LITERARY.
The oral communications of the ancient Egyptians, Medes and Persians,
the two classic tongues of Europe, the Sanscrit of the Hindus and the
Hebrew of the Jews, have long since ceased to be living languages. For
the last twelve centuries no Western language has preserved its
grammar, its style, or its literature intact and intelligible to the
people of the present day. But two Eastern tongues have come down from
ages past to our own times, and continue to exist unchanged in books,
and, to a certain extent, also unchanged in language, and these are
Chinese and Arabic. In China, though the dialects differ in the
various provinces of the empire, still the written language has
remained the same for centuries. In Arabia the Arabic language has
retained its originality without very much dialectical alteration.
The unchangeable character of the Arabic language is chiefly to be
attributed to the Koran, which has, from its promulgation to the
present time, been regarded by all Muhammadans as the standard of
religion and of literary composition. Strictly speaking, not only the
history, but also the literature of the Arabs begins with Muhammad.
Excepting the Mua'llakat, and other pre-Islamitic poems collected in
the Hamasas of Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori, in Ibn Kutaiba and in the
Mofaddhaliat, no literary monuments that preceded his time are in
existence. The Koran became, not only the code of religious and of
civil law, but also the model of the Arabic language, and the standard
of diction and eloquence. Muhammad himself scorned metrical rules; he
claimed as an apostle and lawgiver a title higher than that of
soothsayer and poet. Still, his poetic talent is manifest in numerous
passages of the Koran, well known to those able to read it in the
original, and in this respect the last twenty-five chapters of that
book are, perhaps, the most remarkable.
Although the power of the Arabs has long ago succumbed, their
literature has survived, and their language is still more or less
spoken in all Muhammadan countries. Europe at one time was lightened
by the torch of Arabian learning, and the Middle Ages were stamped
with the genius and character of Arab civilization. The great masters
of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, viz., Al-Kindi,
Al-Farabi, Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Rashid, Ibn Bajah, Razi, Al Battani, Abul
Ma'shar, Al-Farghani, Al-Jaber, have been studied both in the Spanish
universities and in those of the rest of Europe, where their names are
still familiar under the corrupted forms of Alchendius, Alfarabius,
Avicenna, Averroes, Avempace, Rhazes, Albategnius, Albumasar,
Alfraganius, and Geber.
Arabic literature commenced about half a century before Muhammad with
a legion of poets. The seven poems suspended in the temple of Mecca,
and of which more anon, were considered as the chief productions of
that time. The Mussulman era begins with the Hijrah, or emigration of
Muhammad from Mecca to Madinah, which is supposed to have taken place
on the 20th of June, A.D. 622; and the rise, growth, and decay of Arab
power, learning, and literature may be divided into three periods as
follows:
1. The time before Muhammad.
2. From Muhammad and his immediate successors, viz., Abu Bakr,
Omar, Othman, and Ali, through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to
the end of the Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.
3. From the fall of Baghdad to the present time.
First Period.
Although the proper history of Arabian literature begins from the time
of Muhammad, it is necessary to cast a glance upon the age that
preceded him, in order to obtain a glimpse of pre-Islamitic wisdom.
The sage Lokman, whose name the thirty-first chapter of the Koran
bears, is considered, according to that book, to have been the first
man of his nation who practised and taught wisdom in all his deeds and
words. He was believed to have been a contemporary of David and
Solomon; his sayings and his fables still exist, but there is not much
really known about him, as the following extracts will show:
'Lokman, a philosopher mentioned in the Koran, is said to have been
born about the time of David. One tradition represents him as a
descendant of the Arab tribe of Ad, who, on account of his piety and
wisdom, was saved when the rest of his family perished by Divine
wrath. According to another story he was an Ethiopian slave, noted
alike for bodily deformity and a gift for composing fables and
apologues. This account of Lokman, resembling so closely the
traditional history of Æsop, has led to an opinion that they were the
same individual, but this is now generally supposed not to be the
case. The various reports agree in ascribing to Lokman extraordinary
longevity. His extant fables bear evident marks of modern alteration,
both in their diction and their incidents. They were first published
with a Latin translation of the Arabic by Erpenius (Leyden, 1615).
Galland produced a French translation of the fables of Lokman and
Bidpay at Paris in 1724, and there are other editions by De Sacey,
1816, Caussin de Perceval, 1818, Freytag, 1823, and Rodiger, 1830.'
Burton, in a footnote to page 118, of Volume X. of his 'Arabian
Nights,' however, says that 'There are three distinct Lokmans. The
first, or eldest Lokman, entitled Al-Hakim (the Sage), and the hero of
the Koranic chapter which bears his name, was son of Ba'ura, of the
children of Azar, sister's son to Job, or son of Job's maternal aunt;
he witnessed David's miracles of mail-making, and when the tribe of Ad
was destroyed he became king of the country. The second Lokman, also
called the Sage, was a slave and Abyssinian negro, sold by the
Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, and who left a volume
of proverbs and exempla, not fables or apologues, some of which still
dwell in the public memory. The youngest Lokman, of the Vultures, was
a prince of the tribe of Ad, who lived 3,500 years, the age of seven
vultures.'
This accounts for the different ideas as regards the tradition of one
Lokman in the preceding paragraph.
Before the era of the Prophet poetry had attained some degree of
excellence. At the annual festival of Okatz the poets met and made
public recitations, and competed for prizes. Of prose literature there
was none, and the irregular, half-rhythmical, half-rhyming sentences
of the Koran were the first attempts in the direction of prose.
Passing over the host of pre-Islamitic poets, the disputed time and
order in which they appeared, as well as the ranks they respectively
occupied, it will only be necessary here to describe the Arabic idyll
or elegy (Kasida), and to notice the authors of the seven famous
Mua'llakat, or suspended, or strung-together poems of the temple of
Mecca, already alluded to above. As these poems were written in
letters of gold, they were also called Muzahhibat, or "gilded."
According to Arab notions, the subjects of a poet are four or five. He
praises, loves, is angry, mourns, or describes either female beauty,
animals, or objects of nature. Poems comprising one of these subjects
only are short, but those treating of several are longer, and contain
eulogies of chiefs, rulers, distinguished men and women, etc. The poet
touches on the valour, liberality and eloquence of the hero, on the
beauty and virtues of the woman, and describes the nearest
surroundings, which are of the greatest interest, such as the horse,
the camel, the antelope, the ostrich, the wild cow, the cloud, the
lightning, wine, the vestiges of the tent of the beloved, and the
hospitable camp-fire.
The Kasidas of the Mua'llakat are a series of smaller poems, composed
on various occasions, and then strung together in one piece. Among
them the two Kasidas of Amra-al-Kais (Amriolkais), and of Antara, are
the most brilliant and romantic, on account of the sentiments of love
they breathe towards the three beauties--Oneiza, Fatima, and Abla. The
Kasida of Labid is famous for his description of both the camel and
the horse; that of Tarafa for the delineation of the camel; that of
Amru for the picture of a battle; while Harath chanted the praises of
arms, and of the King of Hirah, and Zoheir produced a poem full of
wise maxims. The whole seven contain a great deal about the personal
feelings, the personal courage, the heroic deeds, and the wonderful
adventures of the authors themselves--to which may be added
descriptions of various animals, of hunting scenes, and of battle, the
conventional lament for the absence or departure of a mistress, the
delight of meeting her, and other bright sketches of Arab life in camp
and on the march, with its joys, its sorrows, and its constant
changes.
Sir William Jones first brought these poems to the notice of the West,
and published a translation of them in A.D. 1782. 'They exhibit,' he
says, 'an exact picture of the virtues and the vices, the wisdom and
the folly, of the early Arabs. The poems show what may constantly be
expected from men of open hearts and boiling passions, with no law to
control, and little religion to restrain them.'
The above translations, with notes and remarks, have been reprinted by
Mr. W.A. Clouston, in his 'Arabian Poetry for English Readers,' at
Glasgow in 1881, and is a work well worthy of a perusal by any persons
who may be interested in the subject.
The names of the three ancient Arab poets considered to have been
possessed of equal talent with the authors of the Mua'llakat, are
Nabiga, Al-Kama, and Al-Aasha, and some specimens of their
composition, as also of those of other pre-Islamite poets, are to be
found in the fifteenth volume, No. 39, pages 65-108, of the 'Bombay
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,' translated by Mr. E. Rehatsek in
1881.
Second Period.
From Muhammad and his immediate successors (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and
Ali), through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to the end of the
Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.
The legislator of Islam, whose era began on the 16th July, A.D. 622
(though his actual departure from Mecca has been calculated to have
taken place on the 20th June, A.D. 622), is here to be considered not
from an historical, but from a poetical point of view. Although
Muhammad despised the metres in which the bards of his nation chanted
their Kasidas, and himself gave utterance in the name of Heaven to the
inspirations of his genius only in richly-modulated and rhymed prose,
nevertheless, according to the Oriental idea, he was regarded as a
poet. Those who declare that he was not a poet overlook the
circumstance that he was vehemently assailed by contemporary poets,
who attempted to degrade his heaven-inspired Surahs into mere poetical
fables. He himself protested against this insinuation, and declared at
the end of the 26th Surah, entitled 'The Poets,' that those are in
error who believe poets, as follows:
'And those who err follow the poets; dost thou not see how they roam
(as bereft of their senses) through every valley (of the imagination)
and that they say things which they do not perform? ... Except those
who believe, and do good works, and remember God frequently, and those
who defend themselves after they have been unjustly treated by poets
in their lampoons, and they who act unjustly shall know hereafter with
what treatment they shall be treated.'
These lines are important as far as the history of literature is
concerned. They are written against inimical poets, but distinguish
the friendly ones, who, taking the part of Muhammad, repaid the
lampooning poets in their own coin.
Some of the hostile poets, such as Hobeira and the woman Karitha, were
killed at the taking of Mecca, whilst Zibary and the woman Hertlemah
saved their lives only by making a profession of Islam. Muhammad had,
however, also his panegyrists, the chief of whom was Ka'b bin Zoheir,
the composer of the celebrated Kasida called 'The Poem of the Mantle,'
as a reward for which the Prophet threw his own cloak over him, under
the following circumstances, as related by Mr. J.W. Redhouse in the
preface to his translation of the poem published in the 'Arabian
Poetry for English Readers'[1] alluded to above.
[Footnote 1: In this same work will also be found a
translation by Mr. Redhouse of another poem, also called
'The Poem of the Mantle,' but written by Sharaf-uddin
Muhammad Al-Busiri, who was born A.D. 1211, and died between
A.D. 1291 and 1300.]
Ka'b was a son of Zoheir, already mentioned as the author of one of
the pre-Islamite poems known as the 'Mua'llakat.' He had a brother
named Bujeir, and, like their father, both brothers were good poets.
Bujeir was first converted, and embraced the faith of Islam. Ka'b was
angry at this, and composed a lampoon on his brother, on the Prophet,
and on their new religion. This he sent to his brother by the mouth of
a messenger. Bujeir repeated it to Muhammad, who commented on it as
favourable to the new faith and to himself, but at the same time
passed a sentence of death on the satirist.
Bujeir well knew that his brother's life was in danger, and warned him
accordingly, advising him at the same time to renounce his errors, and
come repentant to the Prophet, or to seek a safe asylum far away. Ka'b
found out that his life would really soon be taken, and set out
secretly for Madinah. There he found an old friend, claimed his
protection, and went with him next morning to the simple meeting-house
where Muhammad and his chief followers performed their daily
devotions. When the service was ended, Ka'b approached Muhammad, and
the two sat down together. Ka'b placed his own right hand in that of
the Prophet, whom he addressed in these words: 'Apostle of God, were I
to bring to you Ka'b, the son of Zoheir, penitent and professing the
faith of Islam, wouldst thou receive and accept him? The Prophet
answered, 'I would.' 'Then,' said the poet, 'I am he!'
Hearing this, the bystanders demanded permission to put him to death.
Muhammad ordered his zealous followers to desist, and the poet then,
on the spur of the moment, recited a poem improvised at the time,
probably with more or less premeditation. It is said that when Ka'b
reached the fifty-first verse: 'Verily the Apostle of God is a light
from which illumination is sought--a drawn Indian blade, one of the
swords of God,' Muhammad took from his own shoulders the mantle he
wore, and threw it over the shoulders of the poet as an honour and as
a mark of protection. Hence the name given to the effusion, 'The Poem
of the Mantle,' A.D. 630.
Moawia, the first Khalif of the Omaiyides, endeavoured to purchase
this sacred mantle from Ka'b for ten thousand pieces of silver, but
the offer was refused. Later on it was, however, bought from Ka'b's
heirs for twenty thousand pieces of silver, and it passed into the
hands of the Khalifs, and was preserved by them as one of the regalia
of the empire until Baghdad was sacked by the Mughals. The mantle, or
what is supposed to be the self-same mantle, is now in the treasury[2]
of the Sultan Khalif of the Ottomans at Constantinople, in an
apartment named 'The Room of the Sacred Mantle,' in which this robe is
religiously preserved, together with a few other relics of the great
prophet.
[Footnote 2: _Apropos_ of this treasury, it is much to be
regretted that a complete catalogue of its contents has
never been prepared along with a brief historical account of
them. It is difficult to obtain the order, which comes
direct from the Sultan, to visit the collection; and even
then visitors are hurried through at such a pace that it is
impossible to examine with minuteness the many curiosities
collected there.]
Ka'b has thus come to be considered as one of the friendly poets, and
the names of two others are also mentioned, viz., Abd-Allah bin Rewaha
and Hassan bin Thabit. On the other hand, the most celebrated
antagonists who attacked Muhammad, not only with their verses, but
also with their swords, were Abu Sofyan, Amr bin Al-'A'asi, and
Abd-Allah bin Zobeir. These three became great political characters,
but later on made profession of Islam, and were the staunchest supporters
of it, rendering the greatest services to the Prophet during his life,
and to the cause after his death. But Muhammad's greatest triumph over
the poets was the conversion of Labid, who, after the perusal of the
commencement of the second Surah of the Koran, tore down his own poem,
which was hung up in the Kaabah, and ran to the Prophet to announce
his conversion, and to make his profession of Islam. Even Ali, the
cousin, son-in-law, and first convert of Muhammad, was a poet, but it
is uncertain which of the Diwans attributed to him are genuine, and
how many of his maxims of wisdom, over a hundred in number, are his
own.
During the period under review the number of Arabic authors was
legion. Some idea of the number of writers, and of the subjects on
which they wrote, can be gathered from the Fihrist of An-Nadim, from
Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, and from Haji Khalfa's
Encyclopædia. With such a mass of information as is contained in the
above-mentioned works, it is difficult to deal in a small work. To put
them together in an intelligible form, the idea of classing the
authors, according to the subjects on which they principally wrote,
naturally presented itself. This plan, therefore, has been followed,
and a few details of the most celebrated writers will be given,
classified under the following heads:
Jurisconsults.
Imams and lawyers.
Traditionists.
Alchemists.
Astronomers.
Grammarians.
Geographers and travellers.
Historians.
Lexicographers, biographers and encyclopædists.
Writers on natural history.
Philologists.
Philosophers.
Physicians.
Poets.
Collectors and editors of poems.
Translators.
The Omaiyide Khalifs.
The Abbaside Khalifs.
The Spanish Khalifs.
During the latter part of the first century of the Hijrah (July,
622--July, 719), the first persons of note in the Muhammadan world
after Muhammad and his immediate successors were probably the seven
jurisconsults, viz., Obaid Allah, Orwa, Kasim, Said, Sulaiman, Abu
Bakr and Kharija, who all lived at Madinah about the same time; and it
was from them, according to Ibn Khallikan, that the science of law and
legal decisions spread over the world. They were designated by the
appellation of the Seven Jurisconsults, because the right of giving
decisions on points of law had passed to them from the companions of
Muhammad, and they became publicly known as Muftis. These seven alone
were acknowledged as competent to give Fatmas, or legal decisions.
They died respectively A.D. 720, 712, 719, 710, 725, 712 and 718.
The jurisconsults were followed by the doctors of theology and law,
or, as they were styled, Imams, or founders of the four orthodox
sects. Now, among the Sunni Muslims an Imam may be described as a
high-priest, or head, or chief in religious matters, whether he be the
head of all Muhammadans--as the Khalifah--or the priest of a mosque,
or the leader in the prayers of a congregation. This title, however,
is given by the Shias only to the immediate descendants of Ali, the
son-in-law of the Prophet, and they are twelve in number, Ali being
the first. The last of them, Imam Mahdi, is supposed to be concealed
(not dead), and the title which belongs to him cannot, they conceive,
be given to another.
But among the Sunnis it is a dogma that there must always be a visible
Imam or father of the Church. The title is given by them to the four
learned doctors who were the exponents of their faith, viz., Imams
Hanifa, Malik, Shafai and Hanbal. Of these, Imam Hanifa, the founder
of the first of the four chief sects of the Sunnis, died A.D. 767. He
was followed by Imam Malik, Imam Shafai, and Imam Hanbal, the founders
of the other three sects, who died A.D. 795, 820 and 855 respectively.
From these four persons are derived the various codes of Muhammadan
jurisprudence. They have always been considered as the fundamental
pillars of the orthodox law, and have been esteemed by Mussulmans as
highly as the fathers of the Church--Gregory, Augustine, Jerome and
Chrysostom--have been appreciated by Christians.
Of these four sects, the Hanbalite and Malikite may be considered as
the most rigid, the Shafaite as the most conformable to the spirit of
Islamism, and the Hanifite as the wildest and most philosophical of
them all.
In addition to the four Imams just mentioned, there was a fifth, of
the name of Abu Sulaiman Dawud az Zahari, who died A.D. 883. He was
the founder of the sect called Az-Zahariah (the External), and his
lectures were attended by four hundred Fakihs (doctors of the civil
and of the ecclesiastical law), who wore shawls thrown over their
shoulders. But his opinions do not seem to have secured many
followers, and in time both his ideas, and those of Sofyan at Thauri,
another chief of the orthodox sect, were totally abandoned.
The third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913) is noted for the six
fathers of tradition, viz., Al-Bukhari, Muslim, At Firmidi, Abu Dawud,
An-Nasai and Ibn Majah, with whom others, such as Kasim bin Asbagh,
Abu Zaid, Al-Marwazi, Abu Awana and Al-Hazini, vied in great works on
tradition, but these last-named could never acquire the authority of
the six previously mentioned, who died A.D. 870, 875, 892, 889, 916,
887 respectively.
In the beginning of Islam the great traditionists were Ayesha, the
favourite wife of the Prophet, the four rightly directed Khalifs,
viz., Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali, and some of the companions[3]
known as the Evangelists of Islam. But besides these well-qualified
persons who had lived with or near Muhammad during his lifetime, many
others who had perhaps only seen him or spoken to him claimed to be
considered as companions, who handed down traditions; and when these
were all dead they were followed by others, who, having known the
companions, were now designated as the successors of the companions.
[Footnote 3: The names of these companions, and the kings,
princes, and countries to which they were sent by Muhammad,
are given in full detail in 'The Life of our Lord Muhammad,
the Apostle of God,' the author of which was Ibn Ishak; and
it was afterwards edited by Ibn Hisham. In the same work a
list is given of the disciples sent out by Jesus.]
Under these circumstances it can easily be imagined that many of the
traditions were of doubtful authenticity. Al-Bukhari, whose collection
of traditions of the Muhammadan religion holds the first place, both
as regards authority and correctness, selected seven thousand two
hundred and seventy-five of the most authentic out of ten thousand,
all of which he regarded as being true, having rejected two hundred
thousand as false. His book is held in the highest estimation, and
considered both in spiritual and temporal matters as next in authority
to the Koran. He was born A.D. 810, and died A.D. 870.
The Shiahs do not accept the collection of traditions as made by the
Sunnis, but have a collection of their own, upon which their system of
law, both civil and religious, is founded.
During the first and second centuries of the Hijrah (A.D. 622-816), of
all the physical sciences alchemy was studied most. The greatest
scientific man of the first century was undoubtedly Khalid, a prince
of the Omaiyide dynasty, and the son of Yazid I. His zeal for
knowledge and science induced him to get Greek and Syriac works
translated by Stephanus into Arabic, especially those which treated on
chemistry, or rather alchemy. Khalid, having been once reproached for
wasting all his time in researches in the art of alchemy, replied: 'I
have occupied myself with these investigations to show my
contemporaries and brothers that I have found in them a recompense and
a reward for the Khalifate which I lost. I stand in need of no man to
recognise me at court, and I need not recognise anyone who dances
attendance at the portals of dominion either from fear, ambition, or
covetousness.' He wrote a poem on alchemy, which bears the title of
'Paradise of Wisdom,' and of him Ibn Khallikan says: 'He was the most
learned man of the tribe of Koraish in all the different branches of
knowledge. He wrote a discourse on chemistry and on medicine, in which
sciences he possessed great skill and solid information.' He died A.D.
704.
Later on Jaber bin Hayam, with his pupils, became a model for later
alchemists, and he has been called the father of Arabian chemistry. He
compiled a work of two thousand pages, in which he inserted the
problems of his master, Jaafar as Sadik, considered to be the father
of all the occult sciences in Islam. Jaber was such a prolific writer
that many of his five hundred works are said to bear his name only on
account of his celebrity, but to have been written in reality by a
variety of authors. His works on alchemy were published in Latin by
Golius, under the title of 'Lapis Philosophorum,' and an English
translation of them by Robert Russell appeared at Leyden in A.D. 1668.
Jaber died A.D. 766, and is not to be confounded with Al-Jaber
(Geber), the astronomer, who lived at Seville about A.D. 1190, and
constructed there an astronomical observatory.
Astronomy appears to have been always a favourite science with the
Arabs from the earliest times. In A.D. 772 there appeared at the court
of the Khalif Mansur (A.D. 754-775), Muhammad bin Ibrahim bin Habib al
Fezari, the astronomer, who brought with him the tables called Sind
Hind, in which the motions of the stars were calculated according to
degrees. They contained other observations on solar eclipses and the
rising of the signs of the zodiac, extracted by him from the tables
ascribed to the Indian king, Figar. The Khalif Mansur ordered this
book to be translated into Arabic to serve as a guide for Arab
astronomers. And these tables remained in use till the time of the
Khalif Mamun (A.D. 813-833), when other revised ones bearing his name
came into vogue. These, again, were abridged by Abul Ma'shar
(Albumasar, died A.D. 885-886), called the prince of Arabian
astrologers, who, however, deviated from them, and inclined towards
the system of the Persians and of Ptolemy. This second revision was
more favourably received by the Arab astronomers than the first, and
the Sind Hind was superseded by the Almagest of Ptolemy. Better
astronomical instruments also came into use, though previously the
Al-Fezari above mentioned had been the first in Islam who constructed
astrolabes of various kinds, and had written several astronomical
treatises.
Mention might be made of about forty mathematicians and astronomers
who wrote books on these subjects. The best of them, such as
Al-Farghani (Alfraganius) and others, lived at the court of Mamun, who
built an astronomical observatory in Baghdad and another near
Damascus, on Mount Kasiun. He caused also two degrees of the meridian
to be measured on the plain of Sinjar, so as to ascertain the
circumference of the earth with more precision. In A.D. 824 there were
held philosophical disputations in his presence. Al-Farghani was the
author of an introduction to astronomy, which was printed by Golius at
Amsterdam in 1669, with notes.
Between the years A.D. 877 and 929 there flourished the famous
calculator and astronomer, Muhammad bin Jaber al Battani, Latinized as
Albategnius. He was the author of the astronomical work entitled 'The
Sabæan Tables,' and adopted nearly the system and the hypothesis of
Ptolemy, but rectified them in several points, and made other
discoveries, which procured him a distinguished place among the
scholars whose labours have enriched astronomical science. Al-Battani
approached much nearer to the truth than the ancients as far as the
movements of the fixed stars are concerned. He measured the greatness
of the eccentricity of the solar orbit, and a more correct result
cannot be obtained. To the work containing all his discoveries he gave
the name of 'As-Zij-as Sabi,' which was translated into Latin under
the title 'De Scientiâ Stellarum.' The first edition of it appeared at
Nuremberg in A.D. 1537, but it is believed that the original work is
in the library of the Vatican. He was classed by Lalande among the
forty-two most celebrated astronomers of the world. He died A.D.
929-930.
Another celebrated astronomer, Ali bin Yunis, was a native of Egypt,
and appears to have lived at the court of the demented tyrant of
Egypt, Al-Hakim bramrillah, and under his patronage to have composed
the celebrated astronomical tables called, after his name, 'The
Hakimite Tables.' Ibn Khallikan states that he had seen these tables
in four volumes, and that more extensive ones had not come under his
notice. These tables were considered in Egypt to be of equal value to
those of the astronomer Yabya bin Ali Mansur, who had in A.D. 830, by
order of the Khalif Mamun, undertaken astronomical observations both
at Baghdad and Damascus. Ibn Yunis spent his life in the preparation
of astronomical tables and in casting horoscopes, for it must be
remembered that with the Muslims astronomy and astrology were
synonymous, and their most learned astronomers were also their most
skilful astrologers. His character for honesty was highly esteemed,
and he was also well versed in other sciences, and displayed an
eminent talent for poetry. He died A.D. 1009, and is not to be
confounded with his father, Ibn Yunis, the historian, who died A.D.
958.
Yet another name must be mentioned, viz., the Spanish-Arab astronomer
Ibn Abd-ar-Rahman Es-Zerkel, Europeanized as Arzachal. He first
resided at Toledo, at the court of its sovereign, Mamun, for whom he
made an astrolabe, which he called in his honour the Mamunian. He then
went to Seville, where he wrote for Motamid bin Abbad (A.D. 1069-1091)
a treatise on the use of certain instruments. During his residence at
Toledo he constructed two clepsydras, the waters of which decreased
and increased according to the waning and growing of the moon, and
these two basins were destroyed only in A.D. 1133 by Alphonse VI.,
when he took Toledo. Arzachal left a work on eclipses, and on the
revolution of years, as well as the tables of the sky, to which the
name of Toledan tables have been given. His writings, but especially
the last, which must have been consulted by the editors of the
Alphonsine tables, were never translated, and exist only in manuscript
in libraries where but few scholars can consult them. Arzachal made
many observations in connection with the sun, and was also the
inventor of the astronomical instrument called after his name,
Zerkalla. He died A.D. 1080.
Before leaving this subject it may be mentioned that Makkari, in his
great encyclopædia of Spain, enumerates fifteen astronomers of
Andalusia, all more or less known in their time. Also that
Bedei-ul-Astrolabi and Ibn Abdul-Rayman distinguished themselves as
makers of astronomical instruments, and inventors of new ones. While
Arzachal was the greatest representative of Arab astronomy in the West,
Umar Khayam, the astronomer, mathematician, freethinker, and poet, was
its greatest representative in the East, in Persia, where he died A.D.
1123.
A great deal in Arabic literature has been written about grammar, and,
until its principles were finally laid down and established, it was
always a source of continual controversy between different professors
and different schools. Abul Aswad ad-Duwali has been called the father
of Arabic grammar. It is said that the Khalif Ali laid down for him
this principle: the parts of speech are three, the noun, the verb, and
the particle, and told him to form a complete treatise upon it. This
was accordingly done; and other works on the subject were also
produced, but none of them are apparently now extant. Muhammad bin
Ishak has stated that he saw one of them, entitled 'Discourse on the
Governing and the Governed Parts of Speech;' and the author of the
'Fihrist' also alludes to this work. Abul-Aswad died at Busra in A.D.
688, aged eighty-five, but some years later his two successors in this
branch of literature (viz., Al-Khalil and Sibawaih) far surpassed him
in every way.
Al-Khalil bin Ahmad, born A.D. 718, was one of the great masters in
the science of grammar, and the discoverer of the rules of prosody,
which art owes to him its creation. He laid the foundation of the
language by his book 'Al-Ain' (so called from the letter with which it
begins), and by the aid he afforded thereby to Sibawaih, whose master
he was, in the composition of his celebrated grammatical work known by
the name of 'The Book.' In the work called 'Al-Ain,' Khalil first
arranged the stock of Arabic words, dealing with the organ of speech
and the production of sounds, and then dividing the words into
classes, the roots of which consisted of one, two, three, four, or
five letters. It is still a matter of dispute whether the book
'Al-Ain' was wholly composed by Khalil himself, or completed in course
of time by his pupils. A copy of this celebrated lexicon and work on
philology is in the Escurial Library. Khalil also wrote a treatise on
prosody, and other works on grammar, and a book on musical intonation.
He died A.D. 786, at Busra. 'Poverty,' he said, 'consists not in the
want of money, but of soul; and riches are in the mind, not in the
purse.'
Sibawaih, the pupil of Khalil, has been called the father of Arabic
lexicography, and the lawgiver of Arabic grammar. Ibn Khallikan says
that he was a learned grammarian, and surpassed in this science every
person of former and later times. As for his 'Kitab,' or 'Book,'
composed by him on that subject, it has never had its equal. The great
philologist and grammarian, Al-Jahiz, said of the book of Sibawaih,
that none like it had ever been written on grammar, and that all
writers on this subject who had succeeded him had borrowed from it.
When Al-Kisai was tutor to the prince Al-Amin, son of Harun-ar-Rashid,
Sibawaih came to Baghdad, and the two great grammarians (Sibawaih, the
chief of the school of Busra, and Al-Kisai, chief of the school of
Kufa) had a long dispute about a certain expression of Arabic speech,
and an Arab of the desert was called in to arbitrate between them. The
man first decided in favour of Sibawaih, but when the question was put
in another form, the Bedouin asserted that Kisai was right. As
Sibawaih considered that he had been unjustly treated in the matter,
he left Baghdad for good. The year of his death has been given
differently by various authors, the earliest date being A.D. 787, and
the latest A.D. 809.
The most celebrated grammarians of the third century of the Hijrah
(A.D. 816-913) were Al-Mubarrad, who died A.D. 898, and Thalab, who
died A.D. 903. They were also great antagonists to each other.
Al-Mubarrad, the author of thirty works, was the chief of the school of
Busra, and Thalab of that of Kufa, both founded during the preceding
century by Sibawaih and Kisai. Thalab was the first collector of books
in Islam, and those left by him were very valuable.
Mention must also be made of Al-Farra, the grammarian, and
distinguished by his knowledge of grammar, philology, and various
branches of literature. He died A.D. 822, at the age of sixty-three,
and preceded both Mubarrad and Thalab, the latter of whom used to say:
'Were it not for Al-Farra, pure Arabic would no longer exist; it was
he who disengaged it from the ordinary language and fixed it by
writing.' At the request of the Khalif Al-Mamun he drew up in two
years a most elaborate work, which contained the principles of
grammar, and all the pure Arabic expressions which he had heard. It
was entitled 'Al-Hudûd' (the Limits or Chapters), and directly it was
finished he commenced another in connection with the Koran, which is
spoken of as a most wonderful production. He wrote besides several
other works on grammar, and acted as tutor to the two sons of the
Khalif Mamun.
Though many other grammarians could be named, such as Al-Akhfash al
Ausat, Abu Amr as Shaibani, Abu Bakr al Anbari, etc., none can be
considered so celebrated as the persons above mentioned, who are
regarded as the founders of the principles on which Arabic grammar has
been established.
In the middle of the third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913), the
Arabs first began to distinguish themselves as travellers and
geographers. When Muslim Homeir was, in A.D. 845, ransomed from his
captivity among the Byzantines and returned to his country, he wrote a
book with the title of 'Admonitions on the Countries, Kings and
Offices of the Greeks.' Forty years afterwards Jaafar bin Ahmed al
Mervezi produced the first geographical work under the title of
'Highways and Countries,' which was followed by those of Ibn Foslan,
Ibn Khordabeh, Jeihani, Al-Istakhri, Ibn Haukul, Al-Beruni, Al-Bekri
and Idrisi. The great historian, Masudi, was also a writer of travels
and an ambassador. Ibn Foslan was sent by the Khalif Muktadir (A.D.
908-932) to the King of the Bulgarians. Abu Dolaf, who accompanied an
ambassador from China to the frontiers of that country, made, on his
return, a report which Yakut afterwards embodied in his voluminous
geographical Dictionary.
A few details will be given about the six chief geographers and
travellers of this period, viz., Ibn Khordabeh, Al-Istakhri, Ibn
Haukul, Al-Beruni, Al-Bekri and Idrisi.
As regards the first-named, it would appear that he has been the
object of considerable controversies among the Orientalists of Europe.
After employment in the post and intelligence departments in the
provinces, he subsequently came to the court of the Khalif Motamid
(A.D. 870-892), and became one of his privy councillors. He is the
author of several works on various subjects, but his 'Geography,' says
Sir H.M. Elliot, is the only work we possess of this author, and of
this there is only one copy in Europe, in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. He died about A.D. 912.
Al-Istakhri, who flourished about the year A.D. 951, obtained his name
from Istakhar (_i.e._, Persepolis), where he was born. He was a
traveller whose geographical work has been translated into German by
Mordtmann. When Istakhari was in the Indus Valley he met another
celebrated traveller, Ibn Haukul, whose book Sir William Ouseley
translated in A.D. 1800 into English, under the title of 'The Oriental
Geography of Ibn Haukul.' Haukul, who died A.D. 976, had travelled for
nearly twenty-eight years in the countries of Islam with the works of
Ibn Khordabeh and Jeihani in his hands, and his work, which bears the
generally approved title of 'Highways and Countries,' is based on the
book of Istakhri.
But the greatest geographer and naturalist of this period is Abu
Raihan Al-Beruni (born about A.D. 971), who accompanied Mahmud the
Ghaznavide on his invasions to India. He was to Mahmud of Ghazni what
Aristotle was to Alexander, with the difference, however, that he
actually accompanied the conqueror on his Indian campaigns. He
travelled into different countries and to and from India for the space
of forty years, and during that time was much occupied with astronomy
and astronomical observations, as well as geography. His works are
said to have exceeded a camel-load, but the most valuable of all of
them is his description of India. It gives an account of the religion
of India, its philosophy, literature, geography, chronology,
astronomy, customs, law and astrology about a.d. 1030, and has been
edited by Edward Sachau, Professor in the Royal University of Berlin.
An English edition, containing a preface, the translation of the
Arabic text, notes and indices, has also been published. Al-Beruni
died at Ghurna A.D. 1038. He used to correspond with Avicenna, who was
his contemporary, and who gives in his works the answers to the
questions addressed to him by this famous geographer, astronomer,
geometrician, historian, scholar, and logician.
Some years later Abu O'beid Abd-Allah Al-Bekri distinguished himself
as one of the greatest geographers, with whose labours Quatremere and
Dozy and Gayangos have made us better acquainted. He was, by birth,
from Andalusia, whence also many others travelled to the East, either
for instruction or for trade or as pilgrims, and of whom about a
couple of dozen are mentioned by Makkari. Some of these gave
descriptions and topographies, to which class of literature also the
poetical laudations of celebrated towns belong. Not only Baghdad,
Damascus, Cairo, Fez, Morocco and Khairwan were praised or satirized,
but also Cordova, Seville, Granada, Malaga, Toledo, Valencia and Zohra
were described in Arabic poems. Al-Bekri died in A.D. 1094-1095, and
was followed by Idrisi, the author of a work on Arabian geography of
some celebrity, and which has been translated into Latin. He died A.D.
1164.
Of historians in Arab literature there are many, but only the most
celebrated will be noted. Muhammad bin Ishak, who died about A.D. 767,
produced the best and most trustworthy biography of the prophet
Muhammad. His work was published under the patronage of the Abbaside
princes, and was, in fact, composed for the Khalif Al-Mansur (A.D.
754-775). It was used as the chief source of information by Ibn
Hisham, the next historian of note, in his life of the Prophet, which
work has been edited by Dr. Wustenfeld, and translated into German by
Dr. Weil, and into English by Mr. E. Rehatsek, whose manuscript,
however, has not yet been printed. Ibn Hisham, who died in A.D. 828,
was the father of Arabic genealogy, and Abu-el-Siyadi, who died in
A.D. 857, is next to him.
But the real father of Arabian history was Al-Wackidi, a good and
trustworthy historian, thirty-two of whose works are known, all
relating to the conquests of the Arabs, and other such subjects. He
died A.D. 822. With him generally has been associated his secretary,
Muhammad bin Saad, a man of unimpeachable integrity, and of the
highest talents, merit, and eminence. He has left us some most
interesting works, full of valuable information relating to those
times. He died at Baghdad A.D. 844.
Al-Madaini, who died A.D. 839, was the author of two hundred and fifty
historical works, of which, however, nothing has yet been discovered,
except their titles as given in the 'Fihrist.'
Passing over many other historians, two more only will be mentioned,
viz., Abu Jafir at-Tabari and Al-Masúdi.
Tabari (whose annals are now being edited by a company of European
Orientalists) was born A.D. 838, at Amol, in the province of
Tabaristan. He travelled a great deal, and composed many works on
history, poetry, grammar and lexicography. His work on jurisprudence
extends to several volumes, and his historical works stamp him as one
of the most reliable of Arab historians, while his numerous other
works also bear witness to the variety and accuracy of his
acquirements. He died at Baghdad A.D. 923, and has been called by
Gibbon the Livy of the Arabians.
Al-Masúdi, a contemporary of the great historian Tabari, died
thirty-four years after him, in A.D. 957. His great work, 'Meadows of
Gold and Mines of Gems,' with the Arabic text above and a French
translation below, has been published in nine volumes (1861-1877) by
Barbier de Meynard, in connection with Pavet de Courteille, at the
expense of the French Government. Dr. A. Sprenger (who translated one
volume of the work into English for the Oriental Translation Fund,
London, 1841) calls the author of it the Herodotus of Arabian history,
because he had, like his Greek prototype, undertaken extensive
travels, and had like him made the description of countries and
nations his chief occupation. The titles of ten of his works are known
to us, but the principal one is that named above, in the composition
of which he used eighty-five historical, geographical, and
philological works, as he himself informs us in the first chapter of
his history. The work itself contains one hundred and thirty-two
chapters.
Ibn al Athir al Jazari, born A.D. 1160 and died A.D. 1233, was also an
historian of note, and a personal friend of Ibn Khallikan, who writes
of him as follows: 'His knowledge of the Traditions, and his
acquaintance with that science in its various branches, placed him in
the first rank; and his learning as an historian of the ancients and
moderns was not less extensive; he was perfectly familiar with the
genealogy of the Arabs, their adventures, combats and history; whilst
his great work, "The Kâmil or Complete," embracing the history of the
world from the earliest period to the year 628 of the Hijrah (A.D.
1230-1231), merits its reputation as one of the best productions of
the kind.' Another of Ibn Al Athir's works is the history of the most
eminent among the companions of Muhammad, in the shape of a
biographical dictionary.
As the development of Arab letters proceeded, in the course of time
various authors began to tabulate the different branches of knowledge
and science, and these, with the biographies of many of the writers,
and the lists of their works, formed a distinct branch in the
literature of that day.
The most noteworthy of them all was Abul Faraj Muhammad bin Ishak, who
is generally known by the name of Ibn Ali Yakub al Warrak the copyist,
surnamed An-Nadim al Baghdadi, the social companion from Baghdad, and
the author of the 'Fihrist.' It may be truly said that this writer,
along with Ibn Khallikan, laid the foundations of the records of the
edifice of encyclopædical and biographical works, which was afterwards
completed by Haji Khalfa and Abul Khair. Without the work of Ibn
Khallikan it would be as impossible to give a history of Arab
scholars, as without the work of An-Nadim to give an account of Arab
literature.
The 'Kitab al-Fihrist' was written by An-Nadim in A.D. 987, and is
divided into ten sections, dealing with every branch of letters and
learning. It gives the names of many authors and their works long
since extant, and shows the enormous amount of writings produced by
the Arabs during the periods under review, up to A.D. 987, the date of
the author's work. A short account of this ancient and curious book
has been given in the _Journal Asiatique_ for December, 1839, and
from the work itself Von Hammer Purgstall has been able to gather that
the 'Thousand and One Nights' ('Arabian Nights') had a Persian origin.
In the eighth section of the 'Fihrist' the author says that the first
who composed tales and apologues were the kings of the early Persian
dynasties, and that these tales were augmented and amplified by the
Sasanians (A.D. 228-641). The Arabs then translated them into their
own language, and composed other stories like them.
Ibn Khallikan, the most worthy of biographers, must also be mentioned
here, though he died in A.D. 1282, twenty-four years after the fall of
Baghdad, having been born in A.D. 1211. This very eminent scholar and
follower of Shafa'i doctrines, was born at Arbela, but resided at
Damascus, where he had filled the place of Chief Kadi till the year
A.D. 1281, when he was dismissed, and from that time to the day of his
death he never went out of doors. He was a man with the greatest
reputation for learning, versed in various sciences, and highly
accomplished. He was a scholar, a poet, a compiler, a biographer and
an historian. By his talents and writings he merited the honourable
title of the most learned man and the ablest historian. His celebrated
biographical work, called the 'Wafiat-ul-Aiyan,' or Deaths of Eminent
Men, is the acme of perfection. This work was translated from the
Arabic by Baron MacGuckin de Slane, a member of the council of the
Asiatic Society of Paris, and printed by the Oriental Translation Fund
of Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1842, 1843, 1868 and 1871. For
all those who wish to gain a knowledge of the legal literature of the
Muhammadans it is a most valuable work, as the Baron has added to the
text numerous learned notes, replete with curious and interesting
information relating to the Muhammadan law and lawyers. Ibn Khallikan
died, aged seventy-three lunar years, in the Najibia College at
Damascus, and was buried in the cemetery of As-Salihiya, a well-known
village situated on the declivity of Mount Kasiun, a short distance to
the north of Damascus, and from which a splendid view of the town and
its surrounding gardens is obtained. When lately there I made
inquiries about the tomb of this great Arab _littérateur_, but
without success. His tomb has quite disappeared, and his name seemed
to be forgotten; but his work still lives, an everlasting monument of
his industry and his intelligence.
It will be remembered that the early Arab poets described men, women,
animals, and their surroundings in their effusive Kasidas before
prose-writing was established. Later on grammarians and philologists
began to write books on the different objects of nature and on the
physiology of man; also treatises on the horse, the camel, bees,
mountains, seas, rivers, and all natural phenomena. There were thus
laid down, though not a scientific, at least a philological basis, for
the future development of the natural sciences and geography. Such
monographs were only in later times collected in encyclopaedic works,
in which they were inserted in such a manner as to constitute various
chapters only, and no longer separate treatises.
Khalef-al-Ahmer (whom Suyuti declared to be a great forger, because he
pretended that some poems written by himself had been composed by
ancient Arab poets) wrote the first book on Arab mountains, and about
the poems recited concerning them. Ahmed bin-ud Dinveri wrote, in
addition to several grammatical and mathematical works, a book on
plants, and after him the grammarian Al-Jahiz wrote the first treatise
on animals, but more from a philological point of view than from that
of natural history. He wrote, moreover, on theology, geography,
natural history, and philology; but his most celebrated work is his
'Book of Animals,' in which he displayed all his knowledge of the
Arabic tongue. He was frightfully ugly, and obtained the surname of
Jahiz on account of his protuberant eyes. He himself informs us that
the Khalif Mutwakkil intended to appoint him as tutor to his sons, but
was deterred by his ugliness, and dismissed him with a present of ten
thousand dirhems. Al-Jahiz died A.D. 869, over ninety years of age.
Philology is a term now generally used as applicable to that science
which embraces human language in its widest extent, and may be shortly
called 'the science of language.' But in earlier times philology
included, with few exceptions, everything that could be learned--many
and various subjects, without particular reference to the meaning now
generally adopted concerning it.
There will be found among the Arab authors of this period many
philologists who also wrote upon other matters, but have been recorded
here as having particularly excelled in this particular branch of
learning.
Al Kasim bin Ma'an was the first who wrote on the rarities of the
language and on the peculiarities of authors, and, according to the
'Fihrist,' he surpassed all his contemporaries by the variety of his
information. Tradition and traditionists, poetry and poets, history
and historians, scholastic theology and theologians, genealogy and
genealogists, were the subjects on which he displayed the extent of
his acquirements. He died A.D. 791.
Abu Ali Muhammad bin-al Mustanir bin Ahmad, generally known by the
name of Kutrub, was also a grammarian and philologist, and wrote books
and treatises on these subjects, as also on natural history. He died
A.D. 821.
Philology and Arabic poetry were the special objects of the studies of
Abu Amr Ishak bin Mirar as Shaibani, and in these two branches of
knowledge his authority is of the highest order. He composed a number
of works and treatises, and wrote with his own hand upwards of eighty
volumes. He died A.D. 825.
But the two earliest, and perhaps the two most celebrated,
philologists were Al-Asmai and Abu Obaida, who outshone their
successors for all time to come, and were distinguished--the former by
his wit, and the latter by his scholarship.
Abu Said Abd-al Malik bin Kuraib al-Asmai was born A.D. 739 or 740,
and died A.D. 831. He was a complete master of the Arabic language, an
able grammarian, and the most eminent of all those who transmitted
orally historical narrations, anecdotes, stories, and rare expressions
of the language. When the poet Abu Nuwas was informed that Asmai and
Abu Obaida had been introduced at Harun's court, he said that the
latter would narrate ancient and modern history, but that the former
would charm with his melodies. Ibn Shabba was informed by Asmai
himself 'that he knew by heart sixteen thousand pieces of verse
composed in the measure called Rajaz, or free metre,' and Ishak al
Mausili asserted 'that he never heard al-Asmai profess to know a
branch of science without discovering that none knew it better than
he.' No one ever explained better than Al-Asmai the idioms of the
desert Arabs. Most of his works, which amount to thirty-six, treat of
the language and its grammar; but he also wrote a book on the horse
and different treatises on various other animals, such as the camel,
the sheep, wild beasts, etc., and their physiology.
Al-Asmai's contemporary, Abu Obaida, was an able grammarian and an
accomplished scholar. He was born A.D. 728, and died at Busra A.D.
824, leaving nearly two hundred treatises, of which the names of many
have been given by Ibn Khallikan, and most of them are of a purely
philological character. There are many anecdotes about him, and many
sayings of clever men regarding him. Abu Nuwas took lessons from Abu
Obaida, praised him highly, and decried Al-Asmai, whom he detested.
When asked what he thought of Al-Asmai, he replied, 'A nightingale in
a cage,' meaning probably that a nightingale in a cage is pleasing to
hear, but there is nothing else good about it. Abu Obaida he described
as 'a bundle of science packed up in a skin.'
Abu Zaid al-Ansari was a philologist and grammarian, and a
contemporary of the two persons just described. He held the first rank
among the literary men of that time, and devoted his attention
principally to the study of the philology of the Arabic language, its
singular terms and rare expressions. Of him Al-Mubarrad said: 'Abu
Zaid was an abler grammarian than Al-Asmai and Abu Obaida, but these
two came next to him, and were near to each other. Abu Obaida was the
most accomplished scholar of the day.' Abu Zaid composed a number of
useful philological works, and titles of thirty-one of them are given
in the 'Fihrist.' He died A.D. 830, over ninety years of age.
Abu Othman Bakr bin Muhammad bin Habib al-Mayini, briefly called Abu
Othman, was celebrated as a philologer and grammarian, as also for his
knowledge in general literature. He learned philology from Abu Zaid,
Abu Obaida, Al-Asmai, and others, and had for pupil Al-Mubarrad, who
learned much from his master, and handed down many pieces of
traditional literature obtained from him. Abu Othman, once being asked
his opinion about various men of science, curtly summarized them as
follows: 'The Koran-readers are deceitful administrators, the
traditionists are satisfied with superfluities, poets are too
superficial, grammarians much too heavy, narrators deal only in neat
expressions, and the only real science is jurisprudence,' He died A.D.
863.
Abul Aina was a philologist, but also a great joker, anecdote-teller,
and poet. His memory was equal to his eloquence, and, being
quick-witted, he was never in want of a repartee when the occasion
required it; indeed, he ranked among the most brilliant wits of the
age. To a vizier, who said that everything current about the liberality
of the Barmekides was only so much exaggeration and invention of
leaf-scribblers, he replied: 'Of you, O vizier, the leaf-scribblers
will certainly report nothing and invent nothing.' There are many other
anecdotes and stories told about him. Being asked how long he would
continue to praise some and satirize others, he replied: 'As long as
the virtuous do good and the wicked do evil, but God forbid that I
should be as the scorpion which stingeth equally the prophet and the
infidel.' He had a most wonderful memory, which he applied, however,
not to the preservation of interpretations and their vouchers, but to
that of anecdotes, drolleries, and witty sayings, wherefore his name
has been perpetuated as that of a joker. He died A.D. 896.
Mention must also be made of Abdullah bin Muslim bin Kutaiba, who was
a philologist and grammarian of eminent talent, and noted for the
correctness of his information. He was the author of many works, such
as 'The Book of Facts,' 'The Writer's Guide,' 'Notices on the Poets,'
and 'A Treatise on Horses,' and others, all of which were more or less
celebrated in their time. He was born A.D. 828, and died, some say, in
A.D. 884, others in A.D. 908.
Ibn Duraid, whose many other names are given by Ibn Khallikan, is
described by that author as 'the most accomplished scholar, the ablest
philologer, and the first poet of the age.' Masudi and other men of
learning also speak of him in the highest terms. He composed several
works on natural history, and produced also a complete Dictionary of
this kind, after the model of the books 'Al-A'in' and 'Al-Jim,' the
two letters of the alphabet with which Khalil, the grammarian, and Abu
Amr as Shaibani respectively began their works. Ibn Duraid died at
Baghdad A.D. 933. The celebrated Motazelite divine Abu Haslim Abd-as
Salam Al-Jubbai died the same day, and this caused the people to say
that 'To-day philology and dogmatic theology have ceased to exist.'
In the East, by philosophy not only logic and metaphysics are meant,
but also all ethical, political, mathematical, and medical sciences.
Indeed, it may be said that nearly all learned men were in those days
called philosophers, a term which included mathematicians,
astronomers, physicians, encyclopædists and others.
From the mass of Arab authors all laying claim to the title of
philosopher, it is perhaps an invidious task to select a few only, and
even those selected by one person might be rejected by another. But
public opinion will probably agree in naming three persons as having
claim to the highest rank in Arab learning. They are Al-Kindi,
Al-Farabi, and Ali-ibn Sina, commonly called Avicenna. Ali-bin Ridhwan,
Al-Ghazali, Ibn Bajah (Avempace), and Ibn Rashid (Averroes) have also
their claims to be considered, while Thalab bin Korra, Kosta bin Luka,
Al-Tavhidi, and Al-Majridi were also all eminent men. A few details
will be given about the first seven of the names just mentioned.
Yakub-bin Ishak Al-Kindi, the philosopher of the Arabs, known in
Europe by the corrupted name of Alchendius, possessed an encyclopædic
mind, and being himself a living encyclopædia, he composed one of all
the sciences. He divided philosophy into three branches, the
mathematical, the physical, and the ethical. He declared the nullity
of alchemy, which Ibn Sina had again brought to honourable notice,
till the physician Abdul Latif declaimed against it. But Al-Kindi was
not sufficiently advanced to write against astrology, which is still
in full force all over the East even in our own times. Only one of his
works has as yet been published in Europe, and that treats on the
composition of medicines, though we possess the titles of not less
than two hundred and thirty-four works composed by him on a variety of
subjects. He died A.D. 861.
Abu Nasr Al-Farabi (Alfarabius), called by the Arabs a second
Aristotle, is generally considered to be the second Arab philosopher;
Avicenna, who always quotes him in his works, the third; the first
place being assigned to Al-Kindi. Al-Farabi studied Arabic (he was a
Turk by birth) and philosophy in Baghdad, where he attended the
lectures of Abu Bishr Matta bin Yunus, who possessed, and also
imparted to his pupils, the gift of expressing the deepest meanings in
the easiest words. From Baghdad he went to Harran, where Yuhanna bin
Khailan, the Christian philosopher, was teaching logic, and after his
return he made all the works of Aristotle his special study. It is
related that the following note was found inscribed in Al-Farabi's
handwriting on a copy of Aristotle's treatise on the soul: 'I have
read over this book two hundred times.' He also said that he had read
over Aristotle's 'Physics' forty times, and felt that he ought to read
it over again. Abul Kasim Said, of Cordova, says in his 'Classes of
Philosophers' that 'Al-Farabi led all the professors of Islam to the
right understanding of logic by unveiling and explaining its secrets,
as well as by considering all those points which Al-Kindi had
neglected, and by teaching the application of analogy to all occurring
cases.' In his enumeration and limitation of the sciences, Al-Farabi
embraced the whole system of knowledge as it then existed. He went to
Egypt, and afterwards to Damascus, where he died in A.D. 950. During
his residence at Damascus he was mostly to be found near the borders
of some rivulet, or in a shady garden; there he composed his works and
received the visits of his pupils. He was extremely abstemious, and
entirely indifferent to wealth and poverty. The list of his works on
philosophical and scientific subjects amount to sixty-one. Mr. Munk's
'Mélanges de Philosophie Juive et Arabe' (Paris, 1859) contains good
articles on Al-Farabi and Al-Kindi.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was a great philosopher and physician. At the age
of ten years he had completed the study of the Koran in Bukhara, where
afterwards a certain Natili became his tutor, with whom he first
studied the 'Eisagoge' of Porphyry, and afterwards Euclid, and lastly
the 'Almagest' of Ptolemy. Natili then departed, and an ardent desire
to study medicine having taken possession of Ibn Sina, he commenced to
read medical books, which not being so difficult to understand as
mathematics and metaphysics, he made such rapid progress in them that
he soon became an excellent physician, and cured his patients by
treating them with well-approved remedies. He began also to study
jurisprudence before he was thirteen. At the age of eighteen he
entered the service of a prince of the Beni Saman dynasty, Nuh bin
Mansur, at Bukhara, a paralytic, who entertained many physicians at
his court, and Ibn Sina joined their number. There he composed his
'Collection,' in which he treated of all the sciences except
mathematics, and there also he wrote his book of 'The Acquirer and the
Acquired.' He then left Bukhara, and lived in various towns of
Khurasan, but never went further west, spending his whole life in the
countries beyond the Oxus, in Khwarizm and in Persia, although he
wrote in Arabic. It would be superfluous to follow all his changes of
fortune, but it may be mentioned that when he was the first physician
and vizier of Mezd-ud-daulah, a sultan of the Bowide dynasty, he was
twice deposed and put in irons. He also appears to have acted
treacherously towards Ala-ud-daulah, a prince of Ispahan, who was his
benefactor. He was four years in prison, but at last succeeded in
deceiving his guardians, and escaped. His dangerous travels, and the
depression of mind inseparable from reverses of fortune, however,
never interrupted his scientific pursuits. His taste for study and his
activity were such that, as he himself informs us, not a single day
passed in which he had not written fifty leaflets. The list of
manuscripts left by him, and scattered in various libraries of Europe,
is considerable, and though many of his works have been lost, some are
still in existence. The fatigues of his long journeys, and the
excesses of all kinds in which he indulged, abridged the life of this
celebrated scholar, who died in A.D. 1037, at the age of fifty-six, at
Hamadan, where the following epitaph adorns his tomb: 'The great
philosopher, the great physician, Ibn Sina, is dead. His books on
philosophy have not taught him the art of living well, nor his books
on medicine the art of living long.'
A brief notice must be given of the celebrated physician and
philosopher, Ali bin Ridhwan, who died A.D. 1067. He was such a
prodigy of precocious learning that he began to lecture on medicine
and philosophy at Cairo from his fourteenth year. He afterwards also
taught astronomy. At the age of thirty-two he had attained a great
reputation as a physician, and was a rich man at sixty. He left more
than one hundred books which he had composed, and he himself says: 'I
made abridgments of the chief philosophical works of the ancients, and
left in this manner five books on philology; ten on law; the medical
works of Hippocrates and Galen; the book of plants of Dioskorides; the
books of Rufus, Paulus, Hawi, and Razi; four books on agriculture and
drugs; four books for instruction in the 'Almagest' of Ptolemy, and an
introduction to the study of it, and to the square of Ptolemy; as also
to the works of Plato, Alexander, Themistios, and Al-Farabi. I
purchased all these books, no matter what they cost, and preserved
them in chests, although it would have been more profitable to have
sold them again rather than have kept them.' Ibn Batlan, a clever
physician, was a contemporary of Ibn Ridhwan, and travelled from
Baghdad to Egypt only for the purpose of making his acquaintance, but
the result does not appear to have been satisfactory to either party.
He died A.D. 1063, leaving a number of works on medical and other
subjects.
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali was born A.D. 1058. He was considered chiefly as
a lawyer and a mystic, but here he will be noticed chiefly as a
philosopher and the author of 'The Ruin of Philosophers,' noticed at
length by Haji Khalfa in his 'Encyclopædical Dictionary,' under No.
3764. But Ghazali's most celebrated work is 'The Resuscitation of
Religious Sciences,' which is so permeated by the genius of Islam
that, according to the general opinion of scholars, the Muhammadan
religion, if it were to perish, might again be restored from this work
alone. Orthodox fanatics, nevertheless, attacked his works as being
schismatic, and they were even burnt in the Mugrib. He was born at Tus
(the modern Mashad), in Khurasan, and passed his life partly there,
also at Naisapur, Baghdad, Damascus, Egypt, and finally returned to
Tus, where he died A.D. 1111. His works are very numerous, and all of
them are instructive.