Текст книги "Literary History of the Arabs "

Автор книги: Reynolds Nicholson

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" O God, defend Thy neighbouring folk even as a man his gear130 defendeth! Let not their Cross and guileful plans defeat the plans Thyself intendeth! But if Thou make it so, 'tis well: according to Thy will it endeth."131

Next morning, when Abraha prepared to enter Mecca, his elephant knelt down and would not budge, though they beat its head with an axe and thrust sharp stakes into its flanks; but when they turned it in the direction of Yemen, it rose up and trotted with alacrity. Then God sent from the sea a flock of birds like swallows every one of which carried three stones as large as a Rout of the Abyssinians. chick-pea or a lentil, one in its bill and one in each claw, and all who were struck by those stones perished.132 The rest fled in disorder, dropping down as they ran or wherever they halted to quench their thirst. Abraha himself was smitten with a plague so that his limbs rotted off piecemeal.133

These details are founded on the 105th chapter of the Koran, entitled 'The Súra of the Elephant,' which may be freely rendered as follows:—

"Hast not thou seen the people of the Elephant, how dealt with them the Lord? Did not He make their plot to end in ruin abhorred?– When He sent against them birds, horde on horde, And stones of baked clay upon them poured, And made them as leaves of corn devoured."

The part played by ‘Abdu ’l-Muṭṭalib in the story is, of course, a pious fiction designed to glorify the Holy City and to claim for the Prophet's family fifty years before Islam a predominance which they did not obtain until long afterwards; but equally of course the legend reflects Muḥammadan belief, and may be studied with advantage as a characteristic specimen of its class.

"When God repulsed the Abyssinians from Mecca and smote them with His vengeance, the Arabs held the Quraysh in high respect and said, 'They are God's people: God hath fought for them and hath defended them against their enemy;' and made poems on this matter."134 The following verses, according to Ibn Isḥáq, are by Abu ’l-Ṣalt b. Abí Rabí‘a of Thaqíf; others more reasonably ascribe them to his son Umayya, a well-known poet and monotheist (Ḥaníf) contemporary with Muḥammad:—

"Lo, the signs of our Lord are everlasting, None disputes them except the unbeliever. He created Day and Night: unto all men Is their Reckoning ordained, clear and certain. Gracious Lord! He illumines the daytime Verses by Umayya b. Abi ’l-Ṣalt. With a sun widely scattering radiance. He the Elephant stayed at Mughammas So that sore it limped as though it were hamstrung, Cleaving close to its halter, and down dropped, As one falls from the crag of a mountain. Gathered round it were princes of Kinda, Noble heroes, fierce hawks in the mellay. There they left it: they all fled together, Every man with his shank-bone broken. Vain before God is every religion, When the dead rise, except the Ḥanífite.135"

The patriotic feelings aroused in the Arabs of the Ḥijáz by the Abyssinian invasion—feelings which must have been shared to some extent by the Bedouins generally—received a fresh stimulus through events which occurred about forty years after this time on the other side of the peninsula. It will be remembered that the Lakhmite dynasty at Ḥíra came to an end with Nu‘mán III, who was cruelly executed by Khusraw Parwéz (602 or 607 a.d.).136 Before his death he had deposited his arms and other property with Háni’, a chieftain of the Banú Bakr. These were claimed by Khusraw, and as Háni’ refused to give them up, a Persian army was sent to Dhú Qár, a place near Kúfa abounding in water and consequently a favourite resort of the Bakrites during the dry season. A desperate conflict ensued, in which the Persians Battle of Dhú Qár ( circa610 a.d.). were completely routed.137 Although the forces engaged were comparatively small,138 this victory was justly regarded by the Arabs as marking the commencement of a new order of things; e.g., it is related that Muḥammad said when the tidings reached him: "This is the first day on which the Arabs have obtained satisfaction from the Persians." The desert tribes, hitherto overshadowed by the Sásánian Empire and held in check by the powerful dynasty of Ḥíra, were now confident and aggressive. They began to hate and despise the Colossus which they no longer feared, and which, before many years had elapsed, they trampled in the dust.

CHAPTER III

PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY, MANNERS, AND RELIGION

"When there appeared a poet in a family of the Arabs, the other tribes round about would gather together to that family and wish them joy of their good luck. Feasts would be got ready, the women of the tribe would join together in bands, playing upon lutes, as they were wont to do at bridals, and the men and boys would congratulate one another; for a poet was a defence to the honour of them all, a weapon to ward off insult from their good name, and a means of perpetuating their glorious deeds and of establishing their fame for ever. And they used not to wish one another joy but for three things—the birth of a boy, the coming to light of a poet, and the foaling of a noble mare."139

As far as extant literature is concerned—and at this time there was only a spoken literature, which was preserved by oral tradition, and first committed to writing long afterwards—the Jáhiliyyaor Pre-islamic Age covers scarcely more than a century, from about 500 a.d., when the oldest poems of which we have any record were composed, to the year of Muḥammad's Flight to Medína (622 a.d.), which is the starting-point of a new era in Arabian history. The influence of these hundred and twenty years was great and lasting. They saw the rise and incipient decline of a poetry which most Arabic-speaking Moslems have always regarded as a model of unapproachable excellence; a poetry rooted in the life of the people, that insensibly moulded their minds and fixed their character and made them morally and spiritually a nation long before Muḥammad welded the various conflicting groups into a single organism, animated, for some time at least, by a common purpose. In those days poetry was no luxury for the cultured few, but the sole medium of literary expression. Every tribe had its poets, who freely uttered what they felt and thought. Their unwritten words "flew across the desert faster than arrows," and came home to the hearts and bosoms of all who heard them. Thus in the midst of outward strife and disintegration a unifying principle was at work. Poetry gave life and currency to an ideal of Arabian virtue ( muruwwa), which, though based on tribal community of blood and insisting that only ties of blood were sacred, nevertheless became an invisible bond between diverse clans, and formed, whether consciously or not, the basis of a national community of sentiment.

In the following pages I propose to trace the origins of Origins of Arabian PoetryArabian poetry, to describe its form, contents, and general features, to give some account of the most celebrated Pre-islamic poets and collections of Pre-islamic verse, and finally to show in what manner it was preserved and handed down.

By the ancient Arabs the poet ( shá‘ir, plural shu‘ará), as his name implies, was held to be a person endowed with supernatural knowledge, a wizard in league with spirits ( jinn) or satans ( shayáṭín) and dependent on them for the magical powers which he displayed. This view of his personality, as well as the influential position which he occupied, are curiously indicated by the story of a certain youth who was refused the hand of his beloved on the ground that he was neither a poet nor a soothsayer nor a water-diviner.140 The idea of poetry as an art was developed afterwards; the pagan shá‘iris the oracle of his tribe, their guide in peace and their champion in war. It was to him they turned for counsel when they sought new pastures, only at his word would they pitch or strike their 'houses of hair,' and when the tired and thirsty wanderers found a well and drank of its water and washed themselves, led by him they may have raised their voices together and sung, like Israel—

"Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it."141

Besides fountain-songs, war-songs, and hymns to idols, other kinds of poetry must have existed in the earliest times– e.g., the love-song and the dirge. The powers of the shá‘ir, however, were chiefly exhibited in Satire ( hijá), which in the Satire. oldest known form "introduces and accompanies the tribal feud, and is an element of war just as important as the actual fighting."142 The menaces which he hurled against the foe were believed to be inevitably fatal. His rhymes, often compared to arrows, had all the effect of a solemn curse spoken by a divinely inspired prophet or priest,143 and their pronunciation was attended with peculiar ceremonies of a symbolic character, such as anointing the hair on one side of the head, letting the mantle hang down loosely, and wearing only one sandal.144 Satire retained something of these ominous associations at a much later period when the magic utterance of the shá‘irhad long given place to the lampoon by which the poet reviles his enemies and holds them up to shame.

The obscure beginnings of Arabian poetry, presided over by the magician and his familiar spirits, have left not a Saj‘. rack behind in the shape of literature, but the task of reconstruction is comparatively easy where we are dealing with a people so conservative and tenacious of antiquity as the Arabs. Thus it may be taken for certain that the oldest form of poetical speech in Arabia was rhyme without metre ( Saj‘), or, as we should say, 'rhymed prose,' although the fact of Muḥammad's adversaries calling him a poet because he used it in the Koran shows the light in which it was regarded even after the invention and elaboration of metre. Later on, as we shall see, Saj‘became a merely rhetorical ornament, the distinguishing mark of all eloquence whether spoken or written, but originally it had a deeper, almost religious, significance as the special form adopted by poets, soothsayers, and the like in their supernatural revelations and for conveying to the vulgar every kind of mysterious and esoteric lore.

Out of Saj‘was evolved the most ancient of the Arabian metres, which is known by the name of Rajaz.145 This is an irregular iambic metre usually consisting of four Rajaz. or six—an Arab would write 'two or three'—feet to the line; and it is a peculiarity of Rajaz, marking its affinity to Saj‘, that all the lines rhyme with each other, whereas in the more artificial metres only the opening verse146 is doubly rhymed. A further characteristic of Rajazis that it should be uttered extempore, a few verses at a time—commonly verses expressing some personal feeling, emotion, or experience, like those of the aged warrior Durayd b. Zayd b. Nahd when he lay dying:—

"The house of death147 is builded for Durayd to-day. Could Time be worn out, sure had I worn Time away. No single foe but I had faced and brought to bay. The spoils I gathered in, how excellent were they! The women that I loved, how fine was their array!"148

Here would have been the proper place to give an account of the principal Arabian metres—the 'Perfect' ( Kámil), the 'Ample' ( Wáfir) the 'Long' ( Ṭawíl), the Other metres. 'Wide' ( Basiṭ), the 'Light' ( Khafíf), and several more—but in order to save valuable space I must content myself with referring the reader to the extremely lucid treatment of this subject by Sir Charles Lyall in the Introduction to his Ancient Arabian Poetry, pp. xlv-lii. All the metres are quantitative, as in Greek and Latin. Their names and laws were unknown to the Pre-islamic bards: the rules of prosody were first deduced from the ancient poems and systematised by the grammarian, Khalíl b. Ahmad (õ 791 a.d.), to whom the idea is said to have occurred as he watched a coppersmith beating time on the anvil with his hammer.

We have now to consider the form and matter of the oldest extant poems in the Arabic language. Between these highly The oldest extant poems. developed productions and the rude doggerel of Saj‘or Rajazthere lies an interval, the length of which it is impossible even to conjecture. The first poets are already consummate masters of the craft. "The number and complexity of the measures which they use, their established laws of quantity and rhyme, and the uniform manner in which they introduce the subject of their poems,149 notwithstanding the distance which often separated one composer from another, all point to a long previous study and cultivation of the art of expression and the capacities of their language, a study of which no record now remains."150

It is not improbable that the dawn of the Golden Age of Arabian Poetry coincided with the first decade of the sixth Their date. century after Christ. About that time the War of Basús, the chronicle of which has preserved a considerable amount of contemporary verse, was in full blaze; and the first Arabian ode was composed, according to tradition, by Muhalhil b. Rabí‘a the Taghlibite on the death of his brother, the chieftain Kulayb, which caused war to break out between Bakr and Taghlib. At any rate, during the next hundred years in almost every part of the peninsula we meet with a brilliant succession of singers, all using the same poetical dialect and strictly adhering to the same rules of composition. The fashion which they set maintained itself virtually unaltered down to the end of the Umayyad period (750 a.d.), and though challenged by some daring spirits under the ‘Abbásid Caliphate, speedily reasserted its supremacy, which at the present day is almost as absolute as ever.

This fashion centres in the Qaṣída,151 or Ode, the only form, or rather the only finished type of poetry that existed in what, for want of a better word, may be called the classical period of Arabic literature. The verses ( abyát, singular bayt) of which it is built vary in number, but are seldom The Qaṣída. less than twenty-five or more than a hundred; and the arrangement of the rhymes is such that, while the two halves of the first verse rhyme together, the same rhyme is repeated once in the second, third, and every following verse to the end of the poem. Blank-verse is alien to the Arabs, who regard rhyme not as a pleasing ornament or a "troublesome bondage," but as a vital organ of poetry. The rhymes are usually feminine, e.g., sa khíná, tu líná, mu híná; mukh lidí, yadí, ‘uw wadí; ri jámuhá, si lámuhá, ḥa rámuhá. To surmount the difficulties of the monorhyme demands great technical skill even in a language of which the peculiar formation renders the supply of rhymes extraordinarily abundant. The longest of the Mu‘allaqát, the so-called 'Long Poems,' is considerably shorter than Gray's Elegy. An Arabian Homer or Chaucer must have condescended to prose. With respect to metre the poet may choose any except Rajaz, which is deemed beneath the dignity of the Ode, but his liberty does not extend either to the choice of subjects or to the method of handling them: on the contrary, the course of his ideas is determined by rigid conventions which he durst not overstep.

"I have heard," says Ibn Qutayba, "from a man of learning that the composer of Odes began by mentioning the deserted dwelling-places and the relics and traces of habitation. Then Ibn Qutayba's account of the contents and divisions of the Ode. he wept and complained and addressed the desolate encampment, and begged his companion to make a halt, in order that he might have occasion to speak of those who had once lived there and afterwards departed; for the dwellers in tents were different from townsmen or villagers in respect of coming and going, because they moved from one water-spring to another, seeking pasture and searching out the places where rain had fallen. Then to this he linked the erotic prelude ( nasíb), and bewailed the violence of his love and the anguish of separation from his mistress and the extremity of his passion and desire, so as to win the hearts of his hearers and divert their eyes towards him and invite their ears to listen to him, since the song of love touches men's souls and takes hold of their hearts, God having put it in the constitution of His creatures to love dalliance and the society of women, in such wise that we find very few but are attached thereto by some tie or have some share therein, whether lawful or unpermitted. Now, when the poet had assured himself of an attentive hearing, he followed up his advantage and set forth his claim: thus he went on to complain of fatigue and want of sleep and travelling by night and of the noonday heat, and how his camel had been reduced to leanness. And when, after representing all the discomfort and danger of his journey, he knew that he had fully justified his hope and expectation of receiving his due meed from the person to whom the poem was addressed, he entered upon the panegyric ( madíḥ), and incited him to reward, and kindled his generosity by exalting him above his peers and pronouncing the greatest dignity, in comparison with his, to be little."152

Hundreds of Odes answer exactly to this description, which must not, however, be regarded as the invariable model. The erotic prelude is often omitted, especially in elegies; or if it does not lead directly to the main subject, it may be followed by a faithful and minute delineation of the poet's horse or camel which bears him through the wilderness with a speed like that of the antelope, the wild ass, or the ostrich: Bedouin poetry abounds in fine studies of animal life.153 The choice of a motive is left open. Panegyric, no doubt, paid better than any other, and was therefore the favourite; but in Pre-islamic times the poet could generally please himself. The qaṣída is no organic whole: rather its unity resembles that of a series of pictures by the same hand or, to employ an Eastern trope, of pearls various in size and quality threaded on a necklace.

The ancient poetry may be defined as an illustrative criticism of Pre-islamic life and thought. Here the Arab has drawn himself at full length without embellishment or extenuation.

It is not mere chance that Abú Tammám's famous anthology is called the Ḥamása, i.e., 'Fortitude,' from the title of its first chapter, which occupies nearly a half of the book. 'Ḥamása' denotes the virtues most highly prized by the Arabs—bravery in battle, patience in misfortune, persistence in revenge, protection of the weak and defiance of the strong; the will, as Tennyson has said,

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

As types of the ideal Arab hero we may take Shanfará of The Ideal Arab hero.Azd and his comrade in foray, Ta’abbaṭa Sharr ^an. Both were brigands, outlaws, swift runners, and excellent poets. Of the former

"it is said that he was captured when a child from his tribe by the Banú Salámán, and brought up among them: he did not learn his origin until he had grown up, when he vowed vengeance against his captors, and returned to his own tribe. His oath was that he would slay a hundred men of Salámán; he slew ninety-eight, when an ambush of his enemies succeeded in taking him prisoner. In Shanfará. the struggle one of his hands was hewn off by a sword stroke, and, taking it in the other, he flung it in the face of a man of Salámán and killed him, thus making ninety-nine. Then he was overpowered and slain, with one still wanting to make up his number. As his skull lay bleaching on the ground, a man of his enemies passed by that way and kicked it with his foot; a splinter of bone entered his foot, the wound mortified, and he died, thus completing the hundred."154

The following passage is translated from Shanfará's splendid Ode named Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Arab(the poem rhymed in lof the Arabs), in which he describes his own heroic character and the hardships of a predatory life:—155

"And somewhere the noble find a refuge afar from scathe, The outlaw a lonely spot where no kin with hatred burn. Oh, never a prudent man, night-faring in hope or fear, Hard pressed on the face of earth, but still he hath room to turn. To me now, in your default, are comrades a wolf untired, A sleek leopard, and a fell hyena with shaggy mane:156 True comrades: they ne'er let out the secret in trust with them, Nor basely forsake their friend because that he brought them bane. And each is a gallant heart and ready at honour's call, Yet I, when the foremost charge, am bravest of all the brave; But if they with hands outstretched are seizing the booty won, The slowest am I whenas most quick is the greedy knave. By naught save my generous will I reach to the height of worth Above them, and sure the best is he with the will to give. Yea, well I am rid of those who pay not a kindness back, Of whom I have no delight though neighbours to me they live. Enow are companions three at last: an intrepid soul, A glittering trenchant blade, a tough bow of ample size, Loud-twanging, the sides thereof smooth-polished, a handsome bow Hung down from the shoulder-belt by thongs in a comely wise, That groans, when the arrow slips away, like a woman crushed By losses, bereaved of all her children, who wails and cries."

On quitting his tribe, who cast him out when they were threatened on all sides by enemies seeking vengeance for the blood that he had spilt, Shanfará said:—

"Bury me not! Me you are forbidden to bury, But thou, O hyena, soon wilt feast and make merry, When foes bear away mine head, wherein is the best of me, And leave on the battle-field for thee all the rest of me. Here nevermore I hope to live glad—a stranger Accurst, whose wild deeds have brought his people in danger."157

Thábit b. Jábir b. Sufyán of Fahm is said to have got his nickname, Ta’abbaṭa Sharr ^an, because one day his mother, who had seen him go forth from his tent with a sword Ta’abbaṭa Sharr ^an.under his arm, on being asked, "Where is Thábit?" replied, "I know not: he put a mischief under his arm-pit ( ta’abbaṭa sharr ^an) and departed." According to another version of the story, the 'mischief' was a Ghoul whom he vanquished and slew and carried home in this manner. The following lines, which he addressed to his cousin, Shams b. Málik, may be applied with equal justice to the poet himself:—

"Little he complains of labour that befalls him; much he wills; Diverse ways attempting, mightily his purpose he fulfils. Through one desert in the sun's heat, through another in starlight, Lonely as the wild ass, rides he bare-backed Danger noon and night. He the foremost wind outpaceth, while in broken gusts it blows, Speeding onward, never slackening, never staying for repose. Prompt to dash upon the foeman, every minute watching well– Are his eyes in slumber lightly sealed, his heart stands sentinel. When the first advancing troopers rise to sight, he sets his hand From the scabbard forth to draw his sharp-edged, finely-mettled brand. When he shakes it in the breast-bone of a champion of the foe, How the grinning Fates in open glee their flashing side-teeth show! Solitude his chosen comrade, on he fares while overhead By the Mother of the mazy constellations he is led."158

These verses admirably describe the rudimentary Arabian virtues of courage, hardness, and strength. We must now take a wider survey of the moral ideas on which pagan society was built, and of which Pre-islamic poetry is at once the promulgation and the record. There was no written code, no The old Arabian points of honour. legal or religious sanction—nothing, in effect, save the binding force of traditional sentiment and opinion, i.e., Honour. What, then, are the salient points of honour in which Virtue ( Muruwwa), as it was understood by the heathen Arabs, consists?

Courage has been already mentioned. Arab courage is like that of the ancient Greeks, "dependent upon excitement and vanishing quickly before depression and delay."159 Courage. Hence the Arab hero is defiant and boastful, as he appears, e.g., in the Mu‘allaqaof ‘Amr b. Kulthúm. When there is little to lose by flight he will ride off unashamed; but he will fight to the death for his womenfolk, who in serious warfare often accompanied the tribe and were stationed behind the line of battle.160

"When I saw the hard earth hollowed By our women's flying footprints, And Lamís her face uncovered Like the full moon of the skies, Showing forth her hidden beauties– Then the matter was grim earnest: I engaged their chief in combat, Seeing help no other wise."161

The tribal constitution was a democracy guided by its chief men, who derived their authority from noble blood, noble character, wealth, wisdom, and experience. As a Bedouin poet has said in homely language—

"A folk that hath no chiefs must soon decay, And chiefs it hath not when the vulgar sway. Only with poles the tent is reared at last, And poles it hath not save the pegs hold fast But when the pegs and poles are once combined, Then stands accomplished that which was designed."162

The chiefs, however, durst not lay commands or penalties on their fellow-tribesmen. Every man ruled himself, and was free to rebuke presumption in others. " If you are our lord" ( i.e., if you act discreetly as a sayyidshould), " you will lord over us, but if you are a prey to pride, go and be proud!" ( i.e., we will have nothing to do with you).163 Loyalty in the mouth of a pagan Arab did not mean allegiance to his superiors, but faithful devotion to his equals; and it was closely Loyalty. connected with the idea of kinship. The family and the tribe, which included strangers living in the tribe under a covenant of protection—to defend these, individually and collectively, was a sacred duty. Honour required that a man should stand by his own people through thick and thin.

"I am of Ghaziyya: if she be in error, then I will err; And if Ghaziyya be guided right, I go right with her!"

sang Durayd b. Ṣimma, who had followed his kin, against his better judgment, in a foray which cost the life of his brother ‘Abdulláh.164 If kinsmen seek help it should be given promptly, without respect to the merits of the case; if they do wrong it should be suffered as long as possible before resorting to violence.165 The utilitarian view of friendship is often emphasised, as in these verses:—

Take for thy brother whom thou wilt in the days of peace,But know that when fighting comes thy kinsman alone is near.Thy true friend thy kinsman is, who answers thy call for aidWith good will, when deeply drenched in bloodshed are sword and spear.Oh, never forsake thy kinsman e'en tho' he do thee wrong,For what he hath marred he mends thereafter and makes sincere."166

At the same time, notwithstanding their shrewd common sense, nothing is more characteristic of the Arabs—heathen and Muḥammadan alike—than the chivalrous devotion and disinterested self-sacrifice of which they are capable on behalf of their friends. In particular, the ancient poetry affords proof that they regarded with horror any breach of the solemn covenant plighted between patron and client or host and guest. This topic might be illustrated by many striking examples, but one will suffice:—

The Arabs say: " Awfá mina ’l-Samaw’ali"—"More loyal than al-Samaw’al"; or Wafá ^unka-wafá’i ’l-Samaw’ali"—" A loyalty like that of al-Samaw’al." These proverbs refer to The story of Samaw’al b. ‘Adiyá. Samaw’al b. ‘Adiyá, an Arab of Jewish descent and Jew by religion, who lived in his castle, called al-Ablaq (The Piebald), at Taymá, some distance north of Medína. There he dug a well of sweet water, and would entertain the Arabs who used to alight beside it; and they supplied themselves with provisions from his castle and set up a market. It is related that the poet Imru’u ’l-Qays, while fleeing, hotly pursued by his enemies, towards Syria, took refuge with Samaw’al, and before proceeding on his way left in charge of his host five coats of mail which had been handed down as heirlooms by the princes of his family. Then he departed, and in due course arrived at Constantinople, where he besought the Byzantine emperor to help him to recover his lost kingdom. His appeal was not unsuccessful, but he died on the way home. Meanwhile his old enemy, the King of Ḥíra, sent an army under Ḥárith b. Ẓálim against Samaw’al, demanding that he should surrender the coats of mail. Samaw’al refused to betray the trust committed to him, and defended himself in his castle. The besiegers, however, captured his son, who had gone out to hunt. Ḥárith asked Samaw’al: "Dost thou know this lad?" "Yes, he is my son." "Then wilt thou deliver what is in thy possession, or shall I slay him?" Samaw’al answered: "Do with him as thou wilt. I will never break my pledge nor give up the property of my guest-friend." So Ḥárith smote the lad with his sword and clove him through the middle. Then he raised the siege. And Samaw’al said thereupon:—

" I was true with the mail-coats of the Kindite,167 I am true though many a one is blamed for treason. Once did ‘Ádiyá, my father, exhort me: 'O Samaw’al, ne'er destroy what I have builded.' For me built ‘Ádiyá a strong-walled castle With a well where I draw water at pleasure; So high, the eagle slipping back is baffled. When wrong befalls me I endure not tamely."168

The Bedouin ideal of generosity and hospitality is personified in Ḥátim of Ṭayyi’, of whom many anecdotes are told. We may learn from the following one how extravagant are an Arab's notions on this subject:—

When Ḥátim's mother was pregnant she dreamed that she was asked, "Which dost thou prefer?—a generous son called Ḥátim, or ten like those of other folk, lions in the hour of battle, Ḥátim of Ṭayyi’. brave lads and strong of limb?" and that she answered, "Ḥátim." Now, when Ḥátim grew up he was wont to take out his food, and if he found any one to share it he would eat, otherwise he threw it away. His father, seeing that he wasted his food, gave him a slave-girl and a mare with her foal and sent him to herd the camels. On reaching the pasture, Ḥátim began to search for his fellows, but none was in sight; then he came to the road, but found no one there. While he was thus engaged he descried a party of riders on the road and went to meet them. "O youth," said they, "hast thou aught to entertain us withal?" He answered: "Do ye ask me of entertainment when ye see the camels?" Now, these riders were ‘Abíd b. al-Abras and Bishr b. Abí Kházim and Nábigha al-Dhubyání, and they were on their way to King Nu‘mán.169 Ḥátim slaughtered three camels for them, whereupon ‘Abíd said: "We desired no entertainment save milk, but if thou must needs charge thyself with something more, a single young she-camel would have sufficed us." Ḥátim replied: "That I know, but seeing different faces and diverse fashions I thought ye were not of the same country, and I wished that each of you should mention what ye saw, on returning home." So they spoke verses in praise of him and celebrated his generosity, and Ḥátim said: "I wished to bestow a kindness upon you, but your bounty is greater than mine. I swear to God that I will hamstring every camel in the herd unless ye come forward and divide them among yourselves." The poets did as he desired, and each man received ninety-nine camels; then they proceeded on their journey to Nu‘mán. When Ḥátim's father heard of this he came to him and asked, "Where are the camels?" "O my father," replied Ḥátim, "by means of them I have conferred on thee everlasting fame and honour that will cleave to thee like the ring of the ringdove, and men will always bear in mind some verse of poetry in which we are praised. This is thy recompense for the camels." On hearing these words his father said, "Didst thou with my camels thus?" "Yes." "By God, I will never dwell with thee again." So he went forth with his family, and Ḥátim was left alone with his slave-girl and his mare and the mare's foal.170