The poets of this period are almost unknown in Europe, and until they have been studied with due attention it would be Arabic poetry after the Mongol Invasion. premature to assert that none of them rises above mediocrity. At the same time my own impression (based, I confess, on a very desultory and imperfect acquaintance with their work) is that the best among them are merely elegant and accomplished artists, playing brilliantly with words and phrases, but doing little else. No doubt extreme artificiality may coexist with poetical genius of a high order, provided that it has behind it Mutanabbí's power, Ma‘arrí's earnestness, or Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ's enthusiasm. In the absence of these qualities we must be content to admire the technical skill with which the old tunes are varied and revived. Let us take, for example, Ṣafiyyu ’l-Dín al-Ḥillí, who was born at Ḥilla, a large town on the Ṣafiyyu ’l-Dín al-Ḥillí. Euphrates, in 1278 a.d., became laureate of the Urtuqid dynasty at Máridín, and died in Baghdád about 1350. He is described as "the poet of his age absolutely," and to judge from the extracts in Kutubí's Fawátu ’l-Wafayát829 he combined subtlety of fancy with remarkable ease and sweetness of versification. Many of his pieces, however, are jeux d'esprit, like his ode to the Prophet, in which he employs 151 rhetorical figures, or like another poem where all the nouns are diminutives.830 The following specimen of his work is too brief to do him justice:—

"How can I have patience, and thou, mine eye's delight, All the livelong year not one moment in my sight? And with what can I rejoice my heart, when thou that art a joy Unto every human heart, from me hast taken flight? I swear by Him who made thy form the envy of the sun (So graciously He clad thee with lovely beams of light): The day when I behold thy beauty doth appear to me As tho' it gleamed on Time's dull brow a constellation bright. O thou scorner of my passion, for whose sake I count as naught All the woe that I endure, all the injury and despite, Come, regard the ways of God! for never He at life's last gasp Suffereth the weight to perish even of one mite!"831

We have already referred to the folk-songs ( muwashshaḥand zajal) which originated in Spain. These simple ballads, Popular poetry. with their novel metres and incorrect language, were despised by the classical school, that is to say, by nearly all Moslems with any pretensions to learning; but their popularity was such that even the court poets occasionally condescended to write in this style. To the zajaland muwashshaḥwe may add the dúbayt, the mawáliyyá, the kánwakán, and the ḥimáq, which together with verse of the regular form made up the 'seven kinds of poetry' ( al-funún al-sab‘a). Ṣafiyyu ’l-Dín al-Ḥillí, who wrote a special treatise on the Arabic folk-songs, mentions two other varieties which, he says, were invented by the people of Baghdád to be sung in the early dawn of Ramaḍán, the Moslem Lent.832 It is interesting to observe that some few literary men attempted, though in a timid fashion, to free Arabic poetry from the benumbing academic system by which it was governed and to pour fresh life into its veins. A notable example of this tendency is the Hazzu ’l-Quḥúf833 by Shirbíní, who wrote in 1687 a.d. Here we have a poem in the vulgar dialect of Egypt, but what is still more curious, the author, while satirising the uncouth manners and rude language of the peasantry, makes a bitter attack on the learning and morals of the Muḥammadan divines.834 For this purpose he introduces a typical Fellah named Abú Shádúf, whose rôle corresponds to that of Piers the Plowman in Longland's Vision. Down to the end of the nineteenth century, at any rate, such isolated offshoots had not gone far to found a living school of popular poetry. Only the future can show whether the Arabs are capable of producing a genius who will succeed in doing for the national folk-songs what Burns did for the Scots ballads.

Biography and History were cultivated with ardour by the savants of Egypt and Syria. Among the numerous Ibn Khallikán (1211-1282 a.d.). compositions of this kind we can have no hesitation in awarding the place of honour to the Wafayátu ’l-A‘yán, or 'Obituaries of Eminent Men,' by Shamsu ’l-Dín Ibn Khallikán, a work which has often been quoted in the foregoing pages. The author belonged to a distinguished family descending from Yaḥyá b. Khálid the Barmecide (see p. 259 seq.), and was born at Arbela in 1211 a.d. He received his education at Aleppo and Damascus (1229-1238) and then proceeded to Cairo, where he finished the first draft of his Biographical Dictionary in 1256. Five years later he was appointed by Sultan Baybars to be Chief Cadi of Syria. He retained this high office (with a seven years' interval, which he devoted to literary and biographical studies) until a short time before his death. In the Preface to the WafayátIbn Khallikán observes that he has adopted the alphabetical order as more convenient than the chronological. As regards the scope and character of his Dictionary, he says:—

"I have not limited my work to the history of any one particular class of persons, as learned men, princes, emirs, viziers, or poets; His Biographical Dictionary. but I have spoken of all those whose names are familiar to the public, and about whom questions are frequently asked; I have, however, related the facts I could ascertain respecting them in a concise manner, lest my work should become too voluminous; I have fixed with all possible exactness the dates of their birth and death; I have traced up their genealogy as high as I could; I have marked the orthography of those names which are liable to be written incorrectly; and I have cited the traits which may best serve to characterise each individual, such as noble actions, singular anecdotes, verses and letters, so that the reader may derive amusement from my work, and find it not exclusively of such a uniform cast as would prove tiresome; for the most effectual inducement to reading a book arises from the variety of its style."835

Ibn Khallikan might have added that he was the first Muḥammadan writer to design a Dictionary of National Biography, since none of his predecessors had thought of comprehending the lives of eminent Moslems of every class in a single work.836 The merits of the book have been fully recognised by the author's countrymen as well as by European scholars. It is composed in simple and elegant language, it is extremely accurate, and it contains an astonishing quantity of miscellaneous historical and literary information, not drily catalogued but conveyed in the most pleasing fashion by anecdotes and excerpts which illustrate every department of Moslem life. I am inclined to agree with the opinion of Sir William Jones, that it is the best general biography ever written; and allowing for the difference of scale and scope, I think it will bear comparison with a celebrated English work which it resembles in many ways—I mean Boswell's Johnson.837

To give an adequate account of the numerous and talented historians of the Mameluke period would require far more Historians of the Mameluke period. space than they can reasonably claim in a review of this kind. Concerning Ibn Khaldún, who held a professorship as well as the office of Cadi in Cairo under Sultan Barqúq (1382-1398 a.d.), we have already spoken at some length. This extraordinary genius discovered principles and methods which might have been expected to revolutionise historical science, but neither was he himself capable of carrying them into effect nor, as the event proved, did they inspire his successors to abandon the path of tradition. I cannot imagine any more decisive symptom of the intellectual lethargy in which Islam was now sunk, or any clearer example of the rule that even the greatest writers struggle in vain against the spirit of their own times. There were plenty of learned men, however, who compiled local and universal histories. Considering the precious materials which their industry has preserved for us, we should rather admire these diligent and erudite authors than complain of their inability to break away from the established mode. Perhaps the most famous among them is Taqiyyu ’l-Dín al-Maqrízí (1364-1442 a.d.). A native of Cairo, he devoted himself to Egyptian history and antiquities, on which subject he composed several standard works, such as the Khiṭaṭ838 and the Sulúk.839 Although he was both unconscientious and uncritical, too often copying without acknowledgment or comment, and indulging in wholesale plagiarism when it suited his purpose, Maqrízí. these faults which are characteristic of his age may easily be excused. "He has accumulated and reduced to a certain amount of order a large quantity of information that would but for him have passed into oblivion. He is generally painstaking and accurate, and always resorts to contemporary evidence if it is available. Also he has a pleasant and lucid style, and writes without bias and apparently with distinguished impartiality."840 Other well-known works belonging to this epoch are the Fakhríof Ibnu ’l-Ṭiqṭaqá, a delightful manual of Muḥammadan politics841 which was written at Mosul in 1302 a.d.; the epitome of universal history by Abu ’l-Fidá, Prince of Ḥamát (õ 1331); the voluminous Chronicle of Islam by Dhahabí (õ 1348); the high-flown Biography of Tímúr entitled ‘Ajá’ibu ’l-Maqdúr, or 'Marvels of Destiny,' by Ibn ‘Arabsháh (õ 1450); and the Nujúm al-Záhira('Resplendent Stars') by Abu ’l-Maḥásin b. Taghríbirdí (õ 1469), which contains the annals of Egypt under the Moslems. The political and literary history of Muḥammadan Spain by Maqqarí of Tilimsán (õ 1632) was mentioned in the last chapter.842