philosoper and a poet of considerable celebrity, and a native of
Saragossa, in Spain. He was attacked by some people for his religious
opinions, and represented as an infidel and an atheist, professing the
doctrines held by the ancient sages and philosophers. Ibn Khallikan
defends Ibn Bajah, and says that these statements were much
exaggerated, but adds: 'God, however, knows best what his principles
were,' Abul Hassan Ali al-Imam, of Granada, was of opinion that Ibn
Bajah was the greatest Arab philosopher after Al-Farabi, and places
him higher than Ibn Sina and Al-Ghazali. He left numerous logical,
grammatical and political works, and died at Fez in A.D. 1138.
Averroes, whose full and correct name is Abul Walid Muhammad bin
Rashid, was a celebrated Arab scholar, born at Cordova A.D. 1126, and
the author of many writings. He taught in his native town philosophy
and medicine, two sciences which appeared for a long time to be
inseparable, and the vulgar considered those professing them to be of
almost supernatural attainments. The period of Averroes is that of the
decadence of Arab dominion in Spain, a period when this great nation
also lost the taste for sciences which it had brought to Europe.
Considering the prodigious number of works composed by Averroes, who
filled at the same time the offices of Imam and Kadi, his entire life
must have been one of labour and meditation. He is the author of an
Arabic version of Aristotle, but it is not the first which existed in
that language, as some of his biographers assert, because this work
had been produced already at Baghdad during the brilliant Khalifate of
Mamun. There are various manuscripts of Averroes extant treating on
physics, pure mathematics, astronomy and astrology, from which it
would appear that, in spite of their encyclopædic attainments, the
celebrated men of these times still believed in some popular errors.
Science was at that time surrounded by a kind of superstitious halo of
respect, to which Averroes, like so many others, is indebted for a
good part of his renown. He died A.D. 1198, in the city of Morocco;
his corpse was transferred to Cordova and there interred.
Medical science had already, under the second Khalif of the house of
Abbas (A.D. 754-775), enjoyed the highest honours, which it ever
afterwards retained. Great physicians were brought from the Persian
hospital of Jondshapur, and between the years A.D. 750 and 850 the
number of physicians was considerable, but only the most celebrated
will be noticed.
Georgios (Jorjis) bin Bakhtyeshun, of Jondshapur, lived at the
commencement of the Abbaside dynasty, and was the author of the book
of Pandects. When Al-Mansur was building the city of Baghdad he
suffered from pains in his stomach and from impotency, and Georgios,
the director of the medical college at Jondshapur, was recommended to
him as the most skilled physician of the time. Accordingly, the Khalif
directed Georgios and two of his pupils, Ibrahim and Serjis, to come
to Baghdad, appointing Gabriel (Jebrayl), the son of Georgios, as
director of the hospital in the place of his father. Georgios cured
Al-Mansur, and received from him three thousand ducats for his reward,
along with a beautiful slave girl; the latter was, however, returned
to the Khalif with thanks, and the remark that, 'being a Christian, he
could not keep more than one wife.' From that moment the physician
attained free access to the harem, and enjoyed high favour with the
Khalif, who greatly pressed him in A.D. 770 to make a profession of
Islam; but this he refused to do, and died shortly afterwards, in A.D.
771. Before his death Georgios asked to be allowed to return to
Jondshapur, to be buried there with his ancestors. Al-Mansur said,
'Fear God, and I guarantee you paradise.' Georgios replied, 'I am
satisfied to be with my ancestors, be it in paradise or be it in
hell.' The Khalif laughed, allowed him to return home, and presented
him with ten thousand pieces of gold for his travelling, expenses.
Gabriel (Jebrayl), the son of the above-named Georgios (Jorjis), was
also a celebrated physician. He enjoyed great favour with
Harun-ar-Rashid, who used to declare that he would not refuse him
anything. When, however, this Khalif fell ill at Tus, and asked Gabriel
for his opinion, the latter replied that if Harun had followed his
advice to be moderate in sexual pleasure, he would not have been
attacked by the disease. For this reply he was thrown into prison, and
his life was saved only by the chamberlain Rabi'i, who was very fond of
him. Amin, the son and successor of Rashid, followed the advice of
Gabriel more than his father did, and would not eat or drink anything
without his doctor's sanction. In A.D. 817 Gabriel cured Sehl bin
Hasan, who recommended him to Mamun; but Michael, the son-in-law of
Gabriel, was his body physician. In A.D. 825 Mamun fell sick, and, as
all the medicines of Michael were of no use, Isa, the brother of Mamun,
advised him to get himself treated by Gabriel, who had known him from
boyhood; but Abu Ishak, the other brother of Mamun, called in Yahya
bin Maseweih, and when he could do nothing, then Mamun sent for
Gabriel, who restored him to health in three days, and was handsomely
rewarded in consequence. When Mamun marched, in A.D. 828, against the
Byzantines, Gabriel fell sick and died, whereon the Khalif took
Gabriel's son with him on the campaign, he being also an intelligent
and skilled physician.
The works of Gabriel are:
(1) A treatise on food and drink, dedicated to Mamun.
(2) An introduction to logic.
(3) Extracts from medical Pandects.
(4) A book on fumigatories.
Isa bin Musa, who flourished about A.D. 833, was also one of the most
distinguished physicians of the period. He left the following works:
(1) Book on the forces of alimentary substances.
(2) A treatise for a person who has no access
to a physician.
(3) Questions concerning derivations and races.
(4) Book of dreams, indicating why medicines
should not be given to pregnant women.
(5) Book of the remedies mentioned by Hippocrates
in his treatise on bleeding and cupping.
(6) Dissertation on the use of baths.
Without giving any details about Maseweih, Yahya bin Maseweih, Honein
bin Ishak, and Kosta bin Luka, all of whom were distinguished for
medical knowledge, some fuller mention must be made of Abu Bakr
Ar-Razi (Rhases), who has been described as 'the ablest physician of
that age and the most distinguished; a perfect master of the art of
medicine, skilled in its practice, and thoroughly grounded in its
principles and rules.' He composed a number of useful works on
medicine, and some of his sayings have been handed down to us, and are
still worthy of record, such as:
(1) When you can cure by a regimen, avoid
having recourse to medicine.
(2) When you can effect a cure with a simple
medicine, avoid employing a compound one.
(3) With a learned physician and an obedient
patient sickness soon disappears.
(4) Treat an incipient malady with remedies
which will not prostrate the strength.
Till the end of his life he continued at the head of his profession,
finally lost his sight, and died in A.D. 923. A new and much improved
edition of Razi's 'Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles' was
published in London in A.D. 1848 by Dr. Greenhill, and an article on
him will also be found in Wüstenfeld's 'History of the Arabian
Physicians.'
Poetry flourished to a very great extent during the reigns of the
early Abbaside Khalifs, and, as all Arab _littérateurs_ were more or
less poets and writers of verses, it is somewhat difficult to select
the most celebrated.
The first collection of Arabic poems was compiled by Al-Mofadhdhal in
the work called after him--'Mofadhdhaliat.' He was followed by Abu Amr
as Shaibani, by Abu Zaid bin A'us, Ibn-as Sikkit, Muhammad bin Habib,
Abu Hatim es Sejastani, and Abu Othman al Mazini. Abu Tammam and
Al-Bohtori, the collectors of the two Hamasas, are considered to be the
two greatest poets of the third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913).
And it may here be observed that in the great bibliographical
dictionary of Haji Khalfa, who enumerates seven Hamasas, the names of
Ibn-ul Marzaban and of Ibn Demash, each of whom composed one, are not
mentioned.
Zukkari made himself a reputation by editing several of the
Mua'llakat, as also the poems of the great pre-Islamite bards,
Al-Aasha and Al-Kama, whilst Abu Bakr as Sauli likewise acquired great
merit by publishing ten of the master-works of Arabic poetry.
From the many poets of this period some of the most celebrated have
been selected--viz., Farazdak, Jarir, Al-Akhtal, Abul-Atahya, Bashshar
bin Burd, Abu Nuwas, Abu Tammam, Al-Otbi, Al-Bohtori, Al-Mutanabbi,
and An-Nami, and a few biographical details about them will be given,
as also some remarks about Al-Mofadhdhal, the first collector and
compiler of Arab poetry, and of Abul Faraj-Al-Ispahani, the collector
of the great anthology called 'Kitab-ul-Aghani,' or the Book of Songs.
Jarir and Al-Farazdak were two very celebrated poets, who lived at the
same time and died in the same year, A.D. 728-729. Ibn Khallikan has
given their lives at considerable length, and says that 'Jarir was in
the habit of making satires on Al-Farazdak, who retorted in the same
manner, and they composed parodies on each other's poems.' Jarir
always used to say that the same demon inspired them both, and
consequently each knew what the other would say. On all occasions they
seem to have been excessively rude in verse to each other, and did not
at all mind about having recourse to actual insult. The lives of
Al-Akhtal, Al-Farazdak, and Jarir, translated from the 'Kitab-ul-Aghani'
and other sources, have been given by Mr. Caussin de Perceval in the
_Journal Asiatique_ for the year 1834. Prom this it would appear that
the verses of these three poets were much discussed during their
lifetime, and often compared with the productions of the other poets
who followed them. Some writers are in favour of one and some of the
other, but the general opinion of them is that their effusions
resembled the Arab poetry written before the period of Muhammad much
more than any poetry that was written during the reign of the
Abbasides. Al-Akhtal belonged to a Christian tribe of Arabs, and was
much patronized by the Omaiyide Khalif Abdul Malik (A.D. 684-705), in
whose glory and honour he composed many verses, and, indeed, such good
ones, that Harun-ar-Rashid used to say no poet had ever said so much
in praise of the Abbasides as he (Akhtal) had written in praise of the
Omaiyides. He died at an advanced age some years before Jarir and
Farazdak, who were much younger men, but the exact year of his death
does not appear to have been recorded.
The blind Bashshar bin Burd and Abul-Atahya were two of the principal
poets who flourished in the first ages of Islamism, and ranked in the
highest class among the versifiers of that period. The former was put
to death, or rather beaten, by the orders of the Khalif Al-Mahdi, for
certain satirical verses which the poet is said to have written, and
from the effects of these strokes of a whip he died in A.D. 783.
Abul-Atahya wrote many verses on ascetic subjects, and all his amatory
pieces were composed in honour and praise of Otba, a female slave
belonging to the Khalif Al-Mahdi, and to whom he appears to have been
devotedly attached. He was born A.D. 747, and died A.D. 826.
Abu Nuwas was a poet of great celebrity. His father, Hani, was a
soldier in the army of Marwan II., the last Omaiyide Khalif, and the
poet was born in A.D. 762, some say in Damascus, others at Busra, and
others at Al-Ahwaz. His mother apprenticed him to a grocer, and the
boy became acquainted with the poet Abu Osâma, who discovered his
talent, and induced him to accompany him to Baghdad. There Abu Nuwas
afterwards became celebrated as one of the chief bards at the court of
the Khalif, and his most famous Kasida is that which he composed in
praise of Amin, the son of Harun-ar-Rashid. According to the critics
of his time, he was the greatest poet in Islam, as Amriolkais had been
before that period. When Merzeban was asked which he considered the
greater poet, Abu Nuwas or Rakashi, he replied, 'A curse of Abu Nuwas
in hell contains more poetry than a laudation of Rakâshi's in
paradise.' He was a favourite of Amin, whom his brother Mamun
reproached for associating with him, because Abu Nuwas enjoyed the
reputation of being the greatest libertine of all the poets.
Sulaiman, the son of Al-Mansur, complained to the Khalif Amin that Abu
Nuwas had insulted him with lampoons, and desired him to be punished
with death; but Amin replied: 'Dear uncle, how can I order a man to be
killed who has praised me in such beautiful verses?' and thereupon
recited them.
Mamun, the son of Harun, states that he asked the great critic Yakut
bin Sikkit to what poet he gave the preference. He replied: 'Among the
pre-Islamite ones to Amriolkais and Al-Aasha, among the older Muslim
poets to Jarir and Farazdak, and among the more recent to Abu Nuwas.'
Otbi, having been asked who was the greatest poet, replied; 'According
to the opinion of the people, Amriolkais, but according to mine, Abu
Nuwas.'
Al-Khasib, the chief of the revenue office in Egypt, once asked Abu
Nuwas from what family he came. 'My talents,' replied he, 'stand me
instead of noble birth,' and no further questions were asked him. He
was a freethinker, who joked about the precepts of Islam. Once a Sunni
and a Rafidhi desired him to be the umpire in their quarrel, as to who
occupied the most exalted position after the Prophet. He said: 'A
certain Yazid,' and on their asking who this Yazid might be, he
replied: 'An excellent fellow, who presents me with a thousand dirhems
every year.' He used to say that the wine of this world is better than
that of the next; and, being asked for the reason, replied: 'This is a
sample of the wine of paradise, and for a sample the best is always
taken.'
Ismail bin Nubakht said: 'I never saw a man of more extensive learning
than Abu Nuwas, nor one who, with a memory so richly furnished,
possessed so few books. After his decease we searched his house, and
could only find one book-cover containing a quire of paper, in which
was a collection of rare expressions and grammatical observations.'
He died on the same day as the mystic Al-Kerkhi, whose corpse was
accompanied to the grave by more than three hundred persons, but that
of Abu Nuwas by not one. When, however, one of the three hundred
exclaimed: 'Was not Abu Nuwas a Muslim? And why do none of the Muslims
recite the funeral prayer over his body? all the three hundred who had
assisted at the interment of Kerkhi recited the prayer also over the
corpse of Abu Nuwas.
He is considered to have been an equally good narrator, scholar, and
poet; and, being asked by Sulaiman bin Sehl what species of poetry he
thought to be the best, replied: 'There are no poems on wine equal to
my own, and to my amatory compositions all others must yield,' He used
to boast that he knew by heart the poems of sixty poetesses, and among
them those of Khansa and Leila, as also seven hundred Arjuzat, or
poems in unshackled metre, by men. He said that he could compose
nothing except when he was in a good humour, and in a shady garden. He
often began a Kasida, put it away for several days, and then took it
up again to rescind much of it.
According to Abu Amr, the three greatest poets in the description of
wine are Aasha, Akhtal, and Abu Nuwas. Abu Hatim al Mekki often said
that the deep meanings of thoughts were concealed underground until
Abu Nuwas dug them out.
His end was tragic. Zonbor, the secretary, and Abu Nuwas were in the
habit of composing lampoons against each other; whereon the former
conceived the idea of propagating a satire against Ali, the son-in-law
of the Prophet, in the name of Abu Nuwas; and this became the cause of
his death. In an already half-drunken circle Zonbor recited the satire
on Ali as the work of Abu Nuwas; on which all fell upon the poet,
ripped open his belly, and pulled his entrails about till he expired.
Others assert that Ismail bin Abu Sehl administered a poisonous potion
to Abu Nuwas, because he had composed a lampoon against him; but its
operation was so slow that he died only four months after he had drunk
it. His death took place at Baghdad in A.D. 810.
Al-Otbi was a poet of great celebrity, and taught traditions to the
people of Baghdad; but was more generally noted for drinking wine and
composing love verses about his beloved Otba. Being of the tribe of
Koraish, and of the family of Omaya, he and his father held a high
rank, and were regarded as accomplished scholars and elegant speakers,
Otbi both composed and collected poems. One of his verses has now
acquired the force of a proverb: 'When Sulaima saw me turn my eyes
away--and I turn my glances away from all who resemble her--she said:
"I once saw thee mad with love;" and I replied: "Youth is a madness of
which old age is the cure."' He died in A.D. 842.
Abu Tammam Habib, the celebrated poet, according to Ibn Khallikan,
'surpassed all his contemporaries in the purity of his style, the
merit of his poetry, and his excellent manner of treating a subject.
He is the author of a Hamasa, a compilation which is a standing proof
of his great talents, solid information, and good taste in making a
selection.' He wrote several other works connected with poets and
poetry, composed many Kasidas, and knew by heart, it is said, fourteen
thousand verses of that class of compositions called Rajaz, or free
metre. The poetry of Abu Tammam was put in order for the first time by
Abu Bakr as Sauli, who arranged it alphabetically, according to the
rhymes, and then Abul Faraj Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani classed it
according to the subjects. He died at Mosul A.D. 845, about forty
years of age, and was buried there; but his verses have survived, and
rendered him one of the immortals.
The mantle of the poet Abu Tammam appears to have fallen on Abu Abada
Al-Bohtori, who was born in A.D. 821, and, like his predecessor, is
also the author of a Hamasa. He appears to have received his first
encouragement to persevere as a poet from Abu Tammam, and later on he
says: 'I recited to Abu Tammam a poem which I had composed in honour
of one of the Humaid family, and by which I gained a large sum of
money. When I finished he exclaimed: "Very good! You shall be the
prince of poets when I am no more." These words gave me more pleasure
than all the wealth which I had collected.' On being asked whether he
or Abu Tammam was the better poet, Al-Bohtori replied: 'His best
pieces surpass the best of mine, and my worst are better than the
worst of his,' Abul-Ala al Maarri, a great philologist and poet (born
in A.D. 973, died A.D. 1057), was asked which was the best poet of the
three, Abu Tammam, Al-Bohtori, or Al-Mutanabbi; he replied that two of
them were moralists, and that Bohtori was the poet. He died A.D. 897.
His poems were not arranged in order till Abu Bakr as Sauli collected
them and classed them alphabetically by their rhymes, while Abul Faraj
Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani collected them also, and arranged them
according to their subjects. A copy of his 'Diwan' is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Al Mutanabbi, or the pretended prophet, a _rôle_ to which he aspired,
but in which he did not succeed, comes next to the two great
poets--Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori--though some critics consider him to
be superior to them. He is, however, generally acknowledged to be a
great lyric poet, while many of his best Kasidas refer to the exploits
of Saif ad Dawlah, a prince of the Benou Hamdan dynasty in Syria. After
leaving him he went to Egypt, then to Persia, Baghdad, and finally
Kufa, his native place, near which he was killed in a fight in A.D.
965. It is stated that in this contest Mutanabbi, seeing himself
vanquished, was taking to flight, when his slave said to him, 'Let it
never be said that you fled from a fight, you who are the author of
this verse: "The horse, and the night, and the desert know me (well);
the sword also, and the lance, and paper and the pen."'
Upon this he turned back and fought till he was slain, along with his
son and his slave. His 'Diwan,' or collection of poems, is well known,
and much read in our times, even in India. It has been translated into
German.
An-Nami was one of the ablest and most talented poets of his time, but
inferior to Mutanabbi, with whom he had some encounters and contests
in reciting extemporary verses when they were at the court of Saif ad
Dawlah together. He died A.D. 1008 at Aleppo, aged ninety.
Abul-Abbas Al-Mofadhdhal, the collector of the celebrated selection of
Arabic poems called the 'Mofadhdhaliat,' which served as a model for
the Hamasas, was the first editor of the seven suspended poems, the
Mua'llakat, and also one of the earliest of the Arab philologists. He
was a native of Kufa, and adhered to the faction of Ibrahim bin
Abdallah; who rebelled in A.D. 761 against Al-Mansur, the second
Abbaside Khalif. Al-Mansur, however, pardoned Al-Mofadhdhal, and
attached him to the household of his son, Al-Mahdi, by whose orders
Mofadhdhal made a collection of the most celebrated longer poems of
the Arabs, one hundred and twenty-eight in number, under the title of
the Mofadhdhaliat. This, the oldest anthology of Arabian poets, was
first commented upon by his disciple, Al-Aarabi; then two hundred
years later by the two great philologists and anthologists, Al-Anbari
and An-Nahas; by Merzuk; and lastly by Tibrizi, who is sufficiently
known in Europe as the editor and commentator of the Hamasa, published
by Freytag with a Latin translation. Mofadhdhal supported himself as a
copyist of the Koran, and spent the last portion of his life in
mosques doing penance for the satires which he had composed against
various individuals. His other works were a book of proverbs, a
treatise on prosody, another on the ideas usually expressed in poetry,
and a vocabulary. He was held to be of the first authority as a
philologist, a genealogist, and a relator of the poems and battle-lays
of the desert Arabs. He died A.D. 784.
Abul Faraj Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani is the collector of the great
anthology called 'Kitab-ul-Aghani' (the Book of Songs). This work,
which surpasses all former ones of this name, he produced after a
labour of forty years, and presented it to Saif ad Dawlah, who gave
him a thousand pieces of gold for it, but excused himself at the same
time for the smallness of this honorarium. In spite of his other
works, and the long string of names given him by Ibn Khallikan, he is
best known as Al-Ispahani, and as the author of the Aghani. His family
inhabited Ispahan, but he passed his early youth in Baghdad, and
became the most distinguished scholar and most eminent author of that
city. He was born A.D. 897, and died A.D. 967, in which year also died
the great scholar Kali, and the three greatest of his patrons, namely,
Saif ad Dawlah, the sovereign of the Benou Hamdan in Syria; Moiz ud
Dawlah, the sovereign of the Benou Bujeh in Irak; and Kafur, who
governed Egypt in the name of the Akhsid dynasty. The 'Book of Songs,'
notwithstanding its title, is an important biographical dictionary,
treating of grammar, history and science, as well as of poetry.
Mention can here be made of Abu Muhammad Kassim Al-Hariri, who was one
of the ablest writers of his time, and the author of the 'Makâmat
Hariri,' a work consisting of fifty oratorical, poetical, moral,
encomiastic and satirical discourses, supposed to have been spoken or
read in public assemblies. Poets, historians, grammarians and
lexicographers look upon the 'Makâmat' (Assemblies or Séances) as the
highest authority, and next to the Koran, as far at least as language
is concerned. It contains a large portion of the language spoken by
the Arabs of the desert, such as its idioms, its proverbs, and its
subtle delicacies of expression; and, according to Ibn Khallikan, any
person who acquires a sufficient acquaintance with this book to
understand it rightly, will be led to acknowledge the eminent merit of
the author, his extensive information, and his vast abilities. A great
number of persons have commented on the 'Makâmat,' some in long and
others in short treatises, and many consider it to be the most
elegantly written, and the most amusing, work in the Arabic language.
Hariri was born A.D. 1054, and died at Busra A.D. 1122. He left some
other good works in the shape of treatises, epistles, and a great
number of poetical pieces, besides those contained in his 'Makâmat.'
There are two translations of the 'Makâmat' into English. One by the
Reverend Theodore Preston, printed under the patronage of the Oriental
Translation Fund, London, 1850. It contains only twenty of the fifty
pieces in verse, with copious notes, while an epitome of the remaining
thirty pieces is given at the end of the book. The other by the late
Mr. Chennery, which ends with the twenty-sixth assembly or séance. The
whole work was edited in Arabic, with a select commentary upon it in
French, by Baron Silvestre de Sacy, and this was reprinted in 1847.
Ruckert also made a very free translation of it in German verse, which
reached a third edition in 1844, but this differs widely from the
contents of the original, though it is said to be more pleasing and
attractive to a general reader.
After the Muslim legal sciences had been established upon the fourfold
foundations of the Koran, tradition, general consent of communities,
and the analogies derived therefrom, then philosophy and mathematics
began to flourish by translations made either directly from the Greek
or through Syriac and Persian.
In former times, during the reign of Nausherwan, a Persian monarch of
great renown (A.D. 530-578), there was some intercourse between
Persian and Byzantine philosophers; several books on logic and
medicine had been translated from Greek into Persian, and from these
Abdullah Ibn Al-Mukaffa made translations into Arabic. The literary
career of Ibn Al-Mukaffa, who presumed to vie with the eloquence of
the Koran, and was considered to be a freethinker, and eventually
slain, falls into the reign of Al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775), the second
Khalif. But Ibn Al-Mukaffa rendered such services to Arabian
literature, that a short sketch of his life will presently be given.
During the reign of Mansur (A.D. 754-775) Greek works were translated,
not yet from the original, but from the Persian. During the Khalifate
of his son, Mahdi (A.D. 775-785), Abd-Allah bin Hilal translated the
celebrated animal fables of Bidpay from Persian into Arabic, under the
title of 'Kalilah wa Dimnah,' and they were afterwards versified by
Selil bin Nubakht. In Persian they are known under several titles,
such as 'Kalilah wa Dimnah,' the 'Anwar-i Suheli,' and the 'Ayar
Danish,' and in Turkish as the 'Humayan-namah.'
Eight years before the seventh Khalif, Mamun (A.D. 812-833), ascended
the throne, many Greek and Syrian manuscripts had been collected in
Baghdad. These were all preserved there in the library, which was
called 'The House of Wisdom,' until Mamun began to utilize them by
means of translations. The Khalif appointed the scholars Al-Hajjaj, Ibn
Máttar, Ibn ul-Batrik, and Selma, to superintend the work, while the
three brothers, Muhammad, Ahmed, and Hasan, sons of the astronomer
Shakir, were directed to search for and to buy manuscripts. Mamun also
sent the two physicians, Yohanna and Kosta, into the Byzantine
dominions to bring manuscripts from thence to Baghdad. A new class of
scholars was then formed, in the shape of translators, who were
employed in translating works from the Greek, the Syriac, and the
Persian languages into Arabic. The translators from the Persian were
Musa and Yusuf, the two sons of Khalid, Hasan bin Sehl, and
afterwards, Al-Baladori; from the Sanscrit, Munkah the Indian; from
the Nabataean, Ibn Wahshiyah. Science became hereditary, as it were,
in the families of the most celebrated scholars; medical science in
the family of Bakhtyeshun; translations from Greek works in that of
Honein bin Ishak, the most famous of all translators, and a prolific
author besides. Maseweih and his son Yahya, Syriac Christians, were
both celebrated as physicians and translators of ancient Greek works
into Arabic; while Kosta bin Luka, who died in A.D. 932, was also one
of the most fertile translators from Greek into Arabic, and, being
born a Greek, he was able to correct the translations of Honein bin
Ishak and others.
The number of translators, which amounted to about one hundred, might
have been increased if Arab literature had further developed itself by
incorporating works from other languages; but, as such was not the
case, translators appeared very few and far between after the
literature had attained to its highest perfection, at the end of the
third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 913).
The celebrated Ibn Al-Mukaffa was one of the earliest and best
translators. His full name is Abd-Allah Ibn Al-Mukaffa, but before he
made his profession of Islam he bore that of Ruzbeh. He was a native
of Har, a town in the province of Fars, and first served as secretary
to Daud bin Hobeirah, and then to Isa bin Ali, the uncle of the two
first Khalifs of the house of Abbas. He was an excellent poet,
letter-writer, and orator, equally skilled in his mother-tongue, the
Persian, as in the Arabic language, from the former of which he left
the splendid translations of--
(1) 'The Khodanamah,' a legend.
(2) 'The Amirnamah,' or prince-book.
(3) 'Kalilah wa Dimnah.'
(4) 'Merdak.'
(5) 'Biography of Nausherwan.'
(6) 'The Great Book of Manners.'
(7) 'The Small Book of Manners or Good
Habits.'
(8) 'The Book of Epistles.'
So far the 'Fihrist'; what follows is from Ibn Khallikan. Ibn
Al-Mukaffa was the secretary and most confidential servant of Isa bin
Ali, with whom he dined the day before he made his public profession
of Islam. Having sat down, he began to eat and to mutter according to
the custom of the Magians. 'How,' said Isa, 'you mutter like the
Magians, though resolved to embrace Islamism!' to which Ibn Al-Mukaffa
replied that he did not wish to pass a single night without being of
some religion. In spite of his conversion, he was always suspected of
freethinking, like Muti bin Iyas and Yahya bin Zaad, and one day, when
Al-Jahiz, the philologist, made the remark that they were persons the
sincerity of whose religious sentiments was doubted, one of the
learned, on hearing this, said: 'How is it that Al-Jahiz forgets to
count himself?'
When Khalil the prosodist was one day asked his opinion about Ibn
Al-Mukaffa, he said, 'His learning is greater than his wit;' and the
latter, being asked the same question concerning Khalil, replied, 'His
wit is greater than his learning.' Being a favourite with the Khalif,
he took great liberties with Sofyan, the Governor of Busra, and
insulted the memory of his mother. One day Sulaiman and Isa, the
uncles of the Khalif Mansur, desired to obtain a letter of amnesty
from him for their brother Abd-Allah, and they instructed Ibn
Al-Mukaffa to compose one in the strongest terms, which he did, and
added to it the following clause, 'Should the Prince of the Believers
ever act treacherously towards his uncle Abd-Allah, then may he be
divorced from his wives, may his slaves be free, and may his subjects
be solved from obedience!' The Khalif's dignity was shocked, and he
ordered the writer of this letter of amnesty to be forthwith executed,
and the Governor of Busra, whom Ibn Al-Mukaffa had many times insulted,
very gladly undertook the duty. Al-Madaini narrates that when Ibn
Al-Mukaffa was brought before Sofyan, the latter asked him whether he
remembered the insults he had heaped upon his mother, and added, 'May
my mother really deserve those insults if I do not get you executed in
a manner hitherto unheard of!' He also recalled Ibn Al-Mukaffa's joke
about Sofyan's big nose, because he had one day asked the governor,
'How are you and your nose?' On another occasion, when the governor
remarked that he never had reason to repent keeping silence, Ibn
Al-Mukaffa replied, 'Dumbness becomes you; then why should you repent
of it.' Accordingly Sofyan ordered the members of Ibn Al-Mukaffa's body
to be chopped off, one after the other, and thrown into a burning
oven, into which, last of all, the trunk of his body was also thrown.
There are other accounts of his death, viz., that he was strangled in
a bath, or shut up in a privy. One opinion, however, generally
prevails, that the execution was not a public one. The date of it is
uncertain--A.D. 756, 759, and 760, are all given; but the victim was
only thirty-six years of age at the time.
A few remarks may be made about the support given to learning and men
of letters by the Omaiyide and Abbaside Khalifs, as also by those of
the Spanish or Western Khalifate.
The Omaiyide Khalifs, with their capital at Damascus, were generally
patrons of science, poetry, architecture, song, and music. But all
these branches of knowledge were at that time merely rudimental; and,
of the fourteen sovereigns of the dynasty, only five really deserve
the name of protectors of learning; and of these Abdul Malik (A.D.
684-705), and his son Walid I. (A.D. 705-715), were the most
distinguished.
During the period of their Khalifate there were not only male, but
also some female poets. All their poems are mostly short, and confined
to amatory, laudatory, or vituperative compositions, called forth by
the momentary circumstances in which the authors happened to be
placed. These pieces do not represent either deep thought or profound
wisdom, but they show the feelings of the people, and their state of
civilization at the time in question.
During this Khalifate were also produced the earliest germs of
stylistics, epistolography and mysticism, all of which were more fully
developed under the Abbasides. The originator of the first two was the
Katib Abd Al-Hamid, secretary to the last Omaiyide Khalif, and he is
designated in an old Arabic rhyme as 'the father of all secretaries.'
Epistolary writing, it was said, began with Abd Al-Hamid, and finished
with Ibn Al-Amid. As regards mysticism, the origin of its doctrines is
sometimes assigned to Oweis Al-Kareni, the Prophet's companion, who
disappeared mysteriously in A.D. 658. But mysticism and Sufism were
subsequently much developed by Muhi-uddin Muhammad, surnamed Ibn
Al-Arabi, a most voluminous writer on these subjects. He was born at
Murcia, in Spain, A.D. 1165, and after studying in that country, went
to the East, made the pilgrimage, visited Cairo and other cities, and
died at Damascus A.D. 1240. He is the author of many works, but the
most remarkable of them are 'Revelations obtained at Mecca' and
'Maxims of Wisdom set as Jewels.' Both Makkari the historian, and Von
Hammer Purgstall, in his history of Arabian literature from the
earliest times, give a long account of him.
Of the Khalifs of the house of Abbas, the second, third, fifth and
seventh, viz., Al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775), Al-Mahdi (A.D. 775-785),
Harun-ar-Rashid (A.D. 786-809), and Al-Mamun (A.D. 812-833) were the
most distinguished as patrons of art, science and literature. But
after the translation of the 'Arabian Nights' into European languages,
the name of Harun-ar-Rashid became the best known in Europe as the
representative of the most brilliant period of the Eastern Khalifate,
and as the great protector of Arabic literature.
Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasides, was founded by their second
Khalif, Al-Mansur, in A.D. 760, finished in four years, and raised to
a high degree of splendour by Harun-ar-Rashid. Originally it was
considered only as a great strategic point, and its garrisons were to
keep the surrounding country in subjection. Eventually it became the
centre of learning and civilization, and an Arab author wrote of it as
follows: 'Baghdad is certainly the capital of the world, and the mine
of every excellence. It is the city whose inhabitants have always been
the first to unfurl the banners of knowledge, and to raise the
standard of science; indeed, their subtlety in all branches of
learning, their gentle manners and amiable disposition, noble bearing,
acuteness, wit, penetration and talent are deservedly praised.'
Baghdad, at the beginning of the ninth century of the Christian era,
was the centre of all that was grand and brilliant in the Muhammadan
world. Art and commerce, literature and science, were cultivated to a
high degree, and the luxury and extravagance of court life exceeded
almost the imagination of temperate European minds.
Everything curious, romantic and wonderful, narrated in the 'Nights'
is connected with Harun-ar-Rashid's name, or supposed to have happened
in his reign. Thus, his vizier, Jaafar, the Barmekide, the
superintendent of his harem, Mesrur, and his spouse, Zobeida, were
first made known to novel-readers, and their importance as historical
personages were duly appreciated afterwards, when Erpenius, Pococke,
Herbelot, and Reiske elucidated the history of the Khalifate by
translating the works of the Arab chroniclers Abul-Faraj, Al-Makin,
and Abul-feda. Later on still further information was made public
about the translations made from Greek and Syriac into Arabic during
his reign, as also concerning his position, not only as a lover of
tales, but as a promoter of jurisprudence, a patron of the medical and
mathematical sciences, and a builder of magnificent and useful
edifices. His court was also well attended by poets and singers.
Harun was not, indeed, the first prince who made arrangements for
translations from the Greek and the Syriac. In this he had been
preceded, as already mentioned, by the Omaiyide prince, Khalid, the
alchemist. But during the reign of Harun the business of translation
was carried on to a much greater extent than it was under his
predecessors, the Khalifs Mansur and Mahdi, during whose time
translations were undertaken from Greek into Syriac, from Indian
(Sanscrit) into Persian, but not yet into Arabic. The translators were
mostly Christians and Jews. Theophilos of Edessa, the Maronite
translator of Homer and of other Greek classics into Syriac, was an
astronomer and an historian. Both he and the physician Georgios, son
of Bakhtyeshun, from the university of Jondshapur, were Christians.
Nubakht, the astronomer of the Khalif Mansur, was a Magian
(Zoroastrian), Yahya bin Maseweih, Harun's physician, translated
medical works. Hajaj bin Yusuf bin Matta dedicated his first edition
of the elements of Euclid to Harun, and the second to Mamun.
As the family of the Barmekides played an important part, not only in
politics, but also in literature, until its chief members were
annihilated by Harun's orders, a brief notice of them may here be
given.
Khalid bin Barmek was the son of a priest at the fire temple of
Nevbehar in Balkh, and became in course of time vizier of the first
Abbaside Khalif, and was retained in that office by the second Khalif,
Al-Mansur, and by the third, Al-Mahdi. He died A.D. 780.
Yahya, the son of Khalid, not only himself became the vizier of Harun,
but also his two sons, Fadhl and Jaafar. Yahya was very liberal, and
gave away sometimes considerable sums of money for very small
services, or, indeed, for no service at all. After his son Jaafar had
been executed, Yahya was thrown into prison, along with his other son,
Fadhl, at Old Rakka, where he died in A.D. 805, at the age of seventy
or seventy-four.
Fadhl, the son of Yahya, was more liberal but less eloquent than his
brother Jaafar. Harun esteemed the two brothers so highly that he
entrusted his son Muhammad to the care of Fadhl, and his son Mamun to
the care of Jaafar. Afterwards he made Jaafar his vizier, and sent
Fadhl to be Governor of Khurasan. There Fadhl built mosques,
reservoirs of water and caravanserais, augmented the army, and
attracted numbers of emigrants to the country, whereby he gained the
approval of Harun, who ordered his poets to sing his praises. After
the execution of Jaafar, Harun took Yahya, with his son Fadhl and all
the Barmekides, to Rakka, giving Yahya the option to go where he
liked; but he preferred to be imprisoned with his son in Rakka. There
Fadhl died in A.D. 809, and when Harun was informed of his death, he
said: 'My own is not far,' and died a few months afterwards in Tus,
the modern Mashad. The death of Fadhl, as a generous patron, was
bewailed by several poets, such as Abul Hojna, Otbi, Abu Nuwas, and
others. Fadhl was also notable for his filial piety, and when the use
of cold water injured the health of his father whilst they were in
prison, he used to warm the water by placing a pot of it on his own
stomach.
Jaafar (the brother of Fadhl and a son of Yahya), who was slain A.D.
802, is to be mentioned here, not for his tragic fate, which is well
known, but rather for his literary attainments, especially his oratory
and his style, in both of which he excelled. From his long biography,
written by Ibn Khallikan, there will be given here only some extracts
relating to science and literature. He was a great master of speech,
and expressed his thoughts with much elegance. In one night he
endorsed more than a thousand petitions addressed to the Khalif with
his decisions, all of which were in perfect concordance with the law.
His instructor in jurisprudence had been Abu Yusuf the Hanifite, whom
his father Yahya had appointed to teach him. The favour enjoyed by
Jaafar with Harun-ar-Rashid was so great that this Khalif caused one
robe to be made with two separate collars, which they both wore at the
same time. Ibn Khallikan narrates the traditions relating to the fall
of Jaafar and his family; the one refers to his amours with Abbasa,
the sister of Harun, and to the birth of a child; the other to the
escape of a member of Ali's family entrusted to Jaafar's guardianship
by Harun. The true cause was probably the Khalifs envy of the power,
wealth, and generosity of the Barmekides, along with the backbitings
of their enemies. Jaafar was slain at Al-Omr in the district of
Al-Anbar, his head and the trunk of his body were set up opposite to
each other on the two sides of the bridge of Baghdad, and his death
was lamented by various poets.
After Mamun (A.D. 812-833) the most intellectual Khalif appears to
have been Radhi-billah (A.D. 934-940). His poems were collected in a
Diwan. He was the last Khalif who presided not only over the
Government as a sovereign, but also over the pulpit as Imam; indeed,
he may be said to be the terminal point of the power, brilliancy and
independence of the house of Abbas, which henceforth gradually
declined till its final extinction with the conquest of Baghdad by the
Mughals in A.D. 1258.
The great chess-player, Abu-bakr as Sauli, bears witness, in Masudi's
'Meadows of Gold,' to the great accomplishments of Radhi-billah, and
to his love of the sciences. Of games, chess and nerd[4] flourished
during his reign, and although the perfection of song and of
lute-playing had already passed away, singers and musicians are still
mentioned. Of the amusements of the court, hunting appears to have
flourished most, and the learned poet Koshajim, who wrote on the game
of nerd, also left instructive poems on the chase. Radhi-billah
appears to have been fond of books of travel and of natural history,
and of the society of men of letters and of science, and liked
listening to recitals on the history, politics, and glory of the old
Persian kings.
[Footnote 4: Nerd.--This game is mentioned as early as the
Shah-Namah, the author of which, Firdausi, was of opinion
that it is of genuine Persian, and not of Indian origin,
like chess, but this assertion is not necessarily correct.
Hyde has described the game in his 'Historia Nerdiludii,'
and it resembles somewhat the German puff and triktrak, and
the English backgammon. It is played on a board divided into
black-and-white compartments, with a black and a white house
in the centre. The moves are made according to the numbers
that come up on the throw of two dice.]
Of the Spanish Khalifs, mention only will be made of the ninth
sovereign of the Benou Omaiyide dynasty in Andalusia, viz., Hakim II.,
who died A.D. 976. Among the five Arab rulers of Spain--viz., three
Abd-ar-Rahmans and two Hakims--who have acquired everlasting fame in
history as special friends of science and patrons of learned men,
Abd-ar-Rahman III. and Hakim II. are the greatest and most prominent.
They stand in the Arab literary history of the West as high as Harun
and his son Mamun do in the history of the literature of the East. As
Mamun was the greatest of the Benou Abbas Khalifs of Baghdad who
promoted science and art, so Hakim II. was the greatest of the Benou
Omaiyides in Cordova. From his earliest youth he had received a most
careful scientific education, and applied his energies to study, as he
could not devote them to public affairs on account of the long
duration of his father's reign, from A.D. 912 to 961. Hakim's father,
Abd-ar-Rahman III., invited the learned Abu Ali Ismail Al Kali, the
philologist and author, from the court of Baghdad, where he enjoyed
the greatest consideration with the Khalif Mutwakkil, to Cordova, and
entrusted him with the education of his son, who, later on, composed a
Diwan (collection of poems), divided into twenty parts, bearing, like
the Surahs, or Chapters of the Koran, the most sublime objects of
nature as titles, such as 'Heaven,' 'the Stars,' 'the Dawn,' 'the
Night,' etc. Hakim pursued his studies under Kali for twenty years,
with as much pleasure as advantage, and after ascending the throne,
science and art still remained his companions. When his father died,
and he assumed the Government, he led the funeral procession,
surrounded by his Andalusian, Slavonic, and Mograbin body-guard, and
interred the corpse with the greatest pomp in the mausoleum of Rozafa,
and after that accepted the homage of his Viziers, Amirs, Kayids, and
Kadis. Astrologers and poets heralded at Cordova and in the whole of
Andalusia the continuation of the father's prosperous reign by his
son, and spoke the truth this time.
Hakim, who had already as a youth been fond of books, now, when he
became sovereign, fully satisfied this predilection, which had grown
to be a passion. He spared neither trouble nor expense in collecting
in his Merwan palace the rarest and most costly books in every branch
of science from all countries. He sent special commissioners to Egypt,
Syria, Irak, and Persia to purchase books. At Baghdad, Muhammad bin
Turkhan was charged with the business of purchasing books, or getting
them copied, for which purpose he had an establishment of
calligraphers and stenographers; because of some books beautiful, and
of others rapidly made, copies were required. He procured all the
genealogies, all the histories, and all the poems of the Arabs; all
works on law and jurisprudence, on grammar, rhetoric, philosophy,
philology, mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic and geography, composed
in Arabic. Thus the library of the Merwan palace became not only the
richest in Islam, but also the best arranged, by the care which he
bestowed on it. The catalogue consisted of forty-four fascicles, each
of fifty leaves, so that the whole constituted a volume of two
thousand two hundred leaves, two-fifths of which were filled with
titles of poetical works only. In this catalogue the titles of the
books were inserted, with the names of their authors, their descent,
birth-place, the year of their birth and of their decease, in the most
accurate manner, to serve as a model for other libraries, of which
Spain contained so many. This library alone is said to have consisted
of six hundred thousand volumes, a number never surpassed by any
earlier or later libraries in Islam.
To his two brothers, who loved the sciences as ardently as himself,
Hakim entrusted the care of the libraries, and of public instruction,
appointing Abdul Latif to be the chief librarian, and another man to
be the director of studies. He kept up intercourse with the great
scholars of the East and of the West, with sundry persons in Syria,
with learned men in Egypt, and with Abul Faraj Al-Ispahani (author of
the great anthology 'Kitab-ul-Aghani') in Irak, giving houses and
salaries to those who chose to reside at his court.
A few words must be said about the establishment of places of learning
which were celebrated at the time. The first university, in the sense
in which such an institution is at present understood, was flourishing
in Syria long before any seat of learning of this kind had been
established in Europe; and there was another in Egypt. The first
institution was called 'The Society of the Brethren of Purity,' and
the second (opened at Cairo on the 24th May, A.D. 1005) was founded by
Al-Hakim-bramrillah, and bore the name of Dar-ul Hikinat, or Abode of
Wisdom. It was under this same name that the library of the Khalifs
was formerly known at Baghdad. Later on the great vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk
founded a high school at Baghdad, in A.D. 1066. It was not the first
that had been established in Islam, but it eclipsed all others of the
kind by the abilities of the professors who worked there, viz., the
Imam Abu Ishak Shirazi, Al-Ghazali, and others. With the Society of
the Brethren of Purity, mentioned above, there were two men closely
connected, viz., Al-Tavhidi, who died A.D. 985, and Al-Majridi, who
died A.D. 1004, the former in the East, the latter in the West, and
both of them are deserving of the general name of philosopher. So much
for the Eastern Khalifates. As regards the Western Khalifate, still
greater attention was paid to education and learning there. The
schools and lectures were attended by many Europeans, who were not,
perhaps, sufficiently grateful to the Arabs for keeping up a progress
in literature and science while Europe itself was struggling for
emancipation from the dark ages which followed the higher cultures of
Greece and of Rome.
THIRD PERIOD.
From the fall of Baghdad, in A.D. 1258, to the present time.
The conquest of Baghdad by the Mughals is a most remarkable period,
not only in the literature, but also in the history, of the Arabs. It
marks the final extinction of the Abbaside dynasty, from whom the
ancient power and glory had vanished to such a degree that the
authority of the Khalifs may almost literally be said to have been
confined to the city only. Halaku Khan, the brother of the grand Khan
Kubilai, and grandson of Jenghiz Khan, took and sacked Baghdad,
keeping the Khalif imprisoned for some time, but slaying him at last,
with his sons and several thousand Abbasides. Al-Mustaa'sim was the
thirty-seventh and last Khalif of the house of Abbas, which had
reigned over five hundred years, and was now extinguished.
Halaku Khan attacked Baghdad by the advice of Khojah Nasir-uddin Tusy,
the great Persian astronomer and mathematician. Nasir-uddin had
entered the service of the last prince of the Assassins only for the
purpose of avenging himself on the Khalif, who had disparaged one of
his works. When, however, he became aware of Halaku's power, he not
only betrayed his new master to him, but led the Mughal conqueror also
to Baghdad. After the burning of the library at Alamut (the stronghold
of the Assassins, where they kept their literary treasures) and the
sacking of Baghdad by Halaku Khan, the erection of the astronomical
observatory at Maragha, under the direction of Nasir-uddin Tusy, was
the first sign that Arab civilization and the cultivation of science
had not been entirely extinguished by Tartar barbarism. The learned
viziers who stood by the side of the conqueror, such as the two
brothers Juvaini, were Persians, and therefore hardly belong to the
history of Arab literature. But the fact that one of these two
historians now wrote 'The Heart Opener,' also implies that the
invasion of the barbarians had not quite put an end to literary
activity.
More than ten historians flourished at the beginning of this period
whose names terminated with 'din,' such as Baha-uddin, Imad-uddin,
Kamal-uddin, etc., and they were contemporaries of the Arab Plutarch
Ibn Khallikan, already mentioned and described in the preceding
period.
The 'Alfiyya,' or Quintessence of Arab Grammar, was written in verse
by Jamal-uddin Abu Abdallah Muhammad, known under the name of Ibn
Malik. The author died in A.D. 1273-1274; but his work has lived, and
it is looked upon as a good exponent of the system. The Arab text has
been published, with a commentary upon it in French, by Silvestre de
Sacy, A.D. 1834.
During the eighth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1301-1398), there lived
three distinguished men, one famed as a geographer and traveller, and
the other two as historians, viz., Ibn Batuta, Abul Feda, and Ibn
Khaldun. The first-named left his native town, Tangiers, in A.D. 1324,
and travelled all over the East, performing his pilgrimage to Mecca in
A.D. 1332. The travels of Ibn Batuta were translated by the Rev. S.
Lee, and published by the Oriental Translation Fund, as their first
work, in A.D. 1829. This traveller has been noticed by Kosegarten in a
Latin treatise, and his travels have been also translated into French,
with the Arabic text above, by C. Defremery and R. Sanguinetti, at the
expense of the French Government (1874-1879).
Abul Feda Ismail Hamawi is well known as an historian, and is
frequently mentioned by Gibbon as one of his authorities. He wrote an
account of the regions beyond the Oxus, and also an abridgment of
universal history down to his own time, and as he is supposed to be
very exact, and his style elegant, his works are very much esteemed.
He died A.D. 1345, having succeeded his brother Ahmad as King of Hamat
in Syria, A.D. 1342.
Ibn Khaldun, the African philosopher, was born in Tunis, A.D. 1332,
and passed his youth in Egypt. He served a short time as Chief Justice
at Damascus, and returned to Egypt, where he became Supreme Judge, and
died there A.D. 1406. His principal and most remarkable work is the
'History of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Berbers.'
During the ninth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1398-1495) Arabian
literature can still boast of a few great names. Ibn-Hajar was not
only the continuator of Ibn Kesir's universal history, called 'The
Beginning and the End,' but also the author of biographies of
celebrated men who had lived during the preceding century, and of
other works besides. He died A.D. 1449. Ibn Arabshah was the writer of
a history of Timour, or Tamerlane, which has some celebrity, and has
been translated into Latin and French. He was a native of Damascus,
and died there A.D. 1450.
Majr-uddin Muhammad Bin Yakub, surnamed Firuzabadi, a learned Persian,
was the author of the largest and most celebrated Arabic dictionary in
existence at the time, called the 'Qânûs,' or Ocean, a standard work
to this day, and always greatly praised, and also used by European
lexicographers.
Taki-uddin, of Fez, composed the best history of Mekka, and A'ini, who
died A.D. 1451, wrote two celebrated historical works. But the
greatest historian of this time was Al-Makrisi, whose proper name was
Taki-uddin Ahmad, and who was born at Makris, near Baalbec, in A.D.
1366. He early devoted himself to the study of history, geography,
astrology, etc., at Cairo, and his Egyptian history and topography is
still an important work, describing the state of the country and its
rulers. He died at Cairo, A.D. 1442. Some of his works have been
translated into French and Latin, and are still referred to.
In honour of Sayuti, that colossus of learning, who cultivated,
according to the spirit of his times, so many sciences, and dealt with
them practically, this might be called the poly-historical and
poly-geographical period. Julal-uddin Sayuti is said to be the author
of some four hundred works, and he died in A.D. 1505, some twelve years
before the conquest of Egypt by Selim I, the Sultan of Turkey, when
independent Arab literature under Arab sovereigns came to an end. It
is true enough that not only in Egypt and Syria, but also in Turkey
and Persia, Arabic books were written afterwards, but more under
foreign protection, although in the two first-named countries Arabic
is the language of the people, while in the last two it occupies
nearly the same position that Latin does in European universities and
in the Roman Catholic Church.
In the tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592) the generally
prevalent belief that the world would, at the completion of it, come
to an end, contributed much to the gradual decay of science and
literature. The case is somewhat analogous to the superstition in
Europe some six hundred years previously, when the Christian era
attained its millennium, which was considered to carry with it the
same catastrophe. This prophecy, believed to be true, contributed in
some measure to slacken authority as well as exertion, and the power
of Islamitic countries really sank; but this might have been predicted
without any prophetic foresight. In one part of Islam, the ruin of
Muhammadan countries thus prophesied was accomplished twenty-one years
before the end of the thousandth year, that is in the 979th year of
the Hijrah, A.D. 1571, by the total expulsion of the Moors from Spain.
Granada itself had succumbed already, seventy-nine years before, and
the unwieldy palace of the kings, of Spain (still unfinished) had
risen by the side of the lofty arcades of the Alhambra, still a lovely
specimen of Moorish artistic design and architecture.
The tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592), which was the first
of the decay of Arab literature, is to be considered as the period
when the political importance of Turkey culminated in the reign of
Sulaiman the Law-giver. There were, however, four authors of celebrity
who wrote both in Arabic and in Turkish. Ibn Kamal Pasha, the surname
of Mufti Shams-uddin Ahmad bin-Sulaiman, who died A.D. 1534, wrote on
history in Turkish, and on law in Arabic; the Mufti Abu Sa'ud acquired
great renown by his numerous Fetwas (legal decisions), approving of
the political institutions of Sulaiman; Ibrahim of Aleppo is the
author of the 'Molteka' (Confluence of Two Seas), which embodies the
essence of Muslim law, according to the Hanifi ritual; and lastly,
Birgeli, otherwise known as Mulla Muhammad Ibn Pir Ali ul-Birkali, was
equally great as a dogmatist and as a grammarian. He wrote in Arabic
'The Unique Pearl; or, The Art of Reading the Koran,' and died A.D.
1573. Special mention, too, must be made of Mulla Ahmad Bin Mustafa,
the celebrated Arabian, whom Haji-Khalfa always calls by the more
euphonious name of Abul-Khair (Father of Wisdom). This author is
worthy of notice, on account of the Arabic works he wrote on
biographical, historical, and especially encyclopædic subjects. His
'Key of Felicity' will remain for ever the best encyclopædia of
Arabian sciences, representing as it does their division among the
Arabs, with notices of the works of scholars in every branch of them
in a most compact and comprehensive manner. He died A.D. 1560.
The three most celebrated calligraphers of this century were
Hamdallah, who died A.D. 1518; Mir Ali, who died A.D. 1544; and
Muhammad Hussain Tabrizi, who died A.D. 1574. Their names are just as
celebrated for Thuluth and Talik writing as were formerly those of Ibn
Bawwab, of Ibn Hilal, and of Yakut are for Naskhi. In Egypt and Syria
the characters used were always more beautiful than those of
Andalusia, which survived in the Mugrib (North of Africa).
Here, perhaps, it may be stated that the art of Arabic writing came
into existence but a very short time before Muhammad. 'It was Abu Ali
bin Mukla who first took the present system of written characters from
the style of writing employed by the people of Kufa, and brought it
out under its actual form. He had, therefore, the merit of priority,
and it may be added that his handwriting was very elegant. But to Ibn
Al Bawwab pertains the honour of rendering the character more regular
and simple, and of clothing it in grace and beauty.' In other words,
Ibn Mukla was the first who changed the Kufic into the new Naskhi
character, which Ibn Bawwab improved after him by imparting rotundity
and clearness to the new letters, and which Ibn Yakut Al-Mausili
brought afterwards to the greatest perfection in A.D. 1200.
Ibn Mukla, who was born in A.D. 885, and died A.D. 941, was vizier to
the Khalifs Al-Kahir-billah and Al-Radhi-billah; but, falling into
disfavour through the intrigues of his enemies, he first had his hand
cut off in A.D. 937, and eventually his tongue was torn out, and he
was allowed to perish in the dungeon without any assistance being
offered to him.
Ibn-al-Bawwab, the Penman, is said to have possessed a skill in
penmanship to which no other person ever attained in ancient or modern
times. He died at Baghdad A.D. 1032, and the following verses were
composed as his elegy:
'Thy loss was felt by the writers of former times, And each
successive day justifies their grief. The ink-bottles are
therefore black with sorrow, And the pens are rent through
affliction.'
During the eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) there lived
Mustafa bin Abdullah Katib Jelaby, otherwise known as Haji Khalfa, and
commonly called Mustafa Haji Khalfa, a man of science as a Turkish
historian and geographer, but an Arabic encyclopædist and
bibliographer. He was the compiler of a work containing many thousands
of titles of Arab, Persian, and Turkish books, with the names of their
authors. Fluegel edited this great work under the title of 'Lexicon
Enciclopædicum et Bibliographicum,' with a Latin translation in seven
bulky volumes, and it is an extremely valuable work of reference, put
together with the most astonishing and persevering care, and consulted
by all who desire information on Arabic, Persian, and Turkish
literature. This was printed by the Oriental Translation Fund between
A.D. 1835 and 1850, and will always remain as one of the most valuable
works printed by that most useful society, whose extinction must ever
be regretted by all Orientalists and persons interested in Oriental
literature. Haji Khalfa wrote another interesting work, giving a
detailed account of the maritime wars of the Turks in the
Mediterranean and Black Sea and on the Danube, which has been
translated by Mr. James Mitchell. The date of Haji Khalfa's death is
uncertain. He is known to have been alive in A.D. 1622, and still in
1652, and he is supposed to have died in A.D. 1657.
The works of Abul Khair, previously mentioned, and of Haji Khalfa,
embody a mass of information, and constitute the top of the pyramid of
encyclopædical and biographical works, after which nothing worthy of
mention has been written on these subjects. The basis of this pyramid
had been already laid by An-Nadim, the author of the 'Fihrist,' who
flourished A.D. 987, and by Ibn Khallikan, who died A.D. 1282.
During this century (A.D. 1592-1689) of the most sanguinary wars,
revolutions and dethronements, the condition of Arab literature in the
Ottoman Empire was neither progressive nor satisfactory. Nevertheless,
the study of the sciences, and especially the linguistic and juridical
branches of them, were fostered not only in Constantinople, but also
in Syria and Egypt, in consequence of the institution of the body of
Ulema, established by Muhammad II., the Conqueror (A.D. 1451-1481),
and improved by Sulaiman I., the Law-giver (A.D. 1520-1566), which
sheltered the cultivation of science from the storms of war within the
inviolable precincts of religion.
Mention may be made of Muhammad-Al-Amin, the learned philologist and
lawyer of Damascus, who was born in that town about the middle of the
eleventh and died the beginning of the twelfth century of the Hijrah,
and produced a dozen respectable works, the principal of which bears
the title of 'The Biographies of the Celebrated Men of the Eleventh
Century,' A.H. He gives an account of a couple of hundred scholars,
who represented in Egypt and in Syria the last rays of the setting sun
of Arabian literature.
Next to Muhammad-Al-Amin another author of about a dozen works is to
be noticed, namely, Ahmad-Al Makkari, whose principal work was a
history of the Muhammadan dynasties in Spain, which was translated
from the copies in the library of the British Museum, and illustrated
with critical notes on Spanish history, geography and antiquities, by
Pascual de Gayangos, and printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of
Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1840-43. Makkari also wrote a
history of Fez and Morocco, as well as an account of Damascus. He
died at Cairo A.D. 1631.
Besides some historians, grammarians, philologists and poets, the
eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) produced in Syria and
Egypt even astronomers and physicians, who distinguished themselves as
scholars. Of writers of light literature Khafaji may be named as the
chief. He composed a Diwan of ardent love poems, with two anthologies,
containing specimens of verses from a couple of poets, his
contemporaries. He died A.D. 1658. A few more writers might be
mentioned; but their efforts strongly mark the decline of Arabic
literature in the East, the cultivation of which, however, was
henceforth more energetically pursued in Europe, where many works have
been printed and translated.
With the twelfth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1689-1786) the history of
original Arab literature may be said to have terminated, and its
genius to have disappeared. A revival, however, of Arabian learning is
taking place in Egypt, Syria, and North Africa, but in accordance with
European models, and chiefly under European auspices. All original
research has long been extinct, even among those populations whose
vernacular is the Arabic language; and consequently it is the former,
and not the present state of Arab literature, which is the most
interesting to the people of to-day.
The presses of Constantinople, Cairo, Algiers, Beyruth, and some other
places, reproduce old Arabic works of value, but more translations
from European languages than original compositions are printed and
lithographed. From Bombay, where more than fifty presses are at work,
large quantities of books are exported to countries beyond the British
possessions. These books treat generally of religion, poetry, history,
or medicine; but as they deal more with ancient than with modern
knowledge, they do not tend to propagate progress.
But though Arab literature has decayed, the faith of Islam is still
active and energetic. It is estimated that one hundred and eighty
millions of human beings still follow the precepts of the Prophet, and
daily turn their faces to Mecca, which for them has been, and still
is, the cradle of their faith, the touchstone of their religion, and
the idol of their hearts.