WHEN Ḥarírí undertook to compose his Maqámát 'following the method of Badí‘' a close imitation was inevitable. A comparison of the two works reveals how closely he followed his model and how largely he drew upon the original source, not only for ideas but also frequently for themes and, occasionally, for the language in which to express them.
For example, in maqáma xiii, 147 Ḥarírí, in imitation of Hamadhání, p. 61, introduces the names of colours in an artificial manner. Ḥarírí's poem, p. 159 closely resembles Hamadhání's verses on p. 90. Ḥarírí v, 49 and Hamadhání v, 20 are identical in title and theme. Ḥarírí xviii, 199 is a very close imitation and, in parts, a literal copy of Hamadhání xxii, 101.
The themes of Ḥarírí xii and xxxix and Hamadhání xxiii are the same. Ḥarírí xxx is a variation of Hamadhání xxx. In the
Allusions to popular sayings and customs, history and legend, theology and jurisprudence, specimens of eloquence and pulpit oratory, apt quotations from the Qur’án and the citing of proverbs, the use of the rare and the recondite, constitute the groundwork common to both books. The maqámát of Hamadhání are, therefore, an excellent introduction to the ampler, more elaborate and comprehensive work of his great imitator.
In a comparison of the works of these two masters of the art of maqámát writing regard should be had to the fact that the maqámát of Hamadhání are the work of a young man, completed in all probability before he had attained his thirtieth year, whereas those of Ḥarírí were begun when the author had reached the mature age of forty-eight, and occupied the last twenty years of his life. 2
As regards their relative merits Hamadhání is much more natural than Ḥarírí. He has more of art and less of artificiality than his imitator. There is less disposition on his part to indulge in grammatical riddles and linguistic puzzles, or to ransack the rich resources of the Arabic language for rare words. The subject is less subordinated to the style, or the sense to the sound than is the case with Ḥarírí.
And yet the work of Hamadhání, which in his own day made him famous, from Herat to Northern Africa and earned for him
Muṭarrízí, the earliest scholiast, was born in A.H. 458, or only twenty-two years after the death of Ḥarírí, and even then he asserts that he found it necessary to consult practically the entire range of Arabic literature, and to refer to the principal Shaikhs of the time before he commenced his commentary on the Maqámát. 5
In the case of the Maqámát of Hamadhání there was probably no vocalized text in circulation, and there certainly was no commentary for more than nine centuries. Without such aids a literary work of this kind, covering so wide a field and written in an original and ornate style, would present considerable difficulty even to the ripe scholar, while to the struggling student it was doomed to be what it actually became, virtually a sealed book. These circumstances and facts account, to some extent at least, for the long neglect of this classic in Arabic literature.
22:1 Der Mimus, pp. 154-5. 22:2 Ibid., pp. 699-700. 23:1 Letters, p. 161. 23:2 De Sacy's Introduction to Ḥarírí, p. 50. 24:1 Ḥarírí, p. 6. 24:2 Ibid., p. 6. 24:3 For a character sketch of the commentator, see Blunt, Secret History of the British Occupation of Egypt, p. 105. 24:4 Ibn Khallikan, ii, 493 and 496. 24:5 De Sacy's Introduction to Ḥarírí, p. 58.