The Islamic Empire was ruled by three caliphates: Patriarchal (632-661), Umayyad (661-750) and Abbasid (750-1258). In 1258, the Ottoman Turks invaded and sacked the capital Baghdad and killed the caliph, thus ending Islamic rule in the eastern part of the empire. The weak Abbasid caliphate lasted in Egypt until 1517, while in Spain and western North Africa, separate dynasties continued to rule until the 15th century.
The religious zeal of the early Muslims did inspire the beginning of two significant works, collections that were not completed until the following centuries. The most important was the hadith, a record of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad. The sudden death of the spiritual and political leader took the Islamic community by surprise, and for several decades it was deemed necessary to preserve all of Muhammad’s words and actions, as they were believed to be inspired. By the 9th century, the hadith had been reduced to a material to which no new traditions were added. Today, the hadith are revered as a major source of religious law and moral guidance, second only to the Qur’an.
Another collection, which was started at the same time, consists of the sayings of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law and the fourth caliph, whose followers later founded the main division in Islam, the Shiites. The collection, finally completed in the 10th century, is called The Way of Eloquence. It is a masterpiece of Arabic prose that has inspired numerous commentaries and imitations in other languages.
THE UMAYYAD CALIPHATE
Islamic civil wars and growing sectarian rivalries fostered the emergence of poetry, which became a favorite means of expressing different points of view. Three of the greatest poets of the Umayyad period were polemicists who used their poems to support political factions.
Al-Akhtal, although a Christian, was a staunch supporter of the policies of the first Umayyad, Mu’awiyah I. Jarir and Tammam ibn Ghalib Abu Firas (al-Farazdak) were active in the courts of the Umayyad caliphs and their governors and were ardent supporters of the regime. However, the two were enemies and amused their warring tribesmen with their caustic satires of each other. The work of these two poets has provided historians with rich material on the social and political climate of Islam in the early eighth century. They used the traditional form of the qasidah to great effect, employing a rich vocabulary and imagination.
A remarkable poet from Mecca, Umar ibn Abi Rabia, contributed to the development of the ghazal as a love poem. His poems celebrate love affairs with ladies who have come to Mecca on pilgrimage. Using the same literary form, one of the last Umayyads, al-Walid ibn Yazid, gained a greater reputation as a poet than as a warrior. His poetry was characterized by lighthearted love poems and odes to the virtues of wine.
In Medina, very idealized love poetry was in vogue, similar to the chivalric romances of medieval Europe. Supposedly invented by Jamil, this genre celebrates lovers who become martyrs, dying completely surrendered to the power of true love.
THE ABBASID CALIPHATE
In contrast to the short 90-year period of Umayyad rule, the Abbasid caliphate lasted for more than five centuries. It was during the Abbasid rule, with its capital in Baghdad, that the golden age of Islamic literature began. In Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia), all the cultural currents of the ancient Middle East converged, and members of the Muslim community, concentrated in the court of the caliphs, began to adapt and process elements from all previous cultures.
The main poets of the Abbasid period were Abu Nuwās, Ibn al-Muʿtaz, Ibn Daud, al-Mutanabbi, and al-Maʿarri. The greatest of them was Abu Nuwas, who had an incomparable command of language and imagery. However, his witty, cynical poems and wonderful table songs caused a scandal among orthodox Muslims. One of his phrases, which is said to have been his motto, was: “Accumulate as many sins as possible”.
Al-Mu’tazz, in his Book of the Novel and the Strange, established literary rules governing the use of metaphors, similes, and verbal puns (see Figures of speech). His conception of poetry included the richest decoration of poems with all kinds of figures of speech and rhetorical devices. Later, thanks to his advice, poetry appeared, the content of which prevailed over style and phrases.
The theme of a lover who would rather die than achieve union with his beloved became central to ghazal poetry in the 10th century. The first exponent was Ibn Daud, a theologian, in his anthology The Book of Flowers. Although initially used in a completely secular way, the theme later became a core concept of religious mystical poetry. Soon it also became common in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poetry. Its influence was felt even in Spain, where another theologian, Ibn Hazm, drew on personal experience to create his Ring of the Dove, a prose work about pure love interspersed with poetry.