al-Tashbihat min Ashar Ahl al-Andalus
- Author died
- 420 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Shurūq
al-Tashbihat min Ash‘ar Ahl al-Andalus (Similes from the Poetry of the People of al-Andalus) is an Arabic poetic anthology compiled by the Andalusian physician and logician Ibn al-Kattani (d. ca. 420 AH / 1029 CE), dedicated to poetic similes composed by Andalusian poets up to his era.
Content and Method
Unlike rhetorical treatises that analyzed similes theoretically—such as the conceptual classification into sensory, mental, and formal categories found in Ibn Tabataba’s ‘Iyar al-Shi‘r—Ibn al-Kattani designed his work as an anthology of poetic selections. The collection gathers short poetic pieces and illustrative verses composed by ninety-one Andalusian poets.
Structure and Themes
In its original manuscript division, the anthology comprises three parts (ajza’) distributed across more than sixty thematic chapters (abwab):
- Descriptions of nature, opening with the sky, celestial bodies, the sun and the moon, winds, rain, and meadows.
- Descriptions of wine, singing, vocalists, and musical instruments.
- Human beauty, love, and romantic sentiments.
- Man’s interactions with nature, including the traversal of wildernesses and seas, and hunting scenes.
- Warfare, military paraphernalia, and scribal tools, including chapters dedicated to the inkstand, pen, and writing sheets.
Manuscript and Publication
The text survived in a unique manuscript preserved in the İsmail Saib Library in Ankara (MS 4602). Consisting of 201 pages with 15 lines per page, the codex is written in a vocalized eastern (mashriqi) hand, though it contains numerous scribal errors and vocalization inconsistencies. The Palestinian scholar Ihsan Abbas edited the work based on a microfilm copy supplied to him by Muhammad ibn Tawit al-Tanji, and it was published by Dar al-Thaqafa in Beirut.
Related Works
A contemporary anthology devoted to the same subject was compiled by Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abi al-Husayn al-Katib (d. ca. 430 AH / 1038 CE), titled al-Fawa'id fi al-Tashbih min al-Ash'ar al-Andalusiyya (also cited by Ibn al-Abbar as al-Fara'id fi al-Tashbih), though that work is lost. Over a century later, Abu ‘Amir Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Amir al-Salimi (d. 559 AH / 1164 CE) composed Hilyat al-Lisan wa-Bughyat al-Insan fi al-Awsaf wa-al-Tashbihat wa-al-Ash‘ar al-Sa'irat on poetic descriptions and similes.
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