THE SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF THE EAST
VOLUME V
A N C I E N T A R A B I A
THE HANGED POEMS THE KORAN
In Translations by
Captain F. E. JOHNSON, R.A., and GEORGE SALE, Esq., with Revisions
and Explanatory Essay by SHEIK FAIZ-ULLAH-BHAI, Head
Master of the Schools of Anjuman-i-Islam.
With a Brief Bibliography by
CHARLES C. TORREY, D.D.,
Professor of Semitic Languages at Yale University.
With an Historical Survey and Descriptions by
PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D.
PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC.
NEW YORK LONDON
THE HANGED POEMS THE KORAN
In Translations by
Captain F. E. JOHNSON, R.A., and GEORGE SALE, Esq., with Revisions
and Explanatory Essay by SHEIK FAIZ-ULLAH-BHAI, Head
Master of the Schools of Anjuman-i-Islam.
With a Brief Bibliography by
CHARLES C. TORREY, D.D.,
Professor of Semitic Languages at Yale University.
With an Historical Survey and Descriptions by
PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D.
PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC.
NEW YORK LONDON
Introduction
THE LAST SEMITIC CONQUERORS: THE SUDDEN BLOSSOMING
OF ARABIC LITERATURE
THE Arabs are one of the most ancient races known to history.
Historical records, which are perhaps earth's
earliest, have been recently rediscovered among the ruins of
Babylon and the other cities of the Euphrates valley; and
these refer frequently to Arab invasions of the fertile valley
and to Arab conquests over its fairest regions. The cultured
classes of many an ancient Babylonian city were thus of the
Arabian race, springing from the intermarriage of the fierce
desert conquerors with the defeated valley folk. Yet in their
own homeland the Arabs were among the last of Asiatic peoples
to develop a written literature. We come down almost to
the time of Mohammed, that is, to the sixth century after
Christ, before we find among them any written books.
That the Arabs were thus slow in creating written literature
was due to their peculiar mode of life. The art of
words was highly honored among the most ancient Arab
tribes. But to these dwellers amid the desert silence, the art
was one of spoken, not of written, words, an art of polished
and sarcastic oratory or of passionately chanted verse. The
Arab prided himself upon three virtues: his generosity to
those whom he accepted as his friends, his skill in the arts of
war that is, his handling of his horse and weapons and,
lastly, his mastery of his language. When a new poet
of unusual merit appeared in any tribe, a festival of rejoicing
was held ; and the other tribes sent envoys to congratulate the
fortunate folk, upon the honor and happiness that the gods had sent them.
That a people who so valued the arts of speech should have
studied them for thousands of years without developing them
into written forms is one of the striking oddities of literary
history. Yet the causes of this oddity are obvious. The
greater part of the vast Arabian peninsula is so barren that
its people must keep ever on the move to find enough green
food for the animals upon which they depend for their own
existence. Hence they have no place for the storing of books,
the preservation of libraries. True, there are in Arabia some
fertile spots, in oases or along the southern coast, where Arab
cities have grown up ; but even the Arabs of these cities journey
often and far into the desert. Its blank and burning sunshine
is their true home ; and in its vast solitudes a man's own
memory is, even to-day, the best treasure-house for his books.
Hence Arabic literature in the written form, the only form
in which it can be permanently preserved, does not begin until
the sixth century of our own era, the century just before
Mohammed. During this period there were several of the
tribal poets so valued, that the idea was formed of honoring
them by hanging copies of their best poems in the chief
religious shrine of Arabia, the building called the Kaaba at
Mecca. So the Arabic literature which we know to-day
begin with these "hanged"
poems, and they form the opening of the present volume.
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File Size
| 45,763 KB | ||
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498 p | ||
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ISBN
| 3 1761 03555 7818 | ||
Copyright
| 1917, Parke, Austin, and Lipsoomb, Inc |
CONTENTS OF VOLUME V
ANCIENT ARABIA
INTRODUCTION
The Last Semitic Conquerors, the
Arabs: The Sudden Blossoming of their Literature . . . . . . . 1
I. THE GENIUS OF ARABIC LITERATURE, by Sheik Faiz-ullah-bhai 11
THE HANGED POEMS
II. THE POEM OP IMRU-UL-QUAIS (530 A.D.?) ... 19
III. THE POEM OF ANTAR (580 A.D.?). ..... 27
IV. THE POEM OF ZUHAIR (590 A.D.?) ..... 35
THE KORAN
V. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . 43
VI. AL KORAN (598-632 A.D.) 49
VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY , 469
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME V
The Latest Successor of Mohammed . . . Frontispiece
The Kaaba or Sacred Temple of Mecca . .*" * . . 144
The Mohammedans' Central Spot of Earth, the Rock of Abraham 320
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