Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia 5 Voices from the Desert: Glossary, Indices, & List of Recordings (Studies in Arabic Literature,)

445 Pages·2005·2.23 MB·English

by  P. Marcel Kurpershoek

ORAL POETRY AND NARRATIVES
FROM CENTRAL ARABIA
V
VOICES FROM THE DESERT
STUDIES IN ARABIC
LITERATURE
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE
JOURNAL OF ARABIC LITERATURE
VOLUME XVII/V
Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia
Vol. V
Voices from the Desert
P. MARCEL KURPERSHOEK
ORAL POETRY AND NARRATIVES
FROM CENTRAL ARABIA
V
VOICES FROM THE DESERT
Glossary, Indices, and List of Recordings
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2005
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bedouin poets of the Dawa-sirtribe : between nomadism and settlement
in southern Najd/ [edited by] P. MarcelKurpershoek.
p. cm. — (Oral poetry and narratives from Central Arabia ;
4) (Studies in Arabic literature, ISSN 0169-9903 ; v. 17/3)
Includes Arabic text transcribed in roman script.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004112766 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Dialect poetry, Arabic—Saudi Arabia—Najd—Translations into
English. 2. Dialect poetry, Arabic—Saudi Arabia—Najd. 3. Arabic
poetry—20th century—Translations into English. 4. Arabic
poetry—20th century. 5. Dialect poetry, Arabic—Saudi Arabia–
–Najd—History and criticism. 6. Oral tradition—Saudi Arabia–
–Najd. 7. Dawa-sir (Arab tribe)—Poetry. 8. Dawa-sir (Arab tribe)–
–Folklore. I. Kurpershoek, P. M. II. Series. III. Series:
Studies in Arabic literature, v. 17/5.
PJ8005.65.E54073 1998 vol 3 2005 vol. 5
892.7'1608—dc21 98-49995
CIP
ISSN 0169-9903
ISBN 90 04 14421 8
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PRINTEDINTHENETHERLANDS
INTRODUCTION TO THE GLOSSARY v
CONTENTS
Preface............................................................................................ vii
Introduction to the Glossary........................................................ xvii
Glossary.......................................................................................... 1
Indices
Note to the Indices.................................................................. 363
Index of Subjects..................................................................... 365
Index of Tribal Names ........................................................... 387
Index of Proper Names .......................................................... 393
List of Recordings......................................................................... 403
vi INTRODUCTION TO THE GLOSSARY
PREFACE vii
El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro
PREFACE
Sixteen years ago I set out from Riyadh towards the tribal areas of
(cid:2)Tēbah and ad-Dawāsir in Central and Southern Najd with the purpose
of collecting and studying their oral traditions. Since then, many of
the poets, transmitters, and informants whom I recorded and with
whom I discussed the poems and narratives presented in these vol-
umes, have passed away. Saudi Arabia has not been unaffected by the
turmoil in the wider Middle East. Yet the country has shown remark-
able cohesion and so far its system has withstood the jolts from out-
side.
The area’s cultural and social characteristics often seem to get obscured
rather than illuminated by the sensationalist media attention for its
wars, civil strife, and power struggles. For a more balanced view one
might focus on the underlying cultural factors. I am certain that nowadays
education and electronic media have an even greater impact on Saudi
opinion than was the case when I started my involvement with the
oral culture some twenty years ago. But regardless of the passions that
have been stirred of late, one may reasonably assume that the continuity
of Arabian oral culture, as evidenced by these volumes and other
studies, will prove its tenacity even in this time of unprecedented
civilisational pressures. A medium of expression and conventions that
have evolved gradually and remained distinctly Arabian over a thousand
years and more, will not transform into something completely different
overnight. On the contrary, chances are that in the coming period the
people of the area, the Arabs, will have opportunities to rediscover
their commonalities within a framework of diversity and to breathe
more freely, culturally speaking, than before. In other words, they
may regain what they lost due to the imposition of borders and state
apparatuses following World War I. Had they been among us today,
Alois Musil, Von Oppenheim, T.E. Lawrence and other students of
Middle Eastern tribal systems on whose work I have relied, would be
fascinated onlookers.
In his Seven Pillars of Wisdom Lawrence spoke of his intention to use
a ‘ladder of tribes’ in the British campaign to scale the Ottoman
citadel. The new borders drawn by the colonial powers cut across
tribal systems and created new divisions which often did not correspond
viii PREFACE
to social and cultural realities. Therefore, these borders have always
seemed artificial and weak in terms of legitimacy to the new countries’
inhabitants. There is an alternative view to tribal systems as a ladder
to be climbed by outsiders. One might see a colourful carpet of many
strands and taking on many hues, spreading across borders and shad-
ing off into other cultures – a carpet that allows the area’s inhabitants
to take pride in their diversity within a shared cultural framework.
This is what they may rediscover once they have gained a measure of
freedom from the physical and mental yokes imposed from the outside
and inside. It would be a discovery of narrative, poetic and other
cultural threads knitting them together from Bayhan in Yemen to the
rim of the Anatolian highlands, across the Arabian peninsula into
Syria and Iraq.1 The oral traditions collected in these volumes, and in
many other works devoted to the exploration of Arabian oral culture,
attest to the existence of a common identity. In spite of appearances
to the contrary, this common identity is more entrenched and perma-
nent than the political and ideological currents at the surface. Letting
this fact speak for itself is the driving force behind the collection and
edition of Voices from the Desert.
If this seems like a romantic project, so be it. Without it, I would
hardly have felt the fascination for a subject that always made me
return to it with sweet expectation and delight. Humility inspired by
God’s awesome presence, pride in the noble traits of kinsmen and
friends, endurance in the face of adversity, joy at the advent of rains
and other divine blessings, exultancy at the marvels of composed speech
and God’s creation. These are some of the themes dear to the heart
of ad-Dindān, Ibn Batla, and others, as they have been to Arab poets
before them. One does not have to live in a tent in the desert to feel
inspired by their work. Nor do we have to share their values and
sentiments to recognise in their words some of our own intuitions.
Opening myself to their experience and immersing myself in their
voice was a tremendously rewarding adventure.
This collection of oral traditions might be called mu(cid:2)(cid:3)a(cid:4)ram, a word
that originally denotes ‘a person who lived both in the pre-Islamic
days (the so-called Time of Ignorance) and in the Islamic period’, for
the collection bridges a comparable period of transition. Its memory
extends to a period preceding the imposition of strict Wahhābi rule on
the Bedouin tribes and the transformation of the Saudi principality in
Riyadh into present-day Saudi Arabia. It reaches back to the days
when nomadic animal husbandry and cultivation of date palms were
the mainstays of the economy, and camels were the only means of
1 Cf. Vol. III, 323; Vol. IV, 719.
PREFACE ix
transportation and well traction. But it also includes many records of
the modern Arabia of oil, cars, asphalted roads, large-scale subsidised
wheat-growing, rigid Islamic doctrine, and even an acknowledgment
of women’s voice in domestic life (in the poetry of the poet and trans-
mitter B(cid:5)(cid:6)ētān, the collection’s pre-eminent mu(cid:2)(cid:3)a(cid:4)ram). However, the
women themselves and their point of view, independently expressed,
are conspicuously absent. At the time of my research in Najd, particu-
larly in the extremely conservative rural and tribal milieu where I
stayed, there was no way I could have mingled with women and
recorded their voice without endangering the entire project and per-
haps my life. Only a female researcher could have attempted this.
Verses composed by Bedouin women, a number of which have been
included in the collection, are mostly edited by men. Therefore it is
hardly surprising that more often than not this poetry reflects the
male perspective and is meant to reflect on their kinsmen’s glory. Yet
one also comes across many pieces in which one senses the presence
of a distinct, personal female voice.
This interplay of the conventional and formulaic with the personal
and individual gives research into Arabian oral culture its particular
flavour and special fascination. As with the veil, conventionality can
be used in infinite, ambiguous ways. It is used to give expression to a
wide range of purposes, varying from rigid adherence to the social
norm to playful allusions that turn convention on its head. Examples
of the entire range can be found in these volumes. Similarly, the
concept of honour occurs in a gamut that ranges from religious and
social group values to a poet’s individual honour as an old-fashioned
rebel against modern political correctness. In all cases, the majlis, the
Arabian daily social gathering, is the arena in which these values gain,
keep, or lose currency, whether within the limits of received opinion
or in chuckling sympathy for the deviant view.
Yet, predominantly, honour is presented as a group value. Mūhig
al-Ġannāmi, ad-Dindān, Nābit, Bandar ibn Srūr, are not outsiders
seeking modernity and “enlightenment”, but tribal poets who for one
reason or another have difficulty in adapting to the new norm. They
feel alienated by officially sanctioned change, whether it’s the
government’s ban on raiding other tribes, the imposition of Wahhābi
norms on music and other aspects of (cid:9)ijāzi culture, or the sudden
increase in the presence of foreigners, no matter how circumscribed
by Islamic restrictions. Their resistance casts them into the role of
anti-hero. In consequence they become the subject of secret admira-
tion and the kind of sympathy accorded to those fighting valiantly a
battle obviously lost. Their honour is of a quixotic and exceptional
kind. It arouses the curiosity of wider society, because of its poignant
expression which appeals to traditional taste. To the society at large
x PREFACE
it is a bittersweet memory of what once was, but, alas, is no more. For
those reasons it is preserved by oral memory.
Generally speaking, oral culture as a conventional vehicle of social
interaction is predominant in illiterate or only partially literate envi-
ronments. Therefore it is not surprising that the texts in these volumes
indicate a mental attitude that is socially very conservative and obses-
sively drawn towards the past. Finding creative responses to the chal-
lenges of the wider, modern world is not its concern. The fact that I
have invested much effort and love into documenting this side of
contemporary Arabian culture does not mean that I take it to be
representative of this culture as a whole or somehow approve of its
bias and limitations. Rather, I have felt attracted to it as a matter of
personal predilection, because of its often neglected and historically
interesting parallels with classical Arabian poetry and culture, and last
but not least because at the time of recording it did represent the
outlook of a sizeable body of Arabian tribal society: its attachment to
a past that was distinctly its own, neither particularly wedded to ide-
ology, with the exception of the brief period of the i(cid:2)(cid:3)wān, nor enamoured
of the idea of doing away with tradition and adopting the Western
ways.
Most of the transmitters were rather advanced in years at the time
of recording in 1989. This means that they were in their prime in the
1950s and 1960s, before the oil-boom transformed the face of the
Arabian peninsula beyond recognition. Their taste was formed by
parents whose prime may have been in the 1920s and 1930s, before
oil began to flow. This is the modern mu(cid:2)(cid:3)a(cid:4)ram period reflected in
these volumes. It is a measure of sudden change that many of the
images and much of the vocabulary may now be more outlandish to
a new generation of Saudi city-dwellers, born from parents with tribal
and provincial roots, than it would have been to Bedouins and villag-
ers of past ages. In earlier centuries living conditions were harsh and
simple. The pace of change was very slow and incremental. A sense
of timelessness and continuity prevailed. All these factors nurtured
expression that creatively integrated culture, human emotions, and
nature. Though to our taste it may be lacking in complex develop-
ment, in suspense and intellectual daring, and indeed in immediately
recognisable relevance to the modern condition in most parts of the
world, it is this very ‘ecological’ quality that in my opinion makes for
a considerable part of its charm.2
Honour played an important part in maintaining social equilibrium
– a perpetual process of negotiation that allowed each free-born man
to preserve his self-esteem in spite of vast differences in power and
2 A term I borrowed in this context from prof. Clive Holes.