The rise and development of Arabian literature occurs at an epoch
when the rest of Europe was struggling through a period of
transition. From the middle of the sixth to the beginning of the
eleventh century, at a time when the Roman dominions were overrun
by Northern hordes, and the Greek Nation was groaning under the
Byzantine power, when both Greek and Latin literature was exposed
to the danger of extinction, the splendor of Arabian literature
reached its zenith and through the mingling of the Troubadours
with the Moors of the Peninsula, and of the Crusaders with the
Arabs, it began to influence the literature of Europe.
Arabia, peopled by wandering tribes, had no history other than
the songs of the national bards, until after the rise of Mohammed
in the sixth century. The desire of the prophet was to bring his
people back from idolatry and star worship to the primitive and
true worship of God. He studied the Old and New Testament, the
legends of the Talmud and the traditions of Arabian and Persian
mythology, then he wrote the Koran, which became the sacred book
of the Arabians, and in which is traced in outline the true plan
of man's salvation--Death, Resurrection, the Judgment, Paradise
and the place of torment. Good and evil spirits, the four
archangels, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael and Izrafeel, are all found
in the Koran; but clothed with a true Oriental fancy. Besides the
angels there are creatures, partly human and partly spiritual,
called Genii, Peris (or fairies) and Deev (or giants). The Genii
have the power of making themselves seen or invisible at
pleasure. Some of them delight in mischief, and raise whirlwinds,
or lead travellers astray. The Arabians used to say that shooting
stars were arrows shot by the angels against the Genii when they
approached too near the forbidden regions of bliss.
This fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe
by the Troubadours in the eleventh century, and became an
important factor in the literature of Europe. From it, and the
Scandinavian mythology spring all the fairy tales of modern
nations. And these romances of the Koran form the groundwork of
the fabliaux of the Trouveres, and of the romantic epics of
Boccaccio, Tasso, Ariosto, Spenser and Shakespeare. Mohammed's
teaching unified the different tribes of Arabia, and fostered a
feeling of national pride, and a desire for learning. So rapidly
did this develop that in less than a century the Arabian power
and religion, as well as its language, had gained the ascendency
over nearly half of Africa, a third of Asia, and a part of Spain;
and from the ninth century to the sixteenth, the Arabian
literature surpassed that of any nations of the same period.
This people, who, in a barbarous state had tried to abolish all
cultivation in science and literature, now became the masters of
learning, and they drew from the treasure houses of the countries
that they had acquired by conquest, all the riches of knowledge
at their command.
The learning of the Chaldeans and of the Magi, the poetry and
fine arts of Asia Minor, the eloquence and intellect of Africa,
all became theirs.
Greece counts nearly eight centuries from the Trojan war to the
summit of her literary development. From the foundation of Rome
till the age of Augustus the same number of centuries passed over
the Roman world; while in French literature the age of Louis XIV
was twelve centuries removed from the advent of Clovis; but in
Arabian literature, from the time of the family of the Abassides,
who mounted the throne in 750--and who introduced a passionate
love for poetry, science and art--until the time of Al Mamoun,
the Augustus of Arabia, there elapsed only one hundred and fifty
years, a rate of progress in the development of literature among
a nation that has no parallel in history.
Tournaments first originated among the Arabs, and thence found
their way into France and Italy. Gunpowder was known to them a
century before it appeared in Europe, and they were in possession
of the compass in the eleventh century, and this notwithstanding
the fact that a German chemist is supposed to have discovered
gunpowder a century after the Arabs made use of it, while the
compass is more frequently supposed to be a French or Italian
invention of the thirteenth century.
Botany and chemistry were more familiar to them than they were to
the Greeks or Romans. Bagdad and Cordova had famous schools of
astronomy and medicine, and here in the tenth and eleventh
centuries the Arabians were the teachers of the world. Students
came to them from France and other parts of Europe; and their
progress, especially in arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, was
marvellous. The poetry of the Arabs is rhymed like ours, and is
always the poetry of passion and love; but it is in their prose
works, the Arabian tales of the Thousand and One Nights, that
they have become most famous. Their richness of fancy in these
prose tales is different from that of the other chivalric
nations. The supernatural world is identical in both; but the
moral world is different. The Arabian tales, like the old
chivalric romances, take us to the realms of fairyland, but the
human beings they introduce are very unlike. Their people are
less noble and heroic, more moved by love and passion, and they
depict women by turn as slaves and divinities. The original
author of the Arabian Nights is unknown; but the book has become
a household possession in every civilized country in the world.