‘Ajīb and Gharīb

Abstract

In the prodigious medieval Arabic historical output the mention of specific art objects reveals unfamiliarity with elementary aesthetic vocabulary. The authors usually refrain from judging the quality of art, unlike their expert discussion of literary works. This article uses a famous, relatively long and oft-quoted text from al-Maqrīzī's Khiṭaṭ describing three examples of Fatimid painting to explore how the Arab historians saw the visual arts, and why. It explores the linguistic roots of the most frequently used terms, such as ‘ajīb and gharīb, in twelfth- to fifteenth-century texts and how they were transposed from their semantic fields to the description of art objects. It then examines the sources’ reticence vis-à-vis the description of art and seeks an explanation in the intellectual formation of the historians and class distinction between historians and artists.