ABSTRACT

This module discusses Arabic literature

with emphasis on the characteristics of
Arabic classical literature. Also, this
module discusses the literary history of
Arabic literature together with the various
genres in each period. Finally, it provides
summaries of two great works of folk
MODULE 6 literature in Arabic literature.

Arabic Literature

At the end of this module, the students are expected to have been able to:

1. Identify the various forces – historical, philosophical, political, social, and religious –that have
shaped Arabic literature.
2. Summarize the major Arabic classic texts.
3. Deduce the major themes of Arabic classic literary texts.
4. Evaluate the literary critical lenses fit to analyze classic Arabic texts.
5. Critique some Arabic classic literary texts.
 Module 6

ARABIC LITERATURE

There is perhaps no other literature so closely allied to the history of its people as is that of the Arabs.
--Bushrui and Malarkey

Introduction to Arabic Literature

There is perhaps no other literature so closely allied to the history of its people as is that of the Arabs. The
monotony of nomadic life, the rise of Islam, the Arab conquests, the imperial luxury of early ‘Abbasids, the interaction
and cross fertilization with other civilizations (notably in Spain), the decline and overthrow of the Caliphate, the
period of cultural stagnation, the reactions and inspirations owing to the colonial encounter, and the eventual
reawakening of the Arab world to form the vibrant independent states of today – these are all faithfully reflected in
Arabic literature, the ups and downs of which parallel the fortunes of the Arabs themselves.

Classic Arabic literature is the enduring monument of a civilization, not of a people. Its contributors were
men of the most varied ethnic origins who, nevertheless, under the influence of their Arab conquerors, lost their
national languages, traditions, and customs and were moulded into a unity of thought and belief, absorbed into a
new and wider Arab nation. The Persians alone, though only after assimilating many of the characteristics and
tendencies of the Arabs, succeeded at length in restoring their intellectual and racial independence. Yet even when
Arabic was in the eastern provinces displaced from its supremacy by the rise of a Persian literature, it maintained,
and has even yet not entirely lost, its position as the universal language of Islamic theology, philosophy, and science.
To a greater extent perhaps than the other classical literatures, its flowering was conditional not only upon the
existence of a cultured society but also on the liberality and patronage of those in high position. Sharing the historical
vicissitudes of the Islamic civilization, it faithfully reflects local political and cultural conditions. Where Muslim society
was in decay, literature lost vitality and force, but so long as in one capital or another princes and ministers found
pleasure, profit, or reputation in patronizing the arts, the torch was kept burning. So we find that now one land and
now another becomes a leading centre of literary culture, until at a period roughly coinciding with the Ottoman
conquests in Asia and Africa, and the Renaissance in Europe, the flame, although never extinguished, sinks to a
dull glow. The writers of the following centuries, with few exceptions, live on the proceeds of their intellectual
patrimony, adding little or nothing to it, while the modern revival of Arabic literature initiated in Syria and Egypt is
inspired by another spirit than that of the old classical civilization.

Arabic literature has also shared the fate of the classical literatures in that many valuable works are, it is to
be feared, irretrievably lost. As they were dependent for their preservation on a society indifferent, when not actually
hostile, to anything outside the narrow range of Islamic theology and its satellite disciplines, it is probable that among
the lost works are many which in our eyes would do most honour to the Muslim civilization. There still remains,
however, an enormous mass of materials, only partially examined, in scattered manuscripts, out of which the patient
labours of European scholars in the nineteenth century, Zealously carried on by Arab, Persian, and Indian scholars
as well in the present century, have reaped a surprising harvest of long-neglected works of literary or cultural
significance. But while practically all extant works of importance are being rapidly made accessible to Arabists,
comparatively few of them are at the service of western scholarship in reliable translations, although the number is
increasing every year.

Arabic literature per se refers to literature in Arabic and by pure-blooded Arabs. Yet those who could boast
pure Arab descent formed only a small minority of those who shared the Islamic proportion of its literature.
Nevertheless, it was permeated by modes of thought and expression derived from the country and impressed upon
it by the people from which and through whom it issued as a conquering force in the seventh century of our era. We
must, in this section and that which follows, outline the physical and linguistic environment by which Arabic literature
was moulded from the outset.

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 Its birthplace was the sandy plain, partly steppeland, partly desert, of central and north-eastern Arabia.
Except in the rare oases the land, bare, monotonous, subject to violent alternations of heat and cold, drought and
flood, was, and is, unable to support settled communities. Its inhabitants are of necessity nomadic, subsisting chiefly
on the produce of their camels and sheep, and compelled to move unendingly from place to place in search of fresh
pasturage. The monotony of their life is broken only by the fierce pleasures of years of plenty and the biting misery
of years of famine, and by success or failure in their raids on one another or on the settled communities on their
fringes. Their secular physical environment has moulded their habits, thought, and speech, impressing on them
those repetitions and abrupt transitions which are reproduced in nearly all aspects of Arab life and literature. The
circle of ideas bounding the horizon of such nomads is necessarily narrow; the struggle for existence is too severe
to allow of attention to anything beyond the practical and material needs of the day, still less of interest in abstract
concepts and religious speculation. Their philosophy is summed up in a number of pithy sayings, their religion is a
vague superstition. Their thought is expressed in terms of the concrete, and their language will contain few
abstractions beyond those relating to simple activities and physical qualities.

As if to counterbalance this poverty of ideas, the uniformity of life and environment conduces to an
exceedingly rich development of language in the realm of material life. Not only do synonyms abound, but every
variety of natural phenomenon, however minute, and every separate activity, however complex, is expressed by a
term proper to itself. This feature of language may be observed also to a greater or less extent in the speech of
other peoples whose nomadic way of life and degree of civilization resembles those of the bedouin of Arabia; but
Arabic is unique in having carried over its superluxuriant vocabulary to play an important part in the literature of a
highly developed civilization.

The Arabic tongue, however, was not the peculiar possession of the nomads of central and northern Arabia.
There existed also settled communities of North Arabs who had come into closer contact with peoples of old
established culture. Between the ancient civilization of the Yemen, in the south-west corner of Arabia, and the
frontier districts of Syria and Iraq there were constant commercial relations, which opened a way for cultural
influences to penetrate into central Arabia. Along the trade routes substantial communities grew up, as at Mecca,
.akin in blood and language to the nomads and apparently but little distinguished from them in manners and outlook.
At Hira on the Euphrates, where an Arab dynasty reigned under Persian protection, and among the Ghassanid and
other tribesmen on the marches of Syria, the Arabs were naturally brought into closer touch with the Christian
Aramaic culture. From these sources a thin stream of Aramaic cultural terms found their way into Arabic, but made
as little impression on the form and content of the language as the Aramaic culture made on the nomads
themselves, condemned by nature to live in primitive simplicity or perish in the struggle for existence.

This module discusses the major classical texts in ancient Arabic literature and presents a few
representative works by renowned ancient as well as modern Arabian writers. Additionally, it discusses the historical
and cultural backgrounds of representative literary texts. Provided in this module are various tasks that will help you
acquire the necessary skills in conducting a careful literary criticism and in writing an organized literary analysis
paper.

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 Lesson 1
THE IMPORTANCE OF ARABIC LITERATURE
In their Introduction to The Arab World: Forty Years of Change, American anthropologists Elizabeth and
Robert Fernea remark that “the people of the Middle East still remain as distant from the American public as they
were nearly a half a century ago.” Nowadays, there may now be more press reports and books about the Arab
world than ever before, but in spite of this sheer volume, scarcely any of the news speaks well of this region or its
people, which, in effect, is mostly known for its turmoil and troubles. This serves to deepen the contours of an
entirely negative image of the Arab: not merely as different, alien, mysterious, much less beguiling (as perceived in
earlier times); but now as treacherous, dangerous, incorrigible, and tiresome.

Thus, there is every reason to suppose that, in spite of the exciting news, the public today possesses no
deeper knowledge of Arabs than before; perhaps less. How might an acquaintance with Arabic literature help the
reader enter the far more nuanced heart of Arab experience and aspiration? Arabic poetry and prose: just as the
desert poems must be heard or read preferably in their original language; but in a time when the growing interest
in the Arab world is matched only by ignorance of its literary heritage, translations can be informative, entertaining,
and perhaps even enjoyable not only as curiosities but as examples of genuine works of literary art.

Two Paths To Go Beyond Stereotypes

Scholars have long known that if students, workers and citizens want to get beyond stereotypes, there are two
essential pathways that have been tested and proven over time. Each path involves displacement, receptivity and
sustained engagement.

A. Travel

The first way is the oldest: the path of travel, encounter, making acquaintances, seeing the landscapes and
taking stock of how people live their lives. This path of learning requires continual involvement in daily life as well
as assiduous study of language, culture, religion and history. With patience and persistence, the rewards are usually
mutual enrichment and friendship as well as improved means for discussing conflicting viewpoints and interests.

B. Literature

Yet, the most faithful echo of the many dilemmas, struggles and dislocations of the Arabs over this past
century is found in their literature as well as in their private conversations. Indeed, the second proven path towards
understanding the Arabs involves the study of this remarkable literature. Poetry, novels, short stories and plays
written in Arabic offer a window, as with other literate civilizations, to what many Arabs across the ages have held
to be sacred, admirable, noteworthy or scandalous. Few civilizations have invested the word with as much potency
and virtue as have the Arabs.

Arabic literature offers glimpses of other times and worlds. The range of Arabic works in translation offers
incontrovertible proof of the multi-faceted nature of Arab culture, its sheer inventiveness and its unmistakable
resonance with universal themes found in many literatures, Eastern and Western. In reading sound translations of
Arabic literature, the outsider enters into companionship with those writers from times near and far who will enrich
the experience of the reader and elevate the receptive soul.

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 Lesson 2
LITERARY PERIODS AND GENRES IN ARABIC LITERATURE
This section of the module discusses the literary history of Arabic literature as well as the important genres
in those periods.

I. Pre-Islamic Arabic Literature (500-622)

a. Poetry

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 Arab poetic tradition – embodied in numerous orally transmitted compositions, some purportedly dating
back to the middle of the fifth century, a good century and a half before the emergence of Islam – is the product of
a long development, for it was already firmed up by conventions and even equipped with cliches, such as the striking
comparison of the half-erased traces of a desert encampment to repeated tattoo-marks among the veins of the wrist
(the wrist being, even nowadays, a favourite spot for tattooing), or the conceit that the swords of a warring clan are
flawless except for the notches resulting from the blows dealt to an enemy.

Indeed poetry has long been deemed the supreme art form among the Arabs, one that flourished even at
times when other arts were virtually unknown. The literary prose of the same period, on the other hand, consists
only of some proverbs and orations reported at a much later date.

The poet was a repository and recorder of tribal lore, hence the saying that “poetry is the register of the
Arabs.” And indeed the Arabs have inherited from pre-Islamic times an imposing body of robust poetry that has set
the standard for successive centuries.

And from the start, the poetry on record had ample room for both tribal and personal motifs. Pre-Islamic
poets left to posterity a treasury of love-songs, wine-songs, and hunting-songs. Prominent of course were poems
praising tribes and chieftains, celebrating warlike deeds with the consequent elegies on the death of heroes. But
there was also praise for the peace-makers.

The early Muslim scholars who collected this precious material called any of these poems on a single theme
a qita, ‘a piece’, as if it was a fragment detached from a larger unit. They reserved the term qasida, now used for
any poem, for a kind of ode constructed on a particular tripartite pattern. This pattern is best exemplified in seven –
or, in a different collection, ten – widely recognized masterpieces known as the muallaqat, i.e. ‘the suspended odes’,
so called because they were purportedly written in gold and suspended inside the kaba, the cubical shrine that was
revered in Mecca even before it became the focus of the Muslim pilgrimage. The term may, however, with only a
little straining, be taken to refer to the stringing together of several themes.

The Holy Book of Islam has of course held – and continues to hold – primacy of place in Arabic literature.
The Qur’an contains several verses referring to the “Arabic Qur’an” and several branches of Arabic writing stemmed
from the need to elucidate it. Even the pre-Islamic qasidas gain their pre-eminence in part due to the philological
value they bring to this process, particularly since some Qur’anic suras (chapters), notably the early Meccan ones,
are phrased in a similar way to them. The most essential point about Arabic literature is that it stems directly from
the Holy Qur’an – pre-Islamic poetry notwithstanding.

The predominant, indeed almost the sole form of poem, was the qasida, a complex type of ode which made
constant use of rhyme, the purpose of which was to convey in rich imagery the evocative experience of tribal life.
These qasidas were written down in the 8th and 9th centuries AD; scholars of the time realized the importance of
preserving the old poetry both for its own merit as the begetter of the developing poetic tradition and for its
inestimable value in shedding light on the language of the Holy Qur’an. Some of the suras – particularly the early

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Meccan ones – are phrased in a manner not unlike the pre-Islamic qasidas rather than the standard form of high-
minded expression in Arabic.

As the earliest examples we have of Arabic poetry, these odes are especially remarkable for their
refinement, one might almost say “perfection”. The themes themselves are simple, desert ones portraying the purely
observable. There are no devices such as simile but frequent use of personification and direct association. It is the
manner in which these themes are treated and the form in which they appear that reveal a long-established prior
tradition.

The finest poems of this period appear in collections made after the rise of Islam. Especially worthy of
mention are the Mufaddaliyat (compiled by the philologist, al-Mufaddal), the Hamasa of Abu Tammam (emulated,
if not matched, by the Hamasa of his pupil, al-Buhturi), the Kitab al-Aghani of ‘Abu’l Faraj al-Isfahani, and, above
all, the Mu’allaqat. The last-named collection is made up of seven exquisite odes by as many poets (though another
three are sometimes added to make ten in all). These odes, which constitute the most precious literary heritage of
pre-Islamic Arabia, were composed by Imru al-Qais, Tarafa, ‘Amr ibn Khultum, Harith, ‘Antara, Zuhair and Labid.
These poems and others by their contemporaries form the authentic voice of pre-Islamic life or the Jahiliyya (Days
of Ignorance).

b. Prose

In addition to the abundance of poetry, some prose-tales were also passed on through the rawis, but
whereas all the poets’ names are known, the prose belongs in its entirety to the realm of folk tradition. As such, it
is of little interest as literature although as early as the 8th century AD folktales from elsewhere were translated into
Arabic and given literary form which greatly enhanced their value in the eyes of the scholars.

II. Arabic Literature in Early Islamic Period

The period immediately preceding the coming of the Prophet Muhammad saw increasing dissatisfaction –
particularly among thinking men – with the Bedouin way of life and its attendant superstitions. Small wonder,
therefore, that poetry went entirely out of favour when new religious ideals supplanted the inherited values. The
practice of writing poetry came virtually to a standstill as converts flocked to the Prophet in their thousands to hear
the divine revelation. After his death in 632 AD it became necessary to preserve in written form what had been
divinely revealed to the Prophet and which was regarded by believers as the Word of Almighty God. The result was
the Holy Qur’an.

The first suras of the Qur’an were collected in 633 AD and these were written down with immense care to
ensure that the Divine Word would be reproduced undiluted and unadulterated. Many of them – and more especially
the later chapters – must have seemed highly obscure and esoteric to early scholars. Even today, much of the
intricate imagery needs detailed explanatory annotation. Several branches of Arabic literature stemmed from the
need to elucidate the Qur’an including grammar and lexicography. The Arabic language itself became the sacred
language of Islam. The significance of this is hard to appreciate in the predominantly Christian Western world since
the Bible is read almost exclusively in modern translation – most impressively in the English rendering known as
the King James Version.

Arabic thus became the widespread language it remains to this day (despite the intervening age of
depression), its influence moving hand in hand with that of the new religion during the first three centuries of Islam.

The sudden decline of poetry during the Age of the Prophet meant that literary activity was effectively
confined to religious writings by the time of his death. Of the very few other works that have come down to us from
the period, there is only one poem of any importance: an ode by Ka’b bin Zuhair, son of one of the poets of the
Mu’allaqat. This is dedicated to the Prophet himself and describes the beginnings of Islam which makes it a valuable
historical document. Despite the fact that early Muslims came to view poetry as “irreligious”, their descendants drew
little distinction between religious and secular matters, literary or otherwise, and looked upon everything as a sacred
reflection of the will of God.

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III. Arabic Literature in the Umayyad Dynasty
During the period of the Orthodox Caliphate (632–661 AD), which saw the first steps towards the
foundation of a great new empire extending far beyond the borders of Arabia, literature largely conformed to the
habits developed in the last years of the Prophet’s life. Activity centred on the writing down of the Holy Qur’an, the
authorized recitation of which dated from 646 AD. In the new provinces of Syria and Persia the conquerors and the
indigenous population rapidly coalesced and loan words began to creep into Classical Arabic. In Arabia itself the
growth of urban communities and the accompanying influx of foreigners brought with it an almost equal threat to
the language; but the classicists and philologists waged a determined campaign to counter this trend. Their success
was due above all to the publication of the Qur’an as the unimpeachable source of divine teachings, written – as it
was revealed – in Arabic.

a. Poetry in the Umayyad

When the Caliphate passed to the Umayyad of Damascus, the shift of geographical focus brought with it a
host of new attitudes and practices – not least in the field of literature. Poetry once again became fashionable and
for the first time it was written down as it was being composed. Storytellers and poets thus merged into the new
phenomenon of the court poet. Poetry lost its desert flavour (which was almost meaningless to urban dwellers) and
was instead tailored to meet the requirements of the court as it had previously been tailored to the needs of the
poet’s tribe. Poems of rivalry persisted, though these were considerably more sophisticated than those of the pre-
Islamic period. The main thrust, however, was directed into panegyrics singing the praises of the Caliph or other
such figures and reflecting the growing affluence and imperial splendour of the age. The sweeping aside of the old
desert principles nevertheless had its disadvantages and complications as well.

The passions of the Umayyad age were multiple and conflicting, and the poets shared in the general
psychological instability and conflict of principles and parties. There was a tendency to nostalgia among the growing
populations in the diaspora but in many ways the new status quo rendered the old ideals irrelevant and untenable.

Ghazal (Love-Poem)

Still, in literary terms the future lay with those who were not afraid of innovation and the most interesting
literary development in this period was the independent love-poem, the ghazal, which was more direct in diction
and simpler in theme than the old qasida. The poet Jamil (c. 660–701 AD) is credited with its invention, but it was
Umar ibn Abi Rabia (644–719 AD) who brought its simple, conversational style to near-perfection. Among their
contemporaries the most important poets were al-Akhtal, a Christian (c. 640– 710 AD), and the protagonists in
Arabic literature’s most celebrated longstanding feud, al-Farazdaq and Jarir (both d. 728 AD).

As for the Arabic tongue, it had (in the eyes of the purists) suffered inevitable adulteration as the area of its
use had expanded from the desert to embrace the towns and cities of the great Arab empire and as it came to be
spoken by many subject peoples. This kind of purism could be – and was – extended to the discussion of literature.
Arabic poetry, it was argued, had been fixed for all time in its pre-Islamic mould; the qasida was the highest form
in which it could be composed and pure Bedouin diction alone constituted the language in which it might
be expressed. Traditionalism like this may have lost out along with racial snobbery at the passing of the Ummayads
but as an attitude of mind it retained its sway in times to come.

b. Prose in the Umayyad

It was the succeeding generation, coinciding with the last years of the Ummayads and their overthrow,
which saw the first known writing of Arabic prose. The secretary to the last Umayyad Caliphs, Abd al-Hamid al-
Katib (d. 750 AD), pioneered the art of letter writing, and his disciple Ibn al-Mucaila (d. 757 AD) produced the first
Arabic version, Kalila and Dimna. This translation – far more literary than the original Sanskrit fables of Bidpai on
which it is based – became the model for all ensuing Arabic prose styles and became known as “al sahl al-mumtani”
(a style which is ingeniously simple yet almost impossible to emulate).

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IV. Classical Arabic Literature in the Abbasid (750-1258)
A. Golden Age

The foundations had now been laid for the “Golden Age”, which was heralded by the new ‘Abbasid rulers
from their magnificent capital at Baghdad. After an initial period of adjusting to the change which sent far fewer
shockwaves through the empire than had the beginning of the city, whose international trade had begun to flourish,
education became all-important as Muslims grew eager to learn the recently evolved sciences.

There was a burgeoning of literature, and Classical Arabic achieved its final stage of development during
the two centuries that followed. Apart from its basic conventionality, the chief characteristics of Arabic poetry were
by now radically different from those associated with it in pre-Islamic times; the pagan elements had been almost
entirely discarded in favour of more original poetry bearing both Persian and Hellenistic influences. With the
important discovery of a cheap way to manufacture paper, prose writing also became solidly established as a literary
medium.

1. Hadith Literature

Meanwhile the development of all aspects of Islam – encouraged if not actively pursued by the ‘Abbasid
rulers – saw the creation of the two Sahihs (collections of Islamic tradition) known as Hadith (the authenticated
accounts of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad), which are second only to the Qur’an in historical
importance for Muslims. These were later supplemented by another four Sahihs, to make six in all. The finest and
most reliable biography of the Prophet was written at this time by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 AD) which incorporated verse
as well as prose to achieve a strikingly original literary form. It is in the subsequent revision of Ibn Hisham (d. 833
AD), however, that the book has come down to us.

2. Courtly Ghazal

The most popular poetic form of the period was the courtly ghazal – a more refined and artificial version of
its Umayyad forerunner – employing dazzlingly virtuosic use of words. Once again its supposed creator, Ibn alAhnaf
(d. 808 AD), was not a poet of the first order. All poets of the period certainly owed much to the pioneering work of
Bashshar ibn Burd (715–783 AD) whose strong individuality set the tone for the verse of the ‘Abbasid period.
However, expediency and sycophancy began to creep in as poets strove to please their masters and thereby to
ensure that their own bellies would continue to be filled:

The epitome of such excess – yet without doubt one of the greatest of all Arab poets – was Abu Nuwas (c.
747–810 AD), the dissolute boon companion of Hārūn al-Rashīd and a passionate extoller of the twin glories of love
and wine. His dubious philosophy was offset by the pious and deeply felt poetry of his contemporary Aby’l ‘Atahiya
(748–826 AD), which became the standard for Arabic religious poetry in the centuries that followed.

3. Arab Shakespeare

Another factor that was having a detrimental effect on literature at this time – and on poetry in particular –
was the ever-growing ascendancy of philology with its pedantic insistence on convention and formalization.
However, this did not prevent the emergence of some of Arabic literature’s most outstanding individual writers.
Foremost among these was the poet alMutanabbi (915–965 AD), a peerless composer of exotic and intricate
verse, often referred to as the “Arab Shakespeare”. Another very significant figure was Abu’l ‘Ala al-Ma’arri
(973–1058 AD), a blind poet and sage whose freethinking verse questions the absolutism of any religious tradition.

4. Maqama (Lit assembly)

AlHamadhani (969–1008 AD) introduced a completely new form of literature called the maqama (lit.
“assembly”) in which poetry and prose alternate to achieve a dramatic effect. This form, which is the single most
individual feature of Arabic literature, was subsequently perfected by al-Hariri (1054– 1122 AD), whose racy
muqamat are among the most highly esteemed works in the Arabic language.

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 Scientific and philosophical writings also flourished under the ‘Abbasids and one of the earliest important
figures was Zakariya al-Razi (864–925 AD). A century later Ibn Sina (980–1037 AD) – known to the West as
“Avicenna” – wrote what became standard works on medicine and philosophy. His contemporary al-Biruni (973–
1051 AD) was equally influential in the field of science, especially astronomy. Historical writing was also well served
by alTabari (839–924 AD) and the more philosophical al-Mas’udi (d. 956 AD).

5. Sufi Literature

In the 2nd century of Islam, a movement inclined to mysticism made an unobtrusive appearance. The group
of ascetics who brought it into being were called “Sufis” and the earliest known Sufi writer was the poetess Rabia
al-‘Adawiya (d. 801 AD) from Basra. It was in Persia that the movement flowered and indeed the bulk of Sufi
literature came to be written in the Persian language. Its importance to Arabic literature became most apparent in
the Renaissance in the late 19th century, the Sufi influence being discernible in many of the finest Arabic writings
of that time and even up to the present day.

B. Silver Age of Arabic Literature

The later part of the ‘Abbasid period is known as the “Silver Age” of Arabic literature and the most notable
figure apart from al-Harrir is the great religious and philosophical writer, al-Ghazzali (1059–1111 AD). Despite his
controversial propagation of Sufi mysticism as a complement to orthodox theology, he remains the most widely read
author of religious writings in Islam. He was particularly severe in his castigation of other philosophers.

After his death a leading Andalusian writer, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126– 1198 AD), sprang vigorously to
the defence of pure philosophy in direct contradiction to al-Ghazzali. A variety of factors – the sway of non-Arabic
speaking rulers uninterested in the patronage of poets and writers in Arabic, the stranglehold of the philologists and
legalistic-minded theologians, and the emergence of Persian literature – all combined to serve notice of the
termination of Medieval Arabic culture.

C. Andalusian Literature

By the 11th century the focus of cultural activity among Arabs had shifted to Spain where a parallel
development had taken place during the “Golden Age” centered on Baghdad. Andalusia (as the Arabs called it)
provided a sure strong-hold for the Arab empire in Europe. The Arabs remained masters of most of the Spanish
mainland from the Umayyad invasion of 711 AD until their defeat and expulsion in 1492 AD. Despite being regarded
with some contempt by their Near Eastern counterparts, the Arabs of Andalusia produced a glorious civilization of
their own. It was not until the 11th century AD that their unique achievements became fully established; but
Andalusian culture influenced European civilization to an extent that has yet to be fully appreciated.

1. Andalusian Poetry

Andalusian poetry is distinguished mainly by its emphasis on the beauties of nature, employing a floral
delicacy as opposed to the geometric formality of the East. Two new forms of poetry were introduced by the
Andalusians: the zajal and the muwashshah, both strophic verse-forms reminiscent of the ballad. The finest
exponent of the latter was Ibn Zaydun (1003–1070 AD) and other leading poets included the “Troubadour”, Ibn
Quzzman (c. 1090– 1095 AD). The rise to power of the latter was greatly instrumental in establishing literature as
a central feature of Andalusian culture.

2. Andalusian Prose

Prose writing also prospered in Andalusia. One of the foremost Arab travel writers, Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217
AD), came from Valencia. The most eminent of all Andalusian literary figures, however, is Ibn Hazm (994–1064
AD), whose Tawq al-Hamama (The Dove’s Neck-Ring) is a remarkably perceptive account of the psychology of
love and lovers. He was also a noted theologian with progressive ideas about the oneness of religion and the unity
underlying all religious faith.

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 While literature continued to find expression in all its forms in Andalusia, the later period was dominated by
the mystics Ibn Arabi (1165–1240 AD) and Ibnu’l Farid (1181–1235 AD) as well as (in the century after their deaths)
the versatile Ibn al-Khatib (1313–1375 AD).

V. Arabic Literature in the Age of Mamluks (1258-1516/7) (Dark Ages of Arabic Literature)
The Mongol invasion of 1258, however, was the beginning of a barren period in the history of Arabic
literature. Classical Arabic gave way to a low colloquial form of the language, which diverged to the extent that
today the two basic forms of Arabic have very little in common. The Mamluks of Egypt (who made Cairo the capital
of the Arab world from the 13th century AD onwards) had scarcely more interest in literature than the Mongols (who
nevertheless proceeded to adopt the religion of the vanquished). Indeed only one poet of any significance, al-Busiri
(1212–1296 AD), emerged under their ascendancy.

In other parts of the Arab East poetry faded altogether, and historical and geographical writings came to
the forefront of literature. Ibn Khallikan (1211–1282 AD) produced one of the finest biographical dictionaries ever
compiled. Meanwhile in the Maghrib, the Arab name for the conquered lands to the west in North Africa (from
whence derives the term, “Moor”), two further illustrious figures were to appear before the eclipse of Arab
domination: Ibn Battuta (1304–1377 AD), a traveller–geographer from Tangiers, and the historiographer Ibn
Khaldun (1332–1406 AD) of Tunis. The latter is still regarded as a historian–philosopher of the greatest significance
whose approach to history and style of writing remain unique in world literature.

Two Great Legendary Works of Arabic Literature

It was approximately at this time that two of the great legendary works of Arabic literature (which are
discussed later) were given their final form. The Romance of Antar, probably written by more than one author around
the time of the Crusades, is an idealization of the virtues of chivalry and other deeply held Bedouin principles. It has
one of the seven poets of the Mu’allaqat as its hero – though the depiction appears to be far from accurate – and
is the first literary indication in over six centuries of Islam of a yearning for the old desert life. More celebrated still
is The Thousand and One Nights, which for the vast majority of Europeans represents the sum total of their
knowledge of Arabic literature. It first appeared in Arabic by this full title during the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt. Not a
singular work of a specific author, it is, rather, the culmination of an evolving collection of highly suspenseful and
colourful stories originating from many cultures of the Middle East and South Asia.

Woven together through a clever system of embedded literary frames, these tales are spun by the beautiful
Scheherazade to entertain the Caliph night after night in hopes of achieving a stay of execution. The humorous
turns and fantastical motifs resemble later collections of folktales such as The Decameron and The Canterbury
Tales, which at the time, as now, appealed more to common folk and less to common decency. Though The
Thousand and One Nights are regarded by many Arabs as vulgar and lacking in literary merit, selections continue
to be cleansed and abridged to the delight of children who grow up with these kinds of images of the Arab East.

VI. Arabic Literature in the Ottomans (Loss of Arabic Literature) (1516-1798)

The ascendancy of the Ottomans coincided with a period in which Arabic literature was almost totally lost
from view. The Holy Qur’an remained almost the sole official publication in Arabic and business was conducted in
Turkish. However, the Turkish language never had the kind of influence exerted by the Arabic language centuries
earlier. So when the time came for Arabic literature and other forms of Arab culture to be resuscitated in the 19th
century, long neglect proved no obstacle.

VII. The “Renaissance” or “Revival” of Arabic Literature

It was Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 that provided the impetus for the Arab Renaissance. This
significant event brought a stultified world suddenly up to date and breathed the air of Western Civilization into the
virtual corpse of the Ottoman-dominated Near East. Anti-feudal movements and liberation organisations began to
rise up in earnest thereafter as the decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire was laid bare for all to see. One man who
was instrumental in encouraging this awareness and urging drastic remedies was Abdul-Rahman al-Kawakibi

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(1849–1903). Before him was al-Tahtawi, who was the first to be influenced by Western culture. Al-Kawakibi was a
fervent Arab nationalist, a fearless denouncer of tyranny and a true champion of orthodox religion. The best example
of his writings is his symposium on the destiny of Islam, Umm al-Qura (Mother of Communities).

European influence became increasingly evident at this time. It is not surprising that many of the pioneering
figures of the literary renaissance came from Lebanon, traditionally the crossroad between East and West. Beirut
was the focus of scholarly activity and attempts were made to revive the classical models such as maqama. Perhaps
the most telling contribution to the modern movement was that made by Lebanese immigrant (Mahjar) writers in
America, especially for the new ground they broke in the art of the prose poem and the essay. The three main
figures, who also wrote significant works in English, were Christians with a strong disposition towards reconciliation
with Islam: Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), Ameen Rihani (1876–1940) and Mikhail Naimy (1889–1988). These
three have continued to exercise a powerful influence on Arab writers up to the present day.

In the Muslim world, the Renaissance first flowered in Egypt, which produced a poet and dramatist in Ahmad
Shawqi (1868–1932). As a poet he was matched – possibly even bettered – by his contemporaries Hafiz Ibrahim
(1871–1932) and Khalil Mutran (1872–1949).

VIII. Modern Arabic Literature

Early attempts at the novel in Arabic were made by Jirji Zaidan (1861–1914) and this form has since found
an outstanding exponent in Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006). Special types of novel-writing have also been introduced
to Arabic literature during the 20th century, the most important and original of these being al-Ayyam (The Days), an
autobiographical novel written in 1926 by Taha Hussein (1889–1973). Prose drama meanwhile developed in the
hands of Tewfiq al-Hakim (1898–1986) and the Arabic short story – especially that with a comic flavor – was
successfully introduced by Mahmud Taymur (1894–1974).

Since the Second World War a number of different literary movements have sprung up all over the Arab
world as well as among the diaspora communities of both South and North America and other parts of the world.
No longer can Arabic literature be considered homogenous as it was in the centuries following the Islamic
dispensation; nor has it the “borrowed” flavour of the period following the Arab conquests up to the present. Rather,
it is the sum of the national literatures of the various Arab countries, all of which have their own distinctive
characteristics. Nevertheless, there is an awareness of common identity among Arabs and nowhere is this more
strongly reflected than in their poetry.

One of the recent trends has been towards the development of free verse led by the Iraqi poets Badr Shakr
al-Sayyab, Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati and Nazik al-Malaika. Some of the Palestinian poets such as Mahmud Darwish
have produced verse that powerfully expresses the anguish of homelessness. The European influence, meanwhile,
continues; the works of Garcia Lorca, Sartre and T. S. Eliot (especially The Wasteland) find many an echo in postwar
Arab literature. The spectacular blossoming of Arab women writers during this period, such as Salma al-Jayyusi,
May Rihani and Fudwa Tuqan, have opened new vistas of expression and insight. The Left is also increasingly
finding a voice causing the dividing line between literature and political writing to become more and more blurred.
Despite this, the result is far from negative, for the poetry and prose of today’s Arab world is as strong and vibrant
as it was in the Golden Age.

Indeed, at this very moment, nearly unparalleled in ferment and experimentation, we anticipate that literary
developments ahead will become more diverse in form, more global in influence and more open to interpretation.

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 Lesson 3
CLASSICAL OR MEDIEVAL ARABIC LITERATURE
This section focuses on, and thus gives importance to, the period that has come to be known as Classical
or Medieval Arabic Literature.

Like the literature of classical Greece, the origins of Arabic literature are literally lost in time; and because
(again, as in Greece) the first specimens of literature derive from an oral rather than a written culture, the history of
the first beginnings is inevitably somewhat speculative. For practical purposes, however, we may say that ‘classical’
Arabic literature makes its first appearance around the middle of the sixth century AD, when we find a corpus of
tribal Bedouin poetry emerging in and around the Arabian Peninsula, with well-developed metrical and rhyme
schemes indicating a considerable period (several centuries, presumably) of prior development. This corpus of
poetry is usually described as ‘pre-Islamic poetry’ (though in fact it straddles the transition to the Islamic period)
and forms one of the two primary starting-points for the subsequent development of most ‘classical’ Arabic
literature; the other starting-point is provided by the revelation of the Qur’an, the sacred book of Islam revealed to
the Prophet Muhammad over a period of approximately twenty years between AD 610 and AD 632. The subsequent
evolution of the classical Arabic literary tradition, and indeed of the Arabic language itself, took place in the shadow
of these two seminal literary events: for while Arabic poetry developed in a variety of ways over the succeeding
centuries, the metrical and rhyme schemes developed by the pre-Islamic poets remained, with a few exceptions,
essentially unchanged in the hands of most poets until the twentieth century, and the seven pre-Islamic Mu‘allaqat
have continued to be upheld as supreme examples of the poet’s art. For its part, despite its unique status as the
word of God (and by definition, therefore, ‘inimitable’), the language and rhythms of the Qur’an have continued to
haunt and underpin much of the subsequent literary tradition, not only that written in Arabic, but also that of other
languages widely spoken by Muslims, such as Persian, Turkish and Urdu.

The subsequent flowering of this rich tradition in its numerous branches owes much also to influences and
importations from other civilizations, not least from those of India and pre-Islamic Iran. Nonetheless, the two
indigenous foundations of pre-Islamic poetry and the Qur’an never lost their pivotal position as the mainsprings of
the Arabic literary tradition, and it is indeed the interplay between the two strands – one religious, the other
supremely secular – that partly accounts for the distinctive pattern of development of Arabic literature in the
classical, or medieval, period. Also relevant, however, is a third strand: for in parallel with the tradition of literature
deriving from the Qur’an and pre-Islamic poetry (sometimes described as ‘high’ or ‘elite’ literature), the medieval
Arab world was also home to a tradition of ‘popular’ literature, almost entirely oral in nature, that (at least until
recently) was not regarded as worthy of the name adab, or included in the ‘canon’ of Arabic literary production.
Ironically, perhaps, it is a work of this type, the Thousand and One Nights, that, until recently at least, was arguably
the best known work of Arabic literature to most Western readers.

If defining the origins and earliest manifestations of the Arabic literary tradition raises problems because of
the lack of written evidence, defining an end point for classical, or medieval, Arabic literature involves difficulties of
a different nature. There appears to be general agreement, however, that by the time of the fall of Baghdad to the
Mongols in 1258, the best of ‘classical’ Arabic literature had already been written, and that though the succeeding
centuries included a number of distinguished individual authors, the tradition that had provided a link from
generation to generation during the preceding centuries had been irrevocably broken. For some years already
before 1258, the unified Islamic empire that had reached its peak under the ‘Abbasids had begun to split apart, and
from 1517, or thereabouts, Egypt and Syria came under Ottoman domination.

Although Arabic retained its dominance as the language of the revelation of Islam, from the sixteenth
century it was increasingly replaced by Turkish in the central Arab world as the language of administration and of
educated discourse, and literature in Arabic appears to have become progressively more stylized and unoriginal.
As a consequence, the years between the fall of Baghdad in 1258 and Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 have
sometimes been described as the ‘Dark Ages’ of Arabic literature. In truth, this period remains seriously
underresearched – a storehouse of potential lost treasures – partly because it lacks the obvious focal points of both

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classical Arabic literature and that of the modern period, but partly also, perhaps, because the socio-linguistic
situation of the Arab countries during this period implies that any serious researcher should be proficient not only in
Arabic but also in Ottoman Turkish. However significant or insignificant the productions of this period may be, it is
clear that the term ‘Dark Ages’ is an unworthy one, and may be replaced by the neutral term ‘Transitional Period’,
implying no more than that it divides the better defined ‘classical’ period from the ‘modern’ literature.

The Qur’an and the Religious Tradition in Arabic Literature

The Qur’an (Arabic: ‘reading’, ‘recitation’, ‘lesson’ etc.), the Sacred Book of Islam that may be regarded as
the first of the two main pillars on which the subsequent development of Arabic literature was based, is believed by
Muslims to be the speech of God (Allah) himself, revealed to His Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel.
Muhammad himself had been born into the Quraysh, an aristocratic clan based in the religious and trading centre
of Mecca, around AD 570. Little is known with certainty of his early life, but as his father had died before his birth,
and his mother died when he was in his sixth year, he was brought up first by his grandfather, then by his uncle,
Abu Talib. For some time, he lived among the Bedouin, and probably visited Syria as a trader; later, he appears to
have developed a taste for solitary meditation, and at the age of around forty began proclaiming a religious message
in Mecca, the essence of which was that Allah would subject the world to judgement, punishing the wicked and
rewarding the virtuous. Although this message would already have been familiar to Jewish and Christian
communities (of which there were several in the Arabian Peninsula at that period), Muhammad encountered much
opposition to his preaching in Mecca, and in ad 622 he migrated with a small band of followers to Medina, where
he already had supporters; this migration, known in Arabic as the hijra, effectively divides Muhammad’s career into
two, and provides the starting-date for the Islamic calendar. After the hijra, as head of the fledgling Islamic
community, Muhammad’s role evolved from that of preacher to that of politician and lawgiver; he died in ad 632,
having subdued Mecca and consolidated his rule in most of the surrounding area.

No serious doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the revelations that were assembled into the Qur’an
after Muhammad’s death, though the process by which they were collected and organized into the Qur’an in its
present form is by no means clear. It consists of 114 chapters (Arabic: suras), each sura being divided into verses
(Arabic: aya; plural ayat), but instead of a chronological or thematic arrangement, we fi nd an arrangement in
approximate order of length, with the longer suras being placed first; an exception to this general principle is
provided by the first sura – the Fatiha, or ‘Opening’ sura – commonly used by Muslims as a short prayer. With one
exception, each sura begins with the formula Bismi llah al-rahman al-rahim (‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate’), a formula commonly used by Muslims to preface actions of various sorts, from eating or drinking
to embarking on a journey.

The language of the Qur’an shows an evolution from the short suras revealed in Mecca to the longer
Medinan chapters. The earlier passages of the work are characterised by short verses, using rhyming oaths in the
traditional style of the pre-Islamic kahin (‘soothsayer’) to convey a message of the imminence of the Day of
Judgement, which will bring paradise for the believers, and eternal torment for the wicked. The work’s stress on the
unity of God, and Muhammad as His messenger, is reinforced by stories of previous prophets, both biblical and
from pre-Islamic Arabia, and of peoples who were punished for their wickedness and disobedience. As
Muhammad’s role evolved, however, he began to adopt a less dramatic and less lyrical style, using longer clauses
– a style that more resembles prose as we understand it today, though retaining the loose monorhyme characteristic
of the distinctive Arabic style called saj (‘rhymed prose’). This change of style reflects both a growing confidence in
the use of language, and the development of the Prophet’s own role: as the leader of the nascent Islamic community,
he was now turning his attention to matters of social organisation and legal prescriptions, and we now find, in
addition to the theological and revelatory material of the earlier suras, passages containing regulations for marriage
and inheritance, ordinances on fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage and the like. Muhammad the Prophet, to borrow
Montgomery Watt’s phrase, has by this time been replaced by Muhammad the Statesman. Like that of much
subsequent Arabic literature, the language of the Qur’an is best heard rather than read to be fully appreciated. The
imagery employed is at times startling, and the language capable of reaching great heights, which are seldom
effectively conveyed in translation. Indeed, ‘translating’ the Qur’an is to many Muslim commentators an almost
blasphemous concept, and later Islamic doctrine stressed its ‘inimitability’ (i’jaz) – a concept originating in the

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Qur’anic verses challenging the Prophet’s opponents to produce anything like it. For this reason, direct imitation of
the Qur’an by subsequent writers has been only rarely attempted, and almost always with unfortunate results.
Despite this effective ban on imitation, the ideas, language and rhythms of the Qur’an have been all-pervasive,
reverberating through most subsequent Arabic literature until the present day. As the first Arabic book (al-Kitab),
both in a chronological sense and in terms of its status, memorization of the Qur’an was until recently the lynchpin
of an Islamic education, and quotations and allusions to the text can be found in almost every type of literature. Nor
is its importance confined to the literary sphere, for it was through the Qur’an that Arabic established itself as a
world language, serving as a common vehicle of thought for all Muslim scholars; the institutionalization of Islam in
the centuries following the death of the Prophet helped to reinforce the linguistic norms enshrined in the Qur’an,
which quickly became the standard for elevated, ‘literary’ Arabic.

At the time of the Prophet’s death, the Qur’an did not yet exist as a book. Parts had undoubtedly been
written down during Muhammad’s lifetime, but, by common account, it was not until Zayd ibn Thabit, the Prophet’s
scribe, was commissioned to gather together the text ‘from smooth stones, leather bits, camels’ shoulder-blades,
palm leaves and the breasts of men’, that any attempt was made to construct a complete version. Later, in about
650/1, the third caliph, ‘Uthman, set up a committee (including Zayd ibn Thabit himself) to compare all extant
readings and establish a definitive text; and though some divergent readings continued to be preserved, the text of
the Qur’an as we know it today had effectively been established by around AD 660.

In the meantime, the second main source of religious authority in Islam – the body of narratives about the
Prophet and his Companions known as hadith literature – had begun to take shape. For Muslims, God’s will was
not only revealed directly through God’s words to Muhammad but was also mediated through the words and actions
of the Prophet, and this body of ‘Traditions’, as they are often called in English, soon came to be regarded as a
second source of revelation that served as a supplement to the Qur’an. The process of assembling these individual
narratives into a reliable corpus of material was, however, considerably more complex than in the case of the Qur’an
itself, for the individual ‘traditions’, or hadith, varied greatly in their provenance and reliability, and, being orally
transmitted for at least the first three generations, were frequently used by rival political and theological factions to
justify their own actions or point of view. The need critically to sift the hadith material led to the formulation of
scholarly criteria to establish the authenticity of each, in which the main weight was given to the reliability of the
narrators involved, and the ‘chains’ of transmitters14 that precede the narrative section of each hadith form one of
the most characteristic features of this body of literature. At first, the works that emerged from this process of sifting
usually arranged individual hadith by the name of their early transmitters, but later, classification by subject matter
became more popular, and as time went on they acquired an increasingly important status as sources of Islamic
law; the best known and widely used collections in the Sunni tradition are those by Muslim (817?–875) and al-
Bukhari (810–70) – which in turn have given rise to numerous commentaries.

The scholarly discipline involved in the compilation of the early hadith collections formed the basis for the
emergence of the tradition of Arabic historiography, which reached perhaps its highest peak from the second
century of the Abbasid period. The first serious historical work in Arabic was arguably the biography of the Prophet
compiled by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) and subsequently revised by Ibn Hisham (d. 834); and much early historical writing
was also intimately connected with religious questions. The earliest histories were essentially chronicles, one of
whose main purposes was to enable the accurate dating of individuals involved in the transmission of hadiths.
Similar concerns underlay the development of one of the most distinctive of medieval Arabic literary genres, the
biographical dictionary,16 the origins of which remain somewhat obscure but which probably go back to the pre-
Islamic tradition of ‘Battle Days’ (ayyam al-arab) – accounts of intertribal conflicts that constitute an at least partly
factual history of pre-Islamic Arabia. The chronicle tradition found perhaps its finest expression in the Ta’rikh al-
rusul wa-al-muluk (‘History of the Prophets and Kings’) by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 839–923), which
remains an indispensable source of historical data for the early Islamic period. Later writers extended the scope of
these early works through attempts at historical analysis, and expanding geographical and cultural perspectives, in
works which in some cases are as noteworthy for their literary qualities as for their historical acumen: the
outstanding example of this tendency is perhaps al-Mas’udi’s (c.896–956) Muruj al-dhahab (‘Fields of Gold’), a
universal history that reveals not only a deep and wide-ranging erudition but also an extraordinary curiosity about
the affairs of civilizations beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world. However, it was not until the fourteenth

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century, with the work of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), that Arab historiography can really be said to have moved
beyond the compilation of data to an attempt to formulate a philosophy of history itself; unfortunately, though Ibn
Khaldun’s Muqaddima is almost certainly the best known work of Arab historical writing in the West, it remained
almost unread in the Arab world until the nineteenth century– an indication, perhaps, both of how far ahead of its
time it was, and of the decline in intellectual activity during the period between the fifteenth century and the beginning
of the literary revival (nahda).

In addition to, and closely connected with, hadith literature, a number of other genres of religious literature
began to emerge in the centuries following the revelation of the Qur’an. Of these, the most directly related to the
source text itself was the science of Qur’anic exegesis (Arabic: tafsir), a body of writing that embraced all aspects
of commentary on the Qur’an, including the so-called ayat asbab al-nuzul (the events associated with the revelation
of particular verses), grammatical problems, the historical connections of the text, and comments on points of
theological or juridical significance. The writing of such commentaries came to maturity with the same al-Tabari
already discussed as a historian, whose massive Tafsir in thirty volumes contains all the information, verse by verse,
that he could glean from earlier commentaries. It in turn formed the basis for several subsequent commentaries by
later writers. It should be noted that the use of earlier writers’ work as a basis for more elaborate compositions forms
one of the most characteristic patterns of medieval Islamic intellectual activity (extending far beyond the realm of
religious literature) and that echoes of these patterns can still occasionally be found in modern writing.

In parallel with the science of tafsir, though less immediately connected with the Qur’anic text, a more
general literature of ‘scholastic theology’ (Arabic: kalam) began to emerge, which aimed at the more philosophical
formulation of religious dogma. Motivated, in part at least, by the need to reconcile Islamic orthodoxy with the Greek
philosophical tradition, this literature found its leading exponent in the person of al-Ashari (d. 935), whose Kitab al-
ibana an usul aldiyana (‘Book of Explanation of the Roots of the Creed’) had a lasting influence on subsequent
generations of theologians. The growth of this type of literature was aided by the establishment of religious
academies in several cities, named ‘Nizamiyyas’ after their founder Nizam al-Mulk. Not all religious literature was
to follow such conventional philosophical or theological lines, however, for, like Christianity, Islam soon developed
a ‘mystical’ tradition whose origins lay in ascetic practices developed by early believers meeting to recite the Qur’an
until its ‘inner meaning’ should be revealed. The pioneer of Islamic mystical literature is usually regarded as al
Hasan of Basra (d. 728). By a century or so later, the name ‘Sufi ’18 had begun to be applied to devotees of such
practices, and the movement had begun to show foreign influences such as Gnosticism which alarmed more
orthodox Islamic theologians. This pantheistic tendency in the movement and the literature associated with it came
to a head in ad 922 with the trial of al-Hallaj, charged with heresy for having identified himself with God and cruelly
executed; his famous utterance ana al-˙aqq (‘I am the truth’) succinctly encapsulates the spirit of these more
extreme Sufi attitudes.

Islamic mysticism spawned a huge volume of writing, in both prose and poetry, which includes some of the
best known names of classical Arabic literature, whose works have continued to be read and appreciated to this
day. It also had a conspicuous influence on Persian and (to a lesser extent) other non-Arabic Islamic literatures.
Particularly notable are the works of Ibn al-Farid (1181–1235), often thought of as the greatest mystical poet in
Arabic, and his near-contemporary, Ibn al-‘Arabi (1165–1240), a prolific writer in both prose and verse, whose al-
Futuhat al-Makkiyya (‘Meccan Revelations’) provide a source text for the contemporary Egyptian writer Jamal al-
Ghitani’s Tajalliyat al-Ghitani (1983–6). Some half a century later, al-Burda (d. 1294/5) composed his famous poem
Qasidat al-Burda (‘Mantle Poem’), which has been used ever since on amulets and by devout Muslims to express
devotion at gatherings. The writer who best succeeded in reconciling Sufism with the more orthodox formulations
of Islam, however, was undoubtedly al-Ghazali (1059–1111), who is often reckoned the single greatest figure in
Islamic religious thought, and whose story has a decidedly ‘modern’ flavour to it. Having received a fairly
conventional religious education and embarked on a career as a teacher, he suffered what in modern terminology
would probably be described as a nervous breakdown; withdrawing from the world, he set out to regain his lost
faith, but could find no satisfaction until he rediscovered Islam through Sufism. His spiritual quest was described in
his work al-Munqidh min al-ÎalÅl, a work that perhaps comes closer than any other in the classical tradition to the
modern concept of an ‘autobiography’, and which exemplifies the best traditions of mature classical Arabic prose –
subtle but appealing at the same time. His full views on religion were set out in his magnum opus, Ihya’ ulum al-din,

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a massive work conspicuous for its emphasis on religion as a spiritual experience founded on love of God, rather
than purely a system of ideas.

‘Literary’ Prose in Classical Arabic Literature

The boundaries between ‘religious’ and ‘non religious’ in classical Arabic literature are at times difficult to
distinguish, and are not identical to those of the Western tradition. Despite the strong influence of Islam on the
development of the various genres noted above, however, the development of classical Arabic prose literature did
not have an exclusively religious motivation, and from an early stage was subject to influences from outside the
Islamic world that both enriched it and led to the establishment of new literary forms. In this process (as was also
the case both with Islamic philosophy noted above, and with the modern cultural revival), translation into Arabic
played a significant part.

The first examples of ‘literary prose’, as we would normally understand the term today, are usually held to
be three epistles composed by ‘Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya, secretary to the last Umayyad caliph Marwan II (r. 744–
50). These, however, appear to have been a comparatively isolated phenomenon. The first work to have had a
substantial influence on succeeding developments was almost certainly Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s Kalila wa-Dimna, a
translation from Persian of a series of maxims and anecdotes put into the mouths of animals that is regarded by
most commentators as a model of elegant style and is still widely read to this day; the source of these stories may
ultimately be traced back to the work known in Sanskrit as the Panchatantra, or ‘Fables of Bidpai’. Ibn al-Muqaffa’s
work had many imitators, whose productions are unfortunately now lost, and he is generally regarded as the founder
of what is sometimes called the ‘secretarial school’ of Arabic literature – an essentially didactic genre, also referred
to as ‘Mirrors for Princes’, that purports to give advice on conduct to rulers and administrators. This genre, which
draws on the Persian imperial tradition of government (Ibn al-Muqaffa himself was a Persian), was subsequently
adopted and developed by a number of major medieval Arabic writers, not least the theologian al-Ghazali already
mentioned, whose Nasihat al-Muluk (originally written in Persian) combines the traditional concerns of the
‘secretarial school’ with a strongly Islamic orientation.

Many works of the ‘Mirrors for Princes’ type combine their function as vehicles for advice with a
complementary aim of entertaining the reader, and this tendency to change tone in order to hold the reader’s
attention may indeed be regarded as one of the main characteristics of medieval imaginative prose literature (adab)
generally. There is general agreement that this type of literature found its most eloquent expression in the works of
al-Jahiz (c. 776/7– 868/9), whose enormous output included not only works of adab (‘artistic prose’) proper, but also
theological tracts, works on rhetoric, philological works, and a number of books that today might be described as
‘social criticism’: among his best known works are the seven-volume Kitab al-hayawan (‘Book of Animals’), a
description of the animal kingdom that aims to demonstrate the unity of creation; the Kitab al-bukhala’ (‘Book of
Misers’), a witty compilation of anecdotes illustrating the decline in the traditional Arab virtues of hospitality and
generosity; and the Risalat al-qiyan (‘Epistle on Singing-Girls’), a document containing much valuable material on
the relations between the sexes, not only in ‘Abbasid but also in earlier periods.

Little purpose would be served by attempting to trace in detail the way in which al-Jahiz’s style and approach
to adab were developed by subsequent medieval writers such as Ibn Qutayba (828–89), al-Masudi (c. 896–956) or
al-Thaalibi (961–1038). A few general characteristics of this literature may, however, be stressed. The most obvious
is perhaps that, in addition to the frequent changes of tone previously noted, this style of writing is both nonspecialist
and all-embracing: rather than binding itself by the rules and traditions of particular genres (hadith, kalam, tarikh
etc.), it takes from any discipline whatever is necessary for the general education and amusement of the reader.
Few works exhibit much sense of artistic ‘unity’, as it is generally understood in the West, and digressions of various
kinds are frequent. In addition, many works of adab rely heavily on previous writings to illustrate their themes, and
quotations from a variety of sources –whether in poetry or prose – are frequently interspersed in the main narrative.
As noted earlier, the use of previous writers’ works as a basis for developing one’s own composition was a frequent
characteristic of religious literature, and this tendency can be found in works of adab also.

The traditional styles of adab literature continued to be cultivated over the succeeding centuries – not least
by court officials, whose duties included the drafting of correspondence and other official documents, and for whom

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some degree of literary skill was a sine qua non of their appointment. In the meantime, a new genre had come to
maturity that both represents one of the most distinctive of medieval Arabic literary forms, and has also been
regarded by some as the nearest approach in this tradition to the ‘short story’; employed by certain authors even
into the twentieth century, it therefore forms an important link between medieval and modern Arabic literature. This
form, known as the maqama (‘standing’), is usually thought to have been originated by Badi‘ alZaman al-Hamadhani
(969–1008),29 and makes use of the rhymed prose (saj) format previously noted as a feature of the pre-Islamic
soothsayers. Typically, the maqama consists of a short vignette related by a narrator (rawi), who encounters a
vagabond wandering from place to place, using his eloquence to secure his livelihood or escape from a tricky
situation; in al-Hamadhani’s maqamat, the narrator goes by the name of Isa ibn Hisham, while the ‘hero’ is usually
called Abu al-Fath al-Iskandarani. At the end of the maqama the ‘hero’ is exposed, often through a surprise twist of
events, and the whole sketch is usually interspersed with verses designed to show off the writer’s poetic talents.

This new genre reached its highest achievement in the works of al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122), who
preserved the basic format of al-Hamadhani’s creation, while changing the hero’s name to Abu Zayd al-Saruji and
that of the narrator to Harith ibn Hammam. Although they are unashamed imitations of al-Hamadhani’s work, they
are almost universally held to be superior, and have frequently been held up as a model of literary and linguistic
genius. The secret of their attraction is probably that, despite the obscurity of much of their language, and the
endless verbal tricks that make the form inaccessible to many Western readers, their author never lost sight of the
fact that their principal purpose was to entertain.

Unfortunately, the linguistic virtuosity that, used in the right way, could add sparkle and polish to a
composition of this sort, appears almost to have contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Al-Hariri
himself, despite the brilliance of his maqamat, was also responsible for producing a number of works in which verbal
jugglery clearly has the upper hand over wit and imagination: among these may be mentioned al-Risala al-siniyya
and al-Risala al-shiniyya (works in which the letter s or sh respectively occurred in every word), poems using only
undotted letters, and so on. With the passage of time, such features appear to have become the principal hallmark
of the maqama form; the achievements of al-Hariri and al-Hamadhani were never equalled in subsequent centuries,
and the proliferation of linguistic ‘trick-compositions’ of this sort has been held to be a measure of the decline of
Arabic adab literature to a state from which it only began to recover in the nineteenth century.

Poetry in the Classical Arabic Literature

As has already been suggested, poetry in the medieval Arabic tradition held a place that may perhaps be
regarded as second only to the Qur’anic revelation itself. As an oral art form, the origins of Arabic poetry are
essentially unfathomable; what can hardly be doubted, however, is that the Arabic poetry that first emerged into the
light of history in the century or so preceding the Prophet Muhammad’s revelation was the outcome of several
centuries of development. In its emergence, apparently from nothing, as a fully-developed art-form, the
phenomenon of pre Islamic poetry presents a parallel to the emergence of Greek literature in Homer and the
Homeric hymns; in most other respects, however, both structurally and thematically, there is almost nothing to link
the two traditions.

Pre-Islamic poetry may be subdivided into two main types: the qit’a (a short poem, usually on a single
theme) and the longer, structurally more complex qasida (sometimes translated into English as ‘ode’). The themes
of the qita include elegy (marthiya, ritha’), praise (madih˙), boasting (fakhr) and invective (hija’); all these themes
are also found in the longer qasida, though the preciserelationship between the two genres remains a matter of
some controversy.

Although the qasida shares with the qita the characteristics of monorhyme, and the use of a fixed set of
metres based on syllable length, their overall structure is considerably more complex. Most qasidas range between
about 30 and 100 lines, of up to thirty syllables each, divided more or less equally over two hemistichs. Within this
structure, the range and arrangement of themes varies considerably. The Arab writer Ibn Qutayba (828–89),
however, quickly identified a pattern that seemed to him to encapsulate the essence of the pre-Islamic qasida.

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 Most of the best known pre-Islamic qasida are analyzable, at least in outline, into three main sections, of
which the first, the nasib, is undoubtedly the most characteristic: the predominant mood of this section is almost
invariably nostalgia, as the poet recalls an encounter with his beloved at a now deserted encampment (a situation
deriving from practice in pre-Islamic Bedouin society, where neighbouring tribes would camp together during the
fertile spring season). In the second section, the poet breaks free from his attachment to the past through a ‘release’
(takhallus) to a journey episode (rahil), usually involving a camel-ride, and often accompanied by vividly drawn
vignettes of desert animals such as the antelope, ostrich or wild ass. The final section of the poem is the most
varied, and may include one or more of the themes already noted as subjects of the qita: satirical verses against a
rival tribe; boasts of his own, or his own tribe’s, prowess; or a panegyric addressed to the poet’s patron. The greater
freedom allowed to the poet in this final section probably argues for the combination of nasib and camel theme
having existed as a convention before the development of the fully fledged qasida as usually understood.

As will probably be apparent from the above, the average modern Western reader is unlikely to find the
pre-Islamic Arabic poem an ‘easy read’, even in translation, and there are a number of serious obstacles to an easy
appreciation of the genre. The linguistic problems posed for the translator by a hundred-line monorhymed poem
replete with archaic vocabulary will be obvious enough; but for many readers the alien desert environment and the
unfamiliar social structure of pre-Islamic Bedouin tribal society are at times equal, if not greater, barriers to
comprehension. Although in the best of the poetry artistic qualities that transcend cultural constraints are apparent
in abundance, the role of the poet as the spokesman of his tribe is quite foreign to the modern West – and indeed,
even within the Middle East, it had before long become an anachronism, as the centre of gravity of Islamic society
moved from the desert environment of its conception to the courts of Damascus, Baghdad and elsewhere.

Despite these problems of appreciation, pre-Islamic poetry has continued to be admired and upheld as
perhaps the supreme example of the Arabic poet’s art until modern times, and echoes of its main themes may be
found even in some modern compositions. Although attempts were made in the early twentieth century by the
Egyptian critic Taha Husayn and others to cast doubts on the authenticity of this poetry, arguing that it was in fact
the product of a later age, this view – always a controversial one – no longer commands serious credence, and it
is now generally accepted that the majority at least of the corpus of poetry ascribed to the Arab poets of the sixth
century is authentic. Passed down from generation to generation by a chain of rawis (‘reciters’), the best of these
poems had by the tenth century AD been assembled into an anthology known as the Mu’allaqat, a term the meaning
of which remains elusive – the traditional explanation that the poems had been ‘suspended’ (mu’allaqa) in the Ka‘ba
in pre-Islamic times being almost certainly false. Though the precise contents of the anthology varied somewhat
from collection to collection, most compilers centred on a core of seven varied poems (the so-called ‘Seven Odes’),
including works by ‘Antara, Labid and Imru’ al-Qays, whose Mu’allaqa, with its famous opening line ‘Stay, let us
weep …’ has some claim to be considered the bestk-nown Arabic poem of all time.

Although the Prophet Muhammad had a so-called ‘court poet’, Hassan ibn Thabit, his attitude to poets and
poetry remained ambiguous, when not openly hostile. Indeed, the association of poetry with the pagan values
rejected by the Prophet meant that poetry continued to be viewed by suspicion by many influential members of the
early Muslim community for some time. Perhaps for this reason, the great waves of Arab expansion out of the
Arabian Peninsula that followed the death of the Prophet (the perfect subject, one might have thought, for a war
poet like ‘Antara) went almost entirely unrecorded in poetic form.

By the time that Arabic poetry resurfaced in the Peninsula itself, changes both in structure and in theme
had become apparent, and the full-length qasida had begun to give ground to the shorter ghazal (‘love lyric’),
characterized by a more straightforward and less contrived style. The first exponent of this new trend was probably
the Meccan ‘Umar ibn Abi Rabi’a (d. c. 720), whose diwan contains some 440 poems and fragments, characterised
by passion, tenderness and a generally light-hearted tone. Not a few of these poems were composed during the
pilgrimage season, which the poet welcomed as an occasion for the pursuit of amorous adventures, and the style
of this poetry was favoured in the Umayyad capital, Damascus, where it may well have blended with a native
tradition of wine song.

By contrast, the poetry of the other sacred city of the Peninsula, Medina, was notable for its depiction of
hopeless love. Originally the creation of the poet Jamil ibn Ma ‘mar of the Banu Udhra tribe, this style quickly became

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known as Udhri poetry, spawning a series of poets whose fate was to remain devoted and faithful, but separated
from their loved ones until death. Some of these pairs of lovers – Jamil and Buthayna, Qays and Lubna, Majnun
and Layla – in time acquired a legendary quality, forming the subject of romantic stories in which the original
historical figures were effectively forgotten. The story of Majnun and Layla in particular had many imitators, and the
tearful introspection of this style of poetry spread beyond the boundaries of the Arabic-speaking world, to be copied
by Persian, Turkish and, later, even Urdu poets over a period of several hundred years. It also subsequently
influenced the Sufi tradition of mystical poetry, and arguably played a part in the development of the European
concept of ‘courtly love’ – though the precise relationship between these two traditions is by no means clear.

For all the fascination of the Umayyad period, however, it was not until the ‘Abbasids brought a shift in the
centre of gravity of the Islamic empire from Damascus to Baghdad in AD 750 that the way was cleared for the
second great flowering of classical Arabic poetry. This shift reflected a change in balance between Arab and non-
Arab Muslims, opening the door for the spread of Persian and other influences from the East. Like much prose
literature, the poetry of the early ‘Abbasid period is characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, the
traditional values of Arabian desert culture that had produced the pre-Islamic qasida, and, on the other, the more
sophisticated urban lifestyle of Baghdad, influenced by the Iranian tradition. Conservative tendencies were
reinforced by the philologists’ view that the imitation of pre-Islamic styles of poetry was the only worthy poetic
objective, and we continue to find poets starting their poems with reflections on deserted camp sites. Other poets,
however, presented a more faithful reflection of contemporary society, both in their subject matter and in their
attitudes, which were often surprisingly unorthodox; for all that, Arabic poetry remained both metrically and
linguistically conservative during the ‘Abbasid period – as indeed, it did until the nineteenth century AD.

The new attitudes of the early ‘Abbasid years are well exemplified by two of the best known poets of this
period, Bashshar ibn Burd (d. 794) and Abu Nuwas (c. 756–810/1), both of whom were of part-Persian extraction,
and both of whom were notable for their irreverent attitude towards the norms of conventional morality. The poetry
of Bashshar ibn Burd, the first of a line of blind poets and writers culminating in the twentieth-century Egyptian man
of letters Taha Husayn is of particular interest for the contrast that he draws between the ancient civilisation of
Persia and the uncouth habits of the Bedouin Arabs; many critics also considered him both as the first of the
‘modern’ (muhdath) poets and as an early exponent of a style of poetry known as badi, characterised by the heavy
use of rhetorical devices and figures of speech. Of the two, however, it is Abu Nuwas who has acquired the greater
reputation for his irreverent and iconoclastic attitude, not only towards Islam, but also towards the conventions of
the traditional qasida, explicitly ridiculing the custom of starting a poem with a reference to a deserted encampment.
Of all the classical Arab poets, Abu Nuwas has perhaps the most modern ‘feel’ to him for a Western reader; for all
the slightly exaggerated reputation that he has acquired, there can be little doubt that pleasure was the main
business of his life and he is known, inter alia, as the most important exponent of the Arabic khamriyya (wine song).

Space forbids any detailed account of the development of Arabic poetry through the ‘Abbasid period. A few
general points are, however, worth making for their relevance to subsequent developments. The first is that,
although – as in any age – many poets were renowned for their profligate and unconventional lives, the formal
structure of Arabic poetry remained surprisingly resistant to change, and almost all productions continued to adhere
to the pattern of metres codified by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad in the eight century AD. The main exception to this
generalisation is the strophic poems known as muwashshat, which originated in Islamic Spain in the late ninth
century ad, and whose linguistic and metrical features have generated both scholarly interest and heated debate,
not only because they seem in some respects to bridge the gap between ‘high’ and popular culture, but also for the
role they may have played in the development of vernacular poetry in Europe. The second general point to note is
the increasing importance of patronage in the development of poetry during this period. For this, there were
precedents: as previously noted, the Prophet had employed a ‘court poet’ (Hassan ibn Thabit), and Abu Nuwas had
later enjoyed the patronage of Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Amin in Baghdad. Already from the tenth century
AD, however, a political trend towards the decentralisation of power was leading to the establishment of effectively
independent dynasties in the more remote provinces of the Islamic Empire, several of which are important for the
support they offered to literature and other cultural activities.

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 The rewards, as well as the perils, offered by employment at the courts of these new patrons are well
illustrated by the career of al-Mutanabbi (d. 965), who spent some nine years (948–57) at the court of Sayf al-Dawla,
a member of the short-lived Hamdanid dynasty in north-east Syria. For a time, he was richly rewarded by his patron;
but his immodest and overbearing nature made him many enemies, and in 957 he fled to Egypt, where he enjoyed
the patronage of the Ikhshidid ruler Kafur for some five years, before again fleeing, this time to Iraq and Persia. A
few years later, he was killed when his caravan was set upon by brigands near Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi’s poetry,
though admired by many later Arab writers, was not without its detractors, who criticised it even during his lifetime
for plagiarism and errors of language, as well as for the poet’s supposedly heretical beliefs. Based on the principle
that poems should be constructed as organic unities, at its best it successfully combines the heroic ideals of the
pre-Islamic tradition with the technical ingenuity developed by later poets; yet ironically, it has often been
appreciated most by Arab critics as a source of short quotations. Many Western critics have also failed to be
impressed by his poetry, perhaps because of his over-fondness for figures of speech such as antithesis and jinas
(the use of words having the same root letters but different meanings). Nicholson went so far as to comment that
‘lovers of poetry, as the term is understood in Europe, cannot derive much aesthetic pleasure from his writings, but,
on the contrary, will be disgusted by the beauties hardly less than the faults which Arabian critics attribute to him’,
and though this judgement is obviously an extreme one, it is by no means unique.

Be that as it may, al-Mutanabbi’s reputation quickly spread to other parts of the Islamic world, from al-
Andalus to Iran, and the style of his poetry was imitated by a number of important later poets, not least the blind
Abu al-‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri (973–1058), whose distinctive combination of a humanistic, pessimistic, rationalist spirit with
an extraordinary knowledge of the Arabic language and its literature made him one of the most important figures in
Arabic literary history. More importantly perhaps, from the point of view of the development of modern literature, his
work quickly became established as one of the yardsticks of the literary canon to which the pioneers of the neo-
classical movement turned for inspiration – the poetry of al-Barudi, among others, offering many examples of
intertextual references to al-Mutanabbi’s work.

The ‘Transitional’ Period

Traditional accounts of the development of Arabic literature have tended to categorize the early ‘Abbasid
period as a sort of ‘Golden Age’, to be followed by a long descent – slow or rapid, depending on the perspective of
the writer – into mediocrity or worse. In this process, the main demons have usually been the Mongols, whose
sacking of Baghdad in AD 1258 put an end to the independent caliphate; and the Ottoman Turks, whose occupation
of Egypt and Syria at the beginning of the sixteenth century ad ushered in a long period of foreign dominance in
which Arabic had to compete with Turkish as a means of expression throughout much of the central Islamic world.
The language in which some commentators have described these processes has in some cases bordered on the
melodramatic: Gibb, for example, speaks of ‘a profound intellectual lethargy’ that seemed to settle on the Arab lands
after the Ottoman conquests; while Nicholson, having noted that the Mongols ‘did their work of destruction so
thoroughly that no seeds were left from which a flourishing civilisation could arise’, goes on to observe that ‘[North]
Africa was dominated by the Berbers, a rude, unlettered race, Egypt and Syria by the blighting military despotism
of the Turks’.

It would be absurd to pretend that these disparaging comments about the state of Arabic literature and
learning in the period following the Mongol invasion are entirely without foundation. A contemporary observer, the
traveller and geographer Ibn Battuta, visiting Basra in 1327, observed that ‘when the preacher [at Friday prayers]
rose to deliver his sermon, he committed many serious errors. I was astonished at this and spoke of it to the qadi,
who answered “In this town there is not one left who knows anything about grammar”’. On another level, the
statement repeated almost ad nauseam both by Western and by Arab commentators in one form or another to the
effect that the literature of this period is ‘characterized by the virtual absence of originality and loss of vigour’ can
be backed up by a host of examples. Like many phenomena in the development of Arabic literature, this ‘loss of
vigour’ can probably be attributed to the interplay between general cultural factors (in this case, foreign domination)
and other developments having a more specific literary orientation– in poetry, the appeal of the badi style itself,
whose reliance on verbal artifice contained the seeds of its own destruction, while in prose, the maqama, with its
intricate saj, while retaining its appeal for writers with a philological bent, in the longer term similarly lost its creative

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potential. At the same time, it is clear that to such broad generalisations about the ‘loss of creativity’ there are at
least a fair number of conspicuous exceptions, including, for example, the historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), the
traveller Ibn Battuta himself, already mentioned, and the poet ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (d. 1731). Two general points
may, however, be made. The first is that there appears to have been a shift in the focus of many of the most creative
writers of the period away from ‘literature’ in the modern sense and towards related fields of history, geography and
the religious sciences. The second is that this period has hitherto suffered from a serious lack of research, both in
the West and in the Middle East itself – with the result that, in the absence of systematic analysis, commentators
have been forced back on broad generalisations unlikely to stand the test of time. Fortunately, this gap is gradually
being filled, not least by the imminent publication in the ‘Cambridge History of Arabic Literature’ series of a volume
exclusively devoted to the years between the classical and the modern periods, which promises to illuminate several
areas that have so far remained comparatively unresearched.

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 Lesson 4

POPULAR ARABIC FOLK LITERATURE

As mentioned earlier in the module, two great legendary works were produced in the Golden Age of
Arabic Literature, namely: the Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Thousand and One Nights) and the Romance of Antar.

The Popular Heritage and the Literary ‘Canon’

Little has been said so far about ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ literature in the Arabic tradition. Until recently, the work
of Arabic literature best known to Western readers was almost certainly the collection of stories entitled in Arabic
the Alf Layla wa-Layla, or in English the Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights – a work with no fixed text,
and no single author, but rather a fluctuating collection of tales originating over a period of centuries in a succession
of cultural environments, most obviously including India, Persia, Baghdad and Cairo. The text incorporates a
number of story cycles that appear to have had an independent origin; some of the best known tales reflect the
environment of ‘Abbasid Baghdad, most obviously the court of Harun al-Rashid, but the collection continued to grow
until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, and no single ‘authentic’ text exists. In these respects, the
collection exhibits the typical features of ‘oral’ literature, passed down through a succession of storytellers and
reciters – as also seen, for example, in other traditions such as that of the ancient Greek epics discussed by A. Lord
in his study entitled The Singer of Tales, 1960.

Moreover, although the Alf Layla wa-Layla is by far the best known of such ‘popular’ works in the West, the
Arab tradition in fact contains a considerable corpus of ‘popular’ works in both prose and verse, some but not all of
which might be described as ‘folk literature’: they include romances such as the Romance of ‘Antar, originally based
on the pre-Islamic poet ‘Antara ibn Shaddad (6th century ad), and the Romance of the Banu Hilal, which describes
the wanderings and migrations of the Bedouin tribe of that name; popular religious stories; fables of various sorts,
and humorous literature, including, most famously, collections of stories based on the pseudo-historical character
Juha. However, this section of the will focus only on the Arabian Nights and the Romance of Antar.

The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights

The most famous collections of Arabic popular narrative, the Thousand and One Nights, contains tales of
adventure, of war, of trickery, and of love; it also includes a number of animal fables like those of Luqman.
Furthermore, some of the tales are set in particular historical periods; notable in this category are those devoted to
incidents involving the caliph Harun al-Rashid, his famous minister, Ja’far al-Barmaki, and his boon-companion, the
poet Abu Nuwas. However, whereas it is possible with the other sirah collections to assign a general title containing
the name of a hero or heroine to the often divergent collection of incidents and stories, the unique set of
circumstances surrounding the compilation (and expansion) of the famous Thousand and One Nights collection
have furnished it with features that set it somewhat apart from the others. Shahrazad, the daughter of the king’s
minister, is a prominent participant in the frame-story of the collection, but thereafter she becomes a story-teller par
excellence, using her frame-narrative – with its continuing threat of a violent conclusion if her narrative strategy
should fail – as a context (and pretext) for the telling of other narrators’ stories. The entire collection thus becomes
a narrative about story-telling, its general goal being to offer, in the phrase repeated throughout the collection, ‘a
lesson for those who would learn’.

The frame-story of the collection performs a number of functions. It introduces the situation within which
the primary characters will fulfil their roles. The way in which the brother kings, Shahzaman and Shahrayar, dispense
justice in response to their wives’ infidelity is echoed in numerous tales involving rulers and their treatment of people;
the caliph Harun al-Rashid numbers prominently among such types. The behaviour of the wives themselves is
taken as yet another illustration of the ‘wiles of women’ theme. But, beyond the thematic bases that are established,
there is the narrative structure itself. Once the perfidy of their wives has been revealed, the two kings go on a
journey, during which they encounter a brazen woman who has been locked up in a box by an evil genie and
demands that the two kings make love to her. After the two kings have obliged, she demands their rings and adds
them to the 572 others that she already possesses. The kings return home chastened; they too have learned a

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lesson of a sort, and the result is the killing of their wives, the need for Shahrazad’s stratagem, and the start of the
story-telling process. Shahrazad weaves her narrative thread for a thousand and one nights – at least, after the
eighteenth century. At the conclusion of the final tale, that of ‘Maruf the Cobbler’, Shahrazad asks the King whether
he has abandoned his idea of killing her and brings in their sons to bolster her request. The King agrees, and the
collection appears to end on a happy note.

The original collection of tales – as translated by Galland – gives every indication of being arranged in a
way that will develop these themes. ‘The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad’, for instance, is a wonderfully
elaborate narrative structure, in which story-telling is a way of avoiding threatened violence and listening without
question is a requirement for avoiding chastisement. ‘The Story of the Murdered Girl’ (also known as ‘the Three
Apples’) is a thoroughly convincing crime narrative, again involving Harun al Rashid, whose demeanour towards
his minister, Ja’far, shows striking parallels to that of King Shahrayar within the frame-story. A box is found in the
River Tigris, containing the dissected body of a beautiful woman, and Ja’far is set the seemingly hopeless task of
finding the murderer. An inner narrative reveals a tale of deceit and violence, involving one of the couple’s children
and Ja’far’s black slave. The proven guilt of the slave is expiated when Ja’far, the guilty slave’s master, volunteers
to tell an even more unbelievable tale in exchange for the slave’s pardon. Story-telling here not only prevents killing,
but obtains pardon for it.

To this core collection of tales, containing, as we have just indicated, examples of great variety, were added
others of different types. The lengthy and complex ‘Tale of ‘Umar al-Nu’man’ is, to all intents and purposes, a
miniature sirah, involving a number of sub-tales of battles and loves, all in the context of contacts between Christian
and Muslim rulers and the eventual triumph of Islam. The collection also contains a large number of love stories.
One of the most notable is ‘Ghanim ibn Ayyab with Harun al Rashid and Qut al-Qulub’. As the title implies, this is a
multi-episodic tale in which the caliph, Harun al Rashid, moves beyond his function as facilitator or observer to
become a full participant. A merchant named Ghanim witnesses a procession of eunuchs carrying a coffin, which
to his horror contains a beautiful maiden, drugged but still alive. She is none other than Qut al-Qulub (Nourishment
for the heart), the favourite concubine of Harun al Rashid; the caliph’s wife, Zubaydah, has become jealous of her
rival and has taken advantage of her husband’s temporary absence to get rid of her. The scene now switches to
the caliph’s palace, which is in mourning for the ‘death’ of Qut al-Qulub. Inevitably, Harun learns that Qut al-Qulub
is not dead, and Ghanim and his family are placed in mortal danger. However, when Qut al-Qulub explains to the
caliph that Ghanim has been entirely honourable, he gives Qut al-Qulub to Ghanim, and, in one of those neat
resolutions for which the Harun of the collection is renowned, he is married to Ghanim’s sister, Fitnah.

The collection contains a number of travel-tales. ‘The City of Brass’ is a prolonged reflection on the
ephemerality of life in this world. Beginning as the story of a quest (at the behest of the Umawi caliph, Abd al-Malik)
for the bottles in which Solomon had imprisoned the demons, it becomes a symbolic journey that reaches the ‘City
of Brass’, a place with no visible entrance, a model of human delusion where nothing is the way it seems to be. A
far different kind of audience was surely anticipated for the most famous travel tale of all, ‘Sindbad the Sailor’, a
separate set of narratives that was added to the core collection. The structural patterns of Sindbad’s seven separate
voyages makes it clear that this discrete set of tales possesses a unity of its own, besides being a participant in the
Thousand and One Nights collection. Sindbad’s tales of adventure and commerce on the high seas are marked by
a large degree of symmetry and, at the joins between the voyages, of formulaic repetition. Each tale begins with a
voyage from al Basrah in Iraq; some kind of disaster occurs; Sindbad finds himself washed up on some strange
shore where humans, semihumans, or animals do peculiar things. He has to resort to a variety of stratagems to
avoid enslavement, capture, and even death, some of which involve acts of considerable violence: in the fourth tale,
for example, he kills a succession of spouses who, like him, have been buried along with their deceased partner.
The end of escape – and the continuation of the sequence of tales – apparently justifies the means. Thereafter, he
finds himself in several of the tales living among the folk of the land, until a ship appears, whereupon he begins the
return voyage, recording all the wondrous phenomena he sees on the way.

Of the tales in this huge collection, it is the most fantastic – of magic rings and lamps, of ‘genies’ and the
instantaneous, yet varying changes they bring about – that have become the most popular in the West. ‘Aladdin’ is
the most famous of these, of course, although, as we noted above, it is not part of the core collection but was added

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to the French translation by Galland. Another such tale is that of ‘Maruf the Cobbler’, the final tale in the collection.
In another lengthy and richly structured narrative, Maruf, a poor and hen-pecked man of Cairo, is transported to a
remote land where he meets a childhood friend named Ali. They decide to try ‘the caravan-on-the-way trick’: that
they have arrived ahead of a caravan loaded with the most precious items imaginable. The commercial sector of
the city is duly impressed, and a line of considerable credit is opened. Maruf falls into the part with gusto and liberally
distributes money to the poor. The merchants become suspicious and take their concerns to the King and his
Minister. The former, however, sees an opportunity for profit also; he puts the treasury at Maruf ’s disposal and
marries him to the Princess, his daughter. The Minister meanwhile, who was himself an aspirant for the Princess’s
hand, is deeply envious and suspicious. The Princess is told by her father to find out the truth about her husband,
and he tells her his true situation. However, she has fallen in love with her husband and sends him away for his
own safety. At this crucial point, Maruf stumbles on a magic ring, creates his fabulous caravan, and returns to the
city in triumph. Maruf’s fortunes seem to be secure, but the two inimical forces in the tale are not finished. The
Minister steals the ring, but the Princess retrieves it; he is thereafter executed. Maruf’s improved circumstances are
spoiled, however, when his beloved wife, the Princess, dies. In a return to the beginning of the tale, Maruf’s shrewish
first wife reappears. When she too tries to steal the ring, she is cut down by Maruf’s son by the Princess. As the
tale and the collection conclude, the many strands in this multi-textured narrative have been pulled together; all the
forces inimical to the just King Maruf have been eliminated and his line of succession is secure.

The Thousand and One Nights has been a popular resort for modern writers in all genres; motifs, images,
and complete stories from the collection have been adopted in a continuing process that illustrates the central place
of this and the other collections in the collective consciousness of the Arab world.

Source: An Introduction to Arabic Literature by Roger Allen (2000)

The Romance of Antar

Background

The popularity enjoyed by the One Thousand and One Nights in Europe was shared, at least during the
Romantic period, by one Arabian epic: The Romance of Antar. Starting with the adventures of a pre-Islamic poet,
the story develops into the epic of an African slave (his status is primarily that of his mother, although he is the son
of an Arab prince).

To the Europeans, Antar exemplified the Romantic hero by his love of freedom and his chivalric qualities.
Lamartine viewed Antar as "the typical wandering Arab, a herdsman, a warrior and a poet at the same time", and
he compared him to Homer for epic-singing, to Job for his lamentation, to Theocritus for his love and to Solomon
for his philosophy (in Voyage en Orient). Antar's epic was introduced to European readers in 1802 by the Viennese
orientalist von Hammer-Pugstall and parts of it were soon translated into various European languages, including
Danish and Norwegian. Comparative studies of Antar and European legendary cycles were made by scholars
(Norris 1980:1—7). Several fields of artistic creation were inspired by the subject; Rimsky-Korsakov, for example,
wrote a Symphonic Suite called Antar in Oriental vein in 1868.

Yet while Antar has held a real fascination for European men of letters, it has not (with a few exceptions)
been regarded as worthy of interest by the Arab literate elite. The main reason for such discredit lies in the profound
dichotomy, in Arabic-speaking countries, between classical Arabic — which is venerated as the language of the
Koran, i. e. the word of God, and also as the language of accepted literature — and the vernacular tongues which
are spoken in everyday life and do not merit consideration. Therefore Antar and similar vernacular epics were
nothing in the eyes of theology and grammar. This was the position of — let us say — the official literary
establishment (Connelly 1986). It required courage and prestige to express a different view: the well-known 14th
century historian Ibn Khaldoun did denounce what he considered prejudice in his contemporaries' minds and their
incapacity for appreciating vernacular poetry.

Apart from the fact that vernacular epics were told in a supposedly "bastard" language, they were also
despised and condemned for their subject matter, as well as for its treatment. They were regarded as
"vulgar", "frivolous", "silly", and — to put it shortly — as "a web of lies" and as such "dangerous". At the time of Ibn

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Khaldoun measures were taken in Egypt to dissuade copyists from taking any interest in this folk production: they
were warned that they "must refrain from transcribing narratives, such as Antar, which make you waste your time
and for which religion has no need whatsoever" (Wiet 1966: 103).

Source: Religion Myth and Folklore in the Worlds Epics by Lauri Honko

Plot Summary

The Romance of Antar, an epic about the hero Antar, is made up of more than forty tales. Since new stories
were added over the centuries, it is difficult to know the original count. The tales of Antar originated in the Bedouin
tradition but quickly passed into the wider Islamic tradition. Although Antar is relatively unknown in the West, he
and his stories soon became as important in the Islamic world as the stories of King Arthur became in Western
Europe.

The authorship of these tales is uncertain. They may have been the work of ninth-century scholar Al Asmai,
or they may come from the anonymous folk tradition, but there is no genuine proof of either. Antar may have been
an actual man, a hero-poet of perhaps the fifth century, around whom fantastic tales were gathered.

Antar is the son of the Arab chieftain Shadad and an Ethiopian black slave named Zabidah. He is therefore
a product of the union of a free man and a slave. As a black child, he is ostracized and is raised a slave among his
father’s tents. He is described as unbelievably ugly, which is in conformity of a culture hero who muts rise up from
humble beginnings. Like a true paladin, he is a defender of helpless women. At the age of ten, Antar killed a wolf
that was threatening the tribe’s herds. By the age of fifteen, he fought the tribe’s enemies with such courage that
his father freed him and acknowledged him as a true hero and protector of his people. Still, although he earns his
freedom and single-handedly repeatedly saves his tribe from disaster by his prowess, he is often despised and ill-
used by his own.

The main thrust of his story concerns his quest to win the beautiful Ibla (or Ablah) for his wife. When he
falls in love with his beautiful cousin Ablah and her father refuses to contemplate a union, the stage is set for a
whole series of impossible tasks that Antar has to carry out in order to earn the right to marry his lady-love. For love
of his cousin Abla whose hand he is repeatedly promised then denied, he undergoes ordeals and braves many
dangers. His quest takes him all over the Mediterranean region, through fantasy and reality, through all the Arab
lands, and into the Christian realms as well. He takes part in numberless single combats and contests with jinn and
with wild animals, but above all he conducts a huge number of campaigns that – although set in pre-Islamic times
– pit him not only against Arab tribes but also against the enemies that Muslims encountered only later, including
Persians, Indians, Byzantines, Andalusians, and even Franks. Thus, he met many important figures, including the
king of Rome, with whose sister he had a son. Antar also met with the Byzantine emperor and the Frankish nobility.

In all this, Antar’s bravery, chivalry, and generosity to friend and foe alike are matched by the qualities of
his beloved, Ablah, who is often subjected to the indignities of capture, confinement, and the lewd advances of
rogues. He does marry Ablah eventually, but they are temporarily estranged when she tests his devotion by
demanding that he kiss her foot; this is more than his pride can bear, so he leaves in high dudgeon and marries
another. Antar’s end comes at the hands of a foe he had blinded earlier but who has learned to direct his arrows at
sounds, although Antar retains enough strength to kill his assailant before he dies himself (Cachia, 2002).

Source: Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore by Josepha Sherman

The romance of Antar, though tedious, is interesting, as it gives full details of the life of the Arabs before
Muhammad's time, and even after, for the Arab life of to-day is apparently much the same as it was three thousand
years ago (Arbuthnot, 1890).

While the 'Arabian Nights' are supposed to treat more of the inhabitants of the towns, the romance of Antar
deals more with the inhabitants of the desert. To the student of Arabic literature both works are interesting, as they
occupy a prominent and standard place in Arabian literature, and afford much information about the manners and
customs, ideas and peculiarities of an ancient and interesting race of people. It must be admitted that both Antar

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and the 'Arabian Nights' are so long that they rather try the patience of readers not particularly interested in them
(Arbuthnot, 1890).

Activity

Directions: As an application of the New Historical approach to analyzing literature, write a short essay explaining
what the passage below means.

“Nowhere else, perhaps, is the symbiosis between religion and literature so clear-cut as in the culture of the
Arabs. For Westerners accustomed to reading the Bible in a variety of translations, this has proven hard to
appreciate, even though the influence of the Jewish and Christian scriptures upon the literatures of Europe is
challenged only by Classical models. Hellenic, as well as Persian and Indian influences are also discerned in
Arabic works, but these cannot be compared to the Qur’an’s role as both exemplar and inspiration.”

Explanation:

Introduction

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Discussion

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Conclusion

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