It would be almost impossible to make an exhaustive survey of Islamic literatures. There are so many works, of which hundreds of thousands are available only in manuscript, that even a very large team of scholars could scarcely master a single branch of the subject. Islamic literatures, moreover, exist over a vast geographical and linguistic area, for they were produced wherever the Muslims went, from their heartland in Arabia through the countries of the Middle East as far as Spain, North Africa, and, eventually, West Africa. Iran (Persia) is a major centre of Islam, along with the neighbouring areas that came under Persian influence, including Turkey and the Turkic-speaking areas of Central Asia. Many Indian vernaculars contain almost exclusively Islamic literary subjects; there is an Islamic content in the literature of Malaysia and in that of some East African languages, including Swahili. In many cases, however, the Islamic content proper is restricted to religious works—mystical treatises, books on Islamic law and its implementation, historical works praising the heroic deeds and miraculous adventures of earlier Muslim rulers and saints, or devotional works in honour of the Prophet Muhammad.
The vast majority of Arabic writings are scholarly—the same, indeed, is true of the other languages under discussion. There are superb, historically important translations made by medieval scholars from Greek into Arabic; historical works, both general and particular; a range of religiously inspired works; books on grammar and on stylistics, on ethics and on philosophy. All have helped to shape the spirit of Islamic literature in general, and it is often difficult to draw a line between such works of “scholarship” and works of “literature” in the narrower sense of that term. Even a strictly theological commentary can bring about a deeper understanding of some problem of aesthetics. A work of history composed in florid and “artistic” language would certainly be regarded by its author as a work of art as well as of scholarship, whereas the grammarian would be equally sure that his keen insights into the structure of Arabic grammar were of the utmost importance in preserving that literary beauty in which Arabs and non-Arabs alike took pride.
In this treatment of Islamic literatures, however, the definition of “literature” is restricted to poetry and belles lettres, whether popular or courtly in inspiration. Other categories of writing will be dealt with briefly if these shed light on some peculiar problem of literature.
Although Islamic literatures appear in such a wide range of languages and in so many different cultural environments, they are united by several commonalities, including their intellectual and religious underpinnings.
The area of Islamic culture extends from western Africa to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines; but its heartland is Arabia, and the prime importance and special authority of the Arabic language was to remain largely unquestioned after the spread of Islam. The Arabic poetry of pre-Islamic Arabia was regarded for centuries afterward as the standard model for all Islamic poetic achievement, and it directly influenced literary forms in many non-Arab literatures. The Qur’an, Islam’s sacred scripture, was accepted by pious Muslims as God’s uncreated word and was considered to be the highest manifestation of literary beauty. A whole literature defended its inimitability (i‘jaz) and unsurpassable beauty. Because it was God’s own word, the Qur’an could not legitimately be translated into any other language; the study of at least some Arabic was therefore required of every Muslim. Arabic script was used by all those peoples who followed Islam, however much their own languages might differ in structure from Arabic. The Qur’an became the textbook of the Muslims’ entire philosophy of life; theology, lexicography, geography, historiography, and mysticism all grew out of a deep study of its form and content; and even in the most secular works there can be found allusions to the holy book. Its imagery not unexpectedly permeates all Islamic poetry and prose.
Between the coming of Islam in the 7th century and the 11th, a great deal of poetry and prose in Arabic was produced. One branch of literature in Spain and North Africa matured in perfect harmony with the classical ideals of the Muslim East although its masters, during the 11th and 12th centuries, invented a few strophic forms unknown to classical Arabic poetry. In modern times, North African Muslim literature—mainly from Algeria and Morocco—often uses French as a means of expression, since the tradition of Arabic writing was interrupted by the French occupation in the 19th century and has had to be built up afresh.
In 641 the Muslims entered Iran, and Persian influence on literary taste becomes apparent in Arabic literature from the mid-8th century onward. Many stories and tales were transmitted from, or through, Iran to the Arab world and often from there to western Europe. Soon Iran could boast a large literature in its own tongue. Persian literature was more varied in its forms and content than that written in classical Arabic. Although Persian adopted many of the formal rules of the Arabic language (including prosody and rhyme patterns), new genres, including epic poetry, were introduced from Iran. The lyric, elegant and supple, also reached its finest expression in the Persian language.
Persian culture was by no means restricted to Iran itself. Northwestern India and what is now Pakistan became a centre of Islamic literature as early as the 11th century, with Delhi and Agra being of special importance. It was to remain a stronghold of Muslim cultural life, which soon also extended to the east (Bengal) and south (Deccan). Persian remained the official language of Muslim India until 1835, and not only its poetry but even its historiography was written in the high-flown manner that exemplified the Persian concept of fine style. Muslim India can further boast a fine heritage of Arabic poetry and prose (theological, philosophical, and mystical works).
At various times in its history the Indian subcontinent was ruled by princes of Turkish origin (indeed, the words Turk and Muslim became synonymous in some Indian languages). The princes surrounded themselves with a military aristocracy of mainly Turkish extraction, and thus a few poetical and prose works in Turkish were written at some Indian courts. In various regions of the subcontinent an extremely pleasing folk literature has flourished throughout the ages: Sindhi in the lower Indus Valley, for example, and Punjabi in the Punjab are languages rich in an emotional poetry that uses popular metres and forms. At the Indo-Iranian border the oldest fragments of the powerful Pashto poetry date from the Middle Ages. The neighbouring Balochi poetry consists largely of ballads and religious folk songs. All the peoples in this area have interpreted Islamic mysticism in their own simple, touching imagery. In the east of the subcontinent, Bengali Muslims possess a large Islamic literary heritage, including religious epics from the 14th and 15th centuries and some lovely religious folk songs. The achievements of modern novelists and lyric poets from Bangladesh are impressive. To the north, where Islam came in the 14th century, a number of classical themes in Islamic lore were elaborated in Kashmiri lyric and epic poetry. To the south, an occasional piece of Islamic religious poetry can be found even in Tamil and Malayalam. Some fine Muslim short stories have been produced in modern Malayalam.
Urdu, now the chief literary language of Muslim India and Pakistan, borrowed heavily from Persian literature during its classical period in the 18th century. In many writings only the verbs are in Urdu, the rest consisting of Persian constructions and vocabulary; and the themes of traditional Urdu literature were often adapted from Persian. Modern Urdu prose, however, has freed itself almost completely from the past, whereas in poetry promising steps have been taken toward modernization of both forms and content.
An elaborate “classical” style developed in Turkish after the 14th century, reaching its peak in the 17th. Like classical Urdu, it was heavily influenced by Persian in metrics and vocabulary. Many exponents of this “high” style came from the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, a rich and moving folk poetry in popular syllable-counting metres has always flourished among the Turkish population of Anatolia and Rumelia. The mystical songs of their poet Yunus Emre contributed greatly toward shaping this body of literature, which was preserved in the religious centres of the Sufi orders of Islam. From this folk tradition, as well as from Western literature, modern Turkish literature has derived a great deal of its inspiration.
A great deal of the Muslim literature of Central Asia is written in Turkic languages, which include Uzbek, Tatar, and Kyrgyz. Its main cultural centres (Samarkand, Bukhara, Fergana) became part of the Muslim empire after 711. Central Asia was an important centre of Islamic learning until the tsarist invasions in the 1870s, and the peoples of this region have produced a classical literature in Arabic. Many of the most famous Arabic and Persian scholars and poets writing in the heyday of Muslim influence were Central Asians by birth. Central Asians also possess a considerable literature of their own, consisting in large part of epics, folktales, and mystical “words of wisdom.” The rules of prosody which hold for Arabic and Persian languages have been deliberately imposed on the Turkic languages on several occasions, notably by ‘Ali Shir Nava’i, a master of Chagatai poetry and prose in Herat, and by Babur, the first Mughal emperor in India. Tajik literature is basically Persian, both as it is written today in Tajikistan and as it existed in earlier forms, when it was indistinguishable from classical Persian. After the Russification of the country, and especially after the 1917 Revolution, a new literature emerged that was part and parcel of the former Soviet Union’s literature. The same can be said, by and large, about the literatures of other Muslim Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
Smaller fragments of Islamic literature, in Chinese, are found in China (which has quite a large Muslim population) and in the Philippines. The literary traditions of Indonesia and of Malaysia, where the religion of Islam arrived long ago, are also worth noting. Historical and semimythical tales about Islamic heroes are a feature of the literature in these areas, a fact of immense interest to folklorists.
Contact with Islam and its “written” culture also helped to preserve national idioms in many regions. Often such idioms were enriched by Arabic vocabulary and Islamic concepts. The leaders of the Muslims in such areas in northern Nigeria, for example, preferred to write poetry and chronicles in Arabic, while using their mother tongue for more popular forms of literature. Of particular interest in this connection is Kurdish literature, which has preserved in an Iranian language several important, popular heterodox texts and epics.
Small fragments of Arabic literature have long been known in the West. There were cultural interrelations between Muslim Spain (which, like the Indus Valley, became part of the Muslim empire after 711) and its Christian neighbours, and this meant that many philosophical and scientific works filtered through to western Europe. It is also likely that the poetry of Muslim Spain influenced the growth of certain forms of Spanish and French troubadour poetry and provided an element, however distorted, for medieval Western romances and heroic tales.
Investigation by Western scholars of the literatures that used to be termed “Oriental” did not begin until the 16th century in the Netherlands and England. First attempts toward an aesthetic understanding of Arabic and Persian poetry came even later: they were made by the British scholars of Fort William, Calcutta, and by German pre-Romantics of the late 18th century. In the first half of the 19th century the publication of numerous translations of Arabic and Persian poetry, especially into German, began to interest some Europeans. The poetical translations from Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit made by the German scholar and poet Friedrich Rückert can scarcely be surpassed, either in accuracy or in poetical mastery. Hafez became well known in German-speaking countries, thanks to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s enchanting poems West-östlicher Divan (1819; “The Parliament of East and West”), a collection that was the first response to Persian poetry and the first aesthetic appreciation of the character of this poetry by an acknowledged giant of European literature.
In order to understand and enjoy Islamic literature, one must study its external characteristics most carefully. The literatures of the Islamic peoples are “intellectual”; in neither poetry nor prose are there many examples of subjective lyricism, as it is understood in the West. The principal genres, forms, and rules were inherited from pre-Islamic Arabic poetry but were substantially elaborated afterward, especially by the Persians.
Arabic poetry is built upon the principle of monorhyme, and the single rhyme, usually consisting in one letter, is employed throughout every poem, long or short. The structure of Arabic permits such monorhymes to be achieved with comparative ease. The Persians and their imitators often extended the rhyming part over two or more syllables (radif) or groups of words, which are repeated after the dominant rhyming consonant. The metres are quantitative, counting long and short syllables (‘arud). Classical Arabic has 16 basic metres in five groupings; they can undergo certain variations, but the poet is not allowed to change the metre in the course of his poem. Syllable-counting metres, as well as strophic forms, are used in popular, or “low,” poetry; only in post-classical Arabic were some strophic forms introduced into “high” poetry. Many modern Islamic poets, from Pakistan to Turkey and North Africa, have discarded the classical system of prosody altogether. In part they have substituted verse forms imitating Western models such as strophic poems with or without rhyme; since about 1950 free verse has almost become the rule, although a certain tendency toward rhyming or to the use of alliterative quasi-rhymes can be observed.
The chief poetic genres, as they emerged according to traditional rules, are the qasidah, the ghazal, and the qit‘ah; in Iran and its adjacent countries there are, further, the roba‘i and the masnawi.
The qasidah (literally “purpose poem”), a genre whose form was invented by pre-Islamic Arabs, has from 20 to more than 100 verses and usually contains an account of the poet’s journey. In the classic pattern, the parts followed a fixed sequence, beginning with a love-poem prologue (nasib), followed by a description of the journey itself, and finally reaching its real goal by flattering the poet’s patron, sharply attacking some adversaries of his tribe, or else indulging in measureless self-praise. Everywhere in the Muslim world the qasidah became the characteristic form for panegyric. It could serve for religious purposes as well: solemn praise of God, eulogies of the Prophet, and songs of praise and lament for the martyr heroes of Shi‘ite Islam were all expressed in this form. Later, the introductory part of the qasidah often was taken up by a description of nature or given over to some words of wisdom; or the poet took the opportunity to demonstrate his skill in handling extravagant language and to show off his learning. Such exhibitions were made all the more difficult because, though it varied according to the rank of the person to whom it was addressed, the vocabulary of each type of qasidah was controlled by rigid conventions.
The ghazal possibly originated as an independent elaboration of the qasidah’s introductory section, and it usually embodies a love poem. Ideally, its length varies between five and 12 verses. Its diction is light and graceful, its effect comparable to that of chamber music, whereas the qasidah-writer employs, so to speak, the full orchestral resources.
Monorhyme is used in both the qasidah and ghazal. But while these two forms begin with two rhyming hemistiches (half-lines of a verse), in the qit‘ah (“section”) the first hemistich does not rhyme, and the effect is as though the poem had been “cut out” of a longer one (hence its name). The qit‘ah is a less serious literary form that was used to deal with aspects of everyday life; it served mainly for occasional poems, satire, jokes, word games, and chronograms.
The form of the roba‘i, which is a quatrain in fixed metre with a rhyme scheme of a a b a, seems to go back to pre-Islamic Persian poetical tradition. It has supplied the Persian poets with a flexible vehicle for ingenious aphorisms and similarly concise expressions of thought for religious, erotic, or skeptical purposes. The peoples who came under Persian cultural influence happily adopted this form.
Epic poetry was unknown to the Arabs, who were averse to fiction, whether it was expressed in poetry or in prose. The development of epic poetry was thus hindered, just as was the creation of novels or short stories. Nevertheless, masnawi—which means literally “the doubled one,” or rhyming couplet, and by extension a poem consisting of a series of such couplets—became a favourite poetical form of the Persians and those cultures they influenced. The masnawi enabled the poet to develop the thread of a tale through thousands of verses. Yet even in such poetry, only a restricted number of metres was employed, and no metre allowed more than 11 syllables in a hemistich. Metre and diction were prescribed in accordance with the topic; a didactic masnawi required a style and metre different from a heroic or romantic one. The masnawi usually begins with a praise of God, and this strikes the keynote of the poem.
The most typical expression of the Arabic—and Islamic—spirit in prose is the maqamah “gathering, assembly”, which tells basically simple stories in an extremely and marvelously complicated style (abounding in word plays, logographs, double entendre, and the like) and which comes closest to the Western concept of the short story.
The versatility and erudition of the classical maqamah authors is dazzling, but the fables and parables that, during the first centuries of Islam, had been told in a comparatively easy flowing style, later became subject to a growing trend toward artificiality, as did almost every other literary genre, including expository prose. Persian historiographers and Turkish biographers, Indo-Muslim writers on mysticism and even on science all indulged in a style in which rhyme and rhetoric often completely obscured the meaning. It is only since the late 19th century that a matter-of-fact style has slowly become acceptable in literary circles; the influence of translations from European languages, the role of journalism, and the growing pride in a pure language freed from the cobwebs of the past worked together to make Islamic languages more pliable and less artificial.
In all forms of poetry and in most types of prose, writers shared a common fund of imagery that was gradually refined and enlarged in the course of time. The main source of imagery was the Qur’an, its figures and utterances often divested of their sacred significance. Thus, the beautiful Joseph (sura 12) is a fitting symbol for the handsome beloved; the nightingale may sing the psalms of David (sura 21:79 a.o); the rose sits on Solomon’s wind-borne throne (sura 21:81 a.o), and its opening petals can be compared to Joseph’s shirt rent by Potiphar’s wife (sura 12:25 ff.), its scent to that of Joseph’s shirt, which cured blind Jacob (sura 12:94). The tulip reminds the poet of the burning bush before which Moses stood (sura 20:9 ff.), and the coy beloved refuses the lover’s demands by answering, like God to Moses, “Thou shalt not see me” (sura 7:143); but her (or his) kiss gives the dying lover new life, like the breath of Jesus (sura 3:49). Classical Persian poetry often mentions knights and kings from Iran’s history alongside those from Arabic heroic tales. The cup of wine offered by the “old man of the Magians” is comparable to the miraculous cup owned by the Iranian mythical king Jamshid or to Alexander’s mirror, which showed the marvels of the world; the nightingale may sing “Zoroastrian tunes” when it contemplates the “fire temple of the rose.” Central scenes from the great Persian masnawis contributed to the imagery of later writers in Persian-, Turkish-, and Urdu-speaking areas. Social and political conditions are reflected in a favourite literary equation between the “beautiful and cruel beloved” and “the Turk”: since in Iran and India the military caste was usually of Turkish origin, and since the Turk was always considered “white” and handsome, in literary imagery he stood as the “ruler of hearts.” Minute arabesque-like descriptions of nature, particularly of garden scenes, are frequent: the rose and the nightingale have almost become substitutes for mythological figures. The versatile writer was expected to introduce elegant allusions to classical Arabic and Persian literature and to folklore and to know enough about astrology, alchemy, and medicine to use the relevant technical terms accurately. Images inspired by the pastimes of the grandees—chess, polo, hunting, and the like—were as necessary for a good poem as were those referring to music, painting, and calligraphy. Similarly, allusions in poetic imagery to the Arabic letters—often thought to be endowed with mystical significance or magical properties—were very common in all Islamic literatures. The poet had to follow strict rules laid down by the masters of rhetoric, rigidly observing the harmonious selection of similes thought proper to any one given sphere (four allusions to Qur’anic figures, for example; or three garden images all given in a single verse).
The writer was also expected to use puns and to play with words of two or more meanings. He might write verses that could provide an intelligible meaning even when read backward. He had to be able to handle chronograms, codes based on the numerical values of a phrase or verse, which, when understood, gave the date of some relevant event. Later writers sometimes supplied the date of a book’s compilation by hiding in its title a chronogram, a sentence in which specific letters get reinterpreted as numerals and represent a particular date when they are decoded or rearranged. A favourite device in poetry was the “question and answer” form, employed in the whole poem, or only in chosen sections.
One was expected to show talent at both improvisation and elaboration on any theme if one wished to attract the interest of a generous patron. The poetry was judged according to the perfection of its individual verses. Only in rare cases was the poem appreciated as a whole: the lack of coherent argument in ghazal poetry, which often puzzles the Western reader, is in fact deliberate.
It would be idle to look for the sincere expression of personal emotion in Arabic, Turkish, or Persian poetry. The conventions are so rigid that the reader is allowed only a rare glimpse into the poet’s feelings. Yet the great masters of poetry and rhetoric (who all have their favourite imagery, rhymes, and rhythmical patterns) will sometimes allow the patient reader a glimpse into their hearts by a slight rhythmical change or by a new way of expressing a conventional thought.
These are, of course, quite crude generalizations. Only in the 20th century was a complete break with classical ideals made—sincerity instead of imitation, political and social commitment instead of panegyric, realism instead of escapism: these are the characteristic features of modern literatures of the Muslim countries.
The first known poetic compositions of the Arabs are of such perfect beauty and, at the same time, are so conventionalized, that they raise the question as to how far back an actual poetic tradition does stretch. A great number of pre-Islamic poems, dating from the mid-6th century, were preserved by oral tradition. The seven most famous pieces are al-Mu‘allaqat (“The Suspended Ones,” known as The Seven Odes), and these are discussed more fully below. The term mu‘allaqat is not fully understood: later legend asserts that the seven poems had been hung in the most important Arab religious sanctuary, the Ka‘bah in Mecca, because of their eloquence and beauty and had brought victory to their authors in the poetical contests traditionally held during the season of pilgrimage. Apart from these seven, quite a number of shorter poems were preserved by later scholars. An independent genre in pre-Islamic poetry was the elegy, often composed by a woman, usually a deceased hero’s sister. Some of these poems, especially those by al-Khansa’ are notable for their compact expressiveness.
The poet (called a sha‘ir, a wizard endowed with magic powers) was thought to be inspired by a spirit (jinn, shaytan). The poet defended the honour of his tribe and perpetuated its deeds. Religious expression was rare in pre-Islamic poetry. In the main it reflects the sense of fatalism that was probably needed if the harsh circumstances of Bedouin life in the desert were to be endured.
The most striking feature of pre-Islamic poetry is the uniformity and refinement of its language. Although the various tribes, constantly feuding with one another, all spoke their own dialects, they shared a common language for poetry whether they were Bedouins or inhabitants of the small capitals of al-Hirah and Ghassan (where the influence of Aramaic culture was also in evidence).
Arabic was even then a virile and expressive language, with dozens of synonyms for the horse, the camel, the lion, and so forth; and it possessed a rich stock of descriptive adjectives. Because of these features, it is difficult for foreigners and modern Arabs alike to appreciate fully the artistic qualities of early Arabic poetry. Imagery is precise, and descriptions of natural phenomena are detailed. The sense of universal applicability is lacking, however, and the comparatively simple literary techniques of simile and metaphor predominate. The imaginative power that was later to be the hallmark of Arabic poetry under Persian influence had not yet become evident.
The strikingly rich vocabulary of classical Arabic, as well as its sophisticated structure, is matched by highly elaborate metrical schemes, based on quantity. The rhythmical structures were analyzed by the grammarian Khalil of Basra, who distinguished 16 metres. Each was capable of variation by shortening the foot or part of it; but the basic structure was rigidly preserved. One and the same rhyme letter had to be maintained throughout the poem. (The rules of rhyming are detailed and very complicated but were followed quite strictly from the 6th to the early 20th centuries.)
As well as rules governing the outward form of poetry, a system of poetic imagery already existed by this early period. The sequence of a poem, moreover, followed a fixed pattern (such as that for the qasidah). Pre-Islamic poetry was not written down but recited; and therefore sound and rhythm played an important part in its formation, and the rawis “reciters” were equally vital to its preservation. A rawi was associated with some famous bard and, having learned his master’s techniques, might afterward become a poet himself. This kind of apprenticeship to a master whose poetic style was thus continued became a common practice in the Muslim world (especially in Muslim India) right up to the 19th century.
From pre-Islamic times the seven authors of The Seven Odes, already described, are usually singled out for special praise. Their poems and miscellaneous verses were collected during the 8th century and ever since have been the subject of numerous commentaries in the East. They have been studied in Europe since the early 19th century.
Especially notable is the poet Imru’ al-Qays, of the tribe of Kindah, who was foremost both in time and in poetic merit. He was a master of love poetry; his frank descriptions of dalliance with his mistresses are considered so seductive that (as orthodox Puritanism claims) the Prophet Muhammad called him “the leader of poets on the way to Hell.” His style is supple and picturesque. Of all classical Arabic poets he is probably the one who appeals most to modern taste. At the other extreme stands Zuhayr, praising the chiefs of the rival tribes of ‘Abs and Dhubyan for ending a long feud. He is chiefly remembered for his serious qasidah in which, old, wise, and experienced, he meditates upon the terrible escalation of war.
Also exciting for their savagery and beauty are some poems by Ta’abbata Sharran and Shanfara, both outlaw warriors. Their verses reveal the wildness of Bedouin life, with its ideals of bravery, revenge, and hospitality. Ta’abbata Sharran is the author of a widely translated “Song of Revenge” (for his uncle), composed in a short, sharp metre. Shanfara’s lamiyah (literally “poem rhyming in l”) vividly, succinctly, and with a wealth of detail tells of the experiences to be had from life in the desert. This latter poem has sometimes been considered a forgery, created by a learned grammarian.
While poetry forms the most important part of early Arabic literature and is an effective historical preservation of the Arabs’ past glory, there is also a quantity of prose. Of special interest is the rhymed prose (saj‘) peculiar to soothsayers, which developed into an important form of ornate prose writing in every Islamic country. The “literary” genre most typical of Bedouin life is the musamarah, or “nighttime conversation,” in which the central subject is elaborated not by plot but by carrying the listener’s mind from topic to topic through verbal associations. Thus, the language as language played a most important role. The musamarah form inspired the later maqamah literature.
With the coming of Islam the attitude of the Arabs toward poetry seems to have changed. The new Muslims, despite their long-standing admiration for powerful language, often shunned poetry as reminiscent of pagan ideals now overthrown. The Qur’an, in sura 26:225 ff., condemned the poets “who err in every valley, and say what they do not do. Only the perverse follow them!” The Qur’an, as the uncreated word of God, was now considered the supreme manifestation of literary beauty. It became the basis and touchstone of almost every cultural and literary activity and attained a unique position in Arabic literature.
After the death of Muhammad in 632, the time of the “Four Righteous Caliphs” began. For the next 29 years, four different rulers would lead the Islamic world as it continued to expand and grow. It might be expected that a new and vigorous religion would stimulate a new religious literature to sing of its greatness and glory. This, however, was not the case. Only much later did poets claim that their work was the “heritage of prophecy” or draw upon a tradition that calls the tongues of the poets “the keys of the treasures beneath the Divine Throne.” The old, traditional literary models were still faithfully followed: a famous ode by Ka‘b, the son of Zuhayr, is different from pre-Islamic poetry only insofar as it ends in praise of the Prophet, imploring his forgiveness, instead of eulogizing some Bedouin leader.
The desire to preserve words of wisdom is best reflected in the sayings attributed to ‘Ali, the fourth caliph. These, however, were written down, in superbly concise diction, only in the 10th century under the title Nahj al-balaghah (“The Road of Eloquence”), a work that is a masterpiece of the finest Arabic prose and that has inspired numerous commentaries and poetical variations in the various Islamic languages.
The time of the “Four Righteous Caliphs” ended with the assassination of the final caliph, ‘Ali, in 661. With his death, Mu’awiyah, the governor of Syria and a member of a clan called the Bana Umayyah took over, beginning the Umayyad dynasty. At that time, the centre of the Islamic world moved from the Arabian Peninsula to the sophisticated city of Damascus. The Umayyads very much enjoyed the pleasures of life in their residence in Damascus and in their luxurious castles in the Syrian desert. One of their last rulers, the profligate al-Walid ibn Yazid, has become famous not so much as a conqueror (although in 711 the Muslims reached the lower Indus basin, Transoxania, and Spain) but as a poet who excelled in frivolous love verses and poetry in praise of wine. He was fond of short, light metres to match his subjects and rejected the heavier metres preferred by qasidah writers. His verses convey a sense of ease and gracious living. Al-Walid was not, however, the first to attempt this kind of poetry: a remarkable poet from Mecca, ‘Umar ibn Abi Rabi‘ah, had contributed in large measure to the separate development of the love poem (ghazal) from its subordinate place as the opening section of the qasidah. Gentle and charming, in attractive and lively rhythms, his poems sing of amorous adventures with the ladies who came to Mecca on pilgrimage. His light-hearted, melodious poems still appeal to modern readers.
In Medina, on the other hand, idealized love poetry was the vogue; its invention is attributed to Jamil of the tribe ‘Udhrah, “whose members die when they love.” The names of some of these “martyrs of love,” together with the names of their beloved, were preserved and eventually became proverbial expressions of the tremendous force of true love. Such was Qays, who went mad because of his passion for Layla and was afterward known as Majnun (“Demented One”). His story is cherished by later Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poets; as a symbol of complete surrender to the force of love, he is dear both to religious mystics and to secular poets.
Notwithstanding such new developments, the traditional qasidah form of poetry remained popular during the Umayyad period. Moreover, as the satirists of Iraq rose to fame, the naqa’id (“polemic poetry matches”) between Jarir and al-Farazdaq excited and delighted tribesmen of the rival settlements of Basra and Kufah (places that later also became rival centres of philological and theological schools).
Prose literature was still restricted to religious writing. The traditions of the Prophet began to be compiled, and, after careful sifting, those regarded as trustworthy were preserved in six great collections during the late 9th century. Two of these—that of al-Bukhari and that of Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj—were considered second only to the Qur’an in religious importance. The first studies of religious law and legal problems, closely connected with the study of the Qur’an, also belong to that period.
It was not until a new dynasty, the ‘Abbasids, assumed power in 750 and settled in Baghdad, that the golden age of Arabic literature began. The influx of foreign elements added new colour to cultural and literary life. Muslims had become aware of and translated ancient Greek texts, and now Hellenistic thought and the influence of the ancient cultures of the Middle East, for example, contributed to the rapid intellectual growth of the Muslim community. Its members, seized with insatiable intellectual curiosity, began to adapt elements from all the earlier high cultures and to incorporate them into their own. They thus created the wonderful fabric of Islamic culture that was so much admired in the Middle Ages by western Europe. Indian and Iranian threads were also woven into this fabric, and a new sensitivity to beauty in the field of poetry and the fine arts was cultivated.
The classical Bedouin style was still predominant in literature and was the major preoccupation of grammarians. These men were, as the modern critic Sir Hamilton Gibb has emphasized, the true humanists of Islam. Their efforts helped to standardize “High Arabic,” giving it an unchangeable structure once and for all. By now the inhabitants of the growing towns in Iraq and Syria were beginning to express their love, hatred, religious fervour, and frivolity in a style more appealing to their fellow townsmen. Poets no longer belonged exclusively to what had been the Bedouin aristocracy. Artisans and freed slaves, of non-Arab origin, were included among their number.
Abu Nuwas is perhaps the most outstanding of the ‘Abbasid poets.
The new approach to poetry that developed during the 9th century was first accorded scholarly discussion in the Kitab al-badi‘ (“Book of the Novel and Strange”) by Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, caliph for one day, who laid down rules for the use of metaphors, similes, and verbal puns. The ideal of these “modern” poets was the richest possible embellishment of verses by the use of tropes, brilliant figures of speech, and farfetched poetic conceits. Many later handbooks of poetics discussed these rules in minute detail, and eventually the increasing use of rhetorical devices no longer produced art but artificiality. (Ibn al-Mu‘tazz was himself a fine poet whose descriptions of courtly life and nature are lovely; he even tried to compose a tiny epic poem, a genre otherwise unknown to the Arabs.) The “modern” poets, sensitive to colours, sounds, and shapes, also were fond of writing short poems on unlikely subjects: a well-bred hunting dog or an inkpot; delicious sweetmeats or jaundice; the ascetic who constantly weeps when he remembers his sins; the luxurious garden parties of the rich; an elegy for a cat; or a description of a green ewer. Their amusing approach, however, was sooner or later bound to lead to mannered compositions. The growing use of colour images may be credited to the increasing Persian influence upon ‘Abbasid poetry; for the Persian poets were, as has been often observed, on the whole more disposed to visual than to acoustic imagery.
New attitudes toward love, too, were being gradually developed in poetry. Eventually, what was to become a classic theme, that of hubb ‘udhri (“‘Udhrah love”)—the lover would rather die than achieve union with his beloved—was expounded by the Zahiri theologian Ibn Da’ud in his poetic anthology Kitab al-zahrah (“Book of the Flower”). This theme was central to the ghazal poetry of the following centuries. Although at first completely secular, it was later taken over as a major concept in mystical love poetry. (The first examples of this adoption, in Iraq and Egypt, took place in Ibn Da’ud’s lifetime.) The wish to die on the path that leads to the beloved became commonplace in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poetry; and most romances in these languages end tragically. Ibn Da’ud’s influence also spread to the western Islamic world. A century after his death, the theologian Ibn Hazm, drawing upon personal experiences, composed in Spain his famous work on “pure love” called Tawq al-hamamah (The Ring of the Dove). Its lucid prose, interspersed with poetry, has many times been translated into Western languages.
The conflict between the traditional ideals of poetry and the “modern” school of the early ‘Abbasid period also led to the growth of a literary criticism, the criteria of which were largely derived from the study of Greek philosophy.
In the mid-10th century a new cultural centre emerged at the small court of the Hamdanids in Aleppo. Here the Central Asian scholar al-Farabi wrote his fundamental works on philosophy and musical theory. Here, too, for a while, lived Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, who is in the mainstream of classical qasidah writers but who surpasses them all in the extravagance of what has been called his “reckless audacity of imagination.” He combined some elements of Iraqi and Syrian stylistics with classical ingredients. His compositions—panegyrics of rulers and succinct verses (which are still quoted)—have never ceased to intoxicate the Arabs by their daring hyperbole, their marvelous sound effects, and their formal perfection.
During the ‘Abbasid period, literary prose also began to develop. Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, of Persian origin, translated the fables of Bidpai into Arabic under the title Kalilah wa Dimnah. These fables provided Islamic culture with a seemingly inexhaustible treasure of tales and parables, which are to be found in different guises throughout the whole of Muslim literature. He also introduced into Arabic the fictitious chronicles of the Persian Khwatay-namak (“Book of Kings”). This was the source of a kind of pre-Islamic mythology that the literati preferred above the somewhat meagre historical accounts of the Arab pagan past otherwise available to them. These activities demanded a smooth prose style, and Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ has therefore rightly been regarded as the inaugurator of what is called “secretarial literature” (that produced by secretaries in the official chancelleries).
The most vigorous prose style was achieved by Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, who portrayed the weaknesses of the two leading viziers, both notorious for their literary ambitions, in such a light that the very possession of a copy of his book was thought to bring bad luck. This work, like others by Tawhidi that have quite recently been discovered, reveals the author’s sagacity and striking eloquence.
Some time about 800 the Arabs had learned the art of papermaking from the Chinese. Henceforth, cheap writing material was available, and literary output was prodigious. In those years manuals of composition (insha’) were written elaborating the technique of secretarial correspondence, and they grew into an accepted genre in Arabic as well as in Persian and Turkish literature. The devices thought indispensable for elegance in modern poetry were applied to prose. The products were mannered, full of puns, verbal tricks, riddles, and the like. The new style, which was also to affect the historian’s art in later times, makes a good deal of this post-classical Arabic prose look very different from the terse and direct expression characteristic of the early specimens. Rhymed prose, which at one time had been reserved for such religious occasions as the Friday sermons, was now regarded as an essential part of elegant style.
This rhetorical artistry found its most superb expression in the maqamah, a form invented by Badi‘ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani. Its master, however, was al-Hariri, postmaster (head of the intelligence service) at Basra and an accomplished writer on grammatical subjects. His 50 maqamahs, which tell the adventures of Abu Zayd al-Saruji, with a wealth of language and learning, come closer to the Western concept of short story than anything else in classical Arabic literature. They abound in verbal conceits, ambivalence, assonance, alliteration, palindromes; they change abruptly from earnest to frivolous, and from the crude to the most sublime.
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 (by 756, the Umayyad dynasty had died out in other parts of the Muslim world, but Umayyad rulers would continue to rule Spain until 1031), was the centre of cultural life. Its wonderful mosque has inspired Muslim poets right up to the 20th century (such as Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 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 Islamic civilization. Moorish Spain reached its cultural, political, and literary heyday under ‘Abd al-Rahman 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 Hani’ of Sevilla (Seville) has been praised as the Western counterpart of al-Mutanabbi, largely because of his eulogies of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz, who at that time still resided in North Africa. The entertaining prose style of Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi in his al-‘Iqd al-farid (“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.
Philosophy, medicine, and theology, all of which flourished in the ‘Abbasid 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, especially Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 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 Tufayl in his book Hayy ibn Yaqzan (“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, d. 1198), court physician of the Amazigh (Berber) kings in Marrakush (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. Arguably the greatest Islamic theosophist of all, Ibn al-‘Arabi was Spanish in origin and was educated in the Spanish tradition. His writings, in both poetry and prose, shaped large parts of Islamic thought during the following centuries. Much of the later literature of eastern Islam, particularly Persian and Indo-Persian mystical writings, indeed, can be understood only in the light of his teachings. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s lyrics are typical of the ghazal, 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.
The Maghrib also made a substantial contribution to geographical literature, a field eagerly cultivated by Arab scholars since the 9th century. The Sicilian geographer al-Sharif al-Idrisi produced a famous map of the world and accompanied it with a detailed description in his Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (“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, 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 Battutah described his extensive travels to East Asia, 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.
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 muwashshah (“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 Zaydun of Córdoba, who was of noble birth. 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 Quzman of Córdoba, whose lifestyle 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.
Any survey of western Muslim literary achievements would be incomplete if it did not mention the most profound historiographer of the Islamic world, the Tunisian Ibn Khaldun. History has been called the characteristic science of the Muslims because of the Qur’anic admonition to discover signs of the divine in the fate of past peoples. Islamic 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. Ibn Khaldun, in the famous Muqaddimah (introduction to a projected general history, Kitab al-‘ibar) sought to explain the basic factors in the historical development of the Islamic 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 Islamic civilization. He created, in fact, the first “sociological” study of history, free from bias.
Ibn Khaldun, 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 Mamluk 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 Iyas is an interesting example of the deterioration of the Arabic language. While classical Arabic was still the ideal of every literate person, it had become exclusively a “learned” language.
During the ‘Abbasid period (750-1258), 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 Samanids of Bukhara and Samarkand had revived the memory of Sasanian glories.
The first famous representative of this new literature was the poet Rudaki, of whose qasidahs only a few have survived. He also worked on a Persian version of Kalilah wa Dimnah, however, and on a version of the Sendbad-nameh. Rudaki’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 Tabarestani dialect at the Zeyarid 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).
The first important centre of Persian literature existed at Ghazna (present-day Ghazni, Afg.), at the court of Mahmud of Ghazna and his successors, who eventually extended their empire to northwestern India. Himself an orthodox warrior, Mahmud in later love poetry was transformed into a symbol of “a slave of his slave” because of his love for a Turkmen officer, Ayaz. 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 Vameq and ‘Azra (possibly of Greek origin) and the Shah-nameh (“Book of Kings”). A number of gifted poets praised Mahmud, his successors, and his ministers. Among them was Farrokhi of Seistan, who was the author of a powerful elegy on Mahmud’s death, one of the finest compositions of Persian court poetry.
The main literary achievement of the Ghaznavid period, however, was that of Ferdowsi. He compiled the inherited tales and legends about the Persian kings in one grand epic, the Shah-nameh, 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 Turan (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. Its episodes have been the inspiration of miniaturists since the 14th century.
Other epic poems, on a variety of subjects, were composed during the 11th century. The first example is Asadi’s didactic Garshasb-nameh (“Book of Garshasb”), 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, but these were soon superseded by the great romantic epics of Nezami of Ganja, in Caucasia. The latter are known as the Khamseh (“Quintet”) and, though the names of Vis or Vameq continued for some time to serve as symbols of the longing lover, it was the poetical work of Nezami that supplied subsequent writers with a rich store of images, similes, and stories to draw upon. The first work of his Khamseh, Makhzan al-asrar (“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 Majnun, who went mad with love for Layla. Second is the Persian historical tale of Shirin, a Christian princess, loved by both the Sasanian ruler Khosrow II Parviz and the stonecutter Farhad. The third story, Haft peykar (“Seven Beauties”), deals with the adventures of Bahram Gur, a Sasanian 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-nameh, 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. Nezami’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, Nezami’s work inspired countless poets’ imitations in different languages—including Turkish, Kurdish, and Urdu—while painters constantly illustrated his stories for centuries afterward.
In addition to epic poetry, the lesser forms, such as the qasidah 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 Mas‘ud-e Sa‘d-e Salman composed a number of heartfelt qasidahs during his political imprisonment. They are outstanding examples of the category of habsiyah (prison poem), which usually reveals more of the author’s personal feelings than other literary forms. Other famous examples of habsiyahs include those written by the Arab knight Abu Firas in a Byzantine prison.
The most complicated forms were mastered by poets of the very early period, especially Qatran, who was born near Tabriz (now in Iran) and died after 1072. Through their display of virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake, his qasidahs reached the limits of artificiality. Anvari, whose patrons were the Seljuqs, is considered the most accomplished writer of panegyrics in the Persian tongue. His verses abound in learned allusions. His “Tears of Khorasan,” mourning the passing of Seljuq glory, is among the best known of Persian qasidahs.
The Ghaznavid and Seljuq periods produced first-rate scholars such as al-Biruni, who, writing in Arabic, investigated Hinduism and gave the first unprejudiced account of India—indeed, of any non-Islamic 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 Islamic history. Interest in philosophy is represented by Naser-e Khosrow, who acted for a time as a missionary for the Isma‘ili branch of Shi‘ite Islam. His book about his journey to Egypt, entitled Safar-nameh, is a pleasing example of simple, clearly expressed, early Persian prose. His poetical works in the main seek to combine ancient Greek wisdom and Islamic thought: the gnostic Isma‘ili interpretation of Islam seemed, to him, an ideal vehicle for a renaissance of the basic Islamic truths.
The work done in mathematics by early Arabic scholars and by al-Biruni was continued by Omar Khayyam, 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 roba‘iyat. 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 roba‘iyat 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. The imagery he uses, however, is entirely inherited; none of it is original.
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 ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari of Herat, 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. Sana’i, at one time a court poet of the Ghaznavids, composed the first mystical epic, the didactic Hadiqat al-haqiqat wa shari ‘at al-tariqah (“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 masnawis 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 Sana’i’s smaller masnawis, Sayr al-‘ibad ila al-ma‘ad (“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 Iqbal in his Persian Javid-nameh (1932). Sana’i’s epic endeavours were continued by one of the most prolific writers in the Persian tongue, Farid al-Din ‘Attar. 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 masnawis is the Manteq al-teyr (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 Islamic languages. (The story of the pious Sheykh San‘an, who fell in love with a Christian maiden, is found, for example, in Kashmiri.) ‘Attar’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 si morgh, or “30 birds,” are identified with the mystical Semorgh, who represents God). Also notable are his Elahi-nameh, an allegory of a king and his six sons, and his profound Mosibat-nameh (“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.
The most famous of the Persian mystical masnawis is by Mawlana (“Our Lord”) Jalal al-Din al-Rumi and is known simply as the Masnavi-ye Ma‘navi. 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 Sufis as second in importance only to the Qur’an. Its translation into many Islamic languages and the countless commentaries written on it up to the present day indicate its importance in the formation of Islamic poetry and religious thought. Jalal al-Din, who hailed from Balkh and settled in Konya, the capital of the Rum, or Anatolian Seljuqs (and hence was surnamed “Rumi”), was also the author of love lyrics whose beauty surpasses even that of the tales in the Masnavi. Mystical love poetry had been written since the days of Sana’i, and theories of love had been explained in the most subtle prose and sensitive verses by the Sufis of the early 12th century. Yet Rumi’s experience of mystical love for the wandering mystic, Shams al-Din 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 Rumi’s followers, the Mawlawiyah. His verses sometimes approach the form of popular folk poetry; indeed, Rumi 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.
The Mawlawiyah fraternity of Sufis, known as dancing (or whirling) dervishes, performs the order’s ritual prayers while spinning on the right foot to the accompaniment of musical instruments. This fraternity was founded by the great mystical poet Rumi. Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images
During the 13th century, the Islamic lands were exposed, on the political plane, to the onslaught of the Mongols and the abolition of the ‘Abbasid caliphate, while vast areas were laid to waste. Yet this was in fact the period in which Islamic literatures reached their zenith. Apart from Rumi’s superb poetry, written in the comparative safety of Konya (Turkey), there was also the work of the Egyptian Ibn al-Farid, who composed some magnificent, delicately written mystical poems in qasidah style, and that of Ibn al-‘Arabi, who composed love lyrics and numerous theosophical works that were to become standard. In Iran, one of the greatest literati, Mosleh al-Din Sa‘di, returned about 1256 to his birthplace, Shiraz, after years of journeying; his Bustan (“The Orchard”) and Golestan (“Rose Garden”) have been popular ever since. The Bustan is a didactic poem telling wise and uplifting moral tales, written in polished, easy-flowing style and a simple metre; the Golestan, 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. Sa‘di’s Golestan is thus essential in discovering the nature of the finest Persian literary style.
The influence of mysticism, on the one hand, and of the elaborate Persian poetical tradition, on the other, are apparent during the later decades of the 13th century, both in Anatolia and in Muslim India. The Persian mystic, Fakhr al-Din ‘Iraqi, a master of delightful love lyrics, lived for almost 25 years in Multan (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-‘Arabi’s influence), have been imitated often. While in Multan he may have met the young Amir Khosrow of Delhi, who was one of the most versatile authors to write in Persian (not only in India but in the entire realm of Persian culture). Amir 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.) Imitating Nezami’s Khamseh, Khosrow introduced a novelistic strain into the masnawi 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, Hasan of Delhi, is less well known and had a more simple style. He nevertheless surpassed Khosrow in warmth and charm.
As for the literary developments in Turkey about 1300, the mystical singer Yunus Emre is the first and most important in a long line of popular poets. Yunus exercised a powerful influence on Turkish literature.
The Turkish people rightly claim Yunus as the founder of Turkish literature proper. His poetry is considered the chief pillar of poetry of the Bektashiyah Sufi order, and many poets of this and other orders have imitated his style (though without reaching the same level of poetic truth and human warmth). In the 16th century, Pir Sultan Abdal (executed c. 1560) is noted for a few poems of austere melancholy. He was executed for collaboration with the Safavids, the archenemies of the Ottomans; and in this connection it is worth remembering that the founder of the Iranian Safavid dynasty, Shah Esma‘il I, wrote Turkish poetry under the pen name Khata’i and is counted among the Bektashi poets. His verse had a decisive influence on later Turkish mystics and inspired the poets of the renaissance of Turkish national poetry after 1910.
Mystically tinged poetry has always been very popular in Turkey, both in cities and rural areas. The best loved religious poem of all was, and still is, Süleyman Çelebi’s Mevlûd, a quite short masnawi in honour of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth. This type of poetry has been known in the Islamic countries since at least the 12th century and was soon adopted wherever Islam spread. There are a great number of mevlûd written in Turkish, but it was Süleyman Çelebi’s unpretentious description of the great religious event that captured the hearts of the Turks; and it is still sung on many occasions (on the anniversary of a death, for example). The poem makes an excellent introduction to an understanding of the deep love for the Prophet felt by the pious Muslim.
In the Iran of the Middle Ages, a vast number of poets flourished at the numerous courts. Not only professional poets but even the kings and princes contributed more or less successfully to the body of Persian poetry. Epics, panegyrics, and mystico-didactical poetry had all reached their finest hour by the end of the 13th century; the one genre to attain perfection slightly later was the ghazal, of which Mohammad Shams al-Din Hafez is the incontestable master.
Hafez lived in Shiraz; his pen name—“Who Knows the Qur’an by Heart”—indicates his wide religious education, but little is known about the details of his life. The same is true of many Persian lyrical poets, since their products rarely contain much trustworthy biographical material. Hafez’s comparatively small collection of work—his Divan contains about 400 ghazals—was soon acclaimed as the finest lyrical poetry ever written in Persian. The discussion of whether or not to interpret its wine and love songs on a mystical plane has continued for centuries. Yet this discussion seems sterile since Hafez, whose verbal images shine like jewels, is an outstanding exponent of the ambiguous and oscillating style that makes Persian poetry so attractive and so difficult to translate. The different levels of experience are all expressed through the same images and symbols: the beloved is always cruel, mysterious, and unattainable, whether a chaste virgin (a rare case in Persian poetry!), a professional courtesan, a handsome boy (as in most cases), God himself, or even a remote despot, the wisdom of whose schemes must never be questioned by his subjects. Since mystical interpretation of the world order had become almost second nature to Persians during the 13th century, the beloved human could effortlessly be regarded as God’s manifestation; the rose became a symbol of highest divine beauty and glory; the nightingale represented the yearning and complaining soul; wine, cup, and cupbearer became the embodiment of enrapturing divine love. The poets’ multicoloured images were not merely decorative embroidery but were a structural part of their thought. One must not expect Hafez (or any other poet) to unveil his personal feelings in a lyrical poem of experience. But no other Persian poet has used such complex imagery on so many different levels with such harmonious and well-balanced lucidity as did Hafez. His true greatness lies in this rather than in the content of his poetry. It must be stressed again that, according to the traditional view, each verse of a ghazal should be unique, precious for its own sake, and that the apparent lack of logic behind the sequence of verses was considered a virtue rather than a defect. (It may help to think of the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope, which appear in different patterns from moment to moment, yet themselves form no logical pattern.) To what extent an “inner rhythm” and a “contrapuntal harmony” can be detected in Hafez’s poetry is still a matter for discussion; but that he perfected the ghazal form is indisputable. Whether he is praised as a very human love poet, as an interpreter of esoteric lore, or, as has been recently suggested, as a political critic, his verses have a continuing appeal to all lovers of art and artistry.
Hafez’s contemporary in Shiraz was the satirist ‘Obeyd-e Zakani, noted for his obscene verses (even the most moralistic and mystical poets sometimes produced surprisingly coarse and licentious lines) and for his short masnawi called Mush o-gorbeh (“Mouse and Cat”), an amusing political satire. Since few new forms or means of expression were open to them, ‘Obeyd and other poets began ridiculing the classic models of literature: thus, Boshaq composed odes and ghazals exclusively on the subject of food.
The last great centre of Islamic art in the region of Iran was the Timurid court of Herat, where Dowlatshah composed his much-quoted biographical work on Persian poets. The leading figure in this circle was ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami, who is sometimes considered the last and most comprehensive of the “seven masters” in Persian literature, since he was a master of every literary genre.
During the first five centuries of Modern Persian literary life, a multitude of prose works were written. Among them, the “Mirror for Princes” deserves special mention. This genre, introduced from Persian into Arabic as early as the 8th century, flourished once more in Iran during the late 11th century. One important example is the Qabus-nameh by the Zeyarid prince ‘Unsur al-Ma‘ali Kayka’us, which presents “a miscellany of Islamic culture in pre-Mongol times.” At the same time, Nizam al-Mulk, the grand vizier of the Seljuqs, composed his Seyasat-nameh (“Book of Government”), a good introduction to the statesman’s craft according to medieval Islamic standards. The Seyasat-nameh was heavily influenced by pre-Islamic Persian tradition.
Belles lettres proper found a fertile soil in Iran. The fables of Kalilah wa Dimnah, for example, were retold several times in Persian. The “cyclic story” form (in which several unconnected tales are held together by a common framework or narrator device), inherited from India, became as popular in Iran as it had been in the Arabic-speaking countries. The Sendbad-nameh and the Tuti-nameh (“Parrot Book”), which is based on Indian tales, are both good examples of the popular method whereby a variety of instructive stories are skillfully strung together within a basic “running” story. Anecdotes were an important feature of the biographical literature that became popular in Iran and Muslim India. Biographies of the poets of a certain age or of a specified area were collected together. They provide the reader with few concrete facts about the subjects concerned; but they abound in anecdotes, sayings, and verses attributed to the subjects, thus preserving material that otherwise might have been lost. One of the most remarkable works in this field is Chahar maqaleh (“Four Treatises”) by Nezami-ye ‘Aruzi, a writer from eastern Iran. Written about 1156, this little book is an excellent introduction to the ideals of Persian literature and its writers, discussing in detail what is required to make a perfect poet, giving a number of instances of the sort of poetic craftsmanship thought especially admirable, and allowing glimpses into the various arts in which the literary man was expected to excel.
This tendency toward “anecdotal” writing, which is also manifest in the work of a number of Arab historians, can be observed in the cosmographical books and in some of the historical books produced in medieval Iran. Hamdollah Mostowfi’s cosmography, Nuzhat al-qulub (“Pleasure of the Hearts”), like many earlier works of this genre, underlined the mysterious aspects of the marvels of creation and was the most famous of several instructive collections of mixed folkloristic and scientific material. Early miniaturists, too, loved to illustrate the most unlikely tales and pieces of information given in such works. Historical writing proper had been begun by the Persians as early as the late 10th century, when Bal‘ami’s abridged translation of al-Tabari’s vast Arabic chronicle first acquainted them with this outstanding piece of early Arabic historical literature. The heyday of historiography in Iran, however, was the Il-Khanid period (mid-13th to mid-14th century). Iran was then ruled by the successors of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, and scholars began to extend their interest back to the history of pre-Islamic Central Asia, whence the rulers had come. Tarikh-e jehan-goshay (“History of the World Conqueror”) by ‘Ata Malek-e Joveyni and Jami‘ al-tawarikh (“Collector of Chronicles”) by the physician and vizier Rashid al-Din (executed 1318) are both outstanding examples of histories filled with valuable information. Although the writing of history became a firmly established art in Iran and the adjacent Muslim countries, the facts were unfortunately all too often concealed in a bombastic style and a labyrinth of cumbersome, long-winded sentences. This development in Persian and Turkish prose is also reflected in the handbooks on style and letter writing that were written during the 14th and 15th centuries and afterward. They urged the practice of all the artificial tricks of rhetoric by this time considered essential for an elegant piece of prose.
Islamic literatures, however, should not be thought to consist only of erudite and witty court poetry, of frivolous or melancholy love lyrics full of literary conceits, or of works deeply mystical in content. Such works are counterbalanced by a great quantity of popular literature, of which the most famous expression is Alf laylah wa laylah (The Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment).
From pre-Islamic times the Arabs had recounted tales of the ayyam al-‘Arab (“Days of the Arabs”), which were stories of their tribal wars, and had dwelt upon tales of the heroic deeds of certain of their brave warriors, such as ‘Antarah. Modern research, however, suggests that this story in its present setting belongs to the period of the Crusades. The Egyptian queen Shajar al-Durr and the first brave Mamluk ruler, Baybars I, as well as the adventures of the Bedouin tribe Banu Hilai on its way to Tunisia, are all the subjects of lengthy popular tales.
The collection of stories known variously as The Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: Alf laylah wa laylah) and The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment is of uncertain date and authorship, and its tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad the Sailor have almost become part of Western folklore.
As in much medieval European literature, the stories—fairy tales, romances, legends, fables, parables, anecdotes, and exotic or realistic adventures—are set within a frame story. Its scene is Central Asia, or “the islands or peninsulae of India and China,” where King Shahryar, after discovering that during his absences his wife has been regularly unfaithful, kills her and those with whom she has betrayed him. Then, loathing all womankind, he marries and kills a new wife each day until no more candidates can be found. His vizier, however, has two daughters, Shahrazad (Scheherazade) and Dunyazad; and the elder, Shahrazad, having devised a scheme to save herself and others, insists that her father give her in marriage to the king. Each evening she tells a story, leaving it incomplete and promising to finish it the following night. The stories are so entertaining, and the king so eager to hear the end, that he puts off her execution from day to day and finally abandons his cruel plan.
The tales collected under this title come from different cultural areas; their nucleus is of Indian origin, first translated into Persian as Hazar afsana (“Thousand Tales”) and then into Arabic. These fanciful fairy tales were later expanded with stories and anecdotes from Baghdad. Subsequently, some narratives—mainly from the lower strata of society—about rogues, tricksters, and vagabonds were added in Egypt. Independent collections of stories, such as those relating to Sindbad the Sailor, were also included. The tales’ variety and geographical range of origin make single authorship unlikely. This view is supported by internal evidence—the style, mainly unstudied and unaffected, contains colloquialisms and even grammatical errors such as no professional Arabic writer would allow.
Robbers in a scene from “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” one of the most well-known tales from The Thousand and One Nights. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The first known reference to the Nights is a 9th-century fragment. It is next mentioned in 947 by al-Mas‘udi in a discussion of legendary stories from Iran, India, and Greece, as the Persian Hazar afsana, “A Thousand Tales,” “called by the people ‘A Thousand Nights’.” In 987 Ibn al-Nadim adds that Abu ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abdus al-Jashiyari began a collection of 1,000 popular Arabic, Iranian, Greek, and other tales but died (942) when only 480 were written.
It is clear that the expressions “A Thousand Tales” and “A Thousand and One...” were intended merely to indicate a large number and were taken literally only later, when stories were added to make up the number.
Since its first translation into French (1704), it has affected Western perceptions of the East, helping to foster Orientalism. By the 20th century, Western scholars had agreed that the Nights is a composite work consisting of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places. By the mid-20th century, six successive forms had been identified: two 8th-century Arabic translations of the Persian Hazar afsana, called Alf khurafah and Alf laylah; a 9th-century version based on Alf laylah but including other stories then current; the 10th-century work by al-Jahshiyari; a 12th-century collection, including Egyptian tales; and the final version, extending to the 16th century and consisting of the earlier material with the addition of stories of the Islamic Counter-Crusades and tales brought to the Middle East by the Mongols. Most of the tales best known in the West—primarily those of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad—were much later additions to the original corpus. The entire collection reveals several aspects of Eastern folklore and affords, now and then, glimpses into the court life of the various dynasties.
Among the best known of the 19th-century translations into English is that of Sir Richard Burton, who used John Payne’s little-known full English translation, 13 vol. (9 vol., 1882–84; 3 supplementary vol., 1884; vol. xiii, 1889), to produce his 6-volume unexpurgated The Thousand Nights and a Night (10 vol., 1885; 6 supplementary vol., 1886–88).
In Iran, many of the historical legends and myths had been borrowed and turned into high literature by Ferdowsi. Accounts of the glorious adventures of heroes from early Islamic times were afterward retold throughout Iran, India, and Turkey. Thus, the Dastan-e Amir Hamzeh, a story of Muhammad’s uncle Hamzah ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, was slowly enlarged by the addition of more and more fantastic details. This form of dastan, as such literature is called, to some extent influenced the first attempts at novel writing in Muslim India during the 19th century. The epics of Köroglu are common to both Iranian and Turkish tradition. He was a noble warrior-robber who became one of the central figures in folk literature from Central Asia to Anatolia.
Some popular epics were composed in the late Middle Ages, having as their basis local traditions. One such epic had as its basis the Turco-Iranian legend of an 8th-century hero, Abu Muslim, another the Turkish tales of the knight Danishmend. Other epics, such as the traditional Turkish tale of Dede Korkut, were preserved by storytellers who improvised certain parts of their tales (which were noted only afterward). Also, the role of the Sufi orders and of the artisans’ lodges in preserving and transmitting such semihistorical popular epics seems to have been considerable.
A truly popular poetry is everywhere to be found: lullabies sung by Balochi, Kurdish, and Igbo mothers have obvious similarities; workers sing little rhythmical poems to accompany their work, and nomads remember the adventures of their ancestors in their ballads. Such popular poems often contain dialect expressions, and the metres differ from the classical quantitative system. Some of these simple verses, such as a two-line landay in Pashto, are among the most graceful products of Islamic poetry. Many folksongs—lullabies, wedding songs, and dirges—have a distinct mystical flavour and reflect the simple Muslim’s love for the Prophet and his trust in God’s grace even under the most difficult circumstances. Irony and wit are features of the riddle poem, a favourite form among Muslims everywhere. Folk poets were also fond of humorous descriptions of imaginary disputations between two entities—they might compose dialogues between coffee and tobacco (Morocco), between big and small mosques (Yemen), between a cat and a dog, or between a boy and a girl. All the Iranian and Turkic languages, too, possess a rich heritage of popular poetry, which in many cases appeals more immediately to modern tastes than does the rather cerebral high literature of the urban and court cultures.
According to Persian tradition, the last classic author in literature was Jami, who died in 1492. In that year, Christopher Columbus discovered America, and the Christians reconquered Granada, the last Moorish stronghold of Spain. The beginning of the 16th century was as crucial in the history of the Muslim east as in that of the Western Hemisphere. In 1501, the young Esma‘il founded the Safavid rule in Iran, and the Shi‘ite persuasion of Islam was declared the state religion. At the same time, the kingdoms of the last Timurid rulers in Central Asia were overthrown by the Uzbeks, who, for a while, tried to continue the cultural tradition in both Persian and Turkic at their courts in Bukhara. In 1526, after long struggles, one member of the Timurid house, Babur, laid the foundation of the Mughal Empire in India. The Ottoman Turks, having expanded their empire (beginning in the late 13th century) from northwestern Anatolia into the Balkans, conquered crumbling Mamluk Egypt and adjacent countries, including the sacred places of Mecca and Medina in 1516–17. Thus, three main blocks emerged, and the two strongholds of Sunni Islam—Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India—were separated by Shi‘ite Iran.
Safavid Iran, as it happened, lost most of its artists and poets to the neighbouring countries: there were no great masters of poetry in Iran between the 16th and 18th centuries. And while the Persian Shah Esma‘il wrote Turkish mystical verses, his contemporary and enemy, Sultan Selim I of Turkey, composed quite elegant Persian ghazals. Babur, in turn, composed his autobiography in Eastern Turkic.
Babur’s autobiography is a fascinating piece of Turkish prose and at the same time one of the comparatively rare examples of Islamic autobiographical literature. The classic example in this genre, however, was a lively Arabic autobiography by Usamah ibn Munqidh, which sheds much light upon the life and cultural background of a Syrian knight during the Crusades. Babur’s book, however, gives a wonderful insight into the character of this intrepid conqueror. It reveals him as a master of concise, matter-of-fact prose, as a keen observer of daily life, full of pragmatic common sense, and also as a good judge of poetry. Babur even went so far as to write a treatise in Turkish about versification. Many of his descendants, both male and female, inherited his literary taste and talent for poetry; among them are remarkably good poets in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as accomplished authors of autobiographies (Jahangir) and letters (Aurangzeb). Among the nobility of India, the Turkish language remained in use until the 19th century.
In the Arab world, there was hardly a poet or original writer of note during the three centuries that followed the Ottoman conquest, apart from some theologians (‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha‘rani, d. 1565; ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, d. 1731) and grammarians. Yet Arabic still remained the language of theology and scholarship throughout the Muslim world; both Turkey and India could boast a large number of scholars who excelled in the sacred language.
India’s share in the development of Arabic literature at this time was especially large. In addition to the quantity of theological work written in the language of the Qur’an, from the conquest of Sind in 711 right up until the 19th century, much philosophical and biographical literature in Arabic was also being written in the subcontinent. Persian taste predominated in the northwest of India, but in the southern provinces there were long-standing commercial and cultural relationships with the Arabs, and an inclination toward preserving these intact. Thus, much poetry in conventional Arabic style was written during the 16th and 17th centuries, mainly in the kingdom of Golconda. There are even attempts at the epic form. A century after the heyday of Arabic in the Deccan, Azad Bilgrami composed numerous poetical and biographical works in Persian; but his chief fame was as the “Hassan of Hind,” since he, like the Prophet Muhammad’s protégé Hassan ibn Thabit, wrote some powerful Arabic panegyrics in honour of the Prophet of Islam. He even attempted to make a comparison of the characteristics of Arabic and Sanskrit poetry and tried to prove that India was the real homeland of Islam.
Nevertheless, the main contribution of Muslim India to high literature was made in the Persian tongue. Persian had been the official language of the country for many centuries. The numerous annals and chronicles that were compiled during the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as the court poetry, had been composed exclusively in this language even by Hindus. During the Mughal period, its importance was enhanced both by Akbar’s attempt to have the main works of classical Sanskrit literature translated into Persian and by the constant influx of poets from Iran who came seeking their fortune at the lavish tables of the Indian Muslim grandees. At this time what is known as the “Indian” style of Persian emerged. The translations from Sanskrit enriched the Persian vocabulary, and new stories of Indian origin added to the reservoir of classical imagery. The poets, bound to the inherited genres of masnawi, qasidah, and ghazal, tried to outdo each other in the use of complex rhyme patterns and unfamiliar, often stiff, metres. It became fashionable to conceive a poem according to a given zamin (“ground”), in emulation of a classical model, and then to enrich it with newly invented tropes.
Yet some truly great poets are to be found even in this period. ‘Urfi, who left Shiraz for India and died in his mid-30s in Lahore (1592), is without doubt one of the few genuine masters of Persian poetry, especially in his qasidahs. His verses pile up linguistic difficulties; yet their dark, glowing quality cannot fail to touch the hearts and minds even of critical modern readers. Among 17th-century Mughal court poets, the most outstanding is Abu Talib Kalim, who came from Hamadan. Abounding in descriptive passages of great virtuosity, his poignant and often pessimistic verses have become proverbial, thanks to their compact diction and fluent style. Also of some importance is Sa’ib of Tabriz, who spent only a few years in India before returning to Iran. Yet, of his immense poetical output (300,000 couplets), the great majority belongs to the stock-in-trade expression of the Persian-speaking world. With the long rule of Dara Shikoh’s brother, the austere Aurangzeb, the heyday of both poetry and historical writing in Muslim India was over. The main vehicle of poetry now became Urdu, while mystical poetry flourished in Sindhi and Punjabi.
From the borderlands of the Persian-speaking zone, culturally under the Mughal rule, one man deserves special attention. The chief of the Pashtun tribe of Khatak, Khushhal Khan, rightly deserves to be called the “father” of Pashto poetry, for he virtually created a literature of his own in his mother tongue. His skill in translating the sophisticated traditions of Persian literature into the not too highly developed idiom of the Pashtuns is astonishing. His lively lyric poems are his finest works, reflecting that passionate love of freedom for which he fought against the Mughals. The poems he wrote from prison in “hell-like hot India” are as dramatic as they are touching in their directness. Many members of his family took to poetry. During the 18th century original works, both religious and secular, were composed in Pashto, and the classics of Persian literature were translated into that language.
The development of literature in Ottoman Turkey is almost parallel with that of Iran and India. Yunus Emre had introduced a popular form of mystical poetry; yet the mainstream of secular and religious literature followed Persian models (although it took some time to establish the Persian rules of prosody because of the entirely different structure of the Turkish language). In the religious field, the vigour and boldness expressed in the poems of Nesimî (executed 1417) left their traces in the work of later poets, none of whom, however, reached his loftiness and grandeur of expression. The 14th- and 15th-century representatives of the classical style had displayed great charm in their literary compositions, their verses simple and pleasing. Sultan Cem (Jem; d. 1495), son of Mehmed the Conqueror, is an outstanding representative of their number. But soon the high-flown style of post-classical Persian was being imitated by Ottoman authors, rhetoric often being more important to them than poetical content. The work of Bâkî (Baqi; d. 1600) is representative of the entire range of these Baroque products. Yet his breathtaking command of language is undeniable; it is brilliantly displayed in his elegy on Süleyman the Magnificent.
Much greater than most of these minor poets, however, was a writer living outside the capital, Fuzûlî of Baghdad, who wrote in Arabic, Persian, and Azeri Turkish. Apart from his lyrics, his Turkish masnawi on the traditional subject of the lovers Majnun and Layla is admirable. From earliest times, Turkish poets had emulated the classical Persian romantic masnawis, sometimes surpassing their models in expressiveness. Fuzûlî’s diction is taut, his command of imagery masterly. His style unfortunately defies poetical translation, and his complicated fabric of plain and inverted images, of hidden and overt allusions is well-nigh impossible for all but the initiated Muslim reader to disentangle. Fuzûlî, moreover, like his fellow poets, would blend Arabic, Persian, and Turkish constructions and words to make up a multifaceted unit. The same difficulty is found in Turkish prose literature of the same period. It is a major task to unravel the long trailing sentences of a writer such as Evliya Çelebî, who, in an account of his travels (Seyahatnâme), has left extremely valuable information about the cultural climate in different parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Growing interest in the Indo-Persian style, particularly in ‘Urfi’s qasidahs, led the 17th-century Ottoman poets to a new integrated style and precision of diction. An outstanding representative was Nef‘î, whose bent for merciless satire made him dreaded in the capital and eventually led to his assassination. At the start of the 18th century, a marked but short-lived movement in Turkish art known as the “Tulip Period” was the Ottoman counterpart of European Rococo. The musical poems and smooth ghazals of Nedim reflect the manners and style of the slightly decadent, relaxed, and at times licentious high society of Istanbul and complement the miniatures of his contemporary Levnî. Good Turkish poetry is characterized by an easy grace, to be found even in such mystically tinged poems (thousands of which were written throughout the centuries) as those of Niyazî Misrî. The Mevlevî (Mawlawi) poet Gâlib Dede was already standing at the threshold of what can now be recognized as modern poetical expression in some of the lyrical parts of his masnawi, called Hüsn u ask (“Beauty and Love”), which brought fresh treatment to a well-worn subject of Iran’s philosophical and secular literature. His work cannot be properly understood, however, without a thorough knowledge of mystical psychology, expressed in multi-valent images.
One branch of literature, however, was totally neglected by the sophisticated inhabitants of the Ottoman capital. Nobody thought much of the folk poets who wandered through the forgotten villages of Anatolia singing in simple syllable-counting verses of love, longing, and separation. The poems of the mid-17th-century figure Karacaoglan, one of the few historically datable folk poets, give a vivid picture of village life, of the plight of girls and boys in remote Anatolian settlements. This kind of poetry was rediscovered only after the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and then became an important influence on modern lyric poetry.
For the Islamic countries, the 19th century marks the beginning of a new epoch. Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt, as well as British colonialism, brought the Muslims into contact with a world whose technology was far in advance of their own. The West had experienced the ages of Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, whereas the once-flourishing Muslim civilization had for a long while been at near stagnation despite its remarkable artistic achievements. The introduction of Muslim intellectuals to Western literature and scholarship—the Egyptian al-Tahtawi, for example, studied in France—ushered in a new literary era the chief characteristic of which was to be “more matter, less art.” The literatures from this time onward are far less “Islamic” than those of the previous 1,000 years. The introduction of the printing press and the expansion of newspapers helped to shape a new literary style, more in line with the requirements of the modern times, when “the patron prince has been replaced by a middle-class reading public” (Badawi). Translations from Western languages provided writers with the model examples of genres previously unknown to them, including the novel, the short story, and dramatic literature. Of those authors whose books were translated, Guy de Maupassant, Sir Walter Scott, and Anton Chekhov were most influential in the development of the novel and the novella. Important also was the ideological platform derived from Leo Tolstoy (1829–1910), whose criticism of Western Christianity was gratefully adopted by writers from Egypt to Muslim India. Western influences can further be observed in the gradual discarding of the time-hallowed static (and turgid) style of both poetry and prose, in the tendency toward simplification of diction, and in the adaptation of syntax and vocabulary to meet the technical demands of emulating Western models. Contact with the West also encouraged a tendency toward retrospection. Writers concentrated their attention on their own country and particular heritage, such as the “pharaoic myth” of Egypt, the Indo-European roots of Iran, and the Central Asian past of Turkey. In short, there was an emphasis on differentiation, inevitably leading to the rise of nationalism, instead of an emphasis on the unifying spirit and heritage of Islam.
Characteristically, therefore, given this situation, the heralds of Arab nationalism (as reflected in literature) were Christians. The historical novels of Jurji Zaydan, a Lebanese living in Egypt, made a deep impression on younger writers by glorifying the lion-hearted national heroes of past times. Henceforth, the historical novel was to be a favourite genre in all Islamic countries, including Muslim India. The inherited tradition of the heroic or romantic epic and folktale was blended with novelistic techniques learned from Sir Walter Scott. Two writers in the front rank of Arab intellectuals were Amir Shakib Arslan, of Druze origin, and Muhammed Kurd ‘Ali, the founder of the Arab Academy of Damascus. Each made an important contribution to the education of modern historians and men of letters by encouraging a new degree of awareness. An inclination toward Romanticism can be detected in prose writing but not, surprisingly, in poetry; thus, the Egyptian al-Manfaluti poured out his feelings in a number of novels that touch on Islamic as well as national issues.
It is fair to say of this transition period that the poetry being written was not as interesting as the prose. The qasidahs of the “Prince of Poets,” Ahmad Shawqi, are for the most part ornate imitations of classical models. Even the “Poet of the Nile,” Muhammad Hafiz Ibrahim, who was more interested in the real problems of the day, was nonetheless content to follow conventional patterns. In his poems, Khalil Mutran attempted to achieve a unity of structure hitherto almost unknown; and he also adopted a more subjective approach to expressive lyricism. Thus, he can be said to have inaugurated an era of “Romantic” poetry, staunchly defended by those men of letters who had come under English rather than French influence. These included the poet and essayist Ibrahim al-Mazini and the prolific writer of poetry and prose ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad.
A major contribution to the development of modern prose in the Arabic language was made by a number of writers born between 1889 and 1902. One of them, Taha Husayn, became well known in the West as a literary critic who attacked the historical authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry and stressed the importance of Greek and Latin for the literatures of the modern Middle East. He is also the author of a successful novel called The Tree of Misery, but his best creative writing is in his autobiography, Al-Ayyam (The Days).
Taha Husayn’s generation became more and more absorbed by the problems of the middle classes (to which most of them belonged), and this led them to realism in fiction. Some turned to fierce social criticism, depicting in their writings the dark side of everyday life in Egypt and elsewhere. The leading writer of this group is Mahmud Taymur, who wrote short stories, a genre developed in Arabic by a Lebanese Christian who settled in the United States, the noted and versatile poet Khalil Gibran (Jibran Khalil Jibran; d. 1931). Muhammad Husayn Haykal, a leading figure of Egyptian cultural and political life and the author of numerous historical studies, touched for the first time, in his novel Zaynab (1913), on the difficulties of Egyptian villagers. This subject quickly became fashionable afterward, although not all the writers had firsthand knowledge of the feelings and problems of the fellahin. The most fertile author of this group was al-‘Aqqad, who tirelessly produced biographies, literary criticism, and romantic poetry. The Islamic reform movement led by Muhammad ‘Abduh and his disciples, which centred on the journal Al-Manar (“The Lighthouse”), influenced Arabic prose style across the 20th century and was important in shaping the religious outlook of many authors writing in the 1920s and 1930s.
A considerable amount of Arabic literature was produced during the 20th century by numerous writers who settled in non-Islamic countries, especially the United States and Brazil. Most of these writers came from Christian Lebanese families. A feeling of nostalgia often led them to form literary circles or launch magazines or newspapers. (The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Huda [or Al-Hoda, “The Guidance”] established in 1898, was published in New York City as Al-Huda Al-jadidah [Al-Hoda Aljadidah, or “The New Al-Hoda,” or “The New Guidance”].) It was largely because of their work that the techniques of modern fiction and modern free verse entered Arabic literature and became a decisive factor in it.
One of the best-known authors in this group was Amin al-Rihani, whose descriptions of his journeys through the Arab world are informative and make agreeable reading. The fact that so many Lebanese emigrated led to the creation of a standard theme in Lebanese fiction: the emigrant who returns to his village. Iraqi modern literature is best represented by “the poet of freedom” Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi and Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, whose satire “Rebellion in Hell” incurred the wrath of the traditionalists.
The same changing attitude toward the function of literature and the same shift toward realism can be observed in Turkey. After 1839, Western ideas and forms were taken up by a group of modernists: Ziya Pasa, the translator of Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s Émile (which became a popular textbook for 19th-century Muslim intellectuals), was among the first to write in a less traditional idiom and to complain in his poetry—just as Hali was to do in India a few years later—about the pitiable conditions of Muslims under the victorious Christians. Ziya Pasa, together with Sinasi and Namik Kemal, founded an influential Turkish journal, Tasvir-i Efkâr (“Picture of Ideas”). The essential theme of the articles, novels, poems, and dramas composed by these authors is their fatherland (vatan), and they dared to advocate freedom of thought, democracy, and constitutionalism. Abdülhak Hâmid, though considerably their junior, shared in their activities. In 1879 he published his Sahra (“The Country”), a collection of 10 Turkish poems that were the first to be composed in Western verse forms and style. Later, he turned to weird and often morbid subject matter in his poetic dramas. He, like his colleagues, had to endure political restrictions on writing, imposed as part of the harsh measures taken by Sultan Abdülhamid II against the least sign of liberal thought. Influenced by his work, later writers aimed to simplify literary language: Ziya Gökalp laid the philosophical foundations of Turkish nationalism; and Mehmed Emin, a fisherman’s son, sang artless Turkish verses of his pride in being a Turk, throwing out the heavy rhetorical ballast of Arabo-Persian prosody and instead turning to the language of the people, unadulterated by any foreign vocabulary. The stirrings of social criticism could be discerned after 1907. Mehmed Akif, in his masterly narrative poems, gave a vivid critical picture of conditions in Turkey before World War I. His powerful and dramatic style, though still expressed in traditional metres, is a testimony to his deep concern for the people’s sorrows. It was he who composed the Turkish national anthem after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s victory in 1923, but soon afterward he left the country, disappointed with the religious policies of the Kemalists.
Atatürk’s struggle for freedom also marks the real beginning of modern Turkish literature. The mainstream of novels, stories, and poems written during the 19th century had been replete with tears, world-weariness, and pessimism. But a postwar novel, Atesten gömlek (“The Fire Shirt”), written by a woman, Halide Edib, reflected the brave new self-awareness of the Turkish nation. Some successful short stories about village life came from the pen of Ömer Seyfeddin. The most gifted interpreter and harshest critic of Turkey’s social structure was Sabaheddin Ali, who was murdered on his flight to Bulgaria in 1948. His major theme was the tragedy of the lower classes, and his writing is characterized by the same merciless realism that was later to be a feature of stories by many left-wing writers throughout the Islamic world. The “great old man of Turkish prose,” Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu, displayed profound psychological insight, whether ironically describing the lascivious life in a Bektashi centre or a stranger’s tragedy in an Anatolian village. Most of the Turkish novelists of the 1920s and 1930s concentrated on the problems of becoming a modern nation, and in particular they reinterpreted the role of women in a liberated society.
Literary energies were set completely free when Atatürk introduced the Latin alphabet in 1928, hoping that his people would forget their Islamic past along with the Arabic letters. From this time onward, especially after the language reform that was meant to rediscover the pre-Islamic roots of the Turkish language, Turkish literature followed the pattern of Western literature in all major respects, though with local overtones. Poets experimented with new forms and new topics. They discovered the significance of the Anatolian village, neglected—even forgotten—during the Ottoman period. Freeing themselves from the traditional rules of Persian poetry, they adopted simpler forms from Europe. In some cases the skillful blending of inherited Ottoman grace and borrowed French lyricism produced outstandingly beautiful poems, such as those of Ahmed Hasim and of Yahya Kemal Beyatli, in which the twilight world of old Istanbul is mirrored in soft, evocative hues and melodious words. At the same time, the figure of Nazim Hikmet looms large in Turkish poetry. Expressing his progressive social attitude in truly poetical form, he used free rhythmical patterns quite brilliantly to enrapture his readers; his style, as well as his powerful, unforgettable images, has deeply influenced not only Turkish but also progressive Urdu and Persian poetry from the 1930s onward.
In Iran, the situation to a certain extent resembled that in Turkey. While the last “classical” poet, Qa’ani, had been displaying the traditional glamorous artistry, the satirist Yaghma had been using popular and comprehensible language to make coarse criticisms of contemporary society. As in the other Islamic countries, a move toward simplicity is discernible during the last decades of the 19th century.
At the turn of the century, literature became for many younger writers an instrument of modernization and of revolution in the great sense of the word. No longer did they want to complain, in inherited fixed forms, of some boy whose face was like the moon. Instead, the feelings and situation of women were stated and interpreted. Their oppression, their problems, and their grievances are a major theme of literature in this transition period of the first decades of the 20th century. The “King of Poets,” Bahar, who had been actively working before World War I for democracy, now devoted himself to a variety of cultural activities. But his poems, though highly classical in form, were of great influence; they dealt with contemporary events and appealed to a wide public.
One branch of modern Persian literature is closely connected with a group of Persian authors who lived in Berlin after World War I. There they established the Kaviani Press (named after a mythical blacksmith called Kaveh, who had saved the Iranian kingdom), and among the poems they printed were several by ‘Aref Qazvini, one of the first really modern writers. They also published the first short stories of Mohammad ‘Ali Jamalzadeh, whose outspoken social criticism and complete break with the traditional inflated and pompous prose style inaugurated a new era of modern Persian prose. Many young writers adopted this new form, among them Sadeq Hedayat, whose stories—written entirely in a direct, everyday language with a purity of expression that was an artistic achievement—have been translated into many languages. They reflect the sufferings of living individuals; instead of dealing in literary clichés, they describe the distress and anxiety of a hopeless youth. The influence of Franz Kafka (1883–1924) (some of whose work Hedayat translated) is perceptible in his writing, and he has a tendency toward psychological probing shared by many Persian writers.
As in neighbouring countries, women played a considerable role in the development of modern Persian literature. The lyrics of Parvin E‘tesami are regarded as near-classics, despite a trace of sentimentality in their sympathetic treatment of the poor. Some Persian writers whose left-wing political ideas brought them into conflict with the government left for what is now Tajikistan. Of these, the gifted poet Lahuti is their most important representative.
Persian literature in the Indian subcontinent did not have such importance as in earlier centuries, for English replaced Persian as the official language in 1835. Nevertheless, there were some outstanding poets who excelled in Urdu. One of them was Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, the undisputed master of Urdu lyrics. He regarded himself, however, as the leading authority on high Persian style and was an accomplished writer of Persian prose and poetry. But much more important was a later poet, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who chose Persian to convey his message not only to the peoples of Muslim India but also to Afghans and Persians. Reinterpreting many of the old mystical ideas in the light of modern teachings, he taught the quiescent Muslim peoples self-awareness, urging them to develop their personalities to achieve true individualism. His first masnawi, called Asrar-e khudi (1915; “Secrets of the Self”), deeply shocked all those who enjoyed the dreamlike sweetness of most traditional Persian poetry. In the Javid-nameh (1932) he poetically elaborated the old topic of the “heavenly journey,” discussing with the inhabitants of the spheres a variety of political, social, and religious problems. Iqbal’s approach is unique. Although he used the conventional literary forms and leaned heavily on the inspiration of Rumi, he must be considered one of the select few poets of modern Islam who, because of their honesty and their capacity for expressing their message in memorable poetic form, appeal to many readers outside the Muslim world.
The modern period of Islamic literatures can be said to begin after World War II. The topics discussed before then still appeared, but outspoken social criticism became an even more important feature. Literature was no longer just a leisurely pastime for members of the upper classes. Writers born in the villages and from non-privileged classes began to win literary fame through their firsthand knowledge of social problems. Many writers started their careers as journalists, developing a literary style that retained the immediacy of journalistic observation.
In Egypt, a great change in literary preoccupations came about after 1952. The name of Naguib Mahfouz is of particular importance. He was at first a novelist mainly concerned with the lower middle classes (his outstanding work is a trilogy dealing with the life of a Cairo family); but afterward he turned to socially committed literature, using all the techniques of modern fiction—of which he is the undisputed master in Arabic. In 1988 he became the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The works of Yusuf Idris deal first and foremost with the problems facing poor and destitute villagers. In Turkey, Yasar Kemal’s village story Ince Memed won acclaim for its stark realism. During the middle decades of the 20th century and beyond, young left-wing writers in Iraq and Syria shared the critical and aggressive attitudes of their contemporaries in Turkey and Egypt and were involved in every political issue. Most of them responded to the works of Bertolt Brecht and Karl Marx. Freudian influence—often in its crudest form—could be detected in many modern short stories or novels in the Islamic countries. The existentialist philosophy gained many followers who tried to reflect its interpretation of life in their literary works. In fact, almost every current of modern Western philosophy and psychology, every artistic trend and attitude, was eagerly adopted at some point by young Arab, Turkish, or Persian writers during the period after World War II. The novel gradually became more popular in the Arab world as the 20th century wore on. Mahfouz was probably the single most important figure in the genre’s widespread acceptance. From the Turkish tradition emerged Orhan Pamuk, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006; his novels reached a worldwide audience.
(b. June 7, 1952, Istanbul, Tur.)
The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is best known for works that probe Turkish identity and history.
Raised in a wealthy and Western-oriented family, Pamuk attended Robert College, an American school in Istanbul, and went on to study architecture at Istanbul Technical University. After three years he dropped out and devoted himself full-time to writing. In 1977 he graduated from the University of Istanbul with a degree in journalism. From 1985 to 1988 he lived in the United States and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York and the University of Iowa.
Pamuk began writing seriously in 1974 and eight years later published his first novel, Cevdet Bey ve ogullari (“Cevdet Bey and His Sons”), a sweeping history of an Istanbul family during and after the establishment of the Turkish republic. He first achieved international fame with Beyaz kale (1985; The White Castle), his third novel, which explores the nature of identity through the story of a learned young Italian captured and made a slave to a scholar in 17th-century Istanbul. His later novels, which were widely translated, include Kara kitap (1990; The Black Book), a dense depiction of Istanbul, and the mysteries Yeni hayat (1996; The New Life) and Benim adim kirmizi (1998; My Name Is Red). In Kar (2002; Snow), a Turkish poet living in exile in Germany faces the tensions between East and West when he travels to a poor town in a remote area of Turkey. Istanbul: hatiralar ve sehir (2004; Istanbul: Memories and the City, also published as Istanbul: Memories of a City) is a partly fictionalized memoir. Masumiyet müzesi (2008; “The Museum of Innocence”) investigates the relationship between an older man and his second cousin. Thwarted in his attempts to marry her, the man begins to collect objects that she has touched. Pamuk replicated the titular museum in reality, using a house in Istanbul to display a range of items amassed while plotting the story.
Many of these works, often autobiographical and intricately plotted, show an understanding of traditional Turkish Islamic culture tempered by a belief that Turkey’s future lies in the West. Pamuk drew criticism from some in Turkey for advocating the country’s integration into Europe and its accession to the European Union. In 2005, after a Swiss newspaper published an interview in which he repeated claims that Turks had deliberately killed a million Armenians in 1915 and 30,000 Kurds more recently, Pamuk was charged with “denigrating Turkishness” and put on trial in Turkey in December. The charges, which produced international controversy, were later dropped.
Orhan Pamuk in 2005. Torsten Silz/AFP/Getty Images
The new attitudes that informed literature after World War II became even more conspicuous in poetry than in prose. Helped in part by French and English literary influences, Arabic poetry broke from classical tradition, a profound shift that also had its roots in efforts by nations across the Middle East to gain independence. The creation of the State of Israel also influenced the meaning and purpose of Arabic poetry. T.S. Eliot’s poetry and criticism were influential in dethroning the Romanticism that many poets had adopted earlier, in the 1920s and ’30s. One of the first and most important attempts at creating a modern Arabic poetic diction was made in the late 1940s by the Iraqi poet and critic Nazik al-Mala’ikah, whose poems, in free but rhyming verse, gave substance to the shadow of her melancholia.
Free rhythm and a colourful imagination distinguished the best poems of the younger Arabs: even when their poems do not succeed, their experimentation, their striving for sincerity, their burning quest for identity, their rebellion against social injustice can be readily perceived. Indeed, one of the most noticeable aspects of contemporary Arabic poetry written during the second half of the 20th century is its political engagement, evident in the poems of Palestinian writers such as Mahmud Darwish, whose verses once more prove the strength, expressiveness, and vitality of the Arabic language. The Iraqi modernist poet ‘Abdul Wahhab al-Bayati combined political engagement with lyrical mysticism. Others, without withdrawing into a world of uncommitted dreams, managed to create in their poetry an atmosphere that broke up the harsh light of reality into its colourful components. Poets such as the Lebanese Adonis (‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id) and Tawfiq al-Sa’igh, or the Egyptian dramatist Salah ‘Abd al-Sabur, made use of traditional imagery in a new, sometimes esoteric, and often fascinating and daring way.
(b. March 13, 1942, Birwa, Palestine [now Israel]—d. Aug. 9, 2008, Houston, Texas, U.S.)
The Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish gave voice to the struggles of the Palestinian people.
After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Darwish witnessed massacres that forced his family to escape to Lebanon. A year later their clandestine return to their homeland put them in limbo, as they were declared “present-absent aliens.” Darwish left Birwa a second time in 1970 and traveled to the Soviet Union to complete his education in Moscow. He lived in Cairo, Beirut, London, and Paris, as well as Tunis, Tunisia, before returning in 1996 to live in Palestine, in the West Bank town of Ramallah. He was a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and wrote the declaration of independence issued by the Palestine National Council in 1988, but he resigned from the PLO in 1993 to protest the signing of the Oslo Accords by PLO chairman Yasir ‘Arafat. In 2000 the Israeli education minister made plans to include Darwish’s poems of reconciliation in the school curriculum, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak vetoed the plan.
Darwish authored several books of prose and more than 20 collections of poetry. From 1981 he also served as editor of the literary journal Al-Karmel. The power of his poetry could be explained by the sincerity of his emotions and the originality of his poetic images. He borrowed from the Old and New Testaments, classical Arabic literature, Arab Islamic history, and Greek and Roman mythology to construct his metaphors. It was Darwish’s conviction that his life in exile inspired his creative work. He often personified Palestine itself as a mother or a cruel beloved. In his single-poem volume Halat hisar (2002; “A State of Siege”), Darwish explored the multiple reoccupations of Ramallah and described the resulting sense of Palestinian isolation. However, he foresaw a future of peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians that could be achieved through dialogue between cultures. Darwish diverged from the political in some of his poems, relying on symbolism to relate personal experience. He devoted an entire collection, Jidariyya (2002; “Mural”), to his brush with death following heart surgery in 1998. Collections of his poems in English translation include The Adam of Two Edens (2000), Unfortunately, It Was Paradise (2003), and The Butterfly’s Burden (2007).
Darwish’s work was translated into some two dozen languages. Among his many international awards were the Lenin Peace Prize (1983), the French medal of Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres (1997), the wisam (order) of intellectual merit from Moroccan King Muhammad VI in 2000, and the 2001 Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom. He died after undergoing heart surgery in the United States.
Mahmud Darwish in 2007. Getty Images
Almost the same situation developed in Iran. One notable poet was Forugh Farrokhzad, who wrote powerful and very feminine poetry. Her free verses, interpreting the insecurities of the age, are full of longing; though often bitter, they are yet truly poetic. Poems by such critically minded writers as Seyavush Kasra’i also borrow the classical heritage of poetic imagery, transforming it into expressions that win a response from modern readers. Censorship exerted by the Islamic Republic of Iran after 1979 did much to curtail the free expression of poets.
In Turkey, the adoption of Western forms began in the 1920s. Of major importance in modern Turkish literature was Orhan Veli Kanik, who combined perfect technique with “Istanbulian” charm. His work is sometimes melancholy, sometimes frivolous, but always convincing. He strongly influenced a group of poets connected with the avant-garde literary magazine Varlik (“Existence”). The powerful poetry of the leftist writer Nazim Hikmet influenced progressive poets all over the Muslim world; Ataol Behramoglu was often considered his successor during the latter half of the 20th century. Fazil Hüsnü Daglarca was another poet with leftist views. His modernist poetry made him one of Turkey’s most influential poets during the post–World War II era. The poetry of Hilmi Yavuz melded the aesthetics of Ottoman civilization with modernist poetic forms. His interweaving of past and present was typical of many Turkish poets in the last decades of the 20th century.
In the Arab-speaking world, the problem of language loomed large as the 20th century drew to a close. Classical high Arabic remained the common literary language of Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia, and Kuwait, although spoken Arabic in dialectal variations was beginning to be used—but tentatively—in higher literature. It was, and still is, more frequently employed in the popular spheres of theatre and cinema. But the local differences that exist in Arabic spoken from country to country have today become perceptible in literature; popular grammatical forms and syntactical constructions are occasionally used in modern poetry. A special problem arises in North Africa, where French continues to be the chief literary language for most writers, especially in Morocco and Algeria. Yet there is no hard-and-fast rule: a leading member of the Senegal community, Amadou Bamba, who founded the politically important group of the Muridis, wrote some 20,000 mystically tinged verses in classical Arabic (quite apart from practical words of wisdom in his mother tongue).
Throughout the Islamic countries, radio, television, and other media have helped to disseminate literary works; prizes for literary achievements have stimulated interest in writing; and low-priced books have made the output of a growing number of writers available to the majority—the more so since literacy among the population steadily increases. But to what degree this means a continuation of the cultural role that Islamic literatures have played in the formation and education of society over the centuries is not yet clear. Literature was never restricted to a privileged high society; in olden times even the illiterate villager and the “uneducated” womenfolk had a fund of poems, proverbs, songs, and quotations from classical sources that they knew by heart and to which they turned for both pleasure and spiritual strength.
One final issue should be noted. The introduction in the second half of the 20th century of modern methods of criticism, of psychology and philosophy, kindled a new interest in significant figures of the Islamic past. Thus, to cite one instance, al-Hallaj (executed 922), who often served as a symbolic figure of “the martyr of love” in both classical and folk poetry after the 11th century, was made the subject of a Turkish drama, a Persian passion play, and an Arabic tragedy, and he plays an important role in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Indian Muslim lyrical poetry. He came to be interpreted as a symbol of suffering for one’s ideals, and he therefore was considered acceptable by both to conservative Muslims and progressive social critics.
