The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

by Robert Irwin

  The ‘Amirids were a dynasty of viziers, nominally in the service of the Umayyad caliphs of Cordova, but actually in charge of them.

  Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib’s political rival, Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn Yusuf IBN ZAMRAK (1333–92), was also a noted poet. He had indeed studied poetry, as well as statecraft, under Ibn al-Khatib. As a poet and elegant prose stylist Ibn Zamrak surpassed his master. Probably he was instrumental in engineering the downfall of his former patron; certainly he intervened to secure Ibn al-Khatib’s execution in Morocco. Ibn Zamrak specialized in ‘state poetry’, producing panegyrics, verses for official occasions and verses in praise of the Alhambra. Although his Diwan has not survived, so much of Ibn Zamrak’s was used to decorate one of the palaces of the Alhambra and its garden that the place can be read as if it was a book of poems fashioned in stone. (Some of Ibn al-Khatib’s verses are also to be found on the walls of the Alhambra.)

  I am a garden graced by every beauty:

  See my splendor, then you will know my being.

  For Mohammad, my king, and in his name

  The noblest things, past or to come, I equal:

  Of me, a work sublime, Fortune desires

  That I outshine all other monuments.

  What pleasure I provide for eyes to see!

  In me, any noble man will take fresh heart:

  Like an amulet the Pleiades protect him,

  The magic of the breeze is his defender.

  A shining dome, peerless, here displays

  Evident splendors and more secret ones.

  Gemini extends to it a touching hand,

  Moon comes to parley, stars clustering there

  Turn no longer in the sky’s blue wheel:

  In the two courts, submissively,

  they linger To be of service to their lord,

  like slaves. It is no marvel that the stars should err,

  Moving across their marks and boundaries,

  And are disposed to serve my sovereign lord,

  Since all who serve him glory in his glory.

  The palace portico, so beautiful

  It bids to rival heaven’s very vault;

  Clothed in a woven raiment fine as this

  You can forget the busy looms of Yemen.

  See what arches mount upon its roof

  And spring from columns burnished by the light

  Like the celestial spheres that turn and turn

  Above the luminous column of the dawn.

  Altogether the columns are so beautiful

  That every tongue is telling their renown;

  Black the shadow-darkened cornice cuts

  Across the fair light thrown by snowy marble;

  Such opalescent shimmers swarm about,

  You’d say, for all their size, they are of pearl.

  Never have we seen a palace rise so high,

  With such a clarity, such expanse of outline;

  Never did a garden brim like this with flowers,

  Fruits more sweet to taste or more perfumed.

  It pays the fee required of beauty’s critic

  Twice and in two varieties of coin:

  For if, at dawn, an early breeze will toss

  Into his hands drachmas of light galore,

  Later, in the thick of tree and shrub,

  With coins of gold the sun will lavish him.

  What sired these kindred things? A victory:

  Still none can match the lineage of the king.

  Middleton and Garza-Falcon, Andalusian Poems, pp. 57–8

  COMMENTARY

  This qasida is to be found in the Alhambra, inscribed on one of the walls of the Sala de las Dos Hermanas in the Court of the Lions.

  The general theme of poems written for the purpose of inscription on objects is a subject which has been raised earlier in the context of the ‘Abbasid adab treatise by al-Washsha. One finds poems on ceramics, make-up boxes, and so on. Some of the verses and other types of inscription have been taken from books, but many were composed for the specific objects they adorn. A special sub-category consisted of poetical graffiti composed to be scratched on walls. The wall of a ruined palace would be the most choice place of publication and ideally the poem should treat of such matters as exile, alienation or nostalgia.

  The Nasirids managed to hang on in Granada for a little over two and a half centuries. At times they paid tribute to the Christians, at others they relied on their military strength as well as on exploiting divisions within the Christian ranks. In the long run, however, the union of the Christian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile in 1469 sealed the fate of the last Muslim outposts in Spain. In 1492 the last of the Nasirid rulers, Muhammad XII (known in the West as Boabdil), surrendered Granada to the Christians and went into illfated exile in North Africa.

  Centuries later, the American author Washington Irving visited the Alhambra and spurred his horse ‘to the summit of the rock where Boabdil uttered his last sorrowful exclamation, as he turned his eyes from taking their last farewell gaze; it is still denominated El último Suspiro del Moro (‘The Last sigh of the Moor’). Who can wonder at his anguish at being expelled from such a kingdom and such an abode? With the Alhambra he seemed to be yielding up all the honours of his line and all the glories and delights of life.’

  A hundred years after the surrender of Granada to the Christians, Maqqari saw descendants of Muhammad XII begging for bread in the streets of Fez. Christian pledges made to Muhammad at the time to respect and tolerate the religion and language of those Muslims who chose to remain in Spain were subsequently broken and, in the centuries which followed, Muslims and books written in Arabic were thrown onto the bonfires of the Inquisition. The sixteenth-century Egyptian sorcerer and historian Ibn Zunbul gave an account he had had from a Muslim friend who had recently been travelling in Christian Spain. This friend had been taken to an abandoned and locked-up mosque in which, he was told, a vast library of Arabic books had been dumped. When he put his ear to the keyhole, he could hear the sound of the worms eating the books.

  After 1492, lamentation for the vanished grandeurs of Cordova, Granada and Seville and for the sad fate of Muslim Andalusia became a recurrent theme in Arabic literature. Indeed it is still a common topic in modern Arabic poetry. However, the grandest and most influential of such works of nostalgic antiquarianism was written in the seventeenth century by al-Maqqari. Shihab al-Din Abu’l-Abbas al-MAQQARI (1577–1632) was born near Tlemcen in what is now Algeria. In 1600 he travelled west to Morocco, where he studied and taught in Fez. In 1618 he went east on the hajj and thenceforward moved back and forth between Egypt and Syria. He wrote various treatises on historical and religious issues, including one on the slippers of the Prophet. It was while he was in Syria that he wrote his great work, Nafh al-Tib min Ghusn al-Andalus al-Ratib wa-Dhikr Waziriha Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib (‘The Fragrant Scent of the Tender Shoots of Andalus and the History of the Wazir Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib’). The Nafh al-Tib is in two parts. The first is a history of the Muslims in Spain, while the second part offers an extended portrait of the fourteenth-century historian and vizier of Granada, Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib. Maqqari took Ibn al-Khatib as the embodiment of the lost intellectual grandeur of Muslim Spain. The first part similarly deals with material and intellectual treasures of the caliphate of Cordova and the Ta’ifa kingdoms. The appearance of vanished palaces and gardens is summoned up through copious citation of poetry. Maqqari was particularly interested in cultural interchanges between Muslim Spain and the eastern Islamic lands and there is a great deal in his book about Easterners who came to Spain (like Ziryab) and Andalusians who travelled East. Maqqari claimed that he wrote his book at the request of certain scholarly friends in Damascus.

  In the first extract, Maqqari describes setting out by sea from Algeria, heading for Morocco, and how he prayed to God to be protected from the perils of the sea:

  After this prayer we set out on our travel, and, having reached the sea shore, we threw ourselves into the hand of
the perfidious element. But when we encountered its terrific waves, when the bone-breaking eagles, disturbed from their nests by the hands of the wind, came flying in our faces, when we heard the mountains in the distance whistle, while the winds groaned and sighed over our heads, we placed all our confidence in Almighty God, and trusted to surmount all obstacles by his help and protection; for whoever finds himself in danger on the sea and trusts in any but God, is sure of perdition. We were in this state of anxiety when behold! the tempest increases, and the sea joins its terrific voice to the dismal tunes of the hurricane; the waves, agitated by an irresistible power, go and come, approach and disappear, and, frantic and infuriated as if they had tasted of the cup of madness, they knock and dash against each other, then disperse, then rally again as if they had lost nothing of their vigour, now rising in the air as if the hands of the sky were taking them by the top and dragging them out of their deep cavities, or as if they threatened to snatch the reins of the clouds out of the hands of their conductor; and now throwing open their frightful and dark abysses, until the bowels of the earth became visible. In this critical situation every new gust of the howling hurricane, every fresh attack of the roaring elements, were so many signs of our certain perdition; and the perpetual flapping of the shattered sails, the sight of the waves advancing in close ranks to accomplish our destruction, the awful crashings of the groaning deck upon which we stood, like so many worms on a log of wood, all were harbingers of our approaching death; – our tongue, through fear, clove to our mouth, our heart sank under the weight of our increasing terror, and we deemed ourself the victim offered in sacrifice to our implacable enemy; for wherever we cast our eyes on the rough surface of the impetuous billows, nothing was discovered to appease the fury of the element and share our fate; and we thought ourself the only object in the world, besides the unfathomable deep and those who might be buried in its dark abysses.

  P. de Gayangos, History of Mohammedan Dynasties

  in Spain, vol. 1 (1840–43), pp. 2–3

  But, as Maqqari goes on to point out, besides the waves, there were also infidel pirates operating out of Malta to be feared…

  The following story is found in a number of Arabic histories and belles-lettres compilations. It also features in later compilations of The Thousand and One Nights (in which Toledo is renamed Labta or Labtayt). Washington Irving also included a version in The Alhambra(1832). Maqqari, having told the story of how, in ancient times, the doom of Christian Spain had been prophesied, continues as follows:

  We here subjoin another writer’s version of this story:

  In times of old the Greek kings who reigned in Andalus were terribly afraid of an invasion on the part of the Berbers, on account of the Prophecy that we have recorded. To avoid this they constructed different spells, and, among others, one which they put inside a marble urn and placed in a palace at Toledo: in order to ensure its custody and preservation they placed a padlock at the gate of the palace, leaving instructions for every succeeding king to do the same. This injunction having been faithfully complied with, it came to pass after the lapse of a great many years twenty-seven padlocks were appended to the gate of the building, that number of kings having reigned in Andalus, each of whom had put his padlock here as ordained. Some time previous to the invasion of the Arabs, which, as is well known, was the cause of the overthrow of the Gothic dynasty and of the entire conquest of Andalus, a king of the Goths, Roderic by name, ascended the throne. Now this king, being young and full of adventure, once assembled his Wazirs, great officers of state, and members of his council, and spoke to them thus: – ‘I have been thinking a long time about this house with its seven-and-twenty padlocks, and I am determined to have it opened, so that I may see what it contains, for I am sure it is a mere jest.’ ‘It may be so, O King!’ answered one of the Wazirs; ‘but honesty, prudence, and policy demand that thou shouldst not do it; and that, following the example of thy father, of thy grandfather, and of thy ancestors, – none of whom ever wished to dive into this mystery, – thou add a new padlock to the gate.’ When the Wazir had done speaking, Roderic replied, – ‘No: I am led by an irresistible impulse, and nothing shall make me change my resolution. I have an ardent wish to penetrate this mystery, and my curiosity must be satisfied.’ ‘O King!’ answered the Wazirs, ‘if thou doest it under a belief that treasures are concealed in it, let us hear thy estimation of them, and we will collect the sum among ourselves and deposit it in thy royal treasure, rather than see ourselves and thee exposed to frightful calamities and misery.’ But Roderic being a man of undaunted spirit, stout of heart, strong of determination, was not easily persuaded. He remained deaf to the entreaties of his counsellors, and proceeded immediately towards the palace, and when he arrived at the gate, which, as we have already observed, was furnished with several locks, each of them having its key hanging to it, the gate was thrown open, and nothing else was to be seen but a large table made of gold and silver and set with precious stones, upon which was to be read the following inscription: – ‘This is the table of Suleyman, son of David (upon whom be peace!)’ Another object, besides the table, was to be seen in another apartment of the palace, provided also with a very strong padlock, which being removed allowed Roderic to look into it. But what was his astonishment on entering the apartment when nothing was to be seen but the urn, and inside it a roll of parchment and a picture representing in the brightest colours several horsemen looking like Arabs, dressed in skins of animals, and having, instead of turbans, locks of coarse hair; they were mounted on fleet Arabian steeds, bright scimitars hung by their sides, and their right hands were armed with spears. Roderic ordered his attendants to unroll the parchment, when lo! what did he see but the following inscription written in large letters upon it: – ‘Whenever this asylum is violated, and the spell contained in this urn broken, the people painted on this urn shall invade Andalus, overturn the throne of its kings, and subdue the whole country.’ They say that when Roderic read this fatal prognostic he repented of what he had done, and was impressed with a strong belief of his impending ruin. He was not mistaken, for tidings soon reached him of an army of Arabs, which the emperor of the East sent against him.

  This is the enchanted palace and the picture to which Roderic is said to have alluded afterwards, on the day of the battle of Guadalete, when, as he was advancing upon the Muslims, he saw for the first time before his eyes the very men whose representations were on the parchment. Of this more will be said hereafter…

  P. de Gayangos, History of Mohammedan Dynasties

  in Spain, vol. 1 (1840–43), pp. 261–3

  COMMENTARY

  This story attached itself to the historical account of the invasion of Spain by an army of Arabs and Berbers in 711 and the defeat of Roderic, the last Visigothic king of Spain.

  In Arabic, Rumi usually means ‘Greek’, but it can mean ‘Roman’. In the context of Maqqari’s story, ‘Roman’ should be preferred to Gayangos’s translation of Rumi as ‘Greek’.

  Although a great deal has been written about the Crusades and the Crusader states as important channels for the dissemination of Arab culture in the West, in fact Spain and the day-to-day contacts of medieval Muslims, Christians and Jews in that peninsula were far more important. The mixing of Arabs, Berbers, Jews, Visigoths and Ibero-Latins was of fundamental importance for the history of European culture. Spanish Muslim architecture, ceramics and silkwork had an obvious visible impact on Christian art and architecture. The history of medieval European philosophy and medicine are impossible to understand without reference to what Christian scholars took from texts written in Arabic in Spain. To stick with literature, the precise extent and nature of the influence of Arab prose and poetry on later European literature is extremely controversial. However, it has been argued that literary versions of the afterlife described by Ibn Shuhayd, Ibn al-‘Arabi and others influenced the composition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It has also been claimed that Ibn Hazm’s treatise on love influenced the themes
and imagery of courtly love, as did muwashshah poetry. As has been noted, it has been suggested that Ibn Tufayl’s desert island fantasy was one of the intellectual sources of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. It has also been suggested that the origins of the Spanish and then more broadly European genre of the picaresque are to be found in Arab tales about wily rogues (such as are to be found in al-Hariri’s Maqamat). It is certain that the version of Kalila wa-Dimna put together by Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ was translated into Latin in Spain, and thereafter this collection of animal fables became one of the most popular texts in Christendom. It is also certain that many tales of Arab origin are to be found in such Latin or Spanish story collections as Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina Clericalis and Don Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor.

  7

  Servitude and Military Grandeur

  The entry of large numbers of Turks into the Islamic lands inaugurated an age of ‘servitude and military grandeur’ (to borrow a phrase from the nineteenth-century French poet and novelist, Alfred de Vigny). Turkish slaves had long performed military and administrative roles under the ‘Abbasids and rival rulers. Military slaves were known as mamluks. However, from the late tenth century onwards, Turks began to take power in various parts of the territories of Islam. The Ghanavid Turks took control of Afghanistan, eastern Iran and north-west India. In the following century they were supplanted in Iran and most of Afghanistan by the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuks went on to occupy the central Islamic lands and they established their control over Baghdad and the ‘Abbasid caliphs who resided there. (The ‘Abbasid caliph remained the nominal head of the Sunni Muslim community, but the Seljuk sultans, pretending to act in the name of the caliph, exercised all real power.) Although the Seljuk sultanate began to fall apart in the course of the early twelfth century, the petty rulers who established themselves in the fragmented territories of Persian, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Anatolia tended to be of Turkish or, less frequently, of Kurdish origin. Many of those rulers and their attendant elites had a military background and they had often started out as mamluks. The growing role of these soldiers in directing affairs of state culminated in the mid-thirteenth century with establishment of a mamluk or slave-soldier regime in Egypt and Syria.