Part 2 (1/2)
_E._ From the Mongol invasion to the present day (1258 A.D.--).
[Sidenote: The Post-Mongolian period.]
The Mongol hordes under Hulagu captured Baghdad in 1258 A.D. and made an end of the Caliphate. Sweeping onward, they were checked by the Egyptian Mamelukes and retired into Persia, where, some fifty years afterwards, they embraced Islam. The successors of Hulagu, the il-khans, reigned in Persia until a second wave of barbarians under Timur spread devastation and anarchy through Western Asia (1380-1405 A.D.). The unity of Islam, in a political sense, was now destroyed. Out of the chaos three Mu?ammadan empires gradually took shape. In 1358 the Ottoman Turks crossed the h.e.l.lespont, in 1453 they entered Constantinople, and in 1517 Syria, Egypt, and Arabia were added to their dominions. Persia became an independent kingdom under the ?afawids (1502-1736); while in India the empire of the Great Moguls was founded by Babur, a descendant of Timur, and gloriously maintained by his successors, Akbar and Awrangzib (1525-1707).
[Sidenote: Arabian literary history.]
[Sidenote: Writers who are wholly or partly of foreign extraction.]
Some of the political events which have been summarised above will be treated more fully in the body of this work; others will receive no more than a pa.s.sing notice. The ideas which reveal themselves in Arabic literature are so intimately connected with the history of the people, and so incomprehensible apart from the external circ.u.mstances in which they arose, that I have found myself obliged to dwell at considerable length on various matters of historical interest, in order to bring out what is really characteristic and important from our special point of view. The s.p.a.ce devoted to the early periods (500-750 A.D.) will not appear excessive if they are seen in their true light as the centre and heart of Arabian history. During the next hundred years Moslem civilisation reaches its zenith, but the Arabs recede more and more into the background. The Mongol invasion virtually obliterated their national life, though in Syria and Egypt they maintained their traditions of culture under Turkish rule, and in Spain we meet them struggling desperately against Christendom. Many centuries earlier, in the balmy days of the 'Abbasid Empire, the Arabs _pur sang_ contributed only a comparatively small share to the literature which bears their name. I have not, however, enforced the test of nationality so strictly as to exclude all foreigners or men of mixed origin who wrote in Arabic. It may be said that the work of Persians (who even nowadays are accustomed to use Arabic when writing on theological and philosophical subjects) cannot ill.u.s.trate the history of Arabian thought, but only the influence exerted upon Arabian thought by Persian ideas, and that consequently it must stand aside unless admitted for this definite purpose. But what shall we do in the case of those numerous and celebrated authors who are neither wholly Arab nor wholly Persian, but unite the blood of both races? Must we scrutinise their genealogies and try to discover which strain preponderates? That would be a tedious and unprofitable task. The truth is that after the Umayyad period no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between the native and foreign elements in Arabic literature. Each reacted on the other, and often both are combined indissolubly. Although they must be distinguished as far as possible, we should be taking a narrow and pedantic view of literary history if we insisted on regarding them as mutually exclusive.
CHAPTER I
SABA AND ?IMYAR
[Sidenote: Primitive races.]
[Sidenote: Legend of 'Ad.]
With the Sabaeans Arabian history in the proper sense may be said to begin, but as a preliminary step we must take account of certain races which figure more or less prominently in legend, and are considered by Moslem chroniclers to have been the original inhabitants of the country.
Among these are the peoples of 'ad and Thamud, which are constantly held up in the Koran as terrible examples of the pride that goeth before destruction. The home of the 'adites was in ?a?ramawt, the province adjoining Yemen, on the borders of the desert named _A?qafu 'l-Raml_. It is doubtful whether they were Semites, possibly of Aramaic descent, who were subdued and exterminated by invaders from the north, or, as Hommel maintains,[18] the representatives of an imposing non-Semitic culture which survives in the tradition of 'Many-columned Iram,'[19] the Earthly Paradise built by Shaddad, one of their kings. The story of their destruction is related as follows:[20] They were a people of gigantic strength and stature, wors.h.i.+pping idols and committing all manner of wrong; and when G.o.d sent to them a prophet, Hud by name, who should warn them to repent, they answered: ”O Hud, thou hast brought us no evidence, and we will not abandon our G.o.ds for thy saying, nor will we believe in thee. We say one of our G.o.ds hath afflicted thee with madness.”[21] Then a fearful drought fell upon the land of 'ad, so that they sent a number of their chief men to Mecca to pray for rain. On arriving at Mecca the envoys were hospitably received by the Amalekite prince, Mu'awiya b.
Bakr, who entertained them with wine and music--for he had two famous singing-girls known as _al-Jaradatan_; which induced them to neglect their mission for the s.p.a.ce of a whole month. At last, however, they got to business, and their spokesman had scarce finished his prayer when three clouds appeared, of different colours--white, red, and black--and a voice cried from heaven, ”Choose for thyself and for thy people!” He chose the black cloud, deeming that it had the greatest store of rain, whereupon the voice chanted--
”Thou hast chosen embers dun | that will spare of 'ad not one | that will leave nor father nor son | ere him to death they shall have done.”
Then G.o.d drove the cloud until it stood over the land of 'ad, and there issued from it a roaring wind that consumed the whole people except a few who had taken the prophet's warning to heart and had renounced idolatry.
From these, in course of time, a new people arose, who are called 'the second 'ad.' They had their settlements in Yemen, in the region of Saba.
The building of the great d.y.k.e of Ma'rib is commonly attributed to their king, Luqman b. 'ad, about whom many fables are told. He was surnamed 'The Man of the Vultures' (_Dhu 'l-Nusur_), because it had been granted to him that he should live as long as seven vultures, one after the other.
[Sidenote: Legend of Thamud.]
In North Arabia, between the ?ijaz and Syria, dwelt the kindred race of Thamud, described in the Koran (vii, 72) as inhabiting houses which they cut for themselves in the rocks. Evidently Mu?ammad did not know the true nature of the hewn chambers which are still to be seen at ?ijr (Mada'in ?ali?), a week's journey northward from Medina, and which are proved by the Naba?aean inscriptions engraved on them to have been sepulchral monuments.[22] Thamud sinned in the same way as 'ad, and suffered a like fate. They scouted the prophet ?ali?, refusing to believe in him unless he should work a miracle. ?ali? then caused a she-camel big with young to come forth from a rock, and bade them do her no hurt, but one of the miscreants, Qudar the Red (al-A?mar), hamstrung and killed her. ”Whereupon a great earthquake overtook them with a noise of thunder, and in the morning they lay dead in their houses, flat upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.”[23] The author of this catastrophe became a byword: Arabs say, ”More unlucky than the hamstringer of the she-camel,” or ”than A?mar of Thamud.” It should be pointed out that, unlike the 'adites, of whom we find no trace in historical times, the Thamudites are mentioned as still existing by Diodorus Siculus and Ptolemy; and they survived down to the fifth century A.D. in the corps of _equites Thamudeni_ attached to the army of the Byzantine emperors.
[Sidenote: 'Amaliq.]
[Sidenote: ?asm and Jadis.]
Besides 'ad and Thamud, the list of primitive races includes the 'Amaliq (Amalekites)--a purely fict.i.tious term under which the Moslem antiquaries lumped together several peoples of an age long past,_e.g._, the Canaanites and the Philistines. We hear of Amalekite settlements in the Tihama (Netherland) of Mecca and in other parts of the peninsula.
Finally, mention should be made of ?asm and Jadis, sister tribes of which nothing is recorded except the fact of their destruction and the events that brought it about. The legendary narrative in which these are embodied has some archaeological interest as showing the existence in early Arabian society of a barbarous feudal custom, 'le droit du seigneur,' but it is time to pa.s.s on to the main subject of this chapter.
[Sidenote: History of the Yoq?anids.]
The Pre-islamic history of the Yoq?anids, or Southern Arabs, on which we now enter, is virtually the history of two peoples, the Sabaeans and the ?imyarites, who formed the successive heads of a South Arabian empire extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
[Sidenote: The Sabaeans.]
Saba[24] (Sheba of the Old Testament) is often incorrectly used to denote the whole of Arabia Felix, whereas it was only one, though doubtless the first in power and importance, of several kingdoms, the names and capitals of which are set down in the works of Greek and Roman geographers. However exaggerated may be the glowing accounts that we find there of Sabaean wealth and magnificence, it is certain that Saba was a flouris.h.i.+ng commercial state many centuries before the birth of Christ.[25] ”Sea-traffic between the ports of East Arabia and India was very early established, and Indian products, especially spices and rare animals (apes and peac.o.c.ks) were conveyed to the coast of 'Uman. Thence, apparently even in the tenth century B.C., they went overland to the Arabian Gulf, where they were s.h.i.+pped to Egypt for the use of the Pharaohs and grandees.... The difficulty of navigating the Red Sea caused the land route to be preferred for the traffic between Yemen and Syria. From Shabwat (Sabota) in ?a?ramawt the caravan road went to Ma'rib (Mariaba), the Sabaean capital, then northward to Macoraba (the later Mecca), and by way of Petra to Gaza on the Mediterranean.”[26] The prosperity of the Sabaeans lasted until the Indian trade, instead of going overland, began to go by sea along the coast of ?a?ramawt and through the straits of Bab al-Mandab. In consequence of this change, which seems to have taken place in the first century A.D., their power gradually declined, a great part of the population was forced to seek new homes in the north, their cities became desolate, and their ma.s.sive aqueducts crumbled to pieces. We shall see presently that Arabian legend has crystallised the results of a long period of decay into a single fact--the bursting of the d.y.k.e of Ma'rib.