Of rhetoric, reason, and revelation: Ibn al-Jawzī’s Maqāmāt as an anti-parody and Sefer Taḥkemoni of Yehudah al-Ḥarīzī

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Maqāmāt of Ibn al-Jawzī may be viewed as a sustained effort to rectify and reform the parodic and irreverent features of earlier works in the maqāmāt genre, particularly those of al-Hamadhānī and al-Ḥarīrī. An understanding of this facet of his work confirms the interpretation of al-Hamadhānī’s Maqāmāt in particular as a parody of religious discourse. Ibn al-Jawzī’s work presents rhetoric as an effective tool for analysis and comprehension in the search for the truth, rather than as a tool for concealment, deception, and subterfuge, undoing the writings of al-Hamadhānī and al-Ḥarīrī. In the use of rhetoric for pious purposes, in championing the side of seriousness over frivolity, and in the personification of reason, Ibn al-Jawzī’s work likely was an important source for Yehudah al-Ḥarīzī’s collection of Hebrew maqāmāt, the Sefer Taḥkemoni.