Aspects of Islamic Civilization

As Depicted in the Original Texts

A J Arberry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134564507
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamische Theologie

Originally published in 1964, this volume gathers together extracts from many of Arberry's best-known works and supplements them with a selection of previously unpublished translations. The material therefore presents a vivid picture of the richness and variety of Islamic civilization from its origins to the late twentieth century.

ONE

Arabia Deserta

Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, was born an Arab of the town—the thriving commercial centre of Mecca—member of a noble but impoverished family belonging to a powerful tribe which, though settled locally, had its roots and ramifications in the outspread desert. The language he spoke, and in which he later received his revelations, already prided itself upon a rich literature, largely if not wholly unwritten, consisting for the most part of formal odes.

‘The Arabian ode sets forth before us a series of pictures, drawn with confident skill and first-hand knowledge, of the life its maker lived, of the objects among which he moved, of his horse, his camel, the wild creatures of the wilderness, and of the landscape in the midst of which his life and theirs was set; but all, however loosely they seem to be bound together, are subordinate to one dominant idea, which is the poet’s unfolding of himself, his admirations and his hates, his prowess and the freedom of his spirit. . . . No poetry better fulfils Mr Matthew Arnold’s definition of “a criticism of life”; no race has more completely succeeded in drawing itself for all time, in its grandeur and its limitations, its best and its worst. It is in this sense that the poetry of the Pagan Arabs is most truly their history.’⁶

Of the very considerable volume of poetry transmitted from the desert bards of the sixth century and collected in writing by Arab scholars of the eighth, pride of first place belongs to seven odes, acclaimed the best work of their seven authors and known as the Mu‘allaqāt. The selections of desert poetry which follows has been drawn from that anthology.⁷

Imr al-Qais ‘the Wandering King’

Halt, friends both! Let us weep, recalling a love and a longing

by the rim of the twisted sands between Ed-Dakhool and Haumal,

Toodih and El-Mikrát, whose trace is not yet effaced

for all the spinning of the south winds and the northern blasts;

there, all about its yards, and away in the dry hollows

you may see the dung of antelopes spattered like peppercorns.

Upon the morn of separation, the day they loaded to part,

by the tribe’s acacias it was like I was splitting a colocynth;

there my companions halted their beasts awhile over me

saying, ‘Don’t perish of sorrow; restrain yourself decently!’

Yet the true and only cure of my grief is tears outpoured:

what is there left to lean on where the trace is obliterated?

The poet recalls boastingly his amorous exploits which relieved the hard life of desert riding.

Oh yes, many a fine day I’ve dallied with the white ladies,

and especially I call to mind a day at Dára Juljul,

and the day I slaughtered for the virgins my riding-beast

(and oh, how marvellous was the dividing of its loaded saddle),

and the virgins went on tossing its hacked flesh about

and the frilly fat like fringes of twisted silk. . . .

Ha, and a day on the back of the sand-hill she denied me

swearing a solemn oath that she should never, never be broken.

‘Gently now, Fátima! A little less disdainful:

even if you intend to break with me, do it kindly.

If it’s some habit of mine that’s so much vexed you

just draw off my garments from yours, and they’ll slip away.

Puffed-up it is it’s made you, that my love for you’s killing me

and that whatever you order my heart to do, it obeys.

Your eyes only shed those tears so as to strike and pierce

with those two shafts of theirs the fragments of a ruined heart.

Many’s the fair veiled lady, whose tent few would think of seeking,

I’ve enjoyed sporting with, and not in a hurry either,

slipping past packs of watchmen to reach her, with a whole tribe

hankering after my blood, eager every man-jack to slay me,

what time the Pleiades showed themselves broadly in heaven

glittering like the folds of a woman’s bejewelled scarf.

I came, and already she’d stripped off her garments for sleep

beside the tent-flap, all but a single flimsy slip;

and she cried, “God’s oath, man, you won’t get away with this!

The folly’s not left you yet; I see you’re as feckless as ever.”

Out I brought her, and as she stepped she trailed behind us

to cover our footprints the skirt of an embroidered gown.

But when we had crossed the tribe’s enclosure, and dark about us

hung a convenient shallow intricately undulant,

I twisted her side-tresses to me, and she leaned over me;

slender-waisted she was, and tenderly plump her ankles,

shapely and taut her belly, white-fleshed, not the least flabby,

polished the lie of her breast-bones, smooth as a burnished mirror. . . .

Let the follies of other men forswear fond passion,

my heart forswears not, nor will forget the love I bear you.’

The ode concludes with a description of a storm seen in the desert, and its aftermath.

Friend, do you see yonder lightning? Look, there goes its glitter

flashing like two hands now in the heaped-up, crowned stormcloud.

Brilliantly it shines—so flames the lamp of an anchorite

as he slops the oil over the twisted wick.

So with my companions I sat watching it between Dárij

and El-Odheib, far-ranging my anxious gaze;

over Katan, so we guessed, hovered the right of its deluge,

its left dropping upon Es-Sitár and further Yadhbul.

Then the cloud started loosing its torrent about Kutaifa

turning upon their beards the boles of the tall kanahbals;

over the hills of El-Kanán swept its flying spray

sending the white wild goats hurtling down on all sides.

At Taima it left not one trunk of a date-tree standing,

not a solitary fort, save those buttressed with hard rocks;

and Thabeer—why, when the first onrush of its deluge came

Thabeer was a great chieftain wrapped in a striped jubba.

In the morning the topmost peak of El-Mujaimir

was a spindle’s whorl cluttered with all the scum of the torrent;

it had flung over the desert of El-Ghabeet its cargo

like a Yemeni merchant unpacking his laden bags.

In the morning the songbirds all along the broad valley

quaffed the choicest of sweet wines rich with spices;

the wild beasts at evening drowned in the furthest reaches

of the wide watercourse lay like drawn bulbs of wild onion.

Ṭarafa ‘Who Died Young’

The ode of Ṭarafa, who was executed in his twenties, is chiefly prized for a fine picture of a racing camel.

Ah, but when grief assails me, straightway I ride it off

mounted on my swift, lean-flanked camel, night and day racing,

sure-footed, like the planks of a litter; I urge her on

down the bright h...