Toward a Redefinition of "Badī'" Poetry

Author(s): Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych

Source: Journal of Arabic Literature , 1981, Vol. 12 (1981), pp. 1-29
Published by: Brill

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4183044

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 Journal of Arabic Literature, XII

TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADIC" POETRY

You are not you, the abodes are not abodes

Passion has waned, desires have changed.'
. O a , , O -

The vicinity of the ruins and of their people

That long ago was sweet to drink at, now tastes of salt.

k ' 91t 1)i K:^ 4t. J,I 3Jj ~

The 'Abbasid poet of the "new" style realized that the Golden
Age of the Jahiliyah was no more-it was the ruined abode, ir-
reparably changed, the repository of old and archetypal yearnings;
nothing remained but the vague traces of a tribal heritage, long
since abandoned for the glories of Empire and Islam. Time has
changed the poet too; in psyche and in sensibility he is no longer the
bedouin warrior and lover, pouring forth his heart "in profuse
strains of unpremeditated art," but the consciously cultivated lit-
terateur of the Caliphal court. And yet the 'Abassid "badi-" poet
returned for inspiration to the traces of the primordial dwelling
whose once sweet waters now have the tearful taste of melancholy.
Thus the "new" poetry was still nourished from the traditional
tribal well-spring of Arabic literature, but it was changed by the
passage of time, the relentless march of history, to consciously and
self-consciously reflect the urban Islamic culture of the 'Abassid
empire. The so-called "badi-" poetry that emerged in late second
and early third century Basra and Baghdad was the recognition and
expression in literature of this irrevocable change. As such it was
welcomed by those who revelled in the headlong rush into a new
era, but it came as a threat to those who cherished the illusion of
continuity with Jahiliyah times and preferred to remain under the
protective wing of the Golden Age.
Ibn al-Mu'tazz is credited with the first critical formulation of
a definition of the new poetry in his Kitdb al-Badi<f (274 H.). His
definition of the literary phenomenon in terms of already existing
rhetorical devices became the basis for all later criticism of badi-f

I Dftwan Abz Tamman bi-sharh al-Kha.tib al- Tibrizi, 4 vols. ed. Muhammad CAbduh
CAzzam (Cairo: Dar al-Macarif, n.d.) Vol. 2, p. 166. All translations are my own.

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2 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADIc" POETRY

poetry. His theory has been expounded and expanded, analyzed

and psycho-analyzed but never challenged, superceded or dis-
carded.
I would like to demonstrate that the concept of "badi-" as pro-
pounded by Ibn al-Muctazz is fundamentally inadequate, and that
to arrive at an adequate and coherent formulation of the nature of
the new poetry, we must first return to the fertile second century
Basran soil from which it sprang.
The term "badi-" appeared in the third century hljra to describe
the innovative style of certain cAbbasid poets, the beginning of
which was generally attributed to Bashshar ibn Burd (d. 167/8 H.)
or Muslim ibn al-Walld (d. 208 H.). The term was not at first
defined, but apparently indicated the novel, innovative quality of
the poetry.2 The word itself is related to the verb abdaca IV to
originate, invent, bring into existence for the first time that which
did not exist before. Hence, badi-c (in the meaning offdcil I or muf il
IV) is one of the epithets of God, meaning "the Originator of the
creation." And badif- (in the meaning of mafuil I) as an adjective
thus means "Originated; invented; made, done, produced ... new-
ly, for the first time ... new, wonderful, unknown before. "3 Of note
here also is bidcah, innovation in the realm of religion and theology,
which is to say, heresy.
In the Kitab al-AghalnT, Abiu al-Faraj al-Isfahani credits Muslim
ibn al-Walld with the introduction of the term:

Muslim ibn al-Walld ... was an early cAbbasid poet, born and raised
in Kufa. He is, so they claim, the first one to have composed what is
known as "badf'" poetry, and he termed this type [of poetry] novel
(bad-') and refined. He had a group of followers, and the most famous
of them was Abfu Tammam al-Ta-'i, for he composed all of his poetry
in that manner.4

2 This discussion follows in part the chapter on "badic" in: Ahmad Matliub,
Mus.talaha-t Baldaghtyah (Baghdad: al-Majmac al-cIlmi al-clraqi, 1972), pp. 80-95.
3 Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon 8 vols. (Beirut: Librairie du
Liban, 1968) Vol. 1, pp. 166-167. We might also note the common etymology of
"badi"' and "bidcah" -"an innovation, a novelty ... an addition or an impair-
ment, in religion ... generally a heretical innovation" -which may in part explain
the negative and "heretical" connotation which the literary term later began to
assume.
4 Abtu al-Faraj al-Isfahanil, Kita-b al-Agha-ni-, 24 vols. ed. cAbd al-Karim al-
cIzbawi (Cairo: al-Hay'ah al-Misriyah al-cAmmah li-al-Kitab, 1963-1974) Vol.
19, p. 31.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 3

He cites as well a less favorable opinion of the new poetry: "The

first one to corrupt poetry was Muslim ibn al-Walid. He produced
what people called 'badf-'. Then came [Abui Tammam] al-Ta'i after
him and mastered and varied it. "5 Yet another anecdote from the
Kitab al-Aghanf supports the view that the badi" poets had struck out
in new directions and applauds this trend:

Hashim ibn Muhammad informed me, saying, al-Riyashi told me

that al-)Asmali was asked who was the better poet, Bashshar or
Marwan? He replied, Bashshar. When asked the reason for this, he
said it was because Marwan took a road that many others had taken
and did not overtake those who had preceded him, and the same is
true of his contemporaries. But Bashshar took an untravelled road
and excelled in it and was unequalled in it; and he is the greater in
versatility and in the genres of poetry and has a greater abundance
and broader scope of badi", whereas Marwan never went beyond the
manner followed by the Ancients.6

However, our earliest and most insightful remarks on badiCf are

those of al-Jahiz in al-Bayan wa al-Tabyfn. Although he does not
define the term explicitly, al-Jahiz' comments on lines by al-
Ashhab ibn Rumaylah and al-RaCl indicate that he had a specific
idea in mind:

al-Ashhab ibn Rumavlah said ...

J -.~., 0- J1 ii-

f , * XLs si1 jA.1 Acle

They are the fore-arm of fate, for which it is feared
And what good is a hand that is not lent weight by a [mighty] fore-
arm?

His phrase "they are the fore-arm of fate" is a metaphor (mathal) and
this is what the transmitters of poetry call badi'. And al-RalC said:
- v ) O O 10 - - W. O- I ..

.3U8 UjJ2., X i9
They are the back of fate, for which it is feared/
And its shoulder if fate has a shoulder.

And we find in the Hadith.

"The razor of God is the sharpest and the fore-arm of God is the strongest."

5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 147.

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4 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI" POETRY

Badi" is found only among the Arabs, and because of it their language
excels all others and exceeds every other tongue.7 (emphasis mine).

When we note that al-Jahiz was one of the Basran school of

Mu'tazilites, the underscored line becomes the key to understand-
ing his concept of badi-. As a consequence of their doctrine of tawhid
(the affirmation of the unity of God), the Mu'tazilah were forced to
interpret the anthropomorphic statements (tashbih, tajsim) of the
Qur'an and the Hadith by means of ta'wil, that is, as metaphor or
metonymy. Al-Shahrastani in al-Milal wa-al-Nihal describes this
doctrine as follows:

[The Mu'tazilah] were agreed in denying the vision of God the ex-
alted by eyesight in the world to come, and in denying the likening
(tashbih) [of Him to anything] in every respect: direction, place, form,
body, seclusion, locomotion, cessation, change and perception; and
they require the [metaphorical] interpretation (ta'wt) of the verses
that are ambiguous in these respects, and they call this method the
profession of the unity of God (tawhid).9

Two examples from al-Ashlari's Maqdldt al-Isldmiyin will illustrate

the exegetical method by which al-Jahiz would have understood
"The razor of God is the sharpest and the fore-arm of God is the
strongest":

[The Muctazilahl differ with regard to the question: Can it be said

that God has a face, or not? They are of three groups. The first group
claim that God has a face that is He [Himselfl. Abfu Hudhayl is the
one who says this. The second group claim that: We say "face" by
extension, and we revert to the affirmation of God because we attest
to a face that is He. This is because the Arabs put the face in the place
of the thing, so that one says: "If it were not for your face, I would
not have done it," that is, "if it were not for you, I would not have
done it". This is the doctrine of al-Nazzam and most of the
Mu'tazilah of Basra, and the doctrine of the Mu'tazilah of Baghdad
.... The Mu'tazilah agree unanimously in denying the attribution of
an eye and a hand to God and in this they are divided into two doc-

7 (Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-al-Tabytn, 4 vols. ed. CAbd al-Salam
Muhammad Haruin (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1968), Vol. 4, pp. 55-56.
Curiously, Matlfb omits the underscored line and thereby misses the whole point
of al-Jahiz' discussion (Matlab, Mustalahdt Baldghtyah, p. 81).
Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der Islamischen Koranauslegung (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1920), pp. 129-131. A. J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed. Its Genesis and
Historical Development (London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1965) pp. 66-68.
9 Muhammad (Abd al-Karim al-Shahrastani, Al-Milal wa-al-Nihal, ed. cAbd
al-'Aziz Muhammad al-Wakil (Cairo: Mu'assasat al-Jilli wa-Shurakahu, 1968)
Vol. 1, p. 45.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI'" POETRY 5

trines: Among them are those who deny that one can say that God has
two hands, and they deny that one can say that He possesses an eye or
has two eyes; [also] among them are those who claim that God has a
hand or that He has two hands. They take this to mean that the hand
is grace, and they take the meaning of the eye to be that He intended
knowledge and that He is knowing. [Thus] they interpret the saying
-- ,-

of God the Mighty and Great: - j Cj (Qur'an 20:39):

"And that you be created in my eye sight" as "with my know-
ledge. "'0

Thus, for al-Jahiz, badi", though it may have been a new

phenomenon in poetry, was not new to the Arabic language. But
rather, from his Mu'tazilite point of view, it was not only an
outstanding stylistic device found in the Qur'an"I and Hadith, but
also a method of interpretation, a way of thinking, that was
obligatory upon the faithful for the proper understanding of those
religious scriptures. Hence, what al-Jahiz meant by badiC in the
excerpt from al-Bayan wa-al-TabyTn quoted above was the use of
metonymy or metaphor, or more explicitly, the personification of
the abstract as he understood it by analogy to the Muctazilite
exegetical use of ta'wdl.
I should then like to extrapolate from al-Jahiz' example and
propose that badif poetry be defined not merely by the occurrence
of this particular type of rhetorical device, but rather that the badf-
style is nothing less than the expression in poetry of the entire scope
of the metaphorical and analytical processes that characterized
Muctazilite speculative theology (kaldm) and, in a broader sense,
the whole cultural and intellectual framework of the era of
Muctazilite hegemony.
The circumstantial evidence is in itself convincing. Two Basrans,
Wasil ibn (Ata' (d. 131 H.) and cAmr ibn cUbayd (d. 144 H.) are
traditionally credited with the founding of the Basran school of the
Muctazilah. Among their acquaintances was the renowned zindiq
and debauchee Bashshar ibn Burd who is generally considered the
originator of badi" poetry. Al-Jahiz writes of him with great admira-
tion:

lo Abui al-Hasan 'All ibn IsmiclI al-Ashcari, Kitdb Maqdldl al-Is1dmiyin wa-IkhtiCaf
al-Musallin, ed. Helilmut Ritter, (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1963)
pp. 189 and 195.
II This is related to al-Jahiz' concept of the inimitability of the Qur'anic style
('i&dz al-Qur'an), for a discussion of which see Goldziher, Koranauslegung, p. 121.

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6 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF BADI'' POE I'RY

Those naturally gifted in poetry among the Moderns are Bashshar

[ibn Burd] al-'Uqayll, al-Sayyid al-Himyarli, AbLu al-CAtahiyah and
Ibn Abi CUyaynah. In this category people have mentioned Yahya
ibn Nawfal, Salman al-Khasir and Khalaf ibn Khallfah, but Aban ibn
CAbd al-Hamid al-Lahiq1 is more worthy [of being called] talented
than this latter group, and Bashshar is the most gifted of them all ....
Al-CAttabli followed Bashshar's footsteps in badi<, and there is no one
among the Moderns better in bad( than Bashshar and Ibn Harmah. 1'

It is worth noting that for al-Jahiz there is no contradiction be-

tween a poet being naturally gifted (ma.tbu'c) and writing in the badi"'
style, as later critics claimed. On the contrary, al-Jahiz finds
Bashshar the best in both categories.
To return to the main argument, Bashshar, although not a
Muctazilite himself, frequented the same majlis as Wasil ibn cAta'
and 'Amr ibn 'Ubayd. Just how culturally and religiously
heterodox Basran society in the late second and early third cen-
turies hira was is clear from this anecdote from the Kitab al-Agha/ni: I3

There were in Basra six masters of kaldm: 'Amr ibn 'Ubayd, Wasil
ibn CAta', Bashshar the Blind, $alih ibn cAbd al-Quddfis, CAbd al-
Karim ibn Abi al-'Awja' and a man from al-Azd-who Abu Ahmad
said wasJarir ibn Hazim-and they used to gather in the house of the
Azdi and hold their disputations there. As for cAmr and Wasil, they
ended up among the MuCtazilah; and as for CAbd al-Karim and $lih,
they properly repented; Bashshar on the other hand remained
perplexed and confused, while the Azdi was inclined toward the doc-
trine of the Sumaniyah [a sect of Indian metempsychosists]-one of
the sects of India-and he made no attempt to hide his beliefs. 'Abd
al-Karim was a corrupter of youths, until CAmr ibn CUbayd said to
him: "I have heard that you are intimate with one of our youths, cor-

sjG y ,; 9 a S ,J 6
rupting him ... and leading him into your religion. So either leave our
city, or I will do my utmost to get rid of you." So he betook himself to
Kufa where Muhammad ibn Sulayman, having been directed against
him, killed and crucified him. It is of him that Bashshar said:

Say to CAbd al-Karim, "O Ibn Abi al-'Awja'

You have sold Islam for Kufr out of stupidity.
O - ' 0 - OJ-

i;, ) ua o LoyS

1' al-Jahiz, al-Bayan wa-al-Tabytn, Vol. 1, pp. 50-51.

' See discussion in H. S. Nyberg, "Mu'tazilah," Encyclopedia of Islam,.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF BADI"' POETRY 7

"You neither pray nor fast, and if you fast

Then it is for part of the day, and a light fast at that!
- d a O - - o-1 ,

"You do not care, when you find a fine wine,

That you are not freed [from Hellfire].

"Would that I knew, on the morn the noose was your necklace,
were you adorned a believer or an unbeliever?

WjA;ls*9 J41 & i -J

"You, among those who walk beneath the curse of God,

are a friend to the man who sodomizes his friend."''4

All sorts of Muslim schismatics were to be found in Basra at this

time. Among the Shi'ite sects represented there, Pellat mentions
the Mughiriyah, the Kamiliyah, the Kaysaniyah and the
Mukhtariyah; there were as well several denominations of Khari-
jites, and the Murji'ites. Outside the pale of Islam were the Zanadi-
qah. This term is an imprecise one encompassing various sorts
of heretics. At this period it probably referred to those among
the Shuubliyah who embraced old Persian beliefs, including
Manichaean, Magean and Mazdaean elements.15
Considering the extensive un- and anti-Islamic presence in the
Basran milieu, it is not surprising that the Mu'tazilites added to
their original polemic against the Rafidites and extremist Shicites
a vigorous polemic against Zandaqah, and especially against
thanaw-yah (dualism), which, according to Nyberg, should be
understood as Manichaean views. 16 It was the Muctazilite adoption
of "philosophical" methods to defend Islam against these heresies
that introduced speculative theology (kaldm) into Islamic theology.
Al-Shahrastani in al-Milal wa-al-Nihal describes this development as
follows:

The Qadariyah began their heresy in the time of Hasan, and Wasil
seceded ictazala from them and from his master because of his doctrine
of the position between the two positions (al-manzilah bayna al-
manzilatayn). He and his followers were then called Muctazilah ....

14 Kztdb al-Aghadni, Vol. 3, pp. 146-147.

'S Charles Pellat, Le milieu basrien el la formation de G&biz (Paris: Librairie
d'Am6rique et d'Orient, 1953) pp. 200-222 passim.
16 Nyberg, "Mu'tazilah." E1I.

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8 T OWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI''' POET lRY

After that the leaders of the Mu'tazilah read the books of the
philosophers. When the days of al-Ma'mfin unfolded, they mixed
their methods with the methods of Kaldm singling it out as one of the
branches of science and calling it Kalam-either because the most con-
spicuous problem that they debated and discussed was the problem of
the speech (kaldm) [of God], so that this type [of disputation] was
named for it, or because of their comparing themselves to the
philosophers who named one of the branches of their science logic
(al-mantiq), and logic and kaldm are synonymous.'7

This speculative thought was then transplanted into the realm of

literature. In al-Baydn wa-al-Tabyin, al-Jahiz has recorded an initial
stage of this process in the poetic-polemic exchange between the
zindiq Bashshar ibn Burd and the Mu'tazilite poet $afwan al-
Ansdri.'8 Of Bashshar's poem, which attempts to prove the
superiority of fire to earth, only one line has come down to us:
J !J 5 a ?-o Ju 9- a-J J
Li I *,W ., gj S-v , JI

Dark is the earth, bright is the fire,

And fire has been worshipped ever since there was Fire.'9

Of the rest of the poem we get at least a partial reflection in $afwan

al-Ansari's reply. His retort is characterized by a curious and
appealing mixture of the various elements of the classical Arabic
qasidah. Its genres and motifs are now metamorphosed into a
powerful polemic defending Earth and Islam against Fire and Kufr.
$afwdn opens the poem addressing Bashshar:

O~ - -8- # * ) 1 j * O J
i - O ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .) ... *og - 8 O

You claim that as element fire is nobler,

[But] it lives in the earth, in rock and flint.

And there were created in [the earth's] wombs and roots

Wonders immeasurable by line or knot.

' al-Shahrastmni, Al-Milal wa-al-Nihal, Vol. 1, pp. 28-29.

18 al-Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-al-Tabyin, Vol. 1, pp. 27-30.
'9 Of the poem to which al-Jahiz alludes (al-Baydn wa-al-Tabyin, vol. 1, p. 27)
only this line is preserved in the Diwdn (Diwaen Bashshar i/bn Burd, Vol. 4: Appen-
dices, ed. Muhammad Shawqi Amin, [Cairo: Matba'at Lajnat al-Ta'lif wa-al-
Tarjamah wa-al-Nashr, 19661 p. 78).

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 9

Then he begins his defense of the earth by adapting the tone of the
classical madfah to the descriptions of nature otherwise typical of the
rahTl:
0 - - J- -i j - 0

7.~~~~~ __ I _ L_ _c

[The snake] glides on its chevroned skin

Like the meandering of the torrent waters on low ground.

O~ . al 5 - ) 5 0 J O a l

9. WV ; _ ,J caW L,J i;aJ1 ; J J

And in the black-stoned earth where riders go on foot
Are mines with caves that gush forth gold.

The gems, precious pigments and minerals of the earth are

sometimes described as the noble virtues of the mamdah.
O * O- -O- O 5-0- 50- -1

12. 4J 3f ose 9a,,t, 9

In [these mines] are yellow orpiment and red clay

Litharge and copper ore; never fading, inexhaustible.

But neither is mother earth lacking in the charms of the beloved,

metaphorically transplanted from the nasfb:
0. - 0J , , W

10. ;.r1Lz iS j. d?; Sa "yl2

[Mines] of purest gold, and silver that seduces and incites

To wonder the ascetic and the saint.

14. ,g1 ; ;_: LS Lkcy1 (+l l ,2x: L5j

You see the vein [of ore] flashing in the quarry
Like the thin-cut border of a lovely woman's cloak.

The earth not only contains earthly treasures, but it is also the
abode of those things that mediate between this life and the eternal
treasures of the world to come:
0) i u- 0, .- -O., J ) 1 J

18. W6fJWI 4p L9 I, LII ,L L

In it is the resting place of 'Ibrahim, the corner of the Kacba,
Mount Safa and the touching-place of paradise for pilgrims.

After concluding the panegyric to the earth, $afwa-n launches into a

lampoon (hjij') against Bashshar that reflects the political and
religious issues of the day:

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10 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY

2 3 . J 2j,L b ll jv

Do you call cAmr and Wasil the Learned followers of Daysdn,20

And they are the scum of the flood water?

25. J! rsy c v 4 1 4? ?j $Q

And publish your ugly opinion of Wasil to the masses

To stir the passions of their souls to sin.
3 . . J - - c0- -- - - -

27. ' ,,1- 9 1 1 w

Then, 0 son of the sworn ally of mud, avarice and blindness

and the farthest of God's creatures from righteousness' path.
O) J) . - . J ID . *

28. >S!vIjC ;fil s

Do you mock Aba Bakr and renounce cAli after him

And trace all that back to Burd?
O -- O J 5- J 08 s ;J J

33. ,Li;u l u1Ul9

You try to mount moons, but you are maimed

And the closest of God's creatures to a monkey!21

These two poems lend support to the proposal that it was precise-
ly this heterodox but heavily Muctazilite Basran circle that pro-
duced the first badtff or proto-badi' poetry. Furthermore, they reveal
that the outstanding features of that poetry are not so much
rhetorical devices as 1) the incorporation of the principles of logical
and theological disputation; and 2) the free metaphorical manipula-
tion of traditional genre and motival elements to express contem-
porary social and cultural ideas-in this case the leading politico-
religious issue of the day, Islam versus Zandaqah.
It was in the first half of the third century hijra during the
caliphates of al-Ma'muin, al-Mu'tasim and al-Wathiq that the
Muctazilah reached the peak of their political power. In 212 H. al-
Ma'miun, who was noted for his keen interest in theology, publicly
adopted the doctrine of the created Qur'an, thereby ushering in an
era in which Muctazilite thought set the cultural tone. In 217 H. al-

20 Day,sn was the founder of the Daysaniyah sect of the dualist Maj-usis (al-
Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-al- Tabyin, Vol. 1, p. 29, note 3).
21 al-Jahiz, al-Baydn wa-al-Tabyin, Vol. 1, pp. 27-30, has quoted $afwan al-
An?ri's poem in full. For a partial translation and discussion see Pellat, Le milieu
basrien, pp. 176-177.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 11

Ma'miun appointed Ibn Abi Du'ad Qdadi al-Quadt (ch

made the tenet of the created Qur'an obligatory on his subjects,
thus initiating the mihnah, or inquisition, which gained notoriety for
its persecution of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Ibn Abi Du'ad remained in
the position of Chief Qa7di under al-MuCtasim and al-Wathiq and
was finally replaced during al-Mutawakkil's caliphate due to ill
health. The period of Mu'tazilite hegemony was not destined to last
for long. Al-Wathiq gave up his belief in the created Qur'an shortly
before his death in 232 H. The end of the Mu'tazilite era was
signalled in 234 H. when al-Mutawakkil ended the mihnah and for-
bade the profession of the created Qur'an on pain of death.22
Further weight is added to the argument for the connection
between Muctazilism, kaldm, and badic poetry by the fact that the
most radical of the badic poets, Abtu Tammam, flourished during
precisely this period. He counted among his mamdiah4n all three of
the Muctazilite caliphs, but especially al-Mu'tasim to whom many
of his best mature qasidahs are dedicated. His Diwan contains as
well many poems dedicated to Ibn Abi Du'ad, the poet-vizier al-
Zayyat and many of al-Muctasim's courtiers and generals. Further-
more, Abua Tammam's outstanding qasidahs, for example the Ode
on cAmmuiriyah and the Ode on the Burning of al-Afshin23 display
not only the types of metaphor and metonymy the origin of which
can be traced to Muctazilite exegesis but are also characterized in
both form and content by the same dialectic between Islam and
Kufr that is found in the polemical poetry of Bashshar ibn Burd and
$afwan al-Ans5ri. Perhaps it was al-Muctasim's awareness of this
Basran connection that led to his quip in the following anecdote:
Al-Hasan ibn Wahb said: I said to Abul Tammam: "Did al-Muctasim
understand anything of your poetry?" He replied, "He asked me to
repeat three times the line:

22 Walter M. Patton, Ahmed ibn Hanbal and the Mihna (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1897),
pp. 50-56, 121.

23 I-Sil L; ,1o g1
J 1 .S1

Dftwan Abi Tammam, Vol. 1, pp. 40-74, and:

D--an -bl Tammam, Vol.J 2, pp. 19-29

Diw&n Abi TammdOm, Vol. 2, pp. 198-209.

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12 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY

,,-- ,- - - J o C W

.J;,JI 6c' . , 4_5A <)LJ I1J

Indeed the foulest one to whom you complain of passion
Is he for whom the loveliest thing is blame.

He deemed it good and said to Ibn Abi Du'ad, "O Abfi cAbd Allah,
[Abfi Tammam] al-Ta'i is more like the Basrans than the Syrians! "24

That is, Abiu Tammam's poetry was more akin to the kaldm of the
Basran Muctazilites than to the Umayyad lyricism of his native
Syria.
If we turn then to al-Jahiz' remarks on kalam, we shall see that
the cultivated litterateur writing in the midst of the Muctazilite era
was aware of the interrelationship of the parallel developments of
the arts and sciences, and that for him badia poetry was not alien
and artificial but a natural and organic product and expression of
those advances:

[The Mutakallimuin] selected ... expressions for their concepts and they
derived names for them from the speech of the Arabs and adopted ter-
minology for things for which there was no word in the language of
the Arabs. Thus they have set the precedent in this for all those who
came after, and the model for all who followed. So they say accident
(carad) and essence (jawhar); to be (aysa) and not to be (laysa). They
distinguish between nullity (bu.tldn) and annihilation (talashin), and
they mention "thisness" (haddhyah), identity (huwtyah), and quiddity
(mdhiyah). In the same way Khalil ibn Ahmad attached names to the
metres of the qasfdahs ... whereas the Arabs had not known those
metres by those names .... Similarly the grammarians named and
referred to the circumstantial accusative (Ml) and adverbial ac-
cusatives (zuruf) and such things .... The mathematicians, too, draw
upon names which they designate as signs in order to understand one
another .... [The people] say it is unseemly to say, as someone
delivering a sermon on a great and mighty minbar said, "Then God
... after he brought forth the creation and arranged them and made
them firm, annihilated them, and so they were annihilated (ldshahum
fataldshaw)." If the mutakallim had not needed to express the concept of
annihilation (taldshin), it would have been inappropriate. Someone
else preaching before the Caliph said, "And God brought him out of
the door of nonbeing (laystyah) and made him enter the door of being
(ays4yah)." These expressions are permissible in the art of kaldm when
existing words lack the required range of meaning. The expressions of

24 Abiu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya al-$fili, Akhba-r Abi Tammam, ed. Khalil
Mahm-ud 'Asakir, Muhammad 'Abduh 'Azzam and Nazir al-Islam al-Hindi
(Beirut: al-Maktab al-Tijari, n.d.), p. 267.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI(" POETRY 13

the Mutakallimuin are also befitting to poetry, like that of Abiu

NuwAs, and everything composed in a witty and elegant manner,
such as Abfi Nuwas' lines:

Possessed of how rosy a cheek, how white what is bared!

O - - -- O - -E

2. *+.J, Lrji J.

The eye contemplates charms that never cease.

O * - O O~ J0-

3. sS:,L;.t*

Some [charms] have degenerated,

But others have regenerated,
Ow'J 5 J o 0 -l) J0J

4 .*>p aLAUffi * 5 3

And the beauty of each limb

Is restored, reiterated.25

Thus al-Jahiz recognizes the role of kaldm in developing and nam-

ing concepts that had not existed before in Arabic language and
culture. Besides this conception of a historical process, al-Jahiz is
aware of the relationship between the ideas of the Mutakallimun and
the work of the grammarians in systematizing Arabic grammar and
prosody. Furthermore, far from isolating these disciplines from the
arts, al-Jahiz documents and approves of the introduction of new
terms and new ideas into both prose and poetry.
The link between bad- poetry and Muctazilite thought is further
supported by the inability of critics writing during the period of or-
thodox resurgence that followed the Muctazilite era to arrive at an
adequate understanding of Abui Tammam's poetry in particular
and, in general, to formulate any valid concept of the badi' style. It
was as though when Muctazilite exegesis was rejected the tools for
understanding and appreciating badi' poetry were lost.
The effect of the return to orthodoxy on the understanding of
badi' poetry will be clear from an examination of Ibn al-Muctazz'
Kitab al-Badi". Ibn al Muctazz (d. 296 H.) was an cAbbasid prince
who ruled for one day as the Caliph al-Muntasif bi-Allah. He was
himself a poet as well as a literary critic and man of letters. His

25 al-Jabiz, al-Baydn wa-al-Tabytn, Vol. 1, pp. 139-141.

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14 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI1'' POETRY

Kitdb al-Badi" written in 274 H. is the first critical attempt to define

the new poetry, and as such it established precedents which were
closely adhered to by later critics.26
Ibn al-Muctazz was concerned with validating or legitimizing the
new poetry, the detractors of which claimed that it was outside the
bounds of the Arabic poetic tradition or represented a corruption of
that tradition. Lacking any concept of the growth or evolution of
that literary tradition, Ibn al-Muctazz rests his defense on two
bases: 1) that the badi-f style consists merely of the proliferation of
certain definable rhetorical devices and embellishments, and 2) that
these devices are not innovations introduced into the Arabic
language by the badiff poets, but are to be found in the classical
sources of the Arabic language: the Qur'an, Hadith, the sayings of
the Companions of the Prophet, Ancient poetry and the speech of
the desert Arabs. The inherently reactionary philosophy of Ibn al-
Muctazz is signalled by his obeisance to the hierarchy of religious/
philological authorities in the opening sentence of the book:27

We have presented in the chapters of this book of ours some of what

we have found in the Qur'an, the classical language (al-lughah) and

26 'Abd Allah Ibn al-MuCtazz, Kitib al-Badi", ed. Ignatius Kratchkovsky,

E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, N.S. 10. (London: Messrs. Luzac and Co.,
1935), Kratchkovsky's introduction, p. 6.
27 I think that my argument that the Kitab al-Badi" is a product of the reaction
against Mu"tazilism is more to the point than Trabulsi's argument that it is a reac-
tion against Aristotle's Rhetoric and shows anti-Hellenistic and anti-Shu'ubiyah
tendencies (Amjad Trabulsl, La critique poetique des Arabesjusqu 'au V sicle de l'Hc'gire
(Damascus, 1956) pp. 78-81). As for the question that Bonebakker deals with, i.e.,
to what extent did the early theologians, especially the Mu'tazilites (for example
al-Jahiz [Al-Baydn wa-al-Tabyinj and Bishr ibn al-MuCtamir [Sahafahj contribute to
Ibn al-Mu'tazz' theory of badi", I am in agreement with Bonebakker that:
The prototypes of this theory, as we have seen, appeared much earlier in the
form of well-defined and clearly-illustrated technical terms used by
philologists and poets. To these early discussions of terminology Ibn al-
Mu'tazz's book, it seems to me, shows a much closer affinity than to the
works of Jihiz and Ibn Qutayba, in spite of Ibn al-Muctazz's admission that
he borrowed the term madhhab kaldmf from the first author.

(Seeger A. Bonebakker, "Reflections on the Ki'tab a(-Badi( of Ibn al-Mu'tazz," Atli

del terzo Congresso di studi arabi c islamici, (Naples, 1967) p. 207). Indeed, as I shall at-
tempt to show, the fact that Ibn al-Multazz borrowed al-Jahiz's term al-madhhab al-
kaidmi, which in the MuCtazilite context signified a mode of thought or analysis, to
refer to a rhetorical device demonstrates his misunderstanding of the Muctazilite
man of letters rather than al-Jahiz's influence on him. What my argument finally
amounts to is that "badit" poetry is poetry written in al-madhhab al-kaldmi- as al-
Jahiz understood it.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI' POETRY 15

the Hadith of the Prophet, may God bless him, and the speech of the
Companions and the desert Arabs and others, and in the poetry of the
Ancients of that speech which the Moderns call badi"; that you might
know what Bashshar and Muslim and Abfi Nuwas and those that
resemble them and follow their path were not the first to produce this
art, but rather it abounded in their poetry and so became known in
their time, until it was called by this name and expressed and in-
dicated [this art].28

In his zeal to legitimize badi"f poetry, Ibn al-Mu'tazz has thus

stripped it of its very identity-its newness, its novelty. What is
described in the Kitab al-Agh.dni as novel and innovative and by
al-Jahiz as a unique feature of the Arabic tongue that enables it to
strike out in new directions is reduced to a mere proliferation of
pre-existing formulae.
Still, Ibn al-Muctazz realizes that there is some difference be-
tween the old poetry and the new. This he attributes primarily to
lack of discretion, over-zealousness, what is, in the end, poor taste.
Then, after them, came [Abfu Tammam] Habib ibn Aws al-Td'i. He
became infatuated with badi"f until he had mastered it, branched out in
it and used it constantly. In some of it he did well, and in some, poor-
ly. And this, in my opinion, is excessive and the result of immodera-
tion. Rather a poet used to compose a verse or two of this art in a
qasidah. Sometimes you could read a number of qasidahs by one of
them without coming across a single verse of badic; this was con-
sidered admirable among them when it occurred sparsely, and even
more felicitous when it occurred in unconstrained speech.29

The author then continues his introduction by giving a few ex-

amples:

An example of badic speech is the saying of God the Exalted:

v 5 - v _ _ '
J+ J Li,d _,L<J1 Ai 3 4
"Indeed in the Mother of the Book before us it is sublime, wise.

And of badr poetry is the phrase:

isU ,S$J U S1,.. .

And the morning's throat is pierced by a pearly star.

And this is the borrowing (isticdrah) of a word for something which is
not known by it from something which is known by it, like the Mother
of the Book, and the wing of mercy, or like saying:

28 Ibn al-Muctazz, Kitdb al-Badfl, p. 1.

29 Ibid.

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16 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POET RY

,j ,A0

"Thought is the marrow of action." But if you said "the essence of

action," then it would not be badi-. And badi- also includes tajnis
(paranomasia) and mudabaqah (antithesis), and the Ancients were the
first to produce them. They were not invented by the Moderns and
the same holds true for the fourth and fifth categories of badi.'30

Ibn al-Muctazz' only concession to any other interpretation or

definition of the badi- style is that there may be some variation in the
number or classification of the rhetorical figures.31
The rest of the book is divided into five chapters, one on each of
the admittedly arbitrarily chosen rhetorical figures: istiCdrah
(metaphor); tajni-s (paranomasia); mu.tabaqah (antithesis), radd al-
cajuz cald al-sadr (repetition of a word from the beginning of a phrase
or verse at the end); and al-madhhab al-kaldmf (the method of
kalam).32 These five chapters are followed by a section dealing with
twelve mahazsin (embellishments) which, declares Ibn al-Muctazz,
others may include as bases of badit although he has chosen not to.33
The text, after an initial definition or description of the figure to
be discussed in each chapter, is nothing more than a mechanical,
albeit learned, display of examples arranged in a hierarchy from the
most authoritative source to the least, i.e., the Qur'an, the Hadith,
the sayings of the Companions of the Prophet, the poetry and prose
of the Ancients, the poetry and prose of the Moderns. After the
praiseworthy examples thus arranged there follows a shorter section
of blameworthy examples presented in order that the reader might

30 Ibid., p. 2.
31 Ibid., p. 3.
32 Muhammad Mandfir notes Ibn al-Mu'tazz' lack of consistent criteria in
selecting these particular five devices, remarking that he joins three unrelated
categories: 1) metaphor, which is the very essence of poetry, 2) means of expression
(iuruq add'), which depend on form and are not absolutely essential to
poetry-tajnis, tibdq and radd al-ajuz (ala al-sadr, and 3) a mental process-al-
madhhab al-kalima (Muhammad Mandur, al-Naqd al-Manhaji linda alt-Arab, [Cairo:
Dar Nahdat Mir li-al-Tabc wa-al-Nashr, n.d.] p. 52). The point that I am trying
to make is that in the hands of the badifc poet categories one and two become sub-
sumed under category three, which alone is the distinguishing feature of badi'
poetry.
33 Ibn al-Muctazz, Kiteb al-Badic, p. 58. According to Bonebakker this part of
the text, on the mnahisin al-shi'r, was written later than the five chapters on badi'f
proper and was appended to the text (S. A. Bonebakker, "Reflections on the Kita-b
al-Badic," pp. 193-4). In any case this section is an appendix of some sort rather
than an integral part of the text.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 17

avoid similar poetic pitfalls.34 Examples in the latter category, as we

might have expected, are solely from the poetry and the prose of the
Ancients and Moderns, to the exclusion of any of the religious
sources. As for Abiu Tammam, his poetry is heavily represented
throughout the book, with a large preponderance of good examples
from his work over bad.35 This is consistent with the author's
remark in the introduction that Abu Tammam's fault was im-
moderation in and infatuation with badfc, rather than bad verses in
the badic style.
As we would expect from Ibn al-Muctazz' introduction, in
the chapter on istiCdrah (metaphor) he recognizes no historical
development in the figure itself and hence, since he limits his
treatment to the figures alone, no development in poetry at all. Ibn
al-Muctazz either did not notice or did not consider significant the
qualitative change in metaphor from the Ancients to the Moderns.
It is enough for him that they all fit his definition "the borrowing of
a word for something not known by it from something known by
it." 36 However, a comparison between the Ancient and Modern
examples that Ibn al-Muctazz presents reveals fundamental dif-
ferences between the metaphor of the Ancients and that of the
Moderns.
The attribution of death or perishing to time and fate that is
found in Ibn al-Muctazz' two examples from Abui Tammam:
a a8 - b O .0 -0OO- -0- - - - . J - 05

1. hJJKSA4^JI w,J1 C, Xy ,,J4J i .L'

You showered upon them such resolutions
That if you had flung them at the foundation of fate
On the day of battle, it would have collapsed.

2. LU ; )ji SJ ta:s.- ..u -

When your appointed time comes, you will not perish

But a time that destroys the likes of you will perish.37

is not a simple personification of the abstract such as we find in Ibn

al-Muctazz' examples from the Ancients: the breast of blame, the

14 For example, see Ibn al-Mu-tazz, Kitdb al-Badi", p. 23 and Kratchkovsky's

introduction pp. 11-12.
3S Bonebakker, "Reflections on the Kitdb al-BadiC," p. 202.
36 Ibn al-Mu'tazz. Kitdb al-BadiC, p. 2.
37 Ibid., pp. 22, 23.

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18 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF 'BADI" POETRY

common J5hilliyah image of the talons of fate or Labid's mirage-

cloaked hills:
1. a , J 0- J s o 0 - 0. _ J

Their old men grow hoary on vicious deeds

And their newborn are nourished at the breast of blame.
(Aws ibn Maghra')

2. 1 y> ;y a,LkU ;__i a1 l!

And when fate digs her talons in

You will find that every amulet is useless.
(Abiu Dhu'ayb al-Hudhali)
-J --os ~ ~ - -
3. ~ ; C .!

This [she-camel] then I rod

fore-noon
And the hills donned the cloaks of the mirage. (Labid). '8

First of all, the 'Abbasid poet has inverted the common motif of
time or fate as the agent of destruction and death and has made it
instead their victim. Furthermore, the concept of the perishing of
time or the destruction of death reflects a level of abstract thinking
unknown to the Ancients, but rather, derived from the disputations
of the Mutakallimuin on whether time is finite or infinite. Thus what
these two lines by Aba Tammam are really dealing with is the at-
tribution of one abstraction to another-finiteness to time. This
clearly reflects a more sophisticated degree of abstract thinking than
Imru' al-Qays' metaphor of the slow passage of the night as the
cumbersome rising of a camel or Labid's metaphor of the swiftness
and violence of the north wind as that of an impetuous rider:
t ; T 0. c 8 0 -O - I JO}-
1* Js.i~J | 3U.$ : ,I . 'i .SLz W J slii

Then I said to it when it stretched out its spine,

Followed up with its buttocks and raised with pain its weighty chest.
(Imru' al-Qays)

-* c Jo---

381 Ibid., p

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF 'BADir" POETRY 19

Many a cold and windy morning I went forth

When its reins were in the hand of the north wind.39
(Labid)

What this qualitative change in metaphor indicates is that the logical

progression of metaphor that CAbd al-Qahir al-JurjanI establishes
in Asrar al-Balgaghah-from 1) perceptible to mental to 2) perceptible
to perceptible based on a mental similarity, to 3) mental to men-
tal-to a large extent also represents the historical progression of the
figural-abstractive process of apprehension.40
In his chapter on tajnis (paranomasia) it becomes clear that Ibn
al-Mu'tazz' explanation of badi" as merely quantitative does not
adequately explain the phenomenon. In his introduction, he
dismissed Abfu Tammam's abundant use of rhetorical devices as
mere infatuation. But the inadequacies of Ibn al-Mu'tazz' theory
and method are already beginning to show. By claiming that the
difference between the poetry of the Ancients and badic poetry is in
the number of devices per qastdah, and then proceeding to deal only
with excerpted lines and, furthermore, as was evident in his chapter
on isti'cdrah, refusing to recognize any qualitative difference in the
devices themselves, it is a foregone conclusion that he will find no
difference between these two. Ibn al-Mu'tazz does distinguish be-
tween two types of tajnis: one based on ishtiqaq (etymology) in which
the two members of the tajnts derive from the same root and have
some shared meaning, and the other based on homonymity, in
which the two members share the same spelling but are etymo-
logically unrelated:

Tajnfs is the occurrence of one word that resembles another in a verse

of poetry and in speech. This similarity consists of one word resem-
bling the other in composition and letters in the way according to
which al-'Asmaci composed the Kitdb al-Ajnds. And Khalil said that
every sort of people and birds, prosody and grammar belongs to a
genus. This then is the reason that one word resembles another in the
composition of its letters and in its meaning. And from this there is
derived a saying like the poet's:
,J' - - a-- 50

"A day on which you dragged their souls on a rope."

39 Ibid., pp. 7, 1 1.
'I 'Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani, Asrdr al-Baldghah, ed. Hellmut Ritter (Istanbul:
Government Press, 1954) pp. 39-40, 52, 58, 60.

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20 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY

[Khaly isfacll meaningfdcil, dragger, puller; hence

Or one word can resemble the other in the composition of letters but
not in meaning, such as the poet's saying:

"Indeed the blame of the lover is avarice."

[Lawm (blame) is from the root l-w-m while lum is the lightened form
of lu'm (avarice, meanness) from the root l-'-mJ.4'
In the chapter on tajnis it becomes even clearer that Ibn al-
Muctazz' quantitative explanation of badic is inadequate. He fails to
realize that, as in the case of metaphor, there is in tajnts a
logical/historical progression. At one extreme there are the
idiomatic constructions of the Arabic language such as the mafzil
mu.tlaq or expressions such as qala qd'ilun (it is said) which, although
they might technically fit the definition of tajnis, could hardly be
considered conscious rhetorical devices. Next would be the takrdr li-
al-ta 'kid (repetition for the sake of emphasis) which adds at least an
emotive significance. After this comes the tajnzs proper, the more or
less unconscious association of similar-sounding words or names
tending more toward alliteration than pun. Finally, there is the
conscious or self-conscious punning which is based on a highly
developed awareness of ishtiqdq (etymology) as well as of the
subliminal semantic connection between homonyms and etymons.
An examination of several instances of tajnis by Abtu Tammam,
taken from Ibn al-Mu'tazz' examples will make it clear that they
are of a different nature from the type of tajnis that prevailed in the
poetry and prose of the Ancients:

-,k 1j L!- -G I 6 4 o

On the day of Arshaq when the battle had flung

A heavy sweeping salvo of death.
. J 0- a I5-. O s -o-6

2. _ l-l l l9JI * is,aFy1l

When [the men ofl Lujaym bridled [their ho

And around them were Banui al-Hisn, the offspring of virtuous and
nobel women.

3.

4' Ibn al-Muctazz, Kitdb al-Badi", p. 25.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 21

The remote country is happy with Sucad

For she has gone obediently to Tihamah and to Najd.42

The most salient feature of the tajntsat is the punning on proper

names, a characteristic of Abui Tammam's style that cAbd al-Qahir
al-Jurjani did not fail to notice and remark upon:

And this is what you find in Abfu Tammam when he surrenders

himself to affectation (takalluf). It appears that he did not pass by a
place-name that he needed to mention or that occurred in a story that
he mentioned in his poetry without deriving a tajnis from it or creating
a figure of badic. Thus he was at fault and violated a definitive
precept.43

What both Ibn al-MuCtazz and al-Jurjani fail to realize is the

change in the consciousness from the Jahili to the cAbbasid poet.
What al-Jurjani attributes to takalluf (constraint, artificiality) is
really the product of the development of the linguistic sciences
(Culujm al-lughah), among them ishtiqaq. No cultivated courtier of the
third century hijra, much less a poet, could be ignorant of these
developments. Thus Abtu Tammam's tajnis&t on proper names are
not mere alliteration, but rather a sort of suggested etymology for
the place names such a third century man of letters would have
been familiar with from the works of the Basran and Kufan
philologists-although the poet's goal is literary rather than
linguistic.
Another example of tajnts by Abfi Tammam displays a
sophisticated interplay of literal and figurative meaning:
0 - ., , -

From the bearing of obligations and of swordbelts

[His shoulder] is worn, like the well-worn paths to ancient wells."

Here the poet describes two kinds of burden (4iml) that the shoulder
bears, the first one figurative: hamdldt (obligations, bloodwits) and
the second literal: hama'il (swordbelts).
Examples from the Ancients, on the other hand, reflect in-
dividual instances of alliteration or punning rather than a consistent
mental habit of abstract and etymological thinking. Hence the
Qur'anic example:

42 Ibid., p. 29.
43 al-Jurjani, Asrdr al-Baldghah, p. 15.
44 Ibn al-Mu'tazz, Kitdb al-Badic, p. 29.

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22 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI'' POETRY

- - I - . oj o

"And I surrendered myself with Sulayman to God the Lord of the

Worlds, 9 45

Similarly, among Ibn al-Mu'tazz' examples from the Ancients is

the verse by the early Islamic poet Ziyad al-Acjam:
. - 5 a)0 0J - . a 0-08 JJ0O-

I was told of their seeking ass

And they are withers and a hump for blame.41

which involves only a play on the proper name Kahil and kahil
(withers, shoulder), and is devoid of the manipulation of abstrac-
tions and ambiguities that is characteristic of the Moderns. Nor
does Imru' al-Qays' line, which refers to Caesar's sending a
poisoned cloak to kill the poetj7 despite its double tajnis, display
anything more than simple alliteration
0 O 0) a c o. *-- -

The covetous one from his faraway land was covetous

Of clothing me in the disease that he wore.48

At this point the second majcr short-coming of Ibn al-Muctazz'

definition of badi-' becomes evident, that is, since he does not deal
with whole qasidahs, he does not recognize that the difference in
quantity of these rhetorical devices is ultimately a difference in
quality. What was the product of occasional fancy or insight in the
J&hillyah period has become in the cAbbasid the reflection of highly
systematized and analytical sciences of philology and etymology.
The connection of these abstract and analytical thought processes
that are characteristic of badi-c poetry with those of the Muctazilah
and the Mutakallimu-n will be further strengthened if we note that the
same Basran milieu that produced them also produced the famous

45 Ibid., p. 25.
46 Ibid., p. 26.
47 As al-AsmaCl notes in his commentary on this line, there is no internal
evidence to indicate that al-Tammn&h is a proper name. In my opinion, Imru' al-
Qays is using it merely as an epithet for Caesar. (Diwan Imri' al-Qays, ed. Muhami-
mad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim [2nd edition, Cairo: Dar al-Macarif, 1969], p. 108).
48 Ibn al-Mu(tazz, Kitab al-Badi" , p. 27.

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 TOW'ARD A REDEFINITION OF 'BADI"' POETRY 23

Basran school of philology and grammar. Among its luminaries

were the great anthologists and philologists Abu 'CAmr ibn al-'Ala'
(d. 154 H.) and his disciple al-AsmalI (d. 213 H.); Khalil ibn
Ahmad, another student of Abu 'CAmr, who compiled the first
Arabic dictionary, the Kitab al-cAyn, and was the first to systematize
the Arabic poetic meters, and his student Slbawayh (d. 176 H.)
whose Kitab remains until today the most authoritative Arabic
grammar. 49
It is no wonder then that the literary heirs to such a tradition of
analysis and systematization should display a certain loss of in-
nocence when dealing with language. That is to say that the large
number of tajnisat or other rhetorical devices in badif poetry is not a
mere proliferation due to infatuation, as Ibn al-Mu'tazz and 'Abd
al-Qahir al-Jurjani would have it, but rather the product of a con-
stant and conscious awareness of the logical and etymological rela-
tionships between words.
Ibn al-Mu'tazz' treatment of mu.tabaqah (antithesis) suffers from
the same defects as his treatment of isticarah and tajnis. Again there
is evidence, unnoticed or unremarked by Ibn al-Muctazz, of a
logical and chronological development in the form of this device.
Included among the examples from the Ancients are such simple
antitheses as al-Farazdaq's
- . d O, O .0 , I - -

May God make Bantu

for they neither betray their neighbor, nor fulfill their promise to
him.50

There are also compound ones such as the Umayyad poet 'Abd
Allah ibn al-Zabir al-'Asadi's antithesis describing women ravaged
by war:
- -S l , i -, ,, J-J,

Then it turned their black hair white

And their white faces black.51

49 Ignace Goldziher, A Short History of Classical Arabic Literature, trans. Joseph

DeSomogyi (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966) pp. 33-34,
63-64, and Pellat, Le milieu basrien, pp. 128-135.
50 Ibn al-Mu'tazz, Kitdb al-Badic, p. 39.
51 Ibid., p. 38.

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24 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF BADI(" POET lRY

But even this compound antithesis is simple compared to

Bashshar's playing with the concepts of memory and forgetfulness,
physical distance and psychological proximity:

Till when will my heart be distracted by your memory, raving

While your heart is fixed upon forgetting me?

X*; IL a U1 t, f J| jI H JJ
How I grieve for her, and how I grieve from remembering her;
The memory of her moves close to me, while she is far away.
..0 v J 6 oa - ot 5 -

Indeed I will await the most distant time for her

If the nearest time is not clear for a thirsting one.52

If we turn then to Abu Tammam, we find an even greater degree of

metaphorical manipulation and abstraction of historical, political
and linguistic concepts:

v- C . - SO sO O

They have a camp site which

wild cows,
Pure in its abodes (unsullied Arabic in meanings), but now barbaric.

It repelled the eyes of onlookers out of contempt,

While before it had been honored among those things that attract the
eye. 53

By his metaphorical transposition of the antithesis of fasih (pure

classical Arabic) and 'a'jam (Persian, barbarian) from the descrip-
tion of language to that of the abode, the poet expresses the tradi-
tional contrast between the pristine state of the encampment when

52 Ibid., p. 43.
53 Ibid., p. 41. It is noteworthy that the Diwdn gives al-maghdni (abodes) (Diwdn
Abi Tammdm, Vol. 3, p. 232) in keeping with the traditional imagery and diction of
the nasib, while al-maani- (meanings) is appropriate to the linguistic metaphor of the
line, the fibaq betweenfasih (pure Arabic) and a?Jam (barbaric, Persian). Whichever
one is stated, the other is implied.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF " BADI" ' POETRY 25

his beloved and her tribe inhabited it and its present state of desola-
tion and ruin. Moreover, the poet is drawing a parallel between the
traditional poetic motif of the abandoned campsite and the
historical/political changes that the Arab nation had undergone: the
once pure Arab tribal life and language of the Jahillyah age has
given way to bastardization and barbarism, to racial and cultural
Shu'u-bijyah. The progression of these examples makes it evident that
there occurred in Arabic poetry a development from simple an-
tithesis to lines involving compound, abstract and metaphorically-
derived antitheses.
A second problem that manifests itself in the examination of this
rhetorical figure is that since Ibn al-Mu'tazz has isolated the verses
from their poetic context, there is no consideration of the relation-
ship of a particular antithesis to the qasidah of which it is part. Is it a
mere embellishment or an expression of some aspect of the semantic
structure of the poem? Structuralist studies of pre-Islamic poetry,
notably Kamal Abu Deeb's analysis of the Mu'allaqah of Labid,
argue convincingly that the dynamic of the qayidah may be based on
an open-ended series of dialectical oppositions: life/death, barren-
ness/fertility, etc.54 Whatever the case for pre-Islamic poetry, it is
clear that a number of Abui Tammam's qaszdahs are consciously
constructed with such dialectical oppositions as major themes, so
that the mudtabaqdt that occur in the imagery of particular lines are
semantic elements that reiterate and reinforce the leitmotif of the
poem and reflect the various aspects of the central image. A striking
example of this is 'Abtu Tammam's cAmm-urlyah Qaslidah55 in
which the underlying thematic antithesis-Islam/Kufr is reinforced
by lesser supporting antitheses-the Caliph al-MuCtasim/the
Byzantine Emperor Theophilus, light/darkness, male/female, etc.
This consciously constructed antithetical structure is not only sug-
gestive of the dialectical form of theological disputation (kaldm), but
also reflects the subtle penetration of Manichaean dualism into
'Abbasid thought. Ironically, Abiu Tammam exploits this Infidel
idea in poetic form to buttress his defense of the Islamic Caliphate.
Ibn al-Mu'tazz' fourth category of badi', radd cajuz al-kaldm 'ala
sadrihi (repetition at the end of a speech of its beginning) does not

54 Kamal Abu Deeb, "Towards a Structural Analysis of pre-Islamic Poetry,"

IJMES, 6 (1975), pp. 148-184.
55 Dfwdn Abi Tammdm, Vol. 1, pp. 40-74.

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26 TOWARD A REDEFINIT'ION OF "BADI' POETRY

logically qualify to be included as one of the five major bases of badi"

since it lacks the semantic value of the other devices. It should
rather be classified as a sub-category of tajnis. As such, Ibn al-
Mu'tazz' treatment of it exhibits the same faults as his treatment of
that device. He fails to distinguish between such examples as the
Qur'anic one:
s i- a - - - - bg . O ' 0'' - SOOO

God the Exalted said, 'See how we have preferred some over others
and the world to come is greater in degrees and greater in
preferences .56

which is nothing more than elegant prose with a repetition for em-
phasis (al-takrar li-al-ta'kid), and a line such as al-Farazdaq's:
.- - -e .. O *

Send off your cares, do not let their coming kill you;
For everything that comes to water someday departs from it.7

in which the radd al-'ajuz la/d al-sadr adds an elegant turn to the dou-
ble tajnis and mutabaqah to create a chiasmus- 'asdir-wariduha-
waridatin-sadaru-from the elements of these two devices. Similarly,
the lines that Ibn al-MuCtazz cites from the Moderns usually exhibit
as their outstanding rhetorical feature tajnis, to which the radd al-
cajuz cala al-sadr merely adds emphasis, or else a simple repetition
for emphasis or for achieving a certain alliterative balance in the
line:
. -.. ;- fi--,, 5 5

He quests and is requested when he goes forth in the morning,

And the better of your two friends is the requested quester.
(Bashshar ibn Burd)
* - a -- - -o sb -0 5-- 0 .o - o -
2. ;,, J4
She was fine and fine was the sip of her water;
And life between these two fine things is fine.
(Abui NuwAs)58

56 Ibn al-Mu'tazz, Kittb al-Badi, p. 48.

s Ibid., p. 49.
58 Ibid., pp. 50, 49.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 27

Ibn al-MuCtazz' last of the five chapters on badi"f is the least clear,
but, at the same time, the most revealing of the author's inability to
grasp or formulate a definition for the new poetry. This is his
category of al-madhhab al-kaldmf. There are several indications that
Ibn al-Mu'tazz had difficulty with this term. First of all, he does not
attempt to define it, but instead attributes it to al-Jahiz, without,
however, giving any specific reference. Secondly, al-madhhab al-
kalami does not fit Ibn al-Mu'tazz' major thesis that all the elements
of badi"f are to be found among the Ancients, in the Qur'an and the
Hadith. He declares instead that, "As for this category, I do not
know that I have found anything of it in the Qur'an. It is attributed
to affectation (takalluj) and God is exalted above that by far! "59 Nor
does he offer any examples from the Hadith. Indeed, he gives only
three examples in the Ancient category: two of these are anecdotes,
such as the following:

cUmar said to cAbd Allah ibn cAbbas, "Whom do you think we

should appoint as governor of Hims?" He replied, "A man who is
truthful about you and truthful to you." cUmar said, "You be that
man." He replied, "There is no use in [appointing] me with my bad
opinion of your bad opinion of me."60

The sole poetic example in the Ancient category is from the

Umayyad poet al-Farazdaq:
'J1 J_ - ' s- -sO- '' 0) V.

_ 5 , _ _ ,
Every man has two souls: a noble soul,
And another that the gallant youth disobeys and obeys.
* I -05 - '' j'b - 'O- '

And your soul of your two souls intercedes for generosity

When [its] intercessors among free [souls] are rare.6'

The paucity of Ancient examples, especially considering that there

are no examples at all from the Qur'an, the Hadith and pre-Islamic
poetry, flatly contradicts Ibn al-Mu'tazz' opening assertion about
badr. Al-madhhab al-kaldmf was in fact historically a new phenome--
non. Furthermore, as Muhammad Mandfir has pointed out, al-

s9 Ibid., p. 53.
60 Ibid., p. 54.
6 1 Ibid.

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28 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY

madhhab al-kalamt, as its name indicates, is not even a rhetorical

device in the first place; he terms it rather madhhab Caqll, an intellec-
tual or rational manner.62 In this regard the juxtaposition of a
typical example of Muctazilite kaldm with several of Ibn al-Muctazz'
examples of al-madhhab al-kaldmi will be revealing:
O.~ z3-' 3 ,; 3 ; I , O

5 J 3J 5 X c _ 5 * G ;
d,.-4 o~ ~ l aJ I~J JAoL 4 w1)lill AJ 4x;Q Jj 4~Js CAJlcI

5 w ' 5 C J

... Most of the Muctazilites said ... that God is knowing, powerful
and living through Himself, not by knowledge, power and life. And
they declared absolutely that God has knowledge in the sense that He
is knowing; and power, in the sense that He is powerful, but they did
not apply this to life saying He has life. Abfi Hudhayl said: He is
knowing by a knowledge that is He and He is powerful through a
power that is He, and He is living by a life that is He.63
O J, JI3 0C - 3 - - - I X

1. *UL!w1a_K.fDy sJ9 1 -,-!k

That man thinks-and what the fool thinks does not count-
That I consider him a man.

2. u J l "?JSl u; ; 3sl

That is what he thinks, but to me he is like some one who

Never existed, even if he had existed.
(Abfi Nuwas)

62 Manduir, al-Naqd al-Manhajf, p. 52. It is worth noting that later critics for the
most part ignored this chapter of the Kitdb al-Badit, while the rest of the book was
the first major source for virtually all later rhetorical criticism. According to von
Grunebaum, only two major works deal with al-madhhab al-kaldmi, Abfi Hilal
al-'Askari's Kitdb al-.Sindcatayn and al-Khwarizmi's Mafdtfh al-1Ulm. In the latter,
it is considered among the devices found in prose (Gustave E. von Grunebaum,
A Tenth-Century Document of Arabic Literary Theory and Criticism. The sections on poetry
of al-Bdqilldnf's I'jaz al-Qur'dn [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950]
pp. 115-118). As for al-CAskari, he has apparently included al-madhhab al-kaldmi for
the sake of completeness, but his merely giving an abbreviated version of Ibn
al-Muctazz' chapter without any additional examples or comments indicates that
it had little meaning or importance for him. See, Abu Hilal al-cAskarli, Kitdb
al-Sindcatayn, ed. cAll Muhammad al-Bajawi & Muhammad Abui al-Fadl Ibrahim
(2nd ed., n. pl.: cIsa al-B&bi al-Halabi wa-Shurakahu, 1971) pp. 426-427.
63 al-Ashcari, Maqaldt al-Isldmtytn, pp. 164-165.

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 TOWARD A REDEFINITION OF "BADI"' POETRY 29

8. .1 a o J - *JO .)

You taught me what love is like, whereas I was ignorant,

And my patience over your oppression taught you to oppress me.
.3 0a 0- -~ * ~ .-

2. > ebJ! a
And I know how I stand with you, but my passion
Makes me incline toward rashness and renounce my forbearance.
(Ibrdhim ibn al-'Abbas)
- - a .334) - 0 *- g-0 - o0- .0-ok

3. V.4Krk,~ ,
Generosity is not contented by your contentment
With the supplicant's contentment, but only by contentment
(Abiu Tammdm)64

It is clear from the comparison of these examples that the historical

connection between these poetic expressions and the development
of speculative theology goes beyond mere terminology-the method
of kaldm. Ibn al-Mu'tazz has attempted to reduce the effect of
kaldm-speculative theology in particular, but in more general
terms the spirit of logical disputation and rational investigation that
affected every aspect of the arts and sciences in the "Mu'tazilite
Era"-to a mechanically reproducible embellishment. But, as we
have seen in the analyses of the other rhetorical figures, the new
trend in poety was not limited to this rhetorical device, nor, indeed,
to the realm of rhetoric. Ibn al-Muctazz failed to see that al-madhhab
al-kalm- was not a rhetorical device at all, nor was badi' poetry the
result of a mere proliferation of the rhetorical devices of the
Ancients. Rather, al-madhhab al-kaldmi is precisely that mode of
thought, abstract, dialectical, metaphorical, that, as the analyses of
the rhetorical figures demonstrate, distinguishes CAbbasid courtly
culture from J-hiliyah tribal society and which, in the realm of
literature, created the new badi' style distinct from the poetry of the
Ancients.

University of Chicago SUZANNE PINCKNEY STETKEVYCH

64 Ibn al-MuCtazz, Kitdb al-Badic, p. 55.

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