Alfiyya
Alfiyya ( Arabic ألفية alfiyya , DMG alfīya ) is the name of a genre of classical Arabic literature. The plural is Alfiyyāt /ألفيات.
An alfiyya is a poem that contains about a thousand verses (from alf /ألف / 'Thousand', cf. alf layla wa-layla /ألف ليلة وليلة, the fairy tale collection Arabian Nights ). Alfiyyāt were mainly used by the Arabic linguists (نحاة, DMG nuḥāt , written grammarians') of the Middle Ages to the Arab forms - and syntax to find a handy, traktat like frame.
In traditional Arabic poetry, the last syllable of each verse in a poem must end in a uniform consonant and a long vowel (following it). Because this rule is fundamentally overridden in the case of an alfiyya (there is a simple internal rhyme within a verse) and because the archaic and simple rajaz /رجز / raǧaz was used, for a long time the alfiyya was not considered poetry in the strict sense of the word in western research. The French orientalist Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) commented disparagingly: “ Ce mètre nomméرجزn'est presque que de la prose rimée ». In today's research, however, attempts are made to take alfiyya seriously as an art form.
The Alfiyya of Ibn Mālik
Probably the most famous representative of the genre is that written by Ibn Mālik (1204 / 05–1274), which is still used today in the Arab world as a teaching work and is more or less considered the alfiyya par excellence. It is one of the most frequently commented works in Arabic literature and has also been received in the West at times. After de Sacy had initially published excerpts with an annotated translation in his anthology grammaticale (Paris 1829), the German orientalist Friedrich Heinrich Dieterici (1821–1903) organized a text-critical complete edition of the one thousand and two verses, together with an Arabic commentary that was part of the Alfiyya- Commentary literature itself has the rank of a classic: Alfijjah, carmen didacticum grammaticum auctore Ibn Mâlik et in Alfijjam commentarius quem conscripsit Ibn ʿAḳîl (Leipzig 1851). This edition immediately became a standard scientific work: It cites the Arabic grammar by William Wright (1830–1889), which is widely used throughout the English-speaking world, as one of its main sources. Dieterici continued to work intensively on this work and published a German translation the next year.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Silvestre de Sacy: Anthology grammaticale Arabe . Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1829, p. 325.
- ^ William Wright: A Grammar of the Arabic Language . 3. Edition. S. ix (Preface to the Second Edition), written 1874.
- ^ Friedrich Heinrich Dieterici: Ibn ʿAʿîl's Commentar on the Alfijja of Ibn Mâlik. Translated from Arabic for the first time . Ferdinand Dümmlers Verlag-Buchhandlung, Berlin 1852.