The children in Daraa, Syria - who wrote four words on the walls of the Arbaeen School: “Your turn has come to you, Doctor” - did not think that by writing this they would stimulate the wheel of history in its cycle, and announce a massive people's revolution;
As the demonstrations began with the government's arrest of these children, it interpreted in the people the heat of the revolution that spread - before and after - in the Arab countries and peoples, and what followed is known to everyone.
Of course, the four words written on the wall were not the main engine of the revolution, but they were and will remain evidence of man’s interaction with the events of his time, his expression of his feelings, dreams and what he weaves into himself.
Nor was this incident a precedent in history, but rather a long-standing popular tradition intended to reveal society’s feelings about the issues that have preoccupied its mind since the dawn of history, that is, since man learned to express in writing.
It is not surprising that historians agree on calling the period before writing the prehistoric period, so unless writing preserves it for us is considered outside the historical consciousness of man.
What is important to us in this article is to trace the graffiti in our Arab and Islamic heritage, and we are mainly concerned with those writings issued by individuals, and how they made from the walls a record of their concerns, thoughts and interaction with their environment and culture.
It is not our business here to present the writings of an institutional nature that were issued by a religious or political party, and therefore we will neglect much of what was written in places of worship, political edifices, decorations and engravings in them, except for a familiarity with some aspects of the Arab-Islamic interaction with the murals of the civilization of the Pharaohs.
Therefore, we will follow here - at intervals - the phenomenon of graffiti as an expression of the awareness of the Arab Islamic personality of itself and its surroundings, and we will monitor this through three stages: The first of which is manifested in pre-Islamic writings that seem to us very simple and direct;
Then we deal with the stage of maturity that followed the advent of Islam and is characterized by a kind of free cultural interaction with the non-Muslim other, and the expression of concerns and ideas in an artistic and distinctive way.
Then comes the third stage in which the Arab-Islamic personality reaches the height of its self-awareness.
We find in practicing graffiti an expression of her pride in the dominant culture that she preaches and is proud of her sovereignty.
This is the biography of the article that is in your hands, and it contains what is not organized in its main structure, but is supportive of it in terms of diversifying its method and tributary to drawing features of its image and career.
Revealing lighting
Graffiti has become an international art that is expressed in the word "graffiti". We call this art "graffiti" as a matter of predominance, otherwise this description includes graffiti and the like of rocks, stones and solid surfaces In the material "graffito" from the 'Oxford Dictionary', a definition of this art is: drawing or writing engraved on a wall or any other surface.
The archaeologists consider writing on the walls as a scout that reveals to them the deep and dark eras of history, as it is considered a conscious act, leaving the first one to be seen by those who come after it, and by comparing the writings on the walls, we can compare between human consciousness and human questions over the ages.
So is what a human being thinks about in ancient times is the same that haunts contemporary man today ?!
The writings on the walls have contributed to changing ancient ideas that have been accepted by history students, especially with regard to the Arabs, including, for example, what they decided on the brotherhood between illiteracy and nomadism.
The writings of some Arab tribes in the valley of the Levant revealed to us that they were tribes that practiced writing, and writing is evidence of the existence of cognitive content that is transmitted from generation to generation, no matter how simple it is.
Among those tribes is the "Safawiyyin" group, which Professor Saeed Al-Ghanmi talks about in his valuable book "The Springs of the First Language: An introduction to Arabic literature from its earliest times until the era of the foundational confusion";
He says that they are “Arab tribes who lived in the Al-Safa region from the Badia of Al-Sham and its environs, and the naming of them as“ the Safavids ”or“ the Safiyyah ”came from the environment in which those tribes chose to spread, because the word Safat means the rock .., but it is strange that these Bedouin tribes knew Writing, thousands of inscriptions were left. "
The Safavid writings date back - as researchers determine - to between the second century BC and the fourth century AD.
By observing the researchers Suleiman Al-Deeb and Madd Allah bin Owaidah Al-Heshan in their study entitled 'Safavid inscriptions';
We find that most of these writings were memorial, in which the writers were keen to write their names and the names of their tribes on the stones and rocks that they passed by or spent a good time with, which are simple Bedouin attempts to immortalize the moment and love the remembrance.
Through it we can grasp the tendency of the ancient man to immortality and the survival of the remembrance of Allah, a tendency in which all human beings are equal in their favor and so on.
Religious implications
However, the most abundant writings in the Arabian Peninsula region - and belonging to before that period - are the Thamudic writings, which number in the thousands.
The name Thamud appears since the middle of the eighth century BC, as the Thamudians were scattered in the areas extending from the northern Hijaz to the Sinai.
Professor Suleiman Al-Dheeb reminds us - in his paper entitled 'Da`wah inscriptions in the Thamudic writings in the region of Hail' - that Thamud, the intended people here, were found after the people of Thamud, the companions of the Prophet Saleh mentioned in the Qur’an.
Although the Safavid or Safi writings refer to a fleeting Bedouin style of writing;
The study of the good professor provides us with a rich material on a stable society.
The Thamudian community settled in the region of Hail left us with 1222 writings, and their dates differ between the sixth century and the first century BC, and are distributed geographically on 34 sites in the region of Hail.
Its contents vary between seeking sustenance and wealth, asking for offspring and children, and praying for enemies.
These inscriptions showed that diseases were not mostly organic, but psychological as well. The number of propaganda inscriptions reached 146.
And by reviewing some writings, we find similarities between the concerns of modern man and the Thamudian man.
Religion is central to his life and that is why we see him seeking the help of his gods in all his needs.
Through the writings we get to know some of the names of the "gods" that were worshiped in the Arabian Peninsula (among their names: Rado, Forbid, Doth, Stumble, etc.), and we do not know whether writing was part of the ritual prayer of these people, or what motivated them to write their supplications. It is the desire to multiply its readers, so perhaps the "gods" will respond!
The following are some of the writings that are funny and express the needs of the Thamudi man.
Some of them include writing that suggests that it is a lover who suffers from obstacles that prevent him from connecting to his beloved, and he writes calling: "O deity, Noha (= the name of the gods), complete this wedding!"
And another writing seems to belong to a relative of a girl called "B", and its author calls on the "gods" to protect her from spinsterhood: "O idol, marry me. Written by Sahl!"
In another writing, it appears that the da'i was calling for two well-known people to be joined together by the marital home.
He wrote: “O deity, Rado (= the name of the gods), marry a woman with a lover!”
And another, like him, writes: "O idol Dithn, help Am with his happy love!"
One of the inscriptions draws our attention to the rooted Arab taste in the beauty standards overflowing with the poetry of the ignorant, registering that the fullness of a woman's body is an adornment for her, so we find this funny writing: “O deity, my husbands were satisfied with the beautiful (great) of the neighborhood of El."
We go back to Mrs. B, who we mentioned the prayer of “Sahel” for her, and we most likely think that she was characterized by distress and difficult morals, and that is why her luck in marriage was delayed, as we find that she got married and then we find that her husband wrote a call to her!
The writings reveal to us that the love stories did not all end with the marriage of the Thamudians, for the walls preserved for us the disappointments of their lovers. This is a lover who writes after the painful separation, "O goddess, heaven has found, help me to my love, for Salem is gone!"
Another of them was a lover tired of hesitation to resolve his feelings, so he sought help from the gods and wrote: "O idol, resolve my love confusion!"
First seeds,
as we find another model of lovers in which love escaped and consumed the air;
He was tougher than others when he called upon his idol to remove love and erase it from existence, so he wrote: “O deity, it is forbidden to remove love !!”
Thus, he was earlier than Abu Firas al-Hamdani (d. 357 AH / 968 CE) in catching the meaning of his walking home: “If he is thirsty, the drop does not come down”!
He calls one of them without putting his name down and writes: “O deity, it is forbidden to stop turning away from love!”
Among the supplications that the Thamudian writings have preserved for us is the supplication with the offspring:
Likewise, the demand for sustenance: “O, the deity, Rudha, give 'Dadan' wealth; his books: Mercy.”
And another calls: "O idol, doth, wine and camel";
And a third writes: "O idol, doth, livelihood and dates!"
Some writings are not devoid of wisdom and prayers of some wise people and virtue lovers.
Then we find someone calling his idol to eliminate the disease of adulthood: "O idol, doth, eliminate arrogance and eradicate it!"
This stage of simple and direct writings continued throughout the period of ignorance and until the rise of Islam.
So we find writings inscribed in the era of the Companions, such as the writing written on the dam of the Caliph Muawiya Ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 60 AH / 681 AD) - may God be pleased with him - in Taif, and such as the inscription found in Tayma (located northwest of Saudi Arabia) in which its writer cursed the killers of the Rashidun Caliph Othman bin Affan (d. 35 AH / 656 CE) - may God be pleased with him - which reads: “I am Qais, the writer of Abu Katir, may God curse the one who killed Othman bin Affan.”
Al-Sharif Abu Jaafar al-Idrisi (d.649 AH / 1251 CE) - in his book 'Lights of the Sublime Organs in Revealing the Secrets of the Pyramids' - quoted a scholar in Aleppo who called him he visited the pyramids in Egypt, and told him: “I saw in one of the walls of the Great Pyramid of one of these companions descending in its yard. After the conquest, in writing in the old Kufic script, with the head of the advent (= the ax) pecking in the stone, what is his example: “God unites so-and-so”, and his name (= the companion) went from my mind to the time after that !!
The historian Omar Ibn Shabba (d. 262 AH / 876 CE) - in his book “History of Medina” - records for us the content of the “Jadariah” tombstone of a person who appears to have been among the companions of Christ ﷺ, and he sent it to the residents of the Medina region and his grave was discovered there.
Ibn Shibah narrates with his chain of transmission on the authority of Imam Muhammad bin Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124 AH / 743 CE) that he said: “A grave was found on 'Jamma Umm Khalid' (= a place in the Valley of Agate in Medina) forty cubits by forty cubits, written in a stone:“ I am Abdullah From the people of Nineveh, the Messenger of God’s Messenger Jesus, the son of Mary, was to the people of this village, so death caught me, and I recommended that I be buried in [her]. ”
And if these writings prove some simplicity in the perceptions and direct expression of their owners;
We will notice this change in the second stage of the graffiti phenomenon in the Arab-Islamic heritage, in which the Arab culture is mixed with the divine message and the Arab Saharan culture opens up to other cultures, and writing turns from a naive expression of some desires to a kind of contemplation and writing life experiences and artistry in writings Some minor feelings.
They are different in terms of content in terms of deepening some meanings, and in terms of form using artistic forms (mainly poetic) to document human feelings.
A turning point, and
here we must draw the reader's attention to a historical fact that many researchers jump on, by making the decoding of the pharaonic talisman and the hieroglyphic writing a pure western precedent accomplished by Jean Champollion (d. 1246 AH / 1832 AD) by solving the mystery of the hieroglyphic symbols on the Pharaonic "Rosetta Stone" discovered in northern Egypt Year 1213 AH / 7991799 AD.
Muslim scholars preceded him - by more than a thousand years - in efforts to decipher hieroglyphs.
They used to call the hieroglyphic writing "al-Qalam al-Barbawi" in reference to "al-Barabi" (one of which is Burabi / Barba), which are the Pharaonic temples.
We also find in Al-Nuwairi (d. 733 AH / 1333 AD) - in 'Nihayat al-Arb' - who tells us about the discovery of a “tile of black flint” written in the ‘pen’ of thirty lines.
And he calls it al-Qalqashandi (d.821 AH / 1418 CE) - in Subuh al-Asha ’-“ al-Barbawi line ”indicating the presence of a pharaoh's tomb“ in al-Haram and al-Kabir ... on its door a stone slab ... written in al-Barbawi script. ”
And perhaps they called it “the pen of the bird” as according to al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH / 1506 CE) who says in “Hassan al-Muallaqaar”: “The people of Egypt have the pen known as the“ bird pen ”, which is the“ pen of the bird ”, which is a strange-letter pen!
This Sharif Al-Idrisi tells us - in his aforementioned book - that some of the ancient Muslims knew how to read the hieroglyphic script.
He said that the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun (d.218 AH / 833 CE), on his visit to Egypt in the year 216 AH / 831 CE, wanted to be acquainted with the secret of the hieroglyphic writings, so he searched for those who knew it, “but he did not find a translator to translate it for him and express a dictionary of what he asked about it except Ayoub bin Muslimah (d. 216 AH / 831 CE), and he was a sheikh from among the sages of the Sheikhs of the Egyptians, which the sages of Egypt indicated to al-Ma'mun, so he translated to al-Mamun what was on the pyramids and the two pillars of Ain Shams, and what was on a stone was in the stable from the villages of the Korah of the city of Manf.
Ibn Wahshiyya al-Nabati (d. 318 AH / 920 CE) documented this Arab precedent in deciphering the hieroglyphic language in his book “The Longing of Al-Mustaqhama to Know the Symbols of Pens”.
Where he cited in Chapter VIII of it an explanation of the hieroglyphic symbols and an explanation of the mysteries of their meanings.
Also attracting attention is a text in the book 'Akhbar Makkah' by the Fakihi historian (d. After 272 AH / 885 CE) in which it records the presence of writings on the shrine of Ibrahim at the Kaaba in hieroglyphic script, which was discovered by chance when the shrine underwent restoration in the year 256 AH / 870 CE and they found writings - they did not read well - in "A book in Hebrew and it is said in Hamriyah. It is the book that the Quraish found in pre-Islamic times."
But Al-Fakihi - who was a witness to this incident - tells us that he wrote a copy of these writings for himself and says: “And his story (= his narration) as I saw him written in it, and I did my best" in the accuracy of his portrayal.
Then he completes the story of these writings with what indicates that he discovered that they were not Hebrew or Himyarite calligraphy, but purely hieroglyphs, after his copy of them reached a Moroccan man residing in Egypt, and he was a specialist in deciphering the hieroglyphic codes after studying her writings for 30 years.
Al-Fakihi says: “Abu Al-Hasan Ali bin Zaid Al-Faraidi (d. 262 AH / 876 CE) told me - and [he] took this book from me on the maqam - and said: Abu Zakaria al-Maghribi (died after 256 AH / 870 CE) told me about Egypt and he took this copy from me - meaning A copy of this book - I read it to him, so he said to me: I know the interpretation of this, I seek the Burabi - and al-Burabi is a book on stones in Egypt from the book of the first two (= hieroglyphic script) - he said: I have been asking for it for thirty years, and I see (= I know) what this Written in the first place, in the first line: “I am God, there is no god but me”, and the second line: “A king of no good”, and the third line: “Sabout,” which is the greatest name of God, and with it the invitations are answered !!
An accurate indicator
after the Arab’s mixing with Islamic culture and his openness to other civilizations maturity of his awareness of himself and his surroundings, and we find in the graffiti activity an important indicator to measure this awareness and its development, in that this spontaneous, transient practice is suitable for being an expression of the self from which the act of writing comes, Writing on the walls does not require a narration of the paper record, nor is it devoted to refining the meanings before recording them, for it is a fleeting expression and a wandering thought, which the writer confirms at the moment of its emergence and then proceeds to an issue.
There is no indication, in our estimation, that would be more accurate in our expression of a culture than the spontaneous practices of those who belong to that culture, especially those with delicate souls among them, according to what was mentioned by the lover (d. 1111 AH / 1699 CE) - in the 'Summation of the Impact' - by the Damascene poet Abu Bakr Ibn Al-Gohary (died after 1030 AH / 1620 CE), explaining the philosophy of the murals and their pivotal importance in the lives of strangers and lovers:
If the stranger remembers his family ** his tears overflow from the eyes to
play love with his heart, so tomorrow on the walls he complains about the many longings
God has invested one of the most important bloggers of Arab culture to take care of this phenomenon, especially its part specialized in the frescoes of poetry of strangers.
The historian of Arab literature, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 356 AH / 967 CE), came to monitor for us the previous abuse of Muslims and what had become of their habit of practicing it, so he devoted a book in which he followed this phenomenon and called it 'the literature of strangers'.
In this Isfahani book;
Al-Isfahani tells us how he found - in his pursuit of this phenomenon - amusing him about his worries and sorrows due to "the change of the situation from amplitude to distress, increase to decrease, and height to decline."
He treated himself by following the literature of strangers who complained about their concerns to the walls, and wrote on their pages their suffering from the vicissitudes of time.
In this, Al-Isfahani says: “I collected in this book what happened to me, knew it, heard it and saw it .. from the news of someone who said poetry in estrangement and uttered his distress, and announced his complaint .. So he wrote what was found on the walls, and revealed his secret in a bar and an orchard, as it was This has become the habit of strangers in every country and destination, and it is a sign between them in every record and scene, so I see the situation calling for their problems, and the timidity of time leads to their smiling!
Al-Isfahani, then, observes a situation that has become "the habit of strangers in every country," and a ritual of cultural rituals and free emotional interaction that strangers made him "a mark between them in every record and scene."
Al-Isfahani reminds us that this ritual has become a popular culture at the very beginning of the Islamic civilization, known to them as both the private and public.
Even the Caliph Al-Ma'mun said to one of his entourage when he entered a church in the country of Rum: “It is the business of strangers in travel and whoever leaves the house from his brothers and companions, if he enters a mentioned place and a famous scene, to make himself an impact on it, blessing him with the supplication of strangers and people of intersection and tourism, and I liked that Insert in the sentence, then please (= bring) me a tool ";
Then he wrote verses on the church wall!
It is also reported that Abu Jaafar al-Mansur (d.158 AH / 776 CE) entered the Abdawiyyah Palace in Baghdad during his last days, after he led the armies and his sophistication of experiences and practiced rule and made him politics.
He said to his companion: "Give me charcoal." The companion said: "So I gave him, and wrote this poetry on the wall." These verses by Lapid bin Rabia (d. 41 AH / 662 AD) summarize his longing for eternity and the nature of days.
Including: a
person hopes to live ** and a long life that may harm him,
killing his screen and ** after the sweet life is bitter
Pulse scale
tells Abu Hassan Ali bin Yahya mine (d 275 AH / 888 AD) that his father was
accompanied by
Caliph confident (d 232 AH / 847 AD) in the
mystery of the
saw (= Samarra) and
is looking at his palaces from the
house to drink and Almnadmh, got a
palace of
them Well named ' Al-Mukhtar ', and there were beautiful pictures and drawings in it, and in it the picture of “Shahar Al-Baya’a” (Al-Shahar: He who arranges the night prayers in the churches), and he brought the mourners and the singers, “When [al-Wathiq] got high in drinking, he took a nice knife and wrote an inscription on the wall of the house:
What we have seen The joy of the 'Mukhtar' ** No, nor is it like the picture of "Al-Shahhar",
there is no defect except that ** What is in it will be consumed by the deceased.
Then the astrologer passed years later in that position and saw the remnants of that palace with a period of ruin, and on one of the walls it is written:
These are the homes of kings who have managed for a time ** He commanded the country, and they were the masters of the Arabs,
time disobeyed them after his obedience ** So look at his act of deception!
(Al-Jawsouk: one of the palaces of the Abbasids in Samarra) This
writing was an expression of the pulse of the street who is aware of the moment of the rise of those ruling families, and then of the disruption and disruption of the pride of their authority due to the conflicts of the throne and the armies.
Among those writings that reflected the pulse of the street and its mood towards the royal families and its awareness of the deceit of time and the fluctuation of its cycles, what Yahya bin Khaled
Al-Baramaki
(
d.190
AH / 806 AD) read on one of the walls of his palace as if his writer was predicting our position about the tragic fate of the Baramkeh family:
Yes, the Baramak family ** and see it is finished
And watch for eternity, that ** its intuitions turn on you
Among these writings is also what Al-Isfahani told - in 'Literature of the Strangers' - saying: “A friend of mine told me, he said: I read about the palace built by Moez al-Dawla (al-Buwayhi d. 356 AH / 967 CE) in al-Shamsiyyah (= an area that used to be in Baghdad) of the following written by Nahr al-Mahdi: So-and-so bin So-and-so Al-Harawi says: I came to this place ... the tablecloth of Moez the State and the world to come. The prestige of the King was included on it, then I returned to it in the year sixty-two (362 AH / 973 AD), and I saw what the lord expresses, and the author contemplates it!
Here, we note that the writer prefers to hide his name in these writings for fear of his political identity.
However, our ancestors used graffiti to show how harmonious the relationship between the people and statesmen is, and not only to preach the fates of the sultans and their close relatives whom the fluctuations of power have always led to tragic ends.
Imam Ibn Asaker (d. 571 AH / 1175 CE) records for us - in the 'History of Damascus' - the content of a protest mural expressing the distress of those ruled by the grievances of the rulers who do not care about the people's interests. He said that “some people of literature mention that [the Abbasid minister] Al-Fadl bin Marwan (d. 250 AH / 864 AD) he went out one day and saw written on the wall of his home:
You branched out, O Fadl bin Marwan, so consider ** So, before you, credit, virtue, and virtue were
three kingdoms blazing for their path ** Abuse, confusion, and murder destroyed them, and that
you had become in people a game of one or
three things **
The writer was referring to this by Ibn Marwan's predecessors among the Abbasid ministers, namely: Al-Fadl bin Yahya Al-Baramaki (d. 192 AH / 808 AD), Minister of Harun Al-Rashid (d. 193 AH / 809 AD), and Al-Fadl bin al-Rabi ’(d.208 AH / 823 CE), Minister of Al-Amin Ibn al-Rashid (d. 198 AH / 814 CE), and Al-Fadl bin Sahl Al-Sarakhsi (d.202 AH / 817 CE), minister of his safe brother.
Al-Fadl bin Marawan was a minister to their brother, Caliph Al-Mu'tasim (d.272 AH / 842 CE).
The authority did not hesitate to use murals as a means to spread its political and sectarian propaganda among the people.
According to the historian Abu Shama al-Maqdisi (d.665 AH / 1267 CE) - in the “Kitab al-Rawdatayn” - when the Fatimids fought a battle to prove their affiliation with the Ahl al-Bayt, they spread propaganda by this among the people, using all means and paths, so that “they were ordering the preachers to do so on the pulpits and writing it on the walls Mosques and others ", in the face of the campaign denying their Abbasid opponents this affiliation, which the two parties see as political legitimacy that is covered with religious dress.
Free dialogues,
and writing on the wall may include a free dialogue between people who do not know each other about anything, but who are united by free reflections on topics of human feeling.
And in that, Al-Isfahani mentions that he read in one of the books that Abdullah bin Jaafar (d. 80 AH / 700 CE) went out for a walk, and the narrator caught him and said under a tree. When he wanted to leave, he wrote on the tree:
Does the lover die from the pain of love ** Does the loving meet benefit?
When he returned to the place after his hike, he found it written under his house: The
lover who loves to live has nothing but the sight of the beloved as a medicine!
On his way to Khorasan, Caliph Harun al-Rashid passed by a rock on which it was written:
How long am I on my
way and on the road
** and the length of my endeavor and the willingness to come
and the house is displaced, I do not
mind estranging
** from the beloved, I do not know what my situation is
. Not the abundance of money
and it seems that the writer of it is someone who spent his life traveling and traveling in order to seek sustenance, then came to a late conclusion that the wealth was in restraint and contentment not in the abundance of money, so he wanted to write a summary of his experience for passers-by!
It appears from Al-Isfahani's book that these writings were abundant in tourist attractions, as its visitors tend to immortalize their names on its walls because they know the abundance of those who came to it.
He told about a man from the people of the Levant that he visited the lighthouse of Alexandria, and he said: I entered it “to see the wondrous construction of it and what I hear of its characteristics, so I passed by a place at the top of which there are lines of strangers and passers-by, old and new.” And if in the inter alia a place written in clear ink: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Samad says I arrived For this place in the year of seventy and two hundred (270 AH / 883AD), I arrived after a swindling and misfortune and an encounter, unless I thought I had been cast! And I did not like to leave him until after I had an effect on him ... !!
And the same is what Abu Muhammad Hamzah al-Shami told him from among the men of the fourth / tenth century CE.
He said: “I passed through the Church of Edessa (= the city of 'Urfa' in Turkey today) when I was walking to Iraq, so I entered it to see what I was hearing about it, so I was in my parade when I saw on one of its corners it was written in red: So-and-so bin so-and-so came and he says: From Iqbal, Insight, if it is led by adversity, the interruption of life, the presence of death, and the most severe suffering that extends to life under management!
On the occasion of the mention of tourist places;
We notice that the travelers not only wrote on the monuments, but wrote even on the walls of the hotels they were staying, and it seems to us that Abu Al-Faraj was not only a collector of this news, but a practitioner of this writing activity that seems to have spread in his time, so we find him telling that he He visited Basra and there was no one in it that he knew, so he could feel it. Then he said: “He wrote these verses on the wall of the house I used to live in” when leaving the city;
Including:
Praise be to God for what I see ** From my
wasteland
between this
state, the age made me into a state ** in which the guest was executed in my villages
, the market became my food ** and the bread of the house became the bread of evil (A)
after I had a pleasant house ** I lived a house From the houses of the villages (ء)
The Isfahani book also reveals to us that Muslim travelers adopted a tradition similar to "travel blogs" or what is called today "travel blogs" in their travels, in which travelers write about their travels and those who love travel read them to see the summaries of the experiences of these travelers.
Al-Isfahani tells us that he found on the wall of the Great Mosque in a city called Mutut (located in Iran today) written: “Al-Mu`amil ibn Ja`far al-Bandaniji (d. After 327 AH / 939 CE) attended the month of Ramadan in the year of twenty-seven and three hundred, and he said: We used to hear scholars say that it has happened. Loved ones in the homelands are estranged, so how if alienation meets and the loved ones are lost, and the whole matter is that what I knew from the state of the world is that it does not fulfill its joy by its comfort (= its sadness), so I said:
O who over the world attracts ** and on its adornments
he makes angry with its owner ** Do not ask for its owner **
I experienced her speech ** Dude, from the length of experiences!
And if it is written under it other than that line: You
have believed and I have the news ** I will warn her from riding the danger and
carry myself in a state ** It is either benefit or harm !!
Warning letters and
because the writer of the last two homes gives him a spirit of optimism and enthusiasm, we find that some of them indicate a negative interaction covered in a terrible darkness.
And from it what a man saw in Dhofar (today it is located in Oman) in the old-built Khirb Palace, and on his door is written in ink: “Ali bin Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Tabarasi (d. After 314 AH / 929 CE) attended this position in the year fourteen and three hundred and he says: He speaks to the
sermons if they happen to them. She knocked ** and be patient, for her people have been patient
and every distress will come after it ** and every imminent passing after it is the nail
and below it is written without that ink and calligraphy: “Al-Qasim bin Zar'ah Al-Karaji (d. After 323 AH / 935 AD) attended in the year twenty-three hundred and read the verses and he He says: If everyone is patient, then the nail will have patience, but we find patience in a hurry that destroys life, and it would not be more appropriate for the mind to die as a child, and peace!
Also, some graffiti is a key to anticipating the endings of some of them, as Al-Isfahani narrates on the authority of Abu Muhammad bin Al-Qasim (d. After 300 AH / 912 AD), “He recited in some of his travels on a rock:
and all the countries are the country of the boy ** and there is no lineage to him.
” He said: I said: No The owner of this house dies to a stranger! "
Some of the traveler's writings may represent warning messages to those arriving, informing them that this land is not a safe or unsuitable land for Arab settlement, and from this is a wonderful story that Isfahani narrates on the authority of Abu Al-Hussein Ibn Al-Shalamghani (d. After 300 AH / 912 AD) on the authority of a nomadic sheikh from among the leaders of Basra who was "one of those who went into the country. And he cut off his life while traveling. ”He said:“ I rode in the sea some years ago, and the walk led us to a place that we do not know and the boat does not know (= the sailor) .. And we cast the water to an island where people are in the image of people except that they speak words that cannot be understood, and they eat Of food that is not tempted by people.
Then Sheikh Al-Basri concludes his story by saying: “So, I went around that city as I saw Arabic writing on its door, and I looked at it and found it:“ In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, in the name of God, the Creator of creation and the owner of sustenance, what my story liked and the greatest of my ordeal, the sermons led me and intended me until I reached This majestic position, and if there was a goal for me, which is Isaac from this place, he would inform me of it, and he would not convince me except with it .. So I worked hard on the question about the man and his condition, and it was not understood about me, nor did I understand about any of them (= the people of the island).
And we took off that night ... and went to the country of Yemen! "
Some of them also use graffiti as a way to record a death certificate that may reach its family even after a while;
A man on a rock in Cyprus read a written saying: “So-and-so bin so-and-so al-Baghdadi: I was thrown to this place by time:
Is there a hostile towards Baghdad, and he will recover ** Exciting and enjoy the visit of a visitor?
To God I complain not to the people that ** to reveal what he has thrown from the fear is able !
Writing is not only the prerogative of the people of the journey, but it may also help us in knowing the concerns of the working and toiling classes, and their perception of the philosophy of livelihood.
In this, Al-Isfahani narrates on the authority of a sheikh from the people of Kufa, these two houses, which were as though they were an industrious worker who worked on a daily basis.
He said: “I read on the corner of the dome of Abu Musa (Al-Ash’ari d. 44 AH / 665 AD) that we have: It is
not a wish for livelihood **, but throw buckets in buckets that bring them to
fill in a round and phase ** you bring sludge and a little water!"
The distress of alienation
and the travelers seeking a livelihood are closely related to the graffiti;
A man passed by the town of Khorashanah, which is located today in southern Turkey, and found a man from its people who was fluent in Arabic, so he told him the story of an Iraqi young man who said about him: “Good face is clean .. abundant in literature, and he did not leave me, so he stayed in our country for years and then got sick, so I cured him (= treat him from his illness) ) .., and soon he died and I buried him in that dome .. on [one side] the kiss of Islam, and in his illness he wrote on the wall of the house in which he was, and he recommended that it be written on his grave .. So if it was written on the wall: I
abused the length of the walk In seeking wealth ** and the uncertainty of time caught me up, as you see, if I
wish my hair was on behalf of my brothers. Did they cry ** for my loss, or did they have any knowledge ?!
And the poet Ali Bin Al-Jahm (d. 249 AH / 863 AD) wrote on a wall before his death, and it seems that he regretted his estrangement from his family in seeking sustenance, so he did not obtain livelihood nor did he win near those he loved:
Oh mercy for the stranger in the old country ** He forgot what by himself does
a difference His loved ones did not benefit ** by living after him and they did not benefit
Among the strange news that the walls kept for us about the sufferings of expatriates in seeking livelihood is what Al-Isfahani narrated on the authority of Abu Al-Faraj Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Naqid - who is one of the men of the fourth / tenth century AD - on the authority of his uncle that he visited Nishapur, and he found in one of its mosques an Iraqi young man, in which it was revealed: Misery and alienation, "so he made the boy ask him about Baghdad a question of an expert in it and the critic answered him. When the boy’s questions were over, the critic asked him about the reason for his coming to Nishapur, and he said:“ Serious misery and a lack of luck. ”So the critic offered him some money, and he refused;
He said: “He offered me a job, so I got up and left it in the place. When I returned .. I did not find it, and I found it written on the wall:
If the soul died of starvation and affliction ** I would not have complained about the one who met someone
, I wish I knew what the accidents have made of me ** And the boy ?!
And with the lover who I said goodbye to him, he cried ** and said, “This never happened in my mind !!”
This is an emotional writing that was the daughter of her moment, which came out of this strange boy in the most beautiful and sweetest expression, and in which the sense of art is coupled with the marginalized class and the hard-working in seeking sustenance.
What strikes us is the level of popular culture at that time;
The writings that some fearful people write - while they are in their worst psychological states - do not amaze in it that a precious wisdom or experience is written.
Among this is what Abu al-Qasim the astrologer (d. After 330 AH / 942 CE) said: “I entered - on my way to Saif al-Dawla (d. 356 AH / 967 CE) - Raqqa, and I went to the White Palace .., [F] I saw on the rest of the wall of it it was written: Hadar Abd Allah bin Abdullah - for a sermon I hid myself and blinded my name among the names - in the year three hundred five (305 AH / 917 CE) and he said: Glory be to the one who inspired patience in calamity, and dreamed (= pardon) about the punishment of the people of oppression and fatalism! My brothers I did not humiliate the stranger, even if it was In maintenance, and the heart of paradoxes, the security of betrayal, and worldly matters are wonderful and the ages are close !!
Also, in some writings - which express the free interaction between the two writers - what goes beyond the mere response to the question, or placing the experience beside the experience that resembles it, to a tendency to analyze some of the previous writings and find out the reasons that led the writer to write it.
On the wall of the orchard in Samarkand (located today in Uzbekistan) were found verses with a statement of abnormal tendencies, and below it was a comment of one of them justifying this, saying: “The stranger is happy in saying and deed in order to remove surveillance and protect him in his lapses from reproach!”
We conclude this stage with a news reported by Al-Isfahani, in which we find the interaction of the owners of the second stage with their counterparts in the first stage, and some Arabs' knowledge of the Thamudic inscriptions and their understanding of it.
Al-Isfahani says: “On a mountain on the outskirts of Diyar Thamud, there was an inscription engraved in the rock, its interpretation: O son of Adam, what wronged you for yourself, do you not see the traces of the first and be considered, and the consequences of the admonished, then you will be bored (= deterred)! Underneath it in Arabic script: Yes, this should be!” !
Underlying hegemony
after we finished reviewing the stage of maturity and spread of graffiti, and its evidence for the development of the Arab's awareness of himself and his surroundings through Al-Isfahani's monitoring of bloggers' news on the walls;
We conclude to the third stage in which the Arab self established the domination of its culture over the world, and it began to be evident in the writings of some travelers on the walls in the metropolitan areas of the world that their journeys ended up with.
We do not find a better example to embody this saying than to review the experience of the journey of Abu Al-Hasan Ali bin Abi Bakr Al-Harawi (d.611 AH / 1214 AD), who roamed the world and "almost applied the earth in circulation."
It was also described by Judge Judge historian Ibn Khallakan (d.681 AH / 1282 CE) as part of his translation in 'Death of notables'.
Ibn Khallikan reminds us of this Muslim traveler’s penchant for exploring horizons and writing on walls. He says that he “did not leave land, sea, plain, or mountain from places that could be visited and seen without seeing him, and he did not reach a place except for writing his handwriting on his wall. I have seen that in the country. Which I saw with many. "
Al-Hafiz al-Mundhri (d.656 AH / 1258 CE) - in “The Complementation to the Fatalities of the Transition” - stated that Al-Harawi “was writing on the walls, and rarely was a famous place - from a city or other - without his line in it, until some of the leaders of the marine invaders mentioned that they entered the sea. Al-Maleh to a place in Barra they found a wall with his line on it !!
Al-Imam al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1348 CE) translated for him - in “The Biography of the Nobles' Notables” - and said that he is "the virtuous ascetic, the wandering Sheikh ... who circumambulated Ghalib al-Maamour and said that you would find a notable place without having his name written on it !!" !!
What interests us from the heritage of this great traveler is his mural entries that he left in the world's capitals and cities, and the sights and shrines of the horizons.
He used to read the civilizations of nations without increasing his greatness and deceived him about his culture. Rather, he established in himself the supremacy of the civilization to which he belonged over those civilizations, and he only found in them a validation of what the great Qur’an called for regarding the history of previous nations.
One of this is what the traveler Al-Harawi tells us - in his extensive book 'The Signs to Knowing Shrines' (= Shrines) - that he visited Egypt and described the pyramids and went to Luxor, and he mentioned descriptions of a number of their idols and palaces, and wrote on the chest of a giant idol there: “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. ; {Do they not travel through the earth and
see what was the
end of
those before them were most of
them power and raised the
land and Amrha more than Amrha and their messengers came to
them with
clear proofs ,
what was God to oppress them, but they wronged themselves}. "
Then he dated his writing and wrote under it these two verses of al-Mutanabi (d. 354 AH / 965 CE):
Where are the mighty men of the first Crusader ** They acquired treasures, so what remained and did not remain?
From everyone who has narrowed the space with his army ** until the content of its content is narrow!
May God have mercy on him and consider it !!
Among his miracles is that he wrote prophesying the conquest of Jerusalem and Ashkelon on the wall of Mashhad Abraham ﷺ, before the Muslims won them.
Al-Harawi said: “I entered the city of Ashkelon in the year of seventy and five hundred (570 AH / 1174AD) and settled in the scene of Abraham and I saw in that place the Messenger of God in a dream while he was among a group, so I greeted him and kissed his hand and said: O Messenger of God, this gap would not be better if it were for Islam. : It will become Islam and remain a lesson for the people. So I woke up and wrote a picture of what I saw on the wall of the scene from its tribal side, and it was dated by the conquest of Jerusalem and Ashkelon in the year eighty-three hundred (583 AH / 1187 AD), and this line was witnessed by a number of merchants and soldiers.
Moreover, Aba Al-Hassan documented for us what he saw from the graves of the Companions and Followers who saw scenes of their graves in the East and the West. He says: “I saw on the island of Cyprus (= Cyprus) written on a stone after the Basmalah and Surat Al-Ikhlas:« This is the tomb of Urwa bin Thabit, he died in a month Ramadan in the year twenty-nine of the Hijra (29 AH / 651 CE) », and this stone is built in the wall of the Eastern Church, and it contains the tomb of Umm Haram, the daughter of Melhan (d. 27 AH / 649 CE), the sister of Umm Suleim (d. About 40 AH / 661 CE), may God be pleased with them; and God knows best. !
Then Al-Harawi mentioned that he visited Balat / Balad city affiliated with Mosul, saying that “it is the shrine of Umar bin Al-Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Talib (d. After 61 AH / 682 AD), and I read on the stone that appeared in this place what is his image: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. This is a shrine. Umar bin Al-Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Talib, may God be pleased with them, who was a prisoner in the year sixty-one. Ibrahim bin al-Qasim al-Madani (died after 103 AH / 722 CE) volunteered in his building in Safar in the year three hundred, and imprisoned him (= hotel) cotton from the ancient market in tiles. .
A wide influence, and it
seems to us that Al-Harawi was not satisfied with what he wrote in his life in the shrines of the capitals of the world. Rather, he wanted his tomb witness to tell the story of his passion for "graffiti", so he recommended that aspects of the building of his tomb be covered with weeping graffiti, whose texts were transmitted to us by the historian Kamil al-Ghazi al-Halabi (d.1351 AH / 1931 AD) in 'The Gold River in the History of Aleppo';
One of them says: “This is the soil of the only poor, strange slave, Ali bin Abi Bakr Al-Harawi, who lived a stranger and died alone, no friend he would inherit, no boyfriend weeping, no family visiting him, no brothers intending to him, and no boy seeking him or a wife mourning him, forget God, his loneliness and the mercy of his alienation! : I walked the wasteland, circumambulated the homeland, rode the seas and saw the ruins, and traveled the country and fell together with the people, and I did not see a friend or companion who agreed. Whoever reads this line is never deceived by anyone !!
Al-Harawi the tourist's style of "graffiti" and the journey created a societal phenomenon that influenced his contemporaries and included walking proverbs and circulating poems.
Ibn al-Sha`ar al-Mawsili (d.654 AH / 1256 CE) translates - in “Qawalat al-Juman” - by Ahmad ibn Rostam al-Nahal al-Mawsili (d. Around 620 AH / 1223 CE) and says that he “used to write on the walls an analogy to Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Harawi the tourist, and he was inclined to dress like Sufis.” .
Al-Dhahabi tells us - in the History of Islam - that Al-Harawi used to set the example with the spread of his graffiti writings, until the Egyptian poet Abu al-Fadl Ibn Shams al-Khilafah (d.622 AH / 1225 CE) said, “In a man begging for papers”: The
papers of his kidda in the house of every boy ** on agreement The meanings and differences of narration
has applied the land from plain to mountain ** as if it were the line of that galloping tourist.
And on the mention of graves;
The Isfahani tells At 'literature Agharbae'- some Asthassanh Asma'i (T 216 AH / 831 AD) of tombstones, including what came in saying: "I read on the
boards that the graves have
not seen Kpatin Astkhrjtahma of the
board, namely: a
resident that God resurrects His creation ** Your encounter does not hope while you are near and
increase the
weariness
, every day and night ** and you forget as you are entertained and you are my beloved!
Just as the "graffiti" was a sign of the path of travelers' movements and crossing places, it may be a testament to the suffering of a prisoner in his cramped prison;
Abu Sa`id al-Gharnati (d. 685 AH / 1286 CE) stated in his book “Al-Mughrib fi al-Maghrib’s Jewelery” that the Andalusian poet Abu Bakr Ibn al-Jinan al-Shatibi (died after 650 AH / 1252 CE) “caused him a trial in which he was imprisoned and tied, so he wrote on the wall with charcoal and was certain of death verses Including:
Do you
not know the hunt from the nation of Al-Saded
** I am walking in the abode of humiliation, chained,
and people have turned to shed my blood ** The merit knows neither their wealth nor generosity!
It seems that "graffiti" has found its way into the practices of all groups of society, even preachers and mystics.
Abu al-Qasim al-Rafi'i al-Qazwini (d. 623 AH / 1225 CE) - in “The codification of the Qazvin news” - translated by the Sufi preacher Abu Bakr al-Isfraiyani (d.596 AH / 1200 CE), and said that he “used to write on the walls where the people would see him and pass by: O son of Adam, died Adam; he means the remembrance of this devastating pleasure (= death) and its remembrance! "
And that also includes what was reported by Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali (d. 1089 AH / 1679 CE) - in 'gold nuggets' - speaking about a type of "graffiti" that was required by Sufi attraction, as he mentioned about the Yemeni Sufi Sufi Shams al-Din Muhammad bin Ali al-Sudi al-Shafi’i (d.932 AH / 1526 CE) ) That he used to organize poetry except in the event of attraction, “so he used to write [his poetry] with charcoal on the walls. If he woke up, he erased what he had written from that, then his readers (= his followers) - after they knew that from him - took the initiative to write what they found on the walls. So they collect him "before he erases it, if he is woken up by his pull !!
The spread of murals in people's lives has also prompted scholars to study them and determine the strength of their significance and legal argument for binding and commitment in people's behavior and the relationships between them.
Thus, we find Shihab al-Din al-Husseini al-Hamwi al-Hanafi (d. 1098 AH / 1688 CE) deciding - in the 'Blink of Eyes of Insights' - that whatever writings were "not decreed (= not documented) such as writing on walls .. is null because it is not known to show the matter (= = Transactions) in this way, so it is not an argument unless something else joins it, such as evidence and testimony.