While it is well established that the third/ninth century, with the arrival of paper in Baghdad from the East, marked a dramatic shift in the relation between written and oral transmission of knowledge, oral communication remained a pillar of medieval Arabic culture. Within this broad field of research, the monograph under review looks at the presentation and communication of poetic material, focusing on how the setting of literary works affected their content and effect.
The book, however, offers much more as well: it is about the power of poetry as illustrated by events, and accounts of a particular event. It also looks at the interplay between prose and poetry in classical Arabic literary culture. Furthermore, it contributes to the long-standing debate between historians and historians of literature about how best to select and utilise material which is branded as literary for the purpose of reconstructing the past. Finally, it discusses in detail some third/ninth century poetry. All this is explored by examining the mode in which information and literature were exchanged: performances within private assemblies.
Ali aims to frame Arabic literary salons in a wide historical and geographical framework, and he does so by surveying, in his first chapter, gatherings, such as symposia, in different ancient civilisations. He focuses on the physical setting of assemblies, as well as on their hierarchical structure. "Literary salon" is Ali's translation of mujālasa, a gathering in a private home which is both social and literary. Ali contrasts it with majlis, which he describes as an assembly at the home of a patron or superior where a clear hierarchy is defined; a mujālasa, on the other hand, is usually amongst peers. Such a distinction is rightly left loose, as the two terms are often used interchangeably by primary sources. A further characteristic of a mujālasa, as Ali describes it, is that it centres around adab, belles-lettres, and especially poetry, in Arabic.
In the second chapter, Ali argues that the performative aspect of adab has been disregarded by modern scholarship, and that considering it would help making sense of unresolved questions in the study of medieval Arabic literature and historiography. "Knowledge was considered a social and sociable enterprise, and thus self-study did not become the norm in Arab-islamic personal development" (38); therefore, Ali argues, a source-critical approach to early Islamic history fails to consider the different "standards of authenticity" generated by the oral, social setting of cultural activities (37). Ali goes on to explore some particular aspects of mujālasāt. He discusses what he calls the "bacchic behaviour" connected with mujālasāt, as well as the practice of adjusting texts in order to fulfil the expectation of different audiences.
Chapter Three is a first test of the concepts described in the first two: here Ali looks at why a standard panegyric, addressed by the poet ʿAlī b. al-Jaḥm (d. ca. 249/863) to the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232/847-247/861), has come down to us through the unlikely medium of Maghribi works on mystics, reframed as an illustration of the devotion to a ṣūfī master and to God. This reframing, Ali argues, happens in the dynamic environment of mujālasāt. The poem is fully translated and read closely.
Part Two of this monograph may be seen as an extended case study. It revolves around the reign of the caliph al-Mutawakkil at Samarra, his assassination and the subsequent accession to the throne of his son al-Muntaṣir (r. 247/861-248/862), whom the father had deposed as heir apparent. The chapters in this part may be read as self-contained articles. In the fourth chapter, Ali looks at two successive elegies by the poet al-Buḥturī(d. 284/897), trying to make sense of the fact that the first one criticizes the deposed heir, al-Muntaṣir, while the second praises him. Al-Buḥturī, Ali says, would not have needed to use a poem as a frantic attempt to make amends to the new ruler--on the contrary, the verbal power of court poets afforded them considerable political influence. Ali translates and analyses the two odes and the different narratives framing them as well. The solution to this puzzle, he argues, is that the poems were adapted and reworked at different times before and after the accession of al-Muntaṣir, on the basis of performance requirements and audience expectations.
Chapter Five looks at another ode by al-Buḥturī, where the poet praises the fasts of the Sasanian Empire. Composing such a poem, argues Ali, is not a sign of disappointment in the ʿAbbasid caliphate, but rather an excursion into folklore about the Sasanian princes with which his audience would have been familiar. The ode reconciles different parts of the Islamic community and, at the same time, high and low literary forms. Here too Ali provides a full translation of the poem with a thorough commentary.
Chapter six returns to the murder of al-Mutawakkil, looking first at the accounts given by contemporary historians. While early chronicles mention the event with almost no commentary, later ones, such as the History of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), present a sophisticated narrative, employing literary devices "to illustrate the fatal flaws of the father, then son, as well as key virtues that ultimately redeem them both" (171). Ali builds on El-Hibri's reading of al-Ṭabarī (Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Narrative of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), proposing "a determinant role for poets in defining the existential questions that historical reports need to address" (173). Thus, it was al-Buḥturī's poem, disseminated during mujālasāt, that mythologised the event, later picked up by al-Ṭabarī: "the mujālasāt were the likely forum where the performance of poetry could influence the literary invention of narrative" (173). Communicating his version within the private and informal setting of mujālasāt, argues Ali, al-Buḥturī was able to become the main authority on the murder of al-Mutawakkil: "there is no means for the state or any central authority to control [mujālasāt] because they are ad hoc, in home, informal, and responsive to the needs of hosts and immediate guests. As such, they become a pragmatic testing ground for the literary response, value, and the reproduction of value across generations" (174).
Although, as the title implies, the main focus of the book is poetry, Ali discusses narrative prose extensively, especially in chapters Four and Six, and indeed it seems to this reader that in Ali's analysis prose and poetry emerge as equally important within the context of mujālasāt: the process of shaping and adapting narration and verse for an audience goes both ways, after all. It would be interesting to see Ali's reasoning developed in this direction; however, the book's structure sends the argument on a different path. This is in fact my main objection: Ali covers so much ground that one may almost imagine three monographs resulting from his research – a first one on mujālasāt, their origins, setting and implications for the history of Arabic literature and Islamic historiography; a second one on the role of prose and poetry in the shaping of collective memory; and a third one on poetry at the Samarran court. Thus, while Ali's main argument is strong, it is at times difficult to spot.
Ali is very aware of the temporal and geographical (US) context in which his book is published. For instance, the ʿAbbasid revolution in 132/749 is introduced as follows: "in the year 750, at a time when North America's redwoods and sequoias were seedlings and sprouts..." (13). Such a framing suggests a target audience of undergraduates and non specialists--and indeed, Ali openly states in his conclusion that the book "began in response to the need to place Arabic literature in conversation with the humanities, to make each more relevant to the other" (189). The first two chapters are along these lines: for instance, the illustration (justification?) of drinking habits within mujālasāt will be of extreme interest to readers who are not familiar with medieval Arabic literature. However, some parts of the book, especially in the second section, require specialised knowledge to be comprehended fully, and it is certainly for Arabists that Ali provides a very useful appendix with the original Arabic of the poems he analyses. Here, it seems odd to prefix the names of major scholars in the field with explanations such as "the Arabist...", or "the Arabist-Persianist..." (passim). Nevertheless, both sections of the book will be interesting to specialists and non specialists alike: the former will be able, thanks to the first part, to look at mujālasāt as part of a global tradition rather than an isolated phenomenon, while the latter, amongst other things, will be introduced in the second part to a scholarly evergreen: the fact/fiction controversy, to which Ali contributes intelligently.
In short, this book has the great merit of stressing an aspect of Arabic literary culture which modern scholarship tends to disregard, and will be thought-provoking to many readers.