From what has been said the reader will perceive that the Three periods of Arabian history.history of the Arabs, so far as our knowledge of it is derived from Arabic sources, may be divided into the following periods:—

I. The Sabæan and Ḥimyarite period, from 800 b.c., the date of the oldest South Arabic inscriptions, to 500 a.d.

II. The Pre-islamic period (500-622 a.d.).

III. The Muḥammadan period, beginning with the Migration (Hijra, or Hegira, as the word is generally written) of the Prophet from Mecca to Medína in 622 a.d. and extending to the present day.

For the first period, which is confined to the history of Yemen or South Arabia, we have no contemporary Arabic sources except the inscriptions. The valuable but imperfect The Sabæans and Ḥimyarites. information which these supply is appreciably increased by the traditions preserved in the Pre-islamic poems, in the Koran, and particularly in the later Muḥammadan literature. It is true that most of this material is legendary and would justly be ignored by any one engaged in historical research, but I shall nevertheless devote a good deal of space to it, since my principal object is to make known the beliefs and opinions of the Arabs themselves.

The second period is called by Muḥammadan writers the Jáhiliyya, i.e., the Age of Ignorance or Barbarism.17 Its characteristics are faithfully and vividly reflected in the songs and odes of the heathen poets which The pagan Arabs. have come down to us. There was no prose literature at that time: it was the poet's privilege to sing the history of his own people, to record their genealogies, to celebrate their feats of arms, and to extol their virtues. Although an immense quantity of Pre-islamic verse has been lost for ever, we still possess a considerable remnant, which, together with the prose narratives compiled by Moslem philologists and antiquaries, enables us to picture the life of those wild days, in its larger aspects, accurately enough.

The last and by far the most important of the three periods comprises the history of the Arabs under Islam. It falls naturally into the following sections, which are The Moslem Arabs. enumerated in this place in order that the reader may see at a glance the broad political outlines of the complex and difficult epoch which lies before him.

A.The Life of Muḥammad.

About the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era a man named Muḥammad, son of ‘Abdulláh, of the tribe Quraysh, appeared in Mecca with a Divine Life of Muḥammad. revelation (Koran). He called on his fellow-townsmen to renounce idolatry and worship the One God. In spite of ridicule and persecution he continued for several years to preach the religion of Islam in Mecca, but, making little progress there, he fled in 622 a.d. to the neighbouring city of Medína. From this date his cause prospered exceedingly. During the next decade the whole of Arabia submitted to his rule and did lip-service at least to the new Faith.

B.The Orthodox Caliphate (632-661 a.d.).

On the death of the Prophet the Moslems were governed in turn by four of the most eminent among his Companions—Abú Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmán, and ‘Alí—who bore The Orthodox Caliphs. the title of Khalífa(Caliph), i.e., Vicegerent, and are commonly described as the Orthodox Caliphs ( al-Khulafá al-Ráshidún). Under their guidance Islam was firmly established in the peninsula and was spread far beyond its borders. Hosts of Bedouins settled as military colonists in the fertile plains of Syria and Persia. Soon, however, the recently founded empire was plunged into civil war. The murder of ‘Uthmán gave the signal for a bloody strife between rival claimants of the Caliphate. ‘Alí, the son-in-law of the Prophet, assumed the title, but his election was contested by the powerful governor of Syria, Mu‘áwiya b. Abí Sufyán.

C.The Umayyad Dynasty (661-750 a.d.).

‘Alí fell by an assassin's dagger, and Mu‘áwiya succeeded to the Caliphate, which remained in his family for ninety years. The Umayyads, with a single exception, were The Umayyad dynasty. Arabs first and Moslems afterwards. Religion sat very lightly on them, but they produced some able and energetic princes, worthy leaders of an imperial race. By 732 a.d. the Moslem conquests had reached the utmost limit which they ever attained. The Caliph in Damascus had his lieutenants beyond the Oxus and the Pyrenees, on the shores of the Caspian and in the valley of the Nile. Meantime the strength of the dynasty was being sapped by political and religious dissensions nearer home. The Shí‘ites, who held that the Caliphate belonged by Divine right to ‘Alí and his descendants, rose in revolt again and again. They were joined by the Persian Moslems, who loathed the Arabs and the oppressive Umayyad government. The ‘Abbásids, a family closely related to the Prophet, put themselves at the head of the agitation. It ended in the complete overthrow of the reigning house, which was almost exterminated.

D.The ‘Abbásid Dynasty (750-1258 a.d.).

Hitherto the Arabs had played a dominant rôle in the Moslem community, and had treated the non-Arab Moslems with exasperating contempt. Now the tables were The ‘Abbásid dynasty.turned. We pass from the period of Arabian nationalism to one of Persian ascendancy and cosmopolitan culture. The flower of the ‘Abbásid troops were Persians from Khurásán; Baghdád, the wonderful ‘Abbásid capital, was built on Persian soil; and Persian nobles filled the highest offices of state at the ‘Abbásid court. The new dynasty, if not religious, was at least favourable to religion, and took care to live in the odour of sanctity. For a time Arabs and Persians forgot their differences and worked together as good Moslems ought. Piety was no longer its own reward. Learning enjoyed munificent patronage. This was the Golden Age of Islam, which culminated in the glorious reign of Hárún al-Rashíd (786-809 a.d.). On his death peace was broken once more, and the mighty empire began slowly to collapse. As province after province cut itself loose from the Caliphate, numerous independent dynasties sprang up, while the Caliphs became helpless puppets in the hands of Turkish mercenaries. Their authority was still formally recognised in most Muḥammadan countries, but since the middle of the ninth century they had little or no real power.

E.From the Mongol invasion to the present day (1258 a.d.—).

The Mongol hordes under Húlágú captured Baghdád in 1258 a.d. and made an end of the Caliphate. Sweeping onward, they were checked by the Egyptian The Post-Mongolian period. Mamelukes and retired into Persia, where, some fifty years afterwards, they embraced Islam. The successors of Húlágú, the Íl-kháns, reigned in Persia until a second wave of barbarians under Tímúr spread devastation and anarchy through Western Asia (1380-1405 a.d.). The unity of Islam, in a political sense, was now destroyed. Out of the chaos three Muḥammadan empires gradually took shape. In 1358 the Ottoman Turks crossed the Hellespont, in 1453 they entered Constantinople, and in 1517 Syria, Egypt, and Arabia were added to their dominions. Persia became an independent kingdom under the Ṣafawids (1502-1736); while in India the empire of the Great Moguls was founded by Bábur, a descendant of Tímúr, and gloriously maintained by his successors, Akbar and Awrangzíb (1525-1707).

Some of the political events which have been summarised above will be treated more fully in the body of this work; others will receive no more than a passing notice. The ideas which reveal themselves in Arabic Arabian literary history. literature are so intimately connected with the history of the people, and so incomprehensible apart from the external circumstances in which they arose, that I have found myself obliged to dwell at considerable length on various matters of historical interest, in order to bring out what is really characteristic and important from our special point of view. The space devoted to the early periods (500-750 a.d.) will not appear excessive if they are seen in their true light as the centre and heart of Arabian history. During the next hundred years Moslem civilisation reaches its zenith, but the Arabs recede more and more into the background. The Mongol invasion virtually obliterated their national life, though in Syria and Egypt they maintained their traditions of culture under Turkish rule, and in Spain we meet them struggling desperately against Christendom. Many centuries earlier, in the palmy days of the ‘Abbásid Empire, the Arabs pur sangcontributed only a comparatively small share to the literature which bears their name. I have not, however, enforced the test of nationality so strictly as to exclude all foreigners or men of mixed origin who wrote in Arabic. It may be said that the work of Persians (who even nowadays Writers who are wholly or partly of foreign extraction. are accustomed to use Arabic when writing on theological and philosophical subjects) cannot illustrate the history of Arabian thought, but only the influence exerted upon Arabian thought by Persian ideas, and that consequently it must stand aside unless admitted for this definite purpose. But what shall we do in the case of those numerous and celebrated authors who are neither wholly Arab nor wholly Persian, but unite the blood of both races? Must we scrutinise their genealogies and try to discover which strain preponderates? That would be a tedious and unprofitable task. The truth is that after the Umayyad period no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between the native and foreign elements in Arabic literature. Each reacted on the other, and often both are combined indissolubly. Although they must be distinguished as far as possible, we should be taking a narrow and pedantic view of literary history if we insisted on regarding them as mutually exclusive.