The extensive and diversified character of the works of the Arabs is one of the wonders of literature. This extraordinary fertility attained a greater development in Spain than in any other portion of the Mussulman empire. Al-Modhaffer, King of Badajoz, wrote fifty volumes; Ibn-Hayyan, sixty; Honein, a hundred; Abdallatif and Ahmed-Ibn-Iban, the same; Ibn-al-Heitsam, two hundred; Abu-Mohammed-Ibn-Han, four hundred; Ibn-Habib-al-Solami and Abu-Merwan-Abd-al-Melik, each a thousand.
In the realm of history and biography the genius of the Hispano-Arab was most prolific. The subjects treated are of great variety, and are usually expanded into a prodigious number of books. Tedious and obscure as is much of their narrative, its minuteness of detail and extraordinary fidelity to truth render the surviving collections—which, extensive as they are, compose but a fragment of the historical literature that once existed—invaluable to the student. The biographical dictionary of Hadji Khalfa contains notices of twenty thousand works, of which twelve hundred are historical. The Arabic critical, theological, and geographical cyclopædias were scarcely less voluminous.
The plan of this work does not contemplate more than a passing allusion to the principal historical writers whose learning and talents were conspicuous during the Moorish domination in Spain. Among them may be mentioned Ibn-al-Afttas, Prince of Badajoz, who composed a valuable treatise on the political and literary events of the Peninsula; Ibn-Ahmed-al-Toleytoli, of Toledo, who wrote a General History of Nations; Al-Khazraji, of Cordova, to whom is attributed a History of the Khalifs; Al-Ghazzal and Al-Hijari, who published, the one a rhyming history, the other a topographical description of Andalusia; Ibn-Bashkuwal, of Cordova, and Mohammed Al-Zuluyide, famous for their biographical dictionaries; Ibn-al-Khatib, of Granada, whose marvellous erudition was displayed in the greatest of his works, The Universal Library, an immense epitome of the literary and historical facts obtainable in his time. Disquisitions on general topics were not, however, the favorite employment of Moorish authors; their subtle minds preferred the narration of important events, the tracing of remote causes, the solution of obscure historical problems. In the treatment of special subjects they displayed a wonderful, often a tedious, prolixity. Each khalif and prince entertained at his court an historian charged with the description of the principal occurrences of his reign. Every town had its annalist, every province its chronicler. There was not an art or a science, not a profession or a calling, whose origin and influence had not been described, and its distinguished teachers enumerated, by some eminent writer. Mohammed Abu-Abdallah, of Granada, compiled an historical dictionary of the sciences; Al-Assaker is credited with a curious and instructive history of inventors. Even animals famous for their superior qualities were assigned an honorable place in the biographical productions of the Spanish Mohammedans. Abu-al-Monder, of Valencia, and Ibn-Zaid-al-Arabi, of Cordova, composed memoirs recounting the genealogy, the endurance, the speed, and the beauty of certain horses conspicuous in a race proverbial for its excellence. Abd-al-Malik wrote an account of celebrated camels. The names given to books, even by the grave and pious, partake of the fanciful and figurative imagery of the Orient, and were suggestive of the most precious objects admired and coveted by man, such as “The Silken Vest,” “Strings of Pearls,” “Links of Gems,” “Prairies of Gold.” From a remote antiquity similar titles had been adopted, for, as has already been remarked, the earliest of Arabic poems, the Moallakat, derive their collective appellation, not from having been suspended in the Kaaba of Mecca, but on account of their figurative resemblance to the pendants of a necklace.
The Arabic language, regarded by Moslems as the most perfect of all idioms, received great attention from grammarians. Their works upon this subject are infinite, exhaustive, perplexing. One treatise, in a hundred parts, treats solely of genders. Knowledge of this character was held in the highest estimation. Abu-Ghalib, of Murcia, refused a thousand dinars of gold from the sultan of that kingdom, who had solicited, as an honor, the dedication of a work upon grammar composed by that celebrated scholar, whose labors were devoted to the instruction of the people, and not to the flattery of power. Natural history, chronology, numismatics, were treated at great length by the European Moslems. The menageries and aviaries maintained in the principal cities afforded unusual advantages to the student of zoology. Chronological computations were based upon the deductions of the Alexandrian Museum. The Moorish scholars of Spain and Sicily made invaluable contributions to the general stock of geographical knowledge. The measurement of a degree which they effected approximates very nearly to the one accepted by modern science. Abulfeda enumerates sixty Arabic geographers who lived before the thirteenth century. Many of their maps were veritable works of art, in which, upon a ground of silk, continents, mountains, lakes, and streams, represented in relief, were embroidered in gold and silver. Their researches were aided by the historical remains of antiquity, by the accounts of merchants and mariners, and by the reports of travellers despatched by their sovereigns to collect information in the remotest corners of the earth. Ibn-Hamid penetrated to the most inaccessible regions of Central Asia. Ibn-Djobair visited and described Sicily and the countries of the Orient. The travels of Ibn-Batutah were prolonged through twenty-four years. Obeyd-al-Bekri, of Onoba, was the author of a geographical dictionary, in which were described an immense number of cities, principalities, and kingdoms. The reputation of all medieval geographers, however distinguished, was obscured by the fame of the great Edrisi. A native of Malaga, of royal blood, and a lineal descendant of Mohammed, he united to pride of birth and the advantages of fortune all the learning and all the accomplishments to be acquired in an enlightened age. His relationship to the Prophet invested him with a dignity and an importance second to none, in the sight of every devout Mussulman. His education at Cordova was the best that the ancient capital of the khalifs, still the intellectual centre of the world, could afford. His mind, improved by travel, was familiar with many countries whose physical features he afterwards depicted with such ability. Invited to Palermo by Roger, King of Sicily, he speedily attained a high rank among the scholars of that brilliant court. The geography he composed, partly from his own information, partly from data furnished by the King, who had long made a study of that science, represented the labor of fifteen years. In vividness of description, in accuracy of detail, in correct estimation of distances, it is one of the most remarkable literary productions of mediæval times. The incomplete work of Ptolemy had for centuries been the recognized, indeed the only, authority. The configuration of the earth’s surface, its climates, the locations of continents and seas, of cities and empires, were facts little known, even to persons of the best education. In Christian lands the Church sedulously discouraged all such studies as inimical to Scriptural revelation. Geographical works had already appeared in Arabic, but they were grossly inaccurate, and largely based on fable, romance, and tradition. The compilation of Edrisi marks an era in the history of science. Not only is its historical information most interesting and valuable, but its descriptions of many parts of the earth are still authoritative. For three centuries geographers copied his maps without alteration. The relative position of the lakes which form the Nile, as delineated in his work, does not differ greatly from that established by Baker and Stanley more than seven hundred years afterwards, and their number is the same. The mechanical genius of the author was not inferior to his erudition. The celestial and terrestrial planisphere of silver which he constructed for his royal patron was nearly six feet in diameter, and weighed four hundred and fifty pounds; upon the one side the zodiac and the constellations, upon the other—divided for convenience into segments—the bodies of land and water, with the respective situations of the various countries, were engraved. As a recompense for his skill, Edrisi received from King Roger the remainder of the precious material, amounting to two-thirds, a hundred thousand pieces of silver, and a ship laden with valuable merchandise. Such was the munificence with which the son of a Norman freebooter, bred to arms and rapine and ignorant of letters, rewarded the genius of a scholar whose race was stigmatized by every Christian power in Europe as barbarian and infidel.
In philosophical studies, the European Arab evinced the same curious and inquiring spirit which characterized his investigations of natural phenomena. The multiplicity of sects into which the religion of Mohammed was divided, and the incessant religious controversies which the disputed texts of the Koran and the conflicting interpretations of doubtful traditions evolved, were not favorable either to proselytism or to the maintenance of orthodoxy. The Moslems had their Nominalists and their Realists, their Mystics and their Epicureans. They understood the esoteric doctrines of the most renowned schools of antiquity. They had read and commented upon Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Empedocles, Plato. They were familiar with the atomic theory of Democritus. They recognized the argumentative ability of the Stoics. With the productions of the Alexandrian School—through whose medium was derived their knowledge of the dogmas of the Portico and the Academy—they were thoroughly conversant. The prolonged and attentive consideration of these vain and unprofitable opinions did not, however, commend itself to the ingenious and practical mind of the Arab. He indulged in no abstract speculations concerning the origin, nature, and destiny of man. He wasted no time in attempts to decide the vexed and frivolous question of the supreme good. He regarded with boundless favor the works of Aristotle, a predilection destined with years to develop into an undiscerning admiration akin to idolatry. To the influence of this sage of the ancients, the educated Moorish population of Spain was peculiarly susceptible. The doctrines of Al-Ghazzali, of Bagdad, who lived in the eleventh century, had also obtained general acceptance. His teachings involved the absolute separation of philosophy from superstition. He believed in a higher sphere than that of human reason, where was exhibited the manifestation of the Divine Essence pervading all space, all matter, a form of the Pantheism of India.
The Peninsula had for centuries experienced the ascendency of different races of men, the successive predominance and decay of many forms of religious belief. The transmission of national peculiarities; the survival of various, often hostile, political and social opinions; the comparison of a series of creeds, each claiming divine origin and inspiration, yet each, in its turn, supplanted by a more powerful adversary, had disposed the minds of men to investigation and reason. It was only among the intellectual, however, that such a disposition prevailed. With no class of fanatics did intolerance exist in greater intensity than among the orthodox masses of Mohammedan Spain. Their antipathy to all who questioned the revelation of the Koran or the authenticity of accepted tradition was irreconcilable. In the unreasoning fury engendered by prejudice, they forgot the marvels of the civilization that surrounded them; the encouragement that their greatest princes had extended to learning; the statement of the Prophet that the first thing created by God was Intelligence. While they loved the material pomp which thinly disguised the forms of despotism, while they cringed before the pride of rank and opulence, they found the quiet and unassuming pre-eminence derived from superior wisdom and a profound acquaintance with letters intolerable. These narrow ideas, so prejudicial to mental development, were diligently fostered by the doctors of the law, who discerned, in the general diffusion of philosophical opinions, a serious menace to their importance and dignity. Natural philosophy was the object of their especial abhorrence. A system which professed to account for the familiar phenomena daily manifested on the earth and in the heavens by the operation of natural causes and inexorable necessity, and which absolutely dispensed with divine revelation, might well awaken the suspicion and alarm of a class whose worldly interests absolutely depended upon the suppression of knowledge and the maintenance of orthodoxy. The populace, as usual, sided with their teachers. As a result the philosopher was an object of aversion, often of horror, to the conscientious Mohammedan. In the eyes of the irrational zealot the pursuit of science was a certain indication of a bargain with the devil. No rank, however exalted, was proof against this odious imputation. The greatest of the Ommeyade and Abbaside khalifs, whose highest title to fame was the encouragement of letters, were stigmatized as wizards and magicians. The union of the powers of Church and State in a single individual, and the number and importance of the institutions for the diffusion of knowledge, alone prevented the extinction of learning by popular violence. The majority of the Hispano-Arab princes were men of unusual intellectual attainments,—historians, poets, chemists, philosophers. The patronage they afforded to science had a deterrent effect on those who longed for the restoration of purity of doctrine, which had disappeared, as it invariably does, before the progressive march of civilization. Emulating the examples of the khalifs, the governors of provinces vied with their royal masters in the propagation of knowledge. They founded schools and academies. They offered prizes for new and useful discoveries. At their invitation, the greatest scholars in their jurisdiction assembled once a year at the seat of government, for public discussion of subjects of interest to the learned professions, or of such as could, through the medium of practical inventions, be made to enure to the benefit of the community.
The high estimation in which letters were held was indicated by the honors paid to writers and the consideration attaching to the office of public librarian. In the catalogues were inscribed not only the title of the work, but the name, the parentage, the dates of the birth and of the decease of the author; and, not infrequently, interesting biographical notices were appended to the already ample record. In the provinces, the custody of the assembled manuscripts was entrusted to a noble of distinction; but at the capital the charge of the magnificent library of Al-Hakem was considered an employment worthy of royalty itself, and was committed to Abd-al-Aziz, a brother of the Khalif. The general supervision of all educational institutions was exercised by Al-Mondhir, another brother of Al-Hakem, who, in the absence of the sovereign, presided over the contests of the famous literary institute in which were exhibited the talents and the learning of the aspiring scholars of the empire.
The indefatigable energy of the Arabs exhausted every source of knowledge. Not only did they translate the masterpieces of Greek and Roman literature, but they familiarized themselves with Persian, Chaldaic, Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu, and Sanscrit works. Honein translated the Septuagint into Arabic. Abulfeda was the first to direct attention to the so-called inconsistencies of the Pentateuch and the pronounced materialistic character pervading it; to its want of coherence; to its apparent solecisms; to state that it contains no mention of a future life, of heaven or hell, of the immortality of the soul; and to suggest that its legends indicate a Persian rather than a Jewish derivation. Averroes had mastered and embraced the philosophical ideas of India; he believed in the Universal Intellect; the popular religious fictions which evoke the hopes and fears of the vulgar he treated with contempt. The precocity and vast intellectual powers of the great scholars of Islam are almost beyond belief. Avicenna, at sixteen, had attained to such eminence that learned and experienced physicians came from remote countries to enjoy the benefit of his wisdom; at twenty-two he was Grand Vizier. Abul-Hamid-al-Isfaraini was accustomed to lecture every day on a new topic to a class of seven hundred students of jurisprudence. Yezid-Ibn-Harun, of Bagdad, knew by heart thirty thousand traditions. All were pantheists or agnostics. The generally irreverent spirit of the age is disclosed by the epigram of Abu-Ala-Temouki, “The world is divided into two classes of people,—one with wit and no religion, the other with religion and little wit.”
The instruction imparted by the provincial academies of the empire and by the University of Cordova—the centre of the intellectual activity of Europe—was essentially infidel in character and tendency. The influence of these institutions upon the public mind was immense and far-reaching. Thousands of students attended their lectures. Their professors were the first scholars of the age, whose genius and abilities were not limited to the duties of their calling, but who at times administered with equal dexterity and success the most important judicial and diplomatic employments. Education was in a measure compulsory, and, to obtain additional force for the mandates of the law, the sanction of religion was enlisted, and the school became an indispensable appendage to the mosque. The various institutions appertaining to the academic system of the Peninsula which culminated in the University were graded much as are those of modern times. In Cordova were eight hundred public schools frequented alike by Moslems, Christians, and Jews, where instruction was imparted by lectures. The natural quickness which distinguished the intellectual faculties of the Arab, and his phenomenally retentive memory, enabled him to achieve results of incalculable value to the development of his civilization. This marvellous progress was promoted by every incentive which could arouse the energies of the aspiring or the covetous,—by the expected favor of the monarch, by the prospect of exalted and honorable dignities, by the certainty of magnificent rewards, by the hope of social distinction, by the ambition of literary fame. There was not a village within the limits of the empire where the blessings of education could not be enjoyed by the children of the most indigent peasant, and the universities of Granada, Seville, and Cordova were held in the highest estimation by the scholars of Asia, Africa, and Europe. In the various departments of these great institutions were taught, in addition to the doctrines of the Koran and the principles of Mohammedan law, the classics, the exact sciences, medicine, music, poetry, and art. In the superintendence of academies and colleges, the profession of Islamism was not considered an indispensable prerequisite by a liberal and enlightened public sentiment; scholarly acquirements and devotion to learning were the accepted criterions of fitness for the direction of youth; and both Jews and Christians attained to acknowledged distinction as professors in the great University of the capital. In the ninth century, in the department of theology alone, four thousand students were enrolled, and the total number in attendance at the University reached almost eleven thousand. Nor were these priceless educational privileges restricted to one people or to the votaries of a single faith. The doors of the college were open to students of every nationality, and the Andalusian Moor received the rudiments of knowledge at the same time and under the same conditions as the literary pilgrims from Asia Minor and Egypt, from Germany, France, and Britain. A remarkable correspondence exists between the procedure established by those institutions and the methods of the present day. They had their collegiate courses, their prizes for proficiency in scholarship, their oratorical and poetical contests, their commencements, their degrees. In the department of medicine, a severe and prolonged examination, conducted by the most eminent physicians of the capital, was exacted of all candidates desirous of practising their profession, and such as were unable to stand the test were formally pronounced incompetent. Great and invaluable contributions to the fund of historical and scientific information were made by the members of the various academies and schools. They composed voluminous treatises on surgery and medicine. They bestowed upon the stars the Arabic names which still cover the map of the heavens. Above the lofty station of the muezzin, as he called the devout to prayer, were projected against the sky the implements of science to whose uses religion did not refuse the shelter of her temples,—the gnomon, the astrolabe, the pendulum clock, and the armillary sphere.
The trading expeditions of the adventurous Arab had long before familiarized him with the relative positions, areas, and natural productions of the principal countries of the globe. But the princes of the Western Khalifate, not satisfied with the results accidentally obtained, frequently despatched to the most distant regions accomplished scholars with the object of making new contributions to art, literature, and geography. In consequence of these extensive voyages, no science was better understood by the Moorish teachers than that treating of the earth’s surface; and its practical application was demonstrated by means of accurate representations of its principal features carved in relief upon globes of copper and silver.