Maqama

A medieval Arabic prose genre that combines rhymed prose, wordplay, and episodic tales, often featuring a clever vagabond narrated by a recurring witness.

Sajʿ: Rhymed prose in which clauses share rhythmic patterns and end sounds without regular poetic meter. Maqama’s cadenced narration relies on sajʿ to make prose sound like performance.
Badiʿ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani: A tenth-century Arabic writer credited with establishing the maqama as a literary genre. His inventive episodic prose established the form that later writers developed.
Arabic calligraphy: The artistic practice of writing Arabic script according to developed systems of letterforms and composition. Maqama manuscripts turned elaborate prose into a setting for visually refined writing.
Hebrew maqama: A medieval Hebrew prose genre modeled on Arabic maqama, combining elaborate language with episodic storytelling. Hebrew writers adapted the form across linguistic and religious communities.
Arabic rhetoric: The study and practice of persuasive, eloquent expression in Arabic, including figures of speech and stylistic conventions. Maqama’s verbal display draws on rhetorical devices prized in classical Arabic prose.
Al-Hariri of Basra: An eleventh-century Arabic poet and prose writer best known for his collection of maqamat. His polished collection became the genre’s most influential and imitated example.
Arabic language education: The teaching and study of Arabic language, including grammar, vocabulary, rhetoric, and reading. The genre’s rare vocabulary and intricate syntax made it material for advanced language study.
Al-Maqamat al-Luzumiyya: A collection of maqamat by al-Saraqusti, written in al-Andalus and marked by highly constrained rhymed prose. It shows how the genre’s formal virtuosity developed beyond the eastern Arabic tradition.
Jinās: An Arabic rhetorical figure that places similar-sounding words with different meanings together. Puns and near-puns supply the quick verbal turns characteristic of maqama.
Abbasid literature: Literature produced under the Abbasid caliphate and in its cultural sphere, especially from the eighth to thirteenth centuries. Maqama emerged from the learned urban culture that flourished in the Abbasid literary world.

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