A Wealth of Information

 Literary Arabia

(This is taken from F.F. Arbuthnot's Arabic Authors, originally published in 1890.)

The oral communications of the ancient Egyptians, Medes and Persians,

the two classic tongues of Europe, the Sanscrit of the Hindus and the

Hebrew of the Jews, have long since ceased to be living languages. For

the last twelve centuries no Western language has preserved its

grammar, its style, or its literature intact and intelligible to the

people of the present day. But two Eastern tongues have come down from

ages past to our own times, and continue to exist unchanged in books,

and, to a certain extent, also unchanged in language, and these are

Chinese and Arabic. In China, though the dialects differ in the

various provinces of the empire, still the written language has

remained the same for centuries. In Arabia the Arabic language has

retained its originality without very much dialectical alteration.

The unchangeable character of the Arabic language is chiefly to be

attributed to the Koran, which has, from its promulgation to the

present time, been regarded by all Muhammadans as the standard of

religion and of literary composition. Strictly speaking, not only the

history, but also the literature of the Arabs begins with Muhammad.

Excepting the Mua’llakat, and other pre-Islamitic poems collected in

the Hamasas of Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori, in Ibn Kutaiba and in the

Mofaddhaliat, no literary monuments that preceded his time are in

existence. The Koran became, not only the code of religious and of

civil law, but also the model of the Arabic language, and the standard

of diction and eloquence. Muhammad himself scorned metrical rules; he

claimed as an apostle and lawgiver a title higher than that of

soothsayer and poet. Still, his poetic talent is manifest in numerous

passages of the Koran, well known to those able to read it in the

original, and in this respect the last twenty-five chapters of that

book are, perhaps, the most remarkable.

Although the power of the Arabs has long ago succumbed, their

literature has survived, and their language is still more or less

spoken in all Muhammadan countries. Europe at one time was lightened

by the torch of Arabian learning, and the Middle Ages were stamped

with the genius and character of Arab civilization. The great masters

of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, viz., Al-Kindi,

Al-Farabi, Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Rashid, Ibn Bajah, Razi, Al Battani, Abul

Ma’shar, Al-Farghani, Al-Jaber, have been studied both in the Spanish

universities and in those of the rest of Europe, where their names are

still familiar under the corrupted forms of Alchendius, Alfarabius,

Avicenna, Averroes, Avempace, Rhazes, Albategnius, Albumasar,

Alfraganius, and Geber.

Arabic literature commenced about half a century before Muhammad with

a legion of poets. The seven poems suspended in the temple of Mecca,

and of which more anon, were considered as the chief productions of

that time. The Mussulman era begins with the Hijrah, or emigration of

Muhammad from Mecca to Madinah, which is supposed to have taken place

on the 20th of June, A.D. 622; and the rise, growth, and decay of Arab

power, learning, and literature may be divided into three periods as

follows:

1. The time before Muhammad.

2. From Muhammad and his immediate successors, viz., Abu Bakr,

Omar, Othman, and Ali, through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to

the end of the Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.

3. From the fall of Baghdad to the present time.

First Period.

Although the proper history of Arabian literature begins from the time

of Muhammad, it is necessary to cast a glance upon the age that

preceded him, in order to obtain a glimpse of pre-Islamitic wisdom.

The sage Lokman, whose name the thirty-first chapter of the Koran

bears, is considered, according to that book, to have been the first

man of his nation who practised and taught wisdom in all his deeds and

words. He was believed to have been a contemporary of David and

Solomon; his sayings and his fables still exist, but there is not much

really known about him, as the following extracts will show:

‘Lokman, a philosopher mentioned in the Koran, is said to have been

born about the time of David. One tradition represents him as a

descendant of the Arab tribe of Ad, who, on account of his piety and

wisdom, was saved when the rest of his family perished by Divine

wrath. According to another story he was an Ethiopian slave, noted

alike for bodily deformity and a gift for composing fables and

apologues. This account of Lokman, resembling so closely the

traditional history of Æsop, has led to an opinion that they were the

same individual, but this is now generally supposed not to be the

case. The various reports agree in ascribing to Lokman extraordinary

longevity. His extant fables bear evident marks of modern alteration,

both in their diction and their incidents. They were first published

with a Latin translation of the Arabic by Erpenius (Leyden, 1615).

Galland produced a French translation of the fables of Lokman and

Bidpay at Paris in 1724, and there are other editions by De Sacey,

1816, Caussin de Perceval, 1818, Freytag, 1823, and Rodiger, 1830.’

Burton, in a footnote to page 118, of Volume X. of his ‘Arabian

Nights,’ however, says that ‘There are three distinct Lokmans. The

first, or eldest Lokman, entitled Al-Hakim (the Sage), and the hero of

the Koranic chapter which bears his name, was son of Ba’ura, of the

children of Azar, sister’s son to Job, or son of Job’s maternal aunt;

he witnessed David’s miracles of mail-making, and when the tribe of Ad

was destroyed he became king of the country. The second Lokman, also

called the Sage, was a slave and Abyssinian negro, sold by the

Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, and who left a volume

of proverbs and exempla, not fables or apologues, some of which still

dwell in the public memory. The youngest Lokman, of the Vultures, was

a prince of the tribe of Ad, who lived 3,500 years, the age of seven

vultures.’

This accounts for the different ideas as regards the tradition of one

Lokman in the preceding paragraph.

Before the era of the Prophet poetry had attained some degree of

excellence. At the annual festival of Okatz the poets met and made

public recitations, and competed for prizes. Of prose literature there

was none, and the irregular, half-rhythmical, half-rhyming sentences

of the Koran were the first attempts in the direction of prose.

Passing over the host of pre-Islamitic poets, the disputed time and

order in which they appeared, as well as the ranks they respectively

occupied, it will only be necessary here to describe the Arabic idyll

or elegy (Kasida), and to notice the authors of the seven famous

Mua’llakat, or suspended, or strung-together poems of the temple of

Mecca, already alluded to above. As these poems were written in

letters of gold, they were also called Muzahhibat, or “gilded.”

According to Arab notions, the subjects of a poet are four or five. He

praises, loves, is angry, mourns, or describes either female beauty,

animals, or objects of nature. Poems comprising one of these subjects

only are short, but those treating of several are longer, and contain

eulogies of chiefs, rulers, distinguished men and women, etc. The poet

touches on the valour, liberality and eloquence of the hero, on the

beauty and virtues of the woman, and describes the nearest

surroundings, which are of the greatest interest, such as the horse,

the camel, the antelope, the ostrich, the wild cow, the cloud, the

lightning, wine, the vestiges of the tent of the beloved, and the

hospitable camp-fire.

The Kasidas of the Mua’llakat are a series of smaller poems, composed

on various occasions, and then strung together in one piece. Among

them the two Kasidas of Amra-al-Kais (Amriolkais), and of Antara, are

the most brilliant and romantic, on account of the sentiments of love

they breathe towards the three beauties—Oneiza, Fatima, and Abla. The

Kasida of Labid is famous for his description of both the camel and

the horse; that of Tarafa for the delineation of the camel; that of

Amru for the picture of a battle; while Harath chanted the praises of

arms, and of the King of Hirah, and Zoheir produced a poem full of

wise maxims. The whole seven contain a great deal about the personal

feelings, the personal courage, the heroic deeds, and the wonderful

adventures of the authors themselves—to which may be added

descriptions of various animals, of hunting scenes, and of battle, the

conventional lament for the absence or departure of a mistress, the

delight of meeting her, and other bright sketches of Arab life in camp

and on the march, with its joys, its sorrows, and its constant

changes.

Sir William Jones first brought these poems to the notice of the West,

and published a translation of them in A.D. 1782. ‘They exhibit,’ he

says, ‘an exact picture of the virtues and the vices, the wisdom and

the folly, of the early Arabs. The poems show what may constantly be

expected from men of open hearts and boiling passions, with no law to

control, and little religion to restrain them.’

The above translations, with notes and remarks, have been reprinted by

Mr. W.A. Clouston, in his ‘Arabian Poetry for English Readers,’ at

Glasgow in 1881, and is a work well worthy of a perusal by any persons

who may be interested in the subject.

The names of the three ancient Arab poets considered to have been

possessed of equal talent with the authors of the Mua’llakat, are

Nabiga, Al-Kama, and Al-Aasha, and some specimens of their

composition, as also of those of other pre-Islamite poets, are to be

found in the fifteenth volume, No. 39, pages 65-108, of the ‘Bombay

Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ translated by Mr. E. Rehatsek in

1881.

Second Period.

From Muhammad and his immediate successors (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and

Ali), through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to the end of the

Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.

The legislator of Islam, whose era began on the 16th July, A.D. 622

(though his actual departure from Mecca has been calculated to have

taken place on the 20th June, A.D. 622), is here to be considered not

from an historical, but from a poetical point of view. Although

Muhammad despised the metres in which the bards of his nation chanted

their Kasidas, and himself gave utterance in the name of Heaven to the

inspirations of his genius only in richly-modulated and rhymed prose,

nevertheless, according to the Oriental idea, he was regarded as a

poet. Those who declare that he was not a poet overlook the

circumstance that he was vehemently assailed by contemporary poets,

who attempted to degrade his heaven-inspired Surahs into mere poetical

fables. He himself protested against this insinuation, and declared at

the end of the 26th Surah, entitled ‘The Poets,’ that those are in

error who believe poets, as follows:

‘And those who err follow the poets; dost thou not see how they roam

(as bereft of their senses) through every valley (of the imagination)

and that they say things which they do not perform? ... Except those

who believe, and do good works, and remember God frequently, and those

who defend themselves after they have been unjustly treated by poets

in their lampoons, and they who act unjustly shall know hereafter with

what treatment they shall be treated.’

These lines are important as far as the history of literature is

concerned. They are written against inimical poets, but distinguish

the friendly ones, who, taking the part of Muhammad, repaid the

lampooning poets in their own coin.

Some of the hostile poets, such as Hobeira and the woman Karitha, were

killed at the taking of Mecca, whilst Zibary and the woman Hertlemah

saved their lives only by making a profession of Islam. Muhammad had,

however, also his panegyrists, the chief of whom was Ka’b bin Zoheir,

the composer of the celebrated Kasida called ‘The Poem of the Mantle,’

as a reward for which the Prophet threw his own cloak over him, under

the following circumstances, as related by Mr. J.W. Redhouse in the

preface to his translation of the poem published in the ‘Arabian

Poetry for English Readers’[1] alluded to above.

[Footnote 1: In this same work will also be found a

translation by Mr. Redhouse of another poem, also called

‘The Poem of the Mantle,’ but written by Sharaf-uddin

Muhammad Al-Busiri, who was born A.D. 1211, and died between

A.D. 1291 and 1300.]

Ka’b was a son of Zoheir, already mentioned as the author of one of

the pre-Islamite poems known as the ‘Mua’llakat.’ He had a brother

named Bujeir, and, like their father, both brothers were good poets.

Bujeir was first converted, and embraced the faith of Islam. Ka’b was

angry at this, and composed a lampoon on his brother, on the Prophet,

and on their new religion. This he sent to his brother by the mouth of

a messenger. Bujeir repeated it to Muhammad, who commented on it as

favourable to the new faith and to himself, but at the same time

passed a sentence of death on the satirist.

Bujeir well knew that his brother’s life was in danger, and warned him

accordingly, advising him at the same time to renounce his errors, and

come repentant to the Prophet, or to seek a safe asylum far away. Ka’b

found out that his life would really soon be taken, and set out

secretly for Madinah. There he found an old friend, claimed his

protection, and went with him next morning to the simple meeting-house

where Muhammad and his chief followers performed their daily

devotions. When the service was ended, Ka’b approached Muhammad, and

the two sat down together. Ka’b placed his own right hand in that of

the Prophet, whom he addressed in these words: ‘Apostle of God, were I

to bring to you Ka’b, the son of Zoheir, penitent and professing the

faith of Islam, wouldst thou receive and accept him? The Prophet

answered, ‘I would.’ ‘Then,’ said the poet, ‘I am he!’

Hearing this, the bystanders demanded permission to put him to death.

Muhammad ordered his zealous followers to desist, and the poet then,

on the spur of the moment, recited a poem improvised at the time,

probably with more or less premeditation. It is said that when Ka’b

reached the fifty-first verse: ‘Verily the Apostle of God is a light

from which illumination is sought—a drawn Indian blade, one of the

swords of God,’ Muhammad took from his own shoulders the mantle he

wore, and threw it over the shoulders of the poet as an honour and as

a mark of protection. Hence the name given to the effusion, ‘The Poem

of the Mantle,’ A.D. 630.

Moawia, the first Khalif of the Omaiyides, endeavoured to purchase

this sacred mantle from Ka’b for ten thousand pieces of silver, but

the offer was refused. Later on it was, however, bought from Ka’b’s

heirs for twenty thousand pieces of silver, and it passed into the

hands of the Khalifs, and was preserved by them as one of the regalia

of the empire until Baghdad was sacked by the Mughals. The mantle, or

what is supposed to be the self-same mantle, is now in the treasury[2]

of the Sultan Khalif of the Ottomans at Constantinople, in an

apartment named ‘The Room of the Sacred Mantle,’ in which this robe is

religiously preserved, together with a few other relics of the great

prophet.

[Footnote 2: Apropos of this treasury, it is much to be

regretted that a complete catalogue of its contents has

never been prepared along with a brief historical account of

them. It is difficult to obtain the order, which comes

direct from the Sultan, to visit the collection; and even

then visitors are hurried through at such a pace that it is

impossible to examine with minuteness the many curiosities

collected there.]

Ka’b has thus come to be considered as one of the friendly poets, and

the names of two others are also mentioned, viz., Abd-Allah bin Rewaha

and Hassan bin Thabit. On the other hand, the most celebrated

antagonists who attacked Muhammad, not only with their verses, but

also with their swords, were Abu Sofyan, Amr bin Al-‘A’asi, and

Abd-Allah bin Zobeir. These three became great political characters,

but later on made profession of Islam, and were the staunchest supporters

of it, rendering the greatest services to the Prophet during his life,

and to the cause after his death. But Muhammad’s greatest triumph over

the poets was the conversion of Labid, who, after the perusal of the

commencement of the second Surah of the Koran, tore down his own poem,

which was hung up in the Kaabah, and ran to the Prophet to announce

his conversion, and to make his profession of Islam. Even Ali, the

cousin, son-in-law, and first convert of Muhammad, was a poet, but it

is uncertain which of the Diwans attributed to him are genuine, and

how many of his maxims of wisdom, over a hundred in number, are his

own.

During the period under review the number of Arabic authors was

legion. Some idea of the number of writers, and of the subjects on

which they wrote, can be gathered from the Fihrist of An-Nadim, from

Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, and from Haji Khalfa’s

Encyclopædia. With such a mass of information as is contained in the

above-mentioned works, it is difficult to deal in a small work. To put

them together in an intelligible form, the idea of classing the

authors, according to the subjects on which they principally wrote,

naturally presented itself. This plan, therefore, has been followed,

and a few details of the most celebrated writers will be given,

classified under the following heads:

Jurisconsults.

Imams and lawyers.

Traditionists.

Alchemists.

Astronomers.

Grammarians.

Geographers and travellers.

Historians.

Lexicographers, biographers and encyclopædists.

Writers on natural history.

Philologists.

Philosophers.

Physicians.

Poets.

Collectors and editors of poems.

Translators.

The Omaiyide Khalifs.

The Abbaside Khalifs.

The Spanish Khalifs.

During the latter part of the first century of the Hijrah (July,

622--July, 719), the first persons of note in the Muhammadan world

after Muhammad and his immediate successors were probably the seven

jurisconsults, viz., Obaid Allah, Orwa, Kasim, Said, Sulaiman, Abu

Bakr and Kharija, who all lived at Madinah about the same time; and it

was from them, according to Ibn Khallikan, that the science of law and

legal decisions spread over the world. They were designated by the

appellation of the Seven Jurisconsults, because the right of giving

decisions on points of law had passed to them from the companions of

Muhammad, and they became publicly known as Muftis. These seven alone

were acknowledged as competent to give Fatmas, or legal decisions.

They died respectively A.D. 720, 712, 719, 710, 725, 712 and 718.

The jurisconsults were followed by the doctors of theology and law,

or, as they were styled, Imams, or founders of the four orthodox

sects. Now, among the Sunni Muslims an Imam may be described as a

high-priest, or head, or chief in religious matters, whether he be the

head of all Muhammadans—as the Khalifah—or the priest of a mosque,

or the leader in the prayers of a congregation. This title, however,

is given by the Shias only to the immediate descendants of Ali, the

son-in-law of the Prophet, and they are twelve in number, Ali being

the first. The last of them, Imam Mahdi, is supposed to be concealed

(not dead), and the title which belongs to him cannot, they conceive,

be given to another.

But among the Sunnis it is a dogma that there must always be a visible

Imam or father of the Church. The title is given by them to the four

learned doctors who were the exponents of their faith, viz., Imams

Hanifa, Malik, Shafai and Hanbal. Of these, Imam Hanifa, the founder

of the first of the four chief sects of the Sunnis, died A.D. 767. He

was followed by Imam Malik, Imam Shafai, and Imam Hanbal, the founders

of the other three sects, who died A.D. 795, 820 and 855 respectively.

From these four persons are derived the various codes of Muhammadan

jurisprudence. They have always been considered as the fundamental

pillars of the orthodox law, and have been esteemed by Mussulmans as

highly as the fathers of the Church—Gregory, Augustine, Jerome and

Chrysostom—have been appreciated by Christians.

Of these four sects, the Hanbalite and Malikite may be considered as

the most rigid, the Shafaite as the most conformable to the spirit of

Islamism, and the Hanifite as the wildest and most philosophical of

them all.

In addition to the four Imams just mentioned, there was a fifth, of

the name of Abu Sulaiman Dawud az Zahari, who died A.D. 883. He was

the founder of the sect called Az-Zahariah (the External), and his

lectures were attended by four hundred Fakihs (doctors of the civil

and of the ecclesiastical law), who wore shawls thrown over their

shoulders. But his opinions do not seem to have secured many

followers, and in time both his ideas, and those of Sofyan at Thauri,

another chief of the orthodox sect, were totally abandoned.

The third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913) is noted for the six

fathers of tradition, viz., Al-Bukhari, Muslim, At Firmidi, Abu Dawud,

An-Nasai and Ibn Majah, with whom others, such as Kasim bin Asbagh,

Abu Zaid, Al-Marwazi, Abu Awana and Al-Hazini, vied in great works on

tradition, but these last-named could never acquire the authority of

the six previously mentioned, who died A.D. 870, 875, 892, 889, 916,

887 respectively.

In the beginning of Islam the great traditionists were Ayesha, the

favourite wife of the Prophet, the four rightly directed Khalifs,

viz., Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali, and some of the companions[3]

known as the Evangelists of Islam. But besides these well-qualified

persons who had lived with or near Muhammad during his lifetime, many

others who had perhaps only seen him or spoken to him claimed to be

considered as companions, who handed down traditions; and when these

were all dead they were followed by others, who, having known the

companions, were now designated as the successors of the companions.

[Footnote 3: The names of these companions, and the kings,

princes, and countries to which they were sent by Muhammad,

are given in full detail in ‘The Life of our Lord Muhammad,

the Apostle of God,’ the author of which was Ibn Ishak; and

it was afterwards edited by Ibn Hisham. In the same work a

list is given of the disciples sent out by Jesus.]

Under these circumstances it can easily be imagined that many of the

traditions were of doubtful authenticity. Al-Bukhari, whose collection

of traditions of the Muhammadan religion holds the first place, both

as regards authority and correctness, selected seven thousand two

hundred and seventy-five of the most authentic out of ten thousand,

all of which he regarded as being true, having rejected two hundred

thousand as false. His book is held in the highest estimation, and

considered both in spiritual and temporal matters as next in authority

to the Koran. He was born A.D. 810, and died A.D. 870.

The Shiahs do not accept the collection of traditions as made by the

Sunnis, but have a collection of their own, upon which their system of

law, both civil and religious, is founded.

During the first and second centuries of the Hijrah (A.D. 622-816), of

all the physical sciences alchemy was studied most. The greatest

scientific man of the first century was undoubtedly Khalid, a prince

of the Omaiyide dynasty, and the son of Yazid I. His zeal for

knowledge and science induced him to get Greek and Syriac works

translated by Stephanus into Arabic, especially those which treated on

chemistry, or rather alchemy. Khalid, having been once reproached for

wasting all his time in researches in the art of alchemy, replied: ‘I

have occupied myself with these investigations to show my

contemporaries and brothers that I have found in them a recompense and

a reward for the Khalifate which I lost. I stand in need of no man to

recognise me at court, and I need not recognise anyone who dances

attendance at the portals of dominion either from fear, ambition, or

covetousness.’ He wrote a poem on alchemy, which bears the title of

‘Paradise of Wisdom,’ and of him Ibn Khallikan says: ‘He was the most

learned man of the tribe of Koraish in all the different branches of

knowledge. He wrote a discourse on chemistry and on medicine, in which

sciences he possessed great skill and solid information.’ He died A.D.

704.

Later on Jaber bin Hayam, with his pupils, became a model for later

alchemists, and he has been called the father of Arabian chemistry. He

compiled a work of two thousand pages, in which he inserted the

problems of his master, Jaafar as Sadik, considered to be the father

of all the occult sciences in Islam. Jaber was such a prolific writer

that many of his five hundred works are said to bear his name only on

account of his celebrity, but to have been written in reality by a

variety of authors. His works on alchemy were published in Latin by

Golius, under the title of ‘Lapis Philosophorum,’ and an English

translation of them by Robert Russell appeared at Leyden in A.D. 1668.

Jaber died A.D. 766, and is not to be confounded with Al-Jaber

(Geber), the astronomer, who lived at Seville about A.D. 1190, and

constructed there an astronomical observatory.

Astronomy appears to have been always a favourite science with the

Arabs from the earliest times. In A.D. 772 there appeared at the court

of the Khalif Mansur (A.D. 754-775), Muhammad bin Ibrahim bin Habib al

Fezari, the astronomer, who brought with him the tables called Sind

Hind, in which the motions of the stars were calculated according to

degrees. They contained other observations on solar eclipses and the

rising of the signs of the zodiac, extracted by him from the tables

ascribed to the Indian king, Figar. The Khalif Mansur ordered this

book to be translated into Arabic to serve as a guide for Arab

astronomers. And these tables remained in use till the time of the

Khalif Mamun (A.D. 813-833), when other revised ones bearing his name

came into vogue. These, again, were abridged by Abul Ma’shar

(Albumasar, died A.D. 885-886), called the prince of Arabian

astrologers, who, however, deviated from them, and inclined towards

the system of the Persians and of Ptolemy. This second revision was

more favourably received by the Arab astronomers than the first, and

the Sind Hind was superseded by the Almagest of Ptolemy. Better

astronomical instruments also came into use, though previously the

Al-Fezari above mentioned had been the first in Islam who constructed

astrolabes of various kinds, and had written several astronomical

treatises.

Mention might be made of about forty mathematicians and astronomers

who wrote books on these subjects. The best of them, such as

Al-Farghani (Alfraganius) and others, lived at the court of Mamun, who

built an astronomical observatory in Baghdad and another near

Damascus, on Mount Kasiun. He caused also two degrees of the meridian

to be measured on the plain of Sinjar, so as to ascertain the

circumference of the earth with more precision. In A.D. 824 there were

held philosophical disputations in his presence. Al-Farghani was the

author of an introduction to astronomy, which was printed by Golius at

Amsterdam in 1669, with notes.

Between the years A.D. 877 and 929 there flourished the famous

calculator and astronomer, Muhammad bin Jaber al Battani, Latinized as

Albategnius. He was the author of the astronomical work entitled ‘The

Sabæan Tables,’ and adopted nearly the system and the hypothesis of

Ptolemy, but rectified them in several points, and made other

discoveries, which procured him a distinguished place among the

scholars whose labours have enriched astronomical science. Al-Battani

approached much nearer to the truth than the ancients as far as the

movements of the fixed stars are concerned. He measured the greatness

of the eccentricity of the solar orbit, and a more correct result

cannot be obtained. To the work containing all his discoveries he gave

the name of ‘As-Zij-as Sabi,’ which was translated into Latin under

the title ‘De Scientiâ Stellarum.’ The first edition of it appeared at

Nuremberg in A.D. 1537, but it is believed that the original work is

in the library of the Vatican. He was classed by Lalande among the

forty-two most celebrated astronomers of the world. He died A.D.

929-930.

Another celebrated astronomer, Ali bin Yunis, was a native of Egypt,

and appears to have lived at the court of the demented tyrant of

Egypt, Al-Hakim bramrillah, and under his patronage to have composed

the celebrated astronomical tables called, after his name, ‘The

Hakimite Tables.’ Ibn Khallikan states that he had seen these tables

in four volumes, and that more extensive ones had not come under his

notice. These tables were considered in Egypt to be of equal value to

those of the astronomer Yabya bin Ali Mansur, who had in A.D. 830, by

order of the Khalif Mamun, undertaken astronomical observations both

at Baghdad and Damascus. Ibn Yunis spent his life in the preparation

of astronomical tables and in casting horoscopes, for it must be

remembered that with the Muslims astronomy and astrology were

synonymous, and their most learned astronomers were also their most

skilful astrologers. His character for honesty was highly esteemed,

and he was also well versed in other sciences, and displayed an

eminent talent for poetry. He died A.D. 1009, and is not to be

confounded with his father, Ibn Yunis, the historian, who died A.D.

958.

Yet another name must be mentioned, viz., the Spanish-Arab astronomer

Ibn Abd-ar-Rahman Es-Zerkel, Europeanized as Arzachal. He first

resided at Toledo, at the court of its sovereign, Mamun, for whom he

made an astrolabe, which he called in his honour the Mamunian. He then

went to Seville, where he wrote for Motamid bin Abbad (A.D. 1069-1091)

a treatise on the use of certain instruments. During his residence at

Toledo he constructed two clepsydras, the waters of which decreased

and increased according to the waning and growing of the moon, and

these two basins were destroyed only in A.D. 1133 by Alphonse VI.,

when he took Toledo. Arzachal left a work on eclipses, and on the

revolution of years, as well as the tables of the sky, to which the

name of Toledan tables have been given. His writings, but especially

the last, which must have been consulted by the editors of the

Alphonsine tables, were never translated, and exist only in manuscript

in libraries where but few scholars can consult them. Arzachal made

many observations in connection with the sun, and was also the

inventor of the astronomical instrument called after his name,

Zerkalla. He died A.D. 1080.

Before leaving this subject it may be mentioned that Makkari, in his

great encyclopædia of Spain, enumerates fifteen astronomers of

Andalusia, all more or less known in their time. Also that

Bedei-ul-Astrolabi and Ibn Abdul-Rayman distinguished themselves as

makers of astronomical instruments, and inventors of new ones. While

Arzachal was the greatest representative of Arab astronomy in the West,

Umar Khayam, the astronomer, mathematician, freethinker, and poet, was

its greatest representative in the East, in Persia, where he died A.D.

1123.

A great deal in Arabic literature has been written about grammar, and,

until its principles were finally laid down and established, it was

always a source of continual controversy between different professors

and different schools. Abul Aswad ad-Duwali has been called the father

of Arabic grammar. It is said that the Khalif Ali laid down for him

this principle: the parts of speech are three, the noun, the verb, and

the particle, and told him to form a complete treatise upon it. This

was accordingly done; and other works on the subject were also

produced, but none of them are apparently now extant. Muhammad bin

Ishak has stated that he saw one of them, entitled ‘Discourse on the

Governing and the Governed Parts of Speech;’ and the author of the

‘Fihrist’ also alludes to this work. Abul-Aswad died at Busra in A.D.

688, aged eighty-five, but some years later his two successors in this

branch of literature (viz., Al-Khalil and Sibawaih) far surpassed him

in every way.

Al-Khalil bin Ahmad, born A.D. 718, was one of the great masters in

the science of grammar, and the discoverer of the rules of prosody,

which art owes to him its creation. He laid the foundation of the

language by his book ‘Al-Ain’ (so called from the letter with which it

begins), and by the aid he afforded thereby to Sibawaih, whose master

he was, in the composition of his celebrated grammatical work known by

the name of ‘The Book.’ In the work called ‘Al-Ain,’ Khalil first

arranged the stock of Arabic words, dealing with the organ of speech

and the production of sounds, and then dividing the words into

classes, the roots of which consisted of one, two, three, four, or

five letters. It is still a matter of dispute whether the book

‘Al-Ain’ was wholly composed by Khalil himself, or completed in course

of time by his pupils. A copy of this celebrated lexicon and work on

philology is in the Escurial Library. Khalil also wrote a treatise on

prosody, and other works on grammar, and a book on musical intonation.

He died A.D. 786, at Busra. ‘Poverty,’ he said, ‘consists not in the

want of money, but of soul; and riches are in the mind, not in the

purse.’

Sibawaih, the pupil of Khalil, has been called the father of Arabic

lexicography, and the lawgiver of Arabic grammar. Ibn Khallikan says

that he was a learned grammarian, and surpassed in this science every

person of former and later times. As for his ‘Kitab,’ or ‘Book,’

composed by him on that subject, it has never had its equal. The great

philologist and grammarian, Al-Jahiz, said of the book of Sibawaih,

that none like it had ever been written on grammar, and that all

writers on this subject who had succeeded him had borrowed from it.

When Al-Kisai was tutor to the prince Al-Amin, son of Harun-ar-Rashid,

Sibawaih came to Baghdad, and the two great grammarians (Sibawaih, the

chief of the school of Busra, and Al-Kisai, chief of the school of

Kufa) had a long dispute about a certain expression of Arabic speech,

and an Arab of the desert was called in to arbitrate between them. The

man first decided in favour of Sibawaih, but when the question was put

in another form, the Bedouin asserted that Kisai was right. As

Sibawaih considered that he had been unjustly treated in the matter,

he left Baghdad for good. The year of his death has been given

differently by various authors, the earliest date being A.D. 787, and

the latest A.D. 809.

The most celebrated grammarians of the third century of the Hijrah

(A.D. 816-913) were Al-Mubarrad, who died A.D. 898, and Thalab, who

died A.D. 903. They were also great antagonists to each other.

Al-Mubarrad, the author of thirty works, was the chief of the school of

Busra, and Thalab of that of Kufa, both founded during the preceding

century by Sibawaih and Kisai. Thalab was the first collector of books

in Islam, and those left by him were very valuable.

Mention must also be made of Al-Farra, the grammarian, and

distinguished by his knowledge of grammar, philology, and various

branches of literature. He died A.D. 822, at the age of sixty-three,

and preceded both Mubarrad and Thalab, the latter of whom used to say:

‘Were it not for Al-Farra, pure Arabic would no longer exist; it was

he who disengaged it from the ordinary language and fixed it by

writing.’ At the request of the Khalif Al-Mamun he drew up in two

years a most elaborate work, which contained the principles of

grammar, and all the pure Arabic expressions which he had heard. It

was entitled ‘Al-Hudûd’ (the Limits or Chapters), and directly it was

finished he commenced another in connection with the Koran, which is

spoken of as a most wonderful production. He wrote besides several

other works on grammar, and acted as tutor to the two sons of the

Khalif Mamun.

Though many other grammarians could be named, such as Al-Akhfash al

Ausat, Abu Amr as Shaibani, Abu Bakr al Anbari, etc., none can be

considered so celebrated as the persons above mentioned, who are

regarded as the founders of the principles on which Arabic grammar has

been established.

In the middle of the third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 816-913), the

Arabs first began to distinguish themselves as travellers and

geographers. When Muslim Homeir was, in A.D. 845, ransomed from his

captivity among the Byzantines and returned to his country, he wrote a

book with the title of ‘Admonitions on the Countries, Kings and

Offices of the Greeks.’ Forty years afterwards Jaafar bin Ahmed al

Mervezi produced the first geographical work under the title of

‘Highways and Countries,’ which was followed by those of Ibn Foslan,

Ibn Khordabeh, Jeihani, Al-Istakhri, Ibn Haukul, Al-Beruni, Al-Bekri

and Idrisi. The great historian, Masudi, was also a writer of travels

and an ambassador. Ibn Foslan was sent by the Khalif Muktadir (A.D.

908-932) to the King of the Bulgarians. Abu Dolaf, who accompanied an

ambassador from China to the frontiers of that country, made, on his

return, a report which Yakut afterwards embodied in his voluminous

geographical Dictionary.

A few details will be given about the six chief geographers and

travellers of this period, viz., Ibn Khordabeh, Al-Istakhri, Ibn

Haukul, Al-Beruni, Al-Bekri and Idrisi.

As regards the first-named, it would appear that he has been the

object of considerable controversies among the Orientalists of Europe.

After employment in the post and intelligence departments in the

provinces, he subsequently came to the court of the Khalif Motamid

(A.D. 870-892), and became one of his privy councillors. He is the

author of several works on various subjects, but his ‘Geography,’ says

Sir H.M. Elliot, is the only work we possess of this author, and of

this there is only one copy in Europe, in the Bodleian Library at

Oxford. He died about A.D. 912.

Al-Istakhri, who flourished about the year A.D. 951, obtained his name

from Istakhar (_i.e._, Persepolis), where he was born. He was a

traveller whose geographical work has been translated into German by

Mordtmann. When Istakhari was in the Indus Valley he met another

celebrated traveller, Ibn Haukul, whose book Sir William Ouseley

translated in A.D. 1800 into English, under the title of ‘The Oriental

Geography of Ibn Haukul.’ Haukul, who died A.D. 976, had travelled for

nearly twenty-eight years in the countries of Islam with the works of

Ibn Khordabeh and Jeihani in his hands, and his work, which bears the

generally approved title of ‘Highways and Countries,’ is based on the

book of Istakhri.

But the greatest geographer and naturalist of this period is Abu

Raihan Al-Beruni (born about A.D. 971), who accompanied Mahmud the

Ghaznavide on his invasions to India. He was to Mahmud of Ghazni what

Aristotle was to Alexander, with the difference, however, that he

actually accompanied the conqueror on his Indian campaigns. He

travelled into different countries and to and from India for the space

of forty years, and during that time was much occupied with astronomy

and astronomical o