A Literary History of the Arabs Part 55

[517] I am deeply indebted in the following pages to Goldziher's essay ent.i.tled _Alte und Neue Poesie im Urtheile der Arabischen Kritiker_ in his _Abhand. zur Arab. Philologie_, Part I, pp. 122-174.

[518] _Cf._ the remark made by Abu 'Amr b. al-'Ala about the poet Akh?al (p. 242 _supra_).

[519] _Diwan des Abu Nowas, Die Weinlieder_, ed. by Ahlwardt, No. 10, vv. 1-5.

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

[521] _Cf._ the story told of Abu Tammam by Ibn Khallikan (De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 350 seq.).

[522] See Noldeke, _Beitrage_, p. 4.

[523] Ibn Khaldun, _Muqaddima_ (Beyrout, 1900), p. 573, l. 21 seq.; _Prolegomena_ of Ibn K., translated by De Slane, vol. iii, p. 380.

[524] See Professor Browne's _Literary History of Persia_, vol. ii, p.

14 sqq.

[525] _Aghani_, xii, 80, l. 3.

[526] Freytag, _Arab.u.m Proverbia_, vol. i, p. 46 seq., where the reader will find the Arabic text of the verses translated here. Ruckert has given a German rendering of the same verses in his _Hamasa_, vol. i, p.

311. A fuller text of the poem occurs in _Aghani_, xii, 107 seq.

[527] _Diwan_, ed. by Ahlwardt, _Die Weinlieder_, No. 26, v. 4.

[528] Ibn Qutayba, _K. al-s.h.i.+'r wa-'l-Shu'ara_, p. 502, l. 13.

[529] For the famous ascetic, ?asan of Ba?ra, see pp. 225-227.

Qatada was a learned divine, also of Ba?ra and contemporary with ?asan. He died in 735 A.D.

[530] These verses are quoted by Ibn Qutayba, _op. cit._, p. 507 seq.

'The Scripture' (_al-ma??af_) is of course the Koran.

[531] _Die Weinlieder_, ed. by Ahlwardt, No. 47.

[532] _Ibid._, No. 29, vv. 1-3.

[533] Ibn Khallikan, ed. by Wustenfeld, No. 169, p. 100; De Slane's translation, vol. i, p. 393.

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

[535] Possibly he alludes to these aspersions in the verse (_ibid._, p.

153, l. 10): "_Men have become corrupted, and if they see any one who is sound in his religion, they call him a heretic_" (_mubtadi'_).

[536] Abu 'l-'Atahiya declares that knowledge is derived from three sources, logical reasoning (_qiyas_), examination (_'iyar_), and oral tradition (_sama'_). See his _Diwan_, p. 158, l. 11.

[537] _Cf._ _Mani, seine Lehre und seine Schriften_, by G. Flugel, p.

281, l. 3 sqq. Abu 'l-'Atahiya did not take this extreme view (_Diwan_, p. 270, l. 3 seq.).

[538] See Shahrastani, Haarbrucker's translation, Part I, p. 181 sqq. It appears highly improbable that Abu 'l-'Atahiya was a s.h.i.+'ite. _Cf._ the verses (_Diwan_, p. 104, l. 13 seq.), where, speaking of the prophets and the holy men of ancient Islam, he says:--

"_Reckon first among them Abu Bakr, the veracious, And exclaim 'O 'Umar!' in the second place of honour.

And reckon the father of ?asan after 'Uthman, For the merit of them both is recited and celebrated._"

[539] _Aghani_, iii, 128, l. 6 sqq.

[540] _Transactions of the Ninth Congress of Orientalists_, vol. ii. p.

114.

[541] _Diwan_, p. 274, l. 10. _Cf._ the verse (p. 199, penultimate line):--

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

The ascetic "lives the life of a king" (_ibid._, p. 187, l. 5).

Contented men are the n.o.blest of all (p. 148, l. 2). So the great Persian mystic, Jalalu 'l-Din Rumi, says in reference to the perfect ?ufi (_Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz_, No. viii, v. 3 in my edition): _Mard-i khuda shah buvad zir-i dalq_, "the man of G.o.d is a king 'neath dervish-cloak;" and eminent spiritualists are frequently described as "kings of the (mystic) path." I do not deny, however, that this metaphor may have been originally suggested by the story of Buddha.

[542] _Diwan_, p. 25, l. 3 sqq. Abu 'l-'Atahiya took credit to himself for introducing 'the language of the market-place' into his poetry (_ibid._ p. 12, l. 3 seq.).

[543] _Diwan_ (Beyrout, 1886), p. 23, l. 13 et seqq.

[544] _Ibid._, p. 51, l. 2.

[545] _Ibid._, p. 132, l. 3.

[546] _Ibid._, p. 46, l. 16.

[547] _Diwan_, p. 260, l. 11 _et seqq._

[548] _Ibid._, p. 295, l. 14 _et seqq._

[549] _Ibid._, p. 287, l. 10 seq.

[550] _Ibid._, p. 119, l. 11.

[551] _Ibid._, p. 259, penultimate line _et seq._

[552] _Ibid._, p. 115, l. 4.

[553] _Diwan_, p. 51, l. 10.

[554] _Ibid._, p. 133, l. 5.

[555] _Ibid._, p. 74, l. 4.

[556] _Ibid._, p. 149, l. 12 seq.

[557] _Ibid._, p. 195, l. 9. _Cf._ p. 243, l. 4 seq.

[558] _Ibid._, p. 274, l. 6.

[559] _Ibid._, p. 262, l. 4.