Rhymed prose (saj‘) long retained the religious associations which it possessed in Pre-islamic times and which were consecrated, for all Moslems, by its use in the Koran. About the middle of the ninth century it began to appear in the public sermons (khuṭab, sing. khuṭba) of the Caliphs and their viceroys, and it was still further developed by professional Rhymed prose. preachers, like Ibn Nubáta († 984 a.d.), and by official secretaries, like Ibráhím b. Hilál al-Ṣábí († 994 a.d.). Henceforth rhyme becomes a distinctive and almost indispensable feature of rhetorical prose.
The credit of inventing, or at any rate of making popular, a new and remarkable form of composition in this style belongs Badí‘u ’l-Zamán al-Hamadhání († 1007 a.d.). to al-Hamadhání († 1007 a.d.), on whom posterity conferred the title Badí‘u ’l-Zamán, i.e., 'the Wonder of the Age.' Born in Hamadhán (Ecbatana), he left his native town as a young man and travelled through the greater part of Persia, living by his wits and astonishing all whom he met by his talent for improvisation. His Maqámát may be called a romance or literary Bohemianism. In the maqáma we find some approach to the dramatic style, which has never been cultivated by the Semites.[616] Hamadhání imagined as his hero a witty, unscrupulous vagabond journeying from place to place and supporting himself by the presents which his impromptu displays of rhetoric, poetry, and learning seldom failed to draw from an admiring audience. The second character is the ráwí or narrator, "who should be continually meeting with the other, should relate his adventures, and repeat his excellent compositions."[617] The Maqámát of Hamadhání became the model for this kind of writing, and the types which he created survive unaltered in the more elaborate work of his successors. Each maqáma forms an independent whole, so that the complete series may be regarded as a novel consisting of detached episodes in the hero's life, a medley of prose and verse in which the story is nothing, the style everything.
Less original than Badí‘u ’l-Zamán, but far beyond him in variety of learning and copiousness of language, Abú Ḥarírí (1054-1122 a.d.). Muḥammad al-Qásim al-Ḥarírí of Baṣra produced in his Maqámát a masterpiece which for eight centuries "has been esteemed as, next to the Koran, the chief treasure of the Arabic tongue." In the Preface to his work he says that the composition of maqámát was suggested to him by "one whose suggestion is a command and whom it is a pleasure to obey." This was the distinguished Persian statesman, Anúshirwán b. Khálid,[618] who afterwards served as Vizier under the Caliph Mustarshid Billáh (1118-1135 a.d.) and Sultán Mas‘úd, the Seljúq (1133-1152 a.d.); but at the time when he made Ḥarírí's acquaintance he was living in retirement at Baṣra and devoting himself to literary studies. Ḥarírí begged to be excused on the score that his abilities were unequal to the task, "for the lame steed cannot run like the strong courser."[619] Finally, however, he yielded to the request of Anúshirwán, and, to quote his own words—
"I composed, in spite of hindrances that I suffered From dullness of capacity and dimness of intellect, And dryness of imagination and distressing anxieties, Fifty Maqámát, which contain serious language and lightsome, And combine refinement with dignity of style, And brilliancies with jewels of eloquence, And beauties of literature with its rarities, Beside verses of the Koran wherewith I adorned them, And choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs that I interspersed, And literary elegancies and grammatical riddles, And decisions based on the (double) meaning of words, And original discourses and highly-wrought orations, And affecting exhortations as well as entertaining jests: The whole of which I have indited as by the tongue of Abú Zayd of Sarúj, The part of narrator being assigned to Harith son of Hammám of Baṣra."[620]
Ḥarírí then proceeds to argue that his Maqámát are not mere frivolous stories such as strict Moslems are bound to reprobate in accordance with a well-known passage of the Koran referring to Naḍr b. Ḥárith, who mortally offended the Prophet by amusing the Quraysh with the old Persian legends of Rustam and Isfandiyár (Koran, xxxi, 5-6): "There is one that buyeth idle tales that he may seduce men from the way of God, without knowledge, and make it a laughing-stock: these shall suffer a shameful punishment. And when Our signs are read to him, he turneth his back in disdain as though he heard them not, as though there were in his ears a deafness: give him joy of a grievous punishment!" Ḥarírí insists that the Assemblies have a moral purpose. The ignorant and malicious, he says, will probably condemn his work, but intelligent readers will perceive, if they lay prejudice aside, that it is as useful and instructive as the fables of beasts, &c.,[621] to which no one has ever objected. That his fears of hostile criticism were not altogether groundless is shown by the following remarks of the author of the popular history entitled al-Fakhrí († circa 1300 a.d.). This writer, after claiming that his own book is more useful than the Ḥamása of Abú Tammám, continues:—
"And, again, it is more profitable than the Maqámát on which men have set their hearts, and which they eagerly commit to Maqámát criticised as immoral. memory; because the reader derives no benefit from Maqámát except familiarity with elegant composition and knowledge of the rules of verse and prose. Undoubtedly they contain maxims and ingenious devices and experiences; but all this has a debasing effect on the mind, for it is founded on begging and sponging and disgraceful scheming to acquire a few paltry pence. Therefore, if they do good in one direction, they do harm in another; and this point has been noticed by some critics of the Maqámát of Ḥarírí and Badí‘u ’l-Zamán."[622]
Before pronouncing on the justice of this censure, we must consider for a moment the character of Abú Zayd, the hero The character of Abú Zayd. of Ḥarírí's work, whose adventures are related by a certain Ḥárith b. Hammám, under which name the author is supposed to signify himself. According to the general tradition, Ḥarírí was one day seated with a number of savants in the mosque of the Banú Ḥarám at Baṣra, when an old man entered, footsore and travel-stained. On being asked who he was and whence he came, he answered that his name of honour was Abú Zayd and that he came from Sarúj.[623] He described in eloquent and moving terms how his native town had been plundered by the Greeks, who made his daughter a captive and drove him forth to exile and poverty. Ḥarírí was so struck with his wonderful powers of improvisation that on the same evening he began to compose the Maqáma of the Banú Ḥarám,[624] where Abú Zayd is introduced in his invariable character: "a crafty old man, full of genius and learning, unscrupulous of the artifices which he uses to effect his purpose, reckless in spending in forbidden indulgences the money he has obtained by his wit or deceit, but with veins of true feeling in him, and ever yielding to unfeigned emotion when he remembers his devastated home and his captive child."[625] If an immoral tendency has been attributed to the Assemblies of Ḥarírí it is because the author does not conceal his admiration for this unprincipled and thoroughly disreputable scamp. Abú Zayd, indeed, is made so fascinating that we can easily pardon his knaveries for the sake of the pearls of wit and wisdom which he scatters in splendid profusion—excellent discourses, edifying sermons, and plaintive lamentations mingled with rollicking ditties and ribald jests. Modern readers are not likely to agree with the historian quoted above, but although they may deem his criticism illiberal, they can hardly deny that it has some justification.
Ḥarírí's rhymed prose might be freely imitated in English, but the difficulty of rendering it in rhyme with tolerable fidelity has caused me to abandon the attempt to produce a version of one of the Assemblies in the original form.[626] I will translate instead three poems which are put into the mouth of Abú Zayd. The first is a tender elegiac strain recalling far-off days of youth and happiness in his native land:—
"Ghassán is my noble kindred, Sarúj is my land of birth, Where I dwelt in a lofty mansion of sunlike glory and worth, A Paradise for its sweetness and beauty and pleasant mirth! And oh, the life that I led there abounding in all delight! I trailed my robe on its meadows, while Time flew a careless flight, Elate in the flower of manhood, no pleasure veiled from my sight.
Now, if woe could kill, I had died of the troubles that haunt me here, Or could past joy ever be ransomed, my heart's blood had not been dear, Since death is better than living a brute's life year after year,