Griffithes Wheeler Thatcher

“ Even orthodox doctors of Islam have confessed that in Ibn ‛Abd ul-Wahhāb's writings there is nothing but what they themselves hold. At the same time the fact that so many of his followers were rough and unthinking Bedouins has led to the over-emphasis of minor points of practice, so that they often appear to observers to be characterized chiefly by a strictness (real or feigned) in such matters as the prohibition of silk for dress, or the use of tobacco, or of the rosary in prayer. ”

“ The Assassins soon began to make their power felt. One of their first victims was Hassan’s former friend, Nizam-ul-Mulk, whose son also died under the dagger of a secret murderer. The death by poison of the sultan Malik-Shah was likewise ascribed to this dreaded society, and contributed to increase their evil fame. Sultan Sinjar, his successor, made war upon them, but he was soon glad to come to terms with enemies against whose operations no precaution seemed available. After a long and prosperous rule Hassan died at an advanced age in 1124. ”

“ Behā ud-Dīn observed that the whole soul of the monarch was engrossed by the war which he was then engaged in waging against the enemies of the faith, and saw that the only mode of acquiring his favour was by urging him to its vigorous prosecution. With this view he composed a treatise on The Laws and Discipline of Sacred War, which he presented to Saladin, who received it with peculiar favour. ”

“ A‘SHĀ [Maimūn ibn Qais] , Arabian poet, was born before Mahomet, and lived long enough to accept the mission of the prophet. He was born in Manfūha, a village of al-Yemāma in the centre of Arabia, and became a wandering singer, passing through all Arabia from Hadramut in the south to al-Hīra in the north, and naturally frequenting the annual fair at Okaz (Ukāz) . His love poems are devoted to the praise of Huraira, a black female slave. Even before the time of Mahomet he is said to have believed in the resurrection and last judgment, and to have been a monotheist. ”

“ LUQMĀN, or Lokman, the name of two, if not of three (cf. note to Terminal Essay in Sir Rd. Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights) , persons famous in Arabian tradition. The one was of the family of ʽĀd, and is said to have built the great dike of Mārib and to have received the gift of life as long as that of seven vultures, each of which lived eighty years. The name of the seventh vulture—Lubad—occurs in proverbial literature. The name of the second Luqmān, called “Luqmān the Sage,” occurs in the Koran (31, 11) . ”

“ THA'ĀLIBĪ [Abu Manşūr 'Abd ul-Malik ibn Mahommed ibn Isma'īl uth-Tha'ālibī] (961-1038) , Arabian philologist, was born in Nīshāpūr, and is said to have been at one time a furrier. Although he wrote prose and verse of his own, he was most famous for his anthologies and collections of epigrams. Like many other Arabian writers, he does not always distinguish between his own and other people's work. ”

“ The object of Abdallah ibn Maimūn had been to undermine Islam and the Arabian power by a secret society with various degrees, which offered inducements to all classes and creeds and led men on from an interpretation of Islam to a total rejection of its teaching and a strict personal submission to the head of the society. ”

“ But he lived a prodigal life, and his amorous verses led to his expulsion by the caliph Merwan I. Just at that time he learned of the death of Ziyād and returned to Basra, where he secured the favour of Ziyād’s successor ‛Obaidallāh ibn Ziyād. Much of his poetry was now devoted to his matrimonial affairs. He had taken advantage of his position as guardian and married his cousin Nawār against her will. She sought help in vain from the court of Basra and from various tribes. All feared the poet’s satires. ”

“ YA'QŪBĪ [Ahmad ibn abl Ya'qub ibn Ja'far ibn Wahb ibn Waḍiḥ] (9th century) , Arab historian and geographer, was a great-grandson of Waḍiḥ, the freedman of the caliph Manṣur. Until 873 he lived in Armenia and Khorasan; then he travelled in India, Egypt and the Maghrib, where he died in 891. ”

“ ABŪ UBAIDA [Maʽmar ibn ul-Muthanna] (728–825) , Arabian scholar, was born a slave of Jewish Persian parents in Baṣra, and in his youth was a pupil of AbūʽAmr ibn ul-ʽAlā. In 803 he was called to Bagdad by Harūn al-Rashīd. He died in Baṣra. He was one of the most learned and authoritative scholars of his time in all matters pertaining to the Arabic language, antiquities and stories, and is constantly cited by later authors and compilers. Jāhiz held him to be the most learned scholar in all branches of human knowledge, and Ibn Hishām accepted his interpretation even of passages in the Koran. ”

“ After a short reign of four years Hassan was assassinated by his brother-in-law, and his son Mahommed II. succeeded. One of his first acts was to slay his father’s murderer, with all his family and relatives; and his long rule, extending over a period of forty-six years, was marked by many similar deeds of cruelty. He had to contend with many powerful enemies, especially with the great Atabeg sultan Nureddīn, and his more celebrated successor, Saladin, who had gained possession of Egypt after the death of the last Fatimite caliph, and against whom even secret assassination seemed powerless. ”

“ JĀḤIẒ (Abū ʽUthmān ʽAmr ibn Bahr ul-Jāḥiẓ; i.e. “the man the pupils of whose eyes are prominent”) (d. 869) , Arabian writer. He spent his life and devoted himself in Basra chiefly to the study of polite literature. A Muʽtazilite in his religious beliefs, he developed a system of his own and founded a sect named after him. He was favoured by Ibn uz-Zaiyāt, the vizier of the caliph Wāthiq.
His work, the Kitāb ul-Bayān wat-Tabyīn, a discursive treatise on rhetoric, has been published in two volumes at Cairo (1895) . ”

“ After a preface of five chapters dealing with the divisions of the human race, an enumeration of the sects of Islam, the objections of Satan against God and against Mahomet and the principles on which the sects may be classified, he deals with (1) the sects of Islam in detail, (2) the possessors of a written revelation (Jews and Christians) or something resembling it (the Magi) , (3) the men who follow their own reason, i.e. the philosophers of Greece and their followers among the Moslems; the pre-Islamic Arabs, the Indians and the heathen. ”

“ He studied history, law and theology, and became a vizier as his father had been before him, but was deposed for heresy, and spent the rest of his life quietly in the country. In legal matters he belonged first to the Shāfiʽite school, but came to adopt the views of the Zāhirites, who admitted only the external sense of the Koran and tradition, disallowing the use of analogy (Qiyās) and Taqlīd (appeal to the authority of an imām) , and objecting altogether to the use of individual opinion (Raʽy) . ”

“ In politics they accepted the Omayyads as de facto rulers, since they were Moslems, and left the judgment of their actions to God. As theologians they taught that religion consists in belief (imān) in the unity of God and in his apostle, and in that alone, consequently no one who held this faith would perish eternally, though he had been a sinner. This was opposed to the Khārijite doctrine that the unrepentant sinner would perish eternally, even though he had professed Islam. ”

“ JAWĀLĪQĪ, Abu Manṣūr Mauhūb ul-Jawālīqī (1073–1145) , Arabian grammarian, was born at Bagdad, where he studied philology under Tibrīzī and became famous for his handwriting. In his later years he acted as imam to the caliph Moqtafi. ”

“ GHAZĀLĪ [Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī] (1058–1111) , Arabian philosopher and theologian, was born at Tūs, and belonged to a family of Ghazāla (near Tūs) distinguished for its knowledge of canon law. Educated at first in Tūs, then in Jorjān, and again in Tūs, he went to college at Nīshāpūr, where he studied under Juwainī (known as the Imām ul-Ḥaramain) until 1085, when he visited the celebrated vizier Nizām ul-Mulk, who appointed him to a professorship in his college at Bagdad in 1091. ”

“ BEHĀ UD-DĪN ZUHAIR (Abū-l FaḌl Zuhair Ibn Maḥommed Al-Muhallabī) (1186–1258) , Arabian poet, was born at or near Mecca, and became celebrated as the best writer of prose and verse and the best calligraphist of his time. He entered the service of Malik uṣ-Sāliḥ Najm ud-Dīn in Mesopotamia, and was with him at Damascus until he was betrayed and imprisoned. Behā ud-Dīn then retired to Nablūs (Shechem) where he remained until Najm ud-Dīn escaped and obtained possession of Egypt, whither he accompanied him in 1240. ”

“ ḤARĪRĪ [Abū Maḥommed ul-Qāsim ibn ’Ali ibn Maḥommed al-Ḥarīrī,] i.e. “the manufacturer or seller of silk”] (1054–1122) , Arabian writer, was born at Baṣra. He owned a large estate with 18,000 date-palms at Mashān, a village near Baṣra. He is said to have occupied a government position, but devoted his life to the study of the niceties of the Arabic language. ”

“ Islam is the latest of the so-called world-religions, and as several of the others were practised in Arabia at the time of Mahomet, and the Prophet undoubtedly borrowed some of his doctrines and some of his practices from these, it is necessary to enumerate them and to indicate the extent to which they prevailed in the Arabian world. ”

“ Ḥassan, who adopted the cause of Nizār, the eldest son, found his enemies too strong for him, and was forced to leave Egypt. After many adventures he reached Aleppo and Damascus, and after a sojourn there, settled near Kuhistan (Kohistan) . He gradually spread his peculiar modification of Ismaʽīlite doctrine, and, having collected a considerable number of followers, formed them into a secret society. In 1090 he obtained, by stratagem, the strong mountain fortress of Alamūt in Persia, and, removing there with his followers, settled as chief of the famous society afterwards called the Assassins. ”

“ The worship of Islam consists in (1) the recital of the creed; (2) the recital of the ordained prayers; (3) the fast during the month of Ramadhān; (4) alms-giving; (5) the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. The theology of Islam finds its first public expression among the orthodox in the teaching of al-Ashʽarī (d. after 932) , but had its real beginning among the sects that arose soon after the death of Mahomet. ”

“ The eschatology of the Koran is especially prominent in its earlier parts. The resurrection, last judgment, paradise and hell are all described. At death the body again becomes earth, while the soul sinks into a state of sleep or unconsciousness. ”