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Arabic language is chiefly to be attributed to the Koran, which has, from its promulgation to the present time, been regarded by all Muhammadans as the standard of religion and of literary composition. Strictly speaking, not only the history, but also the literature of the Arabs begins with Muhammad. Excepting the Mua'llakat, and other pre-Islamitic poems collected in the Hamasas of Abu Tammam and Al-Bohtori, in Ibn Kutaiba and in the Mofaddhaliat, no literary monuments that preceded his time are in existence. The Koran became, not only the code of religious and of civil law, but also the model of the Arabic language, and the standard of diction and eloquence. Muhammad himself scorned metrical rules; he claimed as an apostle and lawgiver a title higher than that of soothsayer and poet. Still, his poetic talent is manifest in numerous passages of the Koran, well known to those able to read it in the original, and in this respect the last twenty-five chapters of that book are, perhaps, the most remarkable.

      Although the power of the Arabs has long ago succumbed, their literature has survived, and their language is still more or less spoken in all Muhammadan countries. Europe at one time was lightened by the torch of Arabian learning, and the Middle Ages were stamped with the genius and character of Arab civilization. The great masters of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, viz., Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Rashid, Ibn Bajah, Razi, Al Battani, Abul Ma'shar, Al-Farghani, Al-Jaber, have been studied both in the Spanish universities and in those of the rest of Europe, where their names are still familiar under the corrupted forms of Alchendius, Alfarabius, Avicenna, Averroes, Avempace, Rhazes, Albategnius, Albumasar, Alfraganius, and Geber.

      Arabic literature commenced about half a century before Muhammad with a legion of poets. The seven poems suspended in the temple of Mecca, and of which more anon, were considered as the chief productions of that time. The Mussulman era begins with the Hijrah, or emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Madinah, which is supposed to have taken place on the 20th of June, A.D. 622; and the rise, growth, and decay of Arab power, learning, and literature may be divided into three periods as follows:

      1. The time before Muhammad.

      2. From Muhammad and his immediate successors, viz., Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, and Ali, through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to the end of the Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.

      3. From the fall of Baghdad to the present time.

      First Period.

      Although the proper history of Arabian literature begins from the time of Muhammad, it is necessary to cast a glance upon the age that preceded him, in order to obtain a glimpse of pre-Islamitic wisdom. The sage Lokman, whose name the thirty-first chapter of the Koran bears, is considered, according to that book, to have been the first man of his nation who practised and taught wisdom in all his deeds and words. He was believed to have been a contemporary of David and Solomon; his sayings and his fables still exist, but there is not much really known about him, as the following extracts will show:

      'Lokman, a philosopher mentioned in the Koran, is said to have been born about the time of David. One tradition represents him as a descendant of the Arab tribe of Ad, who, on account of his piety and wisdom, was saved when the rest of his family perished by Divine wrath. According to another story he was an Ethiopian slave, noted alike for bodily deformity and a gift for composing fables and apologues. This account of Lokman, resembling so closely the traditional history of Æsop, has led to an opinion that they were the same individual, but this is now generally supposed not to be the case. The various reports agree in ascribing to Lokman extraordinary longevity. His extant fables bear evident marks of modern alteration, both in their diction and their incidents. They were first published with a Latin translation of the Arabic by Erpenius (Leyden, 1615). Galland produced a French translation of the fables of Lokman and Bidpay at Paris in 1724, and there are other editions by De Sacey, 1816, Caussin de Perceval, 1818, Freytag, 1823, and Rodiger, 1830.'

      Burton, in a footnote to page 118, of Volume X. of his 'Arabian Nights,' however, says that 'There are three distinct Lokmans. The first, or eldest Lokman, entitled Al-Hakim (the Sage), and the hero of the Koranic chapter which bears his name, was son of Ba'ura, of the children of Azar, sister's son to Job, or son of Job's maternal aunt; he witnessed David's miracles of mail-making, and when the tribe of Ad was destroyed he became king of the country. The second Lokman, also called the Sage, was a slave and Abyssinian negro, sold by the Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, and who left a volume of proverbs and exempla, not fables or apologues, some of which still dwell in the public memory. The youngest Lokman, of the Vultures, was a prince of the tribe of Ad, who lived 3,500 years, the age of seven vultures.'

      This accounts for the different ideas as regards the tradition of one

       Lokman in the preceding paragraph.

      Before the era of the Prophet poetry had attained some degree of excellence. At the annual festival of Okatz the poets met and made public recitations, and competed for prizes. Of prose literature there was none, and the irregular, half-rhythmical, half-rhyming sentences of the Koran were the first attempts in the direction of prose.

      Passing over the host of pre-Islamitic poets, the disputed time and order in which they appeared, as well as the ranks they respectively occupied, it will only be necessary here to describe the Arabic idyll or elegy (Kasida), and to notice the authors of the seven famous Mua'llakat, or suspended, or strung-together poems of the temple of Mecca, already alluded to above. As these poems were written in letters of gold, they were also called Muzahhibat, or "gilded." According to Arab notions, the subjects of a poet are four or five. He praises, loves, is angry, mourns, or describes either female beauty, animals, or objects of nature. Poems comprising one of these subjects only are short, but those treating of several are longer, and contain eulogies of chiefs, rulers, distinguished men and women, etc. The poet touches on the valour, liberality and eloquence of the hero, on the beauty and virtues of the woman, and describes the nearest surroundings, which are of the greatest interest, such as the horse, the camel, the antelope, the ostrich, the wild cow, the cloud, the lightning, wine, the vestiges of the tent of the beloved, and the hospitable camp-fire.

      The Kasidas of the Mua'llakat are a series of smaller poems, composed on various occasions, and then strung together in one piece. Among them the two Kasidas of Amra-al-Kais (Amriolkais), and of Antara, are the most brilliant and romantic, on account of the sentiments of love they breathe towards the three beauties—Oneiza, Fatima, and Abla. The Kasida of Labid is famous for his description of both the camel and the horse; that of Tarafa for the delineation of the camel; that of Amru for the picture of a battle; while Harath chanted the praises of arms, and of the King of Hirah, and Zoheir produced a poem full of wise maxims. The whole seven contain a great deal about the personal feelings, the personal courage, the heroic deeds, and the wonderful adventures of the authors themselves—to which may be added descriptions of various animals, of hunting scenes, and of battle, the conventional lament for the absence or departure of a mistress, the delight of meeting her, and other bright sketches of Arab life in camp and on the march, with its joys, its sorrows, and its constant changes.

      Sir William Jones first brought these poems to the notice of the West, and published a translation of them in A.D. 1782. 'They exhibit,' he says, 'an exact picture of the virtues and the vices, the wisdom and the folly, of the early Arabs. The poems show what may constantly be expected from men of open hearts and boiling passions, with no law to control, and little religion to restrain them.'

      The above translations, with notes and remarks, have been reprinted by

       Mr. W.A. Clouston, in his 'Arabian Poetry for English Readers,' at

       Glasgow in 1881, and is a work well worthy of a perusal by any persons

       who may be interested in the subject.

      The names of the three ancient Arab poets considered to have been possessed of equal talent with the authors of the Mua'llakat, are Nabiga, Al-Kama, and Al-Aasha, and some specimens of their composition, as also of those of other pre-Islamite poets, are to be found in the fifteenth volume, No. 39, pages 65–108, of the 'Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,' translated by Mr. E. Rehatsek in 1881.

      Second Period.

      From Muhammad and his immediate successors (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and

      

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