Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ridha ibn Muhammad al-Husayni al-Musawi al-Tusi
Born
589 AH/1193 CE
Ḥamāh, Syria
Died
655 AH/1257 CE
Occupation
Poet
Notable work
Alf jāriyah wa-jāriyah
ʽAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Riḍā ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Musāwī al-Ṭūsī, also known as Ibn al-Sharīf Dartarkhwān al-ʽĀdhilī (b. 589 AH/1193 CE in Ḥamāh, Syria; d. 655 AH/1257 CE), was a poet.[1] He is noted as the author of the Alf jāriyah wa-jāriyah ('one thousand and one slave-women'), which survives in one manuscript of 255 folios, now in the Austrian National Library.[2] The work seems to have been a sequel to the same author's Alf ghulām wa-ghulām ('one thousand and one male slaves'), now lost; Alf jāriyah wa-jāriyah comprises eight chapters of short poems in the epigrammatic form known as maqṭūʽ (pl. maqāṭīʽ).[3]
chapter
number of epigrams
subject matter
1
250
2
50
3
100
name-riddles
4
100
5
100
6
211
women from different cities
7
45
8
145
Examples
The following examples come from the sixth chapter of Alf jāriyah wa-jāriyah, in which each three-verse epigram celebrates the women of a different city of the Islamic world. This example is in the sarīʿ metre:[4]
And he referred to a girl from Meknès:
Cross (the sea) to Oran on a bird that swims in the water without life
night after night, and after it (i.e. Oran) traverse the deserts on large and slender camels!
For at Meknès I have a lovely girl who has filled my tortured heart with passionate desires.
wa-qāla fi jāriayatin min ishbīliyata
hajartu bi-ṭūsa min ahlī ʿadīdan bi-andalusīyatin jaydāʿ a ghaydā
bi-ishbīlīyatin sanaḥat mahātan taṣīdu bi-laḥẓihā l-ḍirghāma ṣaydā
janā l-zaytūna wa-l-zarjūna fihā jamālan ṣāra li-l-jawwābi qaydā
And he referred to a girl from Sevilla:
I left, at Ṭūs, a great number of my people, because of a long-necked, supple Andalusian girl!
A Sevillian who appeared as a wild cow that hunts down the lion by her looks
— he had been collecting olives and grapes there — by virtue of (her) beauty that has turned into shackles for the traveller.
Editions and translations
No edition of the whole work exists, but editions and translations of numerous poems or sections have been published by Jürgen W. Weil. The most prominent publication is his Mädchennamen — verrätselt. Hundert Rätsel-epigramme aus dem adab-Werk Alf ǧāriya wa-ǧāria (7./13.Jh.), Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 85 (Berlin: Klaus-Schwarz-Verlag, 1984), ISBN392296835X, which published chapter 3 of the work in transliterated Arabic and in German translation. Other editions and translations include:
Weil, J. W. and A. A. Ambros, 'Tausend und ein Mädchen: aus den Schätzen der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek', Bustan, 4 (1969), 22-28
Weil, J. W., 'Einige Rätsel aus der arabischen schönen Literatur', Bustan, 2-3 (1970), 47–49.
Weil, J. W., 'Epigramme auf Musikerinnen (in den letzten zwei Teilen: Künsterinnen in der Gedichtsammlung Alf ǧāriya wa ǧāriya', Rooznik Orientalistyczny, 37, pp. 9–12; 39, pp. 137–41; 40, pp. 83–93.
Weil, J. W., and A. A. Ambros, '22 Rätsel-Epigramme aus der Gedichtsammlung Alf ǧāriya wa-ǧāriya', Orientalia hispanica: Festschrift F. M. Pareja, vol. 1, pp. 20–32.
Weil, J. W., 'Alf ǧāriya wa-ǧāriya, sechstes Kapitel: Epigramme auf Mädchen aus Orten der muslimischen Geographie' parts 1 and 2 in Islam, part 3 in Rocznik Orientalistyczny.
^Arie Schippers, review of: Jürgen W. Weil, Mädchennamen — verrätselt. Hundert Rätsel-epigramme aus dem adab-Werk Alf ǧāriya wa-ǧāria (7./13.Jh.), Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 85 (Berlin: Klaus-Schwarz-Verlag, 1984), ISBN392296835X, Bibliotheca orientalis, 47 (1990), 819-20.
^Gustav Flügel, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften in der kaiserlichen und königlichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien (Vienna, 1865), I 362-64.
^Adam Talib, How Do You Say "Epigram" in Arabic?: Literary History at the Limits of Comparison (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 13 fn. 2.