>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [ Silence ] >> I want to wish you all welcome to this one of our noon time lectures. On behalf of our Chief, Dr. Mary Jane Deeb, who is unable to be with us today, and the rest of the African Middle Eastern Division, I wish to welcome you all. I'm Chris Murphy. I am the head of the New East Section here in the African Middle Eastern Division. The Division has three sections, the African section that is concerned with Sub-Saharan Africa, both providing reference about that area and developing the collection from Sub-Sahara and Africa, the Hebraic section, which is responsible for Hebraic and Judaica from all over the world and the New East section, which I am head. The New East section is responsible, the staff of the section are responsible for developing the collection from and about all of the Arab countries, Huron, Afghanistan, the countries of the Caucuses, They are also responsible for developing the collection from and about the Muslims of Western China, of Russia and of the Balkans. So the purview of the New East section basically runs from Rabat in the west to Kashgar in the East, from Khartoum in the south to Kazan in the north. The staff of the section consists of three professionals who developed the Arabic collection. A specialist for Iran and the Iranian languages, a specialist for Armenia and Georgian, the specialist physician for Turkish is vacant. I actually held that position for 22 1/2 years before 6 1/2 years ago I was promoted to become section head. The collection of the Near East Section is primarily books and journals. There are about 480,000 volumes of which approximately 1/2 are Arabic, about 75,000 each are in Persian and Turkish and the rest are in some 36 other languages including Ingush, a language in the North Caucuses, which has I think a dozen volumes. It used to only have nine so it is growing a pace. We receive approximately 20,000 volumes a year so when my successor makes an introduction in a decade we will be up to pretty close to 700,000 somewhat past 3/4 of a million volumes. These noon time lectures are a particularly important aspect of the division and the sections outreach. While we are tasked by the Congress of the United States to develop collections from and about the areas for which we are responsible, we are also tasked by Congress to make not only our collections known to the staff of Congress, the Federal Bureaucracy and the International scholarly public, but to the general public as well. And these lectures are one of the ways in which we explain you know to the general public who does pay for what we do here, what we're doing and the kinds of work we do. And I'm now going to ask Dr. Muhannad Salhi who did a lot of the work to set this lecture, to get it going, ask him to come up and introduce today's speaker. >> Good afternoon everybody. Thank you all for coming. Dr. Jennifer Tobkin earned her PhD in 2011 from the Department of Semantic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at Catholic University of America. She's currently a teaching assistant professor in the Arabic program at George Washington University. She's taught Modern Standard Arabic at university level since 2005. Today she will be speaking on Muhammed ibn Dawud: The Man of Our Times and the Abbassid Language of Brotherhood". So without further ado, Dr. Tobkin. [applause] [ Noise ] >> Good afternoon. [ Noise ] When we speak about the Abbassid period in Arabic literature, we sometimes think of it as the Golden Age. It was a time when the sciences and literary activity flourished, when works of Greek philosophy were translated into Arabic, when Arabic prose literature became a fully mature form. When we speak about the Abbassid period of Arabic literature a word The word majilis in modern Arabic can refer to a parliament or it can refer to a sitting room in a person's house where people receive guests. A majilis is, analogically speaking, a place for sitting. In the Abbassid period the majilis was a place and a time for social gatherings. A semiformal environment in which people discussed ideas and exchanged anecdotes and exchanged poetry. And when we read biographies of people who lived in the Abbassid period we hear the majilis being mentioned, we hear about conversations that they had in the majilis, witty exchanges, people exchanging verses of poetry. And when you read some of the books from this period, even very serious and very formal books such as encyclopedias, you can still feel that as these books were being written people were discussing them with their friends and their personal associates in the majilis. You hear reports that this was something that someone said, people transmitted information face to face. There was a great proliferation of writing and literacy in Abbassid times but compared to now it was before the invention of the printing press. People heard books being read out loud. People heard people speaking information. And you knew that what you had written really made an impression or that your poem really became popular if people quoted it in the majilis. And the Abbassid period saw the writing of books on almost everything, the science of Arabic grammar was a very important subject to study and it was something that educated people studied, the religious sciences as well as more specialized disciplines such as philosophy, such as medicine. And there are books about almost everything but what came to strike me as strange was that there are no books on brotherhood. What I mean by brotherhood is the friendship of two adult men, usually of equal social status. When we're talking about books on brotherhood we probably mean educated men, gentlemen. Now why is it strange for there not to be books on brotherhood? This is because there are almost no books that don't rely on brotherhood, that don't mention brotherhood in some way. Brotherhood was the thing that kept the majilis going. You can hardly have encyclopedias without brotherhood. You can hardly have learning and exchange of information without brotherhood. But yet I didn't find any books on it so I didn't have just one source to read if I wanted to find out about what people thought about brotherhood in the Abbassid period. But as I looked more closely I found information on brotherhood in a variety of sources. Now why am I calling it brotherhood? There are many words for love and friendship in Arabic, many more than there are in English. The book [foreign title] by [foreign name] mentions 60 words that could be translated as love. An anonymous source quoted in Kit Ab al-Zahra by Muhammed ibn Dawud, who died in 910 AD, mentions a hierarchy of types of friendship and love. Beginning with [foreign language] in which you find the person's qualities pleasing and ending in [foreign language] which is utter loss of sanity, not even knowing anything, and then everything in between. And I have chosen the word brotherhood based on Muhammed ibn Dawud's use of the word [foreign language] as well as the fact that the figurative use of the word brother and brothers is striking in Arabic even today. It's certainly not exclusive to Arabic that people should refer to their friends as brothers but in Arabic you can also call someone a brother of a characteristic, just as you can call someone a father of a characteristic. You can say [foreign language] some characteristic of the person. For example, there was a famous Arabic poet called Abu Nuwas. One interpretation of his name is that it means Father of Curly Hair because he had long curly hair when he was young. Another interpretation of his name is that it's a reference to Dhu Nuwas who was a King of Yemen in Pre-Islamic times. It's also possible in Arabic to use the word brother in this way, for example there is a poem that uses the expression [foreign language] which means someone who has a [foreign language], someone who has a covenant, And as we start reading books on social conduct you see the word brother, meaning someone's associate, meaning someone someone cares about, very frequently. So I would like to read to you a few excerpts of poems that describe the essential qualities of a brother, not meaning a brother who is biologically related to you, not a sibling, but a brother who is a friend of great importance. This is a part of a poem by [foreign name] who lived in the 9th century. [ Arabic ] I said my brother, they said a brother by blood? I said yes. Indeed those of like nature are kin. He was my kinsman in thought, conviction, religion, even though our origins were not the same. And this is [foreign name] who was a younger contemporary of [foreign name]. [ Arabic ] A brother of mine, my relationship to him is not through his father's family nor his mothers. This is Muhammed ibn Dawud complaining [ Arabic ] You have cast aside a full blooded brother and do not be fooled by my decorous patience. If all mankind were gathered before me, you alone would be the dearest This is [foreign name]. [ Arabic ] A brother, I have decked my life in the vibrant green of his noble companionship and virtuous brotherhood. Here's [foreign name] [ Arabic ] What in the world could be more beautiful than one man of letters passionately in love with another? I've gained dominion over his heart and his love since he first gained dominion over mine. He almost wrote our love between his eyes with the words this is the beloved of a beloved one, except that if I were in love with my own soul I would fear less a slanderer find out about my love for it. Here's [foreign name] again. [ Arabic ] I visit Muhammed and when we meet our thoughts speak within our hearts. I return, I have not blamed him nor has he blamed me for one mind has understood another. [ Silence ] Is brotherhood love? There was plenty written in Arabic. There has been plenty written in Arabic throughout the centuries beginning in the early Abbassid period about love. There are famous stories of the so called martyrs of love, of people dying from love. When I mentioned encyclopedias, there are plenty of encyclopedias about love, among them [foreign title] by [foreign name] written in the 10th century in Andalus in Spain. Later on in the 14th century [foreign title] by [foreign name] who was born in [foreign language] which is now in Algeria and spent much of his life in Cairo. Also in the 14th century, [foreign title] the Biographical Dictionary of the Martyrs of Love as it's usually called in English by Mughultai. And these are the books that present love as something noble, that the lovers were truly well intentioned and that love was a fate that befell them. That they were faithful to their loved ones and in many cases the love was unattainable and they died. There were also plenty of books written against love, that all this thinking about love is morally corrupting. There were religious scholars who cautioned against passionate love, against [foreign language], among other terms that were used, for either erotic love or simply love that consumes your soul. And among those famous of these books were [foreign title] by Ibn al-Jawza and [foreign title] both who were religious scholars of the Hanbali Madhab. Beyond that there were plenty of books on love that were simply light entertainment. Love stories have always been popular, love poetry and perhaps always will be popular. And so those writers who sought to teach some deeper human truth about love really went to great lengths to show that love was simply more than physical attraction. So this is why we see stories about people remaining chaste throughout their whole lives, eventually dying from their love. Among the most famous people to do that was a poet named [foreign name] who lived in the 7th century. And his beloved was named [foreign name]. There were plenty of other names that get mentioned, [foreign name] who was in love with [foreign name]. [Foreign name] who was in love with [foreign name]. These poets distinguish themselves by the fact that all of their poetry is about the same woman. But in the minds of some people it's still a man writing about his love for a woman and that can only mean one thing. So the fact that brotherhood is a love that is between two males might solve that problem or it might not because there was also plenty of Arabic literature written in pre-modern times about men's love and admiration for other men. Often when you have erotic literature about males, there are clearly defined rules of lover and beloved and the beloved is usually depicted as younger than the lover. And the fact that young men could be seen as a temptation is attested to by plenty of writings cautioning against keeping the company of handsome young men just as there are writings cautioning against keeping the company of women. It's even said that Sibawayh, who was one of the greatest grammarians of the Arabic language, he wrote a 29 volume book called aw Kitab, which is the definitive book on Arabic grammar, he was a student of [foreign name] the author of [foreign title] which was an Arabic dictionary, perhaps the first Arabic dictionary. It said that when Sibawayh was studying that he veiled his face in the presence of his teacher for reasons of modesty. And therefore when Arabic writers wrote about brotherhood they went to great lengths to show that these are both gentlemen who are social equals. This is not a situation where it could simply be physical attraction. So the brothers, first of all we have the word brother, they're depicted as being of similar age and similar educational level. In some ways brotherhood bares comparison to the Aristotelian friendship of the best. Brotherhood is a morally wholesome friendship that seeks virtue and that seeks the good. In fact there was a saying in Arabic that two rational people love each other because they're alike in reason but two foolish people do not love each other because they're alike in foolishness. [foreign name], who died in 868 AD, who's most famous for being a [inaudible], which was a type of Islamic thought that was influenced by Greek philosophy, said that the basis of friendship is [foreign language] which is trustworthiness or credibility. And the basis of trustworthiness is knowledge so therefore an educated knowledgeable person is the Another book in which we find insights into brotherhood is [foreign title] by [foreign name]. [foreign name] died in 756 AD, shortly after the Abbissads came to power several years after the Abbissads came to power. [foreign language] was a convert to Islam from Zoroastrianism. He translated texts from Persian into Arabic, most famously [foreign language]. And [foreign language] writings was interested in state craft and the conduct of rulers and [foreign language] does deal with that subject, does contain advice for rulers, it does contain advice for courtiers in their dealings with rulers. But the largest part of the book contains guidance for brothers. It contains advice for gentlemen interacting with other gentlemen. And it's clear in [foreign title] that this is truly not at its root a book on morals. It's a book on social etiquette. It is a book on how to be likable. It's a book on socially advantageous conduct rather than on virtue. And among the pieces of advice [foreign name] gives to his readers are advice on the etiquette of listening to stories one has heard before, interacting with acquaintances one does not particularly like but whom one's brother regards highly, avoiding reviling people or nations with whom one's interlockers might be associated, assuring repeated praise of things for which one's brothers do not share one's enthusiasm. As for apologies, [foreign name] advises his readers, only apologize to someone whose forgiveness you want. Yet he also advises his readers of the importance of graciously accepting a brother's apology unless the relationship is beyond repair. And he also says that one should not become angry with one's brother before giving him a chance to apologize. This is, in my opinion, one of the most insightful pieces of advice in [foreign title]. In fact it seems a little bit like something we might see published on Yahoo Shine or perhaps should see published on Yahoo Shine. If you see your friend with your enemy do not let it make you angry for he can only be one of two types of men. If he is a man you trust intimately then it is most advantageous to you that he be as close as possible to your enemy so that he may avert evil from you or shield you from trouble or disclose confidential information to you. If he is not among your closest brothers then what right do you have to keep him away from other people and to forbid him to associate with anyone except as it pleases you? [ Silence ] Another writer who wrote about brotherhood was [foreign name] who died in 961 AD. [foreign name] was a court poet of [foreign name] who was the ruler of [foreign name] at this time. And [foreign name] throughout his career wrote books about various aspects of palace life from hunting to fine food. But the book of his in which we see the most information about brotherhood is called [foreign title]. A Nadeem is, for all practical purposes, a professional friend of a ruler. The Nadeem's job is to accompany the ruler in assorted leisure activities and to conduct himself in the most agreeable way at all times. To give you some examples of things that the Nadeem might do I will read you the table of contents of [foreign name] [foreign title]. [foreign title] means the conduct of the Nadeem so it's a book of advice on how to be a good Nadeem. So here are the chapters, praise of the Nadeem and the enumeration of his virtues and the center of drinking wine and solitude, character traits and attributes of the Nadeem, being called to be a Nadeem, drinking companions, many and few, listening to music, conversation, washing hands, passing around the cup, excess and insufficiency, requesting the cup when drinking wine, the Nadeem's physical appearance and his obligations to his master, the master's obligations to his Nadeem, chess etiquette. [foreign name] also advises the Nadeem that he should behave in a way that suits his master's every mood. He should always dress nicely but not too ostentatiously in case his master might ask him to change his clothes at some point during the evening so as not to draw attention to this fact. [ Silence ] There is a poem in [foreign title] about how drinking together makes drinking companions into brothers. [ Arabic ] We were not nursed by the same woman but wine made us nursery mates. If the first draft of wine is mother's milk and the last draft of wine is a hangover, then between the two are such pleasures. It describes them as happiness would not suffice. [ Silence ] There's also a story in [foreign title] that mixes the martyrs of love motif with the world of the Nadeem. [ Arabic ] Treating him as a friend even after he was dismissed because of a single lapse of good conduct which he could not have avoided. And he continued to honor [foreign name] and praise him and he never preferred anyone else over him until [foreign name] death. Then [foreign name] was overcome with great despair over him until he became ill and it said that he was buried beside him. [foreign name] passed by their graves and two friends of his named [foreign name] were with him. He stopped at the two graves and said I passed by the bones of [foreign names] captive beneath barren earth, a Nadeem of [foreign name]. He settled here and became the neighbor of the grave of [foreign name]. I know not to whom death will come first, to [foreign name] and they died in that order, one after the other. [ Silence ] Finally we move to someone that I consider the poet of brotherhood, [foreign name]. In Arabic certain poets are associated, certain genres or certain motifs in poetry, [foreign name] who was a Nadeem of the [foreign name] is associated with wine poetry, for example, and also hunting poetry, both Nadeem activities. [foreign name] is associated with chaste love and lifelong fidelity and the poetry about that. It is my opinion that Muhammed ibn Dawud is the poet of brotherhood in Arabic literature. Ibn Dawud's poems appear in [foreign title], which is an anthology of Arabic poetry compiled by ibn Dawud. It contains many different poems. It contains by Pre-Islamic poets. It contains poems by some of the most popular Abbassid poets such as [foreign name]. And the poems in [foreign title] all broadly fall into the genre of [foreign language] which is love poetry. [foreign name] is frequently recited in the majilis. It's some of the easiest poetry to memorize, some of the easiest poetry to fit into the situation and quote. So tall tales grew up around ibn Dawud after his death that he died of love for a friend named Muhammad [foreign name] and this is why he included, this is why he wrote the [foreign title] and this is why he included is poems in [foreign title] under a pseudonym, [foreign name] a Man of our Times. It is my opinion that ibn Dawud wrote the Man of Our Times poems simply to entertain his friends in the majilis as they were talking about brotherhood. And that he included them in [foreign title] along with other anonymous poems and other poems by other vague pseudonyms that may have been written by people who were not professional poets and therefore were not famous for their poetry. Ibn Dawud was a judge by profession. The action of his as a judge that has become the most famous, although none of his works on judos prudence survived in their entirety, is his fatwa against the Al-Hallaj. He was one of the judges who wrote fatwas against Al-Hallaj and Al-Hallaj was eventually executed 12 years Throughout the centuries ibn Dawud has been more famous for being a martyr of love and for writing the fatwa against Al-Hallaj than for writing his poetry. But it is my opinion that the Man of our Times Poems serve a similar purpose to the contents of books like [foreign title] and [foreign title] about advice on being a brother. In fact ibn Dawud makes some statements in the introduction to [foreign title] about why advice, why brothers are in need of advice, why the world could use some good brothers. Know that those who are content with their brothers are few these days. The only ones who remain are those who do things halfheartedly and who do not act justly. If you give preference to them they hesitate to receive your preferential treatment. When you treat them with respect they abandon you. As long as they have any hopes or fears about you they stay away from you. If neither of these two conditions, their hopes or their fears, is present, they do not abide by your brotherhood or keep your promise of fidelity and therefore he proposes [foreign name] as the perfect brother. I have decided because of my overpowering longing for you, even as you who have been inclined to inquire about the states of lovers, to send you a companion, and the word he uses for companion is Nadeem, that will show you the states of those who have come before you and bring you the news of those from the past. It will share your enthusiasm and run out of energy only when you do. It will be near to you when you permit it and it will be far away when you exile it. It will not regard you scornfully when you need it. It will not turn away from you when you turn away from it and mistreat it. It will not keep your secrets instead of revealing them. Rather it would never cross your companions mind to reveal them. Your companion is not too proud to let you ask it questions and it will not be angry with you when you are afraid or when it is tired. If you give it to any brother you like, you will never lose him from among your circle of friends. If you devote yourself to it to the exclusion of your other friends, it will allow you to rise above your peers. I will conclude with a poem written by ibn Dawud under the pseudonym A Man of our Times in which he, assuming that the real or fictional brother to whom he is writing is a rational person and will be moved by these arguments, tries to convince his brother to treat him justly. [ Arabic ] Is it within the bounds of justice to forbid your brother to thank you and to cast him aside? But not to forbid him from rejection and exile. Yes, for one in love it is just and within the bounds of love where nothing can save him except to receive pardon. Is it proper, according to the laws of neighborliness let alone love, that I should be left to spend the night from the night prayer until the predawn prayer, keeping watch over the stars whose pasture has not been entrusted to me? And love is a flame in my heart, hotter than burning coals. You were a brother to me. You have the power to alleviate my sorrow but do you or do you not know what I'm enduring? At night your heart is devoid of the likes of my ordeal, just as I, on account of your love, am devoid of patience. I know that in patience lies solace but being so patient has shortened my life. Behold when I am with you, you find my company loathsome and when I am away not a single thought of me crosses your mind. Behold when friendship increased until it became love and you became my companion in private and public, you tired of my brotherhood and cast aside my friendship and dismissed me Here is one more poem in which ibn Dawud is speaking as his fictional alter ego, the Man of our Times. Mention some of the things that the Nadeem would be familiar with and makes the point that his brotherhood, suddenly makes the point that his brotherhood with the brother, to whom he is addressing, is better than any of the pleasures that one might encounter in the majilis with ones Nadeem. [ Arabic ] It is as though you have sent a spy to watch over my thoughts and one to follow my gaze and to keep track of what I say. Since you left me, whenever I see anything that would offend you I say the spies have seen me. If ever a jesting remark escapes my lips since you have gone I say the spies have heard me. Every time a thought of someone else comes to my mind, the spies pull on the reigns. Whereas ardent lovers divert themselves from their love by drinking wine or listening to singing maidens, I find that things that would console someone else only increase my longing to be near you and I grow restless of being where I am. Honest young men, I have grown tired of their company. I have chastely restrained my eyes from them and my tongue. Whenever my countenance offers me consolation, just then I see you everywhere I look. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Thank you, Dr. Tobkin. Any questions? We have a few minutes for questions and answers. No? >> Yes, I was wondering what do you know about these poets as far as [ Inaudible audience question ] >> Not as far as I know. While some ideas from the Graeco-Roman period were popular in Arabic thought in this period, I do not know of any translations in Greek or Latin poetry into Arabic. It is very possible that some of the same ideas were present because poets like [foreign name] and poets like [foreign name], ibn Dawud, may have read some of the same sources in different languages. But as far as I know there is no direct connection between the poetry. Yes? [ Inaudible audience question ] Well to answer the first question, I think the fact that we have, I think the name Muslim Brotherhood definitely does stem from all the ways that the word brother is used in Arabic. In fact in Arabic the Muslim Brotherhood is called [foreign name] which is the Muslim Brothers. So I think that this reflects the figure that the word brother is still going strong in Arabic. As far as female poets writing about sisterhood, I have not seen it but I have not really looked for it. That would be a good thing to research. The poetry by female poets in [foreign language] tends to focus on dying from love. Mostly you see female poets writing about their sadness for men that they loved, sometimes male relatives, sometimes in the interest of chastity, some of the poems that are attached to female poets for male relatives, for example [foreign name] who was pre Islamic or early Islamic. Her famous poem is an analogy on the death of her brother. But in [foreign language] we see poems about usually not famous, usually unnamed or first name only woman who were secretly in love with a man and then she died when she heard news of his death and things like that. And there are poems in [foreign language] by named women just speaking about love and they just say I and you, there are no names. We don't have much back story about it or at least modern readers don't. It's possible that [foreign language] original audience would >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.