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Ibn Al-Rumi's Contribution to the "Nautical Rahil" Tradition: the Expression of Meaning Through Form and Structure

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Ibn Al-Rumi's Contribution to the IBN AL-RUMI'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE "NAUTICAL RAHIL" TRADITION: THE EXPRESSION OF MEANING THROUGH FORM AND STRUCTURE Abu al-Hasan "Ali b. al-'Abbds b. Jurayj (or Jurjis, Jurjis or Jurjis) al-Rumi (d. 283/896), popularly known within the tradition simply as Ibn al-Rumi, was a very prolific and versatile 'Abbasid poet. Although strangely ignored by the authors of several important medieval biographical dictionaries and com- pendia of Arabic learning and lore, the poet was resurrected at the beginning of the 20th century by the Egyptian poet and nationalist leader, Mahmud Sami al-Barudi, and popularized later by the members of the Diwan Group in Egypt, primarily 'Abbas Mahmud al-"Aqqdd and 'Abd al-Qddir al-Mazini. The pioneering efforts of these men were then followed by a host of studies by writers and critics from Egypt and the Levant, and since 1944 studies on Ibn al-Rumi have also appeared in Western languages. Today Ibn al-Rumi is known particularly for his irrational fears and super- stition (al-tatayyur),' and for his ill-omened life, for his propensity to attempt to "extract every possible conceit from a given motif and not to abandon it before he has exhausted it,"2 for his resulting long-windedness (titl al-nafas) and the extraordinary length of many of his poems,3 and indeed, of his An abridged version of this paper was presented at the 30th annual MESA conference in Providence, Rhode Island, in November, 1996. ' Numerous anecdotes preserved in the sources portray the poet perceiving inauspicious omens in place names and in the names and appearances of people and objects. See, for example, Yaqut b. 'Abd Allah al-Hamawi, Mujam al-Udabä', 20 vols. (Cairo: 'Isd al-Bâbi al- Halabi, 1936), 13:250-51,296-99; Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Zubaydi, Tabaqat al- Nahwiyyinwa al-Lughawiyyin,ed. Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo: Muhammad Sami Amin al-Khdnji al-Kutubi, 1954), 126; Ibn Rashiq al-Qayrawani, al-'Umdah ft Mabisin al- Shi'r wa Adabih, 2 vols., ed. Muhammad Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al-Hamid (Cairo: Matba'at Hijazi, 1934), 1:53; Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri, Risdlat al-Ghufriin, 9th ed., ed. 'A'ishah 'Abd al- Rahman (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'£rif, 1993), 478 n. 3, 481; 'Abd al-Rahim b. Ahmad al-'Abbâsi, Macähid al-Tansis calii Shawdhid al-Talkhis, 4 vols., ed. Muhammad Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al- Hamid (Cairo:Matba`at al-Sa'âdah, 1947),1:117; Abu IshaqIbrahim b. 'Ali al-Husrial-Qayrawani, Zahr al-Adib wa Thamar al-Albib, 4 vols., 4th ed., ed. Zaki Mub5rak and Mubammad Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al-Hamid (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d.), 2:526-27, 530, 532-34. 2 This is van Gelder's definition [G.J.H. van Gelder, "The Terrified Traveller: Ibn al- Rumi's Anti-Rahil,"Journal of Arabic Literature 27 (1996): 37] of the literary technique vari- ously called "exhausting conceits, or motifs (istinfdd al-macänï)," "giving conceits their full due (istf3' al-ma'ini)," "pursuingconceits to their utmostextreme (istiqgf' al-ma'in0" and "killing conceits (imatat aI-maciinï),"depending upon the critic's attitude toward the phenomenon. 3 Ibn al-Rumi's longest poem [Diwin Ibn al-Rumi, 6 vols., ed. Husayn Nassar et al. (Cairo: 96 diwän as a whole,' for his "almost perverse reversal of traditional motifs and themes" (al-taghäyur),5 for the origination of many novel conceits {ikhtiräC al-maCäni),6 for his poetic versatility (al-iftindn) and the composi- tion of poems in every genre,? for his fondness for imposing upon himself difficult rhyme letters, and rhyme conditions (luzum md ld yalzam),8 for the "organic unity" which some writers have alleged characterizes his poems,9 . and for his invective (hija') which the tradition has deemed so vitriolic that an Arabic proverb designates him the epitome of the foul-mouthed satirist with the caustic tongue.'° Finally, he is also well known because al-Hay'ah al-Misriyyah al-cÃmmahli al-Kitdb, 1973-81), poem no. 1600, 5:2054-70) com- prises 337 lines. Boustany observed that, putting aside urjazahs, a poem of this length "n'est signale dans toute la po6sie arabe" [Said Boustany, Ibn Ar-Rumi: sa vie et son ceuvre (Beirut: Publications de l'Universit6 Libanais, 1967), 321]. 4 Boustany described it as "le plus long de tous ceux qui existent en arabe" (Boustany, Ibn Ar-Rümï, 316). 5 Again, this is van Gelder's definition of this literary phenomenon (van Gelder, "The Ter- rified Traveller," 47). The most salient feature of the poet's literary persona and the three characteristics of his art cited thus far are also given by van Gelder (ibid., 37). 6 According to Ibn Rashiq, Ibn al-Rumi and Abu Tammam were the most skilled of the "post-classical" poets (al-Muwalladun) at originating unprecedented conceits (Ibn Rashiq, al- 'Umdah, 1:235]. Ibn Rashiq was particularly effusive in his praise of this aspect of Ibn Rumi's art and promised to write a book in which he furnished proof of his contention (ibid., 2:232). If he did write such a book, however, it is not extant. I The last two points prompted Ibn Rashiq to describe Ibn al-Runu as "the most deserv- ing of all people of the name of poet" (Ibn Rashiq, al-'Umdah, 1:255). Ibn al-Rumi's role in the development of new poetic forms and themes, among them the "reflective epigram" [cf. Gregor Schoeler, "On Ibn al-Rutru's Reflective Poetry: His Poem about Poetry," trans. Peter Butler, Journal of Arabic Literature 27 (1996), esp. 33], the "epigrammatic sketch" [cf. von Grunebaum's discussion of Ibn al-Rumi's role in the development of poems that he describes as "poetical 'snapshots'," wherein the poet "undertakes to draw in a few bold strokes the pic- ture" of a an object or a scene from nature, in Gustave E. von Grunebaum, "The Response to Nature in Arabic Poetry," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 4/3 (July, 1945): 148], the literary munazarah [cf. Wolfhart Heinrichs, "Rose versus Narcissus. Observations on an Arabic Literary Debate," in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East, ed. G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1991), esp. 184], and the "lament for fallen cities (rith3' al-mudun)" [cf. Ibrahim al-Sinjilawi, The Lament for Fallen Cities: A Study in the Developmentof the Elegiac Genre in Classical Arabic Poetry (Unpub- lished University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation, 1983), 117-34], is also acknowledged. 8 Ibn Rashiq commented admiringly on this feature of his poetry (Ibn Rashiq, al-'Umdah, 1:133, 137-38), as did Shawqi Dayf [Shawqi Dayf, al-Fann wa Madhdhibuhft al-Shi"r al- 'Arabi, 12th ed. (Cairo: Dir al-Macârif, 1993), 215-16]. In one particularly celebrated case, supererogatory rhyme conditions are maintained throughout the entirety of a 282 line poem (Diw3n Ibn al-Rumi, poem no. 444, 2:584-603). , 9 See notes 12 and 13 below. '° The proverb "More caustic in invective than Ibn al-Rfi? (ahja min Ibn al-Rümï)" seems to have been first reported by Ibn Rashiq (al-'Umdah, 1:255). The proverb is clearly fash- ioned in a manner designed to evoke, and contrast with, similarly cast proverbs which depict Hatim al-Ta'i and al-Samaw'al as epitomizing the virtues of generosity and loyalty, respec- tively. Before Ibn Rashiq, Abu al-Aiii' al-Ma'arri had coupled Ibn al-Rumi with the poet Di'bil al-Khuzäciin a line of verse which made their invective proverbial: "If Fate were just, .
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