"Falsehood hath so corrupted all the worldThat wrangling sects each other's gospel chide;But were not hate Man's natural element,Churches and mosques had risen side by side."598
"What is Religion? A maid kept close that no eye may view her;The price of her wedding-gifts and dowry baffles the wooer.Of all the goodly doctrine that I from the pulpit heardMy heart has never accepted so much as a single word !"599
"The pillars of this earth are four,Which lend to human life a base;God shaped two vessels, Time and Space,The world and all its folk to store. That which Time holds, in ignoranceIt holds—why vent on it our spite?Man is no cave-bound eremite,But still an eager spy on Chance. He trembles to be laid asleep,Tho' worn and old and weary grown.We laugh and weep by Fate alone,Time moves us not to laugh or weep; Yet we accuse it innocent,Which, could it speak, might us accuse,Our best and worst, at will to choose,United in a sinful bent.600
"'The stars' conjunction comes, divinely sent,And lo, the veil o'er every creed is rent.No realm is founded that escapes decay,The firmest structure soon dissolves away.'601With sadness deep a thoughtful mind must scanReligion made to serve the pelf of Man.Fear thine own children: sparks at random flungConsume the very tinder whence they sprung.Evil are all men; I distinguish notThat part or this: the race entire I blot.Trust none, however near akin, tho' heA perfect sense of honour show to thee,Thy self is the worst foe to be withstood:Be on thy guard in hours of solitude. * * * * * Desire a venerable shaykh to citeReason for his doctrine, he is gravelled quite.What! shall I ripen ere a leaf is seen?The tree bears only when 'tis clad in green.'602
"How have I provoked your enmity?Christ or Muḥammad, 'tis one to me.No rays of dawn our path illume,We are sunk together in ceaseless gloom.Can blind perceptions lead aright,Or blear eyes ever have clear sight?Well may a body racked with painEnvy mouldering bones in vain;Yet comes a day when the weary swordReposes, to its sheath restored. Ah, who to me a frame will giveAs clod or stone insensitive?—For when spirit is joined to flesh, the pairAnguish of mortal sickness share.O Wind, be still, if wind thy name,O Flame, die out, if thou art flame!"603
Pessimist and sceptic as he was, Abu ’l-‘Alá denies more than he affirms, but although he rejected the dogmas of positive religion, he did not fall into utter unbelief; for he found within himself a moral law to which he could not refuse obedience.
"Take Reason for thy guide and do what sheApproves, the best of counsellors in sooth.Accept no law the Pentateuch lays down:Not there is what thou seekest—the plain truth."604
He insists repeatedly that virtue is its own reward.
"Oh, purge the good thou dost from hope of recompenseOr profit, as if thou wert one that sells his wares."605
His creed is that of a philosopher and ascetic. Slay no living creature, he says; better spare a flea than give alms. Yet he prefers active piety, active humanity, to fasting and prayer. "The gist of his moral teaching is to inculcate as the highest and holiest duty a conscientious fulfilment of one's obligations with equal warmth and affection towards all living beings."606
Abu ’l-‘Alá died in 1057 a.d., at the age of eighty-four. About ten years before this time, the Persian poet and traveller, Náṣir-i Khusraw, passed through Ma‘arra on his way to Egypt. He describes Abu ’l-‘Alá as the chief man in the town, very rich, revered by the inhabitants, and surrounded by more than two hundred students who came from all parts to attend his lectures on literature and poetry.607 We may set this trustworthy notice against the doleful account which Abu ’l-‘Alá gives of himself in his letters and other works. If not among the greatest Muḥammadan poets, he is undoubtedly one of the most original and attractive. After Mutanabbí, even after Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, he must appear strangely modern to the European reader. It is astonishing to reflect that a spirit so unconventional, so free from dogmatic prejudice, so rational in spite of his pessimism and deeply religious notwithstanding his attacks on revealed religion, should have ended his life in a Syrian country-town some years before the battle of Senlac. Although he did not meddle with politics and held aloof from every sect, he could truly say of himself, "I am the son of my time" ( ghadawtu ’bna waqtí).608 His poems leave no aspect of the age untouched, and present a vivid picture of degeneracy and corruption, in which tyrannous rulers, venal judges, hypocritical and unscrupulous theologians, swindling astrologers, roving swarms of dervishes and godless Carmathians occupy a prominent place.609
Although the reader may think that too much space has been already devoted to poetry, I will venture by way of concluding the subject to mention very briefly a few well-known names which cannot be altogether omitted from a work of this kind.
Abú Tammám (Ḥabíb b. Aws) and Buḥturí, both of whom Abú Tammám and Buḥturí. flourished in the ninth century, were distinguished court poets of the same type as Mutanabbí, but their reputation rests more securely on the anthologies which they compiled under the title of Ḥamása(see p. 129 seq.).
Abu ’l-‘Abbás ‘Abdulláh, the son of the Caliph al-Mu‘tazz, was a versatile poet and man of letters, who showed his Ibnu ’l-Mu‘tazz (861-908 a.d.). originality by the works which he produced in two novel styles of composition. It has often been remarked that the Arabs have no great epos like the Iliad or the Persian Sháhnáma, but only prose narratives which, though sometimes epical in tone, are better described as historical romances. Ibnu ’l-Mu‘tazz could not supply the deficiency. He wrote, however, in praise of his cousin, the Caliph Mu‘taḍid, a metrical epic in miniature, commencing with a graphic delineation of the wretched state to which the Empire had been reduced by the rapacity and tyranny of the Turkish mercenaries. He composed also, besides an anthology of Bacchanalian pieces, the first important work on Poetics ( Kitábu ’l-Badí‘). A sad destiny was in store for this accomplished prince. On the death of the Caliph Muktarí he was called to the throne, but a few hours after his accession he was overpowered by the partisans of Muqtadir, who strangled him as soon as they discovered his hiding-place. Picturing the scene, one thinks almost inevitably of Nero's dying words, Qualis artifex pereo!
The mystical poetry of the Arabs is far inferior, as a whole, to that of the Persians. Fervour and passion it has in the ‘Umar Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ (1181-1235 a.d.). highest degree, but it lacks range and substance, not to speak of imaginative and speculative power. ‘Umar Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ, though he is undoubtedly the poet of Arabian mysticism, cannot sustain a comparison with his great Persian contemporary, Jalálu’l-Dín Rúmí (õ 1273 a.d.); he surpasses him only in the intense glow and exquisite beauty of his diction. It will be convenient to reserve a further account of Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ for the next chapter, where we shall discuss the development of Ṣúfiism during this period.
Finally two writers claim attention who owe their reputation to single poems—a by no means rare phenomenon in the history of Arabic literature. One of these universally celebrated odes is the Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajam(the ode rhyming in lof the non-Arabs) composed in the year 1111 a.d. by Ṭughrá’í; the other is the Burda(Mantle Ode) of Búṣírí, which I take the liberty of mentioning in this chapter, although its author died some forty years after the Mongol Invasion.
Ḥasan b. ‘Alí al-Ṭughrá’í was of Persian descent and a native of Iṣfahán.610 Ṭughrá’í (õ circa1120 a.d.). He held the offices of kátib(secretary) and munshíor ṭughrá’í(chancellor) under the great Seljúq Sultans, Maliksháh and Muḥammad, and afterwards became Vizier to the Seljúqid prince Ghiyáthu ’l-Dín Mas‘úd611 in Mosul. He derived the title by which he is generally known from the royal signature ( ṭughrá) which it was his duty to indite on all State papers over the initial Bismilláh. The Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajamis so called with reference to Shanfará's renowned poem, the Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Arab(see p. 79 seq.), which rhymes in the same letter; otherwise the two odes have only this in common,612 that whereas Shanfará depicts the hardships of an outlaw's life in the desert, Ṭughrá’í, writing in Baghdád, laments the evil times on which he has fallen, and complains that younger rivals, base and servile men, are preferred to him, while he is left friendless and neglected in his old age.