ABSTRACT
I may offer a few preliminary remarks concerning General eharac-1 f . . teristies of the the genera character 0 the pertod whIch we
period. h II b' 11 • h' fi 1 h I s a rleny survey In t IS na c apter. t forms, one must admit, a melancholy conclusion to a glorious history. The Caliphate, which symbolised the supremacy of the Prophet's people, is swept away. Mongols, Turks, Persians, all in turn build up great Mu~ammadan empires, but the Arabs have lost even the shadow of a leading part and appear only as subordinate actors on a provincial stage. The chief centres of Arabian life, such as it is, are henceforth Syria and Egypt, which were held by the Turkish Mamelukes until 1517 A.D.) when they passed under Ottoman rule. In North Africa the petty Berber dynasties (I:Iaf~ids) Ziyanids, and Madnids) gave place in the sixteenth century to the Ottoman Turks. Only in Spain, where the Na~rids of Granada survived until 1492 A.D., in Morocco, where the Shari'fs (descendants of 'AI! b. Abl Tilib) assumed the sovereignty in 1544 A.D., and to some extent in Arabia itself, did the Arabs preserve their political independence. In such circumstances it would be vain to look for any large developments of literature and culture worthy to rank with those of the past. This is an age of imitation and
CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD «3 compilation. Learned men abound, whose erudition embraces every subject under the sun. The mass of writing shows no visible diminution, and much of it is valuable and meritorious work. But with one or two conspicuous exceptions-e.g. the historian Ibn Khaldun and the mystic Sha'ranf-we cannot point to any new departure, any fruitful ideas, any trace of original and illuminating thought. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" witnessed the rise and triumph of that wonderful movement known as the Renaissance, .•. but no ripple of this great upheaval, which changed the whole current of intellectual and moral life in the West, reached the shores of Islam." I Until comparatively recent times, when Egypt and Syria first became open to European civilisation, the Arab retained his medi;eval outlook and habit of mind, and was in no respect more enlightened than his forefathers who lived under the 'Abbasid Caliphate. And since the Mongol Invasion I am afraid we must say that instead of advancing farther along the old path he was being forced back by the inevitable pressure of events. East of the Euphrates the Mongols did their work of destruction so thoroughly that no seeds were left from which a flourishing civilisation could arise; and, moreover, the Arabic language was rapidly extinguished by the Persian. In Spain, as we have seen, the power of the Arabs had already begun to decline; Africa was dominated by the Berbers, a rude, unlettered race, Egypt and Syria by the blighting military despotism of the Turks. Nowhere in the history of this period can we discern either of the two elements which are most productive of literary greatness: the quickening influence of a higher culture or the inspiration of a free and vigorous national life. 2
came the Seljuq Turks, then the Mongols Tr~v~rs~~~~1 under Chinglz Khan and Hulagu, then the
hordes, mainly Turkish, of Tlmur. Regarding the Seljuqs all that is necessary for our purpose has been said in a former chapter. The conquests of TImiir are a frightful episode which I may be pardoned for omitting from this history, inasmuch as their permanent results (apart from the enormous damage which they inflicted) were inconsiderable; and although the Indian empire of the Great Moguls, which Rihur, a descendant of Tfmiir, established in the first half of the sixteenth century, ran a prosperous and brilliant course, its culture was borrowed almost exclusively from Persian models and does not come within the scope of the present work. We shall, therefore, confine our view to the second wave of the vast Asiatic migration, which bore the Mongols, led by Ching{z Khan and Hlilagu, ti'om the steppes of China and Tartary to the Mediterranean.
