SOURCE: An introduction to Nine Essays of Al-Jahiz, translated by William M. Hutchins, Peter Lang, 1989, pp. 1-12.

[In the following essay, Hutchins elaborates on al-Jahiz's role in Arabic literature.]

Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz lived more than a thousand years ago at the center of the Islamic empire during a peak time of Arab power. His literary works were financed by imperial officials. He is recognized as one of the early masters of Arabic prose literature. He has been an important influence on the development of twentieth century Arabic literature. A humorist, he was also a theologian associated with the Mu'tazili movement.

Al-Jahiz died in the last month of 868 AD or the first of 869 at an age of more than ninety years in his birthplace, Basra. He was a contemporary of the Saxon prince Egbert of Wessex and of the 'Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid of Baghdad, although he outlived the caliph by many years. He was born during the reign of Charlemagne and a generation after that of the T'ang dynasty emperor Hsuan Tsung of China. His literary experiments were contemporary with those of the Chinese literary reformers Han Yu and Liu Tsung-yuan.¹ In terms of European literary history, the era of al-Jahiz came not quite midway between Juvenal and Sterne. He lived some seven hundred years after Juvenal and nine hundred before Sterne.

Both al-Jahiz and Juvenal attempted the ethical instruction through anecdote and witticism of an audience both international and yet subject to petty ethnic prejudices. Their works portray two imperial capitals at a crest of exploitation of imperial riches. Their satiric wit was directed at many of the same targets, misers for example.² Another target was sexual hypocrisy. Complaints similar to Juvenal's about false women and the exploitation of homosexuals and eunuchs are found in two essays of this collection: "Boasting Match over Maids and Youths," and "The Superiority of the Belly to the Back." Other subjects of interest to both were man's inability to keep secrets,³ the pretensions of resident aliens, the injustice of patrons, and the unduly favored position of soldiers. The works of al-Jahiz and of Juvenal, however, are set with such a wealth of allusions to their respective cultural traditions and assume knowledge of such a wide range of bit characters and minor events that their very similarity makes them seem quite different. Although al-Jahiz was aware of the Greco-Roman and Iranian cultures, he was a distinctively Arab and Muslim author.

Al-Jahiz and Laurence Sterne had the disgressive method in common. Digression (also termed egressio or excessus) was already a recognized stylistic device in Greek and Roman literature. Quintilian remarked Homer's digressions.⁴ Today, of course, digressions have become a widely accepted feature of modern culture thanks to commercial television.

Sterne said in Tristam Shandy that digressions are the very sunshine of reading, its life and soul. To remove them from his book would leave winter reigning in its pages.⁵ Al-Jahiz in his work on eloquence recommended that an author should "nurse the reader's enthusiasm" by taking him from one thing to another and from topic to topic.⁶ In most of his works he is both essayist and anthologist. With al-Jahiz a poem may be quoted which is right to the point while the comment it inspires is a frank digression. This incipiently digressive combination of essay and anthology became a convention of Arabic prose. It was also a convention of medieval Latin literature. Curtius commented that its popularity was such that by the seventh century AD the favorite literary form for imparting knowledge was the collection and arrangement of excerpts.⁷

For both al-Jahiz and Sterne the digressive method is associated with a challenge to the reader. Sterne instructed the reader, "to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions" in reading.⁸ Al-Jahiz did not cultivate a precious obscurity but did leave the reader at times the duty of discovering the logic behind his remarks.

Although al-Jahiz was a theologian and Sterne a cleric neither marred his work by prudishness. Consequently Sterne had to protest to a critic against the charge that his book was not suitable reading for a "woman of character."⁹ Al-Jahiz is, in fact, plain spoken and at times playfully suggestive. Yet he maintains a consistently "high moral tone."¹⁰

Al-Jahiz can then be compared to Juvenal for the wealth of cultural detail included and assumed and for the use of satire, wit, and anecdote for the ethical instruction of an urbane audience.¹¹ Al-Jahiz can be compared to Sterne for his self-conscious adoption of a digressive narrative style, the related assumption that the reader is intelligent, and for a playful seriousness. Al-Jahiz's mix of these elements found in European literature, however, seems quite different. Sterne for all his digressions did write a novel with a story. An essay by al-Jahiz like "In Earnest and in Jest" is almost subversive in the equal attention it grants theme and digression.

Grabar has remarked a similar tendency in early Islamic ornament. In classical Roman art, ornament stood out against a background. In the stucco decoration of the 'Abbasid palaces at Samarra it is difficult to distinguish ornament from background. Two more of Grabar's principles for early Islamic ornament are also relevant to al-Jahiz: "the possibility of infinite growth" and "arbitrariness." The structures of early Islamic ornament are not limited or determined by the ornament's size or frame.¹² Similarly, al-Jahiz used the digressive construction for essay epistles of only a few pages and for major works of several volumes. His essays end at times with the statement that he is concluding arbitrarily for fear of tiring the reader. To this limited extent the individual style of al-Jahiz was part of a more general early Islamic approach to art.

For Arabic literature the Qur'an as God's word is by defmtion the ultimate masterpiece. Arabic secular poetry had a rich history before the Qur'an's revelation and continued to build on that history in the Islamic age. Arabic secular prose as an art form appears to have been a development of Islamic times but was a first the product of government secretaries of generally non-Arab descent and culture.¹³ In fact it seems that the essay-epistle form was transplanted into Arabic literature in the Umayyad period by secretaries. Other literary forms like drama were not. Al-Jahiz was one of the first of the major authors to use this new, secular, Arabic art prose in specifically Arab and Muslim ways.

The reputation of al-Jahiz has remained high through the centuries. The tenth century historian al-Mas'udi wrote that none of the earlier or later Mu'tazilis was so eloquent. "Despite his well known heretical bent," his books polish minds and disclose a clear proof with the best organizations, descriptions, and sequences. He observed that when al-Jahiz feared the reader might grow weary he would switch "from the serious to comic, from great wisdom to a witty anecdote."¹⁴

In his book in praise of al-Jahiz, Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 1023 AD) attributed to the ninth century scientist Thabit ibn Qurra the statement that he envied the Arabs only three men: the caliph 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, the ascetic al-Hasan al-Basri, and al-Jahiz. His books, he said, "are flowering meadows and his essays fruit-laden branches." He was received by the elite and loved by the masses. "He united tongue and pen, native intelligence and learning, reasoning and art, prose and poetry, cleverness and understanding."¹⁵

The thirteenth century scholar Yaqut said in his biographical dictionary that al-Jahiz was well known for his "intelligence, quickness of thought and memory."¹⁶ The twentieth century Egyptian playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim has written, "It has always been my opinion that modern Arabic literature is nothing but a continuation of the movement of renewal begun by al-Jahiz."¹⁷

Al-Jahiz studied in Basra with some of the finest scholars of the time, more by association than in a formal course of instruction. He became a Mu'tazili in theology. His first success at the ' Abbasid court in Baghdad is said to have been with al-Ma'mun, a caliph with intellectual interests who praised some writings of al-Jahiz.¹⁸ During his reign it is said al-Jahiz held a government post for three days before resigning.¹⁹ There are accounts of other equally short-lived official employments for al-Jahiz. He had better success in retaining the patronage of 'Abbasid court officials.

When asked if he had a plantation in Basra, al-Jahiz replied that his establishment in Basra consisted of himself "and a woman, a woman to serve her, a man servant and a donkey." All the same, since Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik had given him five thousand dinars for Kitab al-Hayawan ("Book of Animals"), Ibrahim ibn al-'Abbas al-Suli five thousand for Kitab al-Zar' wa al-Nakhl ("Book of Crops and Palms"), and Ibn Abi Du'ad five thousand for Kitab al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin ("Book of Eloquence and Clear Expression") he possessed an estate needing no fertilizer or upkeep.²⁰

Patronage of court officials carried with it dangers as well as riches. Al-Jahiz was a protege of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik al-Zayyat until his fall in 847 AD. Al-Jahiz reportedly fled at the time, fearing torture in a spike-studded drum. Al-Jahiz was brought in shackles to the chief justice Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad.²¹ He is said to have won his freedom by reminding the judge that it is better to suffer evil than to inflict it. Ibn Abi Du'ad commented that he was "confident of his wit but not of his religion."²² Al-Jahiz also dedicated some of his works to Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad's son and deputy Muhammad. Some four years later, both father and son were out of power themselves.²³

Al-Jahiz had another powerful patron in al-Fath ibn Khaqan who was a link for him with the caliph al-Mutawakkil. Part of a letter from al-Fath to al-Jahiz is preserved in which he presented his own and the caliph's compliments and encouraged al-Jahiz to finish for him al-Radd 'ala al-Nasara ("Refutation of the Christians").²⁴ It is reported that in the final year of his reign al-Mutawakkil sent to Basra for al-Jahiz who declined the invitation for reasons of ill health and age. He was partially paralysed and complained that while one side was totally insensitive the other ached with pain if a fly passed.²⁵ At least twenty years before his death al-Jahiz's books al-Tarbi' wa al-Tadwir ("The Square and the Circle")²⁶ and al-Bayan were popular enough in Muslim Spain for an Andalusian to travel East to meet the author. He sought him in Baghdad and Samarra before finding him in Basra.²⁷

The major extant works of al-Jahiz include the previously mentioned "Animals,"²⁸ a multi-volume anthology of literature with animal themes; "Misers,"²⁹ a book of caricatures which indirectly celebrates Arab generosity; "Eloquence and Clear Expression," a history, handbook, analysis, and anthology of Arab eloquence; and the Rasa'il ("Essays" or "Epistles") in various collections.³⁰ This selection of his essays attempts to represent the author's wide range of interests and yet to retain a the matic continuity. The first two essays, "Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue" and "The Distinction between Enmity and Envy," are ethical investigations lightened as usual by amusing stories.³¹ The author's appreciation of his own originality is evident. He complains about plagiarizers and scholars who are so undiscerning that they embrace a poor book falsely attributed to an early author while ignoring far better ones by al-Jahiz. In this way he displays a well developed sense of the role of a writer as a creative artist. "Enmity and Envy" ends with praise of a patron, 'Ubaid Allah ibn Yahya, a vizier to the caliph al-Mutawakkil. Even these essays on ethics are not without a political angle. The first audience was the patron, a high official at the 'Abbasid court with power to help friends and harm foes. The essays speak both of being virtuous and of being thought to be virtuous. Secrecy alias confidentiality remains a common governmental concern today.³²

The tenth century AD literary theorist Abu Hilal al-'Askari compared essay and sermon forms and said that the two are interchangeable with respect to their format and sweetness and simplicity of language. The basic difference between them is that the essay is written, the sermon spoken. A second distinction between them though for al-'Askari is that while the sermon most often is devoted to religious concerns, prose writing serves political authority.³³ In fact, even the most secular or profane of the essays or epistles of al-Jahiz retain a sermon-like character. Yet even his most sermon-like essays seem to have served political authority.

"Censure of the Conduct of Secretaries" ends its faultfinding with a conciliatory comment. In any case, al-Jahiz is also said to have written an essay in praise of secretaries.³⁴ His censure is part ethical and part political.³⁵ Iranian secretaries serving the Arab caliphs are said to rely too heavily on their Iranian cultural heritage. Their knowledge of Islam and dedication to it are questioned.³⁶ The attorney may be the closest modern equivalent, achieving wealth and power through control of a special vocabulary.

"Life and Afterlife," dedicated to Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad's son Muhammad, is a discussion of ethics with the Mu'tazili idea of God's promise and threat a central doctrine. It also speaks of virtue as a mean between excess and deficiency and a habit in which the soul should be trained.

The essay "In Earnest and in Jest" features a combination characteristic not only of al-Jahiz but also of medieval Latin literature. Curtius has observed that, "the polarity 'jest and earnest' is, from the late antique period onwards, a conceptual and formal schema" and that "the mixture of jest and earnest was among the stylistic norms which were known and practiced by the medieval poet…"³⁷ In this essay al-Jahiz makes a plea for forgiveness to Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik al-Zayyat. Al-Jahiz complains of old age and speaks of a career dedicated to his patron's service. The author seeks earnestly to humour his patron with analyses of anger, punishment, bookbinding, kidney stones, and the relationship of word to meaning.

"Homesickness" is more anthology than essay. The homesickness is in the first instance that of the Arab military elite which had left the simple pleasures of Arabia to spread the Islamic empire throughout the Fertile Crescent, North Africa, and Iran and in the second that of the Turkish and Iranian soldiers the 'Abbasid caliphs brought into Iraq to prop up their regime. A modem example of the ancient Persian practice mentioned in "Homesickness" of carrying a sachet of native soil was the report that Mohammad Riza Pahlevi took with him "a bag of Iranian earth as his father did when he was exiled in 1941 …"³⁸

"Boasting Match over Maids and Youths" is in another format popular with al-Jahiz: a debate of boasts in poetry and anecdote between partisans of two rivals whether girls or boys, Blacks or Whites, one Arab confederation or another, winter or summer, or goats or sheep.³⁹ This essay also contains a noteworthy discussion of the respective merits of pre-Islamic and Muslim Arab poets and their life styles. The patron of girls has the last word in the debate. The essay is supplemented by a comment on eunuchs and a collection of jokes.⁴⁰ "The Superiority of the Belly to the Back" is a variant of the previous debate in which al-Jahiz takes the belly's side.⁴¹

Wiet has commented that both "The Virtues of the Turks" and a comparable essay outlining "The Claims of Superiority of the Blacks over the Whites" were designed by the author to scandalize his contemporaries.⁴² It is true that Turkish soldiers were less than popular with the citizens of Baghdad and that the essays on Black superiority and Turkish merit do seem related. Yet the essay on the Turks is dedicated to al-Fath ibn Khaqan, an 'Abbasid commander of Turkish descent. Furthermore, al-Jahiz said that at least part of it was written for al-Mu'tasim, the caliph who first enlisted Turkish soldiers in his private army. The essay can be considered a form of government propaganda, not scandalous satire or humor.⁴³

The Zanj (East African) community in Iraq may have been socially invisible, but it was involved in raids and rebellions in the 690's⁴⁴ and again on a much larger scale shortly after the death of al-Jahiz. The later rebellion was led by an ethnic Arab who had earlier attempted rebellions among the Bedouins of eastern Arabia and the citizens of Basra. His success came with the largely East African conscript labor force which worked on private plantations around Basra clearing the nitrous layer of soil from the fields. One complaint of the East Africans in the essay is precisely that few were allowed to remain to maturity in urban centers. Al-Tabari mentioned Black units of the 'Abbasid army which went over to the rebel side.⁴⁵ Rotter has drawn attention to an account of al-Fadl ibn Sahl's death which may indicate a use several decades earlier of Black guards on a par with Greeks, Dailamis, and Slavs.⁴⁶ Thus East Africans were an economic and military factor in ninth century Iraq. It seems possible that this essay was meant in part as propaganda for the employment of East Africans.

In view of al-Jahiz's known predilection for mixing the comic with the serious, his anthropology should not be discounted because of his humor.⁴⁷ Al-Mas'udi, who visited East Africa, spoke of al-Jahiz's essay on the Blacks as a serious work and gave his own tribute to Zanj oratory.⁴⁸ Al-Jahiz's admirer al-Tawhidi, in a short list of the merits and defects of the nations including the Persians, Greeks, Indians, and Arabs, credited the Turks with courage and daring and the East Africans with "patience, hard work, and joy."⁴⁹ In contrast, Ibn Qutaiba (d. 889 AD) in the chapter "Blackness" of his book on women has an uneven mixture of color slurs and laudatory comments. He has praise for the Afro-Arab 'Irar who was a delegate from the people of Kufato the Umayyad caliph 'Abd al-Malik, for example.⁵⁰ The feelings of al-Jahiz are best expressed by his call for the fraternal solidarity of all subjects of the Caliph with which he ends his essay on the Turks.

Al-Jahiz is known in the Arab world today as an elegant stylist of literary Arabic, a satirist and humorist, and a theologian with interest in philosophy, in that order. He is also taken seriously as an accurate observer of early 'Abbasid society and social conditions. Thus his works are an important historical source as well.

Notes

¹ See Anthology of Chinese Literature, edited by Cyril Birch (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1965) pp. 242-259.

² Compare al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Bukhala ', French translation, Livre des Avares, by Charles Pellat (Paris: Editions G. P. Maisonneuve et Cie, 1951) and Juvenal's Satires with the Satires of Persius, Gifford translation revised by Warrington (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1954) pp. 166-167.

³ Compare Juvenal, p. 114, and "Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue" in this collection.

⁴ Quintilian, The Institutio Oratoria, translated by H. E. Butler (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920-1922) X.i.46 and 49. Cicero was also known for his digressions. (Quintilian, XI.iii.164 and IX.i.28.)

⁵ Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy Gentleman in Sterne, edited by Grant (London: Rupert Hart-Davies, 1950) p. 80, vol. I, chap. XXII.

⁶ al-Jahiz, Al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin, edited by Harun (Cairo: al-Khanji, n.d. 3rd edition, 4 vols) III, 366.

⁷ Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, translated by Willard R. Trask (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963) p. 455.

⁸ Sterne, pp. 69-70, vol. I, chap. XX.

⁹Ibid., p. 701 (letter dated Jan. 30, 1760). Compare Charles Pellat, "al-Djahiz" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., II, 386; Pellat, The Life and Works of Jahiz, translated by Hawke (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969) p. 271.

¹⁰ A. J. Arberry, Aspects of Islamic Civilization (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1967) p. 23, of Zuhair.

¹¹ Bion the Borysthenite is said to have been the "first to clothe philosophy in motley." H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Literature (New York: H. P. Dutton and Company Inc. [1934]) p. 357.

¹² Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977) pp. 198, 175, 199, 200.

¹³ See H. A. R. Gibb, Arabic Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1963-2nd ed.) pp. 51-52.

¹⁴ al-Mas'udi, Kitab Muruj al-Dhahab (Les Prairies d'or), edited and translated by Barbier de Meynard (Paris: l'Imprimerie Nationale, 1861-1877) VIII, 34-35.

¹⁵ Yaqut, Irshad al-Arib ila Ma'rifa al-Adib, edited by Margoliouth (London: Luzac & Co., 1931) pp. 69-71.

¹⁶Ibid, p. 56.

¹⁷ Tawfiq al-Hakim, al-Malik Udib (Cairo: Maktaba al-Adab, 1949) p. 33. See also his Qultu Dhata Yawm (Cairo: Akhbar al-Yawm, 1970) p. 91.

¹⁸ See al-Jahiz, al-Bayan, III, 374-375.

¹⁹ Yaqut, Irshad, p. 58.

²⁰Ibid., pp. 75-76.

²¹ See "Ahmad b. Abi Du'ad," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, I, 271.

²² Yaqut, Irshad, pp. 57-59.

²³ See Pellat, Life and Works, p. 7.

²⁴ Yaqut, Irshad, pp. 62, 72.

²⁵Ibid, pp. 79-80, 74.

²⁶ French translation by Adad in Arabica 8-9 (1966-1967).

²⁷ Yaqut, Irshad, pp. 74-75.

²⁸ See Sa'id H. Mansur, The World-View of al-Jahiz in Kitab al-Hayawan (Alexandria [Egypt]: Dar el-Maaref, 1977) for a persuasive argument that the book is a work of philosophy or theology and better translated "Book of Life."

²⁹ For a thorough analysis of "Misers" see Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Structures of Avarice (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985).

³⁰ See Charles Pellat, "Gahiziana III" in Arabica, III, 147-180.

³¹ The story of burying a secret in a jug in the ground has an elaborate parallel, with a similarity to Ovid, in Amos Tutuola, The Brave African Huntress (London: Faber and Faber, 1958) pp. 43-44. See also Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975) p. 317. For a modern, applied ethics approach to secrecy see Sissela Bok, Secrets (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982).

³² Patronage for al-Jahiz by 'Abbasid officials should not put his literary integrity in question any more than that of Octavian through Maecenas for Vergil. See H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1936) pp. 240, 245.

³³ Abu Hilal al-'Askari, Kitab al-Sina'atain ([Cairo]): 'Isa al-Babi al-Halabi and partners, 1971) p. 142.

³⁴ See Pellat, "Gahiziana," p. 164.

³⁵ Naguib Mahfouz has frequently used the bureaucrat as hero or anti-hero; see al-Qahira al-Jadida and Hadrat al-Muhtaram (Cairo: Maktaba Misr, 1945 and 1975 respectively.)

³⁶ See also Ibn Qutaiba, Adab al-Katib (Cairo: al-Tijariya al-Kubra, 1963) pp. 3-5.

³⁷ Curtius, p. 424.

³⁸ The New York Times, Wednesday, January 17, 1979.

³⁹ Curtius also mentioned an anonymous possibly twelfth century debate "on the question whether the love of girls or of boys is to be preferred." Curtius, n. 26, pp. 116-117.

⁴⁰ The heroine of one of the jokes, Hubba of Medina, has a modern literary counterpart in Bint Majzoub who has had eight husbands; see Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North, translated by Johnson-Davies (London: Heinemann, 1970) p. 75.

⁴¹ A sample point made in favor of the belly is that we speak of a person's coming from his mother's belly, not his father's back. The modern novelist Naguib Mahfouz has one character tease another: "Glory to God who creates a scholar from the back of an ignorant man." Mahfouz, Qasr al-Shawq (Cairo: Maktaba Misr, 1957) p. 368.

⁴² Gaston Wiet, Introduction à la littérature arabe (Paris: Editions G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1966) p. 107.

⁴³ For an analysis of the essay on the Turks see Jacob Lassner, The Shaping of 'Abbasid Rule (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1980) Chapter V. For an English translation on the essay on Black pride see The Book of The Glory of the Black Race, translated by Vincent J. Cornell (Los Angeles: Preston Publishing Company, 1981, 1985).

⁴⁴ Charles Pellat, Le Milieu Basrien et la formation de Gahiz (Paris: Librarie d'Amerique et d'Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1953) p. 41.

⁴⁵ al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, edited by Ibrahim (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1960-1968, 10 vols) IX, 414-415.

⁴⁶ Gernot Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers in der islamisch-arabischen Gesellschaft bis XVI Jahrhundert (Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universitat, 1967) pp. 66-67; Tabari, VIII, 565.

⁴⁷ For an example from modem French literature of the sincere defense of contradictory opinions see Andre Gide, Les Faux-Monnayeurs (Paris: Gallimard, 1925) pp. 249-251.

⁴⁸ al-Mas'udi, I, 167; III, 30.

⁴⁹ al-Tawhidi, Kitab al-Imta ' wa al-Mu 'anasa, edited by Amin & al-Zain (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-'Asriya, 1953, 3 vols) I, 73-74.

⁵⁰ Ibn Qutaiba, 'Uyan al-Akhbar (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriya, 1925-1930, 4 vols) IV, 42, 41.