ABSTRACT
Before proceeding to speak of the terrible catastrophe which filled the whole of Western Asia with ruin and desolation,
General characteristics of the period.
I may offer a few preliminary remarks concerning the general character of the period which we shall briefly survey in this final chapter. It 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 Muḥammadan 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 Mame-lukes until 1517 A.D., when they passed under Ottoman rule. In North Africa the petty Berber dynasties (Ḥafṣids, Ziyánids, and Marínids) gave place in the sixteenth century to the Ottoman Turks. Only in Spain, where the Naṣrids of Granada survived until 1492 A.D., in Morocco, where the Sharífs (descendants of 'Alí b. Abí Ṭálib) 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 literalure and culture worthy to rank with those of the past. This is an age of imitation and 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 Khaldún and the mystic Shaʿrání—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 (he 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." 1 Until comparatively recent times, when Egypt and Syria first became open to European civilisation, the Arab retained his mediæval outlook and habit of mind, and was in no respect more enlightened than his forefathers who lived under the ʿAbbásid 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