Notecards for Arabic Literature By Will Herman WH

Sources 1. Early Islam 2. The Muslim Almanac 3. The Islamic World 4.IslamicLiteraturehttp:// /colldev/mideast/islamlit.htm 5. aspx?articleId= arabian nights WH

House of Wisdom Source 2 Qpg.337 “Al-muman set up an academy called Bayt al-Hikma (House of wisdom) in the early years of the ninth century whose members translated a good number of works from Greek and Syriac. These translations contributed to the advance of Arabic literature and sciences.” (Azim, A. Nanji) WH

Background Source 2 Spg.338 Arab historians say the Mamluk and Ottoman period as the “Age of Decadence” because of the general decline in creativity and the spread of mannered compositions that lacked in a lot of better writing that came before. WH

House of Wisdom Source 5 Spg.1 Rules by three successful caliphs. There names were Al-Rasheed who ruled for 23 years, his father Caliph Mohammad Al- Mahdi who ruled for 11 years, and his grandfather Abu Ja'far Al-Mansour who ruled for 21 years WH

House of Wisdom Source 5 Qpg.1 “ In this Academy, translators, scientists, scribes, authors, men of letters, writers, authors, copyists and others used to meet every day for translation, reading, writing, scribing, discourse, dialogue and discussion. Many manuscripts and books in various scientific subjects, and in different languages were translated there.” WH

House of Wisdom Source 5 Spg.1 The languages that were written, read, and spoken were mostly Arabic, some Farsi, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek and Latin. Sanskrit was also used a little bit to translate old Indian manuscripts in mathematics and science. WH

Arabian Nights Source 6 Ppg.1 The stories of Arabian Nights were written by many people over the course of a hundred years. The main stories came out of Persia and India in the early eigth century (Hafernik, and Renault). WH

Arabian Nights Source 6 Ppg.1 The Nights have a writing style that overcomes the poorest translation. One of the most important styles used in the Nights is that of "framing tales" or stories inside of stories. While many other tales in history use this stlye (notably, the Illiad and The Canterbury Tales), the Nights take this style to extremes. At several points, the Nights use as many as three frames ( Hafernik, and Renault). WH

Islamic Literature Source 4 Qpg.1 “The chief literary types, all poetic forms developed according to traditional rules, were the qasida, the ghazel, the qitah, the masnavi, and the roba`i. In prose, the chief genre was the maqamah.” WH

House of Wisdom Source 5 Ppg.1 It is important to put the House of Wisdom in the city of Baghdad as the Capital of the Islamic World during its Golden Age. Baghdad played a major part in the development of arts and sciences throughout the Islamic world (House of Wisdom). WH

Arabian Nights Source 6 Spg.1 Using the framing style in many of the stories also creates a lot of tension between characters. It keeps the audience on their toes and makes them know what is going to happen next. WH

Background Source 4 Spg.1 Three successive caliphates ruled the Islamic empire: the Patriarchal ( ), the Umayyad ( ), and the `Abbasid ( ). WH

Background Source 4 Spg.1 In 1258 the Ottoman Turks invaded and destroyed Baghdad, the capital, and murdered the caliph, thus ending Islamic rule in the eastern section of the empire. WH

Background Source 4 Qpg.1 “A weak ` Abbasid caliphate survived in Egypt until 1517, while in Spain and the western part of North Africa separate dynasties continued to rule until the 15th century”. WH

Background Source 4 Spg.1 The Muslim empire was enormous in size; it included a great diversity of peoples, many of whom had preserved ancient cultures and languages. For a long period, Arabic became the literary language for many regions of the empire. WH

Background Source 4 Qpg.1 “As time passed, local influences reasserted themselves and native languages once again came into use. This was particularly true in Persia, where the Arabic alphabet was adapted to the Persian language”. WH