Maqamat Book Pdf

[Pavido Scalf]

Professionallyillustrated and calligraphed manuscripts were produced for private use. Of these manuscripts, only 11 surviving copies are known to exist; all of them are of al-Harīrī's Maqāmāt, and none are from before the thirteenth century C.E.[6] These illustrations tend to be colored linework on a white background; they often depict the narrator and protagonist's escapades together, and so most of these compositions (unlike much of medieval Islamic Art) primarily feature human figures with notably expressive faces and gestures.[7] The illustrated manuscripts made extensive use of captions, likely added after the manuscripts' completion to provide key context to the illustration or to provide information that could not be gleaned from the illustration alone.[8] Art found in the illustrations of al-Harīrī's Maqāmāt appears to include borrowed visual motifs from medieval Christian and Judaic art as well as references to architecture found within the Islamic empire.[9] In addition, the illustrations tend to share formal qualities with the art of shadow play.[10]

The maqāma genre was also cultivated in Hebrew in Spain, beginning with Yehūda al-Ḥarīzī's translation of al-Harīrī's maqāmāt into Hebrew (c. 1218), which he titled maḥberōt 'ītī'ēl ("the maqāmāt of Ithiel"). Two years later, he composed his own maḥbārōt, titled Sēfer Taḥkemōnī ("The Book of the Tachmonite"). With this work, al-Ḥarīzī sought to raise the literary prestige of Hebrew to exceed that of Classical Arabic, just as the bulk of Iberian Jewry was finding itself living in a Spanish-speaking, Latin- or Hebrew-literate environment and Arabic was becoming less commonly studied and read.[20]

No known illustrations of maqamat exist prior to the 13th century.[34] However, illustrations were added to maqamat to add grandeur and interest to the manuscripts, even though the text was usually performed orally in large groups, rather than read in solitude.[35]

Common images across various Maqāmāt texts include: grand banquet events involving music and drinking, large groups congregated (sometimes in mosques), and general scenes involving the trickery of Abu Zayd as well as the frustration of Al Harith.[35] Particularly in the Saint Petersburg Maqāmāt, these scenes were meant to be humorous to those reading the text, as they often were loosely associated with the poem the image was correlated with.[35] These comical images were also shown through the over-exaggerated gestures, such as rigid elbows and knees, of the human figures portrayed as shown in the Vienna Maqāmāt.[7]

The human figures expressed in these illustrations tended to be quite large in relation to the architecture they were occupying as well as typically against a blank, white background.[7] Most of these images either took up an entire or half page, but were not incorporated within the text as a whole.[7] The use of the double-page spread began to become popular during this time and were used extensively in these manuscripts.[36] The color palettes were typical of this time and were the schemes often employed in Qurans.[37]

While some of the images refer to the previous text in the manuscript, scholars cannot necessarily determine the relationship between the image and the text when they do not appear to relate to each other.[38] Although the illustrations have a clear correlation with the text, the text does not need these images to serve its purpose. Therefore, these images can instead serve as a distraction to the reader rather than an aid.[39] The difference of text and images is also used to cater to the taste of different groups of people.[40][page needed] For example, the text is read by the audience who are experts of Arabic language and literature, while the images can be helpful for those with less formal education.[38]

However, these captions could also have been used to clarify what the illustrator failed to render in the images, rather than just an explanation of the scene produced.[8] Captions also created a sense of picture framing in instances of small spaces for the text, often resulting in bent captions that created an enclosure for the picture.[8]

The Maqāmāt illustrations have stylistic characteristics of other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. One of the main instances of Christian inspiration originates from the use of gold circles surrounding a figure's head to denote its holiness, typically used for saints in early medieval Christian manuscripts.[7] However, it was not meant to signify a sacred figure, but rather it is thought to create a distinction from the blank background because of its common use for ordinary figures throughout the illustrations.[7] Another Christian motif employed in these manuscripts is the particular treatment of the sky which also appeared in some Byzantine manuscripts.[7] The Vienna Maqāmāt and several earlier Maqāmāt manuscripts also included some imagery from medieval Jewish culture, such as the inclusion of their particular type of gravestone. At this time, typical Islamic gravestones were minimalistic without many inscriptions, while several Jewish cemeteries included a type of small stepped stone grave marker. These Jewish gravestones were the ones illustrated in these manuscripts rather than the small Islamic headstones.[41]

However, the illustrations in Maqāmāt manuscripts also included influences from the Islamic world, notably from the city of Baghdad. Specifically in the Istanbul Maqāmāt, several buildings do recall the architectural style and form of the city, notably shown through the Mustansiriya complex that appears to be replicated throughout the illustrations.[9] The use of vegetal designs and specific rendering of authority figures also alludes back to the style of the Islamic world which can be seen through the Arabic translations of the Greek teachings of Dioscorides.[7]

The illustrated Maqāmāt manuscripts made during the 13th century connect the idea of shadow play.[38] This is shown through the emphasis of the outline, the dramatic behavior and mobile gestures of figures, the strong contrast between figures and the background, and the tendency of the figures being present in an unregulated setting. However, the Maqāmāt illustrations do not just emphasize the shadow and are instead full of bright colors, only using shadow to detail the environment around the figures.[38] These similarities of the Maqāmāt illustration and shadow play may have some effect on the viewer of these illustrations. In other words, these images can help viewers understand the reason for a dramatic difference between the text and paintings by suggesting that these images were not made as an aid of the text, but rather as stand alone paintings.[38]

Altogether, more than a hundred Maqamat manuscripts are know, but only 13 are illustrated, all belonging to the Maqamat of al-Hariri. They mainly cover a period of about 150 years.[42] A first phase consists in manuscripts created between 1200 and 1256 in areas between Syria and Iraq. This phase is followed by a 50-year gap, corresponding to the Mongol invasions (invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia, with the Siege of Baghdad in 1258, and the invasion of the Levant). A second phase runs from around 1300 to 1337, during the Egyptian Mamluk period, with production probably centered around Cairo.[43] One of the earliest and most widely known illustrated editions is that by al-Waisiti (completed in the year 1236), now in the Bibliothque nationale de France (in Paris).[44]

Maqāma as a literary genre has continued to exist and be contributed to since its inception.[3] Mohamed Salah-Omri argues that for the modern Arabic writer, composing maqāmāt or works similar to them may serve as a way of defying Western literary forms and expectations (such as the European novel) and legitimizing their own Arabic identities and that of their reader by appealing to a shared literary history. This process, he argues, would have been especially important in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as modern Arabic states and national identities began to form as a result of or reaction to European colonialism.[3][45] Some authors may choose to follow the literary tradition of the genre as closely as possible, while others make use of only some of the features of classical maqāma, to different ends such as parody, entertainment, or colloquialization of the genre. Omri lists the following modern examples of maqāma:

Over the last little while, many of you have been asking me about my various courses and programs to learn maqamat, and how you can get started. If you emailed me, sorry if I was not able to respond to you personally.

As for me personally, Allah has protected me and made me averse to this knowledge of maqāmāt, but I have met many who have perfected this science, many of them praying behind me in tarāwīḥ prayer in Ramaḍān. Some of them have sat down with me after the prayer and informed me that I recited this particular portion of prayer with the maqām of Ṣibā or the maqām of Bayyātī, and that portion with that maqām, or that I recited these verses with this maqām and ended with another, etc.

I have found the book of Shayk Ismail Londt and Shayk Abdul Azeez Brown very informative regarding the allowance of maqamat in recitation.They also provide referances with opinions of classicals scholars.May Allah reward them for their efforts Inshallah.

Nelle maqamat si ritrovano le origini della narrativa, che furono in voga dall'anno Mille in poi, e che ebbero in Badī' al-Zaman al-Hamadhānī e in Qasim ibn Ali i loro massimi rappresentanti. Molto considerate in epoca classica, ma trascurate dagli scrittori arabi contemporanei, sono state riutilizzate da Yūsuf Idrīs prima e da Khaled Al Khamissi pi recentemente. La maqama stata molto popolare, essendo una delle poche forme che ha continuato ad essere scritta durante il declino della lingua araba nel XVII e XVIII secolo. Nel XIX secolo le maqamat sono state riprese da Muhammad al Muwaylihi.

3a8082e126