The Arabs, whose territory is located in the center of the civilized world, at all times were able to establish close relations with neighboring states: Ancient Egypt, Babylon, the Hittite country, Palestine, being in contact with them in one capacity or another - both as excellent navigators, and as well-known merchants, and as brave warriors-allies or mercenaries of powerful powers at war with each other. Connections were formed both as a result of military clashes or conquests, and in the course of peaceful relations, not to mention caravan and sea routes. The most important milestones in the history of mankind were imprinted in the historical and cultural development of the Arab world. Coming into contact with almost all the civilizations of the Two Rivers, the culture of the Arabs absorbed from them all the best that was consonant with it. The Arabs not only assimilated the spiritual culture of their developed neighbors themselves, but also carried out a mediating mission and brought the best achievements of the Ancient East to the rest of the world.

Arab traders and navigators, like no one else, possessed a masterful ability to make contact, gained invaluable experience in communicating with people of an alien culture and assimilating their psychology. They served as mediators between different peoples themselves - peaceful and warlike, ruling and subordinate, sedentary and nomadic. The masters of the caravan routes, they were trained by the whole course of history to see and hear everything that was done around them: along with the goods, systems, ideas, concepts got to them and settled in their environment, and the Arabs - as fate would have it - carried them further around the world, distributed them throughout the ecumene.

By the fourth and sixth centuries AD, "the exchange of literary values became particularly noticeable" [Nikitina et al., 1961, p. 7], i.e., precisely at the time of the emergence of "individual authorship in Jahili poetry" [Kudelin, p.53]. High potential accumulated over the centuries by the V-VI centuries. it made itself felt in the form of masterpieces of poetic art. But can anything beautiful suddenly arise out of nothing? Of course, the appearance of these "pearls" of poetry was preceded by a long evolutionary path of development. As is known, the exposure of Arabic poetry to various influences is observed in later periods (the poetry of Renewal - VIII-IX centuries), and the pre-Islamic poetry of Arabia is considered to be "purely Arabic". However, the common heritage, common monuments and traditions of the Semitic peoples inhabiting the Two Rivers could not but affect the system of artistic thinking, the semantics of poetic images, since the world is one, and the people living in it are more or less indirectly connected with each other, and "pure", isolated from each other, cultural samples simply exist it can't. The oldest, the ancient, and the present merged, and a process of synthesis was going on, the birth of a new one from heterogeneous elements - borrowed, drawn from the past, and new ones that had just appeared. It is not without reason that M. B. Piotrovsky called Muslim mythology "secondary in nature", which is a synthesis of elements of its own and borrowed, the Arabs learned to absorb the new and alien long before the birth of Islam. For example, the figure of the sage Lukman, pripi-

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The sayings attributed to him have direct parallels in Ancient Eastern texts, usually grouped around the name of the Babylonian sage Ahikar (Piotrovsky, 1981, p. 151). By manipulating the meaning of the root from which the name Lukman is derived, researchers identify it with the biblical Balaam [Myths of the peoples of the World, vol. 2, 1982, p. 77]. A number of poems and legends are dedicated to this character of Arabic mythology, where he himself and the "life of the seven eagles" given to him were sung. Each of the eagles was born after the death of the previous one. The death of one of them, Lubad, and the feelings of the sage were sung by "ancient" poets [Horovitz, 1992, p. 132-136]. In addition to Lukman, the legendary Bilgis, Adam, Nuh, Daoud, Suleiman and many others who contributed to the "infusion" of the heritage of the Ancient East into Muslim culture can be considered "representatives" of ancient civilizations. Figures such as Al-Khidr, Ilyas, Idris, Isa, Dhu'l-Karnain, Yajuj, and Majuj found in Jahili poetry are part of the unified cultural world of the Ancient East. Along with them, the Islamic world also included some elements of Middle Eastern symbols that have existed in various forms in folklore since ancient times: a ship, a house, a wall, etc.A mysterious character - the embodiment of eternity and the constant renewal of nature - Al-Khidr, for example, was considered one of those people who did not die even the first death. It was contaminated with images of Elijah the prophet, St. George the Victorious and, perhaps, a number of other folklore and mythological characters...

Abd al-Hakim Shawki gives the most interesting facts from the folklore material collected by him over many years, which still exists in a number of Arab countries, in particular in the villages of Upper Egypt, where you can hear a fairly common "blood curse": la 'natu-d-dami or darbatu-d-dami. The origin of this curse, according to Shawki, goes back to the Sumerian myth about the "queen of heaven" - Inana (in the Arabic pagan pantheon, Inana is the goddess Allat), who sent this curse [Shawki Abd al - Hakim, 1980, p.75].

The story of Nuh was known in Arabia for a long time; even in the Sumerian flood myth, the virtuous Ziusudra, who escaped in the ark, receives immortality on the paradise island of Dilmun [Roeder, 1962, p.59], the Babylonian equivalent of Ziusudra is Utnapishtim, the Assyrian - Ubar-Tutu, or Hasisatra. The story of the flood could be heard at the fairs and caravan sites of ancient Arabia. Nuh was perceived as his own hero, lived in Arabia, and his name, as originally Arabic, had three cases in declension, in contrast to borrowed ones - with two case forms, however, like Ibrahim, whose name is recorded in Arabic genealogies and North Arabian inscriptions as "Barkhum", or "Abraha" [Piotrovsky, 1981, p. 180]. Barkhum was nicknamed Khalil Allah - which was widespread in the Arabian community and is even found in verses attributed to the Jew Samav'alu (VI century) and the Meccan Christian Varaka ibn Nawfal [ibid., p. 86]. Musa and the death of the Pharaoh in the Red Sea are mentioned by the same Arab poet, the Jew Samav'al [ibid., p. 62], and in Muhammad Umayyah ibn Abi-s-Salta we find an allusion to the story of Musa. This story itself reflects a tradition that is independent of the Qur'anic tradition. B. Piotrovsky, as "another fragment attributed to Umayyya of the death of the Pharaoh in the waters of the Red Sea does not quite coincide with the Koranic message," the scientist emphasizes [ibid., p. 182]. The same can be said about the poetic treatment of stories about Nuh, where there are often details that are not found in the Koran, which indicates the ancient connections of the Arabs with the neighboring civilizations around them. Pre-Islamic poet of the sixth century 'Adi ibn Zayd mentions an ark called zat al-wad'a -" overgrown with sea shells " ('Adi ibn Zayd al -' Ibadi, 1965, p. 53, 122). As a long-lived Nuh mentioned by the poet of the VI century. The history of Nuh is described by the poet al-Kutami (late 7th - early 8th centuries), as well as the poets al-A'shah (6th century) [Piotrovsky, p. 176], Umayyah ibn Abi-s-Salta [Al-Haisi Bahjat, 1975, p. 155-160] and many others. The image of Noah's wife goes back to Mesopotamian origins. Echoes of ancient Mesopotamian ideas contains a description of the material from which Adam was created - "sounding clay" [Piotrovsky, 1981,

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p. 26]. 'Adi ibn Zayd mentions Adam and his wife in one of his qasids ['Adi ibn Zayd al -' Ibadi, 1965, pp. 158-160]. The theme of "chain mail" in the Arabic tradition dating back to Daoud is found in Amr ibn Ma'dikarib (Al-Anbari, 1969, p. 415) and Abu Dhu'ayb (As-Sa'alibi Simar al-kulub, 1965, p.56). The most Arabian image can be considered jinn-spirits that densely inhabit the world of ancient Arabs, inspiring poets and kahkhins (soothsayers). Unlike the angels of heaven, they live close to humans on earth. Jinns serving the great Suleiman are a favorite theme of ancient Arabian tales. I will quote the lines of An Nabiga al-Zubyani:

22 Except for Suleiman, to whom the LORD said
, " Rise up, fight, and put an end to it."
23 If you do not restrain the jinn, let them
Build a Tadmor with stone slabs and columns

[Sharkh-al-gasaid ' ashr-Khatib Tabrizi, 1964, p. 40].

The jinn host consists of supernatural beings created from fire and smoke and capable of assuming any form. Among them, various categories are distinguished (Gul, kurtub, ' Ifrit, si'lat, etc.). Some of them, according to legend, obeyed Suleiman and did good deeds on his orders, as discussed in the above lines of the ancient poet. After Suleiman's death, those who believed in the Prophet's word even helped spread Islam, and those who disbelieved returned to the Devil's fold. One of the latter is described in the lines of Ta'abbat Sharran (VI century).:

"... and finally I saw
bulging eyes on a hideous head ...
... the skin on the head is like a dog's, and the clothes are made of wool or torn wineskins "

[Al-Isfahani Abu-l-Faraj, 1928-cit. by: Shidfar, 1974, p. 482].

In pre-Islamic poetry, there are often images borrowed not even from close neighbors, but from peoples who are geographically far enough away from them, but who were included in the circle of Arab contacts as a result of various vicissitudes, with which their history was so rich.

The contact of the Arabs, albeit not directly, with the nomadic tribes of the northern Black Sea region, the features of the "animal style" of the ancient Turkic peoples, their constant raids on the borders of the Sassanid Empire and Byzantium could give rise to images of monsters with the head of a wolf or dog, which penetrated pre - Islamic poetry in the form of otherworldly creatures-ghouls or djinn. A fantastic beast from the canine family (it is not always an "evil spirit" in the poetry of the ancients), apparently, some kind of incarnation of the wolf, is not quite typical of the hot, arid deserts of Arabia, unlike the Black Sea steppes and more northern forest-steppes, whose inhabitants were well acquainted with this beast. As is known, the wolf was considered the totem animal of the Turks. The legend of their origin says that the ancestors of the Turks were nursed by a she-wolf. In all variants of the myth of the origin of the Turks, one or another connection is traced with the wolf as the first ancestor.

The Bedouin poet ash-Shanfara (VI century), exiled from his tribe, not only feels close to the wolf family, but also feels a kinship with them, feeling in their environment as in his own family. They - the vagabonds themselves-replace the pariah poet's closest friends, with whom he shares the hardships that have befallen him:

"...I have a family closer to you:
Indefatigable wolf, spotted shorthair (panther)
And a maned stinky (hyena).
They are my family;
...Three friends replaced my loss.,
Who does not repay benefits, in whose proximity there is no delight... "

[Krachkovsky, vol. 2, 1956, p. 240].

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A sincere feeling of closeness to the wolf is found not only in the poems of ash-Shanfara, the " wandering poet "(Arab, sa'lik, or su'luk), but also in another Arab poet, Imru ul-Qais, a man of noble origin:

I told him when he howled, our business
Little use if you don't own wealth,
Like both of us, if we gain something, we lose it...

[Sharkh-al-ghasaid ' ashr-Khatib Tabrizi, 1964, p. 54, 55].

It is possible that such a perception of the wolf, which is found in the poetry of the "ancients", is dictated by foreign motives and the influence of neighbors, especially since the poet was closely acquainted with Byzantium - the heir of the Greek and Roman-Hellenic civilization, which for centuries accumulated cultural layers of various peoples who were ever part of the Roman Empire. The ancient Turkic totem image of the "wolf" could also have leaked out - hence the reverence for it, and the motif of kinship with it. However, the same attitude in Arabic poetry also applies to some other totem animals: the bull - in an-Nabiga al-Zubyani, the eagle - in Abid ibn al-Abras [Azizova, 2007, p. 62-66], the horse, camel, etc. Thus, one of the symbols of the Turks was a double-headed eagle, which symbolized the state structure of the Turkic society, where the power of the khagan and the power of the isha (king) were combined. As the coat of arms of Constantinople, the double-headed eagle was borrowed by the Byzantines after Attila's crushing campaigns against Byzantium [Aliev, 2001, pp. 103-111]. However, we should also not forget that in ancient Arabia, the Arabs worshipped their zoomorphic deities: Nasr the eagle, Nauk the horse, Suva the patroness of lost herds, and others.

The ancient totems of Arabia were equally revered by the inhabitants of neighboring territories, for example, the ancient Egyptians, with whom the Arabs had close trade relations, however, as with many other peoples. It is impossible to say with certainty whether borrowing took place here, or whether it was only the identification of animals worshipped by neighbors with their deities. It is only known that the sacred animals of the contacting peoples were perceived by both sides with due respect. And if we recall that the Greeks, after conquering Egypt, adopted many Egyptian cults, in particular, they were strongly influenced by the cult of Amun-Ra and they began to portray Zeus with ram's horns, then it is likely that the deities of the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, which is closely connected with the ancient world, also enjoyed respect there and, perhaps, they have taken their place in the rich Greek mythology.

Later, they returned to the Arabs - their own totem animal idols, now decorated with mythological details of various peoples - in the form of "giants worshipping a ram", "man-dogs", "monsters with the head of a wolf", Hyperboreans-Issedons and Arimasps (one - eyed hero - "tepegez" among the ancient Turks) and so on, prefiguring the actual Muslim mythology, becoming its forerunner. The role of Ancient Iran, linked by its Zoroastrian elements with the culture of pre-Islamic Arabia, is also interesting in the formation of Muslim mythology.

E. E. Bertels in his work "Paradise Virgins and Houris in Islam" noted the possibility of borrowing the idea of paradise virgins from Zoroastrianism [Bertels, 1965, p. 84], the scientist also saw traces of Zoroastrian influence in the personification of the months in the human image [ibid., p. 104].

In the Arabian Peninsula, there is a type of desert called "harra", formed as a result of tectonic changes in the earth's crust in ancient times. The word "harrun" means "hot, hot", but it is also possible that the name of the area comes from the depths of time, from very distant antiquity and has a common meaning "mountain" associated with the sacred mountain Hara. In Iakut ar-Rumi (1179-1229) it is written about" harrah":: "This is a land that is covered with black stones; if there is a stone hill on it, then it is a rock, and if something protrudes from it, then it is a ridge

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mountains" [Belyaev, 1966, p. 46]. In the Avestan texts that have come down to us, information about the specific "geography" of the countries of the "High Hara" is extremely scarce: there, in the " kingdom of bliss of Tura, people, heroes, detached from anger, stay." The cosmology of Ancient Iran is reflected in the lines of Imru ul-Qais, where the sacred mountains are mentioned - the abode of mythical images.

"It blocked the mountains where the sun rises,
The Way of Yajuju and Majuju"

[Imru ul-Qais, 1957, p. 158].

A pre-Islamic poet speaks of Yajuja and Majuja living beyond the mountains that block the path of the sun. What kind of mountains does the poet have in mind? Not the peaks of the ancient Iranian high Khara, or perhaps the great Ripei, information about which reached the Greeks from the Scythian world. The ancient Iranians believed that these mountains were located in the north and stretched from East to West, far beyond all the seven parts of the world into which, according to tradition, the inhabited earth was divided; the highest mountains of Hara brought evil and destruction to all living things. "The huge Saena bird soars over the high mountains and covers them like a cloud, "the Avesta says. In Arabic legends, the Saena bird turned into a magical Rukh bird that lives on the top of Kaf [Delilah wa-z-Zibak, 1950, p. 73] (compare with the mountain of the 'Anki bird).

So, the Arabs, who live in close proximity to the territories of development of the most ancient civilizations and from time immemorial had close ties with them, could not help but perceive their cultural heritage to one degree or another.

The influence of various layers of foreign cultures on Arabic poetry was heterogeneous and strongly varied in different parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

Even in the earliest samples of poetry, "multilayering" in the minds of its authors is revealed. In the work of some of them, foreign elements seep in, traces of the influence of more developed neighbors, leading to a deep archaic. In the myth-making representations that feed individual images, one can guess the "animal style", perhaps, of the Scythian world, which could have been borrowed in various ways, in particular, through the plots of Hellenic mythology, where it penetrated for centuries.

Everything borrowed is sometimes reflected in the most unexpected and bizarre way in the artistic thinking of a Bedouin Arab. A resident of Arabia takes in from the foreign "drawing" only what corresponds to his own worldview and aesthetic taste. This is probably why Jahili poetry looks like a song, as a rule, improvised, flowing "freely and uninhibited" (Koran, 28; 6), and it is rightly considered to be the beginning of a difficult path to the later syncretic Arab-Muslim culture of many peoples, heirs of various cultural layers of ancient civilizations.

list of literature

'Adi ibn Zayd al -' Ibadi. Тахкик Мухаммад ал-Му'айбид. Baghdad, 1965 (in Arabic).

Abd al-Hakim Shawki. Al-hikayyah ash-sha'biyyah al-arabiyyah. Beirut, 1980 (in Arabic).

Abu-l-Faraj al-Isfahani. Kitabul-aghani, vol. 5. Cairo, 1928 (in Arabic).

Azizova F. A. Ancient Turkish elements and trends in Jakhshi Arabic poetry. Baku, 2007.

Al-Anbari. Sharh al-qasa'id al-saba'at-tiwal al-jahiliyat. Tahkiq ' Abd al-Sapam Harun. Cairo, 1969 (in Arabic).

Aliev K. Writers of antiquity about Azerbaijan. St. Petersburg-Baku, 2001.

Al-Hadithi Bahjat. Umayyah ibn Abi-s-Salt: hayatuhu wa shi ruhu. Baghdad, 1975 (in Arabic).

Ас-Са'алиби Симар ал-кулуб. Tahkiq Muhammad Ibrahim. Cairo, 1965 (in Arabic).

Belyaev E. A. Arabs, Islam and the Arab Caliphate in the Early Middle Ages. Moscow, 1966.

Bertels E. E. Sufizm i sufiyskaya literatura [Sufism and Sufi literature]. Moscow, 1965. Delilah wa-z-Zibak. Damascus, 1950 (in Arabic).

Imru ul-Qais. Sofa. Beirut, 1957 (in Arabic).

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Krachkovsky I. Y. Ash-Shanfara. Song of the Desert / / Selected Works, vol. 2. Moscow-L., 1956.

Krachkovsky I. Y. Poeziya po opredeleniem arabnykh kritikov [Poetry by the definition of Arab Critics]. Selected Works, vol. 2, Moscow-Leningrad, 1956.

Kudelin A. B. Srednevekovaya arabyskaya poetika [Medieval Arabic Poetics], Moscow, 1983.

Nikitina V. B., Paevskaya E. V., Pozdneeva L. D., Greder D. G. Literature of the Ancient East, Moscow, 1962.
Piotrovsky M. B. Koranic Tales, Moscow, 1981.
Piotrovsky M. B. Lukman / / Myths of the peoples of the world, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1982.

Raeder D. G. Pamyatniki sumerskoy pis'mosti [Monuments of Sumerian writing]. Literatura Drevnogo Vostoka [Literature of the Ancient East], Moscow, 1962.

Sharkh-ach-gasaid ' ashr-Khatib of Tabriz. Cairo, 1964 (in Arabic).

Shidfar B. Ya. Figurative system of Arabic classical literature (VI-XII centuries). Moscow, 1974.

Horovitz J. Koranische Untersuchungen. B.-Lp 2., 1926.

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