Revisiting Al-Maqamah Genre: A Literary Artifices of Medieval Arabic Literary Tradition

Abstract

This article is intended to examine how the genre of the Arabic Maqamah was absorbed by the various minority Eastern literatures in the Middle Ages. We will compare typologically the style of the Maqamah as it develops in four different languages from four different periods: Arabic, Persians, Hebrew and Syriac.[1]In as well as, we look into the thematic aspects of Maqamah genre, as a motivating factor in literary séance. The position of this literary genre, Maqamah, in the contemporary time, should be elucidated in this paper. In addition to observing the way in which these minor literatures each imitated and elaborated upon the Arabic model, we hope to understand the process by which this genre was assimilated into each of these literatures.