Zaynaddin Ibn al-Ajami

Zaynaddīn Ibn al-ʿAjamī
Zaynaddīn Ibn al-ʿAjamī
Born	October 1195 CE
Died	11 May 1276 CE (aged 80)
Other names	ʿAbdalmalik b. Sharafaddīn ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbdarraḥmān Ibn al-Karābīsī
Occupation(s)	Literary and religious scholar
Known for	Composing the first surviving Arabic riddle-collection by a single author

Zaynaddīn Ibn al-ʿAjamī, also known as ʿAbdalmalik b. Sharafaddīn ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbdarraḥmān Ibn al-Karābīsī (Dhū l-Qaʿda 591–25 Dhū l-Qaʿda 674 AH/October 1195–11 May 1276 CE), was a literary and religious scholar of

al-Malik al-Nāṣir Yūsuf (r. 634–658/1236–1260). He is noted for composing the first surviving Arabic riddle-collection by a single author, which is also 'the second oldest surviving Arabic work solely devoted to riddles'.^[1]

^: 80

Life

Ibn al-ʿAjamī was born into the Banū l-ʿAjamī, the pre-eminent exponents of the

al-Shāfiʿī himself.^[1]

^: 69

Work

Ibn al-ʿAjamī is reported to have composed one collection of love poetry, another of secular praise poems, and another of poems in praise of the Prophet, sermons, a book on Sufism, and

maqāmāt. Of these works, all that survives is about twenty epigrams quoted in Ibn ash-Shaʿʿār's Qalāʾid al-jumān and Muḥammad Rāghib al-Ṭabbāḫ's Iʿlām al-nubalāʾ bi-tārīkh Ḥalab al-shahbāʾ.^[1]

^: 69

However, in 2020 Nefeli Papoutsakis reported her discovery of a unique, probably autograph, and previously incorrectly catalogued manuscript of nearly two hundred riddles by Ibn al-ʿAjamī (along with Ibn al-ʿAjamī's commentary on the meanings of his own riddles): the mid-thirteenth century, Kitāb iʿjāz al-munājī fī l-alghāz wa-l-aḥājī (rendered by Nefeli Papoutsakis as 'The Confidant’s Bemusement: On Riddles and Charades'). 203 folios survive, with one or two being lost after folio 180. The work is dedicated to al-Malik an-Nāṣir Yūsuf, and indeed the manuscript was probably itself presented to him.

Abū al-Maʿālī al-Ḥaẓīrī (d. 568/1172).^[1]^: 71 It then presents 192 verse riddles, comprising 991 lines in the manuscript as it stands, arranged in alphabetical order of their rhyming sound. Each riddle is entitled with its solution and followed by a philological commentary.^[1]^: 71–72 Most of the riddles are true riddles, though there are also about twenty muʿammayāt.^[1]^: 72 Next come twenty riddles and similar conundra in rhymed prose. The collection closes with twenty charades (aḥājī).^[1]^: 72 In Papoutsakis's assessment, 'Zaynaddīn’s work attests to the efflorescence of the literary riddle in Ayyubid Syria and the popularity it enjoyed at Ayyubid courts and in elite circles in general'.^[1]

^: 79

References

^
doi:10.1515/asia-2019-0015
.

[:9-1] 
doi:10.1515/asia-2019-0015
.

[1]