What others said about Arabic Via a reliable witness
On the art of rhetoric (badīʿ):
“World literature has known three great edifices of rhetoric (badīʿ), all original and all deserving to be called classical for the influence each had in its own sphere. The first is the Greek… the second is Indian rhetoric… and the third is the Arabic, which became common to all the peoples of the Near East with the spread of Arab-Islamic civilisation; its direct influence covers the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani and Afghan literatures, and others.”
Ignaty Krachkovsky
1883–1951
Dean of Russian Arabists, member of the Academy of Sciences and corresponding member of the Arab Academy of Damascus.
In Arabic
عُرفت في الأدب العالميّ ثلاثةُ صروحٍ كبيرةٍ من البديع، جميعُها أصيل، وجميعُها يستحقّ أن يُسمّى بالكلاسيكيّ، لِما كان له من تأثيرٍ في دائرته الخاصّة. الصرحُ الأوّل هو اليونانيّ… والصرحُ الثاني هو البديعُ الهنديّ… والصرحُ الثالث هو العربيّ الذي أصبح عامّاً لجميع شعوب الشرق الأدنى بانتشار الحضارة العربيّة الإسلاميّة، فنفوذُه المباشر يشمل الآدابَ الفارسيّة والتركيّة والهندستانيّة والأفغانيّة وغيرها.
Source
Studies in the History of Arabic Literature, Arabic tr. from the Russian supervised by Kulthum ʿAwda, Moscow: Nauka, 1965, p. 33–34
The English is ours, from the reported Arabic.
The print has a misprint (aṣbaʿ for aṣbaḥa), corrected here. From the Arabic translation supervised by Kulthum ʿAwda; the English is ours.
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