In this work rhyme and assonance abound with a luxuriance that almost oppresses the reader, and the em­ployment of such a style by an author of originality and genius, who had before him the greatest productions of his predecessors, shows how deeply rooted in the nature of the people was the sentiment for unmetrical cadence. In almost all Arabic works the Invocation and Preface with which the book begins are also in rhymed sentences: in the ordinary prose of the most sober narratives rhyme continually appears when the writer is describing anything which excites admiration or astonishment. So independent of a metrical prosody is poetry among the Arabs.

The reasons for the prevalence of rhyme, and for the undoubted fact that it has existed anterior to and in­dependent of metre, may be found in the structure of the Arabic language, and the mathematical precision of its forms. If the root letters of a word be represented by white counters, and the ten augmentative letters— those contained in the words —be represented by coloured counters, every strictly Arabic word, whether primitive or derived, can be expressed to the mind so that we can say whether the counters mean that the action indicated by the root is past or present, is per­formed by male or female, or whether they signify him who does the action, or who suffers it, or who is of a capacity to do it, and so on of a multitude of notions related to the root. The derivative idea is always expressed by the same derivative form, and a form of one root is necessarily assonant to the same form of another. Here then is a connexion between the sound and the signification of words which would naturally suggest the use of rhyme: and we may conclude that it made its appearance not merely in obedience to a rhythmical impulse of the soul, but as representing a real connexion and responsion of ideas.

I have said that the Arab poetical speech not only makes use of parallelism as in the simplest form of rhymed prose, but also expresses itself in a sequence of corresponding versicles. These, whether metrical or not, have a continuous rhyme, and such a sequence of continuously rhymed periods is the germ of the Arabic poem. The unmetrical sequence is to be found in its highest perfection in the earlier and more poetical Suras of the Koran, when Mohammed, first touched with the prophetic afflatus, poured forth his warnings and denun­ciations among the Ḳoraysh. It is related of Mohammed that he was ignorant of the laws of versification, as they were employed by the great poets of the century which preceded him; and that when by chance he quoted a verse he often destroyed the metre by changing the order of the words. Thus, when ‘Abbâs, son of Merdâs, and of Khansâ, the poetess, dissatisfied with a division of spoil, addressed the Prophet in some verses, among which was the line:—

“My booty and the booty of my horse ‘Obayd has been given to ‘Onaynah and Al Aḳra‘.”

Mohammed quoting the line said, “Al Aḳra‘ and ‘Onay-nah,” which destroyed the metre. Abû Bekr corrected him, and observed, “Truly has God said in the Koran, ‘We have not taught him poetry and it suits him not,’” Koran, xxxvi. 69. But Mohammed had a poetic style of his own, which was consonant with the deepest feelings of his race. In his transports of zeal or devotion he uttered his unmetrical rhythms and awed even his most determined enemies. The shortest and simplest, but not the least powerful of these, are the Suras which are placed at the end of the Koran, and consist of but a few versicles, as the Ikhlâṣ, in which he clears or quits himself of believing in any but God; the Suras called Al Falaḳ and An Nâs, in which he invokes the divine assistance against calamity; and that in which he curses Abû Lahab and his wife. The most poetical Suras are somewhat longer, but present the same characteristics. According to tradition, the first revelation received by the Prophet was the 96th Sura, called Al ‘Alak. In this the rhyme is four times changed, the versicles of each paragraph being marked by a different desinence. The two first versicles have one desinence, the three next another, the nine next a third, the four next a fourth, while the last, according to a caprice which is to be met with more than once, rhymes to no other.

One of the noblest compositions in the Koran is the 81st Sura, called At Tekwîr, descriptive of the day of judgment. It begins as follows:—

“When the sun shall be enwrapped;

When the stars shall shoot down;

When the mountains shall be moved;

When the brood camels shall be abandoned;

When the wild beasts shall troop together;

When the seas shall boil;

When the souls shall join the bodies;

When the maid buried alive shall be asked

For what crime she was slain;

When the leaves of the Book shall be opened;

When the heaven shall be drawn aside;

When the blaze of hell shall be kindled;

When the Garden shall be brought near,

The soul shall know its work.”

These fourteen versicles have the same desinence; then the Prophet takes another, to which he gives four versicles; and lastly, a third, to which he gives eleven. This last paragraph is marked by the peculiarity that in the rhyme it makes no distinction between the letters Mîm and Nûn, owing, doubtless, to the close relation between their sounds. I might multiply examples, but shall content myself with drawing the student’s atten­tion to the 87th and 92nd Suras, which have a continuous rhyme throughout, one of nineteen and the other of twenty-one verses, and requesting him to compare them with the 20th Sura, in which the same rule is observed with longer and more prosaic sentences.

These rhymed but unmetrical utterances of Moham­med make a nearer approach to versification than the ordinary rhymed prose, which consists of but two ḳari-netân , or corresponding sentences, rhyming with each other, inasmuch as the former have the continuous rhyme, which is a chief characteristic of the regular poetry. But a still further advance is represented by the semi-metrical rejez. This is the oldest and simplest form of versification known among the Arabs, and vast numbers of lines belonging to it were handed down from the pre-Islamic period. It was the favourite vehicle for the poetical or sententious utterances of chiefs and war­riors, sages and diviners. When poetry was more seriously cultivated, its composers aspired to a more harmonious and dignified measure, and placed them­selves under the restrictions of a more elaborate prosody; but the early declaimers, who improvised in obedience to the feelings of the moment, and were probably un­conscious that they were uttering poetry at all, contented themselves with the rude measure which reminded the hearer of the weak and trembling trot of the sickly she-camel. The rejez in its normal form consists of a foot, ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯, twice or three times repeated, but as each of the first three syllables may be made long or short, the structure is simple to baldness, and the tone un­dignified. Khalîl ibn Aḥmed, though he gave the rejez a place in his Circles, would not admit that lines composed in it were or poetry, since they wanted the peculiar property of the Arabic or verse, which consists invariably of two hemistiches. Yet the rejez, though superseded in ambitious compositions by more perfect metres, has never been neglected by the literary. It has always received a kind of respect as a primitive form of versification, descended from the heroic ages, and still adapted to short and pithy compositions. Ḥarîri makes much use of it in his work, and for excellent specimens of it the student may be referred to the Third and Fifth Assemblies. The Arabic prosodists seem to have detected the relationship of the rejez to rhymed prose, for Al Akhfash held that the two-footed rejez was only prose. The first who composed a regular poem, or ḳaṣideh, in rejez, is said to have been Al Aghlab al ‘Ajili, in the time of Mohammed. After him came Al ‘Ajâj; but I believe that no long poem of conspicuous merit has been written in this measure. The grammatical treatise, called the Alfîyeh, by Ibn Mâlik, which is often cited in the notes to this translation, is in rejez muzdawij; that is, the second hemistich of each verse rhymes with the first, and each rhyme is limited to a single verse. So also are the “Beauties of Syntax,” by Ḥarîri.