Kitab al-Hamasah
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Ḥamāsah (from Arabic حماسة valour) is a well-known[1] ten-book anthology of Arabic poetry, compiled in the 9th century by Abu Tammam. Along with the Asma'iyyat, Mufaddaliyat, Jamharat Ash'ar al-Arab, and Mu'allaqat, Hamasah is considered one of the primary sources of early Arabic poetry.[2] The work is especially important for having been the first Arabic anthology compiled by a poet and not a philologist and is the first in the Hamasah literary genre. The first and largest section of the work, al-ḥamāsah (valour), provides the name for several other anthologies of this type.[3]
The anthology contains a total of 884 poems, most of which are short extracts of longer poems, grouped by subject matter.[4] The selections date back to pre-Islamic, Islamic and early 'Abbasid times.
The Ḥamāsah was probably compiled around AD 835, while Abū Tammām was staying at Hamadan in Iran, where he had access to a very good library. It quickly acquired the status of a classic work. Saladin is said to have known it by heart.
Content
The ten headings are:
- Al-Ḥamāsah “Valour”
- Al-Marāthī, “Elegies”;
- Al-Adab, “Proper conduct”;
- An-Nasīb, “Love”;
- Al-Hijāʿ, “Invective”;
- Al-Adyāf wa al-madīḥ, “Hospitality and praise of the generous”;
- Aṣ-Ṣifāt, “Descriptive verses/pieces”;
- As-Sayr wa an-Nuʾas, “desert travel”;
- Al-Mulah, “Clever curiosities”;
- Madhammāt an-nisaʾ, “the censure of women”
See also
Further reading
- "Abū Tammām and the Poetics of the ʿAbbāsid Age". - Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych (1991)
References
- ^ Ramzi Baalbaki, The Arabic Lexicographical Tradition: From the 2nd/8th to the 12th/18th Century, pg. 89. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2014. ISBN 9789004274013
- ^ Wen-chin Ouyang, Literary Criticism in Medieval Arabic-Islamic Culture: The Making of a Tradition, pg. 65. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997. ISBN 9780748608973
- ^ Orfali, Bilal (1 January 2012). "A Sketch Map of Arabic Poetry Anthologies up to the Fall of Baghdad". Journal of Arabic Literature. 43 (1): 29–59. doi:10.1163/157006412X629737.
- ^ Kirsten Eksell, "Genre in Early Arabic Poetry." Taken from Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, vol. 2, pg. 158. Eds. Anders Pettersson, Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Margareta Petersson and Stefan Helgesson. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006. ISBN 9783110894110
External links
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