(INTRODUCTION)
The work of Al Hariri may well stand as our best example of typical
Arab prose. With regard to religious writing, a few thoughtful
Mohammedans, as we have seen, might travel, and seek new light, and
meditate profoundly; but the great mass of the people were merely
blindly fanatic. Mohammed was the prophet of God, and any one who
failed to shout this with the rest of the world, was to be killed.
Popular interest went but little further. But when you turned to the
art of stringing words together, every true Arab was immediately
attentive. There was an Arab proverb that God had given genius, or true
creative ability, to three things, the brain of the Frank, the hand of
the Chinaman, and the tongue of the Arab.
To our own more sober literary sense the clever twists of phrase
and sound in which these people took such pride, seem but the outer
garment of thought, more apt to confuse than to reveal its deeper
meaning. Yet what the Arabs admire, they admire; and they find it to
perfection in Al Hariri's "Assemblies." No mere translation can convey
its intricacies of sound and sense. Only such an artistic word-juggler
as Al Hariri himself could convey the impression of the original. And
Al Hariri himself labored long on each brief "Assembly," polishing
and repolishing, before he submitted each tale to the judgment of his
keenly critical listeners.
The name "Assemblies" he gave to his work because each tale pictures
an assembly of people. The form is highly artificial, for, while the
author represents himself as accidentally stumbling upon each assembly,
yet each proves ultimately to consist of a gathering of people
listening with admiration to the brilliant words and clever rascalities
of the same old beggar, Abu Zayd. The trick played by Abu Zayd is
usually slight, the chief interest from the Arab view-point depending
on the beggar's witty words and especially upon his supposedly
extemporaneous verse.
Neither should the reader pass unnoticed the moral side of Hariri's
work. He quite definitely thinks of himself as a teacher, and
studies to make each "Assembly" a worthy guide to righteousness. His
"Assemblies" number fifty in all, but the earlier ones are generally
accepted as the best, the eleventh and twelfth being particularly noted
for their excellence, after which the collection seems slightly to
decline.
Of course Al Hariri was by no means alone in composing this sort of
tale. Similar "Assemblies" had preceded his; many more were to follow.
In short we touch here upon the "popular literature" of the Arabs, the
collection of short stories which were to blossom into the "Arabian
Nights"—though in the later tales of this character we find less of
verse and more of story, in short less of the Arab and more of the
increasing Persian influence.