Rajaz (prosody)

Rajaz (رَجَز, literally 'tremor, spasm, convulsion as may occur in the behind of a camel when it wants to rise'^[1]) is a meter used in classical Arabic poetry. A poem composed in this metre is an urjūza. The metre accounts for about 3% of surviving ancient and classical Arabic verse.^[2]

This form is the simplest of the Arabic metres, with a basic foot pattern of XXSL (where L represents a long syllable, S a short syllable, and X a syllable that can be long or short).^[3] It is unique among the classical Arabic metres because its lines are not divided into hemistichs.^[4] Lines were most often of three feet, though this varied. It can be exemplified through the traditional mnemonic (Tafā'īl) Mustafʿilun Mustafʿilun Mustafʿilun (مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ).

Every line would rhyme on the same sound.^[5] However, a popular alternative was couplet rhyme, this form of rajaz poetry being called muzdawij (and a poem in this form being called a muzdawija).^[6]

Though generally regarded as the oldest of the Arabic metres,^[7] rajaz was not highly regarded in the pre- and early Islamic periods, being seen as similar to (and at times indistinguishable from) the rhymed prose form saj'. It was not included in Al-Khalīl ibn Ahmad Al-Farahidi's near-definitive eighth-century catalogue of Arabic poetic metres.^[8] It tended to be used for low-status, everyday genres such as lullabies, or for improvisation, for example improvised incitements to battle.

The metre gained in popularity towards the end of the Umayyad period, with al-‘Ajjāj (d. c. 91/710), Ru‘ba (d. 145/762) and Abū al-Najm al-‘Ijlī (d. before 125/743) all composing long, qaṣīda style pieces in the metre. Abū Nuwās was also particularly fond of the form.^[9]

In the twentieth century, in response to the aesthetics of free verse, rajaz, both in traditional form and more innovative adaptations, gained a new popularity in Arabic poetry, with key exponents in the first half of the century including ‘Ali Maḥmūd Ṭāhā, Elias Abu Shabaki, and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (not least in his 'Unshūdat al-Maṭar').^[10] Rajaz feet were often taken, from the 1950s onwards, as the basis for free-verse compositions.^[11]

Example

A famous, early example is the following incitement to battle by Hind bint Utbah, showing the form XXSL XLSL:^[12]

نَحْنُ بَنَاتُ طَارِقِ، نَمْشِي عَلَى النَّمَارِقِ، الدُرُّ فِي المَخَانِقِ، وَالمِسْكُ فِي المَفَارِقِ، إنْ تُقْبِلُوا نُعَانِقِ، أوْ تُدْبِرُوا نُفَـارِقِ، فِرَاقَ غَيْرَ وَامِقِ.

naḥnu banātu ṭāriqī namshī ‘alā n-namāriqī wad-durru fi l-makhāniqī wal-misku fi l-mafāriqī ’in tuqbilū nu‘āniqī ’aw tudbirū nufāriqī firāqa ghayra wāmiqī

We are those Ṭāriq girls We walk on carpets fair Our necks are hung with pearls And musk is on our hair If you advance we'll hug you Or if you flee we'll shun you And we'll no longer love you

Key studies

• Five Raǧaz Collections: (al-Aghlab al-ʻIǧlī, Bashīr ibn an-Nikth, Ǧandal ibn al-Muthannā, Ḥumayd al-Arqaṭ, Ghaylān ibn Ḥurayth), ed. by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Studia Orientalia, 76/Materials for the study of Raǧaz poetry, 2 (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1995), ISBN 9519380264
• Minor Raǧaz Collections: (Khiṭām al-Muǧashiʻī, the two Dukayns, al-Qulākh ibn Ḥazn, Abū Muḥammad al-Faqʻasī, Manẓūr ibn Marthad, Himyān ibn Quḥāfa), ed. by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Studia Orientalia, 78/Materials for the study of Raǧaz poetry, 3 (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1996), ISBN 9519380280
• Manfred Ullmann, Untersuchungen zue Raǧazpoesie. Ein Beitrag zur arabischen Sprach- und Literaturewissenschaft (Wiesbaden, 1966)
• D. Frolov, 'The Place of Rajaz in the History of Arabic Verse', Journal of Arabic Literature, 28 (1997), 242-90, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4183399

References

1. The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, ed. by Robert Irwin (London: Penguin, 1999).
2. Bruno Paoli, 'Generative Linguistics and Arabic Metrics', in Towards a Typology of Poetic Forms: From Language to Metrics and Beyond, ed. by Jean-Louis Aroui, Andy Arleo, Language Faculty and Beyond: Internl and External Variation in Linguistics, 2 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2009), pp. 193-208 (p. 203).
3. Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology, trans. by Geert Jan van Gelder (New York: New York University Press, 2013), p. 93.
4. Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology, trans. by Geert Jan van Gelder (New York: New York University Press, 2013), p. xxiii.
5. Geert Jan van Gelder, 'Arabic Didactic Verse', in Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. by Jan Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 103-18 (p. 107).
6. Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami, Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), s.v. 'Prosody (‘arūḍ)'.
7. Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology, trans. by Geert Jan van Gelder (New York: New York University Press, 2013), p. 93.
8. The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, ed. by Robert Irwin (London: Penguin, 1999).
9. W. Stoetzer, 'Rajaz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami, Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 645-46 (p. 646).
10. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry, trans. by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1977), II 607-10.
11. W. Stoetzer, 'Rajaz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami, Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 645-46 (p. 646).
12. Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology, trans. by Geert Jan van Gelder (New York: New York University Press, 2013), p. 94.