SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis, primarily a study of the of the Diwan of the Hispano-Arab poet Ibn Quzman, attempts to show that the popular Arabic, literary genre, the zajal, has often been studied from the point of view of literary history, or from a genetic; rather than from a generic point of view. It; also attempts to show that, medieval, theories about the zajal, namely that it was written in collioquial or vulgar Hispano-Arabia have been accepted by scholars up to the present withouto adequate examination. In this work the zajal is viewed as part of a literary tradition or literary genre, perhaps shortlived, but in any case neglected, called /al-hazl/. In essence this was a literary parody and an expression of literary revolt against: the strict demands and conventions of classical Arabic literature and writing. It's protagonists seem to have called it. /hazl/ to distinguish its droll approach from the sombre and ponderous traditional style of classical Arabic writing which they termed /mu'rab/. Accordingly an attempt is made here to show that just: as it was the declared intention of the /hazl/ writers to: free their work from the demands of desinential inflection, /i'rab/, they also disregarded the demands of linguistic purity and pedantry. It. is thus one of the themes of this thesis that while the language of the zajal. plays havoc with classical Arabic, and popular or colloquial, terms are rife in it, it is not, as has so far been:, maintained by practically every student of the zajal, a colloquial genre. The metrical irregularity of the zajals of Ibn Quzman is explained in the light of the irregularity and nonconformity which characterize the /hazl/ genre, and an attempt is made at the outset to demonstrate the undesirability of postulating a syllabic theory for his metrical patterns. One other conclusion of this work is that the /kharja/ of the classical muwashshah, the subject of so much controversy, and in many ways a puzzle on account of its Romance, popular, vulgar and sometimes even obscene elements, was an element of /hazl/ appended to: an otherwise strictly classical or /mu'rab/ muwashshah. Finally the thesis also examines some Spanish influences on Ibn Quzman.