Ibn Quzman

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Ibn Quzman
Born1078
Córdoba, Al-Andalus
Died1160
Córdoba, Al-Andalus
OccupationPoet
NationalityAndalusian
Notable worksDiwan of Ibn Quzman

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Isa Abd al-Malik ibn Isa ibn Quzman al-Zuhri (Arabic : أبو بكر محمد بن عيسى بن عبدالملك بن عيسى بن قزمان الزهري; 1087–1160) [1] was the single most famous poet in the history of Al-Andalus and he is also considered to be one of its most original. [2] One of the characteristics of his poetry was "satire, verging on the licentious, aimed at religious experts." [3] He deeply admired his "Eastern predecessor" Abu Nuwas. [4]

Contents

Life

He was born and died in Cordoba during the reign of the Almoravids, to a family of possibly Gothic origins, while according to certain scholars he was from an Arab family. [5] as his name suggests and from the fact that he described himself as being blond and blue-eyed in several of his zajals (see below). [6] [3] [5] After leading a lifestyle similar to that of troubadours, [7] traveling to Seville, Granada and Jaén, [3] he became a mosque imam towards the end of his life. [3]

Diwan

A zajal in Andalusi vernacular Arabic with a muwassah-like structure beginning with mn yHwlw dh lmlyH mn ydy 'w yzwlw kl Hd ytHSr Hyn m`y yjwz w'n bh ntkhnkr drh lwrwz
attributed to Ibn Quzman in a leaflet found in the Cairo Geniza. Zajal of Ibn Quzman from Cairo Geniza MS-TS-AR-00051-00137-000-00002.jpg
A zajal in Andalusi vernacular Arabic with a muwaššaḥ-like structure beginning with من يحولو ذا المليح من يدي أو يزولو كل حد يتحصر حين معي يجوز وأنا به نتخنكر داره الوروز attributed to Ibn Quzman in a leaflet found in the Cairo Geniza.

Only 149 poems from the Diwan of Ibn Quzman appear in a manuscript in Saint Petersburg, which was the subject of a notice published in 1881. A facsimile edition of it titled Le Divan d'Ibn Guzman was published in 1896 in Berlin by Baron David von Günzburg. [9]

Most of the extant poems are zajals, the genre by which he earned his fame [10] which are characterized by their colloquial language, as well as a typical rhyming scheme: aaab cccb dddb, where b rhymes with a constantly recurring refrain of one or two lines. [11] As noted by James T. Monroe,

With one notable exception, Andalusi and North African scholars and critics, while they could not categorically deny that poet’s remarkable literary achievements, all tended to downplay them, by highlighting instead, passages from his classical Arabic production in verse and in prose (none of which has survived, aside from the handful of fragments they quote), while at the same time ignoring his zajals to the best of their ability. [3]

His approach to life as expressed in these melodious poems, together with their mixed idiom (occasionally using words of the Romance languages), shows a resemblance to the later vernacular troubadour poetry of France. [7]

Translations

The Diwan has been translated in Spanish by Federico Corriente (under the title Cancionero hispanoárabe) and in English by Monroe.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Almoravid dynasty</span> 1040–1147 Berber dynasty in west Africa and Iberia

The Almoravid dynasty was a Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almohads in 1147.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Nuwas</span> 8th-century classical Arabic poet

Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī was a classical Arabic poet, and the foremost representative of the modern (muhdath) poetry that developed during the first years of Abbasid Caliphate. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in One Thousand and One Nights.

Arabic poetry is one of the earliest forms of Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry contains the bulk of the oldest poetic material in Arabic, but Old Arabic inscriptions reveal the art of poetry existed in Arabic writing in material as early as the 1st century BCE, with oral poetry likely being much older still.

Abū al-ʻAtāhiyya, full name Abu Ishaq Isma'il ibn al-Qasim ibn Suwayd Al-Anzi, was one of the principal Arab poets of the early Islamic era, a prolific muwallad poet of ascetics who ranked with Bashshār and Abū Nuwās, both of whom he met. He renounced poetry for a time on religious grounds.

The Aftasid dynasty was an Arabized Iberian-Berber dynasty that ruled the Taifa of Badajoz in Al-Andalus.

Moroccan literature are the written and oral works of Moroccan culture. These works have been produced and shared by people who lived in Morocco and the historical states that have existed partially or entirely within the geographical area of modern-day Morocco. Apart from the various forms of oral literature, the written literature of Morocco encompasses various genres, including poetry, prose, theater, and nonfiction including philosophical and religious literature. Moroccan literature has mainly been written in Arabic and French, and to a lesser extent also in Berber languages, Judeo-Arabic, Spanish, and after the mid-19th century in English.[pages needed] Through translations into English and other languages, Moroccan literature has become accessible to readers worldwide.

Ibn Sahl of Seville (1212–1251) is considered one of the greatest Andalusi poets of the 13th century. He was a Jewish convert to Islam.

Zajal is a traditional form of oral strophic poetry declaimed in a colloquial dialect. The earliest recorded zajal poet was Ibn Quzman of al-Andalus who lived from 1078 to 1160. Most scholars see the Andalusi Arabic zajal, the stress-syllable versification of which differs significantly from the quantitative meter of classical Arabic poetry, as a form of expression adapted from Romance languages' popular poetry traditions into Arabic—first at the folkloric level and then by lettered poets such as Ibn Quzman.

Abū al-Walīd Aḥmad Ibn Zaydouni al-Makhzūmī, or simply known as Ibn Zaydoun or Abenzaidun, was an Arab Andalusian poet of Cordoba and Seville. He was considered the greatest neoclassical poet of al-Andalus.

James Thomas Monroe, or James T. Monroe, is an American scholar and translator of Arabic. He is emeritus professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, focusing on Classical Arabic Literature and Hispano-Arabic Literature. His doctorate was from Harvard University. Professor Monroe works in the areas of lyric poetry, the Middle Ages, and East-West relations with particular interest in the importance of the Arab-contribution to Spanish civilization."

Julián Ribera y Tarragó was a Spanish Arabist and academic.

Ibn Baqi or Abu Bakr Yahya Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Rahman Ibn Baqi was an Arab poet from Córdoba or Toledo in al-Andalus. Baqi is one of the best-known strophic poets and songwriters of Al-Andalus. He moved between Morocco and Al-Andalus and wrote several poems honoring members of a Moroccan family, the Banu Asara, qadis of Salé. He is especially famous for his muwashshahat. A considerable number of his poems are in the anthology of Al-Maqqari.

Abu ’l-ʿAbbāsAḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hurayra al-ʿUtbī, nicknamed al-Aʿmā al-Tuṭīlī or the Blind Poet of Tudela, was an Andalusian Arab poet who composed in Arabic. Although born in Tudela, he was raised in Seville, where he gained talent in poetry. He later lived in Murcia. He died young.

Abu Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Abu al-Fath (1058–1138/9), called Ibn Khafajah, a native of Alzira, was a poet of al-Andalus during the reign of the Almoravids. He was born in 1058 in Alzira near Valencia where he spent most of his life. He was the maternal uncle of poet Ibn al-Zaqqaq.

Abu Imran Musa ibn Isa ibn Abi 'l-Hajjal-Fasi was a Moroccan Maliki faqīh born at Fez to a Berber or Arab family whose nisba is impossible to reconstruct.

Ali ibn Attiya ibn al-Zaqqaq was one of the great poets of Al-Andalus during the reign of the Almoravids. He was a Muslim from Banu Lakhm. His mother was the sister of fellow Andalusian poet, Ibn Khafaja, and there is scholarly dispute regarding his father. He was a disciple under philosopher Ibn Ṣîd de Badajoz.

Abd al-Majid ibn Abdun, or in full Abu Mohammed Abd al-Majid ibn Abdun al-Yaburi عبد المجيد بن عبدون اليابري was a poet from Al-Andalus. He was the secretary of one of the two kings of the Taifa of Badajoz Umar ibn Mohammed al-Muwakkil (1078) of the Berber Miknasa Aftasid dynasty. When the Aftasid dynasty was defeated and Badajoz conquered by the Almoravids, Ibn Abdun became the secretary of Yusuf ibn Tashfin and later of his son Ali ibn Yusuf. He wrote a diwan. One of his best known poems is a qasida (elegy) on the downfall of the house of the Aftasids, known as al-Qasidah al-bassamah or sometimes the Abduniyya. Ibn Badrun, himself a well known poet of Al-Andalus, wrote a lengthy commentary on the poems and prose of Ibn Abdun, translated and edited by Reinhart Dozy in 1848.

In the surviving historical record, medieval Arabic female poets are few compared with the number of known male Arabic-language poets. Within Arabic literature, there has been "an almost total eclipse of women's poetic expression in the literary record as maintained in Arabic culture from the pre-Islamic era through the nineteenth century". However, there is evidence that, compared with the medieval poetry of Europe, women's poetry in the medieval Islamic world was "unparalleled" in "visibility and impact". Accordingly, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholars have emphasised that women's contribution to Arabic literature requires greater scholarly attention.

The literature of al-Andalus, also known as Andalusi literature, was produced in al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, from the Muslim conquest in 711 to either the Catholic conquest of Granada in 1492 or the expulsion of the Moors ending in 1614. Andalusi literature was written primarily in Arabic, but also in Hebrew, Latin, and Romance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hispano-Arabic homoerotic poetry</span>

There is a recurrent presence of homoerotic poems in Hispano-Arabic poetry. Erotic literature, often of the highest quality, flourished in Islamic culture at a time when homosexuality, introduced as a cultural refinement in Umayyad culture, played an important role.

References

  1. Ibn al-Abbar. Al-muqtaḍab min Kitāb Tuḥfat al-qādim. al-Andalus. p. 95.
  2. Josef W. Meri, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2005, p.364
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Christian–Muslim Relations. 2011. p. 620. ISBN   9789004216167.
  4. Monroe, James T. "Why was Ibn Quzmān Not Awarded the Title of "Abū Nuwās of the West?" ('Zajal 96', the Poet, and His Critics)". Journal of Arabic Literature.
  5. 1 2 Monroe, James T. (2016). The Mischievous Muse. p. 1. ISBN   9789004323773.
  6. Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio (1975). Spain, a Historical Enigma. p. 176. ISBN   9788473920995.
  7. 1 2 Robert Kehew, Ezra Pound, William De Witt Snodgrass, Lark in the morning: the verses of the troubadours, University of Chicago Press, 2005, p.10
  8. Samuel Miklos Stern. Hispano-Arabic Stroph-ic Poetry. L. P. Harvey, ed. & comp. New York. Oxford University Press. 1974.
  9. Collectif, Hispano-arabic poetry, ed. Slatkine, 1974, Ch. IV The Almoravid Period, Ibn Quzman, p. 266-308 (retrieved 26-09-2011) p.XII
  10. Josef W. Meri, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2005, p.365
  11. Gorton, T.J., "The Metre of IbnQuzman: a "Classical"Approach", Journal of Arabic Literature, 6 (1975), pp. 1-29

Further reading