Arabic Authors Part 6

Hakim, who had already as a youth been fond of books, now, when he became sovereign, fully satisfied this predilection, which had grown to be a pa.s.sion. He spared neither trouble nor expense in collecting in his Merwan palace the rarest and most costly books in every branch of science from all countries. He sent special commissioners to Egypt, Syria, Irak, and Persia to purchase books. At Baghdad, Muhammad bin Turkhan was charged with the business of purchasing books, or getting them copied, for which purpose he had an establishment of calligraphers and stenographers; because of some books beautiful, and of others rapidly made, copies were required. He procured all the genealogies, all the histories, and all the poems of the Arabs; all works on law and jurisprudence, on grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, philology, mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic and geography, composed in Arabic. Thus the library of the Merwan palace became not only the richest in Islam, but also the best arranged, by the care which he bestowed on it. The catalogue consisted of forty-four fascicles, each of fifty leaves, so that the whole const.i.tuted a volume of two thousand two hundred leaves, two-fifths of which were filled with t.i.tles of poetical works only. In this catalogue the t.i.tles of the books were inserted, with the names of their authors, their descent, birth-place, the year of their birth and of their decease, in the most accurate manner, to serve as a model for other libraries, of which Spain contained so many. This library alone is said to have consisted of six hundred thousand volumes, a number never surpa.s.sed by any earlier or later libraries in Islam.

To his two brothers, who loved the sciences as ardently as himself, Hakim entrusted the care of the libraries, and of public instruction, appointing Abdul Latif to be the chief librarian, and another man to be the director of studies. He kept up intercourse with the great scholars of the East and of the West, with sundry persons in Syria, with learned men in Egypt, and with Abul Faraj Al-Ispahani (author of the great anthology 'Kitab-ul-Aghani') in Irak, giving houses and salaries to those who chose to reside at his court.

A few words must be said about the establishment of places of learning which were celebrated at the time. The first university, in the sense in which such an inst.i.tution is at present understood, was flourishing in Syria long before any seat of learning of this kind had been established in Europe; and there was another in Egypt. The first inst.i.tution was called 'The Society of the Brethren of Purity,' and the second (opened at Cairo on the 24th May, A.D. 1005) was founded by Al-Hakim-bramrillah, and bore the name of Dar-ul Hikinat, or Abode of Wisdom. It was under this same name that the library of the Khalifs was formerly known at Baghdad. Later on the great vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk founded a high school at Baghdad, in A.D. 1066. It was not the first that had been established in Islam, but it eclipsed all others of the kind by the abilities of the professors who worked there, viz., the Imam Abu Ishak Shirazi, Al-Ghazali, and others. With the Society of the Brethren of Purity, mentioned above, there were two men closely connected, viz., Al-Tavhidi, who died A.D. 985, and Al-Majridi, who died A.D. 1004, the former in the East, the latter in the West, and both of them are deserving of the general name of philosopher. So much for the Eastern Khalifates. As regards the Western Khalifate, still greater attention was paid to education and learning there. The schools and lectures were attended by many Europeans, who were not, perhaps, sufficiently grateful to the Arabs for keeping up a progress in literature and science while Europe itself was struggling for emanc.i.p.ation from the dark ages which followed the higher cultures of Greece and of Rome.

THIRD PERIOD.

From the fall of Baghdad, in A.D. 1258, to the present time.

The conquest of Baghdad by the Mughals is a most remarkable period, not only in the literature, but also in the history, of the Arabs. It marks the final extinction of the Abbaside dynasty, from whom the ancient power and glory had vanished to such a degree that the authority of the Khalifs may almost literally be said to have been confined to the city only. Halaku Khan, the brother of the grand Khan Kubilai, and grandson of Jenghiz Khan, took and sacked Baghdad, keeping the Khalif imprisoned for some time, but slaying him at last, with his sons and several thousand Abbasides. Al-Mustaa'sim was the thirty-seventh and last Khalif of the house of Abbas, which had reigned over five hundred years, and was now extinguished.

Halaku Khan attacked Baghdad by the advice of Khojah Nasir-uddin Tusy, the great Persian astronomer and mathematician. Nasir-uddin had entered the service of the last prince of the a.s.sa.s.sins only for the purpose of avenging himself on the Khalif, who had disparaged one of his works. When, however, he became aware of Halaku's power, he not only betrayed his new master to him, but led the Mughal conqueror also to Baghdad. After the burning of the library at Alamut (the stronghold of the a.s.sa.s.sins, where they kept their literary treasures) and the sacking of Baghdad by Halaku Khan, the erection of the astronomical observatory at Maragha, under the direction of Nasir-uddin Tusy, was the first sign that Arab civilization and the cultivation of science had not been entirely extinguished by Tartar barbarism. The learned viziers who stood by the side of the conqueror, such as the two brothers Juvaini, were Persians, and therefore hardly belong to the history of Arab literature. But the fact that one of these two historians now wrote 'The Heart Opener,' also implies that the invasion of the barbarians had not quite put an end to literary activity.

More than ten historians flourished at the beginning of this period whose names terminated with 'din,' such as Baha-uddin, Imad-uddin, Kamal-uddin, etc., and they were contemporaries of the Arab Plutarch Ibn Khallikan, already mentioned and described in the preceding period.

The 'Alfiyya,' or Quintessence of Arab Grammar, was written in verse by Jamal-uddin Abu Abdallah Muhammad, known under the name of Ibn Malik. The author died in A.D. 1273-1274; but his work has lived, and it is looked upon as a good exponent of the system. The Arab text has been published, with a commentary upon it in French, by Silvestre de Sacy, A.D. 1834.

During the eighth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1301-1398), there lived three distinguished men, one famed as a geographer and traveller, and the other two as historians, viz., Ibn Batuta, Abul Feda, and Ibn Khaldun. The first-named left his native town, Tangiers, in A.D. 1324, and travelled all over the East, performing his pilgrimage to Mecca in A.D. 1332. The travels of Ibn Batuta were translated by the Rev. S.

Lee, and published by the Oriental Translation Fund, as their first work, in A.D. 1829. This traveller has been noticed by Kosegarten in a Latin treatise, and his travels have been also translated into French, with the Arabic text above, by C. Defremery and R. Sanguinetti, at the expense of the French Government (1874-1879).

Abul Feda Ismail Hamawi is well known as an historian, and is frequently mentioned by Gibbon as one of his authorities. He wrote an account of the regions beyond the Oxus, and also an abridgment of universal history down to his own time, and as he is supposed to be very exact, and his style elegant, his works are very much esteemed.

He died A.D. 1345, having succeeded his brother Ahmad as King of Hamat in Syria, A.D. 1342.

Ibn Khaldun, the African philosopher, was born in Tunis, A.D. 1332, and pa.s.sed his youth in Egypt. He served a short time as Chief Justice at Damascus, and returned to Egypt, where he became Supreme Judge, and died there A.D. 1406. His princ.i.p.al and most remarkable work is the 'History of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Berbers.'

During the ninth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1398-1495) Arabian literature can still boast of a few great names. Ibn-Hajar was not only the continuator of Ibn Kesir's universal history, called 'The Beginning and the End,' but also the author of biographies of celebrated men who had lived during the preceding century, and of other works besides. He died A.D. 1449. Ibn Arabshah was the writer of a history of Timour, or Tamerlane, which has some celebrity, and has been translated into Latin and French. He was a native of Damascus, and died there A.D. 1450.

Majr-uddin Muhammad Bin Yakub, surnamed Firuzabadi, a learned Persian, was the author of the largest and most celebrated Arabic dictionary in existence at the time, called the 'Qa.n.u.s,' or Ocean, a standard work to this day, and always greatly praised, and also used by European lexicographers.

Taki-uddin, of Fez, composed the best history of Mekka, and A'ini, who died A.D. 1451, wrote two celebrated historical works. But the greatest historian of this time was Al-Makrisi, whose proper name was Taki-uddin Ahmad, and who was born at Makris, near Baalbec, in A.D.

1366. He early devoted himself to the study of history, geography, astrology, etc., at Cairo, and his Egyptian history and topography is still an important work, describing the state of the country and its rulers. He died at Cairo, A.D. 1442. Some of his works have been translated into French and Latin, and are still referred to.

In honour of Sayuti, that colossus of learning, who cultivated, according to the spirit of his times, so many sciences, and dealt with them practically, this might be called the poly-historical and poly-geographical period. Julal-uddin Sayuti is said to be the author of some four hundred works, and he died in A.D. 1505, some twelve years before the conquest of Egypt by Selim I, the Sultan of Turkey, when independent Arab literature under Arab sovereigns came to an end. It is true enough that not only in Egypt and Syria, but also in Turkey and Persia, Arabic books were written afterwards, but more under foreign protection, although in the two first-named countries Arabic is the language of the people, while in the last two it occupies nearly the same position that Latin does in European universities and in the Roman Catholic Church.

In the tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592) the generally prevalent belief that the world would, at the completion of it, come to an end, contributed much to the gradual decay of science and literature. The case is somewhat a.n.a.logous to the superst.i.tion in Europe some six hundred years previously, when the Christian era attained its millennium, which was considered to carry with it the same catastrophe. This prophecy, believed to be true, contributed in some measure to slacken authority as well as exertion, and the power of Islamitic countries really sank; but this might have been predicted without any prophetic foresight. In one part of Islam, the ruin of Muhammadan countries thus prophesied was accomplished twenty-one years before the end of the thousandth year, that is in the 979th year of the Hijrah, A.D. 1571, by the total expulsion of the Moors from Spain.

Granada itself had succ.u.mbed already, seventy-nine years before, and the unwieldy palace of the kings, of Spain (still unfinished) had risen by the side of the lofty arcades of the Alhambra, still a lovely specimen of Moorish artistic design and architecture.

The tenth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1495-1592), which was the first of the decay of Arab literature, is to be considered as the period when the political importance of Turkey culminated in the reign of Sulaiman the Law-giver. There were, however, four authors of celebrity who wrote both in Arabic and in Turkish. Ibn Kamal Pasha, the surname of Mufti Shams-uddin Ahmad bin-Sulaiman, who died A.D. 1534, wrote on history in Turkish, and on law in Arabic; the Mufti Abu Sa'ud acquired great renown by his numerous Fetwas (legal decisions), approving of the political inst.i.tutions of Sulaiman; Ibrahim of Aleppo is the author of the 'Molteka' (Confluence of Two Seas), which embodies the essence of Muslim law, according to the Hanifi ritual; and lastly, Birgeli, otherwise known as Mulla Muhammad Ibn Pir Ali ul-Birkali, was equally great as a dogmatist and as a grammarian. He wrote in Arabic 'The Unique Pearl; or, The Art of Reading the Koran,' and died A.D.

1573. Special mention, too, must be made of Mulla Ahmad Bin Mustafa, the celebrated Arabian, whom Haji-Khalfa always calls by the more euphonious name of Abul-Khair (Father of Wisdom). This author is worthy of notice, on account of the Arabic works he wrote on biographical, historical, and especially encyclopaedic subjects. His 'Key of Felicity' will remain for ever the best encyclopaedia of Arabian sciences, representing as it does their division among the Arabs, with notices of the works of scholars in every branch of them in a most compact and comprehensive manner. He died A.D. 1560.

The three most celebrated calligraphers of this century were Hamdallah, who died A.D. 1518; Mir Ali, who died A.D. 1544; and Muhammad Hussain Tabrizi, who died A.D. 1574. Their names are just as celebrated for Thuluth and Talik writing as were formerly those of Ibn Bawwab, of Ibn Hilal, and of Yakut are for Naskhi. In Egypt and Syria the characters used were always more beautiful than those of Andalusia, which survived in the Mugrib (North of Africa).

Here, perhaps, it may be stated that the art of Arabic writing came into existence but a very short time before Muhammad. 'It was Abu Ali bin Mukla who first took the present system of written characters from the style of writing employed by the people of Kufa, and brought it out under its actual form. He had, therefore, the merit of priority, and it may be added that his handwriting was very elegant. But to Ibn Al Bawwab pertains the honour of rendering the character more regular and simple, and of clothing it in grace and beauty.' In other words, Ibn Mukla was the first who changed the Kufic into the new Naskhi character, which Ibn Bawwab improved after him by imparting rotundity and clearness to the new letters, and which Ibn Yakut Al-Mausili brought afterwards to the greatest perfection in A.D. 1200.

Ibn Mukla, who was born in A.D. 885, and died A.D. 941, was vizier to the Khalifs Al-Kahir-billah and Al-Radhi-billah; but, falling into disfavour through the intrigues of his enemies, he first had his hand cut off in A.D. 937, and eventually his tongue was torn out, and he was allowed to perish in the dungeon without any a.s.sistance being offered to him.

Ibn-al-Bawwab, the Penman, is said to have possessed a skill in penmanship to which no other person ever attained in ancient or modern times. He died at Baghdad A.D. 1032, and the following verses were composed as his elegy:

'Thy loss was felt by the writers of former times, And each successive day justifies their grief. The ink-bottles are therefore black with sorrow, And the pens are rent through affliction.'

During the eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) there lived Mustafa bin Abdullah Katib Jelaby, otherwise known as Haji Khalfa, and commonly called Mustafa Haji Khalfa, a man of science as a Turkish historian and geographer, but an Arabic encyclopaedist and bibliographer. He was the compiler of a work containing many thousands of t.i.tles of Arab, Persian, and Turkish books, with the names of their authors. Fluegel edited this great work under the t.i.tle of 'Lexicon Enciclopaedic.u.m et Bibliographic.u.m,' with a Latin translation in seven bulky volumes, and it is an extremely valuable work of reference, put together with the most astonishing and persevering care, and consulted by all who desire information on Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature. This was printed by the Oriental Translation Fund between A.D. 1835 and 1850, and will always remain as one of the most valuable works printed by that most useful society, whose extinction must ever be regretted by all Orientalists and persons interested in Oriental literature. Haji Khalfa wrote another interesting work, giving a detailed account of the maritime wars of the Turks in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and on the Danube, which has been translated by Mr. James Mitch.e.l.l. The date of Haji Khalfa's death is uncertain. He is known to have been alive in A.D. 1622, and still in 1652, and he is supposed to have died in A.D. 1657.

The works of Abul Khair, previously mentioned, and of Haji Khalfa, embody a ma.s.s of information, and const.i.tute the top of the pyramid of encyclopaedical and biographical works, after which nothing worthy of mention has been written on these subjects. The basis of this pyramid had been already laid by An-Nadim, the author of the 'Fihrist,' who flourished A.D. 987, and by Ibn Khallikan, who died A.D. 1282.

During this century (A.D. 1592-1689) of the most sanguinary wars, revolutions and dethronements, the condition of Arab literature in the Ottoman Empire was neither progressive nor satisfactory. Nevertheless, the study of the sciences, and especially the linguistic and juridical branches of them, were fostered not only in Constantinople, but also in Syria and Egypt, in consequence of the inst.i.tution of the body of Ulema, established by Muhammad II., the Conqueror (A.D. 1451-1481), and improved by Sulaiman I., the Law-giver (A.D. 1520-1566), which sheltered the cultivation of science from the storms of war within the inviolable precincts of religion.

Mention may be made of Muhammad-Al-Amin, the learned philologist and lawyer of Damascus, who was born in that town about the middle of the eleventh and died the beginning of the twelfth century of the Hijrah, and produced a dozen respectable works, the princ.i.p.al of which bears the t.i.tle of 'The Biographies of the Celebrated Men of the Eleventh Century,' A.H. He gives an account of a couple of hundred scholars, who represented in Egypt and in Syria the last rays of the setting sun of Arabian literature.

Next to Muhammad-Al-Amin another author of about a dozen works is to be noticed, namely, Ahmad-Al Makkari, whose princ.i.p.al work was a history of the Muhammadan dynasties in Spain, which was translated from the copies in the library of the British Museum, and ill.u.s.trated with critical notes on Spanish history, geography and antiquities, by Pascual de Gayangos, and printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1840-43. Makkari also wrote a history of Fez and Morocco, as well as an account of Damascus. He died at Cairo A.D. 1631.

Besides some historians, grammarians, philologists and poets, the eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) produced in Syria and Egypt even astronomers and physicians, who distinguished themselves as scholars. Of writers of light literature Khafaji may be named as the chief. He composed a Diwan of ardent love poems, with two anthologies, containing specimens of verses from a couple of poets, his contemporaries. He died A.D. 1658. A few more writers might be mentioned; but their efforts strongly mark the decline of Arabic literature in the East, the cultivation of which, however, was henceforth more energetically pursued in Europe, where many works have been printed and translated.

With the twelfth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1689-1786) the history of original Arab literature may be said to have terminated, and its genius to have disappeared. A revival, however, of Arabian learning is taking place in Egypt, Syria, and North Africa, but in accordance with European models, and chiefly under European auspices. All original research has long been extinct, even among those populations whose vernacular is the Arabic language; and consequently it is the former, and not the present state of Arab literature, which is the most interesting to the people of to-day.

The presses of Constantinople, Cairo, Algiers, Beyruth, and some other places, reproduce old Arabic works of value, but more translations from European languages than original compositions are printed and lithographed. From Bombay, where more than fifty presses are at work, large quant.i.ties of books are exported to countries beyond the British possessions. These books treat generally of religion, poetry, history, or medicine; but as they deal more with ancient than with modern knowledge, they do not tend to propagate progress.

But though Arab literature has decayed, the faith of Islam is still active and energetic. It is estimated that one hundred and eighty millions of human beings still follow the precepts of the Prophet, and daily turn their faces to Mecca, which for them has been, and still is, the cradle of their faith, the touchstone of their religion, and the idol of their hearts.

CHAPTER III.

ABOUT MUHAMMAD.

A manual of Arabian history and literature would hardly be complete unless some special mention of Muhammad was introduced. As previously stated, his Koran forms the basis of the literary edifice of Arab literature, while he himself undoubtedly holds the first place in Arab history. As the author and founder of a new religion, which both during his lifetime and after his death was accepted with a marvellous rapidity, and is still being accepted in various parts of Africa, it must be admitted that he was an extraordinary person. At the beginning of what may be called his inspired life at Mecca, he stood forth as a reformer, preacher, and apostle. But, though full of enthusiasm and belief in the great cause that he advocated, he was, without doubt, from the commencement to the end of his career, a practical man of business, which Buddha and Jesus certainly were not.

The life of Muhammad has been written in many languages, and with such voluminous details, that it is hardly necessary to enter into these details very minutely here. Sir William Muir's works on the subject are graphic, descriptive, and full of interesting matter, while a lengthy article on the subject of Muhammad and Muhammadism, in the third volume of the 'Dictionary of Christian Biography,' from the pen of the late Rev. G.P. Badger, is one of extraordinary interest. A perusal of the above-named works, with Hughes's 'Dictionary of Islam'

as a reference book, will give the ordinary English reader as much information as is likely to be required in the ordinary course of things.

But by way of preface to certain remarks upon Muhammad as a reformer, preacher, and apostle at Mecca, as pope and king at Madinah, as author of the Koran, founder of a religion, legislator, military leader, and organizer of the Arabs into a nation, it is perhaps necessary to give a rapid summary of the princ.i.p.al events of a life which has had such an influence upon so many people, and which has filled so many pages.

This summary will be as brief as possible:

His birth, August, A.D. 570, at Mecca, his father having died some months previously.

His christening by the name of Muhammad, _i.e._, the Praised One. His grandfather Abdul-Muttalib, who gave him the name, said it was given to him 'in the hope that his grandson would be praised by G.o.d in heaven, and by G.o.d's creatures on earth.'

His bringing up in the desert of the Benou-Saad by a Badawin nurse, one Halimah, the wife of Harith, for five years.

His mother Aminah took him, aged six, to Madinah to present him to his maternal relations there. She died on the return journey, A.D. 576.

Under the guardianship of his grandfather Abdul Muttalib (who loved him dearly) for two years, from six to eight, when Abdul died, A.D.

578.

Under the guardianship of his uncle Abu Thaleb, the uterine brother of his father, Abd-Allah.