Volume 41, 2016 41, Volume

Volume 41, 2016 Volume 2016 Ȇ41 Oó©dG Volume 41, 2016 About the journal Contents Hadeeth ad-Dar is a 02 22 October 2012 puplication of the Dar al-Athar Fine Arts in Poetry: an Aesthetic Approach in al-Islamiyyah. Every year,the Reading Ibn al-Roumi’s Poetry Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah Charbel Dagher (DAI) organises a series of lectures as part of the cultural 05 18 March 2013 season. Hadeeth ad-Dar Credibility of the Information of Ibn Battuta: was created to share these Maldives painting as an example lectures with academic and Abdul-Hadi al-Tazi cultural institutions and Friends of the DAI around the world. 09 9 December 2013 Cultural Season 21 began on A victory monument in the Name of Sultan 28 September 2015 and, as in Malik-Shāh in Diyarbakir: Medieval Figural previous seasons, will present Reliefs Used for Political Propaganda? scholars in a wide variety of Joachim Gierlichs fields related to the arts and culture of the Islamic world. 16 13 October 2014 Kuwait City Green Belt Reconversion, 2013-2014 The Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah Ricardo Camacho (DAI) was created in 1983 to support the loan of objects 20 20 October 2014 The Shock of Tradition from The al-Sabah Collection to the State of Kuwait and Leila el-Wakil operates under the auspices of the National Council of Culture, Arts, and Letters. Over time the mission has grown to include promoting the fusion of people, cultures and ideas both in Kuwait and in countries hosting DAI exhibitions and loans from the collection. LNS 105 S Screen Northern India Late 16th – early 17th century Carved by mason’s means Height: 120 cm, Width: 100 cm Hadeeth ad-Dar 1 Volume 41 Fine Arts in Poetry: an Aesthetic Approach to Reading Ibn al-Roumi’s Poetry Prof Charbel Dagher Presented in English 22 October 2012 I approach the subject of Islamic art from a different perspective than the traditional one. I attempt to discover concepts and images that reflect arts in early Arabic literature, particularly in the poetry of Ibn al-Roumi. A leading medieval poet, I examined his work and recorded the presence of a relationship between the visual and the written in his poems. This certainly suggests that Islamic art bears a unique ability to see beauty, based on a shared reliance between poetry and the poet’s perception of beauty. Obviously, the study of art depends on the works of thoroughly, including Omar Farrukh, Abdul Ghani art itself and its academic evaluations (theory, history Hassan, Abbas Mahmoud al-A’qqad and others. and criticism). However, there is yet another source that Much has been written in regards to Ibn al-Roumi. art historians can trust but is often overlooked: I mean His life is, more often than not, associated with his language, particularly literary works. This argument is poetry, creating a somewhat short-sighted picture applicable to the arts in numerous cultures, including of the poet; at best, declaring him either “unusual” Islamic. or “entertaining”. Rather than highlighting the This is addressed in my first book on Islamic art: uniqueness of his poetry and his lifestyle, the research “Aesthetic Theories: a Lexigraphic- Historical Reading on Ibn al-Roumi distances him from standard artists. of Arts in Arabic Literature” and in the greater part of Researchers apply the established norms of a “typical” my books on this field. This paper is a continuation artist rather than recognising that Ibn al-Roumi was a of my approach; as another attempt to study Ibn phenomenal poet in part because he wasn’t “typical”. al-Roumi’s poems as examples of literary Arabic works Ibn al-Roumi’s life was full of tragedies and that includes genre of other arts. misfortune, and he is portrayed as one who whined I picked Ibn al-Roumi (221-283 AH/836-896 CE) and expressed his dislikes constantly. Ibn al-Roumi specifically because his collection of poems (diwan) lost his family progressively (starting with his father, is rich and diverse, containing different aesthetic and then his mother, his sibling, his aunt, and finally artistic elements. His diwan, therefore, is viewed as losing his wife and his three children). He also lost one of the greatest, if not the greatest Arabic diwans. It his properties either to fire, plant pests or otherwise. took the concerted efforts and collaboration of several These incidents often transformed his praise into contemporary scholars to examine and analyse the satire, or rebuke. In fact al-Merzabani, a noted writer seven volumes of Ibn al-Roumi’s diwan (Dar-al-Jeel, and historian, said that “The value of his writing and Beirut, 1998), with the aim of shedding light on all reciting poems has been diminished, and influential aspects of this masterful work. That said, from my personalities maintained a cautious distance from him”. perspective, there are still aspects of Ibn al-Roumi’s Nevertheless, those accounts of Ibn al-Roumi and poetry to be unfolded. the explanations identified with them – whether they Ibn al-Roumi was the subject of various early literary were right or off base – did not consider the depth works, such as Ibn al-Imad’s “Shatharat al-Thahab”, Ibn and structure of his poetry. Researchers accepted Khallikan’s “Wafayat al-A’yan”, Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi’s previously established explanations that positioned “Tareekh Baghdad” and others. In modern times, the images in his verses as humour or simple but many researchers and scholars studied his diwan masterful descriptions, not more. Dr. Charbel Dagher, is a professor at Balamand University, Lebanon and consultant in Islamic art, obtained two PhD degrees in Arabic literature and the aesthetics of arts. He collaborated with several universities and newspapers worldwide. He held the post of General Secretary of the Executive Council of Afro-Arab Cultural Symposium. Dr. Dagher has written extensively on literature and arts. Hadeeth ad-Dar 2 Volume 41 Along these lines, I took another route in Abu-Tammam, took Arabic poetry in new directions investigating the poetic world of Ibn al-Roumi. By with respect to topics and genres of poetry. Common looking into his poems with a different approach and and familiar types of poems, praise poems for instance, studying his works from different angles, historically were adapted and new types were introduced. Poems and aesthetically, I presumed that the results would began looking at hunting, asceticism, mysticism, cast a new light on the works of this exceptional poet. I and impudence. While early Arabic verse does not utilised Ibn al-Roumi’s diwan to help my study specific give us enough evidence to create an unmistakable to three issues: History of art, poems that celebrate picture of individuals and society at the time, poetry what the eye sees, and the aesthetic conversation in the Abbasid time presents us with a reasonably between the poetry and other arts. distinctive picture of cities, neighbourhoods and The primary idea in my investigation of Ibn different positions and social classes; the conduct of al-Roumi’s diwan is that it represents an extensive individuals and their values and tastes were portrayed record of the visual arts during the Abbasid era and, as in verses; a propensity that required in effect, changes a result, possibly leading to a greater understanding of in the structure of the poem itself. This added another these arts. As I mentioned above, I address the diwan aspect to the poem: the “unity of the topic”, which was of Ibn al-Roumi as presenting new material and data uncommon in early Arabic poetry. on Islamic arts of the period. Therefore they should Started by Abu-Nawas, the new structure of the be studied as additional source material, important poem was characterised by a remarkable narrative because other Arabic sources are constrained and quality, providing a reliable description of the Abbasid dispersed. society. It also accentuated the “individuality” of the More than one poem in Ibn al-Roumi’s diwan focuses poet himself: the poet is a free human, who speaks on forms of visual art, classified and established as just for himself. He is not the voice of any other entity, “arts” in private collections and various museums over be it his tribe or even the Caliph himself. the last two centuries. These include manuscripts, This style was obvious in Ibn al-Roumi’s poems, statues, puppets, chants, decorative elements, rugs, which used to depict the daily Abbasid scene. His architecture, gardens and so forth. It is important poems described in detail places like orchards, to note that Ibn al-Roumi not only specified these palaces, gardens, taverns, houses, marketplaces and modes of arts in his poems, he also explained the more. This approach was even more apparent in the different aspects of each, their production, craftsmen, highly palpable feel of his poems, such as the one in techniques, and their special vocabularies. In his which he laments for one of his children or in another, diwan, it is possible to recognise products such as in which he expresses his profound admiration of the lamps, pens, dinars, beakers, swords, and arts of the enchanting voice of a female singer called “Waheed”. book. He also identified individual and social utilities It is also found in his satirical poems which contain of certain products, indicating commercial tastes, rough language and reflect his personal dislikes. variations in products, likes, and dislikes. In his love poems, Ibn-al-Roumi uses bold In addition to the arts, Ibn al-Roumi wrote about life expressions when describing his beloved. He deviates and what he observed: from individuals and creatures from the traditional Arabic norms of vaguely portraying such as chickens and fish to the nature and the the beloved, the longings and the separation, to existence itself.

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