Debate literature, Arabic - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
van Gelder, Geert Jan
Leiden
Brill
(1,408 words)
Debate literature in Arabic , in a strict sense, is a text in which two or more inanimate things (objects, substances, abstract concepts) are personified or humanised and vie for precedence. It is already found in older Middle Eastern literatures such as Sumerian, Babylonian, and Syriac (see Reinink and Vanstiphout, eds.; and Jiménez). In Arabic such texts are generally called munāẓara , but several other terms are found, including mufākhara ("vaunting, boasting") and muḥāwara ("discussion"). Because munāẓara also refers to non-literary, theological, legal, or other scholarly debates, the literary debate is