al-Amthal al-Saira min Shiir al-Mutanabbi
- Author died
- 385 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Nahḍah
al-Amthal al-Saira min Shiir al-Mutanabbi (Current Proverbs from the Poetry of al-Mutanabbi) is an Arabic literary compilation by the Buyid vizier and scholar al-Sahib ibn Abbad (326–385 AH / 938–995 CE), gathering the aphorisms and proverbial verses from the diwan of the poet al-Mutanabbi (d. 354 AH / 965 CE).
Composition and Purpose
Al-Sahib ibn Abbad composed the treatise for his patron, the Buyid amir Fakhr al-Dawla. In his introduction, al-Sahib opens with the praise of God and the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, followed by panegyric praise for Fakhr al-Dawla, noting that the ruler's speech was adorned with the citation of proverbs. He observes that al-Mutanabbi, alongside his distinction and virtuosity in the poetic craft, possessed a distinctive method in coining proverbs by which he surpassed his peers.
Al-Sahib explains that he dictated these selected proverbial lines from al-Mutanabbi's diwan to serve as a reference in the royal court, and offered that should the amir command him, he would similarly extract proverbs from all pre-Islamic, mukhadram, and early Islamic diwans, since he found no previous scholar who had compiled a comprehensive or satisfactory work on the subject.
Content and Structure
The work collects around 370 verses from al-Mutanabbi that circulate as proverbs and aphorisms. The compiled verses touch upon themes of honor, wisdom, courage, patience, human nature, and worldly experience, presenting lines that had gained wide currency in speech and prose composition.
Transmission and Editions
The text was preserved in full by the later literary scholar Ibn Ma'sum al-Hasani in his work Anwar al-Rabi' fi Anwa' al-Badi', who transcribed it from an early manuscript bearing marginal annotations in Fakhr al-Dawla's own hand; the amir had marked his preferred verses with the Arabic letter kha' (خ) to indicate selection (intikhab).
Manuscripts of the work are preserved in several libraries, including the al-Nusayri collection in Tehran, the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub), the Taymuriyya collection, and al-Azhar. The text was published by Imtiyaz Ali Arshi in the journal Thaqafat al-Hind in 1954, printed in Beirut in 1950, and in an undated Cairo edition by Zuhdi Yan. A critical edition was prepared by Muhammad Hasan Al Yasin and published in Baghdad in 1385 AH / 1965 CE.
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