The Muwashshahat and the Kharjas Tell their Own Story

J A Abu-Haidar

doi:10.3989/alqantara.2005.v26.i1.117

Abstract

The best way for understanding any literature, we are told, is by reading the literature itself, and not what has been said or written about it. This article, in four parts, is an attempt to study the muwashshaḥāt and their kharjas depending, as far as possible, solely on the available texts. It arrives at three conclusions not altogether new to my readers: 1. The muwashshaḥāt were the product of the classical Arabic literary tradition, but their development is, inevitably, linked with specific political and social factors in the Andalusi milieu. 2. The kharja is a sally of ẓarf or hazl 'wit', 'wittiness' at the end of the muwashshaḥ . Woman's-voice kharjas in Romance, whatever the purpose they served, if they existed prior to the muwashshaḥāt , were, like their Arabic counterparts, meant to provide the same ẓarf requirement at the end of the muwashshaḥ . 3. Ibn Sanā' al-Mulk's reaction to the kharja was largely a psychological reaction, and not a considered literary one. The best way of knowing what Ibn Sanā' al-Mulk thought of the muwashshaḥāt is by reading the muwashshaḥs he wrote, and not what he had to say about the kharja .

Highlights

IntroductionIt has always been my strong conviction that we have no normative treatise on the muwashshahât, and that the medieval literary historians and anthologists who made their scanty comments on them were in the same boat with us, inasmuch as they had to draw their conclusions from the available texts (Abu-Haidar: 2001: 47)
Andalusi society had a predominance of slave women Ihsan Abbas. It has always been my strong conviction that we have no normative treatise on the muwashshahât, and that the medieval literary historians and anthologists who made their scanty comments on them were in the same boat with us, inasmuch as they had to draw their conclusions from the available texts (Abu-Haidar: 2001: 47)
In keeping with all this, I shall not rehearse here what contemporary or near-contemporary authorities have had to tell us about the muwashshahât, well-known authorities like Ibn Bassam (1069-1147), and Ibn Sana' al-Mulk (1155-1211)

Summary

Introduction

It has always been my strong conviction that we have no normative treatise on the muwashshahât, and that the medieval literary historians and anthologists who made their scanty comments on them were in the same boat with us, inasmuch as they had to draw their conclusions from the available texts (Abu-Haidar: 2001: 47). Ibn BaqI is not known to us as a prose writer, but primarily as a poet in the traditional style, and as a muwashshah composer, washshdh, of the first calibre When he prides himself on «teaching rhymed prose to the very pigeons» he is priding himself on introducing prolific rhyme into poetry, and, in his case into his muwashshah compositions. Ibn Baqï tells us that the Andalusi poets wrote muwashshahs in order to give saj\ or rhyme, a free range when writing poetry. Without a strong central authority and central court, poets felt free to flout the tradition They did write a poetry festooned with rhyme, but they went on to end some of their new compositions with audaciously saucy couplets in Romance or mixed Arabic and Romance. ^ See the sections on the kharja below. "* For comments on the ambivalent attitudes of Ibn Bassam, and the historian of the Ahnohad dynasty 'Abd al-Wahid al-Marràkushî towards the muwashshah see Abu-Haidar, 2001: 136 and 141 respectively

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More on the Trivialization of Women in the Kharjas