THIRD PERIOD.
From the fall of Baghdad, in A.D. 1258, to the present time.
The conquest of Baghdad by the Mughals is a most remarkable period, not only in the literature, but also in the history, of the Arabs. It marks the final extinction of the Abbaside dynasty, from whom the ancient power and glory had vanished to such a degree that the authority of the Khalifs may almost literally be said to have been confined to the city only. Halaku Khan, the brother of the grand Khan Kubilai, and grandson of Jenghiz Khan, took and sacked Baghdad, keeping the Khalif imprisoned for some time, but slaying him at last, with his sons and several thousand Abbasides. Al-Mustaa'sim was the thirty-seventh and last Khalif of the house of Abbas, which had reigned over five hundred years, and was now extinguished.
Halaku Khan attacked Baghdad by the advice of Khojah Nasir-uddin Tusy, the great Persian astronomer and mathematician. Nasir-uddin had entered the service of the last prince of the Assassins only for the purpose of avenging himself on the Khalif, who had disparaged one of his works. When, however, he became aware of Halaku's power, he not only betrayed his new master to him, but led the Mughal conqueror also to Baghdad. After the burning of the library at Alamut (the stronghold of the Assassins, where they kept their literary treasures) and the sacking of Baghdad by Halaku Khan, the erection of the astronomical observatory at Maragha, under the direction of Nasir-uddin Tusy, was the first sign that Arab civilization and the cultivation of science had not been entirely extinguished by Tartar barbarism. The learned viziers who stood by the side of the conqueror, such as the two brothers Juvaini, were Persians, and therefore hardly belong to the history of Arab literature. But the fact that one of these two historians now wrote 'The Heart Opener,' also implies that the invasion of the barbarians had not quite put an end to literary activity.
More than ten historians flourished at the beginning of this period whose names terminated with 'din,' such as Baha-uddin, Imad-uddin, Kamal-uddin, etc., and they were contemporaries of the Arab Plutarch Ibn Khallikan, already mentioned and described in the preceding period.
The 'Alfiyya,' or Quintessence of Arab Grammar, was written in verse by Jamal-uddin Abu Abdallah Muhammad, known under the name of Ibn Malik. The author died in A.D. 1273-1274; but his work has lived, and it is looked upon as a good exponent of the system. The Arab text has been published, with a commentary upon it in French, by Silvestre de Sacy, A.D. 1834.
During the eighth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1301-1398), there lived three distinguished men, one famed as a geographer and traveller, and the other two as historians, viz., Ibn Batuta, Abul Feda, and Ibn Khaldun. The first-named left his native town, Tangiers, in A.D. 1324, and travelled all over the East, performing his pilgrimage to Mecca in A.D. 1332. The travels of Ibn Batuta were translated by the Rev. S. Lee, and published by the Oriental Translation Fund, as their first work, in A.D. 1829. This traveller has been noticed by Kosegarten in a Latin treatise, and his travels have been also translated into French, with the Arabic text above, by C. Defremery and R. Sanguinetti, at the expense of the French Government (1874-1879).
Abul Feda Ismail Hamawi is well known as an historian, and is frequently mentioned by Gibbon as one of his authorities. He wrote an account of the regions beyond the Oxus, and also an abridgment of universal history down to his own time, and as he is supposed to be very exact, and his style elegant, his works are very much esteemed. He died A.D. 1345, having succeeded his brother Ahmad as King of Hamat in Syria, A.D. 1342.
Ibn Khaldun, the African philosopher, was born in Tunis, A.D. 1332, and passed his youth in Egypt. He served a short time as Chief Justice at Damascus, and returned to Egypt, where he became Supreme Judge, and died there A.D. 1406. His principal and most remarkable work is the 'History of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Berbers.'
During the ninth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1398-1495) Arabian literature can still boast of a few great names. Ibn-Hajar was not only the continuator of Ibn Kesir's universal history, called 'The Beginning and the End,' but also the author of biographies of celebrated men who had lived during the preceding century, and of other works besides. He died A.D. 1449. Ibn Arabshah was the writer of a history of Timour, or Tamerlane, which has some celebrity, and has been translated into Latin and French. He was a native of Damascus, and died there A.D. 1450.
Majr-uddin Muhammad Bin Yakub, surnamed Firuzabadi, a learned Persian, was the author of the largest and most celebrated Arabic dictionary in existence at the time, called the 'Qânûs,' or Ocean, a standard work to this day, and always greatly praised, and also used by European lexicographers.
Taki-uddin, of Fez, composed the best history of Mekka, and A'ini, who died A.D. 1451, wrote two celebrated historical works. But the greatest historian of this time was Al-Makrisi, whose proper name was Taki-uddin Ahmad, and who was born at Makris, near Baalbec, in A.D. 1366. He early devoted himself to the study of history, geography, astrology, etc., at Cairo, and his Egyptian history and topography is still an important work, describing the state of the country and its rulers. He died at Cairo, A.D. 1442. Some of his works have been translated into French and Latin, and are still referred to.
In honour of Sayuti, that colossus of learning, who cultivated, according to the spirit of his times, so many sciences, and dealt with them practically, this might be called the poly-historical and poly-geographical period. Julal-uddin Sayuti is said to be the author of some four hundred works, and he died in A.D. 1505, some twelve years before the conquest of Egypt by Selim I, the Sultan of Turkey, when independent Arab literature under Arab sovereigns came to an end. It is true enough that not only in Egypt and Syria, but also in Turkey and Persia, Arabic books were written afterwards, but more under foreign protection, although in the two first-named countries Arabic is the language of the people, while in the last two it occupies nearly the same position that Latin does in European universities and in the Roman Catholic Church.
In the tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592) the generally prevalent belief that the world would, at the completion of it, come to an end, contributed much to the gradual decay of science and literature. The case is somewhat analogous to the superstition in Europe some six hundred years previously, when the Christian era attained its millennium, which was considered to carry with it the same catastrophe. This prophecy, believed to be true, contributed in some measure to slacken authority as well as exertion, and the power of Islamitic countries really sank; but this might have been predicted without any prophetic foresight. In one part of Islam, the ruin of Muhammadan countries thus prophesied was accomplished twenty-one years before the end of the thousandth year, that is in the 979th year of the Hijrah, A.D. 1571, by the total expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Granada itself had succumbed already, seventy-nine years before, and the unwieldy palace of the kings, of Spain (still unfinished) had risen by the side of the lofty arcades of the Alhambra, still a lovely specimen of Moorish artistic design and architecture.
The tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592), which was the first of the decay of Arab literature, is to be considered as the period when the political importance of Turkey culminated in the reign of Sulaiman the Law-giver. There were, however, four authors of celebrity who wrote both in Arabic and in Turkish. Ibn Kamal Pasha, the surname of Mufti Shams-uddin Ahmad bin-Sulaiman, who died A.D. 1534, wrote on history in Turkish, and on law in Arabic; the Mufti Abu Sa'ud acquired great renown by his numerous Fetwas (legal decisions), approving of the political institutions of Sulaiman; Ibrahim of Aleppo is the author of the 'Molteka' (Confluence of Two Seas), which embodies the essence of Muslim law, according to the Hanifi ritual; and lastly, Birgeli, otherwise known as Mulla Muhammad Ibn Pir Ali ul-Birkali, was equally great as a dogmatist and as a grammarian. He wrote in Arabic 'The Unique Pearl; or, The Art of Reading the Koran,' and died A.D. 1573. Special mention, too, must be made of Mulla Ahmad Bin Mustafa, the celebrated Arabian, whom Haji-Khalfa always calls by the more euphonious name of Abul-Khair (Father of Wisdom). This author is worthy of notice, on account of the Arabic works he wrote on biographical, historical, and especially encyclopædic subjects. His 'Key of Felicity' will remain for ever the best encyclopædia of Arabian sciences, representing as it does their division among the Arabs, with notices of the works of scholars in every branch of them in a most compact and comprehensive manner. He died A.D. 1560.
The three most celebrated calligraphers of this century were Hamdallah, who died A.D. 1518; Mir Ali, who died A.D. 1544; and Muhammad Hussain Tabrizi, who died A.D. 1574. Their names are just as celebrated for Thuluth and Talik writing as were formerly those of Ibn Bawwab, of Ibn Hilal, and of Yakut are for Naskhi. In Egypt and Syria the characters used were always more beautiful than those of Andalusia, which survived in the Mugrib (North of Africa).
Here, perhaps, it may be stated that the art of Arabic writing came into existence but a very short time before Muhammad. 'It was Abu Ali bin Mukla who first took the present system of written characters from the style of writing employed by the people of Kufa, and brought it out under its actual form. He had, therefore, the merit of priority, and it may be added that his handwriting was very elegant. But to Ibn Al Bawwab pertains the honour of rendering the character more regular and simple, and of clothing it in grace and beauty.' In other words, Ibn Mukla was the first who changed the Kufic into the new Naskhi character, which Ibn Bawwab improved after him by imparting rotundity and clearness to the new letters, and which Ibn Yakut Al-Mausili brought afterwards to the greatest perfection in A.D. 1200.
Ibn Mukla, who was born in A.D. 885, and died A.D. 941, was vizier to the Khalifs Al-Kahir-billah and Al-Radhi-billah; but, falling into disfavour through the intrigues of his enemies, he first had his hand cut off in A.D. 937, and eventually his tongue was torn out, and he was allowed to perish in the dungeon without any assistance being offered to him.
Ibn-al-Bawwab, the Penman, is said to have possessed a skill in penmanship to which no other person ever attained in ancient or modern times. He died at Baghdad A.D. 1032, and the following verses were composed as his elegy:
'Thy loss was felt by the writers of former times, And each successive day justifies their grief. The ink-bottles are therefore black with sorrow, And the pens are rent through affliction.'
During the eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) there lived Mustafa bin Abdullah Katib Jelaby, otherwise known as Haji Khalfa, and commonly called Mustafa Haji Khalfa, a man of science as a Turkish historian and geographer, but an Arabic encyclopædist and bibliographer. He was the compiler of a work containing many thousands of titles of Arab, Persian, and Turkish books, with the names of their authors. Fluegel edited this great work under the title of 'Lexicon Enciclopædicum et Bibliographicum,' with a Latin translation in seven bulky volumes, and it is an extremely valuable work of reference, put together with the most astonishing and persevering care, and consulted by all who desire information on Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature. This was printed by the Oriental Translation Fund between A.D. 1835 and 1850, and will always remain as one of the most valuable works printed by that most useful society, whose extinction must ever be regretted by all Orientalists and persons interested in Oriental literature. Haji Khalfa wrote another interesting work, giving a detailed account of the maritime wars of the Turks in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and on the Danube, which has been translated by Mr. James Mitchell. The date of Haji Khalfa's death is uncertain. He is known to have been alive in A.D. 1622, and still in 1652, and he is supposed to have died in A.D. 1657.
The works of Abul Khair, previously mentioned, and of Haji Khalfa, embody a mass of information, and constitute the top of the pyramid of encyclopædical and biographical works, after which nothing worthy of mention has been written on these subjects. The basis of this pyramid had been already laid by An-Nadim, the author of the 'Fihrist,' who flourished A.D. 987, and by Ibn Khallikan, who died A.D. 1282.
During this century (A.D. 1592-1689) of the most sanguinary wars, revolutions and dethronements, the condition of Arab literature in the Ottoman Empire was neither progressive nor satisfactory. Nevertheless, the study of the sciences, and especially the linguistic and juridical branches of them, were fostered not only in Constantinople, but also in Syria and Egypt, in consequence of the institution of the body of Ulema, established by Muhammad II., the Conqueror (A.D. 1451-1481), and improved by Sulaiman I., the Law-giver (A.D. 1520-1566), which sheltered the cultivation of science from the storms of war within the inviolable precincts of religion.
Mention may be made of Muhammad-Al-Amin, the learned philologist and lawyer of Damascus, who was born in that town about the middle of the eleventh and died the beginning of the twelfth century of the Hijrah, and produced a dozen respectable works, the principal of which bears the title of 'The Biographies of the Celebrated Men of the Eleventh Century,' A.H. He gives an account of a couple of hundred scholars, who represented in Egypt and in Syria the last rays of the setting sun of Arabian literature.
Next to Muhammad-Al-Amin another author of about a dozen works is to be noticed, namely, Ahmad-Al Makkari, whose principal work was a history of the Muhammadan dynasties in Spain, which was translated from the copies in the library of the British Museum, and illustrated with critical notes on Spanish history, geography and antiquities, by Pascual de Gayangos, and printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1840-43. Makkari also wrote a history of Fez and Morocco, as well as an account of Damascus. He died at Cairo A.D. 1631.
Besides some historians, grammarians, philologists and poets, the eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) produced in Syria and Egypt even astronomers and physicians, who distinguished themselves as scholars. Of writers of light literature Khafaji may be named as the chief. He composed a Diwan of ardent love poems, with two anthologies, containing specimens of verses from a couple of poets, his contemporaries. He died A.D. 1658. A few more writers might be mentioned; but their efforts strongly mark the decline of Arabic literature in the East, the cultivation of which, however, was henceforth more energetically pursued in Europe, where many works have been printed and translated.
With the twelfth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1689-1786) the history of original Arab literature may be said to have terminated, and its genius to have disappeared. A revival, however, of Arabian learning is taking place in Egypt, Syria, and North Africa, but in accordance with European models, and chiefly under European auspices. All original research has long been extinct, even among those populations whose vernacular is the Arabic language; and consequently it is the former, and not the present state of Arab literature, which is the most interesting to the people of to-day.
The presses of Constantinople, Cairo, Algiers, Beyruth, and some other places, reproduce old Arabic works of value, but more translations from European languages than original compositions are printed and lithographed. From Bombay, where more than fifty presses are at work, large quantities of books are exported to countries beyond the British possessions. These books treat generally of religion, poetry, history, or medicine; but as they deal more with ancient than with modern knowledge, they do not tend to propagate progress.
But though Arab literature has decayed, the faith of Islam is still active and energetic. It is estimated that one hundred and eighty millions of human beings still follow the precepts of the Prophet, and daily turn their faces to Mecca, which for them has been, and still is, the cradle of their faith, the touchstone of their religion, and the idol of their hearts.