The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

by Robert Irwin

  Mu’tamid’s gatherings, his audiences, conferences and conversations have been recorded. They treated of literature and manners. There is, for example, a eulogy of the courtier, with an enumeration of his qualities, and a polemic against those addicted to nabidh, as well as passages of verse and prose dealing with these subjects. There are quotations on the manners of the courtier and descriptions of him – his moderation in taking pleasure and his lack of frivolity. The polite formulae for invitations are there as well, with examples of invitation and acceptance; the names of all the numerous different kinds of drinks, details of the various types of concerts; on the principles of singing and its origins among the Arabs and other peoples; the life stories of the most famous singers, ancient and modern; instructions on how to behave at gatherings; the place destined to master and subordinate, the rules of precedence to be observed and the arrangements to be made for seating guests. Lastly, the phrases used for greetings, as the poet al-Atawi says:

  Greet those guests who hasten to greet you

  And who know how to call out for a drink

  When you forget to pour. Drunk with pleasure

  At breakfast, by evening they are comatose,

  But not without life. In between, a carousel

  Of delights which even the feasts

  Of the Caliphs cannot equal.

  All this is to be found, with much fuller details, in my Historical Annals. There also you may read a whole mass of hitherto unpublished information on the kinds of wines, on different sorts of nuts and dried fruits and the ways of arranging them on trays and in bowls, either in pyramids or in symmetrical rows, with all kinds of explanations on this subject. There is also a glimpse of the culinary art, some knowledge of which is essential to the subordinate and, indeed, which no cultivated person should be without, and some indications of the new fashions in dishes and of the skilful combination of spices and aromatics in seasonings.

  The different subjects of conversation are also mentioned; the way of washing one’s hands in the presence of the host and of taking one’s leave; the manner in which the cup should be circulated, with several anecdotes from ancient authorities of kings and other important people on this subject; different points of view and some little stories on the intemperance or sobriety of the drinker; how to ask and obtain favours from important people during parties; a sketch of the courtier, his obligations and his master’s obligations towards him; what distinguishes the subordinate from the master and the courtier from the host; the origins people have given to the word nadim, courtier.

  Then, I deal with the rules of chess and explain in what way it differs from backgammon and on this subject I quote a number of stories and a whole series of historical proofs; I give the Arab traditions for the names of wine, the prohibition of which this drink has been the subject; the various opinions on the forbidding of different kinds of nabidh; the description of the cups and utensils used for banquets; by whom the use of wine was adopted in the era before Islam and by whom it was forbidden; finally, drunkenness and what people have said about it, whether it comes from God or man. In short, everything which deals with this subject or is related to this question. The résumé given here is meant to call the reader’s attention to the subjects expounded in my earlier works.

  Lunde and Stone, The Meadows of Gold, pp. 315–6

  COMMENTARY

  Nabidh means ‘(alcoholic) spirits’. It could be made from dates, grapes, raisins or honey. Casuists argued that nabidh was not wine and therefore not proscribed by Islam, but most religious folk shunned it.

  Regarding the poem itself, the translators point out that as ‘so often in Mas‘udi the poem is very bad, but seems to be in direct contrast with what has already been said’.

  Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya AL-SULI (d. 946) was a friend of Mas‘udi’s. His chief work, the Kitab al-Awraq fi Akhbar Al al-‘Abbas wa-Ash‘arihim, or ‘Book of Pages on the History of the ‘Abbasids and their Poetry’, is an agreeably gossipy sort of chronicle of the doings of the court and al-Suli has been described by Cahen as ‘a Middle-Eastern Saint-Simon’. Like Saint-Simon, he was a brilliant stylist and an obsessive about such matters as court protocol. In the latter half of the book Suli gives examples of poetry composed by members of the ‘Abbasid dynasty. Suli was of Turkish descent, but he wrote in Arabic and lived in Baghdad. His skill as a chess-player made him a favoured nadim of the Caliphs al-Muktafi and al-Muqtadir. He also acted as tutor to young ‘Abbasid princes, particularly in the subjects of history and poetry. In the last year of his life he got into trouble as a result of his involvement in politics and he died in hiding. Apart from his literary chronicle, Suli also wrote literary critiques of leading poets, including Abu Tammam, Abu Nuwas and Buhturi. An anecdote from al-Suli’s Awraq, concerning the young prince al-Radi and the eunuchs, has already been cited in the previous chapter.

  The third historian to deserve consideration as a producer of works of literary merit in Arabic was also a Persian. (This was an age when, under the Buyids, Persian was effectively an official language of government and when chronicle-writing was closely tied to court patronage and interests.) Abu ‘Ali Ahmad ibn Muhammad MISKAWAYH (c. 936–1030) was born in Persia and fiercely proud of his ancestry. Nevertheless, he made his career in Baghdad as a courtier who attended upon various viziers and also worked as a scribe, librarian, resident philosopher, and as a kind of gossip columnist. Like several other leading literary figures, he wrote a cookery book. Miskawayh’s Uns al-Farid, or ‘Companion of the Lonely’, was a choice collection of anecdotes. His Kitab Tahdhib al-Akhlaq, or ‘Training of Character’, dealt with business-and travelling-friendships and how to choose friends who would be appropriate for one’s enterprise.

  However, Miskawayh was chiefly famous for the Tajarib al-Ummam wa-Ta‘aqib al-Himam, ‘The Experiences of the Nations and the Results of Endeavours’, which was a would-be universal history running up to A.D. 980 (‘would-be’, because although Miskawayh was very well informed about Islamic history and quite well informed about early Christian and Jewish history, he really had very little knowledge of Chinese, Indian or medieval European history.) Miskawayh believed in history as a source of ethical messages and as a guide to life. How should cities be governed? How can happiness be attained? How should one prepare for death? He hated uninterpretative history, and when he came to consult the books of his predecessors he complained that they were ‘full of information which was like entertaining stories and idle talk [khurafat] which had no use except to make one fall asleep’.

  In the Tajarib, Miskawayh showed himself to be uninterested in religious history. This was because he thought ordinary people could not learn from the deeds of the Prophets or from miraculous events.

  He believed that proper history began with the chronicles of the old Persian kings and he went on to interpret the deeds of the Persian kings and later the Arab caliphs in the light of Greek philosophy. It was from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that he had learned that man was a political animal, that society exists to enable humans to achieve human happiness, and that wise conduct usually lay between two extremes. Miskawayh designed his history as a mirror-for-princes, as a guide for the ruling elite. When he wrote about his own times, he wrote as someone close to or even involved in the events concerned and he was lavish in dishing out praise and blame – especially the latter. Margoliouth (who does not seem to have liked many of the Arab writers on whom he based his academic career) observed that his ‘narrative is largely a narrative of ambition, intrigue and treachery, with few redeeming features’. However, Miskawayh was a fine writer and there are many set-piece prose passages, particularly concerning the last hours of prominent figures – among them Hallaj, Ibn al-Furat and Ibn Muqlah.

  At one stage in his career Miskawayh had worked as the Vizier Ibn al-‘Amid’s librarian.

  Account of various excellencies of Abu ’l-Fadl Ibn al-‘Amid and of his career

  The talents and virtues which this man displayed were o
f a sort that made him outshine his contemporaries, that the enemy could not resist or the envious fail to acknowledge. No-one rivalled his combination of qualities. He was like the sun which is hidden from no-one, or the sea ‘about which one may talk without restraint’. He is the only person whom I ever saw ‘whose presence outdid his report’. For example: he was the best clerk of his time, and possessed the greatest number of professional attainments, command of the Arabic language with its rarities, familiarity with grammar and prosody, felicity in etymology and metaphor, retention by memory of pre-Islamic and Islamic collections of poems. I was once told the following by the late Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Qasim: I used, he said, to recite to my father Abu’l-Qasim difficult poems out of the ancient collections, because the Chief Ustadh was in the habit of asking him to recite them when he saw him, and on such occasions the Ustadh would regularly criticize some mistake in the reading or vocalization such as escaped us. This annoyed me and I wanted him to master a poem which the Chief Ustadh would not know or at least be unable to criticize anywhere. I was unable to compass this until I got hold of the Diwan of Kumait, a very copious bard, and selected three of his difficult odes which I fancied the Chief Ustadh had not come across. I helped my father to commit these to memory, and took pains to present myself at the same time. When the eye of the Chief Ustadh lighted on him, he said: Come, Abu’l-Qasim, recite me something that you have learned since my time. – My father commenced his recitation, but as he was proceeding with one of these poems, the Chief Ustadh said to him: Stop, you have omitted a number of verses out of this ode. He then recited them himself; I felt more ashamed than ever before. He then asked my father for some more, and he recited the next ode, and made as before some omissions, which the Ustadh also corrected. My informant concluded: Then I became conscious that the man was an inexhaustible, unfathomable sea. – This is what I was told by this person who was a learned clerk.

  As for what I witnessed myself during the time of my association with him, and I was in attendance on him for seven years day and night, I may say that no poem was ever recited to him but he knew its author’s collection by heart, no ancient or modern poem by anyone deserving to have his verses committed to memory ever came to him as a novelty, and I have heard him recite whole collections of odes by unknown persons such as I was surprised that he should take the trouble to learn. Indeed I once addressed a question to him on the subject. Ustadh, I said, how can you devote your time to acquiring the verse of this person? – He replied: You seem to suppose that it costs me trouble to learn a thing like this by heart. Why, it impresses itself on my memory if I casually hear it once. – He was speaking the truth, for I used to recite to him verses of my own to the number of thirty or forty, and he would repeat them to me afterwards as a sign of approval. Sometimes he would ask me about them and desire me to recite some of them, and I could not repeat three successive lines straight off without his prompting. Several times he told me that in his young days he used to bet his comrades and the scholars with whom he associated that he would commit to memory a thousand lines in one day; and he was far too earnest and dignified a man to exaggerate. I asked him how he managed it. He replied: I made it a condition that if I were required to learn by heart a thousand verses of poetry which I had not previously heard in one day, it must then be written out, and I would then commit to memory twenty or thirty lines at a time, which I would repeat and so have done with them. What, I asked, do you mean by ‘having done with them’? He replied: I would not require to repeat them again after that. He went on: I used to recite them once or twice, and then return the paper, to engage upon another, and so get through the whole on one day.

  As for his composition it is known from the collections of his letters. Every professional letter-writer knows how high a level he attained. The same is the case with his poetry, both sportive and earnest. It is poetry of the highest order, and the most exalted style. In Qur’anic exegesis, retention in the memory of its difficulties and ambiguities, and acquaintance with the different views of the jurists of the capitals he also reached the highest level. When, abandoning these studies, he took to mechanics and mathematics, there was no-one to approach him in them. As for Logic, the various branches of philosophy and especially Metaphysics, no contemporary ventured to profess them in his presence unless he came to acquire information or aimed at learning rather than discussing. I myself saw at his court Abu’l-Hasan ‘Amiri, who had journeyed from Khorasan to Baghdad, and was on his way home deeming himself an accomplished philosopher, having commented on the works of Aristotle wherein he had grown old. When he got insight into the attainments of the Chief Ustadh and became conscious of their vastness, of the brilliancy of his acumen, and of the accuracy wherewith he remembered what was written, he bowed down before him, recommenced his studies under him, and regarded himself as only fit to be his disciple. He read many difficult books with the Chief Ustadh who expounded them to him and enabled him to learn their contents.

  The Chief Ustadh was sparing of words and disinclined to talk except when questions were asked him, and he found someone capable of understanding him. Then he would become vivacious, and things would be heard from him which were not to be had of anyone else, with eloquent expressions, choice phraseology, and subtle sentiments, with no hesitation or difficulty. I saw at his court a number of persons who endeavoured to win his favour by various accomplishments and forms of knowledge, and none of them could refrain from expressing his admiration for the proficiency of the Chief Ustadh in the very line which he had come to exhibit, and declare plainly that he had never seen his equal, and did not believe that his equal had been created.

  He was so courteous, good-natured and simple-minded that when any specialist in any study or science presented himself, he would quietly listen and express approval of all he heard from him after the fashion of one who knew no more of that particular subject than enough to enable him to understand what was being communicated. Only after long association, involving the lapse of months or years, if it chanced that such a person asked a question of the Chief Ustadh, or something was said about the subject in his presence and he was desired to supplement it, did his tide swell, and his genius luxuriate, abashing the person who deemed himself master of the subject or matter. Many a self-conceited individual was put to shame in his presence, but only after he had given them free field and free rein, spared them till they had exhausted their stores, and rewarded them liberally for their performances.

  Such then was his proficiency in recognized studies and sciences; in addition he was sole master of the secrets of certain obscure sciences which no-one professes, such as Mechanics, requiring the most abstruse knowledge of geometry and physics, the science of abnormal motions, the dragging of heavy weights, and of centres of gravity, including the execution of many operations which the ancients found impossible, the fabrication of wonderful engines for the storming of fortresses, stratagems against strongholds and stratagems in campaigns, the adoption of wonderful weapons, such as arrows which could permeate a vast space, and produce remarkable effects, mirrors which burned a very long way off, unheard-of sleight of hand, knowledge of the refinements of the art of modelling and ingenuity in the application of it. I have seen him in the room where he used to receive his intimate friends and associates take up an apple or something of the sort, play with it for a time, and then send it spinning having on it the form of a face scratched with his nail, more delicately than could have been executed by anyone else with the appropriate instruments and in a number of days.

  H. F. Amedroz and D. S. Margoliouth, The Eclipse of the

  ‘Abbasid Caliphate, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1920–21), pp. 293–8

  COMMENTARY

  In the remainder of Miskawayh’s obituary of Ibn al-‘Amid the historian goes on to deal with the latter’s statecraft and military skill, and his shaping influence on the Buyid ruler ‘Adud al-Dawla.

  The flattering phrases in inverted commas are stock ones.

  Ustadh is
another word for master or chief.

  Ibn Zayd al-Asadi al-Kumayt (c. 679–744) was a noted poet. However, little of his Diwan has survived to the present day.

  Abu ‘Ali alHusayn ibn ‘Abd Allah IBN SINA (980–1037), also known in the medieval West as Avicenna, was born in Turkestan and died in Hamadhan. He enjoyed immense fame as one of the Arab world’s greatest philosophers and physicians, and his compendious treatises on these subjects were translated into Latin and much studied in the West, where they had an important role in determining the shape of medieval scholasticism. Ibn Sina carefully studied Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, but he strove to take their thought further and, of course, to reconcile it with the Islamic revelation. Many of his works are now lost, but some 250 treatises and letters have survived. Like the Ikhwan al-Safa’ and many other philosophers, including Ibn Tufayl (see Chapter 6), Ibn Sina made occasional use of fiction or fantasy as a teaching device. So his philosophical work included ‘short stories in which personal and spiritual self-realization is expressed in symbolic form’, as Julian Baldick has noted. In the story of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, ‘Life, Son of Certainty’, he described how Hayy, a man growing up on a desert island, deduced the nature of the universe and the gnostic truth behind mere appearances. Thereafter two angels instruct Hayy in the nature of the universe. There is a fantastical, science-fiction quality to some of what they describe, such as the Spring of Life, the Muddy Sea in the far west, and the land of Perpetual Darkness. And there is the realm of terrestrial matter:

  All kinds of animals and plants appear in that country; but when they settle there, feed on its grass, and drink its water, suddenly they are covered by outsides strange to their Form. A human being will be seen there, for example, covered by the hide of a quadruped, while thick vegetation grows on him. And so it is with other species. And that clime is a place of devastation, a desert of salt, filled with troubles, wars, quarrels, tumults; joy and beauty are but borrowed from a distant place.