Badi 'az-Zaman al-Hamadhani

al-Hamadhani

Badi 'az-Zaman al-Hamadhani , also called al-Hamadhani for short ( Arabic بديع الزمان الهمذاني, DMG Badīʿ az-Zamān al-Hamaḏānī ; born 968 ; died 1007 ), was a poet who wrote in Arabic who roamed the Near and Middle East and the landscapes that, in the broadest sense, belong to Central Asia in the 11th century . He actually comes from northern Iraq , but also wandered through the areas of Khorasan and went all the way to Nishapur . He settled in Herat , where he got married. He wrote novellas or stories in Arabic rhyming prose ( maqamat ), which described life on the streets, at court and in the country.

Like hardly anyone else, he masterfully grasped the ambivalence between the elitist romanticism of life on the street and the disapproval of popular activity by the cultural elite. In his literary miniatures he constructed a narrative subject - Ibn Hisham - and an acting protagonist - Abu l-Fath al-Iskandari . Ibn Hisham represents the cultural elite, the aesthetic spirit, who now and then seeks diversion on the street. Abu l-Fath is a beggar , crook , actor and monkey leader. He looks for the niches of the traveling people ("Banu Sassan") and makes his fortune through all kinds of games. A close imitator of the work of al-Hamadhani was the poet al-Hariri from Basra .

The poet and orientalist Eduard Amthor , who has left us with rather ornate adaptations, even sees al-Hamadhani himself as Abu l-Fath . He processed his own life experiences in his work.

In the Islamic Middle Ages there was no lifelong specialization in one of the above-mentioned activities. Depending on the situation, crafts and arts were used. In the eyes of the elite, these activities were reserved for the people of the street, the “dregs of society”. Abu l-Fath speaks against it and ultimately remains the winner in every novella.

literature

Wendelin Wenzel-Teuber: The Maqamen of Hamadhani as a mirror of the Islamic society of the 4th century Hijra. Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 1994. ISBN 3-928034-53-7

Web links

Literature by and about Badi 'az-Zaman al-Hamadhani in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ The most extensive collection of novels in German is Al-Hamadhani: Reason is nothing but foolishness. The maqamen. Completely translated from Arabic and edited by Gernot Rotter . Library of Arabic Classics 5. Tübingen: Edition Erdmann 1982.
↑ See introduction by Eduard Gottlieb Amthor: Sounds from the East containing nine Makamen of Hamadani, two smaller episodes from the Schahname des Firdausi, history, sentences, proverbs , translated from Arabic and Persian by Eduard Amthor. Leipzig 1841.

personal data
SURNAME	Badi 'az-Zaman al-Hamadhani
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	al-Hamadhani
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Persian poet
DATE OF BIRTH	968
DATE OF DEATH	1007

[1] The most extensive collection of novels in German is Al-Hamadhani: Reason is nothing but foolishness. The maqamen. Completely translated from Arabic and edited by Gernot Rotter . Library of Arabic Classics 5. Tübingen: Edition Erdmann 1982.

[2] See introduction by Eduard Gottlieb Amthor: Sounds from the East containing nine Makamen of Hamadani, two smaller episodes from the Schahname des Firdausi, history, sentences, proverbs , translated from Arabic and Persian by Eduard Amthor. Leipzig 1841.