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[Illustration: LITIGANTS BEFORE A JUDGE
From an Arabic manuscript in the British Museum (Or. 1200; No. 1007 in
Rieu's _Arabic Supplement_), dated A.H. 654 = A.D. 1256, which
contains the _Maqámȧt_ of Ḥarìrì illustrated by 81 miniatures in
colours. This one represents a scene in the 8th Maqáma: Abú Zayd and
his son appearing before the Cadi of Ma‘arratu ’l-Nu’mán. The figure
on the left is Ḥárith b. Hammám, whom Ḥarìrì puts forward as the
relater of Abú Zayd's adventures.]
A LITERARY
HISTORY OF THE ARABS
BY
REYNOLD A. NICHOLSON
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1966
PUBLISHED BY
THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London, N.W. 1
American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York N.Y. 10022,
West African Office: P.O. Box 33, Ibadan, Nigeria
First edition (T. Fisher Unwin) 1907, reprinted 1914, 1923
Reprinted (Cambridge University Press) 1930, 1941, 1953,
1962, 1966
_First printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge
Reprinted by offset-litho by Latimer Trend & Co. Ltd, Whitstable_
To
PROFESSOR A. A. BEVAN
In grateful recollection of many kindnesses
PREFACE
_A Literary History of the Arabs_, published by T. Fisher Unwin in
1907 and twice re-issued without alteration, now appears under new
auspices, and I wish to thank the Syndics of the Cambridge University
Press for the opportunity they have given me of making it in some
respects more accurate and useful than it has hitherto been. Since the
present edition is printed from the original plates, there could be no
question of revising the book throughout and recasting it where
necessary; but while only a few pages have been rewritten, the
Bibliography has been brought up to date and I have removed several
mistakes from the text and corrected others in an appendix which
includes a certain amount of supplementary matter. As stated in the
preface to the first edition, I hoped "to compile a work which should
serve as a general introduction to the subject, and which should be
neither too popular for students nor too scientific for ordinary
readers. It has been my chief aim to sketch in broad outlines what the
Arabs thought, and to indicate as far as possible the influences which
moulded their thought.... Experience has convinced me that young
students of Arabic, to whom this volume is principally addressed,
often find difficulty in understanding what they read, since they are
not in touch with the political, intellectual, and religious notions
which are presented to them. The pages of almost every Arabic book
abound in allusions to names, events, movements, and ideas of which
Moslems require no explanation, but which puzzle the Western reader
unless he have some general knowledge of Arabian history in the widest
meaning of the word. Such a survey is not to be found, I believe, in
any single European book; and if mine supply the want, however
partially and inadequately, I shall feel that my labour has been amply
rewarded.... As regards the choice of topics, I agree with the author
of a famous anthology who declares that it is harder to select than
compose (_ikhtiyáru ’l-kalám aṣ‘abu min ta’lífihi_). Perhaps an
epitomist may be excused for not doing equal justice all round. To me
the literary side of the subject appeals more than the historical, and
I have followed my bent without hesitation; for in order to interest
others a writer must first be interested himself.... Considering the
importance of Arabic poetry as, in the main, a true mirror of Arabian
life, I do not think the space devoted to it is excessive. Other
branches of literature could not receive the same attention. Many an
eminent writer has been dismissed in a few lines, many well-known
names have been passed over. But, as before said, this work is a
sketch of ideas in their historical environment rather than a record
of authors, books, and dates. The exact transliteration of Arabic
words, though superfluous for scholars and for persons entirely
ignorant of the language, is an almost indispensable aid to the class
of readers whom I have especially in view. My system is that
recommended by the Royal Asiatic Society and adopted by Professor
Browne in his _Literary History of Persia_; but I use ẓ for the letter
which he denotes by _dh_. The definite article _al_, which is
frequently omitted at the beginning of proper names, has been restored
in the Index. It may save trouble if I mention here the abbreviations
'b.' for 'ibn' (son of); J.R.A.S. for _Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society_; Z.D.M.G. for _Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft_; and S.B.W.A. for _Sitzungsberichte der Wiener
Akademie_. Finally, it behoves me to make full acknowledgment of my
debt to the learned Orientalists whose works I have studied and freely
'conveyed' into these pages. References could not be given in every
case, but the reader will see for himself how much is derived from Von
Kremer, Goldziher, Nöldeke, and Wellhausen, to mention only a few of
the leading authorities. At the same time I have constantly gone back
to the native sources of information."
There remains an acknowledgment of a more personal kind. Twenty-two
years ago I wrote--"my warmest thanks are due to my friend and
colleague, Professor A. A. Bevan, who read the proofs throughout and
made a number of valuable remarks which will be found in the footnotes."
Happily the present occasion permits me to renew those ties between us;
and the book which he helped into the world now celebrates its majority
by associating itself with his name.
REYNOLD A. NICHOLSON
_November 1, 1929_
Frontispiece
LITIGANTS BEFORE A JUDGE (British Museum Or. 1200)
Contents
PAGE
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION xv
CHAPTER
I. SABA AND ḤIMYAR 1
II. THE HISTORY AND LEGENDS OF THE PAGAN ARABS 30
III. PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY, MANNERS, AND RELIGION 71
IV. THE PROPHET AND THE KORAN 141
V. THE ORTHODOX CALIPHATE AND THE UMAYYAD
DYNASTY 181
VI. THE CALIPHS OF BAGHDÁD 254
VII. POETRY, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE IN THE ‘ABBÁSID
PERIOD 285
VIII. ORTHODOXY, FREE-THOUGHT, AND MYSTICISM 365
IX. THE ARABS IN EUROPE 405
X. FROM THE MONGOL INVASION TO THE PRESENT DAY 442
APPENDIX 471
BIBLIOGRAPHY 477
INDEX 487
Introduction
[Sidenote: The Semites.]
The Arabs belong to the great family of nations which on account of
their supposed descent from Shem, the son of Noah, are commonly known as
the 'Semites.' This term includes the Babylonians and Assyrians, the
Hebrews, the Phœnicians, the Aramæans, the Abyssinians, the Sabæans, and
the Arabs, and although based on a classification that is not
ethnologically precise--the Phœnicians and Sabæans, for example, being
reckoned in Genesis, chap. x, among the descendants of Ham--it was well
chosen by Eichhorn († 1827) to comprehend the closely allied peoples
which have been named. Whether the original home of the undivided
Semitic race was some part of Asia (Arabia, Armenia, or the district of
the Lower Euphrates), or whether, according to a view which has lately
found favour, the Semites crossed into Asia from Africa,[1] is still
uncertain. Long before the epoch when they first appear in history they
had branched off from the parent stock and formed separate
nationalities. The relation of the Semitic languages to each other
cannot be discussed here, but we may arrange them in the chronological
order of the extant literature as follows:--[2]
1. Babylonian or Assyrian (3000-500 B.C.).
2. Hebrew (from 1500 B.C.).
3. South Arabic, otherwise called Sabæan or Ḥimyarite (inscriptions
from 800 B.C.).
4. Aramaic (inscriptions from 800 B.C.).
5. Phœnician (inscriptions from 700 B.C.).
6. Æthiopic (inscriptions from 350 A.D.).
7. Arabic (from 500 A.D.).
[Sidenote: The Arabs as representatives of the Semitic Race.]
Notwithstanding that Arabic is thus, in a sense, the youngest of the
Semitic languages, it is generally allowed to be nearer akin than any of
them to the original archetype, the 'Ursemitisch,' from which they all
are derived, just as the Arabs, by reason of their geographical
situation and the monotonous uniformity of desert life, have in some
respects preserved the Semitic character more purely and exhibited it
more distinctly than any people of the same family. From the period of
the great Moslem conquests (700 A.D.) to the present day they have
extended their language, religion, and culture over an enormous expanse
of territory, far surpassing that of all the ancient Semitic empires
added together. It is true that the Arabs are no longer what they were
in the Middle Ages, the ruling nation of the world, but loss of temporal
power has only strengthened their spiritual dominion. Islam still reigns
supreme in Western Asia; in Africa it has steadily advanced; even on
European soil it has found in Turkey compensation for its banishment
from Spain and Sicily. While most of the Semitic peoples have vanished,
leaving but a meagre and ambiguous record, so that we cannot hope to
become intimately acquainted with them, we possess in the case of the
Arabs ample materials for studying almost every phase of their
development since the sixth century of the Christian era, and for
writing the whole history of their national life and thought. This book,
I need hardly say, makes no such pretensions. Even were the space at my
disposal unlimited, a long time must elapse before the vast and various
field of Arabic literature can be thoroughly explored and the results
rendered accessible to the historian.
[Sidenote: Arabs of the North and South.]
From time immemorial Arabia was divided into North and South, not only
by the trackless desert (_al-Rub‘ al-Khálí_, the 'Solitary Quarter')
which stretches across the peninsula and forms a natural barrier to
intercourse, but also by the opposition of two kindred races widely
differing in their character and way of life. Whilst the inhabitants of
the northern province (the Ḥijáz and the great central highland of Najd)
were rude nomads sheltering in 'houses of hair,' and ever shifting to
and fro in search of pasture for their camels, the people of Yemen or
Arabia Felix are first mentioned in history as the inheritors of an
ancient civilisation and as the owners of fabulous wealth--spices, gold
and precious stones--which ministered to the luxury of King Solomon. The
Bedouins of the North spoke Arabic--that is to say, the language of the
Pre-islamic poems and of the Koran--whereas the southerners used a
dialect called by Muḥammadans 'Ḥimyarite' and a peculiar script of which
the examples known to us have been discovered and deciphered in
comparatively recent times. Of these Sabæans--to adopt the designation
given to them by Greek and Roman geographers--more will be said
presently. The period of their bloom was drawing to a close in the early
centuries of our era, and they have faded out of history before 600
A.D., when their northern neighbours first rise into prominence.
[Sidenote: Ishmaelites and Yoqṭánids.]
It was, no doubt, the consciousness of this racial distinction that
caused the view to prevail among Moslem genealogists that the Arabs
followed two separate lines of descent from their common ancestor, Sám
b. Núḥ (Shem, the son of Noah). As regards those of the North, their
derivation from ‘Adnán, a descendant of Ismá‘íl (Ishmael) was
universally recognised; those of the South were traced back to Qaḥṭán,
whom most genealogists identified with Yoqṭán (Joktan), the son of ‘Ábir
(Eber). Under the Yoqṭánids, who are the elder line, we find, together
with the Sabæans and Ḥimyarites, several large and powerful
tribes--_e.g._, Ṭayyi’, Kinda, and Tanúkh--which had settled in North
and Central Arabia long before Islam, and were in no respect
distinguishable from the Bedouins of Ishmaelite origin. As to ‘Adnán,
his exact genealogy is disputed, but all agree that he was of the
posterity of Ismá‘íl (Ishmael), the son of Ibráhím (Abraham) by Hájar
(Hagar). The story runs that on the birth of Ismá‘íl God commanded
Abraham to journey to Mecca with Hagar and her son and to leave them
there. They were seen by some Jurhumites, descendants of Yoqṭán, who
took pity on them and resolved to settle beside them. Ismá‘íl grew up
with the sons of the strangers, learned to shoot the bow, and spoke
their tongue. Then he asked of them in marriage, and they married him to
one of their women.[3] The tables on the opposite page show the
principal branches of the younger but by far the more important family
of the Arabs which traced its pedigree through ‘Adnán to Ismá‘íl. A
dotted line indicates the omission of one or more links in the
genealogical chain.[4]
I.[5]
THE DESCENDENTS OF RABI‘A.
‘Adnán.
│
Ma‘add.
│
Nizár.
│
Rabi‘a.
│
-------------------------------------------------------
│ │ │
‘Anaza. │ │
Wá’il. Namir.
│
┌─────┴─────┐
│ │
Bakr. Taghlib.
II.
THE DESCENDANTS OF MUḐAR.
‘Adnán.
│
Ma‘add.
│
Nizár.
│
Muḍar.
│
---------------------------------------------------------
│ │ . .
│ │ . . .
Qays ‘Aylán │ . . .
. Ḍabba. . Khuzayma. Hudhayl.
. . . .
Ghaṭafán. . Tamím. . .
│ . . .
│ ┌─────────┐ . .
│ │ │ Asad. Kinána.
│ Sulaym. Hawázin. │
│ │
┌────────┐ │
│ │ │
Abs. Dhubyán. Fihr (Quraysh).
[Sidenote: Character of Muḥammadan genealogy.]
It is undeniable that these lineages are to some extent fictitious.
There was no Pre-islamic science of genealogy, so that the first
Muḥammadan investigators had only confused and scanty traditions to work
on. They were biassed, moreover, by political, religious, and other
considerations.[6] Thus their study of the Koran and of Biblical history
led to the introduction of the patriarchs who stand at the head of their
lists. Nor can we accept the national genealogy beginning with ‘Adnán as
entirely historical, though a great deal of it was actually stored in
the memories of the Arabs at the time when Islam arose, and is
corroborated by the testimony of the Pre-islamic poets.[7] On the other
hand, the alleged descent of every tribe from an eponymous ancestor is
inconsistent with facts established by modern research.[8] It is
probable that many names represent merely a local or accidental union;
and many more, _e.g._, Ma‘add, seem originally to have denoted large
groups or confederations of tribes. The theory of a radical difference
between the Northern Arabs and those of the South, corresponding to the
fierce hostility which has always divided them since the earliest days
of Islam,[9] may hold good if we restrict the term 'Yemenite' (Southern)
to the civilised Sabæans, Ḥimyarites, &c., who dwelt in Yemen and spoke
their own dialect, but can hardly apply to the Arabic-speaking
'Yemenite' Bedouins scattered all over the peninsula. Such criticism,
however, does not affect the value of the genealogical documents
regarded as an index of the popular mind. From this point of view legend
is often superior to fact, and it must be our aim in the following
chapters to set forth what the Arabs believed rather than to examine
whether or no they were justified in believing it.
'Arabic,' in its widest signification, has two principal dialects:--
1. South Arabic, spoken in Yemen and including Sabæan, Ḥimyarite,
Minæan, with the kindred dialects of Mahra and Shiḥr.
2. Arabic proper, spoken in Arabia generally, exclusive of Yemen.
[Sidenote: South Arabic.]
Of the former language, leaving Mahrí, Socotrí, and other living
dialects out of account, we possess nothing beyond the numerous
inscriptions which have been collected by European travellers and which
it will be convenient to discuss in the next chapter, where I shall give
a brief sketch of the legendary history of the Sabæans and Ḥimyarites.
South Arabic resembles Arabic in its grammatical forms, _e.g._, the
broken plural, the sign of the dual, and the manner of denoting
indefiniteness by an affixed _m_ (for which Arabic substitutes _n_) as
well as in its vocabulary; its alphabet, which consists of twenty-nine
letters, _Sin_ and _Samech_ being distinguished as in Hebrew, is more
nearly akin to the Æthiopic. The Ḥimyarite Empire was overthrown by the
Abyssinians in the sixth century after Christ, and by 600 A.D. South
Arabic had become a dead language. From this time forward the dialect of
the North established an almost universal supremacy and won for itself
the title of 'Arabic' _par excellence_.[10]
[Sidenote: The oldest specimens of Arabic writing.]
[Sidenote: The Pre-islamic poems.]
[Sidenote: The Koran.]
[Sidenote: Arabic in the Muḥammadan Empire.]
The oldest monuments of written Arabic are modern in date compared with
the Sabæan inscriptions, some of which take us back 2,500 years or
thereabout. Apart from the inscriptions of Ḥijr in the northern Ḥijáz,
and those of Ṣafá in the neighbourhood of Damascus (which, although
written by northern Arabs before the Christian era, exhibit a peculiar
character not unlike the Sabæan and cannot be called Arabic in the usual
acceptation of the term), the most ancient examples of Arabic writing
which have hitherto been discovered appear in the trilingual (Syriac,
Greek, and Arabic) inscription of Zabad,[11] south-east of Aleppo, dated
512 or 513 A.D., and the bilingual (Greek and Arabic) of Ḥarrán,[12]
dated 568 A.D. With these documents we need not concern ourselves
further, especially as their interpretation presents great difficulties.
Very few among the Pre-islamic Arabs were able to read or write.[13]
Those who could generally owed their skill to Jewish and Christian
teachers, or to the influence of foreign culture radiating from Ḥíra and
Ghassán. But although the Koran, which was first collected soon after
the battle of Yamáma (633 A.D.), is the oldest Arabic book, the
beginnings of literary composition in the Arabic language can be traced
back to an earlier period. Probably all the Pre-islamic poems which have
come down to us belong to the century preceding Islam (500-622 A.D.),
but their elaborate form and technical perfection forbid the hypothesis
that in them we have "the first sprightly runnings" of Arabian song. It
may be said of these magnificent odes, as of the Iliad and Odyssey, that
"they are works of highly finished art, which could not possibly have
been produced until the poetical art had been practised for a long
time." They were preserved during hundreds of years by oral tradition,
as we shall explain elsewhere, and were committed to writing, for the
most part, by the Moslem scholars of the early ‘Abbásid age, _i.e._,
between 750 and 900 A.D. It is a noteworthy fact that the language of
these poems, the authors of which represent many different tribes and
districts of the peninsula, is one and the same. The dialectical
variations are too trivial to be taken into account. We might conclude
that the poets used an artificial dialect, not such as was commonly
spoken but resembling the epic dialect of Ionia which was borrowed by
Dorian and Æolian bards. When we find, however, that the language in
question is employed not only by the wandering troubadours, who were
often men of some culture, and the Christian Arabs of Ḥíra on the
Euphrates, but also by goat-herds, brigands, and illiterate Bedouins of
every description, there can be no room for doubt that in the poetry of
the sixth century we hear the Arabic language as it was then spoken
throughout the length and breadth of Arabia. The success of Muḥammad and
the conquests made by Islam under the Orthodox Caliphs gave an entirely
new importance to this classical idiom. Arabic became the sacred
language of the whole Moslem world. This was certainly due to the Koran;
but, on the other hand, to regard the dialect of Mecca, in which the
Koran is written, as the source and prototype of the Arabic language,
and to call Arabic 'the dialect of Quraysh,' is utterly to reverse the
true facts of the case. Muḥammad, as Nöldeke has observed, took the
ancient poetry for a model; and in the early age of Islam it was the
authority of the heathen poets (of whom Quraysh had singularly few) that
determined the classical usage and set the standard of correct speech.
Moslems, who held the Koran to be the Word of God and inimitable in
point of style, naturally exalted the dialect of the Prophet's tribe
above all others, even laying down the rule that every tribe spoke less
purely in proportion to its distance from Mecca, but this view will not
commend itself to the unprejudiced student. The Koran, however,
exercised a unique influence on the history of the Arabic language and
literature. We shall see in a subsequent chapter that the necessity of
preserving the text of the Holy Book uncorrupted, and of elucidating its
obscurities, caused the Moslems to invent a science of grammar and
lexicography, and to collect the old Pre-Muḥammadan poetry and
traditions which must otherwise have perished. When the Arabs settled as
conquerors in Syria and Persia and mixed with foreign peoples, the
purity of the classical language could no longer be maintained. While in
Arabia itself, especially among the nomads of the desert, little
difference was felt, in the provincial garrison towns and great centres
of industry like Baṣra and Kúfa, where the population largely consisted
of aliens who had embraced Islam and were rapidly being Arabicised, the
door stood open for all sorts of depravation to creep in. Against this
vulgar Arabic the philologists waged unrelenting war, and it was mainly
through their exertions that the classical idiom triumphed over the
dangers to which it was exposed. Although the language of the pagan
Bedouins did not survive intact--or survived, at any rate, only in the
mouths of pedants and poets--it became, in a modified form, the
universal medium of expression among the upper classes of Muḥammadan
society. During the early Middle Ages it was spoken and written by all
cultivated Moslems, of whatever nationality they might be, from the
Indus to the Atlantic; it was the language of the Court and the Church,
of Law and Commerce, of Diplomacy and Literature and Science. When the
Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century swept away the ‘Abbásid
Caliphate, and therewith the last vestige of political unity in Islam,
classical Arabic ceased to be the κοινή or 'common dialect' of
the Moslem world, and was supplanted in Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and other
Arabic-speaking countries by a vulgar colloquial idiom. In these
countries, however, it is still the language of business, literature,
and education, and we are told on high authority that even now it "is
undergoing a renaissance, and there is every likelihood of its again
becoming a great literary vehicle."[14] And if, for those Moslems who
are not Arabs, it occupies relatively much the same position as Latin
and Greek in modern European culture, we must not forget that the Koran,
its most renowned masterpiece, is learned by every Moslem when he first
goes to school, is repeated in his daily prayers, and influences the
whole course of his life to an extent which the ordinary Christian can
hardly realise.
[Sidenote: The Nabaṭæans.]
I hope that I may be excused for ignoring in a work such as this the
information regarding Ancient Arabian history which it is possible to
glean from the Babylonian and Assyrian monuments. Any sketch that might
be drawn of the Arabs, say from 2500 B.C. to the beginning of our era,
would resemble a map of Cathay delineated by Sir John Mandeville. But
amongst the shadowy peoples of the peninsula one, besides Saba and
Ḥimyar, makes something more than a transient impression. The Nabaṭæans
(_Nabaṭ_, pl. _Anbáṭ_) dwelt in towns, drove a flourishing trade long
before the birth of Christ, and founded the kingdom of Petra, which
attained a high degree of prosperity and culture until it was annexed by
Trajan in 105 A.D. These Nabaṭæans were Arabs and spoke Arabic, although
in default of a script of their own they used Aramaic for writing.[15]
Muḥammadan authors identify them with the Aramæans, but careful study of
their inscriptions has shown that this view, which was accepted by
Quatremère,[16] is erroneous. 'The Book of Nabaṭæan Agriculture'
(_Kitábu ’l-Faláḥat al-Nabaṭiyya_), composed in 904 A.D. by the Moslem
Ibnu ’l-Waḥshiyya, who professed to have translated it from the
Chaldæan, is now known to be a forgery. I only mention it here as an
instance of the way in which Moslems apply the term 'Nabaṭæan'; for the
title in question does not, of course, refer to Petra but to Babylon.
[Sidenote: Three periods of Arabian history.]
From what has been said the reader will perceive that the history of the
Arabs, so far as our knowledge of it is derived from Arabic sources, may
be divided into the following periods:--
I. The Sabæan and Ḥimyarite period, from 800 B.C.,
the date of the oldest South Arabic inscriptions, to
500 A.D.
II. The Pre-islamic period (500-622 A.D.).
III. The Muḥammadan period, beginning with the Migration
(Hijra, or Hegira, as the word is generally written)
of the Prophet from Mecca to Medína in 622 A.D.
and extending to the present day.
[Sidenote: The Sabæans and Ḥimyarites.]
For the first period, which is confined to the history of Yemen or South
Arabia, we have no contemporary Arabic sources except the inscriptions.
The valuable but imperfect information which these supply is appreciably
increased by the traditions preserved in the Pre-islamic poems, in the
Koran, and particularly in the later Muḥammadan literature. It is true
that most of this material is legendary and would justly be ignored by
any one engaged in historical research, but I shall nevertheless devote
a good deal of space to it, since my principal object is to make known
the beliefs and opinions of the Arabs themselves.
[Sidenote: The pagan Arabs.]
The second period is called by Muḥammadan writers the _Jáhiliyya_,
_i.e._, the Age of Ignorance or Barbarism.[17] Its characteristics are
faithfully and vividly reflected in the songs and odes of the heathen
poets which have come down to us. There was no prose literature at that
time: it was the poet's privilege to sing the history of his own people,
to record their genealogies, to celebrate their feats of arms, and to
extol their virtues. Although an immense quantity of Pre-islamic verse
has been lost for ever, we still possess a considerable remnant, which,
together with the prose narratives compiled by Moslem philologists and
antiquaries, enables us to picture the life of those wild days, in its
larger aspects, accurately enough.
[Sidenote: The Moslem Arabs.]
The last and by far the most important of the three periods comprises
the history of the Arabs under Islam. It falls naturally into the
following sections, which are enumerated in this place in order that the
reader may see at a glance the broad political outlines of the complex
and difficult epoch which lies before him.
_A._ The Life of Muḥammad.
[Sidenote: Life of Muḥammad.]
About the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era a man
named Muḥammad, son of ‘Abdulláh, of the tribe Quraysh, appeared in
Mecca with a Divine revelation (Koran). He called on his fellow-townsmen
to renounce idolatry and worship the One God. In spite of ridicule and
persecution he continued for several years to preach the religion of
Islam in Mecca, but, making little progress there, he fled in 622 A.D.
to the neighbouring city of Medína. From this date his cause prospered
exceedingly. During the next decade the whole of Arabia submitted to his
rule and did lip-service at least to the new Faith.
_B._ The Orthodox Caliphate (632-661 A.D.).
[Sidenote: The Orthodox Caliphs.]
On the death of the Prophet the Moslems were governed in turn by four of
the most eminent among his Companions--Abú Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmán, and
‘Alí--who bore the title of _Khalífa_ (Caliph), _i.e._, Vicegerent, and
are commonly described as the Orthodox Caliphs (_al-Khulafá
al-Ráshidún_). Under their guidance Islam was firmly established in the
peninsula and was spread far beyond its borders. Hosts of Bedouins
settled as military colonists in the fertile plains of Syria and Persia.
Soon, however, the recently founded empire was plunged into civil war.
The murder of ‘Uthmán gave the signal for a bloody strife between rival
claimants of the Caliphate. ‘Alí, the son-in-law of the Prophet, assumed
the title, but his election was contested by the powerful governor of
Syria, Mu‘áwiya b. Abí Sufyán.
_C._ The Umayyad Dynasty (661-750 A.D.).
[Sidenote: The Umayyad dynasty.]
‘Alí fell by an assassin's dagger, and Mu‘áwiya succeeded to the
Caliphate, which remained in his family for ninety years. The Umayyads,
with a single exception, were Arabs first and Moslems afterwards.
Religion sat very lightly on them, but they produced some able and
energetic princes, worthy leaders of an imperial race. By 732 A.D. the
Moslem conquests had reached the utmost limit which they ever attained.
The Caliph in Damascus had his lieutenants beyond the Oxus and the
Pyrenees, on the shores of the Caspian and in the valley of the Nile.
Meantime the strength of the dynasty was being sapped by political and
religious dissensions nearer home. The Shí‘ites, who held that the
Caliphate belonged by Divine right to ‘Alí and his descendants, rose in
revolt again and again. They were joined by the Persian Moslems, who
loathed the Arabs and the oppressive Umayyad government. The ‘Abbásids,
a family closely related to the Prophet, put themselves at the head of
the agitation. It ended in the complete overthrow of the reigning house,
which was almost exterminated.
_D._ The ‘Abbásid Dynasty (750-1258 A.D.).
[Sidenote: The ‘Abbásid dynasty.]
Hitherto the Arabs had played a dominant rôle in the Moslem community,
and had treated the non-Arab Moslems with exasperating contempt. Now the
tables were turned. We pass from the period of Arabian nationalism to
one of Persian ascendancy and cosmopolitan culture. The flower of the
‘Abbásid troops were Persians from Khurásán; Baghdád, the wonderful
‘Abbásid capital, was built on Persian soil; and Persian nobles filled
the highest offices of state at the ‘Abbásid court. The new dynasty, if
not religious, was at least favourable to religion, and took care to
live in the odour of sanctity. For a time Arabs and Persians forgot
their differences and worked together as good Moslems ought. Piety was
no longer its own reward. Learning enjoyed munificent patronage. This
was the Golden Age of Islam, which culminated in the glorious reign of
Hárún al-Rashíd (786-809 A.D.). On his death peace was broken once more,
and the mighty empire began slowly to collapse. As province after
province cut itself loose from the Caliphate, numerous independent
dynasties sprang up, while the Caliphs became helpless puppets in the
hands of Turkish mercenaries. Their authority was still formally
recognised in most Muḥammadan countries, but since the middle of the
ninth century they had little or no real power.
_E._ From the Mongol invasion to the present day (1258 A.D.--).
[Sidenote: The Post-Mongolian period.]
The Mongol hordes under Húlágú captured Baghdád in 1258 A.D. and made an
end of the Caliphate. Sweeping onward, they were checked by the Egyptian
Mamelukes and retired into Persia, where, some fifty years afterwards,
they embraced Islam. The successors of Húlágú, the Íl-kháns, reigned in
Persia until a second wave of barbarians under Tímúr spread devastation
and anarchy through Western Asia (1380-1405 A.D.). The unity of Islam,
in a political sense, was now destroyed. Out of the chaos three
Muḥammadan empires gradually took shape. In 1358 the Ottoman Turks
crossed the Hellespont, in 1453 they entered Constantinople, and in 1517
Syria, Egypt, and Arabia were added to their dominions. Persia became an
independent kingdom under the Ṣafawids (1502-1736); while in India
the empire of the Great Moguls was founded by Bábur, a descendant of
Tímúr, and gloriously maintained by his successors, Akbar and Awrangzíb
(1525-1707).
[Sidenote: Arabian literary history.]
[Sidenote: Writers who are wholly or partly of foreign extraction.]
Some of the political events which have been summarised above will be
treated more fully in the body of this work; others will receive no more
than a passing notice. The ideas which reveal themselves in Arabic
literature are so intimately connected with the history of the people,
and so incomprehensible apart from the external circumstances in which
they arose, that I have found myself obliged to dwell at considerable
length on various matters of historical interest, in order to bring out
what is really characteristic and important from our special point of
view. The space devoted to the early periods (500-750 A.D.) will not
appear excessive if they are seen in their true light as the centre and
heart of Arabian history. During the next hundred years Moslem
civilisation reaches its zenith, but the Arabs recede more and more into
the background. The Mongol invasion virtually obliterated their national
life, though in Syria and Egypt they maintained their traditions of
culture under Turkish rule, and in Spain we meet them struggling
desperately against Christendom. Many centuries earlier, in the balmy
days of the ‘Abbásid Empire, the Arabs _pur sang_ contributed only a
comparatively small share to the literature which bears their name. I
have not, however, enforced the test of nationality so strictly as to
exclude all foreigners or men of mixed origin who wrote in Arabic. It
may be said that the work of Persians (who even nowadays are accustomed
to use Arabic when writing on theological and philosophical subjects)
cannot illustrate the history of Arabian thought, but only the influence
exerted upon Arabian thought by Persian ideas, and that consequently it
must stand aside unless admitted for this definite purpose. But what
shall we do in the case of those numerous and celebrated authors who are
neither wholly Arab nor wholly Persian, but unite the blood of both
races? Must we scrutinise their genealogies and try to discover which
strain preponderates? That would be a tedious and unprofitable task. The
truth is that after the Umayyad period no hard-and-fast line can be
drawn between the native and foreign elements in Arabic literature. Each
reacted on the other, and often both are combined indissolubly. Although
they must be distinguished as far as possible, we should be taking a
narrow and pedantic view of literary history if we insisted on regarding
them as mutually exclusive.
CHAPTER I
SABA AND ḤIMYAR
[Sidenote: Primitive races.]
[Sidenote: Legend of ‘Ad.]
With the Sabæans Arabian history in the proper sense may be said to
begin, but as a preliminary step we must take account of certain races
which figure more or less prominently in legend, and are considered by
Moslem chroniclers to have been the original inhabitants of the country.
Among these are the peoples of ‘Ád and Thamúd, which are constantly held
up in the Koran as terrible examples of the pride that goeth before
destruction. The home of the ‘Ádites was in Ḥaḍramawt, the province
adjoining Yemen, on the borders of the desert named _Aḥqáfu ’l-Raml_. It
is doubtful whether they were Semites, possibly of Aramaic descent, who
were subdued and exterminated by invaders from the north, or, as Hommel
maintains,[18] the representatives of an imposing non-Semitic culture
which survives in the tradition of 'Many-columned Iram,'[19] the Earthly
Paradise built by Shaddád, one of their kings. The story of their
destruction is related as follows:[20] They were a people of gigantic
strength and stature, worshipping idols and committing all manner of
wrong; and when God sent to them a prophet, Húd by name, who should warn
them to repent, they answered: "O Húd, thou hast brought us no evidence,
and we will not abandon our gods for thy saying, nor will we believe in
thee. We say one of our gods hath afflicted thee with madness."[21] Then
a fearful drought fell upon the land of ‘Ád, so that they sent a number
of their chief men to Mecca to pray for rain. On arriving at Mecca the
envoys were hospitably received by the Amalekite prince, Mu‘áwiya b.
Bakr, who entertained them with wine and music--for he had two famous
singing-girls known as _al-Jarádatán_; which induced them to neglect
their mission for the space of a whole month. At last, however, they got
to business, and their spokesman had scarce finished his prayer when
three clouds appeared, of different colours--white, red, and black--and
a voice cried from heaven, "Choose for thyself and for thy people!" He
chose the black cloud, deeming that it had the greatest store of rain,
whereupon the voice chanted--
"Thou hast chosen embers dun | that will spare of ‘Ád not one | that
will leave nor father nor son | ere him to death they shall have
done."
Then God drove the cloud until it stood over the land of ‘Ád, and there
issued from it a roaring wind that consumed the whole people except a
few who had taken the prophet's warning to heart and had renounced
idolatry.
From these, in course of time, a new people arose, who are called 'the
second ‘Ád.' They had their settlements in Yemen, in the region of Saba.
The building of the great Dyke of Ma’rib is commonly attributed to their
king, Luqmán b. ‘Ád, about whom many fables are told. He was surnamed
'The Man of the Vultures' (_Dhu ’l-Nusúr_), because it had been granted
to him that he should live as long as seven vultures, one after the
other.
[Sidenote: Legend of Thamúd.]
In North Arabia, between the Ḥijáz and Syria, dwelt the kindred race of
Thamúd, described in the Koran (vii, 72) as inhabiting houses which they
cut for themselves in the rocks. Evidently Muḥammad did not know the
true nature of the hewn chambers which are still to be seen at Ḥijr
(Madá’in Ṣáliḥ), a week's journey northward from Medína, and which are
proved by the Nabaṭæan inscriptions engraved on them to have been
sepulchral monuments.[22] Thamúd sinned in the same way as ‘Ád, and
suffered a like fate. They scouted the prophet Ṣáliḥ, refusing to
believe in him unless he should work a miracle. Ṣáliḥ then caused a
she-camel big with young to come forth from a rock, and bade them do her
no hurt, but one of the miscreants, Qudár the Red (al-Aḥmar), hamstrung
and killed her. "Whereupon a great earthquake overtook them with a noise
of thunder, and in the morning they lay dead in their houses, flat upon
their breasts."[23] The author of this catastrophe became a byword:
Arabs say, "More unlucky than the hamstringer of the she-camel," or
"than Aḥmar of Thamúd." It should be pointed out that, unlike the
‘Ádites, of whom we find no trace in historical times, the Thamúdites
are mentioned as still existing by Diodorus Siculus and Ptolemy; and
they survived down to the fifth century A.D. in the corps of _equites
Thamudeni_ attached to the army of the Byzantine emperors.
[Sidenote: ‘Amálíq.]
[Sidenote: Ṭasm and Jadís.]
Besides ‘Ád and Thamúd, the list of primitive races includes the ‘Amálíq
(Amalekites)--a purely fictitious term under which the Moslem
antiquaries lumped together several peoples of an age long past,_e.g._,
the Canaanites and the Philistines. We hear of Amalekite settlements in
the Tiháma (Netherland) of Mecca and in other parts of the peninsula.
Finally, mention should be made of Ṭasm and Jadís, sister tribes of
which nothing is recorded except the fact of their destruction and the
events that brought it about. The legendary narrative in which these are
embodied has some archæological interest as showing the existence in
early Arabian society of a barbarous feudal custom, 'le droit du
seigneur,' but it is time to pass on to the main subject of this
chapter.
[Sidenote: History of the Yoqṭánids.]
The Pre-islamic history of the Yoqṭánids, or Southern Arabs, on which we
now enter, is virtually the history of two peoples, the Sabæans and the
Ḥimyarites, who formed the successive heads of a South Arabian empire
extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
[Sidenote: The Sabæans.]
Saba[24] (Sheba of the Old Testament) is often incorrectly used to
denote the whole of Arabia Felix, whereas it was only one, though
doubtless the first in power and importance, of several kingdoms, the
names and capitals of which are set down in the works of Greek and Roman
geographers. However exaggerated may be the glowing accounts that we
find there of Sabæan wealth and magnificence, it is certain that Saba
was a flourishing commercial state many centuries before the birth of
Christ.[25] "Sea-traffic between the ports of East Arabia and India was
very early established, and Indian products, especially spices and rare
animals (apes and peacocks) were conveyed to the coast of ‘Umán. Thence,
apparently even in the tenth century B.C., they went overland to the
Arabian Gulf, where they were shipped to Egypt for the use of the
Pharaohs and grandees.... The difficulty of navigating the Red Sea
caused the land route to be preferred for the traffic between Yemen and
Syria. From Shabwat (Sabota) in Ḥaḍramawt the caravan road went to
Ma’rib (Mariaba), the Sabæan capital, then northward to Macoraba (the
later Mecca), and by way of Petra to Gaza on the Mediterranean."[26] The
prosperity of the Sabæans lasted until the Indian trade, instead of
going overland, began to go by sea along the coast of Ḥaḍramawt and
through the straits of Báb al-Mandab. In consequence of this change,
which seems to have taken place in the first century A.D., their power
gradually declined, a great part of the population was forced to seek
new homes in the north, their cities became desolate, and their massive
aqueducts crumbled to pieces. We shall see presently that Arabian legend
has crystallised the results of a long period of decay into a single
fact--the bursting of the Dyke of Ma’rib.
[Sidenote: The Ḥimyarites.]
The disappearance of the Sabæans left the way open for a younger branch
of the same stock, namely, the Ḥimyarites, or, as they are called by
classical authors, Homeritæ, whose country lay between Saba and the sea.
Under their kings, known as Tubba‘s, they soon became the dominant power
in South Arabia and exercised sway, at least ostensibly, over the
northern tribes down to the end of the fifth century A.D., when the
latter revolted and, led by Kulayb b. Rabí‘a, shook off the suzerainty
of Yemen in a great battle at Khazázá.[27] The Ḥimyarites never
flourished like the Sabæans. Their maritime situation exposed them more
to attack, while the depopulation of the country had seriously weakened
their military strength. The Abyssinians--originally colonists from
Yemen--made repeated attempts to gain a foothold, and frequently managed
to instal governors who were in turn expelled by native princes. Of
these Abyssinian viceroys the most famous is Abraha, whose unfortunate
expedition against Mecca will be related in due course. Ultimately the
Ḥimyarite Empire was reduced to a Persian dependency. It had ceased to
exist as a political power about a hundred years before the rise of
Islam.
[Sidenote: Sources of information.]
The chief Arabian sources of information concerning Saba and Ḥimyar are
(1) the so-called 'Ḥimyarite' inscriptions, and (2) the traditions,
almost entirely of a legendary kind, which are preserved in Muḥammadan
literature.
[Sidenote: The South Arabic or Sabæan inscriptions.]
[Sidenote: Objections to the term 'Ḥimyarite.']
Although the South Arabic language may have maintained itself
sporadically in certain remote districts down to the Prophet's time or
even later, it had long ago been superseded as a medium of daily
intercourse by the language of the North, the Arabic _par excellence_,
which henceforth reigns without a rival throughout the peninsula. The
dead language, however, did not wholly perish. Already in the sixth
century A.D. the Bedouin rider made his camel kneel down while he
stopped to gaze wonderingly at inscriptions in a strange character
engraved on walls of rock or fragments of hewn stone, and compared the
mysterious, half-obliterated markings to the almost unrecognisable
traces of the camping-ground which for him was fraught with tender
memories. These inscriptions are often mentioned by Muḥammadan authors,
who included them in the term _Musnad_. That some Moslems--probably very
few--could not only read the South Arabic alphabet, but were also
acquainted with the elementary rules of orthography, appears from a
passage in the eighth book of Hamdání's _Iklíl_; but though they might
decipher proper names and make out the sense of words here and there,
they had no real knowledge of the language. How the inscriptions were
discovered anew by the enterprise of European travellers, gradually
deciphered and interpreted until they became capable of serving as a
basis for historical research, and what results the study of them has
produced, this I shall now set forth as briefly as possible. Before
doing so it is necessary to explain why instead of 'Ḥimyarite
inscriptions' and 'Ḥimyarite language' I have adopted the less familiar
designations 'South Arabic' or 'Sabæan.' 'Ḥimyarite' is equally
misleading, whether applied to the language of the inscriptions or to
the inscriptions themselves. As regards the language, it was spoken in
one form or another not by the Ḥimyarites alone, but also by the
Sabæans, the Minæans, and all the different peoples of Yemen.
Muḥammadans gave the name of 'Ḥimyarite' to the ancient language of
Yemen for the simple reason that the Ḥimyarites were the most powerful
race in that country during the last centuries preceding Islam. Had all
the inscriptions belonged to the period of Ḥimyarite supremacy, they
might with some justice have been named after the ruling people; but the
fact is that many date from a far earlier age, some going back to the
eighth century B.C., perhaps nearly a thousand years before the
Ḥimyarite Empire was established. The term 'Sabæan' is less open to
objection, for it may fairly be regarded as a national rather than a
political denomination. On the whole, however, I prefer 'South Arabic'
to either.
[Sidenote: Discovery and decipherment of the South Arabic inscriptions.]
Among the pioneers of exploration in Yemen the first to interest himself
in the discovery of inscriptions was Carsten Niebuhr, whose
_Beschreibung von Arabien_, published in 1772, conveyed to Europe the
report that inscriptions which, though he had not seen them, he
conjectured to be 'Ḥimyarite,' existed in the ruins of the once famous
city of Ẓafár. On one occasion a Dutchman who had turned Muḥammadan
showed him the copy of an inscription in a completely unknown alphabet,
but "at that time (he says) being very ill with a violent fever, I had
more reason to prepare myself for death than to collect old
inscriptions."[28] Thus the opportunity was lost, but curiosity had been
awakened, and in 1810 Ulrich Jasper Seetzen discovered and copied
several inscriptions in the neighbourhood of Ẓafár. Unfortunately these
copies, which had to be made hastily, were very inexact. He also
purchased an inscription, which he took away with him and copied at
leisure, but his ignorance of the characters led him to mistake the
depressions in the stone for letters, so that the conclusions he came to
were naturally of no value.[29] The first serviceable copies of South
Arabic inscriptions were brought to Europe by English officers employed
on the survey of the southern and western coasts of Arabia. Lieutenant
J. R. Wellsted published the inscriptions of Ḥiṣn Ghuráb and Naqb
al-Ḥajar in his _Travels in Arabia_ (1838).
Meanwhile Emil Rödiger, Professor of Oriental Languages at Halle, with
the help of two manuscripts of the Berlin Royal Library containing
'Ḥimyarite' alphabets, took the first step towards a correct
decipherment by refuting the idea, for which De Sacy's authority had
gained general acceptance, that the South Arabic script ran from left to
right[30]; he showed, moreover, that the end of every word was marked by
a straight perpendicular line.[31] Wellsted's inscriptions, together
with those which Hulton and Cruttenden brought to light at Ṣan‘á, were
deciphered by Gesenius and Rödiger working independently (1841).
Hitherto England and Germany had shared the credit of discovery, but a
few years later France joined hands with them and was soon leading the
way with characteristic brilliance. In 1843 Th. Arnaud, starting from
Ṣan‘á, succeeded in discovering the ruins of Ma’rib, the ancient Sabæan
metropolis, and in copying at the risk of his life between fifty and
sixty inscriptions, which were afterwards published in the _Journal
Asiatique_ and found an able interpreter in Osiander.[32] Still more
important were the results of the expedition undertaken in 1870 by the
Jewish scholar, Joseph Halévy, who penetrated into the Jawf, or country
lying east of Ṣan‘á, which no European had traversed before him since 24
B.C., when Ælius Gallus led a Roman army by the same route. After
enduring great fatigues and meeting with many perilous adventures,
Halévy brought back copies of nearly seven hundred inscriptions.[33]
During the last twenty-five years much fresh material has been collected
by E. Glaser and Julius Euting, while study of that already existing by
Prætorius, Halévy, D. H. Müller, Mordtmann, and other scholars has
substantially enlarged our knowledge of the language, history, and
religion of South Arabia in the Pre-islamic age.
[Sidenote: The historical value of the inscriptions.]
Neither the names of the Ḥimyarite monarchs, as they appear in the lists
drawn up by Muḥammadan historians, nor the order in which these names
are arranged can pretend to accuracy. If they are historical persons at
all they must have reigned in fairly recent times, perhaps a short while
before the rise of Islam, and probably they were unimportant princes
whom the legend has thrown back into the ancient epoch, and has invested
with heroic attributes. Any one who doubts this has only to compare the
modern lists with those which have been made from the material in the
inscriptions.[34] D. H. Müller has collected the names of thirty-three
Minæan kings. Certain names are often repeated--a proof of the existence
of ruling dynasties--and ornamental epithets are usually attached to
them. Thus we find Dhamar‘alí Dhirríḥ (Glorious), Yatha‘amar Bayyin
(Distinguished), Kariba’íl Watár Yuhan‘im (Great, Beneficent), Samah‘alí
Yanúf (Exalted). Moreover, the kings bear different titles corresponding
to three distinct periods of South Arabian history, viz., 'Priest-king
of Saba' (_Mukarrib Saba_),[35] 'King of Saba' (_Malk Saba_), and 'King
of Saba and Raydán.' In this way it is possible to determine
approximately the age of the various buildings and inscriptions, and to
show that they do not belong, as had hitherto been generally supposed,
to the time of Christ, but that in some cases they are at least eight
hundred years older.
[Sidenote: Votive inscriptions.]
How widely the peaceful, commerce-loving people of Saba and Ḥimyar
differed in character from the wild Arabs to whom Muḥammad was sent
appears most strikingly in their submissive attitude towards their gods,
which forms, as Goldziher has remarked, the keynote of the South Arabian
monuments.[36] The prince erects a thank-offering to the gods who gave
him victory over his enemies; the priest dedicates his children and all
his possessions; the warrior who has been blessed with "due
man-slayings," or booty, or escape from death records his gratitude, and
piously hopes for a continuance of favour. The dead are conceived as
living happily under divine protection; they are venerated and sometimes
deified.[37] The following inscription, translated by Lieut.-Col. W. F.
Prideaux, is a typical example of its class:--
"Sa‘d-iláh and his sons, Benú Marthadim, have endowed Il-Maḳah of
Hirrán with this tablet, because Il-Maḳah, lord of Awwám Dhú-‘Irán
Alú, has favourably heard the prayer addressed to him, and has
consequently heard the Benú Marthadim when they offered the
first-fruits of their fertile lands of Arhaḳim in the presence of
Il-Maḳah of Hirrán, and Il-Maḳah of Hirrán has favourably heard the
prayer addressed to him that he would protect the plains and meadows
and this tribe in their habitations, in consideration of the frequent
gifts throughout the year; and truly his (Sa‘d-iláh's) sons will
descend to Arhaḳim, and they will indeed sacrifice in the two shrines
of ‘Athtor and Shamsim, and there shall be a sacrifice in Hirrán--both
in order that Il-Maḳah may afford protection to those fields of Bin
Marthadim as well as that he may favourably listen--and in the
sanctuary of Il-Maḳah of Ḥarwat, and therefore may he keep them in
safety according to the sign in which Sa‘d-iláh was instructed, the
sign which he saw in the sanctuary of Il-Maḳah of Na‘mán; and as for
Il-Maḳah of Hirrán, he has protected those fertile lands of Arhaḳim
from hail and from all misfortune (_or_, from cold and from all
extreme heat)."[38]
In concluding this very inadequate account of the South Arabic
inscriptions I must claim the indulgence of my readers, who are aware
how difficult it is to write clearly and accurately upon any subject
without first-hand knowledge, in particular when the results of previous
research are continually being transformed by new workers in the same
field.
[Sidenote: Literary sources.]
[Sidenote: Hamdání († 945 A.D.).]
Fortunately we possess a considerable literary supplement to these
somewhat austere and meagre remains. Our knowledge of South Arabian
geography, antiquities, and legendary history is largely derived from
the works of two natives of Yemen, who were filled with enthusiasm for
its ancient glories, and whose writings, though different as fact and
fable, are from the present point of view equally instructive--Ḥasan b.
Aḥmad al-Hamdání and Nashwán b. Sa‘íd al-Ḥimyarí. Besides an excellent
geography of Arabia (_Ṣifatu Jazírat al-‘Arab_), which has been edited
by D. H. Müller, Hamdání left a great work on the history and
antiquities of Yemen, entitled _al-Iklíl_ ('The Crown'), and divided
into ten books under the following heads:--[39]
Book I. _Compendium of the beginning and origins of genealogy._