In prose and verse there are two Moslem productions which
have attained wide popularity in European lands. The first work is the Thousand
and One Nights, a collection of tales written in Arabic and describing life
and manners at the court of the Abbasids. The book, as we now have it, seems to
have been composed as late as the fifteenth century, but it borrows much from
earlier Arabic sources. Many of the tales are of Indian or Persian origin, but
all have a thoroughly Moslem coloring. The second work is the Rubáiyát
of the astronomer-poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam, who wrote about the beginning
of the twelfth century. His Rubáiyát is a little volume of
quatrains, about five hundred in all, distinguished for wit, satirical power,
and a vein of melancholy, sometimes pensive, sometimes passionate. These
characteristics of Omar's poetry have made it widely known in the western
world. [29]
[29] The translation of the Rubaiyat
by Edward Fitzgerald is almost an English classic.
ARCHITECTURE
Painting and sculpture owe little to the Arabs, but their
architecture, based in part on Byzantine and Persian models, reached a high
level of excellence. Swelling domes, vaulted roofs, arched porches, tall and
graceful minarets, and the exquisite decorative patterns known as
"arabesques" make many Arab buildings miracles of beauty. Glazed
tiles, mosaics, and jeweled glass were extensively used for ornamentation. From
the first the Arab builders adopted the pointed arch; they introduced it into
western Europe; and it became a characteristic feature of Gothic cathedrals.
Among the best-known of Arab buildings are the so-called "Mosque of
Omar" at Jerusalem, the Great Mosque of Cordova, and that
architectural gem, the Alhambra at Granada. Many features of Moorish art were
taken over by the Spaniards, who reproduced them in the cathedrals and missions
of Mexico and California.
