Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghayat al-Arab li-Ibn Hujja al-Hamawi

Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghayat al-Arab (The Treasury of Literature and the Ultimate Aim) is an encyclopedic rhetorical and literary commentary written by the Mamluk scholar and poet Ibn Hujja al-Hamawi (d. 837 AH / 1433 CE) on his own badi'iyyah poem Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1.

Composition and Purpose

The book is an expansive commentary on Ibn Hujja's 142-verse panegyric (badi'iyyah) praising the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, titled Taqdim Abi Bakr Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. The poem opens with the verse:

لي في ابتدا مدحكم يا عُربَ ذي سلم ... براعة تستهل الدمع في العلم (In beginning your praise, O Arabs of Dhu Salam, I possess a virtuosity that pours forth tears at the landmark.) Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1

Ibn Hujja composed the poem and commentary at the request of Muhammad ibn al-Barizi al-Juhani al-Shafi'i, the head of the chancery (diwan al-insha'), following the meter and rhyme of al-Busiri's Burdah Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…. In doing so, Ibn Hujja sought to emulate Izz al-Din al-Mawsili's technique of embedding the name of each rhetorical figure (tawriyah) within the verse itself, while aspiring to match the elegance, tenderness, and fluid diction of Safi al-Din al-Hilli Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1.

Structure and Method

The work is organized around 142 rhetorical figures and embellishments (anwa' al-badi'), treating verbal and semantic devices without rigid separation Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. For each rhetorical category—beginning with husn al-ibtida' and bara'at al-istihlal and proceeding through devices such as jinas, istitrad, isti'arah, tibaq, and irsal al-mathal—the author cites his illustrative verse and examines the device in depth Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya….

In analyzing each figure, Ibn Hujja compares his verses to those of earlier badi'iyyah composers, notably al-Hilli, al-Mawsili, and Ibn Jabir al-Andalusi (the author of Badi'iyyat al-'Umyan) Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…. He discusses the scholarly opinions on each topic, reviews alternative terminologies used by earlier theorists, and includes extensive digressions on literary criticism Durar al-Faraid al-Mustah…+1. Among these critical assessments, he traces poetic motifs and ideas borrowed by one poet from another, such as verses taken by Salah al-Din al-Safadi from Ibn Nubatah al-Misri Ilm al-Badi.

Scope and Sources

Beyond a strictly technical treatise on rhetoric, Khizanat al-Adab functions as an extensive literary compendium covering language, grammar, history, poetic debates, and biographical notices Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. It incorporates numerous textual proofs (shawahid) from the Quran, prophetic hadith, classical poetry, and popular Arabic proverbs, alongside folk poetic forms such as mawalia and azjal Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. The author draws particularly heavily on the poetry, epistolography, and literary anecdotes of the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. During its compilation, Ibn Hujja referenced more than one hundred written sources, including works such as Ibn Abi al-Isba''s Tahrir al-Tahbir Durar al-Faraid al-Mustah….

Reception

Khizanat al-Adab gained wide renown and came to be viewed as more significant and practically useful than the original badi'iyyah poem itself, serving as a primary reference for later scholars of rhetoric and literature Khizanat al-Adab wa Ghaya…+1. Subsequent rhetoricians drew extensively from it; for example, Ibn Abd al-Haqq al-'Umari (d. c. 1024 AH) relied on the commentary as one of his primary sources in Durar al-Fara'id al-Mustahsana, quoting Ibn Hujja verbatim in over fifteen explicit citations as well as adapting passages without named attribution Durar al-Faraid al-Mustah….