The rise and development of Arabian literature occurs at an epoch when
the rest of Europe was struggling through a period of transition. From
the middle of the sixth to the beginning of the eleventh century, at a
time when the Roman dominions were overrun by Northern hordes, and the
Greek Nation was groaning under the Byzantine power, when both Greek
and Latin literature was exposed to the danger of extinction, the
splendor of Arabian literature reached its zenith and through the
mingling of the Troubadours with the Moors of the Peninsula, and of the
Crusaders with the Arabs, it began to influence the literature of
Europe.
Arabia, peopled by wandering tribes, had no history other than the
songs of the national bards, until after the rise of Mohammed in the
sixth century. The desire of the prophet was to bring his people back
from idolatry and star worship to the primitive and true worship of
God. He studied the Old and New Testament, the legends of the Talmud
and the traditions of Arabian and Persian mythology, then he wrote the
Koran, which became the sacred book of the Arabians, and in which is
traced in outline the true plan of man's salvation--Death,
Resurrection, the Judgment, Paradise and the place of torment. Good and
evil spirits, the four archangels, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael and
Izrafeel, are all found in the Koran; but clothed with a true Oriental
fancy. Besides the angels there are creatures, partly human and partly
spiritual, called Genii, Peris (or fairies) and Deev (or giants). The
Genii have the power of making themselves seen or invisible at
pleasure. Some of them delight in mischief, and raise whirlwinds, or
lead travellers astray. The Arabians used to say that shooting stars
were arrows shot by the angels against the Genii when they approached
too near the forbidden regions of bliss.
This fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe by the
Troubadours in the eleventh century, and became an important factor in
the literature of Europe. From it, and the Scandinavian mythology
spring all the fairy tales of modern nations. And these romances of the
Koran form the groundwork of the fabliaux of the Trouveres, and of the
romantic epics of Boccaccio, Tasso, Ariosto, Spenser and Shakespeare.
Mohammed's teaching unified the different tribes of Arabia, and
fostered a feeling of national pride, and a desire for learning. So
rapidly did this develop that in less than a century the Arabian power
and religion, as well as its language, had gained the ascendency over
nearly half of Africa, a third of Asia, and a part of Spain; and from
the ninth century to the sixteenth, the Arabian literature surpassed
that of any nations of the same period.
This people, who, in a barbarous state had tried to abolish all
cultivation in science and literature, now became the masters of
learning, and they drew from the treasure houses of the countries that
they had acquired by conquest, all the riches of knowledge at their
command.
The learning of the Chaldeans and of the Magi, the poetry and fine arts
of Asia Minor, the eloquence and intellect of Africa, all became theirs.
Greece counts nearly eight centuries from the Trojan war to the summit
of her literary development. From the foundation of Rome till the age
of Augustus the same number of centuries passed over the Roman world;
while in French literature the age of Louis XIV was twelve centuries
removed from the advent of Clovis; but in Arabian literature, from the
time of the family of the Abassides, who mounted the throne in 750--and
who introduced a passionate love for poetry, science and art--until the
time of Al Mamoun, the Augustus of Arabia, there elapsed only one
hundred and fifty years, a rate of progress in the development of
literature among a nation that has no parallel in history.
Tournaments first originated among the Arabs, and thence found their
way into France and Italy. Gunpowder was known to them a century before
it appeared in Europe, and they were in possession of the compass in
the eleventh century, and this notwithstanding the fact that a German
chemist is supposed to have discovered gunpowder a century after the
Arabs made use of it, while the compass is more frequently supposed to
be a French or Italian invention of the thirteenth century.
Botany and chemistry were more familiar to them than they were to the
Greeks or Romans. Bagdad and Cordova had famous schools of astronomy
and medicine, and here in the tenth and eleventh centuries the Arabians
were the teachers of the world. Students came to them from France and
other parts of Europe; and their progress, especially in arithmetic,
geometry and astronomy, was marvellous. The poetry of the Arabs is
rhymed like ours, and is always the poetry of passion and love; but it
is in their prose works, the Arabian tales of the Thousand and One
Nights, that they have become most famous. Their richness of fancy in
these prose tales is different from that of the other chivalric
nations. The supernatural world is identical in both; but the moral
world is different. The Arabian tales, like the old chivalric romances,
take us to the realms of fairyland, but the human beings they introduce
are very unlike. Their people are less noble and heroic, more moved by
love and passion, and they depict women by turn as slaves and
divinities. The original author of the Arabian Nights is unknown; but
the book has become a household possession in every civilized country
in the world.