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Leigh Hunt's Oriental Motifs – Abou Ben Adhem*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
Extract
On an October day in 1869 Lord Houghton, friend of Thackeray and Tennyson, appeared in the cemetery at Kensal Green, in West London. He was there to unveil a tomb memorial to the poet Leigh Hunt; this was surmounted by a bust, and bore the legend:
It is not really surprising that place of honour on Leigh Hunt's tomb is taken by a quotation from “his exquisite little fable ‘Abou ben Adhem’” which “has assured him a permanent place in the records of the English language”,1 and whose “touch of glory, like a sacred flame on a clear and graceful altar, has captured the succeeding generations”.2 The poet himself, Leigh Hunt, regarded this poem as one of his best.3 It is recorded that a friend presented to him an illuminated copy of it, which he hung above his writing table.4
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997
Footnotes
*
I should acknowledge here that the identification of Ibrahim ibn Adham with Abou Ben Adhem was first brought to my notice by two notes, by H. Beveridge and V. A. Smith, published in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1909 (2), p. 751 and 1910 (1), p. 167).
References
1 Dictionary of National Biography, 1891, p. 274, unter HUNT.Google Scholar
2 Blunden, p. 273.
3 Blunden, p. 326.
4 Bunden, p. 273.
5 1832. The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. London: Edward Moxon, 64, 64, New Bond Street, lxiii + 361 p;Google Scholar 222 X 134 mm. Printed on wove paper.
1846. The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. (This edition is said to be a reprint of an 1844 edition, which I have not come across.) xii + 288 p.Google Scholar It is small (142 x 87 mm), making “A neat pocket volume” such as Leigh Hunt had always wanted (see Ireland, p. 173; Symons, pp. 8–20). Printed on wove paper. The copies of both editions that I have seen are in the University of London Stirling Library.
6 Blunden, p. 273.
7 The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, 1832, p. 161.Google Scholar
8 Bibliothèque Orientale, 1781, i, pp. 161–2.Google ScholarAioud stands for Ayyūb; the 1697 edn. p. 62 has more correctly Aioub. In another edition Thabet is rendered “Thaber”.
9 On p. 418 of the 1697 edition.
10 For practical purposes the only source with the three names is Abū Nu‘aym’s. the three names do occur in one other Arabic source that I have been able to discover, namely ‘Abd al-Ra’ūf al-Munāwī (d. after A.D. 1623); but although he does not name his source, al-Munāwī seems to be merely quoting from Abū Nu‘aym. We may conclude with some confidence therefore that DΉerbelot's source was Abū Nu'aym al-Işfahānī. Perhaps indirectly as this name is not found in the list of Arabic sources that DΉerbelot used.
We know a good deal about the Arabic sources used by DΉerbelot (see Laurens, 5 off.). It is accepted that prominent amongst these was the monumental Bibliographical Dictionary compiled by Ḥājjī Khalīfah (1609–57). DΉerbelot had a copy of this made for himself from a manuscript found in Constantinople in 1682 by his collaborator Galland. I have not been able to find the theme in Fluegel's edition of this work. And I have not been able to consult another (but less likely) source, Ḥājjī Khalīfeh's “The ladder leading to the strata of the eminent”, compiled in A.D. 1649. (See G. L. Lewis, p. 143.) Nor can I find the anecdote in Ibn Khallikān, another of DΉerbelot's likely sources.
11 (1) Mālik b. Dīnār, [Abū Yahyā,[ al-Başri is often mentioned in Sufi literature. The date of his death is given as ca. A.H. 130 [= A.D. 747–8].
(2) Thābit b. Aslam al-Bunābī (also known as Abū Muḥammad) died in A.H. 127 [= A.D. 744–5]
(3)Ayyūb al-Sikhtiyāni (also known as Abū Bakr) was born in A.H. 68 [= A.D. 687–8] and died of the plague in A.H. 131 [= A.D. 748–9]
For the sake of completeness, some other known accounts of Ibrāhīm's dream which do not have the three names may be listed:
(In Arabic) Άbd Allāh ibn As'ad al-Yāfi‘ī. A.H. 1286/A.D. 1869. Kitāb Rawd al-Rayāḥīn (No. 373, p. 205.)Google Scholar Aḥmad b. Yūlsuf Sinān (died A.D. 1611). Al-Rawd al-nasī, (fol. 2Ir.) (MS 9055 in Königliche Bibliothek, Berlin; this Arabic work is taken from a Turkish text; he cites as authority for this the writer just mentioned, al-Yāfi'ī.)
(In Persian) Farīd al-Din Άţţār (d. ca. A.D. 1230). 1905. Tadhkirat al-Awliyā'; ed. Nicholson, R. A.. London & Leiden. (vol. i, p. 103.)Google Scholar
(In French) Pavet de.Courteille, A. Courteille, A. 1889. Le Mémorial des Saints (Tezkereh-i-Evlia).Google Scholar (Being a translation of the Uighur version of ͨţţtār's, Farid al-Din Tadhkirat al-Awliyā') Paris (p. 93.)Google Scholar
(In Malay) Nuruddin ar-Raniri (d. before A.D. 1666). 1974. Bustanu's-salatin, bab iv fasal I; Jones., Russell Lumpur, Kuala. (pp. 28, 29.)Google Scholar
(In German)Jakob, Hallauer. 1925. Die Vita des Ibrahim b. Edhem in der Tedhkirat el-Ewlija des Ferid ed-din Attar. Leipzig. (pp. 63–4.)Google Scholar
(In English)Ebrahim, Khan.M. 1966. Anecdotes from Islam; p. 218. Lahore.Google Scholar This does not have the three names-he gives other names instead: “Ibrahim said, ‘Take down the names of the great saints like Khwaja Sulaiman, Khwaja Mansur, Khwaja Fazil and Hasan Basri’.” (He attributes the anecdote to Majmu-al-Waj. In his bibliography he gives simply Majmu'al Waz with no further particulars.)
Arberry, A. J. 1966. Muslim Saints and Mystics. (p. 76.)Google Scholar
Bankey, Behari. 1965. Farīduddīn ͨţţār's Tadhkaratul-Auliya or Memoirs of Saints. Lahore. (p. 50)Google Scholar
Claud, Field. 1910. Mystics and Saints of Islam. London. (p. 44.)Google Scholar
12 See Enc. of Islam, iii, 1971, pp. 985–6, Adham, Ibrahim b..Google Scholar
13 Joseph Dacre Carlyle (1759–1804) was an Arabic scholar; he was appointed Professor of Arabic in Cambridge in 1795. SeeDictionary of National Biography, ix, 1887.Google Scholar
14 It was for that purpose that DΉerbelot went to Italy: “ …he took a journey to Rome, upon a persuasion that conversing with Armenians, and other Eastern people who frequented that city, would make him perfect in the knowledge of their languages” (A New and General Biographical Dictionary; containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in every Nation…, viii, London, 1798, p. 49).Google Scholar
15 In his autobiography Leigh Hunt refers several times to his interest in The Arabian Night, and to “Arabia Tales” on his book-shelves (Morpurgo, pp. 4, 79, 275, 306.) For references to The Arabian Nights in his essays, e.g. Symons, pp. 16, 20, 292 etc.Google Scholar
16 In Persian Nagāristān means picture gallery and is the title of several celebrated works; Prof. T. O. Gandjei drew my attention to one manuscript of this, held by the British Library in London, accession Add. 16,813, by Muဧini al-Juvaynī. Laurens (p. 53) points to a different author; he refers to one of DΉerbelot's sources as “le Nighiaristan ‘galerie’, d'un autre Cazvini dont nous n'avons pu déterminer l'identité exact.” This “Cazvini” could be Zakariyyā' b. Muhammad al-Qazwīnī (lived about A.D. 1203–83), seeEnc. Islam, iv, 1978, pp. 865–7.Google Scholar
17 Enc. Islam, iii, p. 106.Google Scholar
18 Ireland, 1868, p. 173.