Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/16

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6
EARLY CHRISTIANITY

and the air like a forest of canes with their tall spears."[1]

The period at which the kingdom of Saba or Hamyar flourished, as in the free states of Greece and Rome, was the golden age of Arabian poetry;[2]

  1. Ferdoussi, quoted by Sir W. Jones.
  2. Die güldene Zeit der Dichtkunst, die jetzt in den Jahrbüchern der Araber aus Frommigkeit die Zeit der Unwissenheit genannt wird, &c. Michaelis, Introduction to his edition of Erpenii Arabische Grammatif, p. xxxviii. The following anecdote is given by Ibn Khallakan, in the life of Hammad Arrawihah. "Hammad was the most conversant of men in the history, the poetry, the genealogy, and the language of the Arabs; for which reason, the princes of this family (of the house of Ummaiya) invited him to their society, honoured him with their esteem, and loaded him with their favours. One day the khalif Alwalid, in his assembly of learned men, said to Hammad, 'How do you substantiate your right to the name of Arrawihah (the narrator) which is usually given you?' He replied, 'Because I can relate, Commander of the Faithful, the works of every poet which you are acquainted with, or have heard of; I can, moreover, relate the works of those poets which you are not acquainted with, and have not heard of.' The khalif then asked, 'What number of poems do you retain in memory?' He said, 'A great many; for I will undertake to repeat to you, for every letter of the alphabet, one hundred poems of the largest description, all made before the introduction of Mahommetanism, independent of such poetry as has been formed since that æra.' The khalif said, 'I will prove you in this matter.' Hammad then related, till the khalif being tired, appointed some others to hear him; and when Alwalid was informed that he had actually repeated two thousand nine hundred odes of the poetry anterior to Mahommetanism, he