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UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Hikaya of Abu al-Qasim al-Baghdadi: The Comic Banquet in Greek, Latin, and Arabic Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9b61j97v Author Selove, Emily Jane Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Hikaya of Abu al-Qasim al-Baghdadi: The Comic Banquet in Greek, Latin, and Arabic A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures by Emily Jane Selove 2012 © Copyright by Emily Jane Selove 2012 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION The Hikaya of Abu al-Qasim al-Baghdadi: The Comic Banquet in Greek, Latin, and Arabic by Emily Jane Selove Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Michael Cooperson, Chair This study centers on an unusual medieval Arabic text, probably from the 11th century, called Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim (The Imitation of Abū al-Qāsim). The Ḥikāya tells the tale of a Baghdadi party-crasher crashing a party in Isfahan, and the author informs us in his introduction that this party-crasher is meant to represent a microcosm of the city of Baghdad. The author also tells us that this text can be read in the same amount of time that the events portrayed take to occur, creating a real-time depiction of time passing perhaps unparalleled in literary history. In analyzing this work, I draw from the ample scholarship on other ancient and medieval portrayals of banquets and dinner conversation, and especially those written in Latin. The Satyrica of Petronius, likened by several scholars to the Ḥikāya, features prominently in this analysis. In portraying Baghdad as an old party-crasher who not only demands to be fed but who dominates the conversation with his overabundant speech, the Ḥikāya paints the city as an entity who, although its physical power may be dwindling, continues to dominate the literary conversation with overbearing arrogance. Abū al-Qāsim himself is part of a literary tradition of ii party-crashing characters. Although these characters, as outsiders to the feast, typically act as guides to the reader, Abū al-Qāsim does not describe the Isfahani feast that he is crashing, but rather drowns it out with his words. The tension between language and food is a theme in banquet literature that often serves to problematize the representational qualities of language. The use of language in the Ḥikāya highlights the power of words to confuse or deceive, thereby calling into question the didactic value of the text even when it claims to be teaching us something. I show that the style known as mujūn (which often involves a kind of nonsense language) might be compared to playing a game. I conclude by showing that Abū al-Qāsim, as a microcosm, is a playful Doppelgänger of the prophet Muḥammad. Like Muḥammad, he represents both a real human being and a cosmic symbol, and the Ḥikāya can be seen as his Qur’an. iii This dissertation of Emily Jane Selove is approved. Amy Richlin Yona Sabar Rahim Shayegan Michael Cooperson, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv For Norman Funicello, a modern-day Abū al-Qāsim. 1942-2007 v Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION: 11 a. Summary of events: 13 b. Manuscript: 17 c. Translations: 19 d. Authorship and Dating: 20 e. Editions: 21 f. Scholarship: 24 g. A Comparative Approach: 38 h. Chapter overviews: 44 II. CHAPTER 1: WHO INVITED THE MICROCOSM?: 47 a. Mimesis or Mannerism? (1.1): 58 b. Baghdad the Party-Crasher (1.2): 64 c. Those Camels have Passed (1.3): 77 III. CHAPTER 2: CRASHING THE TEXT: 90 IV. CHAPTER 3: MUJŪN IS A CRAZY GAME: 115 V. CHAPTER 4: THE COSMIC CRASHER: 132 VI. CONCLUSION: 161 a. Bojangles Won’t Dance: 161 b. Philemon and Baucis: 170 VII. APPENDIX: A Translation of the Chess Game: 180 VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 194 vi Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee chair, Michael Cooperson, for the time and energy he has dedicated to this project. He read large portions of the Ḥikāya with me in minute detail, and engaged me in countless discussions of its content and of related topics. Not only did he always encourage me to pursue my interests, he challenged me to think more deeply about them. He also cheered me with his wit and honored me with his friendship. I would like to thank Amy Richlin for many hilarious hours of reading Latin together, and for sharing her experience, her insight, and her dogs with me. She provided detailed comments on this writing, and I hope to satisfy her desire for further revisions in the future. I would also like to thank Rahim Shayegan and Yona Sabar for generously sharing their time and perspective, and for all of their encouragement and support. Geert Jan van Gelder read all of the portions of the Ḥikāya with me that Dr. Cooperson did not, and in similarly minute detail. He also read and commented upon some of this writing, and cheerfully responded to multiple e-mail queries about many sundry details of the Arabic text. I have benefitted enormously from his encyclopedic wisdom and his bottomless warmth. I fondly remember my hours reading the Ḥikāya together with him and Adam Talib, whom I would also like to thank. Finally I would like to thank my friends and family who read parts of this dissertation and offered their suggestions, especially Kyle Wanberg, Matthew Selove, and my dear mother. This study was made possible with funding from the University of California Institute for Humanities Research, the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the UCLA Graduate Division, the Mellon pre-dissertation fellowship, Harry and Yvonne Lenart fellowship, and UCLA Dean’s fellowship. vii Curriculum Vitae Education Center for Arabic Study Abroad, Cairo, Egypt Summer intensive language program, 2009 Oxford University, Oxford, UK Recognized student during Michaelmas and Hilary terms 2008-2009 University of Damascus, Damascus, Syria Advanced Arabic, August 2007 Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences, Ithaca, NY Bachelor of Arts, May 2006, summa cum laude Major: Near Eastern Studies Second Major: College Scholar, Translation of Arabic Literature Middlebury College, Middlebury, VA Arabic Summer Language Program, 2005 Awards Awards UC President’s Society of Fellows Awarded to the top two dissertation year fellowship proposals, 2011-2012. Romani Fellowship Awarded by UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011-2012. UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship, 2011-2012 UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, 2010 UCLA Mellon Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, 2008-2009 UCLA Lenart Fellowship, 2008-2009 UCLA Dean’s Fellowship, 2008-2009 UCLA Foreign Language and Area Studies funding, 2007-2008 UCLA Chancellor’s Prize Awarded to the most highly recruited entering academic doctoral students, 2006-2008. Cornell University Dean’s Scholar, 2002-2006 Cornell University College Scholar, 2003-2006 Near Eastern Studies Department’s Certificate of Achievement in Intermediate Arabic, 2005 Dean’s Scholar Grant to attend Middlebury’s summer program, 2005 Messenger-Chalmers Prize, awarded to the undergraduate thesis "giving evidence of the best research and most fruitful thought in the field of human progress and the evolution of civilization during some period in human history or during human history as a whole," 2006. viii Publications The Art of Party Crashing, an English translation of Kitāb al-taṭfil by al-Khāṭīb al-Baghdādī (Syracuse University Press, 2012). “Crashing the Text: Speaking of Eating in Ḥikāyat Abī al-Qāsim.” Marginalia (Cambridge Medieval Reading Group, 2011). “Who Invited the Microcosm?” Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies (Gibb Memorial Trust, forthcoming). Co-Author: Kyle Wanberg. “Authorizing the Authorless: A Classical Arabic Dream Interpretation Forgery.” In Mundus vult decipi. Ed. Javier Martínez (Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, forthcoming). ix Abbreviations Ḥ Al-Azdī. Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī, published as Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī [attributed], Al-Risālah al-Baghdādiyyah. x Introduction Ḥikāyat Abī al-Qāsim, written by the otherwise unknown al-Azdī, probably in the early 11th century, describes a party that begins in the morning and lasts well into the night. Nothing impossible happens at this party: a group of fairly important, decent people have gathered together, food is served which is good but not extraordinary, and capable (though not legendary) entertainers and servants cater to the guests. The ordinariness of the event, however, is overwhelmed by the presence of a remarkable and uninvited guest, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Tamīmī al-Baghdādī, who dominates the conversation with his wide-ranging, prolix discourse, which he spews in a quantity just barely possible for an actually human old man who had long earned his bread by entertaining with his conversation, which is what Abū al-Qāsim seems to be. In his introduction to the Ḥikāya, al-Azdī explains that the events he represents occupy a day and a night, and can be read in that same amount of time. He also tells us that the Baghdadi guest, who dominates the conversation with his alternately obscene and elegant tirades, represents the entirety of Baghdad, and indeed a kind of microcosm of creation. The story itself is narrated in a past-continuous, iterative tense, as in “Abū al-Qāsim would walk into a party,” or “Abū al-Qāsim would say, for example.” Thus his act of party-crashing is described only as an example of the kind of thing that Abū al-Qāsim might typically do. Tempted by al-Azdī’s promise to provide a microcosm of his contemporary Baghdad, readers may look to the Ḥikāya for an example of realism, hoping to find within its pages a true- to-life microcosm of the 11th-century city.
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