The Theme and the Form: Three Querelles in al-Ǧāḥiẓ’s Dispute over Girls and Boys

Abstract

Abstract The literary dispute over the respective merits of girls and boys as objects of desire, well known in ancient traditions, appears in Arabic literature from the 9th century onwards. Al-Ǧāḥiẓ’s Mufāḫarat al-ǧawārī wa-l-ġilmān (Boasting Match over Maids and Youths) is, at the earliest extant, the first text in prose dealing with this issue, and it opened the floor for several later works. The author addresses this theme by means of the literary genre of the debate, in Arabic mufāḫara, in which the lover of girls (ṣāḥib al-ǧawārī) and the lover of boys (ṣāḥib al-ġilmān) present their arguments. In addition to the main debate, two other disputes occur in the text: one between the ancient poets (al-qudamāʾ) and the moderns (al-muḥdaṯūn), and the other between Basra and Kufa. The former is one of the main debates of the Abbasid literary criticism, and the latter is another literary topos in the early Abbasid period. We could even understand the Mufāḫara, therefore, as structured through not one but three mufāḫarāt. The aim of this contribution is to highlight the importance of the “form” of the text – namely the literary dispute – by analyzing how the three debates interact within the text. I therefore argue that, although the theme addressed in the essay remains of a great interest today, the aim of the text is not only to discuss erotic practices but also to teach the reader a lesson of dialectic.