Disambiguation of the Banū Kawjak

‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī al-‘Absī, known as IBN KAWJAK AL-WARRĀQ, was a gifted literary man who practiced the stationer's trade. In Egypt he studied under Abū Muslim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, secretary to the vizier Abū 'l-Faḍl ibn Ḥinzāba. His writings include The Book of Tambur-Players and The Book of Noblest Aspirations to the Highest Class, a book on asceticism addressed to al-Shābushtī, author of The Book of Monasteries. He died in Syria during the reign of al-Ḥākim, around the year 394 A.H. (= 1004 CE).
       After the recapture of al-Ḥadath (in 953 CE) he said in praise of Sayf al-Dawla: (meter: khafīf):

He intended the destruction of Islam, but got his ears boxed
    at al-Ḥadath. Its walls were the destruction of his error.
Since his powers were stripped from him at spear-point,
    his soul shrinks from you. The weakling!
Fearing the ruin of his own life and property,
    he traded his stay for a departure.
And now, up in those foothills, the birds and beasts
    [of carrion] go hungry in their haunts.
How many times did you throw the birds a feast
    on the skulls of his champions?

His father al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī IBN KAWJAK was a poet and a literary man, of whom Abu 'l-Qāsim [Ibn ‘Asākir] al-Dimashqī says: Al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī ibn Kawjak lectured in Tripoli in the year 359 (= 970), narrating hadith on the authority of his father ‘Alī, as well as Abū Mas‘ūd (secretary to [Ibn?] Ḥasnūn al-Maṣrī) and Abu 'l-Qāsim ibn al-Muntāb of Iraq, and some of the scholars kept a transcript of it. These verses are attributed to him (meter: ṭawīl):

Just after her husband's unexpected death
    it turned out that his wife was pregnant.
Her family of origin was in a distant land,
    and his would-be inheritors were at her on all sides.
But when the pregnancy came to light, they eased up
    grudgingly, and crawled away like scorpions.
She came out with a newborn boy, and won the inheritance
    of the dead father. And his relatives got no share.
When of age he came into the wealth, and the eyes
    of buxom girls competed for their pleasure in him,
and he had gained the experience that leads to intelligence,
    and his body had almost attained its full stature,
and he was desired and feared, and was desirous
    of a beautiful life, and grew a beard and mustache,
[the embrace of] a chubby pair of arms behind a curtain
    was predestined for him. He is bold and never timid against the foe.
[When he eats,] butcher-bones are all he leaves behind.
    The locks of his noble dome are kept nice and short.
The most painful thing for me was the day
    their saddled camels turned away,
        their drivers taking them to Wādī Ghabā'ib.

♦         

Al-Muḥassin ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī IBN KAWJAK AL-ADĪB was a man of refinement. Best known as a stationer, he was also a poet. His handwriting, which resembles al-Ṭabarī's, was well known and much in demand. Al-Rūdhabārī says in the history he wrote in Egypt: "The scholar and stationer al-Muḥassin ibn al-Ḥusayn al-‘Absī died in the month of Shawwāl of the year 416 (= December 1025). He studied under Abū Muslim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, secretary to Ibn Ḥinzāba, together with his brother ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn." Their aforementioned father was also a man of refinement.
       I read in Ibn ‘Asākir's History of Damascus that "The scholar Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Muḥassin ibn ‘Alī [sic] ibn Kawjak dictated short, aphoristic lectures in Sidon, some on the authority of Ibn Khalawayh. These teachings were memorized and transmitted by Abū Naṣr ibn Ṭallāb."
       Ibn ‘Asākir said: I was told by ‘Abd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar that Ibn Ṭallāb said: "Our teacher al-Muḥassin ibn Kawjak dictated his teachings to us in Sidon, where I studied under him in the year 394 (= 1003-4). One of the poems he taught us was this" (meter: munsariḥ):

Your good looks are leaving you. They're on their way out,
    when eyes roll and turn away from your [onetime] beauty.
You who used to slay others are now the slain.
    You come back to life and find that it's moved on.
How many have noticed my affection for you, and my passion,
    and had a talk with me, and called me a middle-aged [fool]?
May God have mercy on you, young man,
    when young romantics start to call you "Sir."

Yāqūt, Dictionary of the Scholars IV.1733-4 and V.2278-9

Aere perennius

(LEFT-HAND COLUMN)

[By Demetrios:]
   A Boeotian (Oration)
   Aristaichmos
   Kleon                                                                                       One (book)
   Phaidondas, or On O[ligarchy?]
   On Legislation at Athens                                                    Fi[ve] (books)
   On The Consti[tutions] at Athens

By Hegesias: The Pro-Athenian (Orations)                       One (book)
   Aspasia                                                                                   One (book)
   Alkibiades                                                                              One (book)

By Theodektes: Of (Rhetorical) Technique                       Fou[r] (books)
   Amphiktyonikos (= On the League?)                               One (book)

By Theopompos: A Laconian (Oration)                            One (book)
   A P[an]-Ionian (Oration)                                                  One (book)
   [Maus]solus                                                                           One (book)

   [An Olym]pian (Oration)                                                   One (book)
   [Phil]ip                                                                                    One (book)
   In Praise of [Alexa]nder                                                     One (book)
   About the Olp....                                                                    One (book)
   About the ........-ios                                                                One (book)
   To Evagoras, (King) of the [Cy]pri[ot]s                         Tw[o] (books)
   Letter to [Antipa]ter                                                            One (book)
   An Advi[sory] (Oration)
   Alexan[der]
   A Pan-Athenia[n] (Oration)
   An Invective Against the Teachi[ng of Plato]

By a different Theopompos: On Kingship                          One (book)

(RIGHT-HAND COLUMN)

   Ab[out...]
   Ab[out...]

By Dionysi[os:]
   O[n...]
   On th[e...]
   On Chil[dren]

[By Diodo?]tos: O[n the deeds of]
   Harmod[ios and Aristogeiton]

By Damokleides [...]
   On Coming Into Be[ing]
   To Alex[ander]

By Erat[o]s[the]ne[s...]

            

Fragment of a library catalogue carved in Lartian marble.
Rhodes, late 2nd/early 1st c. BCE. 51 cm x 46 cm (at base).
Archaeological Museum of Rhodes

Adventures in Guest-Blogging

Three versions of a poem by Abū Ṣakhr al-Hudhalī (d. ca. 700 CE),
translated with introductions by me.

♦   ♦   ♦     

As in the Collected Poems of the Tribe of Hudhayl by Abū Sa‘īd al-Sukkarī
(d. 888), hosted on Pierre Joris's blog at Jacket2

As in the Dictations of Abū ‘Alī al-Qālī (d. 966), hosted on Pierre's
blog Nomadics

As in the Book of Songs of Abu 'l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī (d. 967),
hosted on the tumblr Lyric Poets

Plus a fourth variant attributed to Majnun Layla, hosted right here

ETA: My article gathering all these versions with a new introduction came out in Cambridge Literary Review 10 (2017) and is viewable here.

♦   ♦   ♦     

As recited by Adel Bin Hazman Al-Azimi (al-Sukkarī's version):

As attributed to Majnun

       O departure of Layla! You have spared me nothing.
            To the anguish of abandonment, you added more.
       The lengths that time went through to come between us
            were amazing. Done with what was between us, time stood still.
       O love! Let nothing halt the nightly increase
            of my ardor for her. Let the Day of Resurrection be my relief.
       To all love but ‘Āmirī love, my heart is resistant.
          "Abū ‘Amr without the ‘amr," you could call it. 
       My hands are at the verge of dampness, touching her.
            She is [like a pool] ringed with plants of leafy green.
       And the way her face's beauty lifts my trial and brings down rain!
            It is a marvel worthy of the Prophet's tribe.
       Below her robes, the motion of her frame shows through
            quite like the motion of a willow branch in flower.
       Beloved are all living things, as long as you may live,
            and when a grave contain you, beloved be the dead!
       At the mention of her name, my heart quickens 
            like a rain-drenched sparrow shaking off [its wings].
       If I were to make the major and minor pilgrimages, and renounce
            my visits to Layla, would I then perchance be recompensed?
       No sooner do I see her than I am struck dumb,
            abandoned by all cleverness and all reserve.
       If a pebble came under what I undergo, it would split the pebble.
            If a giant boulder underwent it, that boulder would crack.
       Wild animals would not put up with it, if it happened to them.
            Life-sustaining waters would not swallow it, nor would a flower.
       If the seas went through what I went through, [they would all fall still;]
           no more would swelling seas be crossed by waves.

Dīwān Majnūn Laylā 102-3

Choral fun in old Medina

Abu ‘Abd Allah [al-Hishami?] said: One day, Jamila convened a gathering to which she wore a long burnoose, and dressed her companions in burnooses of lesser make. Among the group was Ibn Surayj, who compensated for his baldness with a hairy wig he used to put on his head. But Jamila liked the sight of his baldness, and when Ibn Surayj was given his burnoose, he uncovered his pate and said, "By the Lord of the Ka‘ba, you've pulled one over on me!" And he fitted the cowl of his burnoose over his head while the rest of the group laughed at his baldness.

Jamila then stood up and began to dance while strumming a lute, in her long burnoose with a Yemeni mantle about her shoulders. Ibn Surayj too stood up to dance, along with Ma‘bad, Ghariḍ, Ibn ‘A’isha and Malik, all of them costumed like Jamila, with lutes in their hands which they played in time with her strumming and dancing, and joined their voices with hers in song [meter: kāmil]:

   Youth has gone - if only it had not! -
      when a bright gray touch surmounts the hair's parting.
   Pretty women want companions who are other than you.
      Your intimates once, now all they do is leave.
   What I say is informed by experience truly.
      You have not heard from one so experienced before:
   Treat the noble with unmixed good, and uphold your honor.
      and from the blameworthy and his like just step aside.

Jamila then called for a dyed robe and a wig of hair like Ibn Surayj's, which she fitted to her head. The rest of the group called for similar outfits, which they all put on. Jamila began to promenade while playing the lute, and the rest of the group walked behind her, as in unison they sang [verses 3, 5 and 7 of a qaṣīda by al-Kumayt al-Asadi, meter: ṭawīl]:

   Slender of waist, they walk with stately buttocks,
     bent over like sand-grouses of al-Biṭaḥ.
   She is one of those women - shy but friendly,
      no shameless flirt but neither unperfumed.
   It's like a musk-and-wine concoction,
      the bouquet of her mouth when you get her aroused.

Jamila then gave an indelicate cry, which was echoed musically by the group. When she sat down, the others did likewise, stripping off their costumes and resuming their everyday clothes. A group of callers was at Jamila's door, and when she let them in, the male singers all departed, leaving her in conversation with her hetairai.

From the Book of Songs of Abu 'l-Faraj al-Iṣbahani

Men who loved women

Most of the [poets of the] desert Arabs—nay, all of them—were impassioned lovers. Among those of frequent mention and widespread fame for passion and love-song were:

   Qays Majnun of the Banu ‘Amir, who was the lover of Layla
   Qays ibn Dharih, who loved Lubna
   Tawba ibn al-Humayyir, who loved Layla al-Akhyaliyya
   Kuthayyir, who loved ‘Azza
   Jamil ibn Ma‘mar, who loved Buthayna
   al-Mu’ammil, who loved al-Dhalfa’
   al-Muraqqish, who loved Asma’
   al-Muraqqish the Younger, who loved Fatima bint al-Mundhir
   ‘Urwa ibn Hizam, who loved ‘Afra’
   ‘Amr (sic) ibn ‘Ajlan, who loved Hind
   ‘Ali ibn Udaym, who loved Manhala
   al-Muhadhdhib, who loved Ladhdha
   Dhu 'l-Rumma, who loved Mayya
   Qabus, who loved Munya
   al-Mukhabbal al-Sa‘di, who loved al-Mayla’
   Hatim al-Ta’i, who loved Mawiya
   Waddah al-Yaman, who loved Umm al-Banin
   al-Ghamr ibn Dirar, who loved Juml
   al-Nimr ibn Tawlab, who loved Hamza
   Badr, who loved Nu‘m
   Shubayl, who loved Falun
   Bishr, who loved Hind
   ‘Amr who loved Da‘d
   ‘Umar ibn Abi Rabi‘a, who loved Thurayya
   al-Ahwas, who loved Salama
   As‘ad ibn ‘Amr, who loved Layla bint Sayfi
   Nusayb, who loved Zaynab
   Suhaym ‘Abd Bani 'l-Hashas, who loved ‘Umayra
   ‘Ubayd Allah ibn Qays, who loved Kuthayyira
   Abu 'l-Atahiya, who loved ‘Utba
   al-‘Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, who loved Fawz
   Abu 'l-Shis who loved Umama

These are just a few of the many impassioned lovers. We have limited ourselves to these few in preference to others so as not to go on too long and mar our book. For every one of these men there is a love story, relating the circumstances of their passions, with much to comment upon and describe.

From The Book of Refinement and Refined People
by Muhammmad ibn Ishaq ibn Yahya al-Washsha’ (Cf.)