A Poet of the Abbasid Period, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahi ('Ali b. Ishaq b. Khalaf al-Zahi) 313-352 AHI925-963 CE: His Life and Poetry.

• Author: Qutbuddin, Tahera
• Position: Book review

A Poet of the Abbasid Period, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahi ('Ali b. Ishaq b. Khalaf al-Zahi) 313-352 AHI925-963 CE: His Life and Poetry. By KHALID SINDAWI. Codices Arabici Antiqui, vol. 12. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ, 2010. Pp. 59 + 180 (Arabic). [euro]54 (paper).

This book is an annotated edition of poetry composed by a fourth/tenth-century luminary of the Hamdanid court, Abu l-Qasim al-Zahi. The editor, Khalid Sindawi, has compiled al-Zahi's poetry from a large number of historical and literary works, a truly commendable endeavor, and he has prefaced it with a biography of the poet and a characterization of his verse, in both English and Arabic. A poet relatively unknown to modern scholarship, al-Zahi--according to Sindawi--was second in his time only to that luminous flame of Arabic poetry, al-Mutanabbi. Although Sindawi does not satisfactorily substantiate this rather large claim, his edition of al-Zahi's poetry is a welcome addition to the library of Arabic literature. With a sizeable chunk of its themes centered on Shi'ite motifs, the volume is also a valuable contribution to the corpus of Shi'ite poetry.

The volume includes fifty-four poems of varying lengths containing a total of 307 verses. Sindawi follows a three-part format in his presentation: (1) the text of the poem; (2) a list of the sources in which the text is recorded; and (3) a brief set of comments on the text, including biographical, historical, and lexical explanations. The poems are presented in the alphabetical order of their rhyme consonant. The collection and explication of this poetry are useful to scholars and students of both 'Abbasid poetry and Shi'ite studies. The editing, however, is not as careful as one would wish it to be, and I note two problems with the edition:

The first is that in the list of the sources of the individual texts, primary and secondary sources are not differentiated--one has to consult the bibliography to get this information. Furthermore, for some texts only secondary sources are given, without any indication that the source is modern. The second problem is the edition's incorrect vocalization of the text in more than a few places, for example, p. 82 v. 2: al-lawa instead of al-liwa; and ghadara instead of ghadira; p. 83 v. 2: qutb instead of qutub--qutb is lexically correct, but the alternative form qutub is required here for a correct metrical reading--and v. 4: 'aliyyu instead of 'allyyun; p. 84 v. 13: mahalluhu instead of mahallahu; v. 14: li...