Arabic poetry

Hariri, Al-Qasim Ibn 'Ali al-. Kitab al-Maqamat al-Hariri.

€ 25.000,00

A complete Ottoman copy of the Maqamat ("Assemblies" or "Sessions") of al-Hariri of Basra (1054-1122): a virtuoso display of Arabic poetry, consisting of fifty anecdotes written in stylized prose which used to be memorized by scholars. "Al-Hariri's Maqamat tie in with the tradition of al-Hamadani. Like he, al-Hariri tells us of the experiences of an educated vagrant, Abu Zaid from Sarug. But his aim is not so much to render vividly this creature of his imagination or even his environment, but rather to invest his accounts with every syntactical and lexical finesse imaginable, and it is these, rather than the content of the narrative, that are to captivate and preoccupy the reader. This is the final flaring of the national Arab spirit: dazzling and, for the moment, pretty as fireworks, but similarly barren, ultimately fizzling out without effect" (Brockelmann). Hariri's masterpiece continued to captivate European Arabists since the 17th century (cf. Fück, 148).

The present work belongs to the late manuscript culture in which classical adab texts continued to circulate as exemplary models of eloquence and style, even as printed editions began to compete for scholarly attention. The later European medical owner’s stamp signals the continued migration of Arabic literary manuscripts into Western private libraries in the age of Orientalist collecting.