The Excellence of the Arabs

Ibn Qutaybah, James E. Montgomery, Peter Webb, Sarah Bowen Savant, Peter Webb

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781479809578
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479885961
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Storia mediorientale

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity—its merits, values, and origins—at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era.

In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family originally hailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty.

The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage—"the archive of the Arabs"—Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority.

Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean to be Arab?

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

فضل العرب والتنبيه على علومها

The Excellence of the Arabs

الجزء الأوّل

Book One: Arab Preeminence

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1.1.1

قال أبو محمّد عبد الله بن مسلم بن قتيبة جعلنا الله وإيّاك على النعم شاكرين وعند المحن والبلوى صابرين وبالقسم من عطائه راضين وأعاذنا من فتنة العصبيّة وحميّة الجاهليّة وتحامل الشعوبيّة فإنّها بفرط الحسد ونغل الصدر تدفع العرب عن كلّ فضيلة وتلحق بها كلّ رذيلة وتغلو في القول وتسرف في الذمّ وتبهت بالكذب وتكابر العيان وتكاد تكفر ثمّ يمنعها خوف السيف وتغصّ من النبيّ صلّى الله عليه وسلّم إذا ذُكِر بالشجا وتطرف منه على القذى وتبعد من الله بقدر بعدها ممّن قُرِّب واصطفي وفي الإفراط الهلكة وفي الغلوّ البوار. والحسد هو الداء العياء أوّل^١ ذنب عصي الله به في الأرض والسماء ومن تبيّن أمر الحسد بعدل النظر أوجب سخطه على واهب النعمة وعداوته لمؤتي الفضيلة لأنّ الله تعالى يقول {نَحْنُ قَسَمْنَا بَيْنَهُمْ مَعِيشَتَهُمْ فِي ٱلْحَيَاةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَرَفَعْنَا بَعْضَهُمْ فَوْقَ بَعْضٍ دَرَجَاتٍ لِيَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُهُمْ بَعْضًا سُخْرِيًّا} فهو تبارك وتعالى باسط الرزق وقاسم الحظوظ والمبتدئ بالعطاء والمحسود آخذ ما أعطى وجار إلى غاية ما أجرى.

١ كذا في ك.

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutaybah writes: May God make us grateful for His blessings, patient in the face of trials and tribulation, and satisfied with the benefaction He grants us. May He protect us from the discord of partisanship, the zealotry of the pre-Islamic era,¹ and the prejudice of the Bigots, whose hearts are so full of envy and ill will that they deny the Arabs every virtue and ascribe to them every vice. Exceeding all bounds in their censure, they are guilty of gross exaggeration. They slander, lie, and dispute plain facts, very nearly abandoning their faith, at which point only fear of the sword keeps them in check. They resent the Prophet so much that they can hardly bring themselves to mention his name—it sticks like a bone in their throat and makes their eyes smart and sting. They are as far removed from God as His chosen Prophet is close to him. Their lack of restraint will be their downfall, and their recklessness in matters of religion will be their doom. Envy is an incurable disease. It was the first sin in heaven and on earth—the first act of disobedience to God. Anyone who impartially examines the issue of envy will come to the unavoidable conclusion that it consists of anger directed at the Grantor of Blessings and resentment of the Bestower of Virtues. God Himself says: «It is We who distribute among them their livelihood in the life of this world, and raise some of them above others in rank so they may take one another into service.»² He, blessed and exalted, is the Provider of Subsistence, the Controller of Fate, and the First Benefactor. He is envied for His ability to give things then take them away, and for always having more of the thing He has given you than you will ever receive.³

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1.2.1

وقال ابن مسعود لا تعادوا نعم الله قيل ومن يعادي نعم الله؟ قال حاسد الناس. وفي بعض الكتب يقول الله الحاسد عدوّ لنعمتي متسخّط لقضائي غير راض بقسمي. وقال ابن المقفّع الحاسد لا يبرح زاريًا على نعمة الله لا يجد لها مزالًا ويكدّر على نفسه ما به فلا يجد لها طعمًا ولا يزال ساخطًا على من لا يتراضاه ومتسخّطا لما لا ينال فوقه فهو مكظوم هلع جزوع ظالم أشبه شيء بمظلوم محروم الطلبة منغّص المعيشة دائم السخطة لا بما قسم له يقنع ولا على ما لم يقسم له يغلب والمحسود يتقلّب في فضل الله مباشرًا للسرور ممهلًا فيه إلى مدّة لا يقدر الناس لها على قطع وانتقاص.

Ibn Masʿūd once said: “Do not spurn the blessings of God.” When he was asked, “Who spurns God’s blessings?” he replied: “Envious people.” In one of the scriptures⁴ God says: “The envier is hostile to my blessing, resentful of my decree, and dissatisfied with the lot I apportion.”⁵ Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ said: “The envier constantly finds fault with God’s blessings, which he thinks should never cease. These feelings become a source of personal disquiet, and thus he finds it impossible to appreciate what he has. He is continually resentful of anyone who will not humor him and is vexed over what he cannot obtain. Eaten up with repressed anger, he is thrown into turmoil over every imagined slight, and takes his frustration out on others by treating them badly. Ironically, he ends up acting like someone who was never given anything in the first place and goes through life embittered and resentful. He is not content with his share and cannot control what is not his share. The man he envies, on the other hand, is free to enjoy God’s bounty as he pleases and to delight in his happiness. He can enjoy it at...

Table of contents

• Letter from the General Editor
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Note on the Text
• Notes to the Introduction
• The Excellence of the Arabs
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Further Reading
• Index of Qurʾanic Verses
• Index
• About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute
• About this E-book
• Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature
• About the Editor–Translator