Chapter 28

520Ed. by De Goeje, p. 5, ll. 5-15.

521Cf.the story told of Abú Tammám by Ibn Khallikán (De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 350 seq.).

522See Nöldeke,Beiträge, p. 4.

523Ibn Khaldún,Muqaddima(Beyrout, 1900), p. 573, l. 21 seq.;Prolegomenaof Ibn K., translated by De Slane, vol. iii, p. 380.

524See Professor Browne'sLiterary History of Persia, vol. ii, p. 14 sqq.

525Aghání, xii, 80, l. 3.

526Freytag,Arabum Proverbia, vol. i, p. 46 seq., where the reader will find the Arabic text of the verses translated here. Rückert has given a German rendering of the same verses in hisHamâsa, vol. i, p. 311. A fuller text of the poem occurs inAgháni, xii, 107 seq.

527Díwán, ed. by Ahlwardt,Die Weinlieder, No. 26, v. 4.

528Ibn Qutayba,K. al-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará, p. 502, l. 13.

529For the famous ascetic, Ḥasan of Baṣra, see pp. 225-227. Qatáda was a learned divine, also of Baṣra and contemporary with Ḥasan. He died in 735a.d.

530These verses are quoted by Ibn Qutayba,op. cit., p. 507 seq. 'The Scripture' (al-maṣḥaf) is of course the Koran.

531Die Weinlieder, ed. by Ahlwardt, No. 47.

532Ibid., No. 29, vv. 1-3.

533Ibn Khallikán, ed. by Wüstenfeld, No. 169, p. 100; De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 393.

534Cf.Díwán(ed. of Beyrout, 1886), p. 279, l. 9, where he reproaches one of his former friends who deserted him because, in his own words, "I adopted the garb of a dervish" (ṣirtu fi ziyyi miskíni). Others attribute his conversion to disgust with the immorality and profanity of the court-poets amongst whom he lived.

535Possibly he alludes to these aspersions in the verse (ibid., p. 153, l. 10): "Men have become corrupted, and if they see any one who is sound in his religion, they call him a heretic" (mubtadi‘).

536Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya declares that knowledge is derived from three sources, logical reasoning (qiyás), examination (‘iyár), and oral tradition (samá‘). See hisDíwán, p. 158, l. 11.

537Cf.Mání, seine Lehre und seine Schriften, by G. Flügel, p. 281, l. 3 sqq. Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya did not take this extreme view (Díwán, p. 270, l. 3 seq.).

538See Shahrastání, Haarbrücker's translation, Part I, p. 181 sqq. It appears highly improbable that Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya was a Shí‘ite.Cf.the verses (Díwán, p. 104, l. 13 seq.), where, speaking of the prophets and the holy men of ancient Islam, he says:—"Reckon first among them Abú Bakr, the veracious,And exclaim 'O ‘Umar!' in the second place of honour.And reckon the father of Ḥasan after ‘Uthmán,For the merit of them both is recited and celebrated."

"Reckon first among them Abú Bakr, the veracious,And exclaim 'O ‘Umar!' in the second place of honour.And reckon the father of Ḥasan after ‘Uthmán,For the merit of them both is recited and celebrated."

539Aghání, iii, 128, l. 6 sqq.

540Transactions of the Ninth Congress of Orientalists, vol. ii. p. 114.

541Díwán, p. 274, l. 10.Cf.the verse (p. 199, penultimate line):—"When I gained contentment, I did not cease (thereafter)To be a king, regarding riches as poverty."The ascetic "lives the life of a king" (ibid., p. 187, l. 5). Contented men are the noblest of all (p. 148, l. 2). So the great Persian mystic, Jalálu ’l-Dín Rúmí, says in reference to the perfect Ṣúfí (Díván-i Shams-i Tabríz, No. viii, v. 3 in my edition):Mard-i khudá sháh buvad zír-i dalq, "the man of God is a king 'neath dervish-cloak;" and eminent spiritualists are frequently described as "kings of the (mystic) path." I do not deny, however, that this metaphor may have been originally suggested by the story of Buddha.

541Díwán, p. 274, l. 10.Cf.the verse (p. 199, penultimate line):—

"When I gained contentment, I did not cease (thereafter)To be a king, regarding riches as poverty."

The ascetic "lives the life of a king" (ibid., p. 187, l. 5). Contented men are the noblest of all (p. 148, l. 2). So the great Persian mystic, Jalálu ’l-Dín Rúmí, says in reference to the perfect Ṣúfí (Díván-i Shams-i Tabríz, No. viii, v. 3 in my edition):Mard-i khudá sháh buvad zír-i dalq, "the man of God is a king 'neath dervish-cloak;" and eminent spiritualists are frequently described as "kings of the (mystic) path." I do not deny, however, that this metaphor may have been originally suggested by the story of Buddha.

542Díwán, p. 25, l. 3 sqq. Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya took credit to himself for introducing 'the language of the market-place' into his poetry (ibid.p. 12, l. 3 seq.).

543Díwán(Beyrout, 1886), p. 23, l. 13 et seqq.

544Ibid., p. 51, l. 2.

545Ibid., p. 132, l. 3.

546Ibid., p. 46, l. 16.

547Díwán, p. 260, l. 11et seqq.

548Ibid., p. 295, l. 14et seqq.

549Ibid., p. 287, l. 10 seq.

550Ibid., p. 119, l. 11.

551Ibid., p. 259, penultimate lineet seq.

552Ibid., p. 115, l. 4.

553Díwán, p. 51, l. 10.

554Ibid., p. 133, l. 5.

555Ibid., p. 74, l. 4.

556Ibid., p. 149, l. 12 seq.

557Ibid., p. 195, l. 9.Cf.p. 243, l. 4 seq.

558Ibid., p. 274, l. 6.

559Ibid., p. 262, l. 4.

560Ibid., p. 346, l. 11.Cf.p. 102, l. 11; p. 262, l. 1 seq.; p. 267, l. 7. This verse is taken from Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya's famous didactic poem composed in rhyming couplets, which is said to have contained 4,000 sentences of morality. Several of these have been translated by Von Kremer in hisCulturgeschichte des Orients, vol. ii, p. 374 sqq.

561In one of his poems (Díwán, p. 160, l. 11), he says that he has lived ninety years, but if this is not a mere exaggeration, it needs to be corrected. The words for 'seventy' and 'ninety' are easily confused in Arabic writing.

562Tha‘álibí,Yatimatu ’l-Dahr(Damascus, 1304a.h.), vol. i, p. 8 seq.

563See Von Kremer'sCulturgeschichte, vol. ii, p. 381 sqq.; Ahlwardt,Poesie und Poetik der Araber, p. 37 sqq.; R. Dvorak,Abú Firás, ein arabischer Dichter und Held(Leyden, 1895).

564Mutanabbí, ed. by Dieterici, p. 493. Wáḥidí gives the whole story in his commentary on this verse.

565Mutanabbí, it is said, explained to Sayfu ’l-Dawla that bysurra(gladden) he meantsurriyya; whereupon the good-humoured prince presented him with a slave-girl.

566Literally, "Do not imagine fat in one whose (apparent) fat is (really) a tumour."

567Díwán, ed. by Dieterici, pp. 481-484.

568The most esteemed commentary is that of Wáḥidí († 1075a.d.), which has been published by Fr. Dieterici in his edition of Mutanabbí (Berlin, 1858-1861).

569Motenebbi, der grösste arabische Dichter(Vienna, 1824).

570Abulfedæ Annales Muslemici(Hafniæ, 1789, &c.), vol. ii, p. 774.Cf.his notes on Ṭarafa'sMu‘allaqa, of which he published an edition in 1742.

571Chrestomathie Arabe(2nd edition), vol. iii, p. 27 sqq.Journal des Savans, January, 1825, p. 24 sqq.

572Commentatio de Motenabbio(Bonn, 1824).

573Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur(Weimar, 1898, &c.), vol. i, p. 86.

574I have made free use of Dieterici's excellent work entitledMutanabbi und Seifuddaula aus der Edelperle des Tsaâlibi(Leipzig, 1847), which contains on pp. 49-74 an abstract of Tha‘álibí's criticism in the fifth chapter of the First Part of theYatíma.

575Mutanabbí, ed. by Dieterici, p. 182, vv. 3-9, omitting v. 5.

576The author of these lines, which are quoted by Ibn Khallikán in his article on Mutanabbí, is Abu ’l-Qásim b. al-Muẓaffar b. ‘Alí al-Ṭabasí.

577Mutanabbí, ed. by Dieterici, p. 581, v. 27.

578Ibid., p. 472, v. 5.

579Mutanabbí, ed. by Dieterici, p. 341, v. 8.

580Margoliouth's Introduction to theLetters of Abu ’l-‘Alá, p. xxii.

581Ibid., p. xxvii seq.

582Luzúmiyyát(Cairo, 1891), vol. i, p. 201.

583I.e., his predecessors of the modern school. Like Mutanabbí, he ridicules the conventional types (asálíb) in which the old poetry is cast Cf. Goldziher,Abhand. zur Arab. Philologie, Part 1, p. 146 seq.

584The proper title isLuzúmu má lá yalzam, referring to a technical difficulty which the poet unnecessarily imposed on himself with regard to the rhyme.

585Abulfedæ Annales Muslemici, ed. by Adler (1789-1794), vol. iii, p. 677.

586Literaturgesch. der Araber, vol. vi, p. 900 sqq.

587Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. cxvii, 6th Abhandlung (Vienna, 1889). Select passages admirably rendered by Von Kremer into German verse will be found in theZ.D.M.G., vol. 29, pp. 304-312; vol. 30, pp. 40-52; vol. 31, pp. 471-483; vol. 38, pp. 499-529.

588Z.D.M.G., vol. 38, p. 507; Margoliouth,op. cit., p. 131, l. 15 of the Arabic text.

589Z.D.M.G., vol. 29, p. 308.

590Margoliouth,op. cit., p. 133 of the Arabic text.

591This passage occurs in Abu ’l-‘Alá'sRisálatu ’l-Ghufrán(seeinfra),J.R.A.S.for 1902, p. 351.Cf.the verses translated by Von Kremer in his essay on Abu ’l-‘Alá, p. 23.

592For the term 'Ḥaníf' see p.149supra. Here it is synonymous with 'Muslim.'

593Z.D.M.G., vol. 38, p. 513.

594This work, of which only two copies exist in Europe—one at Constantinople and another in my collection—has been described and partially translated in theJ.R.A.S.for 1900, pp. 637-720, and for 1902, pp. 75-101, 337-362, and 813-847.

595Margoliouth,op. cit., p. 132, last line of the Arabic text.

596Z.D.M.G., vol. 31, p. 483.

597De Gobineau,Les religions et les philosophies dans l'Asie centrale, p. 11 seq.

598Z.D.M.G., vol. 31, p. 477.

599Ibid., vol. 29, p. 311.

600Z.D.M.G.vol. 38, p. 522.

601According to De Goeje,Mémoires sur les Carmathes du Bahrain, p. 197, n. 1, these lines refer to a prophecy made by the Carmathians that the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which took place in 1047a.d.would herald the final triumph of the Fáṭimids over the ‘Abbásids.

602Z.D.M.G., vol. 38, p. 504.

603Z.D.M.G., vol. 31, p. 474.

604Luzúmiyyát(Cairo, 1891), i, 394.

605Ibid., i, 312.

606Von Kremer,op. cit., p. 38.

607Safar-náma, ed. by Schefer, p. 10 seq. = pp. 35-36 of the translation.

608Luzúmiyyát, ii, 280. The phrase does not mean "I am the child of my age," but "I live in the present," forgetful of the past and careless what the future may bring.

609See Von Kremer,op. cit., p. 46 sqq.

610See the article on Ṭughrá’í in Ibn Khallikán, De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 462.

611Ibid., vol. iii, p. 355.

612The spirit of fortitude and patience (ḥamása) is exhibited by both poets, but in a very different manner. Shanfará describes a man of heroic nature. Ṭughrá’í wraps himself in his virtue and moralises like a Muḥammadan Horace. Ṣafadí, however, says in his commentary on Ṭughrá’í's ode (I translate from a MS. copy in my possession): "It is namedLámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajamby way of comparing it with theLámiyyatu ’l-‘Arab, because it resembles the latter in its wise sentences and maxims."

613I.e., the native of Abúṣir (Búṣír), a village in Egypt.

614TheBurda, ed. by C. A. Ralfs (Vienna, 1860), verse 140;La Bordah traduite et commentée par René Basset(Paris, 1894), verse 151.

615This appears to be a reminiscence of the fact that Muḥammad gave his own mantle as a gift to Ka‘b b. Zuhayr, when that poet recited his famous ode,Bánat Su‘ád(see p.127supra).

616Maqáma(plural,maqámát) is properly 'a place of standing'; hence, an assembly where people stand listening to the speaker, and in particular, an assembly for literary discussion. At an early period reports of such conversations and discussions received the name ofmaqámát(see Brockelmann,Gesch. der Arab. Litteratur, vol. i, p. 94). The word in its literary sense is usually translated by 'assembly,' or by the French 'séance.'

617The Assemblies of al-Ḥarírí, translated from the Arabic, with an introduction and notes by T. Chenery (1867), vol. i, p. 19. This excellent work contains a fund of information on diverse matters connected with Arabian history and literature. Owing to the author's death it was left unfinished, but a second volume (includingAssemblies27-50) by F. Steingass appeared in 1898.

618A full account of his career will be found in the Preface to Houtsma'sRecueil de textes relatifs à l'histoire des Seldjoucides, vol. ii. p. 11 sqq.Cf.Browne'sLit. Hist. of Persia, vol. ii, p. 360.

619This is a graceful, but probably insincere, tribute to the superior genius of Hamadhání.

620The above passage is taken, with some modification, from the version of Ḥarírí published in 1850 by Theodore Preston, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was afterwards Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic (1855-1871).

621Moslems had long been familiar with the fables of Bidpai, which were translated from the Pehleví into Arabic by Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘ (†circa760a.d.).

622Al-Fakhrí, ed. by Derenbourg, p. 18, l. 4 sqq.

623A town in Mesopotamia, not far from Edessa. It was taken by the Crusaders in 1101a.d.(Abu ’l-Fidá, ed. by Reiske, vol. iii, p. 332).

624The 48thMaqámaof the series as finally arranged.

625Chenery,op. cit., p. 23.

626This has been done with extraordinary skill by the German poet, Friedrich Rückert (Die Verwandlungen des Abu Seid von Serug, 2nd ed. 1837), whose work, however, is not in any sense a translation.

627A literal translation of these verses, which occur in the sixthAssembly, is given by Chenery,op. cit., p. 138.

628Ibid., p. 163.

629Two grammatical treatises by Ḥarírí have come down to us. In one of these, entitledDurratu ’l-Ghawwáṣ('The Pearl of the Diver') and edited by Thorbecke (Leipzig, 1871), he discusses the solecisms which people of education are wont to commit.

630See Chenery,op. cit., pp. 83-97.

631The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline, and Fall, p. 573.

632Another example is ‘Umar al-Khayyámí for ‘Umar Khayyám. The spelling Ghazzálí (with a doublez) was in general use when Ibn Khallikán wrote his Biographical Dictionary in 1256a.d.(see De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 80), but according to Sam‘ání the name is derived from Ghazála, a village near Ṭús; in which case Ghazálí is the correct form of thenisba. I have adopted 'Ghazalí' in deference to Sam‘ání's authority, but those who write 'Ghazzálí' can at least claim that they err in very good company.

633Shamsu ’l-Dín al-Dhahabí († 1348a.d.).

634‘Abdu ’l-Raḥím al-Isnawí († 1370a.d.), author of a biographical work on the Sháfi‘ite doctors. See Brockelmann,Gesch. der Arab. Litt., vol. ii, p. 90.

635Abu ’l-Ma‘álí al-Juwayní, a famous theologian of Naysábúr († 1085a.d.), received this title, which means 'Imám of the Two Sanctuaries,' because he taught for several years at Mecca and Medína.

636I.e., the camp-court of the Seljúq monarch Maliksháh, son of Alp Arslán.

637According to his own account in theMunqidh, Ghazálí on leaving Baghdád went first to Damascus, then to Jerusalem, and then to Mecca. The statement that he remained ten years at Damascus is inaccurate.

638The MS. has Fakhru ’l-Dín.

639Ghazálí's return to public life took place in 1106a.d.

640The correct title of Ibn Ḥazm's work is uncertain. In the Cairo ed. (1321a.h.) it is calledKitábu ’l-Fiṣal fi ’l-Milal wa ’l-Ahwá wa ’l-Niḥal.

641See p. 195supra.

642Kor. ix, 3. The translation runs ("This is a declaration)that God is clear of the idolaters, and His Apostle likewise." With the readingrasúlihiit means that God is clear of the idolaters and also of His Apostle.

643Ibn Khallikan, De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 663.

644See p. 128.

645Ibn Khallikán, No. 608; De Slane's translation, vol. iii, p. 31.

646See pp. 131-134,supra.

647Goldziher,Muhammedanische Studien, Part I, p. 197.

648Ibid., p. 195.

649Ibn Qutayba,Kitábu ’l-Ma‘árif, p. 269.

650While Abú ‘Ubayda was notorious for his freethinking proclivities, Aṣma‘í had a strong vein of pietism. See Goldziher,loc. cit., p. 199 andAbh. zur Arab. Philologie, Part I, p. 136.

651Professor Browne has given arésuméof the contents in hisLit. Hist. of Persia, vol. i, p. 387 seq.

652Ed. by Max Grünert (Leyden, 1900).

653Vol. i ed. by C. Brockelmann (Weimar and Strassburg, 1898-1908).

654The epithetjáḥiẓmeans 'goggle-eyed.'

655See p. 267.

656Ibn Khallikán, De Slane's translation, vol. ii, p. 250.

657One of these, the eleventh of the complete work, has been edited by Ahlwardt:Anonyme Arabische Chronik(Greifswald, 1883). It covers part of the reign of the Umayyad Caliph, ‘Abdu ’l-Malik (685-705a.d.).

658The French title isLes Prairies d'Or. Brockelmann, in his shorterHist. of Arabic Literature(Leipzig, 1901), p. 110, states that the correct translation ofMurúju ’l-Dhahabis 'Goldwäschen.'

659Concerning Ṭabarí and his work the reader should consult De Goeje's Introduction (published in the supplementary volume containing the Glossary) to the Leyden edition, and his excellent article on Ṭabarí and early Arab Historians in theEncyclopædia Britannica.

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