A Literary History of the Arabs

by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

Omitting the great manuals of Moslem Jurisprudence, which are without literary interest in the larger sense, we may pause for a moment at the name of al-Máwardí, a Sháfi‘ite lawyer, who wrote a well-known treatise on politics—the Kitábu ’l-Aḥkám al-Sulṭániyya, or 'Book of the Principles of Government.' His standpoint is purely theoretical. Thus he lays down that the Caliph should be Máwardí † 1058 a.d.). elected by the body of learned, pious, and orthodox divines, and that the people must leave the administration of the State to the Caliph absolutely, as being its representative. Máwardí lived at Baghdád during the period of Buwayhid ascendancy, a period described by Sir W. Muir in the following words: "The pages of our annalists are now almost entirely occupied with the political events of the day, in the guidance of which the Caliphs had seldom any concern, and which therefore need no mention here."[631] Under the ‘Abbásid dynasty the mystical doctrines of the Ṣúfís were systematised and expounded. Some of the most important Arabic works of reference on Ṣúfiism are the Qútu ’l-Qulúb, or 'Food of Hearts,' by Abú Ṭálib al-Makkí Arabic authorities on Ṣúfiism. († 996 a.d.); the Kitábu ’l-Ta‘arruf li-Madhhabi ahli ’l-Taṣawwuf, or 'Book of Enquiry as to the Religion of the Súfís,' by Muḥammad b. Isḥáq al-Kalábádhí († circa 1000 a.d.); the Ṭabaqátu ’l-Ṣúfiyya, or 'Classes of the Ṣúfís,' by Abú ‘Abd al-Raḥmán al-Sulamí († 1021 a.d.); the Ḥilyatu ’l-Awliyá, or 'Adornment of the Saints,' by Abú Nu‘aym al-Iṣfahání († 1038 a.d.); the Risálatu ’l-Qushayriyya, or 'Qushayrite Tract,' by Abu ’l-Qásim al-Qushayrí of Naysábúr († 1074 a.d.); the Iḥyá’u ‘Ulúm al-Dín, or 'Revivification of the Religious Sciences,' by Ghazálí († 1111 a.d.); and the ‘Awárifu ’l-Ma‘árif, or 'Bounties of Knowledge,' by Shihábu ’l-Dín Abú Ḥafṣ ‘Umar al-Suhrawardí († 1234 a.d.)—a list which might easily be extended. In Dogmatic Ghazálí († 1111 a.d.). Theology there is none to compare with Abú Ḥámid al-Ghazálí, surnamed 'the Proof of Islam' (Ḥujjatu ’l-Islám). He is a figure of such towering importance that some detailed account of his life and opinions must be inserted in a book like this, which professes to illustrate the history of Muḥammadan thought. Here, however, we shall only give an outline of his biography in order to pave the way for discussion of his intellectual achievements and his far-reaching influence.

"In this year (505 a.h. = 1111 a.d.) died the Imám, who was the Ornament of the Faith and the Proof of Islam, Abú Ḥámid Life of Ghazálí according to the Shadharátu ’l-Dhahab. Muḥammad ... of Ṭús, the Sháfi‘ite. His death took place on the 14th of the Latter Jumádá at Ṭábarán, a village near Ṭús. He was then fifty-five years of age. Ghazzálí is equivalent to Ghazzál, like ‘Aṭṭárí (for ‘Aṭṭár) and Khabbází (for Khabbáz), in the dialect of the people of Khurásán[632]: so it is stated by the author of the ‘Ibar.[633] Al-Isnawí says in his Ṭabaqát[634]:—Ghazzálí is an Imám by whose name breasts are dilated and souls are revived, and in whose literary productions the ink-horn exults and the paper quivers with joy; and at the hearing thereof voices are hushed and heads are bowed. He was born at Ṭús in the year 450 a.h. = 1058-1059 a.d. His father used to spin wool (yaghzilu ’l-ṣúf) and sell it in his shop. On his deathbed he committed his two sons, Ghazzálí himself and his brother Aḥmad, to the care of a pious Ṣúfí, who taught them writing and educated them until the money left him by their father was all spent. 'Then,' says Ghazzálí, 'we went to the college to learn divinity (fiqh) so that we might gain our livelihood.' After studying there for some time he journeyed to Abú Naṣr al-Ismá‘ílí in Jurján, then to the Imámu ’l-Ḥaramayn[635] at Naysábúr, under whom he studied with such assiduity that he became the best scholastic of his contemporaries (ṣára anẓara ahli zamánihi), and he lectured ex cathedrâ in his master's lifetime, and wrote books.... And on the death of his master he set out for the Camp[636] and presented himself to the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk, whose assembly was the alighting-place of the learned and the destination of the leading divines and savants; and there, as was due to his high merit, he enjoyed the society of the principal doctors, and disputed with his opponents and rebutted them in spite of their eminence. So the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk inclined to him and showed him great honour, and his name flew through the world. Then, in the year '84 (1091 a.d.) he was called to a professorship in the Niẓámiyya College at Baghdád, where a splendid reception awaited him. His words reached far and wide, and his influence soon exceeded that of the Emírs and Viziers. But at last his lofty spirit recoiled from worldly vanities. He gave himself up to devotion and dervishhood, and set out, in the year '88 (1095 a.d.), for the Ḥijáz.[637] On his return from the Pilgrimage he journeyed to Damascus and made his abode there for ten years in the minaret of the Congregational Mosque, and composed several works, of which the Iḥyá is said to be one. Then, after visiting Jerusalem and Alexandria, he returned to his home at Ṭús, intent on writing and worship and constant recitation of the Koran and dissemination of knowledge and avoidance of intercourse with men. The Vizier Fakhru ’l-Mulk,[638] son of the Niẓámu ’l-Mulk, came to see him, and urged him by every means in his power to accept a professorship in the Niẓámiyya College at Naysábúr.[639] Ghazzálí consented, but after teaching for a time, resigned the appointment and returned to end his days in his native town."

Besides his magnum opus, the already-mentioned Iḥyá, in which he expounds theology and the ethics of religion from His principal works. the standpoint of the moderate Ṣúfí school, Ghazálí wrote a great number of important works, such as the Munqidh mina ’l-Ḍalál, or 'Deliverer from Error,' a sort of 'Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ'; the Kímiyá’u ’l-Sa‘ádat, or 'Alchemy of Happiness,' which was originally written in Persian; and the Taháfutu ’l-Falásifa, or 'Collapse of the Philosophers,' a polemical treatise designed to refute and destroy the doctrines of Moslem philosophy. This work called forth a rejoinder from the celebrated Ibn Rushd (Averroes), who died at Morocco in 1198-1199 a.d.

Here we may notice two valuable works on the history of religion, both of which are generally known as Kitábu ’l-Milal wa-’l-Niḥal,[640] that is to say, 'The Book of Religions and Sects,' by Ibn Ḥazm of Cordova († 1064 a.d.) and Abu ’l-Fatḥ al-Shahrastání († 1153 a.d.). Shahrastání's 'Book of Religions and Sects.' Ibn Ḥazm we shall meet with again in the chapter which deals specially with the history and literature of the Spanish Moslems. Shahrastání, as he is named after his birthplace, belonged to the opposite extremity of the Muḥammadan Empire, being a native of Khurásán, the huge Eastern province bounded by the Oxus. Cureton, who edited the Arabic text of the Kitábu ’l-Milal wa-’l-Niḥal (London, 1842-1846), gives the following outline of its contents:—

After five introductory chapters, the author proceeds to arrange his book into two great divisions; the one comprising the Religious, the other the Philosophical Sects. The former of these contains an account of the various Sects of the followers of Muḥammad, and likewise of those to whom a true revelation had been made (the Ahlu ’l-Kitáb, or 'People of the Scripture'), that is, Jews and Christians; and of those who had a doubtful or pretended revelation (man lahú shubhatu ’l-Kitáb), such as the Magi and the Manichæans. The second division comprises an account of the philosophical opinions of the Sabæans (Ṣábians), which are mainly set forth in a very interesting dialogue between a Sabæan and an orthodox Muḥammadan; of the tenets of various Greek Philosophers and some of the Fathers of the Christian Church; and also of the Muḥammadan doctors, more particularly of the system of Ibn Síná or Avicenna, which the author explains at considerable length. The work terminates with an account of the tenets of the Arabs before the commencement of Islamism, and of the religion of the people of India.

The science of grammar took its rise in the cities of Baṣra and Kúfa, which were founded not long after Muḥammad's death, and which remained the chief centres of Arabian life Grammar and philology. and thought outside the peninsula until they were eclipsed by the great ‘Abbásid capital. In both towns the population consisted of Bedouin Arabs, belonging to different tribes and speaking many different dialects, while there were also thousands of artisans and clients who spoke Persian as their mother-tongue, so that the classical idiom was peculiarly exposed to corrupting influences. If the pride and delight of the Arabs in their noble language led them to regard the maintenance of its purity as a national duty, they were equally bound by their religious convictions to take decisive measures for ensuring the correct pronunciation and interpretation of that "miracle of Divine eloquence," the Arabic Koran. To this latter motive the invention of grammar is traditionally ascribed. The inventor is related to have been Abu ’l-Aswad al-Du’ilí, who died at Baṣra during the Umayyad period. "Abu The invention of Arabic grammar. ’l-Aswad, having been asked where he had acquired the science of grammar, answered that he had learned the rudiments of it from ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib. It is said that he never made known any of the principles which he had received from ‘Alí till Ziyád[641] sent to him the order to compose something which might serve as a guide to the public and enable them to understand the Book of God. He at first asked to be excused, but on hearing a man recite the following passage out of the Koran, anna ’lláha barí^un mina ´l-mushrikína wa-rasúluhu,[642] which last word the reader pronounced rasúlihi, he exclaimed, 'I never thought that things would have come to this.' He then returned to Ziyád and said, 'I will do what you ordered.'"[643] The Baṣra school of grammarians which Abu ’l-Aswad is said to have founded is older than the rival school of Kúfa and surpassed it in fame. Its most prominent representatives were The philogists of Baṣra. Abú ‘Amr b. al-‘Alá († 770 a.d.), a diligent and profound student of the Koran, who on one occasion burned all his collections of old poetry, &c., and abandoned himself to devotion; Khalíl b. Aḥmad, inventor of the Arabic system of metres and author of the first Arabic lexicon (the Kitábu ’l-‘Ayn), which, however, he did not live to complete; the Persian Síbawayhi, whose Grammar, entitled 'The Book of Síbawayhi,' is universally celebrated; the great Humanists al-Aṣma‘í and Abú ‘Ubayda who flourished under Hárún al-Rashid; al-Mubarrad, about a century later, whose best-known work, the Kámil, has been edited by Professor William Wright; his contemporary al-Sukkarí, a renowned collector and critic of old Arabian poetry; and Ibn Durayd († 934 a.d.), a distinguished philologist, genealogist, and poet, who received a pension from the Caliph Muqtadir in recognition of his services on behalf of science, and whose principal works, in addition to the famous ode known as the Maqṣúra, are a voluminous lexicon (al-Jamhara fi ’l-Lugha) and a treatise on the genealogies of the Arab tribes (Kitábu ’l-Ishtiqáq).

Against these names the school of Kúfa can set al-Kisá’í, a Persian savant who was entrusted by Hárún al-Rashíd The philogists of Kúfa. with the education of his sons Amín and Ma’mún; al-Farrá († 822 a.d.), a pupil and compatriot of al-Kisá’í; al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ḍabbí, a favourite of the Caliph Mahdí, for whom he compiled an excellent anthology of Pre-islamic poems (al-Mufaḍḍaliyyát), which has already been noticed[644]; Ibnu ’l-Sikkít, whose outspoken partiality for the House of ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib caused him to be brutally trampled to death by the Turkish guards of the tyrant Mutawakkil (858 a.d.); and Tha‘lab, head of the Kúfa school in his time († 904 a.d.), of whose rivalry with al-Mubarrad many stories are told. A contemporary, Abú Bakr b. Abi ’l-Azhar, said in one of his poems:—

"Turn to Mubarrad or to Tha‘lab, thou That seek'st with learning to improve thy mind! Be not a fool, like mangy camel shunned: All human knowledge thou with them wilt find. The science of the whole world, East and West, In these two single doctors is combined."[645]

Reference has been made in a former chapter to some of the earliest Humanists, e.g., Ḥammád al-Ráwiya († 776 a.d.) and his slightly younger contemporary, Khalaf al-Aḥmar, to their inestimable labours in rescuing the old poetry from oblivion, and to the unscrupulous methods which they sometimes employed.[646] Among their successors, who flourished in the Golden Age of Islam, under the first ‘Abbásids, the place of honour belongs to Abú ‘Ubayda († about 825 a.d.) and al-Asma‘í († about 830 a.d.).

Abú ‘Ubayda Ma‘mar b. al-Muthanná was of Jewish-Persian race, and maintained in his writings the cause of the Abú ‘Ubayda. Shu‘úbites against the Arab national party, for which reason he is erroneously described as a Khárijite.[647] The rare expressions of the Arabic language, the history of the Arabs and their conflicts were his predominant study—"neither in heathen nor Muḥammadan times," he once boasted, "have two horses met in battle but that I possess information about them and their riders"[648]; yet, with all his learning, he was not always able to recite a verse without mangling it; even in reading the Koran, with the book before his eyes, he made mistakes.[649] Our knowledge of Arabian antiquity is drawn, to a large extent, from the traditions collected by him which are preserved in the Kitábu ’l-Aghání and elsewhere. He left nearly two hundred works, of which a long but incomplete catalogue occurs in the Fihrist (pp. 53-54). Abú ‘Ubayda was summoned by the Caliph Aṣma‘í. Hárún al-Rashíd to Baghdád, where he became acquainted with Aṣma‘í. There was a standing feud between them, due in part to difference of character[650] and in part to personal jealousies. ‘Abdu ’l-Malik b. Qurayb al-Aṣma‘í was, like his rival, a native of Baṣra. Although he may have been excelled by others of his contemporaries in certain branches of learning, none exhibited in such fine perfection the varied literary culture which at that time was so highly prized and so richly rewarded. Whereas Abú ‘Ubayda was dreaded for his sharp tongue and sarcastic humour, Aṣma‘í had all the accomplishments and graces of a courtier. Abú Nuwás, the first great poet of the ‘Abbásid period, said that Aṣma‘í was a nightingale to charm those who heard him with his melodies. In court circles, where the talk often turned on philological matters, he was a favourite guest, and the Caliph would send for him to decide any abstruse question connected with literature which no one present was able to answer. Of his numerous writings on linguistic and antiquarian themes several have come down to us, e.g., 'The Book of Camels' (Kitábu ’l-Ibil), 'The Book of Horses' (Kitábu ’l-Khayl), and 'The Book of the Making of Man' (Kitábu Khalqi ’l-Insán), a treatise which shows that the Arabs of the desert had acquired a considerable knowledge of human anatomy. His work as editor, commentator, and critic of Arabian poetry forms (it has been said) the basis of nearly all that has since been written on the subject.