This Acquirement Is But Little Valued In
The Present Day, As Almost Nothing Is To Be Gained By It.
The Turks
particularly excel in the ornamental character called "Suls." I have
seen some Korans beautifully written; and the late Pasha gave an
impetus to this branch of industry, by forbidding, under the plea of
religious scruples, the importation of the incorrect Korans cheaply
lithographed by the Persians at Bombay.
The Persians surpass the Turks
in all but the Suls writing. Of late years, the Pashas of Cairo have
employed a gentleman from Khorasan, whose travelling name is "Mirza
Sanglakh" to decorate their Mosques with inscriptions. I was favoured
with a specimen of his art, and do not hesitate to rank him the first
of his age, and second to none amongst the ancients but those Raphaels
of calligraphy, Mir of Shiraz, and Rahman of Herat. The Egyptians and
Arabs, generally speaking, write a coarse and clumsy hand, and, as
usual in the East, the higher the rank of the writer is, the worse his
scrawl becomes.
[FN#26] The popular volumes are, 1. Al-Amsilah, showing the simple
conjugation of the triliteral verb; 2. Bisi'a, the work of some unknown
author, explaining the formation of the verb into increased infinities,
the quadrilateral verb, &c.; 3. The Maksu'a, a well-known book written
by the great Imam Abu' Hanifah; 4. The "Izzi," an explanatory treatise,
the work of a Turk, "Izzat Effendi." And lastly, the Marah of Ahmad
al-Sa'udi. These five tracts are bound together in a little volume,
printed at the government establishment. Al-Amsilah is explained in
Turkish, to teach boys the art of "parsing"; Egyptians generally
confine themselves in Al-Sarf to the Izzi, and the Lamiyat al-Af'al of
the grammarian Ibn Malik.
[FN#27] First, the well-known "Ajrumiyah" (printed by M. Vaucelle), and
its commentary, Al-Kafrawi. Thirdly, the Alfiyah (Thousand Distichs) of
Ibn Malik, written in verse for mnemonic purposes, but thereby rendered
so difficult as to require the lengthy commentary of Al-Ashmumi. The
fifth is the well-known work called the Katr al-Nida (the Dew Drop),
celebrated from Cairo to Kabul; and last of all the "Azhari."
[FN#28] I know little of the Hanafi school; but the name of the
following popular works were given to me by men upon whose learning I
could depend. The book first read is the text, called Marah al-Falah,
containing about twenty pages, and its commentary, which is about six
times longer. Then comes the Matn al-Kanz, a brief text of from 35 to
40 pages, followed by three long Sharh. The shortest of these,
"Al-Tai," contains 500 pages; the next, "Mulla Miskin," at least 900;
and the "Sharh Ayni" nearly 2000. To these succeeds the Text
"Al-Durar," the work of the celebrated Khusraw, (200 pages), with a
large commentary by the same author; and last is the Matn Tanwir
Al-Absar, containing about 500 pages, and its Sharh, a work upwards of
four times the size. Many of these books may be found-especially when
the MS. is an old one-with Hashiyah, or marginal notes, but most men
write them for themselves, so that there is no generally used
collection. The above-mentioned are the works containing a full course
of theological study; it is rare, however, to find a man who reads
beyond the "Al-Kanz," with the shortest of its commentaries, the
"Al-Tai."
[FN#29] He begins with a little text called, after the name of its
author, Abu Shuja'a of Isfahan, and proceeds to its commentary, a book
of about 250 pages, by Ibn Kasim of Ghazzah (Gaza). There is another
Sharh, neatly four times larger than this, "Al-Khatib"; it is seldom
read. Then comes Al-Tahrir, the work of Zakariya al-Ansari,-a
celebrated divine buried in the Mosque of Al-Shafe'i,-and its
commentary by the same author, a goodly MS. of 600 pages. Most students
here cry: "Enough!" The ambitious pass on to Al-Minhaj and its
commentary, (1600 pages). Nor need they stop at this point. A man may
addle his brains over Moslem theology, as upon Aristotle's schoolmen,
till his eyesight fails him-both subjects are all but interminable.
[FN#30] The three best known are the Arbain al-Nawawi, and the
Sahihayn-"the two (universally acknowledged to be) trustworthy,"-by
Al-Muslim and Al-Bokhari, celebrated divines. The others are Al-Jami'
al-Saghir, "the smaller collection," so called to distinguish it from a
rarer book, Al-Jami' al-Kabir, the "greater collection"; both are the
work of Al-Siyuti. The full course concludes with Al-Shifa, Shamail,
and the labours of Kazi Ayyaz.
[FN#31] Two Tafsirs are known all over the modern world. The smaller
one is called Jalalani ("the two Jalals," i.e. the joint work of Jalal
al-Siyuti and Jalal al-Mahalli), and fills two stout volumes octavo.
The larger is the Exposition of Al-Bayzawi, which is supposed to
contain the whole subject. Some few divines read Al-Khazin.
[FN#32] To conclude the list of Moslem studies, not purely religious.
Al-Mantik (or logic) is little valued; it is read when judged
advisable, after Al-Nahw, from which it flows, and before Ma'ani Bayan
(rhetoric) to which it leads. In Egypt, students are generally directed
to fortify their memories, and give themselves a logical turn of mind,
by application to Al-Jabr (algebra). The only logical works known are
the Isaghuji (the [Greek text] of Porphyry), Al-Shamsiyah, the book
Al-Sullam, with its Sharh Al-Akhzari, and, lastly, Kazi Mir. Equally
neglected are the Tawarikh (history) and the Hikmat (or philosophy),
once so ardently cultivated by Moslem savans; indeed, it is now all but
impossible to get books upon these subjects. For upwards of six weeks,
I ransacked the stalls and the bazar, in order to find some one of the
multitudinous annals of Al-Hijaz, without seeing for sale anything but
the fourth volume of a large biographical work called al-Akd al-Samin
fi Tarikh al-Balad al-Amin.
The 'Ilm al-'Aruz, or Prosody, is not among the Arabs, as with us, a
chapter hung on to the tail of grammar.
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