29 - Didactic verse

Summary

Arabic didactic verse (shiʿr ta līmī) aims solely at teaching a particular genre of knowledge. Many Arab critics do not regard it as true poetry, since it is devoid of emotion and imagination, both of which are essential constituents of poetry, besides metre and rhyme. In other words, they consider it as versified prose.

Didactic verse is instructive, adding to one's knowledge and aiming at improving one's morals. It pleases the ear and aids the memory. It is known to go as far back as the dawn of Greek history. In all probability, the Greeks borrowed the idea from the Sumerians, as so much of Greek civilization is traceable to ancient Mesopotamia. But the Arabs were influenced in this, as in so many other cultural aspects, by the Greeks and the Indians, rather than by Mesopotamia. Arabic didactic verse may be categorized under the following headings:

1. 1 Epigrammatic and gnomic verses (i.e. pertaining to maxims or aphorisms) that date back to the time of the Jāhiliyyah, for which Zuhayr b. abī Sulmā, al-Nābighah al-Dhubyānī (d. AD 604) and Labīd b. Rabīʾah were well known.

2. 2 Fables, parables, songs, riddles, maxims, proverbs, monologues and dialogues, particularly of the ʾAbbasid era. An example of this kind of literature is the Dīwān of Umayyah b. abī ʾ1-Ṣalt (d. c. 9/630), whose didactic verses were turned into prose by al-Jāḥiẓ.

3. 3 Theological, medical and grammatical treatises which cover a wide range, for example, the Alfiyyah of Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Mālik, 1,000 verses in rajaz metre to help students to learn by heart the intricacies of Arabic grammar.

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