[1] Vol. ii., Section 3.
[2] Mills, p. 179.
[3] When it was demanded of Moez from what branch of Mohammed's family he drew his title, "This," said he, showing his cimeter, "is my pedigree; and these," throwing gold among his soldiers, "are my children."
[4] Mill's History, 160.
{243}
CHAPTER II.
Literature and Science of the Arabs.—Their Facilities for Literary and
Scientific Pursuits.—Patronage of Literature by the Princes of the
House of Abbas.—Almamoun.—Arabian Schools.—Eloquence.—Poetry.—The
Arabian Tales.—History.—Geography.—Speculative
Sciences.—Astrology.—Mathematical Knowledge of the
Arabs.—Astronomy.—Architecture.—The Fine
Arts.—Agriculture.—Medicine.—Chymistry.—Our obligations to Arab
Literature.
The early followers of the Arabian prophet were only enthusiastic military adventurers, subduing in their wide and rapid progress most of the nations of the then known world. The lust of power, and successful military enterprise, are commonly unfavourable to the cultivation of the liberal arts, so that a conquering people usually exhibit but little taste for science or literature. The Goths and the Huns, for instance, were among the most implacable foes of knowledge. Nor did the early Arabs regard it with more favour. Mohammed found his countrymen sunk in the deepest barbarism: he was incapable of any direct effort to raise them; and, from the ruthless destruction of the Alexandrean library by Omar, one of his earliest successors, they appear not to have been in a much {244} better condition after the close than at the commencement of his eventful career.
Their settlement in the countries they had subdued, the unlimited resources which their wide-spread conquests placed within their reach, and probably the leisure which their almost universal dominion afforded, speedily led to a change in their character in relation to literary pursuits, of which the more enlightened nations of the West are still reaping the advantage. It was about the middle of the seventh century that Omar committed the famous library of Alexandrea to the flames: before the end of the eighth, literature began to enjoy the munificent patronage of the caliphs of the Abbassidan race, who superinduced upon the stern fanaticism of the followers of the Prophet the softening influences of learning; and, by an anomaly in the history of mankind, the most valuable lessons in science and the arts have been received from a people who pursued with relentless hostility the religion and liberties of every other nation.
The Greeks were the most distinguished patrons of literature and science. Among them philosophy found its earliest home, and the arts are commonly supposed to have sprung up chiefly under their fostering care, though modern researches have shown that much of their knowledge was derived from still more ancient sources. Their {245} philosophy, though greatly improved by them, was borrowed from the mysteries of the Egyptian priests and the Persian magi. Their system of the universe, which made the nearest approach to the more correct discoveries of modern times, was previously known to the learned Hindus; and it may admit of question whether their whole mythology, allowing for the additions which a chastened and vivid imagination would make to it, had not its prototype in some Asiatic religio-philosophical system. A learned writer on the erudition of the Asiatics says, that the whole of the theology of the Greeks, and part of the philosophy of modern scientific research, may be found in the Hindu Vedas. He adds, "That most subtile spirit which Newton suspected to pervade natural bodies, and to lie concealed in them so as to cause attraction and repulsion, the emission, reflection, and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a fifth element, endued with those very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly attribute to the sun." The extension, therefore, of the Arabian victories over the Eastern world, and their entire command, after the overthrow of the Greek empire, of the resources possessed by that people, {246} gave them access to all the literary stores then in existence.