And now.—At this point the author concludes his invocation, and proceeds to the subject of his discourse. The phrase or , is attributed by the Arabs to Ḳoss, Bishop of Najrân, an eloquent preacher of the time of Moḥammed; the meaning of which tradition probably is, that Ḳoss first made popular this kind of introductory invocation, which would thus seem to have been adopted by the Moslems from the Christian Church. The Arabs, however, also fable this usage to have originated with David. See commentary on phrase , pages 27 and 446 of De Sacy’s Ḥarîri; and Bayḍâwi on Koran xxxviii. 19.

To that learning.—I have used various words in different places to express the meaning of . The original meaning is Discipline of the mind, or Culture leading to moral excellence and good manners, but it is conventionally used to express what we should term scholarship, or literary skill; the chief education of the Arabs being in the use of their own language,—cor­rectness and eloquence in which became the test of politeness and gentility. , according to Hajji Khalfeh, cited in Lane’s Lexicon, is “the science by which one guards against error in the language of the Arabs, with respect to words and with respect to writing.”

The Assemblies.—Of the literary meaning of the word Ma-ḳâmeh, I have spoken in the Introduction. The exact signi­fication is a “standing,” or “place of standing,” and it is equi­valent to , since the people who listen to the narrative “stand,” or “sit” about the speaker.

Badî‘ az Zemân.—A summary of what is known of the origination of the kind of composition called the Maḳâmeh is given by De Sacy in his notes to the Maḳâmehs of this author, which he has inserted in his Chrestomathie Arabe. As I have spoken of him in the Introduction, it will be only necessary here to mention the few incidents of his life which have been pre­served. His name was Abû ’l Faḍl Aḥmed Ibn al Ḥosayn; his life is related by Ibn Khallikân, and an account of him by Abû’l Manṣûr ath Tha‘labî is given in the commentary of Sherîshi. Ibn Khallikân says “The ḥâfiẓ, Abû ’l Faḍl Aḥmed Ibn al Ḥosayn Ibn Yaḥya Ibn Sa‘îd al Hamadâni is author of some beautiful epistles and excellent Maḳamehs, which Al Ḥarîri took as a model for his, framing them on the same plan, and imitating the manner of their author, in whose footsteps he walked. Al Hamadâni was eminent for his knowledge of pure and correct Arabic, in which he cited, as his masters, Ibn Fâris, author of the Mujmil, and others. He dwelt at Herat, a city in the province of Khorasan.” The biographer then gives some speci­mens of his style, abounding in conceits which are likely to meet with less admiration from Europeans than from the poet’s countrymen, as, for instance, the following, taken from a long poem of his composition:

The gush of the shower were like thee (in thy liberality), did it, in smiling, pour forth gold. Fortune were like thee, did it not deceive; the sun, did he speak; the lion, were he not hunted; the sea, were his waters fresh.

“He died,” continues Ibn Khallikân, “of poison, at Herat, a.h. 398 (a.d. 1008). I have since found, however, the follow­ing note, written at the end of his epistles, which have been col­lected by the ḥâkim Abû Sa‘îd ‘Abd ar Raḥmân Ibn Moḥam-med Ibn Dôst, ‘The author died at Herat, on Friday, 11th of the second Jumâda 398 (February, a.d. 1008).’ On this the ḥâkim observes, ‘I have been assured by persons of good authority, that he fell into a lethargy, and was buried with precipitation. He recovered when shut up in the tomb, and his cries having been heard that night, his grave was opened, and he was found dead from fright, with his hand grasping his beard.’”

In the foregoing extract from Ibn Khallikân I have followed the translation of M. McGuckin de Slane, which I shall always use when I do not translate from the original. It is much to be wished that this excellent translation were completed.

Ath Tha‘labi, after giving Badî‘ many titles of admiration, speaks of his wondrous memory and his powers of improvisa­tion. He could repeat, without altering a letter, a lengthy poem which he had heard but once, or four or five leaves of a book; he could compose a ḳaṣîdeh or a risâleh on a given subject, or write what was proposed to him, beginning with the last verse and ending with the first; he could turn prose into verse or verse into prose; when a number of rhymes were given him he could fit them to verses; he could improvise in any given metre “without swallowing his spittle or drawing his breath.” He came to the court of Sâḥib Ibn ‘Abbâd (see De Sacy’s Chrestoma-thie, Vol. II. p. 57), and received great kindness from him. He settled in Nisabûr in the year 382, and there it was that he composed 400 Maḳamehs on mendicity and similar subjects, of which he made Abû ’l Fatḥ, of Alexandria, the hero. (I may say that my manuscript gives the reading , suggested by De Sacy. It may be noticed, however, that his reading ought to be , Chrest. Arabe, III. 259). The occasion of compos­ing his Maḳâmehs was as follows: A certain Abû Bekr Ibn al Ḥosayn Ibn Dorayd had composed forty stories, of his own invention, using the style of the Arabs of the Ignorance, full of rare and strange phrases; and Badî‘, wishing to rival him, composed four hundred similar pieces, of which the chief object was to please the listener by a display of literary eloquence and learning. Some of these are of considerable length, while others do not reach ten lines. Though it is admitted that the Maḳâ-mehs of Ḥarîri are artistically superior, yet it is claimed for Badî‘ that he surpassed all the authors of his own time, and for this reason he received the laḳab or sobriquet by which he is known. Indeed, in the time of Ath Tha‘labi, the supremacy was doubtful between them; for one scholar, being asked which was the greater, replied, “Ḥarîri was never called the Wonder even of a day; how then should he be equal to the Wonder of the Time?” Another superiority claimed for Al Hamadâni is that his compositions were really improvised, instead of being pro­duced laboriously and at leisure, like those of Ḥarîri.

Al Hamadâni, like other Eastern poets, was fond of wander­ing from place to place. After many travels he settled at Herat, where he married the daughter of a rich and powerful man, named Abû ‘Ali Ḥosayn al Khoshnâbi, and there he died at the age of forty, but whether under the circumstances mentioned by Ibn Khallikân may, perhaps, be doubted.

De Sacy says, “Il y a le plus grand rapport entre Hamadâni et Ḥarîri, soit pour le choix des sujets et des pensées, soit pour la manière de les exprimer: mais les séances de Hamadâni sont beaucoup plus courtes que celles de Ḥarîri, et par-là même peut être méritent-elles quelque préférence: on y sent moins l’ affecta­tion d’ employer tout à la fois toutes les richesses de la langue et toutes les ressources de la rhétorique. On ne peut nier cepen-dant qu’il n’y ait plus d’art dans celles de Ḥarîri.”

Whatever may have been the real merits of the two writers, the taste of their countrymen has definitely decided in favour of Ḥarîri, whose work has been for seven hundred years the delight of learned men, while that of Al Hamadâni is now but little known.

In which he had referred the composition to Abû ’l Fatḥ, of Alexandria.—Ḥarîri again alludes to the priority of Badî‘, and asserts his own superiority to him in the Forty-seventh As­sembly, by putting into the mouth of Abû Zayd:

Have thy eyes eer seen the like of me,

Who draw every bolt by my magic, and captivate every intellect by my charm?

If the Alexandrian preceded me,

Know that the dew precedes the shower, yet the shower’s excellence belongs not to the dew.

Obscure, not known, etc.—An allusion to grammatical terms. See Alfîyeh of Ibn Mâlik, line 52.

Who joins even two words, etc.—It is said that he who writes well exposes himself to envy and detraction, and he who writes ill to ridicule and insult.

As a wood-gatherer by night.—One who gathers wood by night may be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion; so he that is loquacious, or a voluminous writer, may utter some­thing that will bring him trouble. This proverb is ascribed to Aktham Ibn Ṣayfi, an elder of the Benû Temîm, in the early days of Moḥammed. A poet says:—