1. Introduction
⌅In many regions of the Muslim world, biographical works with laudatory purposes were quite common in previous centuries, and they ended up merging into the literary genre of hagiography.1Pellat, “Manāḳib”; Amri, “La gloire des saints”; Amri, “L’hagiographie islamique”; Amri, “Figures du Prophète”; Calasso, “Les sourires et les larmes”.
Over time, Islamic hagiography has developed several sub-genres that have often taken on specific definitions according to their textual, thematic, and structural features, such as for example ṭabaqāt (“classifications, generations”), taḏkira (“remembrance”), or sīra (“life story”), in which the biographical notice (tarǧama) of a pious figure highlights the spiritual qualities (faḍāʾil) and reports collections of anecdotes (aḫbār) and saintly marvels (karamāt).
One of these hagiographic sub-genres are the so-called manāqib al-awliyāʾ (lit. “virtuous of the saints”), manāqib al-ṣulaḥāʾ (lit. “virtuous of the righteous”), or more simply manāqib (sg. manqaba), whose meaning would be something like “character traits” or “deeds” of a saint (walī),2A study focused on the notion of sanctity (walāya) in Medieval Tunisia is Amri, “Walī et awliyāʾ”. which are an excellent combination of religiosity, history, and culture.3For the structure of the North African manāqib, see Touati, “Les modèles d’écriture”, and Zeggaf “Remarques”. As clearly explained by Giovanna Calasso, these works are precious sources for a greater awareness of regional history and popular religion:
«La littérature hagiographique musulmane offre un terrain privilégié d’exploration en ce qui concerne les modalités de vivre et de penser l’expérience religieuse de l’Islam à un niveau qui ne coïncide pas avec celui de ses manifestations légales […] Dans ces textes nous pouvons tirer quelques éléments qui concernent la dimension personnelle, individuelle de la religion, les émotions qu’elle produit, la façon dont elle est pensée et agie».4Calasso, “Les sourires et les larmes”, p. 445.
One should not expect to find theological treatises when reading these works, because the manāqib are always characterised by a very basic intertextuality and a great simplicity of the moral and religious messages conveyed. However, they are also very interesting because of their style and their literary and content quality. For this reason, the opinion expressed in his time by Robert Brunschvig can still be considered fundamentally appropriate:
«Nombreuses et de dimensions variées, souvent anonymes, sont ces vies de saints ou Manâqib, d’un genre, au reste, assez monotone, où les vertus et les miracles sont complaisamment énumérés sur la foi de témoins que l’on cite, morts ou vivants. Œuvres de panégyristes et de dévots, il n’y faut chercher nul esprit critique, et l’on doit même se défier des quelques données historiques qu’il leur arrive de contenir. Œuvres, souvent, de demi-lettrés qui s’adressent à un public faiblement cultivé, elles sont écrites dans une langue simple, aussi proche que possible de l’idiome parlé, qui apparaît d’ailleurs sans fard dans maint dialogue et qui influence la syntaxe et le vocabulaire un peu partout. A ce titre, elles constituent des documents linguistiques d’un certain intérêt».5Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, II, p. 381.
The final words of this quotation are meaningful, as they refer to the linguistic profile of these documents.
The written productions of pre-modern Arabic which feature dialectal elements vary from one genre to another ranging from poetry to prose, as explained by Liesbeth Zack in her excellent survey on the potentialities of research in this field,6Zack, “Historical Arabic Dialectology”. and, in this respect, the genre of the manāqib are often a treasure of linguistic anomalies.
Their authors are often semi-illiterates who address a semi-illiterate readership by using a register that reflects their linguistic skills. The outcome is exemplified by texts written in a Classical Arabic featured by the influence, if not exactly the great presence, of colloquial elements which demonstrate the informal use and circulation of these documents among the community of devotees.
As already observed by Mohamed Meouak, unfortunately until now this kind of material has been investigated very partially and irregularly from a linguistic point of view, although they can give significative information about the Arabic spoken in pre-modern ages.7In particular, see Meouak, “Éléments d’approche”. The most suitable definition in this case is still debated: “Middle Arabic” or “Mixed Arabic”, “Moyen Arabe” or “Arabe moyen”8See, for example, Blau, “The State of Research”; Larcher, “Moyen arabe”; Lentin, “Unité et diversité”, “Dix esquisses”. or even other labels refer to texts that at first glance could be considered as written in Classical Arabic, but in which the substandard regional features are so strong that the result is a highly interfered, and the text is written in something different from the pure Classical language. A very clear definition has been provided by Joshua Blau:
«Die Verfasser der Texte, die im mittelarabischen Substandard geschrieben sind, wollten eigentlich Klassisches Arabisch, die Prestigesprache der Gebildeten ihrer Zeit, schreiben. Da jedoch ihre Kenntnisse des Klassischen Arabisch beschränkt waren, verwendeten sie irrtümlich nicht nur neuarabische Formen, sondern bildeten in ihrem Bestreben, Klassisches Arabisch zu schreiben, auch Formen, die weder klassisch, noch neuarabisch waren».9Blau, “Das frühe Neuarabisch”, p. 97.
The interference in these texts of the so-called “Neuarabisch”, i.e. the (regional) dialect or, often more precisely in our case, the author’s one, occurs at different levels: in phonetics (even if many authors tend to classicize the orthography, thus obfuscating its interpretation), morphosyntax, and lexicon.10Meouak, “Place-Names”, “Éléments d’approche”, “Inventaire préliminaire”, “Notules sur le lexique”.
2. The Manāqib of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar
⌅A descendant from a tribe with a long tradition of maraboutism, the Fawātīr (of the Awlād Saʿīd, Riyāḥid Hilālians) from which the nisba al-Faytūrī is derived, ʿAbd al-Salām b. Salīm al-Asmar11For more extended biographical details, see Amri, “Al-Asmar al-Faytûrî”; al-Kaḥlawī, “al-Asmar”; Javad Shams, “Al-Asmar”; al-Zāwī, Aʿlām Lībiyā, pp. 222-225; the most complete portrait is the book by al-Qaṭʿānī, al-Quṭb al-anwar. was born in 1475 in Tripolitania, more precisely in Zlīten. The toponym of this village is derived from Iṣliten, a Berber branch of the Nefzawa tribe, and in the manāqib of al-Asmar it appears in two spelling variants, زليتن and يزليتن. For the sake of completeness, the oldest variant of the toponym, including that used by Ibn Ḫaldūn (1332-1406) in his works, exhibits an initial <y> and a central <ṣ>, like in the spelling يصليتن. Another spelling variant is زليطن that is the written version of a phonetic realisation ẓlīṭən, where the first consonant is a pharyngealised alveo-dental sibilant (even if written <z>) that extends the emphasis also to the following syllable, but this spelling variant is completely absent in al-Asmar’s manāqib. After a long period through the centuries of alternances, the contemporary spelling of the toponym is زليتن.
This region had many relations with the Tunisian milieus as it was ruled by the Ḥafṣid governor Abū ʿAmr ʿUṯmān al-Manṣūr (1434-1488),12ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Ḫulāṣat tārīḫ Tūnis, p. 105; al-Qaṭʿānī, al-Quṭb al-anwar, p. 32. following the renewed expansion process started by Abū Fāris ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (1394-1434).13See, for example, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Ḫulāṣat tārīḫ Tūnis, pp. 103-104; Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, II; Rossi, Storia di Tripoli e della Tripolitania. According to tradition, ʿAbd al-Salām could have received the laqab of “al-Asmar” either because of the darkness of his face (asmar “brown”) due to sun exposure while worshipping, or because of sleepless nights spent praying (samar “night conversation”).
He was initiated into Sufism by his mentor of Moroccan origin ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Dukālī who lived in Misallāta, southeast of Tripoli, and was the master of the ʿArūsiyya order14Amri, “al-Dukālī”. founded by the Tunisian saint Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs (died in 1463).15Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, II, pp. 341-351; Fontaine, Histoire de la littérature tunisienne, pp. 29-30; Kerrou, “Ibn ʿArūs”. It is worth remembering that even Ibn ʿArūs (or Ben Arous, according to the contemporary Tunisian custom) had his own manāqib in the form of the book entitled Ibtisām al-ġurūs wa-wašy al-ṭurūs bi-manāqib al-šayḫ Abī l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿArūs which was prepared by one of his Algerian students, a certain ʿUmar b. ʿAlī al-Ǧazāʾirī al-Rāšidī.
The region was going through a difficult political period, characterised by a succession of internal uprisings against the Ḥafṣid authority, some of which were even violent. It is in this context that we must place certain statements often attributed to some prominent figures of that time who saw ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar as a new, strong, religious leader. We cannot be sure nowadays to what extent the attribution of some statements is an a posteriori ideological work, but nevertheless we can be certain of the “messianic” overtones of some accounts.
Suffice it to recall a couple of examples. Ibn ʿArūs would have said: «sa-yaḏ̣haru bi-Ṭarābulus al-ġarb raǧul yuʿrafu bi-ʿAbd al-Salām fātiḥan li-hāḏihi l-ṭarīqa»16Rawḍat al-azhār, p. 89. The quotation is also repeated by al-Qaṭʿānī, al-Quṭb al-anwar, p. 34, who slightly changes some words: «sayaḏ̣haru bi-Ṭarābulus walī ʿaḏ̣īm ismuhu ʿAbd al-Salām wa-sayakūnu fātiḥan li-hāḏihi l-ṭarīqa» (“A great walī, named ʿAbd al-Salām, conqueror of this ṭarīqa, will appear in Tripolitania”). (“A great walī, named ʿAbd al-Salām, conqueror of this ṭarīqa, will appear in Tripolitania”17The choice of the term “Tripolitania” in our translation is only a matter of convenience: it is well known that Ṭarābulus was a word referring to a somewhat wider geographical area than the one we refer to today with the same term.); Aḥmad Zarrūq (1442-1493), the famous Moroccan jurist and saint affiliated to the Šāḏilī order,18For a portrait of this saint, see Khushaim, Zarrūq, the Ṣūfī, and Kugle, Rebel Between Spirit and Law. would have told the muʾaddib who was lecturing in the Quranic school «sa-yakūnu li-hāḏā l-walad šaʾn ʿaḏ̣īm bi-Ṭarābulus ilā an yafūqa ahl ʿaṣrihi» (“This guy will be great in Tripolitania until he surpasses the people of his time”).19Rawḍat al-azhār, p. 90. Once again, it is slightly different in al-Qaṭʿānī, al-Quṭb al-anwar, p. 34: «hāḏā ʿAbd al-Salām sulṭān waqtihi wa-sayakūnu lahu ša ʾn ʿaḏ̣īm ḥayṯu yafūqu ahl zamānihi wa-yaštahiru ismuhu» (“This is ʿAbd al-Salām, the authority of this time; he will be great, for he will surpass all others and his name will become famous”). Needless to say, this ideological reconstruction also pertains to the saint’s family which would have been composed of pious spirits:20al-Qaṭʿānī, al-Quṭb al-anwar, pp. 35-36. his mother, a chaste, virtuous woman, was born on the day of ʿīd al-fiṭr and was named Salīma; his father, a simple yet strict man was named Salīm; his grandfather died a martyr (istašhada) during one of the “oppressive Christian campaigns” (al-ḥamalāt al-naṣrāniyya al-ḏ̣ālima) against Tripolitania and was named Sulaymān bin Sālim.21So, it is now undisputable that, in this story, no one lacked a proper name derived from the root √slm!
Al-Asmar founded his own order, called al-Salāmiyya and frequently known as ʿArūsiyya-Salāmiyya, which was based on ecstasy and spiritual attraction, characterised by many ritual, musical, and bodily practices typical of asceticism and fakirism, that flourished quickly and imposed itself on the other orders of the region spreading to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.22Trimingham, The Sufi Orders, p. 87; Khushaim, Zarrūq, the Ṣūfī, p. 182; Najem, “Murābiṭīn and Ashrāf of Libya”; Depont & Coppolani, Les confréries, is outdated and must be used with caution, as explained in Nallino’s review to Macaluso Aleo, Turchi, Senussi e Italiani.
Having passed away in 1573, al-Asmar was buried in the same city of his birth, Zlīten: the tomb became a regular destination of pilgrimage, as often happens with the popular cult of the saints that has its principal expression in the so-called ziyāra (“visit”) during which the pilgrim quests for baraka (“blessing”).23The bibliography on the cult of saints is gigantic. For a brief overview, see Buresi & Ghouirgate, Histoire du Maghreb médiéval, pp. 171-176. Several works about popular religious practices in many Muslim regions are included in the book edited by Chambert-Loir & Guillot, Le culte des saints. A work that is more oriented towards the North African region, mainly describing Algeria, is Dermenghem, Le culte des saints. Female saints are without any doubt an understudied field, but a recent analysis is El Hour, “Moroccan female saints”. A Quranic educational institution named al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Asmariyya was founded close to his tomb and a nearby mosque. However, in August, 2012 the shrine was severely damaged and practically destroyed by Salafist paramilitaries.
Al-Asmar’s fame is also demonstrated by several testimonies of authors not directly related to Tripolitania.
The Moroccan Sufi and scholar ʿAbd Allāh bin Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāšī (1627-1679), for example, wrote a travelogue of his journeys to the holy places of Islam in the Ḥiǧāz, commonly referred to as al-Riḥla al-ʿayyāšiyya.24Ben Cheneb & Pellat, “al-ʿAyyās̲h̲ī”. During his stay in the region, he had a visit to Zlīten and to the zāwiya of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar and wrote that the saint was described as “abundant in saintly marvels, high-ranking, and among the best pupils of Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs from Tunisia” («kaṯīr al-karāmāt, ʿālī l-maqāmāt, min aǧall talāmiḏat sīdī Aḥmad ibn ʿArūs nazīl Tūnis»). Alongside his moral virtues and spiritual qualities, a quick reference seems also to echo the story of al-Asmar’s grandfather and the socio-political conditions of the region, because “the reports of his victories over the titans and the liberation of many captives from the Christian yoke during his lifetime were famous” («aḫbāruhu fī qahr al-ǧabābira wa-fakk al-asrā min aydī l-ifranǧ fī ḥayātihi wa-baʿda mamātihi šahīra»).25Naǧm & ʿAbbās, Lībiyā fī kutub al-ǧuġrāfiyā wa-l-riḥlāt, p. 203.
The popular devotion to such a figure, of course, could not fail to encourage the composition of a hagiographic work.
Thus, the manāqib of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar was prepared, around 1590, by Karīm al-Dīn al-Baramūnī al-Miṣrātī and the book is entitled Rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib Sayyidī ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar. Born in Misurata in the spring of 1488, al-Baramūnī’s father was an Egyptian who arrived in Libya to follow the šayḫ Aḥmad Zarrūq. Al-Baramūnī started his education with Zarrūq and later joined the šayḫ ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar: at the very beginning he was one of his opponents, but finally ended up being one of his most wholehearted devotees. After the death of his master, al-Baramūnī moved to Egypt, to Tanta, and finally to Makkah.26al-Zāwī, Aʿlām Lībiyā, pp. 315-316.
The book Rawḍat al-azhār by al-Baramūnī underwent a recension by the Tunisian Sufi and scholar Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Maḫlūf, with the title of Kitāb tanqīḥ rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib mawlānā sayyidī ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Salīmal-Maḫlūf, Muḥammad, Kitāb tanqīḥ rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib mawlānā sayyidī ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Salīm li-muʾallifihi Karīm al-Dīn al-Baramūnī, Bayrūt, al-Maktaba al-Ṯaqāfiyya, without date.. Born in 1864 in the city of Monastir, on the Central Tunisian coast, Muḥammad al-Maḫlūf was an adherent of the Šāḏilī order and held the post of qāḍī, preacher, and bāš muftī. The work that made him famous was principally the book Šaǧarat al-nūr al-zākiya fī ṭabaqāt al-mālikiyya, published in Cairo in 1932, which was a compilation of the biographies of all the Maliki scholars from both the East and West. His book Mawāhib al-raḥīm was first published in Tunis in 1907-1908 and later reprinted by al-Maṭbaʿa al-Yūsufiyya in Cairo on behalf of al-Maktaba al-Lībiyya in 1966.27Fontaine, Histoire, p. 184; Maḥfūẓ, Tarāǧim al-muʾallifīn al-tūnisiyyīn, IV, pp. 257-262. For our study we used an old edition published in Beirut by al-Maktaba al-Ṯaqāfiyya.28Our copy is a reproduction, without a specific date, of the edition published in Cairo by al-Maṭbaʿa al-Yūsufiyya. We are aware of the risks indicated by L. Zack concerning the text editors who very often feel the need to correct the language of a deviant text in order to align it to a standard level for a wider public.29Zack, “Historical Arabic Dialectology”, p. 214. However, despite these considerations, the text of these manāqib exhibits dialectal interferences that are worthy of investigation.
3. The Language of the Manāqib
⌅The narrative parts of the text are written in Classical Arabic. However, the most captivating sections of the book are the reported direct speech that is attributed to ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar.
This reported direct speech is typically introduced by:
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the use of fixed expressions, like wa-min kalāmihi raḍiya llāhu ʿanhu… “and from his words, may God be pleased with him,…”;
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the use of verba dicendi, like takallama “to speak”, taḥaddaṯa “to speak”, naṭaqa “to pronounce”, qāla “to say”, anšada “to sing, to chant”, and so on.
Both these conditions trigger a direct speech in which al-Asmar speaks in the first person. His words almost always consist of poems which are marked by mystical exaltation of the ego and can be easily defined as theopathic utterances (šaṭaḥāt),30One of the first mystics having produced this kind of poetry is Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1182) with his Tāʾiyya. See Nallino, “Il poema mistico”. and this particular condition explains also the common presence of the verbal combination anšada yaqūl “he sang and said”.
These poems are sometimes in a register really close to Classical Arabic. It is the case, for example, of a passage31Page 126 of the edition we used in which the šayḫ al-Samalqī described his visit to al-Asmar for a question concerning the sowing and he could not complete his speech that immediately our saint was rapt in ecstasy and began to recite («fa-lam yatimma kalāmahu illā wa-š-šayḫ aṣābahu ḥāl ʿaḏ̣īm wa-anšada yaqūl»):
| الآنبالأمطار | زرعك يا خليلى يروى | 1 |
| وتفوح أسرار البارى | وعلى الله يتقوى | 2 |
| 1 | Your sowing, my darling, is quenched with the rains |
| 2 | It strengthens with God, as the secrets of the Creator spread their perfume |
To fully understand the atmosphere of these theopathic moments, the passage quoted goes on to explain that immediately the clouds appeared and the rain covered the east and west of the earth («fa-lam yatimma kalāmuhu ḥattā ḏ̣ahara as-saḥāb wa-nazala l-maṭar allaḏī ʿamma mašāriq al-arḍ wa-maġāribihā»).32Mašāriq al-arḍ wa-maġāribihā is a very common expression inspired by Q 7, 137.
In other cases, Classical Arabic is not written in its cleanest form and some phonetic interferences of the dialect show up in the spelling, as shown by this short example that deals with the relations with the Aḥāmid tribe:33Page 102 of the edition we used.
| يا محيى العبد بعد الممات | يا الله يا واحد | 1 |
| حتى يبقى على ثلاث شضيات | شق وطن الأحامد | 2 |
| يا رب يا قابل الدعوات | وأجعل وكرهم بايد | 3 |
| 1 | Oh God, the Unique, the Giver of life to the servant after the death |
| 2 | Divide the homeland of the Aḥāmid, so that it remains in three fragments |
| 3 | Let their den perish! Lord who accepts supplications |
But most of the theopathic utterances consist in vernacular or semi-vernacular poems where the linguistic register, contrary to the previous example, is quite distant from Classical Arabic.
This (semi-)vernacular language is a typical example of Middle Arabic and/or Mixed Arabic, of which we offer a summary below.
3.1. Phonetics and Phonology
⌅As for phonetics and phonology, we will focus our analysis partially on the vocalic system, and more extensively on the consonantal changes, i.e. *q, *j, dentals and interdentals, and finally the glottal stop symbolised by the hamza. No particular information on suprasegmentals can be inferred from our text.
3.1.1. Vocalism
⌅As for the long vowels, a Classical Arabic orthography is used, thus we found no evidence of particular phenomena (for example, palatalisation of *ā, the so-called imāla).
As for the short vowels, it is impossible to comment on their nature because the text is completely unvocalised and does not exhibit any diacritic.
It must be noted that sometimes a prosthetic alif appears in positions that would be unexpected in the Classical Arabic orthography, and its presence symbolises an epenthetic vowel before a biconsonantal cluster: انخلوه “we let him” (→ ə nḫallūh?), وأندورو “and we turn around” (→ w- ə ndūru?), وانزور “and I pay a visit” (→ w- ə nzūr?), اتفكروا “remember (p)!” (→ ə tfakkaru?).34Lentin, “Normes orthographiques”, p. 222; La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 62. By the way, in such an unvocalised text, the presence of this alif is the only cue on the syllabic structures we have, because it shows the outcome of the shift *CvC- > CC- > ə CC.
3.1.2. *Qāf and *Jīm
⌅We cannot find any evidence about the pronunciation of *q and *j, as the graphemes used are simply ق and ج. It must be preliminarily remembered that the coastal Tunisian sedentary dialects realise *q as a voiceless uvular q, and that the Tunisian rural and Bedouin dialects as well as all Libyan dialects realise it as a voiced velar g. *J, instead, in unmarked conditions is always realised as a fricative ž in both the geographical areas under examination.35Aguadé, “The Maghrebi dialects of Arabic”, p. 45; Pereira, “Arabic in the North African Region”, pp. 956-957; Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, pp. 62-64; Benkato, “The Arabic Dialect of Benghazi”, p. 63; D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 22.
The orthographic use of ق and ج offers no chance of understanding their concrete phonetic realisation in the text, i.e. whether ق is pronounced as a voiceless uvular q or a voiced velar g, and whether ج is pronounced as an affricate ǧ or as a fricative ž. For the first letter, no evidences can be found of the presence of alternative graphemes used in other Arabic speaking areas to write the phoneme g, like for example ڤ (very common in Tunisia) or گ (very common in Morocco). For the second letter, the rare presence of a word like زاز “to pass through” is a clue of the shift *j > z in a consonantal context including another sibilant.
3.1.3. Dentals and Interdentals
⌅As for interdental fricatives, it must be preliminarily remembered that (Muslim) Tunisian Arabic maintains ṯ, ḏ and ḏ̣ (< ḍ/ḏ̣),36Pereira, “Arabic in the North African Region”, p. 956. and that in (Western) Libyan Arabic the three phonemes have merged into the dental stops t, d and ḍ.37Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, pp. 49-55; D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 22. Eastern Libyan Arabic, and particularly the modern dialect of Benghazi, maintain the interdental fricatives, according to Owens, A Short Reference Grammar, pp. 5-7, and Benkato, “The Arabic Dialect of Banghazi”, pp. 67-68
Now, in our text every word having an etymological interdental fricative maintains the proper grapheme ذ ث or ظ in an extremely stable and systematic way. Although interestingly enough, we found four suspicious occurrences of graphemes representing dental stops (ت and ض) in words where fricatives would be expected. The first one allegedly regards the shift ṯ > t: كتير “many” (Cl.Ar. kaṯīr). The other cases concern confusion between the two emphatics ḍ and ḏ̣: نضل “I stay” (Cl.Ar. aḏ̣allu), ننضر “I look” (Cl.Ar. anḏ̣uru), شضيات “fragments” (Cl.Ar. šaḏ̣iyya), and finally a sentence in which the same verb alternates in two different shapes at a very close distance: فتظلموا [...] فتضلموهم “and you oppress them […] so you oppress them”.
If we exclude a merely editorial mistake, these cases could be best interpreted in two ways:
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the whole text has been re-standardised following the Classical Arabic phonology, and these few examples have been forgotten;
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the re-classicisation of the whole text does not just follow only the Classical Arabic phonology, but also the Tunisian Arabic phonology because it maintains the interdental fricatives and overlaps a high model of the fuṣḥā.
Both these interpretations demonstrate that the editorial role of Muḥammad al-Maḫlūf cannot be underestimated. But, at the same time, both these interpretations seem to lead to one conclusion: originally, al-Asmar’s šaṭaḥāt would have been uttered with dental stops, according to the usual shift interdental fricatives > dental stops that normally occurs in Libyan Arabic.38Aguadé, “The Maghrebi dialects of Arabic”, pp. 44-46.
3.1.4. Hamza
⌅As in the case of all texts in Middle Arabic, the hamza is unstable and this orthographic condition reflects the phonemic instability of the glottal stop that this grapheme symbolises.39For example, La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, pp. 102-103.
At the beginning of a word, the glottal stop often disappears and the word loses its first syllable: the orthographical result consists in the lack of the initial hamza, like in بو “father”. It is needless to say that all the North African Arabic dialects, until nowadays, share this phenomenon: *abū > bū “father” and *aḫū > ḫū “brother”.
In the central position of the sequence -āʾi-, the hamza is systematically substituted by the grapheme of its kursī (ي), thus phonetically shifting to -āy-: الدايرة “the circle” (Cl.Ar. dāʾira), بايد “dead” (Cl.A. bāʾid), طاير “flying” (Cl.Ar. ṭāʾir), الرجال الحراير “the free men” (Cl.Ar. ḥarāʾir), بلاد الجزاير بلاد الجزاير ب"Algeria" (Cl.Ar. al-ǧazāʾir), البعاير “the camels” (Cl.Ar. baʿāʾir), سراير “intentions” (Cl.Ar. sarāʾir), وثايق “documents” (Cl.Ar. waṯāʾiq).
In other cases, the absence of the hamza causes a lengthening of the next vowel: نامر “I order” (Cl.Ar. na ʾmur), روس “heads” (Cl.Ar. ruʾūs).
At the end of the word, a hamzated verb is often graphically realised with a final alif maqṣūra, like: بدى “he started” (Cl.Ar. bada ʾa), ظامى “thirsty” (Cl.A. ḏ̣āmiʾ ← verb ḏ̣amiʾa).40Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 626.
Finally, also consider cases like: ريس “leader” (rayyəs?, Cl.Ar. ra ʾīs), ضو “light” (Cl.Ar. ḍawʾ), روا “they saw” (Cl.Ar. ra ʾaw).
3.2. Morphology
⌅As for the morphology, our analysis will focus on some segments of the pronominal system, on the verbal system (conjugations, weak verbs, and derived forms), and finally on the formation of some plural patterns of the nominal system.
3.2.1. Pronouns
⌅As for independent personal pronouns, the only occurrence that is clearly different from the system of Classical Arabic concerns the 1st person plural, in instances like احنا “we”, واحنا “and we”. The presence of the initial alif leads to the interpretation of iḥna ~ aḥna. For this pronoun, modern Tunisian dialects have aḥna (Tunis, Sousse, Sfax), naḥna (Le Kef, Mateur, Kairouan), and ḥnā ~ ḥnē (La Chebba, Gabès, Ben Gardane, Douz);41Mion, “Réflexions”, p. 274, “Ben Gardane”, p. 118; Ritt-Benmimoun, Grammatik, p. 66; Singer, Grammatik, p. 250. modern Libyan dialects exhibit ḥne (Tripoli, Misrata),42Griffini, L’arabo parlato, p. 184; Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, p. 240; D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 142.niḥna (Bengazi).43Owens, A Short Reference Grammar, p. 91; Benkato, “The Arabic Dialect of Banghazi”, p. 84.
As for suffixed personal pronouns, visible differences from the Classical Arabic system are not in evidence and cannot be found. The 3rd singular masculine is always marked by ه, so it is quite difficult to detect whether the grapheme refers to -u (as in the Pre-Hilali dialects) or -ah (as in the Hilali dialects),44Pereira, “Arabic in the North African Region”, pp. 960-961. and neither the metrics nor the rhyme of the poems help to decode the realisation of this pronoun.
As for indirect suffixed pronouns, there is an interesting occurrence: كلام ماليله نيه “a discourse that has not any intention” (→ …mā līl-u ~ mā līl-ah?, lit. “not to-it”), with a reduplication of the preposition *li- > līl- “to”.
The relative pronoun is اللى “that”.
The demonstratives manifestly different from the Classical Arabic system are: هاذاك “that (m)”, هذيك “that (f)”, هاذوك “those (m)”. Finally, as is often the case in Middle Arabic texts, هاذا “this (m)” is spelt without the alif ḫanǧariyya, but with an alif ṭawīla.
There are two types of presentatives, one derived from hā- and another from ṛā-, both followed by suffix pronouns: هاني “here I am”, راك “here you are”, راه “here he is” that also has an allomorph in the sentence الصمت راهو الراحة “silence is rest”.45For the sake of convenience, the present study makes no differentiation between the hā- and the ṛā- series, but for the analysis of the latter see Taine-Cheikh, “Grammaticalized Uses”; Klimiuk, “The Particle ra-”; Procházka & Dallaji, “A Functional Analysis”.
3.2.2. Verbs
⌅While the narrative parts of the manāqib do not exhibit any significant variation because they are written essentially in Classical Arabic, reported direct speech includes many instances of a verbal morphology that is heavily influenced by the colloquial.
3.2.2.1. Conjugations
⌅In all the passages of reported direct speech, the typical Maghrebi n-imperfect is attested systematically, since we find the n- prefix in the 1st person singular and the n---u circumfix in the 1st person plural.
In the singular: نرقد “I sleep”, نبغى “I want”, نضربه “I hit it”, أخرج الكتابين نقراهما “take off the two books and I’ll read them”, نبات “I spend the night”, نبكى “I cry”, قبل ان نموت “before I die”, نسكن “I live”, ننده “I call”, ندور “I turn”, نبرى العليل “I heal the sick”, العريان نكسى “I dress the naked”, نحميه “I protect him”, نامر “I order”, جعلت نضرب به “I started hitting it”, نوصلك “I reach you”, ننضر “I look”, نوصيك “I recommend you”, انا صرت نقاسى “I’m starting to suffer”, انا نعيط “I claim”.
In the plural: نسمعوه “we listen to it”, ونسقوه “and we water it”, انخلوه “we let him”, ننسوه “we forget him”, ننقلوه “we transfer him”, نحموه “we protect him”, نطوفو “we circumambulate”, نعملوا “we do”, نحصدوه “we harvest it”, نمزجو “we cut”.
In the conjugation of the imperfect, plurals exhibit only an -ū ending (no traces of Cl.Ar. -ūna ending is found): يغبوا الناس “people go crazy”, يهدوا الجدار “they break down the wall”, يخلوا “they let”, يضوو “they illuminate”.
The alif otiosum often disappears: وانقلو عني “and remove from me!”, يضوو “they illuminate”.
Unfortunately, the text does not seem to have any contexts that in the 2nd person singular and plural or in the 3rd person plural imply the use of a theoretical feminine, because otherwise it would certainly have been useful to observe the treatment of the gender opposition in the verb.
3.2.2.2. Weak Verbs
⌅As for the hollow verb, the only particularly deviant phenomenon concerns the imperative which maintains a long vowel in the Cv̄C syllable of the 2nd masculine singular: توب “repent (m)!”, كون “be (m)!”.
As for the defective verb, it should first be noted that this category includes both verbs that are properly defective, as well as verbs that originally belonged to other verbal categories, but which have undergone morpho-phonological changes.
In the perfect, the model of the defective verb is applied by final hamzated verbs and geminate verbs.
The first loses its hamza: قريت “I read” (with a final -ayt ~ -ēt ~ īt), whereas the second receives an *-ay- affix (→ -ay-, -ī-, or -ē-?) before the consonantal personal suffixes: حسيت “I felt”.46D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 35.
In the sentence البلاد خلات “the country is gone”, the graphical final ـات ending of the verb (→ …ḫlāt?) seems to exhibit a 3rd singular feminine in -āt. The interference of the graphic level is not negligible, because it should be remembered that this kind of ending belongs to a Pre-Hilali typology, like the sedentary dialects of Tunisian Arabic (which have a mšāt model), whereas the Hilali typology to which many Libyan dialects belong prefers an -ət allomorph (with a mšət model).47Pereira, “Arabic in the North African Region”, p. 963.
Beside these considerations, some remarks can be done concerning the reflexes of the Classical Arabic verb ǧāʾa “to come”. It loses its hamza in both the perfective and the imperfective: جا “he came”, جاها “he came to it”, جيت “I came”, جو “they came”, تجي تهز “you come bringing”, يجينى “it comes to me”, يجوا “they come”.
It is worth noting that, on the basis of a graphical final ـو, the plural apparently exhibits an -ū ending (→ žū? “they came”, yžū? “they come”). With respect to this phenomenon, the treatment of the final suffix in the weak verbs differs according to the type of dialect, as summarised by the model below:
| Pre-Hilali | Hilali | |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect | -āw | -ū |
| Imperfect | -īw | -ū |
The application of the model produces respectively žāw and yžīw in the Pre-Hilali dialects, and žū and yžū in the Hilali dialects.48Pereira, “Le parler arabe de Tripoli”, pp. 102-104; Mion, “Réflexions”, pp. 272-273; Benmoftah & Pereira, “Remarks”, p. 314; D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 32.
Now, if this final ـو corresponds actually to an -ū ending, there are two possible interpretations: either this is a Classical Arabic influence (*ǧāʾū, *yaǧīʾū), or this is an interference of the underlying dialect.
As a final remark, the imperative of the defective verb maintains the long vowel also in the 2nd masculine singular: اعطيني “give (m.) me!”.
3.2.2.3. Derived forms
⌅The VII form confirms a passive-reflexive value: ما ينفتح لك بابك “the door doesn’t open to you”, تنبنى الزاوية “the zawiya is built”.
The imperfect of the X form of the hollow verbs, instead of the expected ī in a central position, exhibits quite systematically an ā: يستتاب “he invites to repent” (Cl.Ar. yastatību), يستراح “he rests” (Cl.Ar. yastarīḥu),49Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 221. يستغاث “he asks for help” (Cl.Ar. yastaġīṯu).50Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 401 The same phenomenon is found in some Tunisian dialects where a few verbs are conjugated with a central vowel ā, differently from Classical Arabic and many other dialects, like yistiġāṯ “he asks for help”, yistḫār “he renounces”, yistidām “he perpetuates”, yistaṛāḥ “he rests”.51Data taken from Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find references to this phenomenon in the works dealing with Libyan Arabic.
The rare XI form (ifʿālla) of Classical Arabic is highly productive in the medieval and modern Maghrebi dialects.52Durand, Dialettologia, p. 388; La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 189. In the text this phenomenon is clear in the perfect: اخماج “it has gone bad”.53Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 157. It is also attested in the imperfect: يطمان “he is reassured”,54Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 349; Dictionnaire Colin, p. 1194. يحقار “he despises”. It is attested as a participle: مطمان “reassured”, مدبال “faded”.55Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 166; Dictionnaire Colin, p. 502 (where it is given derived from √ḏbl).
3.3. Plural of the nouns
⌅In Classical Arabic some nouns receive a broken plural that is called by the grammatical tradition muntahā l-ǧumūʿ which consists of two main patterns, i.e. CaCāCīC and CaCāCiC, that are applied to the noun according to its syllabic structure in the singular (so, for example, miṣbāḥ “lamp” → pl. maṣābīḥ, but naṣīḥa “advise” → pl. naṣāʾiḥ).
Their use in the modern North African varieties has differences: whereas Hilali dialects maintain a distinction between CaCāCiC and C(a)CāCīC, Pre-Hilali dialects confuse these patterns in a unique C(a)CāCiC scheme with the loss of the ancient ī.56The situation is undoubtedly more complex in Middle Arabic. See, for example, Lentin, “Unité et diversité”, p. 313; La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 142.
In our text, aside from the occurrences of the regular CaCāCiC pattern, CaCāCīC regular patterns without any confusion can also be found, like in السلاطين “the sultans”, مصابيح “lamps”, بنادير “bendirs”, شياطين “demons”, الفواتير “the Fawātīr”.
Therefore, at first glance the presence of a C(a)CāCīC pattern could be explained simply because the text is basically written in Classical Arabic. Nonetheless, as shown in these pages, the text exhibits a huge interference with the dialect at many levels and this makes it much more difficult to explain the complete absence of any irregularity (i.e. the lack of the dialectal use of the C(a)CāCiC pattern). Moreover, the extensive use of the tribonym fawātīr (a CaCāCīC pattern) with absolutely no exception, and without even a mistake in the whole text, leads us to question if this plural pattern with ī can be explained not only as a feature of Classical Arabic, but rather as a feature of the Hilali typology of Libyan Arabic too.
3.4. Interrogatives
⌅The only interrogatives that have been found are: إيش “what?”, كيفاش “how?”, لاش “why?, for what?”. To this list we can add also the interrogative “where?” that can also receive a pronominal suffix, like in: اينك واين كتاتك “where are you and where is your book?”. Interestingly enough, as for the interrogative “what?”, modern Tunisian Arabic uses many items, among which for example sg.m. (a)šnuwwa, sg.f. (a)šniyya, pl. (a)šnūma (Tunis),57Singer, Grammatik, pp. 267-268. or sg.m. (ā)šinhu, sg.f. (ā)šinhi, pl.m. (ā)šinhum, pl.f. (ā)šinhin (Douz),58Ritt-Benmimoun, Grammatik, p. 88. or their simplification šin/šini (Ben Gardane).59Mion, “Ben Gardane”, p. 120. Libyan Arabic uses āš, šənu, šni (Tripoli),60Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, pp. 272-274.šinu (Misrata),61D’Anna, “Two Texts in the Arabic of Miṣrāta”, p. 142.šinu, šin, eyš (Benghazi).62Benkato, “The Arabic Dialect of Benghazi”, p. 85. As for “why?”, both modern Tunisian and Libyan Arabic use ʿalāš that seems to be ignored by our text.
3.5. Negations
⌅The text exhibits many examples of verbal circumfix negation mā---š: ما تغفلوش “do not neglect (pl.)!”, ما نتركش “I don’t leave”, ما صبتش كيفاش انجيك “I cannot figure out how to reach you”, ما غاضكمش “it didn’t annoy you”, ما يدورش بيكم “it doesn’t surround you”, ما تقيسش “don’t measure”, ما تعومش فيه “don’t swim in it!”, ما عدشى نرقد “I don’t sleep anymore”.
The same pattern occurs also in a nominal negation: ماهوش “he is not”.
3.6. Lexicon
⌅Several items exclusively belong to non-Classical Arabic and many of these words are typical of a Maghrebi milieu.
Nouns: مكتب “Quranic school”,63Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, II, p. 357; Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 440; Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 850. ذرية “guys” (as in بين ذريتك وذرية اولاد الترك “between your guys and the guys of the Turks”),64Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, III, p. 1379: the term is unknown in Takrouna, but the authors give the meaning of “posterité”, “enfants d’un individu”, and “enfants en bas âge”. شاش “turban”,65Dozy, Dictionnaire, pp. 235-240. Originally, the term indicates a piece of cloth rolled around the head. It could be linked to the typical North African brimless cap called šāšiyya (Dozy, Dictionnaire, pp. 240-244). قمرة “moon”,66Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 828; Panascì, Studi lessicali, p. 441; Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, VI, pp. 3298-3299, where the primary meaning is “lune lorsqu’elle a cessé d’être croissant et que s’en annonce la forme ronde”. ثنيه “trail”,67Panetta, L’arabo parlato, p. 277; Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, II, p. 540. جبانة “cemetery”,68Panetta, L’arabo parlato, p. 52; Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, II, p. 564. تربة “mausoleum”,69Panetta, L’arabo parlato, p. 30. مليح “good”, مشوم “bad”,70Singer, Grammatik, p. 468; Dictionnaire Colin, p. 892: məšʾūm “funeste, sinistre; qui porte malheur, guignard”. the plural form الكيسان “the cups”, طشان “a bit (lit. “a splash”, a denominal from ṭašš “to splash”)”, مدبال “faded”, هنشير “farm, rural property”,71Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, II, p. 198; Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, VIII, p. 4192. مزامير “flutes”, زاوية “oratory (= religious and educational institute)”,72Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 448; Lentin, Supplément, p. 120; Brunschvig, La Berbérie orientale, II, p. 326 مدردر “sprinkled”,73Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 170; Dictionnaire Colin, p. 517. جنان “garden” used as a singular, while in Cl.Ar. ǧinān is the plural of ǧanna.74La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 267.
Verbs: نرقد “I sleep,”75Griffini, L’arabo parlato, p. 94; Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 408; Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 214. جابك “he brought you” and جبت “I brought,”76Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 171; Griffini, L’arabo parlato, p. 217; La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 258; Panascì, Studi lessicali, IV, p. 94. وتجي تهز ثيابك “and you come and take your clothes”, يحوم “he seeks” (II form ḥawwəm), 77Used in several dialects of Southern Tunisia (Ritt-Benmimoun, Grammatik, p. 338; Mion, “Ben Gardane”, p. 122), as well as in Libyan Arabic (Griffini, L’arabo parlato, p. 240). شالوني “they picked up me”, شفت “I saw”, نستنه “I wait”.78Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 10; Durand, Dialettologia, p. 392; Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, p. 146; La Rosa, L’arabo di Sicilia, p. 257; Panascì, Studi lessicali, p. 20. The verb “to want” is attested by the Cl.Ar. arāda, like in نريد “I want” (often used in technical Sufi contexts like that of being a murīd), but there are many occurrences of reflexes of √bġy, like نبغى “I want”. It is worth remembering that Libyan Arabic use bbā yibbī which seems to be the result of an assimilation.79Griffini, L’arabo parlato, p. 308; Pereira, Le parler arabe de Tripoli, pp.140-142.
Particles: لين “in order to”, in the sentence لين يعود اشتات “in order to get back scattered”.
Expressions: إذا أشرت إلى المطر أن تصب تصب “if I tell the rain to fall, it falls” (i.e. verb ṣabb “to pour” + noun mṭar “rain”), اسمع كلامى ورد البال “listen to my words and pay attention!” (see radd bāl-u “prendre garde, faire attention” according to Beaussier’s dictionary).80Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 391.
3.7. Varia
⌅Orthographic affixation appears in: ما عدشى نرقد “I don’t sleep anymore” (= mā ʿād-š[i], with shortening of the central ā), ما بقالى حد “I have none left” (= mā bqā-li ḥadd), محلاها “how beautiful it is!” (= mā aḥlā-ha, with loss of the alif in mā), نشتكيله “we complain to him” (= ništakī-lu/ah).
4. An Example of Semi-Vernacular Poem
⌅Scholars who are merely interested in dialectological issues will enjoy and delight while reading these manāqib because, as already seen, they will find many examples of linguistic deviances from the norm. But the general results they may come up with, however, should not come as much of a surprise, as the deviant material mostly seems to fall within the broad range of linguistic variation that any Middle Arabic text exhibits.
Thus, in order to avoid the (dangerous and even too frequent!) sterility of such a linguistic analysis for its own sake, it seems useful to seize the opportunity to also provide an idea of the contents of these manāqib. The plentiful intertextual and cultural references, the wealth of the content as well as the style, make them a work that should attract attention not only from the point of view of language history, but also as an example of mystical language and popular culture.
The reported direct speech of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar consists almost always in šaṭaḥāt expressed in the form of (semi-)vernacular poetry.
The book under examination includes a huge corpus of poems that await to be studied by scholars, and the present paper represents the occasion to offer an excerpt of this poetry.
It is not possible to apply the established Khalīlian metrical system to this type of poetry, because this system was conceived for the syllabic structure of Classical Arabic and not for the dialect. Moreover, since our text is not vocalised, it becomes impossible to comment with certainty on the nature of short vowels, diphthongs, and consonantal clusters.81See, among the others, the many remarks by Stumme, Tripolitanisch-Tunisische Beduinenlieder, pp. 24-47; Zack, “Historical Arabic Dialectology”, pp. 218-220, and Marzūqī, al-Šiʿr al-šaʿbī al-tūnisī. Anyhow, in the manāqib many poems seem to belong to the vernacular genres of the gsīm, zindāl, and malzūma.
The following lines give an excerpt of a poem extracted from the manāqib:82Pages 153-154 of the edition we used. it is rewritten in its original shape and, finally, is accompanied by a translation. The poem has a monorhyme structure with two hemistichs in which each one rhymes with the other.
| أناحى ننظر أنا صاحب الأحزاب | أنا الشيخ الاسمر أنا ريس الاقطاب | 1 |
| ولا زلت نضرب بالقوس والنشاب | مدفعى معمر لضرب العدو ينصاب | 2 |
| كورى ملولب يا محسنو مصواب | بارودى صادى يأخذ على الأوجاب | 3 |
| اسمع كلامى أنا غوث بين الأقطاب | أنا سيفي ماضى لروس العدو يصاب | 4 |
| اسمع كلامى نوصيك كن مصواب | شدوا أحزابي تنجوا من كل عذاب | 5 |
| ناخذ غريمى في ساع بالنشاب | أنا الصيد الأصفر أنا نايب النياب | 6 |
| [...] | ||
| احفظ بحورى تبقى مع التياب | اسمع كلامى أنا شيخك أنا نهاب | 7 |
| اسمع كلامى تنجى من كل عذاب | تغمس في نورى وترفع كل حجاب | 8 |
| في الجنة ننظر بالإذن من التواب | أنا الغوث الأزهر ورقيت كل حجاب | 9 |
| الحوض حوضي نسقى منه الأحباب | من النار تنجى من قدرة الوهاب | 10 |
| في النزع انجيهم نلقيهم بخطاب | ثم أولادى نشفع لهم بخطاب | 11 |
| دايم نونسهم أنا الفارس المهاب | في القبر نراهم ننورهم يا لحباب | 12 |
| منشارى ينشر الخاين الكذاب | أنا الشيخ الاسمر وقريت كل كتاب | 13 |
| في قعر جهنم يا حالف يا كذاب | بالك تخالف نرميك في سرداب | 14 |
| بالإذن من اللّه أنا نداوى أنا الطباب | اللّه أكبر أنا نعطب أنا العطاب | 15 |
| صلوا جملة على جدنا المهاب | اقروا سلامى إلى فقرا الاصحاب | 16 |
Translation:
| 1 | I am the šayḫ al-Asmar, the first among the aqṭāb I am a living being who contemplates, I am the one of the aḥzāb |
| 2 | My cannon loaded to take down the enemy is hit But I keep striking with a bow and arrow |
| 3 | My powder is thundering and does its duty My bullets are tightly screwed, O benevolent ones |
| 4 | My sharp sword is ready to strike the heads of enemies Listen to me, I am the salvation among the saints |
| 5 | Follow my aḥzāb and you will be saved from all torment Listen to my words, I recommend you, practice the good |
| 6 | I am the tawny lion, the deputy of the deputies I take my mortal enemy at once with arrows |
| […] | |
| 7 | Listen to me, I am your šayḫ, I am venerable Remember my words, and remain with the penitents |
| 8 | Immerse yourself in my light, and you will remove every curtain Listen to my words, and you will be saved from all torment |
| 9 | I am the luminous rescue, and I removed all curtains In heaven I look for permission from the Forgiver |
| 10 | From the fire you will be saved with the power of the Bestower The pond is mine and from it I water my beloved |
| 11 | Then I shall intervene for my disciples in the final judgement In the agony I shall join them and give them judgement |
| 12 | I’ll see their graves and illuminate them, O beloved companions I, the venerable knight, will comfort them forever |
| 13 | I am the šayḫ al-Asmar and have studied all the Book, My saw will mill the lying traitor |
| 14 | Be careful not to transgress or I shall throw you in a cell In the depths of Hell, O perjurer |
| 15 | God is greater, I destroy, I’m the destroyer With God’s permission I medicate, I’m the healer |
| 16 | Send my greetings to the poor people All pray to our venerable ancestor |
Despite the brevity of this excerpt, the complexity of these sixteen verses brings several remarks and observations. We organised them based on the line number.
[Verse 1]
The poem opens with the self-presentation of al-Asmar who describes himself as the first among the aqṭāb (a possible reading could be rayyəs əl-aqṭāb). It is well-known that quṭb (pl. aqṭāb) is a rank of the cosmological Sufi hierarchy, a terminology that pertains to the Classical Arabic lexicon but that, as a technical term, is maintained also in dialect, as confirmed by its presence in the Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire of Takrouna according to which a quṭb is a “personnage qui a atteint le plus haut degré de sainteté”.83Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, VI, p. 3229.
In this self-presentation, al-Asmar claims himself as the ṣāḥib al-aḥzāb. The word ḥizb (pl. aḥzāb) is often used in Sufi literature where the figurative and symbolic language of poetry suggests a double meaning. The first value is undoubtedly technical: the term indicates a sixtieth of the Quran, the group of verses used during the collective recitation in a Sufi ceremony. However, the context also suggests a second meaning: an implicit reference to Q 33, the Sūra al-Aḥzāb (The Confederates), where the word ḥizb indicates the coalition of polytheists who fought against Muslims in the so-called Battle of Ḫandaq that took place in 627. In this way, al-Asmar cannot only introduce himself as the one of the Quranic sixtieths, but also as the one who can count on his ḥizb of Sufi companions ready to fight against the unbelievers.
This is obviously a subtle image of warfare which, however, should come as no surprise: war metaphors are one of the topoi of Sufi literature, in which the boundaries between a spiritual ǧihād and a physical ǧihād (with the well-known distinction between ǧihād kabīr and ǧihād ṣaġīr) are often blurred, also because of the historical and political circumstances in which a composition was written.
These warlike images are suggestive and take up much of the text.
[Verses 2-6]
Immediately following the first verse, a comparison between the šayḫ and some weapons begins.
The use of a whole range of technical artillery terms (midfaʿ, bārūd, kūr, qaws, and naššāb) is very striking.
The first evidence of the use of firearms in the Maghreb dates to Ibn Ḫaldūn’s account of the siege of Siǧilmāsa (1274) by the Merinid sultan Yaʿqūb. Despite some fluctuations in the meaning of the word through the Maghreb, at least in the Ḥafṣid Tunisia midfaʿ was a “cannon”, and this midfaʿ fired kūr “cannon-balls, shell” (sg. kūra). These kūr were filled with bārūd “(gun)powder”, a formula based on saltpeter that was described for the first time by Ḥasan al-Rammāḥ (d. 1294).84Colin, “Bārūd”.
Al-Asmar’s powder is “thundering”, an expression that survived over time. In fact, according to Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire (V, p. 2211), bārūd ṣādi is “poudre qui résonne, est souvent mentionnée dans la poésie populaire”.85Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, V, p. 2211. The same dictionary also includes a verse of a msaddes in a Bedouin dialect that says «ma zīnt l-ʿmur kān lubb u ādi // u-bārūd ṣādi // ubnāt teḥt elmraggem eddādi» [original transcription], translated into French as “l’hornement de la vie, c’est seulement les steppes, la poudre tonnante et des jeunes filles qui se balancent sous les étoffes bariolées des palanquins”.86Marçais & Guîga, Glossaire, I, p. 175.
All this warlike background is not surprising when one considers that even today in several areas of North Africa al-Bārūd is also the name given to the ceremony consisting of a dance with a team of players with rifles forming a circle around a chief.
Nevertheless, aside from firearms, the repertoire of the poem obviously also includes cold weapons.
[Verses 4-6]
Al-Asmar’s sword is ready to be used.
Starting from the role played in the tradition by Ḏū l-fiqār (the Prophet’s sword) as well as from the nickname of Sayf al-Islām attributed to Ḫālid ibn al-Walīd (7th century), the sword is the symbol of religious power and the tangible emblem of an authority that can unleash a war or sanction peace.
However, the sword is accompanied by a bow and arrows, which in our text are represented by qaws and naššāb,87Beaussier, Dictionnaire, p. 976, translates “arbalète”. The Dictionnaire Colin, p. 1905, translates “flèche; bois de flèche; arbalète” and gives also the example qōs-ū-nəššāb (original transcription) “arc et flèche avec quoi jouent les enfants”. both cold weapons which are part of the heritage of images used in Sufism, if one thinks for example of the more recent Rimāḥ ḥizb al-raḥīm ʿalā nuḥūr ḥizb al-raǧīm (The Lances of the Compassionate against the Throats of the Party of the Accursed) by al-Ḥāǧǧ ʿUmar (1793-1864).
Even the tradition of the Moroccan malḥūn, nowadays, takes up the same motif of the arrows:
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ybāt šəml l-mru fə-ḥfəḍ lə-krīm məlmūm
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w-yṣbaḥ mšəttət ṭālb əs-slāma
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īla ymədd ʿla rās ʿdūh b-dūn qīyās
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ḥīn yxṭa b-ḍərbtu kāyʿūd nādəm
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ytləqqa l-mru nbāl mʿa syūf l-fwārəs
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w la ytləqqa daʿūt l-məḍlūm mən əḍ-ḍāləm
Sibylle Vocke translates these verses as follows:
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“Der Mensch verbringt die Nacht inmitten der Seinen, im Schutz Gottes, und
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am Morgen wird er von ihnen getrennt und bittet um Sicherheit.
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Wenn er die Hand erhebt gegen den Kopf des Feindes, ohne zu treffen,
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wenn er seinen Schlag verfehlt, so wird er es bereuen.
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Besser der Mensch wird von großen und kleinen Pfeilen getroffen und von den Schwerten der Reiter, als daß der Fluch des Verleumdeten unter den Schuldigen ihn erreicht”88Vocke, Die marokkanische Malḥūnpoesie, pp. 134-135 (original transcription).
Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that S. Vocke explains in a footnote that the word nbāl refers to a type of “arrows” bigger and of a wider range than the nšāšəb.89 Dictionnaire Colin, p. 1881: nbəl, pl. nbǟl (original transcription) “Flèche d’arc; fer de flèche”.
[Verse 6]
Returning to our poem, the text suddenly switches from the metaphor of war to that of animals, as the šayḫ becomes a “tawny lion” that can decree the death of the enemy.
A symbol of courage, firmness, cruelty and strength, the lion is a motif widely used in literature and in the East is not infrequently a symbol associated with ʿAlī. Literature on this subject is vast but suffice it to remember al-Damīrī (d. 1405) and his Ḥayāt al-ḥayawānāt al-kubrā (The Life of the Biggest Animals), in which he describes the physical and behavioural characteristics of the lion, its medicinal properties, and the interpretation of its presence in dreams. The oneiric dimension is particularly evocative: in a dream, the lion is a powerful man (sulṭān), a strong tyrant who can dispense death, but who can also instill science and wisdom.90Carusi, Lo zafferano e il geco, pp. 202-205.
In our poem, this lion is “tawny” (aṣfar) and perhaps the choice of this colour is not accidental or dictated solely by the need to describe the animal’s fur, if one thinks that Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire (V, p. 2297) includes oṣṣēd laṣfor [original transcription] which is described as a label frequently used in reference to saints.
Aṣfar is used in Q 77, 33, referring to animals: «ka-annahu ǧimālat-un ṣufr-un» “as if they were yellowish camels”, where the camels have the same colour as the flames of Hell.
On the other hand, if the yellowness of the aforementioned Quranic verses evokes eternal damnation, in other cases the Islamic tradition gives to yellowness a value of brightness, glossiness, purity, and fidelity of faith; all of the elements that metaphorically represent salvation. This is the case in al-Durra al-fāḫira (The Precious Pearl) in which al-Ġazālī describes the scenario of a judgement day where the fortunate are divided into several groups, among them the lovers of God who are awarded with a banner (rāya) that is yellow and that is placed in the hands of Aaron (Hārūn).91Günther, “The Poetics of Islamic Eschatology”, pp. 202-206.
[Verses 10-11]
Explicit or implicit Quranic references continue in the other verses.
“The pond is mine” stands for al-ḥawḍ ḥawḍī (hypothetical transcription based on Classical Arabic), where the reference is clearly to ḥawḍ al-Kawṯar “the pond of abundance”, one of the four rivers that flow through Heaven (Kawṯar, Kāfūr, Tasnīm, and Salsabīl) from which the righteous will drink Divine Grace in the afterlife, and the righteous will receive the Master’s intercession for the final judgement (see faṣl al-ḫiṭāb of Q 38, 22).
[Verses 13-14]
Punishment quickly becomes an almost physical threat again, as al-Asmar’s minšār (“saw”) is ready to saw off the culprits. Here, there is a subtle play on words because the meaning of the root √nšr is twofold, as it means both “to cut” and “to spread”. Now, if “spreading” the Sufi lore is one of the main concerns, the same root derives minšār, a noun of instrument (ism al-āla), with the meaning of “saw”. Thus, the “sawing” noise made while reciting ḏikr out loud gave to a particular moment of the ceremony the name of ḏikr al-minšār (lit. “recitation of the saw”).
No transgression will be permitted, otherwise the sinner will be turned away from that light which was repeatedly evoked so far and will be trapped in darkness. Which kind of darkness? That of a sirdāb located in the depths of Hell. Roughly speaking, a sirdāb is an underground living room, and even Beaussier’s dictionary of the Maghrebi dialects translates the word simply as “souterrain” without nuances (p. 469). According to Nejmeddine Hentati, the term is used more frequently in the Orient to indicate an underground prison, whereas the Maghreb prefers dāmūs, kahf, and dihlīz,92Hentati, “La prison”, p. 180. the latter confirmed also by R. Brunschvig who mentions it as the underground jail of Kairouan (“cachot souterrain”).93Brunschvig, La Berbérie Orientale, I, p. 374.
Therefore, the context in which the term is used (sirdāb qaʿr ǧahannam) is certainly a metaphor of the imprisonment of the soul in Hell. Moreover, the choice of the term cannot be accidental for the Sufi tradition, if one thinks for example of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Šaʿrānī (d. 1565) who explained that, for the practice of invocation, the disciple must choose a dark area of his retreat (ḫalwa) or his underground cell (sirdāb).94Patrizi, “Trasmissione”, p. 30.
[Verses 15-16]
Finally, while sending his greetings (salām), a symbol of enthronement of the Saints in Heaven, the final verses use two roots (√dwy and √ṭbb) which refer to the disease/healing dichotomy initiated by Q 2, 10 («fī qulūbihim maraḍun fa-zāda Llāhu maraḍan wa-lahum ʿaḏābun alīmun bi-mā kānū yakḏibūn», “there is a sickness in their hearts, then God increased their sickness, and there is a painful punishment for the lies they told”).95It is pointless to go over the existing literature on this subject here, so we will only recall that the remedy for this disease is extensively investigated in the 22nd book of al-Ġazālī’s Iḥyāʾ, entitled Kitāb riyāḍat al-nafs wa-tahḏīb al-aḫlāq wa-muʿālaǧat amrāḍ al-qalb.
The motif pervades all the Sufi literature up to the present day, including the North African malḥūn. The oral tradition of Sīdī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maǧdūb in Morocco, for example, still provides numerous cases today, such as the following:
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â Bû Mḥămməd ṭāl əl-ḥāl
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â kud sərrîk lâ yubâḥ
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gəlbi mṛêḍ u b ä̂š mṛêḍ
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gəlbi mṛêḍ mən ġêr jrâḥ
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jîbû ṭḅêḅ idâwînî
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â yâ ṭḅêḅ gdâ nəhlək
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mâ li d-dwä ʾillâ Ṛbbî
Alfred-Louis de Prémare translates the verses as follows:
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“O Bû-Moḥammad l’état (d’extase) se prolonge!
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Oh! prends ton secret! que point ne se divulgue!
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Malade est mon cœur sans aucune blessure !
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Amenez un médecin qui me soigne !
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O Médecin ! demain je mourrai :
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Point pour moi de remède que mon Dieu !”96Prémare, La tradition, p. 147 (original transcription).
5. Conclusions
⌅In bringing to a close our remarks on the language of the manāqib and on this poetic excerpt by ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar, a few final considerations are in order.
In these pages, we have tried to take a general look to three aspects:
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al-Asmar: a Libyan saint from Zlīten, who is still a little-known figure outside his area of reference, about whom there is not a vast literature and about whose biography there is still some uncertainty;
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the literary text of the manāqib: the work was composed by Karīm al-Dīn al-Baramūnī al-Miṣrāti, and the version used here is the recension prepared by the Tunisian scholar Muḥammad al-Maḫlūf;
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the language: Muḥammad al-Maḫluf’s recension certainly tampered with the original text, yet despite the editor’s interventions (of which we have no certainty, but about which we may harbour some suspicious), the Middle Arabic elements are still strongly evident.
As explained above, and as is quite obvious, the linguistic study of Middle Arabic elements could be further explored: we gladly leave this task to those who are ready to find in this text other deviations from Classical Arabic. Indeed, it seems to us a task that, although meritorious, would still risk not bringing enormous scientific advances, and this for two reasons:
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the sociolinguistic dimension should be investigated, but in our case this is not possible, because a (serious) historical sociolinguistics would only be possible by having a larger quantity of written productions that belong to the same text type;
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in these texts, including the genre of manāqib, dialectal interference mostly displays elements that fall within the range of linguistic variation that any Middle Arabic text may exhibit. This is a tendency that has been amply demonstrated by scholarly literature.
Instead, it seemed much more prolific to dwell on certain lexical and content aspects of the manāqib.
Several lines of the poem contain themes and motifs that our analysis has tried to trace in a pendulum-like movement from classical sources to oral attestations of modern popular literature.
The various questions raised by the text confirm that al-Asmar’s manāqib, like any other works of this genre, are a treasure trove from a linguistic, historical, and religious point of view. Indeed, texts of this type contain many elements of great interest not only for the study of the evolution of regional Arabic(s), but also for reflecting on those intertextual and literary patterns that continue to be passed on over time.
A key point is that the constant repetition of the same terminology and motifs which originated in works of classical literature and finally end up in one broad paraliterary strand, has not happened by chance.
The relationship between hagiographic literature and, for example, the sīra genre, as well as the relationship between zuhdiyya, šaṭḥ, and malḥūn, should be examined in depth from a diachronic, as well as spatial, perspective that does not take into account individual geographical areas.
However, perhaps such a significant inquiry should also focus on establishing how “high” literature has provided inspirational material for popular literature, and how the latter has reworked this material in order to return it, finally, in another form, to that same “high” literature.