Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial introduction
- 1 The tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia
- 2 The Umayyad Empire, c. A.D. 750
- 1 Background topics
- 2 Pre-Islamic poetry
- 3 Early Arabic prose
- 4 The beginnings of Arabic prose literature: the epistolary genre
- 5 The role of parallelism in Arabic prose
- 6 The Qur'ān-I
- 7 The Qur'ān–II
- 8 Qiṣaṣ elements in the Qur'ān
- 9 Aspects of the Qur'ān today
- 10 Ḥadīth literature–I: The development of the science of Ḥadīth
- 11 Ḥadīth literature-II: Collection and transmission of Ḥadīth
- 12 Shī'ī Ḥadīth
- 13 Narrative elements in the Ḥadīth literature
- 14 European criticism of Ḥadīth literature
- 15 The impact of the Qur'ān and Ḥadīth on medieval Arabic literature
- 16 The Maghāzī literature
- 17 The Sīrah literature
- 18 The poetry of the Sīrah literature
- 19 Fables and legends in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times
- 20 Umayyad poetry
- 21 Music and verse
- 22 The Greek impact on Arabic literature
- 23 The Persian impact on Arabic literature
- 24 The Syrian impact on Arabic literature
- Appendix Bibliography of translations of the Qur'ān into European languages
- Glossary
- List of sources
- Index
3 - Early Arabic prose
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial introduction
- 1 The tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia
- 2 The Umayyad Empire, c. A.D. 750
- 1 Background topics
- 2 Pre-Islamic poetry
- 3 Early Arabic prose
- 4 The beginnings of Arabic prose literature: the epistolary genre
- 5 The role of parallelism in Arabic prose
- 6 The Qur'ān-I
- 7 The Qur'ān–II
- 8 Qiṣaṣ elements in the Qur'ān
- 9 Aspects of the Qur'ān today
- 10 Ḥadīth literature–I: The development of the science of Ḥadīth
- 11 Ḥadīth literature-II: Collection and transmission of Ḥadīth
- 12 Shī'ī Ḥadīth
- 13 Narrative elements in the Ḥadīth literature
- 14 European criticism of Ḥadīth literature
- 15 The impact of the Qur'ān and Ḥadīth on medieval Arabic literature
- 16 The Maghāzī literature
- 17 The Sīrah literature
- 18 The poetry of the Sīrah literature
- 19 Fables and legends in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times
- 20 Umayyad poetry
- 21 Music and verse
- 22 The Greek impact on Arabic literature
- 23 The Persian impact on Arabic literature
- 24 The Syrian impact on Arabic literature
- Appendix Bibliography of translations of the Qur'ān into European languages
- Glossary
- List of sources
- Index
Summary
THE WRITING OF DOCUMENTS IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC AGE
The Arabian civilization into which the Prophet Muhammad was born had long been a literate and highly organized society. For some time before Islam Arabians were writing in the Arabic language, though the question of the scripts they employed is a complicated matter. Letters in the language of Najrān, probably Arabic, are mentioned in the Letter of Simeon of Bêth Arshâm, recently brought to light, and the Najrān chiefs used to inherit writings or books from one another. At Husn Mabraq of Wādī am-Naqa‘, in the territory of the Nakha‘ī tribe of the southern Yemen, “Himyarī” and Kufic rock inscriptions figure side by side, and very early Arabic rock inscriptions or graffiti are to be found in many parts of western Arabia. The people who scribbled on these rocks cannot but have belonged to a society with a high degree of literacy.
The conventional forms and phraseology of written political documents, already well established when Muhammad came upon the scene, were generally followed by him. Indeed the doctrine, formulated in the later development of Islam, that Muhammad could neither read nor write is hardly tenable. To Richard Bell's advocacy of his literacy must be joined the fact of the Prophet's social standing. How could the scion of the aristocratic religious house, who reckoned famous arbiters like ‘Abd al-Muttalib among his close ancestors, and who took charge of trading caravans to Syria, lack so essential an accomplishment? If the Thaqīf merchants of al-Ta'if kept “sheets” (sahīfah, pi. suhuf) recording loans plus interest, surely the Prophet would keep written accounts?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period , pp. 114 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983
- 3
- Cited by