The cultural flowering of Islam began at a time when Europe, with the exception of the Byzantine Empire, was in a state of decay-the Dark Ages. When Europe finally began to emerge from its decline, it was largely due to the efforts of Muslims who collected and translated many ancient Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic.
Although Europeans of the Middle Ages used Islamic treatises on medicine, geography, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, they were not familiar with the original literary works of the Muslim world. Even today, the rich heritage of Islamic literature is almost unknown in the West, with the exception of a few examples, such as the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam; the Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights; Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat; _ and the 20th century works of Khalil Jebran. This unfamiliarity is due in part to the fact that almost all of this literature was written in languages that were often quite difficult to translate, in part because they used the Semitic alphabet.
Difficulties of translation were especially true of Islamic poetry, which for centuries used traditional, rigid, and distinctive forms in a highly stylized way. Prose, in the Western sense of novels, short stories, and dramas, was not known in the Islamic world until the modern period. Prose also used specific forms, and often, like verse, it was rhymed. This emphasis on form and style dominated Islamic literature until the early 19th century, often to the detriment of content.
Classical Arabic poetry was built on the principle of monorhyme, and one rhyme was used throughout the poem, regardless of whether it was long or short. There were 16 basic sizes in the rhyme scheme in five groups, but the poet was not allowed to change the size during the poem.
The main literary types, all poetic forms developed in accordance with traditional rules, were qasidah, gazelle, qita, masnawi, and robai. In prose, the main genre was the maqama.
Poetry
Developed by pre-Islamic Arabs, the qasidah has survived in the history of Arabic literature to the present day. It consists of an elaborately structured ode of 20 to 100 verses and retains a single final rhyme throughout the work. The poem begins with a short prelude, usually a love poem, to attract the reader’s attention. This is followed by a narrative of the poet’s journey, describing his horse or camel, scenes and events in the desert. The main theme, in the end, is a tribute to the poet’s patron, his tribe, or even himself. After the advent of Islam, the qasidah served as an instrument of praise to God, eulogies of Muhammad, and songs of praise or lamentation for the saints. It was a type of poem that lent itself to demonstrating the poet’s own knowledge.
A love lyric of five to 12 verses, the ghazal probably originated as a development of the opening section of a qasidah. The content was religious, secular, or a combination of both.
QITAH
The qitah is a literary form used for less serious matters of daily life. Its main function was satire, jokes, word games, and codes.
MASNAVI
Masnavi originated in Persia, a country with its own ancient literary tradition. The term means “doubled” or rhymed verse. Masnavi became very popular because it allowed a poet to tell a long story by stringing together thousands of verses. It was the closest approach to an epic poem that developed in Islamic literature. The Arabs rejected the epic as a form of fiction that they considered to be akin to a lie.
ROBAʿI
Like the masnavi, the robai also has its roots in the pre-Islamic Persian poetic tradition. Its form is a qatrain (four-line poem) in which the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme. The most famous example of robai is Omar Khayyam’s Rubayat.
MAKAMA
The most typical expression of the Arab spirit in rhyming prose was the maqama. It was used to tell mostly simple and interesting stories in an extremely complex style. Because the maqama was often used to demonstrate the wit, education, and eloquence of the author, it often became entangled in intricate terminology and grammar that made it quite difficult to understand and thus almost impossible to translate. It was only in the late 19th century, under the influence of translations from European languages, that his style became commonplace, making it less artificial.