To Holly<\/em> \u2018Abd al-Jabbar Ibn Hamdis (d. 1132) is best known in Arabic literature for his “Sicilian” poems in which he articulates the painful experience of witnessing the loss of his homeland at the hands of the Norman conquest and poeticizes his remembrance of Sicily as both youthful paradise and proverbial sacred ground of Arab-Islamic glory. In 1091, he experienced a second exile when the Almoravid forces of North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula and put an end to the principality of Seville and its flourishing worldly court culture. With the forced banishment of its poet-prince, al-Mu\u2018tamid Ibn \u2018Abbad, Ibn Hamdis himself departed from the comfort and prosperity of his thirteen-year refuge in Spain and embarked on a journey to an unknown future. Compounding the agony of yet another defeat, the ship following his own sank at sea, taking down with it his beloved and faithful slavegirl, Jawhara. His diwan<\/em> (anthology) contains two elegies he composed to her memory.<\/p>\n This essay offers an introduction to the poems followed by a translation. They vary in length, meter, lyric, and temperament. I read the first, shorter, poem as most likely having been composed upon (or shortly after) the news of Jawhara\u2019s drowning and suggest that it was a spontaneous and highly emotional response to her demise. In contrast, I read the second, longer, poem as a composition that followed a long period of bereavement and reflection. The meter is longer, the mood more stoic, and the sentiment is as much philosophical as it is emotional.<\/p>\n I also read them within two broader contexts; first, how do these poems reflect the standards and prescriptions of elegy (al-ritha\u2019<\/em>) set forth by medieval Arabic literary theorists; and second, how do these poems mirror medieval Muslim society’s views of slavegirls.<\/p>\n The elegy in classical Arabic literature comprises the lamenting of a loved one and a celebration of her\/his traits. Eulogizing a male was more often than not read as a collective loss (for the tribe, community, or society), while eulogizing a female was a private, personal loss. In the guise of consolation, the inevitability of death becomes a leitmotif for elegy. In the post-Islamic period, the elegiac poem (marthiya<\/em>) substitutes the pre-Islamic (Jahili<\/em>) call for vengeance with promises of eternal reward. In the context of the classical conventional ode (qasida<\/em>), the amatory preface (nasib<\/em>) is replaced with a gnomic introduction on death and a plea for patience; and the journey segment (rahil)<\/em> is replaced with an account of the subject\u2019s death. More significantly, literary critics emphasized sincerity of emotion (sidq al-\u2018awatif) <\/em>and expression of personal anguish (tafajju\u2018) <\/em>as prerequisites to a successful elegy.<\/p>\n In his treatise on slavegirls, “Epistle on Singing Girls” (Risalat al-qiyan), <\/em>the 9th century Baghdadi prose writer and literary scholar Abu \u2018Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz (d. 868) takes a parodic view of popular notions of slavegirls and suggests a more benign role for them in medieval Muslim society. He creates a social binary between a man of breeding and taste and a boorish, uncultivated man through the prism of possessing slavegirls. Of particularly social and literary interest is al-Jahiz\u2019 classification of these woman according to their different social functions: (i) raqiq<\/em> (generic slave: non-free status); (ii) ama<\/em> (household maid: perhaps a nanny, or nurse); (iii) wasifa<\/em> (a servant girl, or domestic); (iv) jariya<\/em> (a consort or concubine); (v) qayna<\/em> (a skilled singer, musician, artiste<\/em>).<\/p>\n Al-Jahiz accepts the legality or social acceptance of slavegirls and stresses that the female is man\u2019s natural soulmate, created for consolation, love, and sympathy. He also argues that slavegirls have been in existence since ancient times; and music and singing, often associated with both jariya<\/em> and qayna <\/em>in medieval Arabic poetics, are not anathema to Islamic law or values. He discusses variations of love (hubb<\/em>) and passion (\u2018ishq<\/em>), and advises that while passion can destroy a man, love does not unless it ends in loss. He cautions his (male) readers that passion assumes all our emotions, and passion for singing girls is dangerous. He describes singing girls, but not all slavegirls, as insincere, deceitful, manipulative, and disloyal.<\/p>\n In both of Ibn Hamdis\u2019 elegies we see all the standard elegiac themes as well as a sympathetic view of the slavegirl. Especially at a time when Muslim societies on the northern shores of the Mediterranean were coming apart as much by acts of treason perpetrated by Muslim themselves as by the Christian conquests, it is particularly striking to see Ibn Hamdis refer to Jawhara as a loyal companion. But it is in the personal anguish he suffers at her loss, an anguish that resonates so strongly with the many verses he composed as he watched his beloved Sicily fall to the Normans, where his achieves his poetic excellence.<\/p>\n The two poems may be parsed as followed:<\/p>\n I<\/strong><\/p>\n i- gnomic introduction (muqaddima hikamiyya<\/em>) II<\/strong><\/p>\n i- the hunter sea as jealous rival Diwan, #325<\/p>\n 1- The builder of life destroys its abodes; 2- If nations have come and gone before us, 3- You view life as though it were a forest, 4- If our days make peace, then life’s days do not, 5- Both have afflicted upon us the agony of longing for a sweet companion; 6- I utter her name and tears race down my cheeks, 7- O sea, so callously have you made cheap 8- Jawhara [my jewel], my heart was a shell for her, 9- You summoned her to drown deep within you, 10- The scent of a sweet fragrance perfumes her hair, 11- The waves embraced her and then took her away 12- May God protect me from the water and earth, 13- The one made her perish and the other transformed her; Diwan, #131<\/p>\n 1- O graceful branch of a willow tree, what has snapped you? 2- O tear-ducts, my state of being is in utter misery; 3- I never imagined my heart to be so tattered by agony, 4- Separation from you is more than I can bear, and how otherwise can that be, 5- Could it be that the garden of your beauty rests verdant in full bloom, 6- The raging sea killed you in a fit of jealousy, 7- I fell into a flood of tears when you were drowned at sea; 8- Which of the three do I cry most the tears of blood for its loss: 9- Where is the shame in my agonizing over you? 10- You were the essence of youth, and when it passed away, there was no recompense, 11- I was not long in my travels out of love for you; 12- Is my only link to you the phantom of a deceased, 13- I longingly embrace the grave that embraces you; 14- O light of my eye, I wish my sight had protected you 15- I [would] say to the sea if we faced each other eye to eye: 16- Why didn’t you hold back your bitter stinging waters from the mouth of a dark-lipped beauty? 17- Why didn’t you look into her enchanting eyes? 18- O face of Jawhara, now blocked from my view, 19- O body of Jawhara, how do I find relief from the ardor of my sorrow, 20- O night, who has prolonged your sorrows, one after another? 21- How is the one in a grave lying in repose unaware 22- O link to my world, you have disappeared from my sight; 23- Had I found you not so distant from me, 24- If he was compelled to submit to a fate that delivered you to [the sea], 25- Was he not [like you] drowning with one hand raised? 26- Have mercy on me and the deluge of my tears, 27- If only death prevented you from visiting it! 28- If the tears appear trickling down my cheeks, 29- My soul has not been spared of longing for you; *The beauty of this second hemistich is that it may be read as:<\/p>\n “O perfectly composed poem, who has spoiled your rhyme (and turned you into prose)?”<\/p>\n ** The pairing of rubies and pearls conjures the image of contrasting red tears (tears of blood) as being more painful with white tears.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elegies to a Slavegirl: Love and Exile in the Poetry of Ibn Hamdis To Holly scholar, humanitarian, and dear friend \u2018Abd al-Jabbar Ibn Hamdis (d. 1132) is best known in Arabic literature for his “Sicilian” poems in which he articulates the painful experience of witnessing the loss of his homeland at the hands of the … <\/p>\n
\nscholar, humanitarian, and dear friend<\/em><\/p>\n
\nii- personal anguish (tafajju\u2018<\/em>)
\niii- the eulogy proper: the sea as hunter; traits of the deceased
\niv- a prayer (du\u2018a\u2019<\/em>) to God to give him consolation and the patience to endure<\/p>\n
\nii- death as one more journey: one of forced exile
\niii- the recollection of her youth (cast all in past tense)
\niv- the phantom of separation
\nv- the poet\u2019s guilt for leaving her (as he did Sicily); his own exile precipitated her exile
\nvi- description of her physical features
\nvii- (al-Jahiz): the emotional and monetary value to him, her ability to give him consolation, pleasure, sympathy, and love
\nviii- her death induces the painful prolongation of his life.<\/p>\nElegy to Jawhara I<\/h2>\n
\nis there anything in this world that rests eternal?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthen they are no more than spirits borrowed and returned.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhere lions, like our fates, roam in our midsts.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhile fate’s nights wage war on us.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe very mention of her kills me, but keeps her alive.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nas though I could only keep pace with anguish.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe one so dear to me, and not merely through purchase.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhich kept her close [to me] and well protected.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhile I spent the night on shore sobbing her loss.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nand the tint of kohl laces her eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfrom a warm embrace in which her soul has departed.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nand from the laws of the two elements that condemned her to die.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nso how can I ransom her from these forces of nature?<\/span><\/p>\nElegy to a Slavegirl [Jawhara] Who Drowned at Sea II<\/h2>\n
\nO perfectly strung necklace, who has scattered your gems?*<\/span><\/p>\n
\ndisperse the rubies of my tears and withhold your pearls.**<\/span><\/p>\n
\nlike the wing of a sandgrouse caught in a trap.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nsince the wave that engulfed you took you away from me.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbut no eye could see your blossom wilting away?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhen the pearls from its depths spotted your mouth in envy.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthat which inundated you nearly inundated me.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nyour pure nature, your youth, or what you have meant to me?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nas the beauty in every art walks in your shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n
\neven if the one who lost you gained the world.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbut in death you have embarked upon your longest journey.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthat gives movement to my eye from that silence?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nif only I were inside knowing what has happened to you.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfrom the rocks and soil that cling to your skin.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nonly her drinking your brackish waters has soiled my life.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nWere it not for her weakness, she would have captivated you.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI wonder how they could not have bewitched you.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwho protects you from an eclipse as your full moon rises?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhile you are deplete of the spirit which gave you life?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nIs it the same who cut short from you all earthly delights?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof the torments of one who has spent many a sleepless night with you.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nmy heart reads your tender companionship on the pages of misery.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe Master of my soul would see it as a reflection of you.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhe did not do so out of betrayal or deceit.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nWhoever ordered your death deprived [me] of the same cup to drink.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfor what remembering makes forget ( … )<\/span><\/p>\n
\nHow could it be so desirous of you and yet wait so long?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthen it is only a sorrowful mourning of your modesty.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhowever, my life has been prolonged by the brevity of yours.<\/span><\/p>\n