Didactic poetry, Arabic - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
van Gelder, Geert Jan
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
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Leiden
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Brill
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
(815 words)
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Arabic didactic poetry , taken in a broad sense, intends to instil morals or impart information. By this definition much of Arabic poetry is didactic, such as the gnomic verse found at the end of the Muʿallaqa poem of the pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr b. Abī Sulmā and the aphorisms that punctuate countless qaṣīda s and epigrams throughout the centuries. The dīwān of al-Mutanabbī (d. 354/965) especially has always been a beloved treasure trove of quotable wisdom, in the form of one-line maxims. In the terminology of the