- Ibn Khafaja
Ibn Khafaja(h) or Abu Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abu Al-Fath Ibn Khafajah (1058-1138/9) of Alzira was one of the most famous poets of
Al-Andalus during the reign of theAlmoravids [Samuel G. Armistead, E. Michael Gerli (ed.), "Medieval Iberia, an Encyclopedia", 2003, entry "Ibn Khafaja"] . He was born in 1058 in Alzira (Arabic: Jazirat Shuqr) near Valencia where he spent most of his life. [ibid.]He developed nature poetry to a great level of sophistication. [Salma Khadra Jayyusi, "Nature poetry and the rise of Ibn Khafaja," in: Salma Khadra Jayyusi (ed.), "The legacy of Muslim Spain", Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994, p. 381] His poetry includes a few panegyrics, e.g. to
Yusuf ibn Tashfin whom he praised out of thankfulness that he had savedAl-Andalus from chaos by retaking the region of Valencia from the Spaniards in 1109. [Arie Schippers "Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139) in Morocco. Analysis of a laudatory poem adressed to a member of the Almoravid clan," in: Otto Zwartjes e.a. (ed.) "Poetry, Politics and Polemics: Cultural Transfer Between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa", Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996, p. 14] During the occupation of the surroundings of Valencia by the Spaniards (ca. 1100) Ibn Khafaja had fled the city to North Africa. [ibid.] He remained umarried but had many friends. [ Ibid.] At the age of 64 he collected his poems and wrote introductions to them. [ ibid.] He lived to be over eighty [Samuel G. Armistead, E. Michael Gerli (ed.), "Medieval Iberia, an Encyclopedia", 2003, entry ""Ibn Khafaja"] .According to Khadra Jayyusi, Khafaja demonstrates, in some of his poems a revolutionary attitude to language, using a vocabulary of great originality, which she describes as "warm and sensuous, obsessed with human intimacy, turbulent and conscious of the violence of life around him in a war-ridden country, awed by nature and eternally mystified both by its beauty and by its permanence vis-avis human mutability." [Salma Khadra Jayyusi, "Nature poetry and the rise of Ibn Khafaja," in: Salma Khadra Jayyusi (ed.), "The legacy of Muslim Spain", Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994, p. 381]
Notes
Bibliography
*
Arthur Wormhoudt (ed.), "The Diwan of Abu Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abu Al-Fath Ibn Khafaja", Oskaloosa, Ia.: William Penn College, 1987, ISBN 9780916358396
*Arie Schippers "Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139) in Morocco. Analysis of a laudatory poem adressed to a member of the Almoravid clan," in: Otto Zwartjes e.a. (ed.) "Poetry, Politics and Polemics: Cultural Transfer Between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa", Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996, ISBN 9042001054 (pp. 13-34)
*Magda M. Al-Nowaihi, "The Poetry of Ibn Khafajah A Literary Analysis", (Rev. version of the author's thesis, Harvard, 1987), Leiden: Brill, 1993 ISBN 978-9004096608
*Burgel, J. C., "Man, Nature and Cosmos as Intertwining Elements in the Poetry of Ibn Khafāja," in: "Journal of Arabic literature"; vol. 14, 1983 (p. 31)
*Hamdane Hadjadji and André Miquel, "Ibn Khafaja l’Andalou, L’amant de la nature", Paris: El-Ouns, 2002
*Abd al-Rahman Janair, "Ibn Khafaja l-Andalusi", Beirut: Dar al-Afaq, 1980ee also
*Conquest of Valencia (1109)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.