HOW THE TEACHING OF MOHAMMED SPREAD INTO MANY LANDS AND CREATED MANY
LITERATURES
The wide-spread Arabic empire and religion originated with Mohammed
and was founded on his book, the Koran. That tremendously important
work, with the primitive Arabic literature of even earlier date, formed
the theme of our preceding volume. We have now to trace the Arabic
literature and thought which, with the expanding of the Mohammedan
empire, spread over a large part of the Eastern world. Geographically
that empire reached from its Arabian center eastward through Babylonia
and Persia into India, westward through all North Africa into Spain,
southward through Egypt into the wilds of Central Africa, and northward
through Asia Minor to all the Turkish possessions. Through much of this
vast region, Arabic became the common speech, and books were written in
its tongue. Even in our own day, Arabic continues as the language of a
considerable part of Turkey in Asia, of Egypt, and of all North Africa.
We can scarcely, however, regard as a unit all the varying Mohammedan
literatures of these many lands. The Persians, for example, retained
their own language and wrote in it a literature of Mohammedan religious
spirit, so important that we shall devote to it a later separate
volume. Our present task, therefore, will confine itself to tracing
through the Middle Ages the more strictly Arabian development. This
includes first, the spread of literature and thought among the Arabs
themselves, or among those people who completely adopted the Arabic
faith and speech. Second, it includes the literature of the Moors, or
semi-Arabic peoples, of North Africa and Spain. And third, it leads us
to the Turks, the last Mohammedan conquerors, who took up and carried
on Arabic tradition, though in a language and spirit more Tartar than
Arabian.
For the purely Arabic development, that is for the literature and
thought that sprang directly from Mohammed's teaching, we turn first to
the "Sunan," or traditions about Mohammed. After the prophet's death in
A.D. 632, and while his followers were spreading his teachings by force
of arms, they talked much of the doings and sayings of their adored
master. Then, long after his own writings had been gathered in the
official form of the Koran, a similar collection was made of what might
be termed his unofficial teaching, that is of all his remembered words,
the ideas which he had not proclaimed as inspired by God, but had given
forth in ordinary conversation between man and man. The details of his
life were also treasured. Thus sprang up the "Sunan," from which we may
learn as much of Mohammed the man, and of the daily life and thought of
his people, as from the Koran we learn of Mohammed the poet and of the
poetic spirit of Arabia.
For a long time the Arabs developed no other religious literature than
this. Of the third leader of their new faith, the Caliph Omar, there is
a well-known legend which may be untrue in fact but is intensely true
to the fanatic spirit of the Caliph and his followers. It says that
when Omar's armies conquered Egypt the scholars of Alexandria entreated
him to protect the books of their great library, the largest in the
world. Instead, Omar ordered the thousands of manuscripts to be used to
feed the fires of the public baths; and he based the destruction upon
this verdict: "If these books disagree with the Koran they are evil; if
they agree they are unnecessary."
The Arabic literary spirit was thus compelled to cling to its old
pre-Mohammedan form. That is, it expressed itself only in brief
personal poems, in skilfully phrased epigrams, satiric couplets, or
"rubaiyat," called forth by a sudden occasion. A collection of the best
known of these poems, gathered from successive ages of gay and dashing
singers, is given at the close of our Arabic section.
Gradually, however, a change came over the victorious Arab race. The
warriors lost their intense religious inspiration. They fought among
themselves for place and power. The enormous wealth which they had
conquered, with its resulting temptations to luxury and ease and empty
vanity, weakened them, lured them from both the high moral strength
which they had really attained, and from the fanatic frenzy of faith
which had been their pride. They removed the capital of their empire
from the holy cities of Arabia, first to Damascus and then to Bagdad,
the wonderful dream-city of splendor which they built upon the banks of
the ancient Tigris river.
Under these gorgeous Caliphs of Bagdad, such as Haroun al Raschid
of "Arabian Nights'" fame, a civilization developed which Mohammed
would never have recognized as his own, which he would indeed have
been the first to repudiate. Unrestrained power bred a callous
indifference to the sufferings of its victims, and even a barbarous
delight in inflicting torture. The tyranny of the ruling classes bred
a corresponding falsity in their helpless but supple servitors. Truth,
the chief virtue in Mohammed's teaching, became unknown in human
intercourse, except as a poetic ideal. From their priest-king down,
through all the ranks of society, men talked much of the virtues, while
surrendering themselves almost wholly to the passions. One might of
course speak cynically of mankind's having found this somewhat true in
every age, but seldom has the tragic contrast between the ideal and the
actual been brought into such sharp and visible form as in the medieval
world of Bagdad.
From this fertile though unhealthy soil a new literature sprang up,
typical of the time and place. Here were centered the wealth and
leisure and most of what survived of the culture of ancient Asia and
Africa. So wit and learning journeyed there as well. At first the new
literature found voice mainly as history or biography, or as a rather
crude form of these collections of anecdotes purporting to give the
virtues and chief events in the lives of former caliphs. Among the
writers of these semi-biographic tales, by far the most noted and most
noteworthy is Masoudi (died A.D. 957). His huge work, the "Golden
Meadows," fills many volumes, from which we give the most attractive
anecdotes. While such tales must not be taken as genuine history, they
teach us very clearly the spirit of their age.
After these loose histories, a more careful science developed. The real
learning of the Arab scholars of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
far outranked that of their European and Christian contemporaries. As
yet the various fields of science were scarcely differentiated; the
student took all knowledge for his province. The earliest Arab writer,
who may perhaps be regarded as a genuine historian, in contrast to the
previous romancers, was Al Biruni (973-1048), whose "Chronology" our
volume quotes. But Al Biruni was far more than an historian; he was a
leading scientist of his day and also a geographer, his work on "India"
being almost as celebrated as his "Chronology." Of even greater fame
in science than Al Biruni was Avicenna (980-1037), a sort of universal
genius, known first as a physician. To his works on medicine he
afterward added religious tracts, poems, works on philosophy, on logic,
on physics, on mathematics, and on astronomy. He was also a statesman
and a soldier, and he is said to have died of debauchery. He is famed
as the most versatile and brilliant member of a versatile and brilliant
race.
With the increasing freedom of scientific thought and speech which
Avicenna typifies, there sprang up among the Eastern Mohammedans a new
religious impulse. They began to examine more carefully the faith which
they had before accepted blindly. To this age therefore we owe the
writings of Al Ghazali (1049-1111), whom some of his own countrymen
have regarded as second only to Mohammed as a teacher of their
religion. Indeed, it was a common saying of his day that "If there were
still prophets in the world Al Ghazali would be one."
Western scholars have, some of them, gone still further in their
admiration of Al Ghazali, declaring him to have been one of the
world's greatest thinkers, whom his Mohammedan contemporaries never
sufficiently appreciated, and to whose high moral stature the
Mohammedan world has not even yet grown up. Among his writings the most
interesting and useful to modern readers is his "Rescuer from Error,"
a sort of spiritual autobiography, his account of his own growth in
religious faith. This striking book our volume gives in full.
From Al Ghazali, or even from before his time, dates the great flow of
commentaries on the Koran. These half-philosophical, half-fanatical
discussions would have seemed irreligious to the earliest Mohammedan
age. The Koran had been originally accepted as perfect, and
therefore as completely clear. But now the analytic spirit of the
Semite reasserted itself; and even as the Hebrews in their Biblical
commentaries weighed every "and" and "but" and every carelessly
made letter in their Holy Book, so now the Mohammedan "mullahs," or
priests, began to draw deductions from their law, to interpret and
so develop it. Among these commentators two are chiefly celebrated.
Zamakhshari (1074-1143) was perhaps the most learned and the shrewdest,
but his ideas have seemed to his coreligionists a little too radical,
too independent of Mohammed, daring almost to question the divine
inspiration of the prophet. Therefore the work of Zamakhshari's more
submissive successor of a century later, Al Baidawi, has gradually
superseded the older book as the favorite exposition of the Koran. The
Western reader, however, will distinctly prefer the independence of
Zamakhshari.
Into the lighter literature of the medieval Arabs we need not look too
far. They had their wholly unreligious and fantastic romances such as
the "Arabian Nights." This famous work, however, draws largely upon
Persian sources. Indeed, as our later Persian volume will emphasize,
most of the pure romance of later Arab literature is of Persian origin,
and may best be studied in the Persian books. There is, however, an
intermediate class of tale peculiarly Arabian. This is the mingling of
romance with poetry and moral teachings, just as the earlier historians
had mingled it with history. Most celebrated in this peculiar class
of semi-religious, semi-poetic romances is the work presented in this
volume, the "Assemblies" of Al Hariri (1054-1122). Just as Masoudi
stands to his race for history, Al Biruni for geography, Avicenna for
science, Al Ghazali for philosophy, and Zamakhshari and Al Baidawi
for religious study, so does Al Hariri stand for literary skill, for
brilliancy and humor. His "Assemblies" is the Arabs' chief purely
literary achievement.