Chapter III: Pre-Islamic Poetry, Manners, and Religion (3)

[Sidenote: The tradition of Pre-islamic poetry.]

[Sidenote: The Ráwís.]

[Sidenote: The Humanists.]

We have seen that the oldest existing poems date from the beginning of the sixth century of our era, whereas the art of writing did not come into general use among the Arabs until some two hundred years afterwards. Pre-islamic poetry, therefore, was preserved by oral tradition alone, and the question arises, How was this possible? What guarantee have we that songs living on men's lips for so long a period have retained their original form, even approximately? No doubt many verses, _e.g._, those which glorified the poet's tribe or satirised their enemies, were constantly being recited by his kin, and in this way short occasional poems or fragments of longer ones might be perpetuated. Of whole _qaṣídas_ like the _Mu‘allaqát_, however, none or very few would have reached us if their survival had depended solely on their popularity. What actually saved them in the first place was an institution resembling that of the Rhapsodists in Greece. Every professed poet had his _Ráwí_ (reciter), who accompanied him everywhere, committed his poems to memory, and handed them down, as well as the circumstances connected with them, to others. The characters of poet and _ráwí_ were often combined; thus Zuhayr was the _ráwí_ of his stepfather, Aws b. Ḥajar, while his own _ráwí_ was al-Ḥuṭay’a. If the tradition of poetry was at first a labour of love, it afterwards became a lucrative business, and the _Ráwís_, instead of being attached to individual poets, began to form an independent class, carrying in their memories a prodigious stock of ancient verse and miscellaneous learning. It is related, for example, that Ḥammád once said to the Caliph Walíd b. Yazíd: "I can recite to you, for each letter of the alphabet, one hundred long poems rhyming in that letter, without taking into count the short pieces, and all that composed exclusively by poets who lived before the promulgation of Islamism." He commenced and continued until the Caliph, having grown fatigued, withdrew, after leaving a person in his place to verify the assertion and hear him to the last. In that sitting he recited two thousand nine hundred _qaṣídas_ by poets who flourished before Muḥammad. Walíd, on being informed of the fact, ordered him a present of one hundred thousand dirhems.[259] Thus, towards the end of the first century after the Hijra, _i.e._, about 700 A.D., when the custom of _writing_ poetry began, there was much of Pre-islamic origin still in circulation, although it is probable that far more had already been irretrievably lost. Numbers of _Ráwís_ perished in the wars, or passed away in the course of nature, without leaving any one to continue their tradition. New times had brought new interests and other ways of life. The great majority of Moslems had no sympathy whatever with the ancient poetry, which represented in their eyes the unregenerate spirit of heathendom. They wanted nothing beyond the Koran and the Ḥadíth. But for reasons which will be stated in another chapter the language of the Koran and the Ḥadíth was rapidly becoming obsolete as a spoken idiom outside of the Arabian peninsula: the 'perspicuous Arabic' on which Muḥammad prided himself had ceased to be fully intelligible to the Moslems settled in ‘Iráq and Khurásán, in Syria, and in Egypt. It was essential that the Sacred Text should be explained, and this necessity gave birth to the sciences of Grammar and Lexicography. The Philologists, or, as they have been aptly designated, the Humanists of Baṣra and Kúfa, where these studies were prosecuted with peculiar zeal, naturally found their best material in the Pre-islamic poems--a well of Arabic undefiled. At first the ancient poetry merely formed a basis for philological research, but in process of time a literary enthusiasm was awakened. The surviving _Ráwís_ were eagerly sought out and induced to yield up their stores, the compositions of famous poets were collected, arranged, and committed to writing, and as the demand increased, so did the supply.[260]

[Sidenote: Corrupt tradition of the old poetry.]

[Sidenote: Ḥammád al-Ráwiya.]

[Sidenote: Khalaf al-Aḥmar.]

In these circumstances a certain amount of error was inevitable. Apart from unconscious failings of memory, there can be no doubt that in many cases the _Ráwís_ acted with intent to deceive. The temptation to father their own verses, or centos which they pieced together from sources known only to themselves, upon some poet of antiquity was all the stronger because they ran little risk of detection. In knowledge of poetry and in poetical talent they were generally far more than a match for the philologists, who seldom possessed any critical ability, but readily took whatever came to hand. The stories which are told of Ḥammád al-Ráwiya, clearly show how unscrupulous he was in his methods, though we have reason to suppose that he was not a typical example of his class. His contemporary, Mufaḍḍal al-Ḑabbí, is reported to have said that the corruption which poetry suffered through Ḥammád could never be repaired, "for," he added, "Ḥammád is a man skilled in the language and poesy of the Arabs and in the styles and ideas of the poets, and he is always making verses in imitation of some one and introducing them into genuine compositions by the same author, so that the copy passes everywhere for part of the original, and cannot be distinguished from it except by critical scholars--and where are such to be found?"[261] This art of forgery was brought to perfection by Khalaf al-Aḥmar († about 800 A.D.), who learned it in the school of Ḥammád. If he really composed the famous _Lámiyya_ ascribed to Shanfará, his own poetical endowments must have been of the highest order. In his old age he repented and confessed that he was the author of several poems which the scholars of Baṣra and Kúfa had accepted as genuine, but they laughed him to scorn, saying, "What you said then seems to us more trustworthy than your present assertion."

[Sidenote: Other causes of corruption.]

Besides the corruptions due to the _Ráwís_, others have been accumulated by the philologists themselves. As the Koran and the Ḥadíth were, of course, spoken and afterwards written in the dialect of Quraysh, to whom Muḥammad belonged, this dialect was regarded as the classical standard;[262] consequently the variations therefrom which occurred in the ancient poems were, for the most part, 'emended' and harmonised with it. Many changes were made under the influence of Islam, _e.g._, 'Allah' was probably often substituted for the pagan goddess 'al-Lát.' Moreover, the structure of the _qaṣída_, its disconnectedness and want of logical cohesion, favoured the omission and transposition of whole passages or single verses. All these modes of depravation might be illustrated in detail, but from what has been said the reader can judge for himself how far the poems, as they now stand, are likely to have retained the form in which they were first uttered to the wild Arabs of the Pre-islamic Age.

[Sidenote: Religion.]

[Sidenote: The Fair of ‘Ukáẓ.]

Religion had so little influence on the lives of the Pre-islamic Arabs that we cannot expect to find much trace of it in their poetry. They believed vaguely in a supreme God, Allah, and more definitely in his three daughters--al-Lát, Manát, and al-‘Uzzá--who were venerated all over Arabia and whose intercession was graciously accepted by Allah. There were also numerous idols enjoying high favour while they continued to bring good luck to their worshippers. Of real piety the ordinary Bedouin knew nothing. He felt no call to pray to his gods, although he often found them convenient to swear by. He might invoke Allah in the hour of need, as a drowning man will clutch at a straw; but his faith in superstitious ceremonies was stronger. He did not take his religion too seriously. Its practical advantages he was quick to appreciate. Not to mention baser pleasures, it gave him rest and security during the four sacred months, in which war was forbidden, while the institution of the Meccan Pilgrimage enabled him to take part in a national fête. Commerce went hand in hand with religion. Great fairs were held, the most famous being that of ‘Ukáẓ, which lasted for twenty days. These fairs were in some sort the centre of old Arabian social, political, and literary life. It was the only occasion on which free and fearless intercourse was possible between the members of different clans.[263]

Plenty of excitement was provided by poetical and oratorical displays--not by athletic sports, as in ancient Greece and modern England. Here rival poets declaimed their verses and submitted them to the judgment of an acknowledged master. Nowhere else had rising talents such an opportunity of gaining wide reputation: what ‘Ukáẓ said to-day all Arabia would repeat to-morrow. At ‘Ukáẓ, we are told, the youthful Muḥammad listened, as though spellbound, to the persuasive eloquence of Quss b. Sá‘ida, Bishop of Najrán; and he may have contrasted the discourse of the Christian preacher with the brilliant odes chanted by heathen bards.

The Bedouin view of life was thoroughly hedonistic. Love, wine, gambling, hunting, the pleasures of song and romance, the brief, pointed, and elegant expression of wit and wisdom--these things he knew to be good. Beyond them he saw only the grave.

"Roast meat and wine: the swinging ride
On a camel sure and tried,
Which her master speeds amain
O'er low dale and level plain:
Women marble-white and fair
Trailing gold-fringed raiment rare:
Opulence, luxurious ease,
With the lute's soft melodies--
Such delights hath our brief span;
Time is Change, Time's fool is Man.
Wealth or want, great store or small,
All is one since Death's are all."[264]

It would be a mistake to suppose that these men always, or even generally, passed their lives in the aimless pursuit of pleasure. Some goal they had--earthly, no doubt--such as the accumulation of wealth or the winning of glory or the fulfilment of blood-revenge. "_God forbid_" says one, "_that I should die while a grievous longing, as it were a mountain, weighs on my breast!_"[265] A deeper chord is touched by Imru’u ’l-Qays: "_If I strove for a bare livelihood, scanty means would suffice me and I would seek no more. But I strive for lasting renown, and 'tis men like me that sometimes attain lasting renown. Never, while life endures, does a man reach the summit of his ambition or cease from toil._"[266]

[Sidenote: Judaism and Christianity in Arabia.]

[Sidenote: The ‘Ibád of Ḥíra.]

[Sidenote: ‘Adí b. Zayd.]

These are noble sentiments nobly expressed. Yet one hears the sigh of weariness, as if the speaker were struggling against the conviction that his cause is already lost, and would welcome the final stroke of destiny. It was a time of wild uproar and confusion. Tribal and family feuds filled the land, as Zuhayr says, with evil fumes. No wonder that earnest and thoughtful minds asked themselves--What worth has our life, what meaning? Whither does it lead? Such questions paganism could not answer, but Arabia in the century before Muḥammad was not wholly abandoned to paganism. Jewish colonists had long been settled in the Ḥijáz. Probably the earliest settlements date from the conquest of Palestine by Titus or Hadrian. In their new home the refugees, through contact with a people nearly akin to themselves, became fully Arabicised, as the few extant specimens of their poetry bear witness. They remained Jews, however, not only in their cultivation of trade and various industries, but also in the most vital particular--their religion. This, and the fact that they lived in isolated communities among the surrounding population, marked them out as the salt of the desert. In the Ḥijáz their spiritual predominance was not seriously challenged. It was otherwise in Yemen. We may leave out of account the legend according to which Judaism was introduced into that country from the Ḥijáz by the Tubba‘ As‘ad Kámil. What is certain is that towards the beginning of the sixth century it was firmly planted there side by side with Christianity, and that in the person of the Ḥimyarite monarch Dhú Nuwás, who adopted the Jewish faith, it won a short-lived but sanguinary triumph over its rival. But in Yemen, except among the highlanders of Najrán, Christianity does not appear to have flourished as it did in the extreme north and north-east, where the Roman and Persian frontiers were guarded by the Arab levies of Ghassán and Ḥíra. We have seen that the latter city contained a large Christian population who were called distinctively ‘Ibád, _i.e._, Servants (of God). Through them the Aramaic culture of Babylonia was transmitted to all parts of the peninsula. They had learned the art of writing long before it was generally practised in Arabia, as is shown by the story of Ṭarafa and Mutalammis, and they produced the oldest _written_ poetry in the Arabic language--a poetry very different in character from that which forms the main subject of this chapter. Unfortunately the bulk of it has perished, since the rhapsodists, to whom we owe the preservation of so much Pre-islamic verse, were devoted to the traditional models and would not burden their memories with anything new-fashioned. The most famous of the ‘Ibádí poets is ‘Adí b. Zayd, whose adventurous career as a politician has been sketched above. He is not reckoned by Muḥammadan critics among the _Fuḥúl_ or poets of the first rank, because he was a townsman (_qarawí_). In this connection the following anecdote is instructive. The poet al-‘Ajjáj († about 709 A.D.) said of his contemporaries al-Ṭirimmáḥ and al-Kumayt: "They used to ask me concerning rare expressions in the language of poetry, and I informed them, but afterwards I found the same expressions wrongly applied in their poems, the reason being that they were townsmen who described what they had not seen and misapplied it, whereas I who am a Bedouin describe what I have seen and apply it properly."[267] ‘Adí is chiefly remembered for his wine-songs. Oriental Christianity has always been associated with the drinking and selling of wine. Christian ideas were carried into the heart of Arabia by ‘Ibádí wine merchants, who are said to have taught their religion to the celebrated A‘shá. ‘Adí drank and was merry like the rest, but the underlying thought, 'for to-morrow we die,' repeatedly makes itself heard. He walks beside a cemetery, and the voices of the dead call to him--[268]

"Thou who seest us unto thyself shalt say,
'Soon upon me comes the season of decay.'
Can the solid mountains evermore sustain
Time's vicissitudes and all they bring in train?
Many a traveller lighted near us and abode,
Quaffing wine wherein the purest water flowed--
Strainers on each flagon's mouth to clear the wine,
Noble steeds that paw the earth in trappings fine!
For a while they lived in lap of luxury,
Fearing no misfortune, dallying lazily.
Then, behold, Time swept them all, like chaff, away:
Thus it is men fall to whirling Time a prey.
Thus it is Time keeps the bravest and the best
Night and day still plunged in Pleasure's fatal quest."

It is said that the recitation of these verses induced Nu‘mán al-Akbar, one of the mythical pagan kings of Ḥíra, to accept Christianity and become an anchorite. Although the story involves an absurd anachronism, it is _ben trovato_ in so far as it records the impression which the graver sort of Christian poetry was likely to make on heathen minds.

[Sidenote: Pre-Islamic poetry not exclusively pagan in sentiment.]

The courts of Ḥíra and Ghassán were well known to the wandering minstrels of the time before Muḥammad, who flocked thither in eager search of patronage and remuneration. We may be sure that men like Nábigha, Labíd, and A‘shá did not remain unaffected by the culture around them, even if it seldom entered very deeply into their lives. That considerable traces of religious feeling are to be found in Pre-islamic poetry admits of no denial, but the passages in question were formerly explained as due to interpolation. This view no longer prevails. Thanks mainly to the arguments of Von Kremer, Sir Charles Lyall, and Wellhausen, it has come to be recognised (1) that in many cases the above-mentioned religious feeling is not Islamic in tone; (2) that the passages in which it occurs are not of Islamic origin; and (3) that it is the natural and necessary result of the widely spread, though on the whole superficial, influence of Judaism, and especially of Christianity.[269] It shows itself not only in frequent allusions, _e.g._, to the monk in his solitary cell, whose lamp serves to light belated travellers on their way, and in more significant references, such as that of Zuhayr already quoted, to the Heavenly Book in which evil actions are enscrolled for the Day of Reckoning, but also in the tendency to moralise, to look within, to meditate on death, and to value the life of the individual rather than the continued existence of the family. These things are not characteristic of old Arabian poetry, but the fact that they do appear at times is quite in accord with the other facts which have been stated, and justifies the conclusion that during the sixth century religion and culture were imperceptibly extending their sphere of influence in Arabia, leavening the pagan masses, and gradually preparing the way for Islam.