9-th, 2004 - 09: 1   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Al-Jahiz    

Al-Jahiz

LORD OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARAB LITERATURE (A.D. 778--868) FOR AN APPRAISAL of Al-Jahiz,
let us turn to the eulogies of three savants.

" The most genial writer of the age, if not of Arabic literature, and the founder of the Arab prose style, was the grandson of a Negro slave, Amr ben Bahr, known as Al-Jahiz, 'The GoggleEyed'," says Gibbs, Arabic scholar.
" Al-Jahiz," says Christopher Dawson, "was the greatest scholar and stylist of the ninth century."

P. K. Hitti says, "An early representative of the zoological and anthropological sciences was Abu-Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz...whose Kitab-al-Hawaya... contains germs of later theories of evolution, adaptation, and animal psychology. AL-Jahiz knew how to obtain ammonia from animal offal by dry distillation· His influence over later zoologists.., is manifest. But the influence of Al-Jahiz as a radical theologian and a man of letters if greater. He... was one of the most productive and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature. His originality, wit, satire, and learning, made him widely known."
Al-Jahiz, who seems to have been a very dark Negro, started life in most humble surroundings but by studiousness, a prodigious memory, remarkable powers of assimilation, and unruffled good nature, he reached the highest rank of scholarship and esteem.

Born at Basra in Asia Minor, he studied philology, philosophy, and science there under the noted Mu'tazlite teacher an-Nassam. Of an independent spirit, he was not long in striking out on an intellectual path of his own, and founded his own school of thought, known as the Jahizite. Such was his good-natured wit, his breadth of mind, and his impartiality, that he was beloved even by members of the fanatical religious sects that normally would have treated him as a heretic. An indefatigable reader, Al-Jahiz would hire the shops of booksellers outright so that he could spend the whole night reading in them. His works are voluminous. Few writers were as industrious as he, and still fewer wrote over such a long period of time. He was prolific until he died in A.D. 868 at the age of ninety. He wrote, as Gibbs says, "with a careless loquacity, alternately grave and gay, exalted and extravagant. His wit was ready and his industry was immense."

Al-Jahiz' masterpiece is The Book of Animals, in seven volumes. Among his other works are The Merit of the Turks, In Praise o/Merchants and Dispraise of Officials, The Superiority of Speech to Silence, The Superiority in Glory of the Black Race over the White, and The Book of Eloquence and Rhetoric. In his works, which contain the most varied and curious kinds of information, he presents all sides of the story. Thus in his Book of Animals we find him discussing animals pro and con, as, for instance, the good and the bad qualities of the dog. In personal appearance Al-Jahiz was unprepossessing. His eyes seemed as if they were about to pop out of his head. It is related that Caliph AL-Mutawakkil engaged him to teach his son, but when he saw him, he was so repelled by his looks that he paid him a large sum and dismissed him. Later, however, he recalled him and placed the young prince under his tutorship, although he strongly disagreed

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