Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
The premier position of the Lāmiyyat al-'Arab among the poetry of al-shu'arā' al-Ta'alīk (the brigand-poets) of the Jāhiliyya is undeniable. Among scholars and philologists, both Arab and Orientalist, it has remained over the centuries the object of the most minute philological commentaries. Its Arab commentators number more than 20, among them the foremost names in classical Arabic literary scholarship: al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), the doyen of the Basran school, whose commentary is said actually to have been taken from his Kufan archrival, Tha'lab (d. 291/904); the renowned poetic commentarist al-Tibrīzī (d. 502/1109); and the famed grammarian and Qur'anic commentator, al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143). Its European popularity—a phenomenon that Blachére attributes to its appeal to the sensibilities of nineteenth-century Romanticism—dates to Sylvestre de Sacy's study and translation of 1826, followed by Rückert's German translation in his Hamāsa of 1846. In philological studies, of note are the more than 20 pages of his Beiträge that Nöldeke devotes to lexical matters and Jacob's extensive two-part Schanfará-Siudien.
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the American Research Center in Egypt, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1983. Funding for the research was provided by the I.C.A. through the American Research Center in Egypt, 1982.
1 Sezgin, Fuat, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrjfttums, Vol. 2, Poesie bis ca. 430H (Leiden, 1975), pp. 133–37.Google Scholar
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11 Ibid., p. 176.
12 Al-'Utbī's claim (in an anecdote related in Hamāsat al-Khālidiyyayn) that Khalaf al-Ahmar composed a poem in lam on the Ahl al-Bayt that is the source of the accusation of his having forged the Lāmiyya refers, according to Khulayyif, to the “Rithā' of Ta'abbata Sharran” and not, as Sezgin seems to think, to the Lāmiyyat al-'Arab. Ibid, pp. 175–76; Sezgin, Poesie, pp. 460–61.
13 Nöldeke, Belträge, p. 201.
14 Jacob, Schanfarà-Studien, passim.
15 F. Krenkow, “al-Shanfarā”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st ed.
16 Gabrieli, F., “Sull'autenticità della ‘Lāmiyyat al-'Arab’”, Revista degli Studi Orientali, 15 (1935), p. 361.Google Scholar On reading Khalaf al-Ahmar's qasida (Ahlwardt, J., Chalef elahmar's Qasside [Greifswald, 1859]), I cannot help but agree with Gabrieli. Its beauty lies in the charm of a tour de force of consciously archaized imagery, as opposed to the tension and momentum that characterize the Lāmiyya and al-Shanfarā's undisputed poetry.Google Scholar See also Gabrieli, F., “Ta'abbatta Śarran, Śanfarà, Halaf al-Ahmar”, Atti della Accademia Nazionale del Lincei, ser. 8 (1946), 40–69. Note too that the authorship of “Khalaf al-Ahmar's qasidah” is by no means certain.Google Scholar Sezgin, Poesie, p.460.
17 Blachère, Histoire, vol. 1, pp. 86–102, 115, 156, 182.
18 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 285.
19 Monroe, James, “Oral Composition in Pre-Islamic Poetry” Journal of Arabic Literature, 3 (1972), 1–53;CrossRefGoogle ScholarZwettler, Michael, The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry: Its Character and Implications (Columbus, Ohio, 1978). See especially Ch. 4, “Variation and Attribution in the Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry”.Google Scholar
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22 Goldziher, Ignaz, Muslim Studies, 1., 2 vols., Stern, S. M., ed., Barber, and Stern, , trans. (Chicago, 1971), vol. 2, p. 236.Google Scholar See also Hurgronje, Snouck, “Le droit Musulmam” van Gennep, Arnold, trans., in Selected Works of C. Snouck Hurgronje, Bousquet, and Schacht, , eds. (Leiden, 1957), p. 223;Google Scholar Th. W. Juynboll, “Hadīth”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st ed.
23 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, vol. 2, p. 19.
24 Blachére, Histoire, vol. 1, pp. 112–17.
25 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 162.
26 These conclusions were presented in two as yet unpublished papers: “The Nature of Narrative in the Kitāb al-Aghānī” (Middle East Studies Association conference, Philadelphia, 1982) and “Durayd ibn al-Simmah and, the Passing of the Heroic Age” (American Oriental Society conference, Baltimore, 1983).
27 van Gennep, Arnold, The Rites of Passage, Vizedom, and Caffee, , trans. (Chicago, 1960), p. 11 (Les rites de passage, 1909);Google ScholarStetkevych, Suzanne, “Structuralist Analyses of Pre-Islamic Poetry: Critique and New Directions” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 43 (1983), 85–107;CrossRefGoogle ScholarStetkevych, Suzanne, “al-Qasīdah al-'Arabiyyah wa-Tuqūs al-'Ubūr: Dirāsah fī al-bunyah al-namūdhajiyyah” Majallat Majma' al-Lughah al-'Arabiyyah bi-Dimashq, 60, 7 (1985), 55–85.Google Scholar
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29 For the full bibliography of the akhbar and ash'ar attributed to al-Shanfarā see Sezgin, Poesie, p. 134. The major portion of his poetry, excluding the Lāmiyyat al-'Arab and the Tā'iyya from the Mufaddaiyyāt, has been edited by al-Maymanī, 'Abd al-'Azāz in al-Tarāif al-adabiyyal (Cairo, 1937), pp. 31–42.Google Scholar
30 Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca, New York, 1977), pp. 94–95.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., p. 95.
32 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 1966), pp. 96–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, “The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebeia” in Gordon, R. L., ed., Myth, Religion, and Society: Structuralist Essays by M. Detienne, L. Gernet, J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 154–55.Google Scholar
34 Ibid., pp. 150–51.
35 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, “Sophocles' Philoctetes and the Ephebeia”, in Vernant, Jean-Pierre and Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece, Lloyd, Janet, trans. (Sussex, 1981), pp. 177–84.Google Scholar
36 Vidal-Naquet, “Black Hunter” p. 162; Stetkevych, “Su'lūk and His Poem”, pp. 664, 673.
37 Al-Anbārī's version of this anecdote in al-Mufaddaliyyāt as edited by Lyall vocalizes the name as al-Iwās ibn al-Hijr ibn Hunay'. Normally I have followed the vocalization of the text cited. Lyall, Charles James, al-Mufaddaliyyat, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1918), vol. I, p. 195.Google Scholar
38 al-Isbahānī, Abū al-Faraj, Kitāb al-aghānī, 32 vols., al-lbyārī, Ibrāhīm, ed. (Cairo, 1969-), vol. 24, pp. 8391–93.Google Scholar
39 Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. I, p. 196.
40 Cf. for example the Kitāb al-aghānī narratives about Imru' al-Qays and Qays ibn al-Khatīm; Kitab al-aghani, vol. 9, p. 3201; vol. 3, pp. 849–52.
41 Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyat, vol. I, pp. 197–98.
42 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 72–73.
43 Kitāb al-aghānī, vol. 24, pp. 8399–401.
44 Ibid., p. 8397. al-Marzūqī, Abū 'Alī Ahmad ibn al-Hasan, Sharh dīwān al-hamāsa, 4 vols., Amīn, Ahmad and Hārūn, 'Abd al-Salām, eds. (Cairo, n.d.), vol. 1, pp. 164–66.Google Scholar
45 Kitāb al-aghānī, vol. 24, pp. 8401–2.
46 Diel, Paul, Symbolism in Greek Mythology: Human Desire and Its Transformations (Boulder, Cob., 1980), p. 125;Google Scholar Stetkevych, “The Su'lūk and His Poem”, pp. 668–69.
47 Chelhod, Joseph, Le sacrifice chez les Arabes: Recherches sur l'évolution, la nature et la fonction des rites sacrflciels en Arabie occidentale (Paris, 1955), pp. 75–79.Google Scholar
48 Cf. Hamāsiyya no. 52 by Kabshah; Al-Marzūqī, Sharh dīwān al-hamāsa, vol. 1, pp. 217–19.
49 Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyat, vol. 1, pp. 194–207, with the commentary of al-Anbārī; Shākir, Ahmad Muhammad and Hārūn, 'Abd al-Salām Muhammad. eds., al-Mufaddaliyyāt (Cairo, n.d.), pp. 108–12.Google Scholar The reader may want to compare my translation with that of Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, pp. 68–73.
50 Ta'allat is a metathesis for ta'awwalat (root '-w-l), to manage a family. Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, pp. 110–11.
51 This line does not occur in all recensions, cf. Ibid, p. 111; Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. I, p. 204.
52 Lyall notes that this line is lacking in some recensions and is remarkably prosaic; he therefore has omitted it from his translation. Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 72.
53 Note that the Kitāb al-aghānī redaction reads harāman for qatīlan (see above p. 368). Another variant is muhriman (consecrated for pilgrimage) for muhdiyan. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 205; Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, pp. 111–12.
54 I have preferred the variant reading bi-manbitī (of my stock), as has Lyall, over bi-munyatī (of my wish, desire); Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 73; Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p.112.
55 This line is lacking in Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. I, p. 206; vol. 2, p. 73. According to Shākir and Hārūn (al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p. 112) some versions end with this verse.
56 Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 69.
57 al-Qayrawānī, Ibn Rashīq, al-'Umdah fī mahāsin al-shi'r waadābih wa-naqdih, 2 vols. (in one book), al-Hamīd, Muhammad Muhyī al-Dīn 'Abd, ed. (Cairo, 1972), vol. I, p. 248.Google Scholar
58 Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p. 110; Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 72.
59 Van Gennep, Rites of Passage, p. 14.
60 Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p. 110; Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. I, p. 203; vol. 2, p. 72.
61 Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p. 110.
62 Vidal-Naquet, “Black Hunter” passim; Turner, Victor, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, New York, 1967), p. 98.Google Scholar
63 So binding was the prohibition against killing during the sacred months that if a man saw the killer of his father or brother, he would not so much as speak to him, let alone kill him. al-Ālūsī, Muhammad Shukrī, Bulūgh al-arab fī ma'rifat ahwāl al-'Arab, 3 vols., al-Atharī, Muhammad Bahjat, ed. (Cairo, n.d.), vol. 3, p. 79.Google Scholar
64 Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāi, p. 112, Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 73.
65 Douglas, Purity and Danger, passim.
66 Lammens and, following him, Chelhod, treat blood-vengeance as a form of sacrifice. Lammens, Henri, “Le caractére religieux du ‘tār’ ou vendetta chez les Arabes préislamites” Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 26 (1926), 115;Google Scholar Chelhod, Sacrifice, pp. 100–104, 116–20. On the inverse relation between blood vengeance and sacrifice see Stetkevych, Suzanne, “The Rithā' of Ta'abbata Sharran: A Study of Blood Vengeance in Early Arabic Poetry”, Journal of Semitic Studies, 31 (1986), 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
67 Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, p. 112.
68 Ibid., pp. 110, 112; Lyall, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, vol. 2, p. 73.
69 Stetkevych, “Su'lūk and His Poem”, p. 677.
70 See, for example, the concluding section of the Mu'allaqa of Labīd, especially lines 75, 77, 87.
71 Khulayyif, al-Shu'arā' al-Ta'alīk, pp. 262–71.
72 Gabrieli concludes that the 60-odd verses of the Lāmiyya do not constitute a proper poem, but rather, form an anthology of the ancient poetic patrimony held together by a single motif: the bitter soul (nafs murrah) of the Azdite brigand poet. Gabrieli, “Ta'abbata Śarran, Śanfará, Halaf al-Ahmar” p. 56.
73 al-Zamakhsharī, Abū al-Qāsim Mahmūd ibn 'Umar, Kitāb al-'ajab fī sharh Lāmiyyat al-'Arab (includes the al-Mubarrad/Tha'lab commentary) (Istanbul, 1300 H.), pp. 10–75.Google Scholar For another translation see Michael, Sells, “Shanfara's Lamiyya: A New Version” al-'Arabiyya, 16 (1983), 5–25.Google Scholar
74 Cf. Khulayyif's remarks in al-Shu'arā' al-Ta'alīk, pp. 172–73. For a review of the motifs that commonly occur in the final section of the qasidah see Jacobi, Renate, Studien zur Poetik der altarabischen Qaside (Wiesbaden, 1971), pp. 65–99.Google Scholar
75 Al-Zamakhsharī, Kitāb al-'ajab, p. 14.
76 Al-Jāhiz, al-Hayawān, vol. 5, p. 40.
77 Al-Zamakhsharī, Kitāb al- 'ajab, p. 17.
78 Ibid., p. 31.
79 Ibid., p. 37.
80 It should be noted that maysir was not an idle pastime, but rather a means of distributing meat, especially in times of hardship or famine. See Stetkevych, S., “Al-QaTīdah al-'Arabiyyah wa-tuqūs a1-'ubūr”, 71–72;Google Scholar al-Ālūsī, Bulūgh al-arab, vol. 3, pp. 53–55.
81 Compare with the key elements of the story of al-Shanfarā's capture, above, p. 369.
82 Al-Marzūqī, Sharh dīwān al-hamāsa, vol. 2, p. 838–39; von Grunebaum, G. E., Muhammaden Festivals (New York, 1951), pp. 26–28;Google Scholar Lammens, “Le caractére religieux du ‘tār’”, pp. 85–86
83 For example, Hamāsiyya no. 165 by Ta'abbata Sharran (al-Marzūqī, Sharh dīwān al-hamāsa, vol. 2, pp. 491–98); Mufaddaliyyā no. 1, by Ta'abbata Sharran (Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, pp. 27–31) and Mufaddaliyya no. 20 by al-Shanfarā (above pp. 371–73).
84 Cf. the Mu'allaqa of Imru al-Qays, I. 62; Chelhod, Le sacrifice, pp. 161–62.
85 See, for example, Mufaddaliyyāt no. 40, 11. 51–60; no. 9, 11. 9–19; no. 38, 11. 9–19; no. 39, 11. 20–31 (Shākir and Hārūn, al-Mufaddaliyyāt, pp. 196–97; 50–51; 181–83; 188–89).
86 Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred, Gregory, Patrick, trans. (Baltimore, 1977), p. 87. The extensive parallels between the su'luk and Girard's interpretation of Oedipus as a surrogate victim (pp. 68–88) warrant detailed elaboration.Google Scholar
