Bedouin song.

[Sidenote: Five typical poets of the ‘Abbásid period.]

It is of course impossible to do justice even to the principal ‘Abbásid poets within the limits of this chapter, but the following five may be taken as fairly representative: Muṭí‘ b. Iyás, Abú Nuwás, Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, Mutanabbí, and Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí. The first three were in close touch with the court of Baghdád, while Mutanabbí and Abu ’l-‘Alá flourished under the Ḥamdánid dynasty which ruled in Aleppo.

[Sidenote: Muṭí‘ b. Iyás.]

Muṭí‘ b. Iyás only deserves notice here as the earliest poet of the New School. His father was a native of Palestine, but he himself was born and educated at Kúfa. He began his career under the Umayyads, and was devoted to the Caliph Walíd b. Yazíd, who found in him a fellow after his own heart, "accomplished, dissolute, an agreeable companion and excellent wit, reckless in his effrontery and suspected in his religion."[525] When the ‘Abbásids came into power Muṭí‘ attached himself to the Caliph Manṣúr. Many stories are told of the debauched life which he led in the company of _zindíqs_, or freethinkers, a class of men whose opinions we shall sketch in another chapter. His songs of love and wine are distinguished by their lightness and elegance. The best known is that in which he laments his separation from the daughter of a _Dihqán_ (Persian landed proprietor), and invokes the two palm-trees of Ḥulwán, a town situated on the borders of the Jibál province between Hamadhán and Baghdád. From this poem arose the proverb, "Faster friends than the two palm-trees of Ḥulwán."[526]

THE YEOMAN'S DAUGHTER.

"O ye two palms, palms of Ḥulwán, Help me weep Time's bitter dole! Know that Time for ever parteth Life from every living soul.

Had ye tasted parting's anguish, Ye would weep as I, forlorn. Help me! Soon must ye asunder By the same hard fate be torn.

Many are the friends and loved ones Whom I lost in days of yore. Fare thee well, O yeoman's daughter!-- Never grief like this I bore. Her, alas, mine eyes behold not, And on me she looks no more!"

[Sidenote: Abú Nuwás († _circa_ 810 A.D.).]

By Europeans who know him only through the _Thousand and One Nights_ Abú Nuwás is remembered as the boon-companion and court jester of "the good Haroun Alraschid," and as the hero of countless droll adventures and facetious anecdotes--an Oriental Howleglass or Joe Miller. It is often forgotten that he was a great poet who, in the opinion of those most competent to judge, takes rank above all his contemporaries and successors, including even Mutanabbí, and is not surpassed in poetical genius by any ancient bard.

Ḥasan b. Háni’ gained the familiar title of Abú Nuwás (Father of the lock of hair) from two locks which hung down on his shoulders. He was born of humble parents, about the middle of the eighth century, in Aḥwáz, the capital of Khúzistán. That he was not a pure Arab the name of his mother, Jallabán, clearly indicates, while the following verse affords sufficient proof that he was not ashamed of his Persian blood:--

"Who are Tamím and Qays and all their kin? The Arabs in God's sight are nobody."[527]

He received his education at Baṣra, of which city he calls himself a native,[528] and at Kúfa, where he studied poetry and philology under the learned Khalaf al-Aḥmar. After passing a 'Wanderjahr' among the Arabs of the desert, as was the custom of scholars at that time, he made his way to Baghdád and soon eclipsed every competitor at the court of Hárún the Orthodox. A man of the most abandoned character, which he took no pains to conceal, Abú Nuwás, by his flagrant immorality, drunkenness, and blasphemy, excited the Caliph's anger to such a pitch that he often threatened the culprit with death, and actually imprisoned him on several occasions; but these fits of severity were brief. The poet survived both Hárún and his son, Amín, who succeeded him in the Caliphate. Age brought repentance--"the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." He addressed the following lines from prison to Faḍl b. al-Rabí‘, whom Hárún appointed Grand Vizier after the fall of the Barmecides:--

"Faḍl, who hast taught and trained me up to goodness (And goodness is but habit), thee I praise. Now hath vice fled and virtue me revisits, And I have turned to chaste and pious ways. To see me, thou would'st think the saintly Baṣrite, Ḥasan, or else Qatáda, met thy gaze,[529] So do I deck humility with leanness, While yellow, locust-like, my cheek o'erlays. Beads on my arm; and on my breast the Scripture, Where hung a chain of gold in other days."[530]

The Díwán of Abú Nuwás contains poems in many different styles--_e.g._, panegyric (_madíḥ), satire (_hijá_), songs of the chase (ṭardiyyát_), elegies (_maráthí_), and religious poems (_zuhdiyyát_); but love and wine were the two motives by which his genius was most brilliantly inspired. His wine-songs (_khamriyyát_) are generally acknowledged to be incomparable. Here is one of the shortest:--

"Thou scolder of the grape and me, I ne'er shall win thy smile! Because against thee I rebel, 'Tis churlish to revile.

Ah, breathe no more the name of wine Until thou cease to blame, For fear that thy foul tongue should smirch Its fair and lovely name!

Come, pour it out, ye gentle boys, A vintage ten years old, That seems as though 'twere in the cup A lake of liquid gold.

And when the water mingles there, To fancy's eye are set Pearls over shining pearls close strung As in a carcanet."[531]

Another poem begins--

"Ho! a cup, and fill it up, and tell me it is wine, For I will never drink in shade if I can drink in shine! Curst and poor is every hour that sober I must go, But rich am I whene'er well drunk I stagger to and fro. Speak, for shame, the loved one's name, let vain disguise alone: No good there is in pleasures o'er which a veil is thrown."[532]

Abú Nuwás practised what he preached, and hypocrisy at any rate cannot be laid to his charge. The moral and religious sentiments which appear in some of his poems are not mere cant, but should rather be regarded as the utterance of sincere though transient emotion. Usually he felt and avowed that pleasure was the supreme business of his life, and that religious scruples could not be permitted to stand in the way. He even urges others not to shrink from any excess, inasmuch as the Divine mercy is greater than all the sins of which a man is capable:--

"Accumulate as many sins thou canst: The Lord is ready to relax His ire. When the day comes, forgiveness thou wilt find Before a mighty King and gracious Sire, And gnaw thy fingers, all that joy regretting Which thou didst leave thro' terror of Hell-fire!"[533]

We must now bid farewell to Abú Nuwás and the licentious poets (_al-shu‘ará al-mujján_) who reflect so admirably the ideas and manners prevailing in court circles and in the upper classes of society which were chiefly influenced by the court. The scenes of luxurious dissipation and refined debauchery which they describe show us, indeed, that Persian culture was not an unalloyed blessing to the Arabs any more than were the arts of Greece to the Romans; but this is only the darker side of the picture. The works of a contemporary poet furnish evidence of the indignation which the libertinism fashionable in high places called forth among the mass of Moslems who had not lost faith in morality and religion.

[Sidenote: Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya (748-828 A.D.).]

Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, unlike his great rival, came of Arab stock. He was bred in Kúfa, and gained his livelihood as a young man by selling earthenware. His poetical talent, however, promised so well that he set out to present himself before the Caliph Mahdí, who richly rewarded him; and Hárún al-Rashíd afterwards bestowed on him a yearly pension of 50,000 dirhems (about £2,000), in addition to numerous extraordinary gifts. At Baghdád he fell in love with ‘Utba, a slave-girl belonging to Mahdí, but she did not return his passion or take any notice of the poems in which he celebrated her charms and bewailed the sufferings that she made him endure. Despair of winning her affection caused him, it is said, to assume the woollen garb of Muḥammadan ascetics,[534] and henceforth, instead of writing vain and amatorious verses, he devoted his powers exclusively to those joyless meditations on mortality which have struck a deep chord in the hearts of his countrymen. Like Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí and others who neglected the positive precepts of Islam in favour of a moral philosophy based on experience and reflection, Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya was accused of being a freethinker (_zindíq_).[535] It was alleged that in his poems he often spoke of death but never of the Resurrection and the Judgment--a calumny which is refuted by many passages in his Díwán. According to the literary historian al-Ṣúlí († 946 A.D.), Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya believed in One God who formed the universe out of two opposite elements which He created from nothing; and held, further, that everything would be reduced to these same elements before the final destruction of all phenomena. Knowledge, he thought, was acquired naturally (_i.e._, without Divine Revelation) by means of reflection, deduction, and research.[536] He believed in the threatened retribution (_al-wa‘íd_) and in the command to abstain from commerce with the world (_taḥrímu ’l-makásib_).[537] He professed the opinions of the Butrites,[538] a subdivision of the Zaydites, as that sect of the Shí‘a was named which followed Zayd b. Alí b. Ḥusayn b. ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib. He spoke evil of none, and did not approve of revolt against the Government. He held the doctrine of predestination (_jabr_).[539]

Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya may have secretly cherished the Manichæan views ascribed to him in this passage, but his poems contain little or nothing that could offend the most orthodox Moslem. The following verse, in which Goldziher finds an allusion to Buddha,[540] is capable of a different interpretation. It rather seems to me to exalt the man of ascetic life, without particular reference to any individual, above all others:--

"If thou would'st see the noblest of mankind, Behold a monarch in a beggar's garb."[541]

But while the poet avoids positive heresy, it is none the less true that much of his Díwán is not strictly religious in the Muḥammadan sense and may fairly be called 'philosophical.' This was enough to convict him of infidelity and atheism in the eyes of devout theologians who looked askance on moral teaching, however pure, that was not cast in the dogmatic mould. The pretended cause of his imprisonment by Hárún al-Rashíd--namely, that he refused to make any more love-songs--is probably, as Goldziher has suggested, a popular version of the fact that he persisted in writing religious poems which were supposed to have a dangerous bias in the direction of free-thought.

His poetry breathes a spirit of profound melancholy and hopeless pessimism. Death and what comes after death, the frailty and misery of man, the vanity of worldly pleasures and the duty of renouncing them--these are the subjects on which he dwells with monotonous reiteration, exhorting his readers to live the ascetic life and fear God and lay up a store of good works against the Day of Reckoning. The simplicity, ease, and naturalness of his style are justly admired. Religious poetry, as he himself confesses, was not read at court or by scholars who demanded rare and obscure expressions, but only by pious folk, traditionists and divines, and especially by the vulgar, "who like best what they can understand."[542] Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya wrote for 'the man in the street.' Discarding conventional themes tricked out with threadbare artifices, he appealed to common feelings and matters of universal experience. He showed for the first and perhaps for the last time in the history of classical Arabic literature that it was possible to use perfectly plain and ordinary language without ceasing to be a poet.

Although, as has been said, the bulk of Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya's poetry is philosophical in character, there remains much specifically Islamic doctrine, in particular as regards the Resurrection and the Future Life. This combination may be illustrated by the following ode, which is considered one of the best that have been written on the subject of religion, or, more accurately, of asceticism (_zuhd_):--

"Get sons for death, build houses for decay! All, all, ye wend annihilation's way. For whom build we, who must ourselves return Into our native element of clay? O Death, nor violence nor flattery thou Dost use, but when thou com'st, escape none may. Methinks, thou art ready to surprise mine age, As age surprised and made my youth his prey. What ails me, World, that every place perforce I lodge thee in, it galleth me to stay? And, O Time, how do I behold thee run To spoil me? Thine own gift thou tak'st away! O Time! inconstant, mutable art thou, And o'er the realm of ruin is thy sway. What ails me that no glad result it brings Whene'er, O World, to milk thee I essay? And when I court thee, why dost thou raise up On all sides only trouble and dismay? Men seek thee every wise, but thou art like A dream; the shadow of a cloud; the day Which hath but now departed, nevermore To dawn again; a glittering vapour gay. This people thou hast paid in full: their feet Are on the stirrup--let them not delay! But those that do good works and labour well Hereafter shall receive the promised pay. As if no punishment I had to fear, A load of sin upon my neck I lay; And while the world I love, from Truth, alas, Still my besotted senses go astray. I shall be asked of all my business here: What can I plead then? What can I gainsay? What argument allege, when I am called To render an account on Reckoning-Day? Dooms twain in that dread hour shall be revealed, When I the scroll of these mine acts survey: Either to dwell in everlasting bliss, Or suffer torments of the damned for aye!"[543]

I will now add a few verses culled from the Díwán which bring the poet's pessimistic view of life into clearer outline, and also some examples of those moral precepts and sententious criticisms which crowd his pages and have contributed in no small degree to his popularity.

"The world is like a viper soft to touch that venom spits."[544]

"Men sit like revellers o'er their cups and drink, From the world's hand, the circling wine of death."[545]

"Call no man living blest for aught you see But that for which you blessed call the dead."[546]

FALSE FRIENDS.

"'Tis not the Age that moves my scorn, But those who in the Age are born. I cannot count the friends that broke Their faith, tho' honied words they spoke; In whom no aid I found, and made The Devil welcome to their aid. May I--so best we shall agree-- Ne'er look on them nor they on me!"[547]

"If men should see a prophet begging, they would turn and scout him. Thy friend is ever thine as long as thou canst do without him; But he will spew thee forth, if in thy need thou come about him."[548]

THE WICKED WORLD.

"'Tis only on the culprit sin recoils, The ignorant fool against himself is armed. Humanity are sunk in wickedness; The best is he that leaveth us unharmed."[549]

"'Twas my despair of Man that gave me hope God's grace would find me soon, I know not how."[550]

LIFE AND DEATH.

"Man's life is his fair name, and not his length of years; Man's death is his ill-fame, and not the day that nears. Then life to thy fair name by deeds of goodness give: So in this world two lives, O mortal, thou shalt live."[551]

MAXIMS AND RULES OF LIFE.

"Mere falsehood by its face is recognised, But Truth by parables and admonitions."[552]

"I keep the bond of love inviolate Towards all humankind, for I betray Myself, if I am false to any man."[553]

"Far from the safe path, hop'st thou to be saved? Ships make no speedy voyage on dry land."[554]

"Strip off the world from thee and naked live, For naked thou didst fall into the world."[555]

"Man guards his own and grasps his neighbours' pelf, And he is angered when they him prevent; But he that makes the earth his couch will sleep No worse, if lacking silk he have content."[556]

"Men vaunt their noble blood, but I behold No lineage that can vie with righteous deeds."[557]

"If knowledge lies in long experience, Less than what I have borne suffices me."[558]

"Faith is the medicine of every grief, Doubt only raises up a host of cares."[559]

"Blame me or no, 'tis my predestined state: If I have erred, infallible is Fate."[560]

Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya found little favour with his contemporaries, who seem to have regarded him as a miserly hypocrite. He died, an aged man, in the Caliphate of Ma’mún.[561] Von Kremer thinks that he had a truer genius for poetry than Abú Nuwás, an opinion in which I am unable to concur. Both, however, as he points out, are distinctive types of their time. If Abú Nuwás presents an appalling picture of a corrupt and frivolous society devoted to pleasure, we learn from Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya something of the religious feelings and beliefs which pervaded the middle and lower classes, and which led them to take a more earnest and elevated view of life.

With the rapid decline and disintegration of the ‘Abbásid Empire which set in towards the middle of the ninth century, numerous petty dynasties arose, and the hitherto unrivalled splendour of Baghdád was challenged by more than one provincial court. These independent or semi-independent princes were sometimes zealous patrons of learning--it is well known, for example, that a national Persian literature first came into being under the auspices of the Sámánids in Khurásán and the Buwayhids in ‘Iráq--but as a rule the anxious task of maintaining, or the ambition of extending, their power left them small leisure to cultivate letters, even if they wished to do so. None combined the arts of war and peace more brilliantly than the Ḥamdánid Sayfu ’l-Dawla, who in 944 A.D. made himself master of Aleppo, and founded an independent kingdom in Northern Syria.

[Sidenote: Tha‘álibí's eulogy of Sayfu ’l-Dawla.]

"The Ḥamdánids," says Tha‘álibí, "were kings and princes, comely of countenance and eloquent of tongue, endowed with open-handedness and gravity of mind. Sayfu ’l-Dawla is famed as the chief amongst them all and the centre-pearl of their necklace. He was--may God be pleased with him and grant his desires and make Paradise his abode!--the brightest star of his age and the pillar of Islam: by him the frontiers were guarded and the State well governed. His attacks on the rebellious Arabs checked their fury and blunted their teeth and tamed their stubbornness and secured his subjects against their barbarity. His campaigns exacted vengeance from the Emperor of the Greeks, decisively broke their hostile onset, and had an excellent effect on Islam. His court was the goal of ambassadors, the dayspring of liberality, the horizon-point of hope, the end of journeys, a place where savants assembled and poets competed for the palm. It is said that after the Caliphs no prince gathered around him so many masters of poetry and men illustrious in literature as he did; and to a monarch's hall, as to a market, people bring only what is in demand. He was an accomplished scholar, a poet himself and a lover of fine poetry; keenly susceptible to words of praise."[562]

Sayfu ’l-Dawla's cousin, Abú Firás al-Ḥamdání, was a gallant soldier and a poet of some mark, who if space permitted would receive fuller notice here.[563] He, however, though superior to the common herd of court poets, is overshadowed by one who with all his faults--and they are not inconsiderable--made an extraordinary impression upon his contemporaries, and by the commanding influence of his reputation decided what should henceforth be the standard of poetical taste in the Muḥammadan world.

[Sidenote: Mutanabbí (915-965 A.D.).]

Abu ’l-Ṭayyib Ahmad b. Ḥusayn, known to fame as al-Mutanabbí, was born and bred at Kúfa, where his father is said to have been a water-carrier. Following the admirable custom by which young men of promise were sent abroad to complete their education, he studied at Damascus and visited other towns in Syria, but also passed much of his time among the Bedouins, to whom he owed the singular knowledge and mastery of Arabic displayed in his poems. Here he came forward as a prophet (from which circumstance he was afterwards entitled al-Mutanabbí, _i.e._, 'the pretender to prophecy'), and induced a great multitude to believe in him; but ere long he was captured by Lu’lu’, the governor of Ḥims (Emessa), and thrown into prison. After his release he wandered to and fro chanting the praises of all and sundry, until fortune guided him to the court of Sayfu ’l-Dawla at Aleppo. For nine years (948-957 A.D.) he stood high in the favour of that cultured prince, whose virtues he celebrated in a series of splendid eulogies, and with whom he lived as an intimate friend and comrade in arms. The liberality of Sayfu ’l-Dawla and the ingenious impudence of the poet are well brought out by the following anecdote:--

Mutanabbí on one occasion handed to his patron the copy of an ode which he had recently composed in his honour, and retired, leaving Sayfu ’l-Dawla to peruse it at leisure. The prince began to read, and came to these lines--

_Aqil anil aqṭi‘ iḥmil ‘alli salli a‘id zid hashshi bashshi tafaḍḍal adni surra ṣili._[564]

"_Pardon, bestow, endow, mount, raise, console, restore, Add, laugh, rejoice, bring nigh, show favour, gladden, give!_"

Far from being displeased by the poet's arrogance, Sayfu ’l-Dawla was so charmed with his artful collocation of fourteen imperatives in a single verse that he granted every request. Under _pardon_ he wrote 'we pardon thee'; under _bestow_, 'let him receive such and such a sum of money'; under _endow_, 'we endow thee with an estate,' which he named (it was beside the gate of Aleppo); under _mount_, 'let such and such a horse be led to him'; under _raise_, 'we do so'; under _console_, 'we do so, be at ease'; under _restore_, 'we restore thee to thy former place in our esteem'; under _add_, 'let him have such and such in addition'; under _bring nigh_, 'we admit thee to our intimacy'; under _show favour_, 'we have done so'; under _gladden_, 'we have made thee glad'[565]; under _give_, 'this we have already done.' Mutanabbí's rivals envied his good fortune, and one of them said to Sayfu ’l-Dawla--"Sire, you have done all that he asked, but when he uttered the words _laugh_, _rejoice_, why did not you answer, 'Ha, ha, ha'?" Sayfu ’l-Dawla laughed, and said, "You too, shall have your wish," and ordered him a donation.

Mutanabbí was sincerely attached to his generous master, and this feeling inspired a purer and loftier strain than we find in the fulsome panegyrics which he afterwards addressed to the negro Káfúr. He seems to have been occasionally in disgrace, but Sayfu ’l-Dawla could deny nothing to a poet who paid him such magnificent compliments. Nor was he deterred by any false modesty from praising himself: he was fully conscious of his power and, like Arabian bards in general, he bragged about it. Although the verbal legerdemain which is so conspicuous in his poetry cannot be reproduced in another language, the lines translated below may be taken as a favourable and sufficiently characteristic specimen of his style.

"How glows mine heart for him whose heart to me is cold, Who liketh ill my case and me in fault doth hold! Why should I hide a love that hath worn thin my frame? To Sayfu ’l-Dawla all the world avows the same. Tho' love of his high star unites us, would that we According to our love might so divide the fee! Him have I visited when sword in sheath was laid, And I have seen him when in blood swam every blade: Him, both in peace and war the best of all mankind, Whose crown of excellence was still his noble mind.

Do foes by flight escape thine onset, thou dost gain A chequered victory, half of pleasure, half of pain. So puissant is the fear thou strik'st them with, it stands Instead of thee, and works more than thy warriors' hands. Unfought the field is thine: thou need'st not further strain To chase them from their holes in mountain or in plain. What! 'fore thy fierce attack whene'er an army reels, Must thy ambitious soul press hot upon their heels? Thy task it is to rout them on the battle-ground; No shame to thee if they in flight have safety found. Or thinkest thou perchance that victory is sweet Only when scimitars and necks each other greet?

O justest of the just save in thy deeds to me! _Thou_ art accused and thou, O Sire, must judge the plea. Look, I implore thee, well! Let not thine eye cajoled See fat in empty froth, in all that glisters gold![566] What use and profit reaps a mortal of his sight, If darkness unto him be indistinct from light?

My deep poetic art the blind have eyes to see, My verses ring in ears as deaf as deaf can be. They wander far abroad while I am unaware, But men collect them watchfully with toil and care. Oft hath my laughing mien prolonged the insulter's sport, Until with claw and mouth I cut his rudeness short. Ah, when the lion bares his teeth, suspect his guile, Nor fancy that the lion shows to you a smile. I have slain the man that sought my heart's blood many a time, Riding a noble mare whose back none else may climb, Whose hind and fore-legs seem in galloping as one; Nor hand nor foot requireth she to urge her on. And O the days when I have swung my fine-edged glaive Amidst a sea of death where wave was dashed on wave! The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men, The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen!"[567]

Finally an estrangement arose between Mutanabbí and Sayfu ’l-Dawla, in consequence of which he fled to Egypt and attached himself to the Ikhshídite Káfúr. Disappointed in his new patron, a negro who had formerly been a slave, the poet set off for Baghdád, and afterwards visited the court of the Buwayhid ‘Aḍudu ’l-Dawla at Shíráz. While travelling through Babylonia he was attacked and slain by brigands in 965 A.D.

The popularity of Mutanabbí is shown by the numerous commentaries[568] and critical treatises on his _Díwán_. By his countrymen he is generally regarded as one of the greatest of Arabian poets, while not a few would maintain that he ranks absolutely first. Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí, himself an illustrious poet and man of letters, confessed that he had sometimes wished to alter a word here and there in Mutanabbí's verses, but had never been able to think of any improvement. "As to his poetry," says Ibn Khallikán, "it is perfection." European scholars, with the exception of Von Hammer,[569] have been far from sharing this enthusiasm, as may be seen by referring to what has been said on the subject by Reiske,[570] De Sacy,[571] Bohlen,[572] Brockelmann,[573] and others. No doubt, according to our canons of taste, Mutanabbí stands immeasurably below the famous Pre-islamic bards, and in a later age must yield the palm to Abú Nuwás and Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya. Lovers of poetry, as the term is understood in Europe, cannot derive much æsthetic pleasure from his writings, but, on the contrary, will be disgusted by the beauties hardly less than by the faults which Arabian critics attribute to him. Admitting, however, that only a born Oriental is able to appreciate Mutanabbí at his full worth, let us try to realise the Oriental point of view and put aside, as far as possible, our preconceptions of what constitutes good poetry and good taste. Fortunately we possess abundant materials for such an attempt in the invaluable work of Tha‘álibí, which has been already mentioned.[574] Tha‘álibí (961-1038 A.D.) was nearly contemporary with Mutanabbí. He began to write his _Yatíma_ about thirty years after the poet's death, and while he bears witness to the unrivalled popularity of the _Díwán_ amongst all classes of society, he observes that it was sharply criticised as well as rapturously admired. Tha‘álibí himself claims to hold the balance even. "Now," he says, "I will mention the faults and blemishes which critics have found in the poetry of Mutanabbí; for is there any one whose qualities give entire satisfaction?--

_Kafa ’l-mar’a faḍlan an tu‘adda ma‘áyibuh._

'Tis the height of merit in a man that his faults can be numbered.

Then I will proceed to speak of his beauties and to set forth in due order the original and incomparable characteristics of his style.

The radiant stars with beauty strike our eyes Because midst gloom opaque we see them rise."

It was deemed of capital importance that the opening couplet (_maṭla‘_) of a poem should be perfect in form and meaning, and that it should not contain anything likely to offend. Tha‘álibí brings forward many instances in which Mutanabbí has violated this rule by using words of bad omen, such as 'sickness' or 'death,' or technical terms of music and arithmetic which only perplex and irritate the hearer instead of winning his sympathy at the outset. He complains also that Mutanabbí's finest thoughts and images are too often followed by low and trivial ones: "he strings pearls and bricks together" (_jama‘a bayna ’l-durrati wa-’l-ájurrati_). "While he moulds the most splendid ornament, and threads the loveliest necklace, and weaves the most exquisite stuff of mingled hues, and paces superbly in a garden of roses, suddenly he will throw in a verse or two verses disfigured by far-fetched metaphors, or by obscure language and confused thought, or by extravagant affectation and excessive profundity, or by unbounded and absurd exaggeration, or by vulgar and commonplace diction, or by pedantry and grotesqueness resulting from the use of unfamiliar words." We need not follow Tha‘álibí in his illustration of these and other weaknesses with which he justly reproaches Mutanabbí, since we shall be able to form a better idea of the prevailing taste from those points which he singles out for special praise.

In the first place he calls attention to the poet's skill in handling the customary erotic prelude (_nasíb_), and particularly to his brilliant descriptions of Bedouin women, which were celebrated all over the East. As an example of this kind he quotes the following piece, which "is chanted in the salons on account of the extreme beauty of its diction, the choiceness of its sentiment, and the perfection of its art":--

"Shame hitherto was wont my tears to stay, But now by shame they will no more be stayed, So that each bone seems through its skin to sob, And every vein to swell the sad cascade. She uncovered: pallor veiled her at farewell: No veil 'twas, yet her cheeks it cast in shade. So seemed they, while tears trickled over them, Gold with a double row of pearls inlaid. She loosed three sable tresses of her hair, And thus of night four nights at once she made; But when she lifted to the moon in heaven Her face, two moons together I surveyed."[575]

The critic then enumerates various beautiful and original features of Mutanabbí's style, _e.g._--

1. His consecutive arrangement of similes in brief symmetrical clauses, thus:--

"She shone forth like a moon, and swayed like a moringa-bough, And shed fragrance like ambergris, and gazed like a gazelle."

2. The novelty of his comparisons and images, as when he indicates the rapidity with which he returned to his patron and the shortness of his absence in these lines:--

"I was merely an arrow in the air, Which falls back, finding no refuge there."

3. The _laus duplex_ or 'two-sided panegyric' (_al-madḥ, al-muwajjah_), which may be compared to a garment having two surfaces of different colours but of equal beauty, as in the following verse addressed to Sayfu ’l-Dawla:--

"Were all the lives thou hast ta'en possessed by thee, Immortal thou and blest the world would be!"

Here Sayfu ’l-Dawla is doubly eulogised by the mention of his triumphs over his enemies as well as of the joy which all his friends felt in the continuance of his life and fortune.

4. His manner of extolling his royal patron as though he were speaking to a friend and comrade, whereby he raises himself from the position of an ordinary encomiast to the same level with kings.

5. His division of ideas into parallel sentences:--

"We were in gladness, the Greeks in fear, The land in bustle, the sea in confusion."

From this summary of Tha‘álibí's criticism the reader will easily perceive that the chief merits of poetry were then considered to lie in elegant expression, subtle combination of words, fanciful imagery, witty conceits, and a striking use of rhetorical figures. Such, indeed, are the views which prevail to this day throughout the whole Muḥammadan world, and it is unreasonable to denounce them as false simply because they do not square with ours. Who shall decide when nations disagree? If Englishmen rightly claim to be the best judges of Shakespeare, and Italians of Dante, the almost unanimous verdict of Mutanabbí's countrymen is surely not less authoritative--a verdict which places him at the head of all the poets born or made in Islam. And although the peculiar excellences indicated by Tha‘álibí do not appeal to us, there are few poets that leave so distinct an impression of greatness. One might call Mutanabbí the Victor Hugo of the East, for he has the grand style whether he soars to sublimity or sinks to fustian. In the masculine vigour of his verse, in the sweep and splendour of his rhetoric, in the luxuriance and reckless audacity of his imagination we recognise qualities which inspired the oft-quoted lines of the elegist:--

"Him did his mighty soul supply With regal pomp and majesty. A Prophet by his _diction_ known; But in the _ideas_, all must own, His miracles were clearly shown."[576]

One feature of Mutanabbí's poetry that is praised by Tha‘álibí should not be left unnoticed, namely, his fondness for sententious moralising on topics connected with human life; wherefore Reiske has compared him to Euripides. He is allowed to be a master of that proverbial philosophy in which Orientals delight and which is characteristic of the modern school beginning with Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, though some of the ancients had already cultivated it with success (cf. the verses of Zuhayr, p. 118 _supra_). The following examples are among those cited by Bohlen (_op. cit._, p. 86 sqq.):--

"When an old man cries 'Ugh!' he is not tired Of life, but only tired of feebleness."[577]

"He that hath been familiar with the world A long while, in his eye 'tis turned about Until he sees how false what looked so fair."[578]

"The sage's mind still makes him miserable In his most happy fortune, but poor fools Find happiness even in their misery."[579]

[Sidenote: Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí (973-1057 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: His visit to Baghdád.]

The sceptical and pessimistic tendencies of an age of social decay and political anarchy are unmistakably revealed in the writings of the poet, philosopher, and man of letters, Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí, who was born in 973 A.D. at Ma‘arratu ’l-Nu‘mán, a Syrian town situated about twenty miles south of Aleppo on the caravan road to Damascus. While yet a child he had an attack of small-pox, resulting in partial and eventually in complete blindness, but this calamity, fatal as it might seem to literary ambition, was repaired if not entirely made good by his stupendous powers of memory. After being educated at home under the eye of his father, a man of some culture and a meritorious poet, he proceeded to Aleppo, which was still a flourishing centre of the humanities, though it could no longer boast such a brilliant array of poets and scholars as were attracted thither in the palmy days of Sayfu ’l-Dawla. Probably Abu ’l-‘Alá did not enter upon the career of a professional encomiast, to which he seems at first to have inclined: he declares in the preface to his _Saqṭu ’l-Zand_ that he never eulogised any one with the hope of gaining a reward, but only for the sake of practising his skill. On the termination of his 'Wanderjahre' he returned in 993 A.D. to Ma‘arra, where he spent the next fifteen years of his life, with no income beyond a small pension of thirty dínárs (which he shared with a servant), lecturing on Arabic poetry, antiquities, and philology, the subjects to which his youthful studies had been chiefly devoted. During this period his reputation was steadily increasing, and at last, to adapt what Boswell wrote of Dr. Johnson on a similar occasion, "he thought of trying his fortune in Baghdád, the great field of genius and exertion, where talents of every kind had the fullest scope and the highest encouragement." Professor Margoliouth in the Introduction to his edition of Abu ’l-‘Alá's correspondence supplies many interesting particulars of the literary society at Baghdád in which the poet moved. "As in ancient Rome, so in the great Muḥammadan cities public recitation was the mode whereby men of letters made their talents known to their contemporaries. From very early times it had been customary to employ the mosques for this purpose; and in Abu ’l-‘Alá's time poems were recited in the mosque of al-Manṣúr in Baghdád. Better accommodation was, however, provided by the Mæcenates who took a pride in collecting savants and _littérateurs_ in their houses."[580] Such a Mæcenas was the Sharíf al-Raḍí, himself a celebrated poet, who founded the Academy called by his name in imitation, probably, of that founded some years before by Abú Nasr Sábúr b. Ardashír, Vizier to the Buwayhid prince, Bahá’u ’l-Dawla. Here Abu ’l-‘Alá met a number of distinguished writers and scholars who welcomed him as one of themselves. The capital of Islam, thronged with travellers and merchants from all parts of the East, harbouring followers of every creed and sect--Christians and Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians, Ṣábians and Ṣúfís, Materialists and Rationalists--must have seemed to the provincial almost like a new world. It is certain that Abu ’l-‘Alá, a curious observer who set no bounds to his thirst for knowledge, would make the best use of such an opportunity. The religious and philosophical ideas with which he was now first thrown into contact gradually took root and ripened. His stay in Baghdád, though it lasted only a year and a half (1009-1010 A.D.), decided the whole bent of his mind for the future.

Whether his return to Ma‘arra was hastened, as he says, by want of means and the illness of his mother, whom he tenderly loved, or by an indignity which he suffered at the hands of an influential patron,[581] immediately on his arrival he shut himself in his house, adopted a vegetarian diet and other ascetic practices, and passed the rest of his long life in comparative seclusion:--

"Methinks, I am thrice imprisoned--ask not me Of news that need no telling-- By loss of sight, confinement to my house, And this vile body for my spirit's dwelling."[582]

We can only conjecture the motives which brought about this sudden change of habits and disposition. No doubt his mother's death affected him deeply, and he may have been disappointed by his failure to obtain a permanent footing in the capital. It is not surprising that the blind and lonely man, looking back on his faded youth, should have felt weary of the world and its ways, and found in melancholy contemplation of earthly vanities ever fresh matter for the application and development of these philosophical ideas which, as we have seen, were probably suggested to him by his recent experiences. While in the collection of early poems, entitled _Saqṭu ’l-Zand_ or 'The Spark of the Fire-stick' and mainly composed before his visit to Baghdád, he still treads the customary path of his predecessors,[583] his poems written after that time and generally known as the _Luzúmiyyát_[584] arrest attention by their boldness and originality as well as by the sombre and earnest tone which pervades them. This, indeed, is not the view of most Oriental critics, who dislike the poet's irreverence and fail to appreciate the fact that he stood considerably in advance of his age; but in Europe he has received full justice and perhaps higher praise than he deserves. Reiske describes him as 'Arabice callentissimum, vasti, subtilis, sublimis et audacis ingenii';[585] Von Hammer, who ranks him as a poet with Abú Tammám, Buḥturí, and Mutanabbí, also mentions him honourably as a philosopher;[586] and finally Von Kremer, who made an exhaustive study of the _Luzúmiyyát_ and examined their contents in a masterly essay,[587] discovered in Abu ’l-‘Alá, one of the greatest moralists of all time whose profound genius anticipated much that is commonly attributed to the so-called modern spirit of enlightenment. Here Von Kremer's enthusiasm may have carried him too far; for the poet, as Professor Margoliouth says, was unconscious of the value of his suggestions, unable to follow them out, and unable to adhere to them consistently. Although he builded better than he knew, the constructive side of his philosophy was overshadowed by the negative and destructive side, so that his pure and lofty morality leaves but a faint impression which soon dies away in louder, continually recurring voices of doubt and despair.

Abu ’l-‘Alá is a firm monotheist, but his belief in God amounted, as it would seem, to little beyond a conviction that all things are governed by inexorable Fate, whose mysteries none may fathom and from whose omnipotence there is no escape. He denies the Resurrection of the dead, _e.g._:--

"We laugh, but inept is our laughter; We should weep and weep sore, Who are shattered like glass, and thereafter Re-moulded no more!"[588]

Since Death is the ultimate goal of mankind, the sage will pray to be delivered as speedily as possible from the miseries of life and refuse to inflict upon others what, by no fault of his own, he is doomed to suffer:--

"Amends are richly due from sire to son: What if thy children rule o'er cities great? That eminence estranges them the more From thee, and causes them to wax in hate, Beholding one who cast them into Life's Dark labyrinth whence no wit can extricate."[589]

There are many passages to the same effect, showing that Abu ’l-‘Alá regarded procreation as a sin and universal annihilation as the best hope for humanity. He acted in accordance with his opinions, for he never married, and he is said to have desired that the following verse should be inscribed on his grave:--

"This wrong was by my father done To me, but ne'er by me to one."[590]

Hating the present life and weary of its burdens, yet seeing no happier prospect than that of return to non-existence, Abu ’l-‘Alá can scarcely have disguised from himself what he might shrink openly to avow--that he was at heart, not indeed an atheist, but wholly incredulous of any Divine revelation. Religion, as he conceives it, is a product of the human mind, in which men believe through force of habit and education, never stopping to consider whether it is true.

"Sometimes you may find a man skilful in his trade, perfect in sagacity and in the use of arguments, but when he comes to religion he is found obstinate, so does he follow the old groove. Piety is implanted in human nature; it is deemed a sure refuge. To the growing child that which falls from his elders' lips is a lesson that abides with him all his life. Monks in their cloisters and devotees in the mosques accept their creed just as a story is handed down from him who tells it, without distinguishing between a true interpreter and a false. If one of these had found his kin among the Magians, he would have declared himself a Magian, or among the Ṣábians, he would have become nearly or quite like _them_."[591]

Religion, then, is "a fable invented by the ancients," worthless except to those unscrupulous persons who prey upon human folly and superstition. Islam is neither better nor worse than any other creed:--

"Ḥanífs are stumbling,[592] Christians all astray, Jews wildered, Magians far on error's way. We mortals are composed of two great schools-- Enlightened knaves or else religious fools."[593]

Not only does the poet emphatically reject the proud claim of Islam to possess a monopoly of truth, but he attacks most of its dogmas in detail. As to the Koran, Abu ’l-‘Alá could not altogether refrain from doubting if it was really the Word of God, but he thought so well of the style that he accepted the challenge flung down by Muḥammad and produced a rival work (_al-Fuṣúl wa-’l-Gháyát_), which appears to have been a somewhat frivolous parody of the sacred volume, though in the author's judgment its inferiority was simply due to the fact that it was not yet polished by the tongues of four centuries of readers. Another work which must have sorely offended orthodox Muḥammadans is the _Risálatu ’l-Ghufrán_ (Epistle of Forgiveness).[594] Here the Paradise of the Faithful becomes a glorified salon tenanted by various heathen poets who have been forgiven--hence the title--and received among the Blest. This idea is carried out with much ingenuity and in a spirit of audacious burlesque that reminds us of Lucian. The poets are presented in a series of imaginary conversations with a certain Shaykh ‘Alí b. Manṣúr, to whom the work is addressed, reciting and explaining their verses, quarrelling with one another, and generally behaving as literary Bohemians. The second part contains a number of anecdotes relating to the _zindíqs_ or freethinkers of Islam interspersed with quotations from their poetry and reflections on the nature of their belief, which Abu ’l-‘Alá condemns while expressing a pious hope that they are not so black as they paint themselves. At this time it may have suited him--he was over sixty--to assume the attitude of charitable orthodoxy. Like so many wise men of the East, he practised dissimulation as a fine art--

"I lift my voice to utter lies absurd, But when I speak the truth, my hushed tones scarce are heard."[595]

In the _Luzúmiyyát_, however, he often unmasks. Thus he describes as idolatrous relics the two Pillars of the Ka‘ba and the Black Stone, venerated by every Moslem, and calls the Pilgrimage itself 'a heathen's journey' (_riḥlatu jáhiliyyin_). The following sentiments do him honour, but they would have been rank heresy at Mecca:--

"Praise God and pray, Walk seventy times, not seven, the Temple round-- And impious remain! Devout is he alone who, when he may Feast his desires, is found With courage to abstain."[596]

It is needless to give further instances of the poet's contempt for the Muḥammadan articles of faith. Considering that he assailed persons as well as principles, and lashed with bitter invective the powerful class of the _‘Ulamá_, the clerical and legal representatives of Islam, we may wonder that the accusation of heresy brought against him was never pushed home and had no serious consequences. The question was warmly argued on both sides, and though Abu ’l-‘Alá was pronounced by the majority to be a freethinker and materialist, he did not lack defenders who quoted chapter and verse to prove that he was nothing of the kind. It must be remembered that his works contain no philosophical system; that his opinions have to be gathered from the ideas which he scatters incoherently, and for the most part in guarded language, through a long succession of rhymes; and that this task, already arduous enough, is complicated by the not infrequent occurrence of sentiments which are blamelessly orthodox and entirely contradictory to the rest. A brilliant writer, familiar with Eastern ways of thinking, has observed that in general the conscience of an Asiatic is composed of the following ingredients: (1) an almost bare religious designation; (2) a more or less lively belief in certain doctrines of the creed which he professes; (3) a resolute opposition to many of its doctrines, even if they should be the most essential; (4) a fund of ideas relating to completely alien theories, which occupies more or less room; (5) a constant tendency to get rid of these ideas and theories and to replace the old by new.[597] Such phenomena will account for a great deal of logical inconsistency, but we should beware of invoking them too confidently in this case. Abu ’l-‘Alá with his keen intellect and unfanatical temperament was not the man to let himself be mystified. Still lamer is the explanation offered by some Muḥammadan critics, that his thoughts were decided by the necessities of the difficult metre in which he wrote. It is conceivable that he may sometimes have doubted his own doubts and given Islam the benefit, but Von Kremer's conclusion is probably near the truth, namely, that where the poet speaks as a good Moslem, his phrases if they are not purely conventional are introduced of set purpose to foil his pious antagonists or to throw them off the scent. Although he was not without religion in the larger sense of the word, unprejudiced students of the later poems must recognise that from the orthodox standpoint he was justly branded as an infidel. The following translations will serve to illustrate the negative side of his philosophy:--

"Falsehood hath so corrupted all the world That wrangling sects each other's gospel chide; But were not hate Man's natural element, Churches and mosques had risen side by side."[598]

"What is Religion? A maid kept close that no eye may view her; The price of her wedding-gifts and dowry baffles the wooer. Of all the goodly doctrine that I from the pulpit heard My heart has never accepted so much as a single word!"[599]

"The pillars of this earth are four, Which lend to human life a base; God shaped two vessels, Time and Space, The world and all its folk to store.

"That which Time holds, in ignorance It holds--why vent on it our spite? Man is no cave-bound eremite, But still an eager spy on Chance.

"He trembles to be laid asleep, Tho' worn and old and weary grown. We laugh and weep by Fate alone, Time moves us not to laugh or weep;

"Yet we accuse it innocent, Which, could it speak, might us accuse, Our best and worst, at will to choose, United in a sinful bent."[600]

"'The stars' conjunction comes, divinely sent, And lo, the veil o'er every creed is rent. No realm is founded that escapes decay, The firmest structure soon dissolves away.[601] With sadness deep a thoughtful mind must scan Religion made to serve the pelf of Man. Fear thine own children: sparks at random flung Consume the very tinder whence they sprung. Evil are all men; I distinguish not That part or this: the race entire I blot. Trust none, however near akin, tho' he A perfect sense of honour show to thee, Thy self is the worst foe to be withstood: Be on thy guard in hours of solitude."

* * * * *

"Desire a venerable shaykh to cite Reason for his doctrine, he is gravelled quite. What! shall I ripen ere a leaf is seen? The tree bears only when 'tis clad in green."[602]

"How have I provoked your enmity? Christ or Muḥammad, 'tis one to me. No rays of dawn our path illume, We are sunk together in ceaseless gloom. Can blind perceptions lead aright, Or blear eyes ever have clear sight? Well may a body racked with pain Envy mouldering bones in vain; Yet comes a day when the weary sword Reposes, to its sheath restored. Ah, who to me a frame will give As clod or stone insensitive?-- For when spirit is joined to flesh, the pair Anguish of mortal sickness share. O Wind, be still, if wind thy name, O Flame, die out, if thou art flame!"[603]

Pessimist and sceptic as he was, Abu ’l-‘Alá denies more than he affirms, but although he rejected the dogmas of positive religion, he did not fall into utter unbelief; for he found within himself a moral law to which he could not refuse obedience.

"Take Reason for thy guide and do what she Approves, the best of counsellors in sooth. Accept no law the Pentateuch lays down: Not there is what thou seekest--the plain truth."[604]

He insists repeatedly that virtue is its own reward.

"Oh, purge the good thou dost from hope of recompense Or profit, as if thou wert one that sells his wares."[605]

His creed is that of a philosopher and ascetic. Slay no living creature, he says; better spare a flea than give alms. Yet he prefers active piety, active humanity, to fasting and prayer. "The gist of his moral teaching is to inculcate as the highest and holiest duty a conscientious fulfilment of one's obligations with equal warmth and affection towards all living beings."[606]

Abu ’l-‘Alá died in 1057 A.D., at the age of eighty-four. About ten years before this time, the Persian poet and traveller, Náṣir-i Khusraw, passed through Ma‘arra on his way to Egypt. He describes Abu ’l-‘Alá as the chief man in the town, very rich, revered by the inhabitants, and surrounded by more than two hundred students who came from all parts to attend his lectures on literature and poetry.[607] We may set this trustworthy notice against the doleful account which Abu ’l-‘Alá gives of himself in his letters and other works. If not among the greatest Muḥammadan poets, he is undoubtedly one of the most original and attractive. After Mutanabbí, even after Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, he must appear strangely modern to the European reader. It is astonishing to reflect that a spirit so unconventional, so free from dogmatic prejudice, so rational in spite of his pessimism and deeply religious notwithstanding his attacks on revealed religion, should have ended his life in a Syrian country-town some years before the battle of Senlac. Although he did not meddle with politics and held aloof from every sect, he could truly say of himself, "I am the son of my time" (_ghadawtu ’bna waqtí_).[608] His poems leave no aspect of the age untouched, and present a vivid picture of degeneracy and corruption, in which tyrannous rulers, venal judges, hypocritical and unscrupulous theologians, swindling astrologers, roving swarms of dervishes and godless Carmathians occupy a prominent place.[609]

Although the reader may think that too much space has been already devoted to poetry, I will venture by way of concluding the subject to mention very briefly a few well-known names which cannot be altogether omitted from a work of this kind.

[Sidenote: Abú Tammám and Buḥturí.]

Abú Tammám (Ḥabíb b. Aws) and Buḥturí, both of whom flourished in the ninth century, were distinguished court poets of the same type as Mutanabbí, but their reputation rests more securely on the anthologies which they compiled under the title of _Ḥamása_ (see p. 129 seq.).

[Sidenote: Ibnu ’l-Mu‘tazz (861-908 A.D.).]

Abu ’l-‘Abbás ‘Abdulláh, the son of the Caliph al-Mu‘tazz, was a versatile poet and man of letters, who showed his originality by the works which he produced in two novel styles of composition. It has often been remarked that the Arabs have no great epos like the Iliad or the Persian _Sháhnáma_, but only prose narratives which, though sometimes epical in tone, are better described as historical romances. Ibnu ’l-Mu‘tazz could not supply the deficiency. He wrote, however, in praise of his cousin, the Caliph Mu‘taḍid, a metrical epic in miniature, commencing with a graphic delineation of the wretched state to which the Empire had been reduced by the rapacity and tyranny of the Turkish mercenaries. He composed also, besides an anthology of Bacchanalian pieces, the first important work on Poetics (_Kitábu ’l-Badí‘_). A sad destiny was in store for this accomplished prince. On the death of the Caliph Muktarí he was called to the throne, but a few hours after his accession he was overpowered by the partisans of Muqtadir, who strangled him as soon as they discovered his hiding-place. Picturing the scene, one thinks almost inevitably of Nero's dying words, _Qualis artifex pereo!_

[Sidenote: ‘Umar Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ (1181-1235 A.D.).]

The mystical poetry of the Arabs is far inferior, as a whole, to that of the Persians. Fervour and passion it has in the highest degree, but it lacks range and substance, not to speak of imaginative and speculative power. ‘Umar Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ, though he is undoubtedly the poet of Arabian mysticism, cannot sustain a comparison with his great Persian contemporary, Jalálu’l-Dín Rúmí († 1273 A.D.); he surpasses him only in the intense glow and exquisite beauty of his diction. It will be convenient to reserve a further account of Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ for the next chapter, where we shall discuss the development of Ṣúfiism during this period.

Finally two writers claim attention who owe their reputation to single poems--a by no means rare phenomenon in the history of Arabic literature. One of these universally celebrated odes is the _Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajam_ (the ode rhyming in _l_ of the non-Arabs) composed in the year 1111 A.D. by Ṭughrá’í; the other is the _Burda_ (Mantle Ode) of Búṣírí, which I take the liberty of mentioning in this chapter, although its author died some forty years after the Mongol Invasion.

[Sidenote: Ṭughrá’í († _circa_ 1120 A.D.).]

Ḥasan b. ‘Alí al-Ṭughrá’í was of Persian descent and a native of Iṣfahán.[610] He held the offices of _kátib_ (secretary) and _munshí_ or _ṭughrá’í_ (chancellor) under the great Seljúq Sultans, Maliksháh and Muḥammad, and afterwards became Vizier to the Seljúqid prince Ghiyáthu ’l-Dín Mas‘úd[611] in Mosul. He derived the title by which he is generally known from the royal signature (_ṭughrá_) which it was his duty to indite on all State papers over the initial _Bismilláh_. The _Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajam_ is so called with reference to Shanfará's renowned poem, the _Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Arab_ (see p. 79 seq.), which rhymes in the same letter; otherwise the two odes have only this in common,[612] that whereas Shanfará depicts the hardships of an outlaw's life in the desert, Ṭughrá’í, writing in Baghdád, laments the evil times on which he has fallen, and complains that younger rivals, base and servile men, are preferred to him, while he is left friendless and neglected in his old age.

[Sidenote: Búṣírí († _circa_ 1296 A.D.).]

The _Qaṣídatu ’l-Burda_ (Mantle Ode) of al-Búṣírí[613] is a hymn in praise of the Prophet. Its author was born in Egypt in 1212 A.D. We know scarcely anything concerning his life, which, as he himself declares, was passed in writing poetry and in paying court to the great[614]; but his biographers tell us that he supported himself by copying manuscripts, and that he was a disciple of the eminent Ṣúfí, Abu ’l-‘Abbás Aḥmad al-Marsí. It is said that he composed the _Burda_ while suffering from a stroke which paralysed one half of his body. After praying God to heal him, he began to recite the poem. Presently he fell asleep and dreamed that he saw the Prophet, who touched his palsied side and threw his mantle (_burda_) over him.[615] "Then," said al-Búṣírí, "I awoke and found myself able to rise." However this may be, the Mantle Ode is held in extraordinary veneration by Muḥammadans. Its verses are often learned by heart and inscribed in golden letters on the walls of public buildings; and not only is the whole poem regarded as a charm against evil, but some peculiar magical power is supposed to reside in each verse separately. Although its poetical merit is no more than respectable, the _Burda_ may be read with pleasure on account of its smooth and elegant style, and with interest as setting forth in brief compass the mediæval legend of the Prophet--a legend full of prodigies and miracles in which the historical figure of Muḥammad is glorified almost beyond recognition.

[Sidenote: Rhymed prose.]

Rhymed prose (_saj‘_) long retained the religious associations which it possessed in Pre-islamic times and which were consecrated, for all Moslems, by its use in the Koran. About the middle of the ninth century it began to appear in the public sermons (_khuṭab_, sing. _khuṭba_) of the Caliphs and their viceroys, and it was still further developed by professional preachers, like Ibn Nubáta († 984 A.D.), and by official secretaries, like Ibráhím b. Hilál al-Ṣábí († 994 A.D.). Henceforth rhyme becomes a distinctive and almost indispensable feature of rhetorical prose.

[Sidenote: Badí‘u ’l-Zamán al-Hamadhání († 1007 A.D.).]

The credit of inventing, or at any rate of making popular, a new and remarkable form of composition in this style belongs to al-Hamadhání († 1007 A.D.), on whom posterity conferred the title _Badí‘u ’l-Zamán_, _i.e._, 'the Wonder of the Age.' Born in Hamadhán (Ecbatana), he left his native town as a young man and travelled through the greater part of Persia, living by his wits and astonishing all whom he met by his talent for improvisation. His _Maqámát_ may be called a romance or literary Bohemianism. In the _maqáma_ we find some approach to the dramatic style, which has never been cultivated by the Semites.[616] Hamadhání imagined as his hero a witty, unscrupulous vagabond journeying from place to place and supporting himself by the presents which his impromptu displays of rhetoric, poetry, and learning seldom failed to draw from an admiring audience. The second character is the _ráwí_ or narrator, "who should be continually meeting with the other, should relate his adventures, and repeat his excellent compositions."[617] The _Maqámát_ of Hamadhání became the model for this kind of writing, and the types which he created survive unaltered in the more elaborate work of his successors. Each _maqáma_ forms an independent whole, so that the complete series may be regarded as a novel consisting of detached episodes in the hero's life, a medley of prose and verse in which the story is nothing, the style everything.

[Sidenote: Ḥarírí (1054-1122 A.D.).]

Less original than Badí‘u ’l-Zamán, but far beyond him in variety of learning and copiousness of language, Abú Muḥammad al-Qásim al-Ḥarírí of Baṣra produced in his _Maqámát_ a masterpiece which for eight centuries "has been esteemed as, next to the Koran, the chief treasure of the Arabic tongue." In the Preface to his work he says that the composition of _maqámát_ was suggested to him by "one whose suggestion is a command and whom it is a pleasure to obey." This was the distinguished Persian statesman, Anúshirwán b. Khálid,[618] who afterwards served as Vizier under the Caliph Mustarshid Billáh (1118-1135 A.D.) and Sultán Mas‘úd, the Seljúq (1133-1152 A.D.); but at the time when he made Ḥarírí's acquaintance he was living in retirement at Baṣra and devoting himself to literary studies. Ḥarírí begged to be excused on the score that his abilities were unequal to the task, "for the lame steed cannot run like the strong courser."[619] Finally, however, he yielded to the request of Anúshirwán, and, to quote his own words--

"I composed, in spite of hindrances that I suffered From dullness of capacity and dimness of intellect, And dryness of imagination and distressing anxieties, Fifty Maqámát, which contain serious language and lightsome, And combine refinement with dignity of style, And brilliancies with jewels of eloquence, And beauties of literature with its rarities, Beside verses of the Koran wherewith I adorned them, And choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs that I interspersed, And literary elegancies and grammatical riddles, And decisions based on the (double) meaning of words, And original discourses and highly-wrought orations, And affecting exhortations as well as entertaining jests: The whole of which I have indited as by the tongue of Abú Zayd of Sarúj, The part of narrator being assigned to Harith son of Hammám of Baṣra."[620]

Ḥarírí then proceeds to argue that his _Maqámát_ are not mere frivolous stories such as strict Moslems are bound to reprobate in accordance with a well-known passage of the Koran referring to Naḍr b. Ḥárith, who mortally offended the Prophet by amusing the Quraysh with the old Persian legends of Rustam and Isfandiyár (Koran, xxxi, 5-6): "_There is one that buyeth idle tales that he may seduce men from the way of God, without knowledge, and make it a laughing-stock: these shall suffer a shameful punishment. And when Our signs are read to him, he turneth his back in disdain as though he heard them not, as though there were in his ears a deafness: give him joy of a grievous punishment!_" Ḥarírí insists that the _Assemblies_ have a moral purpose. The ignorant and malicious, he says, will probably condemn his work, but intelligent readers will perceive, if they lay prejudice aside, that it is as useful and instructive as the fables of beasts, &c.,[621] to which no one has ever objected. That his fears of hostile criticism were not altogether groundless is shown by the following remarks of the author of the popular history entitled _al-Fakhrí_ († _circa_ 1300 A.D.). This writer, after claiming that his own book is more useful than the _Ḥamása_ of Abú Tammám, continues:--

[Sidenote: _Maqámát_ criticised as immoral.]

"And, again, it is more profitable than the _Maqámát_ on which men have set their hearts, and which they eagerly commit to memory; because the reader derives no benefit from _Maqámát_ except familiarity with elegant composition and knowledge of the rules of verse and prose. Undoubtedly they contain maxims and ingenious devices and experiences; but all this has a debasing effect on the mind, for it is founded on begging and sponging and disgraceful scheming to acquire a few paltry pence. Therefore, if they do good in one direction, they do harm in another; and this point has been noticed by some critics of the _Maqámát_ of Ḥarírí and Badí‘u ’l-Zamán."[622]

[Sidenote: The character of Abú Zayd.]

Before pronouncing on the justice of this censure, we must consider for a moment the character of Abú Zayd, the hero of Ḥarírí's work, whose adventures are related by a certain Ḥárith b. Hammám, under which name the author is supposed to signify himself. According to the general tradition, Ḥarírí was one day seated with a number of savants in the mosque of the Banú Ḥarám at Baṣra, when an old man entered, footsore and travel-stained. On being asked who he was and whence he came, he answered that his name of honour was Abú Zayd and that he came from Sarúj.[623] He described in eloquent and moving terms how his native town had been plundered by the Greeks, who made his daughter a captive and drove him forth to exile and poverty. Ḥarírí was so struck with his wonderful powers of improvisation that on the same evening he began to compose the _Maqáma of the Banú Ḥarám_,[624] where Abú Zayd is introduced in his invariable character: "a crafty old man, full of genius and learning, unscrupulous of the artifices which he uses to effect his purpose, reckless in spending in forbidden indulgences the money he has obtained by his wit or deceit, but with veins of true feeling in him, and ever yielding to unfeigned emotion when he remembers his devastated home and his captive child."[625] If an immoral tendency has been attributed to the _Assemblies_ of Ḥarírí it is because the author does not conceal his admiration for this unprincipled and thoroughly disreputable scamp. Abú Zayd, indeed, is made so fascinating that we can easily pardon his knaveries for the sake of the pearls of wit and wisdom which he scatters in splendid profusion--excellent discourses, edifying sermons, and plaintive lamentations mingled with rollicking ditties and ribald jests. Modern readers are not likely to agree with the historian quoted above, but although they may deem his criticism illiberal, they can hardly deny that it has some justification.

Ḥarírí's rhymed prose might be freely imitated in English, but the difficulty of rendering it in rhyme with tolerable fidelity has caused me to abandon the attempt to produce a version of one of the _Assemblies_ in the original form.[626] I will translate instead three poems which are put into the mouth of Abú Zayd. The first is a tender elegiac strain recalling far-off days of youth and happiness in his native land:--

"Ghassán is my noble kindred, Sarúj is my land of birth, Where I dwelt in a lofty mansion of sunlike glory and worth, A Paradise for its sweetness and beauty and pleasant mirth!

And oh, the life that I led there abounding in all delight! I trailed my robe on its meadows, while Time flew a careless flight, Elate in the flower of manhood, no pleasure veiled from my sight.

Now, if woe could kill, I had died of the troubles that haunt me here, Or could past joy ever be ransomed, my heart's blood had not been dear, Since death is better than living a brute's life year after year.

Subdued to scorn as a lion whom base hyenas torment. But Luck is to blame, else no one had failed of his due ascent: If she were straight, the conditions of men would never be bent."[627]

The scene of the eleventh _Assembly_ is laid in Sáwa, a city lying midway between Hamadhán (Ecbatana) and Rayy (Rhages). "Ḥárith, in a fit of religious zeal, betakes himself to the public burial ground, for the purpose of contemplation. He finds a funeral in progress, and when it is over an old man, with his face muffled in a cloak, takes his stand on a hillock, and pours forth a discourse on the certainty of death and judgment.... He then rises into poetry and declaims a piece which is one of the noblest productions of Arabic literature. In lofty morality, in religious fervour, in beauty of language, in power and grace of metre, this magnificent hymn is unsurpassed."[628]

"Pretending sense in vain, how long, O light of brain, wilt thou heap sin and bane, and compass error's span? Thy conscious guilt avow! The white hairs on thy brow admonish thee, and thou hast ears unstopt, O man! Death's call dost thou not hear? Rings not his voice full clear? Of parting hast no fear, to make thee sad and wise? How long sunk in a sea of sloth and vanity wilt thou play heedlessly, as though Death spared his prize? Till when, far wandering from virtue, wilt thou cling to evil ways that bring together vice in brief? For thy Lord's anger shame thou hast none, but let maim o'ertake thy cherished aim, then feel'st thou burning grief. Thou hail'st with eager joy the coin of yellow die, but if a bier pass by, feigned is thy sorry face; Perverse and callous wight! thou scornest counsel right to follow the false light of treachery and disgrace. Thy pleasure thou dost crave, to sordid gain a slave, forgetting the dark grave and what remains of dole; Were thy true weal descried, thy lust would not misguide nor thou be terrified by words that should console. Not tears, blood shall thine eyes pour at the great Assize, when thou hast no allies, no kinsman thee to save; Straiter thy tomb shall be than needle's cavity: deep, deep thy plunge I see as diver's 'neath the wave. There shall thy limbs be laid, a feast for worms arrayed, till utterly decayed are wood and bones withal, Nor may thy soul repel that ordeal horrible, when o'er the Bridge of Hell she must escape or fall. Astray shall leaders go, and mighty men be low, and sages shall cry, 'Woe like this was never yet.' Then haste, my thoughtless friend, what thou hast marred to mend, for life draws near its end, and still thou art in the net. Trust not in fortune, nay, though she be soft and gay; for she will spit one day her venom, if thou dote; Abate thy haughty pride! lo, Death is at thy side, fastening, whate'er betide, his fingers on thy throat. When prosperous, refrain from arrogant disdain, nor give thy tongue the rein: a modest tongue is best. Comfort the child of bale and listen to his tale: repair thine actions frail, and be for ever blest. Feather the nest once more of those whose little store has vanished: ne'er deplore the loss nor miser be; With meanness bravely cope, and teach thine hand to ope, and spurn the misanthrope, and make thy bounty free. Lay up provision fair and leave what brings thee care: for sea the ship prepare and dread the rising storm. This, friend, is what I preach expressed in lucid speech. Good luck to all and each who with my creed conform!"

In the next _Maqáma_--that of Damascus--we find Abú Zayd, gaily attired, amidst casks and vats of wine, carousing and listening to the music of lutes and singing--

"I ride and I ride through the waste far and wide, and I fling away pride to be gay as the swallow; Stem the torrent's fierce speed, tame the mettlesome steed, that wherever I lead Youth and Pleasure may follow. I bid gravity pack, and I strip bare my back lest liquor I lack when the goblet is lifted: Did I never incline to the quaffing of wine, I had ne'er been with fine wit and eloquence gifted. Is it wonderful, pray, that an old man should stay in a well-stored seray by a cask overflowing? Wine strengthens the knees, physics every disease, and from sorrow it frees, the oblivion-bestowing! Oh, the purest of joys is to live sans disguise unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation, And the sweetest of love that the lover can prove is when fear and hope move him to utter his passion. Thy love then proclaim, quench the smouldering flame, for 'twill spark out thy shame and betray thee to laughter: Heal the wounds of thine heart and assuage thou the smart by the cups that impart a delight men seek after; While to hand thee the bowl damsels wait who cajole and enravish the soul with eyes tenderly glancing, And singers whose throats pour such high-mounting notes, when the melody floats, iron rocks would be dancing! Obey not the fool who forbids thee to pull beauty's rose when in full bloom thou'rt free to possess it; Pursue thine end still, tho' it seem past thy skill; let them say what they will, take thy pleasure and bless it! Get thee gone from thy sire, if he thwart thy desire; spread thy nets nor enquire what the nets are receiving; But be true to a friend, shun the miser and spend, ways of charity wend, be unwearied in giving. He that knocks enters straight at the Merciful's gate, so repent or e'er Fate call thee forth from the living!"

The reader may judge from these extracts whether the _Assemblies_ of Ḥarírí are so deficient in matter as some critics have imagined. But, of course, the celebrity of the work is mainly due to its consummate literary form--a point on which the Arabs have always bestowed singular attention. Ḥarírí himself was a subtle grammarian, living in Baṣra, the home of philological science;[629] and though he wrote to please rather than to instruct, he seems to have resolved that his work should illustrate every beauty and nicety of which the Arabic language is capable. We Europeans can see as little merit or taste in the verbal conceits--equivoques, paronomasias, assonances, alliterations, &c.--with which his pages are thickly studded, as in _tours de force_ of composition which may be read either forwards or backwards, or which consist entirely of pointed or of unpointed letters; but our impatience of such things should not blind us to the fact that they are intimately connected with the genius and traditions of the Arabic tongue,[630] and therefore stand on a very different footing from those euphuistic extravagances which appear, for example, in English literature of the Elizabethan age. By Ḥarírí's countrymen the _Maqámát_ are prized as an almost unique monument of their language, antiquities, and culture. One of the author's contemporaries, the famous Zamakhsharí, has expressed the general verdict in pithy verse--

"I swear by God and His marvels, By the pilgrims' rite and their shrine: Ḥarírí's _Assemblies_ are worthy To be written in gold each line."

[Sidenote: The religious literature of the period.]

Concerning some of the specifically religious sciences, such as Dogmatic Theology and Mysticism, we shall have more to say in the following chapter, while as to the science of Apostolic Tradition (_Ḥadíth_) we must refer the reader to what has been already said. All that can be attempted here is to take a passing notice of the most eminent writers and the most celebrated works of this epoch in the field of religion.

[Sidenote: Málik b. Anas (713-795 A.D.).]

The place of honour belongs to the Imám Málik b. Anas of Medína, whose _Muwaṭṭa’_ is the first great _corpus_ of Muḥammadan Law. He was a partisan of the ‘Alids, and was flogged by command of the Caliph Manṣúr in consequence of his declaration that he did not consider the oath of allegiance to the ‘Abbásid dynasty to have any binding effect.

[Sidenote: Bukhárí and Muslim.]

The two principal authorities for Apostolic Tradition are Bukhárí († 870 A.D.) and Muslim († 875 A.D.), authors of the collections entitled _Ṣaḥíḥ_. Compilations of a narrower range, embracing only those traditions which bear on the _Sunna_ or custom of the Prophet, are the _Sunan_ of Abú Dáwúd al-Sijistání († 889 A.D.), the _Jámi‘_ of Abú ‘Isá Muḥammad al-Tirmidhí († 892 A.D.), the _Sunan_ of al-Nasá’í († 915 A.D.), and the _Sunan_ of Ibn Mája († 896 A.D.). These, together with the _Ṣaḥíḥs_ of Bukhárí and Muslim, form the Six Canonical Books (_al-kutub al-sitta_), which are held in the highest veneration. Amongst the innumerable works of a similar kind produced in this period it will suffice to mention the _Maṣábíḥu ’l-Sunna_ by al-Baghawí († _circa_ 1120 A.D.). A later adaptation called _Mishkátu ’l-Maṣábíḥ_ has been often printed, and is still extremely popular.

[Sidenote: Máwardí († 1058 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Arabic authorities on Ṣúfiism.]

[Sidenote: Ghazálí († 1111 A.D.).]

Omitting the great manuals of Moslem Jurisprudence, which are without literary interest in the larger sense, we may pause for a moment at the name of al-Máwardí, a Sháfi‘ite lawyer, who wrote a well-known treatise on politics--the _Kitábu ’l-Aḥkám al-Sulṭániyya_, or 'Book of the Principles of Government.' His standpoint is purely theoretical. Thus he lays down that the Caliph should be elected by the body of learned, pious, and orthodox divines, and that the people must leave the administration of the State to the Caliph absolutely, as being its representative. Máwardí lived at Baghdád during the period of Buwayhid ascendancy, a period described by Sir W. Muir in the following words: "The pages of our annalists are now almost entirely occupied with the political events of the day, in the guidance of which the Caliphs had seldom any concern, and which therefore need no mention here."[631] Under the ‘Abbásid dynasty the mystical doctrines of the Ṣúfís were systematised and expounded. Some of the most important Arabic works of reference on Ṣúfiism are the _Qútu ’l-Qulúb_, or 'Food of Hearts,' by Abú Ṭálib al-Makkí († 996 A.D.); the _Kitábu ’l-Ta‘arruf li-Madhhabi ahli ’l-Taṣawwuf_, or 'Book of Enquiry as to the Religion of the Ṣúfís,' by Muḥammad b. Isḥáq al-Kalábádhí († _circa_ 1000 A.D.); the _Ṭabaqátu ’l-Ṣúfiyya_, or 'Classes of the Ṣúfís,' by Abú ‘Abd al-Raḥmán al-Sulamí († 1021 A.D.); the _Ḥilyatu ’l-Awliyá_, or 'Adornment of the Saints,' by Abú Nu‘aym al-Iṣfahání († 1038 A.D.); the _Risálatu ’l-Qushayriyya_, or 'Qushayrite Tract,' by Abu ’l-Qásim al-Qushayrí of Naysábúr († 1074 A.D.); the _Iḥyá’u ‘Ulúm al-Dín_, or 'Revivification of the Religious Sciences,' by Ghazálí († 1111 A.D.); and the _‘Awárifu ’l-Ma‘árif_, or 'Bounties of Knowledge,' by Shihábu ’l-Dín Abú Ḥafṣ ‘Umar al-Suhrawardí († 1234 A.D.)--a list which might easily be extended. In Dogmatic Theology there is none to compare with Abú Ḥámid al-Ghazálí, surnamed 'the Proof of Islam' (_Ḥujjatu ’l-Islám_). He is a figure of such towering importance that some detailed account of his life and opinions must be inserted in a book like this, which professes to illustrate the history of Muḥammadan thought. Here, however, we shall only give an outline of his biography in order to pave the way for discussion of his intellectual achievements and his far-reaching influence.

[Sidenote: Life of Ghazálí according to the _Shadharátu ’l-Dhahab_.]

"In this year (505 A.H. = 1111 A.D.) died the Imám, who was the Ornament of the Faith and the Proof of Islam, Abú Ḥámid Muḥammad ... of Ṭús, the Sháfi‘ite. His death took place on the 14th of the Latter Jumádá at Ṭábarán, a village near Ṭús. He was then fifty-five years of age. Ghazzálí is equivalent to Ghazzál, like ‘Aṭṭárí (for ‘Aṭṭár) and Khabbází (for Khabbáz), in the dialect of the people of Khurásán[632]: so it is stated by the author of the _‘Ibar_.[633] Al-Isnawí says in his _Ṭabaqát_[634]:--Ghazzálí is an Imám by whose name breasts are dilated and souls are revived, and in whose literary productions the ink-horn exults and the paper quivers with joy; and at the hearing thereof voices are hushed and heads are bowed. He was born at Ṭús in the year 450 A.H. = 1058-1059 A.D. His father used to spin wool (_yaghzilu ’l-ṣúf_) and sell it in his shop. On his deathbed he committed his two sons, Ghazzálí himself and his brother Aḥmad, to the care of a pious Ṣúfí, who taught them writing and educated them until the money left him by their father was all spent. 'Then,' says Ghazzálí, 'we went to the college to learn divinity (_fiqh_) so that we might gain our livelihood.' After studying there for some time he journeyed to Abú Naṣr al-Ismá‘ílí in Jurján, then to the Imámu ’l-Ḥaramayn[635] at Naysábúr, under whom he studied with such assiduity that he became the best scholastic of his contemporaries (_ṣára anẓara ahli zamánihi_), and he lectured _ex cathedrâ_ in his master's lifetime, and wrote books.... And on the death of his master he set out for the Camp[636] and presented himself to the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk, whose assembly was the alighting-place of the learned and the destination of the leading divines and savants; and there, as was due to his high merit, he enjoyed the society of the principal doctors, and disputed with his opponents and rebutted them in spite of their eminence. So the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk inclined to him and showed him great honour, and his name flew through the world. Then, in the year '84 (1091 A.D.) he was called to a professorship in the Niẓámiyya College at Baghdád, where a splendid reception awaited him. His words reached far and wide, and his influence soon exceeded that of the Emírs and Viziers. But at last his lofty spirit recoiled from worldly vanities. He gave himself up to devotion and dervishhood, and set out, in the year '88 (1095 A.D.), for the Ḥijáz.[637] On his return from the Pilgrimage he journeyed to Damascus and made his abode there for ten years in the minaret of the Congregational Mosque, and composed several works, of which the _Iḥyá_ is said to be one. Then, after visiting Jerusalem and Alexandria, he returned to his home at Ṭús, intent on writing and worship and constant recitation of the Koran and dissemination of knowledge and avoidance of intercourse with men. The Vizier Fakhru ’l-Mulk,[638] son of the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk, came to see him, and urged him by every means in his power to accept a professorship in the Niẓámiyya College at Naysábúr.[639] Ghazzálí consented, but after teaching for a time, resigned the appointment and returned to end his days in his native town."

[Sidenote: His principal works.]

Besides his _magnum opus_, the already-mentioned _Iḥyá_, in which he expounds theology and the ethics of religion from the standpoint of the moderate Ṣúfí school, Ghazálí wrote a great number of important works, such as the _Munqidh mina ’l-Ḑalál_, or 'Deliverer from Error,' a sort of 'Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ'; the _Kímiyá’u ’l-Sa‘ádat_, or 'Alchemy of Happiness,' which was originally written in Persian; and the _Taháfutu ’l-Falásifa_, or 'Collapse of the Philosophers,' a polemical treatise designed to refute and destroy the doctrines of Moslem philosophy. This work called forth a rejoinder from the celebrated Ibn Rushd (Averroes), who died at Morocco in 1198-1199 A.D.

[Sidenote: Shahrastání's 'Book of Religions and Sects.']

Here we may notice two valuable works on the history of religion, both of which are generally known as _Kitábu ’l-Milal wa-’l-Niḥal_,[640] that is to say, 'The Book of Religions and Sects,' by Ibn Ḥazm of Cordova († 1064 A.D.) and Abu ’l-Fatḥ al-Shahrastání († 1153 A.D.). Ibn Ḥazm we shall meet with again in the chapter which deals specially with the history and literature of the Spanish Moslems. Shahrastání, as he is named after his birthplace, belonged to the opposite extremity of the Muḥammadan Empire, being a native of Khurásán, the huge Eastern province bounded by the Oxus. Cureton, who edited the Arabic text of the _Kitábu ’l-Milal wa-’l-Niḥal_ (London, 1842-1846), gives the following outline of its contents:--

After five introductory chapters, the author proceeds to arrange his book into two great divisions; the one comprising the Religious, the other the Philosophical Sects. The former of these contains an account of the various Sects of the followers of Muḥammad, and likewise of those to whom a true revelation had been made (the _Ahlu ’l-Kitáb_, or 'People of the Scripture'), that is, Jews and Christians; and of those who had a doubtful or pretended revelation (_man lahú shubhatu ’l-Kitáb_), such as the Magi and the Manichæans. The second division comprises an account of the philosophical opinions of the Sabæans (Ṣábians), which are mainly set forth in a very interesting dialogue between a Sabæan and an orthodox Muḥammadan; of the tenets of various Greek Philosophers and some of the Fathers of the Christian Church; and also of the Muḥammadan doctors, more particularly of the system of Ibn Síná or Avicenna, which the author explains at considerable length. The work terminates with an account of the tenets of the Arabs before the commencement of Islamism, and of the religion of the people of India.

[Sidenote: Grammar and philology.]

[Sidenote: The invention of Arabic grammar.]

[Sidenote: The philogists of Baṣra.]

The science of grammar took its rise in the cities of Baṣra and Kúfa, which were founded not long after Muḥammad's death, and which remained the chief centres of Arabian life and thought outside the peninsula until they were eclipsed by the great ‘Abbásid capital. In both towns the population consisted of Bedouin Arabs, belonging to different tribes and speaking many different dialects, while there were also thousands of artisans and clients who spoke Persian as their mother-tongue, so that the classical idiom was peculiarly exposed to corrupting influences. If the pride and delight of the Arabs in their noble language led them to regard the maintenance of its purity as a national duty, they were equally bound by their religious convictions to take decisive measures for ensuring the correct pronunciation and interpretation of that "miracle of Divine eloquence," the Arabic Koran. To this latter motive the invention of grammar is traditionally ascribed. The inventor is related to have been Abu ’l-Aswad al-Du’ilí, who died at Baṣra during the Umayyad period. "Abu ’l-Aswad, having been asked where he had acquired the science of grammar, answered that he had learned the rudiments of it from ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib. It is said that he never made known any of the principles which he had received from ‘Alí till Ziyád[641] sent to him the order to compose something which might serve as a guide to the public and enable them to understand the Book of God. He at first asked to be excused, but on hearing a man recite the following passage out of the Koran, _anna ’lláha baríun mina ’l-mushrikína wa-rasúluhu_,[642] which last word the reader pronounced _rasúlihi_, he exclaimed, 'I never thought that things would have come to this.' He then returned to Ziyád and said, 'I will do what you ordered.'"[643] The Baṣra school of grammarians which Abu ’l-Aswad is said to have founded is older than the rival school of Kúfa and surpassed it in fame. Its most prominent representatives were Abú ‘Amr b. al-‘Alá († 770 A.D.), a diligent and profound student of the Koran, who on one occasion burned all his collections of old poetry, &c., and abandoned himself to devotion; Khalíl b. Aḥmad, inventor of the Arabic system of metres and author of the first Arabic lexicon (the _Kitábu ’l-‘Ayn_), which, however, he did not live to complete; the Persian Síbawayhi, whose Grammar, entitled 'The Book of Síbawayhi,' is universally celebrated; the great Humanists al-Aṣma‘í and Abú ‘Ubayda who flourished under Hárún al-Rashid; al-Mubarrad, about a century later, whose best-known work, the _Kámil_, has been edited by Professor William Wright; his contemporary al-Sukkarí, a renowned collector and critic of old Arabian poetry; and Ibn Durayd († 934 A.D.), a distinguished philologist, genealogist, and poet, who received a pension from the Caliph Muqtadir in recognition of his services on behalf of science, and whose principal works, in addition to the famous ode known as the _Maqṣúra_, are a voluminous lexicon (_al-Jamhara fi ’l-Lugha_) and a treatise on the genealogies of the Arab tribes (_Kitábu ’l-Ishtiqáq_).

[Sidenote: The philogists of Kúfa.]

Against these names the school of Kúfa can set al-Kisá’í, a Persian savant who was entrusted by Hárún al-Rashíd with the education of his sons Amín and Ma’mún; al-Farrá († 822 A.D.), a pupil and compatriot of al-Kisá’í; al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ḑabbí, a favourite of the Caliph Mahdí, for whom he compiled an excellent anthology of Pre-islamic poems (_al-Mufaḍḍaliyyát_), which has already been noticed[644]; Ibnu ’l-Sikkít, whose outspoken partiality for the House of ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib caused him to be brutally trampled to death by the Turkish guards of the tyrant Mutawakkil (858 A.D.); and Tha‘lab, head of the Kúfa school in his time († 904 A.D.), of whose rivalry with al-Mubarrad many stories are told. A contemporary, Abú Bakr b. Abi ’l-Azhar, said in one of his poems:--

"Turn to Mubarrad or to Tha‘lab, thou That seek'st with learning to improve thy mind! Be not a fool, like mangy camel shunned: All human knowledge thou with them wilt find. The science of the whole world, East and West, In these two single doctors is combined."[645]

Reference has been made in a former chapter to some of the earliest Humanists, _e.g._, Ḥammád al-Ráwiya († 776 A.D.) and his slightly younger contemporary, Khalaf al-Aḥmar, to their inestimable labours in rescuing the old poetry from oblivion, and to the unscrupulous methods which they sometimes employed.[646] Among their successors, who flourished in the Golden Age of Islam, under the first ‘Abbásids, the place of honour belongs to Abú ‘Ubayda († about 825 A.D.) and al-Asma‘í († about 830 A.D.).

[Sidenote: Abú ‘Ubayda.]

[Sidenote: Aṣma‘í.]

Abú ‘Ubayda Ma‘mar b. al-Muthanná was of Jewish-Persian race, and maintained in his writings the cause of the Shu‘úbites against the Arab national party, for which reason he is erroneously described as a Khárijite.[647] The rare expressions of the Arabic language, the history of the Arabs and their conflicts were his predominant study--"neither in heathen nor Muḥammadan times," he once boasted, "have two horses met in battle but that I possess information about them and their riders"[648]; yet, with all his learning, he was not always able to recite a verse without mangling it; even in reading the Koran, with the book before his eyes, he made mistakes.[649] Our knowledge of Arabian antiquity is drawn, to a large extent, from the traditions collected by him which are preserved in the _Kitábu ’l-Aghání_ and elsewhere. He left nearly two hundred works, of which a long but incomplete catalogue occurs in the _Fihrist_ (pp. 53-54). Abú ‘Ubayda was summoned by the Caliph Hárún al-Rashíd to Baghdád, where he became acquainted with Aṣma‘í. There was a standing feud between them, due in part to difference of character[650] and in part to personal jealousies. ‘Abdu ’l-Malik b. Qurayb al-Aṣma‘í was, like his rival, a native of Baṣra. Although he may have been excelled by others of his contemporaries in certain branches of learning, none exhibited in such fine perfection the varied literary culture which at that time was so highly prized and so richly rewarded. Whereas Abú ‘Ubayda was dreaded for his sharp tongue and sarcastic humour, Aṣma‘í had all the accomplishments and graces of a courtier. Abú Nuwás, the first great poet of the ‘Abbásid period, said that Aṣma‘í was a nightingale to charm those who heard him with his melodies. In court circles, where the talk often turned on philological matters, he was a favourite guest, and the Caliph would send for him to decide any abstruse question connected with literature which no one present was able to answer. Of his numerous writings on linguistic and antiquarian themes several have come down to us, _e.g._, 'The Book of Camels' (_Kitábu ’l-Ibil_), 'The Book of Horses' (_Kitábu ’l-Khayl_), and 'The Book of the Making of Man' (_Kitábu Khalqi ’l-Insán_), a treatise which shows that the Arabs of the desert had acquired a considerable knowledge of human anatomy. His work as editor, commentator, and critic of Arabian poetry forms (it has been said) the basis of nearly all that has since been written on the subject.

[Sidenote: Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘ († _circa_ 760 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Ibn Qutayba († 899 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Jáḥiẓ († 869 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Ibn ‘Abdi Rabbihi († 940 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Abu ’l-Faraj al-Iṣfahání († 967 A.D.).]

[Sidenote: Tha‘álibí († 1037 A.D.).]

Belles-lettres (_Adab_) and literary history are represented by a whole series of valuable works. Only a few of the most important can be mentioned here, and that in a very summary manner. The Persian Rúzbih, better known as ‘Abdulláh Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘, who was put to death by order of the Caliph Manṣúr, made several translations from the Pehleví or Middle-Persian literature into Arabic. We possess a specimen of his powers in the famous _Book of Kalíla and Dimna_, which is ultimately derived from the Sanscrit _Fables of Bidpai_. The Arabic version is one of the oldest prose works in that language, and is justly regarded as a model of elegant style, though it has not the pungent brevity which marks true Arabian eloquence. Ibn Qutayba, whose family came from Merv, held for a time the office of Cadi at Dínawar, and lived at Baghdád in the latter half of the ninth century. We have more than once cited his 'Book of General Knowledge' (_Kitábu ’l-Ma‘árif_)[651] and his 'Book of Poetry and Poets,' (_Kitábu ’l-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará_), and may add here the _Adabu ’l-Kátib_, or 'Accomplishments of the Secretary,'[652] a manual of stylistic, dealing with orthography, orthoepy, lexicography, and the like; and the _‘Uyúnu ’l-Akhbár_, or 'Choice Histories,'[653] a work in ten chapters, each of which is devoted to a special theme such as Government, War, Nobility, Friendship, Women, &c. ‘Amr b. Baḥr al-Jáḥiẓ of Baṣra was a celebrated freethinker, and gave his name to a sect of the Mu‘tazilites (_al-Jáḥiẓiyya_).[654] He composed numerous books of an anecdotal and entertaining character. Ibn Khallikán singles out as his finest and most instructive works the _Kitábu ’l-Ḥayawán_ ('Book of Animals'), and the _Kitábu ’l-Bayán wa-’l-Tabyín_ ('Book of Eloquence and Exposition'), which is a popular treatise on rhetoric. It so happens--and the fact is not altogether fortuitous--that extremely valuable contributions to the literary history of the Arabs were made by two writers connected with the Umayyad House. Ibn ‘Abdi Rabbihi of Cordova, who was descended from an enfranchised slave of the Spanish Umayyad Caliph, Hishám b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmán (788-796 A.D.), has left us a miscellaneous anthology entitled _al-‘Iqd al-Faríd_, or 'The Unique Necklace,' which is divided into twenty-five books, each bearing the name of a different gem, and "contains something on every subject." Though Abu ’l-Faraj ‘Alí, the author of the _Kitábu ’l-Aghání_, was born at Iṣfahán, he was an Arab of the Arabs, being a member of the tribe Quraysh and a lineal descendant of Marwán, the last Umayyad Caliph. Coming to Baghdád, he bent all his energies to the study of Arabian antiquity, and towards the end of his life found a generous patron in al-Muhallabí, the Vizier of the Buwayhid sovereign, Mu‘izzu ’l-Dawla. His minor works are cast in the shade by his great 'Book of Songs.' This may be described as a history of all the Arabian poetry that had been set to music down to the author's time. It is based on a collection of one hundred melodies which was made for the Caliph Hárún al-Rashíd, but to these Abu ’l-Faraj has added many others chosen by himself. After giving the words and the airs attached to them, he relates the lives of the poets and musicians by whom they were composed, and takes occasion to introduce a vast quantity of historical traditions and anecdotes, including much ancient and modern verse. It is said that the Ṣáḥib Ibn ‘Abbád,[655] when travelling, used to take thirty camel-loads of books about with him, but on receiving the _Aghání_ he contented himself with this one book and dispensed with all the rest.[656] The chief man of letters of the next generation was Abú Mansúr al-Tha‘álibí (the Furrier) of Naysábúr. Notwithstanding that most of his works are unscientific compilations, designed to amuse the public rather than to impart solid instruction, his famous anthology of recent and contemporary poets--the _Yatímatu ’l-Dahr_, or 'Solitaire of the Time'--supplies indubitable proof of his fine scholarship and critical taste. Successive continuations of the _Yatíma_ were written by al-Bákharzí († 1075 A.D.) in the _Dumyatu ’l-Qaṣr_, or 'Statue of the Palace'; by Abu ’l-Ma‘álí al-Ḥaẓírí († 1172 A.D.) in the _Zínatu ’l-Dahr_, or 'Ornament of the Time'; and by the favourite of Saladin, ‘Imádu ’l-Dín al-Kátib al-Iṣfahání († 1201 A.D.), in the _Kharídatu ’l-Qaṣr_, or 'Virgin Pearl of the Palace.' From the tenth century onward the study of philology proper began to decline, while on the other hand those sciences which formerly grouped themselves round philology now became independent, were cultivated with brilliant success, and in a short time reached their zenith.

[Sidenote: History.]

The elements of History are found (1) in Pre-islamic traditions and (2) in the _Ḥadíth_ of the Prophet, but the idea of historical composition on a grand scale was probably suggested to the Arabs by Persian models such as the Pehleví _Khudáy-náma_, or 'Book of Kings,' which Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘ turned into Arabic in the eighth century of our era under the title of _Siyaru Mulúki ’l-‘Ajam_, that is, 'The History of the Kings of Persia.'

Under the first head Hishám Ibnu ’l-Kalbí († 819 A.D.) and his father Muḥammad deserve particular mention as painstaking and trustworthy recorders.

[Sidenote: Histories of the Prophet and his Companions.]

Historical traditions relating to the Prophet were put in writing at an early date (see p. 247). The first biography of Muḥammad (_Síratu Rasúli ’lláh_), compiled by Ibn Isḥáq, who died in the reign of Manṣúr (768 A.D.), has come down to us only in the recension made by Ibn Hishám († 834 A.D.). This work as well as those of al-Wáqidí († 823 A.D.) and Ibn Sa‘d († 845 A.D.) have been already noticed.

Other celebrated historians of the ‘Abbásid period are the following.

[Sidenote: Baládhurí.]

Aḥmad b. Yaḥyá al-Baládhurí († 892 A.D.), a Persian, wrote an account of the early Muḥammadan conquests (_Kitábu Futúḥi ’l-Buldán_), which has been edited by De Goeje, and an immense chronicle based on genealogical principles, 'The Book of the Lineages of the Nobles' (_Kitábu Ansábi ’l-Ashráf_), of which two volumes are extant.[657]

[Sidenote: Dínawarí.]

Abú Ḥánífa Aḥmad al-Dínawarí († 895 A.D.) was also of Íránian descent. His 'Book of Long Histories' (_Kitábu ’l-Akhbár al-Ṭiwál_) deals largely with the national legend of Persia, and is written throughout from the Persian point of view.

[Sidenote: Ya‘qúbí.]

Ibn Wáḍiḥ al-Ya‘qúbí, a contemporary of Dínawarí, produced an excellent compendium of universal history, which is specially valuable because its author, being a follower of the House of ‘Alí, has preserved the ancient and unfalsified Shí‘ite tradition. His work has been edited in two volumes by Professor Houtsma (Leyden, 1883).

The Annals of Ṭabarí, edited by De Goeje and other European scholars (Leyden, 1879-1898), and the Golden Meadows[658] (_Murúju ’l-Dhahab_) of Mas‘údí, which Pavet de Courteille and Barbier de Meynard published with a French translation (Paris, 1861-1877), have been frequently cited in the foregoing pages; and since these two authors are not only the greatest historians of the Muḥammadan East but also (excepting, possibly, Ibn Khaldún) the most eminent of all who devoted themselves to this branch of Arabic literature, we must endeavour to make the reader more closely acquainted with them.

[Sidenote: Ṭabarí (838-923 A.D.).]

Abú Ja‘far Muḥammad b. Jarír was born in 838-839 A.D. at Ámul in Ṭabaristán, the mountainous province lying along the south coast of the Caspian Sea; whence the name, Ṭabarí, by which he is usually known.[659] At this time ‘Iráq was still the principal focus of Muḥammadan culture, so that a poet could say:--

"I see a man in whom the secretarial dignity is manifest, One who displays the brilliant culture of ‘Iráq."[660]

Thither the young Ṭabarí came to complete his education. He travelled by way of Rayy to Baghdád, visited other neighbouring towns, and extended his tour to Syria and Egypt. Although his father sent him a yearly allowance, it did not always arrive punctually, and he himself relates that on one occasion he procured bread by selling the sleeves of his shirt. Fortunately, at Baghdád he was introduced to ‘Ubaydulláh b. Yaḥyá, the Vizier of Mutawakkil, who engaged him as tutor for his son. How long he held this post is uncertain, but he was only twenty-three years of age when his patron went out of office. Fifteen years later we find him, penniless once more, in Cairo (876-877 A.D.). He soon, however, returned to Baghdád, where he passed the remainder of his life in teaching and writing. Modest, unselfish, and simple in his habits, he diffused his encyclopædic knowledge with an almost superhuman industry. During forty years, it is said, he wrote forty leaves every day. His great works are the _Ta’ríkhu ’l-Rusul wa-’l-Mulúk_, or 'Annals of the Apostles and the Kings,' and his _Tafsír_, or 'Commentary on the Koran.' Both, even in their present shape, are books of enormous extent, yet it seems likely that both were originally composed on a far larger scale and were abbreviated by the author for general use. His pupils, we are told, flatly refused to read the first editions with him, whereupon he exclaimed: "Enthusiasm for learning is dead!" The History of Ṭabarí, from the Creation to the year 302 A.H. = 915 A.D., is distinguished by "completeness of detail, accuracy, and the truly stupendous learning of its author that is revealed throughout, and that makes the Annals a vast storehouse of valuable information for the historian as well as for the student of Islam."[661] It is arranged chronologically, the events being tabulated under the year (of the Muḥammadan era) in which they occurred. Moreover, it has a very peculiar form. "Each important fact is related, if possible, by an eye-witness or contemporary, whose account came down through a series of narrators to the author. If he has obtained more than one account of a fact, with more or less important modifications, through several series of narrators, he communicates them all to the reader _in extenso_. Thus we are enabled to consider the facts from more than one point of view, and to acquire a vivid and clear notion of them."[662] According to modern ideas, Ṭabarí's compilation is not so much a history as a priceless collection of original documents placed side by side without any attempt to construct a critical and continuous narrative. At first sight one can hardly see the wood for the trees, but on closer study the essential features gradually emerge and stand out in bold relief from amidst the multitude of insignificant circumstances which lend freshness and life to the whole. Ṭabarí suffered the common fate of standard historians. His work was abridged and popularised, the _isnáds_ or chains of authorities were suppressed, and the various parallel accounts were combined by subsequent writers into a single version.[663] Of the Annals, as it left the author's hands, no entire copy exists anywhere, but many odd volumes are preserved in different parts of the world. The Leyden edition is based on these scattered MSS., which luckily comprise the whole work with the exception of a few not very serious lacunæ.

[Sidenote: Mas‘údí († 956 A.D.).]

‘Alí b. Ḥusayn, a native of Baghdád, was called Mas‘údí after one of the Prophet's Companions, ‘Abdulláh b. Mas‘úd, to whom he traced his descent. Although we possess only a small remnant of his voluminous writings, no better proof can be desired of the vast and various erudition which he gathered not from books alone, but likewise from long travel in almost every part of Asia. Among other places, he visited Armenia, India, Ceylon, Zanzibar, and Madagascar, and he appears to have sailed in Chinese waters as well as in the Caspian Sea. "My journey," he says, "resembles that of the sun, and to me the poet's verse is applicable:--

"'We turn our steps toward each different clime, Now to the Farthest East, then West once more; Even as the sun, which stays not his advance O'er tracts remote that no man durst explore.'"[664]

He spent the latter years of his life chiefly in Syria and Egypt--for he had no settled abode--compiling the great historical works,[665] of which the _Murúju ’l-Dhahab_ is an epitome. As regards the motives which urged him to write, Mas‘údí declares that he wished to follow the example of scholars and sages and to leave behind him a praiseworthy memorial and imperishable monument. He claims to have taken a wider view than his predecessors. "One who has never quitted his hearth and home, but is content with the knowledge which he can acquire concerning the history of his own part of the world, is not on the same level as one who spends his life in travel and passes his days in restless wanderings, and draws forth all manner of curious and precious information from its hidden mine."[666]

[Sidenote: The _Murúju ’l-Dhahab_.]

Mas‘údí has been named the 'the Herodotus of the Arabs,' and the comparison is not unjust.[667] His work, although it lacks the artistic unity which distinguishes that of the Greek historian, shows the same eager spirit of enquiry, the same open-mindedness and disposition to record without prejudice all the marvellous things that he had heard or seen, the same ripe experience and large outlook on the present as on the past. It is professedly a universal history beginning with the Creation and ending at the Caliphate of Muṭí‘, in 947 A.D., but no description can cover the immense range of topics which are discussed and the innumerable digressions with which the author delights or irritates his readers, as the case may be.[668] Thus, to pick a few examples at random, we find a dissertation on tides (vol. i, p. 244); an account of the _tinnín_ or sea-serpent (_ibid._, p. 267); of pearl-fishing in the Persian Gulf (_ibid._, p. 328); and of the rhinoceros (_ibid._, p. 385). Mas‘údí was a keen student and critic of religious beliefs, on which subject he wrote several books.[669] The _Murúju ’l-Dhahab_ supplies many valuable details regarding the Muḥammadan sects, and also regarding the Zoroastrians and Ṣábians. There is a particularly interesting report of a meeting which took place between Aḥmad b. Ṭúlún, the governor of Egypt (868-877 A.D.), and an aged Copt, who, after giving his views as to the source of the Nile and the construction of the Pyramids, defended his faith (Christianity) on the ground of its manifest errors and contradictions, arguing that its acceptance, in spite of these, by so many peoples and kings was decisive evidence of its truth.[670] Mas‘údí's account of the Caliphs is chiefly remarkable for the characteristic anecdotes in which it abounds. Instead of putting together a methodical narrative he has thrown off a brilliant but unequal sketch of public affairs and private manners, of social life and literary history. Only considerations of space have prevented me from enriching this volume with not a few pages which are as lively and picturesque as any in Suetonius. His last work, the _Kitábu ’l-Tanbíh wa-’l-Ishráf_ ('Book of Admonition and Recension'),[671] was intended to take a general survey of the field which had been more fully traversed in his previous compositions, and also to supplement them when it seemed necessary.

[Sidenote: Minor historians.]

We must pass over the minor historians and biographers of this period--for example, ‘Utbí († 1036 A.D.), whose _Kitáb al-Yamíní_ celebrates the glorious reign of Sultan Mahmúd of Ghazna; Khaṭíb of Baghdád († 1071 A.D.), who composed a history of the eminent men of that city; ‘Imádu ’l-Dín of Iṣfahán († 1201 A.D.), the biographer of Saladin; Ibnu ’l-Qiftí († 1248 A.D.), born at Qifṭ (Coptos) in Upper Egypt, whose lives of the philosophers and scientists have only come down to us in a compendium entitled _Ta’ríkhu ’l-Ḥukamá_; Ibnu ’l-Jawzí († 1200 A.D.), a prolific writer in almost every branch of literature, and his grandson, Yúsuf († 1257 A.D.)--generally called Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzí--author of the _Mir’átu ’l-Zamán_, or 'Mirror of the Time'; Ibn Abí Uṣaybi‘a († 1270 A.D.), whose history of physicians, the _‘Uyúnu ’l-Anbá_, has been edited by A. Müller (1884); and the Christian, Jirjis (George) al-Makín († 1273 A.D.), compiler of a universal chronicle--named the _Majmú‘ al-Mubárak_--of which the second part, from Muḥammad to the end of the ‘Abbásid dynasty, was rendered into Latin by Erpenius in 1625.

[Sidenote: Ibnu ’l-Athír († 1234 A.D.).]

A special notice, brief though it must be, is due to ‘Izzu ’l-Dín Ibnu ’l-Athír († 1234 A.D.). He was brought up at Mosul in Mesopotamia, and after finishing his studies in Baghdád, Jerusalem, and Syria, he returned home and devoted himself to reading and literary composition. Ibn Khallikán, who knew him personally, speaks of him in the highest terms both as a man and as a scholar. "His great work, the _Kámil_,[672] embracing the history of the world from the earliest period to the year 628 of the Hijra (1230-1231 A.D.), merits its reputation as one of the best productions of the kind."[673] Down to the year 302 A.H. the author has merely abridged the Annals of Ṭabarí with occasional additions from other sources. In the first volume he gives a long account of the Pre-islamic battles (_Ayyámu ’l-‘Arab_) which is not found in the present text of Ṭabarí; but De Goeje, as I learn from Professor Bevan, thinks that this section was included in Ṭabarí's original draft and was subsequently struck out. Ibnu ’l-Athír was deeply versed in the science of Tradition, and his _Usdu ’l-Ghába_ ('Lions of the Jungle') contains biographies of 7,500 Companions of the Prophet.

[Sidenote: Geographers.]

An immense quantity of information concerning the various countries and peoples of the ‘Abbásid Empire has been preserved for us by the Moslem geographers, who in many cases describe what they actually witnessed and experienced in the course of their travels, although they often help themselves liberally and without acknowledgment from the works of their predecessors. The following list, which does not pretend to be exhaustive, may find a place here.[674]

[Sidenote: Ibn Khurdádbih.]

1. The Persian Ibn Khurdádbih (first half of ninth century) was postmaster in the province of Jibál, the Media of the ancients. His _Kitábu ’l-Masálik wa-’l-Mamálik_ ('Book of the Roads and Countries'), an official guide-book, is the oldest geographical work in Arabic that has come down to us.

[Sidenote: Iṣṭakhrí and Ibn Ḥawqal.]

2. Abú Isḥáq al-Fárisí a native of Persepolis (Iṣṭakhr)--on this account he is known as Iṣṭakhrí--wrote a book called _Masáliku ’l-Mamálik_ ('Routes of the Provinces'), which was afterwards revised and enlarged by Ibn Ḥawqal. Both works belong to the second half of the tenth century and contain "a careful description of each province in turn of the Muslim Empire, with the chief cities and notable places."

[Sidenote: Muqaddasí.]

3. Al-Muqaddasí (or al-Maqdisí), _i.e._, 'the native of the Holy City', was born at Jerusalem in 946 A.D. In his delightful book entitled _Aḥsanu ’l-Taqásím fí ma‘rifati ’l-Aqálím_ he has gathered up the fruits of twenty years' travelling through the dominions of the Caliphate.

[Sidenote: Yáqút.]

4. Omitting the Spanish Arabs, Bakrí, Idrísí, and Ibn Jubayr, all of whom flourished in the eleventh century, we come to the greatest of Moslem geographers, Yáqút b. ‘Abdalláh (1179-1229 A.D.). A Greek by birth, he was enslaved in his childhood and sold to a merchant of Baghdád. His master gave him a good education and frequently sent him on trading expeditions to the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. After being enfranchised in consequence of a quarrel with his benefactor, he supported himself by copying and selling manuscripts. In 1219-1220 A.D. he encountered the Tartars, who had invaded Khwárizm, and "fled as naked as when he shall be raised from the dust of the grave on the day of the resurrection." Further details of his adventurous life are recorded in the interesting notice by Ibn Khallikán.[675] His great Geographical Dictionary (_Mu‘jamu ’l-Buldán_) has been edited in six volumes by Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1866), and is described by Mr. Le Strange as "a storehouse of geographical information, the value of which it would be impossible to over-estimate." We possess a useful epitome of it, made about a century later, viz., the _Maráṣidu ’l-Iṭṭilá‘_. Among the few other extant works of Yáqút, attention maybe called to the _Mushtarik_--a lexicon of places bearing the same name--and the _Mu‘jamu ’l-Udabá_, or 'Dictionary of Littérateurs,' which has been edited by Professor Margoliouth for the Trustees of the Gibb Memorial Fund.

[Sidenote: The foreign sciences.]

[Sidenote: Translations from the Greek.]

[Sidenote: Ma’mún's encouragement of the New Learning.]

As regards the philosophical and exact sciences the Moslems naturally derived their ideas and material from Greek culture, which had established itself in Egypt, Syria, and Western Asia since the time of Alexander's conquests. When the Syrian school of Edessa was broken up by ecclesiastical dissensions towards the end of the fifth century of our era, the expelled savants took refuge in Persia at the Sásánian court, and Khusraw Anúshirwán, or Núshírwán (531-578 A.D.)--the same monarch who welcomed the Neo-platonist philosophers banished from Athens by Justinian--founded an Academy at Jundé-shápúr in Khúzistán, where Greek medicine and philosophy continued to be taught down to ‘Abbásid days. Another centre of Hellenism was the city of Ḥarrán in Mesopotamia. Its inhabitants, Syrian heathens who generally appear in Muḥammadan history under the name of 'Ṣábians,' spoke Arabic with facility and contributed in no small degree to the diffusion of Greek wisdom. The work of translation was done almost entirely by Syrians. In the monasteries of Syria and Mesopotamia the writings of Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy, and other ancient masters were rendered with slavish fidelity, and these Syriac versions were afterwards retranslated into Arabic. A beginning was made under the Umayyads, who cared little for Islam but were by no means indifferent to the claims of literature, art, and science. An Umayyad prince, Khálid b. Yazíd, procured the translation of Greek and Coptic works on alchemy, and himself wrote three treatises on that subject. The accession of the ‘Abbásids gave a great impulse to such studies, which found an enlightened patron in the Caliph Manṣúr. Works on logic and medicine were translated from the Pehleví by Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘ († about 760 A.D.) and others. It is, however, the splendid reign of Ma’mún (813-833 A.D.) that marks the full vigour of this Oriental Renaissance. Ma’mún was no ordinary man. Like a true Persian, he threw himself heart and soul into theological speculations and used the authority of the Caliphate to enforce a liberal standard of orthodoxy. His interest in science was no less ardent. According to a story told in the _Fihrist_,[676] he dreamed that he saw the venerable figure of Aristotle seated on a throne, and in consequence of this vision he sent a deputation to the Roman Emperor (Leo the Armenian) to obtain scientific books for translation into Arabic. The Caliph's example was followed by private individuals. Three brothers, Muḥammad, Aḥmad, and Ḥasan, known collectively as the Banú Músá, "drew translators from distant countries by the offer of ample rewards[677] and thus made evident the marvels of science. Geometry, engineering, the movements of the heavenly bodies, music, and astronomy were the principal subjects to which they turned their attention; but these were only a small number of their acquirements."[678] Ma’mún installed them, with Yaḥyá b. Abí Manṣúr and other scientists, in the House of Wisdom (_Baytu ’l-Ḥikma_) at Baghdád, an institution which comprised a well-stocked library and an astronomical observatory. Among the celebrated translators of the ninth century, who were themselves conspicuous workers in the new field, we can only mention the Christians Qusṭá b. Lúqá and Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq, and the Ṣábian Thábit b. Qurra. It does not fall within the scope of this volume to consider in detail the achievements of the Moslems in science and philosophy. That in some departments they made valuable additions to existing knowledge must certainly be granted, but these discoveries count for little in comparison with the debt which we owe to the Arabs as pioneers of learning and bringers of light to mediæval Europe.[679] Meanwhile it is only possible to enumerate a few of the most eminent philosophers and scientific men who lived during the ‘Abbásid age. The reader will observe that with rare exceptions they were of foreign origin.

The leading spirits in philosophy were:--

[Sidenote: Kindí.]

1. Ya‘qúb b. Isḥáq al-Kindí, a descendant of the princely family of Kinda (see p. 42). He was distinguished by his contemporaries with the title _Faylasúfu ’l-‘Arab_, 'The Philosopher of the Arabs.' He flourished in the first half of the ninth century.

[Sidenote: Fárábí.]

2. Abú Naṣr al-Fárábí († 950 A.D.), of Turkish race, a native of Fáráb in Transoxania. The later years of his life were passed at Aleppo under the patronage of Sayfu ’l-Dawla. He devoted himself to the study of Aristotle, whom Moslems agree with Dante in regarding as "il maestro di color che sanno."

[Sidenote: Ibn Síná.]

3. Abú ‘Alí Ibn Síná (Avicenna), born of Persian parents at Kharmaythan, near Bukhárá, in the year 980 A.D. As a youth he displayed extraordinary talents, so that "in the sixteenth year of his age physicians of the highest eminence came to read medicine with him and to learn those modes of treatment which he had discovered by his practice."[680] He was no quiet student, like Fárábí, but a pleasure-loving, adventurous man of the world who travelled from court to court, now in favour, now in disgrace, and always writing indefatigably. His system of philosophy, in which Aristotelian and Neo-platonic theories are combined with Persian mysticism, was well suited to the popular taste, and in the East it still reigns supreme. His chief works are the _Shifá_ (Remedy) on physics, metaphysics, &c., and a great medical encyclopædia entitled the _Qánún_ (Canon). Avicenna died in 1037 A.D.

4. The Spanish philosophers, Ibn Bájja (Avempace), Ibn Ṭufayl, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), all of whom flourished in the twelfth century after Christ.

[Sidenote: Medicine, Astronomy, and Mathematics.]

[Sidenote: Bírúní 973-1048 A.D.]

The most illustrious name beside Avicenna in the history of Arabian medicine is Abú Bakr al-Rází (Rhazes), a native of Rayy, near Teheran († 923 or 932 A.D.). Jábir b. Ḥayyán of Tarsus († about 780 A.D.)--the Geber of European writers--won equal renown as an alchemist. Astronomy went hand in hand with astrology. The reader may recognise al-Farghání, Abú Ma‘shar of Balkh († 885 A.D.) and al-Battání, a Ṣábian of Ḥarrán († 929 A.D.), under the names of Alfraganus, Albumaser, and Albategnius, by which they became known in the West. Abú ‘Abdalláh al-Khwárizmí, who lived in the Caliphate of Ma’mún, was the first of a long line of mathematicians. In this science, as also in Medicine and Astronomy, we see the influence of India upon Muḥammadan civilisation--an influence, however, which, in so far as it depended on literary sources, was more restricted and infinitely less vital than that of Greece. Only a passing reference can be made to Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní, a native of Khwárizm (Khiva), whose knowledge of the sciences, antiquities, and customs of India was such as no Moslem had ever equalled. His two principal works, the _Áthár al-Báqiya_, or 'Surviving Monuments,' and the _Ta’ríkhu ’l-Hind_, or 'History of India,' have been edited and translated into English by Dr. Sachau.[681]

[Sidenote: The _Fihrist_.]

Some conception of the amazing intellectual activity of the Moslems during the earlier part of the ‘Abbásid period, and also of the enormous losses which Arabic literature has suffered through the destruction of thousands of books that are known to us by nothing beyond their titles and the names of their authors, may be gained from the _Fihrist_, or 'Index' of Muḥammad b. Isḥáq b. Abí Ya‘qúb al-Nadím al-Warráq al-Baghdádí († 995 A.D.). Regarding the compiler we have no further information than is conveyed in the last two epithets attached to his name: he was a copyist of MSS., and was connected with Baghdád either by birth or residence; add that, according to his own statement (p. 349, l. 14 sqq.), he was at Constantinople (_Dáru ’l-Rúm_) in 988 A.D., the same year in which his work was composed. He may possibly have been related to the famous musician, Isḥáq b. Ibráhím al-Nadím of Mosul († 849-850 A.D.), but this has yet to be proved. At any rate we owe to his industry a unique conspectus of the literary history of the Arabs to the end of the fourth century after the Flight. The _Fihrist_ (as the author explains in his brief Preface) is "an Index of the books of all nations, Arabs and foreigners alike, which are extant in the Arabic language and script, on every branch of knowledge; comprising information as to their compilers and the classes of their authors, together with the genealogies of those persons, the dates of their birth, the length of their lives, the times of their death, the places to which they belonged, their merits and their faults, since the beginning of every science that has been invented down to the present epoch: namely, the year 377 of the Hijra." As the contents of the _Fihrist_ (which considerably exceed the above description) have been analysed in detail by G. Flügel (_Z.D.M.G._, vol. 13, p. 559 sqq.) and set forth in tabular form by Professor Browne in the first volume of his _Literary History of Persia_,[682] I need only indicate the general arrangement and scope of the work. It is divided into ten discourses (_maqálát_), which are subdivided into a varying number of sections (_funún_). Ibnu ’l-Nadím discusses, in the first place, the languages, scripts, and sacred books of the Arabs and other peoples, the revelation of the Koran, the order of its chapters, its collectors, redactors, and commentators. Passing next to the sciences which, as we have seen, arose from study of the Koran and primarily served as handmaids to theology, he relates the origin of Grammar, and gives an account of the different schools of grammarians with the treatises which they wrote. The third discourse embraces History, Belles-Lettres, Biography, and Genealogy; the fourth treats of Poetry, ancient and modern. Scholasticism (_Kalám_) forms the subject of the following chapter, which contains a valuable notice of the Ismá‘ílís and their founder, ‘Abdulláh b. Maymún, as also of the celebrated mystic, Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj. From these and many other names redolent of heresy the author returns to the orthodox schools of Law--the Málikites, Ḥanafites, Sháfi‘ites and Ẓáhirites; then to the jurisconsults of the Shí‘a, &c. The seventh discourse deals with Philosophy and 'the Ancient Sciences,' under which head we find some curious speculations concerning their origin and introduction to the lands of Islam; a list of translators and the books which they rendered into Arabic; an account of the Greek philosophers from Thales to Plutarch, with the names of their works that were known to the Moslems; and finally a literary survey of the remaining sciences, such as Mathematics, Music, Astronomy, and Medicine. Here, by an abrupt transition, we enter the enchanted domain of Oriental fable--the _Hazár Afsán_, or Thousand Tales, Kalíla and Dimna, the Book of Sindbád, and the legends of Rustam and Isfandiyár; works on sorcery, magic, conjuring, amulets, talismans, and the like. European savants have long recognised the importance of the ninth discourse,[683] which is devoted to the doctrines and writings of the Ṣábians and the Dualistic sects founded by Manes, Bardesanes, Marcion, Mazdak, and other heresiarchs. The author concludes his work with a chapter on the Alchemists (_al-Kímiyá’ún_).