Risala fi Ajaz Abyat Tughni fi al-Tamthil an Suduriha - Damin Nawadir al-Makhtutat
- Author died
- 285 AH
- Editions
- Sharikat Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafá al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī wa-Awlāduh bi-Miṣr
Risala fi Ajaz Abyat Tughni fi al-Tamthil an Suduriha (Treatise on Second Hemistichs That Suffice as Proverbs Without Their First Hemistichs) is a short paremiological and literary tract by the Basran philologist and grammarian Abu al-Abbas al-Mubarrad (210–285 AH / 826–898 CE) .
Scope and Method
The treatise belongs to the Arabic tradition of compiling poetic proverbs and illustrative verses (amthal shi'riyya) . Its central focus is on poetic verses whose second hemistichs (a'jaz, sing. 'ajuz) have become widely circulated as autonomous proverbs and maxims, capable of conveying a complete sense without citing their corresponding opening hemistichs (sudur, sing. sadr) .
Al-Mubarrad's methodology is concise: he lists the second hemistich under the name of its poet, attributing the majority of lines to figures across pre-Islamic, early Islamic, and Umayyad poetry—such as Humayd ibn Thawr, Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, al-Qutami, Urwa ibn al-Ward, Jarir, al-Hutay'a, Durayd ibn al-Simma, al-Akhtal, Umar ibn Abi Rabi'a, and al-Khansa'—as well as Abbasid poets like Da'bal and Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf . Where the author was unidentified, he introduces the hemistich with the label "another" (akhar) . Unlike Ahmad ibn Faris in his Abyat al-Istishhad, al-Mubarrad restricts his work strictly to recording the hemistichs and their attributions, without explaining the specific situations and proverbial applications (madarib al-amthal) for which each verse is quoted .
Transmission and Publication
The treatise survived in a single manuscript preserved at the al-Azhar Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Azhariyya) under MS No. 7323 Abaza . It was contained in a composite volume (majmu') alongside other early philological works, including Qawa'id al-Shi'r by Tha'lab, Fuhulat al-Shu'ara' by al-Asma'i, and Shajar al-Durr fi Mutadakhil al-Lugha by Abu al-Tayyib al-Lughawi .
The Moroccan scholar Muhammad ibn Tawit al-Tanji alerted the Egyptian philologist Abd al-Salam Harun to the manuscript . Harun edited the text, supplied the missing opening hemistichs (sudur) in the critical apparatus, and published it in Cairo in 1951 as part of the second collection of his anthology series Nawadir al-Makhtutat (Rare Manuscripts), with a reprint appearing in 1393 AH / 1973 CE .
Answer updated