Episode 4 – The Islamic World’s Greatest Writer al-Jahiz

Islamic Golden Age (2017)

By Eamon Gearon

Film Review

Al-Jahiz (776-868 AD) wrote over 200 books, mainly fiction and satire. Thirty are still in print today.* The Arabic alphabet (derived from Aramaic) first emerged in the in the first half of the fourth century in the Nabataean kingdom.

Before that all Arabic stories and poems were transmitted orally. Because it borrowed a number of words and expressions from Persian, the Abbasid caliphate undertook a systematic effort standardize the Arabic language so it wouldn’t become too Persianized.

Al Jahiz was born in the port city of Basra, an important center of trade,culture and learning surpassed only by Baghdad and Samara. One of his grandfathers was a freed African slave. As a child he helped sell fish to support his family until his mother found the money to send him to a Koranic school to learn to read and write. After completing school he attended lectures on philology (study of language), lexicology (study of derivation of words) and poetry.

His first publication was a treatise on the nature of the Abbasid caliphate. He also wrote animal fables, satires about the rich and famous and books about zoology (he’s considered the world’s first zoologist, rhetoric and polemics, grammar, etymology and literary criticism.

He moved to Baghdad when he was 40 after Harun al-Rashid’s son al-Ma’mun summoned him to tutor his children. Unfortunately the children, frightened of his boggle eyes, rejected him as their tutor because his boggle yes scared them (his nickname al-Jahiz translates as “Boggle Eyes” in English).

He was also the first writer in history to discuss evolution and competition among animals to pass on their successful characteristics to their offspring.

Some of his more famous titles include

• The Book of Misers
• The Art of Keeping One’s Mouth Shut
• Against Civil Servants
• Levity and Seriousness
• The Book of Mule (concerns men’s fixation with penis size)

*I think this says a lot about the role of the House of Wisdom in standardizing the Arabic language. English books from the 9th century AD are impossible to decipher without years of study.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5756987/5756995