It seems safe and plausible to comment that writing has countless advantages. In 2013, it is hard to imagine a world without writing and without paper and pens and the like. However, this paper-less society was once reality. Writing greatly influenced many cultures and contributed greatly to civilization as a whole. Islamic civilization in specific benefited from writing. The verses of the Qur’an could finally be written down so that no one would ever forget. But, with most things, writing got “messy” very quickly. In accordance with the song-writers of the 21st century, it also seems plausible to comment that “more writing, more problems.” Writing led to sariqa, or theft, accompanied by the difficulty of writing something “original.” In this way, writing dominated Islamic culture for a long time.
Kilito, author of The Author & His Doubles, discusses the theme of authorship and “forgers” in this series of essays on classical Arabic culture. There are numerous passages that highlight the issue of writing. In the very beginning of Kilito’s work, he recounts the story of the teacher who told him why it is that whenever we mention a book, we mention the author. Kilito does not remember the answer which is extremely interesting. In my eyes, this highlights the sort of transformation to writing. Before, people told stories orally. There was no “author,” but rather the person who was telling the story. No one was concerned about the author. Therefore, no one was concerned with sariqa, or theft. People told the same stories all of the time. But now that these stories and poems were being written down, problems arose when other people took these stories (whereas before, that was normal). Kilito also comments on plagiarism. Today, plagiarism is condemned upon. If I plagiarize my essay, I would face the possible expulsion for the University. Plagiarism today is considered avoidable at all costs. If you use the words of another person, you must give that person credit. However, Kilito states that “No poet can claim immunity from plagiarism.” He goes further to say that every line of a poem contain echoes of another poem but poets borrow ideas and give them a new meaning.
There are specific instances, which Kilito discusses in his work, that illustrate problems caused by writing and repetition. For example, the poets who went to “praise” successive princes using the same words. This caused controversy because these poems became general and not individual to the given prince. The poems simply contained the general qualities of princes, that all of the princes embodied. The odes/poetry used for eulogy were the same deal. There were a set of general things said and these things were not changed. This was a source of criticism. Poems worked in this way because there were some metaphorical ideas such as rain clouds which manifested in many poems by different authors, not unlike today’s music. Another issue which arose with writing dealt with the genres in which authors were known for. Genres in a way were binding, or restricting. It was a way in which people could sniff out forgers. If you were a reputable composer of love poems and then you composed a poem related to death, people who assume that you hadn’t wrote the death poem. The problems with writing were big, but bigger than that was the influence of writing on Islamic culture.
Islamic culture experienced a change with this “issue” of writing. For a long time, it was perfectly acceptable to repeat things. “Were speech not repeated it would vanish.” Qur’an was repeated, the words of the prophet repeated, etc. With writing, repetition was deemed “pointless.” So, there was just a lot that changed within the Islamic culture. People were not used to relying on solely their own work as it was not common.
Interestingly, this notion that there is a relationship between security and written documents later surfaced. The oral tradition seemed to be inferior in the eyes of some now that the tradition of writing had come along. Memory was not something that many were confident in. It was faulty and prone to error. Interestingly enough, Kilito recounts the story of the man who committed so much poetry to memory and was later told to forget every bit of it. It was extremely hard for him to do so. In my opinion, oral tradition and written tradition are simply “different.” No one is superior to the other. With writing arose problems or issues and there were in deed concerns with relying solely upon oral transmission. But, it seems rather safe to conclude this essay by commenting that writing brought many changes to the Islamic civilization.
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