IBN SHUHAYD AND HIS RISĀLAT
AL-TAWĀBIʿ WAʾL-ZAWĀBIʿ
Ibn Shuhayd’s (d.
1035) Risālat al-tawābiʿ has
been preserved in fragments in Ibn Bassām’s al-Dhakhīra. The early eleventh century was a period of great
experimentation in narrative prose. Just a few decades before Ibn Shuhayd wrote
his work, al-Hamadhānī had written his maqāmas on the other side of the Islamic world. The Risālat al-tawābiʿ comes
into the margin of maqāma literature.
The original structure of the treatise is reconstructable to a certain extent, especially with the help of al-Thaʿālibī’s
Yatīmat al-dahr, which has been neglected
in earlier studies. In his work, Ibn Shuhayd quotes not only from his own
poetry but also from his rasāʾil.
One of these quotations shows how Ibn Shuhayd himself has revised his original Risālat al-ḥalwāʾ
and modified it to fit it into the new context of the Tawābiʿ.
Ibn Shuhayd’s Risālat
al-tawābiʿ waʾl-zawābiʿ (in the following: Tawābiʿ)
has received considerable scholarly attention, mainly because of its connections with the works describing celestial and
otherworldly voyages and especially the Divina Commedia of Dante[1] and the Risālat al-ghufrān of al-Maʿarrī. The work is
preserved in fragments in Ibn Bassām’s (d. 1147) anthology of Andalusian
literature al-Dhakhīra fī maḥāsin
ahl al-Jazīra (in the following: Dhakhīra)
I:245–78, 283–301. It has been edited from these fragments by
al-Bustānī and translated into English[2] by Monroe (1971), who provides a
lengthy introduction to the work.[3]
[66] The
questions of the genetic links between these works are of unquestionable
importance, but it seems that the study of the Tawābiʿ per se
has been slightly neglected.[4] The
aim of this paper is to shed some new light on the structure of the work and on
how Ibn Shuhayd wrote it and to place it in context within eleventh-century
narrative, especially the maqāma
tradition.[5]
The
early eleventh century was a period of vivid experimentation in narrative
prose, and the Tawābiʿ
finds its place within this development. Just a few decades before Ibn Shuhayd
(992–1035)[6]
wrote his work, Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (d. 1008)
had written his maqāmas on the
other side of the Islamic world, and was to find many followers in the next
decades.[7] In
The
exact relations of these works are not always easy to pinpoint, but the three
works which concern us here are the Maqāmas
of al-Hamadhānī, the Risālat
al-ghufrān of al-Maʿarrī and the Tawābiʿ.
The Tawābiʿ and the Risālat al-ghufrān resemble
each other so closely that one has to presuppose a genetic link between the
two. The consensus of scholars seems nowadays to be that it was al-Maʿarrī
who was influenced by Ibn Shuhayd, not the other way around, although Pellat’s
(1969, p. 939a) very early date for Tawābiʿ
has to be rejected.
The
influence of Ibn Shuhayd on al-Maʿarrī is quite possible, since we
know that his prose and verse did arrive in
The
other genetic link which is of importance is that between the slightly earlier maqāmas of al-Hamadhānī
and the Tawābiʿ—if al-Maʿarrī
got his impetus to write the Risālat
al-Ghufrān from Ibn Shuhayd’s work, there is no need to speculate on
his relations with the maqāmas
in the present article.
Al-Hamadhānī’s
work seems to have been crucial for the development of Arabic narrative
literature. All the maqāmas
proper were written under his influence,[11] and many other works either acknowledge
their debt to him openly or reveal it clearly upon analysis.[12] His
work became widely known in the Arabic West very soon after having been
written, so that Ibn Shuhayd must have known him, at least by reputation.
Ibn Shuhayd
mentions al-Hamadhānī in his work and is able to quote a passage by
him on a description of water (I:276/128/79). The passage comes from
al-Hamadhānī’s al-maqāma
al-Maḍīrīya (p. 137),[13] but
it is also found in almost the same form in the anthology of al-Ḥuṣrī
(Zahr al-ādāb, p. 235),
though without being attributed to al-Hamadhānī.
As
Ibn Shuhayd knew the maqāmas,[14] it
is very probable that he was influenced by them. Openly fictitious writing
outside the maqāma genre was [68] rather
infrequent in the early 11th century—though not totally lacking—and
al-Hamadhānī may have provided the main impetus for Ibn Shuhayd to
select a fictitious story as his medium. The main theme of the Tawābiʿ, literary criticism, was also the subject of some maqāmas, both the aesthetic maqāmas[15] of
al-Hamadhānī and those of many later authors, for example, the compatriot of Ibn Shuhayd,
al-Ashtarkuwī al-Saraqusṭī. Naturally
maqāmas were by no means
the only works dealing with literary criticism, which had its heyday in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The setting of
a fictitious journey through the country of the jinn is reminiscent of
the travel theme in the maqāmas.
Similarly, Ibn Shuhayd's use of two main protagonists—the first person narrator
and his jinni guide—resembles the use of a hero and a narrator in the maqāmas, and the comic elements are
similar in both. The Tawābiʿ
differs from the maqāmas mainly
in its moderate use of sajʿ, as
well as the lack of any picaresque hero.
In
its turn, it is probable that the narrative technique of Ibn Shuhayd influenced
the later Spanish maqāma
tradition, most notably the work of the slightly later Abū Ḥafṣ
ʿUmar ibn al-Shahīd, whose maqāma
has been preserved in fragments in the anthology of Ibn Bassām (Dhakhīra I:674–85).[16] The
speaking animals (animal jinnis, that is) in Tawābiʿ I:296–301/147–52/93–96 seem to be missing from
the earlier maqāmas, but they
turn up in the maqāma of Ibn
al-Shahīd. Whether they found their way from Ibn Shuhayd’s work to Spanish
maqāmas (and to al-Maʿarrī,
for that matter) is not certain, but this is
a reasonable guess. Similarly, the scene of Abū Nuwās with the
monks in Tawābiʿ I:258–59/104–105/63–64
links the work of Ibn Shuhayd to the maqāma
of Ibn al-Shahīd, although the scene itself would have been readily
available from any literature in which Abū Nuwās and his carousals
were described.
[69] Ibn
Shuhayd’s Tawābiʿ comes
thus into the margin of maqāma
literature. It may have been influenced by
al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmas,
but the author obviously did not feel
that he was writing within any fixed limits of a new genre.
Al-Hamadhānī had given good ideas—perhaps the whole structure of the Tawābiʿ owes something to
al-Hamadhānī—but the field was quite open, and there were many other
works which may have influenced him: the beggar literature, anecdotes
concerning men in rags with golden mouths, perhaps
even the Ḥāʾik
al-Kalām.[17] Ibn Shuhayd uses the metaphor in Dhakhīra I:268/116/71, but, as the
metaphor is frequent, this does not prove he knew the Weaver of Words anecdote.
The
original structure of the Tawābiʿ
is, of course, partly lost as the work has been preserved only in fragments,
but thanks to Ibn Bassām’s rather faithful
reproduction of his materials, we are able to reconstruct Ibn Shuhayd’s
work to a certain extent, especially with the help of al-Thaʿālibī’s
Yatīmat al-dahr, which
surprisingly has been neglected in earlier studies.
Ibn
Bassām selected four (or five) fragments from the text of the Tawābiʿ: no. 1 = Dhakhīra I:245–48; no. 2 = I:248–78;
no. 3 = I:283–96; no. 4 = I:296–301. Fragment
no. 2 may be divisible into two parts: I:248–75 and I:275–78 (boundary
in I:275, l. 1/127/79).[18]
The
work contained a preface. The first fragment is most easily thus understood, and Ibn Bassām (I:245) in fact identifies it as such, calling his
selection fuṣūl min
risāla and introducing the first
fragment with qāla fī ṣadrihā
(missing from B and M). Ibn Shuhayd himself (I:248/90/53) says that his work (kitāb) is only a selection of all
that happened between him and his familiar spirit Zuhayr ibn Numayr, and that
he gives us only some of these stories (qiṣaṣ)
so that the book would not become too long—yet Ibn Bassām thought it did
become disproportionately long (I:278, missing from B and M).
Briefly
stated, the work describes the travels of Ibn Shuhayd—who uses his kunya Abū ʿĀmir when
speaking of himself as a character[19]—in
the land of the jinnis with his own familiar spirit[20] as
a guide and tells of their encounters with the jinnis there.
[70] The
longest fragment, no. 2 (I:248–78/91–131/54–81)—which obviously is the
beginning of the main text, as the theme of travelling to the land of the
jinnis is presented here for the first time—consists of encounters with these
jinnis. The encounters in this fragment have an invariable structure: the
jinnis recite some of the poetry with which they inspired the ancient poets,
and Ibn Shuhayd impresses them by quoting his own verses, after which he
receives their ijāza, the license
to transmit their poems.
The
theme of ijāza seems to have played a certain role in Ibn Shuhayd’s real
life too. He is on the defensive here, as if he had been accused of not being
able to produce regular ijāzas
for the poetry he quoted. His opponents in the field seem to have criticized
him for not having learnt the craft through respectable channels. The Ṭawābiʿ is imbued with a
certain polemic tone against these opponents (see al-Bustānī 1980
[1951], pp. 28–37, 54–55, 70–71, and
Fragment
no. 2 is very long and seems to represent an uninterrupted segment, although
there might be a break at I:275. In any case the bulk of the fragment is in one
piece, although the possibility of very slight omissions remains. But this is
not very probable, especially in light of the evidence provided by the Yatīma (see below). Thus we may
take the passage, at least until I:275, as one fragment.[22]
[71] Within this fragment, the narration is continuous and the
episodes are carefully linked together so as to create the illusion of
evenly flowing narrative. I:251–52/95–96/57 provides an example of these links:
fa-ṣāḥa ʿAntar
[the familiar spirit of Ṭarafa]: “.
. .” wa-ghāba ʿannā. thumma milnā ʿanhu fa-qāla
lī Zuhayr [Abū ʿĀmir’s familiar spirit]: “ilā man tatūqu nafsuka baʿdu
min al-jāhilīyīn?” qultu: “. . . .” This shows clearly that
the episodes were not independent—as in the maqāmas
of al-Hamadhānī—but that they were melted together to form one
continuous narrative, as was later done in the maqāmas of Ibn al-Shahīd and others.
The
size of the original work is not very easy to estimate. The Jāhilī
poets are discussed only on a few pages: I:252/95/57 explicitly marks the end
of the passage starting in I:248/91/54. There are no obvious fragment boundaries in between, and the passage seems to be
unabbreviated. Similarly, I:267/114/70 marks the end of the passage on
the older poets in general, and Ibn Shuhayd and his jinni head for the orators.
Later there comes a passage (fragment 3) on aesthetic questions and another on
contemporary poets and critics, the most satirical of all (no. 4), but the
twenty pages allotted to all
pre-Islamic and eastern poets together seem to indicate that we still have a
major part of the original work at our disposal and that the Tawābiʿ was thus considerably
shorter than al-Maʿarrī’s Risālat
al-Ghufrān.
In
the longest fragment (no. 2), the theme of travelling is very prominent. At the
beginning of the fragment the two protagonists go to the land of the jinnis (I:248), and subsequently they move on after
each encounter, with careful links in the text containing references to
travelling which tie the episodes together.
The exact nature of fragments no. 3 and no. 4 and their
place within the whole work is more problematic. These fragments start
rather abruptly: no. 3 (I:283/132/82) starts with: qāla Abū ʿĀmir (either part of the text or an
addition by Ibn Bassām): wa-ḥaḍartu
ayḍan ana wa-Zuhayr majlisan min
majālis al-jinn . . . , making no effort to link this with what may
have preceded it. Similarly no. 4 starts (I:296/147/93): qāla Abū ʿĀmir: wa-mashaytu yawman ana wa-Zuhayr bi-arḍ al-jinn ayḍan. . . . They may also have ended without links with the next episode. Thus
I:301/152/96 ends with: fa-nṣarafat
wa-nṣarafnā, which sounds rather final.
Accordingly,
at least this part of the Tawābiʿ—obviously
the latter part, which is implied both by the subject matter (pre-Islamic and
eastern poets must have preceded contemporary and western poets) and by the
general tendency of Ibn Bassām to excerpt from larger works retaining the
order of material in them—seems to have been looser than the first part, and
the episodes seem to have been more independent towards the end of the book. [72] Even in these fragments, though, Ibn Shuhayd is carefully
inserting sentences which stress the continuous character of the narration.
Thus, for example, in I:286/134/84 Ibn Shuhayd
asks Zuhayr concerning a certain jinni: “fa-hallā ʿarraftanī shaʾnahū mundhu ḥīn?”
Ibn
Shuhayd is very careful to maintain the illusion of narrative reality. In
I:269/117/73, Abū ʿĀmir is able to use the kunya of a jinni who has only just been introduced to him, without
his kunya having been mentioned
before. Here Ibn Shuhayd adds, as if in brackets: wa-qad kāna Zuhayr ʿarrafanī bi-kunyatihī, thus
narrowly escaping making his character Abū ʿĀmir an omniscient
narrator.
The
general resemblance of the Tawābiʿ
with the maqāmas has already been
mentioned. There are also specific features which are similar to though not identical with those of the maqāmas. The early recognition scene (I:247/89/52)
between Abū ʿĀmir (Ibn Shuhayd) and the mysterious character who
turns out to be Zuhayr (who knows the narrator although Abū ʿĀmir
does not know him, cf. the anagnorisis in the maqāmas) reminds one of the maqāmas, as does the anagnorisis in the last fragment. In
I:298/149/94 the mule, which had been
speaking to the two protagonists, removes its veil (lithām)[23] and
Abū ʿĀmir, the narrator, exclaims: fa-idhā hiya baghlat Abī ʿĪsā, just like ʿĪsā
ibn Hishām had exclaimed: fa-idhā
huwa. . . .
Ibn
Shuhayd knew al-Hamadhānī. In I:276/127–28/79 he meets the familiar
spirit of al-Hamadhānī, called Zubdat al-Ḥiqab,[24] and
the jinni has to admit the superiority of Ibn Shuhayd. Throughout the work,
indeed, Ibn Shuhayd makes it clear that his prose and his verse are, to say the
least, not inferior to the compositions of the easterners, not to mention those
of his compatriots and contemporaries.[25]
[73] Within
the Tawābiʿ, Ibn Shuhayd
quotes not only from his own poetry but also from his own rasāʾil. One of these quotations, from the risāla on the description of
sweets, ḥalwāʾ (I:270–72/119–22/74–76),
is of special interest. This passage has many parallels with the maqāmas, as was already noted by
al-Bustānī (1980 [1951]), p. 52, and, following him,
This
risāla is very important. It is found with some other risālas in al-Thaʿālibī,
Yatīma II:46–49, and because it
is possible to compare the versions of Ibn Bassām and al-Thaʿālibī
with each other, we can see how Ibn Shuhayd molded his risālas when inserting them into the Tawābiʿ.
In Yatīma II:46–49, al-Thaʿālibī
quotes five risālas[27] on
the description of different objects by Ibn Shuhayd: a flea, a gnat, a fox,
water, and sweets, in that order. Four of
these five are also found in the Dhakhīra
(i.e., the Tawābiʿ), namely, sweets, flea, fox, and water, in that
order (I:270–76/119–28/74–79).
The nearly identical selections and their order is
interesting. The three short risālas
(flea, fox, and water) are also almost identical in wording.[28] We
return to the fourth below.
The possibility of either Ibn Bassām or
al-Thaʿālibī using the other’s
work is naturally excluded: Ibn Bassām wrote a century after al-Thaʿālibī,
and al-Thaʿālibī gives only the short descriptive risālas (and the poems), not the
text of Tawābiʿ itself.
Thus, both offer material taken directly from the works of Ibn Shuhayd himself,
which makes the Yatīma of
special value in evaluating the selection of Ibn Bassām and in studying
Ibn Shuhayd’s technique [74] in compiling the Tawābiʿ from his earlier
materials.
There are some questions which may best be answered when we
study both sources in
comparison. First of all, did al-Thaʿālibī quote from the Tawābiʿ? At first glance, this would seem to be so, but
the question is more complicated. In the Tawābiʿ,
Ibn Shuhayd is quoting himself: definitively not
all of the poetic citations or the descriptions were written for the Tawābiʿ,
nor does Ibn Shuhayd claim they were. The character Abū ʿĀmir is
recalling his, that is, Ibn Shuhayd’s, earlier poetry and prose.
The identical order of the three short risālas in the Yatīma and the Dhakhīra
would suggest that al-Thaʿālibī took them from the Tawābiʿ, but the fourth risāla makes the matter more complicated. (It should also be noted that al-Thaʿālibī does not mention the Tawābiʿ, which, one
would think, would have merited mention if he knew of its existence.)
The
fourth risāla, on sweets, is
intriguing. Al-Thaʿālibī obviously quotes from a recension other
than that used by Ibn Bassām. The differences between the two are considerable, both in wording and in the selection of
material, and they cannot be explained purely as scribal omissions or the
choices of the two anthologists. In the other three risālas al-Thaʿālibī and Ibn Bassām
reproduce their source verbatim, as a comparison of their texts shows.
Al-Thaʿālibī’s
version of the fourth risāla is
a full grown narrative: first the scene is set and the characters are
introduced, then the incident with the sweets is related, and the dispersal of
the company is mentioned. The result is a piece very similar to the maqāmas. Ibn Bassām’s version
concentrates on the descriptions and lacks the introduction.
It
seems clear that it is Ibn Shuhayd himself who has revised his work here, and
that the two texts represent different redactions. Since the author in fact
notes that he is quoting his older works in the Tawābiʿ, and since our analysis of the Yatīma and the Tawābiʿ confirms the existence of two different
redactions, there does not seem to be any reason to doubt this. The text of the
fourth risāla in the Dhakhīra (i.e., the Tawābiʿ), we may conclude, is
a later redaction of an earlier risāla.[29]
Ibn Bassām’s version, then, is from the Tawābiʿ,
while that of al-Thaʿālibī
is not from it, but from another source—obviously the same original collection which Ibn Shuhayd used as his source
when writing his Tawābiʿ.
This would explain, it should be added, the nearly identical order of
materials in the two sources. The case of the fourth risāla makes it probable [75] that the other three plus
one risālas (flea, gnat, fox,
and water) in the Yatīma are
also taken from this original source, not from the Tawābiʿ. But the poetic quotations in Dhakhīra/Tawābiʿ and the Yatīma
(II:35–44, 49–50) have to be taken into consideration before deciding whether
this is the case. The last two fragments of verses quoted in the Yatīma (II:49–50) obviously come
from a source other than the Tawābiʿ
or from its original source. Note that they are separated from the other poetic
quotations by the 2+5 risālas
(II:44–49), and can be omitted from the discussion here.
In
the main part of the article on Ibn Shuhayd in his Yatīma (II:35–44), al-Thaʿālibī quotes
fragments from 12 poems by Ibn Shuhayd. Eleven of these are also found in Dhakhīra/Tawābiʿ and in the same order as in the Yatīma (which is not according to
the rhyme). In addition, there are 16 poems in Dhakhīra/Tawābiʿ
which are not found in the Yatīma.
A comparison of the poems in the Yatīma
and Dhakhīra/Tawābiʿ[30]
shows that despite the identical order of the 11 shared poems, the selection of
verses differs in the two sources.
The
selection in the Yatīma was, of
course, made by al-Thaʿālibī himself—he is an anthologist who selects the best verses and freely omits
others. But the question is whether it is Ibn Bassām who is responsible
for the selection of verses in the Dhakhīra?
First of all, it is obvious that Ibn Shuhayd quoted his own poems only
partially, that is, he made the initial selection.
The abbreviations are indicated in the first person (e.g., I:255/100/60:
ilā an intahaytu fīhā
ilā qawlī . . . ), which hardly comes from Ibn Bassām. The editorial policy of mediaeval anthologists does
not condone tampering with the wording of their sources to the extent
that the anthologist would add words in the first person referring to the
author.
Whether Ibn Bassām made yet another selection from the
material already once selected by the author
himself, is a more difficult question, but I believe that the answer has
to be negative. The structure of the Tawābiʿ
does not favor very long poetic quotations—in its present form the longest
quotation, I:265–67/112–14/68–70, consists of
24 verses—but the variance between Dhakhīra/Tawābiʿ and the Yatīma is so marked that their
common source must have contained very long quotations from Ibn Shuhayd’s
poetry. The poem in Yatīma II:41–42,
consisting of two fragments (5+9 verses), has only five verses[31] in
common with the 24-verse fragment in the Tawābiʿ,
[76] and
the distribution of the common verses implies a much longer source for both.
All
considered, it seems that the verses in the Yatīma
do not come from the Tawābiʿ,
despite the identical order of the poems.
Rather there must have been two independent selections. Ibn Shuhayd[32]
selected verses from his own poetry for the Tawābiʿ,
while al-Thaʿālibī took his excerpts from the same original
source, not the Tawābiʿ. This
original source may well have been a rather short[33]
collection of poems from the youthful production of Ibn Shuhayd, as has been
suggested by Pellat.[34] The
similar selection of poetry by both anthologists also confirms that the second
fragment of the Tawābiʿ
(no. 2) has been preserved intact.
The
fourth risāla, on sweets, shows
us how Ibn Shuhayd worked when inserting his earlier prose into the Tawābiʿ. The original Risālat al-ḥalwāʾ
(the version in the Yatīma) was
revised and modified by him to fit it into the new context of the Tawābiʿ. The narrative parts
of the risāla were minimized: in
the new context Ibn Shuhayd was only concerned with descriptions. That Ibn
Shuhayd kept the ending is a compromise; without it the descriptions would have
been somewhat loose in the context. In the older version presented in the Yatīma there is a kind of double
introduction, typical of many maqāmas
(general introduction and the introduction of
the main episode): first, Ibn Shuhayd describes the prayer and then
continues with the scene that leads to the description of the sweets.
The
version of the Yatīma is closer
to the maqāma tradition, though it may have been written
without any influence from al-Hamadhānī. If the Tawābiʿ was written
about 1025 to 1027, and the risāla was then incorporated, it cannot much postdate,
say, 1020. In that case, its date comes annoyingly close to that of the maqāmas. Technically, Ibn Shuhayd
may well already have known the maqāmas
at that time, but it would be one of the earliest cases of maqāma influence anywhere.[35] It seems more probable that Ibn [77] Shuhayd
came to compose the Risālat al-ḥalwāʾ,
as Ibn Buṭlān came to compose
his Daʿwat al-aṭibbāʾ,
independently of
al-Hamadhānī but influenced
by the same sources that had influenced al-Hamadhānī. That Ibn
Shuhayd knew the maqāmas when
writing the final version of the Tawābiʿ is more probable.
Against
this background, it is intriguing to note that the original version of the fourth risāla is much closer to the
maqāmas than the version in the Tawābiʿ,
the resemblance of which to the maqāma
has been noted by earlier scholars. The similarity with al-Hamadhānī’s
work is clear, but the risāla
resembles even more the maqāmas
of the slightly later Ibn Nāqiyā. Both have an unpleasant hero; Ibn
Nāqiyā’s al-Yashkurī might well be the cousin of the belching faqīh of Ibn Shuhayd. The obvious
admiration of the author for his hero, which al-Ḥarīrī, for
example, shows for Abū Zayd, is definitely missing in the cases of
al-Yashkurī and the belching faqīh.
They are unpleasant and off-putting, in keeping with the tone of the beggar
literature in general. The eloquence of the protagonists is perfectly mixed
here with their unpleasant behavior, thus
making them real heroes of maqāmāt
al-kudya. Al-Hamadhānī’s hero Abū ʾl-Fatḥ is
never overtly unpleasant, al-Ḥarīrī’s hero even less so. Even
al-Ashtarkuwī’s hero Abū Ḥabīb, who sometimes comes close to
al-Yashkurī, always finally overcomes all his unpleasant, external
features (yellow teeth and the like) by his wit. Al-Yashkurī and the
belching faqīh are disgusting,
though eloquent, comic heroes whom we can laugh at without qualms.
The
first section of the risāla (Yatīma II:47, seven lines), which
has been deleted by Ibn Shuhayd from his Tawābiʿ,
was not superfluous in the original, although Ibn Shuhayd managed to do without
it in the Tawābiʿ. The
first section creates a marked contrast between the sublime ecstasy of Ibn
Shuhayd at prayer and the down-to-earth ecstasy of the faqīh who was overly fond of sweets. Much of the dialogue
between the narrator and the faqīh
has been dropped (Yatīma II:47–48),
whereas two descriptive passages have been
added in the Tawābiʿ
(I:270–71/120–21/74–75, on qubayṭāʾ and thamar
al-nashā). In these cases, though, we cannot be sure whether the
passages are additions in the later redaction of the risāla by Ibn Shuhayd himself, or whether Ibn Bassām
abbreviated the risāla, or,
finally, whether the copyists (or editor) inadvertently dropped these passages.
Ibn Shuhayd’s own editorial work remains, though, the most natural hypothesis.
As for the deletion of the narrative parts, Ibn Shuhayd admits that what he
gives in the [78] Tawābiʿ is
no more than a selection from the original risāla
(I:270/119/74: “min” risālatī
fī l-ḥalwāʾ).
The
comparison between the Dhakhīra
and the Yatīma also shows how
faithful Ibn Bassām was to his source. The three short risālas are almost identical in the
two books—disregarding copyists’ errors—and the fourth is so completely
rewritten that the redaction cannot have originated with Ibn Bassām, but
must date back to the author himself.
[79] APPENDIX:
Poems
of Ibn Shuhayd quoted in the Yatīma
and the Tawābiʿ[36]
|
Rhyme |
Yatīma |
verses |
Tawābiʿ |
verses |
|
R |
35–36 |
3+8 |
92–93/137 |
5/6[37] |
|
L |
36–37 |
9 |
94–95 |
1+13 |
|
ʾ |
37–38 |
17+4 |
97 |
1+10[38] |
|
Q |
38–39 |
1+8+4 |
98–99 |
1+4[39] |
|
M |
39 |
8[40] |
100–101 |
5+5 |
|
B |
39–40 |
16 |
103–104 |
1+10+2[41] |
|
D |
40–41 |
17 |
107–109 |
15[42] |
|
L |
41–42 |
5+9[43] |
112–14 |
24 |
|
N |
42–43 |
1+15 |
114 |
1 |
|
Ṭ |
43 |
10 |
129–30 |
8[44] |
|
S |
43 |
2 |
130 |
5 |
|
M |
44 |
7 |
— |
—[45] |
SOURCES
al-Hamadhānī. Maqāmāt
= Muḥammad Muḥyī ʾl-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd,
Sharḥ maqāmāt Badīʿ
al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī. Bayrūt, n.d.
al-Hamadhānī. Rasāʾil = Ibrāhīm al-Aḥdab, Kashf al-maʿānī
waʾl-bayān ʿan
Rasāʾil Badīʿ al-Zamān.
Bayrūt, 1890.
al-Ḥuṣrī. Zahr al-ādāb wa-thamar al-albāb.
Ed. Zakī Mubārak and Muḥammad
Muḥyī ʾl-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. 4th ed.
Bayrūt: Dār al-Jīl, 1972.
Ibn Bassām. al-Dhakhīra
fī maḥāsin ahl al-Jazīra. I–IV. Ed. I. ʿAbbās. Lībiyā–Tūnis:
al-Dār al-ʿArabīya li-l-Kitāb,
1399/1979.
Ibn Shuhayd. Risālat
al-tawābiʿ waʾl-zawābiʿ. Ed. K.
al-Bustānī. [Bayrūt:] Dār Sādir, 1400/1980 [reprint of
the 1951 edition].
al-Thaʿālibī. Yatīmat al-dahr. I–IV. Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1399/1979.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
al-Bustānī, Buṭrus. 1980 [1951]. Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusī: ḥayātuhū,
adabuhū, Risālat al-tawābiʿ waʾl-zawābiʿ.
Preface to Ibn Shuhayd, Risālat
al-tawābiʿ. See Sources.
de la Granja, Fernando. 1976. Maqāmas y risālas andaluzas. Madrid, Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura.
Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko. 1997. The Early Maqāma: Towards Defining a Genre. Asiatische Studien 51 (1997), pp. 577–99.
Hämeen-Anttila,
Jaakko. Forthcoming. Al-Hamaḏānī and the Early History
of the Maqāma. In U. Vermeulen,
D. de Smet (eds.), Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic World. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta.
Monroe, J. T. 1971. Risālat
at-tawābiʿ wa z-zawābiʿ. The Treatise of Familiar Spirits
and Demons by Abū ʿĀmir ibn Shuhaid al-Ashjaʿī,
al-Andalusī.
[1] It would be tempting to try to find links between the Tawābiʿ, written in
[2] There is also a translation
by S. Barbera (Ibn Xuhaid, Epistola de
los genios o árbol
[3] When quoting from Tawābiʿ,
I use the following form: I:00/00/00. Read: Dhakhīra I: p. 00 (ed. I. ʿAbbās)
/p. 00 (Tawābiʿ, ed.
al-Bustānī) /p. 00 (tr.
[4] Ibn Shuhayd’s work is very important for the literary criticism it
contains, but this subject lies outside the scope of this article.
[5] I am preparing a monograph
on the history of the development of the maqāma.
[6] The biography of Ibn Shuhayd
is found in several major biographical dictionaries and the main points of it
have been discussed by al-Bustānī 1980 (1951) and, following him,
Monroe 1971.
[7] See Hämeen-Anttila
1997 and forthcoming.
[8] For which, see
Hämeen-Anttila (forthcoming).
[9] See also J. M. Continente
Ferrer, “Consideraciones en torno a las relaciones entre la Risālat
al-Tawābiʿ de Ibn …Suhayd y la Risālat al-Gufrān de al-Maʿarrī,”
Actas de las Jornadas de Cultura
Árabe e Isámica (Madrid: Instituto
Hispano-Árabe de Cultura, 1981), pp. 125–34.
[10] See also
al-Bustānī 1980 (1951), pp. 74–75.
[11] Note, however, that not all
works which later came to be called maqāmas
were imitations of al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmas;
there is, for instance, no reason to suggest any Hamadhānian influence on Ibn Buṭlān’s Daʿwa. See Hämeen-Anttila
(forthcoming).
[12] E.g., Ibn Sharaf’s Masāʾil
al-intiqād. One should also recall
that al-Hamadhānī’s work was anthologized already by al-Ḥuṣrī
(d. 1022) in his Zahr al-ādāb.
[13] See also Maqāmāt, p. 100.
[14] It goes without saying that
he did not necessarily know all the maqāmas of the present standard
collection. It seems that a separate collection of twenty maqāmas circulated widely in
[15] On the subgenres of the
Hamadhānian maqāma, see
Hämeen-Anttila 1997. Fragment no. 3 (I:283–96/132–46/82-92), especially,
is very similar in tenor to the Hamadhānian aesthetic maqāma.
[16] Ibn al-Shahīd’s work has received unduly little attention. The
work, although preserved only in fragments, is a masterpiece and seems
to have been very influential (on its influence on al-Ḥarīzī
and his Taḥkemoni, see de la Granja
1976, pp. 92–94, referring to an article in Hebrew by S. M. Stern). The
structural similarity of the work with
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is
striking, although it would be hasty to suggest any genetic links
between the two. The hero of the maqāma
seems to have been a faqīh—like
the belching faqīh of Ibn Shuhayd discussed below—called Ibn al-Ḥadīd,
although his role in the story remains
somewhat obscure owing to the fragmentary condition of the text.
[17] See Hämeen-Anttila
(forthcoming).
[18] As al-Bustānī and
[19] Most maqāma heroes are best known by their kunya, e.g., Abū ʾl-Fatḥ, Abū Zayd, and
Abū Ḥabīb (al-Ashtarkuwī’s hero). Using the kunya is a form of familiarity in
mediaeval Arabic.
[20] According to an old
belief—though at least in later sources the question is of a topos, not of an
actual belief—the poet was inspired by a familiar spirit. The idea goes back to
pre-Islamic times and possibly to the prehistory of Arabic poetry, when poets (shāʿir/shuʿarāʾ)
and kāhins were still men in
contact with the supernatural.
[21] On the surface his claim to
have received these ijāzas is
similar to the practice of many charismatic
figures in the sphere of esoteric Islam, who asserted that they had
received their knowledge and authority from the imām al-ghayb (Persian ustād-i
ghayb). The Shaykhīya movement
leader Shaykh al-Aḥṣāʾī (d. 1826), who claimed to have received the ijāzas of the Imams and the Prophet
in dreams, is one example.
[22] One should be careful in
deducing anything from the omissions of the text. Monroe (1971, p. 19) may well
be right, though, in assuming that the omission of the great Umayyad poets
Jarīr, al-Farazdaq, al-Akhṭal and Dhū ʾl-Rumma is not
fortuitous but indicates Ibn Shuhayd’s aesthetic preferences.
[23]
[24]
[25] Ibn Shuhayd becomes a
paragon of the West, whose work is shown to be on a par with that of the easterners. Whether he represents the whole West (in I:276/128/79
he is called fatā ʾl-Maghrib,
“champion [
[26]
[27] These five risālas are preceded by two others
(II:44–46).
[28] The edition of the Yatīma is not impeccable, but most
of the variants can easily be attributed either to a careless copyist or to a
careless editor. There are no major differences which could not be explained as
simple scribal (editorial?) errors.
[29] Al-Hamadhānī himself had incorporated into his collection
pieces that had originally been risālas.
See Hämeen-Anttila (forthcoming).
[30] See the Appendix.
[31] All from the second
fragment of the Yatīma. The
verses are (the verse number of the Yatīma/the
verse number of the Tawābiʿ):
6/3, 7/4, 8/11, 9/20 and 13/23.
[32] There is one case where
either Ibn Bassām has deleted a whole fragment or, more probably, the
copyist has done so (I:267/114/70, where the main part of the poem is missing).
[33] Otherwise one cannot
explain how the selections of both the Yatīma
and the Tawābiʿ are almost
identical.
[34] Pellat 1969, p. 939a. Pellat’s
dating of the whole work to before 1011 is, however, hardly acceptable. But he
is certainly right in suggesting that there have been later additions to an
earlier core, which al-Thaʿālibī’s evidence seems to confirm.
[35] Al-Ḥuṣrī’s
Zahr al-ādāb could have
been available to him, but al-Maqāma
al-Maḍīrīya is not quoted in it. If Ibn Shuhayd wrote the risāla under the influence of
al-Hamadhānī, his reaction to the maqāmas
must have been instantaneous, provoking him to write a risāla in the same style.
[36] To make the table simple, I
have given references only to the edition of al-Bustānī. The
references to the Yatīma are to
volume II. When either of the sources quotes several fragments, the verses are
counted separately (e.g., 2+2). When only one hemistich of the first verse is
given, this is counted as one verse. If not otherwise stated, the smaller
number of verses is included within the larger.
The following 16 fragments,
quoted in the Tawābiʿ, have no parallel in the Yatīma: p. 89, R 1+1+1; p. 90, ā 3; pp. 99–100, D 9+2; p.
106, R 5; p. 109, H 1+2; p. 110, D 1+4; pp. 110–11, ʿ 6; p. 123, R 6; p.
136, S 5 (see Monroe 1971, p. 85 n. 12); p.
138, B 4; p. 140, R 7; p. 141, Q 4; p. 141, B 4; pp. 141–43, R 15; pp. 143–44,
M 13; and p. 146, R 2.
[37] The second fragment, p. 137, contains the same verses as the first with
one additional verse. All verses are from the second fragment of the Yatīma.
[38] The last six verses lack
parallels in the Yatīma.
[39] One verse has no parallel
in the Yatīma.
[40] The last four verses have
no parallels in the Tawābiʿ.
[41] 1+2+2 verses lack parallels
in the Yatīma.
[42] Seven verses lack parallels
in the Yatīma.
[43] 5+4 verses lack parallels
in the Tawābiʿ.
[44] Three verses lack parallels
in the Yatīma.
[45] The verses come from a long
poem partly (1+76 verses) quoted in Dhakhīra
I:199–203, but two of the seven verses in the Tawābiʿ lack parallels in the Dhakhīra.