Psychological Alienation and the Aesthetics of the Lost Place in the Self-Laments of Mālik b. al-Rayb, Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī, and Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article examines how configurations of place function as a semiotic apparatus that reshapes the lyric self in classical Arabic self-elegy. It focuses on three case studies: Mālik b. al-Rayb’s death-bed lament, Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī’s Rumiyyāt, and Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī’s laments for lost Sicily, which respectively stage estrangement in the open wilderness, carceral confrontation with a Byzantine Other, and a homeland reconstituted in language. The study pursues three objectives: (i) to trace the shifting relationship between self and place across these texts, (ii) to describe how linguistic and sonic markers of alienation are patterned in each corpus, and (iii) to reassess prevailing critical narratives of the Arabic self-elegy. Methodologically, it combines close reading with semiotic and critical discourse analysis, supported by targeted lexical mapping of place- and exile-related fields and descriptive analysis of pronominal choices and sound structures (refrain, parallelism, echo). The analysis shows, first, that Mālik b. al-Rayb’s poem organizes nostalgia around solitary bodily vulnerability in a liminal desert space; second, that Abū Firās’s prison odes transform spatial confinement into argumentative self-assertion vis-à-vis both Byzantine captors and an Arabic audience; and third, that Ibn Ḥamdīs’s Sicily becomes a mnemonic archive in which communal loss is staged and renewed. Taken together, these findings outline a trajectory (1st–6th AH) from individual farewell poetics toward symbolic resistance and then mnemonic reconstruction, and they offer a comparative framework for the poetics of place in Arabic literature.
Article Details
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Journal of Philology and Educational Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY-4.0).
How to Cite
References
Abbas, I. (1959). The Arabs in Sicily: A study in history and literature. Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafa.
Abbas, I. (1960). Dīwān Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī (Vol. 1). Beirut: Dar Sader.
Al-Dahhān, S. (2017). Dīwān Abī Firās al-Ḥamdānī. Windsor: Hindawi Foundation.
Al-Griati, H. H. (2006). The oath in pre-Islamic poetry: A literary study. Journal of Jurisprudence Faculty, 2, 50–69, doi: https://doi.org/10.36324/fqhj.v2i2.8492
Al-Ḥulaybī, K. b. S. (2007). Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī fī Rūmiyyātihi: Dirāsah mawḍūʿiyyah wa-fanniyyah [Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī in his Rūmiyyāt: A thematic and artistic study]. Dammam: Nādī al-Minṭaqah al-Sharqiyyah al-Adabī.
Al-Jubouri, S. A. I. (2021). Self-obliteration and continuance of soul in the elegy of Malik bin Al-Rayeb Al-Tamimi. College of Basic Education Research Journal, 17(3), 382–404, doi: https://doi.org/10.33899/berj.2021.169603
Al-Qarnī, A. M. (2020). Tajrubat al-mawt wa-al-ghurbah fī Yāʾiyyat Mālik b. al-Rayb: Dirāsah fī adawāt al-tashkīl al-fannī [The experience of death and expatriation in the Yāʾiyyah of Mālik b. al-Rayb: A study of artistic composition tools]. Majallat al-ʿUlūm al-Insāniyyah wa-al-Ijtimāʿiyyah, 4(9), 1–22, doi: https://doi.org/10.26389/AJSRP.R050520
Al-Qaysī, N. Ḥ. (1969). Dīwān Mālik b. al-Rayb: Ḥayātuhu wa-shiʿruhu (Vol. 15). Cairo: Institute of Arab Manuscripts (ALECSO).
Al-Sayyid, Ḥ. (2011). Al-Nafsiyyah al-sākhitah fī Rūmiyyāt Abī Firās al-Ḥamdānī: ʿArḍ wa-taḥlīl wa-naqd [The discontented psyche in the Rūmiyyāt of Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī: Presentation, analysis, and criticism]. Ḥawliyyat Kulliyyat al-Lughah al-ʿArabiyyah bi-al-Zaqāzīq – Jāmiʿat al-Azhar, 1(31), 655–766, doi: https://doi.org/10.21608/bfla.2011.12660
Alī, A. A. M. (2023). Inʿikās al-maʿnā ʿalā al-mabnā fī marthiyyat Mālik b. al-Rayb: Dirāsah balāghiyyah [The reflection of meaning on structure in the elegy of Mālik b. al-Rayb: A rhetorical study]. Majallat Kulliyyat al-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyyah wa-al-ʿArabiyyah lil-Banāt bi-al-Iskandariyyah, 39(4), 2887–2947, doi: https://doi.org/10.21608/bfda.2023.296340
Batcho, K. I. (2023). Nostalgia in literature and memoir. Current Opinion in Psychology, 50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101557
Benataiba, A. (2025). The rhetoric of repetition in the elegiac poetry of Malik Bin Al-Rayb. International Journal of Education and Language Studies, 6(3), 115–128, doi: https://doi.org/10.47832/2791-9323.6-3.8
Carpentieri, N. (2016). Towards a poetics of ageing: Private and collective loss in Ibn Ḥamdīs’ late verse. Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies, 3(1–2) , doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/jtms-2016-0004
Carpentieri, N. (2018). Adab as social currency: The survival of the qaṣīda in medieval Sicily. Mediterranea: International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, 3, 1–18, doi: https://doi.org/10.21071/mijtk.v0i3.10767
Carpentieri, N. (2024). Usage of al-shayb wa-l-shabāb in Ibn Ḥamdīs’s ḥāʾiyyah ‘Ṭaraqat wa-l-laylu.’ Journal of Arabic Literature, 55(2–3), 238–252, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1570064x-12341517
Dahīsh, M. (2025). Al-Ākhar fī shiʿr Mālik b. al-Rayb [The other in the poetry of Mālik b. al-Rayb]. Majallat al-Lughah al-ʿArabiyyah wa-Ādābihā, 1(41), 171–197.
Damirova, J. V. (2025). The Diwan of Ibn Hamdis as a valuable sample of Arabic-Sicilian literature. The Actual Problems of Study of Humanities, 3, 317–320, doi: https://doi.org/10.62021/0026-0028.2025.3.317
Driver, F. (1985). Power, space, and the body: A critical assessment of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 3(4), 425–446, doi: https://doi.org/10.1068/d030425
Ghazoul, F. J. (2006). Comparative literature in the Arab world. Comparative Critical Studies, 3(1–2), 113–124, doi: https://doi.org/10.3366/ccs.2006.3.1-2.113
Granara, W. (2000). Ibn Ḥamdīs and the poetry of nostalgia. In M. R. Menocal, R. P. Scheindlin, & M. Sells (Eds.), The Literature of Al-Andalus (pp. 388–403). Cambridge University Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521471596.026
Hammadi, L. Y. (2015). Stylistic displacement in the Romans of Abu Firas al-Hamdani. Al-Adab Journal, 112, 115–134, doi: https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v0i112.1447
Hermes, N. F. (2009). The Byzantines in medieval Arabic poetry: Abu Firas’ ‘Al-Rumiyyat’ and the poetic responses... Byzantina Symmeikta, 19, 35, doi: https://doi.org/10.12681/byzsym.934
Jankır, A. (2025). Al-Ightirāb fī shiʿr Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī: Al-tashkīl wa-l-ṣūrah [Alienation in the poetry of Ibn Ḥamdīs: Formation and image]. Marifetname, 12(1), 329–346.
Khalīfa, A. A. (2024). Īqāʿ al-naṣṣ wa-dalālatuhu al-nafsiyyah: Dirāsah fī marthiyyat Mālik b. al-Rayb [The rhythm of the text and its psychological significance: A study in the elegy of Mālik b. al-Rayb]. Majallat Kulliyyat al-Tarbiyah al-ʿIlmiyyah, 16, 141–165.
Khawaldeh, S., & Sultan, S. (2011). ‘Linnet-like Confined I... Shall Sing’: The freedom-imprisonment duality in the poetry of Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī and Richard Lovelace. Journal of Arabic Literature, 42(2–3), 236–260, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/157006411X596168
Lefebvre, H., Nicholson-Smith, D., & Lefebvre, H. (2013). The production of space (33rd print). Blackwell Publishing.
Makhoul Sleiman, N., Hussein, A. A., Kuflik, T., & Minkov, E. (2024). Automatic era identification in classical Arabic poetry. Applied Sciences, 14(18), 8240, doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/app14188240
Marmorstein, M. (2016). Tense and text in classical Arabic: A discourse-oriented study of the classical Arabic tense system. Brill, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004310483
Miller, N. A. (2022). William Granara: Ibn Hamdis the Sicilian: Eulogist for a falling homeland. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 85(1), 118–120, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X22000465
Raslān, A. M. (2024). Al-Qiyam al-khuluqiyyah fī shiʿr Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī bayna al-ruʾyah wa-l-adāʾ [Ethical values in the poetry of Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī: Between vision and performance]. Majallat al-Zahrāʾ, 34(2), 6083–6152, doi: https://doi.org/10.21608/zjac.2024.424055
Schweller, K. G., Brewer, W. F., & Dahl, D. A. (1976). Memory for illocutionary forces and perlocutionary effects of utterances. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 15(3), 325–337, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5371(76)90029-3
Serjeant, R. B. (1959). The introductory chapters of Yaqut’s Mu’jam al-Buldan. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 22(3), 583–584, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X0006568X
Shuqair, K. M. (2023). A translation and analysis of ʿAbd al-Jabbār Ibn Ḥamdīs’ poem ‘Qaḍat al-Nafs.’ International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 6(12), 6–12, doi: https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2023.6.12.2
Simeonov, G. (2023). In enemy hands: The Byzantine experience of captivity between the seventh and tenth centuries. Early Medieval Europe, 31(3), 430–458, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12642
Sorum, E. C. (2011). The self‐elegy: Narcissistic nostalgia or proleptic postmortem? In E. Martiny (Ed.), A Companion to Poetic Genre (pp. 93–103). Wiley, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444344318.ch7
Söylemez, M. A., & Küçüksarı, M. (2022). Arap şiirinde şairin kendisine mersiye söylemesi: Mâlik b. er-Rayb’ın el-Kasidetu’l-Yâ’iyye’si örneği [Self-elegy in Arabic poetry: The example of Mālik b. al-Rayb’s al-Qaṣīda al-Yāʾiyya]. Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 63(2), 1063–1095.
Sperl, S. (1989). Mannerism in Arabic poetry: A structural analysis of selected texts. Cambridge University Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511563577
Stamboul, N. O. (2024). Spatial semiotics in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry: The study case of suspended odes. Journal of Umm Al-Qura University for Language Sciences and Literature. Special Issue, 90–105.
Talafha, A., et al. (2022). Embedded cultural patterns in Abu Firas Al-Hamadani’s Ra’iyyah: Arabic poetry. World Journal of English Language, 13(1), 319, doi: https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v13n1p319
Tawfiq, M. H., & Najras Al-Jubouri, K. R. (2020). Types of encounter in the poetry of Ibn Hamdis al-Siqali. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, 27(10), 77–90, doi: https://doi.org/10.25130/jtuh.27.10.2020.04
Webb, P. (2020). Desert places: Toponyms in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. Semitica et Classica, 13, 251–265. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.SEC.5.122990
Weigelt, F. (2020). The particle la- in classical Arabic. Quaderni Di Studi Arabi, 15(1–2), 67–108, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/2667016X-15010202
Westphal, B. (2007). Geocriticism: Real and fictional spaces. Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119161
Yıldırım, T. (2025). İslam öncesi Arap şiirinde iltifat üslubu: Muallakât örneği. Uluslararası Dil Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi, 8(3), 1286–1307, doi: https://doi.org/10.37999/udekad.1696702