1. European Literature in the Dark Ages.--2. The Arabian language.--3.
Arabian Mythology and the Koran.--4. Historical Development of Arabian
Literature.--5. Grammar and Rhetoric.--6. Poetry.--7. The Arabian Tales.--
8. History and Science.--9. Education.
1. EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN THE DARK AGES.--The literature, arts, and
sciences of the Arabs formed the connecting link between the civilizations
of ancient and modern times. To them we owe the revival of learning in
Western Europe, and many of the inventions and useful arts perfected by
later nations.
From the middle of the sixth century A.D. to the beginning of the
eleventh, the interval between the decline of ancient and the development
of modern literature is known in history as the Dark Ages. The sudden rise
of the Arabian Empire and the rapid development of its literature were the
great events which characterize the period.
At the beginning of this epoch classical genius was already extinct, and
the purity of the classical tongues was yielding rapidly to the
corruptions of the provinces and of the new dialects. Many other causes
conspired to work great changes in the fabric of society, and in the
manifestations of human intellect. Throughout this period the treasures of
Greek and Latin literature, exposed to the danger of perishing and
impaired by much actual loss, exerted no influence on the minds of those
who still used the tongues to which they belong. Greek letters, as we have
seen, decayed with the Byzantine power, and the vital principle in both
became extinct long before the sword of the Turkish conqueror inflicted
the final blow. The fate of Latin literature was not less deplorable. When
province after province of the Roman dominions was overrun by the northern
hordes, when the imperial schools were suppressed and the monuments of
ancient genius destroyed, an enfeebled people and a debased language could
not withstand such adverse circumstances. During the seventh and eighth
centuries Latin composition degenerated into the rudeness of the monkish
style. The care bestowed by Charlemagne upon education in the ninth
century produced some purifying effect upon the writings of the cloister;
the tenth was distinguished by an increased zeal in the task of
transcribing the classical authors, and in the eleventh the Latin works of
the Normans display some masculine force and freedom. Latin was the
repository of such knowledge as the times could boast; it was used in the
service of the church, and in the chronicles that supplied the place of
history, but it was not the vehicle of any great production stamped with
true genius and impressing the minds of posterity. Still, genius was not
altogether extinguished in every part of Europe. The north, which sent out
its daring tribes to change the aspect of civil life, furnished a fresh
source of mental inspiration, which was destined, with the recovered
influence of the classic spirit and other prolific causes, to give birth
to some of the best portions of modern literature.
At the memorable epoch of the overthrow of the Roman dominion in the West
(476 A.D.), the seats of the Teutonic race extended from the banks of the
Rhine and the Danube to the rock-bound coasts of Norway. The victorious
invaders who occupied the southern provinces of Europe speedily lost their
own forms of speech, which were broken down, together with those of the
vanquished, into a jargon unfit for composition. But in Germany and
Scandinavia, where the old language retained its purity, song continued to
flourish. There, from the most distant eras described by Tacitus and other
Latin writers, the favorite attendants of kings and chiefs were those
celebrated bards who preserved in their traditionary strains the memory of
great events, the praises of the gods, the glory of warriors, and the laws
and customs of their countrymen. Intrusted, like the Grecian heroic
minstrelsy, to oral recitation, it was not until the propitious reign of
Charlemagne that these verses were collected. But, through the bigotry of
his successor or the ravages of time, not a fragment of this collection
remains. We are enabled, however, to form an idea of the general tone and
tenor of this early Teutonic poetry from other interesting remains. The
"Nibelungen-Lied" (_Lay of the Nibelungen_) and "Heldenbuch" (_Book of
Heroes_) may be regarded as the Homeric poems of Germany. After an
examination of their monuments, the ability of the ancient bards, the
honor in which they were held, and the enthusiasm which they produced,
will not be surprising.
Equally distinguished were the Scalds of Scandinavia. Ever in the train of
princes and gallant adventurers, they chanted their rhymeless verse for
the encouragement and solace of heroes. Their oldest songs, or sagas, are
mostly of a historical import. In the Icelandic Edda, however, the richest
monument of this species of composition, the theological element of their
poetry is shadowed out in the most picturesque and fanciful legends.
Such was the intellectual state of Europe down to the age of Charlemagne.
While in the once famous seats of arts and arms scarcely a ray of native
genius or courage was visible, the light of human intellect still burned
in lands whose barbarism had furnished matter for the sarcasm of classical
writers.
Charlemagne encouraged learning, established schools, and filled his court
with men of letters; while in England, the illustrious Alfred, himself a
scholar and an author, improved and enriched the Anglo-Saxon dialect, and
exerted the most beneficial influence on his contemporaries.
The confusion and debasement of language in the south of Europe has
already been alluded to. But the force and activity of mind, that formed
an essential characteristic of the conquering race, were destined
ultimately to evolve regularity and harmony out of the concussion of
discordant elements. The Latin and Teutonic tongues were blended together,
and hence proceeded all the chief dialects of modern Europe. Over the
south, from Portugal to Italy, the Latin element prevailed; but even where
the Teutonic was the chief ingredient, as in the English and German, there
has also been a large infusion of the Latin. To these two languages, and
to the Provençal, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, called, from
their Roman origin, the Romance or Romanic languages, all that is
prominent and precious in modern letters belongs. But it is not until the
eleventh century that their progress becomes identified with the history
of literature. Up to this period there had been little repose, freedom, or
peaceful enjoyment of property. The independence and industry of the
middle classes were almost unknown, and the chieftain, the vassal, and the
slave were the characters which stood out in the highest relief.
Throughout the whole of the eleventh century, the social chaos seemed
resolving itself into some approach to order and tranquillity. The gradual
abolition of personal servitude, hardly accomplished in three successive
centuries, now began. A third estate arose. The rights of cities, and the
corporation-spirit, the result of the necessity that drove men to combine
for mutual defense, led to intercourse among them and to consequent
improvement in language. Chivalry, also, served to mitigate the
oppressions of the nobles, and to soften and refine their manners. From
the date of the first crusade (1093 A.D.) down to the close of the twelfth
century, was the golden age of chivalry. The principal thrones of Europe
were occupied by her foremost knights. The East formed a point of union
for the ardent and adventurous of different countries, whose courteous
rivalry stimulated the growth of generous sentiments and the passion for
brave deeds. The genius of Europe was roused by the passage of thousands
of her sons through Greece into Asia and Egypt, amidst the ancient seats
of art, science, and refinement; and the minds of men received a fresh and
powerful impulse. It was during the eleventh century that the brilliancy
of the Arabian literature reached its culminating point, and, through the
intercourse of the Troubadours with the Moors of the peninsula, and of the
Crusaders with the Arabs in the East, began to influence the progress of
letters in Europe.
2. THE ARABIAN LANGUAGE.--The Arabian language belongs to the Semitic
family; it has two principal dialects--the northern, which has, for
centuries, been the general tongue of the empire, and is best represented
in literature, and the southern, a branch of which is supposed to be the
mother of the Ethiopian language. The former, in degenerated dialects, is
still spoken in Arabia, in parts of western Asia, and throughout northern
Africa, and forms an important part of the Turkish, Persian, and other
Oriental languages. The Arabic is characterized by its guttural sounds, by
the richness and pliability of its vowels, by its dignity, volume of
sound, and vigor of accentuation and pronunciation. Like all Semitic
languages, it is written from right to left; the characters are of Syrian
origin, and were introduced into Arabia before the time of Mohammed. They
are of two kinds, the Cufic, which were first used, and the Neskhi, which
superseded them, and which continue in use at the present day. The Arabic
alphabet was, with a few modifications, early adopted by the Persians and
Turks.
3. ARABIAN MYTHOLOGY AND THE KORAN.--Before the time of Mohammed, the
Arabians were gross idolaters. They had some traditionary idea of the
unity and perfections of the Deity, but their creed embraced an immense
number of subordinate divinities, represented by images of men and women,
beasts and birds. The essential basis of their religion was Sabeism, or
star-worship. The number and beauty of the heavenly luminaries, and the
silent regularity of their motions, could not fail deeply to impress the
minds of this imaginative people, living in the open air, under the clear
and serene sky, and wandering among the deserts, oases, and picturesque
mountains of Arabia. They had seven celebrated temples dedicated to the
seven planets. Some tribes exclusively reverenced the moon; others the
dog-star. Some had received the religion of the Magi, or fire-worshipers,
while others had become converts to Judaism.
Ishmael is one of the most venerated progenitors of the nation; and it is
the common faith that Mecca, then an arid wilderness, was the spot where
his life was providentially saved, and where Hagar, his mother, was
buried. The well pointed out by the angel, they believe to be the famous
Zemzem, of which all pious Mohammedans drink to this day. To commemorate
the miraculous preservation of Ishmael, God commanded Abraham to build a
temple, and he erected and consecrated the Caaba, or sacred house, which
is still venerated in Mecca; and the black stone incased within its walls
is the same on which Abraham stood.
Mohammed (569-632 A.D.) did not pretend to introduce a new religion; his
professed object was merely to restore the primitive and only true faith,
such as it had been in the days of the patriarchs; the fundamental idea of
which was the unity of God. He made the revelations of the Old and New
Testaments the basis of his preaching. He maintained the authority of the
books of Moses, admitted the divine mission of Jesus, and he enrolled
himself in the catalogue of inspired teachers. This doctrine was
proclaimed in the memorable words, which for so many centuries constituted
the war-cry of the Saracens,--_There is no God but God, and Mohammed is
his prophet_. Mohammed preached no dogmas substantially new, but he
adorned, amplified, and adapted to the ideas, prejudices, and inclinations
of the Orientals, doctrines which were as old as the race. He enjoined the
ablutions suited to the manners and necessities of hot climates. He
ordained five daily prayers, that man might learn habitually to elevate
his thoughts above the outward world. He instituted the festival of the
Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, and commanded that every man should
bestow in alms the hundredth part of his possessions; observances which,
for the most part, already existed in the established customs of the
country.
The Koran (Reading), the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is, according to
their belief, the revelation of God to their prophet Mohammed. It contains
not only their religious belief, but their civil, military, and political
code. It is divided into 114 chapters, and 1,666 verses. It is written in
rhythmical prose, and its materials are borrowed from the Jewish and
Christian scriptures, the legends of the Talmud, and the traditions and
fables of the Arabian and Persian mythologies. Confusion of ideas,
obscurity, and contradictions destroy the unity and even the interest of
this work. The chapters are preposterously distributed, not according to
their date or connection, but according to their length, beginning with
the longest, and ending with the shortest; and thus the work becomes often
the more unintelligible by its singular arrangement. But notwithstanding
this, there is scarcely a volume in the Arabic language which contains
passages breathing more sublime poetry, or more enchanting eloquence; and
the Koran is so far important in the history of Arabian letters, that when
the scattered leaves were collected by Abubeker, the successor of Mohammed
(635 A.D.) and afterwards revised, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira,
they fixed at once the classic language of the Arabs, and became their
standard in style as well as in religion.
This work and its commentaries are held in the highest reverence by the
Mohammedans. It is the principal book taught in their schools; they never
touch it without kissing it, and carrying it to the forehead, in token of
their reverence; oaths before the courts are taken upon it; it is learned
by heart, and repeated every forty days; many believers copy it several
times in their lives, and often possess one or more copies ornamented with
gold and precious stones.
The Koran treats of death, resurrection, the judgment, paradise, and the
place of torment, in a style calculated powerfully to affect the
imagination of the believer. The joys of paradise, promised to all who
fall in the cause of religion, are those most captivating to an Arabian
fancy. When Al Sirat, or the Bridge of Judgment, which is as slender as
the thread of a famished spider, and as sharp as the edge of a sword,
shall be passed by the believer, he will be welcomed into the gardens of
delight by black-eyed Houris, beautiful nymphs, not made of common clay,
but of pure essence and odors, free from all blemish, and subject to no
decay of virtue or of beauty, and who await their destined lovers in rosy
bowers, or in pavilions formed of a single hollow pearl. The soil of
paradise is composed of musk and saffron, sprinkled with pearls and
hyacinths. The walls of its mansions are of gold and silver; the fruits,
which bend spontaneously to him who would gather them, are of a flavor and
delicacy unknown to mortals. Numerous rivers flow through this blissful
abode; some of wine, others of milk, honey, and water, the pebbly beds of
which are rubies and emeralds, and their banks of musk, camphor, and
saffron. In paradise the enjoyment of the believers, which is subject
neither to satiety nor diminution, will be greater than the human
understanding can compass. The meanest among them will have eighty
thousand servants, and seventy-two wives. Wine, though forbidden on earth,
will there be freely allowed, and will not hurt or inebriate. The
ravishing songs of the angels and of the Houris will render all the groves
vocal with harmony, such as mortal ear never heard. At whatever age they
may have died, at their resurrection all will be in the prime of manly and
eternal vigor. It would be a journey of a thousand years for a true
Mohammedan to travel through paradise, and behold all the wives, servants,
gardens, robes, jewels, horses, camels, and other things, which belong
exclusively to him.
The hell of Mohammed is as full of terror as his heaven is of delight. The
wicked, who fall into the gulf of torture from the bridge of Al Sirat,
will suffer alternately from cold and heat; when they are thirsty, boiling
water will be given them to drink; and they will be shod with shoes of
fire. The dark mansions of the Christians, Jews, Sabeans, Magians, and
idolaters are sunk below each other with increasing horrors, in the order
of their names. The seventh or lowest hell is reserved for the faithless
hypocrites of every religion. Into this dismal receptacle the unhappy
sufferer will be dragged by seventy thousand halters, each pulled by
seventy thousand angels, and exposed to the scourge of demons, whose
pastime is cruelty and pain.
It is a portion of the faith inculcated in the Koran, that both angels and
demons exist, having pure and subtle bodies, created of fire, and free
from human appetites and desires. The four principal angels are Gabriel,
the angel of revelation; Michael, the friend and protector of the Jews;
Azrael, the angel of death; and Izrafel, whose office it will be to sound
the trumpet at the last day. Every man has two guardian angels to attend
him and record his actions, good and evil. The doctrine of the angels,
demons, and jins or genii, the Arabians probably derived from the Hebrews.
The demons are fallen angels, the prince of whom is _Eblis_; he was at
first one of the angels nearest to God's presence, and was called
_Azazel_. He was cast out of heaven, according to the Koran, for refusing
to pay homage to Adam at the time of the creation. The genii are
intermediate creatures, neither wholly spiritual nor wholly earthly, some
of whom are good and entitled to salvation, and others infidels and
devoted to eternal torture. Among them are several ranks and degrees, as
the _Peris_, or fairies, beautiful female spirits, who seek to do good
upon the earth, and the _Deev_, or giants, who frequently make war upon
the Peris, take them captive, and shut them up in cages. The genii, both
good and bad, have the power of making themselves invisible at pleasure.
Besides the mountain o£ Kaf, which is their chief place of resort, they
dwell in ruined cities, uninhabited houses, at the bottom of wells, in
woods, pools of water, and among the rocks and sandhills of the desert.
Shooting stars are still believed by the people of the East to be arrows
shot by the angels against the genii, who transgress these limits and
approach too near the forbidden regions of bliss. Many of the genii
delight in mischief; they surprise and mislead travelers, raise
whirlwinds, and dry up springs in the desert. The _Ghoul_ lives on the
flesh of men and women, whom he decoys to his haunts in wild and barren
places, in order to kill and devour them, and when he cannot thus obtain
food, he enters the graveyards and feeds upon the bodies of the dead.
The fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe in the
eleventh century by the Troubadours and writers of the romances of
chivalry, and through them it became an important element in the
literature of Europe. It constituted the machinery of the _Fabliaux_ of
the Trouvères, and of the romantic epics of Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso,
Spenser, Shakspeare, and others.
The three leading Mohammedan sects are the Sunnees, the Sheahs, and the
Wahabees. The Sunnees acknowledge the authority of the first Caliphs, from
whom most of the traditions were derived. The Sheahs assert the divine
right of Ali to succeed to the prophet; consequently they consider the
first Caliphs, and all their successors, as usurpers. The Wahabees are a
sect of religious reformers, who took their name from Abd al Wahab (1700-
1750), the Luther of the Mohammedans. They became a formidable power in
Arabia, but they were finally overcome by Ibrahim Pacha in 1816.
4. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARABIAN LITERATURE.--The literature of
the Arabians has, properly speaking, but one period; although from remote
antiquity poetry was with them a favorite occupation, and long before the
time of Mohammed the roving tribes of the desert had their annual
conventions, where they defended their honor and celebrated their heroic
deeds. As early as the fifth century A.D., at the fair of Ochadh, thirty
days every year were employed not only in the exchange of merchandise, but
in the nobler display of rival talents. A place was set apart for the
competitions of the bards, whose highest ambition was to conquer in this
literary arena, and the victorious compositions were inscribed in golden
letters upon Egyptian paper, and suspended upon the doors of the Caaba,
the ancient national sanctuary of Mecca. Seven of the most famous of these
ancient poets have been celebrated by Oriental writers under the title of
the Arabian Pleiades, and their songs, still preserved, are full of
passion, manly pride, and intensity of imagination and feeling. These and
similar effusions constituted the entire literature of Arabia, and were
the only archives of the nation previous to the age of Mohammed.
The peninsula of Arabia, hitherto restricted to its natural boundaries,
and peopled by wandering tribes, had occupied but a subordinate place in
the history of the world. But the success of Mohammed and the preaching of
the Koran were followed by the union of the tribes who, inspired by the
feelings of national pride and religious fervor, in less than a century
made the Arabian power, tongue, and religion predominant over a third part
of Asia, almost one half of Africa, and a part of Spain; and, from the
ninth to the sixteenth century, the literature of the Arabians far
surpassed that of any contemporary nation.
After the fall of the Roman empire in the fifth century A.D., when the
western world sank into barbarism, and the inhabitants, ever menaced by
famine or the sword, found full occupation in struggling against civil
wars, feudal tyranny, and the invasion of barbarians; when poetry was
unknown, philosophy was proscribed as rebellion against religion, and
barbarous dialects had usurped the place of that beautiful Latin language
which had so long connected the nations of the West, and preserved to them
so many treasures of thought and taste, the Arabians, who by their
conquests and fanaticism had contributed more than any other nation to
abolish the cultivation of science and literature, having at length
established their empire, in turn devoted themselves to letters. Masters
of the country of the magi and the Chaldeans, of Egypt, the first
storehouse of human science, of Asia Minor, where poetry and the fine arts
had their birth, and of Africa, the country of impetuous eloquence and
subtle intellect--they seemed to unite in themselves the advantages of all
the nations which they had thus subjugated. Innumerable treasures had been
the fruit of their conquests, and this hitherto rude and uncultivated
nation now began to indulge in the most unbounded luxury. Possessed of all
the delights that human industry, quickened by boundless riches, could
procure, with all that could flatter the senses and attach the heart to
life, they now attempted to mingle with these the pleasures of the
intellect, the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and all that is most
excellent in human knowledge. In this new career, their conquests were not
less rapid than they had been in the field; nor was the empire which they
founded less extended. With a celerity equally surprising, it rose to a
gigantic height, but it rested on a foundation no less insecure, and it
was quite as transitory in its duration.
The Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, corresponds with
the year 622 of our era, and the supposed burning of the Alexandrian
library by Amrou, the general of the Caliph Omar, with the year 641. This
is the period of the deepest barbarism among the Saracens, and this event,
doubtful as it is, has left a melancholy proof of their contempt for
letters. A century had scarcely elapsed from the period to which this
barbarian outrage is referred, when the family of the Abassides, who
mounted the throne of the Caliphs in 750, introduced a passionate love of
art, of science, and of poetry. In the literature of Greece, nearly eight
centuries of progressive cultivation succeeding the Trojan war had
prepared the way for the age of Pericles. In that of Rome, the age of
Augustus was also in the eighth century after the foundation of the city.
In French literature, the age of Louis XIV. was twelve centuries
subsequent to Clovis, and eight after the development of the first
rudiments of the language. But, in the rapid progress of the Arabian
empire, the age of Al Mamoun, the Augustus of Bagdad, was not removed more
than one hundred and fifty years from the foundation of the monarchy. All
the literature of the Arabians bears the marks of this rapid development.
Ali, the fourth Caliph from Mohammed, was the first who extended any
protection to letters. His rival and successor, Moawyiah, the first of the
Ommyiades (661-680), assembled at his court all who were most
distinguished by scientific acquirements; he surrounded himself with
poets; and as he had subjected to his dominion many of the Grecian islands
and provinces, the sciences of Greece under him first began to obtain any
influence over the Arabians.
After the extinction of the dynasty of the Ommyiades, that of the
Abassides bestowed a still more powerful patronage on letters. The
celebrated Haroun al Raschid (786-809) acquired a glorious reputation by
the protection he afforded to letters. He never undertook a journey
without carrying with him at least a hundred men of science in his train,
and he never built a mosque without attaching to it a school.
But the true protector and father of Arabic literature was Al Mamoun, the
son of Haroun al Raschid (813-833), who rendered Bagdad the centre of
literature. He invited to his court from every part of the world all the
learned men with whose existence he was acquainted, and he retained them
by rewards, honors, and distinctions of every kind. He exacted, as the
most precious tribute from the conquered provinces, all the important
books and literary relics that could be discovered. Hundreds of camels
might be seen entering Bagdad, loaded with nothing but manuscripts and
papers, and those most proper for instruction were translated into Arabic.
Instructors, translators, and commentators formed the court of Al Mamoun,
which appeared to be rather a learned academy, than the seat of government
in a warlike empire. The Caliph himself was much attached to the study of
mathematics, which he pursued with brilliant success. He conceived the
grand design of measuring the earth, which was accomplished by his
mathematicians, at his own expense. Not less generous than enlightened, Al
Mamoun, when he pardoned one of his relatives who had revolted against
him, exclaimed, "If it were known what pleasure I experience in granting
pardon, all who have offended against me would come and confess their
crimes."
The progress of the Arabians in science was proportioned to the zeal of
the sovereign. In every town of the empire schools, colleges, and
academies were established. Bagdad was the capital of letters as well as
of the Caliphs, but Bassora and Cufa almost equaled that city in
reputation, and in the number of celebrated poems and treatises that they
produced. Balkh, Ispahan, and Samarcand were equally the homes of science.
Cairo contained a great number of colleges; in the towns of Fez and
Morocco the most magnificent buildings were appropriated to the purposes
of instruction, and in their rich libraries were preserved those precious
volumes which had been lost in other places.
What Bagdad was to Asia, Cordova was to Europe, where, particularly in the
tenth and eleventh centuries, the Arabs were the pillars of literature. At
this period, when learning found scarcely anywhere either rest or
encouragement, the Arabians were employed in collecting and diffusing it
in the three great divisions of the world. Students traveled from France
and other European countries to the Arabian schools in Spain, particularly
to learn medicine and mathematics. Besides the academy at Cordova, there
were established fourteen others in different parts of Spain, exclusive of
the higher schools. The Arabians made the most rapid advancement in all
the departments of learning, especially in arithmetic, geometry, and
astronomy. In the various cities of Spain, seventy libraries were opened
for public instruction at the period when all the rest of Europe, without
books, without learning, without cultivation, was plunged in the most
disgraceful ignorance. The number of Arabic authors which Spain produced
was so prodigious, that many Arabian bibliographers wrote learned
treatises on the authors born in particular towns, or on those among the
Spaniards who devoted themselves to a single branch of study, as
philosophy, medicine, mathematics, or poetry. Thus, throughout the vast
extent of the Arabian empire, the progress of letters had followed that of
arms, and for five centuries this literature preserved all its brilliancy.
5. GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC.--The perfection of the language was one of the
first objects of the Arabian scholars, and from the rival schools of Cufa
and Bassora a number of distinguished men proceeded, who analyzed with the
greatest subtlety all its rules and aided in perfecting it. As early as in
the age of Ali, the fourth Caliph, Arabian literature boasted of a number
of scientific grammarians. Prosody and the metric art were reduced to
systems. Dictionaries of the language were composed, some of which are
highly esteemed at the present day. Among these may be mentioned the "Al
Sehah," or Purity, and "El Kamus," or the Ocean, which is considered the
best dictionary of the Arabian language. The study of rhetoric was united
to that of grammar, and the most celebrated works of the Greeks on this
art were translated and adapted to the Arabic. After the age of Mohammed
and his immediate successors, popular eloquence was no longer cultivated.
Eastern despotism having supplanted the liberty of the desert, the heads
of the state or army regarded it beneath them to harangue the people or
the soldiers; they called upon them only for obedience. But though
political eloquence was of short duration among the Arabians, on the other
hand they were the inventors of that species of rhetoric most cultivated
at the present day, that of the academy and the pulpit. Their philosophers
in these learned assemblies displayed all the measured harmony of which
their language was susceptible. Mohammed had ordained that his faith
should be preached in the mosques;--many of the harangues of these sacred
orators are still preserved in the Escurial, and the style of them is very
similar to that of the Christian orators.
6. POETRY.--Poetry still more than eloquence was the favorite occupation
of the Arabians from their origin as a nation. It is said that this people
alone have produced more poets than all others united. Mohammed himself,
as well as some of his first companions, cultivated this art, but it was
under Haroun al Raschid and his successor, Al Mamoun, and more especially
under the Ommyïades of Spain that Arabic poetry attained its highest
splendor. But the ancient impetuosity of expression, the passionate
feeling, and the spirit of individual independence no longer characterized
the productions of this period, nor is there among the numerous
constellations of Arabic poets any star of distinguished magnitude. With
the exception of Mohammed and a few of the Saracen conquerors and
sovereigns, there is scarcely an individual of this nation whose name is
familiar to the nations of Christendom.
The Arabians possess many heroic poems composed for the purpose of
celebrating the praises of distinguished men, and of animating the courage
of their soldiers. They do not, however, boast of any epics; their poetry
is entirely lyric and didactic. They have been inexhaustible in their love
poems, their elegies, their moral verses,--among which their fables may be
reckoned,--their eulogistic, satirical, descriptive, and above all, their
didactic poems, which have graced even the most abstruse science, as
grammar, rhetoric, and arithmetic. But among all their poems, the
catalogue alone of which, in the Escurial, consists of twenty-four
volumes, there is not a single epic, comedy, or tragedy.
In those branches of poetry which they cultivated they displayed
surprising subtlety and great refinement of thought, but the fame of their
compositions rests, in some degree, on their bold metaphors, their
extravagant allegories, and their excessive hyperboles. The Arabs despised
the poetry of the Greeks, which appeared to them timid, cold, and
constrained, and among all the books, which, with almost superstitious
veneration, they borrowed from them, there is scarcely a single poem which
they judged worthy of translation. The object of the Arabian poets was to
make a brilliant use of the boldest and most gigantic images, and to
astonish the reader by the abruptness of their expressions. They burdened
their compositions with riches, under the idea that nothing which was
beautiful could be superfluous. They neglected natural sentiment, and the
more they could multiply the ornaments of art, the more admirable in their
eyes did the work appear.
The nations who possessed a classical poetry, in imitating nature, had
discovered the use of the epic and the drama, in which the poet endeavors
to express the true language of the human heart. The people of the East,
with the exception of the Hindus, never made this attempt--their poetry is
entirely lyric; but under whatever name it may be known, it is always
found to be the language of the passions. The poetry of the Arabians is
rhymed like our own, and the rhyming is often carried still farther in the
construction of the verse, while the uniformity of sound is frequently
echoed throughout the whole expression. The collection made by Aboul Teman
(fl. 845 A.D.) containing the Arabian poems of the age anterior to
Mohammed, and that of Taoleti, which embraces the poems of the subsequent
periods, are considered the richest and most complete anthologies of
Arabian poetry. Montanebbi, a poet who lived about 1050, has been compared
to the Persian Hafiz.
7. THE ARABIAN TALES.--If the Arabs have neither the epic nor the drama,
they have been, on the other hand, the inventors of a style of composition
which is related to the epic, and which supplies among them the place of
the drama. We owe to them those tales, the conception of which is so
brilliant and the imagination so rich and varied: tales which have been
the delight of our infancy, and which at a more advanced age we can never
read without feeling their enchantment anew. Every one is acquainted with
the "Arabian Nights Entertainments;" but in our translation we possess but
a very small part of the Arabian collection, which is not confined merely
to books, but forms the treasure of a numerous class of men and women,
who, throughout the East, find a livelihood in reciting these tales to
crowds, who delight to forget the present, in the pleasing dreams of
imagination. In the coffee-houses of the Levant, one of these men will
gather a silent crowd around him, and picture to his audience those
brilliant and fantastic visions which are the patrimony of Eastern
imaginations. The public squares abound with men of this class, and their
recitations supply the place of our dramatic representations. The
physicians frequently recommend them to their patients in order to soothe
pain, to calm agitation, or to produce sleep; and these story-tellers,
accustomed to sickness, modulate their voices, soften their tones, and
gently suspend them as sleep steals over the sufferer.
The imagination of the Arabs in these tales is easily distinguished from
that of the chivalric nations. The supernatural world is the same in both,
but the moral world is different. The Arabian tales, like the romances of
chivalry, convey us to the fairy realms, but the human personages which
they introduce are very dissimilar. They had their birth after the
Arabians had devoted themselves to commerce, literature, and the arts, and
we recognize in them the style of a mercantile people, as we do that of a
warlike nation in the romances of chivalry. Valor and military
achievements here inspire terror but no enthusiasm, and on this account
the Arabian tales are often less noble and heroic than we usually expect
in compositions of this nature. But, on the other hand, the Arabians are
our masters in the art of producing and sustaining this kind of fiction.
They are the creators of that brilliant mythology of fairies and genii
which extends the bounds of the world, and carries us into the realms of
marvels and prodigies. It is from them that European nations have derived
that intoxication of love, that tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, and
that reverential awe of women, by turns slaves and divinities, which have
operated so powerfully on their chivalrous feelings. We trace their
effects in all the literature of the south, which owes to this cause its
mental character. Many of these tales had separately found their way into
the poetic literature of Europe, long before the translation of the
Arabian Nights. Some are to be met with in the old _fabliaux_, in
Boccaccio, and in Ariosto, and these very tales which have charmed our
infancy, passing from nation to nation through channels frequently
unknown, are now familiar to the memory and form the delight of the
imagination of half the inhabitants of the globe.
The author of the original Arabic work is unknown, as is also the period
at which it was composed. It was first introduced into Europe from Syria,
where it was obtained, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, by
Galland, a French traveler, who was sent to the East by the celebrated
Colbert, to collect manuscripts, and by him first translated and
published.
8. HISTORY AND SCIENCE.--As early as the eighth century A.D., history
became an important department in Arabian literature. At later periods,
historians who wrote on all subjects were numerous. Several authors wrote
universal history from the beginning of the world to their own time; every
state, province, and city possessed its individual chronicle, Many, in
imitation of Plutarch, wrote the lives of distinguished men; and there was
such a passion for every species of composition, and such a desire to
leave no subject untouched, that there was a serious history written of
celebrated horses, and another of camels that had risen to distinction.
They possessed historical dictionaries, and made use of all those
inventions which curtail labor and dispense with the necessity of
research. Every art and science had its history, and of these this nation
possessed a more complete collection than any other, either ancient or
modern. The style of the Arabian historians is simple and unadorned.
Philosophy was passionately cultivated by the Arabians, and upon it was
founded the fame of many ingenious and sagacious men, whose names are
still revered in Europe. Among them were Averrhoes of Cordova (d. 1198),
the great commentator on the works of Aristotle, and Avicenna (d. 1037), a
profound philosopher as well as a celebrated writer on medicine. Arabian
philosophy penetrated rapidly into the West, and had greater influence on
the schools of Europe than any branch of Arabic literature; and yet it was
the one in which the progress was, in fact, the least real. The Arabians,
more ingenious than profound, attached themselves rather to the subtleties
than to the connection of ideas; their object was more to dazzle than to
instruct, and they exhausted their imaginations in search of mysteries.
Aristotle was worshiped by them, as a sort of divinity. In their opinion
all philosophy was to be found in his writings, and they explained every
metaphysical question according to the scholastic standard.
The interpretation of the Koran formed another important part of their
speculative studies, and their literature abounds with exegetic works on
their sacred book, as well as with commentaries on Mohammedan law. The
learned Arabians did not confine themselves to the studies which they
could only prosecute in their closets; they undertook, for the advancement
of science, the most perilous journeys, and we owe to Aboul Feda (1273-
1331) and other Arabian travelers the best works on geography written in
the Middle Ages.
The natural sciences were cultivated by them with great ardor, and many
naturalists among them merit the gratitude of posterity. Botany and
chemistry, of which they were in some sort the inventors, gave them a
better acquaintance with nature than the Greeks or Romans ever possessed,
and the latter science was applied by them to all the necessary arts of
life. Above all, agriculture was studied by them with a perfect knowledge
of the climate, soil, and growth of plants. From the eighth to the
eleventh century, they established medical schools in the principal cities
of their dominions, and published valuable works on medical science. They
introduced more simple principles into mathematics, and extended the use
and application of that science. They added to arithmetic the decimal
system, and the Arabic numerals, which, however, are of Hindu origin; they
simplified the trigonometry of the Greeks, and gave algebra more useful
and general applications. Bagdad and Cordova had celebrated schools of
astronomy, and observatories, and their astronomers made important
discoveries; a great number of scientific words are evidently Arabic, such
as algebra, alcohol, zenith, nadir, etc., and many of the inventions,
which at the present day add to the comforts of life, are due to the
Arabians. Paper, now so necessary to the progress of intellect, was
brought by them from Asia. In China, from all antiquity, it had been
manufactured from silk, but about the year 30 of the Hegira (649 A.D.) the
manufacture of it was introduced at Samarcand, and when that city was
conquered by the Arabians, they first employed cotton in the place of
silk, and the invention spread with rapidity throughout their dominions.
The Spaniards, in fabricating paper, substituted flax for cotton, which
was more scarce and dear; but it was not till the end of the thirteenth
century that paper mills were established in the Christian states of
Spain, from whence the invention passed, in the fourteenth century only,
to Treviso and Padua. Tournaments were first instituted among the
Arabians, from whom they were introduced into Italy and France. Gunpowder,
the discovery of which is generally attributed to a German chemist, was
known to the Arabians at least a century before any trace of it appeared
in European history. The compass, also, the invention of which has been
given alternately to the Italians and French in the thirteenth century,
was known to the Arabians in the eleventh. The number of Arabic
inventions, of which we enjoy the benefit without suspecting it, is
prodigious.
Such, then, was the brilliant light which literature and science displayed
from the ninth to the fourteenth century of our era in those vast
countries which had submitted to the yoke of Islamism. In this immense
extent of territory, twice or thrice as large as Europe, nothing is now
found but ignorance, slavery, terror, and death. Few men are there capable
of reading the works of their illustrious ancestors, and few who could
comprehend them are able to procure them. The prodigious literary riches
of the Arabians no longer exist in any of the countries where the Arabians
or Mussulmans rule. It is not there that we must seek for the fame of
their great men or for their writings. What has been preserved is in the
hands of their enemies, in the convents of the monks, or in the royal
libraries of Europe.
9. EDUCATION.--At present there is little education, in our sense of the
word, in Arabia. In the few instances where public schools exist, writing,
grammar, and rhetoric sum up the teaching. The Bedouin children learn from
their parents much more than is common in other countries. Great attention
is paid to accuracy of grammar and purity of diction throughout the
country, and of late literary institutions have been established at
Beyrout, Damascus, Bagdad, and Hefar.
Such is the extent of Arabic literature, that, notwithstanding the labors
of European scholars and the productions of native presses, in Boulak and
Cairo, in India, and recently in England, where Hassam, an Arabian poet,
has devoted himself to the production of standard works, the greater part
of what has been preserved is still in manuscript and still more has
perished.