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the literary, performing, and visual arts of the vast populations of the Middle East and elsewhere that adopted the Islamic faith from the 7th century onward. These adherents of the faith have created such an immense variety of literatures, performing arts, visual arts, and music that it virtually defies any comprehensive definition. In the narrowest sense, the arts of the Islamic peoples might be said to include only those arising directly from the practice of Islam; more commonly, however, the term is extended to include all of the arts produced by Muslim peoples, whether connected with their religion or not. In this article, the subject includes the arts created in pre-Islamic times by Arabs and other peoples in Asia Minor and North Africa who eventually adopted the Islamic faith. On the other hand, arts produced in cultural areas that were only partially Muslim are discussed primarily in articles on arts of those regions; see Central Asian arts; South Asian arts; and Southeast Asian arts.
General considerations
It is difficult to establish a common denominator for all of the artistic expressions of the Islamic peoples. Such a common denominator would have to be meaningful for miniature painting and historiography, for a musical mode and the form of a poem. The relationship between the art of the Islamic peoples and its religious basis is anything but direct.
Like most prophetic religions, Islam is not conducive to fine arts. Representation of living beings is prohibited—not in the Qurʾān but in the prophetic tradition. Thus, the centre of the Islamic artistic tradition lies in calligraphy, a distinguishing feature of this culture, in which the word as the medium of divine revelation plays such an important role. Representational art was found, however, in some early palaces and “at the doors of the bathhouses,” according to later Persian poetry. After the 13th century a highly refined art of miniature developed, primarily in the non-Arab countries; it dwells, however, only rarely upon religious subjects. The typical expression of Muslim art is the arabesque, both in its geometric and in its vegetabilic form—one leaf, one flower growing out of the other, without beginning and end and capable of almost innumerable variations—only gradually detected by the eye—which never lose their charm. An aversion to empty spaces distinguishes that art; neither the tile-covered walls of a mosque nor the rich imagery of a poem allows an unembellished area; and the decoration of a carpet can be extended almost without limit.
The centre of Islamic religion is the clean place for prayer, enlarged into the mosque, which comprises the community and all its needs. The essential structure is similar throughout the Muslim world. There are, of course, period and regional differences—large, wide court mosques of early times; court mosques, with big halls, of Iran and adjacent countries; central buildings with the wonderfully shaped domes of the Ottoman Empire. The implements, however, are the same: a niche (miḥrāb)—pointing to Mecca—made of wood, marble, mosaic, stone, tiles; a small pulpit for the Friday sermon; minarets, locally differently shaped but always rising like the call to prayer that is uttered from their tops; the wooden carved stands for the Qurʾān, which is to be written in the most perfect form; sometimes highly artistic lamps (made in Syria and proverbially mentioned all over the Muslim world); perhaps bronze candlesticks, with inlaid ornaments; and rich variations of the prayer mats. If any decoration was needed, it was the words of God, beautifully written or carved in the walls or around the domes. At first connected with the mosques and later independent of them are schools, mausoleums, rooms for the students, and cells for the religious masters.
The poetry of the Arabs consisted in the beginning of praise and satirical poems thought to be full of magic qualities. The strict rules of the outward form of the poems (monorhyme, complicated metre) even in pre-Islamic times led to a certain formalism and encouraged imitation.
Goethe’s statement that the stories of The Thousand and One Nights have no goal in themselves shows his understanding of the character of Arabic belles lettres, contrasting them with the Islamic religion, which aims at “collecting and uniting people in order to achieve one high goal.” Poets, on the other hand, rove around without any ethical purpose, according to the Qurʾān. For many pious Muslims, poetry was something suspect, opposed to the divine law, especially since it sang mostly of forbidden wine and of free love. The combination of music and poetry, as practiced in court circles and among the mystics, has always aroused the wrath of the lawyer divines who wielded so much authority in Islamic communities. This opposition may partly explain why Islamic poetry and fine arts took refuge in a kind of unreal world, using fixed images that could be correctly interpreted only by those who were knowledgeable in the art.
The ambiguity of Persian poetry, which oscillates between the worldly, the divine, and often the political level, is typical of Islamic writings. Especially in Iran and the countries under its cultural influence, this kind of poetry formed the most important part of literature. Epic poetry of all kinds developed exclusively outside the Arabic-speaking countries; Western readers look in vain for an epical structure in such long poems (as in the case of the prose-romances of the Arabs) and find, instead, a rather aimless representation of facts and fictions. A similar characteristic even conditions innumerable historical works in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, which, especially in classical times, contain much valuable information, put together without being shaped into a real work of art; only rarely does the historian or philosopher reach a comprehensive view. The first attempt at a philosophy of history, Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddimah, in the 14th century, was rarely studied by his Arab compatriots.
The accumulation of large amounts of material, which is carefully organized up to the present, seems typical of all branches of Islamic scholarship, from theology to natural sciences. There are many minute observations and descriptions but rarely a full view of the whole process. Later, especially in the Persian, Turkish, and Indo-Muslim areas, a tendency to overstress the decorative elements of prose is evident; and the contents even of official chronicles are hidden behind a network of rhymed prose, which is difficult to disentangle.
This tendency is illustrated in all branches of Islamic art: the lack of “architectural” formation. Instead, there is a kind of carpet-like pattern; the Arabic and Persian poem is, in general, judged not as a closed unity but rather according to the perfection of its individual verses. Its main object is not to convey a deep personal feeling but to perfect to the utmost the traditional rules and inherited metaphors, to which a new image may sometimes be added; thus the personality of the poet becomes visible only through the minimal changes of expression and rhythm and the application of certain preferred metaphors, just as the personality of the miniature painter can be detected by a careful observation of details, of his way of colouring a rock or deepening the shade of a turban. The same holds true for the arabesques, which were developed according to a strict ritual to a mathematical pattern and were refined until they reached a perfection of geometrical complicated figures, as in the dome of the Karatay Medrese in Konya (1251); it corresponds both to the most intricate lacelike Kūfic inscriptions around this dome and to the poetical style of Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī, who wrote in that very place and during those years. His immortal mystical poems comprise thousands of variations on the central theme of love. Although such a perfect congruency of poetry and fine arts is not frequently found, the precept about Persian art that “its wings are too heavy with beauty” can also be applied to Persian poetry. Thus, the tile work of a Persian mosque, which combines different levels of arabesque work with different styles of writing, is reminiscent of the way Persian poetry combines at least two levels of reality. And a perfect harmony is reached in some of the miniature manuscripts of Iran, Muslim India, or Ottoman Turkey, which, in their lucid colours and fine details of execution, recall both the perfection of the calligraphy that surrounds them on delicate paper and the subtlety of the stories or poems that they accompany or illustrate.
Those accustomed to the Western ideals of plasticity or form in the fine arts and literature or to the polyphonic interweaving of melodic lines in music have some difficulties in appreciating this art. The palaces seem to be without a fixed architectural plan; rooms and gardens are simply laid out according to daily needs. The historian offers an astounding amount of detailed reports and facts but with no unifying concept. The Muslim writer prefers this carpet-like form; he adds colour to colour, motif to motif, so that the reader only understands the meaning and end of the whole web from a certain distance. Music, differentiated as it may be in the countries between Morocco and India, follows the same model: variations of highest subtlety on a comparatively simple given subject or theme.
Drama and opera in the Western sense did not develop in the Islamic countries until the 19th century; and the art of the novel is a very recent development. There was no reason for drama: in the Muslim perception God is the only actor who can do whatever he pleases, whose will is inscrutable. Man is, at best, a puppet on a string, behind whose movement those with insight detect the hand of the play master; neither is the problem of personal guilt and absolution posed as it is in the West, nor is a catharsis, or purging of emotion, needed through drama. The atomist theory, widely accepted in Islam since the 10th century, leaves no room for a “dramatic” movement; it teaches that God creates everything anew in every moment, and what is called a “law of nature” is nothing but God’s custom, which he can interrupt whenever he pleases.
It is true that certain other forms are found in the more folkloristic arts of Islam. Every region has produced poetry, in regional languages, that is more lively and more realistic than the classical court poetry; but such poetry tends to become restricted to certain fixed forms that can be easily imitated. Attempts at drama in Islam come from these more popular spheres in Iran (and, rarely, in Lebanon and Iraq), where the tragic events of the murder of Ḥusayn (680) at Karbalāʾ were dramatized in strange forms, using the vocabulary of traditional Persian poetry and theology. Thus, strangely hybrid forms emerge in the Islamic arts, highly interesting for the historian of religion and the student of literature but not typical of the classical Islamic ideals. Popular illustrations of tales and legends and those of some of the Shīʿah heroes are similarly interesting but atypical. In modern times, of course, there have been imitations of all forms of Western literary and visual arts: paintings in the Impressionist or Cubist style, the use of free verse instead of the stern classical forms; and novels, dramas, motion pictures, and music combining Western and Eastern modes. Belief in the Qurʾānic dictum “Whatever is on earth will perish save His face” discouraged artistic endeavour on a large scale; but the Prophetic tradition “Verily God is beautiful and loves beauty” has inspired numberless artists and artisans, writers and poets, musicians, and mystics to develop their arts and crafts as a reflection of that divine beauty. A theory of aesthetics comprising the various artistic expressions of the Muslim peoples has yet to be written. Although there have been a number of studies in literary criticism, the formal indebtedness of some of the best modern poets and painters to the Islamic heritage has never been studied in full.
It is notable that the arts of the Islamic peoples have had relatively little impact on other cultures, certainly far less than their artistic merit would appear to warrant.
Europe has known art objects of Islamic origin since the early Middle Ages, when they were brought home by the crusaders or manufactured by the Arabs in Sicily and Spain. Much admired and even imitated, they formed part of the material culture in those times, so much so that even the coronation robes of the German emperor were decorated with an Arabic inscription. At the same time, Islamic motives wandered into the belles lettres of Europe, and Islamic scientific books formed a basis for the development of Western science. Islamic culture as such, however, was rather an object of hatred than of admiration; a more objective appreciation of both the works of art and of literature did not start until the mid-17th century, when travelers told of the magnificent buildings in Iran and Mughal India, and the first works from Persian literature were translated, influencing German classical literature. Indian miniatures inspired Rembrandt, just as European paintings were imitated by Islamic, especially Mughal, artists. Persian carpets were among the most coveted gifts for princes and princesses.
A bias against the cultures of the East persisted, however, until after the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment; the indefatigable work of the British scholars at Fort William at Calcutta brought new literary treasures to Europe, where they were studied carefully by specialists in the emerging field of Islamic studies. Poets such as Goethe in Germany in the early 19th century paved the way for a deeper understanding of Islamic poetry. Islamic literatures, however, continue to be known to the larger Western public almost exclusively by The Thousand and One Nights, or The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment (translated first in the early 18th century), Omar Khayyam’s robāʿīyāt, and the lyrics of Ḥāfeẓ. Even experts who are aware of the immense wealth of the literatures in the different Islamic languages (such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu) until now have rarely appreciated the literatures from an aesthetic viewpoint; rather, they have used them as a source for lexicography and for philological and historical research. The situation in Islamic fine arts and architecture is similar. Although the beauty of the Alhambra, for example, had already inspired European scholars and artists in the early 19th century, a thorough study of Islamic art as an independent field began only in the 20th century. There was even less interest in the music of Islamic peoples, the arabesque-like uniformity of which seems strange to Western ideals of harmony.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world
The Arabic literature of Moorish Spain and of the whole Maghrib developed parallel with that of the eastern countries but came to full flower somewhat later. Córdoba, the seat of the Umayyad rulers, was the centre of cultural life. Its wonderful mosque has inspired Muslim poets right up to the 20th century (such as Sir Muḥammad Iqbāl, whose Urdu ode, “The Mosque of Córdoba,” was written in 1935). Moorish Spain was a favourite topic for reformist novelists of 19th-century Muslim India, who contrasted their own country’s troubled state with the glory of classical Islāmic civilization. Moorish Spain reached its cultural, political, and literary heyday under ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān III (912–961). Literary stylistic changes, as noted in Iraq and Syria, spread to the west: there the old Bedouin style had always been rare and soon gave way to descriptive and love poetry. Ibn Hāniʾ (died 973) of Sevilla (Seville) has been praised as the Western counterpart of al-Mutanabbī, largely because of his eulogies of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Muʿizz, who at that time still resided in North Africa. The entertaining prose style of Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (died 940) in his al-ʿIqd al-farīd (“The Unique Necklace”) is similar to that of his elder contemporary Ibn Qutaybah, and his book in fact became more famous than that of his predecessor. Writers on music and philology also flourished in Spain; literary criticism was practiced by Ibn Rashīq (died 1064) and, later, by al-Qarṭājannī (died 1285) in Tunis. Ibn Ḥazm (died 1064), theologian and accomplished writer on pure love, has already been mentioned.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Philosophy: Averroës and Avicenna
Philosophy, medicine, and theology, all of which flourished in the ʿAbbāsid East, were also of importance in the Maghrib; and from there strong influences reached medieval Europe. The influences often came through the mediation of the Jews, who, along with numerous Christians, were largely Arabized in their cultural and literary outlook. The eastern Muslim countries could boast of the first systematic writers in the field of philosophy, including al-Kindī (died c. 870), al-Fārābī (died 950), and especially Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, died 1037). Avicenna’s work in philosophy, science, and medicine was outstanding and was appreciated as such in Europe. He also composed religious treatises and tales with a mystical slant. One of his romances was reworked by the Maghribi philosopher Ibn Ṭufayl (died 1185) in his book Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (“Alive Son of Awake”), or Philosophus Autodidactus (the title of its first Latin translation, made in 1671). It is the story of a self-taught man who lived on a lonely island and who, in his maturity, attained the full knowledge taught by philosophers and prophets. This theme was elaborated often in later European literature.
The dominating figure in the kingdom of the Almohads, however, was the philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd, died 1198), court physician of the Berber kings in Marrākush (Marrakech) and famous as the great Arab commentator on Aristotle. The importance of his frequently misinterpreted philosophy in the formation of medieval Christian thought is well known. Among his many other writings, especially notable is his merciless reply to an attack on philosophy made by Ghazālī (died 1111). Ghazālī had called his attack Tahāfut al-falāsifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), while Averroës’ equally famous reply was entitled Tahāfut at-tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). The Persian-born Ghazālī had, after giving up a splendid scholarly career, become the most influential representative of moderate Ṣūfism. His chief work, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm ad-dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), was based on personal religious experiences and is a perfect introduction to the pious Muslim’s way to God. It inspired much later religious poetry and prose. The numerous writings by mystics, who often expressed their wisdom in rather cryptic language (thereby contributing to the profundity of Arabic vocabulary), and the handbooks of religious teaching produced in eastern Arab and Persian areas (Sarrāj, Kalābādhī, Qushayrī, and, in Muslim India, al-Hujwīrī) are generally superior to those produced in western Muslim countries. Yet the greatest Islāmic theosophist of all, Ibn al-ʿArabī (died 1240), was Spanish in origin and was educated in the Spanish tradition. His writings, in both poetry and prose, shaped large parts of Islāmic thought during the following centuries. Much of the later literature of eastern Islām, particularly Persian and Indo-Persian mystical writings, indeed, can be understood only in the light of his teachings. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s lyrics are typical ghazals, sweet and flowing. From the late 9th century, Arabic-speaking mystics had been composing verses often meant to be sung in their meetings. At first a purely religious vocabulary was employed, but soon the expressions began to oscillate between worldly and heavenly love. The ambiguity thus achieved eventually became a characteristic feature of Persian and Turkish lyrics.
Among the Arabs, religious poetry mainly followed the classical qaṣīdah models, and the poets lavishly decorated their panegyrics to the Prophet Muḥammad with every conceivable rhetorical embellishment. Examples of this trend include al-Burdah (“The Mantle”) of al-Buṣīrī (died 1298), upon which dozens of commentaries have been written (and which has been translated into most of the languages of Muslims because of the power to bless attributed to it). More sophisticated but less well known is an ode on the Prophet by the Iraqi poet Ṣafī ad-Dīn al-Ḥilli (died 1350), which contains 151 rhetorical figures. The “letters of spiritual guidance” developed by the mystics are worth mentioning as a literary genre. They have been popular everywhere; from the western Islāmic world the letters of Ibn ʿAbbād (died 1390) of Ronda (in Spain) are outstanding examples of this category, being written clearly and lucidly.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Geographical literature
The Maghrib also made a substantial contribution to geographical literature, a field eagerly cultivated by Arab scholars since the 9th century. The Sicilian geographer ash-Sharīf al-Idrīsī produced a famous map of the world and accompanied it with a detailed description in his Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (“The Delight of Him Who Wishes to Traverse the Regions of the World,” 1154), which he dedicated to his patron, Roger II. The Spanish traveler Ibn Jubayr (died 1217), while on pilgrimage to Mecca, kept notes of his experiences and adventures. The resulting book became a model for the later pilgrims’ manuals that are found everywhere in the Muslim world. The Maghribi explorer Ibn Baṭṭūṭah (died 1368/69 or 1377) described his extensive travels to the Far East, India, and the region of the Niger in a book filled with information about the cultural state of the Muslim world at that time. The value of his narrative is enhanced by the simple and pleasing style in which it is written.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Poetry
In the field of poetry, Spain, which produced a considerable number of masters in the established poetical forms, also began to popularize strophic poetry, possibly deriving from indigenous models. The muwashshaḥ (“girdled”) poem, written in the classical short metres and arranged in four- to six-line stanzas, was elaborated, enriched by internal rhymes, and, embodying some popular expressions in the poem’s final section, soon achieved a standardized form. The theme is almost always love. Among the greatest lyric poets of Spain was Ibn Zaydūn of Córdoba (died 1071), who was of noble birth. After composing some charming love songs dedicated to the Umayyad princess Wallādah, he turned his hand to poetic epistles. He is the author of a beautiful muwashshaḥ about his hometown, which many later poets imitated. When the muwashshaḥ was transplanted to the eastern Arabic countries, however, it lost its original spontaneity and became as stereotyped as every other lyric form of expression during the later Middle Ages. Another strophic form developed in Spain is the songlike zajal (melody), interesting for its embodiment of dialect phrases and the use of occasional words from Romance languages. Its master was Ibn Quzmān of Córdoba (died 1160), whose life-style was similar to that of Western troubadours. His approach to life as expressed in these melodious poems, together with their mixed idiom, suggests an interrelationship with the vernacular troubadour poetry of Spain and France.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Historiography: Ibn Khaldūn
Any survey of western Muslim literary achievements would be incomplete if it did not mention the most profound historiographer of the Islāmic world, the Tunisian Ibn Khaldūn (died 1406). History has been called the characteristic science of the Muslims because of the Qurʾānic admonition to discover signs of the divine in the fate of past peoples. Islāmic historiography has produced histories of the Muslim conquests, world histories, histories of dynasties, court annals, and biographical works classified by occupation—scholars, poets, and theologians. Yet, notwithstanding their learning, none of the earlier writers had attempted to produce a comprehensive view of history. Ibn Khaldūn, in the famous Muqaddimah or introduction to a projected general history, Kitāb al-ʿibar, sought to explain the basic factors in the historical development of the Islāmic countries. His own experiences, gained on a variety of political missions in North Africa, proved useful in establishing general principles that he could apply to the manifestations of Islāmic civilization. He created, in fact, the first “sociological” study of history, free from bias. Yet his book was little appreciated by his fellow historians, who still clung to the method of accumulating facts without shaping them properly into a well-structured whole. Ibn Khaldūn’s work eventually attracted the interest of Western Orientalists, historians, and sociologists alike; and some of his analyses are still held in great esteem.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Decline of the Arabic language
Ibn Khaldūn, who had served in his youth as ambassador to Pedro I the Cruel, of Castile, and in his old age as emissary to Timur, died in Cairo. After the fall of Baghdad in 1258, this city had become the centre of Muslim learning. Historians there recorded every detail of the daily life and the policies of the Mamlūk sultans; theologians and philologists worked under the patronage of Turkish and Circassian rulers who often did not speak a word of Arabic. The amusing, semicolloquial style of the historian Ibn Iyās (died after 1521) is an interesting example of the deterioration of the Arabic language. While classical Arabic was still the ideal of every literate man, it had become exclusively a “learned” language. Even some copyists who transcribed classical works showed a deplorable lack of grammatical knowledge. It is hardly surprising that poetry composed under such circumstances should be restricted to insipid versification and the repetition of well-worn clichés.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style
During the ʿAbbāsid period, the Persian influence upon the Arabic had grown considerably: at the same time, a distinct Modern Persian literature came into existence in northeastern Iran, where the house of the Sāmānids of Bukhara and Samarkand had revived the memory of Sāsānian glories.
The first famous representative of this new literature was the poet Rūdakī (died 940/941), of whose qaṣīdahs only a few have survived. He also worked on a Persian version of Kalīlah wa Dimnah, however, and on a version of the Sendbād-nāmeh. Rūdakī’s poetry, modeled on the Arabic rules of prosody that without exception had been applied to Persian, already points ahead to many of the characteristic features of later Persian poetry. The imagery in particular is sophisticated, although when compared with the mannered writing of subsequent times his verse was considered sadly simple. From the 10th century onward, Persian poems were written at almost every court in the Iranian areas, sometimes in dialectical variants (for example, in Ṭabarestāni dialect at the Zeyārid court). In many cases the poets were bilingual, excelling in both Arabic and Persian (a gift shared by many non-Arab writers up to the 19th century).
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Influence of Maḥmūd of Ghazna
The first important centre of Persian literature existed at Ghazna (present-day Ghaznī, Afg.), at the court of Maḥmūd of Ghazna (died 1030) and his successors, who eventually extended their empire to northwestern India. Himself an orthodox warrior, Maḥmūd in later love poetry was transformed into a symbol of “a slave of his slave” because of his love for a Turkmen officer, Ayāz. Under the Ghaznavids, lyric and epic poetry both developed, as did the panegyric. Classical Iranian topics became the themes of poetry, resulting in such diverse works as the love story of Vāmeq and ʿAzrā (possibly of Greek origin) and the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”). A number of gifted poets praised Maḥmūd, his successors, and his ministers. Among them was Farrokhī of Seistan (died 1037), who was the author of a powerful elegy on Maḥmūd’s death, one of the finest compositions of Persian court poetry.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Epic and romance
The main literary achievement of the Ghaznavid period, however, was that of Ferdowsī (died 1020). He compiled the inherited tales and legends about the Persian kings in one grand epic, the Shāh-nāmeh, which contains between 35,000 and 60,000 verses in short rhyming couplets. It deals with the history of Iran from its beginnings—that is, from the “time” of the mythical kings—passing on to historical events, giving information about the acceptance of the Zoroastrian faith, Alexander’s invasion, and, eventually, the conquest of the country by the Arabs. A large part of the work centres on tales of the hero Rostam. These stories are essentially part of a different culture, thus revealing something about the Indo-European sources of Iranian mythology. The struggle between Iran and Tūrān (the central Asian steppes from which new waves of nomadic conquerors distributed Iran’s urban culture) forms the central theme of the book; and the importance of the legitimate succession of kings, who are endowed with royal charisma, is reflected throughout the composition. The poem contains very few Arabic words and is often considered the masterpiece of Persian national literature, although it lacks proper historical perspective. Its episodes have been the inspiration of miniaturists since the 14th century. Numerous attempts have been made to emulate it in Iran, India, and Turkey.
Other epic poems, on a variety of subjects, were composed during the 11th century. The first example is Asadī’s (died c. 1072) didactic Garshāsb-nāmeh (“Book of Garshāsb”), whose hero is very similar to Rostam. The tales of Alexander and his journeys through foreign lands were another favourite topic. Poetical romances were also being written at this time; they include the tale of Varqeh o-Golshāh by ʿEyyūqī (11th century) and Vīs o-Rāmīn by Fakhr od-Dīn Gorgānī (died after 1055), which has parallels with the Tristan story of medieval romance. These were soon superseded, however, by the great romantic epics of Neẓāmī of Ganja (died c. 1209), in Caucasia. The latter are known as the Khamseh (“Quintet”) and, though the names of Vīs or Vāmeq continued for some time to serve as symbols of the longing lover, it was the poetical work of Neẓāmī that supplied subsequent writers with a rich store of images, similes, and stories to draw upon. The first work of his Khamseh, Makhzan ol-asrār (“Treasury of Mysteries”), is didactic in intention; the subjects of the following three poems are traditional love stories. The first is the Arabic romance of Majnūn, who went mad with love for Laylā. Second is the Persian historical tale of Shīrīn, a Christian princess, loved by both the Sāsānian ruler Khosrow II Parvīz and the stonecutter Farhād. The third story, Haft peykar (“Seven Beauties”), deals with the adventures of Bahrām Gūr, a Sāsānian prince, and seven princesses, each connected with one day of the week, one particular star, one colour, one perfume, and so on. The last part of the Khamseh is Eskandar-nāmeh, which relates the adventures of Alexander III the Great in Africa and Asia, as well as his discussions with the wise philosophers. It thus follows the traditions about Alexander and his tutor, Aristotle, emphasizing the importance of a counselor-philosopher in the service of a mighty emperor. Neẓāmī’s ability to present a picture of life through highly refined language and a wholly apt choice of images is quite extraordinary. Human feelings, as he describes them, are fully believable; and his characters are drawn with a keen insight into human nature. Not surprisingly, Neẓāmī’s work inspired countless poets’ imitations in different languages—including Turkish, Kurdish, and Urdu—while painters constantly illustrated his stories for centuries afterward.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Other poetic forms
In addition to epic poetry, the lesser forms, such as the qaṣīdah and ghazal, developed during the 11th and 12th centuries. Many poets wrote at the courts of the Seljuqs and also at the Ghaznavid court in Lahore, where the poet Masʿūd-e Saʿd-e Salmān (died 1121) composed a number of heartfelt qaṣīdahs during his political imprisonment. They are outstanding examples of the category of ḥabsīyah (prison poem), which usually reveals more of the author’s personal feelings than other literary forms. Other famous examples of ḥabsīyahs include those written by the Arab knight Abū Firās (died 968) in a Byzantine prison; those by Muḥammad II al-Muʿtamid of Sevilla (died 1095) in the dungeons of the Almohads; those by the 12th-century Persian Khāqānī; those by the Urdu poets Ghālib, in the 19th, and Faiz, in the 20th century; and by the contemporary Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (died 1963).
The most complicated forms were mastered by poets of the very early period, the limits of artificiality being reached in Azerbaijani qaṣīdahs by the poet Qaṭrān (died 1072), whose work displays virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake. The court poets tried to top one another in the accumulation of complex metaphors and paradoxes, each hoping to win the coveted title “Prince of Poets.” Anvarī (died c. 1189), whose patrons were the Seljuqs, is considered the most accomplished writer of panegyrics in the Persian tongue. His verses contain little descriptive material but abound in learned allusions. His “Tears of Khorāsān,” mourning the passing of Seljuq glory, is among the best known of Persian qaṣīdahs. In the west of Iran, Anvarī’s contemporary Khāqānī (died c. 1190), who wrote mainly at the court of the Shīrvān-Shāhs of Transcaucasia, is the outstanding master of the hyperbolic style. His mother was a Christian, and his imagery has more than the usual amount of allusions to Christian themes. His vocabulary seems inexhaustible; he uses uncommon rhetorical devices and very strong language. His poems, with their long chains of oath-formulae (sowgandnāmeh), are as impressive as his poignant antithetic formulations. Khāqānī’s verses on the ruined Ṭāq Kisrā at Ctesiphon on the Tigris have become proverbial. His qaṣīdahs on the pilgrimage to Mecca, which also inspired his mas̄navī, Tuḥfat al-‘Irāqayn ol-ʿErāqeyn (“Gift of the Two Iraqs”), translate most eloquently the feelings of a Muslim at the festive occasion. In the hand of lesser poets, however, qaṣīdah writing became more and more conventionalized, repeating outworn clichés and employing inflated terms entirely devoid of feeling.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Scholarship: al-Bīrūnī
The Ghaznavid and Seljuq periods produced first-rate scholars such as al-Bīrūnī (died 1048) who, writing in Arabic, investigated Hinduism and gave the first unprejudiced account of India—indeed, of any non-Islāmic culture. He also wrote notable books on chronology and history. In his search for pure knowledge he is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds in Islāmic history. Interest in philosophy is represented by Nāṣer-e Khosrow (died 1087/88) who acted for a time as a missionary for the Ismāʿīlī branch of Shīʿah Islām. His book about his journey to Egypt, entitled Safar-nāmeh, is a pleasing example of simple, clearly expressed, early Persian prose. His poetical works in the main seek to combine Greek wisdom and Islāmic thought: the gnostic Ismāʿīlī interpretation of Islām seemed, to him, an ideal vehicle for a renaissance of the basic Islāmic truths.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Robāʿīyāt: Omar Khayyam
The work done in mathematics by early Arabic scholars and by al-Bīrūnī was continued by Omar Khayyam (died 1122), to whom the Seljuq empire in fact owes the reform of its calendar. But Omar has become famous in the West through the free adaptations by Edward FitzGerald of his robāʿīyāt. These quatrains have been translated into almost every known language and are largely responsible for colouring European ideas about Persian poetry. The authenticity of these verses has often been questioned. The quatrain is an easy form to use—many have been scribbled on Persian pottery of the 13th century—and the same verse has been attributed to many different authors. The latest research into the question of the robāʿīyāt has established that a certain number of the quatrains can, indeed, be traced back to the great scientist who condensed in them his feelings and thoughts, his skepticism and love, in such an enthralling way that they appeal to every reader. The imagery he uses, however, is entirely inherited; none of it is original. (One of the most noted, and notorious, writers of this genre was the poetess Mahsaṭī [first half of the 12th century], who frequently addressed members of different professions in rather frivolous lines.) The quatrain was also popular as a means of embodying pieces of mystical wisdom. One has to do away with the old theory that the first author of such mystical robāʿīyāt was Abū Saʿīd ibn Abū al-Khayr (died 1049). A number of his contemporaries, however, including Bābā Ṭāher ʿOryān (died after 1055), used simpler forms of the quatrain, sometimes in order to express their mystical concepts.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » The mystical poem
Whereas the mystical thought stemming from Iran had formerly been written in Arabic, writers from the 11th century onward turned to Persian. Along with works of pious edification and theoretical discussions, what was to be one of the most common types of Persian literature came into existence: the mystical poem. Khwajah ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī of Herāt (died 1088), a prolific writer on religious topics in both Arabic and Persian, first popularized the literary “prayer,” or mystical contemplation, written in Persian in rhyming prose interspersed with verses. Sanāʾī (died 1131?), at one time a court poet of the Ghaznavids, composed the first mystical epic, the didactic Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqat wa sharī ʿat aṭ-ṭariqah (“The Garden of Truth and the Law of the Path”), which has some 10,000 verses. In this lengthy and rather dry poem, the pattern for all later mystical mas̄navīs is established: wisdom is embodied in stories and anecdotes; parables and proverbs are woven into the texture of the story, eventually leading back to the main subject, although the argument is without thread and the narration puzzling to follow. Among Sanāʾī’s smaller mas̄navīs, Sayr al-ʿibād ilā al-maʿād (“The Journey of the Servants to the Place of Return”) deserves special mention. Its theme is the journey of the spirit through the spheres, a subject dear to the mystics and still employed in modern times as, for example, by Iqbāl in his Persian Jāvīd-nāmeh (1932). Sanāʾī’s epic endeavours were continued by one of the most prolific writers in the Persian tongue, Farīd od-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (died c. 1220). He was a born storyteller, a fact that emerges from his lyrics but even more so from his works of edification. The most famous among his mas̄navīs is the Manṭiq uṭ-ṭayr (The Conference of the Birds), modeled after some Arabic allegories. It is the story of 30 birds, who, in search of their spiritual king, journey through seven valleys. The poem is full of tales, some of which have been translated even into the most remote Islāmic languages. (The story of the pious Sheykh Ṣanʿān, who fell in love with a Christian maiden, is found, for example, in Kashmiri.) ʿAṭṭār’s symbolism of the soul-bird was perfectly in accord with the existing body of imagery beloved of Persian poetry, but it was he who added a scene in which the birds eventually realize their own identity with God (because they, being sī morgh, or “30 birds,” are identified with the mystical Sēmorgh, who represents God). Also notable are his Elāhī-nāmeh, an allegory of a king and his six sons, and his profound Moṣībat-nāmeh (“Book of Affliction”), which closes with its hero’s being immersed in the ocean of his soul after wandering through the 40 stages of his search for God. The epic exteriorizes the mystic’s experiences in the 40 days of seclusion.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Importance of Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī
The most famous of the Persian mystical mas̄navīs is by Mawlānā (“Our Lord”) Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī (died 1273) and is known simply as the Mas̄navī. It comprises some 26,000 verses and is a complete—though quite disorganized—encyclopaedia of all the mystical thought, theories, and images known in the 13th century. It is regarded by most of the Persian-reading orders of Ṣūfīs as second in importance only to the Qurʾān. Its translation into many Islāmic languages and the countless commentaries written on it up to the present day indicate its importance in the formation of Islāmic poetry and religious thought. Jalāl ad-Dīn, who hailed from Balkh and settled in Konya, the capital of the Rūm, or Anatolian Seljuqs (and hence was surnamed “Rūmī”), was also the author of love lyrics whose beauty surpasses even that of the tales in the Mas̄navī. Mystical love poetry had been written since the days of Sanāʾī, and theories of love had been explained in the most subtle prose and sensitive verses by the Ṣūfīs of the early 12th century. Yet Rūmī’s experience of mystical love for the wandering mystic, Shams ad-Dīn of Tabriz, was so ardent and enraptured him to such an extent that he identified himself completely with Shams, going so far as to use the beloved’s name as his own pen name. His dithyrambic lyrics, numbering more than 30,000 verses altogether, are not at all abstract or romantic. On the contrary, their vocabulary and imagery are taken directly from everyday life, so that they are vivid, fresh, and convincing. Often their rhythm invites the reader to partake in the mystical dance practiced by Rūmī’s followers, the Mawlawīyah. His verses sometimes approach the form of popular folk poetry; indeed, Rūmī is reputed to have written mostly under inspiration; and despite his remarkable poetical technique, the sincerity of his love and longing is never overshadowed, nor is his personality veiled. In these respects he is unique in Persian literature.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Zenith of Islāmic literature
During the 13th century, the Islāmic lands were exposed, on the political plane, to the onslaught of the Mongols and the abolition of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, while vast areas were laid to waste. Yet this was in fact the period in which Islāmic literatures reached their zenith. Apart from Rūmī’s superb poetry, written in the comparative safety of Konya, there was also the work of the Egyptian Ibn al-Fārīd (died 1235), who composed some magnificent, delicately written mystical poems in qaṣīdah style, and that of Ibn al-ʿArabī, who composed love lyrics and numerous theosophical works that were to become standard. In Iran, one of the greatest literati, Moṣleḥ od-Dīn Saʿdī (died 1292), returned in about 1256 to his birthplace, Shīrāz, after years of journeying; his Būstān (“The Orchard”) and Golestān (“Rose Garden”) have been popular ever since. The Būstān is a didactic poem telling wise and uplifting moral tales, written in polished, easy-flowing style and a simple metre; the Golestān, completed one year later, in 1258, has been judged “. . . the finest flower that could blossom in a Sultan’s garden” (Herder). Its eight chapters deal with different aspects of human life and behaviour. At first sight, its prose and poetical fragments appear to be simple and unassuming; but not a word could be changed without destroying the perfect harmony of the sound, imagery, and content. Saʿdī’s Golestān is thus essential in discovering the nature of the finest Persian literary style. Since the mid-17th century, its moralizing stories have been translated into many Western languages. Saʿdī was likewise the author of some spirited ghazals; he may have been the first writer in Iran to compose the sort of love poetry that is now thought of as characteristic of the ghazal. A few of his qaṣīdahs are also of note, although he is at his best in shorter forms. His elegant aphoristic poems, words of wisdom, and sensible advice all display what has been called the philosophy of common sense—how to act in any given situation so as to make the best of it both for oneself and others, basing one’s conduct on the virtues of gentleness, elegance, modesty, and polite behaviour.
The influence of mysticism, on the one hand, and of the elaborate Persian poetical tradition, on the other, is apparent during the later decades of the 13th century, both in Anatolia and in Muslim India. The Persian mystic, Fakhr-ud-Dīn ʿIrāqī (died 1289), a master of delightful love lyrics, lived for almost 25 years in Multān (in present-day Pakistan), where his lively ghazals are still sung. His short treatises, in a mixture of poetry and prose (and written under Ibn al-ʿArabī’s influence), have been imitated often. While in Multān he may have met the young Amīr Khosrow of Delhi (died 1325), who was one of the most versatile authors to write in Persian, not only in India but in the entire realm of Persian culture. Amīr Khosrow, son of a Turkish officer, but whose mother was Indian, is often styled, because of the sweetness of his speech, “the parrot of India.” (In Persian, it should be noted, parrots are always “sugar-talking”; they are, moreover, connected with Paradise and are thought of as wise birds—thus models of the sweet-voiced sage.) He wrote panegyrics of seven successive kings of Delhi and was also a pioneer of Indian Muslim music. Imitating Neẓāmī’s Khamseh, Khosrow introduced a novelistic strain into the mas̄navī by recounting certain events of his own time in poetical form, some parts of which are lyrics. His style of lyrical poetry has been described as “powdered”; and his ghazals contain many of the elements that in the 16th and 17th centuries were to become characteristic of the “Indian” style. Khosrow’s poetry surprises the reader in its use of unexpected forms and unusual images, complicated constructions and verbal plays, all handled fluently and presented in technically perfect language. His books on the art of letter writing prove his mastery of high-flown Persian prose. Khosrow’s younger contemporary, Ḥasan of Delhi (died 1328), is less well known and had a more simple style. He nevertheless surpassed Khosrow in warmth and charm, qualities that have earned him the title of “the Saʿdī of Hindustan.”
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Islamic arts
General considerations
It is difficult to establish a common denominator for all of the artistic expressions of the Islamic peoples. Such a common denominator would have to be meaningful for miniature painting and historiography, for a musical mode and the form of a poem. The relationship between the art of the Islamic peoples and its religious basis is anything but direct.
Like most prophetic religions, Islam is not conducive to fine arts. Representation of living beings is prohibited—not in the Qurʾān but in the prophetic tradition. Thus, the centre of the Islamic artistic tradition lies in calligraphy, a distinguishing feature of this culture, in which the word as the medium of divine revelation plays such an important role. Representational art was found, however, in some early palaces and “at the doors of the bathhouses,” according to later Persian poetry. After the 13th century a highly refined art of miniature developed, primarily in the non-Arab countries; it dwells, however, only rarely upon religious subjects. The typical expression of Muslim art is the arabesque, both in its geometric and in its vegetabilic form—one leaf, one flower growing out of the other, without beginning and end and capable of almost innumerable variations—only gradually detected by the eye—which never lose their charm. An aversion to empty spaces distinguishes that art; neither the tile-covered walls of a mosque nor the rich imagery of a poem allows an unembellished area; and the decoration of a carpet can be extended almost without limit.
The centre of Islamic religion is the clean place for prayer, enlarged into the mosque, which comprises the community and all its needs. The essential structure is similar throughout the Muslim world. There are, of course, period and regional differences—large, wide court mosques of early times; court mosques, with big halls, of Iran and adjacent countries; central buildings with the wonderfully shaped domes of the Ottoman Empire. The implements, however, are the same: a niche (miḥrāb)—pointing to Mecca—made of wood, marble, mosaic, stone, tiles; a small pulpit for the Friday sermon; minarets, locally differently shaped but always rising like the call to prayer that is uttered from their tops; the wooden carved stands for the Qurʾān, which is to be written in the most perfect form; sometimes highly artistic lamps (made in Syria and proverbially mentioned all over the Muslim world); perhaps bronze candlesticks, with inlaid ornaments; and rich variations of the prayer mats. If any decoration was needed, it was the words of God, beautifully written or carved in the walls or around the domes. At first connected with the mosques and later independent of them are schools, mausoleums, rooms for the students, and cells for the religious masters.
The poetry of the Arabs consisted in the beginning of praise and satirical poems thought to be full of magic qualities. The strict rules of the outward form of the poems (monorhyme, complicated metre) even in pre-Islamic times led to a certain formalism and encouraged imitation.
Goethe’s statement that the stories of The Thousand and One Nights have no goal in themselves shows his understanding of the character of Arabic belles lettres, contrasting them with the Islamic religion, which aims at “collecting and uniting people in order to achieve one high goal.” Poets, on the other hand, rove around without any ethical purpose, according to the Qurʾān. For many pious Muslims, poetry was something suspect, opposed to the divine law, especially since it sang mostly of forbidden wine and of free love. The combination of music and poetry, as practiced in court circles and among the mystics, has always aroused the wrath of the lawyer divines who wielded so much authority in Islamic communities. This opposition may partly explain why Islamic poetry and fine arts took refuge in a kind of unreal world, using fixed images that could be correctly interpreted only by those who were knowledgeable in the art.
The ambiguity of Persian poetry, which oscillates between the worldly, the divine, and often the political level, is typical of Islamic writings. Especially in Iran and the countries under its cultural influence, this kind of poetry formed the most important part of literature. Epic poetry of all kinds developed exclusively outside the Arabic-speaking countries; Western readers look in vain for an epical structure in such long poems (as in the case of the prose-romances of the Arabs) and find, instead, a rather aimless representation of facts and fictions. A similar characteristic even conditions innumerable historical works in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, which, especially in classical times, contain much valuable information, put together without being shaped into a real work of art; only rarely does the historian or philosopher reach a comprehensive view. The first attempt at a philosophy of history, Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddimah, in the 14th century, was rarely studied by his Arab compatriots.
The accumulation of large amounts of material, which is carefully organized up to the present, seems typical of all branches of Islamic scholarship, from theology to natural sciences. There are many minute observations and descriptions but rarely a full view of the whole process. Later, especially in the Persian, Turkish, and Indo-Muslim areas, a tendency to overstress the decorative elements of prose is evident; and the contents even of official chronicles are hidden behind a network of rhymed prose, which is difficult to disentangle.
This tendency is illustrated in all branches of Islamic art: the lack of “architectural” formation. Instead, there is a kind of carpet-like pattern; the Arabic and Persian poem is, in general, judged not as a closed unity but rather according to the perfection of its individual verses. Its main object is not to convey a deep personal feeling but to perfect to the utmost the traditional rules and inherited metaphors, to which a new image may sometimes be added; thus the personality of the poet becomes visible only through the minimal changes of expression and rhythm and the application of certain preferred metaphors, just as the personality of the miniature painter can be detected by a careful observation of details, of his way of colouring a rock or deepening the shade of a turban. The same holds true for the arabesques, which were developed according to a strict ritual to a mathematical pattern and were refined until they reached a perfection of geometrical complicated figures, as in the dome of the Karatay Medrese in Konya (1251); it corresponds both to the most intricate lacelike Kūfic inscriptions around this dome and to the poetical style of Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī, who wrote in that very place and during those years. His immortal mystical poems comprise thousands of variations on the central theme of love. Although such a perfect congruency of poetry and fine arts is not frequently found, the precept about Persian art that “its wings are too heavy with beauty” can also be applied to Persian poetry. Thus, the tile work of a Persian mosque, which combines different levels of arabesque work with different styles of writing, is reminiscent of the way Persian poetry combines at least two levels of reality. And a perfect harmony is reached in some of the miniature manuscripts of Iran, Muslim India, or Ottoman Turkey, which, in their lucid colours and fine details of execution, recall both the perfection of the calligraphy that surrounds them on delicate paper and the subtlety of the stories or poems that they accompany or illustrate.
Those accustomed to the Western ideals of plasticity or form in the fine arts and literature or to the polyphonic interweaving of melodic lines in music have some difficulties in appreciating this art. The palaces seem to be without a fixed architectural plan; rooms and gardens are simply laid out according to daily needs. The historian offers an astounding amount of detailed reports and facts but with no unifying concept. The Muslim writer prefers this carpet-like form; he adds colour to colour, motif to motif, so that the reader only understands the meaning and end of the whole web from a certain distance. Music, differentiated as it may be in the countries between Morocco and India, follows the same model: variations of highest subtlety on a comparatively simple given subject or theme.
Drama and opera in the Western sense did not develop in the Islamic countries until the 19th century; and the art of the novel is a very recent development. There was no reason for drama: in the Muslim perception God is the only actor who can do whatever he pleases, whose will is inscrutable. Man is, at best, a puppet on a string, behind whose movement those with insight detect the hand of the play master; neither is the problem of personal guilt and absolution posed as it is in the West, nor is a catharsis, or purging of emotion, needed through drama. The atomist theory, widely accepted in Islam since the 10th century, leaves no room for a “dramatic” movement; it teaches that God creates everything anew in every moment, and what is called a “law of nature” is nothing but God’s custom, which he can interrupt whenever he pleases.
It is true that certain other forms are found in the more folkloristic arts of Islam. Every region has produced poetry, in regional languages, that is more lively and more realistic than the classical court poetry; but such poetry tends to become restricted to certain fixed forms that can be easily imitated. Attempts at drama in Islam come from these more popular spheres in Iran (and, rarely, in Lebanon and Iraq), where the tragic events of the murder of Ḥusayn (680) at Karbalāʾ were dramatized in strange forms, using the vocabulary of traditional Persian poetry and theology. Thus, strangely hybrid forms emerge in the Islamic arts, highly interesting for the historian of religion and the student of literature but not typical of the classical Islamic ideals. Popular illustrations of tales and legends and those of some of the Shīʿah heroes are similarly interesting but atypical. In modern times, of course, there have been imitations of all forms of Western literary and visual arts: paintings in the Impressionist or Cubist style, the use of free verse instead of the stern classical forms; and novels, dramas, motion pictures, and music combining Western and Eastern modes. Belief in the Qurʾānic dictum “Whatever is on earth will perish save His face” discouraged artistic endeavour on a large scale; but the Prophetic tradition “Verily God is beautiful and loves beauty” has inspired numberless artists and artisans, writers and poets, musicians, and mystics to develop their arts and crafts as a reflection of that divine beauty. A theory of aesthetics comprising the various artistic expressions of the Muslim peoples has yet to be written. Although there have been a number of studies in literary criticism, the formal indebtedness of some of the best modern poets and painters to the Islamic heritage has never been studied in full.
It is notable that the arts of the Islamic peoples have had relatively little impact on other cultures, certainly far less than their artistic merit would appear to warrant.
Europe has known art objects of Islamic origin since the early Middle Ages, when they were brought home by the crusaders or manufactured by the Arabs in Sicily and Spain. Much admired and even imitated, they formed part of the material culture in those times, so much so that even the coronation robes of the German emperor were decorated with an Arabic inscription. At the same time, Islamic motives wandered into the belles lettres of Europe, and Islamic scientific books formed a basis for the development of Western science. Islamic culture as such, however, was rather an object of hatred than of admiration; a more objective appreciation of both the works of art and of literature did not start until the mid-17th century, when travelers told of the magnificent buildings in Iran and Mughal India, and the first works from Persian literature were translated, influencing German classical literature. Indian miniatures inspired Rembrandt, just as European paintings were imitated by Islamic, especially Mughal, artists. Persian carpets were among the most coveted gifts for princes and princesses.
A bias against the cultures of the East persisted, however, until after the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment; the indefatigable work of the British scholars at Fort William at Calcutta brought new literary treasures to Europe, where they were studied carefully by specialists in the emerging field of Islamic studies. Poets such as Goethe in Germany in the early 19th century paved the way for a deeper understanding of Islamic poetry. Islamic literatures, however, continue to be known to the larger Western public almost exclusively by The Thousand and One Nights, or The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment (translated first in the early 18th century), Omar Khayyam’s robāʿīyāt, and the lyrics of Ḥāfeẓ. Even experts who are aware of the immense wealth of the literatures in the different Islamic languages (such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu) until now have rarely appreciated the literatures from an aesthetic viewpoint; rather, they have used them as a source for lexicography and for philological and historical research. The situation in Islamic fine arts and architecture is similar. Although the beauty of the Alhambra, for example, had already inspired European scholars and artists in the early 19th century, a thorough study of Islamic art as an independent field began only in the 20th century. There was even less interest in the music of Islamic peoples, the arabesque-like uniformity of which seems strange to Western ideals of harmony.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world
The Arabic literature of Moorish Spain and of the whole Maghrib developed parallel with that of the eastern countries but came to full flower somewhat later. Córdoba, the seat of the Umayyad rulers, was the centre of cultural life. Its wonderful mosque has inspired Muslim poets right up to the 20th century (such as Sir Muḥammad Iqbāl, whose Urdu ode, “The Mosque of Córdoba,” was written in 1935). Moorish Spain was a favourite topic for reformist novelists of 19th-century Muslim India, who contrasted their own country’s troubled state with the glory of classical Islāmic civilization. Moorish Spain reached its cultural, political, and literary heyday under ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān III (912–961). Literary stylistic changes, as noted in Iraq and Syria, spread to the west: there the old Bedouin style had always been rare and soon gave way to descriptive and love poetry. Ibn Hāniʾ (died 973) of Sevilla (Seville) has been praised as the Western counterpart of al-Mutanabbī, largely because of his eulogies of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Muʿizz, who at that time still resided in North Africa. The entertaining prose style of Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (died 940) in his al-ʿIqd al-farīd (“The Unique Necklace”) is similar to that of his elder contemporary Ibn Qutaybah, and his book in fact became more famous than that of his predecessor. Writers on music and philology also flourished in Spain; literary criticism was practiced by Ibn Rashīq (died 1064) and, later, by al-Qarṭājannī (died 1285) in Tunis. Ibn Ḥazm (died 1064), theologian and accomplished writer on pure love, has already been mentioned.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Philosophy: Averroës and Avicenna
Philosophy, medicine, and theology, all of which flourished in the ʿAbbāsid East, were also of importance in the Maghrib; and from there strong influences reached medieval Europe. The influences often came through the mediation of the Jews, who, along with numerous Christians, were largely Arabized in their cultural and literary outlook. The eastern Muslim countries could boast of the first systematic writers in the field of philosophy, including al-Kindī (died c. 870), al-Fārābī (died 950), and especially Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, died 1037). Avicenna’s work in philosophy, science, and medicine was outstanding and was appreciated as such in Europe. He also composed religious treatises and tales with a mystical slant. One of his romances was reworked by the Maghribi philosopher Ibn Ṭufayl (died 1185) in his book Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (“Alive Son of Awake”), or Philosophus Autodidactus (the title of its first Latin translation, made in 1671). It is the story of a self-taught man who lived on a lonely island and who, in his maturity, attained the full knowledge taught by philosophers and prophets. This theme was elaborated often in later European literature.
The dominating figure in the kingdom of the Almohads, however, was the philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd, died 1198), court physician of the Berber kings in Marrākush (Marrakech) and famous as the great Arab commentator on Aristotle. The importance of his frequently misinterpreted philosophy in the formation of medieval Christian thought is well known. Among his many other writings, especially notable is his merciless reply to an attack on philosophy made by Ghazālī (died 1111). Ghazālī had called his attack Tahāfut al-falāsifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), while Averroës’ equally famous reply was entitled Tahāfut at-tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). The Persian-born Ghazālī had, after giving up a splendid scholarly career, become the most influential representative of moderate Ṣūfism. His chief work, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm ad-dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), was based on personal religious experiences and is a perfect introduction to the pious Muslim’s way to God. It inspired much later religious poetry and prose. The numerous writings by mystics, who often expressed their wisdom in rather cryptic language (thereby contributing to the profundity of Arabic vocabulary), and the handbooks of religious teaching produced in eastern Arab and Persian areas (Sarrāj, Kalābādhī, Qushayrī, and, in Muslim India, al-Hujwīrī) are generally superior to those produced in western Muslim countries. Yet the greatest Islāmic theosophist of all, Ibn al-ʿArabī (died 1240), was Spanish in origin and was educated in the Spanish tradition. His writings, in both poetry and prose, shaped large parts of Islāmic thought during the following centuries. Much of the later literature of eastern Islām, particularly Persian and Indo-Persian mystical writings, indeed, can be understood only in the light of his teachings. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s lyrics are typical ghazals, sweet and flowing. From the late 9th century, Arabic-speaking mystics had been composing verses often meant to be sung in their meetings. At first a purely religious vocabulary was employed, but soon the expressions began to oscillate between worldly and heavenly love. The ambiguity thus achieved eventually became a characteristic feature of Persian and Turkish lyrics.
Among the Arabs, religious poetry mainly followed the classical qaṣīdah models, and the poets lavishly decorated their panegyrics to the Prophet Muḥammad with every conceivable rhetorical embellishment. Examples of this trend include al-Burdah (“The Mantle”) of al-Buṣīrī (died 1298), upon which dozens of commentaries have been written (and which has been translated into most of the languages of Muslims because of the power to bless attributed to it). More sophisticated but less well known is an ode on the Prophet by the Iraqi poet Ṣafī ad-Dīn al-Ḥilli (died 1350), which contains 151 rhetorical figures. The “letters of spiritual guidance” developed by the mystics are worth mentioning as a literary genre. They have been popular everywhere; from the western Islāmic world the letters of Ibn ʿAbbād (died 1390) of Ronda (in Spain) are outstanding examples of this category, being written clearly and lucidly.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Geographical literature
The Maghrib also made a substantial contribution to geographical literature, a field eagerly cultivated by Arab scholars since the 9th century. The Sicilian geographer ash-Sharīf al-Idrīsī produced a famous map of the world and accompanied it with a detailed description in his Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (“The Delight of Him Who Wishes to Traverse the Regions of the World,” 1154), which he dedicated to his patron, Roger II. The Spanish traveler Ibn Jubayr (died 1217), while on pilgrimage to Mecca, kept notes of his experiences and adventures. The resulting book became a model for the later pilgrims’ manuals that are found everywhere in the Muslim world. The Maghribi explorer Ibn Baṭṭūṭah (died 1368/69 or 1377) described his extensive travels to the Far East, India, and the region of the Niger in a book filled with information about the cultural state of the Muslim world at that time. The value of his narrative is enhanced by the simple and pleasing style in which it is written.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Poetry
In the field of poetry, Spain, which produced a considerable number of masters in the established poetical forms, also began to popularize strophic poetry, possibly deriving from indigenous models. The muwashshaḥ (“girdled”) poem, written in the classical short metres and arranged in four- to six-line stanzas, was elaborated, enriched by internal rhymes, and, embodying some popular expressions in the poem’s final section, soon achieved a standardized form. The theme is almost always love. Among the greatest lyric poets of Spain was Ibn Zaydūn of Córdoba (died 1071), who was of noble birth. After composing some charming love songs dedicated to the Umayyad princess Wallādah, he turned his hand to poetic epistles. He is the author of a beautiful muwashshaḥ about his hometown, which many later poets imitated. When the muwashshaḥ was transplanted to the eastern Arabic countries, however, it lost its original spontaneity and became as stereotyped as every other lyric form of expression during the later Middle Ages. Another strophic form developed in Spain is the songlike zajal (melody), interesting for its embodiment of dialect phrases and the use of occasional words from Romance languages. Its master was Ibn Quzmān of Córdoba (died 1160), whose life-style was similar to that of Western troubadours. His approach to life as expressed in these melodious poems, together with their mixed idiom, suggests an interrelationship with the vernacular troubadour poetry of Spain and France.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Achievements in the western Muslim world » Historiography: Ibn Khaldūn
Any survey of western Muslim literary achievements would be incomplete if it did not mention the most profound historiographer of the Islāmic world, the Tunisian Ibn Khaldūn (died 1406). History has been called the characteristic science of the Muslims because of the Qurʾānic admonition to discover signs of the divine in the fate of past peoples. Islāmic historiography has produced histories of the Muslim conquests, world histories, histories of dynasties, court annals, and biographical works classified by occupation—scholars, poets, and theologians. Yet, notwithstanding their learning, none of the earlier writers had attempted to produce a comprehensive view of history. Ibn Khaldūn, in the famous Muqaddimah or introduction to a projected general history, Kitāb al-ʿibar, sought to explain the basic factors in the historical development of the Islāmic countries. His own experiences, gained on a variety of political missions in North Africa, proved useful in establishing general principles that he could apply to the manifestations of Islāmic civilization. He created, in fact, the first “sociological” study of history, free from bias. Yet his book was little appreciated by his fellow historians, who still clung to the method of accumulating facts without shaping them properly into a well-structured whole. Ibn Khaldūn’s work eventually attracted the interest of Western Orientalists, historians, and sociologists alike; and some of his analyses are still held in great esteem.
Islāmic literatures » Early Islāmic literature » Decline of the Arabic language
Ibn Khaldūn, who had served in his youth as ambassador to Pedro I the Cruel, of Castile, and in his old age as emissary to Timur, died in Cairo. After the fall of Baghdad in 1258, this city had become the centre of Muslim learning. Historians there recorded every detail of the daily life and the policies of the Mamlūk sultans; theologians and philologists worked under the patronage of Turkish and Circassian rulers who often did not speak a word of Arabic. The amusing, semicolloquial style of the historian Ibn Iyās (died after 1521) is an interesting example of the deterioration of the Arabic language. While classical Arabic was still the ideal of every literate man, it had become exclusively a “learned” language. Even some copyists who transcribed classical works showed a deplorable lack of grammatical knowledge. It is hardly surprising that poetry composed under such circumstances should be restricted to insipid versification and the repetition of well-worn clichés.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style
During the ʿAbbāsid period, the Persian influence upon the Arabic had grown considerably: at the same time, a distinct Modern Persian literature came into existence in northeastern Iran, where the house of the Sāmānids of Bukhara and Samarkand had revived the memory of Sāsānian glories.
The first famous representative of this new literature was the poet Rūdakī (died 940/941), of whose qaṣīdahs only a few have survived. He also worked on a Persian version of Kalīlah wa Dimnah, however, and on a version of the Sendbād-nāmeh. Rūdakī’s poetry, modeled on the Arabic rules of prosody that without exception had been applied to Persian, already points ahead to many of the characteristic features of later Persian poetry. The imagery in particular is sophisticated, although when compared with the mannered writing of subsequent times his verse was considered sadly simple. From the 10th century onward, Persian poems were written at almost every court in the Iranian areas, sometimes in dialectical variants (for example, in Ṭabarestāni dialect at the Zeyārid court). In many cases the poets were bilingual, excelling in both Arabic and Persian (a gift shared by many non-Arab writers up to the 19th century).
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Influence of Maḥmūd of Ghazna
The first important centre of Persian literature existed at Ghazna (present-day Ghaznī, Afg.), at the court of Maḥmūd of Ghazna (died 1030) and his successors, who eventually extended their empire to northwestern India. Himself an orthodox warrior, Maḥmūd in later love poetry was transformed into a symbol of “a slave of his slave” because of his love for a Turkmen officer, Ayāz. Under the Ghaznavids, lyric and epic poetry both developed, as did the panegyric. Classical Iranian topics became the themes of poetry, resulting in such diverse works as the love story of Vāmeq and ʿAzrā (possibly of Greek origin) and the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”). A number of gifted poets praised Maḥmūd, his successors, and his ministers. Among them was Farrokhī of Seistan (died 1037), who was the author of a powerful elegy on Maḥmūd’s death, one of the finest compositions of Persian court poetry.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Epic and romance
The main literary achievement of the Ghaznavid period, however, was that of Ferdowsī (died 1020). He compiled the inherited tales and legends about the Persian kings in one grand epic, the Shāh-nāmeh, which contains between 35,000 and 60,000 verses in short rhyming couplets. It deals with the history of Iran from its beginnings—that is, from the “time” of the mythical kings—passing on to historical events, giving information about the acceptance of the Zoroastrian faith, Alexander’s invasion, and, eventually, the conquest of the country by the Arabs. A large part of the work centres on tales of the hero Rostam. These stories are essentially part of a different culture, thus revealing something about the Indo-European sources of Iranian mythology. The struggle between Iran and Tūrān (the central Asian steppes from which new waves of nomadic conquerors distributed Iran’s urban culture) forms the central theme of the book; and the importance of the legitimate succession of kings, who are endowed with royal charisma, is reflected throughout the composition. The poem contains very few Arabic words and is often considered the masterpiece of Persian national literature, although it lacks proper historical perspective. Its episodes have been the inspiration of miniaturists since the 14th century. Numerous attempts have been made to emulate it in Iran, India, and Turkey.
Other epic poems, on a variety of subjects, were composed during the 11th century. The first example is Asadī’s (died c. 1072) didactic Garshāsb-nāmeh (“Book of Garshāsb”), whose hero is very similar to Rostam. The tales of Alexander and his journeys through foreign lands were another favourite topic. Poetical romances were also being written at this time; they include the tale of Varqeh o-Golshāh by ʿEyyūqī (11th century) and Vīs o-Rāmīn by Fakhr od-Dīn Gorgānī (died after 1055), which has parallels with the Tristan story of medieval romance. These were soon superseded, however, by the great romantic epics of Neẓāmī of Ganja (died c. 1209), in Caucasia. The latter are known as the Khamseh (“Quintet”) and, though the names of Vīs or Vāmeq continued for some time to serve as symbols of the longing lover, it was the poetical work of Neẓāmī that supplied subsequent writers with a rich store of images, similes, and stories to draw upon. The first work of his Khamseh, Makhzan ol-asrār (“Treasury of Mysteries”), is didactic in intention; the subjects of the following three poems are traditional love stories. The first is the Arabic romance of Majnūn, who went mad with love for Laylā. Second is the Persian historical tale of Shīrīn, a Christian princess, loved by both the Sāsānian ruler Khosrow II Parvīz and the stonecutter Farhād. The third story, Haft peykar (“Seven Beauties”), deals with the adventures of Bahrām Gūr, a Sāsānian prince, and seven princesses, each connected with one day of the week, one particular star, one colour, one perfume, and so on. The last part of the Khamseh is Eskandar-nāmeh, which relates the adventures of Alexander III the Great in Africa and Asia, as well as his discussions with the wise philosophers. It thus follows the traditions about Alexander and his tutor, Aristotle, emphasizing the importance of a counselor-philosopher in the service of a mighty emperor. Neẓāmī’s ability to present a picture of life through highly refined language and a wholly apt choice of images is quite extraordinary. Human feelings, as he describes them, are fully believable; and his characters are drawn with a keen insight into human nature. Not surprisingly, Neẓāmī’s work inspired countless poets’ imitations in different languages—including Turkish, Kurdish, and Urdu—while painters constantly illustrated his stories for centuries afterward.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Other poetic forms
In addition to epic poetry, the lesser forms, such as the qaṣīdah and ghazal, developed during the 11th and 12th centuries. Many poets wrote at the courts of the Seljuqs and also at the Ghaznavid court in Lahore, where the poet Masʿūd-e Saʿd-e Salmān (died 1121) composed a number of heartfelt qaṣīdahs during his political imprisonment. They are outstanding examples of the category of ḥabsīyah (prison poem), which usually reveals more of the author’s personal feelings than other literary forms. Other famous examples of ḥabsīyahs include those written by the Arab knight Abū Firās (died 968) in a Byzantine prison; those by Muḥammad II al-Muʿtamid of Sevilla (died 1095) in the dungeons of the Almohads; those by the 12th-century Persian Khāqānī; those by the Urdu poets Ghālib, in the 19th, and Faiz, in the 20th century; and by the contemporary Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (died 1963).
The most complicated forms were mastered by poets of the very early period, the limits of artificiality being reached in Azerbaijani qaṣīdahs by the poet Qaṭrān (died 1072), whose work displays virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake. The court poets tried to top one another in the accumulation of complex metaphors and paradoxes, each hoping to win the coveted title “Prince of Poets.” Anvarī (died c. 1189), whose patrons were the Seljuqs, is considered the most accomplished writer of panegyrics in the Persian tongue. His verses contain little descriptive material but abound in learned allusions. His “Tears of Khorāsān,” mourning the passing of Seljuq glory, is among the best known of Persian qaṣīdahs. In the west of Iran, Anvarī’s contemporary Khāqānī (died c. 1190), who wrote mainly at the court of the Shīrvān-Shāhs of Transcaucasia, is the outstanding master of the hyperbolic style. His mother was a Christian, and his imagery has more than the usual amount of allusions to Christian themes. His vocabulary seems inexhaustible; he uses uncommon rhetorical devices and very strong language. His poems, with their long chains of oath-formulae (sowgandnāmeh), are as impressive as his poignant antithetic formulations. Khāqānī’s verses on the ruined Ṭāq Kisrā at Ctesiphon on the Tigris have become proverbial. His qaṣīdahs on the pilgrimage to Mecca, which also inspired his mas̄navī, Tuḥfat al-‘Irāqayn ol-ʿErāqeyn (“Gift of the Two Iraqs”), translate most eloquently the feelings of a Muslim at the festive occasion. In the hand of lesser poets, however, qaṣīdah writing became more and more conventionalized, repeating outworn clichés and employing inflated terms entirely devoid of feeling.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Scholarship: al-Bīrūnī
The Ghaznavid and Seljuq periods produced first-rate scholars such as al-Bīrūnī (died 1048) who, writing in Arabic, investigated Hinduism and gave the first unprejudiced account of India—indeed, of any non-Islāmic culture. He also wrote notable books on chronology and history. In his search for pure knowledge he is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds in Islāmic history. Interest in philosophy is represented by Nāṣer-e Khosrow (died 1087/88) who acted for a time as a missionary for the Ismāʿīlī branch of Shīʿah Islām. His book about his journey to Egypt, entitled Safar-nāmeh, is a pleasing example of simple, clearly expressed, early Persian prose. His poetical works in the main seek to combine Greek wisdom and Islāmic thought: the gnostic Ismāʿīlī interpretation of Islām seemed, to him, an ideal vehicle for a renaissance of the basic Islāmic truths.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Robāʿīyāt: Omar Khayyam
The work done in mathematics by early Arabic scholars and by al-Bīrūnī was continued by Omar Khayyam (died 1122), to whom the Seljuq empire in fact owes the reform of its calendar. But Omar has become famous in the West through the free adaptations by Edward FitzGerald of his robāʿīyāt. These quatrains have been translated into almost every known language and are largely responsible for colouring European ideas about Persian poetry. The authenticity of these verses has often been questioned. The quatrain is an easy form to use—many have been scribbled on Persian pottery of the 13th century—and the same verse has been attributed to many different authors. The latest research into the question of the robāʿīyāt has established that a certain number of the quatrains can, indeed, be traced back to the great scientist who condensed in them his feelings and thoughts, his skepticism and love, in such an enthralling way that they appeal to every reader. The imagery he uses, however, is entirely inherited; none of it is original. (One of the most noted, and notorious, writers of this genre was the poetess Mahsaṭī [first half of the 12th century], who frequently addressed members of different professions in rather frivolous lines.) The quatrain was also popular as a means of embodying pieces of mystical wisdom. One has to do away with the old theory that the first author of such mystical robāʿīyāt was Abū Saʿīd ibn Abū al-Khayr (died 1049). A number of his contemporaries, however, including Bābā Ṭāher ʿOryān (died after 1055), used simpler forms of the quatrain, sometimes in order to express their mystical concepts.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » The mystical poem
Whereas the mystical thought stemming from Iran had formerly been written in Arabic, writers from the 11th century onward turned to Persian. Along with works of pious edification and theoretical discussions, what was to be one of the most common types of Persian literature came into existence: the mystical poem. Khwajah ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī of Herāt (died 1088), a prolific writer on religious topics in both Arabic and Persian, first popularized the literary “prayer,” or mystical contemplation, written in Persian in rhyming prose interspersed with verses. Sanāʾī (died 1131?), at one time a court poet of the Ghaznavids, composed the first mystical epic, the didactic Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqat wa sharī ʿat aṭ-ṭariqah (“The Garden of Truth and the Law of the Path”), which has some 10,000 verses. In this lengthy and rather dry poem, the pattern for all later mystical mas̄navīs is established: wisdom is embodied in stories and anecdotes; parables and proverbs are woven into the texture of the story, eventually leading back to the main subject, although the argument is without thread and the narration puzzling to follow. Among Sanāʾī’s smaller mas̄navīs, Sayr al-ʿibād ilā al-maʿād (“The Journey of the Servants to the Place of Return”) deserves special mention. Its theme is the journey of the spirit through the spheres, a subject dear to the mystics and still employed in modern times as, for example, by Iqbāl in his Persian Jāvīd-nāmeh (1932). Sanāʾī’s epic endeavours were continued by one of the most prolific writers in the Persian tongue, Farīd od-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (died c. 1220). He was a born storyteller, a fact that emerges from his lyrics but even more so from his works of edification. The most famous among his mas̄navīs is the Manṭiq uṭ-ṭayr (The Conference of the Birds), modeled after some Arabic allegories. It is the story of 30 birds, who, in search of their spiritual king, journey through seven valleys. The poem is full of tales, some of which have been translated even into the most remote Islāmic languages. (The story of the pious Sheykh Ṣanʿān, who fell in love with a Christian maiden, is found, for example, in Kashmiri.) ʿAṭṭār’s symbolism of the soul-bird was perfectly in accord with the existing body of imagery beloved of Persian poetry, but it was he who added a scene in which the birds eventually realize their own identity with God (because they, being sī morgh, or “30 birds,” are identified with the mystical Sēmorgh, who represents God). Also notable are his Elāhī-nāmeh, an allegory of a king and his six sons, and his profound Moṣībat-nāmeh (“Book of Affliction”), which closes with its hero’s being immersed in the ocean of his soul after wandering through the 40 stages of his search for God. The epic exteriorizes the mystic’s experiences in the 40 days of seclusion.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Importance of Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī
The most famous of the Persian mystical mas̄navīs is by Mawlānā (“Our Lord”) Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī (died 1273) and is known simply as the Mas̄navī. It comprises some 26,000 verses and is a complete—though quite disorganized—encyclopaedia of all the mystical thought, theories, and images known in the 13th century. It is regarded by most of the Persian-reading orders of Ṣūfīs as second in importance only to the Qurʾān. Its translation into many Islāmic languages and the countless commentaries written on it up to the present day indicate its importance in the formation of Islāmic poetry and religious thought. Jalāl ad-Dīn, who hailed from Balkh and settled in Konya, the capital of the Rūm, or Anatolian Seljuqs (and hence was surnamed “Rūmī”), was also the author of love lyrics whose beauty surpasses even that of the tales in the Mas̄navī. Mystical love poetry had been written since the days of Sanāʾī, and theories of love had been explained in the most subtle prose and sensitive verses by the Ṣūfīs of the early 12th century. Yet Rūmī’s experience of mystical love for the wandering mystic, Shams ad-Dīn of Tabriz, was so ardent and enraptured him to such an extent that he identified himself completely with Shams, going so far as to use the beloved’s name as his own pen name. His dithyrambic lyrics, numbering more than 30,000 verses altogether, are not at all abstract or romantic. On the contrary, their vocabulary and imagery are taken directly from everyday life, so that they are vivid, fresh, and convincing. Often their rhythm invites the reader to partake in the mystical dance practiced by Rūmī’s followers, the Mawlawīyah. His verses sometimes approach the form of popular folk poetry; indeed, Rūmī is reputed to have written mostly under inspiration; and despite his remarkable poetical technique, the sincerity of his love and longing is never overshadowed, nor is his personality veiled. In these respects he is unique in Persian literature.
Islāmic literatures » Middle Period: the rise of Persian and Turkish poetry » The new Persian style » Zenith of Islāmic literature
During the 13th century, the Islāmic lands were exposed, on the political plane, to the onslaught of the Mongols and the abolition of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, while vast areas were laid to waste. Yet this was in fact the period in which Islāmic literatures reached their zenith. Apart from Rūmī’s superb poetry, written in the comparative safety of Konya, there was also the work of the Egyptian Ibn al-Fārīd (died 1235), who composed some magnificent, delicately written mystical poems in qaṣīdah style, and that of Ibn al-ʿArabī, who composed love lyrics and numerous theosophical works that were to become standard. In Iran, one of the greatest literati, Moṣleḥ od-Dīn Saʿdī (died 1292), returned in about 1256 to his birthplace, Shīrāz, after years of journeying; his Būstān (“The Orchard”) and Golestān (“Rose Garden”) have been popular ever since. The Būstān is a didactic poem telling wise and uplifting moral tales, written in polished, easy-flowing style and a simple metre; the Golestān, completed one year later, in 1258, has been judged “. . . the finest flower that could blossom in a Sultan’s garden” (Herder). Its eight chapters deal with different aspects of human life and behaviour. At first sight, its prose and poetical fragments appear to be simple and unassuming; but not a word could be changed without destroying the perfect harmony of the sound, imagery, and content. Saʿdī’s Golestān is thus essential in discovering the nature of the finest Persian literary style. Since the mid-17th century, its moralizing stories have been translated into many Western languages. Saʿdī was likewise the author of some spirited ghazals; he may have been the first writer in Iran to compose the sort of love poetry that is now thought of as characteristic of the ghazal. A few of his qaṣīdahs are also of note, although he is at his best in shorter forms. His elegant aphoristic poems, words of wisdom, and sensible advice all display what has been called the philosophy of common sense—how to act in any given situation so as to make the best of it both for oneself and others, basing one’s conduct on the virtues of gentleness, elegance, modesty, and polite behaviour.
The influence of mysticism, on the one hand, and of the elaborate Persian poetical tradition, on the other, is apparent during the later decades of the 13th century, both in Anatolia and in Muslim India. The Persian mystic, Fakhr-ud-Dīn ʿIrāqī (died 1289), a master of delightful love lyrics, lived for almost 25 years in Multān (in present-day Pakistan), where his lively ghazals are still sung. His short treatises, in a mixture of poetry and prose (and written under Ibn al-ʿArabī’s influence), have been imitated often. While in Multān he may have met the young Amīr Khosrow of Delhi (died 1325), who was one of the most versatile authors to write in Persian, not only in India but in the entire realm of Persian culture. Amīr Khosrow, son of a Turkish officer, but whose mother was Indian, is often styled, because of the sweetness of his speech, “the parrot of India.” (In Persian, it should be noted, parrots are always “sugar-talking”; they are, moreover, connected with Paradise and are thought of as wise birds—thus models of the sweet-voiced sage.) He wrote panegyrics of seven successive kings of Delhi and was also a pioneer of Indian Muslim music. Imitating Neẓāmī’s Khamseh, Khosrow introduced a novelistic strain into the mas̄navī by recounting certain events of his own time in poetical form, some parts of which are lyrics. His style of lyrical poetry has been described as “powdered”; and his ghazals contain many of the elements that in the 16th and 17th centuries were to become characteristic of the “Indian” style. Khosrow’s poetry surprises the reader in its use of unexpected forms and unusual images, complicated constructions and verbal plays, all handled fluently and presented in technically perfect language. His books on the art of letter writing prove his mastery of high-flown Persian prose. Khosrow’s younger contemporary, Ḥasan of Delhi (died 1328), is less well known and had a more simple style. He nevertheless surpassed Khosrow in warmth and charm, qualities that have earned him the title of “the Saʿdī of Hindustan.”
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Islamic arts
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