1

In this instance the poet was stimulated by the desire of producing a practical result. This, indeed, was regarded by the Arabs as one great end both of poetry and eloquence ;— -a man who had thus persuaded his tribe to anything great, or dissuaded them from a dangerous enterprise, was thenceforth honoured with the title of Khateb, or orator. Among those who did not write poetry themselves, it was esteemed an accomplishment and mark of good birth to have been so educated as to quote with ease and aptness upon all occasions. Another great aim of their poetry was to preserve, as in an historical record, the distinction of descents, the rights of tribes, and the memory of great achievements: hence a poet was deemed an honour to his tribe; other tribes congratulated the fortunate one on their possession; and at entertainments given in honour of the bard, the women wore their nuptial garments;-only the birth of a son, and of a foal of generous breed, were celebrated with an equal degree of rejoicing. Once every year was a meeting held of all the tribes, at which poets contended for a prize. Their prize-poems are known as the Moallacat. Comparatively few have come down to us, as the use of writing was more rare before the age of Mahomet, or, as the Arabs would say, in the time of ignorance. We select a few examples from the curious researches of M. Caussin. It need hardly be said, that the reader must not look for the logical sequence of the classic authors of Greece and Rome. The fulness of the periods, the elegance of the expression, and the allusive acuteness of the proverbial sayings, (frequently bearing reference to historic legends,) have been, from the days even of the inspired Solomon, the attractions of Eastern composition ;-their verses are, indeed, as 'Orient pearls at random strung.'

2

Here is an extract from a prize-poem by Imroulcays, the founder of their laws of metre. It displays an observation of nature and enjoyment of its beauties which is but rarely exhibited in the pagan classics of the West:-

'My friend, seest thou those lightnings, which move like rapid hands, and flash above those mountains of clouds which they crown?

"They throw a light brighter than the lamps of the solitary, whose hand has lavished on the twisted wick, the oil expressed from the

sesame.

'I stop to watch them; my companions also stop with me, between Dhâridj and Odbrayb. At what an immense distance lay the picture that attracted my attention!

The storm, as far as my eye could discern it, extended on the right to Mount Catan, and on the left to the mountains of Setan and Yadhbal.

1 Sale, Prelim. Discourse, sect. i.

2 That is, Poems suspended; for they were hung to the walls of the Caaba, the great temple of all Arabians, at Mecca. (Caussin; Sale.)

'It shed on Coutayfa, torrents that overthrew the highest trees.

It sent on the summit of Kenân a shower which drove the roes from

their coverts.

'At Taymâ, the tempest has not left standing a palm-tree, nor a house; only citadels, made of enormous blocks of stones, have withstood its violence.

'Mount Thabîr, in the midst of clouds that dissolved into rain, looked like a venerable old man enveloped in a striped mantle.

In the morning the summit of Moudjaymir, full of the tracks of the torrents, looked like the clew of flax on a distaff.

'The storm in sending its waters on to the plain of Ghâbih, has renewed its verdure, and made blossoms burst forth; so the merchant of Yemen, when he makes a halt, opens his bales, and displays a thousand varied stuffs.

"The birds of the valley are twittering with joy, as if they were intoxicated since the dawn with a delicious and piquant wine.

'The lions, which the torrents have carried off and drowned during the night, lie extended in the distance, along with feeble and weak plants uprooted on the ground.'1

So important a feature in the poetic character was this love of nature considered, that life in towns was esteemed unfavourable to the development of the bard's genius, because the townsman could not have the beauties of natural scenery continually before his eyes. But we hasten to afford proofs of the existence of some of the other themes of Arabian verse to which we have alluded. Hâtim, one of the noblest ante-Islamite chieftains of the tribe of Benóu Taij, on numberless occasions thoroughly acted up to the spirit of his generous professions. These words were addressed to his bride, Mâwia, a lady of such exalted rank as to entitle her to divorce her husband whenever she pleased. The latter part was written after she had exercised this privilege towards Hâtim himself.

'Riches, oh, Mâwia, come in the morning, and depart at evening. They are transitory, but they can procure for man immortal renown.

'Oh, Mâwia, in whatever state I am, never do I say to the man who begs of me, I have nothing to give thee.

'Oh, Mâwia, when my owl (my soul) shall fly into the desert, and my body, laid in the tomb, shall taste no more either water or wine,

Shall I feel myself robbed of what I have given? Should I enjoy that which I had denied?

"The world may know that Hâtim might be rich, if he wished. But I devote to benevolence all that I acquire; and I nourish others, to live in their memory.

'I have known both riches and poverty; I have tasted the two cups of fortune.

'Riches did not puff me up with pride, neither does poverty humiliate me.

'Others are slaves to their wealth; I, thanks be to God, dispose as I will of my own goods.

'I employ it in redeeming captives, in feeding travellers, in shedding benefits around me; and I do not imitate the miser, who mingles reproaches with the little that he bestows.

1 Caussin, tom. ii. pp. 331, 332.

It is thus that men are divided into two classes; grovelling spirits delight in parsimony; great souls delight in the glory of generosity."

We can only afford space for one more such extract. Zolayr (reckoned with Imroulcays and Nâbigha as the three greatest poets of the time of ignorance) laments, at the age of eighty, the wife of his youth, whom he had rashly divorced; and subsequently appeals to chieftains of another tribe to keep inviolate a treaty of peace.

'Are these the traces of the sojourn of Oumm-Aufa, these mute remains of an encampment on the stony soil of Darrâdj and Motethallem? 'Has Oumm-Aufa occupied, between the two Racma, this abode, whose vestiges are like prints newly touched on the flesh of the arm?

'There wander by turns, troops of white gazelles, and herds of wild cows, with large eyes; their little ones, leaving their hiding places, bound along beside their mothers.

'I am again in these places, which I have not beheld for twenty years. Scarcely do I recognise them. At last my doubts vanish.

'These stones, blackened by the fire, served to support the kettles; this circular bowl-like trench not yet degraded, surrounded the tent of OummAufa.

'Yes, I remember this place; and I exclaim, Abode of my beloved, may this dawn bring thee a happy day, may Heaven preserve thee!

My friend, send these counsels to the Dhobyân and their allies; say to them, Are you not bound by the strongest oaths to observe peace?

'Do not attempt to conceal from God your secret thoughts; God knows all that is hidden.

'If sometimes he delays his vengeance, he writes it in the book of his decrees, and reserves it till the day when he will demand an account from each one of his actions; often also he punishes crime by a sudden chastisement.

'You know the evils of discord; you have felt them by bitter experience, and it is not on doubtful reports of them that you have formed your opinion.

If you rekindle war, you will bring ignominy on yourselves; war, like a wild beast, will attack you furiously if you rouse it; as a fire, will it burn you; as a mill bruises the grain, will it crush you; as a camel which brings forth twins every year, will it be fertile to you in evils.'2

One circumstance revealed in these poems is the excessive amount of gambling, of drunkenness, and consequent quarrelling, prevalent among the pre-Islamite Arabs. Of the other positive qualities of their poetry we have already spoken. But it is time to remark upon one negative feature-we mean the total absence of anything like religious mysticism. If, in a later day, a mystic philosophy arose in the Arabian peninsula, that philosophy may be traced to Persia for its origin.' But Arabia had neither mysticisms nor mythology; between the Creator and the created universe there existed too profound a gulf to be bridged over by

1 Caussin, tom. ii. pp. 614, 626. 2 Idem, pp. 531, 532.

3 M. Renan.

the lines of connexion imagined by the Hindoo or the Greek. The incarnations of a Buddha, the anthropomorphic visions of a Jove or Pallas, a Mars or a Diana, would have been in early time simply repulsive to the Arabian understanding. The very notion of a goddess would have shocked them hardly less than it would have shocked a sincere Hebrew. The idea is perhaps essentially anti-Semitic. The Greek and Roman worshippers of goddesses were sons of Japhet; and, if the idolatrous king of Judah went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians;11 if degenerate Jews could burn incense unto the queen of heaven;' in both instances these sinful practices were learnt from children of the race of Ham.

Nevertheless, that deep pervading consciousness of sinfulness, impurity, and consequent unfitness for immediate access to an all-holy and glorious God, which is so frequently found to dwell even in the heart of unregenerate man, will naturally lead the worshipper to seek for something which may stand between himself and his invisible, eternal Maker. To the Christian this want is supplied by the sublime verity of the Incarnation, and its ordained accompaniment, a sacramental religion. For the Jew there was the hope of the promised Messiah, and meanwhile the presence of that Law, which was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator'-the prophet whom the Lord knew face to face,' and who pleaded for Israel on Mount Sinai. The pantheistic creeds, Buddhist or Braminical, which have prevailed so extensively, not only in the East, but likewise in pagan, and, alas! even in Christian, Europe, have their own way of evading, if not of fairly meeting, the difficulty. But where neither pantheism, nor Judaism, nor Christianity prevailed, there seemed to remain for the sinner, who would fain approach his Maker and yet shrunk from direct appeal, the refuge of idolatry alone.

6

At the time of Mahomet's appearance, Arabia possessed votaries of nearly all these creeds. Just as, in matters of state, some tribes were under Roman domination, some under that of Persia, some alternating between the rule of the two sceptres, and some, if nominally subject, yet practically free; even so was the inward life of the nation disunited and distracted between various forms of faith. Judaism prevailed extensively in Yemen; Christianity in Irak, Syria, and parts of the desert between Palestine and Egypt; but the majority, and more especially the entire race of Modhar, were buried in the darkness of paganism.

1 1 Kings xi. 5.

2 Jeremiah xliv. 16-19. 3 Gal. iii. 19; Deut. xxxiv. 10.

Judaism had been introduced into Yemen (the Arabia Felix of geographers) by Abou-Carib, a Tobba, or king, of the Himyarites, about A.D. 235. Tradition said that the ministers of the false gods, with their idols, and some Jewish doctors, with their sacred books, had been compelled to enter a particular fire, which was believed by the inhabitants of the district to possess great powers of discrimination, and regularly appealed to in all trials of importance. The Jews, with their books upon their breasts, came out safe and unhurt; their rivals and the idols were utterly consumed. Nevertheless, Judaism did not make any considerable progress until the commencement of the sixth century, when a king called Dhou-Nowâs propagated it with great zeal. This zeal led him to become a persecutor of Christianity; and his shameful treatment of the Christians of the district of Nadjrân was probably the main cause of the ruin of the Himyarite monarchy.

2

1

4

Christianity, notwithstanding some local and temporary triumphs, seems never to have taken thorough root in the soil of Arabia. S. Pantænus is believed, on apparently good authority, to have preached the Gospel there towards the close of the second century, and to have discovered traces of S. Bartholomew:3 but the converts make but little show in history. One Himyarite prince, Abd-Kelâl, who reigned from A.D. 273 to 297, (about the time of S. Pantænus,) was beyond doubt a Christian. And what was the result of his conversion? He did not dare to avow it openly; but his subjects, finding that he had renounced their worship, rose against him, slew him, and the Syrian missionary who had been his enlightener. Another sovereign of the same dynasty, Marthan (A.D. 330-350), has likewise been claimed for a Christian, but in reality only, it would seem, because he exhibited in his kingdom the rare spectacle of universal toleration, being wont to say, I reign over bodies, not opinions. I require of my subjects that they obey my government; as for their doctrines, it is for God their Creator to judge them.' This king was a wise ruler, generous and powerful; but it may be questioned whether such notions as his are often preludes to the acceptance of Christianity. A few churches were, indeed, built in his reign, through the influence of the Roman Emperor in the East, Constantius, but Christians remained few and isolated. Their neighbours the Abyssinians were Christians, and avenged the murderous persecutions of Dhou-Nowâs. The noble race of Ghassan were in

1 Caussin, tom. i. p. 95.

2 Idem, tom. i. pp. 128, 129.

3 Eusebius says (Hist. Eccles. v. 10), that he reached India.

4 Caussin.

5 Idem.