The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

by Robert Irwin

  He met up with them in every battle

  Till lances made them seem like meat on a butcher’s block.

  Vainly they hoped to flee, in envy almost of their slain

  Whom eagles and vultures carried off in bits.

  They lost count of the nights that passed

  Except for the nights of the sacred months.

  Religion alighted upon their courtyard like a guest

  Bringing chiefs hungry for their enemies’ flesh,

  Leading armies vast as the sea, mounted on swift steeds,

  Foaming with surging waves of heroes,

  Each answerable to God and trusting in His reward,

  And wielding swords that uproot and shatter unbelief,

  Until the faith of Islam, exiled from among them at first,

  Became part of their lineage and kin,

  And was provided through them with the best father and husband,

  And would never be orphaned or widowed.

  They are the mountains. Ask their foes

  What they saw of them on the battlefield;

  Ask Hunain, ask Uhud, ask Badr,

  Seasons of death more calamitous than the plague.

  They brought their white swords back red

  From the drinking fount of their enemies’ black locks.

  With the brown lances of Khatt they wrote, their pens

  Leaving no parts of the body without dots.

  Armed to the teeth, they have a special mark

  Like the mark that distinguishes roses from thorns:

  In their fragrance blows the wind of victory;

  You would think their every warrior was a rose in its bud.

  Seated on their steeds they appear as though planted on hills

  Due to their tough resolution, not to their tight saddle-straps.

  Their enemies’ hearts fled from their power in fear

  Unable to distinguish herds from hordes.

  When they meet those helped by the Prophet of God,

  The lions of the thicket are stunned.

  Never will you see an ally of his not aided

  By him, nor an enemy of his not crushed.

  His people he placed in the fortress of his creed,

  Just as lions raise their cubs in dense bush.

  How often has God’s word felled his opponents,

  How often has His proof confounded his contestants.

  Suffice it as a miracle to see in the Jahiliyya age

  An orphan of such education and knowledge.

  I served him with my eulogy to be redeemed thereby

  From the sins of a life of poetry and servitude

  Which wound around my neck collars of fearful portent

  As though I was a lamb destined for ritual death.

  In both pursuits I obeyed the folly of youthful passion

  And reaped nothing but sins and bitter remorse.

  What a loss my soul incurred in this trade!

  In exchange for this world it did not buy faith nor even tried to bargain.

  Those who sell their assets for short-term gain

  Shall see loss in their sales and transactions.

  Yet, despite my sins, my covenant with the Prophet is unharmed,

  Nor is the rope that links me to him severed.

  I have his protection, for I am named

  Muhammad, and he is mankind’s most faithful protector.

  If he does not gently take me by the hand

  On Judgement Day, my foot is sure to slip.

  Far be it from him that a supplicant should be deprived of his gifts

  Or that a neighbour seeking his help should remain unprotected.

  Since I have devoted my thoughts to his praise

  I have found him the best guarantor of salvation.

  No dust-stained hand will ever miss out on his richness;

  Rain makes flowers sprout on desert hills.

  But I do not seek the flowers of this world

  Which Zuhair picked through praising Harim.

  O most generous of mankind, I have none to turn to

  Save you when the final catastrophe comes.

  Your glory, O Prophet, shall not diminish through me

  When the Generous one assumes the name of Avenger,

  For this world and its counterpart spring but from your bounty

  And the Tablet and Pen are but part of your knowledge.

  O soul, do not despair over the gravity of your faults;

  Great sins when forgiveness comes are like small ones.

  When God divides His mercy, its shares

  Perchance may equal the size of our transgression.

  O Lord, let my hope in You not be thwarted,

  And do not annul my account with You,

  And be kind to Your servant in both worlds,

  For when terror beckons, his fortitude shall wane,

  And let a cloud of Your incessant blessings

  Pour showers of abundant rain upon the Prophet,

  For as long as the zephyr moves the branches of the willow

  And camel drivers delight their grey animals with songs.

  Stefan Sperl and Christopher Shackle (eds.), Qasida Poetry in

  Islamic Asia and Africa, vol. 2 (Leiden, 1996), pp. 389–411

  COMMENTARY

  The Burda starts with a lament over the deserted campsites (Dhu Salam and Kazima) and ends with a panegyric – just like the traditional pre-Islamic qasida. In the mid-part of the poem, Busiri compares his wasted youth to the glorious career of the Prophet.

  ‘Udhri love is chaste or unfulfilled love, as celebrated by elegiac poets of the Umayyad period. The name derives from the south Arabian tribe of Banu Udhra, two of whose members allegedly died of love.

  Katam is a plant used for dyeing the hair black, but there is a play upon words here, for katama means ‘conceal’.

  Kisra is a generic name for a Persian emperor.

  In pre-Islamic times, Abraha was the Christian Abyssinian viceroy over the Yemen. In 570 (the Year of the Elephant) he attempted to march against Mecca, intent on desecrating the Ka’ba. His army was accompanied by elephants. However, the elephants refused to enter Mecca and then, as the Abyssinian army began its retreat, it was pelted by pebbles dropped by birds. Most of the army perished under the hail of stones, but Abraha died of a plague which slowly rotted his body, so that his limbs dropped off. The story is referred to in the Qur’an, sura 105, ‘The Elephant’.

  In pre-Islamic times Iram was the magnificent palace of many columns built by King Shaddad to rival Paradise, but a great shout from heaven destroyed the king and his retinue before they could enter the palace. The whereabouts of the lost palace gave rise to many stories. A version of the legend of the impious King Shaddad is found in later compilations of The Thousand and One Nights.

  ‘Ad was a pre-Islamic tribe who failed to heed the warnings of God’s prophet, Hud. They were destroyed by a roaring wind.

  Laza fire is hellfire.

  Zuhair is Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma, a pre-Islamic poet who wrote a celebrated Mu’allaqa which included a panegyric of a tribal mediator, Harim ibn Sinan.

  In the late Middle Ages, Sufi groups were playing a more prominent social and cultural role than they had done hitherto. In a passage extracted below, the twelfth-century writer and adventurer Usamah ibn Munqidh (1095–1188) describes the impact a Sufi gathering had upon him when he was first introduced to one of their meetings.

  Usamah is one of the most interesting and appealing of medieval Arab authors. He was born into the ruling dynasty of the tiny principality of Shayzar in northern Syria. However, having fallen out with his uncle who was the Emir of Shayzar, Usamah spent most of his life in exile. (He was therefore one of very few members of his clan not to be killed when an earthquake struck the castle at Shayzar in 1157.) He had a chequered and not entirely honourable career in politics and warfare in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. He had many encounters, on and off the battlefield, with the Franks of the Crusader pri
ncipalities, whom he seems to have regarded as a kind of horrible marvel created by Allah. He thought that they were good for fighting, but not for much else. Many, though not all, of his anecdotes about the Franks are to be found in his Kitab al-Vtibar (‘The Book of Example’). This has sometimes been described as Usamah’s autobiography, but this is not quite accurate, for autobiography was not a recognized genre in the medieval Arab world. Rather in the Vtibar Usamah aimed to instruct his descendants through teaching by examples. (He did not have a general readership in mind.) Ibra is an example, or something from which one takes warning. Thus, for example, pious folk who studied the Qur’an drew example from the fate of once proud dynasties who had displeased God and had since perished. Usamah drew upon the personal experiences of a long and eventful life in order to provide examples which might encourage his descendants to be brave, wary and, above all, mindful of God; the principal theme of his book is that though man proposes, it is God who disposes. Despite its edifying aim, the I’tibar is a good read – full of humour, vivid detail, idiosyncratic thoughts and exciting incidents.

  The Franks are void of all zeal and jealousy. One of them may be walking along with his wife. He meets another man who takes the wife by the hand and steps aside to converse with her while the husband is standing on one side waiting for his wife to conclude the conversation. If she lingers too long for him, he leaves her alone with the conversant and goes away.

  Here is an illustration which I myself witnessed:

  When I used to visit Nablus, I always took lodging with a man named Mu’izz, whose home was a lodging house for the Moslems. The house had widows which opened to the road, and there stood opposite to it on the other side of the road a house belonging to a Frank who sold wine for the merchants. He would take some wine in a bottle and go around announcing it by shouting, ‘So and so, the merchant, has just opened a cask full of this wine. He who wants to buy some of it will find it in such and such a place.’ The Frank’s pay for the announcement would be the wine in that bottle. One day this Frank went home and found a man with his wife in the same bed. He asked him, ‘What could have made thee enter into my wife’s room?’ The man replied, ‘I was tired, so I went into rest.’ ‘But how,’ asked he, ‘didst thou get into my bed?’ The other replied, ‘I found a bed that was spread, so I slept in it.’ ‘But,’ said he, ‘my wife was sleeping together with thee!’ The other replied, ‘Well, the bed is hers. How could I therefore have prevented her from using her own bed?’ ‘By the truth of my religion,’ said the husband, ‘if thou shouldst do it again, thou and I would have a quarrel.’ Such was for the Frank the entire expression of his disapproval and the limit of his jealousy.

  However, Usamah was not always so cheerful…

  Let no one therefore assume for a moment that the hour of death is advanced by exposing one’s self to danger, or retarded by over-cautiousness. In the fact that I have myself survived is an object lesson, for how many terrors have I braved, and how many horrors and dangers have I risked! How many horsemen have I faced, and how many lions have I killed! How many sword cuts and lance thrusts have I received! How many wounds with darts and arbalest stones have been inflicted on me! All this while I was with regard to death in an impregnable fortress, until I have now attained the completion of my ninetieth year. And now I view health and experience in the same light as the Prophet (may Allah’s blessing and peace rest upon him!) when he said, ‘Health sufficeth as a malady.’ In fact, my survival from all those horrors has resulted for me in something even more arduous than fighting and killing. To me, death at the head of an army would have been easier than the troubles of later life. For my life has been so prolonged that the revolving days have taken from me all the objects of pleasure. The turbidity of misery has marred the clearness of happy living. I am in the position described in my own words as follows:

  When, at eighty, time plays havoc with my power of endurance,

  I am chagrined at the feebleness of my foot and the trembling of my hand.

  While I write, my writing looks crooked,

  Like the writing of one whose hands have shivers and tremors.

  What a surprise it is that my hand be too feeble to carry a pen,

  After it had been strong enough to break a lance in a lion’s breast.

  And when I walk, cane in hand, I feel heaviness

  In my foot as though I were trudging through mud on a plain.

  Say, therefore, to him who seeks prolonged existence:

  Behold the consequences of long life and agedness.

  My energy has subsided and weakened, the joy of living has come to an end. Long life has reversed me: all light starts from darkness and reverts to darkness. I have become as I said:

  Destiny seems to have forgotten me, so that now I am like

  An exhausted camel left by the caravan in the desert.

  My eighty years have left no energy in me.

  When I want to rise up, I feel as though I had a broken leg.

  I recite my prayer sitting; for kneeling,

  If I attempt it, is difficult.

  This condition has forewarned me that

  The time of my departure on the long journey has drawn nigh.

  Enfeebled by years, I have been rendered incapable of performing service for the sultans. So I no more frequent their doors and no longer depend upon them for my livelihood. I have resigned from their service and have returned to them such favours as they had rendered; for I realize that the feebleness of old age cannot stand the exacting duties of service, and the merchandise of the very old man cannot be sold to an amir. I have now confined myself to my house, therefore, taking obscurity for my motto.

  Hitti, Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian Gentleman, pp. 164–5, 194–5

  Usamah played a leading part in the politics and warfare of the age, but, as the lament in rhymed prose given above indicates, he was to outlive his strength.

  The I’tibar is rightly Usamah’s most famous book and has been translated into many European languages. However, Usamah did not write the book for a general audience and in his own lifetime he was chiefly famous as a poet. The two short poems which follow are somewhat cryptic:

  My companion resembles myself in this night of sad separation in emaciation, waking, paleness of colour, and tears. –

  I stand over against his face which, wherever I see it, keeps shedding light for any who turns towards him in search of knowledge. As if he is covering my body with his eyelids’ illness. In whichever place he appears to me, I see eye to eye beauty in its perfection.

  Many a lonely one weeps (silently dying), when the night darkens around her, but in her entrails is a nagging fire.

  She melts from grief, either for one’s turning away and departure, or because of such separation that those divided will never unite again.

  Yet I did not see glowing embers melting, her tears excepted; nor saw I ever before the body of one who weeps so that it totally consisted of tears.

  Pieter Smoor (trans.), in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen

  Gesellschaft, vol. 138 (1988), pp. 300–301

  These are riddles cast as poems: in both cases the unnamed object evoked is a candle. Yet the first version is more than a mere riddle, for it is also a metaphorical evocation of Usamah’s own lachrymose state.

  Usamah was also a noted anthologist. His compilation Kitab al-Manazil wa al-Diyar, ‘The Book of Campsites and Abodes’, is an anthology of poetry devoted to the traditional Bedouin themes of abandoned campsites, lost homelands, lost loves and nostalgia. These were popular subjects in classical Arabic literature, but they also particularly reflected the substance of Usamah’s life of wandering, exile and loss; some of the best poems in the anthology are by Usamah himself. In Usamah’s introduction to this book, he reflected on the earthquake of 1157 which destroyed the ancestral castle of Shayzar and wiped out almost the entire clan of the Banu Munqidh, who had gathered there to celebrate a circumcision.

  I was moved to compose this
volume by the destruction which has overcome my country and my birthplace. For time has spread the hem of its robe over it and is striving with all its might and power to annihilate it… All the villages have been levelled to the ground; all the inhabitants perished; the dwelling has become but a trace, and joys have been transformed into sorrows and misfortunes. I stopped there after the earthquake which destroyed it… and I did not find my house, nor the house of my father and brothers, nor the houses of my uncles and my uncles’ sons, nor of my clan. Sorely troubled I called upon Allah in this great trial which he had sent me and because he had taken away the favours which he had formerly bestowed upon me. Then I departed… trembling as I went and staggering as though weighed down by a heavy load. So great was the loss that swiftly flowing tears dried up, and sighs followed each other and straightened the curvature of the ribs. The malice of time did not stop at the destruction of the houses and the annihilation of the inhabitants, but they all perished in the twinkling of an eye and even quicker, and then calamity followed upon calamity from that time onwards. And I sought consolation in composing this book and made it into a lament for the home and the beloved ones. This will be of no avail and will bring no comfort, but it is the utmost I can do. And to Allah – the glorious and great – I complain of my solitude, bereft of my family and brothers, I complain of my wanderings in alien lands, bereft of country and birthplace…

  I. Y. Kratchkovsky, Among Arabic Manuscripts

  (Leiden, 1953), pp. 83–4

  As a keen rhabdophilist, Usamah produced another beguiling anthology, the Kitab al-‘Asa (‘The Book of the Stick’), in which he collected anecdotes and poems about sticks-walking-sticks, crutches, wands, cudgels, herdsmen’s crooks – all manner of sticks. Moses and Solomon had famous magical sticks, but Usamah also included more mundane stories about sticks drawn from his own experience and that of his friends. The following scene was witnessed by Usamah during one of his frequent visits to the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem:

  I paid a visit to the tomb of John the son of Zechariah – God’s blessing on both of them! – in the village of Sebastea in the province of Nablus. After saying my prayers, I came out into the square that was bounded on one side by the Holy Precinct. I found a half-closed gate, opened it and entered a church. Inside were about ten old men, their bare heads as white as combed cotton. They were facing the east, and wore [embroidered?] on their breasts staves ending in crossbars turned up like the rear of a saddle. They took their oath on this sign, and gave hospitality to those who needed it. The sight of their piety touched my heart, but at the same time it displeased and saddened me, for I had never seen such zeal and devotion among the Muslims. For some time I brooded on this experience, until one day, as Mu’in ad-Din and I were passing the Peacock House, he said to me: ‘I want to dismount here and visit the Old Men.’ Certainly,’ I replied, and we dismounted and went into a long building set at an angle to the road. For the moment I thought that there was no one there. Then I saw about a hundred prayer-mats, and on each a sufi, his face expressing peaceful serenity, and his body humble devotion. This was a reassuring sight, and I gave thanks to Almighty God that there were among the Muslims men of even more zealous devotion than those Christian priests. Before this I had never seen sufis in their monastery, and was ignorant of the way they lived.