THE SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF THE EAST
WITH HISTORICAL SURVEYS OF THE CHIEF WRITINGS OF EACH NATION
VOLUME VI
MEDIEVAL ARABIC, MOORISH, AND TURKISH
In Translations by
E. J. W. GIBB of the Royal Asiatic Society; STANLEY LANE-POOLE,
Litt.D., Professor of Arabic, Trinity College, Dublin; ARMINIUS VAMBERY,
LL.D., Professor of Oriental Languages, University of Budapest;
THOMAS CHENERY, M.A., Former Professor of Arabic at Oxford
University; ERNEST RENAN, Former Professor of Hebrew, College of
France; CLAUD FIELD, M.A.; and other authorities.
With Briqf Bibliographies by
PROF. CHARLES C. TORREY, LL.D., and PROF. EDWARD H. JOHNS, Ph.D.
With an Historical Survey and Descriptions by
PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D.
PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC.
NEW YORK LONDON
MEDIEVAL ARABIC, MOORISH, AND TURKISH
In Translations by
E. J. W. GIBB of the Royal Asiatic Society; STANLEY LANE-POOLE,
Litt.D., Professor of Arabic, Trinity College, Dublin; ARMINIUS VAMBERY,
LL.D., Professor of Oriental Languages, University of Budapest;
THOMAS CHENERY, M.A., Former Professor of Arabic at Oxford
University; ERNEST RENAN, Former Professor of Hebrew, College of
France; CLAUD FIELD, M.A.; and other authorities.
With Briqf Bibliographies by
PROF. CHARLES C. TORREY, LL.D., and PROF. EDWARD H. JOHNS, Ph.D.
With an Historical Survey and Descriptions by
PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D.
PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC.
NEW YORK LONDON
 |
| MEDIEVAL ARABIC, MOORISH, AND TURKISH |
The Slave Girl of Abu Zayd . .... . Frontispiece
The Death of Abu Mustem 42
The Song of Abu Al Salam 210
The Queen of Night ...... . -. ... 264
The Ancient Church of St. Sophia . . 320
SACKED BOOKS AND EAELY LITERATURE
OF
THE MEDIEVAL ARABS, MOORS, AND TURKS
Introduction
HOW THE TEACHING OP MOHAMMED SPREAD INTO MANY
LANDS AND CREATED MANY LITERATURES
LANDS AND CREATED MANY LITERATURES
THE wide-spread Arabic empire and religion originated A with Mohammed and was founded on his book, the Koran. That tremendously important work, with the primitive Arabic literature of even earlier date, formed the theme of our preceding volume. We have now to trace the Arabic literature and thought which, with the expanding of the Mohammedan empire, spread over a large part of the Eastern world. Geographically that empire reached from its Arabian center eastward through Babylonia and Persia into India, westward through all North Africa into Spain, southward through Egypt into the wilds of Central Africa, and northward through Asia Minor to all the Turkish possessions.
Through much of this vast region, Arabic became the common speech, and books were written in its tongue. Even in our own day, Arabic continues as the language of a considerable
part of Turkey in Asia, of Egypt, and of all North Africa.
We can scarcely, however, regard as a unit all the varying Mohammedan literatures of these many lands. The Persians, for example, retained their own language and wrote in it a literature of Mohammedan religious spirit, so important that we shall devote to it a later separate volume. Our present task, therefore, will confine itself to tracing through the Middle Ages the more strictly Arabian development
This includes first, the spread of literature and thought among the Arabs themselves, or among those people who completely adopted the Arabic faith and speech. Second, it includes the literature of the Moors, or semi-Arabic peoples, of North Africa and Spain. And third, it leads us to
the Turks, the last Mohammedan conquerors, who took up and carried on Arabic tradition, though in a language and spirit more Tartar than Arabian.
For the purely Arabic development, that is for the literature and thought that sprang directly from Mohammed'steaching, we turn first to the " Sunan," or traditions about Mohammed. After the prophet's death in A.D. 632, and while his followers were spreading his teachings by force of arms, they talked much of the doings and sayings of their adored master. Then, long after his own writings had been
gathered in the official form of the Koran, a similar collection was made of what might be termed his unofficial teaching, that is of all his remembered words, the ideas which he had not proclaimed as inspired by God, but had given forth in ordinary conversation between man and man. The details
of his life were also treasured. Thus sprang up the " Sunan," from which we may learn as much of Mohammed the man, and of the daily life and thought of his people, as
from the Koran we learn of Mohammed the poet and of the poetic spirit of Arabia.
For a long time the Arabs developed no other religious literature than this. Of the third leader of their new faith, the Caliph Omar, there is a well-known legend which may be untrue in fact but is intensely true to the fanatic spirit of the Caliph and his followers. It says that when Omar's armies
conquered Egypt the scholars of Alexandria entreated him to protect the books of their great library, the largest in the world. Instead, Omar ordered the thousands of manuscripts
to be used to feed the fires of the public baths ; and he based
the destruction upon this verdict :
" If these books disagree with the Koran they are evil ; if they agree they are unnecessary."
The Arabic literary spirit was thus compelled to cling to
its old pre-Mohammedan form. That is, it expressed itself only in brief personal poems, in skilfully phrased epigrams, satiric couplets, or " rubaiyat," called forth by a sudden occasion.
A collection of the best known of these poems, gathered from successive ages of gay and dashing singers, is given at the close of our Arabic section. Gradually, however, a change came over the victorious Arab race. The warriors lost their intense religious inspiration.
They fought among themselves for place and power.
The enormous wealth which they had conquered, with its
resulting temptations to luxury and ease and empty vanity,
weakened them, lured them from both the high moral strength
which they had really attained, and from the fanatic frenzy
of faith which had been their pride. They removed the
capital of their empire from the holy cities of Arabia, first
to Damascus and then to Bagdad, the wonderful dream-city
of splendor which they built upon the banks of the ancient Tigris river.
Under these gorgeous Caliphs of Bagdad, such as Haroun
al Raschid of " Arabian Nights' "fame, a civilization developed
which Mohammed would never have recognized as
his own, which he would indeed have been the first to repudiate.
Unrestrained power bred a callous indifference to
the sufferings of its victims, and even a barbarous delight in
inflicting torture. The tyranny of the ruling classes bred a
corresponding falsity in their helpless but supple servitors.
Truth, the chief virtue in Mohammed's teaching, became unknown
in human intercourse, except as a poetic ideal. From
their priest-king down, through all the ranks of society, men
talked much of the virtues, while surrendering themselves
almost wholly to the passions. One might of course speak
cynically of mankind's having found this somewhat true in
every age, but seldom has the tragic contrast between the
ideal and the actual been brought into such sharp and visible
form as in the medieval world of Bagdad.
From this fertile though unhealthy soil a new literature
sprang up, typical of the time and place. Here were cen
tered the wealth and leisure and most of what survived of
the culture of ancient Asia and Africa. So wit and learning
journeyed there as well. At first the new literature found
voice mainly as history or biography, or as a rather crude
form of these collections of anecdotes purporting to give the
virtues and chief events in the lives of former caliphs.
Among the writers of these semi-biographic tales, by far the
most noted and most noteworthy is Masoudi (died A.D. 957).
His huge work, the " Golden Meadows," fills many volumes,
from which we give the most attractive anecdotes. While
such tales must not be taken as genuine history, they teach us
very clearly the spirit of their age.
After these loose histories, a more careful science developed.
The real learning of the Arab scholars of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries far outranked that of their
European and Christian contemporaries. As yet the various
fields of science were scarcely differentiated ; the student took
all knowledge for his province. The earliest Arab writer,
who may perhaps be regarded as a genuine historian, in contrast
to the previous romancers, was Al Biruni (973-1048),
whose "Chronology" our volume quotes. But Al Bimni
was far more than an historian ; he was a leading scientist of
his day and also a geographer, his work on " India " being almost as celebrated as his
"Chronology." Of even greater
fame in science than Al Biruni was Avicenna (980-1037),
a sort of universal genius, known first as a physician. To
his works on medicine he afterward added religious tracts,
poems, works on philosophy, on logic, on physics, on mathematics,
and on astronomy. He was also a statesman and a
soldier, and he is said to have died of debauchery. He is
famed as the most versatile and brilliant member of a versatile and brilliant race.
With the increasing freedom of scientific thought and
speech which Avicenna typifies, there sprang up among the
Eastern Mohammedans a new religious impulse. They
began to examine more carefully the faith which they had
before accepted blindly. To this age therefore we owe the
writings of Al Ghazali (1049-1111), whom some of his own
countrymen have regarded as second only to Mohammed as a
teacher of their religion. Indeed, it was a common saying of his day that
" If there were still prophets in the world Al Ghazali would be one."
Western scholars have, some of them, gone still further in
their admiration of Al Ghazali, declaring him to have heen
one of the world's greatest thinkers, whom his Mohammedan
contemporaries never sufficiently appreciated, and to whose
high moral stature the Mohammedan world has not even yet
grown up. Among his writings the most interesting and
useful to modern readers is his
" Rescuer from Error," a
sort of spiritual autobiography, his account of his own growth
in religious faith. This striking book our volume gives in full.
From Al Ghazali, or even from before his time, dates
the great flow of commentaries on the Koran. These halfphilosophical,
half-fanatical discussions would have seemed irreligious to the earliest Mohammedan age.
The Koran had been originally accepted as perfect, and therefore as
completely clear. But now the analytic spirit of the Semite
reasserted itself; and even as the Hebrews in their Biblical
commentaries weighed every " and " and " but " and every
carelessly made letter in their Holy Book, so now the Mohammedan " mullahs," or priests, began to draw deductions from their law, to interpret and so develop it. Among
these commentators two are chiefly celebrated. Zamakhshari
(1074-1143) was perhaps the most learned and the shrewdest,
but his ideas have seemed to his coreligionists a little too
radical, too independent of Mohammed, daring almost to
question the divine inspiration of the prophet. Therefore
the work of Zamakhshari's more submissive successor of a
century later, Al Baidawi, has gradually superseded the older
book as the favorite exposition of the Koran. The Western
reader, however, will distinctly prefer the independence of Zamakhshari.
Into the lighter literature of the medieval Arabs we need
not look too far. They had their wholly unreligious and fantastic
romances such as the " Arabian Nights." This famous
work, however, draws largely upon Persian sources. Indeed,
as our later Persian volume will emphasize, most of the pure
romance of later Arab literature is of Persian origin, and
may best be studied in the Persian books. There is, however,
an intermediate class of tale peculiarly Arabian. This
is the mingling of romance with poetry and moral teachings,
just as the earlier historians had mingled it with history.
Most celebrated in this peculiar class of semi-religious, semipoetic
romances is the work presented in this volume, the
" Assemblies " of Al Hariri (1054-1122). Just as Masoudi
stands to his race for history, Al Biruni for geography,
Avicenna for science, Al Ghazali for philosophy, and Zamakhshari
and Al Baidawi for religious study, so does Al Hariri
stand for literary skill, for brilliancy and humor. His
" Assemblies "
is the Arabs' chief purely literary achievement.
MOORISH LITERATURE
In the year 1258 Bagdad was stormed and conquered by a
Tartar general. It is true that most of the ravaging Tartars
finally adopted the religion of the conquered, and so the
region continued to obey in religious matters a Mohammedan
caliph ; but the rule of the Arabs, which had been long undermined
by Persian influences, ended definitely with the fall
of Bagdad. From the time of that disaster we must look
to other lands for the continuation of a semi-Arabic literature.
Chief of the secondary developments from the Arabian
stock was the remarkable and justly celebrated civilization
of the Moors in Spain. The fame of medieval Arabic
scholarship was carried to its climax by these first Mohammedan
invaders of Europe. In the first wild onrush of Arabian
conquest most of Spain was captured in the year A.D.712,
captured by an army having leaders of pure Arab blood,
but with followers mainly of the semi-Arabic, or Moorish,
people of North Africa. In the year 756 this Moorish kingdom
in Spain broke completely from the Arabian Caliph and
set up a priest-king of its own, a caliph whose capital was
at Cordova in Spain, and whose connection with the older
Arab world was only one of race and religion and not of empire.
Our Hebraic volume has already spoken of the remarkable
Hebrew writers and philosophers who flourished
within the shelter of this Cordova caliphate. The Arabs
themselves were not less able than their Hebrew servitors.
Here then, under the sunny skies of Southern Spain, far,
far indeed from the first centers of Semitic civilization, was
the last brilliant blossoming of distinctively Semitic thought.
We have in our previous volumes traced the growth of Semitic
thought and of the Semitic religious progress from their
earliest home by the Euphrates river, where the Babylonian
and the desert Arab warred in unrecognized brotherhood of
race. Now we are ready to glance briefly at them in Spain,
the last strong kingdom they were to possess, and the last
literature of note which the Semites, except as scattered members
of other communities, were to give the world.
Among the Arabic writers of Spain the most noted is
the scientist and philosopher, Averroes (1126-1198). To
Mohammedans he is the religious thinker, who strove to
harmonize their faith with the advancing science of a later
day, and who opposed his practical, rational spirit to the
mysticism of Al Ghazali. To the European world he is the
celebrated commentator on that greatest of philosophers,
Aristotle. As the voice of Aristotle, Averroes thus became
the leading teacher and philosopher of his day; he is the
link which connects our present thought and science with
the first splendor of independent inquiry under the Greeks.
The name of Aristotle, the chief scientific teacher of all the
world, is thus united forever with that of the great Arab teacher, Averroes.
Moorish literature was also a shrine of poetry and romance,
though most of these lighter writings have only been
preserved to us through the Spanish tongue. Our own Washington
Irving found in these Moorish tales an inspiration
for his genius, and has turned many of them into English.
Others will be found included in our volume.
TURKISH LITERATURE
Of the Turkish literature we need speak but briefly. The
Turks were not Semites, but a Tartar or East Asiatic stock
who, after wandering into Western Asia, accepted the Mohammedan
faith about A.D. 1288. At the very moment
when the vast Mohammedan empire was crumbling to pieces,
assailed by pagan Tartar hordes and crusading Christian
armies from without, and withering from spiritual decadence
within, the Turks took up the waning faith, and with the
energy of new and younger converts carried it onward to
the military conquests which built up the Turkish Empire.
This new empire soon included geographically most of the
older Arab Empire; but the Turks brought to their new
faith only the dubious glory of victory in war. They added
little, either to its thought or to its literature. They were,
in fact, a nation still semi-barbaric, strong in the natural virtues
of faith and honesty and a rude kindliness, but wholly
lacking in the subtlety and intellectual keenness which could
have advanced Mohammedan thought.
Hence we shall find in their literature, at first, only childish
tales, echoes of the childhood of the world, magic stories
close akin to those of our own fairyland. Then comes a native
poetry, not rising to remarkable heights in any one great
poet, but full of a warm human love of romance and justice.
Later we come to more thoughtful and elaborate writings, but
these incline to deal with the practical world rather than with
that of religion and speculative thought. So that we close
our Turkish section with what is perhaps the most valuable
piece of early Turkish literature, a work of travel, the celebrated
autobiography of Sidi Ali Keis.
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Copyright
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CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI
Literatures Descended From The Arabic
INTRODUCTION
How the Teaching of Mohammed
Spread into Many Lands and Created Many
Literatures ............. 1
MEDIEVAL ARAB LITERATURE
I. THE SUNAN, Or Holy Traditions of Mohammed (A.D. 850-890) 9
II. EARLY HISTORY AND SCIENCE 33
Masoudi's "Golden Meadows" (A.D. 956) . . 37
Legends of the Early Caliphs. Avicenna on "Medicine" (A.D. 1020) ... 90
The Chief Work of the Arabs' Chief Scientist.
Al Biruni's "Existing Monuments" (A.D. 1040). 92
The First Effort at Scientific Study of the Past.
III. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 97
Al Ghazali's " Rescuer from Error" (A.D. 1106) . 102
The Spiritual Autobiography of a Great Teacher.
Zamakhshari's "Kashshaf," or "Discoverer of Truth" (A.D. 1140) 134
The Boldest Commentary on the Koran.
Zamakhshari's "Golden Necklaces" ... 138
Mohammedan Precepts of Morality.
IV. ROMANCE 141
The "Assemblies" of Al Hariri (A.D. 1122) . 145
The Most Renowned Piece of Pure Literature in Arabic.
V. THE POETS OF ARABIA .... 203
MOORISH LITERATURE
VI. SCIENCE AND HISTORY 235
Averroes' "Philosophy" (A.D. 1195) .... 239
Al Maqqari's "Breath of Perfumes" (A.D. 1628) 241
VII. LOVE POETRY OF THE SPANISH MOORS . . . 243
TURKISH LITERATURE
VIII. LEGENDS AND POETRY 257
The Queen of Night, an Old Folk-lore Tale . 262
The Earliest Turkish Poem (A.D. 1332) ... 272
Book of Alexander the Great (A.D. 1412) . . 273
The Loves of Shirin (A.D. 1426) 275
The Book of Mohammed (A.D. 1449) . . . 277
Poems by Turkish Sultans .280
Turkish Poetesses 290
The Great Turkish Poets 292
IX. THE TRAVELS OF SIDI ALI REIS 327
The "Mirror of Countries" (A.D. 1556) ... 332
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARABIC LITERATURE 397
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