The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

by Robert Irwin

  The political and military rise of the Turks was accompanied by the literary resurgence of Persian. Turkish warlords with pretensions to culture tended to interest themselves in the culture of the Persian country gentlemen and the old Persian epics. Their relative lack of interest in Arabic literature may explain what has been widely perceived as a falling-off in the originality and vitality of Arabic prose and poetry in the later Middle Ages. Jahiz, Hariri, Mutanabbi and Ma‘arri do not seem to have had worthy successors. However, it may be that the growing self-consciousness of Sunni orthodoxy and the increased popularity of fundamentalist religious positions among many intellectuals played a part in increasing suspicion and hostility towards poetry and fiction. Poetry and story-writing did not feature on the official syllabuses of the madrasas, the religious teaching colleges which were established in this period. Although some Sufis wrote poetry and used storytelling to illustrate spiritual truths, other Sufis were resolutely anti-intellectual and were opposed to reliance on book-learning. Then again, it is possible that the perceived decline in literary creativity in the late Middle Ages is a matter of mistaken perception. Certainly late medieval Arabic literature (the so-called ‘Asr al-lntihat, or Age of Decadence) has not received from modern scholars the attention it deserves.

  In the age of the Crusades, both courts and administrative systems in the Middle East and North Africa tended to be highly militarized. Some important literature in Arabic was actually produced by Turkish and Kurdish officers. A very large part of the literature of this period was produced by Arabs who served those officers as officials, scribes or pensioned poets. The most influential prose writers of the age, ‘Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani and al-Qadi al-Fadil, were not storytellers but the drafters of pompous chancery documents on behalf of non-Arab warlords. ‘Imad al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Katib AL-ISFAHANI (1125–1201) was a Persian and he was born, as his name indicates, in Isfahan. He worked at first in the caliphal administration in Baghdad, but in 1165 he was politically disgraced and cast into prison for two years. After his release, he travelled westwards to Syria in search of a new patron, and was employed by Nur al-Din, the Turkish military ruler of Aleppo and Damascus. When Nur al-Din died in 1174, al-Isfahani took service with the famous leader of the Muslim counter-crusade, the Kurdish warlord Saladin (more correctly, Salah al-Din).

  Isfahani wrote two histories which celebrated in rhymed prose the history of Saladin’s triumphs over the Crusaders and his reconquest of the holy city of Jerusalem in 1187, the Fath al-Qussi fi al-Fath al-Qudsi (‘Eloquence on the Conquest of the Holy City’) and the Barq al-Shami (‘Syrian Lightning’). He also compiled a major collection of poetry, the Kharidat al-Qasr, or ‘The Garden of the Palace’, an anthology of twelfth-century poetry, with biographical details of the poets. The Persian ‘high style’ is ornate and flowery and echoes of it are detectable in Isfahani’s Arabic. The prose style favoured by Isfahani was given further currency by his chancery colleague and literary ally, al-Qadi al-Fadil (1134–1200). Thereafter, under their influence almost all high-level government correspondence and decrees were drafted in an embellished style which made use of rhymed prose, forced metaphors, parallelisms and balanced antitheses. However, although Isfahani’s account of Saladin’s achievements is full of flourishes and fanfares, it is still one of the major sources of information on the momentous events of those decades. As he put it, he sought to cater ‘both to the literati who watch for brilliant purple passages and to those with historical interests who look out for embellished biographies’. He also presented his readers with a lot of information about himself, for, as far as he was concerned, he was a major player in the turbulent events of those decades. In the following piece of bombastic, pun-laden rhymed prose, Isfahani describes Saladin’s entry into Jerusalem after its capture from the Crusaders in 1187. One gets the impression from Isfahani that at least half the glory of the victory rested in the scribal recording of it.

  By a striking coincidence the date of the conquest of Jerusalem was the anniversary of the Prophet’s ascension to heaven. Great joy reigned for the brilliant victory won, and words of prayer and invocation to God were on every tongue. The Sultan gave an audience to receive congratulations, and received the great amirs and dignitaries, sufis and scholars. His manner was at once humble and majestic as he sat among the lawyers and scholars, his pious courtiers. His face shone with joy, his door was wide open, his benevolence spread far and wide. There was free access to him, his words were heard, his actions prospered, his carpet was kissed, his face glowed, his perfume was sweet, his affection all-embracing, his authority intimidating. His city radiated light, his person emanated sweetness, his hand was employed in pouring out the waters of liberality and opening the lips of gifts; the back of his hand was the qibla of kisses and the palm of his hand was the Ka’ba of hope.

  Sweet was it for him to be victorious; his throne seemed as if surrounded by a lunar halo. Qur’anic reciters sat there reciting and admonishing in the orthodox tradition. Poets stood up to declaim and to demand, banners advanced to be displayed, pens scribbled to spread the joyful news, eyes wept with great joy, hearts felt too small to contain their joy at the victory, tongues humbled themselves in invocation to God. The secretaries prepared long and ornate dispatches; eloquent stylists, both prolix and concise, tightened up or opened out their style. I could not compare my pen to anything but the collector of the honey of good news, nor liken my words to anything other than the messengers of the divine graces, nor make my pen run except to apply itself to letters, to accompany virtue, divulge benefits, give widespread accounts and lengthy divulgence of superiority; for its arguments are long, even if its length is short, its words make it powerful although in itself its power to alarm is small, it reveals its master as well-fed although in itself is thin, it makes the army’s weight felt, although it is light itself, by making clear the brilliance of the white star in the darkness of the inky night, by revealing the splendour of light from the path of the shadow, by sending out decrees of death or reward, commands to bind or loose, by opposing or yielding, enslaving or freeing, promising and holding to it, enriching and impoverishing, breaking and mending, wounding and healing. It is indeed the pen that brings armies together, elevates thrones, alarms the confident and gives confidence to the discouraged, raises up the stumbler and causes the upright to stumble, sets the army against the enemy for the benefit of friends. Thus with my quills I gave good news to the four quarters of the earth, and with the prodigies of my pen I expressed the marvels of memorable events; I filled the towers with stars and the caskets with pearls. This joyful news spread far and wide, bringing perfume to Rayy and to the evening conversation at Samarkand; it was welcomed with enthusiasm and its sweetness surpassed candied fruits and sugar. The world of Islam was ready and adorned for a festival to celebrate the fall of Jerusalem. Her merits were illustrated and described and the duty to visit her explained and specified to everyone.

  Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades

  (London, 1969), pp. 160–61

  COMMENTARY

  The Mi’raj, the midnight journey to the seven heavens made by Muhammad from Jerusalem, is held to have occurred on the 27th of the Muslim month of Rajab.

  The qibla is the direction in which Muslims pray.

  When Isfahani refers to ‘towers’, he is punning, for the Arabic word bur) refers both to a tower and a Zodiacal sign.

  Government correspondence was business correspondence, but it was also an art form. Official decrees and works of propaganda were treasured by cultured readers for their literary beauty. In Ghuzuli’s belles-lettres compilation devoted to the pleasures of life (see page 433), he included chancery correspondence among those pleasures.

  Abu al-Fadl ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali Baha’ al-Din ZUHAYR (1186–1258), later quaintly dubbed the ‘Grand Master of Peculiar Lovers’, was born in Mecca but later moved to Egypt where he grew up and where he studied. In the 1230s he was in the service of one of S
aladin’s descendants, al-Salih Ayyub. When in 1239 al-Salih Ayyub became the sultan of Egypt, Zuhayr became his vizier. However, he fell out of favour with the sultan shortly before the latter’s death in 1249 and died in poverty in 1258.

  Although Zuhayr was well known as a calligrapher, he was yet more famous as a poet. Naturally he produced panegyrics in praise of his master, but he also produced qasidas on a wide range of topics, some humorous, some savage. In addressing one poem to an old woman, he referred to her as ‘a lot of bones in a leather sock’. He wrote many poems about the passing of pleasures and the coming of white hairs. He wrote a poem in praise of brunettes – and another preferring blondes (see below). Some of his poetry can be read as homoerotic; in one poem he portrays himself as fancying the moon-faced and slender monks in a monastery where he sits drinking (see below), and another poem is cast in the form of a lament for a young man who is about to grow his first beard. Nevertheless, Zuhayr was particularly celebrated for his ghazals, or love poetry addressed to women, and he was particularly fond of the theme of doomed love.

  On a Brunette

  O ne’er despise the sweet brunette!

  Such dusky charms my heart engage.

  I care not for your blondes; I hate The sickly tint of hoary age.

  On a Blonde

  That man, believe me, greatly errs,

  Whose heart a dusky maiden prefers.

  For me, I love my maiden bright,

  With teeth of pearl and face of light.

  My bright example truth shall be,

  For truth is always fair to see.

  The waterwheels go round and round,

  The songbirds trill with merry sound,

  The hour is one of perfect joy,

  Bright and pure without alloy.

  Arouse thee, then, pretty my lass!

  And send around the sparkling glass:

  And hand it, bright as coins of gold,

  Although it costs us coins untold.

  Aye, pass it will while the morn is bright,

  ‘Twill be but adding light to light.

  Old wine and choice, it will be found

  Like ‘sunbeams not diffused around’.

  ‘Tis pleasanter than fires that rise

  Before the shivering traveller’s eyes.

  A seat beside the Nile was ours,

  Upon a carpet strewn with flowers;

  the wavelets rippled on apace,

  Like dimples on a maiden’s face;

  And bubbles floated to the brink,

  Round as the cups from which we drink.

  We raced each other out to play,

  Full early at the dawn of day.

  With here a revered divine,

  And there a man who worshipped wine;

  Here very grave and sober folk.

  There others who enjoyed a joke.

  The serious, and the lively too;

  the false one mingling with the true;

  Now in the cloister’s calm retreat,

  Now seated on the tavern’s seat.

  And Coptic monks, you understand,

  A learned but a jovial band.

  And pretty faces too were there,

  Their owners were as kind as they were fair.

  And one who from the Psalter sang,

  In tones that like a psaltery rang;

  While faces in dark cowls we spy,

  Like full moons in the murky sky;

  Faces, like those pictures fair,

  To which they make their daily prayer;

  And ‘neath the belt of each we traced

  A slender and a wasp-like waist.

  We joined them, and they scorned to spare

  The old wine they had treasured there.

  And, oh! we passed a happy day,

  One notably most bright and gay!

  Just such a one as fancy paints

  Without formality’s restraints.

  In speaking of it do your best,

  And then imagine all the rest!

  E. H. Palmer, The Poetical Works of Beha-Ed-Din Zoheir

  (Cambridge, 1877), pp. 27, 42., 109

  Zuhayr adopted a conversational style in poems, which came close to what is known as ‘Middle Arabic’. The early development and the particular qualities of Middle Arabic which distinguish it from classical Arabic in the strict sense are complex and, indeed, controversial. Briefly, by the twelfth century at least, and almost certainly earlier, the rules of classical Arabic regarding such matters as word-order and case-endings were no longer being scrupulously observed by all writers. High Arabic (fusha) was being infected by colloquial forms. There was now a general tendency to indicate subject and object by word-order – the word-order doing the work of lost case-endings. Writers who fell into the lazy habits of Middle Arabic usage put the subject in front of the verb, whereas sticklers for the old classical forms placed the subject where they wanted the emphasis to fall in the sentence. Other features which marked out Middle from classical Arabic included the frequent dropping of the dual form for nouns and the imperative form for verbs. The way the Bedouin of seventh-century Arabia spoke ceased to be the inflexible literary model. It is true that well-educated authors who took trouble over what they wrote still took pride in writing correct classical Arabic, but in general in the late medieval period written Arabic more closely reflected spoken colloquial Arabic. (It is because there are so many Middle Arabic features in The Thousand and One Nights that these stories are regarded with disdain by fastidious stylists.) The controversy about colloquial and literary Arabic continues to rage today; for example, the famous Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz has described the colloquial as ‘a disease of language’.

  Diya’ al-Din Abu’l-Fath Nasr Allah IBN AL-ATHIR (1163–1239) was yet another leading writer employed by the Ayyubid dynasty to celebrate their triumphs and transact government business. (Diya’ al-Din is not to be confused with his brother, ‘Izz al-Din (d. 1233), a well-known historian also in the service of the Ayyubids.) Diya’ al-Din ibn al-Athir was also a literary critic and theorist. Mathal al-Sha’ir fi-Adab al-Katib wa al-Sha’ir, ‘The Popular Model for the Discipline of Writer and Poet’, is his best-known work of literary criticism (and note the punning rhyme: sha’ir means ‘popular’, while sha’ir means ‘poetry’). As a writer of prose himself, Ibn al-Athir favoured prose over poetry. In the first passage quoted below, he commends the study of the poetry and prose of the Ancients.

  Thorough familiarity with the discourse of the Ancients in poetry and in prose, is replete with benefits; because it makes known the aims of the masters, and the results of their thoughts. Through their writings we come to know the aims of each group of them, and how far their art has taken them. For these are things that sharpen the intellect and kindle the intelligence. When the practitioner of this art familiarizes himself with their writings, the ideas enclosed therein, and which he toiled to extract, become as something delivered into his hands; he takes what he wishes, and leaves out what he wishes. Also, the ideas previously invented, on becoming familiar to him, may provide the spark in his mind for a rare and unprecedented idea.

  It is a known fact that the minds of men, although differing in good and bad qualities, yet some are not higher nor lower than others except to a slight extent. It thus often happens that talents and minds are equally capable of producing ideas, in such manner that one may produce that same idea in the same words, without being aware of his predecessor’s idea. This phenomenon is what practitioners of this art call ‘the falling of a hoof upon a hoof.

  He who wishes to become a secretary, and has a responsive nature, should memorize collections of poetry containing a great number of poems, and not be content with only a few. He should then begin by decomposing into prose the poems he memorized. His method should be to begin with one of the odes and put into prose each of its verses in turn. At the beginning he should not disdain using the very words of the verse, or most of them; for at this point, that is all he can do. By exercising his mind
and training it, he will rise above this level, and begin to take the idea and clothe it in his own words. Then he will again rise above this level and clothe the idea with a variety of personal expressions. At this point his mind will become fecundated through direct contact with the ideas, deriving from them other ideas still. The way for him to proceed is to apply himself night and day, and to remain devoted to his work a long time until the method becomes second nature to him; so that when he writes a letter or delivers a speech the ideas pour forth as he speaks, and his words come out honeysweet not insipid, and endowed with such lively novelty that they seem to dance for joy. This is something I have come to know through experience; and no one can advise you better than the experienced.

  Ibn al-Athir goes on to argue that poetry, rather than prose, should be memorized, because the Arabs put most of their best and most important ideas into poetry. Prose, by contrast, was rather negligible.

  George Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam

  and the Christian West (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 357, 361

  Under the patronage of the Seljuks and their ministers, as well as of later dynasties, the Sunni Muslim religious institutions of the madrasa and the khanqa came to play an unprecedentedly important role. The madrasa was a college devoted to the teaching of religious subjects: the Qur’an and its exegesis, hadiths and Islamic law. Although this was the standard syllabus, it was quite common for other more secular subjects to be taught in the madrasas – including, for example, poetry and the correct interpretation of such literary works as Hariri’s Maqamat. A khanqa was a hospice and centre for prayer and study for the use of Sufis. The khanqa bears some resemblance to a monastery – so long as one bears in mind that a Sufi was not expected to spend all his life in it. The normal expectation was that he would earn a living and marry, in conformity with the Prophet’s saying, ‘There is no monkery in Islam.’ Khanqas were really quite similar to madrasas and it was often difficult to tell them apart. There was a good deal of movement between khanqa and madrasa.