RECENT BOOKS

A POETIC UNIVERSE:
THE QA∑ˆDA IN MULTI-LINGUAL PERSPECTIVE

Qasida Poetry in Islamic Africa and Asia, ed. by Stefan Sperl

and Christopher Shackle, Leiden: E.J. Brill (Studies in Arabic
literature) 1996, 2 vols; I: Classical Traditions and Modern
Meaning, II: Eulogy’s Bounty, Meaning’s Abundance. An An-
thology.

These two volumes are the outcome of a conference which

took place at the School of Oriental and African Studies in
London in July 1993. By bringing together the different strands
of contemporary research on the qaßıda literature in Arabic,
Persian and several other languages they seek to provide,
probably for the first time, a comprehensive overview of this
core genre of Islamic cultural expression. It might also be the
first time that qaßıda poems from the Islamic periphery, written
in Arabic but also in other languages like Hausa, Swahili,
Urdu or Malay (to mention only a few), are given full coverage
along with those belonging to the grand literary traditions in
Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman Turkish.
The first volume covers the thematic and regional contri-
butions of the participants of the conference, together with
some chapters which were added later. The second volume
consists of a commented anthology of the sample poems which
were presented and discussed by the authors. It also includes
a very substantial introduction by the editors. This describes
the evolution of the qaßıda as a literary genre and attempts to
provide a synchronic analysis of its determinants, covering
performance practice, themes, motifs, structure and poetic
form. This introduction is best read before delving into the
Sudanic Africa, 7, 1996, 170-180
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rich content of the two volumes. Based on the various individual

contributions, it establishes a very systematic and coherent
framework which gives the whole collection a special value
for further research.
Perhaps the most important result drawn from the presented
material is the close generic relationship between the different
qaßıda traditions, so that ‘the conclusion is almost inescapable
that they represent aspects of a single literary genre’ (II, 3).
This brings a whole range of not only languages, but also
historical periods into a joined literary focus. The generic
norm is not restricted to basic formal properties like length,
monorhyme, and a single metre. Following concepts mainly
developed by Bakhtin and Todorov, editors and contributors
describe the genre as determined by a set of textual and cultural
norms (see below). These constituents are ‘not in themselves
immutable but are subject to a continuing process of transfor-
mation, adaptation and amalgamation’ (II, 4). Four distinct
normative sets characterize this evolution: ‘the pre-Islamic
qasida, rooted in the ancient Arab tribal code; the panegyric
qasida, expressing an ideal vision of just Islamic government;
the religious qasida, imparting different types of commendable
religious conduct; and the modern qasida, influenced by sec-
ular, nationalist, or humanist ideals’. All these types deeply
influenced the development of public discourse in many Mus-
lim societies.
The astonishing fact that the pre-Islamic qaßıda with its
thoroughly ‘pagan’ character has remained a core element in
the literary canons of religious Islamic learning is discussed
several times. Much attention is paid to the murü√a virtues
which were adapted to new cultural settings. It might be added
that the medieval Christian communities also kept reading
Homer and Virgil along with the psalms, deriving most of
their basic literary education from the old pagan epics. In the
early Arab society of the amßr this attitude was perhaps less
religious than cultural. Whereas Arab poetry had clearly di-
minished in importance under the first caliphs it was revived
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by the Umayyads, and the emergence of the Arab ‘classics’

had perhaps more to do with the Shufiübiyya onslaught on
Arab culture in the early Abbasid period than with the devel-
opment of religious learning. A spirited defence of the poetic
ingenuity of the bedouin Arabs, presented as bordering on
divine inspiration, can be found especially in the writings of
al-J˛i÷, which bear lasting testimony to this process of cultural
self-assertion. Arabic poetry came to be adapted to the growing
power and sophistication of the Islamic state. The old motifs
and textual norms were adapted to a multitude of different
contexts and gained in allusive and intertextual symbolism. A
seminal panegyric qaßıda written by Abü Tammm (d. 845)
links the description of the beauty of springtime to the divinely
inspired guidance of the caliph (II, 11). This can be seen as
the starting point of the triumphal career of the courtly panegyric
poem. Its most elaborate type became the ‘Persianate qaßıda’
(including poetry in Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Pashto and
Urdu) which is particularly well covered in the anthology.
The imagery of nature, garden and flowers symbolizing the
power of the sovereign, and the celebration of the creative
union between poet and patron—frequently expressed in highly
erotic terms—are both central motifs in this later poetry.
The Arabic religious qaßıda (II, 15ff.) was fully developed
mainly from the 12th and 13th centuries onward. Despite the
famous early poems praising the Prophet, such as Kafib b.
Zuhayr’s Bnat Sufid, it is a fact that religious themes such
as Sufism, eulogies of the Prophet and pious admonition gained
popularity and a certain predominance only during that later
Sunnı revival which followed the Shıfiı cultural and political
hegemony. The new poetic trend was clearly connected with
the consolidation of organized Sufism and with the growing
significance of public preaching which is so well attested for
Baghdad since the 11th century. It remains to be discovered
how far this new focus on the Prophet was directed against
the flowering praise of the rulers, a panegyric that was taking
on more and more cosmic dimensions. As in the case of the
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mawlid al-nabı, a reactive adaptation of Shıfiı patterns of piety

may also have played a role in the development of the devotional
poetry in Sunnı circles. It was to have tremendous influence
on the literary development in Muslim India, but even more
so on the Malayan archipelago as well as on Swahili and
Hausa poetry in East and West Africa. It seems remarkable
that in most of these languages—with the exception of Ur-
du—the panegyric court qaßıda of the ‘Persianate’ type was
not developed, even in cases where the Iranian epic tradition
did find local adaptations. This might perhaps be due to the
urban background of the patrons of this kind of religious
poetry. The different social settings of the different qaßıda
types are in any case significant.
The modern development of the qaßıda since the nineteenth
century (II, 28ff.) shows major dramatic changes which were
brought about by the challenge of the growing European he-
gemony. The search for new and more authentic voices led to
the emergence of a neoclassicist orientation in Arabic, Persian,
Turkish and Urdu. The new poetic idiom was designed to
avoid the rhetorical ornament and hyperbolic imagery of the
courtly panegyric and frequently again sought inspiration from
the early Arabic qaßıda. A strong nationalist sentiment came
to dominate the neoclassical poetry, transforming and even
violating its code of values and at the same time showing the
resilience of the qaßıda as a medium of public expression.
The political turn in the development of the Hausa religious
qaßıda (with authors like Sa’adu Zungur and others since the
fifties) might provide another example of this transformation.
Comparable public functions seem to have emerged with the
‘modern qaßıda’ (qasidah modéren) in Indonesia, a highly
popular type of Islamic songs which was developed by the
new Islamic movements for dafiwa purposes, and which, by
its distinctly Arabic features as well as by its content, serves
as an expression of a cultural fusion of Islam and modernity
(Bernhard Arps, I, 389-409).
The formal revolutions in Arabic and Turkish poetry which
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led to the abandonment of the old meters make the qaßıda ‘an
emblem of memory’, an ambiguous symbol of the past. Nev-
ertheless some of the best examples of Arabic free verse,
such as al-Sayyb’s ‘Rain song’ constitute an intense dialogue
with the qaßıda. Social criticism, related to the present as
well as to history itself, remains a basic element of this dialogue,
which also finds its expression among contemporary Turkish
and Iranian authors.
From the diachronic survey a considerable number of
features come out which together constitute the textual and
cultural norms of the genre ( II, 32ff.). These are brought into
a tripartite continuum of ‘core’—‘intermediate’—‘peripheral’
features which are then listed in their relation to performance,
moral code, purpose, register, lexicon, motifs, structure, and
form (34f.). The moral code focuses on ancient Arabian virtues,
on Islamic rulership, and on general Arabo-Islamic morality
in its Sunnı form. One wonders, incidentally, about the
omission of the Shıfia from this code. Praise, blame and
admonition are listed as the core purposes (aghr∂) of the
genre. A serious gap can be noticed in the field of love
poetry which, at least with some of its exponents like Ibn
Zaydün, clearly belongs to the qaßıda genre. As much of
the imagery of the panegyric as well as of the mystic poetry
is erotic, love poetry itself would also deserve some accom-
modation within the generic norms of the qaßıda. That would
also give more weight to the personal dimensions of loyalty
and allegiance which come out so clearly in several of the
contributions. The intricate linkage of the individual and
the public can be regarded as another core feature of the
qaßıda genre itself.
It is impossible here to do justice to the impressive range
of contributions which have informed this seminal introduction.
Salma Khadra Jayyusi (I, 1-19) in her introductory chapter
takes the development of the modern Arabic free verse move-
ment as a starting point, something which she terms ‘the most
radical revolution in the history of Arabic poetry’ (p. 4). Dem-
 RECENT BOOKS 175

onstrating the danger of monotony and aesthetic fatigue which

has accompanied the new poetry at least as much as the qaßıda
itself, she goes on to ask about the reasons for the persistence
of the qaßıda form, which despite all criticisms has lost only
part of its former magic. She sees the reasons for this persistence
in its cyclical, wave-like structure which despite all its strictures
always allowed for considerable inventiveness from the side
of the poet. The clusters of two-hemistich monorhyme poems
could easily be arranged into dynamic climactic sequences
for building up and releasing emotional tensions. Jayyusi points
to the different revolutionary changes within the history of
the genre which clearly show its adaptability to new social
and cultural developments.
Renate Jacobi (I, 21-34) presents her theory on the origins
and development of the qaßıda, which shows it growing out
of the earlier monothematic poem (qi†fia) and the sequence of
nasıb and ra˛ıl as its earliest combination. The classical tri-
partite structure only took shape towards the end of the Jhilı
period. This structure was fully developed into a panegyric
whole only in the Umayyad period, and according to Jacobi it
is rather the Umayyad than the pre-Islamic qaßıda which un-
derlies Ibn Qutayba’s famous description of the qaßıda as
consisting of nasıb, ra˛ıl, and madı˛. Jacobi also stresses the
therapeutic function of the old Arabic qaßıda which leads
from the description of an emotional crisis to a renewed self-
assertion of the author and his group.
The social functions of the panegyric as a means of political
allegiance are analyzed by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych (I,
35-63). Her interpretation is based on Mauss’ model of the
ritual exchange of gifts which involves mutual obligations of
giving, receiving and repaying whereby rank and dignity of
both patron and client are vitally at stake. Two poems by
al-Mutanabbi serve to demonstrate his shift of allegiance from
Sayf al-Dawla to Kfür, then his disappointment with and
denigration of his second patron which has had such a devas-
tating and lasting effect on the historical image of that otherwise
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rather impressive ruler of Egypt. It is an interplay of poetic

and political power which underlies the Abbasid panegyric
and which makes it ‘paradigmatic for all the patron’s subjects
and clients’ (p. 62), reaffirming or denying the allegiance
upon which legitimate political power is established. ‘What
we term “power” with regard to the poetics of ritual efficacy,
we will in aesthetic terms call “beauty”’. This would seem to
apply to much of the panegyric poetry in the different parts of
the Islamic world.
The analysis of the panegyric poem, ‘the finest gift of
all’ (Julie Scott Meisami, I, 144), is developed in an exemplary
way in the sections covering the ‘Persianate’ qaßıda in Persian,
Urdu, and Ottoman. In this poetry the court of the ruler is
presented as the centre of the whole world. Its favourite image
is the garden, at the same time a reflection of Paradise and of
the creative power and justice of the king himself. The pane-
gyric here also serves to link Islamic and Iranian traditions of
kingship. As Michael Glµnz shows (I, 183-203), it was even
adapted to the praise of Sufi leaders who had come to wield
immense power in the Timurid period. At this period the
epithets of the mystical lover were easily transferred even to
the rulers themselves.
Mogul and Ottoman court poetry pushed the panegyric im-
agery even further. The Ottoman examples presented by Walter
G. Andrews (I, 281-300) demonstrate the intense competitiveness
of that poetical form, which was caused by the endless struggle
to win the attention and affection of the ruler. The ‘politics of
power and the politics of love’ which were closely interwoven
made an Ottoman panegyric kaside as much a gift from client to
patron as an intricate metaphorical play between the nightingale
and its rose. In the later periods of imperial decline the politics
of poetic allegiance became even more complicated, something
which brought the self-consciousness of the poets much more to
the open as it had been vis-a-vis all-powerful rulers like Selim
or Sµleyman in the 16th century.
Iranian, Ottoman and Moghul poetry not only represent
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the most refined types of the courtly panegyric. They also

provide important examples for the neoclassical reaction that
was brought about by the various kinds of confrontation with
European political and cultural hegemony. This neoclassicist
trend can be found with Namªk Kemal and other Young Otto-
man poets who created a new rhetoric for important public
issues and who frequently sought inspiration from the ‘purer’
forms of the Arabic qaßıda (Andrews/Kalpaklª, I, 307-14). It
finds a stimulating analysis in Christopher Shackle’s treatment
of the Urdu poet ˘lı (1837-1914), who was a fervent follower
of Sayyid A˛mad Khn (I, 234ff.). ˘lı’s poetry is remarkable
for his idealization at the same time of early Arabic and
contemporary English literary norms. Based on a concept of
neoclassicism developed by C. Rosen, Shackle stresses the
inherently explosive mixture of repression and self-denial
which goes with the cult of the ‘natural’ both in poetry and in
music. This mixture makes ˘lı’s poems highly experimental
and innovative despite his rigid doctrinal stand. The parallel
developments within Arab poetry deserve further discussion
even if Shackle himself shows his reservations in this respect
(I, 234f., n.29).
John Hunwick’s overview of the Arabic qaßıda in West
Africa (I, 83-97) remains the only contribution with a focus on
the regional Arabic literatures that have been almost entirely
neglected in the history of Arabic literature. The West African
example shows many characteristics of a religious literature that
was mainly developed by religious scholars. Besides a highly
developed devotional poetry with its intricate patterns of takhmıs
and tarbıfi, it nevertheless includes a wide range of topics and
forms beyond the purely devotional qaßıda. Local literary devel-
opments had their own internal dynamics and were not directly
affected by the cultural changes in the Arab heartland. This has
made their assessment difficult, and they were all too easily
discarded as belonging to that infamous heritage of ‘decadence’
(in˛i††) which many Arabs were proud to have broken out of.
The cultural and sometimes even directly political relevance of
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this literature is nevertheless obvious, and its contribution to

the emergence of other literary languages (like Hausa, Fulfulde,
Swahili and others) was equally crucial.
The attested local literature in Swahili starts toward the
end of the eighteenth century with translations of al-Büßırı’s
Hamziyya (M.H. Abdulaziz, I, 412). The fact that the author
(Sayyid Aidarus of Lamu) belonged to a local branch of the
famous al-fiAydarüs Sayyids of south Arabia testifies to the
important role of those Arab families as mediating groups in
the cultural life of the East African coast. Another branch of
the same lineage was apparently also involved in the writing
of Malay poetry as late as in the early 20th century (al-Sayyid
Mu˛ammad b. al-Sayyid Zayn al-fi◊bidın al-fiAydarüs (Idrus),
mentioned by Vladimir I. Braginsky, I, 381). Parallels between
Malay, Swahili and even Hausa religious poetry are, however,
not restricted to the presence of such august families alone.
The strikingly common educational canon, the range of Arabic
religious literature and of Islamic legends, stories and motifs
that is taken for granted among the authors and their audience
and which is constantly referred to in most of the poems,
would still require some kind of explanation, perhaps in terms
of a generalized pattern of Islamic mass education which had
been established by growing interregional contacts in the course
of the 17th-18th centuries and which had reached even the
most distant regions of the Islamic world.
The steps from leading from a primarily Arabic expression
towards writing in Hausa and Fulfulde can be observed in the
jihd movement of fiUthmn b. Fodiye. The various dimensions
of jihd poetry which frequently combined religious topics
with social criticism and which was of a largely mobilizing
character are described by Jean Boyd and Graham Furniss (I,
429-449). The fact that Fulfulde and Hausa had to be equally
accounted for in this chapter points to the multilingual setting
of the early jihd movement in the northern and central parts
of Nigeria, which even made use of other languages like
Tamasheq, Nupe, and Yoruba. The translation of sermons
 RECENT BOOKS 179

and poems became a regular practice. The local Arabic

wafi÷ literature of the 17th and 18th centuries was fully
adapted to local languages by the preachers and scholars of
fiUthmn b. Fodiye’s community. The crucial but rather
neglected role of his daughter Nana Asma’u in this literary
development appears so far without parallels in other com-
parable Islamic movements.
Whether the jihd authors were the first creators of a
written literature in Hausa, is still a debatable question, as the
authors admit (p. 431, quoting M. Hiskett). Metric poetry
based on the Arabic system is indeed attested somewhat earlier.
One of the scholars of that period, Shi√tu b. fiAbd al-Ra√üf (d.
c. 1834) who lived in Katsina and Yandoto and later went to
Zaria, had certainly written his Hausa version of the Mukhtaßar
Khalıl before the jihd, as he dedicated it to the last Sultan of
Katsina. He is also the author of some wafi÷ poetry both in
Arabic and Hausa.1 But it was nevertheless only with the
movement of fiUthmn b. Fodiye that this literature became
an crucial medium of public discourse in Hausa society. Reli-
gious wafi÷ poetry with its didactic and mobilizing qualities
continues to function within the political arena of northern
Nigeria up to the present day.
It is indeed a wide range of literary forms and topics that
has been touched by the qaßıda. Whether its functions can be
fully covered by describing the genre as a ‘discourse on power’
which came to be sacralized by Islam (J.C. Bµrgel, I, 451-74)
might still be open to discussion. As stated above, the pervasive
individual expressions of love, loyalty or piety might still call
for a more adequate treatment. Power as addressed in the
qaßıda, be it royal or divine, political or religious, is not an
abstract but a highly personal relationship.
But that is more of an addition than a critique. Both the
contributions to the conference and the theoretical framework
which was drawn from them by the editors can be regarded

1 About him, M. Hiskett, A History of Hausa Islamic Verse, London

1975, 80f., 226f. and ALA, II, 368f.
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as highly significant steps into a new direction in Islamic

studies, which open up new horizons beyond the limits of the
prevailing regional and monoliterary perspectives. The image
of the ocean, a central topos of the panegyric as well as of the
mystical qaßıda literature which is referred to so frequently in
both volumes, also evokes the flux and reflux of literary contacts
and influences over long periods and vast distances which
was characteristic for the evolution of this literary genre which
is rightly described by the editors as ‘an entire poetic universe’
(II, 1). The collection shows that, despite the enormous dimen-
sions and difficulties of such a comparative approach it can
yield very exciting and thought-provoking results.
Stefan Reichmuth