xxxviii 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



few commercial relations with other countries, 

 could boast of little intellectual culture. Dur- 

 ing those times of their ignorance, as the Arabs 

 themselves have named the ages before Mahomet, 

 there was, however, among them that species and 

 degree of original power which irrepressibly 

 breaks forth in song. And artless as their poetry 

 was ; made up of successive pictures in the order 

 in hich they might strike the imagination, with 

 no heed of system or regular arrangement ; still 

 those rude rhymes were so highly loved and 

 valued by the people, that the great Impostor 

 never felt sure of the triumph of his doctrines 

 till the character of poet as well as prophet was 

 conceded to him by contemporary criticism. 

 About one hundred years before his appearance 

 means had been adopted to invest with more than 

 their primitive pomp and circumstance the strains, 

 which from an immemorial date had formed the 

 delight of his countrymen. Full of martial fire, 

 they had long thrilled the bosoms of the desert 

 tribes ; rich in amorous sentiment, which is not, 

 like the former feeling, an uniform ingredient of 

 early and unpolished poetry, they had long been 

 dear to the natives of a burning climate ; long 

 had they amused and recreated the weary pilgrims 

 who thronged to the holy city of Mecca ; but the 

 appointment of a set place for the competitions 

 of the bards, and the custom of suspending the 

 successful poems on the doors of the Caaba, can- 

 not be traced further back than the beginning of 

 the sixth century. The oldest productions of this 

 class which have reached us have no claim to a 

 higher antiquity. 



Yet what an untainted freshness, what an union 

 of strength and pastoral simplicity, such as we 

 expect to be breathed from the soul of a warrior- 

 shepherd, do these specimens of Eastern poetry 

 exhibit ! True, there is great sameness in their 

 introductory parts, in the passages descriptive of 

 scenery, and in the allusions to a circle of objects 

 and ideas, which circumstances made unavoidably 

 narrow. But, with thus much of confessed uni- 

 formity, how striking a variety is there in the 

 characters of the different poets ; from the mel- 

 lowed wisdom of Zoheir,* from the fine struggle 

 between passion and heroism in the bosom of 

 Antara, to the tenderness of Lebid, or the ready 

 guile that aids, without allaying, the impetuosity 

 of Amriolkais ! Their compositions may not 

 belong to any regular division of the art, (unless 

 the limits of lyric poetry be deemed wide enough 

 to admit them), but who will deny the praise of 

 beauty to that exquisite, however irregular, mix- 



* Zoheir about A. D. 531. Antara a little before that date. 

 Lebid and Amriolkais contemporary with the earlier years of 

 Mehomet. 



ture of martial audacity, with elegiac sadness, 

 and the richest glow of voluptuous colouring ? 

 The MOALLAKAT, as the seven extant pieces, 

 made known to English readers by the versions 

 of Sir William Jones, are named ; and some of 

 the more ancient verses in the H*MxsAs,t or 

 anthologies; force us to entertain no humble 

 estimate of the powers of the Arabian lyre, before 

 the epoch of the Prophet. 



Then came the KORAN : J so far poetical in form, 

 that the principle of rhyme is discernible in its 

 several chapters ; so far poetry in substance, that 

 some passages of genuine sublimity appear amid 

 much flatness and poverty of conception ; and so 

 far important in the history of Arabian letters, 

 that when the scattered leaves were collected by 

 Abubeker, the successor of Mahomet, and after- 

 wards revised by the caliph Othman, in the 

 thirtieth year of the Hegira, they fixed at once 

 the classic language of the Arabs, and became 

 their standard in style as well as in religion. 

 But though the work in itself possesses a certain 

 degree of literary merit, the first effect of the 

 new faith which it inculcated was to consume the 

 love of art and science in a flame of fanatical 

 enthusiasm. For one hundred and thirty years 

 after the Hegira, the Arabs were intently oc- 

 cupied about schemes and feats of conquest ; the 

 fruits of which were a dominion stretching from 

 the borders of Tartary and India to the coasts of 

 the Atlantic. Little room was there for the love 

 or the encouragement of letters amid the press 

 of warlike plans and operations. At last, how- 

 ever, the Abassides were established in the 

 caliphate, and brought in their train the revival 

 of learning and philosophy. Especially from 

 the reign of AL-MAMOUN || we must date the true 

 glory of Bagdad. His court was more like some 

 brilliant academy than the centre of a military 

 empire. Then was the great day of translators, 

 commentators, doctors, and professors. The 

 zeal that adorned the throne spread through 

 its dependencies ; pervading and enlightening 

 Egypt and Morocco, until it reached the very 

 acme of its beneficent influence in Spain, where 

 Cordova, Seville, and Granada contested the 

 palm of merit. Then, too, though both the exact 

 and the metaphysical sciences were studiously 

 cultivated, poetry and rhetoric were not thrown 

 into the shade. On the refinement of language, 

 and on every other aid and appliance of these 

 fascinating arts, the most unsparing pains were 



t The dates of these collections, two in number, are A. D. 

 830. and A. D. 880, but several of the poems contained in them 

 are older than the time of Mahomet. 



t MAHOMET A. D. 670632. The Koran published by Abu- 

 beker, A. D. 634, revised by Othman, A. D. 652. 



A. D. 750. II A. D. 813-833. 



