The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-18 00:00:00

to have diminished in proportion the steered authority of
the Koran. At Tunis, Fez, and Morocco, and especially
in Spain, literature, science, and art flourished in a
greater or in less degree, as in the establishments of
learning at Cordova, Seville, and Toledo. At this time,
that is, about the eighth century, the various Mahometan
provinces of the East were,amoegst the chief asylums of
literature and the sciences. History informs us of more
than one Emir of Irak devoted to learning, and one of
these, Saif-Ed-Dhala, established at Konfa and at Bas-
sore schools of learning of oonsiOerable celebrity. An.
other was established at Kurdistan, and Fernsabad, and
which enjoyed a public library, containing as many as
7,000 volumes. Later, there was established, in the
city of Damascus, a most renowned school. particularly
of medicine, at which the Caliph Malek-adel was accus-
tomed to be present, attending upon the classes, with
his book under his arm. In the very depth of the East,
at Bokhara, there was a school and a library under the
rule of the Saracens. Philosophy was too evidently op-
posed to Islamism to be tolerated, even at first, by the
immediate successors of Mahoinet, and, for a long time
after him, the studies that occupied the Pagan philoso-
phers (as they were termed) were regarded amongst the
most impious of crimes of which the genuine true Mus-
sulman could be guilty. When, at length, Islamism and
the empire of Mahomet were sufficiently and firmly sta,-
bliehed by fire and by sword, the Arabians obtained per-
mission to study philosophy after their fashion. The
Arabian dialecticians are said to have formed their mode
after the model of the modern philosophers of the Alex-
andrian school. Astrology and alchemy agreed most
completely with the national tastes and habits of the
nation, although Islamism forbad the practice of magic
and the arts of divination. Mr. Preston, in his transla-
tion of some of the NakAadt of Al Hariri, says, in the
introduction to his book, that the meaning of the word
Mfiksiindt, as used by 'NH, is thus explained by one of
his commentators :—" It primarily signifies 'a place
where one stands upright; and hence, the place where
one is at any time.' Next, it is used metonymically to
denote the persons assembled in any place,' and, finally,
by another transition, the discourses delivered or con-
versations held in any such assembly.' This metapho-
rical use of the word Mekimdt has, however, been re-
stricted to discourses and conversations like those nar-
rated by Hariri and his predecessor, Al Hanaadani,
which are composed in a highly-finished and ornamental
style, and solely for the purpose of exhibiting specimens
of v-arious kinds of eloquence, and exemplifying rules of
grammara rhetoric, and poetry. Basra is situated on
the river Tigris, and is comparatively a modern place ;
a note in Professor Preston's book informs us that it was
founded by command of the Caliph Omar, in order to
interrupt the communication of the Persians, with whom
he was then at war, with' India, down the united streams
of the Tigris and Euphrates. The river Ailah, which
falls into the Tigris close to it, waters its gardens, and
makes them so fruitful that it is reckoned one of the
four earthly paradises by the Arabs, the other three
being the vales of Shiraz, Damascus, and Sarmacand. It
was remarkable during the Caliphate for its popula-
tion, and for the great number of its mosques. There
was a celebrated market-place there, called Mechad,
where poems and other compositions used to be
recited aloud, a practice which gave rise to so
much literary emulation, that the city became one of
the most famous for learning in the East. Basra had
' a famous school of grammar, which rivalled that of Koufa;
and therefore Arabian grainmai;ians are divided into the
two schools of the Koufiyane and the Basriyans. The
MAkAtriAt of Al Hariri have been spoken of as the most
classical series of compositions in Arabic literature, and,
as such, a masterpiece of elegance and refinement. In
the preface to his translation of MikAtuAl, Mr. Preston
says, "Nor are these appellations unmerited. In elabo-
rate execution and ornateness of style the MitkittnAt are
perhaps unritalled ; they have always been regarded in
the East as models of accuracy ; and the design with
which they were written was purely literary, namely,
to display the vast resources of the Arabic language, to
embody in a series of rhythmical and metrical anecdotes
all the refinements of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history,
and tradition that the author's extensive learning could
supply. To this design the eubjectonatter of the work
is entirely subordinate, the character and incidents being
selected, not for their intrinsic interest or value, but
merely as forming a suitable occasion and groundwork
for the exhibition of recondite learning and rhetorical
skill. At the same time it must be allowed that Al Ha-
rini-has adopted a peculiarly appropriate method of exem-
plifying the branches of literature most cultivated and
esteemed by his Arabian contemporaries. The work is
no idle rhapsody, intended, like the Thousand and One
Nights, to amuse the loiterers of the cafe or the seraglio,
but the elaborate result of the literary system of a period
in which not only the sciences but the useful arts of life
were sacrificed by the ingenious and studious of a great
nation to a profound gi afmnatical and rhetorical research
into the structure and resources of their own most copious
language." This literary system, Mr. Preston remarks,
originated in the extreme importance attached by Mo-
hammedans to the study of tee Koran, which is uni-
versally regarded by them as of divine origin, and ver-
!Ally inspired. The style of the Kenn is so elliptical,
snd the dialect in which it is written, though allowed to
be the purest and the best, so totally different from the
language of ordinary life,, that it was found necessary,
in order td effect even an approximate solution of its
difficulties, to institute a close comparative study of stile
contemporary and preceding productions of Arabic poets,
and to establish systems of grammar, rhetoric, and logic,
which might, be brought to bear upon the revered text.
These sciences, therefore, being the offspring of
religious enthusiasm, acquired so much value in the
estimation of Mohammedans under the Caliphate, as
to cause almost every other literary pursuit to be
considered superfluous, if not culpable ; and thus the
study of them became general, amid the attainment of
them the chief standard of excellence. They formed
the topics of discussion in all literary and religious as-
semblies ' • and those who outshone their competitors in
masterly familiarity with- them, combined with copious
command of language, became the object of public ad-
miration, and of the munificence of the rich and power-
ful. Hence it resulted that the eloquent were prone to
depend exclusively on their rhetorical powers for main-
tenance or aggrandisement. They became, as it were,
the knight-errants of literature, wandeing from city to
city to contest the palm of genius and erudition with
any rivals whom they might chance to meet with, and
thus attracting the notice and favour of the great. The
MAkAnnit combine the primary excellence of being a
grand collection of specimens of the literature most ad-
mired during a long and important period of Mahome-
tanism, and the secondary one of containing a correct
and interesting delineation of the character of some of
its most eminent professors. Of the esteem in which the
Maki mit of Al Hariri have always been held by learned
Moslemin, no better proof can be alleged than the
numerous commentaries (second only in number to those
upon the Koran) written upon it by natives of the re-
motest east and west, both Arabian and Persian. Those
in Arabia which.are most approved are two—the one by
a native of Xeres, in Andalusia, the other by a native of
Khouaresen, the north-eastern province of Persia. Much as
every line of the MAkAmit has been discussed, the consent
of the Arabs themselves has decided- that scarcely one
word or phrase admits of improvement or alteration. An
eminent writer has asserted that they ought never to be
transcribed but in letters of gold, on a tissue of silk. In
one of theiMAkitinits, that of Barknid, one of the charac-
ters in it is described as invoking the Divine aid, with an
expression of resignation, "I am in God's hands, and
shall return to Him "—an expression of resignation to
the Divine will used by the Arabs on the death of any
relative, or on meeting with any serious failure or dis-
appointment—an expression of resignation closely cor-
responding with the submissive exclamation of Job on
his sustaining heavy and irreparable losses. Mr. Pres-
ton remarks, in one of his notes, that the Arabs as a
nations partake of that singular resignation for which
their countryman Job was remarkable. He says that
the Bedouin Arabs hold no intercourse with foreigners,
even for the ,purposes of trade, and that, therefore, they
contract no corruption of dialect. Their vast vocabulary
owes its formation to the great number and wide disper-
sion of their tribes, and its preservation to the numerous
poems which form their literature, and which were trans-
mitted by memory from generation to generation. From

ancient times they prided themselves highly on poetry
and rhetoric. Pocock, Crichton, as well as Mr. Pres-
ton, remark that the only studies on which they pride
themselves are the philology of their own language,
and the investigation of the laws of its construc-
tion, together with the composition of poetry and pro e.
Tbe narrow limits of their sphere of literature and
observation seem to have concentrated the attention of

those among them who were endowed with, genius in a
mnst intense study of the resources of their own lan