Muḥammad, the first K͟halīfah of Granada, was a patron of literature, and the celebrated academy of that city was long under the direction of Shamsu ʾd-dīn of Murcia, so famous among the Arabs for his skill in polite literature. Kasīrī has recorded the names of 120 authors whose talents conferred dignity and fame on the Muslim University of Granada.
So universal was the patronage of literature in Spain, that in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom, there were as many as seventy free libraries open to the public, as well as seventeen distinguished colleges of learning.
(For an interesting account of the state of literature in Spain under the Moors, the English reader can refer to Pascual de Gayango’s translation of al-Makkari’s History of the Muhammadan Dynasties in Spain, London, 1840.)
History, which was so neglected amongst the ancient Arabs, was cultivated with assiduity by the Muslim. There is extant an immense number of works in this department of literature. The compiler of the Bibliographical Dictionary, the Kashfu ʾz̤-Z̤unūn, gives a list of the names and titles of 1,300 works of history, comprising annals, chronicles, and memoirs. As might be expected, the earliest Muslim histories were compiled with the special object of giving to the world the history of the Prophet of Arabia and his immediate successors. The earliest historian of whom we have any extensive remains is Ibn Isḥāq, who died A.H. 151, or fifteen years after the overthrow of the Umaiyah dynasty. He was succeeded by Ibn Hishām, who died A.H. 213, and who made the labours of Ibn Isḥāq the basis of his history. Another celebrated Muslim historian is Ibn Saʿd, who is generally known as Kātibu ʾl-Wāqidī, or al-Wāqidī’s secretary, and is supposed to have even surpassed his master in historical accuracy.
Abū Jaʿfar ibn Jarīr at̤-T̤abarī flourished in the latter part of the third century of the Muslim era, and has been styled by Gibbon, “the Livy of the Arabians.” He flourished in the city of Bag͟hdād, where he died A.H. 310. At̤-T̤abarī compiled not only annals of Muḥammad’s life, but he wrote a history of the progress of Islām under the earlier K͟halīfahs. Abū ʾl-Faraj, a Christian physician of Malatia in Armenia, Abū ʾl-Fidāʾ, Prince of Hamah, and Ibn Kātib of Granada, are amongst the celebrated historians of later times. The writings of Ibn Ḥusain of Cordova are said to contain 160,000 pages!
Biographical works, and memoirs of men specially distinguished for their achievements, were innumerable. The most notable work of the kind is Ibn K͟hallikān’s Bibliographical Dictionary, which has been translated into English by De Slane (Paris, 1843). The Dictionary of the Sciences by Muḥammad Abū ʿAbdi ʾllāh of Granada is an elaborate work. The Bibliographical Dictionary, entitled the Kashfu ʾz̤-Z̤unūn (often quoted in the present work), is a laborious compilation, giving the names of several thousands of well-known books and authors in every department of literature. ʿAbdu ʾl-Munẓar of Valencia wrote a genealogical history of celebrated horses, and another celebrity wrote one of camels. The encyclopedias, gazetteers, and other similar compilations, are very numerous.
Arabic lexicons have been compiled in regular succession from the first appearance of the work supposed to have been compiled by K͟halīl ibn Aḥmad, entitled Kitābu ʾl-ʿAyn, which must have been written about A.H. 170, to the most recent publications which have issued from the presses of Lucknow, Bombay, and Cairo. [[ARABIC LEXICONS].]
Poetry was, of old, a favourite occupation of the Arab people, and was, after the introduction of learning by the K͟halīfahs of Bag͟hdād, cultivated with enthusiasm. Al-Mutanabbī of al-Kūfah, K͟halīl ibn Aḥmad, and others, are poets of note in the time of the Abbaside K͟halīfahs. So great was the number of Arabic poets, that an abridgement, or dictionary, of the lives of the most celebrated of them, compiled by Abū ʾl-ʿAbbās, son of the K͟halīfah al-Muʿtaṣim, contains notices of 130. [[POETRY].]
With Numismatics the Saracens of Spain were well acquainted, and Maqrīzī and Namarī wrote histories of Arabian money. The study of geography was not neglected. The library of Cairo had two massive globes, and the Sharīf Idrīsī of Cordova made a silver globe for Roger II., King of Sicily. Ibn Rashīd, a distinguished geographer, journeyed through Africa, Egypt, and Syria, in the interests of geographical science. But to reconcile some of the statements of Muḥammadan tradition with geographical discoveries must have required a strong effort of the imagination. [[QAF].]
To the study of medicine the Arabs paid particular attention. Many of our modern pharmaceutical terms, such as camphor, jalap, and syrup, are of Arabian origin. The Christian physician, George, introduced the study of medicine at the court of K͟halīfah al-Manṣūr. [[MEDICINE].]