ABSTRACT
Before presenting the two protagonists of this book, the stage for Abbasid court society must be set, and the practices surrounding panegyrics briefly surveyed. The genre’s most salient literary form, the panegyric qaṣīda, has become the goal of several scholarly approaches, including the present one, which will be discussed shortly. The remainder of the first part introduces the poet Ibn al-Rūmī and his brilliant patron, the Ṭāhirid governor ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbdallāh (d. 300/ 913), including an overview of the poetry their relationship inspired. The English renditions of the Arabic term madīḥ, ‘panegyrics’ or ‘praise poetry,’ may mislead one into believing that the poetry so designated limited itself to flattery. Indeed, madīḥ was much broader than that and included, next to praise, other tones of address ranging from advice and exhortation to criticism, direct accusation, and warning. In the following poem, quoted in part, Ibn al-Rūmī admonishes Muḥammad (d. 253/867), the brother and predecessor of the above-mentioned ʿUbaydallāh or, according to one manuscript, ʿUbaydallāh himself:1 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315823607/3c1f901b-2452-42b4-bd5b-1f8301092ec7/content/figu1_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Oh, if only I knew, why you have postponed my reward – you are stricken neither with parsimony nor with poverty. I imagine, since I have bestowed my good praises on you, you withheld my reward, envying me for my poetry. Do you envy me for bestowing a fine mantle, which I have woven for you to wear? Oh, help me with a strange matter! Remember – God be your guide – that I am praising and that you are praised! Do not wrong me in my rank!2 In [all] poetry, one challenges one’s equal, and the sovereigns of people are above that endeavor.3 Two poets do not race with each other for any goal but to request the grace of a magnificent leader. And you are the one to whose graces supplicants come and towards whose kindness a sender of poetry dispatches it … Busy yourself with the acts of kings and leave to me the praising of your kindness [to your subjects] and your cunning [against your enemies]! (A694: 2–8, 12)
