ARABIC LITERATURE

writings in the Arabic language, composed or written by non-Arabs as well as Arabs. In the golden age of Arabic literature following the advent of Islam in 622, Arabic writers included Persians, Iranians, Indians, Spanish Muslims, Egyptians, Syrians, and many others of mixed descent, all of whom made their distinctive contributions to Arabic literature. Arabic literature is divided into two main periods. The classical, beginning with the proverbs and poetry of the nomadic northern Arabs of the desert, was preserved by oral transmission from the early 6th century or before and first recorded in the 7th and 8th centuries; though the Arabic leadership in the Islamic world began to decline in the 11th century, classical Arabic literature continued into the 16th century. Within the classical period, there is a major division between the pre-Islamic literature of the 6th and early 7th centuries and the literature that followed the rise and spread of Islam. The literature of the Islamic period is not a religious literature, except in the later part of the period, when Sufism (Islamic mysticism) influenced Arabic poetry. This influence is also seen in Persian and Turkish literature, which, in the Islamic period, are interwoven with that in Arabic (as is Indian literature). The conquest of most of the Arabic-speaking world in the 16th and 17th centuries essentially eradicated Arabic literature in that time. The modern period, beginning with the 19th-century literary renaissance in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq, drew some of its impetus from contact with the West and some from renewed interest in the great classical literature. It started on the one hand in Egypt, where France's short occupation (17981801) was followed by the autonomous ruling dynasty established by the viceroy and pasha of Egypt, Muhammad 'Ali; on the other, in Syria and Lebanon, where Christian communitiesespecially the Maronite Churchhad been in contact with Europe since the 16th century. The freer environment of Egypt led many Syrian and Lebanese writers to emigrate there, and Egypt thus became the centre of the renaissance. Later it spread to other Arab countries, particularly under the impact of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and the coming of independence after World War II. These developments were strengthened by the emergence of an Arabic press and by the spread and modernization of education.