A literary history of Persia

191and tribal interests to the demands of a common faith, unworldliness,avoidance of ostentation and boastfulness, andmany other things enjoined by Islam were merely calculatedto arouse his derision and contempt.To make the contrast clearer, let us compare the spiritrevealed by the two following passages, of which the first istaken (v. 178) from the second sura of the Qur'any^>?aa!!d e of (entitled "the Cow"), while the second is a poemascribed to the old robber-minstrel Ta'abbatatootnStd.Sharr*", a name suggestive enough, for it signifies" he took an armful of wickedness."The first runs as follows :" Righteousnessis not that ye turn your faces to the East and tothe West, but righteousness is this : whosoever believeth in God,and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, andthe Prophets and whoso, for the love of God, giveth;of his wealth unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the poor, andthe traveller, and to those who crave an alms, and for the release ofthe captives ; and, whoso observeth prayer and giveth in charity ;and those who, when they have covenanted, fulfil their covenant ;and who are patient in adversity and hardship, and in times ofviolence. These are the righteous and they that fear the Lord !The second is sometimes considered to be a forgery madeby that clever but not very scrupulous scholar Khalaf al-Ahmar ;but the late Professor Robertson SmithTa'abbata held, as it seems to me with good reason, that itSharran.breathes throughout so essentially pagan a spiritthat it can scarcely be regarded as a fabrication ; or,if it besuch, it is so artfully devised as to sum up, as it were, thewhole spirit of the old pagan Arabs. 2 The poem celebrates1Cited in Sir William Muir's excellent little volume entitled Extractsfrom the Coran (London, 1880).The text of this poem will be found at pp. 187-188 of Wright's ArabicReading-Book (London, 1870). A spirited German translation in verse isincluded in an article on the poet by Baur in vol. x. (for 1856 ; pp. 74-109)of the Zeitschri/t d. Deutschen Morgenlaiidischen Gesellschaft." *