Recent studies of the classical Arabic ode (qa??dah) have moved beyond the traditional categorization of poems as texts repeating established formulae of praise, boast or satire (mad?, fakhr, hij??) to employ performance theory and performative (speech act) theory to interpret individual qa??dah’s as works of art carefully configured and minutely calibrated to engage in competition for rank and status in politically charged, often courtly, settings. What was once seen as the blind repetition of conventions, has now come to be analyzed as the subtle manipulation of tradition-validated diction, motifs, themes and structures to achieve particular literary and political goals. While the bulk of recent studies have dealt with the courtly panegyric (qa??dat al-mad?), the present study proposes to examine a poem traditionally categorized as fakhr (boast, self-boast), Ab? al-?Al?? al-Ma?arr?’s (d. 1057 CE) a-l? f? sab?li al-madji m? f??ilu (Is not all that I do in the path of glory?). It aims to demonstrate that quite contrary to previous understandings of this poetic genre of the poet as an immodest braggadocio, a careful performative reading of the poem demonstrates that the poet is rather engaged in a verbal self-defense. The poem can be divided into two movements: Movement I: a passive nas?b-like protest of the wronged poet, in which the continuous shifts between excessive boast and complaint about the depravity of his times reveal the poet’s shaky sense of self-confidence. And Movement II: in which the poet calls on the tradition of the heroic hunt, quite uniquely linking into a ra??l-like night journey, to reclaim, through the exquisite lines of poetry themselves, his moral and poetic status, and to emerge with a renewed sense of confidence and self-worth. The paper will explore the poetic means by which the poet achieves this pychological transformation—particularly through his original and often unprecedented employ of motifs from the traditional themes of the qa??dah--from the ??dhilah (censuress) of the na??b; the use of amth?l (proverbs) and ?ikam (aphorisms); motifs of the heroic or lyrical hunt and of the liminal desert journey (ra??l). The paper concludes that, like the panegyric, the boast-poem is not an empty repetition of conventions, but rather an intricately constructed verbal expression of moral and emotional transition that performs the function of the poet’s self-defense in the highly competitive—both poetically and politically—world of the classical qa??dah.

This paper examines the relationship between the biographies of poets and conceptualizations of poetry itself in Maliha Samarqandi’s Muzakkir al-ashab (Samarqand, 1688-9). Muzakkir al-ashab is a tazkira: a commemorative work that combines accounts of poets’ lives with excerpts from their poetry. I argue that rather than setting a fixed definition or standard for poetry in the text, Maliha writes of poetry in varying ways that are responsive to and appropriate for the individual poets whom he commemorates. To explore this question, I analyze aspects of the text including the terminology for poetry, markers of poetic excellence, figurative language to evoke the poetic, and the socially specific sites of poetic exchanges. I also note connections between Muzakkir al-ashab’s accounts of poets and other intertextually related, contemporaneous works, including Tazkira-yi Nasrabadi (1680), by Mirza Muhammad Tahir Nasrabadi (whom Maliha met in Isfahan) and `Ubaydullah-nama (1716), a history by Muhammad-Amin Bukhari. Like all other tazkiras composed in Transoxiana in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the commemorative intent of Muzakkir al-ashab focuses on the author’s contemporaries and acquaintances. However, a self-conscious point of departure from the tazkiras that Maliha invokes as predecessors is his desire to be comprehensive; hence, he anticipates criticisms for the inclusion of poets that others will find to be unworthy. Maliha’s inclusivity resonates with a trend that modern scholarship has identified in Persian poetry in this period, namely, the increased spread of poetic practices through society, and especially the prominence of craftsmen among poets and audiences. The implications of this expansion are contested in scholarship. Does it represent a decline, with a loss of standards? Or is it a favorable development, involving greater freedom and inventiveness of expression away from court strictures? Or, against both of these interpretations, is it mistaken to assume that wider variety in the social locations of poets must alter poetic standards? My paper contributes to these debates by noting the inadvisability of attempting to establish a single, fixed concept of poetry in Muzakkir al-ashab, given the ways in which the poetic is imagined differently through the different personae of poets.

Some biographical notices about the poet Ab? Tamm?m ?ab?b ibn Aws al-???? (188/804-231/845) claim that he was born to a Christian family, but they give few details about the poet’s Christian upbringing or his conversion to Islam. Louis Cheikho, in Shu?ar?? al-Na?r?niyya ba?da l-Isl?m, examines the case for and against Ab? Tamm?m’s Christian origins. Among his arguments is that Ab? Tamm?m’s given name (ism) ?ab?b is common among Christians but uncommon among Muslims. While the name ?ab?b may have been popular among Christians in the early twentieth century, when Cheikho was writing, this is not a sufficient basis to assume that the name has always been more common among Christians than among Muslims. Naming trends change over time, and some personal names in Arabic were non-sectarian in previous centuries but are now used almost exclusively by one religious group. For example, the names ?asan, ‘Uthm?n, and `Abd al-Ra?m?n, are today rare among non-Muslims, but they are all attested as personal names of Christians in Ab? Tamm?m’s era. To test the claim that the personal name ?ab?b was common among Christians and uncommon among Muslims for the period in which Ab? Tamm?m lived, several Arabic biographical dictionaries compiled during or before the seventh Islamic century (thirteenth century AD) were examined, as well as two of Cheikho’s encyclopedic works. The search returned notices of 25 individuals named ?ab?b. All but two of them appear to have been Muslims, based on other information in their biographical notices. One has a brief notice that gives no information about his religion, and the last is Ab? Tamm?m. The strongest evidence that Ab? Tamm?m grew up in a Christian family is that his poems contain references to Christianity that appear to show firsthand knowledge of the religion, such as could be written only by an expert in interreligious disputation or someone who had practiced the Christian religion himself. Meanwhile, the strongest evidence that he converted to Islam is that, while the biographical anecdotes make no mention of him receiving an Islamic education in his youth, his name appears in the isnad of several ?ad?ths. Furthermore, the narrative of Ab? Tamm?m as a Muslim convert of humble origins fits the archetype of the poet as an outsider who has no claim to prestige except his poetic talents.