Classical Arabic Literature

Examines the literary topos of dawn, the "Alba," in Persian poetry in comparative perspective, first considering the Alba poem in medieval Provencal lyric in southern France and northern Italy, establishing how the theme of the parting of two lovers at dawn was a well-established trope in European poetry of the medieval and renaissance periods.  A close parallel also appears in the Arabic poetry of Andalusia, perhaps with some interchange.  In Persian there are also some examples of the "Alba" theme -- the ghazals of Sa`di but especially Sana'i. Although Hafiz' poems do not use the Alba theme  in the same way, Hafiz does set many of his ghazals (perhaps 1/5 of all his ghazals) in the dawn or early morning.  The article develops how Hafiz uses the topos of dawn and why it is integral to his mythopoetic vocabulary.

Yaşlılar ve fakirler gibi psikiyatrik hastalar ve zihinsel engelliler de
toplumların inkâr edilemez bir gerçeğidir. Görme ve işitme engellilerin yanı sıra
zihinsel engelli hastaların da sosyal hayata rehabilite edilmesi, bugün olduğu gibi
insanlık tarihi boyunca vicdanını yitirmemiş milletlerin1 sorumluluğu olmuştur.
Engellilere karşı insan yaratılışının fıtri tepkisi olan “şefkat” ve “merhamet”,
fıtratın tercümanı olan İslamiyet’in de tavizsiz ve istisnasız bir surette emrettiği
hususlardan olmuştur. Gerek Kur’ân ayetleri gerekse sevgili Peygamberimizin
(s.a.v.) sünneti bizi onlara karşı var gücümüzle yardıma, merhamete teşvik
etmektedir.

A partir de los textos de las epístolas denominadas zurzūriyyāt, en este artículo se pretende profundizar en las dos caras del personaje en torno al cual se articulan estas originales y singulares composiciones, exclusivas de la literatura andalusí. El retrato literario que de él transmiten tiene mucho que decir sobre la figura histórica de un hombre apodado al-Zurayzīr, que en estas creaciones literarias oscila entre el símbolo y la realidad y que recuerda mucho al héroe de las maqāmāt.

Based on the epistles called zurzūriyyāt, in this article we try to study in depth the two sides of the character around which these original and unique literary pieces —exclusive of Andalusian literature— revolve. The literary portrait that these texts convey about the mentioned character has much to say about the historical figure of a man nicknamed al-Zurayzīr, who fluctuates between symbol and reality in these literary creations and who is very reminiscent of the hero of the maqāmāt.

This work presents a poetic translation as well as a linguistic and stylistic commentary in the form of annotations, of the Mu‘allaqât, the most famous anthology of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, in its standard version (in order of translation: Antara, Imru' al-Qays, Tarafa, Zuhayr, 'Amr ibn Kulthûm, al-Hârith b. Hilliza, Labîd). Each poem is preceded by an introduction on the poet, the structure and thematic of the poem and the existing translations in the main European languages. The introduction offers an overview on the problems linked to the translation of these poems, with a special emphasis on their variation rather than their authenticity.

Mütenebbî'nin Şiirlerinde Savaş Unsurlarına Ait Tasvirler Özet Şiir türünün can damarı duygulardır ve korku, ümit, neşe, üzüntü gibi pek çok duygunun en yoğun yaşandığı zemin de savaş meydanlarıdır. Bu yüzden yazılı ilk edebi metinler savaş ve kahramanlıkları anlatan destanlar olmuştur. Klasik Arap şiirinin pişdar isimlerinden olan Mütenebbî (öl. 354/965), pek çok edebi mahareti yanında savaşa ait unsurların tasvirlerindeki başarısı ile Arap şiir eleştirmenleri tarafından takdir edilmiştir. Şair çoğu kez övdüğü kişilerin savaşlardaki heybeti, atlarının ihtişamı, kılıç, mızrak ve ok gibi silah araçlarının öldürücülüğü vb. hususlarda tasvirlerde bulunmuştur. Şairin hayal gücüne uyum sağlayan söz sanatlarındaki ustalığı da bir araya gelince, savaş filmi sahnelerini aratmayan olağanüstü şiirler ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu çalışmada Mütenebbî'nin söz konusu şiirlerindeki tasvirleri başlıklar halinde incelenmiştir. Girişte şairin hayatı ve şairliği hakkında kısa bir tanıtım yapılmıştır. Sonrasında ise onun şiirlerinden kılıç, mızrak, atlar, savaş meydanına gelen leşçillerin nasıl tasvir edildiğine dair ilgi çekici örnekler seçilmiş ve zaman zaman eleştiriye tabi tutulmuştur. Kısacası bu çalışmada Mütenebbî'nin şiirleri, savaş edebiyatı açısından Türk akademisine tanıtılmak istenmiştir. Sonuç olarak konunun akademik bir tez düzeyinde araştırılması tavsiye edilmiştir.

كتاب: "نَشوة الشَّمول في السّفر إلى إسلامبول، ونشوة المُدام في العود إلى مدينة السّلام" قد تُوّج في فرع تحقيق المخطوطات الفائزة بجائزة ابن بطوطة لأدب الرحلة لسنة 2019. 
والكتاب رحلةٌ مهمةٌ لعلاّمة العراق في القرن التاسع عشر أبي الثناء الألوسي صاحب "روح المعاني". ولهذا الرحلة أهمية استثنائية؛ إذ وقعت في منتصف القرن التاسع عشر بعد عشرين سنة على رحلة رفاعة الطهطاوي إلى باريس. 
وإذا كانت باريس، في رحلة رفاعة الطهطاوي، عنوانًا للاستنارة والتنوير والحداثة، فإنّ إستانبول كانت، عند الألوسي، حاضرة الخلافة والدولة العلية والسّلطنة العّظمى، وكان السلطان عبد المجيد خان خادم الحرمين آنذاك.

حصول هذا الكتاب على الجائزة مكمن سعادة غامرة لأسباب تتصل باقترانها بأدب الرحلة، ولارتباطها بابن بطوطة الطّنجيّ وأبي الثناء الألوسيّ البغداديّ.
المسألة الأخرى التي أودّ أنْ أعرضها، في هذا المقام، هي أنّ نص رحلة الألوسي يُمثّل عنوانًا بارزًا على رفعة النصّ السردي في القرن التاسع عشر عصر النهضة، وهو دليل على أنّ قيمة الانحطاط التي وصم بها الأدب العربي الذي أنجز بعد سقوط بغداد على أيدي المغول سنة 656 هـ وحتى الأدب الحديث تتضمّن موقفًا انحيازيًّا سلبيًّا حال، ولا يزال يحول، دون فحص مدونات الأدب والفكر في تلك القرون المهمة.
ختامًا، هذه فقرة مُستلّةٌ من مقدمة الكتاب الذي حقّقته: "إنّ رحلةَ الألوسيّ رحلةٌ ارتقائيّةٌ من النَّصَب والتّعبِ والكدّ إلى الراحة والدّعة والرّخاء، ورحلة انتقاليّةٌ اعتلائيّة من مدينة السلام بغداد إلى دار السّلطنة العُظمى إسلامبول، وفي ذلك إحالة جليّة على رحلة الإسراء والمعراج النبويّة القرآنيّة. وبعبارةٍ أُخرى فإنّ أبا الثناء الألوسي لا ينشدُ ارتقاءً في المنزلة والرُّتب السّنية وانتقالاً إلى حاضرة الدولة العليّة فحسب بل إنه يرومُ تحويل رحلته إلى مُتخيّلٍ سرديّ يعتمدُ مبدأ محاكاة أثر الأنبياء والأولياء والزُّهّاد والعُبّاد والمُتصوّفة في رحلاتهم التي كانت جزءًا أصيلاً في مُعجزاتهم وكراماتهم ومُجاهداتهم، ومُكوّنًا مركزيًّا في رسالاتهم وخطاباتهم، وفي هذا المستوى تتجلّى ملامح رحلة الألوسيّ الإسرائيّة وتنكشفُ دلالاتها المعراجيّة".

تطرح هذه المقالة تساؤلات ملحة أمام علاقة الأدب العربي مابعد الاستعمار بالمسمى أدب العالم. و تنتقل  الدراسة من مسلمات تلك العلاقة المظلية مستخلصة أن هناك صراعات ايديلوجية حامية بين تعريف الأدب كظاهرة ينتجها تفاعل إنساني ذهني مع اللغة المعطاة و كملكة انسانية يشترك فيها البشر على اختلاف أجناسهم و طبقاتهم وأنواعهم و دياناتهم من جهة ، و بين مراكز السلطة النقدية في " العالم الأول" التي تسربت إلى نظرياتها الأدبية معطيات قومية و تداخلات سياسية-رأسمالية من جهة أخرى،  أعادت  تأصيل الفصل الاستشراقي بين أدب الأنا و أدب الآخر. و ما دمنا الآن نعيش منعطفاً تاريخياً قد نعيد فيه ترتيب أوراقنا النقدية مع الآخر بشكل عام و أمريكا الشمالية بشكل خاص، فإن الأسئلة الأساسية التي تطرحها هذه المقالة هي:كيف يمكن المصالحة بين تلك المتناقضات الجوهرية في أدب العالم؟ كيف يمكن اجتياز، بل و التجاوز عن، هرمية العلاقة بين" الأنا" و "الآخر" في عصر أدبي مابعد الاستعمار؟ 
This essay poses urgent questions about the relationship between postcolonial Arabic literature and World Literature, exposing the deceptively facile presuppositions of this umbrella relationship. The study argues that there persist heated ideological conflicts between the understanding of literature as a phenomenon emerging from interaction with a given language and as a universal human faculty irrespective of race, class, gender, or religion, versus the Orientalist bias of hegemonic critical thought in the era of post-nationalist capitalism. Living in a historic time that compels us to reconsider our own critical thinking vis-à-vis the other, especially North America, the fundamental questions that arise are: how could one transcend the canonical hierarchies in “World Literature”?  And, subsequently, how could one resolve the persistent tensions between Self and Other in a postcolonial literary era?

Course Description:

Using the extant medieval Arabic literary corpus as primary sources, coupled with secondary scholarly literature in English, this course will provide a historical and historiographical survey of the Crusades from an Arabo-Islamic perspective. It will examine the Muslim responses to the Crusades, from the beginning of the movement at the 1096 call for the First Crusade to Salah al-Din’s conquest of Frankish Jerusalem and the stalemate of the Third Crusade (1093). The course will examine each period within this era by sampling in Arabic the remarkably rich, Arabo-Islamic corpus dating from the classical medieval period. Students will read historiographical sources, such as passages from universal chronicles, regnal biographies, dynastic histories, and biographical dictionaries; literary sources, such as poetry, travelogue literature, and autobiography; as well as religious texts, such as Qur’an, hadith, tafsir, jihad treatises, and fada’il (religious merits of cities) literature that inform the Islamic response to the Crusades. The course will conclude by examining the legacy of the Crusades in the modern Middle East and their depiction in modern politics, history, religion, and culture. By the end of the course, students will develop gradual proficiency and familiarity in Classical Arabic through reading different samples of historical, religious, and cultural literature pertaining to the Age of the Crusades.

Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Ḥarrān, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad’s elite circles. It focuses on Thābit’s great-grandson Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābī (d. 384/994) and his poetry as collected by al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038). Two members of the family who did convert are also considered by way of contrast.

This article is a small contribution to the work done at Yale to create wider access to the papyrus collection. It focuses on a single literary papyrus, P. CtYBR inv. 2597(A), which contains parts of an anecdote that involves the poetess ʿInān, as hostess of a literary salon, and several of her guests, including Abū Nuwās. The same anecdote has been preserved in several later anthologies, which are known only from relatively late manuscript copies. The text is traced though the literary corpus, and the variants are analyzed.

This article examines the motif of a man being buried alive with his recently deceased spouse found in the Fourth Voyage of Sindbad (El-Shamy S123.2). In 1904, D. S. Margo-
liouth noted that Sindbad’s Fourth Voyage
shared this theme with a story of a Byzantine
patriarch recounted in the tenth-century collection of al-Tanūkhī
Deliverance after Hardship. This article proposes one hitherto unknown textual route through which
this motif traveled from Tanūkhī to Sindbad—the
Maqāma Baṣriyya of al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-ʿAbbāsī (d. 1556). ʿAbbāsī’s Maqāma Baṣriyya reflects Ottoman intellectuals’
anxieties over their increasing involvement in the Indian Ocean trade during the 1530s. The final section of the paper discusses the tale of Cogia Muzafffer—which appears  to be a version of the ʿAbbāsī’s maqāma heard by Galland in 1673 while in Istanbul.

Saf ve temiz duyguların tahrikiyle, Arabistan’ın çetin çöllerinde filizlenen iffetli aşk şiirleri, İslam öncesinden itibaren klasik Arap edebiyatının dikkat çekici temalarından birisi olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Emevî Dönemiyle birlikte gelişen ve standartlaştırılan bu özgün tema, Abbâsî Döneminde de etkisini devam ettirmeyi başarmış ve asrın önemli şairlerinden olan el-‘Abbâs b. el-Ahnef’in dizelerinde geniş şekilde işlenmiştir. Öte yandan kendine has yönleriyle seleflerinden ayrılan bu şair, ortaya koyduğu özgün ürünleri sayesinde, kendisinden sonraki kuşakların üzerinde de büyük bir etki meydana getirmeyi başarmıştır. Emevî Döneminin afif aşk şiirlerinden aşina olduğumuz gelenekselliğin aksine, onun kasidelerinde birkaç sevgilinin konu edinilebildiği gözlemlenmektedir. Hatta bazen maddî aşka değindiği dahi vakidir. Lakin bu türdeki gazellerinin, o dönemde aşırılaşma eğiliminde olan müstehcen şiirlerden çok daha seviyeli olduğu belirtilmelidir. Arap edebiyatının meşhur halifesi Harun er-Reşîd’in yanında saray şairliği yapması, diğer bir deyişle seleflerinin düştüğü “aşk çılgınlığı” kavramına takılmaksızın işini profesyonelleştirebilmesi, el-‘Abbâs b. el-Ahnef’in gazele bakışıyla eski nazım ustalarının temayülleri arasındaki farklılığın belirginleştiği önemli noktalardandır. Manzumeleri yine de ‘Uzrî gazel geleneğinden belirgin izler taşımakta ve aşkın umutsuzluğuna değinmektedir. Şiirlerinde konu edindiği kadın unsuru, gerçekten de üslup kazanmış bir metotla ele alındığından, bu söylemlerin geçmişin klişelerinin sanatsallaştırılmış bir tekrarı mı yoksa şairin gerçek tecrübesi mi olduğunu öngörmek pek güçtür. Irak’ın Basra kentinden olan ve Bağdat’ta büyüyen bu meşhur aşk şairi, 193/808 senesinde hayatını kaybetmiştir. Fakat Hicazın seçkin şairleri olan Ömer b. Ebî Rebî‘a'dan ve özellikle Cemîl b. Ma‘mer, el-Ahvas ve el-‘Arcî’den aldığı ilhamlarla şekillendirdiği şiiri, literatüre yaptığı katkılar sayesinde, Endülüs gibi uzak diyarlarda dahi uzun yıllar terennüm edilmeye ve yeni şairlere esin kaynağı olmaya devam edecektir. Onun şiirleri için, döneminin tanınmış musikişinaslarının besteler yaptığı bilinmektedir.

Two contrasting approaches to the genesis of the Luzūmiyya rhymed in Ṭasmu serve as entry points into Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s (363 /973 – 449 /1058) double-rhymed diwan, Luzūm Mā Lā Yalzam. The first takes the 7th/13th c. litterateur Ibn al-Qifṭī’s account of the Umayyad Caliph al-Walīd’s Damascus Mosque excavations, which was read before al-Maʿarrī, as the inspiration for the poem. This reading elicits the metaphorical connection, through the ubi sunt topos of the Arabic nasīb, between the extinct Arab tribe Ṭasm and the long-lost civilization unearthed in Damascus, and, further, the high irony with which the poem predicts the ineluctable annihilation of Islam itself. The second reading interprets the poem as the product of the extreme double-rhyme strictures al-Maʿarrī has imposed on himself—here the rhyme in -smu.  The name/word Ṭasm/ṭasm (erasure, obliteration) inexorably drives the poem from the lore of tribal extermination to the lexical and motival world of the nasīb.

This paper surveys and analyzes the written, oral, and aural sources of two major anthologies, the Yatımat al-dahr fı mahāsin ahl al-ʿasṛ and its sequel the Tatimmat al-Yatıma of Abū Mansur al-Thaʿālibı, which deal exclusively with contemporary literature
based on geographical regions. The paper uncovers a network of littérateurs, active in the second half of the fourth/10th century, who constituted the major authorities for both works. The survey of the sources in the Yatıma and the Tatimma strongly evinces a
return to oral transmission, necessitated by the newness of the information that had yet to be recorded in books. The survey also reveals the use of complementary transmissions through dıwāns, books, and other written materials. This distribution of sources is not uniform throughout the aqsām of the Yatıma and the Tatimma.

إن األطفال رأسمال األمم األكثر أهمية في بناء مجتمع قائم على المكارم والرقي. أهمية األطفال ليس مقصورا على كونهم
مقومين لحياة اجتماعية صحيحة البنية في المستقبل بل يتمثل دورهم في إبداء نموذج من طبيعة بشرية خالية من شوائب الرياء
والتكلف والتصنع. لربما من أجل هذا نعبر عن عواطف بريئة بلفظة -مثل الطفل-. إن من وظائف األدب األساسية عكس
العواطف البشرية كما هي. ولهذا يمكن القول إن هذه الوظيفة جعلت طريقها يتقاطع مع الطفل والطفولة بما فيهما معاني
الصفاء والبراءة. فبناء على هذا نجد صورة األطفال في األدب العربي على الصعيد القديم والحديث منه. حاولنا في هذا البحث
إلقاء الضوء على كيفية تعامل بعض من الشعراء العرب مع صورة الطفل والطفولة في أشعارهم. ووجدنا من الشعراء من
يستخدم صورة الطفل كمرآة تعكس صورة الحياة الدنيوية بتقلبات أحوالها وسرعة تأثرها بما حل بها وما شابه ذلك. وقسم
آخر منهم يعتبر الطفل وكأنه وسيلة تشبيه لحال معشوق. وفئة أخرى تجعل عالم االطفال مجاال للتعبير عن عواطف متشائمة
.مثل اليأس والكآبة والخوف الشديد من الموت. وهكذا ألفينا الشعراء يأخذون صورة الطفل كوسيلة مرآة كما سبق القول
الكلمات المفتاحية: اللغة العربية وأدبها، الطفل، الطفولة، الشعر العربي، براءة
Abstract
Children are the capital of the nations most important in building a society based on generosity
and advancement. The importance of children is not limited to their being constituents of a healthy social life in the future. Rather, their role is to express patterns of a human nature free from
the impurities of hypocrisy, sophistication and pretense. Perhaps because of this we express
innocent emotions with the word - like a child -. One of the basic functions of literature is to
reflect human emotions as they are. That is why we can say that this job intersects with the child
and childhood, including the meanings of purity and innocence. Based on this, we find the image
of children in Arabic literature, both ancient and modern. In this research, we tried to shed light
on how some Arab poets dealt with the image of the child and childhood in their poems. And we
found some poets who use the image of the child as a mirror that reflects the image of worldly
life with its fluctuations and the speed of being affected by what happened to it and the like. And
another section of them considers the child as a means of simulating a loved one. Another category makes the children's world a space for the expression of pessimistic emotions such as despair, gloom, and an intense fear of death. Thus, our poets take the image of the child as a mirror
medium, as has been said previously.

This essay takes the “noise” of manuscript culture as its object of inquiry, exploring the ways in which commentators, collators, and copyists interpreted a specific case of manuscript variation. These scholarly receptions of the Ḥarīriyya expand our horizon of analysis, eschewing a narrow focus on the “original” text in order to highlight the textual transformations and interpretive ramifications surrounding the text.

My sincere thanks to Edgar Xavier (https://independent.academia.edu/EdgarXavier2) for kindly pointing out some errors of fact in this paper. On page 70, the Herald is incorrectly identified as an Indonesian Catholic newspaper. The newspaper is Malaysian. And, of course, Kuala Lumpur (as mentioned in footnote 49), is the capital city of Malaysia - not Indonesia. So the phrase in parenthesis at the end of the second paragraph on page 70 should read "(an Arabic loanword in Malay [Bahasa Melayu])".  Again, sincere thanks to Edgar for his close reading of the paper and his taking the trouble to point out these errors.

Jonathan

شتُهر الحجاج بن يوسف الثقفي (ت95هـ) بخطابته السياسية كما كان اشتُهر بسطوته وشدَّة حُكمه وحدَّة مزاجه, وقد اهتم تاريخ الإسلام السياسي بعامة وتاريخ بني أمية بخاصة بخطبه السياسية كثيرًا, لكن الاهتمام ببلاغة خُطَبِِهِ الوعظية رغم أهميتها التي لا تقلُّ عن أهمية خُطَبِهِ السياسية من منظور تاريخي واجتماعي وديني ونفسي وأدبي, ومن ثم اختيرت هذه الخطب الوعظية موضوعًا لهذا البحث, ودُرست في  ضوء نظرية الاتصال الأدبي؛ إذ إنها تُعدُّ أشمل نظرية أدبية نسبيًّا؛ لأنها تهتمُّ بالمبدع والنَّصِّ والمتلقي على حدٍّ سواء. وقد قُسِّم البحث إلى خمسة محاور وفق نظرية الاتصال الأدبي؛ بداية بالمبدع والرؤية التكوينية، ومرورًا بالنص والخاصية النوعية، والوسيلة الاتصالية، والمتلقي وإستراتيجية القراءة، وانتهاءً بالارتداد العكسي. أما أهم النتائج التي توصَّل إليها الباحث فمنها أن خُطَبَ الحجَّاج الوعظية مليئة بالعاطفة الدينية الجياشة، والروحية الإسلامية الخالصة, كما أنها تُمثِّل أعلى درجات المستوى البلاغي في فنِّ الخطابة, ومن المُتوقَّع أن هذا البحث سيفيد منه الباحثون والدارسون الذين يشغلون أنفسهم في مضمار الخطابة, ولا سيما الخطابة الدينية في عصر بني أمية.

الكلمات الأساسية: الحجاج الثقفي، الخطب، الوعظ، دراسة، نظرية الاتصال الأدبي.

A body of Bedouin oral poetry which was collected in the second or third Islamic century, the pre-Islamic qasidah, or ode, stands with the Qur'an as a twin foundation of Arabo-Islamic literary culture. Throughout the rich fifteen-hundred-year history of classical Arabic literature, the qasidah served as profane anti-text to the sacred text of the Qur'an.
While recognizing the esteem in which Arabs have traditionally held this poetry of the pagan past, modern critics in both East and West have yet to formulate a poetics that would provide the means to analyze and evaluate the qasidah. Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych here offers the first aesthetics appropriate for this orally composed Arabic verse, an aesthetics that is built on—and tested on—close readings of a number of the poems.
Drawing on the insights of contemporary literary theory, anthropology, and the history of religions, Stetkevych maintains that the poetry of the qasidah is ritualized in both form and function. She brings to bear an extensive body of lore, legend, and myth as she interprets individual themes and images with references to rites of passage and rituals of sacrifice. Her English translations of the poems under discussion convey the power and beauty of the originals, as well as a sense of their complex intertextuality and distinctive lexicon.

This paper discusses Usama Ibn Munqidh's image of the Crusaders. The work highlights some of the attitudes and prejudices of the Arabic literati towards the Franks, who had occupied the Holy Land since 1099 CE. Usama's narrative is highly important for the study of cultural interactions between the Crusaders and the Arabs.

What was the language of the Quran like, and how do we know? Today, the Quran is recited in ten different reading traditions, whose linguistic details are mutually incompatible. This work uncovers the earliest linguistic layer of the Quran. It demonstrates that the text was composed in the Hijazi vernacular dialect, and that in the centuries that followed different reciters started to classicize the text to a new linguistic ideal, the ideal of the ʿarabiyyah. This study combines data from ancient Quranic manuscripts, the medieval Arabic grammarians and ample data from the Quranic reading traditions to arrive at new insights into the linguistic history of Quranic Arabic.

https://brill.com/view/title/61587

This critical Arabic text edition of K. Makārim al-akhlāq wa-maḥāsin al-ādāb wa-badāʾiʿ al-awṣāf wa-gharāʾib al-tashbīhāt (“Book of Noble Character, Excellent Conduct, Admirable Descriptions, and Curious Similes”) is a substantial work of adab attributed to the prominent littérateur Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1039) that consists of a short introduction and three chapters. The first chapter addresses acquiring noble character and excellent conduct (al-taḥallī bi-makārim al-akhlāq wa-maḥāsin al-ādāb); the second addresses shunning away from base character and ugly traits (al-tazakkī ʿan masāwiʾ al-akhlāq wa-maqābiḥ al-shiyam); and the third addresses admirable descriptions and curious similes (badāʾiʿ al-awṣāf wa-gharāʾib al-tashbīhāt). At the end of the text one finds a relatively large collection of widely circulating proverbs (amthāl sāʾira) that are alphabetically arranged. Makārim al-akhlāq is in essence an anthology of “good conduct” and of quotations suitable for social and literary discourse. It reflects the three ingredients of adab: behavior, literary culture, and learning. The work is introduced by an analytical study discussing the attribution of the work, the related genres, and the unique manuscript of the text.

The focus of the present study is Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 1350) al-Kāfiya al-Shāfiya fī al-Intiṣār li-l-Firqa al-Nājiya (The Sufficient and Healing [Poem] on the Vindication of the Saved Sect), a long didactic poem of nearly six-thousand verses. The poem is usually perceived as a theological-polemical work, which was meant to address Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī attacks on the traditionalist perception of the divine attributes. However, the present study shows that the poem is a rendition of the 1306-1307 trials that were held in Damascus and Cairo against Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). The reading of al-Kāfiya al-Shāfiya presented here is intended to place the poem among Ibn al-Qayyim’s most conspicuous works, and draw more attention to the genre of didactic verses in the Mamluk period.

تستعرض هذه الورقة المصادر الشفاهيّة والمسموعة والمكتوبة لكتابَين في الاختيار الأدبيّ بارزَين هما يتيمة الدهر في محاسن أهل العصر وذيله تتمّة اليتيمة لأبي منصور الثعالبي. والكتابان يعنيان حصرًا بالنتاج الأدبيّ المعاصر للمؤلّف مرتّبًا حسب الأقاليم الجغرافيّة. تكشف هذه الورقة شبكةً من الأدباء الناشطين في النصف الثاني من القرن الرابع/العاشر، الذين يشكّلون المصادر الرئيسة في الكتابَين. يثبت استعراض هذه المصادر عودةً للرواية الشفاهيّة، وهو ما فرضته جِدّة المواد التي لمّا تكن قد دُوّنت في الكتب. علاوة على ذلك، يكشف هذا الاستعراض اعتماد الثعالبي على وسائل مساعدة في نقل الأخبار عبر استعانته بالدواوين والكتب وموادّ مكتوبة أخرى. وليست درجة هذا التنويع في المصادر هي نفسها في أقسام اليتيمة والتتمّة.

La présente étude vise à analyser le concept de
naẓm

chez ʿabd al
-
Qāhir, concept qui n’est pas sans résonance chez les stylisticiens
qui considèrent le style comme la
résultante d’un choix de la part de l’écrivain.

Notre étude commence avec le concept d’
an-
naẓm

instauré par ʿabd al
-
Qāhir
tel
qu’il le décrit en termes de ce qui a appelé
la considération (
at-
tawḫḫī
) des significations grammaticales produites par les associations syntaxiques relativement aux buts qui modèlent les propos. Et cela se base sur le
fait que l’opération
de considération
suppose l’existence de nombreuses possibilités susceptibles d’être choisies

l’une plutôt que les autres. Ces
possibilités multiples
sur lesquelles s’appuie

an-
naẓm

sont plus précisément les types de relations entre
les termes. Et c’est bien là le concept d’
an-
naẓm
, dans le sens linguistique procédural
: l’opération d’
an-
naẓm
dans cette conception
correspond à l’idée dont parle la
stylistique linguistique de formation de son style
par l’écrivain sur les bases de son libre
-choix entre des possibilités illimitées.
C’est  pourquoi la question fondamentale de notre recherche tourne autour de l’association dialectique entre la dynamique de construction et le sens, et autour de l’efficacité réelle d’
an-
naẓm

dans l’élaboration de l’infini sur le fini.
Cette étu
de comprend d’abord une introduction qui présente le domaine de
recherche, le
status quaestionis,
les questionnements, les thèses en vigueur, la
problématique de l’étude, ses objectifs, la méthode suivie et ses étapes. S’ensuivent
trois chapitres, à savoir
l’anticipation (
at-
taqdīm
) et l’ajournement (
at-
tāʾḫīr
), la séparation (
al-
faṣl
) et la conjonction (
al-
waṣl
), l’ellipse (
al-
ḥaḏf
) et le rappel (
aḏ
-
ḏikr
). L’étude adopte la méthode descriptive associée à l’analyse et la critique dans une tentative d’explorer et examiner les outils et les procédures utilisés par ʿabd al
-
Qāhir al
-
Ǧurǧānī dans son analyse des textes et dans la formation de sa théorie d’
an
-
naẓm
dans laquelle nous apercevons la présence centrale
de l’idée de possibilités
grammaticales (
possibilities of Grammar
). Cette étude porte son attention sur les racines du concept de choix stylistique en rhétorique arabe classique
chez ʿabd al
-
Qāhir al
-
Ǧurǧānī qui a décrit cette idée de
libre-choix dans le contexte de son propos sur les différences et les aspects (
al-
furūq
wa-l-
wuǧūh
)
offerts par les possibilités grammaticales illimitées. Il n’a pas
seulement traité du libre-choix des mots du lexique, mais aussi de la façon dont ces termes sont disposés dans la phrase, ce qui constitue aussi un type du choix


6
stylistique. Et
il a traité encore de la façon dont l’organisation de la composition de
la phrase influe directement et en profondeur sur le sens qui résulte de cette
composition. C’est ce que ʿabd al
-
Qāhir cherche à établir dans son ouvrage

Les  preuves du miracle
(
dalāʾi
l al-
iʿǧāz
). Enfin,
l’étudiante recommande d’enquêter sur l’idée de choix chez ʿabd al
-
Qāhir
dans le contexte de sa relation avec
l’argumentation, du fait que l’idée de choix, bien
que son existence soit profondément ancrée dans le discours sur

l
’
esthétique du texte, trouve aussi sa place dans le contexte de la recherche sur la rhétorique
argumentative, c’est
-à-dire dans le cadre de la persuasion du
destinataire, de l’exposition des preuves et de la réfutation des preuves de l’adversaire, et cela en s’appuy
ant sur le choix de ce qui convient à la situation
requérant un discours, et ce parmi l’illimité linguistique qu’offrent les possibilités
grammaticales.