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Great Books of Islamic Civilization Ibn ∏Abd The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization Rabbih the Unique Necklace the l-‘Iqd al-Farı¯d (The Unique Necklace) is one of the classics of Arabic literature. the Compiled in several volumes by an Andalusian scholar and poet named Ibn Unique Necklace A‘Abd Rabbih (246–328 A.H. / 860–940 C.E.),it remains a mine of information about various elements of Arab culture and letters during the four centuries before his death.Essentially it is a book of adab,a term understood in modern times to specifically II Volume mean literature but in earlier times its meaning included all that a well-informed person had to know in order to pass in society as a cultured and refined individual.This Unique meaning later evolved and included belles lettres in the form of elegant prose and verse that was as much entertaining as it was morally educational, such as poetry, pleasant anecdotes, proverbs, historical accounts, general knowledge, wise maxims, and even practical philosophy. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih’s imagination and organization saved his encyclopedic Necklace compendium from becoming a chaotic jumble of materials by conceiving of it as a necklace composed of twenty-five ‘books’, each of which carried the name of a jewel. Each of the twenty-five ‘books’ was organized around a major theme and had an introduction written by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, followed by his relevant adab selections of Volume II verse and prose on the theme of the ‘book’. He drew on a vast repertoire of sources including the Bible,the Qur’an and the Hadith,and the works of al-Jahiz,ibn Qutayba, al-Mubarrad,Abu ‘Ubayda ibn al-Muthanna and several others, as well as the diwans of many Arab poets, including his own poetry. Volume I of this translation of Al-‘Iqd al-Farı¯d (Garnet Publishing,2006) contained four of its twenty-five ‘books’.The present volume,Volume II,contains two more. Al-‘Iqd al Farı-d The translator Issa J.Boullata is a literary critic and scholar,who also writes fiction. Formerly Professor of Arabic Literature at McGill University,Montreal, Canada, he has published several books,including Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought (1990) CONTRIBUT LIM ION US QA TO M OHA TAR C R D IV and a novel in Arabic, Homecoming to Jerusalem (1998), in addition to numerous studies O IL F IZ R A E T T I N O E N of Arabic literature, book reviews, short stories in English, and translations of Arabic C poetry and novels. The reviewer Terri DeYoung is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Ibn ∏Abd Rabbih Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington,Seattle, USA. Her Center for book, Placing the Poet: Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Postcolonial Iraq, won a Choice Award Muslim Contribution to (given by the American Association of Research Libraries) in 1998. She has also Civilization co-edited a volume of essays in honor of Professor Mounah Khouri, Tradition and Doha, Qatar Translated by Professor Issa J. Boullata Modernity in Arabic Literature (1997), with Professor Issa Boullata of McGill University. Reviewed by Professor Terri DeYoung RELIGION ISBN 978-1-85964-226-9 9 781859 642269 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page i The Unique Necklace Volume II 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page ii 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page iii The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization The Unique Necklace Volume II Al-∏Iqd al-Farı¯d Ibn ∏Abd Rabbih Translated by Professor Issa J. Boullata Reviewed by Associate Professor Terri DeYoung arnet PUBLISHING 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page iv THE UNIQUE NECKLACE VOLUME II Published by Garnet Publishing Limited 8 Southern Court South Street Reading RG1 4QS UK Copyright © 2009 The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. First Edition ISBN-13: 978-1-85964-196-5 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Samantha Barden Jacket design by Garnet Publishing Printed in Lebanon 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page v CONTENTS Foreword vii About this Series ix Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization: Board of Trustees xi Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization: Board xii The Book of the Coral 1 The Book of the Ruby 65 Index 323 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page vi 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page vii In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful FOREWORD THE interrelationship and interaction of human cultures and civilizations has made the contributions of each the common heritage of men in all ages and all places. Early Muslim scholars were able to communicate with their Western counterparts through contacts made during the Crusades; at Muslim universities and centres of learning in Muslim Spain (al-Andalus, or Andalusia) and Sicily to which many European students went for education; and at the universities and centres of learning in Europe itself (such as Salerno, Padua, Montpellier, Paris, and Oxford), where Islamic works were taught in Latin translations. Among the Muslim scholars well-known in the centres of learning throughout the world were al-R\z# (Rhazes), Ibn S#n\ (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroës), al-Khw\rizm# and Ibn Khaldßn. Muslim scholars such as these and others produced original works in many fields. Many of them possessed encyclopaedic knowledge and distinguished themselves in many disparate fields of knowledge. The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization was established in order to acquaint non-Muslims with the contributions Islam has made to human civilization as a whole. The Great Books of Islamic Civilization Project attempts to cover the first 800 years of Islam, or what may be called Islam’s Classical Period. This project aims at making available in English and other European languages a wide selection of works representative of Islamic civilization in all its diversity. It is made up of translations of original Arabic works that were produced in the formative centuries of Islam, and is meant to serve the needs of a potentially large readership. Not only the specialist and scholar, but the non-specialist with an interest in Islam and its cultural heritage will be able to benefit from the series. Together, the works should serve as a rich source for the study of the early periods of Islamic thought. In selecting the books for the series, the Center took into account all major areas of Islamic intellectual pursuit that could be represented. Thus the series includes works not only on better-known subjects such as law, theology, jurisprudence, history and politics, but also on subjects such as literature, medicine, astronomy, optics and geography. The specific criteria used to select individual books were these: that a book should give a faithful and comprehensive account of its field; and that it should be an authoritative source. The reader thus has at his disposal virtually a whole library of informative and enlightening works. Each book in the series has been translated by a qualified scholar and reviewed by another expert. While the style of one translation will naturally differ from another as do the styles of the authors, the translators have endeavoured, to 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page viii viii THE UNIQUE NECKLACE the extent it was possible, to make the works accessible to the common reader. As a rule, the use of footnotes has been kept to a minimum, though a more extensive use of them was necessitated in some cases. This series is presented in the hope that it will contribute to a greater under- standing in the West of the cultural and intellectual heritage of Islam and will therefore provide an important means towards greater understanding of today’s world. May God Help Us! Muhammad bin Hamad Al-Thani Chairman of the Board of Trustees 600 0 Unique Necklace v.#192E83 18/11/08 10:06 AM Page ix ABOUT THIS SERIES THIS series of Arabic works, made available in English translation, represents an outstanding selection of important Islamic studies in a variety of fields of know- ledge. The works selected for inclusion in this series meet specific criteria. They are recognized by Muslim scholars as being early and important in their fields, as works whose importance is broadly recognized by international scholars, and as having had a genuinely significant impact on the development of human culture. Readers will therefore see that this series includes a variety of works in the purely Islamic sciences, such as Qurπ\n, ©ad#th, theology, prophetic traditions (sunna), and jurisprudence (fiqh). Also represented will be books by Muslim scientists on medicine, astronomy, geography, physics, chemistry, horticulture, and other fields. The work of translating these texts has been entrusted to a group of professors in the Islamic and Western worlds who are recognized authorities in their fields. It has been deemed appropriate, in order to ensure accuracy and fluency, that two persons, one with Arabic as his mother tongue and another with English as his mother tongue, should participate together in the translation and revision of each text.