The roots of Islamic, essentially Arabic, self-expression in the early medieval period lie in the three great literary traditions of the Arabs themselves and of the two peoples whose world-empires had for centuries contended for mastery in the Near East, the Persians and the Greeks. This assertion does not invalidate the subordinate contributions to the rich fabric of Arabic literature from such traditions as the Syriac Christian one – at least for the Syro-Mesopotamian heartlands – and yet others on the peripheries, such as the Coptic one in Egypt and even, at a later date, the Indian one. But in their less culturally xenophobic frames of mind, it was essentially the empires of the Kisrās (Persia) and Qaysars (Byzantium) which the Arabs regarded as their external cultural mentors, albeit with the qualification that these traditions had all lacked the vital transformatory power of Muhammad's revelation and the Islamic faith, the indispensable unifying bond of all Islamic civilization.

In Iraq and Persia, the Arabs made themselves heirs of the Sasanids, at first only in a military and political sense, but gradually as the cultural, literary and artistic heirs also. The process of acculturation was in many ways easier than in (say) Syria or Egypt, and certainly easier than in Andalus (Spain), for in these latter three lands the indigenous Christian culture retained its spiritual and intellectual vitality and its hold on the souls of a substantial proportion of the population; although Christian confidence was temporarily shaken by the successes of Islam, a teleological view of human history and a trust in the ultimate carrying through of God's plan for the redemption of His people allowed for a dark period during which…

Apart from its intrinsic interest, the relationship between music and verse is of particular concern because of the often-mooted possibility that music (and musicians) may have made a significant contribution to the developments that took place in Hijazi poetry during the first/seventh century. But the nature of the relationship is not easy to define with any precision, and some of the problems it raises are singularly intractable. In effect, early Arabic poetry and music differ radically as objects of scholarly enquiry, essentially because there is nothing in music comparable to the extensive corpus of poetry that has been preserved. The first specimen of notation that may be thought to provide a reasonably accurate account of a song as realized in performance dates from as late as c. 700/1300, represents a seventh/thirteenth-century composition, and is moreover a unique example.

To re-create the early musical idiom from the limited materials available is quite impossible. One might suggest as a literary parallel an attempted reconstruction of early poetry from much later forms based on a consideration of such diverse sources as the critical remarks of al-Jāhiz and Ibn Qutaybah, the biographies of poets in the Kitāb al-Aghānī (the “Book of Songs”, a famous fourth/tenth-century work by al-Isfahānī), and one or two technical treatises on prosody and rhetoric – but with all the examples of poetry removed. Broadly speaking, discussions of music tend towards either the theoretical (culminating in abstractions sometimes of questionable relevance to practice) or, when dealing with the performer and his milieu, the sociological.

Poetry was the greatest mental activity of the Arabs and the summit of their artistic attainments. “It was,” said Ibn Sallām in the Jāhiliyyah, “the register of their learning and the final word of their wisdom (muntahāhukmi-him) which they adopted and which they followed.” The poet was like a prophet: often the priest, the soothsayer and the leader of the clan. The South Arabians had an ancient settled civilization, but their kinsmen, the northern Arabs, were nomads and dwellers in oases, dependent on caravan trade routes, pastoral use of an arid expanse of parched semi-desert, and in times of drought and famine raiding other tribes for booty. The nomadic tribes had no architecture but the tent with its three hearth-stones in front of it. Their pictorial art was limited to rock drawings. Their music was the chanting of their verses; the lyre and similar sophisticated stringed instruments were mainly associated with lands outside Arabia, such as Persia, as may be elicited from the poetry of al-A‘shā. The flute and the tambourine seem to have been their chief instruments of music. Their wild desert life was controlled by an overwhelming awareness of concepts of renown and prestige. A man acted always to protect his pride, this being the foremost item of personal honour. This individualism was both enhanced and tempered by the interactions of a universally observed inter-tribal code of behaviour, based on concepts of honour (sharaf), represented by blood-feud (thār), jealousy (ghayrah) for their womenfolk, hospitality (karam) and succour (najdah) of the weak, including women, orphans and combatants outnumbered by their foes.

The imaginative power of symbolism in ritual and literature is well known. Among the religions of the ancient world, Robertson Smith argued, mythology took the place of dogma; “the sacred lore of priests and people, so far as it does not consist of mere rules for the performance of religious acts, assumes the form of stories about the gods; and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual”. There seems little doubt that pre-Islamic Arabia typified this general pattern, but Islam, as a statement of monotheistic belief overriding ritualistic symbols, radically challenged, then radically altered, this pattern.

Yet, viewed in perspective, the Quranic message is not as marked a break with the past as it first appears. The retention of the pilgrimage and the ceremonies at the Ka'bah, Minā and ‘Arafāt provided rituals around which pre-Islamic stories were told and post-Islamic legends woven. One might enquire which came first – a ritual running (sa‘y) between the hills of al-Safā’ and al-Marwah, or the story of the running of Hagar (Hājar) seeking water for her abandoned son Ishmael (Ismā‘īl), the accepted Islamic explanation for this ritual?

The text of the Qur'ān introduced complex and interchangeable characters who were no ordinary mortals and were of symbolic potential. Some were Arabian, others biblical, a few of indeterminate origin. The Prophet and those persons, human or supernatural, who preceded him in God's disclosure are never absent from the verses (āyāt) of Holy Writ.

THE QUR'ĀN AND ARABIC POETRY

To the Arabs the Qur'ān was not only a religious book which set up for them new principles of religious, moral and social conduct, but also a literary work of the highest quality, the very Speech of God that no man can surpass or rival and, therefore, the final authority regarding language and grammar and the standard by which a literary work might be judged. But in spite of this, and of the fact that Muhammad was taken by his Meccan opponents to be a poet and soothsayer, the influence that the Qur'ān has exerted on the development of the Arabic poem, its themes, structure, language and general spirit, is less significant than that exercised by the works of the pre-Islamic poets. The pre-Islamic qasīdah or ode remained the model after which the new poets, who were born after Islam, composed their works, and the standard by which these works were judged. This happened in spite of the hostile attitude expressed by the Qur'ān and the Prophet towards heathen poetry and poets, an attitude which amounts to a condemnation of poetic imagination and truth.

Three main reasons seem to have contributed to this peculiar phenomenon. At the time when Muhammad began his prophetic career the Arabic qasīdah was fully developed in structure, language and metrical scheme, the poetic traditions firmly established and the whole imaginative range of life in Arabia explored by the poets. Therefore, it was impossible for Islam to switch the course which the Arabic qasīdah was following or to abolish the poetic traditions which were created by the heathen poets.

Collection of Ḥadīth, was begun in Muhammad's lifetime by members of his family, clients, and close Companions. While several of his secretaries recorded his recitation of the Qur'ān, others attended to his state correspondence. His administrators preserved the documents.

After Muhammad's death, an increasing number of Companions collected and disseminated his Ḥadīth, and sunnah for personal and public guidance. ‘Umar b. al-Khattāb (13–24/634–44), credited with a preliminary edition of the Qur'ān, considered the advisability of a formal Ḥadīth, collection. He rejected the idea, fearing the potentially dangerous competition of such an edition with the Qur'ān. He warned the Companions against relating too many of the Prophet's traditions. His strong measures against those who ignored his warning served to deter others. Abū Hurayrah (d. 5 8/678) reported later that, so long as ‘Umar lived, the people dared not say “the apostle of Allah said” for fear he would have them flogged, imprisoned, or otherwise severely punished.

‘Umar's son ‘Abdullāh and Zayd b. Thābit al-Ansārī were among the few who opposed written Tradition. Many more intensified their search for the Ḥadīth, of the Prophet, both oral and written. Eventually, even ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar dictated his growing collection. The first professional transmitters were Muhammad's illiterate follower Abū Jurayrah and his client Anas b. Mālik al-Ansārī (d. 94/712). When questioned about his numerous traditions, Abū Hurayrah explained that he was poor, had been long with Muhammad, and had devoted his life to memorizing his Ḥadīth while the Meccans were preoccupied with the market and Medinans with their lands.

Ḥadīth literature is exceedingly abundant. The subject lends itself to many possibilities; and the religious value attached to the pursuit inspired scholars of all ages to take up the challenge enthusiastically. Moreover, absence of an official undertaking to compile ḥadīth, from the surviving Companions of the Prophet left the door open to uncontrolled individual initiatives, thus giving rise to numerous studies on the subject.

The collection and arrangement of the Ḥadīth, i.e. words, deeds and tacit approvals attributed to the Prophet, as well as descriptions of his person, developed through a number of stages. These are designated here as the sahīfab, musannaf, musnad, sahīh and the analytical stages.

THE AGE OF ṢAḤĪFAH (FIRST/SEVENTH AND EARLY SECOND/EIGHTH CENTURIES)

For most of the first century, there was apparently an ambivalent attitude on the part of the Companions and their early Followers (Tābi‘ūn) concerning the writing of ḥadīth,. There was both the desire to write it down for obvious benefits, and the fear that written ḥadīth, might later be confused with the Qur'ān. Nevertheless, some fifty Companions and almost as many early Followers are said to have possessed manuscripts, then called suhuf (sing, sahīfah), i.e., some material in which ḥadīth, were included.

Toward the end of the first/seventh century, however, certain factors jointly stimulated the undertaking of compiling ḥadīth, without further hesitation. Fears about the purity of the Qur'ān had subsided. The text was then memorized and uniformly recited by countless numbers of Muslims, and its copies were widely circulated. Moreover, leading ḥadīth, teachers were gradually disappearing, and corruption began to threaten its integrity.

“Dans cet ensemble gigantesque constitué par les Ḥadīths, chaque ecole a puise ce qui paraissait venir à l'appui de sa propre doctrine, et a repoussé ce qui la gênait.” This statement represents a fair summary of the current view of Western scholarship on the role played by Ḥadīth in the development of Islamic legal doctrine. According to traditional Islamic jurisprudence the Ḥadīth, particularly those recorded in the six “canonical” collections of the third/ninth century, constitute an authentic record of the legal precedents, or sunnah, set by the Prophet Muhammad, and as such were regarded as a primary source of law, providing both an interpretation of, and a supplement to, the legal provisions of the Qur'ān itself. European scepticism over this view, however, stemming largely from the fact that the Ḥadīth embody considerable conflict and contradiction of substance, has eventually led to the conclusion that the ascription of legal doctrines to the Prophet was largely apocryphal and that the great mass of Ḥadīth originated in the second/eighth century, thus representing very much a secondary stage in the growth of legal doctrine.

Muslim scholars themselves were, of course, intensely conscious of the possibility of fabrication of Ḥadīth, But their test for authenticity was confined to an investigation of the chain of transmitters (isnād) who narrated the report. Provided the chain was uninterrupted and its individual links deemed trustworthy persons, the Ḥadīth was accepted as binding law.

Introducing his translation of “The Book of Marvels” attributed to al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 345/956), Carra de Vaux remarks: “Among Muslims there is a folklorist in every theologian, geographer and historian.” Arabic fables and legends are inseparable from Arabian thought. They reveal every fashion, involve every social class and reflect every change in the evolution of Arabic literature.

Any attempt, however, to reconstruct the earliest Arabic fables is faced with formidable obstacles. Few texts survive. Are those we possess representative? Archaeological reconstruction may be misleading, since many pre-Islamic tales may have survived on bedouin lips, while others of lesser appeal have long been forgotten.

Arabic legends first appeared in a “Heroic Age”. The Jahiliyyah had its confederations of tribes, or city–states, ruled by chiefs or kings. Assemblies were convened at pleasure or in an emergency. They were mainly advisory. There was bitter rivalry or peaceful co-operation among an aristocracy of princes, kings and chiefs. Deities were astral, anthropomorphic, arboreal or lithic. They formed loose or local pantheons. Each god or goddess had a special abode. Although the heroes, whether kings, bards, vagabonds or soothsayers, were not the offspring of divinity, they at least possessed superhuman prowess, longevity or intimacy with the supernatural conceived as jinn or metamorphosed creatures – lions, foxes or vultures, for example.

Sagas or functional tales were recited by itinerant or resident bards. Attached to courts or camps, frequenters of festival fairs, such storytellers were occasionally seers. The ritual of a shrine, a hunt, a war or some prophylactic ceremony to avert natural disaster provided motivation.

The Qur'ān is both inimitable and untranslatable. Yet many attempts have been made to imitate it and to translate it, even by Muslims themselves, despite the total prohibition or disapproval of such action on the part of religious authority.

ORIENTAL TRANSLATIONS

Many translations into the oriental languages of Islam exist. Persian translations have been recorded by Storey and Turkish by Hamidullah, preceded by Birge. The list of eastern languages in which translations exist is a long one; Chauvin knew of the following: Armenian, Arvi (Tamil written with Arabic characters), Bengali, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindustani, Javanese, Macassarese, Malay, Panjabi, Persian, Pushtu, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil and Turkish. To this already long list we can add Amharic, Assamese, Burmese, Chinese, Georgian, Syriac. A translation into Maltese is being undertaken. Professor Muhammad Hamidullah has been active in publishing samples of translations. His Quran in every language came out in a third edition in Hyderabad-Deccan in 1936; at the time he had available in manuscript a fourth edition which gave examples of translations in 102 languages. A similar series of specimens, giving the first, short chapter of the Qur'ān (the fatihah) in a large number of languages, was published in Lapensee chiite (III–XII, 1960–2) and in a revised form in France–Islam(11, 1967 onwards).

AFRICAN LANGUAGES

In African languages several versions have been made into Swahili, including one produced by the Ahmadiyya community, whose Uganda Mission also produced one in Luganda in 1965.

At the present time, the influence of the Qur'ān on Arabic literature is unobtrusive, yet at the same time considerable. It is unobtrusive because no Arab writer would think of reproducing the style of the Qur'ān, even though for many it remains their most important model. It must be concluded that the dogma of i‘jāz explains such an attitude: one cannot imitate the Qur'ān. In this respect it can be said that most modern novels and poems in free verse, not to mention scientific treatises, are closer to similar Western works than to the sacred book of Islam.

However, the influence of the Qur'ān on Arabic literature remains considerable. Through the ideas it contains, it acts as a guiding light and as a code of faith and knowledge in the whole area of religious works. Its supremacy, where form is concerned, is manifested by the delight of authors in alluding frequently to the Qur'ān and in quoting liberally from its verses in their writings.

The fact that social life in the Islamic world and the personal life of much of the population is so profoundly affected by the Qur'ān is clearly reflected in literature. How can one describe everyday life, be it in reality or in fiction, how can one approach legal, moral or theological problems without being obliged to look for support in the Qur'ān? Even those who claim non-religious or anti-religious tendencies cannot escape its supremacy, in that they quote it or refer to it in order to challenge it.

The earliest extant source for the poetry of the Sīrah literature1 is al-Sīrat al-nabaiviyyah, composed by Muhammad b. Ishāq b. Yasar b. Khiyār (c. 85–150/704–67), which has survived in the edition made by Abū Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik b. Hishām (d. 13 Rabī 11 218/8 May 833, or in 213/828). Although the work is in prose, much occasional poetry is included in it to illustrate historical events. Later critics have tended to consider a large part of this poetic corpus spurious, although Ibn Ishāq himself admitted to his contemporaries that he was no fine critic of poetry, and that he merely restricted himself to the modest role of the compiler, not tampering with the texts he was provided with by his informants, but merely recording them verbatim. As will be seen, the author's uncritical acceptance of what he gathered from the contemporary poetic tradition makes the poems all the more valuable as an example of early Islamic verse.

A large number of the poems included in the work is attributed to the “poet laureate” of the Prophet, namely Hassān b. Thābit b. al-Mundhir b. Harām al-Khazrajī (d. 40/659, 50/669, or in 54/673). Many of these, in the form recorded by Ibn Ishaq, which often differs considerably from that found in other recensions, could not possibly have been composed by Hassan himself. Hassān had already established his reputation as a poet in the pre-Islamic era and did not put his art at the service of Muhammad until he was well into his fifties.

COLLECTION AND TRANSMISSION

The emergence of an independent body of Shī'ī Ḥadīth can be traced back to the first half of the second/eighth century. By that time the rift between Shī'īs, and non-Shī'īs, which had originated in a politico-religious controversy regarding the succession to Muhammad, had resulted in bloody battles and merciless persecutions. Almost all Shī‘īs shared an unbounded admiration for Alī b. Abī Tālib, a conviction that he was the legitimate ruler after the death of the Prophet, and a belief that all legitimate rulers after ‘Alī were to be found among his descendants. These legitimist claims received an additional impetus with the martyrdom at Karbalā' of ‘Alī's son Husayn and his entourage (Muharram 61/October 680). But beyond such unifying factors, Shī‘īsm was beset from the outset by numerous splits and schisms. Some Shī'īs, including the forerunners of the Zaydī sect, believed in an armed struggle against the ruling Umayyads. They united behind the person of Zayd b. ‘Alī, a grandson of Husayn b. ‘Alī b. Alī Talib, who was soon defeated and killed (122/740). Shī‘īs were also recruited by the ‘Abbasids, and contributed significantly to the overthrow of the Umayyads. There were, furthermore, assorted Shī‘ī groups, disparagingly referred to as “Extremists” (ghuldh) by later generations, who tended to deify ‘Alī, and who sometimes entertained notions such as incarnation and metempsychosis. Yet the Shī‘ī branch which eventually constituted the largest and most significant sect within Shī‘īsm was also, during the Umayyad and most of the ‘Abbasid periods, the most quiescent.