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Literary Approaches to Medieval and Early Modern Arabic Biography1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2010

Julia Bray
Julia Bray*
Affiliation:
University of Paris, 8-Saint Denis
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Abstract

Arabic biographical writing is much used as a historical source, and scholars agree that its textuality must be taken into account in evaluating its content. There is less agreement, though, on the importance of thoroughly understanding the range of processes of literary composition used by biographers. This article approaches three sets of biographies from a purely literary viewpoint: two medieval sketches of women, a Sufi and a songstress respectively; three seventeenth-century hagiographies of the physician and theosopher Dāwud al-Anṭākī; and a thirteenth-century portrait of one man of letters, al-Qifṭī, by another, Yāqūt. It concludes that the art and care devoted to shaping such commemorations of individuals is evidence of the aesthetic and cultural importance of biography as an Arabic literary genre.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 237 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2010

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References

2 Douglas, F. (Malti-), “Controversy and its effects in the biographical tradition of Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī”, Arabica, XLVI (1977), pp. 115–131Google Scholar.

3 Kilpatrick, Hilary, “Time and death in compiled adab ‘biographies’”, al-Qanṭara, XXV, 2 (2004), pp. 387–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A similar point was made by Lowry, Joseph E., “Time, Form, and Self: The Autobiography of Abū Shāma”, Edebiyât, 7, 2 (1997) (Special Issue: Arabic Autobiography, guest editor Dwight F. Reynolds), pp. 313–335Google Scholar.

4 Kilpatrick, “Time and death”, p. 407.

5 al-Ziriklī, Khayr al-Dīn, al-A'lām (Beirut, 10th edition, 1992), iii, p. 241Google Scholar; ‘Umar Ridā Kaḥḥāla, A'lām al-nisā’ (Beirut, 9th printing, 1409/1989), iii, pp. 196–197. For biographies of these two influential bio-bibliographers, see al-Ziriklī's autobiography and obituary, al-A'lām (10th edition), viii, pp. 267–270, and notices on Kahhāla in: Nizār Abāza and M. Riyāḍ al-Malīḥ, Itmām al-A'lām (Beirut, 1999), pp. 191c–192a; Ṣāliḥ Farfūr, A'lām Dimashq f ī al-qarn al-rābi‘ ‘ashar al-hijrī (Damascus, 1987), pp. 382–383; Anwār al-Jundī, A'lām al-qarn al-rābi‘ ‘ashar al-hijrī (Cairo, 1981), pp. 179–188; and ‘Umar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, al-Mustadrak ‘alā Mu'jam al-mu'allif īn (Beirut, 1985), pp. 7–10 (autobiography). I am grateful to Professors Claude Gilliot and Cengiz Tomar for these references, posted 23/04/2007 on H-NET List on Islamic Lands of the Medieval Period ([email protected]).

6 Basra was a city of canals.

7 Kaḥḥāla, A'lām al-nisā’, i, p. 263. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Alī Ibn al-Jawzī was a preacher, religious scholar and historian. Ṣafwat al-ṣafwa is a critical reworking of an earlier biographical dictionary of mystics, the Ḥilyat al-awliyā’ of Abū Nu'aym al-Iṣfahānī (d.430/1038), and has been twice published as Ṣifat al-ṣafwa (Hyderabad, 1936–38), and M. Fākhūrī (ed.) (Aleppo, 1969–73). Both published texts read: “whenever she felt thirsty, she would go out . . .” and: “beg for charity and incite me to do so”, (Hyderabad), iv, p. 26, and Fākhūrī (ed.), iv, pp. 39–40, no. 603.

8 In the printed editions there is a fragmentary isnād.

9 The word is polysemic, and means ‘fashionable’, ‘polished’, ‘clever’ and ‘subtle’, etc.

10 ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq al-Zajjājī (d. ca.340/950) was a grammarian and linguistic scholar. His ‘Dictations’, recorded by pupils, are a series of verse quotations, with or without framing anecdotes and brief comments.

11 Mentor and vizier of Hārūn al-Rashīd (d.193/809) in the first part of his reign.

12 Kaḥḥāla, A'lām al-nisā’, i, p. 262. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr al-Suyūṭī, primarily a religious scholar, was also a prolific compiler of themed anthologies.

13 Al-Zajjājī, al-Amālī, ed. ‘A. S. Hārūn (Beirut, 1407/1987), p. 98.

14 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (ed.), al- Suyūṭī, al-Mustaẓraf min akhbār al-jawārī (Beirut, 1963), p. 6. The anecdote is no. 8, pp. 19–20.

15 Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, al-Imā’ al-shawā‘ir, ed. Jalīl al-‘Aṭiyya (Beirut, 1404/1984), no.32, pp. 215–217. Even though both editions were made from the same MS, this biography, together with nos. 31 and 33, is lacking from the edition by N. Ḥ. al-Qaysī and Y. A. al-Sāmarrā’ī (Beirut, 1983).

16 Kaḥḥāla, A'lām al-nisā’, i, pp. 372–373; see Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī, xix, ed. ‘Abd al-Sattār Aḥmad Farrāj (Beirut, 1960), pp. 266–267, where the passage forms part of the section on a more famous jāriya, Faḍl al-Shā‘ira, and the name of the owner of Khansā’ is given as Hishām the Blind.

17 al-Mu'tazz, Ibn, Tabaqāt al-shu'arā’ [al-muḥdathīn], ed. Farrāj, ‘A. S. A. (Cairo, 1968), p. 425Google Scholar. To complete the confusion, at Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī (Būlāq, 1285 [1868]), xiii, p. 26, Abū al-Shibl is shown jousting with a woman belonging to Hāshim the Grammarian named Khansā’ whom he goes on to address as Ḥasnā’!

18 The workings of some of the more opaque conventions are explored by Brustad, Kristen, “Imposing Order: Reading the Conventions of Representation in al-Suyūṭī's Autobiography”, Edebiyât, 7, 2 (1997), pp. 327–344Google Scholar.

19 See the article ‘MÉTATEXTE/Metatext’ in the online Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires/International Dictionary of Literary Terms, ed. Jean-Marie Grassin (http://www.ditl.info/arttest/artI5272.php).

20 Among modern scholars, al-Anṭākī's autobiography, quoted not from al-Ṭāluwī but from al-Muḥibbī (see 2.3.2. below, end) or other later sources, has been paraphrased by historians of science, who view al-Anṭākī as the last representative in Islam of scientific medicine, but it has never been analysed critically by them, nor related to al-Anṭākī's thought and writings. For a discussion and bibliography, see Bray, Julia, “Dāwud ibn ‘Umar al-Anṭākī”, in Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 1350–1850, eds. Lowry, J. and Stewart, D. (Wiesbaden, 2009), pp. 49–56Google Scholar.

21 See e.g. Dāwūd ibn ‘Umar al-Anṭākī, Tadkirat ūlī al-albāb wa-al-jāmi‘ li-al-‘ajab al-‘ujāb, ed. A. Shams-al-Dīn (Beirut, 1420/2000), p. 6. Al-Anṭākī's thought awaits detailed study.

22 All translations of the Qur'ān are from Arberry, A. J., The Koran Interpreted (London, 1955)Google Scholar.

23 al-Ṭāluwī, Darwīsh Muḥammad, Sāniḥāt dumā al-qaṣr fī muṭāraḥāt banī al-‘aṣr, ed. al-Khūlī, M. M. (Beirut, 1983), ii, pp. 35–37Google Scholar.

24 On al-Ṭāluwī and Sāniḥāt, see Julia Bray, “Starting out in new worlds. Under whose empire? High tradition and subaltern tradition in Ottoman Syria, 16th and 19th/20th centuries”, in Antonella Ghersetti (ed.), Proceedings of the colloquium Tropics of Travel/Tropes du voyage. I: Departures/Départs (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, 13–15 December 2007, forthcoming in Annali di Cà’ Foscari. Serie Orientale. The title of al-Ṭāluwī's autobiography echoes al-Tha‘ālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-‘aṣr, and its immediate successor, al-Bākharzī's (d.467/1075) Dumyat al-qaṣr wa ‘uṣrat ahl al-‘aṣr. See al-Ṭāluwī, Sāniḥāt, ii, pp. 37–52 for al-Ṭāluwī's record of his studies with al-Anṭākī and of the latter's attainments.

25 Al-Ṭāluwī, Sāniḥāt, ii, pp. 38 (al-Anṭākī's Ṣūfism), 32 (al-Anṭākī compared to al-Ma'arrī), 34 (al-Anṭākī compared to Jacob).

26 Al-Ṭāluwī, Sāniḥāt, ii, pp. 120–123.

27 al-Khafājī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, Rayḥānat al-alibbā’ wa-zahrat al-ḥayāt al-dunyā, ed. al-Ḥulw, ‘A. F. M. (Cairo, 1386/1967), ii, pp. 117–119, no. 113Google Scholar.

28 Ma‘ṣūm, ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad Ibn, Sulāfat al-‘aṣr fī mahāsin al-shu'arā’ bi-kull miṣr (Cairo, 1324), pp. 420–422Google Scholar.

29 One of al-Anṭākī's works is an abridged compendium of all the sciences, al-Nuzha al-mubhija fī tashḥīdh al-adhhān wa-ta'dīl al-amzija, ed. I. A. al-Muntafikī al-Rifā‘ī (Beirut, 1420/1999).

30 Shayyada is a favourite word of al-Anṭākī's to describe his own activities as a restorer of true learning, see Nuzha, pp. 31, 32. I am grateful to Professor Remke Kruk for pointing out parallels between some of al-Anṭākī's autobiographical stances and those of Ibn Sīnā (which in turn are modelled on the biography of Aristotle, see Gutas, Dimitri, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works [Leiden, 1988], pp. 194–198Google Scholar). It is appropriate that Ibn Ma‘ṣūm incorporates Avicennan autobiographical conceits into his biography of al-Anṭākī, for al-Anṭākī was a great student of Avicenna.

31 Ibn Khafāja, Rayḥāna, ii, p. 118.

32 al-Muḥibbī, Muḥammad ibn al-Amīn, Khulāṣat al-athar f ī a'yān al-qarn al-ḥādī ‘ashar (Cairo, 1284), ii, pp. 140–149Google Scholar. On al-Muḥibbī, Ibn Ma‘ṣūm and al-Khafājī, see articles by R. Elger, J. Lowry and G. van Gelder in eds. Lowry and Stewart, Essays in Arabic Literary Biography 1350–1850, pp. 300–309, 174–184, 251–262.

33 Al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣa, ii, pp. 140–144 quoting al-Ṭāluwī, Sāniḥaṭ, ii, pp. 32–38, l.8; p. 38, l.10 – p. 39, l.3, with abridgements and variants; p. 39, ll.4–9, and ll.9–14 abridged; p. 40-p. 41, l.7, omitting the last 29 lines of the poem; and p. 51, ll.1–5 with variants.

34 Al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣa, ii, pp. 146–147.

35 For examples of how he worked when he was able to collaborate with living subjects, see Khoury, Nuha N. N., “The Autobiography of Ibn al-‘Adīm as told to Yāqūt al-Rūmī”, Edebiyât, 7, 2 (1997), pp. 289–311Google Scholar, and Bray, Julia, “Yāqūt's interviewing technique: ‘Sniffy’”, in Robinson, Chase F. (ed.), Texts, Documents and Artefacts. Islamic Studies in Honour of D. S. Richards (Leiden, 2003), pp. 191–209Google Scholar.

36 For Yāqūt's career and the chronology of his contacts with al-Qifṭī, see Gilliot, Cl., Encyclopédie de l'Islam. Nouvelle édition, XI, (eds.) Bearman, P. J. et al. . (Leiden, 2005), pp. 287–289Google Scholar: “Yāḳūt al-Rūmī”, especially p. 288, 2nd paragraph.

37 Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī al-Rūmī, Mu'jam al-udabā’/Irshād al-arīb ilā ma'rifat al-adīb, ed. Iḥsān ‘Abbās (Beirut, 1993), v, pp. 2022–2036, no. 855. On al-Qifṭī's mother and mother's mother, see Bray, “Yāqūt's interviewing technique”, p. 207.

38 Similarly, Khoury speaks of “the collaboration of biographer [Yāqūt] and autobiographer [Ibn al-‘Adīm] in portraying [the latter's] approved self-image”, which “places Ibn al-‘Adīm as the final recipient of [his family's] dynastic inheritance”, “The Autobiography of Ibn al-‘Adīm”, pp. 309, 306.

39 al-Qifṭī, ‘Alī ibn Yūsuf (or Ibn al-Qifṭī), Inbāh al-ruwāt ‘alā anbāh al-nuḥāt, ed. Ibrāhīm, M. A. F. (Cairo, 1950–74, repr. Beirut and Cairo, 1406/1986)Google Scholar, passim.

40 In an earlier discussion of this passage, I confused the generations, see Bray, “Yāqūt's interviewing technique”, p. 208.

41 For the action, which took place in 611/November 1214, see Humphreys, R. Stephen, From Saladin to the Mongols. The Ayyubids of Damascus 1193–1260 (Albany, 1977), p. 137Google Scholar, and Eddé, Anne-Marie, La Principauté ayyoubide d'Alep (579/1183–658/1260) (Stuttgart, 1999), pp. 82, 447Google Scholar. Neither Humphreys nor Eddé cites al-Qifṭī's account, which we may take as being the official report.

42 On the brother and other relatives who held office, see Eddé, La Principauté ayyoubide, pp. 314, 315.

43 Compare Khoury, “The Autobiography of Ibn al-‘Adīm”, pp. 291–292, 294.