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, early ʿAbbāsid poet (d. 186/802), born in Baṣra in a family of mawālī . He was a pupil and rāwī of the poet Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār [ q.v.], whose verse he is said to have plundered for motifs, and he befriended Abu ’l-ʿAtāhiya [ q.v.] until they became estranged. When young, he moved to Bag̲h̲dād and became a panegyrist of the caliphs al-Mahdī and al-Hādī, the Barmakids and other leading persons. He also excelled in elegies, which he sometimes seems to have prepared in advance. Notorious for his dissoluteness and libertinism ( mud̲j̲ūn [ q.v.]) and even accused of heresy by later writers (proba…

(a.), food, nourishment. For foods and food habits, see g̲h̲id̲h̲āʾ ; for cookery and the culinary art, see ṭabk̲h̲ . The present article deals with the restricted topic of food etiquette. Since pre-Islamic times, the rules of food etiquette were divided between host and guests, the prime rules being that the former should be as generous as possible and the latter should not appear too greedy. Much may be learned from the numerous anecdotes on those who sinned against these rules: see the monographs and chapters in adab anthologies on misers ( buk̲h̲alāʾ ), especia…

(a.), lit. “amazement”, a term of rhetoric. Though sometimes given a separate place in lists of badīʿ [ q.v.], as in Rādūyānī’s [ q.v.] Tard̲j̲umān al-balāg̲h̲a or Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Waṭwāṭ’s [ q.v.] Ḥadāʾiḳ al-siḥr , it is far more often mentioned, in more general discussions of poetry, as one of the basic effects or aims of the poetic process, especially of imagery. It is found, together with its active counterpart taʿd̲j̲īb (“causing amazement”) in the Aristotelian tradition (Ibn Sīnā, Ḥāzim al-Ḳarṭād̲j̲annī [ q.vv.]) and, in a somewhat different sense, in the poetics of ʿAbd…

, rhetorician, Zaydī scholar and imām (669-745/1270-1344; a death date of 749/1348 is also mentioned). Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza b. ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥusaynī al-ʿAlawī al-Ṭālibī, a versatile and prolific Yemeni scholar, was descended from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the imām ʿAlī al-Riḍā [ q.vv.]. He was born in Ṣanʿāʾ and played a role in politics, for after the death of al-Mahdī Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar in 729/1329 he ruled over part of Yemen as Zaydī imām under the name al-Muʾayyad bi ’llāh until his death. It is said that the number of quires ( karārīs ) written by him equalled t…

, Maḥmūd b. (al-)Ḥasan al-Warrāḳ al-Nak̲h̲k̲h̲ās, poet of the early ʿAbbāsid period. He lived in Bag̲h̲dād, where he died ca. 230/845. As Ibn al-Muʿtazz [ q.v.] says in his Ṭabaḳāt al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ (ed. ʿAbd al-Sattār Aḥmad Farrād̲j̲, Cairo n.d., 367), “most of his poetry consists of sententious, gnomic, paraenetic and ethical sayings ( amt̲h̲āl wa-ḥikam wa-mawāʿiẓ wa-adab), in which genres he does not fall short of Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Ḳuddūs [ q.v.] and Sābiḳ al-Barbarī”. Specialising in epigrams on zuhd [ q.v.] rarely longer than six lines, with an easy diction and almost wholl…

(a.) “contradicting poems, flytings”, pl. of naḳīḍa (from the verb naḳaḍa “to destroy, undo, rebut, oppose”), synonymous with munāḳaḍāt (from the verbal form III nāḳaḍa ): a form of poetic duelling in which tribal or personal insults are exchanged in poems, usually coming in pairs, employing the same metre and rhyme. It is thus part of invective poetry or hid̲j̲āʾ [ q.v.]. Such duels were an established form in pre-Islamic times, and had their origin in the slanging-matches between members of ¶ different clans or tribes which took the place of, or formed the preliminaries fo…

, a minor poet and minor muḥaddit̲h̲ from Kūfa, who lived in the middle of the 2nd/8th century. He belonged to Ḳays b. ʿAylān b. Muḍar. He is also called a mawlā of ʿAdwān, a tribe of D̲j̲adīlat Ḳays; but his name and that of his father seem to indicate his Arab origin. Short notices and fragments of his poetry are found in biographies of muḥaddithūn (e.g. Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, al-Tahd̲h̲īb , Ḥaydarābād 1325-27, x, 103) and several works of adab , notably al-Aghānī ed. Dār al-Kutub, xviii, 148-53). Ibn al-Nadīm ( al-Fihrist , Leipzig 1871-2, 162) mentions his verse as fil…

(a.), quotation, enjambment, implication. This term (“inclusion”) has a number of different senses in Arabic poetics and stylistic s. It is used for the incorporation in a poem of a line, or part of a line, by another poet by way of quotation rather than plagiarism [see sariḳa. In literature, in Suppl.]. Felicitous quotation was included by Ibn al-Muʿtazz [ q.v.] in his seminal K. al-Badīʿ among the “beauties of speech” and was therefore adopted by many later authors, who often discuss it together with related phenomena such as the literary quotation of Ḳurʾān or Tradition [see iḳtibās …

(a.), literally “the act of comparing, comparison”. 1. In rhetoric. “Simile” or “(explicit) comparison” is one of the most important literary techniques in all literatures. It is especially frequent in pre- and early Islamic Arabic poetry, where metaphor [see istiʿāra ] is less common than in ʿAbbāsid poetry, but it remained a central figure of speech, forming the main “point” of innumerable lines and epigrams. When describing objects, persons or events, classical poets are not content with “factual” description …

(a.), mirage. 1. As a natural phenomenon. Sarāb is specifically the illusion of water (sometimes running water, due to a sense of the verb saraba ) seen at midday which appears to be on the ground, as compared to āl , which is seen early and late in the day and makes things appear to float in mid-air and quiver. The lexicographical tradition attempts several ways of distinguishing these two words, but the emphasis on the time of day of their appearance is the most consistent differentiation. Sarāb is used twice in the Ḳurʾān, in XXIV, 39, within a simile for the deeds of the unbel…