Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present.

Kaye, Alan S.

Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present. By BASSAM K. FRANGIEH. Yale Language Series. New Haven: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2005. Pp. xviii + 566.

This book has long been a desideratum since students of Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) have needed a comprehensive reader of Arabic literature (preferably in one volume) from pre-Islamic times to the present. It includes seventy works by seventy different authors. The range of the literature covered is truly amazing: pre-Islamic poetry (Imru' al-Qays), the Koran (Surat Maryam), the writings of the Golden Age of the Arabs (750-1258 A.D.), literature from al-Andalus, and modern Arabic prose and poetry, including Arab-American literature (Jubran Khalil Jubran, Mikha'il Nu'aymah, and Amin al-Rihani). Frangieh states in his introduction that "this is a serious textbook for the serious student of the Arabic language" (p. xv). That it surely is. But he also cautions the advanced student (and I certainly agree with his warning) that "many of the texts in this book are difficult, and some are extremely difficult."

In the past, students generally have had to use anthologies of either CA or MSA, since there are very few readers that cover both domains. Most of the older publications, at any rate, are no longer readily available. For CA prose, there is the splendid Arabische Chrestomathie und Prosaschriften by Rudolf-Ernst Brunnow (1858-1917) and August Fischer (1865-1949) (Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopadie, 1960; originally published in 1924 and based on an earlier work compiled by Fischer in 1913). This contains excellent selections from the Qur'an and by such authors as Ta'abatta Sharran, al-Tabari, and Sibawayh. Moreover, it contains an excellent glossary with relevant commentary in addition to mere translation into German plus a section of philological and linguistic discussion of difficult passages.

For those who have difficulty with German (always considered the most important tongue for students of Semitic languages), there are two excellent anthologies in English. The older one was authored by Reynold A. Nicholson: Elementary Arabic: Third Reading-Book (volume 4 in the Thornton's Arabic series) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1911). It contains an excellent glossary but lacks the linguistic detail of Brunnow and Fischer (1960). The selections include texts from the Qur'an, al-Ya'qubi, Ibn Jubair, al-Zamakhshari, inter alios. Not limited to prose, it also has rhymed prose (e.g., al-Hariri and al-Maqarri) and poetry (e.g., Imru' al-Qays and Ta'abatta Sharran).

The newer English-language anthology has been reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation (New York, 1963): A. Yellin and L. Billig, An Arabic Reader, originally published in Jerusalem in 1931. This splendid anthology contains excellent philological and linguistic notes plus a superb glossary and selections from Ibn Battuta, Ibn Jubair, al-Tabari, the Qur'an, etc.

Since the reader of this review can now appreciate the fact that there was no larger CA and MSA reader on the market, one can see Frangieh's motivation for making his selection available. He has organized the volume in exemplary fashion, in my view--in reverse chronological order. Certainly the Qur'an and pre-Islamic poetry are more difficult texts than those penned by Najib (Frangieh's spelling for a more Egyptianizing Arabic transcription of Nagib) Mahfouz, the 1988 Nobel Laureate in literature. Frangieh's reader contains some 1,800 words, with English translations according to the context; e.g., jadd, usually 'grandfather' < jdd 1 means 'good luck' in a poem by Abu Tammam (p. xvi). Actually, this lexeme is so cited in The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th ed. (Ithaca: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 135, under a different yet homophonous root jdd 2. Contrary to Frangieh's opinion, jadd should be analyzed as two different words stemming from two different roots.

Let me turn to the volume's two extensive glossaries. The first is arranged in traditional Arabic alphabetical order (pp. 490-538). Although mu'amara 'conspiracy' occurs after amr 'order' and is listed under its triconsonantal root 'mr 'command', we also note the inconsistency that 'a'ada 'repeat' is under 'alif rather than under its triconsonantal root 'wd. (p. 490). This is not good lexicography and is apt to confuse students. While most words are vocalized, some are not; e.g., saytan 'satan' does not have the nunation which is present in the noun following it (suyu'iyyatun 'communism'), nor are any vowels indicated in the plural sayatinu 'satans', which is a diptote but not indicated thus (p. 512).

Let us now turn to a few sample texts. The first poet discussed is Syrian Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998), whose love poems have been translated and edited by the author and Clemantina Brown (Arabian Love Poems [Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 1999]). The poetry is mostly printed in vocalized format, thus facilitating the correct recitation. The translated vocabulary (pp. 7-8) is well chosen, except for a few easy items which, in my opinion, could have been omitted; e.g., sa'b 'difficult'; mawt 'death'; and mir'at 'mirror' (p. 7).

Three examples of fairly difficult prose texts are those by three Arab grammarians. First, there is al-Luma' fi al-'arabiyya 'Gleanings in Arabic' by Ibn Jinni (d. 1002 A.D.) (pp. 388-93), which is a treatise on imala, accurately defined as "inclination: the pronunciation of 'a' as 'e'" (392). The second, an excerpt from the first Arabic dictionary, Kitab al-'ayn by al-Khalil Ibn 'Ahmad (d. 786 A.D.) (pp. 394-99), discusses the speech sounds produced in the pharynx (halq) and at the incisors (thanaya) and uvula (lahat). The third is from the Kitab by al-Khalil's most famous pupil and the most famous Arab linguist, Iran-born Sibawayh (d. 770 A.D., according to Frangieh, p. 430; but he probably died in 796 A.D., according to M. G. Carter, Sibawayhi [London: I. B. Tauris, 2004], 15). This selection deals with, inter alia, entities ma lam yanqati' wahwa ka'inun 'for what has not ceased to exist' (p. 435). Needless to say, one must have a good phonetics and linguistics background to be able to comprehend fully the richly relevant grammatical knowledge displayed by the medieval Arab grammarians.

For MSA, the field has been very fortunate to possess the excellent Arabic Reader by Chaim Rabin (Harvard Univ. Press, 1963; 2nd revised edition by H. M. Nahmad). This work contains selections by some of the same authors as in Frangieh's collection: 'Amin al-Rihani; Jibran Khalil Jibran (note the different vowels from those used by Frangieh); Mikha'il Nu'aymah; and Taha Husayn. The philological and linguistic commentary of the more complex expressions are particularly outstanding and make this a truly valuable work.

In conclusion, Frangieh's anthology is a most welcome addition to the Arabic pedagogical market. However, when the tome is revised for a second edition (which I hope occurs soon), two suggestions should be entertained: (1) a selection from al-Tabari is a must; actually, the author states that he "should have liked to include pieces" from his pen as well as that of several others (p. xvii); and (2) extensive philological and linguistic notes to interesting and/or difficult passages should be added a la Rabin in his (1963) anthology.

The book has been very carefully proofread. I have discovered only one error: the word 'axrasu 'dumb; mute' is a diptote and thus the nunation is wrong (p. 3 and p. 8).

ALAN S. KAYE

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON