For a very long time Arabic literature has remained relatively unknown to the Western scholars and at the moment there is an increasing number of books and articles, dedicated to the literary, poetic, and literary expression in Arabic texts. This paper aims to compare the ideas of such scholars as Robert Irwin, Charles Pellat, Michael Sells, and Margaret Larkin.
To some extent, each of them explores the influence of Islam on development of Arabic literature. This is one of the recurrent themes in their works. Apart from that, these authors examine how pre-Islamic literature shaped religious texts of this culture. These scholars try to determine the degree to which Islam and Arabic literature are connected or even dependent on one another.
In his book Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations, Michael Sells argues the reading of this text is very difficult without understanding the rhythm and structure of the verse. Additionally, he believes that poetic heritage of pre-Islamic period can still be traceable in Qur’an. For instance, such values as “hospitality, valor, or generosity” were glorified by Bedouin poets; later they were transformed into virtues (Sells, unpaged).
The key difference is that in the Qur’an these values are not viewed as the attributes of hero, but the indispensible qualities of every human being. Similarly, in her interview Margaret Larkin also focuses on the significance of pre-Islamic poetry for further development of Arabic literature. One of her arguments is that poetry is by the most common form of Arabic literature, including religious texts.
However, she also points out that in the Muslim community one cannot easily draw the parallels between the Qur’an poetry since such comparison may undermine the belief in divine nature of this text (Larkin). The thing is that poetry is often associated with paganism, intertainment, and pre-Islamic period of Arab history, which is often labeled as the time of ignorance. The common themes, explored by Margaret Larkin and Michael Sells is the interplay of religious thought and literature.
In his turn, Robert Irwin also explores the relations between religion and poetry. In particularly, he focuses on the form, structure and themes of pre-Islamic poetic works. The author argues that the appearance of Islam virtually gave material representation to Arabic literature, since before that time it existed only in oral form (Irwin, 1).
Additionally, he maintains that such poetic form as qasida has survived up to the twentieth century and it was not significantly influenced by the Islamic literary and religious tradition. This view is partially supported by the Charles Pellat, who considered qasida as a self-sufficient poetic genre that was not considerably affected by religious thought. Unlike Margaret Larkin and Michael Sells, these two scholars, examine Arabic literature as a self-sufficient entity, which is not subjected to the needs of religion.
The argument that re-emerges in the works of these scholars is that Arabic literature and Islam are closely intertwined, but they should not be regarded as the part and the whole. These are separate entities that supplement one another. There is no point in denying the fact that the appearance of Islam provided a powerful stimulus to Arabic literature, but literary texts are not subservient to religious thought. This argument seems quite reasonable to me because literature and religion eventually independent from one another.
Works Cited
Irwin. Robert. “Pagan Poets (A.D. 500-622),” in Night & Horses & the Desert. Overlook Press, 2000.
Interview with Margaret Larkin on Poetry. “The Development of Arabic Literature”. (undated). Web.
Pellat Charles “Jewellers with Words,” p. 141-160 in The World of Islam: Faith, People, Culture, edited by Lewis Bernard. Random House, 1976.
Sells Michael. “Excerpts from Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations”. White Cloud Press. 1999. Web.