22 1 



ARABIAN LITERATURE -^ARABIAN NIGHTS. 



mentnry on the trigonometry of Ptolemy. Astronomy 

 they especially cultivated, for which famous schools 

 mid' observatories were erected ;K Jtadad ami < or- 

 ilnui. As early as A.D. M:.', Alhazen aiul Scrgins 

 had translated into Arabic tli' Almagest ( Ptolemy, 

 the first regular treatise on astronomy, of which, in 

 \lt'.ir-iiiii, and, still later, As crroes, published 

 iditions. Albatcn, in the lOlli century, o!erved (lie 

 mo; ion of the aphelion. Moliamnit d Ken Dschchcr 

 noticed the obliquity of Uie ecliptic, and coiupleU.il a 

 (henry of the sun. Aluiaiisor termed astronomical 

 tables, in which appear some observations on the ob- 

 liquity of the ecliptic. Alpetragius wrote a theory of 

 the planets, Geography was brought into connexion 

 with mathematics and astronomy, and treated scicii- 

 tificully, particularly by Abulfeda. The division of 

 the earth into seven climates, various geographical 

 measures, and the like, belong to the Arabians. 

 Much as the severer sciences were cultivated, the 

 genius of the people for poetry was not fettered. 

 Abu Temam, in 830, collected the greater Ilamasah, 

 an anthology in ten books, and Bochteri, in 880, the 

 lesser Hamasah, as a supplement to the other. These 

 contain the seven prize poems of the Moallakuth. 

 After this period, the oriental peculiarities of Arabian 

 poetry became more and more strong, the tone grew 

 mystical and extravagant, and the language lost its 

 purity. Motenabbi deserves to be noticed for his 

 tender elegies in a classic style ; (see Proben der Ara- 

 bischen Dichtkunst, Specimens of Arabic Poetry, 

 by Kei-ke, Leipsic, 1765 ; and Motenabbi, translated 

 [into German] completely, for the first time, by Jo- 

 t-eph Hammer, Vienna, 1823 ;) Abu Ismael Tograi, 

 vizier of Bagdad, for his elegies and poems (see New 

 (iirman Mercury, 1800, No. 1. sect. 8) ; Ithiel Hariri, 

 for his history of a knight errant, entitled Makamat, 

 in fifty chapters (see Rosenmuller On an Arabic Ro- 

 mance of Hariri, Leipsic, 1801, translated, 1826, by 

 Ruckert) ; Abu Dschaafar Ibn Tophail, for his inter- 

 esting philosophical romance, the Natural Man, trans- 

 lated^ by Eichhorn, Berlin, 1783. Adnmi's great 

 heroic romance, Antar's Life (see Antar), is still said 

 to produce amusement in the coffee -houses of Aleppo. 

 It is written in 35 parts. The dramatic excepted, 

 there is no sort of poetry which the Arabians 

 have left unattempted. The ballad, a production of 

 the bold and adventurous spirit of the nation, was in- 

 vented by them. There is no doubt that they had, 

 by this means, a powerful effect on modern Euro- 

 pean poetry ; for no small share of the romantic poe- 

 try of the middle ages belonged to the Arabians. 

 The adventurous, chivalrous spirit, the tales of fairies 

 and sorcerers, and perhaps, also, rhyme, passed from 

 the Arabians to our western poetry. Thus this na- 

 tion, in the period of the middle ages, contributed, 

 in various ways, to the literature and the refinement 

 of Europe, and left behind many traces of its former 

 superiority. Hence the importance of their language 

 to learned inquirers must appear evident to all. No 

 one can do without it, who would take an accurate 

 view of knowledge and human character. It belongs 

 to the Semitic dialects, so called, among which it is 

 distinguished for its antiquity, richness, and softness. 

 By the Koran it was fixed as a written language, 

 and, a short time after Mohammed, and still more 

 since the 10th century, among the Arabian authors, 

 who established the principles of the language, its 

 beauties were explored, and its wealth collected in 

 dictionaries. By the entrance of the Arabians into 

 Sicily and Spain, their dialect became known in 

 Europe. But, notwithstanding it has left many traces 

 in the languages of those countries, the knowledge 

 of it I>as been mostly lost since the expulsion of the 

 Moors from Europe. Postel again introduced the 

 scientific study of it into France, and Spey into Ger- 



many. In the 1 7ih century, it flourished in the 

 Netherlands, and \\as afterwards zealously pursued 

 in Germany, Holland, and England. M'e have 

 valuable grammars by Erpcn. Michaelis, Richardson, 

 .latin, Koseiiiiiuller, de Sacy ; good dictionaries by 

 Krpen, Golins. (Jinn, j,. ( asti-1. Meniliski, Wihnct, 

 Scheid ; collections oi 'e\iracts by Keiske, llirt, Ko- 

 seiimuller, .lahn. de Saey. Sa\ary, and others. Kir- 

 ten,Schultens, Jones, Eichhorn. Tjchsen. Schnurrer, 

 lassf, Kosegarlcn, I le/.el, \\alil, I'aulus, Rosenmnl- 

 ler, VaU-r, August!, and others have dune the world 

 important services, by their great cultivation, inves- 

 tigation, and illustration of the language. Grnner 

 and Sprengel have shown how important the know- 

 ledge of it is to physicians. In fine, the remains of 

 Arabian architecture, in Spain and Africa, di 

 the attention of travellers. The French architect 1'. 



ste, in 1818, .studied this style, particularly in 

 Cairo and Alexandria. Thence arose his work, Ar- 

 cliiti'cture Arabe, ou Moniintinils <lu Ciiirc. ili-sn'un's rt 

 mesvres, with seventy-four engravings, fol., Paris, 

 1823. 



ARABIAN NIGHTS, or the THOUSAND AND OXK NIC.IITS ; 

 a celebrated collection of Eastern tales. The I 

 the ancient and native country of fabulous histories. 

 The ever active fancy of the people, their love of 

 adventures, their belief in spirits, and their fondnes- 

 for lively stories, are attested by numerous traveller-. 

 This character appears in the amusements of their 

 coffee-houses and caravansaries. It gave rise (per- 

 haps first in India and Persia) to those thousand fables 

 which, contrary to Mohammed's express command, 

 found in Arabia a second home, and were spread, with 

 alterations and improvements, first separately, and af- 

 terwards in large collections, through all Europe. 

 Many of them found their way thither in the time ot 

 the crusades or sooner. They were the inexhaustible 

 fountains which supplied the writers of the French 

 fabliaux, and the story-tellers and fabulists of Ger- 

 many. In the beginning of the 1 8th century (1704), 

 the collection which had long existed in the East, 

 under the above title, was introduced to the literary 

 men of Europe, and, in a short time, to the public 

 generally, by means of the translation of Ant. Gal.'and, 

 a distinguished French Orientalist. Its appearance 

 was hailed with universal delight, and it became one 

 of the most popular works in afl Europe. The manu- 

 script of Galland, now in the royal library at Paris, 

 was incomplete. The interest inspired by the work 

 led to more careful investigation ; and, in the year 

 1788, appeared at Paris the New Thousand and one 

 Nights, by Chaois and Cazotte, from a manuscript de- 

 posited in the royal library by the former, who was a 

 native Arab. The genuineness of the book was, at 

 first, suspected, on account of the freedom which the 

 editors used with the original; but the suspicion was 

 afterwards proved to be without foundation. Much 

 is due, however, to Caussin de Perceval, the succes- 

 sor of Galland in the chair of the Arabic professor- 

 ship, who made a new version, in 1806, from Un- 

 original text, and to the improved copy of Galland 

 added the conclusion of the whole. But many de- 

 fects still remained, and many lost passages were yet 

 to be found. The work, however, was not rendered 

 complete by the unproved translation of Jonathan 

 Scott, in 1811, nor by the last edition of Galland\ 

 Mille et une Nuits, prepared by Gautiers, aided by 

 Langles, and published in 1822. It was reserved 

 for the German literati to put a finishing stroke to 

 this rich collection, by the use of manuscripts, before 

 unknown. In 18234, appeared a German transla- 

 tion, superintended by Zinserling, of a splendid col- 

 lection of new tales, which had been found at Ro- 

 setti, in Egypt, and a French translation of which had 

 been unaccountably lost. The German translation 



