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Abbasid Politics and Performative Panegyric: The Poetry of ʿAli ibn Jabala
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2021
Abstract
The poet ʿAli ibn Jabala, also called al-ʿAkawwak, was a little known but significant poet who lived during the late 8th and early 9th centuries. This article examines his poetry in its political and cultural context to delineate the literary devices exploited by the poet in his poems of praise. Moreover, this paper interprets existing prose anecdotes claiming that al-ʿAkawwak's panegyric poem to the caliph al-Maʾmun's commander, Abu Dulaf al-ʿIjli, made the caliph so furious that he ordered the poet's execution, despite the poet having never composed any verses overtly criticizing the caliph. The argument is made that, within the tense political atmosphere of the time, the style that the poet embraced in praising the two commanders, Abu Dulaf al-ʿIjli and Humayd al-Tusi, intensified al-Maʾmun's anger toward the poet.
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References
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12 Al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 233. The term al-abnāʾ circulated during the civil war between al-Amin and al-Maʾmun and was associated with the people of Khurasan. The sons of the people of Khurasan were those whose fathers fought for the Abbasids against the Umayyads; they are known as Ahl al-Dawla (the people of the revolution). Al-abnāʾ refers to those who were born in Khurasan but grew up in Baghdad, which was home to them. They were a distinguished group who were used to seeing themselves as superior to the Arabs, the bedouins, and mawālī (clients, or non-Arab freedmen). Faruq ʿUmar Fawzi, Qiraʾat wa-Murajaʿat Naqdiyya fi al-Tarikh al-Islami (Amman: Dar Majdalawi, 2007), 200; Michael Cooperson, al-Maʾmun: The Revival of Islam (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2005), 45.
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15 Ibid.; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, vol. 11, 359. For more about the poet, see ʿAli ibn Jabala, Diwan ʿAli ibn Jabala “al-ʿAkawwak,” ed. Shakir al-ʿAshur (Damascus: Tamuz, 2014), 7–10.
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18 M. Rekaya, “al-Maʾmūn,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. Bearman et al., 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4889.
19 Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century, 3rd ed. (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2016), 129.
20 Ibid., 130.
21 Ibid., 131.
22 Ibid., 132.
23 Ibid., 132–33.
24 Ibid., 135.
25 Ibn Jabala, Shiʿr ʿAli ibn Jabala, 11; al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 239–40.
26 Al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul, 653.
27 Ibid., 665.
28 Rifaʿi, ʿAsr al-Maʾmun, 319–24.
29 Ibid., 106.
30 Abu al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Tayfur, Kitab Baghdad, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 2002), 53.
31 Al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul, 657–58.
32 Rifaʿi, ʿAsr al-Maʾmun, 338–43.
33 Gruendler, Praise Poetry, 10. Emphasis in original
34 Al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul, 659–60; al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19: 239–40.
35 The opening verse of the poem is
ذَادَ وِرْدَ الغَيِّ عن صَدَرِهْ وَارْعَوَى واللَّهْوُ مِنْ وَطَرِهْ
He drove away sin from his chest,
and abstained [from transgression], while desiring pleasure.
36 Al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 236–38.
37 Ibid., 253–54.
38 Ibid., 253.
39 Ibid., 233.
40 Ibid., 254.
41 Balfas, “Tashfir al-Qasida,” 196.
42 ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Muʿtazz al-ʿAbbasi, Tabaqat al-Shuʿaraʾ, ed. ʿAbd al-Sattar Ahmad Farraj, 3rd ed., vol. 8 (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1956), 172.
43 See Stetkevych, Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy, ch. 1.
44 See Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-Aʿyan, vol. 3, 252–53; and al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 240, 253–54.
45 See the prose narrative attesting to the poem's fame in al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 239.
46 Hugh Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State (London: Routledge, 2001), 99, 103, 114.
47 Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam wa-Wafayat al-Mashahir wa-l-Aʿlam, 2nd ed., vol. 16 (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-ʿArabi, 1990), 332.
48 ʿIzz al-Din ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, vol. 5 (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-ʿArabi, 1997), 561.
49 Al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 16, 334–35; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, vol. 12, 417.
50 The term Kisra may refer not to a particular Sasanian king, but rather represent the entire Sasanian monarchical dynasty. See Michael Morony, “Kisra,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. Bearman et al., 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4407.
51 Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-Farid, vol. 2 (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 39.
52 J. E. Bencheikh, “al Kasim b. Isa,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. Bearman et al., 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3982.
53 Cooperson, al-Maʾmun, 73–74.
54 Al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 15, 238; Jamal al-Din Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazim fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa-l-ʾUmam, vol. 10 (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1992), 128.
55 Abu al-Mahasin Yusuf ibn Taghri Bardi, al-Nujum al-Zahira fi Muluk Misr wa-l-Qahira, vol. 2 (Cairo: Wizarat al-Thaqafa wa-l-Irshad al-Qawmi, Dar al-Kutub, 1963), 190; al-Janabi, Ahmad Nasif, “Humayd al-Taʾi Aʿzam Quwwad al-Maʾmun,” al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmi al-ʿIraqi 205, no. 4 (1980): 223–25Google Scholar.
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57 Ibid., 191.
58 Tayeb el-Hibri, “The Reign of the Caliph al-Maʾmun (811–833): The Quest for Power and the Crisis of Legitimacy” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1994), 177–78.
59 Muhammad ʿAbd al-Hafiz al-Manasir, al-Jaysh fi al-ʿAsr al-ʿAbbasi al-Awwal (Amman: Dar Majdalawi, 2000), 473.
60 Cooperson, al-Maʾmun, 43.
61 Ibid., 43.
62 Tayeb el-Hibri, “The Empire in Iraq, 763–861,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, ed. Chase F. Robinson, vol. 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 283.
63 Abu al-Faraj Qudama ibn Jaʿfar, Naqd al-Shiʿr (Constantinople: Matbaʿat al-Jawanib, 1885), 27.
64 al-Duri, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, “al-Dimuqratiyya fi Falsafat al-Hukum al-ʿArabi,” Majallat al-Mustaqbal al-ʿArabi 2, no. 9 (1979): 60–76, 64Google Scholar; Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, 2nd ed. (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 140.
65 Samer Mahdy Ali, “The Rise of the Abbasid Public Sphere: The Case of al-Mutanabbī and Three Middle Ranking Patrons,” al-Qantara 29 (2008), 484.
66 See Stetkevych, Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy; and Ali, “Rise of the Abbasid Public Sphere,” 484.
67 ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Shubayli, al-Mubalagha fi al-Shiʿr al-ʿAbbasi (Riyadh: al-Nadi al-Adabi, 1980), 15.
68 Ibid., 21–22. Al-Shubayli also presents an example for each type of hyperbole.
69 Ibid., 24.
70 ʿAbd al-Qahir al-Jurjani, Asrar al-Balagha, (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1991), 275.
71 ʿAbd Allah ʿAsilan, “Zahirat al-Mubalagha fi al-Shʿr al-ʿAbbasi wa-ʿAwamil Shuyuʿiha,” Majallat Kulliyat al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya, no. 8 (1978), 393.
72 Ibid., 389, 391, 392.
73 ʿAli ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Jurjani, al-Wasatah bayn al-Mutanabbi wa-Khusumih, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim and ʿAli al-Bajawi (Cairo: Matbaʿat ʿIsa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1966), 421. See the biography of the Jāhilī poet al-Aʿsha in al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 9, 80–95.
74 Al-Jurjani, al-Wasatah, 428. See the biography of the Abbasid poet Abu Nuwas in al-Zirikli, al-Aʿlam, vol. 2, 225.
75 Al-Jurjani, al-Wasatah, 428.
76 Al-Shubayli, al-Mubalagha, 41–45.
77 See Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Tabaqat al-Shuʿaraʾ, vol. 8, 172; and al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 19, 240, 252–54.
78 ʿAdnan and Qahtan are the two Arab groups or tribes from which all Arabs trace their roots. For more on Arab tribes, see ʿAli ibn Ahmad ibn Hazm, Jamharat Ansab al-ʿArab (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983).
79 Ibn Jabala, Shiʿr ʿAli ibn Jabala, 68.
80 Ibid., 95.
81 For a detailed discussion of this subject, see Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 4–23.
82 Sperl, “Islamic Kingship,” 20.
83 Ibid., 21.
84 Ibid., 23.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibn Jabala, Shiʿr ʿAli ibn Jabala, 32–36.
87 Ibid., 31.
88 Ibid., 51.
89 Ibid., 111.
90 Gruendler, Praise Poetry, 105–11.
91 Muhammad al-Hurani, al-Dahr fi Shiʿr ibn al-Rumi: Dirasa Tahliliyya (Amman: Dar al-Yazuri al-ʿIlmiyya, 2018), 18–23.
92 Qur'an 45:24 (trans. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004).
93 Darwish, Muhyi al-Din, Iʿrab al-Qurʾan al-Karim wa-Bayanuh, 3rd ed., vol. 10 (Damascus: Dar ibn Kathir, 1992), 172Google Scholar.
94 See Mauss, Marcel, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (New York: Norton, 1967)Google Scholar; Stetkevych, Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy.
95 Fawzi, Faruq ʿUmar, Tarikh al-Nuzum al-Islamiyya: Dirasa li-Tatawwur al-Muʾassasat al-Markaziyya fi al-Dawla fi al-Qurun al-Islamiyya al-Ula (Amman: Dar al-Shuruq, 2010), 80–81Google Scholar.
96 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-Farid, vol. 8, 114.
97 El-Hibri, “Reign of the Caliph,” 28–29; Cooperson, al-Maʾmun, 47.
98 Fawzi, Qiraʾat wa-Murajaʿat, 200.
99 Al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 18, 157; Fawzi, Tarikh al-Nuzum al-Islamiyya, 82–83. See the biography of the Abbasid poet Ashjaʿ al-Sulami in al-Zirikli, al-Aʿlam, vol. 1, 331.
100 Ibn Jabala, Shiʿr ʿAli ibn Jabala, 93–94.
101 Ibid., 58–63.
102 Ibid., 41, 60.
103 ʿAbd al-Mutaʿal al-Saʿidi, Bughyat al-Idah li-Talkhis al-Miftah fi ʿUlum al-Balagha, 17th ed., vol. 1 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Adab, 2005), 192.
104 Ibn Jabala, Shiʿr ʿAli ibn Jabala, 107.