The Life and Times of Abu Tammam. Abu Bakr al-Suli

Of Abū Nuwās, Muslim ibn al-Walīd, al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ibn al-Rūmī, al-Ṣanawbarī, and others.

      11 His collected akhbār of Sudayf ibn Maymūn, al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī, al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, and the poets of Egypt have not survived; see Ritter, “al-Ṣūlī.”

      12 For more detail, see Gruendler, “Verse and Taxes” and “Qaṣīda,” n. 20.

      13 On practical criticism by literati contemporary with Abū Tammām, see Gruendler, “Abstract Aesthetics and Practical Criticism” and “Qaṣīda,” 350–51.

      14 On this debate, see Gruendler, “Arabic Philology through the Ages.”

      15 See introd., n. 7.

      16 On the tension between philology and the emerging poetics, see Gruendler, “Meeting the Patron,” 75–80, and “Arabic Philology through the Ages.”

      17 For a discussion of al-Ṣūlī’s reaction to this criticism, see Gruendler, “Meeting the Patron,” 75–80.

      18 This has been published separately as Sharḥ al-Ṣūlī li-Dīwān Abī Tammām, edited by Khalaf Rashīd Nuʿmān, 3 vols., preceded by a study of Abū Tammām and al-Ṣūlī as his critic and commentator (ibid., 1:17–137). The edition by Muḥammad ʿAbduh ʿAzzām includes the commentary by al-Tibrīzī (see introd., n. 27).

      19 See Gruendler, “Abstract Aesthetics and Practical Criticism.”

      20 The first three qualities are variously referred to as ibdāʿ, badīʿ, ikhtirāʿ, iktifāʾ, ittikāʾ ʿalā nafsihī, yaʿmalu l-maʿānī wa-yakhtariʿuhā wa-yattakī ʿalā nafsihi, and his development of motifs as istikhrājāt laṭīfah wa-maʿānī ṭarīfah.

      21 “Taking” is referred to in Arabic as akhdh, “stealing” as sariqah, “reliance” as lāʾidh bi-, “emulating” as muʿāraḍah, “copying, transposing” as naql, “imitating” as iḥtidhāʾ, and “inspiration” as ilmām.

      22 Referred to as al-ʿulamāʾ bi-l-shiʿr, al-nuqqād li-l-shiʿr wa-l-ʿulamāʾ bihi or elsewhere as al-ḥudhdhāq bi-ʿilm al-shiʿr wa-alfāẓihī (§18).

      23 The concept of “entitlement” within the theory of poetic borrowing (sariqah), whose first development was prompted by Abū Tammām, came into full bloom with al-Mutanabbī; see Heinrichs, “An Evaluation of Sariqa” and “Sariqa”; Ouyang, Literary Criticism, 146–54; ʿAbbās, Taʾrīkh, 252–336.

      24 One list collected by al-Ṣūlī is labeled lawdh and naskh (§§44.1–10). A following selection quotes an unnamed author of a book on thefts (§§46.1–6), probably identical with the one by Abū l-Ḍiyāʾ Bishr ibn Yaḥyā the Scribe, quoted and critiqued in al-Āmidī’s Muwāzanah, 1:324–70; see n. 100 to the translation. A third section assembles the taking over (naql) of wording and meaning (or motif) (§§47.1–11). A fourth section displays stylistic matching or imitation (iḥtidhāʾ, taqdīr al-kalām, ʿamila maʿnāhu ʿalayhi) (§§48.1–4). Note that the terms iḥtidhāʾ and ʿamila kamā ʿamila min al-maʿna are elsewhere used more precisely for an item-by-item matching (§40.3). Another term for borrowing, naql, has many further applications, such as a reusing of wording and meaning in a different genre (§69.16), a reusing of a motif without wording (§25.5, §64.5), and a transposition of prose into poetry (§134.2). The inverse transfer of verse into prose is called ilmām (§§55.1–2).

      25 A lexicographer of the Kufan school and assistant and successor to Thaʿlab, he authored several thematic dictionaries and was a book copyist known for his precision. However at his death he bequeathed his books not to a student or colleague but to a military man, Ibn Fātik al-Muʿtaḍidī (or Abū Fātik al-Muqtadirī; see introd., n. 7 above). He earned the nickname “Sourpuss” because of his unpleasant character. Al-Qiftī, who devotes two biographies to him, gives his name variously as Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad and Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān (Inbāh, 2:21–22, no. 263, and 3:141–42, no. 649); the former name is used by Ibn al-Nadīm (Fihrist, 1:240) and Ibn Khallikān (Wafayāt, 2:406, no. 273).

      AL-ṢŪLĪ’S EPISTLE TO ABŪ L-LAYTH MUZĀḤIM IBN FĀTIK

       In the name of God, full of compassion, ever compassionate

      1

      Praise be to God! He is due our praise in return for His grace. He grants favor to all His creation, and begins ….¹ He has made the way to the truth of His message clear and made it easy to obey Him. He created all that we behold, all that our hearts are drawn to, all that we ponder as evidence of His divinity and witness to His oneness. God bless and keep Muḥammad, seal of His prophets and best of His emissaries, and his blessed kin.

2.1

      May God give you honor, prosperity, perfect happiness, and long life. May your deeds be pleasing to Him. May He preserve and keep you to adorn an age in which men such as you are rare. May He make your well-being a gift to men of culture. The last time we met, we talked at length about various areas of expertise, and argued about Abū Tammām Ḥabīb ibn Aws al-Ṭāʾī. You marveled at how people’s views of him diverge so starkly. Most people, the leading scholars in the field of poetry and the evaluation of speech and experts in prose and verse, too, give Abū Tammām the praise he deserves and accord him his rightful status. They hold him in the highest regard and are struck by his poetic originality.² Some even place him on a par with his predecessors, while others go so far as to say he is unique, without precedent or equal.

      2.2

      Yet there are others who fault him and attack much of his poetry, citing some scholar or other in order to have an authority for what are mere allegations since they are unverified and unsubstantiated. For my part, I considered both categories to be the same, given that neither group of scholars can understand Abū Tammām’s poetry or clarify his intent, let alone dare to recite a single poem of his, which of course would put them at risk, for they have not studied and learned its references nor heard its pithy speech, nor are they familiar with its motifs.

      2.3

      Still, I conceded your point, and undertook to provide you with a full exposition to avoid any possible doubt on your part. When I saw how happy and pleased you were with this proposal, I was spurred to do it well and quickly, and to offer it to you as a gift in the form of an epistle followed by a report of everything ever said about every aspect of Abū Tammām: what makes him so good; a list of those who understood him, and adored and praised him; arguments against those who did not understand him, found him sorely wanting, and faulted him; and a list of the people he praised, corresponded with, and visited for favors. It would include everything said about him, my goal being to clarify his preeminence and to refute those who fail to appreciate him properly. This made you even happier and more enthusiastic.

2.4

      Then I realized³ that there was something else you were hoping for, which you had not told me. Maybe you were reluctant to burden me or did not wish to increase my labors, for I am sore pressed and tormented by an unjust fate, ruthless authorities, and friends who turned against me. I asked you to make your wishes plain and to charge me fully with what you wanted. You told me that what would satisfy you completely and fulfill all your desires would be, once I had finished The Life and Times of Abū Tammām, to edit his poetry, vocalizing it and glossing it so that it no longer contained any difficult vocabulary or obscure passages that blunt comprehension’s blade or make one spit and cover one’s ears.⁴ I was quick to agree, my mind was made up, and after The Life and Times of Abū Tammām I appended an edition of his poetry, poems