high culture and popular culture in medieval islam

Maisonneuve & Larose

High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval IslamAuthor(s): Boaz ShoshanSource: Studia Islamica, No. 73 (1991), pp. 67-107Published by: Maisonneuve & LaroseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1595956Accessed: 22/04/2009 12:11

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HIGH CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE

IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM(*)

Studied with an emphasis on its social context the culture created in the medieval world of Islam(1) may appear less as a unity, based on largely shared principles abstracted by modern scholarship,(2) but more like a set of blocks intertwined in some complex manner. One need not be committed to a Marxist analysis to appreciate Gramsci's observation that, in terms of culture, people (and this should apply also to medieval Muslims) do not act as collective homogeneities, but rather in several,

(*) Author's note: Preliminary research for this article was done while being fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University during the academic year 1984-85. A generous fellowship granted by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung three years later enabled me to complete the study at the Orientalisches Seminar of Freiburg University. I am much indebted to all these institutions.

(1) Being a borrowed concept, "medieval" in Islamic history involves uncertain- ties as regards periodiziation, let alone applicability. Here it has been chosen, quite arbitrarily, for the period between the second and ninth Islamic centuries, corresponding to the eighth and fifteenth centuries AD. All dates in this article are in terms of the Christian era.

(2) The search for common denominators in the cultural history of the Islamic world has been a marked trend in modern scholarship. It is noteworthy, perhaps hardly surprising, that results have been diverse. Though it is not my intention to deny the existence of shared cultural "items" or "sets" among the various groupings in past Islamic societies-in fact, I shall return to these at a later stage in this article-they seem to derive mainly from the religious sphere and, besides, are fairly well known and need not engage us in this context. At least they must now be studied as they actually appeared in history, not as preconceived notions of modern researchers who rely, one should emphasize, on little historical data.

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interrelated strata.(3) How to delineate the latter is obviously a problem in itself. A learned medievalist such as Duby for one has cautioned that "dividing lines between the cultural strata are blurred and shifting and they seldom coincide exactly with those defining the economic conditions".(4) Bearing this caveat in mind, it is my intention in the first part of this article to suggest in brief one possible scheme of the "cultural blocks" in medieval Islam. (5)

Now obviously just to present such a scheme is insufficient, perhaps even misleading, since cultural blocks or "subcultures" within one society rarely stay apart but rather exert an "osmotic" influence on one another with the result that though the distinction popular/elite remains, the inventories of each culture do change. "Popular forms become enhanced in cultural value, go up the cultural escalator - and find themselves on the opposite side. Other things cease to have high cultural value, and are appropriated into the popular, becoming transformed in the process".(6) It is therefore my aim in the second part to look beyond an apparently immobile construct into the inner dynamics and constant vicissitudes of a cultural system, what Jean Wirth has recently called "the dialectic of change".(7) There is a set of

(3) Antonio Gramsci, Marxismo e letteratura (Rome, 1975), p. 178, cited in Georges Duby, "Problemes et methodes en histoire culturelle", in Jacques Le Goff and Bela Kopeczi (ed.), Objet et methodes de I'histoire de la culture (Paris, 1982), p. 16.

(4) Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), p. 14. Like Duby, David Hall has recently stated: "Culture has a social basis, but the relationship of culture to society is more fluid..." And also: "Culture lived more freely than any one-to-one relationship [with social structure] can recognize. "See Steven L. Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Berlin- New York- Amsterdam, 1984), p. 11. In the same vein is Roger Chartier's argument that" ...the classification of professional groups [which] corresponds with a classification of cultural products and practices can no longer be accepted uncritically". See Understanding Popular Culture, p. 233.

(5) My treatment is especially of the Arabic speaking lands between Egypt and Iraq.

(6) Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'", in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People's History and Socialist Theory (London. 1981), p. 234. For the point of mutual influence among subcultures see also Robert Mandrou, "Cultures populaire et savante: rapport et contacts", in Jacques Beauroy et al. (ed.). The Wolf and the Lamb, Popular Culture in France From the Old Regime to the Twentieth Century (Saratoga, 1976), p. 18.

(7) In Kaspar von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (London, 1984). p. 77.

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questions relevant in this regard such as how rigid were the cultural divisions? How did the various subcultures within the larger system interact? How did those at the top, so to speak, view those below them concerning issues cultural and vice versa? Such questions, for some years now on the agenda of historians, should be of interest also to historians of Islam and here is a preliminary attempt to consider them. I hope that in what follows "society" and "culture", usually only loosely connected in the writings of so-called Orientalists, appear a more integrated pair. Herbert Gans's dictum that "... culture does not exist apart from people who create and use it, except perhaps in unvisited museums"(8) is here much to the point.

I

There was a medieval Islamic court culture which developed at the courts of caliphs, and later at those of provincial rulers, sultans, and political dignitaries -many among them of military stock-of various ranks. Its foremost manifestation was in the existence of a royal protocol, a special courtly etiquette, and ceremonies, all cultural derivatives of the realm of political conduct.(9) When Muslim rulers took a rest, so to speak, from ruling, they turned to their exclusive ways of entertainment: parties, hunting, and various sport games.('0) Sheer luxury and

(8) Herbert J. Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture (New York, 1974), p. 11. (9) Oleg Grabar, "Ceremonial and Art at the Umayyad Court" (unpublished Ph.

D. diss., Princeton, 1955), Ch. II; Idem, "Notes sur les c6ermonies umayyades", in Myriam Rosen-Ayalon (ed.), Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 51-60; D. Sourdel "Questions de ceremonial 'abbaside"', Revue des etudes islamiques, XXVIII (1960), esp. pp. 136-148; M. Canard, "Ceremonial fatimide et ceremonial byzantin", Byzantion, XXI (1951), esp. pp. 396-404; Idem, "La procession du nouvel an chez les Fatimides", Annales de l'Institut d'Itudes Orientales de la Faculle des Lettres d'Alger, X (1952), pp. 364-398; Karl Stowasser, "Manners and Customes at the Mamluk Court", Muqarnas, I1 (1984), pp. 15-17.

(10) For parties in the Abbasid court see Eckhard Neubauer, Musiker am !Iof der frihen Abbasiden (Ph. D. Diss., Frankfurt, 1965), pp. 71-94. 1 owe this reference to Professor W. Ende of Freiburg. For sport games and hunting as royal recreation in the Abbasid period see Muhammad Manazir Ahsan. Social Life Under the Abbasids, 170-289 AH 786-902 AD (London, 1979), pp. 202-205, 234-235, 243-249, 252-254. 259. One of the best descriptions of hunting practices and mores is provided by the "aristocrat" Usama Ibn Munqidh (1095-1188), member of an Arab petty-dvnastv from Northern Svria. In his memoires he described some hunting

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collosal expenditure were a clear mark of court culture also in the world of Islam and are "lavishly" described in the sources.(l)

Certain genres of Islamic literature could be defined as courtly, in the sense that they were written for the education and entertainment of rulers, quite often for some particular ruler. This is the case of etiquette books such as the "Book of the Crown" (Kitab at-laj), composed probably around the mid-ninth century,(12) and Hilal as-Sabi's "Regulations at the Caliph's Palace" (Rusum dar al-khilafa), written in Baghdad and dedicated to Caliph al-Qaim (r. 1031-1075).(13) Administrative books

expeditions of provincial governors in which he took part, and especially the hunting habits of his own father. See An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, Memoires of Usama Ibn-Munqidh, trans. Philip K. Hitti (New York, 1929), pp. 222- 254; G. Rex Smith, "A New Translation of Certain Passages of the Hunting Section of Usama Ibn Munqidh's I'tibar". J. Semitic Stud, XXVI (1981), pp. 235- 255. For Mamluk games see David Ayalon, "Notes on the Furusiyya Exercises and Games in the Mamluk Sultanate", Scripla Hierosolymitana (1961) esp. pp. 53- 57; A. Abd ar-Raziq, "Deux jeux sportifs en ltgypte au temps des Mamluks", Annales islamologiques, XII (1974), pp. 95-130; Stowasser, "Manners", pp. 18-19; Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art (Albany, 1983), pp. 236-237, 342 n. 287.

(11) Thus the Byzantine ambassadors who entered the caliph's audience at the Palace of the Tree in Baghdad in 917, saw to their astonishment (according to our Arabaic source) a tree of silver, weighing 500,000 dirhams (equall to about 50,000 ounces), having on its boughs mechanical birds, all singing, equally fashioned in silver. See Guy Le Strange, "A Greek Embassy to Baghdad in 917 A.D.", J. Royal Asiatic Soc., 1897, p. 40. At a garden party which the governor of Egypt gave in the tenth century to an army officer carpets were spread on table, gold and silver ornaments and figures of camphor and amber were placed. Two silver bowls were set before him, one full of gold, the other full of silver coins. When the guest left, everything on which the food was served or which was placed before him, everything out of which he had eaten or taken his drinks, was sent to him on two horses with gold saddles and bridles. See Adam Mez, The Renaissance of Islam (London, 1937), pp. 366-67. For references to luxury in other courts of Muslim rulers see e.g., Clifford E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran 994:1040 (Edingburgh, 1963), pp. 135-137; Stowasser, "Manners", p. 18.

(12) A. K. S. Lambton in Joseph Schacht with C. E. Bosworth (ed.), The Legacy of Islam, 2nd., (Oxford, 1974), pp. 409-410. For a French translation see Ch. Pellat, Le livre de la couronne (Paris, 1954). For an argument that the author of this book (traditionally known as pseudo-Jahiz) was the ninth-century Muhammad ibn al-Harith at-Taghlibi (or ath-Thaalibi) and that the book's original title was Kilab akhlaq al-muluk is in Gregor Schoeler, "Verfasser und Titel des dem (ahiz zugeschriebenen sog. Kilib at-Tdg", Zeit. Deutsche Morgendldndische Gesells- chafl, CIII (1980), pp. 217-225. I owe this reference to Professor W. Ende of Freiburg.

(13) Ed. M. Awwad (Baghdad, 1964). There is an English trans. by Elie A. Salem (Beirut, 1977).

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and "Mirrors for Princes" had been an old Iranian genre which survived in the Islamic Near East as court literature until as late as the nineteenth century. They dealt with rules of political conduct, the notion of "royal justice", and the preserving of "natural" social order.(14) Of more practical nature were hunting guides, (15) military manuals,(16) equestrian treatises (furusiyya),(17) and books on "table manners" (adab al-maida).(18) In the realm of belles-lettres at least two genres have been recently identified as courtly. One, short pieces relating the appearance of artisans before the ruler and intended for recital (or performance) at the court.(19) The other, the genre of courtly romances, which

(14) Lambton, in Legacy, pp. 418-420. For a general treatment of this genre see idem, "Islamic Mirrors for Princes", in La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome, 1971), pp. 419-442, rep. in A. K. S. Lambton, Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government (London,1980).

(15) For a list of works see Ahsan, Social Life, pp. 202-203 n. 2. (16) A "Book on the Manners of Conducting War and Military Formation" was

written already for Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775). Later manuals were written for the famous Saladin and for Mamluk sultans and high-ranking officiers. See A. Rahman Zaky, "Military Literature of the Arabs", Cahiers d'histoire egyptienne, VII (1955), pp. 149-160, also in Islamic Culture, XXX (1956), pp. 163-172; Cl. Cahen, "Un traite d'armurerie compose pour Saladin", Bull. d'ltudes Orientales, XII (1947-48), pp. 103-163; A Muslim Manual of War, ed. and trans. George T. Scanlon (Cairo, 1961); E. McEwen, "Persian Archery Texts: Chapter Eleven of Fakhr-i Mudabbir's Adab Al-Harb (Early Thirteenth Century)", Islamic Quarterly, XVIII (1974), pp. 76-99. A 14th or 15th-century manuscript of an archery manual, Kitab ghunyat at-lullab fi ma'rifat ramy an-nushshab, written by one Taybugha al-Ashrafi al-Yunani, was translated with an introduction as Saracen Archery by J. D. Latham and W. F. Paterson (London, 1970).

(17) E.g., Nihayat as-sul wa'l umniya fi ta'allum amal al-furisiyya which could be roughly translated as "All One Need Know About Horsmanship", a book dedicated to the Mamluk viceroy of Syria by al-Aqsarayi (died Damascus 1348). See G. Rex Smith, Medieval Muslim Horsmanship: A Fourteenth-Century Arabic Cavalry Manual (London, 1979). For furusiyya guides see also Hassanein Rabie, "The Training of the Mamluk Faris", in V. J. Parry and M. E. Yapp (ed.), War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), pp. 153-163; Marit Kretschmar, Pferd und Reiter im Orient: Untersuchung zur Reiterkultur Vorderasiens in der Seldschukenzeit (Hildesheim-New York, 1980), pp. 281-360.

(18) For a list of works see Ahsan, Social Life, pp. 157-158. This is a genre which could be associated with an "aristocratic" culture in the sense of a circle wider than just the court.

(19) This genre appeared around the mid-ninth century, probably at the court in the then capital at Samarra (Iraq). Judging by the authors associated with it one could assume that there occurred a long-time competition among them to attract caliphs' enthusiasm. A possible forerunner of this genre is the "Epistle on the

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flourished in the eleventh to early thirteenth centuries; its major characteristics were the biographically organized plot, the emphasis on inner experiences revealed through monologue and dialogue, the stress on personal aspiration and, most importantly, the centrality of love.(20)

As far as the arts are concerned, one could speak of a medieval Islamic art of the palace, manifested primarily in architecture and mural painting. Examples abound, some fairly well documented on the basis of archaeological remnants, artistic survivals, and extant texts.(21) Also the art of illuminated manuscripts was largely associated with medieval Islamic courts and there are many examples of manuscripts produced for rulers, as well as lesser dignitaries of the political elite, all patrons of this branch of the

Crafts of the Masters" (Risala fi sina'ad al-quwwad) by the famous al-Jahiz, written for Caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) or, according to another account, at the court of al- Mutawakkil (847-861), and intended for educating the caliph's heirs. In the epistle Jahiz stated its didactic aim to convince aristocratic youths that nothing must be excluded from their knowledge, including acquaintance with inferiors. It is noteworthy that one copy of Jahiz's epistle bears a stamp of the library of a vizier serving in office between 1012 and 1026. It may have been either copied for or acquired by the latter. See Joseph Sadan, "Kings and Craftsmen- A Pattern of Contrast", Studia Islamica LVI (1982), p. 24 n. 58a. The article, which appeared in two installments (Studia Islamica LVI [1982], pp. 5-49 and LXII [1985] pp. 89- 120) is a masterful analysis of this particular genre.

(20) Julie Scott Meisami, "Kings and Lovers: Ethical Dimensions of Medieval Persian Romance", Edebiyat, N.S., I (1987), pp. 1-19; idem, Mediedval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987).

(21) For architecture see e.g. Alois Musil, Kusejr Amra (Vienna, 1907); Daniel Schlumberger, "Le fouilles de Qasr El-Heir El-Gharbi", Syria XX (1939), pp. 195- 238; 324-373; Robert W. Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafjar (Oxford, 1959); Alexandre Lezin, "Les salles nobles des palais mamelouks", Annales islamologiques, X (1972), p. 63-148. For mural painting at the ninth-century Abbasid palace at Samarra (Iraq) see Richard Ettinghausen, Arab Painting (Geneva, 1962), pp. 42-44 and illustration on p. 191. For the same at the palace of the Fatimid caliph al-Amir (r. 1101-1130) see Ettinghausen, "Painting in the Fatimid Period: a reconstructio- n", Ars Islamica, IX (1942), p. 112. For eleventh-century mural painting at the Ghaznavid palace at Lashkar-i Bazar see art. "Lashkar-i Bazar", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (C. E. Bosworth). For mural painting at Timur's palace in Samarqand see Donald Wilber, "The Timurid Court: Life in Gardens and Tents", Iran. XVIII (1979), p. 129. For sixteenth-century Iran see Ehsan Echraghi, "Description contemporaine des peintures murales disparues des palais de Sah Tahmasp a Qazvin", in C. Adle (ed.), 4rt et Societi dans le monde iranien (Paris. 1982), pp. 117- 126. What is needed in terms of modern research is more analytical work of the kind one finds in Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic .4rt (New Haven. 1973). pp. 141-178, a treatment of the so-called Umavvad desert palaces.

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arts.(22) Metalwork, that is gold and silver objects, were for centuries financed by Islamic courts.(23)

Scenes of hunting and figures of musicians and dancers, clearly reflecting favourite pastime of the ruling elite, are part of what may be called the princely cycle in medieval Islamic art. It first appeared in the early eighth century in Umayyad palaces in Syria and then flourished under the Abbasids.(24) Thus excavations at the Iraqi town of Samarra, Abbasid capital between 838 and 883, have recovered mural paintings which thematically deal with

(22) To take just a few examples, the only illustrated manuscript of the famous "Book of Songs" (Kitab al-aghani) known to have survived was in all likelihood prepared around 1217 for Badr ad-Din Lu'lu', prince of Mosul. The frontispiece miniature most likely depicts the prince himself. See S. M. Stern, "A New Volume of the Illustrated Aghani Manuscript", Ars Orientalis, II (1957), p. 501. Several wellknown Shahnama manuscripts, among them the so-called Demotte, were produced under royal patronage. See Ettinghausen, "Some Comments on Medieval Iranian Art", Artibus Asiae, XXXI (1969), p. 300; For Mamluk patronage see Duncan Haldane, Mamluk Painting (Warminster, 1978), p. 11-12.

(23) For silver work as court and aristocratic art in medieval Iran see A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, "Essais sur la sociologie de I'art islamique- I: argenterie et feodalite dans 'lIran medieval", in C. Adle (ed.), Art et societe, esp. pp. 170- 172. The literature on court patronage of metalwork in medieval Islam is vast. See, e.g., D. S. Rice, "The Brasses of Badr al-Din Lulu", Bull. School Asian African Stud., XIII (1949-51), pp. 627-634; J. W. Allan, "Later Mamluk Metal- work", Oriental Art, N.S. XV (1969), pp. 38-43; idem, "Later Mamluk Metal- work-II", Oriental Art, N.S. XVII (1971), pp. 156-164; Sheila S. Blair, "Artist and Patronage in Late Fourteenth-Century Iran in the Light of Two Catalogues of Islamic Metalwork", Bull. School. Asian African Stud., XLVIII (1985), pp. 53-59; Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks (Washington D.C., 1981), pp. 50-116.

(24) E.g., Grabar, "Ceremonial and Art", Chs. IV-VII; idem, The Illustration of the Maqamat (Chicago and London, 1984), pp. 141 and 177 n. 29; idem and Andre Grabar. "L'essor des arts inspires par les cours princieres a la fin du premier millenaire: princes musulmans et princes chretiens", L'Occidente e l'Islam nell' alto Medioevo, II (Spoleto, 1965), esp. pp. 864-872. One should mention in this context Shepherd's argument, based mainly on her interpretation of Sasanian art, that a "princely cycle" did not actually exist in medieval Islam. Rather than depicting court life, pleasures and pastime, the drawings of banquet and hunt had been, at least originally, illustrations of an abstract theme, namely, life after death. This iconography should thus be seen as religious, not secular. See Dorothy G. Shepherd, "Banquet and Hunt in Medieval Islamic Iconography", in Ursula E. McCracken et al. (ed.), Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore, 1974), pp. 79-92. Shepherd's revisionist view, one might note, assumes a direct continuation into Islam of a Sasanian world-view. For reservations about Shepherd's argument see also Eva Baer, "The Ruler in Cosmic Setting: note on medieval Islamic iconography", in Abbas Daneshvari (ed.), Essays in Islamic Art

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dance and hunt. The "timeless grandeur of royal subjects exercised a great appeal and established an international style that was copied by the contemporary minor courts and continued to influence the royal arts of the following centuries".(25) Courtly themes appear in the twelfth century also in illuminated books,(26) as well as on metallic objects and ceramic wares, apparently made for rulers.(27) Stylistically, the medieval Islamic "princely cycle" could be characterized by its overwhelming symmetry, the rejection of all individual sound, expression, or gesture. The ruler, as well as other persons of his entourage, appearing in frontispieces or on wares, are presented in a strictly frontal, motionsless manner.(28) Another feature is symbolism, the task of which is to represent royal might.(29)

and Architecture in Honor of K. Otto-Dorn (Udena, 1981), p. 16. For criticism of the assumption of Islamic apreciation of ancient Iranian symbolism see R. W. Hamilton, "Khirbat Al Mafjar: the Bath Hall Reconsidered", Levant X (1978), p. 128. Hamilton notes: "We may by no means assume that the ancient society we are studying read into the ornaments of an earlier culture the same message as those ornaments conveyed to the imaginations of their original inventors. Arabia bred no art historians".

(25) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 42-44, 52-53 and illustration on p. 191. (26) E.g., in a celebrated copy of the epic Shshnama produced for the Timurid

prince Baysonghor in Herat in 1430, the painting of "Rustam and Esfandeyar seated together on the eve of their duel" not only shows the splendour of the kingly setting in a spring landscape, but also the formality of the court where, "according to protocol, every attendant is at rigid attention at his station and only necessary actions are rendered". In the double frontispiece of Sa'di's Bustan painted by Behzad for the Timurid Sultan Hosein Baiqara in Herat in 1489 we encounter a "Drinking scene at the sultan's court" which reveals an opulent setting in front of a charming kiosk and a display of tilework, carpets, and other refinement of royal life. Richard Ettinghausen, "Originality and Conformity in Islamic Art", in Amin Banani and Speros Vryonis Jr. (ed.), Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 85-86, and pls. 5 and 7.

(27) For metalwork see e.g. D. S. Rice, "Studies in Islamic Metal work", Bull. School Asian and African Stud., XIV (1952), p. 571; Baer, Metalwork, pp. 149-150, 230-231. For ceramics see e.g. Mohamed Mostafa, The Museum of Islamic Art, A Short Guide, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1961), p. 66 fig. 62; H. Bessier and M. Schneider, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, III (Leipzig, 1966), figs. 19, 28-30.

(28) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 59-66, and figs. on pp. 58-65. Thus four out of five surviving frontispiece miniatures of the Kitab al-aghani, dating from 1217, depict the ruler of Mosul (probably owner of the manuscript), Badr ad-Din Lu'lu', surrounded by his attendants. Apparently they are not meant to be realistic portraits of the man; the style is of rather stylized, stereotyped figures. See D. S. Rice, "The Aghani Miniatures and Religious painting in Islam", Burlington Magazine, XCV (1953), pp. 128-34.

(29) An exemple is the theme of the lion-bull fight. See Willy Hartner and

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**

The second cultural block which existed in medieval Islam could be labeled "learned culture" in the sense of the culture of religious scholars (ulama), belletrists (udaba) and other "men of the pen". It should have been well known to us, since a large part, perhaps the largest, of our picture of medieval Islam derives from these circles. Recent scholarship has also revealed the social importance of the medieval ulama.(30) Still one finds it difficult to write meaningful generalizations of this culture except to confirm its past existence. For on the one hand, considering it from the side of "production", it can be reconstructed through the texts written by individuals, and yet these are so many and variegated that they defy generalizations. Also, to concentrate on the contents of written texts or biographies of outstanding individuals is, of course, far from supplying an adequate picture of the culture of the learned as a social sector. For on the other hand, we miss entirely the "consumption" aspect, the knowlege of which could make the study of learned culture of certain periods and regions meaningful. There are important questions in this respect still untreated: what books did scholars study and read?(31) What were their (shared?) ideas as regards scholarship? Without addressing these and similar issues this important section of the culture under consideration is bound to remain only partly known.

**

Richard Ettinghausen, "The Conquering Lion, The Life Cycle of a Symbol", Oriens, XVII (1964), pp. 161-171. For the cosmic theme in courtly art of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries see Baer, "The Ruler in Cosmic Setting", pp. 13-19. In 1984 there was in Paris an exhibition of the subject "Le Prince en terre d'Islam", dealing with the Islamic royal image as reflected in the visual arts. For an illustrated report see Archeologia, CXC (1984), pp. 31-41.

(30) E.g., Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), esp. Ch. IV; R. W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge, Mass., 1973); Joan E. Gilbert, "The Ulama of Medieval Damascus and the International World of Islamic Scholarship" (unpublished Ph. D. diss., Berkeley, 1978). Boaz Shoshan, "The 'Politics of Notables' in Medieval Islam", Asian and African Studies (Haifa), XX (1986), pp. 179-215.

(31) The list of books owned by the fourteenth-century Burhan ad-Din Ibrahim an-Nasiri of Jerusalem, a precious document about cultural history remains, unfortunately, unique. See Ulrich Haarmann, "The Library of a Fourteenth Century Jerusalem Scholar", Der Islam, LXI (1984), pp. 327-333.

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It was Adam Mez who, many years ago, stressed the cultural importance of the medieval Islamic bourgeoisie. Accordingly, in the tenth century merchants had become the bearers of Islamic civilization.(32) Now Mez certainly exaggerated the cultural role of merchants at the expense not only of rulers but especially of scholars. Still his point should be noted in an attempt to unravel the third block in our proposed scheme, that of the culture of the "lay" bourgeoisie.

To begin with "civilisation mat6rielle", its bourgeois contours, at least for medieval Cairo, has been presented in an impressive, detailed manner in Goitein's monumental work based on the Cairene Geniza. The latter, although of Jewish provenance, sheds more light than any Islamic source on the material aspects of middle-class life style: housing, clothing, food, etc.(33) Turning to the arts, we find that the bourgeois gradually imitated the culture of the ruling elite. The diffusion in the twelfth century of artistic themes regularly associated with courtly art, into other social milieux is clear, for example, in the realm of metalwork,

(32) Adam Mez, Die Rennaissance des Islams (Heidelberg, 1922), p. 442, quoted in S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), p. 243. Goitein's own "The Rise of the Middle-Eastern Bourgeoisie in Early Islamic Times", in Studies, pp. 217-241, (originally published in J. World History, III [1957], pp. 583-604), despite its misleading title, is basically an argument about the bourgeois base of post-Muhammadan Islam. Its most important point is that "it was largely members of the bourgeoisie who had developed Muslim religious law, the backbone and very essence of Islam, as well as the kindred discipline of the Traditions of the Prophet, the reading and the exegesis of the Koran and theology". And Goitein Adds: "The full-fledged religion of Islam as it appears to us through the writings of the third and fourth centuries of the Muslim era is prevaded by the spirit and ideas of the rising merchant class". See "Bourgeoisie", pp. 218-219; Idem, "The Mentality of the Middle Class in Medieval Islam", Studies, pp. 243-245. This important argument has been subsequently developed in Abraham L. Udovitch, Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam (Princeton, 1970), and a number of articles by the same scholar.

(33) S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, IV: Daily Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983). For an argument about the validity of the Geniza source for conclusions about the larger society see A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1: Economic Foundations (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967). pp. 70-74. For Middle-class housing in the Mamluk period see Laila A. Ibrahim, "Middle-Class Living Units in Mamluk Cairo: Architecture and Terminology", Art and Archeology Research Papers, XIV (1978), pp. 24-30. Mona Zakariya has studied a late Mamluk middle-class dwelling, the construction of which she dates, with textual aid, to the year 1522. See "Le Rab' de Tabbana", Annales islamologiques, XVI (1980), pp. 275- 297.

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where decorations of bronze objects made for merchants sometimes emulated themes drawn out of court life. It seems that the choice of enthroned persons, tournaments, and hunting provided non- courtiers with a sense of illusion. Objects carrying royal scenes most likely flattered merchants by associating them with the rulers' life style and thus reflected the nouveau rich of the rising bourgeoisie which accumulated wealth, titles, and art in a somewhat indiscriminate manner.(34)

The imitation of the ruling elite by the bourgeoisie in the sphere of the arts is perherps obvious enough a phenomenon so let us turn to two other questions. First, what sort of cultural creation associated with the bourgeoisie in Islam could be characterized as original? Second, what was the contribution of that bourgeoisie to the cultural system as a whole?

Although a large part of the literary production in the medieval Near East can be assumed to have been connected with a bourgeois market, the evidence for that is by no means straightforward, and there is hardly any scholarly discussion of this possibi- lity.(35) It has been raised with regard to only one literary genre,

(34) Oleg Grabar, "The Illustrated Maqamat of the Thirteenth Century: the Bourgeoisie and the Arts", in A. H. Hourani and S. M. Stern (ed.), The Islamic City (Oxford, 1970), p. 218; Richard Ettinghausen, "The 'Bobrinski kettle', Patron and Style of an Islamic Bronze", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6 ser., XXIV (1943), pp. 193- 208. For the scenes of music, dancing, and drinking on the Bobrinski ware see also Baer, Metalwork, pp. 219-20 and n. 47. For a lustre plate, possibly from the twelfth century, presenting a seated figure and carrying the name of (most probably) its patron, Umar ibn Ahmad at-Tusi, of a "bourgeois family" in Tus, Iran, see S. M. Stern and Sofie Walzer, "A lustre Plate of Unusual Shape", Oriental Art, IX (1963), pp. 213-215. For a general observation about diffusion of courtly themes into the art of medieval Islamic bourgeoisie see also Oleg Grabar, "Les arts mineurs de l'Orient musulman a partir du milieu du Xlle siecle", Cahiers de Civilisalion Medievale, XI (1968), p. 187 and figures 6-7. Grabar argues that metal objects in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were accessible to whoever could afford them. His point that a name of a prince on an object did not necessarily indicate patronage but the reign in which that object was produced seems, however, a speculation. What gave metal objects, originally used at the court, a special bourgeois character is, according to Ettinghausen, the intermingling of Arabic and Persian in inscriptions on these objects as an expression of both official and vernacular languages. It was possible only on objects free from supervision of the court protocol. See Ettinghausen, "Bobrinski", p. 199.

(35) For some general remarks about the "wealthy bourgeois" setting of Arab literary production see G. E. von Grunebaum, "Aspects of Arabic Urban Literature", .4-Andalus, XX (1955), pp. 276-277.

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the Maqamat, especially the Maqamat of al-Hariri (1054-1122),(36) the enormous popularity of which could be demonstrated on quantitative grounds, namely the over two hundred twelfth- and thirteenth-century extant manuscripts of this particular piece.(37) In Grabar's opinion al-Hariri's rhymed-prose "seances", with their simplified plot limited to fifty stories centering on two characters -a narrator, who is a slightly naive traveling merchant, and a rogue, who turns up in all sorts of disguise and in most unlikely places and situations, swindling wealthy merchants and government officials(8) -gained the exclusive patronage of the highly literate, Arabic speaking bourgeoisie. What was attractive in the Maqamat for its bourgeois readers, so the argument goes, was its satirical value, its vocabulary, its nuances and linguistic puns, and even visual tricks such as alternating dotted and undotted lines of poetry, in short the author's extraordinary mastery of Arabic.(39) Bourgeois patronage of the Maqamat has been further suggested on the basis of artistic evidence, that is, the thirteen surviving illuminated manuscripts of al-Hariri's work, eleven of which were produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth

(36) See arts. "al-Hamadhani" (R. Blachere), "al-Hariri" (D. S. Margoliouth and Ch. Pellat), "Mak.mat" (Ch. Pellat), all in Encyc. of Islam, New Ed; Abdelfattah Kilito, Les stances: Recits et codes culturels chez Hamadhani et Hariri (Paris, 1983); James T. Monroe, The Art of Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhdni as Picaresque Narrative (Beirut, 1983).

(37) Graber, "Pictures or Commentaries: the illustrations of the Maqamat or al- Hiariri", in Peter Chelkowski (ed.), Studies in Art and Literature of the Near East in Honor of Richard Ettinghausen (Salt Lake City, 1974), p. 87. Al-Hariri himself boasted that he personally authorized 700 copies of his Maqamat. See art. "al- HIariri", Encyc. of Islam, New ed.

(38) For the themes in al-Hariri's Maqamat see Grabar, Illustrations, p. 3. Monroe well demonstrates the literary richness of al-Hamadhani's work in his Art of Badi' az-Zaman.

(39) Oleg Grabar, "Pictures", pp. 86-87, 90, 103. There seems to be some inconsistency, however, as regards the reasons. Compare p. 90 to 103. As regards the bourgeois nexus of the Maqamat Monroe follows Grabar: "The characters of the Maqdmat, significantly, function very much within a mercantile context, and it is mercantile goals that guide their actions". See Art of Badi' az-Zaman, pp. 123- 130. One should note, however, that it is only research in the line of the exemplary piece by Pierre A. MacKay which could establish beyond learned speculation the actual readership and ownership of the Maqamat. See "Certificates of Transmission on a Manuscript of the Maqamat of Hariri (MS. Cairo, Adab 105)", Trans. American Philosoph. Soc., N.S. LXI, pt. IV (1971), pp. 1-81. This particular manuscript dates from 1111, the very year in which the work was completed.

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centuries. "Even though it may be regretted that the illustrations of the Maqamat do not provide us with a vaster panorama of a visually perceived Near East... still they do give us a specifically defined view of the scope and of the visual vocabulary which can clearly be assigned to the Arab bourgeoisie of the thirteenth century".(40)

Another famous literary creation, the Thousand and One Nights, although more often considered to be popular literature, has been viewed also, at least in part, as a bourgeois creation. Accordingly, it reflects the interests and preferences of an urban, mercantile, fairly well-ordered and culturally mature society. While it is not precisely known what categories of people patronized the story- tellers of Baghdad and Cairo, there is no doubt, according to this opinion, that their favourite hero was the merchant. "In the average 1001 Nights-story, wealthy merchants and merchants sons are what kings and princes are in the average fairy-tale. They represent everything that is pleasant to hear about; opulence, refinement, a secure and honoured position. They are friends to caliphs and sultans, connoisseurs in gentle living, the very pillars of society".(41)

Turning to the visual arts, it is Grabar's opinion that, although too arbitrary a line has possibly been drawn between the art of the court and the art of the city, and even though there were throughout the first centuries of Islam constant contacts between

(40) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqiamt", p. 216, and 219-21 for the theme of the khan. For a general remark on the bourgeois Arab world as the primary subject of the illustrations see Illustrations of the Maqdmat, 146. To the present writer the argument of the "bourgeois-maqamat nexus" from an artistic-thematic point of view (Grabar, "Illustrated Maqiamt", pp. 210-15) does not seem persuasive, and with it the presumption that because of the inherent financial investment involved in an illustrated book the appreciation and appeal of the maqamat was limited to the bourgeoisie. See "Illustrated Maqmadt", pp. 210-222. After all, the only illuminated maqamat manuscript whose patron is known was copied in 1337, most likely in Egypt, for the Mamluk emir Nasir ad-Din Muhammad, son of Tarantay. See Haldane, Mamluk Painting, p. 83; Grabar, Illustrations of Maqamat, p. 15. For a short note on this patron (whose year of death is 1330-was the manuscript completed posthumously?)-see al-Maqrizi, Kitab as-Suluk li marifat duwal al-muluk, vol. II (Cairo, 1941), p. 338. The frontispiece of this MS, now at the Bodleian Library, as the frontispiece on another MS, presents the figure of an attended prince with a cup in his hand.

(41) Mia I. Gerhardt, The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights (Leiden, 1963), p. 190.

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the two, bourgeois art existed in medieval Islam as an entity in its own right.(42) It stands to reason that the approach of the medieval Islamic bourgeoisie to painting, for example, was different from that of rulers at the court. Less interested in symbols of power, the former displayed avid concern with the reality of everyday life, manifested, for example, in painted pottery, woodcarves, and ivory. Instead of a penchant for timelessness, there was "a predilection for movement and action describing the singular event of the moment".(43)

The art of ceramics, one of the most extraordinary and long- recognized achievements of Islamic art, grew as a result of the appearance of the mercantile middle class as art patrons. It was created by and for the bourgeoisie. To state it somewhat differently, the typically Islamic transformation of the common utensil-a plate, a jug, a basin, a glass-into a work of aesthetic quality is a development which can probably be attributed to the rise of merchants and the like as consumers. They could raise the humble work of the potter to a fine art, as was later the case of glass, bronze, and other artistic branches uncontrolled or not monopolized by the court.(44) What were the main features of

(42) Grabar, Formation, p. 186. (43) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, p. 54 and pl. on p. 55. One example is a

fragmentary lustre plate, probably dating from eleventh-century Egypt, with a painting of a wrestling match. Another is of the subject of dancers covered with zoomorphic masks which appears on different artistic media starting in the thirteenth century. See Ettinghausen, "The Dance with Zoomorphic Masks and Other Forms of Entertainment Seen in Islamic Art", in George Makdisi (ed.), Studies in Honor of Hamilton A. R. Gibb (Leiden, 1965), esp. p. 220 and plats. following p. 224. It is noteworthy, however, that these particular images have survived on subjects which cannot be classified as bourgeois. For "reserved" realism in the art of the maqamat see Grabar, "Illustrated Maqamat", p. 220. Ettinghausen's thesis of bourgeois realism in painting has been challenged recently by E. J. Grube, "Realism or Formalism: Notes on Some Fatimid Lustre- Painted Ceramic Vessels", in Renato Traini (ed.), Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrieli net suo attantesimo compleanno (Rome, 1984), I, pp. 423-432; idem, "A Drawing of Wrestlers in the Cairo Museum of Islamic Art", Quaderni di studi Arabi, II (1985), pp. 95-96. Grube sees the wrestling scene as a royal theme, part of an older tradition of royal iconography.

(44) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqamat", p. 217; Idem, Formation, p. 185. Thus figurines of dancing girls, attendants, musicians, riders, and animals, probably from the thirteenth century, have been excavated in Wasit, Northern Iraq, in what appears to have been a storeroom of a pottery factory. It has been suggested that although the small scale and fairly simple shape of the individual figurines would not make them suitable for display purposes in themselves. "they may well have

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the bourgeois art of ceramics? On the one hand it imitated the art of the rulers in terms of both technique and themes. The development of lustre, for example, which gives a metallic shine to an object and which could turn prosaic ceramic objects into elaborately decorated ones, can be viewed as an attempt to imitate gold, to substitute for expensive metals not within reach of the middle class. Indeed, several Iraqi, as well as later Iranian, examples, have designs reminiscent of those associated with metalwork. As regards artistic themes, hunting and feasting were drawn from the princely repertoire yet caricaturized, a fact which could suggest a general awareness of the princely cycle but little practice in executing its themes.(45) There was, however, what appears to be a distinct bourgeois contribution. It can be detected in Iranian wares, decorated with inscriptions of either good wishes for an anonymous owner or of aphorisms and proverbs. According to Grabar most of the latter reflect the morality of hard work as well as the virtues of learning and patience ("Patience in learning is first bitter to the taste but then its end is sweeter than honey"), and thus echoing a "bourgeois mentality" of the patrons.(46)

There was an art of city textiles, and perhaps enough examples are preserved from medieval Iraq and Egypt to identity various social levels "in this most Islamic of crafts". The rise of a bourgeoisie and the dissemination of adab, the polite educational ideal of the secreterial sector, gave birth, among other things, to new garments and fabrics which may be characterized as middle-

formed part of groups that, placed in the centre of a table, would have made beautiful display pieces. The Wasit finds do in fact include an entire orchestra with dancing girls and attendants." One may assume that the factory in Wasit produced its artistic objects for local patrons among the town dwellers. See E. J. Grube, "Islamic Sculpture: Ceramic Figurines", Oriental Art, N.S. XII (1966), pp. 165-175.. Excavations at Nishapur (Eastern Iran) dug up "some outstanding large objects as well as vast quantities of small pottery bowls with rather unpretentious, though attractive, decorations... [which] can be explained only as having been made for the impecunious lower middle class in the tenth and eleventh centuries". See Ettinghausen, "The Flowering of Seljuq Art", Metropolitan Museum J., IlI (1970), p. 114.

(45) Grabar, Formation, pp. 182-183. (46) Ibid., p. 184; Grabar, "Illustrated Maqdmdt", pp. 217-218; Lisa Volov,

"Plaited Kufic on Samanid Epigraphic Pottery", Ars Orientalis, VI (1966), p. 108 and pls. 1-4 following p. 132.

class.(47) Here we can add to the artistic survivals textual evidence such as chapters in al-Washsha's tenth-century "On Elegance and Elegant People", devoted to types of clothing worn by bourgeois contemporaries.(48)

Apart from its patronage to some particular branches of art and literature, what was, on a more general level, the artistic role of the medieval Islamic bourgeoisie. Grabar has suggested two points. First, by rejecting international themes and the luxury of princely art the art of the city expressed something of the moralism of early Islam.(49) Second, it is possible that the significant artistic change which occurred in the twelfth century, that is, the tremendous spread of figural representation in all media, as well as the animation of all parts of objects, may be attributed to the patronage of the bourgeoisie. Such an assumption derives from the fact that a large number of bronzes, and almost all the early ones which are animated and display figurative techniques, also bear inscriptions with the names of merchants.(50) Finally, looking at things from the perspective of comparative history, it is worthy of notice that the medieval Islamic bourgeoisie, which established its "own" culture already in the ninth or tenth centuries, much preceded in this regard its Christian counterpart in the Latin world.(51) The latter, though for reasons largely known and which need not be discussed here, did very little for the arts and did not develop its own taste and outlook at least until the fourteenth century. If it did have any contribution it was, according to one expert opinion, "on the lowest level of gimcrack production".(52)

**

(47) Grabar, Formation, p. 186. (48) Art. "Libas", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (Y. K. Stillman); al-Washsha, Kitib

al-muwashsha or Az-Zarf waz-zurafa' (Leiden, 1886). (49) Grabar, Formation, p. 185. (50) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqdmdt", pp. 218, 221-222. (51) This point is also made by Grabar, Formation, pp. 186-7. (52) Georges Duby, Foundations of a New Humanism, 1280-1440 (Geneva, 1966),

pp. 18-19. According to Duby "only by rising above his class could the banker or merchant become a patron". What was needed was a "gradual permeation of a small group, sprung but emancipated from the middle class". In England it is only in the fifteenth century that merchants started to play a role as art patrons. See Cecil H. Clough (ed.), Profession, Vocation, and Culture in Later Madieval England (Liverpool, 1982), pp. 4, 34, 141.

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Two spheres of popular culture in medieval Islamic society are known to some extent: religion and literature. (5) As regards religion, Goldziher, already one hundred years ago, made the point that "historical evaluation must differentiate between the theore- tical teachings of the dogmatic theologians and the popular, living development of Islam within the circle of its believers". Pre- Islamic customs and beliefs of the peoples conquered by Islam were far stronger than Islam's aspiration to eradicate pagan traditions. The place which the cult of saints occupied in Islam was for Goldziher the best proof for the survival of popular traditions despite the normalizing efforts of theological theory. In due course, in different regions and periods, the visit of saints' graves (ziyara) became a substitute for the Pilgrimage to Mecca. It was even approved by those scholars objecting to Pilgrimage at all costs.(M) The visitation of burial places and reliance on intercessory prayers appear well established in the tenth century. They were, one supposes, forms of piety especially attractive to women, because they made up for their absence at the formal, exclusively male communal mosque prayers, and because they constituted an approved forms of outing in an otherwise restricted and well supervised life.(55) To take just one out of many examples, according to an eleventh-century eyewit- ness, at the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron meals were distributed to as many as five hundred pilgrims in one single day. (56)

Popular preachers (wuaz) and story-tellers (qussas) are described, to be sure by their opponents, as having great appeal to and influence on the masses. Ibn al-Jawzi (1126-1200), one of their foremost critics, nevertheless conceded that "the storytellers and preachers were also given a place in [the] divine scheme in order to exhort the masses. And so it is that the masses profit from them in a way that they never profit from the great scholar".(57) What

(53) The concept of popular culture seems to me valid despite recent misgivings as expressed, for example, in writings of Roger Chartier. See most recently his "Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France", in Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture, pp. 229-253.

(54) Ignaz Goldziher, "Veneration of Saints in Islam", in Muslim Studies, II (London, 1971), esp. pp. 287-290, 297-305.

(55) Caroline Williams, "The Cult of Alid Saints in the Fatimid Monuments of Cairo, Part II: The Mausolea", Muqarnas, III (1985), p. 40.

(56) N. Stillman, "Charity and Social Service in Medieval Islam", Socielas, V (1975), p. 111.

(57) Ibn al-Jawzi's Kitab al-qussds wa'l-mudhakkirin, ed. and trans. Merlin

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annoyed orthodox scholars like Ibn al-Jawzi were the dubious techniques and tricks employed and the "lies" told by the popular preachers.(68) Thus we read about Ahmad al-Ghazali, an eleventh-century eloquent preacher and brother of the renowned theologian, who found in Baghdad and other towns "a ready market for his wares". In his sermons there were "strange things" and "absurdities" such as the depiction of Satan (Iblis) as a true monotheist; he who has never learned of this fact was, according to al-Ghazali, "a heretic". The people also heard from that preacher that, whenever in a state of difficulty, he would see the apparition of the Prophet Muhammad and ask his advice.(59)

Stories about Paradise were part of the stock in trade of the popular story-tellers, who tended to emphasize elements of Islamic eschatological belief: the "balance" (mizan) weighing one's deeds on the Day of Judgement, or the sirai, the bridge that would span hell and over which mankind would be required to pass in order to reach Paradise.(6?) Now that the latter was a wordly, so to speak, idea in the minds of ordinary Muslisms as early as the eighth century we learn from a report which, though known to us from a thirteenth-century source, is most likely authentic and is based on earlier accounts. Accordingly, following the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, "the people were led astray and greatly bewitched and came to it from every place and already made there many deceitful signs and marks appertaining to the

L. Swartz (Beirut, 1971), p. 104. See also p. 192 and n. 2. For a scholarly assessment of the role of Muslim story-tellers see Clifford E. Bosworth, The Medieval Islamic Underword; the Bani Sasan in Arabic Society and Literature (Leiden, 1976) I, pp. 26-27: "The qdss was thus not infrequently an influential figure in popular eyes, for whereas the dialectical subtleties of the scholastic theologians and the legal niceties of the traditionalists and lawyers were quite above the heads of the masses, the edifying tales of the story-tellers made some sort of religious knowledge available to the illiterate majority." See also pp. 111-112. About the influence exerted by popular preachers we learn, for example, from a report on a riot caused in Baghdad in the early tenth century when the famous scholar Tabari objected to Quranic interpretation provided by a preacher. The mob then wanted to lynch the scholar. See Bosworth, Underworld, I, p. 27. For another example see Goldziher, Muslim Studies, II, p. 150.

(58) Kitab al-qusss. pp. 57, 170-171, 177-196. (59) Ibid., pp. 184-188. Ibn al-Jawzi claims that he saw the autographed copy

of al-Ghazali's book. Other preachers told false stories about Muhammad and his marital life, blemishing the Prophet as an erring person. See ibid.. pp. 183-184. 189-190. For the recital of erotic poetry see e.g. pp. 200-201.

(60) Kitab al-qussas, pp. 104-106.

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Last Days. Thus they painted there the picture of as-Sirat [namely, the Bridge that will extend in the Last Days from the Mount of Olives to the Temple Mount], the gate of Paradise and the footprint of the Messenger of God and the valley of Ghenna. And [they] also [painted] on its gates [of the Temple Mount] and in the holy places there. The people have been led astray by this even until our time".(61)

"Stories of the Prophets" (qisas al-anbiya), such as the collection composed (or edided) by al-Kisai,(62) most likely represent the main religious nourishment of many a medieval Muslim. The classification of Kisai's as popular religious literature may be suggested by its tendency to simplify Biblical-Quranic legends for the education and enjoyment of the masses; and by variations in contents and arrangements of the different extant manuscripts of this particular work, variations that could well indicate the existence of an oral tradition even after the first recording of Kisai's oeuvre.(63)

(61) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya (Cairo, 1932), VIII, pp. 280-281. The passage is translated and discussed in A. El'ad, "Muslim Holy Places in Jerusalem: visitation and ritual in the Umayyad period", paper to the Third Inter. Collocq. "From Jahiliyya to Islam", Jerusalem, 1985, pp. 54-59. Jerusalem has a central role in early Muslim traditions dealing with the Last Day. One of these has it that Paradise will be transferred to Jerusalem and its gates opened over the town. See "Muslim Holy Places", p. 67-69.

(62) Art. "al-Kisa'i, Sahib Kisas al-Anbiya', Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (T. Nagel). For an English translation of the Arabic (incomplete) edition see The Tales of the Prophets of al-Kisd'i, trans. W. M. Thackston Jr. (Boston, 1978). For the problem of dating Kisi'i see Jan Pauliny, "Kisi'i und sein Werk Kitab Aka'ib al-Malakut: Untersuchungen zur arabischen religiosen Volksliteratur" Graecolatina et Orientalia, VI (1974), pp. 160-75. Pauliny suggests the tenth-twelfth centuries as most probable.

(63) Aviva Schussman, Stories of the Prophets in Muslim Tradition (in llebrew), Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 3-5, 22, 38, 43, 44, 45, 61, 76, 116-41 and the English Abstract; Thackston, Tales, pp. xiIm-xlv. Haim Schwarzbaum, Biblical and Extra-Biblical Legends in Islam Folk-Literature (Walldorf-Wessen, 1982), pp. 65-66, has termed Kisai's work "a real chapbook" and a "folk-book". See also Jan Pauliny, "Kis'i's Werk Kitab Qisas al-anbiya"', Graecolatina el Orientalia, II (1970), pp. 191-282, esp. 194-5, 197. For the special literary character of Kisai's work as reflecting the art of popular narration see Pauliny, "Literarischer Charakter des Werkes Kisa'i's Kitab Qisas al-Anbiya"', Graecolatina et Orientalia, III (1971), p. 107. For text variations see Idem, "Zur Rolle der Qussas bei der Entstehung und Uberlieferung der popularen Prophetenlegenden", Asian and African Studies (Bratislava), X (1974), p. 129, n. 12; ibidem, "Kisa'i's Werk*, pp. 200-201. 206-207. For the popular character of another work by Kisai, "The Marvels of [Heavenly] Kingdom" See Pauliny, "'"ga'ib al-malakut", pp. 184-85, 187.

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The participation of medieval Muslims in Christian festivals could be considered another aspect of popular Islam. It was, according to one scholarly opinion, a need Muslims felt because of their few and extremely arid festivals, allowing very little, if at all, for the nourishment of the senses. In their day-to-day life ordinary Muslims were in need of a closer and immediate awareness of the Divine to sustain them through many an ordeal.(6) Hence the influence of both newly converted Muslims and neighboring Christians. Already in the first Islamic centuries we learn of caliphal bans and scholarly dicta intended to prevent the religious mixing of people of the two faiths.(65) For the eighth century we have reports about Muslims revering a church in Lod, Palestine, dedicated to St. George; they would come to participate in the Saint's festival, known to them as Id Ludd.(66) Still many centuries afterwards, the renowned theologian and polemicist Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) condemned the adoration of St. George (Arabic Jirjis) by "many Muslims" who would even claim to have seen him, a superstition ("devil", shaytan), of course, in the Scholar's own view.(67) Incidentally, Ibn Taymiyya, despite his polemics (to which we shall briefly return), allows us to glimpse the "un-Islamic" practices of ordinary Muslims such as women's bathing under the influence of baptism in water where olive leaves had been dipped, or the "baptizing" of children under the influence of Epiphany.(68)

(64) Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taimiya's Struggle against Popular Religion (The Hague-Paris, 1976), pp. 1-4.

(65) An early tradition, dating to the first decade of the eighth century, forbids Muslims to enter churches or to buy items on sale there. Traditions about Caliph Umar praying at the Church of Mary in the Valley of Jehoshafat, as well as opposed traditions ("Do not come to the Church of Mary or approach the two pillars for they are idols") reflect the debate and doubts regarding the entry into and the prayer at that church. Another tradition objects to the visiting of the Church of Ascension on Mount Olives. See El'ad, "Muslim Holy Places", pp. 83-87, 116.

(66) Ibid., pp. 64-65, 78-80. For many examples of the participation of Muslims in Christian festivals see Mez, Renaissance, pp. 418-429.

(67) Charles D. Matthews, "A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the 'Merits' of Jerusalem and Palestine", J. American Oriental Soc., LVI (1936), pp. 15- 16.

(68) Memon, Popular Religion, p. 221-22. For Ibn Tayimyya's "Book of the Necessity of the Straight Path against the People of Hell" as a source for the study of popular religion see the general discussion in Jacques Waardenburg, "Official and Popular Religion in Islam", Social Compass, XXV (1978), pp. 316-18.

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Let us turn briefly to literature. Anonymous romances (sira. pl. siyar) have been labeled by Western scholars as popular. In Arabic the romance of chivalry known as Sirat Dhat al-Himma, relating the war of the Muslims against the Byzantines until the latter part of the ninth century, a work probably written down in its extant form in the period of the Crusades, "succeeded in pleasing a popular Muslim public by exalting the warriors of Jihad and their successes in battles and against adversaries that were often imaginary". It has been suggested that a simple-minded audience would accept all the stories with enthusiasm, that the narrator was adept in holding his listeners spell-bound waiting for some climax, that a comical element, at times of a somewhat crude sort, appears fairly frequently, and the language is incorrect or careless, but at the same time pretends to seem learned by making a show of rhymed prose.(69) The romance of the Yemenite prince Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan and his adventures battling the Abyssinians in the sixth century existed orally, so it seems, already in the tenth century; it was possibly first recorded in Mamluk Egypt (1250- 1500). It has been considered by its modern students as "a work which has sprung forth from the heart of the people, composed by it and for it" and thus providing "a faithful picture of the popular mind in Muslim Egypt at the end of the Middle Ages".(70) Another Arabic saga, that of the pre-Islamic poet and warrior Antara Ibn Shaddad, bacame the subject of professional story-tellers already at an early date in the form of Siral Antar.(71) In Persian, the so-called Alexander Romance, originally a blending of literary and oral sources, developed into many recensions, perhaps because it passed entirely or almost so into the realm of folklore and was preserved from generation to generation on the lips of professional story-tellers rather than in the pages of

(69) Art. "Dhu'l Himma", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (M. Canard). (70) Art. "Sayf B. Dhi Yazan", Encyc. of Islam, First Ed. (R. Paret);

H. T. Norris, The Adventures of Antar (Warminster, 1980), pp. 20-22, following Henri P6ers, "Le roman dans la litterature arabe des origines a la fin du moyen Age", Annales de l'Institut d'ltudes Orientales, XVI (1958), pp. 28-30.

(71) Art. '"Antar, Sirat", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (B. Heller). For a recent critical evaluation of European scholarship of Sirat Antar and the genre of popular romances in general see Peter Heath, "A Critical Review of Modern Scholarship on Sirat 'Antar Ibn Shaddad and the Popular Sira", J. Arabic Literature, XV (1984), pp. 19-44. On this subject see also Giovanni Canova, "Gli studi sull'epica populare Araba", Oriente Moderno, LVII (1977), pp. 211-226.

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books.(72) Finally, the "Thousand and One Nights" contains much material which derives from folk tales and popular literature. (73)

A derivative of the literary sphere was the theatre of shadow plays, the only extant medieval texts of which go back to the latter part of the thirteenth century, that is Ibn Daniyal's three famous pieces. For the last one hundred years scholars have written about shadow theatre as a popular, in fact, the only theatrical entertainment known to medieval Muslims.(74) Very recently, however, it has been argued that this was not the case, and that live performances, the main theme of which was the imitation of public figures, were an important component of the theatrical scene in medieval Islam.(75)

(72) John A. Boyle, "The Alexander Romance in the East and West", Bull. John Rylands Univ. Library Manchester, LX (1977-78), p. 27. For other medieval Persian romances see William L. Hanaway, Jr., "Formal Elements in the Persian Popular Romances", Rev. National Lit., II (1971), pp. 139-160; idem, "Popular Literature in Iran", in Peter J. Chelkowski (ed.), Iran: Continuity and Variety (New York, 1971), pp. 59-75.

(73) Art. "Alf Layla wa Layla", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (E. Littmann). For an attempt to see certain genres in the Arabian Nights reflecting the social setting of the Mamluk period in Egypt and as an expression of popular mentality see Heinrich Schutzinger, "Die Schelmengeschichten in Tausend und -einer Nacht als Ausdruck der agyptischen Volksmeinung", Rheinisches Jahrbuch fur Volkskunde, XXI (1973), pp. 200-215. For the "Nights" as a microcosm ("to some degree") of Islamic popular literature, see Peter Heath, "Romance as Genre in 'The Thousand and One Nights'", J. Arabic Lit., XVIII (1987), p. 4.

(74) For Ibn Daniyal see Encyc. of Islam, New Ed., s.v. (J. M. Landau). According to Landau shadow plays were the "only amusement which even the humblest could enjoy". See "Shadow-Plays in the Near East", Edoth, III (1947-48), pp. XXIII-LXIV. For Ibn Daniyal's plays as a "type of popular dramatic entertainment" yet "by no means a cheap, or crude type of popular entertainments see M. M. Badawi, "Medieval Arabic Drama: Ibn Daniyal", J. Arabic Lit., XIII (1982), p. 93, 100. An Egyptian Report, though describing the situation in the nineteenth century, tells that the "audience [of shadow plays] was composed chiefly of children and the uneducated; the higher class sought other entertainments and attended the shadow plays only occasionally". J. M. Landau, Studies in .4rab Theater and Cinema (Philadelphia, 1958), p. 29. See also pp. 33, 46. One should note, however, that Kahle, another student of Arabic shadow plays, was of the opinion that such plays as written by Ibn Daniyal could be understood only by people of high education and intelligence. See Paul Kahle. "The Arabic Shadow-Play in medieval Egypt", J. Pakistan Hist. Soc., 11 (1954), p. 96.

(75) Shmuel Moreh, "Live Theatre in Medieval Islam", in Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem-Leiden, 1986), pp. 580-82.

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II

Historians of culture have gone a long way since Jonathan Swift's statement that "Opinions like Fashions [always descend] from those of Quality to the Middle Sort, and thence to the Vulgar, where at length they are dropt and vanish".(76) For one thing, they have abandoned Swift's pessimistic, so to speak, view of the nature of the cultural process. Duby, for example, makes the point ("a simple statement of a known fact") that, rather than vanish, "cultural patterns of the upper classes in society tend to become popularized, to spread and move down... to the most deprived social groups". Furthermore, the phenomenon of cultural diffusion now appears more complex than it did to Swift in that the flow of culture in history has by no means taken a one- direction course.(77) I shall now try to outline that flow in the context of medieval Islamic society.

Obviously the diffusion of cultural items and phenomena from the elite downward comes first to mind though, save one or two examples, this pattern of cultural flow is still hardly studied in the case of medieval Islam.(78) Goitein proposed that the "cult of the

(76) Cited in Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978), p. 58.

(77) Georges Duby, "The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society", Past & Present, XXXIX. (1968), p. 3-10, rep. in Duby, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), pp. 171-77; Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 58-60. Burke has recently suggested to replace the Gramscian view of cultural "hegemony" with the idea of cultural "negotiation". See "From Pioneers to Settlers: Recent Studies of the illstory of Popular Culture", Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXV (1983), pp. 181- 87, esp. 186-87. Already Mikhail Bakhtin in his work on Rabelais written in 1940 (English trans. Rabelais and His World [Cambridge, Mass., 1968], introduced the notion of "circularity" between the cultures of the dominant and subordinate classes in preindustrial Europe. For a brief appreciation of Bakhtin's contribution see Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Baltimore, 1980), p. xii. For the interaction between learned and popular cultures in medieval Christendom see Jacques Le Goff, "The Learned and Popular Dimensions of Journeys in the Otherworld in the Middle Ages", in Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture, p. 29.

(78) A pioneering, though crude, conceptualization of this process in the medieval Islamic context is Gustave E. von Grunebaum's. Accordingy there was "vertical exchange of culture... between dominant and dominated groups", as a result of which such groups may, for example, "interchange the mores of the dominated for the religious notions of the dominant, forms of organization of the

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ephebes" was originally a privilege of the powerful, and that their example filtered down and became a style of life for all other groups in the Islamic community.(79) In my own study I have discussed the history of a single item, the qalansuwa, originally the headcover of caliphs, and later on of people lower down the social scale. (?) There is certainly more material to demonstrate this pattern of cultural diffusion in past Islamic societies.(81)

What sort of mental stand accompanied the flow of culture from high to low is difficult to know, since the recipients in this case left few traces. In contrast we are in a better position to follow the attitude of representatives of court and learned culture-I shall refer to both as high culture-toward their culturally "inferiors". The issue appears rather complicated since there was not just one sort of treatment of popular culture. In fact, one can observe a number of approaches.

One obvious approach entailed criticism, even an outright rejection of popular culture, perhaps not as such concept but of its various manifestations. This approach is presumably quite well known so some brief remarks may suffice. One need only mention

dominated for techniques of the dominant... This interchange is directed by the existential and political needs of the dominant group as they relate to the existential and survival needs of the dominated". See "An analysis of Islamic civilization and cultural anthropology", in Colloque sur la sociologie musulmane, Actes (Brusselles, 1961), pp. 67-68.

(79) S. D. Goitein, "The Sexual Mores of the Common People", in Afaf Lutfi al- Sayyid-Marsot (ed.), Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam (Malibu, 1979), pp. 47- 48. It is doubtful, however, that the exact chronology of the process could be reconstructed. What we have is the situation at the final stage, namely, the tenth or eleventh century, as homosexual relations were prevalent in all social levels. For examples among the ruling elite see Mez Renaissance, pp. 358-359; J. C. Burgel,"Love, Lust and Longing: Eroticism in Early Islam as Reflected in Literary Sources", in Society and the Sexes, p. 88. For passion for boys as a special "vice" of qadis see Mez, Renaissance, p. 359; Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 83, 84 n. 8: Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, p. 114. For Sufis see Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 114 and n. 56, 115. For beggars and "underworld" types see ibid., pp. 38-39, 92, 102.

(80) Boaz Shoshan, "On Costume and Social History in Medieval Islam", Asian and African Studies (Haifa), XXII (1988) pp. 35-51.

(81) Manutcher Kalantari, "Le livre des rois et les peintures des maisons de the", Objets et mondes, XI (1971), pp. 141-158, is an interesting example of artistic popularization of Shahnama themes as they appear on murals of coffehouses in early twentieth-century Iran.

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a few names associated with it, most prominent among them Ibn Taymiyya. This towering theologian of medieval Islam (1263- 1328) wrote a special work en titled "The Necessity of the Straight Path against the People of Hell", in which he criticized the practices of those "common people... who do not know the essence of Islam" and who are influenced by Christianity. Ibn Taymiyya warned "against that into which we have seen many people fall", namely, the imitation of Christian fetivals. His book also has a long section condemning various popular customs such as the celebration of the Prophet's birthday (mawlid). "Such practices are horrendous to a believer-a believer whose heart is not as yet dead but rather knows the reputable and shuns what is not reputable."(82) Another of Ibn Taymiyya's treatises, the short "Visitation of Graves", has a detailed refutation of the ceremonies and rituals evolving around the Prophet's grave, as well as the graves of lesser personages. It was undoubtedly directed against the custom of ziyara prevalent in his own days.(83) Tomb-worship, intercession, an exaggerated belief in the spiritual powers of local saints, or any other manifestation of popular belief had, according to Ibn Taymiyya, be wiped out if faith were to be saved and God's religion entirely devoted to him. In the eradication of innovations (bida), in redeeming faith from the popular invasion of heretical novelties, and in restoring it to its congenital simplicity saw Ibn Taymiyya his calling.(84) One should note in passing that there was also a practical aspect to the Scholar's praeching for pure Islam. It is reported that on one occasion he headed a group of his followers and some masons to remove a rock in Damascus which had become a site of pilgrimage, as it supposedly carried the Prophet's footprint. The action, we are told, was resented by "the people of

(82) Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 210-11, 221-22. For the attack on popular festivals and their description see pp. 241-331. Memon's is a translation of most of the Arabic original text and contains a valuable introduction to Ibn Taymiyya's thought as regards some critical issues.

(83) The text of a Yale University MS. was first published by Charles D. Matthews, "A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the 'Merits of Jerusalem and Palestine'", J. American Oriental Soc. LVI (1936), pp. 1-21. This treatise is now available as Kilab az-ziyara, ed. Sayf ad-Din al-Katib (Beirut, 1980).

(84) Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 77-78, 86.

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Damascus".(85) On another occasion, when he was marching in Cairo, Ibn Taymiyya could not resist stopping briefly to kick a backgammon board when he spied two men playing the game outside a blacksmith's shop.(86)

From Ibn Taymiyya the way is short to the genre of "anti-bida" tracts, which started to appear in the ninth century, works written against unsanctioned innovations and hence containing criticism of popular culture. Two examples will suffice. Ibn al-Hajj al- Abdari, a resident of Cairo (died 1336), attacks in his al-Madkhal the visitation of graves, various festivals, and the "un-Islamic" behavior of Muslim women.(87) Idris ibn Baidakin at-Turkumani criticizes in his al-Luma fi'l hawadith wa'l bida, written probably in the early fourteenth century, the close contacts between Muslisms and Christians and the celebration of Christian holidays such as Christmas. He also condemns the cult of the dead, and women's repugnant habits of singing and dancing while making the Pilgrimage to Mecca.(88)

Finally on this approach we can single out tracts against popular preachers and critiques of the commoners' literature.(89) Ibn al- Jawzi and his criticism of the "lies" of the praechers has been already mentioned. The Syrian scholar Taj ad-Din as-Subki (died 1370) advised the copyists that their duty was not to copy "one of

(85) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya, vol., XVI, p. 34: Ibn lyas, Badai az- zuhur fi mada al-ayyam wash-shuhur (Wiesbaden ed.), vol. I, p. 417 (sub anno 702 H.): Hasan Qasim Murad, "Ibn Taymiva on Trial: a narrative account of his mihan", Islamic Studies, XVIII (1979), p. 5. Murad compares the reports of two chroniclers, one probably reflecting a (scholarly) approval of the act, another the public, more hostile, reaction.

(86) Donald P. Little, "Did Ibn Taymivya have a screw loose", Studia Islamica, XLI (1975), p. 107.

(87) A.-Madkhal (Cairo, 1929), vol. I, pp. 255-313. See on him art. "Ibn al- Hadjdj", Encyc. of Islam New Ed. (J.-C. Vadet), p. 779; art. "Al-'Abdari". Encyc. of Islam, First Ed. (Brockelmann); Barbara Langner. Untersuchungen zur historischen Volkskunde

.Agyptens nach Mamlukischen Quellen (Berlin, 1983), pp. 20-62. (88) Ed. Subhi Labib, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden. 1986). I am indebted to Professor

U. Haarmann of Freiburg for drawing my attention to this work. For a short summary of it see Labib, "The Problem of the Bida' in the Light of an Arabic Manuscript of the 14th Century", J. Econ. and Soc. Hist. of the Orient, VII (1964). pp. 191-96.

(89) Goldziher. Muslim Studies. II. pp. 153-54. Bosworth. Underworld. I. p. 28. For a sketchy survey see Ibn al-Jalwi's Kitab al-qussds. pp. 55-61. Swartz corrects some errors in Johs Pedersen. "The Criticism of the Islamic Preacher". Die Welt des Islams. N.S.. II (1953). pp. 215-31.

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those deceptive (mudilla) books... by which God does not offer any useful thing such as Sirat Antar and other books on fabricated topics..." Subki warned also book dealers not to sell "falsified books" (al-kulub al-makdhuba) of the sort of Sirat Anlar.(9?) His advice is echoed about one hundred years later by the North African jurist al-Wansharisi who reports in his book of responsa of a scholar who had been asked for his opinion about books such as Antar and Siral Dhelhemma. Obviously he had banned their reading. (91)

Now it is important to state that members of high culture in medieval Islam were not unanimous in criticizing popular culture. One example of disagreement is evident during the famous trial in 1326 of the aforementioned Ibn Taymiyya. The council of his judges had been marked, among other things, by hostility to any suggestion as to the unorthodoxy of graves' visiation.(92) In fact, three contemporaneous scholars in Syria and Egypt wrote treatises against the famous theologian's view on the subject of ziyara.(93) When in the 1320's one of his followers spoke in Jerusalem against the latter custom, local scholars made a report to the sultan. The result was that the man, a scholar in his own right, was punished.(94) Al-Asqalani (1372-1449), one of the greatest scholars of the late medieval period, expressed a lenient attitude toward the cult of the dead and forbade only extreme veneration and the use of tombs as a pointer towards Mecca (qibla).(95) His contemporary as-Suyuti unequivocally voiced his

(90) Muid an-niam wa mubid an-niqam, ed. David W. Myhrman (London, 1908), pp. 186, 205.

(91) Peres, "Le roman", p. 33 and the references cited there. (92) Little, "Screw Loose", pp. 97, 98: Idem, "The Historical and Hlistoriogra-

phical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya", Int. J. Middle East Stud., IV (1973), p. 312. Cf. also Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 49-50. For a detailed account of Ibn Taymiyya's trial following the discovery in 1326 of his responsum (fatwa) rejecting visitations see Murad, "Ibn Taymiya on Trial", pp. 23-25.

(93) The chief Malikite qadi of Cairo wh3 brought Ibn Taymiyya to trial wrote a rebutal on the question of visitation. See Murad, "Ibn Taymiya on Trial", p. 25. Taqi ad-Din as-Subki (died 1355) wrote Shifa as-saqam fi ziyarat khayr al- andm. subtitled "the waging of war against those who reject the ziyara" (Shann al- ghara ala man ankara safar az-ziyara). The book was edited in IIaydarabad, 1897. For a third scholar see Ibn Taghri Birdi, An-Nujum az-zahira fi muluk misr wa'l-qahira (Cairo ed. 1929-1972), vol. IX, p. 270.

(94) Murad. "Ibn Taymiya on Trial", p. 24. (95) Art. "Masdjid". Encyc. of Islam, First Ed., sec. B/4 (Johs. Pedersen).

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approval of the celebration of the Prophet's birthday (mawlid).(9) Concerning another popular custom, that of "going round the country", singing with musical instruments before setting out for the pilgrimage to Mecca, the renowned theologian al-Ghazali (died 1111) considered it permissible, since the songs chanted described the holy places associated with the Pilgrimage. Also, according to al-Ghazali, the effect of the songs was "to arouse a longing for pilgrimage to the House of God Most High, and to make to blaze up the fire of longing if it be already present there and to stir it and procure it if it be not already present. And since pilgrimage is an act of piety and longing to perform it is praiseworthy, the arousing of that longing by every means that can arouse it is praiseworthy".(97)

**

Next I wish to examine another mode of relationship between high and popular culture which is marked by some complexity. For on the one hand it entails conscious rejection of the popular; yet on the other and there is borrowing, most likely without awareness, out of it. Let us consider in some detail one particular case.

Ninth and tenth-century muslim chroniclers tell us laconically about Abdallah Abu Muhammad (there are other versions of the name), better known as Battal, the "hero" or the "brave", who fought the Byzantines. What we have in their accounts are brief references to two expeditions which he led, and a note about his death in 740 in the course of a defeat suffered by Umayyad armies at the hands of Emperor Leo III and his son Constantine.(98) Now such a succinct treatment may reflect either the relative

(96) Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti, Husn al-maqasid fi amal al-mawlid, Berlin MS. Suyuti approved of the mawlid as a commendable innovation (bida hasana) and considered the recitation of Quran and the stories of the Prophet-often in verse or in a combination of prose and poetry-the core of the celebration, and the processions, feasting, and fairs, mere accessories. See G. E. von Grunebaum, Muhammadan Festivals (London, 1951), p. 76; Memon, popular Religion, p. 5; art. "Mawlid", Encyc. of Islam, First Ed. (H. Fuchs).

(97) Trans. D. B. Macdonald, J. Royal Asiatic Soc., 1901, pp. 219-21. Ghazali was opposed, however, to the inclusion of "pipes and stringed instruments which belong to the badges of evil people".

(98) Art. "Battfl", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (M. Canard).

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insignificance of Battal, at least at the time of the writing, or else the paucity of material about him. Be that as it may, there are two interrelated phenomena which should draw our attention as we proceed to somewhat later sources. One is that Battal's military exploits started to be celebrated in popular accounts and anecdotes; the other is that the latter were now incorporated into standard reports about the Arab-Byzantine wars. Thus repro- ducing a legend which could have developed shortly after the mid-ninth century. Al-Masudi (died 956) presented Battal as one of the illustrious Muslims whose portrait the Byzantines hung in their churches. Another popular report appears in the Persian recasting in the year 963 of Tabari's famous chronicle, and deals with a well known expedition to capture Constantinople in 717. In the course of it Arab troops besieged the Byzantine capital and, according to the account, Battal, who is praised as the bravest among the Muslims, was assigned to hold one gate of the city open while the caliph's son entered. Battal was further instructed to avenge the prince's death had he not returned. In a third, anonymous source of the eleventh or twelfth century one finds, in addition to the abovementioned anecdotes, an account of a duel between Battal and a Byzantine soldier who had earlier overpowered a number of Muslim fighters. Battal, needless to mention, managed to kill his foe.

It is in Arabic chronicles written in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that we first find an assemblage of popular stories which, as we shall presently see, suggest the flourishing of an elaborate Romance of Battal by the twelfth century at the latest. The accounts are based on the (alleged) report of one Abu Marwan Abdallah ibn Yahya of Antioch, who supposedly had fought at the side of Battel and had heard the stories from the hero himself. Accordingly, Battal, the commander of the troops of Northern Iraq and Syria, had appeared one night in a Byzantine village where he heard (and this indeed sounds very modern) a mother threatening her crying child to hand him to the Muslim Warrior had he not stopped crying. Sure enough Battal walked in. In another story told by the same Abu Marwan sick Battal is led by his horse to a convent where he is given asylum and medical treatment. He then escapes the investigation of a Byzantine general thanks to the abbess. Battal follows the Christian foe and kills him, then returns to the convent where he captures all the nuns and marries the abbess who bears children to him. A third story deals with Battal's death scene, a result of an error

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committed by the Muslim soldiers who had disclosed to the Byzantines Battal's identity. As the Arab hero lies seriously wounded, he is attended by Emperor Leo who intimately addresses him by his "nickname" (kunya) Abu Yahya and agrees to honor him with a Muslim funeral.(99)

That the case here is the incorporation of popular material into well respected chronicles is obvious from the sheer content. But the argument can be further sustained as we learn about the actual existence of popular works whose subject is Battal. One testimo- ny to this effect is a reference to an Egyptian writer who is reported to have mentioned the "Accounts of Battal" (ahadilh al- Batlal) together with "Thousand and one Nights" as literature known in his days, that is the 1160s or 1170s.(100) Precisely in those years another man who happened to be a Jew-turned-Muslim took pleasure in reading popular romances and the "large diwans" (and indeed were they large) of Dhelhemma wa'l Battal, Akhbar Antara (or Antar), and "The Romance of Alexander the Great" (Akhbar al-Iskandar Dhi al-Qarnayn).(101) What exactly was the "Romance of Battal", what material did it contain is impossible to say since a copy has unfortunately not survived.(102) Yet is it too speculative to suggest that the abovementioned anecdotes preserved in the historical works had originally been part of the popular romance? Of course, the medieval chroniclers who reproduced them insisted t lat theirs was "factual" material, unlike the popular "lies". Ibn Kathir (died 1373) stated that Sirat Dhelhem-

(99) Ibid., and the sources cited there. (100) D. B. Macdonald, "The Earlier History of the Arabian Nights", J. Royal

Asiatic. Soc., 1924, pp. 379-381. (101) Art. "Dhu'l Himma", Encyc. of Islam. New Ed. (M. Canard). For Sirat

Antar and the "Romance of Alexander" see p. 87 above. (102) What we do have, however, are two printed editions of "The Romance of

the Woman of Noble Purpose" (Sirat al-amira dhat al-himma or. in a vulgarized version: dhelhemma). It is noteworthy that in the extant version, probably completed at the time of the Crusades and dealing mainly with the war against the Byzantines until the middle of the ninth century, but also reflecting later events. Battal has been transplanted into the period of Harun ar-Rashid (r. 786-809) and his successors. Thus it is apparent that at least one popular version of the Battal story so digressed from the original historical facts as to totally confuse the historical periods and the personalities involved. Incidentally. similar is the case of the Turkish version of the story which reached crystalization at some p

high culture and popular culture in medieval islam

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