Maqamat al-Zamakhshari
- Author died
- 538 AH
- Editions
- al-Maṭba‘ah al-‘Abbāsīyah
Maqamat al-Zamakhshari (The Assemblies of al-Zamakhshari) is a literary collection of fifty homiletic and moral assemblies composed in rhymed prose by the linguist and exegete al-Zamakhshari (d. 538 AH / 1144 CE) .
Background and Composition
In the preface of the work, al-Zamakhshari explains that the initial impulse to compose the assemblies came after a vision in a dawn slumber in which an unseen caller cried out to him: "O Abu al-Qasim, a decreed lifespan and a false hope!" («يا أبا القاسم أجل مكتوب، وأمل مكذوب») . He awoke startled and wrote down a few assemblies, but subsequently set the project aside .
In early Rajab of 512 AH (1118 CE), al-Zamakhshari was afflicted by an exhausting illness that he referred to as al-Mundhirah ("the warner") . This sickness prompted his repentance (inabah) and led him to make a solemn vow to God: if restored to health, he would never cross the threshold of a sultan, enter the service of rulers, or compose panegyric poetry in their praise . Following his recovery, he returned to writing and completed the work as a collection of fifty assemblies .
Structure and Content
Unlike the conventional maqamat tradition popularized by Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri—which centered on fictional tricksters and begging—al-Zamakhshari's fifty assemblies are devotional and introspective . In each assembly, the author directly addresses his own soul using his kunya ("O Abu al-Qasim"), rebuking himself for heedlessness, worldly attachment, and youthful indiscretions while urging steadfastness, asceticism, and preparation for death and divine reckoning .
Specific assemblies in the collection include:
- Maqamat al-Marashid ("The Assembly of Right Guidance"), counseling self-accounting and seeking the company of the pious .
- Maqamat al-Taqwa ("The Assembly of Piety"), warning against the brevity of life and deception by worldly allurements .
- Maqamat al-Ridwan ("The Assembly of Divine Pleasure"), contrasting fleeting earthly pleasure with eternal salvation .
- Maqamat al-Ir'iwa' ("The Assembly of Desisting"), urging the restraint of desires and repentance before old age overtakes youth .
- Maqamat al-Tahajjud ("The Assembly of Night Prayer"), enjoining sincerity, the purging of ostentation (riya'), and weeping in solitary nocturnal worship .
Style and Reception
The work is composed in elaborate rhymed prose (saj'), featuring carefully selected vocabulary and moral aphorisms intended to benefit readers in both religious devotion and Arabic eloquence .
Al-Zamakhshari authored a commentary on his own assemblies (Sharh Maqamat al-Zamakhshari) . Later scholars engaged with the text; notably, the nineteenth-century exegete al-Alusi composed a collection of assemblies on Sufism and ethics modeled after Maqamat al-Zamakhshari .
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