Chapter II: Literary (2)

Al-Asmai's contemporary, Abu Obaida, was an able grammarian and an accomplished scholar. He was born A.D. 728, and died at Busra A.D. 824, leaving nearly two hundred treatises, of which the names of many have been given by Ibn Khallikan, and most of them are of a purely philological character. There are many anecdotes about him, and many sayings of clever men regarding him. Abu Nuwas took lessons from Abu Obaida, praised him highly, and decried Al-Asmai, whom he detested. When asked what he thought of Al-Asmai, he replied, 'A nightingale in a cage,' meaning probably that a nightingale in a cage is pleasing to hear, but there is nothing else good about it. Abu Obaida he described as 'a bundle of science packed up in a skin.'

Abu Zaid al-Ansari was a philologist and grammarian, and a contemporary of the two persons just described. He held the first rank among the literary men of that time, and devoted his attention principally to the study of the philology of the Arabic language, its singular terms and rare expressions. Of him Al-Mubarrad said: 'Abu Zaid was an abler grammarian than Al-Asmai and Abu Obaida, but these two came next to him, and were near to each other. Abu Obaida was the most accomplished scholar of the day.' Abu Zaid composed a number of useful philological works, and titles of thirty-one of them are given in the 'Fihrist.' He died A.D. 830, over ninety years of age.

Abu Othman Bakr bin Muhammad bin Habib al-Mayini, briefly called Abu Othman, was celebrated as a philologer and grammarian, as also for his knowledge in general literature. He learned philology from Abu Zaid, Abu Obaida, Al-Asmai, and others, and had for pupil Al-Mubarrad, who learned much from his master, and handed down many pieces of traditional literature obtained from him. Abu Othman, once being asked his opinion about various men of science, curtly summarized them as follows: 'The Koran-readers are deceitful administrators, the traditionists are satisfied with superfluities, poets are too superficial, grammarians much too heavy, narrators deal only in neat expressions, and the only real science is jurisprudence,' He died A.D. 863.

Abul Aina was a philologist, but also a great joker, anecdote-teller, and poet. His memory was equal to his eloquence, and, being quick-witted, he was never in want of a repartee when the occasion required it; indeed, he ranked among the most brilliant wits of the age. To a vizier, who said that everything current about the liberality of the Barmekides was only so much exaggeration and invention of leaf-scribblers, he replied: 'Of you, O vizier, the leaf-scribblers will certainly report nothing and invent nothing.' There are many other anecdotes and stories told about him. Being asked how long he would continue to praise some and satirize others, he replied: 'As long as the virtuous do good and the wicked do evil, but God forbid that I should be as the scorpion which stingeth equally the prophet and the infidel.' He had a most wonderful memory, which he applied, however, not to the preservation of interpretations and their vouchers, but to that of anecdotes, drolleries, and witty sayings, wherefore his name has been perpetuated as that of a joker. He died A.D. 896.

Mention must also be made of Abdullah bin Muslim bin Kutaiba, who was a philologist and grammarian of eminent talent, and noted for the correctness of his information. He was the author of many works, such as 'The Book of Facts,' 'The Writer's Guide,' 'Notices on the Poets,' and 'A Treatise on Horses,' and others, all of which were more or less celebrated in their time. He was born A.D. 828, and died, some say, in A.D. 884, others in A.D. 908.

Ibn Duraid, whose many other names are given by Ibn Khallikan, is described by that author as 'the most accomplished scholar, the ablest philologer, and the first poet of the age.' Masudi and other men of learning also speak of him in the highest terms. He composed several works on natural history, and produced also a complete Dictionary of this kind, after the model of the books 'Al-A'in' and 'Al-Jim,' the two letters of the alphabet with which Khalil, the grammarian, and Abu Amr as Shaibani respectively began their works. Ibn Duraid died at Baghdad A.D. 933. The celebrated Motazelite divine Abu Haslim Abd-as Salam Al-Jubbai died the same day, and this caused the people to say that 'To-day philology and dogmatic theology have ceased to exist.'

In the East, by philosophy not only logic and metaphysics are meant, but also all ethical, political, mathematical, and medical sciences. Indeed, it may be said that nearly all learned men were in those days called philosophers, a term which included mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, encyclopædists and others.

From the mass of Arab authors all laying claim to the title of philosopher, it is perhaps an invidious task to select a few only, and even those selected by one person might be rejected by another. But public opinion will probably agree in naming three persons as having claim to the highest rank in Arab learning. They are Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, and Ali-ibn Sina, commonly called Avicenna. Ali-bin Ridhwan, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Bajah (Avempace), and Ibn Rashid (Averroes) have also their claims to be considered, while Thalab bin Korra, Kosta bin Luka, Al-Tavhidi, and Al-Majridi were also all eminent men. A few details will be given about the first seven of the names just mentioned.

Yakub-bin Ishak Al-Kindi, the philosopher of the Arabs, known in Europe by the corrupted name of Alchendius, possessed an encyclopædic mind, and being himself a living encyclopædia, he composed one of all the sciences. He divided philosophy into three branches, the mathematical, the physical, and the ethical. He declared the nullity of alchemy, which Ibn Sina had again brought to honourable notice, till the physician Abdul Latif declaimed against it. But Al-Kindi was not sufficiently advanced to write against astrology, which is still in full force all over the East even in our own times. Only one of his works has as yet been published in Europe, and that treats on the composition of medicines, though we possess the titles of not less than two hundred and thirty-four works composed by him on a variety of subjects. He died A.D. 861.

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi (Alfarabius), called by the Arabs a second Aristotle, is generally considered to be the second Arab philosopher; Avicenna, who always quotes him in his works, the third; the first place being assigned to Al-Kindi. Al-Farabi studied Arabic (he was a Turk by birth) and philosophy in Baghdad, where he attended the lectures of Abu Bishr Matta bin Yunus, who possessed, and also imparted to his pupils, the gift of expressing the deepest meanings in the easiest words. From Baghdad he went to Harran, where Yuhanna bin Khailan, the Christian philosopher, was teaching logic, and after his return he made all the works of Aristotle his special study. It is related that the following note was found inscribed in Al-Farabi's handwriting on a copy of Aristotle's treatise on the soul: 'I have read over this book two hundred times.' He also said that he had read over Aristotle's 'Physics' forty times, and felt that he ought to read it over again. Abul Kasim Said, of Cordova, says in his 'Classes of Philosophers' that 'Al-Farabi led all the professors of Islam to the right understanding of logic by unveiling and explaining its secrets, as well as by considering all those points which Al-Kindi had neglected, and by teaching the application of analogy to all occurring cases.' In his enumeration and limitation of the sciences, Al-Farabi embraced the whole system of knowledge as it then existed. He went to Egypt, and afterwards to Damascus, where he died in A.D. 950. During his residence at Damascus he was mostly to be found near the borders of some rivulet, or in a shady garden; there he composed his works and received the visits of his pupils. He was extremely abstemious, and entirely indifferent to wealth and poverty. The list of his works on philosophical and scientific subjects amount to sixty-one. Mr. Munk's 'Mélanges de Philosophie Juive et Arabe' (Paris, 1859) contains good articles on Al-Farabi and Al-Kindi.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was a great philosopher and physician. At the age of ten years he had completed the study of the Koran in Bukhara, where afterwards a certain Natili became his tutor, with whom he first studied the 'Eisagoge' of Porphyry, and afterwards Euclid, and lastly the 'Almagest' of Ptolemy. Natili then departed, and an ardent desire to study medicine having taken possession of Ibn Sina, he commenced to read medical books, which not being so difficult to understand as mathematics and metaphysics, he made such rapid progress in them that he soon became an excellent physician, and cured his patients by treating them with well-approved remedies. He began also to study jurisprudence before he was thirteen. At the age of eighteen he entered the service of a prince of the Beni Saman dynasty, Nuh bin Mansur, at Bukhara, a paralytic, who entertained many physicians at his court, and Ibn Sina joined their number. There he composed his 'Collection,' in which he treated of all the sciences except mathematics, and there also he wrote his book of 'The Acquirer and the Acquired.' He then left Bukhara, and lived in various towns of Khurasan, but never went further west, spending his whole life in the countries beyond the Oxus, in Khwarizm and in Persia, although he wrote in Arabic. It would be superfluous to follow all his changes of fortune, but it may be mentioned that when he was the first physician and vizier of Mezd-ud-daulah, a sultan of the Bowide dynasty, he was twice deposed and put in irons. He also appears to have acted treacherously towards Ala-ud-daulah, a prince of Ispahan, who was his benefactor. He was four years in prison, but at last succeeded in deceiving his guardians, and escaped. His dangerous travels, and the depression of mind inseparable from reverses of fortune, however, never interrupted his scientific pursuits. His taste for study and his activity were such that, as he himself informs us, not a single day passed in which he had not written fifty leaflets. The list of manuscripts left by him, and scattered in various libraries of Europe, is considerable, and though many of his works have been lost, some are still in existence. The fatigues of his long journeys, and the excesses of all kinds in which he indulged, abridged the life of this celebrated scholar, who died in A.D. 1037, at the age of fifty-six, at Hamadan, where the following epitaph adorns his tomb: 'The great philosopher, the great physician, Ibn Sina, is dead. His books on philosophy have not taught him the art of living well, nor his books on medicine the art of living long.'

A brief notice must be given of the celebrated physician and philosopher, Ali bin Ridhwan, who died A.D. 1067. He was such a prodigy of precocious learning that he began to lecture on medicine and philosophy at Cairo from his fourteenth year. He afterwards also taught astronomy. At the age of thirty-two he had attained a great reputation as a physician, and was a rich man at sixty. He left more than one hundred books which he had composed, and he himself says: 'I made abridgments of the chief philosophical works of the ancients, and left in this manner five books on philology; ten on law; the medical works of Hippocrates and Galen; the book of plants of Dioskorides; the books of Rufus, Paulus, Hawi, and Razi; four books on agriculture and drugs; four books for instruction in the 'Almagest' of Ptolemy, and an introduction to the study of it, and to the square of Ptolemy; as also to the works of Plato, Alexander, Themistios, and Al-Farabi. I purchased all these books, no matter what they cost, and preserved them in chests, although it would have been more profitable to have sold them again rather than have kept them.' Ibn Batlan, a clever physician, was a contemporary of Ibn Ridhwan, and travelled from Baghdad to Egypt only for the purpose of making his acquaintance, but the result does not appear to have been satisfactory to either party. He died A.D. 1063, leaving a number of works on medical and other subjects.

Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali was born A.D. 1058. He was considered chiefly as a lawyer and a mystic, but here he will be noticed chiefly as a philosopher and the author of 'The Ruin of Philosophers,' noticed at length by Haji Khalfa in his 'Encyclopædical Dictionary,' under No. 3764. But Ghazali's most celebrated work is 'The Resuscitation of Religious Sciences,' which is so permeated by the genius of Islam that, according to the general opinion of scholars, the Muhammadan religion, if it were to perish, might again be restored from this work alone. Orthodox fanatics, nevertheless, attacked his works as being schismatic, and they were even burnt in the Mugrib. He was born at Tus (the modern Mashad), in Khurasan, and passed his life partly there, also at Naisapur, Baghdad, Damascus, Egypt, and finally returned to Tus, where he died A.D. 1111. His works are very numerous, and all of them are instructive.

Ibn Bajah (known to Europeans under the name of Avempace) was a philosoper and a poet of considerable celebrity, and a native of Saragossa, in Spain. He was attacked by some people for his religious opinions, and represented as an infidel and an atheist, professing the doctrines held by the ancient sages and philosophers. Ibn Khallikan defends Ibn Bajah, and says that these statements were much exaggerated, but adds: 'God, however, knows best what his principles were,' Abul Hassan Ali al-Imam, of Granada, was of opinion that Ibn Bajah was the greatest Arab philosopher after Al-Farabi, and places him higher than Ibn Sina and Al-Ghazali. He left numerous logical, grammatical and political works, and died at Fez in A.D. 1138.

Averroes, whose full and correct name is Abul Walid Muhammad bin Rashid, was a celebrated Arab scholar, born at Cordova A.D. 1126, and the author of many writings. He taught in his native town philosophy and medicine, two sciences which appeared for a long time to be inseparable, and the vulgar considered those professing them to be of almost supernatural attainments. The period of Averroes is that of the decadence of Arab dominion in Spain, a period when this great nation also lost the taste for sciences which it had brought to Europe. Considering the prodigious number of works composed by Averroes, who filled at the same time the offices of Imam and Kadi, his entire life must have been one of labour and meditation. He is the author of an Arabic version of Aristotle, but it is not the first which existed in that language, as some of his biographers assert, because this work had been produced already at Baghdad during the brilliant Khalifate of Mamun. There are various manuscripts of Averroes extant treating on physics, pure mathematics, astronomy and astrology, from which it would appear that, in spite of their encyclopædic attainments, the celebrated men of these times still believed in some popular errors. Science was at that time surrounded by a kind of superstitious halo of respect, to which Averroes, like so many others, is indebted for a good part of his renown. He died A.D. 1198, in the city of Morocco; his corpse was transferred to Cordova and there interred.

Medical science had already, under the second Khalif of the house of Abbas (A.D. 754-775), enjoyed the highest honours, which it ever afterwards retained. Great physicians were brought from the Persian hospital of Jondshapur, and between the years A.D. 750 and 850 the number of physicians was considerable, but only the most celebrated will be noticed.

Georgios (Jorjis) bin Bakhtyeshun, of Jondshapur, lived at the commencement of the Abbaside dynasty, and was the author of the book of Pandects. When Al-Mansur was building the city of Baghdad he suffered from pains in his stomach and from impotency, and Georgios, the director of the medical college at Jondshapur, was recommended to him as the most skilled physician of the time. Accordingly, the Khalif directed Georgios and two of his pupils, Ibrahim and Serjis, to come to Baghdad, appointing Gabriel (Jebrayl), the son of Georgios, as director of the hospital in the place of his father. Georgios cured Al-Mansur, and received from him three thousand ducats for his reward, along with a beautiful slave girl; the latter was, however, returned to the Khalif with thanks, and the remark that, 'being a Christian, he could not keep more than one wife.' From that moment the physician attained free access to the harem, and enjoyed high favour with the Khalif, who greatly pressed him in A.D. 770 to make a profession of Islam; but this he refused to do, and died shortly afterwards, in A.D. 771. Before his death Georgios asked to be allowed to return to Jondshapur, to be buried there with his ancestors. Al-Mansur said, 'Fear God, and I guarantee you paradise.' Georgios replied, 'I am satisfied to be with my ancestors, be it in paradise or be it in hell.' The Khalif laughed, allowed him to return home, and presented him with ten thousand pieces of gold for his travelling, expenses.

Gabriel (Jebrayl), the son of the above-named Georgios (Jorjis), was also a celebrated physician. He enjoyed great favour with Harun-ar-Rashid, who used to declare that he would not refuse him anything. When, however, this Khalif fell ill at Tus, and asked Gabriel for his opinion, the latter replied that if Harun had followed his advice to be moderate in sexual pleasure, he would not have been attacked by the disease. For this reply he was thrown into prison, and his life was saved only by the chamberlain Rabi'i, who was very fond of him. Amin, the son and successor of Rashid, followed the advice of Gabriel more than his father did, and would not eat or drink anything without his doctor's sanction. In A.D. 817 Gabriel cured Sehl bin Hasan, who recommended him to Mamun; but Michael, the son-in-law of Gabriel, was his body physician. In A.D. 825 Mamun fell sick, and, as all the medicines of Michael were of no use, Isa, the brother of Mamun, advised him to get himself treated by Gabriel, who had known him from boyhood; but Abu Ishak, the other brother of Mamun, called in Yahya bin Maseweih, and when he could do nothing, then Mamun sent for Gabriel, who restored him to health in three days, and was handsomely rewarded in consequence. When Mamun marched, in A.D. 828, against the Byzantines, Gabriel fell sick and died, whereon the Khalif took Gabriel's son with him on the campaign, he being also an intelligent and skilled physician.

The works of Gabriel are:

(1) A treatise on food and drink, dedicated to Mamun.

(2) An introduction to logic.

(3) Extracts from medical Pandects.

(4) A book on fumigatories.

Isa bin Musa, who flourished about A.D. 833, was also one of the most distinguished physicians of the period. He left the following works:

(1) Book on the forces of alimentary substances.

(2) A treatise for a person who has no access
to a physician.

(3) Questions concerning derivations and races.

(4) Book of dreams, indicating why medicines
should not be given to pregnant women.

(5) Book of the remedies mentioned by Hippocrates
in his treatise on bleeding and cupping.

(6) Dissertation on the use of baths.

Without giving any details about Maseweih, Yahya bin Maseweih, Honein bin Ishak, and Kosta bin Luka, all of whom were distinguished for medical knowledge, some fuller mention must be made of Abu Bakr Ar-Razi (Rhases), who has been described as 'the ablest physician of that age and the most distinguished; a perfect master of the art of medicine, skilled in its practice, and thoroughly grounded in its principles and rules.' He composed a number of useful works on medicine, and some of his sayings have been handed down to us, and are still worthy of record, such as:

(1) When you can cure by a regimen, avoid
having recourse to medicine.

(2) When you can effect a cure with a simple
medicine, avoid employing a compound one.

(3) With a learned physician and an obedient
patient sickness soon disappears.

(4) Treat an incipient malady with remedies
which will not prostrate the strength.

Till the end of his life he continued at the head of his profession, finally lost his sight, and died in A.D. 923. A new and much improved edition of Razi's 'Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles' was published in London in A.D. 1848 by Dr. Greenhill, and an article on him will also be found in Wüstenfeld's 'History of the Arabian Physicians.'

Poetry flourished to a very great extent during the reigns of the early Abbaside Khalifs, and, as all Arab _littérateurs_ were more or less poets and writers of verses, it is somewhat difficult to select the most celebrated.

The first collection of Arabic poems was compiled by Al-Mofadhdhal in the work called after him--'Mofadhdhaliat.' He was followed by Abu Amr as Shaibani, by Abu Zaid bin A'us, Ibn-as Sikkit, Muhammad bin Habib, Abu Hatim es Sejastani, and Abu Othman al Mazini. Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori, the collectors of the two Hamasas, are considered to be the two greatest poets of the third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913). And it may here be observed that in the great bibliographical dictionary of Haji Khalfa, who enumerates seven Hamasas, the names of Ibn-ul Marzaban and of Ibn Demash, each of whom composed one, are not mentioned.

Zukkari made himself a reputation by editing several of the Mua'llakat, as also the poems of the great pre-Islamite bards, Al-Aasha and Al-Kama, whilst Abu Bakr as Sauli likewise acquired great merit by publishing ten of the master-works of Arabic poetry.

From the many poets of this period some of the most celebrated have been selected--viz., Farazdak, Jarir, Al-Akhtal, Abul-Atahya, Bashshar bin Burd, Abu Nuwas, Abu Tammam, Al-Otbi, Al-Bohtori, Al-Mutanabbi, and An-Nami, and a few biographical details about them will be given, as also some remarks about Al-Mofadhdhal, the first collector and compiler of Arab poetry, and of Abul Faraj-Al-Ispahani, the collector of the great anthology called 'Kitab-ul-Aghani,' or the Book of Songs.

Jarir and Al-Farazdak were two very celebrated poets, who lived at the same time and died in the same year, A.D. 728-729. Ibn Khallikan has given their lives at considerable length, and says that 'Jarir was in the habit of making satires on Al-Farazdak, who retorted in the same manner, and they composed parodies on each other's poems.' Jarir always used to say that the same demon inspired them both, and consequently each knew what the other would say. On all occasions they seem to have been excessively rude in verse to each other, and did not at all mind about having recourse to actual insult. The lives of Al-Akhtal, Al-Farazdak, and Jarir, translated from the 'Kitab-ul-Aghani' and other sources, have been given by Mr. Caussin de Perceval in the _Journal Asiatique_ for the year 1834. Prom this it would appear that the verses of these three poets were much discussed during their lifetime, and often compared with the productions of the other poets who followed them. Some writers are in favour of one and some of the other, but the general opinion of them is that their effusions resembled the Arab poetry written before the period of Muhammad much more than any poetry that was written during the reign of the Abbasides. Al-Akhtal belonged to a Christian tribe of Arabs, and was much patronized by the Omaiyide Khalif Abdul Malik (A.D. 684-705), in whose glory and honour he composed many verses, and, indeed, such good ones, that Harun-ar-Rashid used to say no poet had ever said so much in praise of the Abbasides as he (Akhtal) had written in praise of the Omaiyides. He died at an advanced age some years before Jarir and Farazdak, who were much younger men, but the exact year of his death does not appear to have been recorded.

The blind Bashshar bin Burd and Abul-Atahya were two of the principal poets who flourished in the first ages of Islamism, and ranked in the highest class among the versifiers of that period. The former was put to death, or rather beaten, by the orders of the Khalif Al-Mahdi, for certain satirical verses which the poet is said to have written, and from the effects of these strokes of a whip he died in A.D. 783. Abul-Atahya wrote many verses on ascetic subjects, and all his amatory pieces were composed in honour and praise of Otba, a female slave belonging to the Khalif Al-Mahdi, and to whom he appears to have been devotedly attached. He was born A.D. 747, and died A.D. 826.

Abu Nuwas was a poet of great celebrity. His father, Hani, was a soldier in the army of Marwan II., the last Omaiyide Khalif, and the poet was born in A.D. 762, some say in Damascus, others at Busra, and others at Al-Ahwaz. His mother apprenticed him to a grocer, and the boy became acquainted with the poet Abu Osâma, who discovered his talent, and induced him to accompany him to Baghdad. There Abu Nuwas afterwards became celebrated as one of the chief bards at the court of the Khalif, and his most famous Kasida is that which he composed in praise of Amin, the son of Harun-ar-Rashid. According to the critics of his time, he was the greatest poet in Islam, as Amriolkais had been before that period. When Merzeban was asked which he considered the greater poet, Abu Nuwas or Rakashi, he replied, 'A curse of Abu Nuwas in hell contains more poetry than a laudation of Rakâshi's in paradise.' He was a favourite of Amin, whom his brother Mamun reproached for associating with him, because Abu Nuwas enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest libertine of all the poets.

Sulaiman, the son of Al-Mansur, complained to the Khalif Amin that Abu Nuwas had insulted him with lampoons, and desired him to be punished with death; but Amin replied: 'Dear uncle, how can I order a man to be killed who has praised me in such beautiful verses?' and thereupon recited them.

Mamun, the son of Harun, states that he asked the great critic Yakut bin Sikkit to what poet he gave the preference. He replied: 'Among the pre-Islamite ones to Amriolkais and Al-Aasha, among the older Muslim poets to Jarir and Farazdak, and among the more recent to Abu Nuwas.'

Otbi, having been asked who was the greatest poet, replied; 'According to the opinion of the people, Amriolkais, but according to mine, Abu Nuwas.'

Al-Khasib, the chief of the revenue office in Egypt, once asked Abu Nuwas from what family he came. 'My talents,' replied he, 'stand me instead of noble birth,' and no further questions were asked him. He was a freethinker, who joked about the precepts of Islam. Once a Sunni and a Rafidhi desired him to be the umpire in their quarrel, as to who occupied the most exalted position after the Prophet. He said: 'A certain Yazid,' and on their asking who this Yazid might be, he replied: 'An excellent fellow, who presents me with a thousand dirhems every year.' He used to say that the wine of this world is better than that of the next; and, being asked for the reason, replied: 'This is a sample of the wine of paradise, and for a sample the best is always taken.'

Ismail bin Nubakht said: 'I never saw a man of more extensive learning than Abu Nuwas, nor one who, with a memory so richly furnished, possessed so few books. After his decease we searched his house, and could only find one book-cover containing a quire of paper, in which was a collection of rare expressions and grammatical observations.'

He died on the same day as the mystic Al-Kerkhi, whose corpse was accompanied to the grave by more than three hundred persons, but that of Abu Nuwas by not one. When, however, one of the three hundred exclaimed: 'Was not Abu Nuwas a Muslim? And why do none of the Muslims recite the funeral prayer over his body? all the three hundred who had assisted at the interment of Kerkhi recited the prayer also over the corpse of Abu Nuwas.

He is considered to have been an equally good narrator, scholar, and poet; and, being asked by Sulaiman bin Sehl what species of poetry he thought to be the best, replied: 'There are no poems on wine equal to my own, and to my amatory compositions all others must yield,' He used to boast that he knew by heart the poems of sixty poetesses, and among them those of Khansa and Leila, as also seven hundred Arjuzat, or poems in unshackled metre, by men. He said that he could compose nothing except when he was in a good humour, and in a shady garden. He often began a Kasida, put it away for several days, and then took it up again to rescind much of it.

According to Abu Amr, the three greatest poets in the description of wine are Aasha, Akhtal, and Abu Nuwas. Abu Hatim al Mekki often said that the deep meanings of thoughts were concealed underground until Abu Nuwas dug them out.

His end was tragic. Zonbor, the secretary, and Abu Nuwas were in the habit of composing lampoons against each other; whereon the former conceived the idea of propagating a satire against Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, in the name of Abu Nuwas; and this became the cause of his death. In an already half-drunken circle Zonbor recited the satire on Ali as the work of Abu Nuwas; on which all fell upon the poet, ripped open his belly, and pulled his entrails about till he expired. Others assert that Ismail bin Abu Sehl administered a poisonous potion to Abu Nuwas, because he had composed a lampoon against him; but its operation was so slow that he died only four months after he had drunk it. His death took place at Baghdad in A.D. 810.

Al-Otbi was a poet of great celebrity, and taught traditions to the people of Baghdad; but was more generally noted for drinking wine and composing love verses about his beloved Otba. Being of the tribe of Koraish, and of the family of Omaya, he and his father held a high rank, and were regarded as accomplished scholars and elegant speakers, Otbi both composed and collected poems. One of his verses has now acquired the force of a proverb: 'When Sulaima saw me turn my eyes away--and I turn my glances away from all who resemble her--she said: "I once saw thee mad with love;" and I replied: "Youth is a madness of which old age is the cure."' He died in A.D. 842.

Abu Tammam Habib, the celebrated poet, according to Ibn Khallikan, 'surpassed all his contemporaries in the purity of his style, the merit of his poetry, and his excellent manner of treating a subject. He is the author of a Hamasa, a compilation which is a standing proof of his great talents, solid information, and good taste in making a selection.' He wrote several other works connected with poets and poetry, composed many Kasidas, and knew by heart, it is said, fourteen thousand verses of that class of compositions called Rajaz, or free metre. The poetry of Abu Tammam was put in order for the first time by Abu Bakr as Sauli, who arranged it alphabetically, according to the rhymes, and then Abul Faraj Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani classed it according to the subjects. He died at Mosul A.D. 845, about forty years of age, and was buried there; but his verses have survived, and rendered him one of the immortals.

The mantle of the poet Abu Tammam appears to have fallen on Abu Abada Al-Bohtori, who was born in A.D. 821, and, like his predecessor, is also the author of a Hamasa. He appears to have received his first encouragement to persevere as a poet from Abu Tammam, and later on he says: 'I recited to Abu Tammam a poem which I had composed in honour of one of the Humaid family, and by which I gained a large sum of money. When I finished he exclaimed: "Very good! You shall be the prince of poets when I am no more." These words gave me more pleasure than all the wealth which I had collected.' On being asked whether he or Abu Tammam was the better poet, Al-Bohtori replied: 'His best pieces surpass the best of mine, and my worst are better than the worst of his,' Abul-Ala al Maarri, a great philologist and poet (born in A.D. 973, died A.D. 1057), was asked which was the best poet of the three, Abu Tammam, Al-Bohtori, or Al-Mutanabbi; he replied that two of them were moralists, and that Bohtori was the poet. He died A.D. 897. His poems were not arranged in order till Abu Bakr as Sauli collected them and classed them alphabetically by their rhymes, while Abul Faraj Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani collected them also, and arranged them according to their subjects. A copy of his 'Diwan' is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Al Mutanabbi, or the pretended prophet, a _rôle_ to which he aspired, but in which he did not succeed, comes next to the two great poets--Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori--though some critics consider him to be superior to them. He is, however, generally acknowledged to be a great lyric poet, while many of his best Kasidas refer to the exploits of Saif ad Dawlah, a prince of the Benou Hamdan dynasty in Syria. After leaving him he went to Egypt, then to Persia, Baghdad, and finally Kufa, his native place, near which he was killed in a fight in A.D. 965. It is stated that in this contest Mutanabbi, seeing himself vanquished, was taking to flight, when his slave said to him, 'Let it never be said that you fled from a fight, you who are the author of this verse: "The horse, and the night, and the desert know me (well); the sword also, and the lance, and paper and the pen."'

Upon this he turned back and fought till he was slain, along with his son and his slave. His 'Diwan,' or collection of poems, is well known, and much read in our times, even in India. It has been translated into German.

An-Nami was one of the ablest and most talented poets of his time, but inferior to Mutanabbi, with whom he had some encounters and contests in reciting extemporary verses when they were at the court of Saif ad Dawlah together. He died A.D. 1008 at Aleppo, aged ninety.

Abul-Abbas Al-Mofadhdhal, the collector of the celebrated selection of Arabic poems called the 'Mofadhdhaliat,' which served as a model for the Hamasas, was the first editor of the seven suspended poems, the Mua'llakat, and also one of the earliest of the Arab philologists. He was a native of Kufa, and adhered to the faction of Ibrahim bin Abdallah; who rebelled in A.D. 761 against Al-Mansur, the second Abbaside Khalif. Al-Mansur, however, pardoned Al-Mofadhdhal, and attached him to the household of his son, Al-Mahdi, by whose orders Mofadhdhal made a collection of the most celebrated longer poems of the Arabs, one hundred and twenty-eight in number, under the title of the Mofadhdhaliat. This, the oldest anthology of Arabian poets, was first commented upon by his disciple, Al-Aarabi; then two hundred years later by the two great philologists and anthologists, Al-Anbari and An-Nahas; by Merzuk; and lastly by Tibrizi, who is sufficiently known in Europe as the editor and commentator of the Hamasa, published by Freytag with a Latin translation. Mofadhdhal supported himself as a copyist of the Koran, and spent the last portion of his life in mosques doing penance for the satires which he had composed against various individuals. His other works were a book of proverbs, a treatise on prosody, another on the ideas usually expressed in poetry, and a vocabulary. He was held to be of the first authority as a philologist, a genealogist, and a relator of the poems and battle-lays of the desert Arabs. He died A.D. 784.

Abul Faraj Ali bin Husain Al-Ispahani is the collector of the great anthology called 'Kitab-ul-Aghani' (the Book of Songs). This work, which surpasses all former ones of this name, he produced after a labour of forty years, and presented it to Saif ad Dawlah, who gave him a thousand pieces of gold for it, but excused himself at the same time for the smallness of this honorarium. In spite of his other works, and the long string of names given him by Ibn Khallikan, he is best known as Al-Ispahani, and as the author of the Aghani. His family inhabited Ispahan, but he passed his early youth in Baghdad, and became the most distinguished scholar and most eminent author of that city. He was born A.D. 897, and died A.D. 967, in which year also died the great scholar Kali, and the three greatest of his patrons, namely, Saif ad Dawlah, the sovereign of the Benou Hamdan in Syria; Moiz ud Dawlah, the sovereign of the Benou Bujeh in Irak; and Kafur, who governed Egypt in the name of the Akhsid dynasty. The 'Book of Songs,' notwithstanding its title, is an important biographical dictionary, treating of grammar, history and science, as well as of poetry.

Mention can here be made of Abu Muhammad Kassim Al-Hariri, who was one of the ablest writers of his time, and the author of the 'Makâmat Hariri,' a work consisting of fifty oratorical, poetical, moral, encomiastic and satirical discourses, supposed to have been spoken or read in public assemblies. Poets, historians, grammarians and lexicographers look upon the 'Makâmat' (Assemblies or Séances) as the highest authority, and next to the Koran, as far at least as language is concerned. It contains a large portion of the language spoken by the Arabs of the desert, such as its idioms, its proverbs, and its subtle delicacies of expression; and, according to Ibn Khallikan, any person who acquires a sufficient acquaintance with this book to understand it rightly, will be led to acknowledge the eminent merit of the author, his extensive information, and his vast abilities. A great number of persons have commented on the 'Makâmat,' some in long and others in short treatises, and many consider it to be the most elegantly written, and the most amusing, work in the Arabic language. Hariri was born A.D. 1054, and died at Busra A.D. 1122. He left some other good works in the shape of treatises, epistles, and a great number of poetical pieces, besides those contained in his 'Makâmat.'

There are two translations of the 'Makâmat' into English. One by the Reverend Theodore Preston, printed under the patronage of the Oriental Translation Fund, London, 1850. It contains only twenty of the fifty pieces in verse, with copious notes, while an epitome of the remaining thirty pieces is given at the end of the book. The other by the late Mr. Chennery, which ends with the twenty-sixth assembly or séance. The whole work was edited in Arabic, with a select commentary upon it in French, by Baron Silvestre de Sacy, and this was reprinted in 1847. Ruckert also made a very free translation of it in German verse, which reached a third edition in 1844, but this differs widely from the contents of the original, though it is said to be more pleasing and attractive to a general reader.

After the Muslim legal sciences had been established upon the fourfold foundations of the Koran, tradition, general consent of communities, and the analogies derived therefrom, then philosophy and mathematics began to flourish by translations made either directly from the Greek or through Syriac and Persian.

In former times, during the reign of Nausherwan, a Persian monarch of great renown (A.D. 530-578), there was some intercourse between Persian and Byzantine philosophers; several books on logic and medicine had been translated from Greek into Persian, and from these Abdullah Ibn Al-Mukaffa made translations into Arabic. The literary career of Ibn Al-Mukaffa, who presumed to vie with the eloquence of the Koran, and was considered to be a freethinker, and eventually slain, falls into the reign of Al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775), the second Khalif. But Ibn Al-Mukaffa rendered such services to Arabian literature, that a short sketch of his life will presently be given.

During the reign of Mansur (A.D. 754-775) Greek works were translated, not yet from the original, but from the Persian. During the Khalifate of his son, Mahdi (A.D. 775-785), Abd-Allah bin Hilal translated the celebrated animal fables of Bidpay from Persian into Arabic, under the title of 'Kalilah wa Dimnah,' and they were afterwards versified by Selil bin Nubakht. In Persian they are known under several titles, such as 'Kalilah wa Dimnah,' the 'Anwar-i Suheli,' and the 'Ayar Danish,' and in Turkish as the 'Humayan-namah.'

Eight years before the seventh Khalif, Mamun (A.D. 812-833), ascended the throne, many Greek and Syrian manuscripts had been collected in Baghdad. These were all preserved there in the library, which was called 'The House of Wisdom,' until Mamun began to utilize them by means of translations. The Khalif appointed the scholars Al-Hajjaj, Ibn Máttar, Ibn ul-Batrik, and Selma, to superintend the work, while the three brothers, Muhammad, Ahmed, and Hasan, sons of the astronomer Shakir, were directed to search for and to buy manuscripts. Mamun also sent the two physicians, Yohanna and Kosta, into the Byzantine dominions to bring manuscripts from thence to Baghdad. A new class of scholars was then formed, in the shape of translators, who were employed in translating works from the Greek, the Syriac, and the Persian languages into Arabic. The translators from the Persian were Musa and Yusuf, the two sons of Khalid, Hasan bin Sehl, and afterwards, Al-Baladori; from the Sanscrit, Munkah the Indian; from the Nabataean, Ibn Wahshiyah. Science became hereditary, as it were, in the families of the most celebrated scholars; medical science in the family of Bakhtyeshun; translations from Greek works in that of Honein bin Ishak, the most famous of all translators, and a prolific author besides. Maseweih and his son Yahya, Syriac Christians, were both celebrated as physicians and translators of ancient Greek works into Arabic; while Kosta bin Luka, who died in A.D. 932, was also one of the most fertile translators from Greek into Arabic, and, being born a Greek, he was able to correct the translations of Honein bin Ishak and others.

The number of translators, which amounted to about one hundred, might have been increased if Arab literature had further developed itself by incorporating works from other languages; but, as such was not the case, translators appeared very few and far between after the literature had attained to its highest perfection, at the end of the third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 913).

The celebrated Ibn Al-Mukaffa was one of the earliest and best translators. His full name is Abd-Allah Ibn Al-Mukaffa, but before he made his profession of Islam he bore that of Ruzbeh. He was a native of Har, a town in the province of Fars, and first served as secretary to Daud bin Hobeirah, and then to Isa bin Ali, the uncle of the two first Khalifs of the house of Abbas. He was an excellent poet, letter-writer, and orator, equally skilled in his mother-tongue, the Persian, as in the Arabic language, from the former of which he left the splendid translations of--

(1) 'The Khodanamah,' a legend.

(2) 'The Amirnamah,' or prince-book.

(3) 'Kalilah wa Dimnah.'

(4) 'Merdak.'

(5) 'Biography of Nausherwan.'

(6) 'The Great Book of Manners.'

(7) 'The Small Book of Manners or Good
Habits.'

(8) 'The Book of Epistles.'

So far the 'Fihrist'; what follows is from Ibn Khallikan. Ibn Al-Mukaffa was the secretary and most confidential servant of Isa bin Ali, with whom he dined the day before he made his public profession of Islam. Having sat down, he began to eat and to mutter according to the custom of the Magians. 'How,' said Isa, 'you mutter like the Magians, though resolved to embrace Islamism!' to which Ibn Al-Mukaffa replied that he did not wish to pass a single night without being of some religion. In spite of his conversion, he was always suspected of freethinking, like Muti bin Iyas and Yahya bin Zaad, and one day, when Al-Jahiz, the philologist, made the remark that they were persons the sincerity of whose religious sentiments was doubted, one of the learned, on hearing this, said: 'How is it that Al-Jahiz forgets to count himself?'

When Khalil the prosodist was one day asked his opinion about Ibn Al-Mukaffa, he said, 'His learning is greater than his wit;' and the latter, being asked the same question concerning Khalil, replied, 'His wit is greater than his learning.' Being a favourite with the Khalif, he took great liberties with Sofyan, the Governor of Busra, and insulted the memory of his mother. One day Sulaiman and Isa, the uncles of the Khalif Mansur, desired to obtain a letter of amnesty from him for their brother Abd-Allah, and they instructed Ibn Al-Mukaffa to compose one in the strongest terms, which he did, and added to it the following clause, 'Should the Prince of the Believers ever act treacherously towards his uncle Abd-Allah, then may he be divorced from his wives, may his slaves be free, and may his subjects be solved from obedience!' The Khalif's dignity was shocked, and he ordered the writer of this letter of amnesty to be forthwith executed, and the Governor of Busra, whom Ibn Al-Mukaffa had many times insulted, very gladly undertook the duty. Al-Madaini narrates that when Ibn Al-Mukaffa was brought before Sofyan, the latter asked him whether he remembered the insults he had heaped upon his mother, and added, 'May my mother really deserve those insults if I do not get you executed in a manner hitherto unheard of!' He also recalled Ibn Al-Mukaffa's joke about Sofyan's big nose, because he had one day asked the governor, 'How are you and your nose?' On another occasion, when the governor remarked that he never had reason to repent keeping silence, Ibn Al-Mukaffa replied, 'Dumbness becomes you; then why should you repent of it.' Accordingly Sofyan ordered the members of Ibn Al-Mukaffa's body to be chopped off, one after the other, and thrown into a burning oven, into which, last of all, the trunk of his body was also thrown. There are other accounts of his death, viz., that he was strangled in a bath, or shut up in a privy. One opinion, however, generally prevails, that the execution was not a public one. The date of it is uncertain--A.D. 756, 759, and 760, are all given; but the victim was only thirty-six years of age at the time.

A few remarks may be made about the support given to learning and men of letters by the Omaiyide and Abbaside Khalifs, as also by those of the Spanish or Western Khalifate.

The Omaiyide Khalifs, with their capital at Damascus, were generally patrons of science, poetry, architecture, song, and music. But all these branches of knowledge were at that time merely rudimental; and, of the fourteen sovereigns of the dynasty, only five really deserve the name of protectors of learning; and of these Abdul Malik (A.D. 684-705), and his son Walid I. (A.D. 705-715), were the most distinguished.

During the period of their Khalifate there were not only male, but also some female poets. All their poems are mostly short, and confined to amatory, laudatory, or vituperative compositions, called forth by the momentary circumstances in which the authors happened to be placed. These pieces do not represent either deep thought or profound wisdom, but they show the feelings of the people, and their state of civilization at the time in question.

During this Khalifate were also produced the earliest germs of stylistics, epistolography and mysticism, all of which were more fully developed under the Abbasides. The originator of the first two was the Katib Abd Al-Hamid, secretary to the last Omaiyide Khalif, and he is designated in an old Arabic rhyme as 'the father of all secretaries.' Epistolary writing, it was said, began with Abd Al-Hamid, and finished with Ibn Al-Amid. As regards mysticism, the origin of its doctrines is sometimes assigned to Oweis Al-Kareni, the Prophet's companion, who disappeared mysteriously in A.D. 658. But mysticism and Sufism were subsequently much developed by Muhi-uddin Muhammad, surnamed Ibn Al-Arabi, a most voluminous writer on these subjects. He was born at Murcia, in Spain, A.D. 1165, and after studying in that country, went to the East, made the pilgrimage, visited Cairo and other cities, and died at Damascus A.D. 1240. He is the author of many works, but the most remarkable of them are 'Revelations obtained at Mecca' and 'Maxims of Wisdom set as Jewels.' Both Makkari the historian, and Von Hammer Purgstall, in his history of Arabian literature from the earliest times, give a long account of him.

Of the Khalifs of the house of Abbas, the second, third, fifth and seventh, viz., Al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775), Al-Mahdi (A.D. 775-785), Harun-ar-Rashid (A.D. 786-809), and Al-Mamun (A.D. 812-833) were the most distinguished as patrons of art, science and literature. But after the translation of the 'Arabian Nights' into European languages, the name of Harun-ar-Rashid became the best known in Europe as the representative of the most brilliant period of the Eastern Khalifate, and as the great protector of Arabic literature.

Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasides, was founded by their second Khalif, Al-Mansur, in A.D. 760, finished in four years, and raised to a high degree of splendour by Harun-ar-Rashid. Originally it was considered only as a great strategic point, and its garrisons were to keep the surrounding country in subjection. Eventually it became the centre of learning and civilization, and an Arab author wrote of it as follows: 'Baghdad is certainly the capital of the world, and the mine of every excellence. It is the city whose inhabitants have always been the first to unfurl the banners of knowledge, and to raise the standard of science; indeed, their subtlety in all branches of learning, their gentle manners and amiable disposition, noble bearing, acuteness, wit, penetration and talent are deservedly praised.' Baghdad, at the beginning of the ninth century of the Christian era, was the centre of all that was grand and brilliant in the Muhammadan world. Art and commerce, literature and science, were cultivated to a high degree, and the luxury and extravagance of court life exceeded almost the imagination of temperate European minds.

Everything curious, romantic and wonderful, narrated in the 'Nights' is connected with Harun-ar-Rashid's name, or supposed to have happened in his reign. Thus, his vizier, Jaafar, the Barmekide, the superintendent of his harem, Mesrur, and his spouse, Zobeida, were first made known to novel-readers, and their importance as historical personages were duly appreciated afterwards, when Erpenius, Pococke, Herbelot, and Reiske elucidated the history of the Khalifate by translating the works of the Arab chroniclers Abul-Faraj, Al-Makin, and Abul-feda. Later on still further information was made public about the translations made from Greek and Syriac into Arabic during his reign, as also concerning his position, not only as a lover of tales, but as a promoter of jurisprudence, a patron of the medical and mathematical sciences, and a builder of magnificent and useful edifices. His court was also well attended by poets and singers.

Harun was not, indeed, the first prince who made arrangements for translations from the Greek and the Syriac. In this he had been preceded, as already mentioned, by the Omaiyide prince, Khalid, the alchemist. But during the reign of Harun the business of translation was carried on to a much greater extent than it was under his predecessors, the Khalifs Mansur and Mahdi, during whose time translations were undertaken from Greek into Syriac, from Indian (Sanscrit) into Persian, but not yet into Arabic. The translators were mostly Christians and Jews. Theophilos of Edessa, the Maronite translator of Homer and of other Greek classics into Syriac, was an astronomer and an historian. Both he and the physician Georgios, son of Bakhtyeshun, from the university of Jondshapur, were Christians. Nubakht, the astronomer of the Khalif Mansur, was a Magian (Zoroastrian), Yahya bin Maseweih, Harun's physician, translated medical works. Hajaj bin Yusuf bin Matta dedicated his first edition of the elements of Euclid to Harun, and the second to Mamun.

As the family of the Barmekides played an important part, not only in politics, but also in literature, until its chief members were annihilated by Harun's orders, a brief notice of them may here be given.

Khalid bin Barmek was the son of a priest at the fire temple of Nevbehar in Balkh, and became in course of time vizier of the first Abbaside Khalif, and was retained in that office by the second Khalif, Al-Mansur, and by the third, Al-Mahdi. He died A.D. 780.

Yahya, the son of Khalid, not only himself became the vizier of Harun, but also his two sons, Fadhl and Jaafar. Yahya was very liberal, and gave away sometimes considerable sums of money for very small services, or, indeed, for no service at all. After his son Jaafar had been executed, Yahya was thrown into prison, along with his other son, Fadhl, at Old Rakka, where he died in A.D. 805, at the age of seventy or seventy-four.