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The Mu ’ allaqa of Imru ’ al-Qays

The Mu ’ allaqa of Imru ’ al-Qays. “ It is no exaggeration to say that [Imru al-Qays ’ ] Mu ’ allaqa is at once the most famous, the most admired and the most influential poem in the whole of Arabic literature. ” A.J. Arberry, The Seven Odes, p. 41 Why?.

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The Mu ’ allaqa of Imru ’ al-Qays

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  1. The Mu’allaqa of Imru’ al-Qays • “It is no exaggeration to say that [Imru al-Qays’] Mu’allaqa is at once the most famous, the most admired and the most influential poem in the whole of Arabic literature.” • A.J. Arberry, The Seven Odes, p. 41 • Why?

  2. Originator of the nasíb? First to mention the atlál and abandoned habitation? First “to express certain ideas”? (Ibn Rashiq, d. 1064 CE) First to use certain metaphors (women -> gazelles, wild cows and eggs, horses -> eagles, staffs)? First to separate the erotic prelude from the rest of the ode? Perhaps, but probably not.

  3. From another qasida by Imru’ al-Qays: Turn off the track towards the aged traces So that we can weep over abodes just like Ibn Khidhám From the mu’allaqa of ‘Antara bin Shaddád: Have the poets left a single spot for a patch to be sewn? Or did you recognize the abode after long meditation?

  4. Colocynth!

  5. The Rite-of-Passage Ritual (as articulated by Edmund Leach based the work of Arnold van Gennep [1960]): “[Rituals] which result in the change of ritual states of an initiate…always have a tripartite structure: (i) ‘a rite of separation,’ in which the initiate is separated from his/her original social role…is followed by (ii) a marginal state in which, temporarily, the initiate is outside society in a ‘tabooed’ condition which is ambivalently treated as dangerous-polluting or dangerous-holy. This is followed by (iii) ‘a rite of aggregation’ in which the initiate is brought back into society in his/her new social role.” (adapted from Suzanne Stetkevych, The Mute Immortals Speak, p. 56)

  6. The Rite-Of-Passage paradigm in the Qasida? Nasíb: Movement away from society, separation, departure, youth, infertility, passivity, death, erasure, loss, memory Rihla: Transition, “In-between-ness” (liminality), margins, the desert, solitude, hardship, activity and agency, “the teenage years,” danger “Boast”: Self-affirmation, maturity, fertility, procreation, aggregation, self-sacrifice (for community), production, participation, social duties and rights

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