MICHAEL SLEIMAN
The long panegyrical zajal of Ibn Quzmaan
by Michel Sleiman
SUMMARY: Bearing in mind the
ideal contained in alqaSiidah almurakkabah
aTTawiilah (a poly-thematic poem, with more than twenty bimembral
lines, according to Bencheikh, 1975, 1989), an ideal which was valid during the
IX and X centuries AD; and also bearing mind Ibn Quzmaan’s recommendation that
a good panegyric should be longer than six abyaat
(see the introduction to his diiwaan) I will try to show, as I did in my
doctoral dissertation (USP, 2002), that such ideals in poetry could also be
found in XII century Andalusi, at least taking into consideration a partial
sample of qaSiid, written in
the classical register (diiwaan al’a9mŕ
attuTiilii), as well as, and especially, the long zajal panegyric, which make for diiwaan ibn quzmaan’s most representative
compositions.
The statistical research of
patterns in rhyme, stanza, metrics, themes and the recipients of that zajal suggests that such regularities can
be viewed as reactions to the numerous variations to be observed in the muwashshaHaat of the period. In the same
perspective, the comparison to genuinely Andalusean poetic forms seems to
indicate that, in Alandalus, the Quzmaanian zajal,
with its clearly neo-classic traits, is a result of a similar unfolding in
Oriental poetry vis-ŕ-vis the work on the part of muHdathuuna. Such parallel between East and West, we are led
to believe, proves the “9aruuD accentual”
thesis right, thus making it clear that the coming into being, as well as the
development of stanzaic Andalusi poetry correspond to internal evolutions
inside a long-standing tradition of Arabian poetry.