Ibadism in the Mirror of Culture: Peculiarities of the Poetics of Abu Muslim Al-Bahlany and his Coreligionists

Abstract

The article examines the ideological core and technique of the poetic art of the most famous poets of Oman, the state religion of which is Ibadism. An interdisciplinary approach, which included historical review and linguistic methods of analysing original texts, made it possible to identify the content and artistic features of the Ibadites works. A close connection was revealed between the theory and history of Ibadism not only with the themes of the works (religious with a predominance of the motive of exile, repentance, justice and a call to civil action), but also with the forms of their implementation, such as refusal to directly mention the epithets of Allah, certain types of chronotopes, suggestive techniques, the use of the full semantic potential of the word, etc. The authors assert that Ibadite poetry has a political orientation and that civil Arab poetry could reach its heights only in the Ibadite environment. The peculiarities of the Ibadite poetics are traced mainly in the texts of such a prominent figure in the culture of Oman as Abu Muslim al-Bahlani.