Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-Muwashshahat

Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-Muwashshahat (The House of Embroidery on the Art of Muwashshahat) is a 6th-century AH treatise and anthology on the rules, prosodic structure, and composition of the strophic poetry known as the muwashshah, written by the Egyptian poet and critic Ibn Sana al-Mulk (d. 608 AH / 1211–1212 CE) Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1.

Purpose and Scope

While the muwashshah originated in al-Andalus and flourished there under masters such as Ubadah ibn Ma al-Sama, al-A'ma al-Tutili, and Ibn Baqi, early Andalusian poets did not compile dedicated manuals detailing its technical foundations Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1. Ibn Sana al-Mulk authored Dar al-Tiraz to codify the art, establish its formal rules, explain its meters, and provide representative models, thereby becoming the foremost theoretician to systemize muwashshah poetics across both the Mashriq and the Maghrib Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1.

Structure and Contents

The work consists of an extensive theoretical introduction followed by two main anthological sections Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1:

• Theoretical Introduction: Composed in ornate rhymed prose (saj'), this section outlines the anatomy and rules of the muwashshah Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1. Ibn Sana al-Mulk defines key components: the opening strophe (matla'), the recurring thematic refrains (qufl), the intervening stanzas (bayt or ghusn), and the concluding refrain (kharja) Mawsuat al-Mafahim al-Isl…+1. He classifies poems that open with a qufl as complete (tamm) and those that omit it as headless (aqra'), while setting out rules governing the internal rhyme schemes, subdivisions, and prosody of the forms Tarikh al-Adab al-Andalus…+1.
• The Andalusian Muwashshahat: The first practical section collects thirty-four Andalusian (Maghribi) muwashshahat, arranged to illustrate the theoretical rules and structural varieties detailed in the introduction Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1.
• The Author's Compositions: The second section features thirty-five muwashshahat authored by Ibn Sana al-Mulk himself, patterned directly after the Andalusian examples in the preceding section Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1. Among these are panegyrics dedicated to al-Afdal Ali ibn Salah al-Din, who ruled Egypt in 595–596 AH Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M….

Reception and Scholarship

Biographers such as Ibn Khallikan loosely designated the book as a diwan consisting entirely of muwashshahat, though later scholars noted that this overlooked its foundational critical essay Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1. Later critics like Salah al-Din al-Safadi relied heavily on its structural definitions in works such as Tawshi' al-Tawshih Tawshi al-Tawshih.

In modern scholarship, the introduction was translated into German by the orientalist Martin Hartmann in his study Das Muwaššaḥ Dar al-Tiraz fi Amal al-M…+1. The complete work was critically edited by Jawdat al-Rikabi and published in Damascus al-Madaih al-Nabawiya hat…+1.